Disclaimer: Since its development in 1983, the animated series Dungeons and Dragons has belonged to the following at some point: Marvel Productions, TSR, Inc., Wizards of the Coast, Saban Entertainment, (according to rumor) Disney, and possibly even others. I guess my point is, it does not (nor has it ever) belonged to me. Oh, well! This story, however, does! I hope you enjoy it!
Rating: PG-13 for some language and violent elements
Summary: Flashing back and looking ahead, shocking revelations, daring decisions, a gateway home, and a vision. This can't end well.
Author's Note: My italics that I had inserted throughout the beginning don't seem to be working the way I wanted. I'll play around with it, but in the meantime, I'll post it for reading at least. Ah, the joys of modern technology! *grumble*
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LEGACY
Chapter 13 -- Something Wicked This Way Comes *
"According to this, it means 'life.'"
The older woman glanced up from what she was doing and fixed a steady eye upon the 12-year-old girl who sat at her kitchen table. She looked on with genuine interest as the child toiled over the papers and books that had been spread out all over its surface. The woman's hands never deviated from their task as she continued to work the tacky dough beneath her fists. She instinctively reached into the miniature basin at her elbow and added a touch more flour to the small mound of dough, continuing to knead it thoroughly. It was amazing how she seemed to know just how much flour to pinch between her fingers without looking, especially since, if she added too much, the mixture wouldn't be sticky enough to make the perfect loaf of bread. But she had been doing this for so many years it was like second nature by now.
That, and her eyes were a bit busy at the moment. They were fixed upon her granddaughter.
The girl was a picture of concentration. Her eyes scanned the papers surrounding her as she jotted something down in the margin of the rapidly-filling notebook leaf. She shifted in her seat, her legs tucking beneath her in the chair, and she raised herself a bit onto her knees to check for something in a large, well-used, hardcover book that sat just out of her immediate range of vision on the table. Her tongue poked unconsciously between her lips while she craned forward to study the words upon the page there, as though her task required the most delicate focus. Her hair had begun to frizz up at the ends which had escaped the blonde, shoulder-length braid that her mother had plaited earlier that morning, and a slight flush had spread through her cheeks from the heat of the oven in the kitchen, nearly hiding the freckles that lightly dotted her porcelain complexion.
Regardless of the heat, she had wanted to stay here in the kitchen to complete her homework since this was where her grandmother would be for most of the early part of the day, putting the finishing touches on the Thanksgiving dinner. After all, the girl saw her grandparents so rarely as it was. She wanted to spend as much time with them as she could before she and her family flew back home the day after tomorrow.
"What, Dear?" the older woman replied, shifting her gaze back to the ball of dough in her hands for a moment as she molded it into its final shape, placed it aside and reached for a second. She then returned her eyes to the blonde child across from her.
"This." The girl pointed at the slightly loose and heavily-marked page in the large book that she had been using. "It says here that my name is Arabic and it means 'life.'"
The woman squinted at the upside-down words on the page to which her granddaughter was pointing. She knew that book very well. Her family had had it for years. The pages were slightly yellowed and the margins inky from the generations of relatives having left their own marks behind. The oversized text contained several thousand names (both common and not-so-common) and, over the years, a good number had been checked off as family members christened their children with them. She knew that the volume bore her own moniker, a name that boasted several tick-marks beside it as it had been passed to many children in their family over the years. Her children, too, had their names marked off in the book. (Though, while her son's name had been checked off numerous times, hers had, surprisingly, been one of the first hands to mark off the name given to her daughter. "Sheila" had not been as widely used as "Anne," or "Bridget," or, her own name, "Shannon" over the generations. But it was a name for which the older woman had always had a special fondness.)
There was one almost blatantly noticeable pattern inside the book's pages, however, among the many names marked there. Nearly all were representative of the family's deeply planted Irish roots. Not completely pedigree, of course, but not entirely outside the realm of similarity either.
With a few obvious exceptions, that is. This child at the table being one of them.
When the woman's granddaughter was born, there seemed almost no hesitation on the part of her parents when it came to the naming of the child. It was a most unusual name and, while very pretty, a somewhat surprising choice. There hadn't been many names quite so exotic in their family. And it certainly hadn't come from the side of Sheila's husband either. From what the woman understood, he had a mixture of Welsh and German in his background. Though she hadn't thought to consult the family tome as to its specific decent, she had immediately noted the Middle Eastern feel to the name given to her new granddaughter.
While the name suited her, over the years, the child certainly hadn't grown into the physical exoticness that it may have implied. Her parents' fair appearances, coming together in her, had resulted in the girl's rather pastel features – her porcelain skin, dotted lightly with the freckles that her mother never seemed to shed, her pale eyes the color of stirred brine, and her father's flax-colored hair. She was a beautiful contradiction.
Now, the girl was pouring over the family's text of names (an action initiated by a school assignment in which she and her class were instructed to research family trees and coats-of-arms over the Thanksgiving holiday. Sheila had spent part of the day before searching for the book. She thought it would be a valuable cross-reference in her young daughter's search for the names with which to map out their family tree.) After a bit of investigating, the youth was finally able to answer the question of her own name's etymology.However, the seed of a new question was soon to be planted in her grandmother's brain. One that would not be answered quite so easily. If ever.
"Does Mom still talk to Ayesha?"The woman looked up again at her granddaughter, her brow furrowing as though she hadn't fully heard the entire question.
