Between Worlds

by Skip Brittenham

  “Oh, no,” he gulped. “Sleviccs.”

  There were five of them, and they were ready for battle. He recognized a few from the village by their markings and dress.

  “Yeah, they’re Sleviccs, all right,” Mayberry said, crestfallen. “And they look pissed off. Let’s go.”

  Mayberry spun around, taking off at a feeble sprint back the way they had come. Marshall followed a fraction of a second later. The Sleviccs burst into action, shouting gutterally and pursuing them with huge loping strides. They heard the thunder of heavy feet gaining on them, punctuated by the creak of leather and the jangle of clanking bone.

  CHAPTER 25

  MARSHALL’S LONG-LEGGED STRIDES zipped him past Mayberry, but when he heard her cry, he whirled around just as a meaty Slevicc hand slammed into the small of his back. Marshall stumbled sideways and smacked into the trunk of a jellyfish plant. His body broke through the plant’s thin membrane, and a stinging fluid splashed into his eyes. He thrashed out of the plant trying desperately to blink his eyes back to normal, but he could barely make out the Sleviccs. As his eyes cleared, he saw that Mayberry was crouching on the ground, with Sleviccs positioned on both sides. Although they looked dangerous, they held their weapons limply by their sides, clearly not poised to strike.

  Marshall groped along the ground for a weapon of his own until his hand closed on a stout branch. As he regained his feet, a white glow started to form around his fingers, and he felt an enormous pulse of power ignite a rush of adrenaline. Before he consciously absorbed what was happening and fought back, a deep voice sounded, resonating loudly enough to muffle all competing noises around it.

  The Sleviccs backed up when they heard the sound, and closed ranks into a tight combat formation.

  Marshall, gripping the branch, made sure Mayberry was still behind him and spun to face the newcomer.

  His brain recoiled. This green-skinned . . . male . . . whatever . . . looked like a giant, muscular centaur that stood upright like a troll. Two long, prehensile tails sprouted from his hindquarters. One tail flicked forward like a whip to shoo a bug from his cheek.

  The thing’s oval head was essentially human in structure—at least he had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth—but dark cavities occupied the space usually reserved for ears, and his big eyes were a vibrant purple, topped by thick white eyebrows. Wispy white hair tinged with gray stood out in tufts on top of his head, and a long beard covered his broad chin. Marshall sensed a cold, frightening savagery in the planes of his face. The monster’s mouth was open wide enough to engulf a whole chicken in one bite.

  His prodigiously muscled weightlifter’s torso supported a protruding belly, and his shoulders were wider than a door. He had two sets of ham-hock arms, each ending in four-fingered hands with dirty brown claws. Attired in stained leather panels, with metal scimitars dangling at his hips and two daggers hanging from scabbards in front of his belly, the creature appeared ready for action.

  Whoa.

  He wasn’t traveling alone. There was a human standing a couple of yards behind him. The man was slightly taller than Marshall, but much older, with rumpled red hair, a sharp nose, and a bluish birthmark on his right cheek. Dressed in neat, hand-stitched leather garments, he clutched a braided leash attached to the collar of a furry turtle-shaped creature that was as wide as a hippo, with a long spiked tail. Hemp ropes secured a jumbled pile of bundles strapped onto its broad back.

  Marshall’s first thought was that this mismatched pair was going to try to rescue them, but the human didn’t look very happy to see Marshall and Mayberry.

  For a millisecond, a flash of recognition flitted through Marshall’s mind, and he wanted to ask Do I know you? but the question was so ludicrous he dismissed it and substituted, “What’s going on?”

  The man didn’t respond. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with Marshall, but was using frantic hand signals to warn the Sleviccs to back off.

  Troll-man and the Sleviccs grunted furiously at each other, then the Sleviccs began to screech and shake their weapons defiantly.

  Troll-man thrust out his upper arms, and a brilliant brown luminescence erupted from the four thick fingers on his hands. Waves of brown power struck the ground in front of the Sleviccs, causing dirt, rocks, and nearby trees to erupt as though they were caught in an earthquake. The Sleviccs scattered, trying to protect their heads, but more than one suffered brutal wounds from the flying debris.

