The Sky Demons Part One: Journey

Chapter Six- Fun with portals

Tigre- Fun with portals

 

I woke up and immediately hung my head in my hands as I felt the dull throbbing in my brain. Serefk'na sat a little way off, flicking through a book. She'd tied her hair into a simple plait and her brown cloak had been dumped beside her so I could now the thin and somewhat worn deer-skin parka she was wearing underneath- which had the back largely cut out to make space for her wings- along with her waterproofed furry trousers and boots. A wide belt decorated with a crescent moon shaped buckle held her sword and dagger to her side.

"Serefk'na, while I do know that that was the best way to return our appearance and memories, I don't recall ever learning that a blinding headache is a side-effect, was it entirelynecessary?"

Serefk'na looked up at me in slight shock, "Maybe it's a side-effect of the spell being forcibly removed earlier than it was supposed to be?"

"Ugh."

She huffed, switching from worried to totally unconcerned in less than a second, "Well, now you know how I was feeling before I changed back to me."

"Thanks, knowing that you share my pain makes me feel so much better."

"Good, you're awake. Go get changed," said Senka, stepping up close behind me. I swivelled my head around to see her now wearing a hairband to keep her hair as far from her face as possible, dark waterproofed trousers and boots, a silverish wraparound shirt with trailing sleeves and an oilskin cloak. A backpack hung from her shoulders and her blade-ended staff was loosely strapped to it.

"Where? Is my scythe with this change of clothes? I want my scythe."

"Good to see you have your priorities straight, everything's hidden in the tree behind the one with the big hole in it," she replied, pointing behind her.

"Right," I scrambled to my feet and wandered off into the forest. It didn't take me long to find the right tree; it wasn't hard to miss the one with the hole in its trunk large enough to nest a cocker spaniel. I moved past it, appreciating the immense subtlety in my friends' use of a marker when she had squirreled away all of our possessions a year ago and came to a stop in the one immediately behind it and rapped on the trunk. My knocks echoed hollowly- it was the right one.

Chanting a variation of the teratha spell I commanded the bark to peel open and reveal the open space inside until there was a wide enough hole for me to reach in and pull out my backpack and trusty scythe.

I lay the scythe down with as much reverence as possible before unzipping the backpack and pulling out a green cotton with lots of gold and brown decoration and a brown leather jacket, followed by leggings, boots and an engraved belt and cloak. I unfolded the clothes and a heavy golden sun on a delicate chain slithered out; I put it on beneath the tunic.

The moment I got back Serefk'na turned to me and hurriedly recounted the attack she'd experienced a few days ago by the same pink spectrumosa who'd tried to set us on fire about half an hour ago.

"The spell that brought us here will run out in a week or two," I told her, "how soon do you think she can find us?"

"That's not fast enough, we need to leave now," snapped Serefk'na, "she's probably already on her way here using a tracking spell."

"Stop panicking, we'll get going ASAP if you think it's that urgent. Who has the spell book written with the correct chant to cancel the dimension spell?"

"Here," said Senka, pulling out a battered book.

"Ah, yes. I'd almost forgotten about the long, elegant speeches you liked to give about everything when you were yourself."

"Stuff it," relied Senka eloquently.

"You stuff it."

"Would you two give over?" pleaded Serefk'na, "Things to worry about, remember? Someone trying to kill us? Someone who will succeed if we don't get something done now?"

"There's always someone trying to kill us and you always say they're going to succeed this time. I told you, stop panicking."

"Oh, excellent advice. Stop panicking. I'll get right on that. Now, after so much time away from our world most of our ketan will have dissipated. But we'll have enough magic to cast this cancelling spell, won't we?"

"If we pool our magical energy we should. How did that spectrumosa woman even get here? We're hybrids and even we had to pool our magic, there's no way she's strong enough. They'd have to gather like, twenty trained spell casters in order to get over here."

"She said that she'd used hybrid magic," Serefk'na replied gravely, "I hope that person's okay."

"Here's the chant. You do it Serefk'na," said Senka, holding up the book at the right page.

"Right, we just need to pool our ketan to do it. Okay, here goes guys, you ready?"

Serefk'na held out her hands, the book open on the ground in front of her. I gripped one of her hands and called on the little ketan I had left after almost a year spent away from my own world. Serefk'na began her chant, reading slowly from the page so as to ensure that every word was said correctly and clearly and I began to feel the pull on my ketan as it was swept towards her.

Slowly, the portal that had sent us here began to open back up. It was like looking at a split in space, or maybe a hovering TV screen showing scenery from somewhere else in like, HHHD 3D quality. The crack opened wider, revealing the view of another forest. Yeah, I know. Trees, spiky bushes and dirt, how could I tell the difference? It was probably something to do with the bloody great ahool that flapped past my field of vision- for those that don't know, that's a bat with a wingspan of three metres and a really cute, fluffy face.

Serefk'na finished chanting and the spell that had brought us here unravelled. The portal gaped wider and the air around us was sucked into it, carrying the book with it, followed by us. As I felt the G-force rippling my cheeks and pulling at my skin as if the wind wanted to rip my eyelids off and feed them into the portal first, I decided that in hindsight we could have probably done with a chant that reversed the effects of the dimension spell at a slightly slower, go-at-your-own-pace kind of rate.