Mrythdom: Game of Time (43 page)

Lashyla had turned and was walking away, as if she’d already lost interest in the conversation. Aurelius watched her walk up to adobe hut that he’d seen from a distance.

She opened the wooden door with a loud creaking sound which was all but swallowed by the sound of waves pounding the shore, and then she disappeared inside. A moment later she reappeared, now fully clothed in modest travelers robes, complete with a veil for her face. She walked up to them like that, with just her eyes peeking out from the veil.

Aurelius frowned anew. “From one extreme to another.”

“You were the one who told me to get dressed. Are you not happy?” She shook her head, and her voice returned with a hint of amusement. “There’s no pleasing you, is there?”

Aurelius ignored her and turned to the old wizard. “Why can’t you send me back to my time
now
?”

“Because, if I do, it will lead Malgore straight to us. We must put some distance between ourselves and him before I send you back.”

“But I thought there was only one way out of Meria? How could he follow us?”

Lashyla dropped her veil. “What’s all this about
returning
to your time? What does that mean?”

Gabrian cast her a quick glance, but answered Aurelius instead. “There was also the vessel upon which we arrived. Damaged though it was, I fear he’s found a way to make it last for the return trip.”

Aurelius shook his head slowly, feeling a sudden spark of dread. Something about the old man’s reply was bothering him, but just now he couldn’t figure out what that was. . . . “Even so, it’ll take hours for them to reach us. The vessel we arrived upon is old and slow. You have time, so send me back.”

Gabrian’s eyes flashed and he shook his staff in Aurelius’s face. “Not yet!” With that, he spun around and began stalking down the beach.

Aurelius hesitated. “What about the Watchers?”

“They are not yet fully awake,” Gabrian said.

Aurelius felt the worming dread in his gut grow stronger. “Where are we going?”

“To your ship.”

Aurelius frowned. “And then?”

“I will tell you where to go from there!”

Suddenly the missing pieces snapped into place and Aurelius realized what was bothering him. “Hey, Wrinkles!”

Gabrian whirled around. “I told you, I don’t like that name!”

“Funny, I’ve only ever called
Malgore
by that name.” The old man’s features suddenly froze. “And
we
didn’t arrive in Meria
together
aboard that rickety old sub, unless of course, you’re not really Gabrian. . . . You’re not, are you? That’s why you’re not worried about the Watchers.”

Gabrian sighed theatrically, and suddenly his features flickered as his guise fell away. His face became a hideously wizened ruin, making him look ages older than even Gabrian. His hair and beard remained long and white, but his eyes had turned a bloodshot yellow. “It’s a pity you’re so astute,” the old man said, raising his staff, the tip already glowing as he swung it around and pointed it at Aurelius. “I’m going to have to kill you now.”

Aurelius watched the glowing tip of Malgore’s staff come into line with him, wondering if he should run, or if it would even do him any good.

“No!” Lashyla yelled, rushing at the mage from one side. Aurelius’s eyes went wide as Malgore swept his staff toward her instead. Suddenly concerned for Lashyla, he rushed at Malgore from the other side. Malgore’s staff flashed and a bright fork of energy shot out with a crackling boom and hit Lashyla, stopping her cold. Her body jittered uncontrollably and then she fell face first in the sand at Malgore’s feet. Thin curls of smoke were rising from her traveler’s robes, and she lay still.

Aurelius reached the old man an instant later with every muscle fiber in his body tensed and screaming for revenge. He raised his fists and lashed out with a terrifying yell. Malgore tried to block him at the last second, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Aurelius’s first blow landed squarely on the side of Malgore’s jaw. There came a sickening pop, and the old man screamed. He spun away from Aurelius’s second blow, catching it only glancingly on his shoulder, and then he turned back with blazing fury in his eyes, his jaw now hanging oddly askew, and a thin trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. Aurelius ran at him again.

Malgore brought his staff back into a line and spoke through a grinding lisp, “Asharta awal!”

There came a
boom
and a flash of light, and suddenly Aurelius was picked up on a shockwave and thrown backward as though by an invisible hand. His arms and legs flailed as he tumbled through the air. He couldn’t help screaming as he fell. Twisting around to look, he saw the sandy beach rushing up to greet him just seconds before he slammed into it. His screams died suddenly with a heavy
whump!
and everything went dark.

