Midrealm

by Garrett Robinson

  The other sigil was a bird of prey with spread wings on a white background. Its feathers were a deep, lustrous brown, except for the tail feathers, which were red.

  “That sigil has gotta be for the Runegard, right?” I asked, pointing to the fist holding the sword.

  “That’s right,” said Barius.

  “And what’s the one with the eagle?”

  “It’s a hawk, not an eagle,” said Miles.

  I looked at him, surprised. “What’s the difference?”

  “Hawks are smaller,” he said. “Eagles are bigger. Eagles usually have a wider wingspan compared to their body size and more powerful talons.”

  “Well you can’t tell the size from the banner,” Raven said skeptically. “It’s just a drawing.”

  “It’s not the wingspan,” Miles said, pointing. “It’s the tail feathers. They’re red. Brown feathers with a red tail. A red-tailed hawk.”

  “What are you, the bird boy?” Blade said with a laugh.

  Miles rounded on him. “Don’t make fun of people who actually learn something in school just because you never do,” he snapped.

  Blade stepped up and grabbed the front of Miles’ robes. “Oh, look who thinks he’s better than other people. Careful what you say, Miley, because I don’t always play nice.”

  Miles shoved Blade off of him.

  “Guys, stop it!” said Sarah, but they ignored her. Blade stepped forward, looking like he was about to take a swing.

  Without even thinking about it, I swept my hands forward. I put a plate of air in front of each of them, then spread my hands to push them apart. But I lost focus, and the air pushed way harder than I meant to. Both of them flew off the ground, hurtling ten feet before crashing hard into the ground. They grunted as they slammed into the earth, the wind knocked out of them.

  “Miles!” Sarah cried, running to his prone form. Tess looked hesitant, but she went to Blade. Raven stood looking bored while I stared at my hands with wide eyes.

  Something blocked out the sun, and I looked up to see Greystone in my face.

  “You will not use your magic again on another Realm Keeper, do you hear me?” he snarled.

  I reeled back, my feet retreating against my will as I held my hands up. “Whoah, whoah,” I stammered. “I just didn’t want them to beat each other up.”

  “You could have killed them,” Greystone said, stepping forward to keep towering over me, looking down in rage. “Do you realize that? You could have killed them both.”

  “I just pushed them back a little!” I said defensively. “I wasn’t trying to hurt them!”

  “You weren’t trying to,” said Greystone, “but you could have. You have no idea of the powers you are meddling with. It is my job to teach them to you, and until I do, you will not use them without my permission!”

  “Dude, it’s just air,” I said. “What’s the big deal?”

  Unexpectedly, Greystone stepped back instead of answering, pointing to something above my head. “Do you see that parapet?”

  I looked up to see the edge of the Morrowdust city gatehouse. A guard stood behind the battlements, looking down at us with interest. It was almost right above my head. “Yeah, sure,” I said, confused.

  Greystone made a chopping motion with his hand. There was a shink like a sword sliding into a scabbard. Nothing happened for a long moment. Then a two-foot chunk of the stone battlement slid from atop the wall, right before the guard’s terrified eyes. It tumbled to the ground, right at my head. I screamed and jumped out of the way, hitting the deck. The stone crashed into the ground, half-burying itself in the grass.

  “What the frak, dude?” I shouted at Greystone as I climbed back to my feet. “You could have killed me!”

  “And you could have killed them,” Greystone said, pointing to Blade and Miles. “Oh, it would have been an accident, of course. But that wouldn’t have made them any less dead. You would have broken your bond and been banished back to True Earth, never to return. Three of the six Realm Keepers would be lost to us forever. And then Midrealm would be lost, and True Earth shortly after.”

  “I was breaking up a fight, not trying to lose the war!”

  Greystone didn’t respond, just stepped forward and grabbed the front of my robes.

  Fwoosh!

  Suddenly we were flying. Not just floating — flying like birds. Air streamed around us, making my eyes water.

