by Casey Knight
I studied the frog thoroughly with my eyes and didn’t see anything, so I called on my second sight and scanned the frog again. Gotcha. I found a magical signature under the frog’s front leg, copied the runes, and then put the frog back in its cage. I examined the runes and compared them to the ones I’d found earlier. Damn it, they didn’t match. I got out my Grimoirie and thumbed through it.
“Did you find anything useful?”
“Maybe. All the runes have the same first two letters, which is the signature of the maker. Now I’m going to search for any wizard using that same signature. It might be a waste of time because there are too many of them. Still, we might find one that is famous or much more likely infamous enough to be recognized. You get something to eat and I’ll call you if I find something.”
Corbin left, and I sat down to pour through the book. I looked for close to an hour and was giving up when I had another idea. I closed the book and went to search through my tomes on the dark arts. I’m banned from using dark spells. However, I needed to know what one looked like on the rare occasion I stumbled onto one. I swear the book gave off dark energy, it seemed to pulse menacingly. I had liberated it from a rogue wizard we killed a couple years ago.
I scanned the book, comparing the first two letters of the runes to any I found in the book. No luck with the first two letters, but I did find the frog’s last two symbols. I scrutinized the writing, reading and rereading to be sure. That’s when my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. Holy shit. I grabbed the frog’s cage and threw it into my salt enclosed circle, and hastily threw a shield over it. Then I dove behind my pyramid just as the frog exploded. I’d saved a lot on repairs once I learned to throw a shield around myself or my possessions.
“Lauren, are you all right? What in the hell was that thing?” he asked, as he surveyed what was left of the frog.
“The frog was set to explode if it was separated from its territory for more than an hour. Clever. This assures none of the familiars can be used against our wizard. I’ve still got a few more places I want to check. There are only a handful of wizards capable of using a spell that dark.”
“What about the fae? I thought they had their own magic.”
“You make a good point, we can’t rule out wild magic. I’ll see if there is anything on them in my library. I still might not find anything. They’re pretty secretive, and I am in no position to ask for favors.”
“Miss Congeniality you aren’t, but I might be able to help you with this one. One of my friends who is a white court vampire prince has glamoured almost every race during his long lifetime. I’ll contact him while you finish. Don’t raise your eyebrows at me, he has a cell phone.”
I chuckled when he left and then I got to work. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with anyone, this only meant he or she wasn’t on record for the spell. I hoped Corbin had more luck because I was SOL. We knew for sure someone had put portals in at least two of the universes, and likely in all four. This alone meant the games were compromised. We now knew one portal went to the council headquarters and one to Mab’s castle. Finally, familiars were placed in at least two of the universes, and again probably in all of them. We needed to figure this out in the next seventy-two hours or cancel the games.
I transported us back to the Four-Courts, and we went looking for Traygen and Tokem. We found them in the conference room discussing the surveillance equipment they’d just installed. I took the opportunity to find Posin to see if he could shed light on any of this. I found him in the production room with the other designers, and let him know I needed to speak to him. He followed me out into the hall.
“I have a couple questions for you. We’ve discovered a few things I was hoping you could explain.”
“If I can. What did you want to know?”
“Are there any portals built into your universes?”
“Yes, we put one in each universe as an emergency exit in case we needed to remove an injured competitor or to recover a body.”
“And you didn’t think it worth mentioning? Who else knows about these exits?”
“Just myself and Queen Aerlene’s wizard.”
“I want the coordinates and runes for all the portals, and need to know where each portal exits.”
“They lead to Queen Aerlene’s castle. I’ll get you the portals.”
He left to get the coordinates and runes. The two we found didn’t exit into this building, which meant those were not the design teams’, or if they were, they’d been altered. The runes would tell me if they were designed by the same wizard. He returned and gave me what I needed, and I headed back to the conference room. We would need to find these portals and see where they took us. I had a bad feeling about this. I went to my office to compare the runes to the ones I’d already found. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
I teleported back to the conference room and everyone was present. I filled them in on what I’d found.
“So are the runes the same?” Tokem asked.
“Before I answer any questions about the runes I want to check out the other portals. Corbin, I need you to go see Queen Aerlene again. See if you can get her to open up a little more. She has to know something. Tokem, I need you to monitor the surveillance screens. Traygen and I will check out the portals and see where they take us. Questions? Then let’s get going.”
Traygen and I went to put on dark clothes, boots, and weapons. We couldn’t be sure where we would end up. I was going to have us teleport from the Four-Courts to each of the respective universes. This way we wouldn’t need to leave this building to access them, at least in theory. Once we were armed, we made our way down into the lower floors where Posin said they were located. I found the portals where he had indicated they were placed.
“We may as well go in order.”
