by M. D. Grimm
Then she had come: a temptress with soft skin and entrancing eyes. She had spoken of power, of bending others to our will. She’d wanted to ally with me, knowing I was the seventh son of a seventh son, destined to be one of the most powerful mages of our generation. Destined to become the Destroyer. I’d nearly been seduced, but in the end, I rejected her and sent her cruelly from me. She wasn’t one to forgive and forget...which explained why she was here. But not how she had come to be here.
Drasyln smiled slightly at me, even as her left hand clutched the stone in a death grip, her knuckles turning white.
“So, you do remember me, Dark Mage,” she said softly. Her voice tickled my senses, brushed over my ears pleasantly. I swallowed hard. I still remembered how she’d felt underneath me. How her body felt as it surrounded me.
“You’re not forgettable.”
She smiled fully, but I could see the rage behind her eyes. The insult I’d delivered to her years ago had cut deeply into her pride.
I kept my hand out and never removed my eyes from hers. “Give me the stone, Drasyln. Don’t make me do this the hard way.”
She laughed, flipped her thick hair back. “You know I won’t. I’ve come too far, Morgorth. Too far to be stopped by anyone. Even you.” Much of the laughter left her eyes. “You should have joined with me back then, Morgorth. You should have merged your power with mine. We could have been ruling the world by now if you hadn’t been so foolish. So weak.”
“Weak?” I said softly, a sharp edge to my voice. A quick flicker of fear entered her eyes and I smiled slightly but it wasn’t humorous. “You would have had me as your personal lapdog, Drasyln. You want no equals, no mates. You use and you discard. You suck the life out of those you partner with. It wasn’t weakness that had me rejecting you, but self-preservation.”
“You’re wrong.”
Did I imagine the flash of hurt inside those hazel eyes?
“We could have been great,” she whispered. “We could have made the world kiss our feet. We could have made it tremble at our might...even succeed in the destruction of the council. Just as they wish to destroy us. You.”
Desire flickered inside me at her words like a small candle. There was still rage inside me, simmering, far in the back of my mind; always there, always waiting for me to let my guard down. A desire for vengeance, for annihilation, for power. She tapped into that. She’d always tapped into that.
“Become one with me, Morgorth.” She held up the stone and it pulsed. “And let us change everything. Let us form the world in our vision.”
The dark orange and thin white lines coloring the stone drew my eyes. In that instant, I knew the stone’s name and its ability. All the warmth in my body drained and cold replaced it. An intimate link existed between the stones and mages, and we knew when we were in the presence of one. Even though we didn’t know the number of stones made, whenever we encountered one, we instantly knew the name and its power. At a moment like this, I wished I didn’t. Only after the ludkis’ ceremony would I have been able to view the stone the clan discovered. If I’d known about Drasyln I would have broken tradition and immediately imprisoned the stone.
I met her eyes again. Even as my magick shimmered at the surface, ready to be unleashed should I say a word, I kept it contained. Playing the game, I stepped closer to her, feeling her own magick shimmer. She watched me carefully, expression calculating. I soon stood so close I managed to slip an arm around her tiny waist. Her lips curved. While I still saw rage behind her eyes, I also saw desire. Not so much desire for me, but desire for the power I represented, the power I could give her if she had me under her thumb.
My body stirred—stupid body—as I pressed myself against her. I had to plan my moves carefully to succeed in taking the stone away from her. The fingers of her right hand suddenly threaded through my hair, and I acutely remembered the dark passion we’d shared those years ago. It had been violent, painful, and darkly satisfying. So different from what I shared with Aishe.
She suddenly smashed her lips to mine, and my heart tripped in my chest. My hands gripped her tight ass. My body demanded things I would never again indulge in. Aishe’s face bloomed to the front of my mind and that gave me the strength to lash out and grip Drasyln’s hand. The hand that held the stone. I bit her lip, drawing blood. She jerked her head back, black rage smothering all else.
