Authors: Rain Oxford
“Edward, welcome home!” he exclaimed, before taking a
huge breath. “I am fluent in English speaking now, you should not ever be gone
again so long, Nano has mate and baby, did you---”
I put my hand over his mouth, but he continued
talking, even when it was too muffled to understand. I hated when he went on
and on without pausing or even breathing between sentences; it couldn’t have
been good for his health. “You know my name isn’t Edward.” I let him go and he
gave me a look as if I had said something stupid.
“Dylan say he name you Edward,” he said. I sighed.
Nila was really just messing with me. “What bring you home?”
I never actually understood why he called Dios my
home like that. “I’m here to help Dios.” I pulled the pendent out of my bag and
held it up. “I’m just unsure how to do that.”
I was about to ask where Nano was when Nila reached
out and touched the iron. He gasped when the iron flashed with a green light,
which immediately flooded the entire room. The energy released was as violent
as an explosion and everyone was thrown off their feet.
I held onto the metal pendant as energy pulsed and,
even as it burned, I couldn’t let go. Only minutes passed before the energy
reversed direction and poured into the pentagram. When all of the energy had
retreated, I dropped it to the ground.
The goblin guards created an energy shield over Nila
just before rubble fell from the ceiling that would have seriously injured him.
The shield went down as I reached him. While it looked like he was uninjured, I
could never be sure with a void. With absolutely not a drop of magic in him and
no magic effective on him, I couldn’t use my energy to search for internal
bleeding or broken bones.
“I am fine. Why Dylan’s magic is in a star?” he
asked, letting me help him to his feet.
The guards were very nervous; they wanted to protect
him, as that was their job, but they knew better than to challenge a Guardian.
I wished I could fire them, because they should be willing to risk their lives
to protect their king.
“How did you know that was Dylan’s magic?” I asked
him.
“Dylan healed me; I know Dylan’s magic. I touch metal
and Dylan’s magic explode. Iadnah magic stronger than void blood. Magic heal
Dios even near me.”
“Dylan healed you? How? Your blood should be immune
to all magic.”
“Universe bleed, void suffer, I become not void.
Dylan’s magic healed me when I not void. Now I void, but I feel Dylan’s energy
still. Only magic I feel is Dylan’s.”
“Because his energy is different from nominal energy,
or because he healed you?”
“I do not know.”
I picked up the pentagram, which had grown cool
enough to touch, and slipped it into my bag. None of the energy had actually
been destroyed, nor had it been lost, so I should be able to use it on another
world.
“Is he with you?” Nila asked at the same time I heard
a squeak. I turned to see Cylo standing there. Three of the guards had swords
drawn on him, and the man was terrified.
“Let him go,” I told them in Dego, as it was the main
language of Dios. They looked at their king for confirmation before sheathing
their weapons. Cylo appeared confused and nauseous. “What happened? Where have
you been?” I asked him.
“What do you mean? I have not been anywhere. We were
in the castle, fighting those winged monsters, and now we are here… with
odd-looking goblins. Was I knocked unconscious? Have we left the castle?”
“We have, yes. I guess I need get you back to Kahún,”
I said. He was muttering to himself as I turned away. “Nila, can I borrow your
throne? I need a place to sit and concentrate,” I asked the young king.
He smiled as if I had asked if he wanted candy. “Of
course, Edward. You are family now.”
“How do you figure?” I was afraid to ask. Nila often
came to odd conclusions and frequently visited a world that resided in his
head. I wondered if this was how Dylan acted when he was a child.
Dylan
would make a good role model for Nila.
“You are uncle of Dylan. I adopt Dylan as brother.
That makes you my uncle. Uncle to High King is big honor, yes?”
“More like a chore. Does that mean I can resign from
being your uncle?” Nano asked. We all turned to see him standing in the open
doorway with Vivian tucked against his side.
Nila nodded. “You are no longer needed. You are mean
uncle to not bring Dylan back.”
