Authors: Rain Oxford
The small creature huddled against the wall was about
the creepiest thing I had ever seen. It had the shape of something between a
mammal and reptile, and its skin was splotchy, sandy brown with a small ridge
down its back. It had a short, stubby tail and a snout even shorter and
stubbier. Instead of teeth, it had a flat beak, but from either side of the
beak was a small, fang-like husk. Its head was fairly large compared to its
body.
“Hello, there, little guy,” I said gently, squatting
down to see it better. “You’re such a long way from home, aren’t you?”
It backed away with fear, then charged with a bark
and thrust of its head. I didn’t retreat, so the creature recoiled to cower. It
was shaking like a small dog, but was preparing to charge again.
“Is that a creature of Earth?” Mordon asked.
Nila and Mordon shared an expression of shock/horror.
Vivian, on the other hand, relaxed when I proved to not be afraid of it. I looked
at Mordon and tried to keep my expression reassuring.
“Yeah, you could say that. He is from Earth, but it’s
even worse than that. This is a Diictodon, a reptilian creature from the
Permian period. The Permian period is the last period of the Paleozoic Era,
when the world only had Pangaea. It has been dead for over two hundred fifty
million years.”
“Is it normal to know so much about extinct beasts?”
he whispered to Vivian.
She shook her head. “That’s just Dylan. He would go
to class half dead with injury or sickness, but if there was a prehistoric
nature special or something on ancient scripture, there was nothing that could
get him away from the TV. He could tell you if it’s male or female without
looking up its skirt.”
“Skirt? I think I’m confused.”
“He’s male, thanks for asking,” I said. They all
stared at me. “Diictodons mate for life and live in pairs. Males are bigger
than females,” I explained. When they continued to stare at me, I pointed
behind them. “That one over there is smaller, so this must be the male.” They
all looked to see another of the reptiles cowering in a corner. “Why are they
not digging? Diictodon live in spiraling burrows.”
“Maybe they just arrive today,” Nila suggested, “or
maybe they cannot dig in Dios soil.”
I nodded. “That’s possible. They look healthy,
though, so they could make it.” Of course, I was by no means an expert
veterinarian of ancient, extinct animals.
“Are they dangerous? If I let them live, they kill my
people?” Nila asked.
“No, absolutely not. They’re herbivores, and very
resilient. I think you would be fine to leave them be. If they’re the only pair
that made it here, they will probably have babies and then they will die out
without any others to breed with. They will make a few borrows and might be a
bit pesky, but they wouldn’t hurt anyone. At least this pair and their babies
can live out a comfortable life without having to hide from…” I trailed off as
I remembered what else lived in their time.
“Dylan? What is it?” Mordon asked.
I stood up. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”
“You said he was an herbivore,” Mordon said.
I looked at him and tried to school my expression,
not for his sake but for Vivian’s. I wanted to keep her from worrying, but I
didn’t want her unprepared. “The Diictodon is. However, if he’s here, what else
could have found itself here? I always thought the Gorgonopsid was fascinating,
but I don’t want to meet one.”
“Just because these two little guys are here, that
doesn’t mean anything else from their time got here,” Mordon said.
I nodded. “You’re right. But how did they get here?
How can a little ripple cause these two animals to be on another world, nearly
three hundred million years after their extinction? Why them and what else?”
After walking for a few hours, Vivian had to find a
rest spot. Nila left Mordan and me in a library with a guard watch over us
while he took her back to the throne room. The guard just stood at the door and
glared at us. At least I think he glared; it is hard to tell a goblin’s
expression. We looked over maps, but neither of us could read the Dios
language, Dego, so the books were useless.
“Can you use your book to translate?”
“I have never tried it for reading. Plus, I was only
successful at it that one time and it gave me a massive headache. Is there
something you need to know about Dios? Nila told me a lot about it before.”
Mordon sat Sammy down on the fur rug, but the child
immediately started crawling away. Mordon ran after him and pulled him back.
