by Eric Vall
“It is a very beautiful world,” Nemris responded, and somehow I could tell there was an edge of excitement to her lilting voice.
“Will you be accompanying me?” I asked as I turned to the goddess, stepped closer to her, and put my hand on her hip.
Nemris’s gentle smile turned mischievous, and she reached out to run her fingertips over my lips. “I might check in on you from time to time. But there are other things you must focus on first.”
“Things like what?” I asked.
Instead of answering, Nemris leaned forward and brushed her lips against mine one last time. The same zap of electricity from before rushed through me, but this time everything started to go dark.
“N-nemris,” I slurred as my eyes fluttered shut. “W-wha...?”
As I tumbled backward and fell into the darkness, I heard the goddess’s voice echo around me one last time before I lost consciousness.
“Help them, my love,” the goddess whispered.
“Save them.”
Chapter 2
“Help them, my love. Save them.”
The goddess’ words whispered through my mind as I slowly woke up. For a long moment, I hung in that suspended space between sleep and consciousness with half-formed, errant thoughts vying for my attention. What day was it? Did my alarm go off? Was I late for work?
Something tickled my ear, and I reached up to swat at it, only for my fingers to tangle is something soft, cool, and strand-like. I blinked my eyes open in confusion and then had to squint into the light that assaulted me. When my vision cleared, I saw a bright green canopy of leaves framed by an azure sky. Sunlight drifted through the foliage to land warm and welcoming on my face. In muddled shock, I turned my head to the side and blades of emerald grass tickled my cheeks and nose. My bleary gaze focused on a ladybug, red as a ruby, as it crawled along the dirt inches from me. Then it stopped and seemed to stare at me for a moment as if it were trying to tell me something before it spread its wings and buzzed away.
As my eyes trailed after it, feeling quickly returned to my extremities. Feet? Check. Hands? Still there. I took a deep breath and my heartbeat thundered through my chest.
Wait…
The thundering grew louder and louder, and then I realized it was the ground shaking, not just me. I jerked upright, but the movement was too fast, and my head swam, so I palmed at my brow and took hazy stock of my surroundings. I seemed to be in a meadow of some kind and surrounded by a circle of lush grass, which was in turn ringed on all sides by extremely tall, imposing pine trees.
Those were the only details I could gather before the noise that had startled me grew deafening, and I had to grab at my ears while the ground quaked violently. It sounded like gravel in a dryer mixed with the unholy screech of nails on a chalkboard, and it made me want to rip my ears off.
And then, a few moments later, something exploded out of the tree line to my left. I snapped my head around to face whatever demon had found me, but as I turned, I didn’t see a monster.
Instead, a beautiful woman sprinted across the meadow toward me. She had long, bright blue hair that whipped behind her like a waving banner as she ran. She wore a skin-tight white dress with red accents that clung to her thighs, and her racing feet were clad in thigh-high, leather boots. A curved silver sword hung from a belt wrapped around her hips, and it bounced violently against her hip as she sprinted.
As she drew closer and closer, I realized her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear her over the still deafening noise that echoed through the forest. As she kept running, she began to wave her hand wildly in front of her.
I got the idea right away. Something really big was chasing her.
“Get out of the way!” she yelled as I quickly scrambled to my feet. “Run!” She was less than thirty feet from me now, and her face was twisted in a vicious snarl.
As I turned my lower body away from the woman so that I could start sprinting, recognition slammed into my brain, and I suddenly recalled Nemris, the cosmos, and the wall of portals. I remembered looking into one and seeing this woman’s face.
Holy crap.
I was in the world called Illaria.
I would have liked a moment to let this all sink in, but there was no time. Just as the blue-haired woman reached me, something exploded out of the trees behind her, and I felt my face blanch as I caught sight of it.
