Jake's Quest - Wizards V

by John Booth

  “Jake, Merlin is wishing you luck.”

  Me, Brad and Britney stared in surprise at the bricks spelling LUCK, while Jenny hugged our son. “You are a clever boy,”

  “I hate you,” Brad said, looking at me, and left the room followed by his twin.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Brad and Britney don’t like me. I appear out of nowhere too often.”

  “They have a point. Have you done the deed with Esmeralda?”

  I winced. I was still sore from the number of times the deed was done.

  “I see you have. Don’t think you’re getting off lightly tonight. Anything you did with her you do with me. There’s Welsh pride involved.”

  “Have mercy.”

  Merlin laughed. “Daddy silly.”

  I picked him up and held him above my head, much to his delight. Then I gave him a hug.

  “Brad go.”

  Jenny ran to the window and looked out.

  “I have to get them back. Their house is locked up.”

  Jenny ran for the stairs leaving me with my son.

  “Go Diabli,” Merlin said. I held him out at arm’s length.

  “Has something happened?”

  He smiled at me, saying nothing more.

  I put him back on the floor and he stared up at me. He seemed much older than twenty months.

  “Daddy go Diabli now.”

  Merlin turned back to his bricks. He picked up the L brick and turned it till an F showed, then threw it across the room.

  The twins entered the room sullenly with Jenny herding them.

  “I need to go somewhere. I should be back in a couple of hours.”

  Jenny frowned. “You only just got here.”

  “I got an urgent message.” I looked at Merlin. He was totally ignoring me and everybody else in the room.

  “You’ll be back for dinner?”

  “I promise.”

  Jenny hugged me and took the opportunity to whisper in my ear. “Go out the front door. I’ll make sure the twins aren’t looking.”

  I kissed her, wondering all the while how I’d managed to marry such a wonderful, clever, understanding woman.

  She was shouting at the twins as I made my way downstairs. Something about being responsible enough to know they couldn’t just leave whenever they wanted.

  As soon the front door clicked shut, I hopped to a place outside the Multiverse.

  There is a dimension called Hop Space that links the Multiverse together. It’s what wizards use to travel, though we rarely stay in it long enough to know it’s there. From Hop Space it is possible to jump outside the Multiverse a little way.

  There is a wound in the Multiverse caused when a dozen or so universes were crunched together into a destroyed mess. The wound extends the multiverse outwards to what remains of those universes, a ball of reality called the Damaged Zone that is shrinking as its magical energy is absorbed back into the Multiverse.

  The Diabli are trapped in the Damaged Zone. They have not perceived the wound and so they cannot use it to travel back to the Multiverse. That has not stopped them from trying to escape. They are incredibly powerful wizards, determined to survive and they are sending enormous blasts of energy at the surface of the Damaged Zone attempting to break out.

  There’s risk in going to look. Should they spot me they might learn how to escape. The Dragons believe the greater risk is not knowing what they are up to, which is why I was here. That and my son’s warning.

  I approached the skin of the Damaged Zone cautiously. The last time I had been here the Diabli were firing magic at the skin. The surface had been roiling for distances I could not fully comprehend.

  Everything was quiet. There was a haze above the boundary layer as magic left the Zone and flowed back to the Multiverse. The Dragons believed that as the zone shrank the magic inside was becoming denser despite the amount escaping and that eventually this denser magic would allow the Diabli to escape.

  The surface of the Damaged Zone was smooth and undisturbed. It was also immeasurably big, so it was only my spatial ability that allowed me to return to the spot where I had seen the Diabli. As there was nothing visible, I moved closer. There was nothing to hide behind. It was only my size relative to the vastness around that made me difficult to see. I was less than a grain of sand on a infinite shore.

  The surface of the zone is transparent to magical sight. That was how I had seen the Diabli last time. They were easy to spot in the eye of the storm of energies they were creating. Even though it was quiet now, I still remembered exactly where to look.

