Between Worlds

by Skip Brittenham

  Marshall wheeled to attack Monga with the only spell he knew. But before he could fire it, Monga blew air over his fingertips, conjuring a gray wind spell so powerful that it undercut Marshall’s legs, tumbling him roughly to the ground. Then Monga cast the same yellow spell again and lit up Marshall’s mark. Marshall howled and threw himself on the ground next to Mayberry, rolling back and forth in an attempt to extinguish the intense pain emanating from the neon-red mark now glowing through his shirt.

  Excruciating as it had been when it first hit, the pain kept growing and spreading through Mayberry’s body like poison. It felt as though thousands of fire ants were devouring her flesh from the inside.

  Monga made a sharp, chopping gesture with his index fingers, and the pain stopped. He’d just given them their first and most important magic lesson: this was what would happen if they tried to defy him.

  Covered in sweat, Mayberry struggled to sit up, terrified that Monga might suddenly decide that releasing more pain would reinforce his point.

  Water streamed from the corner of Marshall’s bloodshot eyes as he struggled to his feet, his legs trembling.

  Monga gazed smugly at Marshall and Mayberry, his purple eyes full of anticipation, waiting to see if there was anything else they wanted to share with him.

  Urrn continued to look away.

  “We’re his slaves now,” Mayberry whispered. “He just made that perfectly clear,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes.

  “You think he can really use magic to track us, and do this to us no matter where we are?”

  “I wouldn’t bet against it.”

  Marshall tilted his head toward Urrn. “Now we know that he’s a slave, too. Who knows how long Monga’s had him.”

  “Absolutely,” she replied, feeling more helpless than she ever had before. Scratches, shallow cuts, and bruises covered her body, she smelled disgusting, and so did her filthy clothes. She had barely enough energy to move. Every time she began to sense a tiny bit of hope, things only got worse.

  CHAPTER 29

  IGNORING HIS NEW SLAVES, Monga signaled to Urrn that it was time to leave the clearing.

  “Uuth,” Urrn said to his pet, tugging sharply on its leather leash. The creature ambled happily after him, this planet’s version of a faithful sheepdog.

  Marshall was glad to leave the dead Sleviccs behind. Their bodies had become puddles of putrid yellow gore pooled around piles of bones. Marshall and Mayberry picked their way around the remains, but Monga had no such compunction, freely crunching and cracking Slevicc bones with his hooves as he moved toward the river trail.

  “Soon dair,” he grunted.

  “I hope there’s food where we stop,” Mayberry mumbled at Marshall. “I keep thinking I’m going to black out.”

  “Just hang on,” Marshall said as he stumbled wearily along the path. “He wants to use us—he’s not going to starve us to death.”

  After a short, steep climb, they reached a grassy knoll that overlooked the river flowing twenty feet below them. Marshall heard the familiar thunder of the rapids echoing up the steep stone cliffs.

  Once they’d stopped, Urrn untied the packages that the creature carried on its back. Marshall was amazed at the sheer volume of stuff the beast was able to haul. Urrn pulled tent poles and a waxed woven cloth off the mound that was now piled on the ground. They helped Urrn put up Monga’s outsized cloth tent. He used crude hand signals to direct Mayberry and Marshall during the setup. The tent’s faded brown weave was covered with multicolored patterns that mirrored the curlicues on his belt pouches. Occasionally, as they pitched the rest of the camp, Urrn drew his own patterns in the air and flicked his fingers, using magic to speed up the process.

  While all this frenetic activity was going on, Monga leaned his right haunch casually against a large boulder. After watching them scramble for a while, he withdrew a packet of crushed leaves from his leather pouch and stuffed them into a curved clay pipe. He lit the leaves with a flick of his finger, then began inhaling the smoke through his mouth and exhaling it through his ears. Finally, he nodded to indicate that the camp was pitched to his satisfaction, and ambled into his tent.

  Urrn spread blankets made from woven strips of furry yellow hide onto the ground outside of their new overlord’s tent. Even though it was still daytime, Mayberry and Marshall collapsed onto the hides, lying next to each other in an awkward heap.

