by Sam Cheever
The world shimmied, dipped, and I nearly passed out again. I shook my head to clear it, forcing myself to my knees. “I’m coming, Hobs.”
“Teeny tiny amphibian diapers, frog!” Sebille exclaimed. “I can’t believe you pooped on me!”
I saw Hobs up ahead. He was bending over the small, unmoving form of my cat. “No, no, no, no, no…” I chanted as I tried to stand, nearly falling over from another wave of dizziness. I stayed on my knees and crawled toward Wicked, praying he’d be okay. “Sebille!” I screamed as I reached my little man. “Wicked’s hurt. I need you.”
There was blood on the fur around his ears. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t moving. I quickly checked to make sure he was breathing.
Sebille stumbled over, falling to her knees beside him. “Give me some room, Naida.”
I tried to move away, I really did, but terror had me firmly in its grip and my limbs wouldn’t obey my mind’s instructions.
I leaned back slightly though, and looked at Hobs. He had a thin stream of blood running down one leg, and his knee looked slightly swollen, but I didn’t see any other damage. “Are you okay, Hobs?”
He nodded, his big blue eyes filled with tears. “Is he…?”
Sebille’s hands lit up, a soft glow that bathed Wicked’s entire body in green. My cat trembled once, violently, and then went still. A beat later, he trembled again. Then again, until his entire body succumbed to convulsions.
“Sebille?”
She didn’t look up. Her eyes were closed, and she was chanting softly.
I knew I should shut up and let her do her work, but I just couldn’t. “Sebille!”
The glow increased, thickening to the point where Wicked’s small, still form disappeared beneath Sebille’s potent earth energy.
Lightning seared the night again, but it shot upward into the sky, slamming into Kanish and sending her shrieking toward the ground in a trail of helpless smoke and flame.
I bit back a scream, realizing we were under a coordinated attack, and it would be really stupid to announce our location.
Not that the Wizard didn’t already know where we were since he’d just hit us with a direct line of power.
I stared at the thick green wash of energy covering my sweet, beautiful cat, tears sliding from my eyes. He had to be okay. He just had to be.
My heart pounded against my ribs. Terror blossomed in my chest, fed by my hammering pulse. And I knew with the certainty of death that Wicked was far from okay.
“Sebille…” I whispered, beyond desperate.
The Sprite sagged downward, her eyes remaining closed as she fell back onto her butt on the dirt and then onto her back.
She’d given him everything she had.
I reached for her, clasping her icy hand in silent thanks. However it turned out, I owed her a great debt for what she’d tried to do.
Sebille’s hand was slack in mine. Her skin was clammy, and the freckles on her pale face nearly glowed against the paleness of her skin.
Had I killed the Sprite asking her to save Wicked?
Stars burst before my eyes and I wobbled on my knees, the edges of my vision going dark. I was a single heartbeat away from passing out again.
“Miss?” Hobs’ hand clasped my shoulder, his touch bringing me back from the edge.
“I’m okay,” I told him. But it was a lie. I was about as far from okay as I could be.
Movement caught my peripheral vision. My gaze snapped to Wicked, and I saw with relief that he was moving. The tightrope of tension in my chest eased. I gave a small sound of pure joy as Mr. Wicked tried to stand. His eyes rolled back for a beat and then refocused. After a beat, Wicked struggled to his feet and shook himself, falling over again under the violence of the movement. I grabbed him up, holding him close as he purred.
“Thank the goddess,” I murmured.
“Thank the Sprite,” Sebille answered in a rusty voice.
I laughed wetly, brushing snot from under my nose.
“We need to move. He just took Kanish down,” I told her. “I know you’re spent, but…”
She sighed, nodding. “Come on, I saw a cave not too far away. We can take cover and form a plan. If we just continue to stumble on the way we’ve been doing, we’re all going to be fuzzy splats on the ground of this goblin-cursed place.”
