Pandora's Box: Land of Strife: Pandora's Box Series, Book 1

by S. Y. Lee

  The small group had been so focused on forging ahead through the panicked streets that they hadn’t noticed their pursuers gaining on them from the rear. Out of the corner of her eye, Eva saw Lady Pereva being jerked back.

  “Run! Eva, run!” the lady screamed when Eva saw that she had been seized by two men in cloaks. Eva hesitated, torn between helping her “mother” and running for her own safety. She didn’t have to wrestle long with the decision when Lady Pereva’s head contorted in an unnatural manner. Bloodstained hands held her limp body by the neck, like a dead chicken.

  A guard jumped between Eva and the menacing men and she turned to flee. Her other escorts were nowhere to be found, so she just ran in any direction where she saw no cloaked figures. A horse with its rider dangling by the strap galloped past her, nearly knocking her over.

  It was difficult to tell how many attackers there were, but they had overwhelmed the city in a matter of minutes. The festival had been the best time to launch an attack, with the city’s attention concentrated on the Square and the competitors in the tournament. No doubt even the guards diverted their attention inwards, rather than outside the wall at their current invaders. There had been no warning.

  Eva passed women and children crying in the streets, injured men resting against walls, and a building that looks like it had caved in. She could smell burnt flesh and she was glad the origin of the odor was nowhere in sight.

  Eventually, the mayhem started to fade behind her as Eva kept running towards the city walls. She wasn’t sure where the gate was, but reasoned that it wouldn’t be difficult to find once she reached the wall. She could just follow it until she came to the gate. As she got closer to the wall, she saw a building that stood by itself, away from the others. It was untouched from the destruction and a man with an axe stood outside the door. He lowered his weapon when he saw Eva and beckoned to her.

  “My lady!” the man shouted. “Quick, come in here! We’ll protect you!”

  He was a complete stranger in a world Eva didn’t know, but she had no choice. The attackers wouldn’t be far behind and at least this man wasn’t wearing a dark cloak like they did.

  “Thank you!” Eva said as she approached the man. She wanted to hug him, but he waved her on as he looked beyond her with his axe ready. She pulled on the heavy door and entered.

  Chapter 21

  His heart was pounding. Leo looked down at the man lying at his feet in disbelief. The elf, Karine, and he had fought their way through the attackers and found themselves cornered in an alley from both sides. Up close, the men in cloaks didn’t just look menacing. They looked ill. Some foamed at their mouths. Some looked almost inhuman, with long crooked teeth and what seemed to be snouts. It was no wonder they wore cloaks to conceal their appearances.

  With his back against Karine’s, Leo had instinctively stuck his sword out at an oncoming attacker. Unlike sparring in the tournament, the stakes in this dark alley were life and death. There was no surrendering. Confirmation of that came when Leo’s sword pierced his attacker’s chest and re-emerged out of his back. The ghastly man snarled as he drew his final breath and Leo pushed him off his sword, letting the body fall to the ground. He had just killed a man. Or what resembled a man.

  Leo looked quickly over his shoulder to see Karine slashing away at her attackers as she moved forward. Multiple bodies lay in her wake. He backed up towards her while holding his sword in front of him to ward off his advancing aggressors. It didn’t take long for her to dispose of the enemies blocking her side of the alley.

  “This way!” Karine said. Leo turned and ran after her. The farther away they got from the Square, the less people they encountered. They came upon a man using a barrel to ward off two cloaked figures. Two young girls stood behind him crying and they hugged each other for comfort. Without giving it any thought, Leo swung his blade. He cut one of the attackers deeply on the back, while dealing a fatal slice to the neck of the other. It must have hit an artery, as blood spewed from the wound like a waterspout.

  “Run!” Leo beseeched the man with the barrel, who dropped the makeshift shield, picked up both girls in his arms and made his way past them.

