“Yes, Master Zygod.”
“But you are right, we had better leave at once.”
Xep began fingering a glyph in the dirt and kept his head low when he said, “May I bring up the portal, Master?”
“You may,” Zygod confirmed. He looked back at Esh and spit a wild gloop of phlegm at him. “Fucking beast. Why the Wisps want you I’ve no idea.” He spat again. He walked up to the cage, and, putting his face within inches of Esh’s, he whispered, “It should have been me.”
So that was their plan! To hand him over to the dark energy as some sort of tribute. But what would his sacrifice bring this decrepit devil?
Either way, Esh wouldn’t give them the chance. He stuck his index finger in his mouth and bit a chunk of meat from the padding. Blood dripped onto his lap and he focused his mind’s eye on it. But something was wrong… As hard as he concentrated on his blood his twin did not appear to him. He tried squeezing the fingertip, hoping that more blood and pain would do the trick but with no results.
The bane!
That must have been what Xep had casted on the lock! He must have figured out some way to block all of Esh’s powers from wherever the evil twin lived within him. There was nothing he could do at this point but sit and wait. That’s what Master Rift would have done, he was sure of it.
“Nice try, hybrid filth,” said Zygod with such a powerful frown that it must have taken much effort to make. “How does it feel to be powerless? To be no more special than all the other half-breed garbage? Oh, and wasn’t that your chosen career? To pick garbage? Ha! How suiting!”
Zygod ran out of breath but his body still wanted to laugh and so what came out was more of a heinous cough. Death was close to this evil being, Esh could sense it.
The portal appeared faster than Master Rift’s but that had probably had something to do with the fact that Xep’s portal was alchemically created, not through sorcery abilities. The swirling was the color of red, which meant that it lead back somewhere in Reah. It was looking as if he would have no chance to escape this bind of his. All they had to do was push the cage through the portal and he would be gone.
“It is finished, my Master,” said Xep, still on his knees.
“You may rise. You’ve done this beautiful elf a great service. Now… We must take our pet and go.”
Xep stood and walked over to Esh’s cage, being sure not to get too close. He was smart; he knew that Esh’s strength out did his own and he didn’t want to end up like the suffocated agent that laid scrawled on the ground. He called a few more agents to him and together they lifted the cage and unhooked it from the hanging chain it was attached to. They tipped it over and began to roll it towards the portal’s ghastly red entrance.
“The Master enters before his pets,” said Zygod, walking into the portal without another look back. It sucked him up and he was gone from the Purple territory.
“Roll him in,” Xep commanded and the three of them pushed him closer.
Esh, with a last desperate attempt, dug his fingers into the dirt. He didn’t want to leave! He couldn’t! He still had a mission to complete! How would Dashine ever get back to her home territory without his help?
But that wasn’t really it, was it? He knew Barish could do it, for he was more than capable. So then what was it that made him cling to the Purple territory with such diligence?
As Xep and the other two agents pushed the cage harder and as Esh’s fingers felt that they would pull apart from his hand he knew why he couldn’t leave. He would never see her again.
Something small whizzed itself through the tent’s curtains and ended with a thud sound. Xep stopped pushing the cage and stood straight crying out in pain. There was an arrow sticking out of his back. Something else came bursting through the tent slamming hard into Xep and pushing him off balance towards the portal. And just as Esh had practiced, he shoved his arms as far as he could through the bars and pushed Xep with the perfect amount of force. Xep seemed to hover in the air for a moment, giving him just enough time to give Esh an impressed expression before falling through the portal.
“Barish!” Esh cried, shaking the bars with mad excitement. “Right here!”
“Well there you are!” said Barish, punching one of the agents in the face. “Been looking everywhere for you!”
Barish put his hand to his hilt and was just about to unsheathe it to meet the last agent’s blow but it was Dashine who leapt from the curtains with an animal-like cry. She pounced on the agent’s chest and went straight for his jugular with her teeth. She was successful in ripping it right out of his throat. She turned with a frenzied face towards Barish and hissed at him.