"Hm?" She rubbed some of the flour off her hands with the apron around her waist.
"Ayesha." The girl, too, raised her face from the work around her and her enormous blue-green eyes conveyed the innocent honesty in her question. "Do Mom and Dad still keep in touch with her?"
Again, the woman thought she hadn't heard right. Crazy queries as to why her granddaughter might be speaking about herself in the third-person came to mind, and she wondered if she hadn't been so preoccupied with watching the girl work that she had missed some relevant part of the conversation. Perhaps it was part of a joke which had been told earlier that she had missed. That was certainly nothing new. Her son Robert always teased that she 'couldn't catch a punchline with both hands and a head start.' In fact, her family's constant need to explain jokes to her was kind of a running gag and she accepted it -- perhaps even played up to it at times. But this one had her puzzled, a fact that must have obviously shown on her face because the youth before her developed a look of concern.
"Gram?"
"I'm sorry, Ayesha, honey," she said. "Are you talking about something you did?"
The girl grinned again. Her grandmother hadn't heard her right after all. "No. I'm talking about Mom and Dad's friend 'Ayesha,'" she clarified amiably. "The one they named me for."
The grandmother almost seemed to freeze, an even greater look of confusion on her face. Her eyes were locked in a puzzled stare that didn't seem to focus on anything, as though she was struggling to remember something she had forgotten. Something that must have been very important, even obvious . . . but something she honestly couldn't recall ever knowing in the first place.
The girl at the kitchen table must not have noticed because she turned back down to her work and continued on as though it was the most natural thing in the world. "I asked Mom and Dad about my name for my project and they said that I was named for this friend of theirs when they were young. I think they said her last name was 'Rahmoud' or 'Raymond' or something like that." She trailed off for a moment as she wrote something down in the tablet again, then continued with a slight shrug. "Anyway, Mom said that she was like a sister to her and Daddy. And Uncle Bobby knew her, too. But I don't know if they hear from each other anymore."
The woman sank down into the seat opposite her granddaughter, the second mass of bread dough set aside, un-kneaded. She wracked her brain to think of the girl that Ayesha was describing, but the only person she knew of who had been like a sister to both Sheila and Hank in their youth was Diana Beckett, and that was obviously not the same girl. It seemed very wrong that she had either forgotten this person with whom the children in her life seemed to have shared such a bond (Lord, she couldn't possibly be getting that old!), or worse, that she had never met the girl in the first place. She unconsciously raised a dough-covered hand to her mouth and began to contemplatively nibble on one of her nails, her face a mask of bewilderment.
Ayesha's voice finally broke her out of her reverie. "Gram?"
The woman, Mrs. Shannon O'Brien, sighed and allowed her hand to drop to the table as she raised her eyes to once again look at her granddaughter. "I'm sorry, Sweetie," she muttered, shaking her head in a helpless gesture but still straining to think, as though the mystery namesake would come to her if she tried hard enough; mulling over the question that would inevitably plague her for years. "I'm sorry, . . . but I don't have any idea who that is."
* * *
Ayesha Tennyson sat in the lower city of the ruined Tardos Keep, her forearms resting on her drawn-in knees and her hands making slow, lazy circles around each other. In her loose grip, twirling unhurriedly with the motion of her hands, was the gilded hilt of her given weapon. She hadn't thought about that conversation with her grandmother in years. In fact, in the whirlwind bustle which always seemed to accompany visits to her mother's family home, she had honestly hardly thought of it at all. Ever. But now, in the dead calm of this haunted place, where the silence of anxious waiting seemed to close in from all sides like dark water, it had strangely come to mind again.
She remembered something that her Uncle Bobby had told them when they arrived in the Realm . . . . (Oh, God, had it just been two days ago?) "We all had a hard time when we returned home," he had said. "We couldn't tell anyone because we knew they wouldn't believe us. All we had was each other. You'll have it a lot better off than that."
The Paladin now knew that there were a great deal of things that her parents hadn't told her about their past. Things that, now that she thought about it, they probably hadn't told their own families either. Ayesha wondered if one of those "things" was the reason her Gram hadn't known about the girl who Hank and Sheila claimed was "practically their sister." She wasn't sure. After everything that had happened, she didn't know if she was sure of anything anymore.
But one thing was true – what Bobby had said about them having their own families to turn to. And as soon as this ordeal was over, when they got home, she decided that she would ask about her namesake again . . . .
"What are you thinking about?"
Ayesha raised her head from her seated position to see Varla approaching. The younger girl had apparently just come from where she had been sitting with her father in the square and Ayesha flashed a bright smile as the Mystic pressed her back against the cracked wall and slid down to join her, pulling her knees in.
"Just about everything that's happened," the Paladin answered with a shrug. "I still feel like I'm dreaming."
"For some parts of it, I wished I was," Varla replied as she hugged her knees tighter. Ayesha noticed, not for the first time since meeting the other girl, that this position seemed to be a source of comfort for her. The Mystic assumed it often.
"We were all really worried about you," Ayesha said, bringing her legs down and out in front of her and holding the sword hilt in her lap with both hands. "How did you get out of that cave? And how did you find our families?"
"They found me," the Mystic admitted. "And as for the cave, . . . well, . . . I guess I blew my way out."
"Wow." Ayesha grinned broadly. "I knew you'd get the hang of that wand!" she said in a congratulatory voice, giving her new friend a slight nudge with her shoulder.
