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.
"I remember that! I'll be. I can remember feeling hot, like I had a fever. I remember drinking stuff that made me feel very sick!" Darla said indignantly.
"We were trying to get your abilities open and working. You have them, Darla. You used to do things when you were entering puberty. You were bursting with it, just that your power needed something to open fully," Hank said with a sigh.
"So... this drink, Sethlan? It's a catalyst?" I asked.
"Right. We looked all over for it, or something like it. For some reason, most of us who had kids with power, that power was blocked. It never developed naturally like it would if we had been home. Darla, here, was a great hope for us. She was the one who showed the most power in a long time. Bryon says she would be a very powerful mage if we could open her powers for her," Hank said with a sigh.
"Wait a minute. If they would have developed normally in that other world, why did you know about this drug Sethlan?" I asked.
"Well, sometimes a person, even over there had this blockage. It was rare, but treatable. Here it's a 9 out of 10 probability that you will be born blocked. We don't know why. No one has ever found anything that works yet to open those born with their power blocked," he finished.
"Listen, I want to go with you and see Darla come into the power she should have! I want to go and see my home again. I am old. The more powerful the magic user, the longer he or she can live. I am about at the end of my life. Bryon looks like he has aged maybe 10 years since we came to this world. I was a young man and looked young when I first came here. Look at me now," he said bitterly.
He looked like a man of about 65 or 70, though in fairly good health. His hair was thin and gray. He wore glasses and had a slight limp, as he favored his left leg. His skin had that leathery texture of people who spent a great part of a long life out doors.
I understood where he was coming from, though. I was well into my second century, and I looked about 30. I had never heard about this drug to take for this problem. Still another thing I could thank Markus for. He had been told to train and instruct me.
I pondered what I had learned. I liked Darla a lot. I had no idea why I liked her as much as I did, but the fact remained that I was smitten with her. If I could get her powers open and working, I was going to do it. As for Hank Shelton, well, I was going to leave the gate open again. He could come or go as he wished. I told him as much.
"Listen, before we go you should know something. Time over there runs differently than here. I was there for what appeared to be 2 days, and when I came back, I had been gone for about 6 days. About a week. That's a three to one ratio.
"I can't explain the time difference. I don't know enough, yet. If we all go over, we will be gone from here longer than we are in the other world. I can set a spell to keep everyone except us away from the gate. Do you have anything you need to put in order before we go? Darla? Hank?" I asked.
"I still can't really believe what I am hearing. Magic. Dragons. It's all like a fairy tale come true," Darla said in a whispery voice.
They both said there was nothing important to do, and that they could be gone for a few days to a week, with no problems. We all walked to the gate I had made. It only took me a few momentes to re-open it.
"I used to come to this rock arch when I was a kid. I used to pretend it was the door to my castle," Darla said with a little smile.
"Well, there is no castle on the other side, but there is something called a Keep that should be almost as good. Lets go," I said and stepped through into that other land once more.
Shortly we were all making our way towards the Keep. I decided against teleporting, as Darla was looking a little wild, and I wanted her to assimilate the world in a real time way. Just popping from the gate to the Keep would have been more of a shock to her, I think.
Hank took to it like a kid takes to water, and why not? This was the world of his birth. Darla was looking at everything. She was oh-ing and ah-ing over plants she did not recognize, trees that were almost familiar, but different from anything on earth.
Shortly, we were at the bend. I let them both see the Keep for the first time, as I had, my first trip here. We stopped to admire the scene. There was the little collection of huts, the one two story stone building, and the Keep beyond with its one tower.
"It's beautiful. I was not sure you were telling the truth. But, after seeing everything and going through the gate, I was sure you had done something to Uncle Hank! But this is real, isn't it?" she said in a strangled voice.
We made our way to the Keep's gate. Someone must have seen us for it opened, and Marald was at the postern gate, waiting for us.
"Welcome back. Bel told us you would return shortly, and he was right! You have only been gone for a few hours. Come, I have a meal waiting, and I have rooms ready for you and your friends. Bel told us to be ready, as you would return with two friends."
Now how the hell had Bel known that? I sighed as we went into the Keep proper. Yet another item to add to that ever-lengthening list I was making.
Edited by TeNderLoin