Fine Lines

Clara’s eyebrows furrowed as she stared at Anna with an alarmed look. “Are you ok?!”

Dilara had noticed as well but seemed far less concerned. “Something from home, I assume.”

“Yes,” Anna replied, shaking her head to try to snap out of it. “I thought I heard an airplane. I mean, an iron bird,” she said, using terms they might better understand. “But that can’t be possible.”

“You are close enough to the portal that whispers and glimpses of your home realm are possible,” the duchess explained. “They sort of leak through. Only you can experience them though.”

“How can I return home?” Anna asked.

“I will tell you if you defeat The Great Undeath.”

“No,” Clara toned firmly. “You tell her now.”

“I do not want her getting distracted while fighting The Great Undeath.” Dilara shook her head in disapproval. “Running off home while leaving the rest of us to deal with it alone.”

“That sounds like something you would do,” Clara remarked.

“It has been so long I can no longer return. Not that I would wish to.”

Both Anna and Clara stared at the duchess.

“I came here long ago from my homerealm of Iran. I suffered greatly at the hands of men there. I prayed for a miracle and found myself teleported here. For decades, when within sight of the cathedral, I would hear sounds and see glimmers of my homerealm. Over the decades they faded entirely.”

Anna looked out across the narrow valley below. It appeared as if the land had at one time been at an entirely different elevation, then sunk abruptly, leaving sheer rock walls that made the valley resemble an expansive prison yard. Along the valley floor the remains of a great city stood, partially submerged in red and pink waters, frozen in time under a layer of pale mineral deposits. At the center stood a massive, carbonate-encrusted cathedral. Like much of the frozen city, the structure was partially collapsed by tectonic activity. Surrounding geothermal springs vented columns of steam into the sky.

“So I can return home if I reach the cathedral?”

“More specifically you need to lay down on the altar there.”

“See, was that so hard?” Clara teased.

Dilara’s hands moved frighteningly fast, one lifting the lid of the wicker box while the other slipped in, grabbing something unseen. To Anna it reminded her of a quick draw gunslinger, though whatever the object inside, it wasn’t a six shooter.

The duchess’s eyes narrowed, ready to pull her weapon at the slightest perceived threat.

“Dilara d’Iran, we are not going to turn on you.”

“I have heard that before,” Dilara snapped back.

Anna held her hands palm up at the duchess. “I am going to see my sentence through. I will face The Great Undeath. You asked for a miracle to save you. It brought you here. You asked for another and it brought me here. I am going to try to be your miracle.”

Dilara studied both for a long time, appearing deeply torn.

Suddenly the earth shook violently.

The earthquake rattled the carriage windows, sending an intense initial vibration through the enclosure before everything started to sway side to side. Everyone braced, though Clara with only one hand couldn’t hang on. She was thrown against the carriage door, her body engaging the lever and popping the door open.

She fell half outside.

“Clara!”

Anna attempted to reach, her hands grabbing her friend’s clothes, but the swaying threw Anna loose, tossing her into the back corner of the carriage.

Dilara held on for dear life, one hand gripping her seat, the other her wicker box, cradling it tightly against her body.

The carriage tried its best to stay put, but upon the narrow ridge there was little level ground. The swaying swung it around, pointing its wheels sharply downhill. The iron tires started spinning, seeking traction, fighting to resist gravity as the carriage started sliding on barren rock downhill towards the sheer edge.

Clara screamed.

Dilara fell forward abruptly against Anna, the wicker box slipping from her grasp.

It clattered against the rear window of the carriage, lid popping open, spilling its contents.

Out poured four disembodied hands and a half dozen quill pens. Each hand was wrapped in white gauze. One still held a quill pinched between its index and middle fingers. The hands immediately sought the safety of the wicker box, skittering back to their home.

The carriage continued its uncontrolled slide, scraping loudly down the dark sheet of volcanic rock like nails on a chalkboard.

Dilara could see an outcropping ahead. A collision was imminent.

Clara could see it too. “Help!” she screamed.

Anna struggled to reach Clara, but pinned under Dilara there was nothing she could do. “Hang on!”

Dilara looked at the wicker box, then at Clara.

The carriage struck the outcropping.

The shock of the blow nearly threw Clara from the carriage.

Dilara’s hand prevented it.

The wicker box however pinballed through the enclosure then tumbled out the open door. It cartwheeled down the sheet of volcanic stone before disappearing off the edge.

Silence.

“You’re smothering me,” Anna groaned from underneath Dilara.

Clara panted, wide-eyed, still half out the enclosure, staring at the drop off.

Dilara death gripped Clara’s clothes with one hand. The other sought out one of the quill pens thrown from the wicker box. The quill laid tantalizingly close atop the rear window. She strained for it, her fingertips tickling the edge but unable to take hold.

The carriage groaned.

Clara’s clothes stretched, on the verge of ripping.

“Stylus! Now!” Dilara strained, still desperately trying to reach the quill, anchored by her grip on Clara.

“But it will-”

“Now!”

Anna fished for the utensil in her joey pocket. Pressed under Dilara it would normally be impossible to locate, but the cold it emanated made it easy to find. Anna squirmed into position, holding it up for the duchess to take.

“I hate you,” she told the tool.

“Right back at you witch.”

Dilara seized the stylus in her right hand. She jerked as the physical pain shot through her body. A streak of her dark wavy hair immediately turned silver.

She wrote rapidly in Persian against the floor of the carriage. Her hand trembled as she aged a decade, the quick motions leaving behind purple crayon tinged with silver.

“Done,” she gasped, aging further, temples graying, fine lines forming at the corners of her eyes as her skin lost its smooth, almost porcelain perfection.

Anna snatched the stylus away before it harmed Dilara further.

The Persian crayon letters shimmered then lifted from the floor, dissolving into a rapidly expanding sphere of purple and silver glitter.

The carriage shuddered.

It slipped from its perch on the outcropping, pitching over the edge of the sheer cliff.