Hidden Power (12 page)

Kayne had only heard of mages using minions to do their bidding, but had never seen one up close. These beasts were surely magical; nothing that ugly and unnatural existed in the mortal realm.

“Squeakers,” Aurora still whispered, not trusting the protection spell completely. And with good reason. Kayne knew from experience; it should have faded by now!

“What?”

“Barnyard rodents, like the ones we used to have back on Pa’s farm. But these look… altered.”

“By Kronos, no doubt,” Kayne said, listening to the slick, appalling sound of the last Squeaker’s giant, pink tail slither along the ground as they hustled off in search of the Orb. On the ground beneath it remained a trail of slime long after the creature had waddled forth. 

Kayne shivered as Aurora turned to him, eyes wide with fright. “What are they after?” she asked.

“Us, unfortunately.”

Aurora felt the faint sizzle in the air dampen and then, at last, extinguish itself. The Squeakers had left, all six of them, waddling like giants through the forest, knocking down saplings and shrubs in their path, drooling and clacking their giant teeth as they departed in what amounted to a herd of massive, unholy beasts.

Kayne looked tired, spent, perspiration dotting his forehead and throat as he knelt, bending to catch his breath. She helped him down against a tree trunk, dousing a rag in water from the leather bladder and damping it across his forehead.

“Kayne?” she asked as loud as she dared, fearful the Squeakers might return at any second. “Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling weakly, skin ashen as his eyelids fluttered and his lips sputtered. “I… it’s just that I’ve never held a spell that long before.”

She looked down at him, humble in his borrowed work clothes, blond hair damp against his flushed forehead. He was so confident and mystical, she often forgot he was merely a squire. 

“What can I do?” she asked, kneeling beside him, knife at the ready in case Kronos’ minions returned.

He nodded toward the knife in her hand and said, “You’re already doing it. Just be wary until I catch my breath. I just… just need a few minutes…”

His chin touched his chest and soon he was breathing heavily. Aurora sighed and stood, inching just past the line of brush to find the Squeakers nowhere in sight. Even so, her heart was still pounding. 

Hers was a mortal world, free of beasts and fangs and spines and Squeaker tails as long as fence post railings. Up to now, Kayne’s visit had been little more than a distraction. Ythulia, the maroon cloaked mages, balls of fire and Kayne’s chiseled face had lulled her into thinking no harm could come to her.

But the sight of Kayne trembling and soaked after casting a spell left her confused and anxious. What if one of the Squeakers had seen them before he cast his spell, or strayed too close to their safe haven of white light? Could she fight off half-a-dozen savage beasts with her hunting knife? Could Kayne’s little puffs of fire do little more than annoy such vicious creatures?

She dabbed at his forehead with her free hand, feeling the heat from his glowing gently subside. His breathing steadied, his color returned and she was sitting, cross-legged, across from him when his eyelids, soft and tender, fluttered open.

“How long?” he asked.

She looked at the sun, then the shadows beneath. “Fifteen minutes?” she guessed. “Maybe twenty.”

He nodded. “Long enough for the minions to get a good head start,” he rasped, voice hoarse from the effort. 

She nodded, then used her knife to point to a shady stretch of deep woods to their left. “It will take us longer that way,” she explained, “but we can’t just follow those… those… beasts. We can get to the Land of Morgis through there.”

He nodded, struggling to stand. She stood quickly and reached out a hand to yank him to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he gushed, cheeks looking flushed again. “I’m not quite the mage you may have expected.”

She chuckled, taking his arm. “This time last week,” she assured him, “I hardly believed mages existed in the first place. You’re more than mage enough, Kayne. We just have to be careful, that’s all.”

“I agree,” he said, steadying himself to match her pace. “I doubt those were the only minions a force like Kronos would create. We must be ever on our guard now.”

They walked until Kayne felt better, and could keep up on his own, without leaning on her shoulder quite so much. 

“We must have a plan,” she said, eyeing him carefully. “We can’t rely on your spells alone, Kayne. Not when they take so much out of you.”

“I can protect us,” he assured her, somewhat defensively.

