by A. L. Knorr
"Half the job?"
"It might get you to the in-between, but no further. In which case you'd be stuck there. You might even leave parts here, while other parts continue through the portal."
Jordan paled. "Parts?"
"Yes, ‘parts,’" Sol said. "As in body parts."
"My God. Why didn't you warn me-"
"I tried to," Sol snapped. He rubbed a palm up his forehead and back over his hairline. His eyes bored into her, looking nearly black in the firelight. "Your fiddling around with that locket has cost me my wings and a mountain of time. Who knows what kind of disaster this delay has caused?"
Jordan bit back a stinging retort about how important he must be when his words sank in. "Your wings?"
"I'm an Arpak," Sol said, then added, "not that I expect you to know what that is. But, basically, I'm a member of a society of winged humans called Strix. Strix is the genus, Arpak is the species. My wings don't survive portal passages to Earth, as there isn't enough magic in your world to sustain them."
"Those slashes in the back of your vest-"
Sol watched her. "Putting it together now, are you?"
"So, you had wings and they, what… vanished when you went through the portal?"
Sol nodded. "Instantly."
Jordan absorbed this. "If you had told me this was possible yesterday, I would have laughed in your face. But now…" She couldn't deny what her own senses were telling her. There was another dimension, separate from Earth, where creatures considered to be mythological, or not considered at all in her reality, were flesh and blood. Her hand drifted to her mouth as her eyes took in the man before her. "Your wings-" The horrible realization of what he had lost began to sink in. It would be akin to losing both arms. The edges of her vision blurred and for a fraction of a second, Jordan thought she saw huge feathered wings reaching out impossibly far from Sol's back. They wavered and the edges smudged like they weren't quite there. She blinked and the hallucination cleared.
"They'll start growing back now that I'm here," Sol said, catching on to what she was thinking. "But it'll take forever and I don't have that kind of time. I'll have to buy some magic from the Elves."
"Elves." Jordan repeated numbly. "Of course there are Elves here." She blinked. "I think I have to lie down." She lowered herself onto the grass and put a hand over her eyes.
Sol sat patiently, turning the spit as Jordan rested. Her body was still on the outside, but a hurricane on the inside, Jordan felt like the world was spinning out of control and she was hanging on by her fingertips. She lay there until she saw stars coming out through the break in the canopy over their heads.
"How do I get home?" Jordan meant to say, but it came out as a croak. She cleared her throat and repeated the question.
"It's a problem," Sol admitted blandly.
Jordan could hear the unspoken words after it. It wasn't his problem.
Juices oozed from the joints of the crab claw and sizzled in the fire. The smell of cooking meat began to fill the air.
Jordan sat up and looked at the giant claw, her mouth watering with anticipation now. "How could that thing smell so bad while it was raw and smell so delicious now?" Her stomach gave a long gurgling growl.
Sol gave a half-smile. "In some places, those crabs are worth a lot of coin; the babies, anyway. The adults taste like old leather."
"You've tasted an adult?" She thought again about how big they must be and wondered how he’d managed to best one.
"Once. Never again," Sol said, taking one of his small knives and hooking it under the edge of the shell to inspect the meat. He broke away part of the shell. More juices dripped from the claw and evaporated into the flames with a hissing sound.
Jordan shoved the seemingly insurmountable problem of getting home to the back of her mind for the moment. It helped that Sol was so calm. She felt a seed of hope rooting inside her; a hope that he knew how to help her and he just wasn't saying so yet. Maybe he was just giving her an opportunity to orient herself, take a breather.
Another thought struck Jordan as she watched the smoke drift from their campfire up through the leaves. "Harpies aren't attracted to fire?"
"They might be, but we're far from the feroth carcass now and there's a lot of food there. They won't go after live prey when there's a bunch of rotting meat free for the taking."
Jordan's eyes darted around at the blackness of the forest, which now felt rather close around them. "And are there other things that might be attracted to fire? Other things with fangs or giant claws?"
