by Morgan Blade
Our red sphere rolled past the villas, many of them guarded with stone statues of fierce griffins, manticores, and chimeras. They wore gemmed collars. I was familiar with this type of defense. The magic of the collars could bring the statues to life should an unwanted presence try to break in. From here on, we’d probably find things a little harder.
Operating the red sphere, powering its motion with magic, took a toll on me. I had unnatural vitality from being half royal dragon as well as half Villager, but I was going to need a break after this job. It was a good thing I had my nine-year-old son along for heavy lifting.
The road inside the gate turned to yellow brick. I followed it straight to a sharp climb up the hill, but instead of going higher, I activated the special multi-spatial feature built into the red sphere. It went from impenetrable to intangible, carrying us along as it rolled straight into the hillside.
The passing earth obscured the shell. Silverwynd clung to Colt, closing her eyes. Colt grabbed onto me, letting his hands assure him I was still there. All I saw was passing dirt, the roots of some plants, and an earthworm or two. This wasn’t quite blind navigation—the sense of the tie brought by my stolen crown guided me, as did the occasional swirl of golden energy in the earth, produced by the tie.
After a while, I judged we had to be under some part of the palace. When the dirt fell behind us and we floated out into a dark space, I knew it was true. The place wasn’t lightless; our sphere cast out a red glow we could see by, one magically shielded not to bring attention.
I shifted us back into corporeal form slowly, causing the sphere to drift easily down to a stone floor. There were no torches, but every dozen feet, a topaz crystal had been embedded in the walls, creating spaced pockets of light separated by areas of gloom. The walls went up ten feet. A high roof hung up there twice that distance.
There was no sign our invasion was known.
“Silverwynd, open your eyes,” I said.
She did. “Where are we? Some kind of dungeon?”
Colt let go of me. He shifted inside the shell, looking around.
I pointed up into the air, over a wall. “Silverwynd, you’re chief spy. Go take a look and tell me.”
She opened the beetle shell casings covering her wings and gave them a fast flutter. Leaping from Colt’s shoulder, she flew up to the top of the sphere and passed through it since the barrier had been keyed to all of us. She’d only need my help getting back in.
Colt and I watched her shoot up and over a wall, into the dark beyond. We waited. A minute later, she whizzed back our way. I made a mental adjustment to the shell to readmit her. She returned to Colt’s shoulder.
“You won’t frickin’ believe it!” she said.
“Is frickin’ a cuss word?” Colt’s eyes held a mild gleam of avarice. He was prepared to fine Silverwynd as well as me.
“Of course not,” Silverwynd said. “I’m a lady.”
“So, where are we?” I asked. “Dungeon?”
“No, a labyrinth. An underground maze of passages. There may or may not be monsters. I didn’t see any, but I didn’t go too far ahead either.”
I asked, “From up there, did it look like there might be a central spot that was open, where something valuable might be kept.”
She stared at me. “How did you know?”
The Summer Lord isn’t going to let something so precious lay around with no protection at all. That clear, central section is where we’ll find the tie.” The feeling I had through the crown confirmed it.
I shifted us intangible again, except for the part of the sphere on the bottom where we needed just a little friction to move. We rolled ahead, passed through a wall, into a new corridor. The sphere kept going, driven by my will and my magic. We ghosted through several corridors and numberless walls until breaking out into a large open pace.
And, yes indeed, there was a monster in the maze. Not the minotaur of Greek legend, but something equally ugly and mean looking.
“Oh, my gosh!” Colt’s voice vibrated with excitement.
“Frick me blind!” Silverwynd said.
I would have said snake—giant albino python—but it had eight, triple-jointed, stilt-like spider legs to hold its body aloft. The head reminded me of a lamprey eel. The pink eyes with the round black pupils passed us without stopping. The cloaking spell was doing its job. It had a forked, red tongue several yards long that flickered out, tasting the air. If it had all of the usual snake traits, there would be thermal sensors in the snout to detect heat.