*   *   *

Malgore walked up to Aurelius and nudged him with the toe of his boot. The elder didn’t so much as stir, so Malgore kicked him viciously, but still nothing. He nodded absently, then placed a hand to his jaw and whispered the words to heal it. He felt power draining from him in a great flood, and suddenly his shoulders slumped. He sighed wearily, and then turned and began walking in the direction he’d been going before Aurelius had discovered who he really was.

A simple spell of revelation confirmed the location of Aurelius’s ship. Working the vessel would be another matter, but Malgore felt confident he could discern the vessel’s mode of operation. He’d been careful to pay close attention all the times Aurelius had flown his ship for just such a time as this—a time when he could be gladly rid of the boy’s constant intransigence. He hadn’t watched Aurelius die a satisfyingly violent death in the Ring as he’d planned, but now the boy would meet a much more horrifying end. The Watchers would find him, lying face down in the sand, unconscious, and they would drag him down with them. Then, he would have an eternity to pay for his insolence.

Malgore smiled and he noted an additional spring in his step. It was an appreciation of the little things that ultimately made one happy.

*   *   *

The queen was in the Royal Guards’ training hall, pacing back and forth, quietly fuming before a full regiment of Meria’s guardsmen. “How did this happen? Which one of you,” she said, pointing her finger accusingly at each of them in turn as she paced down the long line of men. “Was responsible for guarding the Launch?”

Silence.

“Answer me! Protect each other and I’ll throw you all in the shark pit; I swear it on my daughter’s life! After all, Meria
is
starting to get a little crowded. . . .”

Two men were promptly shoved out of line by their fellows. The queen’s gaze swept around with a cobra’s deadly focus, and she walked up to them with a wicked smile. “So . . . tell me, she said, trailing a long, shapely nail down the cheek of the nearest of the two guilty guards.” He was shaking visibly. “How is it that my daughter left the city without my knowing about it?”

“She-she said you’d given your permission, my beauteous queen.”

“Lies! She would have had to show you my seal. Why did you not ask to see it?”

“I didn’t think, most beauteous—”

“Silence!”

The queen directed her ire to his fellow. “And you?” she asked, rounding on the other guard. “Were you just as stupid?” The man cringed. “A maiden is dead now because of you. Gobbled up by a shark. We could have given chase safely in our mighty vessel, but no, it’s been stolen! By my own daughter!” The queen narrowed her eyes to deadly slits, and the guard averted his. “Look at me!” His eyes reluctantly returned to meet hers. “What is the punishment in Meria for killing a maiden?” He gave no reply. The queen slapped him viciously, and the sound rang sharply in the quiet hall. “Can anyone tell me?”

“Death,” a nearby guard whispered.

“What was that?” the queen asked, cupped a hand to her ear.

“Death,” came a soft chorus of replies from the assembled men.

The two guilty guards broke out in an instant sweat. “My queen, the old one put a spell on us!”

She rounded on him with a smile. “But the old one escaped aboard that pathetic excuse for a ship that we were chasing.”

“I swear it! On my children’s lives I swear it! He went aboard the vessel with the princess.”

The queen frowned. “More lies. Have you no shame? Accept your fate like a warrior!”

“He’s not lying,” the other guard said. “First your daughter and the younger newcomer came. Finally, the old one went aboard.”

“What?” the queen asked, her eyes quickly narrowing. “The younger newcomer, you mean Aurelius?”

“I—I’m sorry I don’t recall his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“Tall, strong, a pale, noble face with hair and beard the color of dark brown ale.”

“You know the rules about the dead, why did you let Lashyla take his body aboard?”

The guardsman blinked. “He was not dead, my beauteous queen. He walked aboard.”

“Not dead?!” She took a quick step back. “I watched him die in the Ring!”

“A thousand apologies, my stunning queen, but I was not there. I only know what I saw.”

For a long moment the queen stood there, frozen in shock. After a moment, the captain of the guard came up to her hesitantly, “My queen?”

