by S McPherson
The whole time my own hands stay fixed on his hips, my thumbs tracing the lines of his pelvic muscles that carve a ‘V’ in his skin. When he shifts, I pull him closer, forcing my legs further apart. A cry escapes my lips and he silences it with a kiss. I dig my nails into his sides and he groans, the sound igniting me like a wick, and I wrap my legs tighter around him, my hips moving back and forth, repeatedly, ecstatically. When I drag my fingers through his hair, my toes bunch so tightly they ache. I burn and writhe like lava; a volcano about to erupt. But then…
‘Milo,’ I pant, breathless. Though my body remains tangled around him, responding to his every move, my mind registers a sound in the distance.
He growls into the base of my throat.
‘Do you hear that?’ My legs tighten around him, my whole-body rattling with desire that demands to be freed, but I can’t ignore that sound. Drums.
Eventually, Milo sighs—though my hips continue to move against him, unable to stop entirely—and rests his head in the nape of my neck. ‘We should go,’ he breathes at last. ‘The Denurib use their days for hunting.’
With an irrational stab of reluctance, I nod. ‘The Denurib?’
‘The creatures from last night,’ he explains. ‘The boy in the cage beside mine, Merlin, told me where I was, helped me make sense of some things.’ Milo suddenly looks pained, his face creased, his eyes downcast. ‘I didn’t even try to save him.’
I run a hand down his cheek. ‘You were barely able to save yourself.’
He nods, but without conviction, then slides off me. I instantly feel cold. Yawning, he clambers out of the hollow. His joints crack and he sighs and groans as he stretches, twisting from side to side. His wings expand to their full width and once again I’m winded by their astonishing beauty, by their magnificent size. I’m further surprised by how much I like them on him.
As the drums grow louder, I pack up my things, consume another twig of snickleberry root and wash it down with half a sollaball, saving the rest for Milo. Then I busy myself with digging sleep gunk from the corners of my eyes as Milo strolls behind a tree to empty his bladder. Thankful he’s gone, I creep out of the hollow to do the same.
Before long, we stand side by side outside our cave, all traces of our presence erased. Our footprints have dissolved in the glutinous earth and the indents of our bodies on the ground have been swept away on a breeze, our scents replaced by the lands own salted musky odour. Today, the dark leaves of the trees flap and twirl as if dancing and the brilliant sky is streaked with wisps of twisted cloud.
Anticipation blazes through me, fiercer than the rays of sun now beating down on us as Milo takes my gethadrox and twists the glass top two clicks to the left. We frown when an opaque arrow doesn’t immediately appear and no sensation lifts us to another world.
‘What’s wrong?’ I say, immediately panicking.
Milo turns the top of the gethadrox another way. Click. Nothing. He turns it again. Click. Click. A dark arrow appears.
‘Looks like the portals to Coldivor and Islon aren’t open,’ he says, reading the horror on my face. ‘Not as yet. But if I remember correctly, this way will take us to a place called Sehence.’
‘What’s in Sehence?’
He shrugs. ‘I know less about Sehence than I did about Vedark.’
‘Or this deceptively barbaric place,’ I grumble. The Nynthst is a cacophony of the real and unreal, the brilliant and brutal. ‘Do you think we can wait here for the portals to open?’ I ask, eyeing our little hollow with new appreciation.
Milo grimaces, the sound of the drums now near deafening and tilts his head, as if hearing something beneath them. I wonder if this is another of his Dragonysius skills. ‘No,’ he finally says. ‘They’re on the move.’ He grips my hand, pulling me close, and together we step in the arrow’s direction, almost instantly plucked from the ground and pulled into Sehence.
