The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  “Where are we going?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

  But one of the women stopped and turned to me and said, “We need to clean and dress you for the wedding.”

  Terror swept over me. “Anne is marrying Abbadon?”

  “No,” she answered. “You are.”

  Abbadon Fifty-Two

  Someone screamed. It could have been me. Actually, I am pretty sure it was me. Not the response a man would want to hear from his prospective bride. As the women escorted me from the room, I heard Zeid yelling. I knew he wasn’t acting as he screamed, “No, no, no!”

  Instead of another dungeon-like room, the room that they took me to was beautiful. Or it would have been lovely if it wasn’t in Abbadon’s Keep. It was as if he read my mind and made a bedroom that looked like it belonged in the Earth Realm.

  But I knew this wasn’t a bedroom for me. It was a bedroom for a husband and wife. For Abbadon and me. And even though it was beautiful, the emotions and feeling swirling around the space were not of beauty but terror.

  It was as if the negative feelings had been built into the walls. Instead of the scent of flowers and fresh air, anxiety and fear was the perfume that filled the space.

  The women were gentle with me, and I wondered if they really were mechanical. Especially when one of the women looked at me, and for a moment her eyes weren’t blank. They were engaged. When I looked again, they were back to the vacant stare that marked the mechanical beings rather than the manipulated ones. So I wondered if I was mistaken.

  Instead of calling them mechanical people, I supposed that I could call them robots. But robots back in the Earth Realm didn’t look like this. Perhaps they would someday. However, I knew that the metal toadstools that served us in my father’s Castle had feelings. I’d heard them laugh, and shiver with pleasure when I patted them or thanked them for bringing my food, so even if they were human-made, to me, they were sentient beings.

  Perhaps these women would be the same. As they drew a bath for me, I tried speaking with them. I asked them questions and received no answers. The more they ignored me, the more afraid I became. I was alone. I had no idea what was happening to my friends in the other rooms. Even though we had agreed not to speak with each other, I couldn’t help myself. I reached out mentally to them. Anyone, please answer me. There was nothing. I was back to being ordinary. I had a terrible thought. Perhaps my magic was gone too. My team was gone. I was marrying Abbadon.

  In spite of telling myself to be calm, I couldn’t stop the feeling of terror that advanced over me like a cloud. I could almost see it enveloping me with a thick dark mass. I tried to stop it, but when it arrived, I was overwhelmed with fear. I struggled, and cried, and moaned a little in terror.

  However, just before the cloud arrived, I withdrew a piece of myself into what I thought of as a safe room and became an observer. I watched myself struggle. I saw my fear and terror as if it was an object separate from me attempting to get into the safe room. And then I noticed a strange thing.

  The more unhappy I got, the more terror or anger I felt, the more energy the women seemed to have. The thought occurred to me that I was feeding them. That idea fit into what we had discussed about Abbadon. That he fed off of negative emotions.

  Maybe he designed his robots and Raiders to project those negative emotions and create more of them, collect them, and feed them back to him. Perhaps everything about the Castle and the Keep was designed to supply Abbadon. What would happen if he didn’t get fed?

  Here was a choice I could test. If I could become light-hearted and gay, and truly be happy for a moment, what would happen? I thought it would be impossible given how anxious I felt, but I was in a beautiful space, basking in a warm tub filled with bubbles. It was very incongruous. Just as Niko said, it was Abbadon confusing the mind, and making us wonder if he was a good man after all. Keeping us off balance.

  But I could turn that against him, at least for a moment in this room. I could relax into the beauty, think about the love I felt for all of the people of Erda and my team. I could enjoy the hot water, the soap, the beautiful dress I could see laid out for me on the bed.

  Yes, it was a wedding dress, but it was stunning. I focused on the good and the beautiful. I stopped screaming and starting saying, “thank you, thank you, thank you,” over and over again. I looked at each woman and projected my gratitude for their care. At first, it was one of the hardest things I had ever done.

  It was a battle, but it was all mine. I wasn’t destroying anything. I was building up. As I looked at each woman in turn and thanked them, they became more and more agitated. Except for one. And at that moment I was sure she wasn’t a robot at all. Her eyes changed from a vacant, detached look, to a pale blue and then dark blue and back to the vacant stare of the others.

  But I knew who she was. I almost gave it away by saying her name out loud, but I stopped myself. I hid her identity by repeating my mantra of gratitude over and over again. I couldn’t give her away. I didn’t want Abbadon to read any of my thoughts except for the one proclaiming as loud and as often as I could, the beauty of creation.

  Part of me was expecting what came next. If I thought the cloud of anxiety and fear was terrible before, the one that advanced on me faster than I thought possible was massive. I hid once again in my safe room, and let the rest of me react to the fear thrown on me and the women in the room. We were being punished.

  But I had learned something that could be a weapon, and Aki’s mother, Tarla, was on our side and knew what we had to do. She had told me so in that one split second before the cloud arrived.

  I clutched that hope tight to my heart as the rest of the world turned dark.

