Remnants of Night

Ah, the rain. It greeted my return with a lovely cadence upon the roof and windows. I let out a sigh. Lehiras was my home but Earth had adopted me, had generously claimed me as its own. And now I was in a pickle in order to defend it. But the rain was calming, the clean scent of my condo was a balm. I could do this.

There was a stutter behind me—one I didn’t see so much as feel—that told me Ianarius had survived the trip. The rush of this new civilization was overwhelming him, threatening to drown him. His mental shields were wrapping tight. I could feel the layer upon layer he was molding like intakes of breath. When I turned to eye him, the mage was gasping, wide-eyed. I tossed my hair over my shoulder smugly as if I hadn’t had the exact same reaction ten years ago.

Devi, whose kind were not magical in nature, was already exploring but I noted that even preoccupied, his ear was always turned toward the mage. His fingers lightly touched things here and there. When he located the window, his attention was yanked fully from Ianarius as I knew it would.

“Welcome to Earth,” I said, with a flourish of my hands. The mage caught his breath, strange eyes committing the contents of my room to memory before coming back to me.

“This place is… heady,” He breathed.

“It gets better but I don’t have the time to get you situated—I have to track down that fire-bastard before it’s too late.”

“And how will you start?” Ianarius lowered his hand from his chest, drawing attention to the fact that robes were definitely out of Oregonian fashion.

“Invyrchal had said he would start with Rutherford, the metropolis outside of Kingston. I guess I will start there…” I ran a hand through my hair. This was so out of my forte. What would I even be looking for? A giant sign that said ‘bad guys enter here’?

“With no other lead, it will have to do. Let’s go.” The mage went to walk past me but I stopped him with an outstretched hand, fingertips close to his chest without touching.

“Uh… you can’t walk outside looking like that.”

“Looking like what?” He replied apprehensively. Through our connection I felt a trickle of defensiveness behind his words.

“People here don’t wear robes,” I told him, dropping my hand. “And you can’t really… you know…”

“What?” He scowled. Yep, defensive.

“Be you. Be a mage. That means no open spellwork. Nothing noticeable.”

He bristled for a moment but bit down on what he wanted to say. Admirable. “Fine. No open spellwork, except when absolutely necessary.”

“Also, in addition to your clothes, there’s… well… your eyes.” I floundered.

“There is nothing I can do about my eyes. You think if I could change them that I wouldn’t have tried?” He looked away suddenly as if having admitted something he hadn’t meant to. He took a breath. “I can change my clothing if you would provide an image. Perhaps a cowl… could hide my eyes.”

“A hat,” I corrected, feeling a little bad that I had put him on the spot over his creepy eyes. A thought hit me. “Or, sunglasses!” I leapt into action, tracking down the latest opulent fashion magazine within reach and after flipping a few pages, located something fabulous that I wouldn’t mind being modeled for me. I mean, something appropriate for walking around Rutherford. I tapped the picture.

Ianarius frowned down at the magazine and a moment later, the grumpy sleep-deprived mage was replaced by a grumpy sleep-deprived fashion model in expensive ass-accentuating slacks, an earthy-tan shirt and black Chinese-influenced blazer with high collar and shiny gold buttons. Sunglasses that I would have adored to own sat upon his face with aplomb. I couldn’t help my jaw dropping any more than I could help my eyes traveling down with abandon. When I got to his feet—were those Tanino Crisci shoes?! Daaamn with a capital D.

“I…uh,” I began stupidly, forcing my tongue back into my mouth. “Th-that’s good.”

It was the mage’s turn to smile smugly.

“Devi, you will stay here—”

“No.” The Harbinger pulled himself away from the window. “I will not let you place yourself in harm’s way without me to stand in front of you.”

“Devi…” I sighed.

“I will not entrust your life to someone else’s care.” His gray eyes encompassed Ianarius, who met the stare with equal attitude. Neither was backing down. Great. A sudden inhuman stillness came over Devi and a sense of alertness lent his features a sharpness that they usually did not possess. Silently and smoothly, the Harbinger pivoted and walked to the open kitchen. From the marble island, he pulled a knife from its block.

“Don’t do this,” Ianarius hissed, drawing in energy and readying himself to splatter my Harbinger with a spell.

Devi barely spared the mage a glance, instead he moved to the door. From behind the green palm leaves of a potted tree, he twirled the knife and became like a shadow. I was about to question him, but then my ears picked up what his did. Someone was at the door, jingling keys. Someone was at my door! Burglars? Did burglars bother with getting a skeleton key? Well, that someone was in for one helluva surprise…

I moved to place my hands on the back of the couch, giving myself some stability. Ianarius moved back, putting the still-swirling portal at his side. The temperature of the room began to drop as he pulled in the warm energies and heated them in his hand till his fist glowed in red fire. Slowly, the door came open and we all tensed. In bobbed a blond head partially concealed by a brown paper bag. The person turned from shutting the door.

