Beyond Elysium

This is a longer short story, so buckle up!

Clinging to the movement of the sea’s tides, a lonesome cloud seemed to be heading towards the horizon’s cliff, slowly. Somewhere painted on a lavender canvas, the sun had emerged out of its shelter, ready to belight the world. All resembled a timeless cliché of perfection, especially from James’ vantage point above the mangrove trees. He couldn’t take his eyes off the departing cloud as it was almost outside of vision. And there it went, swallowed. Subsequently a similar-looking cloud appeared in its place, crawling onto the sky the same path the previous one had followed, only inverted. "Odd,” thought James.

The dawn had passed; it was morning already. James got up on his feet, glanced down at the chaotic blue waves below him, calculated his path, then jumped off his platform, upon which his house was hiddenly placed. After descending, he quickly followed up his drop with a couple of more jumps from stone to stone, avoiding the waves by fractions of inches, steadily getting himself closer to land. The water looked disturbed, unpleasantly welcomed by something unusual—a danger lurking—which is exactly what James found out moments later in the wake of hearing a noise coming from beyond the forest.

Once on land, he swiftly ran across fields of lilies and emerald bushes until his sight met the village closest to him, one he had come across many times before; the noise became clearer and clearer the closer he got. It was a scream.

Past the wodden gate, carefully tended furrows, and first couple of houses, James wound up in the middle of the street, opposite of two poor women modestly clothed and several ghost-like creatures.

“Thank God, Shadow Blade! Please help us! We’ve been cornered by those Blackpuffs!”

James quickly drew his sword and took position. Two Blackpuffs—floating wild animals made out of disappearing puffy furr, who like to terrorize livestock—were staring the women down, filled with content, before noticing James, also known as the Shadow Blade. It was not his first encounter with such creatures. Blackpuffs were active especially during nighttime; they often threatened other animals and, when those panicked and tried to run away, they disappeared using their magic powers, only to reappear in front of them and bite. The danger lying not more than fifteen feet away from James was not really unknown to him. The main concern was predicting their behavior.

James shouted towards the two to grab their attention. The Blackpuffs heard the message. James waited patiently until suddenly the left one vanished. Not much more than a second after, James raised his sword to his back, slaying the invisible Blackpuff right as it appeared again. He glanced back, looking for its twin, but it was gone! The women screamed. James kept his composure and, once again, lifted his sword just as swiftly. To his left, on the ground, was the other slain Blackpuff. His quick reflexes and quiet, agile movement are why he’d been called the Shadow Blade.

The women thanked him with tears dripping down their red cheeks. Before he could bask in the receiving gratitude, from behind him came a group of three warriors—Alcott, Tristan, and Robinson, his friends.

“Excuse us for sleeping in; we would’ve helped you if we could,” shouted Robinson.

"Although I see you’ve handled it as easily as ever,” added Alcott laughingly.

James put on a grin and responded warmly to his comrades: “No worries, next time I’ll let you catch them!”.

Before wandering off, the women thanked him once more, to which he replied with a question.

“Do you’ve any idea why Blackpuffs would attack you? They seldom go for people; not in these parts...”

They kept silent, looking as curious as him, and left apologizing.

“Those Blackpuffs must’ve been drunk! How do you mistake two young women with livestock?” said Tristan jokingly. The group all laughed, which filled his heart visibly. Thereafter they realized today they were supposed to meet with the newly appointed King, Dikaios, so they set foot on the dirt path that connected this village to the capital, Elysium.

The four of them were outlaws of justice, the kind of people always looking to help others despite whatever they might be facing, at the cost of being considered “criminals” who avoid the law and make their own. Inside a magical realm such as the Elysian Kingdom, a group of four life-saving ordinary people had surprisingly always escaped the justice system that’s been seeking them out for so many years they’d spent fighting evil, corruption, and, mostly, pirates. But ever since the Last War, which crowned Dikaios as the aforementioned King, the realm had quieted down, and the evil with it, except for the pirates, who were also the reason why James had become the Shadow Blade, but that story is too long to mention now, although he remembers it still, every day, along with the loss of his parents.

During their haste walk through the lands, the group stopped here and there to gather supplies in the likes of salt shards, used for sharpening swords and arrowheads, and enchanted berry juice, meant for healing stab wounds or burns. The realm unsettelingly kept peaceful all the way until they reached the high gates of Elysium. Like all countryside folks, they were awestruck at the sights; not Alcott though; she was born there, in a high family of the capital. She showed the rest around the citadel before entering the keep, where the royal head arranged their meeting.

James stepped first, confidently. King Dikaios greeted them without skipping a beat. It was custom for the royal announcer to handle greetings and presentations, so this seemed unordinary to the heroes, but they carried on.

