Chapter 14. The World from Above

Gulliver pulled on the rift, again and again, arms getting heavier with each pull. He knew that Andromeda would be having it worse, but every time he looked over at her, she was too concentrated to look back. He turned his attention back to the rift, which was less than half the size it was when they had started.

Watching the black churning had brought on spells of dizziness, each of which he met with a pull from Andromeda’s flask. Another began to overtake him, and he grabbed the flask, holding his wand with his other hand. He put the flask to his lips, and only a drizzle came out.

“At least I’m tipsy!” he said, though no sound emitted. He replaced the flask in his pocket and gripped the wand with both hands again. The tiny mouthful was enough to abate the feeling, but not altogether remove the effects. He pulled in, feeling the vibrations through his wand as he did. He closed his eyes and focused on the shaking in his wand. If he couldn’t see the rift, then it was nothing more than a game.

He pulled, and the vibrations grew stronger, he let up, they lessened. He found the sweet spot, where he was pulling, but it didn’t shake the wand too hard. He felt the tension in his arms as he spent several minutes pulling and relenting, slowly collapsing the rift in on itself.

An explosion sounded, almost deafeningly loud. The wand gave a tremendous jerk and shot from Gulliver's hand. He opened his eyes and saw the wand disappear into the rift. Inside the rift was the silhouette of a man, shadows wicking all around him. A flood of memories rushed into Gulliver's mind, taking him to his knees. His mind became a blur, filling him with overwhelming nausea. He lost the contents of his stomach on the ground, which were nothing more than stomach acid and alcohol.

“Gulliver!” Andromeda screamed from the side. Her voice trailed off, Gulliver couldn’t make out what she was saying. He looked up and saw portals opening all around them, a man stepping out of each.

“Hell no!” Gulliver growled. Garen’s imposition was here. He recognized every single one of those men. Each and every one of them had been subjected to Gulliver's investigation when they became a steward. And each and every one should be serving time in Castra Nocte. None were though, none even made it to trial. Key witnesses would change their testimony, or go missing altogether. Evidence went missing from the Stewards headquarters, from Gulliver's own office! That’s the reason he moved his work to his home.

“Involvent!” yelled Andromeda to his side, wrapping one of the stewards in air. Gulliver ran towards her, dodging a spell shot from one of the other members of The Imposition. He looked where it was coming from, and he saw a steward standing next to the rift, grinning wickedly at him. Gulliver's mind took him back to the night in the woods as he fell again to his knees. He remembered the Shadow, he remembered losing the fight, the magic not working.

A pair of blue eyes pierced his mind. He looked up and saw the world around him but through the blue eyes. He saw Andromeda, he saw the other people, a giant jumping from man to man. It tried to crush them, only to have them shimmer out of its clutches and appear somewhere else.

Gulliver shook his head violently, the eyes vanished from his mind. He looked up at, well he didn’t rightly know what was happening. He saw Andy, beautiful as ever, and saw men trying to pelt her with spells. She was incredible; dodging and deflecting with such speed and grace that Gulliver was in awe for a moment. He saw the giant, trying to bat away her assailants but failing. There were two other men Gulliver didn’t recognize, each holding a pair of shrunken heads. They seemed to be controlling the spirits around them, making the spirits take hits from spells launched at them by the same assailants. They must be allies.

Gulliver didn’t have a wand, but he didn’t need one. He noticed one of the men was shooting spells from two locations, shimmering back and forth between them. Gulliver timed it and hit the man as he reappeared with a stiff elbow. The man caught the elbow with his jaw and crumpled beneath it, his wand flying from his hand. Gulliver made a dash for it, but it shot out of his reach into the hands of an almost familiar looking blonde man.

“Higginbotham doesn’t have a wand!” the man laughed. Andromeda shimmered to Gulliver's side and latched her arms around him, then shimmered to one of the men with two shrunken heads. She grabbed him then shimmered to the other.

“Grab him!” she yelled. Gulliver reached out for the younger man, but something grabbed his arm and twisted it, throwing Gulliver hard onto his back away from the group.

