Jake's Women (Wizards) (2 page)

2.
          
Saved

There wasn’t any air. I was breathing in and out, or thought I was, but my lungs ached for lack of oxygen and the world was going away. At least I was going out while carrying out the stupidest idea of my life. Esmeralda would understand.

“I would like to speak for the defense,” Fluffy said somewhere off in the distance.

“He has admitted guilt,” the voice in my head said; rather reasonably I thought, given the circumstances. The world began to spin.

“What he has admitted to, is that he followed his nature. However, he did not appoint himself as a Representative. That honor must go to our illustrious hosts.”

Good point. My lungs were burning and Fluffy had given me an idea. Wherever I was being suffocated, it wasn’t in the Conference. That had to be an illusion. Somewhere out there, my real body had run out of air, and if I could reconnect with it I might survive. Provided magic was out there as well.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on trying to feel my real body, my actual lungs. The world of the Conference faded away. I was floating in liquid. There was something over my mouth and nose; a mask. I sucked hard and felt it press harder onto my face, but no air came through. Magic swirled around me, tantalizingly out of reach.

Air flowed into my lungs and I was instantly back at the Conference. Globs of red light danced across my vision as I sucked in life giving air. I reached back for the place I’d just discovered, but it was gone. Without the pain in my lungs to guide me I couldn’t find it. I was stuck here again.

“Very well, we will hear your plea.”

The voice didn’t sound pleased and I must admit I was a bit annoyed myself. I had almost escaped. Of course I might have died if I couldn’t have reached that magic, but I have confidence in me. Someone has to.

“The Conference recognizes Retnor, Representative of the Dragons.”

Fluffy appeared on the stage. “How are you?” he whispered anxiously. I nodded to let him know I was okay. “Do you ever think before you open your mouth?” he asked rhetorically before turning to face the Representatives.

“We call them the Progenitors, our mysterious hosts of this Conference. We hear their voices in our heads, but we never see them. They possess magic beyond our understanding, can create solidity in Hop Space, are able to transport us across the multiverse from wherever we happen to be. They know all about us while we know nothing of them. They post the location of our worlds in their temple, making us visible for all civilizations with a representative, thus revealing and making us vulnerable to each other. But they never post the location of their own worlds during the process. We have no idea where we are at this moment.”

Fluffy had a point and I could feel the tension rising around me as he spoke. Our hosts must have felt it too because they were quick to respond.

“No civilization is forced to offer a representative,” the disembodied voice pointed out.

Fluffy made that grimace, which was a dragon’s equivalent of a grin.

“Who would dare ignore your call and risk other worlds conspiring against them?”

The voice sounded a little annoyed. “The Conference is a means for all to prosper; that is why the Representatives have to be approved, to be certain they are worthy.”

“And yet,
you
approved Jake, so the fault is yours,” Fluffy said triumphantly.

My dragon has real cajones, taking on the Progenitors on their own turf, but then I’d known that fact long before I saw the evidence dangling in front of my face.

There was a long silence. When the voice spoke again it sounded almost apologetic.

“Wizard Morrissey is reinstated and the accusation fails. The Conference is adjourned for today.”

We were back in white space. The hoard of representatives vanished as if they’d never been.

“I thought that went rather well under the circumstances,” Fluffy said as he preened his hair.

“I didn’t ask to be rescued.” I may have sound peeved.

Fluffy raised an eyebrow. It was so like and yet unlike his dragon gestures that I found myself laughing. When I stopped, I put a hand out to him and gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze.

“Thank you, my friend. I might have found a way out without you, or I could have died. Whichever it would have been, I am grateful for your rescue.”

There was a puzzled look on his face, so I explained what had happened to me before he intervened.

“Interesting,” Fluffy said when I finished. “There has been much speculation among the Dragons about how this Conference is created and maintained. If your vision is true, the Progenitors may be less advanced than they have led us to believe.”

It was my turn to grin. “Of course they are. That was obvious from the start.”

“And why is that?” Fluffy’s eyes twinkled red.

“Why would they hide from us if they were truly gods?”

Fluffy looked as though he was about to disagree, but our conversation came to an abrupt end as Alisandra stepped out of the whiteness. She appeared about a hundred feet away and walked slowly and sexily over to us. The woman had a way with an entrance and as for the way her hips moved, any description I could give would be inadequate.

“I am glad you survived. I would have mourned you.”

