Between Worlds

by Skip Brittenham

  Marshall sprang to his feet. If Monga didn’t stop, he was going to kill Urrn. Mayberry appeared at Marshall’s side, and together they conjured white power spells that began to glow on their fingertips.

  “Stop, Monga, stop,” Mayberry screamed, clearly prepared to attack Monga if she had to.

  Monga looked into the determined faces of the two humans—and at their fingers, poised to fire power at him. His body sagged and he released the pain spell. His purple eyes narrowed, and he shook his head violently, as if trying to deny the fact that Marshall and Mayberry had threatened him with the magic he had taught them. He stomped his hooves in the dust, dropped his head, then headed for the solitude of his tent.

  Marshall and Mayberry reached down to help Urrn to his feet, drawing his arms around their shoulders so they could help him hobble over to his mat by their campsite.

  “Thank you,” Urrn croaked as he lay down and curled into a fetal position. “He was going to kill me.”

  “No, thank you,” Mayberry said, sitting by Urrn’s head while Marshall sat by his feet, patting his leg tentatively. They stayed with him until Urrn fell asleep.

  Later, at dinnertime, Urrn staggered up off his mat to join their meal. They all sat silently, listening to the noises in the forest around them, until suddenly Urrn blurted out, “I don’t know what you did to deserve being exiled here like me, but I’m going to help you escape anyway.”

  Puzzled, Marshall and Mayberry looked at each other. For now, it seemed better not to question their only ally’s motivation too closely.

  CHAPTER 33

  AS MAYBERRY STARTED drifting to sleep, she imagined her mother’s voice floating down the hall outside her bedroom, the smell of her father’s aftershave, and the feeling of warmth from the old cast-iron radiator in her bedroom. She knew, though, that these thoughts didn’t reflect reality. The voice was the faint roar of the river drifting up the canyon, the smell the fragrance of native plants carried on the night breeze, and the warmth the pocket of air created by her body and the insulating yellow blanket.

  There was, however, a pleasant buzzing that wasn’t a figment of her imagination. She lifted her head, rubbed her eyes, and peered around. Marshall slept a few feet away, breathing heavily, while Urrn snored nearby. Then she saw a plump furry brown creature ambling toward her on all fours through the darkness. It had intelligent-looking oval eyes, a moist black snout, long pointy ears, and a fluffy curved tail that sprouted from its neck instead of its bottom. It loped over and nuzzled Mayberry’s cheek, purring like a cat. It leaned back, and as its eyes stared into hers, a pulse of warm, relaxing energy flooded her mind, giving Mayberry a deep sense of calm.

  She reached out to stroke the creature, and as soon as her hand made contact, a sound came to her mind . . . Co-Co. Your name is Co-Co. When she thought the name, the creature whirled joyfully and purred louder. The little animal faced her and began to mimic her every move like a mirror puppet. When she laughed at the performance, Co-Co responded with a contented whistling. Mayberry had no idea how such a small, gentle creature, who looked totally defenseless, could survive for even a day on this scary planet. Co-Co hopped in close to cuddle against Mayberry’s legs, so she laid her head back down and gathered the furry body to her chest like she had her teddy bear when she was a small child. Co-Co radiated enough heat to dispel the night chill. With her new pet nestled beside her, Mayberry slept deeper and better than she had in years.

  Monga didn’t seem surprised or upset to see Co-Co riding Mayberry’s shoulder the next morning. Perhaps interspecies bonding wasn’t unusual in Nith. After all, Urrn had Uuth.

  CHAPTER 34

  MARSHALL WAS HAPPY to encounter another friendly Nith creature, and Co-Co gave him a friendly snuggle before returning to Mayberry’s arms.

  After that day’s magic lesson, Mayberry had an idea. She’d seen some grasses with fine, grain-like tips growing near the clearing, and Urrn had mentioned that they were edible. Monga kept a sweet-smelling, honey-scented sap in a heavy clay pot outside his tent, but Mayberry knew he would notice if even the tiniest bit was missing, so she harvested some sweet brown berries along with her grass.

