By now, Galadriel felt as though there was nothing that she could do to maintain her control over her own thoughts or her body. This was exhaustion like she had never felt, a drain on her that made her ache from the inside. She let her body slide sideways onto the floor, and as soon as her head rested onto her outstretched arm, she was asleep.
****
Galadriel didn’t know how long she had been asleep when she felt her consciousness gradually sliding back into her body and her mind. For a moment, she didn’t remember where she was. There was something soft beneath her head and a gentle, comforting warmth over her that briefly made her think that she was napping on her couch. The cool smell of water and the wavering light that touched her eyelids quickly reminded her, though, that she was far from home. Finally, she convinced her eyes to open and glanced around. Sometime during the night, someone – she could only assume it was the large man in whose company she had suddenly found herself – had slipped a piece of folded cloth beneath her head and covered her with a light blanket. Vyker was no longer sitting against the wall, and she rolled over to try to find him. A shimmer of light drew her eyes across the chamber, and she saw him coming toward her with another plate of food in his hand.
She pulled herself up to a sitting position as he settled down in front of her and placed the plate on the floor between them just as he had before she fell asleep. Galadriel looked down at the assortment of offerings that were on the plate and found them to be just as confounding as the first selection that he brought her. There were more of the small orbs on this plate, but these were a soft, pink color, their sheen almost pearlescent in the glow of the torch that Vyker had put back in the holder on the wall. She picked one up and cautiously held it to her lips.
“Eat,” he said. “It won’t hurt you.”
She continued to hesitate, and he grabbed several of the orbs and popped them into his mouth as if to show her that they were safe. Galadriel glanced down at the orb in her fingers and then let it slip onto her tongue. His eyes watched it disappear into her mouth and her lips close over it and then rose to her gaze. She held the orb on her tongue momentarily and then bit down on it. The soft shell collapsed and released a sweet, thick nectar into her mouth.
“That’s delicious,” she said.
Vyker smiled at her and took another handful of food from the plate.
“I told you that it wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Where do you find all this food?” Galadriel asked, taking more and filling her mouth to quiet the hunger pangs that had returned. “The desert out there looks like nothing would be able to grow on it.”
“Not anymore, no,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“This is my home, but it isn’t the only one,” he said. “When I need more supplies, I go back.”
“Is that where you were born?”
He didn’t respond, and she got the feeling that he couldn’t find the right words. Suddenly, he looked up at her again.
“You said that the cavern that you came through was like this one, but then you said that it wasn’t. What did that one look like?”
“It was smaller,” Galadriel said. “The crack in the rock was so small that I barely fit through. You never would have been able to. When I got inside, there was only enough room for me to walk a few feet ahead. There were no other tunnels or chambers. One of the walls was covered in engravings. Those aren’t in this one.”
“Engravings?” he asked.
Galadriel nodded.
“There were words and symbols carved into the wall.”
“Did you understand what they meant?” he asked, sounding fascinated by what she was telling him.
“No. I was studying them when I felt myself falling. I really don’t know what happened. The wall was solid. There was nothing in front of it, but one moment I was feeling the engravings and trying to figure out what they might mean, and then it was like I was tumbling forward. I must have blacked out, because the next thing that I knew I was lying in the sand next to the boulder.”
“Show me,” he said.
“What?”
“Show me where the engravings were.”
“This can’t be the same cavern,” she said. “I told you that there weren’t any other tunnels or chambers leading off of it.”
“Could you see the other walls?” he asked.
Galadriel shook her head.
“Not really. It was too dark. I could only feel them. I shined some light on them, but all I could see was that they were rock like the other.”
“Was it smooth?” he asked.
“Why are you asking all these questions?” she asked.
The rapid-fire succession of questions that he was asking her was making her feel nervous and somewhat off-balance as she tried to remember the details of what had happened. Even though it couldn’t have been too long since she had arrived in the desert, she felt like her memories were slipping, like they were progressively getting further away from her.
“You want to get back to where you came from, yes?”
“Of course I do.”
“You won’t be able to go back the way that you came,” he said.
Galadriel felt her heart sink, and she shook her head, refusing to accept what he had just said to her.
“I have to,” she said. “What other way would there be for me to go?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If you are who I think that you are, and you have come from where I believe that you have come from, you will not be able to go back the way that you came. It is impossible.”
“Why?”
“How do you think that you got here, Galadriel?”
Galadriel felt like her mind was twisting again like it had when she was talking with Rick in the museum. It was as though Vyker was saying the same thing over and over again, while changing it just enough so that she never felt as though she were getting a full grasp of what he was truly meaning to say to her.
“I told you how I got here.”
