Chasing A Spectre (War for Dominance Book 0)

by Chris Kennedy

  Milos chose that moment to walk through the mirror, bumping into Dantes, who in turn knocked Ghorza off the platform onto the floor, three feet below. “Natate,” she commanded, casting a cushion spell to help her land softly.

  Smaller than the teufling, Milos bounced off him to the side. He fell onto the platform, with his right foot ending up in one of the depressions. The metal piece proved to be a pipe, as water came spurting out of it, drenching his felt shoe.

  “Just my luck,” he sighed. “Now I have to walk around squelching all day. And what is that smell? Did something die?”

  “No,” replied Dantes. “I think we’re in a very large outhouse,”

  “Really?” asked Ghorza. “Then what are those white things hanging on the wall over there?”

  “I believe those are for men to urinate in,” Dantes explained.

  “But, you would have to be standing...um...never mind,” Ghorza trailed off, her skin beginning to tinge a darker shade of green. Dantes smiled; it was rare to embarrass Ghorza.

  “It’s not an outhouse,” corrected Milos, who had opened the door a crack and was peering out. “We’re inside a large building.”

  “Interesting,” Dantes said, pushing open one of the stall doors. He walked into the stall and looked critically at the white porcelain structure for a few seconds before shrugging his shoulders. “Aside from the smell in here, there is no evidence that this is an outhouse. I wonder if someone cleans out these bowls.”

  As Dantes left the stall, there was a loud ‘wooosh’ from behind him. He turned around in time to see all the water empty and then refill. “Water magic,” he said, nodding his head. “The water is trained to know when you are using it, and when you are done. At that time, it removes your waste to the manure pile.”

  He walked over to the shelf with the depressions in it and held his hands under the metal piece where the water had run over Milos’ shoe. Once again, water poured out of the metal tube. “How thoughtful,” he added. “A place to get water for your familiar.”

  “Hurray, that’s wonderful,” remarked Milos from the door. “However, neither of you have familiars, so what’s the point? You need to come and see what’s going on outside of this inside outhouse. You’re never going to believe this.”

  The two junior wizards walked to the door, and Milos opened it further so that all three could look out. The riot of color and noise on the other side of the door was unlike anything they had ever seen. There were a good number of elves, at least five of the Klingons and a few members from several other races. The majority of the people that could be seen were humans, and most of them were dressed in a manner unlike anything the group had ever seen before.

  “I’ve travelled throughout most of Tasidar,” said Dantes, “and I’ve never seen people that dressed like that. Nor have I ever seen a building that looks like this.”

  “Neither have I,” said Ghorza. Most of the people they could see had trousers that were cut above their knees, showing most of the skin of their legs. Scandalous! “If they wore that where I grew up, most of them would be raped repeatedly. The men as well as the women.”

  “This must be a very mercantile society,” mused Dantes. “I can’t read what it says on their tunics, but nearly all of them are advertising something.”

  Ghorza looked down at her own clothes, comparing them to what she was seeing. “Our clothes are different than what most of the people here are wearing; however, there are enough wearing similar things that we ought to be able to pass as locals without arousing too much suspicion.”

  “Except for these,” said Milos, rubbing one of Dantes’ horns. “I don’t see any demon spawn out there.”

  Dantes slapped Milos’ hand away. “You’re going to see a demon spawn’s fist if you touch me again.”

  “Easy,” said Ghorza. She pursed her lips as she gazed out the door. “Perhaps we should split up and search this building to see what we can find. Let’s meet back here in an hour.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Dantes agreed. “If I have to stay near Milos much longer, I am afraid I will forget my vows. Then again, in this new place, I wonder if the vows still hold...”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to use magic?” asked Milos, changing the subject. “Couldn’t you just teleport us to the Spectre?”

  “No,” said Ghorza. “I don’t have a group Teleport spell. That is a higher level spell than I can currently cast. Besides, I’d be afraid to use it here. Something feels weird with the magic.”

  “What do you mean, ‘feels weird with the magic,’” asked Dantes. “I haven’t noticed anything wrong with it.”

  “That’s because you haven’t cast anything yet,” explained Ghorza. “There’s not as much magic here. It took my manna longer to refill after I cast the cantrip than I have ever felt before. Not only is there less magic here, but what exists is less potent. If you cast anything greater than a second-level spell, you won’t be able to recharge and do it again anytime soon. I don’t know if I’ll be able to use that Translate spell again today. It’s a good thing I have two.”

  “Scintilla!” commanded Dantes. A spark shot from his pointer claw.

  “I see what you mean,” agreed Dantes. The void in his manna took more than four times as long to refill than it would have at home. “If even a cantrip takes that long to refill, real spells are going to take days to refill...maybe even weeks, depending on the level.”

  “Exactly!” said Ghorza. “Like I said, there is less magic here, and it is less potent, as well.”

  Dantes frowned. “That bodes ill for us. We will have to use our minds and not our magic to the greatest extent possible.” That worried him, as Ghorza was too impulsive with her magic for his taste. Normally, her magic refilled more quickly than anyone else he knew; she would often throw spells without thinking, knowing that she would be able to cast them again in no time. The warning was spoken for her benefit, not because he had come up with some earth-shattering insight, but because he was hoping to restrain her profligacy.

