Elora Pt. 6: Elora

This is the sixth part in my ongoing story Elora. It is recommended to read the previous chapters before reading this one to have a better understanding of what is going on. If you've already read it, enjoy this part.

London, Arsoz’s Study

Arsoz was deep in thought. He was looking out of the window to the lawn below, mostly empty, save for the few ducks wading in the pond. He was thinking about what Regina had said in the cloak projection. He could recall it all word for word.

‘Listen, Arsoz. I do not know what it is, but I feel like there is something different about this awakening. I don’t care for the rest of us or for the rest of you, but I am not going back to sleep. There are too many coincidences here. A spirit goes so far out of its way to deliver a vague and cryptic message like this. Then one of your apprentices gets their soul split into two. A telepath no less. This does not look good.’ No matter the selfish motives she might have had to want to come back and be among the living, she was right about one thing at least. There was something different about the awakening this time.

A soft knock on the door broke his reverie. “Come in.” He said. There was no response from the door. With a pang of embarrassment he realized that it must be Sofia. He rose from the mat he was sitting on, went to the door and opened it. Sofia looked at him and smiled.

‘I wanted to talk to you about something. In private.’ She gestured with her hands. Arsoz had never fully learned sign language, but he understood most of it. Sofia knew it too and made slow movements.

‘Sure, we can talk here.’ He gestured back.

‘I felt something last night. A wave of cold. Something that I have never felt before. As if sheets of ice were grinding on top of each other.’

‘Were you able to understand where it was?’

‘Not precisely, but I am quite sure it originated from somewhere in northern Siberia, near the Kara sea. And I am also sure that it was not something natural. There is something there, it could be the gem.’

‘Are you sure? Elora said that that was where the gem was going to awaken. But the complete awakening is still a few months away. It can’t possibly be having such strong effects on water or ice so soon. So if Elora can’t pick up on its psychic waves, I’m not sure — ’

Sofia cut him off. ‘I am not saying that it is the gem. I’m saying that there is something going on there which is not natural at all. And if I can sense it this far away, then I feel we should check it out.’

Arsoz didn’t reply immediately. He thought for some time. ‘Okay! If you think it is important, you can go check it out. Take David with you. But do you have a good enough idea as to where you are going to start looking?’

‘Yenisei River.’

‘That’s a very large river system. It would take you days to look through it all.’

‘No, no! Not the river itself. I’m thinking of using it as a guide. Once I am close to it, I might be able to find the origin more precisely. From there, David and I can quickly follow the banks to find what we are looking for. If there is something worth looking for to begin with.’

Arsoz nodded in understanding. ‘That is a good plan. But I cannot stress it enough. You need to be careful out there. And make sure David stays away from anything which can be even remotely dangerous. I don’t want you to get stuck there send Kavya out there to bring you back. Take the radios along with you too. I’ll ask Natasha to monitor you.’

‘Why not Elora?’

‘Elora too would be listening to you, of course. But I also want her to take care of herself. I told her to not think of the stone as well. I know she would do it nonetheless. So there’s a little chance that she might not hear you.’ Arsoz paused, then added, ‘Good Luck!’

Sofia nodded and turned to leave. Arsoz suddenly remembered something. He called her back, realized his mistake, stood up quickly and tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned, he gestured, ‘If you find anything do not touch or interact with it in any manner.’

Sofia noticed the worry on Arsoz’s face. ‘Is there something wrong? If you know something—’

‘I don’t know, there might be. I have a hunch that this awakening is different.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m not sure. I just think we need to be careful until the chosen one is found.’

‘Are you afraid that Elora’s split soul can be a problem?’

‘No, I’m not worried about her. Elora knows herself well enough that even though it is a tough situation for us, especially for her, she can take care of herself. And moreover, we are all here for her, are we not? What I am worried about is why now*? The time is just wrong.’*

‘Yes, the time is wrong.’ Sofia agreed. They stayed silent for a small moment. ‘Anyway, I will tell you what I find out there in Siberia as soon as I find it.’ Arsoz nodded, and she left the room.

