---Chapter 14
Soleeryn looked at the poisoned wound, felt it carefully with the tips of her fingers and peeled up Jax’s eyelids to look at his eyes, all without it waking him.
“What is this salve?” she asked, poking at the bandage which she had moved aside. A thick paste still clung to it.
Leaflow had been standing near, watching out of the side of his hood. “It is a compound of Polissium Choroxide and Greenfang mushrooms, which have various volatile components including, but not limited to, aconitine, picratonitine, hyoscyamine, Fangitic acid, ect.”
Soleeryn glanced up at him with a frown. “I do not know a few of those active elements. But I can not help wondering, with that list, if you were trying to poison this boy rather than help him.”
“Being a poisoner is only the other side of your coin. They sound like poisons because, in most cases, they are. But in this case they have kept him alive. They say that the poison is in the dose. I’ve always found that it was in the intention of the dose giver.”
The healer did not cease her frowning, but went back to work. Calling for water, which Raggsy fetched from the caboose, she cleaned the wound thoroughly of the salve which had been there before. Then she applied a few drops of her own potion, rubbing them carefully in. Soleeryn also forced a bit of it into his mouth, measured out into a spoon, and made him swallow it. From her bag she brought out a tiny mortar and pestle, which she crushed a white, powdery substance in until it was a fine dust.
“Do you have another spoon I may use?” she asked, looking to Raggsy. “It can be washed and returned later.”
His quick paws whipped him away into the kitchen and back, carrying a small teaspoon.
“Just what I needed.” The healer took it and measured it half-full, before sprinkling it over the wound. It began to fizz and foam as soon as it touched the spot, slowly evaporating away.
At that moment they heard a burst of gunfire outside, followed by another tense silence. Far off, seeming to be fading away, there came the wyvern’s cry for the third time.
Patch had set his jingling burden on the workbench and joined them around the sickbed, leaning over the chair from the back. Now he looked at the healer anxiously. “Will he live, do you think?”
Soleeryn was holding his wrist, counting heartbeats under her breath. After a moment she nodded slowly. “It was close. He has been waiting too long. But he should survive now as long as I give him three more doses of my potion. One every fifteen minutes should do.”
It could be seen that, after twitching a little as the powder evaporated, Jax had now gone still instead of muttering and moving restlessly about. When patch looked closer at the wound on his throat, the purple seemed to be fading to a lighter shade of lavender closer in color to what his skin had originally been.
“Ye have done it,” Patch exclaimed under his breath, “that short a time and whiff, it is gone! That’s marvelous stuff.”
“He is not wholly out of danger yet,” Soleeryn warned, “I have found that the corruption often effects the mind strongly. But to all appearances...yes, he is cured.”
There was a palpable lessening of tension in the room, though none inside knew what was happening on the rooftop. Not, that is, until a few minutes later when Amber came hurrying down into the room and began crossing it.
“What’s happening out there?” Patch asked, having moved across the room to inspect the iron box he plundered from the castle.
“We saw one creature coming towards the train,” Amber explained hastily, “a small, ape-like one with feathers on its head and tail. I shot it when we were sure that it was one of the corrupted beings. The wyvern was coming closer too, probably with other reinforcements. But then everything seemed to be withdrawing and we noticed that.”
She pointed out of the window with her left hand, drawing all eyes toward the western horizon. A whirlwind of clouds had gathered on the edge of the sky, flickering with pale lightning. No other part of the sky was clouded. It was like a tornado, but without a tail reaching for the ground. Instead, a strange magenta light glowed beneath it, sweeping the ground and flickering on the clouds above. The watching crew could not see where the light came from, but they noticed dark shapes flickering in it like beasts on the wing. As they watched, the cloud was drifting gradually closer, the light following underneath it. The wyvern had only withdrawn to join his reinforcements.
Amber hurried through the car, calling over her shoulder, “we have to get ready to Di-jump if it comes too close! Come help me, Raggsy.”
The Ratperson ran tirelessly after her and they disappeared through the door towards the engine. Lenny came down from the roof a moment later, stopping in the center of the car to look around solemnly. “You’ve all seen the storm?”
