by Rain Oxford
“I couldn’t find a B&B. You disappeared.”
“It was dark. You cannot see in the dark.”
“It wasn’t dark,” I argued. “I could see perfectly fine and you were gone. Never mind. I don’t want the mind mazes and riddles right now. You called for help, and I’m here to help, so let’s go before something happens to---” I stopped talking and sighed as I was interrupted by a familiar screech. “Of course,” I said, turning to see a griffin.
As beautiful as the creature was, its presence meant trouble. The last time I faced this creature, all of space and time was falling apart. However, he didn’t attack until provoked. He stared right at me, turned, and pounced on Rilryn.
The Guardian had a dagger in his hand in a flash, but I heard the metal snap. Kiro had given me a katana that had been created for my father out of a material that was unbreakable, but swords were not my thing. Instead, I usually tried to reason with or ward off the enemy until it was too late, and then I had to do something stupid and dangerous.
I picked up the closest object (the apple) and threw it at the griffin’s head. He stopped snapping at Rilryn to gawk at me, startled, as if he couldn’t believe I did that. Rilryn gave me a similar look of disbelief, but at least his innards were staying inside for the moment.
“You listen, griffin, because I know you’re smart. You guys were created to protect wizards, so you must understand me at least a little,” I said, lifting my left foot in order to pull the dagger from my boot. His eyes narrowed in on it. I let my magic seep into the dagger, from its handle to the tip of its blade. “I don’t know why you’re attacking him and I don’t care. Your skin will break before this blade does. Get off him. This is your only warning,” I promised.
Nothing could have surprised me more than when the griffin backed away and then vanished. Rilryn continued staring at me in shock, but I saw then that it may have been shock of a different type; the griffin had made quite the scratching post of Rilryn. I pulled the healing salve that Edward made out of my bag as I approached the Guardian, knelt, and used the knife to cut away the remaining shreds of Rilryn’s shirt to see the damage. He didn’t look and that was probably a good thing.
“He listened to you,” he said.
“He was after you. I was probably in the way and he just didn’t want the extra trouble.”
He winced as I applied the paste to the long, deep wounds in his skin. “There is a stitch kit in my bag,” he said.
“There’s no way I’m sticking a needle in anyone,” I answered. This was probably the real reason I learned to heal using Iadnah energy before I even knew what it was; I couldn’t deal with the alternative. Something about sticking a thread in someone, while also being a Guardian, made me feel like a necromancer. I couldn’t help but think that the person was dead and I had to stitch bits and pieces together.
“Dylan, why did I just get a horrible chill?”
“It’s blood loss,” I lied. Before he could respond, I poured my magic into him. Healing was the first thing I learned to do with it, so healing was what my magic did best. His skin stitched itself back together until the scratches looked months old and would heal without a scar. I had to stop because my own stomach was hurting. It wasn’t as bad as the original, but for a short time after healing a wound, I felt the phantom pains of that injury.
“How did you do that?” he asked in awe, staring at his scratches.
“Magic. If the griffins are back, things may be worse than I thought. I need to drop you off back on Duran and take care of this.”
“Why not return me to Dayo?” he asked.
“I’ve never been there, for one, and I don’t want to drop you in the middle of the ocean or something. But also, I think you would just end up attacked again. On Duran, the others can help you,” I said. I didn’t give him the chance to argue before attempting to flash us back home. Having done it successfully hundreds of times, I wasn’t prepared for what I felt. It was like trying to pick up a cat that I think will weigh about five to ten pounds, when instead it weighs three hundred.
Weight was never an issue in flashing someone, but something was holding him here and there was no way I could I do it without running the risk of hurting him. “It is okay. I know I am stuck,” he said. “I can rest here while you take care of the others.”
“I can’t leave you here to fend for yourself if that---” I was cut off as the skin just below my neck burned. Instinctually, I reached for the pentagram that always rested there and occasionally burned me with no reason or warning. It was gone and I remembered I gave it to Edward. They were in trouble. “I’m sorry,” I said, before flashing out.
It was the worst possible time to be called away by a god, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was intercepted. If it were Divina, Regivus, Madus, or Enki, I would have fought them because they would have let go. It was Zer, though, and he would put up a fight. He didn’t know me like the others did. Zer never considered that something might be more important than his own random ideas. The white room was more irritating than anything else.
“What is the status on my Guardian?” the god asked without any preamble.
Yes, he was a god, and yes, I wasn’t, but it still caught me as rude every time Zer opened his mouth. The god had that kind of face, too; long and thin, like the rest of his body, with short, dark brown hair and dark burgundy eyes. Anything he said was entitled to an eye-roll. But since he was a god, I really tried to offer the politeness he never graced anyone with.
“Not now. I have to get to my kids,” I declared. Okay, so my polite bank was empty.
When I tried to leave, he held me back. Instead of fighting him off, which could have ended very badly for my health, I reached through my book to call Divina. She must have felt my desperation because she appeared instantly.
“Deal with your brother, the boys need help,” I said before flashing away. I would feel guilty for dumping her brother on her after our sons were safe.