  “Aaah!” I screamed.

  The city of Morrowdust stretched out below us. I could see the entire thing, rimmed by what suddenly appeared to be a thin and flimsy city wall. The people passed by in the streets far below, looking like ants next to the size of the buildings, the length of the streets, the two castles at the city’s borders. I saw the glint of sunlight on the river that ran through the city’s center, wriggling like a tiny worm.

  “Aaah!” I screamed again, helping the situation not at all.

  Suddenly I realized we weren’t just flying up, but forward as well. The royal palace loomed in our sight, growing bigger and bigger as we streaked toward it. For a heart-stopping moment I thought we were going to crash, but just before we hit, Greystone angled us upward so that we were flying along the face of the tallest tower.

  “AAAH!” I screamed, tearing my throat and making me feel not even a little bit better.

  We came to a jarring stop on top of the castle’s tallest spire. We had landed on a tiny, four-foot platform with a rail that only rose about three feet. It looked like it was designed for one person, and there were no steps or ladders leading to it. The only way to get there seemed to be to fly, as we just had. I clutched hard at Greystone’s robes, desperate not to fall off the edge.

  “Look,” he commanded.

  I stared down from the platform instead, feeling like I was about to hyperventilate any second.

  “Look!” he shouted again, grasping my head and turning it toward the barrier gate.

  I looked. There the gate lay, miles away now, a tiny, insignificant thing. I couldn’t even see the tiny shapes on the ground between here and there, the scuttling figures that I knew were my friends, probably terrified and wondering what had happened to me and Greystone.

  “Now the other way,” Greystone growled. I didn’t respond immediately, so he used his hand to turn my head again. I looked out over the opposite wall of Morrowdust and the farm country that stretched away from it. The farm country ended, and then it was rolling plains and small hills. Far in the distance, I could see the spires of another city just poking up from below the far horizon.

  “What do you see?” Greystone asked sharply.

  “A-a-another city,” I stammered. “It’s far away.”

  “It is the city of Stanchion,” said Greystone, “And it lies seventy-five miles away. It is home to the other great barrier gate. It marks the far boundary of the barrier protecting us from Chaos.”

  “Stanchion?” I said. “That’s a weird name.”

  “Stop talking for once in your life and think!” he snapped. “If your eyes were sharp enough, you could see the whole barrier from where we stand. The lands in between are all that are truly safe from Chaos. Everything you can see.”

  I gulped and looked back toward the closer barrier gate. It seemed so tiny now.

  “Athorn is bordered by the barrier,” Greystone continued. “And until we expand it, Athorn is the only Kingdom that is safe. But beyond that there are many other Kingdoms. There is Linsfell, Tamarac and the port city of Stormhead. To the South lie Yarvan and Kirsch, Cantos and Faya, along with the Kingdoms of the Elves. Every man, woman and child in every city in every kingdom in the world is in dire peril — all except Athorn. And yet I am bound to protect them all. You are not. You did not ask for this. You haven’t accepted the responsibility that comes with those robes. There are ways of breaking your bond as a Keeper. Ways of being sent back to live out your life on True Earth. You wouldn’t be the first keeper to do so, but I guarantee you would be the last. Remember this: by endangering
yourself, by endangering your fellows, you endanger us all. And you endanger True Earth, your home. Are the lives of so many meaningless to you? Can you truly see this all as some game that you can win with your wheedling jokes and witticisms?”

  My eyes wandered across the landscape in all directions. It was hard to fathom the scope of it all. The kingdom I could see seemed so big, and yet I knew it was just a tiny fraction of the whole world. And this world was only half of the world, apparently. I don’t know if the human mind is even meant to think on that kind of scale, but mine was having trouble with it.

  “I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. “I guess I see what you mean. But how can you live in terror of doing something wrong? How am I going to learn to use my powers if I’m too scared to try them out?”

