Magic Astray (The Llandra Saga) (6 page)

“Come on, young Randall. The chief is waiting,” the young elf ordered, her smirk turning into a look of frustration.

It didn’t take long to reach the chief’s dwelling. The elven settlement just wasn’t that large, and the houses were spaced fairly close together. They paused at the front door, and Nia spoke a few words to her companions. They nodded and began leading Eamon down the path. The young farmer’s son went with them willingly; caught in the glamour, he gushed continually about the beauty of the elven city and people almost non-stop.

“Wait! Where are you taking him?” Randall cried out. Being separated worried him. There was no way that Eamon could defend himself in the condition he was in. An elf could advance upon him with a naked blade, and the farm boy would probably welcome the killing blow with open arms.

“Don’t worry about him,” Nia soothed. “You’re the one the chief wants to see, and he’s in no condition to be giving any answers. The glamour has taken him too strongly for us to get any meaningful information out of him.”

Randall considered protesting a moment longer before nodding and following Nia into the building. He didn’t want to build up any more ill will toward the elves, and while he felt he could have prevented the two boys from taking Eamon by force, it didn’t feel right for him to draw steel against children.

“The chief is in conference with the Old One, but he’s ordered you to be brought before him as soon as you’ve arrived,” Nia said as they arrived at an ornately carved doorway.

“Old One?” Randall asked in confusion.

“The first of us to come to this world,” Nia explained. “The chief is one of the few of us old enough to remember some of its language. It only rarely comes to us, so you must show the proper respect. Its arrival means that there is something gravely important to us happening in the world.”

Randall nodded mutely. It was one thing to go on a grand adventure hoping to meet and trade with elves. It was quite another to be meeting the first fae to ever set foot on his world. It had to be thousands of years old! Noting Randall’s grave expression, Nia knocked politely and then pushed open the door. He had no idea what to expect, and his heart hammered in his chest as the door swung open.

The door opened up into a simple meeting room with a circular table in the center. Sitting at the far end was a boy who looked approximately Randall’s age, seventeen or eighteen years old. A thin torc of twisted silver hung around his neck, and another thin silver band adorned with tiny silver leaves encircled his head like a headband. He was speaking rapidly in the elven language to a diminutive figure seated by his side. Randall felt simultaneous shock and relief as his eyes lit upon the creature.

“Berry?” he called out before he could contain his surprise.

Nia gasped in shock, and slapped her hand over Randall’s mouth, shushing him with a sharp
hsst
from between her teeth. The elf chieftain’s face curled into a snarl of rage and he let loose with a string of what could only be elven invective before he switched to Randall’s language.

“You will be
silent
!” the chief snarled in an accent that was so thick as to be nearly incomprehensible. Spittle flew from the chief’s mouth as he barked the order, and he punctuated the last sentence by slamming his fist down on the wooden table.

Randall wrestled his mouth free from Nia’s grip. Her eyes were wide with fear but he plunged ahead anyway. Certainly things would smooth over once he explained everything.

“But Berry and I are friends!” he explained hurriedly, pointing at the donnan. “Tell him, Berry!” he pleaded.

The elf chieftain looked briefly at Berry, confusion coloring his rage. “Know him not,” Berry chittered, curling his lips at Randall to show his needle-sharp teeth.

“That’s not true!” Randall cried, fighting off Nia’s frightened attempts to stop him. “We’ve been traveling together for a couple of years now!” Why would Berry lie? It didn’t make any sense.

The elven chieftain’s eyes went wide with shock. “You understand him? How is it you know the ancient tongue?”

Before Randall had a chance to answer, Berry hissed sharply, his face a mask of pure malevolence. The pulse of power nearly bowled Randall over as Berry opened himself to Llandra. He was gathering magic—a lot of it!

“Arkala!” Berry spat the word, and Randall lunged sideways to avoid the roaring stream of fire rushing toward him, dragging Nia with him. If he hadn’t sensed Berry gathering power, there wouldn’t have been enough warning to avoid the flame.

