by Oxford, Rain
“Eddieward,” Sammy corrected himself.
Mordon flicked me on the nose. “Stop laughing, this is serious. You and Sammy remember something differently than Edward and me. What worries me is that you two probably remember the truth and I hate that something altered my memories.”
“Wait, it is never that simple,” Edward said gently. “You healed some of the damage done to this world, including rewrote things that should never have happened. That is what must be happening, because no magic has been cast on me or you. So, Ishte-mor’s injury must have been a mistake in time, or related to one. Dylan, there are two things that could have caused this. One, his father’s injury was a mistake and you corrected the problem yesterday, which rewrote what happened, so we only remember what was corrected and would have happened had we never gotten the news. Or two, he was supposed to be injured, and a mistake formed sometime last night, causing us to only remember the mistake happening. Either way, you remember him being injured, and we only remember what everyone else remembers. Or his injury was just delayed.”
“I hate time. It makes my head hurt. So if he was supposed to be injured, and I heal the rest of the world…”
“Then time and space will revert to the right place and he will have been injured. A worse situation is if we are actually dealing with split realities. Many choices we make alter our future, in which we form a course, or bubble. For each choice we had, we have a bubble and live in that bubble of our choices, interacting with other bubbles at different points in time. In that sense, we live hundreds of lives that never interact except with others, depending on those choices we did or did not make.”
“Turn left.”
“Huh?” he asked.
“I wrote a paper in English class called “Turn left.” Basically, you create your universe that you live in with every choice you make, but there is an alternate you that made a different choice and is living a different life. Not just your choices, but those around you. Maybe Person A went out one night and Person B had a choice; drive drunk or take a cab. Person B chooses to drive and ends up paralyzing Person A. However, there is an alternate reality where Person B took a cab and Person A ends up living their life to its fullest. Then there are events that were meant to happen, so say Person A was meant to get paralyzed. In the reality where Person B takes a cab, Person A is shot by accident from Person C and ends up paralyzed.”
“That is right. But these alternative lives are bubbles in the universe. So far, bubbles, even ones damaged, have interacted but never collide. If these alternative memories are the result of colliding bubbles and not glitches in time, then we have a much bigger problem.”
“Then we need to heal as much as possible, as fast as possible.”
* * *
I sat with my feet in the water again. I linked myself with Duran, Earth, Malta, and Vaigda, but was careful not to connect any of the links. Duran was very eager to finish its healing and took little time. When it was fully healed, the world gently broke the link and Earth followed its lead. Then I let go of Malta and Vaigda.
Before opening my eyes or returning to reality, I let the energy swirling inside me settle. I didn’t over-exert myself this time, and it actually felt good that I had used the energy. In fact, it took longer to settle my nominal energy that hadn’t even been used.
I opened my eyes, relieved to see that I was still sitting up. Mordon sat there holding Sammy. “How does it look?” I asked.
His eyes went black. “Good. It looks like everything is how it is supposed to be.”
“And your father? Is he injured or not?”
“What are you talking about? I doubt you healed him by healing the world. We already established that I would stay with you. You need someone to burn you when you won’t wake up,” he said.
“I feel like we just had this conversation,” Edward said.
“So, Mordon’s father was injured a few days ago and everyone is looking for Mordon to return him to Mokii, and this morning, we didn’t talk about anything?” I asked.
“We talked about Divina and how you would stand by her against the other gods, but we didn’t talk about Ishte-mor.”
“What about alternate realities?”
“We did talk about those. Why are you asking what we talked about? You were there this morning.”
“Yeah, I was, but you weren’t. Not my morning. Well, you were, but you had different memories. Why did we talk about alternate realities?” I asked.
Edward paused and frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it was just something that came up.”
“Rojan says you were worried that the universal bubbles were colliding, and that our memories do not match. Something is wrong with the air, but I don’t recognize the scent. Rojan says it is the scent left when time has been changed.”
“Did your healing the world help you at all? Do you still feel sick?” Mordon asked.
“It hasn’t helped. I’m sure I’ll feel better when Earth is healed.”
Edward went over to the closest tree, sat down, and leaned against it. “I’m getting called away. You should be fine here and I’ll only be a few minutes,” he said.
I hadn’t seen Erono contact him often, but he always had a warning a minute or so ahead of time. Tiamat never gave me a warning. Or maybe she did and I was too young and inexperienced to know it. Mordon and I waited, but even after about ten minutes, Edward didn’t wake up.
“Should we head back to the house?” Mordon asked.
I sat down in front of Edward. “No. There are monsters and demons running about; we need to protect him. Something must be wrong.”
Mordon settled down for a little while before taking Sammy for a swim. I said that the water was too hot for an eighteen-month-old, but Mordon argued that Sammy wasn’t fully human. Also, Sammy was resistant to the heat after spending so much time in the papoose. I didn’t like that logic, but it appeared Sammy was completely unbothered by the heat.
The baby thought it was the most fun in the whole world. Mordon always enjoyed the naturally heated springs, but that child was born to swim. After over an hour, I told them to get out for a break. Sammy threw his first major fit. We both suffered for another hour until the baby stopped crying.