"Why don't you let me worry about that?" Sol suggested. He used his knife to cut away a piece of the crabmeat and skewer it through. He handed the knife to Jordan.
She took it and sniffed the offering, her mouth watering profusely. She took a bite and almost groaned at the deliciously sweet flavor. The meat melted in her mouth like hot butter. Copying Sol, she used the small throwing knife to lift away pieces of now brittle shell and remove morsels of meat. She ate until she couldn't eat any more. Crab juice glistened on her face and ran down her hands and wrists. She got up and went back to the spring to wash.
Sol took his turn at the spring when she returned and then sat by the fire. "You'd better get some sleep. I don't know where we came out, or how far we are from a town or city. We might have a lot of walking to do tomorrow." His eyes darted to her bare feet for a second before gazing into the fire.
Jordan hid the dismay rising up inside her and fought back a wave of emotion. The fact that she now had a full belly might be the only thing standing between her and tears.
Where the hell am I? Who is this man that I have no choice but to depend on? How am I going to get home? When she thought of Allan coming home to an empty house, her eyes began to tingle.
"I don't suppose there is some way to send a message to my father from here?" Jordan asked, hopefully.
Sol huffed a laugh without a smile to accompany it and shook his head. "I don't have that kind of magic."
She gave a great exhausted sigh and lay down on her side facing the fire. "What about you?"
"I'll stay awake."
"All night?"
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"I can take a shift," Jordan offered.
Sol didn't answer.
"What? Don't trust me?"
"Should I? Everything has gone wrong from the moment I met you," Sol replied.
"In case you hadn't noticed, this situation royally sucks for me, too." Jordan crooked an elbow under her head. "If you hadn't stolen the locket from me, this wouldn't have happened."
"If you hadn't been messing with it in the first place, this wouldn't have happened," Sol's voice rose a notch. "You could have killed us both."
"I didn't know the locket was some kind of turnstile into an alternate universe," Jordan snapped, propping the heel of her hand on the dirt and sitting halfway up. She glared at Sol. "Believe me, if I had known it would bring an arrogant jerk like you into my life-" Jordan stopped talking and her face went ghostly pale. "Turnstile into an alternate universe…" she whispered, her eyes losing focus on Sol's face and drifting to the fire.
Her mother had disappeared without a trace, the back door open, her car in the garage and clothes folded neatly in drawers and hanging color-coded in her closet. Jordan sat all the way up and put her fingertips to her temples. "I can't believe I'm only seeing it now."
"What, are you finished throwing insults?" Sol fed wood from the pile beside him into the flame.
"Be quiet for a second," Jordan put out a hand. "I need to think."
Sol rolled his eyes and poked at the flames.
Jordan's heart pounded hard in her chest, her mind raced through the possibility. A certainty filled her. My mother had to have disappeared into the same portal. Where else could she have gone? Jordan’s whole body was swept with goosebumps. She looked up at Sol, her eyes bright.
Sol noted the look of hope and excitement on Jordan's face and a fist of anxiety throttled his stomach. Th
at look meant she wanted something from him. He gave her a suspicious side-eye. "What?"
"Do you think everything happens for a reason?"
"Oh, boy." Sol passed a hand over his face.
"I do. I think you're supposed to help me find my mother."
Sol put out a hand against her burgeoning need, her idea. "Wait just a minute-"
"Why else would our two worlds have collided the way they did?" Jordan was talking fast now, unable to contain her excitement. "Listen, my mother disappeared a long time ago. No clues, no nothing." She sliced a hand through the air. "She was wearing the locket-"
"Slow down. This has nothing to do with-"
"You? Yes it does." Jordan rose into a crouch.
"What are you doing? Don't get up." The look on Jordan's face set his heart pounding. The last thing he needed was for her to put some kind of expectation on him. He had enough troubles of his own, now that he'd lost his wings.
"Don't you see?" Jordan crawled closer to him.
Sol cringed back as though the hope and optimism spilling out of her might burn him.
"My mother is here, in… what did you say this place was called?"
