Spies Among Us

by L. L. Bower

  Anyone listening to us would hear the yips and whines of wolves, not words. Unless other wolves eavesdrop, our conversation is secret, so we don’t have to use telepathy, which gives me a headache.

  Crisa goes on, “As intruders broke through the door, I transmuted into an eagle and hid in the trees, to avoid capture. I could have overcome Galdo if he was alone, but I believed the minotaurs would attack first and weaken my magical defenses. Then I might have been at Galdo’s mercy.” She shivers.

  I tilt my head to ask, “How could Galdo invade like that? I thought your place was impenetrable.”

  She sighs and pauses before saying, “I did too. The magic wards around my property should have kept me safe. Galdo must have discovered a way to neutralize them, but I don’t know how he did it. I’ve never known him to be that powerful. Maybe he gleaned more knowledge from my spell books than I thought.”

  I add, “And when you flew back home, there I sat in your backyard, licking my injured paws, my head hung low. I was unable to protect Calen like I was supposed to.”

  She looks down. “I didn’t save him either. I didn’t expect him to return so soon, and then you told me he’d been captured.”

  A crow caws from the top of a pine tree.

  I nod and brush a fly away from my ear with a paw. “That was a low point for me.”

  “Me too.” Crisa pounds a paw into the soft dirt in front of her, sending up a puff of dust. “And I was furious with myself. I should have stayed to fight, rather than run away. Somehow Galdo discovered that Calen was staying with me, that he hadn’t left Fairyland. I wish I knew how he deduced that so quickly.”

  I turn my wooly head toward her and lean in. “His spies must be everywhere.”

  Crisa stretches her forelegs out in front of her. “After you told me of his capture, I flew over the forest to see if I could catch up to Galdo and his guards before turning back to human form. But I couldn’t find any tracks, which means they teleported somewhere, using magic. But where?”

  I shake my furry head. “Beats me.” I neglect to tell Crisa that I too searched for them for a long time, not willing to acknowledge my inability to track them either. She can read my thoughts though and probably knows of my meager efforts.

  Crisa whimpers and hangs her head. “Galdo not only invaded my home and captured Calen, he also stole almost my spell books from my basement lab and destroyed Sentinel, my front-door guardian, who has been with me for hundreds of years.”

  I hang my head too. “I’m sorry. I liked Sentinel.”

  She lifts her head and squares her lupine shoulders. “Sentinel was loyal to the end. I heard from some hawks soaring over my land that he valiantly defended my property, killing several dark soldiers before,” here her voice quavers, “Galdo pulverized him.”

  She swallows hard. “I miss him. Even though I’ve experienced a multitude of loss in my centuries of existence, grief never gets any easier.”

  She cocks her head and perks up her ears. “What’s that noise?”

  My hackles rise at the sound of swooshing overhead, and I jerk my head skyward, my nostrils twitching.

  A red dragon circles above the trees and peers intently at the ground below.

  I utter a guttural growl and slink into the undergrowth. Crisa follows. I’m guessing the dragon is looking for its next meal, and I don’t want wolf to be the main course.

  From the safety of the bushes, we see the dragon swoop down out of sight and then soar upward again, a deer now snagged in its huge claws. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Crisa reads my mind. “I agree. I am glad that wasn’t us. Of course, I could have used magic to rid us of the dragon, but it might be one that Jade has befriended. They aren’t all dark creatures.”

  € € €

  Later, Crisa and I trot down a forest trail and discuss where we’ll search next for Calen. If I do say so myself, we must be an impressive sight—two broad-shouldered canids, one golden-eyed, one blue-eyed, jogging through summer sunlight that cavorts in and out of the trees, our thick coats ruffled by a cool breeze.

  Crisa clears her throat with a growl and tells me, “I sent animal scouts to search for Calen, and they couldn’t find him. Without success, they even searched many caves, looking for Galdo’s dragons, who they hoped to covertly follow and who might lead them to Calen.” She pauses. “If we could have followed that red dragon, we might have discovered the lair.”