  Abbadon Fifty-Three

  After all the screaming stopped, I was exhausted. To be clear, it was me screaming. Screaming out of fear, because the cloud that arrived showed me all my friends being tortured, and a menacing voice kept saying over and over again, “This is all your fault.”

  I had been put into bed, probably by the women, and as I lay there, I reminded myself that negative emotions were temptations that when indulged would take me away from my true self. Not that I knew precisely what that true self meant, or was, but I knew for sure it wasn’t what Abbadon was promoting. As I thought about the feelings of guilt that threatened to overcome me, I knew that it was a negative emotion that was feeding the monster. It wasn’t helping me at all.

  Plus, how did I know those pictures were real? “Nothing is as it seems.” That’s what Aki had reminded me. Nothing. I touched the necklace and bracelet that I still wore. I wondered why I had been allowed to keep them. Perhaps Abbadon didn’t know that they were magic? Then a thought occurred to me. What if he couldn’t see them? That idea was so wonderful, I almost popped into happiness, but I restrained myself.

  I didn’t want to give anything away. I had an idea of how to defeat Abbadon, and now that I practiced on the women, and saw what happened, I was pretty sure it would work. It could backfire on us though. If Abbadon reacted that strongly against the small amount of good that I had projected, what would he do if we all did it?

  And how was I going to tell everyone about what I had discovered? Keeping the outward expression of anxiety and fear intact, I allowed myself to wonder if the Priscillas had managed to escape and do what we had asked them to do.

  I rolled over in bed wondering when and who would come to get me for the wedding, and heard a muffled, “Ouch!” It was hard to keep from squealing in pleasure, but keeping emotions neutral, I lifted the covers and saw all three Priscillas, lounging there, looking as beautiful as always. Pris’ hair was a little untidy, probably from the sheets being over her, but their eyes were bright and shining. They were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

  “We saw, and felt what you did, Kara Beth,” Pris whispered. “And we told everyone else.”r />
  “Are they fine?” I asked, even though I was a little afraid to find out.

  “Everyone is fine. In fact, more than fine. Like you, they have been cleaned, fed, and rested.”

  The Priscillas and I didn’t need to say out loud what we were thinking. Abbadon was doing this to put them off guard. Make them more confused. Wonder if he was the monster that they knew him to be after all.

  Cil nodded, knowing what I was thinking. “We think that at the wedding he will begin to torture them. It will work for him by getting you to say yes, but also to feed what he needs to be happy. But we are ready, and so is the rest of the team.”

  “And the portal?” I asked.

  “Garth says it will be ready.”

  “But what about Anne?” I hadn’t seen her since dinner the night before. How did she feel about me marrying Abbadon? Was she safe?

  La gave me the answer. “Anne is fine too. She is being prepped to be your maid of honor.”

  The four of us stared at each other. That meant she would be the target of Abbadon’s greatest torture.

  As the Priscillas prepared to leave, I asked them the question that was tearing me apart inside.

  “What do I say? Yes or no?”

  They shook their heads, and Cil said, “No one knows the answer. Did you say yes before, or no before? No one remembers. No one knows. This one is all yours, Kara Beth.”

  Then the Priscillas did what I had seen Aki, Zeid, and even Leif and Sarah do, but I had never seen the Priscillas do. They vanished. It took my breath away. Had they always been able to do that? Would I ever have a chance to learn? Tears started rolling down my face.

  I was afraid that I was heading towards my old stomping grounds, the pit of self-pity, when La returned for a second and whispered in my ear, “Aki says that you will know, and you are not alone,” and then she was gone again.

  This time I didn’t hold back my sobs. Let Abbadon feed on them. He would think they were tears of fear, but they weren’t. They were tears of remembering the first time Aki had said those words to me.

  I was new to Erda. I thought I was alone then too. But since then I had discovered the people that would always stand with me, as I would stand with them. Those words were true for everyone. We were never alone. All we had to do was reach out, accept, and receive the help always available.

  I only knew one person who was alone, and it was going to be his undoing. Abbadon.

  In the middle of my crying fit, the door opened and a group of women stepped into the room. They looked like the same women, but I couldn’t be sure, and I knew that Tarla couldn’t take the chance of showing herself to me again.

  “Time to get dressed,” one of the women said. I was helped out of bed and led to a dressing table. With a mirror. Of course, mirrors wouldn’t be banned here. It was Abbadon who saw through them. Mirrors were another way he would be watching over me.

  I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror for over a year, not since the trip through a portal that transformed me from a twelve-year-old to a woman. I had only imagined what I must look like.

  The woman who stared back at me was familiar. I supposed I had seen myself before. Before mirrors were banned from the Kingdom of Zerenity.

  As I stared, I realized my eyes were too calm. I was too calm. I had to project more anxiety and fear. As I transformed my outward expression, I caught a glimpse of one of the women who gave me an almost imperceptible nod. Tarla. She knew what I knew.

  Things were not as they seemed, and I was never alone. This I knew, and it was knowledge I was hiding until I could use it as a weapon. But first, I had a choice to make. What would it be? It would mean the difference between failing everyone in Erda or saving them.

  I used to think that I had hard decisions to make. After this one, everything would be easy.