She was dressed in clothes designed to accentuate her body; a gossamer thin robe that revealed as much as it concealed. Taking my hand in hers, she kissed my fingers and looked at me with Princess Diana eyes, as if seeking my approval.

Fluffy spoke from behind me. “As you appear to me as dragons I will take my leave. Dragons do not mate with others present.”

I turned around to tell Fluffy not to be so stupid, but he was gone.

My clothes disappeared as Alisandra dropped to her knees in front of me. Her lips engulfed a sensitive part of my body and I pushed away from her in a panic.
How had she done that no clothing trick?

“Your manner says no, but there is a part of your body that does not lie.”

I knew what she meant and used my hands to cover up my embarrassment. There’s a reason men wear clothes. I’m nineteen years old and my equipment has a mind of its own a lot of the time; especially when lustful ladies are involved.

My clothes were back. Just like that, and with no more logic to account for it than when they disappeared.

“How can it be wrong when all of this is little more than a dream?” Alisandra waved at the whiteness surrounding us. “That’s why they bring us to this imaginary place, so we can discover we are all the same beneath our skins.”

That had to be wrong. It just had to be. Was she saying this Conference was more Vegas than Washington?

“The Conference Between the Worlds is nothing but an excuse for a high class orgy?” I asked. Alisandra was a slut, but no one could ever refer to her as low class. She oozed breeding every bit as much as she did carnal desires.

She shrugged; the movement parted her robe down the middle, revealing the cleft between her breasts and the perfect gap between her legs. I struggled to raise my eyes up to hers.

When I finally got there her eyes were twinkling. “It has been that for some of us. Peace and trade between the worlds has been the result. All have prospered because the pleasures of congress translate into fair agreements. It that not the intention of diplomacy?”

Alisandra smiled and pulled her robe around her tightly enough for it to wrap to her delicious shape. A part of my anatomy bounced in appreciation and I struggled to find the arguments I needed.

“I’m married. Twice over.”

Alisandra put a finger to my lips and pouted. “Despite that, I suspect you may have already strayed.”

I blushed. She was right and I got the distinct impression it wasn’t a guess on her part. If she ever told Esmeralda, I might not survive once I got home. I suspected I was short the faithful gene or something.

“What are you really here for?” I asked, more out of desperation than with any real question in my words. She looked away and I realized I’d accidently scored a point. She had come to me with ulterior motives. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“There is a war coming. Our seers believe that yours will be the winning side.”

It was so unexpected that I had nothing meaningful to say. But that has never stopped my foot from frequent insertions into my mouth.

“You want to screw the winner?”

“I want Malevon to survive that war, you stupid boy,” she hissed. And then as suddenly as she arrived, she was gone.

I stared at the place where she had stood. The most sarcastic handclaps I have ever heard made me turn. It was Fluffy, of course.

“I thought you went somewhere to hide?”

The youth shook his head. “I came back when I reasoned that you might get yourself killed without me watching over you. You truly have a unique gift with females of your species. I can’t imagine why they fall over themselves to mate with you.”

“Is this war she mentioned the same one as in the prophecy that gets you dragons twitchy?”

Fluffy considered for a moment. “With you, it’s impossible to tell. How many wars have you been involved in this year?”

That was unfair. It wasn’t as if I started them. On the other hand, I could see his point. He continued before I could construct a suitably sarcastic reply.

“I made a quick stop before I returned. It would appear there is a way we can find out what is going on back home.”

That sounded good.

“So what are we standing around here for?”

Fluffy held out his hand and I took it slightly reluctantly. I hoped no one was watching us as we travelled somewhere else.

3.
          
 
Home

I looked at the transparent tube suspiciously. It was seven feet tall and about three foot in diameter. Its top was sealed and as far as I could tell, so was its bottom. Apparently, if I got into it, I could visit any place in the multiverse, provided I knew where I wanted to go. After my recent suffocation experience, I wasn’t so sure getting in the thing was a good idea.

“How do I breathe in there?” I whispered to Fluffy.

Fluffy shook his head, which looked condescending coming from a teen. “This is not real, Jake. It’s most likely a metaphor for whatever they are really doing to us.”

Words flowed across the white background
. ‘There is no danger. Will yourself inside the tube and state your destination clearly. You will not be able to communicate with anybody you visit, nor leave the place you specify except to return. You will be able to hear everything spoken at the location.’

“What time do you think it is? It can’t be more than three hours since we left.” The King and his entourage might still be out by the Fedre Food Storage Unit. One of the royal family has to stay with it to keep it open. It would be a waste of time if I ended up looking for my wives in the wrong place.

