Realmwalker

by Jonathan Franks

  “You don’t know what it will do. You don’t know what it could do to you!”

  Herron picked up a small rock and tossed it lightly at the mirror. It passed through, sending rippled from the point of impact out to the edges.

  “Ivy,” Hope said, reaching out her hand. Ivy flew over to Hope and took her hand. “I can’t go with you. I’m too badly hurt. I need to get back to The Peak and have this checked out.”

  “No!” Ivy cried. “No, you have to come! You have to help us stop Pepper!”

  Hope shook her head and looked down at her leg. “I can’t. I have to go back. This could get much worse if I don’t have it treated.”

  “But… You…” Ivy’s eyes welled with tears.

  “Aw,” Hope said, and reached up to wipe one off of her cheek. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back. It’s okay. You’re a proper adventurer, too, you know. You two can do it.”

  “No,” Ivy said, and threw herself into Hope’s arms.

  “It’ll be okay,” Hope said. “I have faith in you.”

  “I love you,” Ivy said to Hope, then she kissed her, long and passionately. Hope’s eyes were still closed when their lips parted. Tears shone wet on her cheeks and she backed away.

  Herron stood on the stone dais, waiting for Ivy.

  Ivy continued to step backwards away from Hope until her heel bumped into the step. Then she stepped back up all three stairs, never breaking Hope’s gaze.

  Herron reached out and touched the silver surface of the mirror. His fingers entered it just like he was dipping it fingers into a pool of water. Ripples made their way to the edges. He pulled his fingers out and the surface of the mirror seemed to cling to him slightly until it sprung back into place, completely still once again. Herron flew to Hope and embraced her. He kissed her on the forehead. “Take care until we get back.” Hope nodded and Herron flew back to the Bridge.

  Ivy put her hand up and waved her fingers slightly. “Bye,” she mouthed silently. She couldn’t speak.

  Hope nodded at her and Ivy saw tears on her cheeks. Ivy turned toward the portal.

  “Ivy!” Hope called.

  Ivy turned around to face her.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Wait for me,” Ivy said. Hope nodded.

  Ivy and Herron stepped into the Bridge and vanished. An instant later, the surface of the mirror was completely still.

  The only sounds in the cave were the water trickling down the wall and Hope’s crying.

  PART THREE

  chapter 29

  When Pepper and Hish stepped through the Bridge, they were immersed in thick darkness. There was the sound of howling wind, but the air was completely still. There was a feeling of falling, then a moment of absolutely nothing.

  Pepper wondered for a moment if he was dead, then the world suddenly blinked back into place in front of him.

  They stood in a round tunnel, made of a very smooth and uniform stone. They faced a waterfall and could see daylight and blue sky though the sheet of water. Pepper looked behind him and saw an oval shaped mirror, just like the one they had come through.

  The air had a slightly foul taste to it and there was a din of loud, strange noises past the waterfall.

  “I guess we made it through,” Hish said.

  “I guess so,” Pepper said. He approached the waterfall. The water was unusually smooth and clear. He put his hand in it and felt it was cold. He looked back at Hish and then flew through the falls.

  The sunlight was dazzling and seemed to come from all directions. He shut his eyes against the glare and slowly reopened them one at a time. There were odd structures everywhere, gigantic and reflecting the sunlight at all angles. Some of the humongous objects were moving, making tremendous noises as they went by. There were gigantic creatures everywhere. They looked like giant fairies but they were wingless and oddly dressed.

  Pepper turned around and saw the waterfall was pouring over a large statue made from the same smooth stone. It was the largest construction Pepper had ever seen. He flew back through the waterfall.

  “We’re definitely not in the Realms anymore,” he said. “This is a land of giants.” He shook his head in wonder and then stood straight and regrouped his thoughts. “Better outcome if we go now, or if we wait until nightfall?”

