Soul of the Sorcerer - Part Three: Daughter of the Dragon (10 page)

“HOLY MOTHER OF CHRIST!” had been Doctor Susan Johnson’s first reaction on finding herself in Amy’s back garden in the village. It had taken an hour, several stitches, two cups of tea and retelling Lloyd and Amy’s story several times; focussing on different aspects of Kalana, before Susan was even close to being convinced.

It had finally been Lloyd’s entrancing demonstration of his water manipulation skills that had made her a believer. She had watched, transfixed, as the liquid had risen out of a glass tumbler like a snake and then transformed into a flying bird, still with a thin stem of water supporting the bird from the glass below.

Lloyd had not practiced this skill since his time on the Isle of Retreat, and it surprised him how much effort it took to maintain.

“I really should practice this more.” he said through gritted teeth.

“You really should practice everything a lot more!” Darrion said in his best
Master’s
voice, “And I refer to you too Bethany.”

Fortunately the air mage’s were spared blushes by Susan’s interruption;

“I will do my best to keep your identities a secret Amy, but you had better get me back to the hospital before I am missed. Phone me when you return, I would like to know a lot more about this world of your husband's; does it have a name?” she asked the Master Magician.

“I have only ever known it as World, but I suppose now we have discovered other worlds, such as your Earth, we should give it one, but that is a problem for another day and for people far more important than I.”

Susan nodded, stood up from the sofa and sighed  “You know you people have destroyed nearly every concept and belief system I have based my life decisions on?”

“It did for me too, but thank you for protecting us.” Amy said standing to embrace her old friend, “I will definitely be in touch, I’m amazed you’re not married with a horde of kids by now?”

“Yes, that was my
before thirty
target, but it’s a long story to save for next time.” Susan replied.

“Let’s get you back then.” Darrion said standing and taking Susan’s hand to translocate her back to the hospital.

Kenelm breathed heavily, even for one as fit as he, the climb up Arren’s rise was a herculean effort. He had spent two frustrating hours ringing the bell to alert the lift attendant monks, atop the cliff, to start the winching operation; but to no avail.

He had instead leapt atop the wooden lift cage, which he had last been in with Lloyd and the companions, and began the slow agonising climb up the rope attached to it, as this was his only means of gaining access up the high cliff face.

Finally, his hands and legs slightly blistered, and his arms like lead, he made the top and collapsed thankfully to the floor. Above him were the huge wooden beams supporting the lift at the foot of the cliff below. The sun was just kissing the western horizon on its journey to mark the end of the day.

Kenelm rolled into a sitting position facing the large stone house where the monks, who operated the lift, lived. His eyes widened in shock, it was a burnt out shell, with its slate roof collapsed in. He rose and made his way to the derelict building. It looked like it had been this way for some time, it was certainly not a recent event, confirmed by the absolute coldness of the thick charred wooden doorframe, as he touched it to lean into the building. He froze at the sight of four charred skeletons crushed beneath the rubble, small burnt pieces of their monk habits were still visible on the floor around them.

“My brothers what in the Daemen realm happened here?” he said quietly to himself. He leant a moment more in the doorframe deep in thought before turning and heading up the well worn dirt path towards the north and Arrenloft School of Magic.

As he passed the rear of the building he heard a horse neigh in the stable; fortunately the fire had not spread to the flagstone building and he was happy to see a pony’s head appear from the top half of an open door. It was one of the beasts whose sole purpose in life was to power the lift winch.

“Well my friend, it looks like no one will mind if I borrow you for a bit” the monk said gently stroking the patchy brown and white pony.

Kenelm checked the other doors to look for more ponies, but there were none. He did; however, find a suitable saddle and he lifted this onto the back of the one he had released.

“Hmmm, my friend, I think I need to give you a name” he said while fixing the straps underneath the animals belly. “So, looks like you are a maiden”  he smiled, “very appropriate, Maiden shall be your name.”

With that he gently climbed onto Maiden’s back and nudged her back towards the path.

