by Scott King
Carter summoned the wind, lifting Doug out of the cart and placing him on the deck of the barge. Alex made sure to stay near him in case the Grekers changed their minds about letting them leave. She certainly wouldn't kill Doug, but they didn't know that.
"How do we know they won't attack once we get underway?" Carter stared at the bridges and buildings that spanned the river. "A few spears and we'd be dead."
"Not before we could kill Doug," she said.
"Before we allow you to go," Bova said, "we need Bakero's blade."
From a distance, the dagger looked fine, but up close, it wouldn't pass inspection. Alex wasn't sure how the Grekers would react to their holy relic being damaged, but she guessed there would be no diplomatic solution for it. "Carter, can you put some distance between us and the shore?"
"I can," he said, "but I don't got much left. I'm already feeling groggy, and this thing must weigh half a boulder or more."
"Be ready." Alex nodded toward the barge's moorings. "Bova, take care of those, and the knife is yours."
"You heard her," Bova said.
The Grekers untied the ropes and threw them onto the deck. The barge lurched. The second it did, Alex threw Bakero's Blade into the fast-moving water.
"No!" Bova shouted and dove in. She was followed by all of the other Grekers.
"Now!" Alex yelled.
Carter flicked his wrist, and a tempest slammed into the boat pushing it to the middle of the river. Within minutes, they drifted past the bridges and buildings and passed through a huge gate, entering the dark cavern on the other side of Agnar.
Alex fumbled for the pouch on her waist to retrieve her tiny agyl lamp, but before she had it open, Carter drew glowing lines in the air that illuminated the roof and walls of the tunnel. The agyl hung in place, and a few seconds later, the river pulled them out of its reach. He drew another.
"I can keep this up for a while," Carter said, "but it will grow old fast."
With the aid of the agyl, Alex retrieved a sparker from her pouch. She went to the corners of the barge and lit the oil lamps that hung there. They weren't as bright as Carter's magic, but they could see well enough to steer without crashing.
"That's nice," Carter said.
"What?"
"Yellow light. I was sick of seeing green, and I wasn't sure we'd get out of that damn place alive."
"I knew we would. We had to."
"I guess I don't have your faith." Carter sat down beside Doug and checked the man's bandages. "Do you think we have a chance anymore to turn him back into a dragon or to stop the army of dragons?"
"I don't know." This journey started because she wanted to make a difference. She wanted to do something because she felt her father wasn't, and now that she had a goal, a thing she could do to help her people, it felt impossible. For all she knew, the dragons had already attacked Elene. Her father and Gideon could both be dead. "What do you think?"
"I want to be confident and tell you that everything will be alright," Carter said. "But I'm tired. I've never been so tired in my life. The constant drain of using so much magic... it's worn me down. It's hard to think."
"If you've lost your faith how am I supposed to stay strong?"
"I didn't say I was giving up," Carter said. "I may be tired, but I don't think we are beaten. We are going to give it our all, and no matter what we face next, you can know that you won't do it alone. We are a team."
"Thank you," she smiled. For the first time since Gideon had left, she didn't feel alone.
Carter slouched down leaned his back against the wheelhouse. His head dropped, and he let out a large yawn.
"The magic?" she asked.
"Yeah, I gotta be careful." He blinked at her, and his eyes watered from fatigue. "I've been overexerting myself. Walking that line where, if I go too far, I could potentially burn myself out."
"That's a thing?"
"Oh yeah, Master Owen had me start small. One of the reasons there are so few magic users is that most burn themselves out before knowing they could use magic."
"How can they do magic when they don't know they can do magic?"
"I heard a story once," Carter said. "We were at the Square Boulder and these merchants were saying how they saw a woman and a boy attacked by a pack of boars. The largest was about to spear the kid right through the gut, but all of a sudden the boars caught on fire. They stopped in their tracks and panicked then ran into the forest. The mom fainted, and when asked, she described feeling angry, scared, and tired all at the same time. Now these weren't educated people, and of course they thanked The Silver Lady, but I bet you that the woman used magic. Real magic and burned herself out doing so."
