“Cage Love, why do you look at us so?” Brooke asked.
“I can see magic now.” He revealed. “I can see what The Great Prophet did to you and Meeka. You two definitely have a lot of power, but his spells use too much for you to be able to do anything like a real sorceress, but he left one hell of a nasty trap on both of you. If anyone tries removing them it will latch on to the caster’s soul and rip it from their body.”
“Correct.” Rex Gralla seconded. “It is a spell of chaos and therefore cannot be intentionally or safely removed, numbers will matter not. How the two-legged Rare One made such a spell is beyond understanding. Cage Two-legs, your eyes and mind understand much. When did you ascend?”
“About an hour and a half ago I’d guess.” He answered while figuring out several things. “Tests later. Right now I need to tell what happened to me in The Deep and go home for some relaxation. Oh, before I get started, can you translate something for me before I get started?” she grunted and he said “Journal of underground.” To pull out his notes from the journey below. He flipped to the page he copied and transposed it through magic, flipped a thirty foot tall illusion around and waited as she and the other dragon’s read. Some gulped, but the Rex herself made a sound and he made the illusion vanish.
“In this language it says: No hope, too difficult. Tamalan are tearing through my scales and eating my flesh. Burrowing deeper they get with each breath. To any Draconian who reads this, move fast and stay near rocks. Great ones swim the deep. Ate my tail in one bite. Poison slowing me. Forgive my Rex Semblom I do. I die for my crime of hatchling stomping. My death is nigh. Daughter Qillao, take not after your sire.” Gralla spoke and turned her head.
Poli revealed “Qillao is my… as you say, mother. She went back to Valagax after his betrayal and shame. Rex Gralla, may I send this news?” the Rex grunted and Poli turned around to fly off in the distance where she could send a message in private all the way to the dragon home world.
“Moril!” heads returned to Cage as he walked up to the strong warrior with the green beat proudly dangling from her left temple. “Congratulations on becoming chief!” he proudly pat her shoulder. “Like the job?”
The woman smiled while rubbing her arms that sported fresh new scars. “It is what I wanted. Chala and my mates are all proud of me. It was your teachings that made me reach my dream… that and not having Brooke find me worthy.” Brooke and most others laughed at her humor. “May I have a request?” he nodded and she showed a nasty thigh wound near her flower. “I feel great pain when my man fills me and do not know why.”
He easily said “Because you bruised a nerve and have sex too much to let it heal.” Chala and the rest of Moril’s mates laughed and slapped her on the back. For a moment the spot healed and the chief resisted scratching. “Good as new. And just where are my kids?” Moril grinned mischievously, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly.
Out from the trees swarmed all the children, at the front sprinted Rena and Sean. One of Rena’s girlfriends was much slower, helping Ananna walk at her own toddler’s pace. “DAD!!!” his kids yelled, running as hard as their little legs would allow. Sean was marginally faster because of being older and taller.
Cage knelt in the sand as both leapt for him. Rena bawled as she buried her head in his neck, missing him almost as much as her mothers. Sean merely grinned. “Dad, I knew you wouldn’t die. Megdline Grandmother didn’t think so, but I told her so.”
“And Rena got so mad she cut me to shut me up.” Megdline said as she, Frill and Zikon approached. “Can’t say I didn’t deserve it.” The black haired, grey eyed sorceress admitted from a few yards back.
“The only thing I missed was seeing my son take down a wolf to become a man.” Cage voiced proudly while flicking the blue hunter’s bead. “I’m proud of you, Sean.”
The young, former thief beamed. “Rena is helping me with the pelt. Dad, I was scared, but when it lunged, I couldn’t think. Next thing I know my hand is holding my knife and the wolf had its throat slit… Tohka Mother almost fainted. Brooke Mother brought me to the tribe to tell them…”
“Then I’m even more proud.” Cage said as Rena clutched him still. “It means you’ve been practicing the moves I taught so much they took over when needed most. Which wolf was it?”
