Ryn of Avonside

 

When it was finally evening and time to swap back to the mundane world for the meeting, Grace and I reluctantly stood up from where we’d sat all day under the willow tree. We’d talked about this and that, dozed, cuddled, and snacked on fruit—just generally enjoying our little half-day break from travel together.

“You ready?” I asked Grace, dropping her hand so she could wield her pistol properly.

“Yeah,” she smiled, bumping my hip with hers. “Shields up?”

“Okay, I’m going to take us over in three, two… one,” I said, shifting us back into the mundane realm while slamming down my shield dome.

The forest was dark and quiet. Our eyes quested through the underbrush around us, searching for any sign of our friends. Above us, the leaves sighed softly as a breeze stirred them, and distantly, some nocturnal animal cried out. The seconds ticked by as we held our breath, trying to fight sense any sign of either our friends, or danger.

“Where are they?” Grace whispered, lowering her weapon slightly. “And how long can you keep this barrier up?”

“Indefinitely, if you’re touching me,” I replied absently.

Switching to mage sight, peered into the forest. I immediately discovered that trying to see through the forest was an exercise in futility, as the whole place was absolutely saturated in magic. I wouldn’t be able to see someone if they were even ten metres deep into the trees. Something was obviously strange about this forest, but that wasn’t our concern right now.

“I can’t see them with mage sight — the forest is too charged with magic,” I told her quietly.

“Do we wait?” she asked anxiously, shifting to place her hand on my arm. Magic began to rush into me through the contact.

“Let me see where they are, hold on,” I said, concentrating on that location spell I’d made way back at the start of my grove.

Casting it, I was immediately aware of Grace and her ring standing next to me. Next, I noticed the four of our family who were still at Avonside. Wait, no… one of the three was a while off from Avonside, not far, but enough for it to be significant.

Then, there was Adam’s ring. It was further into the mountains— much further, and moving fast.

“Shit! Adam is that way, about six miles,” I said, spinning to stab a finger into the descending night. “He’s running, I think — judging by how fast he’s moving, but I can’t tell anything else.”

Grace tracked my outstretched hand, then turned an awed, but confused look on me. “What? How do you know?”

“The rings. I have a spell that can track anyone wearing our family rings, it’s how I found you all in the first place,” I told her. “Hold on, let me concentrate for a second.”

Straining my senses, I tried to filter out the gentle whooshing static of the magic in the trees, or the high hum of the sky as windswept arcane energy rode the air. A small animal of some kind was of nearby, I could smell it, a warm, earthy, meaty scent, while ambient magic sliding over its protective skein produced a shushing sound. Other than that… nothing.

We were alone, they’d left us behind for some reason. Maybe they were running from something — didn’t want to lead it to us? That had to be it. Something bad had happened in the town, and now whatever the danger was, was chasing them.

What did we do now? What if they died? What if all three of them died? I liked Troy! He was nice, and a kind leader, plus he was trans, like me… he was my people. He couldn’t die. Kit was good too, shy and kind, thoughtful and intelligent. Then there was Adam, cheeky, silly Adam — family, and he obviously cared about Grace and I the same way we cared about him. He was like a big brother, always stirring shit, but there when we needed someone to carry us.

“Hey, calm down, it’s okay,” Grace said, holstering her gun so that she could cup my cheek with her free hand. “We’ll find them, we just have to stay calm and think things through.”

“Yeah.. you’re right,” I nodded. Her hand was strong and sure against my cheek, and I took a few deep breaths to centre myself again.

Then, something odd and entirely unrelated occurred to me. “You never thought to ask how I was right there in that market?”

“Nope… I was too busy being happy I found you, to be honest,” she said, running a thumb over my cheekbone. Then she was smiling, eyes bashfully downcast. “Well, I was also struggling to deal with how cute you’d become.”

“Thanks,” I grinned, feeling the compliment hit me right in the gender. Euphoria sprayed in all directions — quieting my panic.

I started nodding to myself as my thoughts began to order themselves. “Okay… okay— Calm, and on topic — the guys are obviously being chased, and they didn’t want to lead whoever it is back towards us.”

“Yeah, there is that,” she sighed, turning to stare off into the forest. “How do we catch up to them? How do we help them?”

“I’m not sure we can, because it’s probably mages who’re after them. Anybody or anything else and they'd come for help,” I sighed, feeling helpless. “With mages… I might have raw power, especially with you at my side, but that isn’t really enough. I’d be outclassed on skill no matter how much magic I threw into any single spell. Troy knows this — he knows I'm green and would be no match for one of Fennimore's highly skilled lackeys.”

“Yeah, shit. Oh, and during training Troy said that if the enemy mages had updated their shields to stop bullets, then our only options would be betting on you, or running,” Grace grimaced. She gestured at the empty forest around us, where light reflected off the opposite side of the ring was creating haunting streams of light in the floating dust. “Clearly, he wasn't willing to bet on you. What the hell do we even do now?”

