Once More, Unto the Breach

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 8

I hated myself for having left Fox behind, just the though
made me start to feel ill. Even if he had ordered me to go,
it just didn't feel right.

Fox was the leader of us, he was the one in charge... there
not suppose to be left behind while the less important one's
run for there lives.

I was now lost, badly lost. I had been running though the
woods for about fifteen minutes and didn't have a clue as to
where I was going, the forest's canopy was so dense I
couldn't even see the sun. Though I wasn't sure it would
have been to much of a help.

Sinking down next to a tree, I wrapping my arms around my
legs, resting my chin on my knees. I hoped we could
eventually find him once this was all over, but I didn't
think so. If it wasn't a terminal drop, he would still be
lost inside of the caves. He would be almost impossible to
find.

At least there was little chance of Krege's solders finding
me. If they found where I had come up the hill at, they
would still have to try and follow me. Even if I didn't hide
my trail very well, or at all for that matter.

It was sloppy, but I wasn't thinking clearly... I shook my
head, they I went, thinking like an assassin again. What
would Thryn think? Not much I suppose, murder is still
murder no mater what name you label it by.

Sometime's though, it isn't as wrong as it could be.

I stood up, pulling on my coat. Fox was lost, Sora dead and
I'm trying to moralize my second job. I really think I was
starting to lose it.

Picking a direction I started off in it, hoping maybe I
would find something I recognized, or maybe the canyon that
Fox had mentioned. That was what I actually found too, after
a minute the trees started to thin out. After another two
minutes at a brisk run I found myself on the edge of what
looked like a four-hundred foot descent straight down.

I whistled a bit through my teeth, letting my eyes follow
down the length of the canyon in each direction. One way
looked to be towards a valley, the other I couldn't tell.
With a quick prayer that I picked the right direction, I
turned around and found myself nose to nose with some of the
local wildlife.

Letting out a yelp, I jumped about two feet, some of my fur
starting to bristle. At the same time, the animal, I could
see now it was a gryphon, took a few paces back.

As I landed, I fell into a crouch, reaching into my coat for
my needler. The gryphon on the other paw just sat back on
it's haunches, staring at me.

Raising myself up just a bit, I started to edge my way to
the side. "Good gryphon," I whispered as I went, "I just
want to get out of here. No need to attack, I'm not a
threat."

The beast seamed to understand me, tilting it's head to one
side, flexing it's wings slightly, almost as if it was
laughing. It puffed it's chest out a slightly, it's feathers
catching the sun, the glint of the gem around it's neck only
adding to the effect.

'Wait a tail flick... a gem?' I though looking closer. The
gryphon did have a gem around it's neck. A fire-red stone
that looked like it had a life of it's own, it's shape
though, and it's setting, seamed familiar to me.

Finally it sunk in. "Thryn's eyes, Thrysten?"

The gryphon snapped it's beak and me, and clucked lightly.
She was laughing at me! With a grimace I slipped my needler
back into my jacket, and stood fully erect. "How under
Leo-Star did you do that?"

She reached up with one of her foreclaws and grasped the
gem. Her form started to change, shrinking in on itself. It
wasn't to pleasant to look at, so I didn't. Instead I found
great interest at the ground between my toes.

"It's done," She said. I looked up to find her on her claws
and knees, nude, and panting hard. She had let go of the
gem, which had turned back into the sea-blue color it had
been the first time I saw her.

"Are you all right?" I asked, ignoring the surge of anger
that had just started to form inside the pit of my stomach.

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "It will pass," she her
panting almost stopped.

"Fox said you were watching us, I just didn't expect this."

She gave me a sharp look, which sent a chill down my spine.
"What happened back there? And where did you come from, Fox
and a guard went into one tent, and you and Fox came out
another."

I rubbed the bands on my wrists. "I don't know what
happened. I heard a gun shot and ran for Krege's tent, Fox
meet me outside of it and we took off running. Your second
question has a rather self-evident answer."

A frown crossed her beak as she stood up, picking some dust
from her feathers. "You are very arrogant, I wonder how Fox
can stand you?"

Now I was mad. Crossing my arms I glared at her. "You're the
one who threatened me, remember?"

She snarled a bit, a snarl which turned into a growl as a
dark shadow passed over us. She whipped her head around and
started into the sky, her eyes narrowing. I looked myself,
only to see a half-dozen dark shapes flying above us.

"Dragons," she hissed. "There attacking the castle."

I looked at her. "You did warn them that something had gone
wrong?"

She stared back at me. "I was to busy trying to find you so
I could know what to warn them about!"

I frowned. "They're going to find out on there own in a few
minutes."

"And we'll be right behind them," she said, taking her gem
once again into her foreclaw.

"We will?"

She gave me a look of distaste, as he shape started to flow.
"You ride me." She said, her beak changing around the words
as she spoke them.

