The Wizard's War
Authors: Rain Oxford
The Wizard’s War
By Rain Oxford
The
Wizard’s War © 2015 Rain Oxford
All
Rights Reserved
The
Guardian Series Book 5
“Hail, wake up. Please stop.”
No answer. He was too lost, which hasn’t happened in
years. I couldn’t even close my eyes.
Mordon’s black blade glittered in the scarce light as
he aimed… and slid it into my father’s chest. It wasn’t the absolute
impossibility of what I was seeing, nor the look in my dad’s eyes, that
startled me so much. Heat blossomed across my chest, starting small before
spreading. It first took my breath, then my vision, until all I could feel was
dark emptiness and white-hot pain.
Where is Hail? Why can’t I feel him?
* * *
I woke in the dark, panting, and peered across the
room to see my brother gasping from his own bed. He was white as his bed sheets
while his black T-shirt clung to him with sweat. He looked at me as if I had
all the answers. He always did.
“That wasn’t normal. I couldn’t sense you there.”
He got up, ran across the room, and pushed me aside. He took up most the bed,
but I was small for my age, so I had a little room to breathe between him and
the wall. For my brother, there was nothing worse than being alone in his
visions, so he was trying to reassure himself that if he suddenly fell back
into it, I would be there this time. I wanted to push him out of bed; I didn’t
want to see that again. Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave him alone to suffer…
and I wasn’t strong enough to push him off the bed.
“I think it was far in the future,”
I said,
focusing on the blurriness of the vision instead of the odd isolation.
“It wasn’t real.”
“Your visions are always real.”
He gaped at me like I was insane.
“Mordon is Dad’s
brother
. There is nothing that could make Mordon kill him.”
That I couldn’t argue with.
“We can’t tell anyone.
Nobody would believe us. Actually, Dad would probably sigh and say that if
Mordon ever killed him, he had it coming. Maybe you’re right; maybe it wasn’t a
vision.”
I was lying, of course, and he knew it.
“It was a nightmare,” Hail agreed stubbornly. As a
fifteen-year-old boy, half dile and half human, with Iadnah power, my brother
had an invincibility complex. Or maybe a bull complex. If he didn’t like
something, he would demand it wasn’t true and god help anyone who tried to say
otherwise. “I’m hungry.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I said. His purple
eyes turned pouty and his hair was still wet from sweat, which gave him a
“recently drowned” appearance. I sighed, rolled my eyes, and tossed the covers
to the floor as angrily as I could before getting up and stomping to the
kitchen.
I flipped on the kitchen light to see the room
already occupied. I froze. “Bad dreams?” Dad asked me. He looked exhausted.
“Um… yeah. You okay?” He looked at me and I realized
he was worse than exhausted. He put his face back in his hands.
“I’ve been better,” he mumbled.
The only one who could get answers out of him that he
wasn’t ready to give was Mordon, who wasn’t here, so I headed to the cabinets
and started pulling out pans. I got the flour, milk, and half a dozen other
ingredients. Making pancakes was routine by now. Mom preferred to use the
kitchen to cook up potions than actual food, but Hail and Dad liked food. I
learned early in life to cook because Hail and I disliked meat and fruit and
bread could only go so far. Thank
god
Dad was a better Guardian than he
was a chef, because his idea of home-made food was buttered noodles.
I learned a lot of my cooking from Earth, where we
lived for nearly two years so my dad could be a doctor. He was amazing at it
and saved hundreds of lives, but his fallback was always magic. When he was
able to miraculously save a truly hopeless patient, only to blow out every
electronic in the hospital, there was little alternative for him but to return
to Duran.
There were aspects of Earth I loved, like the
cultures, the animals, and the millions of people I could conquer, but Duran
always felt more like my home. Besides, I hated public school, and mosquitoes
were something straight out of Hell. There were bugs and people everywhere on
Earth, in every nook and cranny. It was like having a little privacy was a sin
or something.