  Seeing that Ghorza wasn’t going to argue, Dantes added, “We’ll also have to use our feet. Let’s go take a look around. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

  * * *

  “Did anyone find anything?” Ghorza asked an hour later, after they had reunited.

  “Beside lots of strange people doing strange things and talking in a strange language?” asked Milos. “No, I didn’t.”

  “I found the merchant’s quarter,” said Ghorza. “There was a giant room, with all manner of people selling all sorts of things.”

  “Was one of those things lunch?” asked Milos. “I’m really hungry.”

  “No,” replied Ghorza. “None of those things was lunch.” She reached into her traveling bag. “I did, however, purchase you each one of the local tunics, what they call ‘t-shirts,’ so that you can blend in.”

  “How did you pay for that?” asked Dantes, who knew it would take more than one of the local tunics for him to blend in. A lot more. “Do they take our coins?”

  “I used an Obscure spell,” Ghorza replied. “The merchants thought they were receiving their own coins, but they were ours.”

  Dantes shook his head at her unnecessary use of magic. She would never learn. “Well, I found something,” he related, “as well as a lot of people who wanted to touch my horns.”

  “You didn’t kill anyone, I hope?” inquired Ghorza, knowing how much he hated that. She had rubbed them once when they first met. She still had the scar to prove it.

  “No, although many of them deserved it,” he replied. His shoulders twitched in a small shrug. “Follow me; I will show you what I found.”

  They walked into one of the larger rooms, pushing their way through the throng. The noise the crowd made in the enclosed area rivaled the clamor of the animal pens at a slaughterhouse. The people didn’t smell much better, either. The group worked its way across the room to a corner that held a large square of parchment-like material, with squiggles
covering most of its surface.

  “I think that this may be some sort of directory for what is going on here,” Dantes noted. “While I was walking around, I saw many people come by this board, point at something and then walk away quickly in a new direction. Although we don’t have much magic here, I think that casting a Read Languages spell on it might help us determine where to start our search.”

  “I’m willing to try it,” agreed Ghorza, thinking ahead for once, “but I only have one of them memorized. I probably won’t be able to cast it again today.”

  “I think it’s a risk we have to take,” replied Dantes.

  “We need to do something,” agreed Milos. “He could be anywhere by now.”

  Ghorza closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, she commanded, “Videamus,” and pointed her finger at the sheet.

  Before their eyes, the letters took on a life of their own, the words disassembling and reassembling of their own volition. “FanCon,” the document read, “A Convention Dedicated to Fantasy in All its Forms.”

  Dantes scanned the document quickly, hoping to find something before the spell ended. “By the five gods of good!” he exclaimed. “It’s the Spectre!”

  “What?” asked Ghorza, who had always been a slower reader. “Where?”

  Dantes pointed to one of the events.

  “Costuming 101,” Ghorza read. “How to appear as someone or something you’re not, using only the things in your closet.” She paused and then added, “Presented by ‘the Spectre’ in room 105. I think we’ve found our man.”

  “Wonderful,” said Milos, as the words started going back to their previous language. “Do you know where this ‘room 105’ is, or when he is supposed to be giving this presentation?”

  “Most of the people have been going down this hallway,” noted Dantes, his eyes and a nod indicating which one he meant. “We can copy down what the number looks like now and search the hallway for it. As to when he will be in there, we will just have to wait and hope we haven’t missed him.”

  The group was in luck. After only a cursory search, they found a room that had the designated numbers on a plate over the doorway. An elf was at the front of the room, speaking in a language they didn’t understand.

  “I don’t think that’s Elven she’s speaking,” said Ghorza.

  “It’s not,” Dantes replied. “She’s not an elf; she’s just dressed like one.”

  “How do you know?” asked Ghorza.

  “She doesn’t smell like one, for one thing,” Dantes explained. “Her ears aren’t pointy enough for another.”

  “What does an elf smell like?” asked Ghorza as the door opened, and more people came in.

  Dantes watched a young man walk by carrying a large bundle of clothing. “Tasty,” he replied distractedly.

  Milos noticed the object of Dantes’ attention. “It’s him!” he whispered. “It’s the Spectre!”

  The whisper was too loud, as the young man turned to peer at them through thick glasses, giving Dantes a chance to inspect him. The man was medium height and thin; he looked far too young and scrawny to be a warrior. In fact, he looked too scrawny to be much of anything except some sort of clerical transcriber in one of the new tax offices that had recently sprung up. Dantes shrugged. As he well knew, looks could be deceiving.

  Not recognizing anyone in the group, the Spectre turned back and walked to the front row, where he took a seat and set down his bundle.

  The not-elf must have asked for questions, because she was now talking back and forth with people in the audience. After a couple of minutes of this, the audience began slapping their hands together. Dantes thought that it looked like they were doing it in approval, so he joined in. Milos joined in making the slapping noise too, after Dantes elbowed him.

  As the slapping noise ended, Dantes watched as many of the people in the audience got up and left the room, pushing past other people that were entering.

