Flash Fiction #543: The Long Way Home/42 (END)

 

They were in a carriage, and he lay on a bed of soft pillows. Eket sat beside him.

"Awake now. Good," Eket said. "I cannot stay. There is no telling what Aien is up to. Humans are odd creatures, you know. Fascinating. I don't understand half of why you have done what you did."

"Right thing to do," Rory replied as if this made any sense. "Pyrida?"

"He will be a long time trapped in his nightmare and no more sane for it. That will not help when you fight them in the future. However, it was the best choice you could've made. Also, he put a spell on the Temple and library -- it went up in flames. You will find no answers there, but neither will anyone else."

"The others there --"

"All safe. They will rebuild and be better for it with Pyrida no longer in charge."

"Good," Rory said. Talking to Eket made no sense, but he somehow didn't doubt it. He worried about his other friends, but they didn't seem to be here with them.

" They're in another ..." Eket waved his hand around them.

"Carriage?"

"Reality."  Eket paused and then looked back at him. "You needed time and peace to begin your recovery, and now it is time for you to return."

"Can you tell me --"

Eket had disappeared. The carriage bounced over a rut, and Rory grimaced before he noticed Zorian, Keltrina, and Jamison staring at him.

"You are back," Zorian said.

"Ah.  Eket had me for a while."

They all nodded as if any of this made sense. Zorian finally moved from one side to sit by Rory. He looked him over with a nod.

"You look better. Eket did us a good deed there, even if we were afraid we had lost you. It was a very nice act of human kindness in its own way."

Rory could tell that the words pleased Eket.  Why the God should want to be more human-like escaped Rory, but he did appreciate that they understood each other better for it.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"In the middle of nowhere, as far as I can tell," Jamison answered with a quick glance out the window in the door. They hit another bump, and Rory wasn't the only one to feel it. "The Queen and Prince Palkin are in the carriage behind us. We have a Sciwhen escort under Andora's command."

"We should not have gone. There was so much still to do --"

Zorian patted him on the arm. "There is always more to do, but that doesn't mean it is our work. Unanik has taken on the duty of destroying The New Order of Man and was doing an excellent job before we left. The Dragons are taking turns guarding the door. I could wish for Pyrida to come back out to that homecoming."

"We are all stepping back and letting things sort themselves out," Jamison added. He looked remarkably relaxed.

Out of their hands?

Rory sat back and closed his eyes.

It took them five miserable days to get to Sundry and two more to reach the capital. They stayed in whatever reasonable inns they could find each night, and none of those housed the Queen and her more immediate guests for an entire night. They always left early, and since the beds were always lumpy and the rooms drafty, Rory never complained.

He thought about the odd journey he had made to Sciwhen and now Sciwhen home to Sundry. Gods hovered nearby but stayed out of human business for now.   Rory tried not to be obvious about how relieved that left him.

Eket still seemed amused.

They traveled through fields, over wooded hills, and across streams on none-too-safe bridges. They avoided any settlement of more than a few hundred and kept well off the main roads.

And yet, the word that the Queen had returned had raced ahead of them.

Rory hadn't been home for a long time and was glad to see so little change. There might have been a few more buildings outside the gate, but they were well-kept. The castle towers rose above the walls, a beacon to welcome them home. People lined the road inside the entrance all the way to the castle. Rory thought he would go deaf at the sound of their cheers.

While Queen Calledona went to her throne room without even so much as changing, the others were hustled off into her private office. Rory didn't even argue about taking one of the chairs. It was, by far, the most comfortable place he had sat in far too long.

He slept for a little while, not an unusual occurrence. Rory stood, though, as soon as the Queen entered the room. She waved them all to sit, and Rory obediently dropped back into his chair. Four members of the Queen's guard had shown up to keep her company, and they all but glared at Rory. He had been one of them.

No matter.

"People are arranging for your rooms," Queen Calledona said as if that were the only trouble she needed to deal with now that she was back. "Rory, Zorian -- I would like you two to take the rooms up at the archive. You needn't worry. Lord Cardman retired a few months ago."

"I wasn't worried about Cardman," Zorian said, and Rory nodded. "Well, not much. But yes, that is a good place to start our work. Do you agree, Rory?"

He thought of making some rude remark about not having asked him until now...

But an odd feeling came over him when he thought about staying here and not returning to the Temple of Eket -- at least not yet.

Stay here and work in the archive.

He smiled. "Yes, that works well. It is good to be home at last."

