The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©

Chapter Fifteen: Preparations

With satisfaction, Jaya observed the small group in front of her; a human working alongside a kanidian, a cursed familiar, and a dardwain to create something for the unified purpose of helping others. There are many places in the world where such a collaboration to achieve a goal would have been impossible, and it warmed her heart to see so many different individuals setting their differences aside and working together towards a common goal. The moment was dampened, however when Jaya looked at the monstrosity in the center of the room, the product of their uncanny display of racial unity.

In the center of the room stood a makeshift gateway, not even remotely symmetrical in any way. Colson had done most of the building of the gateway, and he may have taken her instructions to make it “not perfect” a little too liberally. The oblong and crooked arch stretched into the rafters, where it was nailed to the center strut of the roof at an angle as if it had started to fall over when it was nailed there. The right pole holding the arch in the air stood a pace or two off-center from the left pole, so any open gate would be drastically slanted to the side. The left pole was made half out of the scrying pillar in the center of the room before becoming odd pieces of wood and metal to form the rest of the pole.

Much of the materials for the poles and the arch had been provided by Izreea’s bedroom furniture, which is why the gate looked like a hodgepodge of materials. Izreea didn’t look at all flustered at having to provide her furnishings which confused Jaya a little, as did her fervor in taking the furniture apart for materials.

No single person was strong enough to open a shadow gate, and even if they all worked together and managed to open the gate, there was no seal strong enough to keep such a gate open. Therefore, a large source of independent magical energy was required to open and maintain the gateway. It needed a few enhancements, and there was some intense whining about bad luck and wedding gifts or some such nonsense from Jonathan, but in the end, they decided the scrying pillar would be an acceptable energy source.

Even with his whining, Jonathan was still very helpful in incorporating the pillar with the gate. It was even his idea to use the pillar as the base for the left pole of the arch.

He truly had a way with research and invention when he wasn’t being a selfish pup, Jaya thought to herself.

The main enhancement they needed for the Scrying pillar was a way to take the arcane energy within the pillar and increase it exponentially. This required six specifically enchanted crystals cut into a concave shape like a shallow bowl or a spoon, which would then be added to the device in a perfect circle, facing the same direction.

Jonathan and Jareth had two usable crystals in their workbench in the attic, but the rest had to be found at the school or purchased at the Emporium. The emporium only had two crystals as well, so Jaya went back to the school looking for more crystals. It made sense for her to go since she was the only one that could enter the school without raising suspicions, as her involvement in this whole affair was still unknown.

The first crystal she had found was in the possession of Elder Gordan, the same man she had borrowed the runed coin purse, which Izreea still had in her possession. The mysterious, ethereal cube within that coin purse had caused much grief to Izreea, which was largely Jaya’s fault because of her willingness to bargain with an ancient evil. Her intentions had been noble; she sought the destruction of the beast and needed information about its origin to discover its weaknesses. Yet, in her arrogance, she was manipulated into almost killing a member of this very important group of individuals. That was not a mistake she was willing to make again, so she had ceased all attempts at communicating with the monster.

There must be ten in the end, no matter what. The dardwain seeker had made that clear, she thought to herself.

 Elder Gordan reminded Jaya of a hermit who had never thrown a thing away in his life. His bedroom was a large storage room converted into a bedroom to accommodate all of his possessions. There were mounds and piles of odds and ends spread throughout the room, all arranged so that no one, not even Elder Gordan, could have known what all was there. How the imprisoned beast had known the cube’s exact location in this junk garden was a mystery.

Jaya had previously seen Elder Gordan paying for another useless oddity with his coin purse. She had recognized the rune as an enchantment to prevent anything from falling unwillingly out of the bag, regardless of the object’s physical state. Using the bag to hold the ethereal cube was significantly less time-consuming than creating an accessory that would act like a catalyst or medium to place her in an ethereal state so she could move it. She had taken the bag that evening when the man slept, leaving any coins he had in the bag on his dresser.

The first crystal Jaya had found was in the drawer of Elder Gordan’s nightstand, one of the last places she had looked after combing through the piles on the floor. He had been teaching classes when she was searching, and she was sure to return almost everything where she had found it. It was impossible to do a perfect job with such a mess, but with nothing else missing, she hoped he would let the matter drop.

The second crystal she had found on the school’s communication array. The communication array was a scrying pillar just like Jonathan’s but significantly larger, taking up almost the entire tower room. The array used crystals to communicate long distances with schools and cities that also had communication arrays. It would no longer be functional without replacing the crystal Jaya took. With any luck, the school was using this array to communicate with the warlocks, so removing the crystal would only help their situation.

Jaya had given the six crystals to Jaya, Myrum, and Izreea to enchant and shape. At the same time, Colson built the gateway from Izreea’s materials, and Jonathan worked on the runes for Drock’s vestment.

