by J. D. Wilde
He is charging right at me! I was so transfixed I nearly let him run me over. I don’t know how I managed to get out the away, but I do know it was not graceful by any means. The creature slams into the wall causing rocks to fall on him. I continue to lie on the ground, but I am on my stomach now. This is my chance. I struggle to pick myself up because my arms and legs shake as they try to help lift the rest of my body off the ground.
I do get up, but I’m very unsteady. Getting off a clean shot will be next to impossible. The taste of iron floods my mouth and I spit out blood before pursing my lips together. After I touch my lips, I realize the blood did not originate from my mouth. A trail of it starts at the top of my blood soaked head and ends by dripping off of my chin. My head becomes lighter, and my legs feel like jelly.
I wipe some of the blood off my brow as it has begun to drip in front of my eyes. The constant change in my vision from clear and blurry is already hard enough to deal with. Before I shoot an arrow in the overgrown pig’s general direction, I pray for a hit. The agitated roar confirms I did. Unfortunately, it brought the beast out of its daze.
I try to ready another arrow. I can normally fire off arrows one right after another without a second thought, but my body is not cooperating. My arms shake so much I cannot firmly place the arrow against the string. It takes almost all of my energy to release the second shot, and the rest of my energy to move out of the monsters way.
I am lying on the floor again only this time I do not think I can get up. I watch as the creature pulls itself up, finds me again, and runs towards me. My mind screams for my body to move, but the pain my body is experiencing is agony.
I can’t. I can’t move, and this thing is going to run straight over my body. I don’t even have enough energy to care anymore. I give my eyes the break they have been asking for since this fight started and wait for the inevitable.
Chapter 19
I’m not dead. I do not think I am anyway. Although, I guess there is a possibility, considering I have no knowledge of where I am. But I assume if I had died, I would have joined either Adira or Grace, and I also wouldn’t be self-conscious. Perfect. I have come to the conclusion I am not dead, so I just need to figure out where I am and how to get back to Adira and Grace.
I look over my body and see I am draped in clean white robes. Not a speck of blood can be found on them. I glance over my surroundings, and everything about this place is preternatural. This land is barren and gray. I do not see any life not even plants. I turn to view what is behind me, and my jaw drops.
On the left I see the world I was just in. On the right is the Otherworld where Oran and the other dragons are. “Where am I?” I whisper. I would feel much better if I had my bow and arrows, but of course, those have disappeared.
I turn back around, and the barren land has changed into stairs leading up to a floating island. I continue to look around only to see I am now on an island. Every time I change directions something in the land changes, but the stairs stay the same. I think this place wants me to go up the stairs, and I can’t really argue. I’d be arguing with rocks.
When I make it up the stairs, all of the steps disintegrate, and my heart starts to pound rapidly. Hundreds of devilins like the ones we fought on Briza and in Saphira, and a few of the bigger guys I just fought are mixed in between them. They growl, hiss, and snarl as I come into their sights. All of them are on top of high walls in rows, but none attempt to jump down and hurt me. There is only one way to go, and it is through the center of them. Because this isn’t a bad enough situation, I see my gracious host at the end of the hallway—Sethos. As much as I want to run away, I cannot. There is nowhere to go, and the last thing I want Sethos to see is I am afraid of him.
I walk towards him with my head held high. The devilins claw at me while I walk by. At first I maneuver around to avoid them, but I stop when I realize they cannot hit me. Their attacks are passing through me like I am a ghost. Knowing they cannot harm me currently makes it a little easier to walk with my shoulders upright.
After I exit the hall, I only have to face Sethos. He is so unlike his brothers. Whereas Oran, Mors, and Jenesis are long and lean, Sethos is stocky. He had four legs holding his massive dark brownish red body up. His color reminded me of dried blood, and this is further reinforced by the off scent of metal it protrudes. The cracks covering his entire body are illuminated a bright red. He truly is menacing. If I escape from this, I am going to enjoy the conversation I have with Oran where we discuss how he expected me to be able to beat his immortal brother.
