Talisman

by Krystyne Price

  “Any more than we can stand to be apart,” he said with a smile. But it soon turned to a frown.

  “What?”

  He looked down the length of her, eyes moving up slowly with the matching blush that crept along every inch of her flesh. At last his eyes met hers. “What we did,” he said, and then took a deep breath, closing his eyes and pursing his lips.

  She smiled. “It’s forever, isn’t it.” She wasn’t asking. She felt it.

  He nodded, eyes darting up and behind her. She felt fear prickle up the back of her neck in the same moment as he pushed her down to the ground and leapt over her body. Kaia twisted around to see what was happening and gaped openly at the sight.

  A creature with a wingspan at least half the length of a football field descended from the sky, followed closely by a second. It was that same green-grey that she’d seen earlier while in the cave. They screeched; it seemed to her to be a language of some sort without consonants or vowels. Just a litany of sounds that hurt her ears.

  She clapped her hands to them, muffling the noise a bit. She heard Bijan yell, “Stay down!” to her, so that’s what she did. But Kaia couldn’t take her eyes from them as they swooped lower and lower.

  Bijan crouched and then jumped into the air. Instead of coming back down he kept going up and up and up. Her jaw dropped to her chest. He was flying. She watched as every color she’d ever seen exploded from his hands, all muted somehow by the atmosphere of soft red. Yet even between their earlier arrival and now, Kaia could tell she was seeing differently. She could discern the yellows from the pinks from the whites from the browns, though still they weren’t exactly like she remembered them on Earth.

  His hands moved so fast she couldn’t even keep her eyes on them as he darted up and down, side to side, weaving in amongst the creatures’ leathery wings and snarling fangs. The claws at the ends of their hands and feet, the tails longer than two semis end-to-end that swirled and swiped and whipped at him, trying to knock him away.

  She watched as one demon puffed into black ash and wafted away. The second creature dove for Bijan and bile rose in the back of her throat as her eyes projected its trajectory. She knew Bijan wasn’t going to move fast enough. Fear flowed through her body. The Nake’s glow increased tenfold, encasing her in a bubble of dusky rose. She cried out, raised her hands and thrust them in the Vlovek’s direction.

  The Nake’s energy bubble bulged, then a beam of its light shot outward, travelling thirty feet into the sky and hitting the demon right in the snout. With a final screech of pain, it dissolved into black liquid which fell to the ground like motor oil. It stayed there for several moments before each drop scooted away from itself and seeped into the dust.

  Kaia couldn’t get a handle on what she was thinking or feeling. She swayed as the Nake’s bubble slowly rolled away from surrounding her and folded itself back into the gem. Strong arms came around her just as she felt the world slip away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bijan was bone weary as he entered the deep cavern flanked by two of his fellow Zar. The three spoke in low tones, Bijan adjusting Kaia to tuck her more closely into his chest. He told Kemea and Korla precisely who and what Kaia was to him, leaving them standing stunned while he continued ahead.

  There were only eight more in the spacious cavern the Zar had found for refuge when the Vloveks had discovered their previous hideout. Ten Zar plus the High Wizard and, if she could now be counted among them, Kaia.

  None of the Zar could tell him how many Shin were left. They had been waiting for Bijan’s return, and had little information to give him. Three of them hurriedly shuffled together bits of fabric and remnants of what used to be the soft pillows and coverings for Zar beds. Gently, Bijan placed Kaia atop them, smoothing her hair away from her face. The other Zar looked away, and Bijan knew it was because they could sense who Kaia was to him, even if they didn’t yet know her true identity.

  It was something Zar always knew after it happened. The joining of a wizard and his mate had never been a formal affair because it just happened spur-of-the-moment. Whereas the non-magical Shin had relations with whomever they pleased, male or female, with the Zar, their mates were organically ordained. If you as a wizard met your female match, you and she both knew it and consummated it within hours of the meeting. Thereafter, when you appeared in public, all other Zar simply knew. The bond was the strongest thing known to Shinzarns, and always unbreakable, even if one of them died.

