by C. C. York
He pushed back his hood, revealing more sores across a mostly bald head. Wisps of pale blonde hair skimmed his ears and stuck inside the hood as he counted aloud, pointing a yellowed nail at each woman in turn. He wiggled his fingers at them, laughing a high-pitched gleeful sound that echoed back to them in waves. Fear overrode the girls' stupor, and they backed against the furthest wall to get away from him.
"Hasateen is almost here; Mizi and Mina will soon be hiding. They said he is coming, and soon, we'll be gifted. But first, we must harvest."
The Dark One ran his hand along the cage as he made a lap around its perimeter. Revulsion blanketed Alik as he smacked his glistening lips and ran a tongue over the wooden bar mere steps from her. He cocked his head suddenly, shushing the quiet guards, though Alik couldn’t hear anyone speaking.
"Yes, yes,” He said, turning up to the open sky above. “Coming."
The Dark One spun around, and the Canavar Company guards pressed against the wall, putting as much space between them and the man stalking up the stairs to the woods. Before he reached the top, he leaned over to the guards below and said, "Bring the one in the yellow. We think she'll do nicely while we wait."
A fair-skinned man, lank white hair and sores of his own, opened the gate to Alik's far left. The girls gripped each other, muttering prayers. When he grabbed an older girl in a filthy yellow dress, the group cried out as one, trying to pull her back. He struck the girl closest to him while the other guards shoved blunt sticks at the others through the bars. The first guard pulled her up the stairs, grunting with effort as she screamed and thrashed. Shauna stirred, and though she only whispered Alik's name once hours ago when Alik found her, she renewed her grip on her hand now.
Screams shot down from Oculus above, and Alik strained to hear what Shauna whispered over the cries of the girls surrounding them.
"You need to see Alik. See."
Alik shook her head, "Shh, Shauna. It's OK. I see him now. I won't let him hurt you. Taavi and Firtina are coming, and we will get you home."
Shauna listlessly tilted her head from side to side. "No. Not him. The Other. The Other. Your dreams. Please. You must See." She tapped a shaking finger below Alik's eye.
Alik felt her blood pool to her extremities and back to her heart. Her Dua flared, blurring her eyes in panic. She distantly heard another shout from above, an order, and the guards entering the cell again.
Suddenly, the guards pulled Shauna from her arms.
Alik ripped the veil from her face, screaming, "I am Alik Iktidar! I am Alik Iktidar, daughter of Queen Firtina and Heir to the Efendian Throne! Take me!"
Elaine
Elaine walked under the first line of fire-orange tree branches, not caring to rehash the argument behind her. Damari split off from her and Agnian hours ago to ensure the Horde and Queen Firtina received word to rescue Alik. She shuddered at the thought of running through the valley alone with the sun sinking fast. Elaine tucked the Garfu attack securely in the Caboodle of her mind, confident that she would never open that particular memory.
Agnian relayed what they knew, or thought they knew, about the Dark One to Reed and Monti after the Garfu attack. He insisted that they continue to Magara, but Elaine liked Reed's plan best.
"...but if she comes with us, she can Rift Alik, Monti's dad, and all the others out," Reed argued.
Yesterday, Elaine could not stay in Efendi because of her ability to Rift. That same ability might now be the only way she could still call Efendi home one day.
When I help Alik save the others, they'll call off the Rifter hunt, and she will help me find my family in Bakilar. I could bring my parents to Efendi if I find them. It all made perfect sense, which is why she saw no other option but to go into the woods.
She tried to ignore the creeping unease the further she walked on the fallen leaves. The path looked like a carpet of fire among the dark tree trunks, and the soft ground absorbed the sounds of her steps. No birds or critters filled the branches with sound, and the still air reeked of sweet decay, turning her stomach. Elaine thought about Alik and Mara walking towards the Batiwood that morning, forcing her feet to keep moving. They didn’t run from this.
She heard Agnian behind her first. "Wait, no! Absolutely not. I am taking you to the Magarans. You cannot go in there."
Elaine pivoted around, pointing. "Your friends are in there. Alik is in there. Do you honestly think you can get all the way to that mountain range and back before she is eaten?"