After adding the crystals to the pillar, all that would be left is to add the arcane energy of the pillar to one of the crystals to start the process. The crystal enchantment will enhance the arcane energy it is fed from the pillar, and the shape of the crystals will send the enhanced energy to the next crystal in the circle, which will repeat the process of enhancing the energy before passing it along to the next crystal in the circle. This arcane chain forms a resonance that gradually grows in power until the pillar becomes strong enough to open the gateway and keep it open as a self-sufficient spell.

Although it had been a difficult two days, only three more tasks remained before they could depart. Painting the gateway with very specific runes, finishing Drock’s vestment, and one last group meeting to discuss the journey.

Myrum was in the center of the room with a pail of black paint, painting every inch of the gateway so that it was one color. Jonathan was using a spell to remove moisture from the black paint so it would dry quickly, and Izreea was waiting for the black paint to dry behind Jonathan. She had a white bucket of paint on the floor, a dry brush in her right hand and a piece of paper in her left hand with runes written as a template for what she needed to draw over the black paint. There were only six runes needed, and their order was simple.

Colson and Drock were sitting in the corner at a small table Jonathan had transported to the attic from the main floor. Drock was staring at Jonathan across the room, which was normal when Izreea was not using her scrying stone to contact her husband. Then Drock would stare at her instead. The pillar in the center of the room was no longer usable to project Jareth’s image, but it still functioned enough to connect the two scrying stones that the husband and wife wore so they could speak with one another.

On the table were a coat and a cloak that Colson was sewing together quite skillfully. The coat and cloak glowed with runes of power, something that had taken Jonathan the entire previous day to create. The runes were designed to create a bubble around the wearer which would place them in an ethereal state, phasing them out of this world in all traceable ways while also allowing them to stay visible in the physical world. This way, nothing could detect the wearer magically, but the other travelers could still see him when looking at him.

Jaya had asked Jonathan why a coat and a cloak were both needed when the runes on the cloak could have just gone on the backside of the coat. By the time he was done educating her on the use of plural layered runes, and the different results based on what runes are layered on top of one another, she had regretted asking him. The information was informative, but Jonathan had such arrogance when he explained his methods that she found it difficult to maintain her patience. He was nothing compared with raising Myrum, who willfully challenged traditions and often pushed boundaries.

Without meaning to, Jaya was caught up in memories of training Myrum’s mother, Latale. Myrum and Latale were very similar in personality but very different in how they viewed the world. Latale sought to improve the world by following in her mother’s footsteps and becoming a seeker. Her decision made Jaya happy at the time, as this was an honorable and respected tradition among her people, and any parent would be proud to have a seeker in their bloodline.

Myrum, on the other hand, viewed the world as already lost. Rather than improving what was lost, she sought to save what was left. This fatalistic point of view was probably rooted in her mother’s death during the initiation ceremony of becoming a seeker. Myrum had only lived through four winters when Latale passed, and for obvious reasons, she blamed her grandmother for her mother’s death for many years.

Jaya blamed herself as well. She still did. Latale knew the risks of the ceremony and that close to half of all initiates died attempt. Everyone considered her death noble and honorable, and her name was carved on the great tree in the center of the grove, along with other members of the pack that had died with honor.

Everyone knew the risks and rewards … but statistics, facts, and honors did nothing to ease the pain of a child yearning for their mother. They held no advice on what to whisper in that child’s ear when they cry into your chest at night. Or what to tell them when they dream of their mother’s death or wake from the nightmare to find it a mirror of their horrible reality. They did not tell you what to say when that child blamed you or that it would take years for them to forgive you.

Jaya realized she was brooding in the unchangeable past and wiped a tear from her eye as she reasserted herself to the task at hand.

Myrum had just finished painting the pillar and put the paint away by the desk. Jonathan had dried the paint on the left pillar of the arch and was working his way down the right pillar. Izreea had just started painting the first white rune on the left pillar where the paint was dry.

Colson had finished connecting the two articles of clothing and was pulling and prodding Drock to stand on his feet to try them on. You could always get the shell to follow basic movement instructions, but there was a massive processing delay, sometimes waiting a full minute before he would move. Asking him to do anything else except move around, sit, or stand did not work at all, and he had a way of knowing if you were only asking him to move somewhere to see if he would do it. Those requests he completely ignored, and Jaya still did not know how the shell could tell the difference; he just could.

Once Drock was standing, Colson slipped the vestment over his head and pulled it down over his body. He did not bother putting his arms in the sleeves because he only wanted to see if it would work. Nothing was happening, though, so Colson called Jonathan over to look at the garment.

Jaya was quite satisfied with this group of individuals. They were not perfect, and they were not all experts at everything. Yet by pooling their strengths, they accomplished a great feat and would hopefully accomplish many more feats in the coming years. Unity and harmony within the group were of the utmost importance in the instructions given to Jaya by the dardwain seeker in the room with the gesangnus. If even a small part of what the dardwain seeker had said was true, then this group’s destiny was too unbelievable to share with them. They would have to discover it for themselves.

Jonathan and Colson had figured out that the cloak had to be buttoned for the runes to activate, and as soon as Colson buttoned it, the runes came alive with color. The runes on the coat were deep red, the ones on the cloak were deep blue, and they made a purple that swayed with movement wherever they overlapped.

