The Port

“Oh hell!”

With a sudden rush that felt like a large hand trying to crush my ribs, I fell to the ground, Tyler collapsing beside me. Shuddering violently, I dry heaved once, but managed to avoid actually vomiting.

The bright abyss had disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving us in a place that definitely wasn’t my bedroom. We were on a road of dirt in what appeared to be a busy market. A long line of buildings stood to our left, shops and homes mostly, all of them squat and built of wood and straw. To our right, the beach was a few yards away, the sparkling sea dominated by fishing boats. A long dock jutted out into the water, large men working to load and unload bots, fix damages, or carry fish to the shore to sell in the market. People with dark skin shouted to each other in rough tones, and it seem that no one had noticed our sudden arrival.

“Woah,” Tyler breathed, and I had to agree.

Once I recovered I tried to stand, pausing when I found a hand being offered to me. I followed the arm, and met the gaze of the silver-haired man. Smiling weakly, I hesitated before accepting his hand, and he helped me to my feet.

He smiled politely. “E’tri nel es’utre, ne e’tri?” he questioned.

I wondered briefly if I was the one having the seizure or if he was.

“Jai,” Tyler said suddenly, alarmed. “I can’t understand what anyone’s saying.”

Oh good. It wasn’t just me, than.

At first, the fact that everyone around us was speaking another language hadn’t sunk in. Now it did, and I groaned inwardly, figuring I should have seen this coming.

Meetallsomething seemed to notice our distress. He said something to Alec and Noah; Alec smiled sheepishly, and Noah rolled her eyes to the sky.

Alec dipped a hand into one of the man pouches at his waist and withdrew two gold rings. He handed one to me and the other to Tyler, before indicating an identical ring on the middle finger of his right hand.

Tyler and I exchanged a glance, then obeyed his wordless request. A high-pitched whine filled my ears as I slid the ring on, then faded, and the low, strangely watery language Noah had been speaking in became English.

“-always forget those rings. Remember when I ended up wandering around Teirth for three hours without understanding a word before you remembered to give me the stupid thing?” she was saying to Alec, frowning at him.

He smiled in return. “That was your own fault. You should have realized that I was speaking another language sooner.”

Noah shrugged. “I’d just thought you’d finally lost your mind. Whatever’s left of it, anyway…”

While the two bickered, I couldn’t help growing impatient. Every moment we wasted was another moment Lily was trapped with that demon. I glanced to the silver haired man, and hesitated upon trying to remember his name. “Mital… Meetaltha..reen?”

He glanced at me and smiled. “Mi’taltharin,” he corrected. “I’m sorry, it’s a long name. You can call me Mi’ta, if you like.”

Mi’ta. Much easier. “Uh. I’m Jai, and my brother is Tyler,” I told him, then paused, glancing around the town. “Do you know if this is the world Lily’s on?”

“I don’t,” Mi’ta said apologetically, before turning to Alec. “Alec, stop goofing off and do a search for their sister,” he chided good-naturedly.

“Right. Sorry.” Alec turned from Noah and began tapping keys on the device on his arm. “It’s odd that the Base hasn’t mentioned a misplaced girl, though.”

“They must have given it to a different group,” Noah pointed out.

“What is that?” Tyler asked, peering curiously at the metal band. The word ‘searching’ was displayed across the little screen in green letters.

“It’s called a Seeker,” Alec answered. “It lets me know if there’s anything in a world that doesn’t belong. I can also use it to enter the Travelline and get from world to world, and I can contact the Base. Sort of a headquarters for Hunters,” he added before Tyler could ask.

“Oh,” Tyler said, impressed. “Cool.”

The Seeker beeped, and the words ‘nothing found’ flashed across the screen. Alec frowned and cleared the screen before looking up. He must have seen the disappointment on our faces, because he smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean she’s not here. Damaen might have hidden her away somewhere. We’ll have to search for her.” He looked up at the clear blue sky, then at the nearby buildings. “Mi’ta, you go with Jai and look around here, by the beach. Noah and I will take Tyler and search further into the town. At sunset we’ll meet in that inn.” He pointed to one of the more pleasant-looking taverns.

“Why do we have to separate?” Tyler protested. I had to admit, I wasn’t really comfortable with being taken away from him, either.

“Splitting up will cover more ground,” Noah said. “Therefore, we can learn whether your Lily is here or not much faster. The two of you know what she looks like, we don’t, so we’ll need one of you to ask people if they’ve seen her.”

