The Long Lost

by Rebecca Woods

“Can I ask why?” I said, not believing my daring in questioning the Queen.

  She paused for a second and then smiled.

  “I have been sensing something stirring in the darkness these last few weeks, it seemed to be around the time you escaped from the Gleema and Leeh found us”.

  She must have seen my involuntary start at the mention of my dead friend because she suddenly put a hand on my arm.

  “What happened to your friend was not what I wanted to happen. It had to happen, but not for the reason you think it is”.

  I suppressed the emotion that welled up inside me when she spoke. More death, dark and black in the last part twelvemonth than in my whole life before, all because of the Eurikaya and one man’s quest to be more than what he was at the cost of everything else.

  The Queen turned to Khalashaya and Woodarch, including them in the conversation.

  The moonlight shone on her white alabaster skin and on her hair, which looked white in the glow.

  “We go to the Gleema city a day before the rest of the city thinks we do, even before the rest of our trusted group think we do. We need to make sure there is no chance we can be betrayed.”

  Khalashaya took a sharp quick breath, which made the Queen address him directly.

  “I do not think one of our own would betray us to the Gleema. I do worry though about how Gleema Leeh was able to find us so easily. I do not even know how a Molecha was able to pass her memories to you Auriana”.

  Silence fell night birds cawed and flapped their wings in the forest. I felt rather than saw Woodarch's gaze on me.

  “It seems there is a lot that we do not know” I said to the Queen. She looked at me then, in as strange a way as she had just a few hours before.

  “Everything should come to light when we have the Eurikayl. In the meantime, since you seem to be able to see the truth, try and see if there is anything else that is significant in your dream that will help us - perhaps some spells that will help us use it”.

  “And we know that the Eurikayl can be used as a weapon against them?” I said.

  The Queen nodded.

  “Yes, in the way that the bringer of life is also the bringer of death. Yet the way in which it is done has been lost to us for many years”.

  “How are we getting to the city?” Woodarch’s drawling voice cut through the thick night air sharply.

  The Queen did not answer, she just nodded at Khalashaya who walked to the edge of the lake and bent down.

  He looked so graceful in that moment, as he took out his staff and laid its head against the water gently.

  The image in front of me, of this man kneeling in front of the galaxy, his black hair shining in the moonlight moved me for some reason. It was like he was kneeling before the end of everything, or the beginning.

  The water seemed to explode with light, white, yellow and orange hues fought for supremacy. What was he doing?

  He lifted the staff out and nodded at the Queen.

  “Get in” she said to me. I froze in shock. Get into the water?

  I had never done this in my life except when dipping my toes in the water on Deloran. Water on my far away world was death and avoided in large quantities by everyone except those too poor to afford anything else.

  I looked at Khalashaya who gave me a reassuring smile.

  “Trust me” he said.

  “What will the water do?” I said to him.

  “It will take us to where we need to be. Come, we do not have long before the spell fades.”

  He gripped my hand.

  “I won’t let go, I promise” he said, looking down at me. “Like when we crossed the universe to come here together.”

  Memory of that journey and my first view of Deloran brought tears into my eyes.

  “You are safe while you are with me” he said in my head. He then squeezed my hand.

  “On three” said the Queen, “One...two”.

  I took a deep breath and knew that, once again, everything was about to change.

  “Three”.

  I stepped into the water at the same time as Khalashaya and felt the forest melt away.

  Back with the Gleema

  The next second, we were laying on a cold hard surface, his hand was still in mine. I sat up and looked around quickly. We were in the main corridor in the council building of the Gleema. Panic gripped me; any moment we would be seized and killed by the Gleema.

  Now that I knew the reason they hated magic so much, I was even more afraid of them, especially the woman I had met on our last night in the Gleema city - Gleema Dan.

  The Queen stood up and we followed suit quickly.

  “What’s the plan” I said in Khalashaya’s head.

  “We’ve got to get to the top floor. They will know that magic has been done to get us here. We could have appeared miles away and then hiked in, but the Queen felt we did not have time.”

  “Let’s move” whispered Woodarch. “Invisibility?” he said this to the Queen who nodded.

  I had got to grips with this now but still found it difficult to focus enough to get fully invisible. I found that my adrenaline made it easy to action this time, this made me feel slightly more confident. The others did the same. I could not see them but I could see where Khalashaya was. It wasn’t that his magic was weak, far from it, but we had a mental bond like I had never imagined could exist between two people and I could still see something of him there.