  The man whom Leo had cut in the back was groaning on the ground. He was close to pushing himself off the ground by leaning on his sword, but there was a quick flash of light from the reflection off one of Karine’s blades, as she cut through his neck like it was jelly. It was such a precise and clean slice that it took a few moments for the man’s head to separate from his shoulders.

  “We must keep moving,” the elf said.

  “Where are we going?”

  She paused. “We need to find shelter. If we keep running and fighting, we will fall eventually. There are too many of them and they have the upper hand.”

  At the end of the street, Leo saw a building that looked familiar. “I know where we can go.”

  Chapter 22

  The inside of the building was bigger than Eva had expected. A tall woman had welcomed her in and sat her down at a table. She was pretty, Eva noticed. Shortly after, the man with the axe came in and bellowed, “Genfrey! Themba!”

  Two men came running out of the kitchen.

  “Genfrey, grab the crossbow and go upstairs. Use one of the rooms with a view of the street. Shoot anyone who looks suspicious,” the man said. “Themba, bring the lady some water and bread.”

  One of the men nodded and went up the stairs, while the other went back into the kitchen.

  The man set his axe down on the table and sat next to Eva. “My lady, John Spellnar at your service.” He bowed his head slightly and Eva returned the gesture. “What happened out there? Did they breach the walls?”

  “I don’t know…” Eva said. She was still trying to piece the events together. “There were explosions. Then arrows. Oh my god. They’re dead…”

  “Who?”

  “Father and mother.”

  The words came out of Eva’s mouth before she realized what she was acknowledging. She didn’t know how she should feel. Were Lord Bannor and Lady Pereva really her parents? It seemed an absurd question, yet there was no answer to it. Eva had only just met them yesterday.

  John’s face had turned pale. “The lord has fallen? What about everyone else? Did you see my brother? He looks like me, but with a beard. And my nephew. They should have been together.”

  “I don’t know. There was carnage everywhere. A lot of people were hurt or worse.”

  Themba brought out two bowls of water and a loaf of bread, then returned to the kitchen. The bread smelled freshly baked. Breaking off a piece of the bread and offering it to Eva, John rubbed his chin. “I don’t know how long we’ll be safe here. We need to get you somewhere else.”

  “I… I don’t know where to go,” Eva said in between small bites. The bread was delicious, perhaps because she hadn’t eaten in a while, and she was grateful for the small comfort it provided.

  The tall woman had rejoined them and she embraced Eva before standing next to John. “This is my wife, Ilena,” the innkeeper said as he looked up at her and held her hand. Eva saw the spouses squeeze each other’s hand and smiled as the simple show of affection.

  “Ilena, we need to get Lady Eva away from here. Lord Bannor is dead. Who knows what they’ll do to her if they find her,” John said.

  “Yes. It’s not safe in the city if they’ve breached the walls.”

  “Who are these attackers?” John asked, looking at Eva. She shook her head, tired of responding with “I don’t know” to every question. She was used to having all the answers but everything in the past two days bewildered her. At first, it had been a curious adventure. Now, her life was in danger.

  Before John could speak again, two thuds could be heard from the ceiling. It must have been Genfrey, whom John had sent upstairs to stand guard, stomping his foot on the floorboards. John grabbed his axe off the table and stood in front of both women, facing the entrance. His knees were slightly bent and his back hunched, ready to
lunge forward at any moment.

  The door flung open.

  Chapter 23

  He entered with his sword raised, in case the inn had been compromised by the attackers. When he saw John, Leo heaved a sigh of relief and sheathed his sword. There were two people standing behind the innkeeper. One was Ilena. The other was Eva.

  “Eva?” Leo asked. Although she was just sitting a few feet away, Leo wasn’t sure how she would react. How she responded could change everything.

  Eva rose from the table when Leo said her name. Her eyes welled up as she lunged forward and threw her arms around Leo.

  “Leo!” Eva exclaimed, embracing him tightly.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Leo whispered into Eva’s ear. “Do you remember Chicago?”

  She broke the hug and nodded her head furiously. “Yes! Where are we?”

