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Sangrelysia
by Vivian Darkbloom
The Forest of Silence
Raindrops frozen in midair burst against my face as I hastily
stride down the forest path.
"Look!" says Sylvia, pointing.
A butterfly on the wing, gracefully still, wings spread.
"Why are we going this way?" asked Sylvia. "What about the
others?"
Her question inflamed my rage at being unable to save the Queen
and King. I ceased walking for precious moments, to work it
through once more, why running away wasn't simply cowardly.
"You're the one they're after, nobody else," I said. "I would
have to put you at risk in order to go back and try to help."
"But can't you do something? My girls. . ." She was in tears
again.
"Believe me, I feel the same way. But anything I do, Elwrong
would counteract, most likely making things worse than if I do
nothing. It's their game here. There's no way we can possibly
win." The fever from the poison surged, causing me to sway
slightly. I could feel the prick of pain in my calf, and the
magic fighting back.
"But. . . but. . . will they all get killed?"
I studied her carefully, perched on my back. "That wouldn't make
sense. Why the masks? The marauders don't want to be recognized,
probably because they're from King George's army. Now that I know
Elwrong's behind it, I'm almost sure of that. They're expecting
someone to talk about them.
"Why the flags? Because they want the entourage to return to the
castle saying that the Valeplysians captured the princess. That
would give the King the excuse he needs to start the war he
craves. As soon as they discover you're gone, they'll most likely
fall back, and let the group escape.
"'K."
It wasn't OK, really. I clenched my jaw. "Sylvia, I promise that
someday, I'll find a way to save us all from this madness. Just,
today isn't that day."
"'K"
"Now let's see if we can get you to a safe place."
Reaching out to the summit of the trail we were on, I folded the
space in between, and stepped across the dizzying abyss of
compressed meta-substance, and we were standing the top of the
cliff, level with the top of the waterfall.
She blinked.
"That should save some walking," I explained.
Sylvia pointed again. Looking across the way, through the
cascading droplets, I could see vaguely through the shifting
light what looked like a playground, on which stood a man and a
girl, staring across back at us and pointing. It seemed as if
they were from another world, a different story.
"Sometimes," I said, "When time is standing still like this, in
between the moments, one can glimpse gateways into other
dimensions."
I shifted her weight on my back, to make sure I had a good grip.
"Hold on," I warned.
Looking across to one of the distant hilltops, I folded the
interval between, once again leaping across the absence within
the pleated interval between points in space, and we stood once
more on a strange hilltop, looking back at where we had come
from.
The entourage were like distant bugs in the clearing below us. I
was reassured to note that the invaders were about the same
number as Roderick's troops. It was difficult, but I refrained
from helping out. Roderick was the best there was. I had no doubt
he would prevail.
"Won't Elwrong be able to go back in time and find us?" asked
Sylvia.
I mused. "I'm certain she'll follow us, but she can't go too far
back, or she would be taking a huge risk. The occlusion spell
that she herself cast will give her trouble, and she would chance
slipping into a temporal undertow. She'll be able to trace the
folds I'm making in space, but she won't be able to see or
manoeuvre at all. Of course, I could help out. . ."
I took out a vial from one of the many pockets of my coat, and
sprinkled a pinch of yellowish powder into the air. It hung like
a veil, glittering and winking with mischievously sinister
delight.
"What is it?" asked Sylvia.
"Pollen," I replied, chuckling. "A violent fit of sneezing for
anyone who walks through it. Hold on!" I sighted on another
hilltop several kilometres away, and we left the miasma behind as
I once more gathered the intervening spacetime fabric into a hop
and a jump. Now the hilltop we had come from was distant speck.
The clearing and the entourage were no longer visible.
We leapt across to another distant mountaintop, then another,
then another. The clouds overhanging the forest retreated, and
the sun broke through as we got up into the mountains.
I paused to scan the landscape back in the direction we had come
from. All was stillness, all was silence. Then, almost
imperceptibly, I saw a distortion like tiny puff in the distance.
Already, we were being followed. Damn, she was better than I
thought. The poison fever surged once more, weakening my grip
slightly. I braced myself, then sighted the hilltop I was looking
for. We were almost there.
Once more I folded the space between and leapt, then the weakness
brought on by a surge of infirmity forced me to set the Princess
down.
"Are you all right?" She asked.
"I'll be fine," I said. "Here, hold my hand. Do you think you can
do it?"
She nodded. "I can try."
"Here we go. . ." I gathered the fabric of spacetime once again
for the final leap. Together we jumped, she not quite as far, and
her foot slipped back into the abyss. Not good. With all my
strength, I gripped her hand and hauled her onto solid ground,
and lifted her tumbling into my arms, feeling her precious
softness and warmth against me once more.
