Realmwalker

by Jonathan Franks

  Larry, you fucking asshole. The worst part was that she kept thinking about him. At first she hated him, sneering every time she thought about him or what’d made her do. She’d held onto that anger for a few weeks, furious that he’d taken advantage of her, that men never had to deal with anything like that. But after the second time… He had been such a gentleman at lunch, and that time, he definitely took his time with her. She’d been fighting with herself all weekend. How could she keep thinking about, fantasizing about, a man who would do that to her? But he’d also done some things to her… She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She checked her watch and saw it was about time to head toward the clinic.

  She arrived at the clinic and parked, and she saw there were picketers outside. Her spirits sank a little lower. She didn’t want to have to face these judgmental assholes. The thought surfaced again, Fuck you. Your boss didn’t knock you up.

  She braced herself and got out of the car. She put her head down and walked quickly toward the door, trying to ignore the belligerent women and their signs as they screamed at her and called her a whore and a murderer. A uniformed security guard approached and met her halfway up the walk to escort her the rest of the way to the building. “Don’t worry, miss,” he said. “I’ll be here to escort you out, too, all the way to your car.”

  She murmured thanks to him and went inside. She checked in with the lady at the desk and sat in the waiting area. It felt like any other doctor appointment she’d ever had. Carly Simon was playing from the speakers and there were plenty of old magazines around. She found a Reader’s Digest from a year before and started reading. Eventually her name was called and she was taken to a room, changed into a hospital gown, had her blood pressure taken and was given some pills to help soften her cervix for the procedure.

  She was glad she brought the magazine with her because she waited in that room for a long time. Eventually, a nurse came to get her, sat her in a wheelchair, and rolled her to a scanning room. It was dark and warm in there, and the nurse had Andi lie on the table. The ultrasound technician introduced herself, but Andi didn’t catch her name. She was professional and polite. She squirted cold lubricating jelly on Andi’s stomach and started the ultrasound. It only took a moment for her to zero in on the right spot. “Would you like to see?”

  “No,” Andi said, coldly.

  The technician nodded and scanned some more, “to get a few more angles,” she said. She kept returning to one particular spot, then turned to Andi and said, “Will you excuse me for a moment?” She was out the door before Andi could answer.

  Andi propped herself up on her elbows and looked down at her bare stomach and legs, then pulled the hospital gown down to cover herself.

  A few minutes later, the technician and a doctor came into the room. “Ms. Leeds, I’m Doctor Blaire. Pleasure to meet you.” He shook Andi’s hand, a good, professional handshake. “Maryann, here, said she’d like me to have a look at something, but don’t worry.”

  He leaned in to watch the monitor as the technician returned to the spot she’d been probing. She pressed a bit harder with the wand and rotated it around a bit.

  Doctor Blaire turned back to Andi. “With your permission, Ms. Leeds, I’d like to perform an internal ultrasound.”

  “Internal?”

  “A vaginal scan, yes.”

  “Is something wrong?” Andi asked.

  “There’s an anomaly showing on the scan. I’d just like to get a better look,” Doctor Blaire said. His voice was calming, but Andi was starting to get scared. Doctor Blaire placed his hand on top of Andi’s hand, looked her in the eye, and said, “Let’s just see what we have here, okay, Andrea?”

  The first thought that flashed into Andi’s mind is that she was impressed the doctor knew her first and last names without consulting the chart. Good bedside manner. “Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky.

  The vaginal wand was uncomfortable. More cold gel, more pushing and prodding. After a few minutes, the doctor removed the ultrasound transducer and took his rubber gloves off. “Andrea, we’ve found a mass on your left ovary.”

  “A… mass? Do I have cancer? A tumor? A cancer mass?”

  “We don’t know that yet. The ultrasound can’t tell if it’s benign or not. It’s a mass. We don’t know if it’s cancer. We don’t know what it is. It could be completely benign.” He placed his hand on Andi’s hand again. “Andrea, we’ll figure out what’s going on, don’t worry about that. We can still perform the procedure, and we’ll get a biopsy at the same time. Is that okay with you?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess so.” Andi’s nose started to run and she felt a tear threatening to escape the corner of her eye.

  Doctor Blaire squeezed her hand gently and said, “Try to relax.” He smiled calmly and reassuringly at her, “Just try to relax, take deep breaths, and keep calm. After all,” he winked at her, “we’ll be watching your blood pressure.”

  Andi smiled weakly at him. “Okay.”

  An hour later, Andi was done, dressed, and paid. Doctor Blaire approached her. “Andrea, I have your GP information here. I’ll get in touch with him and his office, not ours, will follow up with you. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Andi said quietly.

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “No.”

  “Remember to stay hydrated. Drink plenty of fluids. No strenuous activity for a couple of days, and no sexual intercourse for a week. You’ll have some bleeding, like a heavy period, and cramps today, probably not tomorrow. If you’re still cramping on Thursday, call your GP.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Take care, Andrea.”

  He turned to leave and grabbed a clipboard out of the rack on the desk.

