"We should be going soon right?" I said.
"Yeah," muttered Gregor and held my hand tighter.
He didn't move, so neither did I. The dim orange light and the gurgling sound of the lava lake was oddly calming. It felt like as long as we didn't move, we wouldn't have to deal with the rest of our problems. Which admittedly is probably the least healthy way of dealing with your problems.
"Why did choose to practice dark magic if it's not common in your realm?" asked Gregor.
"There wasn't really reason, I needed a hobby."
"Needed a hobby? Aren't hobbies meant to be fun?" chuckled Gregor.
"My hobby before was paper folding but that mutated into a coping mechanism," I muttered.
"How did that happen?" asked Gregor.
"I don't know- I guess...after the accident, Claire was in a really bad state and everything around was really chaotic and sad all the time. My anxiety was really bad- I had anxiety anyway but it got worse. It was a lot of can't breathe- can't think- heart racing-panic all the time. Then paper folding was something I used to make the thoughts quiet- so I could stop thinking. I know that sounds really weird," I said. Confessions spilled out of me like water from a broken bucket. "Sorry," I added for good measure.
Gregor didn't reply immediately. He paused, too long for it be out of respect, but not so long it became an awkward silence. "Tristan...I'm sorry. Are you- are you okay?" floundered Gregor. Confused condolences and sympathy is the only response I appreciate. The best response would be 'I completely understand, I have depression too. We should be depression buddies' but I wouldn't wish this kind of misery on anyone.
I laughed because any other reaction would ruin the mood. "Yeah. I'm fine now. All that was three years ago." Three years is a long time, but pain lingers and festers when it hasn't been dealt with properly. I was pretty sure my entire family had depression. You can't experience an accident, watch Claire become paralysed, watch her go through surgery, recovery, more surgery and then physiotherapy and be okay mentally. Claire was probably the worst off since she was the one who actually went through everything and was the most positive one of all of us. I was sure she was faking being happy all the time, but she's the only one of us who goes to therapy.
After the accident our lives revolved around Claire and her disability, her medication schedule, her doctor's appointments. I hated it, I hated Claire for it and I hated myself for hating her. I could never talk to anyone about my feelings- least of Claire and I tell Claire everything.
I moved a bit so I was half facing Gregor. We had definitely fallen into an awkward silence now. I changed the topic with a fake smile, "There is actually a funny story about my magic book. I was in my dad's office looking for scratch paper to make paper animals out of and then I found his magic- which is technically my magic book now. I asked him about it since I never knew he practiced magic. Apparently, his college girlfriend was an extreme pixie dream girl and she was constantly getting the two of them in trouble. One of things they did was steal the book from a library which was a crime because it was a magic book! How insane is that?"
Gregor snickered, "what did the library do?"
"I have no idea. But hopefully the statute of limitations are up for the crime since I don't plan of giving my magic book back," I replied.
"So you learned from the book then?" asked Gregor.
"Yeah. It was a lot of trial and error. There were a lot of spells and charms I couldn't do or couldn't figure out and shadow magic was the only thing that worked for me. I was terrible at sculpting the shadows in any way besides folding them into animals or simple shapes. The animation I learned from a friend but he practices light magic, so it was a miracle it worked with the shadows," I said. A smile grew on my face as I spoke.
Gregor smiled as I smiled and when I finally stopped talking he leaned and kissed me.
"What was that for?" I smirked.
"Because you looked cute," muttered Gregor and pecked my cheek.
"Surely I look cute all the time. As a constant state of being," I rebuked.
Gregor shrugged. "True, and if kissing you all the time was an option I would do it."
I rolled my eyes. "We really should go now."
"Yeah, yeah," pouted Gregor and got up. I called my rabbit. It emerged from the darkness and slipped into my pocket.
***
We walked down the hallway until we reached a central circular room with a dome ceiling. There was a grand chandelier hung from the centre of the ceiling and reflected the electric lights. I spun a couple times as I looked the dangling crystals. This could have been a lavish manor- or maybe it once was. Right now it was a plain evil lair, the Earl must be a minimalist. Four hallways spread out from the central hall.
"Which way do you want to go?" asked Gregor.
"Um... well- wait! I know," I yelped and took my rabbit from the pocket. It shook and hopped in my palm. I had no idea to what degree of sentience and awareness my familiars had but they were pretty good at finding my earphones when I lost them and really good at finding each other. I could feel a weak connection, like threads to my familiars so there might be a connection between them as well.
"Can you find Gregor's shadow? It probably similar to you. Please," I said. The bunny hopped on my hand and floated up in the air.
Gregor walked to me, "do you think that will work?" He sounded doubtful.
I was doubtful as well but it wouldn't be the most impossible things that happened today so I was also a bit hopeful. The rabbit danced in the air, running in circles until it finally chose a direction- the hallway to the left of the one we came from. We followed it, Gregor squeezed the handle of his axe and kept looking over his shoulder.
"The fire demons won't be much of a problem since they are sans magic now," I said trying to calm his nervousness.
