Since they had started in darkness, she figured it would be all the way to the top. On and on they ran, but on the fourth floor, Kia had to pause for a breath. They carried on, then Rhona and Kia turned a corner and found themselves in a room with a bed on the far wall, two figures pressed up against the wall near the bed. The man turned to her, his long, blond hair flying out as if hit by a gust of wind, his eyes piercing. The sorcerer Wodain.
The witch at his side frowned at the sight of them, then laughed.
“These are the two you’ve captured?” the woman said.
“For your information, Elaise, these two are capable of being some of the most powerful users I’ve ever come across.” Wodain turned, pulling his hand from under her dress and letting it fall with a resentful glance before glaring at Rhona. “If they would simply listen to reason.”
“Let us go,” Rhona said. “She’s just a little girl.”
Wodain shook his head. “Just… Just is such a misused word in that statement.” In a flash of white, he was standing a foot away, leering down at Kia. His left eye twitched as he reached out to her chin, his hand froze halfway there, shaking. “You see, I know what she’s capable of, as I know what you are capable of. This land, where magic goes unchecked and isn’t taught… it’s dangerous. It leads to people like the two of you, so different, yet your powers come from the same source as the rest of us. See, I’m the only one who gets it. I’m the only one who knows that, if I could but open up my mind, I could easily do what both of you do. They call me mad, but when we bring you to Her and take your powers for ourselves, they’ll all see.”
“All we are is a young woman and a girl, trying to be with our loved ones.” Rhona glanced over at the witch, mind spinning for a strategy of escape. “You two must understand.”
“Because you walked in on us being intimate?” Wodain asked, then laughed. “Do you honestly think I would allow anything other than what I approve in this place?” Again, his eye twitched and, in that second, his expression completely changed to that of a madman, almost like a remnant even. “Don’t doubt my powers over you, you pitiful excuse for a witch! I’d have your magic right now if…”
He pulled back, the crazy fading from his eyes. But she had seen it now and was too curious to see where it would lead him to let it fade so fast.
“Ah, but you can’t, can you?” She laughed. “They won’t let you torture me, or even get into my brain to learn my secrets. You are no better than a slave to them!”
Wodain’s eyes went wild again, and he stepped forward, shouting as he raised his hand. In that moment, they were surrounded by walls of flames, bursts of lighting, and more. Until, just as quickly as it had come, the flames and all the rest were gone.
For a moment Rhona couldn’t breathe, until she realized he must have been in her mind, and that the flames were fake.
“Don’t push me,” he said, chest heaving and, once again, hand shaking. He pointed at her with a trembling finger and added, “You think I care about Her and the orders? You think I care?!”
“Wodain!” a voice shouted from the door, and Rhona spun to see Master Irdin there, glaring. “Why is the prisoner out of her cell?”
“How dare you question me?” Wodain said, then stepped forward and, with a sneer, held out his hand as his eyes went white. Master Irdin began to choke, then collapsed to his knees before toppling over to slam face-first on the floor.
Rhona gasped and pulled Kia close, covering her eyes.
“You see?” Wodain asked. “I am above them all!”
Rhona took Kia by the hand and ran, the sound of cackling laughter echoing behind them. The man was insane, she was sure of that now.
A voice carried after them, as if in their heads, “You can’t escape us, not in here.”
“No hiding,” Rhona replied, feeling at one moment hope slip away, and in the next come surging back with fury. “Not when he can get into our head. But if we were to go there and take care of these clowns once and for all… everyone we know would be safe.”
“You do realize you’re asking a nine-year-old girl for help in killing others?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
Kia held a finger in front of her mouth and made a ‘Shhh’ sound, before setting a flame from the tip of her finger, and then blowing it out with a hint of excitement in her eyes.
“Again, not so sure you’re really nine,” Rhona said.
“By the way you look at me right now, I’d say you know I am, and it terrifies you.” Kia stood and stared her in the eyes, unblinking. “You wish you could have been half this powerful at my age.”
“I don’t even want this power I have right now.”
“Don’t you?”
Rhona felt the little girl’s eyes piercing into her. Damn, she was right after all. The power she felt when using magic was the most amazing sensation she had ever experienced.
“Well, let’s have some fun, then,” she said as she followed Wodain, who appeared again not far off ahead.
He led them through a hall lit with lamps that made it gleam white and then around a corridor that was half-modern, half-polished tiles from the old world. At the other side of the room, he motioned to a door and smiled, then walked right through the wall.
Rhona nearly fell backward in surprise, and Kia let out a squeal.
“Merely a mental projection,” the mystic’s voice said from all around them. Rhona frowned at Kia and asked, “Is that something other mystics can do?”
“I’ve never met one.”
“Ah, right.”
She led the way in through the door, reaching deep down to be ready and pull on her magic should she need it. This little girl at her side didn’t belong here, but leaving her back in the dungeon hadn’t been an option.
While Rhona was too young still to have her own daughter, she often wondered what it would be like and whether that was in her stars. But most of all, she thought about how, if Kia had been her daughter, how badly she would have fought to keep the girl out of a situation like this.
