The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (9 page)

Four more necrosouls started coming
through the door from outside.

“
You want to stick around
and meet The Dragon?” he demanded, but didn’t wait for an answer;
Hydan gave me a hefty shove in the upper arm and shoulder, causing
me to lose my balance and step right into the burning
circle.

Just as I stepped in I saw two of the
necrosoul human undead jump at Hydan, coming over the table in a
dive, with outstretched claws.

But that is the last thing I saw of
the Rose and Crown because I felt my body spin around like I was
caught in a very narrow tornado funnel. Everything went into a blur
of spinning motion as I rapidly spun around. The blurred cylinder
around me suddenly got darker looking, and my rotation started to
slow. I arrived on a stone surface and took a staggering step, then
I fell down onto the grass. I then looked around. I was certainly
not in the Rose and Crown kitchen anymore, but a moment later I
recognized the place, I was back near the center of Stonehenge, and
it was the dark of night. I got up and moved over toward one of the
Trilithons.

Hydan appeared a moment later,
standing right on top of the same fallen stone. He took a
staggering step as well as he halted his spin, yet somehow managed
to keep from falling off the stone or from spilling the mug of beer
in his right hand.

“
You brought a mug of
beer?” I asked him incredulously.

“
Hey, it was right on the
counter, ready to be served, so I didn’t want to waste it!” he
explained.

I shook my head as he took a big swig.
Then I asked, “Those really were living dead?”

“
Well, close enough. They
were trapped souls, shoehorned into some dead body by a
necromancer, and converted to undead chickens by me.”

“
A necromancer?” I
exclaimed, once again getting angry at the whole ridiculous
affair.

“
Well, yes, at least one,
and from what Fiona said, The Dragon,” he said with a shake of his
head, as if not even believing his own words.

His mention of Fiona suddenly had me
worried about her, “What about…”

“
The Albus Second? I’m not
too worried about her, that girl has some pizzazz! She can take
care of herself, and certainly better than a couple Thirds, even if
you were working with a brain that had all its coins in your
purse.”

“
But you said this ‘Dragon’
is an Archimage, doesn’t that mean he is more powerful?”

“
Yes, but a Second is not
much less powerful than a First, what we call an Archimage. The
difference in power between mages of close Tiers is not that great,
often the intelligence and experience are the main difference.
Though I doubt she could defeat The Dragon, she probably had enough
to get free once she didn’t need to stay and protect
us.”

“
Should we wait for her
here?”

Hydan shrugged, “Probably not, she has
no idea where we went. She would have to track our names, and I
don’t really want to go bandying them about right now to let her
get an easy fix; that Archimage might track us as well. I am
assuming he was after you.”

“
Me… why?”

He shrugged, “You seem to be a hot
commodity; did you piss off some mage?”

“
Well, I may have insulted
that Stewart dude.”

His smile crept up onto his face, “You
insulted Stewart Hentan, to his face?”

“
More than once,
really.”

Hydan laughed. “Good! I never liked
him anyway, but insulting a senior Hentan Second would do the
trick, but he wasn’t behind these necrosouls or those werewolves.
So, what did you do to attract the attention of the evillest being
this side of the Big Bang? Why on Earth, or any world, is The
Dragon after you?”

“
I haven’t got a clue,” I
said honestly. “Maybe it has to do with the secret I learned from
The Dragon, the one Fiona thinks I swiped.”

He just looked at me, and I had no
idea what he was thinking.

I looked around at the large stones
arrayed in a rough circle, “Why did we come back to Stonehenge, and
how did you get us here?”

“
A mage of sufficient power
may Five Point travel to any place they can easily picture in their
mind. Of course, it has to have stone to arrive on, and you must
have the time and available power to make a Star on stone to begin
with. I picked this place because I remembered it, and I haven’t
seen many other places on Earth yet. The only other places I had
been to recently would have taken us back into the pub main room,
and that didn’t seem like much of an escape; Stonehenge just came
to mind, so I went with it.”

“
So, where should I go
now?”

“
I hear Paris is a hoot,”
he exclaimed.

“
You are coming with me?” I
asked, “Even after you know this Dragon person is after
me?”

He grinned, “Well sure, that makes it
all the more entertaining! Besides, I want to see that big metal
coat hanger thing.”

“
The Eiffel
Tower?”

He nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah,
that’s the place. Some Fourth did himself proud there! What a
complete waste of magic and time; I definitely approve!”

“
Gustave Eiffel was a
wizard?”

“
Gustave Eiffel Sivaeral,
one of your House. We often drop the House name and use one of our
middle names as a last name while on Earth. What is the saying
here, when you roam…”

“
No, it’s when ‘in Rome’,”
I said absently.

Hydan shrugged.

I shook my head, “I meant, where
should we go to find Fiona again?”

“
Oh, no idea,” he said, but
then added, “If you want I can try to track her name, if she, or
someone near her, says it in the near future I could get a fix.
Wait, she is a Second, so that might make it hard,” he added, in
almost an afterthought.

Then I said, “Maybe we can just go to
Camington Castle, that’s supposed to be her home.”

“
OK, but it’s probably
glamoured.”

“
Glamoured?”

“
Hidden, so you can’t find
it unless you’ve been there.”

I thought back and found I could
recall what Pox had said, even though I’d ignored it at the time.
So I said, “Pox told me to follow my feelings.”

Hydan’s face brightened, “That means
you were there before! OK, which way?”

I shrugged, “I have no
idea.”

