“Our ancestors beat the Dor’chacht in a fight three thousand years ago,” Piper explained, “but they didn’t like losing.”
“So they’re looking for a rematch,” Paige added.
Karen inhaled sharply, apparently shocked at how much Phoebe’s sisters had deduced. She recovered quickly. “Yes. Shen’arch arranged it before the Sol’agath struck the winning blow.”
Since it was all news to Phoebe, the suspense had her on the edge of her seat.
“Shen’arch?” Leo asked.
“Chief sorcerer of the Dor’chacht clan,” Karen offered proudly. “The greatest master of magic that ever walked the Earth.”
“He couldn’t have been that great,” Paige said. “He’s not here.”
Karen smiled. “He will be, after we reclaim the destiny your Sol’agath ancestors stole from us. Then we’ll become the dominant magical force in the mortal world.”
“Their ancestors won fair and square,” Leo said tightly. “That fact doesn’t change just because Shen’arch figured out how to beat the system.”
“Bureaucracy must be a universal constant,” Paige murmured as she started to doze off.
“How did Shen’arch do that?” Piper asked.
Phoebe realized that Piper was counting on Karen’s eagerness to brag about her ancient leader’s prowess to reveal something useful. A moment later, she had no idea who Karen was talking about.
“Shen’arch transferred the powers of the Dor’chacht’s best warriors into objects so the Higher Powers couldn’t find them,” Karen said.
Phoebe frowned. “So they couldn’t find the powers or the warriors?”
“The powers.” Karen gripped the flute tighter.
“That’s why the Elders didn’t know anything.” Leo paled as the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. “There was no magical signature to track.”
“Not for the past three thousand years.” Karen gloated. She was enjoying the discomfort her disclosures caused the Charmed descendants of her enemies. “And as long as the Dor’chacht magic is not released until the battle is rejoined, the Higher Powers cannot touch us.”
“How convenient,” Piper said.
“You’re one of the warriors?” Phoebe asked.
“I am Sh’tara, the mind-bender.” Karen’s posture stiffened, her blue eyes narrowed to piercing slits, and her mouth curled into a sneer. “The warrior essences of Tov’reh, Ce’kahn, and myself were transferred into three humans at the instant of conception, twenty-six years ago.”
Paige opened one eye. “Kevin, Kate, and you.”
“In that order, yes.” Karen’s satisfied smile was cold, her gaze devoid of human compassion.
Paige glared at Karen. “Okay, so this Shen’arch guy found a loophole, and the Dor’chacht get a second chance. What makes you so sure you can win this time?”
Piper rolled her eyes. “Because they’re cheating.”
“Nonsense. All’s fair in matters of war.” Karen laughed and held up her flute.
“By making your magic ineffectual instead of taking all your powers away,” Leo said, “the Dor’chacht can challenge you to combat under the ancient rules of engagement without fear of reprisal.” His gaze shifted from Piper to Paige and Phoebe. “But with your magic and the Power of Three diminished, a Dor’chacht victory is certain.”
“Leo!” Piper glowered at her husband for daring to doubt the Charmed Ones’ ability to overcome impossible odds.
“Time!” Paige jumped out of her chair and made a T with her hands. “I zoned out at ‘second chance.’ Can someone fill me in on what I missed?”
“I’ve said all I have to say.” Karen stood up and placed the flute in its case. She snapped it closed and paused at the base of the stairs. “Until tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow?” Piper scowled. “What about tomorrow?”
“You’ll find out at midnight.” Karen flipped her long hair over her shoulder and mounted the stairs with the unhurried step of someone in complete control. She unlocked the door and let it fall softly closed behind her.
Phoebe hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until Karen was gone. She exhaled with a whoosh.
Piper cuffed Leo’s arm. “Their victory is a certainty? What was that all about?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know.” Paige struggled to keep her eyes open. “Actually, I’ve got a bunch of blanks that need filling in.”
“Can I get a soda from the bar?” Phoebe asked.
“Sure.” Piper glanced at Leo and folded her arms. “Okay, mister, explain yourself.”
