by Oxford, Rain
“Shut up. Is there any change in Sammy or Vivian?”
He snorted. “Vivian is very in love with Nano. Sammy seems to recognize his father. Hey, we have company,” he said.
I followed his gaze to the ground and froze.
There was a little girl, about seven, standing on the ground. She was watching us. Even though I couldn’t really make out her eyes at this distance, I would recognize her anywhere. With her white lacy nightgown and her white-blond hair, I knew closer inspection would reveal dark blue eyes.
“I know her,” I said, my voice shaky.
Mordon frowned at me. “Is she another person who shouldn’t be here? I can’t really get a scent for her over the forest and Blood.”
“No, she isn’t supposed to be here. I have seen her twice before at the springs on Shomodii.” I looked at him. “She was dead. A ghost, wearing the same gown she is now.”
His eyes widened. “She’s alive now.” We both looked back at her to make sure, but she was gone.
“Nice to see being alive hasn’t slowed her down.”
At that moment, Nano stuck his head out the door. “What’s keeping you two? Come inside before it starts to rain. What are you two talking about?” he asked.
Mordon and I looked at each other, then answered, “Nothing,” at the same time.
He looked at us suspiciously for a moment before turning and reentering the cabin. We followed. “So, how do we get ahold of the other Guardians?” I asked.
Nano shrugged as I sat on the couch. “I honestly don’t know. Some are in hiding, some are impossible to contact, and the gods are filtering any messages between us. I was only able to get to you because of my genetic bond with Sammy.”
I jumped up. “How? I have a genetic bond with Edward! He’s my uncle! How do I get to him?”
“Kiro is missing or hiding. He’s also on a world you have no access to. I signed your book when it was Ronez’s, so I had access to Earth. You only have access to Duran, Earth, and Dios. He’s not on any of those for sure. You could tear yourself apart trying to reach him, and the last thing you want to do is draw attention to him.”
“But what if he needs me?”
“He’s a survivor. He’s more likely to be safe than you.”
“But if he was safe, he would be trying to save me. So because he isn’t here, he must not be safe.”
“Or he’s trying to save you from where he is. At this point, I don’t want to draw any attention to us that we don’t have to while trying to find more Guardians.”
* * *
I was woken by a small thump and muffled curse. My first thought was that Vivian and Nano were getting reacquainted, but I realized that the curse was in Sudo. I opened my eyes to see Mordon quietly shutting the door. Sitting up, I could see that everyone else was asleep. I got up and followed Mordon out. It had rained and, in the early morning hours before the sun had turned on, it was cold.
Mordon had already made it down the ladder and was sneaking into the woods. I didn’t bother with the ladder, instead jumping from the platform and twisting the air to cushion my fall so that I landed right behind him. He turned to attack and I grabbed his arm to block a blow to my neck.
“Don’t sneak up on me,” he said.
“Don’t sneak out without me,” I answered. “Why are you sneaking out anyway?”
He hesitated. “I guess I should have woken you up. I just really feel like I need to check on Blood. I want to know why he’s here.”
“I don’t think he can tell you.” We hiked through the forest to where we last saw him. He was lying there, waiting for us. “Hello, buddy,” I said.
After a leisurely stretch, he sat on his hunches and regarded us with entirely too much intelligence in his eyes to be a mere animal. Then, with no warning, he blew a stream of fire at Mordon. As the flames licked his clothes, he didn’t react at all. “Yeah, I can do that, too,” he told the dragon.
“Do what?” I asked. He didn’t look burned in the slightest, and neither did his clothes.
“He just blew warm fire at me. Not hot at all. We can regulate the temperature of our fire.”
“How?” I asked.
He frowned. “I’m not sure. I could just always do it.”
