And without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the beginning of my seventh Tamalarian Tale of the Fifth Age, 'Servants of Destiny'. Enjoy!
Prologue
Lightning split the skies above the city of Desanadron, and indeed, above the entire continent. Up in the Heavenly Plane, trouble was brewing for one of the metropolis’s residents. One of the Lesser Gods was running amok, and he was on the run from two of the Greater Gods, the mighty Oun, and his companion Greater God, Lenos. “Catch me if you can,” mocked the Lesser God Churiya, one of the gods of mischief. He had done something unforgivable, something that the rest of the gods would only think to do on the Day of Merriment, when all jokes were allowed and no rules governed the gods of mischief. Even the Great God of Chaos, Sonamo, wouldn’t do what Churiya had done without an excellent escape plan or a finger to point at someone else.
He had released the sealed god. The sealed god had been one of the creatures who, after rebelling against the Great Gods and the Holy Triad, had been found to be of good enough spirit to be allowed to continue on as a god, but not actively. Not for the time being, anyhow. The sealed god had been known as Guirdejef, the Great God of Doorways. He had also been known variously as Chronos, The Clockwatcher, and The Bridge Maker.
The assembled Great Gods and Lesser Gods had all come together at one point in the Heavenly history and decided that Guirdejef was not needed, especially since the mad god Maragshet had begun to affect Guirdejef’s thinking. Guirdejef was the only god with the power to link the Heavenly Plane of his own universe to that of other realities, and he could open such doorways in the lands of Tamalaria as well. After several accidents, and after a number of various gods had made themselves guests in the Heavenly Plane of Tamalaria, Guirdejef got an idea. The idea (thanks to Maragshet’s madness) was that he would send a horde of Goblins into a reality where Goblins only existed as part of myth, and where the Human Race alone stood supreme.
Knowing the sort of havoc that would wreak on a reality unprepared for real live Goblins, the council of the Greater Gods finally acted upon the agreement they had with the Lesser Gods, and they, along with the Holy Triad, sealed Guirdejef away in a Null Space. The only way to break the seal would be for a god, be he or she Lesser or Greater, to offer up their once-a-century Miracle to free him. And even then, before the Miracle was used, they had to have the approval of the council of the Greater Gods and the Holy Triad to avoid any trouble or argument.
Churiya had garnered no approval by the council, and would not have regardless of how hard he pled his case. He was, after all, only breaking the seal of the Null Space in order to see what sort of havoc might be wrought if Guirdejef decided to do something really crazy, like bringing Elves from another reality into this one, just to see how they’d react. And now that he’d done it, the mighty Oun and Lenos, two of the Greater Gods, were chasing him through the Palace of the Heavenly Plane. They were desperate to drag him back to the place where the Null Space began in the Palace’s dungeons and force him to take back his miracle.
And then, in the middle of the chase, Churiya appeared to vanish from existence, like a ghost. The fully armored and glowing Oun turned to Lenos, who was dressed lavishly in green robes and a red fez, as befit the Bishops who worshipped him as a Class on the earth below. “Where did he go,” Oun asked of Lenos, whom he considered a brother.
“I know not, my brother. Disappearing is not a trick I would think a Lesser God of mischief would have.”
“It isn’t,” said a third voice, joining the voices of Oun and Lenos. Both Greater Gods turned around, and there, behind them, stood the tall and mighty Guirdejef. Guirdejef’s manifested body took the form of a large White Dragon with two heads, and though he was immense in size, his metaphysical representative body did not give both Greater Gods the shakes; the look of madness in his eyes took care of that. “I decided to send him to the Mortal Plane below. I also think I shall bring a few guests to the Mortal Plane, as well as some guests for ourselves to entertain, brothers. Ah, it is good to look upon your faces again after so many years. How long has it been?”
Neither Oun nor Lenos wanted to tell the Great God of Doorways that he’d been sealed for nearly four thousand years.
Chapter One
The Loyal Servant, the Aimless Wanderer,
and The Boy Who Hated His Father
Ignatious Stockholm stealthily streaked from the sewer entrance he used to access the Hoods’ home of operations beneath Desanadron, all the way toward his office. He almost made it inside without being caught out, but as he turned the key in place, he felt a light and dainty tapping on his back. The muscles bunched on his back as his shoulders crunched up, and despite his enormous size and build, the Red Tribe Werewolf turned his crimson-furred muzzle to the side and down with abject fear. He wasn’t afraid of who stood there, per se, but he did fear the personal questions that would be forthcoming, and when he saw who it was standing there, his fears were confirmed. Damn it, he thought, if I can sneak up on Flint, why can’t I get past this woman?
“How’s things, Stocky ol’ boy,” Anna Deus, in the guise of William Deus, asked him with a shit-eating grin. “Shall we step into your office?” Stockholm let out a grumbling sigh, and turned the key the rest of the way, opening the door on his neat and orderly office. He trundled over to his seat behind the desk, and Anna locked the door, sauntering over to the guest chair and propping her feet up on the desk. She always loved doing this to Flint, whose desk was a complete mess, but she enjoyed it more with Stockholm, since the red-furred Werewolf was a compulsive neat freak and would invariably start scrubbing the desk after she left. He might not even wait for that; if she took her feet down now, he’d probably grab a spray bottle and washrag to clean the dirt from his bare work space.
“Do you have to do that,” he asked for the umpteenth time, to which her reply was a wider smile. “Look, what do you want, boss? I’m kind of busy,” he lied, pulling open the file cabinet behind him and rifling through papers. Normally he enjoyed Anna’s company, and the two of them had shared secrets with one another that bonded them more closely than most members of the thieves’ Guild known as the Hoods. Anna, using the persona of William Deus, was the Guild Headmaster. Ignatious Stockholm, Red Tribe Werewolf and overall brute, was currently the Guild Chief. Over the course of his long life, it had been one of many dozens of jobs that held a note of authority. Then again, his life had been abnormally long, and for good reasons, which were his own. Those secrets he would keep until the day he died, hopefully.
Lately, however, Anna had gotten into the bad habit of trying to set him up on blind dates with friends she kept all over the city of Desanadron. This would have been embarrassing enough on its own, but added to the situation was Stockholm’s sexual orientation, and the fact that he liked to keep it to himself. Stockholm was, after all, the only homosexual Red Tribe Werewolf he’d ever known. For that matter, he was possibly the only gay Werewolf that Anna knew, period, though she knew a few Cuyotai of his persuasion. Presently, he’d just returned from one such blind date, and he was determined not to tell her how things had gone, which was terrible.
“I want a report, Mr. Stockholm,” Anna said in a serious and businesslike fashion, which actually got the Red Tribesman to turn around in his swivel chair. Her feet were still on his desk, and he had to swallow the urge to knock them off and clean that part of his oak desk.
