by Marc Secchia
Mid-sentence, he whirled and lunged with the knife–inexpertly, because he had lost his favoured right hand to Hunter at Shadowmoon Keep, but he still managed to score a shallow cut across the muscle of Alliathiune’s right shoulder. Every eye leaped to the Sacred Grove as a tearing sound presaged a huge branch crashing to the ground.
Several of the Dryads slumped to the ground in shock.
“The translation is imperfect,” Brian said, grinning with lunatic cheerfulness. “You can’t predict exactly which piece will fall.” He prodded her ribs to make her squirm. As Alliathiune struggled to keep from toppling over and being hung, another of the trees shivered as though caught in a high wind.
“The point must be obvious even to an idiot like you,” he said, watching a rain of fresh leaves drifting down through the still afternoon air.
“Accepted, old chap,” Kevin replied, once it became obvious that no-one else could speak. “Why don’t you tell us what you want? I grow bored of your hollow threats.”
Brian’s face swelled to the likeness of a plum. “You … dare?” His voice cracked as he snarled, “I’ll make you pay for that, you poxy, obnoxious little bastard!”
Kevin felt a dangerous calm steal over him. Feeling another tongue-wagging moment coming on, he let loose with gusto. “Come to think of it, Brian, perhaps I am a bastard after all. You are Harold’s son through and through. Anyone could tell that from a mile off. You are all the Harold I will never be–a vindictive, power-hungry, petty little tyrant who is destined to fail just like our father!”
He thought Brian was actually going to explode. His colour deepened to an unbelievable, unhealthy shade of puce; his speech reduced to strangled grunts in his throat. After all these years, it was a repulsively rewarding sight.
That was when Brian’s staff swung up and an invisible hand swatted Kevin up into the air. He acted instinctively, not needing to touch the Key-Ring anymore. Before he had risen six feet the magic was negated and he dropped to the ground, sparking like an overloaded wire as he let the magic bleed off into the atmosphere.
Curiously, this calmed the Dark Apprentice and his control returned as he ignited a bright blue fire on the tip of his staff, a fire like a welding torch. “Time to roast a little Dryad!”
Kevin gasped, “No!”
“No, little brother? You don’t want me to burn … her hair?” She flinched away from his thrust. The Elliarana groaned.
“No!”
Brian considered the abyss of panic in his brother’s voice and his eyes came alight with gloating understanding. “You have feelings for this creature!”
Alliathiune shrieked, “No he doesn’t!”
“Shut up, wench, or I’ll start by chopping off your fingers.” He stalked Kevin now, hunting him down with his gaze and his scorn. “Come on, little brother! Admit you have feelings for this grotesque freak of nature.”
Turning her about in his thick arms, Brian thrust his stump between her bound wrists and lifted them clear so that he could slash at her fingers with the knife. The Elliarana trees shuddered as she squirmed in his grasp.
Kevin was beside himself with dread that his brother would carry out his threats without further ado. Think, Kevin! They needed both Dryad and Magisoul–he was long since convinced of that. But which was more important? Lose the Dryad, lose the Elliarana, and they would lose the Forest. Lose the Magisoul, and Brian would become the most powerful Dark Wizard ever to walk Feynard. He could defeat them all, unless Kevin provoked him into using the Magisoul and then reversed its magic back on his brother. He could defeat the Kraleon creature … was Brian afraid of the creature he had summoned? Did he control the Kraleon, or did the Kraleon control him?
“He will sacrifice me for the good of the Forest,” insisted the Dryad.
Kevin raised his voice, “You’re right, Brian. I love her with all of my heart!” The Well went silent. Kevin flushed scarlet. But he shouted again, a little speech he had oftentimes spoken in his mind, “And I don’t care who knows it! Alliathiune, you are my beloved, and no power or person in all Driadorn can change how I feel about you!”
“No! He’s lying!”
“Yes!” crowed Brian. “I knew it!”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Snatcher hissed between his teeth.
“You don’t understand,” the Human whispered back. “There’s no time to explain. Come on, Brian! You want the Magisoul, don’t you?”
