by Martha Carr
CONTENTS
LMBPN
Dedication
Legal
Oriceran Map - USA
Oriceran Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Author Notes - Martha Carr
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Social Links
Books by Martha Carr
Books by Michael Anderle
Guardians of Magic
The Leira Chronicles Book 8
By Martha Carr and Michael Anderle
A part of
The Revelations of Oriceran Universe
Written and Created
by Michael Anderle & Martha Carr
The Oriceran Universe
(and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are
Copyright (c) 2017-2018 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.
DEDICATION
From Martha
To everyone who still believes in magic
and all the possibilities that holds.
To all the readers who make this
entire ride so much fun.
And to my son, Louie and the wonderful Katie
who remind me all the time of what
really matters and how wonderful
life can be in any given moment.
From Michael
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
GUARDIANS OF MAGIC Team
JIT Beta Readers
Kelly O’Donnell
John Ashmore
Sarah Weir
Edward M. Rosenfeld.
Peter Manis
Joshua Ahles
James Caplan
Larry Omans
Micky Cocker
If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!
GUARDIANS OF MAGIC (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
This book Copyright © 2018 Martha Carr and Michael T. Anderle
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy
Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, April 2018
The Oriceran (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2017-18 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.
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CHAPTER ONE
The black swirl of mist seeped into hotel room 302 on the third floor of the Driskill Hotel, emerging out of thin air and swirling in the room. It gathered in inky, puffy clouds along the carpet, spreading out under the bed and around the chair. A mild stench accompanied it that was hard to place and lingered on everything it touched. The maids were getting used to the smell clinging to the room.
The temperature was quickly dropping twenty degrees as if the air conditioning was running amok. No guests were in the room.
The room was still kept empty most of the time and only used when the hotel was overbooked and desperate. Many didn’t last the night and would call the front desk complaining of strange noises and a peculiar smell.
And the cold…
The worst was when they said they heard low moaning like something was trying to escape.
Today, they would have been right.
A couple visiting Austin from Indiana were happily chatting as they passed by the room.
“I can’t believe that Kady Rain. Her music was amazing! Do you have the directions to Stubbs Barbeque. I don’t want to be late to the gospel brunch.” The husband patted his pockets, looking back down the hall.
“Did you hear that?” The wife stopped dead in the hall, right by the door, tilting her head to listen more carefully. She pulled her sweater closer around her shoulders, hoping she’d hear something easy to explain.
“There it is again. Like somebody doing the ugly cry.”
Her husband put his arm gently around her shoulders and pulled her away from the door, a cold shudder passing through him. “None of our business, dear. Let’s keep going.”
She moved away reluctantly, concerned about whoever was in the room.
“Sounds like someone mourning the dead. Poor thing.”
“You have a good heart, Ellen. You always did.”
Ellen got it half right. Lucius was a beast lost to the world in between and was crying out, determined to rip through the veil, mourning what was taken from him.
The hotel room was one of the thin places in the world where the darkness could press against the light and it was giving way to the other side. The master of the dark mist was finally ready to show himself and seek revenge.
“Rhazdon!” Lucius cried out the one name that had been on his lips for hundreds of years. A claw poked through, appearing in the room, tearing a long thin line as a darkness sucked in the light from the room. He had been keeping watch on the room, building his power. Sucking in the dark magic from lost Wizards and Elves and the occasional Gnome. He was even branching out to humans like Charlie Monaghan. The bubble that was left in the veil by Leira Berens gave him something rare in the world in between. Hope.
On that day that Mara Berens was rescued a breech was opened in room 302. Everyone filed out of the room, relieved after the rescue, not realizing the hole was never completely closed. Something had been working at clawing its way out ever since that day. Reaching out looking for power, looking for Leira Berens.
Today was the day he finally could escape.
There was a loud rip, as if Jell-O was being scraped out of a bowl with the edge of a metal spoon, and an opening was created from the world in between. A large beast that was once known as a Light Elf named Lucius, stepped through the opening and onto the carpet, leavi
ng soggy puddles with each step.
He let out a roar, opening his arms wide and balling his hands into fists as he tilted back his head, loose on the world, again.
