Elsewhere
A Kornax Story
“You think you can do it?” Ziliz asked, a hint of adoration mixed in with her concern.
“Ziliz, look, I'm top of our class. If anyone can, it’s me,” Kanak responded, his confidence soaking every word. Ziliz found him incredibly alluring, but most of the student body found the young human’s ego insufferable.
“I just need to snag a piece of the opal chalk the professor keeps in his lockbox.”
Ziliz’s brow furrowed. “You mean the lockbox behind three wards and a desk that growls when you get too close?”
Kanak smiled. “Yes. That one.”
It was nearly midnight when Kanak padded barefoot through the polished marble halls of the Arcanolectum. His robe had been darkened to a misty gray, melting his outline into the shadows. He pressed his palm to the sealed mahogany door of Professor Halvlah’s study and whispered three syllables into the wood. The door gave a soft click and swung inward an inch.
A thread of invisible energy snaked forward from his fingers, probing into the space beyond. No tension. No sudden reaction. The glyphs lining the doorframe were blind to his presence now.
Inside, moonlight pooled across towers of books and parchment, illuminating dust motes that hovered like tiny ghosts. The lockbox sat nestled in the far corner of the desk, dull iron with veins of brass. Kanak whispered a command under his breath and reached into his pocket. He drew out a copper wire and touched it to his temple. A whisper traveled down it like a message in the wind.
“I’m in,” he murmured, and miles away, Ziliz, huddled over her scrying bowl, smiled nervously.
The desk loomed in front of him like a sleeping beast. It had a sense about it, an enchantment with its own dim awareness. He unhooked a tiny glass orb from his belt and crushed it underfoot. The shadows beneath the desk thickened and rippled like ink in water. The desk stirred but stilled again, its senses dulled.
With deft fingers, Kanak traced a floating pattern in the air—a pale outline of geometric sigils shimmered for a moment, then vanished. The lock on the box groaned, but yielded, as if reluctantly. He opened the lid a crack.
Inside: a dozen sticks of chalk, glinting faintly with opalescent hues. Not mere drawing tools—these were focus anchors, alchemically forged and rune-bonded. One was all he needed. He plucked the thinnest piece and replaced the lid carefully. Just as he turned to leave, the desk gave a low growl—a warning this time. Kanak didn’t pause. He inhaled sharply and disappeared with a faint pop, leaving only a whisper of air to stir the floating dust.
He reappeared in the academy hallway, beaming at his apparent success.
“Did you—?” Ziliz called excitedly as her dormitory flung open.
Kanak opened his palm. The chalk shimmered like dragonbone in moonlight. “Of course I did,” he said, grinning.
Ziliz shook her head, torn between admiration and exasperation. “You're going to get expelled one day.”
“Maybe,” he replied. “But I’ll be expelled in style.”
The chamber beneath the library was long-abandoned, forgotten beneath layers of dust and a crumbling illusion of disrepair. Shelves leaned like drunkards against the walls, bloated with waterlogged tomes and mold-bitten scrolls. A single lantern floated above Kanak’s head, held aloft by Ziliz 's mage hand.
The floor had been scrubbed clean, revealing a wide expanse of stone perfect for the circle. Ziliz knelt nearby, feeding the opal chalk across the sigils, her hands careful but swift. Kanak stood at the center, arms lifted, voice threading syllables of power into the stale air.
“This is it,” he murmured between verses, sweat glistening on his brow. “Once the connection is made, we’re halfway to the Eastern Reach. We're gonna be famous.”
Ziliz didn’t reply. Her eyes were fixed on the chalk lines, ensuring each curl matched the stolen design precisely. They had found the formula tucked between two forbidden volumes in the restricted wing—Kanak had called it a lucky accident. Ziliz had called it a felony.
He began the final stanza. The stone beneath him thrummed.
2Then—
“KANAK.”
Her voice cracked through the air like thunder on glass. Professor Halvlah stood at the edge of the circle, her silhouette backlit by the stairwell’s cold firelight. Her presence warped the air around her—contained, coiled, dangerous.
“You will end this spell,” she commanded, voice like a snapped wand.
