by Aire, D. H.
Balfour shook his head, knowing George was not being particularly accepting of their having become Cathartan lords by bond. Glancing at Me’oh, he swallowed. There were some advantages to the gift, which George deemed rather problematic.
There was a soft knock at the door. Cle’or glanced inside and saw George and the were child still sleeping. “Se’and sent a messenger. She’s on her way back. Apparently Lord Gerig has a few more questions.”
Balfour nodded as the well-armed blonde, who had taken to watching over him ducked back outside. Me’oh glanced at him with a cryptic smile. He swallowed. Having Cle’or as a bodyguard and would-be wife presented him his own set of moral qualms. Luckily, he was a healer and actually could now heal himself of any physical harm. He heard Me’oh softly chuckling.
The archaeologist from a distant world, which the ancestors to this world’s branch of humanity had called home, dreamed, and he wasn’t alone….
‘George, this is really a fine mess you’ve gotten us into.’
“Oh, don’t start!” he replied to his staff, trudging up to the top of the rocky outcropping in his dream, a memory of his final days in the Great Waste.
It was terribly hot in this desert. He’d considered using his wyvern hide cloak for shade and waiting for nightfall now that he had gotten to what he considered a safe distance from the half buried colony ship the trolls called home.
He looked about him. Greth had taken him as far as he felt safe and told him to keep heading toward the mountain range on the western horizon. The computer flashed with the ship’s memory core’s images of what this land had once looked like. A great forest lay to the north that stretched hundreds of miles. The mountains hadn’t been there, and this desert had been grassy hills with flowing streams, home to wildlife that looked remarkably terrestrial in origin.
‘Because they were,’ the computer staff whispered in his mind.
War had changed all that. A war most terrible, driving the survivors and the wildlife that was able to flee these lands as magic and science were used as weapons until the elves changed the rules.
George apparently paused too long. The Summoning drove him to his knees. His head felt like a spike was being driven through it as the staff in his hands flared.
Come to me!
Stumbling forward, he fought to stop moving.
Come to me!
“Why?” he cried.
I summoned you! The need is great!
“I will not be used… against… my will!”
‘Increasing rapport level!’ the computer staff shouted as he came to a halt.
Come to me!
The pain diminished, but was not gone. “Stop this! I’ll come, but I must know why!”
The Summoning eased. Come to me and I shall answer all questions.
“Right… Not good enough.”
There was a long pause. You shall find food and water in the Barrier Mountains.
It offered no more.
“That’ll have to do for now.”
Out of the north wyverns raced, their demonic master shouting, “Find the mage and kill him!”
They raced for days and finally caught his scent. Yet they were not the only ones giving chase or alerted to a change in the winds of fate.
An old man watched his clan go about their daily routine, then felt the presence approaching. It was moving fast, coming out of the west and racing southward toward a place that few knew even existed, a passage through the earth leading to the trapped lands of the Great Waste.
The unicorn turned its head to look up at the mountains, sensing the old man. I leave you to your peace, old friend.
Stiffening, the old man in mountain woolens many leagues distant whispered seemingly to the wind, “Highmage be with you.”
After continuing on, George paused, sweat pouring down his face, the sun at least a lot closer to sunset, “I thought I was in better shape.”
‘Take it from me, you definitely weren’t.’
Breathing hard, he muttered, “Oh, thanks.”
‘Think nothing of it.’
“Distance to that mountain range?”
The computer flashed the distance across his mind and answered, ‘At your current pace, we’ll reach it in two days. Of course, you’ll then have to climb.’
He took a deep breath then resumed his march through the sands. “Sounds fun.”
A wyvern paused on an outcropping of bare stone as the sunset cast a lurid pall over the desert. Sniffing the breeze, its hunting companions burst into view, growling. It bared its sharp teeth.
He had moved. He lay southeastward, heading toward the mountains.
FIND HIM! KILL THE MAGE! Their demonic master raged at them through the ether. The wyverns cringed, whining. KILL HIM BEFORE HE CAN RUIN ALL MY PLANS!
The first wyvern roared, then its brother and sister began to howl. The sound was picked up by seven other throats and they bounded southward.
The sound was eerie and one that echoed in his memory, George glanced north. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Staff didn’t quibble. ‘No, it doesn’t. I’m detecting ten different howls.’
“Well, isn’t that just great. Looks like I’m not stopping to sleep tonight.”
Rock shifted in the mountain wall, creating an opening. There was a brilliant white light jutting up in the shape of a horn as the unicorn charged out of the stygian darkness of the secret tunnel.
The stars were coming out as it exited into the desert lands it once called home.
Wyverns are on his trail, a faint echo of the voice it recognized whispered on the winds.
Horn aglow the unicorn ran northwest, desperate to reach the Summoned in time.
George continued through the night, the staff modifying his sight to night vision mode. His eyes dilated like a cat’s as the first rays of morning turned the darkness a lighter shade as he passed in the lee of dunes.
‘George, I’m detecting an anomaly.’
He saw shards of twisted metal jutting from the sands to his left. “Scan.”
