by John Conroe
“Thanks, Mack, and yes, he is. He says it’s hard to concentrate and that it’s almost like the magic wants him to use it. He said it’s like an astronaut on the moon trying to walk with almost no gravity. One wrong twitch and he might leap seventy feet instead of two.”
Mack started to pick his way across the floor of the amphitheater, walking almost exactly in the middle. Tables had been brought into the giant forum room for the bipeds while the dragons all roosted high above in their archways. A vast area in the center had been left clear for possibly dancing or something. The tables were all occupied by the aristocracy of both Realms, with a clear line of demarcation between the two sides, Summer lords and ladies in front of Zinnia’s side of the table and Winter nobles in front of Morrigan’s. Only their small table was in front of Ashley’s position, the empty space emphasizing her lack of people.
Mack was three quarters of the way to Declan when it happened. The group of green-clad Hunters surrounding Princess Eirwen burst into laughter and Declan’s head swiveled their way.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t make that out? Is she goblin shit or a goblin shitting?” he asked the Hunters with a mild grin that didn’t match the look in his eyes.
Mack knew that grin and knew the Declan grenade was a hair trigger from going off.
All of the elves at the big table turned and looked at Declan with varying expressions of either surprise or disgust. Before the Hunters could answer, Eirwen turned and spoke to Ashley. “Speaker control your… escort before he causes a diplomatic incident.”
“Too late, Eirwen. Your group has already caused one. Perhaps you should control your tongues and stop insulting my group. Or did you think speaking your own language makes it okay? Maybe he did you a favor by letting you know he understands Elvish,” Ashley said back to her. The little Speaker had a quick temper, as Mack had seen demonstrated many times at College Arcane.
“You make a fair point, Speaker. But rein in your guardian before I show him what a queen of the realms is capable of,” Zinnia said before her daughter could respond, starting to stand. The queen wore a diaphanous gown the color of a summer sky and when she walked, you could swear you could almost see completely through it. Mack had certainly given it his best try when she had come to dinner. Just now, he was much less interested in that aspect of her.
“Ma’am, if you are throwing out a challenge to me, I have to decline. I’m here at the Speaker’s whim, but if you’re throwing out a challenge to her, I’ll happily take you out on that. After all, this isn’t your realm,” Declan said, now leaning against the wall, unconcerned. Mack was pretty sure Declan’s choice of words had been deliberate.
Mack felt his stomach contract as the tension rose along with Queen Zinnia’s eyebrows. She started to turn toward the young witch as her blue guard began to move. That’s when Gargax roared so loud it shook plates, platters, and glassware off the tables and onto the hard stone floor.
The giant dragon launched himself from his balcony and thundered down onto the dance area so hard that food literally jumped up from the tables, some of which collapsed completely. His claws ripped furrows in the stone floor and his massive head went back and flame shot thirty feet up into the air, the heat from it washing over the crowd.
He snapped his mouth shut and leaned forward on bat-winged forelegs to peer at the royal table, which had frozen completely.
“Gargax says that if any are challenging the Speaker, then they are challenging him. He accepts all challenges and is ready now,” Ashley said from her place, voice calm but eyes fierce. Mack fell a bit in love with her right then.
After a brief pause, Queen Morrigan, who looked the calmest, turned to her sister. “How about it, Zinnia dear? Any challenges for the Dragon’s Speaker?” she asked.
“I was not challenging the Speaker. Merely offering advice about handling her staff,” Zinnia said, drawing her body up straight.
The massive dragon huffed, smoke blowing out his nostrils. Apparently satisfied his message had been sent and received, he turned, flowing back along his own length, remarkably agile for something the size of a tractor-trailer. With a flex of his legs, he launched himself back to his aerie.
It was more leap than flight, as he only had time and space for one flap of his jetliner wings before his talons crashed into the stone edge of his arch. Legs like crane supports flexed and his claws ripped right into the stone itself, tearing off pieces that fell straight down at the tables below as Gargax disappeared into the darkness of his arch.
The biggest chunk had to, in Mack’s estimate, go five hundred pounds, with numerous smaller chunks each bigger than a man’s head, all headed straight into the upturned faces of the poor guests who’d been parked farthest from the dais. Ten feet from the ground, the plummeting rocks suddenly stopped, motionless, just frozen in space, without a twitch or a tremor, right over an entire group of white-clothed elves. Then the cluster of broken stone reversed its path and rose silently back up to the broken ledge it had fallen from. The torn and shattered stone pressed back into its former spaces and then seemed to melt, lines and cracks disappearing, smooth edges reforming as if by… magic.
The gargantuan head of the dragon reappeared, sniffing the repaired edge and then lifting to look directly at the dais—at the young man still lounging against the wall, who now had one hand raised. Then the head retreated back into gloom, but the rest of the room had followed the dragon’s gaze and now watched the young witch whose hand returned slowly to his side.
