by Amber Stuart
And I had, sort of.
The symbol formed a pyramid.
The one I saw drawn in that thread didn’t look like anything I’d seen on Earth, though, not at Giza or anywhere else.
In one fluid motion, the female crouched in front of me.
Her words came out strange-sounding, almost underwater. Like Nihkil’s, they also didn't seem to match the movement of her lips.
I found I understood her, though, just like I had him.
"What are you?" she said.
I glanced reflexively at Nihkil.
The orange eyes swiveled, following mine.
"Does this morph belong to you?" the woman asked, her voice polite.
I looked at Nihkil again, then shook my head.
"No," I said, fighting to think, even as I shook my head again. "No. I don't know him. He helped me out in a tight spot, but––"
"Do you know why is he refusing to change?”
I stared at her. “What?”
“You control his lock. Is that not so?”
I blinked up at the woman with the braids, bewildered. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I barely know the guy. He helped me out...” I looked around where I crouched, staring up at that purple-blue sky. “...I ended up here. I don't know where I am."
"How did you happen to violate our portal, friend? You are Pharei, are you not?"
"I’m a what?"
The woman frowned at me, pursing her lips. Something in that gaze made me really, really nervous suddenly. I don’t think it was just the freaky orange eyes.
Well. Not only that.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “That thing you said? Pharay. I don’t think I’m that.”
The woman’s face didn’t change.
"Who closed the portal, friend?" she said.
"I really don't understand," I stammered. “...Really.”
"You do understand," the woman insisted. "Our portal... it is now broken. You know this will mean war... ? War over the remaining door? It could only be thus. You did this."
I only shook my head again.
It felt like it was the only thing I had to hold on to, the fact that I really didn’t know anything.
"I really, really don't understand,” I said, speaking slowly as I stared into those opaque irises. “You get that I’m new here, right? That I don’t belong?" I glanced at Nihkil, seemingly outside of my control. “...He knows. He knows where I come from... that I don’t belong here. I'm not...” I shook my head, fighting for the right words. “...I really don't know anything about this place. I can’t start a war...” Swallowing again, I met the woman's gaze. "Seriously. Where am I right now? What is this place called?"
The robed female followed my glance back towards Nihkil.
Her orange eyes shone like blown glass.
"You are attached to this morph,” she said. “I can see it.” Pausing, she made her words carry a faint cajole. “...I can keep him safe. Tell us how you closed the door. Tell us, and he will live."
"She is lying," Nihkil said.
His sharp voice caused me to turn.
Oh, and to jump about a foot.
The female with the orange eyes blinked transparent lids at him, as if in warning.
"I would be silent if I were you, morph,” she said. “Your current owner may be fond of you... but your new owners may not feel so well-disposed."
"She is innocent," Nihkil said. “...a blarg from that world. She knows nothing. She followed me through the gate. That is all. It is a mistake."
“Listen to him,” I began, insistent, but the women spoke over me.
"You are lying," she countered, glancing at me before looking back at Nihkil. “You are both lying. It is clear enough to all of us that this female owns you. Your shape conforms to hers... reacts to hers. She holds your lock. Do you deny it?"
"She is innocent," he said. "I can only tell you the truth. She is not Pharei. She is not Malek. If you wish to punish someone for this problem... punish me."
The woman stared at him, those large eyes unblinking.
Then her gaze swiveled back to me, as if she were examining a specimen of some exotic animal. After a pause, she made a strange, trilling sound, but for some reason, it came across more like a sigh.
"Her blood tests are strange," the woman conceded, seeming to speak to Nihkil once more, even as her eyes remained on me. "It is possible she is not Pharei." She looked at Nihkil directly. “...But she is clearly human. If you are telling the truth, then you brought out as a sample, an unregistered being. That is forbidden.”
“It was a mistake...” Nihkil began, but she talked over him.
“...You brought a sample, and then you closed the door... or else she closed it behind you. Explain how you closed the gate, and why you brought her, and we will spare you both. Explain how both of these things occurred, and the connection between them, and we will not hurt her any further...”
"I cannot explain," Nihkil said.
"You must."
"Yet, I cannot," Nihkil said, his eyes and voice holding regret. "I have told you all I know. She followed me through the gate. The jump was different that time... painful. The lock hurt me. I left through the Pharei gate, yet found myself coming out through the Malek gate, even though I used the same portal. The key was given to me personally, by my handlers among the Pharei. I cannot explain anything other than this. I do not know how any of these things occurred...”
"Why did you bring the sample?" the woman pressed. "Why bring her through, if you are innocent? Why would you need her, unless you intended to close the gate?"
"I had no such intention, mistress," Nihkil repeated. “It was a mistake.”
"That is implausible. You must realize this."
"I do," Nihkil said. "And yet I cannot tell you anything else."
A silence descended.
Again, the female with the orange eyes seemed to create it, her dark orange eyes fixed unblinkingly on Nihkil.
