by Rain Oxford
“The gods are older and more set in their ways. The only way they will ever truly trust you to not turn against them is if you trust them. One of the major reasons they trust Dylan is because he trusts Tiamat. If she told him to do something, he would trust her no matter what. They know when the time comes, if she told him he had to do something and not ask questions, he would trust her without getting suspicious and demanding answers.”
“Thank you, Arthur.”
“Who?” Mordon asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Remind me to update you on the classical education of King Arthur of Camelot. Trust between Noquodi and Iadnah has to go both ways, but it has to start with us,” I said. “I think a lot of the trust we originally had was harmed when the universe was falling apart.” We stopped at a door, which Shiloh opened.
This was the room we had met Enki in; sort of a dark meditation room with cushions and a circular pond full of glowing blue water and two tie-dyed fish. Shiloh sat hard on a cushion and I realized for the first time that he was out of breath. For people accustomed to magic, experiencing a prolonged absence of nominal energy felt similar to having no physical energy.
I crouched in front of him. “I’m going to try to heal you.” I wanted to tell him not to get his hopes up, but I didn’t want to psych myself out. I pressed my palm against his forehead and drew my magic from within. Healing was one of the first things I ever did with Iadnah energy, and it was certainly what I used it for most often. Healing came naturally to me.
Of course, this kind of healing was more difficult than with physical wounds. When I healed someone’s injuries, my magic showed me the damage I couldn’t see and I imagined the body returning to normal. In Shiloh’s case, I had to heal a symptom.
I focused on the magic he normally had, then reached through my connection with my book to feel Earth’s magic. I loved that gentle planet. My link with my world and its book was extremely powerful and eternal. Although I had only been a Guardian for eight years, it was an incredibly integral part of who I was.
I couldn’t imagine how horrible that was for Shiloh to be missing that connection, which had had for nearly two thousand years. My magic picked up on my desire to help him and flooded the older Guardian.
He gasped but stayed conscious and, after a few seconds, my energy vanished from him. I had just enough time to worry before my energy reappeared along with his magic. If that behavior wasn’t odd enough, my energy returned to me in a rush, whereas it usually just dispersed after I healed someone.
“Thank you,” Shiloh said, climbing to his feet. He sent out a burst of energy and both Mordon and I flinched. We were in a city floating in the sky, so flinching was a reasonable reaction. Luckily, we didn’t fall to our deaths.
“I don’t know that you should try to talk to the gods for a while. If it’s okay with you, I’m going to flash you to Duran where Kiro is,” I said. He nodded, probably feeling obligated to do what I said.
I didn’t wait for him to change his mind. I flashed him to Edward, then Mordon and myself to Malta. Maybe flashing wasn’t the best method, for when the light cleared, we were in the water tribe. Having been to the water tribe before, I suddenly felt misinformed, because I had been told there were no fish people.
The creature facing us was neither a person nor a fish. The bright moonlight illuminated its translucent, milky-white skin. The head was narrow and elongated towards the front like a fish’s. There was no hair and the body shape was too bulky and blobbish to be called humanoid. It had two legs, two arms, and was bipedal, but the knee joints and elbows bent in the wrong direction. The fact that the creature only came up to my chest made it no less frightening.
We were on an ice platform just outside one of the castle structures. The ice buildings wouldn’t melt, but they could be blasted, as this one was. As if it were made of concrete, the roof had crumbled. Something had struck it with the force of a wrecking ball.
Realizing the same thing, Mordon scanned our surroundings with his eyes shifted, scoping the place for traps or people… Because when you are about to be eaten by a fish person, it is important to know that someone else isn’t going to jump out from behind you.
It opened its mouth to reveal obscenely long, sharp teeth, between which a long, thin, tongue extended about three feet to lick at the air. The creature reached out one webbed hand with lengthy, jagged claws.
Mordon pulled me back with one arm and raised his other as if to hold it back. Fire burst from the air to engulf the beast, but the fish creature proved to be nonflammable and the fire died. Slime dripped from its hand as it took one lumbering step forward. We both stepped back and my heel touched the edge of the ice. If I put one foot in the water, I would be food for the mermaids. Unfortunately, I wasn’t all that coordinated. I tried to use my nominal energy to control the water, but the energy fell short. I panicked.
Mordon backhanded me on the chest without even looking. “Use your Iadnah energy,” he said.
I remembered as he said it that my nominal energy was weak here. Edward told me it was like being allergic; for every wizard and Guardian, there was one or two worlds that had the wrong frequency of magic for them. Luckily, I had a backup. My Iadnah energy came from within. I reached out with my magic to draw the water to the ledge and cooled my energy until it froze, extending the ledge of ice.
“We need one of your plans right now,” Mordon said. I felt the heat inside him rise as he tried to keep himself warm.
What would Edward do? Better yet, what would Divina tell me not to do? “It’s a fish, shouldn’t your fire dry its skin out? No, see the slime? Flame retardant. So how do we get past the slime in the next three seconds without getting gutted?”
“Maybe you could ask it nicely to not eat us.”