“Higginbotham is mine!” a voice growled. Gulliver looked up and saw a man leaping onto him, only the man's color seemed to change based on what was around him. Spells deflected off the man's back, Andromeda must have been trying to hex him.

Gulliver lifted his feet and kicked as hard as he could into the stomach of the man. The man didn’t move back, but crushed Gulliver down beneath him.

“Get out of here!” Gulliver yelled. “Get them and hck…” his voice cut off as the man grabbed Gulliver by the throat.

The man pointed a gem-studded hand to the sky and shouted, “Rebus!” Gulliver and the man took flight, Gulliver holding desperately onto the man's wrist to avoid his head being ripped from his body. The rush of air made his trench coat flap loudly behind him, though his hat stayed magically secured to his head. The man let go of Gulliver's throat and with lightning speed grabbed Gulliver by his chest, pulling him to face level.

“Your friends are going to die: the witch doctors, the giant, even the pretty little one. You’ll live the rest of your days in a cell,” the man yelled over the rush of air. Gulliver punched the man, cracking a knuckle in his hand without even making the man flinch. The man continued their flight.

Gulliver looked up, and saw the wood encrusted tips of the man's fingers, he was channeling the rebus spell, constantly propelling them forward. Gulliver had never flown this fast, as he’d only used the spell in short durations.

He grabbed the man's hand, putting his hand on the man's fingertips. He felt the magic from the fulcrum then yelled, “Stillabunt!”

The spell shot from the man's fingers into himself and Gulliver dropped from the sky. He turned and let his enchanted trench coat glide him back towards the fray below. He saw a tiny black rift snap shut, and a small group huddled together; spirits and shields deflecting or absorbing spells. A tremendous man sheltered them from behind, using his massive back as a shield. The men surrounding them were closing in, slowly overpowering their defenses. The spirits began to fade.

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Suddenly, Gulliver was struck from behind; tackled in the middle of his back. The air left his lungs in a rush. “That won’t work again,” the voice growled from beneath the cowl of the man. The man pointed one of his hands back, ripping Gulliver further from the fight. Far below he saw Andromeda touch something on her chest. Immediately Gulliver felt something on his, a pair of silver wings vibrating gently. From them came a sensation of peace, of strength and resolve. In his pocket he felt something. He reached in and pulled out Andromeda’s wand.

His heart skipped a beat, he looked down and saw her barrier spells vanish, she had given him her wand! She was going to die for it. He didn’t know why he was here, who these people were or why they were after him. He figured the blue eyes had wiped it all from his mind, but he still knew Andy. He couldn’t let her die, he wouldn’t.

Gulliver reached into his leather pouch at his waist and grabbed a handful of wards. He remembered what these were. He touched them to her wand, which slurped them up gratefully. They’d likely destroy her wand with this many of them, but it was worth it if it saved her life.

He blasted a magic dampening ward from her wand into the chest of the man, it shifted his attire to black, sucking the magic from it. Gulliver knew it was only temporary, but it would have to do.

“Impellio!” Gulliver roared, blasting the man in the chest with the spell. It crashed into the man with a force that snapped at least a few of his ribs. It launched him high into the sky away from Gulliver. “Rebus!” Gulliver said, pointing Andromeda’s wand down. He shot hard back towards the ground below. A brilliant streak of crimson light shot passed Gulliver’s left shoulder, narrowly missing him.

He turned and saw a figure shifting colors to match the clouds behind him, blending in like a phantom in the night. He was faster than Gulliver, much faster. Gulliver bewitched the clouds, and a lightning bolt cracked, hitting the man. It didn’t stop him, but it deflected him hard. Gulliver pointed Andromeda’s wand high, launching above the man. Gulliver charged the clouds and several more bolts shot at the man. They struck him and blasted him from side to side, but didn't seem to do any real damage. The man turned and shot a barrage of spells at Gulliver, which Gulliver countered with several defensive wards. The wards shot out and nullified the spells in the air.

