Lessons from my demons

Chapter seven: Resurrection

"No!" Angie squealed, but it was too late. Noticing the arc of lightning, the Illusionist shot arrows at the girls. In addition to being outnumbered, they would be limited to fairly weak spells at that distance, making it no time to stick around. The two skittered over the wall for their lives. Angie fled clumsily into a snowbank. If Rachel hadn't been as experienced as she was with flying, she would have, too.

Going in was suicide, with one of them unarmed and one basically untrained in magic, so they waited in the field for the army to move on to the next place. Neither dared to look at the fray, and neither said anything for several minutes.

Angie finally broke the silence. "You really hate seeing that, don't you?"

"Naw, it's fine..." Rachel said emotionlessly.

"Well, I know that if something like this would have happened at home, you'd rush in to see our guards in action. But I get it. Fighting can be really scary here. The blood flows out really fast, and they can't even die." The question of whether their friends were alive hung in the cold air, neither of the girls ready to ask it.

"Back home, guards just had to know how to fight. Here, they have to be willing to see this, and feel awful pain. It's all for power, though... I kind of get how Ria would prefer to settle down..." Rachel mused. She wasn't sure if she could be one of these soldiers. But that's something she'd work out herself. The last thing her cowardly friend needed was a cowardly leader. "Hey, I they're leaving." She whispered. "Get down."

The two hit the ground, and peered up over the snow at the Illusionists as they made off for the town, having killed the prison's staff and freed the prisoners. The two walked in through the front door. There were dead Illusionists, but more dead humans. There were no words, only disgust. The corridor led to the calls, and that to the no longer fenced-in field the attack had been in.

All eight of them were dead. It had been horrific enough to see the faceless corpses littering the ground, but Rachel couldn't stand looking into Valetta's unseeing eyes, let alone the rest. They were people to her. It was temporary. Tiana said so, and she could be trusted.

"Hey, look what I found!" Angie called, holding up, from Valetta's bag, four wands.

"You took it from her corpse?" Rachel smiled weakly, "That's kind of sneaky."

Angie looked guilty. "Well, Alisa said it's selfish not to do what will benefit others."

"Wow, three days in this place and you've started thinking like that. But it makes sense. So, what's our next move?" Angie glared at her, or rather, behind her.

"I'll help you move your friends. You have until midnight to get them out of here before everyone wakes up, and we won't want to be around for that." It was the Illusionist from before, standing in the doorway.

"You did this!" Rachel snapped at him. Angie took out her green wand, anticipating the worst. The Illusionist just... stood there.

"Yes, I used you to free my people, but don't mean you any harm, and I certainly didn't cause you any. You're free to go now. I'll help move your friends, and when they wake up, everything will be fine."

Wake up? The girls thought. That's what Tiana must have meant about death being temporary.

"Get going, then. Turn invisible and I won't hesitate." Rachel stated. She tried not to sound as scared as she was. This was a powerful man, despite his age.

"And bring the wolf, too." Angie added.

The Illusionist complied perfectly, hauling out Tiana and Snowball. the whole party, living or dead, was out in the snow within Minutes.

"Let's take a sled and put some distance between us," he suggested. The girls looked at each other briefly.

"You're coming with us?" Angie asked.

"You'd rather try to survive out here alone?"

"Why the heck would you want to join us!?" Rachel exclaimed.

"I owe you for freeing my people. I can't let you be at their mercy."

It was true, they realized, that they'd be at the mercy of their clones without the Illusionist. Even if he sounded far too amused by the words he spoke, there wasn't much of a choice, and they couldn't allow him to die either. The best they could do was keep an eye on him. There was a good sled for carrying supplies in the dungeon's closet. The trio set off, taking the four corpses, a harness, and as many other supplies as they could in the small sled.

Angie was first to pull the sled, and the Illusionist pulled it. Rachel stayed in the back, wand at ready. The Illusionists of their world had been hostile for years, and if everyone from the forgotten realm lacked virtue, he couldn't be good news.

After a few hours, they stopped in a wooded area. Dark was beginning to fall, and the already low temperature would inevitably drop. It seemed awful to think that after everything they'd faced, it was winter  that was going to kill them. Looking through the supplies, Angie found a tarp and matches as Rachel gathered firewood. There was enough food to last a couple days, and enough fresh water for a week. The Illusionist set to work making them a tent-like shelter. The three had camp set up pretty quickly, and dragged the four bodies in front of the fire, waiting for midnight in fear that they had been told wrong and their friends would never wake up.

---

Viola woke up in a dark, starlit plane, like walking through space.  The last thing she remembered was an Illusionist hitting her over the head with a sword. Had she survived that? No, this had to be the temporary death Tiana talked about.

She called out for the other four, but there was no response. She couldn't even hear her own voice, as though it was so small she couldn't hear it over silence, even when she screamed at the top of her lungs. Felicia's form appeared vaguely in the distance, but she couldn't move towards it, as though she was walking in place. Felicia also seemed to try to move to no avail, before sinking below the dark plane. There, she saw her two flying friends. She wondered what they were thinking camping out with the enemy race. Was it not so different here? Or had they completely lost it? As soon as she asked the question, she was sucked into Rachel's consciousness.

If Henry tries anything, God help me. Maybe not all Illusionists are bad, but this one sure is... It was in her voice. Viola was being treated to hearing Rachel's thoughts. God, our enemies wake up soon. As soon as these three wake up, if they wake up... we need to leave.

After poking around in Angie's panicked mindset, it dawned on Viola to look into the Illusionist's mind to see its intentions. She seemingly could only see immediate thoughts, which was a drawback, but she would listen for as long as she could.

There's something very different about these two. These five. Why are they guests of honor in our prison? This will be one heck of a journey, and so long as I can keep the upper hand, a safe one. Haven't seen anything like this in some time.

Suddenly, Viola went deaf to the man's thoughts as she was ripped from his body and felt her consciousness be dragged, stiffly and sorely, into her own. Jerking awake, she realized that she was no longer in pain, as though last night's deadly wound had never happened.

"They're awake!" Angie shrieked.

Rachel ran over. "Tiana! All of you, you're- you're-"

"Alive," Viola whispered, as if testing if her voice was back. She presumed that the others were, too.