There were piles of white bone that looked like they might once have belonged to some kind of pig. The monster’s keepers probably chased a few in here regularly to keep the monster alive. I wondered if they also had to come in here once and while to wash away the monster shit.
“It’s wearing a collar,” I said. “If we take it out, the owner will probably know at once. The jig will be up.”
“So, what are you going to do?” Colt asked.
“Full intangible mode. We’re going to roll straight through that thing, onto the circular dais beyond.” The dais had a ramp you could walk—or roll—up, and a four-foot column in its middle. A vee-shaped tangerine crystal glittered under a glass dome.
Consulting my crown confirmed that this was in fact the tie, not a glamoured copy meant to confuse would-be thieves.
Piece of cake.
The sphere rolled on. We went between sets of legs, under the white belly, and up the dais. The red sphere absorbed the pillar. I stopped us. Colt looked at the pillar from inches away, as did I. He reached up toward the glass cover.
“No,” I said. “Look at the column first. See if there are any magical runes. It could be enspelled so an alarm goes off.”
Silverwynd fluttered aloft and circled the dome, peering through to the flat top of the column the tie rested on. “I don’t see anything.”
I moved around the column, checking its sides. “Me either, but experience tells me there’s something. Fey are by nature too sneaky for there not to be a last joker in the deck.”
In the back shadows of my mind, scales rustled. Golden dragon eyes opened. Let me take a look.
My dragon did have a special sense for magical items. An appraising sense for the value of things, and the quality of magic. He used my eyes, but adjusted them so that I picked up more of the light spectrum than humans normally use. Like writing in the air, I saw spectral tags appear with dragon symbols attached.
Transport spell. My inner dragon gave me back control of my eyeballs, and the spectral tags vanished. If any of us touch the glass, the whole dais will jump to the throne room above, and we’ll have a very pissed off Summer Lord to deal with.
“Colt, open a portal inside the sphere. This is the part where we snatch the prize and run like hell.”
“Ah! So, it’s safe then.” Silverwynd landed on top of the glass dome, activating the transportation spell.
“Fuck!” I said.
The labyrinth vanished. A bright lit throne room appeared around us. I saw a huge throne with a bull of a man seated there. He wore a gold-thread toga and a golden crown with yellow diamonds. His eyes wide with rage, blinding light gathered to his body, coruscating over him. His flame-wrapped hands came up. Then a wall of sun-fire slammed into our red-shell barrier.
NINE
“I kill for revenge and commerce,
seldom for pity, but I can’t rule it out.”
—Caine Deathwalker
At dragon speed, my hand a blur, I punched through the glass dome on the pillar and seized the tie. For a moment, I thought that the sun-fire of the Summer Lord had sizzled through the barrier and was engulfing us, but the copper-red light was Colt’s portal opening inside the shell. I felt myself sucked down its hungry maw and swallowed. Off balance, flailing, I tumbled through the new light and found myself spit out the other end of the conduit.
I hit a stone floor, bounced, rolled, skidded into a half turn, and crashed into a wall which stopped me. A mixed b
lessing there; it added to my bruises. Somehow, through all that, the green agate crown remained in place on my head. I think it was magically keeping itself in place.
Colt stepped out of the portal with none of the theatrics I’d endured. The conduit liked him. Clinging to his collar, Silverwynd seemed fine as well. Behind them, the portal collapsed into a copper-red star-point, and then was gone. Still gripping the Summer Land tie, I stood up and walked toward Colt. He was grinning.
I was half way to him when my name was called from the shadows to the side. I stopped and looked. There was a figure chained to a wall. Near him was a wooden table with various curious tools on display. Implements of torture. Many of them with dried blood on them.
Now that’s just sad. A torturer needs to take enough pride in his workmanship to keep his tools clean.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Stay there,” I said.
A good father doesn’t let his son see such slothful neglect.
