He simply stared at her as if he didn’t trust anything to be real and she pulled her hand away, her eyes going to the bandages on the shoulder opposite his scars.
“May I tend to you?” Cherry asked, her hands already unfastening the bandages.
His hands had snapped up to stop her, her eyes going wide where he held them, but he let them go when he realized his folly. For a moment, he had panicked, thinking only that it was all he had left from his own time.
“Sorry… If it’s no trouble, I don’t mind,” he said, awkwardly mimicking what was polite to say.
Her hands hesitated as he let go, but she started to undo the wrappings. The bruises underneath were black and angry, the wounds shut but scaled with tender scabs. She gently pressed on his chest, so he would step back and dipped her fingers in the basin on the dresser.
He took a sharp intake of breath as her fingers dripped cool water over the wounds. His muscles jumped at the trails of her ministrations, watching as the scabs seemed to melt away, fresh pink knitted skin underneath them. The bruises faded from purple to green to yellow, not gone but faded.
“Last night—” he started slowly.
Cherry nodded, her eyes on her work as she healed the wounds. He could see the human blue of her eyes swirl into the surreal cerulean as she went.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you, but you should know what you’re dealing with,” she said, her voice edged with both apology and defensiveness. She blinked and those eyes were normal once more.
“You seem like you’re capable of handling yourself, so why do you need me?” he wondered, but something in her eyes pleaded with him not to abandon her.
“If we are so capable, then why am I so scared? You don’t think I used to believe myself capable of anything? I wanted to believe it was only a dream,” she added, wringing her hands.
Her eyes had wandered back over to the three angry scars.
“I don’t suppose there is enough water magic in all of the Realms of Men to heal those,” he said, her eyes meeting his.
“There is no magic. It is the Flame God’s Mark. I am only a Maiden,” she reminded, suddenly backing away as if only then realizing how close she still stood.
She finally noticed he was holding the key, which made him realize it as well. He held it towards her.
“I meant to give this back,” he told her, but she was shaking her head, waving her hands in negation.
“No, keep it. You might need it,” she told him and he tucked it away.
“Yeah, you never know when it will come in handy for naked frightened women to throw soap at you,” he joked.
Cherry looked startled then laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“You didn’t! I told you after dark!” she admonished.
“I was a little early,” he said with a smirk. “Hey… do you see writing on this key? Like runes…”
Cherry frowned, taking it for inspection but handing it back.
“No, why?” she asked.
He stifled a sigh. Anything could have happened to it over the 12 year in between. So much for that.
“Never mind. Don’t know why I asked,” he mumbled, tucking it away.
She shook her head and started to leave.
“Take your time and get ready. I’ll be in the bar. We can start looking whenever you’re ready. There’s a spot just outside of the city that I’ll take you to,” she informed, leaving the details hanging.
She didn’t need to say more; he already knew. She closed the door behind her and he stared at it, still not quite sure if he’d blink and be somewhere else. He rotated the once wounded arm and was relieved to find that little more than a dull ache remained.
The smell of breakfast broke through his thoughts and he headed towards the tray to remedy the sharp pangs of hunger that suddenly assaulted him.
When he entered the bar, Cherry had her hair pulled back in a braid and was swiping at the sweat on her forehead using that part of her sleeve on the back of her forearm.
He sat on the edge of a stool and waited for her to finish serving the duo at the other end.
She came over and let out a short sigh, forcing a smile.
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“You don’t look like you have time for a day trip,” he asked from underneath his hood.
“My sub should be in in half an hour. I didn’t realize you’d be ready so fast,” she told him, grabbing a rag and swiping at the bar. “Can I get you anything while you wait?”
He could tell he was making her uncomfortable by not answering, but he took his time anyway.
“No. I’ll wait,” he said, leaving the bar stool to go to a table in the corner.
He watched her while she worked, still unable to connect her with the frightening being she had become under the eerie dancing moonlight in the bathhouse. He kept looking for something to slip, some inhuman beauty or horror, but she was truly ordinary again.
Once again, he wasn’t sure where his brain had gone until she was looking down at him, a bag on her back and a determined look on her face.
He stood up and she backed away, looking up at him now.
“Lead the way,” he told her. She didn’t need to be told twice as she hurried out of the front entrance.
It was yet another cloudless day, one that made him realize it wasn’t the weather’s fault at all—he really just hated all the days in Orendon. He hated the smart ass kids, the noisy birds, and the stupid drainage system that would never be ready for the days ahead.
Except now he was attempting to change that future, wasn’t he?
It was what had made him hesitate with Brat’s mom. For a moment, he had been paralyzed by the idea that one wrong move and the kid might never happen at all. Everything seemed fragile here, like he was walking on a mirrored surface that could shatter beneath him at any moment.
“You’re quiet,” Cherry said at one point.
He must have been quiet for a while because the poor urban sprawl had given away to the less dense population of a semi-rural area. They had even bypassed the residential hell of suburbia. The sun was edging towards the highest point in the sky.
“Where is this place you’re headed anyway?” he asked, his voice rough with disuse.
