Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  Fahtin leaned forward, elbows on the table, and opened her eyes wide. “Tell us the story. We have to wait for Raki to wake anyway. I would love to hear it.”

  “I…I suppose I could tell you about it. Yes, I could.” He sat across the table from Fahtin. “Where to start? Should it be a long story or a short one? Hmmm.”

  “Maybe just give us the bones of it, Urun,” Tere Chizzit said. “Elsewise, you’ll be speaking still when the sun goes down, and we all starve to death.”

  The younger man looked to Tere, stared at him for a moment, and then looked away as he was raising his chin. “I really do not know what you are talking about, Tere Chizzit.” He smiled and looked toward Fahtin. “But I will give you the bones of the story.”

  He settled into his chair and began his tale.

  Khrazhti had seen many victories in her three thousand years of existence, and she had seen a few defeats. She preferred victories. The news she had just received was not of a victory.

  “Another search party has gone missing?” she asked General Daosa.

  “High Priestess, it was not even a score of searchers. They are easily replaced.”

  “No, General,” she said. “You don’t seem to understand. This one we are hunting, he is the Gneisprumay, I have no doubt. His power is such that he can destroy animaru. Actually destroy them. Not send back their essence to their spawning ground if they have the twinkling, but actually end their existence forever. Do you understand that, General?”

  “I do, My Lady. Forgive me. I do not mean to minimize the value of our troops. I merely mean to say—”

  “General Daosa, I will be very clear. We have a limited number of troops in this world. We cannot afford to lose them endlessly. You must control them. Give them orders. If they detect the One, they must request reinforcements. A sufficient number can overcome our foe. We must do this intelligently.”

  “Yes, My Lady.” The general saluted.

  “Begone,” Khrazhti said. “Find the Gneisprumay and destroy him. Our god is waiting. We must do our part.”

  “Yes, My Lady. I will see it done.” The general saluted again and left the room.

  Was it too much to ask for her orders to be carried out? She thought not. She had never had trouble tracking her foes and defeating them, not in thousands of years. Of course, that was on her own world, one she knew well. This place was too strange, too different. Not for the first time, she wondered if she would have preferred not having the privilege of commanding her forces here.

  But, of course, that way of thinking brought no glory to S’ru. She had been shown great honor in being allowed to make way for her god to come to this world. She must remember that. She would learn how to manipulate things in this world as she had in her own. She would not fail.

  “They are here, My Lady,” the attendant said.

  “Good. Let them in.”

  The attendant opened the door and two of Khrazhti’s finest resources entered.

  Koixus strode in first, as was typical, being more assertive than Maenat. One would never know that they were exactly opposite when it came to battle.

  Koixus’s tall, thin form was much lighter in color than most of the others, a gray to their black, but if anything, she reveled in being different. Khrazhti, with her light blue skin, knew exactly how the other felt in that respect. As Koixus walked, her grace and fluidity had a mesmerizing effect. Her yellow eyes, another rarity, blinked only once every few minutes and always seemed to be staring. As one would expect, she was very observant. And, of course, very dangerous.

  Maenat was half a foot shorter than Koixus, and whereas she had not one strand of hair on her entire body, he was covered in coarse black hair from head to toe. His red eyes blazed with the magic he used—and used well—against his foes. He meekly followed Koixus into the room, but when it came time to attack, he took great pleasure in being first in viciously pushing against his enemies, the more the better. The only time Khrazhti had ever seen him smile was when he was in battle.

  “You have been briefed on the situation,” she said to them. There was no use wasting time. “The Gneisprumay has been located and must be destroyed. He is proving to be difficult. I want you two to hunt him down and end his opposition. It is the first and most important step in bringing S’ru to this world.”

  Koixus stretched her finger until it resembled the blade of a knife. Then she used it to pick at her teeth. “Is this one truly so powerful that the army cannot take him?”

  “He uses the magic of life and light,” Khrazhti said, “as was foretold. His magic can actually destroy the essence of the animaru. Not respawning due to the twinkling. I mean truly end the existence of any animaru he overcomes. It is unthinkable, but it is true. We have lost scores of soldiers already.”

  “Hmmm,” Koixus said, stretching two of her other fingers into long ovals and slapping them together, making a clanging noise.

  Khrazhti was irritated by her habit, but said nothing. If she kept her skill at elongating her form useful by playing these little games, so be it.

  “I wonder how this one’s life magic would fare against my death magic,” Maenat said. “It would be an epic battle indeed.”

  Khrazhti watched his red eyes as they glazed over. He was running through scenarios in his mind again, a grand battle of death magic versus life. Warfare was everything to Maenat. He was a master at the use of the death magic, and he had jumped at the opportunity to come to this world.

  “Imagine,” he had said to her while still in Aruzhelim, “an entire world full of creatures we have not battled before. How many can I battle there?”

  “As many as you like,” Khrazhti had said. “Our primary goal is to end life on that world so that S’ru can take it for his own and the animaru can populate it. There are many things there that have life. Not just humans, but animals and even plants.” That last word was one not native to their tongue. She had to learn it in the imitation language that had been used on the new world, this Alaqotim. They had no such things on their world.

