The Magic Rain

Chapter Eight: What Is This Place?

The light struck Jo-Bri in the eyes and he staggered back, blinded. There was some kind of roaring noise that was nearly deafening, huge metal beasts roaring past, intermingling with long, loud screeches.

One of the beasts brushed by him more quickly than seemed possible.

More of the long, loud screaming, rising in volume as if nearing, and then lowering in volume as if fading away, but all too quickly to possibly be real.

He staggered about, totally confused, panicked now and wondering what kind of magic Hodon had wrought… or was he now dead, suffering some kind of eternal damnation?

He turned and saw the animal bearing down on him and had time only to turn his body the way he had turned his body as the Ghiri had leapt at him that day so long ago. But this was no Ghiri – it was something even larger than a Zornth, moving more quickly than he had ever seen anything move.

A small, dark part of the beast protruded to one side and that part struck Jo- Bri’s side and threw him as if he were a rag doll.

He landed with a thud and a grunt, but was already rolling to his feet, despite the pain in his side. He ran as fast as his little legs could carry him. He wondered what his poor Zornth Brozar would think if he knew there were beasts even larger and more dangerous than he was.

Jo-Bri ran into some nearby woods. He realized that the panic he had felt in Hodon’s presence was fading now, even though he had just nearly been trampled by a crush of beasts and did not know where he was. Then it came to him and he stopped, in shock. This wasn’t the “other world.” This was death. What other explanation could there be? The witch had tricked him, or perhaps Hodon had struck him with a spell before the witch could sweep him to safety.

A bolt of light struck a tree just in front of Jo-Bri and he was again rolling on the ground before he had consciously decided what to do. When he rolled to his feet, now facing the direction from which he had just been running, he saw an eight-foot tall, robed man running toward him, sword in one hand, a ball of light in the other. It was one of Hodon’s wizards, and though Jo-Bri did not know how the man had followed him, he knew now that the wizard would not have followed him into death, there would have been no need.

Even as Jo-Bri realized that this must in fact be the fabled Other World, he mouthed a spell, but the wizard must have sensed it coming or been prepared, because all that happened was that the air around the man briefly lit up, as if a brilliant light had suddenly outlined him.

He’d blocked Jo-Bri’s spell and now was throwing a huge bolt of light at him in return.

Jo-Bri shouted a quick protective spell and simultaneously leapt to one side.

The trees in front of where Jo-Bri had been standing exploded.

He realized that his protective spell had had minimal effect on the man’s bolt of energy. The numbers – they were different here, he realized, trying to read them as they fell around him.

Jo-Bri rolled to his feet and ran behind another group of trees just as they exploded, throwing him back several feet and onto his back with a thud, tearing a groan from him.

Jo-Bri shouted another spell and again the air around the other wizard briefly lit up.

Jo-Bri ran for cover behind more trees and the results were the same – the trees exploded, but this time Jo-Bri saw that the ground sloped steeply downward away from the trees so as the explosion hit him, he leapt away from the trees, hitting the top of the slope and rolling downward as quickly as he could, wondering what lay at the bottom of the hill.

What lay between Jo-Bri and the bottom of the hill were trees and brush, and he was battered as he crashed through the brush and bounced off the trees, all the way down the hill.

The Voices in his head were trying to tell him something and he didn’t know if he had time to try to figure out what that was.

The brush to his left exploded, throwing him to the right. He landed with another grunt and knew from the stab of pain that the ribs that had been bruised by the impact with the huge beast above were probably now fully broken, but he had no time to whine about it.

He turned and ripped a bolt of energy up the hill toward the other wizard, and felt a huge chunk of his life force ripped from his body, and he gasped. In his panic, he was using his own body’s energy to attack the other wizard, instead of using the energy of the universe around him. He couldn’t repeat that mistake too many more times without killing himself.

Then he heard a scream and realized that he had struck the other wizard or at least frightened a scream out of the man.

Jo-Bri was going to flee but instead, without knowing why, stood his ground and shouted out a strange spell he did not remember ever knowing, and realized that it had come from one of the presences inside him.

Another scream.

Jo-Bri uttered another spell given him by the voices and suddenly found himself back atop the hill. The other wizard was trying to stand back up from where he lay on the ground a few feet away.

Jo-Bri uttered one of his own spells and this time the other wizard burst into flames – apparently the previous hits had disabled his defensive shield.

The other wizard screamed in agony now and rolled on the ground as the flames engulfed him.

Jo-Bri watched the man with a feeling of revulsion for what he’d had to do and remembering how it had felt when his own flesh had been on fire, then realized that there was fire all around him – the wizard’s attacks, and perhaps his own counterattacks had ignited the trees, which looked tinder-dry.

Jo-Bri searched for some spell with which to put the fire out, and could find none. So he mouthed yet another spell given him by the voices inside him and suddenly the burning trees and the dead, burning 8-foot-tall wizard on the ground disappeared.

The sudden silence was overwhelming, and the feeling of disgust in Jo-Bri was complete. He looked around.

What was this place?