The Hero's Peril (The Sorcerer's Saga Book 5)

by Rain Oxford

  Merlin, who had been looking through the papers on Hawk’s desk, froze. I could feel his apprehension as his ears flattened.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, automatically transforming my staff into a sword. Yuri drew his and Hawk jumped back from us.

  “This pocket watch. I have seen it before,” he said, pulling a metal and glass device towards him.

  “Are you sure it doesn’t just look like the one you saw?”

  “I am certain; it was mine.”

  Hawk saw what Merlin had found and rushed forth to take it away. “Don’t touch that!” He snatched it up and held it like it was precious to him.

  Merlin growled.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that this is extremely important to me.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a watch that my mother gave to me. It belonged to my father before he was killed by an evil wizard.”

  “I was mistaken,” Merlin said quickly. “We should go. Now.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “He was killed before I was born, but I---”

  “I thought you came from a world without magic,” I interrupted.

  “No, I come from a world of magic. The other people came from Kragra, which was depleted of natural resources. I was brought here from Dios. Everyone lived underground on my world, so Soenus is a real treat for me.”

  Merlin paled so fast even his fur lost color.

  “Merlin, you said it was your pocket watch, and he said it belonged to his father, who was killed by a wizard. Did you kill this man’s father?”

  “No, Ayden. We should go now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I was mistaken, Ayden.”

  He said the words in my head as if through gritted teeth, and he never used my name two times in a row like that. He was my best friend, and I knew I should let it go. I owed him that. “What are you hiding?”

  Unaware of our conversation, Hawk continued. “It even has my father’s name engraved on it,” he said, showing me the shiny gold surface. From the condition of it, I knew he cleaned it and held it every day. The name engraved on the surface was not one I could read or even that I recognized.

  That was strange, considering Alice’s potion had worked flawlessly up until that point.

  Without looking at it or answering me, Merlin went outside. I followed him out with no intention of saying anything. “We’re friends, Merlin. You can trust me.”

  Oops.

  He sighed. “I have lived a very long life, and I have made many mistakes. I have made more mistakes than you ever will, and probably worse ones, too.”

  “You were a child once.”

  “I was a man once. Everyone thinks of me as a wizard, raised by dragons, wise, and destined to end the war on magic. People forget that I do not always know what is right. I take chances. I use hard-learned lessons to make better choices, but I was not born with infinite knowledge.”

  “But your divination---”

  “Can help me see what I will face and sometimes, it can help me make a better choice. Not always; not reliably. And, sometimes— many times, in fact— I have disregarded such premonitions. I have even rebelled against them. The point I am trying to make is that no one is perfect, and I am capable of making mistakes.”

  “What does that have to do with Hawk?”

  “I always talk about being alone as if no one ever wanted to stay with me. That is somewhat of a deception. Sometimes, the only companion I could trust is isolation. Sometimes, I preferred to be alone than with someone who could hurt me. That is all I will say on the matter.”

  “But I still don’t understand.”

  “And I hope you never will.”

  Hawk joined us outside and excitedly ran around to the back of the house. We followed and caught up to him as he was checking out a mound. It was not a mound of dirt and rocks, but a strange, huge blanket made of leaves that were preserved somehow with a waxy substance. Hawk pulled back the blanket, revealing two cars that were identical in every way, except one had a wheel to steer it, like the car we had used before, while the other one had a metal lever, like the one in the carts.

  They were not the same as the car Adel had driven. They were brown, for one thing. They were half as long as the black car had been and only had one wide, wooden seat in each car. There were more gages. While the lever and pump were similar in position as the black car, they were fancier. There wasn’t a step, but the sides were lower, so we could get into them without much trouble. The main problem I saw was that the wheel wasn’t close enough to the seat to be functional.

  “I meant to put a bucket seat in this one,” Hawk said, patting the side of the one with the wheel.

  “You built these?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’m an inventor. Unfortunately, most of what I invent is a bit beyond my time and nobody really wants what I create.”

  “That’s so sad. But why wouldn’t they want a car? They have them, and these look nicer.”

  “I built these to their standards, not mine. My design was a car that could fly itself, used solar energy, and cleaned the air. They didn’t trust it, so I built these instead.”

  “How did you come up with your designs?” I asked. Merlin was looking anywhere but at Hawk or me.

  “Mostly dreams. Since I was a child, I would dream of technology I’d never seen before. If I was ever stuck, I would dream of the solution. People thought I was crazy, but I never let that stop me. I couldn’t let that stop me.”

  I started to get into the car that had a lever, but Merlin put his paw on the side to stop me. “As much as I hate to say this, young sorcerer, I cannot drive a stick. If we have any issues, I might need to take over, so we should borrow the other car.”

  “Fine, but I’m still driving.”

  “I suppose there is no reason to ask you to keep to the speed limit.”

  “What’s a speed limit?”

  Chapter 10

  Driving the car was as much fun as it had looked. I was sitting on a wobbly wooden stool, which Hawk had provided in lieu of a proper seat so that I could reach the wheel, but it worked. It took a while to get used to the wheel because although it was harder to turn than one on a ship, it turned the car faster.