“Arrogance may be the Dor’chacht’s worst enemy,” Leo said, “because they think they have an unbeatable edge.”
“They do!” The torrential tears Piper had been keeping in check burst from her eyes. “Our powers are practically drained dry.”
“They don’t have their powers either,” Paige said. “Not at the moment anyway.”
“But we can’t use the magic we have left against them now because they’re human and we’re not.” Piper blinked back more tears.
“A sorcerer as powerful and cunning as Shen’arch would leave nothing to chance.” Leo shifted uncomfortably. “It’s probably safe to assume the Dor’chacht can get their powers back without releasing yours when the battle begins.”
“Tomorrow at midnight.” Piper sighed.
“What if we don’t show up?” Paige swayed to the side but caught herself before she toppled off the chair. “It takes two sides to wage a war.”
“Except your only choice will be to fight or die.” Leo shrugged, as though to apologize for ancient ritual codes he couldn’t help or change. “In ancient times, all magical family disputes were settled in the Valley of Ages. Since tomorrow’s battle is essentially a continuation of the original conflict, it will be held there too.”
“So?” Phoebe leaned on the bar, sipping her soda. She didn’t understand the problem. Nobody could fight somebody who wasn’t there, like Paige said.
“So at midnight tomorrow,” Leo said, “you’ll all be automatically transported to the Valley of Ages to face the Dor’chacht clan’s chosen three.”
“I know I’m not going to like the answer, but I have to ask.” Piper started to blow her nose, but her tissue fell apart. Fighting another rush of tears, she grabbed a stack of cocktail napkins off the bar. “What happens if we lose?”
All three witches focused on the Whitelighter.
Leo didn’t try to cushion the blow. “You and anyone else who has Sol’agath blood will lose your powers…forever.”
“And?” Paige rocked forward.
Feeling chilled, Phoebe rubbed her arms.
Leo sighed. “And since there will be no benevolent magic or Charmed Ones to protect the innocent, humanity will ultimately succumb to the influences of evil and embrace the darker side of human nature.”
Chapter
8
Clutching the phone, Kevin sat up in bed and glanced at the time. It was almost three in the morning. Karen had called as soon as she had left P3 to tell him about her confrontation with the Charmed Ones.
“I wasn’t able to drain the last portion of Piper’s power,” Karen stated flatly.
“Unfortunate, but not a disaster,” Kevin assured her. It was long past the time anything could stop the mystical processes Shen’arch had set in motion millennia before. “It probably wouldn’t hurt to have a strategy meeting tomorrow, though.”
“Whatever, just as long as we succeed.” Karen paused, as though savoring the thought she expressed. “You have no idea how anxious I am to command their Sol’agath minds.”
“As much as Ce’kahn is looking forward to whipping up a hurricane?” Kevin smiled, imagining Paige as a magnificent centaur. He could hardly wait until he was infused with his lost power to transform anything and anyone into whatever he desired. “Tomorrow, Sh’tara.”
“Destiny awaits, Tov’reh.”
After Karen hung up, Kevin was too restless
to stay cooped up indoors. Stripped of his magical power, he had been condemned to live among ordinary humans as an ordinary human, and he had resented every minute of the past twenty-six years. Now, thanks to the quick thinking and cunning of the Dor’chacht’s most powerful sorcerer, Shen’arch, they were only hours away from taking back what the Sol’agath had stolen from them.
Slipping into sweats, Kevin stepped outside the lower level garden apartment and paused to test scent. The damp musk of decomposing leaves and human sweat were overpowered by the repugnant odors of gasoline fumes and other unnatural chemical compounds. He gagged, then snorted to expel the foul industrial taints from his nostrils. The ultrasensitive senses he had inherited from his previous life as a warrior sorcerer had been hard to disguise while he was growing up in suburban Seattle. Soon he wouldn’t have to care if his primitive inclinations might offend his more civilized contemporaries. They would be at his barbaric mercy.
The refined Sol’agath never should have beaten the savage Dor’chacht, Kevin thought as he ran across the street into the neighborhood park. A narrow strip of woods along the perimeter encircled a broad, manicured meadow. The artificial wilderness wasn’t ideal, but it helped revive his spirit and settle his thoughts.