  That Bijan had disappeared from their midst for three entire Shinzarn days and returned with his kilana was not altogether surprising to the ten Zar gathered in a semi-circle around him. But he knew their combined concern and shock would reach exponential levels very, very shortly.

  “My friends,” he said. “We are so few, but as you can see I have brought us another.”

  “She wears the Nake,” Korla pointed out. “It glows as a talisman, and from its color, it must be.”

  Kuta, four hundred fifty years old and looking every bit of those years, nodded. “And since Kana was the last to protect the Nake...”

  Bijan had never told them, these men who’d followed him so willingly and blindly when he reported Kana’s possession and the fact that Kana had bestowed the title of High Wizard on him. He had never told them anything about what had happened to the beloved Child of Shinzar.

  It had only been a handful of Shinzarn years now. No Shinzarn would be expecting anything more than a small child. Because Kaia had been in a dimension where Time moved so at odds with their own, she already looked old enough to at least be on par with Bijan’s age.

  “My kilana,” he said, straightening his back and lifting his chin in pride, “is the daughter of Kana.” They turned and whispered to each other, faces reflecting their disbelief. Deciding he needed to err more on the side of caution and give his body a rest, Bijan sat down cross-legged on the floor, leaning his back against a black wood table that the Zar had fashioned in his absence.

  “I will tell you what happened,” he said softly, “and then I will tell you what we must conserve our energy to do.”

  They looked at him with a mixture of anticipation, continued disbelief and something bordering on awe. In that moment, Bijan realized as he looked into each pair of eyes one at a time, he knew he was the High Wizard of Shinzar even in light of how little of Shinzar there was left. Because their eyes held respect that he’d never seen directed at him before.

  * * *

  Kaia awoke to find herself surrounded by flickering lights, like small candles, and by voices speaking the language she now recognized well enough to know it was Shinzarn. Slowly she turned over, body protesting the makeshift bed she’d been sleeping on. There was a circle of men dressed exactly like Bijan. She could hear his voice, speaking Shinzarn, but couldn’t see him on the other side of the rest of the men. Shinzarns, she mentally corrected herself. For as much as Bijan and the others may look human, the fact was they weren’t. At least, not like the humans of Earth.

  Her mind replayed breaking through the invisible wall Bijan had placed in the cave to protect her. It moved on to the fact that she’d been able to find Bijan without having a clue where she was or where he was, and without knowing anything at all about this planet she’d come from. Then to the hideous creatures that were like something out of a horror movie, and how Bijan had defeated the one with magical abilities she didn’t yet understand.

  Then she remembered what she’d done, and gasped. In the blink of an eye Bijan was at her side. He reached out and touched the pads of his fingers to the place where her jaw met the bottom of her ear. His touch instantly soothed her and he smiled. He spoke in soft tones, and while she knew it wasn’t English she was hearing, she somehow understood.

  Her eyes searched his for answers, and he smiled, tapping her forehead with his index finger. She grinned and then frowned as she looked over his shoulder at all the men who were similar in look and build to him, but different enough to easily be told apart.
/>   “Who are they?” she asked, nodding in their direction.

  Bijan waved a hand in between them, saying a few soft words as she’d seen him do before, and suddenly his voice came out speaking her language. “These are all that is left of my honorable fellow Zar. At least, in this region they’re all that’s left.” He hesitated for a moment, then took her hand. “Will you come meet them, Kilana?”

  “Kilana?” she asked, scrunching her face as he pulled her to her feet.

  “That’s what you are now,” he said, leaning in and brushing his lips across hers.

  Kaia felt like she was falling and her hands came forward to grasp his forearms. His smile melted her, his heartbeat thrumming through her like a low buzz. She tiptoed up and he met her halfway in a chaste kiss before backing away.

  “Come,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the Zar.

  Her jaw dropped when all ten of them lowered themselves to one knee, made a gesture like an X in front of their faces, and bowed their heads.

  “What are they doing?” she whispered.

  “Showing their allegiance to the High Shinzarn,” he said, eyes locking with hers.

