I was roused from my sleep by a loud noise. I looked around in the dark, and Greta was still sleeping. She looked more comfortable now, though I must admit that I was sore from how I had slept. I got up and went to the door to my bedroom, opening it carefully and peeking out. Gregor was standing there, wild eyed. It looked like he had been about to knock.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Bring the wand. Terry! And Burin!” He wasn’t making sense, but if we needed the wand, that meant someone was hurt. I grabbed not only the normal slow healing one, but the more powerful wand we’d found some time back.
Burin was standing in the common room, trying to support himself as blood dripped from wounds that seemed to have no source. I moved to help him. “No. Help the little girl.”
I pressed the weaker wand into his hand. “Here. You can use this as well as I. I’ll help Terry with the other one.”
“I’ll be fine. Go!”
I hurried in after Gregor and found a mess. Terry had a massive bullet wound to the side of her head. It looked like an exit wound, but I could see no entry wound. And the wall was covered in blood. My hands shaking, I activated the wand and touched it to her. The wound began to mend, much to Gregor’s visible relief.
“So, not dead after all?” A voice said. I turned and found Zorka, the kikimora who lived in the hut, standing next to me.
“Did you have something to do with this?!” Gregor demanded, looking ready to strike if he didn’t like her answer.
“Heavens no,” Zorka said. “Just disappointed that she would make such a mess and for what? Nothing! And I bet you expect poor Zorka to clean it. Everyone assumes that Zorka will do everything.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ll clean it,” I said. “Please, if there’s something you can tell us about what happened, we need to know.” I hit Terry with another charge from the wand as I spoke.
She shrugged. “Not much to tell. Girl put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Couldn’t even do that right. Useless, that one. You should let her die.”
Gregor advanced on her, but I stepped in. “Zorka, now’s not the time. Please, let us deal with this. I promise once more that I will clean it up.”
“Fine,” the kikimora said, and disappeared once more.
From the doorway, Burin asked, “Is she going to be okay?” His wounds were mending, albeit slowly. He was one tough dwarf.
“I think so,” I said. “But I don’t think she would have made it if not for the connection to you.”
“Glad to be useful,” Burin said, forcing himself to laugh. He began coughing. “That’s not good,” he said, indicating blood he’d coughed all over his hand. “I think I need to sit down.”
I got up and tapped him with the wand. “Gregor, get him a chair.”
“Don’t waste those on me,” Burin protested. “Keep helping the little girl.”
“Helping you helps her,” I said. “Don’t argue.” I had no idea what I was doing, but I couldn’t stand to see him in that kind of pain. Of course, I wanted to help Terry too, but she seemed to be out of the danger zone, so I wanted to help him too.
Once Burin was resting comfortably – he was still wounded, but we’d done what we could to help him for the moment – I turned back to Terry. After a few more taps of the powerful wand, I switched to the slower but cheaper method. We didn’t know if we’d find ourselves in a situation where we’d need the burst healing some time later, so we were playing it safe. It also gave Gregor time to secure Terry’s weapons – and her hands – while I worked, so there was that.
The saving grace was that it was a fresh, clean wound, so we didn’t need a surgeon like we had with Greta. I was still giving her a massive dose of antibiotics when we were done, just to be safe, but I doubted she’d need them.
It took a few more minutes, but eventually Terry groaned. “Ow…” she said. She opened her eyes, seeing Burin first. “Not even in death can I escape you? Really?” she whined.
“Oh, you’re not dead, little girl,” Burin said. “Though you tried pretty hard. I must admit, it really hurt a lot.”
She turned to Gregor, whose face was filled with disappointment. “I’m guessing you tied me up?”
“We cannot risk you trying that again. You cannot get stronger if you are dead, stupid.”
She turned to me. “And I’m guessing you’re the one who saved me, with that blasted wand?”
I took a breath. “Yes, Emily, I couldn’t let you die,” I said, my tone neutral.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did you call me?”
“Emily? That’s your name, isn’t it? Your real name, I mean.”
“How do you know…?”
“Turns out someone I know knows you, or of you, at least.”
“Do you feel like you’re missing an entire part of this conversation?” I heard Burin ask Gregor.
“I am thinking it is best not to ask,” Gregor answered. “Sergei said once that one should never try to understand words between women, for down that path lies madness.”