Varla grimaced. "You probably won't be saying that if you ever have to see it in action again," she muttered. "I don't do well with moving things. Just ask Presto if he enjoyed being a human yo-yo."
The Paladin chuckled lightly, but was cut off by another voice. "Tell me you're kidding!" John stood beside a pile of crumbled marble, shoulders slumped and mouth sagging open. Next to him was Toby, looking as confused as Ayesha felt at the boy's outburst.
"What do you mean 'in action again'?" the Squire clarified as he marched around the marble and dropped heavily into a seated position across from the two girls. "You don't really think we have to fight more, do you?"
"How are we supposed to know?" Toby retorted irritably, standing over the boy for a moment before shaking his head and taking a seat, too. "We didn't exactly get the official word, did we?"
"Right," Ayesha agreed. "Dungeon Master disappeared before telling us much, so it looks like the only thing we can do right now is wait."
"But we did what he said!" John insisted. "He said we had to beat the new threat to the Realm and we did. You know --" He held up his hands in a karate-like stance. "-- Came, saw, and conquered and all that stuff. Don't we win a ticket home, now?"
"Uh, news flash, Johnny Boy," Toby drawled, "This isn't a hockey game. When you win, the other guy's not gonna meet you mid-rink and shake your hand on a job well done! He's probably going to take one more shot at blasting your face off!"
"You paint a pretty picture," John grumbled with a look of disgust. "But tell me, Mr. Purple-Man, just how is Mordreth going to come back if we blew him up, huh?"
Ayesha shrugged as she attempted to answer that one. "My mom said that Venger always came back, even when stuff like that happened to him. I guess it could happen with these three, too. Uncle Bobby already said he saw Kadysse again . . . you know . . . after."
Toby turned his head to the Paladin, his dark-bronze eyes large in his face as he looked at her. "After what? What happened with Kadysse?"
Ayesha looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable as she shifted in her seat, her face pensive. She had known that this topic would inevitably come up once she reunited with her new friends, but hadn't realized just how little she wanted to discuss it until now.
The memories of how she had faced the Mistress of War, but mostly what the evil woman had done to her Uncle Bobby, came flooding back. In her head, she could still hear his strained voice as he cried out for her to escape. In her mind's eye, she could still see him hanging limply from his chains, see the waxen color of his face as he lay upon the cold stone of the Citadel of War, see her father's stricken eyes as he tried to voice the thing that he couldn't bring himself to say.
That her uncle was dead.
If it hadn't been for Teri . . . .
Ayesha shook her head to clear it. She had told Varla that this all felt like a dream, but the truth was, since her standoff with Kadysse, it had seemed too frighteningly real. The thought scared her . . . .
Scared her because if Bobby had come that close to dying, what would happen if this was not over yet? What if the worst was still to come? She didn't want to think about who else could get hurt, or how helpless she would feel if that happened.
Eventually, when she couldn't stall anymore, Ayesha opened her mouth to answer. She was quite relieved when Varla, who apparently hadn't registered Toby's question, cut in with her own.
"You blew Mordreth up?" she asked the two boys, astonished.
"Er, sort of," Toby replied, dragging his attention back away from Ayesha and tilting his hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. "I guess we don't really know for sure. He vanished in a big, bright flash, though."
"It was awesome!" John suddenly came alive in his description as though the Fighter's explanation was a blasphemous downplaying of the whole event. "My sword, – you know, the one that I'm carrying around in my belt – well, it appeared! And my dad used it to kick Bonehead's butt, and then his aunt finished him off . . . !" he ranted at practically a mile a minute, shooting his thumb in Toby's direction as he mentioned Diana, and randomly tossing in other details of the adventure (in no particular order) – mentioning the staged "fight" to trick their Orc captor, the falling ceiling (a story which had surprised Toby as well), and their ultimate escape using the Fighter's whip.
Toby began to smile broadly. He hardly seemed immune to the Squire's feverish excitement. "Yeah," he added with a playful shove to the boy beside him, "All this and you attempted a full-frontal lobotomy with your medallion, right, John?"
"I think some explaining's in order for that one!" Ayesha announced, undeniably relieved that the topic had shifted from her to someone who actually wanted to relay their adventure. For a moment, the group finally began to feel like the children they were as they gossiped at length about their exploits.
"I didn't get to see much of what happened," Varla lamented disappointedly as she summed up her own tale. "Presto didn't take care of Bane until after I got knocked out." She shot an accusatory glare at the delicate wand in her hand. "If I'd been able to get this thing to work right . . . !"
"Don't worry," Ayesha assured her. "Dungeon Master said all it took was practice."
The Squire scoffed rather indiscreetly. "Maybe you should have started by reading the owner's manual!" he jibed. "It can't be any tougher than, say, playing a video game! Just point and shoot!"
Varla cast the boy a sidelong look. "How many video games have you played that involved severe bodily harm if you don't press the right buttons?" She narrowed her eyes at him.
John smirked. "I don't know, Varla," he replied. "Wayne Gretzky may beg to differ with you there! I have this one pro-hockey game at home where you can make his head bleed if you press—"
"Jo-ohn!" his friends droned. But it was lightheartedly.
Ayesha smiled; a genuine smile. Forgetting, for the moment, all the hardship that they had been through, all the danger they had experienced. Because now, they were just a group of children; just a newly-formed group of unlikely friends, joined by a similar past and connected by a strange legacy.
