by KD Wren
“It is good to see you, Skylar Dufresne.” His voice was deep and harsh, punctuated with the crackling of a sap-filled log spitting in a fire. “You were a fool to leave the Inter-Realm. With their help, you may have lasted a little longer. Too bad.”
He was drawing it out, playing with me. He could have crossed the room in a few strides, but instead he kept pausing to look me over. Fear and revulsion wrapped about one another in my stomach. I could feel the blood pounding through my veins. I had pressed backward against the window. There was nowhere else to go. I was caught. The figure in front of me knew it too, and he continued his unhurried approach. I needed to buy time to come up with a way to get out of here.
“Who are you? What do you want with me?”
The man paused and cocked his head to the side. “I suppose we have time for a little question and answer.” Good. He wanted to draw it out, to enjoy the process. I could use that. “As for me, you should be able to answer that yourself. You just need to pay attention. Look at me.” He barked the last as a command. I ran my eyes from top to bottom. Other than his eyes, he appeared like a normal man, until I got to his feet. He was wearing heavy boots below his dark pants. But as I watched, from the knees down he began to fade. What appeared solid transformed into smoke and then back to normal feet and legs. I wracked my brain. Fire, smoke, the ability to assume different forms. Shit.
“You are a djinn.”
“Good girl, full marks. And your parents thought your major was useless.”
How could he possibly know about my major? Or what my parents thought about it? Of course, I suppose if he knew my major he could just assume my parents disapproved. But still, what business did a creature out of Arabic folklore have with me?
As if in answer, he continued, “As for what I want with you, what I want isn’t important. I am merely a courier. It is Lord Vepramet, the Opener of Ways, that wants you. What for isn’t for me to say. Chances are, you aren’t going to like it.” His mouth curved into a sickening grin and he took a large stride forward.
I pushed back against the window, flattening myself against the glass. I had nowhere to go. He reached out toward me. Little wisps of smoke rose from his hand. I could feel the heat emanating from his body. He came inexorably closer. I pressed harder against the window, trying in vain to get further away from him. Time seemed to slow down. And then the window gave way.
I felt the emptiness behind me and my stomach rushed up into my throat. I saw panic in the djinn’s fiery eyes before I closed my own. I couldn’t believe I was about to fall to my death. I frantically tried to imagine myself somewhere else, to give myself an escape from the fear of hitting the pavement below.
A brief chill passed through my body and then I felt a hard smack. I was enveloped in cold water. I opened my eyes and felt the sting of salt. Icy daggers pricked every inch of my skin, weaving in with the pain radiating from my back. I struggled to get my head above the surface and tried to take a gulp of air, but the fall had knocked the wind out of my lungs. I settled for a few ragged gasps before a heavy wave washed over from behind me, submerging my head once more.
Chapter 8
In the icy water, I could feel my muscles starting to get stiff and lose their strength. It occurred to me that I was lucky I hadn’t been wearing any shoes, which allowed me to tread water more easily. My wet clothes were a problem, but I felt that if I stopped treading water, I might sink and never get back up. I waited for the crest of a wave to lift me up and spun around in a circle, trying to spot land. A huge red sun hung low over the horizon. I couldn’t tell if it was rising or setting, but either way it wasn’t providing much heat. My body was already starting to shiver.
A row of breaking waves crashed on a beach with sand the color of rusted iron. Above it loomed a cliff, gray and menacing. Still, it was solid land. I rolled over on my back and began stroking as best I could, turning periodically to make sure I was on course. After what seemed an eternity, as I felt my strength and body heat ebbing away, the sound of the breaking waves told me I was close. I turned onto my stomach, summoning my last reserves of strength, and rode a wave onto the sand. On my hands and knees, I crawled forward, out of range of the breakers, and collapsed. I lay there for a few minutes, gulping in huge breaths of air. My limbs felt like rubber. The sun, which had been setting, crossed down below the horizon, revealing a sky of unfamiliar stars.
