“And the time is now?” asked Filumé.
“Yes, my son; or if not now, then very soon.” Lynnaria’s features grew dark. “There is another part of the prophecy besides the dragon.” The tension grew in the air. No one wanted to disrupt what Lynnaria was about to reveal.
“There will come to this world of the Veiled Lands an outsider, someone who is not of Teralia. She shall fight alongside one other, to rid the world of the Darkness forever.”
Filumé’s mind reeled. Pieces which he hadn’t realized were pieces fell into place to form a picture in his head.
“Gwenyth,” he said, finally. “I have heard the name mentioned many times, along with the stories of her...differences. Are you saying she is this outsider the prophecy speaks off?”
Bordrin leaned in again. “It would seem there can be little doubt. Even if not for your encounter with the dragon, it has come to our attention that she is leading a force into the deep forest, in search of a darkness which is blighting the Tree itself.”
The picture was complete. Filumé nodded his acceptance.
“Mother, I must go to her. I may not be the one foretold, but I killed the red dragon. I should be of some use to her.”
Lynnaria smiled, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Agreed, my son. It appears you were correct in your earlier statement.
Filumé put his head to one side.
Lynnaria smiled. “That I can’t stop you leaving Grongarth. It appears destiny has usurped a mother’s concern.”
Filumé crossed to his mother, raising her in an embrace, as they savored what might be their last moments together.
A cleared throat interrupted the moment of parting, as Kore also stood. “Well if we’re going to get there in time for all the fun, we better get our britches out of our boots.”
Filumé, Lynnaria, and both Kore’s parents stood open mouthed.
“What? Do you think I’m going to let some Elf take all the glory? No, Father. One of us has to go along to keep him out of trouble.” Kore pointed a backward thumb at a smiling Filumé.
“Even if I do hate the bloody forest.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Eggs
Zjokara watched as Jira played with the other younglings. It was a game common on Prime, and she smiled as it became clear how unmatched the other children were when put beside a Liberi, even one who was attenuating her abilities.
Jira ran with the ball, darting in and out of the opposing team’s reach. She let some of them grasp her briefly before shrugging them off. The captain knew her young charge was being careful to not get assaulted by more than one player at a time. There might be accidents if a mass brawl broke out. She ran a snake-like course down the large hall, finding and exploiting every opening, before irrevocably reaching the goal line and scoring by throwing the ball through the centre hoop.
Cheers broke out, even among the opposing team. They knew they were hopelessly outmatched, but they didn’t care. They had adopted the Liberi children as their own sisters(even though there was one male among the escapees), and took joy from their abilities in every form.
The siren sounded the end of the game, and it was a testament to how restrained Jira had been, when the score was just slightly in her team’s favor. Jira was hoisted onto the shoulders of her teammates, and the crowd rushed in to congratulate them all. Zjokara joined them, reveling in the throng of bodies as she fought through the mass.
Jira watched her approach, beaming down at her. “Did you see, Captain? We won!”
Tears of pride came unbidden to Zjokara’s eyes as she looked on the face of a child. She had been ripped away from her family and world by the corrupted leadership of Sanctuary. They tried to end her childhood prematurely by plunging her into a war which was nothing to do with her. But the child inside was resilient, and sat atop her friends’ shoulders, enjoying her life; at least for a little while.
“I saw, Jira,” she said, “I watched the whole thing. You were amazing, you all were.” The two opposing teams were intermingled among the crowd, so Zjokara raised her voice.
“You were all amazing, and I am so proud of you.” The crowd grew silent as she continued. “Today I witnessed the strength and hope which will carry us through to victory. And it comes from our children, even though you may be the last to be born among us. But even then, your skill and determination will ensure the defeat of the cowardly leadership in Sanctuary.”
Screams arose from the crowd, songs and chants as the crowd began to dance. Jira jumped down, grabbed Zjokara’s hands and joined in, skipping through the assembled joy makers. Today was a good day.
*
Jira slept in her Captain’s cabin, on the couch beside her bed. It was easily large enough for her small frame, but tonight her sleep was fitful as she tossed and turned. Brightly colored forms swam through her unconscious mind, taunting her to identify them. Gold, silver, green and brown flashes assaulted her dreams, but Jira wasn’t afraid.
There was one form, brighter than the others, which remained at the forefront, as the other shapes danced behind it. It was a shade of blinding silver, and Jira thought she could make out a pair of huge wings stretching out on either side, as it swooped and soared in the expanse of her mind. Jira reached out to it.
Abruptly, she realized she wasn’t dreaming anymore, as she smelled the smoke and sulphur, and felt the heat in the air. Looking around she watched rivers of lava belching out of fissures in the side of the mount she stood on. A crack opened up behind her, as a landslide demolished over half the spur she stood upon. She stood her ground, waiting for the tremor to end, and by the time it subsided, the dark entrance to a cave stood in front of her.
Jira stepped tentatively forward, entering the darkness within, and continued down a passage which passed through the solid rock. The walls however, showed no sign of being worked by any tool or device; rather, it was like the mountainside opened up to allow entry to whatever lay within. The passage was over half a mile long, and the heat grew as she walked down the slight decline toward the root of the mountain.