“It was my original intention to let him swim some more, but after that fit, I am doubting it,” I said to Mordon.
“He loves water. It’s unfortunate that he must live with his parents on Dios, because they seem to lack the vast amount of water that Earth and Duran have. He may never get to swim again in his life after this.”
“I can borrow him from his parents and take him swimming. So can you.”
“I think I need to spend a few years reestablishing my life. Now that I’m no longer prince, I have no idea what to do. It is so nice, though, to have the choice.”
Sammy crawled over to me and whimpered a little. I guess he thought I was easier to persuade. “Please, Dada, swim.”
“Are you gonna cry when you have to get out?” I asked. He shook his head in the most pathetic way possible, dropping it nearly to the ground as if he couldn’t bear to hold it up. We both knew he was lying, but he wanted to swim so badly and Mordon was right about Dios not having much water. “Okay.”
Mordon had to flop to his side to catch Sammy before the child dived in. Mordon would not let Sammy go when they were in the water, even when it was obvious the baby wouldn’t drown. That probably had more to do with Mordon’s fear of water than Sammy’s age.
After another half an hour, I told them to take another break. Sammy started fussing, but I figured it was probably with hunger. When Sammy’s fit only grew, I told Mordon that there was some good meat in the shed that needed to be cooked. There was some jerky already cooked, but I didn’t want Sammy to eat something that tough.
Mordon took Sammy back to the cabin to make breakfast/lunch as I stayed behind to watch over Edward. I knew something had to be wrong, but I also knew that Edward could handle whatever it was.
�
�Dylan, we need help over here.” I was running back to the cabin before Mordon finished his sentence.
I found them with the demon closing in. The demon had taken the body of one of the neighboring wizards I had only met once; an older man who bordered on dementia as he was a little more than three hundred years old. Though he normally kept to his cabin, I heard he talked to the animals and randomly shot his guns into the forest. When I heard the gunshots one day, Edward chased him off and told me the old man had gotten lost while hunting for Duran’s version of big-foot.
Mordon hid Sammy behind him, but the demon was between them and the cabin. Mordon’s clothes were wet.
“Use your fire,” I said.
“I’m trying. He hit me with something and it has Rojan all messed up. It’s confusing my fire and I don’t want to hurt Sammy.”
The demon was focused on them, so I had to distract it. Shomodii was the place to be for any weather-related attacks. Lightning was one of my strongest attacks, but I had an idea. If the creature was burning the bodies of its victim, it obviously was immune to heat, so maybe it was sensitive to cold, as Mordon was. I created my lightning as normal, but instead of nominal energy, I used Iadnah energy, with the intention of making it as close to absolute zero as possible. I had to be extremely careful to keep it away from Mordon and Sammy.
My energy poured into the sky, to become part of the lightning. A haze of clouds drew in, but they were an eerie red and yellow color. Between this and the sunlight, it looked very much like the sky was on fire. As I focused on making the energy cold, purple was added to the sky.
I wasn’t ready to strike. The energy built and grew colder than anything I had ever attempted to make it. I pushed until I couldn’t stand it anymore, but I knew it was no colder than negative three hundred Fahrenheit. For one thing, it wouldn’t react with the physical energy if it were any colder.
The demon turned to me. I was ready with my lightning… I aimed… And I pulled back.
My body was shaky like my nerves were shot and my head was pounding, so I couldn’t be a hundred percent positive my aim wasn’t off. The man possessed may still have been alive, and my lightning could kill all of us if it wasn’t properly controlled. Yeah, I could control my lightning okay, but this wasn’t normal lightning, and there was too much that could go wrong.
I made it to Mordon and Sammy before the demon could decide if I needed to be dealt with. I picked Sammy up and passed him to Mordon as I built a shield around us. Protective fields were one of the first things Edward taught me, and using my god energy to enforce it was only natural. I had never built one faster or more powerful before.
I trusted my magic to be stronger than the demon’s, but not my knowledge of how to use it. I had to protect Sammy and Mordon. I had to get them away from the demon.
Chapter 12
Edward
I thought it was Erono calling me. Too late, I realized it was not. Too late, because I had told Dylan that I would only be a minute. I stood in Janus’s forest and knew it would be days before I could get back to Dylan, but there was no breaking my contract.
Until the time that Dylan defeated the demon and sent it back to Janus, I had to do as the half-demon asked. Contracts would be the death of me for sure. Luckily, I knew Janus would not demand anything too foul of me, because he preferred to do his own dirty work.
Even though I could not see him, as he was probably in vapor form, I could feel him. “Good evening, Janus. I see you have not yet held up your part of the bargain.” It was about this time I realized the sad state Janus’s forest had become; it had a half-melted appearance to it.
“Give me time, Noquodi. It is difficult to send one of mine through the void when the void walls are crumbling faster and faster…” he said. I noticed a distinct increase in frustration in his husky whisper. “This is in fact, the reason I summoned you. A pest has become trapped here, and I want him out… You will remove him and I want never to see him again.”
“That is kind of difficult if this man dies and you will not let him into the Land of the Dead.”
