by Aaron Gansky
What Lauren saw as gibberish, he saw as Deep Red, a groundbreaking new scripting language that would revolutionize the gaming industry. When he ran the file, the world would understand.
His phone beeped, and he jumped. It took him a minute to find the black cell phone in the darkness of his room. He flipped it open. He recognized Erica’s number. U up?
Smiling, he pumped his fist in the air. Whats up? He debugged the last few lines and began the process of compiling and compressing. After putting the first DVD in the disk drive, he pressed the execute button. The computer whirred and his screen dimmed a bit. Another beep, but not from his computer. Game looks cool. Laurens a witch.
He frowned. Laurens nice. Get 2 know her. Game will be playable 2moro.
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Exhausted, he refused to sleep until he’d finished the game. It would likely take three DVDs, nearly full, to fit everything he needed, an hour long process at least, even with the fastest DVD burner money could buy.
Beep. Sounds chill.
He grinned. C U in Bio. He sent his final message and closed his eyes. He didn’t mean for it to happen, but the gentle hum of the disk drive lulled him to sleep.
Chapter Three
The suns shall stay in the sky, and the battle shall continue. The Great Evil, Shedoah, Deceiver of Old, will cast shadows on the land, and all Alrujah will tremble at his voice. The people will cry out for a savior, and their cries will be heard by Almighty Adonai.
—The Book of Things to Come
LAUREN HADN’T EVEN OPENED her eyes Tuesday morning when she realized something felt different. The blanket was too heavy, as if there were many smaller blankets instead of one big one. And her face was freezing. Had she left her window open?
She put her head under the blankets and tried to warm her cheeks, but the sheets weren’t hers.
They were soft, made of the finest white linen. And, distinctly, she smelled irises and honeysuckle. Something was definitely wrong.
Slowly, she poked her head out. Instead of her room, cold, gray stone walls, jagged and uneven, surrounded her. A glassless window was cut out on the opposite end of the room. Instantly, she recognized where she was. She had drawn this place in her journal. It was her room, or, rather, the room of her alter-ego, Indigo.
“Oh. Em. Gee,” she whispered.
Immediately, she leapt out of bed. Behind her, a full-length mirror hung on the wall. She closed her eyes, slowly turned around, and hoped to God she would see what she hoped she would.
She was thin.
She touched her face. Her dreadfully and uncorrectably curly hair had been transformed into wispy blonde locks, nearly white. She wore a thin, white nightgown. The chill in the air raked across her and left a trail of goose bumps on her pale, perfect skin. Mouth open, she ran a hand over her shoulders and down around her arms. She wrapped her fingers around her wrist, and they touched. She pressed both hands to her flat stomach—she couldn’t remember when it had been so toned, so firm. For a minute, she wondered if she woke up in Bailey Renee’s body.
“Best. Dream. Ever,” she whispered.
Slowly, she reached for her ears. On the tip of each, she felt a nub, a hardness, a tiny point. Imperceptible to anyone else, but she knew what the tips meant: she was a half-elf.
God, please don’t ever let me wake up, she thought.
The stone floor drained the heat from her body through her bare feet. She tucked her hands under her arms and tried to still her chattering teeth. Despite the biting cold whipping in through the window, she took a moment to inspect the rest of the dream world. The window overlooked the castle gardens, primarily dotted with irises and honeysuckle. Gray stone paths weaved through the immaculately manicured purple and white flowers. Yellow spider trees stretched out from the flowers with long, knobby branches. They looked, as she had hoped, like spider legs. In the spring, they would bloom with yellow four-petal flowers. Their leaves, like elephant ears, grew large, providing incredible shade from the heat of the dual suns during the unrelentingly hot summers.
In winter, farther from the orbit of the greater sun, Alrujah ran cold. A light dusting of snow floated in through the window. A bird landed on the window sill—the same bird she’d drawn in her journal. Like the yellow spider tree, it was uniquely Alrujahn. Larger than a sparrow, but smaller than a raven, the bird had purple feathers and eyes black as tar. Elongated wings protruded out from its body. It alighted on the sill and stared at her. Lauren looked away quickly. “This can’t be real.” But her heart told her it was. Hope, that feathered pest, perched in her heart again.
