Chasing A Spectre (War for Dominance Book 0) (2 page)

Ghorza activated the mirror, stepping out onto a small platform in a room with several stalls. It was brighter than any indoor room she had ever seen, with some sort of light spell burning behind a screen in the ceiling. To judge by the smell, something had recently defecated nearby. Either that or it had died; her money was on the creature’s death. Before she had a chance to survey her surroundings further, Dantes stepped through the mirror, nearly knocking her off the platform. She stumbled slightly as she realized that the platform wasn’t flat; it had several round depressions in it, with metal pieces that hung over them. She had no idea what they were, but if they were decorations, they weren’t very impressive.

“Careful, you big oaf,” she said as Dantes jostled her again, nearly knocking her into one of the cut out areas.

As they both tried to regain their balance, the door into the room opened at the end of the platform, and a large bipedal creature came in. Dark-skinned and bald, it was the ugliest creature Ghorza had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon, with large, ridged furrows of skin across the top of its head. It was also very fierce and warlike in appearance, causing Dantes to begin casting a flame strike spell.

Before he could hurl it at the stranger, the creature shook its head and said something as it started back out the door. “
Convertite,
” Ghorza ordered, casting a Translate spell. She caught the creature’s last few words.

“Really?” it said as it walked out.
“On the counter? Couldn’t you guys get a room?” It shook its head again as the door shut. As it walked away, she could just barely hear it say, “And they say Klingons are freaks.”

Milos chose that moment to walk through the mirror, bumping into Dantes, who in turn knocked Ghorza off the platform onto the floor, three feet below. “
Natate
,” she commanded, casting a cushion spell to help her land softly.

Smaller than the teufling, Milos bounced off him to the side. He fell onto the platform, with his right foot ending up in one of the depressions. The metal piece proved to be a pipe, as water came spurting out of it, drenching his felt shoe.

“Just my luck,” he sighed. “Now I have to walk around squelching all day. And what is that smell? Did something
die?
”

“No,” replied Dantes. “I think we’re in a very large outhouse,”

“Really?” asked Ghorza. “Then what are those white things hanging on the wall over there?”

“I believe those are for men to urinate in,” Dantes explained.

“But, you would have to be standing...um...never mind,” Ghorza trailed off, her skin beginning to tinge a darker shade of green. Dantes smiled; it was rare to embarrass Ghorza.

“It’s not an outhouse,” corrected Milos, who had opened the door a crack and was peering out. “We’re inside a large building.”

“Interesting,” Dantes said, pushing open one of the stall doors. He walked into the stall and looked critically at the white porcelain structure for a few seconds before shrugging his shoulders. “Aside from the smell in here, there is no evidence that this is an outhouse. I wonder if someone cleans out these bowls.”

As Dantes left the stall, there was a loud ‘
wooosh’ from behind him. He turned around in time to see all the water empty and then refill. “Water magic,” he said, nodding his head. “The water is trained to know when you are using it, and when you are done. At that time, it removes your waste to the manure pile.”

He walked over to the shelf with the depressions in it and held his hands under the metal piece where the water had run over
Milos’ shoe. Once again, water poured out of the metal tube. “How thoughtful,” he added. “A place to get water for your familiar.”

“Hurray, that’s wonderful,” remarked Milos from the door. “However, neither of you have familiars, so what’s the point? You need to come and see what’s going on outside of this inside outhouse. You’re never going to believe this.”

The two junior wizards walked to the door, and Milos opened it further so that all three could look out. The riot of color and noise on the other side of the door was unlike anything they had ever seen. There were a good number of elves, at least five of the Klingons and a few members from several other races. The majority of the people that could be seen were humans, and most of them were dressed in a manner unlike anything the group had ever seen before.

“I’ve travelled throughout most of Tasidar,” said Dantes, “and I’ve never seen people that dressed like that. Nor have I ever seen a building that looks like this.”

“Neither have I,” said Ghorza. Most of the people they could see had trousers that were cut above their knees, showing most of the skin of their legs. Scandalous! “If they wore that where I grew up, most of them would be raped repeatedly. The men as well as the women.”

“This must be a very mercantile society,”
mused Dantes. “I can’t read what it says on their tunics, but nearly all of them are advertising something.”

Ghorza looked down at her own clothes, comparing them to what she was seeing. “Our clothes are different than what most of the people here are wearing; however, there are enough wearing similar things that we ought to be able to pass as locals without arousing too much suspicion.”

“Except for these,” said Milos, rubbing one of Dantes’ horns. “I don’t see any demon spawn out there.”

Dantes slapped
Milos’ hand away. “You’re going to see a demon spawn’s fist if you touch me again.”

“Easy,” said Ghorza. She pursed her lips as she gazed out the door. “Perhaps we should split up and search this building to see what we can find. Let’s meet back here in an hour.”

“That’s fine with me,” Dantes agreed. “If I have to stay near Milos much longer, I am afraid I will forget my vows. Then again, in this new place, I wonder if the vows still hold...”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to use magic?” asked Milos, changing the subject. “
Couldn’t you just teleport us to the Spectre?”

“No,” said Ghorza. “I don’t have a
group Teleport spell. That is a higher level spell than I can currently cast. Besides, I’d be afraid to use it here. Something feels weird with the magic.”

“What do you mean, ‘feels weird with the magic,’” asked Dantes. “I haven’t noticed anything wrong with it.”