  Hish stared blankly at the falls for a moment, then furrowed his brow in concentration and closed his eyes. After a couple of minutes, he opened his eyes. Drained, he said, “No good, boss. I guess it doesn’t work here. I didn’t get anything at all, not the slightest feeling. Maybe there’s no magic here after all.”

  Pepper held his hand flat, palm turned up, and a ball of fire flared above the surface of his hand. “Looks like there’s some.” He dismissed the fireball. “We’ll wait until dark, then let’s hope the arrow still works.”

  After the sun went down, Pepper and Hish flew through the waterfall. From the air, Pepper could see that the waterfall and the statues that he’d seen earlier were part of a giant fountain.

  “Everything in this world is so big,” Hish said. “These humans are huge, and they’ve created this world where everything suits them. How did they get so big?”

  Pepper shrugged and pointed at the top of a brick building a ways away. “Up there, that seems pretty isolated.”

  They flew to the top of the building and landed on a stone ledge. The stone here was much the same as the stone tunnel that the Bridge was in. There were lights below them, casting an orangey sort of light to the ground, and lights coming from windows from the taller buildings around them.

  “Interesting, those light sources,” Hish said. “And what is this material? It’s everywhere!” Hish looked around him, pointing out several places where he saw the stone. “And look,” Hish said, staring upward. “It’s hazy so they’re hard to see, but look. Those aren’t our stars.”

  Pepper ignored him and unwrapped the golden arrow. It gleamed in the dim light. He leaned toward the arrow and said, low and quiet, “Where is the Bridge?”

  The arrow seemed to shine with a golden reflection for an instant and then raised slightly into the air. It slowly turned and pointed back in the direction they came from.

  “Where is Hish?”

  The arrow didn’t move.

  “Where is my human?”

  The arrow didn’t move for a long moment, then it very slowly spun to point to Pepper’s left. He turned to look, but all he saw was a tremendous building.

  “Where is Hish’s human?”

  The arrow turned clockwise about a quarter of a turn.

  “Where am I?”

  The arrow didn’t move.

  He took hold of the arrow and its wrapping and flew up to the top of the building on their left. From this vantage point, he saw that there were thousands of them, some even taller than this one. There were at least as many of those huge, colored, moving objects moving about below them, following orderly patterns, stopping at the same time, starting at the same time. They had differently colored lights on each end: white in the front and red in the back. Pepper shook his head in amazement, then placed the arrow on the ground.

  “Where is the leader of this world?”

  The arrow slowly turned to point behind and to the right of Pepper. He turned in that direction, seeing that there was a point where the buildings stopped. He thought he saw a sea or a lake, but the lights made the surface difficult to see from this distance.

  “Where is my human?”

  The arrow pointed to Hish’s left again.

  “It doesn’t seem to be able to locate either of us, even though we’re right here. I don’t think it’s a matter of distance,” Pepper mused. “But it is changing direction when we ask for humans.” He looked at Hish. “Let’s try not to get separated, then. If we do, meet back at the Bridge.”

  Hish nodded.

  “The arrow used to point in three dimensions,” Pepper said. “But it’s not giving us any up or down anymore. Just the directi
on.” He frowned and creases showed in his brow. “It’ll have to do.”

  Pepper looked in the direction the arrow pointed. “This is going to take a while,” he sighed.

  -

  Emmet had stopped going to the AIDS group. He mentioned the settlement once and then he was bombarded for more information. GLC had turned away most of them because their policies weren’t worth enough. Naturally, they got up upset with Emmet, not at the company that rejected them.

  Emmet decided it was better to stay in with some good drugs than go out and put up with terrible people, so these days he only left his apartment for food, drugs, and the survivors group. Lou said that Ray forbid him from talking to Emmet, so the only people he ever saw anymore were his two dealers, the survivor group members, Doc Howard, and, on the rare occasions when she checked in or needed him to sign a form or release or something, Andrea Leeds.

  He was beginning to enjoy it this way.

