Caught in the Ripples_An Epic Fantasy

by S McPherson

  I am even more confused when rather than being directed to the great entrance hall, we are steered away from it, traipsing down winding narrow steps I wasn’t aware existed. Windows with false light have been cut along the wall guiding the way but not bright enough to show where we’ll end up.

  Hefty beamed-doors stand at the bottom of the staircase and without hesitation, Vivayka and Garnet push them open. My jaw drops. I don’t move from the final step as I gape in at the hall ahead of us. Vladimir and Baxter, arms folded, stand on two podiums at its centre. Though at first the hall appears otherwise empty, it doesn’t take me long to notice the crowd of blinking eyes glaring out of the ovals cut into the brick wall. Faces of presumably every Court member stare out at us like floating heads draped in shimmering emerald robes.

  ‘Hall of detriment,’ Milo murmurs before walking through the towering doors.

  I’m frozen, my gaze darting fervently about. Is it my imagination or is every face either angry or pained, stained with tears? I search them, looking for Howard; a friendly face, though I wonder if he would be so friendly now.

  ‘Today, Dezaray,’ I hear Vladimir call, his tone harsh, his remote gaze boring down on me.

  Gingerly, I amble into the hall, the sound of my footsteps too loud on the polished wood and I wince. The hubbub of hushed voices from the alcoves dies away, every disdainful eye now on me. I gulp. I barely remember my final night in the caves or how I escaped, but something tells me everyone here remembers all too well.

  The doors slam shut with an ominous thud, clearly signalling the start of whatever this is. I caress the smooth fabric of my dress, soothing my pinched nerves, distracting my runaway thoughts.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ Vladimir hisses.

  I stare blankly back up at him. Was that rhetorical?

  ‘No,’ Milo states.

  Vladimir glowers at me, I assume waiting for a response. I shake my head, unable to form words.

  ‘You two just wouldn’t listen,’ he exclaims, and his voice rises. ‘I told you not to come back.’

  ‘I know,’ I murmur.

  Vladimir growls, turning his attention to Milo.

  ‘And you; one of us by blood, put us all in danger, for what?’

  Anger flashes across Milo’s face. I tense, waiting for him to retaliate, but instead, his shoulders sag and he looks away.

  ‘We have been patient. We have tried to reason with you. All you had to do was stay where you belong.’

  I want to scream ‘This is where I belong’ but bite my lip on the lie. Since my parents died, I haven’t belonged anywhere.

  ‘But you wouldn’t listen, and because of you, seventeen of us are dead; in the bellies of the enemy because of you!’ His voice echoes as it ricochets from the high ceiling and bounces off the walls.

  I clamp my lips together, willing the burning sensation behind my eyes to stop and for the ache in my throat to go away. I didn’t return on a whim; I came to warn them. I thought, to save them.

  Vladimir takes a step towards us, his toes teetering over the edge of the podium. ‘You lost us our own and you almost lost us Lexovia!’ Utter fury rages within him now and I feel as though I am on Aulock peak, shrouded in his aura of anger.

  You killed him,’ a red-faced woman screams, leaning out of her alcove. ‘You’re the reason he’s dead.’

  I choke, feeling as if I’ve been punched in the throat. More yells follow, along with howls of grief, and Vladimir doesn’t stop the commotion. He lets it go on and on.

  ‘Are you happy now?’ many violent voices cry.

  ‘Was it worth it?’

  ‘Murderer!’

  Baxter steps forward and hands Vladimir a scroll. Everything feels as though it is flurrying around me, so fast but at the same time so excruciatingly slow. I gape at the enraged eyes glaring down at me, the fists and anguished faces flaring through the ovals.

  ‘You did this.’

  Heavily, Vladimir unrolls the parchment and finally holds up a tired hand. Almost instantly, the crowd is silenced.

  ‘In the name of Gordon Indemy, Lassit Tunvive, Benedict Cone,’ he reads, ‘Olive San, Tayen Deed, Oxor Bulfham…’

  Oxor? My memory stirs; I know that name. It’s the name of the man who walked with me last year and told me the story of his Corporeal love, Sara. With a jolt I realise Vladimir is reading the names of the deceased. My vision blurs, the tears singe their way through and roll down my cheeks. I swat them away. My tears change nothing now.

