The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  “What made it worse was that we had to whip each other while the others watched.”

  Aki started trembling, and Niko reached up and pulled her down onto the bench next to him. He put his arm around her, and she continued.

  “At each whipping and each gruesome death, Abbadon grew stronger. It was as if he lived off of the pain he inflicted—not just the physical pain, but also the emotional pain. However, when I was a child, I thought that because he cried during these punishments that he was sorry that it had to be done, and I felt sorry for him. I worked hard to always be perfect. Not only because I didn’t want to be whipped, but because I wanted to please Abbadon and make him happy.”

  Aki turned and looked at Niko. “Niko was not so easily fooled. He knew that Abbadon was not crying because he was sad. He was crying from joy. It was a release for him.”

  Aki must have heard me begin to ask a question because she held up her hand. “I’ll get to it, Kara.”

  “Niko tried to tell me that Abbadon was a monster, but I didn’t want to believe it. However, I was good enough in Abbadon’s eyes, so he never punished me. The story was different for Niko, as you can imagine. So he rebelled. Secretly he was training himself, and others. Because he often rebelled in ways that Abbadon noticed, he was often whipped. I kept trying to tell him that if he did what he was supposed to do, it wouldn’t happen, and he kept trying to tell me that Abbadon was an evil monster.

  “One day, Abbadon noticed me crying as Niko was being whipped and that was the end of my believing in Abbadon, because he had the guard bring the whip to me and made me beat my own brother. Abbadon told me that if I didn’t whip him hard enough, he would kill him.

  “Abbadon reminded me of the bodies I had seen hanging outside the Castle and told me that is what would happen to Niko. He would hang him there until he died. So I did what he said. I used the whip on my brother.

  “When I was done whipping Niko, Abbadon rewarded me by whipping me himself.”

  We were all crying by then, and Sarah asked Aki if she wanted to stop. Aki took a shuttering breath and said, “I have to get through this.”

  After collecting herself, she continued, “That’s when I joined Niko and trained with him and the few people he trusted. We had to continue to look weak and subservient, but we were all growing stronger and more flexible.

  “Niko had a mentor. He was an old crippled man. He had never told us his real name, but we called him Hawk because he always seemed to know what was going on.

  “We had been told that Hawk had been there since he was a young man and that he had allowed himself to age because he wanted to die and move on. At the time he could barely move, but he used to be a fighter, and it was Hawk who trained Niko and then watched over us as we trained. We had to make sure no one saw us in case they decided to turn us in to avoid their own punishments.”

  “A few months after I joined Niko, we heard a rumor that Abbadon had learned about the training and was searching for who it was. Hawk came up with a plan for us to escape.

  “He did it knowing that once it was discovered that it was him who helped, he would die a long, painful death. He didn’t care. Hawk said it was time to be free. He would go through the door called death, and we would go to someplace other than Abbadon’s castle.

  “We made him a promise. We would come for Abbadon one day. He told us he knew we would. He had already seen it. That night we escaped. It took us many months, but we made our way across the country, to Darius’ Castle.

  “The King took us in without question. And that is why we have to complete this mission. We will stop Abbadon. Hawk said we would. But only if we go.”

  Abbadon Sixteen

  A long silence fell over the garden. All that we could hear was the singing of the birds, and the water tumbling over the miniature waterfall on the other side of the atrium.

  Niko kept his arm around his sister, and they waited. None of us moved. I was contemplating the horror of what we just heard and had no idea what to say, or do, to make it better, or at least how to comfort Aki. I never thought I would need to comfort her. She was always so strong and sure.

  She and Niko were the ones who taught us how to be fighters. Now I understood why, and how much it had cost them to learn what they knew.

  The Priscillas had been quiet, Pris and Cil on my shoulders and La on Zeid’s. Without saying anything, the three of them flew over to Aki and landed in her hair. Ever so gently they started to run their fingers through her long, pale white hair while whispering something that none of us could hear.

  As they combed and whispered, I thought I heard a little melody and I realized that they were singing. Niko was staring at them as Aki closed her eyes and let the tears run down her cheeks.

  Still, no one spoke. The Priscillas sang louder. I didn’t know the song, but obviously, Niko and Aki did. Niko had turned almost as white as his sister. Finally, he whispered in a hoarse voice, “Where did you learn that song?”

  It was Sarah who answered him as the Priscillas continued to comb and sing. We could see Niko’s color return, and the grip on his sister’s hand loosen.

  “They learned it where you did, Niko.”

  “But I don’t remember learning it. Only the song feels so familiar, as if someone used to sing it to me.”

  Because I had unconsciously unfocused my eyes so that I was close to seeing the world in 4D, I saw the little blue light leave Sarah and hover over Niko.

  He stopped breathing for a moment, and when his breath came rushing out the words came out too: “Our mother used to sing it to us.”

