Deadsweep, page 20
part #2 of The Return to Erda Series
Niko slapped me.
I started to slap him back, but Zeid caught my arm. I was so furious by then I was ready to hit Zeid and maybe kick Ruta, but I caught a glimpse of Cahir looking at me, and I realized what I was doing.
“Zut! Am I infected? Oh, my gods. I need to go back to the Castle and have Leif take this out of me.”
“Stop it, Kara Beth,” Zeid hissed. “You are not infected with anything except your own self-importance. Do you think all of us don’t feel what you are feeling? Grow up. Niko is right. Haven’t you learned anything?”
Seeing Zeid mad at me did something. I sat down on the road and put my head between my knees and cried.
I didn’t deserve it, but they waited for me, and when I was done crying I stood up and forced out the words, “So, you aren’t as upset as me. What am I missing?”
“We are upset, Kara, but you are right, not in the same way. Yes, the village is gone. But what is wrong with this picture? What do you see besides burned buildings?”
“Nothing,” I whined.
No one said anything. Then it dawned on me. “Wait, I don’t see any bodies. Wouldn’t there be bodies somewhere?”
Suddenly a whiff of hope flew through me. “If there are no bodies, where are the people?”
At that point having them frozen like the people in Kinver sounded pretty good compared to everyone dying in the fire.
Zeid nodded at the star I wore around my neck. I understood. I needed to see what was invisible to our regular sight.
Before I pressed it though I had a horrifying thought. I remembered using the star before and seeing hundreds of Shrieks surrounding us. What if I touched it now and saw millions of worms? Which was worse, seeing them or not seeing, or imagining them? It had to be imagining. I could almost feel them crawling on me as I thought about it.
At least I would be able to stop them if I knew they were there. Trembling I lifted my hand to the star and pressed it. The world adjusted itself, and the picture I couldn’t see before appeared in front of me. No, the villagers weren’t frozen. They weren’t there at all.
While the vision lasted, I walked through the village, the black ashes coating my feet and legs. No walls were left standing, and seeing that blackness in 4D made the destruction a thousand times worse. But still, there was no sign of life.
With only a few minutes left before my sight changed back to 3D, I made it to where I thought my father’s house had been. I thought of Berta and how organized she was. Everything in place. She knew what was happening at all times. Did she know that the fire was coming and that Abbadon would target this village differently?
If she did, I asked myself, what would she have done? Standing in the hallway where I had hugged Berta goodbye, I looked down at the blackened floor and saw what Berta had done. And that’s when I knew where Aki, Suzanne, and Berta had taken the village.
Fifty-Six
“The trouble is, I have no idea how to get them back, or tell them to come home,” I said to Niko, Zeid, and Ruta.
They had seen me whoop in excitement, so they knew I had seen something, but they were still trying to follow what I was telling them.
“Back up, Kara,” Niko said. “Because you saw something that you believe Berta left for you, you think that the village is still here? Where?”
Niko spread his arms out taking in the blackened, ash-filled village. “Where would they be if they are here?”
“Well, they are not actually here. They are here and there. And I think I am going to need help to contact them.”
Of course, Professor Link had been listening into the conversation, so he asked, “What kind of help do you need?”
“Suzanne had once told me there are people in Erda who have traveled to more dimensions than just Earth and Erda. Dimension travelers. I need one or two of them, please. And I need them yesterday if you know what I mean.”
“Hum, okay, give me a minute and let me see if I can find you one,” Link said.
I turned to the three of them looking at me as if I had lost my mind, and said, “You know what I wish?”
“Besides, a dead Abbadon, Deadsweep eliminated from the face of the planet, everyone returned unharmed, and oh, maybe a shower?” Zeid said, pointing at my blackened state.
“Yes, besides that. I wish I had a clean place to sit. Like a rock.” Before I finished speaking, I sat down—on a rock that hadn’t been there the moment before.
“Wow,” Zeid said. “When did you figure out how to do that?”
“Not that long ago. I didn’t do anything. The rock was already here before I asked for it. But because I saw it during the 4D time, I could aim myself right above it and sit on it. I’m trying to make a point here. I think that is what is going on with the village. They are all still here. But not.
“I think that somehow one of them, or maybe all three, opened a giant portal and shoved everyone in there before the fire swept through the town. But I don’t think Suzanne opened the other end of the portal because she wants them all to stay in the Erda dimension. They are inside something that is an in-between place. Like a waiting room.”
“But how do you know this? Did you see them?” Zeid asked.
“No. That’s the thing. I don’t know how to move between dimensions. Suzanne pushed me through the portal to get to Erda. So I couldn’t see the people, but I did see something that made me think that what I am saying is true.”
“What?” Niko asked.
I pointed down to what used to be the floor of my father’s house. “Look closely. What do you see?”
I waited patiently while the three of them looked and looked. “Okay, cross your eyes or something. Expect to see it.”