She wasn’t judging Donnon at all—this was, it seemed, Rhona’s fault in a weird way. It was more that the guilt of the decision to allow Kia to fight alongside her was eating at her, even though she knew it was their best chance of survival.
They walked farther into the room and saw a table near the far wall. The sorcerer, Master Irdin sat at the head of a sturdy, oak table. He had changed so that he no longer wore the black and purple robes, but instead wore sleek robes of purple and green, with a symbol on the left shoulder of a six-pointed star surrounded by a circle.
Seeing him there made her wonder what had happened in this place so far, and how much of it was real, even now.
He paused from his eating and noticed Rhona staring at the symbol.
“The North Star,” he said with a smile, then carefully dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. Oddly, his plate was empty, and the napkin appeared clean. Had he really been eating at all?
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she replied, “what’s the significance of the North Star?”
“A guiding light, a symbol of hope. You’ll learn one day, perhaps. But for now, just know that it means I serve a higher purpose, one that you have, until this moment, stood in the way of.”
She shook her head, confused. “How’s that?”
“You resist when you should succumb. You fight against us when you should be fighting with us, for the greater good.”
“If your greater good means dispensing with the lives of people like my brother, or Donnon, or this girl here,” she nodded to Kia, who was still standing behind her sheepishly. “That’s not something I can allow.”
“You mean you’re too weak to do what’s right.” He stood, and unclasped his robes, then let them fall around him so that he was now wearing only his pants. His torso was covered in tattoos of ancient symbols and more, and in their midst, that same six-pointed star. “See that I am devoted, and believe me, if you can find the wisdom to s
ee truth. Sometimes the weak amongst us must be rooted out, but sometimes a new power is born from among the weak. You must often test them to see if the powers emerge. If not, what value do they have to our new society?”
“It wasn’t long ago I served one who saw magic users as the ones who should be purged.”
“Aye, there are plenty of those, too. A healthy balance of purging to be had for all.”
“See, this is why we’re going to be on our way.”
“Exactly,” Kia said, glaring. “But I’d like to purge him first.”
“Kia…”
“Let the child speak,” Master Irdin said, holding up a wrinkled hand. It struck Rhona as odd, as he looked much younger than that hand would lead her to otherwise believe.
Kia held his gaze with eyes fiercer than many grown men Rhona had known.
“What makes you so sure I’m the bad guy here?” Master Irdin asked. “I took you for your own protection, you see. There are those who would cause you harm. Not I.”
“Are you insane?” Rhona asked, stepping between the two. “After everything you’ve done, the people you hurt to get to me, and the remnant you use? Of course, you’re evil!”
The room reverberated, an echo of shadows, and Master Irdin smiled.
“You seem to be mistaken, Rhona,” he said, ignoring whatever was happening. “How many did you see fall? How many of those that may have fallen did you really know… were truly pure of heart? Any that my people attacked were certainly not the good people you were led to believe, and in truth, we meant to retrieve you from them with haste.”
“Retrieve me?” She took another step, the shadows growing darker than dark. “Explain this to me!”
“Your powers are quite unique,” he said, gritting his teeth to resist whatever was happening from the darkness and the effect of Rhona’s magic. “We’ve seen the power of light rise up in this land, a power that is truly different from the elemental magic you see among the clans. It truly terrified us, until now… when we believe we have a way to keep it under control.”
“And that would be?”
“Light and dark. Two opposites, yet how can you have one without the other? You stand with us against the paladins… those same paladins who still roam these lands and stay strong as we speak, and we may yet be able to quench this light.”
“You speak as if you know me, and therefore, I can only assume, you know that my brother is a paladin of the Order of Rodrick.”
“Was.”
“Excuse me?” Rhona shook her head, trying to make sense of all of this. “Was?”
“Your brother has thrown off his armor, turned against his former brothers in the Order, and now? Now he, too, could very well be welcomed as one of us, if you were to think smart there.”
“Why are we listening to him?” Kia asked, turning her glare at Rhona. “He threw us in the dungeons and, before that, led mindless beasts against us all.”
Rhona considered this, remembering how, just moments ago, she had been thinking how wise this girl was. Wise beyond her years.
And that made all the difference.
The man before her saw the fury in her eyes as she looked up, and he acted before her magic flared. His hands moved swiftly, ice flaring up around Kia, moving for her heart—but Rhona smiled.
The fool didn’t know Kia like she did. He didn’t know what she was capable of, and so when she stared with horrified eyes at the oncoming ice while at the same time pushing her hands forward, he was quite surprised when flames appeared around her and pushed through the ice, surging toward him.
Master Irdin froze in confusion, and so Rhona acted. The ripples she felt in the shadows told her she needed to leave immediately. She grabbed Kia and, in the sudden darkness that took over the room and only allowed for her to see, they ran.
“We need to kill him!” Kia shouted as she was pulled along. “He needs to die!”