When I arrived, it was to fire and blood. The only sound was the crackling of several tents burning. What wasn’t burned was flattened or torn. Azyle was lying on the steps to the porch with Mordon keeping pressure on his bleeding side. Mordon looked uninjured, but I wasn’t at all surprised by that. Ghidorah was tending to Shiloh’s head by wrapping an obscene amount of bandages on him. The paranoid Vaigdan babbled about blood-borne pathogens until Ghidorah wrapped the bandage around his mouth. Samorde was putting fires out. Edward and the boys were nowhere in sight.
“They’re in the house. They weren’t injured,” Mordon told me, knowing who I was searching for.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“Griffins attacked,” he said. “We need to talk more about it later.”
I nodded my agreement as I passed them on the steps. I could heal Azyle and Shiloh after I checked on the boys. When I opened the front door, Sammy pounced and I landed hard. He hugged like Nila. Before I could shift Sammy around enough to breathe, Ron joined him in squishing the life out of me.
Edward pulled Sammy off me and grabbed my arm to help me up. Ron wiggled around so that he wasn’t strangling me as I stood. I couldn’t hold him with one arm anymore because at four he was still small, but not that light. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that he was mostly sago, which meant his density was greater than that of a pure human.
As half human, half dile, Sammy was no heavier than any human his age, but at least three times stronger. I never understood how Zer accomplished the strength his people had.
“We were inside when the griffins attacked, just as everyone else was settling down for lunch. We heard the noise, but Mordon came in and told us what was happening before I could go out. He said he could take care of it so I stayed in here with the boys,” Edward said.
I knew he hated nothing more than standing aside when he was needed. “Thank you. For all we know, the griffins could have been a diversion to get the boys alone. If Vretial is after them, we can’t rule anything
out.”
Mordon nudged me out of the doorway and shut the door so that the five of us were alone. “What took you so long?” he asked.
“There was a rabbit hole. I couldn’t have been gone more than a few hours.”
“You were gone for nearly two entire days. This wasn’t a random attack. One of them arrived, looked right at me, and then turned and attacked Azyle. I used my fire and it obviously hurt him, but he just shook it off and continued attacking Azyle.”
“Normally when you attack something, the animal attacks back.”
“Right. He was only interested in Azyle. The others came to help, but none of their magic worked any better than my fire. Then the second one arrived and went after Shiloh. Ghidorah was napping or something and the first one woke him up when it trampled Ghidorah’s tent. One look at Ghidorah and the beast fled. The second one turned on Samorde and then when Ghidorah shocked the griffin, it also bolted.”
“So you think they were afraid of Ghidorah?” Edward asked.
“He thinks Ghidorah is controlling them,” I corrected.
Mordon nodded. “It was something Emrys said once; that they were modern griffins. Maybe they are Ghidorah’s griffins and this was an attempt to get suspicion off him or get some of the others out of his way.”
Edward sighed. “Guardians have never been friends, but I know these guys. I may go a hundred or so years without seeing them, but I know them. Ghidorah is a good guy, but he’s very private. Araxi will forever suspect him of something and he doesn’t care. He wouldn’t actively try to get suspicion off of himself. More importantly, if he did attack any of us, he would never use a creature to carry out his violence. If he attacks a person, they will be forewarned, they will have a chance to plead innocent, and he will face them. There is no other way for him. And most importantly, he would never assault Samorde. Samorde is suffering punishment for others, and that’s a big deal for Ghidorah.”
“What is he?” Mordon asked.
He hesitated, whether it was because he didn’t want to betray Ghidorah’s secret or because Ghidorah was dangerous I didn’t know. “You need to talk to him about it to really understand. He’s a---”
He was interrupted as Sammy darted past me to throw the door open. Right in front of the porch, Nano appeared pinned under one of the griffins. Mordon pulled Sammy behind him. When Hobble burst out of the cabin, pushing Edward aside, the griffin quickly vanished. Hobble made a screeching sound, angry to miss out on the fight.
The poor little creature had enough trouble making it down the stairs on his bum leg without his enemy popping away. Edward held out his hand and while his faithful little gargoyle did not want to be comforted, he returned to the Guardian’s side anyway. Edward petted the twin heads.
Unfortunately, even though the griffin was gone, Nano did not get up. Ron squirmed around until I let him down, then he grabbed Sammy’s hand and dragged him to Nano’s side. When Ron put one hand on Nano’s head and his other on Nano’s chest, I knew what he was doing.
“Has he healed anyone before?” Edward asked me. I shook my head. “What if he does it wrong? He could hurt Nano worse.”
“My son can figure it out,” I said. He gave me the same look he always gave me if I became defensive.
“What would you say if someone asked you that about Dylan?” Mordon asked him.
He considered me, then my son. “I would tell them they needed to shut their mouth and that my son could figure it out. I’m sorry,” he told me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I momentarily forgot who I was talking about.”
Ron glanced up at me for a second as if to make sure he was doing it right. I gave him a small nod and he smiled. It took him a few minutes, but his hands soon started to emit a glow. When I first learned to heal, my energy was visible as a green glow, but I had since learned to refine my technique and could heal without anyone noticing it. Divina, a master of Iadnah energy, still showed it sometimes; her energy glowed bluish-purple. It was the same thing really, but the color depended on our souls somehow. Sammy’s was vivid purple, while Ron’s was bright, vibrant, grass green.
