Confugo:
A Story of Thomas and Dennis
The setting:
After Eyes of the Dragon and Wizard & Glass
before the fall of Gilead
Prologue
Gateway to Mejis
They had arrived at the thinny over a week ago, and had been arguing ever since. Neither of them had ever seen such an oddity in their life, and thus could not agree on what needed to be done regarding it. The only thing that they both could agree on was the fact that it was dangerous.
The thinny was in a small box canyon in the abandoned barony of Mekrob. As near as they could tell from the information they had gathered along the way, the population of Mekrob had largely perished in warfare some 5 years earlier. The few remaining survivors had picked up stakes and headed further southeast, where the people had yet to imagine such a character as Jason Fathom, much less get caught up in his revolution against the Affiliation.
. When they had crossed the border of this barony, they were less than a day behind Flagg and closing in every day. They had finally caught him at the edge of the canyon which was now causing all the strife. Flagg had disappeared into the canyon and had not come back out. There was only one way he could have gone.
Thomas knew that their pursuit of Flagg would be all for naught if they didn't take the chance and follow him through the thinny. But Dennis flat out refused. The fact that Flagg could pass through it meant nothing to him; Flagg was a centuries old wizard, and he was merely a butler from Delain. Who knew if he and Thomas would pass through unharmed?
Thomas was once again the first to wake up. He knew that as soon as Dennis woke up, the arguing would begin once again. Thomas made a decision: arguing was done. He would enter the thinny alone. If Dennis chose to stay behind, so be it. They had lost too much time already, and he'd be damned if he let Flagg's lead become any larger. They had been camping about a half mile away from the canyon, to dampen the sound of the thinny. Thomas gathered up everything that was his, and began to walk.
He reached the edge of the canyon, and bracing himself, looked down.
The thinny was a pale silvery pink luminescence, which stretched across the entire width of the canyon. Gathering his courage (and plugging his ears), he began to climb down.
He eventually reached the barrier and stood before it. He then looked back to the top of the canyon to check to see if Dennis had possibly followed him. He saw no sign of him, and turned his attention back to the thinny.
Hesitantly, he put his hand to the barrier, and he felt no resistance; his hand went right through it. He could still feel his hand (though he could not see it), so he decided to go for it, all at once. He jumped in to the thinny.
It was as if the whole world has suddenly become that silvery-pink luminescence. He could see only two things – the dirt on the ground, and some source of light coming from maybe 20 feet in front of him. Figuring there was nothing left to lose, he walked towards the light. After about 10 feet, he began to run towards it.
He reached the light source and his mouth dropped open in shock. He was outside of the thinny, but he was back in the box canyon.
He had a quick look around him and realized that, while it was almost the same box canyon, it wasn't exactly the same. The most obvious indicators were the layers upon layers of dead brush bordering the thinny, where his path inwards had been free of obstacle.
He turned around to look back at the thinny and received his second shock. While the thinny he had entered had been a ghostly pink, on this side of it it was a sickly green. He didn't know why, but he was suddenly filled with the knowledge that there was no going back through this thinny. While some existed that allowed passage both ways between worlds, this one was one way only. He set out to find his way out of the canyon, barely noticing the call of the thinny inside of his head.
At the top of the canyon, he found Flagg's familiar trademark, and it made him smile. The ashes of a campire spread into an unfamiliar ideogram which Thomas could only guess as to it's meaning. He realized with triumph that the ashes appeared to be fresh, no more than 3 days old. Flagg had waited for them.
He stood and cracked his back, taking in his surroundings. It appeared to be Mekrob, but a much more vital version. War had either never found its way to this version of Mekrob, or had been driven back. Thomas figured the first; he had yet to see anything powerful enough to drive away Jason Fathom's machines of war.
He also noticed that, while he had left Mekrob in the morning, it was just past sundown here. It enabled him to see that there was a town not too far away, and it most definitely looked inhabited. The final strains of Hey Jude reached his ears, and he smiled again. They would remember Flagg in town, of that he had no doubt.
With newfound confidence that he might one day yet catch the wizard Flagg and make him pay for killing his mother and father, he set off down the road towards the seaside village of Hambry.