by Chase Erwin
“Sorry,” he said, “but no. And one day I might tell you why. But story time is over for tonight.”
He reached into one of his cloak pockets. He produced a small, spherical vial with a cork stopper. The liquid inside it was shimmering with blue light. Bubbles popped up to the surface.
I remembered instantly what it was. It was the knockout potion the Ravens constantly dosed me with during my year and a half in their prison.
“Just take a drink of your medicine, and this will all seem like a terrible dream, like so many others…” He stepped towards me. With each step, the energy began to crackle, then sizzle inside my veins.
“No.” I began to step backward, but I was already too close to a wall.
“This is the only way,” Kane said. “This is your destiny.”
“I said… no.”
“Abel!” He gripped my wrist and popped the cork of the vial.
It was now or never.
“NO!”
A tremendous pulse grounded my feet to the floor. Kane looked at me, his eyebrows arched in surprise as he lost his grip of my arm.
I put both hands up in front of me, as far out as my arms could extend. With a roar of thunder that shook the room, a tremendous shockwave catapulted Kane out of my way. Every piece of decoration fell from the walls; both beds slid to either side of the room.
Kane’s arms flailed as the force of my blast made him crash through the wall behind him.
He appeared to fall downward. But there was nothing behind the wall. Just blackness.
Cautiously, I approached the hole in the wall. There was an infinite void. I put my hand through the jagged planks of broken wood. It disappeared into the void. I quickly yanked it back, lest something from the other side of that void pulled me through.
I’ve got to get out of here.
I bolted for the door. Scrambling with the latches and knob, I flung the door open and ran with all my might into the hallway and for the staircase.
I jumped the stairs two and three at a time, until I came to the landing…
…of the floor I was just on. What in the hell?
I went down the staircase again. I wound up in the exact same place, just feet from the door of Room B.
I ran in the opposite direction, turned the corner, and again, and again… back to Room B.
“I can play this game as long as you please,” Kane’s voice echoed off the walls. “You are only delaying the inevitable!”
He began to laugh as I checked every door I could. Every door opened out into the same exact hallway.
“Don’t forget your poor lover,” taunted Kane. “He only has a few short minutes left.”
What?!
I ran back into Room B. Slamming the door shut behind me, I yelled out in frustration.
“You have quite the designs on Ricken Col,” Kane teased. “Are you willing to walk through Hell itself for him?”
There’s got to be a way out, there just has to be…
There was a nagging sensation, a tapping, coming from my left wrist.
It was my flame control bracelet. I looked at its face. The magical colors within it were spinning fiercely, a shade of red I had never seen before.
The charm was telling me there was an intense fire somewhere… but I could see no smoke, nor feel no heat.
I stepped back towards the window, and the colors lost their luster. I went back to the hole I had blown Kane through, and the colors were nearly gone.
I scoped the rest of the room…
The bathroom door? No… The front door… no…
When I touched the closet door, I felt nothing, but the intense red came back into the bracelet’s face, and the tapping feeling against my wrist became incessant.
I pulled the door open and was nearly blinded with white light.
This was my only shot, I realized. I couldn’t risk going in the direction Kane went in.
I held my breath and took a flying leap into the white portal.
I somersaulted back into Room B through the wardrobe door, landing with a roll at the foot of the bed.
The heat in the room was abysmal. Wisps of smoke were coming through the wooden planks of the floor.
I quickly stood up. Both beds were pushed together. Ricken was still in bed, just as I saw him last. His chest was rising and falling as he breathed. I sighed in relief.
The rat-a-tat-tat pulsing of my bracelet reminded me there was fire nearby. I looked at the front door and could see intense light flickering through the gap.
Kane or one of his goons must have set the place on fire to kill Ricken. I ran to the door. I realized I couldn’t open the door, or the oxygen in our room would cause the fire to overtake us.
I looked at my bracelet. Concentrating hard, I told it what I hoped to accomplish. “Back those flames down, as much you can.”
I looked under the door, and after a few moments, I could see the light dying down, if only slightly.
It would buy me a minute, at least. At least, I prayed a minute would be all I would need.
“Ricken!” I shouted. “We’ve got to go! There’s a fire.”
There was no response. He was still out cold.
“Dammit!”
I ran to the window and yanked the curtain down. Jamming the cloth into the jug of water by my side table, I ran to the smoldering door and stuffed the curtain against the gap.
“Ricken!” I ran over and shook him vigorously There was a loud creaking sound from underneath us.
Ricken began to mumble.
