Chapter 1 - Power
Selindria sat in a
comfortable armchair studying the sleeping form of Sabine on the couch. Selindria’s midnight black hair cascaded over
her shoulders down to her waist, framing a face that seemed too beautiful to be
real. Her lavender eyes with elliptically
shaped pupils were slightly puzzled as she studied her slumbering hostess. Until now, she had been too disoriented to
notice the glaring differences in the humans of this world compared to the
humans on her own world. After adapting
to her new situation, it was painfully obvious something was very wrong with
the humans on this world. On her world,
many humans were unable to use their yar. On this world, however, everyone unknowingly
used it all of the time. Small trickles
of yar connected the humans to electrically
conductive objects scattered throughout the city of Paris. The copper wires lining the walls of the building
acted as conduits, which Sabine’s yar
channeled itself into independent of any action initiated by Sabine. The biggest surprise occurred after Sabine slept. A small floodgate opened within the young
woman, and her yar rushed out to flow
into the copper wires within the walls. Selindria
could feel a pulsing algorithm buried within Sabine’s yar similar to the one Terrance created at the Altar of Guardia to
reinforce the auras of the Avenry in order to keep them safe from Gorinthians.
As Selindria studied
her hostess, her unease grew. Sabine’s
cells were obviously engineered to restrict and control the flow of her yar.
Who was responsible for these biological modifications? Was everyone on this planet similarly
controlled?
With a deep breath, she
reached out with her yar and began
the slow process of healing Sabine’s physical body to its natural state. It was painstaking work, modifying the DNA in
her cells and then initiating an artificial recall, forcing her body’s immune
system to accept the new code and flush the system of the handicapped
cells. Sabine’s skin began perspiring as
her breath came in short, labored gasps.
The process took nearly three hours, but when it was finished, there
were no longer any uncontrolled tentacles of yar broadcasting from the young woman into the copper wires in the
walls. Just as she finished, her yar alerted her of a flying machine
filled with heavily armed men outside of the apartment building.
“Wakey, wakey,”
Selindria said grimly as she reached out and shook Sabine awake.
“What the hell,” Sabine
sat up and gasped as sensations from her newly healed yar overloaded her brain.
“It’s time to go,”
Selindria told her quickly, pulling her up from the couch and herding her
toward the door.
“What’s going on?”
Sabine asked in confusion. “Did you drug
me?”
“I healed you,”
Selindria replied shortly. “Now before I
answer any more questions, we need to be leaving. There are some armed men I am fairly certain
are looking for us.”
“Where?” Sabine spun
around, looking for the threat.
“They just came out of a
flying machine outside,” Selindria replied impatiently. “They are coming down the hall right now and
I don’t think they plan on being very nice.
Once I deal with them, we will need to leave this place before more
return. I suggest you gather up anything
of sentimental value that you can carry lightly.”
Even as she finished
speaking, the door exploded inward off its hinges. She couldn’t see anything with her eyes, but
her yar sensed half a dozen men with
weapons pointed at them. Before any of
the men could attack, she used her yar
to sever the small highway of neurons at the base of their spines. All six men collapsed in a heap and their
helmets popped off their heads. The
commandos were plainly visible without their helmets. Selindria walked up to the nearest man and
knelt down. She gently propped up his
neck with her long fingers and looked deeply into his eyes. There was fear in his dark eyes, but not fear
of her. She could feel the terror at
what his failure would mean if his superiors recovered him alive.
“How did you find me?”
Selindria asked in a soft voice, pushing her yar into his mind and blocking his cognitive processes.
“We followed where you
had been with a time camera,” he spoke woodenly.
“What is a time
camera?” Selindria asked with a frown.
“It takes real-time
video of the past. It uses a special
quartz crystal lens that is capable of seeing the half-life’s of visible
light. As long as we can find a place
where you were seen, we can follow you through the lens of the time camera to
see where you end up.”
“Why were you looking
for me?” Selindria asked intently. The
other commandos were shaking their heads as much as they could and shouting at
him to be silent, but he just ignored them as if they weren't there. Selindria glanced at them irritably before
putting them to sleep with her yar.
“You tripped one of the
alarms when your dark energy didn’t respond to a stop light after the street
camera saw you,” he replied in the same monotonous tone. “The street cameras are programmed to keep a
catalogue of faces with a facial recognition program, and it monitors people’s
dark energy response. When the street
light turned red, your dark energy should have sent an acknowledgment to the
device. When it didn’t, the system red
flagged the area and we were sent to investigate.”
He must have been
talking about their yar, Selindria
thought absently. Why would they call it
dark energy?
“Who is controlling all
of this technology?” Selindria asked as she studied his helmet. “Where do they reside?”
“Most of our people
just call us the black government, because our organization controls all of the
other governments in the world and operates in secrecy,” he replied dully. “The grand masters locations are only given to
the highest ranking officers.”
“Where can I find some
of these high ranking officers?” Selindria asked softly.
“The moon,” he
replied. “They have subterranean bases
almost everywhere on the planet, but most of the leadership moved to the moon,
Mars, and Europa.”
“I thought Mars was
just a dead planet,” Sabine said in puzzlement.
“That is what you are
supposed to think,” he replied. He was
starting to perspire slightly as his cognitive mind tried to take back control
of his subconscious mind. “The original
Voyager satellites’ photos of Mars showed lakes and forests. The images were modified for the public to look
like a barren planet.”
“What about the Mars
Rover?” Sabine asked faintly.
“The Rover was
fabricated using 3d graphics programs,” he said slowly, shaking slightly from
his internal struggle. “They never sent
any rovers to Mars.”
"Where is
Europa?" Sabine asked curiously.
"It's a moon
orbiting Jupiter," he answered tonelessly.
“Why are your ‘Masters’
so concerned about a person not being tapped into the electric grid?” Selindria
asked, investing the word, Masters, with a load of contempt.
“People who use dark
energy will destabilize the world if they convince people of how they are
really controlled by the Masters,” he was breathing hard now, and sweat was pouring
out of his face.
“What are they doing
with all of the energy they are collecting from everyone?” Selindria asked as
she increased her hold on his mind.
“Your dark energy is
transferred to what you think of as nuclear power plants, where they are used
to create wormholes and power the dark energy guns in orbit around Venus and
Mars,” he tried to shake his head, but his lips kept moving. “They know Earth is dying, so they are harvesting
everything they can get from it before it becomes uninhabitable.”
“Kind of like some
vultures picking at a carcass, right?” Selindria asked in disgust. “How much time do they think Earth has before
it stops supporting life?”
“It will begin in
December,” he replied in a stutter. “It
will only take a few months for everything to die once it begins.”
"Oh great,"
Sabine muttered under her breath.
"The world really is going to end in 2012. That only leaves us with six months."
“What is killing it?”
Selindria asked curiously.
The man’s face went
slack as his mind shutdown from fatigue.
“Now we have a better
idea of what’s going on,” Selindria said with a small crease to her brow.. “If they are making wormholes, perhaps I can
find Terrance after all.”
“What are you going to
do with them?” Sabine asked with a gesture at the paralyzed men on the floor.
