Jake's Break - Book Six of Wizards

by John Booth

  [WHO ARE YOU?]

  “Jake Morrissey. I’m a friend.”

  The fire subsided, grudgingly.

  [HUMANS USED TO KNOW THEIR PLACE IN THE MULTIVERSE.]

  My eyes adjusted to the gloom. In one of the many caves that dotted the amphitheater I saw a pair of glowing red eyes. Judging by their size and spacing I was talking to a humongous dragon. You can judge the age of a dragon by its size as they never stop growing. This one must be truly ancient.

  “I’m looking for my friend, Retnor.”

  [LOOK SOMEWHERE ELSE. HE IS NOT HERE.]

  “Can you tell me where he is?” Dragons are connected by telepathy, though telepathy is probably the wrong word. They know stuff about each other.

  The big red eyes blinked.

  [YOU KNOW TOO MUCH.]

  “I am a friend,” I said, trying to project my friendliness at him.

  Oily smoke drifted across the amphitheater and nearly choked me. I had to magic the fumes from my lungs.

  [HE IS FAR AWAY. HE SAYS YOU CAN USE JENNY TO LOCATE HIM. COME SOON.]

  “Like that is going to be easy.”

  [GO HUMAN. I TIRE OF YOU.]

  He raised a giant clawed foot and I decided there was something to be said for discretion. I hopped to the Bat Cave.

  Fortunately, I had left my phone in the Bat Cave some months ago. We had wired the cave for electricity ages ago and it was a safe place to let it charge. Once I switched it on and wiped the dust off it, it was ready to go. I decided to carry it with me until the end of the mid-term break.

  Jenny’s worried face blew me away. I always forget how beautiful she is when I haven’t seen her for a while. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

  “It’s okay. You can come home. Retnor wants us to go to him. He seems disturbed. Your parents are on their way here along with the twins. I called them a few minutes ago.”

  I hopped home after ending the call.

  Jenny stepped into my arms and we hugged. She snuggled closer and only the doorbell stopped us from getting more intimate. Jenny said an unladylike word.

  “I shouldn’t have called them. We could have dropped off Merlin later.”

  “Where is he?” I asked

  “In his room.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Merlin glided into the room, his head at his mother’s height. Jenny ignored him and went to answer the door. He flew up to me and thumped me.

  “You left without saying goodbye.”

  It took me a moment to realize he was talking for Morgana.

  “Tell your sister I won’t do it again.”

  Merlin grinned. “She says you always say that.”

  “I always mean to say goodbye.”

  My son opened his arms and fell into mine. I tickled him and he started to laugh.

  The twins charged into the room and froze when they saw me.

  “Hello, brother,” Britney said. “We thought you were banned.”

  “Jenny doesn’t want to get so big it shows,” Brad put in.

  “How’s the wizarding business?”

  I smiled at Britney. “It’s fine. Have you had any luck convincing anybody?”

  Her fists clenched. Dad had made me tell them what I was last year, and had been surprised when I didn’t put any sort of mind control on them not to tell other people. I thought it would be funnier to let them tell the press if they wanted too. As I anticipated, not even the dafter tabloids had printed the story. It had also ruined the twins’ credibility with the newspapers. My life on Earth has been colorful enough to attract all sorts of media interest, but nobody wants to print something that makes them look like an idiot.

  Merlin struggled to be put down and made no attempt to fly in front of the twins. According to Jenny he likes to tease them, though I hadn’t been home often enough to see it myself.

  Dad and Mam entered the room followed by Jenny.

  “I’ll just go and put on the tea,” Jenny said and headed off to the kitchen.

  I kissed Mam and hugged Dad. He pulled out the pipe he never lights and sat down.

  “Is term over?” Mam asked.

  “Let the lad sit down before you start interrogating him.”

  “I’m back home for a few weeks. Hoping to solve this problem with Jenny and Esmeralda, once and for all.”

  “Shouldn’t have done it to them in the first place,” Britney said. She fell over with a gasp as Merlin pushed her in the tummy.

