by Jeff Sabean
Fion fought like a man possessed, with months of torture building his rage, which he now released on the skeletons in front of him. Both blades worked in harmony, batting aside attacks while countering them simultaneously. The shadows from his skin blurred his movement so any watching could hardly see anything besides flashes of blades ripping apart anything around him. Occasionally he would also reach out to grab the air surrounding him and send it as a huge push through the center of the mob of skeletons, blasting them apart and sending bones flying in every direction.
In the center next to Di’eslo, Hankish had a wide grin plastered to his face as he played his lute furiously, speeding the movements of his companions while slowing their opponents, and as his fingers worked the strings with ease, a faint blue light descended around his friends and they felt their minor injuries being healed as they fought.
Di’eslo, both enraged by the sneak attack of the king and rejuvenated at being reunited with his brother, walked beside the bard and sent blasts of healing to his friends as they needed it. When he saw the dire situation of Heishi and Kaine, he slowed his pace and focused on the two, his eyes flaring a brilliant violet hue as he launched a blast of energy their direction. Light descended from above the two, and every skeleton within a ten-foot radius was immediately turned to dust, giving them the opportunity to rush toward the rest of the group before being engaged again. They were less than a dozen feet apart now, and the shadow elf began sending waves of healing energy into the two who had been close to succumbing to their injuries.
Aki led the wedge, now close enough to see the blood and sweat on his best friend’s face. His tonfa swung with abandon, crushing bone and sending skeletal limbs flying as he fought to reach Heishi.
The wave of skeletons began to push in from the side as they pressed forward. The situation was beginning to look dire, when Zatus stepped back, his eyes flashing colors rapidly until they became a swirl of color. Toward the back of the arena, the air began to twist faster and faster until a tornado formed, sucking skeletons in and tearing them apart as it slowly worked its way toward the center of the arena. This gave the team the last push they needed to reach Heishi.
When the wedge converged on the two stranded combatants, Kaine and Heishi took up positions with the rest of the team as they turned toward Rattanda.
Tiane dropped into the center with the cleric and bard, returning his kamas to their holsters and pulling his sniper rifle from its sling on his back. He dropped to his knee, taking aim at the king, and with a pull of his trigger a blast of flame erupted in Rattanda’s left shoulder, removing that arm as well.
Howling in agony, the king dropped to his back in the sand as his arm was ripped from his body, this time with no arms left to push off the ground with. As he dropped, so did the skeletons, his concentration having been broken by the pain.
The team walked slowly toward the king, creating a circle around him and leaving Di’eslo, Fion, and Kaine in the center, towering over the pathetic heap on the ground.
“You have no honor,” Kain proclaimed loudly as he looked down at his former king. “You were fairly beaten, and you raised an army to protect you instead of conceding defeat. This elf is now the true king of Rattanda, and you must die.”
With that, he stepped back and waived his hand for Di’eslo to finish off the wretched king.
“I have no desire to be king of a distant land,” Di’eslo stated solemnly, turning to look at Kaine. “You have proved yourself to be an honorable and loyal man, and you should claim this kill and thereby the throne. Rule well.”
With that, Di’eslo and Fion turned away from the spectacle of the dying king and faced Aldith, who was as still as a statue in her box seat, clearly hoping she would be forgotten. As Kaine lifted his staff and the brothers heard the crunch of the king’s head being caved in by his former bodyguard, they walked toward Aldith, the rest of the group stepping aside to let them pass.
“You. Witch. Come down here,” Fion commanded. When she did not move immediately, he reached out and grabbed the air around her, lifting her from her seat and jerking her a few paces toward him. “I will not ask a second time.”
With that she tried to regain a piece of her dignity as she straightened her dress and walked carefully down into the arena to stand in front of the two elves.
“And what will you do to me, Fion,” she said, her voice dripping disdain as she said his name. “If you kill me, your friends will be stuck here forever.”
“We shall see, witch. We shall see.”
Chapter 18 – The Device
“I can see you are angry, but there is no need to be,” Aldith began, looking Heishi in the eye and silently pleading for mercy. “I am a scientist, and as such I was simply searching for truth. Did I get carried away? Maybe a little. But it was done with the best of intentions...”
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘the way to hell is paved with good intentions’?” interrupted Heishi, sadness replacing the anger in his eyes.
“Ok, ok, ok, I get it, I went too far,” she replied, a look of desperation replacing the haughtiness. “There is no need to KILL me for it! That dark one said he knows what the secret is to making my machine open portals to specific planes of existence, so I can send everyone back where they belong! Please...”
Her pleading faded off as she glanced at the shadow elf brothers, both gripping their weapons tightly as their eyes bored into the woman’s head.
“I’ll leave it up to the brothers Raenvree, but if you want my opinion, Di’eslo--” Heishi paused a moment until his friend looked him in the eye, “--I wouldn’t kill her. It will be easier to figure out how her machine works with her alive. But I will support your decision either way,” he added, glancing at Fion briefly before resting his gaze on Aldith again.
