Random Jordan's Blog

Eighteen

Stone Cold Heart

Despite super-charging my hatchet with enough magic to blow a hole in a dragon, my axe merely dug into the runic rock skin of the golem. I was screwed if I had to hold my own against this thing.

Reynard had jumped from my shoulder and was hiding with the dragons to try to guard them, while most of them started the ritual. The idea was if all of them worked on it, it would go faster than the hour it normally took for the ritual to complete. Nai had forgotten to mention the time it would take.

The golem roared at me, with the cavern shaking around it. It wasn’t like it was going to scare me. It clearly was hanging near the entrance of the cavern chamber so that none of us could escape past it. Luckily that meant it wasn’t running toward me to smash my skull in.

Of course the moment I think of that, the golem takes a few steps forward before speeding up to charge right at me. Was someone controlling this thing? Or did it think to charge me all by itself?

I prepared myself to roll away from it, but just as I was about to, Nai in her blue dragon form deflected the large rock arm of the golem coming down to smash me. Her wing parried it away and she hovered above me, as I looked up.

“You should be doing the ritual!” I yelled at her.

She just shook her head and glanced back to the golem right before it slammed its other rock hand across her neck. She flew through the air into a wall of the chamber.

I glanced back to see all the dragons concentrating on the ritual. They must have figured that if this golem interrupts them it wouldn’t matter how many people were helping to perform it. But even with Nai, I wasn’t sure I could hold off this golem. If I could dismantle it like before I might have a chance, but all I knew was that it was made of rock and had magic runes all over it. It could have kids in it, or some metal I don’t know.

I’d just have to do what I could to hold it off. So I took to the air on my wings and flew around the side of the rock body as it swatted at me. I fired a blast of pure fire at it, and that worked to keep it focused on me as it turned around toward the mouth of the chamber and followed after me while I moved.

I couldn’t fight this thing, but it might be possible to trap it, with its own size. So I back-peddled through the air down the hallway, making sure it was moving after me. This left the back bare to Nai as she followed after it down the hall.

I glanced to Nai when she had to drop down to the floor as well in the cavern hallways, since her wingspan, even for a small dragon was still too wide. I was the only one that didn’t have to worry about my size; a faerie wingspan was small since it was actually magic in the wings that created flight and not the wings themselves.

At least some form of a plan was circulating in my head. If it didn’t work, I would probably be crushed, but at least I could tell Ashe that I tried when she would come stomping into the after-life to retrieve me.

“Nai, make sure it stays facing me and when I say, we bury this thing with the cavern walls. Can you do that?” I yelled to her, looking through the few holes the golem left as it moved down the hallway.

She nodded, and I tossed another magic blast to make sure the golem would stay focused on me. It probably knew I was the biggest threat since I could dismantle it. Or its owner wanted me, specifically, and didn’t care about the dragons. It’s hard to tell with golems, whether they were artificial life, or just a puppet vessel.

The snow golem had been artificial life. You take real life, like children, fuse it with magic and something that’s not living and you get an artificial life. It’s not the easiest magic, since it borders on the creation of real life. It’s a bit like necromancy actually, just using things that weren’t ever really alive.

We moved down the hall for a few more minutes, I kept blasting the golem occasionally, and it tried to turn around a few times, but a wall of flames would block its way, thanks to Nai.

Of course the whole point was to try to save my ass. I could bury this thing now with a little earth magic, but that would leave me on the wrong side of the cave-in. The time navigating the halls let me see that there was a hallway that doubled back, so I bury it in one hallway, then take the other passage to get to the ritual.

When I was sure of the direction, I slammed a hand against the cavern wall and yelled to the dragon. “Now, Nai!”

She roared and slashed her tail into the cavern side, I could feel the light burst of magic from her tail hitting the wall, while my magic filtered like cracks through the wall around the golem and all the way up to where I was. This would make sure it would capture it.

As soon as the spell was finished I yanked my hand away and darted back as the cavern wall and ceiling crumbled around and the golem made a weird sound like rocks rubbing against each other. I looked into the creatures eyes as I watched all the rocks surround and bury the creature, until it was only dust in the air.

I dropped my feet to the ground and took a few gasps of air to correct my breathing. I had to keep moving though, the best I knew was that this would buy me a minute or two. I took to my wings again and darted down the back hallway that would lead me back to the main cavern.

I could hear scrabbling in the halls, clearly the creature was trying to dig out. But I kept flying, I had to make it back to everyone, and hopefully their ritual would be done.

My thoughts completely shut when I watched rock explode from my right side, and a large rocky hand reached out to snatch me up.

Runes were etched into the hand that held me as it squeezed tight, and slowly emerged from the dust and rubble. The runes were glowing with a brilliant orange, like the rock creature’s eyes. It was like staring at hundreds of glowing eyes of all the people who tried to kill you.

My body shook within the golem’s hand and my hands gripped to the fingers that I could. I couldn’t just die. But my magic was useless for blasting the creature apart. I wasn’t even sure the sun sword that could turn anything to ash would be useful. It may be fabled to strike anything to ash, but there was always something that countered magic like that.

I just thought about my life draining, and reached around me for magic, any magic I could use to help me. I was surprised to realize that I could tap into the magic runes on the golem. Maybe I could do something.

I pushed the same magic spell through all the magic runes on the golem as I had used for breaking apart the cavern walls. The goal wasn’t to shatter the golem like the walls, but shatter the runes.

The runes were glowing even brighter, with a golden color and then runes exploded into shards of magic in every direction, like super-heated and cooled glass. The golem’s hand opened and I dropped to the floor as the rest of the golem fell apart with the runes of magic keeping it together gone.

Maybe I did have a different way of destroying these golems. Who needed to know what they were made of?

I sure didn’t, when I finally saw what it was with all the demolished rock around me. They were animals. The animals that Ashe complained about; the ones she couldn’t communicate with. If they were bound with runes like the golem was, then that could explain why she couldn’t communicate with them.

I couldn’t waste the time with giving the animals a burial though, as much as Ashe would yell at me about it later. I had to rush back to the cavern chamber and hope they were able to finish the ritual.

When I turned to leave though, Nai came flying toward me, glancing in every direction like she was worried. I smiled.

“Let’s head back before anything else comes.” I said to her and flapped my wings. She nodded and took off ahead of me, while I followed her down the hallway in flight.

It was hardly a minute of travel before we reached the mouth of the cavern, and I could immediately see the progress, as the room was filled with violet light all radiating from a swirling portal with dragons gathered around it.

Reynard came scampering up in her fox form and slammed against my leg when I touched down to the ground.

“You’re alive!” She exclaimed.

“Hardly.” I groaned and picked the fox up, holding her while looking at the portal. “Have they finished?”

“I don’t know. They won’t talk to me or tell me anything. They’ve just been chanting.” Reynard explained, so I glanced to Nai.

“Are they almost done?”

She shook her head and said, “Longer still.”

“Great, I guess we’ll just all wait till the Nantes guards come storming down here then.” I threw my hands up and Nai stalked over to the entrance again, looking around.

“Close entrance?” She asked me.

“You know, I’m not made of magical power right? Besides, caving the walls near this cavern could just collapse the whole cavern ceiling.”

She tilted her head down and I guessed she was making some kind of frown. She sauntered over to me and nuzzles her head under my hand.

“Use my power.” She explains, and I glance from her to the cavern mouth. I couldn’t collapse it, but there was no stopping me from making a temporary barrier.

I caressed some of her slick scales, and focused on the magical energy flowing through the dragon. Then I pulled a hatchet out and imbued the energy into the axe before hurling it into the top right corner of the cavern entrance.

I repeated the process till I had one hatchet in each of the four corners imbued with a strong charge of energy, before reaching my hand out and spreading my fingers apart. Energy leaked from my fingers and tendrils of energy reached out from each of the axes to connect with the magic from my hand, forming a web.

I yanked my hand back away from the energy web and it exploded into a fully formed sheet of blue energy that wavered as it stabilized.

Energy still leaked from my hands but pulled toward the barrier I established. The hatchets kept me connected to the barrier, but I wouldn’t be able to maintain it forever.

I glanced to Nai. “How long?”

“Few.”

“Great, real specific.” I said before taking a soft breath. “Let’s just hope no one actually shows up.”

I watched my hand shake already. I was using my magic almost as much as I used to when I was in the Faerie Academy.

“Dori, I can hear footsteps coming closer.” Reynard said in my ear.

I ground my teeth and glanced to her, “Just great.”

I could hear them myself almost immediately after Reynard informed me, and glanced back toward the barrier I made. Various guards appeared from the hall and started pounding on the energy shield. I cringed as I felt the reverberation of the energy barrier in my head. That was the major disadvantage to barriers. They could truly kill you.

“Nai…” I said through my gritted teeth. “Tell them to hurry up.”

“No need, Godmother.” Zmeu exclaimed from behind me.

“Then get through the portal.” I yell while tossing my head back to the ritual area. I glance down to Nai as well. “You too.”

She shakes her head and lowers her head down, sliding under me, until I’m on her back.

I was about to get off her, when I realized she was giving me the best option to escape. The moment I pulled my axes back, the barrier would drop, and all the guards would pour in. So instead, I just nodded to her and concentrated on my hatchets.

I glance back to the group of dragons. “Go! Now!”

Zmeu was the only dragon standing around the portal already. “We don’t wait to be told what to do, Godmother. I suggest you are the one who goes.” Then he stepped into the portal and smiled. “We’ll be closing it the moment the little one passes through.”

My eyes fell to the dragon below me. I’m sure he meant her. That would explain why she wanted to make sure she left with me on her back.

I nodded to her and glanced back to the barrier with more guards pounding on it. “Okay. We leave in three.”

I tugged on the hatchets, magically.

“Two.”

They flung through the air and surrounded me, magically.

“Three.”

The energy of the barrier dissipated as a dozen or so guards fell to their faces from finishing swings with something that was no longer there. The other guards stepped over their allies and charged toward me, on a dragon. But Nai didn’t delay, she was whipped around and flying straight into the portal, before any of the guards could come close.

The step through the portal was unlike any travel I had felt before. It wasn’t quite instantaneous, but it wasn’t like my insides were being pulled out either. It was like moving through another plane, with eyes everywhere watching you.

It was perhaps the creepiest mode of travel I had ever been through.

And then I was standing among a circle of dragons, on top of Nai, with a giant portal behind me and mountains all around me.

The shock passed quickly and I yelled, “Close it!”

“They are.” Nai replied as she turned us around to face the portal.

I tightened my magical grip on my hatchets and brought them close to the portal. “They are going to come through then.”

Nai shook her head. “They wouldn’t.”

The portal popped into nothing, and no one came through after us. Or I thought, until I watched charred bones drop out of the air from where the portal had been.

Zmeu laughed, “Looks like a few did try to come through.”

I just stared at the bones. “What happened to them?”

“No one survives moving through a dragon tunnel, without a dragon.” He explained.

“Oh…”

This was one of those moments where I had to remind myself not to screw around with dragons. There was clearly a lot I didn’t know about them.

Zmeu held his humanoid hand out for me to get down from Nai. “So how about a little chat, Godmother?”

I took his hand and he pulled me down while I just kept staring at the charred bones. Finally I just shook my head and glanced to Nai and then to the dragon in a human shape. “Yes, we have a rebellion to create.”

Seventeen

The Color of Magic

Everything and everyone was in place. Reynard and Nai stood next to me as we hid in the shadows of the alley near the closest entrance to the palace. We didn’t actually need to steal away into the palace, just the courtyard before it, where the path leading to the underground area was. Ashe and Tiidu had figured out the plan. They would serve as a distraction for the rest of us to slip past the guards and into the underground facility.

Ever since Ashe explained what she would be doing, I was the one with the worried expression on my face. I nodded to her though and hid back in the alley, as I heard the shoving and Ashe getting angry and yelling at Tiidu. She said something about him cheating her on a potion.

