The Ten Guardians: Sacrifice©

Chapter Sixteen: Into Darkness

Jaya reached within herself and willed life into the runes of the gateway. Transferring some of her life force into the energy was necessary to activate the gateway. It wasn’t enough to open a large enough opening for a person to fit through, but she needed to prime the gateway with a small opening before activating the crystals. She momentarily considered that this method of using her magic might unnerve Izreea or Jonathan, as it was typically taboo to use your own life force to power a spell, but it was too late to stop now.

Even though she had barely activated the runes, the gateway came to life like a candle lit in a dark room. The runes began to glow an eerie red color which seemed to fit the black arch they had been painted on perfectly, and the uneven and oblong space between the arches of the gateway turned completely white as if someone had stretched a sheet across the gateway. It started slightly dull in color but only took a few moments to strengthen until it was a bright, spotless white. There was no depth to the space, just a flat white wall shaped like the gateway.

Jaya hefted her staff and strode towards the gate while swinging it in a wide arch until it connected with the white space in it. The moment the staff connected there was a sharp noise that sounded like cloth tearing. The noise was so unexpected that Jonathan let out a shrill chirp in surprise from Izreea’s shoulder where he was perched. Usually, such an outburst would have elicited at least a chuckle, but everyone was too mesmerized by the gateway.

There was now a large tear in the fabric of white, out of which darkness poured like rays from a black sun. The rays of darkness were unsettling. In the world around them, darkness could only exist in the absence of light, yet this darkness was turning that concept on its head as its unnatural dark emissions poured from the tear in the gateway. The tear seemed to be fighting to repair itself but was held slightly open by the weak power of the runes.

Now Jonathan needed to activate the crystals and thread the power into the runes so Jaya could stop powering the runes herself. She turned and nodded at the bird, letting him know it was time for his part in the process. Jonathan flew from Izreea’s shoulder to land on the ground in front of the gate, subconsciously avoiding the darkness that poured on the ground from the slit in the center of the gate. He stared intently at the scrying pillar embedded in the left half of the gateway.

After what seemed like an eternity, a stream of arcane energy poured from the air around them into the closest gem on the pillar. The gem filled with liquid lightning energy, like a glass filling with water, until it began to overflow. Then the conical shape of the gem sent the excess energy to the next gem in line, which repeated the process. After a few moments, every gem was brightly glowing, and the steadily moving stream of arcane energy gave the gems the illusion of spinning around the pillar, even though they were still.

The arcane energy was growing at its own rate now, which gave Jonathan his cue to disconnect himself from the process. Once he cut his connection to the energy, a wave of dizziness fell over him, but it quickly passed, and he took his place back on Izreea’s shoulder.

Jaya could feel that the arcane power had grown enough to expand the opening and hold the gateway open for their entrance, so she took the arcane energy and threaded small amounts of it into the runes around the pillar. Jaya stopped providing her life force to the runes, relying on the arcane energy to keep the runes active, and felt her own bout of dizziness. It quickly passed, and the highly anticipated moment was upon them.

As soon as Jaya had connected the arcane energy to the runes, the darkness projecting from the tear began to expand. The darkness was not solid, yet it seemed to stretch and grow like it wanted to fill the whole room. The stretching widened the tear in the white surface until the opening touched the left and right sides of the gate. Then the tear quickly expanded up and down the outside of the gate in all four directions until the white sheet fell away from the gate like cut cloth, fading away before it could reach the ground as if it had never existed. The darkness poured from the open gateway into the room like a black lantern. The light around it should have been all the brighter in contrast, but somehow the light seemed dimmer just by existing next to that unnatural darkness.

Jaya wasted no time; she bent forward slightly and stepped sideways through the oddly shaped gateway into the darkness. Myrum and Colson were right on her heels, and Izreea, with Jonathan on her shoulder, commanded Drock to follow her before she stepped sideways through the gateway with the invisible rope in her hand via the pouch.

The adventurers found themselves standing in a world of unending blackness, with nothing else visible in all directions. The darkness was so thick that it hid all depth. Even the ground was pitch black, as if it did not exist despite the solidity they felt beneath their feet. Regardless of the darkness, they could still see each other as if standing in the sunlight. The total darkness between them created an aura of light around their bodies. It was impossible to tell if the backward darkness was what was illuminating them or if there was another unknown source creating light for them to see by.

Izreea was the first to notice that the ground beneath their feet felt like plain dirt but with no vegetation that could be felt or seen by anyone. She wanted to ask Jaya how their bodies were illuminated in the darkness and why they were standing on dirt, but there was a solemn tenseness to the mother seeker that commanded silence. Jaya stood with her staff at the ready, her eyes closed, sniffing the air and listening to the emptiness around them, trying to determine if it was safe to proceed into the darkness. After several uncomfortable moments of silence, Jaya put her staff into the ground and spoke.