“There,” she said, pointing up towards the rock face.
He knew the place. From up there, you could barely see the Galled River, the pinprick of Kylrith City on its edge.
“Why ‘there’?” he urged.
“There’s a pond up there. I need water, as few people as possible and a good vantage point. Even though death isn’t a physical place, the forms of the Maidens in death have a sort of… lingering mark we can find in between,” Cherry tried to explain.
“A beacon,” he supplied and her eyes lit up.
“Yes, a beacon!” she repeated.
He was too puffed up at her approval to admit he’d read that right out of a damned book in the Archives.
“So why would you have a power that makes you go inbetween?” he asked now, but he saw her stop abruptly and could see the cause of her halted steps.
A group of rowdy farmhands had rounded a wall up ahead, ignoring him completely as they leered at her.
Her face became impassive, a cool smile pasted to her mouth but dying before it reached her eyes.
He heard whistles of approval and shouts of ‘hey, beautiful’, keeping his hood low to give them a chance to pass. This sort of thing wouldn’t be new for a barmaid and Cherry seemed to be fond of handling herself. He had been one of these little shits long ago after all. Okay, and not so long ago when he made his winning first impression on her.
“Ditch the loser and hang out with us,” one of the guys said as they moved closer, reaching a hand out for Cherry.
Cherry started to dodge, but he caught the man’s wrist and looked him in the eye.
“I usually don’t hold hands on a first date, but for you, I’ll make an exception,” he said, shattering the guy’s no
se in an explosion of blood.
He heard Cherry cry out as the others surrounded him.
“Don’t do this. Let’s just go,” Cherry insisted, but no one seemed to be keen on listening to her.
He caught sight of a forgotten pitchfork in the high grass and when the next hot-blooded young man took a swing at him, he slammed his foot into it, the handle connecting on the underside of that one’s chin. His head snapped back and the man collapsed backwards, stunned.
There were three more, none looking ready to back down, and he snatched the handle of the pitchfork, breaking off the rusty forked end and twirling the staff around. He needed it to be clear that he knew how to use it, give the morons a chance to back down. He could tell from the sour smell of ale, rheumy eyes and weaving stances that there was little chance of that.
“Don’t kill them,” Cherry said quietly. Her eyes pleaded with his, her knuckles white from clenching her fists.
“That’ll be up to them,” he told her, keeping his eyes on them.
Two of them swung at once and when he ducked they punched each other. He bit back a laugh as he swept at their feet with the staff, striking their heads on the way down to knock them out.
He heard Cherry gasp, saw the flash of metal in the remaining one’s hand and barely had time to react. The end of the staff jammed into the man’s throat, bursting through the back of his head. In the gurgling throes of death, Cherry whispered ‘no’ and he let the staff go.
He could see the blue glow, felt cold wind pass over his skin, Cherry’s icy hand clasping his.
The Flame’s Gate.
He had never seen it before, not that he could recall, but it was somehow familiar. There was a murky haze all around them, a blue-grey filter of gloom. Before he even looked, he knew he would find Cherry there in Maiden form. What he didn’t expect was the man he had just killed stood there, holding her other hand. The Flame was levitating there in front of her, its light growing with each gentle pulse.
The man released Cherry’s hand and stood in front of her, where she caressed his jaw before he turned to walk towards the ‘gate’.
He sensed something not right here and turned to his left, an insidious black shadow rushing towards them. He lunged forward, snatching the Flame and shoved Cherry down, covering her against the shadow’s approach.
He felt the bed of uncut grass underneath his hands. Just like that, they were back in his Realm, the groaning of the downed men and Cherry still pinned where he had caged her with his arms. She had tears running down her cheeks. He got up, pulling her to her feet and wordlessly started towards the hill they were aiming for to begin with.
“I tried to tell you. If I am too close, especially with violent deaths, I am pulled to escort them. Whoever is after us will use that to try to get to us,” Cherry said from behind him.
Damn… Another thing I gotta worry about… He remembered the fanatics so willing to die and knew it wouldn’t be above some men to off themselves to slam open the Gates.
He knew he was walking too fast and she was laboring to catch up with him.
“Are you mad at me?” she called out in frustration and he spun around, nearly causing her to smack into him.
“I don’t know. Haven’t figured that out,” he told her and she sighed with frustration.
“I’m not keeping things from you on purpose, you know. There’s a lot about this that I don’t exactly know either,” she said defensively.
“Yeah. Right. Forget about it,” he said. He meant it sincerely and turned to keep walking, slower this time. He still wanted to think things over.
By the time they reached the hill, he had calmed, but Cherry looked more nervous than ever.
“Will the shadows come for you here?” he asked and she startled from her thoughts.
“I don’t think so. But the dead who have not crossed may be drawn here.”
Cherry began removing her shoes.
“Shouldn’t we make sure there’s nothing in the pond?” he asked, which made her eyes widen with shock, but she laughed.
“No bodies, if that is what you mean. Water leads the dead to the Gates, so even if there were, their souls won’t return here.
