Midrealm

by Garrett Robinson

  But it was no use. The stone sat there impassively.

  Nope, nothing.

  “Tess, that’s kind of creepy,” Calvin said uneasily.

  “Sorry,” I said, blushing. “Nope. Nothing.”

  Sarah turned to the Runegard standing silently behind us. “Cara? Have you been here before? What do we need to do?”

  Cara shook her head. “I have never been here. Greystone did not speak of a door.”

  I frowned. “If there was something we had to do, he would have told us,” I said. I stepped a little bit closer to it. “I mean, there’s no — ”

  There was a crack within the stone, and the massive door began to slide into itself, opening the way.

  I looked down at my foot, then up at the others. Calvin was staring at me with an open mouth.

  “Are you serious?” he said, sounding halfway between hysterical laughter and hysterical screaming. “We were outside its range? Like standing ten feet outside a grocery store and wondering why the doors aren’t opening?”

  That made us laugh. All but Sarah, who shook her head and walked straight through the door.

  “Lady Sarah!” cried Cara, running in after her.

  We followed.

  Inside, the temple was actually unimpressive. The door led straight, neither sloping up or down. Soon we were in a medium-sized stone chamber. The room was perhaps fifty feet square. Dim torches in each corner were made unnecessary by the hole in the ceiling, throwing a single shaft of sunlight straight into the center of the chamber’s floor.

  In the shaft of sunlight sat the oracle.

  She was young-looking, maybe twenty-five. But from the way Greystone talked about her, I assumed she was much, much older than that. She was pretty, and dressed all in white. A single, threadbare cushion beneath her was the only adornment in the room. The cushion looked to be checkered with two different shades of blue.

  She was murmuring something as we approached, but even when we were standing a few feet away I couldn’t understand what it was. Whatever enchantment let us understand language in Midrealm, it didn’t work on this language.

  Or maybe it just didn’t work on her.

  We all stood around her mutely for a moment. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t seem to see us. She was looking at the open door behind us as though looking for an answer in its glowing outline.

  “Hello?” Sarah said, her voice full of confidence. She had to be faking it — no way she wasn’t as weirded out by this as the rest of us were.

  Nothing. The oracle kept murmuring, her voice a steady flow of words.

  “Um…excuse me?” Sarah said, prodding gently. She knelt, trying to put herself in the oracle’s line of sight. But even when she got right in front of her, there was no spark of recognition in the oracle’s eyes.

  Excuse, escuser, excusare, ex, causa.

  The flash of words sprang into my mind like a road flare before dying away. The voice was full, rich, beautiful. I looked around at the others, but they were all fixed intently on the oracle.

  “Can you hear me?” Sarah asked.

  Hear. Heran. Hieran, hyran. Hausjan. Can. Cunnan. You. Ge.

  I blinked. The staccato barrage of words was so fast, it was hard to make each one out. I took another look at the oracle. Was it her?

  Hello? I thought.

  The oracle’s eyes snapped up to meet mine, and her murmuring stopped. Everyone else in the room turned to look at me.

  “Tess?” Sarah asked uncertainly.

  Can you understand my thoughts? I spoke with my mind.

  Of course. The mind is the playground where all thoughts can play. We don’t really use words here, you know.

  Once again, the thoughts were so fast that it took my mind a second to separate them out and figure out what they meant. I grew dizzy for a moment, and I swayed on my feet. Nora snatched me before I could fall.

  “Tess, what’s going on?” Sarah asked. The oracle’s eyes didn’t flicker from me.

  I’m sorry, she said. I so often forget, and it’s so rare I have a chance to think at all.

  It’s all right, I said. I turned to the others. “I can speak with her. Using my mind.”

  Sarah nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, that makes sense. I guess you’ll have to — ”

  “Makes!” screeched the Oracle, nearly giving me a heart attack. She turned to Sarah. “Makes, of course, it’s always easiest with the verbs.”

