by Oxford, Rain
“I get it. You think the queen will be full blooded. How will you know if she is or not?”
“In order to heal the planet, in order to save myself and all the people here, I need someone born on this world and pure of blood to touch a metal pendant, which will release my nephew’s magic. Is that okay with you, your majesty?” I asked the king.
Cylo and Rasik, having not realized the king had walked in, turned and gaped. The three guards that flanked him moved to attack, but he raised his hand to halt them.
“You are back,” he said like an accusation.
“Yes, and more clever than before, I think.”
“Clever? You think I would let you near my wife and that makes you clever?”
“No. I think I’m clever because I don’t want to use your wife.” I got out of the seat and started towards him, ignoring the guards as best as I could. “In fact, I doubt her blood is pure, as the people of every world are genetically capable of interbreeding. On the other hand, trolls are not compatible, and therefore, it is highly unlikely that you have troll blood from any other world. You could possibly have person blood in you, and the people of Kahún and trolls can, as your daughter’s parentage suggests, interbreed, but then you would be called the ‘mostly troll king.’ I need to find someone who is pure of blood and a native to Kahún, not necessarily a person. So what do you say?” I stopped right in front of him and held up the pentagram by its chain. “Want to save the world today?”
He glared at me as if I were not as smart as I thought I was, but then grabbed the amulet. In great waves, energy flowed out of the pentagram and started to heal the damage done to the world. I could feel the nominal energy become stronger and more stable. When I checked, Rasik was hugging his book to his chest. The task was done and the energy returned to the metal.
Cylo sniffled. “Can we find my daughter now?” he asked.
“Rasik can help you,” I said.
The man in question put his hand on Cylo’s shoulder. “Please describe her. When did you last see her?” the young Guardian asked. The man was always expressive with his joy, excitement, or shame, but he was serious in his duty as a Guardian, and now he was completely focused on helping Cylo.
“I was transporting documents. Normally, my daughter stays with a friend when I travel long distances, but my friend was ill. We had been traveling for about six days. We ate dinner and went to bed, just like any other night. I was woken by a crash. We hit something. I tried to get to her, but that was the last thing I knew before waking in the goblin dungeon.”
“Why did you not keep her with another friend? You must have more than the one,” I asked.
“Well… Not that I could leave her with,” he said, obviously reluctant to explain.
“Surely there are pirates and you would want her somewhere safe. Why could she not stay with someone else?”
“Is it important?” Cylo asked.
“Absolutely.”
“Because the people of Kahún hate magic. There is a ban on magic… or was before you came. No one could know that…”
“No one could know that she did magic?” I finished for him. He nodded. “How could she do magic when there was no energy on this world?”
“I don’t know. She could always do it, her whole life. She’s only ten. When she was younger, she would pass out easily from stress. The doctors said it had something to do with a blood disorder, but there was nothing they could do about it and they could find no proof. I had to keep her away from the public because of her ability to do magic, so I used her fainting as an excuse.”
“So we need to find out what crashed your ship, and that should lead us to finding your daughter,” Rasik said. “Maybe she disappeared like you did? That seems to be happening a lot.”
“She would have reappeared when Dylan’s magic healed the damage… Probably. Maybe she has appeared somewhere else on this world. Either way, it should be a simple search now.”
Erono was pulling me back to Duran before I could even finish talking. I closed my eyes as everything started melting together to avoid extreme nausea. When I felt my feet on the ground once again, I opened my eyes to find myself standing before my cabin. A quick search of my territory with my magic showed that there was no Dylan, Mordon, or demon around.
Unfortunately, there was the dead body of Keiske-so Tae, my nearest neighbor. His charred body was abandoned in front of my cabin, obviously having been used by the demon hunting Sammy. I returned his body to his territory and spent the next few hours creating the ceremonial passageway to the spirit world, which was according to the Shomodii traditions that Tae followed.
Tae had been seven when I found him wandering the streets of Anoshii, starving, and took him in as my apprentice in magic. While his was great at magic, he was an astounding artist. He fell in love with a neighbor’s daughter before he completed his training. I remember the night that the sixteen-year-old woke me up crying that he betrayed me with her, and I only laughed as I told him I didn’t care about the law. It was a stupid law anyway, so I told him he could still be my apprentice and be with her. The day after he got his wizard title, he married her. They took a territory bordering mine, had a couple of kids, and lived happily for the first hundred years or so. Unfortunately, his wife had no magical skill and couldn’t retain her youth. When she died, Tae barely hung on to his sanity, but he never remarried and became a recluse.
I still had some of his paintings hidden away in a fire-safe box. He could have lived with wealth his entire life if he had sold his paintings, but he was too afraid. His wife and I were the only ones to ever know what amazing talent he had. The world just lost one of its very best artists, and nobody knew it.