“Devi no!” I shouted, holding out my hand as if I could reach the Harbinger. “That’s not a thief, that’s Eleanor! She’s my… house-sitter. Eleanor Stoffs.” I trailed off. Oh crap, I forgot to tell her…

“Z, oh my God! Wh-what’s going on? Are you ok? Who are…” Eleanor’s eyes were huge behind tiny silver-rimmed glasses as she blinked between the multiple suspicious characters currently in the room with a boldness she didn’t usually exhibit. Her short blonde ringlets quivered. She squeaked and hugged her bag tighter when Devi straightened from his crouch and, with a final twirl, made the knife disappear.

Ianarius shook out his hand, dispelling the fire. Behind his sunglasses, he was watching me. Damn it, did I just involve another person in this? I bit a thumbnail. Couldn’t just vaporize her, could I? Did heroes do such things? No, I don’t think they do. Double damn.

Eleanor Stoffs was the college-hopeful I paid to run odd jobs and take care of my condo when I was out of town. She came by once a week to straighten things up. Eleanor was a shy sort, not really one to speak up for herself and I guess I felt a little sorry for her; hence why I paid her to clean when I really didn’t need it. Cute in the harmless way kittens are cute, she had the couple extra pounds that rounded out her features and gave her a soft, sweet appearance. We were on friendly-terms and, to be honest, Eleanor was the closest thing I actually had to a friend.

She also had no idea at all what I was or where I was truly from. I had doubts that that would endear me to anyone. I had doubts that any sane person would believe it either. My options were either sit her down and explain things or just toss her through the portal and let nature take its course. So far, having an assassin in bits of moth-eaten cloth nearly attacking her and witnessing a man in gorgeous shoes literally engulf his hand in flame had distracted her away from the yawning maw on the far wall. That wouldn’t last long. I had to fix this or finish it.

“Eleanor…” I began, coming around the couch. “I didn’t want to get you involved.”

“Involved in what?” She asked, hugging the bag closer. Her already big eyes looked positively gigantic behind her glasses. “A-are you in trouble?”

“No. Well, yes. It’s a long story and I don’t have a lot of time to explain.” Apparently, that was I-need-this-problem-to-go-away-right-now in Harbinger-speak; I quickly called Devi on it before he moved more than a step toward my house sitter. Devi backed off, positioning himself by the island and leaning easily on the marble top. The cold seriousness was gone and replaced by a small smile that even reached his eyes—damn, he was good. I looked back at Eleanor, studying her profile while she stared at Devi. “Eleanor… this, uh… this is Devi.” I gestured. “And Ian—…um, Ian, yes.”

The mage’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses. “Are you addressing me?”

Oh, that’s right, Osiril’s Master Mage did not speak English. How fun.

“I-it’s nice to meet you,” Eleanor said softly, tucking a stray curl behind her ear then scrambling to catch the bag in her arms before it slipped. Deciding to (finally) just put the bag down, it was that moment when she saw the yawning black portal on the far wall. She let out a squeal and nearly jumped a foot. “Wh-what’s that? Oh my God!”

“Ah, what the hell, right? Look Eleanor, this isn’t going to be easy for you to believe but I am not exactly from around here. None of us are.” I gestured to the two men. “There are things going on right now that you wouldn’t understand but you’ll have to trust me, it’s very important.” The girl tore her eyes away from the swirling portal to meet mine. It was like she was staring at a stranger. In truth, she was.

“Th-that thing is moving.” She pointed at the portal. I could see the edge of hysteria brimming. “That man’s hand really was glowing, I wasn’t just seeing things and… and…” She looked at Devi. My assassin was still propped up comfortably with an amiable expression. Eleanor shook her head passionately, wanting to say he would have killed her but at the same time not wanting to put the thought out there. “Z, tell me the truth.”

“Okay,” I frowned. Getting a new house-sitter that I could trust was going to suck. “I am from a place called Lehiras. It is through that portal there. I… wasn’t always the person I am today. Living here changed me.” Oh I was so glad Ianarius—heh heh Ian—couldn’t understand me at the moment. “It’s made me realize how much this place means to me and now someone is threatening this world because I am here. I have been given no choice but to confront this person. Devi and Ian are here to help me.”

There. I put it out there. With a wave, I began to dissipate the portal. Its energies bounced about recklessly before evaporating, surely enough to garner a disapproving tongue-cluck from a certain Master Mage. Eleanor untucked her limbs from their place at her chest and dabbed under her eyes with a knuckle. She snuffled but didn’t look like she was about to bolt and call the police. “I-I’ll help too. If that’s okay.”

