The Wizard's War (19 page)

“Did she look familiar?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I only saw her out of the corner of my
eye.”

That is not an answer to the question,
Rojan
thought. Suddenly, we were standing in a desert valley, surrounded my dark
caves. Rojan made a soft purr of delight and Hail rolled his eyes.

“Not now, Rojan, we have demons to hunt.” The words
were barely out of Hail’s mouth when fire spewed from the nearest cave. Demons,
once again in human form, spilled from the cave. Although they were obviously
driven away by the fire, they were uninjured.

More demons were forced out of other caves until we
were the ones surrounded, then people emerged to block their cave entrances.

Malta,
Rojan though.
This is the fire tribe
of Malta.

At least it isn’t the water tribe.
“These
people can use fire, but no other magic. All of the people of Malta I have met
so far have been warm to foreigners,” I said to Hail. He nodded. Instead of
creating a shield, I grasped Hail by the arm, pulled him closer, and created a
fire tornado around us.

This was powerful enough to cause the demons pain and
drive them away from us, but not to kill them outright. Then Hail reached his
hand out towards the fire. Something formed in my fire that flashed like tiny
pieces of metal. This time, when a demon tried to cross the fire, he burst into
ashes.

Hail aimed his bow, his arrow notched, and released
the string. The arrow shot through the eye of one demon, who burst into ash,
and kept flying into the heart of another demon, who also burst into ash. Once
the arrow hit the ground, it vanished and reappeared in his quiver.

Two more tried and each met the same fate. The
remaining dozen realized that they were outmatched and vanished. I let my fire
recede. “Why are the demons running so easily?” I asked.

“They are testing the strength of Dylan’s defenses as
well the extensiveness of it,” Emrys said, approaching us from one of the
caves.

The man hadn’t aged a day since I met him. His hair,
which drove Ron nuts, was a primarily brown, but with blond, black, and red as
well. Oddly, his eyes changed more than Ron’s hair did. This time, they were
sea-foam-green. His clothes, which were simple and black, were the only thing
that didn’t draw attention.

“So there have been a lot of---” Except I was talking
to thin air; we were now on a different world. “That’s a bit rude, cutting me
off mid-sentence,” I said, as if Vretial could hear me.

“Vretial doesn’t have a lot of manners,” Hail agreed.

We were in a forest with a small tribe of people.
There was no time to ascertain our location before the demons attacked. They
were more difficult to defeat because we had to be careful of the people. With
sword and magic, I fought for what felt like hours before the demons were
vanquished.

Next, we were on a small island of… women. There were
only gorgeous women with very scant clothing and nothing to defend themselves
with. Hail took one look at the women and lowered his bow. I could smell his
hormones going wild, which was my first clue as to what these women were. Hail
was always strongly attracted to fae.

They spoke quietly with fear as they surrounded us.
If it were not for the brilliant white hair and elegant wings, I would have
assumed they were people. Each of them had soft, innocent faces and bodies that
could be the fantasy of any man. Some of them had white wings while some were
iridescent.

The woman who approached us first was completely
naked with huge white wings that fluttered with nerves. When she tried to kiss
Hail, I drew my sword. She stepped back with her hands out innocently and spoke
in an elegant language that sounded like silk from her lips.

“Wait, wait,” Hail said quickly. “She says she just
wants to communicate.” She was speaking as he translated. He spoke back in the
same language, which clearly shocked them all. Three women reached out to
stroke his back. “They learn language through… apparently kissing. That’s
brilliant.”

“Ask her if she knows anything about…” I stopped
myself because Hail wasn’t listening.

He reached out, snaked his hand around the back of
her neck, and pulled her into a deep kiss. She gasped with shock, but after a
second, she closed her eyes with a moan. Her wings changed from white to
iridescent, which I couldn’t imagine was a good thing.

I growled when he ran his free hand across her chest and
then openly groped her. Other women around us looked completely confused as to
what has happening, further proving my theory that they were entirely innocent.

Hail was about the stroke the woman’s fluttering
wings when another woman tugged on his shoulder to break the two up. He turned
to the impatient woman, leaving the first woman dazed and panting. The second
woman kissed him with more enthusiasm than the first had shown and pressed her
body flush against his.

