Parallel inversion, p.30
Parallel Inversion, page 30
part #1 of The Parellyrian Chronicles Series
“Excuses, excuses.” Elizabeth and Niffain walked past Trevor out of the interrogation room, the dwarf looking up and shaking his head in disapproval as he went.
“I don't get any appreciation around here,” Trevor complained as he followed them out through the station.
Wilfred limberly carried his heavy frame up the path toward the newspaper office. He was usually the fourth or fifth person to arrive when the office first opened for the week on Tuesday morning, but thought perhaps this time he was early enough to be the first. Trevor had entrusted him with one of the only keys to the building, but he had not yet had the opportunity to use it. Wilfred thought today might be the day.
His excitement turned to mild disappointment when he saw that he was not the first to arrive. Bev was sitting on the ground outside the building door, looking downward and playing with her hair. Wilfred trudged toward her, wondering why she was waiting outside. He realized that, although he was not the first one to arrive, he might still have got there before Trevor.
“Are we the first ones here?” he asked.
Bev looked up from the ground to see Wilfred approaching. “Looks like it.”
Wilfred happily reached into his pocket and pulled out a large key chain with dozens of keys on it. He fumbled through them, inspecting each one until he found what he was looking for. He held that key between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a sacred object, slid it into the lock, and turned.
Bev stood up and watched the door swing open. “Trevor gave you a key? Why didn't he give me a key?”
Wilfred shrugged, “I dunno.” As he motioned for Bev to precede him inside, she wondered whether sexism might be part of the reason.
The office was eerily quiet. Bev was accustomed to sometimes being the first to arrive apart from Trevor, so the emptiness was not unusual to her. Wilfred, though, felt very uneasy, like something was wrong. He kept his eyes on Bev to remind himself that he was not the only person in the building.
Beverly walked along the building's east wall to the overnight depository. The paper was typically submitted for publication on Sunday when Trevor dropped off the floppy disks containing the completed content, which was prepared on a professional formatting program, to the University's printing and copying office. The paper would then be printed on Monday and delivered back to the newspaper office on Monday night through the one-way overnight depository. Bev looked into the large, wooden crate beneath the opening, placed carefully to catch all the deliveries. She was expecting to see the typical four thousand or so newspapers awaiting distribution. Instead she found herself looking into an empty crate.
“There's nothing in here,” she said to Wilfred across an empty office.
“What's that?” he said, making his way towards her.
“We didn't get any papers. The crate's empty.”
Bev stepped back to make way for Wilfred, who put his hands on the edge of the crate and leaned forward into it for an unnecessarily close look. Bev glanced out the window, and noticed something in the corner of her eye. She squinted through the sunlight to make sure what she was seeing was real. But then she could not take her eyes off it.
“This is strange,” said Wilfred, still leaning down into the crate, his voice echoing through the empty box. “It's not like Trevor to miss a publication deadline. The delivery must just be late.” Wilfred pulled himself out of the crate and saw that Bev had not been paying attention to him. She stood completely still, her eyes focused on something outside. “What is it?”
Bev raised her arm and pointed outside, her stare never wavering. Wilfred peered out the window and nearly fell over onto the floor. There, on the grassy knoll outside the building, looking around in confusion, stood a unicorn.
“Oh my god,” Wilfred whispered. He was seeing something he had never imagined possible. As he watched the sunlight reflect off the unicorn's brilliant white sheen almost like a mirror, he wondered whether the creature's presence was part of some elaborate prank. From where he stood, it looked genuine, but he remained skeptical.
“I'm going to take a closer look,” Bev said, taking the thought right out of Wilfred's mind. She walked to the main door of the building, while Wilfred still stood spellbound. It took him a moment to register what Bev had said. Once her words sunk in, he finally took his eyes off the unicorn and looked around for Bev to try and stop her.
“Wait!” he called when he saw her sprinting toward the exit. But it was too late, she was already out the door. Wilfred hurried outside after her, trying to catch up with her before she got too close.