  Sarah stared at her. “You can understand me?”

  “Did my answer confuse you? It’s so hard to remember how people talk, especially when it changes all the time. The last ones to come talked so strangely, and most of them in a different tongue. Like yours, but different. Older, though not as old as the ones before them.”

  Something was nagging at me as she spoke, but I didn’t realize what it was until she finished. “You’re speaking English,” I said.

  The oracle didn’t laugh, but there was a dance in her eyes that looked like laughter sounded. “I liked the name so much better when there was still an a in it. Ayn-glish. You’ve lost so much in the way of combined vowels, it’s quite infuriating. Of course, you’ve never noticed, I only do because it’s sometimes dozens or hundreds of years between hearing the changes.”

  Calvin swung his head back and forth. “Wait, so you pick up languages? That quickly?”

  The oracle didn’t turn to look at him. “It’s the same language. I speak most of them. You people have come from all over, you know. I just speak an older version of it than you. Version. Version.” She closed her eyes and licked her lips.

  Sarah got over her surprise first. “We’ve come for your help.”

  “Did you think you needed to tell me that?” the oracle asked, as if Sarah were a student with brain damage.

  Sarah fought back the blush. “No, I guess not. Can you tell us where the tombs of the Six are?”

  The oracle cocked her head. “Immaterial.”

  “Terrence wants them,” Sarah said. “That doesn’t seem immaterial to me.”

  “Terrence, Terrence,” the oracle said, shaking her head. “He doesn’t know what he wants. Very well. I will tell you where one of the tombs is. That will not stretch the fabric too far. Is this acceptable?”

  Sarah was about to argue when I turned to her. “If we just get one of the tombs, isn’t it enough? If he hasn’t got the artifacts of all the Six, he can’t do whatever he’s trying to do.”

  “We don’t know that,” Sarah said uncertainly.

  “You can only afford the one,” said the oracle with dead certainty. “And only the closest. It is Faya.”

  Sarah sent Cara a wordless question in a look.

  “Faya is a city south of Athorn,” Cara said. “Perhaps four days’ journey.”

  Sarah turned and nodded to the oracle. “Thank you, oracle.”

  “Aurora,” she corrected. “Do not thank me. If I had a whit of sense, I wouldn’t have told you. You shouldn’t waste your time with Faya. The fabric, you know.”

  I didn’t, and I doubted Sarah did, either, but she nodded anyway. “What should we spend our time on, then?” she asked.

  Aurora stared at her for a moment. Then her gaze fell, staring out the door behind us once again.

  “You will have to go soon,” she said. “It’s time. Of course, it always is.”

  That was it. We stood there for another good few minutes, waiting, but nothing else came.

  “Is there anything — ” Sarah began.

  Aurora cut her off, speaking in a low, rolling voice that echoed in her chamber the way none of her earlier words ever had. It bounced, it reverberated, it penetrated the mind and the soul.

  You seek to know the voice of fate, and yet you fear to ask

  For destiny can be deceiving once you move the mask

  Two roads, two paths, two ways to go, for you and those who join

  Your destiny may come or go, two faces to a coin

  Two roads you face and neither simple, both with de
ath and pain

  The first sees Chaos as the victor, brings the Shadow reign

  The second path is what you seek, for in it there is life

  And yet it comes at mighty cost, a way of pain and strife

  One shall live to see old age, a long life full of beauty

  One shall fight a thousand years and never fail their duty

  “Whoah, hold on,” said Calvin. “Is she talking about us?”

  Aurora pressed on, ignoring him.

  One shall rule a kingdom well, broad the lands at their behest

  One shall seem to be struck down, then shall rise above the rest

  One shall turn upon you all when counted on and needed

  One shall leave this life for death if Shadow be defeated

  “What?!” shouted Blade.

  Walk the road and seek to mend the friendship that was broken

  East and West to North and South before two Frosts have spoken

  Where were six there now are four, each needing one another

  Join the Earth to sister Sky, and Water with its brother

  Aurora’s head bowed, and she spoke no more.

