Rayon’s female soldier kept her eyes down and her mouth shut as she worked to tighten and adjust a brown vest to my frame. She was the same woman that had spoken to Rayon in the mess hall. I ran my fingers over the vest’s surface and judged its texture. It was definitely animal hide of some kind. I still wore the dark, brown trousers that had been placed on me when I’d been unconscious, but my hair had been tied into a tight braid that went down to my shoulders.
I breathed in deeply in time with one of the straps being tightened across my chest. On the other side of the room, Rayon rubbed his chin and gazed at me. I shifted from one foot to the other feeling uncomfortable under his stare. Arina sat on the ground, watching as well, chewing on her fingernails. For over the past hour Rayon had been outlining a plan for me to follow including a layout of the Phalean temple I was to enter.
“You can still wear your boots,” Rayon said, his words cutting into my thoughts. “They won’t stand out as something too different.” He glanced down at Arina, and said, “Arina will have to stay behind.”
She looked over at me from where she sat. For the most part, she looked relieved that she didn’t have to leave the building. I wanted to hug her. There on the floor, Arina looked like a scared, wild animal.
A slight weight moved across my shoulders. Looking down, I saw the trails of a cloak hanging down until it reached the back of my carves. It had been clipped and attached on the vest in some manner at my shoulders. This was the strangest ensemble I had ever worn.
Next, long brown gloves were held out to me. Without a doubt, they would cover the vambrace and reach my elbows. I thought came to mind.
“What about the vambrace?” I asked. “If your Queen wants the dagger and vambrace so much, how is she going to get the vambrace? It won’t come off my arm.” I instantly regretted asking that question. Surely, they wouldn’t attempt aggressive means such as cutting my arm off?
Rayon chuckled. “You’re smart. I like it.”
I refrained from raising my eyes to the ceiling. The last thing I needed now was to be patronized.
“They come as a package,” he said, taking a step closer. I instinctively took a step back, and he stopped. “When you retrieve the dagger, the two items are reconnected and the vambrace should fall off.”
Invading my space and unable to move back again with his soldier now behind me, Rayon took another step and placed both of his hands on my shoulders. His grey eyes pierced into mine.
“My men and I will be behind you all the way. The Phalean may put up a bit of a fight, but we will protect you.” I felt my eyes widen at his words, and I swallowed although my throat was dry. “As soon as you have the dagger in your hands,” Rayon continued, “move to the back of the temple where I’ll guide you straight out of the side entrance. It’s locked from the outside, but it will make for a quick escape for us.”
I nodded, a lump in my throat. His hands squeezed my shoulders reassuringly, and I tried to smile.
“As soon as we get back this evening, we’ll take the dagger to Queen Olesya, and I know she will happily acquire the antidote for us. There’s just one last thing. I gave you a 4ST chip behind your ear after you fell off the tree stump.”
“A what?!” My right hand shot straight up to my ear, and I recalled the sting I had felt. “That was you!?”
“Yes,” he said. “As soon as I saw that you had the vambrace, I knew you would have to understand us. I gave one to Arina as well when I placed her in the protection circle.”
From the corner of my eye, Arina’s hand shot to her ear. I wiggled my fingers over the skin behind my lobe. There was a small lump the size of a pea.
“4ST chip,” Rayon stated slowly. He must have seen the horror and confusion I was feeling on my face. “It stands for “Four System Translator’. We just need to make sure it’s activated properly as it will also help me to be able to track you in case things go wrong.”
“Th – Things go wrong?” The pea-sized shape rolled under my skin. I had foreign alien technology in my body. “Could you kindly remove it?” I asked, through gritted teeth.
Rayon smiled warmly. “It’s just a precaution. I would rather take all the safety precautions we can and not need them.” He crossed his arms. “Trust me. You don’t want to get lost out there in the city and not be able to communicate with anyone. How will you find your way back?” Without waiting for a reply, he nodded to his female soldier, and she brought a small black device up to my ear.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe.
----------------------------------------
Under the cover of dusk, Rayon opened the door of the sandstone building and led the way down three stairs into a small, empty courtyard. A tall, brick wall about two meters high with barbed wire wound around the perimeter. The scent of decay, rotting food and sewerage hit me immediately. I covered my mouth with my gloved hand and fought against an immediate urge to gag.