He closed the door behind her, and went back to the bookcase in the corner. He took out a heavy volume, one that he had not read in quite a while and went to his recliner near the window. A person in his situation had a unique trait of letting his mind wander, and wandering was especially easy when he tried to focus on something, even if it is just a book about archaic magic.

London, Library Wing of the Mansion

“This is frustrating.” Damion said suddenly, getting off from the chair he was sitting on in the corner. He slammed the book shut in his hands. A plume of dust billowed out from the old and not very healthy looking pages.

“Be careful with those, we don’t have copies.” Kavya said, pulling out another from the shelf she was standing beside. She could feel him getting irritated by their fruitless search so far in the library but decided that talking about it would make the matter worse and waste more time.

“What are we even looking for?” Damion said, placing the book down gently on the little pile they had created over the last three hours. “Didn’t these people know about something called a table of contents? I could really use one of those in the first couple of pages of these bricks.”

“Damion, calm down, sit, pick up another, take your time, nobody is rushing us. We’ll find something.” Kavya didn’t turn from the shelf, only glanced at him with a smile. “Pick up one of those?” She pointed to a smaller shelf on the far wall. “They have a lot of stuff regarding spirits and how to communicate with them, I think. I never got time to read any of those.”

Damion let out a frustrated sigh but went to the little shelf nonetheless. “Okay, fresh eyes, for every next book.” he said to himself out loud, and picked up the first one from the top. “The many facets of transferring thoughts from the other side. This sounds promising.”

“Yeah, it does. I’m opening this one: The applied methods of finding trespassers from other worlds.”

Kavya and Damion were focusing on the section of books which contained information about the spirit talker trait among the Returners and other related stuff. It had been over three hours, and so far, all they had found were the things that a spirit talker could do, and most of them Damion was either comfortable performing, or had at least tried. Repeatedly, the literature mentioned that any spirit talker would need something made of bronze to focus his abilities. Frequently occurring subjects in the literature also included exorcisms and sending spirits back to their proper realms. Kavya had, of course, read most of these books before, but never with a clear objective in mind. She remembered vaguely which book contained what, and a general idea about where any particular book could be, but now that she really needed to use her memory and familiarity with the library, she found herself at a loss.

Damion wasn’t doing much better either. He always had an aversion to reading. And the patience required to go through each book quickly, trying to understand what the text meant or pointed to, and then moving on if it was irrelevant, was getting him as bored as a four-year-old with a drawing book without crayons. But more than anything, he was distracted by Kavya herself. Her nimble movements between the shelves and the way her hair fell over her face whenever she had her eyes lowered to a book in her hand were drawing him in like the same four-year-old to a hefty scoop of ice-cream. He caught himself staring at her more than once, and on more than a few of those, he had to avert his eyes away as soon as he realized that his gaze was wandering to the glinting alexandrite pendant on her neck.

That pendant, which changed colors depending on the light falling on it, and also when she was so effortlessly using her powers of teleportation had been his idea. When she had arrived at the mansion, Arsoz already knew her ability. And to use it, she needed alexandrite to focus her abilities and use them safely, like he needed bronze. Natasha had suggested a bracelet like the one Elora had, with the gem studded in it. Kavya had been reluctant, for reasons she didn’t want to mention. But after much thought, he had spoken one day to her casually that she should wear it as a necklace. She agreed and Natasha had got it made from a local jeweler. The stone in it too was quite special. It was from Arsoz’s own collection. It didn’t have anything special over what David wore on his finger as a ring, just a regular alexandrite crystal, but it had a very distinct cut. And as a pendant, looked amazing on her.

Damion couldn’t help being unnerved by all that was happening either. He knew that the time of awakening is of great distress among the Returners. But with all that was going on with Elora, he was worried. A part of him wanted to keep Kavya safe at all costs, and at the same time he was focused on his responsibilities as a selfless sorcerer.