“You will always be weak!” We struggled, unwilling to use magick since we could easily hurt ourselves at such close proximity. I kept my arm around her waist even as she tugged painfully at my hair, pulling my head back. I tightened my grip on her hand holding the stone.
My neck screamed in agony, but I knew she struggled to breathe because of the pressure I exerted around her waist.
“Atcoatlu is mine!” she shrieked as we stumbled over the rocky cliff, yanking and jerking. Our legs entangled, and we fell hard onto the ground. She landed heavily on top of me, and her grip on my hair slipped. I rolled us, holding her down. She wrapped her legs around my waist. Now I had both hands on her one, tearing at her grip. But she clung to it like a lifeline.
“You damn wench, let go!”
Drasyln bared her teeth and in a move that shocked me, she reared up and bashed her forehead against mine. Completely taken off guard, I fell back as she scrambled to her feet. Dizzy, head throbbing, I stared at her dumbly for a moment.
“You’ll never win, you weakling!” She gripped Atcoatlu in both hands. “That dialen whore of yours has made you weak, Morgorth! A pity, you could have been so great.”
Fear snaked through me as a light from the stone began to burn. “Don’t Drasyln! Don’t use it!”
She snarled, her eyes turning gold as her magick shimmered closer to the surface. “Finders’ keepers, Dark Mage.” Her tone was mocking, contempt dripping.
“You didn’t find it”—my voice was like a slap—“you stole it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Atcoatlu’s light burned brighter, and I could feel its power, its promises. It spoke to me, telling me it was all right, that what it did, what it could do, wasn’t the greatest sin a mage could make. I didn’t believe it. “You don’t matter. Atcoatlu is mine.”
Even as I felt the air around her began to tremble and heat, I only had a split second to make a decision. I lunged forward, trying to grab the stone again. She jerked her arm away but I managed to grab her wrist just as she activated the stone’s power. I didn’t have time to change my mind as a silver dome formed around Drasyln, as the stone seemed to open a vortex with a gravity I couldn’t fight. I was being suffocated, compressed on all sides, and my breath left my lungs. My last thoughts were of Aishe, and if I would ever see him again.
In my efforts to prevent this exact event, I realized I’d just broken a cardinal rule of a mage. The Number One rule my mentor Master Ulezander ever taught me.
What the Mother has written, let no one unwrite.
Atcoatlu was an agate. It was the stone of time.
Chapter Three
I woke up horribly dizzy and nauseated, and I didn’t bother to move, not yet. The vortex had left me wrung out and exhausted. The stone apparently only shielded Drasyln from the time traveling effects. My stomach pitched as that thought fully crystalized in my mind. Holy Mother and Hunter, what did she do?
I forced myself to open my eyes when I heard shuffling footsteps beside me. My vision was blurry but the smell of grass was pungent and the temperature was mild. Was it begsumer?
“You just had to follow me. You’re so dumb.” Her voice was breathy, strained.
I couldn’t respond. Otherwise I would send a cyrse—a rather nasty spell—in her direction. I suddenly felt her directly in front of me.
“Well, you’re not going to ruin this. I hope you die here.” She proceeded to kick me in the head. The lights went out again.
When I came to, an unknown time later, I had an intense headache to go along with the dizziness and nausea. I was going to delight in killing that bitch. Breathing slow
ly, I managed to gradually wall away some of the pain and discomfort, and move into a sitting position. My muscles felt as weak as a newborn’s, and I just wanted to fall over again. When my vision finally cleared, I realized I was in a small meadow surrounded by large, ordinary trees. I didn’t know where I was or—by the Mother—when I was.
I suddenly held my breath as that thought struck me. Was I in the past? The future? I didn’t recognize anything, and there was nothing but forest noises around me. That bitch had made me time travel! Oh, Holy Creation’s Light!
