Problem: there wasn’t one in the house.
He took Elwen to the computer they kept in the living room. The monitor brightened and displayed a desert landscape. Elwen seemed to think she could put her hand through it, and tried. The monitor rocked with the impact.
“Maché? E’tal o’dranogon maché, da,” she said, dismayed.
Rylan knew that word, or something close to it. Magen. “It’s not magic, just a computer ... there’s no magic on this world. Not until you, anyway.”
“No magic,” she parroted without an accent.
Rylan stared at her, wondering how much she actually understood until the computer beeped it was ready.
He opened a browser to “Map of the United States,” and Elwen seemed satisfied. She held up their makeshift compass and indicated to Rylan to stand and take out the wand, saying slowly, “Enga don nova d’ekrit d’Naia. Erené ma tova da shae.”
Rylan got the repeat-after-me vibe, and they worked on it a few times before Elwen again held up the compass and said, “E’dana! Duwe.”
He closed his eyes, trying to remember how it felt back in the forest when his mind reached out to the life in the forest floor. The house fell away, became ephemeral; the grass and trees outside came into sharp focus. He felt sure he could count the leaves in the trees, and he definitely knew the number of mice in the walls.
He opened his eyes, got a grip on the wand, and said the incantation, but nothing happened ... no kick, no pull. No flash. The wand felt warmer to him, though. “I guess it didn’t work,” he said, disappointed.
“Na!” Elwen said, her free hand gripping his shoulder. “T’vae!”
The compass was slowly turning to face the computer.
Rylan sat back down at the monitor as Elwen swept the compass near it. It definitely wanted to point to the west coast. Excited, Rylan zoomed in, watching the compass as he made the map as “big” as he could. It focused on somewhere in Redwood National Forest.
“What is it with you people and forests?” he asked, then jumped up and hugged her. “Magic’s awesome!”
He’d forgotten to ask for permission, but she didn’t seem to mind as the air whuffed out of her lungs.
“Awesome!” she rejoindered with a toothy grin.
Chapter 8
He Google-mapped the distance to Redwood National Forest ... eight hundred miles away.
Holy crap. How? Naia must have teleported.
He turned to Elwen, but she shook her head sharply. “Na. T’nakt arrae!”
“Show me how to do it, how to teleport!”
She shook her head again, then slapped the compass into his hand and moved it up and down as if directing him to feel its weight. Then she lifted one end of the heavy oak desk several inches off the floor with one hand. Rylan gasped; she seemed way too tiny to be able to lift something like that.
But he got what she was saying. “I’m not ready,” he said, disconsolate.
“Ché,” she said, and released the desk.
“Well, I guess that leaves TransBus,” he said, and shrugged.
He retrieved his private stash of a hundred fifty dollars from under a pile of old underwear—Naia would never check there—as well as some money and a debit card from Naia’s purse. That felt like breaking some major phobia because the last time he’d got into it he was eight and discovered some paper-wrapped cigarettes he tried to light with a barbecue lighter. To this day, Naia wouldn’t let him forget she’d caught him trying to smoke her tampons.
Once they had the money together, Rylan called Uber to take them to the bus station. Elwen got some stares but truth be told, even with the ears, she was by far not the weirdest-looking person there.
They were in luck; the bus would depart in forty-five minutes and take them within a hundred miles of where they needed to be. Then they could take a local bus into the mountains and walk the rest of the way after that. That was all assuming Naia and whatever was driving her didn’t just pop her to Moscow or the Amazon.
With a map of Northern California they’d gotten with the tickets, Rylan breathed a sigh of relief when they determined with the compass Naia hadn’t moved.
When the time came, Rylan took Elwen by the hand, which seemed to surprise her, and led her to the bus where she was visibly horrified at the smell and almost bolted. But he got her boarded and settled despite her doing nothing but hiss words in Elvish. Rylan definitely planned to ask her about those later.