“It does not matter in which direction we walk, but we must all stay together and keep Jareth in the forefront of our thoughts,” she said firmly.

Jaya cast a spell by nodding at the gateway behind them. Everyone except Myrum, who had no magical abilities, could feel the incredible strength of Jaya’s ward over the gateway with that simple nod. No one would be following them without taking considerable time to bypass that spell. Jaya turned and strode purposely into the darkness at a brisk walk, setting the pace for the others to follow. Izreea remembered to command Drock to match her pace at the last second before his still form pulled the rope out of her hand.

There was a heavy silence upon the group as they took in the experience of walking within the shadow realm. The inability to see the ground was disconcerting and it took some time for everyone except Jaya to walk without the constant concern of tripping over an unseen object.

Jaya strode in front of the group, leading them into the darkness, while Colson and Myrum followed a few paces behind her side by side and Izreea with Jonathan on her shoulder behind them. Technically Drock brought up the rear of the group, although he was indeed completely invisible unless the person looking at him was actually looking for him to begin with.

It was impossible not to notice that the oppressiveness of the endless darkness changed depending on where you were looking. When staring into its endless depths, the darkness seemed total, as if they were in a pitch-black cave and about to walk into a rock wall. Yet seeing the spotlighted figure of other party members seemed to dissolve the totality of the darkness by making the space between them feel filled with light.

After an unknown amount of time, Izreea looked behind her at the gate which led into her attic and could only see the faintest slit of light in the distance. She was sure they had not been walking long enough for the gate to be at that distance, but Jaya had said distance and time were irrelevant in this place. The hours passed slowly as they walked into the nothingness. Periodically, Jaya would remind the group to shift their thoughts to Jareth since she knew that staring at their companions’ backs or into the nothingness around them could cause the mind to wonder.

The only oddity that anyone noticed was that Jaya often seemed hungry and thirsty. She never stopped while she retrieved food from her or Myrum’s bag, but she did seem to reach for food and drink at least once an hour. Or at least what seemed to be about an hour. It was impossible to tell how long it had been without a clock.

At one point, Colson started humming softly to himself, but a glance from Myrum quickly silenced him. They continued silently for an eternity before Izreea mustered the courage to speak.

“Jaya, may I ask a question about this place?” Izreea asked barely audibly, not wanting to disturb the silence weighing down upon them.

“Please do, the silence is causing a ringing in my ears, and I would welcome the sound of voices to quiet the noise. Just remember to think of Jareth as we converse,” Jaya replied in a normal voice, which sounded like shouting after the hours of silence the group had just endured.

Izreea matched her tone of voice and asked her question.

“I noticed the ground here is made up of dirt, not dead dirt, but rich, moist soil. How is that possible?”

“What is so special about dirt?” Jonathan asked in ignorance.

“Shouldn’t you raise your wing or something if you wish to interrupt someone else’s conversation?” Myrum asked a little too casually.

Jaya spoke in a slightly raised voice before Jonathan could retort to the jab.

“It is fitting that a dardwain would notice the potential for life within the absence of life. You see, Jonathan, fertile soil is only fertile because it contains decayed organic matter and moisture. There is no organic matter or water here, so why is the soil so rich?”

“Maybe there was vegetation in the past, and it all decayed already,” Jonathan said.

“That would require sunlight and rain, and I have seen neither in more than two centuries of walking in the shadow, but I suppose anything is possible. Some of my people believe something else happened, though, something we cannot prove, but the thought of it brings us … comfort. Well, it brings me comfort, at least,” Jaya said.

Myrum stared intently at her grandmother when she said: “What are you talking about?”

“Raise your paw when you wish to interrupt someone else’s conversation,” Jaya said with a smile.

Jonathan stifled his laughter, and even Myrum shook her head and smiled at the comment, knowing she deserved the reprimand.

“There is a common lullaby I used to sing to you as a pup, Myrum, called ‘You and me.’ Do you happen to remember the words to it?” Jaya asked her granddaughter.

There was a long pause, after which Myrum simply spoke the words to the lullaby.

“Before the dark, there was light.”

“Before the light, there was night.”

“Before the night, there was dawn.”

“Before the dawn, there was you.”

“Before the you, there was me.”

“Before the me, there was we.”

“Before the we, there was dark.”

“Before the dark, there was lark.”

“Before the lark, there was death.”

“Before the death, there was breath.”

“Before the breath, there was we.”

“So now there is the you and me.”

Jaya had been softly humming the lullaby’s tune to herself as Myrum spoke. When Myrum was done recitation the lyrics, everyone took a moment to ponder the words and their meaning.

Jaya Interrupted their concentration to explain.

“Keep in mind that there is no proof of this, but I believe this lullaby is talking about this place where we journey, and the song refers to it as a mixture of several things. It bluntly mentions death yet also touches on darkness and the night, three related references. Then there is mention of light, dawn, and breath, all symbolic of life. Then it mentions twice how important you, me, and we are to life and death.