  ********

  The Priscillas moved to Aki’s and Niko’s shoulders, and waited, as did the rest of us. Finally, I realized that everyone was waiting for me, because wasn’t I always the one with the questions?

  “Your mother? Where is your mother? Was she a slave in Abbadon’s Castle too? Is she still alive? What do you remember? How long has it been since you have seen her?

  “Sorry, I know that is a long list of questions, but I thought I would get it all out into the open so that you wouldn’t have me interrupting you over and over again.”

  “You have an interesting way of being courageous, little one,” Aki said, smiling at me. The Priscillas had brought her back to herself, and she looked even more beautiful than before if that was at all possible. Sometimes I didn’t resent being called little one, and this was one of those times.

  “How could you call me courageous? You are the ones who have endured hardships. I only ask questions and fall over things.”

  Aki laughed. “It takes courage to ask questions, too. So yes, you deserve an answer. Niko remembers more than I do though. I was very young when Abbadon’s Raiders took us.”

  I drew in my breath. I had an idea that was what happened, but to hear it made it real.

  Niko looked at Aki, who nodded at him, and he took up the story.

  “No, our mother was not a slave in the Castle. We don’t know about our father. Perhaps our mother would have told us one day, but she never had a chance. We were both taken from our village when we were very young and have never seen our mother since.

  “She may have died that day. It is something that we may never know. Abbadon’s raiders stormed the village and took only the children. Abbadon liked training the young.

  “Once we became slaves, he did his best to beat every bit of our memories of our past lives out of us. But that song brought back some of those memories.

  “Which means that we get to ask you, Pris, where the three of you learned it.”

  It was Cil who answered. “A long time ago we visited your village and heard the women singing that song. Long before you and your mother.”

  I burst out without thinking, “Great Zut, how old are you three anyway?”

  All
three laughed, but it was Pris who said, “From the beginning.”

  “What beginning?”

  “The beginning of the story!”

  “What story?” I asked through clenched teeth. Couldn’t they give more than a brief answer?

  “I know what story they mean,” Aki said. “And so do you.”

  “The two bored brothers on the space ship? Are you serious? That wasn’t a made up story?”

  Four people shook their heads, no. Leif, Sarah, Aki, and Niko.

  “So those brothers could be responsible for this mess?”

  “It’s possible,” Niko said, back in control. “But now that you have heard what we had to tell you, it seems obvious where and when we are going back to in time.”

  “Your village? Before your capture?” I hazarded a guess.

  Finally, I understood why Aki and Niko had to tell us their secret. They knew Abbadon. They knew his Castle.

  I had one last question.

  “Didn’t Abbadon recognize you when he was here? Or why didn’t you recognize him?”

  “We never saw him. We should have, and that’s a failing on our part. And if he saw us, he would never have recognized us either,” Niko said, as he let go of the look he was holding and became his true self.

  Abbadon Seventeen

  I couldn’t help it. I gasped, and my mouth fell open. Aki just looked at all of us and started laughing, and became herself, too. Aki and Niko didn’t stay in their true forms for long. They waited for a beat and then shifted back. I suppose that was a good idea because otherwise, we might not have been able to keep our attention on our planning.

  “Well.” Professor Link said. “That was interesting.”

  His timing was perfect. Everyone began to laugh, including Niko and Aki. We laughed so hard tears ran down our faces. It was a relief to let it all go, especially after hearing the horror story that had been Niko and Aki’s life.

  Trying to be serious, Link said, “I see why he didn’t know you …” and we all started laughing again.

  Finally, we ran out of steam and turned our attention back to Professor Link. If he was upset that Aki wasn’t exactly the woman he thought she was, to his credit he didn’t show it.

  I wasn’t so sure I would be so calm if Zeid turned out to look like another being. For a brief moment, I had the horrible thought that perhaps that was possible and I turned to look at him.

  He must have known what I was thinking and that I was going to turn because he was looking directly at me making a silly face. “Stop it,” I hissed, even though I wanted to start laughing again.

  Luckily no one was looking except the Priscillas, and of course, they joined in on the tease and made a few silly faces of their own, making sure that their backs were to the rest of the team so that it was only me who had to work at not laughing.

  Finally, I pulled myself together enough to hear Link say, “Now that we know the time and where to send the BIT team, there are a few other things to put into place. But I think we can work those kinks out this afternoon. Which means you will all be able to leave in the morning.”

  Sarah stood and gestured towards the other side of the atrium. “Then I think this is the perfect time for a break. It looks as if lunch is ready. I suggest we eat and then meet again back in the planning room.”

  Something had changed in that rose garden. We had heard the story of Aki and Niko, and we had seen their true form. But it wasn’t seeing them as themselves that had changed things. It was that a secret was revealed and we all felt lighter for it.