“You tried to kidnap him,” Nano accused. “It’s nice
to see you survived, Kiro,” he said to me. Vivian agreed, with considerably
less confidence in my survival skills.
Nano may tease his nephew, but he cared about him as
much as I cared about Dylan. All of the Guardian’s had a common goal; to
protect the worlds and our books. Nano and I shared a unique goal; to protect
someone very important. Dylan and Nila were both very young and very powerful.
Dylan had the magical power to destroy Earth, and Nila had the political power
to destroy Dios.
Nano and I were friends, and I would never want to
cross that friendship, for in a battle without magic, I would lose every time.
While sago had a meager advantage in strength to humans due to our density, we
had nothing on dile. Zer was smart when he created his people; he learned from
the other gods’ people. Dile were enormously strong, and still as fast as sago.
Those who were slim, such as Nano and Nila, were actually stronger than the
bulkier men of Dios. In any battle of physical strength, no one could best a
dile.
Oddly enough, they were not normally heavier than a
sago. Zer had done something no other god perfected; they were extremely
compact and light, but unbelievably strong. The people of Dios had a weakness,
though; they all feared water. Their bodies were extremely difficult to damage,
but no dile could swim, because they would quickly sink and drown.
This was one of the reasons there was so little water
on Dios. I hoped someone had warned Dylan and Mordon to keep Sammy away from
the water.
“I can return this man to his world if you are
worried about facing Azenoth again.”
“Actually, I need Rasik’s help. I want to ask
Azenoth’s permission to return to his world and heal it.” I pulled Dylan’s
pentagram out of my bag. “This belonged to my brother before he was killed. I
thought it might have a little of his power left in it, so I gave it to Dylan
to protect him.”
Ronez had spent Dylan’s whole life protecting him,
and when you spend so long protecting something, it becomes at least a part of
the essence of your magic. I wanted Dylan to figure this out for himself,
because it was such an important, and instinctual, part of a Guardian’s
success.
“I can help?” Rasik appeared before us as if summoned.
“Were you listening in?” Nano asked. He sounded as if
scolding a child. Rasik was mischievous in an accidental way.
Rasik shook his head. “I wasn’t listening, I just
thought you wanted help.”
“Wait… What they took from me… you helped me
remember,” Cylo asked desperately.
“What did they take?” I asked.
“My daughter. They took my daughter. Please help me
get her back. I have no idea who took her or why, but she is gone!”
“I need permission to return to Kahún and when
Dylan’s magic heals it, Rasik can probably help you.”
“Without my book, I am no help to anyone, but I will
do what I can,” Rasik confirmed. “I can attain you an audience with Azenoth. He
may try to kill you, but I am fairly certain he will listen to you first.”
“Can you convince him not to kill me?” I asked.
“I cannot even convince him not to kill
me
.
Give me just a moment,” he said before vanishing.
I took a seat on Nila’s throne. Gods never seemed to
care if you became concussed as a result of their brusque summons. I barely
touched the seat before I was standing on the stone in the middle of the sea.
Azenoth appeared before me as he had before, similar both in appearance and in
temperament.
His glare demanded I remain silent, but I had a tiny
amount of time to both state my case and convince him to let me live after
bothering him again. “I offer my assistance,” I said in Sago. As disrespectful
as it may have been to speak something other than Enochian, it would have been
worse to misuse the god’s language.
“You want to use the magic of the younger Noquodi to
heal my planet. Why should I let you on Kahún? My world does not need your
help.”
“Your Guardian’s book is missing. My book returned to
me when my nephew healed Duran. His magic can heal Kahún.”
“I am more powerful by far; I can take care of my
world.”
“You are not mortal. You created this world and gave
it life, but no world has ever been exactly what its god made it to be. With
respects, you are not alive. Your world is trying to patch the cracks, but it
needs a living being’s imagination. A living person can imagine what it looks
like, bond with the world. I can’t explain because I have not seen it as Dylan
has. As far as I know, and as far as Tiamat has told me, only Dylan has the
right combination of life force, desire to help, creativity, and power to do
this task. What I have to offer is a small amount of Dylan’s power, which has
healed enough worlds and has a strong enough connection to Dylan to do this.”