“I am unsure if I agree with your interpretation, Grandmother,” Myrum said respectfully.

“Be that as it may, I believe this realm was created from the merging of two extreme opposites of life and death, like a seeker. That is the only explanation I can offer for the consistently damp, fertile soil without a trace of organic matter to be found.” Jaya said.

“Has anyone tried growing any vegetation here be-” Izreea started to say before an explosion in the distance cut her off.

The group turned as one to see an extremely distant light soundlessly flare in the endless air before fading back into total blackness. It took quite some time before the sound of the second explosion reached their ears, indicating it was at a great distance from them.

“What was that? Jonathan said loudly.

“That, I believe, was someone trying to enter the shadow gate we created,” Jaya said while steadily continuing their march in the opposite direction of the explosion.

“But we are only a few hours ahead of them. Will we reach Jareth in time?” Izreea asked with concern in her voice.

“A few hours?” Jaya asked with genuine surprise while stopping to stare at the dardwain.

Izreea stared back, confusion plain on her face.

“Izreea, my dear, unless my age deeply affects my judgment, we have been walking for close to two days now. I have felt every hour drag by as if chained to my feet. Did you not feel the time pulling against us?” Jaya asked sincerely.

“I’m not sure. All I know is in my mind, we have only been walking for a few hours. If it has really been close to two days, how are we not all hungry and exhausted?” Izreea asked with growing curiosity in her voice.

Rather than responding, Jaya’s eyes swept to the others in the group for confirmation, and they returned the same look as Izreea had. The only difference was Myrum gave her grandmother a slight nod to confirm that she felt the same as Izreea, that it had only been a few hours since they had entered the shadow.

Jaya resumed her walking while speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear her.

“Well then. I suppose since none of you are seekers, this may somehow alter your perception of reality here, and in this case in particular … I deeply envy you,” Jaya said.

“With all due respect Mother Seeker …. is it possible that it has indeed only been a few hours?” Jonathan asked.

“No,” Jaya said simply. “I have been walking in the shadow for over two hundred years and know how time works here. We have been walking for nearly two days. There’s no doubt about it. To answer your question, Izreea, sleeping within the shadow realm is not an option since we cannot control our thoughts while we are asleep, so I have been magically strengthening your bodies,” Jaya said.

“Grandmother, you should not be expending your energy for our sakes. We can manage,” Myrum said with concern.

“Hush, dear. As a seeker in this place, the energy to sustain you all is but a drop in a bucket,” Jaya replied, waving her hand as she walked as if to dismiss the concern.

“Maybe the link you formed to sustain us is why we have not felt time move as usual?” Jonathan said thoughtfully, pausing before continuing. “That could also be why time seemed to crawl so severely for you. You could have been inadvertently compounding the hours you felt, taking part of those hours upon yourself,” he finished.

The sound of another explosion reached their ears, and they all turned to look behind them, even though it was too late to see any physical sign of the explosion. Another ball of fire flared into the air, but far to the right this time, almost like an echo of the first explosion.

“A fascinating theory that we will have to explore at another time. For now, we must focus our attention on Jareth. We have almost reached him,” Jaya said while waving her staff in front of her as she walked as if searching for something.

“How can you tell?” Izreea asked.

“That echo of the explosion means the shadow is funneling us to a location, and as long as our minds have been steadfast on Jareth, we should find him soon,” Jaya responded while continuing to search the air with her staff.

Their anticipation and recent experience with time distortion made it difficult to know for sure, but they seemed to walk for about an hour before the world suddenly felt funneled. There was no visible way to tell, but the endless open expanse began to feel confined, as if they were in a narrow hallway.

Then Jaya’s staff which she had been holding in the air, hit an invisible wall, and she halted their march.

“Finally! My arm is killing me! I have been holding that staff for hours,” she said as she leaned the staff against her body while rubbing her right arm with her left hand. “I was hoping to find a standard exit from the shadow realm, which would have looked like a doorway of some kind, but this will have to do,” Jaya said while removing her backpack.

She rummaged through it for a brief moment before removing a small round piece of glass. She rubbed her hand across the round glass, and it started to glow red. She placed the red glass ball on the ground near her pack. The glow of its color was barely discernable through the haze over the ground but bright enough that it could be found again. When she was finished, she straightened and turned to Izreea.

“Izreea, we will need your scythes to retrieve your husband. May I borrow them, please? Oh, and everyone can place your packs near my light so we can find them when we leave.”

Izreea had a puzzled look on her face, but she momentarily handed the invisible rope to Colson before crossing her arms and lifting the scythes from their harness. She handed them to the seeker before taking the rope back, then followed the rest of the group in placing her pack near Jaya’s light.

“Thank you, Izreea,” Jaya said as she took the weapons from her and turned back to the invisible wall.