She calmed down once they were underway and the smell cleared, and was rapt with watching the city go by. When they crossed the Golden Gate bridge, her breathing got fast and she grabbed his hand. Rylan thought she was afraid until she turned and said “Awesome!” with a wide grin before turning back, the lights of the bridge flashing in her face.
As the bus passed into the relative darkness beyond the city, Elwen’s joy turned to restlessness.
“You should sleep,” Rylan said with a yawn. “Assuming you do sleep.”
Elwen shook her head and pointed at the pay-per-view built into the seat rest, looking at him expectantly.
“No, what’s the point?” Rylan asked. “You wouldn’t understand it. And besides, I don’t know if I want you learning about our world from sitcoms, reality TV, and cable news.”
She insisted, though, so he pulled out his debit card and entered his information, keying it for one hour.
“That’s all you get,” he said, channeling his father, and plugged the earbuds from his bag into the jack on the TV. She actually cooed as the earbuds settled in her ears, her eyes saucers. Rylan watched as she played with the touch screen while jabbering to herself in Elvish.
“What have I done?” he sighed in mock supplication, then drew away to relax.
As he nodded off, she moved on to a show where people were hitting each other with chairs and she elbowed him awake, making a disgusted sound and glaring at him like it was his fault.
“Hey, I warned you,” he said, and elbowed her back.
This time, she let him sleep.
Chapter 9
When he awoke, the bus was coming in to a rest stop as the sun peeked over the horizon; Elwen was fast asleep, her head resting on his shoulder.
Rylan put his nose close and smelled her hair; it didn’t smell like anything really, maybe grass. He wondered if it naturally smelled like that or if it picked that up from whatever she slept on, a weird image coming to mind of her curled up outside like some woodland fox.
She moved; a lock of hair fell across his arm and he felt it between his fingertips, careful not to disturb her. Incredibly soft and thin, it was like spun goose down. Depending on the angle of the light, it seemed to shift from almost colorless to a pale yellow-green.
The bus lurched and she was instantly awake, her hair tugging from his hand. “We are here?”
“Yes,” he said and winced, pulling away his hand so fast it struck the armrest. “Hey! Your English got better.”
She fixed him with those ice blue eyes and proudly produced his debit card. “I learn.”
“You little thief,” he said, and snatched it back. “That was in my pocket, in my wallet!” He patted his empty pockets. “Where––“
“No thief,” she replied and threw his wallet back into his lap. “No take.”
“That’s not how this works,” he said, indicating the debit card. He pulled the cash out and showed it to her. “This thousand dollars is all the money we have, including the debit card.”
The bus driver announced a half hour stop. “Corning” was the location.
“Where is Corning?” Elwen asked.
“About halfway,” Rylan replied as he got up. “Come on, I need to stretch my legs.”
“Stretch, kuvé da?” she asked, and stared in wonderment at his legs.
“I meant, let’s go get some food and use the bathroom,” Rylan said, and took her hand to help her up. “Did you learn about bathrooms?”
“Yes,” she said with relief. “I have a major dump to give.”
Chapter 10
Rylan worried a bit whether she’d actually know what to do, but she seemed to do okay. “There is food?” she asked when she came out.
“Yes, the food court’s right over there,” Rylan said, pointing across the way. “But it occurs to me ... I mean, can you eat anything here?”
“No problemo,” she said. “I you show.”
In a corner out of sight, she pulled her wand and handed it to him, directing him to touch the tip to her skin and say a short incantation that would turn the wand into a poison detector for her until it was used for something else.
He settled on cheese pizza; figured it was cheap and not too complicated and the wand didn’t complain. Rylan still felt like an idiot asking the middle-aged puffy guy at the counter to hold a slice for him for the wand to “sniff.”
Rylan felt the need to explain. “My girlfriend’s a new-ager.”
“And yet you’re the one with the stick.”
“It doesn’t work for her,” Rylan replied through clenched teeth, his face hot.
