Journey to Jahennah: Chapter Three

Lila’s heart was pounding. The centaur knew they were there, and she had locked them in her house. How could they have been so stupid? Hardly daring to breathe, she glanced at Kenji, hoping he had thought of some wild, miraculous way to escape. But in the dim light that crept through the crack in the door, he shook his head. There really was no way out.

A feeling of dread washed over her, clouding her thoughts, but she shook her head to clear it. Whatever happened, she was not going to let this centaur see that she was afraid. Head held high, she pushed the door open and climbed out of the cupboard, Kenji right behind her.

The centaur didn’t look at them. She stood at a long, stone counter across from them, her back turned, preparing something. A weapon, maybe? Lila’s eyes swept the room for an escape. She was distracted by the size of it; she couldn’t believe this enormous room fit in such a tiny hut. It was strangely bright, despite only being lit by thick, white candles dotted along every surface. She noted the tall, wooden table with no chairs; the assortment of peculiar instruments hanging from the wall above a large stove; and the pile of multi-coloured blankets stacked neatly on a wide mattress on the floor in the corner. A large easel stood by the makeshift bed, a beautiful meadow painted on a huge canvas.

Refocusing on their escape, Lila’s eyes fell on the window. It was closed, but perhaps it was unlocked. If she sneaked across the room, she could try to open it and then distract the centaur somehow. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was something.

Before they moved though, the centaur turned to face them. She was holding a tray bearing a pink, flowery teapot, three matching teacups, a china milk jug and a small pot of sugar. There were also two white flannels folded neatly and steaming gently beside a small plate of biscuits.

“Would you care for some tea?” she asked, carrying the tray to the table. The normality of this sentence shocked Lila and Kenji so much that they found themselves nodding, edging towards the table. The centaur held out the flannels to them.

“Cover your wounds with these,” she said gently, “it will help. May I?” she added, gesturing to Kenji’s glasses.

Hesitantly, Kenji handed them over. They stared open-mouthed as the centaur tapped the glass with the tip of her finger and the crack disappeared. Magic! Actual magic!

Lila placed her flannel carefully on her cheek. She gasped; the pain of her graze seemed to be seeping away, being absorbed into the cloth. She bent to wipe a particularly nasty cut on her leg and watched in amazement as it disappeared. Kenji’s sigh of relief told her he had done the same to his own wounds and when she looked at him, his eye was healed.

The centaur stood, smiling. She watched Lila for some time, a strange look in her deep, brown eyes. It was like she knew her.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you earlier,” she said, pouring tea into each cup. Her voice was soft yet strong and reassuring. “I imagine the last thing you needed when an imp, a troll and a fairy were chasing you was a centaur charging through her front door.” She laughed kindly. “My name is Orva.”

She beckoned at something behind Kenji. There was a clip-clopping sound and Lila and Kenji were scooped up by two tall stools, which then placed themselves at the table. Orva handed them their teacups, which they took with a mumbled “thanks.”

Lila watched wide-eyed as Orva clicked her fingers at the milk jug, which leapt into the air and poured into her cup. She waved the jug away and it floated over to Lila, who eyed it nervously.

“Just ask it to stop when you’ve got enough,” Orva smiled. She watched curiously as Lila and Kenji spoke hesitantly to the jug and did not speak again until the crockery was still.

“What are your names?” she asked.

“Lila… Nightingale.”

“Kenji Nakamura.”

Lila sat silently on her stool, unable to stop herself from staring at Orva. She was wearing a simple, black waistcoat over her torso and a small, silver necklace with a single star dangling from it. Her horse’s body was bare and smooth, her tail groomed impeccably.

“So tell me, how did you end up in Tortaris?” Orva said.

“We were - we were transported here by a clock,” replied Lila, realising she probably sounded mad (although she was talking to a centaur, so maybe not). “We were at my Grandpa’s house, I saw a strange clock and touched it and it sort of trapped me. I tried to let go, but I couldn’t, and the clock dragged us through its face.”