A legacy that would begin to come to fruition . . . as soon as the Dungeon Master returned.
* * *
As Hank had suggested, the Young Ones gathered in the center of the courtyard one hour later. It had been a long time since they had last seen Venger or Uni. Their minds were filled with questions, but unfortunately the only thing they could do for the moment was wait.
Eric gave an exasperated sigh. "This is stupid," he muttered, unable to resist the nagging urge to complain. "How much longer do we have to sit here?"
"C'mon, Eric," Presto tried to look on the bright side, "How many times did the old Dungeon Master keep us waiting?"
Eric grumbled something under his breath before piping up again. "Look, all I'm saying is a little info might be nice. Am I right?" He turned to the person beside him for confirmation.
"And you shall have it, Cavalier," a voice boomed from the individual standing there.
"Yahhh!" Eric recoiled from the seven-foot-tall form that was suddenly beside him. Venger strode past the Cavalier with an amused smile. Uni followed with the same type of look. "Why do DMs always have to do that?" Eric muttered at Venger's back.
"Must be a Dungeon Master tradition," Diana teased. "The many ways to startle Eric the Cavalier!"
"Yeah, yeah! Well, I can buy into a three-foot munchkin popping out of thin air without being noticed by my keen senses, but Gargantua himself? That's just sad!" He lowered his voice as he looked at the Acrobat. "And I think the unicorn enjoyed that a little too much!" Diana laughed as she turned away. Eric shook his head and filed in with the others as they gathered around Venger. John looked up at his father as Eric came to stand beside him.
"No doubt, my Young Ones, you have many questions," Venger began quickly. "I hope that this serves to answer them." He extended his hands and his amulet began to take on a bright red glow. Soon, his palms glowed with the same aura until a hazy oval of light appeared before them. The elliptical sphere grew in size as numerous cloudy eddies of magic swirled within it.
Eric scrutinized the luminary vision that had materialized in their midst. "Wouldn't you know it," he jibed, "Fifty-seven channels and nothing on!"
"Er-ric!" Presto droned as Toby did his best to hold back a chuckle.
No sooner had Presto gotten the word out of his mouth, when the sphere exploded in a burst of light. The Young Ones averted their eyes as the flash filled the room. The intense blaze subsided quickly, lessening into a steady glow and leaving behind a shimmering portal. When the Young Ones were finally able to look, they saw on the other side--
"The amusement park!" Sheila breathed as she gripped Ayesha's shoulders and pulled her closer.
"Whoa, Venge!" Eric said, barely above a whisper himself, "Don't touch that dial!"
The group of Young Ones stared in disbelief for a moment before a communal smile washed over the faces of all of them. Venger stepped to the side, making a gesture toward the portal, an encouraging smile across his lips as well.
"What does this mean?" Hank asked.
"W-we can go?" Diana added joyously as she looked from the gateway to her nephew.
"My Young Ones, you have done what was needed of you," Venger announced with a dramatic air, "And the time has come for your repayment." Uni strode to his side and he gently stroked her mane. "You may go home," he said with finality.
The group seemed to take a collective step forward before hesitating slightly. This wasn't exactly an answer to their questions. This was just . . . an end.
"Um, Venger?" Eric asked. He stepped across to the other side of the circle in which the Young Ones had gathered so that he might face the Dungeon Master, pulling John with him and positioning the boy near the mouth of the portal. Just in case, he thought. "Listen," he said, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or anything. But I think I speak for everybody here when I ask . . . ." He made a wide-armed gesture. ". . . That's it?"
Venger nodded once. "My friends, you were brought here to stop the new evil force that had been sent to decimate the Realm. Now that that force is gone, you are no longer needed. You may go with my thanks." He gave a respectful bow in the Young Ones' direction and stepped away from the portal to allow them full access.
"What do you mean they're gone?" Diana questioned.
"Yeah," Presto added, "Three times more powerful than you, I figured we'd be here three times as long!"
"What's the deal?" interjected Bobby with an incredulous look. "No morals? No words of wisdom?" The Barbarian paused for a moment as he instinctively gripped his club, then met Venger's eyes. They were cold. No, tense. Perhaps even . . . afraid? "No speeches about how we need to leave our weapons here?"
Teri stared from Bobby's profile to Venger's emotionless face. He was sending them back. But he wasn't happy to see them go. Something was very wrong.
"With all due respect, Venger," Sheila smoothed over the barrage of questions and statements of disbelief. "You just seem to be ushering us out of here pretty quickly."
Eric stepped forward and gripped her elbow. "Sheila! Come on!" he whispered to the Thief. "We did what he wanted and we got what we came for!" The Cavalier made a gesture toward Ayesha who was standing beside her mother. "Don't look a gift unicorn in the mouth!" He brought his eyes up to meet the elegant creature at Venger's side. "Later, Uni," he said as he tipped his chin upward at her and drew his son closer to the gateway home.
"Wait!" Hank's voice stopped Eric dead in his tracks. "Venger, what's going on? What are you not telling us?"
Venger's eyes traveled over the group assembled before him. His face remained stoical, but his eyes conveyed an urgency that the Young Ones couldn't ignore. They continued to stand, steadfastly awaiting the answers he had promised them. Finally, Venger breathed heavily and said, "I have told you the truth, my friends. Kadysse, Mordreth, and Bane have left the Realm." He paused, as though reluctant to continue. "But," he finally said, "They will return. And you must not be here when they do."
