by Oxford, Rain
“Did she know me before I became a Guardian? Did she choose me or…”
“She did know you; she knows every human, she just didn’t know that she knew you. You were chosen because you were who she would have given the book to.”
“How did the book come to me? Did it just drop from the sky?”
“I guess. You shouldn’t ask me, you should be asking your god.” There was a moment of silence as she stared at the water. “I say too much around you. No one can be trusted in these times, not even the Guardians, and especially not me. You are foolish to trust me.”
“Ronez trusted you, and so does Edward. What’s so wrong with that? What are you hiding?” She didn’t answer me. “Or is it something that you don’t hide? Is that what you meant by trading information? Do you give information to the enemy? To Vretial? Is that how Ronez---”
“I never betrayed Ronez,” she said. “And I will not betray you or Kiro. I’ve lived a long time and have been and done many things. Don’t dig,” she said.
I nodded. It wasn’t a promise. I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t, but I didn’t know if I could keep myself from trying. My book was in her hands because I trusted her, and I did, but that didn’t mean I could just ignore that she was hiding something. Maybe it just wasn’t my business.
I realized she had leaned in closer to me. The heat from her body penetrated the cold of the night and I found myself drawn closer. Her breath smelled so sweet and her eyes sparkled in the light from the hall. I was getting dizzy.
How did I go from suspicion to intimacy? Oh, of course; she’s a woman. Her lips were inches from mine when she halted. To my great dismay, she turned to face the water and getting that kiss was not going to happen.
After a few minutes, I sat back against the large rock behind me. “Will you show me how to talk to Tiamat?”
“I don’t know how; I’m not a Guardian. Everyone else can only speak if spoken to. You may have to figure it out yourself, but you can ask Kiro. Now, I have a few things to do and people to meet with. It would probably be boring and dangerous. If you were to stay here while Kiro and I are out, would you be safe?”
“What kind of harm can I get into, in a hotel without electricity or running water? Which reminds me, how does that run?” I asked, pointing to the fountain.
“This hotel does have electricity. Most places in Anoshii do.” She gazed up at the sky and stood. “Come on. Kiro should be done by now. Don’t tell him you’re staying here.”
“I really don’t like lying to him.”
“You’re not lying; you’re just not saying anything. Besides, if you come with me, we’ll be out for hours.”
In other words, I wouldn’t be able to hang out with Mordon and help with the potion. It might be my only chance to make a potion in a long time. “What about when Edward comes back and I’m here, while you’re still out?”
“Kiro hasn’t gotten time alone with his son for years. He’ll be out late. All you have to do is stay in the room and don’t let any strangers in. Of course, if you felt like you needed fresh air, you can come out here, and only here. I’ll give you a key,” she said.
She knew I was planning to leave, though I didn’t know how she did. I guess if it was her job to get information she wasn’t supposed to have, she was great at it. I did wonder why she was okay with me visiting Mordon after telling me not to trust him.
We left the garden and I was careful to memorize the route back.
Upstairs was a hallway identical to that on the floor level, minus the courtyard. Our door was the second on the left and, as usual, was a sliding door. The room was similar to a typical hotel room with tan walls and sienna colored carpeting. There was a small celadon-green table, about four-by-three, in the middle of the room, low to the floor with four tan cushions around it. In the center of the table was an elaborate tea set and a lantern. The bed was about half a foot off the ground with dark green blankets and pillows.
On the north wall was a large map of modern Duran, while a large window with a window seat and large wooden shutters dominated the east wall. Edward stood by the window, staring out. The conversation hadn’t gone well.
“What did he say?” I asked.
He didn’t look at me. “Little more than ‘none of my business.’ He said they’re handling it and I should only worry about training you.”
“Did you tell him about my visions?”
“He knows. I’m going to go visit Hiroku.” He turned to me. “If there are any problems, you know where I am. Stay with Divina,” he said.
He studied me, possibly reading my mind. If I were to think of something completely off the topic, it would have been suspicious. So instead, I thought of sneaking out to see Mordon when they both fell asleep.
“Have fun. Safe fun,” he clarified before leaving and sliding the door shut.
“You did very well,” Divina smiled at me.
“Are you sure he can’t still hear us?” I whispered.
“These walls, like the ones at the restaurant, are soundproof. I’ll leave in a few minutes. Now, I’m trusting you to not do anything stupid or dangerous.”
“I know. I won’t do anything stupid. I’ve lived by myself for almost four years, not including all the time I was alone during my childhood. But, before you go, will you show me how to use that music player?”
“Yeah. You get it, I’m going to change,” she said. I searched through one of the bags. “Get something warmer on because Anoshii gets cold at night during this time of year.”
I turned to respond without thinking and my heart skipped a beat. She faced the other way and was lifting her shirt! I tried to look away. I tried to close my eyes. Instead, I was frozen with my eyes and mouth wide. Her beauty was unnaturally stunning. She paused, but didn’t lower her shirt.
“Try not to have a heart attack,” she said with undisguised humor.