It wasn’t until she cocked her rifle that the guards stopped being just mildly interested in the encounter and ran away from their posts to handle her. She wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, but there was always the chance they would detain her and if they detained her there was a higher chance she would be discovered as an accomplice to me.

That was all worries I could think about later though. She had given us the opening we needed to get past. I nodded to Reynard and Nai and we moved casually right through the archway that led to the Palace.

I waited for the other two to get through first before following after them, with one last glance back at Ashe surrendering her weapon to the guards.

I hoped she would be okay.

Through the archway the path was toward the garden instead of the palace entrance. The fox and dragon had to stop and wait for me since I was the only one who had been led through the complex to the place we were trying to get to.

We winded the path through the garden and to the dark entrance that looked almost like it led to a basement under the palace.

“This is the place?” Reynard asked.

I nodded and pointed into the darkness. “I can’t light it up in case they can catch magic. So just be careful.”

Nai didn’t bother to wait for us, and just walked through the entrance, holding on to the side of the wall as she moved, so I grabbed Reynard’s hand and did the same thing.

We had to stay silent and the path wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be originally. As far as I could tell there was only one path to take, but it winded and weaved through the lower parts of the palace. Eventually we did come to a split, I stood before it, unsure which way to go.

Nai didn’t stop though, she walked toward the right path and kept going til I couldn’t see her through the dark. I walked that way still holding to Reynard so I wouldn’t lose her. I whispered toward Nai when I could see her outline again, “How do you know which way to go?”

“Pumpkin.” Was the best she could say and that I could understand. She said some more, but I wasn’t sure if it was a language I even knew. I had forgotten she was carried down there as well, and since she was a pumpkin they probably didn’t bother with the same protections as they would normally.

“So you know exactly where to go?”

She nodded and just kept walking.

The turns and splits were getting worse too. There were at least another four or five forks in the path before we reached the cavern walls. I never would have been able to lead us through it. No wonder they didn’t bother with guards down here, if you didn’t know the way, you’d be lost anyway.

Of course, just as I thought of that, Nai stopped us from moving forward as she whispered, “A smell.”

I glanced around the corner and saw the two guards. We hadn’t planned for more of them until we made it to the dragon chamber. Before we could discuss what to do, Reynard slipped my hand by changing into a fox with two tails, probably her normal form, and dashed out in front of the guards.

They seemed surprised and one of them nodded to the other to catch Rey. The fox just giggled and pranced around the guard that had chased after her, until the other one finally joined in to try to corner Reynard.

Nai moved forward, but I wanted to help Reynard. I was already wanted in this city, knocking out a few guards wasn’t going to change that. I elbowed one in the back of the head and punched the other one out with two punches.

“Thanks.” Rey said.

“Can you make it back outside?” I asked Reynard.

She nodded.

I nodded with her. “Then I need you to check on Ashe and make sure she wasn’t taken in.”

Reynard’s tails and head hung low. “You don’t want me here with you?”

“I do, but I want to make sure Ashe is safe too and I can’t go back.”

“So you don’t trust her to stay safe?”

I started to shake my head, but I realized I didn’t. She always trusted me to stay safe and take care of myself. So I held out my arms for Reynard to jump into them, and she pushed up onto my neck and wrapped herself around it before snuggling me.

“You’re right. You can stay with me. She’ll be okay.” I hoped.

We followed after Nai, picking up pace just to reach her. The navigation through the cavern wall section of the underground was even worse than the above areas. We had a new split or turn every few meters. But the dragon in human form still seemed to know where she was going.

It was a few minutes of travel in darkness that left me paying attention to the outlines of Nai as we moved. There were a few times where I thought I had lost her, but as I kept moving she popped in close enough for me to see shades and not just outlines.

Eventually we reached the opening that bled into the giant cavern with all the dragons. No one was guarding the opening, but just by poking our heads out we could see a number of magicians or apprentices that were around the area. Some just playing with the human dragons, and others were sitting in corners practicing spells or magic of some kind.

“That’s more than what was down here before.” I whispered.

Reynard spoke into my ear almost immediately. “They probably put more people down here since you took Nai away.”

“Yes.” Nai concluded and added, “I can start ritual now.”

“Even out of your dragon body?”

She frowned then shook her head. “Change me.”

“No.” I stepped back from the opening leading to the other dragons and Nai’s frown grew. “I want to change all of you back at the same time.”

I reached into the hidden pocket in my dress and pulled out the little piece of brimstone I had from Bryak. I held it out for Nai, but then realized that might not work. If I grabbed another piece from one of the apprentices it was unlikely to reach Nai if she had this piece, because then all of the people who had a piece would have been affected by any spell put through the brimstone.

It would save me energy, but it might be more difficult than I thought to change Nai back with all the other dragons. It was just more likely for me to access my Midnight Magic once than twice.

“I need you to grab the chains from the cage you were in so I can change all of you back at once.” I explained while pocketing the brimstone shard again.

She frowned, but eventually nodded and added, “How?”

I smiled. “We need to take out the guards in here.”

Of course that would be more complicated than saying it. The moment I cast any spell the apprentices should be aware of it. And that included retrieving any of my axes from the dimensional space I stored them in.

Sometimes there were disadvantages to relying on magic so much. My best option was to sneak up on one and knock them out before the others notice. So I stepped from the shadows at the cavern entrance the moment I saw no one looking in my direction, after Reynard jumped down from me. My steps were gentle so I didn’t make sounds on the rock floor, but I moved slower toward the closest apprentice because of that.

I raised an arm to ready the spell to pull a hatchet out and bash the head of the apprentice to knock them out, but the moment I did the apprentice I was behind turned around.

We stared at each other for a few seconds. Then I formed the sign and ripped a hatchet from the air and slammed the handle down upon their forehead. I must have stunned them, because they stumbled and I took the chance to step around them and elbow them in the neck to drop them to the ground.

They fell, but when I looked around the cavern, there were six other apprentices staring at me. One of them was already casting a spell too. Reynard jumped at that one though, biting her on the hand, which broke her spell concentration almost immediately. Nai was already rushing toward the empty cage where her chains laid. I wasn’t sure how she was going to get through the cage but I had to worry about the guards first.

I threw the axe in my hand at the guard running toward me with a staff, he hadn’t been expecting that because it sunk into his stomach and he dropped to one knee without even blocking the throw.

I formed the symbol and pulled another hatchet out, and spun just in time to catch the shillelagh, hooking it under the hatchet blade and twisting to toss the apprentice behind me. I formed the symbol and pulled out another hatchet with my free hand and brought the handle down to smack them across the face. Their head just sloshed to the side and they weren’t moving.

Unfortunately the charging apprentices were only a distraction for another spell being cast. By the time I looked up I was staring at a fireball not more than a meter in front of me. I couldn’t dodge it. I just pulled my hands up and felt the heat and fire wash over me in an explosion that shot me into the nearby cavern wall.

I groaned while pushing myself off the wall, and seeing the fringes of the dress skirt were caught on fire. I threw my axe at the direction the fireball came from, and then patted out the fires that were still on me. Most of my arms were scorched, which would take some time to heal, but I had to keep going. I couldn’t take many more fireballs.

As I glanced around, Reynard had ripped up one apprentice and I had knocked out two and severely damaged two others. That only left two, one of which was casting a spell, and the other was off in a corner like they were just afraid and trying to hide poorly.

I nodded for Reynard to jump the one casting a spell. It disrupted them long enough for me to close the distance and knock them out too. That left only the one peeing themselves in a corner of the cavern.

I didn’t even bother to move quickly, I just walked up slowly until I was standing behind them. I raised my axe and they turned around with a fear in their eyes I hadn’t seen in years. It was like I was a monster to them.

The young male apprentice dropped the brimstone shard he had been holding and swallowed hard. It was in that moment that I noticed there was a fire of defiance behind the fear in his eyes. The kind that suggested to me that he had accepted his fate but that he had done something that would bring me more trouble than I wanted.

“Wha—“ I started, but then the cavern shook, and rumbled. My jaw locked and I used my free hand to grab the boy by the collar and slam him against the wall. “What did you do?”

“The master knows you are here.”

Faerie Fudge!

I slammed his head against the wall and let him go. He crumbled to the floor, knocked out cold. Then I turned to Reynard and the other dragons in the room. “We have company on the way. So let’s get this done.”

It was Zmeu that answered me back first with a laugh and then words. “I must say you are more of a thrill than I’ve had in hundreds of years. Does this mean you are letting us out?”

“That depends on you and your dragon buddies.” I said as I walked the distance to where Nai was still prying at the bars of the empty cage to open it. I pressed my free hand on a bar and willed heat from my magic. The bar melted to the floor and the opening was big enough for Nai to squeeze through as a human.

She grabbed her chains and nodded to me. So I turned my attention to Zmeu. “I’m guessing you speak for the group of dragons here?”

“That does seem so.” He responded with a wave of his hands around the room. All of the dragons were staring at me with their glowing eyes. Despite their human bodies, it was clear they weren’t human.

“Then I’ll change you all back and we will get you out of here, but you have to agree not to destroy this city, and help me take it back from Bryak.” I said simply. We didn’t have enough time to negotiate some long contract out.

“You do get straight to the point. I cannot guarantee that each of these dragons will not try to damage this city for the pain it has caused to them. I do not own them, nor am I part of their clan.”

I screwed up my face with that thought. “Then why are they deferring to you as a leader?”

He grinned, showing his sharp, white teeth. “They know of my power, and the terror I have wrought, I imagine. But I cannot be sure. You would have to ask each of them separately. And we do not quite have that time, do we?”

We didn’t…I had no idea what Bryak would bring here. There were another few shakes of the cavern and I pulled out and fingered the shard of brimstone I had. “I will give them the chance for revenge upon the wizard who had been cause for their imprisonment. If you all don’t agree to that, I will leave all of you here except Nai.”

“Um… you might want to hurry, Mom.” Reynard said, from behind me, in the direction of the cavern entrance.

I didn’t turn back or acknowledge what the fox said. I just stared at Zmeu, and then each of the other dragon-humans. They all glared over me, but eventually nodded. Then Zmeu turned to me and grinned. “It seems we have a deal in that case.”

“Good.” I gripped the brimstone hard and closed my eyes. I had to concentrate on the look of each of the dragons currently, and then their dragon forms. I couldn’t visualize all of their dragon forms, but I concentrated on the idea of a dragon, then I willed the magical energy through my body and into the brimstone.

When I opened my eyes I was looking at every brimstone chain vibrating with glowing white energy. So I whispered under my breath, “Midnight Magic…”

The spell finished and the energy shot through the chains and up through all the dragon-humans until they were consumed by it and the entire room was lit with the color of magic.

I shielded my eyes for a few moments, until the shine died away. When I glanced back each of the dragons were back in their scaled bodies. I smiled. It actually worked.

“Now to get you all out of the cages…” I said while I was about to pocket the brimstone shard again. There wasn’t any reason I couldn’t use a spell directly on all the brimstone.

I concentrated on the shard in my hand, and each of the chains it was connected to. In the process I found the links to the other brimstone shards that were associated with these chains. It was worth a shot to break them all free of the chains. I gripped my fist even tighter and willed the magic I had to change to heat energy through the brimstone.

“That won’t work, Godmother. Brimstone is highly resistant to heat.” Zmeu warned me. Clearly he had human speech even while in dragon form. It wasn’t that surprising considering he was one of the few dragons that could speak well in human form.

I was just about to give up on the heat, when I felt a course of heat energy flood through my arm and straight into the shard. It grew so hot I could feel it burning in my hand. The extra power for the heat scared me. I didn’t know where it was coming from, but it seemed to be enough as the chains on the dragons started to melt apart. Some of the dragons had burn marks where the chains had been touching them, but I kept the spell going till the chains were puddles on the floor.