After a few minutes, he gave up; it wasn’t like Sammy could get out of the
room. Mordon and I sat at the table.
“Well, I’m not much interested in the history, but we
did not get to do much on Earth. What I saw was exciting… after the rain
stopped. Here, we have seen a forest and a kingdom. I want to see more.”
“I told you this kingdom wasn’t like your father’s,”
I said.
“No. It’s darker and older. My father’s is very
extravagant and rich. I hate my father’s castle, but this place is kind of
peaceful.”
“While we’re on the subject, we will hopefully
survive this. So if you left your father for good, what are you going to do
now?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll settle down
somewhere. Or maybe I’ll travel and take jobs as I need. I want to become a
wizard, maybe work at a school. Maybe I can teach magic.”
“What about your last name? Your apprenticeship? Is
your father going to hunt you down?”
“Well, since I am his only son, he probably will.
Besides, he would never have given me my name until I took his position, which
I never planned to do. I can break my apprenticeship with him and find another
wizard to take me as his apprentice. Then I can file for an adoption name. I am
really not sure what I will do about my father. He can’t really make me go
back… I don’t think he can.” He looked less sure of himself. “I can’t go back.”
“If he tries, you can scare him off. Just speak
English and roast him with your slightly warm fire. Don’t most sago call the
Guardians ‘demons’?”
“Mama.” Sammy was standing beside Mordon, pulling at
his shirt.
“Just a minute,” he answered. “If I go back to my
father, he will marry me to some girl just for the power. I want my own life.”
“Mama!” Sammy demanded.
Mordon’s eyes went wide and he looked at Sammy. “Did
you just talk? Your mother said you can’t talk. Was that your first word?” He
picked Sammy up and held him.
I couldn’t keep the laughter in anymore. I probably
should have tried to stay in my chair, but I couldn’t breathe over my laughing.
“What is your problem?” Mordon asked.
“He called you mama!”
“So? I guess that he can’t pronounce Mordon.”
“Mama is what babies call their mother!”
Mordon was speechless, possibly mortified. Sammy was
innocently knocking stuff over on the table. The next thing I knew, he picked
up a small quill jar and threw it at me. It hit me square on the head and it
hurt.
“No! Sammy, that was bad!” Mordon scolded.
Sammy looked up at him with a confused expression.
“It’s alright,” I said as I sat back in my seat.
“No, it’s not. Sammy needs to learn not to hurt
people. Sammy, that was bad. You hurt Dylan.”
“Mordon, he’s been throwing everything in his hands
at me since we met. This time he didn’t miss. We need to be consistent with
him. If you laugh every time he throws something at me, then you scold him when
he hits me, you’re just going to confuse him.”
“Mama,” he cried again.
We both looked at him and he pointed at his diaper.
Mordon looked like Sammy just slaughtered a puppy. He tried to hand him to me,
but I backed away. “You suggested I didn’t touch him.”
“I was wrong.”
“No, I think you were right. I’ll walk you through
it.” I dug through the baby bag and pulled out a diaper and wipes. “Lay him on
the table.”
He did, and Sammy watched us expectantly. Luckily we
found a trashcan and a pitcher of drinking water for Mordon to wash his hands
with.
“I hope he doesn’t do that often, because I’m not
doing that again.”
Mordon sat Sammy on the ground. The baby immediately
stood up and walked off. “I wonder if there’s a leash in the bag,” I said.
This time, there was a warning; we could hear the
ground groan. Mordon ran and picked up Sammy while I tried to get the baby bag
off my shoulder, but the strap got tangled in my book bag. The goblin guard
seemed prepared.
The ground started shaking when I felt a presence
trying to press in on me. It was like an aura of hate and hunger and heat
trying to push itself into me. My magic didn’t like that; the energy inside
heated up and formed a barrier against the intruding entity. It was effective
and the presence wasn’t able to get in. Finally, it gave up.
