by S. E. Smith
He lost his enjoyment in the situation when he glimpsed the worried expression in Nali’s eyes as she, too, watched Asahi disappear into the other room. Deciding that sprawling in the center of the tousled bedcovers would not help, he sat up and scooted to the edge. Nali turned to face him. He stood and gave her a slight bow and his best contrite expression.
“Nali—” he started.
She waved her finger at him. “Don’t you ‘Nali’ me, Ashure! What are you doing here?” she growled.
He looked over her shoulder when her lover silently stepped back into the room. He relaxed when he caught the amused expression on Asahi’s face. Nali’s low growl warned him that the mood she was in was not as understanding.
“I was worried about you. When the first bead turned red, and then the second started turning, I wanted to help… and… I... um, I had no idea that you were… you know…” He waved a hand at them. “The mirror didn’t show me…. I apologize,” he said with a remorseful expression.
“Mirror?” Asahi and Nali exclaimed at the same time.
He grinned and held up the mirror that he was still holding. “Yes. This thing is utterly amazing, Nali. I discovered that it not only shows my true heart’s desire, but it will take me to it, if I prick my finger. Tonya and I finally figured out how the magic works—quite by accident,” he admitted.
“Ashure, can I see the mirror?” Nali asked, walking around the bed.
“But of course,” he said.
“What if the alien can do the same thing with this mirror as it did with yours?” Asahi asked.
She glanced at him before looking at the mirror. “I don’t know,” she murmured.
Ashure looked back and forth between them with a frown. “What mirror? What happened?” he demanded.
Asahi looked at him. “Nali was using the Goddess’s Mirror, and the alien came through it,” he explained.
Disbelief swept through him. “Came through… Nali, how is that possible?” he exclaimed.
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she impatiently hissed. “How does this thing work again?”
Ashure shook his head. “Give the mirror back to me. I will do it,” he grimly replied.
“Ashure,” she growled.
He shook his head. “Perhaps you should get dressed before we do this,” he suggested.
Nali glared at him before she turned away, grumbling that she could kill aliens half-naked if she felt like it. Instead of going into the other room, she snapped her fingers. The forest green robe vanished and was replaced by midnight blue trousers and a matching silk blouse underneath a black leather vest. Black knee-high boots completed her outfit.
“Happy now?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
He grinned at her. “Well, I was hoping you would show me your lovely ass to replace the memory of Asahi’s—but… Yes, this is nice,” he hastily finished when she twitched her fingers in warning.
“The spell to work the mirror, Ashure—now,” she growled, snapping her fingers.
He gave Asahi a pained look. “She can be grouchy when she is rudely awakened,” he observed before he grimaced at Asahi’s frown.
“You are about to join the world of the Bogleech if you aren’t careful,” she retorted.
Asahi tilted his head inquisitively. “The world of the Bogleech? That doesn’t sound pleasant.”
Ashure grimaced and nodded. “She excelled at transformation spells when we were kids, and she procured some exceptionally good ones from a few witches on the Isle of Magic,” he replied.
She gave him a sardonic smile and wiggled the mirror in front of him. “Would you like to find out?” she flippantly inquired.
“Say the words ‘Oh magical mirror, grant my wish, show me…’ and whatever it is your heart desires. Just be careful not to prick your finger on the rose thorn on the back. A drop of blood will open a portal, and you’ll drop right into the alien’s lap,” he warned.
Nali turned the mirror over and saw the thorn he was talking about. Her breath caught when she saw the embossed decoration of fairies and the old willow tree. She brushed her finger along its raised contours before she remembered his warning and nodded.
“Asahi, be ready with Mr. Gryphon. Ashure—stand back. I’d have you leave the room entirely, but we may need you for something,” she said with a worried expression.
“Ouch, Nali, that’s harsh, even for you,” Ashure dryly remarked.
She gave him a pointed look. “Remember what would happen if the alien were to inhabit your body,” she gently reminded him.
His eyes glittered with a warning. “Then I will make sure that doesn’t happen,” he retorted.
“You have a reason to live now, Ashure,” she reminded him. “Someone to live for.”
He reached out and gently caressed her cheek. “So do you, love,” he replied, glancing at Asahi, who was watching their exchange in silence. “Say the words. We’ll be ready should anything happen.”
She nodded and held up the mirror while Ashure pulled out his gift from Magna, the blade resonating with imbued power. Asahi nodded at him, stepped up next to Nali, and gripped the Gryphon dagger’s hilt.
Nali looked at both of them before she spoke. “Oh, magical mirror, grant my wish, show me the alien,” she murmured.
They watched warily as the image in the mirror swirled. Confusion coursed through Ashure when he saw a row of golden statues.
“I don’t understand…,” he said, his voice fading as one of the golden statues screamed in agony as a dark entity entered the scene and destroyed it.
A galaxy far, far away
“Phoenix, what is it?” Spring Reykill asked.
Phoenix turned and looked at her twin sister, older by just a few minutes. Spring’s long blonde hair was pulled into a high ponytail. She had streaks of dirt on her nose and cheeks—nothing unusual for the petite blonde who loved to spend time outside in the garden or burrowing underground in her dragon form.