The passengers who were not asleep nodded. He looked specifically to Soleeryn and added, “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to get out of here if that cloud comes any closer. Do you want to be set out right now, in the path of it, or will you come with us for now?”
Soleeryn gave him a sad smile. “There is no place for me here, now. I will come with you. But do you think this wagon will be able to outrun the storm? And where are your horses or oxen? I could help you gather them in if you need.”
Lenny shook his head. “There are no horses or oxen. We’re not just going to leave this plain. We’re jumping out of this world into another. Back to Patch’s, if we can.”
“Another world?” The healer’s face looked even paler than before and she clutched her bag tight. “Is it...magic?”
“You could call it that.”
Outside a high, wailing noise was growing in the distance. The strange cloud had swept nearer down the river and its wind was creating a hollow moan. Mixed with this sound was the noise of the wyvern shrieking. Lenny glanced out of the window once, sucking in his lower lip when he saw how swiftly it was coming nearer. He was sure that it was no normal storm, or even a natural phenomena, but an advancing attack by the forces of the corruption. After watching it for just a moment, he drew back and began rigging the wire from the handle rod to Jax’s wrist. By the time he had finished, the noise of the approaching storm had risen to a howl. Patch was stowing things which might fall under the bench where they would not shift around, while Soleeryn held Jax’s unoccupied wrist to feel his pulse. Leaflow was watching the storm out the window and caught Lenny’s eye, gesturing for him to come look again.
“What is it?”
“I think I see the chief problem of this planet approaching.” Leaflow pointed towards the light below the storm, which had now advanced until it was only a quarter mile away from them. Lenny followed his gesture and saw a group of creatures or people directly under the cloud, advancing towards them at the same rate.
In the forefront of the group was what looked like a huge horse with a twisted horn on its head and a hide of glistening, purple-flecked black. On its back rode a figure clad in magenta armor from head to heel, one hand upraised with a flapping banner in it. The distance was too far for Lenny to make out the design on the waving cloth, though glimpses of it seemed to indicate a purple diamond with a black insignia on it.
Lenny stared, fascinated, as the army under the cloud came on, undulating over the ground and tramping down the bushes. Over the army’s head the wyvern flew in the purple light, crazily illuminated below the storm. At that moment a buffet of wind hit the train, rocking it on its wheels. Tearing himself away from the view, Lenny called for everyone to grasp the metal rail. Now was the time to jump if they were going to.
Soleern had to be shown where it was and convinced to hold it, which only took a moment. Once they were in place, Lenny grabbed on as well and shouted to Amber with all of his strength, overcoming the howling of the wind, “we’re ready! Jump!”
Turning his head, he saw the figure at the head of the column pause, horse dancing on long legs beneath him. The knight raised his unoccupied hand into the air, appearing to tilt his head back towards the clouds. His hand came down with deadly meaning to pint at the train.
Amber punched the button to initiate the dimension travel at the same moment as a lavender streak of lightening jumped from the cloud, crackling through the air towards them. It struck the engine at the same second as the mysterious power of Sission beams sparked through the entire train. Instead of a small tingle, a huge shock rippled through the whole thing. Everyone was struck by it, the world blurring and then turning black. For a split second Lenny felt a huge burst of energy fill him, seeming to light every one of his cybernetic implants on fire. He fell to the floor as if dead, with a tiny, inarticulate cry. The rest of the crew were also stricken down in that moment.
The world turned to night around them, but no one on the train saw it.
Consciousness returned slowly to Lenny. A buzzing filled his head and when he tried to open his eyes they were filled with many-fingered sparks of blue light. They cleared away slowly when he blinked, his eyes gradually focusing as the buzzing in his head receded to the distance, though it did not go away. Strangely, he felt that his energy reserve had been entirely recharged.
A dark blur moved over him and he felt a gloved hand helping him to his feet. The shape coalesced into Leaflow as Lenny’s vision cleared. “What happened?”
“We were struck with lightening at the last minute,” the cloaked one explained gravely.
“Did we make the jump?”
“Yes...though I have the feeling that we came into somewhere that is very close to nowhere.” Leaflow gestured towards the windows with a grim flip of his hand.
