by C. Gold
Radcliff staggered back, stunned. “Are you here to kill me then?” He winced at the hopeful tone in his voice.
Her shoulders sagged and she leaned her head into the horse’s mane. “No. My name is Amira. I’m a seer from Westspire. I’m here to save you.”
Shocked and horrified he couldn’t help but ask, “Why?” If it was his family wiped out, he’d be after revenge.
“You’re the only hope of saving the world.”
“You’re joking right?” He thought RD was kidding about the whole save the world thing.
“No I’m not.” She sighed and turned to look right in his eyes. “Look, we’ve had this conversation before and I don’t feel like rehashing it. Just grab your book and let’s go. It’s time to leave.”
Radcliff picked up the book and watched her back the reluctant horses out of the cave. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Him saving the world? Hah! He couldn’t even save himself.
When he exited the cave, the low hanging sun instantly blinded him, and it took a while to adjust after being so long in the dark. When Radcliff could finally look around, he was stunned at the desolation which extended as far as he could see. Nothing grew except for a few struggling weeds beneath some of the larger boulders. His eyes widened at the sight of large ice fragments strewn about the rocky landscape. Several were the size of his head, and those had already been smashed. He wondered how big the original pieces of ice were before they slammed into the ground. Finally he turned around and was met with the intimidating slab of rock that soared up, up, up until he got a crick in his neck from gawking at its unbelievable height.
“I hope you can ride,” Amira said as she handed him the reins of the black mare while she took the gray. Like Radcliff needed another reason to feel utterly useless. His designated horse must have picked up on his anxiety because it shied, causing him to fumble around until he finally managed to mount the stupid thing. Once the horse began moving though, Radcliff’s body appeared well acclimated to the motion, and he expelled a breath in relief at being spared from further embarrassment.
As they traveled across the unchanging terrain in awkward silence, the sucking pull of hopelessness returned. Angry now, he shoved it away and snatched open the book. Surely RD wrote something about these attacks and how to combat them? He could only hope.
The sun was blazing directly overhead by the time Radcliff finished reading everything. While there was a disappointing lack of knowledge regarding his mental attacks, there were tantalizing hints that he was powerful along with a direct warning against experimentation. You have forgotten all the hard won knowledge of your limits so don’t try anything more complex or you could die. RD’s last ‘helpful’ advice rankled. I lack my memory, RD, I’m not stupid. Though he did feel stupid yelling at his memory self.
As his mind drifted, the attack sprang at him without warning. You are worthless. You are powerless. You should just die. The sneering voice cut off when he crash landed on the hard ground and smacked his head on a rock.
“Radcliff. Radcliff!” The persistent voice penetrated his foggy brain. “Are you ok?” He opened his eyes to see concerned violet ones staring back at him. Still a bit groggy he answered truthfully. “I’m not sure.”
“Let’s eat lunch and you can tell me what happened.”
They halted at a shallow river which snaked its way through a narrow canyon. The mountainous wall was no longer visible, and they were surrounded by trees still clinging to their colorful autumn leaves. Near the shore was a thick carpet of chest high reeds. Birds trilled in the distance—a welcome change to the desolation of the morning’s crossing. The sound of water trickling over the rocky riverbed helped sooth Radcliff’s frayed nerves.
As Amira opened a saddle bag and brought out a few strips of dried meat, Radcliff debated what to say. She handed him one of the strips before prodding. “So talk, what happened?”
Radcliff bit into the jerky as a way to delay the inevitable. He burned with shame at his weakness, but as his traveling companion, she deserved to know. “It was a mental attack. I think it is part of my punishment.”
She nodded as she chewed and looked at him with rapt attention.
Unnerved by her intensity, he took a drink before continuing. “I felt a depression so vast I wanted to die. I think that’s the purpose of it—to make me kill myself.”
Amira slapped her head with one hand. “I’m so stupid. I took away all your compulsions, including mine which forced you to survive no matter what. I forgot to add it back. I should do that now.”