  “Merlin,” I said as sternly as my delight would allow.

  “Not Daddy’s fault,” said Merlin. I waited to see if he would say more, but Britney got up and started to chase him. My son bounced away and out of the room. Brad also gave chase.

  Mam stood up. “I should stop them.”

  “He won’t hurt them,” I said and she hesitated before sitting down again.

  Dad gave me a sharp look. “Did you ever do this sort of thing? I don’t remember.”

  “I was a saint as a child,” I said smugly.

  Jenny arrived with the tea. I should point out at this point that this is a British thing. No matter what the occasion, the first thing we are bound to do is offer guests a cup of tea. It may be a law and it is certainly treated as one in Wales.

  “You want us to look after Merlin?” Mam asked.

  “Just for a few hours,” Jenny said. She saw the look in my parent’s eyes and continued quickly. “Not for… you know. We are going to visit Retnor.”

  “It’s none of our business,” Dad said quickly.

  “He’s somewhere out there,” I waved, indicating the multiverse in general.

  “Yes,” Mam said. Neither of my parents was eager to talk about that part of our lives. It made them uncomfortable.

  “And you think you can solve this problem with Jenny?” Dad said.

  “Someone says they can do it. For a price.”

  “And you believe them?” Jenny asked. Ignoring the whole ‘price’ issue.

  I nodded and she sighed with relief.

  “I will be so glad to have this child.”

  She wasn’t really showing, but I knew what she meant.

  We found Merlin sitting on top of the twins. While they were eight years older than him it was clear who had won.

  I lifted Merlin into the air and cuddled him. “Mommy and I are going on a trip.”

  “Forever?” Britney asked hopefully.

  “And your Granny and Granddad are going to look after you for a few hours while we are gone. Don’t hurt the twins too much.”

  Britney got off her brother and ran out of the room as if the devil was after her. Brad winced as he got up and followed her.

  “I won’t hurt them,” Merlin said conscientiously, but I could see his fingers were crossed.

  Jenny lifted him out of my hands and hugged him. “We won’t be gone long.”

  She put him down and I made preparations by examining her with the special sight Betty had bequeathed me. The seemingly fragile link between her and Fluffy barely left her head before vanishing into hop space. It was almost invisible.

  I found the right form of magic to lock onto the link and took my wife’s hand.

  “Here we go.”

  6. The Roos

  It wasn’t a simple transition. Wherever Fluffy was, it was inconceivably far from Earth. Hop Space caught at my mind as I followed the link as it wove through universes, in and out of space-time and down rabbit holes.

  “What went wrong?” Jenny asked as we arrived gasping for breath.

  I looked around. We were in a very large cave lit by pools of dragonfire. I had to adjust my mind for distances as I saw a dragon I took for Fluffy and then realized it was Galator. Galator is much bigger than Fluffy and my dragon looked like a hatchling beside him. They must be at least half a mile away.

  “Nothing. It just took a while.”

  “More like an eternity,” Jenny complained. “You could go mad looking at the things in there.”

  I took her hand
and hopped us to the dragons. They were standing beside a circular pool of water; an Olympic sized pool, to be accurate.

  [IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU, WIZARD MORRISSEY.] Galator said. His words seemed to bounce off the inside of my skull and my teeth ached when he finished.

  [We have been waiting some time. Impatiently,] Fluffy said.

  “Then you should have said something. You could have hopped back to the Bat Cave and left a message.”

  [It is not a simple task to hop from there to here.]

  “My tutors say that all hops take the same time once you know the route.”

  [YOUR TUTORS ARE REMARKABLY ILL INFORMED.]

  Jenny had run ahead to Fluffy and put her arms around his neck.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  [You told me to go away.]

  Jenny blushed. “I didn’t want to get any more pregnant.”

  Watching Fluffy and Jenny nuzzling was making me jealous. I turned to Galator.

  “Why did you want us here?”