“It will happen,” Rhona said as they ran along dark hallways, “but his reinforcements were too close for comfort, and we aren’t yet ready to take them all on yet. Not by ourselves.”
Kia stopped resisting and gasped as the lights flickered back on to reveal a door before them. They threw it open and both were amazed to see stairs leading out and down into a castle garden with hedges as tall as walls, fountains scattered among rose bushes, and statues of tall lions and unicorns.
They made their way through, breathing the fresh air and the scent of roses, until they reached the far hedge. A wave of cold air came over them, settling into Rhona’s bones and giving her the chills.
Warmth burst forth from Kia’s direction, and Rhona turned at the orange glow to see that the girl had a flame in her hand. Kia smiled and twisted it around her hand, then rolled it across her knuckles like an old coin.
“How is one little girl so brave?” Rhona asked.
“My dad’s a great teacher.”
They shared a smile that quickly faded when Rhona looked around, lost. “We have no idea where we are, or how to get out of here.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Kia gave her an encouraging nod.
Even in this dire situation, Rhona couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m supposed to be the one comforting you, not the other way around.”
“You haven’t met that many nine-year-olds, have you? We’re tougher than you seem to think.”
“I can’t argue there.”
She held out her hand, and the girl took it while keeping the flame alight in her other hand. Together, they made their way past one hedge after another. At a right turn, they passed a fountain with a statue of a woman standing tall, a staff in her hand and a sword in the other. It was intimidating and so lifelike that it caused Kia to pull back.
“See, I’m not always brave,” the girl said.
Rhona squeezed her hand and pulled her past the statue. “Being afraid has nothing to do with being brave.”
Walking past a small pond with ducks swimming across its surface, Kia’s color returned, and she even paused to watch one of the ducks lift itself up and beat its wings, very uncharacteristically of ducks.
“My mom wasn’t a mage,” Kia said. “I could always see that she was afraid of it, but that never caused her to look at me or my father any differently. The first time we learned I had the magic, they found me in a field surrounded by flames, crying. She didn’t stop to worry about herself or wait to run for help… she ran right through those flames and came for me. She was always there for me like that… always, until she wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Rhona offered. “My own mother... I wish I could say she was brave. I’d like to imagine she was, but the memories are all a blur.”
“You lost your mom, too?”
Rhona nodded. “When I was younger than you, aye.” She could feel Kia’s eyes on her as she looked away, but offered no more than that as she led them deeper into the hedges.
At first, Rhona thought nothing of the statue. They passed what she hoped was a replica of the statue a second time, but even then, it wasn’t too strange. The clue that something was wrong came when, having nudged a hole in the grass with her boot the second time through, they came to the statue again after going completely straight, and that hole in the grass was there.
“We’re going in circles?” Kia offered, eyes wide.
“It might be worse than that.”
Rhona closed her eyes and felt the shadows—only they weren’t there. None of this was real, she realized with horror.
“Stay close,” she said, wrapping her arms around the child. The girl was brave, but how does one explain to a nine-year-old that your escape was no escape at all and that you’re somehow trapped in a world conjured up by the magic of a mystic?
Showing her might be the easiest route, so Rhona let the shadows that she could feel, off in the distance, rage. A piercing scream came a moment later, and then everything around them faded.
Instead of the hedges, they were surrounded by walls of stone
and brick, glowing purple. Instead of the night sky above, it became very clear that they were still in the dungeon where they had started.
A check showed a power that she guessed to be the mystic was still nearby, but, at least for now, he wouldn’t be strong enough to use his magic on them. Unfortunately, Rhona realized as she pitched forward and caught herself on her hands and knees, wanting to vomit with the clenching in her gut, her powers wouldn’t be much help either.
“Again?” Kia asked, catching on to the situation quickly.
“If you have it in you, aye.”
Kia stepped forward and began applying the fire to the door hinges once again. They couldn’t know if it would work this time, or how much of what they had seen the first time was real, but they had to try.
19
Water rose up on both sides of the village entrance, forming spirits that looked like men with spears of water. The spirits considered them, but turned their focus on Donnon. Both men lowered their weapons. The spirits nodded, then returned to the moat that surrounded the village walls.
Alastar looked to his companion for advice on what to do here, but Donnon just stared forward, waiting. Finally, the gates opened to reveal a stout woman clad in blue, flowing robes.
“Water magic?” Alastar asked.
Donnon nodded. “And they would’ve attacked if they judged us to be here for nefarious reasons.”
“They know we’re not?”
“They suspect we’re not, based on my coming here without my clan at my back, I’d imagine.”
The woman was walking toward them, hands spread out majestically so that she appeared to be a water spirit herself. Her eyes were fading back from black, a smile forming on her face.
“You, Donnon, are welcome here,” the woman said.
“Just like that?”
She smiled, now clasping her hands behind her back. “There was a time when I would’ve turned you and all fire mages away, but… perhaps you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” Alastar asked, growing curious, as he peeked past her. All he could see were several others in blue, hands out at the ready should he or Alastar try anything.
Welcome To The Age of Magic Page 60