"And you are?" the girl asked without seeming to worry in spite of all the firepower trained on them at the moment. Alec's senses told him this man was a wizard or magic user of some sort. With smooth black skin and eyes glimmering with orange, every place where the boy expected to see hair seemed to be replaced with flames.
"Wizard Girillis, guardian of the gate of Tenayus, I do not recognize this boy's race," he added as the man's eyes narrowed slightly.
Shaelamee responded as if she was more surprised that the man didn't know what he was, than that he had to ask. "He is an air genasi, of course. How can you not see that?"
Trying to mask any movements that might show that he was using magic, Alec raised his right hand stirring the air. He nodded at the ebony wizard, but didn't say anything about the mumbled words used to trigger his very minor spell.
"Where is his mark?"
Shaelamee took his right wrist and he felt a small spark of magic as a blue rune suddenly appeared on his forearm. "Are you satisfied? Our companion is still on Atropos surrounded by hollows and rebel Zmaj wizards. We need to tell the commanders so that we can try to keep the other forts there from destruction. The Ciemnosci won't be happy if they have to retake the world again, you know."
The wizard didn't give in to her bluff and bluster immediately as Shaelamee might have hoped, but to Alec's surprise the man did finally relent. "I will have an escort take you there. Do not deviate from the course assigned or we will have you thrown into prison immediately."
Frowning at the man, Shaelamee stated, "Well, I guess that I shouldn't be surprised that one of you fire types would be rude. You truly need to relax, Girillis. You have identified us, so now we will be on our way."
His fiery looking eyes narrowed in annoyance and he replied, "Leave it to a water type to be flippant and too easy going. Please, be on your way, but do not act like you can just do anything you want until the regent decides what to do with you."
Sighing, Shaelamee picked up her bags and pointed for Alec to join her. To his surprise, she took his hand in hers again entwining her fingers with his. Many of the soldiers noticed the gesture and started to smile slightly.
Uncertain what the looks meant, the boy followed her lead and was glad to leave the gate room. For all the pleasant looking colors, being under guard had made him nervous.
Five men, one a wizard, moved to either side of the newly arrived guests. One of the soldiers took the lead bringing them outside. Alec looked up at a bright yellow sun that felt similar to Arcturas which shown on Alus. Blue green skies with fluffy clouds traveling overhead felt so pleasant after the troubled skies over Atropos that it was almost stunning to the boy.
Tall buildings, which seemed practically fluid in their architecture, rose up around them. Dozens of people in varying colors and often wearing bright clothing walked around them. The sight of the small procession drew a few eyes, but everyone seemed happy and willing to let their appearance disappear behind them as they walked.
"We will go turn in our reports and then hopefully we will get permission for a little down time. Maybe we can visit my home even," Shaelamee said looking up at him with a smile. He felt the amused looks of the guards and wondered how it looked to them.
"Ok," was all the boy could think to say. Once again he was out of his element. To ask questions with these men around, however, would only serve to break the illusion that the warlock had worked so hard to convince the guardians of earlier. Hopefully they could be alone later, even if these men might think something of their relationship that wasn't true, and then maybe Shaelamee would be willing to fill him in on this new world.
Nearly skipping on her bare, blue feet, Shaelamee followed the escort and eventually the two would get an audience with wizards and politicians both. They would explain the troubles on Atropos and do their best to make them understand the danger as they saw it. After that, Shaelamee would take her new friend on his next adventure.
Chapter 20- Shown the Door
The sound of fists beating on the outer doors spurred Helios to move faster. Only the gate's apparatus remained inside the room with the silver dragaoin. The storm clouds contained within a rectangle of power above the runed metal rod were extinguished. Shaelamee and Alec were gone leaving only the sorcerer between the horde of hollows and the machine.
He moved his hands on the cube in a certain way to release the cable attached to it. Pulling out an empty looking bag from within his pack, Helios took it by the lip of the opening. It shook out looking larger than the pack it had come from only moments before and, as the sorcerer expanded the opening, he swept it over the large block making it disappear yet the bag still looked empty.
Taking the runed metal next, he didn't even bother to disconnect the cable as the sorcerer shoved the eight feet of metal into the bag as well. The cable followed and still the bag seemed empty. Quickly rolling it up and shoving it into his pack once more, Helios looked at the last door.
Hammering came from just outside and the sorcerer guessed that whatever wizards had helped the hollows through the walls earlier were likely dissolving the doors in a similar way. These were enchanted doors, however, and would resist such magic for a time. How much he had left, Helios couldn't know.
The silver scaled sorcerer looked upward on an angle. With no other way out of the chamber, he was left only one recourse. It was a spell that had mystified Alec the first time he had seen it used. Like Shaelamee, Helios knew a special door portal spell. It wasn't the same as the storm gate, but was likely from that family.
His only problem was that it was a spell designed to be used within line of sight of the caster. Helios tried to add up the factors needed to guess the logistics of the spell he planned to try even so. Thirty to forty feet were between him and the main floor, with the kitchen in the center of the rear of the keep, he guessed that there was eighty to a hundred feet to the outer wall of the castle from there. Beyond that, there were stables in that direction about sixty feet from the keep's exterior.