“No. You told me that you walked into a cavern, fell, and woke up in the desert.”
“That’s what happened.”
“How?”
Galadriel stared at him for a few seconds and then stood, heading directly for the front of the cavern. She heard him following behind her, and when she got into the front chamber, she turned to look at him.
“This wall,” she said, flattening her hand on the wall. “This is the wall in that cavern where the engravings were. Look at it. There aren’t any engravings.”
“Alright,” Vyker said calmly. “So when you were looking at the engravings, what did you do?”
“I ran my fingers along them. Then I felt myself falling. But just like here, there was nowhere for me to fall. All I can tell you is that I don’t know how I got to the desert. I just need you to tell me how I can get back.”
“I’ve already told you. You aren’t going to be able to get back the way you came. You came through a portal.”
“A portal?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Is the boulder the other access point?” she asked.
“I thought that it might be, but when I examined it, I didn’t see anything about it that would tell me that it was.”
“But I woke up right beside it. That’s the only place that it could be.”
“Just because you woke up beside it doesn’t mean that that’s the access point. The boulder might have been placed there as some kind of warning or it could have nothing to do with the portal at all.”
“So you don’t think that I’m going to be able to get back home through the portal because you don’t know where the access point is? Can’t we just look for it, and maybe I’ll find it?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The portal is clo
sed. It’s sealed.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it has been for many years. As long as I’ve known about it, it’s been sealed and inaccessible.”
“Then how did I get through it? If it’s sealed and inaccessible, how could I possibly use it to get here, especially without knowing that I was doing it?”
“That’s something that I would very much like to know.”
“How many of these portals are there?” she asked.
The thought of there being unnoticeable access points throughout the world that could suddenly and without warning send people to different places was unnerving for Galadriel, and she was uncomfortable thinking that if she had stumbled upon one of them once, it was possible that she would do it again.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I only know of a few. The one that you used is the only one that I have found that was sealed when I found it.”
“What’s happened to the rest of them?”
“I’ve sealed them.”
“All of them?”
“Only the one that I use to get back to my stream is open. I had to close the others.”
“Your stream?” Galadriel asked.
Vyker nodded.
“Where the rest of my kind are. What is left of them, anyway.”
“Your kind?”
She felt like she was drawing everything that he said into her so that his own words spilled back out at him whenever she opened her mouth.
“Galadriel,” he said, his voice suddenly stern, “you need to understand that you are not where you think that you are anymore. You are farther away than you could ever imagine. I can’t explain it any further than that at this moment, but you need to understand that you can’t just go back. It doesn’t work that way.”
Galadriel glared into his eyes for a few moments, trying to see beyond their still, cool grey to whatever emotion he was holding within him – emotion that he was refusing to exhibit even after he was giving her the tense warning. She stepped away from him and stomped back through the tunnel toward the back chamber. The tunnel was dark around her, but the light from the torch still positioned in the holder on the wall illuminated the chamber enough when she got back into it that she was able to see her bag where he had apparently moved it to lean against the wall while she slept. She scooped it up and draped it over her shoulder.
Vyker was coming up the tunnel toward her as she left the tunnel, and she pushed past him unceremoniously, not even pausing the talk to him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I told you,” she said. “I need to get back home. I don’t care where I am or how far away I am from where I started. I have to get back.”
“You are never going to be able to find your way,” he told her.
Galadriel turned sharply to face him as he followed her back into the front chamber. The fact that this man was not human was only still working its way through her mind, and she was having difficulty fathoming it. He looked completely human. Large and startlingly attractive, but human nonetheless, and with everything else that she was trying to process, the realization that he was of some other kind felt like too much for her to fully comprehend in that moment.
“I am really tired of people telling me what to do. I’ve had people trying to control me my entire life, and the last thing that I need now is you telling me what you think is good for me. If I found my way here, I’ll be able to find my way out. With or without your portal.”
She turned back around and headed out of the cavern and into the intense sunlight. It didn’t seem as bright or hot as when she was first in it, and she felt grateful for that. As she walked away from the cavern, she found herself wondering again how long she had been asleep. Without her phone or a watch to tell her what time it was, she couldn’t even be completely sure that she had slept through the night rather than just for a few hours in the afternoon. The thought was disorienting, but she focused on her feet as they moved along the sand and tried to decide which direction she should walk. Though Vyker had already told her that the portal was closed, and had been as long as he knew of its existence, the only thing that she could think was that that was how she had arrived, so it was the only way that she could imagine that she would be able to get back.