“Sergei was a wise man,” Burin replied.
Terry ignored them. “So, what did they tell you, if you know so much?”
“That your father used to work for Typhon, but betrayed him and tried to kill him. That, as revenge, Typhon had killed your father, mother and younger brother. They thought you had been killed, but between what Typhon said and gaps in the intel, it was possible you had escaped somehow. Or perhaps he had let you live in order to further punish your father.”
“An interesting theory,” the girl said. “And surprisingly well informed, but there’s one problem. A little detail your source missed.”
“Oh?”
“I’M NOT EMILY. Typhon tore my daughter’s soul out of her body and consigned it to the abyss, then tore my soul out of my body and forced me to live this cursed existence, knowing I’m only alive at the cost of my own child!”
I was shocked into silence. I really hadn’t expected that. I mean, on an academic level, I knew that kind of magic was possible, but to hear it used so cruelly… it boggled the mind.
Gregor broke the silence. “And you tried to kill yourself, why?” There was a dangerous edge to his tone.
“You saw Typhon! Even with your ‘God of Martial Arts’ helping us, we could only run! It’s worthless trying to fight him! And he’s going to come for us! Better to be dead than to let him find us!”
“And would it be better for your daughter to be dead, with no one working to save her, than for you to suffer for the chance to save her?” His voice was soft, but there was the full force of a semi-truck behind those words.
And you could see the effect on Terry’s face. “You don’t understand. You were an orphan. You have no right to judge me.”
“Maybe, but Sergei would have done better. Even without being a father to any of us, he never gave up, fighting until his last breath to stop the one who was there to kill us.”
“And what came of it? He still failed in the end! He still died, futilely.” He knew what he said was wrong the moment the words came from his lips, but Terry couldn’t take it back. Anger, fear and pride wouldn’t let him.
Gregor stood up. “You should apologize to Burin. Your stupidity could have killed him.” Then he strode out of the room.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Burin said. “I’ve barely got any demon left in me, so killing me wouldn’t exactly doom the world or anything. People die all the time.” He got to his feet. “I am a bit upset that you lied to us about being a little girl, though. I thought we trusted each other.” He looked genuinely hurt as he hobbled from the room.
“And you?” Terry asked me. “What kind of guilt you planning to sling at me?”
“No guilt. But the truth is that I wish you had said something. If you truly love your daughter as much as all that, I think it wouldn’t be that hard to bring her back from the dead if you don’t mind that you’d die in her place. No harder than freeing you from Burin, at the least.”
I wasn’t being completely honest. I wasn’t entirely sure what all would be involved. But I had some theories and damn it, I needed his and Burin’s help if we were going to save the world from Elvanna. So if I had to understate what would be necessary, then that’s what I was going to do.
“I need to know details. How will you do it? How can you save my girl?”
Well crap. I wish I were as good at making things up as Daddy. He would have spun a massive technical explanation that would have left Terry’s head spinning. But all I had was my theories. “Since that’s her actual body, all we need to do is break the bond Typhon created between your soul and her body, and then resurrect her. There’s a spell which I think is fifth tier magic that should allow me to push your soul out of her body temporarily. Then, while you’re out of it, I just need to redirect your soul somewhere else and form a new bond. Ideally, into a new copy of your old body, but we could do it with any fresh corpse, I think. That’s going to take seventh tier magic at least.”
“And what tier can you cast now?”
“I’ve managed to reach fifth, I think. I can feel the power, but I haven’t used it yet.”
“And then we just resurrect her, as simple as all that?”
“Hopefully we’ll find a scroll or a helpful cleric. We may also need to simultaneously raise Burin from the dead. I can do that with a seventh tier spell, but the full resurrection I think Emily needs will require more than I can do without a scroll or maybe a staff, if we’re lucky enough to find one.”
“Are you sure this will work?”
I wanted to lie, and say that it was a complete guarantee, but I couldn’t. “No. Not entirely. I mean it entirely when I say that I believe it will. But I don’t know that anyone has tested this kind of thing before. So I’m running on speculation, here. It has solid magical foundation. But to say that I’m completely certain would be a lie.”
He thought about it for a minute. “Okay. What have I got to lose at this point?”