Even though I am no longer passing through the crowd of devilins, they are still insisting on screeching wildly behind me. It isn’t until Sethos roars the beasts finally calm down. When Sethos is content with his subordinates, he proceeds to acknowledge me. “You have finally arrived,” he bellows maliciously with the deepest voice I have ever heard.
“You expected me?” I ask.
“Yes, of course. I knew of my brothers foolish attempts to defend their little world. A world that was so quick and willing to worship them but not me. I know of their plans to defeat me, but this—”, Sethos says, but he stops midway to chuckle. He finally composes himself and continues after a few moments, “This is more pathetic than I anticipated. You cannot even manifest in here properly!”
I’m assuming by “manifest in here properly” he means I cannot physically touch the things here, which does indeed pose a problem. I cannot win against Sethos if I cannot touch him. I remain silent trying to appear confident. Really I am thinking about all of the questions I have, but nevertheless I think it worked. He seems amused, but it does not last.
Before I can ask him one of my many questions, he roars ferociously commanding I leave, and I shoot backwards into the air. I’m falling into dark nothing, and the calm confidence I displayed when in front of Sethos is no more. I yell and flail about as I search for anything to grasp, but there is nothing to grab onto.
With a sudden jolt, I wake up and find myself back in the cave with Adira and Grace sitting next to me. Their bodies are battered and bruised. Bandages cover Adira’s left arm all the way down, and Grace has her upper chest wrapped pretty tightly. However, both of my sisters have these ridiculously large grins on their faces. Adira exclaims she is happy to see I am alive, and Grace tries to brush it off stating she knew I would make it. She cannot fool me though. I hear the relief in her voice.
I try to sit up, but the world starts spinning. Adira steadies me and carefully helps me lie back down. I have lost quite a bit of blood, and there is fairly deep gash on my head. Practically all our emergency medical supplies are gone, which isn't that surprising. I do not think Kenley anticipated our journey being this difficult.
As I shift around in an attempt to get a little more comfortable, Grace and Adira cautiously watch me. They stacked all of our bags to make a poor-man’s pillow for my head, while the rest of my body lies on the cold cave floor. Thankfully they also built a fire and placed me directly in front of it. The warmth begins to soar through my body, and slowly the bitterness of the cold is receding.
Adira says she wants to check my head and pulls out the last of our bandages. I tell her not to waste them, but she says if she doesn’t keep it clean I will get an infection. After she softly picks my head up and moves it to her lap, she begins undoing the old bandages. I watch out of the corner of my eye as she places the old crumbled bandages down next to me. Not a single bit of white remained on its surface.
When she finishes, she urges me to rest, but I stress we need to keep moving. If the devilins come back, I am nothing more than a liability. They both hastily dismiss the notion, and Grace scoffs as she tells me to let her worry about the enemy. I do not like this idea. But it is two versus one, and the one fighting is currently unable to stand up without assistance. I accept I am not going to win this one and watch the flames dance in the pit before I can no longer keep my eyes open.
Suddenly I remember the creature that attacked me
and am wide awake. I ask Adira and Grace what happened, and Grace responds they killed it before turning her back to me again to keep watch. I stare at them in disbelief with my mouth wide open and unleashing soft yet strange noises. That thing possessed much stronger dark powers than the others, and neither Grace nor Adira can utilize their aramlos to the fullest potential.
After a while, Grace becomes annoyed with my staring and tells me to stop looking surprised. I promptly respond that there is no way she can see my facial expression from where she stands, but she says she doesn’t have to see it. She can feel it.
I chuckle lightly, but my head starts to violently throb begging me to stop. When I ask Grace to elaborate and explain how exactly they killed it, she nonchalantly states it wasn’t too difficult. “We just worked like a team. A few stabs here. A few slashes there, and the thing fell,” she says matter-of-factly.
