Lillene

Enjoy!

This time, Serenity saw Elder Lizven’s eyes follow his to the planet above them. After a moment, she lowered her gaze to meet his, wrinkled her brow, and asked “Just who were you?”

Somehow, even though she directed the question at him, Serenity didn’t think she actually expected him to answer. It was worth a try, even so; she had asked and it might get her to actually listen if he was lucky. There was certainly no point in cooperating father if they didn’t listen and this was as close to a portal as he was likely to get.

If he wasn’t lucky, he was relatively close to the portal. As long as he could reach it and trigger it before someone with the authority to restrict movement managed to get to a portal node, he’d be able to get through. That was a better option than playing along and escaping later.

“My name is Serenity. I doubt you would believe more than that; you don’t seem to accept anything else I tell you.” Serenity watched the elder and tried to gauge her reaction. He was bad at dealing with people, but if she tried to attack him it would be quickly obvious and an easy cue to run.

He considered saying more, but talking about his connection to Tzintkra was obviously a bad idea and everything else seemed irrelevant. Mentioning the Final Reaper would probably be even worse. The only thing he could think of that would be relevant and might go either way was his connection to Death as her Incarnate, but Serenity leaned towards that also being a bad thing to mention. No, all he could think of was a question. “What can I do to prove I’m not undead? I mean, I do … what did you call it, walk with Death? That doesn’t make me undead.”

Elder Lizven closed her eyes and shook her head. She looked sad when she opened them again and met his gaze. “I can tell you were once someone of honor and power; that is a great thing, far too rare. Whoever did this to you should be dealt with; you will have to tell us what happened when you can. Please follow me.”

She clearly still didn’t believe him and wasn’t willing to listen. Serenity watched her for a moment, then decided he’d spent enough time on this; while he certainly could talk to her and try to convince her, he didn’t think it would work. Her mind was simply too made up.

Fortunately, convincing her wasn’t required. Berinath was a crossroads but it wasn’t the only way to get places; there were always routes around locations you couldn’t visit. They weren’t likely to be a problem for Earth, either, since they were quite a ways away and the dryads didn’t control any planets other than Berinath. In fact, they’d probably welcome most Earthlings, though he should probably try to give out the word that undead and death mages should avoid the moon. If he’d known that, he could have avoided the entire situation.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come up again. He’d traveled across a number of other planets on the way here; none of them seemed to have any issues with him. He needed to think about ways to conceal whatever it was that made it clear he “walked with Death,” just in case, but it wasn’t an immediate problem. 

The next step was simple enough. Get out and get to the portal. There were a lot of options on how to do it, of course. He didn’t even have to free his hands, technically, though it would make using the portal easier. He could think of half a dozen different ways to free his hands, too; he’d just keep trying them until one worked. 

Serenity decided to take the simplest route: he turned and walked towards the portal without making any kind of a statement or a fuss about it. It was often amazing what you could get away with if you just acted like you knew what you were doing. Serenity expected to have to dodge attacks at any time, but he wanted to get as far as he could before they noticed and that meant walking, not running. Running would clue them in that something was wrong a lot faster than walking would. 

Serenity was still halfway to the portal, well past all of the dryad guards, before anyone reacted to his motion. When someone did react, it was Elder Lizven. “Hey! You, Serenity? Stop! Come back! We’re trying to help you!”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. Serenity kept walking. As he did, he tried something he’d been practicing for a while with limited success: a partial shapeshift. He was still not very good at it, but he didn’t need to be very good at it for this. Almost any shift of his hands would let him drop the ropes binding them to the ground without untying the knots. As soon as it fell, Serenity allowed his hands to reform. Partial shifts were significantly more tiring than full shifts.

Serenity reached the portal node and tapped the crystal just long enough to request a portal back to Kvim. That was the first planet he thought of that Berinath connected to, since it was the way they’d come in from, and he didn’t want to take the time to check the connections. If he was lucky, it was the way Rissa had taken; if he wasn’t lucky, he’d just have to find his own route to Myrta.

Serenity stepped through the portal without a glance back. Elder Lizven could shout all she wanted; no one seemed to be actually trying to physically stop him or hurt him and that was enough.

:Rissa?: Serenity tried to reach her, but he didn’t get the sense that he had. She must not be on Kvim. That was annoying but not terrible; he could figure out how to catch up to her. Serenity glanced at the node and decided to move away and find somewhere else to look at routes. 

What he found was a small cafe several blocks from the portal node. It was a lucky find; the area was full of travelers, which should have made it a good place for restaurants, but most of the food was instead carried by street vendors. The buildings were warehouse space, mostly, with a little low-end retail, clearly for the workers. None of that would work for Serenity, since he wanted to stop and think while he looked at a map, but the cafe was perfect.

