The creature lay on the sturdy oak table in the meeting house, sprawled lifelessly with its many limbs limp and all its sharp teeth on display. It was—nightmarish.
Six muscular legs, four with cloven hooves and two that doubled as arms with talons like an eagle. Its body was thick and wrapped with rope-like veins and visible sinew. A long neck, almost like a horse’s neck, led to a repulsive face full of teeth in a snake-like jaw that seemed able to dislocate to open impossibly wide. And the rest of its features? Well, it looked like someone had crossed a bat with a tiger and smashed its face into a piece of glass. Along with a powerful prehensile tail, it was without question the most horrifying creature Meg had ever seen.
Jenny popped up at her elbow with a cheerful grin. “Tea?”
Meg stifled her startle reflex and snatched the steaming cup from her sister’s hand. “Painkiller tea?”
“You look like you have a headache.”
“I always have a headache.”
“So.” Jenny grinned. “Tea.” She huffed as though Meg were the most exasperating person in the Andarian Dimension. “I’m going to give some to Barb too. She’s making the same face you are.”
“I’m not making a face.” Meg sipped the tea.
The persistent ache in the back of her head faded somewhat. She hadn’t even realized it had been there. Score one for Jenny. Again. Not that Jenny needed to know.
Meg sipped her tea and glared at the creature.
What was it? Why was it here? What did it want?
Danny and Tolan were helping the Josharons haul the other creatures’ bodies to a central place where the intent was to burn them. But this one needed to be saved so Velanna could examine it.
If anyone would know what it was, Velanna would.
The curtain to the meeting hall pulled back, and Barb stepped in. She quietly came to stand next to Meg, and raised her own cup of tea to sip it.
“Jenny found you.”
“She threatened me.” Barb scowled.
Meg swallowed a smirk. “Drink the tea or she’ll sneak sedatives into your next meal and force feed it to you?”
Barb scowled at her. “Did you hear her?”
“No, that’s how she threatens me.”
Barb rolled her eyes. “How does she manage to threaten people and still be sweet about it? If I tried to threaten someone like that, I’d get shot. Or punched in the face.” She sipped her tea and grunted.
“What?” Meg glanced at her. “Don’t like the flavor?”
“Well, it tastes like dirt.”
“Dirt with mold,” Meg corrected.
“Yes, dirt with mold.” Barb sipped it again. “But it’s making my head hurt less.” She grunted again. “I didn’t even realize it was hurting.”
Meg sighed. “Jenny’s pretty good at noticing stuff like that.”
They sipped their tea together and stared at the creature.
“You’re a pretty good shot,” Meg said.
“Well, you’re a freaking Jedi.”
Meg blinked. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Barb twisted her back gently, stretching her bandages. “Have you got any idea what that thing is?”
“No clue. We’re hoping Velanna will know.”
“Is she your expert on horrible creatures?”
Meg smiled. “Velanna’s the expert on a lot of things.”
“The library gave it away.”
Meg swirled her tea in her cup. “She’s been around for a while. She’s lived a lot of life in nine hundred years.”
Barb gawked at her for a moment. “Nine hundred years? Velanna is nine hundred years old?”
Meg nodded.
“Wow. No wonder she seems a little—dusty.”
“Dusty?” Meg chuckled.
“Best I could think of. It’s not every day you meet someone that age.” Barb shook her head. “What is Tolan, then?”
“The same age. A little older.”
“And their daughter?”
“Tzaitel is only a turn and a half. Um—one hundred fifty years.”
“Oh. Only.”
Meg shifted her weight, staring at the creature. What would they do if more of them showed up? Since this batch had come from the rogue interdimensional rips, did that mean that more creatures could appear at any time? They didn’t have enough energy sabers to kill all of them if they flooded into the dimension in a great mass.
Velanna had hers, of course. Tzaitel and Meg each had one. And there were a few old extras in the training room. But that was it. And the three of them were the only ones trained in Andaiku to the point where they could safely wield them.
Maybe Barb could figure it out. She seemed to be the sort of person who could, but even if she could learn enough Andaiku in a day, it still wouldn’t be enough to stop an invasion of the creatures.
