I drew the others attention to the flame. There was a track off the road just down from us and we lead the ‘horses’ towards it. It was a wide track. Big enough to get a large vehicle down it. There were ruts in the tall grass at least four meters apart. Although scale without reference was hard to do. We could be just 15 centimetres tall for all I knew.
No that was foolishness. Scale was relative to us was all that mattered right now. If we turned out to be tiny people on a giant world that would be another thing to worry about entirely. The only thing I couldn’t be sure of was how tall I was personally. It was getting annoying fast.
With our enhanced night vision following the path was relatively easy. A few huge wagons were circled around a campfire, the huge cattle-like beasts that had pulled them grazing nearby. The shadows of about two dozen people were flickering against the sides of wagons and beasts. As we approached we could hear them talking among themselves. The snippets of conversation we picked up were familiar. People convinced that they were dreaming. People wondering where they were and how they came to be the people that they were now.
The woodlands around were deep in the shadows of night. I found myself wondering what threats might be out there. No fantasy world like this one seemed to be, was ever entirely free of monstrous threats, and who knew what lurked out there beyond the circle of firelight. It appeared that I was not alone in these thoughts as a figure stood at the point where the trail entered the campsite. They stood supporting themselves, seemingly out of habit, on a stave or glaive of some sort; a long shaft of wood topped with something metallic. A blade or something else.
“Halloo the camp!” I called out. Best announce our arrival as they were unlikely to hear us over their conversation.
The figure ahead dropped, startled, into a fighting stance and pointed their weapon in our direction. To everyone’s surprise the metallic tip ignited into flame.
Some reflex had me crouching low, and off to their right side, where any jet of flame would find me hard to reach. My eyes slitted against the sudden harsh glare. My night sight momentarily ruined. The flame revealed a stocky figure. Probably no more than a dozen centimetres or so shorter than myself. Broad shouldered, voluptuously and voluminously feminine, despite the bushy mutton chop sideburns that decorated each cheek. Her complexion was an almost stony grey taupe that reminded me of granite, her surprised eyes the clear blue of a glacial mountain lake, and her hair the white of a snow capped peak avalanching down her back and cheeks. She was neither rugged, nor craggy, but instead youthful in appearance. Her clothing was similar to traditional Romani dress, crossed with punk chic, if enhanced by leather workers and blacksmiths.
“Jings! It’s a dwarf!” Naturally it was Murdo who found his voice first. “And she’s doing magic! We must be in a recent edition.”
“Halt! Who goes there?” Her voice was serious; simultaneously alien and familiar.
“I am Drake Dunn,” I began, “And these…!” I did not finish my sentence as she dropped her weapon, plunging us back into moonlit near darkness again, and crossed the distance between us with surprising speed given her stature. I fought my body’s impulse to draw a hidden blade and slay this unarmed stranger. Prompts to assassinate her popping up one after another as she closed on me. Then she embraced me with such ferocity that we both fell to the ground.
We lay for a good few seconds with her head pressed to my chest before she looked up into my eyes.
“It’s me!,” She said. “Amanda.”
“I sort of guessed.” I laughed, ignoring the horrific notifications that continued to scroll in the periphery of my vision. This was my beloved, my soul mate, ally and best friend. I would never; could never raise a hand to harm her.
{[Rombe] [[Forge]Witch], Dwongruinelyn Drakeshield, is identified as ally? [Y/N]}
Yes!
{Assassination prompts against [Rombe] [[Forge]Witch], Dwongruinelyn Drakeshield, are neutralised until alliance is revoked}
My wife got to her feet. Which would have been miraculous back on Earth. She then helped me to mine. Our relative heights had remained the same, with her being only slightly shorter than me. But there was a power in her grasp that had only been a potential before.
I took the opportunity to finish introducing the four guys I was travelling with before asking after her.
“I’m fine,” she said, “Just confused and scared. Like everyone else. But my new body works. I no longer need a stick to stand or walk.” She bent and recovered her staff. “Still got one though.”
“And everyone else?” I gestured towards the camp.
“Many of our neighbours. Everyone has the same low grade panic and confusion. Lots of denial. Even I’m still half convinced I’m dreaming and I was awake when it happened. One exception is Heather. She’s ecstatic.”