“A report on what, boss,” he asked, turning back to the filing cabinet. “I’ve got treasury reports here, staff report, incident reports, you name it,” he said with a grin, thankful that she had come on genuine business.
“I want a good, thorough report on how your date went, Mr. Stockholm,” she said with an impish twist to her smile, and Stockholm’s chin hit the desk as he dropped forward onto it, covering his head with his gnarled, brutal hands. “And don’t leave out the dirty details where appropriate.”
“Would you knock that off,” he almost screamed, thrusting up from his chair and leaning forward over the desk like an ominous tower of doom. “I am here, on the clock, and so are you, sir,” he said, straightening out his sleeveless armored vest. “Unless it’s vital to the functioning of the Guild, I presume that it isn’t worth discussing.” He cleared his throat, and made to sit down until he saw that she had saucer-sized eyes that were moist and lips that were trembling. Oh gods above, he thought, I hate the wounded orphan look. “Do you have to know now,” he asked with a sullen sigh.
“Ooh, yes yes,” she cried out, smiling ear to ear and clapping her hands as she jumped up and down. Wasting no time, Stockholm sprayed the edge of his desk and wiped it down with a cloth rag. “Story time, story time! Yay,” she said, pumping one fist into the air like a child.
“Relax there, kiddo. The whole thing was a spectacular disaster,” Stockholm groused, slumping into his seat with the water bottle in one hand and the rag in the other.
“Didn’t go so great, huh?”
“No, it didn’t,” he said, opening a drawer and putting the spray bottle away with the rest of his cleaning products, and then dumping the rag, which he’d used only once, into the dirty linen bin next to his desk. “I met him at Andre’s, like you suggested, and he looked like a handsome sort of Cuyotai. Short cropped fur, well combed, and his scent was quite nice, lilacs and a hint of jasmine. He had a good shade of tan fur, and his taste in clothes was rather impressive. A poet’s shirt with ruffled cuffs and collar, and black leather pants that, well, accented the eye candy,” he said, to which Anna internally squirmed. She hadn’t taken the time to warn her friend Jeremy that Stockholm tended to be the aggressive type, or that he did a thorough once-over with his eyes, but here Stocky was now, giving her a play-by-play of what his eyes had seen and his nose scented.
“Go on,” she said.
“Well, when I waved to him, he waved back, and his motions were rather elegant, very graceful. His choice of restaurants was just as exquisite, Franco’s Bistro.”
“Oh, that’s the place over on Vine, right?”
“Right. Good food, sticks to your ribs,” Stockholm said, complementing the restaurant in question. “Well, we hadn’t talked much, just introductions and then he suggested the restaurant. Then, well, things went downhill from there.”
“Oh my,” Anna said, shaking her head and taking one of Stockholm’s huge hands in her own. “What happened?”
“He opened his mouth to talk,” he said, and at that she almost burst out laughing. Jeremy, a Cuyotai Illusionist, had been a friend of Anna’s for a long time, and one of her nearby neighbors in her walking life of Anna Deus. Harold had liked Jeremy, but he hadn’t any idea that the Cuyotai was gay. Anna noticed, however, from certain mannerisms to the fact that, as a single male in a big city, the man only ever had other men over to his place. She finally put two and two together one day, asked him about it, and his reply had been great by her comedic standards. ‘No shit honey,’ he’d said.
And so of course she thought he might make a good pairing with Ignatious, who was as far from flamboyant as one could possibly get. Had he been much more of a man’s man type, she would have suspected that he had multiple love children throughout the lands of Tamalaria. That, she surmised, was probably not possible, given his preferences. But opposites often attract, as she understood it. She was a big time risk taker, and so the stability of Harold Deus had drawn her to him. Also, while she was slender and athletic, her husband was a bit round and as prone to running as the trees were to farting after a good session of nutrient gathering from the soil. So she made an assumption; apparently, a bad one.
“Go on,” she said, keeping the laugh down.
“Well, he started talking, and let me tell you, the guy can’t shut up about himself. He started going on and on about this ex-boyfriend and that ex-boyfriend, which was just dandy since I’d asked for us to be seated in the business section, not the dating section.”
“Oh, I forgot they did that at Franco’s,” Anna said.
“Yeah, well, so did he apparently. I asked him very politely to keep his volume down, since there were other people around, and he got all offended. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘what, are you ashamed of what you are?’ So then I’ll give you one guess what he does.”
“Oh lord.”
“He stands up,” Stockholm said, rising from his own seat to mime the actions of his horrendous blind date. “He takes me by the wrist, and raises my hand,” he said, taking Anna’s wrist and raising it just enough for her arm to be at full extension. “Then he turns around, looks at everybody seated around us, and he proceeds to shout, ‘this man is gay, and he is proud!’ Can you fucking believe it?!” Anna managed to stifle another laugh, but she nodded.
“Oh, I can believe it with him,” she said, taking her hand back before Stocky ripped it off. “He’s just that sort, I guess.”
“Then why in the name of all the gods Greater and Lesser and the seven hells did you set me up with him,” he growled, plunging across the desk and grabbing her by the shirt. She was nose-to-snout with him, and he didn’t appear to be amused in the least. In this moment, Anna remembered distinctly why Ignatious Stockholm was the most intimidating being she’d ever known. He was fast, deadly fast, and she hadn’t even blinked when he’d come across the desk at her, flying with his hands out. Secondly, he was brutally powerful, and could have ripped her clothes or head off whenever he wanted, especially so close to her. And thirdly, but most certainly not least, was the strange, otherworldly look in his eyes when he became enraged like this.
“Because, he seemed like a nice guy,” she managed to squeak before entertaining further mental images of Stockholm ripping her apart. He let her go, and eased himself back behind his desk, straightening out his vest as he did so. “I assume there was more,” she asked in a timid little girl’s voice.
“Well, yes,” Stocky admitted, looking away from her. He was ashamed at himself for losing his temper so readily, but he wasn’t about to apologize. After all, the date had been Anna’s idea, and a really bad one at that. “He started telling me about this ‘wonderful little musical production’ he’s involved in, and you know I hate musicals,” Stockholm said, to which Anna nodded. Stockholm enjoyed the theater, no doubts about it, but he hated musicals, as he viewed them as a ‘lesser art form’. “So that took some more points away from him. And then lastly, well, when the bill came, he mysteriously misplaced his wallet.”
“Oh no,” Anna said, realizing that she may have misjudged the Cuyotai. She thought him sweet and flamboyant, and nothing more. She hadn’t expected him to be the sort of games-player that Stockholm was describing. “Oh, Stocky, I’m so sorry. If I had known he was going to be so awful, I never would have suggested him as a date option.”
