Spirit Blade: Book III of the Dragon Mage Trilogy (14 page)

“It’s not real, Sherman,” said Kazin loudly. He stepped into the apparition as it swung its sword at him. In an instant the orc vanished, and Kazin was unharmed. Kazin resolutely stepped into Zylor’s opponent and it also vanished.

The minotaur lowered his axe, his breathing ragged. “I could have taken it,” he growled.

“Kazin, behind you!” yelled Amelia.

Kazin turned just as the creature lunged into him, sending him sprawling. “A harpy!” cried Kazin, struggling to his feet. “Let’s get out of here!”

The creature, with a hag’s head and a bird’s body, circled for another attack.

“Is it real?” asked Sherman.

“That’s what’s been creating all the illusions!” cried Kazin.

“Then let me at it!” yelled Sherman, lunging forward to intercept the gruesome creature.

“No, Sherman!” cried Kazin. “Those creatures are powerful! Even magic won’t affect them!”

Sherman ignored him, slashing and parrying with the enraged beast. Zylor tried to get closer to the combatants but there wasn’t enough room to gain access. The harpy used its wings to fight from the edge of a precipice, and Sherman was dangerously close to losing his footing on the smooth rock surface.

Kazin didn’t know what to do. He suddenly wished Olag was present to use his arrows. It was the only effective way to deal with such an aerial beast. Harran and Amelia watched the epic battle in amazement. The harpy easily avoided every slash of Sherman’s sword, twisting out of the way with the ease of a fly. Her wings swung her in close enough for her to claw at the warrior’s shoulder and in the same wing beat she swerved away from another useless strike by the warrior.

Suddenly Kazin had an idea. His magic wouldn’t work on the harpy, but it would work on Sherman. He chanted his spell and pointed his staff at Sherman’s sword. In the blink of an eye it vanished. Sherman was too busy to notice and swung his apparently empty hands at the harpy. The creature wasn’t sure what to expect and didn’t move in time. Sherman’s invisible sword sliced clean through one of the harpy’s wings and then back through one of its legs.

With a scream not unlike the ones they had heard earlier, the harpy fell to the ground at Sherman’s feet. As it lay there, it changed its form to one of a beautiful woman in torn clothes.

Sherman raised his sword and then hesitated, breathing heavily.

“Finish it!” yelled Kazin. “It’s illusion!”

Sherman closed his eyes and swung downward. The scream that echoed throughout the region sent a chill through the spine of every living being within earshot.

“That’s disgusting,” rasped Sherman, looking at the ghastly corpse before him, with a hag’s head and a bird’s body.

“I’m amazed that we never encountered such a creature before,” murmured Zylor.

“That’s probably because they went extinct after the dragon wars,” said Kazin. He had come up to them to be sure the creature was indeed dead. “Either that, or they left the region like the dragons did, for reasons we can only guess.”

“Good thing too,” muttered Sherman. “They’re nasty creatures.” He turned to Kazin. “How did you know the orcs were an illusion, Kazin? We just got here and you started hollering at us that none of it was real. How did you know that?”

Kazin grinned sheepishly. “Remember when my staff turned purple and I couldn’t figure out what that meant? That’s because I forgot that purple usually signals that illusion magic is being used. I very rarely encounter illusion magic cast by someone else, even though I use it frequently myself. For instance, I use illusion magic to make Zylor appear human. But once I saw the scene with the orcs, I became suspicious. Both the human woman and the orcs were out of place here. That’s when I remembered the significance of the purple colour of the orb on my staff. It had to be illusion magic. I knew that’s what it was, but not what caused it - until the harpy attacked me. Harpies have extremely powerful magic, particularly when it’s related to illusion. That’s why it’s so realistic. Until now, I’ve only ever seen them in books that we studied in the tower when I was an apprentice. But once you see something like that, you don’t ever forget it.”

Voices behind them caused the trio to turn around. Harran and Amelia were standing at the cave entrance peering inside. Amelia’s orb was shining with a bright white light.

“What have you got?” asked Kazin as they walked up to the dwarf and spell caster.

Amelia straightened and looked at Kazin. “As soon as the harpy was slain, my orb stopped glowing red. As I got closer to this cave, it started glowing white.”

