Elijah's Quest (Finding Magic Book 4)

by Blair Drake

  Breathing slowly, Elijah rolled onto his side. There was a ringing sensation in his ears. A burning point of pain right in the middle of his forehead. He was in command of his body—kind of—and his thoughts felt clear, but he didn't think he was quite up to tackling one of these bastards to the ground.

  Or running.

  "We'll have to blindfold him," Zandui said, rifling through a pack Elijah hadn't noticed before, "before we take him to the princess's palace."

  "He's a mage," Yeorfac muttered. "He'll be able to sense where we are. I say we cut his throat here and now. With the Ascension coming, the fewer mages the Lowlanders have on their side, the better our hero's chances of taking the games."

  "Is it?" Zandui asked. "What if he was on our side?"

  Silence.

  "If I was a mage," Elijah ground out, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead as he slowly wrenched himself onto his knees. "Do you think I'd have just let you hit me like that?"

  The pair of them exchanged a glance.

  "And why the hell would I work for you guys?" He met Zandui's gaze and stabbed a finger toward Yeorfac. "Your friend wants to kill me."

  Ow. He pressed his hand back over the lump on his forehead.

  "He claims he's Elijor of House Davies. From Vancoover. I don't know this Vancoover, but it sounds Pasternakian to me," Yeorfac said.

  "Elijah," he snapped, staggering to his feet. "Eli-jah. And I'm pretty sure you're the type of guy who sees Pasternakian's everywhere you look, huh?"

  Zandui's slow gaze told Elijah he'd hit the nail on the head.

  "Look, I don't know where I am, or how I came to be here either. There was a storm. I got sucked into some sort of whirlwind or vortex, and the next thing I know I'm dumped in a snowdrift in the freaking Arctic, or some place similar. I just want to get home. To Grey Cliffs. Or to Vancouver. Or hell, I'll even settle on Earth," he added jokingly.

  Zandui's gaze snapped to his.

  "Earth," Elijah repeated slowly. "You know that word."

  There was a horrible spinning sensation somewhere deep inside him. What if he wasn't in the Arctic? Or the wilds of Canada? What if he wasn't even on his own world?

  Zoe loved sci fi and fantasy novels. He'd idly flicked through a few of them, though he preferred movies to reading. And there'd been that weird indie cult hit last summer about parallel worlds. What had it been called again? Worldstrider?

  Oh no. Heck no.

  He was the very last person who should ever be sent to a parallel world. He didn't even believe in magic. Zoe would have been perfect for the job.

  He had finals coming up, and so much homework to do. Training camp was a month away and with it his last chance to impress. His dad was having another baby, and someone had to tell his mom before she found out on Facebook.

  "We need to take him to the Keeper," Zandui said.

  "What world is this?" Elijah breathed out slowly. They both stared at him. "What world is this?" he yelled.

  A roar suddenly bellowed through the mountains, freezing the blood in his veins.

  Yeorfac spun, tension lining his body. Elijah stared into the distance, his breath sounding loud.

  "I know I keep saying this," he blurted, "but what the hell was that?"

  Zandui wrenched at his arm. "Trull hyggen. Move!"

  "Trull.... Troll?" he gasped.

  Elijah bent to snatch his phone from the snow, scrabbling to find it. The pair of strangers bolted past him, apparently deciding there were more important things to be doing than tormenting him.

  Another agonized bellow echoed through the mountains. Elijah's hand locked around his phone and he spun around, seeing trees shiver in the forest behind him as something massive moved through them. Snow shook from branches, and a flock of birds suddenly erupted into the sky, flapping madly and cawing.

  The heat drained out of his face.

  "Hey, wait for me!" he yelled, surging after the two strangers.

  Chapter 3

  The two Ice Fang hunters had broken a trail for him, but were moving considerably quicker. Elijah skidded down the slopes of the mountain and hit the valley floor, where the snowdrifts were deeper. Every instinct in him pushed him to run.

  He could barely feel the knot on his forehead.

  Or his wet feet and clothes.

  Nope, whatever was moving behind him had his full attention.

  Another enormous bellow vibrated through the air, and this time it sounded delighted. Like it was saying: Oh, there you are.

