A New Reality

by Clare Solomon

  “Yesterday there were several sightings of inhuman beings on the second earth dimension where many Izients live,” Dervyl said.

  “What kind of creatures were they?” Abbrin asked.

  “They were described as ghosts.”

  There was a shocked silence while everyone digested this news. Elliot, who didn’t think he was capable of strong surprise after everything he had been through lately, took the opportunity to glance round the long table in Dervyl’s tidy office. The entire team was assembled for the meeting. Abbrin and Mosrra had arrived together and were sitting side-by-side opposite Elliot, suggesting that they were still friends or at least allies in this new reality. It wasn’t a good sign. Al Greela – next to them – had said hello to Barve when he came in and let Barve introduce him to Elliot but, other than that, had kept to himself. The two Nean women, Amy and Nariss, had chatted together before the meeting started as well as having been practising magic together yesterday, so presumably they were friends or at least got along. At the end of the table were Farlden and Callie, who Elliot was trying not to think about. He’d been making the attempt since yesterday morning and had failed utterly. He had barely got any sleep last night because of thoughts of the two of them, individually and their relationship with each other. On this side of the table Barve had sat next to Elliot, his familiar presence comforting, as was Dervyl’s, who sat at the other end.

  “Could these visions be some kind of psychological illness?” Mosrra asked. She had a mixture of Asian colouring and features along with the typical Izient double brow ridge, although this was not as pronounced as those of Dervyl and Abbrin. She had a fragile kind of beauty that Elliot assumed was misleading given the un-Izient-like criminal hostage situation she had, in the other timeline, briefly been involved in.

  “It might be but there is also another possibility,” Dervyl said. “Something happened yesterday morning: a powerful form of magic that changed our reality.”

  The revelation caused muttered conversations and raised eyebrows. Elliot glanced about and caught Farlden staring at him, frowning slightly. They hadn’t seen each other since Elliot had walked away at the start of the tour yesterday and all he wanted to do was cross the room and kiss Fal and find a way to persuade him that they belonged together. Callie was beside him, though, an unavoidable part of Farlden’s new life.

  “How could that have possibly happened without our knowledge?” Abbrin said and Farlden looked over at the Izient, breaking the spell between him and Elliot. Like Amy and Dervyl, Abbrin looked older than the other people here: maybe thirty, although with the ageless quality of Izients, it was difficult to be sure.

  “Elliot and Tchaffi remember it – having been two of the people involved in performing the magic – but the rest of us only seem to recall this new reality that was created. Elliot, would you provide an outline of what was involved in the magic and why we decided it had to be done?”

  Elliot had been taking in the fact that someone else had the same knowledge of the past timeline that he did and could maybe help him understand how to make sense of his new life. When all eyes turned on him, it took him a moment to catch up with the last part of what she had said and work out how much to share. Dervyl was trusting him by leaving the explanation up to him so it wouldn’t be fair to blurt out all the conflicts between people in this room. Also, as much as it hurt to not be close to Fal, he couldn’t bring himself to try to poison the relationship between him and Callie by saying what she had done. That cut out half of what he could say. “Humanity had reached a point where it looked certain that Sapiens would destroy the Nean race. Izients had already agreed with the Neans that reality had to be changed and they were waiting for people with a connection to this world – rather than the Izient dimension – who had powerful enough magic to carry this out. Tchaffi and Dervyl helped me and Fal put an idea of cooperation into the minds of the newly evolved Sapiens thousands of years in the past and that’s how the world changed to this.”

  “So we all had different lives before yesterday?” Amy asked and there were more wide eyes and exchanged glances between people.

  “Trust me – you’re not missing out on anything,” Elliot told her. “Neans with magic were treated like slaves before.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Abbrin cut across the conversation, speaking to Dervyl. “So you think that these ghosts are a consequence of reality changing?”

  “They first began to appear at around the time that this magic was performed,” Dervyl answered, “so it’s a definite possibility.”

  “Surely it should have been foreseen that such incredibly powerful magic would have consequences,” Abbrin said.

  “I gathered that some smaller spells of the same kind had been carried out by Izients without causing any problems,” Elliot said. “This might be nothing to do with what we did.”

  “Or it could have everything to do with it,” Abbrin insisted.

  “Didn’t you hear what Elliot said?” Nariss said to him sharply. “The Nean race was about to be wiped out. They didn’t have a choice.”

  “I agree,” Barve said.

  Mosrra opened her mouth, presumably to weigh in to the argument, but Dervyl beat her to it. “I understand that this is a lot to take in but it will do us no good to debate something that cannot now be changed. Our job is to find a way to stop these ghosts coming to our worlds.”

  “Then we need to learn more about them,” Callie said. “Has anyone tried to speak to them?”

  “Several of my people tried and became confused and disturbed over the encounters, questioning what was real and what was not,” Dervyl said, throwing yet another verbal grenade into the conversation in her usual calm tone.

  “If we cannot talk to these creatures, how are we supposed to stop them?” Mosrra asked.

  Dervyl looked round at the team. “That is the conundrum we must solve.”

