A Shuffling of Planets (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 3)

by Daniel Ruth

  I activated my forcefield and the few arrows that made it through my defense thereafter then skittered off of its surface. I was starting to regret leaving without the psionic storage gems I had made. If only I hadn’t been distracted by food.

  I gestured and spat a command word and the ground around me became an adhesive field, a second gesture and a monstrous gout of wind gathered to sweep the archers above us onto the trapped ground below. And then it vanished. I gestured again. Once more the wind gathered but disbursed before having any effect. A moment later the adhesive field vanished.

  “Do you really think a group of professionals isn’t prepared to dispel a few cantrips?” Maribel’s sarcastic voice rose up behind me. “I can see a good half of these idiots are wearing enchanted jewelry with stored spells. Stop playing around and kill them.”

  I stared at the people surrounding me balefully. Sure, they were cantrips but they were the only spells I knew. Aside from that, I had been embarrassed in front of my girlfriend. Growling I increased my height to my present maximum of twelve feet and leaped at my first target, swinging both blades.

  “Ah! He’s not human!”

  “Stand your ground, it’s just a simple growth spell. Dispel it!”

  “It’s not going down,” was a panicked reply.

  My twin blade attack took my first target in the neck, sweeping his head from his body. Now lacking an aura to resist my influence, I swept it up with my telekinesis and started to use his magically armored corpse to sweep the archers from the roofs. At the same time, I targeted the ground-bound assassins one at a time.

  I was on the fifth assassin when I found my feet stuck to the ground and fireballs started to cascade around me. As they showered my shield, I could feel my energy reserves dwindling. Damn my appetite.

  Dispel was a fifth-year spell I hadn’t gotten to yet. I was also starting to regret not getting any magical jewelry. It wasn’t as if they weren’t commonly available. Spellbooks may be illegal but sparklies that stored limited numbers of spells were perfectly legal. I just hadn’t felt the need. I may, just perhaps, have let my pride go to my head.

  Cursing to myself I braced myself and felt large parts of my psionic energy slip away as I focused on the space above me and teleported next to the archers. Although my dimensional teleportation abilities had been locked away by a rune for well over a year, I could still use a more local, limited psionic version. It was just bit more slippery and less accurate than it used to be. Frankly, it felt like moving against an undertow. Despite my compensation, I landed a step away from my target. This one wasn’t shooting, he was pointing his hand downward and raining fire where I had been a moment ago. I took that last step and cleaved another one in two.

  “He’s up here! The dispel isn’t working,” panicked cries erupted from the group around me. “That’s not magic, he’s an Adept!”

  “Get the girl, we can use her... by the gods! She’s changing into some sort of hideous creature! She’s over thirty feet tall!”

  “Hey now,” I felt the need to interrupt. “She’s a perfectly attractive dragon! No need to talk crap before you die!”

  “Thanks, Derek!” her voice echoed out from below. It had an odd reverberation to it and it took me a moment to realize that the area around us had a concealment spell that was dampening sound.

  “Retreat! Scatter! Let the guild know our target has a pet dragon!”

  Now they’d done it. Maribel was going to be pissed off at being called a pet. Sure enough, a moment later a deep roar shook the building I was on, spurring the people around me to turn and run. I dissipated my blades and theatrically spread my arms.

  “Since you’ve come this far, there’s no need to leave,” I said theatrically as I started trapping groups of fleeing assassins in force bubbles. There were only a few places to run so it only took five bubbles before they were all trapped.

  They frantically slammed against the barriers with swords and fireballs as they attempted to escape before the dragon got to them. She was gingerly popping each bubble and viciously dealing with each small group. A claw swipe, a bite, and a body slam and it was the end of each group.

  “This is the best date ever!” Maribel squealed in delight.

  Looking around the alley, I shook my head in dismay. What a mess. Muttering my favorite spell under my breath, I pointed at the massive swathes of blood stains on the walls and ground. Mortal blood didn’t require multiple casting to remove.