Her voice only made me fall deeper into my daze. She remained motionless for a moment and my daze faded away, leaving me confused and dizzy. I quickly turned away and tried to focus on finding my player. “Are you… decent?” I asked. I finally found the player and pulled it out of the bag.
“Always.”
She set a pitcher of water on the table. She had on a short-sleeved dark blue, satin shirt tucked into her short, black pleated skirt, with leather combat boots up to her knees.
“Where are you going?”
She grinned and sat on the bed. “Just to a few meetings.”
Meetings she doesn’t want me at. She grabbed the little player, turned it over, and pushed a small button. The bottom half slid slightly to the side, revealing a small, open square. She filled it with water and popped it closed, setting the water back on the table. I handed her one of the little CD cases. After popping the top open, she opened the CD case and took out the little chip. “Did you pick this out?”
“No. I have no idea what it is.”
“Well, Kiro has a good sense of taste. In music at least.” She stuck it in and pushed another button. The little set started vibrating for a second before calming.
Some kind of creepy rock music with a really cool melody started from the little set. I wasn’t sure about the instruments, but one sounded like a guitar. We listened for a few minutes before Divina stood.
“I’m going to go. Remember to change into warmer clothes. Also, remember that magic, including potions and the like, is illegal here, so, if you’re going to do magic, try to be sneaky about it.” She left the key on the table for me.
I waited for a few minutes before turning off my strange little music player.
* * *
It was cold. In less than an hour, the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. I was also alone, and it occurred to me that Mordon’s father may have caught on to his plans and stopped him. After about half an hour, I decided I would go back soon, but just a few minutes later, the door slid open and Mordon stepped out.
“Ite nomanai. Tetaka ni yotaga…” he pointed ba
ck at the door. “… go jiseki tomkatsua.” He slammed his fist into his leg.
His father made him late. His father didn’t sound like a very nice person.
I’ve often wondered who my father was and what it would have been like with him around. But then I figured he would be like Mother. I also considered that he could have the same luck as me, in which case it would be a horrible idea to meet. Seeing other people with abusive parents enforced my gratitude for having only one.
Being a little scrawny because he was young, I expected Mordon to dress warm. The thick coat and snow boots, as if he were preparing for a blizzard, was a little excessive. Maybe I wasn’t the weirdest person here.
Mordon had a large leather bag that made a suspicious clang as he dropped it beside me. He plopped down on the other side of the bag and started ruffling through it before pulling out a small brass pot and a small sack. He emptied the sack of something that looked like dirt and set it in front of us. I watched with interests as he snapped his finger at the pot. Fire burst bright from within it. While I was focused on his display of fire, he was pulling out small glass bottles, cloth sacks, and a mortar and pestle.
Though he was younger than me and didn’t have as high of a title, he was much better at magic. It struck me as unfair that a parent could keep his child from even having a last name. Mordon started filling the mortar with different amounts of the strange ingredients.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I didn’t need to sign out my question.
As he answered me, he pointed to his eyes and then to the door. He wanted me to be a lookout, which was fortunate as I had been hoping he wouldn’t ask me to do magic I didn’t know how to do.
I watched the door as much as possible, but couldn’t help peeking at Mordon to see what he was doing more often than not. My eyes must have been the size of golf balls as he reached deep into the flames and pulled out a pinch of blazing sand to toss into the mortar. This guy had amazing control over fire.
He set the mortar inside the flaming pot and continued to add strange ingredients; everything from plants, to orange goo.
“Why do you need all this?” I asked, trying my best to sign it out.
“Eda mura kinteku…” he said, pointing to the jar. “…masunda…” He held up one finger, then two more.
Not understanding a word, I stared at him blankly.
He slowly reached out his hand to my forehead. The instant he touched me, I became exhausted. Instinctually, I tried to push his arm away, but it was already gone. The fatigue evaporated as quickly as it had come on and the first thing I could push out of my mouth was, “Teach me.”
“How?” he asked, understanding.
“I don’t know. Show me.” I pointed to my eyes and then myself.
We both sat there, unsure how to communicate something so dangerous. It wasn’t fair that I could understand a god, with his god language and all, and not be able to talk to one of the three friends I had on Duran.
The book had the power of Tiamat, and caused me to understand Vretial when it thought I need to. So… maybe I can make it translate between me and Mordon. I closed my eyes and focused really hard on the book. I could feel it all the time, so I simply had to bring it to the front of my mind. Of course, I didn’t know how to use it, but I was a Guardian, so I knew it was possible.
I wasn’t sure what to imagine, so instead I just wished really hard that I could understand him and he could understand me.
“Dylan?” he asked, concerned.
“Do you understand me?” I asked.
He blinked. “Perfectly… Are you… using magic?”
His accent was the same as when he was trying to speak English, but he was obviously speaking Sudo. I could feel that I was hearing something different than what he was saying, and his lips were moving to foreign words, but it sounded like English.
“I think so. I mean I know so, but I’m not sure how it works.”
“You are not using energy. Or more like you are producing the energy you are using. This is weird.”
His words caused a little irritation in my head, assuring me that I would have a headache later. I could understand his confusion; the magic was coming directly from the book, which I didn’t even have on me.
