“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“On a foolish dare,” Brag’mok said. “B’iff was smaller than most of our kind. As such, he was subject to…what is it you all call it here, bullying?”
I nodded. “They dared him to go into those lands?”
Brag’mok nodded. “One can barely survive an hour out of the living lands. This is why I was certain that my kind had vanished. With no magic left… But if what you say is true… Do you know how many giants have survived?”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t told. Only that there is a small but significant number who’d managed to live.”
Brag’mok shook his head. “If they live, still, they shan’t for long. Whatever magic they preserved is likely barely enough to sustain a small area of living land. It certainly isn’t enough that they could make it to a portal or gateway. We’ll need to use your power to try and sustain us through the shades.”
Layla and Aerin approached us together.
“Did Layla tell you?”
“Yes,” Aerin said. “I want to come with you.”
Brag’mok shook his head. “It is not wise. It will take all that Caspar can do with his elemental powers to sustain just the three of us. To add another life, and if one of you does not survive or is attacked by the torwyr nos…”
“Brag’mok is right,” Layla said. “You’re needed here to help Caspar’s lawyer sort out his legal situation.”
“Not to mention,” I added, “if we don’t make it back for whatever reason, the drow will need you to lead them. You’ll be the only thing left to resist Brightborn. He has designs of some kind of new world order. He thinks he can save our planet from human destruction, global warming, and shit.”
“He probably could,” Aerin said. “But after that…”
I nodded. “That’s what I said when he told me his plan. He insisted that he’d allow human governments to remain intact, but, well.”
Layla shook her head. “It would be as it was after the eighth world war.”
“You had eight world wars on New Albion?”
“We had dozens of them,” Brag’mok said. “But the eighth gave the elves temporary dominance over the planet. At first, the king at the time allowed the giants to govern themselves, but when we did not do what the king demanded—”
“There was a rebellion,” Layla interjected. “Leading to the ninth world war. Eventually, the giants regained their independence.”
“At the cost of nearly half of our population,” Brag’mok said. “It took two centuries of our kind hiding, reduced to nomadic tribes, before we could rebuild our numbers and organize into a force able to thwart the elves again.”
“My father’s plan is certainly to reduce humanity to a primitive state,” Layla said. “He may allow human governments to operate for a time. But without any technology, any power that they can wield to resist him… It would mean the end of human civilization.”
“There’s another thing,” I said. “Brightborn did suggest that there are elves who have survived, too. I can’t say for certain, but they may be living in a similar condition on New Albion as the other giants. I believe he intends to bring them to Earth eventually.”
“If I show up as their princess,” Layla said, “they might follow us. If we could recruit them, bring them to Earth and convince them to resist my father’s vision…”
Brag’mok shook his head. “Just rescuing the giants will be hard enough. To try and find the elves, too, could be more than we can handle.”
“If my magic can only sustain a few of us, just trying to get the giants back to the Earth portal would be difficult.”
“But not impossible. We have to try,” Layla said. “It could mean the difference in the war. Think about it, if elves rise up against my father and his legions, it will give us a chance.”
“That’s a big ‘if,’” Brag’mok said. “Can you even be certain they would follow you instead of your father? Bringing them to Earth is a risk. What if they align with Brightborn?”
“It’s a risk worth taking,” Layla said. “The other elves, much like me, didn’t know what my father’s plans were until he left them there. They have reason to be angry, to oppose him. If they’re led by the chosen one…”
“To unite the peoples,” Aerin said. “Not just the original protectors of the Earth. Not only the Furies, elementals, and giants. But to bring the elves together, united with the drow and the giants to defend humanity? This must be what the prophecy predicted.”
“I don’t know.” Brag’mok shook his head.
“We’ll do it,” I said. “This could be the key to finally defeating Brightborn. He and his legions might be powerful. But he can’t possibly stand against all of us united.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Aerin called Collin to inform him that the pursuit of the pardon was now off the table. We wanted an acquittal. We’d plead not guilty and pursue what he originally told us was probably the best case to begin with—that I acted under duress and that Brightborn is solely guilty for the crime.
Of course, the President would probably pardon Brightborn in the end. Not without political consequences, of course, but if Brightborn became the “emperor of the world” like he wanted, I doubted that the President’s position would continue to be determined by vote and the electoral college.
I’m no expert in foreign policy or anything, but I imagined the vast change in platform and policy that can happen every four years in the United States made any long-term agreements with foreign nations, not to mention global emperors, tentative at best. Despite Brightborn’s insistence that he’d allow humanity to govern itself, I doubted he’d have much tolerance for democracy.
But Tisiphone had been clear. We had to at least attempt to bring Brightborn to justice. I imagined the Fury was a little naive about how the American criminal justice system actually worked.
Especially when politics got involved.
Apparently, my “escape” didn’t help the case. Sure, they probably saw on camera that some kind of magic was involved. They likely saw me trying to wiggle out of the way when the portal was dropped over me. But would they even want that footage aired in court? Collin hoped they’d drop the whole “escape” issue since, ultimately, they didn’t have any authority to hold me beyond the forty-eight-hour maximum, anyway. But if they pressed the issue, and if it was revealed that Brightborn broke me out, then it would be harder to argue that I’d acted under duress. It would give the impression that he and I were co-conspirators from the start.