Barb stared into her tea cup, chewing on her bottom lip. “Look. I know we got off to a rocky start.”
Meg smiled. “I guess you could say that.” She angled herself toward Barb slightly. “But I understand why. If I were in your position, I’d have reacted the same way.”
Barb raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”
Meg regarded her quietly. “You’re a big sister. I get it.”
Barb stared at her in return. “I know you do.” She took a deep breath. “I get—unreasonable—when Jim is in danger. And when I’m not in control. And when I’m angry. And since all three of those things were true—well, it’s not an excuse. I was a jerk.”
“You were.” Meg sipped her tea.
Barb chuckled. “So, truce?”
“Truce.” Meg lifted her cup, and Barb tapped hers against it gently.
“We need to find Dr. Fallen,” Barb said. “Not just because I feel responsible for him, but I’m beginning to understand just what’s at stake here. If these monsters are a result of something he did? Well, then it’s our responsibility to fix it.”
“What if you can’t?”
Barb straightened and winced as she moved a muscle wrong. “Then we’ll do the best we can to pick up the pieces until we know what we can do.”
Meg shook her head with another smile and finished her tea.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you.” Meg set her teacup down on a side table and faced Barb with her hands on her hips. “But you need to stop being cool. Because I’m really starting to like you, and I’ve already sworn not to do that. I don’t like it when people make liars out of me.”
Barb cackled and finished her tea. “You’re pretty cool too. Seriously, the Jedi stuff was wild.”
Meg lifted her hands. “I don’t know what that means.”
“If we end this whole fiasco on speaking terms, somehow I’ll figure out how to explain it to you.” Barb set her teacup down.
The curtain rustled, and Jim poked his head eye, eyes wide and shifting back and forth between them.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” Barb turned to him.
“Hello.” Meg smiled.
Jim blinked at them.
“You’re—not killing each other.”
“Truce.” Barb folded her arms. “And maybe something a bit more.”
“Something more?” Jim stepped into the meeting hall.
“Well, we’ve both admitted we think each other is cool.” Barb shrugged.
“She’s a great shot.” Meg pointed to Barb.
“She’s a Jedi.” Barb pointed to Meg.
Jim’s expression turned awestruck. “A Jedi? For real?”
“Is this a position in your government?” Meg arched an eyebrow while Barb snickered. “Honestly, what is it?”
The curtain rustled again, and this time Velanna stepped inside with a somber glance at the three of them.
“Margaret.” She nodded.
Meg nodded back and turned to the creature on the table. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Velanna. It’s—I don’t know what it is. The only thing that could take them down were energy sabers.”
“Yes, Tzaitel gave me a brief summary of the conflict.” Velanna approached the dead creature on the table and stared at it.
She pressed her long-boned fingers into its bluish skin and watched how the black stripes on its skin shifted at her touch.
“Fascinating.”
“Any clues?” Barb leaned on the table.
“It looks like a patchwork quilt of different animals,” Jim muttered. “Never seen anything like it.”
Velanna took a long, deep breath. “I have.”
Meg and Barb exchanged a look.
“Where?” Barb asked.
Velanna turned her piercing teal eyes on Barb and held her gaze for a long moment. Barb didn’t look away.
A contest of wills. That’s what it was. Meg had seen Velanna stare down half-rabid Centaurs and infuriated Josharons, but the longer Velanna and Barb stared at each other, the more intent Barb seemed to grow.
Barb wasn’t going to back down.
Velanna had never backed down in her entire long life.
A stalemate.
Meg had never seen Velanna reach a stalemate with anyone.
“Very well,” Velanna said softly. “Margaret, Barbara, James.” She looked at each of them in turn. “Please come with me.”
“What about the village?” Jim asked.
“Tolan and Daniel are assisting with the clean up. Jennifer and Zyna are treated the wounded.” Velanna turned. “If there is to be a solution to this greater trouble, I sense it will the three of you who will bring it about.”
Velanna stepped out of the meeting hall.
Jim flashed a smirk at Barb. “Good thing you two have a truce.”
Barb caught his elbow and dragged him along at her side. “Don’t be smart, Jim.”
“I can’t help it, Barb.”