  Merlin, who was sitting on the floor beside me, was not enjoying the car. The seats were not finished, so Merlin felt it was safer to be on the floor. Unfortunately, there wasn’t nearly as much room as Adel’s car had, and Yuri, who was trying desperately to stay on the wooden seat, kept accidentally kicking my stool and stepping on Merlin’s tail. Coincidentally, my staff (which was on the other side of Merlin since I couldn’t hold it while driving) kept sliding to the left and smacking Yuri in the stomach.

  “This is much safer than walking!” Yuri said.

  Merlin and I groaned simultaneously… an instant before the gobrin gauge started chirping. “Go faster,” Merlin warned.

  I pushed the lever up all the way… and the car stopped with several sickening lurches.

  “Do it the other way!” Yuri said.

  “I know how to sail this thing!” Yuri tried to push the lever down, so I smacked his hand away.

  “You tried to accelerate too quickly,” Merlin said. “The car needed more power. Decrease the speed and hit the pump.”

  I lowered the lever to halfway and frantically pushed and pulled the pump. The car stayed silent.

  “Hurry!” Yuri said, now beating his hands on the side of the car in an attempt to rush me. It was clear that it would be my head he was pounding on next if I didn’t heed his warning.

  “I’m trying!” Another dozen attempts. Nothing.

  “The flame might have gone out,” Merlin suggested.

  Yuri jumped up. “Use sorcery! I don’t want to be eaten on this strange world!”

  I turned to him and gave him my best sorcerer glare. “Sit down, quiet down, and calm down!”

  He sat and meekly said, “Okay.”

  I pulled out my wand and push
ed it into his hand. “You’ll have to help us this time.”

  Yuri’s face paled. “I told you, I don’t---”

  “Get over it! It doesn’t matter whose wand it is! Use it!”

  “I can’t!”

  “It’s a perfectly fine wizard wand!”

  He paled even further. “I can’t,” he said, barely more than a whisper.

  “Because a sorcerer touched it? Remember that when we’re being eaten!”

  “I can’t use your wand because I can’t do magic!” he yelled.

  “What? Since when?”

  “When everyone else gained their magic back, I didn’t. I got immortality instead. I hate it.”

  “Now is not the time,” Merlin said regretfully.

  By then, we could hear the gobrin approaching. The trees shook, and because of the water falling from their leaves, it sounded like they were trembling in fear. I lightly banged my head on the steering wheel once before deciding that I could freak out later, if I survived that long. I jumped out of the car, ran around the front, and opened the front end like Adel had shown me with the black car. Sure enough, the flame was out.

  “Can’t you just levitate us?” Yuri asked.

  “No. No, I can’t.” I didn’t enjoy the “meat” I ate, but I was afraid it would be worse coming up. I pointed my wand at the wood. “Set it on fire.” My wand, sensing my urgency, didn’t pull any of its usual tricks. With a flash, the fire was set. I closed the lid, jumped back in the car, and started working the pump again. As soon as the car started growling, I slowly raised the lever.

  The car shot forward at the same moment the mother gobrin that had attacked us earlier crashed through the trees beside us. I hope that’s the same one. It was somewhat worse to be attacked by more than one of those creatures.

  As she emerged from the foliage, her camouflaged skin darkened to appear gray and black. Rather than frighten me, it was slightly comforting, because it was a common ability of non-magical creatures on Caldaca and made her seem less strange.

  She snapped at us, narrowly missing Yuri’s head. I couldn’t drive off the road because the jungle was too thick. Our giant foe solved that problem for herself by destroying all the trees in her way. She ran after us. I thrust the pump and lever and the car growled angrily. I gained speed. She gained speed.

  I gained less speed than she did.

  She tried to take a bite out of the side of the car and missed, thanks to a large rock with impeccable timing that sent us flying. “Switch with me,” Merlin demanded.

  “What, now?! I don’t think switching while we’re running— driving— for our lives is a good idea!”

  “I meant our seats! I will drive while you try to slow her down with magic!”

  “Oh… that makes much more sense.” Merlin reached up and put his paws on the wheel. I moved out of the way. The stool fell over, but Merlin didn’t need it anyway. I picked up my staff and stood, using the back of the seat to steady myself. I aimed my staff at the creature, but not without (accidentally) knocking Yuri on the head with the butt end of it. Yuri’s fingers were digging into the seat, holding on for dear life.

  “Slow her down,” I demanded of my magic. Blue magic struck her and… did nothing at all. “Are you joking?!” I yelled, shaking the staff slightly. I knew it wasn’t the staff’s fault, but it wasn’t like I could shake the monster that was chasing us.

  “What happened?”

  “My curse bounced off her!”

  “Her hide is probably so well adapted to the sun’s radiation that it is also magic-resistant. Hit her in the face, especially in her mouth if you can manage it.”

  Oh, I can manage. Trusting Merlin to warn me if there was anything particularly bumpy in the road, I let go of the back of the seat and held my staff out with both hands. “Alright, monster, are you hungry? Open wide!”

