“Uhhh, May, what in the name of élois just happened?"
“I don't know, Love. We appear to be in the Waste, but I don't know why or how. I know a cantrip to make fire but there's nothing to burn.”
"I know you see pretty well in the dark. Do you see anything of note?”
"Just emptiness. That's all. I see nothing on the horizon in any direction. There's nothing to indicate what part of the Waste this is. We may be in the very middle but we're not close to any roads.
From the position of the moon, I'd say time is moving the same here as back home. I can tell that way is West because of the stars.
There are some large rocks over there. Let's see if they at least act as a windbreak.”
“Oh, don't go to all that trouble you silly people. Have you forgotten that you can take on god form and fly?"
The voice came out of nowhere, and we still couldn't make out its source. But it was right. As gods, the situation wasn't bad at all.
We both called out our god names, “I am Lagmir!” and "I am Afgrid!" and we were once again towering over the earth below us — clothed and armed.
A whooshing sound was accompanied by the appearance of a dimensional portal of tremendous size and, once it finished forming, a shape stepped through. Of course, it was a familiar one. We just hadn't met in person or been formally introduced.
It was the Sand Elf, Jinfar Ag-Tabi, in god form, dressed in Bedouin finery and holding an ornately carved quarterstaff.
“What goes on here, Wizard? Have you brought us to this place?" I demanded.
"Yes, Prince. I brought you here. It's time for someone to die. Well, go to the Flat Fields I should say. I think I'd rather just die.
The problem for you, but also something of a bonus, I guess, is that you will have a partner while you're there. But tonight, both of you will be sent there by my hand.”
"That's quite a bit of talk. It was getting hard to follow." I spat back at him.
“Fortunately, you won't need much of an attention span for this. It should be over rather too soon I should think. I regret that I won't have time to truly savor it.”
"Where are the rest of your Pretenders, Wizard? Are you honestly that confident?
Draw, May.” I whispered through clenched teeth and we both pulled our blades in unison.
“Tendil, don't look directly at him, don't listen to him, Janiver hasn't mentioned this yet, but I believe our blades can block some spells. Don't count on that though. Dodge. Stay low. We'll flank him and send the loquacious, pompous ass where he belongs. Got it?”
"You're so beautiful when you're authoritative,” I said with a huge grin.
"I love you too, My Prince. Now you go left and I go right. Go!”
“I'll admit I'm here by myself because of my eg … Oh, here you come. How impetuous. I was told you might be so. Very well.”
He pointed a finger at May, releasing several white bolts of energy that flew unerringly toward her. Without breaking stride, she held her sword out in front of her and deflected one, two, the third caught her and she winced painfully, she blocked the fourth, fifth, and sixth, but allowed a seventh and eighth to slip through.
"May!”
"Keep going, Love!” she yelled to me, grimacing as she stopped momentarily to catch her breath.
He turned to me and tried the same thing, but a rapier is not a two-handed sword. It moves like an angry bee. And I still had the bracer ?rdelon had given me. Swat, swat, swat, none were getting through on me and I was quickly closing the gap. In my peripheral vision, I could see that May was on the move again as well.
When I was about fifty feet from the villain, he threw a fireball in my direction. Steadily growing as it covered the distance, my mind slowed it down, calculating when I should dive and in which direction. When it was within ten feet, I dove under it and rolled, catching a small flame on my cloak out of the corner of my eye. I kept rolling, putting it out, and I was nearly on him when I sprang to my feet.
And the fool just stood there. I'm not usually so reckless, but he was making himself an easy kill. Ten feet away and I held my rapier point forward to skewer the arrogant bastard. Five. Then my blade went through nothing but air.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I heard laughing twenty feet to my right and spun to face him. Again he vanished, appearing again thirty more feet away, but closer to May.
She was on him in an instant but her blade met nothing, cleaving the empty night chill. Finally, he appeared some twenty feet from me and I ran at him.
Then, inexplicably, a red circle appeared in the sand, roughly ten feet behind where he was standing. A soft whisper in my head said “Go here."
Was this my gift at work? I feigned going right for him, but when he blinked out again, I went straight for the red circle. He reappeared just in time to take my blade through his gut.
I put my foot into his groin and pushed him off my steel. I slashed across his belly, exposing his innards, spilling them and blood on the sand at his feet.
He had a look of disbelief in his eyes, but that went away when May cleaved him from the top of his crown to his belt. And he collapsed.
Now May found use for the cantrip to produce fire and we made a fine blaze of the Wizard in that desolate place.
We both spat on the body, gruesomely defiled by our blades and starting to flame. I tore off the hem of his robe and wiped my blade clean, then offered it to May. Then I remembered she'd been hurt.
