Chapter 9

I was now in a fine pickle that no amount of fast-talking or bullshitting was going to get me out of!

To my right, mostly all still on the large stage on the steps of the Roosevelt Memorial, were more angry wizards glaring at me and getting prepared to cast spells in my direction than I’d ever imagined in my worst nightmares. At least I could tell the teams apart without a scorecard!

Most of the wizards were wearing Federal blue colored robes, marking them as the local FBMR home team. Then, for the visitors (but all playing for the home team) were the dozen or so French wizards were all arrayed in their formal Bonaparte Red robes with Bourbon Blue trim. The collection of Deseret wizards were in their best visiting robes too, the usual midnight black with fancy silver embroidery trimmings, marking them as important wizardry royalty from likely their 2^nd and 3^rd Circles. The ginormous asswipe, the big guy from the very pinnacle of achievement, the 1^st Circle of Deseret, his grand Exhaulted Fucktardness, Wizard Whateverthefuck, didn’t need the gold embellishments to his fancy silk robe to mark him as one of the seven supreme disciples of the Dark Prophet himself.

Oh, and my old pal Graham was there too, behind the stage with the rest of the non-VIP’s, along with a small cadre of GWA traitors, just for frosting. Oh, and the dozens of Shadow Stalkers too, that had just been summoned, that were all now creeping towards me! Oh ... and should I even bother to mention the titanic abomination of an Elder Water Elemental that was slowly emerging from the end of the reflecting pond?

Nah ... I was screwed well enough as it was.

That about summed up the game day roster for the home team and showed just how screwed, blued and about to be tattooed I now was! The only other persons in sight were a pair of civilians, an old grandfather having a park outing with his young granddaughter. They were safe enough, for now, just on the bank side of the reflecting pond and I howled at them to get the hell away from here.

As for civilian witnesses to this alleged exhibition of ‘Commonwealth Magic’, there were fuck and all, being ... none. Not a single ‘Rent-a-Protestor’ even. The local organizers had planned right from the start that this so-called event would go horrifically badly, right from the start and they didn’t need or want any civilians getting in the way and potentially confusing their planned message with any ‘facts’. Besides, the way the U.S. government had preached for the last fifty years (if not longer) that magic was the root cause of all of the world’s problems, no actual innocent bystander would have willingly came within a half mile of any group of magicians!

Knowing the ineptness of the local authorities, tomorrow’s official reports of tonight’s scheduled disaster were already pre-printed and perhaps already in the hands of their lackeys in the media, ready to be published and solemnly reported upon.

So, the poor visiting team consisted of well, just me ... unless the three drugged and tied up Commonwealth wizards behind the stage were capable of doing anything to help themselves, or better yet, us. Not fucking likely! From what I could see at just a brief glance, they each looked like limp sacks of meat, just waiting for the butcher’s table. Drugged, gagged, and securely tied up, ready for presentation and use later under bright camera lights at their all-too brief show-trial. Or else, perhaps more politically safely, the dead bodies of this feeble trio would just be produced, safely later on tomorrow, as the designated bad guys for whatever appalling mess these wizards (and their summoned Elder creature) had planned for tonight’s entertainment.

“Trixie, halt, don’t torch that stage area!” I hastily warned her, “there’s maybe a couple of Commonwealth friendlies mixed in with that second group of wizards behind the stage, so watch where you blow dragonfire! Go see instead if that big water thing dislikes being cooked with magically hot flame?” She was already there and toasting the humongous thing. The answer seemed to be ‘maybe’, but it wasn’t retreating back into the water either.

Still, that entity, and the dozen or so icky black tentacles it was now flapping feebly at Trixie, had its attention quite diverted away from me or obeying the commands of big-ass Deseret wizard! That left the throng of Shadow Stalkers as my next most immediate danger. They had slowly circled me and they were holding fast, tensely twitching their long legs and front claws almost nervously as they faced me, but didn’t yet attack.

I didn’t know if Shadow Stalkers, the apex predator of the Shadow dimension, could speak or communicate in a language of their own. It’s certainly not mentioned in any book I’ve ever read, but the chapters with details about these nasty alpha-predators are always short and slender on definite details. No one, even on a bet, would ever set a toe into the Shadow Dimension, for any reason or at any time. It would be a suicidal, one-way trip for any would-be explorer, so everything written about that dark realm consists solely of rumor, innuendo, and utter hearsay.

