The Four Realms

by Adrian Faulkner

Cassidy was standing dangerously close to the tentacles. They seemed to be growing, engulfing her. Ryan was being thrown around as if he was a rag doll.

  "Cassidy," Darwin shouted fearing that she might be snatched up any second. But she either didn't hear him or chose to ignore.

  He turned back to D'Toeni. "Distract them," he said.

  "What? Why the fuck would I want to do that?"

  Darwin's fear of the vampire disappear beneath a veneer of adrenaline. "I'm your only hope of getting out of here alive. So do what I say."

  D'Toeni thought about this for a second. "Leave her," he said beckoning to Darwin. "Come on. Let's get away now."

  Darwin looked at the vampire with contempt. "Coward," he said, got up and ran toward Cassidy, now invisible amidst the forest of limbs.

  The tentacles were an ever changing obstacle course, some that he had to leap over, some he had to duck under. Magellan was also trying to avoid North's writhings. He was less successful than Darwin though, as a tentacle caught him square in the chest, knocking him off his feet and sending the notebook skittering a short distance across the floor. It could have been miles though, for the ever changing maze of limbs. No matter how many Darwin managed to avoid, there just seemed to be more waiting for him. He didn't seem to be any closer to Cassidy either, who stood in the centre of the turmoil, calling after Ryan.

  This is impenetrable, thought Darwin, as a limb narrowly missed his head. He looked at the notebook and he looked at Cassidy. He wasn't sure he could reach one target, let alone two. Worse still, Magellan had recovered and was trying to crawl his way to the journal.

  He had to do something, and he had to do it soon. Surely this was D'Toeni's domain. He was supposed to be the heroic one, not Darwin. He looked back toward where he'd left the vampire to see him gone. Was it really any surprise? he thought, as he rolled to miss an incoming limb.

  I guess it's up to you now. A limb swept at his feet and knocked him down. Get up. There was no way he was going to be able to rescue Cassidy thinking about every move; there just wasn't enough time. He'd just have to trust his instincts.

  He jumped to his feet and immediately ducked to miss another tentacle. He vaulted over another, and landed slightly over-balanced on a third. Not daring to stop his forward momentum, he took running steps, traversing another three tentacles like makeshift stairs before dropping. He stopped his fall by grabbing onto another limb and swung himself over another before landing back on the floor with a roll that enabled him to grab the notebook at the very fingertips of Magellan prostrated across the floor. How he wished there had been someone videoing him; that must have looked very cool.

  Notebook in hand, he twisted to get to his feet, but was whacked by an incoming tentacle. He didn't lose grip on the notebook, but felt like a ball in a pinball machine as he was slammed between the flailing limbs. Another swiped at his feet and he went down hard, the wind knocked out of him.

  He dabbed at his nose. It was bleeding again. He was beyond caring, just accepted that along with all his other injuries he was going to hurt like hell tomorrow. Instead he pulled himself along the ground on his elbows to where Cassidy was standing.

  As he got closer, he could see she was in some distress, trying to grab hold of Ryan as he passed by screaming, whilst also trying to dodge the deluge of waving limbs. He focused on getting to her as tentacles swooped low overhead and crashed down beside him - and on a couple of occasions, almost on top of him, causing to have to roll to the left or right out of the way.

  On one particular roll, he felt something stick into his stomach. He reached down to find Ryan's discarded gun. He tucked it into his trousers and continued to crawl.

  Cassidy saw him approach, and extending his hand, she pulled him to her, taking a thump on the side as she did so.

  "Come on Cassidy," he said. "We've got to go."

  Darwin scanned around, looking for Magellan, but they were blinded by the forest of ever moving limbs.

  "We've got to get Ryan," Cassidy said defiantly.

  Darwin wanted to say the boy didn't matter, but he knew that would only upset Cass. Better that he try and help, than stand and argue.

  "Hold this then," Darwin said, handing Cassidy both the gun and the notebook.