The End

Flash Fiction # 542 -- The Long Way Home/41

 

"No," Zorian said. "I will not allow it."

The words amused Rory at first. He had never heard his companion sound so pretentious before. But then the words did something else. It formed a spell that caught at the tattered edges of his thoughts and forcibly pulled him back to where he really didn't want to go.

Rory put up a fight.

"Stop that, you fool! At least now I am stronger than you, and I will not let you slip away."

There was a pause, and Rory felt Zorian distracted by some other problem. He almost tried to break free of the hold, but he sensed Zorian's real worry and didn't want to take him away from some other problem.

Something.

Rory couldn't fully connect to that world where Zorian stood. Where Zorian fought a magical battle and still held on to Rory, who only wanted to go away and rest...

Did he really want to die?

Maybe that wasn't as important a question as another one. Did he want to give up the battle and not help to save the others?

Even asking that question brought him closer to the world filled with yells, howls, and pain.

Zorian didn't need to call him back after all.

Rory opened his eyes to find Zorian and Jamison fighting back two enraged dragons. Keltrina had picked up a bow but seemed reluctant to use it. Good. It would not do anything against those metal-like plates on the dragon's bodies, and if she hit a weak spot, it was likely to annoy the dragon more.

Rory's hand felt like it was on fire, but he shoved that pain behind a wall -- something good Pyrida had taught him. Then he stood, shocking Zorian, who at first gave him a mistrustful glance.

Pyrida had yet to notice.

Rory didn't even wait to get his footing. He threw himself at Pyrida, who was just out of reach to the left of the dragons. The man saw Rory and snarled, bringing up a ball of power that he threw --

But Rory had already thrown himself on the ground and used a little magic to slide forward and knock him down.  

Pyrida was already so weak that he couldn't get back up and couldn't keep control of the dragons. The sudden roar from the two of them brought Rory back to his feet, wondering if the dragons would realize who was an enemy and who was not.

The arrival of Greenal helped there. It even freed Zorian to come and help Rory. Greenal had no trouble directing the other two at the real enemy, and they kept Pyrida busy.

"He wants away," Rory said, holding his injured hand to his chest. He put a shield of sorts, like a glove over it to stop the bleeding. "Door -- do you see the door? Does it lead out?"

"Not out," Zorian said. "Deeper into this nightmare. Let him go."

Rory didn't want him to go because it meant the man would come back again at some point. Rory didn't want to deal with him again, or worse, to consider a time when he was no longer around.

Or had Eket changed all of that?

This was not the time to consider such a future. Rory had to take care of the problems here and now. Pyrida might be heading to that door to grab other power from beyond it, or he might be running to safety.

Rory bet on a panicked run for safety. He had already noted that the nightmare into which they had fallen was slipping away and edges of reality pressing close enough to touch.  

So when Zorian started to cast a spell toward the man, Rory stumbled into him, and Zorian lost the magic.

"Sorry," Rory mumbled. "Let him go. Need time."

Zorian didn't want to agree until Rory shook his head and hoped the man understood he had more in mind.

"Must reach the door," Rory said aloud, all that he dared say where Pyrida could hear. Zorian had no idea what he intended, but he and Rory pursued the mage. Pyrida gave a laugh of panicked glee when he reached the door and threw it open.  

Rory sensed the evil there more than he saw it, and he didn't care. Rory threw himself at the door, grabbed hold of it was a power he didn't think he still had and pulled the closed again. Had a brief view of Pyrida's startled face as the door slammed closed with him on the other side.

"I don't think we have enough power to destroy the door," Zorian said with a touch of panic all his own.

"Not destroy," Rory said, his voice soft and his hands shaking. "Sealed. Trapped. As long as this exists, Pyrida will focus his power here to get back out into our reality. His nightmare is shrinking, and he is losing the outer shells. We want them trapped in this one."

Rory knew he didn't have any more time to explain. He lifted his hands, traced the pattern of the door in the air, and then sealed it shut with a glowing red spell.

Zorian added a spell of his own, the power Bright calling blue as it overlaid the red and braided in with it. Unexpectedly, the three dragons added their own magic. Rory was starting to think that even a God would have trouble escaping this trap.

The last of Pyrida's magic dissipated as the light of day reached them again. Rory had already noted that the man's powers beginning so much that some of his nightmare had disappeared before he went through that door. Now all that remained of him was that door hidden behind layers of magic.