“One with a black patch on its right shoulder and had a scar below its let eye.”
“That wasn’t just any wolf. That was the alpha male! You definitely earned that bead, Son.” Sean blushed brightly. “And you, Kiddo,” Cage tickled his stepdaughter in just the right place that turned sobs to giggles as she tried getting away, but she couldn’t. Her laughing was contagious as every being, human and not, joined together. “what happened to my strong little girl, huh?”
“Dad, stop! I can’t… ha, ha, ha… breathe!” he pulled back and noticed her priestess’s lone white bead. She kept giggling as she put a hand over her chest and crawled away.
“Daku tells me you’ve taken well to priestess, minding your mother, elders and new chieftain.”
“Mother is better at it than me. I keep messing up.” She admitted.
“How do you expect to get it right without knowing you screwed up. I would have intentionally made you mess up if you did everything perfectly.”
Brooke pointed out “She is doing better than I was her age when I learned.”
“Don’t understate the facts.” Elder Metak couldn’t resist another chuckle. “You were worse, Brooke. Rena sits still. You never did when your teacher passed on the stories and wisdom. You were eleven in comparison to your daughter.” Brooke huffed and grinned as she could barely keep a straight face with her family whole again.
“Dad, what kind of sword is that?” Sean asked as he finally saw the pale hilt and sheathe.
“Ghosts Bane!” Mox, the huge black dragon almost hissed and roared in complete and utter surprise. “I thought it was lost!”
“So it’s name is Ghost’s Bane?” Cage asked as he stood and unsheathed it in front of the crowd. “Fitting as the spirit’s call me Lord Death.” Other dragons who knew the name stared almost in denial.
“What is so special about the sword?” Megdline asked and Zikon was likewise as confused as to the dragons’ wary expression.
“It is a warlock’s blade only the strongest living warlock may carry.” Cage said. “Only a warlock can use its special properties.” Rex Gralla gave a warning look, which he understood. These blades were secret and to speak on the six dragon swords held by the Rex of each colony was to invite danger. He went on to say “This is the only one. Here, Grampa, try sending magic into it.” He flipped it around and held it out. His words eased the dragon queen.
Zikon attentively grasped the blade. “It’s so light.” He commented as his glowing hand gripped the rough hilt that would not allow any slipping while giving over some mana. His brow furrowed. “It isn’t absorbing any of my mana. What is this made of? This goes against all studies. Any object can hold mana.”
“You have your secrets and I have mine.” He held out his hand and Zikon returned it. The moment it touched the entire weapon turned black except for the symbol of infinity, of the warlock. “Watch this.” He flicked his wrist upwards and the sharp wave rose thirty feet before dissipating. “That was barely what I use to make a fireball. Imagine what I could do if I really put in some power.”
“The island would effortlessly be split in half. Ghosts Bane is yours, but caution would be wise. One mistake will kill.” Mox warned with a growl.
“Got it… Oh, I better let you guys know I opened the Stronghold.” Every dragon along with Zikon and Megdline’s eyes near popped out if their chest. “It’s wide open and in Dead River. Here’s a visual.” He created a flat screen of the overhead scene. “And you can do what you want. I got what belongs to me. But I ask you get rid of The Deep. Collapse every tunnel and find a new place for the animals to live. I don’t care if it takes a thousand years, it will be no more. What I went through,
none should face. It is crueler than simply executing the condemned. It might be the worst punishment imaginable, but no one deserves that treatment. Nevertheless I think you guys need to secure that place before someone stumbles upon it.”
“What! All the ghosts!”
“Are spirits once again.” He said levelly to Mox. “When I ascended it healed them all at once. Every trapped ghost from the nexus has found peace at long last.”
The black dragon looked to his eternal mate to say “Imprint his story for me to watch later. The Stronghold must be secured first. Many of our weapons still reside in them.”
