• Chapter Twenty

    Maria paused for a moment hen she thought she had heard a low howling noise come down from the cavern-ways that networked the mountain of stone, connecting small towns and sub-cities into one immense city in and of itself. It still had her mind reeling to think of the miles upon miles of tunnels and passages that stretched throughout the rock in every direction, extending down deep into the ground to places where the sun had never known hold.
    “Its just the voice of the mountain.” Khey’s voice pulled her out of her absent minded thoughts. She had become more and more preoccupied with her inner thoughts lately, something she was still having trouble recognizing. It was both strange and yet somehow at the same time a comfort to feel like she was beginning to recover something of who she used to be.
    “Voices of the mountain?” Maria asked the handsome man who stood by her while Rachel and Storm consoled the crying dwarf girl. The news hadn’t seemed real, or even recognizable, to the young girl, but Maria felt like she knew all to well what it meant to have something of great meaning hit you all at once like a freight train. Looking up at Khey for a minute, Maria found that she was comforted by the mans presence though she still wasn’t exactly sure why.
    She supposed it was that she had, for the most part, come to terms with what he had told her even if she still wasn’t entirely sure she grasped what it all really meant. She feared that the day would come when she would be again struck by such a wall of realization, afraid that it would shatter her entire life. She also was afraid to loose the only man she had ever known and cared about, Storm.
    “Wind comes in through various points, openings and crevices. The tunnels carry the wind around so much that the sound it still echoing long after the breeze has left it. It sometimes makes its way up here. “He looked down to her with a kind smile and a knowing look to his eyes. She knew he could relate to what she was feeling. “That’s why it sounds so much like a long drawn out moan.”
    Maria liked the explanation enough not to give the sound to much more thought. She gave Khey a small tight-lipped smile, all she could manage given their situation. She wished Khey would crack a joke, or do something, anything to lift their spirits. But the man seemed to be lost to deep in thoughts of his own since their arrival in the great dwarf super-city. She saw the man’s cutting lavender eyes looking down the pathway, this way and that. She knew he was searching for someone to come forward and offer some insight or helpful information as to the state of things.
    Even she had noticed a serious lack since they had arrived, a lack in life itself. There were just so few people here, Maria felt like she was in the wrong place. To her it was like comparing rush hour to a Sunday drive. Khey told her it was more like the difference between Tuesday night at the bar and the Adonian coliseum. She had never been to a coliseum, but she thought she could imagine it well enough. But no one wanted to get involved, none came forward. The best they got were nervous glances from people who looked like they might as well have been on the verge of panic itself.
    “So what do we do now? She asked.
    “In all honesty we don’t have many options at this point. We know, at least to a point, what we need.” Khey shifted his weight as his gaze continued to make its rounds. “Its obvious that we’re not going to pull in any volunteers.” Khey let out a frustrated sigh. He was a man who’s trust in people was always earned. She figured that for him to be so exasperated by this, that things must really be out of whack.
    She saw Storm walking up towards her, leaving Rachel with the small girl bawling in her arms. Storm, Maria’s surrogate father, had a dark look about him. It was a look she knew well, meant that he intended to get to the bottom of this problem no matter the cost. She could see that he was on a one track path in his mind, it played out before her when she saw that look in his eyes.
    Khey spoke up first, “Thoughts, big guy?” Storm stood on Maria’s other side, his eyes taking up the same task as Khey’s. She felt like she was being guarded somehow, with both men standing like sentinels to either side of her. If things weren’t as grim as they were, she might have laughed at it.
    “Plague, some dark age kinda stuff I think.” Maria remembered how Khey had shown her what he really looked like under the veil of concealing magic, how his skin had been a grayish color. When Storm spoke his opinion, Khey’s face looked a lot like it had that day in the cabin. By the look of it that grayish color was slowly fading to a bleak off-white as speculations and possibilities rushed past Khey’s eyes.
    “Do you really think a plague could be responsible for all this?” Khey’s words were more of a plea than a question. Maria could tell that there was something about the concept of such an epidemic that cut into Khey very soul. She knew by the frantic look in his eyes that he was likely replaying an untold number of events leading up to this point, somehow trying to make connections where he obviously found none.
    “If you want to venture into that girl’s house and have a peek for yourself, by all means go ahead.” Storm said with a grumble. She could tell the big man was still shaking off the last of whatever it was that he had been fighting off within himself. It was as if she could see that shadows moving about him sometimes now, as if she were seeing things that had always been there, but invisible.
