Path of the Traitors

by Charles E Yallowitz

  “I still think he will become a liability,” Vile complains from his perch on Trinity’s foot. He climbs up to her shoulder and wraps some of her hair around his hand to avoid getting thrown off. “You always had a soft spot for your people, but this is risky. He’s a civilian, who hasn’t been a part of our world since he was a child. Quail is basically an outsider since he was raised in Ralian. Why do you insist on putting him in danger?”

  “Because we need a mapper, I trust him, and I will protect him,” Trinity angrily replies while hiding the conversation with a spell. She watches the young man trip over a log and land in the dirt only to jump back up. “Yes, he’s clumsy and gets distracted by his maps, but that’s the kind of person we need now. If we run into something that we can’t handle then we will retreat and find another way. Stop whining and be thankful you’re even involved. No idea why Tyler doesn’t send you back to the other side.”

  “He wants to see me suffer, but I believe he locked me in here and has no idea how to set me free,” the warrior says before making a noise that resembles spitting. Moving to the tip of her shoulder, Vile leans over to get a clear look at his companion’s face. “You seem different than before. If I had to put my thoughts to words, your edges are smoother and there is more energy in your steps. Looks like escaping Shayd and becoming an exile agrees with you.”

  “I hate living away from my homeland and not being there for all of my people,” she explains while pulling a lock of ebony hair out of her pocket. The soft tuft is bound together by magic, so she can hold it in her palm without worrying that the clump will fall apart. “Being a father, you can probably understand this. I had a child soon after my final battle with Nyx. She was conceived prior to that, but I transferred her to a friend and took her back later. That’s a simple explanation for a complicated decision, but the details are unimportant. Having her in my life changed everything. I guess my daughter gives me hope for the future and drives me to atone for my sins. My dream now is to create a world where she can take the throne of a kingdom that isn’t despised and feared. If Cessia is on my side then this adventure can be the first step toward the chaos elves’ redemption.”

  “Congratulations then. Who is the father?”

  “Stephen . . . It happened before he died.”

  “Have you told him? Even the dead can receive messages.”

  “I don’t want that monster anywhere near my child.”

  “Probably for the best since he never struck me as the parental type. What’s her name?”

  “Drusilia.”

  “I see . . . That’s a very pretty name.”

  *****

  Even though they are miles away from the source, the wind has pressed the grass to the ground and threatens to pick up the travelers. Vile mutters complaints from within Nimby’s shirt pocket while the halfling clings to his shortsword, which is embedded in the loose earth. Trinity shields her eyes from the flying dirt as she takes in the sight of multiple twisters moving across the plains. She loses count at ten when one of the funnels splits and another emerges from the black clouds. Glinting horns can be seen throughout the grass, the dammah herd fighting their way through the pack of storms. When the howling winds get too strong, the animals plunge their silver-hoofed legs into the ground to avoid getting thrown and separated. Fawns can be seen attached to their mother’s underbelly, their tiny horns hooked into the thick flesh. A barely audible roar emerges from the storm and a winged beast comes into view, but it is quickly sucked back into the twister before it can escape. No sooner has the animal vanished than the funnel dissipates and another appears a few feet away to continue battering the grass with powerful gales.

  Without a word, Quail tosses his bag to Nimby, who is pinned by the heavy weight. The chaos elf whispers an apology that is lost in the wind and moves the sack off the groaning halfling. It takes him a minute to find a scroll that is kept in a container, which is decorated by cloud and star drawings. Opening the wrinkled map, the young man gestures for everyone to stay back while he jogs down the hill. Quail stops dangerously close to a twister and crouches, his clothes and flaxen hair making him disappear among the grasses. He holds the enchanted paper over his head and grips it tight enough to make his knuckles ache. The mapper stands at the height of his spell and spins as if to imitate the storms, two of which are heading towards the chaos elf. Sensing that his time is running out, Quail chants quicker and grabs a handful of dirt to drop onto the map. Before the twisters reach him, the young man takes three long strides to his right and casually signals for his companions to join him.

