The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (5 page)

Her next words gave me the distinct
impression she was shaking her head in disapproval. “A Hentan;
sometimes you just wish there had only been nine Firsts. Anyway,
you say ‘back in Luxor? Where are you now?”

This is the second time she has asked
about my whereabouts, I wonder if I should tell her, yet I didn’t
really know who she was or for whom she worked. Some disembodied
voice out of the night, melodic or not, wants to know how to find
me; perhaps it is time I started being more cautious.

“
I’m in England; my plane
landed in London. Before I agree to come out to your place, what
can you say to reassure me that you aren’t working for Stewart
Hentan?”

“
Stewart is the one after
you? Be careful! He’s a Second you know; he has both power and
skill. It is imperative for you to reach me soon, and don’t say
your name! He can track you if your name is spoken aloud, given
time. As far as reassurances, let me tell you this, you know where
I live and can come at the time of your choosing. If I was after
you I wouldn’t put so many cards in your hand. Nicholas, I am your
friend and have been for a long time. Somewhere in you, there has
to be some memory left of that friendship. Search for it, they
can’t have taken all of your emotions as well as your memories. Now
it is best if we stop talking this way, the use of a spirit bridge
over this distance is too much of a signal. Stewart could zero in
on you. Come to your friends, Nick, you will not regret
it.”

I felt her presence depart. Somehow I
knew it without having to call out to check, it was like a door had
closed somewhere and the chill breeze had stopped.

I considered her words for a moment;
perhaps there was some truth to what she said. There were emotions
I had been feeling all along, but they were unattached to memories
so I had not really connected them. I had been worried when I first
saw Stewart in the group of tourists, and then I had felt disgusted
when I heard his name. Now when I thought of Fiona, I felt... love?
I'm not sure, infatuation might be closer. In fact, the thought of
love caused something painful and ugly to twist in my gut. However,
my negative emotion did not apply to Fiona. At the thought of her
voice, I felt a warm sensation, a desire to see her; I guess you
would call it a feeling of trust, and perhaps a little lust, if I
was being honest.

I had just reached the conclusion to
go and see her as planned originally when there was a flash of blue
light from behind me. I spun around, nearly falling to the grass,
and found myself looking at the three outer ring openings and the
image of a human in the left-most opening. Not a person, just the
outline of a body done in faint glowing blue which seemed almost
mist like. Inside the outline was just the blackness of
night.

His body suddenly replaced the
blackness, and the blue glow outlining him quickly diminished and
was soon gone completely.

The moon lit man took two steps
forward, toward one of the Trilithons, but then he must have seen
me. I saw, from the quick change in his posture as he went from
standing to a crouch that he went on the defensive.

“
Who are you?” a male voice
asked warily.

Fiona’s voice came back in my memory.
'Stewart could zero in on you.'

However, this man was not Stewart, he
did not have the height, but he could be one of Stewart’s friends.
Then he moved and the moonlight hit his face, and I noticed he had
a glyph on his left cheek. It was not the same one as on Stewart,
nor the nautilus I had on mine; his was the image of a circle, with
four arrows pointing out, one each at the top, bottom, and sides,
with small hash marks between. Then I knew it, a kind of a simple
compass, without the North, south, east and west
letters.

“
I could ask the same of
you,” was my witty reply.

“
Hydan Friare, Third,” he
answered immediately.

At his instant and seemingly open
response, I felt obliged to answer with my name as well, but Fiona
had told me not to say my name aloud, so I just remained
silent.

“
I see by your Glyph you
are a Sivaeral, what Tier?” he asked, curiously.

I noted caution in Hydan’s tone, but
also a measure of friendliness. Against my better judgment, I found
myself relaxing somewhat. After all, so far he had not pulled out
an UZI from under his coat.

“
You aren’t planning on
trying to murder me, are you?” I suddenly asked.

He actually laughed, “No, that wasn’t
my first thought.”

His warm laugh was reassuring; it was
obviously real and from the heart. I relaxed a little and
considered what I should tell him. I needed someone to answer some
questions dearly, and there was something, well, just trustworthy
about his open emotions.

I decided to take a chance and said,
“You know, I’m just tired of all this shit.”

He looked puzzled, “You seem
angry.”

“
Bub, you have never seen
me angry. The thing is I don’t even know what you mean by ‘tier’;
let alone which one I’m in. Hell, I don’t know what you mean by my
‘House’. I’m new to all this. I don’t know why certain people, like
you, have this mark on their cheek, or why I have one. Most of all
I don’t know why some asshole I had never met wants to kill me!” I
left out the part about having no memory of ANY past.

He straightened up out of his crouch,
and said, “Wow, you must be Undiscovered, or I should say, recently
Discovered, since you have the Glyph. Were you a Hidden Soul, or
are you,” and here he paused and then half whispered, “a
Bastard?”

Before I could answer he held up both
hands, palms out and tilted his chin back as he said, “Not that I’m
here to judge you, I mean, it wouldn’t be your fault you were a
Bastard.”

I didn’t know what to say in
response.

Hydan took a step closer and added,
“Maybe I could help you out by showing you the ropes. Hey, we can
even do each other a favor. Since this is my first time here, maybe
you could show me around while I help you discover what tier you
are, among other things. It would be fun!”

Fun, he said? So far none of this had
been anything but confusing, painful and dangerous. “I would like
some help understanding all this; in fact, I was just about to head
over to a friend’s house who said she could help me.”

In the dim light of the moon, I
noticed Hydan’s eyebrows rise slightly. “What’s her name? She one
of us?”

