Authors: Rain Oxford
The monster shook the smaller beast before letting it
go and roaring. Several of the formidable teeth were lost in the process. The
little gargoyle hobbled with a damaged front leg until it stood in front of me
once again. One good sway on the ship in the storm nearly knocked the poor
creature over. It flapped its wings for balance.
The two heads currently trying to attack Cylo were
having similar results, as the stone creatures were not letting them get the
man. The head with the husks suddenly pulled back with a roar of anguish and
blood pooling from its eyes.
Long-snout and Spiky took advantage of the
distraction to attack together. Instead of me, they attacked the gargoyle.
Long-snout got a good scratch on his face, but Spiky took the gargoyle by its
stone wing and slung it into the ocean. It cried out a miserable sound and sank
swiftly. Another took up in front of me, but I knew the water beast could
easily pick them off now. I tried to pull the creature away so it wouldn’t die
like its companion, but it stood its ground.
Ice-cold, little fingers grabbed my hand in a gentle
grip. If it hadn’t startled me so much, I would not have looked. Beside me
stood a little girl with long white-blond hair and dark blue eyes. She wore a
white gown very out-dated for this day and was barefoot. The rain beaded off
her skin, hair, and clothes like she was coated with oil.
She didn’t even look at the water beasts, just at me
with her large, trust-filled eyes. She held out my hand and placed Dylan’s iron
pentagram in it. The metal was cold to the touch, but burned instantly. The
burn flowed up my arm and throughout the rest of my body until I was filled
with so much magical energy that I thought I would burst. My skin felt tight
and my muscles cramped. As the water beast moved to attack I raised the
pentagram like a shield. The little girl stepped off to the side.
I did not think malicious thoughts or of spells I
used often… The power burst out of me, through the pentagram, at the threat.
“Burn.” The growl was ripped from my mouth as the magic was from my body. There
was no instinct or thought, just the magic destroying the enemy. It wasn’t even
fire that left the pentagram but bright white light that hit the water monster
in the spiky head.
Every head let out the most horrifying screech and
withered in pain. The monster died in seconds and slipped back into the ocean.
The storm quickly disintegrated until it was calm and silent.
My body was drained and my muscles sore, but I
managed to remain on my feet, barely. I went to help Cylo up, who was shaken
but unhurt. The little girl was gone and the winged beasts took flight again.
Instead of flying back to their island, each gripped a part of the destroyed
ship and guided it back. Without them, we would have sunk.
“We could have died,” Cylo said, shaking.
“No, we could not have,” I responded.
He looked at me. “Why not?”
“Because then I would not have done what I needed to
do to help Dylan.”
“Why are those statues helping us? Why did that storm
appear out of nowhere? Are they never going to let us leave?” As he finished
his ranting questions, we came upon the dock.
On the shore, about a hundred people where waiting
for us. The gargoyles let go of the boat as soon as we were safely at the dock
and flew off over the island. Mio, standing at the head of the crowd, threw
herself into Cylo’s arms.
“You saved us!” she declared.
“Why is no one afraid of the stone creatures?” Cylo
demanded before she covered his lips with hers.
“Because they were not threatening the people, they
were protecting them,” I answered since she was busy.
A small man approached me. Being half of a pair
myself, I knew instinctually that he was Mio’s twin brother. His short
peach-colored hair and vivid blue eyes matched his sisters, as did his small
frame.
“You are correct; they have been protecting us for
months. One day, a storm came in and brought death with it. The creatures came
the next morning and chased the death off. We were scared of them, but
eventually learned they were here to help us. The storm came back, though, so
the creatures put us in an alternate time frame.”
“A what?” Cylo asked.
“A parallel dimension of time. Like being a moment
before or after the rest of the universe. When we came and when the storm came,
we were in the same dimension as the rest of the world. So was the sea monster.
The people were in a different space, like a bubble overlapping us, which we
could not hear or see. When the water monster came, the gargoyle put me in that
bubble, but then had to chase you down to save you, too.”