“No.” The last thing Radcliff wanted was more jumbling of his mind. It was already mixed up enough. “I need to learn to deal with this.”
She sighed but didn’t press him for which he was grateful. “Do you know what triggers it?” She tried a different tack.
He took a while to consider her question. “It seems to happen when I’m not thinking about anything.”
“So you should keep busy. Maybe practice casting those spells in your book.” She tossed off the suggestion casually but looked away and refused to meet his eye. Radcliff knew then that she must have looked in the book. His only source of long term memory. The silence between them grew as Radcliff processed how he felt about her intrusion. Finally she confessed, “I may have thumbed through it. You draw very well.” When he still didn’t say anything she mumbled a quiet sorry before finishing her meal.
They packed in awkward silence and continued the trek down the river. Radcliff finally decided to let it go. Amira had a point about practicing. He focused on a black pebble on the river bank and visualized the stone in his mind—it was lying on a sandy bottom and wet on the outside. The surface was smooth after years of water washing over it. The inside was hard but of mixed composition. Radcliff formed a link but it kept wavering until he compensated for the horse’s travel away from it. Finally, the link stabilized and he tugged. It appeared on his wrist instead of his palm but he slapped his other hand over it before it fell. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead from the effort and he was a little light headed but he succeeded. He tried again. The next one came faster and landed on the edge of his palm. The third landed in the center. Finally, he had an entire handful of rocks and a clear idea of how to handle movement. He grinned as he watched Amira navigate around a boulder. Time for the real fun.
CHAPTER 4
Before the Storm
Something was wrong. Amira turned around but saw only the safety of the canyon walls that would hide them from anyone trying to follow. Even so, the feeling persisted, lifting the hairs on the back of her neck and sending prickles down her spine. In the far distance, shadowy figures shimmered, stretched forth long, tentacle-like arms, and then vanished. She shook her head and squinted again to see nothing but the false serenity of grass bending with the slight breeze and the lengthening shadows from the late afternoon sun.
Something stung the back of her arm and she whipped around, heart jumping, only to see a mischievous smirk on the wizard’s face and his hand clutching small stones. “What?” she barked at him and gaped when he started giggling like a child with a new toy. Shaking her head, she ignored his antics and continued searching for signs of trouble. At least one of them needed to be on alert. Danger stalked them, but in what form?
Amira ignored the wizard as he placed a small stone on her head. Irritated, she brushed it off. After an hour of stone upon stone it became ingrained habit to flick the offending pebble seconds after it appeared, so she wasn’t paying close attention when her hand automatically touched something with smooth scaly skin. She shrieked and jerked her hand, sending a small green snake flying out over the river. Wasting no time in gaining distance from her childhood terror, she tumbled gracelessly out of the saddle and crab walked up the grassy bank.
The bellowing laughter cut through her panic and turned her blood to boiling. Stomping towards the still laughing wizard with his death wish, she grabbed him with a steely grip and yanked him off his horse. �
�You–”
The sky turned black and the smell of ash and death clogged her nostrils. Indistinct shapes filled with hateful menace herded her to the only point of color in the landscape—a large spine shaped pillar of rock glistening with streaks of bright red blood, forming a pool at the base. At the tip dangled the gored remains of a skinny man with multiple crisscrossed scars across his back. Blackened tentacles erupted from the ground at her feet and twisted around her legs. She screamed and tore at them in vain as they dragged her under.
“Are you ok?” Amira’s eyes cracked open to see gray ones looking at her in concern. “You looked like you were about to punch me, then you turned white and fainted.”
She was very cold and terrified. What was wrong with her? A soothing hand stroked her hair, and she realized her head was laying in Radcliff’s lap. “What happened?” Her voice cracked like old parchment.
“Here, have a drink first.” The wizard gently lifted her head and raised a water pouch to her lips.
