I saw Thoran look back at Cornelius with a stern glare.

"Well, you see-" Cornelius started, but was quickly interrupted by a voice above us.

"Identify yourselves."

I realized we were now at the edge of a very small opening. After the maze of tunnels we had traveled through, I was positive that there was no way I could find my way back outside.

Thoran replied to the voice soundly. "Master Thoran, order first-rank. And Master Cornelius, second-rank."

"Proceed," came the response.

It was now that I first realized just how important these men might be. But before my mind could consider what exactly I had gotten myself into, I saw a familiar light reflecting off the cavern walls. It was the same glow that I had seen earlier that day, in a different cave. The memories of my previous encounter made me shutter.

Sure enough, as we rounded the tight corner an orb-like portal hovered above the ground. It was at the back of a large cavern, the same black-metallic softly glowing orange from the light.

"No doubt this isn't the first one of these you've seen today," said Thoran as he stared at the rift. Before I could respond he turned to me and started again. "This is a Meoden portal. It leads between the Meoden dimension, where we are now, and the other dimensions, in this case ours. Which is yours as well."

I opened my mouth to speak, but he interrupted.

"There is no point in trying to figure out how it works, just know that it does. Naturally if you jumped into one of these you could end up anywhere in the conjoining dimension, but we have altered ours to arrive at a specific point.

"So all you need to do is walk through. Understand?"

Oh yeah, sure, that makes complete sense, I thought to myself . . . but I did have the basic idea, and I could tell Thoran wasn't really asking.

"Yes sir." I said, so officially that any fool could tell I was intimidated.

"Good," he replied. "Cornelius you go first, followed by . . . hmm. Did you tell us your name?"

I bit my lip. "No . . . you never asked."

"Well I'd say in this case shy is an understatement," he grumbled. "Are you ready to tell us now?"

My eyes narrowed at him, squinting slightly. "Eve, Eve Avest."

"Well, that's a beautiful name, such a curious last name to. You know I know someone that has a hobby of studying the origin of names, I'm sure he'd love to look that one up. His name is-"

Thoran stopped him with a side-ways glance. Evidently this man didn't want me to know about anything beyond what was necessary.

"Anyways. Eve, you'll go after Cornelius so he can meet you on the other side. Cornelius, I want to check on Boron, so I'll meet you back at the lodge in an hour or so."

He turned towards me. "If everything goes as planned I probably won't see you again, so-" he held out a hand "-it was a pleasure meeting you."

I shook it firmly, inexplicably disappointed by the thought of never seeing him again.

And then, as quickly as he had appeared, he vanished through one of the tunnel passages.

It wasn't long before I found myself with Cornelius on the other side of the portal. We came in amidst a clutter of trees: tall, rich green, much less foreboding than the last forest I had been in. The sky above was a deep blue, nearing dusk.

Has it been that long?

"Better than the last time I hope?" asked Cornelius.

Not much. I opted for courtesy. "Yes it was, thank you."

"Good," he said. "Now if I can figure out which portal we came in at, we can start heading for the-"

"Master Cornelius is that you?" came a shout from one of the trees above us, it was a boys' voice.

Cornelius started to look up then froze. "Oh no. Not good, what is he doing here?" He mumbled nervously as he started to pace. "Thoran is going to kill me, this is the first thing he told me not to let happen." He turned his face upwards again and yelled. "Ah, no. It's not Cornelius just some, umm, other person. No need to come down Ikovos, I mean, person I don't know."

Cornelius looked at me and gave a do-you-think-that-will-work shrug.

I sure didn't know what was happening, so I shrugged as well. Obviously Cornelius and I shared an inability to stay calm under pressure.

"Master I can tell by your voice," said the boy again. "Besides I can see you, hey, who is that with you? I'm coming down okay."

"Oh God, we're dead," said Cornelius as he paced.

"We're dead?!" I started to pace myself.

"Yes, dead! What are we going to do?"

"What can we do?"

"He's going to kill us."

"He is?"

"You've got to calm down."

"You calm down, I don't even know what's happening."

"I've got it!"

"What?"

"Hide!"

"Where?"

"There!" He pointed to a bush next to a tree and pushed me down behind it.

Seconds later I heard footsteps running towards Cornelius. I situated myself so I could see through the leaves. Cornelius moved himself in front of me, one hand leaning against the tree.

The boy came into view and I looked him over. He was average build if not a little thin. The mat of short blond hair on his head looked like it hadn't seen a comb in a while, his ears were a bit oversized, nothing spectacular, that is until he smiled. I was never one of those "omigod he has the most gorgeous smile" girls, but . . . this was something.

Cornelius had just called him Ikovos, but recognized the name like I'd heard it before.