A glow came from the rock around her, diffusing the heat, making it bearable as she stepped out into a huge cave. It, like the passage was an extension of some sort of construct designed to keep a secret. Jira probed the walls of the cavern and was surprised to find she saw nothing. Even though her eyes saw the rock above and all around, her mind was blind to it.
The rock became superfluous to her concerns, as the real reason for her consciousness being drawn here became clear. A multi-colored hue drew her closer to a shallow depression in the centre of the hall. The crater was lined with rubies, sapphires, diamonds and all manner of precious stones and minerals, but they were not what called out to her.
Dotted in groups of three or four were eggs of various sizes and colors. On the outer rim of the pit were the browns and greens. But in the center were over a hundred glowing silver orbs. And raised in a plinth above them were three golden eggs, which supported another. This egg was different. If looked at from straight on, it might appear gold or perhaps silver. But as Jira turned her head to look around it, a riot of color erupted at the corner of her vision.
This egg was like a multi-colored star, but as she stood, Jira’s eyes were drawn to a small bright orb, just below the plinth. She cried out as the shell became opaque and she saw her true self at last.
She cried all the way as she walked up the passage, because she knew she had a job to do.
She had found the eggs.
It was up to her, and her newfound friends to keep them safe until the time was right.
Chapter Thirty Three
The Spark
As she cowered in the private shell she had constructed inside her own twisted psyche, the child looked out over her life so far.
A brief, second’s long infusion of hope was all that remained of her existence before the monster took her, ripping away so much, ruining and sickening the embryonic consciousness. She existed for one sick purpose;
to suffer.
And suffer she had. Although vaguely aware, she had watched the Beast torture her sister. For months she struggled in frustration, uselessly assaulting the corrupted part of her soul. The spark saw her sister burnt alive countless times, but besides one small victory, where she’d saved her from turning upon everyone she loved, she remained trapped deep within the Beast.
She watched for over a year as her host teased a man she eventually recognized as her father, into believing his wife, her mother, was still alive. She remembered his desperation, and the glee as the beast fed it. It came so close to succeeding in its task, but at the end, a person unknown to her thwarted the Beast’s plan.
It resulted in her father’s death, but she drew a scrap of comfort, knowing he was now free. She had felt the beast enter his mind in those last few moments before his death; felt her father’s despair as he realized, at last, how much of a pawn he had become, how wrong he had been.
‘I’m glad he is dead,’ she thought. ‘He might have become a thing like me.’
Chapter Thirty Four
Lace and Linen
Krista was stunned, her eyes wide as she tried to take in what she saw. Her planet had been at an advanced level when it was destroyed by the dragons, but for centuries her people had been a warrior race, conquering the surrounding star systems. Only in the last few decades before the arrival of Tenybris, had they ceased their expansion, and sought to live peacefully with their neighbors.
And while on Sanctuary, her time was spent training for what she would eventually become, a Liberi, the ultimate warrior.
She had visited hundreds of planets and realties, usually accompanying her twin brother in his quest to find the one he loved, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight ahead of her now. She heard Perri and Katheryne talk about it, but it was so much more than she imagined.
Victoria Square was, according to Perri at least, THE place to shop in Belfast, and as Krista took in the riot of colors behind the hundreds of glass windows, she wasn’t about to contradict her. Krista was literally like a kid in a sweetshop, dragging Perri from side to side to look at one thing or another. It took Perri over an hour to get her to even enter a shop, but when she did, Krista’s eyes lit up.
The shop was called La Senza, a name which meant nothing to her, but what it sold was fascinating beyond belief. Underwear, for Krista, was just that. Things she wore under her clothes. Items which were functional, that allowed her to function, fight and kill, without things, well, getting in the way.
But these items, which could only be described as art, excited her as she ran her fingers over the delicate material. None of this would stand up to a month in the field; in fact an hour might be wishful thinking for some of the garments, which looked nothing more than spider web. Krista looked at Perri, and saw the desire in her eyes, as she imagined how she might look in these things.
They spent an hour browsing before Krista finally decided on what she wanted to buy. White silk panties, with a matching bra and a delicate lace trim. She made pains to keep Perri from seeing them. Tonight she would no longer be the soldier who Perri first met. Tonight for the first time in her life, Krista would become the woman she kept hidden inside.
As she went up to the cashier, however, Perri caught a glimpse of her choices, and her eyes widened, not in surprised anticipation as Krista had hoped, but in alarm.
“Jayzus, you’re not going to buy those are you?” Perri looked at her in disbelief, and Krista was momentarily thrown off balance. How could she have got this so wrong? All she wanted to do was to please this girl she had fallen for.
Perri put her arm gently on Krista’s elbow, guiding her away from the desk. “They’re a little slutty, don’t you think, Kris?” Over the last few days, Perri had taken to shortening her name. She didn’t particularly like it, but it was her lover saying it, so she said nothing.