"I've seen you do impossible things. Things that compare to stories my father has told me about Owen." There were many, and it was hard to pick her favorite, though she was partial to the one where Owen, Gideon, and Edgar ended up trapped in a tree because anything that touched the ground instantly crapped their pants. "What's stopping you from burning out?"
"Since I was a kid, I've been learning agyls." As an after thought, he traced one of the glowing markings in the air. It sparkled and washed his face in a soft light. "Agyls are substandard to real magic, but they require a certain focus, kind of like..."
Carter stood and unhooked the travel satchel from his belt. He pulled a stack of Ryth tiles.
"You play Ryth?" she asked.
"Good. This will be easier to explain." He fanned the tiles out. "You know how when you get a good match going and you are trying to decide not only what your opponent will do next but what they will do like three turns later?"
"That's the whole point of Ryth."
"Exactly, it's that thinkyness." He handed her tiles, and she flipped through them. The artwork was worn, and it was clearly an older set, nothing like her personal deck that she had lost back on the caravan. "That thinkyness helps you grow that part of the brain that is used to control magic. Owen made me spend years practicing and training so that I wouldn't risk burning myself out."
"Up for a round?" She shuffled the tiles and split the stack.
"Can we do it later?" He yawned again. "I don't think I'd play very well right now."
"Sure," she handed the tiles back to him.
28
Yorndrak
Ornsday, 41st of Hearfest, 1162.111
Kane stood in her childhood home. Her first thought was that she was dead. Something had finally killed her, and she was now in hell paying for all the sins she had committed. Then she saw Doug and knew that wherever they were, it wasn't the afterlife.
Doug stood by the window. His eyes were wide. "By the light, this place..."
"Did you do this?" she asked. "Did you bring us here?"
He growled and turned to look at her.
"You stabbed me." Doug touched his chest, but his clothes were intact with no visible wounds. "I remember. You stabbed me, didn't you?"
She thought about the incident. She definitely had the memory of stabbing him, but she didn't know how long ago it was or if it had been real. Maybe she hadn't stabbed him? "Something is not right."
It was impossible for them to be in this house. This house must be what was wrong. Yet the living room was as Kane remembered...
No. It wasn't.
The antique cherrywood side table by the window had been Kane's great grandmother's, and her mother had sold it when she was ten or eleven. This was not her childhood living room. It was more like an idealized version of it. "I don't think this is real."
"You did this," Doug said. "When you stabbed me with Bakero's Blade, this happened."
"Shut up." Kane knew Doug was right. They were somehow locked together, and they were either in her head, or some other metaphysical realm. She hated mystic hoo-ha and did her best to avoid it.
"Come on, we are leaving." Kane walked to the front door then flicked the bolt lock. The world outside transitioned. At first, it was a brown, unkempt yard, and then it shifted.
E
gg-shaped beads of light, no larger than a grape, formed the ground. They twinkled with pastel colors and hummed like the sound of lightning the moment before it strikes.
The colors rippled through the horizon and sky, and the world around them faded. The sky became deep shades of olive, sage, and emerald, mixing together, while a black nothingness formed a void around the house.
"I've seen this before." Doug squatted, looking at the swirling ribbons of light dancing around his boots. He pressed a finger into the ground. The spot he touched turned white, pushing the colors away. When he lifted his hand, the colors rushed back in, filling the spot.
"When, where?" Kane asked.
Doug ignored her and closed his eyes. "I don't smell anything. We aren't here. At least not in a physical sense."
"I know that already, but where is here?"
"This is Yorndrak."
Kane's suspicions had been right. They were in some mystic hoo-ha place. The kind of place where Bartleby would be a huge help. It was a shame that he was not around. “Do you know how to get out of here?"
"No, but it's good we aren't really here. Yorndrak is death for the living. I guess it's a matter of getting our minds to wake up, probably has something to do with you stabbing me."