  With Nimby tucked under her arm and the heavy bag dragging behind her, Trinity carefully heads for the mapper. Unsure of what is going on, she prepares to unleash a magical tether in case the grinning chaos elf is hurled into the sky. To her surprise, the storms miss Quail entirely because of two sudden turns that send them away from him. She is amazed at the young man’s luck, but notices that he remains calm and relaxed among the twisters. Keeping her eye on the mapper, Trinity takes a step to her left and unwittingly finds herself in a spot where there is no roaring wind. Her ears ring from the abrupt silence and she refuses to move until she recovers her senses. Placing Nimby on his feet, the cautious channeler tries to see through the twisters in case they are illusions, but nothing changes. As if walking on a balance beam, they make their way to Quail, who is busy comparing the two maps that he needs to safely navigate through the storms.

  “I always carry an unused weather map with me,” the chaos elf explains, showing his friends the new document. They can see a dotted line that winds its way through a collection of moving spirals, which never cross the path. “Places like this tend to have a safe road that’s created by all of the converging winds. All I had to do was cast the connection spell and this parchment found the way. The only problem is that I’m not sure how wide the path is, so we should probably walk single file with me in front.”

  “That’s great, but I think it’s smarter to go around this,” Trinity insists, her voice louder than she intended. Gazing at the sky, she is unnerved when one of the larger twisters hurls a large tent into the dark clouds. “One wrong move and we’re dead or worse. I’d like to avoid taking unnecessary risks, especially so early in our adventure.”

  “But the other map has a marking in the middle of this place,” the mapper timidly points out while holding up the scroll. He shows the channeler both documents, which have a matching black dot. “I connected the maps and this happened. Going around means we’d only have to enter the area from another location or come back here. There’s no risk as long as we stay on the path. I’m sure we’re looking for a building, which would give us protection.”

  “I know we haven’t been with him long, but Quail hasn’t let us down yet,” Nimby mentions as he stretches his arm. He inches forward until he feels the wind whip at his fingertips, the Lich voicing a complaint inside his head. “I’d guess that the path is about six feet wide, but it could change as we continue. Don’t really have the head for this kind of strategy. There’s only three of us, so I doubt it could be that hard to travel safely.”

  “You mean four,” Vile interjects while climbing out of his son’s shirt. The warrior wipes crumbs off his waterstone body and waves his toothpick weapon, his shoulder clicking with every rotation. “It would be foolish to think we are the only ones who know about this path. One of the tribes or even the animals may use this, so we need to be prepared. Battle on such terrain is unwise, which means we must appear harmless. I recommend Quail be first with Trinity behind him and Nimby taking up the rear. Chaos elves are not as feared here as they are in Ralian and your height will block my son and his cursed limb from immediate view. Unless we can hide Tyler with a long glove.”

  “I refuse to be muffled,” the Lich declares from his ring. A layer of acid covers the boney arm, making it impossible for it to be covered. “I am the one who discovered the existence of the crests. It is already insulting enough that I lack a bo
dy, but I will not have my senses blocked for any reason. While I hate to do this, I can create the illusion of a fleshy limb for a while, but more than ten minutes will result in a day of slumber for me. My aura has not integrated enough with Nimby’s pitiful energy to maintain an enchantment without exhaustion.”

  “In that case, use it only if you need to,” Nimby suggests, sensing that the Lich is embarrassed by his weakness. The halfling holds up his limb and runs a thumb along the radius to find that it is getting brittle. “Not liking the feel of this. You and I need to talk about body maintenance since neither of us want to fall apart. Then again, I haven’t had water all day, so that might be the problem. Can you hand me one of the waterskins, Quail?”

  A burst of water knocks Nimby into the chaos elf, the pair scrambling to avoid falling off the path. Clawed hands burst from the earth to pin them down, but those on Quail are easily broken by him standing. With a howl, one of the twisters grows a slender arm that ends in a club-like fist. Before it can strike, the limb is destroyed by a blast of raw energy that flows into the storm and implodes the funnel. Her lips still sparkling from the spell, Trinity looks around for their attacker while Quail frees Nimby. She turns around in time to see the earth beneath her companions crumble and reseal, trapping them up to their necks. Only Vile is left standing until a flower blooms beneath his feet and snares him with a mouth full of feathery vines that tickle the toy whenever he moves.