Moving with animal stealth, Kevin kept to the trees that paralleled the paths. Exercising prudence, he rarely indulged the hunter’s instinct to stalk the few joggers whose high-pressure careers forced them to run at night or in the early morning. They never saw or heard him. It was a game he had played since childhood, a way to prove his superiority over the humans he loathed. He despised being one of them even more, a prisoner in his body, unable to alter his form or theirs.
But not for long, Kevin thought as he ran through the woods. He was alone in the darkness of the predawn hours, but he welcomed the solitude. Tomorrow he would be able to kill with a word.
Sitting on a bench, Kevin closed his eyes and let his mind drift back to the last, fateful minutes of his real life.
He had been soaring above the battlefield, his falcon’s beak and talons dripping with Sol’agath blood. Then Shen’arch had pulled him out of the sky….
• • •
Tov’reh could not fight the master sorcerer’s enormous power or ignore Shen’arch’s command to come. When his feet touched the rain-soaked earth, he stumbled as hooked talons reverted to feet wrapped in furs and leather thongs. Feathered wings and head plume became bruised flesh and matted hair. Exposed to the fury of Ce’kahn’s storm and more vulnerable to the Sol’agath’s magic in man form, he dove for cover behind a fallen tree.
Shen’arch was waiting, but Tov’reh would be of no use to the old man if he was vanquished by a spell or blackened into char by lightning.
“Tov’reh!” The sound of Sh’tara’s panicked call reached him on a wave of rolling thunder. “Where are you?”
Tov’reh crawled to the end of the massive tree trunk and looked across the forbidding expanse of the Valley of Ages. Separated and concealed from the mortal realm by cosmic wards and impassable mountains, the valley had been the arena for magical blood feuds since the first chosen primals had learned to channel elemental power. Now, although enclaves of magical people were scattered around the globe, only two major clans remained: the Dor’chacht and the Sol’agath. Within the hour, there would be only one.
“Sh’tara!” Tov’reh stood up, watching anxiously as the mind-bender dashed around geysers of steam venting from fissures in the rocky valley floor.
On a high butte to her right, a pair of Sol’agath witches joined hands and began to recite. The words were lost in the howl of the wind, but that didn’t diminish the effects of their spell. A tower of jagged rock erupted from the ground in front of Sh’tara and sprouted tendrils of molten ore. Sh’tara’s power to command minds was useless against mindless rock. She hesitated as fingers of metal fire began to close around her.
“Ice!” Tov’reh focused on the molten rock formation, but his power was ebbing into the ether. He was not strong enough to negate the Sol’agath spell, but the burning trap froze long enough for Sh’tara to race beyond it.
As she ran toward him, it was obvious Sh’tara’s energies were almost depleted. Tov’reh wished he could endow her with the powerful, swift legs of a horse, but he dared not sap any more of his strength. He swore when she stopped to retrieve the wooden flute that fell off her belt, but the Sol’agath witches on the butte had turned their attention and their magic on someone else.
“Shen’arch is calling,” Sh’tara blurted out when she reached his side. “We must find Ce’kahn.”
“I know.” Tov’reh wrapped an arm around the breathless sorceress and scanned the valley behind him. During brief flashes of lightning, he caught glimpses of the raging battle obscured in the drizzle of Ce’kahn’s waning storm.
Blond and blue-eyed, the Dor’chacht warriors wore metal armor inlaid with gold and silver over leather, furs, and tunics woven of coarse fabrics. The ferocious sorcerers hurled explosive spells and brandished enchanted swords against the dark-haired witches, who wore unadorned shirts, leggings, and robes. Peaceful by nature, the Sol’agath defended themselves with shields and spells that reflected the virulent evil of the Dor’chacht’s destructive power. The molten rock tower had been conjured from the hardness of Sh’tara’s heart and the smoldering embers of her seething but unshakable resolve.
And every successful Sol’agath spell diminished Dor’chacht power.
“There she is.” Sh’tara pointed, shouting to be heard over the clang of sword against shield and the roar of Dor’chacht curses. “Over there.”