  He grabbed the boy's outstretched hand on his third attempt, and was lifted off the ground by the momentum. But the sudden extra weight on the tentacle, caused it to unfurl, sending both Ryan and Darwin crashing to the ground.

  Whilst they landed only a few feet from Cassidy, it could have been miles. Ryan looked in a bad way. He'd obviously been smashed into other tentacles and the ground as he'd been thrown around. He was bruised and bleeding, one arm seemed to be at a slightly funny angle. It looked to Darwin that it might be broken.

  "Come on Ryan," Darwin said, trying to drag him to his feet, as the boy vomited. "We gotta go. Can you walk?"

  Darwin never gave the boy chance to respond as he forced him to duck to miss a passing limb.

  "Good boy," he said taking hold of both sides of the boy's face and staring into his eyes. "We're gonna get out of this, OK?"

  It was only now that he realised the boy was crying. He heard a splashing sound and glanced down to see Ryan pissing himself, urine running down his leg to puddle on the floor. Ordinarily Darwin would have relished to the chance to mock him mercilessly for being a pussy, but really all he wanted right now was him focused on dodging those tentacles.

  Something slid beside them. It was Cassidy.

  "Thought it easier if I joined you guys," she said as a limb crashed into the ground by her feet.

  They elected to crawl under the tentacles, Darwin and Cassidy dragging Ryan between them. Occasionally they'd have to split and roll out of the way of a crashing limb, Cassidy rolling one way, Darwin literally grabbing Ryan by the scruff of his neck and yanking him out the way. Once or twice they weren't quick enough, tentacles slamming down on Darwin and hammering him hard against the floor.

  It felt like it had taken them hours to crawl out into the clear when in reality it was probably no more than thirty seconds. Darwin got to his feet first, still crouching from the swinging limbs. They helped Ryan to his feet only to find that just putting pressure on one leg was enough to make him gag.

  "It's probably broken," Cassidy suggested.

  It crossed Darwin's mind to make a case for leaving him, but he knew Cassidy would never agree. Instead, he just stayed silent, and swung one of Ryan's arms over his shoulder. The boy grimaced in pain, but there was nothing Darwin could do. "We'll have to drag you out, then."

  Darwin glanced back to see North still screaming and flailing, tentacles twisting and cavorting like a bucket of eels twenty feet high. Magellan was probably still in there, looking for the notebook, looking for them. With any luck they wouldn't notice them gone, until they were out of here and far away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Flower Power

  Maureen heard Joseph groan, and it was only then that she realised that she still had her eyes closed. She opened them and quickly looked herself over to check that no limbs had become detached in the fall. It seemed that Joseph had taken the impact, as Maureen was able to move. She looked over toward the troll and then realised where she was. Around her, hundreds and hundreds of cut stems were placed in buckets. All types of flowers, ones she recognised from her own realm as well as strange ones she'd never seen before. It appeared they had crashed through the roof of a florist.

  Joseph sat up, and reached for where the now broken arrow protruded.

  "Don't touch it," said Maureen. "You'll make it worse."

  Joseph looked taken aback, as if he might have taken offense.

  "Are you all right?" Maureen asked, softening her tone a little.

  "I just fell through a roof. How do you expect me to feel?" There was a playfulness to his voice that Maureen took to mean he couldn't be that seriously hurt.

  Maureen busied herself around him, collecting plants and stuffing them into her handbag and every
pocket available.

  "Are we forgetting about the elves trying to kill us, and robbing a florist instead?"

  "Fool!" Maureen thrust a big pot of lilies into Joseph's hands. "These are weapons. Grab all the ones you can carry, especially the exotic ones. I think they're more powerful."

  "Maureen, you're not thinking of fighting them, are you? Cos they're elves and they know way more spells than even the human wizards."

  Maureen raised an angry eyebrow as she grabbed a bunch of daffodils. She tucked them under her dress, using her bra strap to hold them in place, so that the flower heads emerged above the neckline of her dress. "Only for defence," she winked.

  Joseph stood a little uneasy on his feet, Maureen noticed. Perhaps he was more hurt than he was letting on.