He ended up on the floor in the far corner of the room with Nia on top of him, screaming in terror. As the jet of flame exploded on the wall behind where they had both recently stood, Randall felt another pulse of power.
Why is Berry doing this?
he thought frantically. And then instinct took over, and he opened himself to Llandra.

He gasped sharply as pain instantly shot down his spine and out to his extremities, but he fought to keep the connection open. If he wasn’t able to draw power, he was going to die here, though he couldn’t understand why. Time seemed to slow as the agonizing torment coursed through his body. It took more force of will to keep the connection open than anything Randall had ever attempted before, and the pain of it was like standing in the heart of a bonfire.

Slowly, the pain grew until Randall felt he would pass out from the sheer agony.
It doesn’t matter if Berry kills me
, he thought.
This is going to kill me anyway.

Then, when he felt he could take no more, his mind became curiously detached. The pain still ravaged his body, but it didn’t seem to matter—all the chaos and confusion around him seemed like a distant annoyance, like the droning of a mosquito. In his mind’s eye, he could see the connection to Llandra, and all that mattered was the power that lay on the other side.
Come to me,
he crooned to it. And it did.

Power flooded Randall, more strongly than he had ever felt before. It drove the pain and weakness before it, filling him with a wild, giddy exultation. The hairs on the backs of his arms stood up, as if before a lightning strike, and he opened his eyes. Only a moment had passed.

“Yaosheen,” he breathed, weaving all his magic into the Word. A translucent bubble of force sprang into existence around him and Nia as another jet of flame arced toward them to splash ineffectually against the shield.

“A Mage?” the elf chieftain cried. “You brought a Mage into my house?” he roared. Randall only had a moment to realize the chieftain was speaking elvish before exhaustion slammed into him, and he slipped from consciousness.

Chapter 5

Randall woke to the sound of screaming. He must have only been out for a moment, as Berry was still trying in vain to crack his protective shield with jets of conjured flame. Randall knew from past experience that he could create a bubble that would withstand even the donnan’s considerable power, and he had put more power into the spell than he had ever conjured before.

The screaming came from Nia; she was hunched down, knees against her chest, screaming in terror at each fiery blast that Berry launched in their direction. She looked to be in no condition to pose any threat to him, at least for the time being.

Randall took stock of his situation. He was spent, but not nearly as exhausted as he expected to be after such an expenditure of power. In the past, channeling so much magic would have drained him to the point of unconsciousness, and he could have expected to be out for hours, at the least. But he was awake, and alert. His entire body ached, and he felt jittery from the magic that had burned its way through him.
Magic!
He had gotten his power back! The pain had been incredible, but at least he knew he could touch Llandra if the situation were dire enough.

The elven chief was sitting on the edge of the conference table, watching the bubble intently as the flames slammed into it, over and over again. Eventually the attacks slowed, and then stopped altogether. Either Berry had given up, or he had reached the limit of his ability. He had never seen the donnan wear himself out before, but neither had he seen Berry expend so much at one time, either.

The chief leapt from the table and reached the edge of the bubble in two long strides the moment the attacks ceased. He addressed Randall in the common tongue, his accent thickened with his fury.

“You, Mage! Why have you come to Dyffryn?” he snapped.

“I...I just wanted to see elves,” Randall stammered. He felt relatively safe for the moment, but he had no way of knowing how long his shield would last. He had to diffuse this situation somehow, and fast. “You used to trade with a man named Tobsen. He’s dead. I came in his place.”

“Lies!” the chief spat. “Why would a Mage want to trade in such worthless trinkets? No, you are here for something else. Something worse.”

The elf’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You must somehow know of the news that Mamaeth has brought to us. You are here to attack us and assassinate me, but you did not expect the Old One to be here, did you? He has thwarted your plan before you even had a chance.”

“I don’t even know who Mamaeth is!” Randall protested. “And up until today, I couldn’t even touch Llandra. I burned myself out over a year ago! To even try caused me great pain.”

