Revary

by Abigail Linhardt

  “Creepy,” she mused. “Are they… people?”

  “They are all creatures.” Jinx smiled wickedly. “This is the fate of Calimorden and all of this world. Umbra’s power grows.”

  Clare looked around in horror. She teared up at the thought of the beautiful kingdom of Calimorden becoming like this. Great Queen Zephyr and even Prince Gwen, cowering on the ground in rags. The scene made her shudder. She could not imagine Galis or even Folkvar like this.

  “Does the queen here know about this?” Clare asked.

  “You shall meet her,” Jinx whispered.

  They were outside the great black gates of the spired castle.

  A guard in rusting armor led them through the gates and into the castle. The foyer was huge and circular with a decaying red carpet leading up a set of stairs to two more sets of stairs on either side of the room. At the top, between where they branched off, was a huge door. The rusty armor pointed to it.

  “I don’t know about this,” Stella whispered as they ascended the stairs.

  “This is what I’ve come here for,” Clare explained. “I’ve been going mad to know about this Umbra and now is my chance. We have to help them.”

  Stella shook her head. “I don’t think so. This is serious. Why don’t we go back now? I believe you, okay?”

  “I wasn’t trying to convince you to believe in this place,” Clare said when they reached the doors. “I just don’t want you to lose your imagination.”

  “I am not imagining this,” Stella mumbled under her breath.

  The doors, huge steel things on massive hinges, opened wide to admit them. In the center of the large stone room was a revolving bed covered in acid green cushions. Perched on these cushions was a tall, pale noblewoman. Her seat rotated to face them.

  Her eyebrows were powerfully arched and long over thick, dark eyelashes. She wore a dress of glittering satin blue and her hair was the same acid green as the cushions. Something in her skin was sparkling. A faint blue tint was around her eyes and her scalp that matched her dress as well. She held up a perfectly round glass ball in her hand to show them.

  “I saw you coming,” she said in a sing-song voice. She stood up, the glass ball still hovering where she had left it, and took a few steps down from her throne toward them. “Dear Clare, I have wanted to meet you. I have heard so much from a little elf that wandered through these parts with a barbarian companion. Stealing jewels on the request of some old oracle, I think.”

  Stella turned to Clare. “Those are your friends, right? You told me about them.”

  “Oh no, Clare!” the woman cried. “Do not befriend those fiends! They are evil with dark intensions.” She turned her eyes to Jinx and they narrowed to golden slits. “Like you, traitor!”

  She pushed her clawed hand out to the fairy and with a magical force, propelled him into a cage that quickly snapped shut. He tried to yell back at her, but his voice was gone.

  “He has betrayed me for the last time!” the woman cried, pressing her hand to her forehead. “Clare, trust no one here. With the powers in this world, you can never know who is friend and who is foe.”

  Clare took a couple cautious steps forward. “Have you seen your city? It’s falling apart because of Umbra. What can I do to help you?”

  The woman smiled and laughed beautifully. “Do not listen to the fae, my dear,” she sighed. “Every word they say is a lie. It is their way.” She walked down to meet the two girls. Her eyes rested on Stella. “Is this a sister I see before me?” Her golden eyes brightened. “A fellow practitioner of magical arts?”

  Stella laughed a little. “Not here. Sometimes I am.”

  The woman frowned, confused.

  “You are a powerful woman,” the green and blue lady said. She bowed her head, then sank entirely to her knees. “I can see the power in you both. You are strangers here. I know this, for you have trusted a lying fae. Tell me from whence you came?”

  “Calimorden,” Clare interrupted Stella who was about to tell the truth. “You say you have a barbarian and an elf in captivity? Those are my chosen warriors. Where are they?”

  The witch rose to her feet and put an arm around Stella, leading her away from Clare.

  “I’ve heard stories of earthlings. I never believed in them, but oh, how you’ve changed my mind. Show me your power,” she cooed to Stella. “Just reach out and try something. How about you light that torch over there? Just flick your hand and think of fire. Your power will do the rest. Make me believe in you.”

