The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  Wyatt stood, walked over to Lucy, and extended a hand. “I’m sorry, sis’.”

  She looked up at him. “Sis’?”

  Wyatt shrugged and smiled his goofy smile. “Yeah. We’re a family now. Well, I guess we always were, just couldn’t remember.”

  Lucy seemed to think about his words a moment, then she smiled as well and accepted his hand. Wyatt pulled her upright and the pair walked to Ms. Abagail’s side.

  “I’ll say it again,” Ms. Abagail said as they approached. “We need to fix this.”

  “We?” Wyatt and Lucy both said in unison.

  Ms. Abagail turned to regard the newfound siblings, her brow furrowed in thought. “Yeah,” she said. “Doesn’t seem I can ignore it anymore, and seems you can’t solve anything on your own.”

  “Hey,” Wyatt protested.

  Ms. Abagail waved a dismissive hand and turned back to the skyline. “I’m just saying you can’t do it on your own.”

  Wyatt frowned some more, but knew she was right, much as she often was. “I thought I could get stronger,” he said.

  “I’m not so sure it’s about getting stronger,” Ms. Abagail replied.

  “Then what is it about?” Wyatt asked. “How do I fix things?”

  “Dunno,” she said. “This is your mess, that’s the part you have to figure out.”

  “But I’ve tried—”

  “I know,” Lucy said suddenly.

  Both Wyatt and Ms. Abagail turned to her. Lucy’s fingers played along the edge of her worn shirt. Her eyes jumped about.

  “Well?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  “We have to remember.”

  “I’ve tried that,” Wyatt said. “I even got Ms. Abagail to give me—”

  “We,” Lucy interrupted.

  “Oh,” Wyatt said.

  “Well, remember then,” Ms. Abagail said, sounding impatient. Clearly, present circumstances were wearing on her and Wyatt couldn’t rightly blame her. It must have been a lot for someone to digest all at once. Even as used to the fantastical as he had become, Wyatt found it unnerving how things had shifted. And knowing it was partially, or even fully, his fault made it all the more difficult to swallow.

  “It’s not that simple,” Wyatt said, feeling like he finally understood.

  “Feel free to elaborate,” Ms. Abagail retorted.

  Wyatt sighed. “The world Lucy created, the one I’ve been escaping to, it’s well…I think it’s made of our memories. The magic I had, the thing that made me a Druid, was all the good memories, and the bad side of the magic, the part that the Regents use, and the part that I almost…well, that’s the bad memories.”

  “And?”

  Wyatt scowled at Ms. Abagail. He hardly recognized her in such a state, and he wasn’t sure he liked her challenging him so much.

  “We need to defeat them,” Lucy said. “The Bad Man…”

  “And the Regents,” Wyatt said. “I think that’s why I was so drawn to my original quest there. Like somehow, I knew what I needed to do, even though I didn’t. You know?”

  “No,” Ms. Abagail said flatly. “But if that’s what it takes to set things right, and to set you two right, then that’s what we’ll do. We have to get Athena back, anyway.”

  “Rozen, too,” Wyatt added. “She’s important. Always has been.” He frowned at himself, unsure why he had said that.

  “So, defeat the Regents, destroy the Bad Man, free both your memories, rescue Rozen and Athena…anything else?”

  “Well…” Wyatt said slowly, wary of Ms. Abagail’s ire. “Remember how I gave up my power? Well, we can’t exactly get to the Realms anymore, I don’t think.”

  “Well, then what was all that, back there?” Ms. Abagail responded, gesturing toward the stairwell and the carnage below. “Seems the Realms are coming to us. Like you said, worlds colliding.”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t even know what that was, or how it happened. It just…did. And it only seemed to—” Wyatt stopped. He turned to look at Lucy.

  She blinked several times and then crossed her arms. “What?”

  “You…the worlds…they mixed while you were sleeping up here. And you said yourself that you made the world in your dreams. So maybe if you sleep and dream about us—”

  “Wyatt,” Ms. Abagail interrupted.

  Wyatt waved a hand at her without turning to face her. “No, it will work. I think. Lucy made the Realms in her—”

  “Wyatt!” Ms. Abagail said again, this time shouting and pushing his shoulder.