Kanak’s reply was another incantation. His hands traced burning sigils in the air, and the circle ignited.
“Don’t—!” Ziliz lunged forward, but he was already shouting the final word.
The world buckled.
A piercing whine split the chamber, and then—light. Blinding, searing light. The circle flared far too bright, lines writhing and melting into one another. Something had gone wrong. A curve misdrawn. A symbol out of phase. A stolen formula not meant to be used.
The energy snapped inward.
Ziliz was thrown back, slammed against a toppled shelf. Her scream was lost in the roar of air rushing into the collapsing circle. Her arm crumpled beneath her as she hit the ground, blood blooming across her sleeve.
The light vanished.
So did Kanak.
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Only the scorched chalk remained—blasted across the stone like bones in ash. Ziliz gasped, trying to sit up. Her eyes stung. Her arm was broken.
Halvlah was already kneeling beside her, face grim, steady.
“Where—” Ziliz coughed, “Where is he?”
Halvlah didn’t answer.
Her eyes were fixed on the floor, and the blackened spiral of what once might’ve been a door.
There was only light. And then pain.
Kanak groaned, his vision swimming in a haze of white and red. The air smelled wrong—dry stone, incense, and something metallic. His ears rang so loudly he couldn’t hear his own breath. When he staggered forward, his foot struck something solid: carved stone beneath him. Smooth and unfamiliar. He blinked until the blur resolved into lines and corners—until his legs remembered what they were for.
He was standing in a teleportation circle. Not his. Not the one Ziliz had drawn.
This one was gilded. Inlaid with polished brass, engraved in delicate patterns that reminded him of feathers and fire. The chamber around him was immense—tall, domed ceilings with marble pillars, all decorated in a style he didn’t recognize. The architecture was precise and regal, each curve and column exuding authority. Lanterns in bronze sconces flickered along the walls, and frescoes painted in deep reds and blues adorned every visible surface.
Kanak touched the side of his head. Blood. His left temple was matted with it. His robes were scorched and his hands trembled, fingertips still tingling from magical backlash.
Somewhere beyond the chamber, voices murmured. The sound filtered in—high and formal, the cadence sharp, almost songlike. He crept forward, staying low. The hallway was lined with statues of men in robes or armor, all carrying scrolls or spears. Through a wide doorway, he glimpsed two robed figures walking side by side, speaking in a language he had never heard before.
It was not Elven. Not Draconic. Not even any dialect of the Old Gilish.
Panic began to set in. His breath quickened. His heart thumped against his ribs like a fist on a door.
Where am I? he thought. Where did the circle send me?
He moved fast now, ducking into alcoves, slipping past servants, keeping his scorched robes close around him. The corridors grew brighter as he neared an exit, until sunlight cracked across his face—and he burst into a courtyard of white stone.
He froze.
The city beyond the palace rose in tiers, dominated by colonnades, tiled roofs, and towers of brilliant ochre. Balconies stretched from marble villas. Aqueducts snaked overhead like stone serpents. Statues watched from every angle.
This wasn’t Doliz. This wasn’t the Reach.
This…wasn’t home.
He didn’t even know what continent he was on.
“Tarsien! Hek valta!” a voice barked behind him.
Kanak spun. Three guards stood at the archway—muscular and armored in finely crafted bronze. One pointed his spear, the others raised their shields. The first one stepped forward.
Kanak panicked. He reached into his pouch and grabbed a sliver of glass and a pinch of soot. Muttered an incantation, trying to focus on the spell, trying to understand.
“I’m not—” he started, holding his palm up. The words meant nothing to them.
They didn’t wait.
A spear hissed past his shoulder and clattered against the stone behind him. Another missed by inches.
The third guard rushed in, shield-first.
Kanak barely managed to shout the final syllables. A sudden spark of insight flooded his mind—the foreign language twisted, reshaped, became something he could comprehend.
“—assault magic! He strikes the mind!” one of the guards shouted, now intelligible through the enchantment.
“No—”
The shield hit him hard, slamming into his face with a crunch. Darkness swallowed him. As the pain bloomed and the world spun away, the last thing he heard was another voice shouting from the archway:
“Fool. You cannot harm the emperor of Calpi.”
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