  Clare followed behind this time, curious about Stella. Could it be that her magical powers had come alive in this world just like their clothes and Clare’s shooting ability? A small twinge of fear tweaked at Clare’s heart at this thought. If Stella was angry at her already, what would black magic make her do? Clare wanted to interject, but couldn’t.

  Reaching her robed hand out to the torch on the wall, Stella twisted her wrist and snapped her fingers. Immediately, in a shower of purple sparks, an orange and purple flame erupted and set the torch blazing. Stella’s jaw dropped in disbelief.

  “Did you see that, Clare?” she gasped.

  “Try something else,” the blue and green witch said, smiling. She fixed her eyes on the cage and Jinx inside. The tall sprite crouched down slowly to avoid her gaze.

  Putting both her long hands out in front of her, Stella flexed her fingers and concentrated on the cage. Flexing again, the cage lifted off the ground. The witch smiled more broadly. Stella opened her palms, face up, and the cage levitated higher and higher.

  “Stell, let’s go,” Clare interrupted. “I need to find the prisoners.” She tried to address the witch again, but neither of them were listening to her.

  “Let it go now,” the witch said as the cage reached to nearly the highest point of the turreted tower.

  Stella dropped her hands easily at her sides and the cage, with Jinx inside, plummeted to the ground. With a stone and metallic crunch, a cry from Jinx, and a giggle from the witch, it crashed to the ground.

  “I want to be a witch too!” Stella cried happily.

  “But look at yourself,” the blue and green witch said. She guided Stella to a huge, gruesomely decorated floor length mirror. “You are a beautiful witch already.”

  Clare blinked and her mouth fell open. Before her eyes, Stella had transformed. She was paler and around her lips and eyes was black and purple coloring. Her hair, now sweeping up and round her head in an ornate jungle of curls and braids was black as well. Her robes had transformed to a shimmery black and purple gauze dress with silver laces. Black and silver jewels adorned her neck and wrists.

  “Oh,” Stella breathed. “I am beautiful! Clare, just look.” She spun around to show off her full skirt and draping sleeves. She smoothed out her elaborate hair while asking,. “What do you think?”

  Of course, next to Clare in her ranger clothes, Stella was a goddess.

  “You’re amazing,” Clare breathed. She wanted to stop admiring Stella and get on with her mission, but she remembered something that Stella should probably know before using more magic.

  “But don’t you feel something when you use the magic? I do. And it ties back to our world, too. The more power you use here—I think it makes it harder to get home.”

  “What?” Stella asked. She was rubbing her fingers together slowly, feeling the power in her now. “You’re trying to tell me if I use my amazing powers, I can’t go home?”

  “Nonsense,” the other witch stepped in. “Perhaps, dear Clare, the reason Stella does not feel this drain is because she is stronger than you.” She made a show of looking Clare up and down and clicking her tongue elegantly. “A mere ranger. If that is how you see yourself then there is no need to be jealous of Stella seeing herself as a queen of magic.”

  Clare felt the conversation escalating quickly into a high school girl fight. She wanted to snap back, take Stella, and leave, but she had a job to do. She chose to hold her tongue.

  “But I’m here
on a mission. Can we please have the prisoners? Those are my warriors. I can help your land if you’d let me.”

  Caressing Stella’s new hair, the blue and green witch smiled at Clare in the mirror. “Are you jealous of your friend’s powers? Her grace and elegance? I think you are. Why do you carry the weapon of a man on your back? And the tunic and leggings of a ranger. You too could be this lovely.”

  The words stung Clare. Was it true she could just decide to be whatever she wanted? Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to try it. She longed more than anything to see her fantasy friends again. And this witch and her aloofness toward her dying village was not settling well.

  “Duchess Zealnis,” Clare named to prove her powers once more, “your village is dying. Where are my warriors?”

  The duchess ordered two chariots to the front of her castle; one for her and Stella, the other for Clare and a shackled Jinx. The witch would not let him out her sight. They were traveling to her city prison where the prisoners were kept until she decided to transfer them to the dungeons under her castle.

  The streets of the stone village were still full of the disguised people and they were still wandering around with no goals or actions in mind.

