Upside Down
A horrible apparition showed its true colors before their eyes. Vince held Jack’s legs tightly to lend his companion some of his courage and also to assure himself that he wasn’t alone. All he had thought before about having not been challenged as a guardian until now no longer applied.
The skull had an elongated muzzle, which meant that before dying, this apparition had used to be a wolf. Branches were growing out of its head, and moss hung over the place where its brow must have once been.
“They aren’t horns,” Jack whispered. “Just creepy tree branches growing out of this dude’s head.”
“I am not a dude,” the apparition said cuttingly. “I will hang you by your tongue, little seer.”
“I can always call you a jerk,” Jack offered, quite generously.
By the tremor in the clairvoyant’s body, Vince could tell that Jack was scared shitless but that didn’t stop him from talking smack. It was as good a strategy as any to keep their wits about themselves.
So, the horned creature Jack had seen when he’d gotten kidnapped had to be this thing standing in front of them in the moonlight. Only those weren’t horns, and a certain amount of confusion was warranted given the circumstances. It nagged Vince, deep inside his mind, that they couldn’t name this apparition.
“What are you?” he asked.
“As if I’d tell you. Go now if you don’t want to be destroyed. Run back to your present and never look back. The veil will lift before the night is over. And you will be free to go.”
“What you say makes absolutely zero sense,” Jack quipped. “First of all, we are here for a reason, and that reason is to watch you have your ass handed to you as I’m sure will happen. And, second of all, you know nothing about time travel. You can’t hurt us.”
It was the same thing Vince had thought himself. If the battle raging around them couldn’t truly touch them, then they were beyond the possibility of getting hurt.
“Are you sure?” the ugly skull appeared to be grinning now. “What if I do this?”
The apparition raised one arm and something, sharp and black, shot from it. Vince felt the impact even if he hadn’t been the target. Above him, Jack’s body shook convulsively, and dread overcame him. Jack was falling, so Vince turned on his heel just in time to catch him before he slipped from his shoulders and hit the ground.
A stake was jutting out of Jack’s chest, its charred smell making Vince’s stomach turn. And Jack lay there, his arms at his sides, eyes wide open, wheezing painfully.
Vince didn’t even think twice. He wrapped his hand around the stake and started to pull.
“You cannot save him.” The evil spirit hovered near, whispering in his ear, though its physical presence seemed impossible to detect.
Vince ignored it. His fingers slipped on the burned wood. “Jack, stay with me,” he said.
“Isn’t this just so amusing? You two humans talk so much about what you know, when, in fact, you know nothing.”
Vince shook his head. He had no time to waste with doubt; his purpose was to save Jack. The clairvoyant had saved him only a little earlier tonight, sacrificing the flint of the Embercasting. He, a guardian, had to do just as much. But what if he wasn’t capable of such feats? What if, after all, he was nothing but an ordinary human?
“You have your back to me,” the dead wolf taunted him. “Did you realize that I can execute you with such ease? Soon, both you and your little seer will be dead. And you will never be able to go back to your time.”
Vince set his jaw hard. “You cannot truly touch us. If this is the past,” he said, as his thoughts settled inside his mind, “then you are a part of it, too.”
He barely finished saying those words when his fingers gripped the stake harder and pulled. His arm described an arc through the air, and his aim was true. The same object that had been claiming Jack’s life only moments before now slashed through the apparition threatening them, turning it to mist.
The dead wolf disappeared. Vince didn’t have time to double-check, because the horrible sounds Jack was making told him that he had more important things to attend to.
“Jack, can you hear me?” he asked, lifting his companion’s head gently.
Jack let out a long sigh and touched his chest. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “I think I’m okay.”
“Good,” Vince said, letting out a sigh of relief, too. “You gave me quite the scare, I’m not going to lie.”
“The damn thing caught me by surprise is all,” Jack said. He was feeling his chest, probably still surprised that he was still alive. “I mean, it did catch me on the wrong foot. This fucker is good at playing tricks. We need to keep reminding ourselves that things around here aren’t real-real. Though it did hurt, whatever that thing did to me. And that felt real-real.”
Vince laughed and squeezed Jack close in his arms. “You’re babbling. That means you’re fine, though scared. Which I am, too.”
Jack scoffed while hugging him back. “I should’ve known better. Wait, Vee, where are we?”
Vince looked around, still holding Jack. They were no longer at the place of the battle of Whiteflame.
The sound of water dripping, not far from them, called their attention in its direction. The air smelled stale and earthy, like a basement that hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Vince looked up, and above them, there was no winter sky, moonless or not.
They were inside a cave. And Vince, to his own shock, could see just fine in the dark.
“Is this a good moment to let you know I’m a teeny-bit claustrophobic?” Jack asked.