"Why?" Ayesha asked hesitantly, a nervous knot in the pit of her stomach as she did.
Venger turned his eyes down to the young Paladin and the girl felt the need to recoil a step from the severe look she saw in them. They were a bright and violent red, like pulsing blood. Ayesha held her breath. "Because, my child," Venger answered, more gently than his harsh appearance would have implied, "When they come back, they will not be alone."
Ayesha didn't know what he meant by that, but the feeling of her mother's nails digging sharply into her shoulders, even through the chain mail bodysuit that she wore, was enough to chill her to the bone. She felt Sheila shudder against her back as the woman attempted to find her voice. "A-are you saying . . . ?"
"Yes, Thief," Venger affirmed gravely, meeting her eyes next. "When they return, He will return with them. And you must be gone!"
"Venger, we can't just--" Hank began.
"NO!" Venger almost seemed to roar in a voice nearly reminiscent of the dark creature he had once been. His eyes flashed as he turned them ruthlessly upon the Ranger. "I brought you here to restore balance to the Realm -- as is my duty. Now that the evil triad is gone, you - must - leave!"
"But," Diana attempted to pick up after Hank had been struck silent, "If the evil is coming back, won't you need . . . ?"
Instead of casting a heated glare at her, as he had at Hank, Venger turned his scathing eyes inwardly upon himself as he squeezed them shut. He tangled his fingers into Uni's mane and clutched desperately. If he was hurting her, the unicorn bore it with no indication. Finally, the new Dungeon Master spoke again. "I am a fool," he muttered. "Forgive me."
"What do you mean?" Presto asked.
The voice that answered him was not Venger's, but Varla's. "He believes that he's doomed us," she said as though in a trance.
Venger opened his eyes to the glow of the Mystic's wand and mentally berated himself for not keeping his thoughts in check; away from the girl. He had been right. Her powers had grown stronger; even during her short time in the Realm, quite possibly without her even realizing it. However, even a great psionicist would not have needed to probe his mind to find his despair, as he had succumbed to wearing it plainly by now. He once again regarded his Young Ones before speaking.
"The role of the Dungeon Master is strictly defined," he began. "We are keepers of great power, keepers of knowledge, and, most importantly, keepers of balance. There is a universal equilibrium. It exists in every world found throughout the cosmos."
Eric stood by the portal, listening soberly. "Everything touches everything else," he muttered. John glanced cautiously up at him. His father sounded as though he was quoting someone, but the boy thought it best not to ask at this moment.
"Not only is the maintaining of this balance vital in nature," Venger continued, "But the scales of good and evil must always remain equal as well. This is why you were brought here the first time, my friends. Too much evil existed in the Realm. An equivalent amount of pure good was necessary to counter it."
"So if the three that you brought us here to stop are coming back," Diana said, "With reinforcements besides, won't you need all the good guys on your side that you can get?"
"Acrobat, this is where I have failed," Venger responded ruefully. "I truly believed that the Nameless One would merely send His puppets to subjugate the Realm, as He once used me to do. However, I have learned . . . ." He paused as though not wanting to continue. "I have learned that His plan is to take His revenge . . . upon you. Your return to the Realm was what He had hoped for all along -- and I was a fool for not seeing it."
A collective gasp rose up from the assembled Young Ones.
"Which, as you can see, is why I must send you home," Venger concluded. "When He fails to detect your presence, perhaps He will leave as He did before."
"I wouldn't bet the farm," Eric muttered.
"Still, it is your only chance," Venger returned. "Take advantage of it, my children. There is no telling how long we have."
"What will happen to you?" Sheila asked Venger. "To the Realm?"
"Perhaps nothing," the Dungeon Master replied with an encouraging smile. A smile that didn't fool anyone. "My friends, the time has come. The time for you to truly return to your home world. Please go . . . with my eternal gratitude for all you have done here." As Venger spoke, the portal to the amusement park grew bigger and brighter. Simply walking through it would finally bring their time in the Realm to an end. The group of eleven outworlders took a joint step closer to freedom.
"No," Hank said as he suddenly stopped. "No, I'm not going anywhere. Not this time."
Sheila spun around to face him, eyes wide with worry.
"Don't you see?" Hank said to all of them, but specifically turned to face his wife. "If this thing is even half as bad as we all remember, then we won't be safe anywhere." He shifted his gaze to Venger. "What if He doesn't leave?" Hank asked. "Or what if you can't stop Him? What's to prevent Him from crossing over into our world next?"
Bobby's heart pounded wildly as he listened to the Ranger's words. "Is that why you didn't tell us to leave our weapons here?" he asked Venger. "Did you think we would need them?"
Hank shook his head and gave voice to the fact that the majority of his friends already knew. "Even if we brought our weapons home, we couldn't use them there."
"They would, however, be out of the Nameless One's grasp for the time being, Ranger," Venger told him.
"Why would He need them?" Presto asked. "If He's capable of destroying entire worlds, he probably wouldn't need to use them. I certainly don't think Tiamat would be much of a threat to Him. If she's even still around, that is."
"The Dragon Queen lives, Magician," Venger informed him. "But gaining dominion over the Realm is different now than it was over two centuries ago. A balance existed then that I sought to decimate. My struggle with Tiamat was never about good and evil, but about power and control. Your weapons would have tipped the scales in my favor. Now, however, your power, channeled through your weapons, was the one thing that, when combined, could have prevented the crusade of the Nameless One's new servants. If His minions had succeeded in procuring them from you, their victory would have been sealed."
