Introductions 1

The first thing I felt was a terrible, searing headache that made me nearly vomit. Everywhere was pain, my thoughts were scrambled and my mind felt sore and raw. My other senses were numb and just slowly came back. I thought I could feel a hand on my forehead, but I wasn’t sure. The pain eased a little bit and the feeling became clearer. It was a slender hand with very long fingers, but the shape and the numbers felt odd, wrong. Like that from the demon girl before. But the touch was nice and cool and felt refreshing, healing, eating away the pain.

Sounds slowly became clear again and started to split into distinguishable voices. Amazingly, I could even understand them!

“You really did a number on him, you know?” said a beautiful, nearly angelic voice that reminded me of clear bells, or a pure, crystalline well, despite its annoyed tone.

“Didn’t know he’d be this fragile.” answered a second voice I immediately recognized as that of the demon girl. “Just wanted him immobile and do a short, cursory sweep, but then…”

Did I sense an ounce of guilt in her voice?

“What was then?”

“Well, his mind is …peculiar. I was intrigued and… I got a little bit carried away…”

Yep, clearly audible guilt now!

“What do you mean?

That was a third voice. Even deeper than the demon girl’s and more gruff and raspier. But still female.

“Well, I’ve never seen such images, memories and knowledge.” answered the demon girl. “Just some shapes were familiar like fellow humans and common things like earth, grass, mountains, rivers, seas. But he never met another ælf, dwarf or daimon, let alone an oruc, a giant, or beast folk. He also never saw an adamantine, a giant poplar or even a perohen. Instead his mind was full of technology and machines I’ve never seen. Or do you know a vehicle, shaped like a bird with rigid wings that can transport people through the air? It’s like he comes from a completely different world.”

“You mean a bird that can’t flap its wings and fly nonetheless? That's impossible! What kind of magical beast would that be?” commented the gruff voice.

“Quiet! I think he's waking up.” interjected the beautiful first voice.

Indeed, my pain receded more and more as I listened. Tentatively I opened my eyes and hastily shut them again. The light! Much too bright!

“Don’t worry, it will pass.” soothed the beautiful voice. “Right now you are very sensitive. Take deep breaths and you’ll feel your strength returning.”

I did as she said, and despite still fighting with the thick air, the pressure on my chest slowly eased and fresh energy started flowing back into me. Experimentally I made a fist and clenched and unclenched it a few times.

“That’s right, you’re doing great!” the beautiful voice encouraged me.

“Reeza’s right, he is weak as a newborn toddler!” growled the gruff voice.

My second attempt at opening my eyes was more successful. For the first time I could see the owner of the beautiful voice and immediately thought: Elf! Her face was as beautiful as her voice, dominated by a noble, aristocratic nose, high cheekbones and a set of very peculiar, almost unsettling eyes: her pupils had an oval shape and were so bright they almost matched the white of her eyes. Despite that, she didn’t seem to be blind.

She was kneeling beside me, and her hand now rested on my forehead and sipped away the last remnants of pain.

“Where am I?” I whispered.

She smiled like a worried mother. Or maybe a nurse.

“You are in the wild lands of Skîbæria.” she answered gently. “Do you know where that is?”

Weakly I shook my head. A second face appeared above me. It was the demon girl that put me in my sorrow state! Instinctively I recoiled, but the elven hand held me firmly in place.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered tenderly. “Reeza is sorry for what she did.”

“I can speak for myself.” grumbled the demon girl. Her eyes were much wilder than the elven girl's: black and with golden, slitted pupils that narrowed dangerously as they gazed down at me. But her scaled brow ridge was relaxed (she lacked eyebrows), so I assumed she didn’t mean any harm, despite her sharp teeth.

“Apologies.” she said in her deep, rough voice. “The situation was unclear, I had to make a split moment decision and made the wrong one. I never intended to hurt or harm an innocent bystander.”

“Apologies accepted.” I croaked, tried to sit up and promptly failed.

“Now tell me: who are you and where do you come from?” asked the gruff and raspy voice, even deeper than the demon girl's. A third face came into view. Well, it was more a snout, framed with a wild mane, completely covered in dark brown hair, the nose tip black and leathery, pushing forward into a half muzzle. From the temples sprouted two black horns that put even the ones from the demon girl to shame and the black lips revealed sharp, deadly looking fangs. Honey-hued eyes like that from a wild animal stared unblinking down at me.

Speechless, I stared back at her, and the elven girl whispered again: “Have no fear. Lily looks much more ferocious than she really is.”

The addressee frowned and ignored the elf.

“What?” she barked at me, when my gaze still didn’t waiver. “Never seen a beast girl in her prime?”

“I already told you he has never seen anybody like you. Or us.” said the demon girl.

“Still no reason to stare.” rumbled the behemoth with the unsuiting tender name. “I hate that!”

“Apologies,” I rasped now. “I’ve indeed never seen anybody like you. My name is Vilém Ponocný, I’m human, 25 years old and from Czech Republic, central europe.” Seeing their clueless faces I added: “Planet earth.”

One moment of silence, then all hell broke loose.

“Where is ‘earth’?”

“Is that your world?”

“What is 'europe'?”

“What’s a 'republic'?”

“What does ‘Czech’ mean?”

I closed my eyes ‘till the elven girl quieted down her companions.

“Czech Republic is the country where I’m from.” I continued.’Czech’ is just a name, and ‘Republic’ means that it’s a democracy, where the power of government is split between a president, the parliament and a high court. There are also elections, where people vote for the candidate they trust most to be ruled by. The Czech Republic is one of more than 192 nations on my homeworld we call earth, the third planet around the sun, a bright yellow dwarf star.”

I saw even more questions beginning to form on the faces, so I quickly added one of my own.

“Look, I’m clearly not on earth anymore. We don’t have dragons, flying demons or elves. So tell me, how is it possible that we can understand each other?”

“For the record, I’m an ælf. And since you named all of us, though not correctly, there must exist some resemblance to our races in your world. Or not?”

Clever thought!

“Your races and dragons exist in my world just as mythological beings, as part of folklore and fiction.” I replied. “Are there any humans here, besides me?”

“Yes, there are,” answered the elven, pardon, ælven girl. “And as for your other question: when Reeza did her ‘cursory sweep’, there seemed to happen some spiritual fusion. Didn’t you see any of her memories or gain any new knowledge?”

Not that I was aware of. I shook my head.

“Then it looks like you gained a subconscious understanding of our language from that event.”

Oh my dear lord!

“So magic seems also to be real here?” I asked the obvious.

“Isn’t that also the case in your world?” asked the demon girl. “In your mind I saw self-opening doors, flying objects, moving pictures, communication devices and self-propelled vehicles of all kinds.”

“That is all technology, based on the laws of physics, not magic.” I explained. “And no, as I’m aware of, there is no magic on earth, at least not on the scale I witnessed here so far.”

“Interestingly you seem to have concepts about things that don’t exist in your world, but are real here. And you are a living witness that transitions between our worlds are possible.” mused the ælven girl.

“You don’t know by chance a way for me to get back to earth, do you?” I asked without much hope.

Both the ælven and the demon girl shook their heads.

“I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” the demon girl said. “And I’m a high mage.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “So would you mind telling me the name of your planet?”

Again the girls looked at each other before the ælven girl responded.

“We prefer the term ‘world’. And it's called Liyúra.”