I don’t think my mouth can get any wider than it is, and once again Grace tells me from afar to stop looking so shocked. I cannot help it. The two of them, the daughters of life and death, actually worked together to accomplish something. I feel so proud like I am their mother. Sure I had to nearly die for these two to start truly working together, but it was definitely worth it.
I want to keep talking with them, but Adira instructs me to quiet down and rest. We cannot carry on unless I restore my strength. I relax again and close my eyes, but I only want to rest a couple of hours at the most.
To help soothe me, Adira starts humming a simple, yet pretty melody. It sounds familiar and reassuring. As I doze off, the last thing I hear is Grace as she faintly joins in. The final thought I have is remembering where this song is from. When I was young, the dragon brothers sang it as I fell asleep. I cannot remember the words. It has been years since they last sang it for me, but I know this is their tune.
I wake up with a slight headache, but otherwise I feel all right. I am not the only one who dozed off. Adira is leaning against a thick column with her shoulders slumped. I shift my position while I stretch out my arms and legs. Grace saw me waking up and comes over to ask me how I feel. Unlike the first time I tried to get up, Grace allows me to stand while I use her as leverage to balance myself. After a few seconds of leaning on her, my legs wake up and let me stand on my own.
“Where are we?” I ask as Grace walks over to wake Adira up.
“We’re in the center temple; see,” Grace replies as she flicks Adira’s ear to wake her up. Adira bolts up, and after realizing Grace had been the one to rudely awaken her, grabs one of Grace’s fingers and bites it. I sigh as the duo starts running around yelling at each other because it was naïve of me to think all of sudden they were going to behave perfectly; they are still themselves after all.
The center temple is exactly as Kenley said it would be. The natural magic exuding from this place is insanely powerful. I can feel all of the balancing elements- light, life, death, even darkness, and sure enough its center divulges into four separate paths to each of the individual temples. While the archway guarding the path to the darkness is the one we are closest to, the entrance is blocked by fallen columns and rocks. We walk counter-clockwise around the circular path and next one leads to Death’s area.
Grace walks up to the area and tells us to wish her luck because she does not believe this is going to be pleasant. She steps through the intricately carved stone archway and disappears. Adira and I both walk under the arch after her, but we are still in the center temple.
“I get why I cannot follow her, but why not you?” Adira asks.
I do not know with absolute certainty, but I believe it is because my strongest affinity is light. It supersedes my death affinity in this instance. Either that or Mors is blocking me, so I have to speak with Oran.
We continue walking around and arrive at my temple’s path. After Adira gives me a reassuring smile, I inhale and exhale deeply before entering my calling's archway.
When I arrive, I am shocked to see I’m in the Otherworld, but nowhere I have ever been before. The same barren landscapes encompasses the area around me, and the giant luminescent sphere of Nilohm's world illuminates it. I do not have to wonder where to go. There is only one small path cutting through the plains.
I follow it, and in a short while find myself at a grand white marble temple with thin black accents in the stone. This temple is different than the one I grew up in; it is solely dedicated to light. Its thick columns are keeping the roof from caving in as there are no walls. The entrance was designed to allow as much natural light to flow in as possible.
When I walk into the official entrance, I find the tall main doors to the temple's center. There are four designs on the door: a crow, a tree, a skull, and pure black slate, but none of them look as though they belong. I walk closer and see the doors are not only locked but sealed. There are still door handles, but it does not look possible to open at all. This is a solid stone wall, not so much a crease to show where the doors will open from.
It doesn't stop me from tugging on the handles, but no matter how hard I pull they do not budge. I guess this is a test. Kenley mentioned we might have to prove our wits and what not, but I was hoping Oran would cut his daughter a break. Guess not.
Around the temple are four marble stands with handles sticking out of them. I can turn the lever in a circle and as I do this, the designs in the door change. Well this is simple. I change all of the designs in their individual slots to the correct one that signifies light: the sun, the moon, fire, and a rooster. If this is a test, I do not see how anyone can fail. This seems like common knowledge to me, especially since the other symbols so clearly refer to the other balancing powers.
