The Fourfold Key

She was in a corridor—to a dungeon, perhaps. The walls were covered in slimy moss and shone in the flickering firelight. Footsteps echoed. The Sorceress came into view. No one was accompanying her. She was completely alone. She hurried past door after door. A hand reached out from one.

“Sorceress, please. You have the wrong person. I didn—”

“Ra domenish lapeltey,” the Sorceress muttered.

The prisoner began to choke and hack and writhe. His arm stretched out farther as he tried to say more. The choking stopped. The arm went limp and slithered out of sight. The thump of the dead man’s body falling to the floor echoed faintly as the Sorceress walked by, a small smile flitting across her lips.

After a while, she stopped at a cell door. She pulled a key from her robes. Unlocking the door, she stepped inside. This cell was larger than the others. A man chained hand and foot sagged on a rough bench in the corner.

“All right. Get up you lazy boy,” she commanded. He didn’t move. “Alli mor ca do ban,” she said, and he was dragged to his feet.

The man groaned and lifted his head. Ruth looked closely. He had black hair with a thick beard and mustache. He opened his eyes. They were dark green.

Dad! Ruth thought. He’s alive! She hadn’t recognized him with the beard. Her heart swelled at the sight of her father and her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Now, Collen, why don’t you tell me how to get to Earth,” the Sorceress said sweetly.

“Why would I do that?” Collen asked, voice raspy and low. It was nothing like the voice she had heard so much when she was younger.

“Because…” Her fingers twitched at her robe and her oily gaze met his. “I have your daughter.”

Ruth’s dad chuckled. It sounded nothing like his real laugh. This laugh was rough and grating. His real laugh was light and loud and clear as a bell. “Liar,” he spat. “You’ve pulled that trick on me before. That was the only reason I told you how to transport non-living things to Earth! I will not fall for it again. Besides, why would Ruth be here? She knows nothing of this place.”

“You will tell me.” She murmured a command and the chains around his wrists and ankles fell away, revealing scarred, infected skin. She murmured again and his body slammed into the wall. He cried out. She slammed him again. And again. The fifth time she hurled him against the wall she let him fall to the ground. He lay where he had fallen, breathing heavily. “Tell. Me,” she insisted.

“No!” he screamed. His rage gave him the strength to stumble to his feet. “I won’t! I never will! Torture me all you like, but I will never tell you, you beast!”

She sighed, exasperated. “I’ve tried to be patient, Collen. I really have. But you leave me no choice.” She issued a command and he was chained once more. “But, as it turns out, Ruth is here. Not with me, but in this world.”

“Oh really? Prove it,” he challenged.

The Sorceress shrugged. “If you insist.” She created a misty sheet, separating the two of them. The mist bubbled and shivered, revealing Ruth lying in a clearing, shivering and pale, staring at nothing.

“Ruth! What did you do to her?!” Collen cried leaping at the vision. When he touched it, the picture evaporated.

“Oh, nothing. Yet.” She smiled smoothly and sailed out the cell door.

“You’re a monster! You know that? Nothing but a cruel, heartless, monster!” he called after her.

The door slammed shut behind her.

Collen knelt down on the cold stone. “Ruth, Ruth, don’t let her take you. Don’t let her take you.” He buried his face in his hands, sobs shaking his entire body.

Ruth gasped, blinking quickly in the bright sunlight. Her head throbbed. Tom and Ramere were hovering near her, eyes full of worry.

“Ruth! What happened?” Tom cried, rushing to embrace her.

“We were resting and suddenly you fainted, and we couldn’t get you to wake up,” Ramere gasped, eyes wide.

Ruth closed her eyes to block out the barrage of questions. She needed to tell Tom. She had known that one day she would have to let him know about her visions. But now, when the time had come, it seemed way more difficult than she had imagined.

She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Tom, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

“You should probably sit down.” She crossed her arms uncomfortably. “Gee, this is gonna be harder than I thought.”

Tom sat on his blanket, and Ramere slunk into the woods, much to Ruth’s relief. It was hard enough to explain it to just one person. No need to double that number.

Ruth twisted her hands and sat as well. “So…I probably should have told you this a while ago. But I was scared. I thought there might be something wrong with me, so I kept it a secret. But I’m going to tell you now.”

She took a deep breath. “I’ve been having dreams. Weird dreams. Not really even dreams. Visions, actually - because they’re real. Every so often, I’ll just start one, out of the blue. And they’re all about the Sorceress. In the first one, they were talking about giving me a tracker. I could never figure out what it was. Remember those dwarves from the Gnome King’s Castle? I had a vision about them, too. She told them to hunt us down, capture me, and kill you.” Her last words came out as a whisper. She shuddered, remembering the Sorceress’s voice and sickening smile.

Tom was silent.

Ruth continued. “I had another vision just now - which is why I fell. My dad was there. The Sorceress was hurting him, trying to get him to tell her the way to get to Earth. She told him that I was here and he didn’t believe her. She showed me to him somehow. Then he got mad and she left.”

Tom stared, unmoving.

“Do you know why I’m seeing this stuff?” she asked finally.

“No,” Tom admitted. “I’m still trying to take it all in. I see why they would want to kill me, but why do they want you? They don’t know about our mission, do they?”

“There’s no reason they would. What about the tracker? I know it’s something from my world and something I would have it on me.”