Frankly, I’d probably already faced more Shadow Stalkers in my young career than any other wizard I’d ever heard of, even in biographical histories or mere legends. The top GWA wizards could maybe handle just one or two of these guys in a straight-up fight, and it was accounted a miracle back in Austin when I had first faced one as a lowly adept, defeated it and lived to tell about it! Had I killed or banished a dozen more since then? Or was it two ... or even three dozen, or more? I couldn’t think or remember now, not that it even remotely mattered anymore!

“They’re talking to each other,” Sean confirmed to me, in his ‘normal’ non-Celtic sounding voice, touched with a slight note of astonishment and genuine bemusement. Sean only ever drops the faux-Irish accent when he’s alarmed, confused or genuinely startled by something. “They have a mental language, unspoken, and without much of a functional vocabulary, except they do have over three hundred different verb conjugations for ‘to kill‘. They do know fear ... and they’re hesitant because they are afraid of you ... very afraid. They’re certain that they can kill you, eventually with their mass of numbers, but the likely cost to them concerns them. The massive spirit energies you’re channeling are just like hell-fire to them. Besides, there are far worse things than mere death, you know!”

Like what? A fate worse than death was just some stupid human idiom ... wasn’t it? What else, other than me, apparently, could scare those insane shadowy bastards? Sean wouldn’t say ... and probably, very likely, I wouldn’t even want to know anyway!

“So, they fear me. As well they should!” I muttered out loud as I began to channel even more spirit, gathering far more spirit energies into my body than any sane wizard would ever have considered. The entire National Mall area was like a giant lake full of spirit energies, ready for my use. Right here I could wallow in an ocean of the stuff, even without my Spirit Orb artifact to assist me, so screw safety! It was frankly the least horrible way to potentially die that I could currently calculate! I’d been the locus for a legendary spirit fountain only recently and I was fairly sure that I could handle obscene levels of absorbed spirit energy that would make every cell in any another wizard’s body explode.

“I’m Zak Zyphyr,” I announced, in a calm but clear voice, to the increasingly fidgety throng of murderous creatures. “I’m the one that they speak of, in whispered tones, to frighten the younger and weaker shadow creatures of your realm. I do not fear you, for you can neither harm nor defeat me. To challenge me, here in my own realm, is foolishness that only a puny shadow-ling would consider, out of weakness and ignorance! Bah! Be gone from me, swiftly, err my patience for your folly has ebbed!”

Then I smiled and displayed my teeth in the manner that any Shadow Stalker would have recognized; the contempt for one’s prey and eagerness that the battle be joined and glory achieved!

Most of my shadowy foes had the excellent sense to shuffle backwards away from me by at least two full steps, except for three more foolish ones at the front, who decided that since I’d challenged them, the beginning of the slaughter was on!

I cooked the first, nearest one, with an instant blast of pure spirit magic that blew it right into smoke, and then with my second, more casual bolt, carved the legs right off another charging stalker, leaving it clawing on the grass legless and largely impotent. I ducked under the swinging claws of the third attacker and plunged my Inca artifact enhanced hand right into the shadowy creature’s chest and watched it burn away with spirit, slowly, as it screamed in a voice that only its fellows could hear and understand.

The flock of Shadow Stalkers took another two steps backwards and held another lengthy conference while I walked up to the crippled legless enemy I’d disabled and bent down to inspect and gently taunt him.

“Here I am, right within claw range. Try to rip out my throat, if you dare. Do you have the courage?” It did, and its long razor-sharp claws burst into flames the moment they struck the massive aura of channeled spirit magic that surrounded and protected me. Its clawed arms both burst into golden flame and crumbled away to vapor. To complete its education, I then picked up the limbless creature by its throat off of the grass and examined my helpless foe before casting him aside as unimportant and irrelevant to my current interests.

I sneered and gave the still living but impotent foe a nasal snort of contempt and distain. His two dozen or so acquaintances reached some sort of collective decision concerning my suitability as worthy prey and reached a communal verdict that this current misunderstanding was clearly someone else’s fault. They turned around enmass to assault the stage and rip out the hearts of those they now deemed responsible, except for one of the largest of the creatures, who remained behind to further examine me.

This last and most dangerous of the Shadow Stalkers took a dozen measured paces towards me and bent it’s shoulders and head down to face evenly with my grill, less than a foot away from me. It then made some sort of complicated gestures of respect to me, symbolically running its claws over first its throat and then across the midsection, as if it was metaphorically disemboweling itself before me. Then it turned suddenly, as if on a dime, and sped off at full speed to enact its own share of violence upon the stage of now horrified wizards that had dared to summon it!

