by Emery Blake
“Thank you, Zhas. I have another question.”
He nodded, encouraging me to ask. I was getting the sense that he had been alone in this cave for a while and, despite my strange appearance and the awkwardness of the translation, he was enjoying the opportunity to chat.
“What do you know about the Opener of Ways?”
Zhas’s face darkened. The muscles around his jaw flexed.
“He destroyed my world.”
“What happened?”
He took a deep breath and relaxed his face. For a few moments, I wasn’t sure if he was going to elaborate because he just stared down at the floor. I looked about the cave, as if the walls or the various scattered junk could help me figure out what to say. Thankfully, he began to speak in a low voice.
“The Cloven Ones were a free people. We roamed Ixia for generations beyond memory. The forests, the green fields, the mountain streams. We lived in peace and plenty. That is the world that I was born into. One day, a messenger came. He claimed to be from a great and benevolent lord who ruled over dozens of worlds. He claimed that this lord brought prosperity, learning, and security to all who lived under his dominion. And power to those who served him.
“I was only a kid when the messenger visited my herd. Our chief told him, ‘We have no need of your prosperity, we have our own. We have no need of your knowledge, we have our own. And from whom do we need security, we who live in peace?’ The messenger left without a word. We went on living our lives as before.
“It wasn’t long before we realized that our lives would never be the same. All across our world, portals opened up and fearsome beasts poured out. Harpies, hounds, basilisks, ogres, and countless other monsters came rushing through the forests and fields. I had been off by myself, I loved to explore hidden places when I was young. But I heard the screams as the beasts descended upon my herd. To my shame, I hid. I stuffed moss in my ears to drown out the sounds.
“By the time I gathered the courage to leave my hiding place, the monsters were gone, and every member of my herd had been slaughtered. I later discovered that sorcerers and magicians had used their powers to poison the waters and kill off all but the hardiest plants. My world turned gray, barren.
“The worst part though, the most painful thing that I saw, was a group of centaurs. Centaurs are the proudest of the Cloven, haughty, even. But I saw dozens of them kneel, swearing their fealty to a creature. It had soft hooves like you, but giant feathered wings like a bird. They knelt before him and followed him through a portal and disappeared.
“Many escaped, to Inter-realm or other worlds. But I could not. I had fled and hidden and I felt ashamed. I decided that I wouldn’t run any more. There are a handful of others who stayed, but we keep apart. There are still beasts here that hunt us, and it is easier to find a small herd than an individual. But one day the grass will return. The beasts will leave. This world will be a paradise again. I will see that day, or I will not, but I won’t see a day away from my home.”
We sat in silence for several long minutes. I thought about his story. It fit with what Finian had told me about this sorcerer. I felt a dull pain in the pit of my stomach, imagining the verdant paradise that Zhas described being reduced to this gray wasteland. I thought about my own home.
If Finian was right, if Earth was a target, could I just sit by and wait for it to be consumed like this world? It was clear already that whatever seals had been erected were fading. Two of this sorcerer’s creatures had already come after me. Who knows what they were doing elsewhere on Earth. The most frightening thing, though, was the last thing that Zhas had said. What if humans were to align with this Opener of Ways?
I decided that if I were to get off this world, I would go straight to the Inter-Realm and take Finian up on his offer. I had seen the enemy now. Going back to my old life was no longer an option.
I awoke the next morning to a gloomy gray dawn. The weak light of the red sun barely penetrated the slate clouds that skittered by overhead. Zhas had apparently gone out early because I saw him coming back with an armful of wood. A thin sheen of sweat coated his torso despite the chill.
My clothes had dried overnight, so I struggled into my jeans and slipped my t-shirt over my head. Zhas dropped his bundle on a larger pile of sticks at the back of the cave. He drew water from a bucket and gave me a rough-hewn cup.
“Zhas,” it took him a few moments to stop fussing about with the odds and ends strewn at his feet, but he eventually made his way over and we began our book-bound conversation.
“Zhas I need your help in getting off this world. I need to get to the Inter-Realm.”
His face was inscrutable. I wasn’t sure if he knew what I was talking about or whether he was just unwilling to help.
“There is a group there who can help. They are trying to stop the one who destroyed your world. I need to get there so I can join them.”
He considered for a moment and then shook his head.
“No. Too dangerous.”
“Please. If you help me, you can come to the Inter-Realm too. You would be safe there.”
“I am safe here. I know how to survive.”
I saw his back stiffen as he stood up to his fullest height. Stubbornness and pride, perhaps his goatish features extended to his personality. I would need to pursue a different tack.
“You may be safe here, Zhas. You are clever and strong. But I am a stranger here. I am in danger. I need your help to get away. Please.”
The faun stood there mulling it over. I decided to try and force his hand.
“Zhas, the Opener of Ways is looking for me. Soon, his agents will discover where I have gone, and they will come for me here. If you want to be safe, you should get me as far away as possible. Like off this world entirely.”
It worked. Zhas sighed and stared at his hooves. When he looked up, he wore an expression that was equal parts angry and resigned.
“There is a…was a city. Built by elves who came to trade. They used a magic door to come and go from this world. The city is in ruins now, but the doors might still work.”
