She was sweeter and softer than I could have imagined
and my mind was instantly consumed by her. I’d never felt or imagined anything
that was even remotely as mind-numbingly wonderful as what I was feeling then.
My body acted of its own accord to wrap around her. I had my arms around her
and I wanted to never let her go.
She broke the kiss but my lips found their way to her
neck. “Damn. I’m doing it again.” Her voice was so beautiful I wasn’t sure what
she had said for a few minutes.
“Doing what?” I mumbled into her sweet skin. I didn’t
care; I just wanted her to keep talking.
“Falling in love, and dragging my Guardian down with
me.” Her words didn’t register on me until she pushed me away. I still couldn’t
think clearly, but reality was flooding back.
“You’re falling in love with me?” I asked. My words
were slow as I tried to force my thoughts to reorganize.
“Stay here and protect the book or I’ll make you.”
“Not even the book could make me protect it against
my will.”
“The book is very powerful, Dylan. I am a god. I can
make you do anything I want,” she said.
I knew she could, but I didn’t know if she would. The
threat sure helped to clear my head, though. “You can’t deny my logic, but if
we both go, one of us could create a diversion. No matter how little help I
could be, if any, it would be best for me to come. Think of your book. Think of
Earth. Protecting me isn’t worth the risk of losing Earth. Where is Erono
anyway?”
She turned away. “That fool… he’s stubborn enough for
us all. When Vretial has taken his world, he’ll still believe he has Vretial
beat. He is so suspicious of Kiro that he will believe the opposite of whatever
Kiro says.”
“Warn him. You’re one of them.”
“He doesn’t listen to me. He never liked me and won’t
even take me seriously since I took a sago body and made a home here.”
“Why did you?”
“I wanted a life.” She looked at me. “You have no
idea how boring it is in the Land of the Iadnah.” She opened the door and
headed out, leaving me to follow her.
Both the little girl and her older brother were
standing only a few yards away from the house. They looked exactly like they
had in my vision, except the brother was leering at Divina. He reminded me of
Hiroku.
When I tried to get between them and Divina, she put
out her arm to hold me back.
“We let ourselves in; we just felt uncomfortable
standing outside without so much as a barrier to keep us out,” the little girl
said.
“You didn’t have protection over us?” I asked Divina,
trying not to sound rude.
“I was a bit distracted.”
“No matter.” The little girl grinned up at her
brother. “If he refuses to cooperate, can I kill the girl myself?” she asked.
“Hush. At least find out if the Guardian is going to
cooperate. And take a better look at the female. There is more than meets the
eye,” the man said.
I really didn’t like him.
“You are both sago,” Divina said, surprised.
The little girl seemed angered by that. “What
business is it of yours?” she demanded. When she took a step forward and raised
her right hand, her brother pushed her hand down and pulled her back using the
same grip.
“Behave,” he said. She stopped struggling and just
glared at Divina. “I am Krael. This is my sister, Tomie. Don’t take offence of
anything she says.” He looked at me. “And you are?”
“Not happy,” I said, aggravated, and silenced every
sarcastic and rude comment that came to mind. “Dylan. And this is Divina. Why
are you working for Vretial?”
“He offered. He took us in when nobody else would
help. He saved Tomie’s life.”
“You’ve seen what he did to the outlands and you still
help him?” Divina asked.
“He’s not destroying anything. He’s going to unite
the worlds in peace,” Krael said.
I suddenly realized what was bothering me after
meeting with Vretial. “By taking away free will,” I said. Divina and Tomie
gaped at me, but Krael grinned.
“Precisely. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to
get going before my master gets impatient.”
“Hang on, you’re speaking English,” I said to Krael.
Unlike with Tomie, where it looked like a bad dub job, Krael was clearly
speaking fluent English.
“That is your mother language, isn’t it? You’re
human.”
“You learned English? I thought Vretial translated
for you.”
“I never trust the translation abilities of magic
when I can learn the language myself.”
He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it
through the air at me. I reached out on reflex, caught it, and instantly
regretted it. It was some kind of small disk that burned so badly I was sure it
had burned off my skin before I even realized it was hot.
I released the disk with a sharp yelp and saw it was
covered in my blood as it fell from my hand. Divina grabbed it before it hit
the ground, grunted in pain, and tossed it back to Krael, who caught it with no
sign of pain and clinched it tight. Tomie grabbed his other hand.