  Elijah's thighs burned as he slogged through the snow. The two hunters in front of him suddenly cut into the tree line, and Elijah risked a glance back.

  The enormous beast behind him was moving with slow, ponderous strides that nevertheless cut the distance between them. Of course, its strides were about the length of ten of his.

  It was huge. Freaking huge. Horns curled up from its bestial head and its hide was gray and shaggy. Hot breath spilled from its pug-like maw as it snorted. He was pretty sure there was an enormous brassbound club in its fist too but he wasn't going to chance another look back. If he went down now, he was dead.

  "Why me?" he gasped, finally hitting the tree line. The snow wasn't as thick here, and he suddenly understood why the two hunters had made for this direction.

  It was easy to follow their trail. Elijah stretched into a sprint, and felt his body warm up and his aerobic function increasing. Of course, being chased by an enormous troll gave the sort of motivation coach couldn't muster on his best days.

  The path went down through the trees, and the shrubs began to thin out. He caught fleeting glances of Yeorfac staggering ahead of him.

  Light pierced the shadows of the forest. He could see stone ahead of him. A clearing, perhaps. Maybe a frozen lake. He was almost upon Yeorfac, who clearly hadn't been doing his sprint sessions in his spare time, the way Elijah had.

  The pair of them burst into the opening, and an enormous stone monastery appeared, colorful flags strung from a rope between the two towers that guarded the stone wall surrounding it. Men shouted and the enormous gates began to swing closed, even as Elijah sprinted toward them.

  Zandui vaulted an enormous boulder at the bottom of the ravine, and then paused at the gates, looking back and gesturing hurry.

  Elijah pounded after him, hearing that enormous bellow echoing through the trees behind them. The ground shivered as the troll's heels hammered into it. The gates were narrowing, Zandui's face twisting with concern as if he wondered if they'd make it.

  A sudden curse, and then Yeorfac disappeared beside him. Elijah caught a glimpse of the man going down in the snow.

  He shouldn't care, he shouldn't—

  Elijah slid to a halt, snow spraying up as he darted back to Yeorfac's side. Yeorfac shot him a surprised look as he hauled the hunter to his feet.

  "Hurry!" Elijah yelled, just as the trees shivered apart with a violent surge, and the troll appeared behind them.

  It lifted its brutish maw to the sky and roared. The brassbound club rose, and then Elijah shoved Yeorfac out of the way, throwing himself to the side as it crashed down where they'd been standing.

  Oh, shit. Scrambling across the snow, his heartbeat in his ears, he kept moving as the club swung back in his direction, cutting through the air with a whistling whine. Elijah ducked and felt the wind of its passage flutter his blazer. Then he swiftly dodged and started sprinting back toward the gates. Yeorfac was nearly there, pausing within the narrowing gap, hesitation written clearly on his face as he saw Elijah's predicament.

  He said something to Zandui, then stepped back out of the gates, his spear held low.

  Zandui nocked his bow, and put an arrow to it as the pair of them faced the incoming troll.

  The arrowhead locked on Elijah, then lifted above him. It whizzed over his head, and a small concussive boom sounded as it hit the troll in the face.

  The strangers within the temple complex slammed the gates, just as Elijah reached them.

&n
bsp; "Hey! Open up!" he yelled, hammering his fists on the gates, with his heart in his throat.

  "Mage!" Zandui yelled. "Your magic would be a gift right now."

  Elijah shot a glance over his shoulder and saw something flying directly toward him. Acting on pure instinct, he hit the ground hard and rolled. An enormous spear of pure ice shattered as it hit the gates, exactly where he had been standing.

  The troll bellowed, and picked up its club again, its head turning and leering as both hunters circled it widely, trying to split its attention. Zandui held another arrow to his bow, tracking its enormous head. Yeorfac darted closer, then away, when the troll turned upon him.

  Zandui put an arrow into the back of its knees and it screamed as another of those small explosions rocked it. The club lashed back around toward Zandui, and though it limped, the blow had barely stunned it. Zandui rolled beneath the club, and darted up the slopes into the tree line again.

  "How do we kill it?" he yelled, looking around for something, anything, to protect himself with.