“Well, you had the best of intentions,” Stockholm said with a heaving sigh. “I can’t blame you for his shortcomings. Anyway, did you need any actual paperwork,” Stockholm asked, a slight ringing in his left ear. He knew this feeling, this sensation; he’d felt it several times over the years, and he knew that he had to get Anna out of his office before he could turn his full attention to it.
“Not right now, but I will want a copy of the most recent treasury report on my desk before the morning. I’ll be spending a couple of weeks top side, full time. Flint and you know what to do,” Anna said, standing up and heading for the door. She stopped just short of the door, and looked back at Stocky with earnest eyes. “If you need anything, even just to talk, you know how to find me,” she offered.
“I know, boss,” Stockholm replied. He gave her a gentle wave, and when she exited his office, he rushed to the door and applied the locks in sequence. To these locks he also added a small white pellet in top of the knob, an artifact he’d picked up decades ago in high volume, to keep anyone from breaking in, even if they picked the locks. He turned back to face the office, and there, seated in his guest chair, was an ethereal figure of a man in a suit of shimmering armor. Stockholm approached the ghostly figure in his guest chair, and knelt beside the seat, one flat hand to his forehead. “I’m listening,” he said.
Hina Hinas checked her outfit in the full length mirror in her bedroom once more, and then headed for the door to her family’s home. As she passed her mother in the kitchen, Maria Hinas said simply to her daughter, “Are you going to be home for dinner, dear?” Hina stopped in her tracks long enough to consider this question, and then turned to look at her mother before responding.
“I should be,” said Hina. Hina was an Elven Q Mage and an accomplished wielder of the short sword, though she had seldom been truly pushed to test her limits. In her family, pushing oneself usually led to an early grave, much like her uncle Albert, who’d gone and tried to test his Aeromancy skills against a Green Dragon. Uncle Albert, we hardly knew ye, she thought on occasion, when she was feeling dreary or macabre, which was most of the time.
Hina was not built to be a warrior, as could be said of most young Elven women. She was a Q Mage, and made no qualms about admitting she was a mage and not some dumb grunt. Stupid or foolish were certainly not adjectives to be used when describing young Ms. Hinas. But she was somewhat of a drifter, in the sense that she never really pursued anything long term. Her only long term accomplishment to date was her ongoing study of Q magic and the ancient arts of magic, the spells categorized popularly as being ‘lost’ to the modern world.
Hina was a slender Elven woman, and stood only about five and a half feet in height. Her skin had an olive complexion, like her father’s, and her pointed Elven ears weren’t angled straight up like most Elves, but slightly back and up, a curious angle when one considered that Illeck ears pointed straight back. There was no Illeck blood in her lineage, however; she had simply been born with slightly different physical features than her parents or her older sister, Maureen.
The Hinas family home was situated in the Elven Kingdom city of Blackwood, the sister city to the capital of Whitewood. Hina’s father, Jackson, was a city guard, and her mother had always just been, well, mom. Hina didn’t take much interest or notice of things going on in her home, since most events didn’t involve her, really. She just lived there, and in her opinion that didn’t mean she had to be involved. She was rather aloof like that.
As mentioned, Hina had gone through a long line of short-term interests and studies, including the study of several languages, cultures, and even various forms of poetry. None had excited her or kept her interest for long. For a while she’d tried to take up baking, which her mother had been delighted with. Hina attended three classes a week in the evening at the local university for baking and basic meal preparation, and her marks had been high. Unfortunately, after about two months of this, she just up and quit. She wasn’t viewing herself as a quitter, however. She’d just gotten bored, as was her habit. “Besides,” she told her disappointed mother, “I learned everything I need to to get by.”
Once, several years before, Hina had taken up the study of playing the flute, and she attended lessons for this for six months straight. When she was pronounced by her instructor as worthy of moving on to highly advanced instruction, she had declined, much to the instructor’s bewilderment and her father’s disappointment. “I rather enjoyed listening to your practice pieces,” her father had said.
“Well, I’ll still practice now and again, on my own,” Hina said, and to this she had managed to keep her word. She still owned the simple flute, and now and again picked it up and played a piece or two. For her, playing the flute came easily, naturally, and she didn’t require constant refreshers in its technique. Like most of her other studies, she simply retained the knowledge that she had acquired, and without much effort.
After the flute, Hina had spent months on end going to the library in the afternoon and studying tomes of reference on the various monstrosities that the lands of Tamalaria played host to, including vampires, wraiths, bladerons (which she hoped never to encounter), wild Troke, and various other such creatures. These studies, like all of her other pursuits, had only been interrupted by her need for sleep and her on-again-off-again part-time job as a waitress at one of Blackwood’s larger diners.
As a result of her constant shifting of focus, Hina had only three long-term interests or hobbies that she kept up for more than a few months. One of these was the study of Q magic, which she was capable of wielding on a level almost equal to a Sorcerer Supreme. The second of these pursuits was her research and study of the ancient magic, the spells that were seldom used or had been ‘lost’ to the ages. And lastly, she had one hobby that she maintained every day since her one hundredth birthday, her entrance into what her body would perceive as early adolescence, since she was an Elf; wandering aimlessly.
Most people referred to her hobby as walking, or hiking, or even distance or endurance walking. She referred to it as wandering aimlessly because she never had any real goal when she strode out from her home, except to pass some miles and time under the soles of her boots. Three times in the last two years she had encountered a number of Goblins and Orcs, raiders on the prowl in the Elven Kingdom, hoping to find unsuspecting and unprepared residents to mug. She, of course, had never been unprepared. Hina had shown these raiders and the occasional monster she came across just how powerful her Q magic could be, when applied properly.
Though she didn’t often practice with her short sword anymore, her father had drilled her extensively in the use of it in combat situations, in case her vast stores of mana were ever depleted, or cut off by a Silence spell. But though she hadn’t practiced routinely, she remembered every technique and tip he’d given her. Like all of her other voluntary pursuits, she simply retained the information.
Coming back to the moment at hand, Hina waved a quick good-bye to her mother, and headed outside, into the streets of Blackwood. Like the capital of Whitewood, Blackwood was immense for an Elven Kingdom city, though not nearly as large as some other cities throughout the lands of Tamalaria. Still, it boasted a large variety of Races and Classes, and all sorts of uniformed or costumed adventurers passed through the city’s gates and streets with an air of adventure or quest about them.
Due to this variety, nobody looked twice at a young Elven woman with long hair dyed purple, five studded metal earrings in each ear, a black travel cloak, black jeans with studs and zippers all over the place, and a black button top that pushed her breasts up and together. The button top was worn over a red tank top with a plunging neckline, but Hina didn’t wear the top just for the cleavage enhancing qualities; it was brigandine, with a metal plate set in the center of the material to provide some armor protection. Her black leather traveling cloak was also brigandine, and it stretched from shoulders and hood down to the ground, giving her an extra layer of protection should she require it.