But I would move on. I had to. I couldn’t mourn the loss of my children, friends, or apprentices forever. Everyone around me died… it was the curse of being a Guardian. Then there was Dylan. My brother was killed because I didn’t have his back; I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
I sighed, reminiscing about when we were first separated. It took nearly thirty years to learn to travel the worlds… only it was Ronez who figured it out. My brother appeared one day while I was in the middle of a brawl. Seeing me under attack, he struck first and asked no questions later. He had to show me how to travel, so I could visit the world he was assigned to.
When I returned home, I pulled the card out of my bag, which I hadn’t shown to Dylan. Something held me back. Once sitting comfortably on my favorite chair on the porch, I focused my energies and cleared all thoughts but those of Tiamat. I focused on her voice and the feel of her magic. Projecting my thoughts over space was the most I could do. Tiamat was not my god so it would be no surprise if I couldn’t reach her at all.
When I felt no response, I stood and went inside. I had no way of helping Dylan and no way of contacting any of the gods who would. It looked like I was going to have to leave it up to Janus and Mordon to help my nephew. I set the card down and the table and went to get a cup out of the cabinet. After filling it with water from the pitcher, I heated the nominal energy until the water boiled, then got a packet of tea out.
I turned to find Divina standing right in front of my table, looking at the card. I set down my tea as she picked the card up. “I tried to read my cards and that came up. What does it mean?” I asked.
“It’s an omen. You should not have this,” she said, looking up at me. “It was meant for Dylan.”
“What kind of omen?”
“A bad one.” She waved her hand in front of her and a small circle of burning light appeared. She held the card out until sparks flared out to engulf it. When the circle closed, the card was gone.
“What did you do?”
“Made sure he got it.”
“Did you seal his fate?” I asked, not sure whether or not to be angry. I knew she loved him and didn’t want to hurt him, but it was difficult sometimes to think of her as the woman I knew instead of the god she was and had always kept secret.
&n
bsp; Dylan had only known her for a few days before she faced Vretial; he didn’t realize that she changed. I trusted the Divina I knew, even when I found out she was a god and had been lying to me since the day we met… but something happened during her recovery.
“It was not a weapon, but a warning. I can’t know what it means now because Dylan still has a decision to make. The future is too uncertain. If he makes one choice, the omen will come to pass. If he makes another, it will become lost.”
“But why an apple?”
Chapter 13
Mordon
I could see in Dylan’s eyes that he had an idea, and I saw the moment when he hesitated. The sky lit up with fascinating colors as the energy clashed. Rojan scented something in the air and drew my fire to keep us warm, just in time. The sky took on a purple cast and the air grew cold. After focusing his magic, just when he was about to strike, he doubted himself. Whatever his plan was, it must have been too dangerous to risk. My friend didn’t have enough confidence in himself.
He made it to our side safely and had time to put a defensive shield. That was what he did; protect people. He was a Guardian and all of his instincts centered on helping and protecting people. Dylan would never stop, never give up, and never forget those he couldn’t save. It wasn’t in him to harm anyone.
He closed his eyes and held Sammy close, but even then he wasn’t done. His power was still stirring around us, drawing on his desire to protect us. My eyes were open this time, so I saw exactly what Dylan could do.
The protective shield that Dylan created was strong enough to be visible. It was an actual shield of cracking and snapping energy, somewhere between lightning and plasma, but it was also a mixture of green, blue, and red. What I hadn’t seen before was how the world outside the shield just broke up into white light.
I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. All around us was emptiness; the most empty vastness that anyone could ever imagine, where anything in existence would be destroyed. We were in the void.
Just as quickly as the world had disappeared, it was rebuilt. For the first few seconds, I thought we were back in the Aradlin forest, but I quickly realized this was more of a jungle. A dark, cold, creepy jungle.
“I don’t like this,” Dylan said, letting the shield fall.
“I agree.” All I could smell was blood and fear, and it wasn’t from one injured creature. Rojan reacted rather violently to the smell, causing my eyes, fingers, and teeth to shift. I tried to push him back, but he was too agitated. I was able to shift my eyes back only.
Get out. Something is coming. Something that cannot be killed.
I’m not sure if I was acting on instincts or if he had control, but the next thing I knew, I was pulling Dylan in the direction I could feel was towards the light. Dylan was clearly startled, but wise enough not to argue. Trusting me explicitly, Sammy laid his head against my shoulder and stayed quiet.
The ground was soggy and laden with roots, while vines and branches hung low from the trees, all of which made it very difficult to run, but Rojan was pushing me to run faster. We came to clearing, not actually well lit, but the visibility was a definite improvement. The sky that could be seen through the trees was dark with rain clouds and possibly a low sun.
“Stop!” Sammy cried. We did, as even my dragon listened.
Over the sound of our heavy breathing, we could hear a small stampede of animals take off… in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, we could hear they didn’t make it. Several of the alien creatures started to call out in terror, but none finished their cry. What could kill so many animals so quickly that they couldn’t even scream first?
It was silent throughout the forest, for as far as I could hear. My hearing was incredible; there was not a heart beating anywhere around us.
It has us surrounded.
What does? There is nothing there.