  "Are you done?" Mirabel asked impatiently. I looked around again. The bloodstains were gone; however, the dismembered corpses still told a tale of violence.

  "Clean up all you want, but the Dark Guild will find out what you did and will avenge us." This non sequitur came from the last living assassin, gasping under my girlfriend's massive claw.

  I looked at him blankly. “You think I'm hiding evidence?" I shrugged in embarrassment. I suppose it was better than thinking I was tidying up a random alleyway. Still, it was such a neat spell. "Right, they'll never catch me," I replied flatly, ignoring the bodies littering the area.

  "As fun as this was, let's keep shopping," opined Mirabel. "I'll just clean up this last tidbit."

  "Hold on," I sighed. I had been enjoying the afternoon too. "I can't let this Dark Club thing keep running wild. They have already threatened my friends."

  "Yes, but it was so fun. If we leave them alone, they can attack us again later," she countered.

  "What if they hurt Cinnamon?" I saw conflict behind her eyes as she wavered from being outraged at her things being hurt and the bother of resurrecting them. Indignation eventually won. "Kill them all!"

  "If you ransom me..." the killer on the ground began before Mirabel exerted a bit of force and he no longer had spare breath.

  “Where was your sense of self-preservation five minutes ago?" I asked in exasperation as I walked over to him. I quickly checked his aura to ensure he wasn’t insane. Finding he was simply a sociopath, I placed my hands on his temples and merged my mind with his.

  "Hmm, they are actually fairly large," I said quietly to myself, "They also have the backing of some fairly high-level nobles. It's going to be messy."

  "Oh my god! Oh my god!" The assassin babbled frantically, somehow getting enough air to panic. "Forgive..." At this point, Mirabel ruthlessly crushed downward again and his panicked cries died down.

  I looked down at him with disdain. The murders, human trafficking, and sheer pettiness were disgusting. Not to mention massively inconvenient. In order to eliminate the Dark Guild, I was going to have to waste weeks shapeshifting, infiltrating and climbing up some silly hierarchy to eliminate hundreds of parasites.

  "Well, if we can't go shopping can we do this again?" Mirabel asked hopefully.

  I looked at her, an idea coming to me. Smiling I said, "I can't at the moment, but you can start without me."

  I moved next to her and placed a hand on her head. I had no intention of merging minds with her, however, as a powerful dragon, she was a natural psychic even if she hadn't developed these skills as far as I had my own. I communicated with her for several minutes.

  "You got all of that from a touch," she asked a moment later in bafflement.

  "It's got some drawbacks but it’s a useful trick," I said shrugging.

  "No wonder they call you Professor."

  "What? No, it had nothing to do with that." I paused and took a deep breath to calm myself. "Never mind. Anyway, consider this the final gift of the day. Hundreds of humans to kill and no need to feel guilty about any of them."

  "Guilty?" she asked slowly as if was a foreign word.

  "Never mind. Go. Have fun! Please don't kill anyone not on that list unless they are evil. When you are done come back and we can go on another date. It may be hard to top this one though."

  "All right. I better go now. They aren't all going to kill themselves." She coiled herself in preparation to fly off when I gestured for her attention. “At least I hope they aren’t.”

&nb
sp; "Oh, wait a minute," I finally called out as she ignored my waving. She paused just before taking off. Under my gaze body parts flew through the air in a veritable rain as I used my telekinesis to gather the bodies into a pile. "Could you incinerate these before you head out. I don't have a fire hot enough and it would be pretty gross to put them in my pouch."

  "You should work on that," Mirabel suggested helpfully. "Fire is pretty fun," she immediately and enthusiastically put words into action and breathed magical flames over the pile.

  As she flew off, I nodded to myself. In the pile of ashes were magical armor and softly glowing swords and rings as well as various jewelry. Magical items are far more durable than humans, even enhanced humans. With a wave of my hand, I cast my cleaning spell and all of the items were pristine once more.

