Witch out of Water

by Aiden James

  “We’ll need to continue your journey in a moment, since the holding spell will expire in just a few minutes,” he advised, commenting on my silent worry. “Orpheus and Serena can be such nuisances!”

  “So, it really is my cousin out there with Wizard Bagley?” Daciana sought to confirm.

  “Oh, yes,” he replied. “She was invited specifically by him this morning, when the trail to find you dried up within ‘the maze’.”

  “The fourth dimensional wormhole system Daciana used to return to Denmark?” I asked.

  “Yes... sorry you didn’t get to experience it too, Bas. Maybe next time?” He grinned impishly. “So, how’d you enjoy your experience with Viviane? We had a bet about whether or not she would respond favorably to your touch, Sebastian. And... I win!”

  He clapped his hands together, laughing merrily again.

  “You mean, she could’ve turned violent against me?” I asked, feeling my blood start to boil a bit.

  I should add here that even Daciana seemed taken aback as well. Obviously, the implications were that if Viviane hadn’t accepted my taking the reins, so to speak, we’d likely have already been sentenced to Purgatory by now.

  “Well... I didn’t think she’d reject you,” he said. “But, it was a calculation to some degree. Life is almost always exactly that, my dear boy!”

  “But... um, I thought you had all of this figured out.”

  Yeah, it took a moment to realize that if a wizard of similar ilk—such as Orpheus Bagley—became interested in what appeared to be a foolproof plan to rescue Daciana and me from lasting heartache, certainly original plans could turn to shit once a wrench from a fellow Supreme was thrown in.

  Exactly... like what happened today!

  “Bingo, Bas!” he enthused, no doubt responding to my silent deduction. “Hmmm, I like the sound of that... Bingo Bas. However, I can already tell you’d hate it as a nickname. On the brighter side, you should be glad you made it here in one piece and that no additional karma has been invoked for the abuse of a sacred broomstick.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head, as if greatly amused. More than a little infuriating, to be honest.... But before I could continue this joust, Daciana eyed me earnestly while glancing behind us, where trouble surely still brewed and waited for us in the courthouse park—should I allow my mouth to get me into trouble.

  “Yes, Sebastian... let it go,” Sorin urged, his tone compassionate. “‘Evolve in the moment,’ is a motto I have long held dear. That, and the phrase ‘if it’s not worth risking, it’s not worth having.’”

  He eyed me expectantly, grinning wryly when I didn’t quite catch his drift.

  “I’ll tell you this quickly,” he said. “Risk is always involved in any great achievement—including a promising match such as you and Daciana being brought together, and for your unfettered love being allowed to flourish. I have taken numerous risks in order to make this union possible.”

  He eyed me expectantly, as if waiting for me to respond. When I didn’t, he continued.

  “It could’ve all ended with Florina’s keen blade that she used to slit my throat more than one-hundred-forty-years ago, when she thought she was executing a vile warlock,” he said. “Imagine your grandmother’s shock, had she discovered it was a wizard in disguise seeking to heal a millennium of hate between your extended families. Had she allowed her rage, fed by what was happening to Toma Matei and your Uncle Manuel, to reach fruition, things could’ve turned out horribly for all involved. She might’ve cut off my head, instead of just draining my blood, and I would’ve actually perished that day. Then, without my aid to stop it, the infectious hate between your families in Europe and the rest of the world would’ve reached America, bringing far worse consequences than your immediate clans have since endured.”

  He looked past us for a moment, and his smile faded slightly.

  “There wouldn’t be any other chance to attain healing and lasting peace. Not ever,” he said softly, before returning his gaze to us. “We have the chance to heal all of that misunderstanding. But only if you two are ready to continue. If so, a brand-new world awaits your conquest. Succeed, and you’ll be together forevermore!”

  “And, if not?” I dared to ask.

  “You truly struggle with the ‘half-glass full versus half-glass empty’ concept, don’t you?” He grinned again.

  “I don’t quite see it as either,” I said. “I just prefer something solid to hang on to—especially, after what Daci and I have endured to get here.”

