God of the Abyss (41 page)

“I never signed up for demons,” I
grumbled. “Wizards, Guardians, gods, fish people, no problem. I don’t like
demons.”

“Good ol’ Christian boy,” he
laughed. “I don’t much like them myself, but he did help you when you needed
him,” he said. I nodded, since he was right. “He gave you the ability to shift.
Does that make up for him pulling you into the void?”

I thought about it. Had Dylan not
tried to save me, Divina wouldn’t have helped, and I would have suffered for
sure. Fortunately, the fact was that I had Dylan, so nothing that bad could
ever happen to me. Dylan and I were close, but we did not see things the same
way. The demon was reaching for Dylan, not me. Now Xul had given me the one
thing that nobody else could; the most basic freedom that dragons had.

“Yes. I forgive him completely,
but I want to know what he did to enable me to shift. I want to know if I
always had the ability and just didn’t know how. Sometimes when I was furious
or my adrenaline was pumping, I felt something in my back.”

“We will ask him when we see him
again. Unless we’re dying at the time. Now, I think we should get back to
work.” He set the crystal on top of the map and filled it with his magic. I
joined it with my fire and the energy formed a star map.

“Oh, damn,” Sammy said in
English.

“Don’t let your mother hear you
talk like that,” Dylan said.

“She does it all the time,” Sammy
said. “And that reminds me… Daddy, before you two go…” He glanced at his
brother and got a sad, but encouraging smile. “Ron and I made a very important
decision.”

“You spoke with Vivian and
Nano?”
I asked.

“Yes. Vivian said she would
give him up, but I wanted Sammy to make his own decision about who he would
live with.”

Both of them looked sad and I
could sense Dylan having trouble breathing. He got on his knees in front of
Sammy. He always wanted serious discussions with his sons to be eye-to-eye.
Whatever he said, I knew my friend couldn’t bare it if Sammy chose to leave.

“Ron and I have been talking and
we decided… I’m sorry, Daddy, but I’m too old to be your little Sammy.” Dylan
stopped breathing and Sammy rushed on to get his words out, as if that would
help. “We decided Samhail was too long, too, and I don’t like the name Sam…. so
we decided that I need to be called Hail from now on. Don’t be mad, Daddy, you
knew I was too old for a baby name.”

Dylan hugged him, cutting off
further explanation. “Oh, honey. I’ll call you Hell if that’s what you really
want. Just don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“Scare you? What did you think I
wanted you to call me that would scare you?” He looked honestly bewildered.

I saw realization dawn in Ron’s
eyes before he started laughing. Dylan and Sammy frowned at him, but he just
continued laughing. “You are both stupid,” he said.

Dylan’s jaw dropped. “Don’t talk
like your mother.”

Ron was still laughing as he
walked out of the room. Sammy glanced at Dylan once more before following his
brother out. “Okay, so Sammy wants to be called Hell. That’s not a big deal.
That means he wants to stay, right?” he asked, looking from me to Edward.

“Hail, not Hell, and it didn’t
even occur to him to leave. I think he made his decision the moment Ron was
born,” Edward said.

The boys returned and Ron was no
longer laughing. “The sky in the map is Lore,” he said with a seriousness
beyond his age.

“But Lore isn’t inhabited yet. It
isn’t even a fully-formed planet,” Dylan argued.

“Not yet, but it will be. Be
careful, Daddy. Seeing the future is easy, but there are so many futures; some
that will never come to pass and some that must never. By actually using magic
to transport yourself in time, you are creating fixed points. Things that you
experience will come to pass whether it was meant to be or not.”

“Seeing it in a vision is fine,”
Sammy said. “Actually being there ensures that it will happen. This is bad if
you don’t know how to manipulate time. You could see something that wasn’t
supposed to happen.”

“Time is messy, even for the
gods,” Ron added. “We don’t know what decision we will make; therefore, if you
go to Lore, you must avoid us at all costs. You will be experiencing events
that haven’t been decided yet. If we are there or if we are not, you must not
know, so you cannot scan the world for our power.”

“That sounds really difficult,” I
said. Dylan nodded.