  “You will learn,” Greystone said, “because I will teach you. And all I ask is that in the meantime you do not do something that will get us all killed.”

  “I’ll try,” I promised. “Now, can you bring me back down to the ground again?”

  Greystone sighed. I felt a gust of air sweep over us, the air lifting us up and sending us floating gently back to the city gate.

  CALVIN

  I WOKE UP IN MY bed. By which I mean my real bed. I mean, my bed in my home. My home on Earth.

  Whatever. I woke up. Sun was pouring through my blinds, shining right into my face. I groaned. Normally I turned my blinds up before going to sleep so this didn’t happen, but yesterday afternoon I’d been so tired I must have forgotten.

  After my scolding on the tower, Greystone had brought me back down to the others. Blade and Miles had been freaking out, their anger at each other forgotten as they’d wondered what Greystone was doing to me, while Sarah was trying to calm everyone down. I assured them all I was fine before Blade could take a swing at Greystone, which it looked like he’d been going to do.

  Greystone had taken us back to the Runehold and separated us. Each of us got our own practice room to work in alone. Not even Darren was allowed into my room. Greystone said that trying to move a cup was far too great a leap for me to have taken. He’d put a piece of parchment on the floor and told me to summon him when I could move it through the air at will. I had practiced for hours and got pretty good at lifting it with air plates, but before I could try moving it around, Sarah came in. She said it was time to go back to True Earth, so we went to our rooms where Greystone gave each of us a sleeping potion. I didn’t even remember finishing the drink before I was unconscious.

  Despite the hours of physical and mental effort I’d expended in the training room, I felt amazing as I woke up. It was just like Greystone had said: our minds were at work in Midrealm, but our bodies and brains on True Earth were busy getting a good night’s rest. Just as I drifted to full awareness, there was a light knock on my door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  My mom stepped in, looking at me with a smile. But there was something fake about it. Hiding in the corner of her eyes, I saw worry and concern.

  “Hey, mom,” I said, sitting up quickly. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said with a careful smile. “Just checking on you. How are you doing?” she asked carefully.

  “I’m great!” I said. It was only partially a lie. I was worried and mentally exhausted by my day in Midrealm, but it was true that here I felt perfect. “Never better.”

  “Okay, good,” my mom said. She looked like she was going to say something else, but instead she simply smiled again. “Good. I made pancakes!”

  “Sweet!” I said, jumping out of bed. I threw on a clean t-shirt and some jeans and followed my mom out of the room.

  We went downstairs, my mom still silent. I didn’t press her about the concern that showed on her face so plainly. I figure if someone really wants to let me know something, they can tell me. If they want me to dig it out of them, then they must not really want to tell me. And my mom always did that kind of thing. So I munched on my pancakes, ignoring her careful, concerned looks and my father’s silence as he read the paper, glancing at me over the top of it occasionally. The kitchen dissolved into an uncomfortable silence, which I did my best to ignore.

  The last bite of pancake slid down my throat. “Thanks, mom!” I said again. “That was great. I’d better be going.”

  “Do you want a ride today?” she said quickly. “I mean, in the car?”

  “No, I’m good,” I said nonchalantly. I didn’t want another twenty minutes of awkward looks that silently pleaded for a conversation she didn’t want to start. “Thanks though. See ya tonight!”

  I left before either one of them could say anything. Sure, I knew my parents loved me, and they were probably concerned about the coma I’d been in yesterday, but at the same time their attitude was annoying. If they wanted to ask me about it, they could. It wasn’t like I was hard to get a hold of; I lived in their house.

  I made my way two blocks to the bus stop. Normally I guess I kind of walk with my head down, staring at the ground and thinking. At least that’s what my parents always complain about. But today I was staring around at my neighborhood. I didn’t know what it was, but I found myself intensely interested in everything.

  I hit the bus stop and tossed my backpack down on the grass. I lay down with my head on it, staring up into the sky. I didn’t have a cell phone — my parents hadn’t let me get one yet — so I had to content myself with staring at nothing.