  “It can work!” he protested, turning and preparing to push her back.

  Ms. Abagail wasn’t paying any attention to him, however. “I’m not so sure we need to find a way back.” She pointed at the horizon. “I think the Realms are coming to us.”

  Together, the trio looked out past the boundary of Greenwood Hospital toward what should have been an expansive pine forest. Instead, rolling plains of tall grass stretched as far as Wyatt could see.

  “That’s…that’s Gazaria,” he said. “I was just there…”

  As he spoke a sound like thunder floated up from the sea of grass, shaking loose from the hills in a chorus of heavy footsteps. Powerless to do anything but stare, Wyatt watched as a swarm crested the peak of a hill miles from Greenwood. Despite the distance, instinct gave away their identity.

  It was Ms. Abagail who gave voice to it. “I’m guessing that’s the Regency,” she said.

  Lucy gasped and dropped to hide behind the short wall. Wyatt just nodded dumbly.

  “You ready?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  “I…ready for…uh…” He couldn’t wrest his eyes from the distant horde. Did they already reach Athena and the elves? Was she dead? Was the Lord Regent among the masses? Where was Rozen, really?

  A hand on his shoulder brought his spinning thoughts to a halt. He turned to see Ms. Abagail smiling at him. She squeezed his shoulder gently.

  “You’re not alone, Wyatt. And you never were.”

  Warmth spread from his shoulder to the rest of his body and a confidence soared up from the depths of what he took for his soul.

  “Right, Lucy?” Ms. Abagail continued.

  A small hand grabbed at Wyatt’s and his sister pressed into his side. Tears stained her face, but she nodded and smiled.

  Wyatt turned back to Ms. Abagail.

  “So, are you ready?” she asked again, nodding at the distant army.

  Wyatt took one last look at Ms. Abagail and Lucy before turning to regard the Regency in a new light.

  A smile curled his mouth to such a degree that it hurt. His eyes narrowed on his enemy. Thoughts of all those he had failed fueled his confidence. And though he couldn’t be certain he’d never fail again, one thing he did know. No matter what he did, whether good or bad, right or wrong, or in whatever gray areas D’orca had spoken of, Wyatt the Mighty would never again do it alone.

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” Ms. Abagail echoed.

  Wyatt shook his head and smiled. “I’m not ready, but we sure are.”

  BOOK THREE: THE REMEMBERED

  Chapter One

  IF IT WERE not for the approaching army of bloodthirsty Regents, Wyatt would have taken more joy in the moment as he stood atop Greenwood Hospital with his new family. Even so, with death cresting the distant hills, he couldn’t help but feel rejuvenated. Sure, he may have committed a grave error in giving up his power to the Bad Man, causing Earth and the fantastical world of the Realms to, as he had phrased it, collide, but the fifteen-year-old ex-Druid had never felt more complete.

  “So, Wyatt,” Ms. Abagail said from Wyatt’s left as she leaned against the short wall of the rooftop. “You two have a plan?”

  Wyatt turned to look at Lucy, his newfound sister, who only moments ago had been just another patient of the psychiatric hospital beneath their feet. She looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, squeezed his hand even tighter, and shook her head.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Wyatt said, looking b
ack to the twenty-something woman with a bright pink stripe in her otherwise jet-black hair.

  The trio, each drenched to the bone by the recent thunderstorm, turned back to watch the horizon in silence. The night continued to deepen, hiding more and more of the advancing foe until finally the vast army was just a distant hum of activity.

  “Are they gone?” Lucy asked.

  “No,” Wyatt replied. “They’re still out there. Still coming.”

  “Well, we’re in this together,” Ms. Abagail said with a sigh. “But I have to be honest, I’ve no clue what we’re supposed to do.”

  “Easy,” Wyatt said. “Find the Lord Regent. Kill him. Save Rozen. Find and save Athena and Maia. Defeat the Bad Man. Get my power back. Get our memories back. Save both worlds.”

  “Right. Easy,” Ms. Abagail responded.

  “But you broke it,” Lucy added. “How are we supposed to do anything when you broke my dream world?”