  [To confirm the presence of the Krake,] Fluffy answered for Galator. [Unlike you, we cannot see them.]

  “You want me to use the Knife of Truth?” I instinctively reached for the knife. If I spread my blood on the blade, hidden things become visible to me and to those around me. Not that I needed that to see the Krake anymore, but the Dragons would.

  [Only confirmation is required,] Fluffy said a little testily. [We are almost certain of our facts and do not require personal proof.]

  Jenny looked around the cave. “Are they here? Right now?”

  Fluffy laughed and two of us shielded Jenny from the flames that shot from his nostrils.

  [This world, yes. But this cave is in the heart of a mountain and they have no reason to come here.]

  Which raised a point that had been bothering me for ages. “I still don’t know why the Dragons are so obsessed by the Krake. Why have you searched so hard for them?”

  Galator snorted and the cave was enveloped in flame. When we could see again Fluffy took it upon himself to explain.

  [The Krake are fairy-tales. They should not exist. Why would energy beings be interested in the affairs of physical beings? How did they evolve their power to control us? They are illogical and that is catnip to the Dragons.]

  I couldn’t see why it mattered. Apart from the Krakes interactions with the Diabli, they were just another species searching after power for its own sake. And they hadn’t set the Diabli free, so I wasn’t too bothered that they were talking to them.

  “Do you have a theory?” Jenny asked. I sighed. Asking a question like that of a Dragon was inviting a two hour lecture.

  [We think they were manufactured.]

  I waited for more, but Fluffy left it at that. It was most unlike him.

  “Let’s have a look, shall we then?” I suggested.

  [THIS IS A SCRYING POOL,] Galator told us. [Ancient Dragon Magic. it can show what is happening anywhere IN the world beyond.]

  Fluffy stepped forward with Jenny riding on his neck. I walked alongside, being careful to give him plenty of room. When I looked in the water, there was nothing to see.

  Galator made a gesture and the pool filled with white light. This slowly dimmed to reveal a scene that could have come straight out of a children’s cartoon.

  Four kangaroos stood at a table. They looked cute in the clothes that covered their upper body. As I looked more closely I saw that they weren’t really kangaroos, though the resemblance was remarkable.

  “Are they controlled by the Krake?” Jenny asked.

  [It would be unlikely to show through the pool,] Fluffy put in. [However, the minds of these creatures are too small to support the intelligence they display.]

  “What are they called?” I asked.

  Black smoked spurted from Fluffy’s nostrils.

  [I expect they call themselves ‘people’. Almost every sentient creature does.]

  That’s what you get for asking a silly question.

  “Then I christen them the Roos. You may thank me later.”

  [You can get to where they are by hopping through the pool.]

  That sounded both eminently silly and also like a plan. Without saying anything I hopped into the pool.

  And crash landed on the wooden floor of the room, skidding across it and picking up a couple of splinters on the way.

  “For fucks sake,” I said without thinking. Getting rid of the splinters, I healed my stinging buttocks.

  The Roos stood staring at me. They didn’t appear particularly friendly. One reached for something on his belt.

  I put up a shield just in time to stop the first bullet. Two more followed in quick succession.

  “Midor!” one of the Roos said, raising a human like hand. The one with the gun stopped firing at me, but he kept it pointing at me and his aim never wavered.

  One of the Roos seemed to be deep in thought. He snapped out of it to address me in English. “You are a long way from Earth, little Drepon.”

  I had had long enough to give him the scan with my special sight. All of them were ridden by Krake. Fluffy would be pleased.

  “Sorry, I was hopping somewhere else. Be seeing you.”

  I tried to hop, but the path was blocked. Everybody seemed to be doing that to me these days.

  “Stay and take some refreshment with us. You have wandered a long way from home.”

  The Roos with the gun had been playing with its settings. He fired at me again and the shell went straight through my shield. Fortunately, I ducked and it whizzed past my ear. The bullet was coated in magic and shone red.