  They were still there. Looking like lizard humans from a comic book, three of them floated silently at the zone’s edge. But they were not alone. On the outside of the barrier were a cluster of other beings. They were difficult to see, as if they weren’t quite real. Their shapes shifted as I watched and I got the impression of black wings. I had seen something like them before. When a creature possessing an elf called Farolan had fled his body.

  Whatever I was seeing was not good news. It looked as if the Diabli had allies outside the Damaged Zone. I wasn’t sure if the smoke-like creatures were there to help the Diabli escape or were reporting back to them. I certainly wasn’t planning to get close enough to find out. It was time to get out before I was seen.

  Retreating to a safe distance, I prepared to move to hop space as the first step to getting home. Space stretched in a strange way as I hopped.

  10. Wolf

  Something was wrong. I should have entered Hop Space, but it twisted away from me as I approached and then the multiverse whirled around me and I tried to avoid spewing up as my mind tried to make sense of what was happening to me.

  Then I was back on solid ground and I vomited uncontrollably.

  Eventually I came to my senses and crawled away from the vomit. Tall grass surrounded me. The world was hot and humid and insects buzzed and chirruped. I lay on my back and basked in the hot sunshine as I tried to get my mind to function properly. Something in my head was subtly wrong and I opened my magical senses to take in my surroundings. If you don’t suffer from hay fever this place was a paradise, teaming with life and untouched by pollution.

  I didn’t know exactly where I was, but my sense of position informed me I was in a universe a long way from home. I looked at my watch and saw I needed to get back home to Jenny. When I tried to hop, nothing happened. I was blocked from my powers. They were still inside me, ready to go, but I couldn’t reach them. It was infuriating.

  Getting to my feet I looked around properly for the first time. I was in the middle of a sea of grass. The land rose to the west where forest replaced grassland. The sky was dark blue with wispy white clouds visible over the hills in the distance. It looked idyllic.

  A sound like distant thunder broke my reverie and I turned to see men on horses racing towards me. They seemed to be in one hell of a hurry. I thought about hiding in the grass, but they were too close and must have already seen me. The fact they were heading straight towards me was a significant clue.

  They pulled their horses to a halt twenty feet in front of me. They looked like American Indians straight out of the movies. The group consisted of a dozen or so young men, aged from fourteen to twenty, certainly none of them older than me. They wore paint on their faces and on their arms. They were all carrying spears, but they looked more surprised than angry. I reached for my power to put a shield around me, but it turned out that was blocked as well. This wasn’t looking good.

  “Henee'eehehk neneenin?” the oldest looking one asked. I guessed it would be the obvious question.

  “Jake Morrissey,” I said touching my chest.

  “Neneenin heniihoho'neiht?”

  That had me foxed so I repeated my name. The man laughed and turned his horse shouting something incomprehensible to his friends. They followed him as he rode away, laughing and whooping the whole time.

  “They didn’t even offer me a cup of tea,” I told the grass
as I watched them ride away. No Welsh hospitality available on this world.

  When the riders were a few hundred yards away they came to a halt and turned their horses back towards me. I started to get a bad feeling. I had a premonition my fate rested on what I did next.

  With a wild whoop the young men urged their horses back to me, their spears now held as though they intended to throw them. I looked around and confirmed there was nowhere to hide. The grass was long, but they were well above it on horseback. The nearest trees looked to be at least two miles away.

  My instinct was to run. They would be on me in seconds. I tried to raise my shield but that was still impossible. Without any apparent logic I felt a sense of calm flow through me. Running was futile so I decided to stand totally still. If they wanted to kill me, the least I could do was give them a good target.

  I must admit I closed my eyes as the spears were thrown. My clothes rippled as spears flew past. I felt a pain at the bottom of my ear and blood flowed. Then the horses were behind me and it was all I could do to stay on my feet.

