Ask Luke

"I've been told to ask Luke so many times I'm starting to wonder if it's a prayer or a curse. Either way, the bastard never shows up."

The portal exploded into colour without warning.

One moment it was a blank screen of translucent nothing, and the next it was alive — swirling with violets and blues, and a dozen other colours, a kaleidoscope of magnificent hues that painted the surrounding dunes in dancing rainbows. My heart lurched into my throat, hope and desperation tangling together in a knot that made it hard to breathe.

"Hey, Beatrix!" I called out, the words tearing from my throat as I tried to push myself upright.

My wounded leg had other ideas.

Pain shot through my calf like a bolt gun, white-hot and absolute, and my body crumpled back to the ground before I'd risen more than a few inches. The scream that wanted to escape came out as a strangled gasp, my vision swimming with dark spots that threatened to swallow everything.

But I could see her. Through the blur of agony and tears, I could see Beatrix's figure emerging from the swirling light, her silhouette sharp against the portal's glow. She was back. She was here. All I had to do was get her attention, make her understand—

I waved my arm, the motion frantic, desperate, a drowning man signalling for rescue. The movement must have looked like a greeting rather than a plea, because Beatrix simply waved back — a casual acknowledgment, the kind of wave you'd give a neighbour you didn't particularly want to talk to — and then she was gone again, stepping back into the portal's embrace before I could even form the words I needed to say.

The colours swirled and died. The screen went blank.

And I was alone again, my arm still raised toward nothing, my wounded leg throbbing its displeasure, my hope deflating like a balloon with a slow leak.

"Fuck," I breathed, letting my arm drop to the sand.

The sun continued its indifferent journey across the sky. The wind whispered secrets I couldn't understand. And somewhere on the other side of that portal, Beatrix went about whatever business had brought her through, apparently unaware or unconcerned that a crippled man was waiting for her with questions that felt like life or death.

I lay there, staring at the blank screen, and tried to formulate a plan.

Beatrix would come back. She had to come back. When she returned, I would be ready. Would be standing, somehow, close enough to grab her attention before she could disappear again.

The decision to move felt like the decision to climb a mountain.

I gritted my teeth against the pain that awaited me and began the agonising process of dragging myself toward the portal. Each movement sent fresh waves of agony radiating from my calf, the torn muscle protesting its abuse with increasingly creative variations of suffering. My fingers dug into the sand, pulling my body forward inch by excruciating inch, leaving a trail of disturbed dust and smeared blood in my wake.

By the time I reached a position near the portal's base, I was drenched in sweat and shaking with exhaustion. But I was close. Close enough, maybe, to intercept Beatrix when she emerged. Close enough to make my case before she could vanish again.

I waited.

Time stretched and contracted in ways that defied measurement. Minutes felt like hours. Hours might have been minutes. The portal remained stubbornly inactive, its blank face offering nothing but my own reflection in its translucent surface.

Then — light.

The colours burst forth again, and this time I was ready. I had pulled myself to my feet somehow, my good leg bearing the bulk of my weight, my wounded limb dragging behind me like a reluctant companion. The world tilted dangerously, my balance precarious at best, but I was upright. I was mobile. I was—

Too far away.

Beatrix stepped through the portal, her face set in the expression of someone focused on a task, and I lurched toward her with all the grace of a three-legged dog.

"Beatrix!" I exclaimed, reaching for her arm, my fingers grasping at air that should have been flesh. "I need crutches."

The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other in their desperation to be heard. Crutches. Such a simple request. Such a mundane solution to the problem that was slowly killing any hope I had of being useful, of being present, of being anything other than a burden to be carried or left behind.

Beatrix turned to look at me, her expression shifting from focus to mild irritation. In her other hand, she dropped a sleeping bag beside the portal — supplies, I realised dimly. She was bringing supplies.

"You'll have to talk to Luke," she replied, dismissing me with a wave that felt like a door closing in my face.

Luke. Of course. The gatekeeper, the controller, the man who apparently held the keys to everything in this dimension and couldn't be bothered to show up when he was needed. I wanted to scream, wanted to grab Beatrix by the shoulders and shake her until she understood that Luke wasn't here, that no one was here, that I was bleeding and broken and desperate in ways she couldn't possibly comprehend.

