The sword. He retrieved it and stepped into the glowing portal. There was a brilliant flash of light, a surge of electricity like lightning, and then they both disappeared, the portal along with them.
Darkness, lit only by the headlights, fell back over our group. Silence also fell. So deep and so profound that I could hear the chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs at a nearby pond. The sounds of a typical Texas night, belying the fact that everything occurring here was as far from typical as possible.
We all sort of stood there, enemies spilling each other’s blood minutes ago, now shuffling our feet and eyeing our neighbors, wondering what was going on and what to do next. Go back to fighting? Retreat to opposite sides of the field? Scatter? Disperse? Go home? Wait for Carter? How long would this take?
Not long, as it turned out. As if in answer to everybody’s questions, we heard a rushing sound, like a strong wind. The runes on the Stones lit brilliantly, the portal reappeared, and there came the Talos, stepping through, Sean with him. My eyes rounded to see it, even though I’d seen it, lived it myself. It was still just as spectacular, just as mind-boggling.
This time, Carter and Sean weren’t alone. Following them through the portal were two more people, a man and a woman. The light from the portal faded once they’d cleared it, but the portal didn’t disappear. Carter shifted back into his human form. Sean looked a little pale and wobbly. His shirt was still covered with blood, but his guts weren’t spilling out anymore. He took a few staggering steps to the side and the people who’d helped bring him to Carter sprang to his support, easing him away from the Stones and to a seat on the grass several yards away.
Carter looked at me. Beneath his olive complexion, he was pale and drained. He lifted his arm in invitation and I came to him, sliding beneath his arm, resting my head against his chest, grateful he was alive and well so far. He clutched me close for a moment, unembarrassed, even bending to kiss the top of my head before straightening, looking around, making sure he had everyone’s attention.
“I met these two in the other world,” he said. “They were waiting for me. You need to hear what they have to say.”
He gestured, and the man and woman stepped forward. I didn’t know the woman, but the man was the same winged being that I’d met in the other realm who had given me food and helped save Carter’s life. The one I was certain was an angel, but Carter disagreed.
Neither he nor his female companion looked very angelic now, aside from the wings, maybe, but there was still something austere and regal about their appearance that caused even angry shapeshifters, hungry for blood, to settle down and pay attention.
The woman spoke first. When she did, it occurred to me to wonder how she knew our language, even if her dialect was archaic. On the other hand, with shapeshifters and magic and portals, who knew, really? A winged woman from another world speaking our language was pretty tame in comparison. I shrugged it off, chalking it up to one more part of the mystery, and listened.
“I am Seriel,” she said. Her voice was clear and heavily accented with a flavor I couldn’t identify. “This is Vehuel. We have waited long for the Repairer of the Breach. Now he has come, and we thought to find a world where our people would be accepted instead of chased into hiding, as we have hidden lo, these many years. Instead, what do we find? We find our people, us, in conflict.”
Her tone was reproachful. Her eyes flashed a unique silvery color. Beneath her gaze, even the staunchest shifter leaders like Nosizwe were silent.
“Ages past,” she went on, “humans came against our world, against Atlantis. They made war upon us. We fought them, but humans have always outnumbered our people and always will. In the end, our rulers made the best decision they could—to combine the power of the Stones and use it to sink our island into secrecy and solitude, to shield our people in the other-realm. However, the combining of the Stones’ power in this unnatural fashion also led to their expulsion from our world into this one. They were taken by humans and scattered abroad, with no one to unite them. Until now.”
She placed a hand on Carter’s shoulder.
“This is the Talos, the protector, in whose veins flows the sacred blood. He has recovered the sword of the lake, an emblem of our magic, which contains the combined magic of the Stones. He has restored the lost piece of the Stone to itself. Through the magic of the sword, the blood of the Talos, and the power of the Stones, the breach has finally been repaired. See for yourselves…”
She stepped aside and so did her companion. Behind them, the portal had changed from a glowing doorway to a mirror, through which we could see the world I’d visited with Carter. I could see the city whose streets I’d explored, but this time they were full of the people whose houses and belongings had remained despite their owners’ absence.Whatever that other realm was, the people had apparently been hidden away, while their belongings and the trappings of their lives remained.
“When we were there the first time,” Carter said to me quietly, as murmurs and whispers circulated through the crowd of