It was definitely convenient that he could interface with the planet’s nodes without being at one of them. It let him see the portal map. Unfortunately, what he saw wasn’t really good news; there was no direct connection to anywhere on Myrta. He took his time and searched; what he came up with over a cup of kave and a pastry that might as well have been a cake doughnut was two different viable routes. 

One was slightly shorter and ended in Tsitha on Myrta; if he understood Myrtan geography well enough, there should be an easy way to get from Tsitha to Berek, where Blaze suggested they meet. There might even be a direct portal connection; it looked like there was one, but it was only available periodically.

The second route would take an extra day or two to reach Berek, probably, but it got him to Myrta in two days instead of six. The trick was that it dumped him hundreds of miles from Berek with no clear portal route to reach it. He’d have to build that once he got to Myrta. Serenity settled on the second route for one simple reason: once he was on the same planet as Rissa and Ita, he’d be able to talk to them. If he was close enough, Ita might even be able to set up a portal of her own to speed things up.

Then all they’d have to worry about would be getting their hands on the personal flyers that were the reason for the entire trip in the first place. Serenity didn’t expect that to be hard. Expensive, yes, but not hard.

It was three days after Serenity reached Myrta that he finally heard from Rissa. Two days after that, He stepped through a portal created by Ita into the streets of Berek; they’d cut at least two days off his travel time with that portal. It seemed that there was no direct connection between Berek and any of the neighboring countries; he’d planned to manage that on foot. It was a good thing he didn’t have to.

As it was, the time gave Blaze the chance to take Rissa around to different flyer vendors. They managed to find half the flyers they needed in Berek. They’d find the rest on the trip home.

Serenity,

I am not certain if you will remember me or not, but we met on Asihanya while you were there. 

I recently met someone who reminds me of you; World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart was most interested when I mentioned you and has expressed an interest in meeting you. We are currently doing a great deal of traveling, so I am not certain where we will be when this reaches you, but I would like to invite you to come meet the World Shaman. 

If you are not available to travel, the World Shaman and I would be happy to come visit you at the location of your choice. Please let me know where and when you would like to meet up.

Lord Cymryn

Empire of Man

They were on the final leg of the journey to Earth when the message from Lord Cymryn arrived. Serenity did remember him; he was the one who attempted to knock out and kidnap Serenity, but other than that was extremely solicitous. Serenity still had no idea what his real goal on Asihanya was, other than that it probably involved the Broken Mirror. 

The fact that he actually clearly identified himself as being from the Empire this time didn’t make Serenity feel better. The fact that he clearly mentioned the name Et’Tart also didn’t make Serenity feel any better; that was the name his great-grandfather’s ghost or echo mentioned as his Clan name, the people Timothy Rothmer ran from because his own Clanmates were trying to kill him over the leadership. Serenity had intended to leave them strictly alone; there was no point in inviting trouble.

Unfortunately, it seemed like avoiding trouble wasn’t an option. Lord Cymryn of the Empire had already found it for him.

Serenity laid the whole thing out for his companions, including the personal connections. He’d prefer to avoid it and simply not answer. Unfortunately, he probably would have to deal with the Empire at some point. Earth was mostly human and Serenity expected it to become important quickly; it wasn’t like the other nearby planets, which were stable and relatively poor. Earth was growing quickly and Serenity didn’t see that stopping any time soon.

None of the Earthlings had any real comment, and neither did Ita, but Blaze did. “He really signed it Lord Cymryn, Empire of Man?”

Serenity nodded.

Blaze gave a long sigh. “That means he’s a direct agent. They’re  … well, he’s probably the best person to talk to if you want to sign on with the Empire or cut a deal with them. I don’t know how much he’s empowered to do, but it’s better than dealing with someone who isn’t in their power structure. That means …” Blaze paused and his frown turned into a smile. “Yes, that’ll work. He needs to see Earth, but not until this current mess is handled. Tell him you’re busy and can’t travel right now; just a short note. That should make it easy to string him along for a few months until this mess is handled.”

“I hope a few months is long enough,” Serenity muttered.

Blaze shrugged. “As long as it’s long enough for you to figure out the ritual, that’s all you really need.” 

Lillene

It is surprisingly difficult to write an antagonist that honestly wants to “do the right thing” and “help” the protagonist … in a way that he’s not interested in. What they’re offering is not a terrible deal … if you’re actually undead and want to be alive again. 

As far as they’re concerned, they’re doing good deeds, saving people who’ve been corrupted by the power of undeath and preventing anything like the war on Tzintkra from happening again, especially on Berinath. I hope that came through.

This could have ended in a fight, but neither side actually wants a fight. I seriously considered extending the chase scene at the end, but realistically it makes more sense that they’d move to prevent him from going elsewhere than try to stop him from entering the portal.