By the time he made it outside he was already out of breath. Bev was leaning against a tree only twenty feet from the unicorn. Wilfred crouched forward with his hands on his knees as he wheezed, then continued towards Bev.
Bev hid mostly behind a tree, peeking her head around one side to look at the creature. The unicorn stared right back at her with its ears drawn back and its nostrils flared as it waited to see if the woman would dare to come any closer. It shifted its gaze to watch Wilfred jogging up behind her, and stopping to join her behind the tree.
“It looks real,” Bev said, as Wilfred once again struggled to catch his breath. She noticed the natural shape of the unicorn's horn as it flowed seamlessly from its head. She, like Wilfred, could not help but be skeptical, and searched for any indication that the unicorn was actually a horse that had been artificially modified with prosthetics. Wilfred poked his head around the tree over top of Bev's. He looked down toward the creature's hooves and noticed that they were cloven, a defining feature for unicorns that was not found on horses.
“It is real,” Wilfred said, still unable to believe his own eyes.
“I'm going to try to get even closer,” Bev said.
“Be careful. Unicorns are very protective of their territory, and tend to shun all other creatures. If it senses that you're a threat, it may try to impale you with its horn.”
“Impale me?!”
Wilfred nodded.
“How do you know so much about unicorns, anyway?”
Wilfred had gleaned his knowledge from years of playing Dungeons and Dragons, but did not feel particularly inclined to impart that information at this moment. “I just do, okay?”
Bev decided not to pry any further. She felt confident that the unicorn would be able to sense that she intended it no harm. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and began inching forward, away from the tree.
“Stop!”
A new voice shouted the warning from well behind her. She paused mid-step and turned to find where it had come from. She saw three people creeping up the knoll toward her. One was a woman who looked vaguely familiar, and beside her she recognized Trevor, the newspaper's editor-in-chief. Together they followed a strangely dressed dwarf who was looking Bev straight in the eye. They stopped their forward progress as soon as they got Bev's attention.
“Don't get any closer to it,” the dwarf said. “Look it straight in the eye, and back away slowly.”
“Why?” said Bev.
“Because it's pissed off, and it will probably try to kill you.”
Bev gulped and followed the dwarf's instructions. She turned back to look at the unicorn, which was now scraping its front hoof on the ground, its stare never wavering. Bev stepped backwards away from it, grabbing Wilfred's sleeve and pulling him back with her as she went. They soon joined the others, and each breathed a sigh of relief that they had not been harmed.
“Now, to the office,” Trevor said, “quietly.” The group made their way back down the knoll and inside the building.
“What's going on?” Bev inquired as soon as the door was shut and everyone was safely inside. Trevor and Elizabeth looked, once again, to their new dwarf companion for answers.
“My name is Niffain, and I am a dwarf from a world called Parellyria. I was sent here by the evil elf wizard Levaricent. It now appears that he is also sending unicorns here. I do not know why.” He shrugged, hoping everyone present would accept his explanation. Since he was the only one who had ever seen a unicorn before, even if only once when he was a child, he saw no reason they should doubt him.
“Okayyyyy...” said Wilfred. “I suppose that explains it.” He leaned back against a nearby wall, crossed his arms, and looked to Trevor. “Is that why the paper never got published?”
Trevor grinned at Elizabeth, remembering exactly how he had spent the time that he should have been submitting the paper for publication. “Kind of,” he said to Wilfred, without ever actually looking at him.
“Look, that's not important right now,” said Elizabeth, looking back at Trevor without a smile.
“Right,” said Trevor. He looked at Bev and Wilfred seriously. “We can have a special double issue next week with an exposé on the sudden appearance of unicorns on campus.”
“But right now...” Elizabeth said impatiently, urging Trevor to continue her thought.
“But right now,” Trevor repeated, his mind still caught up in his experience of two nights before. Elizabeth punched him in the shoulder, hard, and he finally managed to focus.