“Even more difficult is that if
we are there in the future and felt you there, we would not know better than to
find you,” Sammy said. “You have to hide your presence.”

“Hide us? From the two of you? By
then you will be so powerful I doubt even a god could hide himself.”

“It is possible, at least for one
of the gods. You need Vretial’s help.”

Dylan sighed. “Of course we do.
We’re going to owe him one by the end of this.”

“Owe him what?” I asked.
What
would a god want from us?

“I don’t know. I may have to go
back to Earth and get him another chocolate bar.” He looked at me with mock
horror. “How do you two know so much about time travel?” Dylan asked his boys.

“I see things that haven’t
happened yet, and I can feel what should and shouldn’t happen. I can see what
the consequences are for the decisions we make,” Sammy said. “Ron helps me make
sense of it. Vretial cannot read my mind, so Ron interprets it.”

“Why do you go to Vretial and not
the other gods?” I asked.

“Because the other gods treat us
like children. We’re not fully Iadnah, so we are seen as incompetent. Even
Mommy thinks we’re not ready,” Ron said. “We’re powerful enough that if we
don’t learn now, bad things will happen.”

“I saw it,” Sammy agreed.
“Vretial understands that and is willing to teach us. He teaches us like you
do; like he is showing us because he knows we will understand.”

Dylan grabbed my arm and the room
filled with light. We were once again in the forest with the apple tree, but we
were alone. Dylan sat on the boulder with a sigh. “I can’t…”

“I know. You have to find out
what changed Vretial. Until then, you may have to trust the god. If the boys
are right, they may need him. You didn’t grow up with your power, so imagine
being their age with the power to destroy the universe. You have a natural
talent to use your magic for good, but they need to be taught how to control
it.”

“I had a hard enough time with my
natural wizard abilities, but I didn’t know what it was growing up. I think
Sammy is more than we know.” He explained everything that happened up until the
part where Xul said that Sammy was the son of a god.

“Is that really unbelievable?
Ronez suspected he was part Iadnah.”

“Vivian swore his father is Nano.
So either Xul or Vivian is lying and I want to trust Vivian, but it does make
sense. It makes so much sense that he is part god… except that I do believe
Nano is his father. Sammy has dile strength, yet he can swim…”

“If Nano is for sure his father,
then Vivian may not be the mother.”

“Divina is the only female god
left and I know Ron is her first child. Gods can manipulate a person’s mind,
even make Vivian think Sammy was her son if he were not, but Divina cannot be
his mother.”

“And you are sure Divina is the
only female god? You are sure there are only the twelve?”

“In this universe, yes.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Who
cares who Sammy’s biological parents are? You and Divina will raise him as your
own and he will be fine.”

“Well said,” Vretial’s voice
sounded behind me. He stood there in dark red robes, looking more like a wizard
than a god. “You have a request?” he asked.

“It seems we need to go to Lore
and hide ourselves from the future Sammy and Ron.”

“That would be difficult. You
see, you are very powerful,” he said, spreading his hands wide as if explaining
something we didn’t already know. “And such power is easy to detect. In order
to make you invisible to Ronez and Samhail, you must dampen your powers until
you are practically mortal.”

“And you can do that?” Dylan
asked.

“I might be able to think of
something,” the god said, smirking as he pulled two metal bracelets out of the
folds of his robe. “Do you remember this?” he asked my friend. Dylan stood and
came to a stop in front of the god.

“Good times,” he said
sarcastically, holding out his wrist.

“When enemies and friends were
black and white,” the god agreed with a nod as he fitted it around Dylan’s
wrist. “Maybe when you can see in color, you will see that I was never your
enemy.” He grabbed my arm, pulled me closer, and put the second bracelet on my
wrist.

“You tried to kill me,” Dylan
said.

“Are you sure?”

The forest filled with light and
we were back in Dylan’s home. “Why did you bring us back?” I asked. “He was
giving you answers.”

“No, he was trying to make me ask
the right questions. I can’t tell if he’s more wise or irritating. And I didn’t
bring us back, he did.” He went to the globe, still showing the star map. I
tried to take the bracelet off, but it was stuck. When I reached for my fire to
burn it, my fire ignored me.
What’s happening?

