Hidden Power (8 page)

The man wrinkled his nose and waved his weak hands but somehow, Lutheran managed to pour most of the bowl’s contents down his throat just the same. He gasped and turned away the last spoonful. “Enough,” he said weakly. “I concede.”

Lutheran nodded and set the bowl aside. There was a tub of water and a fresh cloth and he wet the cloth before dabbing it across the man’s forehead. 

“Where are you from?” Lutheran asked, admiring the cut of the man’s open tunic and the gold thread that marked its sleeves and collar. “You certainly aren’t a woodsman.”

The man smirked, though his breathing was softening, his eyes heavy lidded. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, then told no more for Lutheran to disbelieve. The broth worked well enough and soon the man was sleeping soundly, giving his torn and battered body time to heal.

Lutheran left him in peace, doddering around the quiet cabin as darkness fell and candles were lit, darkness illuminated by the flickering flames. Soon enough he slept himself and, in the morning, rose to find his patient still under the effect of the powerful herb broth.

Lutheran smiled and prepared a meager breakfast of root vegetables and harvest fruits and grains. Once Lutheran had roused him from his quiet slumber, the wounded man ate so heartily that Lutheran had to watch his fingers. 

“I’m glad to see you up and rested,” said Lutheran as the man polished off a second loganberry scone smothered with allspice butter. “May I ask your name?”

“I am Kronos,” the man said proudly, waving his arms around at the humble breakfast. “And I appreciate your generosity. I will be out of your hair soon, I can assure you.”

Lutheran looked at the man skeptically. “Let me see your dressings,” he said, gently scraping away the dried mud and roots. While the bleeding had stopped and the healing had begun, the wounds were still open and would take some time. “Let’s not put the cart before the steed just yet, Kronos.”

Kronos waved a hand away and buttoned his tunic. “A little more rest is all I need, and then you’ll be rid of me.”

Lutheran nodded his head. “As you wish, but feel free to stay here until you’re back on your feet. I have some chores to do, then perhaps we can have lunch later?”

Kronos was surveying the tears in his maroon robe and barely acknowledged him with a half-mumbled, “Perhaps.”

Lutheran grabbed his sack off the peg by the door, slung it over his shoulder along with his rifle, and headed out for the day.

Kronos finished his meager breakfast and stood on weak legs. He paced the mortal’s meager cabin, frustrated that his powers were still too weak to perform his own healing spell and finish what the pesky mortal had already started. 

He cursed Iragos as well. To think he’d been surprised by the light mage’s transformation spell! Kronos seethed with shame even as he plotted his revenge. He slipped into his robe, weak but unable to wait another moment longer to put off his search for the Orb of Ythra. 

To think that Iragos might have been on its trail the whole night while Kronos slept in this mortal’s cabin made his blood boil boldly, increasing the mage’s healing properties.

Kronos reached for his staff, leaning casually by the front door in all its twisted, black crystal glory. At the moment, he was as grateful for its support as he was for its magical properties. 

He stormed through the cabin door, only to find the mortal bent to his tasks in a nearby herb garden. There was a basket at the man’s feet, quickly filling with leaves and sprigs and twigs and fragrant flowers of all varieties.

Kronos wrinkled his nose at the sight. Mortals and their distasteful hobbies. God only knows what the man had poured down Kronos’ throat the night before!

A snuffle to his right made Kronos whirl, pointing the twisted crystal staff and ready to fight Iragos in the form of some other nature beast at the slightest movement. Instead a small Nayer, hungry and weak, limped forward out of the brush. 

Kronos gasped. Could this be the Nayer Kayne had told him about? The one in whose saddlebags his young squire had hidden the mystical Orb? Kronos approached the Nayer eagerly and quickly snatched hold of its rope before it could trot away. 

He used his free hand to root through the smelly beast’s saddlebag to no avail; he found nothing but spare bits of cloth and rancid jerky and dried fruit.

By now the mortal had come to see what Kronos was doing. He approached the Nayer with his dirty hands and petted its head smoothly, as if the two were perhaps old friends. 

“There, there Falcor,” said the man with great affection. “You’re home now.”

“Are you the owner of this beast?” asked Kronos, eyeing the family reunion with disdain.

