Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  “Then it is settled,” Darun said. “The best of luck to the both of you. The moment you find that you could use our help, no matter the cost, you come back to us. We will travel the same path as we have in years past. Fahtin, you will know where we will be.”

  “Thank you, Darun, Ritma, all of you,” Aeden said. “I would not leave you if it were not for your safety. I promise that when it is safe for you, we will return. Until then, I will miss you.”

  A round of quick goodbyes followed, Aeden shaking hands with the men and hugging the women, Fahtin hugging everyone. They finally found themselves in front of Jehira and Raki.

  “Thank you for all you have done, Jehira,” Aeden said. “I will miss our lessons.”

  “I am sorry we could not translate the entire Song, but you will learn more about it. This I know.” The old woman hugged him and kissed his forehead, his cheek, then his other cheek. “You are the Malatirsay. Believe in yourself, and you will do wondrous things.”

  After Fahtin said goodbye to Jehira, they both stood in front of Raki.

  “Goodbye, my friend,” Aeden said. “I am sorry you could not come with us, but it is better this way. Protect your Nani and the rest of the family. We will meet again someday, when the danger has passed.”

  He hugged the boy and then stepped aside to let Fahtin do so.

  With a last forlorn look at those gathered to say goodbye, he and Fahtin walked out of the camp. He wondered if he would ever see his family and their brightly-colored wagons again.

  Chapter 26

  Khrazhti looked out from the stone fortress she had taken for her stronghold. This world had too much light. She was becoming accustomed to it, but it irritated her, like a prickle along her back, not quite painful but there constantly. It made her want to strike something.

  “My Lady High Priestess?” Daosa, one of her generals, said. “Do you agree?”

  She turned her eyes to him and watched him flinch. They were the palest blue, and glowed no matter the lighting conditions. She thought they were probably more impressive in Aruzhelim, the world from which they came, because theirs was a world of darkness. There was not all this accursed light in her home.

  “Daosa, I understand your concerns. I do not share them. We have but one task on this S’ru-forsaken trash heap called a world. We are to find the opposer and destroy him. I would sacrifice any number of our troops to this end.”

  “Yes, My Lady, of course.”

  Her general was unable to meet her gaze as her eyes drilled into him. He was a good soldier, competent and loyal. She softened her eyes.

  “You must understand. S’ru, god of all the world, has spoken. We were sent here to prepare for his coming to this place. You must use all your skill and strategy to find the One and to destroy him. If you can prevent our own forces from being obliterated, that is good, but not necessary.

  “For those troops with the twinkling talent, it is a moot point. When their physical bodies are no longer able to keep their essence, they will be spawned anew in their birthing place. All that is lost is that they are no longer of use to us here in this world. These creatures who inhabit Dizhelim, these ‘humans,’ there are very few with the ability to destroy any of the animaru. We will be victorious, and S’ru will have his domain in both worlds, Aruzhelim and Dizhelim.”

  “Yes, My Lady.” The general saluted. “I will see to it. We must be close to the One. A whole patrol has gone missing. No other could have managed it but the one foretold.”

  Khrazhti nodded. “Perhaps. Keep me informed of your progress. You may go.”

  The general turned on his hooves and walked from her presence. She watched him go. His form was that of a hairy two-armed animaru, not quite so tall as her. He had hard hooves on the bottom of his feet, so he needed no clothing or boots on his lower limbs.

  Khrazhti, high priestess of the dark god S’ru, thought of the difference between the denizens of this world, this Dizhelim, and those of her own world of Aruzhelim. On her world, all creatures were animaru. There were none of the other forms of life on this world, the insects and animals.

  The animaru came in many shapes and sizes, but the vast majority shared attributes. Most had two legs or rear appendages and two arms or front appendages. There were those with more or less, but that was not common. Most stood upright on the rear appendages, though some dropped to put their arms to the ground when running or fighting.

  One thing almost all shared was that they were dark. Black, gray, brown, they were different shades, but all of them dark, like their almost lightless world. In a place without much light, color seemed unnecessary.

  All but her. She was of average height among the animaru, neither massive nor diminutive. She was in the same shape as the humans in this world, if a little taller than the ones she’d seen. Legs, feet with toes, arms with hands. She did not crawl about on all fours as some did. She walked or ran on her two legs.

  Of course, that was to be expected. She was, after all, part human herself. She was not supposed to know this, but she did. Though her body was colored a light blue, the same color she had seen in the sky when she came to this world, and though she had only a crest of hair along the top of her head and long ears that slanted back from the side of her head, she looked remarkably like these humans. She couldn’t pass herself off as one, of course, nor would she want to, but she did resemble them.

  When her god sent her there, she was commanded to coordinate with one of these humans. That one was apparently a powerful creature among these other beasts. While she was discussing her plans with him at his own stronghold, she had seen a woman whose shape did not match those of others she had seen. Though she was generally the same, there was an imbalance to her, an asymmetry. A large lump at her midsection seemed to have grown over the weeks she had observed her.