The bellhop waiting by the elevator startled and dropped his phone in mid-text. “Shit! What the…” He glanced nervously down the hall at room 302. “Not again.” He jammed the elevator button, willing it to come faster, even though all he previously knew of the room were the stories the clerk behind the counter liked to tell him. Until that moment, he was sure she was flirting with him.
He leaned over, keeping his eyes on the door and scooped up his phone as the elevator doors opened. He stepped in, biting his lower lip as another roar echoed down the hallway.
“Come on… come on… come on…” He pushed the lobby button and used his key to make sure the elevator wouldn’t stop at any other floors. “I am so out of here. I’m quitting this gig hard! Rather be asking strangers if they want fries with that. At least I get to keep all my parts!”
The beast went to the window and looked out at the bright day below, watching all the people wandering around 6th Street below, going in and out of the bars and restaurants, laughing and talking loudly. “Rhazdon will pay for this. Eight hundred years. Best part, the bitch will never see it coming.”
His last taste of freedom was at the height of battle as he stood by the great kings to defeat Rhazdon. He had his sword at the Atlantean’s throat as he protected the old King of Oriceran. But victory was not going to be his that day. Rhazdon raised up an arm before he could plunge the steel into flesh and whispered a spell, sending a creeping darkness throughout Lucius’ body. A startled look had come over his face just as he was shoved into the abyss of the world in between. The battle had raged on without him.
Lucius moved around the room feeling solid ground underneath his feet. He flexed his muscles, feeling the air on his skin. “Been far too long.”
His veins pulsed black under his mottled pale skin, cursed a long time ago with powerful dark magic. It took some time, a few hundred years, but eventually he grew patient and learned how to bend all the darkness trapped in the world in between to his will. Draw it to him. Capture it and suck it dry to make it his own.
Turned out the curse had a silver lining. It possessed a magic all its own. He learned to become his own relic and even within the confines of the world in between he taught himself about the curse.
He learned how to become a shifter, turning into the beast, heightening his senses and feeling the trails of dark magic even in the world in between. He sought out the other darkness, moving more easily through the gelatinous void, eventually gaining enough power to send out energy into the world.
Lucius took a deep breath, inhaling as he lifted his chin again, focusing. The skin along his large arms rippled and the bones along his face shifted as he cried out from a familiar pain. He shook violently as his body quickly took on another form with the sound of bones cracking and reforming until a Light Elf stood in room 302 wearing full Oriceran leather battle armor, a scowl on his face.
The curse had a very dark lining to it as well. It had poisoned Lucius a long time ago until all he could see was revenge and all he felt was rage. He opened the door to the hallway and surprised a young man on the way back to his room. The man quickly slid into his room and shut the door, locking it. “South by Southwest always draws the crazies,” he whispered as he stood back from the door.
Lucius drew in enough magic to fling open the door in the room next to him. He rifled through all the belongings, pulling out clothes similar to what he saw on the street below. Somewhere in this world, Rhazdon still exists. I can feel it. The anger pulsed in his head. Nothing was close to the right size.
He went to the next room and emptied drawers searching for clothes that would fit. Most of the guests were already out for the day, seeing the sights.
At last, Lucius found a pair of jeans and a grey sweater along with a pair of worn work boots. “These will do.” He looked at his reflection and noticed his pointed ears, pulling in energy from the curse and shifting the ears into something more rounded. “That bitch is close,” he growled. “I can feel it.”
He shut his eyes, focusing on the distant trails of strong magic and was startled to feel something unexpected, again. The trail of bright energy emanating from Leira Berens that he had sensed even in the world in between. Stronger than anything he had ever seen in the living or the trapped. “A missed opportunity that will have to wait… for now.”
Lucius left behind the jumbled hotel room and headed for the stairs. Years of watching people move around the streets of Austin had taught him something about how to blend into a crowd. “Time to go hunting,” he whispered, as a thick web of inky black crept through the veins on his neck.
***
Turner Underwood jerked his head up from the lesson he was giving Leira, his eyes widening. His hands reflexively squeezed the silver handle of his cane.
