The air was cool, the moon was coming out from its eclipse, covering the campus in cool, white light. Dara kept following the thief, augmenting her jumps with magic, and occasionally pulling herself up and over a building. He was flying, which indicated he’d either cast a ritual or was more experienced than Dara was.

“Still chasing me, young lady?” He called back. “Well, I don’t want anyone else to interrupt us.” He gestured, and a bolt of fire shot down, striking a cart on the side of the road, reddish-gold flames blooming in the night. Another bolt struck the front of a shop.

“What are you doing?” Dara shouted. She cast a stun bolt at him. If I can knock him out, I can keep him from burning the city down!

The bolt of energy splattered harmlessly against his shield.

Dammit! Dara hadn’t expected to hit him, but she’d never actually attacked anyone with a lethal spell before, so she hoped the stun bolt would have done it.

He’s doing this to keep everyone else busy. The guard would focus on the fires, giving him time to escape. But that wouldn’t help. Dara bet that there would be notices about this sent all over the continent by tomorrow, and there were spells that could track people. Too difficult for anything but the highest-profile crimes, but this… well, this was a pretty big deal.

I need to—EEP! Dara dodged a bolt of fire.

He had shot a firebolt at her!

Okay, no more stun bolts! Dara landed on a rooftop and gestured. Some bricks rose up from the roof and flew at her enemy. Elemental magic was the first form of magic students learned, and Dara had an affinity for it.

But the infuriating thief merely chuckled and blocked the stones with a shield of…

Hardened air. Dara barely got her own shield up before he sent the stones back at her, born on the wings of a blast of air. Dara was driven back to the roof's edge, barely avoiding falling into the street. Lights were coming on in the neighborhood, and people were shouting, joined by the sound of barking dogs.

And Dara saw that her quarry had descended to where the…

Old temple is? What is he… It didn’t matter. Now that he was on the ground, Dara could catch up to him. She took another jump and landed just outside of the ruined wall that defined the outer edge of the temple.

“Oh, you’re here,” he said. He glanced over at her, his face hidden behind a hood, a pair of bright green eyes staring out at Dara. “I thought I had left you behind.”

“Fat chance,” Dara said. She held out her staff, taking the proper combat position. “And no matter what you do, there will be people here before you can run off or knock me out.”

“Oh, but I’m not going to be here.” He held up the gem, and Dara noticed it was starting to flicker with an internal fire. “Do you know what this is?”

“A gem from one of the old statues.” Dara frowned. “Something that you should have told us about, instead of stealing it. You could have been well compensated.”

“Well compensated with a pat on the back when I can have a world? I think not.” He gestured at the ruined temple. “Do you know what this was?”

“One of the old temples.” Dara shrugged. “Zeras the Wanderer.”

“Who walked between the worlds.” He nodded, acting like a teacher giving a pop quiz. Dara tried to get a read on how old he was, but she couldn’t tell. Not old, not young. Just anything in between.

Behind her, Dara heard the growing commotion. People had seen them. There would be help soon, so all she had to do was keep him talking.

“So, that’s the old story.” She took a step to the, her staff slippery under her sweaty palms. This would be the first time she fought a real opponent, not just someone paired up with her in combat class. “Not that anyone believes it.”

“Yes, but what happened to the cult?” He walked to the center of the temple. “One day, the temples were found empty as the priests followed Zeras.”

“Killed themselves, made a bad deal with a spirit, took the temple treasury and vanished…” Dara shrugged. “It could have been a lot of things.”

“Yes. Everyone has their own opinion on what happened. Save for the one thing the cult said they would do: Go between worlds.”

Dara snorted. “That’s as insane as teleportation. Nobody’s been able to make a portal to another world or this one. Not even to the spirit realms.”

“Not until today,” he told her. “And now, I must be off to a place where I think I will become wealthier than you can imagine. Farewell, young lady—“

“No!” Dara started to charge him, even as he threw the gem into the air, where it flared with light. Light of a thousand different colors, most of them indescribable. Lines of fire suddenly appeared under them both, the temple floor flashing as a complex pattern, more advanced than any circle Dara had seen before, came to life.

