“Why have we returned?” Angelica questioned when they arrived back in the peppermint field of Cameroon.
“It’s as the blind one said,” Sage replied, marching swiftly through the field. “A full circle to be made.”
Angelica jogged to catch it with his long strides, her cloak twisting around her legs. “You believe the beginning is the end. That the answer to your problem originates from the problem.”
“Precisely.” The problem was the shield whose strength was determined by that of the opponent. Since that was the case, then he best change the opponent.
He had spent years tracking through all corners of the world, other worlds, searching for better, stronger, greater power that superseded that of Siti’s. Finally, merely a footstep away from it, he could feel all his plans lining in order. All he needed to do was get through that shield.
“That’s plausible,” Angelica said. “The children of my village, when they play a game where one person hides an item the others must search for, they usually hide it in plain sight. Maybe—“
Angelica shifted backwards, flipping out of the way.
Sage caught the arrow aimed for her, snapping it in half with one hand. “Guard yourself. We’re being attacked.”
“I gathered that when an arrow flew towards my head.”
Sage flicked his ears, his nose, and wiped his thumbs over his eyes to heighten his senses. Mages didn’t posses supernatural senses are strong as those of other paranormal creatures. Sage inhaled deeply. His nose twitched and he spat on the ground. “Smells like damn cake. Damned Butterflies.”
Light fae spilled out of the surrounding trees, circling him and Angelica.
“This is as fae as you go,” the green skinned faerie said.
What did light fae want with the magic that lay within the mountain? The magic was rare natural, earthy, everything opposite those glamour wearing butterflies were used to. The sheer force of the power alone was great enough to rip a man in tatters.
That’s why Sage sought it. He was strong enough, his magic powerful enough to handle what lay in the mountain. And no glittering faerie was going to stop him.
“Burn.” Fire swirled from his core, rippling out in ring after ring that burned everything it touched. With the exception of Angelica, of course. Now wasn’t her moment to perish.
The faeries dodged, but the fire snaked and wrapped around the leg of one who stumbled and grabbed his comrade for support before the flames incinerated them both.
Behind him Angelica ran through the men with the speed of a true predator. Her jabs were short and quick as she dropped the faeries like the flies they were, one by one. She reached into her cloak, clutching a bone dagger, embedding it into the silver faerie who suddenly appeared to her right.
She moved with precision, but didn’t aim to kill. Not even when she found herself surrounded by seven fae.
Steady as the falling snow
Silent as the winter night
He who walks the land alone
A might King without a throne
“What the hell are you doing?” Sage snapped when she beginning to sing angelically, soothingly as she weaved in and out, avoiding their attackers.
Many he meets upon his path
Who point and laugh and fade with wrath
The faeries became sluggish until they dropped to the ground in a slumber so deep not even an eruption from Mongo ma Ndemi would awake them.
His eyes twitched. He didn’t even want to know.
He flicked a finger and watched one guy’s skin boil and bubble as he cooked from the inside out, falling dead to the ground within a minute. A wave of his hand and he cast two men through a portal into the fiery hells of the lava that churned within the mountain, trapping them.
He held up his hand, a metallic bulb formed. He tossed it up into the air where it expanded and exploded, raining down upon the landed, he threw a shield over Angelica for a simple drop of the rain would end her life as it did the butterflies who all fell to their death from his shower.
He looked around until for any sign of life remaining. There were none.
Angelica shook her head at the carnage before her. So much death, so unnecessary.
Sage through up his shield of invisibility. “Let's go,” he tossed over his shoulder, snatching her hand in his, their pace hastened. He was too close to wait, and if he was delayed any longer Cameroon would learn of his desolation.
Angelica skidded to a stop in front of the barrier when Sage flung her away in front of him. He walked along the shield, his eyes blind to what truly lay there. “Tell me, has it changed in the night?”
When he first came upon the shield, and all the times that followed, it has been a simple barrier that prevented him from taking what lay within. Except for the last time. She said it was a shield of death, one that grew in strength from he who stood before it said the blind Fae.
He locked his hands behind his back, impatiently flexing his fingers. He formed a gold spiral in one hand, a blue in another.
“It remains the same,” she said. “You’ve gained meaning from Fae’s words, though I know not how you plan get through this shield.”
“It’s rather simple.”
“Is it?” She turned his gaze from the shield to him.
His tips curled at the corners, a dark smile spreading. “I just need to do this.” He threw the gold spell at her, watching it drill through her chest, spreading within her body like a chain of electricity, ripping, tearing, and sizzling everything it touched. She shrieked in pain, collapsing to her knees gagging, gasping.
She glared up at him, her eyes blurred from pain and rage at his betrayal.
“Nothing personal,” he assured her. “It’s as the blind one said, the shield is as strong as who stands before it, a sacrifice must be made.”
Angelica coughed, spilling blood onto the stone beneath her before taking a final breath and falling completely. He watched as her life drained, fine lines forming in the shield as it cracked and crumbled in places.
The magic of the shield increased depending on the strength of the magic of the person who stood before it. He figured it would register he and Angelica together, as one threat. Successfully killing Angelica would weaken the shield by half.