  “I think he must be the next presenter,” Ghorza said as the Spectre took the spot previously held by the not-elf.

  Dantes smiled. “Yes, I believe so,” he agreed. Ghorza had a knack for stating the obvious that rivaled her careless use of magic.

  They watched as the Spectre began a demonstration of how to change a person’s appearance. He started by showing the audience how to cut up black sheets to make a cloak that would render the wearer hard to see at night, and then he made masks out of an assortment of materials. He finished by showing the audience how to make themselves appear bigger than normal.

  As he began the last topic, Milos whispered to Ghorza, “Aren’t you going to cast a Translate spell so that we can understand him? This is exactly what he does back home. Maybe he will make a mistake and mention our world!”

  “I don’t have the manna to cast a Translate spell right now,” Ghorza whispered back. “If I cast it, I will have to use some of my own life force, and I don’t think it’s worth three years of my life to hear what he is saying. It’s obvious enough to me that he is the Spectre.”

  After a few more minutes there was another question and answer session, and then the people repeated the hand slapping. When they finished, the Spectre gathered up his materials and walked to the door, stopping to interact with several members of the audience on his way out.

  Ghorza, Dantes and Milos got up and followed him out.

  “What do you think?” asked Ghorza.

  “I agree that he is the Spectre,” Dantes replied. “I think we should follow him until he leads us back to his lair.”

  “I hope he goes to get some lunch,” said Milos. “Can you do that trick again with the money?”

  “No, I cannot,” Ghorza answered. “Focus. Have you never missed a meal before?”

  “Many times,” replied Milos. “That doesn’t mean that I want to do it again.”

  The group followed the Spectre for the remainder of the afternoon, splitting up from time to time so as not to draw his attention. The crowd was large enough that Milos and Ghorza were able to blend in fairly well; unfortunately, nearly everyone seemed to want to touch Dantes’ horns. His mood worsened as the afternoon wore on.

  The crowd started thinning as dinner time approached, and people went in search of their evening meals. Dantes sighed in relief as the Spectre finally left the area that the convention was using for its gathering. The group followed him through the building and into an open space that extended upwards over 100 feet. Looking up, they saw that they were in the largest building any of them had ever seen; there were at least ten floors above them.

  “By the seventh level of hell,” mumbled Ghorza. “What is this place?”

  “It must be some sort of inn,” guessed Dantes. “Look! The people on each level seem to be going into or coming out of rooms. The Spectre must be going to his room.”

  “Finally!” breathed Milos. “Maybe we can finally catch him and then get some dinner.”

  The group dropped back as the Spectre approached the open area, and they lost the cover and concealment of the crowd. The Spectre crossed the area without looking back, halting in front of a closed door. He pushed a button on the wall next to it that lit up. The group moved closer, so they could see what he was doing.

  The door slid open, and several humans and an elf walked out of a small room. The Spectre walked in. “Let’s follow him,” Ghorza urged.

  “No,” Dantes disagreed. “We need to catch him with the crown, and it doesn’t look like he has it. Let’s wait and see if he comes back out. Maybe he’s just going into another outhouse.”

  The door shut. A light above the door moved from left to right, illuminating various squiggles, some of which corresponded to the numbers they had seen previously. On the fifth squiggle the light paused, and then it went back to the left, pausing again on one of the others. When the light reached the left end, the door opened, and a number of people walked out. The Spectre wasn’t one of them.

  “You’ve lost him again!” hissed Milos.


  A thought occurred to Dantes, and he ran back out into the open area. Looking up, a smile brightened his face for the first time that day. He motioned for the other two to join him, his face glowing.

  “I take it that you had an idea,” Ghorza said as she approached him. “Careful, you are about to catch fire.”

  Dantes went through a mental calming ritual, and his face lost its glow. Happily, he hadn’t broken into full flame; that would have been difficult to explain.

  “That is a magic room,” Dantes said, pointing at the door that had closed again. “It has been enchanted with air magic to take people up to different levels and bring them back down. The button the Spectre pushed must have activated it. I saw him going into a room on the fifth level above us.”

  “Should we follow him up?” asked Ghorza. “He may have the crown in the room up there.”

  “Can you show me which room?” asked Milos. “I can try to find a bird or squirrel to look into it.”

  Dantes pointed to one of the rooms. Milos’ eyes went blank as he searched the area for wildlife to use. Finally he nodded once and then seemed to sway back and forth as if gliding through the air. With a jolt, the swaying stopped. After a couple of seconds he started nodding as if lifting something with his mouth. Without warning, he jumped backward, and the light came back into his eyes.

  “I found it!” Milos exclaimed. “He is the Spectre. The crown is on some sort of balcony in the back of his room, covered by a rag.”

  “Let’s go get it back,” said Dantes, fires raging in his eyes.

  “I can probably use an air current to get up to his level,” Ghorza said, gazing up at the Spectre’s level, “but I can’t get you up there, too.”

  “We’ll take the magic room,” Dantes said. He walked over to the door and pushed the same button the Spectre had pushed. The lights on top of the door moved from right to left. When the one on the left illuminated, the door opened.

  The group walked into the room. After a pause, the door shut.

  “Umm...now what?” asked Ghorza.