“I don’t speak fish.” Unfortunately my magic, already fired up, took that as a request. When the creature roared, the vague impression of his life ran through my head. “Oh, wait, I do speak fish. He’s been chased out of his territory and now he’s hungry,” I said.
Mordon looked at me. “He said that?”
“Of course not, he’s a fish. He just roared at us. We used up our three seconds.”
Mordon stretched his hand out to the side as if reaching for one of the large blocks of ice. Although Mordon doubted his abilities as a wizard, I knew he had serious talent hidden well behind his dragon characteristics. The ice collided with the creature with all the force of a raging bull.
The aquatic monster never stumbled; he only shook himself and continued lumbering forward.
“Hold onto your hat, I’m flashing us out,” I said. I focused on my home on Duran and let my magic draw us there.
The moment I felt the world around us vanish, something tore at me. It was like an invisible creature reached inside me with vicious claws and pulled. The same dark energy that attacked Edward wrapped around me, trying to separate me from my magic. Then I felt Mordon’s fire.
My first instinct was to get out. Even after many lessons from the gods in using my Iadnah energy, it was never my first reaction to fight with magic. My magic burst from inside me with my full desperation to escape. Mordon’s fire became hotter, nearly burning. Oddly enough, it helped. Something in the dark was trying to tear me apart and the only thing holding me together was Mordon’s fire, which wrapped around me. It wasn’t keeping the dark energy out of me, but it was keeping me inside myself. I couldn’t see it, or the light of the void… It wasn’t until the dark energy retracted from my body that I realized my eyes were closed.
Solid, cold ice slammed into me and disorientated me. I kept my eyes closed as the world spun and reached out for Mordon. He was there, but not moving. My magic swirled sluggishly, stuttering and spattering as if it were as befuddled as me.
I opened my mouth, but couldn’t speak. After a few minutes, I rolled over onto my stomach to press my cheek against the ice. There was something hissing and making foreign noises, but I was too dazed to make it out or even figure out what
it was. I opened my eyes in time to see a clawed foot step right beside my face. It was the fish monster. The claws of nausea took its grip and everything went dark.
* * *
I was in space which, for the record, was incredibly creepy. I could breathe just fine and I wasn’t freezing, but it definitely looked like I was floating in space. Before me was my home world, far away enough that I wasn’t in the atmosphere, yet close enough to see continents. Actually, the moon should be around here somewhere.
My book was in my hand. I had the deep urge to hide it, but I couldn’t move.
The space in front of me suddenly flooded with bright white, which grew brighter by the second. A slit was opening in front of the planet, widening into a gaping whole. The light inside was ominous, hideous, and shook me. It was oddly thrilling and equally horrifying. I knew what that white abyss was; I could feel it in my soul.
I felt the moment the doorway was fully and permanently opened.
The book in my hand turned to sand and floated away on a nonexistent wind. When it was gone, the surface of Earth changed. In a worldwide, catastrophic wave that I could see even from space, the seas dried up, the plants died, and the planet surface became a barren wasteland. In a matter of seconds, my world was destroyed and billions of people were dead.
* * *
There have been many times in my life that I woke expecting something to be eating my face. I didn’t have a complex or a penchant for danger; it just came with the job. However, there was something especially horrifying about a fish eating my face, so my eyes snapped open the instant I became conscious.
Instead of the fish monster, Emrys leaned over me. About the same moment I realized I was out of danger, I discovered that the ice had given way to soft cushions and we were inside. From the stained glass windows, white walls, and fur rugs, I decided we were either in the mend tribe or ken tribe.
When I felt movement next to me, I turned to see Mordon waking. A sharp pain made me flinch and reach up to touch the back of my head. My scalp was wet and sticky and my fingers came back, predictably, with blood on them.
“I tried to heal your injury, but your magic is acting as a shield against everyone,” the Guardian said gently.
Since we had last seen him, he cut his hair. The shorter style emphasized the odd speckling of blond, black, and red in his mostly brown hair. His eyes were apparently as unique as his hair color, for they had changed from the dark blue they once were to solid gold. He wore loose tan pants and a blue tunic with no shoes, which was a change from the typical black the Guardian usually dressed in. Emrys always seemed eccentric with a touch of creepy.
I reached out to grab Mordon’s arm and sent my magic to heal him. After a sluggish moment of hesitation, it only took a few seconds to accomplish its goal, so Mordon sent it right back with a little of his fire mixed in. The energy, created only to heal, healed me as it returned. It felt warm, Mordon’s fire making it even more so, and I became dizzy for a minute as the magic healed my head.
Emrys pulled me into a sitting position. “Dylan, I know you feel pretty sick right now, but I need to know what happened to you. I sensed you arrive, leave, and return. Is someone after you? Did someone follow you?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to speak and nearly heaved instead as a new wave of nausea came over me.
“We came here to look for you,” Mordon said. “There was a monster… a hideous monster. Dylan tried to flash us out, but something attacked him. I don’t know what it was, other than that it scared Rojan. My dragon is afraid of nothing. I think it was Vretial.”
“But Dylan defeated Vretial,” Emrys said.
I tried to correct him, but it came out garbled. “It was Tiamat who defeated the dark god,” Mordon said for me. “Dylan needs some water.”