If I was in the future, it was slightly less terrible than journeying to the past. I couldn’t do too much damage if I was in the future. But why would Drasyln journey to the future? What was her goal? Where did she go? Was she trying to gain the advantage on something or someone? Did she want to learn something about the future so she could change events in her own time?
Feeling my headache surge back, I forced myself to breathe even as my thoughts turned darker. What if I was in the past? I froze, terrified that one bent blade of grass could change the fabric of what the Mother had written. The past had already happened, and that meant I could do a significant amount of damage if I didn’t find Drasyln quickly and get the hell out of here. But as I sat there longer, a few birds twittering in the distance, a gentle wind rustling countless leaves, I began to work past my terror and forced my mind to consider the paradox of time travel. If I was in the past now, and the Mother had already written the past, would it make sense that I’d already been in the past? Was I supposed to be here? And if that was the case, then would I be able to change the past? Or was everything I did now already written, so there was no chance I could foul it up? Or was this the Mother’s plan, that I wasn’t in the first past, which had created the present I had existed in, but was now in the second past, to create a different future?
Oh, fucking-A. I gripped my head as the headache pounded angrily right behind my eyes. Kill me now, please. Just end the misery. I shook my head fiercely, gritting my teeth as it throbbed.
The rustle of bushes and the snapping of tree limbs made me lift my head. It sounded like a stampede of animals was coming toward me, but before I could find the strength to stand, a dialen suddenly burst out onto the field where I sat. He didn’t see me. In fact, I’d never seen a creature run as fast as he did, under no other power but those of his own legs. I caught a glimpse of green eyes and sheer white hair.
Wait a minute.
He shot past me, and a startling revelation began to form in my head. The dangerous roar of a trulbar broke my train of thought. And, sure enough, an enormous female with a big, sturdy body, and wicked horns, charged out of the trees, at the same spot the dialen had come from. She didn’t notice me either, focused as she was on the dialen, and quickly gaining ground.
I was on my feet before I consciously knew it, running after both of them. Adrenaline allowed me to move, to act. With a surge of magick that burned my bones, I snapped my hand to the side, shouting a word. A punch of pure force smacked into the trulbar and sent her flying to the left, far into the forest. She bellowed in shock and rage but I knew she wouldn’t return. She wasn’t suicidal. As I shoved down my magick, the pain, nausea, and sheer weakness returned with a vengeance. I fell to my knees and gripped my head. Then I lifted my eyes to see that the dialen was still running. A dialen I knew very well, or would know in the future. I was firmly, irrevocably in the past.
Aishe.
Apparently, the young dialen had heard the commotion with the trulbar and turned his head, never slowing. But even as he whipped his head around in shock, he did the one thing I never thought possible. He ran into a tree.
He ran into a tree.
And knocked himself out, by the look of it. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been in so much pain and if the situation hadn’t been so dire. But my jaw did drop. I focused on breathing through my nose and out my mouth even as I continued to stare at the downed youth. He was young, no doubt about it. Not yet an adult, but not a child anymore. He was in that awkward stage of life, just past puberty. He was gangly and obviously not too sharp if he hadn’t seen that tree right in front of him.
This was bad. This was very, very bad. I had to leave, now. But I couldn’t. I could barely stay on my knees, my body simply wanted to keel over. I began to tremble violently and the nausea couldn’t be denied anymore. Even as I vomited, I managed to consider my situation even more. If I hadn’t saved Aishe, then he would be dead, no doubt about it. That meant I was supposed to be here. I was already written into the past, the Mother had this all planned out. But what was I supposed to do here? Other than find Drasyln and go back to the present.
I wiped my mouth as I heard footsteps approach me. Drasyln. It had to do with her. What was her goal here, in this time? What did she hope to accomplish? Why was this time significant for her? And why the hell hadn’t she killed me?
But, more importantly, how was I going to keep my identity, and our future, hidden from Aishe?
