She had half a hundred questions that she wanted to ask Nips, but they needed to get away from the Djinni before anything else went wrong. “So… do we just step through?”
“Lift me up a bit, please. I think this one is already open, but I’ll need to feel it to be certain.” Nips climbed up onto her hand, and she extended her arm toward the shimmer. Nips put out a hand, and Lanie felt magic gather around his fingers. “It’s open. Hold up your other hand just in front of the membrane, there.”
Lanie did as he asked. When her hand was only a few inches from the shimmer, she felt the tingle of magic against her skin. It seemed to rise and fall in intensity, like a slow heartbeat.
“Now, cycle a little magic, um… prana, into your hand. Don’t push it out; you aren’t casting a spell, you just want to learn the feel of an open Way. The resonance is easier to detect when it interacts with your own power.”
It took a conscious effort to hold the prana within her hand and not push it out to weave into a spell, but, after a few seconds of fumbling to find the right balance, she managed to hold it. The slow heartbeat became more pronounced.
“Do you feel the ebb and flow? That’s different levels of magic flowing back and forth between the two realms. If the Way was closed, you’d feel the magic, but it would be a steady presence, without that pulsing feeling.” Nips was a patient teacher, and he was about to continue, but Lanie stopped him.
“I can feel it, and I want to know more, but we really should keep moving. I don’t trust that Vahraksh any farther than I could throw him. Is it safe to go through?” Lanie tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. She appreciated Nips sharing his knowledge with her, and she needed to learn, but this wasn’t the time for it.
“Oh, um, of course. Time and place.” He gave her a sheepish smile by way of an apology, “Yes, we can go through. Safety is a bit harder to judge without knowing what’s on the other side.”
“Well, let’s find out then,” Lanie said and stepped through. The curtain of power passing over her felt like a cascade of hot and cold, a torrent of water and a gust of air all at once. The contradictory sensations lasted for only a moment before they emerged into dry, warm air and the dappled shade of a forest.
Giant cedars rose on all sides. Some rose tall and conical, others were branched and gnarled, and a few grew broad, spreading a flattened canopy to claim more space than the others. All of them had shaggy, craggy red-gray bark and dark green, aromatic needles. There was space between the trees, making the wood feel more open than Lanie had expected. The forest floor was stony, with clumps of vivid green grass and wildflowers.
Birds filled the forest with their songs: a noisy chorus of piping, twitters, shrieks, and whistles. Crickets chirped, and somewhere in the canopy, monkeys shrieked at one another. It was a symphony among the ancient cedars—an exultation of life. The air was heavy with the scents of cedar and loam. It felt ancient; rich, fecund, and vivid in a way Lanie had never experienced before. As she breathed it in, taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of it, she realized that the heaviness wasn’t just from the scent and heat. The magic here was stronger, thicker, than it had been in Ergenekon.
New messages appeared in her vision:
You have crossed into a new Realm: Your Realmwalker gift has strengthened.
You are in a Realm with a greater prana density. Your prana pool will fill 25% faster.
You are in a Realm with greater Significance. Sakti will be easier to gain.
You used your wits to escape a potentially deadly encounter, using your enemies against one another, and staying true to your Dharma. You gain 4 sakti. You gain +1 Wisdom, +1 Charisma.
“Huh,” she said, as she read. “Good to know I can earn sakti without having to kill things, but I really need to find out what this Dharma stuff is all about. This is the second time I’ve gotten sakti for following my Dharma, whatever that is.”
“I’ve heard the term before, but I don’t know much about it. I think it’s from either Hinduism or Buddhism… maybe both. It has something to do with Divine Law, I think. Or maybe one’s personal ethos?” Nips shrugged apologetically. “Ask me about the Druidic orders of the Milesians, and I could talk your ears off, but for this? We need a library.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Lanie threw her hands up in frustration, “My kingdom for an internet connection!”
“If you had a kingdom, you wouldn’t need an internet connection. That’s what advisors are for,” Nips smiled as he poked at her. He’d been quiet for most of their run through Ergenekon, and Lanie had been starting to worry about him, but he seemed in better spirits now.
“Nope, no advisors. You appoint a Grand Vizier, and the next thing you know, he’s plotting to take the throne.” Lanie turned in a circle as she spoke, finding the sun low on the horizon.
“Hmm… Yes. That does seem to be a pattern, doesn’t it?” He switched to a theatrical sotto voce and added, “Note to self: don’t ask to be appointed Grand Vizier, she’ll see right through me.”
A brief grin flashed across Lanie’s face, but she stopped herself from making another joke. Instead, she asked, “You said time can flow differently in different realms, right?”
Nips nodded, “That’s right.”
