THE VROL TRILOGY (29 page)

She almost tripped when she noticed the
mask-like apparition, effortlessly whizzing through the air,
particles streaming behind it, as it matched their
velocity.

"Master Max, Lord Draagh is aware of
your good fortunes and victory in battle. In fact, he has already
shared the good tidings with all in the castle, and it turned into
an excuse for half the regiment to break open casks of their finest
mead. There is only one concern they have at this time."

"And what would that be,
Socrates?"

"You just succeeded in killing the
singular son of Vladros, the vampire king. To make it worse, you
impaled the youth's head on a stake. Only the brashest lycan
warrior ever does this, as it is meant as a challenge to fight, yet
again."

###

In the dark, putrid throne room of
Vladros' dank castle far to the north, the news of Max's victory
was not so well received.

"Dead? My son is dead?" Lord Vladros
bellowed, tearing at the dying skin on his face. His rage-filled
visage terrified all of the lower-caste soldiers and attendants in
his presence, as he stormed about the expansive chamber. He ranted
on about how he was going to find the criminals, and use them as
barely-living blood bags, while his hellcats, a perverse, magical
cross breed of the jaguar and the hyena, would tear at their
flesh.

Ryder Johnson stood off to the side,
and without thinking cockily stated, "Hey, I told him to watch out
for that guy."

"You mewling wimp!" roared the vampire
king, while staring at the off-world vampire who seemed unaffected
by his rage. "You should have assisted him! Now he is dead! My heir
is dead!"

Falling back onto his throne, he put
his head in his hands, and if he were anything but a half-dead
vampire king one would think that he was crying, but as vampires
were unable to cry this was not the case.

"He was with the female, you say?" he
brusquely asked Johnson, who had moved closer to the stage upon
which the throne sat.

"Yeah, a real teasing dega-bitch by the
name of Jennie Escalante. Apparently she learned a few tricks too,
'cause she was just an ordinary officer on our ship before we got
dragged to this shit-hole."

Vladros shot Johnson a glare of utter
contempt and said, "I know not what a dega is, alien troll, but
take care with the words with which you use to describe my kingdom.
You only continue breathing by my good graces."

Johnson backed off, bowing slightly,
and putting the manipulations his father had taught him to good
use.

"My Lord, if you desire, I believe
there is a way we can exact revenge for the unjust murder of your
son."

"And what would that be,
puddle-slime?"

"Let's kidnap him and torture him for a
while," Johnson suggested as he wore a sneer on his twisted,
disintegrating mouth.

Vladros looked like he was considering
it for a moment. "Did you not say that he was performing magic? And
did that young minor-mage in the normals' village not proclaim the
same thing?"

"Well, yeah, he was. So
what?"

"You ignorant fool! As soon as we got
him here he could simply escape, using his infernal tricks. If
Draagh has been training him, then there is no doubt that he has
already acquired a great deal of skill. I hate mages - especially
Draagh, who has been a constant thorn in my side - he is possibly
the most powerful mage in existence, so all must be taken into
consideration."

Johnson looked up in the air, thinking
for a moment, his now-rotting brain ticking away with ideas meant
to create pain and suffering.

"Well, then let's get the girl. She's
obviously important to him, so we'll just grab her, and then he'll
wake up in the morning with her severed head on his
windowsill."

Vladros looked over to his left,
motioning for someone to approach. The figure neared the king, but
remained in the shadows while awaiting orders from its
liege.

"Make plans to get the female lycan.
Now."

Johnson backed away with an evil,
insidious grin upon his malformed face. He had no intention of
letting them kill Jennie so quickly. He wanted to have his way with
her first - but he was two steps behind the vampire king, and
didn't even realize it.

After Johnson had departed, a large, ominous
figure appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. The large hood on his
black cloak obscured his face, but his intent was obvious.

"Vladros, do not fear Draagh. My meddlesome
brother shall present you no problems."

###

As Jennie and Max approached the
castle, they virtually flew through the open gate, the guards
having been made aware of their impending arrival via Socrates'
instant notifications. They went directly to the main hall, where
the celebration had already begun, and the two tore into plates of
food set before them; they had only consumed a scrawny rabbit each,
so nourishment was at the top of their list. They were quite
pleased with the celebration, but Jennie showed a bit of hesitation
around her compatriot, due to Max's attempted kiss after defeating
the vampire son of Vladros. Still, even though she wasn't sitting
as close to him as she had been recently, he enjoyed being in her
presence, as well as that of all of Krynos' forces. The young man
had shown true mettle in the fight, and had emerged victorious
against a young, but powerful enemy. Ladros was of the highest
vampire caste and bloodline, making him much more powerful than
most other ghouls, so Max's victory was considerable.

Revelers slapped him on the back, and
used the young man's good fortunes to try to cop a feel on Jennie,
which she lithely avoided at every attempt. As they opened yet
another cask of mead, the crowd again demanded that Max recount the
tale of how he called a levitation cantus without uttering a word,
and then hit every known lethal point on the vampire, before
touching the ground and decapitating the wretched creature in most
spectacular fashion. Max tried to brush this all off, instead
telling them how Jennie permanently disfigured a vampire goon's
face with her gauntlet, causing the entire hall to roar with
laughter. He even goaded Jennie to get up on their table and
recreate a scene of the deft use of her new skills. So, there she
was, a golden cup full of mead in her hand, swinging it around and
splashing the liquid all over the table and various lycans' heads,
while making adorable expressions for each one of her simulated
crushing blows and swings of her sword. Krynos and Draagh sat at
the high table, roaring with laughter and delight. Through their
antics and animated behavior the two visitors made it a night worth
remembering.