"Eaten?" Monti squeaked.
Monti and Reed walked under the canopy of fire orange leaves a few paces behind them. The leaves dimmed the further they walked in from the setting sun, and Reed kept glancing behind him every few feet.
Monti looked to Agnian when no one answered her. “What does she mean, 'eaten'?"
Reed's face paled as Agnian relayed the rest of the grisly details that Hvard's man, Handen, told them.
"Oh hell no,” Monti said as she pulled everyone to a stop. “We're not taking a little girl inside the lair of a cannibalistic serial killer. Elaine, wait with the scary rhino-horse thing. Reed and I will go in on our own,"
Reed watched Elaine warily. "How do you do it?"
"What, Rift?"
She shrugged at his nod. "I don't know. I just kinda think about where I want to go and then hold my breath."
He looked dubious, so she kept talking. "I know it sounds ridiculous. But it's not hard in small jumps.”
"Who brought you to Efendi then?” Reed asked. “Are there more Rifters back home?"
She started walking again, figuring they'd follow while she talked. They'll have less to argue against if we're halfway in the woods, and Handen said all paths lead to the clearing. Soon only shattered moonlight lit the way ahead. Agnian lit a torch from his satchel and walked ahead of them while Elaine talked.
"Never saw one if there are, so I’m pretty sure I did it myself,” Elaine said. She told them the story she swore she'd never tell anyone else. "My trailer is a good twenty minutes from town on foot, but I can shave that down to ten if I cut through some woods. There's a big tree there I call Bertha that I like to sit at because I feel like she's mine and the voices are clearest there."
"Voices like a man singing? Or chanting?" Reed asked.
Her jaw dropped, “You hear him too?”
Reed nodded his head. “It’s a man singing a lullaby. Take me down to the river and all. I’ve heard it for years off and on, and again just before someone dragged us here.”
“That sounds like the same creepy one I heard. But I thought it might have been you. The Edicisi. Calling me, telling me to come here.”
“No,” Reed said, shaking his head. “I think it’s someone worse.”
Elaine huffed a laugh. “OK, you’re not as bad as I imagined, but what could be worse than the Edicisi?”
“I think it’s my dad. He figured out a way to communicate across worlds, and he’s hunted me for years, tracking me somehow. We believe he kidnapped a Rifter and forced her to bring me here. But I don’t understand why he reached out to you.”
Relief and hope brushed some of the unease off Elaine. Another Rifter? She could know my mother. She was also relieved that someone after all these years finally heard the same voices she did.
“If it’s your dad, he gives me the creeps. I never minded the other voices. I miss them. Do you still hear the others?”
He shook his head, “I’ve only ever heard his voice.”
OK then, I’m back to being the only one hearing things. I need to talk to this other Rifter.
Reed looked around them, whispering as if just speaking about the voices would conjure them. “What happened when you hopped worlds?”
Elaine nudged a shriveled leaf on the ground, its bright color as vibrant as the living leaves above. “I was at my Big Bertha tree. The other voices never talk to me directly; they’re usually muffled. But at Big Bertha, I could hear better. Like they were on
the other line of a telephone. That night, it was storming. I thought a hurricane was coming through.”
Monti interjected, “So you ran to the woods in the middle of a storm?”
“It was better than what I left behind,” Elaine said, her mouth a flat line that welcomed no discussion of what prompted her to run, barefoot, that night of all nights.
She recalled the way her fingers scraped against its thick grooves as she stepped over roots more akin to tentacles than tree bits. Sheets of rain pelted through the humid fog of a summer night and doused her skin. She felt pulled towards the tree in a way she hadn't ever before and closed her eyes. The siren pealing in the wind heralded a hurricane as Spanish moss whipped all around her. Warm mud squelched in between her toes.
"When I got to Bertha, the voices sounded like they were at the end of a hallway. I felt like I could chase them, like they were just around her trunk. And then I heard him say, clear as day, ‘Come.’ And I knew that voice spoke directly to me."
Her heart pounded with each step around the base of the tree. Darkness threatened the edges of her vision as she fought to fill her lungs.
