Lore of Eternal Shadow: The Fugitive King

Chapter Fifteen

At breakfast the next day, Zicone concluded that he was now addicted to Varian tea. Like most people from the "Easterlands," he thought it some sort of medicine at first and it took a bit of coaxing from Jannick to try some. Now he couldn't get enough of the stuff. "Tea clears the mind and the soul," Jannick mused, "it's a fine thing for a prince to be fond of it... I can't function in the morning without it." Zicone laughed into his third cup.

After breakfast and making sure everyone was packed for the road, Zicone led his friends across the city to the Zey^Rey Quarter. The sections of the city they ambled through now grew more and more up-scale. Zey^Rey still made their homes here, the sort of Zey^Rey Zicone confidentially hated the most. They were the prissy sort, too used to the vast advances in civilization of the home-dimension to settle for anything less. These homes were, either now or at some point in the past, powered by magic. Action, entertainment, knowledge, thought, and imagination were given within less than an instant to the discerning denizen's face. Water flowed by itself and took away any waste or worry. Such things were handy or fun to Zicone but it had made the Zey^Rey that lived here hypocrites. They would brag about living in Galgaroth to those back in the home-dimension but end up remaining within the confines of the few city blocks of Narbon that lived up to their clinical standards of civilization. They were weak-minded and shallow in Zicone's eyes... He wondered if his father had once felt the same way.

"Ever since my father and grandfather came to this dimension to wage war against Caligo, there's been a permanent portal between the Zey^Rey Dimension and Galgaroth," Zicone explained, "When my father moved the capital here, he constructed the current portal."

The Pyrolith siblings were a little preoccupied marveling at the grandeur of the Zey^Rey Quarter: the magic lights, the extravagant shops, the little snack shacks that served extremely unhealthy food. Runa worked herself into a furious writer's cramp trying to jam as many notes as she could into a notebook, balancing her ink well in the hand that also held her book.

"What you see here is what the Zey^Rey would call 'roughing it,'" Salgan noted to the Varians, "I call it despicable." Salgan had grown up in a little alpine village deep in the Arca Mountains. As a little boy, he'd played in snow and mud right alongside human children. The only difference he'd seen between himself and his childhood friends was his pointed ears. He had nothing in common with these gentrified fools holed up in their little houses in their little Quarter. Salgan didn't feel Zey^Rey, he felt Galgarothian.

The Quarter was rather quiet even despite the bright spots of wonder. Sharply contrasting the Palace Square, here the people on the street could be counted on one hand. The six companions came to a moderately sized square near the middle of the Quarter. In the center of the square was a ring slightly elevated from the rest of the brick street. It was beveled slightly so that while the edge of the twelve foot circle was higher than the street the center was actually a bit lower. The bricks surrounding the parameter were bright blue and the inside of the circle was a mosaic depicting some sort of shimmering blue energy.

"The portal was open for over two thousand years while my father was King," said Zicone, "A week after his death, the Zey^Rey Senate sealed the portal from the other side but not before most of the Zey^Rey who had lived here escaped to the home-dimension like cowards."

"Can it be reactivated?" asked Runa.

Zicone mumbled, "Hm," as he stroked his chin a few times. He studied the portal intently in his mind, trying to detect and understand its calculations. "It has been inactive for eleven years but it was active for two-thousand years before that. The spells surrounding it are still rather strong." He looked at the others, "The portal in Zysandra probably isn't there anymore but I think we could drop a rift somewhere in the Zey^Rey Dimension long enough to go through. I'll definitely need help from both of you," he pointed at Salgan and Lauren.

Lauren nodded. "We'll follow your lead," said Salgan.

"Ooh, can I help?" asked Runa avidly.

Zicone shook his head, "Zey^Rey magic is incompatible with human magic. Your magic is based on that of the Elementals, it's a completely different approach to ours."

"What would happen if I did help?" Runa inquired.

"At best, nothing," Lauren replied, "But it's way more likely you wouldn't be able to handle the exotic energy and you'd... explode."

"I—Really?" Runa said awkwardly, "I'll just watch then... and take notes."

"Don't worry," said Zicone, "We've got this covered." He looked at Lauren and Salgan, who nodded. The three Zey^Rey started calculating, raising the dormant, lingering spell back into life. A glow pulsated brighter and brighter five or so feet above the circle. A hum of magic emanated from the glow, growing louder and louder.

"I wish we could learn this stuff, Jannick," said Runa between her furious scribbling.

"I don't know," Jannick replied, "it feels too exotic."

"I'll be damned if I don't try just because somebody told me I'd explode." The noise grew too loud to carry a conversation.

Zicone poured all his energy into the doorway that was slowly taking shape. He had to make it stable enough for six bodies now and he realized as he poured energy into it that it needed more. And so he gave the door more... and more... and more. Zicone realized he would soon exhaust himself but there was nothing he could do about that now.

Zicone knew his body would lose consciousness in order to make urgent repairs. He hoped he wouldn't be out cold for too long; he'd be useless in the Zey^Rey Dimension that way. Zicone's mind felt the strain as he gave all his energy up to the very border of lapsing into a Rage. "It's open!" he bellowed over the monstrous pulsating hum coming from the door.

"Go for it!" cried Jannick. One by one they all jumped through the aethereal, otherworldly rift that now floated a few feet off the ground. Runa was first, followed by Alyssa, Jannick, Lauren, and Salgan. With only a handful of slack-jawed Zey^Rey as witness, all of them made their jump and appeared to be falling downward through the tear in the aether.

Zicone was last. Already he could feel the toll he had just taken on himself. His body was failing him and shutting down. Zicone could only partially blame his dumb body for doing this. It was for his own good after all, his body could repair itself much better unconscious. He felt a strange wind on his back... the winds of change as his master liked to call it. It was a feeling so strange he had to glance backward. There was nothing aside a forest of buildings behind him.

He didn't have time to linger any more. The portal was closing now and his body was going to pass completely into unconsciousness in less than a minute. He staggered over to the doorway and hopped in, his legs and arms feeling as numb as dead tree limbs. He hoped that feeling he'd just felt was a fluke. He hoped he hadn't forgotten something...