The ground started to shake and the trees swayed. The
ground in front of me actually split open and a wall of bright light rose. The
shaking settled. That’s when Shinobu came running out of Divina’s house and
placed herself firmly in front of me. I picked her up to cradle in my arms, but
Divina gently took her from me.
“She should stay.” I opened my mouth to object, but
she went on. “She’s so protective of you that she may attack Vretial on sight.
He’d kill her.”
I nodded that I saw her point and she took Shinobu
back to the house.
“After you,” Krael said when she returned.
Divina hesitantly went into the light, but didn’t
come out the other side. She disappeared. Krael regarded me patiently and I
started forward. Expecting to fall into the cracks of the Earth, I closed my
eyes and entered the light.
The gravity was too light to be Duran. I opened my eyes and stared
straight into the dark brown eyes I had learned to trust. “Edward!” I exclaimed
foolishly.
He blinked. “Who?”
That startled me as much as I had clearly startled
him.
“Ronez,” Divina whispered breathlessly behind me.
I would have guessed that too, if he weren’t dead. I
examined the man in front of me, who resembled Edward less and less by the
second. For one, his hair was several inches longer. Unlike in his brother’s
description, this man was dressed in a sleeveless, loose, tan shirt, dark brown
slacks, and black boots.
Not surprisingly, we were in the same cave Edward and
I had been in during our vision. Divina was behind me, Undead Ronez was beside
me, and Tomie and Krael were about ten feet in front of us. Edward was nowhere
to be seen.
Undead Ronez leaned in and put his hand on my
shoulder. “Impressive hiding. You have been very… entertaining up until now.”
He slid my book out of my bag.
That didn’t sound like something an ally would say.
Undead Ronez backed away, still facing me as he
handed my book to Krael, who took it with a grin. “We’ll leave them to you.
Don’t do anything stupid,” Krael said.
Undead Ronez growled but let Krael and Tomie walk off
into the dark. I risked a glance behind me to make sure Divina was unhurt, and
she was glaring daggers at the Ronez imposter.
“You’re not Ronez, so who are you?” I asked.
“I am the one who killed him. You can call me Shio.”
Shio killed Ronez… and apparently took his body.
“Where’s Edward?” I asked. Shio rolled his eyes, which was almost creepy
because Ronez and Edward really were identical twins. “Kiro. Ronez’s twin
brother. Where the hell is he?!” If my anger concerned him at all, he didn’t
show it.
“If you are referring to the other Guardian, he is
currently in one of the many dungeons. You will join him soon enough. That is,
unless you make a good impression on Vretial. As for you…”
He took a step towards Divina and I placed myself in
between them, glaring at Shio. He was skinnier than Edward, almost unhealthy,
but apparently the fierce expression ran in the family.
“You have got a lot of nerve for a human.”
Especially
for a mortal.
I blinked. It took a few seconds before I realized
that he hadn’t said that in my mind; I had read it in his. I was just about to
say a sarcastic response when it occurred to me that his thoughts were
unguarded.
“How do I get out of here? Which way do I go?”
“You don’t. There is no way out of here. You can only
go through.”
And when you do, I’ll have a little time alone with your pretty
friend. Maybe Vretial will let me have some of her power.
I didn’t like the leer he gave her, though she
remained silent. “Where is…” I trailed off as I felt the sudden presence behind
me. It wasn’t Divina’s warmth, but a cold, dismal, powerful presence.
“Dylan, move,” Divina said.
I moved to the side before turning to see Vretial. He
was surprising by all means, but I knew it had to be him. He had short, dark,
auburn hair, and his eyes were the color of peanut butter, but they glowed. He
was wearing black robes and boots. Probably the most surprising characteristic
of his appearance was that he looked thirty at the most.
He also seemed to glow with power and radiate dark
energy. The energy was so strong I had trouble standing. It was sickening,
worse than any flu I’ve had, and made my body feel heavy.
He smiled widely at Shio, Divina, and then me. “Well,
isn’t this a reunion. I’m glad to finally meet you, face to face. I hope you
don’t mind, little human, but I’m going to borrow your companion.” He turned to
Shio. “You can handle the human, right?”
“Of course, master.”
“Good,” he said before grabbing my arm roughly. His
skin was cold and hard like stone, but sent chills up my spine like he was
something dead and slimy. I didn’t know what being touched by a god was
supposed to feel like, but the difference between his touch and Divina’s was
unquestionable.
