Ellen hurried down the stone walkway. This whole thing had to be some kind of dream, which meant her body was still laying limp back in the underground chamber. Her friends were probably worried sick about her, or maybe they were too busy fighting monsters. Either way, she had to find a way back to them and fast.
Figures moved passed the mansion's windows. Dark figures, but human-shaped at least. This odd platform didn't seem to have any monsters terrorizing it, which was good, because both her knife and her buckler had gone missing on the way here.
She stopped before the mansion's front doors and, fearing the inhabitants might not respond kindly to her intrusion, gave them a gentle knock, then after waiting and listening for a bit and hearing a great deal of laughter inside the mansion, gave the doors a much harder knock.
A middle-aged man opened one of the doors and peered out at her. Despite his outlandish surroundings, he looked completely ordinary.
"Come in!" he said eagerly. "We were just about to get to the fun part!"
Before Ellen could speak a word, the man grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside.
Passed the front doors and around the corner awaited an expansive dining room. There was a long wooden table in the center with enough seats for sixty or seventy, the majority of which were already occupied by men and women of all ages. They looked to be having a celebration. They had bottles of wine, some already drained, scattered all over, and they were in a great mood. Not a moment passed without a shriek of laughter or a guffaw.
"Sit wherever you'd like," the man said, his voice barely audible over all the laughter and chatter. "Dinner will be served in a minute."
"Hold on!" Ellen called out, but the man was already moving away and her voice could not reach him over all of the commotion.
Of all the things she might've found atop a mysterious platform drifting through space, this had to be the most peculiar. But there were much worse things out there, like the monster Amadeo had told her about. Hopefully she'd find a way out of this place before that monster rose out of the chasm and attacked her friends.
She moved to the left side of the table and sat down in an empty seat.
Right away the plump woman sitting to her left spun around and faced her. She spent a moment studying Ellen then grabbed a bottle of wine and an empty glass.
"You look miserable, dear," the woman said. Her breath smelled overwhelmingly of strawberries. "Here, drink up."
"I can't," Ellen said, but the woman not only ignored her, she pushed a glass full of red wine right up to Ellen's mouth.
"Just take a few sips, dear. It'll help ease whatever's bothering you. Forgive me if I'm assuming too much, but you look like you've experienced your fair share of grief lately."
She was right. Ellen took the wine glass from the woman then drank. She had to go slowly, the red, strawberry flavored wine was so pungent it made her whole body seize up at first, but after she swallowed the first mouthful, the rest went down with ease.
Once she'd finished her whole glass, the woman filled it up for her again.
For now, Ellen set the wine aside. "What is this place?" she asked. "What are all of you doing here?"
"We're celebrating my birthday!" the woman exclaimed. "I'm not sure which birthday this is exactly, but that's not important. What matters is that you enjoy yourself, dear."
Before Ellen could ask another question, and she had several, the woman turned away from her and started chatting with the man on her left.
Ellen turned to the dark, sickly looking man seated on her right. "Do you know where we are?" she asked. "This is such a bizarre place-"
"Damn right it is," the man snapped. "Don't ask me how we got here because I don't have any idea. Don't know how to get out either. At least the food is good." He snatched up his wineglass, gulped down the contents then started refilling it.
Ellen's heart sped up. Could she really be trapped in this alien place? Was everyone around her trapped as well? That couldn't be true. There had to be a way out, she just needed to keep asking.
Her wine glass looked very appealing now. She drank the contents, her body quivering with each gulp, then reached for the bottle.
A strange man seated across the table from her caught her attention. He was surprisingly short, much like herself, and his face was old, leathery and wrinkled. Not only did he look downright miserable, unlike everyone around him, he was also glaring at her.
She turned her attention to her wine glass for a moment, refilled it using the plump woman's bottle, then glanced at the strange man again.
He was still watching her. He seemed to be speaking to her as well, but with all the chatter and laughter filling the room she couldn't hear a word he was saying.
A bell rang in the distance and everyone in the dining room became silent.
This was her chance to find something out. Ellen opened her mouth to speak, but then two men dragging carts full of food behind them emerged from a side room and everyone started cheering. All she managed to say was "Where are" before her voice was drowned out by the commotion.
The two men handed out food to everyone. Ellen ended up with a plateful of white meat that didn't look like any meat she'd ever seen before. It was far too soft and delicate to have come from a monster. It was covered with a grayish brown liquid that wasn't the least bit appealing at first glance, but then she tasted it and fell in love instantly. The meat itself was juicy and succulent, much more so than any meat she'd ever eaten before.
She shoveled the meat down by the handful, momentarily forgetting all her worries and grief, but then the plump woman slapped her on the shoulder and she startled.
"I know this is a celebration," the woman said, "but do try to show some civility." She handed Ellen a knife and a fork.
Ellen accepted the utensils then continued eating.
The strange man was still watching her. He had not touched his food or even his silverware. He still looked miserable as well, why exactly she couldn't imagine. Maybe he'd also been sucked into a vortex and launched into space recently. She couldn't be the only one who'd experienced such a thing.