Everything seemed remarkably calm and quiet. Rory looked at Zorian with surprise, but before he could say anything, Rory started to fall forward…

Flash Fiction #541 -- The Long Way Home/40

 

Annoyance was not the best sort of power to tap. It was almost alien to Rory, who had spent most of his life working to stay calm in the face of aggravating situations at Court and the Temple. Annoyance did not come naturally to him.

Now he had to work fast to learn how to control it. Two of the threads had already attached to his legs and tried to force him to move toward Pyrida.

And besides that, the guards were still fighting Zorian as if they felt no change. The magical strings had meant nothing to them at all.

Yes, that was annoying.

Rory leaned over and grabbed both threads, fought them from twining around his arms, and shoved them at each other, surging magic through his hands to divert them from him and back to Pyrida.

The former Temple Master was not pleased when they snapped their attention to him and surged to take hold of his legs.

Rory knew he had the power to fight Pyrida. He also knew he had never worked hard enough on offensive moves. His plan had always been to protect himself and others, and Rory dared not hold to that idea now. Pyrida would just bombard him until he could no longer help anyone.

"Eket, help me," he whispered as he had so often back at the Temple.

Forgetting he was the high priest now and Eket was far too close by.

"Why do you call me?"

Zorian had moved closer to Rory. Now he leapt aside in haste. Pyrida all but howled at what must have looked like a betrayal to him. It upset him, and it upset his magic.

That was all Rory needed.  

"My apologies," he said with a bow of his head to Eket. He thought he ought to do more than that, but not now. Pyrida had started to yell, and Rory rushed past Eket and threw himself at Pyrida.

Pyrida would never have taught Rory such a move, and Rory knew that made it better than any of the movements they'd studied at the Temple. He had to consciously not follow what Pyrida had all but worked into his soul after all the years of training under him.

It was not easy, especially when Pyrida, unsettled, even more, lost control and stumbled backward -- and his nightmare world surged up around them, even worse than before.

Before this, Rory had seen the nightmare. Now he felt it. Blackness caressed his face with promises of evil he could not even name. He heard Zorian make a sound of disgust and tried to move closer to his companion. They needed to join powers before they were both forever lost. Pyrida's control would grow stronger.

Rory brushed against Zorian and grabbed his arm.

Pyrida, not Zorian.

This was both dangerous and the best opportunity he'd had so far. Rory had shocked Pyrida. The man's pale face had a covering of thin black lines that moved with frantic haste and even more so once Pyrida realized the danger to himself.

Rory had no idea what the lines were ... except they reminded him of ink on a page, writing something too fast to read. It could not be a good story.

Rory could do nothing until he knew the magic of the lines. He had to take a chance, so he quickly slapped his hand on the side of Pyrida's face, feeling the magic out as best he could.

It was the wrong thing to do.

The magic swarmed from Pyrida to him, covering his hand in a moving black glove of burning power. It wanted him, and he would not let it -- as long as he could hold the power back from his head. Not easy. Pyrida, although he didn't want to lose that power, didn't help except to weaken Rory every time he had to fight the man away again.

He dared not lose. Rory realized his own powers would be subsumed to another purpose and one he would not like. Someone long dead held this power, taking over Pyrida but finding him lacking.  

Rory would not fall. He kept the burning lines to his hand, forced himself to fight it despite the pain -- pushed it away.

It would not go.

He would fail.

Except he was not alone. Zorian arrived in a flash of light, his sword in hand and a look of worry and determination on his face. He grabbed Rory by the shoulder, and new magic swept down his arm and helped hold it at bay.

But even with Zorian's power, they could not win.

"Kill me."

"No," Zorian said with an emphatic shake of his head. "Wouldn't work. It would still take you and your power. I have a different idea. I'm sorry."

The sword whipped around and drove point first into his hand. Not an ordinary sword, and it glowed with power. The new pain finally drove Rory to his knees, losing his battle for control. He thought the lines would take him then, but he became slowly aware that the sword burnt away that magic line-by-line.

Rory believed he would not survive. His heart labored, and his hand bled in dozens of scratches while Zorian held to his arm and chanted magic that Rory could not feel. The world was going darker than the nightmare.

Pyrida fell first, and the link between him and Rory disappeared, though the last of the lines still tried to win their place. Zorian still fought, his body trembling, the sword moving more erratically now. With the last of his own power, and despite the pain, Rory reached out and steadied his friend's hand.

Zorian looked down at him with unfeigned shock.

"Thank you, my friend," Rory whispered.

And then he closed his eyes. The last of the lines had been destroyed, the sword pulled away -- and Rory let go.