"But my leg," I pleaded, the words coming out thick and choked.

Beatrix glanced down at my calf, her eyes tracking the fresh blood that had begun seeping through Karen's careful bandaging. Her expression didn't change — no sympathy, no concern, just the flat assessment of someone cataloguing damage that wasn't their problem.

"Looks like it's bleeding," she pointed out.

The observation was so obvious, so utterly unhelpful, that I wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or collapse back into the sand and never get up again. She could see the wound. Could see the blood soaking through the fabric, painting my leg in streaks of crimson that grew darker with each passing moment. And her response was to state the obvious, as if I might not have noticed the steady drain of my life force into the Clivilian dust.

"Not again," I mumbled, my body tensing as I tried to ignore the nagging whisper that had begun stirring in the depths of my consciousness.

Clive. Always there. Always watching. Always waiting for the moment when I was weak enough, desperate enough, to accept whatever devil's bargain it chose to offer.

Your leg needs attention, the voice murmured, its tone almost gentle. The bleeding won't stop on its own.

I clenched my jaw and refused to respond.

"You should probably go and visit Glenda," Beatrix suggested, her concern surfacing now that she'd finished her assessment.

The mention of Glenda's name sent a fresh spike of frustration through my chest.

"Glenda's gone," I informed her, trying to keep the bitterness from my voice and failing.

A visible shudder ran through Beatrix's shoulders, her composure cracking for the first time since she'd emerged from the portal. Her eyes widened, and I saw something flicker in their depths — fear, maybe, or the kind of horrified assumption that this world had trained all of us to make.

"Gone? Is she..." Beatrix hesitated, the word hanging unspoken between us. "Dead?"

Despite everything — the pain, the frustration, the bone-deep exhaustion that made every moment feel like wading through tar — I almost laughed.

"Oh, no," I reassured her, the sound that escaped me closer to a bitter chuckle than genuine amusement. "She went with Charity and Uncle Jamie to hunt the Portal pirate."

The words sounded insane even as I said them. A doctor, a warrior from another century, and my uncle — all gone chasing something called a Portal pirate through a world unknown, leaving behind a camp full of wounded and terrified people who had no idea what they were supposed to do next.

Beatrix shook her head, the motion brief and dismissive, as if the news of Glenda's departure was merely an inconvenience rather than a crisis.

"You'll still have to ask Luke for crutches," she replied, her tone returning to its previous flatness. "Sorry."

The apology was perfunctory, delivered with all the emotional weight of someone declining to hold a door open. She was already turning away, already preparing to step back through the portal and continue whatever mission consumed her attention.

"Beatrix," I tried once more, desperation making my voice crack.

But she was gone.

The portal swirled, the colours danced, and she vanished into whatever lay beyond, leaving me standing alone with a bleeding leg and a growing certainty that no one in this world gave a damn about my survival except the entity that lived inside my head.

"Fuck's sake," I grumbled, the profanity feeling inadequate to the magnitude of my frustration.

Beatrix made countless more trips.

I watched each one with the kind of desperate attention usually reserved for slot machines and emergency room waiting areas. She emerged, deposited supplies, and disappeared again — her movements efficient, purposeful, completely uninterested in the wounded man stationed at the portal's base like a particularly pathetic gargoyle.

Sleeping bags. A camping stove. Folding chairs. An assortment of goods that spoke to long-term habitation rather than temporary survival. Each item she dropped beside the portal was another reminder of the comforts we lacked, the preparations we should have made, the hundred small decisions that might have changed everything if we'd only known what was coming.

"If only we had some of this stuff last night," I muttered, holding up a large camping light that would have turned the shadow panther attack from a nightmare into something manageable.

But we hadn't had it. Hadn't had light or weapons or warning or anything except terror and teeth and the screaming chaos of prey being hunted in absolute darkness.

I tried the puppy-dog eyes on Beatrix's fourth trip, widening my gaze and pouring every ounce of pathetic need I possessed into the expression. She didn't even glance in my direction.

On the fifth trip, I positioned myself directly in her path, forcing her to acknowledge my existence or walk through me. She sidestepped with the ease of someone who'd been avoiding obstacles her whole life and dropped another box of supplies without breaking stride.