"Then why send us hom—?" Hank began again.
"It is too risky, my friends," Venger interrupted. "While the power on our side is great, it is vital that the balance be tipped in our favor. Our power must be greater if we are to prevail! However, now that the Nameless One, Himself, is coming, the game has changed. Never having faced Him in battle, there is no way of knowing how much energy we would require to defeat Him . . . or if what we have now is even enough." Venger's voice once again became sternly insistent. "Better that you seek sanctuary in your own world."
"And wait for old No-Name to find us? Or our children? Or our children's children? No way!" Hank returned darkly. "I refuse to leave that kind of legacy to my family!" The Ranger brought his bow up and looked at it as he clenched it tightly. "Better to face Him in the Realm," he said, "Where we have a fighting chance, than to sit around on Earth, waiting for Him to lay waste to that, too." He looked down into his daughter's face and cupped it gently in his hand. Diana had been right. As a result of leaving the Realm the first time, Hank had a life on Earth that was worth fighting for. And he would do so now -- to the last. He raised his eyes again to his wife. "I need to stay," he told her, his tone resolute and final. "But you--"
Sheila Tennyson shook her head determinedly as she reached forward and entwined her fingers around Hank's. She then stepped closer to the Ranger and looked out on the rest of her friends and their children, echoing her husband's sentiment like thunder without saying a word. Ayesha likewise stepped to her father's side, placing her hand on the hilt of the sword at her belt.
An eerie silence hung in the air of the ghost-like Tardos Keep as the Young Ones digested their friends' decision to stay behind. The portal remained open and waiting; an invitation to those whose choice would be the opposite. Suddenly, a voice broke the stillness.
"Dungeon Master?"
It was the first time any of them had used a name other than "Venger" to directly address their new guide. The name was formed as a question, a plea. It was quiet, it was respectful, but the strange thing about it was . . . it was Eric.
The Cavalier's face was solemn and earnest as he stared at the creature who he had once reviled and feared; an individual who now had the means of doing the one thing that Eric needed, his only reason for returning to this world. "Please," he said soberly, "Please, just send our children home."
The answer, however, didn't come from the Dungeon Master, but from John. "No," the boy uttered, "I don't want to go home."
Eric stood stunned for a moment, disbelieving that these words actually came from a son of his. He quickly recovered and found an assertive paternal voice. "John . . . ."
"No, Dad," the youth returned as tears filled his eyes, "I wanna stay here! I wanna stay with you! I--I'm your squire, remember? Please, . . . I wanna stay!"
Sheila felt a tender smile grow on her face at the boy's words. Eric reached out and drew his son in, holding on with all his might. "I love you, Dad," John sobbed into his father's chest.
Eric then reached forward with his free arm and clasped Hank's hand, his face set as firmly as steel. "We're staying, too," he said.
Ayesha glanced sideways at the boy who came to stand beside her, a boy who held his head proudly as he waited between her and his father, too proud to wipe the tears that stained his face. There was a rather strange set of contradictions in the child. One minute, he could be as sarcastic and arrogant as humanly possible, while the next, he was openly vulnerable. She remembered his earlier words, declarations uttered just a short time ago that all he wanted was to be sent home. A smile that matched her mother's ghosted across Ayesha's lips at his sudden change of heart – and the bravery needed to do it. It was unknown to the Paladin, but not to the adults around her, just how much like his father the boy really was.
Diana took a step toward her friends, but paused, turning a tearful eye toward her nephew. "Toby?" she asked.
The Fighter marched up to stand beside her. "Not a chance, Aunt Di," he asserted. "There's no way I'm leaving."
Diana sighed deeply before trying again. "Toby, what about your parents?" she insisted as she gripped his shoulders tightly and looked him dead in the eye. "They love you more than anything and if something were to happen -- they -- they'll never know."
Toby cracked a smile. "When I was little," he said, "You used to tell me stories about six brave adventurers stuck in a strange world. The only thing they wanted, more than anything, was to go home. I also remember a lot of those stories ending with them deciding to stay for one reason or another -- usually to help someone or to help each other. Since arriving here, I've learned that those stories are true. I've even found out more about you from Bobby." Toby took the Acrobat's hands and squeezed them reassuringly. "I guess what I'm trying to say, Aunt Di, is that from what I know about you from your time here years ago, you wouldn't have gone either. And I'm with you all the way!"
Diana leaned forward and kissed her nephew on the cheek, smiling proudly as the two took their places beside Eric and John. She gave the Cavalier a warm look, which he returned. He reached over discreetly and took her hand.
"Presto," Hank said as the Magician took a step forward as well, "If anybody should go back, it should be you."
"He's right, Presto," Diana affirmed. "You're hurt."
"Not only that," the Ranger continued, "But you have a new baby on the way. Not a single one of us here would ever fault you for deciding to go home to it -- and to your wife."
Presto straightened and squared his shoulders, an action that took no small amount of effort given his injuries. "Can I say something, now?" the Magician asked. "You guys are right. There're a lot of important things waiting for me back home. But for a long time, I never would have dreamed that I could have them. Who knows, if things had been different I might have still ended up the single, scrawny geek sitting behind a microscope in some isolated back lab. It was you guys that proved to me that I had worth and it was this Realm that brought us together as true friends. I love my life back home," he said as he placed an arm around Varla, "And I'll be damned if I ever abandon the people or the place that helped me to have it. I'm with you to the end, Hank. For better or worse."