After a moment, Drock and everything he was wearing, including his new vestment, faded away until he was opaque and ghostlike in appearance with very faded runes on his vestment. Jonathan had said that he would fade completely out of view if you were not focused on seeing him and then fade back to this ghostlike appearance if you focused on finding him. However, it was impossible to test this theory as trying to think about not thinking about him was clearly a paradox as one served the purpose of the other. She was sure that in time, she would be distracted enough to see if it worked.

Colson and Jonathan turned to Jaya for approval. Jaya walked closer to them to focus her attention on the trio, more specifically on Drock. Her task was to try and detect him now the same way a tormented soul or a revenant seeking a better shell would have tried to detect him, to see if it was safe to take him into the shadow realm.

Jaya spoke loudly so everyone could hear her, saying, “Be aware that I am about to do something startling. Please do not be afraid, and do not try to hurt me. It will only last a moment.”

She made a special point to look at Izreea at the last part of her sentence, but Izreea’s only response was to wipe white paint from her fingers on the side of the small paint can she was holding while she returned Jaya’s gaze.

Jaya wasted no time in transforming into the vestige of a seeker. It was true through and through that seekers were a type of revenant, but their own souls were intact within their bodies rather than the vengeful lost soul of an intruder in someone else’s deceased body. Where revenants were misshapen, dark, twisted creatures made of corpses and death, seekers were shining beacons of light.

Jaya’s body lifted off the ground, and the light in the room seemed to gather around her like an aura, making her shine as bright as the sun. Her eyes shone white and yellow, and her fur turned white from head to two. She was regal and dignified and radiated strength and power. She hovered in the air a moment before gliding down and standing on the attic floor while staring at Drock, whose dead eyes were locked onto her like a moth to the flame.

Then something unexpected happened. Drock took a step towards Jaya of his own free will. Jaya held her hand up as if to do something to Drock, maybe place a wall in front of him or lift him in the air so he could not continue walking towards her, but nothing happened. A frown appeared on her regal face.

“I was afraid of this. He must have a predisposition to seek out a strong source of arcane power, so it is more than just an attraction to magic that captures his attention,” Jaya said with a naturally authoritative voice while stepping away from the man. Absolute authority. There was no doubt to any of them that she had earned her title as Mother Seeker. Her voice was layered as if two people were speaking simultaneously, one light and one dark, but both of one mind and purpose.

“It also appears your runes make him immune to spells that would physically move him, Jonathan,” she said while taking another step away.

It was obvious that she was not afraid of him, but she was also hesitant to allow him to touch her since she did not yet know the purpose of his magical attraction. Colson stepped in front of Drock and was able to place a hand on his chest, stopping him from advancing with relative ease.

“Thank you, Colson. I cannot detect him from the side of life. Now I shall try two forms of the side of death,” Jaya said again in her authoritative plural voice.

Jaya fell to her knees as her body convulsed forward. The hair over her body seemed to ripple and bulge, and her bones cracked as they expanded and stretched. The glow of light around her turned into darkness, and her fur went from white to black. After several seconds she stood with a crooked, bent back, hobbled arms, and a face that was twisted and smashed as if her jaw had been broken and allowed to heal out of place. Her eyes were glossy marbles, and her tongue hung involuntarily from her mouth.

Everyone in the room had dealt with one of these before. It was the lowest form of revenant, a shambler. The species of the corpse was always named before the type of revenant, so she would have been called a kanidian shambler. They were dangerous, of course, but simple and straightforward to deal with since they had no magical abilities of their own. All you needed was a good pair of scythes.

No one in the room knew how to react to what they had just witnessed, but Jaya’s plea to not fear or harm her was remembered, so none of them moved. Myrum and Colson had traveled with Jaya many times and knew what Jaya was doing, so they both stood passively watching from the side of the room. Jonathan was perched on Colson’s shoulder with his beak hanging open from shock, but he made no other sign of reacting. Izreea had been a revenant hunter, so she was the one Jaya was most worried about reacting poorly to her transformation. Thankfully her only reaction was to tighten her grip on her paintbrush.

Jaya twisted her altered body around to look at Drock hovering in the air and found he was staring at her still but was no longer trying to walk toward her. Jaya confirmed she could not detect him and nodded her head in approval. She always hated speaking in this form since it sounded like she was talking underwater, so she said nothing.

Her body began to change again, similar to the way she changed the first time. She rose into the air, and all her deformities disappeared as she was stretched, altered, and pulled back into her normal shape. Her fur remained black and became close-cropped and sleek on her body, and the aura around her stayed black as well. Her eyes changed to a glowing purple that seemed to forever chase her as she moved, like an object spinning too fast for the eye to see so that it appeared like there were multiple objects when there was only one.

The sleek, darkened form of Jaya regally floated to the floor in the form of the strongest known version of a revenant. She turned to stare Izreea, knowing she would react poorly.

“Lich!” Izreea cried as she sprinted towards her bag sitting along the wall containing her runed scythes.