  “High Shinzarn? I thought you were the High Wizard.” Kaia knew her confusion was showing on her face.

  “Not me,” Bijan replied with a shake of his head. “You.”

  “Say what?”

  “Kaia, when our High Shinzarn perished at the hands of the Vloveks, it left the High Wizard to take his place.” He turned and took her hands in his. “Though Kana refused to be called High Shinzarn, that was, in fact, his title. As his daughter, and the only surviving member of his family, that title automatically becomes yours.”

  She looked uncomfortably over at the men who were still on knee with bowed heads and X’d arms, then back to Bijan. “What, exactly, is a High Shinzarn?” she asked, hearing her voice come out sounding more like a squeak.

  “The ruler of Shinzar,” Bijan answered, squeezing her hands.

  “The ruler of—” Kaia stepped back, looking between the Zar and Bijan like they’d lost whatever sanity they may have actually had to begin with. “How can I be ruler of a planet I only just found out exists?”

  Bijan leaned forward, touching his forehead to hers. His hair cascaded down to encompass their faces. “If you choose to stay...if you are able to stay...I will help you. We all will,” he finished, sweeping his hand toward the others.

  Kaia swallowed hard. Okay, so she wasn’t from Earth. Check. Her real parents were dead along with her adoptive ones. Check. Bijan’s fingertips found the spot just under her ear again and she hummed at the gentle contact. Bijan could take her apart with a feather touch. Check. She was currently in another dimension on another planet. Okay, so far, so good. But now she was their equivalent of royalty, too. It really was just a little much for her to take in.

  “All right, but can you at least tell them to stop doing that? I’m just me, not some...princess or something.”

  Bijan chuckled and turned to speak to the Zar. Within seconds they were all standing at full height again, hands clasped behind their backs like they were soldiers standing at ease. She could understand Bijan, as he sounded like he was speaking English. But she couldn’t understand when one of the other men spoke.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He said that all the Zar of Shinzar vow their allegiance and their lives to the High Shinzarn,” Bijan replied.

  “So now you’re the High Wizard and I’m the High Shinzarn,” she recapped, still trying to wrap her head around the whole thing.

  “Yes,” Bijan nodded.

  “And you said earlier that we had to use the Nake to destroy one of the other talismans.”

  His face clouded. “It’s the only way I can think of to get the Vloveks to leave Shinzar, and to keep other dimensions safe from them.”

  Kaia flashed back again to the Nake bubble that had surrounded her, allowed her to somehow wield it as a weapon, to defeat a demon. “How was I able to do that before?” she asked, brow furrowed as the feelings of being encased in something beyond comprehension resurfaced. “How did I do that with the Nake?”

  “The talismans are very powerful, but that power can only be wielded by the High Wizard or a direct bloodline descendant of a former High Wizard.”

  She nodded, half-turning away from him in thought. “How do I make it happen? I mean, the...magic, or whatever this is?” she asked, flapping her hand in the air.

  “How did you do it when you killed the Vlovek?” he countered with a frown.

  “I...I don’t know, I just...” Kaia faltered, biting her lip, looking all over the cavern for answers she knew it didn’t hold. “I felt such fear,” she said, hands trembling. She turned to Bijan, unable to resist the urge to touch him.

  He stared into her eyes. “Fear for me,” he offered. “For my life.”

  She nodded. “Yes, exactly. I was so afraid you were going to die, and suddenly the Nake made that bubble around me, and...” Her voice trailed off as she shrugged. “I just don’t know.”

  One of the Zar stepped forward and began to speak. His face was sincere as he and Bijan exchanged words. She understood Bijan’s, but not the other man’s. He finished the conversation and returned to his place with the others.

  “What did he say?” Kaia asked.

  “He said because the Nake is the talisman of great emotion, you triggered its power with the strength of your fear. I suspected as much, but Kora has studied the talismans’ power for over two hundred years, and confirms that theory.”