Then I dropped the shard in my hand, and watched it hit the floor like molten lava. I looked over my palm, but there wasn’t a single burn mark on it. In fact the charred markings on my arms were gone too. I couldn’t explain it. Was it the remnants of my Midnight Magic?

Zmeu laughed as he stretched his wings in the cage and flexed his claws. “It seems I misjudged you yet again, Godmother.”

With the chains gone, each of the dragons tore out the bars of their cages like they were paper.

“Mom, it’s here!” Reynard yelled as she dashed up next to me and stood up to press her paws against my legs. I leaned down and picked her up so she could wrap around my neck again.

“What’s here?” I said as I steadied myself from another shake of the cavern. I could even hear some loose rocks rattling from the shake.

Reynard shivered against me. “Like the snow monster.”

Snow monster? I turned around to face the entrance of the cavern as the rumbling grew and from the shadows poked out a giant made of rock and metal. It stretched out from being bent over in the cavern tunnels since it had more room in this chamber.

It was easily bigger than all the dragons in here with me. And I could see what Reynard was talking about. It had the same type of shape as the snow golem I had fought, but it was etched with fiery glowing runes. I just hoped this one wasn’t made of kids too.

“Faerie Fudge!” I yelled, before glancing back to the dragons. “Get that ritual finished now.”

I then reached out with a little magic and yanked on one of the hatchets stuck in an apprentice. It shot through the air and I caught it in my hand as I stared down the rock golem.

This was going to hurt.

Writing with Huna

Ike: The World is Exactly what you Think it is.

When it comes to writing, crafting the world can be just as important as the writing itself. There are many authors who don’t think about the world they are writing about, and others that spend too much time thinking about it and not so much actually writing. But when it comes to the Huna philosophy of Ike, you find there are ways to craft details of your world while using something as a large place holder.

Ike means the world is exactly what you think it is. That means, spend less time on the generals of the writing world you are crafting because that will come out in the writing itself, and focus all the more on the details, the things around your character, or the political part of your world. You don’t need to include things like how your world began or that there are birds flying in your world because you will automatically already use a template of that world. If you are making a fantasy world, you are going to be including magic as a given, though maybe magic is depleting and that would be a detail to include.

In the other vein, this isn’t just about making sure to focus on the specific instead of the general. It’s also about broadening your writing as well. Because the world is what you think it is, this leads to many white or male writers and authors to make a world that is full of white people. This isn’t necessary, and shows the scope of the world you believe every time you see another novel with all the main characters as white and maybe that one token black or Asian character. The world is what you think it is, so broaden your thinking of what the world is!

To keep this in practice, make sure you expose yourself to media that has a diverse group of people. Shows like Buffy are praised but when it comes to breaking out of the traditional white Hollywood world, it falls incredibly short. In fact, the more you look at this specifically the more you will see that Hollywood and even the novel world, whether fantasy, sci-fi, or literary fiction, is full of straight, white people.

This isn’t anyone’s fault. The problem lies with the idea that all these creators are used to a world full of straight, white people, so they think the world is this way unconsciously and that’s the world they create. It is people’s fault when they don’t bother to learn that there is so much more they can be doing with their character’s backgrounds and intersectionality.

So remember to expand your world view to further your writing by exposing yourself to media you wouldn’t normally touch. And you also shouldn’t focus on the general of your world because that will come out normally as you write because the moment you have thought of an idea for a novel or short story, you have also crafted the world it will be in.

Get out there and expand your world!

Sixteen

Impossible Things

“You want me to stop Bryak?” I asked the little apprentice.

He shook his head as he stood up from the chair he sat after telling his story. “I need you to do it, because I cannot. Among many of the enchantments Bryak has since placed on me, I can never lay a hand upon him, or even direct malice toward him without suffering whatever I want to cause.”

He leaned down and rolled up his pant leg to show the incredible scars all along his legs. “I’ve accidentally maimed myself a number of times, and yet he kept repairing me rather than leaving me eternally damaged. He leaves the scars for reminders though.”

“That’s awful.” Ashe said as she glanced away from the scars.

Tiidu nodded. “But it is my life for now. And that is why I am asking for your help. If there is anyone who can change the fate of this city, it is you. I have seen the magic you wield and you can oppose him, you can defeat him.”

I sighed. “I don’t go around the world freeing people from enslavement, or besieging impenetrable cities. I’m just trying to survive too, and yet you’d ask me to go up against a Sorcerer and his army of magicians, against an entire city and empire, and an entire knight guard that possesses training from a dwarf.”

He lowered his head in defeat.

“You are asking impossible things of me, Tiidu. I may look like a faerie, but I’m only a legendary like yourself. I’m nothing special and I’m more likely to die trying this and it’s not something I have to do. I can walk away from this city and I will live. Why should I do this impossible thing?”

He turned his head back up to look at me and in that moment shivers ran across my body from the will and fire in his eyes.

“I can offer nothing.” He began. “It is not my right, nor my place to offer anything in return for your help, I can only stand here before you as the miserable wretch of a thing that I am, with little magic, and even less knowledge and strength and ask you, who possesses all the power I wished I could have but never worked to have, and hope that despite the impossible odds. Despite the pain it could turn upon you. Despite all the problems you face yourself, that you will take pity upon a fool who doomed an entire city. Please, save this city, not for me, not so I can become its ruler. But for all the people who have made their lives in this city and know nothing of what is going on here, and what has gone on for hundreds of years here.”

He took a deep breath and shook his head with tears coming down his wrinkled cheeks. “I’m not asking for a revolution, or a coup so that I can take command of this city. It’s not my city, it never was. I’m merely asking for you to free my life, and eliminate a threat in this city that has loomed over us for hundreds of years. To give this city a chance to prosper outside of this bubble. To trade and communicate with other places again. To give the people of this city a normal life, with troubles and love and perfect moments and not so perfect moments.”

He tightened his hands into fists at his side as he glanced straight to me with eyes burning with will. “Yes. I am asking you to do the impossible. But only because if there is anyone who can ever do the impossible, it is you, whom defies faeries while being one, whom turns against the Korrigan and robs him of his Sword of the Sun, whom turns a dozen dragons into humans when magic should not affect them, whom has people flock to you naturally because of the leadership, command and power you radiate with. You are impossible, and that is why I could never forgive myself for not asking you to do something impossible when I have the chance.”

His head lowered again, and he slouched like he was done and defeated, and I just looked at him. I knew I wouldn’t have to look to Ashe, I already knew what she would want to do, and Reynard always had that bleeding heart that my wife did.

I shook my head, because I knew what I was already going to do, as much as I didn’t want to do it. I had no other choice, despite it looking like there was a choice before me. If I turned away from this I wouldn’t just have to worry about Ashe never forgiving me… I’d never forgive myself.

When did I grow a heart?

“Fine.” I said in a single exhale.

Tiidu turned his head to glance up at me, confused, or maybe unsure of what I had said.

“We’ll liberate the city.” I said with exasperation. I couldn’t believe I was doing this; that I was agreeing to this.

His eyes grew wide and he jumped at me, hugging me tightly, while I held the sword of fire away from him. He pulled away and wiped his eyes.

“Sorry, sorry. I just… I never thought you would do something.”

Ashe smiled, “That’s just Gnidori. She’s been helping people for years in their most dire situations.”

I was glancing down at the sword of fire as Tiidu ran up and hugged Ashe too, and then Reynard and Nai. There was joy in the air, a light happiness as they celebrated and I just looked over the sword.

My voice cut through the excitement like a stinking miasma. “You called this sword the Sword of the Sun?”

He glanced back to me with a shadow of his smile still there. “Yes, a relic from the time the sun was worshipped at the Castle of Kerglas. The Korrigan had mentioned something about it being his one precious possession, given to him by a former love.”

I smiled back down at the sword. “Then I might have some more help. But I need to get to the Castle of Kerglas ruins.”

“Kerglas? But why?” His bushy eyebrows furrowed.

“Let’s just say I have a contact I can get in touch with there. And we’ll need her help if I’m going to free this city.” I explained, not sure how much I could talk about.

Nai stepped forward and bowed her head to me. “I may be able to assist with that, Miss Gnidori.”

I glanced to her with surprise at how well she could speak human language now. It was crisp and better enunciated than I usually spoke. “You can?”

She nodded. “My people still live around the lake leading to the castle. I know that area well and I can take us there…” she paused and glanced down at her human hands. “…If I had my dragon shape back.”

I smiled. “That I might be able to take care of. But how would you get us there?”

“My people know many spells, ones that are taught even to someone as young as me, early on. So that no matter where we go, we may always return home. I merely need an archway or cave, anything with a wall on each side and above of some kind that is big enough to fit my dragon body.”

“A teleportation spell from two enclosed points.”

She nodded.

“Alright. Let’s find the spot then I’ll change you back so we can get out of here.”

“How will you get back in?” Tiidu asked hesitantly.

I turned back to him. “That’s the one thing I’m not worried about. I know a way near the Castle of Kerglas that will get me back inside and I also know I can just use a faerie circle to teleport us from outside into the town.”

The apprentice looked surprised. “That shouldn’t be possible. The barrier contains magic inside the city and keeps magic out.”

I shrugged. “I did it.”

His mouth fell open and he shook his head. “More impossible things…”

I glanced off toward Ashe. “My grandmamma used to say that impossible things were only the stuff we haven’t learned to do yet so we tell ourselves we can’t do them, and after enough times of thinking we can’t do them, we believe it. And once we believe it… it takes a lot of power to break that.”

Tiidu nodded. “She sounds like a wise woman.”

“She was. And powerful. Nothing was impossible for her. So I refuse to let anything be impossible for me.” I grinned softly and slapped my free hand down on Tiidu’s shoulder. “So do you have a place that will work for Nai’s spell?”

He nodded. “I have just the spot. But you’ll need a distraction to get to it.”

I narrowed my eyes, “Why?”

“Because the caves where the dragons are kept tend to be guarded by mages Bryak chose himself.” He said before swallowing.

I thought for a moment. That meant going into the dragon’s den before we were ready to face the guard or Bryak. That seemed rather impractical but something about getting the chance to talk to Zmeu again just seemed appropriate. With the dragons imprisoned they had just as much interest in escaping and taking down this city. I only worried they would burn the city to the ground the moment they were given the chance.

I glanced to Ashe and Reynard. “Think you can develop a distraction for us to slip in? We only need enough time to get the spell up and get through it.”

Ashe nodded immediately. It was the first time I was asking her to put herself in danger so I could escape, but she didn’t blink or even show worry for once. She just seemed… determined.

I let out a breath. “Then I guess we are breaking into the dragon den. If you have any last words, you better make them soon. Because I guarantee nothing.”

Strange, the first time I look like a faerie in many years and it also happens to be the first time I take on something that normally a Faerie Godmother would have handled. It was like Tiidu was my first faerie godmother charge in years. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. There was a reason I had joined the faerie academy and became a godmother.

Maybe I did have a heart all along.

I had just forgotten about it.

There’s a lot that can be said about suicide. And whether you have known people around you who have done it, or are one of the many people who think a suicidal person is a coward or taking the easy way out, you likely have heard or seen something about it. A number of famous people have even committed it.

But why? Why does this happen?

Well, struggling with depression and suicide throughout my life has really come down to answering what is possibly known as ‘The Question’. Most people might phrase it as: Why are we here? But it’s a bit more in depth than that. This question is what people ask themselves when they want to dig a little deeper into their life. Maybe around the time when they are in college and wondering what they want to do with their life.

But really, its a question you can ask yourself at any time. And what happens when you can’t answer it?

Sure the jokes are plentiful that the meaning of life is 42, and that you should put your hopes in faith and religion. But it truly does go deeper than that. The question is kind of a combination of things. What do you want to do with your life? What does it mean to live? Why are we alive? Is this all life is? And, What is my purpose in life? In essence The Question is meant to incorporate all of those.