"Oriceran," Sol responded automatically, still leaning back away from her.
Jordan reached out, placing a hand on Sol's forearm and shuffled closer, now on her knees. "And now I'm here, closer to her than I've ever been. You know this place. If you weren't brought into my life to help me find my mother, then I'm a giant crab."
Sol took his arm out from under her touch. "You need to stop this, right now. I preferred it when you were hurling insults." He pointed at the earth on the other side of the fire. "Go lie down."
"But-"
"Now. I mean it. I'll even wake you up for a shift, if you want, just… please." He put a palm against her shoulder and gave her a small push, like he was afraid to touch her. "Go to sleep and stop talking like that. What do they say in English?" He made a little shooing motion with his fingers. "Fuck off."
Jordan sputtered a laugh. "That's a little harsh. Maybe reserve that one for when you’re really upset." She crawled over to her side of the fire and lay on her back. "This conversation isn't over."
Sol grunted and shot her a wary look.
Jordan chewed her inner cheek, assessing him in the firelight. It was the first time she'd seen any look of fear on his face at all. A dislocated shoulder, giant nasty crabs and terrifying harpy screams in the distance were all fine, but she talking like she needed him brought on a look of abject terror.
CHAPTER TEN
Jordan woke to a gentle shaking of her shoulder. The fire was still crackling nicely and warming her front, but her backside felt cool and damp. She sat up, yawned and rubbed her eyes, remembering again that she'd lost her glasses. She blinked up at Sol crouching over her. Dark circles ringed his eyes and his cheeks were ghostly pale.
"When should I wake you?" Jordan asked, another yawn making her jaw creak. A shiver passed through her and she turned her back to the fire to warm and dry her clothing. Her toes were cold and she wrapped her hands around them.
"I'll wake up with the sun," he said, moving back across the fire to lie down on his side.
"Okay," she rubbed her eyes again and blinked rapidly to wake herself. The forest was dark and quiet. An occasional call or chirp in the distance reminded her that she wasn't on Earth any more and would be able to place none of the creature noises here. The fire cast its light on the trunks and leaves around them, surrounding them in a flickering pocket. Jordan pulled her knees up to her stomach and wrapped her arms around her shins, shivering. She sat like that until her back was warmer and her front was cold and then she turned back to the fire to warm her hands and legs. Little spasms of shivers would course through her every so often, the confusion of cold and heat making her feel bone tired and stiff.
"Jordan," Sol said.
"You're still awake?" She looked across the fire and saw his half-closed eyes looking at her.
"How can I sleep with you moving around and shivering all night? Come sit here," he patted the ground in front of his belly. He said it matter-of-factly, without any awkwardness or subtext lacing his words.
Jordan crawled over and sat in front of his stomach where his hand had been. She sat stiff and upright, feeling awkward even though Sol clearly wasn't.
Sol watched Jordan sitting there with her back ramrod straight and his mouth twitched. Clearly not a girl who's spent many nights roughing it. He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back against his stomach, the tops of his thighs curled against her hip, encasing her in warmth.
When Jordan felt the heat of him, she relaxed, letting his bulk hold her up and his warmth seep into her. Gradually her shivering ceased and Sol drifted off to sleep.
***
"Morning," Jordan said, looking down at Sol as he cracked an eye open. A beam of light passed over her head, illuminating her messy blonde hair like a cloud of duckling fluff.
Sol grunted in response and his mouth twitched with a smile at her amusing state.
Early morning light shafted sideways through the canopy. The fire was nothing but ash and a few glowing coals, since Jordan had gone through the rest of the wood Sol had stacked.
Sol rolled over onto his back and stretched. He winced and rubbed his shoulder, then got to his feet and gave a huge yawn, his eyes watering. He looked at Jordan. Her hair lay in tangles across her shoulders, her face was pale and her eyes were puffy. Sol's eyes drifted to the shadows of bruises forming on her arms and legs. She took a real beating on that roll down the hill. He noticed she had put the locket on and the long chain disappeared under her button-up shirt, between her breasts.