  Chapter Eight

  “WHAT DID these ghosts look like?” Farlden asked. Dervyl had brought him and Callie to the other earth dimension to speak to people who had seen the creatures. They were in a tiny academic community, with no more than half a dozen buildings, the roofs covered in grass and the walls painted in colours that made them an almost invisible part of the rural landscape. There were similar Izient groups in his dimension but they weren’t as peaceful as this – since the human population on this version of earth was far smaller, with much of the countryside left wild – and Farlden liked the tiny dinosaurs that sat on the grass and on tree branches nearby.

  They were in the living room of the home of six Izients, one of whom was sitting with them while two more were confined to their beds, too tormented by what they had seen to be able to function. Gikkra, a dark-skinned middle-aged woman answered his question, glancing from him to Dervyl as if not quite sure how to behave with non-Izients. “The one that we saw was human-shaped, like a young human man, but he was expressionless and he was not solid.”

  “You could see through him?” Dervyl asked, sitting across from Gikkra while Fal and Callie shared an Izient-style sofa. Uneven rocks were used as coffee tables and some of the wooden design of the walls resembled interweaving branches.

  “Yes. Vebru and Pema approached him and I saw them speak to the ghost. I followed but, by the time I got there, the ghost had vanished and Vebru and Pema’s minds were affected.”

  “When you say that the ghost vanished, do you mean it was literally there one moment and then disappeared?” Callie asked.

  “That is right.”

  “Did anything happen before the ghost appeared?” Dervyl asked. “Anything that could have alerted you that something strange was about to occur?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “Could we see your two colleagues, who spoke to the creature?” Dervyl asked.

  “Of course.” Gikkra stood up. “Follow me.” The building was round and on only one level so she took them in what felt like a spiral, passing more than a dozen rooms befor
e they paused. She opened a door and gestured to another one nearby. “These are their bedrooms. This is Pema.”

  They walked in and saw a young woman lying on an Izient-style wave-shaped bed. She was staring up at the ceiling, muttering to herself, and didn’t react to her visitors. Farlden moved closer to hear what she was saying but it was gibberish: repeated words and phrases that made no sense. When they checked on the man who had also encountered the ghost, he was in the same state as his colleague.

  As they left him, Farlden exchanged a worried glance with Callie. He felt unqualified to handle what was going on and, judging by the reactions after the meeting this morning, the rest of his teammates felt the same. Everyone was reeling with the knowledge that the world they all knew had only just come into existence and, on top of that, Farlden had found out that he had been dating someone he had only just met. He liked Elliot and it had struck him in the meeting earlier that he found Elliot attractive but he really cared about Callie and didn’t want to do anything that might ruin their relationship. She was the first person he had ever fallen for... except that, according to Elliot, she wasn’t. But the memories he had of getting to know Callie were all real, while he knew nothing of the timeline Elliot remembered and the man was a stranger to him.

  Callie was the one who had been with him this last year, sharing their first kiss and getting to know each other’s families. Her common sense grounded him and they shared a similar adventurous nature. Working together increased the bond between them and he could picture a long-term future with her. Basically, she made him happy and he would be a fool to let anyone mess that up.

  It would make things easier – for him and Callie, and probably for Elliot too – if they could just avoid Elliot but working together would make that impossible. On top of this, Farlden could see how unhappy Elliot was and had been worried when Elliot vanished yesterday. He wanted to help Elliot in some way but the feeling was a dangerous one that could end up leading to emotions they couldn’t explore. Farlden needed to put Callie first.

  They reached the front door of the house and walked outside, Gikkra answering a question as they did so that he had been too lost in his thoughts to hear. “A doctor looked into their minds but she could do nothing for them. She said that they had lost all connection with reality, although she could not say whether this madness was permanent or not. Do you know what these ghosts want with us or where they come from?”

  “Not yet but we will do our best to find out. Thank you for your assistance,” Dervyl said and the woman nodded politely.

  Dervyl opened a doorway home to their world and they stepped through it, to find Elliot and Barve waiting for them, Elliot’s gaze immediately falling on Farlden.

  Chapter Nine

  ELLIOT FOUND himself unable to relax until he saw that Farlden had returned safely to London. Despite his family’s celebration last night over him getting this job, he had had nightmares, one after another of Farlden being tortured by Dredhorn and of Farlden looking at Elliot with a blank lack of recognition. Now he was awake but the nightmare hadn’t faded with the daylight. This was his life and he had to find some way to accept it. The idea of Farlden encountering ghosts that could drive him insane was too much to handle, though, and it was only when Elliot saw him come back and looked into his eyes again that he could accept Fal was safe.

  “What did you learn?” Barve was asking.

  “The threat is a grave one,” Dervyl said and, when Farlden broke eye contact with Elliot to look at her, Elliot did the same. He could feel Callie’s gaze on him too but he didn’t want to have anything to do with her; she had betrayed them all once and she might do it again. At least that was why he told himself he couldn’t face her. The truth was that his feelings were a tangled painful mess right now. Dervyl was still speaking and Elliot tried to pay attention to her: “The ghosts seem to have the ability to drive people insane, although we do not know yet if this is a permanent state or something they could recover from. We could not learn whether the ghosts have any kind of agenda or whether they are inflicting this harm deliberately.”