With a glance over her
shoulder at the men, she severed their spirits from their bodies. “Liberate them.”
“You killed them!”
Sabine gasped in horror.
“No, I just severed
their connection to their physical bodies,” Selindria replied coldly. “They will find new bodies and new lives
eventually. It is much better than what
would await them for their failure to capture us if we left them alive.”
Selindria could still sense the flying
machine hovering silently outside the building with her yar. She severed the pilot's
spirit from his body as well. The
building shook as the flying machine crashed to the ground and exploded into a
large fireball.
"What was
that?" Sabine cried out in fright.
"I just destroyed
the flying machine," Selindria answered calmly as she studied the wreckage
next to the building. The vessel had
used some kind of spinning rotor mechanism to stay airborne. The technology on this world appeared to be
quite sophisticated for people who could not use yar.
"I'll need to show
you how to shield your yar
soon," Selindria said thoughtfully.
"I'll take care of it for now." She wrapped her yar into an inverted resonance so the opposing energy was cancelling
their resonances out.
Sabine finally snapped
out of her daze and gathered some clothing into a bag before returning to
follow Selindria. Sabine kept trying to
look every direction at once as Selindria led her down the hall and out into
the street where a crowd was gathering around the crashed vessel.
"Is that a
helicopter?" one of the people in the crowd asked anyone willing to
listen.
"Not like any I've
ever seen," another person answered nervously. "This thing looks more
like a prototype of some kind than a commercial aircraft."
"So where are we
going now?" Sabine asked anxiously.
"We need to find a
secure base of operations," Selindria replied musingly. "Somewhere outside of the city and away
from all of these people. I get the
feeling most of these people are unwitting drones who will act as eyes and ears
for whoever the puppet masters are for this world."
"Why do I feel so
weird?" Sabine asked shakily.
"I feel like my mind is being bombarded with information from some
kind of strange sixth sense."
"Like I said
earlier," Selindria answered in a brisk tone. "I healed you. The sixth sense you are feeling is a natural
extension of your spirit for sensing the world around you. Someone on your world has created a system of
control that restricts you from using your yar. They have even engineered your bodies in such
a way that your yar is used as a
weapon against you. I'm going to need to
study more people to fully understand just what else they are using your yar for."
"What do you
mean?" Sabine asked with a puzzled frown.
"I thought you just said we can't use our yar."
"You cannot
consciously use your yar,"
Selindria explained patiently.
"They are the ones who are controlling your yar. When you went to sleep,
you went from feeding a trickle of yar into
the electrical grid, to a flood. I think
your yar is being used as an energy
source, in addition to a way for whoever these people are to download all of
your experiences for a given day.”
“You mean my dreams are
feeding memories to them?” Sabine asked
slowly.
“Yes,” Selindria
replied with a nod. “Your consciousness
comes in contact with trillions of other dreamers in the cosmos. Your dreams are actually just visions of
their memories.”
“Trillions?” Sabine asked in disbelief. “There are only six billion humans on Earth
though.”
“Earth is only one of
many worlds that exist in this space,” Selindria replied with a sigh. She looked at the busy streets around them
warily as they continued walking.
“Where are we
going?” Sabine asked curiously.
“Somewhere less
populated,” Selindria replied vaguely. She wasn’t sure where they were going, but
they couldn’t just sit in place.
“The man you said was
from this world probably came from America,” Sabine noted thoughtfully. “We could pick up the search there.”
“That's as good a place
to start as any,” Selindria replied slowly.
“How do we get there?”
“That’s a little bit
more difficult,” Sabine replied with an embarrassed blush. “I don’t make very much money, so I cannot
afford plane tickets.”
“This machine seems to
have the money you need in it,” Selindria nodded at an ATM ahead of them.
“You have to have a
bank card and money in your account for it to give you money,” Sabine replied
with a sigh.
“Is that so?” Selindria asked with a hint of a smile. “Let’s go see if it likes my bank card.”
Sabine followed her
nervously over to the machine, looking around guiltily at everyone who passed
by. Selindria shook her headsadly. Sabine needed to spend some quality time with
Chale to learn the fine art of lying and always looking innocent.
“What if we get
caught?” Sabine asked worriedly.
“Has that stopped me
yet?” Selindria asked with an upraised eyebrow.
Sabine laughed nervously
as Selindria stood in front of the machine.
She burned out the surveillance camera and video log first. Then she reached into the mechanical matrix
inside the mini vault and studied how the electrical signals worked. After a moment, she found the circuit necessary
to dish out all of the cash. She grunted
in satisfaction as paper bills started spitting out of the machine.
“We are so dead,”
Sabine whispered with a mixture of shock and excitement as she watched the
bills continue to eject. Selindria could
feel her elation at the thought of so much money. What a funny thing to get so excited about. They stopped at several other ATM’s as they
continued walking.
“Ok, now where?” Selindria asked briskly. She had been stuffing the bills into her
pants pocket, but they should have needed a backpack to hold all of the money.
“Let’s get a cab to the
airport,” Sabine replied distractedly.
“How did you fit all of that money in your pocket?"
“It’s a technique I
will teach you how to use with your yar,”
Selindria replied as Sabine hailed a cab.
“It is similar to bending light.
You just bend space instead.”
“How much can you fit
in there?” Sabine asked, thoroughly intrigued.
“I have no idea,”
Selindria replied with a shrug. “I have
never tested them to see how much they can hold.”
A cab pulled up to the
curb next to them and Sabine ushered Selindria into the back seat, where she
had to scrunch her long legs in order to fit.
“Airport, please,” Sabine told the cab driver.
He was busy goggling at
Selindria. She was staring at him curiously
as Sabine repeated herself.
Selindria finally raised
a cool eyebrow at him. “Do you know
where the airport is?”
The driver finally
snapped out of his trance, then blushed bright red. “Yeah, airport, right.”
"Put these on,"
Sabine instructed Selindria, pulling some lightly tinted sunglasses out of her
bag. "I think your eyes will be a
dead giveaway to anyone looking for aliens.
I don't think there is anything we can do about your height."
"Is this guy going
to be a problem?" Selindria asked with an air of impending violence.
"No, I don't think
so," Sabine said quickly.
"Nobody takes cab drivers seriously when they claim to have alien
passengers."
The cab driver pulled
into the traffic and began driving while sneaking peaks back at Selindria. Sabine was hanging on to her door for dear life
as he nearly crashed three times as he gazed at the icy goddess in his
cab. Selindria gazed around with
interest as the cab moved through the busy city. The buildings lining the streets here were
far larger than any in Shalilayo were. When
they finally arrived, Sabine handed him a wad of money and hurriedly exited the
car.
“How do we go about
getting a flight to America?” Selindria asked with a frown as she looked at the
huge buildings curiously.
“Let’s check the
departure board first to see what flights are leaving from Paris for America”
Sabine replied. “That will also tell us
which terminal and gate the plane will depart from. We will also need to get passports, because
without them we can’t get boarding passes. Another problem is that even if we
have passports, the airport security would be alerted if we used cash to pay
for the flight. The cameras in here have
facial recognition programs that inform law enforcement when somebody on a
watch list is spotted. They will
probably have my name tagged in the system when we try to get our boarding
passes."