  I sigh. “To be honest, I feel discouraged. I’ve asked the Creator for help in our search on numerous occasions. Each time, he’s said to be patient. That the time for revelation is near, that Calen has tasks to complete before he’s free. I don’t think we’re meant to find him.”

  Birds sing in the pines as Crisa says, “You may be right, but it’s essential he be freed soon. Without Calen’s influence, the light ones have abandoned their plans of a pre-emptive strike against the dark ones’ camp, and the dark side has since scattered its troops.”

  She stops to roll onto her back in the soft earth. “Sorry,” she remarks, “I have an itch.”

  When she rises again and shakes out her fur, a hummingbird swoops over us and hovers over Crisa’s wooly haunches. Then the bird flits up and down, its wings a blur.

  “I couldn’t wait to tell you!” the hummingbird tweets in rapid succession. Hummingbirds are the messengers of Fairyland who speak all numinal and human languages. Of course to humans, they sound like regular hummingbirds with their clipped chirps.

  “What is it, Ruby?” Crisa asks. She’s met this particular hummingbird before.

  “I believe I’ve found the dungeon where Calen is imprisoned, but it’s guarded by dragons.”

  “We were afraid of that.” I groan.

  “But that’s not the worst of it. The prison is a fortress because the only above-ground entrances I found were barred openings. They were mere slits in the ground, and I almost missed them as I flitted by.

  “I looked into a few of them, but it was too dark to see anything.” She hangs her head. “I had to abandon the search when I was almost incinerated by a fire-breathing dragon. Praise the Creator for my speed.” As if to punctuate her statement, Ruby flicks her wings into a blur and zips around in circles.

  Crisa tilts her head. “How did you find this dungeon?”

  “The Creator told me to fly due south.”

  I lean close. “I wonder if that’s where my pack bedded down once, eons ago, when I was a pup. I remember a series of well-hidden lava tubes several miles from here, but I don’t remember their exact location.”

  “I do.” Ruby puffs out her chest.

  Pawing the ground, Crisa cranes her neck around to look at the hummingbird that still hovers over her wolfish back. “Take us there.”

  Ruby snaps a salute with the tip of one wing while she keeps herself airborne with the other.

  I shake my body to fluff my fur because the wind has picked up. I lift my nose and sniff the air. I detect tangy pine and citrusy blue spruce, along with the sandalwood aroma of Douglas fir. I don’t smell any dark numinals, a good sign.

  “This way.” Ruby gestures by pointing her beak south, while her tiny feathers flutter.

  She zips off but soon realizes we can’t keep up, even when we trot. She adopts a flit-ahead-and-flit-back pattern, always staying in sight. She chirps rapidly, and I realize our adventure is undoubtedly more excitement than she’s seen in a multitude of message deliveries.

  Along the way, Crisa says, “Since the prison is guarded by dragons, it will be difficult to break Calen out. I wonder if Jade could help by communicating telepathically with those guards.”

  Jade is Calen’s green dragon that he raised from birth. I trot beside her and argue, “We can’t assume all dragons are good, just because Jade has made friends with a few of them. The dragons guarding the prison have given themselves over to Galdo. I don’t think reasoning with them will do any good.”

  Crisa juts her chin up. “Well, it’s worth a try. Jade says she�
�s made headway with some of the dragons in convincing them they’re on the wrong side of this war.”

  A rabbit flits across our path. Good thing for the rabbit I’m not hungry.

  We’ve gone a few miles when I tilt my head toward Crisa and pant, “Can we rest a minute?” She, being immortal, doesn’t tire as easily as I do.

  “Of course.” Crisa lies down in a shady patch of dirt, and I follow suit. Ruby flits around overhead.

  “Has Jade been able to contact Calen?”

  Crisa moves her head in the negative. “She’s tried to contact him several times but hasn’t received a reply. That means the dungeon has some kind of magic dampening around it.”

  I was present when, with a spell, Crisa gave Calen and Jade the ability to communicate with each other telepathically. That was before the young dragonette could speak. Since then, she’s learned English.

  Over the past few weeks, she and Grog, Calen’s bugbear friend and Jade’s coach, have been hidden under a large opaque dome created by Crisa’s magic so that Grog could continue the dragon’s training.

