Mages of Myth - Book 2 Chapter 4

Chapter 4


The morning sun rose; however, the snow clouds still covered the sky of Rue Pass, so the only sunlight came from inside the window of Unicorn’s room.
He and Pegasus knelt on the floor with a charm puzzle. This charm was called Sunlight Shapes. The shapes shone brilliantly like the sunlight itself, and their rays were just as strong, though never harmed the eyes of the charmer.
Unicorn moved a shape into formation with a square. “Check,” he said with a slight smile. When the shapes touched, there sounded a sustained harp-like hum in the air.
Pegasus hummed with the note, and then moved a triangle into the square. This changed the note, and then song ended. “Checkmate.”
Unicorn sighed. “It’s still early.”
Pegasus chuckled.
Something slapped the threshold at Unicorn’s door. Both mages looked up and found Pix panting for breath. “Outside somewhere,” she panted. “The princess.”
Pegasus stood up while Unicorn waved away the Sunlight Shapes. The sunlight blinked out like a light bulb. “The princess?’
Pix nodded. “She’s gone!”
~
Gray winter had touched the trees in the forest outside the palace. Phoenix gripped the hilt of his sword as he searched with King Esquire, Griffin and the king’s mage, Ebon.
He heard a branch snap and he suddenly drew his sword and looked around. He looked up into a tree and calmed. But then he frowned. What the…?
There was a four-post bed resting in the trees’ branches, like a cradle of some sort. The canopy curtains swayed away and a face looked down, pale and cold.
Phoenix smiled sadly. “My lady?”
The princess shivered and tried to smile back. “Phoenix,” she said and her voice shivered. “G-get me down?”
“Course,” Phoenix said. He looked over his shoulder to where Griffin searched with the king. “Griffin! I’ve found her!” He looked back to Tabula. “You’ll be down in no time, sweetheart.”
~
Phoenix wrapped a brown-wool blanket over Tabula’s shoulders as King Ruben talked magic with his mage.
“Do you have any idea how this could have happened, Ebon?”
Ebon shrugged in the cold, morning winter air. “I don’t know.” He breathed white vapor. “This magic is upper class, not my area.”
Ruben looked toward Pegasus as he tended to the princess. Ruben hummed. He wondered out loud: “I wonder if they can be bodyguards.”
Ebon licked his lips hopefully, but Ruben did not notice. “Perhaps,” he said. “Why not ask them, Majesty?”
Ruben nodded to Ebon, and then walked toward his daughter.
Ebon looked further into the forest and he saw Camur kneel in the thickness while he held his cane upright close by him. Ebon nodded to him.
Camur smiled cruelly and gathered the summoning magic inside him that he had absorbed from Ami just after he killed him. At that same instant, a hole in the ground some feet from him broke open and three hideous black gargoyles flew out into the morning sky. They cried out in screeches and then shot toward the king and the princess.
The mages heard the screeches, and suddenly all five drew their swords.
They saw the gargoyles fly after the king and princess, and they formed into a line in front of them, swords drawn. Griffin called to each mage: “Phoenix and I take the left. Pix, Unicorn and Pegasus take the right. Go!”
As the flying demons swooped down toward them, the line broke away and the mages spread right and left.
Griffin called out: “Phoenix! Fireball!”
Phoenix was already ahead of him. He threw the ball of molten black lava at one creature and it hit its stomach square in the gut. The gargoyle screeched like a hideous bird as the fireball slowly ate at his flesh like poison mold. It lost control of its black wings in panic, as it held its stomach with its claws and plummeted to the ground.
Its smoking body landed with a heavy thud as the other two flew at Unicorn and Pix. Pegasus waved his arm toward the creature and sapphire stardust flew through the air, rode the slight breeze, and then shot into the creature’s glowing red eyes. This gargoyle screeched and covered its eyes, thus it did not see the upcoming tree with the jagged edged, protruding branch, which suddenly stabbed through the gargoyle’s chest in mid-flight.
The mages regrouped for the last monster. “Two down. One to go,” Unicorn announced.
Griffin stood with his mages as they watched the creature fly toward them in the falling snow. “Any takers?”
Pix twirled her sword at her side several times. Within the speed and force of the twirl, the blade curled outward and exposed a taut string attached to both ends. Pix threw back the back of her robe to reveal a quiver with amber-glowing arrows over her shoulder. She drew one and stretched it to the string. She held the bow horizontal from her shoulder, took aim as the creature flew right toward her, and when she stretched the string to its limit, she released.
The arrow zoomed and glowed piercing amber as it flew through the air. The arrow pierced hard and swift through the creature’s throat, and when the gargoyle lost its breath, it dropped to the ground like hot lead. It then lay still with its other dead monstrosity companions, save for the one that hung on the broken tree branch.
Unicorn inclined his head as he stared at where the arrow had pierced. He pointed at the creature’s bare chest and grinned. “You missed your aim.”
Pix twirled her bow and it turned back into a sword. “No I didn’t.”