A resonant voice called from behind the splintery wooden door. “Indigo! Indigo, wake up!” The voice sounded raspy, exactly as she’d described it in her journal.
Her journal! She had to find it. She dropped to her knees, ignoring King Ribillius’s call, and searched desperately under her bed for the leather journal. No luck.
“Indigo!” The door shook under the heavy blows of King Ribillius. It bowed like it might shatter at any moment.
Her stomach tightened like a fist, and she said, “I’m here, Papa.”
* * *
When Oliver woke up, he couldn’t hear the sound of the DVD burner working. Panic seized him—had the file crashed while he slept? Would he have to start over from his last back up? It would take hours to rebuild, and Erica would be waiting to play it after school.
He snapped his eyes open and threw his covers back.
His computer was gone. Had he been robbed? No, his desk was gone, too. He blinked. Slowly, his brain woke up.
This wasn’t his room. This bed, small and wooden, had only the thinnest of mattresses—little more than numerous blankets folded over and sewn together. “What in the world?”
The blankets he’d covered up with were not blankets at all. They were skins—bear skins, deer skins, and … what was that? A pelt covered in gray and black fur, with six brown stripes running diagonally down like flights of stairs. “A Sasquatch pelt?”
This had to be a joke. The only place he’d ever seen anything like this was when he digitized a picture Lauren sketched in her journal. No one else knew about it. No one else cared.
The bed, the stone walls, the glassless windows—must be the monastery. His heavy blue robe stretched to the floor. Snow whirled outside like television static. “A dream?” Purple and yellow flowers split through the thin layer of snow. Irises and honeysuckle perfumed the air. “It’s a dream!” he shouted.
The door to his small room swung open. An older man with white hair and an identical robe stood in the threshold. Eljah Morrow, his digital father. He looked sternly at Oliver and shut the door behind himself. “So much for your vow of silence,” the old man rumbled.
The line, one of the first he’d coded, sounded familiar.
The chill in the air, the goose bumps rising beneath his blue robe, the scent of wintry tree branches and frozen soil—unmistakable and far too vivid to be a dream. Which meant, by process of elimination, that he was truly in Alrujah. No dream had detail this immaculate, and Oliver seldom dreamed at all. A significant lack of detail and organization marked the few he’d had growing up. They were hodgepodge compilations of random events, fears, and hopes. Too much order—the monastery with its slick damp walls, Eljah Morrow standing every inch as tall as Oliver, the rough beard on his face—marked the scene real.
He pinched his hand. The sharp pain confirmed his conclusion. He folded his thickly muscled arms and wondered if he’d woken up in Aiden’s body. He’d never had muscles like this before.
He hung his head and closed his eyes. He had to think. Everything in his body affirmed the situation’s reality. Every shred of logic in his too-rational brain denied it.
“Don’t worry, Vicmorn, my son. You’ll not face discipline for your broken vow.”
Should he play along? Should he follow the script? Could he do anything else? Did it even matter?
Eljah continued. “I’ve re
ceived a message from King Ribillius this sunsrise. His kingdom is in danger, and he has requested you make haste to Castle Alrujah. He seeks the blessings of Adonai.”
Unable to think of anything else, Oliver played along with the script. “But why me, Father?”
The old man smiled, the corner of one side of his mouth stretching up toward his ear. He reached under the collar of his cloak and pulled a golden amulet from his neck. “Because, Son. Your time has come. You are the leader of our people’s spirit. We knew this day would soon be upon us. King Ribillius asked for you by name, Vicmorn.”
Years ago, he wrote this entire exchange. Lauren may have handled the overall story, but he handled the minutiae of his character: Vicmorn, the mystic monk, a man after Adonai’s heart, whose prayers healed. It’s like I’m dreaming the code. Maybe I need to take a break from Alrujah. But still, the idea of a dream just didn’t seem right.
