Across Worlds with You, Part 5
Kit Campbell
“I thought you locked this?” Will asked. They were, once again, up on the marble terrace, standing in front of a pair of massive wooden doors.
“I didn’t lock anything, the Council did,” Theo said, his voice echoing even more here. “And it was the gate between here and Earth.”
Will looked over at Destia, who shrugged. “World gates are weird sorcerer stuff,” she said. “I just stab things.”
As if to emphasize her point, she pulled her sword out once more from…somewhere. Maybe it was a magic sword. It didn’t matter as long as it got the job done, Will guessed.
“Okay,” he said, just to say something. “Now what?”
“Now sorcerer boy has to put in the right coordinates for whatever world he’s tracked the amulet to, and in we go.” Destia took a few steps away and did a few practice parries.
“Is that what you did to get us here?”
“Sort of.” Very slowly, Theo retrieved a similar bag of supplies that had been left off to the side. “The difference is that I knew how to get us here. The amulet is on an uncharted world.”
“Uncharted?”
“Like I said earlier, there’s an infinite number of worlds. Until the Darkness came in from one, we didn’t know about any of them. Using the worldslips is a new skill, born of desperation.” Theo began to chalk up the ground in front of the door. “We can’t just go to a new world that we haven’t been to before. We’ll have to go through multiple waystations to get close enough that we can get the proper coordinates.”
Will peered at the design Theo was making, trying to see the differences from the last time. It all looked like squiggles to him.
“You don’t have to stay with me,” Theo said. “It’s going to be awhile.”
Will’s heart hurt to watch Theo like this. “Is it safe to do multiple spells at once?”
“I know my limits.” Even with all the echoes, Theo sounded defensive. Great.
“I’ll leave you to it.”
Turning his back on Theo, Will moved to the railing, overlooking the valley and the mountains. There was something, just visible past the highest peak, that could have been a storm cloud. Or maybe it was the Darkness, lurking. Waiting.
Why him? Why would any prophecy pick him of all people? There wasn’t a single remarkable thing about him. He got decent grades, worked hard, he guessed, and tried to do his best, but that was really all he had going for him. With a sigh, he huffed, leaning against the railing.
“He’s really nervous,” Destia said from beside him. The sword had disappeared again.
“Nervous?” Will echoed.
“He’s watched you for years. He knows you.” Destia, too, looked out over the valley, her face oddly contemplative. “But you don’t know him. He very much wants to make a good impression.”
Will turned slightly, so he could see Theo working back by the door. From here, the blue glow extended around his whole body. It made Theo look…otherworldly. “I don’t think he has to worry about that.”
#
Saving the world was mind-numbingly boring.
Will, Theo, and Destia were on their fifth waystation. Each of them was slightly different—different stones, different colors, different shapes—though all contained the same general layout of a main, central hall with branching corridors leading to various gates. But Theo was the only one who could open the gates, and, while it did seem like maybe he was getting a bit faster as they got closer, he was still slow and echo-y.
Which meant the process of opening the next gate was taking a while.
Will had paid attention the first few, wanting to keep Theo company, but the other man didn’t seem to notice him, and it really was tedious.
Destia had pulled a deck of cards out, probably from wherever her weapons kept disappearing to, around the third waystation. The suits differed from the ones Will was familiar with, but the idea was basically the same, and now they were on a game that was similar to Slap Jack, though Destia had wanted to play with knives.
“Done,” Theo said. He stood, brushing his hands on his pants in slow motion. “This should be the last gate.”
Destia and Will abandoned their game and joined Theo.
“So when we go through, we’ll be in the world with the amulet?” Will asked. He stared at the still closed door. “What will it be like?”
“Don’t know. But keep your guard up. I’ll have to leave the gate partially open so we can get back into the waystation afterward.” Theo sighed. “If this world even has a gate, there’s no guarantee we’ll find it.”
Will took a deep breath. Okay, nothing to stress about. He was just about to step into another world to find an amulet that he would need to defeat a world-destroying evil. No pressure or anything.
Theo activated the door and, for the sixth time today, the door opened, revealing the blue light beyond. Destia went first, then Theo, and finally, Will.
The world Will stepped into looked a lot like Earth at first glance. They were in a dirty alleyway of some sort, and beyond it, cars zipped by. Behind them, the gate faded into a thin strip of blue light. As they moved down the alleyway, Destia leading the charge, it disappeared from view.
At the corner, all three paused, peeking around the corner.