Castor half snorted, half chuckled, "Maybe. But their magic will come back to them soon."
"What? But I took their shadows!" I rebuked.
"Elementals aren't as sensitive to magic manipulation as someone like me. It's a different magic system for them."
"A different magic system? Don't all demons practice dark magic?" I said.
Gregor turned to me with a knitted brow and ajar mouth like I had said something so stupid/offensive he could not process it.
"No, we have four completely different magic systems and dozens of different styles of magic steaming from them," explained Gregor, he sounded as offended as when I made the fire and brimstone comment at the train station.
"Sorry, I didn't know," I muttered.
Gregor smiled and shrugged. "It's fine. But I'm a bit fearful about all the other misconceptions you must have about me and the demon world."
"Maybe you could explain the four magic systems then, so I don't say something stupid later," I smirked.
"Alright," said Gregor who either didn't notice or ignored my sarcasm.
"So the four types are magic manipulation, material manipulation, elemental magic and emotional magic. I practice both magic manipulation and emotional magic-"
"Wait you said they were different systems," I said.
"They are different but you can learn more than one and some even overlap," continued Gregor. "The systems differ in terms of how you cast magic more than what exactly you can do. Portal magic is magic manipulation while charming is emotional magic. Magic manipulation and emotional magic are the ones that are considered proper dark magic while the other two are more neutral."
I chuckle, "I get portal magic because it sounds really convenient-"
"It is," added Gregor.
"But why charming magic? It's basically compulsion right?"
Gregor shrugged. "It's partly because I could combine it with my music."
"Oh right, the flute."
"Yeah. I play the violin as well. To be honest I'm not even that good at emotional magic, I started it because my father practices emotional magic and Shax is also based on emotional magic. So I've been thinking if none of this works out I might give up emotional magic and focus on magic manipulation," said Gregor.
"Oh no," I mutter in lack of a better response.
"It'll be alright I guess. It's disappointing since I put so much time in learning it. One of my siblings will probably inherit Shax instead of me."
"You have siblings? How many?"
Gregor smiled, "Two. A brother and a sister, both younger. They're twins so they always gang up against me and are constantly teasing me."
I laughed because I can't imagine him getting bullied anyone let alone his younger siblings.
"You can never meet them," said Gregor as he laughed with me. "They'll probably go out of their way to embarrass me in front of you."
"They sound nice," I chuckle.
"They're great. Even though they are brats most of time."
The rabbit lead us to a heavy looking door with a large silver lock and a keypad to enter codes. It looked like what I imagined a bank safe door looked like- the kind that is always in movies.
"Looks like a really heavy duty lock," I muttered.
"Yeah. My guess it's a safe or some sort of trophy room," said Gregor and touched the door. The door swung open. The rabbit slipped in through the opening.
"What?" I gasped. "What was the lock for then?"
"Well this is most certainly a trap," said Gregor and walked into the room.
"If you think it's a trap why are you going in!" I called after him as I followed him.
I pushed the door as far as it would open. The light from hallway illuminated a four meter high shelf, its levels filled with statuettes, weapons, crystals and pots. Was the Earl a tomb robber on the side?
The rest of the room was dark but I could make out the shape of other shelves, there were dozen of them. I walked to the shelf and inspected the items. Most of them didn't look old and there was no real similarity between them. The items were placed together without any sort of order. A silver dagger next to a large white crystal caught my eye.
Gregor felt along the wall. "No light switches," he announced.
The rabbit flitted from level to level of the shelf and melted into the darkness of the room. Gregor walked to me and said, " Oh, good we can use this."
He picked up the white crystal and rolled it in his palm and took my hand in his free one. "Hold this," he instructed.
When he placed it on my open palm the crystal glowed a bright white light. I winced and looked away, the glare of the light hurt my eyes.
"Careful, careful," sang Gregor and grabbed me by the wrist and held my hand in front of us. The crystal illuminated the room like a flood light. The room was larger than I expected, maybe twenty meters wide and a hundred meters deep. There were two rows of shelves and a passage between them. Gregor let go of my wrist and nodded towards the passage.
We passed more shelves filled with more treasures. Mirrors, crowns, perfume bottles, a shield and other things I couldn't recognize. I lingered at a large ebony box, carved with leaves and animals which took up an entire shelf level. The rabbit silently landed on my hand and then flew up again. I followed it with the crystal as it landed on the top of the shelf between a silver cow creamer and a black egg.
"It actually did find it," gasped Gregor with joy.
"Can you bring it down for us?" I asked and my rabbit hopped on the egg. It grabbed the egg in its tiny black arms and lifted it up. It fumbled. I dropped the crystal. Gregor and I both held out our hands to catch the egg.
My familiar dropped the egg. It fell right in my hand and-
CRACK!
My mind froze. Gregor eyes widened and his jaw opened. I didn't want to believe it. The egg- Gregor's shadow, all of Gregor's magic and inheritance was broken in my hands. The shell was shattered and its insides were dripping out like chocolate syrup. Gregor looked horrified and angry.