  “What did you mean, one will leave this life for death?” Miles asked, his voice thick with urgency.

  Aurora said nothing.

  “Aurora?” Sarah said. “Aurora, hold on. What did that mean?

  CRACK

  The sharp noise echoed throughout the temple, the same we’d heard when we first entered. I whirled to see the door behind us beginning to slide shut. A quick scan showed me that all four doors, North, South, East and West, were on their way to closed.

  “Lady Sarah, we have to go!” cried Cara, snatching at her arm and pulling her toward the front of the temple.

  “Wait!” shouted Sarah. “We need more answers!”

  Finally Aurora spoke, and this time her voice was normal. “You have them. Go,” she said. “Go!” The last word was a scream that hurt my ears, it was so loud.

  Nora’s arm was wrapped around my shoulders, dragging me to the exit. I wasn’t resisting, but I suddenly realized I wasn’t helping, either. I found my own feet, running down the hallway. The door was sliding closed with a terrible grinding noise.

  I turned and realized Blade was still there, still kneeling and shouting at Aurora to speak, to tell him what she meant, to explain. Samuel was trying to pull him away, but Blade kept shoving him off.

  “Blade!” I cried.

  His head snapped up. He saw me running down the hallway. I saw something break in the anger on his face, and he leapt to his feet, quickly outdistancing Samuel as he ran down the hallway toward us.

  Miles and Calvin were standing outside, waving us through. “Come on!” shouted Calvin. The door was five feet from shut. “Hurry!”

  Blade passed me by, snatching my arm and dragging me to run faster. We made it through the door, but we had to slide through sideways. Samuel and Nora fell out after us, tangled up in a heap on the floor.

  DOOM.

  The door slammed shut behind us. Fifteen feet of solid grey stone stared at us like an angry giant, daring us to come closer.

  Pieter, came a soft, beautiful voice in my mind. Don’t forget about Pieter.

  I whirled, but the voice clearly wasn’t from one of the others. I looked at the stone door again.

  Aurora? I thought. Who’s Pieter? Why do I need to remember him?

  Silence and stone were my only answers.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN…

  BLADE

  MY NAME IS BLADE FREDERICKSON, and I’m living a double life.

  It’s not exactly what you’d expect from a guy like me. Before any of this happened, I would have stuffed you in a locker if you’d tried to tell me about Midrealm or the Realm Keepers or any of the rest of it. Nothing personal, you understand. It was more of a necessity. Guys like me couldn’t do anything else with dorks. Call it what you want. Some said I was a bully, but I didn’t see it that way. Bullies enjoy it. They look for excuses to smack people around. In my mind, I was just giving a loud and clear signal that I didn’t want you in my face.

  I have a different perspective now, of course.

  When we first went over, I’d noticed the others having a lot of trouble with their new lives in Midrealm. Everyone except Calvin, who loved it — all of his geekiest fantasies had suddenly come to life, and he was the hero he’d always wanted to be. But the others, who had been perfectly happy with their lives, suddenly had new ones that cut across the goals they had been building for years.

  Me, I was a little bit different. I was more in Calvin’s camp, although for entirely different reasons.

  I wasn’t as geeked out about it as he was, but pretty immediately I decided that Midrealm was my new home. I couldn’t wait to go to sleep every night. Sometimes I would get there early enough to sneak out of Morrowdust and practice magic that was, shall we say, more extravagant than Greystone was comfortable with.

  As for why?

  Let’s just say that I had more reasons than any of the others to want to ditch Earth. More reasons than the rest of them, living their comfortable, sheltered lives of privilege, could possibly understand.

  More reasons, if I had my way, than the others would ever know about.

  “Where are they?”

