CHAPTER V: The Tables Turn
As the sun began to set over the kingdom of Rythais, Elle immediately observed that it was nestled in between two mountains. When it began it’s descent into the horizon, it was shining through the valley, casting an eerie illumination as the couple riding the white horse trotted into the valley, hoods drawn and expressions solemn.
Elle was exhausted.
She and Chousa were riding horseback almost all day, with minimal breaks. Chousa seemed opposed to stopping for too long if at all, even if Elle insisted that they stop for food or water. He also didn’t seem to know what was worse; stopping or listening to Elle’s complaining. To Elle, Chousa had seemed very set on his goal to get to Rythais and ultimately get Elle back home, which Elle was more than okay with. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place for good and reunite with her parents. Going back to Oklahoma was the only thing she could think about the entire way.
I don’t think he cares that much, but he sure is in a hurry to get rid of me, Elle thought as their horse walked at a slow pace towards the wooden gates, and I’ll be so relieved when I go back…I can’t wait to see Max again.
Elle’s daydream of being home again was interrupted when Chousa suddenly dismounted, the sudden movement completely catching her off guard. He landed on the ground, dirt kicking up at the impact of his landing, and proceeded to walk forward towards the gate patrol. He remembered when the gates were open all day and only closed during the night hours; in this day and age, however, it was closed permanently and people were let in one by one. Elle watched Chousa exchange words with the gate patrol, and both of them gave a firm nod, opening the gates. When Chousa came forward to grab the reigns and walk the horse in with Elle still riding, he was quick with his words.
“Keep your hood on, and look down. Don’t look, talk, or stare at anyone,” he instructed. Elle opened her mouth to protest, but Chousa had beaten her to the punch. “Understand? And don’t take that pendant out unless I tell you to.”
“Yeah,” Elle replied, “but why?”
“Just don’t. The explanation isn’t important.”
Elle furrowed her eyebrows and her mouth turned up into a pout. Elle wasn’t surprised at Chousa’s words; no explanations, only orders. Elle tried not to let his ways anger her; especially when she was so close to being home. Once this they saw this mage Chousa had been talking about, she’d be home in no time, and Eterra would be nothing more than a distant memory. Elle did as she was told and kept her head down, hood falling forward to hide her face completely.
Just a few more hours. Then I can just leave and forget about all of this.
Somehow, Elle felt as though she would swallow those words.
The horse walked steadily into the kingdom walls. The wooden doors slowly closed behind them. The streets were empty; at dusk, the shops had closed, the children were indoors tucked safely into their beds, and only the homeless beggars dressed in burlap sacs roamed the streets with cotton bags, blindly asking for money. Stray dogs played in the alleyway, barking at one another; their barking echoed upwards into the night sky, bouncing off of the brick buildings. When dusk turned to a royal blue, Chousa had stopped outside of a large, black door in an alley way, a lighted torch flickered brightly next to it. With three hard knocks, Chousa drew back and waited. Elle took a peek from out under her cloak.
There was some shuffling from with inside the building. With the sound of silverware falling to the ground in a series of tings, pings, and clanks, Elle winced at whoever behind the door attempted to answer Chousa’s summon. When the door opened, it was only opened an inch, just enough for the person inside peek out, ever so cautiously. An old man greeted them, significant wrinkles abundant on his tired, withered face. His eyes were alive, and alert, despite his other physical features. They were staring at Chousa. In return, Chousa smiled.
“Retica,” Chousa spoke the old man’s name. The old man’s eyes lit up. He studied Chousa for a few moments, before he succumbed to his senses. “Retica, it’s me. It’s Chousa.”
Retica starred at Chousa in total wonder. His tired, old face looked at Chousa, and he shook his head with utter incredulity. His hand came out to gingerly touch Chousa’s arm. His touch turned into an affirming grip, as if to make sure the young boy wasn’t an apparition.
“It’s you,” the old man whispered, pulling him into a warm embrace. “After all of these years, Chousa. Praise Yggdrisil, you’re alive!”
Ellenore couldn’t help but feel out of place as she sat awkwardly on the horse, watching the old man embrace Chousa dearly. They were old friends, that much Elle could tell, but the old man was almost brought to tears. In fact, Elle could have sworn that she caught a single tear falling from the old man’s face; however, it was dark and Elle was tired from the long journey from the Rowenwood.
“Please, come in! Please,” Retica motioned with his hands and opened the door. Chousa turned to Elle.