“My friends, come take a seat! Tonight you will dine like princes and princesses; my treat, of course. I’m so glad to have finally met you in person, especially you, James the Wise,” said the King.

“Higher-ups of this kingdom have forbidden the use of that name, My Lord.”

“Nonsense! Higher-ups before my reign were greedy tyrants. They cared not for you and your kin, but I do.”

“How do we know it to be so?” asked James.

“Simply! You ought to just know it. And, perhaps, my proposal will confirm it.”

A momentarily pause left the echo of the King’s words panning around the hall. He could read intrigue on the faces of James and his friends.

“From now on, you shall be referred to as the Kingdom’s Protectors!” added King Dikaios triumphantly.

From there on, the four stopped being outlaws and began bearing the title of Protectors, a special kind of Knight only a very select few had ever gotten the chance to be. As you can imagine, that evening they dined and celebrated accordingly. Joy engulfed their every chest, their hearts beating with eagerness to be part of the Elysian Kingdom’s history, finally on the side of the Crown.

Time passed unnoticed, spirits were high, but the capital fell silent as night came. James found himself in a dark chamber, keenly listening to a stranger’s footsteps. The walls surrounding him drew the outline of a maze of mirrors, and in the distance he saw a figure. He then heard a voice calling for him. He approached it, as disoriented as he was. Then he realized who he’d been following. "Dante,” he muttered.

Dante the Wicked was one of the most notable characters in the Kingdom’s history book, known as the harshest pirate captain to have ever lived. Most pirates sailed in big numbers, using their crew size to their advantage, but Dante had never needed numbers because he’d been touched from birth by the hand of the never-resting and granted the evil powers of flame conjuring by simply opening his mouth. However, a tragedy was to follow, as soon as he’d become a little boy, for the cruelest evils in this Realm had always started with a tragedy: one day, the firey mouth of his accidentally lethally burned his adoptive parents. Ever since then, he had been avoiding community, or laws for that matter, and had only done as he seemed fit to survive, until he started wanting more. That’s when he’d taken on the role of a pirate.

There was Dante, not far from James, urging him to follow him, as if they were friends. At first, James complied, but then realized he could not remember how he’d gotten there, which only grew his suspicions. Before allowing anything else to unfold, James attacked Dante from the back. He cried out, “No! You don’t understand!" but James continued. Then, out of the voided black of his senses, he felt wet and cold.

Suddenly, James was back at his mangrove hideout. He was lying in a shallow bit of water, near the trees their shelter was built on.

His limbs felt a strange sensation, as if they were being dragged on, as James picked himself out of the waters. He returned to his home as fast as he could. There, his friends were already awake. He did not mention what had happened and sat next to the fire to dry off. Robinson and Tristan were making breakfast, while Alcott was sorting her equipment. They spent the morning chatting, joking, eating, and reminiscing about the prior day.

At a later hour, after James had settled himself back in his own skin, a little griffin came by their window with a message from the King. A pirate ship had been spotted entering the Far Western Bay—a place void of townfolk or even scavengers. The Crown was requesting their aid. “But why would a pirate ship attend a deserted place?” James wondered. He remembered at once of the tales; they sung about a dark fairy that haunted those lands, granting only the most wicked and malevolent wishes, like a demon genie; she assumptively corrupted so many of the common people there that a massacre occurred. Those were old and unproven tales, but they immediately reminded him of one person—Dante the Wicked.

The four rushed to the Far Western Bay, where they found Dante’s ship anchored but vacant. The desolate area sparked James’ curiosity. He started investigating, and, not long in the process, he found footsteps in the vicinity. They followed those footsteps until they met with the pirates—a timeless encounter. See, Dante wasn’t just a pirate captain; he was James’ true nemesis, as they’d fought countless times before. James sought interogation first, but the pirates wouldn’t have it. They were five against four.

“The treasure will be mine!” Dante yelled.

“What treasure?” Robinson asked.

“Not your business.”

The ground trembled a little as the fight began. Tristan, Robinson, and Alcott fought tooth and nail, but they couldn’t get near Dante and his flaming breath; only James knew how to handle him. Initially, he got Dante’s attention and got him chasing deep into the woods. The trees would suffer the burning, but that was the only cover James could find. Then he dodged every fire, moving like a Pinkpuff—a much faster species of Blackpuff—until Dante drew closer and he could not retreat anymore. James deflected the flames heroically with his sword. The air smelled of burned hair and wood. The end of the fight neared, as Dante drew his last fire breath, for that was his weakness—even his dragonscaled, burning lungs had their limits. Thereafter James shoved his weapons in Dante’s direction, felling him with his shield, pressed to the pirate’s teeth in order to cut off his oxygen. Dante had been rendered motionless—another victory for James. Yet he showed mercy.

“Hah,” spoke James victoriously, “I’d actually dreamt you.”