"Can we drop it for now? You keep bringing it up."
"Kind of hard to forget."
"Then let's talk this out. I stabbed you. Why would that put us here? Is this what happened when you absorbed the Arg'Natz?"
"No," Doug said. "There was a bit of light and an odd sensation, and that was it."
"So what's different now?"
"We are married."
Kane had many regrets in her life, only a few rivaled getting married. "Ok, so we are bound with whatever Erediän magic linked us, and at the same time the Arg'Natz switched between us. Why would that bring us here?"
Doug shrugged. "You got me."
Kane knew there were other worlds. Though in reality only two mattered. This Yorndrak was one of the many spaces between them and it was not her first time here. Somehow their bond had brought them here, and it meant that maybe their bond would get them out?
The field of lights flickered. One by one, they winked out and were replaced by fog. A rolling pink mist blocked out the sky and through it three shapes approached. Kane knew instantly it was the Sisters. They had a habit of meddling when she least wanted them to, but for once, maybe it was a good thing.
"Our sweet chickadees, why do you do these things to yourself?" Atropos spoke.
"Maybe they like a challenge?" Clothu said. "Instead of choosing the paths we suggest, they wish to pick the hardest to prove their strength? It could be an honor thing?"
"I'm confident that they merely lack intelligence," Lachesis said. "Can you picture the others we have touched constantly getting themselves into so much trouble?"
"Tegan," Atropos said.
Clothu nodded as if agreeing. "But she is still a child."
"We get it," Kane said. "You are all knowing, all mystic, and you are here to help us if we swallow our pride and listen."
"It's not that simple." Lachesis floated behind Kane. "You know that."
"Then what?" Doug said. "Stop the games. Stop the showmanship. Tell us how to get out of here."
"Games?" Clothu said in a sharp voice.
"We are not our nephew." Atropos pointed to her siblings. "We do not do the things we do for our amusement. We do it for the sake of reality. For the sake of all the worlds."
"Then tell us what we need to know and begone," Kane said.
"So snooty." Clothu chuckled. "Let's have some fun!"
"And teach them a lesson?" Lachesis asked.
"There is no need," Atropos said. "They will learn for themselves."
"Learn what?" Doug said.
"That what you face is bigger than either of you," Atropos said. "This is more than mommy and daddy issues. More than bitterness to your kin."
"You will either step up or you won't," Lachesis said. "And the time to make that choice has not come yet, but when it does–"
"Go to hell." Kane was done. She had tried to hold her tongue. She had tried to be mature, but the Sisters got under her skin like no one else could. Arrogant, uppity bitches. They could take their warnings and vague hints and shove them up their corporeal asses. "I thought you were here to get us out of this, but you know what? I don't want your help. I'd rather be stuck here and die than let the three of you lift so much as a finger to get me out of this warped reality."
Kane turned her back to the others and walked into the mist.
"You can't go." Atropos teleported and materialized in front of Kane.
Kane ignored the woman, walking through Atropos' non corporeal body.
"I'm not dumb," Kane said. "The three of you aren't here. You can't do jack to stop me from walking away."
"Not true," Clothu said.
Lachesis spread her arms, and the pink mist washed away. In the distance was a cyclone of energy. It breached the pale sky, sucking in strips of light. The sizzling beams whipped around it, funneling into a black hole.
Beside it stood a giant.
Though giant felt like too small of a word. The being was hundreds of stories tall and its skin sparkled as if imbued with glimmering sheets of mica.
"Think carefully," Atropos said.
The giant spun its hulking body, to look in their direction.
Clothu snapped her fingers, and the pink mists returned, hiding them from the giant's view. "You walk a thin line."
Kane knew she should care about the godlike being beyond the mist, but pissing off the Sisters seemed more worth it. She barreled forward.
"Wait." Doug ran to her side. "I don't like you. You don't like me, but we are in this together, at least for now. Listening to them might be the only way to undo whatever has happened to us."