  I could sense them around me as well. Together, we moved up a winding set of marble steps that had led to a corridor that had led to my room.

  Instead of the left turn that led there however, we took a right diversion where the staircase split into two and walked on up. Every small noise to me was the sound of the Gleema and their soldiers on their way to kill. I had to stay strong. Had I not spent months training and building myself up for this night? What had it all been for if I could not keep a hold of myself at the crucial moment.

  We carried on walking and suddenly a shout came from downstairs where we had just been. I froze.

  “Keep going” Khalashaya hissed in my head. “We need to get to the top before they realise where we are”.

  They picked up the pace and so did I. We took another flight of steps, and then another. I was glad I had spent the last few weeks constantly going up and down stairs because I was now strong enough to withstand the challenge.

  Then we were on the top floor. I looked around for another staircase and there was none. I had never been up this high before but the sense of something evil, that horribly familiar feeling I had felt when living here was back, foul in its stench and vile in its lingering inky darkness. I was in no doubt that something lived here.

  I looked at the ceiling. I could hear rain starting to hit the roof, surely whatever it was couldn't be up there. How could there be another level we had not seen.

  "How did you find it last time?" I whispered to Khalashaya.

  He looked at me. The others looked at us, clearly waiting for him to do something, anything to reveal the secret level.

  "I was exploring when you were training with Woodarch. I had sensed something when we were up here before and came to check it out".

  The Queen came and grabbed his arm.

  "Come, show us where we go next".

  He looked at me and then walked in front of us. We were in a large room with three corridors that branched out in different directions. The ceiling looked unremarkable, certainly not the sort of ceiling that hosted an evil object millennia old.

  Khalashaya went over to the middle of the room and lifted his staff to the ceiling. It connected with it with a soft bump.

  There was another shout from downstairs and I felt my heart race. Many times I had ran from almost certain death and escaped at the last moment. The stakes here had never been higher. We would die if we were caught. I no longer believed in Oblivion so death terrified me less than before, however I wanted to live more life first.

  The Queen clearly felt th
e same way, she stepped forward, tension in every angle of her body.

  "What's happening?"

  Khalashaya was murmuring quickly under his breath. There was the sound of running on the staircase just below ours and the clink of spears.

  I looked at Woodarch. He turned to look at me at the same time. Smiling, he nodded at me and I realised we were both thinking the same thing.

  He went to the wall on the right of the staircase and I took the left. Together, we concentrated on building a barricade that would block off the steps from this room.

  We didn't know if stairs led to any of the other corridors in front of us but this had to help. If not, it would only serve to block us in if we were attacked from one of them.

  I concentrated. Suddenly my mind was back in that beautiful sunlit garden when Khalashaya had thrown the stone at my head. I had come a long way since then. I kept his words in my head, the words telling me to visualise what I wanted to create, to reach out with what was inside me and believe that it was possible.

  I had been beaten, ravaged, branded like an animal and forced to watch my mother murdered in front of me. I had also lost my father in the most horrible way.

  I had survived, with a few scars yes, but I was here and I was going to fight for my people.

  One last push of energy from my caused my wall to meet his and then the barricade was complete.

  He gave me a nod.

  "Not bad". He said in my head. "Khalashaya was right".

  I nodded back at him.

  Khalashaya's muttering was starting to do something. Just as the Queen was preparing herself to contribute, the ceiling started to shimmer, reminding me of the lake we had come here by.

  I jumped as something very strange then happened.

  A light, green and piercing, shot from the ceiling and hit the floor, it refracted around the room and hit my eyes painfully.

  The green light seemed to twist and circle into itself before forming into very solid looking steps.

  Khalashaya ran up then and we followed, a large cavernous hole appeared in the ceiling and the stench of evil was overwhelming.

  It made the Queen recoil and Woodarch gag but I was able to deal with this. I did not know how I knew, but I could do it.

  We went through the hole.

  Then there was a presence behind me. One that was familiar.

  We found ourselves in an ordinary looking room, very much like the rooms on the lower levels, the one big difference being the evil than was all around us.

  A prickle on my neck made me turn to see if my feelings of a presence behind me were correct.

  Gleema Leeh stood in front of me.

  Repression

  She smiled and put a finger to her lips.

  "Only you can see and hear me".

  I felt shock hit me like a wave, what was happening here? The Gleema were playing a game with us to scare us. They would know that Leeh had come to us.

  "I am real I promise." She said in the same calm, smooth way she always had.

