Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  Pleased, I took a deep breath, not realizing I had been holding my breath. The pleasure evaporated when another chill rolled across me. It felt the same as when I had left the fireside in our cabin and opened the door on a cold winter day.

  The magical boulders might keep this creature from seeing us, but the chill coming from it seeped through them. I checked the magical rocks again, making sure they were still there. They were, but they were blobs rather than detailed rocks. I pulled in more power and focused on improving the small details. When we had arrived, Zephyr had been sitting on a block of granite that looked light tan or white at first glance, but it had contained white, red, and black specks. I tried to make the magical boulders look the same.

  Trey shuffled back and grabbed his sleeping fur while I focused on building a realistic-looking rock. The image of the magical rock grew clearer in my mind and the level of cold dropped at the same instant.

  “What’s happening?” Trey squeaked quietly as he flipped his sleeping fur around his shoulders.

  Pleased that my changes had helped, I twisted and reached for my fur. “Bad magic,” I whispered and wrapped the fur over my upper body before crawling back beside Zephyr.

  The wolf still lay in the same position with her eyes fixed on the sky. I had never touched her except when healing her injuries, but now I reached out cautiously. She gave no indication she felt my hand when I ran it over her stiff fur and she didn’t respond when I asked, “Zephyr?”

  Concerned, I peered through the rocks I had magically constructed. The black flying shape was closer, high over the end of the canyon. Its huge wingspan hid an entire constellation of stars.

  My heart began to beat faster and sweat slickened my palms. I reached for more magic while I thought furiously about other ways to hide. A little more power surged in response to my attempt but it was far less than I had tried to pull. There was an immense amount of magic in the hills around us, but I couldn’t access it.

  Frightened, my fingers tightened on Zephyr’s neck. There was a hard spot in the fur and I suddenly realized I was touching the magical stone she was carrying. I was already using my stone to help me reach external magic. Could I use her stone at the same time to reach more?

  I focused on using her stone to access the external magic as if I weren’t already pulling in a huge amount. To my delight, I could access a lot more power. It poured into me like flooding water in the river. What could I do? I kept the magical rocks in place and used the rest of the power to try to make Trey, Zephyr and me invisible.

  The magical invisibility had only partially worked the previous time I had tried this. That time, I could look through myself and Zephyr, but we had both cast shadows. That wouldn’t matter tonight, because we were under an overhang of rock and not even the light of the moon touched us.

  All of the new power went into the effort when I focused on being invisible. To my delight, the icy feeling diminished to a faint touch. At the same time, Zephyr shifted and moved her head.

  Moments later, the huge dark form drifted over the end of the valley. It was much lower than before, even below the edges of the ridge. Beside me, Trey gave a muffled gasp when the dark form completed another circle and glided towards the ground. The wings were too large to fit between the rock walls and then they started to shift. Mesmerized, I watched the wings shrink and thicken as the creature approached the ground. Moments later, an erect form the size of a large man stood in an open area near the edge of the stream.

  There wasn’t enough light to make out many details of the new arrival but I resisted the urge to shift some of the magical power into better eyesight. We needed to stay hidden, although the presence of the creature on the ground suggested that my attempts at hiding weren’t working.

  The dark form stood motionless for a long time as if listening. Although it stood in the full light of the moon, it seemed darker than the deepest shadows, as if sucking in the light.

  Beside me, Trey took a long deep breath. I felt like berating him for making noise and then realized I was breathing as harshly as he was. I shifted a slight amount of power from hiding invisibly to make sure we were also silent. There were so many things about using magic I didn’t understand. If we survived through the night, I was going to study and experiment every day.

  Finally, the dark specter tilted its head back and slowly turned in a circle, as if searching. The head seemed an odd shape. From the side, it looked more like the head of a bird than a man. It was more the shape of an eagle than the large beak of a pelican.

  I quit thinking about the shape and tried to understand what it was doing. Suddenly I realized what was happening. The creature had stopped trying to hear us and was trying to smell us. Now would be a good time for the wind to blow the other direction but there wasn’t any time to explore how to magically make the wind blow. Besides, a sudden gust of wind might give us away.

  The dark form finished the circle and paused. I couldn’t tell if it was facing us or the other direction, but it wasn’t looking sideways. Moments later, it silently swayed from side to side and then moved like a man walked. Directly toward us!

  My heart thudded in my chest as I tried to pull in more power. Nothing happened other than the chill feeling returned. I tried again to pull in more magic. Still nothing.

  Then, I remembered the opal Trey was carrying. Working feverishly, I accessed it and reached out again. More power responded, but I was clueless about what to do with it. By this time, the apparition was getting closer and the chill feeling was deepening, stronger than before.

  My entire life, we had used fire to fight off cold. I needed fire to fight the approaching cold, but it needed to be magical fire rather than normal fire. I focused on that fact as the creature neared where we were hiding. I shivered from the cold and tried to focus on creating magical fire outside the small cave rather than at my feet. Panic nearly overwhelmed me and then I thought about the metal balls I still gripped in one hand. I could throw them, but that wouldn’t warm me. My imagination provided an idea and then I created and instantly threw a ball of bright blue fire.