Each step back in the direction that she had already walked made her more frustrated. By the time that she made it back to the village, it felt as though she had walked this exact path a dozen times before. As she moved further through the desert, it seemed that the sunlight around her was dimming. It seemed as though it was setting, suggesting that she had only slept through part of the afternoon as it was now heading into the evening. When she glanced up into the sky, however, she saw that the sun wasn’t moving down toward the horizon. Instead, it was still hovering nearly overhead, telling her that it was still afternoon.
Within seconds, the light around her had lessened so much that long, dark shadows had formed at the feet of all of the piles of rubble. Nervousness started building in Galadriel’s stomach, and she tried to quicken her pace. She gripped her bag close to her and kept her eyes locked ahead of her, trying to ignore the light as it continued to slip away around her. The feeling that she was being watched suddenly crept up the back of her neck and slithered along her spine. The hairs on her arms stood up, and she felt like her lungs were closing in as it became more and more difficult for her to breathe.
When Vyker had frightened her so much in the village, much of him startling her came from her not having any indication that he was there until she saw him. Now, though, the feeling that someone or something was near her but that she didn’t know where was even worse.
“Vyker?” she asked, fighting to keep the tremulous quality out of her voice so that she didn’t give away the fear that she was feeling.
There was no response, but the feeling of eyes on her and something invading the space around her only increased. Each time she drew in another breath, the sunlight continued to get dimmer and dimmer. She moved more quickly, as if getting away from the village and the cavern would allow her to somehow outrun the coming darkness. The edge of the village was ahead of her. She could see the daunting hill again, but this time it didn’t seem as frightening. Instead, it was a milestone, representing the point that would block her off from the rest of the desert. Once she got onto the other side of the hill, she would be away from the burned, tattered village, away from the cavern, and away from the feeling of the eyes burrowing into her.
She came around the corner of one of the largest piles of debris in the center of the village and screamed as she felt a bony hand grab onto her back.
Chapter Fifteen
Galadriel fought against the grip of the hand, throwing herself forward to try to escape whatever was holding her. She landed on the ground and tried to crawl forward, but her body sank into the soft sand, and the hand started pulling her backwards, forcing her deeper into the ground. She screamed out again and tried to kick the thing that had her in its grip. The movement caused her to flip over, and she saw her captor for the first time.
What stared back at her was more gruesome than anything that she had ever seen. A long, gaunt face with poison green, pupil-less eyes was within inches of hers. Sharply pointed ears reminded her of a bat, while greyed, bloodless skin made hers crawl. She kicked again, finally coming into contact with his body. The impact, however, wasn’t enough to disengage his hand from Galadriel’s shirt, and she felt him start to drag her back toward the center of the village. Twisting back around, she continued to try to crawl away from the creature. She felt her shirt rising up over her stomach and ribs as she fought, and as he pulled her further into the village, she could feel the small pieces of stone digging into her skin.
She heard a deep grunt and just as suddenly as she felt the hand grab onto her, she felt the grip tear away. Without hesitating, she scrambled away from where the creature had dropped her. She had gotten a few steps away when she
turned to see what had happened. Vyker stood over the creature, holding it by its throat as he burrowed what looked like a short sword into its belly. Galadriel cringed as the creature gurgled and its body went limp. Vyker tossed it to the ground and stepped over it toward her.
“I told you not to leave,” he growled at her. “I told you that you wouldn’t be able to find your way.”
“What was that thing?” she demanded.
“Do you know how close you came to being killed?” he roared at her. “If I hadn’t come after you when I did, you wouldn’t have lasted another five minutes, and if you had, it would have been far worse for you.”
He withdrew the sword from the creature’s body and without wiping away the blood from the blade, pushed it back into the sheath at his hip. He turned and stalked back through the village toward the cavern.
“Where are you going?” Galadriel asked.
“I have to leave and unless you are planning on giving up and dying right here in the sand, you are going to come with me.”
The arrogance was back in his voice, and Galadriel felt herself bristle. As he walked away through the continuously growing darkness, however, she realized that regardless of how he was acting now, this man had saved her. He had chosen to come after her and save her life by killing the creature that had attacked her, and was now offering to continue protecting her. She followed him, rushing to catch up so that he wouldn’t leave her behind. She didn’t want to be alone.
Vyker walked with long, deliberate strides back to the cavern and ducked inside. Galadriel followed him and struggled through the darkness inside to find him in the back chamber, hurriedly filling a large bag with blankets, clothing, and other items from around the cavern.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I told you, we have to leave. I can’t stay here anymore, and neither can you.”
“In the cavern?” she asked.
“In this stream. We have to go back to my stream and close the portal.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, watching him run back to the portion of the chamber with the pool of water.
Alien Portals: A SciFi Alien Multiverse Romance Novel Page 9