“So… do you think it’s morning or evening here? The air smells fresh, and it’s a little cool, which makes me think morning, but…” she trailed off, letting the observation hang.
“Hard to navigate by the sun when you don’t know the latitude or time of year. Lucky for us, if I’m not feeding magic into the Way Finder, it works like an ordinary compass. East is that way.” He pointed slightly to the left of the rising sun.
“Good to know,” Lanie set off in that direction, feeling more optimistic than she had in a while. “Gidul said we had to cross seven hills. I want to put at least a couple of them between us and the Way before we stop for a break.”
They made good time. The forest was open, with little in the way of underbrush. The hills Gidul had mentioned were easy, rolling foothills as they paralleled a low mountain range to the north. The mountains were old, worn down with time and weather, a contrast to the jagged spires of the last realm. The cedars were huge, well-established elders of the forest. The whole realm carried an air of great age, a heaviness of history and meaning.
Significance.
Lanie thought about that word and what it meant as they traveled. She’d been an abused child, an unwanted afterthought, then just another foster kid in an overflowing system. Even when she got out and started forging her own path, she’d been just another street kid, just another statistic waiting to happen. Her life had been the very definition of ‘insignificant.’
Since reliving Kyma’s life, since learning that reincarnation was a thing, and that part of her would live on, she’d been considering her life in a new light. Before all this, she’d been content to just get by, have a little fun here and there, pull a job when she needed cash, but she’d had no goals, no ambition to ever be more. Now, though, she’d had a taste of what was really out there—in the world, and beyond it. There was a growing hunger within her for more: more adventure, more exploration, more magic. But there was more to it than that. She wanted her life to mean something. She wanted to have significance. She wanted to leave a mark on the world.
A flash of red disappearing around the trunk of a tree in her peripheral vision brought her out of her thoughts and back to the present. She spread out her shadow sense, but caught only the barest flicker of movement. Her eyes followed the path the moving shadow had taken before she lost it, but saw nothing. Alert now, she hissed a warning to Nips, but didn’t stop walking.
They passed between two leaning cedars, their trunks gnarled and silver-gray with age. The air grew still, and the cacophony of birds and animal calls that had been the background music of their trek grew muted. The world felt heavier, older, and more solid in a way she couldn’t explain. It was like a chattering crowd growing silent as the people realized that someone important was in their midst; like the entire attention of the forest had turned inward, towards them.
No, not towards them. Towards the red fox that leapt up onto the trunk of a fallen cedar before them. It landed quietly and sat back on its haunches, its bushy tail curled primly around its paws. It stared at Lanie, its golden eyes piercing her with an intense, intelligent gaze. She felt like she was being weighed and assessed.
“A lost kit who smells of shadows. How fascinating.” The fox moved, pacing down the length of the tree trunk as if to look at her from another angle. “This one gets bored, and the universe presents something new. Such fun!”
“A talking fox? I should be surprised, but for some reason I’m not. It’s just been that sort of week.” Lanie shifted the spear that she’d been using as a walking staff into her right hand. She didn’t feel threatened, but it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more ready, just in case.
Nips shifted uncomfortably in the bag. In a low voice, nearly a whisper, he said, “Um, Lanie, take care. Not sure who that is, but maybe a little respect wouldn’t go amiss?”
She nodded and dialed back her defensive snark a bit. “Hi. I’m Lanie. What should I call you?” There was something about the fox that made the hair on her neck stand up.
“Names are useful, but some of them are too heavy to hand out freely. Fox is just fine for now. I saw you with the Grass Folk, and I watched you trick the Djinni into letting you go. You walk a twisty path, little kit. I approve.” The fox’s voice was smooth as silk, androgynous, and carried a hint of sly amusement.
“You… you were watching me? Why?” Lanie’s gut twisted into a cold knot. Is it after the Samsara Stone, too?
“Curiosity. It’s not every day a mortal breaks an Akashic Seal. That sort of thing echoes across the realms; it rings the fabric of reality like a bell. I just happened to be near enough to find the source.” The fox hopped off the log and walked around Lanie and Nips. Lanie felt like a cow on an auction block. “You should take care, little sneak. For many, it would be a dinner bell.”
“Thank you for the warning,” Lanie said, still unsure if this Fox was friend or foe, but figuring a little courtesy couldn’t hurt anything.
The fox let out an amused hum, “Polite. Smart. You smell of potential.” It hopped back onto the log, perching atop it like a queen on her throne. “I like you, so I’ll give you a hint: The first lie a spark tells itself is that it is small.” With a flash of red, the fox was gone, but its voice lingered with one last comment, “Burn bright, little spark. I’ll be watching.”