Close Encounters of the Magical Kind

by Jeffrey M. Poole

  “You can smell the cub?” Thalian asked, impressed.

  “No,” Pravara admitted.

  Thalian was confused.

  “Then what… oh.”

  Three griffins immediately launched into the air while the other two bounded forward, intent on covering the distance to the trees as quickly as possible. Sarah lunged forward, grabbed Gareth by the wrist, and teleported them to the other side of the clearing, just in time to see two griffins go bolting by them.

  “Pravara says to continue in this direction for at least half a league,” Gareth told her. “Once we find a ‘thrice cracked boulder’ then we need to head north for no more than a quarter league.”

  “How is it you can be so precise?” Sarah wanted to know.

  “I keep several spells with me at all times,” Gareth explained, reaching into his trouser pocket and withdrawing a handful of items. “Now, this here looks like an ordinary pebble. Well, I guess it is an ordinary pebble. That’s not the point. The point is it’s my earth elemental. In case we need it. And this? This will summon a wall of water. And this is what I just used.”

  The young wizard proudly held up a… Sarah squinted at the object. What was it? It looked like a small figurine of a long sinewy snake with disproportionally tiny legs. Was it a skinny dragon?

  “This is my nocturnal vision spell. You never know when you’ll need to be able to see in the dark.

  “We get it,” Sarah told him, taking the boy’s hand and curling his fingers back around the contents of his pocket. “Everyone can see in the dark but me.”

  “Want me to create a spell for you?” Gareth casually asked. “It wouldn’t take long for me to do it. And we’d just have to find some type of object to hold the spell. Any rock would do.”

  Sarah smiled at the boy as an idea just popped into her brain, “You definitely know what you’re doing, Gareth. No one can say otherwise. However, I think I just thought of something that will do the trick.”

  She could see that she had Gareth’s attention.

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  Sarah held out an arm, palm facing up. She closed her hand, concentrated, and then opened her hand back up. Cupped inside her hand was what looked like a gold chain with a piece of broken jewelry looped through the chain. Gareth leaned forward to poke a finger at the misshapen pendant. Sarah whipped it away.

  “Nuh uh. I’m sorry, Gareth, I can’t have you touching this thing. I’ve never liked using it and I really don’t want to use it now.”

  “What is it?” Gareth asked, curious.

  “An extraordinarily powerful talisman. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “It looks broken,” Gareth observed.

  Sarah nodded, “It is.”

  “Then why use it? How can that broken necklace possibly help us?”

  Sarah looped the golden chain around her neck and gave the boy a cryptic smile. She looked uneasily at ‘her’ half of the broken Amulet of Aria. She grimaced. She hadn’t worn this wretched thing since she and Steve battled Celestia all those years ago. It unsettled her then just like it did now. She could feel her jhorun traveling through her hands to investigate the object she was holding. The tingles she felt magnified into dangerous proportions.

  Sarah swallowed nervously. As long as she was holding this piece of the amulet she had to be mindful of her thoughts. If she tried to teleport something then she had to have a crystal clear image of what she wanted to accomplish in her mind. The slightest deviation could – and probably would – have disastrous results.

  Once the broken amulet had settled into place she closed her eyes. As before, she felt the power of the amulet flood through her the moment it made contact with her skin. After a few moments her vision returned, as she knew it would when wearing a piece of the amulet. However, it wasn’t the same as pure nocturnal vision. Thanks to the power of the amulet she could see everything in vivid detail, as though she was standing in the middle of the clearing in broad daylight.

  However, the difference was her point of view. With her eyes closed she could actually see herself, as if her eyes were now floating a dozen feet behind her and about that many feet up in the air. Her vision would spin around and show her whichever direction she happened to be facing. At the moment, facing due east, she could see a thick copse of trees directly before them. Much to her delight, she could also see about three times the distance as she could using just the light from Gareth’s burning fireballs.

  “Alright,” she told Gareth. “Take my hand. It’s time to go.”