19
The Plan vs The Execution
“We have to assume Walt and Diandra are working against him, wherever they are,” I told my friends. Sebille didn’t look entirely convinced, but she nodded.
“They’re going to have their hands full,” Sebille said. “Walt doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing as a Seer. I doubt he’d even be able to drum up any defensive magic right now. Which means it’s really Diandra’s show.”
“He can amplify her energies like he did in the cave.”
Sebille nodded. “That will help. But he’s going to need us.” She looked around, her gaze narrowing on the frog. “Even the incontinent frog.”
“Hey!” Slimy objected.
I fought a grin. “Maybe Mr. Slimy can distract the Wizard by pooping on him.”
“Har!” the frog said.
Sebille bent over the sandy ground, the stick in her hand creating swirls and arrows over the battle plan we’d begun. “First, we find Kanish and make sure she’s okay…”
As plans went, it was disastrously weak. We were going to need all the luck we could get, especially since the Wizard appeared to be a lot more powerful than we were, and always seemed to be several steps ahead of us. The fact that we still hadn’t found Walt or Diandra worried me.
A lot.
They’d been only seconds ahead of us through the door. Granted, we’d lost a couple of minutes waiting for Kanish to unwedge herself, but we hadn’t been that far behind them. I couldn’t shake the feeling they’d been grabbed by the Wizard a soon as they came through the door. And if that was true, I had to wonder why he’d let us roam. He obviously didn’t think we were much of a threat.
I was going to do my best to change his mind about that.
Ahead of us, smoke rose in a curling ribbon from a dark mound on the ground. “There she is,” I whispered. I called the dragon’s name softly as we approached, not wanting her to attack us before she realized who we were.
Kanish lifted her long head from the ground, peering at us through pain-filled eyes. Her chest rumbled and smoke wafted from her flared nostrils.
Her wings were outstretched and looked slightly crumpled. Not a good sign. Dragons generally folded their wings against their bodies when they were at rest.
If she wasn’t tucking them up, they were probably broken.
I glanced at Sebille, wondering if she had it in her to heal the dragon. Frowning, I really wished we were home, so we’d have more resources.
An explosion in the distance sent dirt and rock geysering into the sky. Flames flared up behind the explosion, and I realized not all of the smoke wafting over the ground had come from Kanish. “There’s a battle nearby. Walt and Diandra are fighting him,” I told Sebille as she knelt beside the dragon and ran her hands over the creature’s heaving sides. A soft, green glow beneath her palms told me she was assessing the big reptile for damage.
She sent me a worried glance. “Broken ribs, several of them.” She glanced at the crumpled wings. “That’s going to take a lot of energy to fix.”
I sighed, realizing what had to be done. We needed to scrap our carefully thought-out plan. “Okay,” I said. “Plan B. You’re going to have to stay here. Once Kanish is on her feet again, you two can join us.” I knew there was a good chance Sebille’s energy stores would be so depleted she’d be of limited use in the battle, but the dragon’s help might be vital and I had no choice anyway. “Hobs can stay here and watch your back.”
“No, Miss!” the hobgoblin whined. “I need to help.”
“You would be helping…” I started to tell him, knowing in my heart he was right. I really needed his help.
&n
bsp; “I’ll stay,” Slimy interrupted. “I can’t fight anyway. But I can be useful as an extra pair of eyes.”
I looked at Sebille. She nodded. “They’re right. The frog is a better choice to stay with me. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
I sighed. “Take care of yourself…and Mr. Pooper there.”
Sebille chuckled, some of the weariness leaving her face. “Worst case, I’ll hand him to the Wizard and yell Boo! That should be enough for the frog to release all of his biologicals and send the Wizard screaming into the night.”
“You two are a laugh riot,” said the frog.
I was still chuckling as I headed toward the fire-fight in the distance. I mean, why not? It might be the last time I ever got to laugh at the frog’s expense. I might as well enjoy the heck out of it.
