The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (12 page)

“
So you only kill for fun?”
Myrka asked.

“
I think you are confusing
me with a Hentan,” Hydan said. “I am Hydan Friare, Third; we try
not to kill at all, if possible.”

“
A Friare weakling,” she
sneered, as she took a step back so she could keep us both in view,
pointing her palm at Hydan and the blue power coated knife toward
me, and then she said, “and yet another Third!”

I decided to ask Hydan about that
later, but I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know what was going
on, so I held my question.

I spoke to Hydan, “Why is she so
trigger happy?”

He shrugged, “She’s a Tarvos; they
kill first and ask your corpse questions later if there is anything
left to ask.”

Myrka scowled at him for that answer,
so Hydan turned back to her and said, “Yes, I’m a Third, I can’t
help it.”

Myrka frowned at him but lowered her
knife hand. Then she demanded, “Why do you believe The Dragon was
after this Sivaeral Third?”

She meant me.

Hydan shrugged, “I’m not sure he was;
ask the gehdrin or their Dark Lord.”

Now she turned her hard gaze on me,
“And is this the first time gehdrin have pursued you?”

I opened my mouth and then snapped it
shut, not wanting to play all my cards, but Hydan laughed, “Wow,
you need to work on your gambler’s face. Now you’ll have to tell
her at least some of it.”

“
Tell me all of it,” she
demanded, swiveling her warding hand to kind of cover me like it
was a machine gun.

But his statement had been a warning
to me, to withhold some of the details. I thought for a moment, and
then said, “I will tell you if you stop threatening us.”

She stared into my eyes for a moment,
and then lowered her hand. The blue glow around the blade vanished,
and she sheathed the knife at her belt.

I nodded, and then said, “There isn’t
much to tell. I met Hydan at Stonehenge just as he arrived. We
heard werewolves, but if they were after us, they lost our trail.
We went into Amesbury and had a drink at a pub, where we met Fiona
Albus, a Second. That’s when a passel of these necrosoul things
burst in, hell bent on destruction. The Second battled with the
creatures and told us the necromancer controlling them was getting
near. We fled, but the necrosouls, or their master, tracked us to
another location. It was at this point that we portaled to this
place; we had decided to move worlds. Now, if there really is a
person called The Dragon, who is some kind of Sauron character, and
he truly is after me, I don’t have the faintest idea
why!”

There, I’d used a few words I hadn’t
heard until today to make it sound like I knew what I was talking
about.

Myrka pondered for a moment, and I
caught Hydan giving me a little wink.

Then Myrka said, “Is this Fiona Albus
working with the Dark One?”

Hydan snorted, “I doubt that! His
necrosouls attempted to kill her, and us.”

So at this point I said to the Tarvos
girl, “All right, now it’s your turn, are you seriously tracking
this Dark One? What is his real name anyway, this 'Dark One' this
'The Dragon' crap is cumbersome.”

She straightened her shoulders, and
said, “I told you, I will track down the Dark One. The Tarvos never
call him by his given name, lest he feels us coming, and I suggest
you do this as well. However, I will succeed in tracking down The
Dragon where others have failed! I have been close on his trail
several times in the past year, and now he has come to Earth! If
The Dark One came here to hunt you, I know where I need to
be.”

“
What are you talking
about?” I demanded.

Hydan laughed, “You have a girlfriend,
Nick. Myrka is going to stick to you like glue, at least until The
Dragon shows his horns.”

Myrka scowled at Hydan but turned to
face me. “Do not listen to the Friare, I am not your girl or your
friend!” she exclaimed indignantly.

I nodded, “That’s right, Tarvos, nor
do I need some trigger happy killer tagging along who doesn’t give
a rat’s ass about me, and just wants to find the boogie man, for
heaven’s sake!”

Myrka reminded me, “He is not this
'boogie man' you speak of, he is The Dragon, the onetime Archimage
of Sheol, though his title has been stripped from him by the Ring
of Ten. I will find him and stop his evil.”

“
That’s all I need, some
Christian do-gooder tagging along.”

Hydan snickered, “That may be the
first time a Tarvos has ever been called either a Christian or a
do-gooder!”

At my refusal to let her come with me,
Myrka looked concerned and then said, “I must accompany
you!”

“
No,” I said, crossing my
arms angrily.

She was hesitant, as if afraid to show
weakness, but then she said, “I will be sacrificed if I do not
complete my task.”

“Which is not our problem, Honey” I
answered, purposely using this sarcastic endearment which she’d
forbade me to call her earlier.

She looked at my defiant posture, and
then said, “If you let me join your group, I swear by my Archimage
I will follow your orders.”

Hydan raised an eyebrow, “Wow, if she
swears by her Archimage it’s an oath she cannot break, Nick. I
don’t think I’ve ever heard a Tarvos swear such an oath to the
member of another House.”

Myrka turned her dark gaze on Hydan,
“I am very serious about completing my task, and if The Dragon is
pursuing this Third, I must be there when the Dark One reveals
himself.”

“
I understand what you
want, Sweety,” I replied.

“
I am not sweet, so please
do not attempt to consume me,” Myrka replied, deadly
serious.

Hydan laughed, “You may not be sweet,
but you are definitely and deliciously a Tarvos.”

Myrka gave him such a dark look I
thought she was going to erupt into violence again.

I turned to him and said, “Do you
really think I should let her join us?”

He lifted both hands, palms up, and
said, “Oh, why not? She is going to follow you if you don’t, and
she is going to be so much fun!”

“
She doesn’t seem fun at
all, she’s very serious.”

He grinned, “My point
exactly.”

Then Myrka said, “One more thing; if I
join you, may I have your permission to kill this useless one?” And
she cocked a thumb toward Hydan.