But no matter how many times you ask yourself those questions. There isn’t some universal truth or response that you are missing. There is no universal answer to those questions. Even why are we alive, or why do we exist. There’s no answer to that question that works for everyone. Instead you have to look at these questions personally. Why am I alive? What is my purpose in life? What does it mean to me to live?

Many, most people even, can answer that question. There’s always something. Maybe its your kid. Maybe its a book. Maybe it is what you want to do in your life, what you want to achieve. Or maybe it is because you can’t leave your family or loved ones behind.

But when you can’t come up with a good or hopeful answer to the question… that is when things start to get tricky.

Not all people who commit suicide are people who can’t answer The Question. But many are. The ones who don’t really accomplish anything in life. They float from one place to another, from one job or school or major to another trying to find themselves. But every time they come to answering that question personally. There’s nothing. What is my purpose in life? There isn’t one.

To add to this, suicide can be thought of as the ultimate in apathy. A point where life seems quite literally meaningless. Is life just all about keeping up with the ouroboros treadmill of working to live and living to work?

Even if it is, many people say the best thing you can do for yourself is to find a job that you love. But what if you don’t care about anything? What if everything gets old or boring for you, eventually? Or what if you can’t get a job with something you love because those jobs don’t exist or are incredibly rare to actually make money from? Or… what if you just don’t have the resolve and the energy to keep up with life?

You probably hear a lot about people always talking about how you should never kill yourself. More often it is a gut reaction, an instinct ingrained in us. We work to preserve life, especially human life. But we don’t always think about the quality of that life. We tell people to get help, and that they shouldn’t do it because we love you! But that doesn’t matter to people considering something like suicide.

Buddhists often repeat the phrase that life is suffering. And that is a core element of human life. If you live, you will suffer at some point, if not frequently. But accepting that you will suffer in life, doesn’t mean you need to surrender yourself. It means you have to understand that suffering, and when you do, you can find aspects of life that are enjoyable, the ‘nirvana’ so-to-speak.

And that’s because life is not ABOUT suffering, it just HAS suffering in it. Just like life isn’t all about the job, or friends, or keeping up with family. These are just aspects of it. The key isn’t to live your life by what other people want, it is to live it by how you can live it.

If you are in a bad situation, especially with family or spouses. Live how you can live it. If you are close to suicide because of that, get out of that situation. You are thinking of suicide because you think there is no way out, but going to 3 towns over and going into a homeless shelter is better than killing yourself, its a different way out. And you just might be surprised by the experiences you get from that.

A lot of suicide survivors will often state that they did it because they felt there was no change to their life. That there was no way out. But there is. The key, is to think outside the bounds of society. We say there is no way out because if we leave where we are we will have no funds and no safety net, but isn’t that better than death?

When it comes to suicide there is always one thing you can say to someone considering it.

“There is another way.”

Sometimes life does suck now. And sometimes you get a horrible hand dealt to you. And instead of stabbing yourself with your cards, throw your hand away and play a new one. Don’t let family or friends or society keep you locked into a life that you hate so much you’d rather kill yourself. I guarantee you can live with the shame or that horrible feeling of turning your back on your family or whoever else.

You always can.

Peron’s Tale

Spoken by Tiidu Peron

My tale and that of the city starts with a different place and a much older time. Back then I was a beggar, a nobody on the streets or out in the wilderness, surviving by what I could scavenge and what people gave me. I had no talents or abilities and most people considered me as the fool of the town. My luck was the only reason I was still alive.

When you live on the streets you start to realize that every meal you are able to grasp is the most wonderful thing you ever tasted. And because I stated this one day to a woman who handed me bread, she allowed me to use her porch to rest away from the heat of the sun.

It was on that porch that my life changed. A knight riding through stopped and asked for directions while I sat on that porch and that was the first time I heard of the Castle of Kerglas. The woman’s place happened to be near the path that would lead to it and after discussion about the wonders and treasures that were held in the castle and how to pass the terrors and trials in the way, the knight went on.

The woman gave me more food and then she was off. I was just about to leave when the woman’s husband came to me and asked if I would tend his cattle since he lost his recent cattle boy. At the time I had become a fool because I had poor work ethic, but starving can do wonders to change your mind on that.

I thought nothing of that tale about the castle for some time while tending the cattle, days went by, but after the new cattle were born to the herd and could walk, they were troublesome, indeed!

A few cattle would escape into the wood nearby, each day, and I would fetch them. While doing so, I would catch sight of the man who lived within the Castle of Kerglas. He stopped to rest each day, with a goblet hanging from his neck, a diamond lance held in his hand and a colt following behind him. He was a large man, and the first time I saw him I ran for my life before he could see me.

But each day when I’d fetch the cattle, I would see him again, resting before moving on to the Castle. Eventually it became a common habit I grew used to, I’d fetch the naughty cattle, and observe the man with the goblet and lance. The more I saw him each day, the more I thought of those treasures and what they could do for me.

With the goblet all the food and drink you could ever want would flow from it, and there were even rumors that it could bring people back from the dead. And the lance could lay even a glancing blow upon any enemy and they would drop to death. I would have no enemies and no wants without working another day in my life with those treasures.

In retrospect, I was quite lazy and idiotic at the time for thinking I could do something hundreds of men had died trying to do, all for the sake of never having to work again.

It was during one of these days when I sat sometime after the man with his treasures had gone on his way that a magician with his white beard so gleaming stopped next to me and asked not if I knew the way to Castle Kerglas, like so many had, but if I wanted to know the way.

I stood perplexed by this man, for I had never seen him before but he stated that he knew the way quite well and had been many times. Finally I asked him how this was possible and he laughed and told me that he was the elder brother of Roger, the man whom lived there.

He called himself a magician and went by the name of Bryak. Then he explained that to get through the enchanted forest where everyone lost their way, he even had to call the little colt that followed Roger. The colt knew the way. Bryak then stood before me and called the colt to him through a magic spell with circles on the ground and a phrase that I could only catch part of.

He then mounted the colt and rode off into the forest.

I knew from then on that if I wanted to succeed where everyone else seemed to fail, I would need to catch that colt. But I knew not how. It took me many days of tending the herd to finally come up with a plan, and oh was it such perfect cleverness that I praised myself while I worked to set it in motion.

I rigged a harness and halter together, and took hold of a bird catching net and food for bait, then long before Roger was to make his trip through the woods and rest where I usually had to catch the cattle, I crumbled bread crumbs along the path and leading away to another area where the bird net was set up to capture.

With my trap set, I watched from the bushes as Roger riding his horse and the colt following behind came right on time. I worried still, for what if the horse Roger rode ate the crumbs, or what if the colt was unusually willful and would not stray for some crumbs.

My terror grew when the colt only sniffed the first few crumbs of bread, but then it started to eat them and follow the path I left without paying attention to where it was going other than to collect the next crumb. It was so very distracted that I was able to sneak right up on it and wrap the halter around it and jump upon it before it even reached the net trap I had made.

We were off into the forest within a single moment and I had never been so frightened before than the ride that colt took me along. The horrors of that enchanted forest are one of the reasons the barrier around this city exists today. Everyone is horrified and afraid of it, for the kinds of things it can make you see. I felt as though I had been dropped into the pit of the underworld when I had stepped upon that horse.

I’ll save you the nightmares I’ve had since that day in what I had seen. But they are nothing to take lightly, and in many cases I thought my very life was in danger. Considering how few people ever returned from the forest, I could only be sure that was accurate.

No matter the horrors I saw though, the colt just kept going and I hung as tight as I could to it until we passed by a mountain and around it we found our escape from the enchanted forest. I can’t say the surroundings were any better however, as the plains that lay before me were littered with skeletons of thousands and thousands, of horse and human.

We escaped the plains even quicker than the woods, despite the howls we could hear in the distance. And a meadow is what we found, with a single beautiful apple tree in the center and a dwarf resting under it.

The dwarf held a sword of brilliant fire, and he stood up and begun to charge me and the colt as we came closer. He screamed and I had to put on my best act. I smiled and lowered my head, and told the man I came to know as the Korrigan that I was being retrieved by Roger to assist him in the castle.

The Korrigan at least paused but still believed me to be a robber. So I told him that I was just meant to retrieve a bird for Roger and that I should not be delayed or he might turn his lance upon the Korrigan. And that if I had not been retrieved by the magician of castle Kerglas than how could I ever be riding his colt?

It was then the Korrigan looked at the horse I rode and realized that my lies were true. I believe my look of seeming like a simple fool had provided enough thought to the Korrigan that I could not be deceiving him.

Still he would not let me pass, unless I proved my worth by first catching the birds that plagued his beautiful apple tree. So I reached into my sack and pulled out the bird net I had been planning to use as a trap for the colt, it seemed my cover that I was just a bird catcher for Roger would do well against the Korrigan as well.

I told him to hold one end of the net while I tied it to the other, but when the Korrigan went to take it, I threw the net upon him rather than tie the cord to the tree. He became tangled in the net and screamed. He had placed his sword on the ground to help me, some ways away from where he was now snared, so he could not just turn the sword to ash. I mounted the colt again and plucked an apple from the tree before running off.

I knew my net would not contain him forever, but it gave me time to get away.

It was some time traveling through a valley before I came upon the next trial with a lion possessing a mane of snakes and a laughing flower surrounded by hundreds and thousands of other flowers of all kinds.

The beauty of this valley was in complete contrast to the horrors I had seen previously. But the lion stopped me kindly and I explained I was hoping this was the path to the castle of Kerglas. The lion asked what business I had with it, and I told him I had come to bring larks for a great feast for the Castle of Kerglas and the lion gained a hungry look and asked to have some.

I denied him, but he insisted and so I pulled my bag back out and held it open only enough so the lion could put his head in it, and when he did, I tied the knot of the bag tight and plucked the laughing flower before running away from the lion on the colt. We sped away so fast the lion could not keep up, nor did he know where he went, distracted with trying to get the bag off.

We eventually reached a great lake, which was to be the third trial, and the most dangerous. The colt jumped into the water and began to swim, and it was then that the dragons who lived around the lake appeared from their caves and began to investigate who I was and what I was doing.

They swarmed around me and I realized then I should have taken the Korrigan’s sword with me, even if it meant he would chase after me when he was free. But still there was a black man on the other side of the lake waiting for me. He threw a glass bead or ball of metal toward me and I yanked the colt so a dragon stood between us. The ball pierced the dragon through the head and it floated belly-up upon the lake, while the ball returned to the hand of the black man. Each time the man threw his ball he pierced a dragon instead of me, until the dragons had all turned their attention upon the black man. I made it to the shore just as he was being devoured by the dragons, and scooped up his ball that had rolled away and continued on past the lake.

It is here that my legend continues with other trials I had to face, but there were no such other things, and no more skeletons. There simply was the trail to the castle, poking out from the edge of another forest, and a river in my way.

Upon the rock though, sat the person I expected to see. A young woman in a red cloak, who the knight had mentioned, and thankfully his sources were correct. The woman had been expecting me and I picked her up so we may cross the river on the colt. She asked if I had known how to kill Roger.

All this time I had not even thought of such a thing, especially since the myths and legends I knew of all told me sorcerers were immortal beings. I know since then that it is the legendaries, such as myself, who are near-immortal beings, not sorcerers. But even legendaries can be killed.

Roger was no such thing at the time. And she explained that he only need take a bite of the apple I had taken from the Korrigan’s tree. And if that does not work, she the Champion of Death could lay her touch upon him and he will perish eternally.

I did not know her reasoning as to why she wanted Roger dead, but I do know that whatever she had done, Roger did not live through, even with becoming a legendary with this tale.

We reached the castle and the women who was the Champion of Death told me I had the key to get in, and pointed to the laughing flower I had picked. It could open any door, and light any darkness with its laugh. I directed it and the doors opened.

