by L. L. Bower
Still staring up at the hole, Crisa says, “Here’s where that revival spell Galdo was trying to learn would be beneficial. Yet I still believe the Creator has the final say in matters of life and death.”
I nod. “We have to trust that the Creator knows what he’s doing.”
Brutus still lies where we left him, apparently asleep. “Come, Brutus,” I call, but he doesn’t respond. I go over to him to shake him awake, so he can walk back to Crisa’s place with us. When I touch him, his fur is cold, and his body feels stiff.
“Crisa!” I cry. “Something’s wrong with Brutus!” She kneels beside me and puts her fingers to his neck. Brutus remains immobile.
“I’m so sorry, Calen.” She touches my arm. “He’s gone. He has no pulse, so I can’t revive him.”
My heart thuds like an anvil in my chest. “Creator, how could you let this happen to the being you sent to protect me?”
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
Did I really mean what I just said about trusting the Creator, that he knows what he’s doing? My face warms, and I sigh. “Yes, I trust you.”
A lump forms in my throat and my voice cracks. “He seemed fine when we went back for the dragons, a little dazed from being thrown against a wall. Something must have attacked him after we left.”
She examines Brutus’s body. “There’s no sign of any injuries. I don’t know how this happened.”
An unnatural falsetto voice fills the cave. “I do. I’m proud to say that’s a sample of my handiwork.”
Who is this new threat? Crisa raises her wand; Mordea’s fists are poised like a boxer’s, and my fast-pulsing sword is at the ready.
“When I hit your wolf with that force field, it caused internal bleeding, which took a while to kill him. Even he didn’t know he was dying.” The braggart cackles like an old woman, the sound echoing through the cave.
Galdo emerges from one of the numerous dark alcoves spaced around this cavern, an ugly sneer beneath his hooked, wart-covered nose. Two ogre guards lumber in from another alcove. He likes dramatic entrances.
Wait, you can’t be here. You’re dead. How’d you escape being frozen? What about the cyclone? If the cold didn’t kill you, the storm should have.
I draw my sword. Crisa points her wand at Galdo and starts to move her lips in an incantation. Before she can finish, Galdo mutters a quick chant, and she and Mordea disappear from the cavern. Sparks shoot out from her wand as she vanishes, but Galdo dodges them.
Where’d he send them? Are they okay?
Galdo turns and gives me an evil smirk, the kind that nightmares are made of.
I realize I’m alone, facing an evil more powerful than I realized. The coppery taste in my mouth comes from fear, not anger this time, and dark, frightening thoughts gather round me like flies around a horse.
Chapter 16 – A Lamb to the Slaughter
I swallow hard as Galdo brags, “I’ve finally bested you, the millstone around my neck, who’s supposed to usurp my power and bring peace to Fairyland. Ha! That’s not going to happen. After I steal your weather ability, you’ll be lucky to remember your own name.” He lifts his chin and flicks the end of his nose with his finger in arrogant annoyance.
My throat tightens, but still I run at him, Noblesse thrust out in front.
Before I can reach him, he waves his wand and stops me cold. I can’t even move a finger.
“Oh, please,” he scoffs, “when are you going to realize that fighting me is useless?”
His dark eyebrows arch over his long, pointed nose like the fletching on an arrow. The wart on the end of his beak still oozes. “Did you think you’d kill me with a little Arctic weather and a sealed door? I’m a greater magician than that.”
You’re not a greater magician than that. Which is why I wonder how you survived.
“It was all a trap anyway. I knew Crisa would come for her books, and you’d accompany her. So I was prepared for you both with minimal guards and little resistance on my part.
“Then I let you believe you’d won when you incapacitated me.” He snickers. “I wanted you to think you were the gallant hero of Fairyland, who’d dispatched the mighty sorcerer. Now, once I’ve permanently damaged you, I’ll show off the shell of what’s left to all of Fairyland. Then they’ll see who’s really the most powerful, and they’ll stop trying to defeat me.”
My heart thumps, and I ask the Creator, “Does he succeed?”
