by Philip Blood
“But…” she began.
“Did you not just swear to support my decisions?” I interrupted.
She shut her mouth.
“Good,” I replied, “Hydan, are you ready?”
“Lay on, Ronald McDonald, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! enough!’”
“MacDuff, not McDonald,” I corrected, and then said to Myrka, “Since this is a Tarvos portal, why don’t you lead the way through to Abal?”
I wanted her to lead because I didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do next, and unless Hydan was doing his illusion thing, I didn’t want to have to ask him in her presence.
I watched as she stepped into the portal, glanced at the glyph markings in the doorjamb, and then touched the seated figure with her hand. She just winked out, leaving a brief afterimage of a black space which was the shape of her body, but that soon faded.
Then I said to Hydan, “How the hell do I use this thing? I didn’t want to ask with Myrka here.”
“I see. Well, in the future if you want a private chat with me, just use the word ‘geese’ and I’ll try to arrange for a private talk with you. As for the portal, just look at this glyph,” he said, pointing to one of the markings in the doorjamb, “And touch the figure of Arawn.”
So I did that, and gritted my teeth, ready for anything, but nothing happened.
Hydan laughed, and then said, “You have to concentrate so you can power the glyph!”
“Concentrate, on what?”
“On transporting to Abal!”
I felt ridiculous, and a little like Dorothy chanting, ‘There is no place like home.’ But I thought about going to Abal, thought hard, and touched the glyph.
Chapter Five
At last the sun is shining,
The clouds of blue roll by
With flames from the dragon of darkness,
the sunlight blinds his eyes.
Led Zeppelin
Arriving in Abal was not like arriving from Five Point travel; there was no spinning or blurred vision, nor any disorientation, it was more like fading out, and fading in on a new scene after some unknown time had passed. My vision went dark, almost like I was passing out, but I was still conscious. I could hear whispers in the dark, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. When my vision finally faded in again I found myself looking at a vast underground cavern, though I was standing on top of a pyramid shaped structure, with a square flat top. In the center was a single stone arch, with glyph markings and another relief carving of Arawn, the Archimage of House Tarvos. From one side of the square area, there was a bridge which crossed to a cave mouth on the far side. High above I could dimly see the top of the cavern.
“Abal, I presume?” I said, turning to Myrka on my right, and then I did a double take. It wasn’t Myrka, but yet, it was. What I mean is, the girl standing to my right looked a little like Myrka, and was wearing her previous clothes, but she wasn’t human. Her body was slightly shorter, slimmer, still bipedal, sure, with two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, but here many similarities stopped. First of all, her skin was shiny. I had to look closer and discovered she was covered in small, overlapping, almost translucent scales, over blue skin. Looking at her forearm, I noticed a ridge, which looked just like the dorsal fin of a fish when it was laid down flat. There were more fin-like places, like against the side of her hairless head, sweeping back from the temple. Her eyes were very large black orbs, with blue and white irises and vertical slit pupils. Her nose was almost nonexistent, and the mouth small, though the hard looking lips were large. Even with all these changes, there was something about her which was still Myrka.
I was about to say something stupid when I looked down and noticed my body had also changed to the same species, though my scales and color were somewhat lighter. I was dumbfounded, my mouth, appropriately, started to work like a fish out of water, though I could actually breathe just fine.
Myrka was looking away from me, toward the cave across the bridge, so she didn’t notice my stunned look. She replied to my first question, “Yes, this is Abal, though I have never been here, but this must be your world or the portal would not have brought us here.”
Hydan had just arrived, though he had also transformed into one of these bodies. He must have heard Myrka’s last statement, and seen my stunned expression, because he said, “Well, luckily I have been to Abal recently and so I am quite used to their saeran bodies. I always find it refreshing to try out another species form as I arrive on a new World! Nick, of course, is House Sivaeral, so he’s used to this kind of body.”