“Get your hands off my Noquodi!” Divina growled.
Her devotion surprised me, but Vretial paid her no
mind. He wrapped a solid, metal bracelet around my left wrist before letting me
go. The bracelet had symbols etched across it in what looked a lot like early
cuneiform. “Um, it’s pretty and all, but I don’t think it goes with my eyes.”
Vretial laughed. “Such a funny little human you are.
This charm will keep you from overpowering my servant, here, and escaping.”
“Really? How will it do that? And what if I just take
it off?”
“Only a servant of mine can remove the charm. Now
then, if you’ll excuse us. Shio, take the human to see his master.”
Shio bowed to him and the god grabbed Divina’s arm
roughly. There was a flash of light so bright it hurt and when it cleared, Shio
and I were alone in a stone hallway and Vretial’s overpowering energy was far
less potent. There were lit torches lining the left side of the hall, about ten
feet apart. Shio shoved me forward.
“Easy, zombie,” I said, but I started walking.
Passing many side halls, we continued straight down
the endless path. I could feel everyone; Edward, Divina, Vretial, and his three
servants, but I couldn’t tell where they were. I could sense emotions, auras,
thoughts, intentions… but they were all mixed up in the wild energy. It felt
like I was in super thick fog or smoke, except that I couldn’t see it with my
eyes. The energy seemed to be magnifying everything, as well as clouding it
over.
After about five minutes, I was getting irritated.
Shio wasn’t guarding his thoughts, and he had a dirty mind. “So, Shio, tell me;
how did you find Ronez?”
“That is none of your business.”
Somehow, this wild energy was causing me to read
thoughts without my control. Either the energy wasn’t affecting Shio the same
way, or he was too poor a wizard to hear my thoughts in return.
“Isn’t it? I’m his successor; I have to make sure you
can’t track me the same way. Besides, I thought you would want to brag about
it.” I glanced back at him and he glared. He had Edward’s face, but he didn’t
know how to use the predatory glare that Edward had. “And who would I tell? I don’t
expect you to let me go, seeing as how you went through so much trouble to find
me.”
“Shut up. When I gave my soul to my master, I was
granted a small amount of his power. I became something even more powerful than
you Noquodi, and this power became a new soul. The new soul, which is
controlled by my own mind, can travel the worlds. When I am where I want to be,
I find a body. My mind and soul take over theirs. I was traveling a world
called Kahún when I heard word of the Noquodi on Earth. It was said that the
Noquodi of Earth, Ronez, was having problems with Earth’s god and Duran’s
Noquodi, and was currently unstable over the matter. So I went to Earth in
search of him. My soul is drawn to the books, and therefore, him. I later
killed him, but he discarded the book.”
“So, why did you kill him? Because you killed him,
there had to be another Guardian. Didn’t you consider taking him to Vretial and
then hunting the book?”
“That was not possible. I can travel because my soul
was created by a god’s power, but my body cannot. The books allow your body to
travel with your soul. My master has a… device that can rip through the worlds
and create a portal.”
“How? That sounds like some kind of futuristic space
thing.”
“Tampering with physical things like that really is
not hard. Physical things are easily destroyed and changed with magic energy.”
It’s like what Mordon was talking about. “Nominal
energy is like change. Like its purpose is to change physical things. Right?”
“It is the only thing I know magic energy does, but I
do not know if its purpose is to change things. The purpose of something really
does not matter to me. But, as I was saying; the disk creates a portal that
does not require separation between the body and soul. Of course, Vretial was
not concerned with the life of a Noquodi enough to have had me use the disk on
him. So I killed him. Then, Vretial let me use the charm to get this body back
here.”
“So he let you use the charm to bring his dead body
back, but not him alive?”
“Bringing him back alive would have done nobody any
good. For killing him, I have a body I am quite happy with.”
“Just like that, huh? I don’t like you. You’re kind
of a disgustingly horrible person. Honestly, I wish you could meet my mother
and suffer through her Christian rants.”
“Yeah, and you are a little small to be dealing with
gods. You are very loud for someone your size.”
I was obviously getting to him, which had my intended
effect of distracting him from his disgusting thoughts of young girls. If I
couldn’t shut off the mind reading, I had to distract him. “Why bring me and
Edward here, then? Why not just kill us?”