  Troll-man twirled his lower fingers, and a white essence hissed out and raced to a dead tree trunk on the ground nearby. The fifteen-foot-long trunk rose and began whirling like a helicopter blade, then catapulted toward the remaining Sleviccs. One tried to levitate over it, but the lethal trunk walloped him like a giant baseball bat. In seconds, the landscape was littered with dead or dying Sleviccs.

  Mayberry clutched Marshall, goggle-eyed, and the sheer brutality of what they were seeing made Marshall retch. He bent over, the acid rising from the cauldron of his stomach burning his throat. When he lifted his head, he saw a Slevvic who didn’t retreat or run for his life, as common sense dictated, but charged forward and threw his spear at Troll-man, who deflected it with a pulse of orange miasma. Finally, the whirling trunk’s deadly assault caught the remaining Slevicc and smacked into his shins, knocking him off his feet.

  CHAPTER 26

  MAYBERRY HAD NEVER SEEN a dead body before. And now there were four. The only word that came to mind as she watched the horrific encounter was slaughter. Troll-man butchered the Sleviccs with an enthusiastic abandon bordering on glee.

  Now only one Slevicc remained, an old graying male. He faced the Troll-man and got on his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks as he wept for his fallen comrades.

  Mayberry’s eyes filled with water, too. She turned to Troll-man’s human companion. “Tell him the Slevicc surrenders!”

  The man’s blank blue eyes met hers briefly, then shifted away. Glowering, Troll-man flicked his lower fingers. A viscous gray liquid sped from them and flowed over the ground like quicksilver.

  The old Slevicc closed his eyes and hummed, preparing for death. The gray liquid seeped into the ground around a massive boulder, soaked into the earth, and disappeared. Then it reappeared under the boulder, pushing it out of the ground. Troll-man twirled his fingers again, and the liquid shot the boulder up into the air, moving it until it was positioned directly above the Slevicc’s bowed head. With a twitch of Troll-man’s finger, the liquid vanished, and the boulder plummeted to earth. The murderous blow smashed the helpless Slevicc, leaving only his splayed feet protruding from the rock.

  Mayberry screamed in dismay.

  Marshall grabbed her and pushed her face into his neck, trying to comfort her and muffle her cries at the same time. Inviting the Troll-man’s attention seemed like a bad idea.

  “It’s over now,” he said quietly.

  Mayberry looked up at Marshall with a tearstained face. “He just . . . butchered those Sleviccs.”

  “I know,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “And we have no idea what he’s got planned for us. We should try to communicate with him. I’m not sure if the human speaks English, and it’s hard to say if he’d help us even if he does.”

  Marshall took a deep breath. He stepped carefully over the rapidly decomposing bodies of the Sleviccs and picked his way toward the Troll-man with his hands up and palms out.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice wavering.

  Troll-man’s ferocious reptilian eyes squinted into narrow slits. One of his upper hands tugged his beard while his two lower hands fingered the daggers slung in front of his belly.

  “Yu magik,” Troll-man declared in a deep guttural voice, gesturing at Marshall.

  “Magic?” he dumbly echoed. He speaks our language. His brain scrambled to process this revelation.

  “Yu magik. Yu magik?” Troll-man shouted louder and lou
der, looking angry.

  What? He wasn’t sure what surprised him more: that this creature spoke broken English, or that he thought that Marshall was capable of magic.

  “You mean . . . can we do magic?” Marshall squeaked as he struggled to find his voice. “Maybe, but . . .”

  Troll-man cocked one white eyebrow as his lips turned down in a disgusted scowl.

  “Sleviccs no kep umans fom Monga, yu no kep magik fom Monga,” he grunted, using one of his filthy hands to wipe the slobber dripping from his mouth. Then he dropped his four hands to his sides so fast they were impossible to follow. One instant they were empty; the next, two hands held the hilts of swords, two more gripped daggers, and his massive bulk was rushing toward Marshall.

