Blood of the Fallen. Book 1: Swords

The Chaos God and The War Mage

Devlin normally was a patient man, or boy according to Merlin, but his father was taking longer than normal. Out of boredom, he looked for the invisible tether and leaping eye again. He reached out to the air above him when a circular medallion zoomed past him. It bounced, rolled, wobbled, and settled on the ship’s floor.

“Eh?” He reached for the object while reading its inscription. Golem?

A hand appeared and took hold of his outstretched wrist in a viselike grip. Devlin thought it was Merlin coming out from Gaeus. His face turned ashen upon seeing the long claws on the back of the hand. The clawed hand yanked Devlin into the jaws of a dark portal.

Devlin saw only darkness. No ocean, no boat. He could not see his abductor or the animal that brushed against his side. An eerie cold crept up and gnawed at his bones. His body shivered uncontrollably. The only heat he felt emanated from his wrist, most likely from his abductor’s hand. He tried to wriggle away, but he dangled around like a rag doll hanging on the side of a galloping horse, making it impossible to reach anything with his free hand. He wasn’t sure if there was even a floor. His feet crisscrossed and flew in all directions. Suddenly, a light flashed in front of him, and his abductor tossed him over as one might throw trash into a garbage pile.

As the light swallowed him, Devlin glimpsed a crown, no, three horns, on his abductor’s red forehead. He felt something on his back stop his momentum before he blacked out.

Araghast, the god of chaos, closed the portal leading to the Concaves. The boy would be unconscious until he returned. The god opened a window in limbo, letting some light in and peered at Errt’s gate. He stood, waiting for the wizard to return. His sense heightened when he saw the Errt’s Leaping Eye radiate with magic.

Merlin leaped onto the Lotus, appearing at the front of the ship’s bow. He did not see the boy. “Devlin!” His eyebrows drew together while scanning the open ocean. He heard a whirling metallic sound behind him. He turned and saw a “Rage Golem?”

Merlin’s instinct as a War Mage had not dulled in his years in Errt. Instinct saved him when he quickly drew a magic shield which prevented the Golem from pummeling him with its gargantuan metallic fists.

Rage Golems were not the smartest constructs. They were good at one thing; relentlessly attacking and destroying any living thing they see. Its fists hammered at the shield and at the Lotus, causing the tether to be severed. The boat took damage while drifting away from the door.

Merlin held off attacking, in case Devlin was inside the Golem. The wizard wondered how a magical construct can function in Errt. As Warden, only he could perform magic here. His null ring negated the delimiter that the Gaeus Prison Department put up.

He touched one sigil in his stomach, blue light sparked on his fingertips, and with a thrust of his hand, a sphere enveloped the Rage Golem’s head. In a heartbeat, the sphere sent the Golem’s information to the War Mage. Satisfied that Devlin was not inside the Golem, Merlin curled his fingertips. The sphere imploded and the Golem’s head exploded into pieces. The Lotus sank into the ocean and Merlin solidified the water’s energy beneath his feet to walk on top of the water’s surface. He needed to find Devlin.

Araghast watched as the Golem pounded on Merlin’s shield. The trap would kill most wizards who were not good in close combat. Still, the Golem served its purpose of distracting and slowing down the War Mage. Merlin had not closed the Leaping Eyes, which made them and the doors visible. As the wizard fought the Golem, Araghast opened a portal in Limbo and appeared next to the visible doors. The doors rotated on a horizontal axis; with the Gaeus door going clock wise while the Errt door moving counter clockwise. The Leaping Eyes aligned the doors for passage to both worlds. Araghast grabbed the Gaeus Eye with his hand, straddled the two doorways, and grabbed the Errt Eye with his other hand. The god incinerated the eyes with a surge of darkened magic from his palms. The two doors slowly turned invisible. Araghast touched both doors and claimed them with his own untraceable god seal. His seals gobbled and destroyed the Prison Department seals. He stepped into the Gaeus doorway and finished with a random generator spell which freed both doors from its horizontal axis. From this moment, they would spin horizontally, vertically, or diagonally on a random path and speed. The doors would never meet in the foreseeable future.

“Goodbye War Mage,” whispered the god as he stepped into Limbo.

Merlin sent a blue sphere into the Golem’s head.

“The mines are in place, my Lord,” greeted Retlub.

Merlin stood in the middle of the vast ocean. He opened his matter sensitivity to his limit of a mile radius, scanning the ocean bottom and surface, but could find no trace of Devlin. “Damnare,” he cursed under his breath. He would search another area after he closed the eyes and the doors. The wizard looked behind him. The eye or doorway were nowhere to be seen. He wondered if the battle took him farther out than he expected. He touched the sigil. Magic flowed, and the water rose beneath him. He looked around him from the tower of water. He pursed his lips and opened himself up to matter once more. The wizard could no longer sense the eyes or Gaeus. “Damnare!” He stood on top of the water tower for a time. His eyes watered as he went back home to Warden’s Keep.