Meg smiled at their backs and followed them outside into the smoke-filled air of Palayta Village. Velanna had already commandeered one of the wagons and was waving Tzaitel over to them.
“In the back.” She motioned to them to the wagon.
Meg jumped into the wagon and held her hand down to Barb, who took it without question. Jim supported her as she climbed inside. Meg offered her hand to him, and for some reason his face turned bright red.
Strange.
After some awkward hemming and hawing, Jim accepted her hand and she dragged him into the wagon. How someone could be that tall and have no control over his arms and legs was a mystery to her. Jim flailed like a newborn calf.
Meg stifled a yelp as he nearly pulled her off the wagon.
“Sorry.” He blushed as he sprawled on the wagon bed.
Meg arched an eyebrow at him.
Very strange.
Tzaitel climbed onto the seat of the wagon and took the reins from her mother, and Velanna turned so she could look back at them.
“Take us back to the castle, Daughter,” Velanna said.
“Yes, Mother.” Tzaitel snapped the reins, and the wagon lurched forward.
Velanna leaned in so her voice could be heard over the rattling of the horses and belts and wheels.
“There is a book in my library,” she said, “which I discovered many years ago. It is in a language I do not know, but it contains a bestiary of some type.”
“A what?” Meg wrinkled her nose.
“A descriptive or anecdotal treatise on real or mythological animals,” Jim volunteered without hesitation. “Usually medieval, featuring a morality-based tone.”
Velanna gaped at him as the wagon jolted and rattled.
Barb waved her hand. “Ignore him. He spouts random trivia like people actually care.”
“I don’t know, Red. They look like they care.”
Barb thumped him on his forehead. “Bestiary. In your mega-library. Got it. Continue.” She looked at Velanna.
Velanna’s expression had turned into something partway between amusement and bemusement.
“Yes,” she said. “It is a detailed illustrative guide to the flora and fauna of a world with which I am unfamiliar. Since it is written in a language that I cannot translate, I have always been limited to examining the images.”
“Do you have any idea where they came from?” Meg shouted over the rattling wagon.
Velanna shook her head. “I have a theory, but I want to confirm it before I share it. I know they are not from this world. I never expected to see one of the creatures from this tome in the flesh here.”
The wagon bumped and jolted up the well-worn path to Prism Castle. Meg settled against the wall and tried not to grind her teeth. The tea had taken most of her headache—the one she hadn’t noticed—away, so her thoughts were clearer than they had been.
It was good that Velanna at least recognized the creatures, but it didn’t sound like they would find much information on where they had come from. Ultimately, it didn’t matter where they had come from. It was more important to close the rips.
And as Barb had said, Dr. Fallen was the key. So nothing had changed about their priorities as far as Meg was concerned.
Tzaitel got the wagon back through the gates into the courtyard, and Velanna led them all into the castle to the library. By the time they reached the table in the library, Barb was limping. Had she hurt herself more in the battle at the village, or was this leftover from her original injuries?
Regardless, Meg shoved a chair at her, and Barb sank into it without comment. Jim gave her a smile—a grateful one, an expression that made his blue eyes shine. Strange warmth climbed up the back of Meg’s neck in the face of his smile. An odd fluttery feeling in her stomach.
Was she sick? Maybe she had a concussion.
Tzaitel lowered herself regally into a chair at the opposite end of the table and started rearranging her hair. “I have never seen such creatures,” she muttered. “What chaos these humans have brought.”
Meg started to respond to her, but Velanna appeared with a huge leather-bound book and set it on the table. She opened it, and the thick vellum pages inside crackled and rustled.
Meg rounded the table and peered over her elbow at the content of the book. Barb and Jim joined from Velanna’s other side.
“Whoa,” Jim muttered.
The pages were loaded with line after line of strange letters, something like the blocky language Meg had spied in many of the other books within Velanna’s library. Like the language carved into the walls of the kahane-kadhan.
“More cuneiform,” Jim mumbled.
“Indeed,” Velanna nodded.
She turned the page with a crackle and there, sketched in thin lines of faded ink, was an exact image of the creature that laid dead on the meeting hall table of Palayta Village.
“That’s it,” Barb muttered.