  Maenat’s eyes focused again and he sighed. “How many troops will be assigned to us?” The two were assassins, and so usually worked alone or with one or two others. This time it would be different.

  “As many as you think you might need,” Khrazhti said. “They can travel with you or follow you. You have complete command of them. I will draw them equally from the generals’ troops. Let me be clear. I know you enjoy playing with your foes, but I want this Gneisprumay killed as quickly as possible. There are plenty of other things for you to play with in this world. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” Koixus said.

  Maenat just nodded.

  “Good. Start immediately. I want you and your forces out of this fortress by the end of the day.”

  The two assassins saluted and left the room, leaving Khrazhti alone once again. This time, the One would die. Everything would become easier after that. She knew it would.

  Chapter 37

  Urun Chinowa had been a curious child. Not only that, but he was unique among those he knew for his adoration and devotion to nature and all the things of the natural world. Plants, trees, rivers, rocks, all the animals and the insects, he took joy in seeing all of them. His earliest recollections were of fighting with other kids to prevent them from killing insects.

  While other children his age played war and fought with sticks, Urun was exploring, marveling at the wonder of the nearby woods bordering the Grundenwald. He was expressly forbidden to enter that ancient forest because of the many dangers, but the more civilized bordering trees were fine with him. The more he explored, the more the desire burned in him to learn more about the natural world.

  When he was nine years old, he found Magda, the healer in his small village of Brausprech. He had seen her before, of course, but did not know the role she played in the village. When he found out, he was amazed.

  “You use plants to make sick people well again?” he asked.

  �
�Yes,” she said. She was old even then, her voice sounding like two rocks being rubbed together and chips of each falling off.

  “That is amazing!” he told her and she smiled, showing half a set of teeth scattered in her mouth. Her wrinkled face became even more so, but the light in her eyes somehow made the entire picture comforting. Young Urun smiled back.

  He stopped to visit Magda nearly every day that he wasn’t doing chores on the small farm his family owned. He had an endless supply of questions for her, and when she began to let him watch her at her work in healing people, he sat there transfixed.

  “Would you like to help an old woman?” she asked him one day.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Come with me to gather herbs in the forest. My back and legs have been aching, and I could use a younger back to carry the things I find.”

  He knew it was an excuse. Though she was ancient—he never did ask exactly how old she was—she was spry and perfectly capable of gathering her herbs alone. She was giving him an excuse to learn more about her craft, and he appreciated it.

  He was soon learning the healing trade from her. She taught him where to find the herbs, what they did, how to prepare them, and many other things. Somehow, without ever speaking about it, he had become her apprentice, and he began to spend more and more time with her. His parents saw what was happening, and they went along with it because it was an opportunity for their son to gain a profession, even if it was one that was typically taken by women.

  When Urun was sixteen, he began to range farther and farther from the border forests and actually started entering the edge of the Grundenwald. He did so carefully, knowing full well that the natural world could be dangerous to the unwary. Within that ancient forest, he found other herbs that Magda had told him about but that he had never seen. He recognized them from the drawings he saw in an old tome the healer had, one that had been started by her grandmother and in which she continued to add entries. She was overjoyed when he brought the plants back to her.

  Excited by his discoveries, Urun Chinowa planned an expedition of several days to go deeper into the Grundenwald to explore.

  “You must be careful,” the old woman’s raspy voice admonished him. “There are many dangers in that place, especially as you delve deeper into the trees. Insects, animals, even plants can kill you there, without warning and without cause. You may be eaten, or your carcass may simply rot on the forest floor.”

  “I will be careful,” he told her, trying to hide his excitement and show a measure of fear. “I will bring you back wondrous plants you have never seen.”

  She nodded, smiled at him, and patted his cheek. “I would as soon have my apprentice back safe and whole.”

  Two days into his journey, much further than he had ever gone into the forest, he found the altar.

  It was overgrown with creepers, bushes, and grasses, but he saw the glint of some kind of metal through the foliage and went to investigate. It took him more than an hour to cut away the vegetation to see what he had stumbled upon.

  The stone altar—or was it wood so aged it resembled stone?—was simple but elegant. It consisted of a base with a curved, shallow bowl on top with a carving of a woman standing over the bowl. It was ancient if the erosion was any indication, the details of the woman softened and indistinct. The inside of the bowl and around the edges were gilded, shining dull gold in the diffuse light of the forest. He wondered who the woman was.

  The trip to that point had been relatively uneventful. He had encountered new types of plants and seen trees that must have been hundreds of years old. They radiated age and power, making him giddy with the expectation of grand discoveries ahead.

  Urun had collected roots, some berries and fruit from plants he recognized, and wild vegetables. He rarely ate meat, though he had no strict prohibition about doing so. After all, the grand chain of life included some animals and insects eating others, so it was not unnatural to do so. On this trip, however, he had not wanted to kill anything to eat.

  He was compelled to do something, to make an offering, even if only to get a measure of luck on his travels. But what would he offer, what would he say? He had never been a religious person, so he did not know how to pray.