The man launched himself at Gulliver again, which Gulliver was able to avoid by shooting himself violently to the side. He shot a pair of magic dampening wards from the wand in rapid succession, heating it in his hand to an uncomfortable temperature. They hit the man and nullified his defenses. The pair of them began to descend. Gulliver aimed Andromeda’s wand to the earth and channeled the rebus spell, speeding him up to an almost blinding speed. He and the phantom had gotten so high that Gulliver couldn’t see his allies anymore, but finally, he spotted them and adjusted his trajectory. As he got closer, he could see Andromeda huddled in the arms of the monster, as it batted spells away. The spirits guarding them were almost completely gone, not able to stop spells as much as dilute them.

Gulliver spread his trench coat and it slowed him, but he still landed hard on the ground in front of Andromeda. The blonde man stood behind the others, wand not drawn. Gulliver’s defensive wards shot down from the sky, stopping the spells of their assailants. He began shooting a rapid series of hexes at them. He recalled where their shimmer points were and shot knockout spells to those locations, catching several of the men as they materialized to positions they had assumed to be safe.

The blonde man drew his wand and blasted a spell at Gulliver. One of Gulliver's defensive wards got between Gulliver and the spell, catching the spell with a tremendous explosion of power. The ward almost completely shattered behind the man's raw magical energy. Gulliver couldn’t believe it. He grabbed the last of the defensive wards from his pouch and loaded them into Andromeda’s wand.

“You’re all dead!” the man screamed. His eyes were wild and he let out a high cackle as he shot a thick red blast of magic. It demolished the three wards Gulliver had set. Gulliver shot the rest out of Andromeda’s wand into the air. The wand’s tip was smoking, sides cracked and glowing as it burned. The blonde man blasted spells, ripping through Gulliver's wards one by one. Gulliver turned and grabbed Andromeda.

“We have to leave!” he said. “They can come,” he added pointing to the others. “But he’s too powerful, I can’t hold him off.”

“Create a portal!” said the older of the men with the shrunken heads. “To the manor. Once there we can cut them off.”

“Where?” Gulliver asked.

“Give me the wand,” Andromeda said, taking it. Her eyes widened at the site of it. She quickly incanted a portal, which sprang into existence behind them. The giant grabbed them all in his arms and leapt through. Gulliver looked back through the portal and saw the blonde man destroy the last of Gulliver's defensive wards. One of the spells shot through the portal as it snapped shut. Andromeda flourished her wand, and a pink glow filled the air around her. The oncoming spell seemed to fade as it passed through her glow, and she heaved her wand hard with both hands, deflecting the man’s spell high into the air.

“Shit!” she cursed as she dropped her own wand on the ground, pulling her hand away with a grimace.

“I’m sorry,” Gulliver said. “I overloaded it.” It was flaming as it burnt itself out of existence.

Andromeda turned and said, “Where is yours?”

“In the rift,” Gulliver said, not really knowing what a rift was.

“Gulliver, I’m sorry,” she said, “I know how much that wand meant to you.”

“I don’t,” Gulliver shrugged.

She moved closer to him, “How much did you forget?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I don’t know where we are, why we are here, I just know you.”

Andromeda wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly. He embraced her, it was he and her, the rest of the world didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Gulliver didn’t know anything about it.

The portal snapped shut, Garens last spell shooting through it. He saw Andromeda deflect it as she faded from view. “Dammit!” he roared.

He turned and began to walk away, when a man in all black fell hard from the sky behind him, legs snapping into the earth. Garen walked to him, the man's clothing began to shift colors to match the ground beneath him.

The man let out a low moan as his bones snapped back into place. “I’ll kill him!” Raepax groaned.

“You will if you want payment,” Garen said. “And if you don’t, I’ll kill you.”

Raepax’s body arranged itself to normal, and the mercenary stood. “You’re threatening me?” he growled.

Garen flicked his wand and chords sprang into existence, choking the man. The man shot a blast at Garen which he easily deflected. “I didn’t know if I could beat Higginbotham's wards. Now we both know I can. I’m going to find him and kill him, the only way you get to stay alive is if you beat me to it,” Garen said. “I’m not your typical magician Raepax, your defenses can’t stop me. Now, fly away and find them.” Garen flicked his wand releasing the chords. Raepax pointed his hands skyward and he soared high and vanished into the clouds.

“I can beat his wards,” Garen chuckled to himself. The chuckle broke into a laugh. The laugh turned into a high, cold cackle.