Faery Dust (Wildcat Wizard Book 2) Page 18

  I crossed my fingers while the elves smirked and a darkness expanded and contracted behind them, the edges sparkling and throwing off strange shadows. The tear in the fabric of worlds, linking ours to theirs.

  "In you go," said the woman, chortling like she'd told the most hilarious joke ever.

  "Um, no fuck you very much."

  "In," she said, all humor gone, eyes hard and warning me of dire consequences.

  "Like I said, go fuck a bear."

  "What? No you didn't. A bear?"

  "Yeah, a bear. Go. And. Fuck. A. Bear."

  "Why?" she asked, her curiosity aroused.

  "Because it would hurt and then it would eat you."

  "Oh, this is a joke? You are trying to be funny again."

  "Yeah. Not trying. I was." A breeze swept by, ruffling my hair, and it was only then I realized I wasn't wearing my hat, even though I'd felt the elf's boot on my head when I was on the ground. I put my hand to my head anyway, just on the off chance.

  "Looking for this?" asked the brother, pulling his hand from behind his back, my hat in his hand.

  "No, what made you think that?" I said with my best poker face. "Anyway, it's nicer than yours. You stole that style, and it looks just as crap on you as it does Elion."

  "Looking at his face is like reading a book, a boring book," said the sister, laughing. The brother looked anything but amused though. Guess he really didn't appreciate the insult to his fashion sense, or lack thereof.

  "And looking at your mangy ear is like looking at my leftovers. The gross bits. All gristly and nasty."

  "Why you spiteful little man." She stormed forward but her brother grabbed her by the arm and whispered something. She hissed back angrily, and he shook his head then said something else. With a smile and a nod, she turned her attention back to me.

  I didn't like the look she gave me at all.

  The portal to the Nolands expanded behind them and the brother threw my hat like a Frisbee. It spun close to the darkness then was sucked through with great speed, and as I sighed they rushed me then threw me in after it.

  I'd have gone anyway. I liked my hat.

  Confusion

  I'd never been to the Nolands at this point in my life, and for good reason. First, hardly any wizard could summon up the necessary power to open a portal to the realm. Second, it was much harder to keep said portal open so you could return to where things made sense. Third, and most important, as you didn't know what was on the other side, it was hard, verging on impossible, to control where the portal opened.

  We knew nothing of the endless worlds within the Nolands. There were no maps, no knowledge passed down over the generations, just idle speculation and a lot of warnings about how stupid an idea it was to ever try to go there. Some had, quite a few over the years, but most never returned, and those who did vowed never to go again.

  A very few became addicted to the Nolands, having found a way to come and go as they pleased, to anchor on something and to visit specific realms. Usually this was where the fae lived, as if you're gonna travel through dimensions or whatever then you may as well go somewhere there are hot chicks. And hot dudes.

  The Nolands was a lazy term for a vast wealth of worlds, some more real than others. You had your realms for fae, elves, and other supernatural creatures, but you also had your worlds for the demons and the damned and the endless limbos that catered for not only humans but all the other sentient species too. Some of these places we had names for, but most we didn't. We were, and continued to be, kept entirely in the dark about how they worked and what they were called.

  Even Sasha refused to tell me much of anything about her home world, saying it was not for mortals to know such things. That it was forbidden to talk of it and even if she wanted to, and was willing to, break the rules then she would never be able to release the bonds that stopped her discussing most aspects of her life.

  There was a cosmic rule, built into all who originated from the Nolands, that limited not only what they could discuss but even how they could act when they came from there to here. Sasha could tell me certain things about what might happen in my life, warn me to a degree, and she could certainly come and help at times, but it was all somehow tied up with what the cosmos had in mind. She couldn't just decide to do something then do it here. If it wasn't part of the plan she couldn't act. It would mess with the future, or time, or the very fabric of the universes or something, and she was trapped, her free will counting for naught.

