“I can see why you’d think that, but, no, you’ve got more than a touch of magic to each of you.” He drew in a breath as if filling his lungs had been an activity he hadn’t attempted in a long time. “I will get to your circumstances shortly, but if I may continue briefing you?” He looked at them expectantly.
They all nodded slowly.
“I’m a wizard forced to hide out in my manservant’s body. Golems are powered by crude magic, which cloaks my true magical capabilities and keeps me from being tracked and hunted down.”
“So you’re a good wizard. You don’t use dark magic?” Hugo asked.
“Labels aren’t my thing. Magic should never be pinned down so. Its very nature is all about freedom and exploration. Placing it in categories limits the magic user. Some of my peers, those still in existence, resort to labels but not me.”
Hugo nodded in a way that suggested the wizard’s answer had been overbaked. Lou liked that she could read him so easily. It was either, because Hugo was so uncomplicated that his feelings always bubbled to the surface, or because her perception of him was growing now that they were spending more time together. In any case, the connection was nice.
“Why do you need to hide out?” Nelson asked.
The wizard glanced around. “Well, it would be much more captivating if I show you rather than tell. Any large bodies of water nearby?”
Hugo jerked his head toward a line of pine trees. “A creek that way.”
The wizard charged in that direction, dashing through the underbrush without trying to clear his way. He plowed through a thorn-ridden bush.
They followed but worked around the pricklier obstacles and pushed and pried branches out of the way to ensure a safer, less scratchy passage.
The wizard kept talking. “Georgie wouldn’t like me doing this, but he really can’t do anything about it.”
Lou said, “And Georgie is?”
The wizard patted his chest. “Why, the golem I’m cohabitating with. Golems are creatures made of mud and sticks and powered by magic. They also need a certain amount of water in order to move about. Not enough and they go into stasis, becoming statues. Too much . . . and they can be dissolved. It’s not a pretty sight. And Georgie’s particularly paranoid of that fate befalling him.”
“Why’s that?” Hugo held a low branch back to allow Lou and Nelson by.
“Oh, some nonsense of a hex. He’s convinced a witch cursed him to die by sea or ocean or some such hogwash. It changes every time he mentions it. Last we chatted he said a waterspout was destined to exterminate him.” The wizard paused and looked at the air overhead as if he were solving a difficult algebraic expression. “His exact words.”
“If you were deprived of water, how did you walk about? I assume you fled the garden and marched yourself to Hugo’s home on your own.” Nelson raised an eyebrow.
“I resorted to magic, a very wasteful approach. To be honest, I was counting on a rainstorm or two when I crossed over to Earth, but none materialized, so I had to expend magic. Going forward, I’d appreciate it if you three could keep me properly hydrated. So impressed you figured out what I needed from the basic clue I gave you.”
After cresting a small hill, the wizard trekked down its other side. They followed.
Lou heard the creek and then spotted one of its bends.
The wizard slowed and concentrated on each step. “Now would not be the time to get reckless and tumble into the water.” His left foot slid across some fallen leaves, and he gasped but regained his footing.
Itzel eased down the slope until they were on level ground. He worked past shrubs and young saplings until the creek was only several yards to their left.
Lou approached the meandering waterway. It looked to be only a few feet deep and about as wide as a compact car.
The wizard waved them back. “Some room, please. No one in the splash zone.”
He marched in a circle to define the space he needed. Wizard Itzel situated himself at the center of the area and then flung his arms about, executing movements that reminded Lou of her habit of sticking her hand out the car window to ride the passing air currents.
Red energy appeared near each of the golem’s fingertips, while yellow energy coalesced around his thumbs. The wizard took a lunge step toward the creek and shot his arms in that same direction. What Lou assumed was magic rocketed through the air and slammed into the water, disappearing into its slow-moving current.