Her black leather boots came halfway up her shins, and were ringed along the soles with thin pointed spikes that could surely puncture flesh if need be. Hina wore them mostly as a fashion statement, like the rest of her ensemble, but also because they helped when she reached the sparsely populated hills in the vast forest that was the Elven Kingdom.
Hina headed for the southern gates of the city, and nodded a silent acknowledgement to the two Cuyotai on duty at the gates as guards. She’d become familiar with these men, as well as most of the guards who stood duty at the southern gates. If she ever needed to get out of the city in a hurry, this would be her escape route of choice. She couldn’t risk going out of the northern gates, as her father stood guard on one of the shifts, and two of his poker buddies stood the other two shifts. Once a week, when they all had the day off, the three Elven gentlemen would sit in her living room and play cards, and talk about the ‘old days’. If they saw her walking out of the city, they’d surely mention it to her father, who cared little for her aimless wandering.
Hina had her rucksack hitched across her back, with all of the supplies she might need if she were to be out for a day or two, though she only intended to walk around the forest until about an hour before dinner. She didn’t intend to go very far, either, but merely meander around the outskirts of the city in a lazy half-circle. She didn’t figure she’d find anything interesting or out of the ordinary during her brief time out of the city.
The first half an hour or so of her trek took her through the tall elms and oaks without incident, and she enjoyed the soft sounds of the forest life. The animal sounds she associated with everyday living outside of the city walls eased her mind, and she offered the forest an easy smile as she walked along. The rest of her first hour followed much the same pattern, with only the small creek she had dubbed Deer Water breaking the gentle monotony.
At Deer Water, a creek narrow enough for her to jump over (though she needn’t do that with her Levitation spell on hand), Hina came to a silent halt, watching as nearly a dozen deer stood lapping water from the stream. She eased herself over to a tree stump, and sat down, pulling her sketchpad from her rucksack. She dabbled only a very little in art, but she did excellent charcoal pictures of animals and plants, and she was going to take the opportunity the deer were providing her.
Hina had finished about half of her portrait when all of the deer looked up and to the west as one, all of their heads pivoting in unison toward the low scratching sound in the woods nearby. Hina had heard it as well, but now a low, guttural growl accompanied the shuffling noises, and she didn’t trust the sound one bit. Hina tucked her pad and charcoal pencil away swiftly, picking up her pack and hoisting it onto her back. The Elven Q Mage brought her mana awake, and had her magic quickly ready for use.
The deer scattered and scampered away just in time to avoid being crushed by a wild Troke, one of the powerful shape-shifters that had not become civilized as time marched on. Troke, unlike lycanthropes, were not entirely physical beings, but spirit beasts that could change any part of their body to mimic those of creatures they had come in physical contact with. The older the Troke, therefore, the more versatile and dangerous.
This Troke had the head of a wolf, and the body of a lion as it barreled out of the brush and onto the bank of the creek, its long snout snapping at the hind end of the last fleeing deer. Unsatisfied, the creature let out a long, low roar of fury, and turned its crimson, murderous eyes upon the Elven Q Mage. Hina watched with a mix of curiosity and detachment as the creature’s body rippled in the air, changing shape to match its present needs. The wild Troke took then the body of a bruising Troll, with the head of a Minotaur. The overall result was just as ugly as anything she’d seen or read about in any number of tomes, and she was left thoroughly unimpressed.
“Is that the best you can do,” she asked as she unleashed an Arc Lightning spell into the creature’s chest. A triple fork of lightning blasted from her outstretched hand into the Troke, pulsing through its body and rocking it for a solid ten seconds before disappearing with a snap of force that hurled the larger creature back into the underbrush. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” she said to herself, dusting her hands off.
The Troke, apparently, had other thoughts. It launched itself out of the brush at her at blinding speed, and Hina finally felt a little hitch in her chest as her heart rate accelerated. “Oh shit,” she managed as the creature punched her in her armored shoulder with bone-shattering force. Hina twisted and stumbled away, her shoulder bruised but the armor protecting her from serious injury. “Masan huven, Barrier,” she cried, thrusting her left hand skyward. A dome of bluish-purple force extended from her palm out around her body, and Hina brought her hand down only when the dome touched the ground.
The Troke, being wild and thus naturally enraged, came at her again, rebounding in midair off of the protective magical bubble that she’d encased herself in. Think, Hina, think, she chided herself. What are Troke vulnerable to? After a moment’s thought, she had it. Hina looked at the Troke as it flew through the air at her once more, and threw out her right hand once more toward the brutal shape-shifter. “Arks secrifur! Hold!” A shimmering wave of air hit the Troke, and it was suddenly immobilized in midair, thrashing its arms and legs around in an attempt to get free of its magical prison.
Hina gathered herself once more, summoning more mana into her arms and into her fingertips. The next spells she used would have to come in combination, and she would now prove once again why Q magic was not so useless as everyone thought. “Manten aftum! Analyze!” Hina saw, though the Troke did not, a small orange circle appear in Hina’s field of vision, and the circle began sweeping the front of the Troke’s immobilized body. Held as it was, it could not even change shape, and thus throw off her next necessary moves. Finally, the orange dot, after much searching, centered itself on the Troll-like belly of the Troke. “Tayum amakan anusio! Element Shift!” Hina used the Element Shift spell to change the elemental property of her next attacking spell to the element of earth, as from Gaiamancy. “Amplify,” she cried out, sending another wave of orange energy over her body. The Amplify spell would increase the deadliness of her next attack spell, and so now she would be using a highly powered offensive spell against the Troke. “Earthen Great Raybolt,” she cried, pointing one finger at the Troke.
From Hina’s fingertip came a tan beam of light, perhaps no larger around then a pen cap. The beam struck the Troke in the stomach, and pierced all the way through its body and out its back, paralyzing the creature in its pain. As the beam remained in position, it rapidly widened, taking up more of a cone-like quality as it streamed from Hina’s finger and through the Troke, which now managed to scream and thrash in death throes and agony. After a half minute of this spell’s effect, it snapped off, leaving the smoldering remains of the Troke lying on the forest floor. Blood oozed from its wound, and the body itself began to melt away into the ground. Hina straightened her button top, brushed back her hair, and started wandering aimlessly once more.
It wasn’t quite time to head home yet.
“Timothy, don’t forget to walk the dog after he eats,” Tim’s mother called to him from the kitchen.