She guzzled the liquid and was instantly relieved as it soothed her raw throat. Had she been screaming? A shudder ran through her body as she remembered being dragged under the earth. Then the rest of the vision came to her, and she whimpered.
“Shh, it will be ok,” Radcliff murmured and wiped a tear off her cheek.
She was crying? That was even more alarming than her twisted vision. She struggled to sit up but Radcliff pressed her against his chest. “Don’t try to get up too fast. Just rest a minute,” he whispered in her ear.
Part of her wanted to relax in his arms where she felt deceptively safe. However, the message in the vision was clear. She looked up and stared him in the eye before declaring in her most grave tone, “We are in deadly danger.” She had to give him credit, he didn’t laugh at her or dismiss her warning as so many had done in the past because of her improper talent. Instead he seemed to mull things over before asking, “What did you see?”
And therein lay the problem. She wasn’t sure what she saw. Her visions were typically straightforward scenes from possible futures, not nightmares. “I’m not sure…” she trailed off as she tried to gather her thoughts. “It wasn’t a normal vision. It was more symbol than substance but the warning was clear—we are surrounded and we die.” She shoved an errant strand of hair out of her eyes in growing frustration.
“Could your vision be affected by something or someone nearby?”
What a grim thought. She whispered, “I don’t know.” It had never come up but now that she thought back, it was possible something had been tampering with her sight long before now. Why else was she almost too late to save the wizard? Instead of her powers failing, could it be interference instead? Was this the trouble she’d felt ever since entering this canyon?
A sudden spark of anger chased away her debilitating fears. She refused to let whoever or whatever it was take her without a fight. Other people traveled their entire future blind. So could she. Taking a steadying breath she shrugged off the wizard’s embrace and pushed away from his chest. “I’m ok now, let me up. We need to keep moving.”
Radcliff scrambled to his feet and helped her up. While brushing the dust from her leggings, Amira asked, “Did you learn anything besides how to put rocks on my head?”
“I learned how to drown snakes,” he replied with another of his devastating smiles.
Her lips twitched with an automatic desire to smile back but she resisted the impulse. “How about anything useful?” she snapped back, trying to retain her angry façade. It really wasn’t funny. In fact, she should be furious that he’d discovered the one thing she feared most, but the playful gleam in his eye and that smile made her forget who he was, what the stakes were, and that they might be in danger of dying soon.
A light touch on her arm drew Amira back into the present. “Hey,” Radcliff spoke, all his playfulness suddenly switched to concern. “It will be ok. We’ll get through this together.”
She snorted. “Right. The half-blind seer and the day old wizard.”
He stood even straighter and looked down his nose at her in a haughty display of arrogance. “Do not discount the wizard—I am at the prime of my day old lifespan.” Then he destroyed the effect with a wink and a wicked smile though his attempted mirth failed to mask the shadows in his eyes. She realized then that he must be even more out of his depth than she was, yet here he was trying to cheer her up. What was she thinking admiring this man? He killed everyone she cared about. No, not this version of him. Somehow his lack of memories made him charming and likable—and hence very dangerous to someone who never stayed long enough in one location to form attachments. She had to remember who he really was and restore his memories as soon as possible so things could return to normal. Right. The cynical part of her wasn’t buying the lie, but she shoved it away to deal with their current problem.
“How long would it take to relearn what you discovered today?” She attacked the issue straight on.
He frowned before replying, “Let me guess—camp now and try to force our deadly fate early tomorrow?”
She nodded.
He tilted his head to the side and mulled over her idea. “I assume you don’t want light revealing our location?” When she again nodded he continued. “If we stop now, I can add notes before it gets too dark to help speed up tomorrow’s learning. I don’t have that much to add, so maybe two hours to fully read and practice each spell. Three to be on the safe side.” His eyes snapped to hers, all serious with a hint of vulnerability. “You will need to motivate me to read the entire thing.” He broke eye contact and turned away so she couldn’t see his expression but she heard the pain in his voice. “I won’t want to.”
