by Rain Oxford
Afterwards, she explained the process of making an energy ball and left me alone to do it. I assumed it was because she had work to do, but as she was walking out the door, she assured me it was way too dangerous for her to be around and suggested that I try not to collapse the tent.
Using the spear she’d left behind, I drew a circle in the dirt and sat inside it. I wouldn’t have to do this every time, fortunately, just until I knew how to do it. Unlike regular domatago casting, this didn’t require words. I focused my mind on my breathing first as I relaxed my body. When my breathing was slow, I imagined myself somewhere serene.
I’d never been on a boat, but it sounded peaceful, so I pictured myself on one. The boat was pearly white with a canopy to keep me from frying. I was sitting on a cushioned seat, watching the waves. In my mind, there was no shore in the distance or annoying seagulls, just waves and coffee. Lots of coffee. Hot, black coffee.
Once I was as calm as humanly possible, I imagined there was energy inside me. This energy contained all the problems, doubts, and frustration I was forcing out of my mind. As I imagined it, an irritating heat formed in my chest. It was like being angry at someone and having to hold that fury back.
I realized then that I was angry. I was angry at the Painter for bringing Luca and me here, at Isis for not sending us home, at the priests for acting like I wanted any of this, and at magic itself for taking my loved ones.
I remembered the day Luca became an orphan because of me, and I pushed that away.
I opened my eyes to find a tornado of glowing blue energy around me. Inside my circle, the air was calm because I was calm. The tent, however, was on the verge of being ripped apart. Cupping my hands in front of me as if I was trying to hold water, I mentally took that energy I had expelled and focused it into a ball in my hands.
This took a lot more work than creating it, but I had seen the end result, so I didn’t lose confidence. After what felt like five hours of visualizing and willing it, the energy slowly started bending. Finally, I formed it into a ball that I could hold in my hand.
It moved like fire and was a vibrant, deep blue. When I stuck my fingers through it, it was a little cold. I didn’t know if I had done it right or not, if it was actually able to hurt anything, so I decided to test it out on something.
As soon as I stood, the ball dissipated and everything I had pushed away rushed back into me. I didn’t like it.
I started over from scratch, and it came easier. When it was fully formed, I didn’t go anywhere, I just practiced holding my focus. After I lost it again, I started over. The third time it formed, I maintained it while counting, forcing myself to focus on more than one thing at a time.
I was walking in a circle and reciting the Fibonacci sequence with the ball of glowing energy in my hand when my stomach growled.
* * *
I found Luca and some bread in our tent and he was excited to see what I could do. I no longer needed a circle to create an energy sphere and I was confident I could maintain it long enough to fling it at someone, although I doubted that was what it was actually meant for.
The rest of the night was spent practicing the two spells I had learned. At sunset, when they dueled with rock monsters, I asked Malie to teach me to create one. She said she would teach me to do it the next day and that they were actually more for show than real fighting. I asked her why I couldn’t make a huge one and she laughed.
“You don’t have the power required to do that. It would take a god to create one.”
That was disheartening. We went to bed a few hours later and, just like the previous day, I woke early. I also woke in a bad mood since I didn’t have coffee. I went to the tower and didn’t say anything to the two women. Lydet (the blond) and Serka (the brunette) were the same two that had been there before, and they seemed to realize I wasn’t in a talkative mood.
That didn’t stop them from chatting, of course. While I watched wind move sand over the dunes, resembling waves of an ocean, Serka told Lydet all about her crush on a man in the group.
* * *
An hour into staring at the blinding sand, I noticed something strange. I had been captivated watching the sands run like liquid, so the change was apparent. Almost too far out to see, a mound formed and moved. It reminded me of gopher mounds for some reason.
“Are we expecting a storm or anything?” I asked.
“No, why?” Lydet asked.
I pointed out the mound and she squinted, trying to see what I saw.
“I was just wondering if that was a trick of the weather or something. It looks like something is pushing up under the ground. Oh, it’s closer now. That’s not cool.”
Lydet and Serka both paled to the point where I thought they were going to faint. “Are you sure?” Lydet asked.
“I’m sure I see something.”
“I see it too,” Serka said, her voice shaking. Hanging down in the middle was a thick chain attached to a bell. She reached for it, but Lydet grabbed her hand to stop her.
“Maybe it doesn’t know we’re here.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Khapma. They usually stay near water.”
“Do they hunt by sound or vibrations?” I asked quietly.
“Both. When we see them, we run. One of them can easily kill a dozen of us and there are usually more than one.”
I watched the mound, which had changed directions and was now going off to the right, away from us. “Everyone is asleep, not moving or making a sound.” I was conflicted. The closer it got before we sounded the alarm, the less chance people had to prepare. At the same time, if we didn’t ring the bell, there was a chance it would pass us by.
It was turning again, coming closer.
“It’s going to kill us all,” Serka cried quietly.
I grabbed her arms gently and hugged her, both to stop her from ringing the bell and to comfort her. “Can we quietly wake people and get them into the tower? If it doesn’t move any faster, we should have time.”