Traygen and I walked over to the entrance for the first universe and I spoke the words. In an instant, we were deep in the rainforest. I couldn’t tell from the ground where we were. It didn’t matter; it told me what I already knew. The portal didn’t take us to the council basement. We moved efficiently through all the remaining universes and none took us anywhere except the universes themselves. They didn’t connect to the council basement or Mab’s castle. All we knew for sure was the two gateways we found earlier weren’t the ones built by the design team. We finished and went back to the conference room. Traygen went to check on Tokem and I sat down to compare the characters from the designer’s to the characters we found. Corbin still wasn’t back from Queen Aerlene’s.
I looked at all the runes side by side and knew the design teams’ weren’t an exact match. Yet, they had similar signatures. All the symbols had one thing in common. They were all derived from fae magic. However, it didn’t appear they were written by the same person, which may or may not mean anything. Still, a magic wielder usually has a unique signature and a symbol to identify the spell. Since all the spells were for teleportation, they all had those specific symbols. I would need to try again to find the identity of the user.
I teleported home to my office and contacted Jason. He answered my summons almost immediately, and I told him what we had found. I showed him the runes and asked him if he recognized the user.
“I don’t know who the user is, but I can tell you one thing, it’s ancient. If I had to guess, I would say its fae, and its user wields or bends the forces of nature. I’ll show it around the council and see if we can identify it for you.”
“Thanks, and in the meantime, we will try to find out what we can from Queen Aerlene. Corbin should be back by now. I’ll keep you updated.”
“Lauren, we need to make a decision soon on whether to shut the games down or proceed.”
I sat and thought about what we knew and was sure of one thing. The universes were already compromised, so how could we keep the competitors safe. Each team was comprised of four people. Respectively, the teams supplied one person for each universe and none could proceed until their team member returned or was replaced. W
ithin the first three universes there were four stages the player had to find and get their baton logged in and verified. They were given a symbol for their team that would be recorded electronically at each stage. The final universe also had four stages, which got exponentially harder. While the competitors were looking for each consecutive stage, the design team was manipulating the environment. Now we had an outsider using familiars to either eliminate or derail an opposing team. The Hunger Games had nothing on this scenario.
I checked my watch and realized the others would be wondering where I was. I transported myself back to the Four-Courts. When I reached the conference room, everyone was present.
“We were just going to go looking for you,” Traygen offered.
“I am sorry. I was talking to Jason and got lost in my thoughts. Did you find out anything useful from Queen Aerlene?”
“Unofficially, the Seelie and the Unseelie are squaring off over a territorial dispute. Mab wants more of the Seelie lands, and Queen Aerlene thinks she may cause problems with the games in an attempt to discredit her.”
“It would have been nice to have known this beforehand. Did she say anything about the Fomorian warriors?”
“No, and she seemed startled to hear about them. Still, she didn’t deny their existence. Then she abruptly dismissed me. I left, but I didn’t leave her realm right away. I changed into a bat and went back to see if she would send for anyone. I didn’t have long to wait. She sent for her wizards. I took it as my cue to leave before they discovered me.”
“Corbin, well done. I need to check on something, and then we need to have a conference with everyone including Jason, present. We can convene back here in an hour.”
It was time for a meeting with Queen Aerlene under the guise of head of security for the games. I sent a messenger and waited for her reply. I thought back over what I had seen when I was trying to decipher the runes. Before I had much time to contemplate things, I got a reply from the queen. She had agreed to meet with me. I wasted no time and teleported to the palace. Her wizard met me and escorted me to the queen’s chambers.
“Queen Aerlene, thank you for meeting with me on such short notice,” I said as I bowed before her.
“Lauren, how can I help you? Is there a problem with the games security?”
I told her what we had discovered in the four universes and about the two portals that were not part of the design team’s plans. She didn’t interrupt me as I explained everything we learned.
“This is disturbing news with the games so close. Does Jason wish to cancel the games? We certainly don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. However, these games have never been canceled. It would bring dishonor to the Seelie.”
“Queen Aerlene, we certainly do not want to bring dishonor to your court, nor do we want to cause an incident between the races. There has been no decision reached at this time. We are still trying to figure out what is going on. Do you have any ideas who could be behind this?”
“Corbin was here earlier, and he knows of the dispute between the Seelie and the Unseelie. Queen Mab would take great delight in embarrassing my court.”
“We don’t wish to be involved in any dispute between the courts. As you know, Queen Mab still has a price on my head.”
“Yes, you have certainly made a dangerous enemy in her.”
“It wasn’t my intent. Nevertheless, it will not keep me from doing my job.”
“I’m glad to hear it. If there is nothing more, I need to attend to other business.”
“There is one thing.”
She arched her eyebrows, and then she asked, “What do you need?”
“Can you tell me what you know of the Fomorian warriors?”
She blanched slightly, but recovered quickly enough. I would have missed it if I hadn’t been looking for a reaction. She didn’t speak for several minutes and I was afraid she might not answer me.