“What is it? Your Fixer alert going off?” Leira was in the middle of practicing stepping into the middle of the light stream and back out again, learning to guide the energy more. “How do you do that? I don’t sense anything.” Leira wet a finger and held it up in the air. “There is a nice breeze coming off the lake, though.”
“Something’s not right.”
“Is there a disturbance in the force?” Leira lifted her left knee and left arm, pushing down with her right hand. “What tai chi move is this again?” Turner was using the ancient martial art to teach Leira balance and to center herself in the middle of the light. “Part the wild horse…”
“Something’s not right.”
“You said that.” Leira noticed the look on Turner’s face and dropped her arms, tilting her head to the side. “You need to go help someone? We can cut it short.”
“It’s not one of our kind. At least I don’t think so. Something is throwing off the balance.”
“You mean, besides me for once. I’m not sure how the whole Fixer thing works but can I help? Is that allowed?”
Turner cocked his head, listening to the vibrations of the different streams of energy that were always flowing by him from all the magical creatures in the world. Shimmering bands of different colors of light, flowing in all directions. Some of them smooth and glittering and flowing in straight lines. Others sputtering or tangling in small knots, surging ahead anyway.
He heard the low rumble of the dark, pulsing wave. “It’s familiar but I can’t quite place it.” His brow wrinkled and he shut his eyes, leaning on his cane as he held up a hand for Leira to be quiet.
“I know this hum.” He felt a tightness in his chest as the memories of the battle from eight hundred years ago came back to him, flooding him with memories. “It’s not possible,” he muttered.
“You’re looking a little pale even for an Elf there, Turner. What the fuck is going on?”
He blinked and opened his eyes, looking at Leira. “Just thinking of an old friend of mine.”
“Thinking about friends doesn’t usually put a look like that on my face. Rhazdon maybe…”
“Haven’t thought about him in hundreds of years.” Turner looked out over the lake, softening his gaze, still focusing on the trails of magic flowing past him. He was searching for a trace of the deep, steady stream again. “Did I ever tell you that every trail of magic is like what a fingerprint is for human beings? No two are alike. They’re uniquely shaped and leave energy trails that stretch around the world.”
“Like their own GPS, I know. I’ve noticed even human beings have some kind of version of them. I’ve used it to track killers in my old job.”
“True enough. And when you have loved ones, you become familiar with that energy flow to the point where it’s like hearing their voice. Some part of you never forgets.”
Leira stretched her arms over her head, tempted to take a run around Turner’s large estate and stretch her legs. “Has an old friend of yours come over from Oriceran? That’s good news.”
> “That would be impossible. Besides, there’s something off about the trail.”
Leira stretched her arm across her chest. “Only impossible if… is your friend dead?”
“I have no idea. He disappeared during the battle against Rhazdon a very long time ago. His body was never found.” Turner scratched his forehead. There it is again. A low rumble of magic rolled by miles away pushing other energy streams out of the way. It can’t be. Turner’s eyes moved back and forth as he sent out his own stream of energy to run nearby but not close enough to get entangled. Dark magic, very dark magic.
The heavy stream flashed and sent out a surge, knocking Turner’s energy back into his body and throwing him backward, stumbling as he put out his arms to catch himself. Leira easily crossed the space between them and grabbed Turner by the arms, connecting momentarily with his energy as she felt the remnants of the surge.
“What the fuck was that?” Leira slowly removed her hands from Turner, still hearing the buzzing in her ears. “Okay, let me take back what I just said. Shit! No, I did not know what it was like to feel every trail of magic on the entire planet, all at once. Mind blown… Like some energy of life or something.”
“An interesting way to look at it and not entirely inaccurate.” Turner couldn’t sense the heavy stream anymore, but the lingering doubts were staying with him.
“What was that low undercurrent. It was like some heavy, pounding backdrop to the whole thing. Not a feel good kind of groove at all.”
“You could sense that?”
“Yeah, it never went away. I could have sworn it even looked up when I touched you. Like a stream of energy was looking back at me. Very creepy. Almost like the dark mist.” The smile dropped from Leira’s face and her jaw tensed. “What’s going on? What do you know?”