It couldn’t be real, no matter how real it seemed—the cold of the room, the slight heat from the breath of the old man, the smell of potatoes and herbs on that breath, or the weight of the golden amulet hung around his neck and tucked under his blue robe. He would wake up any minute, in his real bed, or, rather, in his chair, with the hum of the DVD-ROM spinning madly.
“The letter was marked urgent. The messenger is waiting to take you to Castle Alrujah. Gather your things.”
Oliver nodded and opened the trunk in the corner of the room. He wished he’d put more in it. Instead, he had to make do with an old harspus wood prayer staff, leather pants, and a brown burlap shirt. They wouldn’t do much against the cold, but he’d not considered the warmth of the clothes when coding them.
He pulled the thin, rough shirt over his head, the cold pants over each leg, and he found himself longing for a pair of jeans fresh from the dryer. Tugging his heavy robe over his head, he hoped the thick fabric would guard against the frigid wind. He replaced the hood over his head and hugged the old man. It felt, he thought, a lot like hugging his real father. “I’ll return quickly,” he said, “if Adonai wills it.” The scripted lines came naturally. The ease of the words impressed him. Playing along might be fun, as silly as it made him feel. He’d not meant these lines to be spoken out loud, and yet here he was, standing in front of a digital person, speaking to it as if it had any intelligence of its own.
He hurried out the door of the monastery, into the cold mountain air, and straddled the white horse the messenger held bridled. He’d never ridden a horse before, but he held the reins like an expert. Easy as riding a bike. “To Castle Alrujah,” he said, eager to see what lay ahead in the strange workings of his subconscious. Lauren would get a kick out of it when he told her at school. This dream would stick marrow-deep in his bones.
The young messenger mounted his brown horse, struggling with the weight of his armor. He leaned too far back and fell over. Getting up, he set his jaw tight and tried again. Finally, positioning himself awkwardly but stably on the saddle, the boy grinned self-consciously at Oliver. “This armor is heavy,” he said, an offer of explanation Oliver hadn’t asked for.
Oliver hadn’t remembered coding the messenger to be so young, or so clumsy. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember a messenger coming along at all. An addition of his subconscious to the dream? Or an indication that this wasn’t a dream at all. The evidence seemed to support the latter, while logic suggested the former.
An overwhelming strangeness caught the chill air in his lungs in a half-gasp. It was like swimming or flying for the first time. Alrujah was just as he imagined it, exactly as he designed it, but jumping in with both feet, being completely immersed in the water of the pool or the air of the sky, left him weightless and breathless.
* * *
Panic and excitement warred within Lauren. Both suns rose over the horizon through her window. The light refracted off the snow as it fluttered from weighty gray clouds. She thought of the cliff outside her house, and how she and Oliver had stood at the precipice two days ago. Did her wish come true? Had she been transported by some work of magic, some miracle, into the world she’d created?
She ran her hands over her skinny, toned arms compulsively. She didn’t believe it, but she wanted to. The door burst open, and she leapt back with surprising speed. She’d never been able to move so fast.
An aged man, heavy in the belly, crashed into the room. “Indigo,” he said. “You must leave. Immediately.”
She wanted to say, “I’m not Indigo,” but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Her entire heart told her she was. She wanted this to be real. She would play along and see how far she could make it. “Father, be calm. What is it?”
“This note.” He handed her a page rolled like a scroll. She couldn’t read the writing, but she recognized some of the symbols. Why had she insisted on a different alphabet? Still, whether she could read it or not, she knew what it said. She had written it in her journal years ago. “He who controls the daughter controls the king.”
“This means nothing,” she said, following the script. She’d written it so long ago, the words felt fuzzy, thick on her tongue. Still, they rolled out with a natural ease, as if she’d said them before, as if she’d say them again.
The heavy man bellowed to the hall, “Guards!” Seconds later, two thickly armored men marched into her room brandishing broadswords and heavy, square shields. “I’ll not have my daughter kidnapped and used as a pawn!”