With the last symbol corrected, a bright line runs down from the top of the stone to the bottom forming two doors. It worked, and I can proceed. I nearly fall backwards when I open the door because I thought it would be much heavier.
When the door fully opens, I want to turn around and walk away. It is another cave. I feel as though I have spent half my time thus far in caves, and this is getting ridiculous. But at least this one appears straightforward because the first thing inside the cave are stairs spiraling up. Apparently the dragon brothers enjoy making people walk upstairs.
As direct as it seems, this path is actually pretty dangerous. The steps are narrow, run so steeply up high I cannot tell where they end, and there is no banister to hold onto. I start the long walk up them and notice immediately this is not going to be an easy task. My head feels as though it is about to explode. At first I think it is my wound being irritated, but I soon see this is not the case.
The stairs have disappeared. I’m lost in my memories, or my sister’s memories. I don’t know what this is or why I am experiencing it. I did not receive any warning as I usually do when a memory is about to pull me in.
Jo is fighting a whole group of devilins singlehandedly, and I rush in to assist. We dispatch them easily, but now she is intent on attacking me. I want her to talk to me, but she won’t. I evade her attacks, but she is not letting up. She vanishes into a portal using the claw armalo and pops up right in front of me pushing me back. I break out of the illusion to see I am about to fall all off the ledge!
At the last moment, I grasp onto the edge. I quickly pull myself up and sit on the stairs. Sweat is streaming down the entirety of my body, and it is impossible for me to resume normal breathing. After what feels like an eternity, I am calm again, and I begrudgingly glance up to see how much further I have to go to the top.
I blink several times to make sure I am correct, and it is true. I am already at the top. I look down too and discover the mountain of steps from before are now only five or six tiny steps. I groan. All of these tricks and games are beginning to take a serious toll on my body and mind; however, I stand again and push forward. It is not long before I hear him. Oran is calling my name, and his voice is coming through a pair of doors. I pull them open and am finally face to face with my father.
He greets me and says I have don
e well. That is good and all, but the sight of him brings my emotions to a boil. I start yelling him, accusing him of abandoning me. No hellos, no how are you, just pure rage. I shout about how many times I have nearly died trying to do this, and I’m not even close to being ready to face Sethos. Some people might have been deterred from yelling at a great immortal being, but I find it exceptionally easy. It actually feels really good to let him know how I feel about everything I have been put through.
Oran is not angry at my sudden outburst; he actually looks entertained and slightly curious. I have to know. I ask him why he looks at me the way he does despite me hurling every insult I can think of at him. He answers I have defied expectations and acted differently than either he or his brothers thought I would. And when I ask him what he means, because I thought I was acting in a way they at least thought I might try, he says it is not about what I have done. It is how I am handling it.
His explanation is brief, but he starts at the very beginning. He wants me to imagine that my sisters and I are all pieces of a single puzzle. We, my sisters and I, were designed to fit perfectly together, and at one point we did. However, as my sisters experienced the world for themselves, their shapes changed.
While in the Otherworld, I adapted to this by simply changing my own shape to allow for a seamless transition, but now my shape is changing on its own accord just as my sisters had done. Because of this, the memories that I used to be able to access like an archive are all exceptionally harder to find and recall correctly. Which basically sums up to because I am in the world myself, my own personality and thoughts are forming pushing the things I never actually experienced out.
This has led to further complications. I was created to hold this information, and meld it together. My personality, who I was supposed to be, was going to be balanced combination of all of my sisters. Part of me somewhere in my subconscious, or maybe my actual conscious, still wishes to fulfill this function, so I am beginning to experience unexpected side effects. The random visions, nightmares, the illusion on the stairs. All of it. That was me fighting who I was designed to be. There is an internal struggle going on inside of me, and I need to figure it out. I will not be able to fight with full force if I continue to doubt myself.