Several wasted minutes later, my shy house-sitter was adamantly invested in my cause. I had never thought someone so timid and diffident could make such a strong case. When it came down to it, Eleanor was right about one thing—I was going to need a ride and I had never bothered to buy a car. When Ian cast a temporary glamour on Devi’s clothing, her fear was gone and was replaced by an awed fascination. I half-expected her to ask if he could do any other “magic tricks”.

Ian’s eyes bulged behind his sunglasses as we stepped out the door of my condo, his hand reflexively gripped his collar closed around his throat. His presence at my side momentarily threatened to drown me with him; to his credit, he didn’t pass out. The mage paused at the top of the stairs, lips moving as he said something in Pelthocian that I couldn’t make out. A breeze picked up, causing the light morning rain to come under the overhang and spatter on our shoes.

The Harbinger was already down the stairs, unmindful of the drizzle. Devi’s eyes were everywhere at once; his hands touched everything within reach. He crushed a flower, pinched the unlit streetlamp hard enough to dent the metal, then gave a passerby a reason to walk a little faster. I was torn between reigning in his fun and making sure Ian wasn’t going to throw up on my doorstep.

“Is he okay?” Eleanor asked as we both stood on the stairs and watched Ian talk to himself. She couldn’t see it but I could—he was pulling in energy to form a shield around himself physically. I had doubts he could maintain that for long but hey I wasn’t about to tell Osiril’s hot shot what to do about his own nausea.

“Devi!” I hollered at the Harbinger, already half way down the block. Ugh, it was like owning a dog or at least I suspected it was. “Ian, let’s go sometime today, please?” A line of irritation appeared in between his brows as he finished up his chant. I shooed Eleanor down the stairs and in Pelthocian, asked what that was he was saying.

“An old poem I had my apprentices learn to help center themselves amidst outside influences.” He looked out at the world from over the top of his sunglasses. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud and the light caught and shimmered on the sclera of his eyes, making them look unreal but was nothing comparative to the prism of colors making up his irises. Catching me staring, he pushed the glasses up and gestured after Eleanor. My, my, someone was truly touchy about his eye color.

“Ah, my car is in the garage,” Eleanor said, getting her keys from her colorful homemade knit purse. The ring had a small scuffed photo frame with a cat on it. Though I’d seen her keys before, the thought of making small talk over the picture had never surfaced; guess I really would make a terrible friend. She walked a little ahead of us, looking back almost as much as forward. “I live in Rutherford s-so wherever you need to go…”

“Thanks, Eleanor. Appreciate it,” I replied. Ian stalked at my side like a wraith, one hand jammed into a pocket; the other was keeping his jacket closed tight around his throat. The tall man was taking in everything and not just visually; things that caught his eye that he couldn’t touch, he was using his mage’s eye to learn about. Doing so kept his normally long-legged stride shortened and that suited me just fine.

Devi was, as the saying went, pleased as punch to be anywhere other than a dank lonely dungeon. He had probably learned all he could about Pelthocia so that he could integrate perfectly; this new world offered him another chance to hone his skills. He was already improving; people weren’t crossing the street to avoid him anymore. One older couple even smiled at him when he gave them a pleasant greeting—in English.

Eleanor’s blue car was about as unimpressive as they came. Ian predictably balked when we all started piling in and I rounded on him, growing tired of his slowing me down. “Get over it, mage. This couldn’t possibly be worse than being ringed in Sarkkrai steel.” When he looked at me blankly, I realized I just said what I said in English.

“What’s a ‘Sarkkrai’?” Eleanor asked, from the other side of the car.

“Sarkkrai are… are…” I waved my hand about as if I could summon the answer from the air—how did I go about explaining them? Lehiras’ bane, enemies of Pelthocia and Zarhsha alike, or proud warriors, my one-time allies?

“Cruel monsters,” Ian replied. Jaw set, he got the door open and sat down. He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. I really hoped he wasn’t going to puke.

“What’d he say?”

As we got in, I couldn’t decide whether to translate that or not. “They are not to be trifled with.”

Eleanor navigated out of the garage and out into the rain, which had started up once again. From the backseat, I heard the mage groan and curse. When the girl looked askance, I told her he got car sick really easy. Eyes going from road to rear view mirror, she drove us out of Kingston and toward Rutherford.

Where Kingston was expensive, well-kept and well-funded and it showed, Rutherford was its antithesis. Passing over the bridge of Cedar River in silence, I took in the sights I didn’t normally bother with. It was a rare day that I stepped foot in Kingston’s metropolis sister-city. The bridge gave way to multi-story buildings and cramped thoroughfares. The wind picked up and the rain fell harder, almost at an angle. Traffic evened out once we got off the main road. Maintaining a speed a few under the posted limit, Eleanor turned her head momentarily to me before going back to the road. “S-so, where to?”