The guard wasn’t so lucky. Mordon brought Sammy over
to me just as the guard, now possessed by the demon, created what looked like
blue fire. The ground stopped shaking. I looked over at Mordon to see his
fingertips were slowly changing into claws and his eyes turned black. I covered
Sammy, still in Mordon’s arms.
Why didn’t the demon just possess Sammy when he
had a chance? We have to get away. We have to get out of here.
We both held Sammy between us and waited for the
demon’s attack. Time passed… Nothing happened. “Dylan,” Mordon whispered.
“Dylan, you need to look.”
I sat on a bench by the water and pondered the situation for as long as
I could. I had no idea who here knew where the Stone of Iodus was, and I could
find nothing in the books. The world was too large to search and without my
magic, I couldn’t track it down. It was a rare occurrence that I couldn’t think
my way out of a situation. Many times I have dealt with people that knew
nothing of other worlds, but never had I dealt with a population that despised
magic.
I reached into my bag to feel my deck of cards.
There was no indication it had rained at all that
day, despite the storm I saw for myself that begun the night before. The sun
was setting, but the people milling about didn’t head in out of the awakening
dark. There was a loud cracking sound and I turned to see Cylo standing behind
me, soaking wet with a confused and frightened expression.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
His legs gave out and he fell in the sand. “That
statue in the library attacked you when you looked away. You disappeared. I
tried to find you, but the rain… The storm got so bad and then the water got
inside… there was something in the water.” His voice was shaky with shock and
fear.
“What do you mean, something in the water?” I took
his arm and guided him to sit on the bench. He was shaking, but I didn’t think
it was from the cold water. In more than two thousand years of living, I
learned that there was more in this universe than I would ever know.
He pulled up his pant leg, showing me an awful bite
on his calf. It looked like a canine bite except for two particular punctures
which looked like a snake bite. It had already stopped bleeding, but the bite
was deep enough that it shouldn’t have.
“Something was in the water. It broke open the door
and dragged me out of the library but all I could see was rushing water. I
heard a sound… it was like thunder but there was no lightning. It sounded like
it was coming from the flood and not the sky. I got my foot free and stood up…
and I was here.”
“Okay. Help me find your friend so we can leave this
place.”
We went back to the residential area, Cylo with an
obvious limp. When we arrived at a particular door, he knocked, and the door
opened to a petite young girl about Dylan’s age with large sapphire-blue eyes.
She only came up to my chest and looked like I could crush her with a firm
grip. Her thick, peach-colored hair flowed freely past her waist. Her white
attire was a sort of dress that covered her front and back but was held
together by thin golden belts and it did not hide her sides. Her eyes went from
me, to Cylo, and then back to me.
“Hello, Mio,” Cylo said in Lilat.
She frowned at him. “What brings you here, Cylo?” she
asked, her voice as delicate as she looked. “With a friend?” she added, looking
back at me.
There was no attraction in her gaze, only curiosity.
“We’re looking for the Stone of Iodus,” he said. She
turned and went into her room. Cylo followed quickly and I entered cautiously.
Her room was sparsely decorated with a bed and a
desk. The walls were white and floors were wooden. It really did not suit the
girl who looked like she needed jewels and fine oils to keep her happy. She
quickly drew up a map worthy of a cartographer, stopping only to get Cylo a
towel to dry off with.
When she handed the finished map to Cylo, she had a
hesitant look in her eyes. “I need payment for this,” she said.
To my surprise, he tilted his head to expose his
neck. She pulled him close, leaned up, and sank two glittering fangs into his
neck, then proceeded to drink the flowing blood. Anyone who walked in at that
moment would think it was an intimate affair, except that when she opened her
eyes, they had turned from beautiful dark blue to light and silvery as
moonstones.
All the beautiful girls are taken or monsters.
Before she took too much blood, Mio removed her
mouth, licked the wound closed, and let him go. “You need to leave before the
time field collapses. Stay away from the water.”
“What time field?” I asked.
“They cannot support all of us. You two should not
have come; now we all may die.”
“Why?” Cylo asked.
“Just go,” she said.