  I watched a training session one morning as Jade projected her acidic green saliva at wooden cutouts of bugbears, ogres and trolls, dissolving the wood without damaging the ground. She also swooped down to pick up large boulders with her claws to hurl at simulated enemies. I’d hate to face her as an opponent.

  She’s grown to almost full-size since Calen’s capture and, using the full strength of her wings, can dive and ascend rapidly. She can even flip over and fly upside down. Her body’s ball-joints and segments allow her extreme maneuverability, so her agility belies her size. I can see why most of Fairyland is afraid of dragons.

  Ruby hovers nearby as Crisa closes her eyes. “Let me see if I can get Jade to join us.”

  When she opens them, she says, “Jade’s on her way. If I can remove Galdo’s magic, maybe she can talk to Calen when we get closer.” She rubs a paw across her chin. “Let’s go.” She stands up and takes off trotting. Ruby darts ahead, and I follow.

  Crisa turns her head toward me as she moves along the ground. She’s not even panting as she says, “I wonder how Galdo enlisted dragons into this war. In my experience, dragons have never joined causes, and they don’t exhibit a normal family structure. The fathers leave the nest after conception, and the mothers remain with their young only until they can fly and hunt. They are historically independent and solitary.”

  I snort. “He could’ve put them under a spell.”

  While we continue to jog, the hummingbird, who hasn’t uttered a peep until now, circles back and adds, “I didn’t believe the rumor, but it explains how Galdo is controlling the mother dragons. The gossip mill says he’s hostaged their offspring. Some also believe he killed the male dragons, meaning those dragon babies are their sole hope of survival as a race.”

  Crisa yips, “That’s terrible.”

  Ruby adds, “Galdo has no scruples. No wonder that even a few of his guards are thinking of mutiny.”

  After a few more miles, I’m panting as I perk up my ears. “I think ...” I sniff the air. We’d better move....”

  “Yes, I smell darkness nearby too.” She barely finishes her sentence when, out of the woods, shuffle two huge ogres, each at least seven feet tall. Over their ragged and dirty clothes they’re wearing some kind of red military sashes. Each holds a barbed club. They remind me of drawings of Cro-Magnon men with their broad, flat foreheads and prominent chins. They haven’t yet seen us.

  I start to back away, focused on finding Calen, not fighting ogres. Ruby ascends out of sight, but Crisa stands and stares at them.

  Their bloodshot eyes bulge out like a fish’s when they see us. They turn and lumber our way, their clubs out front, the ground shaking from their massive footfalls. Ogres are bullies who’ll pick on any creature, natural or numinal, but they have to know we aren’t easy prey.

  Crisa mutters, “I hate to draw attention to myself like this. If they had just left us alone ...”

  She flicks her tail, raises a paw and utters, “Congelo.”

  The ogres stop mid-stride, like they’ve been frozen in a block of ice. I’m amazed at how powerful Crisa is.

  She shows them every one of her incisors and canines. “There, that should hold them. Let’s get a closer look at these two.” She steps forward, and I follow.

  I think the ogres have been rendered totally immobile until one of them blinks. I growl and tense my muscles.

  “Don’t worry,” Crisa reassures, “you’re quite safe.” Rising up on her back legs, she places her paws on an ogre’s chest. Ruby darts around the ogres’ heads, chirping.

  Crisa turns her head toward me. “His sash has different shaped skulls on them. I recognize the heads of fairies, gnomes, pixies and nymphs. This one has thirty-two skulls, which means he’s killed that many.”

  Following suit, I jump up onto the other ogre’s chest to count the skulls. I can’t decide which smells worse, his body odor or his breath. “This one has fifty kills.”

  I’m saddened by how much precious life has been snuffed out by these two.

  I catch a glimpse of something in the ogre’s filthy shirt pocket. With my teeth I pull out what looks like a metal box. “Uk,” I bark through clenched teeth, as I try to say, “Look.”

  Crisa gazes at me. “That’s a communication device. Galdo studies human technology like I do.”

  She jumps down and walks over to me. I hop down from my ogre’s chest too. She looks at the device and says, “See the ogre’s name on it? Korga.”