    “No, I mean its not that I don’t believe you. I’m just trying to make things make sense in my own mind.” Khey’s hands swaggered as he talked, as if trying to portray some unseen diagram.
    “Yeah, and how’s that working out for you?” Storms angry-sarcastic tone seemed to work to relax Khey enough for the man to take at least a few calmed breaths.
    “Well, at least I’ve not started shooting up the place demanding answers from random townsfolk.” The two men shared a look, and Maria could tell that that exact thought had gone through the big man’s mind already.
    “So, this means… what?” Storm’s ice-blue eyes locked on Khey’s. He wanted a serious answer.
    “It means that I was here three months ago, making a couple rounds before I headed down to Halmahera and then into Crystania to find the two of you. When I left Stone Tomb, nothing was wrong, nothing at all that I could see, at least.” The last words trailed off a little, as Khey’s sad and worried eyes seemed to buckled to the larger man’s presses. Then Khey did something altogether strange and unpredictable. He smiled that special Khey sly smile. “You remind me a lot of William.”
    “What?” Storm faltered slightly, as he was taken aback by Khey’s sudden shift in both topic and attitude. “How in the hell do I remind you of… me?” She could tell he was agitated at Khey’s aloof nature, but at the moment he was far more confused than angry.
    She knew the name, George Storm, was a fake. In fact she had been the one to come up with it in part. Back when the two of the had been escaping the west their truck had broken down. Storm, then going by his real name of William Argonas, had pushed the truck under an overpass as a big thunderstorm had blown in. The thunder was loud, the crashed shook the whole vehicle as she sat inside it watching the rain fall.
    Without any conversation prior, she remembered that she had turned to him, and very directly, told him he was like that storm. He had asked with a gruff look if that was her way of saying he was loud and scary. She had shaken her head, and had pointed to the falling rain. “No” she had said, “you are loud at first, but when people get to know you and you end up soft as raindrops.” She remembered how he had grimaced at the simple observation, but when he had turned back to the repairs she had caught the smile on his face. As they had driven off, he had told her that he would need a new name so that they could live away from all the fighting.
    No sooner had he finished the statement had they past a big sign on the interstate that read George Town 10 miles. That day in the rain George Storm had been born, and William Argonas would be a name she wouldn’t hear again for years. Not until some strange man from out of town stopped into their store, and flipped both of their world’s upside down.
    “Not you.” Khey replied, bringing Maria out of her daydreaming.
    “Then what in the name of,” he caught himself before the curse, “what are you talking about?”
    “William, the man I fought beside a long time ago. Your eyes are like his. Determined.” Khey’s demeanor had shifted from his usual free-spirited nature to something that gave off the aura of a time weathered traveler. It was the same feeling she had gotten back in his cabin when he had talked about the old days, when he had been looking up at that old torn up cowboy coat.
    “Your not making any sense, Khey” Storm was getting impatient, and she saw Khey’s grin waver for only a moment and the thought she could imagine him remembering the time her father had knocked him off his feet in one solid punch. For a brief second, she saw Khey look at her before returning his eyes to Storm. She held her breath. She hadn’t told her dad anything yet, she had waited to long. Now Khey was gunna have to spill the beans. She had only herself to blame for waiting so long, and she knew it.
    Just like last time, Khey closed his eyes, dismissing some magic that was covering him like a paper thin invisible blanket. Behind her, Maria heard Rachel’s footsteps come to a stop, a hand settled on her shoulder. Before the group’s eyes Khey’s skin shimmered, fading from a copper tan tone to the color of living stone that reminded her of smooth granite if faded a little from time. His hair, before an almost white-grey, changed in a single wave into an almost blue-silver shade. His ears grew a little at the tips, reminding her of Orion’s ears, though they were significantly smaller and less pronounced, and at the outer edge of his brow little scales stretched in a single line up to the tip of his hairline.
    Both Storm and Rachel stood silent for a moment, neither had suspected a thing. In the back of Maria’s mind she knew that all of them had expected that this man had been more than met the eye ever since the beginning. Even if he looked a little different, he was still Khey, to her at least though. Still the witty, clever, and often clamorous man she had come to trust in. She was like him, she thought to herself, a mystery wrapped up in a cloak of illusion and misguided thoughts. It gave her a sense of assurance to have that small feeling of connection, that she wasn’t really alone.
