Aethertide (Chapter 9)

Olivia grunted as she caught herself on a fungal An’Morian tree for the tenth time that day. Yanking her foot from the root that had snagged her boot, she grumbled perhaps to herself, perhaps to the moonlit jungle which seemed hellbent on tripping her to her doom.

“Blast all roots and vines and thorns. I miss curbstones and gutters. At least they stay where they’re supposed to.”

She looked ahead to where Raisa had jogged on, surefooted and agile despite the hungry foliage, and sighed as the An’Morian woman looked back to find her.

“We should rest,” Raisa said, matter-of-fact as she scanned briefly over Olivia, paying more attention to the trees and sky than her companion. “They won’t follow. It’s madness to be out here at night.”

“More danger? What fun.”

That squeezed a smile from Raisa who came back to help Olivia untangle herself. They plonked down against a tree with Olivia staying a respectful distance apart while making sure she wasn’t too far from her savvy friend should something come barrelling out of the jungle again.

“How come your amulet didn’t work?” Raisa asked after a moment where the only sounds were chirruping insects and Olivia tinkering with her control module. When she answered, it was distractedly as if she were still talking to only herself.

“It didn’t have enough charge for our combined mass. The battery depleted. Looks like I’m stuck in this horrid place.” Olivia cast sorrowful eyes on Raisa. “No offence meant.”

Raisa gave a soft huff and turned back toward the jungle.

Leaving her contraption for a moment, Olivia skootched her bottom around the tree to be closer to her new friend. “You were pretty impressive back there. I don’t think that young…wizard knew what hit him.”

“We fight to survive here,” Raisa replied. “If your world is so wonderful with its gutstones and curbers, why did you come here?”

“A slight miscalculation,” Olivia said haughtily. But when Raisa turned to regard her, she found herself melting under the An’Morian’s gaze, averting her eyes to her knees. “It was an accident. I didn’t even know this place existed.”

Raisa shuffled closer, bumping Olivia with her shoulder.

“I got caught by accident, too,” she said. “If what the Magi say is true, and I don’t believe a damned thing that comes out of their crooked mouths, then there are lots of worlds, not just ours.”

Olivia slapped her knees in a decisive way that emulated her father. “Well, I can only deal with one at a time and this is the one I’m in.”

Raisa huffed again, this time Olivia thought it might have been laced with a chuckle.

“You should sleep while you can,” Raisa said. “I’ll keep watch, I don’t need much rest.”

“Wake me in a couple of hours and we’ll switch. We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

Raisa gave her a curt nod warmed with the faintest smile. “I suppose we are.”

Olivia snuggled down against the tree as best she could and closed her eyes with the reassuring feel of Raisa’s shoulder against hers.

Styr regarded the roasted leg of goat with hawk-like precision, hovering over the mostly stripped bone, eager to not miss a single morsel. At the other end of the rough wooden table, Aki sulked in silence, rubbing the various bruises he had gathered at Raisa’s hand.

“Master,” he said, finally breaking the silence. “Who was that Allander? I didn’t even realise that she had a device until she disappeared.”

Styr sucked his teeth. “It was like none I’ve ever seen. It would appear that another realm has gained access to the Aethertide.” He nibbled the bone and wiped grease from his chin. “Still, if it’s in its infancy, it will be easy to squash.”

“Do we report back to the Council?” Aki asked.

The bone hit Styr’s tin plate and he began to clean his hands on a rag. “No, we do it ourselves. They don’t need to know that there was a problem. You have never been punished by the Council, young Aki. Believe me, it’s better that they don’t know.”

Standing to clear away the crockery, Aki swept around the room with efficiency as Styr steepled his fingers in thought.

“She has a way to ride the Aethertide,” he said after a moment. “She will have left eddies. We find where she came from, and then we find her.”

“And destroy them?” Aki asked, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen area.

“Don’t sound so eager, Aki. We will do what must be done, but only that. Let’s rest. Tomorrow, we go hunting.”

“Yes, Archmagi.”

Aki bowed and left the room. Where a stone shelf had been cut from the cave’s wall he poured into a carved basin and began to clean dishes. As he cleaned, his mind returned to Raisa’s look of disdain, the unknown Allander’s equipment strapped to her chest and arm, the faces of the villagers lit by firelight and peering at him, some in shock and others with barely veiled smiles at his failure.

He hissed as the knife he didn’t realise he had been gripped by the blade finally bit through his skin and blood mixed with the basin water.

“Death comes for you on the Aethertide, Allander,” he muttered as he clasped the wound. “You and your friend.”