They were as opposite in their coloring as they were in their personalities. Spring was the day while she was the night. Phoenix also knew that she differed from her sister in other ways. In fact, Phoenix was different from everyone on Valdier—including her parents.
Phoenix didn’t consider herself special. Instead, she believed she’d been given a gift from the Goddess. She had been chosen, but she didn’t understand why or what the future held for her. Her eyes were the same golden color of the symbiots they had each received shortly after their birth.
Even her dragon differed from the others’. While her body was in the shape of a dragon, her head, wings, and tail had the likeness of a bird. It reminded her of the beautiful bird on her mother’s back. Her parents had even named her after the mythical creature. She liked to think her dark coloring came from those ashes, but she knew she had inherited it from her father.
“Phoenix, did you hear me? Is everything alright?” Spring asked again, wiping her hands on her pants.
Phoenix smiled and nodded. “Yes… yes, everything is fine. I think I’m going to go for a flight. I’ll meet you back at the palace,” she said.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Spring asked.
Phoenix shook her head. “No… no. I’ll have Stardust with me. You should focus on finishing the garden. It is looking beautiful. I’ll try to find some more seeds for it while I’m out,” she promised.
Spring grinned. “Oh, that would be lovely! Thank you! If you can find more starflowers or night moons, that would be fabulous,” she breathed.
“I’ll see if I can find some,” she replied, half her attention on the whisper drifting through her mind.
“Are you sure everything is alright? You’ve been so distracted the last few days,” Spring commented, studying her sister with a frown.
She smiled. “I’m fine. I’ll be back later,” Phoenix promised.
“Okay, be careful,” Spring said.
Phoenix gave her sister a reassuring smile that faded when Spring turned away
. She could tell that Spring’s thoughts were already back on the new garden that she was creating. Spring had inherited their grandmother Morian’s touch with plants. Her mom called it a ‘green thumb’.
She stiffened when the odd feeling that she had been experiencing flashed through her again. She bit her lip in indecision and looked questioningly at her symbiot, Stardust.
Stardust must have felt the same odd foreboding because her coat was agitatedly shimmering with different colors. “I wish Aikaterina were here so I could ask her what I should do,” she whispered to Stardust.
She shook her head to clear it and started running along the stone path away from the palace. Up ahead, she could see where the gardens met the cliffs. She shifted into her dragon form ten feet from the protective rock wall and soared into the air. Her long, feathered black wings shimmered for a moment before she vanished.
Chapter 11
“I don’t understand. What were those golden creatures? What does it mean that the alien destroyed one of them? Who were the others? Did you recognize the cavern?” Ashure impatiently grumbled.
Nali shook her head and lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “No, I don’t know what any of it means. It’s your mirror—and no, I’ve never seen a river of gold like that on the Isle of the Monsters,” she replied.
“It seems there is more to the alien than meets the eye,” Asahi said, drawing the attention of his companions.
The mirror had shown them a dozen scenes, each appearing and disappearing like a mirage in the desert. The montage had ended with an image of their enemy curled up in a fetal position in a dark, undefined space. Unfortunately, with no clear landmarks, it would be impossible to know exactly where the alien was hiding without using the portal to take them directly to it, and if they did that, they would be vulnerable when they emerged—if Ashure’s sudden appearance this morning was anything to go by.
Asahi’s eidetic, or more commonly called photographic, memory slowly replayed the scenes from the mirror in his mind. The first had been in a cave with a dozen different golden statues standing on pillars. A long river of gold flowed through the center of the cavern. At one end, there were steps carved into the stone leading to an archway.
They had watched in horror as a malevolent shadow struck one of the statues—or what they had thought was a statue until the golden figure suddenly moved and writhed, screaming in agony as thick black bands wrapped around it. As a nearly inaudible hum of distress filled the cavern, the river of gold rose as if it were alive. Asahi was shocked at the powerful wave of grief that had filled him when the statue exploded into a million pieces.
The scene that stood out the most was the one that followed. It had shown them a battle. On one side was a man who turned into a dragon. He had ordered the destruction of the golden entity. The dark creature at his command seemed to be just like the alien the Seven Kingdoms had been fighting, although clearly less powerful given that it was taking orders. The dark creature’s master fought against adversaries that included a man he called ‘human’. There were several dragons fighting alongside the human, but Nali said she didn’t recognize any of them as residents of the Isle of the Dragons. She would have to ask Drago. Asahi looked up when Nali laid her hand over his.
“What is it, Asahi?” she asked.
He frowned as he processed the information into something that made sense, rotating the cup of hot tea in his hand as he thought.
“Given the lower status of the alien,” he began, “the way it obeyed that man, I think the attack in the cavern was in the past,” he asserted. “You asked the mirror to show you the alien—so what if it did show us the alien in that very first scene, the part before the dark entity showed up? What if at least one of those golden creatures is part of the alien now? This battle could have been essential to how it gained power, to how it… evolved. What if the alien consumed that shattered golden entity—absorbed its power—and became the version that we are familiar with today? Is that a possibility?” he hypothesized.
