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A DISCOVERY OF NEW WORLDS
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THE MAN WAS IRRITATING, to say the least. His arrogant stance, his deep voice, especially the way he looked at her. Jasper hated when men looked at her like that—like she was something to behold, something to claim, and on occasion something to break. Even worse was how they’d traipse around as if they were kings when in fact they probably were worth less than the soles of their boots.
What they didn’t realise was that Savara played her own games, by her own rules, and cat and mouse wasn’t one of them. She could’ve gobbled all of them whole if she’d been a different person. They were mice coaxing a tiger into play and expecting it to work out in their favour, and though he despised their looks, he found Savara’s unconscious shattering of their egos to be a diverting source of entertainment. None of them ever stood a chance.
This one was different.
This one had a quality about him that ground at Jasper’s nerves. Jasper, though not prone to believing in bad feelings, found this one especially hard to ignore.
This one is going to be trouble.
Jasper sought out something less nauseating in the room to watch, still rubbing his shoulder from where Sav had whacked him, unnecessarily. His archaeological eyes surveyed the damage, pretending he was on one of his digs. Something in the room wasn’t sitting right with him, and not just the irritating presence of the six-foot-tall stranger speaking of other worlds who’d managed to turn Savara on her head.
The blank, lifeless eyes of the corpse he’d seen living only hours before stared back at him. Their hollowness reminded him of the mummies of the old world. Those eyes looked as though they’d seen more than seventy years would allow. Seventy being an estimate of course, based on the texture of the skin and typical age spots. A doctor might have said the same thing. But again, after having met the man, Jasper didn’t believe he was that young for a second.
“Can you believe this guy?” he whispered to the corpse. “Who does he think he is, waltzing in here and turning her on her head?” He crossed his arms and growled. “I mean, it’s like she hasn’t even noticed that I’ve left her side. We raised her better than this... I mean... you did. Of course. Not stepping on any toes here.” He tapped his foot irritably while nervous fingers rapped on his arms. “I helped though. Little bit...” Jasper soon realised he’d said more to the corpse in those few minutes than he had in the whole time the man was alive. “I bet you wouldn’t stand for this... not that you’re going to be doing much standing, but... you know... life of a pincushion and all... or should I say afterlife?” He imagined the man’s scowl. “You’re right, I’ll stop.”
Unable to watch any longer, Jasper’s wandering eyes eventually caught on the hilt of the sword. Jewel encrusted, old, and unlike anything he’d ever seen or studied before. Its beauty was unparalleled, as was its lethality. The rubies jutting out at its hilt looked as red as the blood it must have spilt, and the blade as black as the death it must have caused. As he followed this blade into Hyrum’s chest, he found himself in perfect visual alignment with those strange copper spectacles, but beneath them lay something entirely out of the ordinary.
“Sorry about this,” he whispered to the corpse out of habit before hesitantly removing the spectacles. He didn’t believe in corpses being cursed, but he never took chances. Especially since if anyone had a curse on their body, it would be Hyrum, may he rest in peace. Jasper braced himself. I must be crazy, he thought, replacing his glasses with Hyrum’s. The world before him transformed.
Sprawled across the corpse’s hands was a trail of symbols and markings written in a fading blue light, emanating from beneath the skin itself. This is crazy. The wooden floor beneath his feet transformed into an ocean of stars. The books lining the shelves suddenly gained life, with holographic titles—some even breathed. Certifiably crazy. The room around him became a marvellous, fading midnight sea.
Jasper turned back to Griffin, grumbling to himself. He’s going to be twice as annoying now that he might be right.
Everything his eyes fell on was bathed in blue... everything except the sword. It stood out against the rest like a gash, the light reflecting off it a menacing, blood red.
“Yikes!” He fumbled the spectacles from his eyes, catching them before they hit the ground. The world without them—and it saddened him to admit, the world he’d grown up in—now looked painfully grey.
“What is it, Jasper?” Savara and Griffin had both turned to him, only just realising his absence.
“Sav, I think you should see this.”
“Not now,” she called back irritably.
“Yes, Sav. Now.”
“Jasper, they’re just glasses.”
“I don’t know what they are, Sav, but they’re not glasses.”
The man peered over at Jasper and raised an eyebrow in contemplation. “What a curiously intelligent human you are.”
“It’s hard to take that as a compliment when it’s worded so insultingly,” Jasper growled.
Savara walked over to inspect them as Griffin trailed a pace or two behind. She shot him a glance that said, Stay where I can see you, and to his credit, he stepped left into her line of vision, clasped his hands behind his back, and nodded. Jasper shot him a quick sneer before turning back to her. Savara nudged him forcefully in the ribs and scowled.
“What?” Jasper knew perfectly well he was being childish, but the man set him on edge.
“Not nice, Jasper.”
“...because nice is high on my priorities list...” He complained. “I don’t like him, Sav. And I don’t care if he knows it or not,” he added just loud enough for the man to hear.
