Chapter Twenty Six
Armor for the Shadow Assassins was given with pride. The Kkyathi showed them how to wear the armor and how to move in it. The natives of Moonlight Hills definitely weren't used to the heavy bulk weighing them down. The most armor they had ever worn had consisted of a Kevlar vest, if that counted. That was in the First Realm, though, not the Second. A bullet proof vest would definitely come in handy here, but it wasn't as though they could just head to a store and pick one up. They made do with the armor that was given to them, fitting it over their clothes and adjusting to the weight.
Dante approached them, a strange woman at her side. The woman had long blonde hair and muddy brown eyes. Her outfit was strange, definitely out of place even in this strange land. She wore light clothing in bright colors. Gold and jewels adorned her body, in her ears and around her throat and wrists. She looked like a walking jewelry store, but she held herself with the grace of a dancer.
“This is Gemma,” Dante said, introducing her companion. “She has the power to open a portal back to the First Realm, given the right medium.”
Evangeline's twin hesitated for a moment, then grasped the amethyst around her neck. “In this case, this is the medium. It belonged to Dirk, and a mage before him. They're rare, called portal stones. They have enough magical energy in them to aid the process of opening a portal.”
Excited, the Shadow Assassins gathered around the two. Gemma smiled at them, saying, “Stones have extraordinary power. They can better channel my magic. With portal stones, that makes it even easier to travel between realms.”
Dante hesitated again, then slowly slid the golden chain up off of her and handed it to Gemma. “She will have to follow you to the First Realm, so she can open the portal once again, when you want to return to us.”
They nodded in agreement. As Gemma announced that she needed a large space to work with, they found a spot to accommodate her needs. She then turned to the Assassins and asked one of them to help her. Evangeline stepped forward and Gemma joined hands with her, the amethyst pendant in between their palms.
“Picture where you want to go,” Gemma instructed. “Not just the location on a map, but every detail you can think of. Sights, sounds, smells. The people who live there. The more detail you can give me, the more accurately the portal's end location will be placed.”
Evangeline closed her eyes and did just that; she imagined Fyrn Manor in her mind, taking herself on a tour of its hallways and many rooms. She could almost smell the small indoor garden Kaydee had in one room, and hear the humming of electronic equipment from Marco and Kaleb's entertainment room. Most of all, she saw Dr. Fyrn and heard his voice in her mind, speaking of past missions and expectations. Her heart longed to see him.
While she was thinking of this, Gemma's eyes were also closed in concentration. The necklace they held warmed not only from their touch but the magical energy gathering between them. Evangeline began fidgeting as the stone and the metal it sat in grew hotter and hotter, until she couldn't hold it properly. Gemma told her to let the stone go. With her eyes closed, Evangeline didn't see the gem hold itself up in the air, instead of falling. As they rejoined hands again, the gem hung in the air between them, the chain floating.
Around them, there was a small murmur as the portal began to grow from the ground up. Like the last time the Shadow Assassins had seen it, it grew as a doorway of branches and leaves, lighting itself up as the portal formed.
“Go on, step through the portal,” Gemma said, opening her eyes and glancing at the other Assassins. “I'll be right behind you!”
The other Assassins approached, nervously. Their last encounter with the portal was still fresh in their minds, but they approached anyway. Kaleb went through the portal first, then Kaydee and Marco. Evangeline glanced at Gemma, who nodded at her. That was when she approached and stepped through the glowing doorway of light.
The trip through the portal wasn't as nearly as chaotic as the last one had been. Instead of tumbling head over heel through a blank white void, this one had a calmer feeling. They were still falling through a white void, but there was no sense of panic this time. It was as though they were...drifting, calmly, through the expanse.
That was, until they emerged from the other side.
The Shadow Assassins tumbled into Fyrn Manor in the same room where they had first spoken to Dirk in. As they spilled out, there was a shout of alarm from an unfamiliar woman who dropped the delicate cup she was holding. It shattered on the marble ground and hot tea spilled everywhere. The woman paid the mess no mind, instead, staring at the Shadow Assassins as if they were a demon about to attack.
“Who are you?” she yelled as she reached into the pocket of her blazer. She pulled a gun out with shaking hands. She struggled with releasing the safety and pointing the weapon at them, clearly not used to holding such a weapon on her. Despite that, she still held it up, as if she were ready to fire at them.
“Where's Dr. Fyrn?” Kaleb asked her calmly, as to not alarm her further.
“What do you want with Dr. Fyrn?” the armed, curly-haired woman asked. Brown curls of hair got in her face from the speed of her movements and she angrily batted the tight curls away. “Who are you?”
“That will do, May,” came Dr. Fyrn's voice from the doorway. He entered the room quickly, staring at his team as though he didn't believe they were standing there.
“Doc!” Marco called out, beyond relieved to see him.
The doctor held his hands out to his team in a gesture of welcome. “Are you all okay? Where have you been?”
“We're fine,” Kaleb said calmly. He gestured to the curly-haired woman who still had a weapon trained on them. “Who is this?”
Dr. Fyrn introduced May as his temporary assistant. He apologized for her gun, explaining that there had been threat of robberies in the area and he wanted all of his employees armed at all times, even temporary ones like her.