  CHAPTER 27

  EVEN THOUGH his brain ordered him to grab Mayberry and run, Marshall’s feet grew roots. He heard the fearsome blades slashing through the air, the loud drumming of hooves, and the sound of surf crashing on the beach—the surf noise being created by the rush of blood to his brain, which would soon be splashed across the landscape.

  The foul smell of Troll-man’s body unglued Marshall’s legs, but he backed up clumsily and tripped over a rock. As he fell, he desperately thrust his hands out and screamed, “Get back.”

  In a flash, the air around his fingers changed color, and a jolt of bright white light burst from them and crashed into Troll-man with the force of a truck. The blow belted him backward and into the air, his limbs flailing wildly as the blades flew out of his hands.

  Mayberry ran toward Marshall while Troll-man was still caught in the white light. One of the daggers whizzed by her head, perilously close to her left ear.

  In midair Troll-man curled into a tight ball, wrapping his limbs and tails around his torso, then crashed into the earth with a thud. His body rolled backward, carving a dark furrow into the ground.

  This exchange made all the other impossible wonders Marshall and Mayberry had experienced seem as mundane as a chess club meeting at Eden Grove High.

  Troll-man released his limbs and tails, uncurled, and rocked back onto his feet. He was dirty but unscathed, and his stolid face remained blank and unreadable.

  Mayberry tugged Marshall to his feet as Troll-man began to swagger back toward them. He gathered up all his swords and daggers as he came, but instead of facing Marshall again, his purple gaze locked on Mayberry.

  “Yu magik?” he said, flicking one of his tails near her right side, the other by her left.

  Mayberry set her jaw and crossed her arms over her chest. “No magic for you.”

  “Yu magik?” he snarled again.

  Mayberry grasped Marshall’s hand tightly and said nothing.

  Troll-man raised his swords, swishing them through the air for effect before leaping forward.

  Neither of them knew if their magic would work again, but they pushed out their arms together and screamed “Get back,” as Troll-man rolled forward. Bolts of bright power ribboned from Marshall’s hands and red miasma from Mayberry’s. The colors merged into a thick stream of pink repelling power that pummeled Troll-man, tossing him up and back twice as far as Marshall’s magic had before.

  Unharmed, the creature rose, methodically gathering his weapons and slipping them back into their scabbards. His face twisted into a wry half grin, and the furrows in his forehead vanished.

  Troll-man approached Marshall and Mayberry calmly, his weapons sheathed. “Goot,” he said, pointing at each of them with a separate pair of hands. “Goot, yu. Yu myne. Yu myne keedluns.”

  “What?” Marshall whispered to Mayberry.

  “I think he’s trying to say that we’re his kids.”

  Marshall shuddered. “Yeah, that’s what it sounds like to me, too. I guess that’s a good thing,” he said. “After all, he did save us from the Sleviccs. Before he killed them all.”

  “Yeah, there is that. He could have killed us, too, but it seems like he was just testing us for magic, which we do have. Maybe it’s an ability that only comes to us when we think we’re in mortal danger.”

  Marshall nodded. That seemed about right.

  “Seet, seet,” Troll-man said, pointing to the ground.

  Marshall suddenly remembered the human who had been watching them. He looked over at him and raised his hands, as if to ask what was going on. The man twitched his shoulders and subtly shook his head.

  “Okay,” Marshall said. That no didn’t really help them right now, but at least they might be able to communicate later.

  He and Mayberry sat on the ground in front of the creature, with the grim remains of the dead Sleviccs behind them.

  “Me Monga,” Troll-man informed them, rapidly pounding his chest with his upper arms. “Me Monga, keedluns no ferget Monga.”

  Marshall elbowed Mayberry and whispered, “Unlikely.”

  Monga opened his enormous mouth, flashing a set of stained square teeth that looked sharp enough to peel the hide off an alligator.

  “Unn li-ikely,” he said, imitating Marshall. It was frightening that he could hear them whisper, but fortunate that he didn’t understand Marshall’s impudence.

  “Yu seet, Monga show . . .”