I felt my eyes shift and it was as if the world came alive… with darkness. Around us I saw there were no living animals, but there was something so much worse. The ground around the clearing was covered in darkness that moved and crawled across the muck. It was not alive, but it was hungry. It was hungry, it was fast, and it could not be killed. I shot a ball of fire at a patch of it, but it scattered faster than the flames, and then it converged onto the flames. So much for the dragon fire.
“Mordon, look.” I turned to see that the darkness was creeping closer. When I shifted my eyes, I saw that it was overcoming the light, but very slowly. “It can’t stand too much light. Can you make your fire brighter?”
“I can control the temperature, so I should be able to make it white-hot.”
“Alright, good. You got this, then. Make it white-hot. If the shadow thing isn’t burned by the heat, it should at least be driven off by the light.”
“Yeah, but I would need to actually burn something. Besides, plasma is brighter.”
“Well, unlike Shiloh, Edward was never a fan of using plasma, so he didn’t bother to teach me. I know how to do it, but I never practiced it. I never needed it except when I made lightning, which, until recently, I could only create during storms.”
I stared at him. He is being overcautious, Rojan warned me. He is afraid of what he can do and it will be his downfall.
I could have argued with Dylan and insisted he try, but Sammy’s safety was at risk. We both had something more important to protect. “Take Sammy. I don’t want him in my arms when I do this.” He took the baby, careful to touch only the papoose and not the actual child, who looked too terrified to even cry.
Spotting a particular fallen log that swarmed with the blackness, I called out my fire and the log lit with light. The darkness scattered. I concentrated on making the fire hotter until it was too bright to look at.
Sammy cried out and my fire collapsed, leaving me a little blind for a few seconds. A quick shift of my eyes showed me that the darkness was gone. At least for now. I returned my eyes to normal and looked at Dylan and Sammy. Dylan was holding his pentagram, pulsing with green light, away from him and the child.
“Take him,” he said.
“What happened?”
“He cried when it touched his skin and then it started to glow.” His eyes flashed with the same green light as the pentagram. “It has been absorbing my magic since I’ve been wearing it.”
“How are you not out of energy?” I asked, taking Sammy back.
“Because my body, my soul, whatever, keeps creating more. The more I use, the faster I use it, the faster the energy is replaced.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
“I am not supposed to be this. I’m human,” he said. He was getting upset.
“You are sago, just as much as you are human.”
“The sago part I’m fine with. The freak part I’m not.” He grabbed the baby bag and started walking in the direction we came from. Just before he reached the edge of the clearing, an energy shield went up in front of him, just like the one I had used to keep Dylan from getting on the elevator. I didn’t create this one, though; Sammy did.
Without hesitating, slowing down, or even glancing back, Dylan waved his hand at it. It crumbled instantly; my friend was getting too powerful. Sure, any Guardian could do that, but there was no fluctuation at all in his magic.
Like with physical strength, the more effort something took, the more strain in energy. Moving a fallen tree by hand is more difficult than moving a branch, but the same goes when using magic; moving a fallen tree with energy took more force, and therefore caused more strain than moving a branch with magic. This affected the energy around a person. When Dylan’s magic was not impacted, it was essentially asserting that it took no more effort to crumble Sammy’s shield than flicking a pen. If the child was strong enough to create a visible energy shield, it was no small matter.
Sammy was using magic that took wizards like me years to learn, and it was nothing to Dylan’s strength.
After a few minutes of walking in silence, an arachni
d skittered into our path. What was so bothersome about it was that the red and black bug was as long as my arm and had fangs. In the past, when I first met him, my friend would have freaked out and said something sarcastic and bizarre. Dylan just kicked the monstrous creature out of the way and continued.
This new side of Dylan was no fun.
Feel that?
I focused on my senses and felt something else was near. This was a beast, not as terrifying as a black mist, but it definitely would have teeth. I knew before we saw them that they were not hunting, but searching, for we had wandered into their territory and they knew it.
“Dada, doggy coming,” Sammy warned.
What in the world is a “doggy”? It sounded horrible. “Something is a few minutes out, coming straight for us,” I clarified.
“A dog of some kind, according to Sammy. We can handle a dog.” He sounded more annoyed than worried. He had described dogs to me before, and this didn’t feel like a docile pet to me.
“Not doggy,” Sammy argued. “A woof.”
“Woof is the sound dogs make, honey,” Dylan said.
“Not woof!” he demanded. Then the child howled a sound entirely unnatural. It was a howl that caused a chill in my blood and Rojan to get his back up. Even Dylan froze.
“A wolf? We can handle a…” The ethereal howl was answered with another, from the beasts approaching. “Oh, it’s that kind of wolf. We should run.”
“Run where? What is a wolf?”
“You know how I described a dog as like a small, domestic draxuni?”
“Yeah.”
“Well a wolf is like a draxuni. Only, wolves don’t howl like that. They do howl, but not like that. We should definitely go in another direction.”
“But that is the way out. And you just kicked aside a huge monster of a bug without a problem. We’ve already gone up against draxuni, why are you worried about this?” I asked. He shrugged. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
He gave me a hard look. “Drop it.”