“I think I found something.” Kavya said suddenly, breaking his reverie. She looked up from the book she was reading to him. Damion felt flustered as if she had actually caught him ogling her like a high-school kid with a huge crush on her. She walked over to where he was sitting, and sat beside him.

“Look,” she pointed to a paragraph in the page she was reading. “It is often possible for residual traces of other worldly entities to remain on objects that they have touched, even if the medium was a human body. In such cases, an artisan can feel the presence of this trace through many of his senses. The traces of this being can appear as a momentary shift in vision, where the surroundings take on a faint shade of red or violet, or a faint smell of burning pine, or a sudden but momentary tingle on the fingers.” She read aloud from the page. “You said you felt something on your finger when you touched the note, right?”

“Yes, that was it, the mild tingling on my fingers. What else does it say?”

They read on together. “The root cause of why these traces stay behind is not widely known but it is understood that such traces can easily link back to the spirit who left them. In most cases, that is not of much benefit, since the artisan has already interacted with it and knows who it is. But in cases where the object in question has been obtained from other sources, it is quite useful. It is also possible through these traces to find out more information about the intention or desire of the spirit, which can be useful in making peace with it. As spirits are not very expressive through verbal interactions or sharing words with realms other than their own, it is through these traces that one can glean the true thoughts of the spirit in question.”

“So we can understand even more about what that spirit meant when he said that the darkness within us will show up sooner than we think. That should make it a little easier to figure out what is going on with this awakening in particular. Or maybe even about what happened to Elora.” Damion said as Kavya finished reading the paragraph. “Turn the page over, does it say how it is supposed to be done?”

Kavya turned the page over and began reading again. “The traces of the spirits from other realms usually communicate a lot more than any direct communication they might have through words or actions. However, it is often not as straightforward to peer into these traces as one might think. Oftentimes, the traces themselves are overlooked by untrained or novice artisans. Furthermore, looking into the traces themselves may or may not result in any comprehensible knowledge to the artisan. Since the traces from these beings cannot be translated into language, it is often just a collection of emotions the artisan might feel.

To a trained artisan though, looking into the traces involves only a few steps performed in order. With his talisman in direct contact with some other active talisman belonging to any other trait, the artisan can interpret the trace and feel what the spirit was feeling or even thinking when it had intentionally or unintentionally left it behind. This is preferably done inside of a cloak projection, but it is not necessary and can also be achieved in a place without distractions.”

“I think you can do it.” Kavya said, looking up from the book.

“Yeah, but we only have two little problems.”

“What problems?”

“It says that you can’t interpret the trace directly into words, so even if I can look into it, I don’t know how I would explain it to the others or Arsoz. And second, I need someone else to do it with me.”

Kavya facepalmed. “You know, for someone who can talk to spirits you can be really dumb sometimes.”

Damion frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I can help you. It says the technique works with any other talisman. I’m here, I have a talisman. And as for explaining it to the others, that indeed is a challenge. But I think Elora might be able to help with that. I think she can transfer whatever you felt to the others, or to Arsoz. You won’t have to use words. They would feel what you felt, and they would know. Hopefully*!*”

“You might be right.” Damion thought about it. “But are you sure? It could be dangerous, does it say anything about the risks involved.”

Kavya flipped a few pages, spending little time on each. “I don’t see anything like that here.”

“That makes it a little scary, and risky, don’t you think? I don’t want anything to go wrong, it might actually be dangerous.”

“Maybe, but we do have to do something, right? Sofia and David are out there in the cold looking for answers. And we can try from the comfort and safety of this mansion. I think we should do it.”

“Okay then, if you are sure. Let’s do this? Where?”

“Here.” Kavya said, the alexandrite glinting in the warm glow of the overhead lamps. Damion lifted his bronze staff from where he had placed it beside the table.

“I think it is best if we do it inside one of your cloak projections.” Kavya said.

“I don’t think that is a good idea.” Damion replied.

“Why? The book said it is easier that way, you can do it right on the first try.”