Hydan looked stunned for a brief
moment, and then he burst into outright guffaws. He was pounding
his hand into his thigh and laughing so hard he was nearly out of
breath. Tears were even streaming down his cheeks.

I turned to him and said, “This is no
laughing matter, I’m pretty sure that was a serious request to kill
you.”

“
Oh, she was ‘deadly’
serious,” he said and started almost giggling.

“
You are a very strange
person,” I said to Hydan, who half bowed to me while wiping tears
of laughter from his face using the back of his sleeve.

I looked at Myrka, who was sneering at
Hydan and patiently waiting for my response. When he had calmed,
she repeated her question, “So, may I kill this pathetic Friare
Third? You can see how annoying he will be.”

I replied jokingly, “Yeah, he is
annoying, but for now I need him.”

She shrugged, and then nodded, “I will
eagerly await your permission in the future.”

That made Hydan snicker
again.

I gave her one more penetrating look,
and then said, “Fine, I’ll let you tag along if you swear an oath
which will keep you in line.”

“
I hereby swear to support
your decisions, protect you from danger, and fight at your side
against all foes, excepting members of my House, until such time as
I tell you that I am departing from your group to pursue my own
quest, and get your permission to leave. I swear this oath by my
Archimage, Arawn Tarvos.”

I looked at Hydan, who nodded, “That’s
about the best you are going to get out of her.”

“
All right,” I
answered.

“
Now, shall we proceed to
this Stonehenge so I can track these gehdrin to the Dark One’s
lair?” Myrka stated, as if in charge, and headed for the door
out.

“
No, we shall not,” I
replied, freezing her in her tracks. “We are headed for Abal, to
find my parents.”

“
But…” she
began.

“
Did you not just swear to
support my decisions?” I interrupted.

She shut her mouth.

“
Good,” I replied, “Hydan,
are you ready?”

“
Lay on, Ronald McDonald,
and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! enough!’”

“
MacDuff, not McDonald,” I
corrected, and then said to Myrka, “Since this is a Tarvos portal,
why don’t you lead the way through to Abal?”

I wanted her to lead because I didn’t
have the faintest idea of what to do next, and unless Hydan was
doing his illusion thing, I didn’t want to have to ask him in her
presence.

I watched as she stepped into the
portal, glanced at the glyph markings in the doorjamb, and then
touched the seated figure with her hand. She just winked out,
leaving a brief afterimage of a black space which was the shape of
her body, but that soon faded.

Then I said to Hydan, “How the hell do
I use this thing? I didn’t want to ask with Myrka here.”

“
I see. Well, in the future
if you want a private chat with me, just use the word ‘geese’ and
I’ll try to arrange for a private talk with you. As for the portal,
just look at this glyph,” he said, pointing to one of the markings
in the doorjamb, “And touch the figure of Arawn.”

So I did that, and gritted my teeth,
ready for anything, but nothing happened.

Hydan laughed, and then said, “You
have to concentrate so you can power the glyph!”

“
Concentrate, on
what?”

“
On transporting to
Abal!”

I felt ridiculous, and a little like
Dorothy chanting, ‘There is no place like home.’ But I thought
about going to Abal, thought hard, and touched the
glyph.

Chapter Five

At last the sun is
shining,

The clouds of blue roll
by

With flames from the
dragon of darkness,

the sunlight blinds his
eyes.

Led Zeppelin

Arriving in Abal was not like arriving
from Five Point travel; there was no spinning or blurred vision,
nor any disorientation, it was more like fading out, and fading in
on a new scene after some unknown time had passed. My vision went
dark, almost like I was passing out, but I was still conscious. I
could hear whispers in the dark, but couldn’t make out what they
were saying. When my vision finally faded in again I found myself
looking at a vast underground cavern, though I was standing on top
of a pyramid shaped structure, with a square flat top. In the
center was a single stone arch, with glyph markings and another
relief carving of Arawn, the Archimage of House Tarvos. From one
side of the square area, there was a bridge which crossed to a cave
mouth on the far side. High above I could dimly see the top of the
cavern.

“
Abal, I presume?” I said,
turning to Myrka on my right, and then I did a double take. It
wasn’t Myrka, but yet, it was. What I mean is, the girl standing to
my right looked a little like Myrka, and was wearing her previous
clothes, but she wasn’t human. Her body was slightly shorter,
slimmer, still bipedal, sure, with two arms, two legs, a torso and
a head, but here many similarities stopped. First of all, her skin
was shiny. I had to look closer and discovered she was covered in
small, overlapping, almost translucent scales, over blue skin.
Looking at her forearm, I noticed a ridge, which looked just like
the dorsal fin of a fish when it was laid down flat. There were
more fin-like places, like against the side of her hairless head,
sweeping back from the temple. Her eyes were very large black orbs,
with blue and white irises and vertical slit pupils. Her nose was
almost nonexistent, and the mouth small, though the hard looking
lips were large. Even with all these changes, there was something
about her which was still Myrka.

I was about to say something stupid
when I looked down and noticed my body had also changed to the same
species, though my scales and color were somewhat lighter. I was
dumbfounded, my mouth, appropriately, started to work like a fish
out of water, though I could actually breathe just fine.

Myrka was looking away from me, toward
the cave across the bridge, so she didn’t notice my stunned look.
She replied to my first question, “Yes, this is Abal, though I have
never been here, but this must be your world or the portal would
not have brought us here.”

Hydan had just arrived, though he had
also transformed into one of these bodies. He must have heard
Myrka’s last statement, and seen my stunned expression, because he
said, “Well, luckily I have been to Abal recently and so I am quite
used to their saeran bodies. I always find it refreshing to try out
another species form as I arrive on a new World! Nick, of course,
is House Sivaeral, so he’s used to this kind of body.”