  Urrn dug into a soft brown animal-bladder sack and withdrew a gray, gooey-looking ball. He ripped off a piece with his thumb and forefinger, tossed it into his mouth, and began to chew.

  Mayberry’s and Marshall’s bodies went rigid. They both bolted up. Food.

  He took two more dough balls from the sack and handed them to the newcomers. Marshall’s was green, Mayberry’s orange. Urrn used his back molars to chomp into his ball, chewing just a few times before swallowing.

  “Good,” he grunted.

  Mayberry was startled and looked over at Marshall, who raised his eyebrows in wonder.

  “You speak English,” Marshall confirmed to Urrn.

  Urrn grunted tersely and tore off another piece of food.

  Mayberry and Marshall exchanged glances. Until now, Urrn had communicated solely with grunts or hand signals. This was a small improvement, but he still didn’t seem ready to freely communicate.

  Marshall held his sticky green ball and gave it a squeeze. He tore off a chunk with his teeth and rolled the chalky substance around his mouth. He was going to spit it into the dirt, but having something edible in his mouth triggered intense hunger pains. It seemed like the wrong time to contemplate whether or not it was safe to eat. He glanced over at Mayberry, who was sniffing her own meal suspiciously.

  Marshall chewed until his jaw ached, but it was hard to break the tough substance down into pieces that were small enough to swallow. The unfamiliar taste of fermented milk and rotting grain made his stomach roil, so he forced himself to swallow a few of the smaller pieces whole. It wasn’t that bad. Some people on Earth considered fried insects, raw fish, and animal organs to be delicacies, so eating this—whatever it was—couldn’t be that much worse. Or maybe it could.

  Mayberry, who hadn’t taken a bite yet, looked like she barely had enough energy left to laugh, but she did.

  “What?”

  “You look like you’re eating a live mouse.”

  “A live mouse might taste better than this. Urrn, is this the only food you have?”

  “It’s very filling and nutritious,” Urrn declared, devouring another mouthful.

  Progress, Marshall thought.

  “What is it?”

  Urrn didn’t respond, but at least he was starting to communicate.

  Meanwhile, if they had to eat raw putty, they’d eat raw putty.

  They were lucky to be alive. He finished eating his ball. Mayberry steadily ate small pieces of her orange ball until the whole thing was gone.

  After finishing, she cleared her throat and scooted over to Urrn. “How long have you been . . . here?” Mayberry asked. “Are there other people here, too?”

  Urrn slowly lifted up his head and responded, his face blank. “I’ve never seen other humans before,” he said in a monotone. “I’ve been here for many, many years, but don’t know where we are.”

  “Well, you must be from Earth,” Marshall exclaimed. “You’re human. And you speak English.”

  Urrn looked up at the sky for a minute, thinking hard, then dropped his head and went mute.

  “Okay,” Marshall interjected gently, trying a different tack. “I wonder what the inhabitants call this world.”

  Urrn took a few seconds before mumbling “Nith” into his knees.

  “Nith?” Marshall said encouragingly.

  “It means . . . something like . . . Earth.”

  “Can you speak Monga’s language?” M
ayberry asked.

  “Our vocal cords aren’t built for that.” Urrn seemed to be growing more comfortable conversing with them, for now. “I taught him enough English for us to communicate. On Earth, my name sounds different, but on his tongue it is pronounced Urrn. You can call me that too.”

  Mayberry touched Urrn’s shoulder softly. “Have you ever tried to get home?”

  Urrn hunched down and backed away from Mayberry, then rose and walked briskly away. Urrn’s will has been broken, and now he’s a slave trapped in a living hell, Marshall thought. He swore to himself that he’d jump off the cliff with Mayberry in tow before becoming a zombie like Urrn.

  CHAPTER 30

  THE NEXT MORNING, Urrn tended to the crude metal pan, holding it steadily over the campfire’s open flame. Breakfast was made from the same dough balls, this time pounded flat with a wooden mallet, torn into narrow strips, and fried in animal fat. It was crisp and easier to chew, and the flavor was somewhat less loathsome.