Looking out of the glass, Lenny saw nothing but blank whiteness. No land, no trees and not the least hint of a sky. It was like the worst blizzard imaginable, but bright enough where only the train in it cast a shadow. The train appeared to be suspended in a void, completely empty.
With a glance he saw that the other occupants of the passenger car were stirring. Leaflow was moving between them, helping them get up. A thought came to Lenny and he gasped, “Amber! And Raggsy. They were in the engine when the lightening struck it!”
Forgetting the distant crackling in his head, he hurried to the door of the passenger car. But once there he stopped with his hand on the knob, hesitating. What was outside and what would it do to them if he opened the door? Was there air out in that blankness to breath, or was it a vacuum that would suck them all out and crush them as soon as the pressure of the passenger car was broken?
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
As he hesitated, his gaze went up towards the roof. There he saw the gaps in it made by the wyvern’s claws. They gaped white against the homely brown boards.
Whatever was out there, it was already leaking into the car. And so far it had not suffocated or crushed them. Amber and Raggsy were already out in it, as 'Sophia’ was not fully enclosed at the cab.
Pulling open the door, he stepped out onto the platform at the front of the coach. For a minute he felt as if he could not breath, but then he realized that he was just holding his breath through fear of the unknown. He drew in the air, pushed it out again and felt no change in himself. It was dry, stale and just slightly chill, but not poisonous to his workings.
On all sides whiteness stretched into the distance, even straight down below them. From what he could see, their rails had been left behind and the train was supported on a pale emptiness.
Pushing aside his fears, he ran across the catwalk beside the rectangular tender and burst into the engine’s cab. Amber lay on the floor, her head against the wall and arm outstretched in the direction of the Di-jump machine, all the fingers of her right hand, metal and flesh, curled tightly inwards. A wisp of smoke trailed upwards from the Di-jump. Raggsy sat up next to the girl, his fur a little scorched and whiskers curled. He was pushing feebly at her in an attempt to roll her over while whimpering childishly, “Amber, wake up. Wake up Amber!”
Lenny knelt next to the Ratperson and helped him turn the girl over. There was a bruise turning purple on one cheek and her eyes were closed, but she still appeared to be breathing.
“It’s alright, Raggsy, she’s just unconscious. It looks like she hit her head when she fell,” he tried to reassure the Ratperson, “we’ll take her back to the passenger car, where the healer can look at her. Are you okay? Did you get burned?”
“Jus’ a little.” Raggsy wiped his nose with the back of one paw, before looking down and running his fingers through his fur. His coat looked a little burnt on one sleeve and his fur was curled, but he apparently was not badly scorched. Looking up with shock still bright in his soft rodent’s eyes, he added, “I was leanin’ on the metal bit of the wall when it struck. She had just pushed the button. I felt the lightnin’ run all through me, but I guess it doesn’t affect Ratpeople as much as humans. I was only stunned for a second, leanin’ against the wall, before I came to and saw her there. Ya think she’ll wake up soon?”
Lenny nodded. At the same time he heard a quick footstep and Patch came striding in the door. He looked down at them with a questioning expression, all the hair standing up wildly on top of his head accentuating it. “Casualties, lad?”
“She hit her head when she fell, I think.” Lenny propped Amber’s head up on one arm. “And he was burnt by the strike. Altogether I think we’ve been lucky. As long as Amber is not too badly hurt. What about Jax? Do you know if he...made it alright?”
“Aye, he’s still afloat.” Patch nodded. “The healer’s dosed him again and I think he’s even awakening. Ye’ll need some help getting the girl into the other room?”
Together, they gently lifted her and carried her across the catwalk towards the passenger car. As they crossed the walk nothingness seemed to press around them, watching with a giant, blind eye. Raggsy opened the coach door for them, casting an anxious glance at their burden.
Inside, Soleeryn was putting bottles away into her bag, while Leaflow leaned on the workbench looking out of the window. Jax was sitting up, propped on some blankets as he blinked sleepily at the world and complained, “that was the worst stuff I’ve ever tasted! No, really, worse than the dog food I ate once when I was eight years old, or even the gutter mud that--”
He broke off when he saw them carrying Amber in. Sitting up a little straighter, he asked, “is she hurt?”