“The love note?” Tom suggested, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Oh - oh my gosh! You’re probably right! The Sorceress talked about David Lloyd—the guy that gave it to me—and about him planting the tracker. Gee, I’m an idiot!” She smacked her head. “This whole time I was carrying it around, putting us all in danger.”

“I suggest we destroy it,” Tom said.

Ruth handed the note to Tom, who took a corner in each hand and ripped it down the middle. There was a thunderous boom. Metal gears and wires littered the ground.

“Well, I guess we know we destroyed the right thing.”

“How did all that fit inside a piece of paper?” Tom wondered.

“Magic,” was Ruth’s only answer.

They turned to call Ramere back into the clearing when a whirring, clanking sound came from behind them. They looked behind them and saw the note was reassembling itself! Tom and Ruth watched, open-mouthed as it smoothed itself out and flew into Ruth’s open palm. They looked at each other.

“Let’s rip it again.”

Tom ripped it a second time, then a third. The fourth time he ripped it, they gave up and Ruth left it on a root.

“We’ll just leave it behind,” Ruth said.

Together they walked into the forest to find Ramere. Ruth felt a tug in her pocket. Full of dread, Ruth reached in and pulled out the note.

“Tom, we’ve got to do something. Let me try ripping it.” Ruth didn’t know why, but she felt like she might be able to do it. She held it in her hands and took a deep breath, pulling courage from inside her. She tore down hard, blowing it to smithereens.

They held their breath. Nothing happened.

“Well, look at that. How did you manage that?” Tom asked jealously.

“I don’t know,” she said, grinning.

“Hrrmph.”

“Sooo. Why do you think I can see the Sorceress sometimes?” Ruth asked again.

“I know,” said Ramere, dropping out of the branches of the trees above them.

Ruth gaped at her. “Did you hear everything I said?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Well,” Tom said. “Why?”

“She comes from a magical family, does she not?”

“Yeah, I do,” Ruth replied. “My great-uncle was Adonia’s most powerful magician.”

“Yes. Well, because your great-uncle was powerful—much more powerful than any other magician—that makes you and your father very powerful. Probably the two most powerful magicians in this world, if you were trained. Magic courses through you. My guess is that your father set up a secret connection to you and the Sorceress. And anytime there’s something important going on, he’ll turn on the connection.”

“But in my vision he said he didn’t know that I was here. These visions started a while after I got here.”

“He could have been lying to her. Or maybe he was trying to get you to see he was alive and to come save him and the timing was completely coincidently. Or you could have done it.”

“Me?” Ruth’s jaw dropped.

“You could have. They started after you began your mission. Your mission is to collect all four Keys, rescue your father and destroy the Sorceress, is it not?”

“How..? How did you guess that?” Ruth was astounded.

“She put two and two together, that’s what.” Tom said. “She heard everything you said a moment ago and who knows how much more.”

Ramere shrugged, unrepentant. “Those who have ears, let them hear.”

Tom gestured for her to continue.

“The magic in your blood is always working. If you wished to know about the Sorceress, or thought about her, the connection could have been forged without your knowledge.”

After a bit more discussion they packed up and left their camp, heading north towards the Whirlpool. They stopped for a rest every now and then, and at those breaks Ramere would coach them on sword fighting. That being said, they weren’t very restful breaks. As they walked, Ramere explained more of what she knew about Ruth’s family.

“As soon as your great uncle created the portal, every wicked or greedy person wanted it. A world without magic? Easy for the taking. As a result, your great uncle left for Earth. He left his secret with all of his trustworthy relatives—the ones who knew magic, at least. Even with him gone, the people after the portal potion - or spell, no one really knows what it is - kept searching. They knew he must have left it with someone. So they went to each and every one of your great uncle’s relatives’ homes that they knew of, demanding that they tell them where the potion was. If they claimed they didn’t know, the people would tear through the house, destroying everything and everyone. The word spread quickly about the search and soon all who knew the secret of the potion had left to Earth. Though some legends say one stayed—an old man—and is living in secret still to this day. Some of the people fleeing took all their family—aunts, uncles, grandparents, that sort of thing—with them. But most were too frantic to think of anything but their immediate family. Those who were caught by the men and women out for the portal potion were killed.”

“You seem very familiar with this story. Why?” Tom asked when she had finished.

Ramere blushed. “When I was a teenager, I thought I would like to be a magician. I read every book on magic I could find. Later I changed my mind and decided to be a warrior, like my mother.”

“I’m confused,” Ruth said to Ramere. “You said that there might be an old man still living that knows about the portal potion. If they interrogated every living member of the family and then killed them, how did he survive? If he actually exists.”

“I see you were paying attention, just not close enough. If you’d listened closer, you would have heard me say that they went to every house they knew of. If he exists, they simply didn’t know about him.”

They came to Dwarfshead River. Ruth and Tom stopped and looked at each other, then at Ramere.

“It’s time for us to part ways, isn’t it?” she asked solemnly.

They nodded slowly.

Her face fell, but she quickly masked her emotions. “You are now both very important friends of mine and I am disappointed to leave, I will not lie.” She waved farewell. “Remember, Ruth, Tom. I meant what I said. I am forever in your debt. Thank you for saving me. Farewell!” She raised her hand a final time.

“Good bye, Ramere!” Ruth’s eyes grew blurry. She hadn’t realized how much she was going to miss this brave elf. “Thank you for everything.”

“Come on, Ruth,” Tom whispered when he finished his goodbyes. He put a strong hand on her shoulder and together they walked away.