“Get up, Ricken,” we’ve got to go!”
I pushed him over to my side of the bed. We both hit the floor, and another loud creak stirred Ricken awake. The floor felt intensely hot.
“This place is about to burn up,” I shouted, “We’ve got to jump!”
Still in a haze, Ricken stood and reached for the window. Opening it, he looked down.
“The fence is directly below,” he said, the smoke starting to pour in as flames ate away at the curtain under the door. “If we jump, we’ll be gored for sure!”
I ran to the window just as the floor panels below began to crack, sag and plummet into the firetrap underneath. “Sit on the ledge!” I yelled.
Flames shot from the missing planks, instantly setting the beds ablaze. There were only seconds left.
I knocked over three potted flowers sitting in the outside window box. There was a drain hole in the center of the box, leading to the rain gutters down the side of the building.
I had an idea.
I’ve only done this a couple of times, I fretted, and never with another person…
But this is the only chance I’ve got.
The flames began to roar closer to us.
“What do we do?” Ricken panicked.
“Grab onto me,” I shouted, “and no matter what happens next, don’t let go!”
He wrapped both arms around my waist, and I closed my eyes tightly.
Water, I said to myself, practically shouting the word in my thoughts. Water, wet, rain shower, WATER.
A fizzing sensation washed over me. I opened my eyes in time to see a shocked look on my partner’s face as his skin and mine took on a translucent, almost silvery color.
It was working. I was becoming a water elemental, and so was Ricken. As we sank into one conjoined form, I willed our bodies into the window box.
We sluiced down the drain hole, into the gutter, and in seconds, puddled at the spout into the ground-level flower bed.
There was a tremendous crashing noise as the second floor of the inn caved completely into the first. Imagining myself running, with my hand tightly clinging onto Ricken’s, our liquid form sped out across the lawn, over the road, and into the ditch on the other side.
The problem with this bizarre power was it took a lot of my concentration and drained my physical manpower. I couldn’t stay in that form very long on my own, to say nothing of carrying another fully-grown man along with me.
I pictured our regular body shapes, and with a wave of what felt like wind passing through our bodies, we were two separate forms again, both gasping for air.
He looked at me. He looked as if he was about to cry.
I sobbed. Shaking, we held onto each other tightly. We parted ways only to look at the firestorm going on just a few hundred yards away from us.
“We’ve got to get back to Galek – now,” Ricken said. “Come on!”
“Wait,” I protested, “do you know what happened in there?”
“No, but I know enough already,” he said. “Run! I’ll explain when we’re back on the road.”
He grabbed my hand and we ran back down the dirt road towards the stable where he had hitched his horse.
I was compelled to look back at the burning home, despite every instinct telling me not to. I wish to this day I hadn’t.
When I did, the very first thing I saw was the sight of a man walking calmly out of the blazing front porch.
It was Dr. Kane. Untouched by the flames, he stepped off the porch just as it gave way. He strode down the garden path to the roadway and stopped right in the center.
He gave me a wide smile, waving his hand up over his head, as if bidding goodbye to a dear friend.
10. A Kaa Flies at Midnight
The horse was galloping with all its might. Our path was guided in part by a cloudless moonlit sky, in part by the lanterns dangling over our heads.
I was breathless, tense. My hands gripped the front of our coach, my mind racing.
Ricken was on edge as well; he leaned forward with such intensity he was nearly off his seat and in a crouching position.
“Abel, I” – he started.
“Don’t!” I looked at him with pleading eyes. “Don’t say a word.”
Ricken looked confused, even a bit hurt. “W..why?”
“Just please don’t say anything. Not right now. Not until we can get back to Galek.”
Ricken furrowed his brows and acquiesced. We sat in the coach, wordlessly, until about two hours later when we galloped into town. Ricken slowed the horses’ pace and navigated us back to the campus of the Culinarian’s Guild.
“We’ll go to my quarters,” he said as he pulled in front of the main building.
We hurried along, as if we were being followed, down the great corridor of the main foyer and rushed up three flights of stairs. I had never been further than the ground floor of this building, so I relied on Ricken to lead the way to his flat.
There was a tense silence as Ricken ran around the living quarters to light lamps and turn them to their fullest brightness.
He reached out and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Abel, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“No,” I protested. “Don’t.”
“Abel, it’s important!”
“Ricken, I don’t know how to explain this,” I stammered. “They can hear us.”
“Who?”
“The Ravens,” I said, my voice a low whisper. Then I realized how futile any amount of whispering would be. “They know where I am at all times. They have a connection to me; they can hear everything I hear.”