“Oh?” Heather was a teen trans-girl disowned by her excuse for parents and taken in by her aunt and uncle. Just down the road from us. Amanda was giving me a look I knew so well. Like she was waiting for the penny to drop. Why would Heather be ecstatic? “Oh!”
“Yeah. She’s a cis woman now. Wodwarf, Dwarfem, whatever. Thing is she’s very happy and I’m…” She smiled sweetly at me and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I’m wondering what you’ve got in your breeches.”
“Later.” I waved the suggestion away.
“Oh of course. But your gender identity tends to slosh all over the place and while my sample size is way too small, enquiring minds need to know.”
“I..” I had no freaking idea what was going on down there and it wasn’t yet the time to investigate. “Later,” I repeated a bit more emphatically. She didn’t immediately respond.
“You’re hurt,” she said softly. She reached out for my cut ear and I flinched away from her touch. She closed her eyes and seemed to reach deep within herself. There was a small flare of golden light and an unexpected warmth. Suddenly the pain in my ear ran backwards and then was gone.
“There, all better,” she said and lowered her hand to my shoulder. She continued to look into my eyes like she was trying to remember my face. The weird thing was that, looking back at her, I could almost see my Amanda. Like a second image imposed over the new reality. What I’m trying to say is that there was, is, a recognition there. On some sort of indescribable metaphysical level.
The guys moved passed us towards the camp and as they did so George turned to Amanda and I.
“If you can find one another so quickly then this means my son can be out there too,” he said hopefully. I nodded.
“I have confidence that you’ll find him soon,” Amanda said without turning to him.
Before we entered the camp I asked Amanda what she’d experienced before arriving here.
“It was weird. Hard to describe. One moment I was sitting in my chair, watching YouTube and crocheting when all of a sudden everything froze and I found myself sort of hovering just over my own shoulder. Like when you get really tired and are sort of disconnected from yourself. Or one of those Out Of the Body Experiences you hear about. I could see myself and yet I was myself. Like I was in two places at once. Then everything receded, like it or I was being drawn away down a dark tunnel. And I wasn’t alone. All around me were others. Not people as such, but nebulous lights that felt like people. As far as I could see. If seeing was the right word. It felt like it was, well, everyone. Then, snap,” she clicked her fingers, “I’m here, in this body, in this place. Time having reasserted itself. And no, before you ask, it didn’t feel rapturous. It didn’t feel like anything at all. The weirdest thing is that this body feels right to me. Like that old busted body of mine was never mine to begin with. Sometimes, when I’m not subconsciously trying to wake up, I catch myself wondering if Amanda of Earth wasn’t the dream.”
“You’ve thought about this a lot.”
“I know, for what, half an hour?”
“More like twenty minutes.”
“That’s why I do the heavy thinking and leave the lifting to my genius husbando.” She smiled widely at me.
I had to agree with her. My new body, although alien, felt natural to me. Better than the old one I’d apparently abandoned back on Earth. Fitter and more able than anything since my twenties.
“So how did you do the healing thing?” I asked her. She shrugged.
“You saw the fire thing. That was some sort of reflex. So I followed it, reached deep and tried to heal your wound. I had to visualise the process and I was a bit worried that I’d cause more injury; I seem to be aligned with the elements of fire, metal and stone. I’m a forge witch, rather than a heart witch. But healing seems to be something I’m supposed to be able to do anyway. It was remarkably easy.”
I looked around. We were fairly secluded at the edge of the camp. The bonfires within threw just enough shade that here we were essentially sandwiched between darkness and light.
“I want to try something,” I said. “And I don’t know what’s going to happen and that scares me.”
“I’m here.” Amanda tried to be reassuring.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I know,” I said, “But you don’t know what’s going to happen either.”
“True. But that’s kind of exciting in and of itself.” I nodded and took a deep breath before reaching for my inner darkness.
{Utilise [Born of Darkness] abilities? Y/N}
Again the shadows closed in. I could still see Amanda and the camp but the campfire blazed painfully bright, the world becoming girdled by the extremes of light and shadow. Shadow being my world and light… Not. I felt that I could no more embrace the darkness and stand in that fire light, than I could breathe water. Which was am outdated presumption. For all I knew at that point I had gills. But that was the analogy that came to mind at that point and so I present it here.