“Agreed.” She rumbled and people ducked as the great drake leapt and flew over them, roaring. Two soldier dragons swooped in and immediately they Jumped out to secure the great city.
“Rex Gralla, I assume our agreement still stands in regard to preserving history?” Zikon asked stoically on behalf of The First Council.
“As soon as our secrets are safe from ignorant hands, you Two-legs’ will have access, especially when no danger threatens your kind. Many dangers. War at that time deemed traps magical and not necessary.” She replied.
“I’ll Jump right into my story!” Cage yelled for everyone to hear and return to the main topic as he sheathed Ghosts Bane. “Sit down so everyone can see and not stumble around.”
One child asked “Chief…” he corrected as Moril raised an eyebrow. “I mean, Cage? Are you going to make magic again?” as soon as the warlock nodded all the children, Sean and Rena included cheered. They always loved his illusions.
His tribe is also always eager for a story and began seating themselves for a great tale. The dragons also laid on their bellies, eagerly wanting to know how he escaped. His women sat right in front of him, each holding a child in their lap. Brooke held Rena, Tohka had Sean and Meeka clutched Ananna. He threw his arms up as he created an exact illusion, not adjusting size at all as the beach seemed to disappear. “When I was taken from you, this is where I ended up. If not for my wards I would have been immediately flattened in the wall.” A few snickered while the rest were entranced. His new mind and power too easily recreated the visual and the output was less than he felt himself recover. “The worst part was the smell, but it also stopped me from using magic.” Apparently this wasn’t news as none whispered. At least someone informed them. He thought.
The story progressed after the wall was read, up to the petrified dragon and the sheer scale of the canyon. One asked if he was embellishing the visuals and Rex Gralla simply said “Not likely.”
He showed the cave of golems and statues after speeding up his cautious trek through the winding tunnel. He replayed the fight of the three golems with swords and maces. The only one who chuckled was the Rex as he manipulated her spells to break one another and wasn’t surprised how it activated most of the others who went on the attack and his leap and roll. And he recreated how he had to do surgery on his leg. “I don’t know how I was cut, but Meeka, that poultice you made for burns really helped.” Her wide blue eyes watered because he was alone and forced to heal himself alone while enduring unimaginable pain. “I spent, what felt like almost a week there healing up.”
Rex Gralla interjected as he took a needed breath. “The leg wound was a slicing spell that alters to who passes. It then seals the golems. Great fortitude is required to save ones self from loss of lifeblood. Magic cuts faster than wards become. Self reliance without magic is difficult at best under conditions.”
“Answers one question.” He admitted and sped up to the ring tunnel, finding the journal left behind and showed the bones of many more who died. But at each griffin corpse, Daku just shook his head sometimes whispered “Fools. Should have relied on memory, not taken the greatest, most dangerous route.”
Cage couldn’t show his path through the hot water that sucked him and spat him out in the lake. He modified the spell around those to manipulate distance from his point of view rather than send an illusion over the entire island just to explain the sheer size of the lake. Some gasped when he showed the eyeless eels, making a joke about the one who broke a tooth trying to get a taste. His did impress their large sizes, the feeding frenzy and how he learned the best way to escape by using the crabs. His slow swim out was met with silence till gasps came from his people and the dragons when they saw the big one surface right beside him. And that there were more than one. Sean said “Only Dad would try to hold on and be carried.” eliciting a chuckle from some and giggles from Tohka. Cage said as he pulled himself out of the water “And these little critters are just as bad as the big ones. Anklebiters…”
Cage said as he showed the bones of the two smaller dragons and griffin “And these were the very last set of bones I’d seen after this next part. They also must have figured out going slow through the water didn’t attract the eels.” He showed the shaft of stairs and a fast forward version of his ascent. Part of him noticed a look of nostalgia on the Rex’s reptilian expression mixed with expectation. When he showed the platform he said “And this is as far as the hard climb took me.”