I was silent as I thought on the question, while trying to keep myself calm. What if we didn’t need to help them? They were heading towards a border right? Not one of the laughably porous ones back in Anve land, but a real, hard border between two entirely different species, let alone cultures. If they could cross it…

“I think it might be best if we simply followed them at a safe enough distance,” I said after a moment. “They probably got directions to Millowhall right? That must be where they’re going, with whoever is chasing them in tow. Once they reach the border into Mossbed lands, their tail might leave them alone and we can reunite with them.”

Hopefully, Fennimore was looking to keep the Obrec out of his petty wars of conquest.

“That’s… a plan,” Grace nodded slowly. “I don’t like it, I don’t like being separated from them, but I think you’re right.”

“Neither.” I agreed, and then took a chance and dropped the barrier. “Do we want to get started? We’ve been kinda sleeping all day, so we might be able to make some miles while that energy lasts.”

“Sure, let’s do it.”

 

We moved through the forest rather than the road, using Adam’s position to guide us. Keeping off the road seemed like a good idea due to the fact that they were being chased — we didn’t want to run into the pursuers, after all.

The forest was very different at night, quiet in an almost eerie way that had us watching our backs. It wasn’t as bad as the plains, thank goodness, but hearing the call of some creature we didn’t recognise in the distance was a different kind of paranoia. It didn’t help that the wind was perpetually playing with the leaves in the canopy, creating a constant rustle that had been pleasant during the day, but now that we were relying on our hearing for safety, it was a problem.

Thankfully, navigating during night time on the ring was significantly easier than navigating on Earth at night — thanks to the visible daylight-section of the ringworld.

“How close are they?” Grace asked, a few hours after we’d begun our chase.

Tiredly, I called on the plant-spells of my grove. “Let me check.”

Thin, questing tendrils of ink ran up my fingers for a second, and the spell activated. Grace's ring was first to show up, obviously, and then Adam— “Huh. That's weird.”

Only Grace’s ring was showing up in my mind's eye. The others were just gone.

Inch by inch, my heart lowered into my stomach. Giving Grace a quick, harried smile, I called the spell again and waited, holding my breath. It exploded from my lungs in a wave of relief when all of the rings made themselves known to my mind.

“What just happened?” Grace asked, her eyes roaming my face like a pair of beautiful inquisitors.

“The spell messed up for a second there,” I said, staring down at my arm where the flower tattoos had been. “But it worked when I tried again.”

“Oh, I didn’t know spells could fail like that,” she said, looking thoughtful.

“Neither did I…” I murmured, too quiet for her to hear. “At least, not like that…”

We kept moving, but my thoughts stayed with the spell misfire I’d just experienced. I could have sworn I’d cast it properly, and with only the small amount of power needed to activate it. There'd obviously been no burn-out, so… why?

“Do you see that?” Grace blurted, shocking me out of my ruminations. I jerked my attention up, following her pointed finger into the darkness of the forest.

I gave a strangled squeak of fright when the forest stared back.

Two large, golden eyes were focused on us from a tree some ten yards off. They weren’t doing anything, just staring, and when I squinted I could make out the form of some sort of crouched bird, like an owl or something. We’d frozen in place when we saw it, but it didn’t seem bothered by the fact we’d seen it. It just… stared.

Grace was the one to break the spell — she squeezed my hand tighter and began to pull us both away from the staring bird. I followed her, although I kept my eyes trained on the bird until it was out of sight. What a creepy animal.

After the bird, we didn’t run into anything for another hour, and we were getting tired so we decided to stop for the night and go back to the grove.

“I’m just going to do one last check of Adam’s position before we go back,” I said to my friend, fighting a yawn.

“Righto,” she replied as my yawn spread to her.

Reaching into my grove, I pulled magic through my plants and cast the ring locator spell, watching as the vines and flowers wrapped around my arm and wrist. The spell completed, and I focused on the information it gave me…

“Shit!” I swore, spinning around in confusion. “How the…”

I was staring back in the direction we’d come, where my spell now said that Adam was. Had we somehow passed them? But that couldn’t be right, there was no way we could have made it past them in the time since my last check. What the hell was going on?

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked, squeezing my hand anxiously.

“My spell! It’s pointing us backwards now. This isn’t right — they should be in front of us still,” I told her, my thoughts whirling. “They should be— no, something isn’t right. Something or someone is messing with us.”

“Let’s get back into the grove,” she said urgently, pulling me back to face her. “We’re safe in your grove right? We’ll figure out what to do in there, where we have time.”

“Yes… yes, that’s a good idea,” I nodded, closing my eyes to take us back through.

Pulling at the fabric of reality, I pushed between the threads towards the Nameless garden. I felt my grove, familiar and safe as it beckoned to me from within.

Then, with a sudden, head splitting tug, I felt our transition from mundane to garden space change, become twisted. I could only observe with dawning horror as I realised that our crossing had been hijacked — twisted and redirected.

Then, abruptly, we were out, dumped unceremoniously onto lush, wild grass. I didn’t wait for any attacks to come, instead I just slammed my barrier shield down as fast as I could bring the spell up. That thankfully worked.

Sound — a voice, sudden and unwelcome, but with a high, trilling tone that held ethereal beauty.

“Oh my, isn’t this cute?”