  “Understandable. However, I’ve watched you now for years, and you can stand to live a little more. Take chances and keep your faith that things will work out in the end!” he encouraged. “Here... I’ll show you a prize that long ago belonged to your ancestors—the last king and queen who ruled your families nobly for the better part of three centuries.”

  He lifted his right hand, holding it out to where the back of it faced us. The elusive and legendary double-ring, which my grandfather would literally give his eye-teeth to view, gleamed before us. Sorin’s middle and fourth fingers were bound together by the pair of joined silver rings featuring a pair of supine fox figures. One with sapphire eyes and the other with rubies... although technically, rubies are actually just deep red sapphires. There are purple sapphires too....

  Sorin chuckled again.

  “Sebastian, I have no doubt you’ll long entertain Daciana with that mind of yours,” he said, smiling warmly. “Truly, as she often thinks, you are indeed adorable. But at present, we are almost out of time, so let me be clear about what’s ahead for you both.”

  He paused to remove the double ring from his right hand and pulled the rings apart, holding them out to us, one in each palm.

  “The fox with ruby eyes has been designated for Daci... and the sapphire eyed fox belongs to you, Bas.”

  We both reached for the rings, and just as quickly he withdrew them from us, restoring the silver bond between the rings and slipping them over the middle and fourth fingers of his left hand this time.

  “Not yet,” he said, eyeing us playfully. “As I mentioned earlier, your journey continues. Conquer the challenges awaiting you in Paradusil Dragonului, or ‘Dragon’s Paradise’, and I promise not only will these rings be yours, but it will be my pleasure and honor to bestow upon you the holy title of ‘King and Queen’ in waiting.”

  “In waiting?” Daciana sounded disappointed.

  “Yes, ‘in waiting’ is the first step in the anointing process, my dear. To avoid any misunderstandings or challenges from key members of the EEC, we will be handling this process in accordance with older edicts that predate The Code,” he advised. “Upon confirming your worthiness of this bestowment, an official engagement of ten years will commence. Then, when the engagement period is fulfilled, you two will enjoy nuptial bliss for centuries to come.”

  It sounded like a journey fraught with peril.

  But, the prize waiting for us at the end of this new rainbow was exactly what Daciana and I hoped for... to be together forever. Hell, I could almost give a flying flip about the royalty aspects of the deal.

  “So, are you ready to continue?” he asked. “Or....”

  He paused to glance beyond us again, where the background silence we had enjoyed was ending. It sounds like an angry mob is on the way up here!

  Daciana nudged me with an imploring look.

  “Yeah, I’m in,” I said, smiling sheepishly. “I mean, we’re in!”

  “Wonderful!” Sorin, enthused, turning to lead the way. He snapped his fingers, and Viviane flew out of Daciana’s grasp and into his open hand. “You won’t need her help any longer... you’ve got your backpack, and I can hear the welcome calls from your wands, Elford and Threston. They’re ready to do your bidding.... Everything else will be provided, which leaves almost nothing to worry about!”

  We followed him into the passageway that I believed more and more wasn’t a wormhole at all... it was definitely something else. And it would ho
pefully lead to something wonderful, despite our situation’s still unsettled status.

  As we walked behind Sorin, I noticed he seemed to be moving further away, as the swishing sound of his heavy ornamental robe began to fade—which inspired Daciana and me to lift our pace to keep up. In the meantime, the passageway’s ethereal qualities gave way to what seemed more like a tunnel. A corridor lined in stone, and covered with what looked like cave drawings.

  Prehistoric art, perhaps?

  It soon became a moot point, once the wormhole qualities waned and finally disappeared. We could no longer see Sorin ahead of us in the darkness, or any of our surroundings, and set our sights upon a pinprick of what looked like sunlight directly ahead, growing brighter as we approached.

  Yes, all of it was tantalizing and a little scary. The feeling of uncertainty within me was certainly the same for Daciana. Her hand gripped mine more tightly as we sought to follow our suddenly invisible benefactor.

  A glance behind us revealed nothing... just darkness with the feeling of an unwelcome void.