Kane stopped.
Although she wanted to stick it to the Sisters, the idea of getting Doug out of her head and severing their link would be worth it. "Alright, no more ollip fodder. You got thirty seconds to be clear, or I'm walking straight out there, which I have a feeling will bork your plans.”
"This is Yorndrak," Clothu said. "Particularly, you are on the fringes of Felloe and Cyrin."
Kane sighed. This was the problem with mumbo jumbo. It didn't make sense. Felloe and Cyrin were pointless words. From the context, she knew they had to be places, subdivisions of the spirit realm, and yet they were meaningless names.
"There is nothing you can do to escape this place," Atropos said. "Only time will free you."
"Time for what?" Kane asked.
"Time enough for the Arg'Natz to heal Doug." Lachesis floated toward Doug and leaned in close, as if to inspect his chest. "With your link, you failed to fully absorb the Arg'Natz. Instead the two of you now share it and are forever bound. The trauma of stabbing him and splitting the power forced your minds' eyes here."
"Undo it," Doug said. "Surely, you can cut the bond between us."
"In all the branches we see," Clothu said, "the only way to sever your link is with your death or Kane's."
"That can be arranged," Kane said.
"For now, what do we do?" Doug asked.
Kane bit the inside of her cheek. Doug seemed to be taking the news much better than she was, and that ticked her off.
"Being here in spirit…” Atropos said. "You both are vulnerable."
"Like insects crawling in the treads of boots." Clothu clapped her hands together as if squashing a bug.
"Return to Felloe and wait," Lachesis said. "Any other actions will lead to your destruction."
"Return how?" Kane said. "This is a place of illusions."
Clothu parted her arms. The mist swirled and formed a corridor of light. On the other side, Kane's childhood home stood.
"I'm not going back there," Kane said.
"That house is a construct," Lachesis said, "a part of the substance used in dreaming. If you do not wish to go there, then when you ar
rive make it become something else."
Kane glowered. She had no choice. She had to go with Doug and return to the dream place, but it didn't mean she had to act happy about it. "Whatever."
On the plus side, once they were awake in the real world, she could kill Doug once and for all. That would end the weird bond. Then she could get back to other things, like helping Medrayt unleash a dragon army on the kingdoms. She desperately wanted to be there when Elene fell, and she hoped that the Sisters would be there too and that they could see their plans fail. That would be justice. It wouldn't fix the things they had done, but it might make them pay in a way that nothing else could.
"We know your thoughts," Clothu said. "You cannot hide them from us."
"I've never tried to hide my feelings toward you," Kane said. "In fact, I've been nothing but open about my aspirations to thwart your plans."
"This path will lead you to pain and suffering," Atropos said. "A torture unlike anything you have ever felt."
"But it's not too late." Lachesis lowered her head as if pleading. "Turn from the road you walk."
"No." Kane's lip formed a slim smile. "I'm good."
"We have warned her," Clothu said. "That is all we can do."
Lachesis shrugged. "We knew she wouldn't listen."
"Not true," Atropos said. "There was a chance. There is always free will."
"What about me?" Doug said. "All this talk of fate and paths and destiny. What of me?"
The Sisters broke into a fit of giggles.
Before Kane or Doug could ask anything else, they vanished.
"That's it?" Doug looked to Kane. "No hints or insights? They spent the majority of that conversation talking to you and talking around me."
"What can I say?" Kane shrugged. "I'm more important."
Upon returning to her home, the first thing Kane did was erase it. In a way, it felt good. One moment it was there, and the next, she bent it so that it melted like a snowman on a hot day.
After an excessive amount of effort, Kane had been able to create a stone structure like the bastard amalgamation of a church and castle without any sense of refinement. It had cyclopean masonry, high arches, and a glass ceiling that allowed the rainbow lights of Yorndrak to flood it with vibrant colors. Most importantly, down the center of the structure was a solid wall that had no doors or windows. Kane claimed a side for herself and banished Doug to the other half.