Ron was going to be pissed.

One of the women approached me, obviously with a kiss
in mind, but I held up my hand to stop her. She halted mid-step. “No,” I said.
She took a step back.

Why not?
Rojan thought.

This isn’t the time to be distracted.

While Hail was only sixteen, he looked a good three
or four years older and was built as if he did manual labor for twenty years.
The woman currently licking Hail’s teeth broke away and turned to present her
iridescent wings in their grandest display. He reached out…

An explosion shook the trees. Hail stepped away from
the woman, pulled an arrow from the quiver, and notched it. When the demons
attacked, they were in the form of dragons, which I found ironic and a little
bit insulting. If these women were most frightened of dragons, I couldn’t
expect them to be okay with being saved by one. Nevertheless, I stripped out of
my clothes and shifted. The fae screamed and dived for cover among the trees,
which was a good thing as I was huge and needed space.

My opponents were copying the image of smaller forest
dragons, extremely similar in form to Krayer. One lounged himself at me and I
grasped him by the neck in my teeth. As he tried to strike me with the spike on
his tail, I caught it with my left front paw and then crushed his windpipe.
Blood spilled an instant before he reverted to ash.

The dragon fight was much easier than a sword fight
because it was instinct instead of training. One of the demons changed into a
person and tried to pick up the azurath sword, only to find it too heavy. I
laughed as best as a dragon could and stepped on him. He burst into ash.

Hail was able to take out his fair share of demons
with his bow and used his power more to show off than anything else. The women,
of course, ate it up. By the time the demons were defeated, Hail had a major
fan club. How he ended up with his shirt off, I had no idea, but the fae were
pawing at him and pressing against him like they had never seen a man before.

“Tell them to leave you alone, or else I will get out
the baby pictures,” I threatened, pulling my clothes back on.

His eyes widened in fear before a deep laugh filled
the space. Xul appeared between us. “I would really love to see those myself.”

“What did you find out?” I asked.

“Nothing so far, I just thought this might help you
out,” he said, holding something metal out. I took it, confused. It was Dylan’s
pentagram. “I know you can’t be with Dylan right now, so I figured you couldn’t
draw his magic, either. It’s full of his energy.”

I nodded. “Thank you.” It was a good possibility that
I would need Iadnah energy, and Dylan’s was the only Iadnah energy that I could
use.

“Also, I really advise against touching their wings,
because that will mate you to them for life,” the Ancient said, then vanished.

Hail crossed his arms with his hands under his
armpits. “Good to know. We are on Raktusha, by the way,” he said.

Vretial’s world…
Figures
.

“What did you promise him in order to heal me?” he
asked.

“What did you see in your vision that you were so
afraid to tell me?” I asked.

Suddenly, we were back in Dylan’s cabin.
“Rest
now, while everything is peaceful,”
the god’s voice whispered in my mind.

It was difficult to unwind knowing my brother and my
young nephew were out there fighting, but I knew I was of more use when my mind
was clear. I took a bath to heat the knots from my muscles and then checked on
the two teenagers. They were in the same bed, but Hail was responsible enough
that he wouldn’t do anything without carefully considering the consequences…
but just to be sure…

“If you get Sari pregnant, Ron will neuter you,” I
whispered into the dark room, “with glass, dirt, and fire.” After that, I went
to bed.

*          *          *

I stood in the center of the room. Three walls were
white while one was clear glass showing an identical room where Sydney stood. She
looked so alive, but she didn’t acknowledge me or move at all. I turned when I
sensed someone appear beside me.

He looked disheveled with a tall, thin build. His
eyes and hair were dark while his skin was pale, as if he had never seen the
sunlight. Rojan growled and my fire stirred angrily. This was an evil man… or
dead man. I scented no life on him, but he didn’t smell like a demon, either.

He grinned as I studied him. “Who are you?” I asked.

“I am Dleso Atos, High King of Dios, and I have come
to offer you what you want more than anything.”

Instead of answering, I looked back at Sydney.

“Her soul has been saved. I knew what it would take
and I managed to save her from the destructive forces of the void. If you want
her back, you need only do one simple thing,” he said. I turned back to him. “I
want you to bring Dylan to me.”