“The Fomorians were part demon and part god. They’re as you know, considered to be fae. They were brutal warriors who slaughtered anyone they met. They had two primary rulers, Morc and Legon. Morc was the god of chaos and Legon the god of wild nature. My ancestors bound them deep within the earth centuries ago.”
“Could anyone, or say Mab, have released them?”
“My ancestors wisely made it nearly impossible to free them. It would take the blood of the ruling queens of both courts. I would never agree to it, and Mab has never asked.”
“One last thing Queen Aerlene, did Morc or Legon have a rune they began their spells with?”
“Why all the questions about the Fomorian’s? They have been entombed for ages.”
“Whoever is trying to sabotage the games is using familiars and runes which are very ancient.”
She wrote down the runes for Morc and Legon, and then she had her guards escort me back to the portal. I transported back to my office to compare what I’d been given, with what I’d already found. I studied the images, and didn’t like what I was seeing. Then I transported back to the Four-Courts to meet with my team. I also sent for Jason. I had asked him earlier to the background of the Seelie and Unseelie courts wizards. We already knew Mab’s warlock Grayson was into dark magic, but I knew nothing about Queen Aerlene’s wizard. His name was Aarondel. Hopefully, Jason had time to check their background.
Once everyone arrived, I filled them in on my visit with the queen. I asked Jason if he found anything when the alarms sounded.
“Someone has breached security in one of the universes,” Traygen said, as he and Tokem moved to the monitors.
The rest of us followed, and in minutes we stood in front of the monitor for the desert world. I stared at the monitor but didn’t see anything.
“What set it off? I can’t find anything which looks out of place,” Corbin noted.
“We don’t know, but something or someone was definitely near the door.”
“Traygen and Tokem, could that mean they didn’t necessarily enter through the door? Could they have set it off merely by being close to the door?”
“Lauren, you make a good point. The alarm would sound if someone was close enough to the door and unaware of the surveillance,” Traygen speculated.
“Reset the alarm and I’ll check it out. If they used magic, I might be able to pick it up and follow it. Corbin will come with me while you guys check the footage.”
Corbin and I put on our suits and headed to the portal for the second universe. I only hoped the portal was somewhere near the entrance. We had the entrance coordinates so we could find it. I just didn’t like the idea of walking around in any of these universes, but we couldn’t wait for the transport and hovercrafts. Any traces of magic would be long gone. When we got inside the cosmos, Corbin keyed in the coordinates. We were about half a mile south of the portal entrance.
I looked around for any signs of activity and spotted nothing but sand in all directions. It was a good thing we had a GPS unit or we would be totally lost. I followed behind Corbin and sent out my senses. I senses life to our left, and so far didn’t detect any magic. I kept my senses on high alert to avert an ambush.
“Lauren, do you hear that?”
“What?” I listened and still I heard nothing, but Corbin’s ears were more acute than mine. I didn’t hear it over the wind blowing harder. The sand started to blow and there was nowhere for us to find shelter. I grabbed hold of Corbin and pulled him down beside me in the sand. I put a shield around us, which protected us from the sand and most of the noise, but the windblown sand blotted out the light. It looked like twilight.
“Can you get us out of here? I am claustrophobic.”
“It would be too dangerous in these conditions. We will have to wait out the storm. I hope it stops before we use up all our oxygen.”
I might have drifted off. I hoped so, because the alternative was death from lack of oxygen. I reached around to find something to push off to sit up when I found Corbin. He was asleep beside me. I looked outside the shield and all I saw was sa
nd. Fortunately, we weren’t totally covered because light shone above us. I wasn’t sure how we would get out without being buried by the sand. Before I could give it much thought, I felt the shield shudder as if it had been struck. I looked frantically around, but saw only the small space above us.
“Corbin, wake up, I think we have company.” I shook him and he sat up rubbing his eyes.
“What’s going on?”
“Something or someone just shook the shield, but I can see only the area directly up above us.”
I sent out my senses to probe the area to try to locate anything magical or human. Yes, I knew a group of unidentified objects headed our way. I powered down my senses in case it was another magic user. It was possible it didn’t know we were down here. The minutes ticked by and the shaking was getting stronger. I was positive that whatever was out there headed in our direction. Then the ground shook on our opposite side. Now we had unknown things on both sides. I only hoped we weren’t the intended destination.
We waited for the earth to stop trembling before I sent out my senses. It appeared that whatever had been in the area left. I decided it was time to get us out from under our protective dome. I sent a small current of air up into our shield, causing it to vibrate. It cracked like the shell of an egg, leaving us to chip away an area large enough to wriggle through. I didn’t think anything could make this god-forsaken place look good, but the fresh air caressing my face helped.
Corbin moved us further south, following the GPS’s coordinates. We plodded along over dunes and across windswept fields of rocky scree. I grabbed Corbin’s arm, forcing him to halt. My guess is, we were a mere hundred yards from the entrance. Unfortunately, it felt like something wasn’t right. Maybe I’d seen a shift in the sand in front of us.