“Do you mean the ruins I saw from the beach?”
He nodded.
“Dangerous path. I will lead you, but no more.”
“Agreed. When can we start?”
“Now.”
He grabbed a stone tipped spear and tossed it to me. It was light in my hands, but the wood shaft felt springy and strong. I had never used a spear, but the concept seemed simple enough. Holding it gave me a bit of confidence. Confidence that Zhas then proceeded to shatter.
“We have to go quickly but be quiet. Harpies still fly patrols near the city. And packs of hounds roam the grasslands. You are slow. It is best to avoid them.”
Great. Giant humanoid birds with fierce talons and packs of hunting dogs. And me with a stone spear. The weapon began to feel very flimsy. Zhas grabbed a short bow and a quiver of arrows and strode out of the cave without another word. Hefting the spear that now felt more like a twig, I followed.
We wound our way up a narrow switchback and reached the top of the cliff just as the clouds began to thin. The red sun bathed the plateau in front of us in an orange glow. In the open field I felt very small, very exposed. Zhas trotted ahead, keeping his head low to the ground. I followed as best I could.
The thin and sporadic scrubby brush offered little in the way of cover, so we tried to keep up a good pace. Without shoes, I had to watch my footfalls carefully. The ground was mostly bare dirt; the few outcroppings of rock and sporadic bunches of dried grass were easily avoided.
The ruins of the old elven city rose up in front of me. Elegant gray stone towers climbed hundreds of feet in the air before terminating in ragged, broken shapes. The city must have been immense because even after an hour of jogging, I had sweated through my clothes, but seemed to have gotten no closer. There was little variation on the plain, little clumps of dry bushes, so it was hard to judge distance.
The trek soon became monotonous. T
he unchanging terrain and the impression that I was making no progress toward the city made me feel like I was walking on a giant treadmill. After a while, I grew bored.
A sharp cry snapped me back to attention. Something between the call of a bird of prey and a hideous human scream split the air and raised all the hairs on my neck. Zhas didn’t even stop to look but raced to the next clump of bushes and dove underneath.
I sprinted behind him, the pain in my bare feet forgotten. I slid into the bushes next to him. I saw the fear in his eyes; my heart jumped up into my throat, cutting off my breath. I tried not to make a sound.
The terrifying cry was repeated over and over. I tried to locate the source through the spindly branches of my hiding place but was unable to spot the creature. The faun and I stayed silent and motionless for long minutes. The cries faded and then disappeared. Still, we stayed under the brush to make sure the flying threat was gone.
The faun loped out ahead again and I followed as best I could. Despite the fact that I was a good foot and a half taller than him, his short legs seemed to eat up the ground, while I was forced to pick my way along, trying to avoid rocks and spiky plants.
Suddenly, Zhas froze. The only sound that reached my ears was the wind whistling through the brush, but the faun’s ears were twitching about and he lifted his nose to scent the air. I saw his body tense.
He shouted something over his shoulder and took off. I didn’t need the book to tell me what he said. I ran.
Chapter Ten
Fear of whatever had put the spurs to my guide infused my weary legs with energy. The pain of each bare footfall forgotten as I lengthened my stride to keep up with Zhas’s cloven hooves. Suddenly, the tumbled walls of the city reared up in front of me; a mass of stone blocks carved into precise angles, now laying in disordered piles. It was like a giant child had finished playing with their blocks and then strode off, knocking them over.
I imagined the wall as it must have appeared before the catastrophe that befell the city. Was beauty diminished by its ephemerality? Or did its short life make it more precious?
The faun had come to a stop while I pondered. I cut my steps to slow down, but still bowled him over. I landed hard on my shoulder. Zhas uttered what had to be a curse and picked himself up off the ground, brushing dried leaves and twigs out of his copious mop of curly hair. He motioned to my pants pocket where I’d stuffed the book. I took it out, opened it, and waited for him to speak.
“I leave you here. I must get back.”
Reading the words as they appeared, my heart sank into my stomach. Despite his small stature and twitchy demeanor, the little faun had given me courage. At least he knew what was out here and how to avoid running into danger. Now he wanted to leave me to go into this ruined city on my own.
“You can’t leave. You were supposed to get me to the portal.”
“The portal is close. I will tell you. But I have to get back.”
I saw his face soften with what I interpreted as sympathy.
“The city is not dangerous. Cloven don’t go in there, so harpies and other beasts don’t patrol. You will be safe.”
He placed his hand on mine; a reassuring gesture that did not produce the intended effect. Maybe he was right, I would be safe once I was in the city. He had gotten me safely to this point and given me shelter, risking his own safety for me. I decided to trust him.
He broke off a long stick and began drawing in the dirt. A simple map of the city came quickly into view. Zhas pointed out where we were and traced a route for me to follow to the portal room.
“What do I do once I get there?”
He shrugged.
“How did you get here? I don’t know.”
He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder, then he turned and loped off across the plain without glancing back.