THOOM!
The room shook with the power of magic trying to physically remove the enchanted door to the former gate room. While he wasn't positive that the Haileni wizards wanted the gate equipment, it wasn't a stretch. What they would do with it was more convoluted and there were several possibilities there.
Taking a deep breath, Helios closed his large blue eyes and imagined the distance he would need without becoming trapped inside the stone. Some said that, if he guessed incorrectly, the spell wouldn't even work; but there would be a painful price even then. Since no one intentionally tried to use the doorway in such a dangerous way, there were only stories now. He was certain that someone must have tried and failed in the past, but the sorcerer wasn't much of a reader and had never come across the answer.
His pack slung over his shoulder, the sorcerer worked the gestures he knew to trigger the opening and concentrated on the place he wanted to be now. Imagining that he needed about two hundred feet on an angle, Helios added twenty to that and winked out of sight.
The door broke as the light in the chamber dimmed.
Gray light tinged red lit the courtyard surrounding the castle keep. Helios barely had time to notice that he was alive and outside before he also realized that he was about to fall thirty feet. Glad that he still had a little time on his flying spell, the sorcerer caught himself in the air after dropping only a few feet. Sighting the stables and the two salamanders standing near the doors, Helios looked for any sign of watching eyes or the movement of hollows. Seeing no other danger for the moment, the sorcerer quickly descended almost on top of the mount he had been using for days.
The creatures looked nervous. They knew that hollows were inside the walls and the keep. He had left them closer to the front and they had moved to this place on their own probably hoping to join with the other salamanders inside the stables. More noise from other salamanders inside let him know that they were just as aware as those outside. Perhaps the creatures even had a
way of communicating in a similar way to a dragaoin's speech or one of the races to which they could communicate. The question was too insignificant to worry about at the moment when danger was so near.
Landing by the doors; the two salamanders greeted him with quiet grunts as if they knew to be quiet as well. He ignored them and opened the doors. Movement inside the various stalls let him know that the other beasts saw him as a possible savior. Unwilling to leave them to die in their cages, Helios quickly opened each door.
Eight salamanders poked their heads out and waited until Helios whistled just loud enough for them all to hear before running into the main hall of the stable. They followed him like a mother duck leading her ducklings, though Atropos had no such creatures that matched the description of the creatures from Alus. Without Alec to discuss it, the sorcerer just acted without questioning it at all.
Helios looked again for anyone that might discover him outside the keep. With no one immediately noticeable, the dragaoin led his flock of ten salamanders behind the stables. They followed him like betas following an alpha and the silver scaled sorcerer led them without question. Coming to the outer wall of the castle, a wall that had failed under the onslaught of wizard magic; Helios chanted a small spell and touched the wall in four points. Two were at the farthest extension of his reach over his head. The other two were near the base of the wall.
With the magic given, the spell said, a new opening formed in the wall. Though it looked like what he had seen where the wizards had removed pieces of the outer defenses circumventing his lightning blockade, this was built into the wall from the first. Defenders could only rely on the strength of their walls so much. Hidden points like this were built into every Zmaj fort because his people were nothing if not practical.
His flock of salamanders followed him through the opening just large enough to let each beast get out individually. Once they were all clear, Helios leaped up on the reddish brown salamander yet again. They had been through a lot the last few days, and Helios felt comfortable with the creature. Perhaps he should try to remember the beast's name, the dragaoin thought with a little amusement.
As the sorcerer started to lead his beasts northward away from the keep, he chanted another spell connected to Naermere Keep. Balling up his hand tight enough to draw blood with his claws, Helios took a deep breath before opening the hand once again. Blood flicked from his claws and, as the dark liquid flew through the air, he could hear the sound of multiple explosions from within Naermere.
Looking back, Helios watched the castle begin to collapse on itself. The keep had fallen to an enemy and so it would fall on that enemy. He had little belief that it would kill all of his enemies, but it would serve as a warning to those who survived. The empire had sent many soldiers and wizards to watch over this world. Rising up to defy them would have grave consequences.
As the sorcerer rode off with his pack, he considered the rebel wizards and wondered about their beliefs. There was validity to their side of this fledgling war as much as his side, but Helios had given his loyalty to the empire. Unless the leaders of his people on Cenestraya said otherwise, he would continue to resist these Haileni. It was his mission now to reach the next fortress. Azalaya was nearly five hundred miles away. It would be a long ride and then he would have to see if the empire would want him to try to save Ediyem; but that would come later.
Now he rode. There was no pursuit in sight, but the sorcerer hurried his animals none the less.
Occasionally as he rode, Helios would wonder how his companions were faring, but they were far away now. Again there was nothing more that he could do for them. He had sent them away to a safe place. Now it was up to them to help save this world in their own way.
Eyes set once more on the north, the silver sorcerer rode on towards the next chapter of Atropos.