“No,” I hear in my head, “I’m in control. Not Galdo.”
“And you must know I can capture those stupid little dragonettes all over again. It’s not that difficult.”
No matter what Galdo says, I know what we did in freeing those babies was honorable. I think he’ll find them ten times harder to steal, now that their mothers know what he’s up to.
He thrusts back his shoulders. “My dragons will strike fear across the land again, but, of course, you won’t be around to see it.” He leers, which makes the wart on his nose look bigger. “Your gallant efforts were fruitless.
“You say I only have the power to steal others’ magic.” His lip curls. “However, I have plenty of magic of my own. Just watch.”
He waves his wand again, and he, the two ogres and immobilized me are instantly transported—to the bright, main lab room. The goblin lab attendants are nowhere to be seen, and, even though it’s impossible, the room looks exactly like it did before Crisa sealed the goblins and Galdo in, and before I initiated the cyclone.
How can that be?
At least the lab door is still sealed by Crisa’s magic. He wasn’t able to undo that.
But where did he send Crisa and Mordea when they disappeared? Are they all right?
One of the ogres wrests Noblesse from my paralyzed grip with a smug look. The ogre carries my sword to a nearby table, holding the hilt between two fingers, as far away from his body as he can reach. She doesn’t zap him like she usually does when anyone else touches her, which makes me believe the magic-dampening spell in here is active again.
Before I can try to send bolts of electricity to incapacitate Galdo and the ogres using my mind, the sorcerer chortles and confirms my suspicions. “In case you’re interested, I’ve conjured another spell that neutralizes anyone’s supernatural power in this lab but mine. But you’re welcome to try and conjure up some weather. I’d love to watch your frustration.”
Without Noblesse and my magic, I feel paralyzed, not only by Galdo’s magic but also by my loss of identity. My sword and special powers were my assurances of success. Even my hard-earned physical strength has waned, thanks to my imprisonment.
The other ogre pins my arms behind my back with no resistance from me. I’m unable to get my muscles to even twitch.
Despondency floods my body to where even my bones ache. Brutus is dead, Crisa and Mordea are—who knows where?—and I’m Galdo’s next victim.
I can offer no struggle or even spit in their faces as the ogres remove my armor and lift me onto the cold steel gurney, probably the same one from which we freed Brambel. They splay my arms out on both sides of me, secure them with leather straps, and tie my feet to the end of the table with scratchy rope.
I feel like I’m on a medieval torture rack, my muscles and joints stretched to the breaking point. A leather band is fastened around my forehead and yanked tight. I try to test my restraints, but, even though my brain tells my muscles to move, my body doesn’t respond.
One of the ogres covers my mouth with a gag, I assume so they won’t have to listen to my screams.
Galdo rubs his hands like he can’t wait to dig into me. “I still have that gnome’s zapping ability, which is why you can’t move. And I’ve also stolen the leprechaun’s teleportation power. By using one of Crisa’s spells, I augmented that power, which only a truly great sorcerer can do.”
Sounds like plain old theft to me.
“Now I can teleport any objects or people near me, at my will.”
He lifts his chin and flicks the end of h
is long nose again. He snorts. “As for your Arctic cold, I used the garden gnomes’ electrical forces to warm my body after you left my lab.”
Something about his story sounds fishy. He was too frozen to even think. How could he have used any magic? And how was he not killed or at least mangled by that cyclone?
Galdo adds, “You think you’re so clever, but you underestimate me.”
If I could speak, I’d tell him, “No, you underestimate me and the friends and allies I have in this war, including the Creator.”
I do something I should have done much earlier. I send a quick prayer heavenward. “Creator, help me.”
I receive an immediate response. “I’m with you, Calen. Rest assured. Galdo can’t steal the power I gave you because I won’t let him. Your gift is bonded to your soul, as much a part of you as your eye color. When Galdo attempts his thievery, you will feel pain, but I will limit its extent.
