CHAPTER FIVE (cont.)

Fellow Stranger

Hank walked out a ways from the group, wanting to be alone while still keeping close. With his back to them, he took a seat on a slab of rock that had fallen and embedded itself in the ground. He knew he wouldn't have been able to sleep. He set his bow aside and pulled out the map Dungeon Master had given him. He looked it over carefully, memorizing it, and then looked out to the darkness southward.

He was still for a time. He mentally sent his mind out to scout ahead. He tried to picture the landmarks they should encounter along the way, his imagination giving him a bird's eye view of how their path may look in real life. He tried to get a sense for danger, the way he thought a psychic might do it. He wondered if the trip could be made without incident. He hoped so. This was it, their last chance. Everything had to be considered.

No mistakes, he told himself. Not this time. No matter what.

"No roads," a voice behind him said.

He flinched, nearly falling off the rock. He caught himself and snapped his head around. His heart thudded in his chest, but he did manage to stop a few choice words from making it past his lips. "What?" he said when he'd finally collected himself.

"The map," said Donnova, still hovering over him. "There aren't any roads from here to Realm's Edge. There aren't any roads anywhere. A bit odd, don't you think?"

He looked back at the map and made a conscious effort to steady his breathing. The adrenaline was slowly beginning to abate.

"There don't have to be roads. We don't need roads," he informed her.

"But there's a city right there, before that mountainous region," she said, pointing. "Surely, there are roads."

"Maybe whoever drew this didn't bother to put them in," he guessed.

"Why make a map if you don't intend to show paths from one place to another?" She pointed again at the map. "And if that's to scale, it's going to take many days to get there on foot. Let's hope we can get horses in that city. 'Uutresk,' does it say?"

Hank rolled the map and tucked it away. "Look. No offense, but did you come over here for a reason?"

She took a deep breath and nodded. "I did, actually." She sat next to him and swung herself around to face the same direction.

"I'm sorry I upset you earlier. I didn't mean to. I forget myself sometimes. It's rare that I sup with ones so young." She winced a bit, like she hadn't meant to word it that way. "Anyway, I'm sure my words can seem to lack a certain . . . chasteness, at times?"

She smiled. He didn't.

"Just please watch what you say, OK?" He threw a glance over his shoulder. "There's already one among us who can't keep his opinions to himself."

She looked, too. "Ah, yes, your dark-haired dissenter."

"Eric. He just wants to go home like the rest of us. We're all a bit tired of chasing portals."

Donnova laughed derisively. "I tired of chasing portals years ago. Let me guess, it always comes down to either going home or helping someone you've grown to care for, or some better cause � when it's not Venger personally ruining everything himself, of course."

Same boat, huh? he thought as he looked at her.

She nodded as though she heard his unspoken remark. "That's why I keep to myself, mostly. For me to befriend someone is to invite them to be used by the Dungeon Master in some scheme to keep me here.

"Oh, it comes off as coincidence, circumstance. But. . . ." She turned her face up to the sky, and they sat in silence for a moment.

"Why do you think we're here, Hank?"

He didn't answer right away. The truth was that he didn't know how to. So often in the past he'd asked himself that same question. So often he'd ended up deeply frustrated. If not to destroy Venger, then what? Why them, and not ones who already lived in the Realm? And what about all those times Dungeon Master tried to help them get home? Had he known each and every time that they wouldn't make it? Could it have been even worse than that? Had Dungeon Master ever actually helped them at all? Or had he intentionally kept them here, and only pretended to help them?

He remembered all the cryptic suggestions of a purpose and the life lessons. Maybe they weren't meant to go home at all. Ever.

Why are we here?

He squeezed his eyes shut and brought a hand up to rub his temple. The hand moved to rub his stiff neck before he let it fall back to his lap. "I don't know," he answered the only way he could. He could feel Donnova's scrutinizing gaze in his tensing neck muscles. He really wanted to be alone.

"But you thought you knew at one time," she said.

His mouth tightened, he didn't like being read like this. He took up his bow and stabbed the end into the ground. Fine, let's have this conversation.

Hank took a moment to find the words. "When we got here," he began, "and I mean that first crazy moment, the first thing we saw was Tiamat. Then Venger." He paused, almost smiled. "And rocks floating in the sky," he added as an afterthought. Then he shook his head as if to dismiss it out of irrelevance. "Anyway, we must have appeared right in the middle of a battle. Tiamat attacked us. That's when Dungeon Master showed up and gave us our weapons, and we used them. Then we saw Venger, and he attacked us, too. The he flew off with Tiamat right behind him." He paused. "It was like a bad dream, or a cruel joke."

"Cruel joke, indeed," Donnova echoed, after a pause.

