by Rain Oxford
She nodded. “You’re good at coming up with a plan on the fly. How are you going to get to him?”
“Any chance you can transport me to him?”
“To Kradga, yes. To him, no. Gods are pretty good at keeping other gods out of their lairs.” I considered my options as she tried to de-cat our bedroom.
When I saw my laptop on the table, I decided to use the ability I was best at— writing. I sat at the table, pulled out my book, and focused. Using mine and Luca’s true name, I tried to write that I was standing in front of him. The words faded immediately, telling me I didn’t have the power or I didn’t have enough detail.
Keira gave up on the cat and asked me what I was trying to do. When I told her, she encouraged me to write it a different way, but that didn’t work either. I also tried writing it in Sacred Syndrial.
Taking a break, I sat in the chair next to the couch and watched my mother for a few minutes. “She had refused to sleep on the bed,” Keira said. “Apparently, it made her feel more secure that she couldn’t be strapped down.”
I considered what Painter had told me about her. She did look innocent to a fault. The Painter wasn’t all bad or all good, and neither was I. He was wrong, however, when he said that there was no such thing as good or bad. My mother was completely innocent.
Then again, who was I to say good and innocent was the same thing? She did what she could to protect us, but I didn’t think she would hurt anyone to do so. Painter would tear the world apart to protect us, but that wasn’t goodness, either.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Keira said, sitting on the arm of the chair and handing me a cup of coffee. I took it with my right hand and slipped my left hand around her waist.
“It would be much easier if the Book of Names wasn’t so damn dangerous.”
“I know. I know you want to give him the book, but that would be endangering everyone on Syndrial, including the children. What you feel for your brother is how I feel for every child of Syndrial. Although I cannot always help them all, it hurts every time one of them is killed.”
“I will do everything I can not to give Maori any more power.”
“Then give me the Book of Names.”
I shook my head. “I am the guardian of it now. I will keep it out of Maori’s hands. No one should have that much power. I’m not even going to take it with me when I save Luca.”
After a minute, she nodded. “I trust you. Just keep in mind that my name is in there as well.”
“I know.” We lapsed into silence for a few minutes as I recalled Painter’s first meeting with our mother. “She knew him,” I said.
“Huh?”
“My mother knew Painter when she first saw him because she had dreams of us. Painter and I shared dreams with each other, too. That’s how I learned mine and his true names.”
“I don’t see your point.”
I set my coffee down, pulled out my book, and started writing.
When the Writer finishes his cup of coffee, he will have a vision in which he will see through his twin brother’s eyes.
I slipped the book back into my pocket and picked up my coffee. “Be ready to grab my cup if I collapse, okay?” I asked.
Keira frowned at me. “Someday, I hope you learn to tell me your plan before enacting it.”
“That would take all the adrenaline out of it.” I drank my coffee down. I loved coffee, and because I drank it like water since I was fifteen, I had an extremely high tolerance of caffeine.
The second the last drop rolled down my throat, my vision changed.
While I wasn’t in my body, I couldn’t really feel Luca’s either. Thus, it was like a vague dream with a clear view.
From Luca’s eyes, I saw that he was in a chamber much simpler than the one we had faced Maori in. Color in his peripheral vision promised a distinguishing feature, but I couldn’t make it out. Turn your head, Brother. Turn your damn head. After a moment, he closed his eyes for a long blink and I thought that was all I was going to get from him. Then, he inhaled sharply as if coming awake.
I heard it.
“Nathan?” he whispered. Somehow, he sensed me. To my relief, he scanned the entire room. He was chained to a wall. To his right was a bookshelf with potions, sharp objects, and books. The rest of the room was easy; it was bare stone, about twelve-by-twelve with eight-foot ceilings. The only light in the room was from the window above him.
That had to be enough information. An instant later, I sat up in my chair.
Keira was standing over me. Her white-knuckled grip on the chair’s arm and her wide eyes told me she was worried. “What happened?” she asked.
“I saw where Luca was. I can get to him now.”
“I’ll go with---”
“You’ll die if you go to Kradga.”
“My body will. I don’t care.”
“I need you to stay here and protect my mother. As long as you’re with her, that’s two less people I have to worry about.”
* * *
Ignoring her protests, I wrote that I was standing in the room with Luca using every detail I could recall. However, I knew that I couldn’t go from world to world without a portal. Painter could transport himself or someone else from one place to another by painting them in a scene, but he needed portals to transport between worlds.
“Your plan doesn’t sound foolproof,” Keira said, trying to be kind even when she thought it was a dumb idea.
“I can’t leave my brother.”
I tried to create the portal to Kradga, which Keira had washed off the floor, but I still couldn’t draw a circle that didn’t look like an obstacle course.
Finally, Keira took pity and transported me there with her goddess magic. The flash of light faded, leaving me on a rocky islet in the middle of a sea of lava. This time, it was night and the sky was clear. I saw the mother world, even larger than it had looked from Syndrial and the stripes of colors were more visible.
