A Hero and the One Behind Him

Today was terrible for Cleo Williams.

It had already gotten off to a terrible start when, at 8 o’clock in the morning, she was informed that her mother had had a severe allergic reaction to a new migraine medicine she was trying. Of course, Cleo spent most of her morning fluttering around her mother like a decapitated hen. Then her boyfriend called to tell her his flight had been delayed, so he was stuck on the other side of the country during the busiest time of the year. That too was a downer, because this was the only time all year he’d had off work. Then her work; a supervisor had called her in to try and nitpick over her work (completely unnecessary since she was the highest performer in her department by leaps and bounds) so that required setting straight. Honestly, she was ready to just head home and call it a day, which she was in the process of doing when she was sucked up into some otherworldly portal. Yet another thing she had to contend with, in what she was absolutely certain was not her world.

The sky was violet for one thing. And not violet like the way the sky would turn during a sunset or the very early hour of the morning, when the sun was just above the horizon. It was a true rich violet – and oddly transparent? Cleo could see stars somehow, even though it was broad daylight as far as she could tell. Adding to that the sun was blue!

There came a sound of rustling across the room, so Cleo put aside her astonishment at the sky – she doubted she would be getting pulled into it again anytime soon – to take a look at where she had landed. The entire room was made of stone bricks, broken up by the occasional floor-length tapestry and standing torch. Across the room was a single window, the gothic type that came to a taper at the top. And among the things on the floor – sepia-skinned Cleo, a group of people in white robing, a chalk-like circle of sigils, and candles – there was a single pale-skinned man. She had not been the only one unfortunate enough to be stolen away from Earth.

Behind her a door swung open to reveal a portly, ruddy-faced man in an extravagant clothing and a golden crown atop his head. She could only assume that this man was a king, but admittedly Cleo was still having a hard time getting around the whole “sucked into another world” thing.

“At last, a solution to our problems!” the King exclaimed as he laid eyes on the other man, “Fair sir, we have called upon you to save our land of Arethia. On the horizon lies the Dark Lord Valdeth, a menace that not even the righteous Imperial Knights can conquer. But then there came a prophecy that said on the eve of the stars’ alignment, the veil between worlds would be weakened and we could summon forth a hero to save us!”

The man, who had shared Cleo’s bewildered expressions until now, spoke: “Me- I mean me?” He cleared his voice and switched to a deeper tone. “… Are you sure you got the right guy? What makes you so sure I could save you?” Cleo couldn’t disagree. He didn’t exactly look like hero material with those spindly arms and beer gut. And what was up with the wannabe frat boy look? He looked about the same age as 32-year-old Cleo, clearly too old to be in high school or college.

“Behold: you bear the mark of the Chosen One!” The King held up Tom’s right hand, which bore a symbol of an eye with light radiating from it. Cleo looked down to check her hand. There was no symbol; she couldn’t help but be a little insulted.

“Fair Hero, Chosen One, He Who Descended from the Heavens-” The King could stand to lighten up on the dick-riding. “You will be our saving light, and in return, we will bestow upon you riches, honor, and anything else you request of us.”

“Anything? What kind of anything? ’Cause that could mean a lot of different things.”

The King nodded. “Yes, truly anything. Even the fairest maidens of the land hall be at your service.”

Tom’s eyes lit up as he rubbed his hands together. “And I could have any of them? More than one even?”

“Of course. Whatever you wish, Sir Hero.”

“Um, excuse me, can we go back to the summoning thing?” Cleo asked. She didn’t like to interrupt but she didn’t think she liked the way this conversation was headed.

A line of emotions ran through the King’s face. First surprise, as though he hadn’t noticed Cleo’s presence at all, then indignation at having been interrupted, and finally, irritation, at what could only be assumed Cleo being a wrench in the works. It was clear he had only been expecting one person to be summoned.

“And who is this wench?”

“It’s Cleo, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,” The King’s eyebrows furrowed as he tilted his head. “Don’t you people joke? I’m obviously not supposed to be here!”

“Obviously not.” The King muttered under his breath.

“Look, you don’t want me here, and I don’t want to be here either. If you could just undo whatever you did to get me here, we can go our separate ways and never have to think about each other ever again.”

“There is no undoing the summoning, Lady… Cleo. The alignment was a once-in-a-century occurrence. You will have to simply wait for the next celestial event to return to your home.”

“What?! No, no, no, this can’t be happening. You mean to tell me that you have the power to pull people other worlds to yours, and no one has figured out a single way to send people back?” The King shifted from foot to foot, and the robed people bowed their heads as Cleo’s caustic gaze swept across them.

“Lady Cleo, again there is no way-!”

Cleo’s hands came up to rub at her temples. “Look, I got shit to do back home! My mom is in the hospital, my boyfriend is stuck in the airport and-?”

