The Eye of Elicion: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol 1 (50 page)

Immediately, Lucy was encased in fog. Or, something like fog anyways. It was thick and whitish gray like fog often is, but it was also shimmery which fog often isn’t, and it was warm instead of cold and wet. She was sure the fog-like substance would clear up shortly. When it did she wanted to be ready, but she wasn’t sure what she had to be ready for. It occurred to her that she did have one advantage that Maya and Gavin had not had. They did not know that they would be marked. Her wrist was blank right now. That was her link to sanity if she needed one. No matter what happened, she knew she was still in the archway as long as her wrist was bare. It’s like drawing a circle on your hand before you go to sleep. You know you are still dreaming as long as there is no circle on your hand. However, this is an issue if you dream that the circle is there. Lucy shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Nothing was real until she had that tattoo.

Lucy took another deep breath and took a step forward. The fog cleared immediately and as she took another step forward she fell out of the archway. Out of the archway? She hadn’t done anything yet. She looked at her wrist, but there wasn’t a tattoo. She looked at the Lady.

“Did something go wrong?” Lucy asked.

“No.”

“Do I have to go through again? Nothing happened.”

“You may not go through again. You failed.”

“How could I fail? Nothing happened,” maintained Lucy, feeling very confused.

“I will have to send you away from Kleth.”

“This isn’t real. I’m still in the archway. You can’t send me anywhere.”

“That puts you in a very interesting position doesn’t it? If, as you say, you are still in the archway, then I certainly can send you anywhere. However, you are not still in the archway, you failed, in which case I can still send you anywhere.”

“How can I fail if nothing happened?” asked Lucy again.

“Either nothing happened because you failed or you failed because nothing happened. You must leave now.”

“Can I wait until Justin comes out and talk to him first?” asked Lucy starting to feel desperate.

“No.”

With that and a wave of her hand Lucy was in the shimmering fog again. Apparently, the Lady had sent her away. Lucy was very confused. She was sure she hadn’t failed. She hadn’t done anything. Was this part of the test? Or, worse, was something very wrong? Even though some might say that the Lady’s logic made sense Lucy did not believe it. Besides, it might not have even been the real Lady, but a figment of whatever this archway did. The fog cleared again and to Lucy’s surprise, she found herself back on the plateau they had been on before trying to get to Kleth. She entered their tent and found the others sleeping, Gavin snoring away as usual. She didn’t know what else to do so she lay down on her bedroll to try to digest what was going on. She wasn’t tired, but she fell asleep right away.

She was back in her same nightmare. She was tied down surrounded by laughing bandits. They were taunting her and ripping at her clothing. One ran a knife down the side of her face and laughed as she tried to squirm away. Fearing what would happen if she fought back and knowing what would happen if she didn’t kept Lucy frozen in indecision. When one started to grope her, she couldn’t hold off any longer and screamed as fire flew out of her hands and burned the men behind her. She screamed again, broke the ropes that held her, and continued to burn every last man tormenting her until she was surrounded by smoldering human remains. But still she didn’t stop casting fire. Still she didn’t stop screaming.

Lucy woke up and saw the tent was on fire. Feeling scared and terribly responsible, Lucy tried to wake up Maya. She shouted mentally to Justin, but didn’t get a response. She tried to magically put out the fire, but nothing happened. Finally, she decided to at least get herself out, and then she could transport her friends out of the flames. She ran for the tent’s exit and found herself outside the door to Eric’s office. Now that didn’t make sense at all.

She thought the Lady had sent her back to the plateau. Where was the burning tent? How did she get here? She was sure the Lady could have sent her to Taran’s cabin and the doorway to the school, but she didn’t think the Lady could send her to the school. Then again, what did she really know about this Lady and her abilities. What was going on? Well, if she was here, her friends could not be on fire. Right? Lucy shrugged, she might as well knock.

“Lucy,” greeted Eric with a nod of his head.

“Eric,” Lucy nodded back.

“The Lady tells me you failed.”