I also saw Syndrial. The larger world was beautiful, but Syndrial was special. It was primarily sand, so it resembled Mars. Despite the absence of clouds, there was still plenty of red in the sky on account of the aurora borealis, which ranged from light peach to dark maroon.
I opened my book to the description of Luca’s prison and concentrated. I desired myself to be there with him. It was natural, and after just a few seconds, I felt my energy being pulled into my book. Before I had a chance to worry, I was suddenly in the room with Luca. Three faceless men rushed in, swords at the ready.
Who uses swords anymore?
I put up a shield automatically, which turned out to be a good thing, because one of them threw a fireball at me. It struck my shield and dispersed harmlessly. “Dresek,” I said when two of them swung their weapons at me. Invisible energy pulsed from me and their weapons shot out of their hands, clattering on the floor.
I backed up to Luca when the guards tried to surround me.
One of them pointed to me and said, “Megyar.”
“Tekriyar!” Luca shouted. Unfortunately, since he didn’t have magic and I wasn’t used to countering attacks, the curse hit me.
I felt like every muscle cramped up at once, including my diaphragm. It was the worst pain I had ever experienced. I dropped to the ground, distantly aware that Luca was struggling and shouting.
One of the guards approached me and tried to kick me in the chest, but a spasm of pain caused me to curl up and my arms softened the blow.
“Nathan, you have to get up,” Luca said. “I know you hurt but the pain is in your head. Your body is fine.”
After the guards picked up their weapons, two of them pulled me up by my arms. As much pain as I was in, my legs held me. I stayed as straight as possible while not actually putting weight on my legs. This forced them to put forth all of the effort, and when I suddenly stood, they weren’t expecting it.
“Khatva taha!” A wind tunnel formed around me, strong enough to toss them back, but I didn’t hold onto it long enough for them to
counter it. Backing myself against Luca, I held my hands out towards the guards as if I was going to fend them off that way. “Tremsa!”
The guards shivered as their clothes froze. “That was stupid,” Luca said.
“I was trying to freeze them. I imagined it. What did I do wrong?”
“Did you mean to kill them?”
“No.” Their weaknesses and strengths must have depended on their assignment. The ones that I pushed into the lava never showed signs of pain. These guys, however, spoke, attacked with magic, and shivered, as if they were more alive.
“Then that’s what you did wrong. You didn’t mean it, because you know inside that freezing them would kill them.”
“Fine.” I pointed to them again and said, “Mortoa.”
“Kerar,” one of the guards said, disarming my attack.
“Ikem,” Luca said. He couldn’t help himself, and apparently, he was a lot better a fighter than me, because an instant later, one of the guards casted fire. I wasn’t quick enough to counter it.
I fell against Luca. The flames burned my skin and clothes.
“Kerar!” Luca said.
My first instinct was to freeze my clothes, but I listened to my brother this time. “Kerar!” Although the flames died, I was definitely hurt. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping me from crumbling under the pain.
“Use hogra,” Luca said.
“I don’t know that one.”
“Use---” before he could tell me what to do, one of the guards ran at me with his sword aimed.
Dje, I thought, focusing my power on the sword. It shot upward at the last second. I pointed to the guard’s sword as he dropped it in surprise. Sjokve. The sword flew into my hand. I aimed it at the guards. I didn’t want to kill anyone, but I would do whatever it took to save my brother.
“I sure wish you had more training,” Luca said.
“I have a better idea if I could hold them off long enough to write.”
“Use a fiery wind tunnel.”
“That would hurt you.”
“You know what’s going to hurt? Those pointy sticks poking me in my squishy heart. If you have some raspberries or a banana, fucking use them already.”
I walked to the center of the room, surrounding myself with the three guards. They all came at me at once. I put out my hands and focused my mind. “Khatva taha kitmas.” A decent sized wind tunnel formed around me and then caught on fire. It was terrible from the inside— hot, suffocating, and windy. Outside, however, it was worse, so it bought me time. I pulled out my book and pen. The pages flapped wildly as I wrote.
The Writer has a gun that can kill even the dead.
The sentence faded. Wasting a second to growl with frustration, I tried again. The problem wasn’t my determination. Magical weapons were probably difficult to craft, let alone summon… That might work.
The magic gun that is closest to the Writer suddenly appears in his hand when he…
The sentence faded before I could finish it. Fine. Not a magic gun. Let’s see if these bastards can take a regular one.
The Writer has a gun.
Once again, the sentence faded. I was so pissed I wanted to rip the book in half, but that would have been the stupidest move I’d ever made… except for taking away my brother’s power. I needed Painter. “It’s not working!” I yelled.
“It has to work!” Luca said, although I could barely hear him over the wind. “You’re the older brother, now! You know what you’re doing wrong.”
I knew damn well that I had enough power to conjure a gun and the determination. What I was lacking was the description. I remembered the police gun that had shot Luca. It wasn’t the cop who’d done it; the gun was on his belt and somehow fired itself. I knew all those attacks on Luca had just been his way of blending in. Nevertheless, that was the most I knew about any real gun. I didn’t know what model it was, but I knew what it looked like.