The bracelet is blocking your
magic,
Rojan answered.
You should be undetectable by anyone looking for
power.

But I am defenseless. And
worse, how can I protect Dylan?

You have a sword.

“Mordon, hurry, before the magic
fades,” Dylan said. I could tell by the irritation in his voice that he was
worried sick. He should have had more faith in me to protect him.

“Here, Daddy.” Ron took Sammy’s
hand and reached out for Dylan with his small hand flat. Dylan put his hand
against Ron’s and their eyes both glowed green. It was eerie until my mind was
flooded with images of a world, which was like a mixture of Earth, Duran, and
Vaigda to me.

The sphere immediately changed to
show a bedroom. This was no guest chamber, either; the space I could see,
including the bed, was lavished with silks and jewels. Edward handed Dylan a
card, showing the lotus wand on it. It was taller than everything else was, the
handle was striped with many colors, and the top of the wand included green
petals.

Focusing on the lotus wand took
some work after everything we learned, but we managed. Soon the wand appeared
across the bed and the sense of time came to my mind.

It is about a hundred years in
the future,
Rojan said.

I know this is dangerous, but
no more than what would happen if we do nothing.
“Ready?” I asked. Dylan
picked up the apple, but Emiko grabbed my arm.

“I am going with you.”

“No,” I said.

Ron caught Sammy as the older
child’s eyes glowed purple and his legs gave out. Dylan tried to take him, but
Ron waved him away. “He does this sometimes, it’s okay.” The words were barely
out of Ron’s mouth before Sammy’s eyes returned to normal and he stood.

“What did you see?” Dylan asked.

The boys looked at each other,
not sure what to say. They kept their words private for several minutes, all
the while getting more and more frustrated. Sammy repeatedly gave me a
regretful, despondent frown, but Ron’s face was determined. Finally, Sammy
dropped his eyes in despair, his shoulders drooping like he held the weight of
the world.

Sammy couldn’t lie to his father,
so it was Ron who spoke. “It is dangerous for Emiko here. You have to take her
with you. She will be mortally wounded if she stays.”

“You can’t stay here if there’s
danger,” Dylan demanded. He didn’t believe his son. Oddly enough, I think he
knew his wife well enough to see through any lie.

Ron smiled. “Don’t worry. Your
demon has to protect us under your orders. You also need to leave your book
here.”

“I never leave my book.”

“You have to. Trust me,” he
pleaded.

Sammy looked at me with sad eyes,
obviously trying to convey a message. I had been trained by my father to read
minds, but it would have felt too much like a betrayal to do so to Ron. Though
Sammy might have welcomed it, his mind was hidden. Whatever he had seen, he
didn’t like it, but he wasn’t going to cross his brother.

Dylan sighed, took the book from
his bag, handed it to Edward, and then closed his eyes. I knew he was focusing
on the sense of time so I concentrated on the images of where we were supposed
to go. Emiko slipped her hand gently into mine. A few minutes later, I opened
my eyes to find the three of us in a bedroom.

Similar to in Emiko’s room, the
bed was the dominating feature. It was just as big and tall, with
jewel-encrusted, gold-threaded, dark blue blankets and tall, wooden bedposts.
The walls were dark stone and decorated with weapons and paintings of women and
wars. Across from the bed was a huge wardrobe, and on either side was a door
without knobs. There were black glass panels next to each door, just the right
size for a hand. The floor was covered in coarse carpet. On either side of the
bed were small, identical tables. Upon the table on the opposite side of the
bed from us was an electric lamp and a book, while the table close to us
displayed an open box of treasure.

Emiko started for the box of
jewels beside the bed and Dylan grabbed her arm to stop her. “We are here for a
magical tool, not for you to steal stuff.”

“You have to do as I say, weren’t
you told? I am the queen and if I want it, I can have it.”

Rojan growled. The wand appeared
on the bed and since I was the closest, I grabbed it. “Let’s go before we get
in trouble,” I said.

Dylan pulled Emiko tighter to his
side as she once again tried to reach for the treasure. I touched the apple
just as the door opened. Standing there was a king. His face was wrinkled and
his hair was white with age, but he stood with strength.