★ S H A D O W    W O R L D ★

★ TSHIRI'S THRONE ★

Hands gently laid on the door. . .

One hand on each side. . .

A deep breath and a few negative thoughts about what awaits him on the other side of the door if he fails a mission.

Alos was supposed to retrieve the crier from Moran, and somehow he failed. He knew that he was responsible not only for his own actions, but also for those of his followers.

They had all failed in a simple task that night, and he knew full well that there would be consequences that he would have to face as reparations for his failure. He had spent the entire day reporting on last night's failure and was thinking about the best way to say that he had failed. But he knew he could not avoid it, and he thought this night was the perfect time to come into the presence of the Dark One.

He pressed gently, and the door opened. It revealed the empty, vast land, wide enough to lose sight of man. He could not see the end of the land. Even in the glow of the moon, he could barely see where he was going; the dust rose into the sky and formed floating piles, and the rugged topography of the land made him stumble every time he tried to take a step forward. He could have moved better if he had accomplished the task set before him, then perhaps he would not have been constantly stumbling in a place to which he was so accustomed.

Even as a darkener, Alos dreaded every moment he had to stand before the Dark One, Tshiri. He was not only a darkener, he was a member of the Horös.

The Horös was an inner circle of darklings. Each darkling is called a darkener. All darkeners possessed magic, for they were the only people who possessed magic in the entire shadow realm. But the members of the inner circle, called Horös, possessed stronger magic and were therefore closer to the Dark One than an ordinary darkener.

Alos paced carefully when he felt his heart beating so fast. He had no idea if he would leave the Dark One's presence alive. After walking for so long, he found himself in front of a huge throne made of rocks.

The one sitting on it was bald and pale, and several veins that betrayed the dark blood within him were so pronounced that they left marks all over his head, spreading upward from his neck. He was dressed in a brown rag robe and was barefoot. His bare feet betrayed his long toenails, which were as long as his fingernails. His presence alone made Alos swallow hard. He would have more confidence in Tshiri's presence if he had good news for him.

"Kneel!" The hoarse voice from the throne spoke with such authority that Alos fell to his knees in submission. His voice moved the floating rocks violently, kicking up sand that gathered into a huge, faceless human figure that came up behind Alos with great speed and held him by the shoulder. Alos cried out as the figure tightened its grip around his collarbones.

The dark one knew that Alos failed in the task. The very fact that he heard Alos' heartbeat beat faster let him know that something had gone wrong.

"Fail!" He spoke, and the figure squeezed Alos' collarbones even tighter. His voice urged and sent out waves, and those waves controlled and instructed the figure behind Alos, and it was responsible for expressing the dark one's anger. The angrier the dark one became, the tighter he squeezed.

"I tried my best, Dark One, Goja was there. He saw everything that happened. I would never disappoint you unless there was something limiting me, something beyond my powers," Alos gasped out of his mouth. He could not really say much as his collarbones were suffering from the grip of a man made of stone. He was in so much pain. He would heal himself, but since it was also magic, there was nothing he could do.

Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead as he continued to gasp, unable to suppress the fear of being crushed to death by the gigantic figure behind him.

"I will ask once, and you shall answer but once!" Said the Dark One in a trembling voice, and the figure behind Alos squeezed tighter.

Alos could no longer bear the pain, it was so unbearable that a man like him would bite his lower lip to bear it.

"The crier, where is it?" said the Dark One, and Alos groaned through his clenched teeth the tighter the figure squeezed his collarbones.

"The boy!"

"He got away," Alos cried, losing his stamina.

"A simple man who does not have what you have - magic - how could he have escaped? You lie to me, darkener?" roared the Dark One. He cut a tiny block of stone from his throne - about the size of a human thumb, but with one end as sharp as a blade and the other blunt - and threw it angrily at Alos. The stone, strengthened by magic, moved quickly and with control until it touched Alos' cheek.

Alos gritted his teeth as he watched the sharp stone that had cut his skin fall to the ground in front of him.

"You are right! A man without magic could not have escaped my reach, but he did not do it on his own!" he said, managing to arouse the Dark One's interest.

"What are you talking about?" the dark one said to him, with what could be called curiosity, and Alos might have had some small hope of getting out of there alive.

"He is no longer in the Shadow Realm!" Alos cried out in pain as the figure pressed on.

Suddenly, Tshiri rose to his feet. Alos had perhaps bought himself a second chance with those words.

"Impossible!" said the Tshiri in a cold, slow, trembling voice.

No one leaves the shadow realm. No one knew the way out, for there was no exit, no portal, no back door. It is a world of its own, and even the Dark One, Tshiri, was bound to the world.

"That's what I thought, until the red-haired girl put a finger on the boy's shoulder," he said, and the dark one raised his left hand in the air and clenched it into a fist, and the figure that crushed Alos' collarbones immediately dissolved into the sand.

"She lives!" Said the Tshiri to Alos. Alos had never seen the Dark One so interested in anything as he was at that moment. He did not know what the Dark One meant by that, but he knew he had just saved himself from his wrath.

"Get up!" He said to Alos, and Alos stood up, massaging his own collars through his thick clothing.