  “We’re in the middle of an invasion,” Karine said from behind Leo. Her blades were still brandished.

  “Karine, you can put those away. This is my friend Eva, and… my uncle John and aunt Ilena,” Leo raised an open palm to his elf companion.

  She looked out the door to see if any cloaked figures had followed them, then closed it and put her swords away once she was satisfied.

  Ilena stepped forward and addressed Karine. “Mistress, are you from Ifprin?”

  “No,” Karine said after a pause. “Not anymore.” She looked away, avoiding eye contact with Ilena, then walked to an empty table where she sat down.

  “Leo, where’s your father?” John asked.

  “I don’t know. There was an attack. There’s mayhem and fighting everywhere. We got separated.”

  “Who’s attacking the city? I must go find Sam.” John reached for the door.

  “I don’t know that either,” Leo said. “They’re all wearing cloaks, but I saw a few of them up close. They were hideous, like they were sick or something.”

  “They’ve been corrupted. Their souls have been tainted by a darkness not seen in ages,” Karine added.

  For a brief moment, John was ashen when he heard the elf’s words, until the innkeeper tightened his grip on his axe and nodded solemnly. “Then the rumors are true. Something or someone has risen in the west. This land shall be at war again. Leo, stay here and catch your breath while I go look for your father and see if I can find out more about the situation.”

  John exchanged a knowing look with his wife, one that couples who have been married for many years share. Ilena looked determined. “Go,” she said to her husband. “I’m make sure we’re prepared to leave when you get back.”

  *

  After John left to go look for his brother, Leo pulled Eva aside to the far end of the inn where they could talk in private while Themba helped Ilena in the kitchen. All the other inn staff had gone to the festival and none had returned from the pandemonium yet.

  Karine simply sat down at a table, sipping mead out of a mug Themba had brought her. In between mouthfuls, she polished her swords with a cloth while keeping an eye on the door like a hungry wolf waiting for its prey to walk in.

  “Leo? Do you remember my parents?” Eva asked. She was looking at Leo’s eyes intently, trying to read his thoughts.

  “Yes. David and Martha Lynch. You look just like your mother,” Leo responded. Eva’s question made him think about his own parents. He wondered if they realized he was gone.

  “And you saw the lord and the lady just now? Apparently, they’re my parents here. I don’t know how to describe it, but I have these memories of them as a child, growing up in this city. And now they’re dead and I honestly don’t know how to feel. Leo, what’s going on? Am I going crazy?”

  “You’re not. The same thing happened to me. I have memories of growing up on a farm in my head. That guy, the innkeeper, whom I’ve never met before yesterday, is my uncle in this world and he’s gone to look for my father. And you saw me out there in the arena, I wielded the sword like it was a part of me.”

  “What does this mean? How did we get here, wherever this is?”

  “This is a city called Silverbrick. What do you last remember before being here?” Leo wanted to hear Eva’s side of the story so he could validate his theories.

  “It was raining. We were in your room and I was sitting on the bed on my tablet while you were on the floor with the box. Then there was a red light… and I woke up in the tower.”

  Leo was right. At least about the box and the red light. It had somehow transported them here. The problem was, how would they get back? If the box had brought them here, they might be stuck without it.

  “That’s what I remember too. I woke up in a farm about a day’s horse ride from here,” Leo said. A day’s horse ride. He felt silly saying it, but there was no other way to describe it without clocks here. “Without the box, I don’t know how we’ll get back to Chicago.”

  “Is this another world? This looks like olden times but also like in the movies. Are there tiny people around? Maybe we need to find a wizard. Do they have those here?” Eva had a lot of questions. She knew it was unlikely that Leo had the answers, but she had been holding them in since yesterday. At least now she had someone to vent to.

  “I’m not sure about tiny people, but there’s an elf sitting right there,” Leo pointed at Karine. If she noticed him pointing, she didn’t react. “But a wizard… yes, stories like these always have a wise wizard to help the protagonists. Yes, maybe someone can point us to a wizard who can help us.”