  She ground the tips, used water and berries to create a soft mush, then shaped the rough dough into patties that resembled her chocolate chip cookies, with the tiny brown berries standing in for chips.

  She put Urrn’s metal pan inside a crude mud oven to bake her mishmash mélange. She wasn’t sure if the results of her experiment would be edible, but when she plucked the cookies out of the oven, they smelled surprisingly good. She tore off a warm piece and popped it into her mouth. The flavor of Nith cookies was unclassifiable by Earth standards, but they still tasted way better than anything she’d eaten here.

  Marshall strolled over and evaluated the pan of cookies, eventually choosing one with crispy edges, while Urrn watched and Uuth slavered, pulling at his leash. Marshall took a tentative bite, smacked his lips, and wolfed the whole thing down. Mayberry nodded for him to take another, which he ate a bit more slowly this time, a look of near rapture on his face.

  Urrn gingerly picked up a cookie from the pan, holding it as delicately as if it were a priceless Ming dynasty vase. He lowered himself onto a tree stump and took a bite.

  “Good,” he said, beaming at Mayberry. He tossed a large crumb into Uuth’s gaping mouth, and the faithful pet nearly danced in delight.

  “Thank you, Mayberry,” Marshall said. “These are amazing. A week ago, we were the Sleviccs’ captives, about to become human barbecue, and now we’re . . . well, we’re still captives . . . but at least we’re learning magic and eating cookies.”

  Urrn wiped his hands on his rough leather pants and looked up pensively. “The Sleviccs wouldn’t have eaten you. Why did you think that?”

  “Because they were roasting a pig-looking animal on a spit, and they had a couple more on tap in a cage,” Mayberry said. “They locked us up in a hut right next to the live ones.”

  Urrn shook his head and sighed. “Those were Varnets. They’re very bad animals—worse than hyenas and harder to catch—but they’re tasty, kinda like a cross between pork and chicken. Isolated Varnets are harmless, but when they form packs, they swarm and take down any vulnerable prey in their path.

  “Sleviccs like humans. I’d been living with them for years when Monga captured me. You must have seen all the artifacts the Sleviccs have collected from human visitors over the centuries.”

  Mayberry was stunned. “So why would the Sleviccs lock us up and light a huge bonfire? And start floating around it before they ate dinner?”

  “I know what happened,” Urrn said, shaking his head. “Once a year, when the three moons align, the Slevicc tribes meditate and pray together, as a way to thank the gods for creating and protecting them. The elders probably locked you away to make sure you didn’t interrupt the ceremony. They believe that breaking even one Slevicc’s trance before the ceremony is completed would cause years of bad luck. They tried to chase you down when they realized you were missing to help you . . . They know how dangerous Nith is . . . and they hate Monga.”

  Mayberry was flabbergasted. Marshall sat down heavily beside her and put his face in his hands. Lost in thought, Mayberry started handing out the remaining cookies from the metal pan. She gave one to Marshall and two more to Urrn.

  Urrn sniffed the cookie before cramming it into his mouth. As he chewed, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes pooled with tears. “Cookies remind me of home,” he said softly. “When I first got here, I’d open my eyes every morning and pray that I was back home. But I never was, because I deserve this.”

  Mayberry was at a loss for words. What could he have done to deserve this? “Did you try to get home?”

  Ignoring Mayberry’s question, he squeezed his eyes shut and started to rock himself back and forth. “We used to play together in the snow, then Mom would make us hot cocoa and brownies.
”

  He slowly opened his eyes, which locked on the remnant of the cookie in his palm. Then, finishing the last bite, he dusted a few crumbs off his clothes, rose, and walked away.

  She turned to face Marshall. “What happened to him?”

  Marshall pursed his lips and rolled his shoulders forward. “I have no idea, but I’m guessing that we’ll find out eventually.”

  CHAPTER 35

  AFTER FIVE MORE DAYS of training, Monga wanted his pupils to demonstrate their repertoire of magic spells. He moved from the practice field to the nearby cliff overlooking the river.

  Monga lifted his chin and grunted in Marshall’s direction. “Yu uman first.”