  Monga exited his tent, stretched all his arms out, scratched his belly with four hands, and then trotted over to them just as they finished their meal.

  “Teech keedluns magik,” he announced with a casual wave of his hands.

  Mayberry was pleasantly surprised by his declaration, but she had no idea how much instruction they’d need before having a fighting chance to escape. Of course, she was happy to take advantage of every opportunity Monga offered to teach her how to summon her powers.

  Monga pushed out his chest and pounded it with his fists. “Keedluns bettr if yu magik. Magik, hep Monga.”

  “Yes, Monga. That’s what we’re all about. Learning how to do magic to help you,” she responded. The sarcasm dripping from her voice was beyond Monga’s tenuous understanding of the human language.

  Monga took them to an open meadow nearby. He started the lessons by uttering what sounded like “Loofackle,” then demonstrating a quick gesture with his fingers to move and direct small objects, like pebbles and sticks. Then he waved a hand to indicate that Marshall should use the spell to lift a small pile of dirt.

  Marshall did his best to mimic the word Monga had used, along with the corkscrewing finger motion with his right fingers. The dust on top of the pile dimpled slightly, as if a raindrop had struck, but nothing else happened.

  Monga swatted the back of Marshall’s head with one of his tails.

  “Hey!” Marshall yelped, bringing his hand to his head, then looking at the trace of blood on his fingers.

  “Keedlun no lerrn,” Monga said, shaking his head in disapproval.

  “He’s trying, Monga,” said Mayberry plaintively.

  Monga crossed his sets of arms. “Try mo.”

  Then Monga crooked a finger at Mayberry.

  “Keedlun do. Do.”

  Mayberry closed her eyes to focus, then opened them, chanted the mysterious word, and moved her fingers the way Monga had showed them.

  A soft white glow formed around her fingers, then bolted into the pile, blasting it into a dust cloud that spun lazily in a clockwise circle before floating to the ground. Mayberry was dumbstruck. She’d actually done a spell . . . and without the compelling motivation of fighting for her life.

  “Mo bettr,” Monga decreed, flicking his tail in the dust next to Marshall’s legs, making him jump to attention.

  Marshall had a clearer idea of how to sound out the chant after hearing Mayberry do it, so he concentrated harder and tried again with the accompanying movement. A dim white light flared from his fingers, and his dirt formed a loose sloppy oval in the air before falling to the ground, looking exactly the same as all the other debris.

  “I did it,” he shouted happily to Mayberry. “Can you believe it?”

  “Mo bettr,” Monga said, ignoring the self-congratulation. “Do mo.”

  CHAPTER 31

  FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Monga drilled them as relentlessly as Navy SEAL trainees.

  First, he taught them how to do simple power spells that required only a word and gesture. The specific words necessary to cast a spell never meant anything to Marshall, but during the third day of training, he discovered that he didn’t need to vocalize the words to cast spells, as long as he thought them clearly while performing the correct gestures. The necessary gestures weren’t hard to master, only requiring their fingers to be splayed, pressed together, or fisted, then moved at the right pace in the right direction.

  When he cast a spell the right way, he could feel the energy zap into his body and then coalesce in his fingers. He saw that many of the spells’ colors and characteristics mirrored those of the basic elements. Fire spells were red, water blue, wind gray, and earth brown. Basic kinetic energy power spells were usually bright white.

  They mastered the beginning lessons so quickly that Monga soon moved them up to more complicated conjuring. The most powerful spells involved more difficult words, intricate gestures, and occasionally whole-body movements that reminded Marshall of modern dance.

  Before long, he could use power spells to lift and direct objects as heavy as boulders or big as trees, brown earth spells to create fissures in the ground or cause earthquakes, gray wind spells to manipulate the air or create small tornadoes to blow objects apart, or blue water spells to conjure giant floating whirlpools or spit torrents of water. With a thought and the flick of an index finger, he could summon a red fire spell, which created a tiny flame that—with another thought—shot from his fingers and exploded into a stream of fire that engulfed the target he aimed for.

