In The Depths Of Winter

by Bradley Mitzelfelt

  “Alright, we’re going to go to Xilu,” he said as he stepped out in front of them all.

  Fanan and Shakrin exchanged looks before the former spoke. “Why?”

  “The two of you survived,” Dearic said, waving a hand towards her and her cousin. “Isn’t it possible some others took the tunnels to Xilu and hid there?”

  “Migh’ be true,” Fanan said. “But it be takin’ days ta get ‘ere.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  Dearic drew out his stone and and held it firmly. He concentrated on Xilu, and wanting to get there. The image of the portal opening in his mind grew, and in front of him a purple disk of light began to form. It swirled and coalesced until they could see a pathway leading through swirling abyss. In the distance, down that pathway, a point of light waited for them. When he opened his eyes, he smiled and looked at the others.

  “Alright listen,” he said, focusing on each in turn as he spoke. “This is a passage through the Travel Realm. It will get us to Xilu, and all we have to do is walk down that path and step out the other side. But you must stay on the path and not stop moving for anything, and I have to be the last one through or it’ll close and you’ll be left behind.”

  Fanan and Shakrin were staring at the portal. The two elves had already started moving towards it, clearly used to magic in ways that the dwarves were not. Dearic, however, reached out and stopped them.

  “Let Fanan and Shakrin go first. They know the dangers of Xilu,” he said before looking at the two dwarves.

  “Fine,” Shakrin said. “If the elves are willing to do it then I can.”

  Stubborn as a dwarf can be, Dearic thought. He watched as the bearded warrior walked to the portal and stepped inside, moving down the passage. Fanan gave him a shrug and followed after her cousin. When they were a little ways in, he let the two elves go and then followed after them. The portal closed behind him.

  Down the passage they all walked, and he watched in satisfaction as the two dwarves hopped out the other side. They drew their weapons to hand though, and charged out of his sight, so he pressed forward until he was directly behind the elves. The three of them came out the same time and he immediately thought to create another portal out, but had to duck down behind cover, the same as the dwarves had, in order to avoid being spotted.

  All around them were the machine beasts. They didn’t seem to be saying anything, but they were moving swiftly about, building to building. Though they seemed to have already gone past where Dearic and the group were, he wasn’t about to risk anything.

  “They’re searching for something,” he said quietly, peeking up over a broken down wall and through an opening that used to have a window in it.

  “Too many of ‘em,” Fanan said. “We can nay take ‘em all.”

  “No, we can’t,” Dearic agreed. “We need to wait and see what they’re doing. I’m surprised the Nalgvane aren’t attacking them.”

  “I believe they already did,” Shakrin said as he pointed down the street.

  There he saw a pile of bodies. Greenish in color, he distinctly noticed the presence of wings. There were so many bodies strewn in the piles. But they’d just left them all there to rot. They didn’t burn them, they just piled them up and moved on.

  “I’ve never-” he started to say before he shook his head and looked away.

  The two elves were trying to see, but he gently pushed their heads back down. They didn’t need to see that, even if they were almost his age. They’d already seen enough death lately. More of it was just going to make things worse for them. It was bad enough for him and he was used to seeing the dead now. Though he didn’t much mind the death of those monsters. They were almost as bad as orcs and goblins.

  “If ‘ey did that at Pabila,” Fanan said, her fingers wrapping firmly around her daggers. “I will kill ‘em all.”

  “Fanan,” Dearic said, pulling her closer to him so he could look her in the eyes. “Listen to me. If you go out there and fight them you’ll die. You, Shakrin, and I have an important job now. More important than any we’ve ever had before. We have to rescue the remaining free people of this world and take them to safety. Gregor has the last piece of the key, and he’s going to bring Chaos back.”

  Fanan’s eyes went wide as she looked at him. Shakrin stiffened and slowly turned his head to look at Dearic, eyes narrowing.

  “You didn’t get it from the elves?” Shakrin asked. “You let him take it?”