“I can take care of the
cameras,” Selindria replied calmly.
"Do you think you
could get us a boarding pass the way you robbed the ATM's?" Sabine asked
hopefully.
"Robbed?"
Selindria squawked indignantly.
"Well what would
you call it?" Sabine asked with an upraised eyebrow.
"How about
borrowed, or something like that," Selindria suggested. "Robbed is such an ugly word."
Sabine couldn't help
herself. She broke into a fit of
giggles, causing people to turn and smile at the sound of such merriment.
"Let's go get a
boarding pass," Sabine suggested, her lips still quivering with
mirth. Her nerves had been wound up tight
for the last thirty-six hours, and giggling seemed to be a nice release.
Selindria created a
distortion around the cameras whenever they were in view so that only a blur
was visible. They walked over to the
flight board and stared up at it.
"America's a big
place," Sabine noted conversationally as she stared at the list of
flights. "Where should we go?"
"You're asking me?" Selindria asked with an upraised
eyebrow.
"Fair
enough," Sabine laughed.
"Let's try California. They
are all whack-jobs and nut-cases, so we should fit right in."
They 'borrowed' two
boarding passes and then went over to the security checkpoint and joined the
line of waiting people.
“We're going to need
passports or they won’t let us in,” Sabine hissed urgently.
“Is that a passport?”
Selindria asked with a nod toward the person in front of them. He had his passport in his hands where she
could see it.
“Yes, but we don’t have
any,” Sabine whispered anxiously.
“Sure we do,” Selindria
replied softly. She pulled out a couple
dollar bills from her pocket and then began changing them with her yar until they matched the real passport
in front of them. She made sure to put
their own names and faces on them.
“How did you do that?”
Sabine asked in amazement. “These look
perfect! They are even US
passports. What did you do to them?”
“I told them how happy
I would be if they pretended they were passports instead of money,” Selindria
said dryly.
The security agent
accepted their passports and pulled up their information on the computer
screen. Selindria used her yar to convince the agent's brain that
the information on his screen matched their forged passports. They finally went through the scanner without
setting off the alarm. Sabine breathed a
sigh of relief as she made it through as well.
“Ma’am, we’re going to
have to frisk you,” a DGAC security agent informed them with a serious look on
his face that failed to cover the lust in his eyes as he stared at Selindria’s
ripe form.
“Only if you don’t have
a need for your hands anymore,” Selindria replied pleasantly.
“Resisting a search is
grounds for being arrested,” the DGAC agent declared threateningly.
“Why don’t we go into
that room where we can do this privately then,” Selindria suggested with a cold
smile. Her eyes were filled with
contempt.
“Of course, ma’am,” The
guard replied, turning to lead her into the room.
Selindria winked when
she noticed Sabine’s frightened expression as the door closed behind her.
“You’re going to have
to remove…” he cut off as his eyes suddenly glazed over.
“Remove all of your clothes,
and then walk out to the lobby and taser yourself,” Selindria commanded as she
smothered his cognitive processes with a simpler reactive programming.
The man immediately
stripped down and pulled his taser out.
Selindria unlocked the door with her yar
and walked back out to meet Sabine with a satisfied look on her face. A moment later, the chubby guard came out naked
with his eyes still glazed over. There
were a lot of gasps and more than a few giggles as he marched over to the
center of the room, where he stopped and stuck the taser to his chest. He immediately collapsed to the ground and
began twitching violently. The other
guards finally overcame their shock and ran over to investigate.
Sabine followed Selindria
in stunned silence. She thought of how Obi-Wan
(Kenobi) in Star Wars had played mind games with the empire’s soldiers when
they tried to get past them. Obviously,
Selindria had a greater sense of style than a Jedi Master did.
A large man with a bald
head covered in tattoos stormed through the middle of a group of people,
knocking half of them down.
"What a
jerk!" Sabine growled at the man's
departing back.
"A jerk who seems
to have the same boarding pass we have," Selindria said grimly.
"How do you know
that?" Sabine asked in puzzlement.
"I use my yar to feel the world around me,"
Selindria explained. "It is like
all of your senses rolled into one super sense.
I could see the information on the tickets in his pocket. Let's go get him."
"What are we going
to do to him?" Sabine asked apprehensively. "You're not going to 'liberate' him are
you?"
"No, I think our
bald friend will just hand us his passes and fall asleep. This way we won't have to fight each other
for seats."
"He has two?"
Sabine asked with a frown. "I
wonder what kind of person would keep company with such a loser."
"Other losers
apparently," Selindria replied with a nod at another man. The bald man had joined another bald person,
and they both had 'white power' emblazoned on their shirts."
"Skinheads,"
Sabine said in disgust. "Racist,
sexist, homophobic bigots."
"They sound like
the perfect pair then," Selindria said dispassionately.
She walked over to the
larger man and held out her hand.
"Thank you for picking up my boarding passes. I'll be taking them back now."
Sabine had tensed
herself for an explosion, but when she opened her eyes, she saw both men's eyes
were glazed over. The large one
dutifully handed Selindria the tickets.
"Now have a seat
and take a nap for three hours," Selindria finished with an icy smile.
Both men sat down and
instantly fell asleep.
Twenty minutes later,
their plane was ready for boarding. The passengers
were all staring as Selindria walked past them to her seat. Being extremely tall, as well as drop-dead
gorgeous had created a steady stream of turning heads throughout the day. Attention was the last thing she wanted. Perhaps a slight facial alteration would be
enough to remove the unwanted interest.
“So these things fly?”
Selindria asked with a look of interest as she stared around the long tube.
“Most of the time,”
Sabine replied with a nervous titter. “Hopefully
this one doesn’t turn into another statistic.”
"Cozy,"
Selindria murmured as her knees squished up on the chair in front of her."
“It’s going to be a
long flight,” Sabine informed her softly.
“We’ll probably want to get some sleep while we can.”
Selindria just nodded
in acknowledgment as she continued studying the aircraft with her yar, wondering how she was going to
sleep in a vice. This world was
definitely a fascinating place. She
hoped they could find Terrance somehow.
With a sigh, Selindria let her body shut down as her yar continued monitoring the area around them.
A few seconds later, she was asleep.
She woke up for a moment as the plane took off, but immediately fell
asleep again.
Chapter 2 - Resurrection
Seranova stood looking
at the destroyed throne room pensively.
She was not ready to give up hope of getting Thistledown back. She spent her life finding ways to do things
other people would say was impossible.
If Terrance and Thistledown could heal Riah by rebuilding her body from
the ground up, why couldn't they do that to Thistledown too? For that, they would need Terrance. The only person capable of entering the
negative realm was Lochnar, and without Thistledown alive to anchor him in the
material realm, he might not be able to return.
Her eyes strayed over to Celdic.
He was clenching and unclenching his jaw with a look of angry
determination. Li had her arm around his
waist, trying to soothe him. Some of the
prenium near the destroyed throne was glowing softy behind them.
Prenium! That was it!