I opened my mouth to reject his offer.

“Mordon!” It was her voice, causing my entire body to
shudder with longing. “Mordon, please help me! It’s so dark here.”

My mouth opened as Rojan took over with more force
than he had ever used on me before. “I will do it, but you must give my mate
back to me first.”

The man smirked. “You do not trust me?” He laughed
when Rojan just glared. “I cannot bring her back until the war, and I will not
do so if you do not bring him to me. You have until Dylan sheds a drop of demon
blood to bring him to me if you ever want to see Sydney again.”

Ron

“The third weapon is the battle axe, which is on
Mulo. To acquire it, you must go to the monks, who will give you three tasks.
How long they take and how difficult they are depends on your own skills,”
Alice said.

We were standing in a dark place, which made sense to
me; Mulo was a cold world, so the population lived underground. “I need more
than a dark cavern to go on to flash here.”

The four torches on the walls flared up to spill more
light into the room. I realized we were in a stone tunnel with a round, stone
door right in front of me. A symbol was etched into the center of the door. I
recognized the pentacle with lines crossing and looping through it as the
symbol of Mulo because Hail, Mordon, Dad, and I signed all the books.

*          *          *

The sound of arguing woke me from my sleep. Annoyed,
I opened my eyes and sat up. Sen and Drake were at it again, and I wasn’t any
more interested in their problem than I was the first time.

Where are we?” I asked, sizing up the six-by-eight
room we were in. Curious about the rough look of the cream-colored walls, I
reached over and touched them. They were an odd, vaguely repulsive texture
similar to paper-mache. The floor was dusty concrete, the bed was smaller than
a twin, and there was nothing in the room aside from the bed. Worse still was
the fact that although there was a doorway, there was no door.

The only redeeming feature of the room was the
fabulous, deep red blanket, which had a fabric as smooth as silk and a
ridiculously soft filling.

Drake and Sen, who were in the hallway right outside
the doorway, turned to me. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you,” Drake
whispered, as if that would do any good now. “When you fixed everything in the
museum… you sort of passed out.”

How embarrassing.

“Elwyn was very grateful that you came back to help,
so she let us stay in her room,” Sen explained.

“And you decided we should stay in a closet instead?”
I asked.

“This is not a closet,” Drake whispered.

“No, you’re right. A closet this size wouldn’t even
hold all my clothes. Anyway, we have work to do.” I stood and reluctantly
released the lovely blanket.

“They also invited us to breakfast,” Drake said
shyly.

I couldn’t imagine that Enep had anything in the way
of food to offer that I could stomach.
Maybe rock soup or turnip pie.

“We need to get the next weapon as soon as possible,”
I argued.

Sen stuck his bottom lip out. “Please, Ron, I’m
hungry,” he whined.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Fine, but I’m not being
polite if they try to serve us mud pies.”

Seimei waited for me in the hall and followed us.
Apparently, Drake and Sen knew where to go, because after a few minutes of
walking through endless narrow, dirt hallways the space opened up to a larger
room. Although it was larger and had more torches, it was just as dreary as the
rest of the place. I hated underground worlds.

In the center of the room was a heavy wooden table
piled high with trays of bread, meat, and vegetables. I was curious as so how
they managed these ingredients.

People surrounded the table, chatting happily with
each other as they ate the food with their hands. We took a few open seats and
since nobody seemed to notice us and everyone else was already eating, we
helped ourselves.

First of all, the meat was lukewarm at best. Second,
I realized immediately upon tasting it that both the meat and veggies were boiled.
Third, these people had never heard of seasoning before. I honestly didn’t know
food could be so bland. The bread, in fact, was at least a week old, or
possibly made with some foreign ingredients that should have been outlawed for
public safety.

“Screw being polite. This is gross,” I said.

Drake kept his eyes forward and took another bite of
the bread, clearly trying not to gag. “Shut up, shut up, and smile like you
like it. We
cannot
offend these people. You have no idea who might be a
supporter of your dad.”

“Hey, what is this meat?” Sen asked.

I shrugged. “Well, we know the Arcani can die.
Perhaps they don’t really know how to take care of the bodies so they figured
they could kill two birds with one stone… or eat them in this case.”

