by Greg Dragon
It was vile work that set her head swimming, several times bringing her to the brink of passing out. But Alysia was a warrior who cared about her world, and she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if children’s lives were ruined.
Once the work was done, she collected her mop handle, and changed into the janitor’s uniform and gloves. She broke the door’s handle when she was finished, checking to make sure that it couldn’t be opened easily. She hoped it would be an adult who found the body; then he/she would call the police, and the children would be removed before they could see what was in there.
Alysia didn’t know how long she would be here on her world, but the smart thing to do was to assume that it would be a lengthy stay.
~ * ~ * ~
She didn’t know how many miles she had walked since leaving the school. The fight with the large demon had frightened her. All the fights frightened her; she was mortal after all, wasn’t she?
Alysia thought about this as she recalled the numerous battles she had fought back on Earth alongside her father. He had gotten hurt badly, and there had even been a time when she thought he was going to die. It had been a lot to deal with. Death, pain, and the transformation into whatever it was that she was.
Her friends and family had died, breaking her heart over and over, but how was it that she had fought so many demons and lived? These weren’t pushovers, either. These were seasoned, trained behemoths that had lived long years before fighting her.
While visiting Chaos and training in his camp, the demon girl, Isobel, had stabbed her in the chest with a cursed dagger. The blow should have killed her, but it didn’t. The dagger had transformed her into a form of demon, like them, and it had enabled her to pull out the magical properties from her swords. First the demonic Twilight Sword, which drained blood like a vampire, and then the sword Euphoria, which destroyed them and used their souls to grant her different gifts.
After the big demon, she had taken her mop-handle-turned-bo-staff and set out to walk through the city. At first she was worried people would see her, but she tested fate anyway and walked by them with her ill-fitting clothes and makeshift staff. People moved out of her way but they didn’t look at her. It was the oddest thing to her that they were behaving this way.
They seemed to be playing a game, to see who could go the longest without glancing at the crazy woman with a mop handle strapped to her back. After 30 minutes of this, Alysia began to wonder if they could even see her. She blocked one of their paths, and the large man seemed confused. He stopped in his tracks, looked right at her… no, wait—he looked through her. Then it was as if he remembered something that he forgot at home, since he turned around quickly to walk away.
What about the little girl I carried? Alysia wondered. Lenorela had warned her that the little girl was a portal for Chaos, but she hadn’t told her that the girl was a demon in disguise. So, I am in a sort of half-reality, Alysia mused. Is this what people see when they think they see ghosts?
The concept amused her and brought her back to her original thought. As Alysia refocused on her mortality, she didn't notice the strange girl. It was an easy mistake, considering that the people around her moved out of her way as if she didn't exist. After a time she had begun to ignore them, walking blindly as she thought about her past.
But there she was, this young girl, dressed like a Lolita doll, and staring at Alysia. When she got close enough she dashed in with a knife, but Alysia’s training made her reflexes sharp and she jumped back just in time to avoid the disemboweling blow.
Instantly the staff was in her hands, and they began to circle one another on the sidewalk. Alysia lunged forward, with a small skip and split like a ballerina. The staff was thrust out in front of her and it hit the girl’s chest, knocking her back into a car. She rebounded easily, and skipped from one foot to the other. In came her attacks, quick and precise, but Alysia artfully moved out of the way and brought the staff down on her back.
The girl hit the floor, rolled, and sprang back up to her feet. “You are as good as he says,” she remarked.
“Let me guess. You’re a member of Chaos’s Garot girls,” Alysia said, and when the girl grinned widely, she knew she had guessed correctly.
“Are you from here?” she asked, curious as to why the girl didn’t have any demonic features.
The pixie didn’t answer but instead pressed her attack, forcing Alysia to fall back into a defensive position. She scanned the area as she dodged the girl’s knife and was quite surprised to find that the people had somehow disappeared. Cars still drove by but the streets were empty, and Alysia didn’t know what to think.
Frustrated and tired, she jabbed the girl with her staff again, then spun and brought it down hard with a glancing blow to her jaw. The young girl hit the ground hard and didn’t move, so Alysia circled her carefully, waiting for her to spring up for one, last-ditch effort at conquest. The moment never arrived, and after several minutes Alysia began to wonder if she was dead.
She knelt down to check her vitals, and that was when she saw that the girl was not human like she expected. There was a small horn poking out of her chest, and around her shoulders were more tiny horns. Heat radiated off the girl and her breathing was shallow. Alysia picked her up and pulled her inside of the nearest building, which happened to be a fast-food restaurant.
The restaurant was packed, but none of the patrons paid any attention to the woman cradling the demon girl. Alysia took advantage of their invisible presence and took the girl to an empty table in the back. She looked around for something to use as a rope and saw a discarded extension cord near one of the bathrooms. She retrieved it, and bound the girl’s hands and then her feet. She then sat across from her and placed her stick on the table, then waited in the air-conditioned atmosphere for the girl to wake up.