“Izreea, be still!” Jaya shouted with an amplified voice that rattled the walls around them.

Her voice still contained that plural tone as if two people were speaking simultaneously, but lighter and crisper than her standard husky voice. Jaya was not trying to be unkind by shouting at Izreea, but she wanted to catch her attention before she did something stupid. It appeared to work as Izreea stopped short a few steps from her bag, chest heaving and hands clenching and unclenching as she fought her instinct to fight or run.

Jaya did not blame her in the slightest. She knew the woman had lost a mate in her past, the white streak in her hair was obvious to anyone that knew anything about the dardwain, and she had overheard her conversation with Jareth and Jonathan concerning seekers and lich. Jaya could smell the adrenaline and fear in the woman just speaking of lich, so her reaction to having one under her roof was understandable.

“I know I look like one, but I am not a wild lich. I am a seeker, Izreea. I am the unity of life and death, one giving way to the other, which gives way to the first, and so on and so forth until I die. If I die with another soul in me, with death in me, then I become a wild Lich, knowing and granting only death. If I die without another’s soul within me, then I will find peace,” Jaya said while exuding as much authority as the aspect of death as she had as the aspect of life.

Izreea stood there with her hands trembling from fear, anger, or a mix of both. Jaya couldn’t tell. She then turned to Jaya and walked slowly up to her until they were inches apart. Despite the intense fear Jaya could smell exuding from the woman, Izreea looked defiantly up into the taller kanidian’s darkened face.

“Why should I believe you?” she asked softly, with a single tear trailing down her face.

“I do not mean to interrupt…” Jonathan said softly, catching their attention.

Angrily, Jaya and Izreea simultaneously turned to Jonathan, but he had a wing pointing behind them, so they both turned around.

The ghostly figure of Drock was trying to reach Jaya so fervently that Myrum had wrapped her arms around him and lifted him bodily off the ground. His legs were pumping as hard as they could in the air in his effort to reach the dark seeker.

Jaya quickly confirmed she could not detect anything from him, not even a trace of his smell, before becaming her normal self in the center of the room again. The change was so instant that it took a moment for the aura around her to disappear completely and for her fur to change back to its normal color.

Drock seemed to have a delay in catching up to the fact that Jaya was no longer manifesting as a powerful lich, but after a moment, his peddling slowed down, and then he came to a stop while his head turned to stare at Jonathan as if nothing had happened.

Myrum put Drock back on the attic floor as Jaya turned back to Izreea, only to find her by her bags on the other side of the room. Only Myrum and Jaya’s sensitive ears could hear her crying softly while pretending to inventory the contents of her bag. Jaya decided to let the matter go and turned back to Drock. Thankfully the vestment was corporeal enough to touch; all Colson had to do was unlatch the cloak at the neck, and the runes deactivated, bringing Drock back into the physical reality.

“Well done, Jonathan and Colson. I could not detect him in any form. I could not even smell him. However, it does appear we need to do something about his newfound desire to move towards a strong revenant,” Jaya said to the group.

“Yes, that was unexpected,” Colson said.

“We either need a tether of some kind that one of us can hold or a way to carry him for potentially a day or more,” Myrum summarized.

“Jaya wanted the runes to make him invisible by sight to anyone not actually looking for him, meaning a stranger looking on our group with no knowledge that he exists would not see him at all. So, having a floating rope in the air around him would defeat the purpose of the runes,” Jonathan responded.

Izreea had returned from inspecting her bags without a trace of the tears she had been crying. She completely avoided looking at Jaya.

“I do not know much about complex runes like this, but can you adjust them so he cannot sense revenants either, like a two-directional block?” she asked Jonathan since he was the person who created the runes.

“Given enough time, I believe I could figure it out, but it took me a day and a half and over a dozen failed attempts to find a layering that blocked him from revenants while still allowing us to see him. Mind you, that is just two factors to consider; adding a third factor of also blocking him from sensing revenants would take significantly longer to figure out because it would change the rune placement of all three layers,” Jonathan replied impatiently.

“Not to mention that each day we spend preparing to leave is a day closer to the warlocks finding Jareth and Sparrow,” Colson added.

“What if we took one horse or even a donkey if you want something less skittish?” Izreea asked.

“That is not an option,” Jaya stated firmly.

“I do not underst-” Izreea began to say before Jaya politely but firmly cut her off.

“There is much I need to tell the entire group before we even attempt to use a shadow gate, including why we cannot take animals. Let us figure out how to tether the shell, then I will impart all I know about traveling by shadow, and hopefully, that will answer everyone’s questions,” Jaya said.

Izreea stared back at Jaya, her face a rippling conflict of emotions. Jaya knew that Izreea was still angry at her for so many reasons. She was angry for not being warned that Jaya would transform into the very thing which haunted her nightmares. She was angry for having to relive those memories as she looked at the shadowy shape with the glowing purple eyes. She was angry at being embarrassed by others in the room who was unaware of her past.