Magnetic energy spiked around him, reacting to the computer’s effort. The metal shards quivered.
“Shit, they’re teeth!” He dove backward as what he first thought of as a trap sprang closed, just missing his right foot.
‘Uh, George,’ the staff whispered in his mind as the trap quivered, its maw opening, turning toward him.
He didn’t dare move as he clutched his staff, which blazed and sent a blast of energy toward the far sand dune. The metal maw reoriented and turned away from him, pulled out of the ground to reveal what once had been conduits and now looked more like sinewy necks.
Concentrating, a beam of high intensity laser light shot between the conduits and his staff, ‘Transmitting Questor override.’
The metal maw jerked, then settled.
‘Whatever it is, it’s deactivated.’
“Probe its databank.”
‘Complete. It’s not very sophisticated, particularly for a modified housebot.’
George thought the colonists must have been desperate to create giant compacters out of household aids.
‘That’s a Class Three colonial transport housebot, gutted for use as a defense system.’
It apparently hadn’t worked as planned. There were traces of human bones deep within its innards. ‘George….’
Eyes wide, he muttered, “Great, we’re in a mine field of the damned things.”
Walking through a mine field at night wasn’t fun. However, there were advantages to having a computer with archaeological scan capabilities. Dozens of the things were long destroyed, which seemed purposeful. There was a safe path through it. Either the long ago colonists left themselves a way out or the elves had blazed a way in.
There had once been a town or outpost here.
‘Scanning.’
The evidence flashed before his eyes. Bits of energy weapons were still visible. He could see half buried components, slagged bits of gun grips. O
xidized blast burns. Their tech-base hadn’t saved them.
He could envision the place as it once had been: prefab colonial structures mixed with native metals, buildings that would have seemed at home on a hundred early colony worlds. He shuddered seeing evidence of their end.
The echoing wyverns howl decided him. This would be where he made his stand. The fact that the Summoning had gone quiescent also didn’t bode well. Apparently there was no better place for him.
“Ward.”
The computer staff planted itself firmly upon the ground and George closed his eyes to get what rest he could while his entwined mind joined the computer’s foray in conversing with the mechanical menaces around him.
They slowed approaching the place. The faint scent of oxidizing metals reached their sensitive nasal slits. The smell of a man wafted stronger.
Jagged metal lined the area. They entered, seeking to be stealthy now that their prey was so close.
Staff tracked the life sources entering the erratic mine field. It had broadcast a Questor code, ordering the quasi-functioning machines to not react but to be prepared. The former bots didn’t even quiver.
“Now,” George rasped as the last entered the trap.
The maws burst forth from the suddenly spewing sands. Wyverns cried in pain as metallic jaws slammed shut around half their number, crushed to death and sucked under the earth in moments.
Others found themselves confronting the snapping metal jaws, which caught at legs or flanks. Several fought free and found themselves retreating, only to have sands spew upward as they set off another trap.
A wyvern whimpered, cut in half. Its eyes grew dark as life went out from them. Another fought free then charged the bent metal imprisoning its sister. The metal snapped and now two of them were free, glancing about as a wyvern was flung high into the air by something akin to magefire.
George, staff held high, sent blasts of energy into now wary beasts.
A wyvern roared charging on three feet, a foreleg mangled and bloody. It rebounded from the man’s shield of light even as two less injured creatures joined the fray.
He fired blast after blast of balls of energy at the three creatures as the computer flashed warnings that the shield strength was dropping with every impact as the wyverns rammed it over and over. He found himself unconsciously stepping backward.
Something huge bounded past him, undetected by computer staff’s scan. “What the…!”
What looked like a horse with a glowing white horn slammed into the nearest wyvern, which cried out as that horn dipped and touched its flesh. Smoke rose from the slashing burn as the wyvern whimpered, shying away.
I brought help. The Summoning said in his mind.
Time seemed to slow outside of George’s shielded perimeter. Yet the white horse seemed unaffected by the dilation of time as the wyvern moved sluggishly. “Target!”
The staff did, firing blast after blast, even as another wounded wyvern fought free of the odd mine field of still snapping jagged metal teeth. It entered the dilation field around them and slowed.
The unicorn reared, then the Summoning cried, Sorry about this!
Turning, the blazing horn touched his shield. There was an explosion and George lost consciousness.
When he woke, the unicorn was nudging him.
“Ow.”
I did apologize, the Summoning said.
“Yeah, big help,” he muttered.
Actually it is. The Demonlord thinks you are dead.
“What?” he said sitting up with his staff, which had fallen beside him close.
Before that last wyvern died, it shared its vision of you dying as its brethren tore you to pieces.
‘No such activity occurred,’ Staff replied.
From the wyvern’s perspective it did.
The unicorn nodded. ‘Did good,’ he heard a feminine voice say in his mind.
“Um, yeah.” Talking horse, what’s next?
‘Pigs flying?’ Staff offered.
Sighing, he decided, “I’ve had enough of this. Send me home now!”