***
Fear slipped from the children’s minds as the adults in charge engaged them in singing and telling jokes and stories. The clamor of their young voices covered the sounds coming from the belly of the ground underneath the longhouse, which, Theodore was certain of now, only he could hear. The seal on the door would hold, his mother had assured him, but would that be enough if the enemy attacked from below?
He would have to tell his mother. His nightmares had made his parents doubt his words sometimes, but she would have to listen to him now.
He was biding his time, since he didn’t want to let the others know of the danger that lurked so close. Cubs were too young to fight, and they’d only get scared. And besides his mom, only a few women were of fighting age in the entire house.
But they also had him by their side, and while he wasn’t the alpha of Whiteflame, the blood of warriors demanded that he fought until his last drop.
“Mother,” he whispered as he noticed the others slowly falling asleep. Soon, no one would be able to overhear what they were saying to each other. “Something is happening.”
She turned her face to him. Her eyes were wise beyond her years; Theodore had heard people of their pack saying that about the alpha’s companion many times. She was even wiser than Tharion, some of them said, though not so often, and not loud enough for their alpha to hear them.
Theodore was grateful for his mother’s wisdom. His father could be quick to anger sometimes, as any alpha in charge of a strong pack could be. Ysolde was the power within, an old woman once called her.
“They are fighting for their lives and ours outside,” she said, nodding slowly. “But we must be brave, Theodore.”
“Something is happening here,” he insisted, his voice as low as he could make it while his mom could still hear him. “Underneath the house. Tremors, can you feel them?”
No, she couldn’t. She pushed his hair away from his eyes and felt his forehead. “You must rest, too, Theodore. Staying awake will not help our people.”
“But you will be awake, guarding us,” he pointed out.
“Yes. I may be your mother, Theodore, but I am also theirs, as well.” She gestured at the full house, the sleepy heads with their eyes closed and serene looks on their tiny faces.
“Then I will keep watch with you,” Theodore insisted. “I do not have a fever, mother. A strange voice has been calling to me since father left.”
“They have been torturing you, indeed,” she said, her eyes filling with pity and sadness.
Theodore had no use for either. “You must trust me, mother. Everything went wrong ever since--” He stopped himself before mentioning how he had stolen the flint of Embercasting. His parents didn’t believe him and thought someone else had taken it. “For days now,” he settled to say. “Even now, I can feel the earth rumbling beneath us. It’s awakening.”
His mother pondered his words. Her sharp eyes stared at him, as if she was weighing whether she should believe him or not.
When she took his hand, he understood that his mother would lend him her ear and listen to what he had to say.
Lying never paid; Theodore had learned that much since only bad things had happened since he’d started to keep things from his parents. He began telling his mother everything that had happened from the first time the wisdom tree had called to him.
***
“Okay, this is weird and bad,” Jack declared as he walked round and round the room without finding an exit. Vince was doing the same but by walking in the opposite direction. “And how come I see you so well, although I’m pretty convinced that it’s pitch black in here?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Vince said. “Even animals that can see in the dark need a source of light for that to happen. That is if we’re talking only about the physical world as we know it--”
“Without magic and stuff,” Jack finished Vince’s sentence. “What kind of magic can make you see in the dark, though? I’m asking for a friend.” As long as they kept their ability to joke, they would be fine.
“For a short time, we were wolves if you remember, Jack. And it seemed to have been necessary so we could travel to the past.”
“Where do you think we are now? The past or the present?” Jack gasped for show. “Don’t tell me we’re in the future, and above ground there’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland.”
“I doubt we moved too much on the timeline. I think it’s still the past because our role here isn’t done.”
“Argh,” Jack complained, “this really hurts my brain. I mean, are things supposed to be this difficult for guardians and clairvoyants on a regular basis? I bet there are people who have it way, but way easier than us, and they live a cushy life. You know, like being bodyguards to billionaires and reading rich influencers’ future in fancy tarot cards.”
“I don’t know many people who share our line of work,” Vince pointed out, always the pragmatist.
“Yeah. We practically don’t know anyone who does the same thing. Except that witch Cassandra, who was such a horrible seer when you think about it.”
“Not that much of a seer if you’re asking me,” Vince pointed out.
“You’re right. Urgh, I think I’m tired of walking in circles. Aren’t you?” Jack sat down on the damp and cold floor and began massaging his calves. Once he was done with this adventuring stuff, he’d take up exercising. It would be so disappointing if they failed because he was so out of shape and couldn’t keep up with horned demons that weren’t horned demons but skeletons with tree branches growing out of their heads.
Jack sighed and felt his chest where that thing had stabbed him. There was nothing there, but a phantom pain lingered, making him question what was real, and what wasn’t.
“Vee, this whole thing is so complicated,” he complained. “I mean, we are and aren’t here, right?”
Vince confirmed with a short grunt. Unlike him, he was in better shape and continued to search their surroundings for an exit.