  Tempted by my shiny crystal shoved towards her face, she did, and in that moment, I fired my curse. Magic filled her mouth and she stumbled. As we drove away, I watched her roll to her side on the ground.

  Merlin started to slow down when we were out of sight. “What are you doing? Go faster.”

  “I thought you got her.”

  “I did. With a momentary dizzying curse. She’s going to be back on her feet any moment.”

  “Why did you do that?” Yuri asked.

  “Because she has an egg to protect. I may not like her, but I’m not going to be the reason her egg dies.”

  “You are way too noble.”

  A wizard prince was calling me too noble.

  * * *

  I decided not to bring up Yuri’s admission to having no magic, as it was no worse a secret than that I was a Sjau. As soon as the gobrin gage fell silent, I took over the driving again. It was quiet for a while. Unfortunately, the sky was getting brighter, not darker, and Yuri and I soon had to put our goggles back on.

  The road widened and two metal bars that were slightly raised over the ground merged into the road. “Is this for carts?” I asked.

  “It appears to be railroad tracks for a train,” Merlin corrected.

  “What’s that?”

  “It is like a number of carriages linked together, but much, much larger. And louder. And without the horses pulling it.”

  “That doesn’t sound fun to ride in.”

  “What? What’s Merlin saying?” Yuri asked.

  “Nothing to worry about.” I followed the road, hoping not to meet one of these trains, until Yuri finally told me to stop.

  “He’s here. Or at least the egg is.”

  “How close?”

  “Not close enough to be painful, but the voices are loud enough that I can barely hear you over them.”

  “Can you understand any of them?”

  “No.”

  “Well, well, well!” Zuras’s voice called out. “We meet---”

  “Hey, we’re talking here!” Yuri interrupted in an arrogant tone.

  “Oh, not that again,” I groaned quietly.

  Yuri glared at me. “It’s not like I can help it!”

  “Can’t you channel Merlin or me? We’re right here.”

  “Do you think if I could control who I could channel, it would be him? Or you for that matter? Do you think you’re a fun person to be?”

  “I’ll wait,” Zuras said meekly. At that point, he stepped out from behind a tree. He looked shorter when he wasn’t hovering. He wore goggles, which I suspected were Adel’s. I hated the idea of her being blinded by sunlight because he’d stolen her protection.

  “You stay right there!” Yuri demanded, turning his focus on the sorcerer. “Now I’m tired of chasing you all over the worlds and it’s going to end here and now.”

  “Or what?”

  “That wasn’t an ultimatum; that was a fact! Give me the egg and the girl and I won’t hurt you too badly.”

  Zuras looked confused. I was just glad it wasn’t me who was confused.

  “Wasn’t that an ultimatum?” I asked.

  Yuri shot me a glare. “And I’ve got something to say to you before this wears off.”

  That gave Zuras the chance to get his wits about him. “You can have the girl, but you’ve got to make a choice first.” He pointed down the road, where I could see the tracks split into two different directions. In the left direction, however, there was a gap. There was also a lever in between the split. “The girl is tied up on the track to the right. The left tracks, which lead to the cliff caves, have been damaged. If the train goes left, it will derail and kill everyone.” He laughed dramatically.

  “How can you know it will kill anyone?” Yuri asked, not showing any concern.

  “It’ll crash through the cliff and through the engine room!”

  “So?”

  “It’ll explode!”

  “But that will ruin the mirror you entered through.”

  He lost some of his steam and rolled his eyes. “Well, obviously! I’ll already be on the other side. I’m not going to stick around.”<
br />
  “So we’ll be trapped here. Let the girl die or we’re trapped here, is that what you’re saying?”

  Zuras frowned again. “Yes?”

  “You should have led with that. Why are you here now if your plan was to leave?”

  “To explain the choice!”

  “What’s the choice?” I asked.

  Yuri rolled his eyes. “Obviously, we either have to let everyone die or pull the lever to make the train go right, effectively killing Adel. Keep up, would you?”

  “Shouldn’t you be rolling around on the ground, crying about your headache?” I asked.

  “Took you long enough to notice. He doesn’t have the egg on him.”

  “But it’s close,” Zuras said.

  “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

  At that point, we heard a loud rumbling sound. Zuras smirked. “It’s decision time!” He pulled out another sack and threw it to the ground. Once again, smoke concealed his escape, but when it faded, the bushes he had escaped through were still settling back into place.

  Yuri went to the lever and pulled it. The metal bars lifted up, turned, and settled down to fill the gaps in the other track.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “We can’t kill Adel.”

  “We’re not. We’re going to save her, but if we lose, one woman dead is better than an entire population along with our way out.”

  I didn’t bother arguing. We followed the tracks towards Adel and found her quickly, tied to the tracks with chains. “Help!” she yelled, struggling against her restraints. She had a cut on her forehead that was bleeding into her blond hair, but it wasn’t a mortal wound. Of course, experience told me that all wounds could be healed if they were seen by a mage in time. This world didn’t have mages. As far as I knew, she could get an infection.

  When I touched her hand, she flinched away. “It’s us,” I said.

  “Oh. Thank you for not leaving me.”