by Logan Jacobs
After a few dozen more minutes of walking, we had ventured into the darker depths of the jungle where the sun was obscured. And yet somehow, even in what should have been a dark and scary place filled with weird plants and terrifying animals, the vibrant colors were still clear and bright even with the lack of sunlight. It was like some sort of odd, drug induced hallucination.
Just then, there was a rustle in the foliage a little ways ahead, just a few feet in front of Kalista. It was loud and harsh, and the dwarf stopped in her tracks immediately, creating a pileup of bodies behind her. Once we recomposed ourselves, we waited with bated breath and drew our weapons at the ready.
A tiny, deer-like creature leapt from the depths of the jungle and onto the path like a gazelle. The thing was only about a foot tall at the shoulder, and very compact, but that wasn’t at all the most interesting thing about it. Its fur was an alternating pattern of bright green and dark green stripes, and its huge doe eyes were a saturated violet color, not unlike Kalista’s own eyes. It had two tiny ears perched at the top of its head that flicked forward as it looked at us with curious eyes.
My breath was loud in my ears as I waited to see what this creature would do. But, to my surprise, it didn’t attack. Instead, it glanced around at the women in front of me until its bright eyes landed right on my face. And then, it dipped one striped leg forward and bowed its tiny, heart shaped head deeply before it popped back up, looked at me from under thick blue lashes, and hopped off into the jungle.
“What the hell was that one?” I breathed in surprise.
“It’s a Jeeran,” Edora whispered back as she pushed Kal gently forward in a silent command. “I’ve never seen one do that before. That was … strange.”
“I told you guys they’re sentient,” Maaren retorted. “Last time I was here, I swore to you one of those things helped me find my dad.”
“I think you might be right about that,” Edora mumbled, still in shock. “That was unbelievable.”
“Are we close?” Danira asked in a hushed whisper as she looked around the jungle, ready to jump into action at the first sign of danger.
“Just about an hour more,” Edora replied with a nod of her head that shook her beautiful red curls up and down. “We’re still pretty far away.”
As we wandered through the strange darkness of the jungle for a little while longer, I continued to be completely amazed at the vibrancy of the nether realm. If it weren’t for all the dangerous animals and the fact that the place was currently inhabited by a gang of crazy terrorists, I would actually think the nether realm was be a great place to live.
At the very least, it’d be interesting.
A few of the pink fuchsia bushes uprooted themselves suddenly to our right and scattered off into the depths of the jungle. At first, I didn’t see anything. But as we continued forward, there was a soft purring noise that shook the ground beneath us. It sounded just like a regular house cat, but I knew for a fact there were no orange tabbies in the nether realm.
And then, on the path ahead of us, something rustled the branches of the trees in the forest. I couldn’t see any more than a shadow, but it looked huge.
“Don’t move,” Edora muttered, and I could hear the fear that laced her voice.
The large shadow stepped out onto the path and revealed itself as a sphinx. It had the head of a woman, with pretty golden curls and bright blue eyes, but the body of a lion with muscles that rippled as it walked. There were also two huge, iridescent wings attached to its shoulder blades that looked like a cross between a fairy’s wings and bird wings.
The pretty pink mouth was pursed as it let out those soft purrs, and she prowled toward us carefully. Her blue eyes watched us as we all froze and waited to see what she planned on doing.
I debated whether or not I should just kill the creature right then and there. This realm was dangerous and deadly, and this thing looked more dangerous than anything we’d encountered here so far.
Kalista piped up, her voice full of attitude, before I could make my decision.
“If you’re going to ask us what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening, the answer’s man,” she called out boisterously.
I held back a chuckle at the small woman’s proud attitude.
The sphinx just looked her over and let a creepy smile spread across her pink lips.
“That’s not at all what I was going to ask,” she said slowly. Her voice was silky soft, like butter against my eardrums, and I felt like I was strangely drawn to her for some reason.
“Alright, then, we’ll just keep going,” Kal retorted and started to stomp forward.
Before Kal could get any closer, the sphinx leapt the distance between herself and the dwarf with an animalistic yowl, and bared her razor-sharp teeth. The hacker stumbled backward a step, and I made my decision.
It was time to bring this bitch down.
I called upon my Hand and felt the cells vibrate in it as I searched for the sphinx’s blood. The connection was made almost instantly, and I immediately tried to stop the creature’s heart.
Nothing happened.
I furrowed my brows together in frustration and stared down at my palm. I called on her blood once more, but again, nothing at all happened.
Slowly, the sphinx cocked her head in my direction and laughed softly. “There is only one way you can kill me, human,” she growled out. “Your weapons and magic are no good in my world.”
“Look,” I started, my tone diplomatic, “I don’t want to kill you. Just let us by you without hurting us, and we’ll leave you alone. Good?”
“No,” she whispered tauntingly. “Where is the fun in that?”
I was about to try to appease her further when Ariette huffed out a breath and barreled forward with her sword high in the air. She pushed past Edora and Kal and summoned forth two lightning bolts. They cracked down over the sphinx’s head but did nothing but ricochet off her harmlessly. Then the elf swung her sword hard at the sphinx’s head, but it bounced off her neck as if it were made of titanium. The creature didn’t even respond to the attempted assassination, and instead just stood there calmly as Ariette reeled back.