"Morindessa,"
Seranova shouted excitedly, looking for the battered assassin.
"Right here,"
Morindessa groaned from where she was laying with her head in Jesha's lap. "What are you so excited about?"
"You know how
prenium is so dense that it has its own gravitational pull?" Seranova
asked intently.
"Yes, that's
true," Morindessa replied with a puzzled frown. "Why?
What are you thinking?"
"We have a whole
pile of prenium right over there," Seranova gestured toward the
throne. "Couldn't we open a gateway
to the realm of negatives on top of them?
That should pull anyone lost in limbo to the gateway eventually. Right?"
Celdic's face had come
up in sudden hope as he looked at the pile of prenium. "How do we get to the realm of negatives
though?"
"If this works,
then when Lochnar opens the gateway he won't have to worry about being lost,
because the prenium would hold him here."
She finished with a questioning glance at Lochnar.
"Are you really
sure we want to risk one more life after all that has happened?" Lori
asked worriedly. "What if it
doesn't work, and Lochnar gets sucked back in forever?"
Lochnar was already
moving toward the pile of prenium.
"I guess we're
doing it anyway," Lori muttered under her breath.
Everyone was watching
Lochnar as he quickly arranged the prenium bricks into a large square on the
ground. When he was finished, he took a
final glance at Riah, then vanished.
"Did it
work?" Chale gasped in dismay.
"Was he supposed to vanish?"
"It works,"
Lochnar replied as he popped back into the material realm. "It may take some time for the
gravitational pull to affect him, depending on where he is."
"Would you be able
to look for him now that there is a way out?" Seranova asked
hopefully.
"Possibly,"
Lochnar replied sourly, then vanished.
"I wonder if
Selindria is stuck in there as well," Lori said hopefully. "Maybe she can escape too."
They all turned as they
heard the shuffle of feet moving toward them.
A couple of the nobles had returned with several dozen soldiers.
"Arrest
them," a gray haired noble with a permanent sneer on his face commanded
harshly.
Celdic immediately
pulled out his weapons and moved toward the advancing men. Cha'le was right next to him, with Li and
Lendel fanning out to the other side.
"Drop your
weapons," the noble barked."
You're outnumbered twenty to one."
"Sounds like good
odds to me," Lendel grinned at Celdic.
"More than
fair," Celdic grinned back, still planning to beat the crap out of Lendel
later for his inaction during the confrontation with Jerard.
Princess Sentina nearly
awoke at the arrogant noble's loud demand.
Riah had been forced to put the Princess to sleep when she had a bout of
hysterics after seeing her destroyed throne room.
Before anyone else
could move, a small dirk shot through the air like an arrow and stuck into the
noble's forehead. He stood there in
surprise for several seconds as everyone watched a trickle of blood run down to
his chin. A second dirk smacked into the
first one with a clang, knocking it all the way through his skull.
Celdic looked back at
Morindessa, who was slowly getting to her feet with a look of death on her
face. "That's the problem with
dirks," She muttered as she joined them.
"Sometimes they just stick into the brain and don't do enough damage."
The rest of the men had
stopped advancing when they saw Morindessa join them.
"Well, My Lord?" Morindessa asked the
remaining noble contemptuously.
"You're next on the list. Do
you really want to play this game? I'll
kill you first and let your men decide for themselves whether they want to die
today."
"Morindessa, I
thought you were..." the noble spluttered in shock.
"Dead?" Morindessa
supplied with an unpleasant smile.
"You should know better than most that I do not die so easily."
He stared into
Morindessa's cold eyes and saw death there, as sure as the sun setting. With a curse, he spun around and ran back the
other way, leaving his soldiers standing around nervously.
"Shouldn't you be
following your Lord?" Morindessa
asked in a dismissive tone.
They didn't need
another invitation to leave. Without
another word, they all turned and hurried away from the assassin their mothers
told them stories about to frighten them at night.
"You seem to have
a reputation," Chale commented with a grin. "They couldn't get out of here fast
enough."
"Reputations come
in handy sometimes," Morindessa sighed as she painfully lowered herself
back down to the ground.
"It's time to heal
you all before more trouble comes along," Riah told them firmly.
She walked up to
Morindessa first, laying her hands gently on top of her head. Seranova didn't see anything, but Morindessa
shuddered and then sucked in a lung full of air. Seranova stared at her perfect skin, where moments
ago there had been several large gashes.
"Did you keep any
of your ribs intact?" Riah asked
teasingly as she finished healing Morindessa.
"Not one,"
Morindessa admitted with a smile, her voice filled with relief. "Thank you."
"You are most
welcome," Riah replied with a smile that seemed to warm the whole room.
"Who's next?"
Riah asked as she looked around the room with her lavender colored eyes.
"I'm fine,"
Chale replied when Riah's gaze settled on her.
"I think Ferrich and Morindessa were the only people he hurt, aside
from you."
"I'm fine,"
Ferrich mumbled as Riah knelt down in front of him. "I just have a splitting headache."
"Well let's fix
that, shall we?" Riah suggested lightly.
She laid her hands on his head for a moment, then removed them. "Better?"
"Much
better," Ferrich said gratefully.
"Thank you."
"What about
you?" Morindessa asked in concern.
"I don't know how to heal the way you do."
"I'm fine
now," Riah assured her with a smile.
"I healed myself."
"That would be a
useful trick," Ferrich muttered.
"How hard is it to learn?"
"It only took me a
couple hundred years," Riah replied with a grin. "But I'm a quick learner."
"Why is it so hard
to learn?" Seranova asked curiously.
"Because the human
body is an amazingly complex machine," Riah replied thoughtfully. "There are so many aspects to the
biology of this physical realm that we still don't understand very much
about. Healing a person is a complex
process of forcing their heart and blood to continue moving, while causing
cells to mutate into stem cells where they can be used to re-grow appendages,
or organs. Managing control of the cells
while pushing them into much higher dimensional wave forms takes enormous
amounts of concentration and understanding of how the energies between
dimensions work as well as the proper ingredients to rebuild the organisms."
"Sorry I
asked," Seranova murmured with a faint smile. She was content to keep her inventing
interests in the material world for now.
"All right,
idiot," Celdic called out to Lendel, where he was standing slightly apart
from them with an ashamed look on his face.
"It's time to talk. Come
explain to us why you felt the need to just be a spectator for the whole
battle."
Lendel sighed and
walked over to them. "I started
having these dreams a couple weeks ago.
Jerard would appear in them, but he did something to keep my conscious
mind dormant while he showed me visions of what the world had been like before
Terrance had destroyed his city and turned the guardians into Gorinthians. As
soon as I saw him here, my conscious mind just sort of went to sleep, and it
felt like I was in the dream world again."
"It's not your
fault," Riah told him softly.
"Jerard is very fond of playing mind tricks on people. You would never have acted that way if Jerard
hadn't messed with your mind."
"You just took all
the fun out of a good tongue lashing," Celdic accused Riah with a sigh.
"Feel free to go
lash tongues with him if you still want to," Riah said with a laugh. "I'm sure Chale and Li won't mind."