Alysia picked up the girl’s knife and examined it carefully. It seemed old and valuable, like something one would find inside a museum. As she rotated it, she observed the hieroglyphs that ran along the blade. There was something familiar about them, and she realized that it was a similar knife to the one Isobel had used to turn her into one of them.
“Wake up,” she said, and stared at the girl as if doing so would influence her to comply. She kicked her chair hard and the demon girl stirred, but her eyes didn’t open and she did not reply. Alysia reached forward, took her by the shoulders, and shook her until she woke up. The young girl hissed and her eyes grew red, causing Alysia to remove her hands and recoil with anticipation of an attack.
“Give it back!” the girl screamed, struggling against her binds to get her hand free.
“It?” Alysia asked, seeming puzzled. “Oh, you mean this dagger? Did your lord Chaos tell you that I was suicidal, or do you honestly think I am that stupid?” She noticed that the girl’s face had gone from angry to desperate, as if the knife was something she needed to have for reasons beyond her murderous intentions. “Did Chaos give you this knife?” she asked.
“Yes, so give it back. It doesn’t belong to you.”
“Why would an enemy that has disarmed you give you back the weapon you intended to use to kill her with?” Alysia said.
“Enemy? I am not your enemy, sister. The cerulo dagger is meant to bring you back to our world, not to hurt you in any way.” She chuckled and shook her head in disbelief. “Did you honestly think I was trying to kill you? I am not your match. There are some of us who may be able to fight you on even ground, but Chaos doesn’t want you hurt or he would have sent several of us, not just me.”
Alysia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It seemed that Chaos still believed she was one of his Garot. The thought frightened her. Am I still in it? she wondered, and she looked at the girl’s face for any sign of mischief.
“If this is true, and you are not a match for me, then why send you alone to stab me with this dagger?”
“I have a skill that the others do not. A skill that would allow me to stab you
before you noticed me, but you caught me and I was forced to fight for my life. You have definitely earned your reputation as a formidable warrior.”
“So, this blade would placate me and bring me back to the hall of Chaos?” Alysia asked, and the girl nodded in earnest.
Without blinking an eye, or taking the time to think it over, Alysia flew forward with the dagger and drove it into the chest of the tied-up girl. She screamed when this happened, and the people inside of the restaurant seemed to hear it. Bright light shot from the wound and consumed Alysia, who tried to pull back but she found that she couldn’t. The world faded to brightness, taking her with it, and she realized too late that she had been tricked.
Chapter Four
When Lenorela woke up to find Alysia missing, she tore the house apart looking for her. She summoned her minions, Mee’ir captives she had “converted” into her lifelong servants, and they helped her to determine what happened. Now she stood in the large dining area staring down at the sword and the ring, Euphoria and the dragon cypher, two relics that were meant to protect the young girl that she had grown to love and accept as her ward.
She needed answers, and while it would be easier to speculate, she wanted concrete evidence that Chaos was involved and had somehow managed to infiltrate her mansion. Reluctantly, she picked up the dragon and placed it on her finger. She then picked up Euphoria, walked it to a small room near the back wall of the dining room, and then descended a long flight of stairs to another large room filled with weapons. This was the armory that she was stocking for her future involvement in the war.
There were numerous sword racks, each holding a deadly relic of some kind, but she found an empty one and placed the sword. She then lifted her left hand with the ruby ring while bringing down the right, which now held the dragon. Her eyes closed and she placed her feet shoulder-width apart as she muttered a phrase in the ancient Turevila tongue.
The sword began to fade into nothingness and before long it was gone. The rings were glowing and Lenorela felt weak. She fought back against the nausea that came with the utterance of such a powerful spell, but it was too much and she vomited on the floor. Shaking her head with disappointment in herself, she went upstairs, got a mop, and cleaned it up. She then lit a glass filled with oily incense and placed it in the center of the room before exiting.
With the sword secured she could focus on Alysia, who she assumed used the light orb and bridge to get back to her world without the ring. Alysia would have never done that if she were in her right mind, Lenorela thought, and that meant that there had been someone leading her, someone who had managed to penetrate the mansion.
She carried on with her daily chores as she normally did when she was at home, and then called a meeting with everyone who worked and lived in the mansion. It was evening time now, and dark outside, and sixty-seven beings were congregated in what should have been the throne room but was now a theater complete with stage. Lenorela stood on the stage overlooking the procession and addressed the combination of men and beasts.
“One of you is a traitor,” she said calmly, and allowed the anger and panic to rise to a fever pitch before raising her hand to silence them. “One of you took my sister away from me and delivered her into the hands of Chaos.” The noise grew louder this time as accusations were flung about, and it took an entire minute for them to get quiet when Lenorela held up her hand.
She used her thumb to rotate the ruby ring and bring their attention to it in the light. “This is the ruby ring, Ifris. It is an Ert ring, forged in the fires of Slein. It was created with one purpose in mind, and that is to end Chaos. So guess what happens whenever it gets close to someone that is stained with the dark lord’s taint?” she asked. The room remained quiet, and this caused her to smile because she knew that her lie was working.