Jaya looked down at the runes on the scythes, which had come alive in her hands as she breathed her life force into them. The runes glowed dark and foreboding, revealing them as weapons designed to destroy revenants and lycanthropes, both linked to her in different ways. As soon as the runes became active, the darkness of the shadow realm seemed to recoil from the scythes. This caused the runes to glow darker than the blackness of their surroundings, as if the shadow was alive and trying to funnel light around the scythes to distance the runes from itself.

Jaya spoke as she stared at the dark runes.

“In our world, these runes would stop their prey from entering the shadow world, so I believe we can use them to carve a way out of the shadow world. We do not have the materials needed to build another shadow gate to get everyone back here, so no matter what happens … we must keep the window it creates open until we are all back within the shadow,” she said.

Jaya was still staring at the runes of the scythes in her hands, lost in a deep internal thought process as to the implications of such a weapon.

“How did the dardwain change so much that they needed something like this,” she said softly, turning the weapons over in her hands.

She did not mean to declare her thoughts out loud but knew it was too late to take them back. Before anyone could respond or react to her statement, she gripped them both in one large hand, raised them high above her head, and brought them down full force into the center of the invisible wall in front of her.

Rather than the sound of tearing cloth on impact with the wall, there was what sounded like dense wood being splintered and torn. A pale white color spread outward where the scythes landed, like buckled glass around an entry wound on a window pane. The darkness seemed to thicken around the outer edge of the buckle of white as if it was trying to push the white back in an attempt to seal the hole Jaya had created. Izreea had some medical training, and the darkness pressing against the shrinking white buckle on the invisible wall reminded her of the way human bodies fought against invading viruses.

Jaya stepped forward until her chest touched the scythes, then transferred one of them to her other hand and began pulling them apart. As she pulled her hands in opposite directions, her arms shaking with the strain, the white buckle seemed to gain renewed strength and began pushing in all directions against the darkness.

A round hole the size of a man’s head had appeared in the wall before Jaya seemed to reach the limits of her strength. There was a staggered flash of purple light from a fireball that streamed through trees not far from the hole they had created, and the faint sound of brush rustling and trees limb breaking as if a crowd was chasing someone.

Jaya stood still while holding the scythes, simply trying to maintain the hole instead of trying to make it bigger.

“Weapons! Jonathan, go help your brother!” Jaya grunted harshly at them, obviously strained from the burden of holding a portal between two worlds open with her arms.

Jonathan did not waste a moment, darting over Jaya’s shoulder through the hole with words of power echoing from his beak as he prepared to join the fray.

Myrum had her bow and axe removed from her back in seconds, and her bow strung a few seconds after that. She then placed them on the ground at her grandmother’s feet and attempted to grab one of the scythes to help her open the portal.

“No, child! Izreea must do it, or the runes will deactivate when I let go, fight how you know best,” Jaya shouted, more from the effort of holding open the portal than from anger.

Suddenly a revenant’s arm reached through the hole and grabbed onto Jaya’s head, Myrum grabbed the arm, and with a roar, she pulled the arm towards her, ripping the arm from its body and casting it aside.

The revenant’s head appeared in the hole next, twisted and ugly, with a massive bird’s beak as a mouth. Then the shadow parted a pace below the hole, and the creature’s remaining arm shot through, grabbing Jaya’s throat. No one in the party had ever seen a sentient bird-like humanoid before, let alone a revenant from that race, but Myrum wasted no time bending for the axe she had dropped at her feet to dispatch the creature.

It was not needed. As the monster’s beak opened and it began to lunge through the shadow realm, which it could enter at will, Jaya opened her mouth, and a stream of white-hot fire shot through the portal, incinerating the creature’s head. The headless body could be heard running through the woods a few paces before it toppled into some brush.

Shortly after the revenant’s body had dropped to the ground, a stream of white vapors poured through the small portal and flowed directly into Jaya’s chest until it was entirely absorbed. Izreea had watched it happen and realized that Jaya had either not seen the vapors or had fully expected it to happen and was not surprised.

“Izreea, grab a scythe!” Jaya shouted through clenched teeth.

Izreea shook herself and sprang forward to grab the scythe in Jaya’s left hand, remembering at the last second to enter the wick and request permission to will life into the runed weapon. She was deeply concerned that her request would go unanswered in the dark and barren place, but the opposite seemed true. A sudden surge of magical power flared into the runes until they shone so brightly they appeared to hover over the scythe.

Jaya let go of the left scythe, and she and Izreea pulled their scythes in opposite directions with all their strength. The opening widened considerably with a sickening sound like metal being ripped apart. Izreea’s scythe had been enhanced somehow and was significantly more powerful than Jaya’s, so it was easier for her to pull the scythe through the darkness and hold her half of the portal open.

Jaya seemed relieved by the excess space Izreea had created and was holding the scythe in position more comfortably.