“I already have one of you terrorizing my demons… you Noquodi are not supposed to be here. You are not supposed to die…”
“Who died?” I asked. What poor Guardian was killed this time?
“I do not care to know his name. He did not die, he has only become trapped… the pest…” His voice was fading too much.
“What is wrong with you? Has my brother been fighting with you?” There was no answer. “Janus, I will get this Guardian out of here, but where are you?”
“Stop speaking so loudly.” The demon finally formed in front of me, but only barely. He was translucent and had a dark look about him like a bruise. “This is not from your brother. The damage to the universe is affecting the void… This must be fixed before there is no difference between the universe and the void. You may believe the void is a horrible thing… but your realm survives only because of it.”
“You said that the void was becoming stronger.”
“A lot has happened since then… the walls themselves were surviving, but now they are not… The walls are crumbling and no one will survive it.”
“My nephew is working to stop it.”
“He is not working fast enough. Get the pest out of here. I am doing what I can to help your nephew.”
There was a sickening crack as Janus disappeared and Rasik appeared in his place. The startled man resembled Dylan more than anyone else; he appeared the same age, with medium brown hair and slightly duller green eyes.
“Hello, Kiro. What are you doing here?”
I sighed. “I have been asked to take you home. How did you even get here?”
He smiled, but it was the one he used in his shame. It was fairly irritating that he would smile when he knew he did something wrong, but I understood it was an impulse some people could not resist. “I have no idea. I was just out looking for my book, and then I was here.”
“Well, I have to figure out how to get you home, and you need to help me do so.”
“We can ask her advice,” he said.
“Whose?” I asked. He pointed behind me and I turned to see the vanishing girl who had appeared to help in the battle with the sea monster and the force in the forest. However, her spotless dress was duller and she looked slightly sickly. It wasn’t any particular feature that made her appear less healthy, it was just her overall aura. “Here to help again, are you?”
“I hope to,” she said quietly.
“How did you get here? How are you able to appear and disappear?”
“I can move through the original gates that are closed. The void used to be a peaceful place I could escape to, but it will die with everything else.”
“Dylan can stop it,” I said.
“The gods could stop it as well, but they would prefer to bicker. The young Guardian may have the ability, but he will face the choice just as they have.”
“He will make the right choice.”
She looked around the forest. “I know he will… unfortunately. I tried to warn him, but he did not understand. Come with me.” She wobbled a little as she held out her hand. The young girl was becoming weaker by using her magic to help us. This girl was constantly helping and getting closer and closer to death for it.
“You should rest,” I argued.
“I have no time to rest. You Guardians need to be taken care of like children, always running around and getting into trouble.”
“You look like a child to me,” I said.
“I may very well be. I am not sure anymore,” she said. Dylan would love her; he hated few things more than when a question was answered with a riddle. “Please hurry. Time is seeping into this realm and I must get to Dylan before he gets to Mulo.”
Rasik and I both took one of her outstretched hands. The journey out of the void was no pleasant flash; the world crumbled slowly until there was only white light, but the vertigo was atrocious. That was probably caused by time bl
eeding into the void, for time was merely a perception here.
I came aware of our surroundings and struggled to shake it off. I didn’t recognize the highly inhabited city, but I knew the gravity by heart. If that didn’t tell me I was on Earth, the impeded energy flow did.
“Why here?” I asked.
“I tried to take us to Duran, but the beast is there and I cannot go there now.”
“Dylan is fighting that demon and I can’t even be there to help?” Before she could respond, I grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the busy street-way. Every corner, crack, and crevice of this place was bustling with people, except for a little post-office entrance. Rasik followed us and we had a fair amount of privacy.
“You are in no danger; you have rejoined with your body,” she responded.
“That is beside the point. Dylan is not safe.”
“He is, though. Dylan needs only to heal the hole the beast made and it will be forced back into the void. The beast’s powers are limited when it’s in a mortal body. In order to assimilate, it has to take the child’s life.”
“Why can the gods not kill it?”
“Because the beast cannot be destroyed outside of a mortal body; it is as old as the gods.”
“Does Dylan know this?” I asked. She shook her head. “Then you must tell him!” She vanished, hopefully to share this information with Dylan. I looked around to make sure no one noticed that a person just vanished, but no one was paying us any attention.
“So, can you give me a ride home? My book is still missing,” Rasik asked.
I shook my head. “I cannot.”
“Is your magic damaged as well?” he asked me. I reached into my bag and pulled out my book. “It had been, yes, but Dylan healed Duran. My book returned to me right as Janus called me to get you. I cannot help you because Azenoth is angry with me and will not let me return. I suggest you ask him to transport you.”
He shrugged a little and focused on his sleeve cuffs. “He’s mad at me for losing my book,” he said.
I was forever being reminded that Rasik was the youngest of the Guardians, except for Dylan now. Azenoth was known for a horrible temper even more than Erono. Rasik was not the first Guardian of Kahún, but the third; the previous two had been forcefully retired. While Samorde suffered the appearance of a juvenile, Rasik actually had a lot of growing up to do.