The giant lizard monster that galloped across the grass toward us was easily larger than any horse I had ever seen. Gray-green scales covered its entire body, and spiny plates rose from the nape of its neck all the way down its spine to the tip of its thick, alligator-like tail. Its huge paws ate up the distance between us, each tipped with four black, gruesome looking talons. Two horns extended back from its brow, set over blazing orange eyes, and it had a mouth large enough to swallow me whole, full of black teeth.
“Hoooooly shit!” I screamed as my heart slammed against the inside of my ribs.
The blue-haired woman stopped beside me and turned on her heel to face the nightmare that raced toward us.
“Shouldn’t we be running?” I blurted. My fight-or-flight response was in overdrive, and since I literally had nothing other than the clothes on my back with which to fight with right now, flight seemed like the best and only choice.
“It is far too late for that now,” she responded without looking at me, and her voice held a strange, lilting accent. She wasn’t even winded, despite her sprint a few moments ago. “The drake will have caught your scent already. I was trying to lead it to a more advantageous battlefield, but this will have to do. There is no escape now except through victory.”
I looked down at the thin, curved blade on the woman’s hip, and then back toward the rampaging lizard. A part of me, the Mason Flynt who was an operations manager back on Earth, wanted to take a step back, turn around, and run for the trees. However, as I stood there beside a beautiful woman with certain death stampeding right toward us, I felt something deeper in me awaken. Perhaps it was the part of me who had lived lifetimes of blood and glory, I couldn’t say for sure, but whatever it was made me square my stance and face the lizard nightmare head-on. My fear gave way to a strange calm, and I lifted my chin in defiance.
I didn’t have a weapon to speak of, but I would be damned if I went down without a fight.
As soon as the lizard or the drake or whatever she had called it was within ten yards of us, the woman launched herself up into the air. She jumped at least fifteen feet straight up, and she cried something out in a strange language an instant before the world erupted into flames.
I fell backward in surprise away from the wall of heat. My skin actually prickled as I scrambled away from the raging fire.
Except, it wasn’t exactly raging.
As I watched, the blue-haired woman landed nimbly in the grass. Then, she wove her arms mesmerizingly back and forth, and the flames moved at her command. They leapt and lowered according to her movements, forming an orange wall of fire, and keeping the lizard beast at bay.
On the other side of the blaze, the drake opened its maw and let out another terrible, screeching roar. The woman didn’t even flinch. She simply raised her arms above her head, and the flames licked higher into the sky. I slowly got to my feet, but just then, the drake lunged through the wall of fire and snapped its massive jaws in the exact space the woman had been in just a mere moment before.
I didn’t even see the blue-haired woman dodge, but then a shadow fell over me, and I looked up in time to see her complete a ten-foot high backflip and land gracefully on her toes beside me.
As the two of us watched, the drake stepped slowly through the flames like a giant honey badger through a swarm of bees, and he locked his murderous eyes on us.
“Why isn’t he burning?” I asked as my heart pounded into my ribs.
“Because we are of the same element and our strengths are too evenly matched,” she growled.
Now that we stood shoulder to shoulder, I realized the woman smelled strongly like
a campfire or like the metal forges in the early morning at the renaissance festivals. It was a heady and enticing scent, and despite the giant lizard-monster in front of us, I found myself leaning into her.
The woman finally glanced at me for the first time. Her dark green eyes darted quickly over my face before they dropped to take in the rest of me. Suddenly, relief, but also anger, flashed across her sharp and exotic features.
“Why didn’t you say you were a Terra?” she snapped. “And why have you not-- oh, never mind, there is no time.”
“Terra?” I asked. “What is--”
“Here’s the plan,” she interrupted me as she turned back to the drake. “I will cause a distraction, make it even angrier at me. When it is preoccupied, you come in from the flank and use your magic to crush him.”
She gave her orders with so much confidence and authority, all I wanted to say was ‘Yes, ma’am.’
However, there was a small problem.
