Earthly Worlds

by Billy Wright

  The Royal Guard edged away from it.

  The Queen held its bonds in one hand, and with a gesture in the other summoned a crystalline urn the size of Stewart’s head. It fit in her palm like a soda can. She placed it upon the floor beneath the shadow of Dark essence. “You must help me now, Daughter.”

  The Princess stood and moved to take her mother’s hand.

  Stewart felt the power of their combined will wash through him in a great wave, the focused will of the universe itself, a pressure like the bottom of the sea, or under twenty feet of avalanche snow.

  The shadow’s bonds tightened, cinching, squeezing, compressing, forcing it down into the urn. It squirmed and writhed and thrashed, its awful eye blazing a vow of vengeance at those who dared to imprison it. But into the urn it went, squashed and jammed and tamped, until the Princess put the lid on.

  The Queen knelt and laid her hand on the lid. There came a flash of heat and will, and the lid was sealed as tight as if it had never been separate.

  Inside the urn, a shadowy fog swirled and churned, its baleful orange eye glaring out at them.

  “It is done,” the Queen said.

  Stewart sagged back, spent, gasping and covered in sweat, staring into the vaulted ceiling. A suffusion of calm and tranquility spread through him the likes of which he had never experienced. He felt normal, if beaten up and exhausted. Maybe better than normal.

  Liz threw herself on him and covered his face and lips with kisses.

  Even though his arms felt like chunks of lead, he hugged her close. This time, the tears were of joy.

  Cassie and Hunter were there, too, hugging him.

  It took all the strength he had left to hug them all back.

  After a time, Liz turned to the Queen. “Is he okay now?”

  The Queen said, “The essence he accrued in the Dark Realm, we have removed. But he still bears most of what he brought with him. It is inextricably part of him. If he wishes to shed himself of that, it must be through his own efforts.”

  Liz pointed at the urn. “What about that thing?”

  “We shall keep this prison safe in our vault. And may we all wish this entity never finds its freedom again. It was powerful. Given enough time and practice, his power may have grown to rival that of the Dark Lord himself.”

  “What happens if it does get loose?” Hunter asked.

  “Then it will hunt your father across all realms, seeking to reclaim its fleshly seat. What would happen then...” She shook her head.

  The Princess came and knelt beside Stewart’s head, and laid a cool, soft hand on his forehead. “Thank you.” Then she kissed him on the forehead.

  Her limbs were fuller now, her cheeks less sunken, her eyes less hollow, as if being home was even now rejuvenating her.

  Liz hugged the Princess. “And thank you for saving him. I can’t imagine what he went through.”

  “He is a good person,” said the Princess. “Sometimes, that is all it takes.”

  Epilogue

  The familiar scent of sagebrush and scrub pines came on a wave of hot, dry air as Stewart, Liz, and the kids stepped through the bridge back to Earth. Through a swirling, spinning tunnel of stars and gas clouds, they went from the Queen’s mansion to their back yard.

  It was a lovely Mesa Roja sunset, but couldn’t hold a candle to the spectacular sunsets of the Light Realm. Nevertheless, Stewart breathed deep of the Arizona breeze. It smelled like fresh, clean air now, open and free, instead of relentless, scorching, dusty heat.

  Cassie yelled, “Yay! We’re home!”

  Jaclyn and Jazlyn walked just behind her. She had grown so attached to them during their travels through the Borderlands and the Light Realm, none of them could bear to part with each other. The way they moved in mute silence still gave Stewart the willies, however.

  “How long have we been gone?” Hunter asked. “It feels like forever.”

  “We’d better find out,” Liz said. “We might have some explaining to do with the school.”

  “Or the landlord,” Stewart said, wincing at the fact that he was still unemployed. They still had no money, and now, not even transportation. The truck had been destroyed, and he had no idea how to find out what had happened to it. The Park Service would not have left it to rust away in the middle of the campground road.

  The Queen’s voice echoed around them. “I think you’ll find things are changing in your lives.”

  “How?” Stewart said to the empty air. “Did you do something? Change things?”

  “No, you did,” the Queen’s voice said, fading like the whisper of a summer zephyr.

  Liz hugged him. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever make it back.”

  “Me, too,” he said, hugging her back.

  They’d spent two more weeks of subjective time in the City for Liz and Stewart to heal their wounds. Right now, Stewart felt better than any time he could remember, both physically and mentally. The Queen and the Princess had not extracted all the Darkness from him—it was too deeply woven into the threads of his life—but they had removed most of what he’d acquired in the Dark Realm.

  In all this leisure time, Cassie and Hunter had spent many hours practicing their use of magic, or else in the City’s library, lost in the endless tomes of ages past, learning the runes that helped manifest magic on Earth.

  But now, they were home.

  Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “Did our house shrink or something?”

  Liz chuckled, “No, it’s the same as it ever was.”

  “Hmm, looks smaller.”

  Liz and Stewart exchanged glances and smiles. Stewart retrieved a spare key from under the back step. Their keys had been lost in the wreckage of the truck.

  Walking into the house, Stewart took a deep breath. “Well, at least the mice haven’t moved in yet. Any more of them anyway.”

  Liz flipped a light switch, and the living room lights came on. “Well, that’s a good sign. We still have electricity.”