Tom chimed in, “I don’t see the problem. I mean I get anything I want if I win, which I’m literally destined to do.”

“I cannot believe you just looked me in the eye and said that with your whole chest.” She sent a scathing glare at him. Tom clamped his mouth shut.

The King haled back a scoff and said, “I’ve heard tales of an enchanted mirror that can act as a gateway to other realms. When the Chosen One succeeds, you may have it.”

“You’ve heard of an enchanted mirror?”

“I know it exists. If I recall, the Dark Lord has it. If you would just let Sir Hero-”

“There is no way I’m leaving this chucklehead in charge of my only way home.” She jabbed a thumb in Tom’s direction, who responded with an indignant “hey!”

“What’s your damage? I could have that mirror in no time. And the King just said we could have anything we wanted if we beat this Dark Lord guy.”

“No, he said you could have anything you wanted. That attitude is exactly why I’m not trusting you with this.”

“Sir Hero,” The King piped up, “Allow my servants to lead you to the armory. We will equip you with the finest weaponry in this realm. And Lady Cleo may take something as well.” She could only narrow her eyes at the King. Tom let out a dopey guffaw bouncing as the robes broke away to pull open the door.

“Thank the gods, she’s gone.” The King muttered when the two stepped out of the room. “With any luck she will not survive the journey.”

“I heard that!” Cleo snapped. She stomped past Tom, teeth gritted as she followed the servants to the armory. She could already tell this experience was going to be something awful, but hopefully it would be over soon.

After all, how long could this trip take? A week or two? If Tom was at least magically empowered, then hopefully this would be over soon, and she could act like this entire thing was a fever dream.

—

This whole thing is bullshit, Cleo concluded.

They were halfway to the Demon King’s base, the Shadowbrace Fortress (wow, so edgy), with the Chosen One, and she was seriously starting to consider ripping her hair out. It had taken one month to get here – they had gotten to some forest on the side of the mountain with a flowery name like the Hidden Grove of Galvelenora – which was only because Cleo had done her best to push Tom to keep things moving. For whatever reason, he had seen it fit to stop to help everyone who had even so much implied they needed it. Cleo was fine with lending a hand here and there, but did they really need to pick 10 magic tomatoes just for someone’s dinner? The man didn’t even need the special tomatoes – not to judge but they tasted worse than regular ones and the market was literally two streets over! There was hardly any reward aside from the couple of coins he gave in return and his praises. Tom didn’t mind, though. In fact, he lapped up the attention, as he did with every quest that pulled them further off track.

Speaking of the people here, Cleo couldn’t help but feel unnerved. Everywhere they went, the people who approached all had dead glassy eyes, like those of porcelain dolls in glass boxes. Splitting away from Tom was another strange matter. When she had stopped by a market just a week ago, there were so many people around that she couldn’t help but be thrown by the crowd like a dinghy in a storm. The people in the shop stalls would hardly even look her way until Tom stepped in, and when she did manage to get their attention, they all had this strange unreadable expression on their faces. It was like they were looking at her, but not really seeing her.

Tom was a problem too. She could hardly get him to focus on the task hand and not the posturing he was doing. At the very least she couldn’t say he wasn’t somewhat invested in this journey. A few towns ago, Tom stopped to get some training from an order of knights and came away looking like those gym guys who swore up and down that their muscles were all natural (To be honest he looked even more like a frat boy now).

They made camp just on the outskirts of the Grove, and from what little she knew about maps, they were only two travel days away from the Dark Lord. That actually meant at least another week if she could make Tom focus. The sun was just barely above the horizon which made setting up harder, especially since Cleo was doing that by herself as usual. Cleo would have been glad once she was done setting up, but there was no way she could go another day without setting things straight with Tom.

Cleo walked around the bonfire to stop before the entrance curtain of Tom’s tent. It was a grand thing, draped in warm furs and vibrant tapestries – leagues better than the dinky little tent Cleo had. She took a deep breath as her dark eyes fluttered shut in mental preparation. After a beat, she opened her eyes, set her shoulders and pulled back the curtain.

Inside, Tom sat babbling on about some great conquest: “It was a whole army of ogres, see. Had to put some real effort into winning that one!” There were two women with him, but they didn’t seem to be paying attention. How could they, when they had the same inanimate glazed look about them? They felt like mannequins; Cleo had to fight down a shudder as she tore her gaze away from them.

“Tom, we need to talk.” Cleo called.

Tom continued like she hadn’t spoken. “They had me surrounded, cornered at the edge of a cliff!”

“Tom!”

“They were snapping at me like dogs! Almost had me too, if I hadn’t-!”

“TOM!”

He startled, then said with barely hidden disappointment, “Oh, Cleo. What do you want?”

“A moment to speak. Alone.” She hissed in response. The only way it could have taken this long to get his attention is if he were deliberately ignoring her.