“A clock?” repeated Orva. Her eyes were wide, anxious. “What did this clock look like?”

Lila thought back.

“It was...brown,” she said slowly. “It had the name of a city on it. It was an ordinary clock; it wasn’t anything special.”

“Was there anything different about it at all?” Orva pressed.

“The eight,” Kenji said suddenly.

“Yes, the clock had Roman numerals, but the eight was wrong,” said Lila, “it had the V painted after the three I’s. It was backwards.”

Orva gasped. She strode silently to the canvas across the room, picked up a pen, and scribbled the numeral in the middle of the sky.

“Like this?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” said Lila, staring at the familiar symbol. She felt uneasy, like she had just delivered terrible news.

“Ebony,” Orva breathed, her expression pained.

“Sorry?”

“Ebony,” she repeated, “a powerful, evil woman. She trapped the mythics here. This is her mark, her symbol. Horizontally, a figure of eight represents infinity; this numeral was a representation of her own unique infinity.” She glared at the symbol in disgust.

Kenji looked confused.

“Mythics?”

Orva raised an eyebrow. “Non-human creatures with the ability to use magic.”

“How could a human do that?” Kenji demanded. “People can’t do magic!”

Orva looked from Kenji to Lila, puzzled.

“You mean, you don't know any magic at all?”

A thought popped into Lila’s head and she leaned forward eagerly.

“You know humans who can do magic? Proper magic?” she asked, excited.

Something about Orva’s expression silenced her. She looked into the lovely face of the centaur and saw heartbreak and sadness.

“Something terrible happened,” Lila said. It wasn’t a question.

Orva ran a hand across the canvas beside her. The meadow and the symbol disappeared, leaving a blank white space. She placed her fingertips on the surface of the canvas and several black lines appeared at her touch. Lila and Kenji watched in amazement as Orva moved her hand away and the lines spread, twisting across the surface.

“Many years ago,” she said, “Humans and mythics co-existed peacefully. We lived in your world, side by side.”

As she spoke, the black lines on the canvas painted a picture of her words.

“While humans were not born with magic, they were able to learn through the use of books.” The marks on the canvas shifted into the shape of a woman standing over a cauldron with a book in her hand.

“Ebony was exceptional, developing her magical ability to rival that of even the greatest minds. But she was also extremely jealous. You see, mythics are born with magic, and because of this they tend to be more powerful than humans. Ebony couldn’t stand it, so she immersed herself in her magical education with a horrific plan forming.”

The lines moved again, creating a terrifying scene of mythics trapped in what looked like giant bubbles. A woman stood in the centre of the canvas, laughing.

“We were not expecting it. It was new magic, magic we had never seen before. We had no way of stopping her.”

Orva gazed at the canvas.

“Ebony sent a powerful spell across Earth, trapping every mythic in these huge, golden orbs which drained our magic. Then half of us were transported here to Tortaris, ripped away from our loved ones. Weak, we sought shelter in the huts. She wanted us to suffer, and created a world to wither away in.”

Orva’s voice trembled, tears beginning to fall. The canvas showed images of creatures crawling towards crumbs of food. Some of the black lines transformed into unmoving shapes.

“It was the worst time of my life,” she said shakily. “Our magic returned, but gradually, and was still incredibly weak. I was one of the strongest, but could barely conjure enough food for myself. I had to watch so many friends starve to death.”

At the word ‘death’, the black lines lifted off the canvas, evaporating like smoke. Kenji sat open-mouthed, horror-struck. Lila sat deep in thought, Orva’s words replaying in her mind.

“What happened to the other mythics?” she asked.

“They were taken to Jahennah, the sister world to this one,” Orva replied bitterly. “Possibly because Ebony was terrified that we would plot revenge and build an army. But most likely she simply wanted to cause us as much pain as possible. It’s hard to think straight when the one you love is missing.”