“Oh, good,” Destia said. “It’s full of people.”
And so it was. It could have been any major city anywhere on Earth. People in what Will would consider modern dress swarmed the sidewalks, all heading somewhere with purpose. “What else would it have been full of?”
“No world is exactly the same,” Theo said cryptically. He pointed across the street and down another alley. “It’s this way.”
They waited for a break in traffic before dragging Theo across the road. Theo continued to guide them—left, right, left again—until they found themselves in a large square occupied by several statues of people riding what almost looked like horses but definitely weren’t. Theo headed, almost normal speed, toward one on the corner. A plaque in a language Will could not read probably told you something about the person, and maybe the horse thing. Theo reached toward one of the filigrees around the edges—and then into the filigree—and pulled out an amulet with a large, green stone.
With a sigh, he finally dropped the finding spell, his eyes fading back to hazel. “Oh, thank goodness,” he said in his normal voice. “I hate that spell.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Destia said as Theo slipped the amulet into his supply bag. “We’ve got two more amulets to find.”
Theo shook his head. “We should go back to Helstena first, in case the other worlds are in a different direction. Maybe leave this,” he patted his bag, “somewhere safe. But this has gone well. We may have all three by tomorrow.”
There was too much cheer in his voice. Will frowned at him.
And, yes, great. But having all three of the amulets would mean…would mean he’d have to use them.
He was going to be sick. He was no one. How could everyone just act like he was, of course, going to be able to do this? Neither Theo nor Destia was questioning if he could. They, truly, believed that if they gave him the tools, he’d get the job done.
“Will?”
Will blinked to find Theo directly next to him. He looked a little gray around his eyes, like the magic had pulled some of his vitality out. “Hm?”
“Ready to go?”
As much as he was ever going to be. “Yeah.”
Theo again led the way back toward the gate, one hand resting protectively on his bag. Will narrowed his eyes, watching him. The way Theo moved was…familiar. Very familiar. Like he’d known Theo for years and years instead of just the last few hours.
Oh. Oh. Of course he was familiar. Even if he’d been wearing Will’s face instead of his own, Will had watched him practically every day. Maybe what he’d taken for his own movements had just been Theo’s interpretation of what Will was doing. Without having a real reflection, he never would have realized that the movements weren’t his own.
Though that did beg the question of what his actually looked like.
As they retraced their steps through the city, Will’s skin began to prickle. He glanced around. No one was paying them any attention, and nothing seemed dangerous. Probably his nerves getting to him.
But the feeling was definitely getting worse. Will slid to a stop, glancing around.
Theo and Destia continued on for another few steps before they noticed.
“Let’s go,” Destia said. “I’m starving.”
“Something’s wrong,” Will said, then immediately regretted it. Why would he notice something that Destia, an expert at stabbing things, and Theo, a freaking sorcerer, wouldn’t?
Both of them immediately took him seriously, though. Destia frowned, peering around, and Theo tilted his head to one side like he was trying to hear something.
Hear something. That was it.
Hard to make out around the bustle of the city was that hissing, dragging sound he’d heard back on Earth.
“Deathcrawler,” he whispered.
“What?” said Destia as Theo said, “How?” at the same time. All three of them broke into a run, dodging cars as they crossed the street near the alleyway. Will glanced back over his shoulder. To his surprise, he could see this one, though the people of this world obviously didn’t. Low, crawling, a pale approximation of a person.
Coming fast.
Theo grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the alleyway.
Destia took up a position in front of them, sword again out.
“It’s going to take me a moment to get the gate fully open,” Theo said, his voice trembling. He fumbled with his bag as he pulled supplies out.
Will’s eyes fell on the amulet, the chain half-hanging out of the bag now. It was supposed to be a weapon of pure light, right? Without thinking too hard about what he was doing, he grabbed the amulet out of the bag and pushed past Destia.
The Deathcrawler was making its way across the street now, creeping under cars and somehow managing not to get hit. Taking a deep breath, Will held the amulet out in front of him.
Nothing happened.
Except the Deathcrawler getting closer. Its face, which had been unclear earlier, was featureless except for a gaping, tooth-filled maw.
Closing his eyes, Will focused on the amulet. Come on, he thought. Uh, light power go?
Destia grabbed him around the waist and hauled him backwards. Will opened his eyes to find that there was still no light, and the Deathcrawler was mere feet away. Without letting go, Destia dove into the portal.
Blue light swirled and then faded, leaving the Deathcrawler behind.