I wrote down every detail of the gun and said that it had three bullets. I didn’t know how many it actually carried and I didn’t want to mess it up.
As soon as I stopped writing, a gun appeared on my book. Its sudden weight nearly caused me to drop it. Instead, I put away my book and pen before releasing my flaming tornado. Releasing that strain on my energy was like a twenty pound weight off my head. The three guards were on the ground, but Luca didn’t look any worse than when we had gone to the beach with our friends and got left behind.
I aimed the gun at the first guard to stand and shot him in the head. He burst into black sand. “Holy fuck!” Luca exclaimed. “What the Hell kind of gun did you conjure?”
I ignored him and shot the other two guards. They, too, burst into sand. “A regular gun, I think. At least we know they aren’t real people.”
When I started to search the sand piles for a key, Luca said, “These aren’t magical shackles! He knew I don’t have my magic.”
I gave up my search, ran to Luca, and said, “Ketmeek.” Only the shackle that was holding his right arm, which was the one I had been focused on, opened. I did the same with the second one.
Luca hugged me before I could free his feet.
“You shouldn’t have come back for me.”
“I’m kind of fond of you, shithead.”
He let me go. “I overheard Maori talking to someone. I don’t know who, but the guy sounded familiar. Maori doesn’t have the Sword of Draskara; that was a trick. He’s looking for it, though.”
“No, I don’t have it,” Maori said from the doorway. Magic as strong as a brick wall slammed into me, throwing me across the room and pinning me to the wall opposite of my brother. The gun hit the floor. It was out of bullets, anyway. “But you don’t have it, either.”
“You don’t cheat fair,” Luca said.
Maori laughed and the magic holding me lightened slightly, allowing me to breathe again. “And you weren’t even worth my time. Everyone had high hopes for the twin casters of Syndrial. Do you know how often twins are born on Syndrial? Identical ones no less?”
The pressure let off just enough that I could shrug. “It happens all the time,” I said, trying to sound unconcerned.
He glared at me. “Not here. Syndrial is a world ruled by magic, and twins are a special kind of magic.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t think there were that many casters on Syndrial.”
“The priests try to breed it out of people,” Luca explained. “People on Syndrial without caster parents can be born a caster, because magic comes from the gods, so they say. I don’t believe it, though.”
“Enough talk!” Maori interjected. “I want the Book of Names! Give it to me!”
“Don’t give it to him,” Luca insisted.
Maori marched up to him and slapped him.
Luca was not small, but he was quick. He took the smack, then grabbed Maori’s arm and bit his wrist. Maori gripped Luca by the neck with his other hand and squeezed.
“Stop! Let him go!” I demanded. He didn’t. “Megyar,” I said.
Without a word, he waved his hand dismissively. Nothing happened, as far as I could tell. Then he clenched his fist and the pressure against my chest increased. “I’m not playing your games, mortal. You are worth nothing to me.”
“Okay, I see that now,” I conceded as the pressure slowly released. “The book isn’t worth my brother’s life. I will give it to you.”
“Don’t,” Luca said, barely able to breathe.
Maori shoved him into the wall and he yelped with pain.
“Give me time to get it. The wizard who made the fake is an asshole and he wanted the weapon.”
“Then I suggest you put your pathetic trickery to better use and get the book from him before I lose patience with you and kill your brother.” The pressure on my chest released and I hit the ground.
“I’ll be back, Luca.”
Luca shook his head. “Don’t come back. You don’t need me.”
“I need my brother. Whether you have magic or not, whether
you’re a killer or not, you’re my brother.” I whispered, “There’s no place like home,” three times. The room faded.
Chapter 11
My injuries and the depletion of my energy combined caused me to pass out before I even made it back to Earth.
I woke in my own bed with Keira asleep beside me. My open wounds were healed, but I was covered in bruises and I felt like shit. Keira had healed most of the damage, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how long I had been asleep.
How long my brother had suffered at Maori’s hands.
I had barged in with guns blazing, so to speak, and got my ass kicked. I was half god and six months into studying magic. Maori was a god and probably had hundreds if not thousands of years of practice. No matter how powerful my magic was, I was inexperienced.
That didn’t mean Maori was undefeatable, though. I had talents other than magic, and I expected Maori only relied on casting.
I slipped out of bed quietly, went to the kitchen, and brewed myself a pot of coffee. After all, I couldn’t think on an empty stomach. I drank it black only and didn’t consider myself a coffee snob.
Other people did, but I didn’t care.
I turned around with my coffee mug and jumped, sloshing scolding liquid on the floor. The kitten was sitting on the table, staring at me. Cursing, I wiped the coffee up and sat, taking my first good look at him. He was a beautiful tortoiseshell with a strange blend of long and medium hair, which made him look scruffy and malnourished. His celadon eyes stared at me unwavering while his tail flickered back and forth. I stared right back at him and drank my coffee.
Unfortunately, I was an idiot before my first cup. I’d forgotten about my spell, and the second I finished my cup, the world went black. It took me a couple of minutes to realize it was because Luca was blindfolded.
I heard someone talking, but I couldn’t make out the words.