  Andi was struggling to keep calm, not panic, and not cry. She got to the door of the clinic and her stomach dropped again when she remembered that she’d have to have those protesters again. She turned around and went back to the desk. The girl there looked up at her politely.

  “The guard said he’d walk me to my car so I don’t have to face those… people.”

  “Oh, certainly. I’ll go get him.” The receptionist walked around the desk and through the door, returning a moment later with the security guard.

  “I’ll take you from here, ma’am. Don’t you worry about anything.”

  Andi’s chest huffed once in a single, weak chuckle. She wasn’t in the mood for cheer, false hope, protesters, or irony. She let the guard walk her to her car, which didn’t want to start right away but finally did, and she drove home.

  She undressed, showered, turned on the TV in her room and climbed into bed. She called in to work the next day, and spent Wednesday in bed, too, trying to convince herself it would be all right. Instead, she felt a cold lump of terror in her stomach that wouldn’t go away.

  Wednesday afternoon, her doctor called her and asked her to come and see him right away, and that he even had time late that afternoon.

  She got dressed in casual, comfortable clothes, and saw her doctor. He told her she had ovarian cancer and that it had already spread and had reached her lymph nodes, that she should get on some aggressive treatment right away, and that he was sorry that they couldn’t beat this altogether but they could prolong things as best they could. She almost felt relieved. At least the not knowing was over. She didn’t have to wonder anymore what it would be.

  She was going to die.

  chapter 22

  The journey through The Desert was easier than Ivy thought it would be. They had plenty of supplies and water and they were only traveling through The Desert for two days. They had accidentally stumbled across a dune rat’s burrow - a protective mother very vigilantly guarding her litter. They had backed away and safely changed course. They’d seen some vipers a ways off, but nothing else had bothered them by the time they reached The Loch.

  The contrast of The Loch and The Desert was less shocking than the border between The Meadows and The Rainforest. Dry, windy, golden sand du
nes gradually gave way to grassy beaches with no abrupt change in landscape, but Ivy could feel the presence of the border as they approached. When they crossed through, the air became noticeably less dry and the temperature far more comfortable. A fresh lake breeze blew at them, and they could hear The Loch lapping at the shore. Ivy had never seen a lake so big.

  They stopped overnight at the big city on the main island in The Loch. The isle of Borov was a perfectly round tropical paradise surrounded by crystal clear lake water as far as the eye could see. The city, which shared the island’s name, was a pleasant, bustling place, featuring hundreds of brilliant glass dome-shaped buildings, ranging in color and size. The sight of the glass domes glittering in the sunlight took Ivy’s breath away.

  They met Governor Lanon, who was in charge here. This meeting went much the same way as the meeting with Leev, so Ivy decided to go exploring rather than sit through another discussion by another set of frightened fairies.

  She found that the fairies here were pleasant, but hurried, mostly minding their own business and not paying any attention to her. There were many street vendors, and just from browsing a couple of their stalls, Ivy saw more kinds of fish than she’d ever seen in her life. She resisted the urge to buy any baubles or knick-knacks. She certainly didn’t want to carry them around with her for the next few weeks, and the thought of buying souvenirs made her feel slightly guilty, since their mission was so important. She knew she wasn’t out sightseeing and she didn’t want to trivialize her important journey.

  She stopped at a beachside bar and had a fruity beverage, served in a seashell. It was wonderful. She chatted with some locals, and eventually, she found a shop that offered hunting and survival gear. She bought another knife. This one was slightly shorter than Herron’s curved-bladed dagger, but wider, with a serrated back edge. The shopkeeper examined Ivy’s foreign coins carefully, but eventually he decided money was money and cashed her out. She secured the new knife to her belt on the opposite side from Herron’s dagger, then flew back to Lanon’s home: a large green dome.

  Herron and Ivy were offered the Walkers’ Quarters for the evening. The Walkers’ Quarters was a small, orange glass dome a couple blocks away from the Governor’s house. It had a shared central suite and three small bedrooms that followed the contours of the dome on the outside. The inside wall of the dome was painted in a satin white, with large spaces left unpainted like windows. The bedrooms were modestly furnished, but they had a bed, a small writing desk, and a chair. Ivy was definitely looking forward to a night sleeping in a bed, after camping. She tried to get all of the sand out of her clothes and shoes and pack, but she wasn’t successful.

  They were brought a simple but tasty dinner, and then they sat for a while in the comfortable chairs in the common room.

  “Oh!” Ivy jumped out of her chair and flew over to Herron. “I just remembered. I bought this for you.” She showed him the hunting knife, then handed it over to him.

  “You bought me a knife to replace the knife that I gave you?”

  Ivy grinned at that, realizing that she should probably have kept the new hunting knife and offered Herron his dagger back, but she felt an attachment to the wavy silver dagger now. She’d defended her life with it, killed her first wicked beast with it. “Well, yeah!”

  Herron smirked at her, then shrugged, and strapped the new blade to his belt. “All right, then. Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it!” Ivy answered, cheerfully.