  I watched Niko and Aki walk out of the garden heading towards lunch and could feel their joy that they were no longer hiding. Maybe it was something else too. They were going home. What they would find none of us knew, but they were going to go back and take us with them.

  *******

  “Can we leave ourselves notes? Literal notes from our future self written by our present self to our past self? Or if we are in the past, we would be present then, too? Either way, can we leave ourselves notes?”

  That was me, trying to work things out by speaking them out loud.

  “Wait. It would be the other way around, wouldn’t it? We could agree where the BIT team would put messages, and then you, still here in the future present, could find them. That is if we don’t change too many things and you are all still here to find them.

  “Ziffer, this time travel stuff is confusing. Am I the only confused one?”

  Professor Link didn’t make one of his squinty faces at me when he answered, so I wasn’t sure if the questions were stupid or not.

  “No, you’re not the only one. It is confusing. But as far as we know, you could leave us messages. We could agree as to where, but it won’t do as much good as you might think. Because if nothing changes we couldn’t get your messages in the dead zone, which is where you will be traveling, without Abbadon seeing us.”

  “Well, we have an idea,” Garth said. “Anne and I could go back and forth.”

  “No,” Link said. “Much too dangerous, both for you two, and everyone else. Every trip through the time portal could change something.

  “No, we will have to trust that each team is doing their part. Those of us who stay here will have to remain constantly alert, looking for things that are changing and dealing with them as they come up.

  “As we have discussed, for us it will feel as if you have only been gone a short time. Depending on how long it takes you to stop Abbadon, it could be a few hours or a few weeks.

  “For those of you traveling in time, it will be longer. Take your time. Don’t think that you have to be done within a particular time frame to protect us. Be cautious, but also don’t be afraid to do what you need to do to stop him.”

  “What can we take with us?” I asked. “When I came through the portal between dimensions I could only bring what I was wearing. Is this true for the time-portal too? Does that include what we are carrying, like a walking stick?”

  “Or food?” Zeid added. “Or supplies? Can we bring them?”

  “We’ll prepare them. And you’ll be carrying the supplies, but we don’t know if they will end up back there with you or not,” Professor Link said.

  Suzanne stepped in, “I wish we knew more. Dimension traveling and back in time travel should be a very similar experience, but we won’t know for sure until you try it. However, you have all faced unknowns many times and figured it out as you went along. I know that every one of us trusts that you know enough to do this.

  “Even though you won’t be able to communicate with us, you will be able to communicate with each other. You know how tricky Abbadon can be. Stay alert. You’ll be fine.”

  It felt as if Suzanne was talking to confirm to herself that all would be fine. It was the first mission we had gone on without the whole team.

  I had to ask one last question of the team that was staying behind. “Do any of you remember seeing us before? Like a long time ago, when you were younger?”

  I hadn’t seen Earl standing in the doorway when I asked the question. I was surprised. It was hard to miss Earl when he came around, even when he wasn’t being Coro. This time, though, he had slipped in without anyone noticing until he laughed, sending a swirl of wind around the room.

  “Ha. I told you she would ask that question,” Earl roared.

  “Yes, little one. Some of us remember you. But if we tell you what we remember…well, I think you can see the problem.

  “All we can do is reassure you that all of you working together are wiser than Abbadon and all his minions.

  “I know you want to ask more questions, little one, but we have no more answers.”

  Leif stood, called his staff to his hand and said, “Once again, I suggest rest. Tomorrow you are leaving at sunrise on your great advent
ure.”

  With that, he and Sarah blinked out and the rest of us stood around looking confused.

  After all the talking and planning, there was nothing more to do, except do what he told us to do and show up in the morning.

  Abbadon Eighteen

  Beru walked me to my room as she often did, and we stood there trying to say something that would make it better for both of us. I had no idea how I was going to leave and be without her.

  From the moment I had stepped through the portal from the Earth dimension into Erda, she had been there. Sometimes even when I hadn’t realized she was watching over me, she was. She pinched, laughed, made faces, dragged me to training, and took care of me afterward. Beru made everything about life better. She and I were sisters.

  The only thing that was making leaving a little bit easier was thinking that what we were doing might change her world for the better. Perhaps she would find her parents again.

  But I knew I wasn’t the only one that she would be missing. Ruta would be with me and not with her. Beru and Ruta were inseparable. She thought of Ruta as her brother. They were each other’s families. Perhaps we would be able to restore his family, too. If it could be done, I would.

  “Are you going to lock me in my room tonight, Beru,” I teased. “I never did understand why you used to do that.”

  “Well, it won’t do me any good to lock you in anymore since you can unlock everything now with a flick of your wrist.”

  Beru paused and flashed a smile, “I did it that first night to tease you. I had heard you knew how to unlock doors, so I thought you would be out in a flash. When you didn’t come out, I was surprised. But I didn’t want to go back on what I had done. Then Aki told me to keep locking you in until you remembered what you already knew.”