I bit my lower lip as I considered what to say next. Ricken kept his hands on my shoulders. I could feel his pulse through his palms. It was strangely comforting.
“Dr. Kane. One of their leaders,” I continued. “He was our maître ‘d at the inn tonight. I don’t quite know how, but he transported me to another plane and tried to take me back with him.”
Ricken’s face fell. “And Mrs. Porterhouse?”
“Dead,” I said. “The rest of the staff, too. And he was trying to kill you tonight.”
Ricken sighed. “And you’re certain that if I say anything, he – or they – will be able to hear it and use it against us?”
I nodded.
“Perhaps if I make us both a cup of tea, we can figure out what to do.”
As he walked to the kitchen and started boiling water, I opened the double doors to his balcony, letting the soft breeze cool the room down. On a bookcase to the right of the doorframe, I noticed a large tome, bound in green-dyed leather. Curious, I pulled it off the shelf and examined it.
“Faerie Tales, Myths and Londolian Legends.” I said the title aloud to myself before adding, louder so Ricken could hear, “I never pegged you as a faerie tale lover.”
“Hmm? Oh,” he chuckled softly. “I’ve had that book ever since we moved to Galek. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pored through its pages.”
For such a heavily used book, its condition was pristine. The only sign of wear was a frayed fabric bookmark placed about a third of the way through. I turned the book open to it.
The page to the left was a two-toned, blue-ink depiction of a large creature, a bird-like body with tufts of feathers along each extremity and scales around its head and torso. Each wing was spread out wide as the creature pierced proudly through a towering cloud.
“The Kaa,” read the heading on the opposite page. “A legendary being thought to reside deep in the South Abandaas Sands, the Kaa is adapted to the desert climate with its heat-resistant armored scales and quick-footedness. A Kaa will spend its days hunting and foraging for desert moles and sandsea creatures if it must, but does its best predatory action at night, when the cooler climates allow it to speed across the sands with lightning-quick reflexes.
“Kaa are said to be nomadic by design, ready to spread its wings and careen over Londolad’s various terraforms and mountain ranges should the desert food options become too scarce.
“Kaa are believed to be integral to the Londolad climate. The rainy season in Galek in early Suntide, which primarily occurs during the overnight hours for a span of two weeks, is said to be caused by large flocks of Kaa flying over the area, dragging passing cloud systems along behind them. For this reason, a well-known Galekian proverb is “Plant your fields just right, for this Suntide, a Kaa flies at midnight.”
“Tea’s ready,” said Ricken. I looked towards him; the breeze from the doorway was blowing one lock of his blond hair across his forehead.
We sat back down on the sofa, sipping tea as we leafed through the book, admiring the drawings of fantastic creatures and tales we’d grown up with.
“Sometimes I wish I could go back and have my childhood again,” I said wistfully. “I really miss the things I once had, now they’re all gone.”
“I know what you mean,” Ricken said. “There is so much I would do differently. Not just in childhood; back when we were studying together in school.”
“What do you mean?”
“I really wish I had gotten to know you sooner; asked you out then.” Ricken set his teacup down on an arm of the sofa and gazed at me.
I pondered a moment. “I thought the same thing too, for a while… but now I don’t.”
“Hm?”
“Well,” I explained, “I often wished we were boyfriends going to class and all, but I realized that if we had, and I had been abducted… I don’t know how I could have handled being apart from you for that long.”
Ricken frowned. “Perhaps if we had gotten together, that wouldn’t have happened at all.” His words were tinged with a hint of guilt.
Before I had a chance to question him, there was a loud thunderbolt outside that made us both jump. We crossed back to the balcony.
In the mere minutes since we opened the doors, a clear, starry sky had given way to dense clouds and a terrific thunderstorm. Rain pelted the roof above us.
“The Kaa must have flown by,” Ricken teased.
“He must have,” I said, stifling a yawn.
Ricken continued to gaze at me. It was so easy to get lost in those eyes. I barely noticed that he was inching closer towards me and wrapping his arms around my back.
I gasped when his lips met mine and we kissed for the first time, but any sound I made was masked by another roll of thunder from above. The kiss was so gentle; I’m sure it was only a few seconds, but it felt like it
went on for hours.
“I love you, Abel,” Ricken whispered. His breath was sweet with the honey he had put in our tea. “I think I loved you from the second I set eyes on you.”
“Ricken, I…” I had a momentary freeze – I couldn’t believe I was getting to say it. “I love you too.”