Liana yawned. How long had she been trapped in this strange empty space? She had no idea anymore, and she didn't dare look at her phone either. Instead she’d been staring intently at the strange letters glowing in red on the ceiling for a while. They had to mean something, but what? Did they have anything to do with her presence? She didn't understand her situation, and in this extreme silence where nothing was happening she was slowly sinking into a kind of trance.
A sudden change in the light made her conscious again, and wide awake. Suddenly other letters in green and blue appeared among the red ones. She also had a feeling that more and different light had appeared in the background too, light that didn't seem to come from everywhere at once like the background twilight from before; but a greenish glow that cast a long shadow on her hands, which meant there had to be a new light source somewhere. She looked for a light source in the opposite direction of the shadows, and it appeared to come from the door to the strange dark room, which now was alight. For a split second she sat there petrified, suspicious of new problems that could come her way, and then she stood up to investigate.
She walked to the light. Maybe together with it something or someone that could help her had arrived too? Its origin became clear when she came closer: in the former dark room there was now a sort of rectangular gate, that she was sure hadn't been there before out of which the light shone, but what was behind it was invisible and vague. The gate itself consisted only of three rough branches, or rather young tree trunks, two of which stood upright and the third, lashed with some sort of live creeper, completed the top of the gate. She walked up to the gate, staring at it in pure disbelief. What was this? Could she get somewhere else through this door, somewhere better? Something told her that it was a stupid idea to take a magical door that had just appeared out of nowhere in strange world. She might be a bit naive and careless sometimes, but something about this was not quite right at all. On the other hand, she could not stay in this strange place either. She tried to remember stories with similar portal. Wouldn't she be even further from home with this gate, whatever it led to? Or was that coming out of her mistrust? Or was it an illusion that this gate could even take her anywhere at all? Everything in her head buzzed as Liana stood still in that greenish glow, like a hypnotised rabbit in the headlights of an approaching vehicle until a strange voice broke her stream of thoughts.
"What in the name of Al-Elyehdinn are you doing here?"
It was a woman's voice and it came from somewhere behind her. Liana was shocked because she hadn't noticed anyone sitting there at a table by the door, but the stranger must have already been there when she'd walked in here a few seconds ago, looking for the light source having only eyes for the portal. Her heart was beating like a disco now as she took in the newcomer. It was indeed a woman, but not a human being, probably a Nummerfa like Inaya. She was clearly older than Inaya, with darker golden brown eyes that leaned toward green, and long light brown hair flowing over her shoulders. But she also had the same pale complexion without pink, which made her look completely unreal in this light. She even seemed to give light herself in this environment, and just like Inaya she might not have been one hundred percent material if you looked at her very closely. Who was this woman and what was she? Had she come for her?
The newcomer stared at her at least as hard as she stared at her, seemed utterly bewildered at her presence in this strange place even. For a seemingly endless moment the silence was back, until the newcomer spoke again and broke the spell. "Normally nobody is able to come here." The woman muttered in understandable Dutch, to no one in general before turning to Liana. “Who are you, and how do you explain your presence here, old world girl?”
Liana looked from the woman to the brightly lit gate and back again, too confused to have much coherence in her explanation. "I wanted to escape my classmates, and tried to do what I had seen Inaya do when she left me, and I tried to get into her world. But I was also afraid of it. And then I stepped into nothing and suddenly I was here, and there was only darkness. And the lights changed when I asked if anyone was here." The stranger stared at her with perhaps even more disbelief, but quickly recovered. "You came here of your own accord from Oanderra without any help or tools? Through the dimensions between the worlds?"
Liana suddenly felt as if her head was intruded, like Inaya had done before, but now she knew the game, and was able to respond using the same method of telepathic communication, which she remembered now Inaya had called kah-yito. “Your rules say you can't do that. A little privacy in my own head PLEASE!” she sent back, silently. The woman was startled, looked guiltily in her direction for a moment, and then turned away with her eyes, finally answering again in plain spoken language. "You are right, girl of the old world. And I of all Nummerfa should know that. The rules of all nawa certainly apply to you, and it seems that Inaya has clearly explained that to you already." She seemed to think things through for a moment,
"I think I started this conversation in the wrong way. I'm Akhina, the Oranderra expert at Oakwood university among other things. So you are Inaya's new friend in the old world? What's your name?" Liana relaxed a little. "I'm Liana. Am I really in Nuanderra now? You're a Nummerfa too, aren't you? According to Inaya, I was the second person or so in my world to ever be called Nuanderra's friend. Although I don't really feel like this is a friendly place here. I expected your world to be very different from this. More oak trees and all that."