“Great strategy, love it,” I said carefully as the drake kept advancing out of the corner of my eye, “but I have no idea what magic you are referring to.” I waved a hand at the wall of fire that was slowly petering out behind the advancing drake. “I can’t shoot fireballs out of my hands like you can. I don’t even have a sword.”
The woman whipped her head around to scowl at me again. “If you insist on being a liar, I would recommend a pair of gloves to cover your Mage’s Mark,” she spat as she reached out, grabbed my hand, and shoved it in my face.
“What the hell are you talking ab--” I started to ask in complete bewilderment, but then another ear-piercing screech split the air before I could finish my question.
The pair of us spun to see the drake launch himself through the air toward us. Without thinking, I tried to shove the smaller woman behind me to protect her, but she simply grabbed my shoulder and vaulted over me. While still in the air, she withdrew her sword, and the metal sang as it exited its sheath. The curved blade shrieked as it collided with the drake’s talons and sparks exploded between them.
The woman bared her teeth in another snarl, and she used her momentum to spin away from the beast. The drake reared up in fury and opened its jaws as it whirled to face her. I thought it was going to roar again, but instead, a sharp, caustic stench filled the air right before the lizard spewed yellow fluid from its gaping maw.
The blue-haired woman nimbly jumped out of the fluid’s path, but I watched in horror as the stones and grass eroded and burned underneath the slimy liquid.
Great. The gigantic, murderous lizard also shot acid out of its mouth.
As I watched, the woman and the beast continued to trade blows. It would swipe and snap at her with its vicious talons and fangs, but she would dodge at the last instant, and then hack at it with her sword. The blade rebounded off its scaled hide with a clang, and the woman snarled louder after each ineffective strike.
I did my best to offer what assistance I could. As the pair continued their lethal dance, I looked around frantically for anything I could use as a weapon. Unfortunately, no gleaming swords were lying around, just a few stones about the size of my head that I doubted would do any damage to the huge, scaled beast.
As if on cue, the drake let out a horrible roar. I thought anything had to be helpful at this point, so I stooped down, heaved a heavy stone into my arms, and turned back to the fight to wait for my window of opportunity.
It came an instant later.
The woman had just slashed at the drake and danced away once again. As she spun to the side, the lizard-beast’s head followed her movement, and his eyes turned away from me.
I took a deep breath, raised the stone over my head, and threw it with all of my might. The heavy gray rock sailed through the air and easily found its mark.
The drake screeched as the stone broke over the horns on top of its head. The blow caused the lizard to stumble, and I let out an involuntary cheer.
“Hell yeah!” I cried as I punched the air. “Take that, you ugly bastard!”
The drake turned to lock its eyes on me, and I saw pure murderous rage in their orange depths.
Whoops.
The beast took a menacing step toward me, but the blue-haired woman used its distraction to begin a new barrage of blows. Metal screeched against scales and sparks flew through the air.
The battle went on for some time like that. The woman would deliver a rapid series of attacks, and then I’d distract the drake by throwing more stones or shouting. Between the pair of us, we had the drake spinning in circles. I came to realize that the massive dragon-like creature was more bulk and muscle than brains, and it didn’t seem to have the attention span to focus on more than one of us as long as the other kept hammering it with ineffective attacks.
Still, we couldn’t keep this up forever.
The next time I bent down for a stone, it didn’t even budge in my grip, and I looked down to discover I was grasping at the edge of a boulder as long as my torso and probably twice my weight. The logical part of my brain told me to move on to a smaller, easier projectile, but something on the back of my hand caught my eye.
It looked like a smudge of dirt at first, like lines of dark brown stretched across the back of my hand. I drew my head back a little to focus my eyes better, and suddenly a pattern emerged. It looked like an upside-down triangle with a horizontal line that ran across the bottom most point. It was a very deliberate symbol, and when I reached up to rub at it with my other hand, the lines did not smear.
The mark was embedded under my skin, and I had no idea how it got there.
