by Heath Pfaff
She was right. I was quite surprised by the first Warden I met at this new school. He met us at the entrance to Second. I recognized his uniform, it was much as ours were, but everything else about him was a far cry from what I thought I knew about Wardens. His skin had some of the familiar pallor I’d come to expect, and his eyes were a bit faded, but he was nowhere near as dead-eyed as most of our number were. He looked closer to me than Korva in appearance. In fact, one not sure what to look for might not even notice his differences. I was suddenly abuzz with questions, but I found myself not in a good position to ask them.
“Korva.” He nodded to my trainer as we approached. He was tall, well built, with black hair that was still completely black, and brown eyes that were warm, even if they were a bit a hazy. “We’ve been expecting you. Lillin, Dreea.” He greeted us as well, giving a short but polite bow of his head. “I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under better circumstances. I’m Teeamit, and I more or less run things at the school here.” He smiled easily.
“We were instructed to move quickly.” Korva said, not sounding pleased. “Have the golems here been a problem at all?”
He looked over our shoulders at the people milling about in the street, and then nodded back towards the doors behind him. “Come inside. We’ll talk about it as we walk.” He looked at Dreea. “I’ve heard you might be staying with us. We’d very much like to have you in the training program. We’ve never had someone who wasn’t human.”
Dreea nodded. “I do intend to stay and train.” She said firmly, and my chest clenched tightly. We hadn't really discussed it again, and I’d hoped she might change her mind, but that sounded conclusive. “I wish to become stronger.”
“We’ll be certain of that.” He answered as the doors closed behind us.
I suddenly was having trouble finding the world around me of much interest. I tried not to let my emotional distress reach the surface, but I felt it keenly. My whole body seemed to thrum with it, and yet there was nothing left for me to do. Dreea had made her decision, and I had to accept and support her or risk losing our closeness. It wasn’t easy.
“The golems have stopped working.” Teeamit said as we walked. “Last week they just stopped moving, fell down where they were. We collected them and locked them away, but they haven’t started up again. We don’t know what is happening, but it has to be related to what is happening back in Black Mark. Coincidences like this don’t happen. It’s the same out on the front lines. Our golem units have just stopped. It is causing us some serious trouble, and now with this recall of Wardens to Black Mark we’re in a rough place. We’ve called up more units from the Breeding Pits, but they can only provide so many bodies” He shook his head, looking unhappy.
Korva didn’t look pleased either. I’d heard the Breeding Pits mentioned a few times, but people tended not to talk about the place. I knew it was a city, but that it also served a purpose in the war. That and the name of the place gave me cause to think that it was a city built to churn out human lives for war. I didn’t like that idea at all, but it was hard to come to other conclusions, and this talk wasn’t changing that.
“Are the front lines slipping, then?” Korva asked.
Teeamit shook his head. “No, not yet. There was a surge forward when the golems went down. The archons came on in force, but we cut them back quickly enough. We lost two Wardens in the ensuing chaos.”
Korva froze for a moment and I remembered that Rendan, the man Korva loved, had come to the front to get away from her. “Who fell?” She asked, and I could hear her attempt to carefully control the fear in her voice. Wardens might act as though they felt nothing, cared for nothing but the battle, but it wasn’t true. We were still people.
“Two from Second. I don’t think they were anyone you knew.” He said, not picking up on the reason for her distress. Clearly her story about Rendan wasn’t one she told everyone. “Yarvick and Jinnia.”
I saw the relief in Korva’s posture, though she just nodded her head. “I didn’t know them, but it’s always a dark day when a Warden falls.”
“Especially dark when two fall.” Teeamit added. “They were both very skilled.” We walked in silence for a bit before we reached a small office and Teeamit opened the door. He turned to Dreea. “This is your stop if you wish to join our training. Normally I would show you more of the facility, and then you would wait until a new year was started, but things are strange here at the moment, and you’re not a normal candidate either.”
“Wait, already??” I blurted the words out suddenly, and had to drag myself back in check. I hadn’t imagined it all happening this fast. I thought there would be more time.
Dreea also looked surprised, but Teeamit was nodding. “We have to get moving. I need to send you and Korva back through the door, and that means this is where you say goodbye.” He looked between us all, oblivious to the distress the moment had suddenly inflicted on us.
I turned to Dreea, stifling my sudden and almost overwhelming desire to plead with her to stay with me. This was it. I wouldn’t see her again for at least five years, and that was if she survived the training. Even if she did, what were the chances we would end up in the same place? This was it. This was the end. I looked at our time together and found myself full of regrets. We could have been more to each other. We could have been closer.
“You’ll do well.” I said, the words coming out surprisingly clear, though my throat felt like it might clench closed.
She nodded. “I know I will. I will look for you when my training is over.” She said. “You will always be . . . my friend.” Her voice had more gravel and growl to it then normal.
I wanted to leave things dignified and simple, but instead I came forward and wrapped my arms around her tightly. Very softly, so softly I knew only she would hear it, I whispered, “I love you, Dreea. I will miss you.”