Warm air wrapped around us. Within only a few seconds, my body started to protest against the layers of clothing I was wearing and sweat began to bead on the small of my back. I craned my neck and spied the sky through the surrounding brown buildings, trying to gain a glimpse of the two moons with their rings. I needed to see them again to make me believe that this was still all real.
Stars were starting to glitter in the evening sky, and I made a mental note to check them later to see if they were different to home as I couldn’t tell now with all the buildings in the way. With disappointment, I looked back down. The two moons were not visible from where I was standing.
A grating noise came from behind me. Two men were opening the gates to the compound. Happy with his preparations, Rayon nodded and started to walk. I hurried after him, and this new world crashed down around me.
My senses were on instant overload as the sights, smells and sounds came at me from every direction. The streets bustled around us, loud and raw in my ears. Instinctively, I determined this world to be of low technology compared to Earth and Rayon’s when I thought of the weapons and devices, I had seen him and his men carry.
We kept walking, but my eyes swept over everything. A woman shouted from a stall where plants with orange, large bulbs hung on display. A moment later, I understood her words as she ranted about their healing qualities. She stuck a branch of foul- smelling herbs in front of my nose, but I was tugged along with a sharp jerk from Rayon, his grip tight on my wrist. A skinny, dirty animal similar in size to a small dog, yapped and ran across our path. I tripped over my own feet and glanced at the dirty children playing chase down an alleyway.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Confusion consumed me. There were people walking down the dirt streets who looked exactly like they were human. And then, there were a mixture of beings that I had never laid eyes upon before. Some whose eyes were much larger than my own, but then what I believed to be their ears, were so small they appeared to be merely a long opening in the side of their heads. Others had spikey noses and studs for eyes and their skin was a silky, smooth, dark blue.
As we walked, workers in dark clothes lit the braziers that sat on the side of buildings in preparation for the night to come.
Rayon’s eyes scanned our surroundings as we walked, our pace fast. “Stay close,” he ordered as if I needed to be reminded. He placed his hand on my shoulder and slid it over my cloak to my opposite elbow, keeping me protectively under his arm.
Behind us, another four pairs of feet crunched on the dirt. Rayon’s soldiers did not carry guns in their hands this time, but similar to myself, they wore long cloaks. I could spy their heavy-duty belts underneath though, and I didn’t doubt that they carried weapons of some kind. Why else would they be joining us?
“The Phalean temple we are going to,” Rayon stated as we continued along winding alleys between the buildings, “is their Temple of Healing and Life. It’s where they pray to their Gods of Health and Longevity. They see it as their place of light for they believe this temple can keep all sickness and disease at bay. You might see things in there that you find dark and disturbing, but just stay focused on your task. Don’t let it stop you.”
A woman yelled out from a window above us, and my head darted up. Fear had ignited in my stomach.
“And you’ll be with me?” I asked. Anything for reassurance.
“Somewhat.”
“Somewhat?” I tried to stop, but his hand on my elbow, dropped to my lower back and pushed me on. “That’s not what you said back at your building?”
He had pulled the hood of his cloak over his shoulders and head so it now hung low and covered the upper part of his face. “I’ll be hidden,” he explained. “The Phaleans in the temple know my face, but I will be in there too.”
I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. This sounded more and more like I was going to be taking something that I had absolutely no right to take. I reached for my belt and retrieved the small flask of water I had been granted. Taking off the lid, I took a sip and hoped Rayon didn’t see the way my hand shook.
“How did you track me down?” I asked.
“Hmm?” His head darted back and forth scanning our surroundings, and I knew he hadn’t heard my question.
“Back at your base or whatever you call it, you said once I put the vambrace on and accidentally opened the gate, you were able to track me down? How?”
Rayon focused back on me. “All of a sudden, we became aware of a form of energy that was coming off from the dagger. I have eyes in the temple,” he said in a hushed tone as if someone might hear us. “It gave a signal, you could say. Using the technology that I devised, we started testing possible gates, but to no avail. Within about two hours, we detected the gate you had opened and we came straight to Earth to find you. I knew the Phaleans were also trying to find you as well.”
“I don’t even know how I opened this gate you keep referring to. Did it happen when I put the vambrace on?”
“I doubt it,” Rayon said.
“But…”
“We don’t have time now to explain every single little detail.”
“But when I go inside the temple,” I pushed, “will the Phaleans be able to trace me? They found me in the scrubland too.”