  “No,” Dearic said, shaking his head. “He had it before I arrived back there. One of the elves, their leader, Thromiel, gave it to Gregor in exchange for his life. He slaughtered all the other elves and fed them to the orcs, and then he wanted me to take him with me. I killed him, but it was too late to stop Gregor from getting what he needed. We only have one course of action now. We have to get as many people we can together, and then I’ll take us to another Realm where we can at least live without Chaos and Gregor.”

  Fanan sat down at this. The two elves were staring at him, their eyes wide with the fear of understanding. Too knowledgeable for their own good now, he thought before he sighed and looked back over the broken window.

  A little ways down the street, at the base of a large tower, he saw the shimmer of light and a mist stepped through the opening. She looked around and began to run down the road towards them. There was only one Mist he could ever see.

  “Aiyana.”

  She was running directly towards them and he started to rise to call to her, but as soon as he did, two of the unarmored creatures ran out into the road from one of the buildings and grabbed hold of her. His eyes went wide as he watched her lifted from the ground. This was one person that they could save. Something they could do, even if it endangered them in the long run. He wouldn’t let her die.

  Before the others could say anything, he’d vaulted through the window and was running down the street towards them. If he did nothing, she would die. Worst of all, as he drew nearer, he could see that she was with child. His child, if those things that she’d said to him before were true. He couldn’t think about that, or the amount of surprise that was racing through him. The urge to cry out was harder to suppress, especially because he felt both fear and anger at what was happening to her at that moment. The tears flowed freely even as he lifted his hand, grasping the stone within it.

  A burst of white light exploded from his hands and slammed into one of the creatures holding Aiyana. It exploded in a shower of light, and the other creature turned towards him. It’s face was obscured behind a strange helmet, but he could still hear it as a loud sound reverberated through the air. It was strangely metallic, like a sheet of pounded metal was suddenly rung like a bell. Sort of like a hollow thunder. It was swiftly echoed in the distance.

  Another beam of light slammed into the second creature, and Aiyana fell to the ground in a heap as it, too exploded. She was cradling her stomach with one hand, and looking at him with tear filled eyes as she sat upon the dirt and stone. He raced to her and knelt before her.

  “Dearic.” She whispered his name through her inaudible sobs, and he could barely hear it, but he understood. She was relieved and afraid; hurt, but happy to see him. He enveloped her in his arms as that same, strange metallic sound rang out in the distance, but closer this time. Footsteps sounded behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the dwarves and the elf children racing towards him.

  “What are you doing? That was stupid. Get out of the road, imbecile,” Shakrin said.

  Right. He’d forgotten about the fact that they couldn’t see her. Only he could. Fanan was looking at him with her face scrunched up, and her foot tapping the ground. When he looked at her, she nodded her head, gave him a wink, and then motioned back the way they came. He nodded, and she grabbed Shakrin to drag him off. The elves looked confused, but he motioned for them to go with the dwarves. Shakrin was protesting loudly enough that if they hadn’t already alerted the machine creatures to their presence, they would certainly know now.
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  He turned back to Aiyana and helped her to her feet. She leaned on him, burying her face in his shoulder.

  “Aiyana we can’t stay here. Are you hurt?” he asked her. She had just been dropped, after all.

  Her response was a shake of her head, but he could see that she was either lying, or really tired. Running was out of the question, anyway. So he scooped her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest. Despite the fact that she was pregnant, she was still incredibly light. It likely came with the fact that she was a creature made of water vapor. Magic could do just about anything, as he now understood.

  The others were rounding a corner ahead, but Fanan stopped to wait for him. He raced after her, carrying Aiyana as she cradled against him. Behind them he started to hear the falls of large feet against stone. The beasts were returning, called by their downed brethren. All they could do now was run and hide.