“
Trust your feelings, just
go toward where you THINK you should go,” he replied.

I thought about that, and then headed
down the road away from Amesbury, but I stopped a moment later.
“This is ridiculous, I’m just guessing.”

“
That’s good enough for me,
come on, and keep guessing at every turn.”

I set out, grumbling about stupid
ideas and odd folk with blind faith as we walked down the road.
Hydan was busy finishing his beer, as cheerful as a school boy in
the girl’s locker room.

A few miles later, I decided to turn
up a simple country road. Hydan didn’t say a word, he just followed
me.

We came out of some trees, and could
see for some distance. The sun was just starting to come up in the
east. I came to an abrupt stop.

“
Why are you stopping?”
Hydan wanted to know. “Let’s keep moving; I’m out of
beer!”

I gestured ahead of us, angry for even
listening to this whole ‘trust your feelings, Luke’ nonsense.
“Listen, Jedi Plastered, I’m stopping because we can see for miles
ahead of us, and there is no castle in sight! I’ve led us on a wild
goose chase!”

“
What are gooses?” he
inquired.

“
In a group they are called
Geese; they are a big kind of bird.”

“
Like a chicken?” he asked
brightly.

“
Sort of, but
bigger.”

“
How grand!”

I scowled at his exuberance. “I’d give
you a grand if you could get us to that castle.”

“
Well, if you could
remember the look of the place, we could Five Point travel
there!”

“
I don’t remember anything
about it,” I answered.

He shrugged, and said, “Then we should
keep walking.”

“
For untold miles?” I said
in exasperation.

“
For as far as it takes to
find it,” he answered, without a worry.

I snarled something ugly, which he
ignored, and then started forward, only to run into a gate that
wasn’t there. Well, it hadn’t been there a moment before. Now a
tall wrought iron double gate, with a curved top, adorned with
golden spikes, was barring our way. Not only that, but there was a
big stone wall going off to the left and right. Ahead, over a
manicured lawn and garden, was a towering castle which CERTAINLY
had not been there a moment before. Truthfully, it was more of a
manor house, or palace, than an old style fortified
castle.

“
Ah, Camington Castle,”
Hydan said as if nothing odd had just taken place.

“
How do you know?” I asked
belligerently while rubbing at my bruised nose.

He pointed at an engraved sign on the
gate, “Because that’s what it says, right there.”

I started muttering about invisible
god damned castle gates.

Hydan reached up and pulled a chain
which went to a series of hanging bells above, mounted in the
wrought iron. A musical tone played.

Then the iron gates swung open on
their own accord, and with a grin, Hydan marched on in, exclaiming,
“I wonder if she has some of that brandy I read about, and
geese?”

A man, dressed in finery from another
age, was waiting at the main entrance, at the top of the curved
stairs which led up to the double doors.

“
Nicholas, it is so good to
see you again. The lady of the House is out, but she has extended a
permanent welcome to you, and any companions. I am Bartholomew,
Fifth,” he said, and I noticed the same Spider Glyph on his cheek,
like the one on Fiona.

“
And I am Hydan, Third,” my
companion noted.

“
Welcome, Hydan of House
Friare,” Bartholomew stated.

I frowned at the man, “And we have
met?”

“
Many times, but I am
familiar with your current memory, ah, issues.”

I scowled at that.

Hydan said, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen
to have a concoction called brandy, would you?”

Bartholomew gestured toward the doors,
“It would be my pleasure to serve you a snifter, in the sitting
room, as soon as you have freshened up from your
travels.”

Hydan’s grin blossomed, “OK, but
what’s a snifter? It’s not some kind of odd creature with a big
nose, is it? Or is it like a goose?”

“
It is a type of stemware,
which will hold brandy,” Bartholomew replied.

“
Now we’re talking!” Hydan
exclaimed; his smile now ear-to-ear.

Chapter Four

I got a black magic
woman

Got me so blind I can't
see

That she's a black magic
woman

She's tryin' to make a
devil out of me.

-Santana

In my room, which was half antique
store half palace, there was a very nice bathroom, with a stately
shower, so I made use of it. When I came out of the bathroom I saw
the large four poster mahogany bed, and it looked very inviting, so
I lay down. I was very tired, and in seconds I was asleep. Some
indeterminate time later, I must have been dreaming, but I suddenly
awoke with a start. I’d been in some other palace, this one made of
marble, and I’d been looking out a window over a forested
countryside. I’d heard my voice saying, “All right, if those are
your orders, then I will see if I can find out what you want to
know. I’ll bring the information to you as soon as I have
it.”

Then I had awoken.

That was interesting, I don’t know who
I was talking to, but they had given me orders. Who could give a
mage orders? Well, most likely their Archimage, but which
Archimage? The obvious answer was the Archimage of my House. Could
this be why I’d stolen information from The Dragon?”

I found clothing in a big mahogany
closet after opening the doors. There was a set of dark slacks and
a silver button up collar shirt, as well as a black leather jacket
and black shoes with socks. I put them all on, and they fit
perfectly, even the shoes. I wasn’t happy about it. People knew
more about me than I knew about myself, which pissed me off to no
end. Dressed in my new casual clothing I went downstairs and
located the sitting room by the sound of conversation.

Hydan was in there, swirling a dark
liquid around in a short, rounded, clear glass, the brandy snifter
he had been promised.

He smelled the aroma of the booze, and
then took a sip.

He smiled and then downed the entire
glass in a single gulp.

“
I’ll have to remember that
one!” he exclaimed brightly.