  Marshall took a few steps forward, close enough to catch a whiff of Monga’s musty fur. He leaned in and stretched out his hands to cast a wind spell. His fingers lit up, and he quickly drew what looked like a soft gray spiderweb in the air, then blew the threads away. A powerful gust of air rose, carrying the camp’s firewood stack up into the air before turning it into a wild tornado of wood that spiraled into the sky. Marshall crooked a finger at the wood, which dropped obediently back into its triangular stack near Monga’s feet.

  Monga snorted his approval. “Goot.” Then he raised one of his upper arms and pointed at Mayberry.

  Mayberry remained in place, thrusting out her hands. She hummed a tune under her breath, and white miasma ripped from her fingers. She traced a pattern of waves into the air, and suddenly the firewood leaped from the ground and began spinning like a propeller, creating an impassable wooden force field. After she twisted her fingers clockwise, each piece of firewood zoomed straight down into the earth, forming a perfectly spaced wooden fence around the camp’s northern perimeter. Then Mayberry spun her index finger counterclockwise, making a small red flame appear at its tip. With a flick of her wrist, she transformed the flame into a towering pillar of fire that whooshed fifty feet into the air. She turned to Marshall with a satisfied match that look.

  Marshall narrowed his eyes and rapidly moved his now-bluish fingers in the air. A giant waterspout materialized and began pelting Mayberry’s fire with shots of water that flicked at it from every direction, throwing punches like a champion boxer. The fire spell resisted the attack, ducking and dodging the piston blows of water while making defiant hissing noises. Still, soon its volume was greatly reduced, and eventually the fire spell succumbed. Wheezing, it extinguished.

  “Is goot, is goot. Keedluns reddy.”

  “Ready. Ready for what?” Marshall asked.

  “Keedluns hep Monga geet steeck, den keel Olathe, den tek all.” Monga drew a finger across his throat and pointed to a range of mountain peaks on the western horizon. “Go dere, keel Olathe.”

  “What stick? Do what? Who is Olathe?” Marshall asked, hoping he had misunderstood what Monga was saying. Clouds of smoke hovered over the angry-looking mountains.

  “Olathe is Monga’s brother,” Urrn interjected. “He wants us to help him kill his older brother.”

  “Why do you want to keel . . . um . . . kill him?” Mayberry asked Monga.

  “Olathe kep mates. Now Monga keel Olathe with steeck, tek mates. Den tek Nith,” Monga answered with a confident nod.

  That night after dinner, Marshall, Mayberry, and Urrn sat by the waning campfire to discuss Monga’s pronouncement.

  Urrn opened the discussion. “Monga’s taught me magic for years, and during the whole time, he’s been constantly searching this area for more humans, which he needs so he can get the ‘stick.’ Now I know why. Monga’s afraid of Olathe because Olathe is more powerful. He must be because he stole Monga’s wives and kept them. Monga thinks if he gets the ‘stick,’ whatever that is, it will help him kill Olathe.”

  “What a mess,” Marshall said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe that we’re going to be risking our lives because of Monga’s girl problems.”

  “I can’t imagine why he has girl problems,” Mayberry replied. “He’s such a charmer. I bet Olathe is, too. But seriously, I think he’s also saying that he wants us to help him conquer this whole world after he gets his wives back?”

  “That’s what it sounded like,” Marshall said, throwing a piece of wood in the fire. “Urrn, do you think we have a chance of getting out of this in one piece?”

  Urrn shook his head soberly and stared into the fire. “Probably not.”

  “I doubt it, too,” Mayberry chimed in. “Monga taught us magic so we could fight for him. He doesn’t care if we live or die, as long as we help him get what he wants.”

  “That might be true, but Monga’s marked us, which means that—at least for now—we have to do what he wants. We can’t beat him,” Urrn said with finality.

  Mayberry instinctively reached a hand back to rub her mark.

  “We need to escape before he takes us into those mountains,” Marshall said, sighing as he pulled the shabby fur blanket up around his shoulders.

  “Yap,” she agreed, and then winced. “I mean, yes. We have to make our move as soon as we can.”