“Woah there Princess! It’s us!” Barish raised his hands in a sign of surrender.
Dashine looked over at Esh and slowly her crazed expression and sharpened teeth changed back to normal. “Sorry,” she said, wiping the blood from her face. “That’s a rather hard form to control.”
“What was that?” asked Barish.
“Later!” replied Dashine. She tried to flip over the large cage herself but was unable to.
Barish stepped up and turned the cage with ease so that the key hole was accessible. He then put his sword tip inside it and smashed his hilt with his palm. There was a loud crack and Barish swung the door open, holding his hand out for Esh to grab.
“Thank you,” said Esh, taking his hand and climbing out of the cage.
“Good… You found him,” said Shten, walking into the tent. He had covered himself in a dark purple robe made of silk that looked to be made more for lounging than fighting.
“How did you know where I’d be?” asked Esh, fitting himself with his armor. Xep was probably cursing himself for not destroying the armor earlier.
“There are no secrets here… And your friends who put you in that cage were ignorant to think so.”
There was a sound of a bow releasing an arrow followed by a shriek of pain. Esh shot a puzzled look at Barish. Everyone was accounted for in the tent, so who was the one with the bow?
“We had a little help,” admitted Barish, walking over to the entrance and peeking out.
“Who?”
“His name is Drohdroh, or at least that is what he calls himself,” said Dashine, picking up the Rektops helmet and placing it over Esh’s head. “We don’t fully trust him just yet, but he did get us this far.”
“I know him,” said Esh. He grabbed his granite sword and made for the entrance. “Or I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him. He was a friend of my father’s.”
“That’s what he said,” said Dashine, following behind him. “If it wasn’t for his skills with the bow, I don’t think we would have made it this far.”
“That’s what you think,” said Barish.
Esh walked through the tent and saw nothing but bodies covered in arrow stems. Then someone jumped off the tent from behind him and landed onto the ground softly in front of him. Drohdroh stood up straight, turned and said, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Esh.”
45 - Harmonious Sorcery
“How did you find us?” demanded Esh.
He tightened his fists and prepared himself for a fight. Seeing the work this stranger had just done put his senses on full alert. If he dropped his guard for just a moment, it could mean his demise by way of an arrow through the eye. Anyone could show up and call themselves Drohdroh, but Esh did have to admit to himself that it was ironic that this male be just as skilled as Master Rift had said he was.
“I’ve made such a journey, drank your non-being friend’s disgusting potion of knowledge, saved your hide from a cage, and this is how you repay a friend of your father’s? I’m basically your uncle, you know.”
The male who called himself Drohdroh took a step forward making Esh flinch and take a step back.
“Why are you so jumpy?”
“I just don’t trust you,” Esh said plainly. “I’ll need proof you mean my friends and I no harm.”
The Reahlic male chuckled a
nd displayed his hand out in front of him and waved it over the bloody scene. “Is this not proof enough?”
Esh looked over the bodies, each with a precise casted arrow sticking out of them. Not one moved. “Just because you don’t work for Xep doesn’t mean you’re not an enemy to us.”
“I see Barda was correct in placing you under Master Rift’s care. He’s done well to make you cautious but I assure you that I am who I say I am.”
The male reached into his quiver with incredible speed and Esh’s reflexes only brought his hand halfway to his hilt before the male drew out a single arrow. He flipped the feather end out and held it out to Esh to take. “I believe this will open your eyes to the truth.”
Esh looked at the arrow and removed his hand from his sword. He grabbed the arrow and held it out in front of his helmet. There was nothing special about the stem or the feather, but the tip made him gasp out loud. It was the same green granite that his mother had crafted his own sword with. “Where did you get this?” he asked, putting the arrow behind his back. “Who gave you this?”