  "We don't!" Yeorfac snarled, scrambling out of the way. "Its hide is too thick to penetrate."

  "Then why the hell did you come back out here?"

  "I will not owe my life to you, Mage," Yeorfac called. "Your soul shall not haunt mine if I let you die here at its hands. I owe you no tithe now."

  He'd rather die out here, than let Elijah die in his place? "You're insane."

  The troll reared back toward them, and Elijah realized they were trapped up against the walls of the temple if they stayed.

  An enormous gong echoed somewhere within the temple complex. The troll roared, but it backed up several steps, as if disconcerted by the noise.

  Someone beat the gong again, a rhythmic sounded that shivered through the air.

  "It's going to flee," he cried, seeing the troll snort and huff, its eyes rolling.

  "No, it's not," Yeorfac said, as its piggy eyes locked upon them. Elijah saw the same thing Yeorfac did. Blood lust.

  "This way," Yeorfac called, and started running.

  Yeorfac had clearly hit the end of his endurance, however. Elijah felt fatigue starting to numb his legs too. He eyed the frozen lake beside them. The ice began to call to him, almost as if a whisper trailed over his skin.

  He'd always felt at home on the ice. It was the one place where he knew exactly what he was doing, the one place he couldn't fail. Elijah sucked at homework. He'd failed as a boyfriend. But he was invincible on skates, and most of his teammates joked about his god-like abilities and had taken to rubbing his hair for good luck before they played.

  Ice.

  They couldn't kill it with weapons. They couldn't outrun it. And the gong might be frightening it, but it had managed to separate them from the herd, and its predator brain was clearly telling it there was a warm, crunchy meal ahead of it if it brought one of them down.

  "How deep is the lake?" he yelled. Hot breath spilled around him, and those snorts sounded right on his heels. They'd never outrun it.

  "Deep!" Yeorfac threw over his shoulder. The man's head snapped back suddenly. "You're not thinking—"

  Elijah was. He cut out onto the snow-covered surface, feeling the ground even up beneath him. Wind had blown the ice clear in places, and it gleamed like the frozen planes of a mirror. Anyone else would have been slipping and sliding, trying to keep their feet, but Elijah simply opened himself up to the frigid air around him, and let his body move the way the ice wanted him to. What he wouldn't give for a pair of skates right now, or even a pair of ice cleats. Spraying to a halt, he felt himself slide as he turned to face the troll.

  Its head shifted between him and Yeorfac, who was clearly cursing him for trying to get himself killed on Yeorfac's watch.

  Elijah swept up a handful of snow and packed it. "Come on, you ugly brute," he taunted, and lobbed the snowball at the troll's head.

  It roared in rage as snow splattered all over the side of its face.

  He had its complete attention now.

  Elijah swallowed. Wind wisped past him, around him. He kept hearing that whisper, as if something was trying to talk to him. And suddenly he was years in the past, remembering the time he and his parents had been holidaying in a cabin near Jasper. He'd gotten lost in the snow, and his parents had been frantic, scrambling around as they tried to find him, but Elijah hadn't been worried.

  He'd heard that same whisper calling to him then. Like words he couldn't quite hear, on the very verge of his hearing. A strange feeling, as if the icy air wrapped its arms tight around him.

  Weird. He held his hands out. The feeling was stronger here, as if his hands were a magnet, and the water beneath the icy shelf he stood on was its opposing pole. His hands began to vibrate. Not deep enough to drown the troll. Not yet. He had no idea how he knew that, but he did.

  It placed a cloven hoof on the edge of the lake. Connected to the ice somehow, Elijah felt the shelf shift in infinitesimal cracks as it took the weight.

  Hold, he prayed silently. Just hold until it's far enough out.

  Another step. The troll looked wary.

  Elijah scooped up a second snowball, backing up step by step. He pelted it in the face, and it snarled and pounded its chest with a fist. Blood vessels expanded in the whites of its eyes as he hit it again, and again.

  That's the way, big guy.