“As I said, this ain’t your realm,” he said with a lazy, almost drunken grin.
“And that’s our cue,” Stacia whispered to Mack as she came up alongside him, heading for her witchy mate.
Ashley started to rise, but her father’s hand over hers stopped her. Pancho, the puck, had appeared from somewhere and was hovering over and slightly behind her right shoulder. Ian Moore, hand still covering his daughter’s, was watching Stacia and Mack quickly close the distance to the dais. Meanwhile the queens, princesses, and their entourages were all still staring at Declan.
Ashley’s head suddenly tilted, as if hearing something, and then she turned to Declan with a slight grin. “Gargax says you did a fine job fixing the broken ledge of his aerie.”
“No problem, Speaker. It’s why I’m here,” Declan said, slurring his words just a tiny, tiny bit. Stacia reached the dais and jumped onto it without effort or slowing her stride. Mack followed a bit slower just as she reached Ashley.
“Apologies, Speaker. Declan’s shift was overlong. My fault,” she said, moving past the seated girl and over to Declan.
“Ah, sure. No biggie. Go get some dinner, Declan,” Ashley said, eyes darting at her father, whose head might have made the smallest of nods.
Declan and Stacia moved back toward the table, holding hands, the eyes of the room locked on them.
Mack took up Declan’s old spot and stood in parade rest. The nice thing about that position was that his right forearm was touching the butt of his Glock 17, leaving his hand just inches away.
Trying to be subtle, he used his peripheral vision to observe the hulking mass of muscle and fur next to him. The first thing he noticed was that it smelled. Bad. Real bad. Like the worst case of BO times twenty. The other thing was that it was so big, he could almost feel its menace pressing on him from twenty feet away.
He had no doubt that it could cover the distance between them in two steps, then pull him apart like a bug. He shifted slightly, bringing one hand to the back of his holstered pistol, where he shifted a small lever.
He had little faith that 9mm pistol ammo was a match for the massive Bigfoot, even with the steel cored bullets, but before leaving Earth, he and his sister had received a small package from Chris Gordon. Inside were two aftermarket, highly illegal parts for their Glocks, her model 19 and his bigger 17.
The slide end pieces essentially converted their legal semi-auto pistols into full automatic, select fire, illegal machine pistols. Chris’s not
e had said he had heard from Declan about how he’d inherited his father’s pistol and then bought his sister a smaller version. Chris apparently liked Glocks too.
Mack’s gun currently had an extended capacity twenty-two round magazine in place. With the chambered round and the select lever on full auto, he’d be sure that Stinky got all twenty-three steel filled rounds as he died. He’d test fired the modification thoroughly before the trip and was amazed at how controlled and fast the gun could be emptied. Should he somehow survive, his assault vest held a thirty-three round mag and he knew his sister had another of those, as well as a fifty round drum for her pistol.
He also had a round pound of death in his left cargo pocket, a gift from one of the army guys who manned the Earth side of the portal rocks. Permanent fortifications had been built on top of the Moores’ little hill, and some really serious soldiers guarded that spot at all times. Mack had gotten to know some of them, trading and selling his custom blades to the military guys over the past summer. One in particular, a staff sergeant who had taken an interest in their survival, slipped Mack a real, honest-to-God fragmentation grenade.
Besides the Glock and the grenade, his uncle’s old Bulldog revolver was tucked into a pocket of his assault vest, and the rest of his body was liberally supplied with various blades, most of his own creation.
Focusing his attention back on the room, he realized that virtually everyone was still staring at Declan, who’d taken Mack’s seat and was busy filling a plate with food.
His sister, Jetta, ignored their witch friend and sat alertly, eyes locked onto the sasquatch. Suddenly, Mack felt better about his position. Much as he hated to admit it in public, Jetta was the better shot with her 9mm. He was pretty confident she could put fifteen rounds into the squatch’s head from her seated position, which greatly increased his odds of survival if shit went down.
But the queens were focused like lasers on the witch kid who had started to inhale food. Zinnia was glaring at him, her perfect features fixed in cold hate. Morrigan’s face, which Mack could only see in profile, seemed calm, although nothing in her expression could be classified as friendly. Neeve, who Mack had met and seen at College Arcane on multiple occasions, simply watched his friend as she continued to eat. Her cousin, the Summer princess, had given up on her meal in disgust, pushing her plate away from her and whispering to her mother.
The rest of the room had stopped eating as well and the people seated near his old table had all pushed a little away, as if to separate themselves from the source of the room’s tension.
Morrigan suddenly straightened in her seat and turned sideways, causing her daughter to put down her two-tined eating fork and push away from the table. Those two actions brought attention back to the main table in time to see Morrigan rise, her daughter mirroring her.
