Coil of Worlds

They both had their hands on their knees, breathing heavy after several hours of training when Lara said between gulps of air, “We need to find our way back to Aradun, don’t we? I was hoping we’d return once we fell asleep, but we’re still here on Earth.”

Skye stood up and stretched his arms toward the open sky. Staring across the field, he nodded once. Pondering their situation, he stretched his legs then his arms. After a long moment, he suggested, “Tell me about the first time you traveled to my planet. Perhaps we can figure it out together.”

With a long, drawn out sigh, she did. Skye immediately realized that for all the time he’d spent with Lara, he’d never heard this tale. She described the tunnel and the two, lost girls, and then she spoke of the commanding woman with golden eyes. After a brief hesitation, Lara related the battle she witnessed and how she was almost captured. By the time she finished recounting her experiences, they both were seated on the cold ground, having already flattened the frozen plants during their training. He put pieces of her story into some semblance of order.

“What was different from the first day you entered the tunnels and the previous day?”

She tilted her head back, staring into the distance at the branches twisting in the slight breeze. “I’d just come back from vacation the night before. I was in Colorado for the entire week of spring break.”

Although unfamiliar with a few of her words, he did grasp the overall meaning. “You didn’t sleep in your bed for an entire week?” She nodded her agreement, gazing at him in curiosity. “There is the possibility someone brought magic into your rooms while you were away.”

She scrubbed her hands against her eyes and puffed her cheeks before reminding him, “Skye, that’s impossible. Magic doesn’t exist on my planet, remember?”

He scowled at her. How could she not believe magic existed on her world? “Since my first step onto this planet, I have seen magic everywhere.”

“No,” she said, “what you have seen isn’t magic. It’s pure human ingenuity. Believe me, there is no magic here.”

He sat back, putting his weight on both his hands as Skye stared at her, brooding. Did this mean his world could create these objects? How long would it take Kurites or Pyrannis to invent these design masterpieces? He closed his eyes, shutting out the woman’s constant fidgeting. Perhaps the people on her planet were more intelligent.

Except…Except Lara didn’t seem more intelligent than him. Yes, she thought differently, knew things he did not, but so did he. If her information was correct, then this world surpassed his in every way. And yet, she was able to use magic in Kureto.

Curious, he asked in a much calmer voice, “Can you not feel others’ emotions when you get too close?”

“No. Not here. I never have, either. At this point, I can only thank God that I can’t. We have enough trouble on our hands.”

He sat back up, rubbing the dirt and grass from his palms. His plan to work on discovering his magic was waylaid by her answer.

“No magic took place in your rooms while you were away? If nothing changed from the time you left and returned to your rooms, then the next step is to look toward the time you were gone.”

He saw her confusion. What would help her understand his logic? Then he remembered a memory almost forgotten. “When I was a young boy, my father taught me to hunt by trailing a flightless, four-toed bird. Although it couldn’t fly, I lost its tracks in a dense section of the forest. Even at midday, I could not see for the shadows covering the ground.”

Skye stopped, reliving the day he had shared with his father. A hint of wistfulness curled within him. So much had changed since then.

Lara leaned forward in anticipation, bringing him back to the present. “Without hinting in the direction the creature had gone, my father commanded me to return to its last known spot I had seen tracks and inspect the area again. The second time I did a slower, more thorough examination of the ground. In my haste to hunt and shoot the bird with my newly fletched arrows, I had missed a sign. The bird had changed its course, going in the opposite direction I first looked.”

From the gleam in her eyes, the tale rang true for her. “You’re saying I need to go back and follow my own tracks while I was on vacation. Then I may be able to find the key to my trips to your world. Skye, you’re an absolute genius.”

Skye was shocked when the small woman jumped up and enclosed him in a big, impetuous hug. She released him and did an obscene dance around him. With no idea how to respond to someone acting so unrefined, he followed her jerky movements with his eyes. When she stopped dancing, Lara glanced over at him and erupted into laughter, scaring the birds into flight around them. She collapsed down next to him, hitting his thigh with her elbow. If he had known his idea would go to her head like ale, he would have bided his time, dishing out tidbits of information a little at a time.

He shook his head. Lara was a strange woman. Unlike the women in Pyran, she was carefree, unconcerned that others outside her family saw her emotions and actions. In some ways it made him uncomfortable. In others, well, in other ways, he found himself relaxing around her, similar to how he was in Eiren’s presence.

Caught up in her excitement, he teased her with a smug smirk, “Are you certain you didn’t drink any ale this morn?” He was pleased when she took no offense. She slapped him on the arm as she gasped for air. Once her breathing returned to normal, he cautioned, “It is debatable whether this plan will result in any answers.”

