Planeswalker

by Chloe Adler

  He leads me into a room limned in a faint blue glow. Standing just inside is a woman I’ve never seen before with something in her hand that looks like a horn.

  “Hello, Amaya. We finally meet.”

  “Do I know you?” Her long raven hair falls in ringlets around a pale, cherubic face with lush pink lips. Dark blue eyes, so large they remind me of a doll, blink with long black lashes. The woman doesn’t look human. She looks more like a manikin come to life.

  “You do now.” She giggles sweetly, tossing her head, and her pale white dress sways with the movement.

  I shiver and turn to leave but Bob stands in the doorway, blocking my way. “You will stay and talk to her.”

  I turn back to the woman. Why did I want to leave again?

  She extends the arm holding the horn, drawing a rectangle in the air. A blue outline appears and then glows like a doorway. The translucent blue swirls and undulates, reminding me of the fachan’s gunmetal form.

  She swivels her head between me and the glowing blue doorway, her smile growing. With long, elegant fingers she motions me forward but I shake my head and remain glued to the floor.

  “Amaya, approach her now,” Bob’s voice rings out.

  My feet glide toward her even as my brain screams, telling me to stop. The blue light is mesmerizing, like a shiny bauble the baby must grasp and put in her mouth to taste. I reach a hand out to it and ask, “What is that?”

  “Your future.” She shoves me with both hands, and I careen forward, screaming.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  My scream elongates, pulled out of my lungs like there’s no end to my breath. I fall, arms and legs flailing through a spinning blue vortex as though I’m being sucked down through a wormhole in space. The walls ripple and swell like I’m inside a kaleidoscope. Disoriented and scared, I claw at the walls but they aren’t solid and my hands slip through. Almost as suddenly as I entered the tunnel, I’m spit out into Tara, barely landing on one foot. My arms spin wildly as I try to regain my balance on the solid meadow floor but it’s too late and I topple forward, smashing my head hard against a rock.

  When I come to, it’s nighttime. My head aches and I can’t remember how I got here, save a vague memory about Bob. And something blue? Or was it green? Instead of one moon in the sky, there are two. But isn’t Tara another dimension of Earth? Not a different realm or different universe with different planets, just a different version of our planet. At least, that’s how Vasily described it. Maybe that’s just one of the many problems the fachan brought with it, two moons instead of one?

  I don’t have much time to think because I’m too worried about drowning. But so far the Water Meadow is dry. Regardless, I leap up, rub my aching head—a headache is already blossoming—and run toward the forest, which thankfully looms closer.

  As soon as I enter, I fling myself down on a bed of leaves to catch my breath. I’ve never been in Tara at night and though at home the darkness is a bit scary, here it’s downright terrifying, even if it does help my aching head. After all of the crazy things I’ve endured here, the lack of light is not the least bit consoling. At least Azotar is encased in the monolith, I remind myself, and at least the beasties that try and hurt me are about the size of my hand. Still, they could have killed me more than once.

  To stave off my burgeoning anxiety, I hum to comfort myself. The melody snakes into its own form, twisting and turning on itself, mixing and rising. The hum morphs into words and I let them out, unable to stop or change them. The music jumps and swings, transforming again into one of my favorite Bach arias, “Vergnügte Ruh.” As the music pours out of my mouth to fill the darkness of the night and the void in my heart with brilliant color, my fear melts away.

  I close my eyes, leaning my head back, the light of two moons kissing my eyelids. It’s time to let go of my worries. One hour in Tara roughly equals one day on Earth, so if Siobhain doesn’t hear back from me in a few days, she’ll probably assume I wasn’t interested in the opportunity of a lifetime. But right now, under the thick canopy of song, the fear morphs along with the song into mild concern, and then, like a bright light snuffing out, it’s gone. How do other people assuage their fears? Xanax, deep breathing, hot baths? All of the tension bleeds from my muscles, from my cells, from the darkest corners of my mind. And what fills it is the song, the musical notes that take shape and expand to shine twinkling lights into the once-dark recesses.