“C’mon, let’s go,” he told her. Elle dismounted – rather clumsily, Chousa added silently to himself – and solemnly followed Chousa into the small housing unit that belonging to Retica.
Eterra’s sun was below the horizon now– the three moons cast their eerie glow upon the Kingdom of Rythais.
~
The inside of Retica’s bungalow was rather dingy. Quaint, Elle noted, but dingy. The glow from the lanterns hanging from the ceiling did little to improve the overall quality of the room. She looked around curiously at the books on the shelves, which were littered with cobwebs and dust. There was an equally dingy and battered couch that sat up against the brick interior. Elle, unsure of herself, seated her self warily on the couch. Chousa had taken a seat on the same couch, on the other end. He was looking intently at Retica, who had now put several plates of food on the table. Ellenore was eyeing them hungrily, but she didn’t want to be rude. So, instead of eating, Elle remained quiet, like Chousa had instructed her earlier.
“Er-ah-Chousa,” Retica stammered, glancing back and forth at Elle. Instead of finishing his statement, he weakly pointed in her direction. Chousa cast a hard look at Elle. Though he didn’t say anything, his eyes told her to talk.
“O-oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “My name is Ellenore. Ellenore Hensley.”
Retica drew back in acknowledgement, “Ellenore,” he repeated.
“Yeah, but you can just call me—“
“You have a different aura…than anyone I have ever encountered. Where are you from?”
“Uh…” Elle drew back, casting an anxious gaze at Chousa, who said nothing, waiting for her to explain everything.
I guess this is the time to talk.
“I’m uh….” Ellenore paused, “I’m from…somewhere very far away. It’s called…Earth,” she replied.
Retica’s face contorted into a puzzled look. As if Elle was speaking in another language, he furrowed his eyebrows and looked back at Chousa, as if wanting him to translate.
“She has the mirror.”
The old man’s face drastically changed. His mouth gaped open, searching for words and trying to understand how that could be possible. He glanced back and forth at Chousa and Elle, when finally, his eyes rested on Chousa, who said nothing after his initial response. Elle took the pendant out the suede knapsack she had been carrying throughout the day.
“You’re talking about this, right?” Elle offered, holding the pendant forward so the old man could take it. Retica lifted the pendant out of her hands, inspecting it carefully.
“It’s…the same one. I don’t believe it,” he looked at it with great trepidation.
Elle frowned.
“’The same one’,” she mimicked the old man’s words. “What do you mean? Have you seen this before?” she asked. Retica lowered the pendant and looked at Elle, his eyes were twinkling with astonishment.
“Don’t you know what this is?” he asked. Elle shook her head.
“No,” she whispered. “My dad’s friend found it in a crater.”
“Crater…” Retica repeated. It seemed he was lost in thought. He and Chousa exchanged glances knowingly.
“The mass of rock you withdrew from Eterra and thrust into the heavens with the mirror…it landed on her village,” Chousa explained calmly. Retica sighed deeply, “How could this be? That mirror was supposed to be forever gone—“
“Ashurei,” came a low growl from Chousa. It was the only name that could bring tension into a composed room, the only word that could bring Retica back from whatever daydreams or thoughts he had running through his mind. It was the only name that could bring anyone to total silence without fail.
“You…you’re sure about this?” Retica asked, still in disbelief.
“I wish I wasn’t. We have to send her back, with that pendant. That’s why we came here, Retica. I need your help. We have to send her back before Ashurei…”
Chousa trailed off. Retica frowned.
“As soon as possible then. Tomorrow morning,” Retica instructed, “we should have enough time, then.”
Their plans were interrupted by a short sob from the third person in the room. Both of them turned to observe Elle, who was now holding her face in both of her palms. When she looked up from her hands, her eyes were blood shot. Her nose and cheeks had turned a rose red.
“Are you trying to tell me,” Elle started, another tear falling down her cheek, “that you were the one who crashed that meteorite into our town?”
“We had to remove the pendant from Eterra somehow…so…yes, by proxy, I suppose that’s what happened. I do apologize, my dear, if that helps any. It’s not as though I was intentionally aiming for anything in particular, but you have understand, it was imperative for Eterra that we remove that pendant from our world.”
Elle gritted her teeth.