*********************
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The Unexpected Heir: A Tale of Alus
Chapter 1- A Prologue
Gulls flew through the air above a courtyard that gleamed white in the early morning sun. Fluffy white clouds seemed to avoid the pristine courtyard with their shadows, but it was hardly silent perfection. No shadows darkened the stone, but the sounds of wind and water moving vigorously under the magical intent of wizards seemed to absorb the voices of the nearest birds. Forty feet below the white stone tiles making up a steady floor for the open air courtyard, waves lapped against the base of a stone cliff. Vibrations from the constant drumming of the ocean were masked by the force of magic spells being used by a pair of duelists surrounded by several other men and women.
Four wizards worked to maintain a united spell of protection. They stood creating an open rectangle of energy capable of absorbing the damage of even the strongest of the duelers' spells as the two fought hard to defeat their opponent.
A dark haired man, tall, strong and fierce looking as his hands moved in intricate patterns, continued to mumble his words of power as he worked to shake the ground or whip up the air to counter the girlish figure across from him. Wearing a dark red shirt and dark brown pants, the wizard was beginning to sweat in the cool air.
It was winter, but in Yalan that merely meant the air wasn't as hot as it could get. The kingdom of Malaiy formed the northwest corner of Taltan, but the continent rode the equator making it warm even after a few months of so called winter. Ocean breezes cooled the land in summer, but the water also served to even out the other seasons as well making all four very similar for the occupants of the small country.
Across from the dark, serious wizard; a petite young woman with blonde hair so light that it looked silver in sunlight wore a light blue skirt that fluttered in the winds cast by her opponent. The skirt came to just above the knee, an almost scandalous length among certain crowds, but the girl didn't care. Her top was even worse. A short, solid white shirt exposed her navel leaving several inches of exposed skin between the top of the skirt. Sheer white material made sleeves and covered her upper chest to the neck above the sleeveless inner shirt in a slight attempt at added modesty.
Her hair was pulled back in a tail leaving only a couple locks to frame her cheeks and toss in the air with each breeze. Almond shaped, green eyes concentrated on watching each move of the man and expressed little care over whether the others watching her appreciated her unusual choice of dress.
Several buckets of water formed a half circle behind the young woman. They remained inside the perimeter made of swirling wind whipping around the wizard. Wind was her protection making her look unprotected from afar, but as water from a bucket lifted free to be swung around in a circle, the wizard used the power of her cyclone to send the water towards the opponent across from her.
Changing shape under her attention, the water became a serpent. It lashed at his defenses of earth and crawled over the embankments searching for the wizard. Only a quickly cast spell using wind to slice the water tendril saved the man from being pushed out of the circle he stood within. Drawn on the ground, this ring was a clone of the one that the girl stood inside and different from the way the wizards of Malaiy typically dueled each other.
This was a duel following the rules sent by far off Southwall. The northern kingdom had sent an invitation to the nations of Taltan and most of the other continents of Alus calling for any wizards of talent to come fight in a tournament unlike anything ever put together before. The world of Alus was large and travel by horse or boat took time. Only ambassadors sent abroad knew much of the world beyond the borders of each country, but that didn't mean that the invitation would be ignored.
Moving more like a dancer in her circle, the silver haired woman pulled all her strength from her bare feet to the top of her head; or so Annalicia felt as she worked to pull at the elements that the wizard felt most comfortable using. Like Malaiy, the girl seemed most affected by wind and water. Unlike most of the wizards of her country, the movements she used had become an adaption that felt most natural to her feel for magic.
Her opponent was much more solid. His feet rarely moved. His body was steady as a rock, but then again his strength lay in using earth magic as much as the wind. Annalicia was trained to more than just magic, however, and the fluid movements of a skilled dancer and performer seemed the opposite of the man.
Stone tiles rippled as the dark haired wizard focused his power into the ground making a tremor headed straight for the petite blonde. Continuing her dance, she stomped the ground countering with a wave of her own. Though the earth wasn't her most comfortable element, Annalicia could use a few of those spells to defend herself. Any good wizard knew at least some of each element, even if they were complete rubbish at the spells. A great wizard did what they could to master their weaknesses making them strengths when possible.
A stone golem constructed like a hefty wolf or maybe a bear lunged through the dust created by the conflicting earth spells. It had been a feint for the second spell. Both combatants knew each other well enough to know that simple magic like the ripple wouldn't accomplish much, but the dust from the collision had set up the second attack using it as a deception.
Water whipped in from either side like serpents striking their victim. Punishing the stone construct, they pierced the bear drilling through and expanding quickly. A loud set of cracks filled the air as the golem exploded from the expanding holes created by each whip.
They returned to a draw, though Anna's water continued to respond to the wizard's movements. A new set of commands whipped up a powerful, chilling wind driving through the water. The tendrils froze quickly and launched towards the man driving in or around his defenses.
A quickly erected stone wall shielded the wizard from harm, even though the other wizards would have made that true either way. It wasn't their test of skill, however, and he needed to protect himself to continue on with the duel.
Smart Alec in the Dark Lands Page 26