“She lives. For now.” Di’eslo stated, turning his eyes back to the woman. “You will take us to this portal device now, and if I detect the slightest bit of deception in you, Fion will kill you. Slowly.” As an afterthought, Di’eslo turned to Kaine, “Assuming that is acceptable to you in your kingdom?”
Kaine simply nodded, then waved his hand, indicating they should proceed.
“Right, well, I suppose I should take you to my device, then,” Aldith stated, turning and walking toward the door at the rear of the king’s box seats.
“No,” interrupted the new king. “Come to me.”
As the group clustered around Kaine, blades still pointed toward Aldith as she joined the huddle, the roof of the pyramid began to slowly close, blocking out the sun as it did. Once it closed, the stands full of fans rolled away, and the arena floor began to rise beneath them. Sand dropped away and was replaced by obsidian as the companions were lifted through the center of the pyramid, and they watched as the upper levels slid into place, creating rooms and hallways that solidified as they continued to rise.
At the peak of the structure, they stopped moving, and from every direction the floor began to piece itself together. Tables, work benches, and chairs all appeared, and in the center of the room was the device: an octagonal shape crafted of solid gold standing vertical, with a hole in the center. On the edges of the device, molded into the gold, were ancient-looking runes that glowed silver with an inner energy. The device was mounted on a pedestal, with a ramp leading up one side and a large cage had been constructed on the other.
“Some pretty nasty things have come through,” she explained as she saw Di’eslo staring at the cage. “The non-violent beings were simply put back through the portal with the promise they were being returned to their own plane of existence. The violent ones were given to Rattanda for use in the arena, which is why he allowed me to work here once you ran me out of Harmonui.”
“And what did Queen Linnie get for allowing a human to live in her precious city of ‘high elves’?” Di’eslo asked, his eyes blazing with anger and shifting between their normal crimson and the bright violet they had turned when he had blasted the skeletons in the arena.
>
“I offered her protection,” Aldith explained evasively. “She wished to keep non-elves from her city, and I offered a way to do that. She was not fully aware of the abilities of my device, as blinded by racism as she was. I fed her a line that all races besides hers had originated from other planes of existence, and if I could control the distant end of the portal, I could return them all to where they came from, bringing her people back from ‘exile’ in these other planes.
“Honestly, I have no idea how she believed that line of manure I fed her, but she heard what she wanted to hear and so she tolerated me in hopes I could rid the world of the ‘lesser races’ for her.”
“Why did you not just tell us what you were doing after we saw you in Harmonui? You wouldn’t have had to torture Fion if you had just talked to us,” Heishi explained quietly.
Aldith began to laugh hysterically at this, her eyes widening as she stared at the man.
“You can’t be serious! Dangerous men like you and your team would never just forgive and forget that I intentionally sent you through a portal to a different world, especially if you found out I knew I would never actually be able to bring you back!”
“And what about me?” Zatus asked, his expression unreadable. “If you are the one who has been opening these portals, then you knew I was not of your world. Why did you not contact me during the years I spent on your plane?”
An embarrassed look replaced the wide-eyed hysterics, and Aldith looked at her feet as she answered.
“I did not open the portal that brought you to earth,” she explained, then looked him in the eye as she continued. “The pyramids of earth have been there for centuries, and I can’t possibly be the first to discover their purpose. As a matter of fact, I came to understand the portals after researching the phenomenon surrounding electrical storms accompanied by flashes of red lightning. You must have come through one of the portals that led me to the discovery of the ancient machines that make travel between the planes of existence possible.”
“I don’t get it,” the gnome answered, drawing all eyes to him. “If these devices are required to open portals, then how was I dragged to earth without seeing this device and how was I deposited here on Kartos without ever seeing a device? I believe you are still spinning lies, and my patience is running thin.”
“I do not know what happened when you were pulled to earth from your plane, but when I opened portals from earth most of the travelers were unconscious when they arrived. My team then simply removed them from the portal room before they awoke.
“As far as being transported to Kartos, that was the first time I attempted to open a portal in that manner, and I don’t think I will ever try it again that way,” she smirked as she continued, “I rotated the portal horizontally and projected it into the air from the top of that ‘mountain’ in the theme park. If you had happened to look to the peak of the roller coaster, you would have seen a gold ring glowing there, but you were unconscious already and the rest of us were more concerned with not becoming a red spot on the ground at the time.”
“Enough talk show us how this portal works, then explain why you needed Fion,” Di’eslo interrupted, less harshly this time but not backing down in his resolve to make this woman atone for her crimes against his family.
“It is actually rather simple, good elf,” she explained as she led the group to the pedestal containing the portal device. “Once the runes were translated, they were simple to read. The runes must be activated in the proper sequence to open a portal to a specific plane of existence. I have taken extensive notes on each combination I have used, and can consistently open portals to the same planes if I so desire, which made Rattanda quite happy when I found planes with particularly nasty monsters to fight in his arena. It’s rather fascinating, really...”
“Then why are you still here?” interrupted Di’eslo, clearly not as fascinated as the human woman was by her work.