Brian simultaneously dropped the knife and flipped his staff sideways. One of the Druids had attacked him with a swarm of tiny biting creatures, which he vaporised in an instant. He responded with a titanic, signature Dark Apprentice firebolt that sent the Druids diving for cover. Two were set alight, but their colleagues responded with a localised rainstorm that snuffed out the flames before they took hold. Brian scowled and let fly a second time. The Druids shielded this one.
“How far are the Drakes, Snatcher?”
The Lurk glanced back. “Perhaps half a turn and no more, good outlander.”
“Then we must force the issue.”
“Attack him?”
“No …”
“Distract him?”
“We need to get Brian away from Alliathiune and protect her somehow. She is the key to the Forest’s survival.”
Please let him be right about this. When Akê-Akê had called her a parasite, and Kevin had objected that Dryads ‘embodied the living spirit of the Forest’, Alliathiune’s reaction had been one of fury and wonder. It must be. Nothing else made sense–blast these Forest creatures and their secrets and taboos!
“An exchange,” Brian boomed. “I propose an exchange, right now.”
Kevin stared at his brother. His brain clicked into overdrive. He could nearly smell the thoughts burning across his synapses. Pull out the conclusion, Kevin. Why the hurry, unless Brian and the Drakes were not as aligned as they had assumed? Dear God, here was a complication that they had not even begun to consider! Time … he had to play for time …
Brian made his cloak flare dramatically, ever the Dark Apprentice. “The Magisoul for the Dryad!” he shouted. “That is my offer–my only offer.”
“A moment’s discussion!” Kevin shouted back, and mouthed to Snatcher, “Trust me. When I give the word, Snatcher, I’ll grab Alliathiune and keep her from being hung. Free her if I can. You have the speed of a Lurk. I need you to get the Magisoul, wherever it is. Just don’t stand and face him, or you’ll be blasted to smithereens.”
“But what will you do?”
“I–”
“Enough whispering!” Brian roared. “What have you decided?”
“He fears the Drakes’ arrival,” Kevin muttered, and turned to his brother. “Accepted, Brian! Her life for the Magisoul–and no tricks!”
Alliathiune gave a small shriek of despair. She still did not know, Kevin thought, or if she did she was too scared of losing the Magisoul to think of the future. If Brian killed her now, the Elliarana grove would be utterly destroyed. Breaking the laik-Sälïph had to be their first priority. To do that they needed their hands–his blue hand, specifically–on the Dryad.
“No tricks?” Brian laughed, but there was an oily sheen of sweat on his forehead. “Don’t you trust me, little brother?”
Not in a million years. Kevin lied, “Of course I trust you! I’m putting the Magisoul down here, see?”
“Slowly!”
Lifting the gleaming gem from Snatcher’s reluctant paw, Kevin deposited it on a grassy spot and stepped back, scrutinizing his brother’s reaction from beneath eyelashes hooded like a cobra’s gaze. “There,” he said, holding up his empty hands. “Now, what would you have us do?”
“Trade places, that’s what.”
“Shall we go to the left and you to the right?”
“No, I will go left.”
To the hand sinister, Kevin remembered reading in his tome of wizardry, the preferred side of the dark arts. He had nothing against left-handed people himself. It was wizards he
did not trust.
So a languid dance developed. One step was matched to its opposite, like an indolent whirlpool measured foot by foot in suspicion and hair-trigger readiness. Snatcher kept pace with Kevin. Brian’s hand kept twitching on his staff, and his eyes jumped to the skies every few seconds to check where the Drakes were. This became harder and harder to do as they circled round, forcing him to glance over his shoulder each time. Kevin felt like watch wound to its fullest. It did not help that as he approached Alliathiune, she fixed a reproachful expression upon her face. But she could not move much for fear of falling.
They were five paces from Alliathiune when Kevin adjudged the time to be right. “Good grief, Brian!” he screamed, waving his arms in simulated panic. “There’s a Drake right behind you!”
Brian whirled.
Snatcher blasted out of a standing start with power that no champion athlete could hope to match. Kevin ran to Alliathiune and tried to loosen the noose.
“Quickly!” she gasped.