“I’ll take him out now,” Tim called back. Timothy stood in the living room, eyeballing himself in the mirror. He stood at a little over six feet, and had a slightly pudgy figure. His muscle tone was good, but always concealed under a pair of black jeans, and a red knit sweater that he almost always kept available for wearing out. He had pale skin, and he appeared to constantly have five o’clock shadow on his face, a hereditary trademark he’d earned from his father. The bastard, he thought, summoning to mind his father involuntarily as he looked in the mirror beside the door leading outside. “Punchy! Here Punchy!”
A golden retriever came lazily sauntering from his hiding place under the stairs on the other side of the doorway that led up to the second floor of his mother’s and his humble home. Tim had had the dog’s life span magically enhanced and stretched twice now, and he knew that this time, when the dog’s eye started going lazy or his hips gave out, he’d have to have Punchy put down. Timothy loved animals, and didn’t like the idea, but it would be better than watching the dog slowly deteriorate, or forget who his master was. “Come on, boy,” Timothy said, hooking the leash onto the dog’s collar. “We’re going for a little walk.”
Tim grabbed his knit cap and pulled it down over his head and his slightly pointed ears, leading the dog outside as he opened the door. Half-Elf by heritage and birth, Tim had a knack for animals as one of the sylvan folk. He also had a tendency to lean toward magic, especially considering his natural Class. Timothy was a Void Mage. His innate magical abilities had actually once belonged to other people, and as a result, he tended to try to lead a nice, normal, quiet life.
Void Mages in Tamalaria were among the most hated people in the magic user community. The manner in which a Void Mage learned a spell was by merely being struck with a spell or being near the magic user when the spell was cast. As a result, most of Tim’s friends were of the non-magical variety, and even they tended to treat him with kids’ gloves. A Void Mage could also learn special combat abilities from fighter-type individuals, and so even burly, non-magic types might shy from him if they knew what he was.
Over the course of his life, however, Timothy had been exposed to a lot of magic and a lot of bruisers, mostly kids who, when he attended school in his formative years, had decided upon learning his heritage that he needed a good thumping. While it may not have been fair, Tim took his beatings silently, and learned a thing or two about fighting, as well as learning how to take a solid punch. From everything he’d learned about his father in history classes, he felt he might deserve an occasional beating.
His father was Richard Vandross.
A few years before his campaign to dominate all of Tamalaria with the power of the Orbs of Eden’s Serpent, Vandross had forced himself on an Elven woman, who had summarily clawed and kicked at him when he fell asleep laying atop her. That Elven woman was Timothy’s mother, and her name was Beatrice Amano. Her son, however, had learned at an early age that his father was a man by the name of Richard Vandross, and he’d asked his mother’s permission to use his father’s name. “Go on ahead,” she’d said, hoping that Timothy would not be immediately associated with the tyrant.
“Hope in one hand, shit in the other,” Tim said as he walked the dog through the streets of Penquin, a small township in the Elven Kingdom. “See which fills up first,” he said, finishing the crude bit of wisdom he’d learned in school years before. “No offense, Punchy.” His mother and he had lived in a small cottage in the city of Whitewood until he graduated from school, and all through his childhood, there had been murmurs about him whenever he passed a group of either adults or kids who knew what he was, or from what gene pool he swam.
Timothy Vandross walked his retriever down the road, and passed right in front of the Bixsby School of Magic, an academy for young magic-users. He’d applied shortly after his mother had purchased their current residence, and had the next day received a letter from the school’s headmaster in the post the next day. It had been a nicely written letter, basically telling him in no uncertain terms that the day he got in to their school would be the day that Humans lived as long as Elves. He chuckled at the unintended joke at his expense; being a half-Elf, he had the exact life expectancy indicated by average of the two.
Deep in his inner musings, Timothy looked up and realized that he’d let his thoughts overtake him entirely while his body had moved of its own accord. He was standing on the edge of town, where the forest proper began around the township. Punchy was shaking in the chill evening air, and Timothy, despite his usual desire to live simply and without thrills, had the sudden urge to leave the dog behind and go out into the wilds. He had never been much of an adventurer, but he felt compelled for some reason to leave behind his life of hiding and passivity, and take himself somewhere. Anywhere would do at the moment, and before he thought to take that first brave step, a small stone struck him in the arm.
“Freak,” someone shouted from the shadows down the street. The bruise already forming on his arm reminded Timothy that the rest of the world might not only resort to rock throwing when dealing with him. The rest of the realm of Tamalaria hated his father just as much as anybody in his town, city or village of residence. None of them hated Richard Vandross as much as Timothy did, though. Because of his father’s crimes, he was an outcast with very few friends, and the majority of those friends he had, thanks to being a natural born Void Mage, tended to be brutes and simpletons, Humans and Minotaurs without much in the brains department.
As he sulked on his way home, Punchy rubbing against his legs now and again to give him the small comfort that animals excel at giving, Timothy Vandross came to a conclusion. He would leave this place; he would out on the road, and reclaim his own name, leaving behind his dark heritage. He would go on a journey of self-awareness and discovery.
He had no idea that the whole time he walked the dog, a god was taking an interest in him.
“Ever the proper servant,” Oun said to Ignatious Stockholm from his guest chair. The ghostly, ethereal form of the Greater God stood up, and reached down to Stockholm, alighting on his shoulder. “Let us go someplace more private and comfortable to speak.” Stockholm closed his eyes, and behind the lids an explosion of light rocked him to the core of his being. He felt the distinct sensation of being pulled at the speed of light up, up into the clouds and heavens above. In this case, however, he really was going to the Heavens, and not simply experiencing euphoria.
When his vision adjusted, he saw that he was laying on a sort of lounge couch, the sort one might see in a psychiatrist’s office. Stockholm grunted his disapproval. The entire room he’d been transported to had a sort of official theme to it, with various weapons affixed to the walls and an enormous redwood desk across from him, to one side. “Can’t say as I like the color scheme,” he commented, noting that everything in the ‘office’ was a shade of white or black.
Seated behind the impressive redwood desk, Oun leaned forward with his hands folded together. “We aren’t all blessed with your imagination, Ignatious Stockholm,” the Greater God of order said. “Then again, isn’t that part of what makes you such a great errand boy?”
“I’m hardly an errand boy,” Stockholm said, laying back on the couch and looking up at the black walnut panels of the ceiling. “And besides, you know full well why I do what I do for you people,” he said, speaking of the gods themselves as though they were mere mortals.
“Yes, I am aware, as are we all,” Oun rumbled, placing his hands flat on the desk. “And you are aware that there’s only one reason I would stoop to calling on your service,” the god said with a hint of aggravation in his voice.
“Let me guess, it’s something you’re not allowed to interfere with because of you guys being gods and everything,” Stockholm said, letting the sarcasm drip from his mouth. “And it would be beneath you to deal with such a trifle thing when you have someone like me around on the Mortal Plane to handle it for you, right?”