Aldith sighed and rolled her eyes before continuing slowly, her tone that of a teacher explaining a simple concept repeatedly to a small child.
“On earth I have the documentation for the order the runes were activated to open a portal to THIS world, but I don’t exactly have those notes with me here now, do I? Besides, even if I did, that would simply explain how I opened a portal to Kartos, it wouldn’t tell me the proper combination for a portal back to earth now, would it?”
She appeared to be ready to launch an exhaustive monologue on the subject, but faster than her eye could track the movement, Fion had a blade at her throat, the edge drawing a thin line of blood.
“You will not speak to us in such a matter, woman,” he explained icily. “You caused this mess, and you tortured me trying to figure out what you had done. Now, unless you want the next words to escape your lips to be your last, you will describe exactly what you believe I can do to fix your toy.”
Aldith gulped, the act drawing a bit more blood as her throat moved, and Fion backed the blade off a fraction of an inch so she could speak without slitting her own throat.
“Right. What I need from you, Master Fion,” she said quietly and subserviently, “Is your ability to see into the future. If you can show me how to do this, I believe I can see through the portal into the plane on the other side before opening it, thus predicting where the portal will open...”
“And thus, opening a portal back to earth so we can go home,” interjected Tiane, unable to hide his excitement at returning home.
“Precisely.”
“Why did you not just ask,” Di’eslo asked, a gleam in his eye. “I told you I knew how to fix your problem, but instead you and your friend Rattanda threw us back into the arena, and here we are. Brother, would you care to explain how you see the future?”
His facial expression stony, Fion reached into the extra-dimensional portal inside the small pouch at his waist, calling his orb into the palm of his hand. As he removed the orb from the pouch, the solid black surface came to life, with a cloud of red smoke swirling briefly around the shadow elf as red streaks appeared inside the black of the orb, swirling as if smoke was contained within the sphere. Fion’s eyes glowed bright crimson as he turned them toward Aldith, causing her to shrink a bit under his gaze.
“This is how I see into the future, woman. Now you know, and now I know what you truly are and what your desire is now that you have the information you seek. Get on with it, beast, for I also see how our confrontation will end...”
Chapter 19 – Aldith
Aldith stepped back from Fion with a smirk as the rest of the group looked at them in surprise.
“What do you mean, ‘what you truly are,’?” asked Heishi, hand on the hilt of his katana. “She’s human too, isn’t she?”
By way of an answer, Aldith’s body began to shift and contort as they stood watching, jaws dropping open. Her body began to pulse, with bursts of flame flashing around her each time it pulsed, forcing the group to step back from her. With each pulse she also grew, slowly at first and then faster as the bursts of flame grew larger. When she reached about fifteen feet tall, her shape began to distort. Wings burst from her back as she lifted her head toward the ceiling and screamed in delight, bright red scales appearing across her body as her face elongated into a snout with an open mouth revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.
When the transformation was complete, she turned her head to stare at the group before her, a snarl on her lips as wisps of smoke drifted from her nostrils, and they found themselves face to face with a red dragon.
“You are the red dragon from Harmonui who never appeared during the battle,” reasoned Di’eslo carefully, never taking his eyes from the dragon. “We wondered what happened to the third dragon defender of the city...”
“That was not my fight, and I was not going to risk myself for those fools,” confirmed Aldith, a small puff of flame bursting from her lips as she sneered at him.
“And here we thought you’d be bigger,” deadpanned Hankish, drawing a glare from the drago
n.
“You think you can intimidate even a young wyrm?” she bellowed, the room shaking as she flapped her wings in rage. “Now that I have the answer to the portal, I will roast you all, and after making a meal of you I will take the orb and open a portal to my own home. If you are lucky, I will not return to Kartos or Earth at the head of an army of my people to burn your worlds to the ground for the disrespect you have shown me!”
As she ranted, Aldith did not see Abugraic disappear, silently working his way around the room behind the wyrmling, but his brother did.
“Come now, lady, there’s no need to be cross with us,” Hankish stated calmly, putting on his most charming smile. “I have never known such a beautiful dragon before; maybe you and I can work something out to our mutual benefit?”
As he spoke, Hankish slipped his lute from his back and began softly strumming the strings, the smile never leaving his face as he spoke quietly to the dragon. He continued, tossing in the occasional wink to accentuate his point, and Aldith visibly calmed as he continued to praise her for her strength and the brilliance of her plan.
Suddenly, the light in the dragon’s eyes flashed, and the group could tell that the bard’s trick had failed as she inhaled deeply...
“Leave it to the bard to attempt to seduce the dragon,” laughed Aki as Aldith blew liquid fire at the group. “I suppose even roleplaying games get real life right sometimes!”
“Really? Those are your choice for last words?” Hankish laughed. “Don’t let it end this way, tell the world I said something witty,” he finished as the flames reached across the room and enveloped the companions.
But they were not burned. At the last second, the flames wrapped around a barrier of air, fully surrounding the eight of them. Fion’s eyes flashed as he strained to keep the barrier in place, the air inside heating up the longer the fires burned around them.