Anyway, I stepped back into the shadows of the undergrowth, crouching, all the better to cower from that light. Amanda watched me.
Yes.
I fell into darkness.
Fell is an exaggeration. Walls of black glass seemed to rise up around me and I crouched among them. I could still see what was in the light but the poles had flipped. That which was in the darkness was clear as day. While everything that was lit was dim and shrouded to me.
“Drake?” Amanda was looking around. She seemed to be unable to see me.
“I’m right here” She flinched, twisting around to look behind her. Concern flashed across her face.
“Drake? Was that you whispering in my ear?”
“Yes.” She visibly relaxed. I seemed to be invisible. “I think. I haven’t moved.” She nodded.
“This is weird. You looked like you fell into the ground and your voice is a really eerie whisper.”
“Yeah. I think I’m in some sort of shadow dimension.”
“Keep an eye out for Ring Wraiths.” That was a good point.
I looked around but could see nothing other than terrain and myself. I became aware then that I only stood on the surface of the darkness. That other layers lay beneath me. Now I don’t like to admit this but I suffer from thalassophobia and this revelation of hidden depths to the darkness almost set me off.
“I’m going deeper,” I said. I swallowed my fear and descended further in to the darkness.
“Deeper?” I heard Amanda ask as the sound of her voice receded.
More walls of dark glass rose around me. But these weren’t walls that surrounded me on all sides, but shelves forming a space roughly three metres to a side. There was a rack of clothes behind me. Books, scrolls, bottles and more upon the shelves on each side. A rack of weapons ahead. Mostly knives and swords. I had an inventory.
However it was the corpse at my feet that startled me. I shrieked and backed out so fast I think my feet left the ground as I reappeared in front of Amanda.
“What happened?” she asked me.
“There was a dead guy,” I all but stuttered.
“Like a Ring Wraith?”
“No. Like a dead body. In my inventory space.”
“You have an inventory space?” I gestured for her to join me in the shadows.
“Let me show you.”
She stepped forward and pressed herself close to me in the undergrowth.
“Well this is cozy,” she giggled. I took her hands in mine again and called the darkness back.
Again the black glass walls rose around me. But not it seemed, Amanda.
{[Born of Darkness] will not permit you to bring any living thing that doesn’t share your [Seagel] onto the [Cronephere]}
Okay some of those words were definitely made up. What was a Seagel and Cronephere?
“You’ve vanished again,” she said, “But I can still feel your touch.” I had the sinking feeling that using a weapon from the darkness would be simplicity.
“Okay, well if I can’t bring you with me, maybe I can bring the dead guy back with me.” I released her hands and plunged back in to my inventory space.
The dead guy was still there. Of course. He wore clothing not unlike my own. I wondered for a brief moment if he would be my doppelganger, or I his. But looking down at those sightless eyes I realised that, although he was definitely an elf he was one of the darker complexioned ones. I grabbed his blood stained collar and thankfully he didn’t animate and attack me. We returned to what I was beginning to become accustomed to think of as reality. The corpse appearing between Amanda and I.
“Did you move or did I?” I said. She stuck the base of her staff in the ground and the tip blazed to life. Chasing away the shadows.
“It was definitely you,” she said as she crouched beside the body. “That doesn’t look right” she said. “His head shouldn’t be lolling like that.” She grabbed the head and moved it around. “That’s internal decapitation right there.” She released the head, closed the eyes, and tried to move a limb, with little success. “Full rigour, so he was dead for a while. Few hours at least. Can you help me roll him over?”
“Do I have to?”
“You’ve done worse than manhandle a dead body.”
“I don’t like it.” I crouched and assisted her anyway.
There was a hole in the neck at the base of the skull and top of the spinal column.
“That’s probably the cause of death right there. I wonder what caused it.?” I removed the thin narrow blade from my wrist sheath and showed it to her. She took it from me and examined it. “Yeah. There’s traces of blood on the blade.” She went to hand it back to me and I recoiled.
“Amanda, I killed him.” She shook her head.
“Your body killed him. Hours before you arrived here. Now take the blade. You might need it.” I reluctantly took the blade and let the reflexes of my body make it vanish up my sleeve again.