“Dammit! I forgot you got hit! Are you okay?"
I couldn't see anything but a few small dents in her armor at the center of her chest. She didn't seem badly wounded.
“I think it just hurt more than doing any actual damage. There'll definitely be some bruising, but we won't know for certain until we get this armor off."
“And here we are, stuck in the damned Waste. How long do you think it will take to fly home, May?”
“Depending on where we are in the Waste, it could be 500 miles, it could be 1,000. Several hours, My Love. I'm not sure how fast we can fly. Maybe we can teleport? We haven't tried yet, have we?"
“We haven't tried a lot of things. What should we do?"
“My instinct tells me that we should hold hands and just concentrate on home. If that doesn't work, we'll see if we can summon Janiver somehow."
She took my hand in hers and we both closed our eyes, concentrating on Nez Ambril, home, and our bed. The frigid desert winds were howling, lashing our faces in the exposed sands where we had fought the Pretender.
And then, we were in our rooms, in our nightgowns, seemingly no worse for the wear.
“Thank you, élois." I heard May whisper to herself, under her breath.
“May, we can't rest yet. We need to call everyone together and tell them what's happened. If they can summon us like that, no one is safe."
“You're right, My Love. I'm just tired and sore."
She rang Waldinor's bell.
“I hate rousing him at this hour, but there's nothing for it."
A thoroughly groggy looking young valet came to the door, stifling a yawn,
“What might I do for you, Your Majesties?"
“We need Margrin, Janiver, Brevid, Milost, and Pelisir here as soon as you can rouse them. It's an emergency matter. Understood?"
That snapped him out of his stupor somewhat.
“Yes, Your Majesty! Straight away, Ma'am!"
“Tendil, we need to discuss these other issues while we have everyone together. Especially Janiver."
“What issues, Love?"
“We can't rely on valets to roust everyone when we need them. That's important. And we need to be able to contact one another when we're separated. Right now it's too easy it seems to just call us out for a duel.
We're okay thanks to that Wizard's arrogance. What if he had only summoned one of us and he had help. One of us would be dead.
And then we were stuck in the middle of nowhere with no way to reach anyone. It would have been fine if we were Wizards, but we're not.”
"Certainly, you're right, Darling. I'm sure Janiver can concoct some sort of solution.”
“Oh, we're still in our nightgowns. Hurry, Love, let's get dressed and get to the sanctum."
It understandably took everyone a little longer to get to the sanctum than usual. They all looked like they needed their rest, even if it was just meditation. The mind and body need a chance to recharge.
When Milost finally arrived from Moss City, we had the group seat themselves and May had the floor.
"Tonight, the Prince and I narrowly avoided a catastrophe.”
There were surprised and questioning looks around the table.
“Jinfar Ag-Tabi, ‘The Cursed,’ summoned us from our rooms to a location deep in the Waste where he planned on ending us. If not for his distorted perception of his abilities, he would have had help and we likely would have been defeated.
As it happens, we worked very well together as a team and the fool won't be bothering us again any time soon.
We felt it urgent that everyone should be aware that they have the power to summon us like that. Janiver, I turn to you here. Steps must be taken, if possible, to give us the advantage.
We need to make it so that we can't be summoned like that. We need to learn how they did it. We need to be able to communicate with each other immediately. And we need to be able to bring everyone together without disturbing a valet's trance.”
Janiver stood and May sat.
"That's a lot, My Queen. It's nothing I can't do, but it's a matter of how quickly it can be done. I've already been working on lockets for us to wear. You simply open it and think of someone and you can talk to them that way. You can even see them in the locket. It's basically a very advanced spell made much more powerful with the included amber.
I can add another effect to the lockets, I believe. I may have to use a different metal. But I can make it so that you will resist any attempt to summon you. And it will give them inaccurate information regarding your location. Just off by ten feet or so, but they can't summon you without a precise location. Would that take care of everything?”
"Yes, Janiver, that will do quite nicely. It just needs to be done expeditiously. That means leave her alone and let her work, Margrin.
And what about us being able to summon them?”
"I'll have to research that one, My Queen. I've not heard of something like that. It's probably a new spell devised by Carca. That means it's powerful.”
"Remember,” May said, "that none of us is safe until we get that figured out. You can bet that, whatever their next move is, it will be much better coordinated.”
I stood.
"Tonight, we put the Pretenders on notice. They can no longer do what they wish with impunity. There is a force to counter theirs. Their schemes will come to nothing as is always the case with evil. Go, everyone. Get some rest, but be on your guard. We'll meet here again in the morning at eight bells.”