  “That’s a start, I guess. Oh, Leo! I’m so glad to see you.” Eva took his hand and squeezed it. “I thought I was going crazy. This place, this world, it’s so, it’s crazy, isn’t it?”

  “It is. But it’s just typical. I end up being a farm boy and look at you, you’re a princess or lady or somebody noble,” Leo remarked sarcastically in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  Eva laughed for the first time in two days. “Well, you were about to win the tournament when the attacks began. I was terrified when you fought that gigantic man!” Eva’s comments hadn’t gone unnoticed. In the corner of his vision, Leo saw Karine’s ears twitch and she turned away from the door to look at him and Eva while wiping the blade of one of her swords with a stained cloth. He suspected that she disagreed about the potential outcome of their match. There were different shades of red on the dirty cloth she used to clean her weapon, no doubt from the blood of many opponents.

  Eva followed Leo’s gaze to the elf before looking back at him and they giggled quietly. It might have just been a moment of reprieve, but it reminded her of home.

  Chapter 24

  Eight cloth sacks sat on a large wooden table in the kitchen. They were each packed with clothes, two loaves of bread, a filled waterskin, and some coins. Themba looked around the room to see if there was anything else he should put in the bags.

  This was the first time the stoves and ovens weren’t burning in the kitchen since he had found himself in the inn. John had suggested earlier that he should go to the festival, but Themba decided against it, feigning illness. He wasn’t a fan of crowds and he was afraid of the people he might encounter on the streets. In his brief time here, he hadn’t noticed anyone else of color, though it didn’t seem to bother anyone when they saw him. He had also been shocked when he had brought food to a few dwarves and elves last night, but nobody else seemed to think they were an oddity, so he kept his astonishment to himself.

  When the explosions first started, Themba had ducked under one of the stone tables out in the dining hall and stayed there until John came to pull him out. Later, from what the innkeeper’s nephew had described, Themba had made the right choice of staying away from the festival. Now, he was preparing supplies so that they could escape the turmoil. He wasn’t even sure where he was now, not to mention where they would be fleeing to.

  “Themba, how are the supplies coming along?” Ilena asked as she came into the kitchen. She had changed her outfit. Her dress was gone and in its place a more practical brown shirt and pants that looke
d suited for running or hunting. The tall woman carried a bow in her left hand and a quiver full of arrows was slung over her back.

  “Yes. I’ve got the items as you instructed. Should we pack some cookware too? Or more food?”

  “No. If it’s as bad as Leo says it is out there, and it seems that way, we’ll need to move fast.”

  “Where will we go?” Themba asked.

  Ilena sighed. “I’m not sure. Even if we can leave the city, there’s no safe haven nearby. I suppose we could go to Thermine to the north. It’s about five days from here. We could go to the elves in Ifprin to the south, but I get the feeling the young lady out there won’t want to.”

  “The elf?”

  “Yes.”

  “She seems scary,” Themba noted.

  “She carries herself like a fearsome warrior and I have no doubt that she is one. But I also saw sadness in her eyes. Remember Themba, all is not always what it seems.” Ilena smiled kindly and laid a hand on Themba’s shoulder. “If John had turned away your parents all those years ago, you wouldn’t be here. And yet here you stand. You’re like a son to us.”

  “My parents?” Images flashed in Themba’s head as he processed the words out of Ilena’s mouth, causing him to take a step back. His first thought was about his sister back in Johannesburg. But it was then replaced by a couple shrouded in smoke and grime. There was fire everywhere as the woman carried a young Themba in her arms while they ran. “Where am I from?” he asked.

  “I know you still want answers after all these years, but I don’t have them. All I know is that your parents showed up at the inn with you. We tried to help them but their burns were too severe,” Ilena sighed wistfully. “I promised your mother we would take you in and look after you like you were our flesh and blood. Up until that day, I had always regretted not being able to give John any children. You changed that, Themba.”