The new realm favours a forgotten land, a place dedicated to night and misshapen makings of nature. A large and low hanging moon, like an orb of luminous bone, appears to swing on an invisible string, slowly swaying from side to side. As it does so, the stars around it seem to scatter, shifting to avoid being bumped into, promptly returning when the moon swings the other way, the stars on the other side doing the same. There are thousands of them and they sparkle like glitter sprinkled on shards of glass
Around us rise outlandish structures of warped rock laced with trees and crawling vines. And looking down, I see we stand on a narrow precipice of stone, like a half-formed battlement of a crumbling castle. It stretches out, stopping in mid-air. Below us rages a river that pools to an ocean, slapping away at the base of the world, slowly hammering it to waste. I make out arches of rock, some hanging, curved and unfinished, whilst others stand proud and whole, disappearing beneath the rioting waves. Vines coil around the structures, sagging like lazy snakes, and they swing in the breeze as often as the moon moves. Alcoves are carved into each visible rock surface, their edges uneven and splattered with white, as if rubbed with chalk. I wonder if they’re the result of erosion, and if the tumultuous waves below ever rise this high, high enough to beat away what little remains.
Milo takes my hand and leads us through an arch behind us. There’s nothing here, barely even walls to quiet the intense glare of the moon. But ahead lies a vast stretch of grey rock, torn and slashed by tree roots that weave in and out. Some of the trees hang impossibly from the edge of the stone, defying gravity. Others lie on their sides, cracked and still. I would have believed them dead if not for the plush green leaves that shudder on their thick branches. Other trees stand inordinately tall, bursting through the half ceiling above us, their tops so high I cannot make them out.
As we walk, pebbles scatter away from our approaching feet like insects and eyes of unknown creatures blink at us from crevices cut into the earth. The land seems to wind on for miles, turning and splitting in all directions. Cavities are cut deep into this solid expanse of stone, some so wide I can see the white folds of the river’s water as it arcs up to meet us, and I hesitate before leaping across. Milo keeps his wings folded behind his back but they shift and shudder, as if preparing to take flight if necessary.
‘I think the whole land is like this,’ I say as we squeeze around a huddled gathering of tree trunks and duck through another archway. Another path winds out before us, parts of it cracked and crumbling, vines draped over it. The moon seems to be wherever we are, a ball of white tracking us, paling our complexions. It lights the little creatures’ eyes to a demonic red, though, and I yelp when some drop in front of me before scurrying back up the vines. They’re too fast to fully make sense of them, but I notice they use red paws and a tail to climb. I look for them in the cracks they disappeared into but see nothing, hear nothing. ‘Think it’s safe to stay here until the portal opens?’
Milo makes a non-committal sound.
‘Have you noticed how oddly silent this place is?’ I say and listen more intently now. The trees shudder in the breeze hurled up from the crashing waves but there’s no rustle of leaves. And the water churns and slams, beating down the earth in silent destruction.
Milo considers. ‘In Coldivian, Sehence means silence. Perhaps this is the reason Tranzuta named it so.’
‘I’d bet on it.’ I frown, not knowing why the ominous quiet bothers me so much but before I can say more, Milo yanks me through a doorway of entwined vines and crushes me into an alcove. It reeks of fish and noxious gas. He clamps a hand over my mouth and presses a finger to his lips. I blink my obedience and he lowers his hand.
I wait, peering over the curve of his wings. The vines shudder, as if something large approaches, and then a claw big enough to crush us both comes into view, the ground trembling as it crashes down, but yet again there’s no sound. The beast stops for a while and we wait, perfectly still, Milo tucking his wings in as tight as he can.
At last, the beast moves on, its lengthy body dragging behind it, a stretch of scaly brown flesh and
alabaster fur that seems never-ending. Then at last the tip of its tail, bubbled and ridged like a rattlesnake’s, trails past. After a long while, Milo turns, his wings flattening me against the stone wall, and he peeks his head out through the curtain of lianas.
He beckons me to follow as he steps out, his eyes warily casting about. Unsurprisingly, all is silent. Milo taps the gethadrox and we watch the arrows form. Perhaps there’s a safer dimension we can remain for a while—but every misty arrow points back to realms we have already fled. Sighing, he hands me the device to push into my satchel and quietly, we turn, tiptoeing away from where the beast has gone.
We soon cross narrow plinths of rock that overhang the thrashing river below, lunging over gaps I’d rather not acknowledge. By the time we stop, each to dissolve half a sollaball on our tongue, my skin glistens with a new coat of sweat and Milo’s hair clings to his brow. I push it from his face and he smiles.
