Chapter 14

“Where is it?” Ulvarius demanded.

Dreya could feel him attempting a mental assault, so she drew energy from her physical defence shields to counter it, still not wanting to let him know her true power.

“No idea,” she replied. “I specifically asked her not to tell me.”

She tried to act nonchalant, but internally there was a battle going on, for Ulvarius wasn’t the only one attacking her mind. There was someone else. Something else. Something more powerful and dangerous than any tyrannical wizard.

‘I do not need the distraction right now,’ she thought.

She had to stifle this quickly. Fighting a mental war on two fronts now, she was forced to access more of her power. She hoped her shroud was still intact but sparing any effort to check would only make it more likely to crack.

Fortunately, Ulvarius had a distraction of his own, as Dagamir pressed forward with a group of mages to attack Ulvarius up close. Dagamir himself even brought his sword into play. It was a curious weapon. It crackled and sparked, glowing red as he channelled his magic through it, yet it didn’t seem to have any gems embedded into the hilt. It was as if the steel blade itself was enchanted. But that was impossible. Dreya dismissed the puzzle with a shake of the head. She couldn’t afford to distract herself any further. Not now.

Hodge attacked Ulvarius from a different angle, while Sephora had banded together the remainder to attack head-on. The tyrant quickly found himself under attack from all sides.

Catriona found it interesting to note that most of those with Hodge were wearing something predominantly white, while Sephora’s group tended to be wearing black. About half of Dagamir’s section were favouring red, and the other half comprised most of the other colours there present, including the sorceress in hot pink. It was almost as if the Triumvirate system were forming before her eyes.

Ulvarius was forced to give up his mental attack in favour of physical magic. More wizards died from his magical assault, but since Ulvarius was now robbed of his advantage, the remaining eighty-odd wizards of this proto-Council were feeling emboldened, using energy reserves they never knew they had.

Even in her distracted state, Dreya saw this and began to worry that her plan may have gone a little too well. Ulvarius did not fall at the Battle of Compton, but the way things were, it looked as if that might change this time around. Whether the resulting future would be better or worse was not for her to say. As a Guardian, she knew she couldn’t permit such a radical alteration to the Timeline. Sure, she had helped to make a bigger one at the Fall of Kullos, but on that occasion, the alternative was the destruction of Tempestria, perhaps the whole of Creation. Changing that Timeline had to be justified. This was different. So, putting a tight lid on her internal troubles, she returned her focus to the battle and reversed something she had done earlier.

*****

“Ah, now that is the Dreya I know and love,” Cat remarked to herself as she watched from her hidden vantage point.

“Why? What’s she done this time?” Mandalee asked, having sped back from wherever she’d hidden the fragment. Cat refused to let her see that she’d made her jump. “You never explained before.”

“It was your ridiculous radical plan,” Cat pointed out.

“Oh, I’m happy to take credit. I’d just like to know what I’m taking credit for.”

Cat reminded her friend of their encounter with Vashti and the other children from Tedstone. Mandalee had helped Dreya forge a bond with them by getting her to pretend they were giving her some of their magic. It may have been a game to the White Guardian, but clearly, her Black counterpart had taken the lesson to heart and applied it to this battle. If Ulvarius had accessed the fragment enough to fire beam cannon blasts of higher planar energy, then the allied army was going to need shields of that same energy. By that same token, since Ulvarius would have such shields himself, their magical attacks would also have to be laced with that power, or they would never penetrate.

However, the only other source of higher planar energy – short of an anachronistic meeting with Daelen StormTiger, or asking his dark clone or Kullos very nicely – was Dreya herself.

“Wait!” Mandalee gasped in a loud whisper as she began to see where her friend was going with this. “Are you saying that Dreya the Dark, the power-hungry sorceress feared by many and loved by about four, actually gave away some of her power to others?”

“Well,” Cat replied, “by the looks of things, it was more of a loan than a gift – she just took it all back again because otherwise they’re going to change history and kill Ulvarius right here. But the point still stands.” She shook her head in wonder. “For one shining moment, Dreya the Dark gave away power.”

“Cat, I know I’ve said this before, but now I really do need a drink. Are you sure you don’t have any in that pocket dimension of yours?”

Cat shook her head. “As soon as we get home, I swear I’m making it a priority.”