  Wyatt felt his smile fade. He hadn’t meant to damage anything. In truth, for the first time since setting foot in the Realms, Wyatt had thought he’d made the right choice. He knew the Bad Man was…well, bad, but giving up his power had seemed both the most sensible and selfless act at the time. After all, the power he so craved had only led to death and destruction. Very little good had come of it, and the more he had chased after that power, the darker everything had become. Even now, Wyatt couldn’t help but think it was the right decision. Or at least, the only one he could have made.

  “Don’t know. But if the Lord Regent is out there,” Wyatt said, pointing at the hidden army, “then I’m sure he’ll come to us.”

  “And what? We just wait for whatever that is to attack?” Ms. Abagail asked, gesturing just as Wyatt had. “Whatever is out there is from your world, but I’m fairly certain that the three of us can’t beat an entire army. And what about the nurses and patients below us? The hospital is a disaster. People have already died here. And we’re just going to wait and let an army come and knock on the door?”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?” Wyatt snapped back. “My amulet was what let me travel between worlds. Without it, we can’t go as we want. So, I say we hunker down as best as we can and wait out the siege.”

  “The siege?!” Ms. Abagail said, nearly jumping out of her shoes. “This may look like a castle, but it most certainly is not. And again, army out there, nurses and patients in here.”

  “No, it is a castle,” Lucy said calmly.

  “No, sweetie, it’s not,” Ms. Abagail said, leaning around Wyatt to look at Lucy.

  Lucy wiped at her eyes and sniffed. “Yes, it is. In my dream world.”

  “But we can’t get there anymore,” Wyatt said, feeling his previous euphoria evaporate.

  “What if you were right?” Lucy asked quickly. “About me dreaming and bringing more of the Realms here?”

  “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Ms. Abagail said. “It didn’t turn out so well last time. We need to keep the worlds separate. This isn’t Earth’s fight.”

  “But I didn’t know things were broken then. And I was scared,” Lucy said, dropping her gaze to her toes. “And I didn’t know it was real.”

  “You think you can, like, dream us away from the Regents? Maybe plop us down wherever Athena is? Let the Regency chase us?”

  Lucy looked up at Wyatt and shook her head. “It’s not like that. Even before you broke it. It’s…hard to explain. Dreams are funny like that. But there is a castle. I made it like Greenwood. Only better. No one could get us there. It’s the safest place in the Realms. I think.”

  “And you can get us—I mean, get it here?” Wyatt asked. “Or whatever saves Greenwood from more magical…”

  “Crap?” Ms. Abagail offered with a smirk.

  Wyatt nodded.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” Lucy said, mimicking the same phrase Julia—her previously dominant personality—liked to say.

  Ms. Abagail groaned. “I don’t like it.”

  Wyatt turned to her. “Well, I don’t either, but you said we were in this together, and this may be the best option. If Lucy really can change the worlds in her dreams, then don’t we have to try? Like you said, there’s an army out there and lots of innocent people here. So, either we let the Regents come to us, or we change things up. Somehow.”

  Ms. Abagail groaned again. “This is not how I imagined my night going.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Wyatt said with a grin.

  Lucy elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “Our world,” she quipped, smiling just as wickedly.

  “Yeah, yeah. Our world,” Wyatt conceded.

  Ms. Abagail looked at Wyatt and Lucy, shaking her head. “All right, so—”

  A single bolt of lightning arced through the black sky, reaching from horizon to horizon, followed by thunder so loud that the trio fell to their knees. Though made of solid stone, the citadel-like building trembled like a house of cards. It was over in an instant, but Wyatt was left with a ghostlike image burned across his vision, and his ears rang.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be standing on the roof,” Ms. Abagail said, still kneeling. “Everyone okay?”

  Wyatt wiggled a finger in his ear and nodded.

  “Lucy?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  Lucy stood, back to Wyatt, and pointed at the stone rooftop at her feet. She shook her head violently.

  Wyatt and Ms. Abagail rushed to her side and followed Lucy’s finger. A deep crack split the gray stone, beginning between Lucy’s bare feet and continuing to the edge of the roof.

  Wyatt looked at Ms. Abagail, but she was turned away, now pointing as well, her finger tracing a line through the night sky, away from Greenwood’s crumbling roof.

