by M. H. Bonham
“Can you do it to find the Elfshot?” I arched an eyebrow. “And why hasn’t that crazy Elf done the same thing to find us?”
“Who knows why he didn’t pursue us? You did destroy his Nightmare.” She shook her head ruefully. “But as for me locating the Elfshot, my magic isn’t as strong as yours or Nana’s. Illusions and simple magic is about all I can muster.” She paused as she closed her eyes. “I can tell you that the Elfshot is…that way.” I felt a surge in her power for a brief moment and then she shook her head. “No idea where it is exactly.”
I felt an increase in magic around the hallway. Looking up, I could see the statues’ eyes glow and my arms pimpled in gooseflesh. “Shit, those statues are coming to life.”
“Maybe you should use your wizard magic to locate the Elfshot,” Tuzren said. “Or better yet, I can locate it again.”
“No, I’ll do it.” I glanced down at the book once before stuffing it in my belt bag. “Troll invenire iecit!”
Two things happened. A bright arrow lit up the passageway similar to when Tuzren used a locator spell to find my tiny house when we first met. Second, we heard cracking and rumbling as if there were an earthquake.
Magic exploded throughout the room where I could see it even without using my mage sight. The statues glowed with green light and they turned to us as if noticing us for the first time. They stepped off their platforms.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Run!” I shouted and threw a hasty shield over us as the statues approached us from all directions.
Tuzren leapt off my shoulders and within an instant became a seven-foot-tall demon. He blasted the statues in front of us with sheer force and grasped me by the arm, hauling me toward the direction the arrows pointed. “Get out of here!”
“Not without you.” I grabbed Li’alla and pulled on Tuzren’s scaly arm.
Tuzren winked. “This will be fun.”
“Nonsense.” I pointed to the oncoming statues behind us. “Ecce ventus turbinis!”
My magic sucked up the air from around the caverns and slammed into the statues like a microburst, similar to what I had done to one of the fire elementals. The air knocked the statues off their feet and we took off running, following the locator spell as we did. I glanced behind us as we ran. The stone statues were trying to stand up again, with limited success. Some of their legs and arms had cracked or outright broke when the wind knocked them down, so they were slower to respond.
“Wow!” Tuzren said. “You’re getting pretty good.”
“Thanks.” We ran about as fast as we could, following the locator spell arrows, with a troop of stone soldiers following us. More stone soldiers appeared in front of us, but Tuzren and I would knock them down using our magic. But they kept coming, undeterred, or perhaps attracted to, our magic.
Panting, we crossed a threshold into a corridor without statues. I looked behind to see the animate statues following slowly. We stopped to catch our breaths and to assess the situation. I casted a shield across the tunnel’s entrance to bide us time.
“How…far…how far…do you…think?” Li’alla gasped between gulps of air. Sweat poured down her face and plastered her black hair against her gray skin. She recast her air conditioning spell, but she still looked like she had run a marathon.
Sweat soaked my gambeson under my armor even with the air conditioning spell, and I too was gasping for air. I was glad Eir had cured me of asthma, because I’d probably be on the ground without an inhaler. Still, I felt wiped. Even Tuzren, who flew, looked wrung out. How far had we run? A mile? Two? I didn’t know. I had no idea how far the Elfshot was to us and I told them so.
“Maybe we can put up a permanent barrier to keep the zombie statues out.” The demon eyed the tunnel’s entrance.
“You know how to cause a cave in?” I asked.
“Would that be wise?”
“You tell me.” I wondered if I could focus enough power to knock a couple of support beams down.
“You could…cause…whole tunnel…collapse.” Li’alla bent over, hands on her knees, trying to breathe and talk at the same time.
The statues reached my shield and pounded on it. Each smack caused the shield to weaken. “Come on, I can’t hold it together much longer, Captain.” I spoke in my best Scotty impersonation.
“Why…are you talking…like that?” Li’alla looked exhausted, having burned out what little reserves she had in her emaciated body.