  Khrazhti had stared at the woman while her host babbled on about something or other. It was fascinating to her. How had it happened? What did it mean? Was it something she could use to defeat those on this world?

  The man had stopped talking and watched Khrazhti watching the serving woman. He had laughed and told her the woman was “pregnant.”

  “What is ‘pregnant?’” Khrazhti asked.

  “She is ready to bear a child, to give birth.”

  “I do not understand this ‘birth,’” she said.

  “Do your people not bring children into the world live like this?” he asked. “Do you lay eggs or something else? How do you make more animaru?”

  Khrazhti had almost lost her composure for a moment. Her blue eyes flashed and she looked at him with incredulity. “More animaru? There are not more animaru. All were created at once, thousands upon thousands of years ago. There have been none created since.” It was not the whole truth, of course, but she would not tell him that. Her case was unique.

  “Really?” The human looked shocked. “Then what happens if animaru are killed? How are they replaced?”

  This human did not understand. “Do you not understand that animaru cannot be ‘killed?’ We are not alive, such as you. Our world is death, we are all of death. Death cannot be killed. We may be harmed and must take time to recover our power, but we cannot be destroyed, other than those with the twinkling.”

  The human looked to be taken aback. “The twinkling?”

  “Those who, by their nature, are weaker and whose shells can be destroyed. When their bodies are ruined in that way, their essence returns to the area in which they were spawned in their original creation.”

  “I…did not know that,” he said. His color seemed to fade, as if he had been subjected to a strong light. Color seemed to play a big part in things on this world.

  The man regained his composure. “Well, we humans bear children, small versions of us that grow over the years to become full-sized. You have probably not seen children since you have only just arrived on this world. That is how we increase our numbers.”

  It was fascinating. She had never thought of such a thin
g. “And do all the creatures on this world do this thing, this birthing?”

  “In one form or another, yes. Some lay eggs and some bear their offspring live, and some even actually split in two or drop parts of themselves to create copies but yes, they all reproduce.”

  It was a revelation to Khrazhti, something she had thought about often as she spent time in this world. Perhaps the rumors she had heard were true. She had always thought them to be made-up stories meant to make her lose face.

  As the stories went, there was an event some time nearly three thousand years before. Powerful users of magic from this lighted world, Dizhelim, somehow had transported themselves to Aruzhelim. Their expedition was to explore the dark world to record the information they could about it. When they got there, though, they found that they could not open their magical portal from Aruzhelim to go home. They were trapped.

  It was not long until they were detected and brought to S’ru, the god of all things, himself. He questioned and prodded them, studied them for a little while. They spoke a variation of the true language of Aruzhelim, so there was rudimentary conversation. When they started to die off because their bodies were not compatible with the dark world, S’ru left them in their confinement and grew bored with them.

  Not so with one of his generals. Suuksis was inquisitive and spent a great deal of time with the humans. He studied how they acted, how their bodies reacted to different things, and how the energies in the dark world affected them. When he learned of their strange way of making other humans, he decided to experiment with one of the humans in particular. A female.

  To his surprise, the human began to grow larger, but only about the middle. After a period of time, a creature came from her, pale blue and squealing as the humans did when subjected to pain. The general did not understand completely, but he sensed that this small animal was connected to him. The human female lived for two more years, longer than any of the others, before succumbing to the energies that killed her. The general was left with the still-small creature she had spawned.

  Suuksis kept the creature as a pet, feeding it and playing with it. He kept it generally hidden because there were no such things in Aruzhelim and he did not want any other of the animaru to steal it. As the years passed, the thing grew. In a very few years, it learned to speak, almost like a real animaru.

  He decided to teach it to fight. Maybe if it learned, he could use it to gamble with others. In any case, it was a pleasant distraction from the constant political maneuverings and combat between the animaru. He was surprised with the ease at which the little thing learned to fight. In a dozen years, it was almost as tall as he and could fight as well as many of the other animaru.

  Then came the day when the thing—he had finally relented and given it the name Khrazhti—displayed a talent for magic. He was sure then that somehow he had created a real person with the human female. It was then that he began to think of her—for it was plain she was female—as an equal.

  It was not long until S’ru himself came to notice Khrazhti. He took her from Suuksis and began to train her in death magic himself. She excelled and within three hundred years, she had replaced others, including the one who had helped create her, as S’ru’s highest minion. She was his high priestess, second only to the god himself. Others had tried to defeat her, to replace her, but she was too powerful. With her different appearance and her ability, both in combat and magic, she had been the hand of S’ru for almost two thousand years. It was logical, then, for her to be the one sent to this world to pave the way for his arrival.

  “Khrazhti, my most loyal and powerful servant,” he said. “This new world, Dizhelim, is a world of light and life, and so is anathema to me. You must go there and prepare it for me. Work with the human who was able to contact me through the distance between our worlds and diminish those things that prevent me from going to that world to bring it under my domain. Only you would I trust with this task.”

