Chapter 2

Rushing headlong into the kitchen, Daniel was surprised to find the limp form of a teenaged girl laid out across the splintered remains of what had once passed for his kitchen table. Clutched in her small hands was an odd stone tablet covered with strange hieroglyphics, and what appeared to be the corner of a small leather pouch was peeking out from under one of her arms. While the black soot covering most of the girl seemed to indicate that she had recently been through a fire, there were no further signs of that fire anywhere else in the kitchen. The only damage readily apparent was to his poor, demolished table.

Not knowing what else to do, Daniel gently took the tablet and pouch from the unconscious girl. He placed them over on the counter, and cautiously lifted her from the wreckage of his table. Cradling her delicately in his arms, he carried her out into the living room.

Once he had settled the young girl gently onto his threadbare couch, Daniel pulled the coffee table a little bit closer and sat down. He then gave the girl a quick once-over, attempting to decide whether or not he should be calling 911. As much as he didn't need the hassle that would come with trying to explain her presence in his home, he was fairly worried about the girl's condition. His cursory inspection found, however, that in spite the singed clothes she did not seem to have actually been injured in any way. How the hell she had appeared in his kitchen was beyond him, but she didn't seem to be much worse for the trip.

Once Daniel had satisfied himself that the girl would apparently survive, he began a slightly more thorough examination. This stranger, whose appearance had wrought so much havoc in his kitchen, was definitely not from anywhere around here; of this much he was fairly certain. While the young engineer may not have exactly kept up with the latest in local teen fashion, he was fairly sure that the odd clothing worn by this girl was not it. She was wearing what appeared to be a one piece tunic of some kind. Made from what seemed to be a fine white linen material, it covered the delicate girl from neck to knees, and was bound in the middle with a silver braided belt. Despite being quite soiled with soot, the odd dress seemed to be of fairly high quality manufacture. The belt seemed quite intricate in design, and there were what appeared to be strange symbols embroidered in silver onto the edges of the half length sleeves. Looking just a bit more closely, he noticed that the symbols seemed to gleam slightly more than what would have been expected in the soft light of the computer monitor. When he tried to examine them more deeply, however, his eyes seemed to unexplainably pass right over them. It was as if his mind strangely fogged over, not wanting to focus on the odd designs before him. When he looked away, the mental fog immediately cleared.

Dangling from the girl's ears were an exquisite pair silver earrings. Made from what appeared to be a complicated series of circles, each earring formed a glyph that somewhat resemble those that had been embroidered on the dress. When he thought of the earings merely as jewelry, he could easily focus on them, and see the sheer amount of detail work that had been put into them. When he tried to view the designs that they formed as symbols however, his mind once again seemed to cloud over. Curious about this odd effect, he reached out his hand toward one of the strange earrings, and suddenly found himself staring into the most beautiful pair of deep green eyes he had ever seen.

Jerking back his errant hand, he quickly spoke. "I... I'm sorry. I didn't know you were awake. Are you all right?"

While the girl seemed to have only partially awakened, she suddenly seemed quite distressed. Struggling to sit up, she mumbled, "Afiela doma patiece?" The girl's strange language did not sound like anything he had ever heard before, bearing out his original assumption that she wasn't a local.

Moving back to his desk chair, Daniel responded. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand a word you're saying. Do you speak English?"

"Afiela doma patiece?" she repeated, a bit more forcefully this time.

"I'm really sorry, but I only speak English. I wish I could understand you."

Appearing quite agitated, the girl quickly reached into her bodice and drew out a small necklace that he had not previously noticed. Dangling from the necklace was a collection of several elongated charms. Quickly thumbing through them, she evidently found the one she had been looking for. The charm she selected, as the earrings had been, was quite beautiful. This piece of jewelry, however, seemed to be thoroughly covered with the strange symbols he had been noticing. As she purposefully ran her index finger down the line of glyphs, they began to glow with a soft, eerie light. She then held the glowing pendant out to Daniel, saying "Asig ahl."

"A seagull? Huh?" Daniel waxed eloquent, having absolutely no idea what was going on with the strange jewelry. At this point he wasn't all that certain he wanted to.

"Asig ahl!" she emphatically repeated.

The girl suddenly reached out across the coffee table and grabbed the unsuspecting young man's hand. Pulling him toward her, she exasperatedly made it known that she wanted him to run his own index finger across the glowing symbols, just as she had done a moment before. When he hesitated, she became insistent, firmly tugging on his hand. After a brief moment of hesitation he finally figured why not?

The moment his finger reached the final rune, Daniel felt suddenly disoriented. Then, something seemed to click in his mind, as if some part of his brain had somehow moved and fallen into place. As soon as the unexplained disorientation left him, the oddly glowing runes abruptly dimmed.

Snatching back his hand as if it had been burned, he exclaimed, "What the hell was that?"

"Where is my pouch?" the girl demanded.

"Your what?" Suddenly, realization dawned on Daniel. "I can understand you!"

Rolling her eyes, the annoyed girl responded, "Yes, that is usually how a communication spell works. I cannot believe that you didn't have one around here. Now where is my pouch?!"

"How a co... a comm... a what?" Daniel sputtered.

"A communication spell. What kind of backwater village did I end up in, anyway? And where in the Hells is my damned pouch?!"

Still not quite having made it past the word 'spell', Daniel was at a loss for words. Magic? Spells? Real magic didn't exist. Growing up, had a cousin who did magic tricks as a hobby, with cards and stuff, but that was just slight of hand. That's what magic was, right? Illusion? This whole deal with the glowing runes, and the mind job to boot, they certainly didn't look like any slight-of-hand he had ever seen.

