by Sarah Reeves
The same could be said for the amount of valuable paper one has being the deciding factor. Or that your famous people, your entertainers are more provided for than your warriors, and not the other way around.
Soldiers in the realms are better cared for than others?
No. They are honored, there are festivals in their names and stories told across generations. But they are treated the same as everyone else as far as income and medical care is concerned. Poverty does not exist within the realms. If one needs psychological care, they are given it. It doesn’t matter to us where they come from, or what job they have. We all live the same.
Why? Asked Alex.
Because it eliminates discrimination based on job postition, or income. The poor on Earth are treated like vermin, your warriors go untreated for mental illness and several end up committing suicide, because they are not able to cope. That is unacceptable within the Realms. Even the poorest families are housed, and have health care. The ones that are “homeless” are the ones that choose to be for the sake of lifestyle.
...That does sound better than what we have here.
It’s much better than what you have. Adrien angled her body downward. They were almost there. Alex felt a thrill as she copied her mentor, the ground rising rapidly to meet them. Her stomach was in her toes, and adrenaline pumped through her veins.
If I die from landing like an idiot, she said, Tell my family I died a hero!
Adrien only snorted. She landed on a plateau and folded her wings, watching Alex as the younger shape shifter followed suit. When Alex had picked herself up off the dirt, they both Shifted until they were once again human.
The Grand Canyon sprawled before them, as far as Alex was able to see. She’d only ever seen pictures, and the sheer size of the canyon was nearly overwhelming. “Wow,” she breathed. “The portals are here?”
“Yes,” answered Adrien, brushing her hair from her face. “It’s going to take a while by foot, but we’ll manage. How do you feel?”
“Sore.” Alex rolled her shoulders and wincing slightly. “But I’ll be okay. I’m more just nervous about getting to the fire realm. It’s not going to hurt, is it?”
“No, you’ll be fine.” The older woman paced to the edge of the small cliff, and looked down. “We can basically float to the bottom of the canyon, as long as we only Shift halfway. There won’t be a lot of people out this way, especially not at this point in the evening, but we do still need to be careful. We’ll need to go the rest of the way on foot.” With that, Adrien manifested her wings. “Follow me,” she commanded, and stepped off the edge. Alex ran to where she dropped and watched as Adrien floated to the rocks below. She didn’t flap her wings, instead letting them hang open to catch the air as she went. The drop wasn’t as much as Alex had originally thought, either.
“Yeah, let me just casually step off the edge of a cliff,” she muttered. She stepped off, spreading her wings and holding them there. She reached the floor safely, and landed much better than she had before.
“Not bad,” said Adrien. She was already back to her human form. “Let’s go.”
Alex folded her wings, letting them shrink back into her shoulders as she took off after her mentor. They walked silently for a while as the setting sun cast long shadows over the stone walls surrounding them. Alex couldn’t keep her eyes forward, like Adrien was. Her head turned continuously, taking in the rock that towered above them, the deepening purple hue of the sky, and the last few rays of sunlight that crested the top of the canyon. Some of the rocks were sharply angled; her foot slipped, and she stumbled into a stream she hadn’t realized was there. She shook the water from her foot, cursing lightly, and caught Adrien’s glance as her mentor looked on with amusement.
“Enjoying the view?” she asked.
“It’s hard to believe that places like this actually exist, even after seeing pictures in your geography books.” Alex felt the breeze pick up and shivered lightly. “I’ve always wanted to take a trip out here, go on a tour or something. Now it turns out we’re going to an area that humans have never gone into before. And from there we’re going to a completely different plane of existence, one of seven. Different world, different culture, different everything. And I know I’m one of you guys, but at the same time, I know I’m ridiculously out of place. It’s a lot to wrap my head around.”
