by Scott Baron
“They disarmed her and left her trussed up like an animal?”
“Yes, Visla.”
“And they are nowhere on the grounds? You are certain of this?”
“Yes, Visla.”
“So, they must be outside the perimeter, somehow. I’ve cast the stunning spell, but there has been no connection. Send all of my vessels out across these lands. Have them travel in every direction at top speed. Find them, but do not engage. Once we have them located, I shall handle them myself.”
“I want a piece of them,” Malalia said, staggering into the room.
She was a mess, her clothes filthy from Charlie’s attack, and her senses still jumbled from the powerful blast from the Geist. Even so, the fierce determination in her eyes would have scared any man foolish enough to get in her way. As it was, the only men actually in her way lay dead and scattered on the ground in front of her.
Malalia ignored the corpses, stepping over them as if they were no more than an inconvenient pile of debris. “They humiliated me, Father. In my own home. I demand justice.”
The visla looked at his daughter with critical eyes.
“You are filthy, Malalia.”
“Yes,” she grumbled. “It was the human. Little bastard hit me with one of his stupid waste-removal spells. What sort of man does that?”
Maktan couldn’t help but appreciate the novel approach. “I can see why he gained a reputation for being a particularly resourceful gladiator. Using spells not meant for combat, and effectively, I must add. Most original.”
“Father!”
His eyes hardened. “Do not worry, my dearest. You will exact your revenge once I have the beast back in my possession. But Charlie must live, at least for a short while. The other you may do with as you please.”
“There were two others, actually. Leila was not alone,” she said.
“Oh? Now this interests me greatly. Who else of my staff would dare raise their hands against my family?”
“He wasn’t from here, Father. He was a Wampeh.”
The visla blanched slightly, but hid it well. For anyone to have snuck through so many layers of spells meant an assassin, almost certainly. For it to be a Wampeh, however, well, someone with great power wanted him dead.
“I see,” he said after a moment’s thought, stepping close to his daughter. “What more can you tell me about this––is that blood on your mouth? They dared to strike you?”
“No, Father. I was only stunned and bound. But do not worry, the blood is not my own. When the bastard grabbed me, I bit him,” she said with a feral sneer.
Maktan slapped her fiercely then took a disgusted step back.
“If you weren’t my daughter––” Fury, but also fear burned in his eyes. “You would dare sully your bloodline with this, this, contamination?”
“What? No, Father, it was nothing like––” she blurted with tears of shock in her eyes.
“Get out of my sight! Bathe. Burn those clothes. You are the daughter of Visla Yoral Maktan. Do not forget it. Now go. Make yourself presentable. Then I will have you see the healer at once.”
He turned and stormed from the room, muttering as he walked.
“Stupid child. And Wampeh blood of all things. She must know the risks,” he said, then disappeared out the door, the soundproofing spell cutting off his angry rant.
Malalia watched him go silently. What could she say that wouldn’t just make his rage even worse? She looked at the dead men littering the floor and found herself wishing he had left at least a few of them for her to take out her aggressions on.
Dinuk had stood perfectly still for the whole thing, not wanting to anger either his master or his master’s child. Now he was stuck, hoping Malalia would forget about him and leave.
No such luck.
She flashed him a look, daring him to say anything. Dinuk, for his part, stared straight ahead, lips firmly sealed.
“So, Dinuk,” she said, malice dripping from her tongue, “Father wishes to be informed the instant they are found.”
“Yes, Denna Maktan,” he said, eyes straight ahead.
“And you wouldn’t dare go against my father’s wishes.”
“No, Denna, I would not.”
She studied him a long moment in silence. If he was afraid, he did a fine job of hiding it.
“Very well, then. You do as my father asks. But I, too, am requiring something of you.”
“Anything, Denna.”
“When you find them, you will tell my father, as ordered. But you will tell me their location as well. That way you will be obeying my father’s commands, while also obeying mine. This does not contradict his orders, and therefore, you will do as I require. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Denna,” he said, not liking the predicament she’d put him in one bit. Her logic was sound, but that wouldn’t lessen the ire of his master if he found out.
“Good. Now, let’s keep this to ourselves, shall we?” she said, pressing a filthy finger to his lips, then walking from the room.
Only when she was gone did he allow himself to breathe. And that breath suddenly smelled faintly of bundabist poop.
“One of those days,” he grumbled, then set off to launch a search the likes of which the planet had never seen.
But Charlie and the Zomoki were much farther away than that, and no matter how hard they looked, Maktan’s men would not find a trace of them on that world.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Ara’s sizable mass lay hidden beneath a grove of large, burgundy-leaved trees beside a small, murky pond, populated by large bottom-dwelling fish the size of a small pony. The thick canopy provided her excellent cover from prying eyes, while the convenient water and food source allowed her to dine at her leisure without expending energy needlessly as she recovered from her first jump in a long time.
The planet they had arrived on only moments after departing Visla Maktan’s realm was a small, humid world in a relatively nearby system. It was several light years away, but for the Zomoki, that posed little problem. When they arrived in a flash of magical energy, the sudden shift from the frigid air of the upper reaches of the atmosphere to the near-oppressive heat of their destination was enough to take your breath away.