  “I don’t suppose you know what that is, do you, Wyatt?" Ms. Abagail asked.

  Wyatt squinted, trying to discern something within the blackness. Just as he thought he saw a distant glimmer of orange light, a second bolt of lightning struck a corner of Greenwood without warning. The resulting thunder blast threw Wyatt backward and sent him skidding along the smooth stone.

  He heard Lucy shriek, but couldn’t see where she’d been thrown. Greenwood Hospital shuddered, and a large section of the distant edge fell away, taking with it the secret hideout of Julia’s secret club.

  Wyatt scrambled away from the edge, fearing it, too, would soon collapse. “Lucy!” he called out as a raindrop struck his nose.

  A hand pulled at his elbow, and Wyatt turned to see his sister standing at his side. “I’m here,” she yelled.

  Movement drew Wyatt’s attention to the middle of the rooftop, where he saw Ms. Abagail limping toward them. He breathed a sigh of relief, having thought perhaps she had fallen with the hideout. Then he gasped as he saw what Ms. Abagail had pointed out before.

  “What’s happening?” Ms. Abagail asked through a grimace as she rejoined the siblings. “Lucy’s not dreaming, but it’s getting weird again. Is one of you doing this?”

  Wyatt didn’t respond. He hardly heard the words. He was transfixed by the distant spots of light in the dark sky, growing larger by the moment. He counted thirteen and gasped again.

  “I see them now,” Wyatt said without shifting his gaze.

  “Yeah, and?” Ms. Abagail asked.

  “They’re bad guys, aren’t they?” Lucy said more than asked. She hugged Wyatt’s arm, and he could feel her shaking against him. “There are lots of bad guys in the dream world. I wish they would go away, but they don’t listen.”

  “I…” Wyatt said slowly, hoping he was wrong about what he thought he was seeing. Maybe they’re just wisps, coming to show us the way, he told himself. But as he continued to watch, the distant orange lights took far more sinister shapes. No longer small dots, it was clear now they were twisting lines of vibrant flame.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Ms. Abagail said.

  “Draygans,” Wyatt replied.

  As the slave warriors of the Regency drew near enough to be fully revealed, the heavens opene
d up in a deluge. Greenwood shook again despite an absence of cause, and Wyatt fell to a knee. Ms. Abagail pulled him upright nearly as fast as he had fallen.

  “We need to get out of here,” Wyatt said, eyes still watching as the winged men alighted on the far edge of the roof. Their long braids burned violently despite the torrential downpour and turned their chiseled bodies into a mirage of shifting sinew and muscle.

  “The stairs,” Ms. Abagail said, already pulling on Wyatt.

  As the trio broke for the stairwell, so did the Draygans, driving toward them. The stairs were far closer than the Draygan warriors, but Wyatt knew the enemy could make up the difference in little time. Their only hope was to get through the door and bar it behind them. At best, that would buy them some time to formulate a more favorable plan of survival.

  The stairwell was dark, the steps slick with rain, and when Wyatt stumbled on the first step, they all went down. They reached the bottom far faster then had they stayed upright, but they arrived at their destination in a pile of limbs and agony. Lucy was crying loudly, alternating between gasps and howls of pain. Ms. Abagail was cursing, not unlike Athena, but was the first to the metal door.

  Beneath the rage of the storm and the screams of his sister, Wyatt could hear the Draygans coming. Though kin to Rozen and victims of the Regency in their own right, Wyatt knew the Draygans would carry out whatever murderous assignment they’d been given. Male Draygans, forced into battle at the ransom of their mates and children, would fight bitterly to protect their families, just as Wyatt would his.

  Firelight breached the top of the stairs as Ms. Abagail pulled at the door. She grunted, but the door didn’t move. Wyatt quickly found his feet and rushed to help her.

  “It won’t open,” Ms. Abagail said, casting a quick glance up the stairs. “Think it locks from the inside.”

  A small hand grabbed Wyatt’s leg. “Hurry,” Lucy shouted.

  “On three,” Wyatt said, wrapping his hands around the cold steel handle. There was just enough room for both their hands.