“Please accept this truth. Who you are matters to me, not what you can do. You are a king in my kingdom, with or without magic, with or without strength. When you are weak, I am strong.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not alone and have divine strength, beyond Galdo’s imagination, to draw on. I should be frightened out of my wits right now by what Galdo’s planning, but the Creator has calmed my spirit, although my body is still on high alert.
While I can’t turn my head, I can move my eyes to see a tray next to the gurney on which the sorcerer is lining up metal tools, his wand, and a hypodermic needle with his long, spidery fingers. He snaps rubber gloves over his hands as he taunts, “I suppose you think the Creator is going to help you now.”
My heart pound in my ears, and droplets of sweat pop out on my forehead.
“When was the last time you saw him or touched him? Face it. He’s a myth, perpetuated by weak, dependent creatures like you. I prefer beings I can see and touch, beings with real power.”
Is he speaking of Natas? And what ‘real’ power is he speaking of, the weaker, evil kind?
I wish I could tell him, “You’re the one who’s been fooled. If you’ve ever watched a flower bloom or the sun rise, you must know the Creator’s brand of tangible, real magic is far beyond anything you, Natas, Crisa or I can conjure. And I have felt the Creator, whenever I’ve truly needed his aid.”
The Creator adds in my head, “And I don’t allow you to see me because, if I did, even the smallest portion of my radiance would render you blind.”
Galdo adjusts the light over me. Then he picks up the syringe and pushes air out of it, until a little liquid squirts from the needle.
Somehow I’m going to escape this. Maybe this is just another bad dream.
He raises the syringe and smiles wide, like a lion playing with a mouse. “I want to savor this moment, the day I turn the tide of this war, and the light ones lose their leader. You will be the hero of Fairyland, just not in the way you thought. Your sacrifice here today will help me win this war and stop the fighting. Isn’t that what you want?” He tilts his head and sneers.
He hovers over me with his raptor nose and its oozing wart, needle poised above my forearm. “Okay, enough of these pleasantries. Let’s get down to business.”
The ogres grunt with satisfaction.
Galdo jabs the needle into my arm. “I want that marvelous weather ability of yours, and I’m going to destroy most of your brain to get it. I know you can’t die without silver being plunged into your heart, but you can live out the rest of your days as a vegetable. No more Calen as we know him.” He giggles gleefully.
He puts his face next to mine and whispers, “It’s okay to bite through your tongue from the pain. Everybody does.” I want to turn away from the smell of onions and garlic on his breath, but can’t.
The icy contents of the syringe flood my bloodstream.
Sweat trickles down my temples, and I brace myself mentally. I know the Creator said he’ll take some of the pain, but will I be able to withstand what’s left? My heart bangs out of my chest.
The ogres clap repeatedly.
Then every nerve ending tingles, and my heart rate slows to where I feel very sleepy. Whatever resolve I had to move and get off this table is gone.
What did he give me?
Galdo picks his wand up from the tray and points it at my temple. A yellow mist streams from his magic stick and slithers toward me like a basilisk, that deadly snake-like creature I fought in the front room of my house months ago. When the mist touches the side of my head, my brain starts to feel too large for my skull.
“Relax,” the Creator says, “and it won’t hurt as much.”
Easy for you to say.
My head feels like it’s going to explode, so I breathe in short, quick gasps, trying to ignore the pressure. I’m surprised there’s little pain, just unrelenting pressure.
I’m not going to give Galdo any kind of satisfaction by groaning or moaning.
But I am terrified as I feel consciousness slipping away and my ability to think vanishing.
Are my last conscious thoughts going to be of Galdo? No!
I think of my friends, Crisa, Grog, Brutus, Brambel, Jade and my new acquaintances, Mordea, Tumea, Caroom, Lawra, Geryen, Simean and even Berb. I remember Gambole and his family.
As the room around me fades, something rumbles, something louder than a leviathan walking.
That noise must be in my head, the sounds of Galdo extracting my champion power. Yet the sound intensifies, and the metal table begins to shake. The overhead lights flicker.
Earthquake?
I stare at the rough rock ceiling. Will that stone crumble onto my trapped body at any moment and pulverize me?