Despite my troubles with bugs and dumb kids at
school, it was Mordon who suffered more than any of us. Mom had to hide her
magic, Hail had to hide his visions, and Dad had to hide who he was to all of
his coworkers, but Mordon had to hide his dragon. There were several times when
it became too much and he would actually snap at us and start to shift, so Dad
started flashing him once a week to Duran to fly for a night.
Although there was a group of dragons in our old
town, he couldn’t get over the love of his life, who was killed. Because the
field that the dragons liked to shift in belonged to Sydney, Mordon couldn’t
stand to shift there any more.
I believe it was ultimately more because of Mordon
than anything else that Dad decided to move us home. It was sad that they would
each sacrifice what they really wanted for each other’s happiness.
I made vanilla and walnut pancakes for Hail in one
pan and blueberry, sugar-free pancakes for Dad in the other. Hail walked in
just as I was dishing up his breakfast and I held it out to him without
looking. He took it and hugged me thanks before he disappeared and I finished
Dad’s. I handed my dad his smaller breakfast, then sat next to Hail and grabbed
a fork.
I always gave Hail more than he needed because he
would share with me whether he had enough or not. Uncle Nila once told me that
it was a dile thing; it was instinct for siblings to share. I found that sort
of at odds with nature, but Dios was very different from most places. They were
still recovering from near extinction.
The three of us ate in silence for most of the meal.
“Where is Mordon?” Hail asked. Dad looked a little ill as he shrugged. “What do
you mean you don’t know?” Hail’s voice became outraged and my dad winced. He
had a headache. I reached out to try to help, but Hail intercepted. “Where is
he?”
“He and Emiko went on vacation a week ago.”
Hail made a snarling sound, much like the dragon we
they were discussing. “I hate that woman.”
“Honey, you don’t hate anyone,” Dad chastised gently.
My brother glared at me, expecting me to agree with
him. I sighed. Mordon’s girlfriend got under Hail’s skin, but she would never
risk Mordon’s wrath to attack Dad. The dragoness knew very well whose side
Mordon would be on if push came to shove. I took Hail’s hand to give him my
support without actually agreeing with him, and he looked back at our father
with triumph.
“Mordon deserves a break. We’ve been preparing for
war for four years.”
Dad was very serious about protecting us and everyone
from the demons. Since the guardians of the void were attacked and the demons
declared their intention to conquer all of the worlds, Dad has been using our
time wisely. The Guardians have finally banded together to defeat their
greatest threat. They spread the word every day about the upcoming war.
All of our “good” demons that agreed to help Dad were
sent out to find any surviving guardians of the void. Fortunately, they were
successful in finding two dozen survivors. Of course, they were reluctant to be
rescued by demons, but they were eventually relocated to Dios, where Nila and
Nano could protect them. Unfortunately, Janus was still missing.
With Rasik dead, it became a race for Azenoth to get
another Guardian in the traitor’s place before the war started. Although Dad
refused to let Hail and I work for Azenoth, he did agree to keep the irritable
god’s book safe. In the meantime, Edward and Nano were assisting the monks with
training the new Guardian; a twenty-year-old wizard.
Xul took on a much more useful role in our lives by
helping Dad form alliances, getting vital information where it needed to go,
and doing research on the weapons from the Iadnah war.
Dad got up to wash his plate and ruffled my hair as
he passed. “Thanks for the pancakes.”
I gave him my best scoff. “Dad!” I screeched, trying
to fix my hair. My perfect spikes were loose without hair-jell, but I still had
to put up a fight. Hail laughed at me, since he wore his shaggy hair without
any style. His dark auburn hair had a naturally glossy sheen with vibrant dynamite-red
highlights in the sun, but his hair never tangled. He never had to do a thing
to it.
I pulled my magic to tip his chair back in
retaliation, but Dad caught it before my brother hit the floor. “No fighting in
the kitchen; you’ll wake your mother,” he said.
“Are you kidding? I think he woke everyone on
Shomodii with that screech.” Mom walked in wearing one of Dad’s dark blue
T-shirts and short white shorts. She ran her hand through her hair, trying to
get the black strands under control. Dad moved to kiss her and in her sleepy
state, she just held still for him. When he moved back, she blinked at me
against the bright light. “Ron, if you promise to never make that sound again,
you can change your hair color.”