The ground exploded not thirty feet away from us, flinging debris into our faces in a stinging cloud. We hit the ground, Hobs and I covering our heads and me yanking Wicked beneath me to protect him. Coughing violently, I lifted my head again, seeing the line of gray smoke hanging in the air.
I watched another bolt of energy emerge from the rocky ridge a hundred yards away and hit the pocked and torn ground about ten yards from where it had last hit. Small fires formed a rough arc showing the area the Wizard had been targeting and, in the very center of that area, a slender form bent over a tiny fire behind a large boulder, shoulders rounded and head low.
Diandra!
I motioned to Hobs. He took off in a blur of movement. A beat later the Seer yelped, throwing up her hands and falling over as the timbers in her fire blew into the air and settled back, the flames shooting higher than before.
A gust of wind was the only warning I got that he was back. “It’s only her,” Hobs said. “I circled the whole area and didn’t see Walt.”
My stomach tightened. My theory was apparently accurate. Walt must have been grabbed as soon as they came through the portal. Though I had no idea how Diandra had avoided the same fate.
There was only one way to find out. I called out to her. “Diandra, it’s Naida. We’re coming in.”
The Seer spun in surprise when I first spoke, her curved fingers spitting energy that was too black to see except for the silver glare of the sparks it gave off. She relaxed her stance and dropped her hands, falling back to a squat over the fire.
We hurried over, and I dropped into a crouch next to her. “Where’s Walt?”
She skimmed me a quick look, her expression dire. “The Wizard has him. I tried to get to him as soon as I realized the Wizard was there, but the evil one was too fast. He touched Walt and they were both gone in a flash of light.”
I rubbed my face. “I’m surprised he didn’t take you.”
She frowned. “I’ve been thinking about that. I think he took Walt because of who he is, rather than the fact that he’s a Seer.” She fixed me with a look. “The Wizard has Walt’s family.”
My knees buckled, and I dropped to my butt into the dirt. “Oh no.” My mind formed a picture of all the happy Walt-like faces around the table. All those siblings. The baby… “We have to save them,” I told Diandra.
She jerked her chin toward the fire. “That’s what I’m doing here. But I could use some help.”
“What can I do?” I asked.
She grabbed a handful of dust from somewhere inside her robe, flinging it on the fire and examining the results carefully. Then she lifted her gaze. “I think his family is there.” She pointed toward a dark slash in the rock at the far end of the ridge.
An icy sense of foreboding filled me as I remembered what it had been like to enter the caves at the border. The two ridges looked a lot alike. I figured that wasn’t a coincidence.
“Can you take whoever you have with you and get the Mongs out? I’ll keep the Wizard distracted until Walt’s family is safe, and then we’ll focus on stopping the evil one.”
I glanced at Wicked and Hobs, dread filling me. But I couldn’t say no. I’d read the historical account of the Mage killing Wilshire Montague. I knew he was ruthless, as well as a cold-blooded killer. “Of course,” I said. “How will I let you know when I’ve got them out?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Send energy into the air, straight up to the sky. I’ll know it’s you by your energy signature.”
I nodded and took off running, really wishing I had Sebille and Kanish with me as backup.
We didn’t take the direct route. I sent Hobs ahead to scout out the safest route to the cave I could no longer see because we were approaching it from the side instead of head-on.
He was back a beat later, pointing toward a large copse of scrubby-needled trees about twenty yards ahead. “There.” Then he shot toward the trees again, my cat tearing off after him.
I bent over, lowering my profile as much as I could, and took off after Hobs and Wicked.
Diandra was doing a great job of keeping the Wizard busy, we made it to the trees, unscathed. By the time I was crouching at the edge of the copse, looking dubiously at the remaining land between us and the ridge, Hobs was back from another assessment of the landscape.
He shook his head. “It’s pretty open from here, Miss. There’s no way to get there without him seeing us.”
I bit my lip. If the Mage decided to pummel us with his dangerous magic, we’d be toast within seconds. “There has to be another way…” I murmured to myself.
