The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (11 page)

He shrugged, “That’s true.”

“
That is a shitty form of
immortality.”

Hydan shrugged, “It is what it is. You
can also die by just getting killed.”

“
Oh, thanks for the cheery
addition,” I noted sourly.

He took a swig from the brandy
decanter and then held it out to me, “I suggest you start drinking
heavily, you’ll soon forget you could drop dead at any moment. Just
as a side note, this is one very good reason why family members
revere and protect the elders of their line. Self-preservation is
an excellent motivator and keeps most of them pretty damned
loyal.”

“
Most of them?”

Hydan shrugged, “There are the crazy
ones.”

I pondered that bit of information,
crazy mages… great. I took a swig from the decanter.

Hydan took back the brandy, and then
said, “I better go outside to ‘sense’ the perimeter.”

He then left, without really
explaining what that meant. I figured he was making sure no one was
sneaking up on us. It was getting close to midnight now.

I noticed it was slightly brighter in
the chamber and then noticed a blue glow around the
glyphs.

“
Well, I’ll be damned,” I
noted, as some of the evidence of magic I wanted showed up right in
my face.

That’s when the blue outline of a
person appeared in the doorway, under the glyph marked
lintel.

I was just about to call out to Hydan
when she seemed to expand outwards from two-dimensional blackness
into three-dimensional color. The blue glow immediately started to
fade.

“
Who is ambuscading from
the dark!” a girl’s voice demanded suspiciously, and a purple light
flared up in the room. It came from a bright swirling mass which
was about four inches across and hovering above her left hand. Her
right hand was pointed at me, palm forward, like some kind of
rocket launcher.

“
Who said I’m ambuscading?
I was lurking, at best,” I replied.

The girl was of African descent, with
dark chocolate brown skin, and big brown eyes, with full lips and a
slightly wide nose. She was pretty, though in an exotic kind of
way. Her hair was long and straight, instead of the tight curls of
the average girl of African heritage. What was most striking was
the round Glyph on her left cheek, just below her eye. It was made
in shades of dark purple. In the center of the Glyph were two
crossing lines, forming a plus symbol, but each of these lines had
two small hash marks toward each end. Where the plus symbol lines
neared the outer circle, they ended into a curved half ring
attached to the outer circle. It was almost like a kind of scope
reticle. If I understood things correctly, this Glyph made her a
sorceress, one from yet another world.

That’s when she decided to kill
me.

She flung the light up, and it hit the
ceiling, brightening the entire room. Then she yanked out a long
and very sharp poniard and muttered some words I didn’t catch. I
had no idea what she’d said, but the result was obvious, some kind
of blue energy ran down from her hand to the blade, which now
glowed with power.

She crouched and then approached
cautiously, blade extended in a knife fighter’s grip, which meant
the glowing blade came out at the base of her hand, not by the
thumb.

I looked toward the exit, and she made
a gesture with her free hand, and the open archway was suddenly a
solid stone wall as if the open archway had never been
there.

“
There is no escape,
Sivaeral, meet your end with dignity. Bare your chest and I will
grace you with a quick death,” she hissed in a low pitched
voice.

I backed away, trying to stay out of
range of her glowing knife, but the room wasn’t very large. I
played for time, hoping to think of something, “Listen, Princess,
don’t get your panties all in a wad, we don’t really need to
fight.”

“
No, but you need to
die.”

I remembered that Stewart had been
interested in exchanging names before entering combat, so I said,
“Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot, I’m Nick, House
Sivaeral, and a Third. And I believe I’m allergic to knife
stabbings.”

“
A Third!” she said and her
voice hardened, I noticed she became even more wary and cautious in
her approach, but now she said, “And what is a Sivaeral Third doing
skulking in our portal chamber? Are you waylaying arriving members
of my race?”

“
Lurking, not skulking, I
was just about to use this portal to go to Abal.”

That statement made her straighten up
a little, though she was still watching me suspiciously, and her
knife was still ready. “You are not here to end my
line?”

“
No, not a chance,” I said.
“And I’d appreciate the same courtesy, honey.”

“
What is honey?” she
asked.

“
That sweet sticky stuff we
put on toast, you know, bee spit, I believe,” I said
absently.

Do not call me ‘sweet’ or ‘sticky’,”
she retorted.

“
Sure, no problem, but in
exchange can you put down the butter knife?”

“
And why should I spare
you?” she demanded.

I shrugged, “Because,” and then I
paused, what was a good reason to spare me? “Ah, because I was
about to go meet my parents, and they would really appreciate a
visit, I’m sure, assuming I’m, well, intact. Who, may I ask, are
you?”

She lifted her head, and then spoke
proudly, “I am Myrka Tarvos, Fourth.”

“
And, since I told you
where I was going, can you tell me what you are doing here?” I
asked.

“
That is not your concern,
Sivaeral!” she answered haughtily, and went back into her crouch,
and started closing on me again.

“
Now, just hold on,” I
replied and raised my right hand in a warding gesture.

That caused her to leap to her left,
roll over her shoulder and come up to a crouch. Her hand did a half
circle gesture in the air, and I crazily thought of some old movie
quote, ‘Wax on, wax off’. Then a kind of blue translucent
egg-shaped field flared up around her body.

“
Your attack will not get
through my shield!” she exclaimed.

“
Keep your knickers on,
Tarvos,” I said, starting to get annoyed, and the angrier I got,
the less fearful I became. Why the hell was everyone trying to kill
me? God DAMN it!

She replied oddly to my remark, “If
you are referring to my undergarment, I do not need to keep them
up, they are quite functional as they are.” She was
serious.

“
That was a joke,” I
noted.

