BTIV - Chapter 6

A blast of heat washed over Micah’s tight smile.  In front of him, a man in garish and outlandish clothing was spitting some brand of foul smelling grain alcohol into a torch, generating a stream of fire that rivaled a low level spellcaster.

On either side of the firebreather, a pair of people in red and gold leotards did a series of backflips across the paving stones, drawing a roar from the crowd.  Micah felt a muscle in his jaw twitch as he looked up and down Empire street.

Red Sand’s largest and wealthiest promenade was lined with throngs of people, all of them cheering and clapping their hands at the antics of the gymnasts.  Behind them, a bear balanced on a leather ball the size of a toddler, rolling after Micah’s carriage while the animal’s blessed tamer followed it, her lips moving as she reapplied some sort of spell.

“Eyes front and keep waving,” Trevor whispered, smile plastered on his case as he swung his right arm back and forth violently, drawing laughter and whoops of delight from the crowd.

They were on a carriage drawn by two of the finest and most expensive horses Micah had ever seen.  Both of them were snow white and prancing, bringing their hooves up almost as high as their chests as they dramatically pulled the six Silver Wolves down the parade route.

Micah and Drekt were in the first row after the driver, wooden and stiff as they politely acknowledged the masses of citizens arrayed on either side of the road.  The next bench had Trevor and Leeka.  Leeka looked like she was suffering the attention almost as poorly as Drekt, but Trevor was his usual self, standing atop his seat and gesticulating wildly at the observers, much to their delight.

The final row had Esther and Eris, and the two girls were having a blast.  Eris’ leg had been completely healed before the guild left the site of the outbreak, and now she was standing up on her seat, throwing white carnations into the crowd as Esther handed the flowers up to her niece.

“I can’t believe we have to put up with this circus,” Micah muttered.  A pair of clowns rushed past giggling and juggling a half dozen batons.  “The world is in the process of ending, and here we are, wearing fancy shirts that are half starch and pretending to be amused by childrens’ entertainers.”

Next to him, Drekt shrugged, his voice a low rumble.

“You wanted to meet someone important.  You saved the city and now you get to meet someone important.  It’s just that the price of your audience is a parade in your honor and getting presented with a medal in front of the entire province.”

Micah swallowed a groan, forcing another smile as we waved stiffly at a family of rich merchants he recognized from his time networking under his father’s supervision.

“Can’t I just save the city again?” He asked, trying his hardest to keep his lips from moving.  “I think I’d rather risk my life fighting daemons or wrestling some sort of primordial beast to dealing with all of this empty and pointless fawning as the crisis builds itself to a breaking point.”

“We’re almost there,” Drekt replied, “It will just be a matter of accepting your award and then you can have a private meeting with the princess where you can-”

The big man’s words ground to a halt, transforming into a pained wince in a second as Trevor jumped off the side of the carriage to run into the crowd and kiss a baby on the cheek.  The child’s family cheered wildly as the young man returned the baby to them.

“I think embarrassment is dealing more damage than the sand elementals,” Micah said, waving woodenly to yet another cluster of onlookers.  “Honestly, if this entire thing were an illusion created by someone with a blessing that let them weaponize uncomfortable social interactions, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Drekt grunted in agreement, his jaw clenched as Trevor jumped back on to the carriage.  Micah didn’t say anything further.  Their transportation was drawing nearer to a raised platform ringed by high level guards.  Even at a distance, he could feel waves of power emanating from their weapons and armor through his crown.

On the platform itself was a throne, the most powerful guards, each radiating mana that made him suspect that they were almost as high of a level as Micah himself, stood a half step back.  He could feel the defensive spells that layered them, making them glow in his perception like small suns.

Neither of them were as powerful as Micah.  Despite their levels, the difference in classes and affinities was beyond anything they could overcome, even together.  Still, two of them at once would likely be able to buy their ward enough time to escape if for some reason things came to blows.

Mentally, Micah nodded in approval.  The princess had set their first meeting up in the open with all of her guards around her, both as a show of force to the locals and to assure that she could meet an unknown actor in a setting where she could protect herself if he turned out to be hostile. Gwendolyn had always been a cagey figure.  It was good to know that her cautious nature wasn’t something that she developed later.