But his smile quickly falters, falling like rain from his face as his features turn to terror. He grips my hand and pulls me against him. Turning, I see why: there, before us, is a massive snout, scaled and coarse like that of a crocodile’s, yellow fangs larger than my entire body jutting down from its pale lips. I swallow a scream, terror clawing up my throat as I push myself closer against Milo. The beast is hideous. On top of its gargantuan snout are luminous eyes, the colour of mustard, and a mane of cartilage stretches its skin, protruding at all angles around the beast’s great head. Tufts of white fur shudder as it snarls and slips closer.
We take a cautious step back wary of the staggering drop off the edge of our thin platform. I feel Milo hesitate behind me, his wings rustling. But Milo has never flown before and neither of us trust his wings enough to take a plunge over a river as unforgiving as it is wet.
A swirl of hot air engulfs us as the beast heaves a huge breath, pushing itself up on its thick legs as it flexes its jagged claws. Scratches mark them with thin white lines, and bulbous red blotches of clotting blood linger where the beast seems to have tried to bite them down. I tilt my head back to take the whole of the creature in as it scrapes its claws silently on the ground. Silence: a mystery of this realm it seems I won’t live to uncover.
My body remains stiff as I strive to shrink into insignificance, but it’s clearly too late for that. When the beast turns its murderous gaze upon us, it lunges and I scream as Milo pulls us back, nearly slipping from the edge of the platform. But then the beast blanches, as if struck, and hastens away in a blur of white and maroon, its receding face a picture of panic. It scurries through a huge archway, disappearing beyond the tumble of rocks and roots.
Milo scrambles to his feet, neither of us taking our eyes from where we last saw the fleeing beast.
‘What just happened?’ I gasp.
Milo stares at the archway, his body rigid. ‘I have no idea.’ His voice is one of foreboding, and taking my hand, we press on in search of a more solid stretch of land.
We walk further into the unknown, Milo occasionally pulling out the gethadrox and tapping and twisting its centre to see if a portal to Islon or Coldivor is open. No luck. My feet grow weary and I hunch against a wall, ignoring the skeletal stabs of the rock as it prods my spine. Milo doesn’t argue. He stops beside me to readjust the cloth swathed around his crotch and then shakes a cloud of dust and debris from his wings. When he lowers them, I choke on my words. A face, the mutilated, immeasurable face of the beast, is behind him, its yellow fangs bared. Milo reads the panic in my eyes and swivels to face the creature.
We spring aside as the beast pounces, crushing a hole through the wall I’d just been leaning against, its rocks tumbling in a silent avalanche to the roiling river below. We scurry away on our hands and knees as the beast turns and charges after us, lips quivering over its hungry daggers of teeth, its eyes honed in on us and only us.
Milo grabs my hand as he springs around a corner, the beast skittering past, unable to turn quickly enough. It comes to a halt and barrels back. We race down a passageway, Milo pushing me ahead as the beast now thunders up behind us. Its paws crack the ground and its tail flogs the moon, which seems to sway faster and higher to escape. Pillars of rock tower before us and I leap behind one, Milo close behind, the beast almost on top of us. Its tail slashes through the pillar, sending rock cascading around us. Screaming, I shield my head and when, miraculously, neither of us are crushed, I peek from beneath my upraised arms and see the beast looking stricken and staggering back.
It watches us warily, as if I am the greater threat. Steadily, I get to my feet, dust and grime covering me.
‘It’s the sound,’ Milo realises. ‘Nothing here makes a sound.’
I glance at Milo, quick to return my glare to the beast. ‘It’s afraid.’ I feel him nod beside me as we stand side by side, stealthily edging backwards as the beast regards us with caution. It shifts but does not advance. Apparently, still uncertain.
When far enough away, Milo rams his hand into mine and we race through another archway, this one leading to a half-formed and long since weathered staircase which we slip and stumble up. It isn’t long before the beast hurtles after us.
Doubling into Fuerté form as easily as breathing—my ability to tap into my counterpart gifts seeming to respond under pressure—I rip a hunk from the wall and hurl it at the beast. It barely winces, its teeth gnashing as it barges towards us. Up and up we go, the moon seeming ever closer, as though we might eventually be able to dive onto it.