“No.” Damion said simply. A couple seconds later, he realized that she was going to need good enough reasoning from him other than simple safety concerns. He sighed.

“Cloak projections are unstable by nature to begin with. And even though I am quite good with those, I’m not particularly confident about trying something for the first time inside one of those. Plus, the book also said that I need my talisman, the staff, to be in direct contact with an active talisman from some other sorcerer. In your case, an active talisman means that you are in the process of teleporting. I have no idea what that would mean inside of a cloak projection. And I am not in the mood to find that out. There’s simply too many things we don’t know if we go that way.”

Kavya thought it over. “Okay. But now that you mention it, I don’t know how long my pendant would remain active in the sense it means here. I mean, teleportation is a two second process. And you’re definitely going to need more than that.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think of that either.”

“How about we call Natasha for help. Her trait allows for a sustained active state. And her armband too is suited well enough for the job. If you don’t want to do it in a cloak sphere it’s fine, but we’ll eliminate more variables that way.”

“Yeah, but isn’t she busy with the radio, listening to Sofia and David?”

“Elora too is listening to them. We can have her for some time I think. And if it is not enough, we’ll try again when they come back and everyone is not busy with something important.”

“Okay then, I’ll go and get her.” Damion said and left to get Natasha from her room.

In her room, Elora was still meditating. When Sofia and David had left, she had bound one of her thought lines to them, and was careful not to miss anything that they might say to her. So far, they had said nothing to her, which was both good and a little worrying. She wondered if they had said something to Natasha over the radio. But she didn’t want to get up and leave just yet.

There was something else too that she could feel. Something that seemed to want to talk to her. Only she wasn’t able to clearly understand anything. It sounded like whispers to her. She felt like she was in a forest with the wind rustling a lot of leaves all at once, and in the midst of all that noise, someone was trying to say something to her from far away. And there wasn't a single voice either. It sounded like three or four people, all talking at the same time, to her, to each other, no one in particular, just talking. Muffled, jumbled, distorted voices floated into her mind and left just as quickly without trace. She wondered if this subtle cacophony was the reason why she wasn’t able to listen to Sofia or David. She tried to focus, and that’s when she came to another realization.

The moment she focused her attention on Sofia and David, everything became quiet once more. No words, no rustling, there were simply no more sounds or thoughts. But the moment she turned her attention away from them, it began once more. She tried the same thing a few times, focusing on one thing, and then deliberately focusing away. It happened again. Whenever she thought about one thing, it was quiet, and whenever she tried to clear her mind and think about nothing, the whispers and the wind and the subtle noises began. She wondered if the noise was actually the other half of her soul trying to say something to her. But how would I talk to you? She thought with a flash of anger and frustration.

She focused back to reading everyone’s presence in the mansion. Damion had left Kavya alone in the library and was in Natasha’s room, talking to her. What they talked about she couldn’t know. Arsoz was still in his study, near the window. A minute later, she sensed Natasha leaving her room with Damion and heading back down the stairs to the library in the basement. She is supposed to be sitting beside the radio. Why is Damion taking her away? Her thought felt loud even to herself. Damion and Natasha stopped, and Natasha’s voice rang in her head.

“I’m sorry Elora. Damion needs a little help with something he and Kavya have found in the books. I’ll be back in five to ten minutes. In the meantime, please focus on Sofia and David. You’ll do that, right?” Natasha was thinking, talking to her. Elora realized she had unintentionally spoken her thoughts to both of them.

“Okay, don’t be too late.”

“Of course, Elora.” This time, it was Damion. “Are you alright, Elora? Your voice in my head sounded a bit too loud.”

“I’m sorry about that. I just sensed Natasha leaving her room, and was surprised. That’s all.”

“But I spoke to you before leaving my room.” Natasha said.

“I must have missed hearing from you. I’m sorry. Now go on, and don’t be late.”