The important thing was, they were free.
It was a relatively sparsely populated planet, and one with plentiful resources, which was partially why Ara had selected it from the many worlds she had visited over her lifetime. This one would provide a safe haven while she recovered, and it was a place she could likely remain unnoticed.
“Were you successful?” she asked Bawb upon his return to the grove.
He was carrying a large sack over his shoulder, and had clothed himself in a common worker’s attire, brought along when they fled Visla Maktan’s estate.
“Yes. Quite, in fact,” he said, dumping the contents of the bag to the deep azure grass.
“Is that bread?” Charlie asked, snatching up a fresh-baked loaf and inhaling deeply.
“The baker was very amenable to a simple barter,” Bawb said, offering a slice of dried meat to go with it. “He also threw in some of his home-cured garoki meat.”
“What’s a garoki?”
“A large, herbivorous animal,” Leila answered. “Not uncommon, but still relatively unusual to use for food stock.”
“On this world they are wild game,” Bawb noted. “The proprietor showed me the mounted head of the beast. It was a particularly sizable one, even by garoki standards.”
“And these greens? Do we cook them, or eat them raw?” Charlie asked of the strange produce piled beside the now-empty sack.
“These may be eaten either way, though I think the tubers are much more palatable when roasted.”
“Noted. I’ll make us a fire and start putting together a meal, then.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Leila asked.
“Yeah, actually. Could you gather up some dry wood?”
“I could, yes. But why?”
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“Uh, for the fire. Or you could try your hand at making a wand. Might be an interesting experiment.”
Leila and Bawb shared an amused look.
“Charlie, we don’t need to burn wood for a fire. It is wasteful, dangerous, and smelly. Every child knows the basic campfire spell from a young age,” she said with a smile in her eyes.
“Well, I’m not every child, then. I didn’t grow up here, you know.”
Leila moved close and selected a small rock, placing it on a clear patch of ground. “Ogeufne,” she said.
A small blaze ignited above the rock, spreading heat and warmth but not singeing the grass pressed down around it.
“Fascinating,” Charlie said. “And it won’t burn anything around it? Then how do we cook with it?”
“It only directs the heat upward,” Leila answered. “This way you don’t accidentally burn down a forest. It’s a really useful spell. Slovera,” she said, extinguishing the flame. “Okay, now you try.”
“But I don’t know it.”
“You just learned it, Charlie. Just focus on the rock while saying the words, and a flame should ignite.”
“Again, a wand would help.”
“What is this ‘wand’ you speak of?” Bawb asked.
“A stick. A piece of wood about so long, tapering at the tip. We don’t actually have wizards and witches in my world, but the fairy-tales all talk about them using a wand to focus their magic and cast spells.”
“A wooden konus? Or slaap? But in the form of a stick?”
“Wand. But yeah, basically.”
Bawb seemed intrigued by the novel idea. “Wood, charged with power. It has never been done. It simply cannot hold the magic. It would be an interesting stealth weapon, but dry twigs have no capability.”
“Well, it’s a fairy-tale, okay? And if it weren’t, well, maybe magicians just grow them that way or something. It wouldn’t be dead then, right? Hell, maybe they could even embed Ootaki hair in a split branch and then bind it so it’d heal with that inside, right?”
“Fascinating,” Bawb said, taking the idea seriously. “Imbue a living tree with power. Clever, Charlie.”
“Look, I’m just making this shit up as I go. Pure speculation on my part. I don’t know if any of that stuff would even work.”
“Enough chatter, you two. Try the spell,” Leila said.
He grumblingly obliged, focusing his gaze on the stone. It seemed so innocent and simple a thing to do, but for a man who had rather excelled at learning combative magic, starting a fire felt like a whole different type of magic, and one he was unfamiliar with.
“Um, ogeufne,” he said, feeling the konus slightly warm as he cast the spell.
A large flame shot up, then quickly receded to a reasonable size.
“Wow, that was really good,” Leila said. “Just try to keep it lower next time. We wouldn’t want to catch a tree on fire, after all.”
“Obviously,” he snarked. “Now hand me that pot and I’ll whip us up some grub.”
“Grub?”
“Food. Sorry, I guess that doesn’t translate quite right. Ah, the joys of human slang and alien translation spells.” He laughed. “Spells. If you’d told me I’d ever believe in magic, I’d have laughed in your face. And now, here I am, actually casting spells. Crazy.”
“I could say the same for your tech-magic,” Bawb said. “A magic that does not abide by the rules of our worlds? It was unheard of. Unimaginable. And now?”
“I guess it’s been a bit of a shock for all parties,” Charlie agreed. “And I’ve even befriended a dragon,” he said, silently.
Ara flicked her golden gaze his way with an amused look in her eye. “Zomoki, if you please. And though the answer is yes, I would technically consider us something more than friends at this point. We are bonded, Charlie. A connection unbreakable until death.”