Hank went on. "Well, it seemed obvious from the beginning that we were here to�"

"Rid the Realm of the forces of evil," she finished for him.

Hank nodded and sighed. "Yeah."

"And something's happened to make you doubt that?"

He hesitated. "Yes," he said, knowing she was expecting more of an answer.

"Care to tell me what it was?" she asked outright.

"No." He didn't want to talk about that. He wanted her to leave him alone.

"I see," she said, and rose to leave. "Well, I'll be off to bed then. Goodnight, Hank."

She rose and turned to leave, but there was something he had to know.

"Why did you try to get rid of your sword?" She turned back to him and he looked up at her. "We do all we can to keep our weapons with us. So, why?"

"You say, 'your sword.' Well, that's part of it. This sword belongs here, to this Realm. It is not mine . . . and yet it is. . . ."

"Now you're starting to sound like Dungeon Master."

"There's no need to be cruel," she said with a smile. But then she turned more serious. "Have you ever dreamed you were someone else with that same bow, fighting Venger or some other foe? � Ah, so you have." She laughed. "You have such handsome blue eyes, Hank, but they give so much away." Now she sighed. "I came to believe my sword . . . bound me to this Realm. And that is why I sought to be separated from it. I felt that . . . to continue to carry it . . . betrayed something in me. But I am willing to carry it once more, if it means we all go home."

Hank studied her. "Your eyes give away things, too." He paused, and she gave him a questioning look. "You don't believe any of us are going home, do you?"

She only looked at him for a moment, and then said, "Goodnight, Hank."

As she turned again to leave, Hank caught her chest with the point of his bow. She visibly stiffened, and then slowly turned her head in his direction. He was well aware of the threatening look he was giving her.

"We're all in this together, Donnova, and I expect us all to work as a team. I don't care where your loyalties lie. I'm responsible for my friends, and I won't let anything happen to them. I won't let this go wrong. Do we understand each other?"

"Of course," she replied.

Part of him wondered what the hell he was doing talking to her like this. It wasn't like him, was it? But at the same time, it felt good. Not exactly right, but good. He felt in control. She was older, but he was the leader here. He didn't have anything to prove, and he refused to be intimidated. All along, things had been a certain way, and he wasn't about to let them change now. She was the one who should have to work to get along with the group, not the other way around.

And he wasn't finished with her yet. "Now, where's the stone?" he asked. The virulence in his voice both shocked and stimulated him.

Not taking her eyes from his, she pulled the Sonant Stone from a pocket and showed it to him. "The Dungeon Master left it in my care. If you intend to take it. . . ."

"I'm not going to take it. I believe he gave it to you for a reason. I just don't want it found and taken if we happen to be captured along the way."

She eyed him lewdly. "Did you have a particular hiding place in mind?"

He tilted his head and scowled at her, not at all amused. "Just make sure you don't lose it, OK?"

Then, she did something that completely threw him off. She moved the bow's tip away from her chest, and started unbuttoning her shirt.

Hank couldn't stop his gaze from following her fingers on their way down. She stopped halfway and he watched as she pulled the fabric away from one breast. He didn't know what she was doing, but he did know that this was entirely inappropriate. He inwardly scolded himself for not saying or doing anything against it immediately. Sheila wasn't too far behind them not to see this if she simply rose and started in their direction. What if she was watching right now?

He couldn't help it, he had to glance back to see if they were observed. If he wasn't going to stop it, whatever it was, he had to at least make sure no one saw. He moved his head mere inches and cut his eyes as far as he could.

There was a flash of reflected moonlight. His attention was fully on Donnova once again, who had drawn her sword when his head was turned. Hank jumped up and instinctively brought up his bow, stopping just short of summoning an arrow.

"Jumpy, aren't we?" she said as she brought the sword up and guided the blade to her exposed flesh.

Hank stood there, not understanding what she was doing. Then, his eye caught the dark line of blood that began to ooze from the top of her shadowed breast. Aghast, he watched as she positioned the Sonant Stone along the bloody opening. He cringed as her intention became clear.

"Stop it!" he whispered urgently.

"Don't worry. I've done this before. Walked around with a key in my hip for months. I never lost that, and I don't intend to lose this." She eased the Sonant Stone into her breast with a stifled grunt and pressed her hand over the wound. "There. May I go now?"

He felt he should say something, but words escaped him. He simply nodded, and then watched as she made her way back to among his friends' sleeping forms to find her own place on the ground.

Only then did he realize how drained he felt. His mind was alert, his heart was still racing, but the rest of him wanted to collapse. He sat on the ground this time to lean against the rock. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was sure he felt a headache coming on.

We're gonna make it, he told himself. I don't care how, but we've gotta get outta here!