P I And Magic
Copyright© 2005 by Volentrin
Chapter 16
I was getting nervous. It was already 8:15AM, and still no Darla. Maybe I had gone too far
by teleporting out like that in front of her. Had I scared her? Was she terrified of me? I was getting a sick feeling in my gut just thinking that might have happened.
I poured myself another cup of coffee and went back outside and sat on the camp chair I had put back outside. I shouldn't have done it. Damn it! What was I thinking? I sipped my coffee. There it was, the sound of a car.
An old beat up sedan pulled up. Definitely not what Darla had been driving last night, but it was definitely Darla who got out... of the passenger's side. Her uncle got out of the driver's side.
I stood and waited for the pair to stand before me. I looked curiously at Hank Shelton. Darla was dressed for rugged travel. Hank was dressed in a pair of old blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Old tennis shoes finished off his clothes.
"Well, Boy, I hear tell you're dragging my Darla off through a gate to another world?" the old man asked me.
"Yes, Sir. I have a gate not far from here. You seem to be taking this very matter of factly, if I do say so myself," I answered him.
He snorted. "Boy, I could feel the magic you were trying on me when you first came to ask for camping rights on my land. I may be old, but I have also trained a bit in magic. Not as good, or as powerful as you, but enough to keep from falling for that spell you were trying to cast on me!"
"You knew?" I asked astonished.
"My teacher taught me defense was the best way to go if you weren't a powerful magician or wizard. I can see you're even more powerful now, than you were when you last visited me, too. How did that happen, Boy?" he asked curiously.
Darla was sort of looking between the two of us, like a tennis match, her head turning back and forth. I could see she was bursting with questions, but she was deferring to her uncle.
"Well, I met a dragon," I said. He nodded as if that told him everything he wanted to know.
"You mean when you told me a dragon breathed fire on you, that was true!?" Darla exclaimed.
"Yes," I answered simply.
"Darla? What we have here is an honest to god Dragon Lord. Damn! I have never met a Dragon Lord. Saw one once, couple hundred years ago. Just before I came to this land.
"I was with a group that was opposed to a family of Dragon Lords. Hell, we were tricked into it, really. There were several battles, and then we were trapped several days ride from help. My... employer so to speak, asked for a truce. When it was concluded, he and this Dragon Lord opened a gate, and the last seven of us rode through to this world. Been here ever since," he said in a distant manner, as if remembering.
Here was someone who, from the sound of it, had taken an active part in the war Marald was telling me about! He was also from the enemy camp, although he sounded like they figured that they had been tricked or deceived somehow.
"You have no problem with me taking your niece through the gate?" I asked curiously.
"I want to go with you, Boy. It's been a long long time since I been home. I don't know what's happened to my family. They probably think I am dead. They told me not to get involved; but, well, you know how the young are: full of themselves. That was me.
"I knew some magic. Not a lot, but enough to be of a little use to the one who hired me. The pay was good, and I thought I was doing right. Trouble with that, is you might not be as right as you think you are. Towards the end, we saw some mighty evil things done in the name of what was 'right'," he stopped, a sad look on his face.
"That's pretty much when I figured out we had been lied to. A small group of us, one being a pretty powerful mage, broke off. We were trying to get back home, when we ran into a patrol. They were filled with anger over something that had been done to a village that was part of their land.
"Most of us were cut down in the fight. The mage had us magic users form into a circle, and we stood firm 'till he could talk to their leader. I don't know to this day what was said, but finally we were allowed to gate to this world. Sort of an exile. We stayed together only a short time, then everyone sort of drifted off on their own.
"I still see that mage sometimes. He is still around. Name he uses, if your curious, is Bryon Hendelman. He is a decent sort. Has some money. Hell, he tried to get us to stay together back then. But after we got to this land, well, most of us didn't want anything to do with each other.
"Embarrassed, I would say. Least, I was. Bryon set a couple of us up. I had to move around from time to time. Used some magic to keep people from being curious. That was a good spell you cast when you went through your gate by the way. I couldn't do it, but it sure was a pretty thing to see," he said smiling at me.
Darla was almost beside herself. She was actually pacing nervously around us.
"Uncle Hank! How come you never told me any of this?" she demanded.
"Honey, what could you do? I could see you had the power in you, but I had no way to open it for you. You are fairly bursting with it, but it is sealed. I know if you drink Sethlan, it can open these abilities for you. But we have none of that here on this world. A very, very powerful mage, if he is trained in it, can open the magical pathways too. Bryon was unable to do this for you. He tried, I know. I watched him sweat over you when you were around 11, trying to open your pathways," he said.
Darla frowned. "I don't remember that," she stated.
"Course you don't, Hon. We cast a spell on you to think you were sick. Remember one year you visited, you got sick, and a doctor made that house call? Well, that was no doctor. That was Bryon trying to open and free your magic. He was unable to do it. So we made it seem to you and your family that you had been sick," he finished a bit embarrassed.
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