Both Lendel and Celdic
turned bright red as everyone else started laughing at their burning
faces. It was good to see everyone laugh
again.
"No offense,
Celdic," Lendel grinned as he put his arm around Chale's waist. "But I think I'll pass on the tongue
lashing."
"So are there gay
people on this world?" Lori asked suddenly, her young face alight with
curiosity. "Or is that just an
earth thing?"
"I'm not familiar
with the term," Riah replied.
"What are gay people?"
"You know,"
Lori stuttered, blushing bright red.
"When a man likes another man, or a woman likes another
woman."
"I like lots of
other men," Celdic said in puzzlement.
"You actually have a term for that on Earth?"
"Like,
sexually," Lori added, turning even redder.
"Oh," Celdic
said in sudden understanding. "Of
course we have same sex relationships.
Is that strange on your world or something?"
"Well...it's sort
of taboo for most people," Lori said slowly. "Though to tell you the truth, I don't
know why."
"Religion,"
Terrance said with a laugh. "It's
always religion."
Everybody spun around
as Terrance and Lochnar walked over to join them. Terrance still had the same bright gleam in
his blue eyes Celdic remembered.
"You found him!"
Lori shouted excitedly. "I'm so
glad I won't be stuck on another world without someone who knows what I'm
talking about."
"How was
limbo?" Ferrich asked as everyone took turns trying to hug Terrance. "Did we miss anything interesting?"
"I almost built a
whole different reality in my head, with unique characters and
everything," Terrance replied with a speculative look. "I wonder just how evolved that world
would have become if I was stuck there for eternity."
"Let's hope we
don't have to find out," Celdic said pointedly as he released his father.
"I'll second
that," Lori chimed in.
"It's good to see
you, old friend," Riah said with a radiant smile.
"Riah,"
Terrance stared in amazement at the glowing goddess in front of him. "It worked then?"
"It worked,"
Riah answered, pulling him into a tight hug.
"We don't know what happened to Selindria though."
"I pulled her back
with me, but she broke free and vanished," Terrance said with a sigh. "I don't think she is dead. I'm pretty sure she is just stranded on another
dimension somewhere."
"Maybe she's on
earth," Lori suggested hopefully.
"There are an
infinite number of dimensional wavelengths, so it would be very lucky indeed if
she came out on earth," Terrance replied doubtfully.
"Two separate earthlings
came out on this world," Lori reminded him pointedly. "What are the odds that I would end up
on the same world as you?"
"Not good,"
Terrance admitted with a thoughtful frown.
"It's possible that the wormhole we created is still connected to
earth. It could very well be the reason you ended up here. I wonder if it is pulling people from other
worlds here as well."
"It is,"
Lochnar spat disgustedly.
"Lizardmen."
"I take it there
have been more," Terrance said with a sigh.
"Lots more,"
Ferrich answered solemnly. "We just
found out they wiped out a whole village before we had our little party
here."
"Where's
Thistledown?" Terrance asked with a puzzled frown.
The whole room suddenly
went deathly quiet. Terrance looked
around at their forlorn faces in disbelief.
"He died,"
Seranova informed him quietly.
"Impossible,"
Terrance whispered in shock.
"Nothing in this world could have killed him, not even
Jerard."
"He did it to
himself," Celdic spoke up sympathetically.
"When he saw Jerard was going to win, he dissolved his spirit so
Jerard wouldn't be able to use him for evil."
"Where did he
dissolve himself?" Terrance asked in sudden relief.
"Over here,"
Celdic walked over and showed him.
"Why? Can you bring him
back?"
"He didn't really
dissolve his spirit," Terrance replied absently. "You can't do that to yourself. He just disintegrated himself."
"And that's
different how?" Seranova asked with
a raised eyebrow.
"It means I can
put him back together, because his spirit wasn't dissolved back into
elements," Terrance replied shortly.
"See here, you can sense the residue still."
Seranova watched them
study the ground where Thistledown had died, whishing for the thousandth time
that she could use yar.
"Can you really
bring him back from that?" Celdic asked doubtfully.
"Yes,"
Terrance replied confidently.
"Every memory and experience you have is embedded in what you think
of as DNA. As long as a single strand
survives, the person can be restored to their former state, memories and
all."
"Every strand of
DNA holds all of our memories?" Lori asked in amazement.
"Every single
one," Terrance confirmed. "It
may seem microscopically tiny to you, but thought and memories are not some
kind of data that need a brain sized hard drive to hold them. Think of DNA as the smallest flash drive ever
created. There are no limits to the
amount of information it can contain."
As Terrance spoke, the
air around him began glowing slightly.
Small tendrils of mist began forming, swirling in a vortex above the
ground. After fifteen minutes of staring
at the vortex, Seranova finally asked the question.
"How long is this
supposed to take?"
Terrance didn't
reply. He was completely focused on his
task.
"Hours," Riah
answered for him. "Sometimes
days."
"I guess we should
get comfortable then," Seranova said with a sigh, feeling immensely
relieved. It had worked. Everyone was going to survive after all. She felt, more than saw Jalorm walk over and
sit next to her. The former Guardian
didn't seem to take hints very well. She
had made it very clear to him that she was not interested in a relationship
with him. She wished some other girl
would join their growing party, just to give someone else for Jalorm to go
slobber over. He wasn't a bad person or
anything; she just didn't like men after growing up in Laketown. She didn't think she would ever have the
ability to become close to a man with the wall of contempt she had erected for
them.
"So what's the
plan from here anyway?" Lendel asked in a bored tone. "Didn't we just kill the bad guy?"
"There are always
more bad guys," Riah told him with a smile. "They spawn quicker than blow
flies."
"I wonder what
Selindria's doing right now, wherever she is," Li wondered as she sat down
with Celdic on some destroyed furniture.
"She's probably in
a paradise or something," Lendel said dryly. "She won't want to come back to our
troubles if we find her."
"I sort of doubt
that," Riah laughed.
"Selindria would get very bored with paradise. She likes having action in her life."
"So you're her
sister, aren't you?" Seranova asked intently.
"Twin sister,
actually," Riah replied, looking at her expectantly.
"Isn't there some
kind of metaphysical link between siblings?" Seranova asked, frowning as
she tried to put it into words.
"Isn't there a way we could use you as a roadmap to her?"
"Interesting
idea," Riah nodded thoughtfully.
"There is a link, but whether it stays intact between dimensions is
unknown, since we don't know anything about the link."
"How do you know
it exists then?" Seranova asked with a puzzled frown.
"Terrance did some
tests with Selindria and me when we were younger," Riah answered with
small smile. "He would put one of
us in a different room from the other.
Then he would do something, like touch a feather to my nose so that I
would reach up to brush it away. When I
did, Selindria would also do it, even though she couldn't see me, and she
wasn't using her yar to sense
me. There were several other
experiments, but they all indicated there really is some kind of link that
connects family members to each other."
"There must be a
way to use that link to find her," Seranova said confidently.
"We might be able
to make contact through the link, but we still don't know how to make a gateway
to the other dimension," Riah pointed out.
"He does,"
Lori replied, pointing at Terrance.