“That was too much strain on them and would have
collapsed the bubble,” Mio said. “They could barely hold it with everyone
else.”
“That makes no sense. Time bubbles do not exist.”
“I agree,” I said. “These creatures are not meant to
be… but they are, so let it go.”
“Well said,” the man said. “I am Kai. Did my message
help you?”
“The paint on the mirror?”
“It was difficult to write a message across the time
field and make the noise to draw you there,” he said.
“I am sorry to disappoint you, but no, it did not
help at all. You should have wrote, ‘the stone creatures are your friends, stay
away from the storm.’ That would have been helpful.”
He frowned. “I will keep that in mind.”
“So how do we return to our time?” Cylo asked.
“We are in our time. When we were in the ocean, the
stone creatures tried to turn us around because we were too close to the edge
of the time field. Once we broke through the time field, the water monster was
ready for us. Its death caused the entire bubble collapsed and everyone was set
back in the right time.”
“Oh, someone wanted to see you safe for himself,” Kai
said as if he forgot something.
Several people in the crowd moved and the little
gargoyle that had sank into the ocean hobbled forward. It wasn’t until I saw
him on the ground that I realized it really was a little gargoyle, just
slightly more than half the size that the others were. It saw me and hobbled
faster.
I remembered the day I found Tibbit, who had been
injured by a rumbustious child that broke his wing. I made the little boy leave
the bird alone, but then the bird followed me home, hopping and walking and
flapping one wing. I healed his wing but he wouldn’t leave. Ronez suggested I
keep him, and so I did. Tibbit was named so because he was very small, but he
grew very large until it was a joke of a name. I knew Tibbit bothered Dylan, but
the bird only did it to get a reaction out of the young Guardian. He certainly
didn’t deserve the relentless attacks from Shinobu.
The gargoyle stopped in front of me barely in time to
avoid knocking me down, and put his paws (surprisingly careful with his claws)
up on my thighs. With no idea what else to do, I pet the one of the stone heads
and then the other.
“Most of them never act like that,” Kai said. “We
think he is a juvenile.”
“Well, we need to get going, but we destroyed this
ship and I have no money left.”
“Take one as a gift for killing the storm monster.”
After thanking them, we took a modest little boat.
However, we were unable to leave alone. The little gargoyle clambered into the
boat right behind me and was impossibly heavy. He refused to be separated from
my side. It appeared he marked me as his to protect.
Just as the sun was rising, we spotted the small
island that was our destination. According to Mio’s map, that was the location
of the troll king and the Stone of Iodus.
“Before we get there, I want to ask what happened
with the storm monster back there,” Cylo interrupted the quiet morning.
I pulled out the iron pentagram. “A gift… from my
nephew or my brother, I’m not sure. This belonged to my brother before he died.
It is a focus tool in magic and it also stores energy and spells. I gave it to
my nephew because it seemed right. The magic that was stored in this had to
have been my nephew’s; it was remarkably dangerous and unstable.”
“You are willing to face the troll king without your
magic?”
“Yes. It might be easier to do with
Hobble
,
here.” I decided giving him an English name would be fitting, so Hobble sounded
good to me.
Our boat hit the sand quietly and we got out. Cylo
tied it to the nearest tree, but I was more worried about us being caught and
imprisoned than our boat escaping. Experience has taught me that if I acted
like I belonged somewhere, people assumed I did, but I never attempted it
without magic as a backup.
The island was strangely tropical with jungle trees
and a large beach. We only had to walk a little ways through the forest to come
to the troll king’s private home. Then we had to stop and stare.
Having met trolls on Dios, I had prejudices about
where they should live and what they should do. Ronez thought they should all
live under bridges, but I felt that was silly since they hated water.
Perhaps trolls on this world were a more aristocratic
lot. The house was nothing short of a mansion and one tower short of a castle.
It was gothic, tall, and menacing with dark stone for walls. The windows were
dark, but there were guards on duty at the doors. Most surprisingly, the guards
were people, not trolls nor demons.