“Karen is trapped in the world this dwarf came from,” he said, rubbing his sore shoulder, “and we need to try to find a way to help her get back.”
“Karen Volar?” said Bev.
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Who's that?' Wilfred asked.
Bev looked at him, incredulous. “You know who Karen is, dumbass!”
“No, I know. I mean, who's that?” He pointed out the window on the south side of the building. Everyone looked out where he was pointed to see what he was talking about. And there, emerging from the dense trees of the forest, came a human figure. He was difficult to make out at first, as the sun glimmered against the shiny, metallic getup the man had on. Niffain squinted to focus on the man as he stumbled about, and suddenly recognized him.
“Calidus!”
The dwarf sprinted out the door to meet his friend, feeling both excited to see a familiar face, and saddened to discover that Calidus had also become a victim of Levaricent's evil plot. Calidus saw the dwarf running toward him and reached for his sword, thinking him an enemy at first. Before he drew it, however, he recognized Niffain. He released his grip on his weapon and ran to meet him.
“Niffain!” he said, lifting the dwarf into the air with his powerful arms. Niffain began squirming to get out of his grasp.
“Let me go!”
“Oh, sorry,” Calidus said, lowering the dwarf and releasing him onto the ground.
“Thanks,” said Niffain, adjusting his shirt.
Calidus looked around at the numerous strange buildings ahead of him, noticing that they did not appear to have been constructed out of any material he was familiar with. “Where are we?” he asked.
“We have been transported to a different world.”
Calidus cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
Niffain nodded.
“We're not even in Parellyria anymore?”
“Nope. This is where Karen comes from.”
“Karen?” Calidus recalled having heard the strange man outside Romanbak's lab mention that name. Hearing Niffain say it now triggered something in his brain, and he remembered that the woman with his brother at the castle was named Karen. Soon he began to connect the dots in his mind.
“That explains a lot really,” he said, thinking that it took someone from out of his world to display an interest in his brother. “So Levaricent got to you too, then?”
“He kidnapped me and Dalius,” Niffain said, “then sent me here.”
“I hope Romanbak finally gets his hands on that guy.”
Niffain was not as confident that Romanbak would be successful in that endeavor as Calidus seemed to be. “Come on,” he said, leading Calidus down to the newspaper office building. Elizabeth, Trevor, Beverly, and Wilfred had been staring intently through the window, watching the interaction between the dwarf and the knight. As the two approached, they all turned their heads in unison to avoid looking like they were eavesdropping. Niffain stepped inside, followed closely by Calidus.
“Hi,” said Elizabeth, taken aback by the sheer size difference between Calidus and Niffain. The former towered over everyone in the room.
“Everyone, this is Calidus,” Niffain said. “Calidus, this is Trevor, Elizabeth, and I have no idea who the other two are."
Wilfred jumped at the opportunity to introduce himself to a knight from a parallel dimension. He lunged forward with his open hand extended in front of him. “My name's Wilfred!” Calidus stepped backwards, surprised by the chubby journalist's excitement, before returning the handshake. “It's an honor to meet a knight from a magical realm.”
“Sure,” said Calidus, perplexed by the intensity of Wilfred's excitement. He looked beyond Wilfred at Bev, who seemed equally taken aback by Wilfred's enthusiasm, and waved.
“Hi,” she said. “I'm Bev.”
“Calidus.”
Introductions aside, Elizabeth was eager to start trying to help her roommate. She chimed in, “So what's the plan?”
“Plan for what?” said Calidus.
“To get you guys back to your world, and Karen back here,” Trevor said.
“Ahh.”
“Well obviously we need to get back to Romanbak's lab,” Elizabeth said. “That's where Karen was going when she disappeared. That's where Niffain appeared.”
“I found myself suddenly there as well,” Calidus said.
“And probably where the unicorns emerged, also,” Niffain added.
“I confronted a man in a strange, blue outfit when I arrived,” Calidus offered.
It took a moment for Calidus's words to register. “A cop,” Elizabeth said.