The mortal looked up at him, eyes questioning. “Yes, it’s mine. She got spooked in the brush last week and I’ve been looking for her ever since. Falcor’s a great help around the—”

“But what about the girl who had this beast earlier?” Kronos barked, advancing on the puny mortal with his staff extended menacingly. “I thought it was
her
Nayer.”

The mortal looked confused. “What girl?” he asked, still petting the mangy beast and feeding it fresh roots straight from his herb garden. “I live alone and couldn’t even afford proper crops for harvest time, let alone a field hand. I really—”

Kronos turned, staff at the ready, and aimed it at the mortal. “Tell. Me. Where. The. Girl. Is,” he insisted, emphasizing each word more than the last as he backed the man nearly to his cabin door. “I
must
find her!
Now
!”

The man, his back to the door, shook his head wildly. “I know not of whom you speak,” he said, pleading with Kronos. “There IS no girl here. That
is
my Nayer!”

Kronos raised his staff, eager to apply the Truth Spell to this common mortal; they were so much easier to weave spells on than squires. As he raised his staff, an explosion of light bounded from the brush. Kronos turned, just in time to avoid being struck by a surge of light from Iragos’ staff!

The fiend had been hiding in the bush again!

Iragos stood from the brush, his staff in one hand, his free hand engulfed in a white light of pure energy that sizzled around his fingers, his palm and his wrist like a great ball of light. He aimed it at Kronos and let fire, the air whiffing with danger and sizzling with power. 

The dark mage only just managed to avoid the Paralysis Spell, spinning at the last minute, the hem of his maroon robe twirling, white hair crackling around his head as the ball of power sizzled just out of reach.

Clutching his staff for support, Kronos summoned his own charge of power, fiery and yellow as it flickered to life around his free hand, and shot it at Iragos. 

Iragos managed to dodge the dark mage’s powerful spell, feeling the tree behind him catch fire as the scorching circle of light launched itself into the dry, bare trunk at his back.

A mortal cowered by a humble cabin, clinging to the rope of a frightened Nayer as the battle between the two mages began in all its fiery, crackling glory. Iragos turned his attention to Kronos and bellowed, “Move away from this mortal; this is not his battle nor does he wish to join it and risk the life of his beast.”

“Forget the mortal,” Kronos warned, eyes gleaming an unholy yellow as the fireball glowing in his hand. “It’s your skin you should worry about, Iragos!”

Another ball of pure, yellow power launched itself from the palm of Kronos’ bare hand, but Iragos quickly diffused it with his own globe of hot, white light. Between the two strong mages, the sky glowed a radiant red where the two powerful orbs flew into each other, sending sparks and flame on high and low.

“I know why you came Below,” Iragos revealed, trying desperately to come between Kronos and the cowering mortal as the battle waged. “The Orb of Ythra is not yours to summon, Kronos. Nor is it yours to steal. Give it back and you will go unharmed.”

“Nor
yours
to retrieve,” Kronos cautioned as another ball of fire seemed to leap into his palm as if from mid-air. “That is my job, seeing as my naïve squire made the blunder of removing the orb from its holy resting place.”

Iragos watched as another powerful ball of hot, white light flickered just above Kronos’ raised palm, letting it remain there until it had reached maximum power. 

“Your squire?” he bellowed. “That’s rich! And how is a simple squire to overpower the most deadly guards in all of Ythulia?”

Kronos narrowed his eyes but held his ball of flame in check. “That’s just what I hope to find out when I question him back in Mage City, Iragos. For now, leave me be so I can find the orb and return it to its rightful place.”

Iragos shook his head, the sound of steed steps thundering behind him. “You know I can’t do that, Kronos.”

Kronos was looking at something over Iragos’ shoulder, but the light mage could ill afford to turn his back on the dark mage for but a moment. Instead he watched as Kronos let loose his ball of flame, aiming it high above Iragos’ head.

At last Iragos turned to see the fireball sailing right for another mortal’s head. Instantly Iragos loosed his ball of light so that, before it could consume the frightened mortal it instead clashed with Kronos’ fireball and rendered both harmless.

But the mortal’s steed bristled and bucked and down went the mortal, landing on his back and shuddering away on his hands and knees as the tree behind him burst into flames.