  Urun settled on the choicest of the vegetables he had collected for an offering. The remaining food would not quite fill his belly, and evening was rapidly approaching so he could not forage for more, but that was all right. He could find more things to eat in the morning. He set about arranging the food in a way that seemed pleasing to the eye.

  At a loss for what to do next, he stood there, staring at the bowl of the altar, now filled with food. Should he say something, sing something? He didn’t know. Thinking about it, he added his most prized finding from his expedition, a rare herb he recognized from the description and drawing Magda’s grandmother had put in the book, white fennel. Even Magda had never seen the plant, and he had found one whole, with its bulbous roots in perfect condition. As he placed it on the altar with the other things, he hoped he would find more later.

  His offering complete, he bowed his head and said, “I offer these, the greatest of the fruits of my searching. I am a trespasser but mean no harm, and by my offering, I pray that you will find me worthy of passing through your domain.” It seemed like the thing to say.

  There was no sound, no lightning or rumbling of the ground, nothing but the decreasing light of evening and the buzz of insects. Still, Urun Chinowa was filled with a sense of peace and contentment. He was satisfied with his offering, and that was good enough for him. He ate what little he had left in the way of fruit and vegetables, and rolled himself up in his cloak to sleep by the altar.

  Later, light shattered the darkness, like the sun at noon in a cloudless sky. Urun Chinowa woke immediately, putting his hands over his eyes to shield them. His heart raced. Whatever it was would surely end his life.

  He tried to see, but even with his hand blocking the light, it was too bright. He opened his lids slowly, his orbs aching from the intensity of the glare. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of trying to blink the tears from his eyes, he was able to lower his hand and see what lit the world brighter than it had been since he had entered the shadowed forest.

  In front of him, just beside the altar, stood a woman, glowing like the sun.

  She was tall and beautiful, her long blond hair tinged with green, and her eyes! Oh, those eyes. They were soft swirls of moss peeking through perfect patches of snow, the deep green drawing Urun in, making him feel that if he was truly going to die, he would have no objection to doing so like this. The woman smiled, and warmth suffused Urun’s body as if he was a rock in the sunlight.

  She walked two steps toward him, her perfectly formed body cradled by the diaphanous robe she wore. He couldn’t help but stare at her form, him being a young man and her so perfect an example of a woman. Parts of him other than his heart began to warm as well. When she smiled, he felt as if he would break from seeing such perfect beauty.

  “Urun Chinowa,” she said, her voice smooth stones sliding across wet velvet, “I have seen your offering and I look upon it with favor. You have sacrificed some of your own food, the finest you had, to me upon my altar. You are pleasing to me.”

  Finally able to move, Urun got to his knees, though he rued not being able to continue looking at her as he did so. “It felt as if it was the right thing to do, My Lady.”

  She laughed, her voice tinkling like tiny bells. Urun’s heart ached to hear it, and then wished it would continue when it stopped. “Do not call me ‘My Lady.’ You may call me by my name, Osulin.”

  “Osulin,” he repeated.

  “Do you not recognize me? Do you not know my name?”

  “I am sorry my…Osulin. I do not.” Urun felt embarrassed to his toes for not knowing her.

  “Have you not heard of my mother, Mellaine?” the woman asked.

  “Mellaine? The goddess Mellaine?” He was breathless.

  “Tha
t is she, though she has left these lands and among the Voordim, only I remain. You have not heard of me, then? Odd. I understood that my tale was told in the villages and cities of humankind.”

  “Forgive me,” Urun said, putting his forehead on the ground. “I did not associate much with other children as I grew, always doing other things. I have not heard many stories.”

  “Ah, yes,” Osulin said. “You were always busy exploring, learning of my realm, of the natural world. Raise your eyes to me, Urun Chinowa. Of all mankind, you share my passions and interests, you most of all.”

  He raised his eyes to hers, gray meeting green, and he almost swooned. Such power in those eyes. She stepped up to him and took one of his hands in hers.

  “Stand,” she said. “I would have you serve me, if you find it desirable. The world is changing, magic leaving the land and darkness on the horizon. I have need of one who would be a receptacle of my power, one who would help to keep the destruction of nature at bay. What say you?”

  He stood there, hand-in-hand with this most beautiful of creatures he had ever seen. She was a goddess, and she was treating him with respect. He felt the power burning in her, coming through her hand into his. His head swam and his thoughts proved difficult to seize.

  She lifted an eyebrow. Her eyes twinkled as if she found the exchange humorous. She waited for his response.

  “I…” he started. He took a deep breath and tried again. “It would be an honor and privilege to do your work. I am but a humble servant. What would you have me do?”

  Her smile was like the sun breaking through clouds after a month of rain. It lightened his heart, made him feel as if he could fly.

  “It is not burdensome,” she said softly. “Not to you. I would have you continue to learn of nature, of healing, and increase your skills in the care of plants and creatures. I would have you do good works in my name and await the time when I will call you to action. That time is coming, soon or late, and I would have you ready for the task. Does this sound agreeable to you, Urun Chinowa?”