Jake's Quest - Wizards V (8 page)

“I have something to take care of. Back in a minute.”

She sprinted up the stairs like a professional athlete. The twins shrieked from their perches on the upper landing and ran.

It was tempting to leave the twins to Bronwyn, but it was just
technically
possible she might kill them. I used magic to strip the water from me and dried the carpet while I was at it. Then I walked slowly up the stairs in pursuit. I could have run, but I wouldn’t be too bothered if she half-killed them before I arrived.

It was suspiciously quiet on the top floor and for a moment I wondered if I’d taken too long to get up there. Then I heard a muffled sob coming from the attic bedroom.

Bronwyn was sitting ladylike on a chair. Brad and Britney stood in front of her, fingers twitching against their sides. Their faces were tear streaked.

“Ah, Jake, just in time.” Bronwyn looked at the twins expectantly. They jumped as if she’d bitten them.

“We’re very sorry, Uncle Jake.”

“And what will happen if you annoy your Uncle Jake again?”

The twins swayed, saying nothing, but moving from one leg to the other as if they needed the toilet. They shook their heads denying there would be another time

“Then, I think we are clear.” Bronwyn turned to me. “Shall we join the party? The twins are going to stay up here for a while and be very quiet, aren’t you?”

Brad and Britney nodded violently.

As we walked back down the stairs I felt compelled to ask.

“You didn’t hurt them did you? I mean I won’t have to explain bruises or anything.”

Bronwyn took my arm in hers as we reached the ground floor.

“Not a mark on them, I swear. But you will find them a lot better behaved in the future.”

I leaned forward a little and kissed her on the cheek. She squeezed my arm and we went to join the party.

13.
              
Gone

I hopped into the Bat Cave the next morning before Jenny woke. Merlin had been fast asleep in his cot so it seemed like a good time to visit my dragon and see if the Dragon Elders had come to any conclusions about the Aleph and the Krake.

The cave echoed like a church. It felt empty and a quick search confirmed that Fluffy was gone, probably out hunting sheep. I wondered vaguely if I was going to have to placate the hill farmers again. Last year I donated a sizeable sum of money to their hardship fund, losses of sheep through the year had been very bad.

I sat on the singed sofa and thought about Diabli swords. To create a sword required the deaths of wizards from at least six universes. Or to be more precise, it needed their blood. The swords were easy to make assuming you knew the runes to etch into each layer of folded steel. However, the activation of each layer required soaking the blade in the blood of a wizard. Magic from the wizard’s blood was absorbed by the runes.

The sword blade was heated after each dousing in blood, beaten and folded into one piece again on a wooden anvil and new runes were etched into its surface. Do that six times with wizards from different universes and you had a Diabli sword.

Simple if you were a mass murderer without a conscience. The method implied that magic was somehow different in each universe. It must be subtle because I’d never seen any.

Galator had included how the Dragons constructed the virtual sword for the Conference. Being dragons, just sending me a sword that looked like a Diabli one wouldn’t do. They had to be faithful to the original construction, it was their way. The Conference existed in many dimensions, though I think that would be ‘objects’, or maybe ‘levels’ in software terms. So I was simultaneously a human, dragon, elf and others depending on who was looking at me. The dragons had ‘etched’ the magic of six of those layers into the virtual sword, and unexpectedly it had worked.

It shouldn’t have worked. The sword had cut through the software and the Conference had collapsed around us. All that was missing was the blue screen of death. But how could you cut through code with an imaginary sword? It was all nonsense.

Fluffy should have been back by now and I was starting to get worried about him. There was one person who could tell me exactly what he was up to, if not where he was, so I hopped back to Jenny.

“Number seven, please,” Jenny said sleepily as I gently shook her awake.

I kept on shaking her and eventually her eyes opened.

“Merlin?”

“Is fine. I need to know where Fluffy is.”

“Retnor?” Jenny eyes finally focused on me. “What time is it?”

“Seven forty.”

“Wake me at eight.” Jenny rolled over and started making little snoring sounds. I shook her again.

“He’s fine,” Jenny protested. “Not on Earth, somewhere else, far away. Safe. Go away, Jake.”

The door opened and Merlin floated into the room, at about head height. He was horizontal and it looked as though he was flying in his sleep.

“Back to bed,” I said in my sternest daddy voice. Without showing the slightest sign of waking, Merlin’s body spun through 180 degrees and floated out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Back to bed,” Jenny echoed. “Want Retnor? Go find him.”

Which was excellent advice. I hopped back to the Bat Cave, even though I was beginning to feel like a human yoyo.

To hop to someone, a wizard needs something owned by the person as a focus. I rejected the remnants of Fluffy’s last meal and went looking through the cave. My dragon was a dab hand at the internet, but his computer had never been handled by him, just communicated to by magic. After fruitless minutes of searching I gave up and decided to link using our friendship. What could possibly go wrong?

Sitting cross legged on the cave floor I concentrated on our friendship, thought about the times we’d fought together, and hopped.

I was in some sort of amphitheater, like something out of ancient Rome. Thousands of people roared approval from the stands. I had arrived sitting cross legged on the parade ground. Hundreds of men in green amour stood with their backs to me. Getting to my feet I brushed beige sand off my jeans.

The armor looked familiar though the green color was all wrong. Once I got to my feet I could see the people on a raised platform in front of the ranks of men. Most were in robes, but two were in a type of armor I recognized instantly, they were Knights of Justice.