“I would have killed you, but it was Krael who found
you instead.”
I tried hard to think of what I had learned. There
was nothing around I could lift and hit him with.
I definitely can’t try to
use my sword.
I couldn’t control fire enough to do anything.
Despite the
fact I tried it on Tomie, I don’t think I have it in me to burn a man from the
inside out, not even the one who killed Ronez. Then what? Maybe I can stand
behind him and make him forget about me. Not likely.
The only thing I could
think of without drawing my sword was Mordon’s sleeping spell, and it seemed
impossible to do while walking, but I had to try something.
I imagined Shio, in Ronez’s body, getting tired, and
then tried to draw in energy… but I couldn’t. It was like there was a barrier
around me that prevented me from getting energy, even while I was bathing in an
insanely huge quantity of it. I looked down at the bracelet. I needed it off,
but when I pulled on it, I found it completely solid. I needed it off, I needed
Shio to pass out, and I needed to find Edward.
How exactly I was reading Shio’s mind without drawing
upon the energy around me, I didn’t know.
One more question for the bag.
“How far until we get to the dungeons? Is it a straight walk there?” I asked.
“Yes, this hall leads directly to the dungeons, and
it is not far now. Your master will be there, probably weak and miserable.”
“But… I…” I made a face I hadn’t made in years that I
knew made me look like some pathetic little kid. “I got to go to the bathroom.”
He snarled. “Hold it.”
“No, no, I can’t hold it! I have to go!” Perhaps it
was not strong enough for Vretial to notice or be concerned about, but I never
did get over subconsciously drawing in energy. So while I was not able to draw
in anymore energy; I had a lot in me already. “Please. Please.” I imagined him
getting tired, gently pushed my nominal energy into him, and imagined the
nominal energy virus converting his physical energy.
After a few minutes of my begging, fatigue won him
over. “Alright!” he growled.
I stopped talking as we took a detour, but I
continued to convert his energy. After a few minutes, I assumed that I wasn’t
being annoying enough… so I only had one option.
“I’m Henry the eighth I am, Henry the eighth I am I
am.” I began to sing quietly, barely more than a mumble. Shio took it like
shock therapy.
“What are you doing?!”
“Entertaining myself. If I’m gonna die, I want to at
least have a last little ounce of self expression.”
And if my plan doesn’t
work, maybe I can annoy you enough to take out yourself, also.
“I got
married to the widow next door. She’s been married seven, times before…” I went
on and when he realized that the verse repeated indefinitely, I was very glad
that I was the only one able to wield my sword, not that he tried yet.
About five minutes later, we came into a large, bare
room that was parted by a wide stream in the middle. “Go.”
For a split second my blood ran cold when I thought
that he wanted me to jump in and die; that I had been too annoying. Then I
realized, fortunately, that wasn’t what he meant. “Here? This is worse than an
outhouse! Does no one understand the convenience of indoor plumbing?!”
I had no time to waste; I was running almost dry of
energy. He was already wobbling. I turned to the stream, took a deep breath,
and crossed my wrists with my left over right. “Will you at least take these
shackles off? I can’t do anything with them on.” It was a cheap shot but he was
so tired and I was so annoying that he slowly stepped forward, grabbed the
bracelet, and pulled. It snapped open easily.
In a split second, I drew in as much energy as I
could, as naturally as inhaling air, and Shio dropped to the ground without a
sound. For a few moments I had to hold onto the wall; I drew in enough energy
to make me dizzy, so I decided to let most of it go. Then, when I could stand
upright, I stuck the bracelet open in my bag and took off running down the
halls to find Edward. It was about fifteen minutes later when I realized that I
was completely lost.
How unlucky.
I wandered around, getting more and more lost.
Apparently chanting “find Edward” in my head over and over didn’t help much. I
finally sat down when I discovered with horror that I was a little lost puppy
looking for his master. What was I gonna do if I found him? He couldn’t tell me
to go home.
What I needed was to figure out how to help them…
No.
What I need to do is find my book and protect it.
I had no idea how to
protect it, but I had to do it anyway.
Edward can protect it. He’s probably
already escaped and looking for the books himself.
I was still alive, so
they weren’t Vretial’s yet.
If I discard my book like Ronez had, would it
fall safely to Earth? No, Edward would have told me to do that if it were an
option.