  ‘Zandry Hicks, Penelope Sauve and Enrick Trulouse, I hereby banish you, Dezaray Storm.’

  ‘In the names of the deceased and those who stand here today, I second this motion,’ Baxter says, speaking for the first time, struggling with his words, tortured emotions seeming to crease his face. I expect the room to erupt into cheers but everyone remains still.

  ‘Enjoy your last few days together,’ Vladimir says, his cold eyes meet mine, ‘for they will be your last in our realm, Corporeal.’

  Exhausted, I collapse onto the tatty old sofa of the treehouse after Milo teleports us from the court. He hasn’t spoken and I can’t seem to find the words to break the silence.

  He peers now, out the window, his back to me. I want nothing more than to run to him, for him to wrap his arms around me and tell me it will all work out, but we both know it won’t.

  ‘We went too far,’ he says at last, and so softly I’m not sure he’s talking to me.

  ‘I know,’ I whisper, staring at my hands, palm up in my lap. I watch the lines, half expecting them to wriggle and change, to morph into a question mark to highlight the uncertainty I feel. ‘I went too far.’

  ‘We both did.’ He sighs deeply, shaking his head, and slowly joins me on the sofa, flopping down and resting a listless hand on mine.

  ‘Yvane and Howard were right,’ I say, now that the chain of communication has been reopened. ‘How did this…us ever seem like a good idea?’ but my voice breaks and I hurriedly clear my throat.

  Milo expels a small puff of air, tiredly rubbing his eyes, ‘I think it’s safe to say that you and I have been a magnificent collection of bad ideas.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I half laugh, the pain of his words striking me harder than I thought they would. I’m not surprised by them, though, just by their force, their ability to smack the air right out of me and leave me cold.

  I feel Milo shift beside me, edging ever closer.

  ‘But if it’s alright with you,’ he slides his fingers up the length of my jaw, turning me to face him, ‘I’d like to make one more mistake.’

  And then his lips are mine. I don’t know if this is our last kiss but it feels like it. We lean into each other, each pressing harder against the other as though we will never meet again. My tongue explores his, memorises its taste and its warm caress.

  My chest expands, an explosion courses through me, igniting from the tips of my toes. Gasping, I climb on top of him, my hips moving in rhythm to his. We are so in sync. How can something so right be wrong?

  Reality threatens to shatter the moment and I try to ignore the cracks forming around the edge of my world, but it seems Milo is thinking the same. Together, our pace slows and soon I am simply resting my forehead against his, breathless and with my eyes closed.

  Eventually, he pulls back and kisses the tip of my nose. ‘Or we could fix this.’

  ‘What?’ I don’t move, wishing to stay suspended in time.

  ‘The mess we’ve made.’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t see how.’

  His eyes narrow, thoughtfully. ‘I’m going to build the gethadrox.’

  I smile, uncertain. ‘If anyone can do it, it’s you.’

  ‘And I will.’ He nods, just once.

  LOOK CLOSER

  The scream leaves Lexovia before she even realises she is awake. Her throat is raw, bile rising in it as she wails until at last the agony stops. Her eyes shoot open and she jolts up, gasping for air. Her vision is blurred. She blinks, over and over, trying
to make sense of where she is. Something soft covers her—a blanket—and a breeze caresses one side of her face; an open window.

  Seconds later, a door bursts open and Jude barrels in, closely followed by Nathaniel.

  ‘Lexovia!’ Jude exclaims and rushes over, gripping her hand and stroking her forehead. ‘Normal,’ he tells Nathaniel, who goes to the other side of the bed and pours a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Nathaniel asks, curling her fingers around the glass.

  Lexovia scrunches her eyes up, slowly piecing things together in her own mind.

  ‘Coldivor,’ she croaks. ‘How long was I…away?’

  ‘About ten days,’ Nathaniel tells her. ‘Scared us half to death.’