“Why do you need an assistant so soon?” Kaleb asked. “We've only been gone for a few days.”
His statement caused Dr. Fyrn and May to stare at him, alarmed.
“You've been gone for two weeks,” Dr. Fyrn said, slowly.
“Two weeks?” Evangeline asked, incredulously. “Are you sure? We've only counted a few days and nights' worth of time passing. How could it be two weeks?”
“Time must move differently in the Second Realm,” Gemma spoke up, startling Dr. Fyrn. He stared at her, but before he could ask her who she was, she continued, “I have heard stories of differing time passages from travelers who frequently pass through the First and Second Realms, but have never experienced it for myself.”
Dr. Fyrn nodded. “I've kept track of every day you had been gone, my precious team. You were supposed to return quickly, right? You didn't come back as expected. I've been worried.”
“When we were attacked, whatever it was separated us,” Kaleb explained to him. “None of us landed with Dirk, but we all eventually found him...and each other.”
“Speaking of Dirk, where is he?” the doctor asked.
It was the wrong thing to ask. At the question, the four glanced at each other uncomfortably. It was Kaydee who finally spoke up.
“He's dead, doctor.”
The doctor glanced at his team, feeling the stress and sadness come off of their bodies as if they had physical form. “What happened to all of you in the Second Realm? I don't think you've ever been so quiet before.”
“Take a seat, Doc,” Marco said with a heavy sigh. “It's a long story.”
Dr. Fyrn let loose a heavy sigh after his team had filled him in on their adventures in the Second Realm. Exhausted, as if he had just experienced all of that himself, he asked them, “What are you going to do now?”
“We have to go back,” Kaleb said. “They're waiting on us.”
“We're so sorry, Doctor.” Kaydee added.
Dr. Fyrn glanced around at each of his team, taking in their
foreign, antiquated armor and battle worn faces. To the Assassins, only mere days had passed, when in this realm, they had been separated for two weeks. Whatever the real time frame was, his team looked as though they had aged years, not in appearance, but in how they carried themselves. They might have been young, around the age of the typical college student now, but no typical college student did their line of work, especially not now, with what they had been through.
After a moment's silence, he shook his head. “The whole concept of the Shadow Assassins was built around the four of you. Policing Midnight Manor and all of that. But this...this is above you. It's above all of us. You've already done so much good for the people over in the Second Realm. To try and stop you now wouldn't be right. Go, and change the history of the Second Realm. I'll be fine here. The Assassins will continue here if I can find more gifted souls like you, but I want the original Shadow Assassins to change the world.”
After those hefty words had been spoken, each of the Assassins thanked him. Kaydee and Evangeline gladly hugged the doctor, but the two men gave him handshakes instead. The doctor had just given them permission to leave everything they were familiar with and go back to the land of supernatural ability and creatures. His eyes were sad, but he still smiled with his team, especially as Marco cracked a joke about replacing them. The unsaid farewell between the doctor and his team weighed heavy on all of them, but they still tried to smile through it.
In fear of losing his team once and for all, Dr. Fyrn insisted on taking pictures of them before they left. He showed Gemma how to use the digital camera he held. The mage from the Second Realm seemed utterly baffled at how the magic picture box worked, as she called it, but she still managed to take several decent photos of the doctor and his team.
Amused by her fascination, the team asked the doctor for permission to raid the weapon room. Dr. Fyrn naturally agreed. The Shadow Assassins led the way to the room that held their weapons. It was a relief coming back to something so familiar, something they had been in dozens of times, but the edge of sadness kept them moving. They passed over the guns and automated weapons that they knew would never work in the Second Realm, but took a few more knives and daggers. The weapons went into backpacks that hung from hooks along the walls. After debating for a moment on what would happen if they brought more weapons, they decided to take a chance and lifted a few compound hunting bows and crossbows from their resting places as well. The Oraldine's bows were the most advanced long-range weapons available, but they wanted something that would give them a better advantage in the battlefield.
“Bringing technology like that is dangerous,” Gemma said as she watched them. “In Moonriver's territory, it would be considered contraband.”
“If there was a Moonriver, still,” Marco said, not too gently. “No offense, but I think most rules are off in times of war.”
The mage backed off after that and let them finish packing, uninterrupted. Not wanting to empty the doctor's complete weapon's supply, they only took two backpacks, one full of sharp steel, the other full of arrows to match the bows and crossbows. The bows and crossbows were carried by the two male Assassins.
They made their way back to the room they had been in. Dr. Fyrn saw their arms full of weapons and advised them, as he always did when they left for a mission, to be careful.
“Come back as soon as possible,” he added, hesitating slightly. “Unless...you would be interested in doing a small research project for me?”
“You're thinking of a research project now, of all times?” Evangeline asked him.
He couldn't help but chuckle. “Always thinking of a project, Evangeline. I can't cross over to the Second Realm like you can, thus, I can't do it myself.”
“What do you want us to do?” Kaydee asked, curious.