  The fire wrapped around the dark form, which immediately began to glow a sullen red. A piercing wordless scream of anger and rage rampaged through my mind. I clapped my hands over my ears, but the scream only faded when I used magical fingers to plug my ears. The feeling of cold intensified so much I felt like an icicle and then it totally vanished.

  The creature turned and ran far faster than any human could move, still glowing red from the blue fire chasing it. Moments later, it sprouted wings and shot up from the ground. The blue fire disappeared and the red glow diminished as the form flew, but I could still see a hint of red when it grew too small to see in the sky.

  “Thank you,” Zephyr said as if coming out of a daze.

  “You’re welcome,” I gasped, still watching the distant sky as shudders of fear ran up and down my back. There was a hint along the horizon that day would soon break, and I would be very glad to see the light of another day. I had used every iota of magical power I could touch and only by accident had I tried something new using fire that had caused the abhorrent creature to flee. The results could have been different. I could visualize my body as stiff and frozen as my mother’s had been that terrible winter night a couple of years ago. My eyes stung as sweat that smelled of fear dripped into them.

  “What was that thing?” I demanded as I whipped around and stared at Zephyr.

  “Yeah. What was it?” Trey asked, moving over beside me, still on his hands and knees.

  “I’ve never seen one before,” Zephyr replied.

  “Stop treating us like babies!” Trey growled. “You and I would both be dead if Reuben weren’t here protecting us.”

  “Feisty pups,” Zephyr said in a more normal tone of voice. “And, you’re also right that I would be dead without Reuben’s protection. Thank you, Reuben, I will not fo
rget your help. That creature was an Effigia. I have never seen one before tonight, but I have heard of them.”

  “What is an Effigia?” I demanded, glad that Trey had stood up to the wolf, even though I hadn’t. “It shifted shapes between flying and walking and it looked a lot like a man.”

  “It used to be a man,” Zephyr said. “Now it takes a physical form powered by magic rather than food. It is no longer human and cannot return to human form.”

  I shivered. “What was that terrible cold feeling?”

  “The Effigia, and there are not many of them, cannot pull magic from the ground as you do. Instead, they pull it from the bodies of people who use magic.”

  “Do they kill people while stealing their magic?”

  “Yes. I don’t know if they intend to kill their victims, but that is the end result,” Zephyr said as a ripple of fur moved down her back. “As Trey said, I would be dead without your help. Thank you again for fighting back.”

  “I’ll never give up without a fight,” I said almost without thinking and then rubbed my cold, sweat-slickened, hands together. “Why didn’t you fight back?”

  The wolf growled low in her chest, a sure sign she was back to her normal attitude. “I did. It wasn’t effective.”

  Trey rose up on his knees, grabbed my arm and pointed outside. The hint of predawn light had brightened enough to erase most of the stars. “What is that?” he asked.

  All of us watched a golden dragon circle in the air above the end of the canyon.

  Chapter 13 – History Lesson

  After the dragon disappeared in the sky toward the west, I sank down cross-legged and pulled my sleeping fur over my shoulders. Warmth was returning to my body, but the fur felt good. I considered lowering our magical defenses and pulling in some magical heat and then decided to leave the defenses as they were. However, I did send a new message to my guarding squirrel and puma releasing them from the order to stay silent.

  I wanted to know more about why the dragon was close by and Zephyr was grateful for my help, so maybe she would answer a few questions. I launched into the first one without waiting. “How many races of intelligent magical beings are there?”

  The wolf laid her nose on her front feet and continued to face out towards the canyon brightening in the predawn light. “Five.”

  I bit my tongue gently to hold the next question because I could remember Father raising his clenched fist when I asked questions instead of thinking. I attempted to explain what I already knew. “Wolves, dragons, humans, Effigia, and Vassago. You mentioned the Vassago in the past but you haven’t told me much about them. You didn’t say all that much about the Effigia, but I’ve now seen one.”

  “What’s a Vassago?” Trey asked.

  “Just a moment,” I replied. “I just named five intelligent races that can use magic, but it all started with humans, didn’t it? You said the Effigia and the Vassago used to be human.”

  Zephyr sighed. “That’s right. We don’t know where and how humans originated, but an entire civilization rose and fell before humans learned about the magic running deep in the mountains. We call that time period the First Age.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked when Zephyr made the slightest pause. “As you say, it was a long time ago.”

  The wolf swung her head and looked at me with golden eyes. “We have written historical records that go back that far.” Her nostrils flared in a snort. “That book you carry in your pack has a lot more historical information than you realize.”

  My hand snaked out and touched the pack holding the book. “What do you mean? I first read that book standing beside my mother. It’s an interesting history, but it doesn’t say anything about magic.”