  I opened my pouch and with an admittedly dramatic gesture and the objects littering the ground leaped into it. Sighing in satisfaction I turned around, only to stumble on the somewhat flattened corpse of the last assassin. I must have forgotten him in the last-minute rush to clean up.

  I felt the magic around me, the light tickling caused by the assassin team's exclusion zone start to fragment. Faint sounds of the street were getting louder as the sound suppression began to fade.

  Cursing to myself, I began to think about my options. I really didn't have anything that would get rid of bodies. With flying patrols about tossing it to the roof simply wouldn't work. As the suppression spell finally faded, I sullenly placed the corpse in my pouch.

  Imagining how I would sanitize my storage container I stalked back to the academy.

  Chapter 4

  Walking back to the Academy took a bit of time. I had flown into the mercantile section with Maribel and then wandered about for few hours. In order to make the most of the time I took out the Alchemy book specializing in plants and started to read it. I suppose I could have simply memorized it but gulping information down in that quantity tended to be a bit wasteful in psionic energy. I also enjoyed the process of reading and digesting the contents. Figuratively speaking of course. It is a bit slower but the understanding you gain is deeper. I tend to save the mass memorization for facts such as history and data tables such as almanacs.

  I did get some looks from the crowd I was passing through as well as a few people I send flying. Still, I mumbled an apology and the one time I absent-mindedly walked through someone’s kiosk I apologized and threw him a few gold pieces. He stopped cursing me so I assume it worked out.

  Off in the distance, I faintly heard explosions and screaming. I wasn’t really paying attention so it may have been my imagination. My precognition didn’t trigger so it didn’t involve me. Not that it is really reliable but I was thoroughly engrossed in the book. The author had made a system to divide and categorize the characteristics of the plants he had listed. It was a bit artificial and perhaps a tad forced but I could see where it could be useful in some circumstances such as selecting the best substitute using similar physiognomies.

  It was actually close to what I did, just a bit more stylized. I would have to give it a try if I ever needed to go without the exact materials and see how it compared to my own instinct and training. Depending on how it worked out I might be able to merge the two systems to get a better result. This actually would have been more useful back in Arc, where I suffered a distinct lack of resources. Here, I could go to the market buy demon parts. I was pretty happy about this situation but it was important to be prepared.

  I nodded to myself thoughtfully as I snorted briefly in displeasure. The background noise had been building and my senses were telling me a rather modest sized dimension rupture was close by. I stubbornly kept focusing on the book. Despite the ingenious system of wards and circles dotting the city whose purpose was to suppress energy surges and minimum random dimensional tears, we were technically enjoying the aftermath of a rather low-grade apocalypse. These nuisances were all over the place. The city was also much better geared to handle wandering dinosaurs than Jeremy’s own city of Arc.

  Then a man fell to earth in front of me with a reverberating, yet meaty thud and completely disrupted my concentration. Looking blankly at him I noticed that he was a wizard wearing the typical robes of one of the city guard's flying patrol. Sighing in disappointment I kneeled down next to the fellow and turned him over.

  People around me were screaming and pointing. Generally they were being more annoying than typical. I ignored them for the moment as I examined the patrolman. It was obvious from his aura and the fact he wasn’t smashed on the pavement that he had his physique enhanced similarly to Beth’s. Probably the same treatment if not an even more advanced stage. She was just a new student after all. I smiled to myself as I noted that he had left an imprint on the bricks in the shape of his own outline almost foot deep. That was way more amusing than when that crap happened to me.

  It was obvious that the fall hadn’t injured him. For most supernatural and similarly enhanced beings, even falling from orbit won’t do much more than leave bruises. Once I flipped this man over it was clear from the deep cauterized wound going from the top of his brow, down his face then twisting and continuing in an arc across his chest. The wound was pretty similar to my psionic blades, however, the change in direction was odd. Unless you have a foil or other light weapon it isn’t easy to sharply change directions of a blade near the end of your attack.

