The Memory Thief | ONC2020 [AMBASSADOR PICK]

Chapter 16

A pentagram here, the triangle this way up... Liliya pushed herself up from her kneeling position on the floor to admire her work. She was fairly certain the chalk marks on the floor were almost finished. The three circles on the other side would complete it.

Suddenly the door opened, crashing against the wall and she shrieked. Nyron barged in and slammed the door shut again.

"We need to leave," he said, wheezing. "Now."

"Shit. Shit!" Liliya jumped to the other side of the ritual markings to finish the three circles, then grabbed the right page from the floor.

"Liliya... How much longer? I can hear them on the stairs..."

"Shush! I need to get this right." Her eyes flew over the words. The foreign language was difficult to read, but from her experience with teleportation she knew how the vowels and letter combinations were meant to sound. "Okay. Porta aperta usque ad auferetur."

Running footsteps were getting closer as she rattled off the next sentence, and the next.

"Ut regnum in nubibus, porta aperta!"

Nyron gasped as bright blue electrical energy surged to life, taking the shape of an oval standing up. It looked the same as her other interplanetary portals, except that the centre looked even darker than it normally did.

"Let's go! Come on!"

Nyron took her free hand and they leaped towards the portal. They stepped into it just as the door crashed open once more. "Go!" he screamed, his tug on her hand sending a shock through her arm.

Her head swivelled round to see three cops bearing guns running into the room. Kit was in the lead. Her eyes widened when they met Liliya's and she reached out her arm, lips shaping an O. But Liliya never heard the word that escaped her lips, as the portal swallowed her and overwhelmed all her senses. The pages scrunched between her fingers as she balled them into a fist.

Goodbye, Kit...

As soon as she felt cool, dry air on her skin again, she reached her arm out behind her and screamed, "Porta obclaudit! Porta obclaudit!"

The blue energy sparks shot in all directions, before the portal shrank and shrank into nothingness. Liliya panted, staring at the spot where the portal had vanished. As Nyron entwined her hand in his, she let out a proud, "Ha!" They were finally free. She folded the pages up and slid them into her pocket.

"We did it," Nyron whispered in awe. "Liliya, look. We're here."

When she turned, a gasp escaped her lips. They stood at the top of what seemed to be an enormous waterfall. Only there didn't seem to be a bottom to it. Instead, the water dove off the cliff and plunged into an endless amount of soft, woolly, cotton-like clouds.

They stretched out everywhere, in all directions except behind them, where land lay like a drop of water on top of the clouds.

She made a full turn to take in the beauty of the land they'd arrived in. The smell of fresh water and wet grass filled her nose. Birds twittered overhead and at least two suns cast their loving warmth down on them.

Across the land, a meadow spread out for miles. Behind it, several towers stuck out proudly above what seemed to be a city. The highest ones, the towers in the middle of the city, were part of a massive palace, the size of which Liliya had never seen before in her life.

"It is exactly the way I imagined it," he whispered hoarsely. He let out a laugh. "They literally built an empire on top of the clouds! Look at how beautiful it is. So bright. So brilliant. And those buildings, the way they curve... I've never seen anything like it."

A lump in her throat disabled her from answering. Before she could absorb anything else, Nyron pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her.

"We found it," he whispered. "You did it, Liliya."

She could swear she felt warm tears fall onto her neck. A wave of adoration washed over her as she held him close, stroking her hand over his back. "We did," she said. "We found your dreamland."

And we're safe, she added to herself. We're safe and we're together.

Forever. 

THE END