Mindful of her warning, I hurried Cylo out into the
hall. We went back to the docks without delay because I wanted to be away just
as much as Mio wanted us gone. At the docks, we met an old man with a friendly
smile. However, when asked to rent out a boat, he frowned.
“I cannot let you boys take out a boat right now with
the storm.”
I looked out over the night waters. The huge moon
illuminated the still water and millions of stars lit the sky. “What storm?” I
asked.
“It is there, can you not hear it?”
I listened but heard nothing other than gentle waves.
“No. We must go, though. Thank you for the warning, but I will leave this
island tonight with or without cooperation.” I didn’t like the fear Mio had
shown towards us. For whatever reason, she felt us being there was a danger to
them and it had something to do with this mysterious storm.
It would have been much faster and easier with my
magic, but Cylo finally convinced the man to sell us a boat with my Duran
money. Sadly, it cost us a lot of time as well. Getting the boat into water was
easy, but we had to turn around three times until Cylo could figure out the
map. After a short, heated argument, we were on the right path. I hoped we
would get to the private island midday the next day. Cylo took the opportunity
to sleep, probably worn out from being snacked on by both a water monster and a
beautiful girl.
* * *
Laying five of my cards out across the wood felt like
dripping water on a wet canvas. The magic in the cards was still there, but
fading every minute. I folded them out in formation and started turning them
face-up. When I tapped the card on the upper right, I felt Dylan’s energy. I
hesitated before moving onto the others, leaving his unturned. The card on the
top was always the hardest to read; the soul. Half the time it was just a
playing face, but this time, it came through for me. It displayed what looked
like the eye of a reptile… but I couldn’t remember ever knowing a reptile with
ice-blue eyes.
The card on the upper left was just clouds. So the
past was changing, we all knew that already. The card below that was
interesting; it displayed an empty cradle. That could have meant many things,
so I hovered my hand over it and closed my eyes. With my own self empty of
energy, I felt the ghost of magic from the card seeping into my skin. Behind my
lids I saw a dark room. I was not in this room and couldn’t feel if it were
warm or cool or even the gravity. There was no indication of what world this
was or if it was in the past, present or future, but there was a child here.
Though it was just a little too dark to see, I knew the cradle was there in
front of me. There was something else in the room.
I opened my eyes and took my hand away from the card.
The card on the lower right was something new as well. It was the image of a
storm over water. Obviously that would be helpful to understand when on a small
ship in the middle of the ocean, and the card in the lower left was always the
special card. Using these cards, I could see many things. When playing someone,
I could see their soul. This was never my real purpose for using these cards;
it was to see what was coming. Interpretation was sometimes easy, sometimes
difficult. I touched the card and felt the wetness. I thought it was the water
from the storm, but it was too warm. When I brought my fingers away, they were
wet with blood.
Something was coming tonight and someone, or
something, would die. Overall, it was a very unhelpful draw, but I could blame
that on myself; without my magic to guide them, what else could I expect?
The image on the card was fading, and when I checked,
so were the others. I held my hand over Dylan’s card, assuring myself it was
his energy I felt. I had seconds to decide whether or not to look before the
magic in the cards was gone. It was always a tossup with Dylan. I never knew
when I would regret looking or when it would save the day.
I needed to know. I had used my cards to protect my
brother for two thousand years and Dylan for three. There has been many times
in my life that I regretted it, but for those few times that I was able to save
them, I would continue to turn that card over when it came up. I could live
with my regret.
I turned the card over.
* * *
Just as I was getting settled into the quiet night, a
screech came from above. Flying with stone wings was the rock creature from the
library. And it brought friends. The one in lead landed at the steer, then
reached up with its clawed paw and turned the wheel. I tried to scare the beast
off, but all I accomplished was a furious hiss from both heads. Three other
creatures had taken a grip on the edges of the boat and were trying to turn it
manually. Despite their success in turning the boat around, we continued in the
same direction.