“Aether-blindness?” the young elf asked quizzically before the severe frown returned to his features. “More lies. It can take years to recover, even tended to by the best healers. I will hear no more of your lies when the truth is so easily revealed.”

The chief barked a word, and Randall flinched backward instinctively. A look of disbelief clouded his features momentarily before being replaced by anger. The elf barked the word a second time, before slamming his fist in frustration against the translucent barrier. The shield must be more than just a physical barrier; it seemed to block spoken magic, as well.

“Your shield will not last forever, Mage,” the chief growled out. “When it falls, then there will be a reckoning. Until then, we will wait.”

Nia scrambled to her feet as the elf turned away. She glanced briefly in Randall’s direction, her eyes wide with fear. It was clear that she was terrified of him now, and she kept as much distance as possible between them in their shared cramped space.

“Rhys! Please forgive me. He smelled like a half-breed. I thought perhaps he was hoping to live among us. I didn’t know he was a Mage! I didn’t know what he was. Even Mages cannot resist the glamour!” She begged in the elven tongue, and Randall was shocked to realize that he could understand her as clearly as if she were speaking his own language.

Why can I understand them?
Randall wondered, confused, before realizing that he had understood Rhys speaking as well, just before he blacked out. Something must have happened to him when he overcame the aether-blindness, but he didn’t comprehend it.

Her terror was easier for him to understand. If even Mages were affected by the glamour exuded by the elves, then Randall must represent a grave threat to them: he could touch Llandra and wield power, and yet he was seemingly immune to their most potent natural defense. Trapped in the protective shield with him, Nia must feel powerless and vulnerable in a way that he could scarcely imagine.

Rhys approached the bubble again, inhaling deeply. “Half-breed...yes,” he said, pausing as if savoring the aroma. “Elven blood, unmistakably—but something else, as well. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”

Turning back to Nia, Rhys contemplated for but a moment. “Nia, you have been a good hunter and valuable ally. But you have brought this Mage into my house, and for that, there are consequences.”

“But I didn’t even know he was a Mage,” she protested. “Owain didn’t catch any scent of Llandra the entire time we were together.”

“Owain is not First Hunter,” Rhys bellowed. “You are. The responsibility lies with you. So be it. Your fates are entwined. Where he goes, you will follow. As you are joined in life, so shall you be joined in death.” The words had the ring of formality. Nia sat down heavily, burying her face in her hands and weeping.

Randall wanted to call out to the Berry (or was it truly Mamaeth?) but something held him back. If the donnan was truly so revered by the elves, his little friend could immediately clear up this misunderstanding. But for some reason, Berry chose to remain silent, and Randall didn’t understand why. The little sprite’s demeanor was completely different as well: poised, aloof, arrogant. He was not the donnan that Randall had come to know over the last couple of years. Until Randall could figure out what exactly was going on, it would be better to keep this new-found ability to himself.

Returning to the table, the elf chief took a moment to regain his composure before resuming his conversation with the donnan, seemingly ignoring the two interlopers. He spoke openly, having no reason to suspect that Randall could understand him.

“I deeply regret the intrusion, Old One,” he spoke in conciliatory tones. “It appears we have some time before the Mage’s barrier falls. I would be honored to continue our discussion, if such is your wish.”

The imp hissed in annoyance, before turning its attention to Rhys. “So be it,” he spoke in the fluid elvish tongue. “Before his life was claimed by the Mage war, there was a great Summoner in the land.”

He must be talking about Aiden
, Randall thought. Rhys nodded politely, as if this were common knowledge, and invited the donnan to continue.

“Like all Summoners, his power was limited. The fae he called forth from our homeland could only stay here a brief moment in time.” The donnan narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, passion giving a sharp edge to his chittering language. “But before he was killed, he had rediscovered the secret to the Passage Device!”

“Is it true?” Rhys gasped.

“It is,” the imp confirmed. “Even now, the veil between our worlds thins. Soon, it will be thin enough for our kin to break the barrier once again, and step foot on this soil of their own volition.”