The Wizard's War (12 page)

“What did Zeb give you?” Drake asked.

I pulled the necklace out of my pocket. “There are
only four more weapons. We need to find the dagger, axe, bow, and wand.”

“You’ll let me help?”

“If your compulsion power works on people of other
worlds, you can be a huge help. Sen is a mage, which is like a wizard who can
do magic with stones, so if my power fails because I’m not with Hail, he can
get us out of trouble.”

“Shouldn’t we find Hail?” Drake asked.

“He’s safe right now, or Zeb would be with him.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we could find him because if I can’t flash to him.
I’m afraid we may be running out of time really soon. If we don’t find the
weapons before the darkness takes over or the demons attack, we might all die.
Are you both sure you want to get involved?”

“Absolutely,” Sen said.

“Of course,” Drake said. “You’re my friend and you
shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

“Ron!” A screaming four-year-old burst out of his
room and crashed into me with nearly enough force to knock me over. Unfortunately,
it seemed any child younger than me gravitated towards me… like a zombie
attack.

Kyle was an excitable miniature Drake. The child had
all the freedom his older brother lacked, since Drake was diagnosed with cancer
at a very young age. Although Stacy was cautious as hell when she was pregnant
with Kyle, or maybe because of it, Drake’s brother was a picture of health.

*          *          *

The darkness stirred beneath my skin, irritated.
Although it knew something was missing, the balance was not exactly sure what.
I knew it was my own balance that was upsetting the darkness, for without my
brother, I was nearly as destructive a force as my father.

The balance of the universe was not a presence that
could be reasoned with. Anything that acted against the natural order of the
universe was acting against the balance. Nominal energy is created by the
universe; it never acts against it, while Iadnah energy does.

I could feel the demons. To my astonishment, it was
with disdain; they were acting against the balance. Demons were creatures of
the void that were compelled to obey the force of the universe when they were
inside it, yet this war was absolutely damaging to the balance. They wanted to
dominate the universe, not rid it of the foes of the balance.

I could feel my dad as well. He wasn’t with Mordon
and it was already starting to affect the darkness. In order to stop him from
doing something disastrous, the balance wanted to kill him.

“He will die.”

There was no light, no warmth or chill, no wind… I
felt nothing, heard nothing, except for Mordon’s creepy whisper. The darkness
inside me settled, as if Mordon’s words were soothing… no… it wasn’t his words.

“Who will die?”

“Dylan.”

“How? I can stop it.”

“You are too late. You and your brother have chosen a
path that ends in his death, and then your mother prevented Dylan from saving
the only person who could have saved him.”

“Sydney… A dragoness is the only person who could
stop his death? My mother is the god of Earth. If she isn’t powerful enough, I
will be. I can save him.”

“You are not listening. Too late…”

*          *          *

I woke with my eyes already adapted to the dark. The
soft air mattress under me was nice, though Drake’s heavy breathing disturbed
the quiet peace of the night. I looked up at the bed, where he slept.

“Hail… please hear me.”
I called to my brother
for the hundredth time since he left and, predictably, received no response.
Seeing as how it was still very dark outside the window, I settled back down to
try getting more sleep. Truthfully, I was just hoping I would see Hail in my
dreams.

*          *          *

It was bright, causing me to cover my eyes with my
hands. Although I knew I needed to see where I was, the light stung my eyes. I
was sitting on something hard and rough so, keeping one hand over my eyes, I
searched out my surroundings with my other hand. It was a large, flat rock I
was sitting on with a patch of moss.

I leaned over and felt the grass, which was thick and
wild. When a woman screamed, I forced my eyes open… and found myself alone.
Shading my eyes from the bright sunlight, I saw that I was in a field of grass
and bright blue flowers. There were snow covered mountains at all but one side
of the large field. Built high into the sky was a castle unlike those of Duran.
This was a castle like the ones drawn in Earth fairytale books.

“Where am I?” I asked aloud.

“Does it matter?” a young voice asked playfully. An
instant later, she appeared.