Oddly enough, as roughed up as he looked, Nano wasn’t bleeding anywhere visible. It only took a couple of minutes for him to open his eyes and struggle to sit up. “Where’s Vivian?” he asked, looking at me instead of his son.
Sammy was old enough to understand that he was being ignored by his own father. He turned his face away from me so that I couldn’t see his devastated expression. Ron glared at Nano. I moved to go to Sammy when Mordon grabbed my arm. “Remember that I can’t smell anything because of Ghidorah. If Nano acts weird, get away from him.”
I nodded and went to Sammy. “Nila said she was safe on Dios,” I answered, lifting Sammy into my arms. Sammy had his face buried in my neck and didn’t see the longing in Nano’s eyes as he looked at the boy. Normally, I would have felt sorry for Nano because of the misery he clearly felt, but Nano had every opportunity to visit him. Ron was also old enough to pass over the spell so that Sammy could return home, yet Nano and Vivian never came for him and they stopped visiting.
Even when Sammy was a baby, Nano had always been more concerned with Vivian than their son. If Nano refused to give Sammy the love and care he deserved, I sure as hell would. Sammy was a dream child and should never know rejection. I loved Sammy just as much as Ron, even to the point where I considered him my oldest son, and I would never give him up to be someone’s second priority.
“What happened?” Mordon asked. “You were missing for a long time.”
“What?” He sounded shocked. “How long? I was with Vivian, just a little while ago. I was talking with some people about a water filtering system and heard Zer calling. When I tried to answer, I was attacked,” he said.
“By griffins?” Ghidorah asked.
“No! The griffin saved me. It was Vretial!”
“Vretial was destroyed,” Ghidorah growled.
Nano glared right back at him. “Well, he’s back.”
Mordon took Sammy from me to take him inside while Ron hung back to listen some more. That was pretty unusual; Ron always went wherever Sammy did. It didn’t help the situation that Ron seemed very interested to hear more about the dark god. If Vretial was indeed back, and trying to lure my boys in, I wasn’t sure what to do. I had already told them what happened and how bad he was. Sammy was terrified of him, but Ron always seemed more curious than worried and that wasn’t good.
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“You talk now?” Nano asked, shocked. Ron nodded shyly. “I didn’t see him, but I felt him. He was as powerful as Zer.”
“You never met Vretial, though. Right?” I said. “You wouldn’t recognize his presence.”
“I know the presence of a god, and I know it was malicious. It was definitely him. I need to get back to Vivian. Was she worried about me?”
“I didn’t see her, I just spoke to Nila. And I’m sorry, but you cannot return to Dios right now. Zer doesn’t know where you were any more than any of the rest of us. With the fear of treason stirring the gods up right now, he is suspicious. He said you couldn’t return until your name was cleared.”
He sighed. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Can you get a message to Vivian?”
I felt Divina calling on me. “I’m getting called away,” I told Mordon. In one instant, I went from standing in front of the others to standing before the gods. I didn’t like the room we were in; it was the same place as before and made me feel like we were in a courtroom.
“Have you discovered anything?” Enki asked.
“I seem to be getting the runaround. You sent me out, then Kiro was immediately attacked. Nano is missing. Shiloh was attacked and his powers were gone. Emrys was acting a little odd but otherwise seemed fine. Then I met Ghidorah, who caused Mordon to have an allergic reaction. Vretial has contacted Ron, but Ghidorah swears up and down that Vretial has not returned.”
“Why is Ghidorah so insistent?” Araxi asked.
“Is he okay now?” Madus asked.
I hesitated. Other than Divina, no god has ever shown concern for their Guardian until now. “I’m working on it and I will find him. Then I got sidetracked; Rilryn is lost in a forest somewhere, terrified of something in the dark. I found an apple tree---”
“You were on Earth?” Divina asked.
I shook my head and considered my next words carefully. Something was sketchy and they needed to know, but I was going to be on the couch for the rest of the week. “No, we were not. It was an apple tree on another world. Rilryn vanished and I sat down on a rock under the tree. An apple hit me on the head and the word ‘eat’ was written on it. So I took a bite.” I ducked.
“You did what?!” Divina yelled. “You are so stupid!”
“Yeah, but you love me anyway,” I said when I figured she wouldn’t throw anything at me. At least for the moment she didn’t have anything to throw and wasn’t close enough to hit me. “I woke up back home, about a year or so ago. The boys had snuck out and found some eggs. Like, huge, Japanese atomic, monster-sized eggs. The shadow monster from Skrev showed up, so I scared it off and threatened the boys to within an inch of their lives if they ever snuck out again.”
“They sneak out at night?” she asked, looking sick to her stomach. She was blaming herself.
I shrugged. “Kids do that.” There was no way I could let her think it was her fault. Sammy used to be afraid of the dark, but he was fine with it when Ron was with him. “I highly doubt either of them do it anymore.”
“I am more concerned with this apple,” Regivus said.