Lenny explained again, tersely, what had happened. They lay Amber on the benches nearest Jax, while Soleeryn bustled over with her bag.
“Let me see the poor little one.”
After a brief inspection, she nodded with satisfaction. “It’s only a bump and a faintness. She’ll survive, though that was a nasty shock we all received, and those in the front the worst.”
Taking a vial from her bag, she cracked it open and held it close to Amber’s face. The inventor stirred, then gasped and awoke. “What happened? Ouch, something hit me!”
She held a hand to her cheek gingerly, propping herself up on one arm.
“Amber!” Raggsy hopped over and pushed past the healer to snatch up the girl’s hand and touch his nose to it affectionately. Realizing how many people were watching, his ears turned red to the tip and he added in a more normal voice, “er, heh, nice ta’ see you’re alright.”
“I’m glad that you’re safe too.” Amber patted his claws, slowly sitting up to look out of the window. “What--where are we?”
This required another explanation. Everyone was recovering from the shock, looking around themselves and trying to figure out what had happened. Though there was a sense of relief that both Amber and Jax were safe, no one knew where they were or how they had come to be there. Eventually they decided that the lightening bolt which had been directed at them must have short-circuited the Di-jump in some way, sending them to a different world than the one they had meant to travel to. Or, perhaps, to a place that was not a world at all but simply inbetween worlds.
Neither Jax nor Leaflow had ever seen a dimension like this one. They agreed that it could not be a normal world in the circle of nine which they had been traveling.
“But what about my Di-jump?” Jax complained, made to sit on the bench and rest by the healer’s orders. “What happened to it? Is it entirely melted down?”
“I saw it in the engine and it still looked outwardly intact,” Lenny admitted, “but it was smoking a little. I’ll go get it and bring it here so that we can open it up and see.”
He hurriedly crossed the gulf in between car and engine again, not liking to look around at the surrounding whitescape. Inside the engine, he unfastened the Di-jump from the wall and unhooked its lead from the metal. It felt warm in his hands, almost hot, but only a little more than it normally would have after making a move between dimensions. The thing which worried him was the smell of burnt-out electronics which hung over it.
Taking it back to the coach, he snatched a screwdriver off of the workbench and sat down on the seat next to Jax. He knew that his friend would want to see what had happened to the machine, but also knew that Jax was still recovering from the attack he had suffered and should not move around too much. Sitting next to him prevented the young man from jumping up on his own.
Using the screwdriver, Lenny opened the case to display the contents of the apparatus. The smell of fried circuits became stronger for a moment, before evaporating away. Together, they poked and pried at the machine. The evidence of destruction inside was sobering. Some of the wires had melted, a few of the integrated components were burnt out and there was a thick, black oozed trickling over everything from where the Dimension-Wave amplifier had melted.
“Great,” Jax growled, “just great. Here we are, more in the middle of nowhere than I’ve ever been in my life and the Di-jump has a meltdown! Man, my life has been one accident after another lately. When will it end? Well, you’re the pet electronics nerd while Grummage isn’t around, Lenny. Do you think you can patch it up in any way? I don’t know how we’ll find something to bend the Sission waves again--”
“I have this,” Lenny interrupted his tirade, reaching into a pocket and drawing out Sara Lancaster’s Di-jump machine.
Jax looked at it, before slapping his forehead comically. “What would we do without you? I didn’t know that you brought that rip-off copy of my gear with you. Let’s see the innards.”
They opened up the second machine and began comparing insides. For the most part, they were built very differently, but many of the components appeared to be interchangeable.
After discussing it for some time and arguing over which chassis they should use, it was decided that Lenny would transfer parts from Sara’s apparatus into Jax’s and clean it up to get going again. They could have simply shifted the reality-compiler back to Sara’s but, as Jax pointed out, they did not really know how hers worked or what it would do if they used it. The original machine was a sure thing, when it was working.
“This is going to take me some time.” Lenny made a face. “Taking out wires, cleaning up the melted goop and putting everything back in place. I wish I had my tools with me still: that would make everything easier.”
“You can use mine,” Amber told him, “though I know that you must have had specialized ones for working with electronics. But I do have pliers, wire cutters, screwdrivers and a soldering iron to heat on my stove.”
