Healing the Broken

My heart felt like it was a boulder that had dropped down into the pit of my stomach.
“It’s gone,” I breathed and looked out into the distance, my mind drowning in perplexity.
“What’s gone,” the boy asked. He stared at me, reading the concern in my eyes.
Did it matter if I told him or not? I might as well share the distress.
“We’re stuck here,” I said, anger seeping through my voice. “If you hadn’t chased me, we wouldn’t be trapped here.”
“How are we trapped here?” he said with force, almost demandingly.
“I was wearing a queron stone, it is the key that opened the portal to this world. It’s gone, I think I lost it running away from you,” I snapped. Anger boiled inside of me. I aimed the arrow at the boy’s throat. “Who are you and why did you capture me?”
He did not seem fearful at all. Instead his mind seemed to be consumed in deep thought.
“Have you been to the enchanted forest,” he asked, hastily standing up. I winced and stepped backwards. His hands were still bonded but his quick gesture made me cautious that maybe he didn’t need to use his hands to overtake me.
“Stay back,” I jerked the arrow forward as he approached me. He heeded my warning and stalled.
“I’m going to answer your question and then you have to answer mine,” He said, sternly.
He spoke with such fierce that even though I had the arrow aiming for him, my hands began to tremble. I wasn’t a person that could stab someone so I lowered the arrow and nodded my head.
He sat down. “I was sent to kidnap you so that my overseer could sell you.”
“Why? To Who?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s your turn to answer my question, besides, I think you already know the answer to your question.”
Slightly annoyed, I answered. “I have been to the enchanted forest, you have, also. That is how we end up here. We had to go through the enchanted forest to pass through the portal to this world because it is the threshold between our world and this one.”
“You are a majestic healer, and an offspring of Leer. I’m sure you know many of Leer’s children are being snatch and taken to him for a reward. As the prophesy says, Leer’s children will give him power and a life to live forever. As an offspring with majestic powers to heal him and save him from any death threat, you would be worth much more and that is why my overseer sent me to capture you. Now, have you ever met anyone in the enchanted forest like a woman or witch?
A witch? Was he talking about Bahara?
“Not for a long time,” I said.
His eyes flickered open with hope. “But you’ve have met someone?”
I nodded my head. “Her name was Bahara. She was a nymph that died nearly nine years ago.”
The excitement in his eyes began to diminish.
“Where is the enchanted forest?” he demanded.
“Through another portal, there is no entrance through it without the queron stone,” I said
“There must be another one,” he said. He began walking away from me.
Confused, I watched him walk for his horse. I realized he had released his hands from the binds.
“To find the stone or another stone,” he mounted his horse. “If you follow me, and if I find the stone first, I’ll capture you, again. I’m giving you this chance to find the stone first and escape, but if you choose to come with me, I’ll protect you.”
“Why,” I said frustrated and startled by the fact that I might be left alone in this strange world. “why would you let me go?”
“I’m repaying you back a favor for saving my life,” He said, his mask glisten in the sun—or at least I believe it was similar to the Earth’s sun — as he began to trot away on his horse.
How dared he chase me into this world and leave me to face monsters alone.
“I choose to go alone,” I was sizzling with anger. “but before you go, tell me who were those people in black clothing.”
“They are the same as I, black widows: professional rogues, crooks, thieves. They work in groups to perform their duties. At the moment, they are focus on gathering the offspring of Leer and other children to sell them as a profit,” his voice began to falter as he proceeded ahead.
I stood there and pondered.
“Wait,” I shouted and ran toward him. “I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever you say on one condition: you help me save someone. You can repay me that way.”
“Who?” he stared at me skeptically.
“The children that the bandits in black clothing kidnapped—”
“No,” He cut me off and spoke sternly.
“But—”
“Black widows work fast. By the time we find our way out of here, they will be ahead of us and have traded the children for a profit to one of Leer’s warriors. Stealing from the black widows is one risk but stealing and attacking Leer would be much worse. How would I do business with him, afterwards? You don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” he said.
“If we can find the queron stone, I can lead us through a portal ahead them. Just tell me where there heading,” I tried to persuade him.
He shook his head. “I already kidnapped one of the black widow’s captives, they won’t fail to execute me, a second time,” he said more harshly as I walked as fast as I could beside his horse.
“I’ll take you to the enchanted forest,” I pleaded, I had to do whatever it took to save Taun and the other children. “I know you’re interested in it for some reason, I can help you.”
He stalled, and stared out into the distance. He had to be considering it.
“Okay,” he said. “but you must follow my every word.”
I nodded my head.
He gestured his hand toward me. For a while, I stared at it, confused.
“It starts now,” he insisted. “take it.”
I did and he pulled me up behind him.
“Keep your eyes open for the stone,” he told me. “We will find it as long as it didn’t sink below the water.”
I had thought about that. If the queron stone had been lost in the current of the river everything was futile.
He had traced back our track but there was no sign of the queron stone. We had been searching for an hour. With all the turmoil, I hadn’t realized the time difference between the worlds; it was late at night when we left our world but in this world it seem to be in the evening. My mind was clouded with anxiety. I was worried about Taun and the other children, but I was even more worried about Kye and Kashon. When I had left they were in battle. They could be severely hurt... I did my best not to think of the worse and search the surroundings. As we passed by some brushes, I notice a tadicka plant as the small round fruit hung from its branches.