Her eyes were a bit glassy as we pulled apart. She nodded. “I will be strong, Lillin. We will see each other again.”
Teeamit wasn’t completely oblivious, apparently. He stood aside and pretended not to see or hear our exchange, but as we finished speaking he nodded to a man sitting at a desk. “Hindle will get you situated here.”
Dreea and I looked at each other for one last moment, so much unsaid and unfulfilled between us. She nodded, and then she turned away. A part of me knew that was the last time I’d look into her eyes. I swallowed hard. Dreea began to speak to the man at the desk, but Teeamit was leading us out the door and I didn’t hear anymore.
It was so sudden that I felt stunned as though I’d been delivered a powerful blow to the head. It was almost like I’d watched her die, but I knew she was alright. She would go on living. She would fight and train and become incredible, though I might never see her again. That was something. This school wasn’t like mine. More people survived. I wished I’d had time to see more of it, to understand more of how it worked.
“I’m afraid there isn’t any time for refreshment or relaxing. I know it’s customary to take a day to see the city when arriving here, to visit the museum and talk to some of the people who helped found things here, but we have orders. We’ve sent fifteen back already, and a few more are still coming in.” Teeamit sounded uneasy. “News has been coming in sporadically. Sometimes the stones work to send messages, sometimes they don’t. There isn’t any reasoning to it.”
We rounded a corner and approached a set of large double doors that reminded me a bit of the Rift gate back home, but these weren’t tarred black, and I could see that the flagstone, the key to the doors working, was only under the smaller sub-door on the main structure. These double doors probably did lead to their version of the rift, but the smaller door was the one that could be opened onto other places.
This was something I took in while still floating through my haze of numb indifference. I wanted to refuse to leave, but I couldn’t do that. That would be trouble for myself and for Dreea. It would also show a keen lack of faith in her, even if that wasn’t what the
gesture would have truly meant.
“The Wardens are securing the school room by room. They’ve set up an emergency hub in Forge. You’ll want to head there when you arrive. Stick together. They don't like people traveling alone. People get lost for days, weeks at a time when they’re alone, and then just reappear later, some of them damaged inside, and others dead. The ones who have their senses back claim that they went other places.” Teeamit shrugged looking confused. “I don’t understand it all. These are just the reports I’ve been getting. I haven't seen any of it for myself. Officially your orders are to go through the door and head to Forge. Stay together. You can report there for the King’s orders.”
Korva nodded, and I forced myself to do the same. I had to stay focused. We were going into something dangerous. I was so worried about Dreea that I was letting myself lose sight of the fact that she was safer than I was right now. She wasn’t going back to Black Mark. She wasn’t going back into the place that Arthos had cursed by bringing that Blackened bag back through the doors. I would have words for him next time I saw him.
I felt a surge of Will, an intricate dance of power directed at the door, and it opened. I recognized the hall of the school. It was the door leading out of the Rift at Black Mark.
“Good luck, and stay safe.” Teeamit said.
“You too, my friend. We’ll get this taken care of quickly.” Korva spoke firmly, and then she was hopping through the door. I followed after her with little more than a nod. I was still struggling to keep my thoughts on the immediate threat. I kept thinking about Dreea, wondering if we’d ever see each other again. At least, in the end, I’d told her how I felt, though she hadn't’t echoed the words. I knew that would likely haunt me for some time. What did it mean? Did it mean anything?
I fought back those thoughts again and stepped through the door.
14.3
I noticed immediately that the air around me was much cooler on the other side of the portal. There was a shocking chill to it as the door closed in our wake, and it was suddenly very dark. I thought this might be just a strange perception of the area being brighter on the Second side of the door, but the dark on the Black Mark side was something more than a condition of light. The minute we stepped through I felt an oppressive weight settle on my shoulders, and it was one I was only too familiar with. This was what it had felt like in that other city, the labyrinth of Prosper. It was an insidious feeling that was impossible to forget. It crept beneath your flesh and sank its way into your bones.
Korva rolled her shoulders like she was trying to shrug off the chill in the air, but I knew it wouldn’t help. “Come on, we should report in. Keep yourself sharp, though. It feels wrong here, dangerous.” She hardly needed to tell me any of that.
I nodded. “It feels like the place Arthos and I were lost to for a time on our way back from the Watch. Things were dangerous there. The streets didn't fit together like other places do. Distance and time worked strangely, and I think we can expect the same from this.”
Korva started off in the direction that would take us to the Forge. “I read your reports, yours and Arthos’, but they didn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve been to a lot of places through the doors, but I’ve never heard of anything like what you both described. Even the spaces we have control over can’t shift while people are in them. It’s not really how the doors work. To be perfectly honest, I thought you both sounded a bit unhinged.”
I gave a short and somewhat bitter laugh. “It felt that way, and still does when I think back on it, but it was like this, Korva. That strain, and the tension you’re feeling now, that’s the way that city felt too. I think we need to be very careful.”
“It pays to always be careful.” She said with a sharp nod. “Normally I can relax here, but even given just what we know from the reports I don’t think it’s a good idea.” She stopped suddenly, cocking her head to one side, ear raised.
