Chapter 11

"HOLY SH ... so that's what it looked like when I was with you the last time," said Kat as she just barely caught herself from jumping backwards out of her skin.

Suddenly in front of her were four riders on horses and loaded packs. She was reminded of the time that they did this to ride like the wind from Dusty's home to the Dragon's council cave to prevent them from starting a war with mankind all those seasons ago.

Smiling Dusty and his friends dismounted. Suzan was the only one to move forward and she hugged Kat. Rachel didn't really know her all that well, well other than a few times meeting in passing at Suzan's home.

One thing they all noted was all the dried and dark blood that heavily stained her clothing. Kat hadn't even change out of the dress that she had been wearing earlier during the attack and it still had all of Wolfgang's blood on it as she worked hard to save his life.

Once they were finished with their greeting, Dusty asked "So what is going on? What happened to Charles?"

"We were attacked last night and right now he's in pretty bad shape. I was hoping you might know something else to try and save him," said Kat as the smile fell off her face and was replaced with one of tight worry.

"Let's have a look and you can tell me what is going on," said Dusty gently as Kat lead the way into the house.

Even though Wolfgang lived alone, there normally would be people out and about soon as the day was just getting started. The appearance of four horses suddenly in front of his house would make someone curious enough to inquire why, but for now they had more important things to worry about.

Thankfully the spell that kept intruders out had a caveat that if one was welcomed into the home it would deactivate the spell for that person. Wolfgang had extended the ability to grant access to Kat during one visit, and because of that fore thought, she was able to allow the group into Wolfgang's home.

As they headed deeper inside Kat gave them all the information she knew.

It wasn't much to work with, but she described the man, how he was dressed, how the conversation went to the best of her memory, Charles's counter attack, how the man disappeared, and then finally how she tried everything she could think of to heal Charles but it wasn't working.

"Let's see what we have before we go any further," said Dusty.

The rest of the conversation was put on hold until they entered the room where Wolfgang was fighting for his life.

Looking at Charles Dusty could see that he was in bad shape.

His skin had a faint gray pallor to it. Kat had removed his shirt, but some of the blood from the open wound had flowed down his chest and gotten on the sheets under him. Kat had tried to make a makeshift bandage, but it was still soaking up blood from the wound.

Dusty went over to Charles and started to examine the knife wound. It was a clean one, and one that should have been easily healed, but as he tried to heal the wound he could feel something fighting him and making it nearly impossible to heal.

"Some one has mixed a Black spell with-in the wound and it's negating all White spell one might use to heal it. Without knowing what spell it was we'll never get this wound healed," said Dusty as he looked at Kat.

Dusty was curious why Kat didn't know this. She was far too powerful to not understand how magic interworked with other circles and colors. One couldn't be of Archmage level and not know the basics he reasoned.

"Oh, I was so worried about him I must have missed the obvious," said Kat covering her error quickly.

She could tell by Dusty's face he was confused why she didn't know something as simple as what he said. While he knew some of her secrets he didn't know them all and she wanted to keep it that way.

"Dusty does that mean you can't help me?" asked Wolfgang in a raspy voice.

Everyone looked at him in shock. He should still be out instead of hanging on to consciousness. He should be in too much pain to even be remotely alert. Dusty couldn't even use magic to reduce the pain because of the Black magic that was saturating the wound.

"Shhh Charles lie back and rest. The best thing for you right now is your rest. We also need to find something to give you for the pain I know you must be in, but for now we can't use magic. Whatever spell this is, is preventing any healing magically and I bet it will interfere with most natural methods as well," said Dusty as he looked down at him.

Wolfgang, while looking like he was in tremendous pain, looked over at Kat and slightly raised his hand her direction. She instantly crossed over to him and took the hand.

"Kat, my dear, please go into town and ask Margaret Holliston to give you some of the horse poultice she uses in her veterinarian practice. It will be pretty strong and she'll have to cut it to use on a human, but it should help numb the effected area for a while until we figure out what else to do," said Wolfgang through gritted teeth.

Kat nodded and started to rise as she looked towards the door, but Suzan could tell she was worried.

Something in that neutral expression of hers looked to Suzan as if Kat was a heartbeat from either breaking down in to tears or going on a rampage and killing everyone in sight, but Suzan had no idea why she got that impression suddenly. Nothing Kat had said or done in the past led Suzan to believe that Kat was capable of either action.

Quickly making up her mind, Suzan offered to go with Kat and offer moral support. The expression on Kat's face seemed to change into one of relief. The two of women headed out of the house in search of what Wolfgang asked for.

After they had left Wolfgang asked quietly "Dusty I need to speak with you, alone please. Could the others wait outside?"