“Yes!” he shouted. “It is too late!”

Dara stared at the edge of the circle. The first thing every student learned was that you did not casually break a circle. At best, it would derange the ritual.

At worst, especially if the sorcery was one that incorporated defenses, you’d be explaining your misdeeds to the gods. And yet…

That’s powerful. He’s crazy, but that gem is very powerful… and Dara had no idea what the ritual was intended to do, but it might be very bad for the surrounding community.

After all, if the followers of Zeras had actually gone to another world instead of killing themselves, you’d think that some of them would have come back.

Dara nodded. Then she held out her staff, concentrating her power on it. “Sorry, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Wait—what are you—are you insane!?”

No, I just don’t want to be blamed for this, Dara thought. And with that, she thrust her staff into the ritual circle.

And suddenly, there was light. Nothing but light, even though Dara closed her eyes.

“…know what you’ve done!?”

Oh, good, at least he doesn’t sound so self-assured anymore. But when Dara forced her eyes open, the light had dimmed to where she could see the… swirling hole in the world. And then she was sucked through it, as the circle seemed to twist and shiver, the gem flaring up one last time and then shattering.

Dara fell, turning and twisting through what seemed to be an endless tunnel. She caught glimpses on each side of her. Worlds, landscapes, less describable things.

Her eyes widened as she saw a great beast standing among shattered, burning buildings, lightning playing along its spine. It looked at her, roared—and was gone, other images replacing it.

A vast city of bronze and crystal, an even vaster desert surrounding it.

Darkness, a single moon floating in front of her, strange ships of iron and crystal floating along with it.

How big are they? If that moon was the same size as the moon back home, those ships had to be immense, as big as cities.

What looked like a world of floating bubbles.

A single burning eye, staring out at her from some reddish void.

The images kept changing, faster and faster until it was impossible to really see what they were as they flickered past her.

Are these other worlds? There must be hundreds, thousands! They were right! The priests were right! And…Where am I going?

And then, with a final flash of light, Dara found herself flying through the air. Flying through the air far above a vast expanse of brightly lit buildings that seemed to stretch to the horizon, divided by what looked like rivers of endless lights moving back and forth.

I’m falling—“I’m FALLING!” Shit, shit, shit… Trying to grab something wouldn’t save her. She’d be moving too fast and a sudden stop would break every bone in her body. There were rituals, but she normally did them in a classroom, not falling to her death!

I should have let him have the dammed gem, Dara thought, but then she closed her eyes, trying to come up with the proper ritual. Normally, you’d scribe a ritual down, but right now, she didn’t exactly have time to get her writing materials out! Dara held on to her staff and started drawing symbols in the air with her free hand. They blazed with energy as she desperately tried to come up with the right combination.

Make the air thicker. It was a variant of some spells she had used at the school, an easy way to cushion something or sleep outdoors without ending up with a sore back.

She’d never done it like this before!

Dara shouted out the words and then slowly felt the air below her create more of a resistance to her body. She was slowing up. Not fast enough, though. She poured more energy into the sorcery, feeling her body slowing a little more. Below her, there was a gap between the buildings. A wide street, one without all the moving lights of the other streets. Dara tried to blink the dazzle out of her eyes, but the effects of her passage through… whatever the Dark that was, still left blobs of light floating in front of her.

But it’s working. Dara managed to get her feet under her, even though she was still falling pretty damned fast. Hurry up, work better, work better—then her feet struck the ground, and Dara barely remembered to flex her knees in time to avoid breaking her legs. She rolled to her feet, the hard surface seeming to hit every sore spot on her body until she was on the ground, not moving.

Alive!

Finally! Dara thought as she staggered to her feet. Not I can—

The bellowing sound nearly deafened her as she turned to see a strange carriage whip around the corner of one of the buildings, two bright beams of light dazzling her, bellowing like some kind of strange beast.

Dara had a glimpse of someone in the vehicle, staring out at her, eyes wide—

And then she felt a tremendous blow as she went flying across the road, her staff spinning into the street. Dara hit one of the buildings and had a moment for one last thought.

Isn’t there anything soft around here?

And then she faded into a painful oblivion.