  It was an honor, of course, a pleasure to do her god’s will. She left immediately through the portal created by the human, her and more than five thousand of her hand-picked troops. She would not be able to return for a time. Apparently there were special conditions required to create the portal, and the human said it could not be done again quickly.

  And so she had come, armed with the will of her god, S’ru, and the prophecies the animaru had kept in their hearts for five thousand years. Those prophecies said that they would come to a land of life, seed their death upon it, and increase the realm of their god. The only thing that could prevent it was the One, the Gneisprumay.

  Thus, her task was simple. Reduce the life and light in the world and, more importantly, destroy the one who could foil their plans. Khrazhti turned her glowing blue eyes out of the window of her fortress and watched the huge ball of light these humans called a ‘sun’ disappear behind the distant mountains. How glad she would be when this accursed light could be removed from the world and her god could join her here. It would be soon, she was sure.

  Chapter 27

  “I’ve never traveled without the wagons before,” Fahtin said as she and Aeden made their way generally eastward.

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I have had to live off the land, and though I didn’t travel that much within the highlands, I have the skills we need.” He smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder, just on the side of her neck. “I’ll teach you.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Do that some more.” She stopped walking and closed her eyes. He had rubbed right where the backpack had been bruising her all day.

  Aeden laughed. “Fine, we can take a little break here, I guess. We’ve been on the road for two hours already since the last break.”

  They stepped to the side of the hard-packed dirt road and set their packs down. Fahtin took out two apples from hers and offered one to Aeden.

  “In a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll need both hands for this.” He removed her traveling cloak and started rubbing her neck and shoulders, systematically working out the knots in her muscles. She closed her eyes and completely forgot about the apple she had planned on eating. It felt so good!

  By the time he finished and removed his strong hands from her—he had moved down to massage her upper back by then—her muscles were warm and felt like finely kneaded bread dough. She let out a long sigh.

  “You are very good at that,” she told him. “Very good.”

  “I learned a bit about anatomy as I trained with my clan. Knowing where muscles and organs are can be a great help when having to kill someone. They also help when you need to help yourself or someone else heal. It’s all connected.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him as he picked up the apple she had dropped when he started rubbing her neck. He smiled at her and she smiled back. “You should teach me how to do that. I can return the favor for you sometime.”

  He took a bite of the apple. “Sure. We can add it to your training.”

  They didn’t stay long on the patch of grass. After their apples had been stripped to the core, they tossed the remains, picked up their packs, and continued on their journey.

  It had only been two days since they left the caravan, but they seemed to be making good time. The roads in the area were in good shape, and they could cover ten to fifteen miles a day. They could have pushed harder and done more, but the urgency with which they started had diminished. They had not seen anyone else on the road, nor did they catch sight of any of the dark monsters that had attacked their family.

  Fahtin looked back down the section of the road they had just covered. She thought she had seen something move off to the side, but she wasn’t sure. It was probably just her mind playing tricks on her.

  “Do you think the family is safe?” she asked.

  “I would expect it to be so. I think they’re right. Those creatures are after me. Without me there, maybe they won’t bother to attack.”

  “But they attacked the clans even though you weren’t there.”

&nbs
p; “Yes.” Aeden looked at the ground as if considering it. “That was before they actually saw me, though. If any of the creatures escaped when I killed the rest of them, they’ll know about me now. I don’t think they will waste time attacking the caravan when they could be chasing me.”

  “That sounds reasonable,” Fahtin said. “Hopefully you’re right. Of course, that means they will all be after us, which doesn’t make me happy.”

  Aeden stopped walking and turned to look her in the eyes. “It’s not too late, you know. You can still go back. You’ll be safer with the family.”

  “Aeden, please,” she said. “I thought you had accepted that I was going to go with you.”

  “I don’t want you hurt. I don’t have a choice in this, but you do. Please, change your mind and go back. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

  “Oh?” she said. “And what of how I’d feel if something happened to you? Have you thought of that? No, you haven’t. We are in this together, you and I. I will not change my mind, so push that right out of that head of yours.”

  “Fine,” he said. His eyes darted to the road behind them for a moment, but then he turned to start walking again. “It will be dark in a couple more hours. We should probably start looking for somewhere good to camp soon.”

  They found a nice little clearing off the side of the road a few hundred feet later. The land had a mixture of smallish trees, not so small as bushes or shrubs, but not the towering trees they would reach in a few days if they continued on that road. The vegetation wasn’t too thick for them to move fairly easily through it, but traveling on the road was much easier, and they would continue to do that until there was a good reason not to.

  Fahtin collected firewood while Aeden hunted up rocks to create a fire ring. He had shown her a trick for getting dead limbs from trees instead of searching for suitable wood on the ground. She still delighted as she heard the rope cut through the air. Then the sound of cracking wood echoed down to her as she pulled the rope after it had wound itself about the deadwood. It didn’t take long until she brought down enough wood to last them the night.