Amanda stood and reclaimed her staff. The light faded from the tip but she didn’t pull it from the ground. Nearby stones rolled towards and began to pile up on the body. Soon it was buried under a cairn of stones.
At long last we entered the camp, leaving the grisly matter of the dead stranger behind us. Although it would continue to nag at me. Amanda made introductions. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of their names. Especially as so many of them have been left us since. Despite her physical disabilities Amanda always carried the mental and social load in our marriage. And here she was doing it again, in a strange body and even stranger land. I knew that on some level I should carry some of that load myself, but I was useless beyond small talk or whatever matter of the hour the discussion was concerned with.
In this instance the discussion was with the whole reincarnation in a fantasy world thing. Most had been reincarnated as Rombe, the short, stocky, and powerful Dwarven-like people. Lots of leather and facial hair. It was like being at a 90’s hair-metal gig. There were some Taren, the Elf-like people I had been reincarnated as. There were even a few regular humans, two human exemplars and an exalt. Whatever those were. Other than the biggest dude in the camp.
Heather danced over to us. A childlike figure shorter even than Amanda. A pale beige complexion that shimmered as if dusted with fine glitter. Amanda was right, the teen girl was beaming so bright she was practically a light source. That’s not hyperbole; she was generating a soft pale light from her skin. Not as bright as the firelight but up close, in the shadier parts of the campsite, those shades would flee at her approach. Reflexively I added her to my no-kill list.
{Assassination prompts against [Nombe] [[Apprentice] Witch], Nimynhilda Drakeshield, are neutralised until alliance is revoked}
That was weird.
The interface had referred to Heather as a [Nombe] not a [Rombe], which I had taken as the name of a species or culture. I wondered what the difference was between Rombes and Nombes.
{[[Personal] Lore] check passed (automatic): A [Nombe] is a mix of [Rombe] and [Taren] parentage. Exceptionally rare as the offspring of interspecies relationships tend to be, they are highly regarded for their unprecedented ability to interact with [Daq] and [Ib]. Attempts to deliberately breed them have failed as they tend to be sterile. Nimynhilda Drakeshield is the illegitimate offspring of [Rombe] [[Forge] Witch] Dwongruinelyn Drakeshield and [[Ashen] Taren] [[Assassin]] Merle Sagado. Nimynhilda Drakeshield was born beside a mobile forge after a rainstorm while a rainbow filled the nearby sky. As such her [Seagel] are, in order of potency, [Light], [Fire] and [Storm]. As [Forge-Born] Her [Ib] is with [Tolyin], the [Rombe] Goddess of travel and pity.}
I hurried over to Amanda.
“We have to talk about Heather.” I said to her. She gave me a concerned look. “Somewhere more private,” I added. She nodded and led me toward one of the waggons.
Now that I was up close to them I could see why they were so large. The one closest to us looked like a mobile smithy. The back end open to show a smouldering forge. I wondered if this was the one Heather, I mean Nimynhilda, had been born beside. The others could easily carry and shelter the rest of the camp. Amanda led me to the waggon next to the forge and showed me inside.
The interior was a mix of a caravan, greenhouse and kitchen. A real witchy place.
“What’s wrong with Heather?” she asked me, sitting on the edge of the large bed at the far end of the waggon.
“Nothing is wrong. It’s just she’s our daughter.”
“Our daughter Drake?” Amanda patted the bed beside her and I sat.
“The daughter of our bodies.”
“I know.”
“You do?” Amanda nodded and leaned in.
“She’s my apprentice. And the offspring of this body. A mother knows these things.” She said.
“We already have two children.”
“Who will be out there, somewhere, for us to find.” She rested her head on my shoulder for a few moments before turning her face up to look at me.
“I’m confident that in this terrifying new world we can find one another. And if we end up with dragging Heather along with us then so much the better. The more the merrier,” she said.
Rolling onto her knees she smiled at me.
“But look, I have a body that works. I have a burning curiosity. It’s been a very long time, and we are finally alone.”
I tried to think of an objection. Of something to say to stave off the inevitable. But she was right; it had been a very long time and a world away. She silenced my concerns with a kiss and pressed me down onto the rudimentary mattress.