  Chapter Twenty

  They hunkered down in a broken building on the furthest outskirts of the city they could reach. Shakrin wanted to keep going and leave the valley altogether, but Dearic told him no every time. Eventually he just told them all to go and leave him there. Fanan would have nothing of it, though. She was standing with her hands, balled in fists, resting on her hips and her back to the doorway, keeping Shakrin from taking the elves and leaving.

  “Yer na’ leavin’, Shakrin,” she said, glowering at him. “We nee’ ta keep wa’ch.”

  “Why? He’s talking to nothing but air, Fanan!” Shakrin said, waving his hand at Dearic.

  “Nah, he be talkin’ ta a Mist.”

  Shakrin put his hands on his cousin’s shoulders and looked her square in the eyes. “There are no such things as Mists.”

  “Yes, there are,” Dearic said looking at the dwarf from where he now sat, cradling Aiyana in his arms. “Just because you don’t see something, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Your people believed in the healing powers of the water in Pabila. Is it so hard to believe that beings could exist that are made of mist and not visible to your eyes?”

  Instead of responding, Shakrin tried to move Fanan out of the way. She responded by lifting her fist straight up and cracking it into his jaw, which dropped him onto his back in a daze. He stared at the ceiling while the two elves huddled together at the wall opposite of them. They didn’t look at all comfortable, but Dearic didn’t have the time, nor the desire, to deal with them at the moment.

  “Aiyana, can you look at me?” Dearic asked, looking down at her.

  She lifted her head from where it had been buried in his neck. Golden eyes stared back at him.

  “I can make you whole. You can leave this valley with us forever. Do you want that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Very much. I wish you could help the others too, but I’m afraid they may all be dead. We were an easy target for them, since we couldn’t leave. It hurt to watch so many die.”

  Even though she said she wanted it, and she did smile, it was only brief before she closed her eyes and laid her head against him once more. It was easy to see that she was exhausted. Even when he made her corporeal she wasn’t going to be quick to move. The machine creatures were still out there looking for them. They could hear that loud metal sound resounding now and again. Sometimes they heard footfalls nearby, and they were all quiet until they passed. They were lucky that the creatures hadn’t blasted the door down and killed them all.

  There was one thing he hadn’t counted on, though. She has no clothes. I’m going to make her real to everyone and she’s going to be naked. The women would be fine but Shakrin and Audurel would probably end up staring at her. He looked between the two women. Fanan probably had an extra set of clothes, but they weren’t likely to fit Aiyana. The Mist wasn’t that tall, but she was still taller than Fanan. Aiethelen didn’t have anything but the clothes on her back, which was no help.

  She’ll have to make due with clothes that are too small until we can get her something else, he thought as he motioned for Fanan to come over.

  “Do you have spare clothes?” he asked when she was closer. “Shirt, pants, and a cloak?”

  Fanan didn’t wear dresses so asking for those would be a waste of time.

  “Aye, bu’ ain’ dey too small for ‘er?” Fanan asked. “Ain’ she ‘all?”

  “She’s not that tall, actually, but she is taller than you. The clothes won’t fit her well but they’ll do until we can get somewhere to get something better.”

  “Aye. Tha’s true.”

  While Fanan rummaged through her pack, he waved for Aiethelen to come over to him. She came over slowly, curious at the way that he was holding himself. She couldn’t see the Mist in his arms except as mist itself, though she’d no doubt heard of them. At her age he expected her to still be knowledgeable about the world she lived in.

  “Aiethelen I need you to do me a favor and make sure your brother and Shakrin keep their eyes turned away from where I am,” Dearic said, looking her straight in the eyes. “Can you do that for me?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I can do that, but may I ask why?”

  “I have the ability to use Magic in a way that doesn’t require rituals or spells. The mist that you see in my arms is a Mist. A female one named Aiyana. She’s claimed me as her Chosen before, and she’s pregnant. I’m going to use Magic to make her whole again, and free her of the curse that’s binding her to this valley. When I do so, she will be naked, and I don’t want your brother or Shakrin to stare at her while Fanan and I help her get dressed.”