  “So if I’m really scared, I’ll be able to tap into the Nake,” Kaia concluded. When Bijan nodded, she said, “All right,” leaving his side long enough to pace to the makeshift bed and back again. “How do we find another talisman to destroy it?”

  “We know the locations of all four, but we’ve never been able to penetrate the Vloveks’ defenses to get at them,” Bijan replied bitterly. “Many Shinzarns have lost their lives in unsuccessful raids.”

  From the look on Bijan’s face to the turmoil she felt emanating from his being, Kaia knew whatever these Vlovek defenses were, they were going to be nearly impossible to beat. Especially for a woman who’d grown up thinking demons were just stories made up by early Christians to scare followers into submission.

  But this, she reminded herself, was her home, too. Her real home. Not Earth. Her adoptive parents had been wonderful, had given her the gift of a happy, loving and stable family. She might not really remember Shinzar, nor anything more about her father and mother than vague pictorial recollections, but this was where she had always belonged.

  Besides, what did she have left on Earth? Other than her friend Lou, whom she knew would never believe a word of this in a month of Sundays, she really didn’t have anything other than acquaintances. There were people whose tongues might cluck for a few weeks after she dropped off the face of the Earth, but who would forget she’d ever existed in time.

  Lou. Kaia frowned. She’d have to see if she couldn’t maybe get back over there once all this was said and done and at least tell him good-bye. Because if there was one thing Kaia knew in her gut more than anything else she’d ever been sure of, it was the fact that she was meant to be here. Here and now, with Bijan and the other Zar, and all the Shinzarns that were left. Here to help them take back what was rightfully theirs.

  The planet didn’t look like much to her, but it was her heritage. Helping Bijan was a way to honor the father and mother she had never known, and she felt driven to succeed. If nothing else, if somehow this wasn’t anything more than she’d gotten hit by a bus and was in a coma world, at least it would be exciting. Not to mention the fact that she knew being scared shitless was not going to be a problem, because the Nake could work with that in spades.

  “Bijan?”

  “Yes, Kilana.”

  She smiled up at him. “Let’s go destroy ourselves a talisman.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her t
ightly. “Thank you,” he whispered into her ear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Those that were left in Bijan’s group had paired off and were travelling under the cover of darkness. They were to converge upon the Palace of High Shinzar, atop the highest peak on all the planet, where once the High Shinzarn Emolo had lived. Until, that was, the Vlovek Mulmak had led an assault that had seen every single palace-dwelling Shin and Zar, including the High Shinzarn himself, slaughtered.

  They knew the palace was heavily guarded. Two previous attempts to obtain the beautiful white Nako talisman from its bowels, and with many more Shinzarns than they had this time, had proven futile. Thirty-five Zar and twenty Shin had perished in that raid led by Bijan himself, and still he had not yet forgiven his arrogance and ignorance for even trying it.

  Yet of all the four locations where Vloveks held the talismans, the palace was the one Bijan knew best. He and Kana had been frequent visitors to the High Shinzarn’s home to consult with him on various matters of the planet. It had been well over fifty Shinzarn years since the Emolo’s murder, and Bijan still felt the sting as acutely as he did the loss of Kana.

  He chanced a sideways glance at Kaia, who ran through the night matching him stride for stride. He supposed it made sense she found it so easy to move. The force humans called gravity was slightly heavier on Earth than here on Shinzar, meaning it took much less energy to do anything here.

  There was only one major concern on Bijan’s mind now, besides the fact that they were taking only eleven men and one woman with no experience after the Nako. And that concern was running into Kana/Mulmak. Bijan was certain that was where his possessed former teacher was residing, yet he had told Kaia only that both her parents had been killed...not that some part of her father lived still. He was afraid to tell her, afraid that it would make her refuse to go into battle.

  And then there was the more practical and frightening notion that if he kept it a secret, she might either facilitate a separation accidentally with the Nake, saving Kana’s life, or outright kill Kana/Mulmak, freeing them all from that tyranny. Bijan felt more than just a bit guilty, but fought to keep the emotion behind a wall Kaia wouldn’t be able to sense.