“So let me get this straight–”

“Jack, I think he’s dying.”

“I think we deserve an explanation.”

“You two deserve an explanation, Genys is my sister.”

“Who, I’m going to point out again, is standing next to a man who is in the process of dying.”

The General and the Commander hadn’t said anything at all. They were just standing silently as the three newcomers argued amongst themselves. Jil had rushed forward and was checking every bit of Genys’ head injury. She spoke over her shoulder to the other two as she did.

“How did you know they would be here?” Jil demanded. “Last I saw my sister was—” She turned suddenly to see that Genys was looking her in the eye.

“Seven years ago,” the commander whispered hoarsely. “Seven years ago you left home.” She then looked over, lifted her glitzer, and pointed it directly at Jack’s head. “And you’re going to tell me why you’re with these traitors.”

Orvalys tried to intercede. “Now I’m not sure that’s the best—”

“We need to press on,” Pyrn said. “If these men were defectors then—”

“They escaped the night the Thori attacked,” Genys said. “They could be on the Yarvan side, but they could also have been involved with the enemy.”

“We’re not with the Thori,” Jack tried. “I know we can’t convince you but—”

Suddenly Genys’ eyes rolled back in her head and her knee buckled. Jil caught her as the glitzer clattered to the floor. Orvalys quickly kicked it away.

“I know you may not trust us,” the homunculus said. “But let’s not automatically decide we have to hurt each other.”

Pyrn seemed to do a sort of calculator in his head before looking at Jack and Orv and giving them a small nod. “WE don’t have much time. Me and the Commander—”

“Commander?” Jil’s eyes widened. “It’s commander now?”

“We need to move,” Genys said. She was trying to push herself off the ground. Immediately Jil stepped in to support her.

“Do you… need some help?” Jack said tentatively, motioning to Pyrn.

“Won’t find much there to hang on to,” The general said, revealing the stump from beneath his tattered and muddy cloak.

“You’ve been badly poisoned,” Orvalys said. “Those are the signs of some type of blood poisoning. You need medical attention immediately.”

“We need to keep moving,” Pyrn said.

“And you all need to get out of our way,” Genys added. “I don’t know why or how you’re here, but if you try to stop us it won’t end well for you.”

“We’re not trying to stop anyone,” Orvalys said. “In fact, we’d love to help with whatever you’re doing. We do have our own goals here as well—”

“That are also somewhat pressing,” Jack added.

“They think they’re going to find another world,” Jil said quickly.

“Nevertheless,” Orvalys continued, “We are all for helping you, the priority is to make sure you’re going to live.”

“That’s unfortunately not within the scope of the plan,” Pyrn said.

Jack had a sudden flashback from months before of himself crushed, bruised, and bleeding in an alleyway. Fractures and internal injuries had wracked his body, and without help he wouldn’t have made it. Without Orvalys he would have been gone. He knew what it felt like to feel death knocking and to know sooner or later he had to open the door.

“Plan?” Jack asked. “Well if you tell us we might be able to help, or at least see if our plans could potentially help one another.”

Orvalys looked over at his friend and there was an expression that was half-surpriseed and half-something else. Proud maybe? The homunculus approached and planted himself right in front of Genys and Pyrn.

“Sit that man down and let me work on him. I can’t guarantee he won’t die, but I can at least get some cultivated pseudo-antibiotics into his system and patch up the hole in his side.”

The sheer, unexpected authority in his voice made Genys and Pyrn look at each other.

“We… may as well,” the Commander said.

“I suppose there’s time,” Pyrn agreed.

There was a palpable break in the tension as the two of them limped over to the wall and lowered themselves painfully to the floor. Orv got to work immediately. His mechanical arm opened up and diverse brass appendages started to clip and sew and inject. The eyes of the Commander and the General widened as if for the first time they seemed to really actually see Orvalys genuinely.

Genys looked from the strange mechanical arm up at Jack, seeming to weigh something inside before talking. “Another world?” she said slowly. “What does that mean?”

“We uh—” Jack didn’t know why he always stopped himself after s few of the words had already come out. He had been about to say we can’t really talk about that, but for whatever reason it didn’t feel right, or maybe it felt like the future of that choice wasn’t the one he should bring about, or even possibly at least it wasn’t a great idea.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Either way, he hadn’t been able to finish the sentence. It was one of those times where he suspected the powers Lesynth had taught him could be coming into play, but it was hard when it happened just as a feeling like this. He still didn’t know what all his thoughts meant and if it was really the Athe or just him.

What he did know was that he had to say something, and he didn’t quite know what it was going to be until it came out of his mouth.

“We’re not from Tinaria,” he said. Orv looked over at him cautiously.

“You’re short,” Genys said. “And your skin is reddish. That was obvious the first day we saw you.”

“And how did I never notice this little fellow?” Pyrn poked at Orv’s furry, hooved leg. It startled the homunculus.

“I’m not that wide,” Jack said. “Anyway it doesn’t matter. We look like this because we’re not from your world. We’re not from Tinaria or Yarva or Thori or Hindl or Spavarta or even Jukut or Riztali—we’re not from this planet!”

The word he had used was the Tinarian translation for “sphere.” They didn’t have a direct translation, but it was the closest thing he could think of.