“But nothing happened. I walked through the archway, and nothing happened.” This was getting frustrating.

“Be that as it may, if the Lady says you failed, you failed.”

“So now what?” asked Lucy. Arguing that nothing happened did not seem to be getting her anywhere so she might at well try to figure out what was going on.

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still waiting for other reports before I make that decision. For now, you need to return to your room and wait,” said Eric calmly.

Lucy nodded and left. Eric appeared calm and sounded calm, but he didn’t seem calm. Until Lucy had a chance to figure out what was going on, her room did seem the best place for her to be so she set off down the hallway in that direction. Hopefully in her room she would not run into anyone, and she could get her thoughts in order to figure out a way out of all this. She had to still be in the archway. The tent and the fire had all been an illusion. A test perhaps?

On her way to her room, she began to notice something, a mistake perhaps, or proof. There were tapestries on the walls, but they were blurry. Lucy walked right up to one and could not figure out what it was supposed to be. She generally enjoyed the tapestries, but she hadn’t studied them enough to know which ones were where. If the archway used what it found in her mind to create scenarios, it would not have accurate pictures of the tapestries because to her memory, they were blurry. This was somehow reassuring. She had to keep reminding herself she was still in the archway because everything seemed so real. She pinched herself. She felt real. She kicked the wall, not too hard just in case but hard enough to feel that it felt solid. She turned down the hallway that led to her bedroom, and waiting for her at her door was Darren. She mentally groaned. Considering the last bits of craziness, she did not want to know what the archway induced Darren would have to say.

“Ah, Lucy, there you are. I missed you. It’s so good to see you again. Where were you? Are you alright?”

“Good to see you too. That’s a lot of questions. Darren I’m in kind of a hurry, can we talk later? Then I’ll see what I can do about giving you some answers.” In her head, Lucy was hoping that later was going to be a long time from now or something was really wrong.

“We can talk later, but I want you to think about something. I want you to forget Justin. He will only ever put you in danger, and he will never adore you the way I do. Come away with me, and I’ll take care of you forever. We can go to a land and get a cabin or stay here and teach something or whatever you want. Please stay with me. Justin is trouble, and he always will be.”

“Darren,” Lucy sighed, but refrained from rolling her eyes. “Believe it or not, Justin has nothing to do with the many reasons why I have no intention of doing that. Besides, I don’t want to be adored, and I certainly don’t need to be taken care of.”

That said, she pushed past him into her room and closed the door.

“Think about it Lucy. We’ll talk later,” shouted Darren through the door.

Lucy sat on her bed and sighed. Darren was something she did not want to deal with right now. Leave school with him and move to a cabin? That didn’t even sound remotely appealing at this point in her life. She wanted to do something. She was doing something. You don’t abandon things part way through, and you don’t abandon your friends. Perhaps that’s what the test is. It gives you other options, chances, a way out if you want it. She didn’t want a way out that didn’t lead through that archway. The real one, not the illusion she had walked through. She had to find a way to deal with that, and then she could deal with Darren when it became a problem. What was she thinking? She didn’t have to deal with him. In all actuality, they did not have that conversation. Darren was not a problem, and she did not have a meeting with him later to discuss where she had been and what she had been doing. She was still in the archway. She had to figure out what was going on and how to get out of here.

Lucy thought and wondered, pondered and mused. Would the archway continue to tempt her with different options until she had refused them all in favor of the choices she had already made? Maybe tempt wasn’t the right way to put it. There was nothing tempting about Darren’s offer. How many things would she have to redo? How big and small would they be? Could she skip all that? She continued to sit on her bed, waiting for Eric and thinking. She wondered if there was a Justin here she could talk to? He might have some answers. He always had answers. Would they be right answers though? Or would they be answers she thought up that the archway used to give Justin dialog? This was all very confusing. She did not have long to wait before Eric summoned her. It was long enough to agonize but not long enough to go insane. Not knowing what was awaiting her, the walk back seemed very long.

“Lucy,” greeted Eric again.