  “Save that thought for later,” she said, sounding exasperated, and then continued her narrative. “Even though they had learned about magic, few people used it in the second human civilization. A handful of humans became powerful magicians during that time and led the resurgence of civilization after the Second Age ended. The Third Age went smoothly for many centuries until a few powerful magicians with an evil bent tried to dominate everyone else.”

  The wolf swung back around and stared out into the valley. “A few of them began enslaving others who had little or no magic. A small group of others began magically modifying animals for different purposes. A few even transformed from humans into wolves, dragons, and lions.”

  “That’s different from what you told me before,” I blurted. “You said they gave wolves and dragons the gift of intelligence. You didn’t mention lions.”

  “That’s the problem with white lies and half-truths,” Zephyr grunted. “It’s really hard to keep track of all of them.”

  “Tell us more about these wolves and dragons,” Trey prompted when Zephyr and I engaged in a staring contest. I was glad he did because there was no way I was going to win a contest of wills with a wolf.

  Zephyr glanced away from me. “The end of the Third Age occurred in just a few days when two major factions of magicians, the Effigia and the Vassago, turned on each other. The war started because, in a quest for immortality, the Effigia abandoned human form and began to prey on others, including some of the Vassago. Most of both groups died along with countless others. The Vassago prevailed, but the things required to win the war reshaped them into nonhuman forms.”

  Trey pointed outside with a rigid forefinger. “Was that Effigia we saw last night involved in the war?”

  “Yes,” Zephyr replied. “Some of the Effigia and Vassago survived the war, largely devoid of their powers. Now they prey on others to eke out an existence. They are long-lived but not actually immortal. A few have died in the last twenty-two hundred years.”

  “What about the wolves?” Trey persisted.

  “The few humans able to take dragon or wolf form fled into the mountains when the fighting started. They survived but lost the ability to transform back to human form when their peers died. The historical records do not describe the process, but do claim the change is very complex and takes a concerted effort by a group of twenty highly-trained individuals.”

  Most of the story Zephyr was telling seemed to match with what I had learned so far, but I wasn’t totally convinced. “Is the story you told me about Guldur Stones accurate?”

  The wolf continued, “Yes. A severely wounded woman with the name Guldur was one of the few humans alive when the war ended. She used her remaining strength to give four of my kind and two dragons the ability to access external magic when focused through a special stone. At her request, those six formed the Zviera Council whose purpose was to prevent humans from ever again gaining control of the strong magic.”

  I was about out of questions and then thought about what Ara would have wanted to know if she were with us. The image of her face in my mind asked questions I would not have considered by myself. “Was Guldur one of the Vassago?”

  “No. She was the leader of the much smaller group known as the Muto. They studied magical transformations and how they might be used to cure disease and extend life.”

  I raised my right forefinger as a discrepancy seemed obvious, but Trey beat me to the question. “Some humans can heal fatal wounds and cure diseases. Why do you need to change forms to do that?”

  Zephyr seemed to have expected the question. “Not even the most powerful human magicians can heal all the ravages of old age. The Effigia and the Vassago worked very hard to extend their lives in human form, but even they failed to achieve productive lifespans of more than two hundred years. The humans who changed to wolf form can live six to eight hundred years.”

  “What about dragons?” Trey asked.

  “Half again as long as a wolf,” Zephyr replied as she stood. She looked directly at me. “Do you know where the other wolves are this morning?”

  One thing was obvious from the early morning battle even though I didn’t mention
it to the others. I needed a more powerful Guldur Stone if I was going to stay alive very long. “I’ll check for them in a moment,” I replied, “but I have one more question.”

  “Only one?” Zephyr sighed.

  “For now,” I said. “How did I hurt the Effigia enough that it ran rather than continuing to attack? As you would say, I am an untrained pup.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  That wasn’t the answer I expected and I couldn’t hold back the next question. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I couldn’t focus or think when the Effigia got close. I don’t remember what you did.”

  That statement matched with my observations. I checked her emotions instead of asking another question and she seemed distressed that she had acted like a suckling pup rather than helping us survive. Satisfied, I lowered most of our magical defenses so I had the power to search for the other wolves. At the same instant, shame that she had talked about the past filled Zephyr’s mind.

  Intrigued, I reengaged the magical defenses and watched Zephyr’s emotions switch back to the earlier stage. Another change occurred when I again lowered the magical defenses. So, someone with magical powers was forcing, or had tried to force, her to not reveal anything about wolves, dragons, the ancient past or the Zviera Council.

  Finally, I decided to answer Zephyr’s question about the location of the wolves. I relaxed our magical protections to those required for simple hiding and a quick check revealed the locations of the tracking wolves.

  “Thanks,” I said to Trey as he handed me some leftover meat from the previous evening. I resisted popping it into my mouth so I could talk aloud. “The four wolves are still upriver from us.”

  “How close?” Trey asked around the rabbit leg he was gnawing on.

  “About an hour’s walk,” I replied, pointing upriver towards Glendale. “They are spread out in a line across the valley.”