“Who do you think?” the archer asked. He walked over to one of the dead assassins and stepped on his back. With the other hand he plucked the arrow out of the armor revealing another green granite tip.
“Did she forge these for you?”
“Every single one.”
Esh brought the arrow back in front of him and examined it a bit longer, running his finger over the edge before tossing it back to Drohdroh. “Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome. I’m going to finish replenishing my quiver. You and your friends better start coming up with some sort of plan.” Drohdroh walked over to another body and aggressively tore out another arrow, sending a spurt of blood into the air.
“Wait, I have some questions for you.”
“I promise,” Drohdroh said, walking over to Esh and placing a naked scarred hand on his shoulder, “You will know everything soon enough. It is too much for this moment, however. Let us make our escape first and ask questions later.” He pulled his hand away and Esh saw that his drawstring finger had long since been rubbed raw of all texture.
Esh walked back through the curtains and into the tent. His head was filled with unanswered questions and his heart pounded excitedly. Were his parents alive? And were they near? If so, why hadn’t they come for him? Why did Drohdroh come instead? Did that mean they weren’t alive?
“I think it’s best we close this portal,” said Shten, interrupting Esh’s thoughts.
“I think we’d better,” agreed Barish. “Or else they could return from the other end, right?”
“They can indeed return from the same portal that spit them out. They only need turn around.”
“So, if we don’t close it now, our only option would be to run as fast as we can, which I don’t think is an option seeing as how it failed the last time,” said Barish, gesturing towards the cage that now lay on its side.
Esh found it interesting that Barish and Shten could have a normal conversation without being at each other’s throats and he was pretty sure it had something to do with Shten saving Barish’s life. It’s hard to hate someone that saves your neck.
“Is anyone here sorcery able?” asked Drohdroh. He had just walked back into the tent with a quiver filled with arrows picked from the dead enemies.
“We both are,” said Dashine, pointing at Shten and then back at herself.
“Have either of you ever built a portal before?” asked Drohdroh.
“Yes… But I’ve never stepped foot in the Blue territory and therefore cannot conjure the correct destination.”
“But you could,” said Drohdroh, nodding his head at Dashine.
Dashine blinked rapidly and crossed her arms in front of herself, as she usually did when she felt uncertain with something. “I could, I suppose. But I am unsure on the know-how.”
“But Esh and I saw you do it!” exclaimed Barish. “You were able to help Master Rift when his energy had all but drained!”
“True, but he had already started the process and so all I needed to do was lend him my energy. And plus, I’ve never even been here before so if it weren’t for Master Rift, none of us would be here.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, with only the sound of Drohdroh sharpening a few of the arrows that must have dulled themselves in the bones of their victims.
An idea popped into Esh’s head but he wasn’t sure if it was too idiotic to say out loud. Since his sorcery was unnatural and rather random, Rift and Xep had both thought it best to just strengthen his other qualities and reduce the amount of study on sorceries he couldn’t bend.
This idea that he had seemed crazy, but what the hell, he’d give it a shot. “What if Shten somehow takes over this portal,” he said, pointing at the open red portal in front of all of them, “and just when he is about to change its destination to the Purple territory, you, Dashine, can try to implement your own.”
Dashine tightened her arms around herself and stared at the floor. She didn’t like the idea of everyone’s hopes resting on her shoulders. Shten, however, was nodding his head.
“I think it possible, Esh,” he said. “You could do it, Princess. I sense much power inside of you.”
“I have no experience with such travel spells,” she replied. “I was trained under the arts of healing, not portals. Sorcery is already looked down upon in my territory and it took much begging of my parents to get even the amount of training that I have.”
“But won’t you try?” asked Esh. “No one will blame you if it doesn’t work.”
“I think it’s worth a shot,” said Barish. “We have nothing to lose. We could always still run.”
“Whatever you kids decide, you’d better hurry up,” said Drohdroh, placing the last arrow in his quiver and standing up. “I don’t think we can survive what Xep will bring next.”