Flash Fiction #540 -- The Long Way Home/39

 

It was one thing to know Pyrida had gone mad, but another to be pulled into the nightmare with him. It was as if the magical blow to the top of the head had opened the door to somewhere else -- a dark, forbidding place. The essence of Pyrida stood there like a black stone with arms, reaching to pull him in and destroy him.

"Rory!" Zorian yelled somewhere close by -- and yet in another universe. "Oh no. You can't have him!"

Zorian caught Rory by the arm, and Rory could see his friend's hand though no other part of him. Zorian yanked at him, and Rory tried to help, but Pyrida screamed, reached with stone arms, and yanked them all the way in.

"Well, this could have gone better," Zorian said.

Zorian and Rory stood side-by-side in a landscape of fire rage and ice cunning. A spear of destruction came at them, as large as a building. They would have been dead if Rory had paused for even a heartbeat. The same for Zorian. Instead, they both attacked with a force that seemed puny compared to the attack, a single ray of light --

That light found a crack, expanded it, traced a web of weaknesses, and exploded in two fast heartbeats.

Pyrida himself stood on the other side, a look of shock on his face.

"He's too used to ruling this place," Zorian said. Pyrida's head came up, and Rory could feel the glare. "He has never had anyone challenge him here before."

Zorian tossed a fireball at Pyrida -- nothing fancy or very powerful, but even that almost took the priest out.

There was something Rory had yet to consider. They were three priests facing each other. Rory and Pyrida should have been on the same side, and they'd been attached to the same temple, served the same God ... knew the same magic.

Rory wasn't sure whether that was beneficial for Zorian and him. Pyrida would have the same realization.

Or maybe not. Pyrida had always considered himself singular, better, and apart from the rest. Pyrida might have learned some different pieces of magic from all his long studies, but it was doubtful he'd learned any other fundamentals on creating it.

Rory was confident of that part, in fact. He could tell just by what he had already faced from the man.

There was no way to tell all of this to Zorian, though. Instead, he had to hold the knowledge and wait for the right time to use it.

That gave them time to study Pyrida and the magical world he had created. At first, he only saw chaos, which gave way to odd patterns that moved past Pyrida and fed him magic. It was the circle of magic made manifest -- and it was something Rory could also use. Pyrida didn't realize it, he hoped. He might not see the link to the old magic since he clearly thought this was his own world.

Everything was tied.

Rory just had to find the correct string to cut. That meant leaving much of the current work to Zorian, and he could not explain why.

Zorian did give him an odd look when he pulled back the bit of magic he had been using, but he reinforced his own magic and drove aside the fiery wall that came at them.

"Rory --"

"I know his magic," Rory dared to whisper.

Zorian didn't look his way, but there was a feeling of acknowledgment in the change of his stance. He even swept in for his own attack, startling Pyrida. There was another fact to take in. Pyrida had never faced an enemy.

No, that could not be true. Pyrida had, if nothing else, captured the dragons. They would not have given up without a fight. Would they? Could Pyrida have fooled them somehow? Dragons were old and wise --

Old. Time. Pyrida had centuries to work his magic on them, so little at a time that they didn't notice. Had he done the same with the New Order of Man? Or had they been willing to join in just on common goals?

Concentrate on the links to the dragons.

As much as Rory tried to ignore what was happening, several soldiers' intrusion drew his attention. That they showed no surprise answered the question about magic. Even allies would be shocked to be pulled from reality into this unless they were under some spell.

"Rory --"

"I am on it," he promised and noted how much strain there had been in his friend's voice. There was no time for study.

The soldiers charged straight at them. Rory moved, though he was wise enough not to put himself directly in front of Zorian, which would have blocked off his use of magic.

The attack slightly from the side worked better, anyway. Rory used as little power as he could and nothing fancy, but it worked. Pyrida, he realized, was using everything powerful he could to take them down and forgetting the first rule of magic: conserve power and attack weaknesses.

The weakness in the charging soldiers was not the people, their weapons, or even the magical armor they suddenly wore. The strings of magic tied them back to Pyrida, who worked them like puppets.

He stepped closer to Pyrida to get a clear view between the man and his soldiers. A quick wave of his hand severed the magic --

And the strings swept around and attacked him.

Such a little trap to get him, or at least keep him busy so Pyrida could focus on Zorian, who must have looked like the more powerful of the two. Maybe he was, but that thought, along with falling for the trick, annoyed Rory.

Annoyance gave him focus.