I sat down. I needed to. My head hurt enough I didn’t even care that I was sitting in mud. Mordon crouched down next to me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What isn’t? We have made like, a million discoveries in the last few days. Things that make no sense just keep happening. The rain, the little girl, people vanishing… My ex-girlfriend is a mother with another Guardian. The gods have turned against their Guardians. I don’t know who to trust. Actually, the only ones I trust are you and Edward. You seem less and less sago every minute and Edward is missing, possibly in danger.”
“I know the claws were weird, but I am sago. My mother was a seer, but she was sago, and my father is, too. What about Divina and Nano? I thought you trusted them?”
“I love Divina, but I know she can’t always tell me things. And yeah, I trust Nano not to kill us, but if he told me that you were evil I wouldn’t believe him. If you said we needed to get away from him, I would believe you. Despite the fact you are far more mysterious than him, and he is a fellow Guardian, you are my best friend.”
“I’m glad to have someone at my back.”
“You really don’t even have to be in this. We could drop you back off on Duran and you’ll be safe.”
He smirked. “I get the feeling this stuff is happening everywhere. Besides, I have your back. If my nose, fire, and newfound claws can help you, I’ll put them to good use. Never been much use at the…”
“Estate,” I supplied.
“Yes, the estate. Too bad you can’t use your book’s powers to talk to Blood. Maybe he has an idea what’s happening. Do you feel that?” he asked.
I hadn’t until he said it.
There was a noxious presence in the forest. It was either becoming stronger or closer because it was getting more nauseating. Blood started growling in a direction behind us. Mordon flinched, then gasped and covered his nose.
“What is it? Other than radioactive.”
“It’s the demon.”
“No. No, no, no. It’s not supposed to be able to follow us. Tiamat told me.”
“Yeah, well, nothing else is going as it should, either. I think we should run.”
“Where?” I asked. We didn’t even know the way out of the forest. Besides, I knew the dangerous creatures on Shomodii and how to escape them. I knew nothing about the beasts on Dios.
The closer it got, the shakier I felt. I could feel the forest cringing from the malicious power of the demon. The ground started to rumble, then build until it shook violently. The dragon was able to stay standing, but not us.
The demon entered the dragon-made clearing in the body of a Dios guard; a huge mountain of muscles. It actually looked strange to see the powerful beast in a heavily muscled body. It wasn’t an Arnold Schwarzenegger build; he was bigger and taller than that.
He grinned at us as the air started to become thin; he was taking the oxygen out of the air. Between the nausea, the shaking ground, and now suffocating, I couldn’t think of any magic to use. Mordon was on the ground next to me, having just as much trouble. Fortunately, dragons must need less oxygen than humans and sago. With a flap of his great wings, he leaped over us to pounce on the demon. Mordon made a breathless cry, but it was too late. The instant Blood touched the demon, he disappeared.
Vanished without a sound.
Just as quickly as it had drained, the oxygen rushed back into the air. Within a few moments, we were able to sit up. The broken, painful cry brought my attention to the mountainous man on the ground. I crawled over to him to find him grunting and bloody on the ground with a scorch mark on his neck.
“Where did he go?!” Mordon asked. Our dragon was gone.
“I don’t know, but he took the demon with him,” I answered.
“I think I can save this man. The demon must not have been in him for very long. Does he smell demonic?”
Mordon sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “An aftertaste only. He smells burnt.”
“I’m sure he would be fine with some barbeque sauce,” I said.
I put one hand on the man’s forehead and the other on his chest. Divina told me this was to protect the brain and heart from energy snapping back into them. I gathered my energy and poured it into him delicately out through my hands. Feeling his injuries with my magic, I could map out where and what needed to be fixed. I could even see old injuries, like his healing rib. Most of the damage was burns, which were most severe in his organs. He would have died without medical attention.
Forcing my nominal energy to bond with the physical energy, I soothed and healed the burns. Edward had taught me how to do it the Guardian way, but for me, it was much easier to use physical energy. Unfortunately for the Guardians, I seemed to be the only one who could do that. I learned to not talk about it.