‘Scream,’ Milo yells, the base tone of his voice not seeming to affect the beast. I do but the beast continues after us. I scream louder, and it halts a mere second before pressing on behind us. We come to a circular slab of hot stone, nothing but the night sky above. Milo hurtles to its edge, peering down at the plummeting void below. His wings stretch out, flapping as he waits for me to catch up to him, but instead I stop and turn.
‘Dezaray,’ he yells, but I stand firm, watching as the beast draws up the last of its gruesome form and locks its eyes on mine. ‘Dezaray!’
The beast ambles closer, seeming to puff with pride. I’m trapped on this pinnacle, unable to make it to Milo before the beast could get to me—and it knows it. My heart hammers against my ribcage but I steady it with forced breaths. For this to work, I have to focus. Though my counterpart powers are taking affect, I do not claim to control them as well as I’d like. I think back to the last and only time I did this as the beast scrambles yet closer, giddy, its claws skittering across the ground, gouging great cracks in it and sending pebbles fleeing. I hear Milo calling my name, moving closer, but I block him out and clench my fists, suck air into my mouth, and when the creature’s close enough that I feel I can inflict the most damage, I scream. The loudest, soul shattering scream I can muster and it drags me to my knees. The air churns around me, the ground shakes and the beast crumples, as if it had slammed into a shield of diamonds. Its snout caves in and its body wrinkles, colliding with its head as it whips forward and snaps back, bones cracking, blood spraying everywhere. I grip the earth, digging my fingers into a crack running out from me to the beast. The scream pours out of me like rain from clouds until at last I can’t breathe and I and the beast have collapsed, its giant twitching claws only inches from my head.
I hear, hear its final breath leave its body, and through half closed eyes, I see Milo rush towards me, slipping on the blood-saturated ground. One side of me is soaked in it but I haven’t the strength to pull myself up, drowning in its heady stench of stale fish and toxic fumes.
I feel Milo’s hands slip under me, lifting me off the ground as I hang lazily in his arms, no strength left in me to lift my head. He shuffles me against himself and then runs. I feel his muscles tense and the shudder of his pounding feet vibrating up through him. I hear the pulsing of his wings as they flap behind us, beating the air. And then…I feel weightless. There’s a low hiss and a whistle of the wind as it passes over us, and forcing my eyes open, I stare up in awe at Milo. We’re flying.
He stares straight ahead, the muscles in his chest taut then bulging with each thrust of his wings. The stars clink against each other as they scatter and shimmer like diamond rain, and for a moment I forget the world, forget we’re both covered in the beast’s blood. I forget we’re stuck in a realm, in a universe, so vast I feel like a mere grain of sand in the depths of all the oceans combined. I forget that an evil I can only begin to comprehend wants me as its catalyst and that an organisation on Earth tortures and butchers innocents for ‘The greater good’. And I forget that Milo is a Dragonysius, that he belongs to an empire exiled from the rest. In this moment, I’m simply me, cradled in the arms of the man I love and soaring through a night air so clean and crisp it could be a mirage.
Milo slows as we near the raging river.
‘Its blood is poison,’ he murmurs. Though he may have said it out loud, to me it’s a low hum from some reality I am not a part of. ‘We have to wash it off.’ Milo is skimming the surface of the waves now, the water leaping up playfully, splashing and whirling. ‘Ready?’ and he shifts me in his arms. I look up at him, imagining a halo circling his gleaming horns, and with a vague grin, I nod. Milo slows his beating wings and we descend into the water, sinking beneath its surface.
It’s cold at first but soon becomes a warm caress, lapping at me like a dog happy to have me home. The blood slithers from us, staining the river before being whisked away by the current and dissolved. Milo keeps me locked in his grip, wiping my hair and wringing my clothes. I peer at him, as if looking through frosted glass, the turquoise water only slightly murky. I smile at him, feeling somewhat revived by the waters embrace, noting the flash of his teeth as he returns it. Before I can lose my breath, I’m ripped from the water and blasted by a cold wind as we once again soar through the air, higher and higher.