The Ranger gripped his old friend's hand tightly as Presto drew closer to them. Varla quickly reached up and placed her own hand on top of her father's. "That goes double for me," the young Mystic announced. "I wouldn't be happy at all if it wasn't for you. I'm staying, too."
Presto smiled brightly down at his daughter. "Besides," he added, "I told you that Maggie understood about the Realm. I know that she's right here with me." He placed his hand over his heart. "And she's gonna make sure I come back!"
Bobby turned to face Teri, clutching her hand tightly as though it were the last time. "Teri . . . ," he began, but was silenced as the Dreamer placed a finger to his mouth.
"Not this time, Bobby the Barbarian," she whispered. "This time, where you go, I go." She silenced any argument by placing a gentle kiss on his lips, then stepped away from him to stand by the others. Bobby sighed deeply before joining her there.
"Well, Dungeon Master," the Barbarian announced reverently as the entire group assembled with their backs to the portal home, "You've got your army. Now what?"
Venger looked sorrowfully but proudly at his Young Ones. He hesitated briefly before making a swift motion with his glowing hand, sealing the gateway behind them. The fact that not a single one of them glanced back to look at it as it closed was not lost on the mage.
"He Who Can Not Be Named is biding His time," he said solemnly. "There is no telling when He will arrive, so we must be ready. Take the opportunity to rest while you can . . . my pupils."
* * *
The blue sphere glowed with a dull light. It seemed brighter than it actually was in the otherwise darkened chamber. Its luminescence cast a half-shadowed gleam on the stern face of the towering man who stood before it. The man gazed at the sphere -- or, rather, into it; a deadened look in his deep, garnet eyes.
He had left the Young Ones in the main square of the Keep, and Uni with them, so he could come here alone. The last time he had left them it had been without explanation and he hadn't wanted to do that again, especially after the courage and loyalty they had displayed just a few hours before. But at the moment, they were asleep. So he left – to do something that he had never done before. Not in his two hundred years as Dungeon Master of the Realm.
He passed his thin fingers over the illuminated surface of the floating orb before him. The azure light within pulsed as though it were alive, casting a glow upon his face that, strangely, looked almost like the pale shade that used to pigment his complexion. He frowned as he looked into the swirling blue depths.
And after a few seconds, he spoke.
"Perhaps I can not be heard from this place," he said quietly into the darkness surrounding him, though his voice still echoed through the dead stillness. He spoke as if directly to the sphere before him. "I had imagined that it could be possible. However, now I am not as certain. The distance could be too great but, . . . perhaps I simply need to . . . believe it possible."
The imposing mage breathed deeply and raised his head, his eyes cast down the length of his sharp nose into the orb. "I hold no illusion that I will receive any response, but I needed to come, to tell you what is happening." He closed his eyes and released his breath. "And pray that you can somehow hear me."
One hand raised to the glowing red amulet that adorned his cloak and clasped it tightly. He opened his eyes and spoke slowly and deliberately into the orb. "I did not predict this outcome, and yet I feel as though I should have. — That you would have. Our young friends are in grave danger and I cannot help but think it is a peril that could have been prevented." Regardless of the azure glow that shone there, a darkness seemed to pass over his face like a wraith, as if it had come from within. "The Shadow comes," he whispered, his eyes fixed in a grim stare. "I have been given little choice and I fear that time has run out. There is nothing more I can do now but aid our chosen warriors. I had only wished . . . ."
He trailed off and released his grip from the glowing pendant upon his chest. It pulsed with the same, yet alternating, rhythm as that of the orb before him and the lights that both cast upon his face blended with the inner darkness of his despair in a cadenced dance: blue and red, day and dark, life and death. These things warred upon his features in the stillness of the shadowy room. He knew that both were coming; the battle between light and dark. They would meet and clash – and only one would remain standing.
Which one, remained to be seen.
But before that battle had even begun, he felt defeated; unexplainably lost. He felt that his reason for coming to this place had been a futile one. There was nothing more that could be done. He knew that. But still . . . he had hoped. Hoped that the one to whom he spoke was not so unforeseeably beyond his reach.
He began to pass his hand over the surface of the sphere, to erase its glow and eliminate its pulsation, but stopped, his hand a breath away from doing so. He looked strangely at it, as though drawn into its depths, and finally spoke again. Quietly.
"If you were able to hear me, I would tell you that you are needed," he said solemnly. "The threat is near and the danger is great. It may prove greater than you had guessed. Greater than me, I fear. Greater than us all, perhaps." His hand hovered a hair's breadth from the surface of the floating object and he closed his eyes.
"Your Young Ones need you. And --" He paused. "-- and your first pupil, . . . he needs you as well."
With that, he finally passed his hand over the surface of the orb, and the glowing died.
* * *
Before the dawn even broke, the sky unleashed its fury.
The attack had come quickly and without warning. The sudden blanket of gagging smoke made it nearly impossible to see what had even happened. Teri stumbled her way through her smoldering surroundings calling out to her friends. The occasional shout back would reach her ears, but she could catch no glimpse of anyone or anything through the dark cloud that surrounded her like a cocoon.
Coughing, she continued to take shaky step after step forward, driven by the instinctual thought that she would find answers if she just fought onward. Her hands groped wildly through the darkness, fingers extended like radar searching for contact. She felt the noxious fumes burn her throat and nostrils as she drew several heaving breaths, mustering the air she would need to cry out.