Damion and Natasha went back to the library where Kavya was reading through the same pages again. She had spent the past ten minutes looking for anything that they might have missed, a warning, some other information about the associated risks, but there were none. It seemed that the process of digging deeper into a trace left by some spirit was a benign activity after all. Damion began by explaining to Natasha what they had found and the steps involved in what they were trying to do. Natasha seemed to understand all of it pretty easily.

They stood facing each other and Kavya stood to the side. When they were ready, Natasha closed her eyes, the sapphire crystal in her arm band came alive, although not visibly noticeable. A few of the books from the shelves floated around them. “I’m sorry Kavya, I’ll help you rearrange these once we’re done. I couldn’t think of anything else to use to stay active.”

“That’s fine. Focus!” Kavya said, excited and a little scared at the same time.

Damion focused. And like every time, the staff in his hand turned just a little bit warmer. He touched the end of it to the crystal embedded in Natasha’s armband. At first nothing happened. Then he remembered that he needed to hold the piece of paper in his other hand. He took it out of his pocket.

The first thing he felt was fear. Damion could tell that the feeling wasn’t his own. The kind of fear he was used to feeling from his childhood made him want to curl up in blankets and shut the world out. That was what had led him to send his bully into the darkness of hell. What he felt from the note was completely different. A kind of despairing and hopeless fear of loss and abandonment that seemed to encompass all of his body, down to the marrow. He couldn’t find the object of this despair, nor could he try to run away from it. The only way he could describe this fear was from the scene from the movie 127 hours, where the guy gets his hand stuck between the rocks about fifty feet below the ground surface in the canyon, and the only sky he could see was through the crack in the canyon.

The second thing he felt was pain. Starting from the small of his back, a searing pain quickly climbed up along his spine, spreading through the ribs to the front of his chest. He felt it in his neck and then at the base of his skull. It exploded in his head, blinding him completely, and shutting him down in an instant.

It all lasted about ten seconds. Damion did not feel himself fall. But he was clearly aware that he was no longer standing upright. He didn’t lose consciousness, but the blanketing pain made it impossible for him to do anything about it. Natasha yanked her hand away from where Damion’s bronze staff was touching her armband, arresting his fall midway using her telekinesis. Damion landed on the floor softly, as if captured by an invisible airbag. Kavya was by his side immediately, checking, trying to wake him up.

Unknown to the three of them, Elora too had fallen unconscious in her own room. The last thing that she was aware of was a biting cold, and then nothing else. As if her soul was yanked away from her body temporarily.

Siberia, Banks of Yenisei River

David had teleported Sofia and himself to the place she wanted about two hours earlier. At first he had landed them in the middle of a forest. It was very dark, very cold, and eerily silent. It had been a little difficult for him to visualize the place, which had caused the error in pinpointing their landing location. The satellite image he had used simply couldn’t be trusted. He had brought along everything that would be required for a twelve hour stay. Although he could go back and bring anything whenever they wanted, he didn’t want to do it. He knew Sofia didn’t like interruptions, and having preparations was a good idea anyway.

It had taken them twenty minutes to find the river, and it was especially difficult in the cold. They had brought with them heavy jackets, which were doing a poor job of keeping them warm. But something was better than nothing at any rate. The banks of the river were completely frozen, and ice jams were quite visible. Sofia touched the surface and could feel a little flow of water underneath the frozen surface. It was very little compared to the river as a whole.

To be safe, they stayed near the banks. Every two or three minutes, Sofia touched the solid ice with her hands and moved on. David could tell she was looking for something but there was no way to tell what. He wondered whether Sofia herself was sure what she was looking for.

They spent the next hour like this. They walked a couple hundred meters north on the frozen land, Sofia would crouch, touch the surface, then stand up and move on. Fortunately, there was no storm and the visibility was good enough for a place completely covered in snow. The sky was a bright blue, with little wisps of clouds here and there which made it easier to keep an eye on the horizon. Not that it would matter much if they were lost, it would only be a major inconvenience.