  He’d lost about twenty pounds off his already twink frame and he was looking gaunt, frail, and ashen. His arms were now a mosaic of bruises and his hands and feet were swollen. The survivors group members often expressed concern for him. Some offered to bring casseroles for him. He accepted them all, and sometimes he even remembered to bring their dishes back.

  The food was good for him, he told himself. Plus the vomiting was easier when he had something to vomit, otherwise the cocktail of meds would shred his stomach. He had nearly constant diarrhea whenever he wasn’t high, so he self medicated.

  He ordered the premium cable package and bought a new TV, and tried to smoke and snort and shoot away the thoughts of everything he had wanted to accomplish in life and the reminders that he had burned bridges with just about everyone he’d ever met. He had HBO, he had casseroles, he had money, and he had drugs. He never had to think about any of any of those things again - he just couldn’t help it.

  -

  When Ivy and Herron stepped through the Bridge, they were immersed in thick darkness. There was the sound of howling wind, but the air was completely still. There was a feeling of falling, then a moment of absolutely nothing.

  Ivy tried to call out during the nothingness, but she couldn’t make herself move. She couldn’t take in any air or make any sound. She couldn’t move at all. She started to panic when suddenly, the world appeared around her.

  She and Herron were standing on a stone dais much the same as the one they had left on the other side. Behind them was an oval-shaped mirror. There were stone walls close around the dais, as though it had been sunk into the rock. Ivy looked up and saw a clear blue sky above her.

  She looked at Herron, who nodded at her. “I’m okay. How about you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, hearing herself that her voice didn’t sound fine. Her throat was hoarse and she felt like she might never be able to shed the sadness that enveloped her. “Come on, let’s get on with this so we can go home.”

  She flew up to the top of the shaft and slowly peeked out. Pieces of the world made perfect sense to her: they were in a flat, grassy field. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. Fluffy white clouds hung in the distance. But she realized how alien a place this was when she saw the towering stones all around her.

  She flew out of the hole and up to one of the stones. It was engraved. “Eugenia Tucker Fitzgerald. Born January 29, 1854,” she read aloud. “I wonder what that means. What’s Eugenia Tucker Fitzgerald mean? And why does it say ‘born’? Born like animals are born? Does that mean the same thing here?”

  “Keep reading,” Herron said after he landed beside her.

  “Died December 10, 1928. Wow. They mark where they die?”

  “There’s an awful lot of them. I don’t think they all died here. Maybe they put these markers here after they burn them?”

  In The Meadows, when a fairy dies, the other fairies from the Realm would celebrate the life of the deceased. They’d tell stories of their comrade and gather throughout the course of the day. After dark, each of the deceased fairy’s closest friends would take a lit torch and set the pyre aflame, releasing the dead fairy’s essence back into the world. Fairies’ passings were rarely marked, but every now and then, a fairy did something remarkable that others wished to remember, and a marker or monument might be erected.

  Here, there were hundreds and hundreds of them.

  “Wow,” said Ivy. “They have a lot of honored dead. This must be a special place. No wonder the Bridge led here.”

  “Different Realms have different traditions. A lot of them can do very different things with their dead. And the honored dead get all sorts of different treatment.”

  Ivy flew to the top of one of the marker stones and looked around. She gasped, “Look!”

  Herron flew beside her. His eyes widened in surprise. “Wow,” he said.

  Ivy glanced at him, then looked returned her gaze to the groups of what they presumed were humans. They looked more or less like fairies, proportionally similar, but they were giant creatures with no wings.

  They watched while the humans talked, looked at some of the markers, left humungous flowers in front of one of them, then as a group they walked to something huge and shiny, then opened doors and entered it, closing the doors behind them. It made a rumbling noise as it moved away.

  “Wow!” Ivy said, keeping her voice hushed. “What is that thing? It’s like a house that moves or something!”

  “I think it’s some sort of vehicle. It reminds me of that diving bell: a big metal structure with a door, or several doors, in this case, that these humans get into and it takes them somewhere. Incredible,” he said. His voice was full of wonder.