  When I open my eyes I’m surrounded by the same dryads who tried to kill me last time, except now, no one is pointing a weapon at me. A low throb returns, spreading out to engulf one side of my head. The dryads all look docile; some are swaying and most wear smiles. But I can’t take any chances. I put my hands up in surrender and then, as pain surges, I grab my head.

  “The vanisher is a singer,” says one high voice.

  “What should we do?” asks another. “She looks hurt.”

  “Tie her up, finish what we started?” says a third.

  “With a songbird’s voice? Never,” Basma says.

  “What would Capatani do?” asks Cli.

  I stand up, sway and almost fall, putting my hand out to steady myself. “Where is Capatani?”

  The creatures bustle and mumble among themselves for a moment. One of them scoots along the side of the fray and tells me, “She’s been kidnapped.”

  All discussion immediately ceases. “Why would you tell her that? She’s the enemy!”

  “The fachan is the enemy. She sings like an angel,” says Basma.

  “Maybe I can help.” I’m grasping at fairy wings, trying to make myself useful. Clearly, the throbbing in my head has wiped out all common sense.

  “How can you help?”

  “I can look for her. I’m larger, I can cover more ground.” I’m not sure why I just volunteered for that. I’m here to find Vasily, but maybe if I find Capatani, I will also find my king. “Have you seen the king?”

  “We will discuss your proposition.” They walk away together.

  I sit down cross-legged to wait, centering and grounding myself the way Bodhi does, trying to blot out the pain. Closing my eyes, I focus on my breath and let all thoughts go.

  As if from far away, someone exclaims, “What’s she doing?”

  I don’t open my eyes. I choose instead to return to the zone. It feels like I’m weightless. It’s a familiar sensation, as though I’m no longer in my body, but rather floating above it.

  “Grab her leg before she gets away!” one of the dryads cries.

  My eyes flit open at the strange request. What the . . . I am floating. I’m at least two feet in the air, hovering above the small gathering of fairies. My legs and arms flail, no longer holding a peaceful lotus position, and the ground rises to meet me. Bam. It jostles my already throbbing head but as my feet hit the ground, an idea slams through my brain. “Japheth! I need the abada Japheth. Can one of you call him?”

  “I can.” One of the dryads steps forward. He looks like a child, but then, they all kind of do.

  “Crispeth, no,” a young girl says.

  “I’ll be fine, Janay.” As the girl—Janay, I’m guessing—glares at me, Crispeth fishes underneath his loose-fitting tan shirt and pulls out a tiny shell attached to a leather string. Bringing it up to his mouth, he blows into it. The sound of a blown conch bursts forth from his teeny shell, just like the sound Japheth makes, and everyone stills, holding a collective breath.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Several minutes pass before the otherworldly noises of a mermaid horse emanate from the dense forest thicket. Japheth breaks through at a full clip, heading straight for me. I shriek and try to jump out of the way but it’s too late. The animal stops inches before me and nuzzles me with his velvet nose. I coo, running my hands along the smooth green fur of his neck—soothing myself more than Japheth, who apparently likes to make an entrance—and the dryads stand back to give us space for our reunion.

  “Do you have a piece of clothing that belonged t
o Capatani?” I ask them.

  They exchange looks and then Janay steps forward. “I do. I have a scarf she gave me.” The girl rummages in a small bag that’s slung across her shoulder and produces a tiny scrap of material, holding it out to me. I bend down and take it between my thumb and forefinger.

  “Japheth.” I hold the material under the abada’s nose. “Can you track this scent?”

  I have no idea if he can but it’s worth a try. The horse creature tosses his psychedelic mane and lays his ears flat against his head.

  “Get on,” yells Janay and I leap onto his back. Ouch, that did not help my headache. But I grit my teeth and use what Bodhi taught me to focus on the task at hand.

  Like a shooting star, he speeds away.