“Zinnia, Eirwen. I bid you good night. Speaker… and mighty dragons… till the morrow,” the Winter Queen said softly, features stilled into blankness. She left the dais, daughter and sasquatch in tow.
Zinnia watched her thoughtfully before saying something to Eirwen. Then Summer’s mother and daughter stood and left the table, the blue armored guard forging the way. None of them said a word to Ashley. The Hunters stayed behind, calling for drink from the white-clad servers.
Ashley spoke to her father. He nodded and then she turned to Mack. “We should probably go too, before those idiots down the table get drunk,” she said softly.
“Right. Declan looks like he’s slowing down the glutton train,” Mack said, moving forward and off the dais. The green-clad elves behind him paused to watch, speaking to each other rapidly in their own language. His pocket buzzed and with a frown, he pulled out his phone. They judge the Speaker to be weak and foolish for bringing witchkind to Fairie, the text said. He still wasn’t used to Omega’s attention, but he had to admit it was pretty super cool. Having the most powerful computer known watching over him and his sister was yet another perk of his friendship with Declan. He was so lucky fate had put him in that room at College Arcane. Fate and Chris Gordon.
Taking the message to heart, Mack chose a different path through the tables, one that crossed a small portion of the torn and sundered dance floor. Stepping over three parallel furrows that stretched for five feet, he paused to look back at his friend and her father, as well as catch a glimpse of the hunters. The elves were momentarily quiet, watching the three move carefully through the damage of Gargax’s statement. Oh looky here, little Keeblers—the weak Speaker is backed up by a main battle tank’s weight in fire-breathing dragon flesh.
One of the Hunters caught his eye, raising a single, elegant eyebrow. Mack tilted his head, then slowly turned and looked up at the dragons’ arches. Three pairs of reptilian eyes gleamed in the reflected light. Glancing back at the elf, Mack saw his attention was now focused on the giants lurking overhead. Correction, cookie maker, that’s multiple dragons. Go back to your tree and get baking.
Ten minutes later found them all in the Speaker’s apartments. The quarters were large and spacious, with an open ceiling garden atrium in the very middle and even a planted herb and plant plot in full bloom.
“Well, that was a disaster,” Ashley said.
“What do you mean? The elves now know not to underestimate us,” Jetta said, confused.
“Being underestimated is an advantage,” Ian said, glancing at Declan, who was sprawled on a round lounging cushion. “Plus, now they know we can understand their language and they know that our witch isn’t a weak male. And at least Zinnia is thoroughly antagonized by said witch.”
Declan pushed his hands through his hair. “Omega couldn’t get the translation exactly correct, so I asked for a clarification. One of the idiots actually said the clarification while Eirwen was busy bitching. Omega heard it. That little piece of information makes his translations vastly more accurate,” Declan said.
“But did you have to challenge a Queen of Fairie?” Ian asked.
“I asked a friendly question about their insults. She took offense. Not my fault,” Declan said.
“You antagonized her with that whole challenge-the-Speaker bit,” Ian said.
“She’s a bully, and you can’t back down from a bully,” Declan said.
“She’s the freaking Queen of Summer! She doesn’t use magic; she practically is magic!” Ian said.
“You an expert on magic, Mr. Moore?” Declan asked, voice getting quiet. “Do you see the currents of Aether weaving through the air and earth? Can you literally feel how much magic each person has?”
“Look, I get it. You’re a big deal back on Earth. But here you’re a stranger in a strange land. Here, you might not be the big fish, but rather the baitfish. I’m just advising caution, that’s all, ” Ian said.
Declan frowned and opened his mouth, but Stacia interrupted before he could speak. “What did you mean about this isn’t Zinnia’s realm?”
“It isn’t. Neither hers nor Morrigan’s. I have no doubt either of them would wipe the floor with me if they were on their home fields. But they’re not connected here. I can literally see that they’re fish out of water here. This land, this neutral zone, doesn’t feed them raw power like each of their realms does,” Declan said.
“How do you know what their realms do?” Ashley asked. “How can you?”
“I just do,” Declan said, looking defensive.
“Really? You risk all our lives based on just knowing?” Ashley asked, her tone incredulous.
Stacia gave her a measured look, then turned back to Declan. “How do you know, D?”
Mack’s roomie looked reluctant to answer, but Stacia waited him out, the rest of them staying quiet. Then her hand suddenly came up in warning and she snapped around toward the archway that led to the apartment’s entrance.
“He’s correct,” a new voice said. A moment later, a male elf dressed in white rounded the corner of the archway, carrying a tray. “My apologies, Speaker. I brought your evening tea. My hearing is sharp, even for my kind,
so I heard a part of your conversation.”