Chapter 2: Scream in the Dark

The woods seemed to go deeper than any of them had suspected. Here and there Dern would stop to gaze around to see if he could feel a change in the wind, the whisper of the snakes, a cry in the earth. Nothing. It was as if the land itself was still, out of fear... or expectation.

At one point, Hal looked up and saw something shine high in the night. And then, it was gone.

“Hey, I think I saw something. Let’s go there.”

“Are you sure? I mean, are you, really?”, asked Rafaën. Hal’s head was something out of this world completely, and many times had they searched for something that was not even there. Yet, many other times there was something... or things. Dangerous ones, mostly.

“Last time you said that we were caught in a cobweb ten feet tall.”

“I’m sure! And if I’m not, what difference does it make? We’re lost, anyway”, said Hal. He had that quirky smile that followed his doing something half-mad, half-wise. And he went for a trail.

Dern just shrugged. And, for the first time since they left the ruins, he giggled. “He actually has a point. Let’s do it”, said Dern, following the other.

Rafaën rolled her eyes. “I just hate it when you two team up against me. If we find spiders I won’t save your sorry asses again.”

The trail went downslope and turned behind trees much thicker and taller than any other they had seen so far. Dern thought them to be ancient, but in a closer look he saw that they were actually much younger. “This is odd”, he mumbled. But the others had already entered the deep layers of the forest.

Hal could not see further ahead, but lighting up a fire would be too easy for any foes to notice them. He could only hear his friends coming close behind, and that was all. He stopped for a moment and checked again where that light was supposed to come from.

Rafaën bumped into him. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“You’re welcome”, Hal said, unaware of the sarcasm. He seemed to be distracted by something that Rafaën could not guess. She shivered for the slightest moment, and then she realized Dern was not with them.

“Hal. Dern is gone”, she said, quietly but warily. Hal woke up from his distraction.

“What!? We can’t use our telepathic thingies here, can we? Damn, Dern”, Hal said. He felt the round shaped device in his pocket and felt restless. They could not use the mechanism without falling unconscious in the floor.

“Well, he surely can take care of himself. Better than any of us both. Let’s go, he will find us there. I trust he will.”

Rafaën noticed concern in his eyes, but also a confidence that just overflowed past any worry. He really trusted Dern. “Ok, then. It’s your call.”

Soon after, they crossed a maze of the hugest bushes they had ever seen and saw themselves in a clearing. Right next to it the land would rise into a small hill, partially hidden beneath trees that seemed to be there since the dawn of times. There was an entrance to a cave, barred by iron bars.

“I knew it!”, said Hal. “He is there! I can feel it.”

“Not so fast, buddy. Look around”, warned Rafaën.

Hal then looked up and saw that the trees had grown into the shape of a roof over them in a matter of seconds. “This is no good, no good.”

He then clapped his hands and spread his palm aside, bringing the dirt under his feet together to form a perfectly straight stonesword, long and sharp, as the hands crossed the air. With a flicker of his arm, floating shields made of wind started moving loosely all around him, accompanying his movement and even the mist of his breath.

For that was the power conferred to him by the Fourth Dimension, and he wielded Imagination like a weapon to protect him from harm by turning available matter into other shapes of matter. The channeling through the Random God was both a bless and a curse, for Imagination would flow from his conscience unimpeded and raw. It was his greatest strength, and yet it was also his gravest weakness. Many times before he was hurt by the power he sought to control.

Beside him, Rafaën made shapes in the air like a skilled design, and suddenly there was a burning glow and a roar, and a tiger appeared out of nothing. He was made of Firelines, the nearly forgotten art of the Red Tribes. Unlike Hal, who used a mind-matter connection to canalize his efforts, Rafaën poured Imagination into the matter and severed the nexus, mastering both the destination as much as the departure, by dividing them from each other.

Imagination, the oldest of powers, the very blood of the conscience, the life within life...Magi, was it called. The gravity that held everything together.

Rafaën drew on the air once more and red sparks flew everywhere, lightening up the clearing and revealing a person behind the iron bars of the cave.

“I’m...I’m here, everyone. It is me who you’ve seen in the Otherworld.”

Unlike the trees, the voice was young, but sounded much older. Under the lights summoned by Rafaën, they could see his glasses glimmer and his eyes flicker with curiosity and amity. He was about the same height of Hal and Dern, but was thin like Dern and as much tranquil as Hal. He had a bow, his traveling clothes were deep amber and there was an air of tenacity about his glare that hinted of both contemplation and balance.

“Don’t come too close. He has set traps”, he said.

And then, a wicked laugh echoed in the woods, so hysterical it sometimes came out like a scream of pure delight.

“I’ve foreseen your coming in the leaves of my hair, all of you... oh, silly little things! Come to papa, it’s PARTY TIME!”