“I didn’t lie to you, young elf,” the sphinx said calmly.
“Fine,” Ariette huffed. “What do we need to do? Answer some sort of riddle?”
“Yes, exactly,” the sphinx smiled. “It’s always a pleasure to hear that someone knows of my work.”
“And what happens if we don’t?” I asked hesitantly.
“Well, then,” the creature sighed, “I suppose I’ll have a very filling dinner.”
“How comforting,” Danira grunted. “I really wish I’d packed that C4 I’d planned on bringing.”
“The Phobos would prefer the Racmoth not enter their land, and I have assured them he won’t,” the sphinx added and leveled her blue eyes at me. “But a match of wits is too good for me to pass up.”
Great. So not only did the Phobos know we were on our way, but they also had a deadly sphinx in their corner. I racked my brain to think of what I knew about sphinxes. Truthfully, it wasn’t a ton. But the one thing I did know was that if we answered her riddle correctly, she would be forced to commit suicide like some sort of ancient warrior that’s faced defeat.
Failure wasn’t an option. We had one shot to answer this riddle, and we had to answer it correctly.
“So what’s your riddle?” Maaren demanded, her face intensely serious.
“So demanding,” the sphinx cooed. “You get one chance to answer my riddle. Don’t waste it.”
“We don’t need a lecture,” Edora grunted as she ran a hand through her curls. “Just get on with it.”
The sphinx tilted her head and let that creepy smile spread across her lips. She looked us up and down hungrily, like she had already imagined what we’d each taste like.
“What is everywhere, but we never see it?” she asked, and then she lay down right in the middle of the fiery red path an
d stared at us with those wide blue eyes.
“That’s it?” Kalista asked in astonishment.
The sphinx simply nodded her head silently.
“Huddle,” Maaren ordered as she yanked Kalista away from the sphinx.
We formed a tight circle in the dirt path, and none of us said anything for a moment as we racked our brains.
“Just tell me there aren’t more of these things hiding around this jungle,” I said to Edora finally.
“Uh, okay, there aren’t,” she answered, totally unconvincingly.
“Focus team,” Danira grunted. “I’d really rather not end up in that cat’s belly at the end of all of this.”
“Okay, who has ideas?” I asked as I racked my own brain for an answer. It really made no sense to me.
“Magic?” Ariette offered up halfheartedly. “We never really see it.”
“It’s not everywhere,” Danira pointed out. “If it was, humans would have it, too.”
“Okay, not magic,” Ariette nodded. “Anyone else?”
“Love,” Kalista said thoughtfully. “It could be love.”
“Too abstract.” Edora shook her head quickly. “And definitely not everywhere. You met the guys at my village, after all.”
I took a deep breath as I tilted my head back to look up at the thick black leaves of the trees. My brain was completely, hopelessly empty, and I could feel my frustration rise. But I knew anger would definitely not help the situation. I couldn’t think clearly when I was angry. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and concentrated on the flow of air in and out of my nose for a few seconds.
Then it hit me.
Air.
That was it. That was the answer. I blew another breath out as I turned it over in my mind. Air was absolutely everywhere around us. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be living things. But we never saw the air itself.
“Air,” I whispered as I brought my head back down to face everyone. “The answer’s air, you guys.”
“Air,” Edora repeated slowly as she thought it over, before she nodded vigorously. “Milton, you’re right.”
“Air,” I called out to the sphinx as we broke the circle.
I stepped forward as the creature’s blonde head tilted, and she rose slowly. For a split second, my stomach did a backflip inside my torso, and I wondered if we’d given the wrong answer. But then, the thunderous look of anger that flooded the sphinx’s face assured me I was right.
“You filthy human!” she shouted out, and then the creature suddenly lunged toward me with her razor sharp claws drawn.
I stumbled backward a step, completely caught off guard, and grabbed for my gun. Seconds before the monster was on me, the sphinx exploded into a shower of bright pink and blue glitter.
“Man, this place is weird,” I whistled to my friends. “I dunno what I expected, but that was certainly not even on the list.”
The pieces of glitter fell to the bright red dirt and disappeared as I stared at the space in shock.
“Yes, go Milton!” Kalista shouted out as she leapt into the air.
The dwarf then proceeded to do a strange little dance where she pumped her arms and spun in a circle as she muttered “go, Milton, go, Milton,” under her breath.
I chuckled as I watched the dwarf, but the laughter quickly died in my throat as Edora stepped past me.
The Unseelie began to examine the path in front of us with a concerned expression on her pretty blue features.
“What is it?” I asked as I turned back around to follow her gaze.
She stepped forward carefully, and I followed her. Kalista’s song trailed off as the other women fell into step behind us, and we took a few careful strides down the path before we saw what had made Edora so curious.
Right where the bright red path should have continued on into the jungle, a giant, strange looking rose bush stretched off to each side and into the forest. It had giant orange thorns about the size of my hand, and bright blue leaves. The flowers were a traditional, pink rose, and the branches were so thick I couldn’t see through them.