The outer cordon of guards parted as the carriage approached.  Their driver pulled them up at the foot of the platform, and Micah, Trevor, Drekt, Leeka, Esther and Eris exited the vehicle.  A man in a suit scurried nimbly down the stairs to the stage.  He shoved a polished crystal into Micah’s right hand, leaning forward to urgently whisper in his ear.

“Guildmaster Silver, you will approach the princess first.  Speak into the projection gem and your voice will be repeated to thousands of guests.  Princess Sallin will present you with your awards and make a speech, then you will leave the podium and I will direct the rest of your guildmates up one at a time to receive their awards.  Afterward, you will have your private audience.”

Micah nodded and motioned for the rest of his party to stop before taking a deep breath and ascending the wooden steps to where the princess awaited.  He felt more than saw both of her guards tense.  Their senses weren’t as keen as Micah’s so it seemed that they hadn’t noticed the pressure rolling off of him until he was within twenty paces.

He approached the throne and dropped to a knee, making sure to not engage in any sudden movements that would alarm Gwen’s bodyguards.  Micah held the position, waiting until Gwen gave him permission to rise.  The length of the delay one of the many intricate court customs that signaled her esteem and favor.

The princess held him there for one second, a period of time equal to a senior count, longer than she would force a duke to wait, but far shorter than a knight or manor lord, let alone a powerful commoner.

“Rise Guildmaster Micah Silver of the Silver Foxes”

Her voice was just as he remembered it.  Admittedly, there could have been some changes.  Before he had used blessed return, Micah was set to meet her in about two years, and a lot could happen in that time, but as he shifted his gaze up to meet her eyes, Micah couldn’t help but take in how similar she was to his memories.

Tall for a woman, but not quite taller than him, her black hair was pulled back in a braid that disappeared behind her.  Like many from Sandrovok, her skin was darker than someone from Pereston due to the constant beating sun, but at the same time she had managed to avoid the dry and leathery skin common to the working classes.

“You have done a great service for my mother’s kingdom,” the princess began, her face expressive and friendly but eyes distant as she spoke into polished projection gems in her throne.  She was a talented actress, but it was clear that Gwen was reciting a memorized speech.  “A dungeon outbreak threatened the city of Red Sands, and only through your quick thinking and personal power were we able to avoid a true tragedy.  Your acts have-”

Magic pulsed.

Micah’s eyes widened as he felt reality tear like wet paper between him and the princess, letting a pair of luocas push through and into Karell.

He reached for his spear, but of course he didn’t have it.  There was no way that they would let him come equipped with his weapons and armor to an audience with a member of the royal family.

A scorpion stinger blurred through the air, forcing Micah to leap aside as the floorboards where he had been standing erupted into a spray of splinters.  One of the luocas faced him, its humanoid face screwed up a manic grin as foam frothed from the corners of its mouth.  Behind it, the other daemon was squared off with both of the princess’ guards.

Micah took a deep breath, dropping into a defensive stance.  Even without his weapons and armor, he could handle one luoca.  It wasn’t an ideal fight, especially given the monsters’ tendency to erode the world around them with their very presence, but it wasn’t like fate had given him a choice.  A common theme really.

Its wings slashed through the air, the crack of their passage arriving an eyeblink after the attack itself.  Micah ducked, pushing off with his right foot hard enough to shatter the planks of the podium as he sent himself sliding backward and out of the creature’s reach.

Hurriedly, began mouthing the words to Foresight, keeping his eyes trained on the daemon as it skittered forward on its insectoid legs.  He finished the spell just as it got in range, leaning to the side a fraction of a second before it jabbed at him with its tail.

When the daemon tried to retract its attack, Micah’s hand darted out, grabbing the appendage just behind the stinger.  Almost immediately he could feel the abomination’s aura of wrongness go to war with his arcana skill as the energy from Elsewhere tried to overwrite Karell, to twist and morph it into an uninhabitable mockery of the vibrant world that had always been his home.

Micah ignored the burning in his hand as he yanked luoca up into the air and off of its sharp, skittering legs.  For a fraction of a second it tried to flap its locust wings, but then Micah grunted, pulling with all of his force as he swung the creature in a tight arc with him at the center.