*****

The attacking wizards ignored what they assumed was growing fatigue and pressed home their advantage. Ulvarius continued to lash out, and more wizards fell. Despite Cat and Mandalee’s best efforts, two never got up again. At last, however, the tyrant knew he was beaten. His fragment was lost. Maybe he could find it again, maybe not, but either way, he was still the Greatest Mage Who Ever Lived. This was just a minor setback. He would retreat to his Tower and resume his work. He still controlled most of Elvaria and would soon expand his reach to conquer the rest. Just a bit more work and he would perfect the process of turning people into the most powerful undead the world had ever seen. True Undead with enough intelligence to work independently and adapt to changing circumstances, yet slaves that he could control directly when necessary. Undead that could endure for centuries. Infinitely more useful and productive than all those pointless people living their pointless lives. Soon, Elvaria would be a continent of True Undead, and then he would stretch out his influence overseas to engulf Alloria and who even knew what lay beyond that?

“Enough of this nonsense!” he declared.

It was time to get back to conquering the world, but just before he left, he was determined to deliver one, final message. Extract the price of their defiance.

He gathered most of his remaining power and unleashed a crackling barrage of dark lightning at the one who was clearly the most powerful wizard there…

*****

Dreya the Dark was still in the process of restoring the balance of her power and dealing with the tormenting presence in her mind. All of this provided sufficient distraction that she failed to notice the warning of her magical defences until it was almost too late. Her shields powered up quickly, but not before some of the dark lightning painfully singed her skin and threw her to the ground. It was a minor wound; one she knew either of her companions could treat in a moment. Indeed, they were both at her side in seconds, fixing up the physical damage. It was nothing.

Far more important was that the capricious entity that was in her mind had taken full advantage. She’d tried to slam the door shut and most of it was contained, partitioned once more, but something had escaped her control. Just a tiny sliver, a small fragment, just for a moment. Now it had slipped away, hiding somewhere in her mind and try as she might, she couldn’t find it. She briefly worried about what that might mean for her future, but she stifled such thoughts immediately. No, she was Dreya the Dark, and she would have control, now and always. There was nothing that sliver could do as long as she was vigilant. The instant it tried anything she would be aware of it. Then she would catch that pesky thing and put it back in its box with the rest of it. As long as no more escaped – which it wouldn’t – it was no threat to her.

 

Meanwhile, Ulvarius was incensed that he hadn’t killed her.

“Dammit!” he cried. A shout that morphed into a scream of pain as Dagamir’s magical sword sliced away what little flesh still clung to his left arm. “I should have gone for you instead, Dagamir!” he spat.

“Try and correct your mistake if you dare!” he retorted. “You’re finished, Ulvarius! Your reign of terror ends today!”

But Ulvarius still had just enough magic left to crack open the boundary spell and teleport away as the power of Dagamir’s sword, an instant too late, buried itself harmlessly in a tree.

*****

Catriona helped her fiancée to her feet and dusted down her black velvet robes.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

Dreya insisted she was unharmed.

The wizards of the army mostly slumped to the ground where they were as the adrenaline rush that had sustained them finally receded, leaving them exhausted.

Dagamir, however, sheathed his sword and strode over to the Guardians. He was soon shaking Dreya’s hand so hard, Cat briefly thought it was an attack. Mandalee even scanned for damage.

“Darla!” he bellowed in his usual gregarious fashion. “We all owe you a debt of thanks. You and your healer friends.” He shook their hands with equal ferocity. “A druid and a cleric,” he observed. “Interesting company you keep.”

Stepping back, he took in the sight of the fallen wizards.

“It was a victory, but a costly one,” he announced, solemnly. “Still, I’ve always said we can achieve great things if we just work together.” To the assembled wizards, he shouted, “My friends! Haven’t I always said that?”

The wearied response he got was not enough for his liking, so he tried again.

“Friends! Haven’t I always said we can achieve great things together?”

With a supreme effort, they managed to muster up a slightly louder cheer.

‘Does he always do that?’ Mandalee asked Dreya, sympathically.

The sorceress gave a small smile and a nod.

“But you, Darla,” Dagamir continued. “You were the one who sparked off this whole endeavour and I cannot thank you enough.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dreya replied. Dagamir grinned, clearly believing she was being modest. “No, seriously,” she stated, firmly, “don’t mention it. To anyone. Ever.”

“Yep,” Mandalee agreed. “Just forget about us.”

“It’s like we were never here,” Cat concurred, her face white as a sheet. She felt like she was talking to a living ghost, and she was keen to stop.

Dagamir noticed her pallor and asked if she was feeling alright.

Offering a weak smile, she just dismissed it as fatigue from all her healing. “But we really should be going, now, Darla,” she prompted.

Mandalee caught on to why her friend was acting so strange and sought to help her cover it.