“You mean The Abodes? Genys asked suddenly. Jil perked up when she said it.

The librarian looked sideways at her sister. “How did you know about—”

“I wasn’t always not listening when you explained Yarvan mythology to me,” Genys said, smiling tiredly. “You talked enough about it. I was bound to pick up something.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Jack said. “It sounds like it could be.”

“It’s a similar concept,” Orvalys said. “But I’m not the expert.” He looked at Jil who discreetly shook her head.

So there are still secrets she wants to keep, Jack thought. Even from her sister. That’s interesting.

“So yes, we’re from the Abodes or… whatever,” Jack said. “We accidentally came to Tinaria, and we’re trying to find our way back to—” He paused a moment before saying, “Well, back to somewhere else.”

“And how is this important to our current situation?” Genys said. “We appreciate the medical attention, but what’s ahead of us is death and nothing else.”

“It’s useless to keep it all secret now,” Pyrn said. It seemed at this point, every sentence cost him a great deal of energy. “Ahead of us, down this tunnel is a rich and massive vein of glitz. It is the Republic’s main source. We go forward to detonate it.”

“Oh,” said Jack.

“What?” asked Jil.

“Surprising,” Orvalys added.

“It’s the Thori,” Genys said, seeming to grow a degree more animated. “Pyrn only recently opened my eyes. The Thori Empire is behind it all.”

Pyrn took the reins, “They have been pulling the strings for decades. This was supposed to be the culmination of several month’s worth of planning. It was to be a powerful blow against our occupiers.”

“You’re the Shadow?” Orv said, pointing at the large man. He looked over to Jil and Jack. “The High General was the leader of the rebellion all along, you have to admit that’s not a bad twist.”

“A twist?” Jack asked.

“Depends on the foreshadowing maybe,” Jil said under her breath.

Genys continued. “So if there’s something you can do to help us get there and ignite the mine, we’ll gladly accept the help. Otherwise, you need to stay out of our way.”

Jack went through several things in his mind to say to that. None of them seemed to be convincing, even to him, but there was the undeniable feeling that something could be said, or needed to be said, or would be. All he had to do was figure it out… but the words wouldn’t come.

“I suppose our secret is out of the bag as well,” Orvalys said, taking the empty space in the conversation. “We came down here in search of a Gateway. It’s essential we travel through it before it closes. If not there could be certain uh… unpleasant consequences.”

“Well then you should go find it,” Genys said. “We intend to finish our task.”

“We would love to,” Jack said. “In fact, Orv, don’t you think—”

“General,” Orvalys interrupted. “You’ve been planning for months correct? Does that mean you’ve memorized these caverns? Perhaps you’ve got some sort of mental map?”

“Indeed,” Pyrn said. “I know every twist and turn. As long as my mind holds out I can find the way.”

“Well then it sounds like we need you,” the homunculus said. “You see, I think we’d be a little lost down here by ourselves.”

Why is he doing this? Jack thought, but even as he did, he realized Orv had figured something out he hadn’t yet. All at once he became aware that the pull of the portal had somehow changed. The almost magnetic feeling that had led them over the mountains and straight to Jil’s house was no longer pulling in one direction, instead, it felt like it was coming from every direction… or, that it was everywhere somehow.

Oh no, we are lost. He thought. Why can’t the Athe help me with the things I want it to?

He tried to somehow ‘flex’ whatever it was that made the Athe work inside him, but nothing happened.

“So we’re your babysitters now?” Genys asked.

Orvlays looked like he wanted to answer, but couldn’t come up with anything. He looked up at Jack almost pleadingly.

Well, I have no idea what to say, but it has to be something, so here goes—

“It’s the glitz,” Jack said. “The mineral is somehow a focus of energy.”

The others just looked at him.

“We know it’s energy,” Genys said. “We use it to kill people.”

“Yes! No! That’s not what I meant,” Jack continued. “Of course it’s a focus of energy, I mean, it explodes. But it’s also a—It’s a crystalline matrix that geometrically harmonizes and facilitates elemental protrusion. It’s a source of extra-dimensional energy.”

The Tinarian word wasn’t extra-dimensional. It had literally meant “between-spaces” but it was as close as he was going to get.

“The glitz itself,” Jack said, each word spilling out from some part of his brain he couldn’t identify, “When concentrated, it enables the subcreation of Gateways. It’s sort of a fertile ground for them.”

The others just stared at him. All of them except Orvalys, who had an expression somewhere between worry and awe.

“Quantum super-superposition,” he said in English before switching to Tinarian again. “This world allows energy from other worlds to pass through. The glitz itself is a quasi-dimensional gateway!”

“Which is why we felt drawn to it so strongly?” Jack haphazarded. He certainly hadn’t known everything that Orv was saying.

“That would make this tunnel—these mines—a sort of nexus point,” Orvalys said quickly. He left Pyrn’s side, leapt up, and began pacing. “Which would mean theoretically within the matrix of the glitz itself would be—”

“Portals,” Jack said in English. “A lot of them.”

Which meant something else—something important. Somewhere in this cavern, somewhere in this network of underground tunnels, there could be the one portal he had been looking half his life for.

A portal to Nymia—and the people in front of him were planning to destroy it.