My resolve was beginning to crack when Beatrix halted mid-motion, her body going rigid with sudden alertness. Her eyes weren't fixed on me anymore — they were looking past me, toward something approaching from the direction of camp.

I followed her gaze.

Paul.

He walked with the purposeful stride of a man on a mission, his face set in lines of determination that seemed almost incongruous on someone I'd come to associate with fumbling attempts at leadership. Whatever had happened since Karen left to tend my wounds, it had apparently galvanised him into something resembling action.

"You'll have to ask Luke for crutches," Beatrix informed him before he could even open his mouth.

Paul turned to me, his eyebrows rising in silent question. I shrugged, too exhausted by the repetition to muster anything more articulate. If I hear Beatrix say that one more time, I thought darkly, I might actually scream.

But Paul hadn't come for crutches.

"Have you seen Luke?" he asked Beatrix, his voice carrying an edge that hadn't been there before.

A brief pause — Beatrix's eyes flickering with something I couldn't quite identify — before she answered. "No. I haven't seen him since he passed us the first time I arrived here."

Paul furrowed his brow, one hand rising to rub at his chin in a gesture that suggested deep thought or mounting frustration. When he finally spoke, his words carried the weight of a decision that had been forming beneath the surface.

"Beatrix, I need you to find us a couple of caravans or motorhomes. They will make our living and sleeping arrangements a little more comfortable and also, hopefully, provide us with more safety than the tents currently do."

The request caught me off guard.

Caravans. Motorhomes. The words conjured images of holiday parks and coastal getaways, families crammed into metal boxes for weeks of enforced togetherness. It seemed so... normal. So mundane. As if Paul had somehow forgotten that we were stranded in an alien dimension where the local wildlife tried to eat you and the planet itself could speak into your mind.

And yet, even as the absurdity registered, I found myself considering the practicalities. A caravan would have walls. Solid walls, not canvas that could be torn by claws or teeth. A caravan would have locks, windows, a door that could be barricaded against the things that prowled the darkness. A caravan would be—

Safe. Or at least, safer than what we had now.

"But I don't have enough money for such an expense," Beatrix protested, her hands flying up in a gesture of frustrated disbelief. "How am I supposed to get them?"

The question cut to the heart of a practical concern I hadn't considered. Caravans cost thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe, depending on the model. Where was Beatrix supposed to come up with that kind of money? Where was any of us supposed to come up with anything, trapped as we were in a world that operated by rules we didn't understand?

Paul remained unfazed, a smile playing at the corners of his lips that carried more mischief than I would have expected from him.

"You have a Portal Key," he said, his tone suggesting the answer should have been obvious. "A place of escape where nobody can reach you. I'm sure you have the creative abilities to pull the mission off."

The implication settled over me slowly, its meaning crystallising like frost on glass.

He was suggesting theft. Or something close enough to theft that the distinction didn't really matter. Beatrix could take whatever she wanted from the other side of the portal and simply... leave. Step through the shimmering barrier and vanish into a dimension where Earth's laws held no jurisdiction, where police couldn't follow and consequences didn't exist.

It was brilliant. It was terrifying. It was exactly the kind of moral compromise that this place seemed designed to force upon you.

Beatrix's eyes narrowed, but I caught the spark of interest that flickered in their depths, the slight upturn at the corner of her mouth that betrayed her intrigue.

"A mission, you say?" she inquired, the word rolling off her tongue with relish.

Please, I pleaded silently, directing the thought toward whatever forces might be listening. Please, Beatrix, accept it.

The idea of sleeping in a caravan — of having walls between me and the darkness, locks between me and the creatures that wanted to tear me apart — filled me with a longing so intense it bordered on physical need. I would give almost anything for that security. Had already given things I couldn't take back.

"Sure, I'll do it," Beatrix agreed, her smile breaking through uncontainably.

Yes!

The relief washed through me like warm water, loosening muscles I hadn't realised were clenched. I dabbed absently at the blood still dribbling down my leg, silently thanking whatever cosmic forces had prompted Paul to make this request, to find a solution that didn't involve bargains with entities that lived inside your skull.