“So morbid, Ara.”
“Just being factual.”
“And how are you feeling?” he said aloud, for the benefit of the others. “That was a pretty big jump you made.”
“For me, not terribly big, actually. But it has been quite a long time since I last jumped. Normally I simply cast a protection spell and travel through space at a leisurely pace for short trips. It’s quite relaxing. But to answer your query, I am tired, of course, but far less than I anticipated.”
“This is good news. How long until you think you’ll be ready to jump again?” the Geist asked.
“I should be refreshed by tomorrow, I would think. Being able to move freely, unfettered by the visla’s magic, has been quite restorative.”
“Excellent,” the Wampeh replied, rising back to his feet. “I shall acquire us additional supplies for the next jump.”
“But I’m cooking,” Charlie griped.
“Yes, but I can obtain sustenance elsewhere while carrying out this chore.”
Charlie looked him in the eye. “You’re not going to drain anyone’s blood, are you?”
The vampiric assassin smiled. “No, Charlie. It would be bad form to do so while we are in a precarious position. And besides, that is only something I do with powered individuals. Otherwise I prefer my nourishment in the form of food, like any other man.”
Charlie dug in the nearest crate, pulling a pair of portable comms units from the pile.
“Okay, but hang on a minute, I want to give you one of these––if I can get it working.”
The pale man watched him curiously, unsure about the strange tech-magic in his hands.
“What is that, Charlie?”
“It’s a comms unit. It’s kind of like a skree.”
“But it operates without magic?”
“It used to. The batteries are dead, but I think I’ve found a way to charge it magically. At least enough to work for a little while.”
Charlie dredged up the silent spell from his mind and focused.
“Yaka illum,” he cast.
Nothing happened.
“Ara, how did you power my konus?”
“It is a Zomoki skill. I opened my power like a faucet until a trickle flowed. Even among my kind, it is a difficult ability to acquire.”
“Huh. But I wonder, maybe...”
He took the dragon’s words to heart, clearing his mind of everything but the spell he wished to use and the intent behind its casting.
“Yaka illum,” he silently repeated over and over, a mental picture of a battery charging from a trickle of power filling his mind.
After a moment, he stopped. “Well, I guess that didn’t work,” he grumbled.
“Charlie?” Leila said. “Are they supposed to have lights on them like that?”
He looked at the comms units. It had taken a minute, but they had somehow assimilated the power and turned on. The battery cells read a quarter charge.
“Awesome!” he exclaimed.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Ara mused.
“Your powering the konus must’ve made it possible.”
“But Charlie,” she said, “your konus’s power has not been drained in the slightest. I would have noticed.”
“Huh,” he said, confused. “Well, the important thing is, it worked. Bob, take this with you. It’ll let us talk if anything comes up.”
The Wampeh took the device.
“What is the command to activate it?”
“No, it doesn’t work like that. You push this button here, then hold it to your ear.”
“Hold it to my ear? How utterly inelegant,” he griped.
“Well, you could try the video setting, but that tends to use the battery faster.”
He and the pale assassin spoke over the devices a moment to ensure he was comfortable with their operation, then Bawb took off at a jog, leaving the others to their repast.
“Tell me, Charlie. How exactly did you power the tech-magic devices?” Ara asked.
“I just did like you said. I pictured them charging in my mind. A trickle of power filling them up.”
“An
d did you feel anything? Anything at all?”
“Nope. But it was a small charge, so maybe that makes sense, I suppose.”
The Zomoki shifted, resting her head on the soft grass. “Yes, that could be it,” she said. But she wondered if it wasn’t something more. Something far more.
Chapter Forty
The next world was not nearly as pleasant.
“Are you shitting me?” Charlie griped from the shelter of the ice cave Ara had melted for them with a few well-placed bursts of flame. “Why did you choose this place?”
Ara was quite comfortable, easily able to shift her own temperature with the simplest of castings that were second nature to her.
“It was the best option, given our path, as well as the need to remain unobserved by any who could report to Maktan or any of the other members of the Council of Twenty.”
“But do you really think they would find us so quickly?” Leila asked. “We’ve only been gone less than a week, and there are countless worlds separating us from his realm.”
“Be that as it may, the Council of Twenty have a long reach, and many spies spread throughout all of the systems. You may trust me on this matter, as I have dispatched more than a few of them in my travels,” Bawb noted.
Charlie paced back and forth, rubbing his arms to keep the blood flowing. A small fire had been cast, and Leila and Bawb sat before it, warming themselves as best they could. Charlie, however, was a bundle of nerves.
“How long do we have before Maktan is able to get a fix on us by our collars?” he asked.
“Please stop pacing,” Leila requested.
“Sorry. It’s just we’re sitting here kind of exposed, and we really don’t know how much time we have.”
“Technically, we’ve been here half as long as the last system,” Ara noted. “And I should be capable of making our next jump in one, two days tops. This was a much longer one than previously, and while that requires a longer refractory period, it also puts more distance between us and our pursuers.”
“So they’re on our trail already? You’re sure about that?”