“Yes, Darla,” she agreed, “I need to show you where I hid the fragment so you can dispose of it safely.”

Dreya didn’t understand why her two companions were in such a rush but didn’t want to argue in front of Dagamir and the others, so she bade a quick farewell and began to walk away.

“But Darla!” Sephora called out. “You haven’t even heard about our plans!”

“Yes!” Hodge agreed. “After other wizards hear about today, they’re going to flock to the Forum, and that will be the start of—”

“—The start of a new co-operative Council for wizards across Elvaria,” Dagamir interrupted, calling after the three who continued to walk away, regardless.

“Yeah, you should get on that!” Mandalee shouted back, her pace unwavering.

“Sounds good!” Dreya agreed.

“But Darla, I thought you’d want to be part of it!”

“Not possible,” Cat insisted. “We were never here!”

As the assembled wizards looked on in astonishment, the three figures softly shimmered out of reality.

“Extraordinary!” Hodge remarked.

“That’s how Darla appeared in the Forum,” Dagamir remembered. “She said it was a dressed-up teleportation spell.”

“Didn’t look like any teleportation spell I’ve ever seen,” Sephora insisted once more.

Dagamir shrugged. “Oh well, I guess they were never here.”

*****

Having retrieved the fragment from where Mandalee had left it – she had asked a friendly woodpigeon if he’d mind keeping it in her nest for a short time – Catriona wrapped it in a Timeless field so they could transport it through a portal safely, without the power destabilising further.

She resolved not to mention the fact that Dagamir should have died in the battle. A quick glance and a slight shake of the head was all Mandalee needed to understand her best friend’s choice.

The truth was, it was a mistake they should have foreseen. Ulvarius had struck out at the most powerful mage in the army. He was consistent about that. Unfortunately, this time that mage was obviously Dreya, despite how she’d tried to shroud her power. While she could defend against the attack, Dagamir would never have stood a chance, so Dreya had unwittingly saved his life. Still, there was nothing they could do about it now. They just needed to make sure Ulvarius’ ultimate demise remained on schedule.

According to the history they knew, those seeds would be sown in a few weeks in a village near what would become Lake Quernhow or the Lake of Tears, formed when Ulvarius was in a particularly vindictive mood. There, he was scheduled to meet someone who would prophesy that there would one day be a wizard more powerful than he. A prophecy that would feed his paranoia, eat away at him until he flung himself from the roof of his Tower and cursed his grounds for the next three hundred years until that more powerful wizard, Dreya, could come to claim his home for herself.

That part of history needed to remain intact, for it could affect their own personal Timelines. Compared to that, Catriona believed that any effects from Dagamir’s survival should be minimal. Dreya calculated the necessary Temporal co-ordinates, but Catriona was the one to open the portal, lest she fall out of practice and become too reliant on her fiancée’s power. Pulling themselves out of sync with the flow of Time, they entered the portal.

Upon stepping out again, they found that everywhere was dark. Not dark as in night, but dark as in everything’s been blotted out. They could still hear events unfolding around them, but dimly, distantly. Too indistinct to make out.

At first, the Guardians were worried they had managed to screw up the world rather than save it, but then Catriona remembered something she’d read in the Chronicles about Temporal Black Spots. Wards placed there by the Guardians at the behest of the Council, and given the nature of Time manipulation, present Guardians could experience such Black Spots placed there by future ones.

The three companions took this as a positive sign. It implied that there was once again a Council of Mages to order such wards and future Guardians to carry out the job, which further indicated a fruitful legacy of their own work.

Slowly, gradually, the world faded back into view and the Guardians found themselves standing on the bank of the newly formed Lake Quernhow. The only water remaining in the middle of a dry, desolate expanse. The lake they knew hid an ancient repository of knowledge that, in about three hundred years, Cat would destroy. She wished she could use her Guardian powers to change that, but it was impossible. She couldn’t change her own past, and even if she could, there would still be the matter of Ulvarius’ undead army to deal with. No, much as she still hated what happened that day, there was nothing to be done about it.

Ulvarius had been and gone by now, having completed his handiwork. The whole area for several square miles was devoid of all life. In time, nature and eventually people would reclaim this place, but for now, there wasn’t a single living thing…with one exception.

Standing on the far side of the lake was a single solitary figure glowing with a bright radiance that made it difficult to look at them directly, even from a distance. Neither Dreya nor Mandalee had seen anything like it before, and the figure defied analysis by either magic or nature.