I realigned the broken rib and healed it correctly, not without a grunt of agony on his part. Out of breath and drained of energy, I stood up and looked at Mordon. “I would like to go back to bed now,” I said. Another thing I didn’t talk about; I felt phantom pains for a little while after healing people.
“What about the demon? What if it comes back? What about Blood? Can’t we help him?”
I couldn’t answer him. He followed me back to the cabin as both of us ignored the man’s calls. There was no warning before everything went black.
* * *
I was once again in Divina’s dream-like, not-really-there cabin. “Divina, can’t you find another way to talk to me? I’m going to get a concussion.”
“When I told you that the gods are not against you… I was wrong. You need to get off Dios. Now, Dylan. Zer is very spontaneous. He has decided the end of all troubles is the end of you. I can only keep him preoccupied for a little while.”
“So I need to return to Duran?”
“No! Erono has turned his blame on you now that Kiro is missing. Avoli and Madus can protect you if you can get to Malta. Avoli is trying to get Emrys to you, but Zer is keeping him out.”
“This is starting to sound a lot like war, but no one is on anyone else’s side.”
“It may come to war, Dylan, but I am on your side. So are Avoli, Madus, and all of the Guardians. But it gets worse. The creature is no longer bound to the void. It can rip a hole into the worlds and will destroy all life to find the child.”
“What do I do? How do I keep it away from Sammy?”
“I’m sorry. I do not know how to stop it. Only one of my brothers knew enough of the old beasts to stop them.”
“Vretial.”
“Yes.”
Figures. “Can I trust Nano?”
* * *
I looked up at Mordon. “Looks like we need to get out of here,” I said as he helped me up. “Tiamat says the god of Dios has decided he doesn’t want me here anymore. She said to go to Malta, that Avoli and Madus can help us. Emrys is Malta’s Guardian, and they’re trying to get him here, but Zer is keeping him out.”
“So how are we supposed to get there? Have you signed the book for Malta?”
“No. Let’s confer with Nano about it. Maybe Nano can go get Emrys and bring him here.” It only took us a couple of minutes to get back to the cabin. Nano was awake, sitting on the platform when we arrived.
“Morning stroll?” he asked.
“Yeah, and guess who gave us a visit.”
“The demon,” he answered.
“He wasn’t supposed to be able to follow us,” Mordon accused.
We climbed up the ladder and he stood, then shut the door, which he had left open, so we wouldn’t wake Vivian.
“He came at us and Blood attacked him. They both disappeared, but the body that the demon used was left. I was able to heal him because he wasn’t completely burned out like the other people,” I said.
“Huh. Why would the dragon and demon vanish and not the physical body?”
“Maybe because the man isn’t a traveler of worlds,” Mordon suggested.
“Or maybe the universe is trying to fix itself. What did Tiamat tell you?” Nano asked.
“She said that Zer turned against me. She said we need to get to Malta, but Zer is keeping Emrys away.”
“Yes. Zer told me last night that I needed to get rid of you. Fortunately, I am not all that devoted to Zer. I would not normally go against him, I am no traitor, but he is prone to changing his mind and making snap decisions. You are still an apprentice, and as such, I am inclined to act as your master in his absence, once again. I assume that you are also in apprenticeship,” he said to Mordon, who nodded. “Then I am also responsible for you.”
“But if your god tries to kill me---”
“Then he will succeed. Let’s get you away from here before that happens. We’ll go to Nila’s kingdom; his guards can protect you while I leave to bring Emrys here.”
“What if the demon attacks?”
“Then there will be plenty of food to distract it while you get away.”
“I don’t want to go meet a king,” Mordon said. His reluctance was nearly tangible and he frantically thought up excuses.
“Nila is nothing like your father. He’s younger than you. He’s goofy and playful and not mean at all.”
“He put poisonous insects in my bed. I could have died,” Nano said.
“Yeah, well, you named him ‘nephew,’” I said, as if that was a perfectly valid excuse.
Mordon was quick to play along. “You named him ‘nephew’? That’s horrible. Why would you do something like that?”