She called herself all sorts of stupid but she hugged him anyway to try and soothe his pain. At first he stiffened, but then his muscles relaxed and he exhaled a soft breath. Blushing, she pulled away. “Go write your notes, I’ll take care of the horses.” His warmth lingered even as she removed the bags from the horses and brushed them down. She shoved aside her confused feelings and buried herself in the soothing brush strokes. Once the horses were groomed and fed, Amira grabbed the long wrapped bundle in the pile of bags and opened it. Here lay her only true defense against enemies—a recurve bow and a short sword. She inspected both weapons before stringing the bow and setting it aside. Next she grabbed the sword and began a warmup exercise. Finally, the remaining tension in her body drained away. It wouldn’t last, but for the moment she felt great.
“I didn’t take you as a master of the sword,” Radcliff commented as Amira sat next to him to catch her breath.
“I don’t have a spark of magic beyond sight and minor mental compulsions, so I had to resort to more mundane defenses.”
Radcliff nodded once before returning to scribbling in his book. Even though the sun hadn’t set yet, the last light left the canyon and the pen scratching stopped. “Well, that will have to do.” He sighed and rubbed his bald scalp before standing up. Turning to face Amira, he finally addressed the major issue both had been avoiding. “We are sitting ducks in this canyon aren’t we?”
The early evening breeze suddenly turned ice cold against Amira’s sweaty flesh. “There are no side exits and nowhere to hide for another day’s travel.” She stood and grabbed a blanket to wrap up in. Though it warmed her on the outside, her bones were still chilled.
“What if we could get up there?”
Amira followed Radcliff’s arm which pointed to a still sunny mesa atop the canyon wall. Her burst of hope died an even swifter death. “I didn’t bring climbing gear.”
“I wasn’t thinking of climbing.” His head was tilted and his eyes had a calculating gleam to them.
“Radcliff, no. You mustn’t, it’s too dangerous.” She grabbed his arm and turned him away from the temptation. “You’ll kill yourself,” she stressed.
He shook out of her grip. “We’re surely dead if we stay here.”
“I’m not even sure that was a true vision. You can’t—”
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“Don’t tell me I can’t!” he roared. Amira froze like a mouse before a striking raptor at his sudden rage. “What do you know of my power? You knew me before, didn’t you?” Now it was his turn to grip her arm and give her a shake. “Answer me. What am I capable of?”
Furious steely gray eyes bored into hers, demanding the truth. In barely a whisper she replied, “We don’t really know. You leveled a major city of three thousand in one evening but there were no witnesses. I returned once and saw nothing left of even the buildings. Just charred earth where everything once stood. What could do that?”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Go on,” Radcliff pressed when she remained silent.
“There were rumors of your other exploits. Stories told of entire armies crushed, blocked, sickened, or turned. Your deeds grew more outrageous with each victory. But what was the real truth?” She trailed off and shivered at her own remembered fear of this man until she recalled that without his memory he wasn’t the Destroyer. He may have the potential for widespread destruction but he lacked the knowledge.
Her scattered courage returned. “It doesn’t matter now. You only know for sure what’s in that book. To do anything beyond that puts you at risk and I won’t let you.” Amira crossed her arms and glared at him, hoping her words would be enough to convince him. Though she had no better plan, she’d think of something that wouldn’t risk him. She had to.
A gust of wind blew dust into her eyes. Once Amira blinked enough to clear them, the wizard was gone. What? She spun around but didn’t see him anywhere. Then she looked up and saw him standing on top of the mesa. I’m going to kill him if he doesn’t kill himself.
Just as that thought popped into her head, Amira’s stomach dropped down a well, then rammed up her throat before settling back into her middle with a nauseating jolt. An arm wrapped around her waist as she teetered over the cliff’s edge and voided her lunch.