  Lexovia shudders as rapid images of the night flash across her mind; the sinister glow of the Exlathars’ eyes, the pain that ripped through her as one grasped her heart. Instinctively, her hand flies to her chest. It’s sore to the touch, and peering down the neckline of her shirt, she notices a raised black scar over her breastbone.

  ‘Drink,’ Jude orders and she does. The liquid hurts on the way down but she welcomes its icy cool.

  ‘What happened?’ Nathaniel asks.

  She shakes her head. ‘I don’t really know,’ and she presses the cold glass to her throbbing head. ‘Milo and Dezaray were under attack, they were… They were…dying,’ and she shivers. ‘Then the Court came; it was carnage.’

  ‘Did they get out; Dezaray and Milo?’

  Lexovia barely shakes her head. ‘I really don’t know.’

  Feranvil is thrilled to see Lexovia back on her feet, showering her with praises for her bravery and pressing her for all the gory details. It doesn’t take her long to grow weary of the attention and she excuses herself, slipping off the bar stool where three pairs of curious eyes stare after her. Tired, she makes her way to their usual booth where Jude is sitting, tapping away at some folded box on the table.

  ‘What are you up to?’ she queries, sliding into the seat beside him.

  ‘Looking up Fixer Upper; that place you followed those men to,’ he murmurs, not taking his eyes off the glowing screen. Lexovia screws up her face. She had told the boys about it earlier but it seemed like a dead-end when none of them knew the place.

  She leans over, reading the words on the screen. ‘I doubt they are going to make their dodgy dealings known on this box thing,’ she points out.

  Jude chuckles, ‘It’s a laptop, and that’s not what I’m looking for.’

  ‘So what are you looking for?’

  ‘Information.’ Jude clicks the mouse, opening up another link from the Feranvil First homepage. ‘When did Fixer Upper open, who owns it, who works there, customer reviews.’

  ‘You mean like “Great service, very professional but I hated when they tried to butcher me”?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Jude grins.

  Their laughter is halted by a sudden silence settling on the bar. Looking up, they spy Fawn, Alice, Pebble and the rest of the group who went Up Top making their way across the road and towards the bar. Each member looks exhausted, weighed down by more than their hefty bags.

  Mrs Edwards hurries forward, flinging open the door and ushering them inside. Customers spring from their seats without question, pushing their chairs together for the weary travellers, and for the first time the sprightly music is turned off.

  ‘Get us a round, will you?’ Fawn grumbles as he slumps into one of the now many vacant seats and a crowd forms around them. Glad to be on the other side of prying eyes for a change, Lexovia joins the onlookers, curious to see if the returnees have found out more than she did.

  Mrs Edwards signals Nathaniel and he promptly sets about pulling pints.

  ‘So?’ she urges.

  ‘Disappearances.’ Fawn slouches in his chair, rubbing his exhausted hands over his face. ‘So many missing-people cases left a mystery.’

  ‘So many of them Coltis,’ Pebble growls.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘We met a cop; Ivan,’ she says, a grim smile on her face. ‘A Coltis, hiding his lock of coloured hair by shaving his head, but we could see it; that hint of green starting to regrow.’

  ‘And what did he tell you?’ another customer asks.

  ‘Not much,’ she shrugs.

  ‘We asked him how he felt,’ Fawn tells them, ‘working so closely with the government when R.U.O.E. are a government organisation that once dedicated their lives to keeping us out; and still do. This Ivan bloke jumped right in; said he didn’t want to believe it but lately he’s noticed more and more missing-persons.’

  ‘He showed us the files,’ another traveller gulps, shaking his head at the memory, absently scratching tattoos that wind all the way from his fingers to around his neck. ‘There was something not quite Corporeal about each one: bright, unusual eyes, a random streak in their hair, dwarfed in height, eye-shaped glasses as dark as night, and all with that red stamp: “Unsolved: Case Closed”.’

  ‘He said there were more,’ Fawn nods, ‘but after a while the files seem to disappear…permanently.’

  Everyone is silent, each digesting the information in their own way.