“That’s because you haven’t cast anything yet,” explained Ghorza. “There’s not as much magic here. It took my manna longer to refill after I cast the cantrip than I have ever felt before. Not only is there less magic here, but what exists is less potent. If you cast anything greater than a second-level spell, you won’t be able to recharge and do it again anytime soon. I don’t know if I’ll be able to use that Translate spell again today. It’s a good thing I have two.”

“
Scintilla!
” commanded Dantes. A spark shot from his pointer claw.

“I see what you mean,” agreed Dantes. The void in his manna took more than four times as long to refill than it would have at home. “If even a cantrip takes that long to refill, real spells are going to take days to refill...maybe even weeks, depending on the level.”

“Exactly!” said Ghorza. “Like I said, there is less magic here, and it is less potent, as well.”

Dantes frowned. “That bodes ill for us. We will have to use our minds and not our magic to the greatest extent possible.” That worried him, as Ghorza was too impulsive with her magic for his taste. Normally, her magic refilled more quickly than anyone else he knew; she would often throw spells without thinking, knowing that she would be able to cast them again in no time. The warning was spoken for her benefit, not because he had come up with some earth-shattering insight, but because he was hoping to restrain her profligacy.

Seeing that Ghorza wasn’t going to argue, Dantes added, “We’ll also have to use our feet. Let’s go take a look around. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

* * *

“Did anyone find anything?” Ghorza asked an hour later, after they had reunited.

“Beside lots of strange people doing strange things and talking in a strange language?” asked Milos. “No, I didn’t.”

“I found the merchant’s quarter,” said Ghorza. “There was a giant room, with all manner of people selling all sorts of things.”

“Was one of those things lunch?” asked Milos. “I’m really hungry.”

“No,” replied Ghorza. “None of those things was lunch.” She reached into her traveling bag. “I did, however, purchase you each one of the local tunics, what they call ‘t-shirts,’ so that you can blend in.”

“How did you pay for that?” asked Dantes, who knew
it would take more than one of the local tunics for him to blend in. A lot more. “Do they take our coins?”

“I used a
n Obscure spell,” Ghorza replied. “The merchants thought they were receiving their own coins, but they were ours.”

Dantes shook his head at her unnecessary use of magic. She would never learn. “Well, I found something,” he related, “as well as a lot of people who wanted to touch my horns.”

“You didn’t kill anyone, I hope?” inquired Ghorza, knowing how much he hated that. She had rubbed them once when they first met. She still had the scar to prove it.

“No, although
many of them deserved it,” he replied. His shoulders twitched in a small shrug. “Follow me; I will show you what I found.”

They walked into one of the larger rooms, pushing their way through the throng. The noise the crowd made in the enclosed area rivaled the clamor of the animal pens at a slaughterhouse. The people didn’t smell much better, either. The group worked its way across the room to a corner that held a large square of parchment-like material, with squiggles covering most of its surface.

“I think that this may be some sort of directory for what is going on here,” Dantes noted. “While I was walking around, I saw many people come by this board, point at something and then walk away quickly in a new direction. Although we don’t have much magic here, I think that casting a Read Languages spell on it might help us determine where to start our search.”

“I’m willing to try it,” agreed Ghorza, thinking ahead for once, “but I only have one of them memorized. I probably won’t be able to cast it again today.”

“I think it’s a risk we have to take,” replied Dantes.

“We need to do something,” agreed Milos. “He could be anywhere by now.”

Ghorza closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, she commanded, “
Videamus
,” and pointed her finger at the sheet.

Before their eyes, the letters took on a life of their own, the words disassembling and reassembling of their own volition. “
FanCon,” the document read, “A Convention Dedicated to Fantasy in All its Forms.”

Dantes scanned the document quickly, hoping to find something before the spell ended. “By the five gods of good!” he exclaimed. “It’s the Spectre!”

“What?” asked Ghorza, who had always been a slower reader. “Where?”

Dantes pointed to one of the events.

“Costuming 101,” Ghorza read. “How to appear as someone or something you’re not, using only the things in your closet.” She paused and then added, “Presented by ‘the Spectre’ in room 105. I think we’ve found our man.”

“Wonderful,” said Milos, as the words started going back to their previous language. “Do you know where this ‘room 105’ is, or when he is supposed to be giving this presentation?”

“Most of the people have been going down this hallway,” noted Dantes, his eyes and a nod indicating which one he meant. “We can copy down what the number looks like now and search the hallway for it. As to when he will be in there, we will just have to wait and hope we haven’t missed him.”

The group was in luck. After only a cursory search, they found a room that had the designated numbers on a plate over the doorway. An elf was at the front of the room, speaking in a language they didn’t understand.

“I don’t think that’s Elven she’s speaking,” said Ghorza.

“
It’s not,” Dantes replied. “She’s not an elf; she’s just dressed like one.”

“How do you know?” asked Ghorza.

“She doesn’t smell like one, for one thing,” Dantes explained. “Her ears aren’t pointy enough for another.”

“What does an elf smell like?” asked Ghorza as the door opened, and more people came in.

Dantes watched a young man walk by carrying a large bundle of clothing. “Tasty,” he replied distractedly.

Milos noticed the object of Dantes’ attention. “
It’s him!
” he whispered. “It’s the Spectre!”

The whisper was too loud, as the young man turned to peer at them through thick glasses, giving Dantes a chance to inspect him. The man was medium height and thin; he looked far too young and scrawny to be a warrior. In fact, he looked too scrawny to be much of anything except some sort of clerical transcriber in one of the new tax offices that had recently sprung up. Dantes shrugged. As he well knew, looks could be deceiving.

Not recognizing anyone in the group, the Spectre turned back and walked to the front row, where he took a seat and set down his bundle.