  “But your eyes are closed,” Gareth pointed out. “How can you see where we need to go?”

  “I can see you just fine. In fact, if you were to extinguish those fireballs I’d still be able to see you. Their presence here makes no difference to me.”

  “What did you say that thing is, again?” Gareth asked, sidling closer to the amulet to get a better look.

  Sarah instantly tucked the pendant into her shirt.

  “Don’t make me regret retrieving this thing,” Sarah advised. “Let the matter go. Now, are you ready? Off we go.”

  Sarah took them to the farthest eastern point she could see, which was, consequently, another group of trees. Getting her bearings, Sarah jumped them east again. And again. Then northeast. There, exactly as Pravara had described it, was the huge boulder with three cracks running through it. Sarah whistled with surprise. The huge stone was easily as large as her parents’ old house in California.

  “Her eyesight is impressive,” Sarah breathed, running a hand along the stone’s jagged surface. “Pravara could see this all the way from where she was?”

  “She says yes,” Gareth relayed. “She says she’s watching us now.”

  “Where do we go now?” Sarah wanted to know.

  “North,” Gareth reported. “Pravara says we have to go no more than a quarter of a league.”

  “A quarter league north,” Sarah repeated, turning to look left. The trees thinned somewhat and she could see several hills approach from the east. They had to be getting close!

  Ten minutes later they found it. Pravara directed them towards a large glade situated within a break in the trees. There was a hill on the right – to the east – and to the left? Sarah sniffed the air. Yes! She could smell water! Somewhere nearby was a lake! This had to be the right place!

  Three griffins emerged from the trees. Thalian touched down next, followed closely by Archadius. Two of them eyed her, no doubt wondering how she beat them here. Together they stared at the hillside. While not exactly a cliff, as Nyx had remembered, she could easily see how there must have once been a formidable stone formation here. Thanks to the power of the terra tremor, the huge formation had been reduced to gravel. Strewn bits of broken rock were everywhere. Of the cave where Nyx had hidden her cub, nothing remained.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Archadius asked as he eyed the mass of broken stone littering the eastern half of the glade.

  “This is it,” Sarah told the griffin. “It has to be.”

  “Confirmed,” Pravara’s voice chimed in.

  Sarah risked a quick look back. Yes, there was the dragon, sitting complacently on her haunches and staring at the solid mass of broken stone. True to her wyverian form the huge dragon had approached in stealth. Pravara, sensing she was being watched, looked down at her and nodded. Sarah felt a sudden thrill of excitement. They were going to make it! They found the cub! Only… only now what? How do they extricate her without bringing down the rest of the hillside? There had to be several tons of rocks and earth waiting to fill in any hole they dug.

  The five griffins approached the hillside and began to dig fervently. Bits of rock and debris went flying in all directions as all five griffins dug for all they were worth. Sarah wandered back to the dragon and gently tapped her claw. Once Pravara was looking her way Sarah asked the question she’d been dying to know for the thirty minutes.

  “Are we too late?” Sarah whispered. “Is the cub still
alive? Can you tell?”

  Pravara sniffed the air. She stretched her neck up to see over the digging griffins. After a few minutes she sadly shook her head. Sarah’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I cannot tell for certain,” the dragon softly told her. “I could hear the youngling’s breaths before. I cannot now.”

  “Maybe you can’t hear him because no one can hear anything while the griffins dig?” Sarah hopefully asked.

  “Perhaps,” the dragon conceded. “As long as the… do you hear that?”

  Alarmed, Sarah faced the digging griffins.

  “What? What is it? What do you hear? I can’t hear anything.”

  “I can feel the earth move,” Pravara anxiously announced, rising to her full height. “As you feared the hill has become unstable. Your griffin companions must stop digging or else they’ll cause even more damage to the cub.”

  That was all Sarah needed to hear. She ran towards the closest griffin, waving her arms and shouting for all she was worth. However, as Pravara had noticed, when someone was moving as much rock as they were doing, as rapidly as possible, then the chances of being heard would become abysmally slim.