“Record everything you can about the Second Realm. People you meet, places you go. Maybe even maps, if you can draw them. Almost nothing is known about the Second Realm, unless you live there. I'd like to pass the work of the Shadow Assassins on to a new leader one day and I want him to be up to speed on what's happened with you. Plus, we can learn a lot from these tribes you speak of. They don't rely on technology like we do. It would be interesting to observe from an outside perspective.”
“If they wouldn't mind being studied like lab rats,” Marco tacked on.
“Yes, of course,” the doctor said, although it was clear that he was more into the research more than the permission of whom he was researching. He got up and left the room for a moment. When he came back, he held a tiny leather-bound journal and a pen out to Kaydee.
“Just in case you want to record anything,” he said, winking at her.
She smiled and added it to one of the backpacks.
“We should go back before the time gap becomes too large,” Gemma pointed out.
The Assassins hesitated before they agreed with her. They hugged the doctor again in a final farewell. Dr. Fyrn made them promise to come back alive.
“We promise,” Evangeline and Kaydee said together.
“Stay safe,” he said, smiling despite the sadness in his gaze.
To return to the Second Realm, Gemma didn't need Evangeline's assistance like she had before. With the location of where she was going in mind, she opened the portal once more. It looked so bizarre, rising up in the middle of a marbled floor inside of Fyrn manor.
Before they could step through the portal, something extra entered the room. No one could see it at first, but they could feel it. A dark, evil presence had entered the room, ominously familiar. With horror, the Assassins each remembered the evil presence as the one who had sabotaged the portal before.
“Ancient, dark magic!” Gemma cried, as a gust of wind swirls in through the room from the portal.
“What is it?” Kaydee asked, voice high over the wind.
“Ancient evil. Something like this is usually extinct by now – nothing this strong is supposed to exist on Aurialis, except...” Gemma trailed off for a moment, then gasped. “There's no possible way.”
“What?”
“Go, now!” the mage yelled. “No time to explain, run!”
The Assassins glanced at Dr. Fyrn in a farewell, then ran for the portal. As they approached the white light, black tendrils rose up from the floor, an evil black ooze. Like some kind of obscene octopus's tentacles, they reached up and stretched for the Assassins as they made for the portal. This time, they wasted no time in going through the portal. There was no time for slow, thoughtful goodbyes with that black ooze behind them.
Gemma followed right behind them, but she wasn't quite fast enough. The tendrils lashed out at her, catching her across the back as though a whip had been cracked. She cried out but she was already through the portal. As the portal disappeared behind her, she felt anger scorch her as though it had physical heat...and then she was gone into the white void once more.
Chapter Twenty Seven
The portal dumped the Shadow Assassins and Gemma in precisely the same spot as when Gemma first opened the portal. As they tumbled out in a jumbled, tangled mess of limbs and protests, there was commotion from the elves and werecats around them. One girl gave a squeal when she saw the wound across Gemma’s back.
“What happened?” she asked in a high, panicked voice.
“Ancient evil,” Gemma gasped, her elegant face wracked with pain. “It attacked us as we left.”
A couple of elf warriors caught sight of the wound, the ugly burn across her back and the way the ends of the burn were turning an odd, mottled gray color. They murmur words to each other in their native tongue, a conversation clearly meant to be private.
“What attacked you?” the same girl asked.
“I don’t know,” Gemma replied. “But I’ve never felt anything so evil before!”
“It sounds like Alincaadae,” one of the two soft-spoken elves said. When he only received confused looks, he clarified with, “The Ancient One. It’s a legend that’s been passed down for generations.”
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Evangeline straightened herself and glanced at him. “What is the Ancient One?”
He glanced at her. “The Ancient One is a creature of ancient evil. Before the Second Realm was created, she was naught but a regular mage. As people were killed for religious persecution, her lover was executed. In her grief, she sought a way to avenge her fallen lover and others who had been unjustly killed.”
The second elf spoke up at this point. “It is said that she sold her soul and her humanity to a demon who began bending her ear towards his evil intentions. He turned her into this dark and twisted being and in turn fed off of her hatred.”
“A demon?” Evangeline asked. She felt a small knot forming in her stomach.
“Pure demons in the Underworld depend on negative human emotion to nourish what they call their souls.” At this, the elf made a face, as if he didn’t believe in such a notion, demons having souls. “This demon was powerful enough to take on a human form and convince her to avenge her fallen lover. She exchanged her soul for unnatural powers, powers that were more than anything imaginable.”
“Liliana was sealed away,” said a new voice. They glanced up and saw Prince Erik nearby. “That’s who you’re talking about, right? The Dark Witch Liliana. I’ve read about her back home.”
“It is a bad omen to address the ancient one by name, as though she were a friend!” the first elf hissed at him.
The prince looked alarmed at the sudden hostility. “You misunderstand me; I wasn’t trying to address her as such. When I was a child, I learned of her through bed time stories. I even have a book that describes how she was sealed away.”
The first elf scoffed at him, pushing beaded and feathered gold hair away from his aged face. “Humans speak of her capture arrogantly, but we elves know better. We know of her black magic and the evil tendrils of dark sorcery that do her bidding for her. Do you see this? This is what she does! That means she is not completely sealed away!”
Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy) Page 22