“Not much, considering my father is planning to murder Typhon Lee as soon as he has the time to do it properly.” I got up and began magically cleaning the blood from the walls.
That surprised him. “What, really? How do you know that? You just barely learned who Typhon is.”
“I managed to speak to my father. How do you think I learned Emily’s name?”
“How do I know you’re not just telling me what I want to hear?” It was eerie seeing that look of suspicion on the girl’s face and knowing it was being made by a grown man.
“Would it help if I told you that he was planning to do it before, and only stopped because he heard that you’d already done it?”
Terry groaned. “Yeah, knowing that I somehow managed to save Typhon’s life by trying to kill him makes that more believable. Do you think he can really do it?”
“I have absolutely no doubt. So all we have to do is avoid Typhon until he gets a chance. And apparently his agents will be causing enough trouble in Irrisen that Typhon will have to help, assuming he really owes Elvanna for saving his life.”
“That makes me feel better after Typhon beat us without using half of his strength. Heck, he didn’t even bring his bodyguards.”
“How do you mean, not using half of his strength?”
“The dragon is usually bigger than that.” Terry shook his head. “MUCH bigger.”
That confused me. “If he’s so strong, then why would he need bodyguards?” After all, Daddy rarely had any bodyguards around him.
“I’m not sure he needs them. But he’s paranoid. So his twin grandchildren protect him. They have the same spirit bonded powers he does, though they take a different form since they’re different spirits.”
“Tell me about them. I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about him, but I’d rather know than not.” As my parents say, better to know and not need it than need it and not know it.
“The elder brother – by minutes or whatever – is bonded to the spirit of a black unicorn. He’s like a shock trooper, charging in and wading through Typhon’s foes. The younger sister is bonded to the spirit of a bloody crow, and serves both as Typhon’s eyes and protector while her brother is fighting his foes. And while the brother is filled with bloodlust, the sister is an absolute psychopath. I once watched her beat a man to death with her shield for merely interrupting Typhon.”
“Wow,” I said. “Well, hopefully we won’t have to deal with them. Our job is to find Baba Yaga. We’ll let my parents worry about Typhon.” I sincerely hoped that Daddy could distract Typhon without putting the war back home in jeopardy. Because I really didn’t want to risk running into Typhon at full strength with his full retinue.
“Okay. So we continue on. Good talk. Now you can go ahead and untie me.”
“Nope,” I said, as I started making my way to the door.
“Lyriana, I have to pee.”
“You’ll just have to hold it until I get around to sending Burin in with a bucket.”
“You’re gonna make me pee in front of the dwarf?! You can’t do that!”
“You should have thought of that before you blasted a hole through your daughter’s skull because you were feeling sad.”
“That’s not fair!”
I smirked. “Life’s not fair. But this time, you earned this one. Deal with it like a man.”
“No! Don’t leave me! Now my nose itches!”
I stopped at the door, turned and walked over. Reaching out, I scratched the tip of his nose. “That’s for helping save Greta.”
“I still have to pee.”
“I’m sure Burin will be up and on his feet unassisted within an hour or so.”
“Come back!” Terry yelled after me as I shut the door to his room behind me.
Burin and Gregor were sitting in the common room. Gregor still looked pissed off, but Burin just looked concerned. “Is everything alright?” the dwarf asked.
“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Let him panic for about ten minutes and then take him a bucket to pee in. We might want to leave him tied up until we arrive, but I’ll leave that up to you two.”
“What did you say to him?” Burin asked.
“I told him that we might be able to save his daughter.”
“Can we?” the dwarf seemed dubious. I explained my theory to him. “Yeah, that might work. I’ll try to think of anything else I can add to it.”
“Please do. Now, if you two don’t mind, I’m going to go check on Greta and get some more sleep.” Before I left, I turned to Gregor, “If he gets hungry, as I seem to recall, he doesn’t like fiddleheads.”
Gregor looked at me thoughtfully. “I will see if Zorka can help me make a soup of those.” Good. If I couldn’t channel Gregor’s anger into something constructive, at least it could be something petty.
I returned to my room to find a blond woman standing over Greta’s bed. I would have panicked, but I recognized the clothes she was wearing. “Godmother? What are you doing here?”