She had to talk to him. Whatever spell had put all the others in such a good mood didn't seem to affect him. He would answer her questions and maybe even tell her how she could escape this place. That's what she hoped.
Ellen tried to stand up, but the plump woman was quick to push her back down into her seat. "You can't leave yet, dear" she said with a warm chuckle. "The party is just about to get started. Besides, it's not like there's anywhere to go."
Ellen stayed seated, not because she wanted to but because the plump woman had her hand clamped down on her shoulder. Her grip was painfully tight. The more she struggled the harder the woman squeezed.
"I don't belong here," Ellen said. "I need to leave before my friends get hurt or a monster finds my body-"
"Nonsense," the plump woman interrupted. "Have some more wine and relax. Don't worry about drinking too much, our reserves never run out."
Ellen grabbed her wine glass and took another drink. What condition were her friends in right now? The underground chamber had been calm when she left, but that meant very little. A group of monsters might've already swooped in and hacked apart her friends and now they were coming for her.
At least the wine seemed to be kicking in. Her arms felt light and tingly and her head fuzzy.
The same bell from before rang again, and another cart was dragged into the dining room. This one was jam packed with small purple vials whose mouths were stuffed with quarks.
"Now it's time for everyone's favorite part of the day!" said the man pulling the cart. Everyone cheered.
Everyone except for the strange man. Ellen continued watching him, and him her. He accepted a purple vial from the man pulling the cart, but unlike the people seated beside him, he didn't drink.
Ellen was given a vial as well. She considered pulling the quark out and sniffing the contents, until the strange man shook his head at her.
She was thankful for the warning. Everyone who drank from the vials, which included everyone in the room except herself and the strange man, had burst into a fit of yawns. In a moment they became still as corpses. Some had their heads down on the table while others lay curled up beside their chairs.
"It's a sleeping serum," the strange man said, his voice harsh. "It'll put you to sleep, and in your dreams you'll see all sorts of pleasant images. Don't drink it unless you want to spend the next day passed out in this dining room."
That was not what she wanted at all, so Ellen pushed her vial aside.
But his warning piqued her interest. The serum put the drinker to sleep and showed them pleasant images? The yellow mysterious stone had done the exact same thing.
She wished she had not drank so much wine, because her mind was so fuzzy she couldn't draw any sort of link between the stone and the serum. But there had to be one. Both put people to sleep and showed them pleasant things. Maybe the serum was just water the stone's power had tainted, or maybe the stone was just the serum in its solid form.
"You," the strange man said sharply, pointing at Ellen with his index finger. "I've seen you before."
Ellen studied him. She didn't recognize him at all. "When was that?"
"It was, hmm..." He pondered for a moment. "It happened a few months ago. You were inside a long, wooden building. It was during the day. There were three kids with you, plus an old man. You tried calling me, but something went wrong."
Nothing he said made any sense. "I think you've had too much wine," Ellen said.
"I have not!" the strange man barked. "You were-how do I explain it?" He slapped the sides of his head. "Something about a... knife, and maybe a ritual of some kind. Then there was an explosion. Does that sound familiar?"
It sounded uncomfortably familiar. The only part Ellen didn't understand was the strange man's involvement. "A few months ago," she explained, "I was living in the Monad Fortress. I was trying to join the Fortress Brigade. I went to the training hall, which was a long wooden building, and my instructor asked me to create a magic weapon." She reached behind her back, hoping to find her knife, then remembered it had not followed her here. "My weapon is a knife. I tried to use magic to create a new knife just like it, but I couldn't do it. It exploded and knocked my friends and my instructor off their feet."
The strange man happily clapped his hands together. "That's it! I remember that whole thing!"
"But how? You weren't there. How could you know about any of that?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me."
Ellen simply watched him. Nothing made any sense, not the mysterious stone or her knife or the man's story and especially not this strange world she was in right now. But there had to be something tying it all together, something beyond her imagination.
"When you started using your... What did you call it? Magic?" the strange man asked. "It felt like I was being sucked into another world. It was quite relaxing, but it was a slow process, and I have to assume something went wrong, because once it was over I woke up back here. Everyone told me I had vanished for a few seconds." He paused. "This will sound odd, but I think you were trying to use me as fuel for whatever this magic of yours is."
It did sound odd. And impossible. How could her failed attempt at creating a magic weapon have any effect on this man she'd never met before?
But the more she dwelled on it, the more his theory seemed plausible. The magic weapons that people and monsters alike fought with always seemed to simply materialize out of thin air, but what if this man and his kind, whatever they were, were actually the source of everyone's weapons? And all the monsters in the world as well?
"What are you?" Ellen asked. It was a rude question, but she had to know the answer.
"Last I checked, I'm still a human being," the strange man said. "What are you?"
"The same."
Ellen studied him, searching for any oddities, but he looked like a perfectly normal person. So did all the others sleeping beside him. He certainly didn't look like a fuel source.
"You don't live here," the strange man said, sounding exhausted now. "Why don't you tell me a little bit about wherever it is you came from? You said you lived in a... fortress of some sort?"