  “Why do your people go around all bound up?” Clare asked.

  “Because they are no more,” Zealnis sighed. “My people are gone. These are their echoes. The shadows of my land.”

  She reached out a pale hand and pulled the hood off a passing farmer. When the hood was pulled back, the farmer hissed and cowered under the eyes of the strangers. There was nothing under the hood to make the noise though. If there was a person there, they were invisible.

  “Without these wrappings,” Zealnis said, “I have no people.”

  The witch explained this was what the city always looked like except at night, which was fast approaching in the decaying city. As the sun sank, one wrapped person after the next collapsed to the ground in a cloth heap and dust then would rise as a green, fading ghost to glow in the shadows.

  “We must hurry,” Zealnis said. “When the sun is gone, all my people will be these green ghosts, as will the houses, the carts, the animals. Everything is decaying faster. Soon they will be ghosts in the daylight hours as well, only to be seen when they haunt at night.”

  Clare shivered at the thought. “Are they dead? Did someone kill them?”

  “It was Umbra,” Jinx replied for his mistress. His purple eyes were sad. All the spritely happiness gone from them.

  “Silence, betrayer!” Zealnis screamed. She waved her hand and magically bound the fairy’s mouth with a cloth so he could not speak. “But it is true. This one led Umbra to me and every day, he takes a bit of my land.”

  It was not hard for Clare to tell she was lying.

  The dungeon was dank and wet as such places often were. More wraiths acted as Zealnis’s guards at every gate and window. After walking past cells of norcan, unicorns, other fairies, orcs, a few caged corpses, and even one that held a large tank with a mermaid in it, they finally arrived at the one they were looking for. Inside, shackled to the wall, was Galis. Sleeping on the ground by his feet was the tiny form of Yilith.

  Clare smiled at the sight of the fearless barbarian and the little elf she had longed to speak to again. But her heart broke at seeing the wounds on Galis’ body and the dirty, tangled white mass that was Yilith’s hair.

  “Release them,” Clare said.

  When the witch didn’t move to comply, Clare’s hand went to her sword. “Release them,” she said again.

  “You are the earthling,” Zealnis said simply. “I know you are. Only earthlings can use such powers as quickly as your Stella did. And Jinx, my ears in the fairy world, has told me of our Astral visitor.” She smiled when Clare paled. “Yes, a star has fallen. Only an earthling could make a star abandon its life in the Astral Plane and visit our ground.” Her green and blue eyes twinkled.

  “Stella, stop her!” Clare cried as she drew her sword.

  Fortunately, Stella did as Clare instructed just this once and threw her hands out to hold Zealnis in place with her new magic powers. With all her strength, Clare cleaved the lock and dashed in to release her friends. Waking Galis with a few firm slaps, she demolished his shackles and ordered him to retrieve Yilith.

  “You returned!” the barbarian exclaimed.

  “With help,” Clare smiled back.

  Stella tossed her a sword from outside the cell with her telekinetic powers and Clare handed it to Galis to free Yilith. “Hurry up, we might have something out here.”

  She turned back to the other two. “Are you a servant of Umbra?” she asked Zealnis as she struggled against Stella’s binding magic. “Did you give him this city like Queen Zephyr gave her son to Umbra before I came here?”

  Zealnis’s beautiful face twisted into a hideous, toothy grin and a malicious laugh escaped her. “You stupid earthling!” she snarled. “I invited Umbra here! The more this land is touched by his corruption, the more your world feels it. I want to spread this decay as far as I can while I live. Whatever you do here will take worth in your world.”

  Clare was confused, but the impulse to run was stronger. “Galis, go!” she shouted. “Stella and I will take care of her.”

  Galis hesitated for a moment, but then ran. “Meet me outside!” he called back.

  “Guards!” Zealnis called. “Do not let them escape!”

  Immediately all the statues of gargoyles, wyverns, and smaller versions of spider-lizards on the wall broke free and ran after Galis.

  “Greylheim!” the witch called. “Greylheim, come to me again! I have the earthling girl!”

  “Stella, run!” Clare cried as the earth shook and trembled.

