The gargoyle growled at them. “Are you done saying your goodbyes?”

Sierra closed her eyes and felt for the feeling she had gotten every other time she had used the disciple system. This time she was using a different spell, one that still wasn’t meant as an attack.

Above their heads, the blinding light of a ‘Divine Wisp’ formed at a size that the four had never seen before.

Oddom screamed, as his skin began to harden and turn to stone.

Not willing to waste the chance that had been presented. Silvi shot a spike of shadow up, piercing him through his rectum and not stopping until it reached his brain. With a subtle flex of the spike, the gargoyle cracked in half and shattered.

Sierra sagged forward, as the wisp above them faded, leaving blinding dots dancing in their vision.

“The ‘Disciple System’ is working again?” Beth asked in stunned surprise.

“Seems like it,” Sierra muttered. “I thought it might be a possibility. Glad I was right.”

“Well, that was a surprise. I don’t think he expected that to happen.” Balor seemed more amused than mad or even distraught that Oddom had just died.

“You don’t seem mad about his death.” Kate pointed out.

Balor shrugged. “Truth be told, he was annoying. He was always going on about how great gargoyles were, and how bad humans were, blah, blah, blah. I have nothing against humans. My fight is with the Tuatha Dé Danann. Everyone else can rot for all I care. Everything else is secondary until I take care of them.”

Silvi sighed and sat down. “Do you even want to fight us? Your throat isn’t looking so good?”

“It’s a present from my grandson Lugh when he tried to kill me. It’s never fully healed.” Balor calmly walked toward them. The orange glow of his eye dimmed as he drew closer. “I tell you what, my deal with Dantanian is still in place, so I can’t let you out just yet.

“We could fight, and you could risk everything to defeat me. Or we can sit here calmly for the next while, and you can tell me everything that has happened to the world. Your choice.”

“Will Kira and the others be alright?” Kate asked the group.

“Before we decide, would you be willing to raise your influence for a few moments?” Sierra asked the large man.

“As long as you don’t try to escape, I’m fine with that.” He kept a close eye on them, while the sky darkened from something approaching dusk to the perpetual gloom of twilight.

The abrupt change meant the three human girls now had a far harder time seeing everything. It had been his influence that had given the place enough light for them to work with in the first place. It was a humbling thought, and they wondered if he knew.

Sierra made quick use of him, no longer blocking her ability to check the most likely futures. “Thank you, and it looks as though they will be fine without us there.” She told everyone as her normal sight vanished, a consequence of using her foresight ability. The glimpses she caught of the future normally didn’t have the same cost to her sight that the ability did.

“How much longer do you have to hold us hostage?” Silvi wanted to know before agreeing. It wouldn’t do to agree and then find out they were to be held for a year or something stupid like that.

“Just another hour or so was all I agreed to.”

Finally, they each nodded. “Very well then, we accept your terms. We’ll sit here for another hour and answer your questions about the world.” Sierra agreed for them.

Silvi leaned back and looked up at the man. “How did you pull us in here anyway? I didn’t know anyone could do that until now.”

Balor looked around the dark realm and sighed. “Do you know what these realms are?”

They shook their heads, each one deciding to sit down in the middle of the road.

“They’re localized sub-dimensions that are attached to the planet. There’s a realm for nearly everything, and all are the same size. What holds true across them all, however, is that only the elementals live in them, usually. To answer your question, I’ve been here so long that my understanding and control over darkness has increased beyond what I originally thought possible.

“It allowed me to reach through and interrupt your travel, pulling you into this realm. With enough knowledge of the shadows and control, you would be able to do the same, since our elements are so closely aligned.” He gripped his throat and stopped talking.

Silvi nodded, taking a moment to understand his words. “Thank you for explaining it to me. I thought my control was good enough, but it looks like I’ll need to keep working on it and pondering the secrets of the shadows.”

She looked at Sierra and gave her a nod.

“Alright then, you wanted the history of the world, right?”

He gave a slight nod.

“And you fought with the Tuatha Dé Danann, so I’m guessing you want everything that happened after that.”

There was another nod.

Sierra closed her eyes, gathering her thoughts. “Well, to begin with, the Tuatha Dé Danann were supposedly defeated by another group of humans. They went underground and became the Fae or ‘Aes Sidhe’. I had a nice long discussion with Charlotte about it. She doesn’t believe that’s the way it actually went down.”

“A group of powerful sorcerers and trained warriors lost against some humans?” Balor snorted. “Your friend is right. It’s not likely.”

“Anyway, from there,” Sierra droned on, slowly retelling him the history of the world, or at least much as she could remember.

“Much has changed since I last walked the surface of the world,” Balor said, standing with a grunt when she had finished talking. “I believe it is time for us to all leave. I will seal the realm behind us so none of these dark elementals can escape.”

Finally, everyone understood why the monsters they had been facing were so odd looking. None of them had faces or proper identifying markings. Only dark, light absorbing, monstrous things. It had been because they were elementals. Beings made up of darkness itself.

“What are you going to do?” Beth asked the big man. Over the last hour, the group’s fear of him had gradually diminished as they realized he wasn’t going to hurt them.

Balor felt at his destroyed eye. “I’m not sure. Hearing what has happened has made me reconsider what I want. Part of me wants revenge for everything they did to us, to me, while another part just wants to see my grandson again. He’s the only family I have left at this point.”

Silvi stepped closer and gently removed his hand from his throat and lowered the bloody collar. “I think Charles might be able to help heal you up some. I can’t guarantee anything, since the wound was caused by an enchanted blade. However, I haven’t seen him come across anything he hasn’t been able to heal yet.”

“You are complicating my deal with that insane abomination,” Balor grunted. “I have much to think about. Come, let us leave, so I can seal the realm behind us.”

“What do we do?” Kate asked.

“You can hold on to me or your little shifter friend here. Either of us will work. It’s mostly the same process, after all.”

Everyone grabbed hold of Silvi, who pulled them back into the shadow realm and then out into the real world.

Balor appeared a few moments later in a similar manner to Silvi’s. “Well, let us go find your friend. This Charles you spoke of, let us see how he is doing and if he can heal me.”

Sierra, who had already regained her sight by then, was more than agreeable with his suggestion. “Do we run or go through the shadows again?”

“Shadow travel is faster; I think we should just go with that,” Silvi told them, impatient to reach Charles and Kira. “We are far enough behind them already. I don’t want to waste any more time than we have to!”

“Any fight those three got into is already over, Silvi,” Kate said. “Unless they ran into someone with a force even larger than what we encountered, and there were several fallen gods, it would have been over quickly.”

Beth poked her in the side and shook her head. “Don’t jinx them like that.”

The silver-haired wolf-eared girl glared are them. “You are doing that on purpose, aren’t you?”

Kate shook her head. “I’m not. Don’t forget Kira is there with them.”

“Then would you learn to shut up?” She growled. “Dantanian is obviously planning something. There is no reason to push our luck by tempting fate.”

Sierra shook her head. “They’re still fine, so don’t worry. However, I am afraid you are right. He is planning something.”

Balor merely shook his head and remained uninvolved. He could have told the girls the crazy God had something planned. He didn’t know what it was, but Dantanian did have an end goal, something he was working towards. Everything that was going on around the world right now was merely a distraction that served his ultimate purpose.

Whatever that was.

Silvi took hold of Inara’s collar and then motioned for everyone to hold on to her. “It doesn’t matter what he is planning. Staying beside Charles and Kira is where I am going to be. So, let’s go.”

The Fomorian shrugged and placed his large, non-bloody hand on her shoulder. She knew where they were going after all, not him.