"I used to," Ellen said. "It was called the Monad Fortress. For a while it was the safest, most peaceful place in the world, but then its dimension started rotting away. The sky turned black, then a colossal monster attacked-"
"Hold on, hold on," the strange man interrupted. "What are these... dimensions? What monsters? There's nothing like that where I come from."
"Dimensions are where we live," Ellen said. At least, it was where she and everyone she'd ever met lived. This man and his company seemed to have their own plane of existence. "They're big chunks of land floating... I'm not sure where exactly. I don't think anyone has ever fallen off the side of one, or if they have, they didn't survive. They're not connected to each other, but we can open rifts and travel between them."
The more she spoke the more frightened the strange man became, but she seemed to be on the cusp of a revelation, so she continued.
"Monsters are everywhere. Some of them are smaller than me, and some of them are as large as this mansion. Some of them look a bit like animals, but most of them are horrible, twisted abominations. And they hate humans. They kill us whenever they can, and unlike us, they don't need to eat or drink or sleep."
"What do you do after you kill them?" the strange man asked. "With the bodies, I mean."
"Sometimes we cut them up and cook them," Ellen explained, "but we usually just leave them where they die." Feeling foolish, she added: "I don't really know what happens to them after that. They usually just... go away."
"That's how plagues start," the strange man warned. He shrugged. "But I suppose you can't be blamed. This world of yours doesn't sound very kind." He paused. "So who's winning this battle of man versus monster?"
"I think it's... the monsters," Ellen said sadly. "They're not just killing us, they're slowly destroying the entire world."
"Your world that's just a bunch of isolated landmasses floating in space." The strange man nodded. "Why don't you just fight the monsters off with your magic weapons?"
"I can't really use magic weapons myself, but I do have my shield," Ellen said, to which the strange man responded by giving her a puzzled look. "Never mind. But the monsters are stronger than us, and they have us outnumbered. Nobody knows where they come from, they just seem to crawl out of the dark when nobody's looking, and no matter how many we kill, more of them keep appearing."
"Sounds like something out of a bad dream," strange man said, sounding skeptical. "My world is nothing like that. The worst I've ever had to deal with is a group of rude customers or maybe a wild animal or two."
"Are there animals here?" Ellen asked eagerly. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a real animal.
"Not here, and not in Ain Sof Absolute either," the strange man said. "I meant my old world, the one I lived in before I woke up in this place." He quickly added: "Let me ask you a question. On your way here, did you come across a fortified city? One surrounded by a wall that's, oh, I don't know... a few thousand miles long? It's made out of these white stones that are so bright they're hard to look at, and it's sitting on top of a tall cliff, so it's impossible to miss."
Ellen studied him for a moment. This city of his sounded like a fantastic dream, yet his expression told her he was completely serious. "I've never seen anything like that."
"Now I know we're from different worlds," the strange man said, smirking. "Ain Sof Absolute is massive." He paused. "Just so you know, I didn't come up with that name. But anyway, I've spent weeks following its wall, trying to find where it ends, but it goes on and on forever. Usually I lose interest and turn around. Did I mention that there are a couple thousand houses behind the wall? There might be millions. Nobody's ever tried to count them all."
"I don't think any dimension i
s big enough to fit something that large," Ellen said cautiously. Her monster filled world might sound like something out of a dream, but the world the strange man was describing was something else entirely.
"You keep using that word dimension. In the centuries I've lived here, you're the only person I've ever met who calls anything a dimension. Where I come from, we use terms like continents and planets."
Ellen suddenly felt very sorry for him. "I don't know what it's like in your world, but where I come from people usually don't live for centuries."
The strange man sighed. "They don't where I live either. I mean, where I used to live. Like I said before, I didn't always live in this mansion or even Ain Sof Absolute. I used to have a nice cozy shack, my own farm, a field for livestock and some beautiful mountain scenery."
His expression became dark.
"Then one day when I was about to fall asleep, I heard some static followed by a loud pop. I don't know what happened after that, but when I woke up, I was in Ain Sof Absolute. Thousands, maybe millions of others woke up beside me. None of us had any idea how we'd gotten there."
He watched Ellen, seemingly hoping for some kind of insight, but she had none to give. Even her wildest dreams were not as wild as the story he was sharing now.
"A lot of those people are still around," the strange man continued, "but only a small fraction of them are as lucid as we are. The rest are, well... I don't know how to describe them. They're not much more than hollow shells of human beings. That's why I call them the hollows. They drift around Ain Sof Absolute, not eating or talking or doing much of anything. They won't acknowledge you if you speak to them, and they often vanish without a trace."
He raised his right hand, then pointed to Ellen again. His voice became very low and very serious.
"Remember what I said before about you and your kind using us as fuel for your, humph, weapon rituals? I think I'm right. You're somehow pulling us out of our world and dragging us into yours to make us into weapons. And your monsters? They're probably the same. Maybe you're creating them unconsciously, or maybe your people just have sick imaginations."
Scouring Majula (Ellen's Friends Book 3) Page 21