Roger was in the entrance hall, and shocked that I was there, with his missing colt. But he did not become threatening, merely asked what I was doing here and how I had gotten his colt.

I told him that I repeated what his brother Bryak had done and said the part of the spells I knew to call the colt, the circles and the phrase I did catch. And Roger was convinced I knew his brother and that was when I told him I had come bearing gifts from his brother.

I made up names on the spot, calling the fruit the apple of delight, in that once you consumed it you would never hunger for another thing and referring to the woman as an enchanted woman who would leave you with no want in the world for she could fulfill all.

Roger bade me thanks and took the apple and woman. He took a bite of the apple, and grew pale, but at the same time the Champion of Death touched him and told him she was sorry. Roger’s body fell over dead, but the Champion held the man by his very spirit and essence.

She then turned to me and thanked me for the assistance, and informed me that I had to escape the castle soon before it collapsed. And I should hurry to recover what I seek. Then the ground opened up and consumed her and the spirit of Roger.

I took off through the castle, opening hundreds of doors escaping into the next room just as the previous was starting to crumble, until I found myself staring at the lance and the goblet, locked away in the tower and ready for me to take. You see, Roger had apparently been cursed so that whenever he entered the castle, his lance and goblet would leave him to somewhere deep in the castle. He could never use them at the castle, and I believe with his death the curse broke and the castle was no longer needed and was losing the power that kept it together.

I took up the lance and goblet and kept running through the doors with the flower in front of me until I found another exit; a door that when I walked through it, I was no longer anywhere near the castle. I was on the edge of the forest where the troublesome cattle would sometimes run to.

I had to check to make sure I still had the lance and goblet with me to make sure it was not a dream or nightmare I had gone through. I still had them though, and some gold I had picked up along the way as I ran through the castle.

I used some gold for transport and came to the nearby town of Nantes. The town was being sieged by dragons at the time. And as I walked through the battlefield, toward the town, I poured the liquid from the goblet into the mouths of the dead men. They sprung back up and followed me as I continued on.

I had done this enough times until I had an entire army behind me as I reached the entrance to the town. I called up to the people on the walls, for they had seen what I had done and they asked if I was their savior. I said I was, and then speared the first dragon that came swooping down upon us. It died instantly, despite the lance glancing off the scales of the dragon.

The battle lasted little more than a single day and for kilometers around the town of Nantes there were dragon bodies littered everywhere. It was then I realized, with all the bodies, that all the crops and supplies the city had were burned and broken and ruined. So I turned to the goblet and poured it again and plentiful and wonderful food came pouring out of the goblet.

It is here that the legend ends, saying that I became the leader of the city and made it prosperous and beautiful. But my story does not end here. For after my spectacle of the goblet’s wonders, Bryak appeared and asked to speak with me privately.

Behind closed doors he convinced me the people I had harmed in my path to obtain those riches would come looking for me. I told him that I could handle anyone now, and he convinced me otherwise with a single word and a cast of a spell with his flute.

I became a wrinkled mess and a wretched thing with his spell, so different in looks from what I had been, and so old. Meanwhile, he took my shape and stole my goblet and lance from me. He took credit for all I had done and was praised and proceeded to build the City of Nantes into a wonder as he commanded it. All while keeping me locked away.

It has been hundreds of years since that day, and his offspring continues to run the city of Nantes from line of emperor to the next, all completely unaware that he created the position of the lead sorcerer for the City of Nantes so he could leave others to rule from his lineage while he bothered himself with the secrets of magic that so perplexed him around the city.

Meanwhile, I had remained trapped and locked away for the entire length of time he was the emperor. Finally he came to me one day and said he was starting an academy for magic and that he would allow me to be his apprentice, but I would have to be placed under a magical oath. That I could never say any of what I have told you today to any person born to the city of Nantes. He did not care if I blabbed to random people on the street, he only cared about me voicing anything to his descendants. About his life, about how he was going to fade into his new position and leave others to rule.

I accepted, because anything was better than staring into the darkness at all times. He gave me some freedoms, that you can see today with the house I have and all my possessions, but he keeps watch of me. I do believe the only reason he wanted me as an apprentice was so that he had someone else he knew would live for a long time, someone he could reveal his secrets to.

Unfortunately, other than the ones I have already told you, there is little else about his secrets I can say. Those I am bound from saying to anyone except him. He still keeps the Lance and Goblet, and he brought the Korrigan into the city to serve as the captain of his guard, and even got in touch with a Faerie Godmother to assist him in the magical studies he handled. Eventually through study he realized that the many dragons in this area were because of the strange properties surrounding the magic around this city.

That was when he founded the dragon hunters called the Templars and brought the Korrigan along and gave the tiny ball I had taken from the slain black man to a pixie woman who created a rifle that could fire it and then return to the rifle barrel.

As he gathered more dragons underneath the city, he discovered properties of magic and crystals that he could use. That was how the first incarnation of the barrier was born. It also helped to protect from any further dragon attacks. The current barrier around the city is the seventh incarnation and perhaps the strongest, since he knows so much about the magic and about the brimstone he used to create the shield.

Unfortunately, I wish I could say that I had my happy ever after, but I’ve yet to see it still. Bryak had stolen it from me, and I have been under his power ever since, unable to do a thing.

But you… you can.

Fifteen

The Knights of Korrigan

My back plowed through the wall of Gabbi’s home in the city of Nantes and I hit the pavement with a few skids. I could feel the aches all through my body as I attempted to stand back up while people all around me were staring. I paid no attention to them though as two of the knight guards for the city stepped through the hole I made in the wall, followed by their commander or leader.

“You are under arrest for crimes against the empire, Red Faerie.” The dwarf leader said while brushing off some of the dust from the wall.

I took a few breaths and laughed. “You have no idea how many times I’ve heard phrasing like that. Do you think you scare me?”

He didn’t bother to answer and just unsheathed his sword. I blinked at it, but it was definitely a sword with a blade made of fire. I had seen it before but I just hadn’t been expecting it for some reason. That meant the captain of the guard in front of me was called Korrigan if I remembered correctly.

“I don’t care if I scare you. I only care that you broke laws and if you do not surrender now I will be forced to turn you to ash.” The leader said as he swiped his fiery blade through the air.

Could that blade really turn me to ash? I wasn’t about to test that. So I held my hands up in surrender. “I’m not here to fight, Korrigan. There’s just been a misunderstanding here.”

“I doubt that. We have evidence to multiple crimes you’ve committed, including the kidnapping of two princesses and the unlawful use of magic, as well as the theft of the most recent dragon to enter our city, in which most of the population of the city saw. All of which are misunderstandings?” The Korrigan explained.

Midnight magic. Just what did Gabbi say? Or Bryak for that matter?

“You will come willingly to face your crimes then?” he continued.

There was no way I could face that. It was either die now while being captured or die later while imprisoned. I liked my chances now, at least I had magic and full use of my body. I flitted my wings and glanced straight to the Korrigan. His eyes widened and I frowned at him. He knew what I was going to do without me even saying anything. But I shook my head.

“I’m sorry. I can’t.” I picked up into the air immediately. My only chance now was to find where Ashe, Reynard and Nai went. Then again, finding them would only put them in danger as well. I’d just have to focus on finding a place to hide then. There wasn’t anyone in the city I could trust though.

I could hear the captain yelling on the ground as I took higher into the air, but I couldn’t discern what he was saying. Instead I concentrated on where I could go. Flying meant I was easy to be spotted. I needed a way to lose everyone and that meant the palace was my best place to hide with the least amount of people around there.

I turned toward the palace and just as I started to fly I felt something tear through my shoulder. Another shot I felt on my wing and I tried to flap and reach toward the palace but I was dropping, fast. My wing must have been torn up. But by what?

There wasn’t enough time to think about that. I was falling to the ground fast and I imagine the only reason the shots weren’t lethal was because I’d hit the ground with plenty of lethal force. I had to do something about that.

I twisted in the air so I was facing the ground then I spread my arms out and felt the breeze pulling through me. I was about to form a spell to make the ground a bit softer when my arms suddenly locked to my chest. Like the wind was forcing them into place there. My descent started to slow as well as I felt less of the wind flying past me and more of it just gathering around me in swirls.

By the time I was about to hit the ground I was floating down like I had directed myself to softly land through magic. As I landed gracefully on the ground, I saw Gabbi’s eyes glowing softly from the hole I had made in her wall. She was standing just inside it, glaring at me. And I still couldn’t move my arms. Out of anyone, she knew how to keep me from casting spells. Lock my hands and I had maybe a whole spell I could cast, and it wasn’t a useful spell in this instance.

The wind released me finally but my arms were grabbed by two guards and they slapped some golden cuffs on my wrists. I imagined they were brimstone cuffs, enchanted with something to keep me from using magic, otherwise it seemed silly. I tried to pull some magic through me, but nothing came.

I swallowed. For the second time in my life I was cut off from my magic. The feeling of dread was worse than when I had done it to myself.

The Korrigan stepped up in front of me with his blade still poised in his left hand. He looked up toward me and shook his head. I squirmed against the guards holding me but they held tight.

This was the end. I was going to die to a dwarf in a city with impossible magic.

I swallowed and closed my eyes as the dwarf raised his sword.

“I’m sorry, Ashe.” I said before I opened my eyes.

The dwarf’s expression was nothing I could recognize other than apathy. He had no care about what happened to me. It was a job to him, to all of them. They knew nothing about Bryak. About this city. About Gabbi’s lies. And nothing I would say would change that.

Still, I think it surprised the dwarf quite a bit when there was a shot fired and suddenly a gnome was sticking to the Korrigan’s head, tearing at his hair and nostrils. I was certainly shocked.

Even the guards holding me were surprised as their grip loosened. I pulled away from them and twirled around so my hands could catch the fiery sword that the Korrigan dropped in his panic to deal with the gnome that was crawling all over him now. I flicked the sword to cut the chain between the cuffs on me, but instead of cutting them the entire cuffs just fell apart and turned to ash on the floor.

Well I guess that confirms the sword’s power.

I glanced in the direction of the sound where the shot came from and Ashe was standing there with her rifle aimed. I grinned while stepping away from the Korrigan. It was one of Ashe’s special rifle bullets. She called it the gnome bullet. It had a summoning spell on the bullet and when it was fired it triggered the spell so instead of a bullet hitting someone a gnome was in its place. Not as deadly as a bullet, but perfect for distractions and distance manipulation. Ettie had devised the spell with a little blood from Ashe, and my wife seemed to like it.

I switched hands with the sword as my shoulder ached and dashed in the direction Ashe was. She was moving through the crowd to me. Her arm wrapped around my waist to help me with moving as we kept heading out of the crowd while people were pushed aside with the guards chasing after us.

“Are you okay? The pixie from that parade shot at you while you were in the air. I was scared.” Ashe whispered as she pulled me along until Nai and Reynard were next to us as well.

“That explains why my shoulder is killing me. No talk though. We need to get out of here.” I explained. And that’s when I saw more of Ashe’s worry.

“I don’t know how. I just gave myself away now. We can’t escape all these people and guards and magic users.”

She was right. I had nowhere near enough time to attempt another faerie circle and I couldn’t fly us away, and even if I could I’d just get shot again by the pixie. I didn’t see a way out of this. It was just a matter of time before we were caught. This bubble prevented us from going much of anywhere.

I coughed and glanced to Ashe. “We need to turn around.”

She glanced askew at me. “That doesn’t sound like a good plan, Gnidori.”

“Gabbi’s house has a faerie circle I can use to get us out of here. Or she has a tunnel we can use. Or we can get a key for the barrier from a guard. If we want to escape that direction is our best option.”

Ashe closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and glanced to me. “I just informed Pnim what the key looks like and to grab one. We just need to keep moving.”

“Nim?” I asked.