I jumped up with excitement, about to express it
verbally, when Hail’s hand closed over my mouth and he pulled me back down. “He
says thank you, that’s awesome, and he loves you,” my brother said calmly. I
was busy thinking of all the colors I could make my hair.
My mother turned her attention to Dad and winced.
“You look like hell. How long have you been having trouble sleeping?”
“A few days. I have no energy and I’m achy. I feel
like I have a cold.”
“But you can’t get sick. I think it’s because of
Mordon.”
Panic crossed my dad’s eyes. “Do you think he’s
sick?”
“Dad,” I said in my best “you’re an idiot” tone,
which I learned from Mom. “Mordon is your balance. He keeps you at peace with
the universe. Your soul is used to his. When you’re apart for a long time, your
body tries to compensate.” I rolled my eyes. Obviously, he should have known
that, being my mother’s mate.
He looked at Mom with an expression of loss and
worry. “Baby, where did our little angel go? I don’t think I like this
teenage-shit. I’m leaving you and the kids. Mordon and I will go back to Earth,
and I’ll have the divorce papers to you by the end of the week. We can remarry
when Ron is twenty-two.”
Mom’s expression was of outrage. “How dare you?! I
was going to say that in, like, three seconds! Now you had to go and ruin it!
I’ll take you to court. I give you full custody! You can’t leave me with two
teenagers!”
He glared at her and they were fully squaring off at
this point. “You can’t have Mordon, he’s mine, and he will side with me.”
“Boys need their father.”
“I never had one, and look how I turned out!” He
blinked and looked down. “Oh, wait… scratch that. I’m not a good example.”
“Daddy…” Hail whimpered. “I can’t take another dad
walking out on me.” He was faking it, of course, but Dad could never deny him
anything. Hail was as tall as Mom and way bigger than the average
fifteen-year-old in solid muscle. He was coddled. But despite being small and
thin for my age, I was given no mercy for my actions.
“I’m sorry, honey, we’re just kidding. We could never
leave either of you.” Dad folded, predictably, when it came to the subject of
abandonment.
Mom rolled her eyes behind his head. He wondered
where I got it from. I looked from Mom to Hail behind me, but something red
caught my eye. Quickly looking back at my dad’s chest, I blinked. I could have
sworn his green shirt was covered in blood, but it was clean.
“What’s wrong?”
Hail asked.
I looked at him.
“I thought I saw something. I was
wrong.”
I looked back at my dad and it suddenly became difficult to
breathe. Something was pushing on my chest… from the inside. For the first time
in months, the darkness stirred, but it wasn’t sluggish like normal.
Before I could say anything to Hail, everything
around Dad dimmed and he burst with white, blinding light. It was the void, the
enemy of the universe; my enemy. I could never let the void free.
He
was
pulling apart everything that was right and good and I could see it.
He
was even more damaging to the universe than the gods;
he
had torn open
the walls to the void before.
He
would do it again. There were no rules
for
him
, no stopping
him
. I had to destroy the imbalance. The
strongest force against the balance against to universe was right in front of
me and I could destroy it. Something intercepted me, but it was almost as
strong an energy as the thing I had to extinguish. Two enemies of the balance
demolished was even better than one.
Power formed in this vessel, barely durable enough to
contain me, but my world tipped just as my power was released and my head burst
with pain.
Light and color returned to my eyes and I found
Hail’s face two inches from mine with his eyes scrunched closed… and the
ceiling behind him. He opened his purple eyes to look at me and blood dripped
from his nose onto mine. “That,” he panted, “HURT!” he yelled in my face. I
shook a little with the loudness as my ears rang. Hail never yelled at me. He
loved me.
He pushed himself up, nearly kicking me as he stepped
over me and stomped out of the kitchen. I heard the front door slam and wanted
to go after him, but my body wouldn’t work. Hail left me on the floor, unable
to move. He just left me. I couldn’t go after him, and he didn’t even look
back.