Aerin said she’d told Collin to “work his magic” and figure it out. Ironic, perhaps. But I suppose calling him a master of illusion, a legal magician, wasn’t entirely off base. I was pretty sure that Collin’s legal briefs were manufactured by Fruit of the Loom because most of his legal arguments came straight out of his ass.
Didn’t mean he wasn’t effective. Just full of shit.
My legal case was so convoluted at this point that I was almost beyond any hope that truth would prevail. Superman wasn’t real. Not a lot of people stand for truth, justice, and the American way. These days, at least in my situation, the “American way” didn’t have a lot to do with truth, and justice had even less to do with it.
“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate had once asked. He hadn’t been concerned with justice either. The “Roman way” was about power and the authority of the emperor. I suspected, especially with Brightborn asserting himself, that was what my legal situation was about too. Only a thin marmalade of justice spread across a piece of burned toast; that was the truth of my case. It was all about power and eliminating me as a threat.
I’d think about all that crap later. I had to get myself ready to trek across a devastated, uninhabitable world filled with creepy creatures that only Layla had the ability to kill and fulfill an agenda with odds of success even worse than my legal case.
Brag’mok had re-dressed in his armor. I’d only seen him wear it a couple times before. When he str
apped on his massive pauldrons and breastplate, the giant looked even larger and more imposing.
“I thought you said we’d be defenseless against these nightcrawlers?”
Brag’mok nodded. “We can’t kill them with blades. But a good set of armor can at least buy you some time.”
I snorted. “Armor. That’s one thing I don’t have, and there is no time to remedy the situation.”
“You can stay behind us,” Layla said. “Brag’mok is the biggest target. Hopefully, he can lure the nightcrawlers out of hiding, and I can take them out with my magically infused arrows.”
I glanced at Layla’s quiver. Her arrows were glowing violet, like Fred’s daggers had glowed when he’d had the power. As frightening as he had been when I thought he was a trained elven assassin before I realized who he was, Layla was far better with a bow than he’d ever been with his knives. Fred, I imagined, had refined his knife-throwing skill as a larper at the local Renaissance festival. Layla had trained with a bow her entire life.
I’d seen her in action before. Though, in truth, we’d only had a few situations that called for her to go into full Robin Hood mode since we met. A part of me was excited to finally see her in action against a real threat.
I’d been to New Albion before when the planet was barely hanging on magic-wise, barely habitable. But now, most of what we were going to encounter was completely devoid of magic. The planet would be in its original and natural condition before the old druids who became the elves went there and vivified the place with Earth’s power.
I changed clothes before we left. I was still wearing the suit I wore when I turned myself in. Since I’d only been in one cell while going through processing, the feds hadn’t put me in an orange jumpsuit. That would have come, more than likely, if I’d been there long enough to get transferred to County or, eventually, if I couldn’t get acquitted, to prison.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I’d dressed up so nicely to just turn myself in. I’d imagined that I might be brought before a judge at some point. I didn’t realize, until Collin educated me a bit on the whole process, that it could take days before I was even arraigned on charges, even with him trying to expedite things.
As inappropriate as the outfit ended up being for what I was doing, it was even less fitting now. I still had a good pair of combat boots I’d bought at the local Army Surplus, along with a pair of camo cargo pants and a form-fitting t-shirt.
“How cold is it going to be there?” I asked.
“You might want more than a t-shirt,” Layla said, taking a long black cloak—one of a few elven clothing items she still had in her wardrobe—and draped it over her form-fitting black leather top. “It won’t be the temperature that’s the problem. The suns on New Albion are intense. Even in the shades, where we’ll be, it can get relatively warm. But the sand storms can be brutal.”
I shrugged. “I hear exfoliating is good for the complexion.”
“Exfoliation, sure,” Layla said. “But sand blasting, not so much.”
I reached into my closet and pulled out a hooded, khaki Carhartt jacket. I didn’t wear it often, mostly in the winter when clearing snow off my car. It had been a score at Goodwill and had the name “Roy” embroidered on the breast. Probably something that Roy, whoever he was, used to wear on the job. It was one of only a few items I bothered to unpack and hang in my closet in the farmhouse. Since I was likely to have to do some outdoor work, and we’d have to get by without a great heating system once we got into the colder seasons, I figured I’d leave it hanging in my closet so I’d know where to get it.
“All I need is my Rambo headband,” I said.
Layla rolled her eyes. “You’ll be fine without it. Come on, commando.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tisiphone listening in on everything I did and said was an unexpected consequence of subduing the elements. Having the arch-fairies, better known as the Furies, listening in on what I did at all times wasn’t a part of what I signed up for, but in this instance, it came in useful.
Why only Tisiphone heard me and not her sisters was something I hadn’t thought to ask. Perhaps it was simply that she was the only one who’d chosen to listen to me. She was the one, after all, who was concerned that I get myself acquitted of murder. The other two had already decided in my favor.