“It doesn’t!” she shouted. “How-How could you this? You don’t know…you don’t know how that’s affected our town! And for both of you to be so…so casual about this, I-I-“
Clearly upset, Elle ran from the room and slammed the door to the other room behind her. She couldn’t even finish her sentence. The two of them were talking as if the meteor was nothing of concern. She was nauseous; she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What they didn’t understand was that the meteor of 1989 that had crashed into Albion had changed the course of an otherwise happy, bustling town. The unhappiness and distraught that Albion had struggled through for the past five years…the culprit was a mere fifteen feet away. His apologies did nothing.
His apologies…they won’t bring back the lives that we lost.
-
Albion, Oklahoma, April 28th, 1990
The importance of the emancipation proclamation is—Ah, no, that’s not right. The importance of the emancipation proclamation is the true wonder of Abraham Lincoln being—Ugh, that’s not right, either!
Elle threw her pencil across her desk in frustration.
I’m never going to get this paper done.
She was sitting upstairs in her room with the windows open. After temperatures had reached almost 90 degrees earlier, the heat conceded and the night gave Albion a cool wind. The breeze that passed through the open window played with the curtain gently. Elle starred blankly at the piece of paper in front of her, littered with eraser marks and haphazard scribbles in an attempt to start her paragraph over. She rested her cheek lazily on her fist as she zoned out, waiting for the next relevant thought to reach her. A door slam kicked her out of her daydream and vibrated her desk.
“You know Jim, not everything is my fault,” came a female voice from downstairs, “and you need to start realizing that. I told you that I turned the drip irrigation on today and no, I don’t know why it didn’t cover as many acre-feet as we expected!”
The rant was met with an irritated sigh.
“I didn’t say it was your fault, Annie – I’m just frustrated. We should have had rain by now. The weather patterns have changed, I don’t know why.”
“Can’t you call Ben? He has a working irrigation system on his farm, why can’t you call him?”
“Because Annie, we just don’t have the damn money to DO that! We aren’t goddamn doctors, Annie, we work on a farm!”
“…What is that supposed to mean?”
The urgency in the voice did nothing to receive an answer.
“We aren’t doctors, so that’s why we can’t support ourselves? I get it, Jim. I get that we work on a farm every goddamn day and we get nothing in return, but we aren’t useless.”
“That’s what you can consider us if we don’t get any rain.”
There was a swift, resounding smack. Angry footsteps marched across floor and the slam of a door vibrated the room again.
Elle absent-mindedly smudged the lead around her paper with her finger.
~
Elle opened her eyes.
A dream?
She lay there for a few seconds, recalling the past events. She couldn’t even remember falling asleep, yet here she was, peacefully resting on the bed in another room, alone. Though it only took her a few seconds to remember, Elle winced at her behavior earlier as she recalled sobbing and leaving the room, slamming the door behind her. She closed her eyes to force herself back to sleep, but to no avail – she was wide-awake. Her blood-shot eyes were now starring at the brick ceiling in the darkness, hands clutching the sheets as she blankly gazed into the dark.
I should apologize in the morning. That wasn’t right of me…I shouldn’t have yelled at that man like that. It wasn’t his fault the meteor….
Her thoughts drifted into nothingness. She had never felt this exhausted in her entire life; her mind was too drained to put together a coherent thought. As she was lying there, all Elle could think about was how she was going to get home.
I hope he doesn’t put me on a giant pile of rock and hurl me into space…
Elle closed her eyes and lay there with blank thoughts for a few minutes.
The door opened suddenly and slammed shut the second it was opened. With a huge gasp, Elle sat up, terrified. The sudden disturbance was like a clap of thunder that unexpectedly announced its presence in the sky, except the clap of thunder was Chousa – or at least Elle thought it was; the darkness wouldn’t allow her to see the details. Affirming her conclusion, Chousa’s voice cut through the darkness.
“Get under the bed,” he ordered, urgency in his voice. “Move!”
Clumsily, Elle fell from her bed, tangled hopelessly in sheets, and scampered underneath the bed, yanking the sheets with her. From under her hiding spot, all Elle could make out was Chousa’s silhouette cautiously peeking through the doorway. His eyes were suspicious, almost anticipating something ominous to come breaking down the door at any moment, only louder than what he demonstrated a few moments ago. His hand, Elle observed, was clutched tightly around the hilt of his sword.
There was a series of loud footsteps – someone, or a group of people had come into the small, brick quarters. Retica’s voice was as a cool and as calm as Elle remembered. He was talking to someone, but Elle didn’t know whom. Chousa craned his head and moved it around to get a better look from the small opening he head behind the door. His adjustments stopped, and he intently starred at the events that were taking place outside the door.