  Urrn looked concerned, but he still nodded his assent. “How will we know when the time to chance a fight with him is right? We need a plan.”

  The three of them moved their heads together with their backs facing Monga’s tent and started whispering.

  CHAPTER 36

  THE AIR THE NEXT MORNING was cold and brittle, and an odd, cloying scent drifted past. The sun, muted under dense gray cloud cover, looked more like a distant street lamp than a viable source of heat.

  To encourage his protégées to get serious about packing up and preparing for what was coming, Monga stomped his hooves ferociously while shouting unintelligible orders.

  Mayberry, Marshall, and Urrn all labored with brisk efficiency, using various spells to speed up the process. Co-Co padded around, happily following in Mayberry’s footsteps. The camp was dismantled in no time, the bundles were neatly tied on Uuth’s back, and almost too soon, they were ready to go.

  Monga started shuffling down the river trail. After an hour of leading his slaves on a fast-paced hike, he turned onto a muddy path that passed through a forest of squat, smoke-gray trees. The trees had spiky branches that flowed down to the ground and fought for space, like rolls of twisted barbed wire. Spindly plants filled in the gaps. Without the narrow space created by the trail, the thicket would be impassible.

  As the sunlight faded, an energetic Monga and the panting hikers exited the dense forest. With the woods behind them now, they stopped to pitch camp on an open meadow that faced a vista of rolling hills. Herds of mammoth-size creatures grazed in the distance.

  “Should we be worried about those?” Mayberry asked Urrn, pointing to the nearest herd.

  “They won’t bother us,” Urrn said. “They’re herbivores—not aggressive at all. You’ll see tomorrow. There are packs of two-headed carnivores that can bring down beasts even as large as those, but they hunt at night and try to avoid Monga’s kind.”

  Mayberry shrugged off the heavy bundle she’d been carrying. The uneven weight of her burden wasn’t easy to balance, nor were her body’s muscles accustomed to hauling such a heavy load. Casting spells required continuous focus, so magic only worked in short bursts for physical tasks; she couldn’t just levitate her pack and keep it floating next to her all day. She watched Marshall massaging the tender spots on his own shoulder blades.

  “I’ll do yours if you do mine,” she suggested.

  Marshall’s eyes closed in relief. “That works. Who goes first?”

  “It was my idea, so me first,” she said, smiling and presenting her back to him.

  “You stink,” Marshall said, placing his hands on her shoulders, then quickly drawing them off.

  She grinned. “I know, but I haven’t had a real bath in . . . like, since before we got here.”

  “That’s not what I meant—but actually, right now we both
smell,” he said. “This may hurt you . . . I mean . . . touching Monga’s mark.”

  She sighed and her head slumped forward. “Can we just try for a second? I’m desperate, and those mountains look just as far away as they did when we started hiking.”

  “Fine,” he said starting to knead her shoulders with strong hands. “That okay?”

  Mayberry hummed her assent, and Co-Co ran to jump into her lap and started purring. She gently said, “We hiked on the trail all day.”

  “True, but we had to stay on the trail to get through the forest,” he pointed out. “From here we can go cross-country in any direction Monga wants. And we have no idea where that precious stick is.”

  Urrn met Marshall’s quizzical look and shook his head no. “I’ve heard that it exists, but that’s about it.”

  After a blissful interval, Marshall patted her shoulders one last time, then stopped. Mayberry stretched out her arms and stood up. Her lower back and hips were still sore, but her upper back felt much looser. She shifted behind Marshall and pulled down his hoodie, then started massaging his shoulders. They were broader and stronger than she’d expected, and she had to work hard to break up the tense muscle.

  “That’s good,” he muttered happily, slowly expelling his breath.

  The next morning, Monga set a brisk pace straight into the forest. Flocks of low-flying birdlike creatures zipped past them, while a red, leather-winged beast almost as large as a pterodactyl soared through the gray clouds. It banked sharply above them, then swooped down, leading with its yard-long, needle-sharp yellow beak. Before it could attack, its keen eyes spotted the red luminescence forming on Monga’s beefy fingers, at which point it darted away, keening.