  That's about the best she could ever explain it, and I guess she didn't understand it herself, not really. Those from the Nolands could meddle, could do things on our side, but there were limits. As if that wasn't enough of a brain melt, it was all further complicated by the hierarchies within the endless worlds. The more power the kings and queens, the rulers and the despots had, the more leeway given, or obtained. They could interfere with our lives more, and different races had higher or lower limits that governed the extent their meddling could reach.

  Elves and fae were the main players, maybe because they were so human in many ways, or because humans were so elven or fae-like. Fae often came to aid humans, liked to interfere and "help" as much as possible, hence the faery godmother thing and the gift of an unknown number of extra lives from Sasha.

  But, and this is what I'm leading up to, it didn't mean she could just come save me every time I whispered or shouted her name. She couldn't pop up and sprinkle faery dust and save me from the bad guys, or kill them all and take me home.

  Most of the time, the best she could do was come and watch proceedings without lifting a finger to help, but that was in my world, on planet earth. If I was in the Nolands, then as far as I knew all bets were off. She was on home turf and could do what she wanted.

  So where the fuck was she? I was more than ready for a deus ex machina about now and story be damned.

  More Trouble

  Within seconds of being in the Nolands I understood why wizards stayed well clear unless they had a screw loose. Nothing was right, everything was wrong. I sensed that time didn't work the same here, if it worked at all. This was why fae and elves and so many other creatures had a kind of immortality. There was no linear progression, everything jumbled up. Nothing flowed as it should. How can you age when the years don't soldier on into the future but break ranks and scarper in all directions? Forward, back, sideways, up and down? I was spinning through time, every moment a year or no time at all. How did you know when your dinner was ready in a place like this?

  Time being laughed at and prodded with a sharp, magical stick, was the least of my worries though.

  As I landed on hard, densely compact ground, sinking to my knees with my mind screaming so loud I clamped my hands to my ears but it made no difference, I felt drained of all energy. It was as if what little magic I had was being stripped away, although it was more the oddness of the place than the truth of the matter. I searched inside frantically, found I was still me, still had the magic left I'd had in my own world, but how it worked here, if it would at all, I had no idea.

  My knees killed so I shifted only to stab them on jagged shards of rock. Managing to take stock of my situation, I turned to watch the portal close with a soundless implosion, sealing me away from all I knew and cared about. I felt weighed down, as if gravity had doubled. Forcing me into the fractured landscape, the dry earth sparkling, nothing but rock and dust as far as I could see. Disappearing in a heat haze below a sky as pale and unforgiving as the pulverized rock I knelt on.

  The elves stood before me, my hat dusty on the ground in front of them. The woman grinned as she stomped on it with a shapely leg, her lightweight coat flapping in a breeze that never touched me or the dust.

  She frowned as her foot failed to make even a mark on the hat. I let out a "Ha!" as she lifted her leg in anger and gave it all she could.

  "What's that hat ever done to you?" I gasped, my throat raw, drying like the dessicated earth I was ready to collapse onto.


  "So annoying," she mumbled, then tried again, my hat immune to her strength. Good old wards, they hadn't let me down yet. At least for my hat, anyway.

  With that, I tumbled face first into the dust. It billowed around me, clouding my vision before my eyes closed and I lost consciousness.

  When I came to I was prone on my back, strange diffuse light searing my retinas yet cold like a winter's moon at the same time. Nothing worked as it was supposed to here, not even the sun. Although, as I turned my head left to right, I understood there was no sun, or none that made it through the haze. I craned my neck then sank back into the splintered ground, unable to do much of anything apart from confirm what I already suspected.

  The Hat was staked out like a bad guy from an old western, food for the vultures. But these were no birds standing over me, offering joyous shade from the alien sky, they were meaner, crueler, and weren't inclined to wait until I died before they ripped me apart. My arms and legs were spread wide, secured to the ground by bindings as fragile as a spider's web. Silken threads anchored to fat pegs, giving me a few inches of movement in my limbs at most.