Wizard Itzel rattled off several lines of a spell, clearly in an ancient tongue. Lou didn’t really know if it was all that ancient. It could’ve been modern. She was just taking a guess and liked the sound of referring to the tongue as getting on in years. She chuckled at her inner dialogue and glanced at Hugo, wondering if he’d appreciate her humor. Nelson wouldn’t, but that was okay.
Suddenly, a sheet of water sprang from the creek and glided over. The wizard changed its orientation from horizontal to vertical. She thought he was crafting a large movie screen. It floated two feet off the ground.
Hugo looked around. “Movie time. Hope it’s a new release.”
Nelson stuck a finger in the inch-thick water construct. Lou almost expected the whole thing to fall apart, but his finger simply emerged on the other side.
The wizard was again casting a spell, this time using his arms but also gesturing with his elbows. His awkward movements made it look like he was dabbing or performing some ill-advised dance moves for play on the Internet. Magic again issued from his fingers and thumbs and flew out into the woods.
Seconds later, hundreds of red and yellow fallen leaves flew into the clearing. The magic surrounded the discarded vegetation and then compressed it into a tiny beach-ball-sized sphere, pulverizing the decaying plant matter into a colorful dust that reminded Lou of the bottled sand art her dad had bought her as a souvenir on their last beach trip.
The multi-colored particles flew into the water and swirled all about.
The wizard smiled and dipped a pinkie into the water, sucking in enough to turn most of his exterior brown.
“Georgie would have a fit if he was this close to so much water.”
“But you have it under control?” Nelson asked.
“Of course. While magic is more constrained here in your dimension, I’m highly adept.”
“So could you get on with some answers?” Hugo said.
The wizard gave Hugo a fleeting stink eye and then did one final sweeping arm stroke that started as a wide circle and grew smaller with each rotation until he’d traced a many-layered spiral. When he reached the center and couldn’t go anywhere else, he poked, and a green trail of energy ignited at that point and raced backward along the path he’d just drawn until a spiral of green magic appeared. The magic danced about like licking flames.
The wizard pushed at the air in front of him. This shoved the spiral forward despite no part of his hands or fingers actually touching it. The spiral stepped into the water and an image appeared, the red and yellow from the pulverized leaves mixing with the green magic to create any color required.
“He now can form secondary and tertiary colors,” Nelson marveled.
Lou studied the scene.
It was of a sprawling city, all golden towers and walkways connecting each tall structure. People strolled across the sky bridges, coming and going from the buildings. Others flew through the air with wings or astride what looked like small carpets.
“Magic carpets!” Hugo pointed but didn’t touch the water like Nelson had.
“This is High Realm, the capital city of my world, Perpetua. Magic was woven into every fiber of every magical creature imaginable. All were brimming with the stuff.”
The image zoomed in. It really was like watching a movie. With an amazing special effects budget, Lou thought.
This close, distinctions could be made between the citizens. She spotted mummies, goblins, ghosts, and just about any fantasy creature she could think of. All looked convincingly real.
Hug
o stared at the scene, wide-eyed.
Lou saw dragons looping through the open air. Harpies and gargoyles were also in flight. Elves abounded. The few humans seemed to be manipulating magic to one degree or another—a man gliding two feet above a walkway, a girl employing magic to corral some small dragons she was possibly walking. Maybe witches and wizards like Itzel? There was so much to take in, the equivalent of a page or three from a Where’s Waldo? book.
Suddenly, the scene cut to a place of shadows with a backdrop of a dark purple and gray sky. Jagged rock outcroppings in shadowy silhouettes dominated the landscape. The camera rushed through the depressing terrain, swerving to avoid the perilously tall formations. It homed in on the tallest plateau, and soon they hovered over a dark tower. The camera dove into an open window and bobbed and weaved through passageways lit by torches that sputtered blue magic and not actual flames.
“Magic was everywhere in Perpetua. It was a part of everyone’s lineage, passed down to offspring with ease.”