"Anyway, I followed his voice, and I landed here." Elaine couldn't remember the Rift itself, but she woke up in a heap behind a storage pile in Low Town.
Reed paced as he asked, "Do you think you could go back?"
"Never going to. There's nothing there for me anymore."
"But could you Rift somewhere else? Somewhere other than here?" Reed gestured to the still woods surrounding them. He whispered despite the absence of background noise.
Elaine looked to the massive, gnarled tree yards ahead of them, basking in moonlight caught in a gap of trees. I can do this. She pictured the wide claw marks etched in its trunk. Closing her eyes, she Rifted.
Dizzy, she slumped down at its base, covered in sweat. She was weaker than she had ever been after a Rift. Is this from the chain they had around me or the woods? The wrongness of the trees surrounding her felt palatable as the others ran up to her.
"She won't be able to Rift everyone out like this,” Reed said, shaking his head. “She can barely Rift herself." He rubbed his hands over his face and turned to Agnian. "Take her to Magara. Monti, you and I can meet her there after we get your dad."
There is no way I’m going to the Magarans. I’ll never get to Bakilar if I do. Helping Alik is my best shot. Elaine dodged Agnian's outreached hand as she said, "Maybe I can't, but you could."
Everyone waited for her to clarify. She thought back to the conversation she'd had with Reiki in the Dockside and held her hand out for Reed's. Her chest constricted; did Reiki know what Kara planned? She locked that thought away as Reed took her hand.
"I've been listening to stories about the Edicisi. If you are who you say you are, you can take powers from other Duawielders if you are touching them. I might not be able to Rift everyone out, but maybe you could."
Reed looked unconvinced, so she pressed on. "Try it. If it doesn't work, I'll go with Agnian to the Magarans. But if it does, we can get in and out before the Dark One knows we're even there."
He studied her for a few moments before nodding. Elaine walked him through everything she'd learned about Rifting. They both stood awkwardly after several attempts in the same place, her palms clammy within his tight grip. Monti chewed on a thumbnail near the torch in the ground, watching them and scanning the still woods surrounding them.
"Any luck?" Agnian whispered as he walked back from the dark path ahead.
Everyone shook their heads. Reed asked, "Did you find the place Hvard's man described?"
Agnian traced a map with a stick in the dirt. "The signs stop here, just as he said. The oldest trees are in the center of the wood, with newer ones fanned out in close proximity, so it does feel like all directions lead to the same path." Firelight danced over tense brows, and he crossed his arms, revealing more tattoos tucked under his once-white shirt. "Slight problem, though. Hvard Canavar is several hundred feet ahead of us, down the same path."
He said the last to Elaine, but Reed stiffened as if struck. He craned his neck like he could see the semi-circle of trees drawn in the dirt and pulled Elaine up quickly. "Let's try again."
He immediately loosened his grip at Elaine’s wince. His eyes, kind gray at first, were now stone marbles in his face. She wondered which world did such horrible things to him to cage such anger. Reed closed his eyes, and chills swayed her body. Her torso tugged towards him even as she remained standing straight. Elaine squeezed her eyes shut at the nausea, but when she opened them, they were standing face to face with a shocked Hvard Canavar in the belly of the woods.
Hvard dropped his torch to the ground just as Reed dropped Elaine's hand. He grabbed Hvard's neck, and Elaine fell to the ground, weak in the knees. He punched before Hvard could speak, their fight in the darkness echoing in the quiet trees.
Elaine whistled, a trick she'd been immensely proud of the summer her lips cooperated for the first time and hoped it would be loud enough to trace back to Agnian. She shuffled back while the men punched and tackled each other. Click, click, click.
She jumped at the guttural sounds that clicked somewhere in the woods behind them. The men stilled just as Agnian and Monti ran into view.
Hvard leapt to his feet and fumbled with the black cloak that fell in the skirmish, but Agnian lunged, grabbing it from him before he could use it. Reed held his hands out, fingers splayed wide, and the scattered leaves from the ground whooshed past Elaine as he yanked Hvard up with an Airwerk. Hvard hovered in the air, clutching his throat and eyes wide in disbelief as he kicked to no avail. The guttural clicks came closer; bone-white flashed under Monti's torchlight as the veins in Reed’s neck pulsed.