On their next stop. Sofia remained in her crouched position for over a minute. David came closer and when she turned around, he gestured to her. Like Arsoz, he wasn’t particularly good with sign language, but he made do. ‘You found something?’

‘I think so. I feel there’s something about three hundred fifty miles to the north.’

‘I won’t take you anywhere based on distance and direction alone. With only that information, I can take you in a straight line only. We could land anywhere. We could land under dozens of feet of snow for all we know.’

‘Are all the male sorcerers so dumb?’ Sofia pointed to the binoculars swinging from his hip.

David lifted it up and stared at it as if it was supposed to explain what she was trying to say? ‘What am I supposed to do with this? The earth is not flat, remember?’

Sofia laughed, but he could tell that the sarcasm obviously hadn’t worked and the joke landed back on him. Sofia rolled her eyes and let out a deep breath. It condensed into a smoke-like glob in front of her face. Then she pointed to a hill before them. ‘That is at least fifty miles from here, take us to its top. And from there we can see a much larger area. You need to see where you are going, right? So let’s go to high ground.’

Without another word, and a little embarrassed at his slow thinking, David looked through the binoculars towards the mountain she had pointed to. He adjusted the zoom to its maximum to get a closer picture. He searched for a clearing large enough that would allow for a safe landing. He found a place that was close to the top. Once satisfied, he beckoned her closer and held her hand. His alexandrite ring changed colors from ocean green to purple.

‘You ready?’ He asked. Sofia nodded.

Their surroundings spun twice before being a complete blur. When it slowed down, the temperature had dropped by about six more degrees, and it was a lot brighter all around. Sofia turned back to the place they were standing just a couple seconds ago, and all she could see was a frozen river. No trace of what had just happened. At least she could see perfectly that far.

David was already looking through the binoculars, searching for their next landing spot. She tapped on his shoulder, ‘let me look.’ David handed her the binoculars, deciding it was better after all. She could maybe sense something and would be a better judge of the location.

About two minutes later, she took the binoculars away from her face, and gave them to him. ‘There is a large pine tree lying on its side over there, look straight ahead on the side of that hill.’ David looked where she was pointing to, and almost immediately spotted five fallen pine trees on the other hill. He told her so. ‘It’s broken in two places. The upper two parts are a little far away from the lower one.’ David looked again, and found it without much effort. The place she was pointing to was about sixty to sixty five miles from where they were. David performed his all too familiar teleportation one more time and took her there.

They repeated the process seven more times, traveling twenty-five to forty miles on each jump. David was feeling the effect of teleporting multiple times quickly without much rest in between. But he didn’t let it show. He wanted to find whatever they were looking for before taking the much needed rest. But given that they had no clue what they were looking for, it was rather difficult.

For their next stop, Sofia asked him to take them to the river bank again. There, she crouched down again, and immediately flinched. ‘There is something very close by. I can feel it. It is not very big, but there’s something unusual about it. I can feel that it is round, and very hard. It’s not rock, it’s ice, but unlike any ice that I know of.’

‘Should we go up there?’ David pointed to another hill to their right, ‘maybe you can see something?’

‘We don’t have to. I can tell it is less than three miles from here. Let’s walk. You need to save up some energy to go back as well. We can have the sandwiches on our way.’

They started walking. The snow slowed their progress, but it was not too deep and the snowshoes they had brought along were helping a lot. The warm tea in the thermos contributed to their overall light mood. Any survival experts would be very jealous. But when you have magic on your side, you can indulge in some human comforts in situations like this too.

The cabin looked like it had been there for centuries. But the ax lying by the door, safely covered in its leather sheath, and the smoothness of the handle told a different story. Sofia knew immediately that this was what they had been looking for. This was the place that had stimulated her senses. The only thing left for her to figure out was what it was about this log cabin that had triggered her senses. They headed up to the front door. But before Sofia could touch it, David stopped her.

‘You remember what Arsoz said, right? Don’t touch anything suspicious.’

‘Yes, you’re right, but we have to find out what is in there. Even now, I can feel something in this place. The water in the air seems disturbed.’