  “Without being able to speak to them, it’ll be difficult to do much,” Callie said.

  Abbrin walked into Dervyl’s office and joined them, saying, “There have been more reports of ghosts and they have been seen in this dimension as well as the other one now. Nine ghosts have appeared so far and six people who tried to make contact with them seem to have lost their minds. We must do something.”

  “What would you suggest?” Dervyl asked mildly, not reacting to the emotion in his voice.

  “I do not know,” he admitted stiffly.

  “Elliot, I want you and Farlden to train together. If the magic that changed reality is the cause of these ghosts manifesting then, by understanding your own magic better, you might be able to see what has gone wrong.”

  Elliot went still at these words, reluctant to face more pain from having to spend time with someone he loved who felt nothing for him, yet unable to resist the bittersweet pleasure of seeing him.

  Farlden nodded, oddly expressionless, and gestured for Elliot to follow him. He took them into a nearby room that had a table suspended from the ceiling, which he ignored. At one side were chairs and cushions and he grabbed three chairs for them as Elliot noted that Callie had entered the room after him. At his glance, she smiled at him, familiar in that not-quite-right way, her black curly hair the same as ever but the suit she wore making her look older. She and Barve had been his first friends at Uni and he had relied on them both, only to learn that she had never been the person she seemed and had been plotting against him all the time. He turned away from her.

  “So what’s the plan?” Elliot asked as Farlden and Callie sat down on the chairs, facing each other, their behaviour towards each other comfortable in a way that hinted at their closeness. Elliot tried not to think about that as he joined them. “Should we try to use our magic to get some knowledge of the ghosts?”

  “No,” Callie said at once. “The two of you might be driven mad.”

  “Let’s just try to combine our magic this time and see how it goes,” Farlden said to Elliot, although he gave Callie a nod, acknowledging her concern and there was warmth in his dark eyes that was missing when he looked at Elliot. How could all the love between him and Fal have vanished between one moment and the next?

  “That sounds fine.” Elliot already knew how well their magic interacted but, of course, to Farlden this was the first time they had used it together.

  “Callie,” Farlden said, “is it all right if we try to see one of your memories? Your last birthday, for instance?”

  “Of course.”

  Elliot felt ill at the idea of seeing into her mind, her constant presence exactly like having an enemy in their midst, but he could think of no good reason to object to it, so he said nothing.

  “How do we connect our magic?” Farlden asked him. “Do we need to touch?”

  They used to hold hands but their magic had grown powerful enough that that wasn’t necessary any more. Elliot assumed that was still the case and that the change in reality hadn’t altered their magic. They would soon find out if it had. “No. If you reach out with your magic, searching for the date Callie mentioned, that should be enough for me to share the magic.”

  “Okay.”

  Elliot closed his eyes and, moments later, felt Farlden’s magic join with his like a caress. On some level it felt as if their magic knew they were intimately connected to each other, the two separate magics entwining without doubt or the need to keep any distance between them. It felt amazing. He was aware of Farlden’s surprise that the magics melded together so perfectly and he metaphorically held his breath, waiting for Fal to remember that they loved each other, certain it was about to happen.

  Then they entered Callie’s memory and it all went wrong.

  Callie and Farlden were already dating and Elliot could feel her emotions, her happiness at having found someone she cared for so much.
She was thinking about seeing her boyfriend later as she joined her family for breakfast and they wished her a happy birthday. Her father was there and her mother, whose features resembled Callie’s, and... the sister who had been dead in his world.

  He broke the contact, lurching out of the chair and away from the two of them. He recalled the grief-stricken way Callie used to speak of her sister when he had believed they were friends. Every time he began to settle into this life he was thrown by some change to what he thought he knew of the world or reminded of the past.

  “What happened?” he heard Callie ask behind him.

  “I don’t know,” Farlden answered. “It was working perfectly. You were having breakfast with your mum, dad and sister, about to open presents. Elliot, what’s the matter?”

  He turned to face them and realised he was shaking. This whole situation was so wrong. “It was my fault. It was just a shock.”

  “What was?” Callie asked.

  “Something about your sister,” Farlden said. He had obviously felt some of Elliot’s reactions as well as what Callie had been experiencing. Had he seen how much Elliot loved him?

  “She was dead in my reality.”

  Callie gasped and he wished he had thought to find a more tactful way to tell her about it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What happened to her?”

  “I’m not sure. It was some kind of accident.”

  “But that won’t happen here?”

  “No,” he said, “this world is different. There’s no reason for you to think there’s any danger to her.”

  She gave a shaky sigh and Farlden put an arm round her. It looked natural, as if they had done this a hundred times. Elliot wondered if he should leave the room and give her a chance to take this in, but then she spoke to him again. “You obviously must have known me well in the previous timeline if I told you something so personal.”

  He looked away, not wanting to talk or think about it. “We were friends for a while.”