“
I would say she is part of
this,” I answered, thinking of her voice out of the night a few
moments ago, but I remembered Pox had cautioned me about saying
names, so I kept that to myself. “She told me something about
Firsts and Seconds, does that make sense?”

His head nodded up and down slightly
even before his words. “Indeed, so she was talking about tiers,
definitely one of us. What did she tell you already?” Hydan
asked.

I noticed a definite change in his
tone; he was trying to sound mildly interested, however, his very
nonchalance made me think he was far more interested in finding out
more about Fiona than he was trying to let on.

“
She warned me that Stewart
Hentan was a Second, and ...”

He interrupted me. “Stewart Hentan! Is
HE the one after you?”

I nodded.

“
No wonder you aren’t
saying your name! This is bad news. Stewart is powerful. He’s been
around a long time and he’s deadly. They say he has killed more of
us in the Ascension Quest than anyone I’ve ever heard of; he’s even
taken out several Seconds! I’ve never met him, thank my First, but
he’s infamous! You say he tried to kill you and, and… you escaped?”
There was definitely disbelief in his voice.

“
Yes, he killed over twenty
people and I was the only one to escape alive,” I said, getting a
quick flashback of the people dying around me by machinegun
fire.

“
Mundanes? Bah, Stewart
wouldn’t care a Dragon’s ass about them, but the fact that you
escaped, well that is interesting news. How did you possibly get
away from a Second who was bent on killing you? Not to mention, one
who is a particularly good hunter.”

“
I saw a way to go and
went, and then I just ran.” While he contemplated my answer I began
to take notice of the black shapes of the Stonehenge sentinel
stones behind Hydan and remembered him walking out of one with a
blue glow around him. “Would you mind if we got out of here? I
don’t want to get caught here and have to grapple with a lot of
questions I can’t answer if other people appear.”

I distinctly saw him cock his head to
the side and got the impression he was amused! “Sure, if you want.
But don’t worry about the lower tiers... they see what we want them
to see. Don’t worry, I’ll teach you. Let’s find a town and see if
we can’t sample some of the local paint thinner. I need a
drink!”

From out of the dark a strange wailing
howl cut through the normal nocturnal sounds on the
moors.

“
What in the dark pits of
hell was that?” I asked.

Hydan nodded, “Indeed, I think they
ARE from the dark pits.”

We heard a second howl, and this wail
had the hint of a wolf in it, yet it was far more sinister
sounding, more intelligent, more emotional. I had the distinct
impression of an almost tangible hunger. Then there was the fact
that there were no wolves in England.

Hydan’s smile disappeared. “Those
could be gehdrin, though on Earth, if my research serves me, I
believe they are called hairwolves. I’ll try to get us free, but
they can track The Power, come on!”

“
Hairwolves? Do you mean
werewolves?”

“
Oh, yeah,” he
agreed.

“
Those are Hollywood
creations!” I complained, but followed the swiftly departing
Hydan.

Hydan glanced back at me. “I don’t
know who this Holly Wood person is, but legend has it the Dark One
created them to hunt down his enemies. There are reasons none of
The Power go to Sheol anymore! Anyone of 4th Tier or higher is
hunted down by his creatures and slain. It's rather
embarrassing.”

“
Sheol, where is that?” I
demanded.

“
It's one of the ten
Worlds, the only one banned from all mages. I don’t recommend it as
a vacation spot.”

I let that go by without comment, now
I figured that this Hydan had a few missing lug nuts in the old
brain pan.

Another howl came from off to our
left.

“
Burn me! I think they
flanked us. They must have already gotten a taste. I tried to mask
us, but they are damn hard to fool,” Hydan complained, coming to a
stop. “We’ll have to fight them off.”

I was getting scared. “How bad are
these things?”

I think my question scared Hydan more
than the werewolves.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and
looked into my eyes. “We can kill them easily! Remember that! Every
time you attack one you will kill it.”

“
Sounds like wishful
thinking,” I muttered, not at all sure about this.

Hydan nodded, “Exactly! Just make sure
you believe in yourself. Remember, what you think will affect how
you do. Now get a weapon ready.”

He reached behind his back and pulled
out a long bladed knife.

“
Christ on a stick! Where
did you get a knife?” I exclaimed. There was no way I’d missed him
carrying a knife that big.

“
You just... never mind,”
he exclaimed with a sigh, then tossed me his blade hilt first.
“Catch! I’ve got another one.”

“
Another one!” this was too
much to swallow; it was obvious he didn't feel like explaining the
truth at the moment.

He reached back again and pulled out
another knife, a duplicate of the one I now held.

He pointed at my knife with his free
hand. “That’s a magic blade you’re holding."

"What," I scoffed, "like
Sting?"

"It's not a stinger, it's a knife, and
whenever you swing at one of the gehdrin it always hits and always
kills. Trust me on this, I mean it.”

I looked at it dubiously, but
considering he couldn't possibly have had two of these big knives
hidden on him, I had to conclude that it had already demonstrated
the impossible anyway. The other leap of faith didn’t take much
more to believe; so, OK, I had a magic knife.

He gestured with his blade toward a
dark rise ahead of us. "Come on; let's make a break for high
ground." Then he dashed off like the Devil was after him; I
followed close on his heels.

Behind us, I heard the call of the
creatures as they picked up our trail and came on in hot pursuit.
We stopped on top of the mound and turned to face our
hunters.

"This isn't much of a hill," I noted
to my new found friend.

Hydan shrugged, “It’s the highest spot
nearby; it will have to do.”

Whatever the hell was coming for us, I
wished with all my heart for them to go away.

We crouched there in the dark, waiting
for the attack, then we heard a howl again, but it was further off
now.