"How do you know
that?" Riah asked curiously.
"He told us that
was how he got to this world in the first place," Lori replied with an
eager gleam in her eyes. "He came
from the same world as me, so he should be able to do whatever it is he did on
earth to this place too."
"You learn
something new every day, I guess," Riah said interestedly. "Father, did you know Terrance created a
wormhole to get to this world?"
"Yes,"
Lochnar replied shortly.
"What is it,
father?" Riah asked intently.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Lochnar glared at
Terrance for a moment before answering.
"I was there when he and his equally stupid sidekick popped into
this world. They lived with our
community for their first couple of decades here. It didn't take long for them to start finding
ways to bring their world's bad habits to our world."
"What do you
mean?" Lori asked, taken aback.
"What bad habits from our world?"
"War," Lochnar
spat in disdain. "It never existed
on this world until those two divided it and started teaching people about
silly things like money, pride, leadership.
Before that, we lived peaceful lives with the land, with no leaders and
no need to trade useless metals to each other for food. That was their idea of modernizing our
world. I can only imagine how blighted
their world has become with that mentality."
Well that explains
Lochnar's permanently bad mood, Seranova thought with a small smile. If she had taken two strangers in who
destroyed her way of life, she would probably be just as cantankerous.
"Why didn't you
ever tell me about this, father?" Riah asked softly.
"Does it
matter?" He snorted contemptuously.
"It changes nothing."
"Perhaps it
does," Seranova sat up suddenly.
"Do you remember the location where they appeared in this
world? Maybe the wormhole is still intact."
"It is,"
Lochnar growled angrily. "Intact and buried miles underground as a result
of their wholesale destruction of this planet."
"I wonder where
the Earth side of the wormhole is," Lori said musingly.
"Fort Carol, near
Baltimore," Terrance said, stepping back to reveal Thistledown.
"Thistledown!"
Lori shouted in relief, running into his arms.
Of all the people she had been stuck with on this world, he had been the
only person besides Terrance who knew anything about her own world. Seranova smiled as Lori literally glowed with
delight at finding her friend alive again.
Everything had worked out, just as she knew it could.
Chapter 3 - Reunion
Thistledown was back to
his lighthearted, joking self in no time.
Celdic stared at Lochnar with his eyes and his yar. As soon as Thistledown was
fully restored, the link Lochnar shared with Thistledown snapped back into
place, much to Lochnar’s disgust. Riah
was quite literally glowing with happiness as she observed her crabby father's
now stable body. Terrance was being
introduced to all of the new members of their party. The only person not rejoicing was Princess
Sentina. She had finally awoken from her
forced slumber to see her throne room in shambles. Her broad face masked any emotion as she
looked around the mess, stopping on the noble with Morindessa's dirks sticking
out of his head.
"What happened to
Duke Reynold?" Sentina asked faintly. She had rightly guessed the knives
sticking into his head were Morindessa's.
"He got a real bad
headache and decided to take a permanent nap," Lendel said with a laugh.
Celdic smiled, glad to
see Lendel was back to his old self again.
He was really tired of the moping and moody persona that had replaced
his boyhood friend.
Morindessa laughed at
Lendel's description. "He thought
we would be easy meat after our little get together with Jerard. I convinced him and his disgusting cousin that
our party was invitation only."
"I can't say that
I'll miss him very much," Sentina said with a shudder. "If he hadn't owned the largest mining
operation in the kingdom, I would have done that long ago."
"Is this going to
cause you trouble?" Celdic asked her concernedly.
"After what
happened today, this will be a walk in the park," Sentina sighed
deeply. "Sometimes I think I just
want to run away and leave this job to someone else."
"That's what I
did, sis," grinned Ferrich. "I
turned tail and ran, and never looked back."
"Well
unfortunately for me, I don't have
any siblings left to dump the responsibilities on," Sentina said sourly.
"That's your own
fault sis," Ferrich reminded her pointedly. "You could have kept one of our siblings
alive in a cage somewhere as insurance."
"There isn't a pit
deep enough to stuff our former siblings in," Sentina grimaced. "They were all complete
barbarians."
"Typical
description of the highborn," Morindessa stated with a shake of her head.
"I resent
that," Ferrich objected indignantly.
He was sitting next to her on what was left of a wooden bench.
"I wasn't saying
there was anything wrong with being a
barbarian," Morindessa replied with a smile. "I was just making an observation."
"Stereotypes are so unfair," Ferrich sighed heavily.
"On the
contrary," Morindessa disagreed, laying her hand on Ferrich's knee. "The person chooses the stereotype, not
the other way around. You might be born
a highborn barbarian, but only you
can decide if that is a label you want to live with."
"So you're saying
Celdic could stop being thought of as the world's biggest ass?" Lendel
exclaimed excitedly. "Celdic, this
is your chance! What does he need to do,
Morindessa?"
Celdic treated Lendel
to a flat, unfriendly stare as most of the group laughed at his expense. He
would have to find a way to repay the favor in the near future.
"I think it's time
to make some decisions," Terrance announced after their laughter settled
down.
"What kind of
decisions?" Chale asked curiously.
"We have a lot of
problems to solve, and not very many people to do it with," Terrance
answered gravely. "We need to find
a way to eradicate the lizard men from this world, and stop them from entering
as well. We also need to find
Selindria. The four of you from Chasel
Ri' Aven still need to meet everyone in the kingdom."
"That's a large
checklist," Lendel noted with a frown.
"How can we do all of that at the same time?"
"For the first
part of the problem, we need to mobilize the armies and hunt down the existing
lizard men,” Terrance answered decisively.
“This would also be great way for you to come into contact with a large
part of the populace so you can infect them with the ability to use yara.
If you are all willing, and Princess Sentina agrees, I suggest you four
lead Shalilayo's armies."
"That's
funny," Lendel guffawed loudly.
"For a minute there I thought you said we were supposed to lead an
army."
"He's probably not
man enough to handle such a task," Celdic announced
with a condescending glance at Lendel.
"Li and I will certainly be willing to lead your armies against the
lizard men."
"Now wait just a minute,"
Lendel objected huffily. "I wasn't
saying we won't do it."
"Oh, that's
funny," Celdic retorted in surprise.
"What were you saying
then?"
"Children,
children," Terrance broke in reproachfully. "Let's get back on track, shall
we?"
"That's easy for
you to say," Lendel muttered sullenly.
"You're not going to be
sharing your girlfriend with an army of desperate thugs."
Terrance ignored the
last comment with a resigned sigh.
"Ok, let's move on. I will
go with Seranova, Lori, Thistledown, and Riah to locate the wormhole where I
came to this world from. Morindessa,
Ferrich, Jesha, Jalorm, and Lochnar need to find the gateway where the lizard
men are coming from and find a way to destroy it. We will also need to find out if there are
any other gateways to other worlds that have spawned on this world."
"Finally going to
clean up your mess?" Thistledown chuckled evilly.
Terrance cast an
annoyed glance at the half gnome before turning back to face them.
"Why am I going
with you?" Seranova asked curiously.