  The only viable choice was to pursue what looked to be an opening to this new world, lying straight ahead.

  I resolved to stay positive, allowing Sorin’s promise to resound in my head.

  “...a brand-new world awaits your conquest. Succeed, and you’ll be together... forevermore!”

  We had taken the bait... and I hoped to know soon whether it was worth the risk.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  We picked up our pace, and it took less than a minute to reach the passageway’s end.

  As Daciana and I anticipated, daylight awaited our arrival. But to discover the window to this new world was actually the mouth of a cave in the side of a mountain, well... it came as a surprise. Even after expecting things to be a bit different here.

  The entry to this large cavern opened up to a ledge several hundred feet wide and faced a pristine forest that seemed to stretch for miles without end. My initial guess was it had to be either dawn or sunset in this place that Sorin Gabon had confirmed was Paradusil Dragonului, although my recent experience in Bajenie had taught me that it could actually be neither.

  Meanwhile, the first unusual thing that caught my eye was the presence of two suns in a sky that would otherwise closely resemble our own on Earth.

  “Wow,” I whispered in awe.

  “Oh, my... it’s even more amazing than Sorin said it would be!” Daciana marveled, raising her hands to her mouth that had dropped open. “Will you look at that!”

  She pointed to the larger of the two suns in the horizon before us. Brighter than its partner, and several times larger than our own solar system’s star, it sat slightly higher on the horizon, with the other much smaller sun hovering below just above a cluster of misty mountains shrouded in gorgeous blue and purple hues.

  Truly breathtaking.

  Mesmerized by the view, we allowed our gazes to survey everything, and Daciana pointed to a large waterfall several miles away, barely visible through a gap in the forest.

  While noting that detail and the gargantuan size of many of the trees directly below us, it suddenly occurred to me that Wizard Gabon was nowhere to be seen.

  “He’s got to be around here somewhere,” Daciana advised, as we scanned the ledge and the edge of the cavern’s dimness. “He wouldn’t just leave us....”

  But as her voice trailed off, it certainly did appear as if we were on our own in this world. Brand-new world, I should say—at least for Daciana and me. I doubted many, if any, human beings had ever experienced the view before us.... Yet, since we warlocks and witches understand that humankind has been around a lot longer than is generally accepted by Earthlings, who could say for sure?

  Still, after allowing for a more careful investigation of our immediate area, we returned to the ledge’s brink, gazing toward the forest nearly a thousand feet below.

  No sign of anyone.

  Just the songs from birds flitting past the cavern’s opening before either moving deeper into the cave, or speeding off toward the brilliant sky before us.

  “I guess it’s just you and me, Daci,” I said, pulling her close. She leaned her head into my shoulder again. “We’ll figure it out. Somehow, someway, we will make it work and find Sorin—even if he’s left us to fend for ourselves.”

  There, how’s that for a half-glass full response?

  “Ah-hem... on the contrary, you two are not alone!”

  Huh?

  We whirled around in the direction of the voice, which belonged to a man, seemingly of German descent. Standing less than ten feet away from us, the fifty-ish ‘butler’ eyed us solemnly. And, that description does little justice to his almost cartoonish appearance.

  I mean, we’re talking about a man with bright gray eyes and slick-backed ‘salt and pepper’ hair, and dressed in a full tuxedo with tails that included a silk purple bowtie and matching cummerbund. And, that’s just his ‘threads’, as Harris Martin might say. This newcomer also sported an Emiliano Zapata moustache and a silver-chained monocle over his left eye.

  My kind of ‘eccentric’, if one excluded the perturbed glare and gruff greeting.

  “Nor has Sorin left you to fend for yourselves! Humph!” he continued, when all we could do was stare in response. “I’ll have you know that a great deal of planning has gone into your stay here, and that it just took a little longer to prepare your initial dinner than anticipated!”

  His mellow voice carried an edge of exasperation, as if this last detail mentioned was the most frustrating aspect of what he described. He turned his attention to me with a raised right eyebrow that made me think of Sean Connery. I might’ve continued to go with that comparison, but then he preened and strutted over to a table set for two that neither Daciana nor I had noticed until that very moment.

