“I not pass.” Lyyll moved closer to the hovering portal, and as she neared it, a sheen of green and white warding brightened across the entrance. “I kept open, in hope. Power for gate still works. And you are here. But I not can go.”
“Bastards,” Darien snapped. He turned a burning gaze on Silas. “Your mentors were—”
“Bastards, yeah.” Silas pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. Little flickers of thought lurked, down deep somewhere, clues that Coldwell had to have kept very carefully suppressed, as he seeded his magic throughout Silas’s mind. He strained to remember until his head throbbed… Let it go, for now. He straightened. “What do we do next? Suggestions, anyone?”
Kii said, “Going home, to my Home, still makes sense. The problem of the demons and the hells hasn’t gone away, just because Lyyll has been waiting. And if anyone’s going to help her find her route back to Yyygrdii, it’ll be Xsing. She should come with us.”
“Yes,” Grim said. He trilled a bunch of phrases at Lyyll, who burbled back. “Lyyll says we can change the target on her attempted portal, if we can manage the power needed to activate it. She had magic supplies with her when they first sent her through, and painted it on a nearby cliff, but the runes will need refreshing.”
“Still,” Jasper pointed out. “That sounds like an excellent step up from trying to recreate it from Polaroids.” He smiled at Lyyll. “It’s our good fortune to find you here.”
Silas stood watching, still reeling from all the revelations. Jasper’s smiling at a seven-foot-tall green alien wearing nothing but bumpy skin and fangs. Silas kept his eyes from wandering where they shouldn’t. Although who knew where that might be on a Yug-ger-dill or however that was spelled. She was bipedal, but had no visible breasts, and her reproductive system— Keep your mind on the damned subject, Thornwood. Not the random academic questions. Especially rude ones.
Darien hefted his pack. “We brought chalk and paint and more. Lyyll, are you hungry? What have you been eating?”
She angled her head down close to Darien’s face, neck curved in an s-shape, her smile wide and full of teeth. “Grains good. Some fruit not bad. And many rats. Came gate and grew here. Tasty.”
“Ah.” Silas was impressed Darien didn’t visibly recoil. Instead, the young sorcerer unslung his pack, dug into it, and pulled out a tinfoil package. “Sandwich?”
A jolt of love and admiration and appreciation washed through Silas, as Darien unwrapped the ham sandwich and held it out to Lyyll. I have found such a good man.
Lyyll plucked the food carefully from Darien’s fingers, ate it in one bite, and hummed. “I miss. Food here boring.” She straightened. “We gate? Now? I think with more days here you have less magics.”
Grim said, “I agree. If we’re going, we’re probably never going to be stronger than we are now.”
Magda asked, “How far is it? Should we blaze a trail, just in case?”
A rush of sound from Lyyll sent Kii up into the sky, circling above them. “I can see the spot she’s describing,” Kii called down. “It’s not that far, a straight shot. I don’t think getting lost will be a problem.”
Silas took a breath and nodded to Lyyll. “Lead on, then.”
They followed the Yyygrdiil as she whirled and loped off. She quickly outpaced them, but Pip sprinted after her, yelping something Silas couldn’t make out, and Lyyll circled back. “I forget you small.” She headed out at a slower pace.
Silas walked between Jasper and Darien, with Magda right in front of them, and the familiars up ahead. Jasper had fished a notebook out of his pocket and was trying to make notes while tripping over roots and vines that crossed the meadowland. “I wish we had that camera,” he muttered, as Silas grabbed his elbow for the third time. “Too bad there was no more film.”
Darien said, “We’ll have to all remember, between us.”
“I’m not likely to forget anytime soon,” Silas muttered. Something large and green moved in the periphery of his vision, off under the fronds of a stand of tree-plumes. “Lyyll,” he called, trying to get the lilt Grim gave the name and no doubt mangling it horribly. “What’s that under the tree-things?”
She glanced over. “Those bigs.” She made a short guttural sound. “I name bigs. They eat fruits. Not danger. Maybe step on you.”
Silas took another look and froze, as one of the tall tree-fronds bent, sagged, and then snapped under the weight of a— something green and huge and multi-legged, hard to make out among the trunks. “Bigs. More like gargantuans. Enormouses. Brobdignagians.”
“Bigs,” Lyyll repeated. “Come fast please thank you.”
Silas shook his head, but when Magda and Darien took their pace up to a jog, he didn’t complain.
They reached the cliff face Lyyll had used as a canvas for her runes after about half an hour of walking and jogging. They’d seen a something soaring above which was large enough that Kii dropped down to ride Jasper’s shoulder, and more bigs came and went among the trees. Jasper was halfway through his small notebook and probably had cramps in his writing fingers. At the cliff, Jasper reluctantly tore his attention away from the strange world to focus on the rock face.
“Need fix,” Lyyll said, waving her claws at the sketch.
“Yes.” Jasper pulled the Polaroids out of his pocket and began comparing to the faded paint on the slate wall. “Here, look here, you did this one differently.” He pointed at a rune in the photo, then at the wall. “Was that an error, or intentional?”
Lyyll craned her neck to peer at the photo. “Old gate? Is size.” She waved at the arch of the portal, spanning above her head. “Bigger.”
“Oh, of course.” Jasper smacked the side of his head. “I’m too excited to think straight.” He continued his scrutiny. “And this one?”
“Pull power for stay open long. Not needed.”
“Oh? So those are the runes to keep it running longterm?” Jasper sounded intrigued, as he bent to inspect the knot of unfamiliar symbols. “Where’s the power transfer sourced? I’m not familiar with this notation.”
“Maybe we can discuss magic theory later?’ Silas suggested. “Get this gate working now?”
“Yes, of course.” Jasper scanned the other side of the gate and pointed. “This is a little different too.”
Lyyll looked, then barked some kind of short sound. “Bad choice. Fix.”
Silas felt a bit of a third wheel, watching Jasper and Lyyll confer. He turned to Grim. “What’s your world like? I assume we can breathe there, or you wouldn’t have suggested this.”
“Breathe? Yes. We have water you may drink. Food perhaps will be a challenge, but we will hope to get you home before it’s a critical one.”
“Food?” Darien said. “But you and Pip eat human food. Well, dog and cat food.”
“Our forms like this use those nutrients. When we get home…” Grim’s voice trailed off. “Actually, it will be very interesting to see what portal travel home is like. The call we get, when our sorcerer dies, is our own magic. A portal of sorts, but limited bandwidth, pulling on our original bodies and souls…” The big cat stopped again, staring into the distance. “Yes, this will be very interesting.”