  After at least an hour, it’s obvious to me that Japheth has no idea where Capatani is or if he does, he can’t quite get there. He’s slowed his gallop down to a trot and my hands grow slick as I try not to think about my missed opportunity. Instead, I pick up my singing where I left off earlier. Japheth speeds up as soon as I do, cantering through the forest and out into a clearing. It’s an area I’ve never seen before. Bright sunlight bounces off each blade of grass, igniting the entire clearing in flaming light. When did it suddenly become day?

  There’s a shimmering lake and vibrant flowers everywhere. Something in the distance catches my eye. A sparkle. I stop singing and the abada comes to an abrupt halt, tossing his shimmering green mane.

  “Come on, I know you were headed somewhere,” I urge him but he doesn’t budge. I press my heels into his sides, like I do when riding Dart, but still, nothing.

  Now what? I lie forward over his mane and pick up the song where I left off. Just like that, bam, the abada starts running again. So much for song soothing the savage beast. As he rounds the lake, he stops and whinnies. I stop singing, eyes focused on the sparkle blinking in and out on the horizon without taking shape. Then my gaze sweeps back over the lake, which sports a small island in its center. On that island is a cage.

  And in that cage is Capatani.

  I leap off the abada but instead of plowing forward, I stop and think, gritting my teeth through the throb of pressure that’s returned. Knowing Tara, the water is probably acid and will boil off my skin. But when I pluck a flower and toss it into the lake, nothing happens.

  “Capatani!” I yell. The lake’s not wide but who knows how sound carries across it?

  “Yes, please help me,” she calls back.

  “Is it safe for me to swim out there? Are there monsters in the water or anything else that could kill me?”

  “I don’t think so. This is the Lake of Tales. As long as you’re pure of heart, you’ll be safe.”

  What the hell does that mean? I hesitate at the water’s edge. I’m hardly pure of heart. Even now, I can’t help but think about just willing myself back to Earth and forgetting about the trapped dryad. I could get back in time to start my new career as an understudy, get enough of an advance to help my parents have something to come home to. I could push the men into the past, let Vasily—what? Die?

  I dive in.

  The water temperature is perfect and I swim toward the little island, expecting it to move farther away like everything else in this crazy dimension, but it doesn’t. I dive under the water to swim faster, but about halfway there I feel a tug on my leg. Not like the mermaid wrapping her tail around me, more like the water itself. It’s pulling at me, like a riptide. I fight it and keep swimming but the closer I get to the island, the stronger the pull. I stop swimming, judging the distance.

  I’m only a few feet away; I can make this.

  I stay at the surface and doggy paddle toward my destination. But the water other plans, and as soon as I reach a hand out to touch the sandy beach, I’m yanked under.

  Chapter Forty

  I’d like to scream fuck it, I give up or uncle—but I can’t scream anything underwater, especially not while I’m holding my breath, and not while searing-hot pain shoots through my skull. Down I go, into a cloud of bubbles. I don’t bother trying to breathe. I exert all my energy holding my breath instead. For a lake, it’s ridiculously deep and my mind slips. I’m just about ready to resign myself to actually dying in Tara this time when the yanking disappears. Whatever little whirlpool I was caught in has let go and I use my last ounce of energy to break the surface and suck in a mouthful of air. Except that I’m not in Tara anymore.

  And yet, it’s not Earth either.

  I’m still in a lake but there’s no island in the middle, the sun is no longer shining, and the surrounding landscape is bleak and gray.

  “Japheth? Capatani?”

  No response. Not a peep. It’s eerily quiet here and I don’t like it. It’s also cold. Two choices, Amaya. Get out of the lake here in this terrifying new place that you’ve never seen before, or try to get back to Tara or even Earth.

  Something cold slides across my leg and I yelp, doggy paddling away. A black snakelike shape jets out of the water and circles above me.

  “It’s about time you found your way here.”

  I’ll never forget that disembodied voice as long as I live. Hello, fachan. “Where are we?”

  It ignores my question, swarming around my head like dark smoke, breaking apart and reforming. “If the human battery wasn’t so weak and I possessed my true strength, the scepter would have been sufficient.”

  “To do what?”