“I’m sure that’s your only problem,” the man said. “Look, we’ve got people in line. Does your stick like it or not?”
The wand hadn’t jumped back, so Rylan supposed it was okay. “Just give me six slices, please.”
When they got back to a table, Elwen watched Rylan take a bite before sampling a slice herself, teeth-first. Rylan imagined himself doing exactly the same thing if she tried to feed him some baked six-legged whatsit on her world.
But she loved it and ended up polishing off four slices. Score one for Sbarro.
On the way out, they checked the compass against the map on the rest stop wall.
Naia hadn’t moved. Rylan was glad of that, but... “What on Earth is she doing in the middle of the forest? Why there?”
Elwen didn’t seem to want to meet his eyes. “She learn. Like you.”
“But why a forest?”
“Forest better. Much life, much power ... more dangerous.”
Rylan flinched. “What does that mean?”
Elwen kept her face a mask. “Must find her soon.”
Dread washed over Rylan like an ocean wave. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Elwen thought for a moment, then took him outside around the back of the building so they could be alone.
“You learn: magic is life. Toth use life against life. You kill Jolon, not Toth. Now your sister: Naia’Toth.”
“You keep saying those names together,” Rylan asked, his voice rising. “You mean he’s possessing her? Is she still in there?”
“Ché, yes. But––” Her voice trailed off as she looked past him, her face hardening.
Rylan turned and spotted three men coming toward them, the hairs on the back of his neck rising when the two at either side flanked them and came to a stop.
The man in the middle––Middle Man, Rylan labeled him––checked out Elwen from hair to boots. “What are you supposed to be, some kind of fugitive from The Hobbit?”
“I do not know this place Hobbit,” Elwen said through her teeth.
Middle Man chuckled. “You certainly play the part.” His face grew serious and he made a show of putting his hand behind his back where a gun might be. “That thousand dollars? Give it to me.”
Rylan groaned; he belatedly remembered them from the bus, one row back. Stupid. “Please, we need it ... someone’s life depends on it.”
“By my count, two lives depend on it. Now, don’t be any trouble and we’ll be on our way.”
Elwen nudged him with a look that said, “Let me kill them. It’d be so easy.”
Rylan shook his head; she was fast but she’d never faced a gun before. He reached into his pocket for the wallet and his hand slid past the wand. That gave him an idea.
He pulled it out and aimed it at Middle Man. “If you don’t want to melt screaming into the air, you need to leave us alone.”
The three of them barked a laugh. “What the hell is that? You’re joking, right?”
“I assure you it’s real,” Rylan said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Middle Man laughed again. “All right. Show me, Gandalf.”
Rylan aimed for the ground at the man’s feet and realized too late he didn’t remember the spell. He looked to Elwen for help.
Before she could respond, Middle Man snatched the wand from his hand and prepared to snap it in two. “Enough! Give—”
In a green blur, Elwen ripped the wand from his hand and kicked him in the chest, knocking him to the ground.
The other two goons produced knives and thrust at Elwen from either side. She dodged them and tossed the wand to Rylan, hauling her knives out and blocking their second attack, the metal of their knives pinging against whatever hers were made of.
Rylan moved several steps away and watched as Elwen glided between the men, a swirl of green and silver as she blocked one and dodged the other, knives glinting in the sun as she blocked their blows again and again.
In the middle of a spin, she winked at Rylan and he did a double-take. She’s playing with them?
Middle Man recovered, producing a frighteningly large hunting knife and coming for Rylan. Elwen stepped out from her dance and deftly slashed Middle Man’s face from jaw to temple.
He yelped in pain and the other two thrust their knives at the center of Elwen’s back, but she folded in half beneath them, kicked backward into a roll and returned her to her feet behind the men.
Then she laughed at them. It was creepy and beautiful at the same time, a lilting trill like the chirrupping of squirrels playing, then she turned and ran for the woods thirty yards beyond the building.