A massive boom shook the ground, toppling Hobs and me to our backs. Wicked landed on top of me with a soft grunt. For several moments after the explosion, rocks and dirt rained down on us, the pieces so small they literally sounded like rain.
I crawled over to the edge of the trees and peered back to the spot where Diandra had been.
There was a large crater in the ground, black and still smoking.
She was gone. Tears slipped down my face. “Poor Diandra.”
Hobs wrapped long fingers over my shoulder. “Miss, we need to keep moving.”
I nodded. Taking a deep breath, I looked at my cat. “You have to stay here. It’s going to be really dangerous out there.”
“Yeowww!” Wicked slapped me on the ankle, claws out. He drew blood and then hissed and growled as if he fully intended to follow up the claws with something even more painful.
“I can’t lose you, buddy.”
Wicked straightened, his narrow chest beginning to glow the same orange color that flared to life in his eyes. My hearing dulled, the sound of raining rock fading away as Wicked’s magic pulsed away from him like sonic waves.
I shook my head, trying to get my ears to pop. But the muffling effect came from Wicked’s magic, and it was growing rather than shrinking.
The dull echoes of sound throbbed around us. Trees faded to shadow as if they were covered in gauze, masked from view. When I spoke Wicked’s name, my voice sounded inside my head but I got the distinct impression it didn’t make it beyond my lips.
Hobs’ warm fingers slipped into mine. I looked down into his pale, blue gaze, frowning.
He smiled. Behind him, a hazy tunnel of gray light opened up, and he tugged me into it. I looked back at Wicked, intending to tell him to stay put, but he was gone. When I turned back to the tunnel, I saw the muted glow of his orange energy dancing along its walls ahead of us.
With a weary sigh, I shook my head and let Hobs tug me into the veiling tunnel my cat had made. When we got home, Wicked was going to get a stern talking to about not listening when I told him to do something.
Yeah, that was going to go well for me.
Wicked’s camouflaging tunnel disappeared with a sigh as I stepped out of it. We stood in front of a cave entrance that was much too similar to the one that had trapped Sebille and I before. My fingers clenched under a wave of nerves, my stomach twisting.
But Diandra wouldn’t have sent us there if the cave wasn’t safe.
Would she?
Hobs shot away and returned almost instantly. “There are a lot of Walts in a barred room back th
ere.”
Relief swept through me. “His family.” I started forward. “Show me where they are, please?”
The cell was large, nearly the size of the entire living room at the Seer’s hut. It was full of Walt’s family, their green gazes tight with worry. None of them moved as I approached. “It’s okay,” I told them. “I’m here to get you out.”
They continued to stare as if they hadn’t heard me. Grampa Mong blinked suddenly, turning to Walt’s parents and saying something I couldn’t hear.
I grabbed the door and gave it a shake, looking around for a key. I looked at Gramps since he seemed to be the only one speaking. “Do you know where the key is?”
Gramps smiled and said something to his wife. She laughed.
I couldn’t hear any of it.
“Miss?”
I shook my head. “There’s probably a muffling spell.” I quickly searched the area, finding a large, old-fashioned key resting on a small outcropping of rock across and down a ways from the cell.
“Miss, I don’t think…”
I ignored Hobs and slipped the key into the lock. Turning the heavy piece of metal, I yanked on the door and pulled it open. I lifted my head and fixed the Mongs with a smile.
They were gone.
“Miss, I think it was an illusion.”
My heart started to pound. No!
The room spun violently. I fell forward, my hands barely catching the edge of the rusted iron door before I slammed into it with my head.
The silence in the place throbbed with active energy, telling me it was manufactured rather than real. A thick, white fog oozed around our feet and rose to pack my ears and nostrils with ozone-scented magic. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton.
Unable to use any of my senses to asses my surroundings, my mind shifted to looking for internal stimuli, pulling recent memories forward and shoving them through my brain.
Inside my head, the Wizard’s deadly energy slammed into us again, and I relived Wicked’s near death, the pain of it just as visceral as it had been the first time around.