Elaine watched Jurassic Park once from a thick oak branch that stood at the edge of her town's drive-in. There's a point in the movie when raptors circle their prey, calling out to each other. Her body willed her to Rift, to run, anything to get away from that sound now.
Three Yurutec crept into view behind Hvard; another two shoved at each other to Elaine's left. Monti grabbed Elaine, pulling her close, and Agnian whipped his sword from its scabbard on his back.
Monti brandished her torch towards the creatures, shouting, "Bigger priorities, Reed!"
He dropped Hvard. Reed reached his hand towards her fire, pulling a spark to his waiting palm. The spark in his hand grew to the size of a kickball, and he pitched the flame at the creature closest to him and Hvard. Elaine flinched at its inhumane wails as flames licked up its ten-foot spine.
Agnian hacked an arm off one near Elaine and Monti, and Reed picked the rest of it up with a gust of airwerk, snapping its neck midair, even as he strangled another with a thick Batiwood root. The final two Yurutec scattered, clicking frantically in the distance.
Reed fell to his knees, vomiting in the dirt. Elaine didn't have time to be relieved before chanting pounded her brain.
She clutched her head as Reed asked, "You hear that too?"
Monti helped Reed stand as Hvard dropped to his knees, hands held in supplication. "You are the Edicisi! The stories are true! I don't know what I've done to offend, oh mighty Edicisi, but…"
Reed stepped towards Hvard, voice gravelly with rage, "Alisha Wellnis."
Whomever Alisha was, Hvard knew. His wiry eyebrows shot to his hairline as the color drained from his face. Reed took another step in his direction, and Hvard said in a rush, "The….the moons are up. If you are taking this path to get to the stone altar, the Dark One will be waiting. There's another entrance. A hallway off the cages camouflaged in the woods. I could take you there, and you can kill the imposter."
Monti held Reed's arm back when he pulled another spark of flame to his palm. She demanded, "Who? Who is this Dark One?"
Hvard shook his head, red beard trembling. "I don't know his name. He's insane. He talks to himself and to the woods across from the altar. I don't know how long he's been living here, but it's leach
ing the life from him. The only time he's at full strength is when he eats them. The girls. The Duawielders. It gives him power that varies with the strength of the girls, but never for very long. Take the girls; you take his power."
"Why would we believe you?" Elaine asked.
Hvard anxiously watched the darkness surrounding them. "I can't get away from him now that I've worn the cloak. I tried to lose it, to burn it, or to rip it to shreds, but it always comes back. I did it for the coin, but now I'd give all of it back and more to get away from this place."
Reed clenched and unclenched his fists by his side. Elaine said to him, "Reed, you Rifted to Hvard. That means we can Rift everyone out together."
Hvard nodded emphatically. "The Dark One had a Rifter once. He used her to open a portal to another realm, like a doorway, and pulled a massive stone building to our world."
Reed's eyes flicked to Monti before landing on Hvard's black eyes, "That's how we got here. How did he do it?"
"I don't know, but it was the night he sacrificed almost twenty girls in one night. He was at his strongest."
Monti stepped to Reed's side. "Reed, he's trying to manufacture power. If the stories are true, you are power. If this Dark One did it, you can as well."
"Let's try it," Reed took Elaine's hand.
"Wait!" Hvard shrank at Reed's glare, hands up. "The last Rifter couldn't Rift again after that for days. I'm not sure if she can even now."
Elaine watched the shadows from the flickering torch dance across Reed's grim face. Agnian debated aloud where they could Rift the prisoners, but Reed’s eyes locked on Monti.
Hvard whispered to Elaine in between worried glances at Reed. "How did you get away?"
"I have friends in high places. Friends that don't like men that kidnap kids and break old men's legs."
Hvard dropped his stare to the ground as Monti turned her attention away from Agnian. "Does he have any others from that stone building?" At Hvard’s nod, she turned to Reed. "Get everyone out. I just want my dad. We can wait for Elaine's strength to build back up after we’re safe, and then we can all go home."