“The tower wasn’t designed for protection. Everyone would have to get up to the top and the floor wouldn’t hold. We have to warn everyone.”
“Warn them and then what? Where is everyone going to go?”
“We’ll run. Some of us will survive. If we can get to…” she trailed off, watching the tethered group of komodo dragon-type reptiles.
Except for tasting the air with their long tongues, not a damn one of them was moving. They knew what was going on. They could easily snap their ropes and run if that was the right move to make, but they weren’t.
“Wait it out,” I said. The mound was again starting to turn away. It was zigzagging, probably listening or looking for vibrations. It could also have been trying to sneak up on us. We’ll definitely lose people if we sound the alarm. We might lose more people if we don’t.
“There’s another one!” Serka hissed as another mound emerged from a dune and joined the first.
That was enough to spook Lydet, who rang the bell before I could stop her. The sand monsters paused for a split second before practically flying directly towards us.
I raced down the steps of the tower. By the time I opened the door, the bells had stopped and I saw three mounds moving through the sand like it was water. Whatever the monsters were, they could easily outrun me. I ran to my tent and reached it just as Luca peeked outside. No one else was moving or making a sound, so I hoped that meant I had the right idea.
“What’s going---”
I slapped my hand over Luca’s mouth and shoved him inside. “Don’t move or make a sound,” I whispered. I pushed him down on the bed, sat next to him, and pulled my feet up. He got the hint and pulled his feet up as well. “Don’t scream no matter what.”
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Sand monster.”
“Be serious.”
“I am.”
The tent shook as one of the creatures passed under it and stopped in the middle of the tent. It took everythin
g I had not to slap my hand over Luca’s mouth when a fucking tentacle reached out of the sand… a tentacle that was six inches thick and covered in inch-long spikes. I looked at Luca. His eyes were closed. I wished I had learned telepathy or something so that I could reassure him mentally. The tentacle felt around the room and even touched the bed leg. The spikes made a metallic sound against the metal and then, to my surprise, it retreated.
Either it knew metal wasn’t food, or it didn’t like the sound of metal.
* * *
A couple hours passed before we slowly got up and went to the entrance. We hadn’t heard anyone make a sound since the bells rang. I peeked out and instantly knew the danger wasn’t over. People were sitting on carts and wagons. A few children were on top of the tents. Nobody moved, nobody spoke.
Obviously, people had moved, because they hadn’t been outside when I came down from the tower, but they were moving even slower than Luca and me. I waved my hand at Malie, who was sitting on a metal work bench in the shade of a tent. She spotted me and shook her head.
I know it wasn’t safe because everyone was acting like that, yet I couldn’t fathom the creatures still being there if they didn’t find any food.
“Do they have a plan?” Luca whispered.
I shrugged and turned back to Malie. She picked up a metal tool and chucked it away from the other tents. It hit the ground an instant before two creatures shot out of the sand to devour their pray.
Luca and I preferred a heavy dose of magic in all our movies, so B movies like Sharknado weren’t our thing. Thus I had been expecting some sort of snake. I was completely wrong.
The closest animal I could compare it to was an octopus. It had ten tentacles and a bulbous head, but at the base of its head was a round mouth full of sharp teeth. The two creatures clashed and fought using their tentacles.
Everyone was distracted by the scene, so when I looked back at Malie to check if she was moving, I was the first one to see the little kid run out of one of the tents. He couldn’t have been more than two. He stumbled with a grunt and then started crying.
The advantage to knowing only four spells was that I didn’t need much time deciding which to use. I levitated the boy ten feet into the air. He cried harder, but as all three creatures burst out of the ground beneath him, their limbs tangled. I managed to avoid the tangle and planted him in Malie’s arms, as she was closest to him. She got him to quiet down a little, but it was too late.
Luca smacked my arm and took off. I followed. Halfway across the camp was a wooden cart attached to one of the dragons. As we ran, the sand monsters were distracted fighting each other, but Luca and I knew it would only be a matter of time before they focused their attention on the child.
We jumped in the cart and the dragon took off at full speed. “Fuck you, octopi! Come get us!”
“Octopuses,” I corrected him.
“I know they’re octo-pussies.”
“Actually, they have ten tentacles, not eight, so they’re---”
“Why so slow, deca-pussies!” he interrupted.
“That wasn’t my point.” I sighed and joined in the goading of the sand monsters. We had successfully become a bigger target than each other and they were quickly chasing us away from the camp. “We have to come up with a plan!”
We stopped goading them and started looking for something we could possibly use to protect ourselves. The sand monsters were five feet behind us and I didn’t know how long the dragon could keep running.
Ten minutes later, the monsters were underneath us, trying to knock us out. At that point, I saw what looked like the ruins of a building in the distance and pointed it out to Luca. “I bet these things can’t go through rock.”
Luca tugged on the dragon’s reins until he turned slightly and headed for the ruins. “When we get there, we’ll jump off and I’ll release the dragon.”
“The dragon needs a distraction as well.”