“I would say I understand, but I can’t do that.” Adrien was still ahead of Alex, but she kept her head turned to the side so Alex could hear. “I grew up within the realms. I’m comfortable with everything that is so new to you. The only strange thing for me is going back there after so many years. I don’t know what’s changed, who is still living. I do know that there will be people that recognize me, and know that I was possessed. I don’t know how any of those Undari will react. So I can say that I do feel the kind of anxiety you do, on some level.” The path descended, and when her mentor stopped, it was in front of the entrance to a tunnel. Alex couldn’t see a thing past the opening. “I’ll conjure a light. You can use your fire, if you want.”
For a moment, Alex was tempted to try to make her own light appear, but she chose instead to use her primary power. Flames burst forth in her palm, and she followed the bobbing light coming from Adrien’s hand as they entered the tunnel.
“So your given element is light, right?” Alex waited for Adrien’s nod, then continued with her question. “If that’s the case, and Dad used fire, how did you two meet? And why are you a dragon too?”
“We met when I decided to travel to other realms to learn. I was going to be a doctor, and I wanted to be able to help Undari from all realms, not just mine. When I came through the Portal to the Fire Realm, your father’s face was the first I saw. I didn’t like him,” Adrien was ahead of Alex, but it was clear she was smiling. “But he grew on me as time went by.
“As for why my Form is also a dragon, it’s because dragons are the one creature that exists in all the Realms. Their biology is compatible with each of the elements. There are Undari Forms that are associated with more than one element, but not all of them.”
“Wouldn’t that put you lower on the social ladder?” Alex wanted to know.
“Not necessarily,” was all Adrien gave as an answer. It was silent again after that.
A faint wind whistled in Alex’s ears, and she couldn’t repress the shudder that ran through her when she thought of how many creepy crawlies were probably around them. An unwanted image of large spiders surfaced in her mind, and she rubbed her arm vigorously.
The tunnel ended in a large underground room. Alex increased the intensity of the flame in her hand in order to take in her surroundings. The room was about as large as the living room in her grandmother’s home, and there were several more tunnels branching off in different directions. Adrien hadn’t stopped walking, and Alex hastily followed her through the second tunnel from the right. It wound back and forth, rose and fell, and was a lot rockier than the previous path. The darkness pressed in on them as they continued. Claustrophobia had started to set in, and then the path opened abruptly again. Alex’s nose wrinkled as a smell reached her nose that reminded her of the reptile rooms in the nature center back home. The dark was still there, but Alex could make out tiny gaps in the walls around them, barely wider than her hand. She took a few steps toward one of them, noting that the cobwebs strung in front of the holes were being sucked inward. She turned to look at her mentor, who was watching Alex investigate.
“It doesn’t look like we can go anywhere else. If we can, nobody has gone in any of these directions in a while.” Her voice echoed slightly in the cool and damp atmosphere. “Where are the portals?”
“Take a look around, first. Make your fire as bright as you can.” There was a strange look on Adrien’s face as she watched her pupil comply. Alex picked a side of the chamber, and began a slow walk.
“Wait a second…” Alex held her hand next to the stone. “Are these paintings?” When Adrien nodded, Alex studied them.
There were markings all around the gaps in the wall, depictions of creatures that seemed to move in the light from her fire. She saw sea creatures swimming around one of the gaps, winged things soaring around another. Tiny creatures of flame and dragons enormous in comparison danced around the third. Critters made of stone blended into the surface of the fourth hole, while others shone around the fifth. The last one Alex came to was the most intriguing. The dark beings she saw there seemed to have an oil on pavement kind of sheen to them, and they skulked around the edges of their cubby hole. “Are each of these little gaps one of the portals?” she wondered aloud.
“Not quite,”Adrien said. “Step back for a moment let me show you what I mean.” She raised her hands and started to speak in a language Alex didn’t understand, but she knew it had to be the Undari native tongue. The chant reverberated in the chamber, and in front of the gap where the flame-like creatures flitted, stone rose in two columns from the floor. Alex watched in shock as the columns tilted towards each other, then converged, leaving a stone archway that looked as though it had always been there.
“Woah,” Alex breathed.