The woman known to most only as Samantha turned and smiled at me. “You picked a good one there. She still doesn’t know where she is, but all she can think about is getting to you so she can warn you before Typhon Lee comes for you.”
I hugged my godmother. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re here,” I said.
“I brought you a gift, of sorts. I mean, it’s entirely a gift, but since I spent your money on it, it’s not exactly a gift, I guess?”
She what? “You spent my money on it?”
“Yeah, I had to convince your machine to turn your balance into ingots, which I traded to this little civilization that lives on a planet in a trinary star system inside this beautiful green nebula. Coincidentally, I think I broke all of the security blocks your father put in to prevent you from accessing prototypes and other objects that break something called ‘The Geneva Convention’, whatever that is.”
Oh, that didn’t bode well. But I’m sure we could be trusted with access to the ability to commit war crimes. Probably.
I decided I should avoid mentioning any of that to the others.
“So, since you spent the money I was saving up to improve my magic headband to make my spells a bit stronger, what did you get me?”
She smiled like a cat that had gotten into the cream. “Oh, you’ll like this way more than a headband, trust me.” She handed me a box adorned with a pretty pink bow.
I opened the box, and what was inside took my breath away. Or would have, if I was still breathing. You know what I mean.
It was in several pieces. The first was a sleeveless leotard made of some kind of black fabric that was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It looked like it may have been made from darkness itself, and was cut high and low in all the sexiest places. It also came with stockings of a similar construction, which looked like they would go up to just above my knee when stretched out. But that wasn’t the amazing part.
There was also a dress and gloves made of the most awe inspiring fabric I’d ever seen. It was transparent in places, translucent in others, and light seemed to flow through it, almost like a thousands of tiny stars were drifting within. The dress was just the right size, and looked like it would come down to just about the middle of my thigh. The gloves had their inner lining adorned with pieces of the same black cloth as the leotard, which would create a rather interesting effect when on my hands.
“What is this stuff?” I asked, appreciatively.
“The black cloth is made by a secret process known only to two civilizations in the entire galaxy in which strands of dark matter are turned into a fabric. The other material is spun starlight, and is only known to the people of that one planet I mentioned earlier. At least in this galaxy. I’m sure I could find others who know how to make it if I started looking in other galaxies.” She grinned. “Go ahead, try it on!”
I changed quickly, absolutely desperate to see how I looked in these clothes. And let me tell you, I looked AMAZING. Everything from the fabric to the cut of the clothes flattered every bit of my appearance.
But the really cool part was that when I put it all on, I could feel a greater connection to the power in my blood. Cortana knew how to make a robe that could do that, but it wasn’t exactly good looking, so it was low on my list of priorities. And more than that, while I was wearing it, I could see changes in the cloth, as certain “stars” within would occasionally pulsate with greater vigor, which was definitely not something I could expect from those goofy robes.
I also noticed something else interesting. “Was that Orion, just now?” I asked.
Godmother smiled. “So long as you’re wearing it, the stars you see will often mirror those of your home planet. Don’t be surprised if you see other constellations as well.”
“Sweet!” I said, hugging my godmother impulsively.
I took another look in the mirror. Daddy was going to blow a gasket trying to figure out how this stuff was made. Mama was gonna blow a gasket when she saw how much skin I was – and yet simultaneously wasn’t – showing.
Then I realized something. “Hey, my hair doesn’t match anymore. I’m gonna have to change it again.”
She laughed. “Your natural hair color would probably look pretty good with it.”
I gave her an accusing look. “You just did this because you like my natural hair color.”
“It’s not my fault that your parents both have blondes in their family histories.”
“And you’re saying that the magic you gifted me with didn’t influence which genes I got?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
I laughed. “That’s what I thought.” Then I had an idea. “Ooh! I could have black hair with numerous blonde stars throughout my hair!” What good were cybernetic hair implants if I never did anything crazy with them? “Now I just need to recolor my boots.”
“I took care of those already,” Godmother said.
I didn’t like her tone. “What did you do?”
“I made them better,” she said, producing my magic boots. They were now constructed of the same fabrics as my clothing, primarily black trimmed with starlight. But more shockingly, they now had three inch stiletto heels.
“What’s with the heels?” I asked, trying not to sound annoyed.