Daniel quickly decided that he was way out of his element here. There was obviously something odd going on, but he had no idea what. His first thought was that this must be some kind of set up, some practical joke being played on him by his partner, Stanton. Then, he realized that there would be no way to emulate the strange glow of the runes; glowing paint wouldn't fade in and out like that. If this was some sort of joke, he had no idea how it could have been pulled off. That left him with only one possibility; one that Daniel really didn't want to contemplate.

"Let me get this straight. You touched that silver thingy and it started glowing. I touched it, and suddenly I can understand you?"

Rubbing her temples, the girl replied, "Um, yeah. I thought I explained that to you already. Where in the Hells am I? That strange transport spell of Father's sure wiped me out."

"You're in my apartment, about an hour outside of Detroit. Something tells me that you might not be from around here, though."

"You certainly speak the truth. Where is this Detroit? Is it near Cabbel? Please tell me that I'm still somewhere in Southgard. You don't look like a damned nook."

Daniel shook his head, not knowing where to start. "First of all, I don't even know what a nook is, but I'm assuming from your tone that it isn't something good. Secondly, I've never heard of this Southgard. It sounds like something out of a bad fantasy novel. So I'm really sorry, but I think you're out of luck."

Looking at him like he had three heads, she wondered what kind of dimwit didn't even know what a nook was, or even Southgard. It was an entire nation! "You know, a nook. One of those crazy people who live up in the Noordmaar region? Wear skulls, cover themselves with tattoos? Gods, how far south did I go?"

"Not far enough," Daniel muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing. Listen, I hate to break this to you, but I don't think you're even on the same planet."

This instantly got her attention. Her head shot up, and for the first time since waking up, she looked Daniel directly in the eyes. Enunciating each word slowly, she asked him in an extremely serious tone, "What world is this?"

"Well, we call it Earth."

Silence...

"No, it can't be. He couldn't have... Did he actually do it?" she muttered to herself, disbelief clearly written across her face.

Daniel sat back and watched, giving the bewildered girl a chance to gather her wits. He would probably need her help if he wanted to figure out exactly what was going on here.

"That would certainly explain why old Balaam... Damn you, Father! Couldn't you have warned me? The notes! Of course, he wouldn't want anyone to find those!"

She turned quickly to Daniel and pleaded, "You must return my pouch. You have absolutely no idea what is in there."

"It's just over in the other room. Wait right here, and I'll go get it."

Daniel got up and went back into the kitchen. Shaking his head at what was left of the table, he quickly grabbed the leather pouch and tablet and returned to the living room. Handing them to the waiting girl, he asked her, "Can you tell me what's going on here?"

"I'm not really all that sure myself, but if we truly aren't anywhere in Corranus then I owe you an apology. I seem to have made somewhat of a fool out of myself. I just thought that..."

"It's ok, don't worry about it." Daniel interjected. "Why don't you just start from the beginning?"

Settling back into the couch, the strange young girl seemed to make up her mind. "Ok, I guess I'm going to have to trust you, since I have absolutely no clue as to where I am, and have only the slightest idea as to what I've gotten myself into. And if I've dragged you into this as well, then you at the very least deserve an explanation.

"My name is Raehl Arkannis, and up until a short while ago, I lived in the city of Cabbel, the human capital of Southgard. My father is, or rather was, High Mage of the Council of Twelve, the ruling council of the humans. Earlier today his rival on the Council, a wizard by the name of Balaam, made a bid for power. He set fire to my... my home... my poor father..."

The girl's voice trailed off as her shoulders began to shake. Seeing this seemingly confident girl overcome with grief broke Daniel's heart, and he slipped back over to the couch to draw her into his arms. She quickly burrowed her head into his shoulder, and he began to gently rub her back as she wept, comforting her. They sat like that for the next several minutes, him whispering in her ear that it was going to be ok, to go ahead and let it out.

Eventually Raehl seemed to calm down a bit. She wiped the tears from her face, and drew back from Daniel's comforting presence. Not wanting to intrude, he moved back to the desk chair, patiently waiting for her to speak.

"I'm... I am really quite sorry for all of this. This has just been such a hard day; please forgive me. I guess I'm just not used to..."

"It's ok, Raehl. Honest, I understand. This is all just a bit much for me, as well. Take all the time you need."

Raehl slowly stood to her feet. "Please, where is your washroom? I would like to freshen up a bit before we continue."

Daniel chuckled to himself, thinking that some things must be the same everywhere. "Down that hall, first door on your left."

Raehl visibly drew herself together, thanked him, and calmly walked from the room.

Watching her go, Daniel settled back into his chair to ponder the last ten minutes of his life. His entire world view, everything that he thought he knew, had just been shaken for the first time. From his childhood, he had always been technologically gifted. Computers, electronics: these were things that he inherently understood. From his very first discovery that when you flip this switch, that light goes on, he had been curious about the way things worked. Magic? Glowing runes that allowed you understand new languages? Transportation spells? These things just didn't fit his understanding of the world around him. They just didn't make any sense, not even a little.

Daniel stared off into nowhere, his mind moving a mile a minute. Having always been so eager to learn new things, he wondered if he could in fact learn this magic stuff. Would it even be safe for him to do so? When learning about computers at a young age, he had never really needed to worry about hurting anything, or anyone. Computers were safe, and so long as you were careful, so were electronics. These runes of hers quite obviously wouldn't be quite the same.