“Put your hands up,” instructed the other woman. Alex obeyed, and felt some of her power snake toward the archway. As soon as it reached the space between the stone pillars, it spread as though hitting an invisible barrier. Within seconds, there was a portal there. The flame danced and crackled and smelled of childhood camping trips. She found herself drawn to it in the same manner as her father’s stone.
“This is the portal to the fire realm?”
“Yes. That’s how we’ll get there.” Adrien stepped forward. “Every Undari is granted access to each of the realms, but it is a lot easier to conjure the portal if there is an emissary of that realm with you that can use their power to open it.”
Alex took a few steps to the side, marveling at how the gap in the stone wall not only served as a marker for the portal’s position, but was also the catalyst for the membrane. There was no hint of the fire realm on either side of the stone arch. “How do we go in?” she asked. “Do we jump, do we fly?”
“No.” Adrien’s derisive tone made Alex’s face burn. “We walk. Why would there be any special way of going through a portal?”
“You do know that not every person on the planet has walked through one of these, right? How was I supposed to know what to do?”
“Here. Just come with me.” Alex’s mentor took her arm, and walked toward the portal. The air grew warmer as they got closer to the membrane, and Alex felt a thrill of foreboding the instant before her body made contact.
It was like stepping into the sunlight on a chilly day. Warmth slid over Alex and her body relaxed into it, but it was over before she knew it. She stumbled out of the other side, and looked around, blinking.
The first thing she noticed was that everything was not on fire like she had imagined. However, the only light in the area where they appeared seemed to come from pillars topped with large bonfires that towered over the trees flanking them on either side, and a sun that shone a deep scarlet. They had landed in a grassy clearing, and the sudden openness compared to the cave from which Alex and Adrien had come was disorienting. There didn’t seem to be any creatures in sight, which filled Alex with a sense of relief. She wouldn’t have to talk to anyone just yet. The light from the pillars and the sun just barely brushed the dense undergrowth between the trees, and the farther back the forest went, the darker it got. There was a single path that stretched back into the trees. She looked over at her mentor, intending to say something, but the words died in her throat when she saw the expression on her face.
Adrien was stepping forward, radiant joy and terrible grief etched on her face in equal measure. Tears filled her eyes, and Alex saw her hand shake as she lifted it to her mouth. It struck Alex suddenly that this was Adrien’s home, had been for years, and it had been ripped from her and held at a distance for seventeen years of her life. There was a third emotion that Alex recognized as apprehension, which she also understood on some level. Would anyone that knew Adrien had been possessed trust her, now that she was free? Alex didn’t actually know if there was any sort of test for possession by the Unseen that would prove Adrien’s innocence.
“WHO GOES THERE?” The booming voice made both Alex and Adrien jump. There was rustling in the undergrowth, and the voice continued. “I WILL-” There was a yelp, a crash, and a short, plump little man rolled out into the clearing. Alex and her mentor stood watching him, bodies tense, minds confused. The man stood, rubbing his elbow, and tried again. “I am Ronan of the Vin. I am the protector of this portal, and I demand to know who you are!” He reached behind him, struggled for a moment, then produced a sword. “State your name and your purpose!”
Adrien made to take a step forward, then seemed to think better of it.
Alex just wanted to know what the hell was going on.
“We are also of the realms,” said Adrien slowly. “I am Adrien, and this is my daughter, Alexandra.”
Ronan considered them, and when he caught sight of Alex, his eyes narrowed. Alex narrowed hers back at him. “How do I know you’re of this realm?”
“I am not,” answered Adrien. “I am an Efari of the Realm of Light. My daughter is one of the Vin through her father’s bloodline.” She held her hand up, manifesting her power. Alex copied her. Ronan studied them for a second longer, then smiled.
“Great! Sorry about the tough-guy act.” He came forward, hand outstretched. Alex exchanged glances with her mentor. “I have to be intimidating until I know that you’re not some Unseen scum.” He spat the last word and shook both women’s hands. “There is a permanent guard at every portal ever since he escaped.”