“Weirder than a guy who doesn’t speak one of the three languages on Duran?”
“Okay, you are weird. Are you really a wizard?” He spoke softly as if afraid his loud voice would hurt me.
“What do you mean?”
“You control the energy so smoothly, yet you act as if you just entered the craft, because you do not seem to know a lot of magic. You do not know Sudo, and only know a language I have never heard of. And now you are using a spell right now that is far more advanced than even my father could do, yet you do not know what you are doing. Are you a demon?”
My eyes would have popped out if they weren’t attached. The itch in the back of my mind was forgotten. “A demon?”
“It is okay if you are, I would never turn you in or ask anything of you. But if you are a demon, from another world, I want to know. I am not a religious man, nor an easily frightened one. You seem more like a traveler than a threat. And Edward is certainly weirder to me than you.”
“Edward? How is a man named Edward anything weird? Weirder than a demon?”
“You said his name is Yatunus? My great grandfather was a Yatunus, and I have a painting of him that looks exactly like Edward.”
That wasn’t surprising to me, because it seemed perfectly plausible.
“I’m no weirder than Edward, I’m just a little younger. I’m not a demon… but…” I sighed. “If you repeat this I swear I’ll deny it. You can’t even tell Divina and Edward I’ve told you this. I’m from a world called Earth. I’ve come here to learn from Edward, and I really know very little. It’s important for me to learn magic in order to protect something from the bad guys.”
“Protect what?” he asked.
“It’s complicated. The point is… no; that is the point. I’m here to learn and Edward is protecting me until I can.”
“How do you know I am not the bad guy?”
“Because if you were the bad guy, you would have acted all shocked when you found me not able to speak Sudo. And this is a much easier way to talk.” Except for the brain irritation. But it was only my brain.
“So will you tell me about your world?”
“Yeah, but will you teach me that spell first? When I get into electricity, fast-food, cartoons, and pizza, there will be no stopping me. And why are you making a potion when you can make your father sleep without it?”
He looked a little ashamed as he stirred his concoction. “My father is a very powerful man whose disappointment in me knows no bounds. I have not gotten close enough to touch him in days, and if I did, he could easily counteract any magic I could do. I could certainly slip something in his drink, though, and he would be too distracted to counteract it.”
“Will you teach me the spell? It would be a great defense.”
“You will not succeed tonight. This spell has taken me years to learn, and I only recently did, but you can practice it. Be careful doing so. Because nominal energy is by far more powerful than physical, it can convert physical energy into nominal. This is extremely dangerous to practice because your victim could be drained of physical energy until dead.”
“How did you practice?”
“Servants. My father made me practice it on the servants over and over until I got it right. Anyway, the two energies naturally coexist, which makes this even more difficult. Edward can probably teach this to you better. Is there anything you can think of that converts something into itself?”
“Like a virus? I can imagine some alien virus that does that.”
“Good; tiny particles. Imagine whatever you need to… like that the nominal energy is a virus converting the physical. Pour nominal energy into your victim, and as you do, imagine the magic energy converting the physical energy, then remove nom
inal energy as it is created. You must do this, and as you imagine the energy converting, you also have to imagine the person becoming tired. If you are not gentle or you draw too much, the person can be injured. Are you sure you want to attempt this?”
“Like I said, I have something very important to protect, but I also want to be of any help to Edward and Divina that I can be. I won’t take it lightly; I’ll be careful.”
He nodded. “When you are done, do not suddenly stop. If you end it quickly, the person may wake, but be too exhausted to think straight, so you must slow down before you are finished. Keep in mind that this is a spell that exhausts a person; they may not fall asleep, or they may pass out. There are ways to make them want to lie down and sleep, but that is not this spell. Does it sound like something you can handle?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like something worth trying.”
He sighed. “Try it on me. I know you will try really hard not to hurt me. Do not wear yourself out or get discouraged; like I said, you will not get it right the first time.”
“I thought it won’t work if you don’t believe it will.”
“Yes, but you should not even be doing it if someone can so easily convince you otherwise. There is a way to reverse the effects, but I will teach that to you after you tell me about your world. Are you ready to try?”
I nodded.
I considered asking him to come back to the room, where the cold wouldn’t be such a problem. It wasn’t for me, actually, but he was shivering. Maybe he came from a warmer climate. What stopped me from inviting him was that Edward could return early.
I closed my eyes, cleared my mind, and drew in energy. Being as careful as I could, I made a mental channel to draw energy from me to him. I imagined not an image but the idea of him getting tired. Holding that idea in my head, while still willing my book’s language assistance, I imagined my energy (as a bright blue glow in his body) was some alien, airborne virus that mutated his physical energy (as a bright red glow) into the virus energy. It was like a zombie virus, which then left his body like any good airborne virus. I made sure it was a slow acting virus. After some time, I felt something new, and it took me a few moments to realize that it was nominal energy being drawn into Mordon. I opened my eyes to see his eyes closed and his head down. Fairly certain that I was doing something, I slowed the virus to a stop and let him fill himself of energy.