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Akhina stared at her again. "I am a Nummerfil. Nummerfa is the plural from in our language. And no, Liana, this is not Nuanderra. This is the baro-tentue ruin, in an in-between world that is normally closed off from all other worlds. No one is actually allowed to come here anymore, but councillor Inaya sent me a message to pick up someone here as she's in an important council meeting right now, and can't come herself for the time being. That would be you I suppose. But that you would have come here on your own is simply impossible. How did you get here again did you say?"
Liana was still a bit incoherent, and could only repeat what she'd already said. "Didn’t I tell you? I don't know myself. I got here. But I don't know what I did. There were bullies, and I wanted to escape them, so I did the same move Inaya did, I made an invisible gate and wished myself in her world. But I was also afraid of her world. I don't want to be treated like a hated Gorchbold thing. And then here I was." Akhina looked like she still wasn’t convinced. "That's impossible. Completely impossible. You're only a human. A Hmanil-orr even, without a yam-healer training, and no priestess either. What you say you have done is something even a normal Nummerfil wouldn’t be able to do. I would need a physical gate and a coordination stone for that. Only a few very skilled Nummerfa like Inaya would be able to pull that off, but only intentionally and not accidentally."
Liana started to get nervous if even this Nummeril who came from a completely unbelievable world didn't believe her now. That her own people wouldn't believe her, OK, she was used to that, but this person was part of what no one would believe and even she didn't believe her! She pointed her finger forward as if it were a magic wand. "Yet it is true. I have no idea where I am. And I don't know what I've done. Maybe I should try again to get back. Class has already started!" Akhina stood up to stop her. "If you don't know what you're doing I would certainly advise against it. Especially if you are capable of doing it, which your species normally isn’t. Don’t do anything stupid! Dimension-hopping at random is very dangerous for beginners, especially if they're more talented than they are aware of. If you end up somewhere where a human with a breathing body can't survive you’re dead! You're lucky it was here you ended up, and not in a really empty in-between world, or a dead world, or a random place among the stars... Or a black hole… You could..." She didn't finish her sentence, and Liana's head was filled with a lot of terrible possibilities that she'd escaped.
Akhina relaxed a little and sat back down. “Come, sit down and have a drink with me, girl from the other world. I think you must be thirsty, and I still want to hear more about what happened.” She poured a drink in which small flowers floated. “It has become some sort of tradition to give guests from the other world our spring drink with wizal-bedstraw. Although we are not really in season for that, so I had to use dried flowers.” Liana was indeed thirsty and eagerly drank the drink that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere as if by magic. The magical spring drink turned out to be quite strong, and it didn’t only refresh her but also cleared her head. “I may be a guest from the old world to you, but I really want to go back home, as soon as possible if it's the same to you.” Akhina looked at her with a concerned look. “That's understandable, but before that there are a few problems for us now, I'm afraid. And I was ordered to take you to councillor Inaya anyway before we can make plans, and she’s still in the council meeting. You’d better not contradict a direct order of a member of the council of councils. Even if you consider her a friend.”
Bummer. Not only did Liana see her chance of getting back without getting in trouble in school go up in smoke, but it also seemed it might take quite a while to get back too. So you can’t take me back? I'd rather go as soon as possible, I'm late for school already by now. Can't we discuss this whole thing with Inaya later? I could come back or so?" Akhina looked at her with amusement. "No, I may be able to do some things that you would call magic, but I haven't mastered those techniques myself. It’s extremely advanced. We can't just travel in between the worlds as Nummerfa. Councilor Inaya herself is the only one in Mirato-Kwoburuë who is known to have succeeded to go back and forth freely from Oranderra to Nuanderra. There may be others who can do that I'm afraid now, but that’s another story, and they wouldn’t tell us or want to help you. And to be honest, the previous Orranderran who was stuck here had to be taken on a whole voyage spanning half the continent, all the way by foot to the ancient machines of a long-gone civilization in order to bring him back.” Liana muttered something inaudible and looked startled at the last announcement. "Luckily that is no longer necessary, Inaya certainly can bring you back when necessary, or otherwise we can use the gate here. We didn’t have it back then." She pointed to the rectangle through which light still entered the room "But that's for later. The problem now is that if I take you to Nuanderra, which is the only place this gate goes right now, you might be in danger if we meet the wrong people. So don't do anything stupid in the oak wood." "Where are we going then?" Liana asked, slightly alarmed. "I am to take you straight to Councillor Inaya's residence. You will certainly be safe there, but even the rest of the Uliho tribe might be hostile toward you now in the current climate. Councillor Inaya will probably not be there yet herself when we arrive, but the venerable Lun, the yam-healer will probably have arrived by then. He's a Tilliander, not a Nummerfil. Make sure to touch me when you go through the gate so that we'll definitely arrive together."
She took Akhina's hand, which felt warm and fleshy for a creature that seemed a little transparent at times, and together they walked through the gate. Suddenly they stood in a whole different world, in which Liana had to blink her eyes because of the full daylight.