“Eric,” Lucy greeted back.

“I’ve gotten a report from the Lady. Because of your actions, Maya, Gavin, and Justin are dead.”

“What?! I don’t believe you. Yes, the tent was on fire, but they were still alive when I left. If that was even them in the first place that is. I’m still in the archway.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you are saying. You keep talking about an archway, and I don’t know anything about that. The reports have to be true. They are dead. It is felt that since you brought them to Kleth in the first place, you are somewhat responsible.”

“Eric, listen to me. None of this is true. This is all some kind of mind game or illusion,” Lucy tried to assure him, but he was beyond listening to her.

“Because of this, we feel that it is necessary to wipe your memory and send you back to where you came from.”

“What?! This is ridiculous!”

“I assure you, it is not.”

Eric kept talking, but now it was Lucy who was no longer listening. What was the good of listening to a voice that was created by an archway from Lucy’s memories? It wasn’t even really Eric she was talking to. This conversation wasn’t even happening. What else could the archway do? It had already either made her think that she had traveled from Kleth to the school, or it had actually done it. It had placed her back in her nightmares, and now it was telling her that her friends were dead. She didn’t believe any of it. Whatever was going on, the archway was a deadly testing machine. Would it send her back to her bedroom before Eric came out of the closet? Would it make her forget everything? That wasn’t right! She had already made her choices. Once choices were made, you didn’t remake them, you lived with the consequences.

Then, Lucy got angry. This was the most pointless, irritating, irrational thing she’d ever done. What kind of test was this? Well, she wasn’t taking it! She wasn’t playing this mind game anymore. She’d had enough! She closed her eyes and concentrated, and let the anger course through her, and her power course through her, and she stepped out of the test. At least that was what she tried to do. The test didn’t seem to like that at all. Eric’s office disappeared. She was back on the plateau. The wind picked up and blew against her as a storm raged around her. Rain lashed at her body. She concentrated on bending, not breaking. She couldn’t let the storm break her.

Suddenly, she wondered why she should be the one to break. It could break. She didn’t need to stand against the storm. She was the storm, and she was angry. Lucy fought back. She accepted. The wind ran from her, and she was the wind. Lightning did not lash at her; it flew from her hands. Her laughter was the thunder. She had the power. She was the one that things had to bend for. She wasn’t playing their game anymore, they were playing hers. She now made the rules. She was the rules. She declared the game over! The thunder became louder. It became a roar. The roar focused into the sound of stone cracking, breaking and tumbling, crashing around her. Fragments flew in all directions. All of them missed her except one piece; the piece that cut a pattern into her left wrist.

She opened her eyes, as the dust settled. She was standing in the middle of the rubble of what was left of the archways. Her wrist was bleeding. She blinked, trying to take it all in. For a split second, she worried about Justin. Had he gotten out in time? Then, she saw him over with Maya and Gavin. They were all looking at her in shocked amazement. The Lady merely looked amused. She arched an eyebrow in Lucy’s direction. Lucy released all the power she had used and been holding onto. She let the violent storm inside die down, and the winds ceased. As the power trickled out and the adrenaline ebbed, her body registered the toll of using all that power. All her energy was gone. She collapsed into the rubble.

“That’s never happened before,” the Lady said calmly.

Lucy wasn’t sure how long she was out for. Long enough for them to have moved her out of the rubble and place her on a settee near the throne. Long enough that everyone had relaxed enough to sit down themselves to wait for her to come to rather than hover over her checking to make sure she was still breathing. Not long enough for her to feel hungry. Not long enough for her to feel rested. She blinked and let her eyes adjust. She took a couple of deep breaths. Her wrist still hurt, but it was more of a sunburnt feeling than a jabbing pain. She yawned and stretched. This caught people’s attention.

“How do you feel?” asked Maya. Lucy wasn’t sure when she stopped crying, but her eyes still looked red. She wondered what Maya had faced.

“I feel like I tried to do Orin’s day of physical endurance three times in one week,” she said with a small smile, and they smiled back.