Nano grumbled something as he turned and entered the cabin. Mordon and I waited outside. The sun was fading in and it was started to warm up, but it had the chill of an early morning. Soon, Nano came outside, his arms piled high with Sammy and baby supplies and Vivian followed, yawning. We all climbed down from the platform except Nano, who jumped. Vivian wrapped her arms around mine and put her head on my shoulder, which was something she had always done when she first woke up. She trusted me to guide her with her eyes closed. I looked at Nano and he stared right back. “It’s habit,” I defended.
“I know,” he sighed. He handed Sammy to Mordon and the baby bag to me. Then he pried Vivian’s arms off me (getting a few grumbles for his troubles) and wrapped them around his own arm. It didn’t take long before we came to a wall and large steel door, which Nano opened to reveal a narrow alley with tall walls and a cobblestone road.
We shuffled quietly down the alley and when we entered the castle main, I recognized where we were. “You live in Nila’s kingdom?” I asked.
“No, I live in a forest in a room in Nila’s kingdom. Oh, boy, I think there’s trouble,” he said.
Sure enough, three goblin guards where headed our way with snarls on their faces. At least… I think they were snarling. Vivian shrieked, fully awake now, and hid behind Nano.
“It’s all right,” Nano told her.
The guards reached us and started speaking with Nano briskly. Nano turned to us after a few minutes. “Apparently Nila is sick and not receiving guests. And even more unsettling is that the guards have seemed to forgotten who they’re talking to.”
“They don’t remember you are Nila’s uncle?” I asked.
“Oh, no, they remember that. They have just forgotten that I am the most powerful being on this world.” With that, he faced the guards.
They immediately dropped to the ground and withered in pain, but Nano walked passed them with no mercy. Townspeople watched and guards stood off to the side as Nano led us to the large wooden doors of the castle. It looked like a tornado blew through; there was broken furniture, glass, and pottery strewn all over the huge, once-magnificent chamber. Nila was sitting, curled up on his throne with his hands over his ears. There were no guards in the room.
“Nila,” Nano said.
Nila looked u
p at us with wide, hopeful eyes. He was pale and his blond hair was messed up. Nano spoke in his language and took a step closer to Nila.
“Stay away,” the boy-king said in English. “I do not want any more.”
“Any more what?” Nano asked.
In answer, Nila pushed his hands out towards us and a great gust of wind picked up, nearly knocking us off our feet. Sammy let out a little cry and I responded by bending the wind away from us.
“Dylan!” he said. He jumped off his throne and bound towards us.
Nano moved out of his way, but Mordon stepped in front of me. “Any more what?” Mordon asked when Nila halted.
“Magic,” I answered for him. “You can do magic now. How?”
“I am no void anymore,” he said, his tone panicky.
“Since when?”
“Four days I wake up and guard hand me clothes. I go to open door and it blow off wall. I touch another and food freeze in my hand. Guard grab my arm, I destroy room. I do not want magic. I am void,” he said.
He looked at his uncle and I realized he probably wanted a hug. Nano backed away.
Vivian, however, went right up to him as if we were being ridiculous. “Hello, Nila. I am Nano’s girlfriend, and I have no magic.” She then hugged him with no hesitation. Adulthood was doing Vivian good. She was also about six inches taller than him.
“How does it work? Do you get their powers? Do they lose the power?” I asked. Vivian let go of him and he turned to me.
“I do not know. I get only one magic from each person.”
I tried to step closer to him, but Mordon grabbed my arm and pulled me away. He still held Sammy. “Do not let him touch you,” he whispered in my mind.
“Why not? What do you smell?”
“The boy himself smells innocent, but there is something in him.”
“The demon?” I asked. I observed Nila, who was glancing at us, but seemed to be listening to Nano.
“No, not the demon. Something else. It’s old and powerful but not bad. Just don’t touch him. We don’t know what he might get from you or if you will get it from him.”