Dusty looked at Rachel and Daniel and the two of them just nodded as they left the room. Daniel closed the door behind them.

As Dusty turned to look at Wolfgang, he pulled up a chair and sat close to the bed.

"Dusty this was the work of the Mage's council. They have been trying to kill me for a long time now, and I believe that they may have finally succeeded. All this time I've been one step ahead of them but they finally got me. Although I need to tell you why," said Wolfgang quietly.

"I already know. You're the one they've been so worked up over for as long as I can remember. I figured out who you were a long time ago based on what they told me and the things you knew that you shouldn't have known. I was wondering when you were going to get around to telling me yourself. Or did you enjoy thinking I was in the dark as to who you really were?" asked Dusty as he looked Wolfgang.

While this might not be the best time, but since he brought it up Dusty wanted to air it all at once. Wolfgang was sure this would be his deathbed confession.

"Couldn't get it past you huh? I was sure at times you knew by your leading questions, but you never seemed to follow up so I left well enough alone. I'm sure you also knew that I asked Kat to leave hoping she would take Suzan with her so we could talk," said Wolfgang quietly.

"So why didn't you ever say who you were? Wasn't my friendship enough for you?" asked Dusty

"Dusty, your friendship was very precious to me and I have never lied to you. I told you I was Wolfgang at our very first meeting, remember? Right after you saved that King from the woman he later married. But no I was hoping you wouldn't put it together and you might get to know me first before you wrote me off as the "poison of the world" like the Mage's council has always done," said Wolfgang softly.

"Ok, why do they hate you so?" asked Dusty

"For the same reason they resist all your new ideas. Dusty I had a power when I was a youth that I lost long ago, it was the power to see across dimensions, but for some reason I tuned into your dimension.

"As a child I always saw all kinds of wondrous things there and I wanted to bring them to our world. But the council saw that as me trying to rule the world, and instead of working with me they sought the best way to destroy me. They never have been very receptive to any new or foreign ideas," said Wolfgang

"Yes I've seen that in my dealings with them as well. They aren't always happy with what I'm doing, but they haven't tried to kill me for it," said Dusty warily.

"Well they have been trying to kill me for far longer. Just give it time I'm sure they will get around to you as well. Dusty there is something else too that you don't know. Part of my power was altered during a magical duel and while at the time I got the short end of it and was defeated, that fight changed my power to the point where I no longer age.

"That is another point that they hate me for. Normally they might have waited me out and their children or their children's children would have undone what I've tried and worked so hard to do, but since I've outlived so many of them they are concerned about that as well. To them I'm an evil that will never die or go away.

"With time they could push my influence out of the minds of those around them if I wasn't around, but since I can keep reinforcing my ideas as needed, they are concerned that they can't undo what I try to do to make the world a better place with those changes," said Wolfgang.

Dusty sat and thought about it for a moment before he spoke again.

"I have to say that does seem plausible, but we'll need to talk to the Mage's council to get their side and to get the bottom of this. For now you need to know that Kat has been keeping you alive by feeding the magic that is keeping you going and it's her spell that is keeping your wounds almost free of blood.

"Right now she set up the spell to continue while she's gone because while the Black magic spell keeps us from healing you, I doubt the caster expected someone to do what we're going to do to get around it. I'm hoping to get to the council in time to find out what that spell is so I can undo it. As long as her magic holds out you should be ok. It will be tight, because the council is about two week's journey to the north from here," said Dusty.

"I meant to ask, just how did you get here so fast? I was just attack last night I believe," said Wolfgang.

"It's one of the features of my phones. There is an option that allows me to travel to an area where one of my phones is being used if the area is large enough to accommodate me," said Dusty.

"Can you do it to any of your phones? Or do you need to have the person you want to see answer first?" asked Wolfgang carefully.

Ever protective Dusty smiled as he answered.

"It won't work if the person hasn't answered and there is a way to put a pass code on it so that someone can't just appear out of the blue on you, but the spell to do it is a very closely guarded secret," said Dusty smiling.

Wolfgang smiled as well, but he was thinking of what complications might arise by such a large unknown security hole he was just learning he had.

Switching back to the matter at hand, he realized that if Dusty couldn't save his life then any future planning was all for moot anyway.

"Do you honestly believe you have a chance at finding out what the Mage's council did, so you can heal me of this spell? Do you really think that now that they are this close to victory they will let you stop them?" asked Wolfgang softly switching the subject back to what was at hand.

"Believe in me to save you. I have a lot more questions you need to answer and I can't get those answers if you're dead. Besides you still haven't weighed in on that new line of sherry I'm working on," said Dusty with a smile.

Something that was a cross between a laugh and a savage cough came from Wolfgang as he seemed to lay back and closed his eyes. Soon he was fitfully resting.