I froze as well, imitating her. Clearly she’d heard something. For a time we sat listening in silence, though I couldn’t make out any sound myself, no matter how hard I tried to hear beyond the filling of my own lungs, and the beat of my own heart.
“That was strange.” Korva said softly, but she started to move again, more slowly this time.
“What did you hear?” I asked her, keeping my voice low.
She frowned and shrugged. “It was just . . . my imagination.”
“It plays with your mind, your memories.” I said firmly, not wanting to go into the things I’d seen in Prosper. I didn’t want to talk about Ori and Zark. Those were things I hadn’t put in my report at all. There had been no reason to share those parts of what had happened. “It did the same thing to Arthos.” I shrugged. “And me. Dreea told me she heard her sister calling to her at times, but she knew it wasn’t really her. She seemed better able to tell reality from the noise.”
Korva stopped and looked at me a moment. She hesitated like she might not say anything at all, and then spoke slowly. “I thought I heard my brother. I had a twin brother, but . . . well, he died over a hundred years ago now.” There was a shadow of pain on her features for a moment. “It’s strange, but I was never closer to anyone else in my life. When he died it was one of the hardest things I ever went through. It’s still painful to think about. It felt like a piece of me ceased to exist.”
“You can’t trust the things you see or hear.” I said firmly, unable to fully understand what that kind of bond must be like. I had a brother and a sister, and I’d cared for them even if I hadn’t been a good sister to them. Still, we were different ages, and we’d had our own lives for the most part. Twins were often much closer entwined. “I saw people I cared about too, people that were gone. I don’t think they were really there.” I thought of Ori’s warning. It had been right. She hadn’t been trying to sabotage me at all, so had she not been sent to interfere with things? She couldn’t have really been there since she was still here, somewhere. Or perhaps her connection to the darkness, the way she’d been created, had made it . . . “ I shook my head. No, I couldn’t allow myself to consider such things. Letting in the madness of the dark was a bad idea, even if it seemed easy and comfortable.
“Yes, logically I know that, but it hit me in a deeper way. It was like it was beckoning to the very core of my being.” She forced a small laugh, though it held little cheer. “For just a second I thought that I would give up anything just to see him again. I wanted it to be real in a very poignant and painful way.”
I felt a pang of sympathy for the other woman. I could see the hurt on her face. “Just be careful, Korva. No matter how badly you want it to be real, it can’t be. We can’t get back the people we lose. They’re gone.” Ori is gone. Zarkov is gone. I won’t get them back. That reminder to myself was an awful weight to lift when taking my next steps.
We walked on in silence for a bit before we rounded a corner that should have taken us to the hallway with the Forge door, but we instead turned down the hall in front of the barracks. Korva stopped after a few steps, looking around in confusion.
“This . . . I must have gotten turned around.” She spoke quietly, almost to herself.
“No, we went the right way. Here nothing is constant, nothing sits the way it should.” My heart was hitting a bit harder in my chest. This was exactly like Prosper, only I didn't think we’d used the doors incorrectly. This was where we were supposed to be, but the school was changed. The darkness was firmly in our world now.
“That’s impossible.” Korva said, walking over to a nearby door and opening it up. There was a room there, one of the guest rooms that would have housed visiting lecturers. She stepped inside, looking around as though doing so might change the reality she was seeing. “It just can’t be here.” She said, then she turned back to me. “If this is . . . “ She paused, her eyes seeming to look through me. “Lillin?”
“Korva?” I was confused. She was acting like she couldn’t see me. She took a step forward and the door between us swung shut viol
ently, cracking so hard in the frame that it seemed the entire wall shook.
Panic struck me and I sprung forward, grabbing the handle of the door and trying to turn it. It wouldn’t budge.
“Lillin!” Korva’s voice came from the other side, followed by the pounding of a fist on solid oak, and then a moment later I felt a wall of Will building and realized that Korva was about to strike down the door. I ducked back and to the side, trying to clear the path, but the surge never came. I stood up and walked to the door again. It was still. There was no voice on the other side, and no pounding of a fist.
“Korva?” I called quietly, my voice seeming far too large in the suddenly silent hall. There was no answer. I reached forward and turned the handle. It opened easily, exposing another long corridor that shouldn’t have been there at all. Korva was gone.
My trepidation rose as I spun about and tried to get my bearings, a task that was impossible given the twisting nature of this place. I wasn’t sure what to do next. The layout of the once familiar school couldn’t be relied upon at all, but it also didn’t seem safe to stay where I was. That meant moving blindly through the familiar yet confusing halls. It wasn’t like holding still made me any safer. I looked back and forth between the new path I’d opened, and the one in which I was standing. Neither seemed of particular benefit over the other. The one I’d opened the door to looked a bit like the passage that ran past the Warden’s rooms near the outer wall, the fancier ones you gained access to after becoming a full Warden. The hall I was currently in looked like another stretch of barracks hall from the earlier days of training. That hall should have been closer to my destination. That was the only factor that made sense to me in my decision.