“What does that mean?” asked Sherman.

Amelia hesitated. “Well, it only ever does that in one place - in my father’s study. It has a tendency to light up whenever I wish to examine one of his magic scrolls. I’ve occasionally had to lend it to my father because he finds the light helpful when he studies spell scrolls.”

“It sounds like you have an artifact that is partial to spell scrolls and spell books,” said Kazin. “It’s not unheard of for artifacts to be drawn to certain things. The various spells and spell components used to endow the artifacts with magic tend to polarize the item toward certain things. Your orb was probably enhanced with magic using a number of different spells from a number of different scrolls and spell books.” He pointed to Sherman’s sword. “Sherman’s sword has a tendency to do severe damage to undead creatures. Somehow spirits are related to its creation, hence the term ‘spirit blade’.”

Amelia gaped at the arch mage with new found respect. He was very knowledgeable when it came to magic. She made a point to learn what she could from this man.

“So Amelia’s orb is saying there’s a spell scroll nearby?” asked Zylor.

“I’ll bet it’s in there,” said Harran, pointing into the cave mouth.

Kazin moved forward and did a few spell checks. One for the presence of other creatures, one for magical warding, one for illusions, and one for magical or mechanical traps. Finding none, he gave the ok to enter the cave. “Just don’t touch anything until I check it to make sure it’s not cursed,” he admonished. Having said that he lit his staff and led the way in. Zylor, not being interested in magical treasures, offered to keep watch outside.

The cave entrance opened up into a dingy cavern where several short tunnels and alcoves were apparent in the gloom. All of the tunnels were short and most were dusty from lack of use. Those ones ended in dead ends or fissures where light wisps of poisonous gas emanated. They hastily vacated these areas and concentrated on the only two tunnels that did seem to be used. These tunnels led to small caverns where the harpy obviously had made her home. The first one they examined was equipped with logs and boulders set in some sort of furniture arrangement. Some of the boulders were used as tables, and others were set in a pattern meant to be a hearth, with smaller rocks piled around in a circular pattern to prevent cooking fires from spreading. Some left-over meat from some unknown source was still in the homemade fire pit and flies swarmed the contents.

Amelia gagged. “Uggh! That’s disgusting!”

“Not a healthy diet, I’d say,” remarked Sherman.

“I don’t expect the harpy had much choice,” added Kazin. “There’s not likely very much to eat in these parts.”

A metallic crash made them all jump in surprise.

“Where’s Harran?” asked Sherman, looking around anxiously. The light provided by Kazin’s staff and Amelia’s orb cast strange flickering shadows on the wall around them.

Kazin muttered under his breath, remembering suddenly that dwarves could see well in the dark, being adapted to cave life. He led the others from the first room back into the cavern where the tunnels branched off. They saw Harran emerging from the second tunnel they hadn’t examined yet.

The dwarf grinned at them sheepishly. “Sorry. I bumped into some rusty armour in the other room. It must be the harpy’s storage room. There is a bunch of things in there she must have accumulated over the years from some unwary explorers.”

“Let’s take a look,” said Kazin. He held his staff aloft as he led them into the second cavern. The rusty armour Harran had bumped into was in a haphazard pile to the left and was indicative of everything else in the cavern.

“It looks like harpies like to be sloppy,” remarked Harran.

“It’s not like they have a lot of guests,” added Amelia.

“Unless they have you over for supper,” joked Sherman.

Amelia shuddered. “I don’t like creatures who eat people.”

“I’m sure they’d like you,” chided Sherman, “with a little seasoning, of course.”

Amelia glared at Sherman and he laughed. “I’m just kidding.”

“Alright, you two, knock it off,” said Kazin. “Let’s just give this place a quick scan and then we’ll get out of here.” He coughed. “The gases aren’t something we should be breathing for long.” He cast a spell to see if anything was cursed or protected by magic but nothing showed. “It’s all safe,” he declared.

They wandered around and kicked things aside in the hopes of exposing something useful.

As Amelia approached the back of the cavern, her orb brightened. “There’s something here,” she called. The spell caster began to go through the contents on the floor at her feet and Kazin joined her.