“
A joke?” she replied in
disgust as if saying, ‘A rotted fish’.

“
Forget it,” I replied, and
then added, “Look, I’m not trying to harm you, I swear.”

“
You swear by your
Archimage?” she demanded.

“
I’ll swear by my
Archimage, or my dog Spot, if you will stop attacking
me!”

She scowled, “Swear then!”

I sighed, “OK, I swear by my
Archimage, and my dog, Spot, I am not here to harm you, or
anyone.”

Her shield thingy faded out and she
straightened. “In that case, I may let you live, we shall
see.”

I raised both eyebrows, now that I was
annoyed, I lost what little sense I had, and said, sarcastically,
“Well, that’s very big of you.”

She nodded her head, as it I’d been
truly thankful.

I let it go, and said, “So, back to
what I asked earlier, it was a simple question. I just wanted to
know why you came to Earth: tourism, hunting, what?”

She looked at me with those big dark
eyes and said, “And I suppose you are willing to tell me what you
are up to in Abal?”

I considered her question, of course,
I wouldn’t tell her about seeking the Archimage to recall
information I’d stolen from The Dragon, but I could tell her my
other reason, so I shrugged, and said, “Sure, as I mentioned, I am
going to find my parents.”

“
So why did you not use one
of your race’s portals?” she demanded.

“
Well, there were some
werewolves cavorting around the moors near Stonehenge,” I replied
flippantly, to make her think I knew what was going on. I wasn’t
about to tell her about my missing memory.

“
Werewolves!” she said, and
her eyes grew wide. “Tell me about them, and why they were
there!”

“
Why should I? You don’t
seem to be very forthcoming about YOUR business,” I
noted.

She bit her lower lip for a moment in
thought, and then said, “I will tell you some of my task if you
will answer my question about the werewolves.”

“
All right, you first,
Peaches,” I said.

She looked at me for a moment, I guess
trying to gauge if I was lying to her, and if ‘Peaches’ was an
insult, and then she replied, “I am here to hunt down the Dark
One.”

“
Who, Darth Vader?” I said
in jest.

“
No, I do not know this
wizard, I am talking about The Dragon!” she answered
seriously.

I recalled this was the person Fiona
had been worried about, one of the Archimages, and some kind of
Necromancer. He'd sent the gehdrin, and then those zombie necrosoul
things. “So, you are going to hunt down The Dragon and kill him,
just like that?”

“
No, I do not have the
skills to take one with his fell powers. My task is to locate the
beast and bring that information to my Archimage. I will find The
Dark One, or die trying.”

That sobered me for a
moment.

She continued, “I have been tracking
The Dark One for several years. I followed his trail to Irkalla,
and then to Sheol; I believe he briefly returned there.”

"Isn't that some kind of banned
World?"

She ignored me and said, “If I had
only been a little closer, I could have sent word and finished my
quest, but he departed Sheol some time ago, and since then the
trail has gone cold. I came to Earth following another rumor, one
of a secret abode in a place called, Volubilis.”

I recalled the place, it was some kind
of Roman ruins, but I said, “Well, good luck with that, I don’t
think anyone has lived in those ruins for a couple thousand
years.”

She scowled at me, and said, “I have
very good information.” And then she said, “But, you said there
were werewolves near this Stonehenge? Where is this
place?”

“
Amesbury,
England.”

“
Did you see any other
signs?” she demanded.

“
Do you consider zombies as
a sign? Hydan called them necrosouls. I was at a pub when some
broke in and a Second from House Albus mixed it up with those ugly
beasties while Hydan and I got the hell out of Dodge.”

“
I thought you were in
Amesbury, England?” she accused.

“‘
Dodge’ is just an
expression,” I answered.

She ignored me and said, “So, you
witnessed gehdrin and necrosouls in this Amesbury? How do I get to
this place, can you give me an Image?”

“
You know, I barely got
away, and only because I had help from two other mages, a Second
and a Third. I suggest you stay as far away from there as you
can.”

Myrka shook her head and spoke
resolutely, “For thousands of years many mages have sought to bring
down the Dark One; and all have failed. I will not be put to the
inquisitor’s sacrificial knife, like so many of my brethren, for
failing in my task!”

I shook my head sadly, “Look, I saw
some strange and quite deadly creatures in that area, so if you go
there it’s your funeral."

Then she cocked her head to the side
and said, “I WILL find The Dragon, he was there, seeking
you.”

“
Maybe, the truth is I
didn't see any boogie man! I don’t believe in Bigfoot, Leprechauns,
the Loch Ness monster, or certainly not any kind of dragon. All I
said was that we heard some howls, which sounded somewhat like
wolves, and then Hydan said they were werewolves. Later on that
night, some rotted looking people broke into a pub, and they
weren’t hairy at all, more deadish looking, but very spry. I
believe in those since a saw them trying to do us harm, and they
were still kind of ‘undead’ even after being converted to chickens
right before my eyes. However, in all of that craziness, I didn’t
see any nasty wizard like foozles, calling themselves The
Dragon.”

Before Myrka could respond the stone
wall, which had been an archway opening, turned back into the
archway and Hydan strolled into the chamber.

Myrka spun to face Hydan, her hand
coming back up with her glowing knife held ready, and then her
other hand came up, palm toward Hydan. From her palm, a lance of
power struck at him, but it seemed to warp upwards at the last
moment and hit the ceiling. Molten rock poured down, but Hydan just
stepped around it. Myrka kept her empty hand up in a warding
gesture, but her eyes narrowed at Hydan’s escape from her blast of
power.

“
There is no need for
sorcery, I’m not here to kill you,” Hydan exclaimed. “That would
not be fun at all!”