She rounded on him. “What?”

“Have you decided a punishment for these two?”

She frowned thoughtfully, then said, “Tell their maidens that they have committed high treason. They must either be sent to the Ring to fight ten consecutive challenges, or they will be thrown into the shark pit. Perhaps their maidens will have pity on them by choosing the quick, easy death.” With that, the queen stalked away. She would quickly discover the truth. If Aurelius had somehow survived and escaped Meria, she would call him back to her with ease. No man alive could resist a maiden’s siren call, much less hers. Aurelius had made a mistake if he thought he could mate with her and then simply
leave
. It was illegal to call another maiden’s mate, but technically, if he were really alive, Aurelius was still hers, not Lashyla’s; and anyway Lashyla wasn’t currently under the protection of Merian law.

*   *   *

Malgore stood in the cockpit of Aurelius’s ship and frowned down at the vast array of dials and switches. He flicked one switch which he thought he’d seen Aurelius routinely toggle before any of the others. A sharp beep issued from speakers somewhere inside the cockpit and Malgore jumped. One of the displays sprang to life and a row of blinking red lights appeared on the dash.

Malgore sat down behind the controls, and studied that display for a long moment before he decided to try flicking another switch. Now a rising whine shuddered through the deck, followed by more displays snapping to life with bright flashes of color.

Malgore’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. He felt sure he was halfway there. What now? He spied a big red button under a clear protective cover and recalled Aurelius once pressing that to take off. Malgore gripped the flight yoke in uncertain hands, lifted the protective cover for the red button, and then stabbed it with his finger.

There came a sudden, thundering roar, and Malgore felt all the blood in his veins sink into his feet. His spine compressed painfully and the ship leapt straight up off the sand. The beach disappeared below, and then the ship slowed to a stop some thirty feet up, in line with the tops of the nearest palm trees. Malgore smiled. He’d done it! Next stop, Gremlindom. He turned the yoke in his hands as he’d watched the elder do countless times before in order to change course. . . .

But this time something different happened. The ship suddenly listed to one side and began hurtling toward the beach. Malgore fought the controls, trying to bring the ship back to a level hover, but he only managed to get it to wobble dangerously and spin halfway around. Panic gripped him as the sand rushed toward the cockpit. He barely had time to whisper a protective spell before the world exploded with a thunderous
boom!
and he was thrown from the pilot’s chair against the hard, unyielding canopy.

He lay there for a long moment, splayed out against the canopy, his ears ringing from the noise of the ship’s impact . . .

And that was when he heard it: the ringing in his ears was gradually replaced by another, far sweeter sound. In fact it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. If all the musicians in all the world had conspired to create the most elegant, most aurally pleasing instrument and then used it to play the most pleasant melody, they could never have come close to that one sweet, a cappella voice, rising and softly falling in his ears like waves upon the sea . . . The words, which he could not understand, though he knew all the seven tongues of Mrythdom, were at once calming and rousing, and before he knew it, he was walking down the beach from Aurelius’s ship and wading into the sea. He stopped for a moment with the waves rushing softly past his knees, the sun beaming down on him, and a gentle breeze driving the drifting mist off the waves to freckle his face with a glistening sheen of water. . . . He closed his eyes and sighed. Never in all his life had he felt such peace, such joy! But it was only a tantalizing taste. That song was coming from somewhere out there, upon . . . or rather
below
the Misty Sea. . . . He had to get to it!

Malgore’s eyes snapped open. Suddenly he knew exactly what that song was, who was singing it, and why it beckoned to him so strongly. But even that realization did nothing to dull the deep longing that warmed his chest and overcame his sense of reason. He had to get back to her! He had to find a way! He’d been a fool! Nothing else mattered. . . . nothing! She was everything he’d ever wanted and more.

Malgore looked down at the glowing orb in his hand, seeing it now with new eyes. It was nothing but a shiny bauble. He was tempted to throw it away, to leave it behind, but then he recalled how he’d stolen it from
her
, and Malgore smiled, realizing how grateful she would be for its return.

It would make the perfect gift to apologize for his absence. Malgore started down the beach, hurrying back the way he’d come in order to get to the submarine.