  CHAPTER 28

  SINCE THEY HAD PASSED his reckless field test, Monga was treating them like friends. Although, technically, they were his prisoners, it seemed the tide of bizarre events might have finally turned in their favor. Maybe this terrible beast would help them get home. Mayberry hated this world. One creature had tried to stomp her to death, another had attempted to gulp her down its huge maw, and others, who walked on two feet no less, had planned to roast her over a spit. She couldn’t get back to Earth soon enough. Having Marshall with her was the only thing keeping her sane. Right now, she was comforted by the fact that he sat next to her, gently holding her hand as Monga began to perform.

  He mumbled garbled gibberish under his breath. His legs moved back and forth with surprising grace while his hooves kicked up small clouds of dust. Mayberry kept expecting his ungainly bulk to pitch over, but Monga kept all his movements comfortably balanced, gesticulating rapidly with his hands to form carefully choreographed motions as his hooves pranced merrily along.

  The bright yellow sun was climbing higher into the sky, and its warmth washed over Mayberry, making her sleepy eyes droop. It took her a second to realize that wherever Monga moved his fingers, a glowing, leaf-green thread appeared. He began to craft double, then triple, overlapping strands of translucent green energy, which hung delicately in the air like a magical spiderweb. Reaching into a leather pouch on his belt marked with intricate red curlicues, Monga withdrew a bright red powder. Pinching it carefully between two thick fingers, he sprinkled the red grains across the strands. With a quick dart of another finger, the red dust glowed faintly, then seeped into the green web. Two red coils formed inside the maze, then began to spin counterclockwise.

  Shocked, Mayberry began to laugh—a bit hysterically—with delight. After all, they had wished for a world with magic, and Monga was putting on a class-A performance.

  He grunted a brief chant while flicking the fingers of his upper right and left hands, and the red coils transformed into bolts of whirling neon-red light. The bolts uncoiled like snakes, darted out of the green vortex, and sped toward the humans, who ducked and held their hands over their faces.

  Monga’s distorted mouth creaked into a smile as the darts swooped around and splattered onto Marshall’s and Mayberry’s backs.

  Mayberry’s head bucked forward as the center of her upper back began to burn. Marshall cried out and began pawing wildly at the same spot between his shoulder blades.

  “What did you do?” Marshall said to Monga, who declined to answer. He was humming contentedly while using his dirty claws to pick his teeth.

  Mayberry had seen the pain on Marshall’s face and gestured for him to turn so she could examine his back. His clo
thes were unmarked.

  “Nothing,” Mayberry whispered. “There’s nothing there.”

  Marshall bent forward, tugging up his jacket and shirt. “But something burned us.”

  “Let me check,” she said, lifting his shirt farther up. She gasped when she saw the angry red swirl engraved on the skin. “It looks like a fresh scar in the shape of a swirl. Does it still hurt?”

  “No. It burned like crazy, but just for a few seconds.”

  She pulled up her sweater and T-shirt, twisting around to reveal her back to him. “Take a look?”

  Marshall sighed. “Same thing. A red spiral, right between your shoulder blades.”

  She waved her hands to get Monga’s attention. “What did you do to us?”

  “Yu Monga’s.” He jerked an upper thumb toward the redheaded human. “Saim Urrn.”

  “Same as . . . your name is Urrn?” Marshall asked, turning to the man. “You speak English, Urrn?”

  Without acknowledging Marshall, Urrn continued gazing into the dust by his feet. For the time being, Mayberry was less interested in Urrn than in whatever Monga had just done to them.

  “What do you mean, we belong to you?”

  “Monga mark. No tak off. Keedluns go, Monga find.”

  Squaring her shoulders, Mayberry stood up with her hands clenched and stepped toward Monga. She was faint, starving, and exhausted. Her weary eyes were sore, her head ached, her brain was barely functioning, and she was fed up.

  “Take the marks off,” she said. “I mean it. You do what I say or . . .”

  While she was threatening him, Monga scribbled a complex yellow pattern in the air with the index fingers of his upper hands. He flicked the fingers, causing an innocuous-looking trail of yellow sparks to race toward Mayberry. The sparks curved around her body before splashing into her mark. Pain surged through the nerves between her shoulder blades, then tore through the rest of her body like lightning. Involuntarily arching her spine, she fell into the grass and began to writhe, trying desperately to escape the agony.