Spotting Ce’kahn lying in a pool of mud, Tov’reh ran toward her with Sh’tara following behind. He was stricken with sudden despair when he saw Shen’arch approaching from the opposite direction. The master sorcerer rarely expended physical energies, preferring to rely on his magics. Since the old man was not using his powers to find them, the outcome of the battle seemed not to bode well for the Dor’chacht.
“Here. The tempest has tired you.” Tov’reh extended his hand to help Ce’kahn rise, but she hissed to warn him back. When he did not move fast enough, her temper flared. A bolt of lightning struck the ground at his feet.
“Enough bickering among yourselves!” Shen’arch swatted Ce’kahn’s leg with his silver tipped staff. His scowl was dark, his mood foul. “Do you not feel your magic being drawn away? The battle is lost, and we are almost out of time.”
“I will never surrender,” Ce’kahn spat as she struggled to stand. Slashes of blood and mud streaked her cheeks and brow. Her long golden hair was tangled with twigs and black vines, and her cold blue eyes glinted with defiance.
Sh’tara threw her head back in a shriek of rage.
Tov’reh compressed his anger into a glare he fixed on the old sorcerer. “We challenged the Sol’agath, Shen’arch. If we lose, everyone in the clan will forfeit their power and magical identity forever.”
“Yes, yes.” The old man waved his staff with annoyed impatience. “But there is an exception to every supernatural law, Tov’reh, or so it often seems.”
“Are you saying we can thwart fate?” Sh’tara asked, incredulous.
“If the bones read true,” the sorcerer said, “the Dor’chacht have one chance to reverse destiny, to save later what we will lose now. We must act quickly, though.”
“I’ll do anything to prevent the Sol’agath from having magical dominance in the mortal world,” Ce’kahn said.
Tov’reh and Sh’tara both nodded.
“We cannot prevent the Sol’agath from reaping the rewards of their victory,” Shen’arch said, “but their reign does not have to last forever.”
“Explain,” Tov’reh demanded, intrigued.
“First we must hide your magics so the Higher Powers cannot steal them now or detect them in the future.” Shen’arch placed his silver-tipped staff on the ground with Sh’tara’s flute and one of Ce’kahn’s gold armbands.
No one questioned th
e wisdom of the plan. When the master sorcerer instructed them to kneel with a hand on the objects, Tov’reh touched the wooden staff. At Shen’arch’s command, he used his remaining power to transform the long pole into a shorter walking stick with a curved, silver handle.
Shen’arch raised his arms, his voice strong as he intoned his spell. “Dark magics of the Dor’chacht clan, all powers that were yours return; course through the blood, flow from the hand into these lifeless vessels burn!”
The blood in Tov’reh’s veins grew hot as his power flooded back into him, then cooled as the recovered abilities rushed through his fingertips into the staff. Before he collapsed on the ground beside Sh’tara and Ce’kahn, he saw that all three artifacts had been etched with the scrolling symbols of infinite and eternal magic.
“Listen and remember,” Shen’arch said.
Exhausted and weak, Tov’reh closed his eyes and drifted off under the hypnotic lull of Shen’arch’s whispered words.
“You will sleep now and awaken in three times a thousand years. What must be known will be known at the proper time. Warriors of darkness, die now to live again. The fate of all goes with you….”
Shaking himself from the reflective trance, Kevin brushed his hair back with both hands and took a deep breath. He still marveled at Shen’arch’s wisdom and power.
Everything had happened just as the ancient sorcerer had predicted. Their spirits, memories, and personalities had been transferred from the ancient battlefield directly into new bodies twenty-six years shy of three millennia in the future.
Born into abandoned infants and adopted by different families, Kevin, Karen, and Kate had all been told what they had to do and needed to know in adolescent dreams. Driven by identical imperatives, they had all arrived in the same French village on the same day two years ago. They had recognized one another immediately and had had no trouble finding the cave where Shen’arch had stashed the flute, armband, and cane. However, to prevent the Higher Powers from discovering their Dor’chacht identity and taking their powers, they could not release the hidden magics until the vengeance battle began.
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