Another revenant jumped through the portal. It was similar to the last one, except instead of a distorted beak on its face, it had a massive arm with what appeared to be the neck and head of a two-horned beast instead of a hand. It shifted its body to fling its arm like a giant flail directly at Izreea’s head, but an arrow from Myrum’s bow slammed into its distorted arm, the force of her longbow knocking it back through the portal. Before it was on its feet, another arrow was loosed, cutting the monster down.

Izreea was grateful that these basic forms of revenants were not intelligent like other forms. Otherwise, they could have entered the shadow elsewhere and caught them by surprise from behind. As the revenant fell, a cloud of vapors lifted in the air, hanging there as if searching for something before being pulled like a stiff breeze toward Jaya. This cloud entered her chest like the others, and Jaya ignored it like before.

Myrum and Colson darted through the portal with weapons in hand. The portal was barely large enough to accommodate the taller kanidian, and they had to go at an angle since Jaya’s side of the portal was smaller than Izreea’s side, but they made it through. Once on the other side, Colson took up a barrier position on one knee in front of Myrum to stop any close attacks, and Myrum watched for targets through the trees with her enhanced kanidian eyes.

Izreea suddenly felt Jonathan prod at her mind. It wasn’t a mental connection but a message with intense emotions that felt very urgent. Letting your protective mental walls down was always a risk, especially in battle, but this felt too important to ignore, so she let her walls down just enough for his message to come through.

“They want Drock! Jareth was just bait to get the vessel to them! Keep him away from them.”

“Drock!” Izreea and Jaya both shouted at the same moment.

Jaya had obviously also received the message, meaning Jonathan had sent it broadly in a panic. Izreea realized now that she had dropped the coin purse when she leaped forward to grab the scythe from Jaya. As she twisted her head around in a futile effort to search the darkened ground behind her for the coin purse, she saw the bag flying through the portal, trailing its ethereal rope through the opening.

Jaya knew that even if she could explain what was going on to Myrum and Colson through the portal before Drock’s coin bag disappeared into the darkness, they could not afford to leave the portal undefended while they chased down an invisible rope, in the dark, through a forest. Especially in the middle of a battle, fighting revenants with random animal parts attached to them, fighting any warlocks they happen to come across, and then dragging Drock back through the portal while confronting those same obstacles.

She had no choice but to let go of the scythe and dive through the opening to grab the coin purse, trusting that Izreea would know what to do. The moment she let go of the scythe, it lost all power, and the right side of the portal snapped back to its center.

Izreea had prepared herself for this the moment she saw Jaya leap and had her hand up to grab the scythe flying towards her chest. The instant she grabbed the scythe, the enhanced powers that had infused the first scythe spread to accommodate the second one. She took up the first position Jaya had taken, pushing the scythes apart at her chest to create an opening.

Although the enhanced condition of her weapons made holding the portal open much easier than it had been for Jaya, she knew her arms were simply not long enough. There was no way the opening would be large enough for a kanidian to fit through, maybe not even a human for that matter, and that was if they could get through with her torso in the way.

Jaya had succeeded in grabbing the coin purse through the opening and planted her feet while leaning backward as if being pulled by an incredible invisible force. Focusing on seeing Drock brought him into focus enough to see that he was pushing against her with inhuman strength. He was pushing against her so hard his body was almost parallel to the ground, and his hands were pulling great clumps of grass and brush into the air in an emotionless effort to reach something.

That was the eeriest part of the entire scene, how expressionless and empty Drock appeared while simultaneously exerting so much effort into a thwarted goal. Eerier still was the additional wisps of vapors that poured into Jaya’s chest as Myrum loosed her arrows into the night.

Colson stood his guard on one knee, scanning the night for any enemy lucky enough to get past Myrum’s enhanced kanidian senses. He did not move to assist Jaya in any way, and she made no requests for his assistance.

“Something is coming!” Myrum shouted at the group as a whole.

Her bow was drawn to her chin, and she scanned the forest in a wide arch as if unsure of herself. After a moment, and with the help of the wick, Izreea could see what Myrum saw as well.

On the far left of their vision was a fireball flying in the air over a sprinting Jareth, with Jonathan flying ahead of him as if leading him to the portal. The fireball appeared to be lighting their path, although one could argue it was also a beacon, showing their enemies exactly where they were.

Then twenty paces to the right, another ball of fire appeared to be floating over another Jareth, led by another Jonathan. And twenty paces to their right, another pair appeared, and another, until there were close to fifteen different pairs of brothers running towards them. Behind each pair of brothers were a few mutilated revenants with their deadly animal attachments closing in, close to fifty of them in total. Myrum studied the brothers carefully, all running directly towards the portal, and she knew she had a decision to make.

Since there appeared only to be lessor revenants pursuing them, Myrum believed their particular group could handle that many revenants, but not while also trying to hold a portal open and stop the very target of this entire attack from running to their enemy. She had to decide which was the correct pair of brothers and hope they were smart enough to lead the other revenants away from the portal.