“The gnome that just helped you. He’s one of the few I still keep in touch with.”

“Ah.” I nodded and we kept moving through the crowd. I pulled the sword close to me so I didn’t accidentally touch anyone and turn them to ash.

We turned down a few alleyways and only a few guards were still keeping up with us. “We should take these out. Then we should be clear to hide somewhere for a bit at least.”

Ashe didn’t stop moving, but Nai did and she turned on the three guards remaining. I had no idea what a dragon could do in human form to stop guards, but my thought was answered when she breathed gobs of intense blue fire upon the guards chasing us. A few of them screamed and ran and one of them dropped and rolled to quench the flames.

Nai didn’t bother to wait, she just turned and ran to keep up with us as we rounded another corner. I was completely lost as to where we were going, but the more lost we were, the more likely the others wouldn’t be able to find us either.

“We need a place to wait for the gnome.” I voiced, but Ashe was already looking around. We both stopped when we heard someone call to us.

“Over here, Godmother.” The voice said and we glanced in the direction it came from to see Bryak’s apprentice… Tiidu.

I nodded to Ashe and she helped me over there with Rey and Nai behind us.

He stepped back from the doorway he was standing in and waved us in. “Please, come in. Come in.”

We walked up the steps and inside the home, and he shut the door behind us.

“My goodness, I honestly did not expect to see you over here, especially after I heard about your arrest warrant.” The little apprentice magician explained as we stepped further into what I figured was his living quarters.

“If you know there’s a warrant for Gnidori then why are you taking us in?” Ashe asked the question that was on my mind too.

“Oh my.” The apprentice began. “Because I know she did nothing close to those crimes. I was the one that examined the prince and princess when they were back in the palace. And I was there when the entire dragon incident occurred. So my home is your home. I might even have a potion or two here that could help disguise you without triggering magical detection.”

I nodded to him. “That’s kind of you, but we don’t want to impose, especially since you could be arrested for helping.”

That’s when he turned back to us with a grim look set on his jaw. “My dear Godmother, it’s the least I can do when you don’t even know the whole story.”

He waved to the fireplace and stepped to his windows to close them up. “Please, sit. I think it is time you knew all about what has been going on in the City of Nantes.”

Fourteen

The Vila Forest

I threw my arm down to Gabbi to yank her up before tossing on my dress and shoes. At the very least I wasn’t going to be caught mostly naked in an enchanted forest by whatever was making that howling. At least I knew it definitely wasn’t hounds. My first instinct was that the Faerie Truth was hunting again in an enchanted forest, and she was one of the last people I wanted to see now.

“You’re going to need to open that tunnel sooner than sundown, Gabbi.” I told her while shoving her back in the direction I think we had come from.

“That’s impossible. And we haven’t finished what we came for.” She explained while twisting around to face me and break away from my arms pushing her.

The forest around us was already taking on a brighter finish to it, like the magic had been turned up on it.

“Yes we did, we need the sword of the sun. I spoke with the sun.” I explained quickly and went to push her forward again but she dodged me.

“You spoke with the sun?” Gabbi turned and cursed a few times under her breath. When she turned back she saw the weird look I was giving her. “It means you were chosen to be a Champion, not me.”

I hesitated then. I already knew I had been chosen, and I knew why she hadn’t. But I didn’t want to be a champion, she did. She must have noticed the expression because she grabbed me.

“What did the sun say? Did they say why you were chosen?”

I forced a smile, but it just wouldn’t stick. Finally I just sighed and pulled away from her. “She said you couldn’t be her champion. You are still connected to the wind.”

“I am?” Her face was lit with surprise, maybe even shock.

I shrugged. “That’s what the sun said.”

Another howl broke out in an eerie echo around the forest. It was like those creepy unicorns were calling out to each other. At least I hope it was unicorns. I didn’t want to think of what else made those sounds.

“We need to go.” I said while stepping past Gabbi. “At the very least we need to get out of this forest.”

Gabbi seemed lost in thought though. I don’t even know if that recent howl registered to her. She was wholly distracted and I didn’t know what to do, or what direction I needed to go. So I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me.

“Wake up, Gabbi. We need to leave, now.”

She laughed and pulled away from me. “We don’t need to go anywhere. I need the magic of this forest first.”

What the fey is she talking about?

She sat down and glanced around for a moment before closing her eyes and facing forward. I was going to drag her out of here if I had to.

“What the fey are you doing, Gabbi? Get up!”

She just ignored me and her breathing fell to gentle breaths.

“I’m going to just leave you here to deal with these things, Gabbi.”

There was no response. So I let out a breath. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t just leave her defenseless.

The howling grew closer or at least seemed like it was closer. I just had to hope she would be done with whatever she was doing before it got on top of us. It was times like these that I wished I knew a spell for making us invisible in some way. I could probably whip one together, but usually those on the fly spells turned out worse than I wanted. It was what happened with using that faerie circle. Look at the trouble that circle brought me.

Out of anything though, making a faerie circle might be possible. I knew the mechanics and I knew how to use it for transportation. I could even aim it for Gabbi’s house, though I don’t know if it could get through the barrier. I’d imagine it would work, or the tunnel we took out of the city wouldn’t have worked.

“Fine, Gabbi. You won’t move, I’ll just have to move you.”

I walked a small circle around Gabbi, directing magical energy through my feet and into the ground to tell the forest to create some mushrooms or flowers or something in the places I was walking. By the time I had made three trips around it, mushrooms were poking out, so I stopped and stepped inside the circle while the mushrooms finished growing in the grass.

Creating Faerie circles was something anyone in the faerie academy was taught, though the use of them for teleportation was only discussed, not ever taught. They were mostly used as a trap, to keep anything contained in it from escaping. I wasn’t very good with imbuing them to keep things trapped in them. Even if I was, them being stationary makes them harder to use for bounty hunts.

I reached down and touched some of the mushrooms with both my hands, while in the circle. I jumped as the howling sounded like it was directly around me. Glancing back to Gabbi, I saw she still wasn’t moving or paying attention to the world. Whatever she was doing, she needed to hurry up. I wasn’t going to wait for her to get us out of here.

It was a sense of relaxation when I pushed energy into the mushroom ring though. Like I had just been dosed with a drug in my drink, my eyes even closed before I popped to life and removed my hands and further magic from the mushroom ring. The forest was trying to poison me.

I shook my head and then they appeared out of the thicket around us.

They definitely weren’t unicorns. They were gorgeous women, in flowing white dresses, but they were transparent, like they could have been the wind. That was enough to know they were a higher elemental life form, much like Dryads were more advanced versions of the earthen elementals of Gnomes, these were Vila; higher elemental creatures of the wind elementals known as Sylph.

It was hard to look away from them but I yanked my head down to look at the floor and Gabbi in front of me. They were definitely surrounding us, which meant even if the forest was trying to poison me to sleep, I had to try to get us out of here, or fight the six or so Vila that appeared out of the forest. At least I had my magic this time, so I could blast them with fire and burn them up.

What I didn’t understand was why they were here. Vila were mountain dwellers, they liked being near the sky, not in a forest. Were they just drawn toward the magic in this forest?

I stood back up, but kept my head down. As soon as I looked at them I’d only be able to focus on one of them until I eliminated it, it was just one of their talents. And that is one of the worst ways to fight a group of enemies. The best way was to use them against each other, but that was unlikely to happen in this case.

I pushed some magic to my ears, to enhance myself with better hearing. I would have to rely on that in this case. The moment I did I could hear the billowing of their white dresses, creating a gentle breeze-like sound. From that it was clear where three of them were at least. So I curled a hand into a fist and then opened it with a direct of magic to produce a ball of fire in the palm of my hand. I did the same with the other hand and then shot straight toward the Vila I heard in front of me.

I shot my palm out and heard the rush of my hand through the air before unleashing the fireball and hearing a screaming like someone was on fire. That screaming was a sound anything made when it was set on fire. It was why I tended to avoid using fire as an element, really any of the elements I avoided. That, and fireball was one of the only spells I could use well for fire.

I spun around while wincing at the screeching the burning Vila made. I blocked it as best I could and focused on the sounds of the other ones moving. To my left a few meters I could hear the billowing of another. I charged at it, but half way to it I heard the wind rustling next to me and I ducked, feeling a breeze fly over my hair. The second one swinging in toward me was too quick though. I felt it run right across my chest and through my hair and I was knocked backwards.

I gasped for air, as it felt like my chest had just been hit by a giant. I gripped the ground and lost the fireball I had still been holding as it snuffed in the floor. I was still catching my breath when another one swooped in and struck across my face. I reached a hand up and felt a few bleeding slashes across my left cheek.

Vila had unique hair, razor-sharp like a willow trees’ branches being whipped around. I wiped my arm across my face and focused on the next one swinging in to strike me. But it was two of them at once I could hear; one from my front, the other from my side.

I pushed some energy into my legs and sprung up into the air as high as I could as they slashed toward me. With both of them in the same place, I launched a new fireball down at them and they both lit with brilliant white flames. They were screeching as they darted off into the forest, and I landed back on the solid ground.

There were only three left and it had grown incredibly quiet as the burning cries died out. It wasn’t a good sign. Supernatural creatures didn’t stay quiet unless they wanted to.

As the silence lasted I finally glanced around and couldn’t see anything other than the forest and where Gabbi sat. Did they all leave?

It was then that Gabbi stood up. She turned around and opened her eyes to look at me and the dark colors in them swirled. My eyebrows knitted in worry. “Gabbi?”

“Don’t worry. I told the Vila to leave unless they wanted to die a worse death than fire.” Gabbi said, but the way she was standing and even the tone of her voice was creeping me out. Something was wrong.

“And…” I said cautiously, “How did you do that?”

“I contacted Wind again through the magic flowing in this forest and he was more than happy to unlock my abilities again as his champion. It seems the Vila set up in this forest at his command, to keep people away from the pedestal of the sun.”

“And, you’re okay with being his pawn again?” I swallowed.

“I’m not his pawn anymore. But he didn’t have much choice with taking me back since I’m still technically the Champion of the Wind until someone else takes it over.”

That made sense at least. The way I knew of titles, until someone else inherited it, the last person to have it still had it. There was a Red Faerie before I had taken it on, and since all the faeries kept referring to me as it, it probably meant there hasn’t been anyone knew to take the Red Faerie title, so it still belonged to me even if I didn’t want it.

“So, we can get out of here now?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “First, I’m afraid I have to kill you before you can become the champion of the sun.”

My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” she replied while shaking her head still. “I only told you so you could defend yourself. It’s only fair since you helped me.”

Well at least she had some faerie flipping honor.

I stepped back and Gabbi moved closer to me. “You don’t need to do this, Gabbi. I’m not going to take on something like being a champion of the sun. I only came out here to help you. Think about this. I don’t want to be a champion of anything.”

She laughed. “You are the only one to interact with the sun in years apparently. She likes you enough that you may not be able to see it, but I can see the light glow around you. She’s chosen you as her champion. It’s not a complete process, but it started. If you complete that task she gave you then it will be done.”

That… was a frightening thought. But if she tampered with my energy then it could explain how she knew my name and possibly other things about me.

“I’m not just going to let you do this. I don’t even know why you wanted to be under the wind’s control again. You’ll just be used again. And you were so pissed at him earlier. What happened to that?!”

She stepped closer to me, and I pressed a foot back in tune with her. “Sometimes you have to use the powers of your enemies to defeat them. He doesn’t have command over me, but I have the power of wind again. I can beat him with it.”

“But you are doing what he is telling you now!” I yelled.

She paused then and I took my chance. I shot forward and grabbed her body, flinging her over me as I dropped to the floor. She flew, but the winds picked up around us and she just floated in the air only a few feet from me.

“Seriously? Flying?” I groaned.