  Trinity senses movement to her right and is about to cast an acid blast when she hears a familiar cough that starts soft and ends with the hacking of phlegm. The sound causes her to change her spell into a lightning bolt and redirect it to above her head, the shift giving her a slight headache. Instead of exploding against an enemy, the electricity sputters and transforms into a rainbow that drips hallucinogenic ooze. Stepping away from the puddles, Trinity grows claws of ice while a shadowy figure rises from the pool. The silhouette pops like a bubble and sprays the chaos elf with a numbing liquid. Depending more on her magic than her muscles, she is still able to erect a shield around her body. The barrier cracks as Yola materializes, the immortal’s mouth stretched in an attempt to swallow her friend whole.

  “For the love of Ambrosine, please tell me you aren’t trying to eat me,” Trinity says from inside her transparent cocoon. Hearing an incoherent mumble, she relaxes when the black and white woman sloughs off the barrier. “I don’t know what the Baron has asked you to do, but you don’t have to listen to him. Whatever grudge he has against me, you can ignore that because we’re friends.”

  “Oh, Arthuru kicked me out of Shayd and told me never to come back. I have nowhere to call home anymore,” Yola explains, wiping tears from her cheeks. She flicks the salty drops at the chaos elf, the barely visible flecks shattering the defensive barrier. “Shayd isn’t fun without you there, so I want to go back to Ambervale. Odigar told me that I can reclaim my old title if I absorb the energy of my best friend. Well, he used other words, but I’m sure that’s the overall point. To be honest, I was hoping to eat you quickly and avoid this awkwardness. Now, I don’t really want to go through with it. Still, I need to if I want to have a home. I can’t see any of my power within you, which means it’s already integrated with your own. Do you need all of your blood to function?”

  “Yes!” Trinity snaps while getting within reach of her friend. She refuses to back down when the immortal’s arms coil around her body like boa constrictors. “Come with us and we can fix everything after the Baron is dead. With him gone, I’ll be the ruler of Shayd and you will always have a home there. Otherwise, we’re going to be at odds and have to fight. There’s too much for me to do to let you kill me.”

  “Eat you.”

  “Pretty sure that would kill me.”

  “I have permission to resurrect you after I become a goddess again.”

  “Sorry, Yola, but I can’t risk abandoning my people.”

  “What about giving me your arms?”

  “I need those too.”

  “Why are mortals so frustratingly attached to their body parts?”

  Yola’s arms bloat and merge to create a prison that tightens around Trinity, the sounds of breaking bones making the immortal cry. With a boom, her limbs slam together and she raises them to pour her squished friend into her mouth. She pauses at the sight of a hole in the ground, the rough edges still red and smoking. When Yola gets closer, razor-like shadows burst from the tunnel and slash the former goddess into a pile of parts. Trinity drops out of the attack and rushes for the others, her broken right arm already setting thanks to a spell. She is about to pluck Vile from the flower when a burst of invisible force knocks her head over heels. The chaos elf tumbles down the windless path until she grabs the earth with a clawed hand. She skids to a stop with her lower half outside of the safe zone, the powerful storms threatening to hurl her away. Ignoring the pain in her damaged arm, she drags herself back to safety and rises to meet Yola’s next attack.

  “I don’t like doing this,” the immortal complains, appearing behind the channeler. She smacks her friend’s injured limb, which heals with an ear-wrenching screech. “You’re the only one who treats me nicely. It isn’t right that I have to kill you to get what I want. I know you said I could help defeat Arthuru and you’d let me stay, but we both know the chances of him losing are slim. He’s had too long to prepare for the champions and he broke them pretty nicely. I mean, the damage will keep growing thanks to what he did to Luke. Their hearts and souls will be too weak to prevail, which means I’ll be an exile forever.”