“He can run a lot faster if he’s not dragging us.”
We were out of time to think, but instead of jumping when we passed the ruins, I levitated us. Luca unlatched the cart and the dragon gained speed. One of the sand monsters chased after him while the other two ripped apart the cart.
I knew levitating us would have worn me out before long, so I set us both down gently on the sandstone hunk of wall. Even though the monsters quieted down when there was nothing left of the cart, Luca and I stayed perfectly still and didn’t make a noise. After half an hour, the two mounds trailed away. The dragon, as far as we knew, had gotten away as well.
We waited another hour before Luca tossed his shoe out into the sand.
The creatures were gone.
“You have so much to write about when we get home,” Luca said.
“Right now, I don’t even know how we’re going to do that.”
“Learning magic is a good start.”
“And completely unhelpful right now, because we’re lost in the desert on a world of desert with sand-dwelling monsters.”
“It could be worse.”
“How?”
“We could have been eaten.”
“Don’t worry; there’s still a very good chance of that happening.”
Chapter 8
“Are we there yet?”
“I’m going to bury you in the sand and leave you for the decapuses,” I threatened. We had been walking for hours and both of us had reached the end of our patience.
“It would sure be nice if we had magic. Are we even going in the right direction?”
“I doubt it.”
He slumped into the sand. “Then what’s the point?” With the flowing silver robe, he looked ridiculous. “We’re going to die without magic.”
“I get it, okay? When we get back to the priests, I will learn all the magic there is to learn.”
“Great!” He popped up with a bright smile, all signs of fatigue gone. I started to turn. “Oh, but watch where you’re---”
I smacked straight into a stone wall. After expressing my frustration, I realized I had walked into a forty-foot-tall, round tower. It was about fifteen feet in diameter with four large, wooden doors spaced evenly apart, each carved with peculiar symbols and designs and no doorknobs.
“That wasn’t there a minute ago,” I insisted.
Luca pushed on the doors. “Maybe there’s someone inside who can help us.”
“I don’t like the looks of it.”
He gave up when none of the doors would budge. “Fine. We have to get out of the sun, though. You know I burn faster than a marshmallow in Hell.”
We continued walking. When we looked back a few minutes later, the tower was gone.
* * *
A couple of hours later, we were getting desperate. “You still seeing that mirage of water?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m seeing a mirage of a house.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Fine. I’m hallucinating a house.”
I stopped when he pointed out a dark smudge on a hill in the distance. “Well, crap. We’re both hallucinating it.”
“Oh, good. I hate going crazy alone.”
It took us another two hours to reach the house, and with every step, we grew less confident. It wasn’t the type of house that one would find in the desert.
There were many portrayals of the typical wizard’s house, but this one screamed “creepy old wizard in the woods.” It was a brick, three-story monstrosity with a covered porch and a short tower sticking out the middle. Dead vines crawled up its sides and a couple of dead trees were shriveled up in front of it. All of the windows were black. Although the sunset brought relief from the scorching heat, it did nothing to make the house less creepy.
“This is out of place,” Luca said.
“Yep.”
“We should go inside.”
“Yep.” I knew it was dangerous and stupid, but so was wandering the desert. Our immediate needs were shelter and water. Surviving
whatever dangers were inside could wait. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so I opened it. It wasn’t locked.
Again, I was surprised. The crimson walls drew my attention first. After the initial discomfort, I noticed the fireplace on the east wall, which was dead, and the huge clock above the dusty mantel. The clock wasn’t ticking. Bookshelves on both sides of it were filled with old books. Two high-back chairs faced it, both with rich blue and gold fabric. Between them was a small table with two books and a candle.
“Red room,” Luca commented.
“It’s pronounced ‘redrum’ and I really hope we don’t stumble upon a redrum here.”
“We are weird people.”
“Yes, we are.”
I grabbed the candlestick off the table. “Kitmas.” The candle lit and Luca gasped dramatically.
“You’re a witch!”
“Everyone at the temple is a caster.”
“Yes, but most of them aren’t that competent.”
Across from the entrance were a grand wooden staircase and a closed door. The west wall was open to a formal dining room, which included a dusty table. Behind us, the door slammed shut.
“Great. That’s not creepy,” Luca said.
We searched the dining room first, although there wasn’t much to see. Other than the wooden table, it was empty. However, there was another door that led to the kitchen, and when we saw the kitchen, we both gaped. It wasn’t the quartz countertops, the white wood cabinets, the glass tile backsplash, or the skylight that told us this house didn’t belong on Syndrial; it was the stainless steel, French door refrigerator.
Luca flipped the switch next to the door, but the overhead didn’t come on. I cautiously opened the fridge and gagged at the horrendous stench. “The power must have been out for a year or more.”
“I highly doubt there was electricity out here a year ago.”
“Maybe he was powering it by magic.”
“He? Did you see the same living room as I did? It had red walls.”
“Guys can have red walls. Especially when they’re creepy like that.” I started checking the cabinets and found cereal. “Cheerios, expires 2014.”