OtherWorldly page 6


As they neared the end of their route, or so Tia had said, Marc’s feet were aching and he was out of breath. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ he panted.  She laughed. ‘ “Are we nearly there yet?” you sound like a child on a long journey!’  He smiled. As the path curved round, a relatively flat field came into view. Next to the field were a collection of caves cut into the side of the mountain, a large one, with half a dozen small ones. A medium sized hut was at the end of the field, and beyond that, the ground sloped gradually towards a small beach with clear waters. There was also a scenic cliff that jutted out above the water; the sun was shining on its pleasant green covering. The whole place looked magical and enchanting, which he guessed it was.

Tia’s eyes scanned the once again familiar landscape, searching for any signs of life, or trouble. Suddenly she spotted a figure standing outside the main cave and recognised her at once: ‘Ay! Kashta!’ she cried out and the figure turned and called back, waving. She ran at once to her best friend and hugged her. ‘Hey Tia, it’s so good to see you!’ she murmured, and then pulled back and gave a mock bow. ‘I mean Master Tia.’ She grinned and turned to regard Marc, jogging up to meet them.  Her gaze shifted between them. ‘Who’s this? Your boyfriend?’ she grinned then added ‘Explains why you haven’t been to visit.’ Tia looked surprised then quickly explained. ‘This is Marc, he’s my friend.’ Kashta raised her eyebrows at her speaking English and asked in Soucan: ‘What? Is he a trader or something?’ English was the commonly spoken language by tradesmen, so that no one could intercept any precious documents and figure out what they were, being the only practical use for the English language in Souca. ‘You won’t believe it! When Master Keasah teleported me home with her broken arm, I ended up in another world! I said the spell as a plural accidentally when I came back and he came with me!’ Tia described the almost impossible events that had taken place recently while Kashta just stared disbelieving and finally nodded. ‘Uh, hi. I’m Kashta.’ She awkwardly held out her hand as if she imagined him to vanish into thin air any second. Marc smiled and took it.

‘So, where is everybody?’ Tia wondered. She was starting to get a bit worried about this, there was always someone outside in the day, training or playing ball on the beach. Kashta smiled sadly. ‘Most of them are masters now; they haven’t come back because He came again.’ She shuddered. ‘They locked the gems away in an extra protected place, but I stayed to watch over them, Master Keasah has retired now, don’t worry, she’s healthy and well, she just went back to the towns.’ Tia felt both relieved and a little stressed; she was badly out of practice, and she knew a good way to remedy that. She glanced up at the sun and saw that it was still high in the sky, and she was beginning to feel quite hot, so she suggested her idea. ‘Wanna have a swim?’ Kashta’s eyes grew bright as she grinned, a silent challenge to Tia, who nodded in response. Marc just looked confused at their behaviour, but he felt like having a swim as well, so he nodded.

Tia and Kashta showed him the hut near the beach, which had a mini hot-spring pool in it, with shelves of a changing room. They told him to put on a pair of shorts that they had found in the store room. They both left to change and find Tia some new clothes. She looked at the clothes of Marc’s she was wearing and shook her head. ‘Guys your age don’t wear things like this much’ she explained, and found him some new clothes for after swimming. A sleeveless white shirt underneath a simple red jacket with no buttons, and some dark linen trousers. He raised his eyebrows at them, but simply nodded and placed the new clothes on a shelf and changed into the shorts. When he came out from the hut, he found Tia and Kashta already in the water, white linen strips wrapped around their chests and legs, with small skirt-type loincloths. They were throwing a leather ball around, or rather levitating it. He sighed: would anything be impossible in this world?