  Finally it lost all sense of reason and started lunging toward him, its hooves skating on the ice. Elijah slid away, using the flats of his shoes to skate awkwardly. He scuffled to a halt, arms wind milling as he turned to track it. The troll swung its club in rage, pounding the ice in front of its feet and both of them froze as a larger cracking sound echoed through the ice, like a whale dying.

  Elijah froze.

  Cracks surfaced out through the ice. The water beneath him looked dark and stormy. He shifted and another dozen cracks streaked jaggedly across the surface. The troll snorted nervously. That 'whisper' was back again, telling him the water was deep enough here to drown the troll. And him. Suddenly this didn't seem like the brightest idea he'd ever had.

  "Don't move, Elijor!" Yeorfac yelled frantically.

  Zandui had joined him on the banks of the frozen lake, and Elijah could see faces peering over the crenellations on the walls of the monastery.

  Something in his blazer pocket began to glow. What the—? An amulet. Where had that come from? He vaguely remembered Headmistress Lalane patting his shoulder. Had she put something in there? The whisper suddenly seemed to get louder, his ears buzzing. He could almost make out the words now. The ice. The ice was whispering to him. Was the amulet causing this? Or was it something else?

  The troll snarled as his amulet began to glow, and took another incautious step closer.

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Elijah called, backing up with slow, careful steps, his palm out. "You stay right there."

  Its lip curled up and it made a whumpfing sound, lifting the club higher. It was within striking distance. Elijah's eyes widened, his heart jacking into his throat. There was a strange buzzing in his ears. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to move. One more step and he was terrified he'd be plunged into the icy waters beneath him.

  "Reach out," whispered that unknown whisper. "Caress me."

  "Elijor!" Yeorfac cried, as the club began to descend, filling his vision.

  Something opened up within him as he cowered beneath the blow, his palm slapping the ice below him. A crack snaked out through the ice, running in a straight line from his hand to the troll's feet, like it had been cut by a laser.

  "Yes!" exulted that voice in his mind, and then a whirlwind swept up around him, a blitz of snow and pressure.

  He was the ice beneath his feet. The snow cascading through the air in a tight spiral. The pressure as the air seemed to freeze above him.

  The club slammed down into an invisible shield, and Elijah felt that blow as if it had struck him instead. His ears rung, and something hot dripped from his nose as the crack in the ice finally reached the troll's
cloven hooves.

  It screamed as the ice suddenly shattered beneath it. The troll plunged into the icy depths, vanishing beneath the yawning surface.

  Elijah soothed his hand over the ice, patting it gently, and feeling it sucking at him somehow. The churning gray waters slicked over, ice forming as if it surged to his will. All of the cracks bled together. He could see where the troll had fallen through, but the ice thickened to his call. Kept tightening.

  Blood spattered on the snowy surface beneath him. It felt like a hot raindrop hitting his skin.

  Somehow he blinked. Pulled back from the ice, from the words whispering to him, feeling it release him with a sharp rubber band snap against his mind.

  Elijah stared at his hands as he straightened. The vibration shivered through them, and he felt like he was aware of every inch of ice beneath his feet. Snow whispered through the air, each individual snowflake calling to him somehow, like he had some sort of sixth sense.

  But the troll was gone. He could see its fingers brush against the newly reformed ice over its head as if it reached for the sky one last time, before its movements turned sluggish and it vanished in the inky depths.

  "I can do magic," he breathed, trying to brush... to brush the snow off his blazer. Didn't think he had much left in him.

  Blood on his pocket. Where... Nose. Nose bleeding. The Grauster was going to kill him. Got to... Zoe. Home. That whisper, rising up. Like a tide over him. A whisper that buzzed in his ears. Burst over his skin. All too much.

  Then his eyes rolled up in his head as everything went dark, and he slammed onto the ice.

  Chapter 4

  Gray Cliffs Academy

  Two months before...

  "So what are we making again?" Elijah picked up the sword, and made a few light swings with it, humming laser sounds under his breath.

  "You break it, you bought it," Zoe muttered, then paused, looking up from the glue gun she was using to painstakingly meld a strip of leather to a piece of foam that vaguely, vaguely resembled a breastplate. "Actually no. It's kind of irreplaceable. That thing took me twenty-three hours to create. You break it and I will break you."