She just laughed and I swung around to stand up and took off the short distance to the faerie circle I already had made. I was not in the mood to deal with her now. I should have known I couldn’t trust her.

I slid into the faerie circle and touched some of the mushrooms, pushing magical energy through. The same sleepiness started to surge in me, but I focused to keep myself awake and will the faerie circle toward Gabbi’s home in the City of Nantes around the same time as it was here.

The circle lit with a gentle glow of white and then the forest was gone. I was knelt on the floor, glancing around at the den where Ashe and the others had been left. But none of the blankets or beds was set up and no one was in the room.

“Took you long enough.” I heard Gabbi’s voice from behind and spun around. There she was, with new clothes on, standing at the door leading to her kitchen, with some of the city’s guard around her.

I shook my head. “How much time has passed?”

She grinned to the point of showing wolf fangs. “Just a day. I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to show up here.”

I thought of the time of day but I didn’t think of the same day so it must have brought me to the next time that time of day was going to come up in this area. I put a hand to my forehead and shook it.

“And what about Ashe and the others?”

Gabbi’s expression soured. “They are locked away for now.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’re lying to me. She got away from you, didn’t she?”

Gabbi snarled and glanced to the knight guard around her. “Get her.”

Midnight Magic.

I was better off facing her in the forest.

I knew I shouldn’t have used that fey-blasted circle.

Thirteen

Champion of the Sun

I awoke to a shimmer of sun crawling through the tiniest section of the window that wasn’t covered by drapes. I rolled to get it out of my eyes and felt Ashe against me. So I adjusted to rest my back against her body and glanced at her arm laying across me while letting out a soft breath.

It was waking up like this in the morning that really made it the best feeling to be traveling with Ashe. It was after that moment and reprieve that I felt a kick at my leg and looked down to see Reynard snuggled between our feet. She must have woken up during the night and wanted to lay with us.

I smiled and rolled again to glance right into the stream of sun. And then all the things I had to do today came crashing back upon me; particularly this whole thing about making Gabbi a Champion of the Sun.

I hope she had information on that, because I knew nothing. And I had more frustrating things to deal with. Like the dragon-girl, what was I going to do with her? And I still had to talk to Ashe properly about Reynard. And my bounties.

I lifted a hand up to cover over my eyes and face before groaning. It just seemed like everything was going wrong, and there wasn’t anything I could do to fix it. Even with Gabbi’s help, this just seemed…impossible.

“Rise and shine, Gnidori.” I heard from above me. I lifted a finger aside so I could glance up through the rays of sunlight and groaned again.

Of course it would be Gabbi. I complained, “Give me five more minutes.”

“We need to leave now if we want to get this done today.” Gabbi explained.

I just groaned in response and tried to roll over, but she yanked the blanket from me.

“If we don’t leave now, you’ll have to last another day in this city.” Gabbi pressed.

I finally looked up at her. “Fine. Where are we going?”

She leaned down, over me, with a smirk. “To the enchanted forest.”

I quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Isn’t that outside the barrier?”

Her smirk grew even more smug. “Yes.”

I was awake then. I tossed the rest of the blanket aside and stood up. “You have a way out of the city?”

She didn’t answer that one, and instead started walking away, still with the smirk. She glanced back at the door to her kitchen. “Get dressed and come find me in my room.”

Then she was gone.

I had to hand it to Gabbi, she knew how to get me motivated. I threw on my purple dress and grabbed up some paper to write a note for Ashe, before running to Gabbi’s room. She was grinning and leaning against her bookcase.

“Took you long enough.”

I glared at her, and she laughed before turning and pulling on a few books. The bookcase then swung aside.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a standard feature of the homes?”

“No.” she said simply before turning back to face me. “Each of the Templars have one to lead out of the city.”

I nodded. “So the dragon hunters of Nantes are called the Templars.”

She looked at me weird. “Yes, but usually only to ourselves. You knew about the Templars?”

I stepped to the entrance that was behind the bookcase. “A little run-in with Captain Bonny.”

Gabbi laughed again. “The resentment in your voice tells me she did something to piss you off.”

I didn’t realize I had sounded annoyed but Gabbi was right. I had to payback Captain Bonny for using me to further her agenda. Even if I still didn’t totally know what that agenda was, other than she wanted to go home.

We both moved into the passage, with Gabbi ahead of me. As we moved in to the point that darkness was overtaking the light, balls of energy lit up all along the passage. It gave our descent through the tunnel a strange ghostly existence, and a light blue hue to everything I saw.

“Bonny was the one that got me in the Templars.” Gabbi explained after we had been walking in silence for a minute.

“Figures. She did bring you back.”

Gabbi stopped and half-turned to me. The blue hue set her face into a rather frightening image, like she herself was a ghost. “Bonny brought me back to life?”

It was my turn to laugh now. “You didn’t know?”

She turned back and kept going, not wanting to look at me. “No, I thought it was Hue.”

I hesitated. “Well in a way it was Hue. He gave bonny access to the major port in his land for the revival of you.”

She shook her head. “That idiot.”

“Speaking of Hue though. Why did you leave him again?”

I could hear her sigh. “He saw me at my worst. He tried to help cover it up, and now hearing he sacrificed his morals again for me…”

She shook her head again. “He’s a better person without me.”

I reached out and smacked Gabbi on the back of the head.

“Ow! What the Fae?”

“That’s for being an idiot too.” I told her bluntly.

She rubbed at her head. “What are you talking about?”

I grabbed her wrist and turned her around to face me. “He’s seen the worst of you. And yet he still brought you back to life because he didn’t want to be without you. And then you toss him aside. He thinks you don’t love him back anymore.”

Gabbi looked down. “I’m not sure I do. I don’t—“

She took a moment then glanced back up to me. “I’m not sure I have all my emotions anymore. I’m not sure my love for him is still there. Since my death.”

I rolled my eyes. “You left him because of guilt. You wouldn’t have felt guilty if you didn’t love him.”

A smile formed on her lips. “That makes sense actually.”

I hit her again just for good measure, but she just turned back around and we kept walking. Another minute of tight spaces and then she asked, “Why are you helping me with him?”

“You mean making you realize you still love the only person who accepted and loved you as you are?”

“Yes.” I could tell from the way she spoke that she was smiling still.

“Because you helped me with noticing Ashe. I mean, I noticed her before but… you understand.”

She laughed. “I guess you are right. I can’t believe you two settled down that fast and already have two kids.”

“Uh…” I wasn’t sure how to explain Nai the dragon-girl. I didn’t want to just say she was the dragon Gabbi had helped catch recently. But it was weirder thinking I suddenly had two kids with Ashe. I was still getting used to Reynard being our kid. “Yeah, I guess. We’ve lived together for years though, since I took her away from Charming.”

“Still…” she paused and shook her head. “I just never thought of you as the settling down type.”

I gave her a level face, even though she couldn’t see it. “I’m in a city I’ve never been in before. I wouldn’t exactly call that settling down.”

“It is. Just not putting down your roots.”

I shrugged. I guess it was true.

She continued though. “You were just always with another girl. Ever since me.”

That did remind me of something in that moment. Sometimes I forgot that Gabbi didn’t have the face she had now. I had seen it so much it was hard to separate it from her. “That does remind me. Think you could talk with Reynard when we get back? She was a little boy fox hardly a week ago. A lot sure changed in that week.”

She glanced back at me with a sneer. “What do you think I’d be able to do?”

I raised my hands up with a shrug. “I don’t know. Tell her your experiences when you started taking the shape of a girl?”

“But she can shapeshift as she wants, like me?”

“Yeah…”

“Then she’s fine. Most people won’t even think about it unless you screw up and say he or something.” Gabbi waved it off.

I just fell silent at that point. After a moment she finally added, “But I’ll talk to her. There’s some things she might want to talk about that’s not with her parents.”

I nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

She just nodded as well and the silence descended upon us once again. It was almost a bit more awkward and pregnant than before. It was a few minutes of traveling down the tunnel before I saw pure white ahead of us, and Gabbi broke the silence.

“Here we are. This brings us out in the forest, then it isn’t far from there.” She explained.

“Great. And what is this not far place?”

“The pedestal of the Sun.”

I grabbed at her arm again near the exit. “Wait. The exact thing you need happens to be in the forest nearby?”

She stopped. “How do you think this passage gets passed the barrier?”

I shrugged. “Going under it?”

She laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if you really were a faerie godmother.”

I flapped my wings in response. “I literally have the wings right now.”

She laughed again. “So? You aren’t a faerie now. Just a human.”

Midnight Magic…

It was in that moment that something dawned on me. “Hey Gabbi, how did you know it was me at your door?”

“What do you mean?” She turned around after stepping into the light poking through the forest top.

“I mean, I had an illusion on. But you knew it was me.”

She shrugged. “I just knew it was you. Any form you take, you have always been you.”

I stepped into the forest after her and shielded my eyes to adjust to the brightness. My nod came with half my energy. “Okay.”

Gabbi moved on and explained further. “Good. Now, that passage connects to a place you want to go when you open it. It can be a different place every time, but it always has to be a place that is magical in nature.”

“Ah.” I said without much thought. I was still mulling over Gabbi’s ability to see who I was and how she said the same thing as that dragon. Did that mean Gabbi was a dragon?

No, that was ridiculous. I’d known her for years. It was wolf or nothing.

I glanced behind me as I heard a little popping sound and realized the tunnel had vanished, it left only a bush with berries on it. So I asked, “So how far are we, and how do we get back?”

“It won’t open back up til Sundown. That’s why we had to leave when we did.” Gabbi said while walking with purpose in a direction that looked the same as any other direction in this forest.

I just stopped bothering to ask where we were going and followed, making sure to avoid anything that even remotely sparkled with magic. Which was pretty much everything in this enchanted forest.

“We aren’t too far from the city though.” She explained with a yell back to me. “This is where the Castle of Kerglas used to stand.”

“You mean that’s not just a story?” I asked. When it comes to stories known well enough to have tapestries and rugs of it in an emperor’s palace you just never know whether it could be a legend or not. Especially since not all legends are spread to the same regions.

“It’s a legend. You met one of the legendaries from it, I imagine. Bryak?”

“Seriously?” I laughed.

She nodded. And I was glad I ran and didn’t fight then. Fighting other legendaries was worse than faeries.

We kept walking, glancing at the funny flowers that only an enchanted forest could grow, and didn’t really say much after that. She mentioned the other two Templars were either legendaries or descended from them, but not much else.

Eventually Gabbi shot out an arm to stop me from walking further. I looked ahead to see ruins in an open area of the forest, where light streamed to over-saturate the entire area. A pedestal sat among the ruins of what I assumed was the Castle of Kerglas.

I stretched and glanced to Gabbi. “Well, go do your thing.”

“You are coming with me.”

I set my arms to my side and raised an eyebrow. “To do what? I can cheer you on from a distance.”

Gabbi didn’t bother to convince me. She just grabbed me and threw me into the ruins a good ten meters, like I was a wooden chair. I landed on a rock and groaned. “Seriously, Gabbi?”

“If all I needed you for was cheering on, then I would have done this myself long ago.” She yelled at me while she advanced into the ruins as well. By the time I had stood back up she was almost next to me. I also noticed it was rather warm in this light, like far more than it should have been.

“Does it feel hot?” I asked.

She nodded. “The Pedestal of the Wind made the wind grow strong and difficult to pass. I’m guessing the sun one does the same with the sun?”

“Except you don’t pass the sun. You just melt. So…” I twirled my hand in the air to produce my thoughts, “…we’ll melt before we get to the pedestal?”

Gabbi swallowed and glanced to me with worry. “I hope not.”

It was clear from the next few steps we took that the sunlight got brighter and the air grew hotter as we moved closer to the pedestal. We both had sweat running down our foreheads as we reached even halfway to the pedestal.

It had seemed like such a short distance but I wasn’t getting any closer and it was getting harder and harder to move, like the heat was just sapping my energy. I fanned myself. “This is as far as I go. You got this.”