Faintly, Elle could hear the conversation.
“Are you the only individual staying here at the moment?” came a stern voice.
“Why yes,” came Retica’s voice, irritated, “and can I ask what business you have in my home at this hour? I’m an old man. Where are your manners? Hasn’t anyone taught you to respect your elders?”
Chousa gripped the door handle.
The intruders seemingly disregarded Retica’s banter. They took books from the shelves and plopped them to the ground, curiously looking around and shuffling through drawers, making a general mess of things. The books and items landed on the floor with vibrating clunks and thumps; each noise was grinding on Elle’s nerves.
“What in the name of Eterra are you looking for? How rude,” Retica went on.
“If we find out you’re lying, there won’t be any second chances, old man. Are you the only one here or not?”
“Yes, of course I am!” he replied defensively. “I’ve nothing to hide.”
“Chousa,” Elle whispered from under the bed, “what’s going on? Chousa!”
“QUIET,” came his sharp reply. Elle fell silent and clutched the sheets to her body.
“So,” the smarmy voice continued, “suppose I asked you if you knew the whereabouts of a certain…someone…you’d tell me, correct? I mean, after all, you wouldn’t lie to a Vientillian arbiter, would you?”
Chousa grinded his teeth.
“Of course not,” Retica dismissed. “I don’t have any friends, for goodness sake. I’m a old man, I live here by myself, why would I-“
“Well, the unfortunate part about this predicament is that whether or not your hiding anyone, we still have orders to end your life.”
“By whom?” Retica’s voice challenged.
“It’s not important.”
Soon after, Elle could hear the unsheathing of a blade, and a sickening squish. Retica’s cry of pain lasted three seconds; the last sounds escaping his body were cut short by a blade that rammed through his abdomen. Elle squinted her eyes shut. Chousa quickly shut the door and tried to keep his cool. Retica’s lifeless body fell to the floor with a loud thump. Chousa didn’t need to see his body to know that Retica’s life was taken mercilessly.
Elle held back her sobs, placing her hand over her mouth to muffle her breathing, which was coming more rapidly. The voices came to a stop, but the footsteps continued. As they approached the doorway, Chousa held his body up against the door.
“Elle,” he whispered, “come out from under there. We’re going to run.”
“What? No-no! Are you crazy!?” she said through quiet sobs. Chousa sighed. He was aggravated; Elle was whining again and there was no time.
“Do you want to die?” Chousa asked rhetorically. “Get up and come here, now!”
Elle did as she was told. She crawled out from under the bed, sheets falling from her form to the floor. She grabbed her suede knapsack and her cloak and prepared herself to do some serious running. Elle could already tell what Chousa was planning. He certainly wasn’t going to stay here and fight. As predicted, Chousa turned to Elle.
“I need you to stay as quiet as you can,” he ordered, “and stay behind me. No matter what happens, stay as close to me as you possibly can.”
Chousa backed away from the door, and Elle stayed behind him, standing as close as he had instructed. Six, booming, harsh bangs rattled the door. Elle clutched Chousa’s shirt.
Six more. Chousa withdrew his sword. When the final six bangs stopped, there was an eerie pause, and then everything exploded into a fury of chaos. The door was busted down mercilessly, revealing five young men, possibly around Chousa’s age standing at the ready. The door swung open and the bright light that was cast upon the both of them in the dark room made Elle squint in her eyes shut. When she could finally open them, one of the men in the back of the group starred in total awe.
“Holy s**t,” the man in the back proclaimed at the sight of the silver-haired boy standing in the darkness. “It’s YOU!”
“Did you miss me?”
Chousa charged forward out into the open, Elle tailing behind, doing as she was told. As he flew out, Chousa snagged one of the men by the collar, and slammed him into the wall with every force in his body. The arbiter didn’t have time to regain himself before Chousa threw his body into the others. Elle had moved herself to the far end of the room, terrified to be involved in Chousa’s wrath. From the other end of the room, Retica’s body, lying lifeless in a circle of scarlet, starred lifeless at the ceiling. She covered her mouth in horror at the sight. Before she could study it for too long, Chousa was already yelling at her.
“ELLE!” he screamed, “RUN! GET OUT OF HERE! GO!”
In a flurry of terrified sobs, Elle ran to the door, turned the handle, and let herself out into the alleyway. Without looking back at her pursuers, Elle tore down the pathway, as fast as her slender, pale legs could carry her.