She turned her head to pierce him with her gaze. Her deep, brown eyes always surprised him. Skye watched the merriment leave her face. In its place, resolve tightened her jaw line and hardened her eyes.

“I know, except I can’t help but think that the answers we need are in Colorado. We must find a way to get back to your planet. We can’t leave Chion and Eiren there by themselves.”

Skye debated asking his next question, not knowing how she’d react. For some reason, he balked at the answer she might give. Suddenly impatient with his uncharacteristic indecisiveness, he asked, “Once we determine how to return, will you leave your world and come to mine?”

She jerked her head back so she could stare at him. Emotions flickered across her face, disconcerting him with the raw display.

Skye didn’t know what she saw in his face, but after a moment, she said, “What you’re really asking is why I would return to your planet when I can stay here.”

Shrugging her shoulders and wrapping both arms around herself, she said, “The idea runs through my mind every day. Why do I care? Should I care? What is it to me whether Kureto and Pyran fall into ruins? I don’t know. Maybe I’m beginning to fall under the spell of Chion’s strong beliefs. It seems like every time I turn around, Chion tells me how your God and Goddess have a plan, and I must be part of the plan. Why else would I find myself on another planet? But do I want to leave my home, everything I know? Of course not.”

For emphasis, she patted the ground three times. “This is home.” She spread out her arms to encompass the sky, the trees, and the ground. “This world makes sense to me. Your planet, with its talking animals and glowing spiders, doesn’t. All the same, Chion draws me. He fills my mind, my every thought, and even my dreams.”

Lara’s feelings about magic jolted him. Skye thought she accepted the tunnels and magic that surrounded them. She’d never spoken of her discontent during the time he knew her. They were far more similar than he thought.

Her words about her Ai resonated with him. Perhaps not everyone would understand what she meant, but he did. Eiren was his life, his reason for taking his next breath. Without his small paka, he’d be nothing.

He chose his next words with care. “So you will return with me. Once your task there is complete, will you decide to come back?” Skye almost didn’t hear her answer.

In a bare breath of air, she whispered, “I don’t know.”

¤¤¤

The next morning, long before it was fully light, Lara and Skye packed up their stuff and left the campground. After two days of wondering what was happening on campus, Lara was desperate to learn whether Brian’s murder had made the news. She wasn’t positive, but she didn’t think so. Finding a television would be nigh impossible, which left the internet as her only option. Although she carried a new, throwaway cell phone, she was afraid to call her roommate for fear the police traced the call. She couldn’t imagine the police getting that far in the investigation, but veering on the side of caution sounded like a good idea.

By the time they made it to the north side of the Ouachita National Forest, it was late enough that businesses were open in the mid-sized city of Fort Smith. Lara was still debating where to use the internet when she almost drove past a sign for the public library. She hit the blinker and made a hard right turn into the parking lot. After parking the car, she studied the newer-looking building, trying to decide whether it was safe. It was large enough that one person wouldn’t attract too much attention. She left the keys in the ignition and reached into the backseat to swipe the baseball cap hidden behind her.

She peered at herself in the mirror and adjusted her hair, hiding as much of her features as possible. People would take a second look if they saw her marking.

Twisting to face her silent passenger, she searched for a polite way to tell him to wait in the car. She needn’t have worried.

He nodded in the direction of the library. “I’ll wait for you here. This place makes me uneasy.”

His statement made her take another careful look around the vehicle. All she could see were other cars and two toddlers skipping on the sidewalk leading to the arch of glass doors, a woman keeping pace beside them.

She opened her door. “I shouldn’t be too long, but if it does, don’t worry. It may take me a while to find a free computer.” She realized her mistake when she saw his bewilderment; but instead of taking the time to translate her world, Lara shut the door and approached the library entrance.

Lara found a free computer at once. She scanned the campus articles posted on the university website. Although they listed Brian being murdered in her rooms, the author of the two pieces didn’t give any details to what the police were thinking. Maybe it was too early.

Her eyes caught her roommate’s name, so she went back to the start of the paragraph. Becky was quoted a few times by the newspaper, telling how she came across the body. She slid the cursor over to close the webpage, but wavered for a brief second before she clicked to open a new search engine.

She did a quick search for her full name, typing in Solara Meghan Conners. She came across a couple of articles in the Dallas Morning News and several national news websites, all of which named her as wanted for questioning by the Dallas police. She gasped in stunned reaction. Did they really think she could kill her own friend? The articles also listed one or more unknown suspects the police described as male, armed, and extremely dangerous.

Why had the story made the national news circuit? The answer hit her as she read more. Campus shootings were a hot topic in the media. In the last article she opened, her campus identification photo stared back at her in accusation. She froze at the sight, horror making her heart skip in its frantic racing.