“Hey, hey, are you all right?” His hand gripped my shoulder as he knelt down beside me. I was glad he hadn’t harmed himself too badly, though he did have a nasty bump on the side of his head. I nodded, but I realized a second later that wasn’t a good idea. I cringed and gripped my head again.
“Are you sick or something? How did you get the trulbar to go away?”
I realized a moment later he was speaking in a common language, one I knew. That meant we were in a place I’d frequented before, in my present. That was good. I had enough problems without adding a language barrier to them.
“I should go.” My voice was barely more than a croak.
“No, you can’t. You’re hurt. I can take you to my tribe. They’re not far.”
Oh, hell no. That would be a very bad idea. But even as I tried to stand, I ended up falling over with a grunt. Aishe leaned over me, his eyes wide. I focused on his face. Yes, he was my Aishe, but shockingly young. His dirty face was thin, his hair tangled with bits of leaves and twigs from his race through the forest. He was, well, adorable; completely and utterly adorable. And so young. The Aishe I knew was a strong, capable warrior; his confidence was enviable, and his courage unparalleled. But to see him now, or then actually, to see him look so young and vulnerable and lost, it nearly broke my heart. He wanted to help me, but he didn’t know how. And he was still trying to get over his near-death experience.
I noticed a bow beside him and a quiver on his back. I doubted he knew how to use either very well.
“Can you walk? Hey, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” I said after clearing my throat. “I don’t know if I can walk.”
“Do you remember your name?”
I drew in a deep breath and opened my mouth to tell him my name. But then I snapped it shut. Should I? By the cosmos, how was I to know what I should and shouldn’t say? How was I to determine how much I should let Aishe know? How much would affect my present? Our present?
When I didn’t answer, he looked even more worried.
“Morgorth,” I said. I didn’t want him to think there was anything wrong with my mind. “My name is Morgorth.”
Relief entered his eyes. “Good. Good. I’m Aishe.”
I managed to sit up and he gripped my shoulders, helping me. He was surprisingly strong for a twig.
Then he knelt under my arm, pulling it over his shoulders. “Come on, we can’t stay. You need help.”
“Let me go. I can’t—”
“You saved my life.” He was insistent and determined. He met my eyes when I turned my head, and I saw a glimmer of the Aishe I knew. “Now I’m going to save yours. Stand up.”
I managed to stand with his help. He grabbed his bow and we began to slowly walk. I shuffled more than anything, sweat sliding down my face and back. Damn. That vortex really messed me up. Maybe if Aishe managed to get me to his tribe they could heal me, and I could leave unnoticed. I’d feel guilty taking their healing skills and then leaving, but it was the
only thing I could think of to ensure the future stayed hidden from this time’s Aishe.
He was slightly shorter than me, which seemed odd, but it actually helped us walk. His arm was unwavering around my back, but I could feel his own strain in his rough breaths.
“What are you, anyway?” he asked a moment later, as he led me down a clear trail, avoiding rough terrain as much as possible. “A seela?”
I was a little offended by that. “A mage.”
Aishe whipped his head around, awe in his eyes. “Really? Wow!” But then the awe dimmed and he frowned. “But, then why are you so weak?”
Well, no filters on this kid. He was brutally honest. Some things hadn’t changed.
“Long story. And mages aren’t invincible.” It became too much of an effort to talk, so I fell silent.
Left foot. Right foot. Left foot....
“Right. Sure. That makes sense.”
It wasn’t long before the fatigue and dizziness overcame me. “I need to—” Then my legs collapsed. It caught Aishe off guard and he fell with me. He crawled out from under my arm and rolled me onto my back. I barely saw the tree branches above us or heard any sounds. The sensations I felt were similar to the magick fever.
Was I dying?
“Hey, Morgorth! Hey!”
I felt his fingers touch my throat, probably feeling for a pulse. I felt my eyes roll back in my head as my heart galloped in my chest. My breath came in shallow gasps.