  She was ignored.

  Now she could feel it. The earth was trembling. She saw that more rocks were starting to gravitate towards them, careening into even more rocks that would eventually become a second landslide. Determined to not let that happen, Sarah looped a finger around the pendant’s golden chain and pulled. The broken piece of amulet appeared. She grasped it tightly in her hand and gasped as her awareness expanded in all directions.

  Pravara was right. Another landslide was not only threatening to be begin but had already started. She directed her enhanced jhorun to the rocks that she could see tumbling towards them and ordered them to hold the falling stones in place.

  The trembling stopped. The griffins, oblivious to what was happening around them, continued to dig. Frowning, she looked at five griffins and easily levitated every single one of them. Squawking with alarm the griffins began flapping their wings in an attempt to flee whatever assailant had them. Sarah refused to let them go. Still using the amulet to hold them aloft, she looked over at Gareth to see him staring, open-mouthed, at her.

  “Don’t just stand there, do something! I’m holding the rocks in place. Find the cub! Get him out of there! I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep this up!”

  Gareth blinked once and nodded. He hurried by the floating griffins and studied the landscape. Sarah watched him as he chanted. A disturbance appeared in the rocks to the left of where he was standing. Gareth, with his eyes closed, continued to chant. Something was rising up out of the rubble. It was a large form and it wasn’t moving.

  It was Nyx’s body.

  Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she saw the griffin’s lifeless body rise slowly out of the ground. Just then she felt the amount of jhorun she was expelling double. The landslide was getting worse! It was taking more of her enhanced jhorun to hold it in place. She slowly rotated in place so that her floating “eyes” had a chance to take in the surroundings. What she saw had her gasping in shock.

  The entire hill had collapsed! Several hundred tons of rocks were starting to make their way down the slope. It was heading straight towards them. There’s no way she’d be able to hold back that much weight.

  “Gareth, you’re almost out of time!” she shouted at her companion. “The whole damn hill is on its way down! Whatever you’re doing, do it faster!”

  “I’m trying!” Gareth snapped. He glanced irritably up at the nearest floating griffin and noticed it was watching the huge mass of stones that were temporarily frozen in place. Gareth looked back at her and pointed up at the griffins. “Forget about them! Release them! You’ve got bigger things to worry about!”

  Five griffins dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Before any of them could complain, Gareth pointed at Nyx’s still form. It was still partially buried in the rubble.

  “This whole place is coming down! Stop staring and lend a hand! Get the cub! Hurry!”

  The five griffins rushed forward. Three set about digging Nyx’s body out of the rubble while the other two tried to ascertain the cub’s location and condition. Gareth shouted orders; the griffins complied. Sarah groaned. The amulet was drawing massive amounts of jhorun from her in order to slow the impending landslide as much as possible. However, it was more than she could hold, even using the power of the amulet. She watched a large boulder break free and start tumbling down. Then another. And another.

  “Gareth! I can’t hold this any longer! At least a dozen boulders are coming straight for you! Get them out of the way!”

  She watched the young wizard thrust his hand into his pocket, pull something out, and hastily invoke one of his spells. He then threw something towards the madly scrambling griffins. A dust cloud enveloped them just then, brought upon by the stones and boulders rushing down the hill. Then she saw something that caused a chill to run down her spine. She saw movement. Something was moving in the heart of the cloud. Something big. And it was growing bigger. In fact, it almost looked like it was feeding off the rocks and boulders that were rolling towards it.

  An ear-splitting roar rent the air. Sarah gasped with surprise as the figure finally stood up and took a few steps. She stared at Gareth with shock written all over her features. She finally figured out what object he had thrown. It was his earth elemental spell. It had to be!

  The ten foot tall rock golem lumbered towards the digging griffins, who were still blissfully unaware of the danger they were in. Rocks and stones continued to hammer at them as the majority of the impending landslide neared. A boulder, easily three times the size of an adult griffin, slammed into another and launched it into the air, much like one croquette ball striking another. This boulder was headed straight towards the griffins. Sarah screamed a warning but her shouts were drowned out by the approaching wall of dirt and debris.