It was Reggie on the wall. His voice had been thinned with pain and tiredness, but still recognizable—but not his face. Someone had blackened both eyes and broken his nose. His lower lip was puffy and split. Odd that he hadn’t healed the damage already. His looks didn’t get better as I approached. His pants were down and his balls were tied off with a rubber band. I hadn’t thought there were rubber bands in Fairy.
Must be Izumi’s work.
It was easy to figure out the next step in Kellyn’s rehabilitation of this prisoner. The perfect cure for recidivism, the penalty of castration did fit the crime of rape.
Still, being a man myself—much better endowed, of course—I couldn’t help a little sympathy.
“You can’t let her do this to me,” Reggie begged. “It isn’t right. I was Lord here when I took the wench. That means it was my right—not a crime. A monarch’s will is law.”
“The problem is, a monarch’s will is law. And it’s the queen who’s doing this to you. If you had the right of power then, she does now. Sad for you, but what can you do?”
“But my balls? That is going too far!”
I sighed. There’s never a wolf in a steel trap that doesn’t blame the trap for his pain, not his greed.
Silverwynd fluttered down onto my shoulder. She stared at the prisoner. “Oh, freck! What a mess. What the hell did he do?”
“Forced himself on Queen Kellyn and didn’t leave her happy. I’m surprised she hasn’t raped his ass with a hot poker yet. Maybe she’s saving that for tomorrow.”
Silverwynd’s voice went shrill with rage. “He forced a woman? When’s the castration. I want to watch. Can there be hungry dogs to throw his balls to? A chew-toy like that shouldn’t go to waste.”
Colt appeared next to me. “Dad, what’s going on?”
“I told you to wait over there.”
“Oh, please, I help Mom with her dissections all the time. This is nothing.”
Yeah, the kid’s used to hanging out in dungeons, probably why his portal landed us here.
“What is wrong with you people?” Reggie cried. “Damn, my head hurts.”
“I get it,” I said. “You can’t heal without dying to trigger the regeneration. Want me to do you a favor and put a bullet in your head?”
He thought about it a second. “No, I’m good. This way, maybe I can move Kellyn’s heart to pity.”
“It’s a good plan,” I said. “After torturing you a few years as a ballless eunuch, I’m sure she’ll tire of things and let you go.”
Despite his damaged eyes, he struggled to focus on my face. “After a few years?”
“You really pissed her off.”
“Hey!” Reggie yelled. “You’re wearing my crown.”
“Sorry, my crown now. You just keep crossing the wrong people. Anyone ever tell you not to pick fights you can’t win?”
I turned Colt around and pushed him into motion. “Let’s go see Izumi and Kellyn. You can tell them about our adventure while I eat a roasted cow or something.”
“You won’t get away with this!” Reggie yelled. “None of you will. I will have my revenge.”
Riding on my shoulder, Silverwynd gave a contemptuous snort. “He wants to take revenge on other people for their taking revenge on him?”
“Vendetta, the Circle of Death,” I said. “The gift that keeps on giving.”
We found the dungeon door and pounded on it. A surprised guard opened it and peered in. I pushed him back and led the way out into a stone hallway.
The fey furrowed his brow, pointing inside the dungeon. “When did you go…”
“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “Warlock, remember. We make the impossible seem easy. I’m checking in with Izumi and Kellyn. Know where they are?”
“No, Lord Caine.”
“We’ll find them.” I led Colt along. Silverwynd fluttered off my shoulder, swooping along in our wake. We passed a few intersections and found a staircase to take us up. “This looks likely.” I led the way up. We reached the next landing and started up another flight.
Smelling the musty, dusty scent of shadow magic—not my own—I threw out my arm, stopping Colt beside me.
He looked at me, a question in his eyes.
I pointed a few feet up the stairs at a black star-point of unnatural light, a radiant darkness perceived by how it swallowed the light touching it. The shadow-light expanded like a portal, becoming a disk blocking the stairs. I felt a difference in air pressure that created a wind tugging me toward the disk. Silverwynd flew into the back of my neck, and gripped my collar to anchor her from being swept in.
“What is it?” Colt asked.
