by M. H. Bonham
Still, I was better off than a lot of poor wizarding families who didn’t have the money or grades to send their kids to college. But even the university I attended, while it had decent enough training, didn’t really cater to Supes. Most of my knowledge came from books and magazines. Not to mention other magic users. Going out of state was impractical, given my dad’s curse, designed to keep me safe from the Drow while I was growing up. If I had left Colorado prematurely, the Drow might have found me and killed me in retaliation. Also, there had been the question of money. My mom and I weren’t exactly poor, but we weren’t rich either.
So, I lay there focusing on my powers, but getting sidetracked by all the minutia I had floating around in my brain. Welcome to my world.
When I finally accepted and calmed every thought that came along, I focused on my magic. The wizard magic ran strong, but there was another magic deep down inside me that I had overlooked time and time again for the more familiar wizard magic.
The Fae magic was there. It seemed like such a small reservoir. And maybe it was because I had never used it. One could become more powerful over time with wizardry magic if one used it enough; I assumed the same was true with the wild magic of the Fae. Otherwise, the amount of magic wasn’t enough to make much of a difference.
Except…
I focused on the manacles that held my hands together. Suddenly, I could envision them in my mind’s eye. Like Darkfire’s fetters, they didn’t require a key. Why waste complex locking mechanisms when a simple device would do? The Fae magic filled my brain, and I saw my aura change as I used it. The normally blue aura roiled with green flecked with gold, like a lava lamp that superheated itself. Green. Elven magic.
But what was that gold part?
I didn’t worry too much about that. Instead I sent the green and gold power to my handcuffs, allowing my senses to probe the pin that kept the manacles in place. As I did, the magic grabbed hold of the pin and inched its way out. I focused on using just enough force to push the pin out.
Crack! Clang! The manacles broke in pieces and rang loudly as they dropped to the ground. Apparently that was too much power. I froze as I heard the door unlock from somewhere behind me, but then I flipped onto my back to hide the broken manacles.
A Drow entered, obviously a guard, with a mage light glowing overhead. I screamed into my gag and convulsed, not knowing what else to do to get his attention. He came forward and bent over to see what the problem was. I brought my shackled feet up and hit him square in the balls. Before you could say “Bob’s your uncle,” he was on the ground throwing up. Hell, I didn’t even need my hands free for that.
I yanked the pins out of my fetters and used one to bludgeon the guard, before I pulled the gag out of my mouth. I spat a few times and then turned to look at Duncan and Elryn.
I gasped.
Eir hadn’t disguised either to look like Drow. Duncan’s face was a complete mess. The Drow had worked on him pretty spectacularly with a swollen face, black eyes, and a nose that looked broken. Blood covered his armor—a type of mail hauberk I guessed Eir gave him. On the brighter side, he didn’t look like he had the plague any longer.
Elryn lay with her eyes glazed and half open. Her face was also a mess with blood crusted across it and nasty cuts that already looked like they were festering. She still wore her Elven armor, but it looked like the Drow had beaten her seriously. One arm, despite being cuffed, stuck out at an odd angle, and her armor looked torn from bludgeoning weapons. They had chopped her long blonde hair off, leaving her with a mangled mess that was sticky with dried blood.
Neither looked able to help me.
I didn’t bother to go over to Duncan to unlock his cuffs, instead using my Fae magic to free him from both the fetters and the manacles. I knelt down and gently unlatched the manacles to Elryn’s hands and removed the gag. She looked up at me, but whether she recognized me as Ironspell, or thought I was another Drow, remained to be seen. She said nothing as I unlatched the fetters and gently sat her up. The only sound from her was a grunt of pain as I moved her injured arm.
“Elryn,” I whispered. “It’s me, Ironspell.”
“Iron…spell?” She repeated, but I saw no comprehension in her eyes.
I frowned. Both of them needed doctors or healers, pronto, but I suspected that was in short supply around here. I wondered where Tuzren was. Perhaps he had come back to find me gone. I scanned the room for any signs of magic or wards and found plenty.
Despite the door being opened, the wards on the cell would fry us if we tried to leave. They would also alert anyone that we had left. Duncan stood up slowly and looked at me, expecting to follow my lead. I held up a fist, signaling him to wait and walked to the threshold.