By the time Iragos turned, Kronos had aimed another fireball; this time squarely at his head!

Hilliard felt the singe of falling ash on his collar as he cowered on the ground. He watched as his steed scampered to the side, six legs fidgeting but unwilling to desert his mortal master.

Hilliard felt a flare on his thigh and looked down to find a red-hot ember burning through his britches, threatening the pale skin below. He stamped it out with his hand and got to one knee, trying to take in the scene in front of him.

Two mages, silver hair flying about their heads with the power of their magic, faced each other in the front yard of his friend Lutheran’s humble cabin. Two trees crackled with intense heat, no doubt victims of the mage’s powerful balls of liquid power.

Lutheran cowered, trapped on the other side of the battling mages, clinging to a humble Nayer so petrified its eyes never closed. The air was alive with power. It crackled in the sky and shivered through the leaves and creaked through the branches.

The mages battled one another, the sky filling with light like lightning, flames raining down on the grass at their feet. Their robes shimmered, maroon and flowing around their long, lean bodies. One bore a white beard, the other black. Around their heads, almost identical silver hair writhed and flapped like snakes.

Hilliard knelt, powerless, frozen, watching Lutheran do the same. Hilliard wondered if Aurora had been serious after all. What were the odds, he pondered, of his daughter speaking of Ythulia on one day and, the next, Hilliard coming upon two mages pitted in a life or death battle down Below?

But it was impossible, Hilliard knew. Mages, Ythulia, a crystal city legend said one could see clear through, it was all just that: a legend. So much myth, fairy stories to keep the little ones happy as you read them to sleep. And yet, what mortal could open his palm and watch as a white-hot sizzling ball of power filled it?

Hilliard crept forward until he was kneeling behind a watering trough for his friend’s horse. Steam rose from the water, such was the power of the mage’s intense and raging battle. Balls of power sizzled and flew across the air, striking each other as often as they struck the ground, a fence post or random tree.

The yard was filled with acrid smoke, the sky alive with electric light when at last the light mage managed to strike the dark mage’s chest with one of his searing white-hot balls of power. 

The dark mage squawked before freezing in place, arm outstretched, a half-formed ball of fire fizzling out of his bare palm and falling, like ashes, to the earth.

Lutheran, seeing the dark mage frozen in place, risked running to Hilliard’s side. “Are you okay, old friend?” asked Hilliard as Lutheran knelt, quaking, by his side.

“I’m not sure,” Lutheran admitted, panting as he struggled to catch his breath. 

Both mean realized they were being watched, and turned to find the light mage facing them. 

“My Paralysis Spell will not last long,” he informed them, his voice a dark, rich baritone, his eyes blue and bright, silver hair wrangling around his head. “Heed my warning and unbind your feet; your months are now weeks, your days are now hours, your minutes are now seconds, you must
run now
!”

Hilliard flinched and grabbed Lutheran as the light mage turned back to face his foe, his crystal staff outstretched like a sword. “Come with me, Lutheran,” Hilliard begged, dragging the man toward his steed. “We must do as the mage says and leave…
now
!”

“This is my home,” Lutheran said, pointing to his ruined yard and trampled herb garden, shaking his head at the sight of them. “I’ll hide in the forest, until their battle is done.”

Hilliard faced his friend, shaking his head. “Did you not hear the mage’s warning?”

Lutheran shook his own head in reply. “I did, but my feet are bound to this place. You know how that feels.”

Hilliard nodded, for he most certainly did. 

“I must check on my family on the other side of the woods,” he said, leaping onto his steed. “I will come back in a few days to check on you.”

“Safe travels, my friend!” said Lutheran, waving at Hilliard’s departure.

“And you!” cried Hilliard, galloping away. When at last he turned, he saw his friend leaping into the woods even as the light mage, silvery hair alight around his head, approached the dark mage with his staff outstretched.

Kronos watched as Iragos approached. The Paralysis Spell was such that Kronos couldn’t move, but could see all that surrounded him. It was also temporary, and the more powerful the victim, the more temporary the spell.

Even through the haze of nearly blinding white light that surrounded him, Kronos could see the tension on Iragos’ face. He smiled cruelly, and felt a little of the spell weaken. Iragos must have sensed it, for he hastened his pace.