For the first time, Rayon paused and stared off into the distance, down the alleyway we were currently walking down. I followed his gaze in case he had come across some unforeseen danger. After several moments, he glanced back down to me. “I made a mistake. Those Phaleans followed me and that’s how they found you. They do not have the technology to track you or detect the signal.”
There was something missing in his explanation, I was sure of it, but I didn’t know what it was. Was he telling me the truth or some concocted version of his own? Why did he have to stare off to think about how to respond to my question? Was he hiding something? I expected he was. He had only just met me, and I was a means to an end, after all.
We continued striding down dirty, rubbish-filled alleyways. Once the sun had finally set and only the last vestiges of natural light remained, we slowed to a stop. Rayon pulled me to the side of a premises so we were leaning against its dusty but smooth wall.
“We’re here,” Rayon said, quietly.
His men continued walking without pause. Two went left and the other two turned right. After they disappeared from my line of sight, I looked in front, across the street from where the alley stopped.
My heart pounded and my mouth dropped open.
How had I not seen this monstrosity when we had been on the roof of Rayon’s building? There before me was undoubtedly the Phalean Temple of Healing and Life, except it was the complete opposite to healing and life. It was darkness and death.
The main structure, easily ten floors high, had sparkling, black columns and towers pointing to the sky. Two bridges came off of the main section on either side and connected with two other towers. In the middle of the main structure, there was a large glass circle that would mostly likely reflect the sun during the day time. Creatures frozen in horror, that reminded me of Shane and Nate from the contorted frightened features, hung off the sides crawling for eternity towards the sky.
A black stone staircase climbed high up a slope as if they were leading towards the sky where pilgrims were slowly making their way to the large double doors. Ornamental stone statues of scorpions lay in measured out spaces along the stairs, their pincers and stingers frozen in a perpetuated state of attack. There were at least five flights before the stairs stopped at two large open, arched wooden doors.
I also recognized the Phaleans straightaway, and there were many of them. They walked up the stairs, standing on guard along the staircase and waited at the large double-doored opening. They were armed like the ones we had seen in the Australian scrubland with their weapons and the hooks coming off of their arms. In contrast to the ones I had previously seen, these wore different paint on their bodies of a soft, warm red.
“You want me to go in there!?” I stammered. I tried to back away, panic searing through my stomach, but Rayon’s hand returned to my lower back and stopped me from retreating.
“Yes.” He held out his other hand and I looked down. Inside his palm, he held several round pieces of metal with drawings that I assumed were money or tokens of some kind. “Anyone can go in to make an offering. That’s perfectly acceptable.” He leaned closer. “Remember what I told you. The Ruby Dagger is in a shrine on the second floor at the back on the lefthand side. Don’t worry, as soon as you see it, you will know it’s right. It has a scorpion on it too.”
I wrung my hands together. “What if someone sees me take it?”
“They won’t. Stick to the shadows. It’s dark in there. As soon as you pick it up, place it in the sleeve on your belt and get back into the shadows. Keep your head down and wait for me. I’ll walk you straight out.” Rayon looked up and down the alleyway again, his shoulders hunched over.
His body language was not helping my nerves.
“Why is a dagger even in such a temple?”
Rayon shook his head, and he held onto a sigh. “As I said before, I don’t have time to explain everything to you. We have to be quick, and don’t forget, as soon as we have the dagger, Queen Olesya will get the antidote for your friends.” He placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “Do it for your brother.”
I looked back towards the temple. Dark, large and ominous, it loomed menacingly. I swallowed. He was right. No matter my fears. I had to be courageous and do it for Shane and Nate. Taking a deep breath, I nodded.
Excitement danced in Rayon’s eyes. Of course, he would be excited. If everything went well, he was about to get paid handsomely for obtaining another piece of Queen Olesya’s treasure.
Without another glance in his direction, I squared my shoulders and stepped away. My heart was in my throat, my palms were sweating and my mouth was dry. I was stepping out into an unknown world all by myself.
A small creature, no bigger than a rat, darted across my path, and I jolted to a stop. Glancing behind me, Rayon waved me on before he moved back into the shadows. I blinked, unable to see him.
I took a deep breath and turned back to the temple.
Shane and Nate, I told myself. I had to do this for Shane and Nate.
Collecting myself, I took a tentative step forward.