Her expression was confused.
I embraced her lovingly and laughed, setting her down once more.
"A bit scary, but not bad for the first time. Now hurry! Follow
me!"
The final trail we needed to complete on foot, and I was hoping I
would remember how to find the path I was looking for, even
though it had been years and everything looked different on
account of how the trees and underbrush had grown. Holding hands,
we ran along the hillside, as I searched the contour for familiar
details. There! A hedge had grown up thick in front of it, but
the old ivy-covered archway in an ancient stone wall stood
exactly as I had remembered it.
We dashed up the hillside, under the archway. I wished I hadn't
left my staff back in the carriage, but it would be alright. I
would just have to execute the invocation by hand. Bracing myself
once more, against the fever, I frantically searched the
flagstones below us for the grid. There it was! In the middle of
one of the stones by the wall, a five-by-five matrix of
finger-sized circular holes, weathered and worn, but intact. I
grabbed a handful of the incongruously smooth round pebbles that
lay nearby, setting five of them in the secret pattern as Sylvia
stood watching.
"Remember this pattern," I said, once they were in place.
"Right," she said.
"Don't worry, I'll draw it out for you again sometime. Now stand
close! Put your hand on my shoulder." She did. Closing my eyes, I
held my hands over the square and conjured up the memory of the
first Wizard. After a half a minute or so, I opened one eye.
Oops, one of the pebbles needed to go one peg to the right. I
fixed it. "Erase the other pattern, remember that one," I said.
"Right."
Once more closing my eyes, I lifted my concentration to the
infinite omnipresence of universal order, the all-pervading soul
of divine wisdom. The hush of silence shifted as the barrier
arose, surrounding us. The forcefield rose up on three sides,
with the stone wall being the fourth. I could hear a faint hum as
the magical energy activated.
One of the bricks in the wall opened from the top edge like a
trapdoor, folding over into a shelf with an antiquated control
console in the middle. The pebbles from the pattern jumped back
over into the pile they had been on before.
Through the archway, we could see a white form making its way up
the hillside. Two figures -- it looked like Elwrong had brought
someone with her.
Sylvia gasped.
"She can't see us," I said. Nonetheless, we both held perfectly
still, barely breathing.
The two, Elwrong in her white cape and some lackey, stopped in
the middle of the hillside and looked all around for a minute.
They did not look happy.
"She's either extremely talented, or dumb and lucky," I commented
in a whisper.
Sylvia looked up at me. "Why do dumb people get all the luck?"
I returned her gaze. "Like King George."
She nodded.
"Luck runs out," I observed.
She made a noise of disgust. "Let's hope so!"
The sight of Elwrong's cold, unseeing glare eerily directed
toward us made me shudder. Finally, they wandered off out of
sight.
"She can't see the archway. To her it's a solid wall," I said.
"Only those initiated by the lineage of the first Wizard of
Sangrelysia, the wise and Ancient Mother, can pass through the
archway.
"Then why could I. . ." she asked.
"I initiated you into the ways of magic," I said.
"Congratulations. You're one of the club."
I turned to the verdigris-encrusted control console. In its
middle was a circular dial, divided like a pie into five slices.
In the center was a large round button, of a faded crimson color.
On each slice was written a word or two in an ancient
Sangrelysian script.
There was a brass selector that framed one of the slices, the one
on the left. It pivoted from the center like the hand of a clock.
Grabbing the little wooden knob on the outer edge of the
selector, I turned it to the next position. It slid smoothly,
like a well-oiled lever sliding over velvet, and settled in with
a delicious `click.'
Around us, through the force-field that enclosed us, we could see
the landscape shift, transforming into a cobblestone city street
in a cozy little village -- with the same archway, but a
different wall. Nobody was in sight.
I turned the selector to the next position. Now we were on an
oceanside cliff in bright sunlight. Again, the same archway, and
a similar wall. I heard waves crashing, and caught a faint whiff
of the sea breeze.
Once more I turned the selector, and we were under a grey sky on
a stark, steep deserted mountainside, harsh, rocky and forlorn,
bereft of trees.
"Here," I said.
"Couldn't we go to the beach instead?" Sylvia asked.
"Some other time," I replied. I pushed the big red disk in the
center of the dial, and after a short pause, the control console
folded itself up into the wall, and the edges of the forcefield
descended around us, and the humming faded into silence.
We wrapped our garments around us against the sharp chill of the
mountain breeze. I heard the wind whistling and singing in the
nearby crags.
"So, you thought riding a horse was fun?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied hesitantly.
"Well. Just you wait!"
Chapter 13
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