Nothing happened.
“Sorry, Rick,” said Nickelo. “I must not be doing it right. I told you the weave of the magic was strange.”
Desperate, Richard took control of the energy shield created by his battle computer. On a hunch, he compared his energy shield with the shield surrounding the valley. In a manner similar to how he healed others, Richard pulled the difference from the valley’s shield into himself and sent the difference to his own energy shield. His shield shimmered and took on a faint glow.
“It looks different than the shield surrounding the valley,” Richard said a little concerned.
“The shield around the valley’s formed by a combination of magical energy and titanium. Your shield’s composed of pure Power and titanium. The effect should be similar, although it won’t entirely replicate the properties of the valley’s shield. The important thing is that you did it. I’m impressed.”
Richard reached out and tried to move his hand through his energy shield. His hand stopped as if he’d hit a hard surface. He pulled his hand back.
“What if I wasn’t in the void?” Richard asked. “Could I get through the shield then?”
“I calculate you could get through your shield if you weren’t in the void. Your shield will only prevent passage of objects in the void, although it should allow your phase rod to pass through when you have it in destructive mode due to the phase energy. The shield around the valley is different. It’s similar to some defensive shields in that it will stop physical objects as well as energy and objects in the void. I should probably point out that the demon will be breaking out of the surface in one minute and five seconds. Whatever you intend to do, I’d recommend doing it quickly.”
“Roger that.”
Richard leaned close to the stallion’s ear. “Keep us in the void, big guy. I won’t be able to keep us aloft if you materialize. I don’t have enough Power to lift all this weight.”
Although Richard didn’t know if the stallion understood his words, he hoped his mount would at least pick up on his emotions and act accordingly.
Turning to Takar, Richard sent an emotion he hoped meant, “Stay in the void.”
Levitating the entire group up and out at the same time, Richard began moving across the valley toward Draken and the other dolgars. He remained as close to the ceiling of the valley’s shield as he dared, putting him and his somewhat reluctant companions about forty meters above the valley floor. As he passed over the perimeter of the scaled-cats and birds, some of the birds began spitting globs of acid at them. The acid just passed through and hit the valley’s shield above them. They were in the void. The scaled-birds continued to shoot acid at them until they were out of range.
“Now how much time do we have?” Richard asked.
“The demon will break the surface in forty-five seconds.”
Richard increased his rate of movement across the valley. Before long, Draken and the other dolgars came into view. They were grouped on a narrow ledge with the valley’s shield just to their rear.
Smart, Richard thought. At least the shield wall will prevent the cats from attacking in that direction.
Richard guided his group near Draken before shutting off the Power going to his shield. The glow of his titanium shield disappeared. As the shield faded away, he gathered the falling titanium particles into a small ball with his telekinesis.
Draken gave a series of growls and emotions.
Richard only made out the word ‘plan’ and got the impression it was a question, not a statement. Since he didn’t have a plan at the moment, he stalled for time by levitating the titanium dust evenly around the entire group.
“Can you form the shield this time,” Richard asked. “You’re bound to be more efficient than me.”
“Affirmative,” said Nickelo. “I was following along when you did it. I know what I was doing wrong now.”
Richard sensed his Power and the titanium merge together as Nickelo took control. Within two seconds, a light glow surrounded all of the dolgars, the stallion, and himself.
“How are we doing on Power?” Richard asked.
“Power consumption creating the shield was lower than expected,” said Nickelo. “You still have twelve percent Power in your reserve. Forming the shield appears to use an initial burst of Power, but maintaining it takes very little effort.”
“It may not matter, buddy. I’m not sure we have very long left to live anyway. However, I’ll take what I can get. By the way, how much time do we have?”
“I calculate the demon will be appearing above ground in thirty seconds.”
Crack!
A plume of dust rose from the center of the scaled-cats’ perimeter.
When Richard looked, he saw a wide fissure in the ground that wasn’t there before.
“Uh…,” said Nickelo. “On second thought, you better make that a little less than thirty seconds.”
“You fools,” boomed a deep voice coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. “I am Cancontus, lord of all I survey. Kneel before me you pathetic creatures, and I may let you live. Defy me, and your deaths will be an eternity of pain.”
From the growls around him, Richard figured the dolgars understood the words too.
“They aren’t physical words,” said Nickelo. “The battle helmet’s receivers didn’t pick them up, but I heard them just the same. I calculate it must be some kind of advanced ESP.”
“I will be with you shortly,” boomed the voice of Cancontus. “I want the flesh creature. If you give him up before I arrive, I will let the rest of you go.”
“Care to wager who he means by ‘flesh creature’?” asked Nickelo.
Another plume of dust rose out of the ground along with a second fissure.
“Do you see the shield I have placed around this valley?” shouted the demon. “It was formed by the Circle. It’s impassable. The secret of the Circle was given to me by a dwarf king.” The demon laughed. It was a cruel laugh. “The dwarf didn’t want to give it to me, but I persuaded him otherwise. I can be very persuasive even if it takes years.”
The demon had another fit of laughter.