More writing scrolled across the whiteness.
‘Thirty hours have passed since your arrival.’

I stored that information away for future thought. We must have been kept unconscious for ages and I wondered what they had done to us while we slept.

Fluffy gave me a significant look and I made up my mind where I wanted to go. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I was inside the tube. Taking a deep breath, I named my destination.

“The Palace in Salice.”

I stood in the middle of the ballroom. As far as I could tell I was physically there, I looked down and could see my body. This was not like any kind of projection I understood, this was real.

Up on the stage a group of people sat around a table. It was no surprise that Esmeralda was conducting the meeting with her mother at her side. Beside them was another woman. I almost didn’t recognize Urda; she looked haggard and far older than her years.

“I’m back,” I shouted and everyone ignored me.
Damn, being here felt so real I had forgotten I wasn’t.
Reaching for magic proved pointless, though it didn’t stop me trying. If there was magic around me, I couldn’t see it or use it.

As I walked to the stage their voices became loud enough to hear. It wasn’t like normal hearing, one moment I couldn’t hear them at all, the next they were loud and clear, like I was wearing headphones.

“I returned Jenny to Wales as she requested,” Urda said bleakly. “She will stay with her parents until her child is born.”

Queen Janti smiled as she glanced at Esmeralda’s bulge, “That will not be long for either of you.”

“Thank the Light for that. I can barely walk,” Esmeralda said wearily. “At least we don’t have to worry about Jake doing something stupid.”

Urda didn’t agree.

“I wish he were here. He is my best chance to find Anna.”

It looked like Urda might burst into tears. I found it difficult to believe that she still hadn’t managed to find her sister. They had such a strong emotional bond that her magic should have let her hop straight to Anna wherever she was in the multiverse.

That Urda couldn’t find her meant strong magical forces were in play. She was right; I should have been there to help. I should have paid more attention to her when I had the chance.

“Powerful magic must be involved,” Esmeralda said as if she had read my mind. “Anna is being hidden from you. The important question is not where she is, but why she was taken.”

Urda nodded, “I have wracked my brains for an answer, but the only thing I can think of is the places she knows how to travel to. Her training had not progressed much further than that.”

Urda had a point. Travelling through Hop Space is easy for a wizard, reaching a specific destination is not,
unless
you have already been there. A single universe is infinite and almost anything you can imagine exists, but Hop Space links an infinite number of infinite universes and unless you can imagine a place perfectly, you’ll almost certainly end up at the wrong one.

Esmeralda disagreed, “Tydan has an unusually large number of wizards. Could someone be kidnapping and recruiting them?” Tydan was Urda and Anna’s home world. Not a nice place.

“I have visited Barren, which is where the wizards congregate and there are no rumors of wizards disappearing.”

That killed the conversation and the three of them stared into space.

“What about Wales?” I shouted at them. It was a futile gesture as nobody was listening to me. There was a threat to Jenny and my family in Wales, but it didn’t seem to have occurred to any of them. I came close to jumping up and down in frustration. Actually, I may have jumped a couple of times.

“The King needs relieving at the food store,” Esmeralda said after a few minutes silence. “I’ll go.”

She struggled to get to her feet.

“No dear, I will take over from him,” Queen Janti said quietly. “You stay here in the warm. Urda, can you hop me there?”

Urda nodded and a few seconds later, they were gone.

Esmeralda sat at the table with her eyes focused on something infinitely far away. She spoke to the empty room.

“I don’t know which is worse, Jake. Knowing you are safe somewhere far beyond reach, or having you here causing crisis after crisis. It is a dilemma.”

That was typical of Esmeralda. Her knack of insulting me where I could overhear was running true to form. I moved around the table so I could kiss her on the cheek. Before I could get to her, I found myself back in the tube.

“Are they well?” Fluffy asked after I willed myself out of the tube.

“We have to get out of here.”

“That bad?”

“Worse, I think Jenny and my parents are in danger. Anna is still missing and the only reason I can think of is that someone is after my family.”

Fluffy shook his head. “That does not make any sense. Those with access to the Temple of Representatives can locate the Earth through your image whenever they want.”

“Then perhaps the kidnappers don’t have a representative at the Conference. All I know for certain is that it’s Wales they’re after, and the only thing they could possibly want when they get there is my family.”

It would turn out I was half-right, which is pretty good going for me.