There was a loud cracking sound, nearly drowned out
by sudden thunder. In an instant we went from having a completely clear sky to
being in the middle of one of the worst storms I had ever seen. When the ship
tried to shake apart, the beasts let go and landed on deck. One of them grabbed
a startled Cylo by the shirt and dragged him back to the others. Instead of
eating him, they formed a protective circle around him and faced the storm,
ready to strike.
I turned the ship back in the right direction for the
little good it might do. The boat was rocking hard enough it could tip over any
moment. On reflex, I reached for energy. Nothing. No magic at all. What good is
a Guardian without magic?
I have lived my whole life with the understanding
that throughout time and evolution, the creatures in the sea were far more
dangerous than anything on land. This includes plagues and demons and magic…
everything except people. And in a two thousand-year-old user of magic, this
creates a sense of invincibility. Not a virtue, of course, but nothing has
killed me yet. The problem is that as a Guardian, I have faced beasts much
bigger and meaner and louder than me and walked away. I have even swum in the
waters of Duran that are inhabited by the largest and most fearsome beasts.
When I first discovered my powers were stilted on
Earth, I was still young and adaptive. I disliked the drag on my power, but I
was never in danger. Since I could remember, I have had magic, and it came
naturally to me. It never failed me. My entire life, eternity as it felt like
sometimes, I have faced creatures bigger, faster, but never more dangerous than
myself. Yes, I faced Vretial in a way, but it was in Tiamat’s shadow with the
supposed protection of Erono.
But now I had no magic. I was just a man with skin
that could tear and bones that could break and blood that could spill. Without
my magic, I had no god or spells to protect me. It was the worst time to fully
grasp that, but it was the moment I stared death in the face for the first time
and saw it for what it was.
The creature rose from the water dramatically and
slowly. It was in no hurry to devour its trapped prey. Really, I could have
gone my whole life without seeing this beast, and I very nearly did; the
creature was partially invisible. Only when water rolled off its dark brown,
leathery hide did the flesh became visible, so as it became less and less
translucent, I knew it chose to be seen. It was a water creature that was
invisible when wet. I could not see much of the body, but the four long necks
rose high above the boat. Atop every neck was a different head, each snarling
and ready to attack.
The head on the left had a really long and narrow
snout full of jagged teeth that stuck out because they were too large for its
mouth. This head swallowed prey whole. Its eyes were on the side and fairly
small, so I assumed it relied on hearing instead of sight. I couldn’t imagine
an aquatic monster would have a good sense of smell.
The second head from the left was more flat and wide
with short spikes all over. Its eyes, set on top of the head, were big and
yellow. Its teeth were smaller but with its mouth open, I could see at least
three rows. The muscles in its neck and the sheer size of its mouth implied
that it had a very strong bite.
The third head from the left had the distinct mouth
features of a frilled shark with a slightly more snake-shaped head. Its eyes
were large with slit pupils. Personally I thought the frilled shark, one of my
brother’s favorite sharks, had a friendly look. Somehow this beast did not pull
that off.
The head farthest to the right was the smallest but
by no means the least dangerous. It was rounder and a short snout which ended
with two husks pointing down like fangs. The two teeth in between the husks
looked like fangs, while the rest of its teeth were more like a canine’s. This
was the one that had bitten Cylo, but I figured, after seeing the actual size
of the teeth, it must not have had a good grip.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a dagger. I knew
it would do little good, but maybe I could take out an eye before dying. The
thought came to mind that Dylan would be okay, and how glad I was that I did
not bring him with me this time. Of course, it occurred to me to think of my
children, but I couldn’t imagine a single one who would care what happened to
me. I was two thousand years old and knew only one person who would truly care
if I died.
The two heads pondered the stone beasts while the two
on the left turned to me. The head with the narrow snout went around to the
side of me while the spiky one hung back. I held my dagger out and dropped my
bag from my shoulder to move easier. The narrow snouted head started to strike,
far too fast to get out of the way, but instead of my delicate flesh, its
jagged teeth met hard stone. One of the winged beasts had put itself in front
of me.