Catriona, however, remembered her one previous encounter with this entity very well. They had come to her on the worst day of her life. The best day of her life. The day the world of her childhood was ripped asunder. The day her new adult life began. It was the day that had made her who she was: a druid and a Guardian. This was the entity Catriona referred to as her Angel.

“Stop probing, you two, it’s not polite,” she admonished her companions. “Besides, it’s futile. Nothing we can possibly do will penetrate their shroud unless they wish it.”

The Angel held in their hand a wooden staff with a blue crystal on top, which they casually popped into a pocket dimension, before disappearing.

Catriona was surprised when Mandalee pointed out that she was crying. She hadn’t even noticed, but when she brought her hand to her face, her fingers came back wet, and she knew it was true. Her fiancée and her best friend placed an arm around her from either side, offering comfort and support.

“Are you alright, Cat?” Dreya asked, concerned.

Cat assured her that she was.

“You’re sure?” Mandalee checked.

Cat nodded, sniffled slightly and wiped away the moisture. “Yes, honestly. Just seeing my Angel again brought it all back. Everything about that day. It’s OK,” she insisted. “It was a long time ago, now.” She frowned for a moment, then added, “Or about three hundred years in the future, depending on how you look at it.”

“Time travel’s weird,” Dreya decided.

“I need a drink,” Mandalee put in.

“I think we all do,” Cat concurred. “Well, I think we’re done here, yes?”

The others agreed.

“In that case, Dreya, I’ll let you take us back home.”

Dreya opened a portal to Catriona’s Meadow. From there, she opened another to the ancient temple that Michael was rebuilding on the edge of the Rhynas Desert on Alloria.

As they stepped through, however, the Guardians felt the fragment’s power stir for a moment, and the co-ordinates shifted, as if the fragment were being pulled by something in that region of space and time.

*****

Sara was sitting on a bench at the picnic table outside Michael’s home, fiddling with her latest technological attempt. The palm-sized device still refused to work, and she couldn’t understand why. It was incredibly frustrating.

“Why won’t you work, you stupid thing?” she muttered. “I know it’s a different world, and there’s magic here, but the same laws of physics apply…more or less.” She held up her work in her hands, drawing it close to her face, staring at it, intently. “Why won’t you work!” she enunciated once more, as though it might tell her, if only she asked it enough times.

A few feet away, her sister, Jessica, focused on a group of daffodils growing around Michael’s pond, in which the Champion of the Gods, just behind her, was standing knee deep, trying to clear the algae.

“Now listen, Alycia, dearie,” Jessica said to thin air, an annoyed frown on her face. “I know I’m not from around here and not really a part of the nature of this world, but would it be so terrible to help me grow these flowers a bit?” She focused her senses, trying to touch nature’s power. Catriona had always made it look so easy.

“I do admire the way you two refuse to give up,” Michael approved, “but you could help me and go back to it later, you know.”

“In a minute!” the sisters chorused.

“You’ve been saying that for an hour,” he grumbled.

Sara’s device sparked into life, suddenly, as a round, blue shimmering doorway opened in midair next to the pond, out of which three familiar young women jumped clear.

Startled, Sara dropped her device, which smashed on the table. Jessica, in turn, lost her focus and glanced her sister’s way, accidentally causing two of the legs of Sara’s seat to grow fifty feet. It toppled over, sending her flying through the air, straight into her sister. Jessica then collided with Michael, who fell over in the pond with a splash, ending up with a face full of algae and half a lungful of water, which he began to cough up.

Sara was the first to her feet, cautiously walking over to her three Tempestrian friends, her tail swishing with apprehension. Tentatively, she reached out to touch Catriona and seemed astonished to find her solid and real.

“See?” Jessica challenged her sister, picking herself up. “I told you they weren’t dead!”

“Dead?” Mandalee wondered, confused. “Why would we be dead?”

“And what are you lot doing here, anyway?” Dreya wondered. “Shouldn’t you be on Lavos finding that lost fragment?”

“We already did that,” Jessica told them. Sara still seemed to be having trouble coming to terms with their friends’ existence, prodding each of them in turn. “Sara just dropped it over there.” She nodded towards the table with the now rather useless seat.

“You found it already? That was quick!” Cat remarked.

“Not really,” Sara disputed.

“Girls,” Michael called out, climbing onto the bank, “I don’t think they know.”

“Know?” Cat wondered. “Know what?”

“That day when you came to me needing help,” Michael began, “when Dreya’s grounds attacked you, and you sent us to Lavos…” he paused and shared a look with the two Chetsuans before finishing, “That was over two years ago!”