“Partially,” Oun said, allowing Stockholm to get in his jab without returning fire. “It’s also because the situation is complicated. You see, this situation actually spans both Planes, Mortal and Heavenly.” This statement got Stockholm’s attention, and the Red Tribe Werewolf sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the couch. “Interested now?”
“Very,” Stockholm replied seriously. Oun proceeded to give Stockholm the quick version of events, starting with Churiya’s tomfoolery and the tragic results. The entire recounting of events took only a few minutes, after which Stockholm could only manage a quiet, “Wow.”
“Wow indeed,” Oun said, rising from behind his desk. “The council of the Greater Gods and the Holy Triad have convened once to discuss the matter, and almost all are in agreement. You are to be one of the three who will be dealing with the situation on the Mortal Plane.”
“Wait, one of three,” Stockholm said, a tad offended. “Are you saying I can’t handle it? Give me use of all of my former powers and it’ll be a cakewalk!”
“Granting you all of your powers would raise you back to the status of one of us,” Oun said with a coy grin, waggling a finger at the Red Tribe Werewolf. “We’re not about to do something like that until the time is appropriate. We have discussed, however, and agreed upon granting you use of some of your old powers.” Stockholm, outcast god, rubbed his hands together eagerly. “We shall begin with your ability to heal the wounds of others,” Oun said, running his open hand down one side of Stockholm’s face, revealing a tattoo-like marking that had been concealed upon his banishment from the Heavenly Plane. Make on the Mortal Plane, the mark would not be visible except to those with an acute awareness of all things spiritual.
“Anything else,” Stockholm said, opening one of his eyes. He leered at the Greater God of order, already feeling once again the old call of his immortal blood. The urge to challenge Oun right then and there was great, but in his reduced state, he didn’t stand a chance. Instead of opening his mouth and saying something foolish, he bit his tongue, and awaited a reply from Oun, who gave him an open glare of disdain. Oun and Stockholm had never gotten on very well in the olden days, which made a sort of sense. Oun stood for all things holy, light and orderly. Stockholm, on the other hand, stood as the banished God of Adventure, and adventure rarely allowed for much in the way of order. Tactics stood as the only thing orderly about war, a point which the Red Tribe Werewolf often used to throw in Oun’s face.
Stockholm, God of Adventure, had initiated a large-scale war between his own people, pitting each of the Tribes against one another back in Tamalaria’s Second Age, and for this, the other gods had held a council. Whatever else they did, they all agreed, they were supposed to do all they could for the benefit of their own worshippers. The Holy Triad agreed, and so Ignatious Stockholm’s madness was stopped by the intervention of the other gods. Stockholm himself was stripped by the Holy Triad of his godly status, as well as most of his powers. His punishment was then handed down; for all time, until he proved himself worthy of permanent re-entry to the Heavenly Plane, he would be the mortal manservant to the Greater Gods, whenever they required his service in the Mortal Plane. Rather than be snuffed out of existence, he had agreed, and requested that he be placed in the form of a Red Tribe Werewolf, since he’d observed that they were the rarest breed of Werewolves.
Stockholm’s train of memories was brought to a halt as Oun spoke once again. “One other thing, for now, and that should be suitable,” Oun snarled, taking Stockholm’s right hand in his own. “We return to you the use of your Fist of the Breaker. You can destroy any weapon or armor, defend against any blow with this hand alone. The wrist and the rest of the arm, however, are still more than vulnerable,” Oun cautioned as the tattoo marking flared to life on the back of Stockholm’s hand. Stockholm, unable to resist a good gibe when he had one available, decided to open his mouth and be crude in the presence of Oun.
“I should be careful then,” he said with an impish grin. “After all, this is the hand I use to jerk off,” he said with a cackle, and as he guffawed, Oun struck him a blow across the back of his head, which sent his soul hurtling back down into the Mortal Plane, and into his body. Stockholm’s physical body crashed to the floor of his office with a shudder, and he groaned and congealed for a moment at the throbbing in his skull. “Should have remembered, the guy can’t take a joke.” He managed a short laugh before he passed out.
Hina Hinas walked through the door into her family’s home only five or six minutes before her mother had dinner finished, and mom was all too pleased at her punctuality. “Go clean up, dear. Dinner will be on the table in a few minutes,” her mother said with a smile.
“Whatever,” Hina replied, heading to the stairs that led up to her room. Hers was the only room occupied upstairs now, and her sibling’s old room had been turned into a storage room, since her parents knew the child wouldn’t be returning any time soon. Hina herself had the strange feeling lately that soon she too would be leaving her parents behind. Perhaps not forever, but for a while, she thought, heading to the upstairs bathroom for a short shower.
She showered, got back into her clothes, and headed downstairs for dinner. Her father had arrived home from his shift about a minute before she walked into the kitchen, and he was still dressed in his work uniform; chain shirt, iron greaves, iron boots, and a serape with a gold field, on which was embossed a single leaf. The serape was knee-length, and her father’s belt kept it from flapping about, along with holding his various pouches tied to it. Buckled around his waist as well was his weapons belt, on which were sheathed his duty short sword, a wooden baton, and an unlit torch.
Jackson Hinas, her father, was standing at the sink with her mother, talking in low tones when she tiptoed into the room. Still, he turned when she entered, his ears ever vigilant as he was. Jackson Hinas was a handsome man, even by Elven standards, and had a slightly olive complexion like his daughter. His eyes were slightly narrower than hers or her mother’s, but his eyes were a golden hue not often found among her Race. The corners of his thin lips turned upward in a small smile at his daughter. “Hello, dear. Did you have a good time on your little walk,” he asked, a slight hint of annoyance in his tone. Jackson had never liked her wandering outside of Blackwood’s walls, but he would never come right out and say so.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Hina replied with her own false grin. Like a pair of gunslingers they stood a few yards away from each other, tension filling the air between them. He’ll make a move soon, she thought, he always does. He hasn’t taken his weapons belt off yet, so I have to be on my guard. Her father’s methods of training her in the art of armed combat had been ongoing, and even at the dinner table, until his weapons belt came off, any moment could turn into combat training. In the last year, he’d started removing his sword from its sheath, forcing Hina to react more quickly and with more accurate movements.
Her mother despised such practice, but even she held her tongue when Jackson was in a mood to test his daughter. While not a violent man by nature, Jackson was willful, and would not be disobeyed under any circumstances. The first time he’d attacked Hina with a sheathed weapon during dinner, nearly twenty years before, her mother had cried out and tried to get in Jackson’s way. His reply to her standing in his way had been simple; he’d slid on the floor beneath her, grabbing her ass quickly when he stood up behind her. “Got your goose,” he’d said, much to both women’s surprise. He’d then launched himself at Hina and smashed her in the side of the head with his sheathed sword.