“Great,” Trevor complained. “With everything that's been going on there, the place is probably swarming with cops now. That's probably why the police station was empty when we woke up.”
“I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle,” said Elizabeth.
“Wait a minute,” said Bev. “Are we talking about trying to sneak past every cop on campus?”
“That doesn't sound so hard,” Calidus said, and every head turned to look at him once again. “The man I encountered did not pose much of a threat,” he continued. “I easily overpowered him. If we all work together, and study the situation adequately, I believe we can do this.”
Everyone was silent for a moment, before Trevor finally said, “Okay. I guess it's worth a try.”
“Well, let's go,” Elizabeth said, impatient to recover her roommate.
“Can we get something to eat first?” said Niffain.
“Yeah, maybe by the time we get back the cops will be gone,” Bev added.
“All right,” Elizabeth agreed. She turned to look at Niffain and Calidus. “Maybe you two should wait here. Your outfits might get more attention than we want right now. Halloween is over.”
The knight and the dwarf exchanged confused looks, then turned back to Elizabeth. “What?” they said in unison.
“Just wait.”
Their course decided, the four students left the office and set out to get some lunch. Elizabeth encouraged them to hurry, as she wanted to try to break back into Romanbak's lab and continue her search for her roommate.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“I think the storm is almost over.”
A hundred yards deep in the twisting tunnels beneath the Koyin mountains, the giant Feknor listened to the wind as it began to die down. He looked to his friend, Bernax, for instruction on how they should proceed next.
“Get your club,” Bernax said, rising from his seat on the ground next to Feknor. “We're going hunting.”
Feknor obeyed, retrieving his club from the floor, and stood ready to follow his companion outside. Bernax led him through the cave, around several corners, toward the exit. After the second to last corner, he stopped. Feknor was not paying attention and walked straight into Bernax, then nearly fell over backwards. He regained his balance, then stared dumbfounded at his friend, who remained motionless.
“Why did you stop?” Feknor asked.
Bernax turned to look angrily at his friend, then placed a hand over his mouth and moved him back around the corner, away from the entrance to the cave. “Shhh!” he whispered. “There's humans sleeping right there.”
“Humans?” Feknor said, much too loud.
Bernax shushed his friend again, then leaned in closer so her could speak even more quietly. “Yes, humans,” he said, licking his lips. “Delicious, meaty humans.”
Feknor grew excited at the prospect of a proper meal for the first time in ages. He could not even remember the last time he had tasted meat. He still had not yet forgiven himself for letting that dwarf escape, and Bernax had not forgiven him either. Now he had a chance to redeem himself.
“I'll catch them, Bernax,” he said. “I won't let you down.”
Feknor stepped around his friend to start moving toward the humans and try to capture them, but was held back by Bernax's strong right arm. Bernax pushed him back against the wall and breathed heavily on his face. “There are two humans,” he said. “We'll go together. We'll each catch one. That way, if one of them escapes, we can still eat the other one.”
Feknor smiled. “Good idea.”
They crept around the corner of the cave as quietly as a pair of lumbering giants could manage. They started out paying close attention to where they placed their feet, but as they drew nearer to their potential meals, they cared less and less. Bernax directed Feknor towards the sleeping female, figuring she would be easier for his unreliable friend to handle. They both wanted to avoid using their clubs, knowing that meat tended to taste better when it came from a creature that hadn't been smashed to a pulp of flesh, bones, and organs all mixed together.
Feknor thought he saw his target stirring, so he lunged forward, grabbed her with both hands, and lifted her up. “Gotcha!”
Karen was awake in an instant, and looked down to see that she was hovering several feet off the ground, trapped in a pair of enormous hands. She looked up and found herself staring into one of the most unpleasant faces she had ever seen. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months, and it stared at her with huge eyes, exposed, rotting teeth, and breath that smelled to high heaven. She managed to stifle a scream, but made enough noise to wake Dalius, although she was surprised that the smell had not already done that.