“As for you, foolish human, even ‘the One’ can’t teleport you to safety now. You’re trapped. You’ve made some dangerous enemies, little wizard scout. My brothers Efrestra and Zenthra are anxious to make your acquaintance again. They’re fools, but I’m not. You walked blindly into my trap. There is no escape.”
Something long and slimy shot out of one of the fissures. It appeared to be a tentacle. Evenly spaced suckers on one side of the tentacle opened and closed as if searching for their first victim.
“I am almost there,” said Cancontus. “As for you dolgars, I command you to give me the flesh creature. Do so now, and I will be merciful. Otherwise, you will beg for death before I end your miserable lives.”
Making a decision, Richard started to climb down from the stallion, resolved to go down alone and fight the demon and its forces on foot.
If I’m lucky, he thought, maybe I’ll take so much damage that my healing reserve will run out and the demon will be cheated out of its prize.
Before Richard’s foot touched the ground, Draken growled. “No! You are one of us. We do not give up one of our own.”
Takar took up a position by Richard’s side. “Let them come,” said the dolgar using emotion-speak. “Let them feel our fangs. We will feast on their life force as they scream in agony.”
Several dolgars rallied around Richard, boxing him in from all sides. Others formed a solid line between the spirit-horse and the demon’s forces. Black tendrils reached out from the stallion and pulled Richard back onto his spirit-horse.
“You stay,” said the stallion, speaking in perfect intergalactic standard. “We will fight them together.”
The valley shook as half a dozen of the demon’s tentacles burst out of the fissures while pushing the cracks in the earth farther apart. A gigantic, bulbous mass forced its way out of the enlarged hol
es. A dozen eyes on stalks pivoted around to survey the area. They stopped turning when they spied Richard and the dolgars. A slit in the center of the bulbous mass opened to reveal multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“So, you refuse to give me my prize willingly. No matter. I’ll take him myself, and then my minions will rip the flesh off the bones of the rest of you.”
At those words, the horde of scaled-cats and birds began moving in the direction of the dolgars.
The dolgars raised their heads to the sky and began howling. The sound of their challenge echoed throughout the valley as the spirit-wolves let the demon know they weren’t afraid. They were dolgars; they would die fighting.
Years ago, Richard would have led the dolgars in a valiant but foolish charge against the advancing horde. Fortunately, after scores of years doing missions for ‘the One,’ Richard had learned to stop and think before acting. That is, he’d at least learned to stop and think sometimes. This was one of those times.
Richard sent out a dozen active scans searching for any weakness he could exploit against the demon. One of his scans touched a line of magic linking the demon to the shield surrounding the valley. The weave of the magic drew Richard’s attention. The link ran from the demon to a single particle of titanium dust. A link from that particle ran to another until the combined links really did form a circle. From start to finish, the circle of links was unbroken.
Richard’s mind went into overdrive. Time slowed, or perhaps his mind sped up. Whatever the case, everything around Richard appeared to stop moving. He’d experienced the phenomenon before. It sometimes happened during extreme stress in battle. Although he couldn’t move any faster during what he’d come to call a time-freeze, it did give him an opportunity to discuss the situation with his battle computer in order to make plans.
“Those links look like one of the old electrical circuits from Earth,” Richard told his battle computer. “If all the titanium particles and their links were stretched out, they really would form a circle of sorts.”
“Yes,” agreed Nickelo. “I see it. I think your analogy is right. The circle of links really is like an old electrical circuit. Perhaps you can use that to your advantage.”
Richard mentally nodded. The start of a plan began to form in his mind.
“Look at the link from the demon, Nick. It’s the keystone. If we can break that link, the rest of the circuit will short out. If that happens, I’m betting the shield around the valley will fail. If it does, then the dolgars and our spirit-horse could shift into a second dimension. With luck, we could make our escape.”
“In theory,” said Nickelo. “However, you’re forgetting one thing. That’s a major demon out there. Its Power reserve is enormous. You’d need a thousand times more Power than is available in your reserve to break its link. According to information in my databanks, only another major demon can break a major demon’s link.”
“Exactly,” Richard said.
He now had a plan, and his plan gave him hope. It was a slim hope, but it was hope nonetheless. At that moment, his time-freeze ended. With no time to explain his full plan to his battle computer, he urged the stallion forward. The spirit-horse’s sudden movement caught the dolgars by surprise. The stallion was several strides down the side of the cliff before the dolgars began to follow.
Richard sent the image of his destination to the stallion. The spirit-horse turned slightly to correct his course and began running as fast as his long legs could carry them. The scaled-cats and birds in the valley ran to meet them. Richard urged the stallion to even greater speed. He needed to reach the weak point before the stallion and he were overwhelmed by the demon’s forces. A look at the remaining distance on his passive scan told him it was going to be close.
The black stallion bent his head low and increased his speed even more, sensing Richard’s urgency. When only fifty meters separated the stallion from the lead scaled-cats and birds, the stallion reached his destination.
Richard immediately touched the switch to activate his phase rod. The creallium core shot out the handle as the miniature lightning bolts of phase energy began running up and down its length. At the same time, the demon essence his nephew Brachia had placed in his phase rod became active. An intense feeling of hunger made its presence known. The demon essence wanted to devour something. It wanted to devour anything.