He glanced over his shoulder. Brian had about a second to react. The first half-second was wasted realising what was happening. But the next saw him slam up a shield to deflect the Lurk from his flight. The Dark Apprentice was toppled like a bowling-pin, but instead of being crushed, his shield made the Lurk skid off him as though he had landed on a pane of glass. Brian twisted on the grass and pointed the staff.
Fire thundered forth. In his fury, Brian did not withhold an ounce of his power. In the supercharged magical atmosphere of Elliadora’s Well, that was tantamount to loosing a hurricane. Yet amazingly, Kevin’s magic protected him. What he had learned beneath Shadowmoon Keep, the ability to slide magic around him and misdirect its main force, saved his life. The flames rocketed off to either side of the Arch of Indomalion, vaporising soil and grass and melting rock as they licked hungrily against the path leading upward to the lake rim.
But then the attack changed. Brian tugged the grass beneath his feet away like a rug. Kevin’s forehead smacked the stool’s rim and he landed heavily, only to be flipped up in the air. Strange, the Arch of Indomalion was shrinking. Alliathiune grew huge, rushing toward him. His hands flailed helplessly. Somewhere nearby, the Lurk’s battle-roar rang around the Sacred Well. Fire and lighting crackled across his vision.
Kevin’s hands slapped something soft. He clung there, staring into a pink, ridged cavern. A Dragon’s mouth? His thoughts were confused, scattered across the Hills. His perch moved; a blast of air ruffled his curls, and a voice that sounded like the rushing of wind whispered, “Oh, Kevin …”
“Alliathiune?” he squeaked.
Why on Earth did he sound like a mouse?
Brian roared words and spells, holding off what sounded like a Druid and Unicorn attack. At the Well his power was immense. With an earthquake he brought the Unicorns to their knees, and with a thunderclap of sound, immobilised the Druids. The Dark Apprentice flicked his fingers toward a squad of X’gäthi warriors, swatting them to the ground with monstrous ease.
“Drop!” hissed the … mouth? Kevin stared. “Now!”
And his perch moved in a pouting motion. “Noooooo …!”
Kevin howled as he fell, but he landed exactly between two soft, springy hills. His feet were wedged in the gap. He pressed with his elbows and struggled with all of his strength. Nearby, he heard the throbbing of a gigantic drumbeat. What was this?
“Stop tickling,” boomed the whisper.
“Where’s that poxy little brother of mine?” Brian roared. “I’ll kill him!”
Kevin gaped upward. He saw a giant chin, framed by well-remembered green hair, and the truth struck him with the force of a Lurk’s charge. He knew exactly where he had landed. How–that was a different issue. He was the size of a Human thumb, and neatly trapped in the Dryad’s cleavage. He had never appreciated Alliathiune from quite this perspective before, he thought, feeling his ears heat up fit to burst into flame! Noticing Brian staring over at the Dryad, he wriggled harder, finally managing to work his feet free. He clambered down into Alliathiune’s underwear, finding there a small space which just about fit his body.
He chuckled softly. This was going to take a Forest-sized apology–if they survived.
Odd, the whole dress and her underwear appeared to be one integral piece of material. How did the Dryads manage that, he wondered? Now was time to consider that.
Kevin put his miniature blue hand to the rondure of Alliathiune’s left breast, and set his mind and will–trying to ignore his distraction and no little fear at how easily he could be crushed in his current size–to undoing the terrible spell with which Brian had bound the Dryad to the Elliarana. By the change in her breathing, he knew she must sense what he was doing. She did not look down.
But he realised at once he could not reverse the spell, because he did not know how it was constructed. But he could nullify the key elements. Wait. That would require that he absorb the magic. As Zephyr had so patiently lectured him, something could not be turned into nothing. There would be consequences. He had to be prepared to bleed the power away, very carefully, or he would hurt Alliathiune.
Right, time to unravel Brian’s handiwork.
Concentrating fiercely on his work, Kevin nevertheless had opportunity to appreciate the complex artistry of Brian’s laik-Sälïph. It beggared belief–how did a moron like Brian come to such a mastery of magic? He would have bet Great-Grandmother’s entire fortune that Brian could not light a light bulb without an instruction manual written for idiots. Could it be that the Kraleon was his mentor? Or Harold? How long had Brian been on Feynard, perfecting his dark arts?