  "Maureen, I'm no wizard, but even I know with that many plants you could defend a city."

  Maureen ignored him. "How far back to the Friary?"

  "A mile?"

  "Then we put a wall of fire between here and the Friary."

  Joseph laughed but picked up another bucket and started filling it with cut stems. "Even Rofen can't do that."

  That may be, and perhaps she was being over-ambitious, but all she needed to do was create enough diversions to slow the elves down. He was right, they were too powerful to defeat, but to hinder... that was a different matter.

  "Let's keep to ground level, this time," Maureen suggested as she made for the door. It was locked. Joseph went to kick it, but Maureen held up a hand to stop him.

  With a blast the door exploded out and across the cobbled street to land propped up next to a gaslamp. Maureen emerged from the smoke in the doorway, and lightly blew on the tiger lily she had been holding. It disintegrated under her breath, turning to dust that got carried away with the smoke. Joseph emerged after her, looking briefly at the door lying across the street and then back to the doorway from which it had come. Maureen noted that he looked impressed.

  Maureen glanced up toward the roof that they had just jumped from and saw the elves pointing and shouting to each other. They started shimming their way down the corner of the building toward the ground.

  Overflowing with flowers, Maureen felt less worried about the cost of spells, and cast a firewall that stretched the width of the road. Satisfied that the spell had been cast, Maureen turned to Joseph and they began running down the street. Joseph was notably slower, running with a pronounced limp. She afforded herself only one glance back as the elves cast a counter-spell, turning the flames into jagged pillars of ice, which they kicked at to make a gap through which they could pass.

  Joseph dragged them into another alley, before the elves could aim their bows. This one was very narrow, so narrow in fact that the canopies that hung outside some buildings touched the opposing wall. It was a squeeze for Joseph who had to turn slightly sideways to make his way through. With Maureen out in front, he tore at the canopies so they dangled down to the ground.

  "Hopefully this should slow them down."

  The alley opened onto a little plaza with a fountain of fauns dancing merrily around a woman pouring out a jug. Directly opposite the alley continued, but Joseph directed Maureen toward a narrow road down beside a coffee shop off to their left. If they had intended to lose the elves and trick them into going straight across, they were a little too slow as Maureen saw them emerge just before she turned a corner. She was sure they'd seen her as well.

  She sealed the road with a wall of ice hoping that the elves were less proficient at fire counter spells than they were at ice.

  "They're catching us up," she said, making sure she was content with the blockade before leaving.

  "Well, don't let them."

  Joseph picked up his pace and Maureen found it a struggle to keep up. She noticed that he was limping more heavily. He led them through a labyrinth of alley and passageways, turning this way and that. Maureen only putting up some form of blockade, be if fire or ice, when she was sure the elves were on their trail. Nothing worse than giving them a trail of ice and fire walls to take the elves right to them. It seemed that they would go for a while without sight of them and then they would be there, just a corner behind, Maureen struggling to put her spells in place before the elves reached them.

  She was starting to tire as well, though despite numerous spells her plants remained in bountiful supply.

  "Nearly there," Joseph reassured her as they entered a wide alley. On one side, grey railings cordoned off a construction site, little more than scrub land with a few steel beams poking out the ground. The back of a terrace of properties ran the length of the other side, which given the piles of palettes and rubbish accumulated outside their back doors – some as tall as her - she assumed to be shops. Maureen looked out beyond the troll and could see the spires and the central dome of the Friary looming over the rooftops. They couldn't be more than a couple of hundred feet away.

  There was a sense of relief, that if she had managed to hold off the elves for this long, they could make the final distance. Maureen found herself physically relax as she let out a sigh of relief. Just one more street and they'd be safe.

  Joseph increased his pace again, but this time Maureen found it impossible to keep up with him. Not that she was too worried, she could now see where she was heading. If he got ahead, so be it, Maureen could hold the elves at bay for another couple of hundred feet.