“Wait. You were there too?”

James stopped, looking now more serious than ever, with Dante staring back, worried.

“What do you mean?” he said, but to no avail. Dante had passed out. 

The four weren’t used to the justice protocol, so, instead of imprisoning the pirates, they just tied their members and left them afloat on their ship. They returned to the mangrove for a well-deserved rest.

However, James found himself in the chamber from earlier yet again, Dante the Wicked asking him to follow, this time even more urgently. He thought that this must be a joke, that it must have been his imagination all this time. But Dante was disturbed and desperate and not taking no’s. They argued about how and why they would cooperate, but neither had any clues, and James was getting sick of this predicament. He could not fall into one of Dante’s traps, not again. Thus, he attacked, like previously, from behind with his defining swiftness and tactic. “You cursed Shadow Blade!” echoed through the chamber.

Dante woke up. The old boards of the ship’s deck coldly held his sore and stilled body. He rose to find his mates handling the course they were sailing.

“How could none of you have untied me by now, you morons!?” he told them angrily.

His pirate crew used to be larger, but more and more pirates deserted him because of his terrible temperament and gruesome punishments; however, the four sailing with him had always been utmost loyal to him. One of them hurried to untie Dante and helped him up. It had been raining for a while. They were wet and freezing. Although bad weather usually incentivized Dante to do more mischief, this time he contemplated and chose not to. The mystery of last night was haunting his thoughts. Thus, he chose to leave the ship as soon as possible and head to the Shadow Blade’s residence, by himself.

"But you know you can always count on us to help, right, Cap?” Dante’s mates asked simultaneously.

The mangrove forest was silent. There was nothing to alert the presence of danger, but Dante the Wicked was approaching. He waited until James exited his home alone, then proceeded to address him.

“What are you doing here?!”

“Listen, there’s something inexplicable happening. You were there too. Last night?”

James coughed nervously.

“Yes, I was. I remember it as clearly as a recent memory.”

“I don’t believe it was a dream.”

“Why should I trust you?!”

“We’ve got to find out!”

“You find out for yourself, Dante the Wicked.”

“Alright… Then kill me. I will find out for myself.”

As if preemptively, the heavens opened. James hesitated to reply.

“No… I cannot do that. I will NOT do that,” he yelled.

After a brief moment of thought and silence, Dante watched James and opened his mouth. Everything started to burn; the forest was aflame and the hero was crumbling to the ground, turning to ash. The other Protectors were alerted and came quickly, but it did not suffice. They screamed and cried at the death of their brave leader.

“He made the wrong choice,” Dante said. Then an arrow shot from Alcott’s bow pierced his skull. He collapsed instantly.

Yet he awakened as new, injury-free, and able, in the presence of his biggest rival, James the Wise.

“What did you do...?” he asked Dante, sobbing and sniffling. “What have I ever done to deserve this purgatory stay with you?”

“Maybe it’s not purgatory. As far as it seems, we aren’t even dead. Please now listen to me. Let’s search for an exit.”

“What have I left to lose? Lead the way.”

The two of them made their way through the dark chamber, navigating the maze of mirrors. Everything was dusty and smelling terribly, and so cold their feet were frostbitten. But they carried on until faced with an old wall. Some of the bricks looked out of place, some were either cracked or chipped.

“There must be a way out,” Dante said.

James suggested forcing their way through since the bricked barrier looked so weak. They did not struggle much with breaking it, but, to their surprise, they were met with another beat-up wall. They broke this one as well. Then another one appeared, looking much cleaner and stronger, but it was no match to James’ and Dante’s combined strength. Only one more wall lied between them and whatever exit was beyond it, but this one was sturdy, so well built you could not break through it. Dante attempted to utilize his foul flaming power, yet no brick melted in contact with his devilish fire. James urged him to stop and inspected it more thoroughly when he noticed a red rope tied to one of the wall’s corners. The pair pulled on the rope with all their might, and, finally, it budged and opened like a door. On the other side lied an entire world, full of lights but no stars, full of moving little shelters running down paved streets, full of endless towers that reached the brownish skyline. They stepped in.

There were people everywhere, dressed absurdly, and they all seemed to recognize the two. James and his nemesis were shocked, watching an unbelievable world unfold before their eyes. Not long after, they met a glass building, and inside of it were moving lights, colored so brightly it burned their retinas. James looked closer and noticed the two of them, just smaller versions, rendered in the lights. Out of nowhere, memories start reappearing in their mind, one by one.

“So, were we made up?" Dante asked.

“No. We became made-up. I remember my family now. They’ve never died because of pirates. They must still be alive. I must have once had a life here. And so have you.”

“Yes... In fact, I believe I recall us being friends.”

It didn’t take long for them to question everything. But on their lips, a final question was posed.

“Who is the author...? And why?”