Orva went to the small table beside her bed, opened the drawer and pulled out a picture frame. Bringing it back to the table, she handed it to Lila with trembling hands.

It was a painting of the meadow that had been on the canvas before Orva’s story, only this time it contained Orva herself and another centaur. She was every bit as beautiful as Orva but pale and freckled with long, auburn hair. She looked elegant and graceful, yet had a kind face and warm, hazel eyes.

“Romana,” she choked, the name catching in her throat. “She was visiting friends. I was preparing dinner when the spell captured me.” The tears were falling fast now, the drops falling onto the table in front of her. “I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

Her voice broke and heart-wrenching sobs filled the hut.

Kenji patted her hand awkwardly.

“Isn’t there any way to escape?” he asked, then added hopefully, “Couldn’t you go through the same portal that brought us here?”

Orva sniffed. “The portal is not in one place; it constantly shifts through the clouds. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of it, but after a few seconds, it disappears. Besides, only a human can activate the portal.”

“But we’re here. What would happen if you tried to escape with us?” Lila asked.

Orva gulped nervously.

“It has happened only once since we’ve been here. Some of us tried escaping through the portal. Ebony came to Tortaris to check on things and she temporarily froze the portal in place. As she terrorised those nearby, a fairy flew in, hoping he could activate it unnoticed. He didn’t know it was mythic-locked.”

Orva grabbed a cloth from by the sink and started to clean the table, though her eyes were glazed, her mind deep in her memories.

“She had cast a powerful charm on the portal meaning that a mythic could not pass through it without the presence of a human.” She shuddered violently. “He became trapped in the door of the portal. The entire sky turned blood-red and the sound of Basil’s screams echoed across Tortaris. We couldn’t do anything for him, so we ran. We never saw him again.”

“Ebony was incandescent that one of us had tried to escape. She destroyed half of the huts and left us to burn. Who knows what she would have done if she’d known how many of us were involved?”

The three of them were silent for a long time. Lila was feeling overwhelmed. She had woken up this morning completely oblivious to the existence of magic, yet now she found herself in another world, meeting creatures she had only ever read about in stories. She looked over at the sink and watched a cloth cleaning the teacups. It sneezed and blew bubbles into the air.

Question after question sprang to mind, each more important than the next. How were they going to escape? How could they possibly leave knowing what the others had to endure? And, possibly most important of all, what on Earth did this have to do with Grandpa’s basement?

Something else was bothering her as well. That fairy had recognised her, or at least knew someone that looked exactly like her. Orva too. But how was that possible? She remembered what the imp had said: We’ll get a nice reward for turning you in again. Again? What had happened the last time a human came to Tortaris?

She started to ask Orva this question, but the first word had barely escaped her lips when a sound ripped through the hut. It was like the beginning of a storm, except thunder didn’t usually scream after it clapped.

None of them dared to breathe as they listened. All was still for a few seconds, then another shrieking clap of thunder shattered the silence.

Wordlessly, Orva held her fingers up in front of her and curled them into a fist. As she did so, the candle flames around the hut flickered violently and disappeared, plunging the three of them into darkness. There was a scraping sound and then a faint, reddish glow emanated from a large, round hole that had suddenly appeared in the wall by the door.

“Do not make a sound,” Orva breathed.

“What’s happening?” Lila murmured.

“Ebony.”

Lila and Kenji scrambled through the hole. At first, Lila panicked; how had they ended up outside? But then she noticed the strange tint surrounding them and realised they must be in some sort of secret room on the side of the hut.

Orva sealed the hole behind them and Lila and Kenji pressed their hands against the translucent mesh in front of them, their hearts thumping. A moment later, they watched as Orva walked through the front door next to them and locked it behind her. She rushed to the next hut and ran her hand hastily over the rough stone, muttering under her breath. Lila and Kenji watched as Orva repeated the process on four other nearby huts. She then returned and stood stiffly in front of her door, almost like she was standing to attention, Lila and Kenji concealed right beside her. They looked up at the thundery sky and waited.