The same tension from those many years before permeated the air, even as both father and daughter sat across from one another at the table. Hina had never used her magic against Jackson during the twenty years of training, and tonight, she thought, might finally be time to do so. Her studies in Q magic were well known to her parents both. What they didn’t know was the extent of her ability as a Q Mage, and this might be an appropriate evening to put that skill on display. Especially, she mentally added, since I’m drained from the fight with the Troke, physically speaking. I’ve got mana in good supply, though.
The three members of the Hinas family sat at the table for dinner, and Hina’s mother said the family prayer before serving the food. Hina used her spoon to shovel mashed potatoes into her mouth, her eyes never leaving her father’s shoulders, where most of his attacks telegraphed from. When’s he going to do it, she wondered, when? A moment later, she saw the telltale twitch in his shoulder. At least, she thought she did. Jackson muttered a curse in Elven, and slowly knelt to the floor, as he’d dropped his fork.
Except, she suddenly realized, I didn’t hear the fork hit the floor. Hina brought up her left foot and kicked off of the edge of the table, just avoiding being stabbed in the leg by her father’s improvised weapon, the very fork he’d faked dropping. Hina’s chair skidded back across the floor, and she had just time enough to see her mother roll her eyes before her father came leaping over the table.
Now, she thought, now’s the time. Just like the Troke. She brought her mana to bear quickly, and threw her hands toward her father, still airborne. “Hold,” she shouted, and a wave of light blue force blurred out over her father’s body. He hung there, suspended in midair and looking rather bewildered.
“Um, what the hell did you just do,” he asked as he tried to move his arms and legs. They quivered a little, a testament to his strength and bodily control, but did little more than that. He looked left, then right, and then tried to look over his shoulder at her mother. “Hey, a little help here honey,” he said to his wife.
“Hina, let your father down,” her mother said in an exhausted tone. She was exasperated, but not so much by the practice as the finality of Jackson’s situation. She knew that once released from the spell, Jackson would go after his daughter again, and the next time her daughter might not stop at just paralyzing him in mid-attack. Hina snapped her fingers, and her father dropped in the same arc he’d been flying in, landing a few feet away from Hina.
“Thank you dear,” Jackson said to his daughter. Hina saw the twitch in his shoulder once again, and before he could stab at her, she planted her right pointer finger on his nose.
“Makinden shivo. Confusion,” she whispered, and the next instant, a spark ignited from her finger. Her father stumbled backward, and before both his wife and daughter, began babbling in tongues. Hina grinned impishly at her father as he began slapping himself and making odd honking noises, while her mother looked absolutely horrified.
“Jackson! Jackson, get a hold of yourself,” Hina’s mother cried, getting up from the table and rushing to her fallen husband’s side. He’d begun drawing designs in the air over his face as he lay on his back, a stupid smile plastered across his face. “What have you done to him,” her mother growled at Hina, who took a startled step back. Her mother had yelled at her before, but she’d never snarled at her like this. “What have you done to your father,” Mrs. Hinas screamed at her daughter. Hina brought her hands up defensively as her mother stood, and her mind went blank. What had she done? Nothing too bad, she thought, just a basic Confusion spell. Except, she realized, Confusion wasn’t a basic spell at all. It was a high powered spell in the arsenal of Q magic, and caused opponents to act strangely and without reason.
“I, I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Hina stammered, backing away from her mother, whose face had gone beet red. Jackson groaned behind her, and sat up, holding the side of his head. “You see, he’s fine,” Hina said, pointing past her mother. She hoped that her mother would turn back to Jackson and check on him; instead, Mrs. Hinas reached out and slapped her daughter, hard. The echo of her hand clapping against Hina’s cheek rang around the house, and Hina and her mother were staring wide-eyed at one another.
“Hina,” her mother said, suddenly sullen and near tears. “Hina, I just, I just panicked,” Mrs. Hinas said. “I didn’t know you could do something like that. I thought, maybe, it was permanent or something.” To her own surprise, Hina found that anger, not pity or sorrow, was welling up inside of her. She had an idea what her mother was about to say next, that she assumed that Q magic was just another of her daughter’s random hobbies. She didn’t have a clue. “I thought you may have done something wrong,” her mother said, which was along the same lines as what Hina had guessed she might say.
“Dear, I’m fine now, it’s all right,” Jackson said, standing up and putting a hand on his wife’s shoulder. He turned his attention then to Hina. “As for you, good work,” he said with a grin, much to Hina’s surprise. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d use your magic to defend yourself. After all, it worked on that Troke earlier today, now didn’t it?” Hina gasped; had her father seen the whole thing? If so, why hadn’t he stepped in to help her? Hina’s mother also gasped, and turned to face her daughter with her eyes filled to the brimming with tears and apologies. After all, she’d had no idea, and here she’d slapped her daughter!
“Yes, it did,” Hina replied. “I’ve been studying Q magic for years now, mother, and I’ve learned a lot. Including how to control my mana, and just the right amount of power to put into a spell. I could have used the Poisma spell, and poisoned him,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “With a little mana expenditure, I could just make him sick and throw up. Or with a lot of mana in the spell, I could fill his body with magical toxins that could kill him in a minute’s time,” Hina said. At this bit of information, Jackson tried to give her the signal for ‘cut it out’, jabbing a flat hand across his throat. But Hina wanted her mother to know what she was capable of, as well as her father. “Or I could use Dormant, a sleeping spell. With a little mana, it just knocks him out for a bit. With a lot of mana use, it puts him into a coma for days, even weeks. This isn’t just another one of my hobbies, mother,” she snapped.
On this note she decided to turn her back on her parents and head upstairs to her room, where she threw herself on her bed and bawled into her pillow. She hadn’t liked doing what she did, but if she were truly to leave home some day soon, she would have to set things straight, unlike her sister Maureen. Maureen had plowed out of the house on her final day like a wrecking crew, destroying her room, her mother’s kitchen, and her parents’ room in a fit the size of a tsunami. She’d had enough of living at home, under their rules, and set out into the world to prove herself. She’d not been heard from since.
Hina didn’t want to leave on such terms. She wanted to get this ugly business out of the way, and hopefully convince her parents that she was capable of looking after herself. She didn’t want them to be losing sleep and worrying all the time, like they were with Maureen.
She got up off the bed, and started packing some supplies.
Timothy couldn’t help himself. In these situations, he had little or no control over his curiosity. He stood in the back yard behind his mother’s house, and threw rocks at a tree fifty yards away. Each throw hit the same place, and sure enough, he knew that the stone he’d been struck with earlier had been thrown with a special technique. As a Void Mage, he’d learned the throwing attack, a Hunter ability commonly referred to as Sure Shot. After he’d landed the first rock against the tree, every subsequent shot had found its mark.