  Lexovia steps forward. ‘I think I know where they’re operating from.’

  Every eye turns on her in shock. She hasn’t told anyone besides Nathaniel and Jude about what she saw that night, waiting for the right time to bring it up with others, but now seems as good a time as any.

  ‘Before I had my…’ but she flounders for the right word.

  ‘O.B.E.’ Mrs Edwards nods, assuring her everyone will understand.

  ‘Before my O.B.E.,’ Lexovia continues, ‘Nathaniel, Jude and I went into the woods. We saw the van with the R.U.O.E markings; two members in the front and something, or rather, someone was in the back, really angry as they drove away.’

  ‘And then?’ Fawn asks, leaning forward, clearly straining to hear even though Lexovia isn’t speaking.

  ‘I went after them…by air. I followed them to a second-hand car shop called Fixer Upper. On the surface, everything looked alright, but then they drove into the basement and I lost sight of them.’

  ‘I think I just found them,’ and everyone turns to Jude who is now stepping through the crush of people, his laptop in his hands, facing the crowd. On the screen is a picture of a man with a dark brown moustache that looks too big for his upper lip and a buzz-cut showing a hint of auburn hair. Dressed in everyday clothes, he is shaking hands with one of the car dealers, as though he has just purchased one of their old bangers.

  Lexovia peers at the screen. Though it was dark and hard to tell at the time, she is almost certain she saw this man that night in the woods, and clearly so is Jude.

  ‘Blimey,’ Pebble gasps then shoots out of her seat, swooping past Lexovia to get a better look at the screen. She points, her slender finger aiming its long purple pointed nail at the markings on this supposedly common man’s wrist: the mark of R.U.O.E.

  ‘That’s the driver,’ Lexovia says, remembering his overly-friendly encounter with the other man in this photo. ‘Ed, they called him.’

  Jude taps at his screen, opening up an entire page of images of Fixer Upper: old cars revived, happy customers beaming at the camera and shaking hands with the sellers.

  ‘That one,’ Lexovia says, indicating a particular image with a flick of her head, her heart rate already accelerating, the icy feel of dread setting in.

  Jude does not need asking, soon enlarging the right image, and everyone leans in to get a better look. A happy customer beams at the camera like all the others, only she has stunningly bright green eyes, as if lit from behind, and reflected in the side mirror of her new car is a white van that’s just pulling up, the R.U.O.E symbol clearly displayed down one side.

  TRAITOR & THE TRAMP

  Milo exhales, clenching and unclenching his hands which are pressed into his pockets, feeling numb. Not that he is cold. It’s actually quite warm, and as thou
gh to prove it, the sun is taking its own sweet time to set.

  What is chilling his blood today is the prospect of entering his familiar little hut, where his mother is sure to be pacing. They had been separated at the start of Feasting Season and the last she will have heard was that Milo was in incubation after entering Exlathar territory.

  He rests his hand on the door knob. Perhaps he could teleport into his room and pretend he’d been there the whole time. He grins, sardonically. That might not be such a bad idea if his mum were more gullible. He sighs with a mixture of pride and fear as he thinks of her. She is strong, kind and doesn’t take flak from anyone—her son being no exception.

  Milo braces himself before pushing open the door and stepping in. Almost instantly, a golden haze swirls around him and the form of his mother materialises. Her arms are folded across her chest, her cropped hair seeming darker, shadowed by the luminous glow of her narrowed eyes. She says nothing, waiting less than patiently for Milo to speak.

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘What were you thinking?’ she hisses.

  Milo begins to explain, but she cuts him off.

  ‘I was worried sick,’ she seethes. ‘Did you give any thought at all to yourself, to me, to Coldivor before you went flitting off with that girl?’ To say Mrs Thor is irate would be putting it mildly.

  ‘We didn’t know she would get caught,’ he points out.

  ‘She shouldn’t have been here in the first place!’ Mrs Thor cries, ‘and then you decide to go after her!’ she practically screams.

  Milo doesn’t try to interrupt this time, her hands moving to her hips.

  ‘Did you think about anything but yourselves?’ she barks.