  Yes or no. Which would it be?

  Abbadon Fifty-Four

  The women took the wedding dress from the bed and helped me into it. It felt as beautiful on as it looked. Surprising me. I expected to feel miserable, but instead, I felt beautiful. More disorientation from Abbadon. The woman I knew was Tarla guided me to stand in front of the mirror.

  I stood there transfixed by what I saw. A young woman who could be a Queen stood before me. Is that what Abbadon wanted? A queen to his king? Why not Anne then? Was it really Abbadon who had asked Anne to marry him?

  There was always the possibility that it was me that Abbadon wanted to marry because I was supposed to become the Queen of the Kingdom of Zerenity. By marrying me, he would rule all of Erda.

  Besides, my marrying the monster who had killed so many people, including my mother, would devastate my father. Would devastate all of Zerenity. Abbadon could feast on those feelings for a long time.

  I would be a traitor to my people. Or at least that would be what they thought. But what if by marrying him I saved my people? Did it matter what they thought as long as I saved them?

  Tarla fit the veil onto my head. A traditional wedding. How odd. And not. Again, Abbadon was using all that we treasured against us. Zeid would see me walking down the aisle ready to marry a monster. His heart would break, as would mine. But if it would save Erda, I would say yes. If only I knew what the answer should be.

  I longed for a voice in my head to tell me which to choose. But I had already been warned that it was my choice, and it was only my choice that would work. What had I chosen before? If I could remember, it would be so easy.

  There was a knock on the door, and six young men entered—the same kind of young men who had waited on us our first night in Abbadon’s Castle. Two stood beside me, two walked in front of me, and two behind as we left the room and headed down the hallway.

  It could have been almost pleasant, except that the hall was lined with Raiders, mumbling, snorting, and grunting as we passed. It was the perfect reminder of where we were, and what would happen if I said the wrong thing.

  I stumbled. Still clumsy. Fear was making it worse. The young man on my right caught my arm before I fell. I jerked away, unwilling to be touched, and glared at him. His vacant, expressionless eyes, briefly flashed light blue, and then it was gone. Not a robot. I knew who it was. It was Niko.

  Using every ounce of my self-control, I kept fear in place. Fear and nausea. I let the anxiety flood over me and pushed that emotion out into the hallway as we walked. Maybe I couldn’t use magic here, but I could use negative emotions since that was what Abbadon needed. That I could give him.

  Hidden inside that private room inside myself, another flame of hope ignited. Tarla walked behind me holding the train of my dress, Niko walked beside me. The Priscillas were somewhere in the Castle doing whatever they were planning. If I gave the right answer, it was possible we could defeat Abbadon.

  I let the worry of what would happen to my friends play out as terror that Abbadon could feel. I let the hope that all my friends were safe sustain me. Niko was beside me. Perhaps they were free too.

  My hope didn’t last long.

  *******

  The guards led us to what looked like a traditional church back home in the Earth Realm. You’ve got to be kidding, I thought to myself.

  It was glorious. It had all the turrets and stained glass windows found in the magnificent cathedrals in Europe. That beauty made the whole thing worse. Abbadon was copying an Earth tradition that meant something and turning it into a farce.

  I thought that perhaps some of the beings he had captured during the last few centuries had been used to build it. I wondered how many lives were lost constructing it. As we stepped into the narthex of the cathedral, the difference became apparent.

  Although I had never visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, I had heard people talk about it. They always said they would go back over and over again to experience it. It wasn’t just the fact that i
t was stunning; it was what it felt like inside. Enveloped by love. Inspired. Hopeful. It had filled them with the awareness of connection, of the Oneness of everything.

  Not this cathedral. Yes, it was physically stunning. But the experience inside was cold and heartless. The fear and sorrow of those who had built it seeped out of its walls. The misery that Abbadon lived with was in every cell of the building. It was physically painful to stand there. Because I knew it pleased Abbadon, I let myself feel that pain and I amplified it to send it back to him. I hoped that would be enough for him, the fact that I was willing to suffer so he could be happy.

  But when the doors of the church opened to reveal the long walk to the altar, I knew it wouldn’t be. Standing beside the last few pews were two Raiders, and placed between them were Zeid, Garth, and Aki. Dressed for a wedding.

  There was no doubt in my mind, they were there to be tortured, and since everyone was there but Niko, it would be worse. Abbadon knew that Niko had escaped.

  I prayed that he didn’t realize that Niko walked beside me.

  Abbadon Fifty-Five

  Anne stood at the front of the church, waiting for me. My maid of honor. Her red hair was piled elegantly on the top of her head, and the rose-colored bridesmaid dress that she wore was perfect for her. She was lovely. There was no sign of Abbadon. She stood there alone, looking radiant in spite of all that was going on. Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief. She was still safe.

  There was no sound anywhere inside the church. Not even the breath of the guards that stood beside me could be heard. Then, without warning the silence was replaced with organ music blasting off the walls. It was so loud that without thinking everyone put their hands to their ears, and cringed. Within seconds it was turned down. I was sure someone would be punished for that mistake.