“Aha!” she exclaimed jubilantly as she shook the contents of a ratty old robe to the floor. Among the items lying there was an old, weathered spell book with most of the pages torn out. She carefully picked up the book and opened some of the pages. The characters were severely faded but appeared to be elven letters and symbols.

Kazin had lived among the elves for a time so he leaned in close to examine the words. “Hmm,” he mused. “I know some of the characters, but many of them look unfamiliar.”

“This book is very old,” said Amelia very quietly. “I recognize some of the symbols from an old elven dialect long since forgotten.”

Kazin looked at the young, red haired spell caster curiously. There was a certain attraction he suddenly felt for her but he shook it off. Perhaps the gas in the air was getting to him. He was far too old to experience such feelings. “How far back in time have you gone?” he asked.

Amelia smiled up at the arch mage sweetly. “Oh, a fair ways,” she said vaguely. She had a soft expression and Kazin was hypnotized for a moment.

“There’s some jewelry over here,” interrupted Harran.

They went over to examine the items the dwarf had pointed out. There was a pouch containing bracelets, necklaces, and rings.

“It probably isn’t of much use to us,” said Kazin. “We don’t need items to sell for gold with our magical pouch of coins handy.”

“Why don’t you check them for magic?” suggested Amelia.

Kazin shrugged. “Why not?” He cast his spell and nothing showed. “I guess that answers that question.”

“Wait,” said Harran. He withdrew a dark green ring from the pouch. “I thought I saw this ring sparkle when you did your magic.”

Kazin sighed and repeated his spell. Sure enough, the ring emitted a number of very tiny sparkles. “Hmm,” said the arch mage, scratching his beard thoughtfully.

“What is it?” asked Amelia.

“Usually magical items emit a continuous light when I cast this spell on them. I’ve never encountered a response like this before.”

“Maybe it’s cursed,” said Sherman.

Kazin shook his head. “No. It’s not cursed. But it is magical.”

“Someone should try it on,” suggested Amelia.

Harran held the ring out to Amelia. “Ladies first.”

Amelia looked at Kazin.

“Go ahead,” said the arch mage. “I can remove any negative effects with magic, should it be required.”

Amelia slowly took the ring and put it on her finger. She immediately looked younger and more radiant than before. Any wrinkles she had were gone.

Sherman whistled. “You look beautiful.”

“Indeed,” murmured Kazin. The gases were definitely having an effect on him.

“I don’t feel any different,” said Amelia. She removed the ring and immediately looked like her former self again. The mage held the ring out to the others. “Someone else try it on.”

Harran put the ring on and instantly looked many years younger. His beard became darker and his face became less weathered. After everyone commented on his appearance, he removed the ring and passed it to Sherman, who also looked more youthful under the ring’s spell.

Then the ring ended up on Kazin’s finger. He appeared just as he did when he made himself appear younger in the town of Malley.

“I think you should keep the ring,” said Amelia with conviction. “It makes the biggest difference on you.”

“She’s right,” agreed Sherman. “It feels a lot more like old times when you look like that.”

Harran shrugged. “It makes sense to me. I did notice it made me feel a bit younger too, but maybe that was just my imagination.”

Kazin noted that the ring did make him feel younger. He sighed. “Ok. I’ll keep it. But let’s conclude our business here. Our quest is far more important than rings of youth. We’ve lost some valuable time with this entire diversion.”

Amelia held up her orb, which had dimmed after the discovery of the spell book. “At least the orb is no longer red. We did the right thing by eliminating the harpy. History could have been altered had we left it to terrorize others who ventured too close.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that our interference corrected history instead of altering it?” asked Harran.

“And it’s not the first time,” added Sherman, looking pointedly at the red-haired mage. Amelia reddened.

“It could be that we are already in the process of correcting history,” put in Kazin. “The orb might be telling us to react instead of the other way around. We’ll have to take it one step at a time.” He turned and headed back to the tunnel leading out of the cavern. “Right now we should find a safe place to regroup and concentrate on healing any wounds we’ve incurred.”

But Harran’s question bothered him too. He was all too aware of the danger that he and his companions could alter history with one wrong move or action. Could they actually be the cause of the whole problem in the first place? That was a distinct possibility. Only time would tell. Kazin shook his head at the irony. Time would tell all right, in his own future.