“Thanks.” Lenny looked up as the lanterns above them started to flicker. “It looks like you’ll need more oil, too. Or to put them out for now. It’s not dark in this...place.”
While Amber blew out the lanterns, he left the two machines opened up and began gathering tools he would need. Meanwhile, Patch had gone back to work on the iron lock-box and Raggsy was bringing in the last of the food he had scrounged from the kitchen.
“You two never told us how you found a healer,” Lenny reminded them, “why don’t you tell us while I work on these things? We might as well talk to pass the time.”
So, over the little clinks and snipping noises of the work going on, the pirate and Ratperson told of their adventures in the castle of the bailiff. Throughout the story, and at its end, Jax inserted exclamations and his thanks. When they were done, Lenny stopped his work to look up at Soleeryn, who was sitting quietly on a chair, knitting yarn together with needles from her bag. She did not seem to like looking out at the whiteness any more then he did.
“Soleeryn, why were they going to execute you if you know a cure for what you call the Cruels? Weren’t they glad you could help them?”
The healer shook her head, dark hair waving. “Well, let me tell you a little of my story and perhaps you will understand. If you don’t mind a longer explanation?”
“As I said, we have plenty of time.” Lenny gave a wry grin. “We might as well all get to know each other a bit better while we can.”
With a sign of agreement, Soleeryn began, “I do not mind telling the truth, as truth is always right. A handful of years ago, perhaps twenty-nine or thirty, there were a group of shepherds camped on the slopes of the Outland mountains, near the valley of mists. One evening they were startled to hear the sound of singing coming towards them, childish and weary. Out of the mist a girl wandered, carrying in her arms a blanket made of strange, silvery cloth and a single white roll of bread. She was about eight years old and appeared to be only half Lumyn. This is what I was told and all I know of my youngest days. I do not remember this time, nor anything before it. I simply grew up among the traveling shepherd’s families, moving from village to village across the Outland plains. But as I grew, my interest in herbs and ways to use them for healing also expanded. At every town I tried to find a Wisewoman or herbalist to speak to, learning the names and uses of the plants which grew around me. I had an instinct for them, I think, because I learned very quickly.”
She paused a moment to wrestle with her knitting, before resuming the story, “well, I was happy for many years. Eventually I stopped traveling and settled down at a village to learn from a woman there who was wiser than any I had encountered before. She taught me much of the healing art, including things which are not known over the mountains from the Outlands. But I was never really trusted there, because rumors of my strange appearance had filtered through to my neighbors. Finally my teacher told me to leave. I had finished my apprenticeship, she said, and should go somewhere that had no healer to practice the trade.”
“So I crossed the mountains and settled down where you found me. But even there rumors of my appearance eventually found their way to the people. Though I could heal my neighbors, many were still distrustful. When the Cruels came upon us, everything was changed and the bailiff needed someone to blame. He had heard of me, how I was different. His agents looked into it and found that I had been healing some of the nearby farmers who had been attacked by things of the night, just as he was-”
She indicated Jax. “By using herbs not normally grown in that region. Everyone is so terrified of the Cruelness that they blame a person for having anything to do with it, even curing it. I was an outsider, I knew cures for the poison and lived by myself. Therefore I must be a witch, someone that the bailiff could destroy to hold back the panic of his people. It wouldn’t have worked for long, I suppose, but he hoped to gain time with the death of a disgusting Outlander.”
Lenny picked carefully at the wires in the Di-jump, shaking his head a little at the story. People so often hurt themselves in panic, looking for a way out. Like a wild animal which gnaws its foot off to escape a trap, then bleeds to death on the way home.
“Thank you for coming to heal Jax,” he told her, “I’m sorry to have you get mixed up in this crazy adventure of ours. We really didn’t want to have it turn out this way.”
Soleeryn’s response was quiet and serene. “I don’t mind, except for that this idea of traveling to other worlds is rather frightening to me. As I said, no one trusted me where I came from, so I have no close friends or relatives to leave behind. But perhaps you could tell me what, exactly, this ‘crazy adventure’ of yours is?”
“That will take some telling, but you told us your story, you can hear ours,” Jax inserted, “let me start off.”
And he began, all over again, with how he had helped to create the Di-jump.