I stared at the dirt map for several minutes. Joselin, one of my friends from high school, had a photographic memory. She could look at this map and pull it up later, looking at it fresh in her mind. Not me. I was ok with directions. I only had to go somewhere once and I could do it again. But this was going to be a challenge. Luckily, the city seemed to be laid out in an organized manner.
The sun was starting to drift towards the horizon. I felt the wind shift, bringing a sharp tang of salt as the air came in from the sea. I could hear a sound I hadn’t noticed before. A distant cacophony of baying hounds. That must have been what set Zhas off running. I hoped he got back to his cave safely. And I hoped he was right about the city being safe.
Leaving the rudimentary map behind, I picked my way around the rubble and found the entrance. A once grand gate, leading to a wide thoroughfare, now choked by broken stone. It was quiet and empty. Based on Zhas’ account, I would have expected to find bodies, bones at least. Some evidence that anyone had met a cruel end here. But there was nothing. No color, not a thing to mar the omnipresent gray.
The city was arranged on a promontory, its walls tracing a half circle against the plain and then rising sheer from the cliff face. Its streets were laid out in concentric rings with spokes radiating out from a central plaza. The street I had entered was blocked by a ruined building, so I followed one of the broad, curving roads until I found another spoke.
The silence had begun to unnerve me. I wanted to shout, to throw things about, to do anything to fill up the emptiness of this dead city. It didn’t feel like a city destroyed by war. It looked like the life had been literally sucked out of it, out of the very stones.
There was a void that threatened to swallow me as well. I could feel it pulling at me with every step, like I was a piece of flotsam drawn into a whirlpool. And it was pulling me right in the direction I had wanted to go. That was unsettling.
I sat down on the coping of a dry fountain. An elf and a centaur posed in the center on a jutting point of rock, hands clasped in friendship. All around them myriad water nymphs and other creatures danced in solid waves. The basin was bone dry and silent. I felt like I had gone color blind, but for the blue of the sky above me.
When I looked up, there was a dark spot among the thin white clouds. It was flying a circle high above me. I froze. I felt like a rabbit in a meadow, watching the hawk, hoping against hope that it did not see me. It banked away. For a moment I allowed myself to believe it was moving on, but then it dove.
It must have been very high, because by the time it came to the level of the rooftops, it was massive. The harpy’s scream turned my insides to ice. It was a cry of pure malevolence. I hefted my spear and set my feet. If I ran, it would just land on my back. This way, I might be able to land a blow before it got to me.
It came to a heavy landing on the broken wall of a three-story building just above me. Its vaguely human face stared down at me, but there was nothing human about its giant avian eyes. There was not a hint of sympathy, kindness, or pity. It screamed one more time and then lifted off again, flying in ever higher circles, until it cleared the tallest pinnacles of the city. Then it was gone.
I could think of only one reason it hadn’t attacked me. It was going to report my location. I needed to move. The next spoke I came across was mostly clear and I jogged down it as fast as my exhausted, rubberized legs could carry me. A couple of blocks ahead of me, I saw a grand arch. Unbroken, it rose up four stories, a graceful curve of stone.
As I got closer, I saw that it was covered in intricate carvings and bas relief scenes. It brought to mind the Arch of Constantine. I had seen that on a trip to Rome with my parents as a teenager, only this was far larger.
But I had no time to stop and stare. Whatever that harpy had flown off to inform must be on its way already. I needed to get off this world and I still didn’t know how to do it.
The arch was the only opening in a tall, curving wall. The final ring road collected all the spokes and brought their traffic to this point. Passing under the arch and down a tapering corridor, I found myself in a domed room. It had to be the portal chamber.
Eight walls that rose
to meet a perfect hemisphere above. A large circular opening at the very center revealed a darkening sky. The sun would be down soon. The light was beginning to fade.
I turned in a circle in the center of the room, trying to determine where to access the portal. On the wall opposite the entrance, there was another massive archway, only there was no opening in the stone. It must be the portal. But before I could approach it, I heard a noise behind me.
It sounded like the whoosh of fire touching a pyramid of charcoal that an overeager griller had doused with too much lighter fluid. I spun around to see a six-foot tongue of flame dancing in the center of the room. The flame solidified into the form of a man.
The djinn had found me.
Chapter Eleven
He stood in the center of the chamber. An acrid scent emanated from him. A cruel smile played across his face as he took a couple of slow steps in my direction. I edged away, keeping my back toward the curved wall.
“You were a fool to run, Skylar. There is nowhere you can go that we cannot find you. He will have you, one way or another. It would be better to come willingly. Trust me, you don’t want him to be angry with you.”
The djinn closed the space between us without the appearance of movement. I saw the passage out of the chamber only ten meters or so to my left. I turned and sprinted towards it. I didn’t know if I was fast enough to evade him, but I knew I had to try to get away. Flames erupted in front of me and he appeared. Almost contemptuously, he knocked me backwards. I hit the ground hard. I lay on the ground, gasping for air. He stood over me and shook his head.
“Not smart, Skylar. You are a child entering a world that is far bigger and more dangerous than you can imagine. Lord Asa'kah wants to help you, to teach you. You have great potential, for a human at least. My lord wishes to help you reach that potential. He does not intend you any harm.”