‘All the more reason to just go back and get the others.’ David began, but Sofia ignored him. She pushed open the door before David could protest any more. Nothing happened.

David followed her swiftly inside. There was a rock fireplace facing the door, a bookshelf to their left with at least a hundred hard bound books. Some of these were sticking out, looking like someone had stopped in between the process of pulling them out, and others were close to falling off. To their right, there was a chair facing the window, as if someone was sitting there looking at the snow. There was a table too, and on it, there was a glass lying on its side. The walls were slightly damp and the fireplace was completely empty. The place didn’t seem to be lived in for many years. But they had both seen the ax outside. It was almost new, at least the leather was. In this weather, leather would give away in less than five years. And it looked a lot newer than that.

‘Seems like no one is home!’ Sofia said.

‘Yeah, but someone must be around, the ax outside —’

‘Yes, I saw that too. You know what that means, right?’ David was a little slow on the uptake, but the realization came to him soon enough. Sofia could almost see the gears turning in his head.

‘The ax is the medium through which the gemstone would manifest itself into our realm this time.’

‘But it seems that the manifestation is complete. The ax is already here. Although whether the gem is embedded in it, I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out right now. I think we found the location of its awakening.’ Sofia said.

There was a sudden loud knocking on the door. They looked at each other and then at the closed door. David did the only thing he could think of. He held Sofia by the wrist and teleported them away from the cabin to the little hill he had seen about two miles away when they came. Once there, he turned quickly around and looked through the binoculars. There was nobody on the front steps of the cabin.

‘But we both heard the knock, didn’t we?’ She asked, also seeing nothing at the door.

‘Yes, we did.’

‘What do you think it was?’

‘I don’t know. I think we should go back to London.’ David said.

‘Yes, we should. Let’s bring the others.’

“No!” David and Sofia turned around at the voice to find a feminine figure, shrouded in red looking at them from a few feet away. She had on a thick hooded piece of cloth wrapped around her torso. It couldn’t be called a robe, but it wasn’t just a span of cloth either. The cloth covered her head completely, and down to just above her knees. Below it, her skin was surprisingly pale, seeming to blend in with the snow around her. There was no footwear, and her arms were bare from the shoulder down. Her clothing suggested that she was unaffected by the snow, but her voice sounded like she had a bad case of cold or her vocal chords had been injured by the sub-zero temperatures. “You will not go anywhere. You came here looking for the gem. You came here looking for answers. But you don’t realize that you are unworthy of them. The whole lot of you are unworthy of the answers you seek. And like the ones before you, you cannot leave.”

David held Sofia’s wrist again, trying to teleport them back to London, back to the safety of the mansion. But he realized with fear that he couldn’t bring the mansion’s image to his mind. He tried a few more times, a few other places. But all he could imagine was a blurry vision with everything moving, nothing fixed enough for him to lock on. He thought of Elora, asking her for help.

“She cannot help you here.” The woman in red said with a smile, reading his mind.

“Who are you?” David asked. In response, the hooded woman before them pulled the cloth on her head away, revealing a face as pale as her legs and arms, but the features were unmistakable. She was Elora, without her platinum bracelet, and without her signature white outfit. She had a gold hairpin in her hair, which was obviously her talisman. Both of them realized what they were seeing. This was the other half of her soul, manifesting itself into their minds. “You are not really here. You can’t hurt us.” David said.

Sofia had pressed the SOS button on the radio repeatedly, hoping Natasha would get Kavya for help. But there was no response. With growing panic, she realized that there was nothing in her hand, she had imagined the radio.

“Maybe so. But I can keep you here for as long as I want. Now, let’s go back to the cabin, shall we? It’s cold out here.” She said, the smile curving upwards on her eerie white face. Without any conscious thought, David found himself thinking of the inside of the cabin. A couple seconds later, they both were back in the cabin. Only this time, they were seeing the woman with them. They both knew that she was only in their heads, but she looked solid enough to touch.

To Be Continued...