"I'm sorry," I said. He didn't hear me but I don't think he wanted to either. My familiar flitted down and slipped into my pocket. Gregor looked down at my hands. The black syrup stopped dripping, it started climbing back up into my hands. The shell melted into a slimy gloop in my palm and all the trailed of blackness gathered back together.
Gregor frowned, I saw him mouth, "what the fuck?"
The slime then melted into my hands as if my palms were a sponge. Gregor grabbed my wrist. He looked at my hand and then back at me and said "what the fuck?" again. I pressed my lips together and shrugged.
"How- how are you feeling?" asked Gregor.
"I'm fine," I said. "I feel fine."
"My magic went inside you."
"Yeah."
"Like straight inside you. You sucked it all up!"
"Yeah."
"This is a disaster!" said Gregor and a smile of disbelief and confusion spread across his face.
"What do we do now?" I whispered.
Gregor looked at me and his expression softened. Maybe as the reality of what happened settled him emotions did as well.
"I don't know. But for now we need to get off realm. We can deal with getting my shadow out of you later," said Gregor.
"That fire demon before had some machine to open a portal, there might be more of them in the castle," I said.
"Yes! Good thinking," chirped Gregor. He sounded upbeat but I could tell it wasn't genuine. Gregor let of my wrist and picked up the crystal. The light went out and we were enveloped by darkness. I felt the crystal back in my hand and then it lights up again.
"Why did you turn it off?" I asked.
"I didn't, these crystals don't work for me. When you start practicing magic manipulation it changes your body so you start to suck up magic around you," said Gregor.
"Then why does it work for me then?" I asked.
Gregor tilted his head and said, "I'm not sure. Maybe because you aren't a demon?"
We walked back towards the door. When we were about to step through the door, it slammed shut. Click, click, click, bang. The locks turned and fell in place. The screen above the key back glowed a luminous green and demanded a password.
"Fuck," muttered Gregor.
I thought something like this might happen but it still sucked. He stepped forward and keyed in a few numbers. The screen screeched and said ERROR. A countdown started from 30 seconds. He tried a few more combinations but it only came up as an error each time.
The screen blinked, "4...3...2...1..."
The alarm started again, but it sounded like a soft ringing from inside the room. Gregor cursed again.
"Maybe there is another way out or something we can use," I said. The fire demons were probably on their way here. I shone the light all around the room but I had no idea what I should be looking for.
"No Tristan! We should fight them when they come for us," growled Gregor.
I shone the light against the far end of the wall and saw something wooden. "Gregor! There is door over there!" I shouted.
"What?"
"Another door !" I ran towards it.
Gregor followed me and narrowed his eyes when he got close to the door. "This...." he said softly," this is a inter-dimensional door. It's looks pretty old."
"Does it still work?" I asked. I had only ever heard of an inter-dimensional door before. Long ago when people first started to figure out how to keep portals open for more than a few minutes they made these doors. Eventually they learned to manipulate the rifts to so they could control which dimension it opened to. Doors like this went into disuse long before I was born.
"Is this safe?" I asked, when Gregor did not reply to my earlier question. It's only a matter of time before we get caught.
Gregor shook his head. "It- it isn't. Inter-dimensional doors weren't safe even when they were new and widely used. I've heard about how the doors would randomly get sucked up but the rift and vanish from existence."
"But they are like the public portals right? And the public portals are safe," I rebuked. The fire demons must be getting closer.
"The public portals require extensive magical and technological support to remain stable and open for long stretches of time. Besides, this is so old it might not even be connected to a rift." Gregor touched the wood of the door. It looked discoloured, warped and cracked. Gregor shifted his gaze from the door to the dials on the doorframe. He turned them slowly. They looked like dials on an ancient safe, one from an old western movie.
Gregor turned to me and pointed at the dials, "This is how you set the portal. You turn the dials-"
"The fire demons are probably on their way here. Can you work this? Can you turn it on?" I asked. I wasn't sure if things like this turned on or were always on.
"If my guess is correct," muttered Gregor as he turned the dial and then placed his hand on the round door knob. "This should take us the demon world."
He turned the door knob slowly, until it unlocked with a soft click. The door started to hum as if a tinny motor hidden in the wood was turned on. I walked behind him as Gregor opened the door. I could see right through the door, it was the wall but there was a shimmering film over it. A portal had opened up. Gregor beamed and turned to me.
"It worked!" I gasped.
"Yeah, I can't believe it either," replied Gregor.
The alarm outside stopped and the main door started to click, click, click as it unlocked. We needed to go- we needed to go now. I looked at the door and then at Gregor.
"We need to go now but-" I whispered.
"It will be okay," he whispered. I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. He had no idea what was going to happen, but I wanted to believe him. I wanted everything to be okay again. We had no choice. I saw the light as the door opened. Gregor quickly stepped in and I followed him through the shimmering film. Everything went black. I heard the door slam shut behind us in the darkness.
***
Author's Note
Yes, I am aware of the weird weapon name and how I low key, high key copied Noblesse. I'm sorry lol