  “Okay,” Stewart said, “time for a family meeting.”

  The children groaned.

  “Yeah,” Liz said, “now that we’re back home, we have some things to discuss.”

  They all sat down at the customary family conference site, the kitchen table. How strange and diminutive their house felt now.

  Stewart said, “We’ve all been through a lot of crazy, crazy stuff. Rule number one, the unbreakable rule. Are you ready?”

  The kids nodded.

  “We do not talk about any of this outside the family. Not to friends, not to teachers, not to anybody.”

  “Why, Daddy?” Cassie said.

  “Remember what happened at school with Charlie and Joey?” Hunter asked. “They’ll think we’re crazy.”

  “Right,” Stewart said. “From now until forever.” He made a zipping motion across his lips. “Promise?”

  Liz and both kids made lip-zipping motions.

  “Can we see if the magic we learned works here?” Hunter asked. “We were studying runes while Mom was getting better.”

  “As long as nobody sees you and you don’t use it to harm anyone ever, yes,” Stewart said. “We’ve seen how the Dark magic works. It gets into you…” Here in the Penumbra, between the Light and Dark Realms, the magical essence they drew into themselves might come from either source, depending on their intention. He trailed off, the memory of it sharp as a forest of blades. He blinked and swallowed hard. “Promise?”

  Hunter and Cassie said, “Promise.”

  “Okay, then,” Stewart said, easing back in his chair.

  “That’s all?” Hunter asked.

  “That’s all.”

  Cassie said, “Mommy, can I go play with my toys?”

  “Sure, honey. I think we all need to feel a little normal.” Liz ruffled her hair and sent her on her way. Jaclyn and Jazlyn followed her.

  “Dad, can I go get the mail?” Hunter said. For whatever reason, he had always loved to bring the mail from the mailbox, which stood on a post at
the end of their driveway.

  Stewart nodded a go-ahead.

  Standing alone without the children now, Liz faced him. “How can we ever get back to normal? I mean, how normal can things really be with a couple of lethal dolls as playmates?”

  “Why should we? Who would want to?”

  “But what then? It’s not like we can use magic to create food and lot rent.”

  He sighed and hugged her tight. “I wish I knew.”

  Hunter burst through the front door with a wad of letters and circulars in his arms. He handed it all to Stewart.

  Stewart took them all with a sigh and started thumbing through. The date on one of the circulars caught Stewart’s eye. It was dated the Monday after they had left for the camping trip. “We’ve only been gone a few days. No more than a week.”

  He sorted out a copy of the Mesa Roja Messenger, the local paper, which came out on Wednesdays. The headline read: “Search Continues for Missing School Principal.”

  Near the bottom of the front page was an announcement for the liquidation auction for Richards Locksmithing. That seemed awfully sudden. Could something have happened to Mr. Richards?

  Liz shuffled through the letters. “Bill...bill...bill...overdue notice...” She sighed and deflated into the sofa. “Too bad we can’t just conjure up a little gold bullion.”

  Among her fistful of letters, the next visible one was from a return address that he recognized, the company logo for Steel and Shield, Inc., one of the country’s premier retailers of authentic, well-made swords and other medieval weapons, the kind of weapons that could be used, rather than costume pieces, the kind of weapons coveted by true collectors and medieval combat enthusiasts. The letter was hand-addressed to Stewart.

  He tugged the letter free and looked at it for a moment, turning the envelope over and over, wondering what could be inside. More than likely, they were trying to sell him something. He moved to toss it in the garbage, but a tiny, quiet voice in his mind stopped him.

  Instead, he opened the envelope.

  The words in the letter wouldn’t quite register.

  He read them again.

  “Huh,” he said, flummoxed.

  “What is it?” Liz asked.

  “Huh.”

  “Stewart?”

  “Huh.”

  “Oh, come on.” She jumped up, yanked the paper out of his fingers, and read. Then she said, “Huh.”

  “I think it’s for real.”

  “Well, yeah, it’s addressed to you and everything.”

  She read aloud:

  “‘Dear Stewart.

  “‘We are contacting you to verify that you are a smith skilled in the production of various styles of blades.

  “‘We acquired one of your Damascus rapiers through an auction, and the previous owner indicated that you were the original smith. As you have no website or contact information readily available, we had some trouble tracking you down. Smiths with skills such as yours are in short supply.’”

  He had made a couple of Damascus rapiers for collectors he’d met at a Renaissance Fair a couple of years ago.

  “‘If you’re amenable,’” Liz went on, “‘we would like to engage your services to produce blades for us on a bespoke basis. We have an extensive backorder list we would like to eventually clear, but we anticipate having enough customers to fill your schedule for years to come.

  “‘Again, if this opportunity interests you, please contact us at your earliest convenience. Yours Respectfully...’”

  Hunter, who had paused in the hallway listening, came back into the living room. “Dad! That’s amazing!”

  Liz jumped up and hugged him. “Maybe we’re going to be okay!”

  Stewart still felt a little shaky, but something was blooming in his heart. Excitement.

  Hope.

  He kissed Liz, trying not to think about his Dark essence imprisoned in a crystal urn far, far away, an entity bent on escape. Then he looked into her eyes and smiled. “Maybe we will.”

  THE END