No doubt he said all that for my benefit. I quickly closed my mouth before Myrka noticed my slack-jawed expression.
Hydan saw me recover and then said, “Although I have been to Abal, I have not been through this gloomy portal! It is so typical of the Tarvos to build in a dark cave, or out in the middle of some nasty jungle!”
“Darkness, or secret locations, help to hide you from your enemies,” she countered.
Hydan ignored her and headed out across the bridge toward the cave passage. I was looking at his scaled body; I could still see Hydan’s familiar human features, though these were depicted in his saeran face.
“Should we not scout first before venturing forth?” Myrka asked imperiously.
“Scout away, I’m going outside,” Hydan exclaimed, “I need some liquid!”
Myrka tilted her head to the side in a kind of puzzled gesture and then said, “Though this race developed underwater, they have long ago adapted to surface life. Tell him, Nicholas.”
Hydan called back over his shoulder, “I meant a drink, not a swim!”
I followed Hydan, and Myrka followed me. It felt a bit odd walking on the bigger, more pliable feet of the saeran race, but I tried to hide my uncoordinated experimentation with the motive power of these legs and feet.
I figured Myrka had never been to Abal either, so she would be busy figuring out her own gait. As we walked, the Tarvos girl asked me, “So, why do you think The Dragon is hunting you?”
“Actually, a better question would be: why is everyone after me?” I replied. “The truth is I’m not sure. A Hentan hunter, named Stewart, wanted to kill me in a knife fight, god only knows why, but I managed to escape. I was then tracked by werewolves, for no apparent reason. Later the same night we were attacked by a whole caboodle of necrosouls, again, for unknown reasons. Finally, I ran into you, and you tried to poke me with a glowing knife.”
“What is a caboodle?” she demanded.
“It means a bunch,” I answered. “Anyway, now I want to find my parents so I can try to get some answers as to why things are chasing me; so at this stage your guess is as good as mine, Sister.”
“I am not your sister; we are of different Houses unless you are a crossbreed,” she replied like I was some kind of idiot.
I said, “It was just an expression.”
She frowned, and then asked, “What can your parents tell you about these attacks?”
I replied, “I don’t know; I’ve never met my birth parents. Hydan says I’m a Hidden Soul.”
Hydan heard me reveal my secret, and looked back at me while raising a small fin above his eye ridge in question, but then he kept on walking. I figured with her oath to support me, knowing part of my secrets couldn’t hurt, and might help.
Myrka stopped in her tracks and looked at me with those big round dark saeran eyes. She blinked and I noticed she had two eyelids. The transparent inner eyelid came up from the bottom and retracted slightly slower to her blink. “You are a Hidden Soul?”
“Well, I was. I know my House now. I grew up on Earth, and I’ve never been to Abal, the world of my heritage.”
There, I figured this statement would take care of the inevitable mistakes I was about to make about my own planet.
She nodded. “I noticed your unfamiliarity with this type of body, you were walking somewhat like I was. I was studying you trying to see how to do it and noticed your own issues. On
ly Hydan seems familiar with these bodies.”
“Yeah, it’s my first time too,” I said.
Myrka nodded, and we continued following Hydan across the bridge, slowly getting accustomed to the gait of the new bodies, though true control would take some time.
She glanced over at me again, and then said, “I have never met a Hidden Soul.”
“From what I hear, they get hunted quite often, so there aren’t likely many surviving ones left to meet.”
She nodded.
I asked her, “What do you know of Hidden Souls? Maybe I can fill in the blanks once I learn what you already know?” I was on a fishing expedition, all jokes aside, considering these scaly bodies.
She considered for a moment and then said, “Well, for reasons of their own two mages have a child in secret, and keep this child’s heritage from them, which means the child doesn’t know they are a mage, or they belong to a House. Without this knowledge and training, or the Archimage knowing about them, they do not have a Glyph mark.”
“All true,” I answered.