“Ugh, fine,” Tom groaned like he was doing her a huge favor and waved the women away like dogs. Cleo finally breathed a sigh of relief when they left.

“Look, this whole trip isn’t working out. We need to change some stuff up.” Cleo said.

“Like what? We’re pretty much almost there.” Tom plucked a couple of grapes out of a bowl and popped them into his mouth.

“We should already be there, which is the reason why I’m having this conversation with you. If we had been moving at the pace I suggested, this whole thing would have been over with by now.”

Tom rolled his eyes, “Chill, it’s not like we’re under a time crunch or anything.”

“Um, we kinda are! Do you not remember that whole imminent end of the world speech?”

“Technically the King said the realm was in danger. He probably just meant the kingdom.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean we can keep pussyfooting around. We’ve been here long enough as is.”

“Heh, you said ‘pussy,’” Tom snickered, only to wipe the sly smirk off at Cleo’s deadpan stare. “I mean we can. It’s been a whole month, and the Demon King hasn’t done anything. I could just keep grinding side quests until I feel like getting to him.”

“Are you serious right now?” Cleo didn’t even bother fighting down the anger rising up her neck. “I can’t fucking stand your ass! I’ve been hauling ass through blistering rain and scorching desert and you’re over here treating this like- like it’s some video game!”

“Well, yeah. That’s basically what this place is, isn’t it?” Tom’s words were like a bucket of cold water over Cleo’s head.

“…What?”

“Come on, Cleo, don’t tell me you haven’t notice the way everyone around here acts. These guys make a cardboard cutout look lively.” He jammed a thumb over his shoulder at the women who were standing just outside of the tent, still as statues.

She didn’t say anything in response. He knew. He knew the whole time.

“Look, just take a load off. We can take as long as we want here, this place isn’t real – none of it is. Hey, tomorrow morning we can look into getting you one of those tough looking guys to keep you busy if you need it. How’s that sound?”

Cleo was silent again. She couldn’t give him an answer anyway, when one of the woman outside let out a piercing shriek.

Cleo didn’t even spare a glance over her shoulder; she just burst through the entrance short sword in hand. It was a simple thing, made of iron and steel, but it got the job done, which is actually she preferred it over the gaudy claymore Tom had made. He was still busy trying to pull it from scabbard by the time Cleo had found the source of the scream – a manticore as big as three men had pinned one of the women to the ground.

Cleo kicked up a haze of dust into the creatures eyes; the leonine creature reared back in an instant, roaring in fury. She ducked when the manticore’s scorpion tail whipped around to strike at her, but she wasn’t fast enough to dodge the follow up swipe-up from its claws. She choked back a scream as the claws tore into her arm. The gash was deep, yet she cold still move her fingers (so long as she ignored the burn), and so she continued her assault.

The manticore bore down on her, pinning her down much like it did the woman. Cleo stabbed her short sword into its gaping maw when it tried to bite at her. It’s humanoid face scrunched in pain as it jumped away spitting up blood. Cleo rolled back onto her feet. The manticore hissed a gargled snarl; clearly, she’d pissed it off. This time when the behemoth whipped it tail around to strike at her again, Cleo didn’t dodge – instead she’d brought her sword down on the end, hacking off the stinger in one swing. Blue blood spurted from the wound as the manticore howled reeling away once again.

It lifted a paw to strike – Tom intercepted. The paw fell to the ground as the rest of the manticore let out a choked gasp, head severed from it shoulders. It figures that he would show up right when most of the work was done.

“Hey, you good?” Cleo took a glance down at the woman, who had just barely scrabbled to the edge of the clearing in the chaos of the fight.

She shakily nodded in response.

As Cleo pulled away from the woman, she wiped the blood from her brow with the back of her hand. She threw her dark braids over her shoulder while she geared up to rip Tom a new one. But she stopped.

The woman’s eyes were different now. They were a vibrant warm brown, like the color of fertile soil, or a proud strong oak. And she had nodded – she’d actually answered her. She’d been the first person to actually acknowledge her since she got here.

Cleo knelt, taking a deep hard look at the woman. She was trembling a bit as she rolled into a sitting position, but otherwise none the worse for wear. She fidgeted with the edge of her clothes, like the material was some foreign thing or maybe she was just now noticing the way they felt against her skin.

“What’s your name?” Cleo said gently.

“Uh, Seria, I-I think.” Her voice was bleary like she had just awoken from a long dream.

“You think?”

The woman blinked, furrowed her eyebrows, then said firmly, “No… I know. My name is Seria.”

She was a real person. One actually capable of holding a real conversation. Had she been this way before? Was she new to all of this, being human? Either way, as Cleo pulled the woman – Seria – to her feet, she reassured herself of one thing.

This place was real, and so were the people in it.