Many leagues to the east a bright light engulfed the circle of stones on the high plateau. It was followed soon after by a boom sounding like thunder.

“Well that was certainly a different experience from the old way of casting the spell to travel between worlds!” Darrion exclaimed while separating his portal from Lloyd and Bethany’s. He lifted a hanky up to his nose to stem the usual flow of blood.

“Yes it’s still bad, but not quite as draining” Bethany added, also using a fresh hanky to wipe her own face. She then placed this in her new leather jacket pocket; this had completed her transformation, along with the jeans and number of t-shirts she had insisted Amy buy her, into a contemporary young woman from Lloyd’s world.

“You all okay?” Amy asked standing next to the small trailer they had brought with them. Lloyd nodded along with the others and looked at the contents of the trailer that had been a challenge to obtain.  

“Is any of the equipment damaged? I wouldn’t want to go through the hassle of trying to get any of it again!” Lloyd asked.

Amy did a cursory look over the portable generator and life support machine as well as boxes of other items they had acquired.

“We won’t know until we try and switch it on; come on we need to get a move on!” she concluded.

Darrion looked at Lloyd and Bethany, “I don’t know about you two, but although I’m not totally exhausted, I don’t think I will be ready for many hours yet, even joined with you two, to shift all of this lot very far using the translocation spell?”

“Don’t worry, I have an alternative plan.” Lloyd said with a grin; he too was dressed in clothes from his old home and was glad for it.

“Open your air portals and feed as much power into me as you dare!” he instructed Bethany and his Master. Each of them said the words of power which enabled their air portals to open to the full extent.

“Zephyrair, Zephyrmight, Lightning Storm, Lightning Strike!” Lloyd threw his arm forward dramatically and a single wriggling streak of lightning arced from his hand towards the horizon in the direction of Dragonmight Mountain; he maintained the dancing lightning for about fifteen seconds before stopping.

“Wooo!” said Bethany “If Ingemar didn’t see or hear that, then he’s so old he’s gone blind and deaf!” she grinned, while again wiping the blood from her nose.

“I think half the world probably heard that!” Darrion added, before sitting on the edge of the trailer with Amy. Lloyd and Bethany sank to the grassy floor to rest, backs against one of the larger stones.

After about ten minutes a speck, some way off in the red darkening sky, got quickly larger and larger, until the magnificent form of Ingemar King of the Dragons gracefully landed just outside the stones.

His huge maw was almost grinning in pleasure at the return of his friends; he was just going to speak, when his eyes suddenly focused beyond the group.

“Who or what is that?” he said, intrigued.

The others turned just in time to see a tall heavily cloaked figure with hands of ebony, vanish in a black cloud of magical ether.

“I have no idea my friend, no idea!” Darrion replied.

“I didn’t even get a chance to turn on my soul vision!” Lloyd said,

“Nor I.” Bethany added.

“Well it is gone now, what is the plan Amy Brook?”

“If you can manage to carry this trailer and me back to the mountain, it will leave these three free to translocate just themselves there when they have recovered their powers.”

“Climb on board!” he said with a smile, offering her a front claw for her to stand on, while lowering his long neck. “You will find several short horns back there with which you can grip.”

“Hang on for dear life you mean!” she said, going slightly pale at the realisation of what she was going to do. Amy turned and quickly pecked her husband on the lips, “See you soon.”

She then climbed upon Ingemar's mighty back and screamed in absolute terror as his wings flapped and he leapt into the air. Once airborne, he steadied his movement before manoeuvring carefully over the trailer so that he could use both of his rear claws to gently grip and lift the trailer underneath him. Dragon, doctor and trailer then made their way swiftly towards Dragonmight.

Kenelm had witnessed the lightning which illuminated the sky for miles around. “Friend Lloyd, if that is you, I hope you don’t draw more attention to yourself than you intended!” He continued his journey northwards.

              About an hour after Amy and Ingemar had left for Dragonmight, the three mages at the stones began the preparation to translocate to the home of Ingemar. As Darrion had never been to Ingemar’s home before, they merged portals and allowed Bethany to lead their ethereal bodies towards the mountain.