“Why do you think your parents denied you your heritage?” she demanded.
I considered her rude question. “Well, perhaps they didn’t want me to go through life having to dodge people like Stewart Hentan, or you.”
“But, by denying you the knowledge of your birthright you would not learn how to use your powers, and therefore you would age and die, or if you were ever Discovered you would become a target for every mage around, even those lower than your Tier.”
“So why do you think mages hunt Hidden Ones?”
She looked at me for a moment, but finally answered, “Because without training a Hidden Soul is defenseless, a Hunter could easily end the line of a newly discovered mage.”
“You’re talking about the Ascension Quest?”
She nodded, “Of course.”
I dearly wanted to know more about this Ascension Quest; Fiona had put me off when I’d asked about it, and I recalled comments from Hydan about this as well. Thinking back, I easily recalled his voice, word for word, he’d said: ‘He’s just playing the Ascension Quest the Hentan way, trying to kill their way to the top. Not all houses work that way, but there is no changing the way any house pursues the Quest.’
So I asked Myrka, “I know the Hentans are trying to kill their way to the top, but I don’t know all the methods of the other Houses. What can you tell me of the Tarvos’ approach to the Ascension Quest?”
“I will tell you what is considered common knowledge; the Hentans rely on physical skills, they hold reality to their liking, and then try to stick a blade or something in you. My House studies Derkaz sorcery which makes us the most powerful of any House. With Derkaz magic at our call, we believe we can vanquish our enemies, and it will be our First who Ascends.”
Ascends to what? I thought, but held my question. She knows I was a Hidden Soul, which might mean some gaps in my knowledge, but I didn’t want her to know just how little I really knew. If she doesn’t know what I know, then she won’t dare feed me lies.
“OK, what do you know of the Friare and their plan for the Ascension Quest?”
“Nothing,” she answered instantly.
“You mean they keep it a secret?”
She shook her head, “No, they are an open book, too open. They simply have no ambition, they don’t care who Ascends, and are not even trying to take part in the Ascension Quest. They will fight, sure, if attacked, but they would rather do frivolous things than work hard at anything. I do not really understand them at all.”
We had entered the cave, and I noticed the walls were smoothly cut through what looked like solid granite. We made a few turns and then there was bright light ahead, sunlight. A few minutes later we exited the cave out onto the side of a mountain. A road cut into the side to our left, winding down through a series of switchbacks, but what caught my breath was the view out over the world.
Before us, spread out like a map, was a lush land, with thick forests the likes of which England had not seen in many years. We stood on the outer slopes of a mighty mountain range, like the Rockies back on Earth, and were looking down over a lush landscape. There were wide rivers, twisting in snake-like patterns, lakes and a carpet of massive trees. In the distance, I could make out another massive mountain range rising into the sky and the glint of an ocean to the east. That sky was impossibly blue, far darker and a more vibrant color than any sky I’d ever seen on Earth. And I could see three moons of various sizes above us at different points in the sky, though none of them were as large as Earth’s moon.
While looking up at the three moons, I saw some kind of large winged bird flying past us, but it was a kind of bird I had never seen before. Its body was a good five feet in length, and it had a fifteen-foot wingspan. That beak was sharp and pointed, curving down; definitely a bird of prey.
Hydan saw me gawking at it, and said, “That’s a Gowaar, not quite the same as a chicken.”
“No, more like an eagle on mega-steroids,” I replied.
Hydan nodded, “They can be nasty, but seldom attack something our size.” Hydan had his habitual grin on his face as he looked around the view of Abal.
“Seldom?” I said.
He shrugged, “They would have to be particularly hungry, kind of like those dolphin things on Earth.”
“Dolphins? They don’t eat people; did you mean sharks?”
“Yeah, those,” he agreed cheerily as he headed for the road, “Come on, we should get out of sight before something spots us.”
“You mean the Gowaar?” I asked.
