V. H. King's Ink

Locked branches were like locked houses.  Lucille could see winks in the portals, ripples where distant dimensions went on their merry way in space and time.  Like lit windows, but unlike a window, Lucille couldn’t shatter it with a rock or a fist.  There was no time for locksmithing either—but that hadn’t stopped zim on the first 3 branches. 

Zi’d spotted five branches spanning the Middle Reach—each furthest end, two midpoints, and the center. 

All locked. 

Zi couldn’t keep spotting forever.  The distance of the jumps had drained zim more than they otherwise would have, since zi’d been spotting nonstop for days.  Zi couldn’t take the time to check every branch, but zi checked five more anyway. 

Locked. 

Have a bit of faith, Shadow.  Hope rises. 

Spotting down to the Soft Spiral, Lucille doesn’t know if that last bit goes through.  Zi can’t worry about it though.  There’s sanctuary to find.  The first four dimensions are unlocked, but they’re too unstable.  Riots.  Wars.  Wind-storms like zi had never seen before.  Fire rolling through hills and spilling out to the sea.  Impossible things, but there they were in front of zis eyes. 

No time for zim to waste over it though.

The fifth and sixth tries are moot.  Sometimes, dimensions down here are too weak to even open to magic.  Which went along with what Shadow had said, but Silly pushes the thought away.  They have to survive, first.  They can worry about the rest later. 

Seventh dimension.  Last one this side of the soft spiral—and of course zi’d ended up as far away from home as possible.  The Stavs had always accused zim of running away.  Well, here zi was. 

A push.

A twist of the wrist. 

The portal opens onto a city. 

Plain enough, and probably as corrupt as any other.  It would make for good hiding, if that’s what they were doing.  Were they fugitives now?  No matter.

On my way back.  It’s going to be a long jump, but we’re going to make it. 

They had to. 

o-o-o

Shadow opens her eyes to silver, and she shivers.  Her first thought is that she finally went too far, she pushed herself to a place she couldn’t come back from.  Silly was always warning her about that.  Craft had cost, but Shadow had never cared so much if that cost came from herself. She could make that sacrifice for others—can and would.  Without a doubt. 

“You’re back.”

Silly’s face hovers over hers before slipping out of view again.

“Back?”

“You passed out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And you call me silly?”

“I should have had better control of myself.  I—“

“You can’t control everything.”

Shadow slowly sits up.  Bright colors swirl around them.  Spirals and spheres floating in the dark.  Just like the glimpses she’d seen, half-conscious, when they had jumped here from the Temple. 

“Where are we?”

“I always wanted too much.” 

Lucille pulls her so that her back is resting against zis chest.  They are sitting on a concrete landing.  Golden stairways here, silver steps there.  A whole spectrum of joy and grief and hope and hurt and healing.  Shadow closes her eyes again, her body absorbing the feeling of this place for her mind to process later. 

“But maybe it’s better this way.  It might even be easier to believe, without my magic.  I don’t have to cast, if the gods will do it for me.”

“You’ll always have magic,” Rashada said, slipping her hand into Lucille’s.  “You are magic.  No one can know the will of the gods, much less force their hands.”

“We’ve been here too long, if you’re saying that.  You sound too much like me.”

“I always wanted to be like you.  Brave.  Confident.”

“You were confident in a faith I couldn’t match.”  Lucille rested zis chin on top of her head.  “I always admired that about you, and maybe I envied it too.”

“Is that why your art always had such a fury?  Because you were trying to believe?”

Lucille didn’t say anything, so Shadow thought she was probably right.  The two of them drift in the silence.  In the map of constellations.  Seeing a cosmos that only came in visions, in Temples, in dreams. 

“Maybe belief is dangerous when it’s that fervent,” Shadow said.  “When it’s feverish.”

“But we were free.  And we came here because we wanted to still be free.”

“That’s what I thought too.  That’s what I believed.  But maybe that kind of belief keeps you on a path that you should have turned away from, a long time ago.”

“Even if you believe in the right things?”

“I don’t know.”

Lucille shifted, turning her shoulder so they faced each other. 

“It scared me sometimes.  How we could do anything, if we wanted.”

The corner of Shadow’s mouth lifted. 

“So much power for so much irresponsibility.”

“You say that, but you always believed in the best of me.  Maybe you won’t anymore, but—“

“The gods can give or take away magic, but I believed in the gods because of you.” Shadow turned, looking out at the stadium.  “I’ll always believe in you.”