A shiver raced down my spine, and it felt like my veins prickled as something shifted beneath my skin. I tried to latch on to the feeling, but it eluded me. Instead, a dull throb had started at the base of my spine, and an itch started in my fingers. It was like something was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t find the words.
Without fully knowing why, I stretched out my hands as far as I could to get as much contact with the boulder as possible. When each of my fingers and my palms were dug in hard against the gritty surface, I took a deep breath and heat flooded down my arms. The wave of warmth took my breath away, but I gritted my teeth and focused on the unfamiliar power. An instant later, the stone shifted, and a moment after that, it lifted completely off the ground. I wanted to gawk at the gigantic boulder that I now grasped in my fingers because it felt lighter than air, but I knew that the blue-haired woman was still fighting the drake, and time was of the essence. I stowed my amazement and turned back to the fray with my prize held high above my head.
The woman and the drake were still exchanging blows about twenty feet away, so I waited until the blue-haired maiden was clear before I inhaled sharply, took aim, and heaved the stone over my head and at my target. The boulder flew through the air as fast as a major league baseball pitch before it slammed into the drake’s side and sent it pitching sideways.
The giant lizard screeched as it crashed into the ground, and I let out a wild cheer. The blue-haired woman spun to face me, and a fierce grin overtook her face. Unfortunately, our victory was extremely short lived. A moment later, the drake stumbled back onto its feet, tottered for a moment, and shook its head. When it lifted its eyes to mine, I saw dark green blood bubbling from its jaw. It glared balefully at me, but when it tried to snarl, the noise came out more like a hacking cough.
Emboldened by my newly discovered powers, I began to wonder what else I could do. I shifted slightly on my feet, but the drake took it as an aggressive movement and launched itself to attack once again. Again, without thinking, the itch in my veins told me to drop to my haunches. The second I did, my hands slammed into the ground almost of their own free will and that warm surge of power flared through my veins again.
As I watched, the ground between the drake and I wavered strangely, almost like a mirage. The blue-haired woman had jumped out of the way the instant my hands had struck the earth, but the drake wasn’t so quick or so lucky. As it went to take its nex
t step, the ground sunk beneath it and its leg plunged beneath the surface. The drake roared in rage and tried to backpedal, but its front paws had already become engulfed in the vat of newly created quicksand that stretched between us, and it struggled to free them as it screeched in frustration.
For a moment, it looked like the drake would succumb to this new obstacle. It floundered at the edge of the sand, and it nearly tipped forward into the deadly trap. However, somehow it was able to get its back legs on solid land, and it used the thick muscle that corded beneath its scaled flank to pull itself backward.
“It looks like it is almost dead,” I gasped.
“Your attacks have weakened it,” she growled. “Let us end this now.”
Blue fire danced along the edges of her blade and, when the drake reared up with a roar, the woman slashed at its exposed underbelly. This time, the sword did not rebound off the drake’s scales. Instead, it bit deeply.
Dark green blood splattered over the dirt as the lizard struggled to remain on its feet. Its right foreleg couldn’t support its weight anymore, and it limped heavily as it snarled and screeched. It swung its massive head around in an attempt to find the woman again and, when it did, it loosened its jaws and let out an earth-shaking roar.
Then the creature flopped as its chin hit the ground, and it closed its eyes.
The following silence was deafening. My pulse beat so loudly in my ears that I kept glancing over my shoulder to make sure that other drakes hadn't arrived to the party. But nothing moved. There was only me, the blue-haired woman, and the dead lizard between us.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and immediately became lightheaded. I swayed on my feet as my adrenaline evaporated. The woman didn’t look to be faring any better. Once she saw that the drake wasn’t moving anymore, she dropped her arms to her sides. Her curved, silver sword, now stained with dark green blood, trailed its tip in the dirt. The woman took a deep, trembling breath, and exhaled sharply. She wiped at her brow with the back of her hand and left behind a faint green smudge of lizard blood.