Pyrida snarled in anger and glanced his way -- and that was the man's big mistake...

Flash Fiction #539 -- The Long Way Home/38

 

They headed straight for the docks, rushing through Aien's bailey and past her tower as fast as possible, though Rory still felt as though the world moved in strange ways by the time they were out of the area.

The others were yelling, and he thought they even spoke to him. Maybe he had sense enough to trust them and agree with whatever they said. Just continuing to move with them proved difficult enough.

There were also voices in his head, none of which he understood. They roared, and they whispered. Some shrieked so loud that he thought he would go deaf from the sound.

They kept moving. Rory was aware of the others close by, but they seemed so much like ghosts that he feared he had failed them and they'd died. No. He could sense them as living creatures, and all the more so when they passed by areas where the dead lay. There the actual ghosts fled, streaks of colors running from the battle, with no idea that it was already over for them.

The buildings shimmered, but not with genuine fire. Rory had no idea why there was so much magic in this city. It seemed filled with old powers that he only now sensed. Those powers were not unfriendly, but they were not for him. There were reasons Schiwen was a matriarchy and a powerful land besides. He even knew why the three queens had gathered here, even if they didn't know.

I will do you no harm, he promised. Not knowingly.

Rory had missed a lot of what the others were saying. Zorian finally noticed, probably because Rory kept heading off at an angle. A little magic brought him back to reality, although he wasn't sure this was where he wanted to be. They were close to the dock. People fought everywhere, and dragons howled in anger. The feel of magic in the air made him uneasy. That was mostly Pyrida, but some dragon magic mixed in as well.

And that worked in their favor.

Zorian had found a spot behind debris where they could study the situation. It didn't look good.

"Pyrida could be anywhere," Zorian said with a snarl. "He's laid down so much magic that it is impossible to sort him out from it!"

"So much magic, in fact," Rory added, "that if we are careful, he won't find us, either. This is a major mistake --something the books couldn't have warned him to avoid. Magic was rarely a part of any war."

Zorian looked uncertain for a moment, but then he nodded.    "I think you could be right. Other lands have used magic to a greater extent than we do. We never studied the art of magic and war."

"Weren't there books from other countries?" Andora asked.

"Yes, but not in our language -- not usually. Pyrida could have learned to read them, but I think he's lazy." Rory turned away from the battle and stared at nothing for a moment. "There was a time when we had a special relationship with the dragons, but I never looked into it. I thought they were legends for children."

"And these dragons are not playing,"  Jamison added. The sounds grew louder, and everything around them began to tremble.

"What do the Dragons want?" Zorian asked.  

"They want free," Rory replied. Then he felt startled by his own answer. "Really, they want free. That had always been the key point in the dragon stories, wasn't it? They all revolved around captured Dragons and what would happen if they were not released."

"Release them," Andora said. She dared to look over the edge of their hiding place and shook her head with a growing frown. "They appear to be trapped on the larger ships, but they may be breaking free. What happens, then? What happens if they get themselves free?"

Rory had no idea, but he suspected it would be --

An explosion shook the world around them, followed by a roar of sound that sent ice through Rory. Zorian had tried to protect them with a shield, but some of the debris got through, at least one piece hitting Rory with enough force that his right leg went numb. The others were starting to scramble away from the fire growing on the dock. At the same time, Zorian kept a shield held to hold back as much as he could, slowly backing up and nearly to where Rory tried to crawl away.

Tripped over him.

Rory realized what would happen just a heartbeat before Zorian fell. It gave him enough time to throw his own power into the shield, and though it flickered, it still held.

"Sorry, sorry," Rory mumbled and tried to get back to his feet. The numbness was gone now, though, and the ache became annoying, bordering on intolerable. He had trouble focusing --

Greenal swept in, grabbed him by the back of his jacket, and carried him away.

Rory had not been prepared to fly, especially not straight toward the battle. He tried to protest but couldn't get his breath back. Instead, he grabbed hold of Greenal's other clawed foot since he felt the jacket start to tear.

"Almost there!" Greenal shouted above the other sounds.

If he was going into battle, he had better be ready. Rory had no time to heal his leg, so he encased it in a magic shell.

They were descending, the world swirling beneath him, but he realized they would soon join some very annoyed dragons.

And Pyrida.

Rory decided on a pre-strike since he suspected Pyrida didn't realize he was coming in yet.

Rory sent a shaft of power straight down at the man. Pyrida only looked up with the power too close to stop. He tried to wave it away --

It still went through his head.

And Pyrida went insane...