  Time may have meant nothing but I felt like I'd been here for days, and was sure I was right judging by how dry my skin felt and how numb my body was. My throat was parched, my clothes itched, and I had one hell of a tickle on my nose that got worse the more I thought about it until I would have gladly swapped a hand for the chance to scratch it. I didn't tell them that though, just in case they took me up on the offer.

  As I squinted up at them, they stared down at me without emotion, as if waiting for me to say or do something. I had nothing to say and nothing to do. How better to spend what I assumed was a pleasant day back at home, and a sunbathing nightmare in the Nolands?

  "What do you people want from me?" I whispered, exasperated. "Take this up with Elion, not me."

  "We cannot find him. He is lost to us, and you are allied with him. We want to know."

  "Know? Know what?" I rasped, the words coming out slow and like they'd taken a cheese grater to my vocal chords.

  "We want to know what it does. The belt in your pocket, what does it do? What are Elion's plans? How will he usurp us?"

  "Usurp? What is this, the middle ages? What are you talking about? I told you, I don't know what he's up to, if anything. He seemed happy, same as always." Talking was becoming almost impossible and I coughed so fiercely I was surprised my larynx didn't take the chance to escape and crawl away.

  "Enough!" The sister crouched down, got close, then prodded me with a perfect finger, right on my cheek. "Tell us how to use it. Remove the wards and give it to us."

  "Just put your hand in my pocket and unleash the beast," I said, unable to help myself.

  She stood with a grunt of annoyance, and said, "He plays games with us. We should slice it from him, along with his legs."

  "No, we must have it. If he dies it will be of no use to us. His magic stops us using it."

  Looks like I'd bought myself some time by placing strong wards not only on the belt but on my own damn combats so nobody could take my wand, or anything else I kept hidden in the dark, without me agreeing.

  Then she kicked me in the face and I had second thoughts about the whole wizard and thievery thing. As blood streamed from a split in my cheek, I gave her my special fuck you look and smiled a bloody grin.

  If my wards worked here then so did the rest of my magic. I was low on power but low is better than empty, so the Hat got ready to blast 'em, blast 'em good. Then he got kicked in the head again and all was black.

  Before I lost consciousness once more, all I could think was that they didn't know what the belt did either. I had that to my advantage. I just had to figure out what to do with that information.

  Drinking Magic Juice

  Consciousness slammed into me like a mallet to the temple and I groaned as I stared at the same unsettling sky. I felt blistered and burned, yet knew it was in my imagination rather than physical damage. I was also thirstier than a fish on a week-long vacation in the Sahara.

  They didn't know what the Ræth Næg did! They wanted it because they discovered Elion did. His siblings were running scared and couldn't take it from me because of the wards. Ha, in your face lanky elves. Searching the area best I could, I discovered I was alone. Could I break the bindings and get free? Could I hell. I was tied down tighter than Vicky's ponytail and try as I might no amount of magical manipulation would change that.

  Focusing on the hard, dry lump that was my tongue, I searched inward and mumbled a distant spell that boosted my saliva glands so my mouth felt like it belonged to me not a stuffed animal. I swallowed and ran my tongue around cracked lips, then with a little trickery I imagined myself in Satan's Breath, hot and sticky and sweating, rather than the dry heat of my current situation. My upper lip grew sweaty, and gross as it was I licked off that sweat, that salty tang, and it if not quenched my thirst then at least got my mouth and throat functioning again. Problem being, all it was good for was screaming. I was still stuck fast.

  The air danced and forces of nature screamed their anger as a black tear grew to my left, wild energy crackling and sparkling as it forced reality apart. The elves stepped through, both looking rather surprised to find me conscious.

  "Do you have answers for us now?" asked the male in a condescending manner, as if it was a foregone conclusion I'd be ready to cave and give them whatever they wanted.

  "What was the question again?"

  "What does the Ræth Næg do? What are Elion's plans?"