  Humming quietly to myself I traced the trajectory of the wound with a softly glowing finger while injecting a bit of psychic energy into them. Almost like time lapse photography the wounds filled in, coming together quickly until only a thin scar was left. Another application would deal with that remaining damage but I was feeling a bit pressured for time and the mage’s life was not in danger anymore. His robe was a goner though. The poor guy had bled like a stuck pig. I absently reached for swath of cloth from the vendor next to me. He was staring at the sky like most of the crowd so he didn’t even complain when I converted his goods into a hand towel. Then I steeled myself for the end of a relaxing walk and looked up.

  “Well, you don’t see that every day,” I said to myself as I absently wiped my hands. Far up in the air, possibly a half a kilometer away, was a tear in the dimensional fabric. While it was nowhere near as big as the one in Arc or the similar one here in Gildorn, it was still about the size of a large house. Normally this would be a good thing. Altitude, as a very loose rule, tends to be conserved through most dimensional rips. So, at most you may get expect a pterodactyl or two flying through.

  Even if it didn’t follow that rule how much damage would even a tyrannosaur cause if it fell from half a mile up? I frowned distractedly. I am pretty sure the reinforcement wards I placed on my house would hold up but the splatter would be horrible. I shook my head in wonder. That thing definitely wasn’t a dinosaur.

  Flying off in the distance was mass of flesh with a whip-like tentacles flailing around. It wasn’t moving very fast and seemed to be generally circling the dimensional anomaly. The problem was that it wouldn’t go back inside. Several squads of flying mages had it surrounded and were ineffectually peppering it with fireballs and lightning. Every once in a while, they would move to one side or another and emplacements around the city would fire huge balls of various energies. I winced as the creature dodged a mass of glowing acid, but the liquid rapidly evaporated as it descended to the ground. That was a clever way to avoid friendly fire.

  “I had thought they would be fighting a dragon,” I muttered to myself. Who would have thought that a tentacle creature would coincidentally attack today?

  “Hah, they still are,” one of the townspeople replied grimly after overhearing me. Apparently, I need to soliloquize more quietly. “See that smoke over there? Half the army is over by City Hall trying to drive some monster dragon away.”

  I started to curse under my breath. I suppose expecting Maribel to be subtle was silly but I had kind of hoped she wouldn’t decide to destroy the empire of evil over the smoldering pile of c
orpses of the valiantly defending army. I mean, I had asked nicely.

  “Fortunately, almost no one is dead, or so I hear,” the man continued as if describing a miracle. I immediately perked up. “Although gods bless, I heard most of the army is maimed something terrible.”

  I hung my head in defeat. Couldn’t she have found an easier way to get to the corrupt councilors that I had identified to her? She could’ve simply shape changed and sauntered into the councilor’s meeting room. Instead, she had to have fun.

  “With the churches broken the way they are, those poor men are going to spend the rest of their lives in the hospital.”

  “Shut up,” I said weakly. “Just... shut up.”

  “I know. It breaks my heart too.” I glared at him before looking upward again.

  The flying patrolmen had retreated slightly. Maybe they had gotten tired of being swatted out of the air. Some sort of melee fighter had taken their place and was actually being pretty effective. He had large a large flaming sword and was evidentially flying through the use of some sort of air magic rather than the mage patrol’s typical flying spell. The effects looked eerily familiar. Then I saw he was wearing a cowboy hat and started cursing again. Precognitive dreams suck. There's actually jokes about them in the places mages hang out, you know... bars, whorehouses and occasionally libraries.

  Most times you only know what they mean after whatever they show actually happens. While it makes complete sense that they wouldn't be prophetic dreams if you could change them, it also makes them the butt of most jokes.

  I growled to myself. I had wanted to just watch but since this actually involved my dream I had better jump into it. It also helped distract me from the rampaging girlfriend on the other side of the city.

  I bent down next to the mage. He was now merely unconscious instead of barely alive. I reached for his hand and selected one of his rings. I slipped it off and dabbed a bit of his blood on it. It was in plentiful supply.