  “Deliver you inside my monolith when you passed over.”

  I shiver. I have no idea what it’s talking about but I’m glad that whatever it had planned didn’t work out. Of course, I can’t even remember how I “passed over” Tara this time. A hazy memory of Bob inside a house and a woman in blue—or a blue doorway?—floats through my brain, but when I try to tease out more, pain spikes, like a knife has been shoved through my head. Blackness curls around my vision until I force myself to concentrate on my surroundings again.

  “Welcome to my world, planeswalker.”

  “Your world?”

  “This is where King Uisne banished me for being,” it pauses, “different.”

  Here in this space, whether it really is the fachan’s world or a simulation, it doesn’t act quite as angry. Its voice is sad and calm, almost as though it’s trying not to spook me.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you.” And I mean it. “I understand you’re upset, but—”

  “You know nothing,” it hisses.

  “I know what they did was wrong. What can I do to make it better?”

  “You can gather the heads of each fairy faction and bring them to me. I have Capatani and I have the king. I merely need Sabin, Oceane and Astra.”

  I gasp. “You want their heads? Like, what, on a pike?”

  Azotar grunts. “I want the leaders, not their heads. Those will do me no good.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “I know four of those fae, but who is the fifth?”

  “The leader of the asrai, our underwater fairies.”

  Like the mermaid who saved me from plummeting to my death in the Water Meadow. “What can they do?”

  “Together they can remove this curse. It took their united power to cast it.” It swirls around my head, chilling me to the bone, just like it did to me in the monolith. “If you do this for me, I will do something for you. A show of, what do you call it? Good faith?”

  “You’ll free Capatani?” I can’t think of anything else it can help me with right now.

  “I’ll let you free her yourself so that later you can bring the leaders to me, but I was talking about something else.” Suddenly, the black mass condenses and cloaks my entire head.

  I scream, struggling to push it off, but it holds tight and this time I can feel the mass of it, a heavy weight, pulling me down.

  But as suddenly as it grabbed me, it lets me go and I bob on the water’s surface. For the first time since hitting my head, the pain has receded. It’s completely gone.

  “See? I took your pain away. You will h
elp me take mine away now.”

  “How did you do that?” I’m stalling and it probably knows.

  “This is my world. There’s not a speck of matter in it I don’t control. Will you help me?” It swirls and shifts but doesn’t touch me again.

  Well that’s a first. It’s asking instead of demanding and not trying to scare me. In order to leave the monolith, it needs Tara’s five leaders working together. Maybe if I could get Azotar’s promise to leave Tara voluntarily, the clan leaders would remove the curse. I decide to table that and figure out where it is right now and how to gain its trust. “Are you really here?”

  “I am trapped in the prison Vasily put me in, for now. I travel back to this dimension on a dream.”

  I bite my tongue to keep from screaming about all the terrible things it’s done to Tara and her inhabitants. “I want to help you but what guarantee can you give me that you’ll stop hurting people? That you won’t seek revenge?”

  Its laughter is hollow and biting, somehow sucking up all the darkness, the void of this world and spitting it back into my face. “You’ll have no guarantee but you will have action. You will see that when I could kill, I don’t. That when I could destroy, I won’t. That when I could tear this realm apart so that it’s nothing more than a memory, I stop myself. You see I have helped you just now, cured your pain, and I’m allowing you to save the dryad.”

  The dryad it kidnapped in the first place in order to extort the cooperation of others. Not reassuring. “And if you are freed?”

  “All I want is a chance to live on Earth as a gender-neutral human with the love of my life. I will give up all my powers so I cannot even harm a wasp. I will spend the remainder of my days serving you, the king and the warlocks if it pleases you.”

  Humility is a strange characteristic for the fachan, but now isn’t the time to dissect it, nor the “love of its life” bomb. Most likely it hopes to find a mate on Earth. Besides, I’m the messenger here, the facilitator, not the decision maker. My job is to bring this info to Tara’s leaders and let them figure it out . . . though I reserve the right to kick their asses if they come up with more bright plans like slavery.