Perri walked across to a stand with a much more conservative selection on it. The colors were muted, peaches and beiges among them, and they had a LOT more fabric in them, of a much more substantial nature.
“How about some of these?” she asked. “I think you’d really suit them, Kris.”
Krista was mortified. Some of the outfits might actually survive as long as her current underwear, but she didn’t want to appear ungrateful. After all, this was about pleasing Perri, and if Perri liked these outfits, well, these are what she’d buy.
“I love them, Perri,” she lied. “What color should I go for? I like the peach, don’t you?”
Perri made a face. “Nah. I think beige is your color. Like this one here.”
Perri held up a hideous ensemble of brown linen, but her smile was so genuine Krista bought it, even though she felt like crying the whole way back to the apartment. Perri chatted endlessly about how she’d grown up, her parents and the friends she’d made. She never once mentioned boyfriends, not directly. But several comments on the journey home were cut off abruptly, Krista suspected just prior to mentioning one such conquest after another.
By the time they closed the door and put their expensive purchases down, all Krista wanted to do was go to bed; alone. But she couldn’t. Today had been about bonding, and finding things in common. Ordinary couple type things, and she couldn’t even get that right. So she grasped the bag and retreated to the bedroom to put them on, giving her love as demure a smile as she could force onto her face.
*
Krista missed the gleam of malice in Perri’s eyes as the door closed. Perri’s lips split in a grin, which turned her pretty face into a mask of evil.
The little bitch thinks I still love her, she thought, laughing quietly, lest she be heard. Maker, how could I have been so wrong? How could I love THAT? And that outfit she picked out? Jeeze it would have sickened me to see so much of her flesh.
Perri’s smile faded briefly, as a flicker of pity crossed her features, but then the pity turned to disgust as her lip curled.
I have to go in there, don’t I? she thought.
The voice at the back of her mind whispered, ‘No, why should you? Let her sleep alone. Or do you desire her still?’
Perri shook her head in denial. How could I? Maker, even the thought sickens me, but I need to keep up appearances. The others wouldn’t understand. She’s Derren’s sister, after all, and Katheryne loves Derren.
‘Loves Derren more than you? Is that what you mean?’ asked the voice, dripping with venom.
I didn’t say that! Katheryne and I are special. We’re best friends. She would never leave me.
The voice was silent for a moment before uttering a final sentence.
‘Where is she now?’
Perri lashed out and knocked a plant off the table beside the chair. She was confused and tired, and she looked at the door of her bedroom, imagining Krista in the outfit she’d forced her to buy. A sneer appeared on her face again as she stretched out her awareness. She felt the misery battling below the façade as Krista waited for her in their bed. Perri decided it was too much of a kick to give up, so she replaced the sneer with her cheerful face and opened the door. She’d spend the next few hours rebuilding the fragile confidence of this girl who loved her, before demolishing it again at the first opportunity.
There are so many ways to torture another. And most of them are so easy, she thought as she closed the door.
Chapter Thirty Five
Toshi’s heartbreak
Toshi walked across the wet sand, allowing the ebbing tide to flow over his bare feet. The water was pleasantly warm, as it always was. He paused and looked out to sea, to the sunset turning the sky and the waters a shade of deep crimson edged with gold. He remembered back to the last night he stood on the beach of the real island on Sanctuary, not this construct of Katheryne’s. It was identical in every detail, except Laren wasn’t here with him.
His jaw tightened, and he clenched his knuckles in anger and frustration. Months had passed since the night of the attack, and no word of her, whether goo
d or bad had been heard.
“You know, the fact she isn’t here is probably a good sign.”
The voice caused Toshi to start, and he turned round to see Katheryne standing beside and slightly behind him.
Toshi smiled at his friend. “You know you are getting way too good at sneaking up on people, Kat. It is most disconcerting, being a Liberi.”
Katheryne chuckled as she linked her arm through her friend’s, leaning her head against his shoulder.
“If she’s not here, it means they’re keeping her sedated, comatose probably,” she said. “They must have figured out about this place, or been told about it by one of the traitors. There’s no other way they could prevent her dream self from travelling here.”
Toshi’s face darkened. “She could be dead. That would ensure she wouldn’t be able to get here.”
Katheryne raised her head, and stepped round to look up into Toshi’s dark, oriental features. “Toshi, she was alive when they captured her, we all saw, you included. Didn’t you?”
Toshi nodded slightly.
“And why would they want to kill her when they had her in their custody? What would be the point?” Katheryne watched as Toshi nodded his acceptance, but that didn’t stop the hurt he felt. Katheryne almost took it upon herself to use her powers to heal the hurt, but she knew Toshi wanted to hold onto his anger. He needed it to focus in case his grief took over.
Toshi took his eyes off the blood red water, and gave Katheryne a small smile of thanks. “You do realize, however, that if she is indeed being kept in such a state, it can only be for one reason.”
Worlds of the Never: A book with Dragons, Faeries and Elves, mixed with Science Fiction and Time Travel, for Young Adults and Teens. (Tales of the Neverwar 2) Page 13