The edge of the stage shattered, spraying wood and daemon ichor all over the screaming and fleeing crowd.  On the street below him, the guards fought with a half dozen onkerts that had been summoned twenty or so paces from the podium.  Somewhere, Esther and Trevor had found spears and they were moving to assist while the rest of Micah’s companions tried to find weapons that would suit their combat styles.

He wouldn’t be receiving assistance anytime soon, but at the same time, Micah knew his companions would be fine.  Even without their proper gear, opponents of that caliber would only delay them.  Right now, the only real threat was the bug daemon trying to writhe out of his grip.

Micah added another hand, his thumbs and index fingers touching together as he grasped the struggling monster’s tail, and flipped it over backward once again, mouth moving silently.

It landed just as he finished casting Sonic Orb, its impact blasting a hole straight through the floorboards and revealing the darkened interior of the structure below.

Although the bludgeoning did some damage to the luoca, it mostly served to distract and disorient the beast so that it couldn’t mount a counter attack.  Every awkward slash of its wings or stab from its razor sharp legs was preceded by a wave of rainbow light, letting Micah dodge them all with contemptuous ease.

The actual damage was done by his spell.  A ball of sonic energy snapped into existence between his hands, engulfing the creature’s tail.  It released a hum that quickly rocketed up the register until it became a disorienting screech as it shook and vibrated through the monster’s chitin, disrupting ichor and pulping flesh beneath.

Micah jumped into the hole with the monster, jerking it off the ground as soon as his feet touched down in the dark interior of the stage and smashing the daemon sideways through the three heavy timber supports.  When it struck the third, the constant damage caused by his spell was too much, and the armored exterior of the luoca’s tail shattered in a spray of ichor as it flew from his grip, blasting a hole in the side of the wooden structure and tumbling into the street beyond.

He reached down, picking up a rod of wood that had broken jaggedly enough to have a sharp point.  It very well might be the least effective spear on Karell, but as far as his martial arts and skills were concerned, it was still a spear.

Gust Step carried him through the gaping opening in the stage, and Micah planted the butt of his weapon in the demon's eye before jumping back a fraction of a second before its wings clicked forward, trying to cut his unarmored body in half.

He began reciting the words to Binding Vines, darting in and out of the monster’s guard to poke and prod at it with his improvised spear.  None of the attacks really did any damage, but they kept the daemon distracted long enough that it did not notice the lower level guards behind it as they fought to keep the onkerts at bay.

The spell went off, and a dozen roots, each as big around as a fit man’s waist, exploded from the ground and wrapped themselves around the luoca, following Micah’s will to pin the creature’s dangerous wings and legs in place.

Behind him, the clamor of battle grew as more guards poured into the fight against the luoca that was trying to kill Gwen.

“Protect the princess!”  A voice that sounded suspiciously like the man that had given him the projection stone shouted.  “Get her to the teleportation formation, then we can finish off the attackers!”

Out the corner of Micah’s eye he watched a handful of guards and the carriage driver peel off from where they were fighting an onkert and run back to the partially demolished stairs of the stage.  After noting their presence, he ignored them, ducking under a flick of his luoca’s wings and planting his shoulder into the daemon’s chest even as he cast Explosive Thicket with a word.

His legs bunched under him, propelling Micah upward and into the hard chitin of the daemon’s torso.  Almost immediately the rich fabric of his shirt melted as its reality warping aura devoured it, and even his brief contact with the creature filled most of Micah’s body with a burning and itching sensation as his arcana struggled to fight off the taint of Elsewhere, but the maneuver did its job.

The bug monster flipped over onto its back just as Explosive Thicket blessed upward.  The sharpened roots and lengths of wood didn’t have quite enough force to penetrate their quarry’s thick armor, but the same couldn’t be said for the luoca’s wings  Not every spike made it through, but enough did to tear the thin but unbelievably tough webbing that allowed the daemon to fly.

Micah took a couple of steps back, sucking in air to catch his breath.  The luoca kicked wildly, but he had been careful to position it under one of the holes in the stage.  It was stuck on its back, unable to properly flex its wings and with nothing for its legs to find purchase on.  In short, it was as helpless as an upended tortoise.

He jogged over to the battle with the onkerts.  Grabbing a spear from an unconscious and bleeding soldier he hurried back to the injured and disabled monster.  He walked around to the front, staring it in one of its all too human eyes as it snarled and gnashed its teeth at him.