With a yell, all three men took off after her.
Chapter 11
That was her plan all along, to get them to forget about me, and do battle...
...with a wood elf.
In the trees...
...good God.
Rylan took off after them but the four of them had a long head start, largely because Rylan slowed down as he approached the woods. He didn’t want to be caught by one of the men.
Not sure what he’d find, he watched for any sign of activity. He was a hundred feet in when he came around a tree trunk and screamed when something grabbed his leg. He looked down; one of the men was choking on his own knife in his throat. Before Rylan took his next breath, that man took his last.
Rylan had never seen a dead body before, let alone one who died right in front of him. He wanted to throw up but a shout brought him back to focus. Get a grip. There are two other guys out there who want to kill you.
He pulled his leg free from the man’s hand and went deeper into the woods, freezing when he spotted the other goon who walked hunched low, eyes darting like he expected the trees themselves to attack him.
He’s seen what Elwen can do.
A movement caught Rylan’s attention in the branches twenty feet above the man’s head. Elwen, hair color changed to dark green, was almost invisible among the branches and moving silent and sure as if walking down the street.
“You,” the man growled at Rylan when he spotted him. “What the hell is she?”
Elwen dropped from above and drove her foot-long knives into the man’s back. He stiffened, gave a wet cough, and fell.
Rylan stood in shock at first at the casual brutality of it. Once he recovered he closed the distance between them to where Elwen was cleaning her knives on the man’s clothes, her hair returned to silver-white.
“Much time waste,” she said, giving him side-eye and blowing hair from her face with annoyance. “We go. Now.”
“That’s all you can say?” Rylan asked, chilled by her coldness. “Does it even bother you that you just killed three people?”
“Two,” she protested. “One go.”
“You let him live, or could you just not find him?” he accused. “You didn’t have to kill them! They were only robbing us.”
“You waste time! Magic, you don’t reme
mber I teach it, very bad,” she said, standing and poking a finger painfully into his chest. “You let them talk. You let them take. You let them kill us, try!”
Rylan put up his hands to stop the finger jabbing. “I’m not a warrior like you! I wasn’t raised to kill, slicing up everyone I meet like sushi.”
She shook her head and gripped his wrists, pulling him painfully to her and forcing his face close to hers. “You learn, or people die. Many die.”
“I’ll do what I need and that’s it,” Rylan said, trying to jerk his hands from hers. It worked about as well as trying to pull bricks from a building.
“Must act!” she shouted. “Magic more than to know; magic is to act. Okay? I teach it.”
“I will do what I need to, to save Naia,” he said defiantly.
“Pugh,” she spat, but loosened her grip. When he jerked his hands away, they came free.
She pointed at the goon’s body at their feet. “First word teach it. Don’ik’tora.”
“What does it do?” he asked, ambivalent. Magic seemed exciting before, but when it was used to kill people...
Her only response was a death glare.
Rylan sighed. He set his feet and rehearsed the word in his head so he’d remember it, then aimed the wand where she pointed. “Don’ik’tora.”
Power welled up through his body and out the wand as a white flash, as yesterday, though it was more a warmth than a lightning bolt. In moments, the man’s body dissolved in a wisp of smoke, clothes and all.
Rylan stared silently at the wand, then looked to Elwen. “What was that word Jolon’Toth used again?”
“Kerr’ik’naa,” she said. “Different ... pain, bad.”
Rylan nodded. Figures Jolon’Toth wouldn’t be satisfied with just killing people. He had to make it fun for them.
She directed him to walk with her in the direction of the rest stop, where the body of the man who grabbed him lay. She brooded as they went. Rylan assumed she was just pissed at him, but it wasn’t that.
They were passing the bore of a large tree when she spoke. “Must tell you Jolon’Toth,” she said, but before she could say another word, her head collided with his and the world flashed white as Rylan tumbled to the ground.
The Magical Book of Wands Page 36
