Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

"You two should stay here," El said, without looking back at the men behind her. Through the portal, the "small" town wasn't really small at all. The more she looked, the more she found fallen buildings within the tall trees. The huts – that's what they were – weren't anything fancy, from the few still standing. Little more than walls and a roof, they wouldn't do much to keep back the elements, but from El's time in the In-Between, it wasn't like bad weather was a major concern.

Other than the Storm. Her first trips into that other realm had been filled with falling snow and drifts up to her waist in some places. From the looks of things, the village stretching between the trees hadn't been prepared for it. Most of the structures looked to have collapsed under the weight of the snowfall, with only those tucked in between the rare occurrence of two nearby trees having survived.

But what about the people? Did any of them survive?

Not that she could see. Like every other trip to the In-Between, nothing moved.

"We have to go with you," Singel said, probably not for the first time by the way his voice pitched. "I have to go with you! This is what I've been working for."

"No," El said simply, stepping through the gateway. Blue flames licked along the arches, and she barely had to supply any power to keep the portal open. Still, the moment she passed through, an instinctual thought sent a shimmer along the plane between realms.

"I'm coming," Singel said forcefully. "I'm not Firestorm. You can't order me around, and you can't stop…ooof." His words cut off abruptly as his face flattened against the glass-like surface of the gateway.

"Actually, it seems I can stop you," El said. "Look, this is for your own protection. If something happens to me in here, there's no way back for you. None. After I've looked around a bit, and figured out how all this is working," she gestured to the arches and the gateway, "we'll see about letting you in."

"I could just go with you," Singel pointed out. "Then I don't have to worry about getting trapped."

In response, El lifted into the air on her wings of blue flames. "I don't think you could keep up."

"You could carry…?"

"No," El said with finality, then looked at Glasses. "Can you report back to your wing? Let them know where I went. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"It doesn't look like anybody is there," Glasses said. "What do you hope to find?"

"I don't see any bodies," El responded. "The Storm didn't kill, just paused. At least out in our world. I'm hoping it was the same in here. Which means whoever built this place has to be around somewhere."

"Unless they had another exit," Glasses pointed out.

"It's a possibility," El said, turning her head away from the portal to look deeper into the In-Between. "Something in my gut is telling me that's not it though. They moved their entire population in here – from the looks of how many huts I'm seeing – to get away. From us," she added more quietly. "If they chose to come here instead of one of the other hundred and thirty destinations…"

"One hundred and thirty-six," Singel clarified.

"… then it was probably because they didn't think there was anywhere else safe from the Firestorm," El continued, ignoring the interruption. "They wouldn't have left so easily."

"Then where did they go?" Glasses asked.

"That's the question. And I need to get going to find an answer. Be back as soon as I can." With that, El completely turned her attention to the scene around her, and glided deeper into the town. She could faintly hear Singel complaining to Glasses about the unfairness of being left behind, but she tuned it out. Glasses had a fair argument – the Salidians could've taken another portal right back out…

Portal?

El's eyes widened slightly as she remembered the small portal she had slung over her right shoulder – and the sudden question of whether she could bring a portal to the In-Between into the In-Between.

Felps is going to kill me if it ate his sword…

A small twist of her head and a touch of her power showed the hilt of the weapon exactly where it should be, though. Just to be sure, El drew the blade six inches out of its "sheath" – no visible damage – then let it settle back in. The sword was fine.

Where exactly does this portal go…?

She shook her head. Questions for later – and maybe one the Salidians could answer if she found them.

When I find them.

Yes, she'd found a way to probably get the Pycrin soldiers up to Pili, using the gates, but she was only one person. Passing through the gateway had drawn on her Spark, and if she had to pay a toll in power for every individual who went through…

They needed more people who could run the gateways. They needed the Salidians. If she could find them. And if they didn't resent her and the rest of the Firestorm for chasing them into the In-Between two centuries ago.

Maybe I should've brought cookies. Cookies make everything better.

Another shake of her head, and El pulled herself out of her thoughts to focus on the town. No bodies, and no sign – that she could see – anybody had been there recently. If she were them, as soon as the snow started falling and they realized their homes wouldn't be enough, what would she have done?

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Option one would've been to leave the In-Between and take a portal to somewhere nice and sunny. It's even possible they tried that, only to find the Storm already there. So, if they couldn't leave, and they couldn't stay here… that means they went somewhere else.

Brilliant deduction, El. Regular detective, I am.

In her trips along the pathways of the In-Between, she'd never seen anything other than the tall trees all around her. That didn't mean there wasn't anything else, though. Could the Salidians have found different terrain? Something that could protect them from the snow?

They were probably familiar with this place if they chose to come here. Okay, let's go with that. Which direction, then?

It didn't take El's eyes long to settle on an unmistakable path between the trees. With the dirt packed down and free of the other plants sprouting from the ground, even she couldn't miss the trail. Having already wasted enough time – and confident she wouldn't learn much from looking at the ruined homes – El pushed power into her wings and darted down the path.

Trees blurred by her on both sides, the wide trunks blending into the familiar stillness from her previous trips to the In-Between.

Could somebody really live in here? What would they eat or drink?