Lauren stared at her hands, her pen-thin fingers. They’d been so fat and useless in North Chester. Here, they felt mobile and dexterous. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Father.”
“I won’t have it.” His stern face flushed with anger and fear. The skin of his cheeks erupted with redness, his eyes narrowed.
She recognized his heavy gold crown resting on his hoary hair. Diamonds and multi-colored gems surrounded a center jewel, a midnight sapphire, which shone indigo when it caught the light. The Crowned Sapphire of Alrujah had inspired her character’s name. “What would you have me do, dear Father?”
“The tower is the only place you’ll be safe.” He spat his words out quickly, with finality.
“I’ll freeze in the tower. Besides, they would look for me there. We can’t risk an assault on the castle.”
“Let him come,” Ribillius seethed. “We’re more than capable of defending our walls, our homes.”
“Think of the casualties, Father. A battle like that would decimate our forces. And I’d be vulnerable to any aerial assault the Mage Lord may launch against me. I’d be nearly defenseless.”
The king took her knobby elbows in his hands. “You are not queen yet, young lady. Let him sack the city, so long as your neck does not break. No price is too high to pay for you.”
“You must think as a king and not as a father. Your people trust you with their lives. Don’t throw them away needlessly. Send me away. It’s the only way I’ll be truly safe.”
He laughed. “Send you where? Where may you hide? The swamps of Pellbred? The Dragon’s Back Mountains? Perhaps the Ruins of Norgren? Evil is no stranger to Alrujah, my dear. Droughtworm infests most of our cities. I cannot keep money in the hands of my people. We have few friends within the walls of other cities, my love. They do not understand the peril we are in. The influences of the Mage Lord are evident, but the people do not believe he exists. They blame me, my love, and will do anything to get to me. No, you are only safe here where I may protect you.”
Droughtworm? She’d not written that in the script. Nor had she mentioned poverty. In her journals, Alrujah was a place of influence and wealth, and Ribillius was well-loved and respected. “I know a place,” she said, sticking to the script. She had no idea what else to say. She leaned toward him until her lips neared his ear. His salty stubble scratched her cheek. “Yeval Forest.”
“The Bleeding Grounds? No,” he said quickly. “It’s far too dangerous. You would never make it.”
“I’m perfectly capable of providing for myself.”
“Leave us quickly
,” Ribillius snapped. The dutiful guards clinked out of the room and closed the door. “I’ve already lost your mother because of her involvement in the Council of the Order of the Protectorate. She vanished from me years ago, and the Council will not tell me what happened to her. I will not give you up to them yet. The time may come for you to rule the land as a member of the Council and as a queen, but that time is not now. The Shedoahn Order has its spies everywhere, and it is unwise and unsafe for you to even mention Yeval Forest.”
Lauren sat on her bed and put both her hands over her heart. This was not in the script. Sure, she knew Yeval Forest, knew the Council of Yeval secretly ruled over the land of Alrujah with more power than Ribillius himself. But his paranoid speech about the Shedoahn Order rattled her. She’d never heard of it.
Her throat tightened, and her head dizzied. “The what?”
He knelt before her. With a gentle hand, he cupped her neck and ran a finger over her smooth cheek. “Indigo, if you must go, I understand. But please tell me you won’t seek out the Council.”
His tears washed away whatever notion she had about this being a dream. Sadness lined his face and made his cheeks glisten with wetness. She missed her father then, her real father, and loved Ribillius even more for being everything her real dad should have been.
She backed herself into a corner, sat on the floor, and pulled her knees into her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her head on her knees. This can’t be real.
Ribillius asked, “Indigo? Are you well?”
“No, Papa. I’m not.” Her spirit stretched, as if her chest were being pulled open and her heart put on the rack.
He knelt beside her and pulled her into his arms. “I will not let him find you. You have my word.” He whispered to her, ran his fingers through her wispy hair. “I will send you away, but not to Yeval. And you will not go alone.”
Lauren concentrated on slowing her breathing, on maintaining control over whatever slippery grip she had left on sanity.