  A rough and calloused hand shoved me hard, knocking me down and onto the couch in my room that I slept on more often than my bed. I looked up to see his wide, bloodshot red eyes staring back at me. His breath reeked of alcohol already, even though the sun had just gone down. Several days of rough stubble was dusted on his chin like grimy dirt. Or rather, in addition to grimy dirt.

  “Where are they?” he said again, rude and nasty. It was a voice I’d grown up fearing. A voice that had grown more and more common the older I got, and then became a constant once my mom walked out.

  “Where are what?” I grumbled, looking him right in the eye. He backed off a fraction, just enough to let me stand up from the sagging, dirty white couch.

  “Where’s my cigarettes?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Instantly he was a hair’s breadth away from me. The shock of his breath would have made me gag when I was younger, but not any more. Like people who live in the sewer — no matter how bad the smell is, eventually they just get used to it.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” he hissed. “What’d you do with my ten spot?”

  “I bought you cigarettes and scratchoff lottery tickets with it,” I said, keeping my own anger from my voice. “Just like you told me to.”

  He shoved me again. Not hard, but enough to knock me back down on the couch. I heard the distinct ripping sound of duct tape coming loose beneath me. There was a slight sag in the cushion as one of the few “comfort” springs punched out of the bottom.

  “Don’t you talk back to me, boy,” he said. “If you got me my smokes, where are they?”

  “How should I know?” I asked, my voice finally growing angry. I tried to get out of the sunken-in cushion only to have him push me back in. “It’s Saturday. I bought them for you on Wednesday. That’s three days ago.”

  I could see in his hardened grey eyes he was trying to remember it, though I doubted he even remembered what he had had for breakfast. His gaze wandered a moment before snapping back to the present, focusing on my black jacket hanging on the couch’s arm.

  “Load of bull,” he slurred. He snatched up the jacket and reached for the inside pocket. “You got smokes for yourself. Think I’m stupid?” He pulled out my cigarette pack and made to put it in his pants pocket.

  I jumped up and slapped the cigarettes out of his hand, sending them skittering to the floor. Fortunately the pack stayed closed, so I didn’t lose them.

  His hand lashed out as if on instinct, striking me in the face. Not too hard, but hard enough to sting and knock me back down onto the couch. He leaned over, his hand on my shoulder, trying to hold me down while he grimaced in anger.

  “Get
off me!” I yelled, pushing him hard. He reeled backward and fell to the floor. I snatched up both my jacket and the cigarette pack and bolted out the door.

  I made it to the living room before he caught me. He snatched the back of my shirt and flung me to the side, sending me down onto the main couch. It was only slightly softer than the one in my room.

  I kicked him without thinking. I barely tapped his knee, but it was the bum one, the one that had been hurt in the accident. His flailing arm caught a TV tray. The empty beer bottles that had sat on it for days went crashing down, broken and scattered across the floor. He gave a yelp as his hand came down in the debris. He pushed himself up to sit, clutching his right hand as blood gently seeped through the fingers of his left.

  “You need to calm down!” I yelled. “You want cigs? Give me money and I’ll get you some, but don’t think for a second you can take what’s mine.”

  He glared at me, drunken hate in his eyes. “I put a roof over your head, you ingrate. I put food in your stomach. I put clothes on your back, and you think you can treat me like this?”

  I smirked. I have two smirks: one when I think something is funny, and one when I’m ticked off. This was the second one.

  “You haven’t spent a dime in years that you didn’t get from Uncle Sam,” I sneered. “So don’t act like you’re doing me any favors.”

  Of course, in retrospect it was the wrong thing to say. But just then, I was too angry to care. I watched his nostrils flare and his face become beet red, his breath beginning to come hard and fast.

  “That’s it,” he growled. “I’ve put up with you for too long. You get out of this house.”

  I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Right. Sure.”

  “I mean it, you little twerp,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet and I tensed, but he didn’t move so much as a muscle to hit me again. “You get out of here. You leave, and you never come back. You don’t think I do anything for you? Fine. Let’s see how long you last out there without me.”