There were no immediate answers to those questions as she flew, and she sped up, the path continuing into the distance ahead of her. She kept her senses peeled as she traveled, careful not to accidently fly through one of the openings that would deposit her back on her own world. But… the further she went, the more she realized she didn't need to worry about that. Somehow, the path she was on, it wasn't like the paths she'd taken before.

It didn't lead to a portal out of the In-Between. She couldn't feel the destination at the end of it. If anything, it was leading around the exits, deftly navigating a world full of holes. Thinking back to the pictures – pictographs, Singel's voice said in her mind – it was a bit strange. A hundred and thirty-six destinations, but the more she reached out with her growing connection to the In-Between, the more exits she felt. Far more than a hundred and thirty-six. Hundreds more. Thousands.

So why are there only that many pictures back in Salid?

Another question that'd have to wait for later, the scene in front of El changing for the first time. Bright light shone down on the path between the trees, so bright in fact, El couldn't make out what was beyond it, and she slowed. Looking left and right, she found something she'd honestly never expected to – the end of the forest.

Almost like it was designed that way, the trees on either side of her formed a definite line, perfectly straight with not a single one of the edge further out than the others. And, there, beyond the treeline…

El squinted against the light, and put her good hand over her eyes to block some of the glare while she carefully glided forward. Nothing about it felt dangerous, and her frost armor would protect her from just about anything – Assuming there isn't another avatar in here with me… again… – so she gently crossed the threshold.

All at once, as if the world peeled back a layer she hadn't been able to look past before, the bright glare like sunlight eased, revealing a massive mountain range extending off in both directions. Peaks that would've made the mountains around Guld look tiny stretched for a distant sky, with treacherous slopes angled steep and imposing.

El looked both to her left and right again, and the mountains extended as far as she could see. Standing opposite the trees, it almost looked like two opposing armies in an eternal standoff, with a bare hundred feet between them.

Actually…

As El looked at the scene, it reminded her of a place she'd been before. In that space where the Guldish Ember had consumed her Spark, and Lhogan and Oril had changed into those… things. Between Storm and flames. The Storm had hidden the trees within it, so had the mountains been behind the flames?

"More questions I don't have answers to. Need to just stop asking," El grumbled to herself. "But one I still really need the answer for – Where did the Salidians go?"

Looking up and down the line of mountains, there had to be hundreds of them with impassible peaks. Maybe, just maybe, there were some paths that could take somebody up and over the mountains, but it would've been snowing there too, wouldn't it? That'd just make the journey even worse. And since the Salidians couldn't fly like she could, the odds of them going over the mountains seemed pretty slim.

A cave then?

El's mind went back to the size of Salid and the number of buildings she'd found just inside the gate to the In-Between.

… a really big cave…?

If they had been there for almost two hundred years, and underground… could they have survived…

El's train of thought trailed off as she noticed what looked like the path continuing straight towards the mountains. She hadn't bothered to look closely at the rockier ground – the mountains were pretty distracting, after all – but there was no mistaking it. And the path led to…

Her eyes traced up the peaks directly in front of her, and the difference between them and the rest of the mountain range suddenly leapt out. It almost looked like the two mountains on either side of her had tipped inward, so the peaks crossed near the top. At first glance she'd just taken it for a single really big mountain, but it was in fact two leaning against each other.

If they're angled like that… could it…?

El didn't bother finishing her question to herself, instead pumping power into her wings and shooting ahead. A small arch of her back changed her angle to give her a better view as she approached the slopes. And, yes! There, where the path across the open boundary met the mountain range, it didn't lead up into the mountains or into a cave. There was a narrow passage between the two mountains where the stone had split. Sure, that didn't mean the Salidians definitely went down there, but El still darted into it.

What had looked narrow from a distance turned out to be not so bad as she reached it, easily wide enough for her to fly through with her full wings if she chose to. Still, with the occasional bend in the path, her smaller wings gave her better maneuverability and almost as much speed, so she didn't bother changing. Swerving left and right as she went, bright light continued to filter down above her, but a glance up showed the peaks quickly ascending up towards the sky. Already, just a few hundred feet in, the cliffs were thousands of feet tall on either side of her.

So focused on the climbing mountains around her, El gave a surprised start at the passage expanding ahead. It happened so suddenly, she burst out into a wide valley before she skidded to a stop in the air, her feet sparking blue flames as they thrusted in the opposite direction.

As soon as she finally halted, El's jaw practically dropped. A hidden, idyllic valley spread ahead of her, a thick river running from one mountain side to the next, with vibrant green grass and trees covering the landscape. The whole place had to be dozens of miles wide and deep – Just how big are the mountains above…? – with a horseshoe like curve at the far wall. There were even animals darting through the underbrush, and those over there… yes, those two fields were far too orderly to be natural. They had crops in them.

Crops meant…

More movement as El spotted the hearty village nestled down near the river, seemingly built out of the land itself. Wide doors led directly into what she'd assumed were hills at first glance, but the more she looked, the more she spotted the streets between the buildings. It'd all been built so naturally, so in tune with the beauty of the valley, it was hard to believe it hadn't always been like this. But, that movement she's spotted earlier – the dozens of people turning to find her hovering in the air – meant she'd found what she was looking for. The missing Salidians.

And, by the way they were picking up weapons, it didn't seem like they were as happy she'd found them as she was.