“What are we going to do, give up?” Cylo asked.
“Don’t be silly. That would be silly,” I answered.
“I really hate trolls and I do not want to end up in
their dungeons.”
“Except those are people, not trolls. People are
easily fooled.”
“By magic,” he said.
“Yes.”
“But you have no magic.”
“You have a point. What about what they took from
you? Are you just going to leave that behind?”
Before he could respond, Hobble rushed out of our
hiding spot. He ran, as best as he could, towards them with his wings flapping.
The two guards took one look at the rushing gargoyle and ran, one into the
mansion the other off into the forest. The stone creature looked at us as if
asking us what we were waiting for. We entered the mansion meeting no obstacle.
I pet both heads but stopped when Hobble made an odd
purring sound. Dylan must never see this creature or we would have a new pet
that we didn’t need.
Inside the mansion was just as large and lavish as
the outside. The floor was stone, the walls were red, the ceiling was high, the
staircase was huge, and the furniture was delicate and looked uncomfortable. We
followed the sound of people into a hallway, at the end of which were two
guards. Once again, they were not trolls, but they were dressed in smaller versions
of troll armor. They did not directly look at us until we were obviously
heading for the door they were guarding, and then they frowned at Hobble before
looking at us.
“The king is not to be disturbed at this time,” the
guard on the left said. He was older with graying hair, while the other was
pretty young and couldn’t keep his eyes off the two-headed stone creature.
“We have an important message that he needs to get.”
I pulled a scroll out of my bag. Of course, the scroll was blank, but he couldn’t
see that and this particular lie had proved useful hundreds of times. The
scroll was very official paper with a wax seal and a red ribbon. The mystery of
the contents was half of the trick. No one could resist a secret letter.
“What is it?”
“For the king’s eyes only.”
“Who is it from?”
“For the king’s ears only. All I know is if he
doesn’t get this now, he will be very angry later. I would hate for you two to
be the ones that stopped him from getting this.”
“He did not say he was expecting a message.”
“He is not expecting it yet, but plans changed and
drastic measures are taking place,” I answered. Using official and dramatic
language, it was easy to pull off the confidence that was necessary for this
particular lie; I just hoped Cylo wouldn’t give it away. I couldn’t afford him
a glance.
The older one frowned and the younger guard looked to
his companion for direction.
“Jone, go on break now,” he said. The young guard
hesitated and then walked away. “If the king asks, I did not let you in.”
He opened the door and Hobble stumbled in ahead of
us. This room was built like the rest of the mansion, but was sparsely
furnished. A large fireplace, currently unlit, dominated the far side of the
room. On either side of it was a large bookshelf filled with old books. Three
chairs sat facing the rest of the room. The one in the middle was huge with
what looked like blue crushed velvet. The ones on either side were much smaller
and red. The middle chair was currently occupied by the largest man I had ever
seen. Standing up, he would be nearly twice my height and three times my girth
in solid muscle, and I had never been called a small man. This man had the size
of a troll but without fat or the confused, blank stare that all trolls had.
I was not dealing with the simple-minded, slow trolls
of Dios.
Cylo bowed, as I guess was appropriate, but I
couldn’t bring myself to be smaller than I was in the troll king’s presence. I
realized the king was studying me the same as I was him, not sure what to make
of me.
The only other person in the room, the woman in the
chair on the right, stood. She was tall for a woman, only slightly shorter than
me, with black hair to her waist and emerald green eyes. Her long, silver dress
made her appear thinner than she was, but I could see plenty of muscle
definition. She was more warrior than arm ornament.
“Who are you?” she asked in Lilat with a tone that
demanded attention. She was clearly the queen here and knew her position well.
“I am Cylo,” the poor man shook. “I came here to get
something back that was taken from me.”
Neither royal figure showed any change in expression.
I thought they would be angry and insulted at being accused of stealing, but
they showed no sign of such.