“Damn it,” he muttered aloud, unable to stop himself from throwing another rock. It was the same every time somebody did this around him, be it using a special technique or a spell. He just absorbed it all, and each time, he hated himself a little more. He felt like a thief, not taking people’s money or jewelry, but instead stealing their knowledge and hard work, the efforts they’d put into learning their techniques and spells.
“You must be pretty angry at that tree,” a voice said to his left. Timothy looked and found his friend Armin leaning against the back wall of his home. Armin was a full blood Elf, and a Pyromancer. He was also the only magic-using friend that Tim still had. Armin had a pug face for an Elf, ugly even by the sylvan folk’s standards, but not without good reason. Because he always stuck by Tim’s side, he’d received a number of beatings as well. However, being smaller and not as toughened as Tim, he bore the markings of his beatings much more clearly than did the half-Elf boy.
“No, not really,” Tim said, hanging his head. “Some jerk threw a rock at my arm earlier, and he used a special technique. Now I’m just sort of, you know, testing it out.” Armin nodded and made a noise in his throat. “And before you ask, I don’t know why I let it bother me.”
“You shouldn’t do that to yourself,” Armin said, throwing an arm over Tim’s shoulders. Armin always kept his blond hair up in spikes, like one of his favorite fiction heroes, and the tip of one of the spikes scraped against Tim’s neck. Gods, Tim thought, I hate that. It’s so, well, filthy-feeling. “You’ve got a gift there, man! You can do anything anyone else can do, and probably do it better,” he said, clapping Tim on the back. “Hey, matter of fact, I wanted to give you a new spell I just learned,” Armin said, moving away from the house.
“I don’t know, Armin,” Tim said worriedly. “Wouldn’t your dad get pissed?” Armin’s father was an accomplished Pyromancer, and stood by the principle that hard work was the key to success. He’d never approved of Armin’s relationship with Tim. ‘Just stay away from that freak,’ Armin’s father told him once. Being rebellious, of course, Armin had ignored his father’s order just to spite him.
“Who cares if he does,” came Armin’s reply. “Besides, if you learn it, maybe it’ll get some use. Me, I’m not going to get much use out of it,” Armin said, hanging his own head a little as Tim had before. He looked his Void Mage friend dead in the eyes. “He’s sending me off to the Pyromancers’ Guild in Desanadron in a few weeks.”
“What? Can he do that,” Tim asked, shocked at this development. If Armin left the town, Tim was pretty much out of real friends, and those friends left wouldn’t hang out with him much anyway.
“Well, it is about time I started looking into getting myself a real job and stopped screwing around,” Armin admitted. “And the first year of membership in the Pyromancers’ Guild of Desanadron is spent in academic studies and shit,” Armin said, throwing up his hands. “I’ll be getting paid to do nerdy stuff, and quite frankly, the odds of me getting to use this spell anytime soon are pretty slim. So come on,” he said, waiting for Tim to move into a position where the flame-based spell wouldn’t catch a house or tree on fire. Tim heaved a weary sigh, and brought his mana to bear as Armin did.
“Flano mastica. Barrier,” Tim said, erecting a semi-transparent barrier of yellow force around himself. He tried to stay focused, and retain his mana barrier, but his heart wasn’t in it at the moment. Armin, thankfully, was fully aware of this deficiency, and was willing to wait until Tim put more effort into his Barrier spell. Tim forced the barrier’s strength, and then prepared for the incoming spell. Despite the strength of his barrier, he’d still be able to learn the new spell.
“You ready,” Armin asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Tim said. Armin began weaving symbols in the air with his hands, each of which flared to fiery life for a moment before snuffing out and being replaced by another symbol. Tim watched closely each hand movement, each symbol, though he didn’t necessarily need to. The motions were simply a way of channeling the proper amount of mana, and giving it form and function. He needn’t memorize the motions, but rather, the incantations. Unless, of course, this was an unspoken spell.
“Rahn mahn kinko, aman shushi, canbo, nicto, piero,” Armin chanted. Several times he repeated this litany, and then finally cut the pattern of his hands, bringing them back to his hips, palms flat together. “Volcanic Thrust,” he shouted, and a stream of liquid heat erupted from his clasped hands as he thrust them toward Timothy Vandross. Tim’s barrier withheld, letting the liquid fire flow around it and fall steaming to the ground, eating away at the earth and smoldering there in a rivulet. Wrapped safely in his barrier, Tim could hear the bubbling of the liquid fire as it streamed over and around him, threatening to burn through his Barrier spell and eat his clothes and flesh. But the stream cut off, and the remaining lava flowed down over the protective magic, creating a deep rut in a circle around Tim’s body.
Timothy Vandross felt the familiar throb in his chest and head as the spell’s technique and knowledge passed into him, a throb much more painful than the one associated with learning a physical technique. He clutched the side of his head, and the Barrier spell dissipated around him, snapping with a loud POP of ozone. Armin ran over to Tim, stepping carefully over the ruts in the ground. He knelt down next to Tim as the half-Elf dropped to his knees, and put a hand on Tim’s back. “Hey man, are you okay,” Armin asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tim said, shrugging Armin’s hand off. Slowly he rose to his feet, and shook his head. “That’s a potent spell, Armin. Why’d you give it to me?”
“Well, like I said,” Armin said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “You’ll get more use out of it than I will.”
“What makes you so sure,” Tim asked, cocking an eyebrow at his friend. Armin looked away, off into the forests of the Elven Kingdom that surrounded the small village.
“Because it’s calling to you, and I know it,” Armin said. “The rest of the world. You can’t just live a quiet life here in the forest. You were meant for bigger things,” Armin said, giving Timothy a small smile. “And I don’t mean like your dad, because you’re nothing like him. I know that, too,” Armin said, which did manage to put a grin on Tim’s dulled face. He gave Tim a punch on the arm, and when Tim yelped (it was the same spot he’d been hit with the rock), they both looked at each other and laughed aloud. “Here I send streaming lava at you, and nothing! I give you a love tap, and you’re crying out loud,” Armin said through a fresh gale of laughter.
When the young men stopped laughing, they looked up at the night sky, and watched the stars for a few minutes in silence. Finally, Tim noticed out of the corner of his eye that Armin was facing him with one hand out. Tim took Armin’s hand in his, and shook. “Good-bye, Timothy Vandross. I don’t think we’ll be seeing one another before you leave for the bigger world.”
“You know what,” Tim replied, a tear running down his cheek. “You’re probably right.” After they embraced for a minute, Tim headed inside the house, up to his room, and began to pack some things for traveling. Where, he didn’t know, but that wasn’t important right now. What was important was that he get going, and before he had to see his mother again.
Before he had to see the worried look he knew she’d give him.
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