She glared at me. “Don’t make me throw you again.”

I held up my hands barely and took a hard breath. “Fine.”

The pure force of the heat was just as bad, like it was blasting at you repeatedly in waves of growing intensity. I was practically only taking elderly steps, and even then each step grew harder with less and less energy and more and more sweat and heat.

“This is ridiculous, Gabbi. I can barely move.”

She growled and I could tell she was tapping into her primal instincts to keep going. “Just move. It is supposed to be hard to get to the pedestal.”

I looked toward the destination through the ruins and I still only looked halfway to it. It just seemed futile. But I kept stepping forward, and eventually it grew so hot I threw off my shoes.

I instantly felt relief. I knew it was a risk with the ground being too hot, but I actually felt cooler. It was only a few more steps after that when I just pulled off my dress too. When I did, it was easier to move, and cooler further. Soon I was walking past Gabbi and I actually seemed to get closer to the pedestal.

A few more steps and I had a hand on the pedestal and glanced back at Gabbi.

“Remove your clothes!” I yelled. But when I did the light around me became blinding, to the point that I could no longer see Gabbi, or the forest, or the ground. It was just white all around me and the pedestal.

“Great. Did I die from the heat?”

A giggle echoed around me.

Then a figure swirled into existence, sitting on the pedestal and making me jump back, away from it. It was a little girl, whose skin, hair and outfit shimmered between multiple colors every few seconds. Her eyes were bright gold though, and the length of her hair stayed just above her chest.

“You aren’t dead, silly!” The little girl cried with a shrill and high voice before she laughed again. “You just solved my riddle.”

“Riddle?” I asked.

“Oh!” She swung her legs and then jumped from the pedestal. She then leaned her body closer and held out her hand. “I forgot to introduce myself. I am the Sun.”

I stared blankly at her. “Seriously? Wouldn’t you burn me if I shake your hand then?”

She pouted and retracted her gesture for a hand shake. “Only if I want to. But why would I want to burn my new Champion-to-be?”

I cupped my ear and leaned in, “Uh… your what?”

She giggled again and twirled while standing in one place. “You passed the first test. And meeting me is the second test. All that is left is the third one then you can be my champion!”

I shook my head. “You have the wrong person. Gabbi is the one that wants it.”

The little colorful girl crinkled her nose. “Oh, and it doesn’t matter what I want?” She then waved a hand at me. “Besides, I can’t take that one. She’s been stained by my enemy. She served him.”

Faerie Fudge. I had to do something about that now too.

“But that is more of a reason to take her.” I tried to convince the sun-girl. “She was scorned by the Wind, so now she wants revenge.”

The little girl thought for a moment. “I understand but once you are a champion, you are always a champion. She would only need to connect to the wind again and he would command her. So I can’t take her.”

The girl was stepping across the white floor, and started walking around me. “But you…” she popped up in front of me with a grin. “You are perfect. Maybe blunt at times, but your methods I like. And your heart is better than any of my past champions. You can be my champion.”

I started to shake my head. “I don’t want to be.”

The girl pouted again, “But you would be perfect! And you completed the first test rather quickly. Why did you do that test if you didn’t want to be my Champion?”

That was exactly my thoughts.

“I was helping Gabbi. She wanted it.”

The girl puffed her cheeks and made a strange thinking yet annoyed expression. “Well sometimes what you want and what you get are different! So, why don’t you think on it. I’m approving you, so all you need is to complete the last task. Thank about it, while you bring me the Sword of the Sun.”

This little girl didn’t want to take no.

“Fine. I’ll think about it, but I’m not bringing you a sword.”

The girl giggled again.

“The sword can be your yes or no. If you don’t bring it here then you won’t be my champion, if you do then you can be my champion!”

I threw up my hands. “Fine. Is that all?”

“Yep!” The girl grinned and jumped back on the pedestal. “See you soon, Gnidori.”

Then the white light consumed my senses again and I was standing next to the pedestal in a forest of ruins.

“Sure, little girl. I’ll just add that task to my growing list.” I said while shaking my head.

Gabbi was sweating on the floor next to me with most of her clothes off. “Who are you calling a little girl?”

I didn’t get to answer her though, because the sound of baying wolves echoed through the forest.

This day was never going to end.

Twelve

The Champion of the Wind

“All settled in?” Gabbi asked, as she threw a few blankets at me.

I pushed the blankets away from my face and glanced over at Ashe. She was petting Reynard’s hair, while the fox laid in her lap in the form of maybe a nine-year old girl. She wasn’t paying attention to me, just gazing down at Reynard. It was a good moment, one of those moments showing how caring Ashe is. The soft expression on her face told me everything.

My eyes flicked back to Gabbi and her usual dark hair, dark-skinned form. It felt like there were shapeshifters all around me these days. I yawned out, “I guess so.”

Her smile became wolfish again as she responded, “Good, because I have a few things to tell you before I tell you what you have to help me with.”

I picked up a blanket and handed it over to Ashe. It took my wife a moment to notice. “Do we really have to do this now, Gabbi?”

Gabbi’s eyes seemed to shimmer briefly before she simply said, “Yes.”

I threw my head up. “Fine. What is it?”

Gabbi stepped back and walked over to the fire pit she had in the large living room where my growing group of people rested. She lifted up a poker and poked at it a few times. “It’s a story mostly. One you don’t know.”

I lowered my head. “It seems like there’s a lot I don’t know lately.”

“That sounds almost wise of you.” Gabbi said as she glanced back up at me.

“I guess I’m growing.” I shrugged and felt Ashe tapping on me. So I looked over and handed her another blanket. She had already put Reynard down to sleep and grabbed the other one for Nai.

“Not enough if you couldn’t last even a week in a new city without having people after you.” Gabbi poked at the fire a little more fierce-like then took a deep breath. “Anyway, the story.”

“Back when I was alive last time there was a period of time where I had command over Slyphs and the wind.” She started while looking into the fire.

“Yeah, I know about that. Blew some houses down or something.” I yawned again.

“Not exactly. That legend played it down. I assaulted and demolished three different castles, each owned by a brother of the other.” She shook her head. “But that’s not the story either.”

“Then get to the point, Gabbi. I’m tired.”

She set the poker down with a clunk and Ashe glanced back with a hush on her lips for both of us.

“It started with stumbling upon some ruins. Actually it wasn’t long after the time that mirror spirit I took from you left my body.” She began again. “These ruins were odd from the moment I saw them though. Like they were vibrating with energy but not. I couldn’t understand it and it’s too hard to explain. But as I reached the ruins I noticed the wind was blowing. And I don’t mean a light breeze. The ruins had such a strong wind that dust blew everywhere and the leaves on all the trees in the area were stripped away.”

“This wind was incredible. So strong I could barely move through it; I had to dig myself into the ground and take a few steps at a time. Eventually I got deeper into the ruins and found this pedestal on a giant stone platform. A giant face blowing wind downwards out of its mouth was etched into the stone platform, with the pedestal growing out of the forehead.”

At this point I’m just giving Gabbi a weird look like she is just completely crazy.

“I know. But that’s what it was. I walked all the way up to the pedestal and the wind grew even greater until I was in the center of a funnel, with sand scratching me and the wind tugging me. I shouldn’t have been standing, but I was. And that’s when the…” Gabbi glanced down and shook her head.

“This figure appeared inside the funnel with me. He said that I had proved my strength by withstanding the wind and surviving but I had to be tested first. He told me to retrieve a rod that would be capable of controlling slyphs. I would find it under the ownership of a faerie, an elf in particular. And if I did I would be rewarded with even greater power than what the rod gave me.”

She was looking directly at me then. “Considering the things I had seen with you. I didn’t take this lightly and I searched for the rod. I found it under the ownership of an Elven King, and I murdered him before taking the rod. He gave me little fight, but said that he had to honor a fight at least even though he had been expecting someone to come along sooner.”

“I escaped as the sounds were raised for the King’s death and returned with the rod to the pedestal. And there, I was granted my reward.” Gabbi paused as her fingers became claws and blood trickled from her fingers as she punctured claws into her palm. “I can’t say it was a trick. I was granted greater power. I was chosen then to become the Champion of Wind. I was granted incredible power with the wind, but I was also forced into servitude. I became the wind’s weapon.”

She flexed her fingers and flicked a few drops of blood before she glanced over her hand and palm. Her eyes then shifted back to me. “The rest you know. With those powers I went on a murder spree. In the name of the wind, I committed crimes I never wanted to, but I also enjoyed it. It felt like I was so alive.”

There was brief excitement and joy in her face but then it clouded over quickly as she glanced to the floor and she gritted her teeth. “I did many things I wish I hadn’t. But when the wind has that command over you, it was either do what I did or die to the wind shredding me.”

I nodded. “That’s why you went out of your way to leave tracks for me. Big wolf paw prints?”

A smirk overcame her at that. “I knew I couldn’t escape this without death. But I wanted to choose my death. And I would have rather died by your hand than by the wind.”

I stood up and crossed the room, standing in front of her. I took a deep breath to calm myself, but the moment she looked down again I swung a fist right across her cheek. “You are an idiot.”

She staggered back from the force but she didn’t say anything, or glance back up. I shook my head.

“You knew people that would help you. They’d find something. As much as we may have had a falling out, I still would have done something to help. Not murder you. You gave me no choice!” I yelled through my gritted teeth.

She still wasn’t looking at me. “I know.”

Then I felt a shoe hit my head. I rubbed it and glanced back behind me to see Ashe glaring at me. I forgot people were trying to sleep. I whispered, “Sorry.”

As I looked over Reynard though, she was twitching but not awake. Nai had sat up and looked around, but her eyes were mostly closed, like she didn’t want to wake up. I turned back to Gabbi and gave her the same glare that Ashe had given me.

“What does this have to do with anything? That’s the past.”

Gabbi swallowed and finally glanced up at me. She opened her mouth to say something, but licked her lips and took a full breath before closing it again. Then she finally just said. “I want you to help me get revenge on the Wind.”

“H—“ I started, with my mouth open. And just let out a breath and shook my head. “And how am I supposed to help with that?”

“I need your help with becoming the Champion of the Wind’s rival.”

I practically rolled my eyes and threw up my hands in confusion. “You are just speaking a bunch of gibberish to me. I don’t know what that is. I didn’t even know the wind had a rival, or that the wind was like this sentient being that could bestow incredible power? It just sounds like…” I laughed, “…a story.”

“Yeah.” She said. “I told you it was. But it’s also true. So that’s my deal. You help me become the Champion of the Sun and I will help you get out of this city.”

I shook my head. “No.”

Her face soured and she dropped her head with instant dejection. She was acting like she knew I would say no.

So I continued. “Instead, you’re going to let me study the first spell I cast on you, the first spell I ever cast. Help us get out of this city, and retrieve my two bounties. For that, I will help you with this stupid suicide mission.”

She glanced back up to me with shock on her face. “You mean that?”

“After that. I swear to all the bloody faeries in the world that if I have to see you again, I will bash your face in for all this faerie fudge you put me through.” I could barely contain my vitriol in that moment. It just all came out and it was the first time I realized just how incredibly pissed I was at her.

I took a deep breath to calm down. “Now. I’m going to get some sleep, or else I won’t have any magic left. We can discuss how to make you this Champion of the Sun thing, tomorrow.”

And with that I turned around without even waiting for a response from Gabbi. I glanced to Ashe and she had an expression of worry on her face. She seemed almost always worried about me these days. And she had every right to be.

If becoming a Champion of the Sun was anything like what happened to Gabbi with the wind then it wouldn’t be an easy task. I also couldn’t understand why she would want something to have power over her like that again. But it was her choice. I was just helping her dig the grave.

It did make me wonder though, if I was the Champion of Death; considering all the death that surrounded me.