She studied the pairs in turn, quickly yet expertly looking them over one by one until she realized only one set was making noise that matched the brush and tree branches they were running into. The other illusions were making the same noises, even when not hitting anything. She shot her arrow at the closest revenant behind the twelfth pair of brothers.

The revenant went down, white vapors poured into Jaya’s chest, and the other illusions of the brothers all scattered in random directions, their simple-minded revenants dutifully following them. Myrum began systematically taking the remaining three revenants trailing behind the real brothers down with her arrows, Jaya collecting more vapors with every kill.

Jonathan landed on Jareth’s shoulder while Jareth slowed to an awkward jog, drenched in sweat and gripping his side, clearly exhausted.

The brothers finally came to stand next to Colson, and Jareth fell to the ground while rolling onto his back, his arms falling wide in pure exhaustion. He had been fighting or running from revenants for over a day and a night, and he had just about reached his limits when Jonathan arrived. Jonathan was on the ground close to Jareth’s head, magically checking his body for severe wounds, knowing that was what Izreea would have been doing.

Izreea watched Jareth join them from the small portal she was holding open. Seeing him alive and safe brought emotions to the surface that she had not known she was burying until that moment, but she pushed them back, knowing they were not in the clear yet.

Drock suddenly jerked to his right, and Jaya comfortably adjusted herself to accommodate the new angle he created with the rope. She did not appear to be distressed by his constant pulling.

Myrum went to take the rope from her grandmother, but Jaya’s unexpectedly sharp tongue cut her off.

“Resume your guard!” she commanded harshly.

Drock shifted slowly to the left as if he was following the path of something moving in the dark. Then three pairs of eyes and what appeared to be a glowing rope appeared in the direction Drock was trying so desperately to reach. They appeared instantly as if they had been standing behind a wall that had suddenly been removed.

One pair of eyes was wide and dark, with a golden pair directly above them, but they were set closer together. To their left side was a familiar-looking pair of purple eyes that danced in the night as if they were constantly trying to catch up with themselves.

The trio came into the light of Jonathan’s floating lantern to reveal a golden-eyed woman riding a horse with dark eyes and a floating lich at their side. The woman wore an outfit of animal furs, with animal bones on almost every part of her body. They were worn as necklaces and bracelets, sewn into her clothing, and even placed strategically within her braided salt and pepper-colored hair. She had random teeth painted black for an unknown purpose, and she wore some face paint that gave her an undead look that contrasted starkly with her blood-red lips. Her hands had some sort of glowing metal braclet wrapped around the palm and back of her hands, with small studs protruding out over her knuckles.

The horse she sat on was dark as night and had an unknown wetness that seemed to permanently coat its body, making it glisten in the light of the fireball burning above their heads. There was a glowing leash running from a bracelet around the wrist of the rider to a collar around the neck of the lich. As the lich and rider approached the group, they could see that the leash links were made of pliable wooden branches twisted together to form a wooden chain. They appeared flimsy and breakable, but the fact that the lich remained chained to its master showed how potent the enchantment on the leash must have been.

The lich had obviously been a kanidian seeker and looked similar to the way Jaya had when she was in that form, but there was a terrible emptiness to it. They felt maliciousness and cruelty radiating from it, which was completely absent in Jaya’s lich form. Its face boasted a sinister and rigorous smile, promising a slow and painful death for all those it faced.

The lich and its master stopped just inside the light above Jaya and her adventurers. As the two groups stared at each other, an almost comical display of decoy Jareth and Jonathan ran randomly around them in the forest, each with their fireballs of light as beacons to lead on their revenant pursuers.

“Greetings seeker, I was wondering when you and your … extraordinary group of unassuming adventurers would come to the aid of the famed Jareth. Elder of Dule Van, Vanquisher of Enit Alwartien, Savior of the Stoon dardwain, herats gischench tia Izreea tia Santhiantus Stoon Bruno,” the warlock said with a wicked smile.

Jareth barked a laugh between gasping breaths and opened his mouth to retort, but the warlock continued.

“I have another title for you, my accomplished prey. ‘Failure of the World.’ After all, it is you that lost the last physical essence of the Guardian of Time, even if it was designed to be lost, and it was you who baited the key to his dark and glorious rebirth,” she said with confidence as she continued to grin.

Jonathan was still close to Jareth’s ear and had begun whispering to him as soon as the warlock had resumed speaking.

“Undo the cloak on Drock’s neck,” he whispered as softly as possible while making sure Jareth could still understand him.

Now that Jareth was looking for him, he could see a transparent man restrained by an invisible cord held by the mother seeker. Jareth was too tired to do anything else in a battle regardless and had no idea what was going on, and he trusted his brother.

An arrow shot from Myrum’s longbow straight at the warlock’s heart, and the warlock swatted the arrow aside as if she was swatting a fly from her face.