The guard had been able to enter without tripping the wards, which made me first look on him for some type of charm. There wasn’t any, which meant that the wards were attuned to his aura, which also meant he couldn’t have gotten us out, if we bribed him. Those were pretty powerful runes.
I considered what magic might nullify them. My wizard magic was probably the safest bet, since I knew it better than the Fae magic I carried. Also, the Elven magic didn’t seem that powerful inside me, even though I could break the manacles with them. I glanced back at Duncan, who was slowly helping Elryn to her feet. I didn’t like how her right arm looked. It was without a doubt broken and probably a compound fracture. Not a good sign. She needed to get out of here fast.
“Get as far away from the doorway as possible, in case it blows.” My voice sounded ragged, but Duncan understood because he nodded and muttered something affirmative. He grasped Elryn and half carried, half dragged her to the other side of the cell and waited, eyes full of worry.
I turned, knelt down, and studied the wards using my magic senses to see them. They were written in Elvish runes that were similar to the Elder Futhark runes I had studied in basic wizardry classes. Ward runes were usually written as bindrunes or combinations of runes merged together as one single rune. Like the image for Bluetooth, which is the Saxon version of H and B combined as a single bindrune. That bit of arcane trivia should help at the next Trivial Pursuit game.
I focused on the killing runes, because notifying our captors we had escaped would do absolutely no good if we were dead. There were two ways to do it; one was to magically disarm them (preferred), and the other was to disarm them by exploding them. Exploding them was easy, but they could probably take out everything in the room, including ourselves. I put up the strongest shield I could muster and focused on each bindrune.
Damn Drow. I quickly discovered the runes were similar to the Elder Futhark the way English is similar to German. Why couldn’t they use the runes the way Odin found them? I unraveled the first rune, finding it similar to Hagalaz, the rune for disruption, but then found myself with the old red wire, green wire shtick. There was a threshold rune, similar to Thurisaz, but it could also mean troll. Or it might not mean anything. There was Kenaz, the rune for opening and fire. Assuming it even corresponded to the same rune. Then, there was the breakthrough rune, Dagalaz, an upside-down Wunjo, and a whole lot of staves that meant nothing to me.
Sweat dripped down my face as I concentrated. Which one should I pull apart next? The first rune had been easy because it had to have been the last added to the bind to cause an explosion. But which should I choose? The threshold rune or the rune of opening? Both were layered together. Then there would be the breakthrough rune…
I would open something to stand on the threshold, which means to reverse it meant I should unravel the threshold rune first. Assuming that’s what they meant. Then again, it might suggest the threshold opened to something else.
“Kenaz, Thurisaz, Kenaz, Thurisaz…” I muttered under my breath. I wiped the sweat from my brow and opened my eyes, realizing I had them closed. The minutes ticked past and I knew I had to do something.
I took a long breath in and exhaled slowly. Thurisaz, I thought to myself. I mentally reached for the bin
drune hoping it wouldn’t kill us.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Time slowed down as I untangled the bindrune. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then, the mother of all explosions rocked my world.
Apparently, I guessed wrong.
The blast hit my shield and tore through it, knocking me backwards as I flew across the room. I tossed up another shield, but it was hastily constructed and weak, given that I was already in the midst of the blast. I hit the wall on the other side and groaned as I slid to the floor.
Then, for several seconds, everything was eerily quiet.
Duncan stirred first. He had the foresight to drop to the ground, covering Elryn with his body. Now, he sat up and rubbed his head. “Well, that didn’t work.”
I exhaled in relief. “No. No, it didn’t. How is Elryn?”
“She’s okay, I protected her.”
I nodded, still not daring to move. Every single nerve in my body screamed. I was surprised the shields had taken most of the blast, but I was still not sure I could stand, let alone walk. The wall that had been my punisher was now my best friend and I clung to it like any good Stockholm Syndrome victim. Or was that Helsinki Sweden?