Lenorela descended the stairs slowly, holding the hand with the ruby ring out. The crowd parted to let their lady through, then one by one she scanned their faces as she made her way to the back of the room. A few seconds in and a woman bolted for the door. This was one of the Mee’irs but not a captive; this was a woman t she had rescued from the confines of Lorys Syn. Lenorela called forth her armor and bolted after the woman.
The red and black rings created a slick armor of tight, overlapping scales, protecting their master when she exited the room and was met with a blow that would have taken off her head. The woman had a sword, and moved with tremendous speed. When she saw the armor, she gave up on her attack and this time ran towards the entrance.
Lenorela crossed her arms above her breasts and dark smoke engulfed her as she vanished and appeared at the gates of her own mansion. She waited in the darkness for the traitor to arrive, and when she came close, she grabbed her by the neck and sent the magic into her like fiery electricity. The woman screamed so loud that the lights came on in several houses of the village. Lenorela cooked her, slowly, and then right before her life would give out she lifted her up and walked her back to the mansion.
By the time Lenorela finished with her investigation she had everything she needed to know from the woman. Her name was Cantrys, and though she was grateful beyond anything for Lenorela’s rescue, Chaos had offered her family lands in exchange for Alysia Knight. She had met with him personally, and he had given her a piece of crystal that he could use to penetrate the mansion and spy on Alysia.
That was what she thought, but the crystal had allowed for Chaos to do much more than spy, and he had used his influence to bring Alysia to a place where she would be vulnerable.
Lenorela listened calmly, but she wasn’t sure what she could do to find Alysia or contact her to make sure she was okay. She looked for the crystal herself and found it in the library where Chaos had been watching her transfer back and forth to the worlds, looking for his portals to destroy. She realized then that her promises to Alysia would be null and void. The portals could have been another clever trap by Chaos to mislead her quest while he kept on recruiting his army.
She thought about her sources of information and how long it had been since her place of sanctuary had been violated by him. It made her feel sick, and she wanted to return the favor to lord Chaos so that he could feel as open and violated as she did.
Cantrys was standing before her in the now empty throne room, and Lenorela was pacing the stage, going over everything inside her head. She called in two of her men and gave one of them the crystal.
“Take this woman and this bauble to the Mee’ir as a gesture of peace. Tell them Lenorela will remain peaceful to them as long as they leave the village alone. I offer this woman and rare crystal to Loryn Syn. Tell him to make trouble elsewhere; the rings are gone. If I see or hear of any of his people anywhere near Wildemont, I will tell the Erts of their location.”
The man bowed deeply, took the crystal from her palm, and then held her hand open and kissed it. He and his comrade removed the pleading woman, and Lenorela was left to the large, empty room.
Lenorela wondered if there were more spies or spy devices and thought about leaving the mansion for good. But leaving would mean that he’d won, and what kind of message would it send to the people of Wildemont if she left them alone with the Mee’ir? She had to deal with the surprises as they came, and more importantly, she had to get Alysia Knight back.
She went back to the library, ascended the ladders, and opened the passageway to the teleportation room. When she got inside she probed the air for answers. There was something meandering, something foreign and dark that she couldn’t recognize.
One of the first acts of magic that Lenorela’s mother, Sira, taught her was how to probe the air for any traces of paranormal activity or dark arts. She recalled the lesson now as she went through the motions. Feet apart, one in front of the other, and her hands positioned with the right above her head and the left below her waist. She closed her eyes and concentrated, feeling the air for what was there, and smiled unconsciously when she found it.
~ * ~ * ~
When the light finally faded, Alysia Knight found herself on a bed of ashes with the bloody dagger in her hand. She looked around frantically, unaware of her surroundings, but there was nothing familiar about the place. Color was nonexistent here, and the sky was obscured by a thick layer of mist. All around her were tall, narrow, cedar trees, like curious giants staring down at her through the mist.
She stood up with the knife and wiped her face. The ashes were falling steadily like snow and as she peered off into the distance, she could make out that she was on some sort of trail. She turned around several times, and on her fifth turn, she saw a tall figure in red coming down the trail.
It didn’t take her long to recognize her adversary, and she flipped the knife into an underhand grip and waited for him to get close enough for her strike. When Chaos finally walked up to Alysia, she decided to delay her strike. “So you finally caught me?” she said defiantly, but he merely pulled back his hood and stroked at his long blonde mane.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Alysia. I have known where you are and what you have been doing this entire time. This is my world. You know, Yalem? It is mine to rule as soon as I remove the obstacles that push back against me taking my rightful seat on the throne. Ruling a world means that I need to have a watchful eye on all things threatening. Like your father, Lancert. I’m assuming he told you about yourself. By your face I can see that I’m right.”
“What do you want from me?” Alysia said. “Why don’t you just kill me and be done with it?”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. Why would I kill you? I trained you to fight, and you got rid of six creatures that were marring my reputation with the lords. No, Alysia, you belong to me, like it or not. The Ert, Lancert, planted you to be ready for me when I arrived in your world, but he didn’t realize that I would merely recruit you instead.”