The warlock threw her head back and laughed while Myrum notched another arrow, aiming for the lich, and let it fly. The lich completely ignored the arrow protruding from its chest as a living person ignored its breathing. Normal weapons could do nothing to a lich.

The warlock jumped from her horse with a blood-curdling scream of battle, somersaulting in the air and sprinting forward to attack when she landed. The warlock’s wide, insane eyes and snarling lips were an unsettling sight, which was certainly by design, and she headed for the first target she could reach with the intent of destroying everything in her path.

The moment the woman had screamed her battle cry, the lich had thrown back its head and echoed her scream into the night. Yet while its master stopped screaming to attack, the lich continued to wail into the sky, sound waves buffeting the trees around it, bending back the light of the hovering lantern above them as it recoiled from the lich.

The warlock had been launching herself at the prostrated Jareth since he was her closest target, but Myrum met her halfway with her battle axe swinging. The warlock fought with her hands and feet, using the studded bracelet wrapped around her palms to block and strike as fast as a snake striking its prey. Myrum and her massive axe were clearly too slow to fight such a foe, and she quickly was on the defensive with bleeding wounds from the studs of the bracelet. The enchanted leash connected to the lich seemed to lengthen and contort as if it was alive, twisting itself to stay out of the warlocks fighting path, light as a feather.

Jareth had scrambled to his feet on his rubbery legs and was trying to hurry to Drock to undo the cloak from around his neck when the warlock’s slick black horse suddenly jumped towards him through the air. The creature transformed into a massive, dark, glistening ram halfway through the leap. The ram slammed its round horns into Jareth’s chest at the speed of a galloping horse, knocking him back to the ground.

The ram bounded into the air and transformed into a wet, shadowy hawk, which took a protective position over Drock, intent on preventing anyone from touching him.

Colson had joined the fight against the warlock with his rapier swinging. His weapon was light and fast, and he was well-trained. He forced the warlock to adjust her fighting style to accommodate him. Rather than bursts of quick attacks, she had to defend against an axe and a sword. In addition to her hands and feet, the warlock threw the ever-lengthening leash like a whip, keeping her two opponents at a distance where she wanted them to be, then moving in for strikes when she could.

Izreea watched impassively from the portal she had created, maintaining emotional neutrality while wanting to throw herself through the portal to help, yet knowing that would eliminate their only means of retreat. Her arms ached, and she could feel the immense amount of magic she was channeling to keep the portal open, and knew she would tire before long.

In the distance, she noticed the floating decoys no longer had revenants trailing after them, and the lich was still wailing into the night, and she realized the howl was a call for aid. The warlock wasn’t trying to win. She was biding her time until her revenant army arrived.

Izreea steeled herself and asked the wick for a small beacon of light to see how far away the revenants were.

The same enhanced results as when she had asked to empower the scythes happened to her request, and an enormous beacon large enough to light a small town flew from the portal into the forest, passing through trees without harming them while illuminating the night.

In the distance, a wall of revenants could be seen sprinting towards the party, answering the call of the lich while ignoring the beacons they had once been commanded to pursue. As the beacon of light passed them, each revenant began to glow as if touched by a bioluminescent liquid, making them stand out at night.

Jaya had been carefully observing events, trying to decide the wisest course of action to assist the group. She wanted to use her powers and help the party, but she was unwilling to allow the vessel to touch her while she was transformed, and she could not stop him while he was ethereal. She also didn’t want him to touch the other lich either, even though she had no idea what would happen if he did reach it.

From her position, she could clearly see Izreea’s beacon, illuminating the army of revenants the lich was commanding to come to its aid. They were quickly running out of time.

“Jonathan!” Jaya yelled through clenched teeth.

Jonathan had been trying to help Jareth, who had almost suffocated from a collapsed lung and broken ribs, but he was lousy at healing magic, and it was barely working. He had helped him start breathing again, and that was about it.

Jonathan looked up to see the army of undead running towards him and knew they had to remove that clasp from Drock so that Jaya could help with the battle.

“Jareth, get up and get that clasp, now!” Jonathan shouted while throwing a massive surge of crude healing magic at Jareth’s chest.

Jareth screamed in pain as the magic stitched his broken and crooked bones back together without being set, a deformity that would have to wait to be corrected. His scream of pain caused Izreea’s resolve to weaken, but she could see he was alive, so she refocused on sustaining the portal. Jareth was on his knees now and could see the glowing army of revenants lumbering towards them. He sprinted towards Drock, staying low, eyes searching the sky for the shadowing creature he knew would come for him, but he was too weak to do anything other than try to reach his target.