She had to get out of there. Lara closed out of the computer, heaving a silent sigh of relief when her face no longer filled the screen. She almost jumped out of her skin when a man sneezed behind her. She tugged the cap lower on her forehead and kept her head down, hiding her face from others who might glance in her direction. Lara scurried out of the building, almost running to the car.

With her hands shaking, it took her a few tries to grab the door handle. She sank into the car seat and closed the door before she began hyperventilating.

She was screwed, so incredibly screwed. She kept seeing her photo the newspaper printed. She couldn’t hide. The feel of a large hand on her shoulder elicited a high-pitched squeak from her.

Even knowing it was Skye, Lara didn’t take her face out of her hands, afraid she’d embarrass herself more by bursting into tears. Oh God, what was she going to do? She knew…She knew she needed a new plan, except her brain wasn’t cooperating. All she could think about were three words—wanted for questioning—and her face plastered all over the media channels.

After several minutes, the tense silence in the car sank in. She sniffed and lifted her head. Skye was ready to attack anyone who came near their car. His eyes were shuttered, and his left hand held a knife, while his right was clasped onto the door latch. The sight made her take a big, shaky breath. Her mind churned with the beginnings of rational thought. She lifted a trembling hand to catch Skye’s attention.

“Wait. It isn’t what you think. We’re not in immediate danger.”

She sniffed again and rubbed her cheeks to double check no tears streaked down her face. Once Skye lowered his weapon and released the door, she opened her mouth to tell him, yet nothing came out. She licked her lips, moistening them, and tried again. “It’s actually much, much worse.”

That got his attention. His head whipped around to look at her, waiting for her to explain. Needing tactile touch, she reached over and clutched his forearm.

“Yes, it wasn’t anything I expected, so it is much worse.” She swallowed again and continued in a croak, “They have a picture of m-me everywhere. I am wanted for…for questioning by the police. They are looking for you, except they have no idea what you look like. We made the national news. Ev-Everyone in my entire country now knows what I look like.”

“What of the assassin,” he asked in a voice roughened with urgency.

She gritted her teeth together, trying to pull herself together. She shook her head once. “Same as you. They’re looking for a male, but no one knows what he looks like. They do think both of you are armed and dangerous.”

He stared at her for a moment before grimacing and looking out through the window. In an apologetic voice, he said, “If we were on my world, I could hide you. My lack of knowledge here is dangerous. I’m like a child, stumbling in the dark, hoping I do not make a mistake.” When he next looked at her, his eyes held hers by sheer force of will, commanding her to listen. “You must not despair. I need you here with me. With this new information, we must move. I may not know this world, but I am well versed in battle strategy. To stay in one place too long increases our risk of discovery.”

When he remained silent, Lara realized he was waiting for some response from her. She jerked her head up and down. It was all she was capable of. Speaking in coherent sentences was beyond her. He frowned, the expression drawing his face into fiercer lines.

“Now, this news you discovered. How does this change the plan we devised? Can we reach the place you last visited for a week in stealth?”

Skye’s intent to propel her out of her panic worked. Her mind raced, calculating how many times it’d take to fill her tank. She squeezed his arm in thanks before reaching down beside her and tugging out the tattered map. Finding the town on the map, Lara said, “It definitely changes our plan. I calculated last night that it’d take us two days to reach Colorado. I’m now afraid to stop anywhere, even on the side of the road. We’re going to have to drive straight through.”

She felt him lean over to follow her finger as she traced their route.

“We are taking the same route then,” Skye said in satisfaction.

Her finger stopped at his comment. Something clamored for attention in the back of her mind, some obscure memory. “No, we can’t travel through Oklahoma because of the toll roads. Every so often, we have to stop and pay a toll. There are cameras everywhere. We can’t chance it.”

She flipped the map back to Arkansas, trying to find a road that skirted around Oklahoma. She moved the map so Skye could see where she pointed. “There.” She took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled, steadying her nerves before starting the car.

“We’ll have to go the long way, through Kansas. We’ll stop only for gas. We have enough food to last us another couple of days. I’m just glad the majority of the food I bought doesn’t have to be cooked.”

Skye’s question came twenty minutes later, startling her out of her thoughts. “Is it safe to do so?”

They were back on the road, already a short distance away from town. At first she thought he was worried about eating the food. It took her a minute to remember what she’d said.

She swung her gaze over to see his profile. “We don’t have a choice in the matter. This is why cars aren’t magical in the least. If we don’t fill it up with gas, the only way we’ll get to Colorado is by foot. Who knows how many days that would take? Besides, no one knows who you are or what you look like. You’re going to pay for the gas, not me. But don’t worry, I’ll tell you exactly what to say.”