Jordan crossed her arms over her chest at his appraising look. "Told you I wouldn't fall asleep. How’s your shoulder?”
Sol rotated it slowly. “A little stiff.” He gave her a small reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine.”
They took turns washing and taking sips from the spring. Sol kicked dirt over the remains of the fire and the shell from the crab claw. He glanced down at Jordan's bare feet and looked thoughtful.
"Let's go," he said and began to walk through the trees. He listened for Jordan's footfalls behind him and then waited for her to complain. She didn't.
"Do you have any idea where we are?" Jordan asked.
"I have my suspicions." Sol brushed aside leaves and branches as they walked. Jordan watched his hand flash out and pick a handful of long skinny stalks of something that looked a bit like wheat. "I won't know for sure until we get beyond this brush and I get a view from higher up." He brought the stalks in front of him and seemed to be fiddling with them.
Jordan's heart dropped and she stifled a groan. Exhaustion gnawed at her consciousness and her weary, bruised body protested every step. But she clamped her mouth shut and put one aching foot after the other. She distracted herself by mulling over the possibility that her mother was indeed alive and was here, somewhere in this foreign universe. But if that were the case, why would she not come back through the portal and come home to her family?
"Is there a way I could send a message through to my dad?" Jordan asked again, desperately, her eyes on Sol's spear quiver as it bumped and swayed against his back. "He's losing his mind right now. I can guarantee it."
"I'm sure there is," Sol said. "Magic can do a lot of things."
"Do you know how to do it?"
"Nope."
Jordan frowned. Getting information out of this guy was like pulling teeth. "Arpaks don't have magic?"
"Arpaks aren't particularly gifted with the use of magic, no. We rely on other species for what we need." Sol stopped walking and Jordan halted, too. Taking his knife from its sheath, Sol stepped through the thick foliage off their narrow trail going to a plant with thick, broad leaves. He sliced off two big leaves and brought them to Jordan. "Lift your foot." He bent over beside her.
"What are you doing?" Jordan put a hand on Sol's back to steady herself and lifted one bruised fo
ot.
Sol put the broad leaf against her sole and wrapped her foot with it like a diaper. Jordan watched as he looped a long braid made of grass around her foot, fastening the leaf into a makeshift shoe. The leaf was tough and flexible. Amazed, Jordan watched as he repeated the process for her other foot. So that's what he had been doing with the grasses he plucked.
"They won't last more than a few days," said Sol. "But vicaris broadleaf is tough as leather when you first pick it." He released her foot and Jordan looked down at her new leafy green shoes.
"Thank you." She was caught off guard by his thoughtfulness. Maybe he’s not such an asshole, after all?
"Don't thank me yet," Sol grunted, put his knife back in its sheath and kept walking. "I'm leaving you at the first town we come to. You slow me down too much."
Jordan's jaw dropped. The asshole is back. She caught up to him. "You're abandoning me here?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "But, I have no idea where I am, or how to get home!"
"I'll give you some money," Sol threw the words over his shoulder at her. "The right person will be able to help you."
"Who is ‘the right person’?" Jordan cried, raking her hair back in frustration.
"I don't know, but it's not me. I don't have the magic you need."
"You're unbeliev-" She stopped when they broke out of the copse of trees and the view before her took her breath away.
Standing on the edge of a sheer drop off, they were looking out on a valley of incredible lushness and beauty. The rock of the cliffs was a light blonde color and clusters of green foliage clung in patches along the walls. The valley between the two cliffs was wide and sprinkled with quaint little houses and huts. Roads criss-crossed the valley and switchbacks climbed up steep mountainsides. Squared off patches of terrace crops had been built wherever the angle of the land allowed for it–even high up on pitches that Jordan would have considered too steep for agriculture. Small villages, clustered here and there, found purchase high up on the mountainsides and also on the valley floor, but none of them were very big. Tiny people could be seen in the valley below, tending crops, riding horses and driving wagons. It was a pastoral paradise.