  “Over there,” he pointed to a tall, thin, pointed monument. “Let’s head up there and see if we can find Pepper.”

  “Okay,” said Ivy.

  They flew to the top and Ivy gazed over the grounds. “Wow, this place is enormous!”

  Herron unwrapped his golden arrow and put it at his feet. “Show me Pepper.”

  The arrow didn’t move. Herron tilted his head at it, curious.

  “Maybe they don’t work here,” Ivy said. “The Oracle said that might happen.”

  “Show me Ivy,” Herron said. The arrow still didn’t move.

  “Show me the Bridge.” The arrow spun around to point back in the direction they’d come from. “I guess it does work, a little bit anyway.”

  “How will we find each other if we get lost?” Ivy asked.

  “Try not to get lost.”

  “Very funny,” Ivy said.

  “Show me Pepper’s human,” Herron said. The arrow swiveled and pointed away from them. They both turned to look where it was pointing.

  In the direction of the arrow, there was another group of humans, this one much larger. Ivy quickly counted about thirty of them, all dressed in somber, black clothes. They stood around a large, ornate, rectangular, wooden box on a stand. Each of them was placing flowers on top.

  “We need to get a closer look at that!” Ivy said. “Come on!”

  Herron looked like he was going to object, but then nodded and they flew closer, staying out of sight.

  There was a man at one of the narrow ends of the box and he was reading from a book. Ivy couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. She flew to another hiding spot, closer to the gathering.

  “And so we honor Carol Anne Ford Gates. Her husband Robert,” the man gestured to another man who looked like he was struggling not to cry, “and her daughter Emily,” he gestured to a small human, with odd, soft, round features, slightly out of proportion to the rest of the humans around. Ivy stared hard at Emily, trying to figure out why she was different from the other humans.

  Suddenly, Emily raised her eyes and looked right at Ivy. Their eyes locked for a long time. Ivy wanted to back away and hide but she was frozen in terror. I’ve been seen! I’ve been seen! I’ve been seen! The thought repeated itself in her mind.

  Then Emily cocked her head at the fairy and smiled. Emily’s eyes lit up like
the stars in the sky when she smiled, then she looked to the side, across the box from her, at another human, a female, also dressed in black. Ivy looked over at this human and almost fell off the statue she was perching on.

  “Wow,” said Herron.

  “Skies above,” Ivy swore.

  The human Ivy and Herron were staring at looked exactly like her.

  chapter 30

  Ivy and Herron backed away slightly, hiding from sight. Herron placed the arrow on the ground. “Show me Ivy’s human,” he whispered.

  The arrow instantly snapped to point straight at Ivy’s giant twin.

  “That’s my human?” Ivy asked.

  “How could she not be? She looks exactly like you!”

  “Well,” Ivy looked down at her chest, “not quite exactly. She seems a little, er, smaller.” She hiked up her chest slightly to demonstrate, then blushed. “Even though she’s, you know, much much bigger. Her hair is different, too.”

  “A little shorter,” Herron said, “but it’s exactly the same color, the same texture, the same little wave that falls above your left eye.”

  Ivy thought about glancing at Herron after that, but she couldn’t take her eyes off her human.

  She watched in a stupor as the man with the book talked for a while longer, and then most of the humans turned around to leave. Emily, the short human, walked over to Ivy’s twin, tugged on her arm and said something urgent to her.

  “She’s coming this way!” Herron said.

  “I know,” Ivy said. “I’m staying right here.”

  “You can’t let her see you!”

  “She already sees me.”

  Emily was pointing up at the monument where Ivy and Herron were hiding, and Ivy’s twin had clearly seen her. The human’s jaw hung open in shock and her eyes were wide. Emily led the human by the hand over to the monument.

  “Genny, it’s your very own fairy!” Emily said, her high voice squeaking in delight.

  Ivy and Gen stared at each other.

  Robert called to Emily.