She also knew in her heart that none of her anger was justified. Izreea knew that Jaya had nothing to do with Ferin’s death. Jaya wasn’t even the same gender as the lich that killed Ferin. That lich had been a male kanidian, and Izreea now knew that he had also been a seeker before he was killed with another person’s soul within him. Additionally, there was a cold, dark cruelty in wild lich that was completely absent in the lich that Jaya had transformed into, and that was the hardest part to forget concerning the lich that had killed Ferin.

Jaya cleared her throat to make Izreea realize that she had been staring at Jaya while she was lost in her thoughts, and Jaya had been waiting for a response.

“Yes, it can wait,” she said as neutrally as possible, still battling internally with her emotions concerning the seeker.

“Very well. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to tether the shell?” Jaya asked the group.

Just then, Jonathan decided to be cute and raised his wing in the air. It was rather adorable, no matter how foul of a mood one was in.

“Yes, Jonathan?” Jaya asked with a small chuckle.

“I don’t think I could layer a rope into the runes as it would interfere with the layering of the runes as they are now, but I could make a completely ethereal rope,” Jonathan said.

“How woul-” Jaya began to say before Jonathan cut her off to continue speaking.

“Hear me out. Hear me out,” he said while ignoring Myrum’s low growl directed at him for interrupting her grandmother. “While Drock is wearing the runes, he is somewhere between the ethereal and physical world, which is why we can still interact with him. A completely ethereal object should also be able to touch him like we can since he is in both worlds. So, we could tie a rope around him and stick the end of it into that coin purse that Izreea is using to hold that cube we found in the school, and then make the rope completely ethereal by infusing it with the amulet Izreea has in her bag. That way, we can hold onto the ethereal rope using the bag, which is small enough that no one should see the bag and associate it with an invisible group member being walked like a dog on a leash in the shadow realm.”

There was a long pause in which everyone in the room was digesting his torrent of information.

“That sounds like something out of a children’s book, Jon,” Izreea said, using the abbreviated version of his name that he disliked to hammer the insult home.

Jonathan bristled at first, but after a moment, his feathers laid flat, and he appeared to rise above the snide comment, possibly because he still remembered how recent it was that there had been a lich in the center of Izreea’s attic.

“A little overly complicated, but I believe it will work. What will you do with the cube that is currently in the bag? I would not recommend leaving it for just anyone to find since we do not yet know everything it is capable of,” Jaya said cautiously.

Even though Jaya had unwisely bargained with the imprisoned one, in which she had been instructed on where to find and relocate the object so that Izreea would find it, she truly did not know what its purpose was. She knew it had been a conduit of some kind for Jonathan and Katerina to access another world. Still, how it was altered or used so that something, perhaps the imprisoned one, perhaps something else, was able to communicate with Izreea, she did not know.

All she knew for sure was it was she who was responsible. Her actions placed the cube in Izreea’s path, putting the dardwain in harm’s way. She was not about to allow the object to fall into the wrong hands where it could harm someone else again, especially in the world of shadow where any unknown creature of darkness could find it.

“I see no reason why we can’t leave it in the coin purse. The very nature of the rune on the purse would prevent anything from falling out of it unless the one holding the purse desired it to. We will be tying it tightly to the rope so we do not lose hold of the ethereal bag anyway, so it should stay in the bag regardless,” Jonathan replied.

Jay thought he was more concerned about defending his idea than any real concern for the lost object.

“As long as you accept that the ethereal amulet will be destroyed in the process and that you will be placing the key to finding your lost friend in a fragile position, then you may proceed with your plan,” Jaya said as if she was washing her hands of the matter.

“I do not mean to lessen the catastrophic significance of reaching Sparrow, but Jareth is my brother and is in immediate danger. Yes, I will accept the loss of the amulet, and if it will help us reach him faster, then to hell with the transmaterial cube,” Jonathan said with enthusiasm.

So, it does have a name, Jaya thought to herself silently.

Izreea moved to her backpack against the wall, presumably to retrieve the coin bag with the cube in it and the ethereal necklace, both of which were too valuable to leave behind for the school’s minions to find.

“I assume Izreea and Jonathan can manage the creation of the rope and securing it to the shell while also listening to my final instructions?” Jaya asked with a tone of voice that bordered on rudeness.

Jonathan ignored her as he began to work on the amulet that Izreea had hung from a peg near him. Izreea was taking small round stones from a bag in her hand and shoving them into the fibers of one end of a thin rope to create a form of traction for the one holding that end of the rope in the cloth bag. She used magic to seal the fibers of the rope over the stones so that they stood out from the surface of the rope before walking towards Drock to tie the other end of the rope to him. She paused only a moment as she worked to nod in acknowledgment of the question.

Jaya was aware of the rudeness in her voice, and it made her realize that she was nervous about using the shadow gate, and it was starting to show. Nervous or not, creating discord in the group by disrespecting her peers before they even left would be plain foolish.

“Thank you both for your willingness to help,” Jaya said warmly, attempting to make amends for her earlier tone.

Jonathan continued to ignore her, but Izreea gave her a small nod and an uncertain smile. She then turned back to help Jonathan by holding the amulet against the rope as he prepared to disenchant the item and fuse its essence into the rope.