I slowly stood up, my arms unnaturally embracing the rock like a long, lost lover. I could kind of get used to it, except the wall was so blasted hot. I pulled myself unsteadily to my feet and while my back felt like Boris and Natasha had given me a backrub with flails, I could tell I was pretty much in one piece. The Drow hadn’t bothered to remove the dragonscale armor, probably because removing armor takes a while and I wasn’t much help unconscious. They had taken my helmet, gloves, and boots but other than that, the armor was intact. However, that meant I was barefoot.
I guess this was really Medieval Die Hard. Only I wasn’t Officer John MacLean.
I looked at the unconscious Drow guard and stumbled over to pull off his boots. Surprisingly, the boots fit, if a little wide, so I took those and his gauntlets. And I seriously considered getting a duster and warding it like I heard a wizard out in Chicago had done. Heard it saved his life when he got tossed through brick walls. That was something I could definitely use. Ah, something to create if we ever got out of Svartalfheim.
Duncan stood up. “They had to have heard that. We’ve got to get out of here.”
I nodded and stumbled over. I threw one of Elryn’s arms over my shoulders and Duncan took her other arm. “No…Okay…Real…ly.” Elryn’s protested faintly, but both Duncan and I knew she was out of it.
“Let’s get you out of here and I’ll set up a portal to Nana’s home,” I said. I knew dumping off two friends there would be straining things, but I didn’t see a choice.
“Who’s Nana?” Duncan glanced at me.
“A distant relative.” I noted Duncan’s startled expression. “It was my blood that Eir used to combat the plague. I have Dark Elven ancestry in my distant past.”
“No…” Elryn shook her head. “No…Drow…” She tried to struggle out of my grip, but I held her firm. “We…must kill…Vin…dar.”
“You’re not in any shape to kill a gnat, let alone Vindar.” I pulled her along.
“No! Need…to…” She drooled a bit out of the corner of her mouth. “Not…go—ing.”
“Look, Vindar isn’t the only player here. There’s Fane—another Drow warlord who has some pretty insane soldiers. I managed to get Li’alla—my cousin—back to Nana when she ran out of juice. You two will just slow us down.”
“Us?” Duncan asked.
“Yeah, Tuz is around somewhere. He accompanied Li’alla back to her home and probably popped back in to find out I was gone.” I shrugged. “He’s knows where I’m going, so I think he’ll meet us there.”
Duncan shook his head. “Well, I’m not leaving, and I don’t think Elryn will leave without a fight, weak or not. Sorry, Dude. You’re stuck with us. Besides, I’d like to get a few shots in on a Drow or two.”
“Elryn can’t walk…” I glanced askance at the Light Elf. “There’s no way.”
“Use…the…damn...grim…” Elryn forced the words through her teeth.
I sighed. I knew she was talking about the spells in the grimoire, but I couldn’t be sure I could heal her. Still, it was better than hanging around.
We heard footsteps and the rattle of armor as two Drow soldiers wearing mail and blue and white surcoats appeared in the doorway. I cursed and threw a fireball at them before they could react. I then conjured a portal before us and dragged both through.
We landed in the archive room where we got close to the room cordoned off from magic. I stared at the carnage. There had been a battle here and many of the dead looked to be Vindar’s Elves. A few dead Drow wore Fane’s colors, but there were far fewer of them than Vindar’s dead soldiers. Maybe Vindar lost his punch when I dropped Bailey into the lava river.
Come to think about it, I hadn’t seen a single Dwarf since I got here. All the soldiers were Drow. Could the Dwarves have decided it was in their best interest to not attack Earth? After all, most humans welcomed them and we had many Dwarven neighborhoods from an influx of immigrants. Obviously due to the Cataclysm. Oh sure, there were the bigoted few who didn’t want anything but humans, but most were amenable once they saw the Dwarves were hard workers who were willing to play by the rules.
The door to the interior room lay torn off its hinges and the guards near the door were dead. As much as I wanted to rush in there, I couldn’t, not with Elryn doped up on whatever concoction the Drow dosed her with to keep her from using magic. Not to mention the compound fracture that looked bloody.
I cast a quick Ignore Me spell and led Duncan and Elryn into the alcove where the statues had come alive. There were no statues here now. We laid Elryn down gently and whispered a healing spell I knew. I watched as her arm knitted itself together and the ugly fracture healed itself. Then, I consulted the grimoire. I was amazed that little spell I knew could take care of compound fractures. But it didn’t take care of the poison they doped her with.