  She wandered off, poking into each of the rooms. “Wow! These houses are incredible,” she said from inside the room neither of them had claimed. She flittered back into the common room. “How do they make all of these domes like this?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m sure there are some very talented shapers here. Where they get all the glass, though, I have no idea.”

  “Hmm,” Ivy absently acknowledged. I guess he doesn’t know everything, after all, she thought.

  “Hey,” said Herron. “You want to hear some music tonight? I know music is important to you and we haven’t really had much of a break. There’s a bar on the beach where there are always a lot of musicians playing.”

  “Sure!” Then she looked down at herself. “Um, all I really have are traveling clothes.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Herron smiled at her. “Besides, you look great in whatever you wear.”

  Ivy turned to look at him but he had already turned away. She raised an eyebrow at the back of his head, then shrugged to herself and they headed for the beach.

  The bar was a different place than Ivy had visited earlier, on the other side of the island. The musicians were very talented and sounded great. There were fairies dancing, some on the ground, some hovering and twirling above the open-air establishment. Ivy glanced at Herron, who shook his head, and said, “Your loss. I’m going to dance!” She flew off, joining the throng of fairies dancing through the air above the small stage where the musicians played.

  After a few hours, a few musical groups, and a few drinks, they headed back to the Walkers’ Quarters, talking and laughing about the locals they’d seen, the music, what kinds of fish might live in the immense Loch, about the close call they’d had with the dune rat.

  They arrived at their home for the night and they headed toward their rooms. “Ivy?” Herron said, stopped in the doorway to his room.

  Ivy looked back at him. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment.

  “You’re doing great.”

  Ivy’s brows raised in surprise. “Yeah?”

  Herron nodded. “Yeah. I’m glad you came with me.” Before she could say anything, he entered his room and closed the door behind him.

  Ivy stood in her doorway, looking at his closed door, wondering just what he meant.

  -

  Ivy stood at the window of the elevator car, watching the surface of The Loch get farther and farther away. Then she went to the other side of the elevator car and watched The Falls.

  They had left The Loch early that morning and took the ferry to the base of The Falls. Herron was concerned that with his shoulder still healing, the flight up to the top of The Falls might be too long, so they decided to take the elevator.

  The elevator was a chain of cars suspended from a long belt. The roof of each car was dished, and mounted on a conveyor belt along a long series of pulleys on long metal axles. On the way up, the cars were pulled upward on the outside of the falls all the way up to the top, where there was a broad landing for them to get out. Then on the way back down, the cars were within the stream of The Falls themselves, and the water from The Falls pushed each car back down, thus providing the energy for the cars on the other side of the conveyor to reach the top.

  Ivy marveled over it, very excited to see engineering on such a large scale. Herron was quiet and a little cranky, frustrated that he was using a conveyance rather than flying up himself.

  Eventually, they reached the top, and they took their belongings and flew out to the landing. Ivy turned and watched the large bracket that held the car flip over the top of the upper pulley and the roof of the elevator car enter the flow of The Falls and be pushed downward. “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Herron said. “Amazing. Come on, we have to get a ways up The River by nightfall in order to stay on schedule.”

  “Are we behind?”

  “We’re going to be if we don’t start moving.”

  Ivy frowned and followed Herron upstream. It was still quite loud here. The farther they got from The Falls, the quieter it got, but the roar of The Falls was gradually replaced with the rush of the rapids. The rapids atop The Falls were wide and frothy. Occasionally, there was a log or a tree branch in the water that gave Ivy a sense of just how fast those rapids were moving. She certainly did not want to get caught in that current.

  They flew onward for a few hours when Ivy spotted another structure. It was an enormous stone structure that went on and on. On the other side was a steep drop and... Nothing. Ivy flew higher, tryi
ng to see what was on the other side of that drop. “Wow,” she said to herself.

  Herron noticed her gaining altitude. “That’s The Dam,” he said. “The Delta is on the other side. We can go look, if you like.”

  “Well, I don’t want to interfere with our tight schedule,” she teased.

  Herron rolled his eyes and led her to the top of The Dam. She peered down over the side to The Delta far below. “It’s so tall,” she said, then immediately felt stupid for making such an obvious remark.

  “I’ve heard there used to be another waterfall like The Falls on this side of The River, but that it was dammed a long, long time ago in order to form the watershed down there.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea. But it’s been that way for a long, long time. This place is extremely old. The fairies here at The Dam do a great job at keeping everything going. It’s an odd place down there. This is one of the few places in the Realms where there is so much engineering and nature is kept firmly at bay.”

  “Wow,” Ivy said again. “Okay, I’m satisfied. Let’s get moving, I guess.”

  They flew on for a few more hours. For a while, they didn’t see anything at all. The River here was wide, shimmering, and mostly featureless. The shore on her right side was mud that led up a steep hill, topped by grass. On the left, it was a sheer rock face that leveled off a ways above them.

  “What’s up there?” Ivy asked.

  “That’s The Plateau. Not many fairies live there at all. It’s kind of a wasteland.”

  “Worse than The Desert?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow.” Stop saying that word, Ivy told herself. You sound like an idiot!