But Paul's expression had darkened, a shadow passing across his features that killed my relief before it could fully take root.

"By the way, where's Duke?" he asked Beatrix.

The question fell into silence.

Duke. The dog whose wrapped body Beatrix had carried through the portal an hour ago, cradled against her chest like something precious. The dog whose absence Uncle Jamie had been too broken to properly mourn, choosing instead to chase his missing son into the unknown.

Beatrix's pause stretched uncomfortably long before she answered, her tone hardening with something that might have been defensiveness.

"What do you want first, Duke or caravans?"

The question was a deflection and they both knew it. But Paul seemed to accept the terms of the exchange, nodding slowly as he processed the options laid before him.

"Get them in whatever order works best for you," he replied, his voice carefully neutral. "I don't want to be too prescriptive or restrictive."

Diplomatic. The word floated through my mind unbidden. Paul was being diplomatic with a woman who held cards he needed. Maybe there was more to him than I'd given him credit for.

Beatrix nodded briskly, the gesture carrying the weight of agreement, and within moments she had completed her delivery of camping supplies and stepped back through the portal, disappearing into the swirl of colours that seemed to mock my earthbound existence.

The silence that followed her departure was almost comfortable.

"How's the leg?" Paul asked, turning his attention to me at last.

"Could be worse," I replied, the words emerging with a forced optimism that fooled neither of us.

But they were true, in a sense. I was still alive. Still had two legs attached to my body, even if one of them had been trying its best to become a liability. The wound was bleeding again, yes, but the blood was red and the flesh beneath the bandage hadn't begun to smell of rot or infection. In the mathematics of survival that this world demanded, I was ahead of the curve.

Paul studied me for a moment, his expression unreadable, before offering a suggestion that landed like both a gift and a reminder of how far we'd fallen.

"If you're going to hang around here for a while and wait for Luke, you might want to ask him to bring us another doctor."

Another doctor. Because our current one had abandoned us. Had followed some siren call into the wilderness, chasing a father she believed was alive in a dimension where nothing made sense and everything wanted to kill you.

"You don't think she'll come back?" I asked, hating the dread that crept into my voice despite my best efforts to suppress it.

Paul's shrug carried the weight of uncertainty.

"I honestly don't know," he admitted. "She's determined that her father is alive here in Clivilius somewhere. I doubt that she'll stop looking for him now."

The words settled over me like a blanket woven from confusion and dread.

"But..." I faltered, my mind struggling to wrap itself around the implications. "But how is that even possible? That her father is here?"

Paul's chuckle was soft, almost gentle, carrying none of the mockery I might have expected from someone confronted with such a naive question.

"Charity, shadow panthers, and Portal pirates," he said, the list rolling off his tongue like a catalogue of impossibilities. "I'm not sure anything is beyond the realm of possibility here."

The words hung in the air between us, a truth so obvious it had somehow escaped my notice until this moment.

Nothing was impossible here. Nothing was certain. The rules that had governed my entire existence — physics, biology, the basic mechanics of cause and effect — had been suspended or rewritten by whatever forces shaped this dimension.

Has Paul experienced the silent voice of Clivilius? The thought surfaced, a question I didn't dare ask aloud. Or Clive?

I corrected myself internally, the distinction still feeling strange and unfamiliar. Clive. The entity that had whispered in my mind, that had watched my most intimate moments, that knew about my unborn daughter.

Are they truly one and the same? I wondered, my head tilting sideways as I tried to fit the pieces together. Or are they separate entities, connected yet distinct, two sides of the same twisted coin?

The mysteries of this place seemed to deepen with every answer I found, each revelation spawning a dozen new questions that spiralled outward into infinities I couldn't comprehend.

Paul was watching me, his expression curious but patient, as if he could see the gears turning behind my eyes and was content to wait for them to reach whatever conclusion they were grinding toward.

I didn't have a conclusion. Didn't have answers. Didn't have anything except a bleeding leg, a head full of voices that shouldn't exist, and a growing certainty that I was merely a pawn in a game whose rules I would never fully understand.

I stared at the blank screen of the portal and tried not to think about the price that would eventually be extracted.

Some debts, I was fearing, could never be fully paid.