I glanced at Tuzren, who nodded to my silent question. “Come on, I’ll carry you if I have to.” Li’alla made no response, so I grasped her and slung her into a fireman’s carry. Tuzren flew off my shoulder to help. To my shock, I hardly felt her as I hoisted her. Tuzren weighed more than she did, and I was sure that the kids I picked up during police academy training were heavier. She suddenly went deadweight and I realized she had passed out from exhaustion.
“Come on,” I said to Tuzren. We made it down the tunnel as the statues battered down the remnants of my magical barrier.
I felt a pop as the magic shattered, so I turned around and stretched out my magic to sense the beams supporting the ceiling above. To my surprise, the beams were wood and not steel. These tunnels were probably carved out before the Cataclysm, but how they survived the impact of another planet, let alone universe, was beyond me. A testament to the Dark Elves’ prowess in tunneling, I guess.
But the Cataclysm had left their marks on these tunnels, nonetheless. I felt the weakness in the wood; these tunnels were not as robust as they once had been without maintenance over however many millennia had passed in these lands. “Trabem perdere!” Ah, the benefits of learning Latin.
We heard a solid crack and a rumble as the ceiling buckled and exploded where the tunnel entrance had been. But the noise of the cave-in grew louder and I glanced at the demon. “Run!” we both shouted and took off.
At that point, I understood what it must’ve felt like to be running from the Balrog in the Lord of the Rings movies, even though those were fiction. Well, maybe fiction. Maybe Tolkien wasn’t making it up, but actually was a Hobbit. Regardless, someone was screaming like a little girl as he ran down the tunnel, hoping to the gods he wouldn’t be entombed in the cave-in he just caused. I casted a quick shield over us as I ran. I didn’t want Li’alla to end up a bloody pulp from falling rocks.
With a final whump, the tunnel stopped collapsing and filled the air with choking dust. I coughed and wheezed, once more glad that Eir had cured me of asthma because it would’ve given me a severe attack. Instead, I dropped to the ground and gently laid my cousin next to me. She was still out for the count, but I could see she was breathing normally at least. One less thing to worry about.
Watching her as she lay there unconscious, I realized how fragile she and the other Dark Elves really were. She had given up most of her food to ensure that her sons would grow up with a better chance than she had. Despite everything that had happened to them, she still wanted to help me defeat Vindar. I shook my head. I promised myself to do everything I could to bring the Ironspell Elven clan to Earth. It would probably mean figuring out a way to neutralize my dad’s curse. The curse he uttered with his dying breath that prevented all Drow from setting foot in Colorado—at least on the surface.
“That was close,” Tuzren remarked, landing beside me. “How is Li’alla?”
“Exhausted. I think she was looking tough for our benefit. I don’t think she has enough energy to continue at our pace.” I glanced at him. “You think if I opened up a Gateway you’d be able to bring her back to Nana? You know where she is, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding her home.”
“What about you?”
I shrugged. “I can handle most of this on my own.”
“Seriously?” The demon raised an eyebrow skeptically.
“Yeah, seriously. Nana would kill me if I let something happen to Li’alla. It’ll look bad enough having you take her back unconscious.”
“And Nana would kill me if you end
ed up dead.” Tuzren gave me the gimlet eye. “She’s quite fond of you, surprisingly.”
“Hey…!”
The demon smirked. “Anyway, I can get more pizza from Beau Jo’s and strengthen her a bit. It’s miracle food, but it won’t fix centuries of abuse.”
“Centuries?” I repeated, glancing at Li’alla.
“Yeah, from what I can tell, Vindar and the other warlords have been starving their people for centuries.” Tuzren shook his head. “Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
I sighed. “Wars are like that. The little people who can’t offer the tyrants resistance or won’t aid their cause get trampled. It’s always been that way.”
“Maybe it’s time someone changed that.” The little demon looked thoughtfully at me. “If you don’t go much farther, I can probably find my way back.”
Tuzren shifted into a human-sized demon and grasped Li’alla, sliding her over his scaly shoulders. “I’ll be back.” His voice did a very passible Terminator as I opened a Gateway.