Dashine looked at Esh and he saw her cheeks blush ever so slightly. She looked away and said, “Sure… I’ll try.”
Shten walked over to the portal and beckoned the Princess to stand next to him. “I will call your name when I am ready,” he said. “All you must do is pretend you are healing the portal and focus entirely on your destination. Understand, sweet small thing?”
“Yes,” she said. “And don’t call me ‘sweet thing’,” she added.
Ignoring her comment, Shten went straight to work by placing his hands out in front of him and closing his eyes. He started to mumble to himself and the words made the air in the room grow chilly. Everyone watched as strings of gray began to infiltrate the red. More and more gray came and the red was slowly replaced altogether. Shten’s mumbling slowed just as a bit of purple took over the gray.
“Now, Princess,” he snapped quickly over his shoulder before continuing his cold words.
The Princess did not stumble nor falter in this moment of high stress. She did not hesitate to throw her hands out in front of her and begin her own mantra. Esh observed that there was a slight difference in the finger positioning of Shten and Dashine. Where Shten’s fingers were jagged and convulsing, Dashine’s fingers were loose and performing a pulling motion as if she were dragging the hurt out of someone.
Barish cursed as more purple entered the gray, but no signs of blue. Dashine’s forehead crinkled with concentration and even Drohdroh had stopped what he was doing to watch her with interest. Esh figured he had never before seen anything like this either.
A blue dot appeared in the middle of the portal and Dashine must have sensed it, even though she could not see. Her words became more confident and clear and she straightened her posture. Slowly, Shten began to pull back the volume of his own words and the temperature of the room warmed ever so slightly. The blue circle grew and started to swirl along with the gray, completely overtaking any purple that had manifested. Shten stopped his chanting and opened his eyes to watch Dashine’s work. The blue grew and grew until there was hardly any gray left, leaving a swirling Blue territory portal
.
Esh’s plan was a success. Dashine opened her eyes and gasped. “That wasn’t too bad!” she exclaimed but just as soon as she relaxed her shoulders, her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted. Esh and Barish tried to catch her but it was Drohdroh who had sensed it coming first. He caught her with a single outstretched palm.
“She’s overworked herself. Someone will have to carry her through.”
“I’ll do it,” Esh said, volunteering himself with a bit too much excitement. Everyone was now looking at the giant hybrid wearing the rektops helmet. No matter how awesome his armor was, he looked really stupid at this moment.
“Fine,” Drohdroh said, raising an eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter who. Let us be going.”
Without a word or any sign of hesitation, Shten walked up to the portal and was sucked right in. Esh took Dashine from Drohdroh and followed after him, trying not to show his worry.
During his first portal experience, he had taken quite a fall and so this time he made sure to cup the Princess’ head with one armored hand before stepping in.
He made one last turn of his head to look out through the tent’s opening and into the cold dead lands of the Purple territory. He couldn’t tell whether he would miss it or not. He turned and let the portal take him.
46 - Party Crashers
This trip went a lot smoother than the last, but perhaps that was because Esh knew what to expect this time. It was either that or the fact that he was holding a beautiful female in his arms.
He kept his eyes closed, only peeking every once in a while, as it always left him with a feeling of nausea. He didn’t need to see, he only needed to make sure the Princess wasn’t pulled away from him, but for some reason it was as if the portal kept them together. It was like there was adhesion between them. Still, he took no chances and kept her close to him. At one point in the long journey he could have sworn that he heard the echo of Barish’s cheering.
Fighting off sleep was an almost impossible task, especially with his eyes closed. He was exhausted from the events that had just transpired and he could feel himself drooping over into the territory of dreams. He kept his mind as busy as possible with thoughts on how he could reverse the bane that kept him from summoning his Wisp. As hard as it was, he forced himself to think back on Xep and his teachings on banes, but it was a futile attempt. He’d known only the bare minimum.
The Four Territories Page 32