"I need your
brains when we find this wormhole," Terrance replied gravely. "I haven't a clue how to close a
wormhole, so I need all the intellect I can get."
"And that ruled
the rest of us out?" Chale asked tartly.
"By a long
margin," Jalorm drawled at Chale dryly.
He looked distinctly disgruntled by the fact that Seranova would not be
in the same group with him.
"Children,"
Morindessa broke in warningly. "Get
a hold of your tempers and stop complaining.
There are more than enough enemies you can channel your anger at
later."
"Thank you,
Morindessa," Terrance sighed gratefully. "Let's move on, shall
we?"
"How are we going
to start this whole process?" Lendel asked evenly. "Thistledown
already killed the Captain of their armies."
Terrance turned to look
at Thistledown with an upraised eyebrow.
"The bastard stuck
a sword in me while I was fighting with Jerard," Thistledown explained defensively. "He told me to tell you he never liked
you anyway."
Terrance shook his in
disgust as he turned back to Lendel.
"Princess Sentina, soon to be Queen Sentina, can help you mobilize
the armies. While they are mobilizing, two of you might want to take a smaller
group ahead to scout for the lizard men."
"Why is Ferrich
going?" Princess Sentina asked curiously.
"Look at
him," Terrance chuckled in amusement.
"Do you think he's going to leave Morindessa's side anytime
soon?"
Ferrich blushed bright
red as Sentina sent peals of tinkling laughter echoing around the large
hall. Morindessa just smiled, looking
very satisfied.
"I've got a
question," Chale said with a puzzled frown. "How did Lochnar find you in the
negative realm so fast this time if he couldn't find you before?"
"Time and space
are irrelevant in the negative realm," Terrance replied calmly. "Lochnar has been travelling the realm
of negatives for a long time now, and understands how to find impressions that
don't belong there. He found me immediately and then led me back to where my
physical body was. The rest is history."
"So he was
purposefully leaving you there before the battle with Jerard?" Chale asked
slowly.
"Probably,"
Terrance replied with a wry glance at Lochnar's impassive face. "I'm sure I deserved it though."
Celdic shook his head
in wonder at the fact that Lochnar could even work with Terrance after
everything that had happened to his world because of the overly eager scientist
from another dimension.
"Let's get
started, shall we?" Morindessa suggested briskly.
"Never one for
planning meetings, were you?" Riah smiled at Morindessa fondly.
They continued their
preparations to leave for the rest of the day.
The next morning, they all met in the palace courtyard. Everyone looked
reluctant to split the group up after getting it back together so recently. Celdic, Lendel, and Chale waved goodbye at
the others, while Li made a point of embracing each of them. She was the only one of the four youths who
was comfortable showing affection with physical contact . Lori insisted on hugging all of them though,
as did Jesha and Riah. Celdic had to swallow a small knot in the back of his
throat as he watched them all leave.
"Don't break down
on us now, hero," Lendel told him dryly.
"We still have plenty of new friends for you to meet."
"Yeah, good
friends," Celdic retorted sarcastically.
"Filthy, stinky mercenaries, who have nothing but contempt for
anything but money."
"They aren't
mercenaries," Princess Sentina objected indignantly. "They are loyal patriots."
"You mean you
don't pay them?" Celdic asked pointedly.
"Well, yes, I
guess they do," Sentina spluttered, at a loss for words. "But they are still patriots."
"Would they stay
if you stopped paying them and just provided food?" Chale asked
critically.
Princess Sentina didn't
answer, but her eyes were troubled as she studied the sprawling city called The
Barracks, where the standing army was cordoned off from the rest of Shalilayo
inside its own twenty-foot wall.
"Selindria always
said, 'a mercenaries loyalty is only as good as your gold supply'," Celdic
commented grimly
"Well, lets go
start mingling and infecting everyone, shall we?" Lendel suggested
brightly.
"Oh, yes. Let's," Celdic muttered, slipping his
hand around Li's tightly.
---
"How far away is
this wormhole?" Seranova asked curiously, as she loaded her gear onto one
of the palace horses.
"It's up in what
is now known as the polar icecaps," Terrance replied as he cinched the
girth strap tight on his horse’s chest.
“It was a lush forest when I arrived.”
"I hate the
cold," Seranova sighed in resignation.
"Not to
worry," Terrance declared reassuringly.
"We'll keep everyone warm."
Seranova nodded,
wondering again, what it would be like to use yar. The inventions she could make if she could manipulate the tiny
objects yar was capable of grasping
offered a world of endless possibilities.
"Give it
back," Terrance snapped irritably.
Seranova looked up in
surprise. Thistledown was frozen in
place with his hand in his traveler sack and a look of guilty mischief on his
face.
"I was just
borrowing it," Thistledown protested defensively.
"So you did plan
on giving it back then?" Terrance asked sarcastically.
"Of course,"
Thistledown spluttered, looking indignant.
"I'm not a bloody thief!"
"Liar,"
Terrance snapped automatically.
"And even if I am,
you have no one to blame but yourself," Thistledown retorted spitefully.
"What is he
stealing?" Seranova asked in confusion.
"The little weasel
is trying to steal one of your chocolate bars that the Princess gave you,"
Terrance replied in disgust.
She reached down to her
travel pack and started frantically searching around. The travel pack appeared to be bottomless. She had never tried testing the limits of how
much the pack could carry, but she had taken several tons of Prenium with her
on several different occasions without any adverse effects.
"How did he steal
it from my travel pack?" Seranova asked with a puzzled crease to her
brow. "He hasn't come anywhere near
me."
"He doesn't need
to as long as he has another traveler pack in close proximity to your
own," Terrance explained, giving Thistledown a hard look. "The two traveler packs will overlap in
the other dimensions they exist in, causing the contents to be accessible from
either pack."
"You tried to steal
my chocolate?" Seranova asked Thistledown in a shocked voice.
"He's making that
up!" Thistledown protested, hunching his shoulders defensively. "I did no such thing!"
"Let's see your
hands," Terrance demanded firmly.
Thistledown looked
guiltily down at his chocolate covered hand.
"I can explain what happened," he blurted desperately. "I was just looking for something in my
own pack when I bumped into the chocolate."
"You tried to
steal my chocolate?" Seranova
repeated, her voice going up half an octave.
"More of a short
term loan, really," Thistledown insisted earnestly. "I was going to replace it."
"I'm going to
wring your scrawny neck, you mangy dog!" Seranova yelled, searching all
over her pack until she found her mutilated chocolate bar. "Nobody
steals my chocolate and gets away
with it!"
"Thanks a lot, oh
glorious leader," Thistledown groaned mournfully at Terrance. "Why can't you just keep your mouth shut
for once and let me have my fun?"
"Thistledown, I
would have given you some chocolate if you had asked," Riah told him
dryly.
"That would take
the fun out of stealing it though," Thistledown replied in a pained voice.
"I'm sure glad
Chale's not with us on this trip," Lori commented with a sigh. "I don't think I could handle two of
them again."
"I know what you
mean," Seranova agreed tartly, glaring at Thistledown.
"Hey!"
Thistledown shouted defensively. "What is this; pick on Thistledown day or
something?"