I could see Nana’s living room as he carried her into the portal. It closed as soon as they were on the other side. I caught a whiff of freshly baked bread before the portal snapped shut.
“How touching. It’s good to know that your family is your weakness, Ironspell.”
I turned around to find a sword pointed at my face.
“Vindar.” I stared at the Drow warlord in surprise. He stood behind three Elves who held me at sword point. Two were Drow, but one was Garik. The Light Elf face was a mottled mess of purple and black. Despite the treatment, he looked ready to run me through with his sword. “How did you find me?”
Vindar laughed. “It was quite easy. Only one person here is capable of throwing around wizardry here rather than Fae magic. Your portal led us right to you.”
I cursed under my breath. “Garik, what the hell?”
Vindar strode forward, his dark eyes hungrily looked on the Vorpal blade at my waist. “Don’t bother—our nice little pet has sworn allegiance to me.” He ran a finger lightly along Garik’s jawline in almost a fond display of ownership. “You see, last time Garik visited, we made him swear an oath to us. Something we had to remind him of once he returned.” He flashed an evil smile. “It’s truly amazing how easily our cousins break under cold iron.” Vindar drew a dagger and pressed the blade against Garik’s jaw.
Garik cried out and shook as Vindar drew the blade away, cutting a small weal on his cheek. The place where the Drow warlord had laid the blade was black, as if something burned him, and the cut already festered with black pus. I winced at the Elf’s pain. “Bastards.”
“Now, now, Ironspell, that’s hardly how you should address your betters.” Vindar tsked at me. “After all, you’re a mixed breed—something incapable of dealing with proper Fae magic.” He pointed to the Vorpal blade. “Take the sword.”
Garik, who was closest, reached out and grasped the pommel, only to scream and collapse, gripping his burnt hand. “Globus ignis!” I shouted and threw a fireball at the two other Drow. One stabbed at me with his sword, but I dodged it enough to where the blade smashed into the dragonscale armor. The impact hurt. A lot. But the armor held and prevented it from bifurcating me. Vindar shot black lightning at me, but I was quick enough to throw up a shield, and it radiated outward, crackling as it tore across the shield.
I leapt back and drew the Vorpal blade. It flashed as it seemed to meld to my hand. A strange feeling washed over me and I spoke as though someone else was speaking. “Drowslayer! Sword of Doom, aid me!” A dark flame leapt from the Vorpal blade and shot out at the two Dark Elves. The Drow screamed as they exploded with the blade’s fire.
I rounded on Vindar who snarled at me. The Vorpal blade, obviously named Drowslayer, shot out dark flames at the warlord. Vindar raised a shield and the flames slammed into it, enwrapping it with deadly fire. Then, the flames vanished and Vindar was no longer there.
Did I kill him? I wondered.
Before I could turn around to assess Garik’s injuries, a bolt of black lighting hit me. I collapsed, Drowslayer skittering away from my hands, as I convulsed from the current running through my body.
I heard laughter as I fell unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I awoke to darkness. I felt like someone had taken hammers to my body and caused every nerve to fire all at once. My mouth was dry, and someone had shoved a gag into it. It tasted horrible, both oily and foul. I pushed on it with my tongue, but all that did was make my tongue and mouth drier than it already was. And it increased the nasty taste. Great, just great. My hands were cuffed behind my back, and my legs were shackled as well. I wasn’t going anywhere—at least not on my own.
I could only see a wall a few feet in front of me in the scant light. I fully expected to not see anything, but there was some light coming from somewhere. I was lying on my left side, so I tried to flip over onto my back to see where I was, only to have pain shoot through me. I couldn’t even scream now, and I stopped moving just to get the pain to stop.
I tried to recall the brief fight before my ignominious defeat. What had exactly happened? Had the Vorpal blade told me its name? Or had I somehow tapped into my mystical namer powers and named it? It felt weird, almost like the sword had called to me and claimed me as its wielder.
Fuck. That shit happened only to great mages and powerful warriors. Not to me, a kid from Colorado who just so happened to have some magic and a powerful lineage.