  It wasn’t long until I felt eyes on me, like I was being stared at.

  I pushed up on my elbows. Five other kids were standing at the bus stop, but none of them were talking. I got the weird feeling as I got up that they all looked away from me quickly. It was eerily silent. I knew that two of the kids, two girls about a year older than me, were best friends. Normally they wouldn’t shut up when we were waiting here in the morning. On a normal day, when I’d had to force myself to get out of bed, it would have been incredibly irritating. But now they were just idly looking around, trying their best to look everywhere but at me.

  Okay, this was weird. First my parents, and now kids at school?

  One of the guys at the bus stop was named Steven. I knew him from around. We weren’t exactly buddies or anything, but we got along okay. At least he didn’t stuff me in lockers every chance he got, like Chuck, the school’s main bully.

  “Hey, Steven!” I called out, waving my hand. “What’s up?”

  He looked at me uncomfortably from the corner of his eye and gave a noncommittal gesture. It was something between a wave and the kind of twitch old people get when they have a heart attack.

  “Did I miss anything in science yesterday?” I asked. “Must have been pretty quiet without me, huh?”

  Steven slowly, with all the subtlety of a rhinoceros, stepped behind the tall plastic side of the bus stop so he was out of my sight.

  Okay. So something was going on.

  It was another extremely awkward ten minutes before the bus finally came. Everyone dashed on to it quickly, like they were trying to escape. I took my time, moving down the bus and looking for an open seat. Everyone sitting alone moved over so I couldn’t sit next to them. I had to find a totally empty row all the way in the back before I could plant my butt.

  “Okay, what is going on?” I muttered to myself. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t mister popular at my school, but I wasn’t this shunned. This was something new.

  School was the same drill, everyone scrambling off the bus like I had the plague. I made my way into the main hall, checking my watch. I only had a few minutes until class. I had to find someone who could explain why people were treating me like a leper.

  Then I spotted Eugene.

  Perfect.

  Eugene was a buddy of mine. We’d been hanging out ever since third grade. I introduced him to Dungeons & Dragons. He’s always been a nerd, like me.

  Now Eugene was shuffling down the hallway, staring at his feet like he always did. His long, greasy black hair hung down partially over his eyes, obscuring
a lot of his view of the hallway. He’d never see me coming.

  I walked briskly up to him. He noticed my feet at the last second and looked up. His eyes became a mask of terror and he backed away awkwardly, nearly tripping himself.

  “Oh, uh, hey, Calv — ”

  Then he did trip himself. He went down in a pile of limbs and black clothing.

  “Nice, dude,” I said, laughing. “Here, let me help you — ”

  “No! No, that’s fine, I got it,” Eugene said quickly, waving me off. He got to his feet hurriedly, wiping his hands off as if afraid he might have accidentally brushed me with them. “Well, I gotta get to, uh…to my first class…”

  “I know, we have the same one,” I said. “Let’s go, I’ll walk with you.”

  “No, I meant my locker. I gotta get something out of it. For my first class. Which is now. But you know that.” Eugene stammered each fragment out like he was thinking on his feet and failing miserably.

  I rolled my eyes and stepped in closer. Eugene stepped back unconsciously, and his back came up hard against the lockers.

  “Eugene,” I said, my voice deadly serious. “What’s going on?”

  Eugene’s eyes darted left, right. “Um…nothing. What would be going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him, “but everyone’s treating me like Typhoid Mary today. Spill.”

  “It’s just…” Eugene said, clearly uncomfortable to be speaking so plainly with me. “It’s just about...you know…you guys passing out and all.”

  I blinked. Okay, I should have been expecting that. Six random kids passing out all at the same time, in the same room? Everyone probably thought we’d been doing drugs or something. And I could understand getting some weird looks for that, but not the reaction we were getting. “Okay. And?”

  “If I tell you, will you promise to leave me alone?”