“What is that?” I heard the half-masked boy mumble.
I had been so focus on the tadicka plant, I hadn’t notice the small blue furry bear race across the ground in front of us. I had never seen a blue gloshi, I didn’t think they existed.
“It’s a gloshi, they’re harmless creatures,” I informed him.
“That may be true, but we will need a meal, soon,” he reached behind his back to pull out one of the two arrows he had manage to find while searching for the queron stone.
“Don’t kill it,” I begged.
“We need to eat if were going to keep up our strength for another day,” he advised in a sternly manner. “we also need to set up camp, it will be dark in a few hours.”
“I won’t eat it,” I said. “I’ll probably die. My body’s not use to it, I’m a vegetarian.”
He snort at me in ridicule. “You won’t die, at the most you'll just fall ill. Only the privilege get to enjoy such reliefs.”
Of course I knew I would only become sick, but I was hoping he would be ignorant and believe I would die and find alternative like fruits and vegetables. And what did he mean by privilege.
“You won’t eat it,” he set the arrow and pulled the string on the bow back. “but I will. Don’t watch.”
I closed my eyes as soon as he released the arrow. I could hear the whistle of it slicing the air and the splattering as it penetrated through the small ears of the gloshi. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping he would bundle it up, and spare me from seeing limb shattered small gloshi. I waited for a couple of seconds for him to retrieve the innocent creature and return to the horse but instead I heard his faint voice murmuring. I opened my eyes. He kneeled on one knee, leaned over the gloshi and covered it with a cloth. He was praying and thanking the animal for its life. It was a ritual I used to practice when I was younger before I had given up meat. He gently wrapped the gloshi in cloth, careful not expose anything, as if he was tucking in a child. He placed the limped body of the gloshi in the bag and mounted the horse. He didn’t make eye contact with me as if I were too ignorant to understand.
We trotted for several hours. I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t think he knew, just somewhere safe. We approached a boulder. It had to be at least twenty feet high. I had never seen one so large.
“I’ll climb first, I’ll pull you up after,” he said. Chills ran through my flesh. I understood his reason for wanting to get off the ground away from anymore monsters we might encounter, but climbing up a steep rock didn’t seem safe either.
He grabbed a rope hanging from the side of his horse’s saddle and tied it around himself.
“Hold still,” he approached me with the rope. I stumbled backwards a bit. It was intimidating for him to come so near me like having a lurking wolf approach me. I had been close to him before when he was unconscious but then he looked like he was sleeping and feeble. He realized by skepticism.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I just want to make sure this rope is securely tied around you.”
I let him come toward me and he wrapped the rope firmly around my waist. I flinched as he tugged on it a few times to makes sure it was tightly fastened. He just looked at me annoyed.
He grabbed two bags hanging from the side of his horse’s saddle and tie them around his waist and pulled out two strange blade device from one of his bags that reminded me of axes but the edges of the blades were curved in a hook formation. They looked to be made from iron. He then tied the horse near a tree and it began munching on the blue and odd shape grass.
He rammed one hook blade into the rock's crack of the boulder, stabled himself, and then planted the other hook blade into the rock. My anxiety began once he made it to the top because I knew I was next. He disappeared from my sight and I could hear him pounding on something.
He returned and tossed the rope down. “As I pulled, I need you to push off the wall with your legs.”
I approached the boulder and took a deep breath. He hauled me up and I could feel my feet lifted from the ground. Before I could slam into the wall, I held my legs out and thrusted myself away from the rock. As he continued to pull and the rope constantly slipped from his grip causing sharp jerks, I bit into my lip preventing myself from screaming. When I approached the top, he grasp me by one arm and gently pull me up.
He deeply scanned my face. “You’re bleeding,” he informed me. I wiped a finger on the corner of my lip and sure enough blood ran down my finger. I had punctured a hole through my lip.
“Here,” he said, handing me a cloth.
“Thank-you,” I told him as I accepted it, forgetting that he was my abductor.
I applied pressure to the wound as the half-maskedboy pulled out a pot. He pulled out a bottle of clear liquid, a large pile of shredded wood from one bag and two rocks. He placed the shredded wood in the pot and slammed the two rocks causing flares to ignite the shredded wood. The flare finally caught and the flames began to engulf the shredded wood. He trickle the clear liquid into the pot and the fire burst into flames. He pulled out the limp gloshi from another bag.
“You don’t have to look,” he said, and tied it to a metal rod and slowly turn it over the fire.
“I know,” I said, displeased about him cooking the gloshi but also realist about it: people weren’t just going to stop eating meat because I didn’t like it.
He ignored me and continued cooking his meal. The flames reflected from his mask, making it look like half his face was on fire.
“I had a disease, it ate my face away,” he told me while he still gave his full attention to cooking. He knew I was gazing at his mask. “You were wondering weren't you?”
“Truthfully, I was and am,” I said. “you’ve kidnap me, save me, scorned me, and yet I don’t know you’re name –“
“It’s Arjun, but it really doesn’t matter. I’m like a shadow.” He continued to turn the rod. “very few people know my name but the ones who see my mask, remember it.”
“You’re a fathom,” I asked. Fathoms were professional criminals who could slyly steal anything highly valued and strictly secured, assassinate the well-guarded, and kidnapped the fiercest without being identify by people. They never failed, and I knew that because none had ever been caught.
“Correct,” he said.
I knew then he was the perfect person to save Taun and the other children.