When he was halfway to Drock, the glistening hawk swooped out of the sky, talons as large as human hands aiming for Jareth’s face. But Jonathan’s magically enlarged and darkened body slammed into the hawk, his razor-sharp peak gouging one of its eyeballs as his body slammed it to the ground. Jonathan flew in a wide arc to come back at the creature while dropping the eyeball that had instantly turned into a thick black slime when he removed it from its wet body. Jonathan would have attacked the wounded hawk again, but the moment it touched the ground, it transformed into a massive snake and curled itself into a heap, ready to spring into the air. Its one good eye was locked onto Jonathan’s flying shape, waiting to throw itself at Jonathan when he came into range.

Jonathan saw the danger and flew in the opposite direction of Drock, leading the half-blind creature’s gaze away from Drock, whom Jareth had barely reached. Jareth reached underneath the diagonal man and unlatched the clasp of the vestment. Although the vestment was still attached to Drock’s body via the invisible rope he was tied with, he was completely physical once again when the clasp was undone.

Two things happened then. Instantly Drock floated into the air with his legs pumping as he tried to reach the chained lich, and simultaneously a massive white-hot bar of fire engulfed the shadowy snake on the ground. There was a searing sound similar to cooking oil, and the mysterious shapeshifting mass howled in pain as it began to disintegrate.

Within moments the creature was a steaming mass of black ooze with random black bars as legs, sliding and limping into the woods in retreat.

Jaya now floated in the air as the holy melding of life and death that she was heralded to be, glowing with a white brilliance, a flaming sword in her left hand and her glowing staff in her right. Drock stopped trying to reach the lich and instead turned and began trying to run at Jaya, her being the stronger of the two revenants, but how much stronger they could only guess.

Her dualistic voice echoed through the clearing.

“You are undone, daughter of the shadow. Leave while you have the chance.”

Myrum and Colson had fallen back to the side of the portals to take up guard positions next to Izreea’s floating head, each gasping for breath and wiping the blood from small wounds. The warlock was standing by her lich’s side now, panting from exertion and ignoring the wounds on her hands and the small amount of blood staining her shoulder from when Colson had tagged her.

The warlock barked a laugh and shouted inhumanely in reply, her whole body bent forward into her shouting.

“What’s your plan? Seeker! To run into the shadow, my second home, and hope to lose me in its embrace?”

She then sat up straight as an arrow, taking an arrogant stance as if she had never raised her voice, clearly insane.

“I offer you the chance to surrender instead. Just leave the vessel, and you may depart in peace … or in pieces. It is your choice, really,” she calmly said as she adjusted the bracelet around her left hand, avoiding eye contact.

The horde was close enough now that the group could hear them crashing through the brush in the distance.

All of a sudden, Izreea felt a presence join her. There was no one there, nothing tangible that she could see, but she could not deny that another entity was there. She couldn’t tell if it was next to her, within her, or all around her, but it was there all the same. The presence brought her peace and comfort and a perfect sense of clarity as to how she needed to ask for help.

“Asking” was the most important part of that clarifying moment. Izreea was not told what she had to do, what she had to accomplish, or anything that relied on her strengths. She was told that she needed to ask permission to act rather than dictate what she wanted to happen.

“May I be the instrument to bring safety to my companions?” she whispered.

An immense warmth spread within her chest, an obvious confirmation she could not doubt. The same energy which she had felt enhance her scythes flowed into her. She had never felt another magical force channeled through herself before, and it was humbling, to say the least. Whatever entity it was that assisted her in accomplishing this task dwarfed Izreea’s abilities as if she were a child.

The energy flowed through her and into the runes of the scythes in her hands, causing them to change from deep black to brilliant white glowing fiercely with power and strength. Izreea willed the runes to expand the portal, and the portal widened slightly until the scythes were no longer touching the shadowy walls of the portal, yet the portal remained open.

Feeling a surge of confidence, Izreea pushed with the runes connected to her as sure as an extension of her hand, and the portal shot open, easily wide enough for two people to walk side by side through its opening.

“Hurry!” Izreea exclaimed to the group.

They all turned in astonishment, including the warlock. Never before had anyone other than a lich or a feral lycanthrope been able to open a portal into the shadow with channeled magic. Seekers could slip in and out of the shadow themselves but could never open a portal for others because of their connection with life. The warlock even needed her lich to enter the shadow.

The wave of revenants reached them. With a look of rage contorting her face, the warlock charged with the other revenants while the lich prepared to throw a purple fireball at Jareth’s head.

Jaya magically lifted Jareth and Drock into the air and tossed them through the portal opening, with Colson and Myrum on their heels. Jaya knew that the revenants would simply follow them into the shadow if she did not stop them, and she knew that Drock would never stop trying to reach her if she stayed anywhere near him in this form. She could not afford to hold him in the air while fighting so many foes and keep the lich away from Drock.

She made her decision.

Jaya slammed a wall of air into Izreea’s chest, knocking her into the shadow realm while effectively closing the portal before throwing her arms wide in each direction with a spell that hardened the shadow all around her. This would block entry into the shadow in this area long enough for them to escape. She tied the spell off with a high seal, then turned with her glowing weapons to reclaim the souls of the dead.