The Equilibrium of Magic

by Michael W. Layne

  Merrick waited impatiently for the elevator as Mona ran to catch up with him.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  They both stepped into the elevator car as he hit the button for the ground level.

  “Somebody activated our missing cube,” Merrick said, “and I’ve got to find it while the trail is hot. Just keep everyone in here and lock the place down. I’ll be back as soon as possible. Tell Betty that if the delegation from the Wind Family tries to show up while I’m not here, she needs to stall them until I return.”

  The elevator door opened, and Merrick ran out into the lobby straight toward Oodrosil’s trunk. About six feet from the mighty yew tree, Merrick dove into the air and spoke a tone that sounded like crumbling stone. As his body made contact with the tree, it vanished into it, and in a fraction of a second, Merrick was on his way, traveling through Terrada on his way to the source of the missing cube.

  Such a powerful use of the cube showed up like concentric, expanding circles from a stone dropped into a still pond. In much the same way that Cara had been able to find Merrick the first time he had used his powers, Merrick could now follow the ripples in the fabric of magic from the missing cube to its epicenter.

  As his molecules mixed with those of the earth under Tysons Corner, Merrick traveled as fast as the speed of thought toward the cube. He burst up through the ground as his body reconstituted, and he landed in a patch of grass just outside of a grocery store.

  Any concern of his about being noticed was unnecessary. He was surrounded by so much confusion and chaos that no one even paid him a second notice.

  Merrick had only felt the direct power of the Wind Dragon, Araki, once before, but given the destruction around him and the charged air that filled his lungs, he knew that someone from the Wind Family had been nearby only moments before.

  He heard sirens in the background as he walked purposefully against the flow of fleeing humans, past a grocery store, to where a group of trees lay on their sides, ripped up from the ground, their roots pointed aimlessly at the sky.

  He touched the bark of one of the trees and whispered to it. The tree knew that it was dying, but it was not sad. Unlike humans and even some Drayoom, trees knew above all else that their energy would never disappear—that they would never truly die. For them, death was a regular part of the cycle of life, and they felt no tragedy at its arrival.

  “What was it that happened here?” Merrick asked the tree.

  Through images in his head, the tree showed Merrick a man hunting and killing a human female. The human held a shiny cube of divinium that her killer took with him as he ascended into the sky through the funnel of wind that had caused all the destruction around him.

  The images stopped and Merrick thanked the dying tree as it entered the next phase of its journey.

  Merrick had been worried before about the divinium cube falling into the hands of a human, and rightfully so. But now, he felt an even more intense dread seep through him.

  How much more dangerous would it be for one of the dragon families to possess a piece of Rune Corp’s divinium?

  Now, more than ever, he was sure that the key to his quest lay in solving the riddle of divinium itself—the magical stone that was so central to Drayoom life and culture.

  Just as Merrick was about to dive back into the ground—to once again travel through Terrada’s belly—he caught a slight movement in his peripheral vision—a hand trembling under one of the fallen trees.

  He picked his way through the mangled tree limbs until he stood overlooking the crushed body of an old woman whose lips were moving silently as they tried to form words.

  With a single utterance of the Terrada’s tongue, Merrick asked the tree to cooperate and to move itself off of the woman with the last of its remaining strength.

  As the tree raised itself from the woman’s chest and dropped to one side of her, she tried to inhale deeply, but stopped short, probably as several broken ribs jabbed the insides of her body.

  Merrick decided it was best not to try to move the woman. He was far from being a doctor, but given the position in which he found her and the weight of the tree that had fallen on her, he was sure the old woman’s spine had been damaged.

  He kneeled down next to her and held her hand.

  The woman blinked her eyes a few times and then stared up at Merrick, a look of recognition passing across her face.

  “Mr. Merrick Jones...I was coming to find you,” she said with a weak voice.

  “Do I know you?” Merrick said.

  The woman closed her eyes and grinned. She opened them again.

  “Do I look as old as I feel right now?” she said. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  Merrick shook his head slowly.

  “Officer Diggs,” she said with a flurry of coughs that made her squint with each heave of her chest.

  Merrick repeated her name in his head a few times before remembering who she was. Somehow, this woman was the police officer who, almost eight months ago, had questioned him the night he had inadvertently put Mona in the hospital because he hadn’t known how to properly wield his newfound powers.

  As soon as he recognized the police officer, he also recognized her sudden aging as a side effect from overusing the cube. He didn’t know how she got her hands on the cube in the first place, much less how she had been able to figure out how to make the damned thing work, but there was really no other explanation for her abnormal advance in years.

  “Officer Diggs,” Merrick said. “Who did this to you, and where is the cube? It’s very important I get it back.”

  “I was coming to find you,” Diggs said. “I learned so much. I did my best against the man in white. I…I couldn’t see his face.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Merrick whispered. “You weren’t meant to find the cube.”

  “I was,” she said. “It gave me some magic in my life, for once, even if it was just for a short time. I could use some more of that right now, though. I feel so...used up, empty.”