“I’ve noticed that girls on your world seem more confident when they’re wearing heels like this, and you were a bit upset. So I’m helping.”
As much of a leap as it was, I couldn’t fault that logic. And it’s not like I didn’t have experience wearing heels like that, so they probably wouldn’t be a problem. It’s just, I’ve always liked guys who were taller than me, which eliminates a lot of men, considering my height. But I was married now – sort of, and she would still be taller than me – so I guess it didn’t matter.
And I would look pretty awesome in those. So I just laughed. “Thanks,” I said, genuinely feeling it.
“Hey,” Godmother said, suddenly serious. “Those things the idiot with the dragon said, just ignore them. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He could sense the power of the void and assumed that made you evil. Stupid, prejudiced mortals. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s evil.” She snorted. “I complain about mortals, but the idiots from other planes are even worse. At least some mortals have open minds.”
“He was just trying to upset me,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “I had no plan on listening to anything he said.”
“Good.”
It was my turn to be serious. “Is there anything you can do to help Greta?” I asked.
She gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but I think I’m pushing it bringing you those clothes. I think it’s only because I spent your own money on them that I’m able to keep on this side of not inviting open interference from some deity.”
I understood. There was a good reason that most gods didn’t simply openly interfere – the risk that others would jump in as well, possibly leading to open confrontation. And open confrontation between gods wasn’t exactly a good thing for those caught in the middle. Apparently whole worlds had been destroyed in the process before. That’s why they played the game by subtly pushing others where they needed them through signs and portents, with the occasional miracle here or there.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s not all bad. I can tell you that you did a good job. She’s going to be okay, though she won’t wake up for a couple days. Probably not until you’re on your way back to the hut during the next stop, if all goes well. Give her some of those liquid nutrients or whatever you call them a couple times a day until you leave, and then bribe the caretaker to keep an eye on her, and she should be fine.”
That was an incredible relief. “Thank you,” I whispered, a tear welling in my left eye.
“Of course. Oh, and don’t take her with you at the stop after that either. She needs to rest and will probably die if she goes. She has a better chance of surviving anything after that, but in truth, I wouldn’t recommend it, if you can come up with a way to convince her not to go.”
“Got it,” I said. Greta wouldn’t like it, from what I knew of her. But I would find a way to convince her. I just got her back. I wasn’t losing her again.
“Oh, and you aren’t going to hurt her by lying down with her. She’ll appreciate waking to find your scent on her.” My confusion must have shown, because she continued. “She’s a wolf, remember? She’ll definitely be able to smell your scent if you spend your next couple nights laying down with her.”
That made sense. “I was planning to leave her a letter. Should I wipe some of my sweat on it?”
“Mix a few drops of the sweat from your hair into your perfume and spray it lightly. That would probably be bit more traditional.”
Right. That made sense. Suddenly I heard a noise from the common room. “What’s that?” I asked.
Godmother shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said, though her amused smile told me that was a lie.
Well, I would play along. I stepped out into the common room to find Gregor hiding behind a couch. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“The dwarf has gone crazy!” he whisper-shouted at me.
Burin popped out from behind the overturned table, cackling wildly as he took aim and fired. Several large yellow bullets flew past where Gregor was hiding, just missing me. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t know you were there.”
“Burin?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Where did you get a Nerf gun?”
“I went to use the box and this appeared when I turned it on, with a note saying that it was a toy.”
Ah. Godmother’s idea of a joke. “Alright, then. Try to avoid breaking anything. And don’t forget to take Terry to the bathroom.”
“Oh, right! I almost forgot!”
“I thought you might have.”
Gregor had an evil look on his face. “Wait. Can the box make more of these toys? I think it is time we taught Terry to dodge.”
I grabbed my phone and connected to Cortana. “Be a dear and show Gregor your assortment of Nerf guns,” I said. “Oh, and until further notice, lock the account labeled as ‘Terry’. It now requires parental permissions from me, Gregor or Burin.”
“Understood,” Cortana replied.
I put away the phone. “You boys have fun.”
Godmother was gone when I returned, so I stripped down to the leotard and climbed into bed with Greta. I’d forgotten that she was almost entirely nude under the covers.
That made it a little difficult to get to sleep, I must admit.
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