“Zounds,” Niko said. “A silver thread… going up into the air and then it disappears.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Where do you think the other end of that silver thread goes?”
Link broke in just about the time everyone said, “Oh!”
“Found someone. Actually, I found two of them. Well, I didn’t find them, Pita did. He said they were old friends of his. Well, not friends so much as someone he drinks with, and that’s how he knew they were dimension travelers. All the stories they tell. Sorry, rambling. Not like me. Anyway, they are on their way to you now.”
I didn’t even have time to ask how they were arriving when Leif popped into view holding the hands of two ordinary looking people. I don’t know what I expected. Ghosts? These two looked so much like each other, I thought they might be siblings.
“Thought I would bring them to you,” Leif said. “I have had some experience traveling through the Earth to Erda portal, but these two youngsters seem to have been moving around for hundreds of years to many dimensions. Of course, since Abbadon had been active, all the portals are closed, so they claim to be a little rusty, but they know more than the rest of us.”
The two “young people” laughed. The young woman spoke up, “We’re not young, we just stopped our aging at twenty-five. We are both hundreds of Earth years old. I’m Anne and this is my twin brother, Garth. How can we help?”
I explained the situation to them. We thought the town was in the waiting room of a portal to somewhere. When I showed Anne and Garth the silver thread, they nodded at each other.
“Well, this should be easy. Since we have your permission, we can open the door to where the villagers are and let them all out. But do you want them to come out here in this?” Anne said waving her arm at the filth we were standing in.
“You can open the door anywhere?” When they nodded yes, I suggested the meadow.
The two of them held hands and vanished. A few minutes later we saw the strangest thing. Out in the middle of the meadow, people were stepping out of a hole in the air and onto the ground.
We started running, and we got there just in time to see Aki and Suzanne step out into the meadow. Right behind them was Berta. And with her was a man who looked like my father, except he was walking.
“You’re well,” I squealed and ran into his arms.
“About time, don’t you think,” he said.
I wanted to stay and find out everything, but we still had to free Kinver. We quickly caught Suzanne and Aki up with what we needed to do.
They both looked exhausted, especially Suzanne. For days they had to keep both doors of the portal closed while trying to keep the people from the village from freaking out. Everyone was tired and hungry. Although before stepping into the portal, Suzanne had them all bring food, water, and clothes, the food had run out, and they were low on water.
Now, seeing their village burned to the ground, most of the villagers started to cry. It had been a beautiful village, and it was gone. Abbadon had burned it for no reason at all other than for spite.
However, there was some good news. Aki said that there had been no worms when they arrived. Perhaps Abbadon didn’t want to bother with slow death for the village his brother called home. He wanted immediate and painful deaths for everyone.
What Abbadon hadn’t counted on was Suzanne being there. He would be disappointed to discover the townspeople had survived and would rebuild.
“I’m going to stay here,” Aki said. We need to get food and water and shelter for the villagers. Berta, your father, and I can handle this, Kara. The rest of you go take care of Kinver.”
“May we help?” Anne and Garth asked. Suzanne nodded. “I’m going to need help. From what you have told me, Kara Beth, Abbadon didn’t just put them into a portal, he has frozen them in time and space. If we make a mistake, it could kill them all instantly.”
Fifty-Seven
Leif took us to Kinver. He waved his staff over our little group and the next thing we knew we were standing back on the road we had been on the day before.
“That’s a wizard for you,” Zeid whispered to me. “I was exhausted after moving only four of us, and he just moved all of us with a flick of his wrist.”
It was true. Leif looked as if nothing had happened, except maybe a brief stroll to the other side of a room.
“That’s a pretty good description of it,” Leif said. “It is like a stroll to the other side of a room.”
“Do you need to wave the staff to make it happen?” I asked. “Or is that just theater.”
Leif laughed. “You decide. I need to get back to helping restore the infected. We can talk about that later.”
I thought the question was kind of like asking me if I believed there was a Santa Claus. No. And then yes. Depended on how one saw the idea of it.
As soon as we arrived, the twins went into a huddle with Suzanne.
That left Zeid, Niko, and I waiting for instructions. Waiting was hard. I wanted to be doing something, anything. But locked portals and villages that were frozen in time and space was not something my magic could fix, at least not without help.
Usually, I would hug Cahir to calm myself down, but Cahir wasn’t with us. He refused to be transported around by anyone, even a wizard. So I had sent him off to check on his family since there wasn’t anything he could do at Kinver
“Go now,” I had whispered to him, “But don’t stay long. We have to go get Abbadon.”
He hadn’t wasted a moment. He gave me a chance to give him a brief hug and then he ran off towards his home. I knew he would meet me back at the Castle once he had checked on his family.
Family. These people were my family. Kinver was a home for me. It was where I could be Hannah. Not Princess Kara Beth. Just a beloved daughter. I needed them back.
Suzanne and the twins called us over. “We think we know what to do. Could you describe it one more time for us, or even better, could you show us?”