“Of course you can,” she agreed. “Under normal circumstances. But if the Orb is as powerful as you speak, and Kronos as determined, and his minions so horrible, then these are sure to be far from normal circumstances. And my knife is only so big.”

He nodded, hanging his head slightly. “Perhaps together,” he offered, “our spells could be stronger.”

“How do you mean?”

“Like last night,” he explained, “with the fire. I know you helped create a larger power ball, Aurora, I just know it.”

“Not that again,” she scoffed, nudging his shoulder with her own. 

He shook his head, nostrils flaring with passion. “And just now, back there. I said I’d never held a spell that long, and I meant it. It was more powerful, and last longer, I think, because… because of our entwined courage.”

She snorted, caught off guard. “Our what?”

A blush rose to his face as he waved a hand in the air. “Nothing, just… together, you and I, there is something more magical when we work together.”

“It was a fluke of timing,” she assured him, assured herself. “Nothing more.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, eyeing the dark forest as the sun seemed to fade with each new step. “In fact, I hope not.”

Lutheran crept around his old friend’s house, disappointed to find no one home. He had thought for sure that Hilliard would be back home by now, and Lutheran himself had even waited an extra day for the coast to clear before attempting to visit his old friend.

His days as a tracker for the Marshalls were not so far in the past that he hadn’t been able to put them to good use on the trail. He’d not only found Hilliard’s farm in less than a day, but had stopped frequently, making sure he wasn’t followed.

Now, alone on the quiet farm, he hitched his six-legged steed to a post outside the barn and poked his head in. A foul smell greeted him, the odor a mix of sweat, drool, blood and violence. The barn itself was empty save for a few clumps of leathery skin and black, wiry hair sticking from the shattered wood of bloody livestock stalls. 

Lutheran held his sleeve over his nose and ventured inside, noting huge gashes in the side of the barn, the roof leaning to one side along with the cracked and shattered walls. Sunlight streamed in the unnatural tears and it seemed, to Lutheran at least, as if some violent battle had been fought here.

Between whom
? he wondered.
And why
?

Lutheran saw not a trace of the massive steed Hilliard had ridden to his cabin a few days before, but as he looked for steed sign he saw that the yard, as well as the family farm, had been trampled by beasts both hungry and massive.

Every paw print was two or three times the size of his own hand as he knelt in the recently disturbed earth to study them. Most had claws inches long, and had dug deep into the dirt so that Lutheran could barely decipher where the heel began and the claws ended.

They smelled, like the barn, of sulfur and sweat and blood and skin, a ripe and ragged smell that clung to his nostrils and made his eyes water with disgust and, he had to admit, the vaguest sense of fear. 

It was the same scent, he realized, that had hung in the air during the mage fight at his own ruined cabin. Lutheran surmised there was something magical at work here; dark magic, to be sure.

The rows and rows of Hilliard’s beloved root plants and stalk vegetables, yellow and green and red and orange, lay in tatters on the ruined earth. Huge bite marks had torn entire goby melons in two, slashing through the thick rind like a knife through butter.

The beasts had torn the crops up by the roots, digging deep into the dirt with their bloody claws, leaving husks and seeds and tattered rinds in a large swath heading in all four directions.

Lutheran dropped a savaged rind, dripping with a glowing green goo, and looked toward Hilliard’s home with foreboding. He crept forward, uneasy, wary, unsure of what he might find inside.

The door stood ajar, sun streaming through the open curtains, a half-empty mug on the table, the cupboards open but bare, foodstuff scattered on the floor as if someone had packed in a hurry. In Hilliard and his wife Majorca’s room, clothes had fallen in the closet, as if hastily packed and then discarded for lack of room.

Hilliard had a daughter, if Lutheran remembered correctly, and so it seemed from the frilly curtains and half-empty closet full of girls’ clothes in the next room over. Here, too, hangers were empty and bent, while wrinkled pants and blouses covered a small single bed as if discarded at the last moment.

Lutheran finished his search of the small cabin and leaned in the doorway, half-in, half-out of Hilliard’s house, unsure of how to proceed next. Something was amiss, that much was clear. 

But what? 

And when?