  “You always creep me out when you’re being serious,” Trinity claims as she cautiously steps away. Wiggling her fingers, she sends invisible tethers to her friends and wraps the cords around her hands. “Let’s go our separate ways and think about this. Being immortal, you have plenty of time to consider your options.”

  “But thinking too hard makes my feet itch,” the twitching woman replies, her eyes rapidly changing colors. Clumps of her hair fall out and worm back up to her scalp, which is shifting as if something underneath is trying to get out. “There’s also the problem of you being mortal. I might wait too long and then you’ll die. What would I do then? Sorry, that’s very selfish of me. I don’t want to hurt you, Trinity, but I’m all alone. Everyone has abandoned me, so I need to go back to where I belong. Then again, I don’t like doing this. I’m so confused. All of us need a time out, so I’m going to freeze you until I decide on what to do. Just stand still and try to make a funny face.”

  A swirling fog of ice heads down the path and forces Trinity to leap off the safe path. Violet wings sprout from her back and they flap against the wind with enough strength to keep her on the ground. The leathery creations fold around her in time to block another freezing blast, but they shatter from the intense cold. With a shout, the channeler yanks on the tethers to free her companions from their prisons and holds onto them as they are sucked into a twister. Trinity is the last to be carried into the sky and she looks down to see Yola waving at her. Instead of following the escaping travelers, the sad immortal continues along the path and disappears among the storms.

  *****

  The dwindling sunlight beats down on Trinity as she regains enough consciousness to pull the soft covers over her face. A sudden dampness on her skin jolts the chaos elf awake and she sits up to find that something is wrapped around her head. She yanks off the fluffy object and stares at the piece of the cloud in her hands. Leaning over the nearby edge, she can see Yagervan far below between the tops of the roaming twisters. As she watches, a new funnel grows out of another patch of clouds that spreads out to accommodate the storm. She can feel a wave of dryness wash over the area as moisture is sucked up to add more mass to what she can only guess are aerial streets. The sun steadily sinks beneath the horizon before Ult the Autumn Moon’s yellow beams emerge to combine with the stars and cast their light on the floating pathways. Getting to her feet, Trinity wobbles on unsteady legs as the soft ground sinks a few inches
. She is prepared to leap if the cloud gives way, but she finds that it is similar to walking through moist swamplands.

  Remembering her companions, the chaos elf checks her hands for the tethers and finds nothing more than broken threads. She kneels and searches the ground for footprints, but quickly realizes that the clouds never hold an indent for more than a second. A whistling high wind causes her to shiver, so she uses her magic to lengthen her sleeves and make her clothes thick enough to ward off the cold. Trinity walks along the only path she can find, the strange road littered with debris and still animals. She recognizes a large tent that has been torn in half and hurries to poke her head through a hole in the hopes of finding the others inside. Instead, the channeler finds a collection of pottery and fabrics that have been neatly piled on the floor. The bizarre sight puts her on edge and she sticks to the shadows as she weaves through the vast collection of wreckage.

  Stepping over a hooded lion, Trinity leaps back when the beast growls and scrambles to its feet. The panicking animal moves with a limp, but refuses to run away from the stranger. Baring its teeth and displaying its leathery hood, the predator sniffs at the air and appears to lose interest in the chaos elf. The moment she takes a step forward, the hooded lion roars and pounces. Trinity dives into the other half of the tent and watches the animal disappear over the edge. Before she can consider its fate, the damaged structure tilts and everything slides to the far end. The pottery smashes against her and fills the air with dust that swirls around her head. With a burst of wind beneath her feet, the channeler jumps for the pathway and catches the soft cloud. She hoists herself to safety and stares at the falling tent, which is caught by a twister and hurled onto another patch of clouds.

  “Well, this became a disaster quicker than expected,” Trinity says with a chuckle. With an enchantment over her eyes, she peers through the darkness and hurries along the path. “The others have to be here somewhere. I couldn’t have been out for more than two hours. Then again, I don’t know why they would abandon me. Vile and Tyler might, but Nimby and Quail aren’t like that. What if we landed in different spots?”