“Very well then, let us begin,” Jaya said aloud as she sat on the ground, curling her tail around her legs.

Colson and Myrum joined her on the ground as Jonathan and Izreea continued working on the rope. Drock remained standing while altering his gaze between Jonathan and the amulet’s flickering flashes of energy it gave out as Jonathan dismantled its essence for the rope.

Jaya had thought long and hard about what she would tell this group of individuals at this point in their journey. She could certainly lead them through this experience with the barest of information to retain some secrets of her people. However, their survival was of paramount importance to the world. If exposing a few secrets of her people results in this group traveling safely, then so be it.

“I am unsure what this collective group understands concerning the shadow world, but I intend to impart all that I know that is relevant to our journey, as well as answer all of your questions … unbridled by the shackles of secrecy,” Jaya said.

Myrum seemed to perk up at the last part, and a wide toothy grin appeared on her elongated face. It was impossible to tell if she was excited, shocked, or angry, but there was a reaction that did not go unnoticed by the group.

“I suppose I shall begin with the most obvious; by explaining the shape of the physical arch beside us. In the world of light we are in now, you can see that this arch is in the center of a room. This gives depth to the arch, height, width, color, physical material, age, and design, and tells us if it is magical or not, and the list goes on and on,”.

“Within the shadow world, none of that exists. This arch would have no frame, depth, backdrop, or features around it, and no context to compare and contrast it. It can be seen from very far away, especially for those that know what they are looking for. Because of this, we made the gate as distorted as possible so that hopefully, on the other side, it will have a shape other than a doorway. This should limit the range at which it can be seen when standing in the shadow.”

“Now, I can put wards on the entrance that would place a door over the entrance that only those warded against could see, but any creature strong enough to detect and find a shadow gate would shred any ward I could make in seconds, so it wou-.”

“Wouldn’t a door over the entrance limit its detectable range by blocking out light?” Jonathan interrupted as Myrum began to growl again.

Jaya had been fully expecting Jonathan to interrupt her, several times at least, so she waved Myrum to silence and responded.

“I know it is difficult to grasp, but it would not matter if the attic was black as pitch and had a matching door over the entrance. Any entrance from the shadow world to this world is wreathed like a beacon to those that want to find it. All we can do is limit how easily it can be found.”

“I’m sorry, Jaya, but I do not understand. If this is a world devoid of light, how can someone see something as black as pitch as if it was a beacon?

“I was going to get to this subject at a later point, but maybe this will help explain. The world of the shadow responds to thoughts and desires. I needed to travel to a neighboring pack’s grove. This is normally a two-week journey, but shadow walking shortened the trip to just six hours. Taking the same path back took me two full days. The difference between the two journeys was my focus. On the way there, I was excited to reach my destination, so I was focused on where I wanted to be. On the way back, however, I was distracted by thoughts of my daughter’s death. So my mind wandered aimlessly, and so did the path home.”

“The point I am trying to make is it does not matter if the gate is completely invisible to anyone not standing right next to it. Once its existence is known, and the desire to reach it is established, the shadow will bring any creature to that gate if they wanted to reach it badly enough, even if they could not see it.”

Jaya paused to see if Jonathan was satisfied, and he looked up from the glowing rope Izreea was holding in the air to nod that he understood.

Jaya turned back to address the group.

“Now, I would like to expound upon the concept of desire and focus within the shadow. How long it takes to reach Jareth and Sparrow depends entirely on each of us. If you trick yourself into believing that a month’s journey should take days to complete in the shadow, then that is exactly how long it would take. However, the person next to you may believe it should take a week, and another may believe it should only take an hour. The shadow will attempt to find a balance between these factors.”

“Here is an example; if more people in our group thought of how we would reach Sparrow instead of Jareth, and then their thoughts wandered to whether or not Sparrow was safe or what his purpose was in this world rather than applying those thoughts to Jareth, then the shadow would direct our path to Sparrow instead of Jareth. So, our focus must be in unison, even if it means temporarily putting Sparrow out of our mind until after we have collected Jareth.”

“Now, Izreea was asking if we could bring horses, and unfortunately, we cannot because of the very concept I just described. The shadow would attempt to find a balance between our desires and that of our horses, and who knows where that would put us.”

Izreea was tying the glowing rope around Drock’s waist under the cloak. She and Jonathan were not finished, though, since the rope could still be seen, and the amulet still pulsed softly as its drained.

“Now I need to go over the dangers of the shadow and why shadow gates are such a closely guarded secret among my people. The two are related … somewhat. The most common creatures we may run into are revenants, and I am confident that all of you know how to handle at least some types of revenants, so I will not bore you with a list of them. However, if you do see a revenant, do not be a fool and try to fight it alone. Revenants are significantly stronger in the shadow, and many of them can change their form to bait their prey into engaging them, and yes, you are the prey.”

“We could also face a mimic, although I highly doubt we will run into one of those since they are rare.”