My wet clothes were clinging to me. I knew I needed to get them off and get dry if I was going to avoid hypothermia. I stripped off my t-shirt and struggled out of my soaked jeans. I stood up, unsteady on my feet, and marveled at the absurdity. I was standing on a beach, in my underpants, and I had no idea where I was or how I got there. Still, I was alive, and that was something. And wherever I was, it was better than where the djinn wanted to take me.
I rubbed my shaking hands on my arms, trying to get some blood flowing. The cliffs started a few hundred meters from the surf and rose straight up. To my left, towards where the sun had set, I could see unnatural formations among the rocks. It looked like a city, or at least the ruins of one. There were no lights, no sign of life. No signs of life anywhere, really. Where had I landed? I didn’t have the strength to ask myself how I had gotten there. I was focused only on finding a place to shelter from the wind and maybe try to build a fire.
My dad had taken me camping when I was little and showed me how to start a fire with a bow drill. But there was no wood or kindling to be found on this beach. Nothing but red streaked gray sand. Walking closer to the cliffs, I kept my eyes open for a cave or shelter of some kind. I knew I wouldn’t last through the night with my hair soaking wet and no shelter. After a few minutes, I saw light. An orange glow flickered against the cliff face. There was a cave, and a fire going inside!
I wanted to run as fast as I could to the light and the warmth, but I hesitated. I didn’t know where I was or what kind of creatures might inhabit this strange world. A bit of caution was warranted, even though my body was crying out for warmth. The prospect of sitting next to a warm fire made the cold feel more intense. I settled on a fast walk and picked my way along the boulders toward the light.
As soon as I was out of the wind, I felt better. The cave was roomy, tall enough for me to stand once I got past the entrance, and went back deeper than I had expected. The smoke from the small fire rose up through an opening overhead, so the air was relatively fresh. A small pot bubbled over the fire. The floor was strewn about with all sorts of knick-knacks and assorted junk. I had not run into anyone yet, but clearly someone had been living here for a while. And they were not very tidy. I walked up closer to the fire, feeling the chill leave my skin with each step forward. I got as close as I dared and closed my eyes, luxuriating in the radiating heat. The stone floor of the cave had absorbed the heat from the fire and warmed the soles of my feet. The cold melted away from my muscles.
I had started to relax when I felt a sharp poke in the small of my back. I spun around, almost stepping into the fire, and hopped to the side. I must have looked absurd, because the expression on the face of the poker went from angry to amused in a heartbeat. Standing in front of me holding a stone spear was a creature about four feet tall with a man’s body, but below his waist his legs were covered in dense hair and ended in hooves. His face was mostly human, but from out of his tousled chestnut hair rose two curling horns. A faun or satyr. I congratulated myself on keeping my head level enough to identify him. Or was it some kind of coping mechanism, dealing with my fear by resorting to intellectualizations.
The humor of my leap from the fire passed, the faun’s face resumed its stony antagonistic expression. He brought the spear level with my belly and feinted forward menacingly.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I am lost and cold. I was just looking for shelter for the night.”
The faun cocked his head like a dog and looked at me quizzically. He did not lower the spear.
“I don’t want to intrude. I just need to get warm and dry my cl
othes and then I will be on my way.
He shook his head and replied in a language I didn’t understand. It sounded like the bleats of a sheep or goat formed into words. We were stuck. Wait, the journal! I had stuck that book Herje gave me in my jeans pocket.
I reached for my wet clothes that I had dropped on the floor of the cave, but the faun brought the spear down in front of my hand, throwing sparks off the stone. I shrank back, spreading my hands open in what I hoped was a sign of my innocent intentions. He backed off and I slowly moved my hand back toward my jeans. The book was still there. I pulled it out of my pocket. Amazingly, it was not wet at all. My unintentional swim appeared to have caused no damage to the paper. I opened to the first page.
“I mean no harm. I am lost and I need shelter.”
Odd characters appeared on the page. It was the same as I had seen the man at the job fair write on my resume. The faun stared at them for a moment and then replied. Not in the bleating language he used before, but in a more refined, complex tongue. Words in English wrote themselves in my book.