He was concentrating so hard, it was only when Alliathiune hissed in pain that he realised he had set her underwear alight with his diffusion of the spell’s inherent power.
Kevin quickly swatted the flames. Stupid!
“Aha!” called Brian. “I see where he is now. I’ll splatter my brother like a pesky grimfly!”
Turning about, Kevin saw he had also charred a hole in her dress. Here came Brian, striding over toward the Dryad, bringing the Magisoul along with his magic, as though it were a dog on the leash. Casual use of power, he thought. Brian showing off yet again.
As Alliathiune moved, Kevin slipped through the hole he had created. He caught himself on her belt, right next to the Unicorn horn, singed himself another hole, and reached in to touch her belly with his hand. He had to hurry. It was now or never.
“By the Hills!” howled the Dryad as Kevin accidentally seared her flesh.
“Sorry.”
But he had destroyed the laik-Sälïph and its bindings upon the Elliarana. Kevin checked over his shoulder. Brian was close, murder blazing in his eyes. He needed to escape. He needed a Unicorn. Reaching out to the limit of his tiny arm’s length, Kevin touched the horn and willed Zephyr forth.
Instead, he felt a frightful power seize him and drag him down into the horn!
* * * *
He was in an indeterminable place. All around him was soft, milky illumination upon a formless and perfectly uniform haze. There was neither sense of movement nor sense of time’s passage. Damp-slick, gnarled trunks rose all around him, a circle of trees ancient beyond knowing, and from the prickling, cloying chill along his spine he knew himself to be in a special, powerful, place–yet all remained insubstantial, as though the merest breath might send these visions back to the mists.
Kevin blinked. Huh?
Here came the peerless Unicorn, peering between the boles of those ancient trees as though all the goodness in the world had coalesced into equine form. His white coat was pristine and undamaged, quite unlike how the Kraleon must have left him after that attack on the island. Zephyr lived!
Zephyr! Oh, Zephyr! He cried out. You’re alive!
Kevin knew how he had come to be there, but he could not have imagined this result. Had his dream somehow taken place inside a Unicorn’s horn?
The Unicorn asked, How did you come to be here? This place is taboo for all but th
e Tomalia. How do you know my name? I had forgotten … everything. How could I forget?
In a flash of insight, it came to Kevin what must have happened. If the ancient Unicorns had indeed travelled between the stars by utilising this unique technique–akin to hibernation or suspended animation, then they must have had a means of waking themselves, perhaps a process of preparation that prevented their forgetting. Zephyr had taken to the horn in great distress. Preparation was impossible. Perhaps those other Unicorns had been unprepared, too. If so, then he might have stumbled upon a path they could take back to living. But what had he done?
You must leave or you too may begin to forget.
We need you! Kevin stared at Zephyr. You must return to the Forest! The Forest needs you! Please, Zephyr, I beg you, use your magic to return.
The Unicorn shook his head sadly. I don’t know how. No Unicorn knows how.
Kevin delved within himself. He delved deep and long, trying to dredge out every detail of what he remembered of that power which had dragged him within the Unicorn’s horn; he remembered the falling into a tiny hole, the enfolding layers of ancient magic, words in the language of Tomalia he could not even begin to understand.
I … I will show you.
And he moved over to his friend.
Zephyr’s eyes were huge and dreamlike, filled with knowledge and wisdom, and yet as innocent as a child’s. Hesitantly, Kevin touched the Unicorn’s flank and willed himself to show what he had experienced. In the dream-space, it was possible. Images and impressions rushed between their minds. The Unicorn trembled beneath his touch. Suddenly, Kevin found himself showing more, much more, a deluge of what had happened since he had last seen Zephyr.
He wrenched himself to a halt, panting soundlessly.
Now I know. The Unicorn pranced happily. I will follow you. There may be a small delay, good outlander. Go quickly. Be the Champion of Driadorn I already know you are.
Kevin turned, and faded into the light.
* * * *
The exit from the Unicorn’s horn squeezed him so hard that Kevin felt his feet come out of his ears. He landed with a thump on his tailbone. His legs refused to work properly.