  So... he’s more of a fun combo of Sean Connery and Richard Simmons.

  “We expected you to have jokes, Sebastian!” He glanced over his shoulder, commenting on my open mind while motioning for us to come to this table, as two chairs now appeared as well. “Just consider, very soon it could be me laughing at you, dear boy!

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Daciana, as we cautiously approached the table, where something smelled amazing, hidden beneath banquet plate lids. No doubt, my beloved’s hunger was furiously awakened by the exotic aroma of the secret offering prepared for us, and even my stomach rumbled noticeably.

  “Nothing immediately important, Daciana,” he said. “All in good time. Your journey to catch Wizard Gabon will start at dawn, tomorrow. It’s too late to get started this evening.”

  He pointed to the rapidly fading sunlight, where the smaller sun had dipped into the horizon, and the larger sun chased after it.

  “That was fast,” I observed, alluding to how quickly the daylight faded. If this had been Earth, we’d still have at least a couple of hours to sunset from where the larger sun sat in the sky when I last looked. But in this place that was very foreign to my life’s experience, it took all of fifteen minutes to go from a late afternoon height to be on the verge of dusk. “I guess dawn will be here in an hour or two, huh?”

  The serious look suddenly gave way to a brilliant smile and hearty chuckle.

  “Now, that is funny. Hilariously so!” he enthused. “Actually, dawn’s arrival will take a little longer than it does in your world, as Paradusil Dragonului is nearly ten times the size of Earth.”

  “Really?” Yeah, the joke was definitely on me now.

  “Uh-huh, but please be seated. I would hate for your dinner to get cold.” He motioned for Daciana to take the seat closest to the view of impending darkness over the vast forest and distant hills, relegating me to the seat closer to the pitch blackness of the cavern we had emerged from earlier. Meanwhile, the growing dimness around us gave way to the fiery glow provided by the sudden appearance of four Tiki torches positioned around the table’s perimeter.

  I began to wonder if we would even need to employ any of
our own spells, since I had already been thinking of creating something similar to what Daciana had created inside my bedroom’s armoire. Granted, she’s much more adept at that sort of thing than me, due to my still working through some ‘Code’ hang-ups about using magic without securing the EEC’s blessing first. Obviously, after today’s events, that securement is definitely off the table for the foreseeable future.

  Daciana smiled knowingly at me as we scooted our seats closer to our delectable surprise. I thought she might mention something about my latest silent musing, but she directed her attention to our flamboyant host instead.

  “Would it be rude of us to ask your name?”

  Truly, that very question had been on my mind since we first encountered this guy a few minutes ago. Weird that it had felt awkward to ask such a basic question. But for some crazy reason it just never seemed like the right moment... until now.

  “I thought you’d never ask, my dear,” he grinned in amusement, revealing deep dimples mostly obscured by that awesome ‘stache. “My name is Wilhelm... Wilhelm von Herrmann, and I am Courtier to the Grand Wizard Sorin Gabon!” he declared proudly.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Wilhelm,” she said, smiling shyly. “I assume you already know our full names, but I’d hate to be presumptuous in any way.”

  “Yes, I know your full names, including all of the fun nicknames attached to both of you at various times during the past century,” he said, causing her to blush. It made me wonder what kind of enjoyable secrets she might share with me in the years ahead. “I confess to some confusion about Sebastian’s silent question about why I’ve referred to my lord, Sorin, as a ‘grand wizard.’ Why do you doubt his shared rank with Grand Wizard Gregorius Ninnius?”

  His penetrating ‘Sean Connery’ gaze, with the right eyebrow raised, was a little unsettling... especially with his left eye magnified by his monocle as he leaned in closer to me.

  “It’s nothing personal,” I said. “I guess it will just take a little while to get used to it, is all. Heck, until last night, I had no idea that Sorin, Gregorius, and more than twenty other wizards had attained the status of Supremes. Daci’s bringing me up to speed, and my worldview has been seriously blown away, dude—I mean, Mr. von Herrmann.”