  Merrick raised his head and looked around. He had no idea what the repercussions would be of traveling with someone as injured as Officer Diggs through the earth. But if there was any chance of saving her, he had to get her back to Rune Corp and hope that the mighty Oodrosil could restore her life force and counter the effects of the cube. He could try some healing words of his own, but he didn’t know whether she was dying from her injuries or from having her internal energy drained from overuse of the cube.

  “Officer Diggs,” Merrick said again, even as the woman’s eyes closed and her head tilted to one side. “Officer...”

  Merrick wrapped his arms around her limp body and spoke the dragon words to move him through the earth and back to Rune Corp. She was about to die, so there was nothing to lose.

  As their bodies sunk into the ground, he felt himself become one with the cool dirt, the rocks, the insects, and the spindly roots below Tysons Corner. He easily held on to the concept of himself and tried his hardest to project his thoughts about Officer Diggs to keep her together as well. Together, they sped through the ground, nearing Rune Corp in seconds, but even as he started his ascent to the main floor of his building and began to reintegrate his own body, he realized that his arms were wrapped around nothing at all—only dirt.

  Officer Diggs had gone into the earth, but without a will to keep herself whole, she had not come out the other side.

  Instead, she was lost, dispersed forever within Terrada.

  Merrick cursed out loud as he stood in the Rune Corp lobby, fresh soil falling from his hands onto the floor. Several of his employees, although more used to strange events than most humans, were still surprised to see their senior vice president emerge from the ground beneath them.

  It was bad enough that humans and Drayoom alike had perished in the war between the Earth Clan and the Fire Tribe. Now a civilian human bystander had lost her life as a result of that war as well. And even worse, the Wind Family now possess
ed the missing divinium cube.

  If they didn’t already know, it wouldn’t take long before they figured out that the Rune Corp divinium was fundamentally different and more powerful than the divinium used by their family. And when that happened, they’d want more of it.

  Rune Corp wouldn’t be safe, nor would Merrick or anyone he cared about. Now it was more imperative than ever that he find the source of the divinium Ohman had discovered—so he could further fortify Rune Corp’s defenses and arm its employees and so that he could use it to discover the secrets of the dragon tongues for which Ohman had been searching.

  Merrick groaned.

  If the mighty Ohman hadn’t been able to figure out how to unify the Dragon language, how could Merrick ever hope to do so?

  His first instinct was to ask Oodrosil.

  Merrick took the elevator to the fifth floor and walked over to where he could reach out and touch the top branches of the yew.

  He leaned over the chest-high glass wall and placed his hand on Oodrosil’s bark.

  He concentrated on opening his mind so that the yew could easily read and interpret his thoughts.

  The tree shuddered noticeably in front of Merrick, and a few of its needles dropped to the lobby floor below—a reaction that Merrick was not expecting.

  Merrick saw a single image in his mind—like a photograph of a forest that had been recently ravaged by fire. The trees were still standing, but their trunks were shiny black and their barren branches looked like glistening ebony.

  Even as Merrick studied the image in his mind’s eye, it faded to a field of total darkness, and the connection between him and Oodrosil closed.

  When no more images came, Merrick removed his hand from the tree, even more confused than before about where to find the special divinium he sought.

  The one thing he knew for sure was that the Emperor of the Wind Family didn’t know where to obtain the Rune Corp divinium any more than he did, or the Emperor wouldn’t have sent one of his Drayoom to take the cube from Officer Diggs.

  Just as Merrick turned around, he saw Mona approaching him at a hurried walk.

  “Betty just told me that the advanced detail for the Emperor is going to be here in an hour—and the Emperor has decided to move up his arrival time to today as well. He’s going to be here in two hours.”

  Merrick’s first thought was to send Cara an urgent message, but he knew there would be no way for her to get Bradley settled in and to make it back to Rune Corp in two hours.

  He was going to have to handle the royal delegation on his own, even though he knew the Wind Family had just stolen one of their cubes and probably was already hard at work trying to unlock the secrets of Rune Corp’s divinium.

  CHAPTER 12

  MONA LOVED MERRICK, and she hated being the bearer of stressful news, but she also knew that he would want to know as soon as possible that the Emperor had moved up his arrival time to today.

  When she walked up to him, he was leaning over the glass wall with his eyes closed and his hand pressed against the trunk of the tree everyone called Oodrosil. As much as she had been exposed to magic and understood its concepts intellectually, it was still difficult for her to really think of a tree as a living creature with a memory and a name.

  But it was a grand tree to look at, and Mona had found herself often walking around its base, touching its gnarled trunk and running her fingers over its rough exterior.

  She didn’t know for sure, but she imagined that the yew tree was well over a hundred years old. The way Cara and Merrick talked about it, sometimes she thought that the tree had been around a lot longer than that—maybe even since the beginning of time.

  Mona waited for Merrick to open his eyes and to pull back from the tree.

  As soon as she told him about the Emperor’s impending arrival, she could tell that he was stressed about handling the visit by himself. Merrick had improved in so many areas since last year, and he had been working incredibly hard at Rune Corp—too hard as far as Mona was concerned—but he still was a long way off from knowing everything Cara knew.