Worst of all? The bush was so wide it was almost like a wall of thorns that extended all the way across the jungle.
Edora reached forward as if she was about to touch the bush, but its branches shifted and twisted until a giant orange thorn lashed out at her. The Unseelie gasped and ducked away just before it pierced her chest.
“That’s not good,” I muttered as we stared up at the giant plant.
“To put it lightly,” Edora said, “I’ve never even seen this plant before. This is a little bit beyond not good.”
Chapter Sixteen
Just as we were studying the deadly new plant, there was the sound of rumbling hooves in the distance, and my team readied their weapons. Maaren held her double headed axe aloft and stepped forward just a bit as she peered into the jungle. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the sounds were being made by a horse. But that seemed far too mundane compared to everything we’d seen in the nether realm so far.
A human hand suddenly wrapped around one of the petals of a huge orange flower and pushed it to the side. A large figure made its way onto the pathway in front of us, and my mouth fell open with surprise.
Before us stood a centaur.
The creature had the torso of an extremely muscular man, with bulky muscles that rippled under his tanned skin and sandy blonde hair that hung just above his piercing blue eyes. But where his legs should have been, there was the body of a horse. The fur was a shiny brown color, and his black, hairy tail flicked back and forth lazily as he stared at us proudly.
Almost immediately, the centaur was joined by two others just like him. One of them had dark, coffee colored skin and equally dark black eyes, with a shiny bald head and gray fur on his horse body. The other had skin so pale it was nearly translucent, with a white, fluffy horse body to match.
The three creatures stared at us for a long moment, and then they turned in unison to stare up at the rose bush-like plant that blocked our path. The first centaur sighed deep and long.
“The Phobos must be aware of your presence,” he said in a deep and gravelly voice.
“They do,” Edora spoke up. “So I take it you’re on our side?”
The centaur gave her a long, hard look up and down with his piercing gaze.
“Your side?” he chuckled, and my stomach did a backflip as I wondered if we were about to be under attack by a group of centaurs. “Not your side. The Unseelie are the reason we are trapped in this ghastly realm to begin with. But, we are on the side of the Racmoth. The Phobos would see every one of our kind turned into nothing more than pack mules and herd animals. That, we will not be. The Racmoth is the key to stopping a terrible fate such as that.”
With that, all three of them turned to face me and bent their torsos forward in a deep and regal bow. It was quite an interesting sight to see. They moved in perfect unison. Not a single one was even a centimeter off.
“Uh, thank you,” I said when I found my voice.
“You’ve set off quite a stir in this jungle, Racmoth,” the second centaur with the coffee skin muttered. “The Phobos do not want you here. I’ve never seen them this spooked before.”
“Yeah, I figured as much when they sent a sphinx after us and put this giant thing in our way,” I replied as I motioned to the bush in front of us. “If you’re on our side, I suppose we should know each other’s names. You can call me Racmoth if you’d like, but I prefer to go by Milton.”
“Noted,” the first centaur said. “I am called Kitar.”
“I am Kanen,” the second one said.
“And I am Kofa,” the third one said. His voice was slightly higher than the other two, and it sounded much younger.
“This is Ariette, Danira, Maaren, Kalista, and Edora,” I said as I pointed at each of the women, and they each gave a nod as I said their names.
“Oh, we know that one,” Kitar rumbled as he glared at Edora. “Her reputation pr
oceeds her.”
“Great,” I tried to make my voice sound chipper. “So then, any chance you can help us get to the Unseelie city and stop the Phobos?”
“We can,” Kitar assured me. “We waited here the entire night to ensure we could help you and your friends reach the city when the time came. You have shown great prowess against the sphinx.”
I shrugged. “I just answered her question.”
“Can I ride you?” Kalista blurted out, and then clapped a hand over her mouth immediately in embarrassment. “That came out wrong. I totally meant I want to hop on your long, muscular--shit! I just want to be on top of you! You know what I mean.”
“That is okay, Ms. Kalista,” Kofa assured her with a soft smile.
Kal tried to return the gesture, but her fist was still shoved in her mouth, and it looked a lot more awkward than she meant it to.
“We were actually going to suggest that ourselves,” Kitar said calmly as he looked at me. “We would be happy to escort your team to the city, but these jungle floors are dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. Step on one Blisterbus Flower, and voilà! Dead. We can guide you, and we can move much faster than you all can.”
I was a little surprised at the suggestion. Something about riding a completely sentient being seemed strangely wrong to me, but it also didn’t seem like we had much of a choice. Not to mention, I wanted to heed the centaur’s warning. These Blisterbus Flowers didn’t sound like something I wanted to mess with today.
“Okay!” Kalista blurted out with excitement in her voice. Kofa knelt down, and Kal instantly leapt toward the creature. She straddled his back and swung her legs forward and backward like an excited child.
Maaren joined the dwarf on Kofa, and Ariette and Danira quickly climbed up onto Kanen’s back. Edora glanced at me and took a deep breath as she eyed Kitar warily.
“Come on, I’ll be right behind you,” I whispered in her ear.