“Tisiphone,” I said out loud, standing in front of the farmhouse with Layla and Brag’mok. “We’re ready.”
I waited a moment. I wasn’t sure if she was going to just appear in front of us or if, as she’d done before, she’d present a portal for us to run through. She was more aggressive than I expected. She did present a portal, but this time she formed it over our heads and dropped it down over us.
Usually, when I used a fairy portal to travel to different places on Earth, it was a pretty painless process. You go through the portal and appear where you’re going. But Tisiphone was transporting us across worlds. I found myself flying through a tunnel. Was she using the old gateway at the confluence of the Mississippi and Meramec rivers, or was this something else entirely?
The force pressing against me was so hard it took everything I could to tuck my head down. I held my eyes shut. The lights flashing around me were blinding. Presumably, Layla and Brag’mok were experiencing the same thing.
I crashed, face first, into the ground. A cloud of dust billowed around me. I coughed, rubbing my forehead as I struggled, disoriented back to my feet.
“You guys make it?” I asked, squinting as I peered through the debris. A gold circle, the gateway Tisiphone had made for us, hovered about a foot off the ground behind where I stood.
“I’m here,” Brag’mok said, waving his hand through the dust to clear the air.
“Yeah,” Layla said, coughing. “We’re all here.”
When the dust settled, it appeared we’d arrived in the middle of a dried-up river bed.
I could barely breathe. The oxygen was thin. I extended my hand and released the element of air. A subtle glow of white energy swirled around us. I took a deep breath.
“That helps,” Layla said.
“I’ll do what I can to try and maintain it,” I said. “I don’t think we have a lot of breathable air.”
Brag’mok shook his head. “Whatever oxygen is in the air is just what remains from before. If we’d come much later, I suspect we’d have suffocated on arrival.”
“Any sign of nightcrawlers?” I asked.
Layla retrieved an arrow from her quiver and nocked it. “I don’t see any. But they aren’t exactly easy to spot. I’ll be ready if any show up.”
“They’re here,” Brag’mok said. “Even if we can’t see them, you can be certain that they see us.”
“Probably just waiting for an opportunity,” Layla said. “Nasty buggers.”
“Nasty but smart,” Brag’mok said. “They’ll wait until they believe we’re most vulnerable.”
Several dead trees with bark that had turned black stood around us. “It looks like this place used to be full of life.”
Layla nodded. “This river valley was once one of the most fertile places on New Albion. It’s crazy how quickly such a lush place can become desolate in the absence of Earth’s magic.”
“Any idea where we’ll find the surviving giants?” I asked.
Brag’mok grunted and pointed off into the distance. “If they’re anywhere near here, they’ll be that way. There was a small contingency of giant priests and sorcerers who lived in a small village about three miles that way. If anyone could have held on to any of Earth’s magic and survived, it would have been them.”
“Getting to the elves, if they’re here, will be harder,” Layla said. “They’d be in the opposite direction.”
“How far in the opposite direction?” I asked.
Layla shrugged. “On foot, a good half-day's journey.”
“Can you fly there?” Brag’mok asked.
“I think so,” I said. “Doing that while keeping the air swirling around us s
o we can breathe might be difficult. I imagine, if the atmosphere is like Earth’s, the breathable air up there will be even thinner.”
“Take me to the giants first,” Brag’mok said. “You can’t fly with me, but Layla can ride on your back like you flew with Aerin before.”
I nodded. “We should be able to do that. I don’t think Tisiphone can create new portals for us here. We’ll still have to find a way to get back to the portal.”
“If we can convince them to come with us,” Brag’mok said, “the sorcerers should be able to use whatever magic they’ve saved to help them move. But it will mean leaving everything behind. Once they use that magic, there won’t be anything left.”
“Likely the same for the elves,” Layla said. “Though maybe you can add your magic to what they have, Caspar. Either way, while we can fly there to find them, we’ll have to travel with them to bring them to the portal.”
A high-pitched screeching sound echoed in the distance. I instinctively covered my ears. “What the hell?”
“The torwyr nos,” Brag’mok said. “They know we’re here. Unfortunately, that sound came from exactly the direction we need to go to reach the giants.”
I sighed. “Well, that’s fantastic.”
“Come on,” Layla said. “We’ll face them when we have to.”
“Based on that sound,” Brag’mok said. “We won’t have just two or three to deal with. That sounded like a swarm.”
I shook my head. “You said that they are repelled by Earth’s magic. Perhaps I can use the elements to try and at least give us a path through.”
“Repelled by it,” Brag’mok said. “But it won’t stop them. Not completely, and not in those numbers. If they realize you’re the one channeling the earthen magic, they’ll come after you first.”
“It’s just three miles,” I said. “Do you think we can make it?”
“Three miles isn’t a far distance if you’re taking a hike through the woods. But this won’t be a stroll across the countryside. We’ll have to fight every step of the way. We’d best make our way toward them quickly. Cover as much ground as we can before we have to deal with them.”
Junkyard Dogma (The Elven Prophecy Book 4) Page 14