  “Oh,” the elf said, a red tinge touching her cheeks. “I will do my best, then.”

  Dearic offered her a brief smile of thanks, and then turned his attention back to Aiyana. She was looking back at him and he smiled and brushed a hand across the ridge atop her head. It was delicately hard, but not so as to be strange. Her lack of hair didn’t bother him in the slightest.

  “I know what I want to do, but I don’t know how it will turn out,” he said to her before sighing softly. “It took me numerous tries just to figure out how to open portals in the travel realm. I spent hours practicing. This I can’t practice.”

  Aiyana lifted her own hand and rested it against his cheek.

  “You will succeed,” she said. “I know you will. Have faith in yourself.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek and looked up at the crumbling ceiling above them. The place they were in offered no protection. If the machine beings found them, they were all as good as dead. Whether or not he succeeded in making her whole would mean little if they were found out. He could only hope to do it right on the first try. If they weren’t discovered he could rest long enough to open them a way out of the valley, and to territory he was certain would be safer than where they were.

  Already he had a headache forming and he hadn’t even begun. Gently, he laid her down upon the floor. She curled her legs up beneath her and sat up, proving that she was, in reality, fine despite what had happened to her. The fall hadn’t hurt her, and though she’d been unable to breath for a short time while being held aloft, she was alright now. I should have suspected she would enjoy being held considering it’s been months since we’ve seen each other. She likely knew I’d be coming back, though, with how much she already knew about me.

  The string connected to the stone twirled in his hand before the stone came to rest within his palm. Reaching his hand out, he set it and the stone against the top of her ridged head, smiled at her briefly, and then closed his eyes so he could concentrate. One thing his mother had shown him was that the key to being able to do much with Magic was that he had to find a place of calm. This was not easy when faced with the reality of death waiting outside of your hiding place.

  “What’s he doing?” Shakrin asked.

  It was also hard to do when a dwarf didn’t know how to be quiet.

  Dearic did his best to ignore the ensuing whispers that passed between the two dwarves. It was easier to do that when Shakrin eventually stopped talking. A deep breath escaped him, a
nd if he hadn’t been trying to focus, he’d have said a few thankful words, but that thought passed right out of his mind the moment it appeared. Each new thought was briefer than the last, and disappeared from within him as swiftly as it appeared. A dance of emptiness. Much like the inky blackness at the bottom of a deep pit.

  It took some time but eventually there was nothing. Nothing but the emptiness. Darkness surrounded him. Inside his head, he looked forward and saw Aiyana. Not a thought that needed to be pushed away, but precisely what he wanted to do. He saw her as the Mist that she was. At first incorporeal, and then taking shape as he saw her. Even still, he could not envision her whole. His mind still saw her as the being that only he could see.

  That was the difficult part, seeing her fully composed, but he began to see through her. Inside of her, the child that grew. It, too, had to be made whole. Beating hearts. That was the first thing he saw. Two precisely beating hearts, perfectly in rhythm with one another. Like drums being played in a ritual.

  Outside of his mind, the others gasped as two hearts suddenly became visible, seemingly floating in air. Shakrin literally had his mouth agape. Audurel put himself between the hearts and his sister, only to have her pull him back behind her. She wasn’t going to let him see, just like Dearic had asked her to. Fanan walked over and held up the cloak she’d pulled out of her pack such that nobody could see.

  In the darkness of Dearic’s mind he saw more of her begin to coalesce. He had to work from the inside out. He didn’t know why, but it sort of made sense. A being was not only what one saw on the outside. Even a mist had organs, bones, sinew, and blood. Different blood as he quickly discovered. Theirs ran a metallic silver, coursing through their veins with each beat of their heart. Even the child within her showed signs of this. He would have been amazed by it if he hadn’t been as focused as he was. Focused, he barely even registered the differences between their bodies and his.