  The huge golem cocked its right arm back and smashed it forward, striking the stone just before it could make contact. The giant boulder exploded into a thousand gravel-sized pieces. The earth elemental stepped in front of the temporarily frozen-with-fear griffins and faced the onslaught of rock and debris. Within moments its massive stone arms were smashing through more of the tumbling boulders, swatting aside those too large to break, and shielding the cowering group from the smaller stones it deemed too small to break.

  “Stop hitting rocks and get them out of there!” Gareth shouted at the golem. “She’s not going to be able to hold the rest of the rocks for too much longer!”

  The golem turned and looked down at the griffins. From her vantage point Sarah could see that those that had been digging had stopped and were now scrambling around Nyx’s still form. One griffin darted in, grabbed something in its beak, and hurried off. The rest of the griffins immediately abandoned their digging and followed suit. Then she watched the rock creature scoop up Nyx’s body and follow the griffins, not stopping until they were safely out of harm’s way.

  Sarah finally gave her jhorun the cease and desist order. There was no longer any need to stop the impending landslide. Her right hand opened and she released the piece of amulet. Almost immediately the ground shook as the many tons of rock and stone came crashing down.

  She was suddenly wrenched sideways. Before she could even take a breath to fuel a scream she was airborne. Unsure of what had happened, Sarah prepared her tiring jhorun for a jump, but before she could issue the order she was back on solid ground. Confused as to what had happened she turned to see Pravara standing silently next to her. The dragon must have figured she was still in harm’s way and had taken action into her own claws to keep her safe. Sarah smiled up at her huge wyverian friend.

  “Thanks, Pravara,” Sarah said, raising her voice to be heard over the continuing clatter of falling stones. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Everyone is accounted for,” Gareth reported in from the other side of the dragon. “One elemental, one dra
gon, two humans, five griffins, and one cub.”

  Sarah hurried around Pravara’s large form and saw that the five adult griffins were standing over a tiny form. A form that wasn’t moving. She let out a cry and pushed by Thalian to kneel down in the soft grass.

  “Gareth, light.”

  A dozen fireballs appeared, scattered throughout the glade. Sarah inspected the tiny form no bigger than her corgi, Peanut. She swallowed nervously. This cub was young. It couldn’t have been more than a week or two old. What business did Nyx have in taking a cub this young, this fragile, on a hunt? Why hadn’t Nyx’s mate been caring for the cub?

  Sarah angrily blinked back her tears. She placed a hand on the tiny griffin’s tawny chest. The heartbeat was there, but it was faint. So very faint! She didn’t know anything about a griffin’s physiology. A quick glance at the rest of their motley group suggested that no one else knew what to do, either. It was up to her.

  “Alright, here’s what I need. Food. Archadius, you and the rest of the griffins go hunting. Find something that this little one can eat. Gareth? See if you can find some fresh water.”

  “I’m not supposed to leave you unprotected,” Gareth argued. “The king said you were in my care.”

  “Then leave your rock monster here. Hurry, okay?”

  Gareth looked up at the golem just as the elemental looked down at him.

  “Protect her,” Gareth commanded. He hurried off just as all the griffins took to the air.

  Sarah continued to run her fingers across the cub’s body. She couldn’t see any physical damage but that didn’t mean there weren’t any internal injuries. She couldn’t take that chance. Closing her eyes she brought up the same mental picture she had used before to bring half of the Amulet of Aria to her, namely the insides of their safe back home. She sent the amulet piece back and simultaneously teleported her medallion to her. She threw the thick leather cord around her neck, cupped the medallion in her hands, and gently applied pressure to two very specific points. The medallion’s hidden compartment opened, revealing a tiny crystal vial of kaormac juice. She knew that the precious liquid was capable of healing practically any injury.