Drake leaned away from the food, very nearly
vomiting. When he finally seemed stable, he sat back up. A few people noticed
the commotion, but quickly returned to their conversations.

“You look kind of pale,” I pointed out, noticing
Drake’s lack of color. As I spoke, I felt Regivus’s presence press against my
mind impatiently. Although he was being lenient on me, I had way overstayed my
welcome.

“I have been underground for too long. Really, don’t
worry about me.”

But I couldn’t help it. I still saw him as the tiny
boy who was recovering from cancer, loved superman, and wore soft wool hats. “I
think I have eaten enough. Let’s go,” I said. We went back into the tunnel and
walked for a few minutes until we were sure we were alone. Then I flashed us,
not to Malta but to the hot springs on Duran.

The sun was shining brightly overhead and the water
was crystal clear as usual. “Wow!” Drake said, lifting his face to feel the
sunlight full on. “It’s beautiful here.”

“But why did you bring us here? This isn’t Mulo.”

“Because I wanted a break,” I lied. “I’m not used to
working so much.”

He was skeptical, but Drake stripped down and jumped
in the water before Sen could come up with a decent argument. Sen joined him
and I chilled out in the sun with Seimei for a while before going for a swim as
well. An hour later, we redressed somberly. None of us wanted to go to another
underground world.

I flashed us to Mulo, where the symbol was etched
into the wall. Four torches lined the hallway and illuminated the space weakly.
Drake and Sen looked at me for direction when the door didn’t immediately open.

Seimei gave a small chirp and pawed at the door. Dad
would say there was always a way in and always a way out. Movies never
interested me on Earth, but the ones Dad insisted I watched were somewhat
instructional. Of course, I also enjoyed staying up late when Dad was at work
in order to watch movies I wasn’t actually allowed to see.

I stepped to the right of the nearest torch and
pressed myself against the wall before tugging on the lead torch ring. It gave,
followed by a two-by-two section of floor to sink.
Trap
. “Drake, pull
that one,” I said, reaching for another torch.

“You’re joking! They’re obviously trapped!”

“Not all of them. Just be careful.” Before I could
pull the torch, I noticed small holes in the wall around it.
Trap
.
“Wait!” I shouted. Sen had pulled the last torch without hesitation.

Seimei heard my warning— or sensed danger— and moved
faster than any of us. She flattened him, narrowly avoiding the thin blade that
shot out from the wall and would have sliced his head off.

When the blade slid back into the wall, Sen slumped
against Seimei with relief. “Pull the damn torch,” I told Drake.

“Absolutely not!”

I stomped over to him with my best flounce and pulled
the torch. The door separated down the middle and split open to reveal a bright
room.

“Sen nearly died!” Drake exploded.

I huffed and flicked my hair. “He didn’t nearly die.
Sen is half dragon, half mage; he’s tough. Aren’t you, Sen?” I asked.

The dragon-mage stood and dusted himself off without
looking at either of us. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I’m fine.” Seimei nudged his
back affectionately.

The room beyond was brightly lit, but I could see no
actual source of light. It was circular and huge with a genuine garden in the
center. A massive tree with large white blossoms dominated the garden,
surrounded by flowers of every color, shape, and size. It was beautiful.

Seimei growled at the tree. I stroked her head and
scanned the room with my energy, what came back made my skin crawl. My magic
was blinded by what seemed like fog, thick and malevolent.

“Hey, this feels like real sunlight,” Drake said,
holding out his hands as if warming them by a fire.

“I don’t feel good,” Sen moaned.

He was quickly turning pale and sweaty. I put my hand
on his forehead and was concerned by how feverish he was. Before I could even
try healing him, I heard a heavy thud behind me. Drake was unconscious on the
ground.

I knelt, put my left hand over his heart and my right
hand on his forehead, and released my magic into him. The same fog my energy
had encountered before was the source of his unconsciousness and my magic had
no idea what to do. He wasn’t sick or injured. Sen collapsed beside me.

Seimei pawed at Sen’s arm gently, receiving no
reaction. Once again, she snarled at the tree, which unexpectedly began to
move. The trunk slimmed, branches fused, and the entire thing grew shorter
until a man stood where the tree had been.

