Ch. 12 - Connections

Picking out a way through the minefield, in the night, without proper equipment, was definitely nobody's idea of a good time.

I wish I had one of Heron’s shield generators. Lioness thought glumly, as they trudged forward.

Osprey pointed out a spot where she saw the other portal. Tiger was in the front, carefully probing the ground with the stick before every step. The women did their best to follow exactly in his footsteps (which was challenging when he forgot his legs are quite a bit longer than theirs).

Finally he made it to the ‘blastzone’.

Lioness involuntarily shook as a dog stepping out of water as her feet touched the rutted ground.

Desperation and anger hung on the air over it. 

“This place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” she muttered. “Someone set this off on purpose. And the quell magic makes sure everyone remembers.”

The portal was apparently just by the perimeter of the blast, which gave them a way to space out. Lioness moved as much to the side closest to the magic geyser as she dared. It reminded her of India - the magic was ancient and primal, deeply connected to the place and nature. 

“Is there a way to safely cross to the water?” she asked, curious. Tiger gave her a bit of a side-eye. Osprey, focusing on something only she could see chimed in:

“It will be a minute for me to scrutinize this, so you have time.”

Tiger looked between the two and the water and then shrugged. IR goggles on, he started poking the ground again, motioning for Lioness to follow him.

The air was oddly warm around the water, making steam rise up from the surface of the pool. The agents stopped at the edge, both knowing better than to try and touch it. Lioness focused on the magic shooting up for a moment, then pulled a small amulet out of her pocket. Her power reached out and created an arc from the spring to charge the artefact. It grew hot in her hand, unpleasantly so, before she cut the connection. It was more of an emergency back up supply than anything else, but on a mission like theirs every little bit counted.

Tiger was frowning at the water, as if it personally offended him. Then his eyes cut back to the explosion site. His mind churned.

“Do you think…” he started, only to stop and shake his head. Then he started again, more confidently.

“If someone was caught out in the blast, we would see… remains,” he stated. 

Lioness nodded her understanding - it was dark, so she wouldn’t really ‘see’ much, but his equipment might, and her magic most probably would have too - but for the sake of argument she pointed out: “The lingering emotions suggest someone was there, pretty much in the center. However, I can’t tell more than that.”

Tiger looked at the blast radius more carefully through the goggles. Then he pulled out the silver thing his new friend gave him. It was a torch. He carefully pointed the cone of light at the ground, trying not to disturb Osprey. The crater of the explosion went deeper and spread further along the ground than it should have, if it was the same type of mine he was almost sure he recognized in the others.

“They must have used a shield,” he concluded. “It deflected most of the force equally back down and to the sides, which suggests a spherical shape.”

Lioness again nodded along with his train of reasoning. At that point Osprey’s voice chimed in.

“It makes sense why this portal is so weird. If one of them set the mine off by accident, they probably wanted to GTFO real fast. They fed it partially off the local source, too, so it’s longer than…” she stopped and narrowed her eyes. Her emotions flashed suspicion and displeasure, but not surprise. “...anyway, they didn’t bother to set up traps, possibly because the minefield should have been deterrent enough, but also maybe there was an injury… and then there is the small detail of where this *leads to*.”

Her emotions flashed apprehension and reluctance, almost as if the words left her mouth against her will. That raised Lioness’ hackles. Osprey eyed Tiger, as if deciding what his reaction is likely to be. Then she shrugged. 

“Odessa,” she said.

“Out of the frying pan…” 

“...into the fire?” Lioness supplied with a groan.

Figures it would only be going from bad to worse, really.

Tiger growled with palpable frustration.

“That’s basically an *active* warzone!” he said, as if trying to argue. Osprey nodded, very apparently sharing whatever feelings the Sec Chief had on that matter.

“Good news is, I am about 98% sure I can re-open the portal and take us through without much risk. Bad news is, it is really hard to tell what is waiting for us on the other side. For all we know they might be in cahoots with the orcs and…”

“I’ll take the point,” Tiger cut her off. “We have no choice but to follow them. You two do your best to stay back and provide cover, if necessary.”

Both of the women nodded, Osprey visibly perking up as she automatically fell into the ‘soldier’ role.

“Just give me one more moment, sir,” she said, without realizing she had added the last word. She crossed a bit closer to the magical spring, bent down and searched for something for a moment.

“A-ha!” she exclaimed, lifting a small pebble. She folded it in her hands and focused deeply, staring at the water. It didn’t take long for tendrils of magic to form between her hands and the geyser. Then the strains split off from the source and encircled the stone in a wild vortex. Finally it disappeared, absorbed into the stone.