  "It eats your soul," I said out of sheer desperation, "and if you want it come get it."

  For a moment there was no reaction, then they both retreated a small step, unaware they'd done so. They were falling for this? Okay, let's go with it.

  "I've had it with you guys. Let me up, now, or I'll activate it."

  "You cannot. You are ours, and trapped." The woman was trying to sound in control but I caught the waver. Elven afterlives were complicated affairs apparently, much more so than humans', and I'd touched a nerve. Whatever she thought would happen if I used the Ræth Næg was rattling her perfect teeth.

  "Ha, a human trinket. It will not affect us," said the man, stepping forward full of false bravado.

  "Try it out then. Let me loose and I'll lower the wards. I need my hands free to do it."

  They exchanged glances then huddled up, talking it through. Was I going to get out of this? Would my desperate ruse work? I felt a glimmer of hope and wondered how I could get back home. Time for that later, get free first then come up with a plan.

  "We have agreed," said the man as they came back into view.

  "Cool."

  "We will kill you and leave you and the Ræth Næg here. We will not have it but neither will our brother."

  With that he pulled out a twisted length of elven wood like a unicorn's horn, pale and shimmering with magical potential, screaming for my blood in my mind. Threatening and warning of pain unbearable.

  He lifted it two-handed above his head and the woman's eyes sparkled as she admired her brother's weapon and the suffering it would bring.

  Then he thrust down at my heart.

  Some Juice Left

  Energy surged from my chest, forming a shield of sorts, a disruption of the air pressure, making it as solid as steel. My magic was already dangerously low and this was taking things to the limit so I pushed out only as far as I thought I needed, a couple of inches at most to conserve energy.

  The weapon hit with such force that my whole body vibrated and I gasped as the point of the short spear slowed but didn't quite stop. In slow motion, driving through the pocket of super-compressed air, it inched forward, hit my clothes, then gently tore through the material until pressed against my skin, a hair's breadth away from being punctured. The elf scowled and pulled back but as the wood had penetrated the shield it stuck fast, leaving him straining as he angled away to find better purchase.

  The woman shoved him aside and his grip
loosened, leaving the weapon behind. She hammered the top with a fist, trying to pile drive it into me like I was a vampire to be staked, but she couldn't budge it. I put my will to work, and as she leaned down close to the end of the shaft I inhaled sharply, puffed out my chest, and thrust up and away. It hit her smack in the eye and she flailed, screaming as the thick end struck hard—she'd have a nasty shiner for sure.

  With the strange wooden weapon ready to topple, I strained against the air again, one of the easiest ways for me to use basic magic, and altered the course of its trajectory. It came down straight and true, angled at the bindings that tethered my right wrist. It struck the threads dead-on. My hand darted to my pocket and I grabbed my wand, sliced across and over my shoulder and released my other hand before I shot upright and grabbed the elven staff in my left hand.

  As the woman came back to her senses and her brother regained his feet, I used the weapon to release my legs, saving what little magic I had left and the power in the wand for later—I was sure to need it.

  I'd like to say I sprang up doing one of those cool flip things, but instead I used the wood in each hand to assist me and got to a standing position more through luck than skill or strength.

  "Bring it on, bitches," I growled.

  They brought it on.

  They charged me together, and moments before they hit they spread wide, hands held tight, and two arms slammed into my body at chest height, catapulting me backward and into the dust as though I weighed nothing. Knowing every second counted, I tumbled forward and rolled, tucking up tight. Once over, I straightened my legs and rocked forward onto my feet, turning just in time to see deadly white energy spit from their hands like lightning. I held up both my wand and the staff and crossed them, felt the power of elven magic connect with my wand and intensify to a frightening degree. This was one seriously powerful weapon, and no way was I giving it back. It helped channel my magic, and the sigils on my wand glowed red and dangerous, deflecting the blast that still knocked me back and left me reeling from the power that circled me then faded abruptly.