“No, something far worse,” he answered, “something dark and evil, like Myrka here,” he noted with a smirk, cocking a thumb at the dark skinned girl.
She disdained to answer, but we both followed him toward the road. We were soon headed down the stone covered pathway, which was mostly shaded by dark green trees and bushes which grew along the sides. Once in the foliage, we were out of sight while working our way down toward the lowlands. We were soon in the shade of the trees, and I spoke to Hydan, “Tell me about Abal and these evil ‘things’ who might see us.”
I noticed Myrka was listening intently.
Hydan shrugged, “Sure. Abal was once a pretty nice place, I mean, there are always dangers on any world, it’s a savage universe, as the Silent Mother intended.”
I figured the reference had to do with some deity he believed in, so I said, “Explain that.”
“The Silent Mother wanted the best to survive, so she created a system where everything had to fight to live, ensuring the best would win.”
“Survival of the fittest,” I noted.
He nodded, “That’s a catchy phrase for it.”
“I’ll tell Darwin you like it when I see him next,” I said with a smile.
“Do that! Well, like I said, with Survival of the Fittest, there are always some nasty things out there, but of course, each of our races is the supreme predator on our planet, otherwise, how would we BE the top of the food chain?”
“How indeed,” I agreed.
He nodded, “But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some other contenders out there, like those shark things on Earth.”
“Right,” I agreed, and then added, “If they only had a thumb.”
He shrugged, “They might have if Earth’s First had desired it and thought them a better prospect than those Rat-Possum things which eventually became humans. I mean, once she decided the dinosaurs were a dead end, and reset things, well, then she had to choose from other options which came up, like that Rat-Possum. After a few nudges, tada, an intelligent bipedal creature, just like the Silent Mother intended.”
I let this go, his ramblings made no sense.
“Now, here on Abal there are plenty of dangerous creatures which their First might have made into the dominate biped, like the Gowaar bird, but that’s not what concerns me.”
I nodded, “OK, I’ll bite, what does concern you?”
“The Derka
z has made strong inroads here.”
That’s when Myrka spoke up, “There is nothing to fear from the Derkaz Ether, it is just another power which a mage can bend to their will. My people use it, and control it.”
“So you say,” Hydan said dubiously. “But, let’s talk about Abal; we can leave your world, Annwn, for another discussion. On Abal, before people started dabbling in the Derkaz, there was very little evil in this world. The Archimage and mages of his House kept life here very organized, and very pleasant. It was one of the best worlds to come to and have a good time!”
Myrka shook her dark head, “What possible worth is there in such frivolous wastes of energy?”
Hydan smiled, “We Friares enjoy life; can you Tarvos honestly say you do?”
“We most certainly do NOT!” Myrka exclaimed, and then added, “Life is not meant to be enjoyed, it is meant to be meaningful!”
“To my view, it is meaningful to get drunk, and have a good tumble with someone you like.”
Myrka scowled, “Now you are breeding for pleasure?”
“Damn straight, though breeding isn’t my first objective,” Hydan answered. “You’re pretty cute; I could show you what I mean if you want! You see, these saeran bodies aren’t like humans, or your glorzen bodies, for that matter, this race procreates by…”
“Touch me with any part of you and I will sever that appendage!” Myrka growled.
Hydan grinned, “Ouch! Now that’s just not nice, but it is very Tarvos!”
I wanted to know more about this Derkaz, “You were saying, about the Derkaz?”
Hydan turned back to me and replied, “Oh, yes. Well, some mages here, as seems to be inevitable on all the worlds, eventually messed around with Derkaz Ether. I mean, once something is discovered, you can’t put the Greld back into the box, as they say.”
Myrka started to speak, but Hydan held up a hand. “You can tell us your opinions later, he asked me to tell this.”
She closed her mouth, but her dark eyes were squinted down into a scowl.
I then asked, “OK, so what is so bad about the Derkaz, and what is it?”