He was tall and thin with a gold, satin-like robe.
His hood was up, so I couldn’t make out much of his face. Instead, the focus of
my attention was on the large, silver amulet he wore that was something similar
to an ankh.

“What have you done to my friends?” I asked. Seimei
hissed at him, but remained at my side.

“They are unwelcome. You are also unwelcome, but you
are protected,” he said. His voice was husky and slow, as if years of
experience weighed him down with wisdom. I was familiar with the hoax.

The charm I wore tingled against my chest, but I
refused to take it out and give this man that satisfaction. “I am here for the
battle axe,” I said.

“We know. However, you are unworthy of such a weapon.
You are arrogant, devious, and selfish.”

“You don’t know who you are talking to,” I growled.

“You are the son of Dylan Yatunus, the enemy of the
balance and the gods.”

“My father is not the enemy of the gods,” I argued.

“Your father has proven himself a worthy advisory of
the demons, but we have no reason to ally ourselves with him.”

“I am only here for the axe, and I am absolutely
worthy. I am not just the son of Dylan. Someday, I will be the most powerful
being in this universe, and even the gods will be afraid to piss me off.”

“Your heart is impure. You would sacrifice your
allies for personal gain.”

“Of course I wouldn’t!”

“Prove yourself pure of heart and we will give you
the battle axe. In battle, your true character will be displayed. You will face
three battles. To prove yourself worthy, you must win two of the three battles.
The rules are simple; you must fight to the death, only one person can face our
warrior at a time, and you cannot leave the arena once the battle has begun.

“You can have one beast to assist you. Be aware that
if you choose a beast to accompany you, your opponent has the option as well.
Furthermore, if one of your friends joins you on the field, you forfeit.
Fortunately for you, you can appoint a champion to fight in your stead. This
works well for you because if your friends both die in the first and second
challenge, you need not fight in the last battle, for you will have already
lost.”

“I’m not going to put them in that kind of danger.”

“You will. Why else would you have brought them
here?” he asked. When I had nothing to say, he moved on. “You will be given
food, water, and shelter for the next three days, assuming you survive them. Of
course, the amenities will be nothing as lavish as you are accustomed to. Rest
during the day, for at night, you fight.”

Before I could respond, I was standing in a new
place. This room was about eight-by-twelve with two twin beds and a heavy
wooden chest between them. Each bed was low with a mattress that was no thicker
than three inches, and sported a flimsy gray blanket. The chest between the
beds was about two feet wide and a foot around. Against the wall across from
the beds was an array of chipped, rusty weapons.

Using magic to make my struggle easier, I hefted Sen
onto one of the beds and Drake onto the other. Once they were settled, I pushed
the lid up on the chest to find it full of medical supplies.

The most important thing I realized was the lack of
door or window. Like the garden room we were in before, there was no obvious
source of light, yet the room was bright. Of course, the walls, floor, and ceiling
was white, which I knew was going to drive me nuts.

*          *          *

“I think I should go first,” Sen said. “Drake can go
next, and then neither of us will have to go again as long as we both win.”

Drake and Sen had woken up, got the important info,
and went back to fighting like dogs.
Like yip-yip dogs… Pissed off
Chihuahuas. Dorks.
Meanwhile, I relaxed on the bed with my hands under my
head, wishing I had some earmuffs and maybe a couple of muzzles.

“You’re ten. I should go first and second,” Drake
argued.

“I am the son of a mage and a dragon.”

“Not to be rude or anything, but you don’t exactly
look like a fighter any more than Ron does. Maybe your father was a---”

“My father was a coward,” the dragon-mage snapped.
“He raped my mother because he couldn’t be loved by a woman and he never showed
his face again. Even though my mother would have happily given me away, he
never came back for me.”

“He had no idea you even existed,” I said, rolling my
eyes. “He thought he failed because when Emiko was returned to her time, he
couldn’t sense you.” After a second, I noticed he was staring at me silently
and realized what I said. I slapped my hand over my mouth, as if I could stop
the confession I had already made.

Absolutely no good could come of telling Sen he wasn’t
actually a mistake; that the mage king chose Kaori-mor Emiko to create the
first dragon-mage hybrid.