“I am not sure. I was told that we would be lead… somewhere.” I stared out the side window, searching but for what I had no idea. Switching to Pelthocian, I said, “Perhaps it would make this easier if Osiril’s Number One Mage could provide a little bit of help, as he said he would.”

“Perhaps if I had known I would be ferried around inside an impure metal carriage, I could have prepared better.” The surly man cracked open his eyes with a groan but was quick to close them again when the car hit an unpatched pothole.

I couldn’t help but smile at his misery. Oh how I would have loved to have known of this weakness a dozen years ago. Glancing over at Devi, I saw he affected the slouched posture of human youth when forced to ride in the back seat. The Harbinger even had the I-am-so-bored glaze to his eyes.

Twenty minutes later I was about to throw up my hands and scream. Patience was not a virtue I possessed. Where were these supposed clues? Invyrchal said he would guide us—guide us to what? How many one-way streets there were in Rutherford? Ian kicked the back of my seat none-too-gently when my anger leaked out. “Damn it, Invyrchal, stop screwing with us!” I growled.

Seductive laughter echoed through my mind, causing my spine to stiffen at the intrusion. I met Ian’s eyes. There was a “knock” on both of our barriers and, as one, our heads turned to the right. Thanks to the rain, there were not many people wandering the sidewalks. One person drew our eyes like a magnet. He wore dark-colored clothing and his dark hair was plastered to his head, but he seemed otherwise unaffected by the weather. Large was an understatement; he had the look of a professional bodybuilder or perhaps linebacker. But it wasn’t the man’s size that gave us a red flag, it was the fact that he was blatantly watching us as we were him. Whoever this was, he was sent for us. This was our clue. When he was sure we had seen him, he turned and made off down the nearby alleyway.

“Eleanor, pull over! Hurry!” The moment the car came to a stop, I jumped out with Ian a second behind me. Devi crawled through and exited on our side, shutting the door behind him.

“I smell violence,” the Harbinger remarked with a tilt of his head, in perfect Sarkkrai.

“Let’s follow before he gets too far,” Ian chimed in, pulling his jacket closer around him to keep out the rain. The water spattered on his hair, darkening the color and streamed down his angular face. Not that I was paying any attention to that.

“The pair of you need to either learn English or compromi—”

“I do not speak Sarkkrai! Filthy language,” the mage growled, gaining a very pleased expression from Devi at the reaction.

“Down, boys,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Our clue is getting away.”

“I paid the parking meter! Let’s go!” Eleanor said, stumbling over her own feet and clutching her knit purse to her chest. “Uh… i-is everything okay?”

Did I have time to explain to her why it was better if she waited in the car? Ian answered that question by cursing in Pelthocian and moving swiftly down the alleyway in the direction our lead went. “Stay close to us.”

The alleyway was not how I pictured I would be spending my day—it was dark, dirty and, I was sure that if it weren’t for the rain, stinky. A service entrance for delivery trucks, the alley wasn’t exactly well-maintained; we were dodging puddles and refuse every few steps. Other than us and a mangy old cat, there was nothing. Where’d our lead get off to? Just great.

Sometimes it’s good to know an assassin. Really, sometime think about it. When a “normal” person doesn’t see anything around them, they don’t always then look up. Devi did. We followed his gaze to see the man above us on the fire escape looking down on us with an amused expression. He was quick. And much quieter than a man his size should have been—we should have heard him clambering up the loose-swinging metal ladder from down the alley. When he was sure we had seen him, he continued his way up.

“Are you kidding me?” I said indignantly. I was not about to climb up a bunch of rickety rusted ladders. Apparently no one else thought the same as I. Devi was up on them faster than a monkey, perching on the barrier bars then leaping up and using his upper body strength to get to the next floor. Ian smirked at me, obviously over his displeasure at being forced into an ‘impure metal carriage’. The mage cast an air spell, levitating himself and in heartbeat had caught up with Devi. “Well… shit.”

“Did did did he just fly?” Eleanor exclaimed, hand on her mouth.

“He is a mage, Eleanor.” Now then, how was I going to one-up that smug bastard? Couldn’t just copy the same spell. Damn Pelthocian. Oh wait, that’s right. With practiced ease, I grew my wings and in a single down beat took off after the mage. I didn’t look back at Eleanor; I figured a smart girl would high-tail it back to her car after she saw two people take off in flight.

In two powerful strokes, I rocketed to the top of the building and alighted on the low concrete wall. Ian and Devi joined me. Our lead wasn’t attempting to escape or lead us anywhere else but he was suddenly not of interest anymore. Why would you be interested in a human -no matter the size—when standing before you dressed in full battle-kit was a Sarkkrai destroyer?