“Jasper, my family is...” She prickled. He squeezed her shoulder, acknowledging the word she wouldn’t speak and the pain he knew she carried. “And the only person who might know anything about what happened is standing about three feet from us and probably listening, so forgive me if who you like isn’t high on my priorities list either.”
It didn’t change how Jasper felt about the man, how the sight of him prompted a scowl, but she raised a fair point. In the end, it wasn’t his family splayed out like cutlets at a butcher’s shop, but if she needed this, he’d support her. He’d have to put up with the guy a little while longer, but he’d always support her. It wouldn’t kill him... hopefully... but he didn’t have to like the smug look the guy had on his face. Jasper glowered at him again. He’s definitely eavesdropping. The man raised a tentative eyebrow at him, and Jasper narrowed his eyes in response.
“What did you want me to see?” Savara nudged him again, reminding him of his manners—the ones she knew he had, and he knew he didn’t owe the stranger. “They’re just glasses,” she added with a frown. She spoke a little too loudly to cover up their whisperings, but Jasper didn’t care if the jerk heard him.
“Here, let me help,” he said as he tucked her hair gently back behind her ears and rested the coppery wiring on the bridge of her nose. Staring into her star-speckled eyes, he couldn’t help but blush. Jasper coughed lightly to cover it up as he guided her eyes over to her uncle’s dangling wrist.
Savara’s jaw dropped. “What is this?” she gasped as she watched the world unfold. Her eyes devoured everything in their path, but Jasper couldn’t help but stare at her. She had that look that she got when something had blown her away. His heart dropped when her eyes hitched on Griffin, whose body he’d noted before held a series of strange markings on his wrists and a particularly small but eye-catching one underneath his left eye.
“Do you still think you know everything there is to know about the world you live in?” Griffin’s voice was more condescending than Jasper liked, especially as it was directed at Savara. She glared at him, but Jasper knew she wasn’t mad. Worse. She was interested. She and Griffin shared a silent conversation made solely of glares that ground at every fibre of his being.
He also turned to Griffin, but with a deeper glower that held all the annoyance that Savara’s should’ve and then some. Jasper studied him—from the scuff of his boots to the strange, out-of-fashion cloak, even the way his hair was tied. Based on his build and manner, Jasper guessed he was a mercenary. Too shady to be a soldier and too restrained to be a thug. And the scars on his cheek looked suspiciously like knife wounds.
Doesn’t she see that she’s asking for trouble? Which means, of course, we are asking for trouble. Jasper groaned, envisioning Sleeping Beauty pricking her finger on the blasted spinning wheel.
Despite his anger at the man, he found himself trapped between fear and intrigue at the prospect of a new world. Jasper desperately wished to know how everything fit together. How the strange man had appeared in the house, what Hyrum was and why that got him killed, and probably most important, what all of this meant for Savara. It was a selfish thought, but there was never a chance he’d let her go alone.
Jasper thought back to the morning’s conversation about feeling called to do something or go somewhere. He might never have noticed it, if it weren’t for Griffin, but Savara had become his calling. He’d go to the ends of the earth for her, he’d jump worlds for her if it meant being there when she needed it.
Jasper watched her turn her hands over, mesmerised by the markings that only the glasses could show. He’d seen them too, a spiral on her thumb, a cluster of rings on her wrist. Her light was a beautiful violet.
“Jasper, do you—”
“No,” he said preemptively. “Apparently that’s what it means to be human.” He stared at the ground, consciously avoiding her gaze. Even coming from his lips, it sounded like an insult.
Savara turned to Griffin once more. “You said you were called? By whom?”
“Him,” Griffin replied, casting another glance in the corpse’s direction before ultimately freezing. His attention caught on something far beyond the room. “I don’t think it’s safe here,” he whispered as he balled his hands into fists.
“Why would my uncle have sent for you?” Savara hissed. Jasper noted how she kept her gaze as far away from the chair as possible. He rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, which she took hold of and squeezed. “And how did he end up... like that?”
“That sword is not of this world,” said Griffin stoically.
Which means, neither was the person who did it, Jasper thought with a frown. Part of him couldn’t help the intrigue that filled his mind. The chance at the existence of another world. What would this mean for all our history? For everything we know as human beings? But the other part of him still held steadfastly to the idea that this strange man and everything about him was like Pandora’s box. Something that should, without a doubt, remain closed, locked, and probably at the bottom of the ocean. Jasper stared down at the lump in Savara’s coat pocket, the package she’d refused to open before, wondering if maybe it too was from that other world.
“You have questions,” Griffin added to Savara. “I’m sorry to say I don’t have all the answers, but I know where you can find them. I know this is too much to take in at once, and I can imagine how confused you must feel, but it is imperative you come with me.”
“Worded like that, it doesn’t seem like she has much of a choice,” mumbled Jasper.
“Your opinion is of little consequence,” he retorted, taking too much pleasure in his adding of the word, “human.”
“I’m quite done listening to yours too,” Jasper replied, picking up the cane to strike.