I frowned, but when she had finished changing I climbed into
her back. Even before I could get much of a grip she leap
into the air out over the canyon, and we were on our way.

* * *

Light, I saw light filtering though the cave. I rubbed my
eyes a bit, not wanting it to be another trick of the dark.
I had been wondering around for hours now, trying to find
some way out, or some kind of help.

I found though that the light was real, or at least vanished
when I closed my eyes. Stumbling my way towards it, I found
it grew brighter. It was still dim, but after so much pure
darkness it was hurting my eyes.

Holding my paw in front of my eyes I let then slowly adjust.
After a minute, when my eyes stopped hurting, I dropped by
paw.

I was standing in a bend in the tunnel, along with the
source of light. I had been hoping for some kind of exit,
but this was unexpected.

It was a women, almost a girl. She was curled up in the
corner, sleeping softly. She wasn't a wolf like the rest of
this world, she looked like Fox's species, furless with out
muzzle or claw. Though though the long hair on her head I
could see one of her ears... which was pointed.

She was also the source of the light, her body seemed to
glow with it in the darkness of the caves.

Wrapping my wings around myself, I eased down against the
cave wall. Finding this girl was not a good thing. She
wasn't something that looked native to this world, or at
least in my opinion, and if she wasn't that didn't bode well
for her.

The classes Fox had made me take covered something like
this. This girl had gone though a fold some how. The chances
were good that her portal control had been broken badly, or
she had got dumped out of a ripple some how, or maybe tried
to use one of the 'deep' folds and she got thrust here, or a
thousand other things.

She was here though, and that meant I was given certain
responsibility. One of which was helping her some how.

Moving forward, I reached out, gently touching her shoulder.
She awoke with a violent start, her eyes opening instantly
and focused on me. She panicked, forcing herself back
against the wall and screaming loudly.

I jumped back myself, pulling my wings tighter against my
body. The girl keep yelling the same string of syllables
over and over again. My translator didn't do anything to it,
I just heard it as she said it. Which meant she didn't have
one, or if she did it (or possibly mine) was broken, that
and the language wasn't stored in mine.

Which made things even worse. If she didn't have a
translator it meant that she might be a misplaced exile from
the Council, or some kind of convict. The history of the
Multi-Verse, as far as I learned, had many cultures who used
the folds to remove criminals, some even know how to let
them live through the transit and used it as a relocation,
and not a device to kill.

They where all eventually stopped, and when they found out
about the Multi-Verse as a whole, duly embarrassed. Still
though, it left criminals floating around worlds totally
different from there own.

Like this girl that was screaming before me.

There was one other possibility. She could have been used as
some kind of test subject. Used to test a device like the
implants. She ended up down in these caves and lost the
fold, and quite possibly her life.

The only way I would know for sure was to ask her, and the
only way to do that was for my translator to learn her
language. Which, from as I understood it, it could not do if
she keep yelling the same word over and over again.

Finally I sighed. "I'm not a demon." I told her, taking a
the usually acuret guess as to what she was calling me.
Still funny though, people thinking that _I'm_ the demon.

The girl instantly shut-up, looking at me with her pail-blue
colored eyes. Slowly and very clearly she began to speak.
None of it made sense to me, but from the look on the face I
think she expected me to.

As she finished she gave me a hopeful look. I didn't know
what to do, she expect something from me, but I had the clue
as to what. I sighed a bit. "I don't understand."

He face fell and she started talking again. This wasn't
screaming though, she was holding her voice calm, talking to
herself. She looked at me again and said three more words.

"No," I said again.

She said something that clearly was a swear word of some
kind, and started talking again. It occurred to me that she
was trying to analyze the situation. She had though I was
two different things, and she was trying to go though more.
She might have been going through her native mythology,
trying to find out what I was.

She quipped a few more words at me.

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

She paused for a second, then sighed, slumping a bit against
the wall. There we stayed for a few minutes before she
finally looked up at me. She said a word, pressing her hand
against her chest.

It took me a few seconds to realize she was telling me that
her name was Jadin. I smiled a bit and touched my own chest,
saying my name at the same time.

She smiled and reached out touching one of my wings. "Sora."
She said, rolling my name slightly.

I nodded, touching her shoulder, "Jadin." I responded.

She broke away from my touch and laughed, saying a string of
her language. At the same time I felt myself smirk, when I
had been taught this basic type of interaction in class I
though it was nonsense. I didn't think it would work so well
in actual practice.

Jadin finally settled down pushing her head back from her
eyes. She reached into behind her back, and returned holding
some fruits of some kind. She offered me one as she took a
bight of the other.

I took it from her, not sure if it was safe for me to eat or
not, but I was hungry. I hadn't eaten sense dinner at the
castle, how ever long ago that was, and just the sight of
the fruit made me start to salivate.

I happily dug into it.

-----

This story is (c) 1997 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.