"Something like
that,' Terrance replied airily.
"Let's move along now. We
need to be in the North Pole before tomorrow night."
"Impossible,"
Seranova stated flatly. "We'll be
lucky if these brutes get us there in a month."
Seranova's horse
whinnied in protest, and then began bouncing her twice as hard with each step.
"Stop that, you
dumb brute!" Seranova demanded severely.
"If you make my backside miserable, I'll personally see to it that
you end up in a glue factory."
"I don't think you're
winning him over very well," Riah observed critically. Her chestnut mare looked like a pony with the
giantess riding on her. "Try
talking in a soothing tone, and saying nice things to him instead."
"Why?" Seranova asked baldly. "It's not like they can understand
us."
"Do you really
believe that?" Riah asked with a direct look.
She meant to say no,
but the Zeran woman's hypnotic lavender eyes were latched on to her own,
literally pulling the truth out of her.
"I suppose they can understand some things."
"What's with all
of the anger then?" Riah asked gently.
"If you know he'll respond better to kindness, why treat him
badly?"
Seranova tried to look
away, but those lavender eyes refused to release her. Before she could stop
herself, she broke down and began sobbing.
"It's a stupid male
horse! I hate men! They are the same
in every race. They all want to dominate
you and make you do what they want."
Lori was watching her
sympathetically as Riah rode over next to her and gathered her into her arms comfortingly.
"You are
right," Riah replied soothingly.
"Every race has a domination theme for the males; but not all males
are like that. Some of them could almost
be women, if they were just a little smarter."
Seranova laughed weakly
as she recovered from her breakdown.
Something Riah was doing was making her feel really good. It was like a warm blanket of love had been
wrapped around her.
"Thanks,"
Seranova sighed gratefully, taking a deep breath. "I guess I've had that bottled up for a
long time."
"Just like
poison," Riah agreed knowingly.
"Men try to hide all of their feelings because they think it makes
them look stronger. Their misconception
about sharing their feelings is responsible for most of the atrocities that
happen in our society.”
“Why is it like that?”
Seranova asked curiously. “Why does every
race require a dominant male in order to ensure the survival of the
species? There should be a better way to
do it, like how worms do it.”
“Worms?” Lori asked in
disgust.
“Yes, worms,” Seranova
repeated firmly. “They don’t require a
male in order to fertilize their eggs.
They are a completely self sustaining unit that replicates without any
need of some bossy male trying to rape them.”
“Wouldn’t that take the
fun out of having children though?” Lori asked doubtfully.
“You mean the lack of
sex?” Seranova guessed indifferently. “I
don’t think so. Look at how much trouble
it causes everyone. I think it is
something the world could do without.”
“That’s a cold hard
view of the world you have there,” Thistledown observed sadly.
“It’s called
experience,” Seranova replied evenly.
“I’ve seen with my own eyes what people do to each other and the means
they use to justify it. Life is a cold
hard place, and only a few extremely fortunate souls will enjoy a lifetime
without discovering the merciless nature of life.”
“I think I must be one
of the fortunate then,” Riah said with a smile.
“You?” Seranova
objected. “But Jerard captured and
tortured you. How can you say you’re
life has been fortunate?”
“Finding happiness in
life is a choice everyone has to make,” Riah explained sagely. “If I asked you to give me reasons why an
idea for an invention wouldn’t work, you could write a list a mile long. However, if I asked you to give me reasons
why it would work, you would also
come up with a list a mile long. If you
aren’t happy with life, you need to stop looking at it like something that has
to be endured. You need to actively seek
out the good things that happen throughout each day and acknowledge them.”
Seranova rode in
silence, pondering Riah’s advice. So
what if she was looking at the bottle half empty? How hard could it be to start looking at it
half-full? She sighed heavily, vowing to
try to find the good in each day of her life from now on.
---
“What time do you think
it is?” Ferrich asked for the third time in under an hour.
“The same time it was
twenty four hours ago,” Lochnar snapped impatiently.
Morindessa chuckled as
Ferrich hunched away from the glowering Lochnar. “He’s all bark and no bite, Ferrich.”
“Here’s a banana,”
Jalorm offered, tossing him the yellow fruit.
“That should tide you over until supper-time.”
“Am I the only one in
this group that gets hungry and tired?” Ferrich asked plaintively.
“I do,” Jesha spoke up
from where she was riding in front of Morindessa’s saddle.
“Well at least I’m not
alone in my misery,” Ferrich muttered sourly, tearing into the banana.
“Don’t you worry, my
pampered little princeling,” Morindessa told him affectionately. “I’ll make sure you get the sustenance your
royal behind expects.”
“How are we going to
find these gateways?” Ferrich asked in an obvious attempt to change the
subject.
“We just follow the
trail of carnage back to its origin,” Jalorm replied bleakly. “They shouldn’t be too hard to follow.”
“Perfect,” Ferrich
sighed morosely. “Remind me again why I
came along on this quest?”
“We needed comic
relief,” Morindessa replied earnestly.
“Do you know how boring this would be if we didn’t have you complaining
every step of the journey?”
“Fine,” Ferrich
grumbled sullenly. “I’m just not going
to talk.”
“Any wagers on how long
that will last?” Jalorm asked with a grin.
“I think you’re taking
this too personally, Ferrich,” Morindessa told him gently. “We really do enjoy your company. It
makes everybody’s mood lighter with you around.”
“Thanks,” Ferrich
muttered dryly. “I think.”
“They’re here,” Jalorm
announced tensely, pulling out his two short swords.
“Where?” Ferrich asked
warily.
“Up ahead,” Jalorm
pointed down the roadway where a headless lizard man had collapsed in the road.
“Looks like they found
Lochnar,” Ferrich noted as he studied the headless creature with a kind of sick
fascination. “I wonder how many of these
things are out there.”
“Thousands,” Lochnar
spat, materializing in front of them.
“They’re proliferating quicker than maggots.”
“Thousands?’ Ferrich
repeated in shock. “How are we supposed
to get through that?”
“We don’t,” Lochnar snapped
contemptuously. “That’s the army’s
problem, not ours. We’re just locating
the gateway.”
“I don’t think I’ve
heard him speak so many words at a time since I’ve met him,” Ferrich commented
after Lochnar had vanished again.
“Do you really want him talking more frequently?”
Jalorm asked wryly.
“Well, no, I guess
not,” Ferrich admitted quickly.
“So how are we going to get around them?” Jalorm
asked musingly.
“Lochnar will find a
way,” Morindessa said confidently.
“How does he vanish and
reappear so far away?” Ferrich asked in perplexity. “I don’t even sense him using yar.”
“What little yar he uses, he has long since learned
to mask,” Morindessa repliedcalmly.
“When he enters the negative realm, time and distance are different from
our realm. Moving an inch in the negative
realm could be equivalent to moving a mile in this realm.”
“That would explain it,
I suppose,” Ferrich noted thoughtfully.
“Can he take us through the negative realm in the same way to cover
large distances?”
“That’s the plan,”
Lochnar announced belligerently as he reappeared among them. “If it doesn’t tear you apart during the
transition.”