I held out a PX4 Storm semi-automatic, ready to fire. “In coming.”
A man stepped through with a teenage version of my face. This wasn’t my father, unless he was visiting me out of time. He wore black denim jeans, black leather wrist cuffs, boots, and was “cut” like a gym maniac, apparent through the powder-blue thermal tee shirt he wore. He saw the gun pointed at him and raised an eyebrow at it.
“Going to shoot me?”
“Depends. Are you one of Selene’s escaped clones of me?” I asked.
“I’m your younger brother.”
“A full brother?” I thought of the half-brother I’d killed in Tartarus.
For a moment, his pupils distorted, going from round to vertical slits edged in gold. “You made Mother cry. I ought to kick your scrawny midget ass.”
I lifted an eyebrow of my own. My finger itched to squeeze the trigger. “Excuse me, what part of me is a midget? We look the same size.”
“Your soul is very small, shrimp, and for the record, I’m nearly two inches taller than you.”
“I’ll put that on your tombstone.” I gave him my scariest smile, one I had practiced for hours—while drinking—imagining meeting my daughter Julia’s future boyfriends.
The black vortex behind him spat out another person, a girl who looked younger than him. She had my mother’s face, and wore a one-piece hooded suit of saffron yellow that did nothing for her too pale complexion. Black stripes went down the outside of her legs, matching black boots. A belt of nylon mesh cinched her waist, holding a number of tools, knives, and weapons.
She held a titanium katana with a straight blade. The hilt was wrapped in black leather. She carried the sword horizontally in front of her, stretched across palms sheathed in black leather, fingerless gloves. It was the way you’d present a gift, not offer an attack.
Passing him, she glared at her companion. “Chill the ‘roid-rage, Knucklehead. Like you didn’t hurt Mom by running off to play trans-dimensional hero these last few years.”
“Let me handle this, Sis!”
“You’re not that smart. Our long-lost big bro is entitled to his feelings. Our parents did abandon him.”
“Yeah, but Dad explained that.” Knucklehead stabbed a finger my way. “He needs to just get over being butt-hurt.”
That did it. I pulled the trigger twice. The gun bucked in my hand.
Loosing substance for a moment, the girl flickered like a golden flame and so did the sword. There were sparks as the blade deflected my bullets off to the side. She froze in front of her brother, eyes wary.
Now, she held the katana like a weapon—one she knew how to use.
I gave her my best look-of-surprised-innocence. “Oops, thought the safety was on.”
Heh, heh!
Knucklehead wasn’t the only one with a protector. Colt slid in front of me. Though he did his best, the nine-year-old was a little small for a human shield.
The air flushed with ozone, copper-red light strobed savagely as ropes of lightning wound around his arms and hands. The back of his hoodie shredded as two-foot dragon wings jutted up out of his back. His hands became claws.
Okay, now he’s convincing. I guess he really wanted to try out that partial shifting I showed him. Wings should be a little longer.
His child’s voice had changed as well, a gruff rumble of threat. “I won’t let you hurt my dad.”
The girl stared at him. “You’re not supposed to be in this timeline.”
“Go away!” Colt shouted.
“Fine, but take this first.” Hilt first, she held the katana out to me. It looked like a descent sword. I wondered why she didn’t want it.
“Making up for missing my past birthdays?” I asked.
“It’s your sword, idiot,” Knucklehead said. “The one Dad gave you in the Villager dimension. You went off and left it there.”
“Say what? I think I’d remembered being given a titanium katana. Never saw it before.”
Colt turned a little, looking up at me. “Dad, I was there at the underground river with you. You had that sword then. That’s why you gave me your old demon sword.”
“I gave you that sword? He hasn’t just been hiding from me?”
In the back shadows of my mind, scales scraped, coils slithered. My inner dragon opened golden eyes to stare at me. Yeah, that’s the sword your father gave us. He bribed you to take it, remember?
“No, I don’t remember.” Why don’t I? “I have no memory of ever getting that sword.”