  She pauses. “I know we need to find Calen as soon as possible, but this device could come in handy. We have no place to hide it though, if we carry it. Can you bury it and quickly, so we can find it later?”

  I turn and speed a short distance away to hide the device.

  I mark the hiding place with a pile of rocks pushed together with my nose to which I add my scent. I claw the shape of a C, for communication, on a nearby tree trunk.

  When I return, I bark, “Ready?”

  Crisa doesn’t respond. She sits on her haunches and stares at the ogres. She sighs. “I know we need to hurry, but these death mongers’ sole purpose is to kill light ones. They can’t be allowed to continue their dirty work.”

  She raises a paw. “This won’t take long, but I wish I had my wand with me. Casting spells without it is harder and less focused.”

  She lifts her eyes skyward. “Ruby, stay behind me.” Then she turns her head to me. “You too, Brutus. My paw is not as accurate as my wand. I would hate for either of you to get hit with errant magic.”

  Ruby ascends behind me. I back up.

  Crisa closes her eyes and tightens her furry brow. She points her paw at the ogres. “Multus Redigo,” she recites, and then chants the phrase over and over.

  The ogres vibrate, as if chilled from head to toe. Then they start to shrink, getting smaller and smaller with each chant until they’re the size of grigs, the smallest of the fairy races. The look of shock and fear on their now tiny, ugly faces makes me grin.

  Crisa whispers, “by the power of the Creator,” and collapses to the ground.

  She lifts her head and mumbles something to the ogres. They scamper away like scared rabbits. Still, she remains flat on the ground, panting heavily.

  “Are you all right?” I ask, having never seen her so feeble. “Should I go after them?”

  “No, let them go. They’re harmless now.” The words wheeze out of her. “I’ll be fine in a little while. That level of magic without my wand takes a lot out of me.”

  “What did you say to them?”

  “I told them to shoo,” she pants, “or I’d squash them like the disgusting bugs they are.” She takes another deep breath. “They’ll not be killing any more fairies or gnomes. Praise the Creator, their condition is permanent.”

  I nod. “That’s so apropos, Your Highness. They’ll be at the mercy of every other creature in the forest. Now they’ll know the same fear they’
ve imposed on their victims.”

  “Yes, Fairyland justice has been served.” Ruby nods as she hovers over us again. “Now, let’s not waste any more time. We must free Calen.”

  Chapter 3 – Liberation

  As weak sunlight streams through my barred window, a key jingles and metal clangs as two minotaurs unlock my cell door, swing it open and lumber inside for their daily torture session.

  In a deep, thundering voice, the one with the stun gun orders, “Get up, you human piece of filth.” He gives me a wicked smirk, which causes his nose ring to bobble.

  I’ve always used humor to defuse ugly situations like this, so I quip, “How’s your day going?”

  I sit on my straw pile, my hand resting on Noblesse’s hilt beneath the straw. Once I again possessed Noblesse, I decided I wouldn’t risk my friends’ safety and wait for them to break me out. I’m going to effect my own escape.

  The guard towers over me like a huge tree and points the stun rod at me. “I said, ‘Get up!’ ”

  “As you wish.” I grab Noblesse and jump up as straw bits fly into the air from my bedding. I whip the sword around in front of me.

  “What the...?”

  That moment of surprise and hesitation is all I need. Before the guard can finish his sentence, I grasp the sword with both hands and swing it with all the might I can muster at the minotaur’s thick neck.

  Noblesse’s super-sharp blade separates his head from his body. His hulking form slumps to the floor, and the stun rod clanks onto the dirt-covered stone. As his severed head hits the floor, it rolls to one side like a bowling ball with horns. Blood spurts from his neck.

  Turning to the other minotaur, who stares dumbfounded at his fallen comrade, I say, “You’re next.” He lunges at me with a dagger, and I hop to one side. The blade barely misses me.

  I shove the sword blade into the minotaur’s abdomen, all the way to the hilt. He blinks and looks at me, wide-eyed. I yank the sword back out, and he crumples on top of his comrade like a huge side of beef. I wipe Noblesse’s blade on the minotaur’s hide.