  Each day it became easier for Marshall to remember new spells. It was as if his DNA had been programmed to do magic, the way babies are wired to crawl, walk, and babble. Monga’s demands rose with each increase in their skill. He indicated his displeasure for even the slightest of errors with gruff words or flicks of the tail.

  Mayberry’s spells were more naturally beautiful and perfectly formed than Marshall’s. It was amazing to see how her artistic talent flowered, even in the most difficult of times.

  One day before breakfast, Marshall saw that Mayberry had woven some flowers into her hair and stuffed her pockets with leaves and grass.

  “Marshall, I have a hunch that Nith’s organic elements can increase our powers—just the way the feathers did.”

  She was absolutely right, and they immediately saw the effects of their spells increase. That night they braided bits of wood, grass and bones into their hair, made bracelets of fur, and used the hole-punch on Marshall’s pocketknife to drill through soft stones, which they strung and wore as pendants. They offered one to Urrn, who nodded and put it around his neck. The next morning in the bright sunlight, they all looked like Lost Boys from Peter Pan.

  The combination of intense focus, exercise, sunshine, and protein-packed dough balls were making Marshall and Mayberry mentally tougher and physically stronger. The days and nights started to blend into each other, so Marshall decided to keep track of time by carving a hash mark for every day on a stick. He stored it in his backpack.

  The next morning at breakfast, Mayberry looked at Urrn, who was feeding innards from one of Monga’s recent kills to his pet. “Do you think we’ll ever see our parents again?”

  Urrn ignored her question.

  Mayberry rested her head on Marshall’s shoulder, and he put his arm around her waist and tilted his head against hers. Marshall detested being enslaved on Nith just as much as Mayberry. The good news was that he had saved her life more than once. He did occasionally catch her looking at him in a new way. If they ever got home, things might be different between them.

  After each day’s harsh regime of magical training, avoiding Monga’s wrath, and completing various backbreaking camp chores, Marshall was exhausted. The nights were chilly, but thankfully, not as cold as autumn in Minnesota. Marshall and Mayberry had new mats Urrn had taught them to weave out of jungle vines, and covered themselves with the yellow a
nimal fur blankets that Urrn had given them.

  CHAPTER 32

  DURING AN ESPECIALLY GRUELING training session, Monga demanded that Mayberry hold a heavy mass of swirling water in place fifty feet up in the air. She lost her focus for a second, the water spell broke, and the cold water pelted down, soaking them all to the bone.

  “We all needed a good shower,” Marshall said laughing, pointing at the dirt turned muddy on his clothes, then nodding at Monga’s dripping fur. Monga hated getting wet and always went into his tent at the first sign of a drizzle.

  Enraged by the water covering his precious fur, Monga whirled his fingers and muttered for at least ten seconds. A sparking ball of yellow coalesced in his palm and divided into two marble-size yellow comets, which shot toward Mayberry and Marshall. Like guided missiles, they swooped around the humans’ backs and splashed into their marks.

  In an instant, they had both crumpled into the grass, reduced to whimpering puddles of agony, while Urrn crouched nearby, patting Uuth’s head. The pain spread into Marshall’s eyes—it felt like a bag of pins was being driven into them—but he dimly managed to perceive a blurry shadow jumping in front of Monga.

  “Monga, stop!” Urrn shouted.

  Marshall gasped in relief as the burning eased and his eyes regained their ability to focus. Monga was staring intently at his empty fingers, clearly surprised—Urrn’s intervention made him lose his concentration.

  Monga’s lips drew away from his teeth to roar out a pain spell, and his fingers flashed over and over until a bright yellow fireball rotated in his palm. He unleashed it on Urrn.

  After it struck its mark, it was glowing so hot that Marshall could feel the heat radiating from Urrn’s back. The intensity of the pain knocked Urrn to the ground. Then Monga stepped in and started whipping him bloody with the tips of his tails.