“Where did you go, Dad?” Rena asked.
“Well, I leapt.” He laughed as the whole tribe gasped. “Not right away though. I didn’t want to end up like the dragons and griffin.” He shook his journal. “I don’t know how long it really was, but I spent five days calculating the wind speeds by throwing little embers of wood, rocks and bits of metal that glinted from the lantern. It also judged how the smooth walls redirected the wind currents. It required high level mathematics that incorporated gravity, wind speed, the density of air and timing to come up with a single means of reaching that tunnel all the way up there.” He pointed to the illusion. “As a human, I couldn’t very well fly…”
“That wing-suit thing!” Fredrick said as a statement and a question.
“Exactly!” The warlock admitted. “I activated my keyword that modifies my robe as you’ve all seen when I play around with Daku and I zip around without relying on my magic. If I didn’t have it, I would not have made it in all likeliness.” He admitted. “I closed my eyes at the time so I didn’t make a mistake, but this is how it would have looked like. I’m also adding mist so you can see exactly just how difficult and close it is to make it out.” The factors went into the spell, holding position from the platform where Cage’s real body stood. His avatar leapt with the wing-suit ready and he zipped, flipped and rode the winds for a time till he tucked and rolled into the magically lit tunnel. Clapping arose an stopped as he said “And then it gets interesting.”
“Interesting?” Someone said. “How so?”
Instead of answering he just showed the tunnel collapse and his mad dash to survive and his leaping Parkour skills saving him from the tunnel collapse as well as the rift waiting below. “My body was just about to give up when the orb shot up and I grabbed that bar and flipped to get a better grasp and held on while the collapsed tunnel settled, I caught my breath and till my obviously exhausted body recovered. It was then I smelled clean air, nothing pungent and it was then I finally found a way to reach out.”
“And never had we gotten so great of news.” Chieftain Moril said. “Sean and Theresa told us and just as the tribe was about to rush to your home Daku brought everyone here and he was our link to you. It was the best news any hoped for. It took more than an hour till your mates could even be approached to speak.”
“Why?” He asked them directly.
Brooke gave a cheeky grin. “After we go home, we plan on holding you all to ourselves for a week. You have much to make up to us and now that we know you can give us babies you will never be far from one of us after. You will not leave us again.” Tohka silently confirmed this by defiantly holding his gaze while having a death grip on Brooke’s hand. “Rex Gralla Firescales has allowed us one week to ourselves before she and the inquirers begin learning how Tohka became part of us.” Her brown eyes glinted with passion. “And as our man, you will succeed and give us all babies and will have little rest from now on
, even if it takes centuries… You’ve been warned.” All the females laughed, Gralla caught off guard snorted a fifteen foot flame from both nostrils. Poli’s silent return showed she was giving Ulon not to subtle looks he’d be doing the same. Like Cage, he grinned as it meant the best things all males enjoy with gorgeous females, lots and lots of sex. For procreation’s sakes of course. Cage thought that part last and chuckled to himself.
Cage cleared his throat as the men of his tribe gave looks of condolences or smiles that said ‘You are on your own, Pal.’ He instead went on, looked to Daku and said “Without your warnings I wouldn’t have made it.” He showed the birds with ears and no feathers and how he used one to show the invisible spikes by blood being the medium and everything thereafter. Daku and the ancient dragons chuckled at the bird cannon idea, something none had even considered, but the trick worked. He sped over his relieving schedule while showing his ever inward spiral down the tunnel that led to the crablike golem battle. At last he pulled out the two pieces of the diamond and said “This is what I cut through to get out.”
Before Zikon or anyone else could speak the Rex herself said “Cage Two-legs, by rights the dense carbon stone belongs to you, but as reparations and a prize for passing the flying gauntlet and room of sentient representations, I will repair your prize so it will be functional for any of your needs.”
Ascension of the Warlock (Book 4 of the Death Incarnate Saga) Page 41