Hmm . . . Oh, right, this was the person that Thoran had told Cornelius not to let me meet.

Well, that explains the pushing. I grunted. Cornelius covered the noise with a cough.

"Oh, hello Ikovos," said Cornelius in a squeaky voice. "What are you doing out here this late?"

"I took over gate-watching for Luther," he said. "But hey, why were you saying you were someone else?"

"Well, I um . . . ."

"A joke," I whispered from the bush. "Tell him it was a joke."

"Oh right, I was just playing a joke of course," said Cornelius. He forced an uncomfortable laugh.

"A joke?" Ikovos said flatly. "Right . . . well, who was that with you? Where'd they go?"

"Oh that . . . that was a bird."

"Huh?"

"Tell him it was magic," I interjected.

"I mean it was magic," said Cornelius.

Ikovos raised an eyebrow. "Since when can you make a fake person with magic?"

Cornelius backed towards me and whispered. "Why did you say magic? That doesn't even make sense."

"Well, how was I supposed to know? I've never learned a thing about magic. Why did you listen to me if it didn't fit?"

"Because . . . because you tricked me!" he said.

"What?" I asked exasperatedly, jumping aggressively to my feet.

Ikovos, who had been watching as Cornelius argued, now stared at me wide-eyed, jaw to the floor.

When I saw him I screamed and ducked back behind the bush.

Cornelius fainted.

After a few seconds I poked my head out above the leaves. The boy forced a confused smile and waved. I dropped down again.

Come on Eve, pull it together. You are a confident and outgoing individual. You are a confident and outgoing individual. I repeated this a few times in my mind then took a deep breath. Before standing up to face the boy.

"Hi." I smiled. "My name's Eve." Well, that was original.

"Right, I'm Ikovos . . . sorry for scaring you," he said as he scratched the back of his head thoughtlessly. "Ah, do you know Cornelius?"

"No, well, sort of I guess."

"Cause you guys seemed to have something going."

"Heh, it's been a long day. I got a little too excited. Sorry."

"No, no it's okay. I just thought that you must have known each other pretty well. But I guess not."

"Yeah . . . no."

Silence followed, crickets chirped, I figured tumbleweed wouldn't show in the forest but kept an eye out anyways.

"Hmm, okay, I'm gonna try to wake him up now, cause I'm not doing a very good job talking," said Ikovos, nodding at me repeatedly.

"Right, that makes sense," I said, before realizing that I had just agreed he wasn't talking well. I did a mental head bang against the tree.

I am not outgoing and confident. I am not outgoing and confident . . . .

I watched Ikovos move to Cornelius's side. He poked him in the chest a few times, then tried shaking him. I knelt cautiously beside the motionless body across from the boy.

"Ah, Master Cornelius?" tried Ikovos. Still nothing. ". . . Corni?

Cornelius grimaced, and with eyes still closed he responded. "Please don't call me that, Ikovos."

"Ah-ha, you're awake. I thought that might work," said Ikovos, sounding very pleased with himself.

Cornelius still lay there motionless. "I had the weirdest dream Ikovos, you would have liked it. Thoran and I were out scouting in the other dimension, looking for some new creature Demian mentioned, when we ran into a couple keepers. And you wouldn't believe what they were after."

"I could take a guess," drawled the boy.

Cornelius continued. "It was a girl, a girl of all things. Isn't that odd."

Ikovos looked up at me and smiled apologetically. I raised an eyebrow.

Why was my sex such a big issue with these guys, did they have something against women? I've never considered myself a feminist but that sure as heck doesn't mean I'm tolerant of Chauvinists.

"Ah, Master, I think you should open your eyes now," said Ikovos.

"Of course you're right, my boy." He lifted his lids, squinting at Ikovos. "Hey, where are we anyway-AH!" As soon as he saw me he jumped onto his feet.

After a few uncomfortable seconds realization seemed to dawn on him.

"Hi." I waved, adding a smile for his sake, but inwardly feeling very out of place. You know inside jokes? It was starting to feel like I was one that everybody but me knew about. I looked at Cornelius face again . . . apparently it wasn't a very funny joke.

"Oh, my dear, I am so sorry. Please ignore everything I said, just an old man's ramblings, and a half asleep one at that." He paused. "How, um . . . how was it that I ended up on the ground, though?"

"Well," began Ikovos. "First you came through the portal and started telling me that you weren't you. Then I came down to try and figure out what was going on. That's when you started talking to the bush . . . which ended up being a girl . . . . You then began arguing with said bush-girl, who proceeded to jump out from behind the bush. At that point I pretty much went into shock, she screamed, you fainted, it was all very confusing."

"Yes, I can see that."