I healed Duncan’s wounds, surprised that the spell did so much. Maybe it was a question of how much power you put behind it. I then turned to the grimoire which somehow avoided being taken from me when I was captured and found not only healing spells, but spells to counteract poison. I quietly whispered the words and focused my will to healing her.
Elryn watched too. At first, she was bleary eyed, but as the antidote spell took hold, her eyesight cleared and her face became more hardened with determination. She looked at me in my Drow disguise and smiled ruefully. I couldn’t help but wonder if she now saw me as an enemy, given my lineage. But I had nothing to fear on that front.
“Thanks.” Her smile warmed and I couldn’t help but grin back.
“Good to see you’re back in the land of the living,” I said. “They really messed you up, though.”
“This was nothing compared to the plague.” She shook her head. “If it hadn’t been for you, we’d both be dead. I have you to thank.”
I nodded. I didn’t have to tell her how right she was to choose life over her race’s petty hatred of her cousins. It took a lot for her to admit that maybe the Light Elves were wrong at least when it came to that. She probably still had some issues over me and my father having a Dark Elf heritage. Someday she might be able to see that the color of one’s skin didn’t determine the person’s character.
As we sat while Elryn recuperated, I called Tuzren, knowing the demon would hear my call here and respond. The little demon appeared, obvious concern wrinkling his brow when I told him we had been captured.
“We have a problem,” he announced. “Fane has taken control of the Elfshot and is pushing Vindar and his Drow toward the eastern entrance.”
I glanced at everyone and then turned to Tuzren. “Does Fane know what he has?”
The demon shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. He’s got to be able to sense the magic, but whether he knows it’s actual Elfshot is unknown.”
“That may wo
rk to our advantage.” I scratched my chin thoughtfully, running nails through what had to be days-old stubble. Now I knew why I couldn’t grow a decent beard: Elves didn’t have facial hair and the genes probably interfered with the growth. I told them my idea for dealing with both the Drow and the Elfshot. When I was done, everyone fell silent and looked at each other. “Anyone have any better ideas?”
The looks on their faces told me no. I shrugged. “Now’s the time to speak up if you have a better plan.”
“I don’t like it.” Elryn announced. “We don’t even have weapons. And you lost your Vorpal blade.”
I shrugged. “We can pick up weapons out there.” I pointed to the bodies in the archive.
“Cold iron,” she spat.
“I’m sure we can wrap the hilt or at least get you gauntlets.” I looked askance at her. “Look, if you have a better idea, I’m all ears. I’m not in love with the plan, so if we need to amend it or scrap it for something else, tell me your thoughts.”
She sighed and shook her head.
I turned to Tuzren. “You know what to do, right?”
Tuzren grinned. “Oh yeah. I’m sure I can get their attention easily. The problem will be timing.”
I shrugged. “Always is.”
The little demon winked out and I turned to Duncan and Elryn. “Let’s go kick some Drow ass.”
When we were sure no one was watching, we went to scavenge the corpses. It was nasty business in the heat and more than once, I gagged back bile to avoid tossing my cookies. I glanced at Duncan, who looked positively green over unhooking a belt from a bloated corpse, so I cast a quick scent illusion and we both tugged the belt free.
“Why haven’t the rat things cleaned these up?” Duncan asked.
I nodded. It was a good point. “Maybe because they don’t like the light?”
“I’ve seen them in light—it doesn’t make sense.” Elryn frowned as she chose a short sword that looked like it was made from adamantine and not steel.
We made our way to the door that had been ripped open. I refreshed the Ignore Me spell and peered into the chamber using my mage sight. It was a large room, only slightly smaller than the archive room with alcoves full of statues similar to the ones that came alive and attacked Li’alla and me. A pale light shown from above, casting everything into an eerie, twilight-like gloom. Several dead Drow lay across the ground, along with stacks of what looked like bundles of arrows about waist high and maybe ten foot by ten foot wide and deep. They glowed with a sickly red and black light in my mage sight, but nothing around showed an aura. I was pretty sure what they were. I didn’t see any ward runes or other protection. Vindar and his Drow probably abandoned them when Fane attacked.