"No matter what you might have done in the past, for someone to give you this type of death is too cruel to make anyone suffer through," said Dusty softly to himself before he headed for the door.

Dusty felt Wolfgang might be a lot of things to a lot of people, but foremost he was one of his oldest friends since coming here.

"You really love him don't you?" asked Suzan gently as she and Kat quickly left the house headed for town.

"Yes I do. I've been in love with him since the very first moment that I met him at your home," said Kat quietly as she focused on staring straight ahead as the walked.

"Does he know?" asked Suzan quietly.

"He was about to last night, but I didn't get the chance to show him," said Kat as her face took on a hard look about it.

"You'll get that chance. Dusty will make sure of it. Charles is too important for him to give up without a fight," said Suzan smiling.

Reaching over Suzan linked arms with Kat to reassure her. They walked on each lost in their own thoughts. Kat smiled at Suzan for the supportive gesture and patted her arm.

"What if Dusty couldn't save him? What if he still died no matter what? Could she go back to her wanderings like she did before, looking desperately for the right man, after being this close to happiness?" thought Kat

Kat felt a cold chill as she realized that if he died that she would survive as she had always done before, but before she could even think about it she would have to kill the man who killed her love in the most painful way imaginable.

She had seen lots of death and devastation in her time, but if she ever caught that man, and she would try very hard to do just that, she would make his death linger for so long that he would pray for it at all cost.

And just when he thought it would come and release from all the pain she was giving him she would pull him back from the edge and then start the entire process all over again and again and again.

And only then once she was done with him she would make it her mission to kill every single last mage on that damn council who hired that assassin.

The men on the council she would suck dry as slowly and as painfully as she could to really make them suffer and drag out their deaths. The women she would likewise devise a way to make them wish they had never heard of either her or Charles.

She would make them all pay for what they did to the second man that she truly loved.

Kat knew that she needed to stop these thoughts of vengeance, because it was these same thoughts that had pushed her over the edge when she lost Elliot so long ago. But try as she might she couldn't step back away from them until the people who did this to Charles paid for what they had done with their very lives.

Kat and Suzan returned with Margret, and a few other people who all rushed to Wolfgang's home once his attack was made known.

Dusty, Suzan, Rachel, and Daniel found that they were pushed into a corner as everyone tried to push into the room and show their concern.

At first a few of them tried to use the unknown four of them as the outlet for their anguish, but Kat quickly pointed out that they hadn't even known about what happened until she called for them and they dropped everything they were doing to come to his aid.

That helped cool their anger, but it still needed an outlet, and Dusty could see the mob mentality would soon over take them if they weren't careful.

Wolfgang regained consciousness a few different times as they applied the treatment to ease his pain and he talked to a few of the people present and made sure they understood that Dusty and those with him were his friends and they were here because of their worry about his attack.

Those talks were enough to slow some of their anger down, but not enough to completely defuse it. But Dusty was glad to see that the people from the city were reassured by Wolfgang that his injuries weren't the fault of those trying to help him. He started to wonder how much influence Wolfgang actually had over these people.

Eventually Kat made everyone leave the room, making sure to tell them that she would keep everyone informed on what was going on.

A few insisted on still staying, as Kat was arguing against it to allow Wolfgang to heal while they waited on Dusty, Dusty and Wolfgang both asked the people to trust in them to protect Wolfgang. That was enough to convince them to leave, but each vowed they would still check on Wolfgang to see how he was doing.

Once everyone was out of the room and safely seen out of the room Dusty looked at Rachel and Daniel and started speaking.

"Guys I have to ask, will you please stay here and watch over him while Suzan and I go to see the Mage's council and ask them why they did this? I hate to ask you to do guard duty, but whoever did this may come back and try to finish what they started. I would stay but I need to talk with the council directly," said Dusty as he looked at them.

"Don't worry Dusty, we'll stay and make sure that the assassin doesn't succeed," said Daniel as he clasped Dusty's shoulder with his hand.

For some reason that simple gesture reassured Dusty more than Daniel knew as he smiled back.

Dusty and Suzan started off on their journey immediately once the conversation was finished. As the headed out of the house they noticed two guards stationed outside the home that looked steadfastly ahead.

Dusty just nodded at them without expecting, or receiving, any acknowledgement.

Suzan noticed what Dusty didn't and hurried to her horse.

"They are all just worried about him," said Suzan smiling warmly at her husband.

"I know, but you have to ask, how did he garner this much support from the folks in the city that they would put their own lives on the line for him," said Dusty quietly as they started out.

Suzan nodded because she too was curious about that loyalty as well.

The pair rode their horses hard to reach the island ferry that would take them back to the mainland.