  "Why are you here now?" I said in my head, hoping she would hear. Sure enough, I felt the connection take hold inside me. She was definitely there and I was communicating with her.

  "You. I am here for you."

  "I am grateful". I was so happy she was there for me at this time of reckoning. At the end of my journey, because this would end one way or another tonight.

  The Queen was looking around quickly, there were two corridors, one that opened in front of us and another that ran from the left.

  "Split up" said the Queen.

  As she said this, shouts sounded from behind us. They had found the barrier and they just have also seen the green luminescent steps we had just ascended. I prayed our magic would hold.

  Khalashaya grabbed my arm and started running to the left hand corridor. He turned back quickly and looked at Woodarch.

  "Be safe my brother. Protect the Queen".

  Woodarch nodded, something like understanding in his eyes. I didn't have time to think about the meaning behind it. I ran with Khalashaya, the two of us on a hunt for the stick I had seen in a dream my whole life.

  It was strange how the object had never felt evil in my dream. It has merely been a stick I used to hold myself upright; albeit a nicely carved one.

  The corridor was very long. I imagined that we were running along the entire length of the house below? How had I not sensed this evil above me?

  There was a room at the end of the corridor, it got bigger as we ran towards it.

  There was a door that looked as if it would be hard to break. I did not have to think this time, with a blink, the door was reduced to scraps of wood and metal and lying at my feet.

  I was starting to feel very strange, the object was in this room, and I knew it. My hands tingled, distracting my attention and what I saw made me gasp and Khalashaya grimace.

  My hands were black and the streaks of it travelled up my arms before my eyes. What evil was this?. My heart screamed against my chest wall as I tried not to panic. I was on the most important mission of my life, saving Herena from a painful death was one thing, this could potentially save Deloran; New Earth too if more Eurikaya found a way to get there.

  "Focus" shouted Khalashaya, "They will be here any minute, and we have no time to waste".

  I opened my mouth to scream, look at my hands, the fear inside me of being alone in the dream, my weaknesses and the horror of what had happened to me in the forest hitting me afresh.

  I had spent almost the entire time I had known Khalashaya suppressing my deep fear of this and it came to the forefront.

  He put his hand on my hand and a finger on my mouth. He looked sad suddenly. Sad and afraid.

  "Little one, you are nearly there. We will both have the answers we seek soon. Save your people first".

  I swallowed the urge to scream and looked around the room for the Eurikayl, and there it was.

  It hung suspended in the air six feet in front of me. Nothing seemed to be holding up except the thick magic that made the air tingle.

  Khalashaya looked at me and went to touch it. He pulled back, took a deep breath and then his hand closed around it.

  A thin shriek came from the stick, no it was coming from Khalashaya, he was screaming.

  I ran over and grabbed the stick out of his hands. Immediately I felt something pull inside me and connect with the Eurikayl. Something was awakening.

  Khalashaya fell to the floor. I laid the Eurikayl down gently next to him and bent down to help.

  He was conscious but his hands were raw as if they had been burned severely.

  "You can touch it?" His lips formed the words and the words came out as short gasps.

  I nodded.

  He turned away, grief on his face that contorted it and made it strange to look at. It made me realise that I had only ever felt that feeling, I had never seen another person experience it.

  "I'm sorry". He said, a tear ran down the side of his thin wasted face. I bent down and wiped the tear away, his green eyes met mine and locked into my gaze.

  Then my hand was on his skin, stroking it in the way that Falaira did like breathing, like the magic that was fire in our blood.

  "Can you stand?" I said.

  He nodded and shifted into a sitting position.

  "Grab it and let's go". His control was back. I did not pause to think about the subject of his grief, like after the forest experience, I wanted to keep going and see where the journey took me rather than kill myself worrying about the destination.

  Right now, this moment in time was about getting the Eurikayl out of the hands of the Gleema and destroying the Eurikaya.

  He sagged against me and I supported his weight as we moved back toward the staircase.

  Gleema Dan was in front of us.

  Death on the Top Floor

  She had her hands around Woodarch's neck. She threw him towards us and he crumpled to the ground.

  Khalashaya bent down to check him over an
d looked grim when he stood back up.

  "He's alive;" he said in my head. "But unconscious. Let's pretend we don't know that."

  I nodded quickly.

  "I knew it." Dan's harsh voice cut through the tension.

  "You magic ones have always tried to bring back the old days of blood and darkness. Look at you holding the Eurikayl, you were the one we feared the most. The one who will bring them all back and ruin thousands of years of peace".