“Of course,” said Adrien quickly, shooting a warning look at Alex, who had opened her mouth with a disbelieving expression on her face. “We completely understand. Alexandra and I just got back to this realm, and we’re going to the Arena.”
“As you were, then.” Ronan stepped out of the way, and snapped a smart salute as the two women passed. Alex bit the inside of her cheek hard as they passed him and headed into the woods. When they were out of earshot, Alex turned to Adrien.
“Who was that?” she asked, unable to keep the giggle out of her voice.
“I have no clue.” Adrien didn’t laugh like Alex did, but the corners of her mouth twitched. “He was very interesting, though.”
“Interesting is a strong word.” Alex laughed out loud, remembering how he fell out of the undergrowth. “Why didn’t he just use the path, like a normal person?”
“Element of surprise, I assume,” was the answer. Alex laughed again. They continued down the path for a time, and Alex kept looking up at the sun. It didn’t provide a whole lot of light. Something Adrien had said crept back into her mind, and she looked over at the older woman.
“Is the Arena the training center where we’re going?”
“Mmhmm.” Adrien nodded. “That’s where all the younglings train. The biggest thing we will need to work around is how old you are compared to those with the same skill level. You will need to train very hard in order to get to where others your age are. Since that is the case, I will train you privately, away from everyone else in the Arena, until you’re strong enough to train with the others.”
“I thought I was going to be training with you privately anyway?”
“To start, yes.” Ahead there was a huge structure, and Adrien stopped, staring up at it. “But it will look suspicious if I trained you by myself at all times. There are classes, age groups that you will fall into for the rest of your training. Besides,” she grinned at Alex. “I don’t know everything, and you need to know how to kill things a lot bigger than rabbits.”
“Oh, shut up. That was one time.”
“One time is all it takes,” Adrien replied, chortling. She stopped, holding out an arm to make her student stop next to her. She was gazing up at a colossal wall. “We’re here.”
Chapter Eleven
/> The ritual was almost complete. The Unseen gazed down at the still form of the girl. Her face was ashen, eyes fluttering from exhaustion and pain. Gashes covered her body, weeping blood. It had been difficult to break her will. Many hours of torture, increasingly creative, had sapped at her strength enough, in the end. The Unseen grudgingly respected the tenacity of the creature. The last part of the ritual would be the easiest to do. He took the stone and a small silver knife. The girl was so close to death that she didn’t wake for the next part, only stirred fretfully as he started to carve a shallow hole in her chest, above her heart. It was in that hole that he put the stone.
As soon as it made contact with the fresh blood seeping from the wound, crackles of energy raced along her skin. The girl’s back arched, making her look like a puppet on strings. Once the stone had started to take over, the Unseen gathered himself up above her and dove directly at the stone. His consciousness merged seamlessly with her soul, as her body changed to accommodate the new power. Her skin turned the same blotchy color as the stone, and took on the withered look of a corpse. Disjointed limbs propelled the girl to her feet, and her eyes opened. They were completely black, with gray veins. The Unseen smiled, revealing sharp teeth, and took stock of his new body. Not the most appealing shell, but it would hold his power perfectly. He could sense the girl’s soul, tattered and abused beyond recognition. It could only function as a conduit for his power now. The Unseen spoke aloud for the first time in nearly half a century.
“This is going to be so much fun.”
To say the Arena was huge would have been a gross understatement. Alex remembered going to a football stadium in Atlanta that was maybe a third of the size of the Arena. It loomed above their heads and was topped with regularly spaced bonfires on spires that jutted from the top at strange angles. Looking at it, Alex was filled with intense intimidation. She didn’t feel at all like she should be there, and it nearly made her turn back. Her need to stay close to her mentor made her get closer, however. The walls were made of a red and black mottled stone. They approached the entrance, which was coated in flame. Despite herself, Alex hung back warily. Adrien stopped too.