  “I’ve got all the department heads together,” Mona said, “if you’re ready to talk with them. And security is preparing for the Emperor’s advanced detail. Frank will meet them downstairs and get them in the building—give them a look at the places the Emperor will be visiting.

  “Betty wanted me to tell you that you still need to firm up the agenda for when they get here. That needs to be done before Frank can know where to take the Emperor’s security people. Sorry, Merrick. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate this morning already.”

  Mona moved her hand on top of his, touching it lovingly. Merrick looked up at her and forced a smile.

  When they were in the building, Mona made it a policy not to initiate any blatant displays of affection with him, even though everyone knew they were engaged.

  Sometimes, however, she couldn’t help herself.

  Things between them had quickly progressed after they returned from their adventure six months ago, and Mona was happier than ever. Also, his work ethic and focus had gone from barely existing to being almost too much the other way.

  She loved the new Merrick, but she missed the amount of time she had with the old Merrick. She half listened as he started asking questions and making plans out loud about the Emperor’s visit as the two of them made their way to the main conference room.

  He wanted her opinion on whether to show the Emperor the data center or the testing facility first. He wondered aloud if the Alphas had been practicing their routines enough.

  She was silently thankful that Merrick’s magic didn’t yet include the ability to read minds, or he would have known that as much as he was busy with the running of the company, he was soon going to be responsible for a lot more.

  She and Merrick may not have had as much time together as they used to, but they found a night here and there to be together like any other couple in the real world.

  And even though she wasn’t one hundred percent certain of the date, she was sure that she now carried Merrick’s unborn child inside her.

  She knew that Merrick would be shocked at first and then excited about the prospect of being a dad, but she was still anxious about telling him.

  Merrick had changed a lot recently, but he was still Merrick, which meant that he could still stress pretty hard over situations that normal people accepted as a regular part of life.

  And considering how focused he had been on work recently, the horrible accident yesterday, and the Emperor’s visit, Mona didn’t want to stress him out even more with news of becoming a father just yet.

  She would know the right time to let him know.

  But that time was not today.

  CHAPTER 13

  IN THE SPAN OF only a couple of hours, Merrick and his team had accomplished a lot—deciding on an agenda for the Emperor, going through two practice runs of the demonstration from the Alphas, and finding a caterer for lunch and beverages.

  Merrick had even changed into his suit and tie, something he had not worn since starting at Rune Corp. Because of the weight he had lost, the suit was too large for him, and it hung awkwardly from his athletic frame.

  He hoped that he still looked like a company executive at least.

  The Emperor’s advanced delegation had arrived half an hour ago, and Frank, the head of Rune Corp Security, had already shown them the parts of the building their leader would be visiting and now brought them to Merrick’s office for a final review of the day’s itinerary.

  When the team of four from the Wind Family entered Merrick’s office, they bowed deeply as the head of the delegation introduced himself as Mr. Kawagishi, the Emperor’s chief advisor and ambassador in charge of intra-family relations.

  He was a thin, refined looking man of middle age, perfectly fitted in what looked to be a cross between a traditional Japanese kimono and a black silk suit. The cloth was inlaid with a faint blue pattern of symbols that Merrick did
n’t recognize, but the fluidity and sweeping nature of the lines reminded him of the wind.

  More than anything, Mr. Kawagishi possessed a kind face with a smile that was simultaneously exaggerated and sincere.

  Merrick felt comfortable around him immediately—as if he could divulge anything to the man and still be accepted for who he really was. At the same time, he went over in his mind all the points of diplomacy Cara had taught him over the last several months. Even if he felt comfortable around the ambassador, he had to remember that he was representing more than himself when he spoke. He was representing Rune Corp, and to some degree, even the Earth Clan, whether he wanted to or not.

  Two other men stood behind Mr. Kawagishi. They were dressed similarly to the ambassador, although their black suits were without patterns. A tall, thin woman stood next to them. She was wearing a plain dark blue robe with a thick cloth belt and a traditional straw hat—or kasa—that shrouded her eyes and the top part of her face in shadow. Despite this, Merrick could see that the woman had several large, deep scars across each of her cheeks.

  Merrick was intrigued by the mysterious woman, but Mr. Kawagishi did not introduce the members of his group.

  “Thank you for being so generous with your time on such short notice and accommodating our last minute change in schedule,” Mr. Kawagishi said with a smile.

  “We’re pleased to have you here,” Merrick said. “I only regret that our president and chief executive officer will not be able to join us today.”

  “I agree it is regrettable that the daughter of the great Ohman will not be able to be here,” Mr. Kawagishi said with a tilt of his head that made it seem like he was examining Merrick closely.

  “Regarding your concerns about security,” Merrick said, “I understand you have a job to do, but I assure you that the building is secure from outsiders. As I’m sure you noticed when you entered, we have the latest in both human and Drayoom security in place. The Emperor will be safe inside our headquarters.

  “We even employ security wards that ensure our employees never remember any details from their workday. My assistant, Betty, won’t recall having met you or your Emperor when she goes home tonight. Her memory won’t be restored again until tomorrow morning when she arrives for work. None of my employees will even remember you were here when they’re not at work.”