  Stella didn’t move. “She’ll get away.”.

  “We need to get away,” Clare urged, taking her friend’s arm. “The dragon is here. It must be under her dungeon!”

  The earth split again and fire spewed out in hot, rushing torrents. Remembering what happened last time the giant dragon appeared, Clare dragged Stella behind her and dashed back down the cell block, not wanting to fall and reappear in her own world just yet.

  Dashing down the hall was almost not fast enough. The earth and stone crumbled beneath them as Zealnis screamed behind them, “Fly, master of the wind! Stop the earthlings!”

  The walls began to collapse around them and little gargoyles grabbed at their feet as they crawled down the walls only to fall into the ever-expanding fiery pit. With a scream, Stella tumbled as the floor dropped out from beneath her. Clare turned and dropped to her knees, grasping her friend’s hand. Beneath them, shining out from the smoke and ash were Greylheim’s orange eyes and the silhouettes of his fangs in front of his burning throat.

  Stella took one look down and screamed in utter horror. “Clare!” she cried.

  “Stella, use your magic and float up,” Clare gasped. The heat was making her hands slick and her arms were burning with holding her friend up.

  “Stella,” a voice whispered over the debris and fire. “Come back to me and I will keep you safe.” Across the widening fissure, Zealnis was floating slowly toward the struggling girls. Her green hair and blue dress were shoved back by the hot wind from Greylheim’s breath. “You are more powerful than her, Stella. You are a queen among earthlings. Your name is a sign of your might!”

  “I can’t hold you!” Clare called over the soothing voice. “Float up!”

  Stella craned around to look at Zealnis, her tempting colors flitting around her, her arms outstretched to her. She slowly met Clare’s gaze again. Clare instantly saw her mind’s decision.

  “No!” she grunted as Stella’s hands slipped farther down.

  In that instant, a huge black arrow zoomed past Clare’s ear and plunged with a jerking thud below Zealnis’s left shoulder where her heart would be. She screamed and fell back to the ground. Craning her head around, sweat dripping into her eyes, Clare saw Folkvar and his huge crossbow. He charged down the corridor and sw
ept up Stella with one hand. Gripping his mane as she had seen heroes do in movies, she swung her leg up onto his back before he slowed too much. Both of them in safety, he galloped down the line of cells.

  “Fly!” Zealnis screamed from behind them. The rest of the ground broke and the walls were shattered as Greylheim burst out with a deafening roar and a spew of fire.

  “I was here for Galis,” Folkvar explained over the tumble of molten debris. “Even now he makes haste for Calimorden with the elf.”

  “Just run,” Clare ordered. “We’ll talk later.”

  She took his crossbow and turned around on his back. She aimed up at Greylheim who was gaining on them fast. Stella ducked down and clung to Folkvar’s side. The huge dragon was not frightened at all of the large norcan crossbow or the small earthling girl wielding it.

  “Stella!” Clare called. “Ice it!”

  Without knowing what she was doing, Stella reached up and placed her hand on the tip of the mighty arrow. Immediately it froze over and the tip extended with an ice point. Clare released the arrow then and as it flew, the ice grew and expanded until the arrow was a small spear soaring toward the unsuspecting beast.

  When Greylheim opened his fiery maw to blow his infernal breath, the ice spear sped in with Clare’s excellent aim and plunged through the back of his throat. Not expecting the hit, the dragon jerked back, its wings propelling in the opposite direction to stop it. With a strangled cry, its claws clutching at its pierced neck, Greylheim flapped and crashed to the ground with a huge thud.

  “Is it dead?” Stella asked.

  “I doubt it,” Clare answered. “Folkvar, we need to get to Calimorden. Zephyr must tell me what is going on here. I think this is bigger than I suspected at first.”

  Stella waited a few paces before she spoke after that. “I want to go home,” she said.

  “We will,” Clare promised. “I have to find the oracle. He can turn back a few hours for us.”

  The moon was out as the walls of Calimorden at last loomed into view. Ahead, they saw a white horse with two riders entering the gates. Clare smiled at the yellow hair of Galis and his black bundle.