Now me and the Knights of Justice go back a few years. They hunt Wizards and Dragons as both are seen as threats in the Diamond Worlds. Unfortunately for them, Dragons hold grudges and when the chance presented itself they killed almost all of them while making it look as though I had done it. The two knights on the platform must be the remnants of the order.

The man in the most impressive robes at the center of the platform stared in my direction as if he recognized me. That was impossible. Every single person from the Diamond worlds who had seen my face was dead. On impulse I switched to magic sight and saw his aura included a black bird embedded in his head. He was possessed by a Krake.

He pointed at me and shouted.

“Jake Morrissey, the Genocide.”

He didn’t shout it in English, but I had learnt the Diamonds Worlds main languages some time ago as a precautionary measure.

Time to make a fast exit. I tried to hop and nothing happened. I must be close enough for the Knights on the platform to be blocking me with their magic armor. That could be fixed. I sent myself flying backwards, my magic worked on me even in the presence of anti-magic armor. It was a big stadium and I flew back hundreds of feet to the far end, at least three hundred yards away from the Knights.

I tried to hop, but still nothing happened. This was getting irritating. Meanwhile the green knights had been in the process of turning round to look at me. Despite the color of the armor it was clear they were Knights of Justice, though they were all very young. I doubt any of them were as old as me and some were little more than children. However, they drew their swords reasonably quickly and pointed them in my direction.

That was a significant threat. Those swords could drain the magic right out of a wizard. However, I’ve learnt a few tricks over the years. Forming a spear of pure magic I let it fly towards them, using the drawing power of their swords to speed it on its way.

The thing about magic and anti-magic is that they totally annihilate each other on contact. The swords could absorb magic slowly, but a big gulp could overwhelm them. The spear I sent was more like a tsunami than a glass.

Many of the young Knights were scattered in the resulting blast, their swords and armor dissolving under the onslaught. Some looked injured, which wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted out and I wanted out now.

However, I had only scattered about a third of them and the others looked … angry. Like big greed wasps whose nest has just been hit with a big stick.

The crowd were screaming their rage and I retreated from the wall as a barrage of rubbish and a few shoes hit me from above.

I scanned the magical planes for anything that might be blocking my ability to hop. Nothing that I could detect.

“Cover your eyes and duck!”

The command was in English, so I closed my eyes and put my right arm over my face as I fell to the ground. Something incredibly bright went off. So bright I saw the bones of my arm despite having my eyes closed.

Somebody landed beside me. Opening my eyes didn’t help as the afterimage of my arm bones had been etched onto my retinas. I got the impression of someone young and male.

He grabbed my arm and we hopped away. Magical sight showed me what he had done to move round the anti-hop screen. I absorbed how the screen worked and how he defeated it as we left. There was no telling when information like that would come in handy.

“Jake, how nice of you to visit.”

The voice was Bronwyn’s. I blinked repeatedly and used magic to heal my retina. That had been some blast. We were standing in her parents lounge. The person who had rescued me was a lad I sort of remembered. I was sure I’d seen him before but I couldn’t remember where. He was wearing gaudy clothes and a big grin.

“You should have seen it, My Goddess. He hopped into the passing out parade for the new Knights and wiped out a third of them when they pointed their swords at him.”

Bronwyn was looking at me anxiously. “Why were you on the Diamond Worlds? I told you I’d look into it.”

The lad was irrespressible.

“We will not be doing anything there for a while. They will be double checking for wizards and none of their worlds will be safe. I need to go and tell the others to get back to Tydan.”

Bronwyn hadn’t taken her eyes off me since I hopped in. She waved the young man away.

“Go and do it, Dren. But make sure their covers remain as intact as we can manage. Find stories for their absence. It will take the Diamond Worlds authorities’ months to check on everyone.”

Dren grinned and vanished.

Bronwyn helped me to a chair. A cup of tea appeared in her hand and she handed it to me.

“What were you doing there, Jake? You could have got yourself killed.”

“Not my choice. I was trying to find Fluffy and must have been thinking about the Knights of Justice instead.”

Bronwyn pursed her lips. “One hundred and thirty two planets make up the Diamond Worlds. Each one is as big as the Earth or bigger. Their population is over two billion and there are thousands of cities. Yet you hopped into the one place in all those worlds where you might be recognized.”

“I have a talent for it.”

“No one has that much of a talent for trouble, Jake. You have just ruined an operation that has been going on for nearly a year involving dozens of operatives across those worlds slowly gaining acceptance and information.”

“I only asked you to look at the Diamond Worlds two days ago.”

Bronwyn grinned. “I have Tydan to protect and the Diamond Worlds threaten it with their Knights and general hostile attitude towards wizards. Did you know the Knights of Justice are wizards?”

I swallowed some tea the wrong way and spent the next minute coughing and spluttering. When I got my breath back I was dismissive.

“The Knights kill wizards, because we wizards are prone to enslave people. I’m not sure why they hate dragons so much, probably just because they’re dragons.”

“The Knights of Justice wear swords and armor made by magic and developed by a wizard a long time ago. They have to renew the magic regularly and they follow certain rituals to do it. But only wizards can use the armor and only wizards can create it in the first place.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Bronwyn made a cup of tea appear in her hand and sat back in her chair to sip at it.

“If you read their history you would understand. They select Knights at puberty. They don’t know what they are. I doubt the people who select them know either.”

That made some kind of sense. The number of wizards who gained their powers before puberty was infinitesimally small, despite the fact that two such wizards sat in this very room.

“You don’t need to send anybody else to the Diamond Worlds. I know what’s going on.”

Bronwyn raised an eyebrow.

“Have you ever heard of the Krake?”