He cast the blue spell at the fractured shield. It shattered.
And for one brief second, Sage couldn’t breath.
He did it. He really did it, acquired the magic he sought for so long, the answer to his problem…at least that much closer to the answer.
But now was no time for dallying.
He flicked his hand, lifting the spell from the pits of the cave where it floated above the lava. It levitated before him.
Finally.
He palmed the magic. It vibrated with such force he readjusted his stance to hold his ground. Closing his palm around the pulsating orb, Sage absorbed the sheer magnitude of the magic in his hand.
And it was thrilling.
Beyond anything he’d ever felt.
With every drop he gained, he felt ten times stronger, ten times better, ten times ready.
He almost couldn’t believe this was happening.
The orb grew smaller until he held all its magic inside him.
Sage hung his head, his chest shaking with laughter, laughter that broke free and filled the cavern. He laughed and laughed and stopped.
Something wasn’t right.
As quickly as the magic had entered, it seemed to leave. He felt it draining, leaving his body.
No.
He spun around to see the magic hover over Angelica, settling into her.
No. No. Why? “What is happening?”
Angelica pushed to her feet, standing and drawing all the magic into her.
She raised her head, a smile that mirrored his own forming. She held up her hands, surveying them. She clapped her hands together, pulling him apart, a string of silver stretching between her hands. She flung it up where it dissolved like snow fall, and just like that, she went from the cloak covered Wolf Runner to a true Spirit Guardian, her white gown long and flowing, the outline of a bow there but not strapped to her back, her hair spilling long and dark down her back just to the small of her back. She was angelic.
And he was enraged.
Sage cast a spell of immobility. “What happened?” he asked, another spell of death pointing at her.
She blinked, his spelled falling from her like loosening ropes.
“It seems the ceremony worked.”
Ceremony? “What ceremony?”
“The tea ceremony to welcome new members to the tribe. I served you in my tribes customary manner of welcoming new members, and you accepted that tea, and I am able to take from the members of my tribe. The sacrifice.
“You see,” Angelica said to Sage’s furious expression, “the magic you sought was mine, taken and locked away by Wolf behind a shield that I could not break and few were strong enough to. But you could. My father had a dream of the Black Mage who raged the Eastern lands with magic so dark and powerful he had no rival, the one who could return what was mine.
“It was I who created the labyrinth, I who spoke the rumors on the wind, I am the Creator.”
“So you used me,” Sage thundered, his rage so great his body numbed.
“Nothing personal,” she replied. “It seems our deal is complete. I helped you gain magic that you sought, and you helped me retrieve what is mine.” She turned and walked away. “But I will not send you away empty handed. For your troubles.” A crystal globe appeared in front of him. “A spell. One that even someone of your caliber would love.”
Blinded by fury, Sage cast a curse of death at the spirit, but she vanished.
“Arg!” He yelled, his voicing booming, and the magma of the volcano exploding up and out from his anger, raining fire onto the lands.
He heaved, his jaw clenched so tight blood spilled from his cheek.
How dare she? How dare that little runt pull a fast one over on him? No one ever got the best of him and lived to see another day. He’d killed her, track her down and kill her. And he knew just how he’d do it. A slow, bloody, torturous death she’d suffer.
He needed that magic. It was the one sure thing that would give him the edge of Siti. Without it, he was back at square one, back at watching his mother destroy everything. He fisted the spell absorbing it without a thought. A portal opened and Sage stepped through coming out back in the tribe’s village…that wasn’t there. No sign of a village ever existing in that spot.
It had all been a set up. Everything.
One thing he’d never said before was that he’d been bested. His sister tried, but she never succeeded. He’d never gone up against his mother. But Angelica, the Lying Guardian had bested him. Mixing with his rage was a chilling sense of anticipation. Sage never lost against anyone and she would not be the first.
Oh, he would find her. And then she’d learn the true depth of his power.
OOOOOO
Seated at the kitchen table, Fae dropped her hands away from the crystal ball that showed her the past, present, and future. Her blindness not a limitation as the magic worked inside her head. She pressed the ball away and held her head up, angled towards the figure at the kitchen door.
“She has returned, our Wolf Runner,” Fae said to the Shaman, in reference to the magic that flowed through Angelica.
“All because of you, sister.” The Shaman took the seat across from his wife’s sister. He lit his pipe, the smoke filling the small room. It saddened him to see his wife’s twin, locked out of her home world by a psychotic brother who’d kill her if he knew where she hid. She roamed the physical world as the Blind Fae for centuries, guiding Angelica as her own mother could not.
“I mustn’t stay long since he will surely know about what she’s reclaimed.”
“Have you seen anything new?” he asked.
“There are many paths with many outcomes, all happening, all possible.”
“Does remain on the path she should walk?”
Fae pulled the crystal ball in front of her. She swirled her hands above it, mixing the smoke of the pipe into the ball. “Shall you gaze and see what lies in her future?”
The Shaman sat back and laughed, his old bones popping. “I have seen, sister. I have always seen.”
END of A BEWITCHING RAIN
(Sage and Angelica's story will continue later)