Tyler glanced at me uncomfortably, and I managed a weak smile. “I’ll see you at sundown, then,” I told him. “Good luck.”

He hesitated, then nodded and turned to leave with Alec and Noah.

I watched him go uneasily before looking to Mi’ta, who smiled apologetically and headed toward the market. I followed him after a brief hesitation. “So, uh… did you really do magic?” I asked, glancing at him curiously. I wasn’t really sure what to talk about, or if we were even supposed to talk at all, so I’d just said the first question that came to mind and hoped I wasn’t prying.

“Oh. Yes, I did. Sorry if it startled you,” Mi’ta said. “Sometimes I forget that not all worlds have magic.”

“So, are you a wizard or something?”

“Nothing so dramatic. I’m teaching myself magic, so I don’t really know what my title would be.”

It was amazing, how unfazed I was by the idea of magic. I supposed that, on top of demons, traversing worlds and rings that translated languages, magic wasn’t so surprising.

The world we were on, I learned, was called Shalved. We were in the fishing village of Tene, where the air was always hot and always smelled of salt. Mi’ta and I wandered along the beach and the market, asking everyone we could find if they had seen a small, pale girl with wide, distant eyes and red hair. Many of the people ignored us, and even those who answered our questions regarded us distrustfully, especially Mi’ta.

“It’s because you’re so pale,” I theorized eventually. “Everyone here has dark skin, so it’s obvious that you aren’t from here.”

“So I’m automatically a threat?” he asked, observing the disturbed townspeople with vague amusement.

I shrugged. “People don’t generally trust what they don’t know,” I pointed out.

“True.”

We had even worse luck on the pier, where the large sailors were too busy to answer us. Feeling painfully disheartened, we reached the last sailor, a man sitting on the edge of the dock, repairing a hole in a net.

“Excuse me,” I said warily, expecting to be ignored.

The man looked up, pausing in his work. He frowned a little behind his thick, scruffy beard. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“We’re looking for a young girl,” I told him, before describing Lily. “Have you seen her?”

The man considered, before shaking his head. “No, I’m afraid I haven’t seen your kid,” he said regretfully. “I’ll let you know if I do, though. What’s your name?”

“I’m Jai, and this is Mi’ta,” I told him.

The man nodded and stood, tossing his newly repaired net onto a boat tied to the dock. “I’m Rodrick,” he said. “Where was the last place you saw your girl?”

“At my aunt’s house.”

“A long way from here,” Mi’ta added.

“And you’re sure she’s here.”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “No, we’re not.”

“All right. I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Rodrick promised.

I thanked him, and Mi’ta and I left the dock. “Well,” I said with a weary sigh. “I guess she’s not here.”

“Maybe the others found something,” Mi’ta offered as we made our way to the inn Alec had pointed out.

I could only hope he was right.

We reached the inn, a pleasant-looking place with the name ‘The Sailors’ Wind’ painted on a sign hanging by the door. The lower floor was dedicated to a bright, noisy tavern full of people sitting around wooden tables.

I quickly spotted Alec and Noah at a table in a corner, and hurried over. I briefly wondered where Tyler was, until I reached the group and found him asleep, his head on the table.

“He fell asleep as soon as we got here,” Noah told me, her chin rested in her hand. “It’s not surprising, he was running around all day.”

I sighed and sat beside him. “I don’t think he got any sleep last night, either.”

“Did you find anything about Lily?” Mi’ta asked, sitting and propping his staff against the table.

“No. No one’s seen her. Or admitted to seeing her, anyway,” Alec said.

“So Damaen could be hiding her here?” I asked, my hand idly rubbing Tyler’s back.

“It’s possible,” Alec allowed slowly.

“But not likely,” Noah finished. “I doubt that he knows we’re looking, so he probably wouldn’t bother hiding her. And I think he’s too arrogant.”

I started to nod, then paused, looking around them. “Do you know Damaen?” I asked curiously.

“Of course we do,” Noah retorted. “He’s been causing trouble for Hunters for decades.”

“Demons have the inherent ability to travel worlds without a Seeker,” Mi’ta explained. “For the most part, they don’t bother. They just mind their own business.”

“But occasionally one like Damaen will come along,” Alec continued. “He’ll travel between worlds, steal things, and put them in different places, just to cause trouble.”

“Sounds like a pain in the a*s,” I commented, eyebrows arched.

Noah smirked slightly. “You think so now,” she mused. “Wait until he finds out that we’re hunting him. Then you’ll see what a pain in the a*s he can be.”