    “My real name, my birth name at least, is Keldon Twighlight. I was born around 1150, around two-hundred years before Crystania was formed.” His words came slow and smooth like those rehearsed. Maria knew that this was most likely not his first time making such an introduction. In her own mind, she added together dates and times, and if Khey, Keldon, was telling the truth, it put him in at around 8550 years old. Such a number was completely beyond her she knew, and just trying to get a grasp of what it really meant gave her a headache. When she glanced up at Rachel, and the over at her old man, she saw the same look of bewilderment on their faces too. Another silent moment passed.
    Maria turned to Rachel when she hear the woman sifting through little slips of paper she had apparently pulled out of her back pocket. Once she pulled out what she had been looking for, Rachel’s face twisted into a sly smirk that held a slight undertone of annoyance. Her eyes locked on Khey’s and the man gave her a confused and pleading look in return.
    “What, what’s that look for?” he almost looked like he was preparing to dodge a punch or something.
    “Keldon… Khey Eldon?” She held up the little make-shift business card. “You’ve been around all this time, and that’s the best you could come up with? You don’t have a shred of creativity, do you?” There was only a second of tense silence before Rachel’s glower cracked and led into a smile. Without warning she broke out into a laugh that instantly broke the building tension. In that instant they shared the first real laugh the four of them had had since the beginning. Maria hoped, as she laughed along with them, that it wouldn’t be the last.
    After the little spurt had ended, Khey sat down on a stone bench. “So, where do I begin?”
    “Well, I always thought the beginning was a good place to start, especially for those of us who might not have a single clue as to what’s going on here, elf boy.” Rachel said, adding in the last bit with a bit of saucy demeanor.
    Khey threw up his hand, pointing an angry finger at Rachel. “I am not an elf!” Maria thought she saw the man’s grey toned skin redden a bit.
    “Ok, mister ‘Eldon’.” She tossed him the card, which Khey caught quickly. Maria, Storm, and Rachel shared a small victory chuckle at seeing their friend so easily put on the defensive.
    “Anyway…” Keldon composed himself, taking a slow breath. “From the beginning then.” He gestured for them to find something to sit down on, as this wasn’t going to be a short story.
    “Way back, long before I was around or just about anyone I know even, the world was full of magic. It saturated every single aspect of life.” Maria took a quick glance to her father and Rachel to gauge their reactions, half expecting them to have skeptical looks though neither did. The big man sat with an expressionless face, arms crossed as if he were listening to some all-important mission briefing. Rachel sat at the edge of her seat, devoting one-hundred percent of her attention to the tale starting to unfold before her.
    “Long story short for this part, trust me I won’t leave anything out of importance,” Khey continued. “but a lot of pretty bad things happened, a lot, and the big-wigs and power players at the time decided that a system was needed to regulate the magic influx coming from the elemental planes.”
    “Wait,” Rachel raised her hand like she was in a schoolroom. “I think I remember hearing something about this stuff from an ancient history class that I took in college. Something about a door, right?”
    “Sort of, yes.” Khey gave Rachel a wink. “I knew you were a smart one when I saw you. Let me explain.” The rest of them gave a small collective nod, and Maria saw Rachel’s face glow red across the cheeks with the compliment Khey had given her. Maria had a side thought, and wondered what she was suppose to call him now, Khey or Keldon. Knowing him either would be fine, especially considering that man’s ego allowed him to use a cover name so obviously close to his real one. But she figured she couldn’t see him being any different.
    “Well, With some big-league magic they created what they called the Palace of the Tides. From what I gather it was more like a big temple, but that’s not really the point. The Palace of the Tides was created around a stone circle dais upon which sat three immense doors. These doors were names the Doors of Fate, and they were created as channel points for all magic that flowed into our world.” Khey paused a moment, to let the information sink in before he continued.
    “The Doors themselves were crafted of stone, metal, magic, and a slew of other things. They stand facing the center of the dais, at the center of which is a small floating orb that’s as black as a starless night sky. The Doors act like a valve for the magic that flows between our world and the worlds beyond. It was the agreed upon perspective at the time that the abundance of magic needed to be brought down to a more manageable level. It was to that end the doors were created.
    Some time passed and for the most part things were good, on the global scale at least. There will always be wars and all the rest of bad stuff. But at least for a time no one was threatening to blow up the whole world or open a rift into some void to suck us all in through. It was around that period that yours truly came into the picture.” Keldon smiled a bit, looking like a flash of good memories had passed before him. “Man, those were some awesome days, believe me.”