“Demon against demon,” said Nickelo as Richard’s plan became obvious.
“That’s right,” Richard said. “Like you said, only a major demon can break another major demon’s link.”
“Well, oh greatest of wizard scouts. I guess we’re going to find out real quick whether that bit of demon essence in your phase rod is from a major demon or just a low-level piece of cannon fodder.”
Richard stabbed his phase rod into the weakest part of Cancontus’s link. The demon essence in the rod latched onto the weak point. He sensed a momentary struggle as the two sets of demon energy fought for control. With a blaze of energy, the demon essence in the phase rod won. When it did, the demon essence began siphoning Cancontus’s life force out of the link.
Cancontus screamed as much in anger as in pain.
For the fleetest moment, Richard thought he sensed a note of fear in the demon’s cry.
The mass of bloated and decaying skin which was Cancontus’s avatar screamed again. “It’s not possible. Why is my brother helping you? What does the Dalinfaust hope to gain?”
Richard didn’t care whether the demon thought it was possible or not. He just forced his phase rod ever deeper into the weak part of the link. The rod’s demon essence seemed to become more powerful as it continued to suck energy from Cancontus. The feeling of hunger from the demon essence grew exponentially.
The lead cats and birds were only twenty meters away.
Richard didn’t falter. He continued to hold the phase rod in the demon’s link as even more of Cancontus’s life force was removed.
Two scaled-cats leaped for Richard’s throat.
The stallion raised one of its hoofs and raked one cat with his talons. The spirit-horse caught the other cat in its mouth. Richard heard the crunch of breaking bones as his mount’s fangs broke the cat’s back.
A scaled-bird shot a glob of acid at Richard’s head.
Commander Draken jumped past Richard and took the ball of acid instead. The dolgar roared with pain and fury as the acid burned into his chest, but continued his leap and ripped out the bird’s throat. Other dolgars leaped past Richard and tore into the front ranks of the charging cats and birds.
While the battle raged all around, the stallion did his best to protect his rider.
Richard remained steadfast in his purpose, driving his phase rod deeper into the weak point of the demon’s link. At the same time, Richard reached out with his mind and traced the flow of Power in the link. He saw the secret of the magical weave and the reason the demon’s circle of links was so powerful. He twisted part of the flow of magic in the demon’s link back onto itself. The weak point in the demon’s link grew weaker.
The demon essence in the phase rod seemed to sense an opportunity to feast on more of its victim’s life force. It redoubled its efforts.
Cancontus screamed in anger once more as it realized its pending defeat. In a desperate act of self-preservation, it dropped the flow of Power to its link and to the shield surrounding the valley. The glow of the shield wall faded away.
Richard sensed the shield wall dissipate into the nothingness from which it came.
“Shift,” commanded Draken in emotion-speak.
Just before a wave of scaled-cats and their bird allies washed over Richard and the stallion, he felt Power from the spirit-horse wrap around them. The Power shimmered as his mount began shifting into a second dimension.
The dolgars shifted into another dimension as well.
As the valley and the charging scaled-cats and birds shimmered and faded from view, a familiar voice sounded in Richard’s mind.
“Miss
ion complete. Remember what you have learned.”
“What have I learned?” Richard mentally yelled. “I’ve learned nothing!”
‘The One’ didn’t bother answering.
Everything went black.
Chapter 4 – The Visitors
_____________________
High Priestess Jeehanathoraxen, or Jeena to her closest friends and family, yawned as she stretched her arms wide. Training the night before had been long and tiresome. Thankfully, Priestess Aldriss had delayed their normal morning lesson by a few hours.
Although Jeena had slept a little during the night, her beloved scrolls and books had called to her in the wee hours of the morning. It was now well past sunup. Jeena reluctantly rolled up the scroll she’d been reading and looked out the window over her desk. She recited a chant Priestess Aldriss had taught her to clear her mind and relax. The chant worked. Semi-refreshed, she took a few moments to enjoy the sun as it warmed the morning chill out of the air. As she basked in the sunlight, several birds began singing songs to anyone who cared to listen. With more than a little reluctance, Jeena turned away from the window.
It promises to be a nice day. Too bad I’ll be so busy training I won’t get a chance to take advantage of it.
A knock on the door of her bungalow drew Jeena out of her thoughts.
Who could that be? It’s too early for Priestess Aldriss to be summoning me for another round of training. She said I’d be free until noon.
Sighing, Jeena stood up and reached for a battered staff leaning against the wall near her desk. A blue gemstone was mounted at the tip of the charred wood. The blue gem gave off a feeling of warmth and peace. She also sensed strength in the staff. The sensations always comforted her whenever she touched the Staff of the High Priestess of the Lady of the Tree. Taking the staff in her left hand, Jeena walked out the door of her bedroom and into the hall. She passed by the kitchen and entered the main living area, taking a moment to look around the room. Every flat surface was piled with books and scrolls of every conceivable shape and size.
Wizard Rebellion (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 5) Page 5