But I’d been trying to follow the conversation, too, and suddenly, a number of disparate pieces clicked together in the more aware parts of my brain. Once they had, I felt the blood drain from my face. Replaying their words, I tried to get a different answer, but I couldn't.
“Closed?” I echoed faintly.
The two robed figures and Nihkil turned, staring at me.
Nihkil's eyes met mine for the first time since I'd been been inside that ring of white stones. They shone a pale brown color, almost yellow, but as I watched, they morphed into a darker green. Just then, a screech in the air overhead drew my eyes upwards... just in time to see a blue-green lizard the size of a German Shepherd wing overhead.
It opened its mouth, breaking the silence with another high, screaming cry.
Fighting a deepening sense of unreality, I looked back at the woman with the orange eyes.
“The door to my world?” I said. “It’s closed, you said?”
Neither of the people in robes, nor any of those wearing gray uniforms, nor Nihkil himself made a sound. None of them looked away from my face.
I cleared my throat, staring around at all of them.
“How closed?” I said.
7
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
THE WOMAN WITH the strange eyes stared at me, unblinking, her eyes shifting from one part of my face to the other.
Then her gaze shifted back towards Nihkil.
"Is this evasion?" she said.
I wasn’t sure if she meant me or Nihkil.
I watched those orange eyes shift back to my face.
"She has already been implanted," she said, seeming to speak to Nihkil that time. "Tell us how you came upon her. Tell us what she is... or we will let the humans abuse her."
Implanted? I thought.
Some part of my brain and body were slowly catching up with the events of the past however-many minutes and hours, making my breath come harder as I stared up
at the sky. I looked at Nihkil and saw conflict in his expression, too, what might have been worry. Looking over his bruised and cut face, I wondered suddenly if he really felt as indifferent towards me as he’d been acting. I wondered at what the woman said, too, about me “owning” him.
But I couldn’t remember her exact words well enough to make sense of that, either.
I remembered the blank look on Nihkil’s face while the men had been circling me like wolves, and something else occurred to me.
He thought they’d hurt me more, if it seemed like he cared.
Which meant he did care, maybe a little.
I looked at the orange-eyed woman and caught her staring between the two of us, me and Nihkil.
My gaze drifted to the men in the gray scuba suits. Looking around at their faces, I realized they were still waiting to get back to it. They wanted these robe-wearing weirdos to leave, so they could resume their rape and beating of the dumb girl from another world. It occurred to me in the same set of breaths that I knew something else.
They were going to kill him... Nihkil.
They had no intention of letting him live. That's what Nihkil meant, when he told me the woman was lying that she'd keep him safe.
That pissed me off. I mean, I didn't know the guy at all, or even what he was, but I knew Nihkil didn't deserve to die. He tried to help me with that mark, even though he seemed to know it would put him at risk. He tried to protect me here, too, even if he hadn't exactly done a stellar job. He had a good heart, whatever he was.
A lot better of one than any of these other assholes.
"What do you want to know?" I said, looking at the woman with the orange eyes.
"Do not tell her anything," Nihkil said. "Please. It will not help me."
"What is she?" I asked Nihkil, without looking away from the alien woman’s face. "She and this other guy. They’re different from the others, right?”
"The others are human. She is hybrid. A supernatural."
"What does that mean?"
"She has powers. She is like...” There was a pause. I saw his eyes tighten, almost like whatever he was using to translate his words couldn’t handle this topic. “...Witch," he said finally. "A person who sees. Who makes things happen. She can make people sick... cause pain. She is dangerous. It is a small percentage, very small, who are born like her. One in several hundred thousand. Maybe even more rare than this. She is like me, but not."
“Like you?”
“But not,” he corrected.
Deciding to leave that alone for the moment, I looked back at Nihkil, then at the soldiers in the gray scuba suits. "That's why they fear her?"
"Yes."
"And what are you, Nihkil?"
He hesitated, as if reluctant.
Then he looked directly at my face.
"I am morph.” At what must have been a blank look from me, his voice grew impatient. “Morph. Changeling. Shifter.” At my continued blank stare, his frown deepened. “I do not know the correct term for your world... they are the only names I have."
I frowned. “Are you going to tell me what they actually mean?"
He blinked at me, as if startled. Then he sighed. "It is complicated. I can change. Change bodies... change what I am. I work for humans."
“Doing what?”
“Traveling. Shifting. Creating hybrids.”
I fought for some way to make sense of this, then went back to one of the few parts that still made sense to me. “You work for them?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
He hesitated again. “Sometimes.”
I frowned, still feeling like he wasn’t telling me something.
Well, maybe a lot of somethings.
"Why?" I said finally.
"It is complicated," he said again.
Still frowning, I just looked at him for a moment. When I glanced back at the orange-eyed witch, she was staring between me and Nihkil, as if trying to figure out a puzzle that eluded her grasp.
"What do they want with me?" I asked, looking back at Nihkil. "Why would they be interested in me at all?"
"You came through the door...” Nihkil began. He hesitated, looking at the two figures he'd called hybrids. “...There are anomalies in your being here. Things that make no sense. They are trying to understand. Why you came through. Why the door closed."