  She never saw Gardpoul jump out from behind the a stack of palettes. She'd been looking behind her, watching to see if Psyninius was close, unaware that Gardpoul had not been with him for some time. Indeed, the first she was aware, was as he swiped his sword. It must have reflected light as it was the glint from the blade that caught her eye.

  She turned to see Joseph crumple and fall to the ground.

  "No," she yelled, sending a dragon-headed fireball Gardpoul's way. It caught him off-guard, his attention having been on the troll, not Maureen. It hit him in the chest, lifting him up and propelling him up the alley. He landed hard in one of the puddles that dotted around the alley and Maureen watched without remorse as he rolled in it, trying to put out the flames.

  Maureen ran to where Joseph lay face down in a puddle. Even from several feet away and with poor light, she could see he was staining the water red.

  "Joseph, oh Joseph," Maureen fretted, as she tried without success to turn him over.

  What could she do? What could she do? There was no way she could carry Joseph to the safety of the Friary and there was no way she was leaving him.

  At least he was still breathing and had fallen such that he wasn't going to drown in the puddle. But that wasn't the point, she told herself. Here was her only living friend, dying in a dirty, disgusting puddle, and she could do nothing. Some magic user she was. She felt useless, and more than that, guilty. This was all her fault, and whilst she didn't know if she could put it all right, she would darn well try.

  She stood up as Psyninius entered the alley behind her.

  I'm not going to run, she told herself. You can come for me if you like, but you'll find a fight on your hands.

  Psyninius caught sight of the burnt Gardpoul rolling on the ground to put out the last few remaining flames.

  "Gardpoul," he cried, then looking at Maureen asked, "what have you done to him, you abomination?"

  Maureen could do nothing but just stare, watching for any hint of a spell.

  "You heathen," he screeched, uttering a spell that sent a five foot high wave of water toward Maureen. There were better insults, including a few choice ones she'd like to use in response, but instead, she cast a firewall, and watched the wave collide and disappear into steam.

  Psyninius didn't even wait until the flames of Maureen's firewall had died down before casting his next spell. It was one that Maureen was unfamiliar with, a giant serpent made of water that slithered toward her. She was so mesmerised that she almost forgot it was a spell cast against her. She uttered a spell, and a gust of wind sent the liquid snake back to its owner, wrapping aro
und the elf's torso.

  "So you wanna play, huh?" Psyninius chided her.

  Maureen eyed him coldly. "If you are going to hurt my friends," she said placing her handbag on the ground, "then I suppose so."

  Maureen realised that she was about to go up against an elf, something even a trained wizard with years of experience behind them would have worries about doing. She could cast a few spells and had pockets stuffed with plants but she was hardly more than an amateur. Probably not even that. A wizard would know which plant to use for which spell, know how to make the most effective use of his stock. Look at the elf, she told herself. Can you see his pockets bulging with plants? And he'd still be able to outlast you in a fight.

  But what was the other option? To turn and run? There was no way she could do that? Not with Joseph bleeding into a puddle behind her. If loyalty was going to ultimately be her downfall, then so be it. She would not leave the troll.

  When it came, it came quickly, two firebolts followed by an earthquake. Maureen hardly had time to throw up a waterfall - which had she not been so late in putting up would not have caught the second firebolt - before the earthquake knocked her off her feet.

  "Ha, all too easy," the elf laughed, not pausing to wait before he cast a spell that caused roots to grow out of the ground and tangle round her ankles. She couldn't afford to be pinned to one place, and used a starburst to counter the spell. She rolled out of the way as another fireball came in. As she got unceremoniously to her feet, she threw an airwall that caught the elf off-guard, picking him up and slamming him against the construction yard’s railings. He giggled as he envoked another spell that shot trees up out of the ground. Maureen found herself jumping from spot to spot as she tried to avoid the erupting shoots growing from seed to fully grown tree and then to dust in mere seconds.

  He's trying to wear me out, she thought to herself as one tree sent her spinning. I need to always be casting. Lots of spells in rapid succession. You can do this Maureen, she told herself, ignoring the beads of sweat forming on her forehead. This is for Joseph; for Ernest.