“Hello, Alice.” Her white dress went down to her
knees, but there was dirt on the skirt of it, as if she spent a lot of time
kneeling in the soil. As always when I saw her in Hail’s visions, she was
barefoot.

“Hello, big brother. Why does it matter where you
are? You can flash here because you can see it.”

“You can’t just flash anywhere in the universe
without knowing where you’re going.”

Alice approached me and sat beside me on the rock.
She gathered her black hair over her shoulder and pulled her feet up. “You have
to save him.”

“Is this a dream or a vision?”

“You’re wearing the demon charm that helps you find
the god weapons. This is like a Guardian warning dream, where the power comes
from the charm instead of a book.”

“So it’s a vision. Why are you here?”

“Because I’m your sister and you love me. There’s a
very good probability that I’ll never be born, so I should be here now, while I
have the chance. This is a vision induced by the demon magic; I’m just in your
head.”

“You’re a hallucination?”

“Hail is missing, so you need me. You need to find
the god weapon. Flash here. You don’t have any time to waste.”

Heat spread over my chest, not painful. When I looked
down, my blue t-shirt was soaking with blood. “Why am I bleeding?”

*          *          *

A heated argument outside the room grew in volume
until I was forced to either get up and deal with it, or unleash a blast of
energy that would inevitably cause the entire building complex to collapse.
Since destroying Stacy’s home would have been rude, I decided to display mercy
and just beat her child instead.

Drake and Sen were having a screaming match in the
living room over something foolish, which I didn’t bother to interpret. Drake’s
parents and brother were nowhere to be seen. Instead of exacerbating things by
trying to yell over them, I went quietly and calmly into the kitchen, hunted
down a glass, and filled it with water in the sink. Just as calmly as I entered
the kitchen, I returned to the living room and tossed the water over them both.

Both boys froze with shock for a moment before
turning to me. “I’m going to take a shower, fix my hair, and get dressed. When
I return, you two better be civil and ready to go. If you are very good, I will
make breakfast.”

Thirty minutes later, Stacy, John, Drake, Kyle, Sen,
and I were sitting at the table in the kitchen. Breakfast was eggs, bacon, and
hash browns because I was too distracted for anything extravagant… which was
odd, since I normally found cooking to be soothing.

“How is your brother doing?” Stacy asked.

“He’s well,” I lied.

“But you want to take Drake with you?”

“I can handle it, Mom,” Drake said, scowling.

John sighed. “Will it be dangerous?”

“Very, but don’t worry. You know me; I always have a
plan. I will protect Drake.” It took another half an hour of convincing his
parents, and although Drake whined about them smothering him, he never once
tried to use his powers on them. Before we left, Stacy and John hugged and
kissed their child goodbye like he was going on a trip.

I focused my mind on the field with the castle and
mountains, took Sen and Drake’s hands, and let my magic take us there. Light
filled the room and I felt Earth’s force fall away. The energy that greeted me
when the light cleared was new; I had never been to this world before.

The gravity was very similar to Earth’s, as was the
air. Assuming I had not traveled in time, the only worlds it could be was Mulo,
Kahún, or Dayo. Since Mulo was a cold world, where the surface was nearly inhabitable,
and Kahún was mostly water, it was my best guess that this was Dayo… which
meant that the people here hated magic and magical creatures with an almost
fanatical passion.

“Hide your magic unless you absolutely have no
choice,” I told my friends. “We’re looking for a weapon. I have no idea which
one.”

“What about the charm that Zeb gave you?” Drake
asked.

I pulled the necklace out from the inside of my shirt
and clinched my fingers around it. “Okay, I’m here. Show me what I need to
know.” I really didn’t expect anything to happen, so when it immediately grew
warm, I figured I made a dangerous mistake.

“The son of Dylan Yatunus asking for help… What a
scandal.” Alice appeared in front of me. “If you can’t figure out how to do
this on your own, maybe you should ask your father for help.”