"What does that mean?" I said. "About the door being closed?"
He hesitated, looking at the female hybrid.
The woman's eyes had narrowed.
By her expression, she was trying to decide if our conversation constituted some kind of trick. At the same time, a faint light had come to those large eyes, like a spark of understanding. Whatever it meant, Nihkil seemed to notice it, too. I watched his expression grow taut as he watched the woman warily.
The woman was looking at me alone now, though, almost smiling.
"You are from the First Planet," she said. "He thinks so, anyway."
At my bewildered look, the woman's smile only grew.
"It is possible, yes,” she said. “It could explain why you are different. It could explain why both gates led there... the one here, on Trinith, and the one on Udael. It could explain why you could shift here, without the process killing you. It could also perhaps explain why the door closed upon your arrival."
To see those deadened eyes so animated made my breath falter.
Whatever the woman was talking about, she was a little too exited about it.
Screams erupted around us.
I blinked in confusion, looking around at the gray-clad soldiers.
I was still trying to make sense of the fear on their faces... when the entire group scattered back, fleeing the glass-rock gully. They ran in a disjointed mass, like animals trying to escape a hungry predator that’s leapt unexpectedly into their midst. I still knelt on the rocks as the soldiers began to fan out, initially knocking into one another in their urgency to get away. Their collective fear shot adrenaline through my limbs, pushing me to stumble back to my feet, even with the two hybrids bent over me.
Once I got vertical, I stared around, trying to discern the threat.
I felt nothing but a hot breeze that whipped my hair around my face and neck, stinging my cheeks.
Only the female hybrid didn't move.
The male straightened when I did, staring around with a calmer but equally urgent stare.
The female hybrid looked up, staring at my face as though I was a rare and valuable animal she wanted to stuff and mount on her wall.
I found my eyes kept returning to that flat gaze, even as I tried to figure out why all the scuba-suit soldiers ran way. I was still looking between her, the soldiers and the waving trees under the wind, when a sudden, sick feeling hit my stomach. When I looked at the woman, I remembered what Nihkil had said about her being a witch.
Then a shadow fell over all four of us, and my eyes shifted upwards.
A giant shape filled the space above the rock-strewn ravine.
Dark blue in color, its rounded edges confused me. They somehow made it look both like something man-made and something that came out of nature... not something alive, but more like a boulder, or maybe the side of a cliff. A set of thick wheels rotated on both sides, still high above the rocks and trees. Despite how far off the ground the thing was, it loomed large enough to blot out the sun and that purplish-blue sky.
A sudden, sharp cry jerked my eyes back to the ground.
Nihkil had tackled the tall woman with the orange eyes and white braids.
The woman was strong, though, and Nihkil's arms were still bound behind his back. I watched in stunned surprise as they struggled on the sharp rocks, still trying to wrap my head around that thing in the sky.
Then the hybrid started to overpower Nihkil.
She knelt on his chest, her hand on his shoulder, pinning him to the ground with the glass shard. He somehow managed
to get his hands untied in those few seconds... but he still couldn't get the woman off him. I looked around for the male hybrid, but he stood a few dozen yards away now, near the trees. He stared up at the sky, without seeming to notice the scene he’d left behind.
When Nihkil cried out, I looked down. He writhed under her, trying to get free, but the hybrid woman held his wrist in long, spider-like fingers. Nihkil looked up at me, then, his eyes exuding a pale desperation.
He didn’t say what I’d expected him to say.
"Run!" he said. "Run now! The ship is help... they will find you!"
But I’d already fallen back to the ground, landing more or less on my hurt knees again. I ignored the pain, as well as the cuts and the torn stockings and my bruised feet and hands.
Instead, I scrabbled to get my fingers around the biggest piece of rock I could find.
I hefted it up with my bound hands, hesitating when I couldn’t decide how to avoid hitting Nihkil, whether or not I managed to hit the woman’s head. The sounds from above got louder as I hesitated, terrifyingly loud. The ground shook. It vibrated my head, my hands, my whole body. The shadow darkened, leaving us in a near-twilight on those rocks.
I looked up in that split-second, caught a bare glimpse of blue hull and yellow light, then that was gone, too. The roaring got louder.
The white face of the female hybrid looked up, too.
I saw my chance.
Jumping a half-step to make up for the low gravity, I kicked out, hard, using all of my weight as I aimed for the hybrid's shoulder.
It worked, sort of. My kick didn’t get her off Nihkil entirely, but managed to move her enough that Nihkil was out of my line of aim with the rock.
Before the orange-eyed woman could recover, I heaved that heavy glass stone at her head, grunting as it left my fingers.
The canyon fell into night.
The stone hit the skull-like head, knocking her sideways.
Watching me, Nihkil followed the motion, twisting as soon as the white fingers loosened around his wrists. He got out from under the hybrid, half-crawling to where I stood. I grabbed his arm once he was close enough and he cried out, startling me, but also reminding me of his injury.