Lines pointed to labels that identified different parts of the creature in more cuneiform. Its head. Its teeth. Its claws and legs and arms and talons. Whoever had created this illustration had been very detailed in the information they recorded. Shame none of them could read it.
“You said you were confirming a theory.” Jim turned his eyes on Velanna. “What theory?”
Velanna thumbed to another page in the book where another view of the creature was displayed. It seemed to be a full landscape image of a dark forest full of shadowed trees, layered with fog, and hovering above the canopy of branches was a floating island.
“This is a world I have never seen.” Velanna pressed her index finger into the vellum.
“Are you sure it’s an alternate world?” Jim lifted his eyes to her.
Velanna pointed next to a small cuneiform label in the top right corner of the drawing. “I know very little of this language, but I can tell you those are coordinates.”
Jim scowled. “Coordinates?”
“What, like, to another other world?” Barb straightened. “This isn’t the only other world?”
“Of course not.” Velanna barely glanced at her. “There are hundreds of alternate worlds.”
Barb paled and gripped the edge of the table.
“So those are coordinates.” Jim stayed on track. “Can you read them?”
“I cannot. But they are written in the same format as other coordinates I have found in this library. And those I have been able to translate.”
Velanna shifted her weight and reached for a table behind them, grasping another dusty old book and opening it on the table. This one was more like a ledger with line after line after line of cuneiform writing.
She skimmed through a few pages before she grunted and drew her bottom lip between her teeth.
That was a bad sign.
“What is it, Velanna?” Meg asked.
“Mother?” Tzaitel asked at the same time.
Velanna glanced at both of them in turn and pulled the ledger into the center. “This is a list of coordinates along the interdimensional spectrum. I first realized what it was years ago, and I have been in the process of identifying the different worlds. This list is nearly as complete as the one my people accumulated before the Great War.”
“So it serves as a reference guide,” Jim said. “Is this how you’re translating the rest of these books?”
Velanna smirked at him. “You are a linguist, Mr. Taylor, aren’t you?”
Jim grinned. “Dr. Taylor, actually.”
“Jim.” Barb poked him. “Focus.”
Velanna set the ledger on top of the first book. “I have searched this list and found no commonalties between the known worlds and the coordinates in this illustration. Except for one detail.”
She pointed to a word at the end of the coordinates, two distinct cuneiform symbols jammed together.
“This word,” Velanna said. “It is sidug.”
Jim blinked. “Okay.”
“It connotates a trap or a ravine.” Velanna chewed on the inside of her cheek.
“A limbo,” Tzaitel whispered.
Velanna lifted her gaze. “Yes. A limbo.” She nodded. “I have translated enough of the worlds to identify this word. It indicates dimensions that are impossible to escape. You can travel there, but there is no means of leaving it.” She tapped the image again. “If this is correct, these creatures have somehow escaped from a limbo dimension.”
Meg rocked back on her heels. “That means—”
“The rips we opened,” Jim spoke with a shaking voice, “somehow opened a door into a world that should never been opened.”
Velanna nodded. “These creatures are alien in every sense,” she said. “We must find Dr. Fallen. We must know what he did to your process to create this fault, and we must correct it immediately.”
Velanna shut both books.
“The rips are growing,” she said. “The creatures will continue to come. The rips will continue to grow. And once they reach full sustainability, we will not be able to close them. They will keep growing, and the entire continuum will be in danger.”
“How?” Jim had turned the color of chalk.
“If a breech in the interdimensional barrier grows too large, it has long been theorized that it will consume whatever world is on the other side of it.” Velanna folded into her chair. “The Interdimensional Continuum cannot exist in structure without each world. It is a cohesive system.”
“If one world falls, the others fall.”
“Yes.” Velanna nodded. “If Andaria is consumed, all the worlds in the energy levels beyond us will collapse. And then it will reverse course and consume the worlds behind us.”
“Starting with Terran,” Meg said.
“And all of those other-other worlds?” Barb started softly, her tone somber. “Are they—inhabited?”
Velanna met her eyes again. “Most of them. Yes.”
Barb drew herself up and set one hand on Meg’s shoulder and one hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go find Dr. Fallen.”

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