  There were more wild whoops and laughter behind me. I turned to find the Indians had dismounted and were going to pick up their spears. From the smiles on their faces I had passed some kind of test.

  “Cihciitei,” the leader said as he put an arm around me and led me to his horse. They were riding bareback and I needed his help to mount, much to the laughter of the others. Then we were galloping across the grassland and it was all I could do to hold on. It was only when we stopped that I found out I had been taken to a small village at the edge of the forest. Teepees surrounded a large communal fire and I saw a brook winding between the trees a few hundred feet away.

  A lot of people shouted at us. Most of it sounded friendly, but not all. I was hurried away to a teepee at the edge of the camp. There was a wolf’s skull on a pole just in front of the tent and the tent was much more brightly colored than the other tents. I man came out of the tent in response to all the noise. I looked behind me and found a couple of dozen villagers had followed us here.

  I stared at the man in disbelief. Magical energy twisted into animal shapes around him. He was a walking cartoon to someone with magical sight.

  He spoke some words to me and I did my ‘Jake Morrissey’ thing with hand gesture.

  “Cebisee Hooxeihino,” he said repeating my gesture.

  I wondered if that was first and last name or all one name, but at least we had managed some form of communication.

  Something was materializing on the magical plane around him. When it came into focus it was the biggest wolf I’d ever seen, more like a small pony. Unlike the other magical images this one was completely lifelike and I took a step back

  “Koohonoohoot?” he asked in disbelief.

  It wasn’t really a question. Cebisee Hooxeihino had been shocked by me seeing the wolf. He shouted angrily at the other villagers and they began to disperse. The wolf had vanished the moment he started shouting, it took longer to get rid of the villagers. I got the feeling they had been expecting a show of some kind. Cebisee Hooxeihino gestured that I should go into his tent and then we sat down cross legged facing each other.

  The Indian raised his right hand, palm facing me and slowly moved it until it touched my forehead. The room fizzed with magical energy.

  “You can understand me now?”

  I nodded. I knew his name meant Talks-with-Wolves, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

  “You saw Wolf.” It wasn’t a question. Wolf was Hooxeihino in their language. I took it the Wolf was a spirit guide.

  “I am a shaman; I can see your magic.” They didn’t have a word for wizard and shaman was as close as I could get.

  “Wolf is not my magic, as you will see.” He paused and tilted his head as he stared into me. “Your totem is broken. Wolf might be able to rebuild it.”

  I looked at my watch. Jenny was going to kill me when I got home.

  “I will call to him, and if the spirits will it, he will come.”

  That sounded fair enough and I wriggled to get a bit more comfortable. Tight jeans and cross legged sitting can result in an unfortunate squeezing. He closed his eyes and began to chant. The tepee darkened and a glowing giant wolf joined us, sitting down, but not crossed legged. That would have been weird.

  [Jake Morrissey, your fame precedes you.]

  It was exactly like talking to Fluffy. The lips didn’t move, but I could read how he meant the words in his eyes. His words had been spoken with wry amusement.

  “I thought you were something created by Talks-with-Wolves.”

  His eyes twinkled. [I am an Aleph. Talks-with-Wolves knows me as a spirit guide and that is close enough.]

  “I seem to have been cut off from my magic. I was on my way into Hop Space when I was diverted here.”

  Wolf raised a huge paw. [Put your hand in mine.]

  He wasn’t real, but an energy field formed about him so it felt like I was touching a paw. I could even feel his claws. A web of gentle touches ran through my mind. I zoomed in to what he was doing using magic sight. This part of my brain was new to me.

  He was locating tiny lines of energy. When he touched one it felt like a dentist hitting a nerve. I gritted my teeth and my free hand squeezed my knee so much that it hurt too.

  [Be still. These must be removed.]

  And that’s exactly what he did. Pulled microscopic lines of energy from my brain and dissipated them. Agony does not begin to describe it. When I felt a touch on my shoulder I saw Talks-with-Wolves above me and realized I was screaming. It took all my strength to stop.