The scene dissolved, and a new shot appeared showing the birth of a centaur, then the hatching of a fiery bird, followed by more glimpses of even more births in rapid succession. An elf. A lava man. A werewolf. Some sort of tree creature. An impressive litter of fairies. A minotaur and so many others. She thought she caught a pale baby with vampire teeth being presented to his new parents in a dark temple, but the lighting had been poor and she was uncertain if the newborn had truly had such sharp incisors.
The screen returned to darting through the endless passages of the dark tower until it spilled into an immense throne room.
“But one was denied the spark of magic, and this omission fouled his soul.” A young boy with fiery red, shoulder-length hair appeared in front of the empty throne. Abruptly, the chamber filled with a retinue of others, all gazing at the boy and the empty regal chair.
A woman with a crown and three girls in flowing dresses appeared on one side of the throne. Princesses, she thought. The boy’s sisters or cousins. Four princes along with two older men in high-collared attire, dukes maybe, materialized on the other side. All shot the boy condemning looks.
A broad, red-bearded man with a lavish blue robe faded into view on the throne. He held a silver scepter and leaned forward to glare at the boy.
“His name was Wilk of the Family Orb.” The wizard looked at Hugo. “And while I resist labeling magic, I have to say this family was filled with the most corrupting arcane energies. They were lost to virtue. But they did not bring about the end to our world directly. They knew that to coexist was key.” The wizard sighed and slumped his shoulders. “But Wilk’s father, King Rouke, planted the seeds to our downfall. He cast out his son for not having any true magic in him.”
“What’s this have to do with us?” Hugo asked. “You shared that the three of us are magical. Did Wilk’s magic go to us? Is that why he doesn’t have any?”
The wizard grimaced. “No, no. Nothing like that. I will get to you and your connection to Perpetua’s fallen heroic mage in due course.”
“Now there’s a heroic mage? Wow, you really are hopping all around with this story,” Hugo said.
The wizard looked ready to argue that Hugo had been the one forcing his tale off-track, but he didn’t—because he suddenly doubled over in pain.
The water suspended in the air rippled and appeared ready to crash to the ground.
Something was wrong with the wizard. Lou looked around, thinking maybe he’d been attacked. She hadn’t seen any magic strike him.
Lou rushed toward the wizard, cutting right to avoid wading through the levitating water. If his magic failed, the water would fall. And hadn’t the wizard said too much water was bad for his borrowed golem body?
The wizard dropped to his knees, clawing at his head. “No, not now.”
Lou grabbed the golem by a wrist and dragged him away from the water.
Nelson also appeared on the other side of the wizard and seized the less thrashing of the wizard’s legs.
“No, please stay in.” The wizard twisted his face into a grimace.
They hoisted him another few feet and spun about, still holding Wizard Itzel off the ground.
The water in the air lost its shape and will to defy gravity and dropped, smacking into the rock-strewn ground and seeping into the dirt, turning a good portion of it muddy.
The wizard squirmed free and gasped in horror, clearly having witnessed this magic abandoning ship and the resulting soaking.
Lou spoke calmly even though her adrenalin surged. “It’s okay. We got you out of harm’s way.”
The wizard gawked at them. “Don’t try to fool me! You were going to throw me in all that water.”
Lou frowned. The wizard’s voice was now higher-pitched.
The wizard spotted the nearby creek. “And I’ll not let you toss me in there either.” He took two steps back, putting more distance between himself and the creek. The wizard surveyed the rest of his surroundings. “Where is this? Why’s the sky blue? Who are you fiends?”
Nelson studied him. He held his hands out as if displaying he wasn’t armed. “Georgie?”
The wizard gawked at the boy. “How’d you know my name? This isn’t the village of Slinore.” He scrambled through a thicket, cleverly putting a thorny obstacle between himself and what he saw as a threat. “You’ll not catch me!”
With that, he tore off into the woods, shrieking and grunting.
Hugo said, “Sure is a noisy little golem.”
Lou was impressed they’d all come to the same conclusion. “The wizard said not to let Georgie know they shared a body. I think we should stick with that.”
Nelson and Hugo went around opposite ends of the thicket.