Galdo’s wand waivers, and the yellow mist evaporates. He looks down and grabs the cart next to him with its tool-lined tray. He must feel the vibrations too.
I wish I could grip the edge of the table.
“What are you doing, Creator?” No response.
The ogres hover close to Galdo, like he’ll protect them. Their eyes widen with fright, and they stare at the floor. When Galdo looks as frightened as they do, they back up from the table like it’s going to attack them. They jabber anxiously to each other.
What could frighten ogres?
The ogres leave my viewing range.
“Come back here!” Galdo screams at them.
Like the sound of shattering rocks or a massive landslide, a crackling roar fills the room. More scared than I’ve been in a long time, I can only stare at the throbbing ceiling above me and pray.
Galdo, who’s still gripping the table for balance, cries, “What is ...?” His hands fly upward, and he disappears from sight with an “Ahhhhh!”
What’s happening? I wish I could move because I can’t see anything below the level of this table.
My gaze flicks from one side of the room to the other as the air fills with dust. The ogres cough.
Am I going to dive downward like Galdo, to be swallowed whole by the earth?
In the midst of the roar, I hear what sounds like a motor and then a loud bang. The table vibrates and then tips sideways, hitting the floor with a clang, but the straps and rope keep me from falling off. I can see the lab’s rock floor now, which has a large fissure in it with numerous cracks around the edges that feather outward. That must be where Galdo disappeared moments ago. My gurney teeters near the edge.
The motor stops, and voices cheer. A helmeted head emerges from the hole in the floor and exclaims, “We’re through!” But I can’t see his face. I’m finally able to cough a little.
A crackling sound, like a CB radio, is followed by a male voice that shouts, “Roger that. Crisa says she’s neutralized him.”
Crisa? Did he say Crisa? She must be all right then. But where is she, and who did she neutralize?
The dust kicked up earlier settles, and a couple of more helmeted heads emerge from the ragged hole in the rock floor beside the table. Strong gloved hands grip the sides of the hole to pull themselves, my supposed r
escuers, up and over the edge. Yes, as improbable as it sounds, they’re rising out of the stone floor.
Where’s Galdo?
Someone orders from below, “Bind him. He’s still wily.”
“Yes, sir.”
At first I think they mean me, but then I remember I’m already bound. From the hole in the floor, Galdo snarls, “When I get my hands on you—”
Someone interrupts and orders from below, “Gag him.”
Galdo continues, “I’ll display your heads on poles, after ...”
Next comes Galdo’s mumbling and a ripple of laughter.
A few moments later, someone says, “There, he’s secure. Those magic ropes Crisa gave us are holding.”
Someone else snickers. “Watch out for that thing on his nose. It looks nasty.” Chuckling follows.
Suddenly, the gurney is pushed back, and I feel the ropes around my legs being loosened. Next, my head is released, and then my arms are freed.
Because of the crazy angle of the table, when I’m free, I slide to the floor. Then my sweaty body glides a little across its surface, coming to rest at the edge of the hole with my lower legs dangling over the edge.
I still can’t move, thanks to whatever Galdo’s magic and that needle did to me.
I feel myself slipping into the hole, but someone yells, “Grab him!” Several pairs of strong arms latch onto me and pull me away from the fissure’s edge and onto the still solid part of the lab floor. Then they prop me up against the tilted gurney.
I look up at three short but heavily muscled creatures dressed in helmets and brown camouflage gear. When they flip up their face masks, I recognize them as ground gnomes, their faces striped by black and brown war paint.
One of them points his oversized mining hammer at the ogres who cower against the far wall and asks, “What about them?” The ogres’ eyes bug out, and they raise their hands in surrender and tremble.
“Bind them.” Two of these small soldiers walk over to the ogres, who offer no resistance.
Though ogres are many times the size of ground gnomes, they’re scared for good reason. These gnomes pack more punch per pound than any other light being. They mine the earth all day, splitting and hauling ore, so they’re highly fit and incredibly strong. And they never back down from a fight.