I am sorry but I cannot. You must come to me to do that, the Summoning replied. And you’ll need to do a few things for me first.
“No deal.”
You have no choice.
“No. You see, I’d rather die.”
You must come to me!
“Only on my own terms!”
The Summoning pressed on him. His legs threatened to buckle as his staff flared.
“On… my… own… terms!”
The Summoning eased.
The unicorn nudged him. ‘Climb on my back. I shall take you to the mountains.”
There is food and water in the mountains.
George hesitated.
Staff said, ‘Don’t be more of an idiot than you have to be.’
“Oh, hell.”
The unicorn knelt and he mounted bareback. The Summoning didn’t haunt him, likely far too pleased with itself. They reached the base of the mountains before they heard the echoing howl of wyverns.
The unicorn stopped, glanced back at him and bespoke him, ‘I shall deal with them.’
“I guess the Demonlord didn’t buy my death scene,” George bemoaned, dismounting his promised steed.
The Summoning replied, No, he did, he just sent out more than one group of hunters. Those wyverns are just looking for a nice meal.
“Great,” he responded as the unicorn bounded away, intent on leading them off. He glanced up and licked his dry lips. It was a rather long climb. He slung the staff across his back, securing it through the loops Mendra had built into the inner lining of his cloak for such a contingency, then started his climb, wondering what next this world would throw at him.
Raven followed his dream. ‘?’
‘Why share this with you?’ Staff said. ‘Because you have choices too. You are free to stay or go.’
‘Where?’
‘It is a wide world.’
‘Witch?’
‘There may be others who would use you as she did. But, doubtless, you would find friends.’
‘?’
‘Yes, I think you have found friends here. George could certainly use another. He certainly shares the same enemies.’
She opened her eyes and found herself staring into George’s.
“Welcome to the show,” he muttered.
She licked his face.
“Yuck.”
“Oh good, you’re awake,” Balfour said. “Get dressed, Gee-orj, Se’and’s apparently brought Lord Gerig and the entire new city council.”
Raven licked him again then rose languidly from the bed.
‘George, you do seem to gather most unusual bodyguards.’
“Don’t start,” he muttered, dreading addressing the gathering downstairs.
His newfound friend smiled wolfishly and Staff said, ‘George, I suspect they’re not going to be pestering you as much as you think.’
Raven’s tongue lolled out with a dark twinkle in her eyes.
“Good thing we won’t be staying much longer.” That the Summoning didn’t even give him a twinge, he knew didn’t bode well, not at all.
Chapter 18: Bandits on the Road
The next day George, his sudden family, and the rest of the party traveled on, only days ahead of the oncoming Demonlord armies. The group rode well off the main road, traversing the forest, hoping to pass unnoticed.
Balfour had suddenly interposed his bay across his path as Cle’or returned from scouting ahead.
“Surely, you must admit we all could use a rest,” he said, gesturing to Cle’or and her fellow Cathartan escort, who signaled the all-clear. “We are not likely to find a better place to make camp than here in the deep woods.”
If George had hoped to continue traveling, that hope vanished as the black liveried, well-armed ladies of their escort made the decision for him. All four of them dismounted. Raven watched from the back of her carefully chosen, rather placid mount, which was also t
he only horse willing to bear her.
Se’and, the nominal leader of the escort, blithely ordered her sisters to attend to the duties of making camp.
“This is ridiculous!” George said. “We need to get as much distance as we can from Edous as quickly as we can!”
Balfour frowned, “Gee-orj, the Summoning is not driving you to distraction. So no mageborn threat pursues us.”
At mention of the spell that beckoned him ever closer to the Aqwaine Empire, George said, “So what? Must I be irrational to want to push on as fast as we can?”
‘The probability,’ whispered the computer staff in George’s mind, ‘of such an event at this point, after the precautions thus far taken, is only 19.362%.’
He glared at the tall staff in his hand.
“Enough! I’ll not argue with both of you,” said George.
Se’and glanced at her older companion Me’oh, who aided Balfour.
The Cathartan women were growing accustomed to the strange by-play between their human mage Lord Je’orj and his magical staff, which they were often reminded was not a thing of magery but was something called a “computer.” George was a bit of an enigma to them all. He seemed to be a human mage, something which should be impossible. Humans were said to have no magic. Only those of elvin blood, however minute, could claim such talent. Yet the Cathartans had seen firsthand that George could wield high magery.
The youngest Cathartan, Fri’il, dutifully took hold of George’s bridle as he dismounted. She smiled up at him even as the black-haired girl, Raven, the youngest of their party, leapt from her startled horse’s back. Before anyone could think to prevent her she threw off her hand-me-down black livery, her sole garment, and raced toward the sound of rippling water, which only she could hear behind the bank of trees to their right.
Se’and groaned then shouted at her foster daughter, “Raven, come back here this instant! You cannot just scamper about naked! You are human and will behave like one!”
The girl came to a halt looking chagrined. So crestfallen was she that George could not help but laugh. “Oh, what’s the use! You deserve a break too after more than a week of hard riding!”