Osprey returned to the other two agents satisfied.

“Instant portal,” she answered their questioning looks, with another shrug. “You never know when it might come in handy.”

Tiger mumbled something that sounded like “no, I really don’t”, but out loud he said: “Everything and everyone ready then?”

“Ready,” Lioness replied.

“Yes,” said Osprey, stepping back to the portal, and then continued: “We better spread out a bit, just in case something… flies in through the portal from the other side. Are we going for element of surprise or more wait-and-see?” 

Tiger gave it a thought before responding.

“Healthy middle ground if possible. We want to get in as fast as possible, without being reckless. I don’t assume a visual portal is an option in this case?”

“It’s too far. If I was familiar with the location I might attempt, but because I am not, we better stick with what we have.”

The Sec Chief nodded.

“Lioness, give it a good scan before we go through, I want to know what I am stepping into.”

“Aye, aye.”

“Let’s do this.”

Osprey worked her magic and a warningly red portal opened. Tiger and Lioness each stood to one side of it, in as obtuse an angle as possible. The empath “scanned” the other side, which was thankfully as devoid of emotions as any place within city limits can be. It was, after all still night.

“It feels clear,” she informed Tiger, who nodded and, with his weapon drawn and held at ready, stepped through.

Lioness followed shortly after him, with Osprey once again bringing up the rear. The red light blinked out of existence, and they were once again plunged into the darkness - all the more weird, because they could see the outlines of houses around the relatively open park space. 

“Here,” Tiger’s voice whispered from the dense brush of thujas planted by a retention wall. The women subconsciously crouched, as they moved toward him.

“There might be a curfew in place,” the soldier reasoned, tossing his head in the direction of some sort of elevated structure nearby, from where lights could be seen flashing from time to time. “That looks like someone patrolling.”

There was a sound of rushing water close by. As her eyes adjusted to darkness, Osprey could make out a slightly irregular block of stone, which housed a fountain. 

That’s what they used as an anchor to connect the portal with Kosovo. Clever. Now to just find out where did they go to next…

She started scanning the nearby area. Something white caught her eye in an opportune beam of moonlight. She moved a bit to take a better look and released a short but heartfelt string of curses in at least three languages.

Lioness could feel a flash of panic from her friend, but the fear got quickly suppressed by anger and hatred. She followed Risa’s eyes, and an understanding dawned in her mind.

“Istanbul?” she asked.

“Seems so,” Osprey frowned, glaring at the decorative sculpted lettering declaring the  Odesa - Istanbul sister city relationship.

“There’s definitely a portal right there. A bit on the nose, probably natural, but definitely used recently, and… they tried to mask it.”

She sounded confident but weary. This enemy - whoever they were - was starting to make sense to her, but the more she saw, the more worried about their power - and their numbers - she grew.

“And yes, Tiger, we can follow it. In fact, we probably need to, because if I know anything about Istanbul, it is that you don’t want to just try and open a portal there willy nilly. That city is ancient and angry. And people manipulating the local magic are not helping.”

The soldier lifted his hands, palm front, indicating absolute innocence of the implied intentions.

“Speaking of angry cities,” Lioness looked around and shivered, not with cold, but with the emotions hanging on the air. “This one is strongly suspicious and on edge, so I’d suggest we move before someone decides to check more closely on this park.”

Osprey and Tiger were immediately back to high alert. After making sure nobody is visibly getting closer to them, she diverted her attention back to the portal hidden between two red stylized letters in the middle of the word sculpture. 

Memories - unpleasant and unbidden - flooded her mind. She summoned the information connected to them - those were important. The feelings can… go away. The magics within the portal were familiar, almost like signatures. One by one she examined them and set them aside, or dismantled them, until the portal was safe and stable. Or as close to it as she could make it. She turned to Tiger, and said, with emphasis and no space for discussion:

“I am going first this time.”

I can fix whatever comes as I go.

Tiger frowned, but then nodded. Lioness gave a tentative all clear (wherever they were going, there was a *lot* of emotions, but none seemed actively connected to a human), and Osprey stepped through. Pretty soon she confirmed the all clear and Lioness and Tiger followed her.

There was a sheen of sweat on the portalist’s forehead again, a sign of slowly creeping fatigue.

Lioness looked around. Once again they were among decorative trees, but the shadows deeply contrasted with the beautifully lit mosque in front of them. No wonder the emotions were so mixed. This was a house of worship - but also a place of final rest, as the nearest building was a mausoleum.

“Hürrem Sultan,” she said, only half conscious that she spoke out loud. “Loved, hated, and everything in between. Of course this is their connection - she was Ukrainian.”