Dusty would have transported to the mage's council, but Melkin didn't take his 'phone' with him when he visited because of how much the other mages hated Dusty's inventions. By the same token no one on the council had one either.

So Dusty had to make this trip the hard way. He had to talk with them and reason with them to leave Wolfgang alone. Suddenly forcing his latest ideas on them and then trying to get their help would more than likely backfire. He would need to approach them in a more subtle manner to work this out.

Without a backward glance the pair rode like the valley behind them was on fire as they headed out to save Wolfgang's life.

It took Dusty and Suzan about a week and five days of very hard riding to reach the city that housed the city of learning called Menthausen. It was where the Mage's council made their home. Dusty and Suzan had barely rested on their journey here, as they were on the move before the sun was up and only rested when it was too dangerous to continue riding in the deep darkness.

Now that they had arrived Dusty was well aware of how to get around the massive city because his photographic memory. It allowed him to remember where he needed to be, but Suzan was instantly lost.

They were currently walking on one of many different crystal roads because they had been encouraged strongly, by the city's magical guards, to leave their horses at the edge of the city instead of taking them any further.

Dusty and Suzan of course complied and left their mounts behind. While he was surrendering their mounts she was amazed by the city as they worked their way further into its interior.

When they first reached the city gates Suzan stopped to stare at them when they reached them and had to dismount and examine them closer. The gates were made of a strange crystal that Suzan couldn't help but touch as she waited for Dusty to get a voucher for their horses.

Suzan was amazed that the crystal gates were both cold and warm to the touch.

Dusty said when he saw her touching it that the gate was a magical absorption device that would reflect any attempts at damage back at its attacker tenfold for what was directed at it no matter what type of damage was done to it, physical or magical.

Suzan thought that the gates looked like they had been cut from a huge diamond by the way they sparkled and glittered, appearing to look as if they had facets, as she looked at it.

They were two huge crystals that made up two separate gates and they were housed inside of what looked to be a golden frame. The framework had thin openings carved in it in which to allow defenders to shoot out of it down at attackers.

But the gates were not to be outdone by what were the pristine white walls of the city.

Now that they were in the city, the walls were so bright that it hurt the eyes to stare direct at them for any length of time.

As they approached the city Suzan wasn't quite sure what to make of it in the distance. She could see the city from miles away on its hill. But the closer they got Suzan saw that the city was in fact as immense as it seemed and it had a glow all on its own.

Standing in amazement now that they were inside the city, Suzan looked around like a small child in wonderment. She saw floating crystal fountains that sprayed the most crystal clear water that she had ever seen into their anchored basin pools below.

The fountains didn't seem to be getting their water from anywhere that she could see. The fountains weren't anchored to anything and they just floated in the air. But Suzan could see clearly that it was water inside of them, and she couldn't help herself. She reached into one fountain and touched the water that it contained for confirmation.

As she pulled her attention away from the fountains she looked closer at the various shops and homes around them.

They were all uniformed and precise in their sizes.

There was none of the mismatching or disproportionate sizes that one often saw in most major cities. Here in this city of mages the buildings all looked like they were carefully planned and built to complement the height and size of its neighbor.

While many of the buildings were of various different loud and outlandish colors, sometimes clashing with what colors were used in neighboring shops. There might be one building that was lime green with a red and white awning, or they might see a sky blue one with an orange pinstripe door side by side with a lime green one.

It was obviously the mages expressing their individual tastes as the only thing they could control according to the city planning.

But besides that as Dusty and Suzan approached the market square they could see many different things that floated in the air here and there made of crystal and marble. There were things detached from buildings and made to draw their attention. There were also street vendors doing magic or selling food that was cooked by magical flames that had no power source.

Vendors were everywhere that hawked their wares to the crowds as they passed through.

If it wasn't for the nature of their mission she would have stopped and thoroughly explored the city.

"Dusty this place is a ... amazing why have we never been here as a couple before?" asked Suzan smiling in joy as she looked around while they hurried along.

"Because it is no different than any other city you may have been to in the past. Sure the city makes it a point to show the world its "clean face", but I can take you to the rougher parts of this city. You'd see that the poor and weak have it just as rough here as anywhere else," said Dusty over his shoulder as they moved

Suzan just nodded as he spoke, but she was still fascinated. She would still make Dusty bring her back here at a later time.

Dusty wasn't happy to ever have to come here.

If his inventions hadn't been based partially in science the Mage's council would have welcomed them and possibly put them on display. But because he used science instead of magic as his basis they wanted nothing to do with them.

That pissed Dusty off at times and every time he came here he was reminded what hypocrites they were. As long as no one understood how something worked they were fine with it, but if they understood they wanted nothing to do with it or it's creator he felt.