Endra leads me not to the Chamber of Five Seats. Instead we arrive at a slender railing-less same-material- as-the-tree bridge that connects a floating platform, where a swirling black portal sits, from where we are standing. Against the enormity of everything around me, the bridge looks like a needle piercing a dinner plate. So we are gonna cross this huh. I glance at Endra waiting for the signal to cross it.

“Fly-crafts are not allowed inside the floors, so we cross it by ourselves,” he grins as he says so. “You go first.” He extended an arm signaling me to cross first.

I gulp that huge ball of spit that’s stuck on my throat.

“Go. It would be best if we arrive there no later, the Keeper is waiting,” Endra urges.

Fuck it. I’m sure he’ll save me if I ever fall. With a deep breath I step on the bridge. But no sooner, a cold gust of wind embraces me, and my body teeters slightly.

You can do it, Jayr. Don’t look down. Never. Imagine the darkness below is but a bed of foam. Lock your eyes ahead of you.

Should I run?

I take another wobbly step, then another, then another, my eyes steady on the portal. An updraft sways me and I quickly take a step backwards to balance myself. Woah.

I peer over my shoulders breaching the warnings of my mind, curious where Endra is. He looks rather surprised at what I’m doing, his tilted head and furrowed eyebrows say it all. It’s as if he is expecting some sort of magic to happen.

Fuck, I’m not even two meters away from the start.

Carefully, I tilt my body and give him a shrug. “What is it?” I ask my audience.

“Watch me!” Endra takes two steps backwards, runs, then leaps off matching a goose taking off from a lake. His leap is so high, crossing above my head, and straight towards the entrance of the portal. He lands gracefully without a hitch, making it look easier.

“Now you do it!” Endra shouts from the other side. “That is not a bridge you’re stepping on but this platform’s support,” he says, his voice nearly a laugh.

Oh crap. I can’t do magic. I’m well aware that it was surely the Keeper who was behind the flight I had before. Should I tell Endra?

“I’m a rat not a bird!” I shout back. “I’m better off scurrying.”

I step on.

“You’re quite mistaken here, Jayr. I’m teaching you how to do it. I know you can’t do magic, but I’ve never thought it’s to that pitiful degree… Everyone in the council knows, remember?”

Fuck. “Well, how do I do it?” I concede.

“Just do what I did, easy… Now you’re making me wonder how your species survive.”

I sigh, still frozen in my place. “Yeah, you made it look easier. But I can’t do this… I’m sorry.”

“Come on, fast. Just do it!” Endra urges on.

“I really can’t do it. I can’t imagine myself doing it.”

“Then imagine yourself doing it! You really need to do this. I’ll even catch you if you fail.”

I can’t do this. And why is he even forcing me? I peer below me, visualizing that certain death I would end in if I will do what he says.

“You telling me the human species survived the challenges of evolution with that body of yours? Or was I mistaken about the human species as a formidable force in the universe? Jayr, you’re not just physically fragile but now incapable of doing magic too?” Endra taunts.

Ouch, that hurts. I know he means well, but what he said is painfully true. I mean what sort of humans have these guys seen before, for them to marvel at our species like some sort of a phenomenon. What are humans really? And perhaps I can do this, maybe I can fly, maybe I can bring the forces of nature to subjection. Like Peter Pan, should I think of a happy thought?

I look at Endra. A calm feeling washes over me as I imagine the updraft swirling at my feet, and a happy thought.

“Did you say I can trust that you’ll catch me ever if I fall?”

“You can trust me.”

I rub my cold sweating palms against each other, take two steps backwards just like what he did, and with a few deep breaths run along the bridge.

“Jump!” I hear Endra shouts. “Jump towards here!”

I think of a happy thought- the one where I’m flying. Here goes nothing.

I jump.

But nothing happened.

“Again!”

I jump again.

Nothing. And for a moment there, an updraft blows and I sway nearly off the edge.

“I can’t do this,” I say, a painful lump swells in my throat.

“Do it one more time.”

I stand, stretch my legs, and did the take off again. With all the strength I can muster, I leap as high as I can, eyes closed. Now, think of it. Think that you’re a feather. A weightless feather floating in the wind. I feel my body lighten, my feet still walking on its own perhaps thinking how queer is it.

Endra cheers. “Atta boy! Now, nice and slow, come over here.”