“I never imagined it would look so imposing!” Darrion marvelled at the huge arch supported by the stone monoliths with their strange guardian angels etched upon them.

“Wait to you see inside!” Bethany smiled.

“We all ready?” Lloyd said; encouraging them to bring their ethereal forms back to their current location.

“Done!” Darrion said, Bethany nodded her head in agreement and then spoke the command words.

“Zephyrair, Zephyrmight, from my mind, far of sight, carry us there, true and right!”

In a blink the three of them were standing between the huge giant monolith stones marking the entrance to Ingemar’s lair. They made their way quickly along the entrance passageway and found Arden walking towards them with the heavy portable generator, which he placed just outside the huge double doors. He grinned at them before running back inside. As they neared the doors Amy appeared, carrying a cable reel extension lead, which she plugged into the generator and then started walking backwards unwinding the cable as she went. It was at this stage that she saw them approaching. “Hi, we are getting ready to move Boadaiska to the lounge area, I hope it won’t be too long until you are feeling ready!” This she mainly directed at Lloyd.

Inside the first large chamber a bed was being moved by the woman called Lisa, from the village of Daria, and Allen; who grinned at seeing Lloyd and in particular Bethany, in fact he did a double take at the shock of seeing her in strange clothes; especially the tight fitting jeans. They placed the bed next to where Amy had finished unwinding the extension lead and was now currently preparing the portable life support machine.

“Arden, we will be ready far sooner if you can give us a stoke please?” Lloyd asked the giant man who could barely conceal his excitement; hope etched on his face as he nodded in response.

“Give me the most as I will do the major work; Bethany will need some to help move cells around Boadaiska’s body and Darrion will need just a little to translocate Boadaiska from her plinth to the bed here.” Lloyd instructed.

Lloyd opened his air portal and watched, as ever intrigued, as Arden’s large dragon portal opened in front of the Dragon-Man and swallowed Lloyd’s air portal. Unlike merging portals with Bethany or Darrion, there was no thrill, excitement or any other sense of Arden’s emotion, just the exhilaration of pure power.

It did not take long for Lloyd’s air portal to return to its usual size, which was about half the diameter of Arden’s football sized portal, and the Dragon-Man next turned to face Bethany. Lloyd felt slightly envious that her portal, when refreshed, was nearly as big as his; it had grown far quicker than his portal had in recent months!

Finally Darrion’s portal became the focus of Arden’s attention, the masters blue portal was still an inch or two larger in diameter than Lloyd’s.

Arden’s portal had shrunk to the size of a large coin by the time he had finished and he looked tired, but this was still offset by the anticipation of the events about to unfold.

By the time they had finished Amy had wandered away from them, but the sound of the generator pop, pop, popping into life gave her location away. She soon returned and switched on the life support machine and checked its settings, silencing for now the multitude of alarms sounding due to lack of a patient. She then finally prepared a drip stand; hanging several bags of blood on one side and clear fluid on the other, both of which she had taken out from a cooler box. She then finally laid out a range of operating tools and put on a purple pair of plastic gloves and a mask over her nose and mouth.

“Ok love we are ready here, you go do your bit” She said before taking a deep breath in anticipation of the tricky task ahead. Darrion squeezed her arm in support as he walked past and started to make his way up to the plinth.

“Allen go with him just in case he needs support when his power touches the light.” Lloyd instructed his protector who was looking a bit lost and at a loose end, having not been given any part in the plans.

He smiled with gratitude. “Thank you your Highness. Be careful, and you too Bethany!” He said with a gentle smile and a hint of a blush.

“I will try my soldier.” She smiled back at the young man causing his blush to deepen.

“Here, Bethany, you remember how to administer the serum?” Amy interrupted the young couples moment by handing a syringe full of serum to the girl mage.

“I remember.” Bethany replied with a nod, yet her eyes betrayed her worry.

Arden stood beside them, his gaze towards the direction of the plinth room.

“He is casting now!” He said and turned his gaze to the bed while he and the others also took a step back.