Jonathan flew onto Colson’s shoulder, and Jaya turned to see that the rope around Drock was completely gone, save for the small coin pouch tied around the end of it lying on the ground at Drock’s feet. The mouth of the coin purse hung open around the invisible rope, and a small bulge stuck out of the side, which must have belonged to the transmaterial cube Jonathan had recently named. Izreea was also sitting next to Myrum, completing the half-circle of individuals.

“What is a mimic?” Izreea asked sincerely, all trace of irritation or anger gone from her voice.

“A mimic is a creature that can only be found in the shadow. Somehow it can enhance the shadow’s ability to read your heart’s desire, but on a much deeper level. The creature can dig into your soul, find your most tender wishes, and make them come to life before your eyes, such as a long-lost loved one or a secret desire for wealth or power. They will always choose something that requires you to come close to them so they can sting you with their tails,” she said.

“What do they look like?” Colson asked.

Izreea and Jonathan were surprised that Colson had to ask. Until now, he had seemed knowledgeable of the kanidian’s secrets and plans.

“I have only run into one mimic myself, but it had a hairy body with elongated arms like an ape, three claws on each hand, a stinger on its tail, and multiple eyes like a spider set over a massive mouth with jagged teeth. They mostly feed on lesser forms of revenants or the occasional lycanthrope, so my people have decided not to seek them out for study.

“Speaking of Lycanthropes, I have come to the most important part of our meeting, but before we delve into this kanidian secret. Does anyone have any other questions about our discussion thus far?” Jaya asked.

There was a moment of silence while everyone glanced around the room expectantly, looking to see if anyone had any further questions. Jonathan opened his beak as if to speak but changed his mind and shook his head, indicating he did not wish to speak.

“Very well then, I would like to explain why I was so apprehensive about even discussing shadow gates,” she said.

“What does that have to do with Lycanthropes?”  Jonathan blurted out.

“If you would be silent and listen to what she has to say instead of interrupting all the time, perhaps the mother seeker will get to that part!” Myrum shouted at the bird.

Jonathan’s feathered body bristled in response, but with a moderate tone, he slowly said, “Apologies Ja- … mother seeker, please continue.”

 “Thank you, Myrum and Jonathan. We must begin our journey soon, so I will be brief but hopefully still thorough. There was a point in history when a seeker could escort groups of individuals to destinations by shadow-walking with them through shadow gates. This was not an uncommon occurrence but was usually only done at the request of a political leader or as repayment for services.

“A very unique request was made by a prominent arcanist, Elder Goren Donaldson. This man had recently discovered the cure for a disease that had plagued my people, so turning down his request was out of the question. He simply wanted us to escort a group of sick individuals suffering from an unknown liver disease to Dule Van for treatment.”

“A seeker was dispatched to a small town called Bree to create a shadow gate and escort Elder Donaldson’s group of individuals for him. The seeker found a group of exactly forty individuals, twenty humans and twenty kanidians, with ten females and ten males in each group. Half of them wore crimson robes, the other half wore blue robes, and all had yellow eyes. They seemed weak but were talkative and firm about their desire to travel by shadow to gain treatment.

“The seeker should have known something was wrong when he saw the nature of the group he was to escort. He should have known that so many oddities did not conform to any illness, especially with the specific number of males and females affected. Still, he ignored his good sense and escorted them anyways.

“They traveled in shadow for almost an hour when they heard an amplified voice speak as if from everywhere at once. The voice was reciting a spell in a tongue unrecognized by the seeker and was much too loud to be from someone in the group.

“The seeker was so busy looking around for the source of the voice that he failed to realize the group around him had been the target of the chanted spell until it was too late. Empty robes of both colors littered the ground around him, and instead of forty individual humans and kanidians standing around the seeker, there were twenty lycanthropes.

“Immediately, all the lycanthropes wearing blue went wild, tearing at their robes and snarling at those around them. The other half of the lycanthropes wearing red shifted as a group away from the wild ones. They were clearly not afraid of the other group, merely observing from a discrete distance.

“The intelligence and awareness within the crimson-robed lycanthropes were impossible for the seeker to miss, so he attempted to speak to them, to ask them what was going on and how all of this happened. The moment the seekers began to speak, the wild lycanthropes reacted aggressively, dropping to all fours and snarling like common dogs, waiting for a leader to start the attack.

“The seeker immediately transformed into a living lich, choosing death instead of life because the shadow around him would enhance his powers. A sword of purple flame erupted into his hand, and the wild lycanthropes scattered in fear, some disappearing into the darkness while others left the shadow world through doorways they created, even though none of them could do so before their transformation.”

“The seeker changed back into his normal self and turned to address the remaining crimson-robed lycanthropes, who were all still standing together, observing events as they unfolded without emotion. The seeker asked them many questions, and a story was put together piece by piece.

“The details of his scientific methods are truly not important to our journey, but I will say that Elder Donaldson had been experimenting with humans and kanidians to create the gift of shadow walking without the necessity of the kanidian’s death ritual. He was convinced that the ability was not exclusively belonging to kanidians because human revenants could also shadow walk, which is why he was also testing humans. The lycanthropes made a point to mention that Elder Donaldson did not abuse his subject, even though he tested them like lab rats.”