Nali paused with a thoughtful expression. “We know the alien can split into parts that move and speak. Theoretically, if this golden entity could do that also, then instead of dying when it shattered, all those pieces would continue to hold power and life—and they could be acquired and used, similar to how Magna was used by the alien. Given Magna’s experience, it would be reasonable to assume that the dark alien would need this golden entity to be conscious in order to derive the most power from her, so perhaps the pieces of the living statue were at least partially reassembled into larger pieces within the alien and this entity is now locked inside as captive fuel? We never spotted evidence of this golden species in any of the other aliens, though.”
“Maybe it was only in this one,” Ashure suggested.
Asahi lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know what happened with the other aliens. Perhaps you destroyed them without realizing the golden entity was a prisoner within, or perhaps the other forms didn’t contain any of its—essence. This one appears to be heading in a specific direction with a definite goal in mind. It hasn’t tried to return to the coast or deviated to throw us off its trail. It is heading Northwest. Is there anything in that direction of potential interest to it?” he inquired.
Nali’s lips parted on a soft gasp even as Ashure’s eyes widened with a similar epiphany. They stared at each other in silent communication while Asahi studied their expressions. He leaned forward.
“What is it?” he softly inquired.
“I’m not sure if there is a connection, but—” she paused, deep in thought.
She looked around the empty patio where they had enjoyed dinner last night and started pushing their breakfast dishes aside. Ashure quickly helped her clear an area in front of her on the table. She waved her hand over the table, and a contour map of the Isle of the Monsters appeared.
“The first stag was discovered here. The second came ashore here,” she said, pointing at two coastal locations on the map. “From there, it moved inland. We located Medjuline here.”
“I first saw her somewhere around here,” Asahi added, pointing to an area on the other side of the river.
“She was traveling north, away from her village,” Ashure concluded.
“Yes, but why would the alien leave her body without harming her, unlike the Sea Stag that it killed?” Nali pondered.
“Perhaps it didn’t want to destroy the only viable body available until it found a replacement,” Asahi replied.
Nali nodded. “That makes sense. It killed the Sea Stag because Medjuline was there and the alien could take over her body,” she said.
“But—why did it leave Medjuline?” Ashure asked.
“The troll knocked herself unconscious,” Asahi answered.
Nali paused, tilting her head. “I’ve seen one of the other aliens using a dead host… someone much smaller than a troll. Perhaps size makes a difference when controlling a host that is not conscious.”
Asahi’s eyes lit up with this new theory. “That makes sense. So, then the alien attacked a nearby goblin fortress.”
“Goblins!” Ashure commented with a look of surprise before he chuckled. “I would have loved to have been in the alien’s head when that happened. At least with a troll, it is bigger and stronger. Goblins—well, they’ll kill you with their nasty tempers.”
“More than two dozen perished fighting the alien, Ashure,” Nali gently chided.
Ashure’s expression was instantly contrite. “Sorry, I still remember them suspending me—never mind,” he muttered.
Nali looked at Asahi and gave him a slight grin. “Ashure upset a group of goblins once. They might have put him in a cage and hung him over the cliffs,” she explained.
Ashure picked up a piece of fruit and waved it at Nali. “There was no ‘might have’—the beastly, dirty creatures not only did it, they made sure it was placed at the entrance to the harbor so that every arriving ship saw me hanging out like a piece of laundry to dry in
the wind,” he growled.
“If I remember correctly, there was no clothing involved. They left him as bare as the day he was born. You shouldn’t have argued with them,” she said with a shake of her head and another grin before looking down at the map again. “The alien came out here from the tunnels and headed in this direction.”
Asahi followed the direction she was tracing with her finger, and focused on a mountain, the top obscured by clouds.
“What’s here?” he asked.
“A very special place. It isn’t on ordinary maps,” she confessed.
“Well, the alien appears to be heading in that direction. What’s so special about it? Is it possible that the alien could know something about it?” Asahi pressed.
“I don’t know how it could. Few of the locals are even aware of it,” she said, looking at Ashure again.
“There is Fairy magic protecting it,” Ashure added.
“Yes, and my own. Only those true of heart can scale the mountain, and even then, there is no guarantee they will survive,” she explained.
“You still have not told me what is there,” Asahi calmly pointed out.
Nali sighed and ran her finger over the cloud cover on the mountain. “Unicorns,” she murmured.
Asahi blinked, frowned, and shook his head. “Did you say—unicorns?” he asked.
Ashure nodded and grinned. “Yes, unicorns—with a very playful sense of humor,” he confirmed.
“Unicorns?” Asahi repeated with a skeptical look at the map.
“Unicorns,” Nali and Ashure confirmed at the same time.
The four of them left the village an hour after sunrise. Nali, Ashure, and Asahi planned to search for signs of the alien at ground level while Pai flew overhead. After a brief discussion, they had decided to follow a winding road that passed through the valley and mountains.