“And we are here only so we can understand the past, as you said.”
“Correct again. Where are you going with this, Jack? I’m racking my brain with these things, too, and I still haven’t reached a conclusion that’s less confusing than this place in which we’re trapped right now.”
Jack adjusted his position and tipped his head back, as far as he could. The ceiling was opaque and gave him no answers. If they were here, by following the same logic that had guided them this far, there had to be a reason.
Hmm, he had to be seeing things because of how hard he was focusing on seeing something when nothing was there.
“Vince, look up,” he said. “Is it just me or is the ceiling starting to crack?”
Vince did as he was told, only to exclaim, “Hell yeah, Jack. I think it is.”
Jack blinked. Whatever was cracking the ceiling seemed to be giving off heat. And the cracks lit up a burnt orange—
He rolled to one side just in time. Drops of burning liquid started pouring out of the ceiling. “Vee, look out!” he shouted.
Vince wasn’t a guardian for nothing. In an instant, he was by his side, grabbing him tightly. They were now both rolling on the floor, away from the unexpected attack, with the sole difference that Vince was protecting him with his big, beautiful body so he didn’t get burned.
“This is the pits,” he complained. “Can we get a little break or something?”
Vince was holding him down, his back exposed to whatever was growing worse above them. Jack felt his resolve faltering; he couldn’t even joke.
There was lava, lava everywhere. The ceiling was lava.
***
Ysolde remained silent once he finished telling her everything. Theodore knew not to insist and let her think about what he’d confessed. He hadn’t pleaded for forgiveness, knowing that what he’d done was wrong. His mom was wise; she would know better than him what it all meant, and what they could do to fight the evil was trying to destroy their pack.
“There is an old story,” she started. “About the pack that lived here long before us. We aren’t the first keepers of the veil, Theodore.”
“How so?” he asked. If there was one thing they knew, anyone in their pack knew, it was their role in keeping the world protected, which had been granted to Whiteflame since times long forgotten.
“It is so old a tale that even our elderly can’t tell how much of it is only a legend and if there is any grain of truth in it. But your words reminded me of things I must have heard once as a young girl. Did you say that the branches growing out of the wisdom tree’s head look like horns?”
Theodore nodded.
Ysolde frowned in thought. “This ancient pack that used to live on our lands had known no evil. Until it started growing from the ground. The Black Forest appeared then. So the legends say.”
Theodore listened with bated breath. This was knowledge not many in the pack had, and his mother had learned of it a long time ago.
“When they were first attacked, they fought like wolves. Many of them perished. So their alpha struck a deal with the evil beings, to allow them to survive. Without his realizing it, he had already been tainted. So they gave him power, and he abused it. He surrounded himself with likeminded wolves, who forgot the ways of our mistress the Moon. When their wrongdoings poisoned the land so badly, by shedding blood, of strangers and their own, the wisdom tree appeared.”
“But how? I thought the wisdom tree--”
“The real wisdom tree,” Ysolde explained. “It is a very old creature, this tree. The legend I heard said that its crown is so heavy that when it moves, it causes new winds to blow. And that its leaves can feed an entire pack for days, while immediately growing back.”
“That’s nothing like the wisdom tree that appeared to me,” Theodore murmured. “Its branches were bare.”
“This evil spirit that appeared to you must have tried to fool you into believing it to be good.”
Theodore pursed his lips. “It did so.”
His mom caressed the crown of his head. “It would’ve fooled anyone.”
He knew she was only saying such words to comfort him. He squeezed his eyes tight to keep himself from crying like a child. “What did the wisdom tree do?”
“It punished the wrongdoers. It condemned them to a life underground, deep under the roots of the trees of the Black Forest.”
“Why hadn’t it come earlier? When the evil hadn’t done so much wrong?” Theodore asked.
“Because there is much evil in the world, and not even an ancient being like the wisdom tree can be everywhere at the same time.”
“We have the Embercasting to keep these bad wolves away?” Theodore asked, his dread growing. If he had destroyed the Embercasting, he condemned not only his pack, but others, too.
“Yes. It is our duty. We have struggled with them in the past, but we always prevailed.”
“What do they want, mother? To rule these lands?”
Ysolde pulled him near and had him rest his head against her shoulders. “If only they were content with this patch of dirt under the moon. No, like all evil beings, they want to go against everything that’s good and natural. They want to bring the stench of their underground to the surface and push the light of the moon beneath their feet.”
“Do you mean… like upside down?” Theodore asked, not knowing what other words to use.
“Yes, like that, my son,” his mom confirmed.
TBC
Thank you for reading!
@Mark Mortland - oh... get some tissues ready... young Theo will suffer more... before things get better, of course!
If you enjoyed this story, consider supporting the author on Patreon.
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