“I am not just the sum of my parents, and even my dad
needs information to solve his cases.” Drake and Sen both glanced around in
confusion since they couldn’t see who I was talking to.

“That’s not how Avoli sees it. He thinks you’re just
as powerful as Dad and irresponsible as Mom.”

“How do you know that?”

“Who are you talking to?” Sen asked.

“Because you know that. I’m just a hallucination,
remember?” she asked, ignoring the dragon mage.

“Yeah, but I want to know why it’s you. You’re here
to help me in Hail’s stead, but why am I seeing you and not him?”

“Who do you see?” Drake asked.

“Only you know the answer.”

“No, see, that’s the problem right there; Hail would
just answer me because he knows me. Either you are here instead of Hail because
you’re not just in my head, or because you are a clue I need to figure out. You
said you’re here because of the demon charm.”

“I am in your head, but I’m not a hallucination. I am
the Dragoa. The charm around your neck is using demon magic to communicate.
Your mind chose Alice to interpret the information. Right now, we can help each
other. You want to defeat the demons, while I want the balance to succeed.”

“But the demons obey the balance. How could you want
balance and to defeat the demons?”

“First of all, the demons obey the balance when
they’re outside the void. The demons who want to take over the universe are not
doing so for the sake of the balance. Instead, they follow a creature even more
powerful than the balance. The balance is what keeps the universe stable and
separate from the void. The gods are a threat to the balance, but not as much
as Dylan. Unfortunately, the demons do not want to stop at Dylan’s death.”

“Why is he a bigger threat than the gods?”

“You know why. You have all the answers; you just
refuse to see them. You never discount clues; you label, categorize, and
archive them. The weapons were hidden in an act of the balance because the god
war was extremely detrimental. In order to find the weapons, you must prove
that you can put the balance first.”

“How did Vretial get the sword?”

“Vretial completed one of the tests. He did it the
hard way, however, because he didn’t have me. You are correct in deducing that
this is Dayo. The item you seek is the dagger, which has a history most
gruesome. You will find the task ahead of you equally immoral, but you must do
it if you are to prove you are acting on behalf of the balance and are worthy
of the weapon.”

“Why is the dagger’s history gruesome?”

“The god who created it used it to kill his children.
Just inside the castle wall is a statue of a monster that once terrorized the
population of Dayo. The creature was created by the fae to stop the Blood
Cleansing, but it never spared the magical beings. Rilryn used the enchanted
dagger to stop the creature by turning it into a statue.”

“So it is an actual monster, not just a statue of
one?”

“Yes. The dagger is still in the back of the
creature, so to retrieve it, you need only to pull it out.”

“What happens when I pull it out?”

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“The statue turns back into the monster and kills off
the remaining population. However, the regeneration will be slow, giving you
plenty of time to escape with your friends.”

“I can’t subject these people to that just to get the
dagger.”

“Without the dagger, the demons will win the war.
This creature is impervious to magic, so what can you do against it?”

“I’ll come up with something,” I said. She vanished.

“What is happening?” Sen asked.

“I just had a conversation with the amulet. We need
to find the dagger that is in the back of a statue inside the castle gates.
When we pull the dagger out, the statue will come alive and start killing
people.”

“We can’t let it kill people,” Drake said.

“What’s the plan?” Sen asked.

“I don’t know yet. Let’s go take a look at what we’re
dealing with.” We headed for the castle. When we made it to the giant wooden
gates set in the stone walls, I raised my hand and focused my energy.

“Wait!” Drake demanded. “You can’t just break in like
that! They’ll think you mean to attack them.”

“We can’t just knock on the door!” Sen growled at
him. The dragon was normally such a sweet, if not annoying kid.

“Why not?” I asked. “Then if they tell us we can’t
come in, we’ll break in.” I looked around until I saw a large piece of log, but
right before I summoned it with nominal energy, I remembered that magic was
even more feared here than on Earth. “How do we knock on the door? Hail could
like, lift a log and beat the door or something.”