He glared at me, but I could see it in his eyes that
he was considering my words.
“It may be the purpose of the Guardians to serve
their gods, but it is our instinct and drive to help. Not just our own people,
either. Please allow me to land at Kahún. I can leave the moment the magic has
done its job.”
“In order for you to release the magic in that
amulet, someone of pure origin must touch it.”
“Pure in blood, or pure in the origin of the planet?”
I asked. Pure in blood would be easy to find, because that meant they could not
have an ancestor from two worlds; not that they had to be from the world I was
trying to heal. I would work in that case, because I was pure sago. However, if
he meant pure in the origin of the planet, that meant that the person had to be
a native to the planet specific planet I was helping, but not necessarily that
they couldn’t have an ancestor from another world.
He sneered. “Pure in both,” he said.
So the person had to be native to Kahún and have no
blood of a foreigner. The gods encouraged their Guardians to interrelate with
other planets in order to mix genes and keep the races compatible. Some of the
gods forced it while others, like Azenoth, thought their people were better
kept pure. Even on a more pure world like Kahún, at least sixty percent of the
population would have a distant ancestor of another world. I knew for a fact
that Ronez had a few children on Kahún a few hundred years ago.
“I can get it done.”
“Do it quickly, because if I lose my patients with
you, it will be the last thing you ever regret.” The instant he finished his
sentence, I was flashed to the most useful place I could ever hope to arrive;
the troll king’s castle on Kahún. Rasik and Cylo appeared beside me in the
empty chamber.
The throne sat empty, so where had the royals
gotten to? Why are there no guards to spot us?
I sat down in the huge
throne. I probably looked like a two-year-old in the massive chair.
Cylo gasped. “What are you doing? That is the troll
king’s seat! He will kill us!”
“Why would he do that? His chair is not being used, I
might as well sit.”
“Are you trying to get us in trouble?!”
“Actually, I’m trying to get their attention, and the
louder you yell, the faster we’ll get it. So yeah, I want his adrenaline going
when the guards burst into the room to arrest me. He’s more likely to listen to
me if I confuse him, and he’s not going to agree with me easily.”
“You are insane!”
“A bit, yeah. I need to find someone who is of this
world and completely pure of blood. You already said you are half sago. Rasik
is half Vaigdan and I am not from this world.”
“I get it. You think the queen will be full blooded.
How will you know if she is or not?”
“In order to heal the planet, in order to save myself
and all the people here, I need someone born on this world and pure of blood to
touch a metal pendant, which will release my nephew’s magic. Is that okay with
you, your majesty?” I asked the king.
Cylo and Rasik, having not realized the king had
walked in, turned and gaped. The three guards that flanked him moved to attack,
but he raised his hand to halt them.
“You are back,” he said like an accusation.
“Yes, and more clever than before, I think.”
“Clever? You think I would let you near my wife and
that makes you clever?”
“No. I think I’m clever because I don’t want to use
your wife.” I got out of the seat and started towards him, ignoring the guards
as best as I could. “In fact, I doubt her blood is pure, as the people of every
world are genetically capable of interbreeding. On the other hand, trolls are
not compatible, and therefore, it is highly unlikely that you have troll blood
from any other world. You could possibly have person blood in you, and the
people of Kahún and trolls can, as your daughter’s parentage suggests,
interbreed, but then you would be called the ‘mostly troll king.’ I need to
find someone who is pure of blood and a native to Kahún, not necessarily a
person. So what do you say?” I stopped right in front of him and held up the
pentagram by its chain. “Want to save the world today?”
He glared at me as if I were not as smart as I
thought I was, but then grabbed the amulet. In great waves, energy flowed out
of the pentagram and started to heal the damage done to the world. I could feel
the nominal energy become stronger and more stable. When I checked, Rasik was
hugging his book to his chest. The task was done and the energy returned to the
metal.
Cylo sniffled. “Can we find my daughter now?” he
asked.