“That was all that the crimson lycanthropes would tell the seeker before requesting an exit from the world of shadow. Therein lies the poetic irony of this story. Elder Donaldson’s experiment had worked, but only for the wild, instinct-driven lycanthropes who had no beneficial use for it, leaving his intelligent creations without the gift of shadow walking. This turned out to be a very good thing, too, because hundreds of years later, these crimson lycanthropes would reemerge from the south as the twisted Jackal’s, waging a bloody war across the continent.”

There was a moment of silence throughout the room as everyone digested this information, then the room erupted in noise. There was no way to distinguish one person’s comments from another, but Jaya’s enhanced hearing easily picked up the collective sounds. Jonathan was by far the loudest, but he had forgotten he was a bird with a beak, so there were squawks and squeaks intermittently placed within his shouted questions.

Colson appeared just as shocked as everyone else and had completely forgotten to cover up his accent. The missing g’s were quite apparent as he blurted out a string of profanities only a local from his youth would have understood. Myrum seemed angry and fired questions at her grandmother with the occasional bark or growl thrown into the mix.

Then, Jaya noticed Izreea was silently staring at nothing, lost in thought. There was perplexity to the expression on her face as if she was trying to access a memory but couldn’t quite find it. The dardwain people had not been affected by the human’s war with the Jackals, so it was not surprising that she had no emotional reaction to this information. Yet no reaction at all at finding out lycanthropes were half human and half kanidian and had been created as an experiment … was an oddity. Jaya did not like oddities. Jaya raised her hand to silence the group, waiting until they were silent before speaking.

“I know that you have questions, and rightly so, but now is not the time. I told you all this story to disclose why shadow gates have become a secret to my people and why entering the shadow with multiple individuals is a risk. Nothing I can tell you about lycanthropes or Jackals will help us reach Jareth or Sparrow, and our time is vastly gone. We need to leave immediately,” Jaya said firmly as she stood and walked to her pack against the attic wall.

There was a moment of indecision as the rest of the group watched her collect her bag and place it on her shoulder. She then lifted a wooden walking staff tucked away behind the row of bags and turned to face the group. The walking staff aged her somewhat, undercutting the regal memory of the glorious transformation she had recently demonstrated.

Jaya realized no one else had moved and slammed the walking staff on the ground, cracking the wooden beam of the attic floor where the staff landed, and shouted.

“Move!”

That was all it took for the group to shake out of their stupor and leap into action. All their gear had been prepared the day before and placed along the wall in the attic. Each person had a travel bag packed with what they considered essentials for a journey of this nature and an equal distribution of food and water for the group.

Considering their increased strength and endurance, Myrum had given herself and her grandmother more water to carry and had rejected any arguments from Izreea that they could carry their equal share. Colson remained silent on the topic, most likely because he already experienced this situation traveling with the kanidians in the past and knew arguing would be pointless.

In addition to the packs, everyone had weapons of some kind. Izreea had her rune-covered scythes at her waist in a custom cradle safety harness with the handles of the weapons pointing up and angled towards her navel. The harness was designed to prevent her from accidentally stabbing herself with the scythes while also allowing her to cross her arms, grab the handles of the scythes, and quickly lift them out of the harness. 

Jaya had a simple yet straight and smooth enchanted staff with a rounded knot of wood at its top for clubbing with. Colson wore a thin sword that seemed to mold to his body somehow, as if it had become a part of him the moment he placed it at his waist. He also had a special pouch of liquid at his waist that he openly declared a non-potable liquid weapon.

Myrum had two weapons in a satchel protruding over her right shoulder. One of the weapons was a leather-wrapped battle axe with an extra-long handle to suit her size; the other was a longbow as tall as Izreea. The bow was unstrung for storage and had been bound to the satchel on Myrum’s back with leather cords. When Jonathan criticized the time it would take her to unwrap her axe or string her bow if needed, she simply barred her long sharp teeth at him with a deadly smile.

After a few moments, everyone was gathered around Jaya near the entrance of the shadow gate. Izreea was holding the bag with the ethereal rope, with Drock obediently standing near her. Jaya turned to give the group one last warning.

“I have kept them blind up to this point, but the moment I open this gate, it will be felt by the Elders assigned to watch this house. They will not know exactly what we are doing, but the growing magic will eventually be too strong to remain hidden from them. It will only be a matter of time before they ask and are permitted by the council to search the property.

“I doubt they will be prepared and willing to follow us into the gate for some time, but I will place a safeguard over the gate when we are through. There will be no turning back at that point, so if you wish to remain behind, speak now,” Jaya said firmly while looking from person to person around her.

As she looked at the faces around her, Jaya noticed no hesitant glances at those around them and no shifting or feet in anticipation. As her gaze fell upon each individual in turn, she felt steadfastness from each of them. There was a resolve to the group now that wasn’t noticeable before, a solidity of purpose. Jaya felt her spirits bolstered as she turned to face the dormant gateway.