“What are you? Where did you come from?”
“I am a human, from Earth.”
I watched the faun’s eyes as he watched the words appear. His face hardened and he tightened his grip on the stone-tipped spear. A tinge of fear touched his eyes.
“Have you come here to kill me?”
“What? No! I only just escaped myself. I don’t know how I got here, but a djinn said that the Opener of Ways wanted me.”
The enchanted book translated. I watched his eyes as he scanned the page and saw them open large as a coffee cup when he reached the end. He skittered back against the wall of the cave, hooves scraping on the stone, and flicked his head side to side as if he expected an enemy to come walking into the cave at any moment.
“I’m sure I was not followed,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I just need shelter for the night and then I will be on my way.”
He read my words in the book and looked me over. “You won’t get far. This is a dangerous land.” He gave a goatish sigh and set his spear against the cave wall. “You may stay the night.”
I felt a flood of relief. Despite the hostile reception, this faun seemed to have a sympathetic disposition. He walked over to the fire and began stirring the pot. My stomach rumbled excessively and I walked over to sit in the warmth. When I sat, I suddenly realized I had been standing there that entire time wearing nothing but a half-dry pair of panties. I could feel so much blood rushing into my face that I must have been giving off as much heat as the fire. But the faun didn’t seem to notice at all. It was strange, like he didn’t even see me as naked. Had I turned up in some strange man’s house like this, the topic would have come up, at least. Then again, other than the hair on his lower section, the faun didn’t have a stitch of clothes. I checked my jeans to see if they had dried yet, no luck.
The faun, who gave his name as Zhas, poured me a bowl of soup. It was richly flavored, spicy and sweet. I didn’t recognize any of the ingredients, but they seemed similar to root vegetables. He sat across the fire from me and we ate in silence.
Chapter 9
Two bowls of soup and the soporific effects of the fire had made me long for sleep, but my curiosity kept me up. After I had settled down and gotten warm, the strangeness of my predicament began to sink in. I had fallen out a five-story window and landed in an ocean on some other world. I was pretty sure that is what had happened, anyway. This would be a hell of a depressing afterlife. I recalled what Finbahir had said, about how veilwalkers could create their own portals, pass through the veil under their own power. That must be what I had done. But the problem was I had no idea how I did it. Zhas didn’t look like he was in possession of loads of arcane knowledge. I would have to get home on my own.
Another thing kept nagging at me. When I told Zhas I was a human, he reacted as if I were a poisonous snake. It was only when I told him that the Opener of Ways was after me that he offered me hospitality. Clearly, he knew about people and he knew about my would be captor. I called out to him over the crackling of the burning driftwood and he ambled over to be in view of the book.
“Zhas, why did you assume I wanted to kill you?”
He shrugged. “I have never met a human. All we have are the old stories. Humans are monsters that eat little fauns, and satyrs, and centaurs. They keep herds of them in bondage and then slaughter and eat them. My mother used to frighten me with stories of bloodthirsty humans waiting to carve me up if I didn’t go to sleep.” He looked wistfully into the depths of the fire. When he turned back to me, his expression was kind. “But you don’t look like a monster. A little strange, with your spindly bare legs that bend the wrong way and your soft hooves. But not a monster.”
I smiled at him. It felt oddly gratifying to be thought of as not a monster. Part of me wanted to delve deeper into this folklore of humans in Zhas’s society, but I had more pressing needs.
“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 this world 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. Now, 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.”
We sat in silence for several long minutes. I thought about his story. It fit with what Finbahir 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 Finbahir 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 Ea
rth. The most frightening thing, though, was the last thing that Zhas had said. What if humans were to align with the Opener of Ways?
I decided that if I were to get off this world, I would go straight to the Inter-Realm and take Finbahir up on his offer. I had seen the enemy now. Going back to my old life was no longer an option.
Chapter 10
I awoke the next morning in 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 of 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.