  Delving back into my brain I got a glimpse of the lines as a web and saw they were short circuiting my powers. I’d never investigated how I direct magic, but I needed something to take my mind off the pain, so I looked deeper and concentrated. A hundred million nerves released magic and each one of them was being nullified by the web. It occurred to me I could stop this happening by linking the nerves together to form bigger channels of power that would blow any further webbing away. As I constructed the new pathways I sensed approval from Wolf.

  [You learn quickly.]

  “My magic is coming back.” The pain was easing and a little redirection by magical means quelled it completely.

  [This is Krake Magic. I do not understand how you survived.] An image of dark smoke like wings flitted across my mind.

  “It only switched my magic off.” That didn’t seem much of a deal.

  [Of all the places in existence, you materialized on the surface of a suitable planet populated with people who could restore your magic? It is so implausible it could not have happened, and yet it did.]

  “I didn’t think they’d seen me, but maybe they wanted me to survive?”

  [It was a trap set for the unwary and such traps cannot be directed so accurately. To set such a trap meant they expected anyone who fell in it to die. Where were you travelling from?]

  Lying seemed pointless, but I didn’t have to tell him everything.

  “Outside the Multiverse.”

  Wolf removed his paw from my hand and snarled. Talks-with-Wolves backed away. I don’t think he’d ever seen Wolf angry.

  [Physical beings cannot penetrate the boundary layer. It is impossible.]

  Time to drop another bomb, one I could afford to now I had my magic back.

  “Yes it is and the Diabli are trying to break back in. Though they were spending their time chatting to those Krake friends of yours the last time I looked.”

  Wolf whined and dropped into a crouched position. He looked so forlorn I had to resist the urge to pet him.

  [The whispers say that wherever you go, you bring trouble. But I could not conceive of so much trouble until you spoke its name.]

  I’m an angel of doom? Lots of people have said it, but I’m just a lad from the valleys. I don’t ask for these things to happen. Now he knew what was going on I wanted to pump him for information.

  “Who are the Krake and what
do they want with the Diabli?”

  [The Krake are energy beings, like the Aleph. But while we feed on magic they dine on human pain and suffering. They never have to look far among humans to satisfy their needs.]

  That was interesting, and provided a possible reason for the meeting.

  “Freeing the Diabli would cause an awful lot of suffering.”

  Wolf shook his head. [The Krake rarely interfere with physical beings and the Diabli destroyed part of the Multiverse. Not even the Krake would ally themselves with such dangerous creatures.]

  “The Krake possessed an Elf leader called Farolan.” And used him to try and get me killed. This was personal, though I didn’t want Wolf to know it.

  [You speak impossibility set atop impossibility. I must consult with the leaders of my people.]

  Fair enough. We all have our crosses to bear. I shuddered at the thought of a cross.

  “And I am in a lot of trouble with my wife.”

  Wolf vanished and Talks-with-Wolves stared at me as though I had become a demon in human form.

  “You have so much power, Jake-Morrissey. I can see it now.”

  I stood and patted the terrified man on the shoulder.

  “Thanks for all the help. But I really have to go.”

  I hopped before he could formulate a response.

  11. Council & Cake

  I was already so late I doubted Jenny could get any angrier with me so I returned to the Bat Cave to have a word with my dragon. He was laid out and snoring, little spurts of smoke coming from his nostrils. Another time that would have seemed cute, but I was tired and hungry. I stole a Big Mac from a local store and hoped they wouldn’t notice. A sharp kick woke Fluffy.

  “Consult the Elders. What do they know of the Krake and the Aleph?”

  Fluffy straightened up and stroked his scales with a claw.

  “Well?”

  [Give me a chance. Our memory takes time to search and several of the Elders were asleep.]

  I munched on the burger while Fluffy spent the time polishing his scales. I was just wondering whether to steal a drink when he responded.