“Well that was... , well, rather different!” I remarked to myself as I hastily muttered the spell of banishment to send my crippled former foe back to its realm. Maybe, back in its home, the Shadow Plane, it would have its limbs once more, or perhaps they’d regenerate. Or else, it would become helpless prey for some lesser creature there. I didn’t care in the least – that wasn’t my problem anymore!

“Not different!” Sean giggled excitedly, “But unique! Never before has any Shadow Stalker ever made ritual obeisance to any foe that was not one of the Elder beings of its realm. This one was their senior, their battle leader, and it formally submitted to you as an obedient inferior! Never, never, never has such a thing ever been known to happen before! No one will ever believe my report!”

Sean, my secretive legendary Ùruisg, was one of the most innately magical creatures in the entire universe, and now even he was so astonished by what had just occurred that he was functionally useless. I needed some urgent advice, but Sean was too dazed and agog with wonder to be listening to me!

Fortunately, I was not in any immediate danger at this moment. Most of the assembled wizards had their hands full dealing with the angry Shadow Stalkers. Quite inadequately, judging by the spray of blood and internal organs now flying everywhere. It take a really sharp mind to focus and banish nether creatures (especially extremely powerful sentient ones) and most of the enemy roster wasn’t up to the task. Before I became The Goddamned Zyphyr, and was still a noisy and under-talented adept, banishment was my only top caliber skill. When focused and properly motivated, I was the equal or even better than most wizards with that minor field. Banishment’s not a sexy magical discipline, but in private adept practice I found it to be adequately profitable.

This bunch of enemy wizards likely had other great talents with superior abilities and training that in a straight up duel would have embarrassed me ... but few of those advantages were now helpful under this unexpected onslaught. Those razor-sharp claws were carving them up fast, like a scythe cutting through wheat!

It was the Great Deseret Wizard that saved a meager third of their assembled numbers from the unstoppable claws of the enraged Shadow Stalkers. And once its attention was focused, my two score of shadowy allies were all sent off back home. Very nicely done too, I could professionally agree that the dire being could indeed summon and now banish with the very best.

Trixie was still busy annoying the Elder creature from the Dimension of Water and despite its virtually godlike powers, its slow waving its tentacles were of no immediate threat to my dragon! Or the other dragon, that was now there too, fighting alongside Trixie!

“Sean!” I whined, probably in a louder and higher pitched voice than I intended, “There’s another dragon here!” I was befuddled a bit too, I admit it. And having another unknown dragon just show up right in the middle of this messy mortal combat was fraying my last two intact nerves.

Sean had no wisdom to contribute, and likely he was still too befuddled himself or else this new miraculous arrival had utterly confounded him also.

“Right!” I muttered, casting another hasty glance towards the bloody stage just to my right on the steps to the Roosevelt Memorial. “I’ve had more than enough of this shit! Let’s get rid of big, wet, and slimy fast, before the leftover bench players up there decide to come down and show a personal interest in me!” I was speaking mostly for Sean’s benefit, just in case my lazy brownie started to take a personal interest in helping to keep my ass alive. No response ... well, I didn’t have any more time to wait.

I ran down the remainder of the grass bank down to the reflecting pond, channeling and overcharging my magical batteries with even more spirit as I ran. I must have been glowing like gigantic firefly! Some of the more focused enemy wizards were starting to focus their spells back on me again, but racing for my life I was staying ahead of the mayhem, at least until I had to stop, once I reached the pond. Spells and assorted magical bolts, mostly fire or negative energy, started to bounce off of my spirit shields. For the moment, at least, I was pretty much invulnerable, armored up with spirit, especially against the negative energy stuff.

I started blasting spirit at the ginormous cephalopod from hell, but it wasn’t accomplishing anything useful that I could tell. Frankly, only Trixie’s fire was keeping and holding its attention, keeping it from leaving the water to commence its scheduled rampage.

The other dragon, a larger specimen with nearly solid black scales and enormous bat like wings, was using its clawed paws like hands, deftly casting down electrical energies at the water being. They hurt it, or at least seriously annoyed it sufficiently for the behemoth to start slapping half of its flailing tentacles at this black newcomer, rather than my Trixie.