He nodded and drew his cloak closer. She tilted her head as she continued.
“That strange cloak you are wearing. What is it made of?” she asked curiously.
“Rubber,” he answered stiffly.
“It seems… heavy and cumbersome,” she added.
It was practical in a constantly rainy city, but in this Orendon, it was a pain in the ass. He would rather sweat than be caught in the chill of a rainstorm on his travels, so even though it felt silly now, he would be grateful for it when it was actually needed.
“It keeps the rain out,” he mumbled, making her laugh again.
Once more, she hiked up her skirts and the odd change began when she slipped her legs in the water.
“Does that happen every time you submerge?” he asked and gulped as those cloudy otherworldly eyes swiveled to meet his again.
“No, I control that,” she assured him, her hands tickling over the surface as she made her way to the middle.
The water had started to slowly swirl around her, picking up in speed and rising around her. He peeled his eyes away, staying alert to whatever she might draw in, but his attention flicked over towards Kylrith and the two odd blinking strands of light looming there.
“Are those lights the Maidens we’re looking for? I only see two,” he asked, squinting to be sure.
“It is not usual for any of us to be so close. We naturally keep our distance from each other,” she said, before that odd echoing voice drifted off. He had thought it was the bathhouse that gave her voice that odd quality but it existed out here as well.
His eyes seemed to have trouble seeing, but his other senses amassed into sharp awareness.
“Should I be going blind?” he asked, unsure.
“Are you compensating?” she murmured.
“Not my favorite question from a woman’s lips, but yeah, I feel… something’s coming,” his joke sharpening into seriousness as he felt a prickle, the strange sensation that the air around them was something he could feel as keenly as his own skin and something crawled through it now.
He felt heat in his hands, a flame bursting from either side of his closed fist and assembling itself in the shape of a spear.
“What kind of magic is this?” he asked in wonder, waving it around. It didn’t just glow with fire; it was fire. “Are you doing this?”
“I told you; it’s not magic. It’s the Flame God’s—no more, I have to concentrate…” she scolded.
Uh-huh, right. Flame God again. The Rain Maidens wielded Keys of fire, so just how much did fire and water cross paths when they were supposedly completely different? And also ‘not magic.’
He didn’t have time to wonder much more before the muted screams of wraiths surrounded him. As much as the Flame of Arkhades had made quick work of them, this spear sliced through them with even more ease. He cut through dozens, taking special care to keep them well away from her as he danced around the pond. More appeared on the opposite side and before he could wonder if he would reach her in time, he suddenly defied physics and appeared where he needed to be.
The feeling of power thrilled through him, frightened him as he felt what made him who he was ebb away. He fed the warrior spirit that possessed him, filling him with a feral, primal need to fight.
There were no more wraiths to fight and he had cried out in disappointment, enraged when the bloodlust had nowhere to go… until he felt the frigid blast of ice exploded over his mouth and the heat burst out of him like a steam valve releasing the pressure.
As his senses returned, he could feel the press of hands on his cheeks, soft timid lips covering his. He blinked away the haze as his sight returned and he registered that Cherry was kissing him once more, just an innocent press of lips, before she broke away. Her cheeks were red and she hugged herself,
eyes avoiding his.
“Sorry, there’s no other way to pull away the thrall,” she apologized.
“I’m not mad,” he said dumbly, for lack of anything better in his still chaotic brain.
She smiled shakily, but drew herself up with whatever she had resolved in that moment.
“There’s a shallow cave a little way from here where we can camp for the night before heading on to Kylrith,” she decided, already starting off for it.
“Your boss gonna be okay with that?” he asked, following her.
“Dead barmaids don’t work at all,” she shot back, narrowing her eyes at him.
Cherry, 1. Me, 0.
He probably shouldn’t have started that. He was never good at keeping score.
Kylrith was a city with a lot of water mills. They had irrigated ‘streets’ for boat traffic. Every home was powered by water wheels and the Galled River was still near overflowing. The Galled River itself was wide, deep, and carried enormous barges and transports, one of its trade ports just north of Uther.
Like most rivers, Galled ran one way (east to west) so return trade was handled by the railroad system that stretched south of the river between them.
He hadn’t been through Kylrith in… well, either ten years ago or two years from now, but he wasn’t entirely clear on time travel vocabulary. Gods forbid he called it ‘magic,’ which it absolutely never was where Cherry had anything to say about it.
Cherry had seemed full of a nervous energy as they approached Kylrith. It wasn’t as grand as Orendon’s better quarters but it was still massive, full of ornate arches and abuzz with a different sort of energy. She walked closer to him, but seemed more eager to fly away.
It wasn’t her reaction that bothered him. She was attracting too much attention without even trying. It had jack shit to do with her being an attractive woman, but he didn’t doubt that if asked, anyone would remember a girl with blazing red hair.
He dug into his pack and pulled out a plain brown scarf. He grabbed her wrist and she spun around. He didn’t wait for her shock to wear off as he wrapped it around her head and tucked it in with one quick motion.
She pouted at him in aggravation.
UnNamed Page 9