Micah ignored its impotent fury, lining up the spear perfectly.  After all, he’d only have one chance to use the weapon before the luoca’s aura destroyed it.  Just as he was tensing his muscles to stab the thrashing daemon, a spike of magic widened his eyes.

“No!”  He barely heard the screw rip itself from his throat as he sprinted past the trapped monster, directly at one of the walls under the stage.

He lowered his shoulder, crashing through the sturdy wood just as it happened.  One second he saw the princess standing with a pair of lower leveled guards in the center of a teleportation formation, the servant that had driven the carriage he arrived in reciting the words to a ritual.  The next, the magic activated.

It was wrong.  The spell was trying to shove them into Elsewhere, but there was no tunnel to protect them.

Time slowed to a crawl, as the princess and her guards were sucked outside of reality.  Without even thinking about his actions, Micah grabbed Gwen with his mind.  He didn’t have time to worry about the guards, but once upon a different life, Gwen had been something like a friend.

And he pulled.  It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, dragging her back out of Elsewhere as the guards were torn apart before they could scream, their very souls shredded and returned to the mists.

Micah could feel daemons crowding around the princess.  Nothing so powerful as the luoca or even the onkert.  Formless hungry things that measured in the thousands, summoned by the bright flash of Gwen’s soul in the fog choked darkness of Elsewhere.

Even as he dragged her back through the portal created by the ritual, the ravenous clumps of malice latched onto her, chewing at her flesh as they sought to melt through and devour the spirit beneath.  When Micah pulled, they resisted, trying with all of their collective might to drag Gwen’s weakly struggling form back into the mists.

He bit his lower lip, tasting copper as Micah gripped the woman again with this mind.  This time when he pulled her back through he rapidly growing portal, he formed a blade of mental energy, shearing downward across her skin and shaving dozens of the clinging ghosts off.

Something inside Micah seemed to click.  He was pushing arcana to the maximum, but there was something beyond it.  He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the faintest trickle of an unknown power flowed through him and he willed reality to solidify around the tormented woman.

Gwen popped back into being, immediately collapsing as blood flowed from a hundred wounds opened by the strange prying and gnashing fog daemons that populated Elsewhere.  She collapsed, gasping raggedly for breath through ravaged lungs.  Micah took a step forward to aid her, stopping his advance at a shout from the carriage driver.

“How!?  The ritual was supposed to kill her without anyone knowing.  How did she come back-”

He never got a chance to finish as Micah’s spear sprouted from his chest.

In a second he was past the dying man, dropping to one knee next to Gwen as he frantically began to cast Panacea.  She coughed, blood trickling down her lips as her gaze slipped in and out of focus.

The spell settled onto her body, and almost immediately Micah’s expression flattened into a grim line.  It healed some of her injuries.  Bruises, birth defects, a lingering cough- they all disappeared in under a second, but the damage from being exposed to Elsewhere and attacked by lesser daemons?  None of it healed.  Blood still welled up from the bite marks and her extremities looked like they had been soaked in acid, stripping them of skin and muscle until they appeared like little more than twisted, useless claws.

He reached down, grabbing either side of the princess’ face and pulling her toward him.  Her eyes focused through the haze of blood loss and pain.

“Gwendolyn,” he hissed.  “You’re dying but I can fix this.  I’m a time mage.  I know you but you don’t know me and I am going to help you.  Your favorite color is indigo and your favorite bird is the ruby crested finch, but other people know that too.  I need you to tell me something that only you know so that you will trust me when I revert things and try again.  We’ll only have one chance to fix this.”

“What?” Her question came out as a gurgle.

“We will only have five seconds when I approach your throne,” Micah continued urgently.  “Please, I need something so that you will trust me.  I need to be able to bring you to safety.”

“The desert may be empty,” the princess replied, blood flowing freely from her mouth and ears, “but that only highlights the beauty of the night sky.”

She slumped in his arms.

Micah suppressed the urge to scream a curse.  He didn’t know what Gwen’s dying words meant, hopefully it was something that would help him, but he didn’t have any time to find out.  Deja Vu could send him back five minutes.  No time for weapons, no real time to prepare.  Just one last chance with half of his normal mana.