The Real Theophania

vol. II ch. 7

It was nearly high noon. Thia stopped at the edge of the clearing. She looked, still facing straight forward, at the field of wildflowers, remembering the girl she left behind in town. The sun, high above, carried down at the gap between trees, perfectly illuminating the clearing. She had been walking for 4 days straight through the wilderness. Her heart beat hard and weary with the burden of leagues. Her shoulders slumped, and the two heavy bags fell to the dirt for a thump. “I wish…”

Ophius slapped her once on the side of the head. “Get a move on. The wolves aren’t far behind us. You can rest when you’re dead.”

Thia sighed, just once, then picked up the heavy bags and kept walking.

~~~

They had stumbled onto an abandoned hut in the forest, bearing some of the signs of a long-dead witch-in-exile.

“Let me get this clear.” Thia said, breaking the sudden silence.

“Ok.” Ophius replied curtly, attention on the pin-and-tumbler lock securing the front door.

“That guy, the silk guy. The thief king of old town, or whatever.”

“Yes. The one we kidnapped and stuffed in a bag.” The first door swung open, revealing another one.

“He wasn’t just some local robber. Like the cleverest street urchin who stabbed all the other thieves, and now he’s in charge of that ghetto.”

“Correct.” Second mundane lock clicked open, revealing not a third door, but a perfectly smooth and flat glass wall. The lack of light beyond revealed no transparent window, yet it “reflected” the inner face of the second door. Curiously, however, Ophius and Thia, nor the field behind them. Like a broken mirror, frozen in time.

“That guy, who we thought was just some guy, is an agent of an ancient and powerful witch, who now needs us to bring this seven million gold piece ransom to liberate her other animate cloth golem doll thing, Edward. Who is not only also a king, but an actual king. Not a thief king of the slum of some backwater town. The actual king of a kingdom with armies and all that.”

“You thought. You assumed. I told you he had connections.” Ophius prodded the empty mirror with a bony finger, jolting with a precisely tuned bolt of magic. Arcane symbols swirled across the surface. Ophius gave it another few adjustments (delivered via a magnetized needle and steady hand), jostling the symbols into some esoteric pattern, unlocking the door.

“And the witch, who met us at the predetermined dropoff location, riding her broomstick, to hand us the gold, needs us to walk the to deliver the ransom. She couldn’t just have flown in and delivered it herself?”

Ophius rubbed their forehead. “No, look. She couldn’t have flown it in. The Witch-King has his own flying patrols, and the flying broomstick has limitations anyway, and – look, just forget it.”

~~~

Thia looked at the staircase. Thia looked back at Ophius. Thia looked back at the staircase, sat in the middle of the woods, carpeted steps, marble banister in all, rising 12 feet into the air to no second floor, building, or other artificial structure in sight. She reached out one tentative hand.

“Don’t touch it.” Ophius commanded.

“Why is there…?”

“Look, sometimes there’s stairs in the woods. Just ignore them. Do not go up them.”

~~~

It was nearly dusk. Ophius stopped at the cliffside. They looked at the hanging ivy and climbing vines that clung to the sheer face. Crimson rays glittered off the rock like a stream of gold. They dropped the two, heavy bags onto the gravel with a clatter.

Thia, smirking, raised one open palm and stalked forward, beginning to say, “Get a move on, you can-”

“I’m already dead.” Ophius interrupted, pointing one skeletal finger at a curious pattern in the growth. “But look there. See that? Where it repeats?”

Thia leaned in to get a closer look, and her half of the precious bounty swung forward. Instead of bouncing off the cliff, however, it carried straight through. The unexpected momentum pulled her off balance, and she fell to her knees, face first into the hidden tunnel.

“The adventure continues.” Ophius murmured quietly, and followed her in.