Nelson looked back at Lou, the golem’s cries fainter but still echoing through the woods. “I believe he should be easy to locate.”
Lou sprinted and caught up with them as they forged up a steep rise. “I just hope there aren’t any more magical surprises that hear him, too.”
Nelson looked back at her. “You mean like those nasty snakes and bats, right?”
She nodded.
They raced deeper into the woods.
Lou had the sinking feeling a paranoid golem was going to be a bigger problem than a chatty wizard.
Chapter 8
Nelson Converses With a Feathered Fellow
A branch whipped across his cheek. Nelson probed the area, happy it hadn’t been a harsh enough impact to produce a welt or even a scratch.
While Lou and Hugo were much taller than him, he was keeping up. Although, with his smaller strides, he had to do twice as many.
The golem leapt over a fallen tree, surprisingly agile for something that had been a stiff statue a half hour ago.
Wizards? Golems? None of this made sense. And Perpetua couldn’t possibly be a real place. Was Itzel saying it existed on another planet or dimension? How had the wizard gotten here if that was the case? The technology didn’t exist for FTL space travel, and no one had ever generated a wormhole, so the other dimension idea didn’t add up either.
Hugo called out, complaining of twisting his ankle. The boy slowed, but still limped on.
“Watch out!” Lou shouted at Nelson.
A rock sailed past his head, inches from his ear. Another stone flew at him. He ducked and glared at the golem.
Just ahead was the rock creature. Or was it more accurate to think of Georgie as made of mud? Nelson dodged another thrown rock. Georgie stood with his back to a creek, likely another section of the same waterway the golem had just fled from, tossing rocks at the three of them.
Hugo yelped.
Lou said, “You okay?”
“Fine, just hit me in the shoulder.” He rubbed at his left side, near his collarbone.
“Remember, don’t share that the wizard’s in there with him.” Lou entered the clearing, catching a small rock fired off at her by the golem.
Georgie grabbed a sizeable stone and reared back. “Stay away! I’m w
arning you.”
“We’re not the bad guys,” Hugo said, approaching the golem from the far left, while Nelson opted to come from the right.
The golem danced about, aiming from one to the other.
“You’re vile people, picking on a lowly manservant. If my wizard were here, he’d put you in your place.”
Hugo said, “I bet you’re a very loyal employee of this wizard dude.”
“Wizard Itzel. Please utter his name appropriately.” The golem targeted Hugo, who was now only a few steps away from him. “Halt!”
Nelson wanted to help bring this episode to a close but didn’t know what to say, unlike Lou and Hugo, who always seemed to have the right words for any absurd occasion.
Lou said, “Your boss looks out for you?” She froze and then waved for Hugo to hold off on advancing.
Nelson stopped on his own and leaned against the sturdy trunk of the pine tree to his right. If the golem fired off any rocks, he could use it for cover.
“This isn’t Perpetua.”
“It’s not. You act like you don’t know how you got here,” Lou said.
The golem shifted in place, lowering the rock. Nelson suspected the golem’s muscles were sore. Although, how a creature composed of mud had muscles was beyond him.
What is with all the racket? Please silence the creature and be done with it already.
Nelson looked around. Who had said that? Although, it had sounded more in his head. He immediately dismissed the notion. It just had to be the acoustics in the forest. Sound behaved differently amid the trees and certainly along a waterway, right?
Interesting. I can read your thoughts but not those of your long-legged companions. Why do you suppose that is?
What? Nelson stiffened. It was hard to describe, but someone was definitely talking to him in his head. Telepathy?
Of course telepathy! But telepathy facilitated by the magic in you.
Suddenly, a large owl flew into the clearing, landing between Nelson and the golem.
Georgie gawked at the bird.
Nelson studied the owl, keen on identifying it. The bird stretched his long legs and shivered, sending ripples down his light brown plumage. His white, heart-shaped face, that some thought similar to a monkey’s, cinched it for Nelson—a barn owl.
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