He gave me a doubtful frown, as if he believed we would vanish as soon as he left the room. “I will return momentarily,” he finally said, then left.
“What was that? You saw that, too, right?” he asked, referring to the dream.
“I did. It was a Guardian warning dream. It had to have been the gates opening.”
“But we saw it before. We forgot. How could we forget something like that?”
“I…” I sighed and clawed my fingers through my hair. The sensible part of me decided that it had just been too early to be useful to me and I filtered it out for some reason. Unfortunately, I knew better than that. Every instinct in me was fired up, like nerves, pushing me to figure it out. It physically hurt to not understand, so much so that I wanted to hunt down the answers like an animal.
Mordon put his hand on my shoulder, trying to calm me down, but he was worried, too. Maybe that was one of the reasons I felt so strongly; this affected Mordon.
And then it occurred to me. “I didn’t forget. I mean, not really. The dream is what would happen if the gates open. I had the chance to open the gates and I turned it down because it felt wrong. Something in me remembered.”
“Then why did we forget in the first place?” he asked.
“Because it was taken from me.”
“What was?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant, only that I was right. “I was supposed to see it, but someone didn’t want me to.”
“Someone who can interfere with a Guardian dream?”
Just then, Emrys returned with food and drinks. I took the water but refused the bread and fruit. After drinking a large glass of water, Mordon took the second glass out of my hand and replaced it with food.
It did make me feel much better, as if the weight of the food in my stomach settled my head. “Vretial is back… probably. The gods are unsure, but Ron and Sammy both say he talked to them. Kiro was attacked trying to call Erono and said it was Vretial.”
“I never met the god, so I have no idea if that was who attacked us. But I can say for sure that Rojan doesn’t scare easily. It had to be him,” Mordon said.
“Whoever attacked us is as powerful as me, but really persistent,” I said.
Mordon frowned at me. “Not violent or destructive or angry?” he asked. The reason Mordon picked apart my words was because he knew that I usually said exactly what I meant.
“No, definitely not angry. Violent, sure, he attacked us… but why? Why would someone attack Guardians?”
“Attacking Guardians? Not just Kiro? What Guardians have been attacked?” Emrys asked.
“You didn’t know that Nano is missing and Shiloh lost his magic?”
“No! Is Shiloh okay?”
“I was able to heal him. When was the last time you spoke with your god or any of the other Guardians?” I asked. Normally, I never would have expected Emrys to be a turncoat… but we were attacked trying to leave the world, and woke up in his home. Still, Emrys should have known something was up.
“He smells off,” Mordon warned. “He smells like a secret.”
Figures.
“I spoke with Ghidorah a month or so ago.”
“Truth.”
“Not your god?”
“I have been busy.”
“Half-truth.”
“Too busy to even contact your god? The gods are having trouble getting information to us and apparently some of us are disappearing from their perception temporarily. Nano has been missing for a while. We need to keep the communication open in order to keep things like this from happening.”
“You sound like Shiloh now,” he sneered with hostility.
That was very suspicious. While they argued plenty, I never heard Emrys speak to or about Shiloh with distain. As far as I knew, they were like brothers since they were raised together.
“I will check in with Madus tonight,” he promised.
“Truth.”
“Do it now so that I can help if you get attacked. They are looking for a traitor,” I said. I felt guilty, extremely guilty for not sending him to Duran with the others, but I could not let him near my sons if I had any doubt. And to be honest, my instincts were t
elling me to leave him.
“I will not be attacked. You can go.”
“Suspicious. He’s trying to get rid of you.”
“You could have phrased that better,” I said to Mordon. “Just contact them now so I don’t have to come back and check on you later. And tell them the password is blueish with an orange twinge.”
“Blush?” he asked.
Not the best with languages, then. I took a pen out of my bag. “Hold still,” I said, clicking it. His eyes went wide. “Don’t worry, I’m just leaving a message.” Not giving him a chance to react, I carefully wrote, bluish with a bit of orange, in English on his forehead.
“Can the gods read English?” Mordon asked. I looked at him as I put the pen back.
“They are gods; they can read cat.”
Emrys frowned at me suspiciously for a moment before closing his eyes and concentrating. I felt him gather nominal energy and use the power of his world to reach beyond… And nothing unusual happened. There was no attack. Within a few minutes, he opened his eyes.
“Okay. Talked to Madus. Now I am going to bed.” He got up and left the room.
“So do you need to go talk to Madus to make sure he did what he said?” Mordon asked.
“No, I can do that anytime. I’m more worried about Ghidorah since he has a history of disappearing. Besides, I never met him.”
I flashed us to Skrev as cautiously as possible while encouraging my magic to take us to the most powerful person there. I was hoping the most powerful person was Ghidorah and not a monster. On the other hand, everyone from Skrev was a monster…
When the flash cleared, we were in a cabin with three people, two of which I knew. The first people we met on this harsh world were werewolves, and the alpha of the pack was here, kneeling in fear for his life while his daughter stood pressed against the wall with a similar mien of desperate panic. Standing in front of the alpha was a very powerful man I never met, and he held a crossbow to the alpha’s head.