Did I kill Vindar? I doubted it, seeing as someone smacked me down with a lightning bolt. I was surprised I was even alive after that jolt. Having lived in Colorado, which has plenty of deadly lightning strikes every year, you know better than to stay outdoors when you hear thunder rumble—even in the distance. Whoever shot me through with however many volts of electricity, apparently didn’t intend to kill me, or else I’d be Roomba rat chow by now. Small favors, I guess.
“Wow, you’re still alive?” A familiar voice spoke up.
At this point, I would’ve made a snide comment that they didn’t hogtie and gag a corpse and throw it in a dungeon cell, but seeing as I had a gag, all that came out was, “Errr…ought…rred…ett.”
“Elryn is gagged too. They left me alone because I don’t have magic.”
My brain slowly came out of the fog. “Unk…kan?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Duncan.” The cop’s voice sounded rough and resigned. “I almost didn’t recognize you, but the captors kept calling you Ironspell. Eir did a good job making you look like a Drow.”
“Errrl…rinn?” With that, I felt a kick to my shin. “Owwwwr!” I tried again to flip over and my feet landed on something soft. Another, harder kick. “Owwwr!”
“Yeah, Elryn’s here. She’s got a gag too, but she doesn’t try to speak. I think they drugged her to keep her from using her magic.”
“Elllp?”
“I’m tied up too. Can’t do a damn thing.” He sounded frustrated. “Eir sent us as soon as we were well enough. We located the Elfshot but got captured.”
“Rrrate.” I pushed on the nasty gag with my tongue and found it had wiggled loose a bit. With all my attempts at talking and my struggling to flip over, the gag loosened. If I could get it loose enough I might be able to cast. Apparently they knew both Elryn’s abilities and mine as well. Wizards need to invoke or use hand gestures to cast; Elves could use magic without either if they were so inclined. So they had drugged Elryn and left me alone with my pain.
But what were they doing here? The last time I saw them they were dying of plague. Could Eir have found a cure, or had the gene therapy worked? That had been…how long had I been here? I suddenly realized that in this foreign world I had no idea how long I had been here. One, two days? A week? Longer? It didn’t feel longer to me.
But there was that time differential thing again. Time moved differently in the other Universes. Maybe they had been rehabbing for weeks or months before they came here. Maybe Eir was a time mage with her own time travel pock
et dimension. Maybe time moved slower here than in Mengloth.
“Have any ideas how we’re going to get out of this?” Duncan asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“Row, oooh?”
“I thought not.” I heard him shift and the manacles scraped against the ground. Metal. They had put him in iron cuffs like I was. I had hoped he had rope, but apparently rope was a precious commodity here, whereas iron was not.
I thought about my magic. How Nana and Li’alla had insisted that I had Fae magic. The type of magic that didn’t need invocations or gestures. I thought about Drowslayer and how I had named it. I wondered if the Drow had taken it and locked it away. Could I call it to me? And if so, could I summon Tuzren with my mind? The little demon would certainly be looking for me, but I suspected the Drow warded the dungeons against such magic.
Well, now is the time to see if Nana was right about your wild magic. I felt pretty cynical. Still, maybe I could do something to get us out of here. Maybe it was pointless, but what harm could it do? I mean, if it didn’t work, we’d still be stuck in the same place as if I never tried.
I closed my eyes and began to meditate. You’d think that one couldn’t meditate while being tied up, and for the most part, you’d be right. But meditation is the first thing most magic practitioners learn to get in touch with their powers. And I was a champion meditator. So great was my meditation, I could fall asleep while meditating. Okay, maybe not so great. But I did know how to access my power through it.
And I tried to relax and accept the total discomfort I was feeling from the shackles and the gag. Once I accepted it, I started delving into my power. Now, for a magic user, or wizard, if you really want to call me one, I had a pretty substantial pool of magic to play with. It was no surprise, but I really didn’t get enough training even with my mom teaching me, the classes for “gifted magic users” in public high school, and my wizardry classes in college. Public education in magic was still pretty new and most teachers were Normals, not really that skilled in teaching magic to students.