Steadily, I loosen my tight eyelids and open it. I’m flying! My shirt curls toward my chest, and my jeans puff as the cool updraft passes by me. Elated, I look down. So this is magic!

The bridge looks thinner than ever. Oh wait, shit, I’m too high. Okay, all I need now is to land at that platform. How do I do this now?

Endra shoots straight into the air at lighting speed and hovers right before me.

“Jayr, look at me. Put some weight into your head, imagine there’s a wall on your feet, take off, then soar downwards. Remember to switch back feet first if you land, and look ahead as you land. Don’t stick your eyes to the ground, you can lose your balance that way,” he instructs. “Watch me closely.”

Just as I am about to ask a question, Endra glides towards the platform headfirst, but elegantly curves back to his feet as soon as he is about 10 feet off the ground as if his feet were brakes, landing like a fly.

“Your turn!” he calls out.

I put all of my weight to my head, strengthening my legs matching a spasmodic grit, but I lose control; and helplessly, I start freefalling towards the chasm's deep. I scream fearing for my life, my lips flutter and my tongue fold backwards.

“Help!!!” I scream. My thoughts turn awry, the joints in my body stiffens.

Endra comes to my rescue, cradling me in his arms in princess style. But it is not fear and embarrassment that I feel but rather relief and comfort. My rescuer smells like the petrichor of rain in a forest, the fresh scent of the leaves and the grasses, and I can’t help but snuggle my nose closer to where his chest is. It draws me in that my heart skips a beat right there, forgetting that I’m a man. He lands soundless, and gently unlatches me off from his arms; steadying me as I wobbly stand. An electric sensation runs on my body as he touches my naked neck, and I can’t help but feel drunk. Oh how much I want to stay right there in his embrace for a long time.

“Thanks,” I whisper awkwardly, now discomposed, oddly rethinking my sexual orientation. Now that it happened, I remember this is the first time he touched me. He used to touch me with just his cane.

“You’re welcome,” he says casually as he bends down for his cane. “Very sloppy. Too bad we don’t have much time to practice. The Keeper Hettre will have to dispatch you soon.”

“Dispatch me? Where?”

“I’m in no position to brief you about it. The Keeper will. Now it's time to meet him.” He walks towards the portal. “Don’t worry. Your body can withstand this. It’s strangely fragile but incredibly tough at the same time.”

“You mean my magic is at least a 3 in the Hoggen Scale?”

Endra chuckles, holding in it himself. “You just don’t know… just don’t know. That was the first time I’ve ever doubted Casimiro and his device.”

I bend down to tie my shoelace. “What do you mean?”

But Endra is gone. He had crossed to the other side.

I hesitantly climb the stairs towards the portal. It’s powerful. I can feel my body inching closer every second even if I’d put all of the weight on my legs. But I dare not fight it. Endra is waiting at the other side. Yet it’s somehow strange he went in first this time. What if I decide not to go in?

I shake my head. I should just go in.

About a foot away, I stick my hands in but it rapidly disintegrates into small particles painlessly. What the fuck! But it is too late to pull back. My body has been pulled in and disintegrated. Bizarrely though, I can still feel the sensation of my every body part.

In an instant, I am on the other side.

“Hey,’ Endra greets.

“Hey,” I say back, still somehow calm. I check my every body part, hands, fingers, feet, legs, my penis, and all. It’s still there. I sigh in an inhale, and slowly exhale.

I roam my eyes around feasting on the marvelous sight. It’s a garden of exotic alien plants and large insects I have never seen before. Their colors are like the flowers of earth, some are even too earthlike, but they are alive and moving. Most of the flowers have a head-like part at one end of its twirling tendril waiting for a hapless prey to pass by. While others have quite a different mechanism for catching food; there are tentacles, a cloud of poison gas, a captivating unearthly scent that hypnotizes, and more.

Endra nudges me with his cane and we both did the Etravean customary greeting for the Keeper.

“Oh you guys have arrived. It took a tad longer, but I won’t burden Endra with an inquiry. I am well aware, and I am very pleased.” A voice greets us from the high-rising structure resembling a podium with six enormous stone tiles slowly revolving around it. It’s the Keeper. “Now, come closer.”

Now I know why Endra taught me how to fly. For he leaps towards the air, where it is unreachable from the dangers of the ground, hovering in it.

I follow in posthaste, fearing for my life. Fear often does wonders to the human body.