    “So, what happened?” Storm asked, pulling their storyteller from his enthralling daydreams.
    “Well, like all things meant to control, it had been sought after. Long story short, the Palace, along with the whole island it had been on, bad been sunk to the bottom of the ocean to try and keep it out of the hands of those who’d use it for wicked purposes.”
    “I’m guessing that their plans didn’t exactly work, huh?” Maria chimed in.
    “No. For every system made by mortal hands, there is a way either through it or around it.” Keldon had a bit of a dark look, which took Maria back a bit at first. “A wizard of sorts found a way to tap the energy from the doors and let out some very nasty things into the world.”
    He looked to Storm, “Your forefather and I, along with so many of others, and somehow managed to save the world from destruction, so to speak. Your named after him you know, technically making you William Argonas the Second, by all rights.” Maria could tell the big man was a little taken aback, more from the fact that he was talking with someone who had stood beside one of his ancestors than for any other fact.
    “Shortly afterwards Crystania came under some new rule, and a couple short generations later it was decided that the Doors needed closing for good. The rulers, kings and lords, decided through committee that there was obviously enough magic coursing through the world to sustain their standards of life and that we would all be better off if mad men didn’t hold the keys to call fiendish forces to terrorize the world.”
    As much sense as the words themselves sounded, Maria could tell that Khey’s tone betrayed his feelings. The man obviously held the decision in contempt, and Maria knew that it was a very good chance he had fought against the decision and had lost.
    He motioned with his hands in a small circle, indicating those present. “And this is where we all come in I suppose. At the time, a group was formed to close the Doors, but I’ll get to that a little later. The relevant point is now, because of the actions taken then, because the Doors were closed, our world is dieing.”
    Rachel asked, “You mean that because there is no magic there can’t be any life?”
    “No, not exactly. Life and magic are in may ways the same thing, but the magic that was cut off when the doors were closed is what many races of this world needed in order to survive. Those like the elves, the dwarves, and hundreds more.”
    Storm leaned forward in his seat, a dark look of his own crossing his features. “So this plague, or sickness or whatever, is a step down that path?”
    “More like the final step I think. Without magic those who are born as part of that magic will begin to die out completely until every last spec of power is gone.” The air was still as the unasked question sat on the front of the minds of the three listening. It was the big man who finally asked.
    “And humans?” Maria found it only a little strange that he had asked the question without much show of concern for the answer. She thought that his outlook towards his own race was understandable considering all he had seen and been through. Better to wipe all out than leave only the monsters behind, she thought.
    “As far as I know, your race will be one of the very few that will not be effected. Humans are not born of the magic, its it not part of their being. Though some are gifted and can tap into those lines of power, they will simply loose those abilities when the end comes, not die from the break.” Maria noticed that Khey’s eyes had been focused on Rachel as he had reassured them all. She wondered if there was something going on between the two of them that she had somehow missed out on during her period of solitude aboard the Zolumous.
    “And what about you?” Rachel asked, surprisingly more concerned more about his life than her own, or her entire race. “Will you get sick too?”
    Khey gave her a nod. “Eventually, yes.”
    Rachel blurted out, “So what do we need to do to save you,” she took a small breath and tried to slow her words down. “to save everyone?” Rachel looked ready to jump into Khey’s arms, as if she wanted to reassure the both of them that everything would be alright. She knew she didn’t know how to help, by Maria could tell that she desperately wanted to. She herself felt the same way.
    Keldon Twighlight stood and gave them all a serious look, a determined look. “That is why we are all here now.” the three others all leaned a little forward in anticipation for what they all knew was coming next. “We are going to open those doors back up again.”
    “That’s good and well, Khey, or Keldon, or whatever your goin’ by today,” Storm had a devious grin on for a moment before the stone face came back as he too stood up, “but where do you suppose we even begin to -” His words were cut off by a loud echoing scream that resounded through the tunnel way. Right behind her, Maria heard a guttural growling sound.
    Maria looked into Storm’s wide eyes as he looked at whatever it was behind her. “Uhgh…” was all she heard at first.
    “Run!” Khey yelled, and they ran without question. Maria ran too, and never looked back once, less she give in to the nightmares she knew she would be having that night regardless of what she might have seen looming behind her. But for the time being she didn’t want a picture to go with whatever creature hade made such a noise. So for now, all she sis was keep her eyes forward, and run.