  I’m a dab hand at getting through hop barriers because I’ve had a lot of practice lately, usually in situations just like this one. The barrier turned out to be an interesting wave of structured spells, each very easy to get around, but in combination quite formidable. I froze the wave, cut through the barrier and vanished.

  As I left the room I changed my mind about my destination and diverted into Hop Space. Two of the Roos came after me. I strode through the mists, rendering the mist back to an untouched state behind me. Hop Space isn’t actually real, the mists are only an analogy to give the mind something to grasp, but what I was doing covered my trail as effectively as if the mists were London smog.

  I slid into a nearby universe, flitting across its galaxies. For a second I entered physical space, using magic to protect me from the lack of atmosphere. This gave me the time to see a star and hop towards it. I waited for a few minutes to see if the Roos had managed to track me. When it was certain they had failed, I hopped back to the cave under the mountain.

  “Get out of here and cover your tracks in Hop Space,” I said as soon as I arrived. “They were all ridden by Krake and they recognized me as coming from Earth from just three words of English.”

  [We need to remove all traces in case they have followed you,] Fluffy said. [Take Jenny home.]

  I took my wife into my arms and hopped back to Earth. Galator was right and my professors were wrong. It took many minutes to make the journey and Jenny was far from pleased about it when we emerged in our bedroom.

  “That place is disgusting.” Jenny pushed away from me. “Those shapes made me think of slugs and the mist was slimy.”

  She shuddered. “I need a shower, followed by a bath.”

  “You’ve never complained before.”

  “It’s never been like that before. The longer we stayed the worse it got.”

  I shrugged. Hop Space had always seemed all right to me.

  “And do you always run like that? We were watching you in the pool. I didn’t think a few Kangaroos with guns would frighten you.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Why are you so mad at me?”

  Jenny grabbed my head kissed me brutally. Then she pulled at my shirt, trying to rip it off me. I got the message and stripped us naked, putting locking magic on the door while I was still able to think coherently.

  7. Mission Creep

  “I have so
missed you.” Jenny said forty minutes later. “I think I’d rather be all bloated up for a couple of years than send you away again.”

  I kissed her on the forehead.

  “It shouldn’t be necessary. I have a little task to perform for Bronwyn and then this curse will be lifted.”

  Jenny sat up as if she had been stung. “Bronwyn knows how to cure this and she never said? That’s it. She’s never coming round here again. I ought to box her ears.”

  I pulled Jenny on top of me and distracted her with some subtle kissing of her left nipple. Sometime later, we disengaged.

  “Bronwyn has a world to protect. She can be a bit like Esmeralda at times.”

  Jenny nodded. “But still, it’s been over a year and she’s a friend.”

  I had a vision of Morgana when I first asked her if she wanted a sibling, ‘Not now’ she said, as if there was a plan I wasn’t party to.

  “Maybe the stars have to be in the right alignment? I’m sure Bronwyn wouldn’t have held off without a reason.”

  Jenny pushed me away. “Perhaps she was looking for a task for you. What does she want you to do? Fight an army? Four kangaroos stopped you today.”

  I sighed. “She wants me to go to the Diamond Worlds and find out where they are getting their technology.”

  “That’s the place with those knights who want to serve your head on a platter?”

  I nodded and grinned, but my wife was not amused.

  “You’re as subtle as a sledgehammer, Jake. Why would she send you?”

  “To stir things up, I expect. If it all gets too hairy I shall run away. I’m not a hero.”

  Jenny pushed me flat on the bed and rested her head on my chest. “Don’t you ever be a hero. Do you hear me?”

  I hopped to the Bat Cave in search of Fluffy. I found him chewing on the charred remains of a Welsh sheep.

  [Galator is observing the cave from another location. If the Krake find it, it will help to define their capabilities.]

  “You’re assuming they will come riding Roos,” I pointed out.

  Fluffy shrugged. [In all the time we were watching, they never left a host.]

  I quickly filled him in on Bronwyn’s task and the prize at the end of it.