Most everyone had gone off to sleep,
while Max, Jennie, Draagh and Donus were sitting at a large table
in the center of the hall, chatting about past experiences. Donus
found the world of Azul to be quite interesting, especially after
they had explained the concept of technology and space travel to
him. Draagh told them stories about strange societies long extinct,
and of a sapient species that wrote the most amazing
five-dimensional poetry. Jennie told tales of her youth, but her
childhood was not exciting at all, so the stories fell rather flat.
The best stories of all came from Max, who told everyone how he had
invented the hook drive, and then how he had taken it for his own
use, as corrupt politicians had prohibited its further
implementation.

Once he had completely detailed his
story, Jennie felt more compassion for the man; she had previously
believed him to be a thief and a traitor, but finding now that he
was trying to save his world, with no ill will towards anyone. As
Draagh had told her before, there was certainly more to him than
one could see at first glance.

Max went to leave the great hall, and
bid everyone a good night. Jennie stood up with him, preferring to
be escorted to her room, as they housed next to each other, and
also desired to avoid any lycan soldiers who might be lurking
around the dark hallways of the castle.

Walking up to the stairs to their
level, Jennie asked him, "Gunnarsson, when first we met, why didn't
you tell me your version of the whole story - you know, about the
hook drive and the Artusians - errr - the Vrol?"

Max gave her an odd gaze, and then
stopped at his door. "Well Jennie, to start off, you unloaded a few
hundred rounds into Draagh's chest and then tried to shoot me in
the face. I was in what you could call an extremely hostile
situation. Besides that, I left Azul for Earth because I didn't
believe that the Security Council was acting in the best interest
of our world, and the military was taking orders from those
ass-clowns. I am more than certain that Draagh had something to do
with prompting me along. And he told you everything you needed to
know while you gave me the stink-eye."

Max then finished by calmly saying,
"Good night, Jennie," and walked into his room, shut the door
without even looking back.

Jennie stood there, slack-jawed and
stunned, with a door shut in her face; that had never happened to
her before in her entire adult life.

###

The following morning, after having
eaten breakfast alone, Max went to train in the great hall, but
noticed that Jennie wasn't there. Draagh entered, looking rather
fit, with a broad smile on his face, greeting Max in his typical
fashion.

"Good morning, my son! Are we ready to
conquer more of the mysteries of magic and the space/time continuum
today?"

Max's face lit up as he asked, "You
mean slips? Yeah gramps, let's do it. I'm more than ready to take
on this stuff."

There were two types of
slips - a slip being a type of teleportation via what resembled a
fractional wormhole. The first type, the three-dimensional, or 3D
slip involved moving about on the same world, utilizing precise X,
Y and Z coordinates - latitude, longitude and elevation. One could
not slip into the solid inside of a mountain, so the elevation
portion was critical. A complex
movericantus was used for these types of slips, but greater
distances required some advanced calculations
.

The other type, the 4D slip, was
required for more advanced travel, such as through space/time. It
mattered not if it was on the same world, or to a different planet,
or even to a parallel world (of which existed an infinite number) -
the fourth-dimensional coordinate was required. Socrates was
necessary to compile the data for these slips the first time
around, as these calculations (based on what was called the
Kamiliak Equation) were beyond the understanding of most mages save
for the most powerful ones such as Draagh, and certainly not within
the realm of knowledge nor capabilities of minor-mages. Even then,
Draagh utilized Socrates' vast knowledge base and amazing
computational power to hasten the process. The aged wizard had
become a bit lazy throughout his eons of existence, and his beloved
herb only helped to exacerbate his distaste for complex
math.

High-level mages (the
Prīmulī, as well as archangels and, in limited cases some lower
angels) carried a physical object that was genetically encoded to
their systems, via the living, non-sentient
ghanlo
contained within.
These
ghanlos
had
massive amounts of memory, and could save 3D and 4D slip data,
enabling the mage to return to points in space/time where he had
previously been without having to go through the process of
recalculating coordinates. Lower-level mages had no such devices,
were limited to 3D slips, and merely recited cantuses.

As Max was Draagh's grandson, he was
informed that he would be able to use the ancient one's staff on a
local level, albeit with some minor limitations. The two went about
slipping to various parts of the castle, and when Draagh felt that
Max had a decent enough grasp of the concepts, allowed his young
charge to select a location with which he was familiar, so Max
slipped with his grandfather to the location of the battle with
Ladros.

Looking out over the grassy area in
which they fought, Draagh kneeled down and touched the earth, which
caused an eerie glow to set out from his outstretched
palm.

"They returned. Yes, they did indeed,"
stated the aged wizard, but Max already knew this, as the pole in
which he had impaled the separated skull of his opponent was gone
of course, along with the head. "We shall not return here, my son,"
exclaimed Draagh. There is an aura of evil that emanates from this
ground - it is spoiled."

Max got the message, and slammed the
staff into the ground and slipping them back to the main hall,
where they were to continue lessons for the rest of the
day.

Jennie passed her day practicing
furiously in the open pitch of the training grounds, still miffed
by Max's treatment of her the previous night. As she flipped over
obstacles with ease and shot fireballs at forward targets with her
wand, she simultaneously performing double scissor kicks on lateral
targets, destroying them with her powerful legs. 

The small, raggedy-looking girl whom Jennie
briefly saw a few times after the mock battle watched her from
around a corner, apparently impressed with the woman's battle
skills. Holding a burnt stick in her, she waved it around,
imitating the impressive offworlder's every move.