The trail smelled cold, but there was no way Lutheran could simply ignore the facts before him: Hilliard had moved his family, or someone had taken them, mere days after he and Lutheran had watched two powerful mages wage war on one another.

Coincidence? He didn’t think so. 

Lutheran sighed and untethered his steed. A small trough still held fresh water, untouched by the sour beasts that had destroyed the rest of Hilliard’s farm. Lutheran let the steed drink to his content while he scrounged a bowl full of oats from his friend’s pantry.

The steed ate his fill before Lutheran leapt atop him, heading off into the early afternoon sun. His own farm was ruined from the mage’s battle, the soil shocked of its rich nutrients, crops already withering on the vine from the powerful balls of light and fire that had scoured the earth, the trees, the cabin itself.

He had little to go back home to, and had but one thought in mind as he headed for parts unknown: find his friend, or at least his friend’s family, before it was too late.

Kronos soared overhead, black wings slicing through the air high above Synurgus as he scoured the forest for Kayne and Aurora. At this height his sense of smell was compromised, but he could see for miles and miles which, he felt, was more important.

He could also cover far more ground in this bird-like form than as a black Growler or Mole Sniffer or mere Barn Rodent. He could also check on his minions to ensure they had not strayed from the path or turned on each other.

Minions were powerful magic, but dull beasts. You could only make them bigger, angrier, uglier, nastier, or hungrier, but never smarter. For whatever reasons, their brains never grew in proportion with their bodies, leaving them big and bad but dumber than ever. 

Kronos cared little. If all the minions did was slow the two teenagers down, their time on Synurgus would be more than well spent. He needed but strong noses to find them, and a diversion to stop them. He would take it from there.

He enjoyed the time as a winged beast, soaring over the tree line, snatching forest creatures from their roosts, snapping their necks and chewing their flesh and devouring their bones. He ate even when not hungry, if only to hear their startled squeaks and feel their warm blood splash against the back of his throat.

Being a dark mage had its privileges, and human form was preferable to all others, but Kronos didn’t mind the quick vacation as a flying beast, eyes bright and wide and powerful as he scoured the forest for signs of Kayne and Aurora.

He’d seen none yet, but then Kayne was no mere mortal. While youthful and inexperienced, he still had skills and, of course, innate magical abilities. It wouldn’t be easy for him to hide from Kronos, but it would be more than possible.

And so Kronos flew, and soared and searched and… wait, there, down below, just off a beaten path: a steed. Not one of his demented creatures but an unadorned, mortal steed.

Kronos circled, ever lower, not wishing to make his presence known. He flapped his great, leathery wings silently, using the air’s currents to spin and drop until at last he saw more details appear with each swoop toward the land Below.

It was no mere steed, but a rider as well. A grown man, older, in his early 50s, and alone. He wore rustic clothing, brown pants and a blue shirt, a leather hat tipped back on his head to shield his eyes from the sun. 

He looked tired, and lean, but not furtive. He cast no glances into the brush, as if scouting the trail for two teens on the run. His pack was heavy but Kronos felt no magic in it, meaning the Orb of Ythra was far, far away.

The mortal looked vaguely familiar, his features sun tanned and weathered, but then again… didn’t they all look like that this far Below? Though rich in minerals and resources, Synurgus was a crude planet. It boasted of patchwork farms and rustic villages and coarse mortals who smelled and ate and drank and frolicked their days away. 

 Kronos flew past, making not a sound save for his fine black feathers slicing through the soft evening breeze. The mortal looked up once, then turned his eyes back toward the path ahead of him, as if noting nothing out of the ordinary. 

Kronos sailed on as well, for he too had a journey to finish, and an important one at that.

Iragos perched on a fragrant flower, regarding the landscape and listening with his super-pitched hearing. Bearing red and white stripes and powerful, if tiny wings, he had morphed himself into a small insect known as a Stinger.

Indeed, from his tail stuck a small, sharp stinger filled with a poison lethal to men, if not mages. The great light mage wondered, idly, if it would work on minions as well.

He was following a band of them now: massive, loathsome creatures, great giant steeds with black, leathery hides and pulsing green sores and bony spikes sticking from their spines.