"Bobby!?"
No reply. She managed to make out Hank's voice shouting out an order and Diana calling for her friends to take cover, but no answer to her own cry. She forced another ragged gasp into her lungs, ignoring the burning stench, and tried again. "Bobby, where are you?"
She looked up and managed to make out the blurry outline of light beyond a door, which remained obscure through a curtain of smoke and churning dust. The smog hung like a translucent barrier in front of the opening that she knew must lead outside. Forcing her legs to stagger straight ahead, Teri stumbled through the smokescreen and pitched forward onto the ground. As she struggled to lift herself, she found herself beyond the walls of Tardos Keep. Her ears caught the sound of malevolent mocking laughter joined by what sounded like a cross between a screeching burst of electric energy and a snarling beast. Her prone form quivered as she lifted her face from the dust.
In front of her was a sea of destruction. What had once been Tardos Valley was blasted away, leaving only a vast expanse of charred nothingness. Teri's eyes darted everywhere, filled with indescribable terror, and eventually settled on a still form materializing out of the swirling smoke.
Her shoulders rose and fell quickly with every petrified, shallow breath as she squinted to make out the details of the figure. As the smoke began to clear, Teri was able to see that it was a person, a man, lying a distance off, directly parallel from her. She saw that he wasn't moving. She saw the wind rustle through his shock of sandy blonde hair as it mingled with the dust. She saw a large wooden club lying uselessly beside the man's still hand.
Teri's heart felt as though it would burst through her chest as it hammered inexorably and mercilessly against her ribcage. Just when she thought she had seen incorrectly, a renewed cloud of smoke billowed into her line of vision, hiding the motionless figure from her sight. And yet, she knew. Knew without seeing clearly or completely. Knew, as immediately as she had ever known anything in her life, what she had seen.
She had seen death.
Teri the Dreamer screamed; and her cries of anguish merged with the relentless sound of Kadysse's laughter.
Everything blurred into a haze, blackness swallowed her in its embrace and, again, she immediately knew, with biting horror, that she was dreaming. That realization may have been comforting for some. A relief. But not for her.
Never for her.
The dream pressed against her like icy black water. She felt as though she was drowning, her own screams filling her ears as razor-cold liquid might stream effortlessly into her lungs. She fought and struggled through the all-encompassing darkness, clawing to the surface of consciousness like a drowning woman fighting to live. Waking up was like swimming toward a small and impossibly far off point of light high above the deep tar-colored water that held her down. And when her head finally broke the surface of sleep, the rest of her body abruptly followed.
Teri flew awake in a wild panic and cast her eyes about the dim room desperately. Finding her bearings, and her breath, she looked at all of her friends, who seemed to still be sleeping around her. Finally, her eyes settled on Bobby and she began to tremble uncontrollably. She cast a glance out of a window high above and caught sight of an angry, velvet roll of thunderclouds ominously filling the sky. Teri then brought herself to look at Bobby again, reaching forward with a quivering hand to touch his sleeping face.
Though he had, since they found him, worn an appearance of grit and bravery, now, in sleep, she could see how tired he truly must have been. His lids were darkened and the entire area around his eyes shadowy. There was a waxen kind of opalescent gloss lining the creases of his forehead and eye-area and his face twitched slightly in slumber. Although asleep, he didn't look completely restful, as though still ready to spring into action if the need arose. His club was a very close proximity to his right hand.
Teri's trembling fingers hovered a breath above his face for a timeless time. Her head still spun, flashing images from her dream mercilessly through her now-conscious mind. She gazed upon the young man who had, years ago, become her world, reminded forcefully of how much she loved and needed him. How bereft she would be if she lost him. Mixed with the remnants of the dreams, those feelings felt like a hard ache in the depths of her soul; a ruthless pain inside herself.
"No," she panted in a whisper as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "Please, no."
* * *
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To be continued…
Author's Notes:
Quotes and Random References –
(From Chapter 12, for those who hadn't spotted them)
Eric's "The bad guys showed up" line was adapted from Buffy. ("Come on, we fight monsters, this is what we do. They show up, they scare us, I beat them up, and they go away.")
"And on that day, Lister, Satan will be skating to work." ~ Red Dwarf (Modified slightly to be more Hank-like!)
(And Chapter 13…)
John's description of his hockey video game was a reference to the movie Swingers. ("I'm gonna make Wayne Gretzky's head bleed for SuperFan #99 over here.")
"Fifty-seven channels and nothing on." ~ Bruce Springsteen
Parts of Venger's scene with the "blue orb" were taken directly from one of my former stories. (It's not plagiarism if you steal from yourself, is it? *G*)
* And, of course, the chapter title was taken from William Shakespeare's Macbeth (4.1). (Had to get something in there from The Bard!)
If you notice any that I've missed, let me know. Sometimes I don't realize where certain quotes come from! They just kinda pop in there.
Next Chapter: Teri broods over her dream and plans to do something about it; Presto conjures something very interesting; Toby has a weak constitution; Venger is off gallivanting; the evil creatures return, and they're not happy campers; and, if that wasn't bad enough, another new threat shows up. So how come the Young Ones aren't fighting it?
Things are going to get a bit darker from here on, so be ready. (And bring a tissue if you feel so inclined! The next installment will be a rough ride!)