“Show you? How could I do that?” I asked. I turned to Ruta. “You knew that they were here. Can’t you see them?”
“No. I just felt them with the help of the trees.”
“Honestly, I don’t know how to show you,” I said. “I used this star to refocus the way I see the world. And in the 4D viewpoint, I could see the town. Everyone was frozen. Dark threads were running through the air all around them. Since they were frozen, I don’t know if they could see me, except for Liza. She’s the girl who gave me this star because she can see 4D without it. Liza projected the word ‘portal’ into the air for me to see.”
Garth spoke up, “That’s perfect. The word portal is all we needed to know. We thought that was what has happened. They are in a portal the way the people in Eiddwen were, but Abbadon opened this one and stuck them there.
“But we think that we can get them out. As you know, portals between dimensions manipulate time and space. Neither of which are linear, even though it appears that way to us.
“That’s why we can travel to many dimensions which are operating in what you might call different time zones and return to this dimension, and it will be just as we left it.”
Suzanne spoke up, “That’s how I could travel between Earth and Erda which operate on a very different sense of time. The danger lies in the transporting. If something goes wrong, the person could be trapped somewhere in time, or pieces of themselves would disperse into many time zones.
“We are lucky in that Abbadon appears to have frozen the people of Kinver in time and space instead of dispersing them throughout the universes. They are in a place similar to the waiting room in the portal where we kept the village of Eiddwen.
“The difference is that he froze them there. That way he could keep them there forever, trapped between life and death. Perhaps he didn’t know you would be able to see them. Or maybe he knew you would find them, but didn’t think you would be able to unfreeze them without killing them in the process. That is the more likely scenario. He expected you to find them, try to unfreeze them, and then fail. That way you could feel guilty forever.”
“But we won’t fail. We do need you to take us there though,” Suzanne said. “We need to use you as a marker. You are here, but you can see inside the portal. If you can hold the vision for long enough, we can find the opening to the portal, step inside, and let the villagers out.”
“And if I can’t? What will happen to you?”
“The same thing that will happen to the rest of the village. Either we will all be frozen forever, or dispersed in time and space.”
“So if I fail, you die?” I whispered, fear creeping through every pore in my body.
“You won’t fail,” Suzanne said. I knew enough not to say anything. I needed all the encouragement I could get, and she was speaking it for herself as much as for me.
“One last thing. You said dark threads. Could those threads be worms strung together?”
The horror of what Suzanne said hit me like a sledgehammer. They could be worms. If we unfreeze the people, the thought-worms will be loose.
“We can handle that part, Kara Beth,” Niko said. “We have the disrupters. Coro and Ariel can be called in. The villagers will be a little wet, but I don’t think they’ll mind. We have a drone to check if someone is already infected. And of course, the Priscillas will have the goats here.
“All you have to do is hold the vision so that Garth, Anne, and Suzanne can find the portal.”
I looked around at everyone waiting expectantly. People who believed in me. I thought of the people waiting for us to free them, and said, “Okay, let’s do it.”
Suzanne, Anne, and Garth gathered around me. The twins held my hand, and Suzanne put her hands on my shoulder and said the same words she said to me the first time we went through a portal together. “Go, go, go.”
I touched the star and showed them the village. All I had to do was hold that vision. I focused on Liza, knowing that if anyone could help me, she could.
I heard Anne whisper, “Wow,” and then the world started to shatter.
Fifty-Eight
I groaned and tried to sit up. “What happened?” I asked, still struggling to open my eyes. Someone was helping me, but my eyes wouldn’t open enough to see who it was. All my body wanted to do was lie back down and go to sleep.
The sweetest voice I had ever heard said, “You fainted.”
My eyes flew open, and all sense of tiredness vanished. “Beru!” I yelled.
I didn’t care if she didn’t want me to hug her, I did it anyway. She was thinner and tired, but as beautiful as ever. Still holding on to her I almost fell over my feet to get to James and Liza.
Tears streamed down my face as I saw that the whole village had returned. People were already in their homes opening doors and windows. Children were laughing in the streets.
“The worms?”
“No worms,” Suzanne said. “What looked like dark threads were cracks, like cracks in ice. Abbadon probably had to do the freezing quickly, which made it easier to release everyone because of the imperfections.”
“Or else he did it on purpose,” I mumbled under my breath. In my head, Link answered me, “You may be onto something Kara Beth.”
I should have been elated. But once the excitement of seeing Beru and the people of Kinver had faded, I found that what I felt was depressed. I think I hid it well though.
In spite of feeling depressed or maybe because I was, I wouldn’t let Beru out of my sight as we all circled through the village making sure that everything was okay.
We spent a few minutes in James’ home. His wife was busy making food and wanted us to stay, but we knew we couldn’t. Something was still bothering me. Even though Deadsweep had been terrifying, and finding a burned village and a frozen village was horrible, it seemed as if we were missing something.
