Wesley raised his wand at the Nocturne and yelled, “Foramen.”

It was supposed to rip a hole in his chest. Instead, he caught the damn spell just like the rider had. The Nocturne flicked it across his fingers playfully, the spell glowing like an emerald.

“Time to move, little one,” he said, the voice shaking Wesley’s mind.

So, he turned to face the dragon. He felt for his sword but saw it laying in the grass several meters away. The dragon, for all its lumbering frozen limbs, was moving slowly towards him, shaking the ice from its limbs.

The rider, with his long red hair swinging, was stalking towards him too, a wicked half-blade held in his crooked looking fingers. His eyes glinted with a murderous pleasure.

A desperate, almost chilling feeling came over him. He felt deaths creeping hand ever closer as the dragon gathered fire in its throat. As the red haired demon from nowhere carried Wesley’s demise in his hands.

He’d been in situations like this before. Well, not exactly like this but close enough. He once chased a basilisk through the London sewers. A giant spider through Richmond Park. Tracked a serial killer to the Royal Museum of London.

“Hic,” he said to his blade, which flew into his hand. He spun it several times, settling his nerves.

The flame came a second later. “Ventus,” he shouted, sending a cyclone to meet it. He hadn’t meant to send that much but the ambient magic in the air made it swirl.

It whipped the flame to the sides, setting a tree on fire and the hem of the rider’s long black coat, which seemed to have materialized out of nothing, almost like a cloud of shadow hanging from his narrow shoulders. He laughed again, stomping it out.

Meanwhile, Wesley had jumped sideways and thrust his wand at a group of trees, drawing the leaves from them like a swirl of pestering bees. He sent the crackling swarm at them.

He cast another spell at the last second and he cast it broad, turning as many of the leaves as he could into bits of ice. It was the best he could come up with as he dove for cover, the dragon having gathered its breath.

“Not bad,” roared the rider, the ice clinking as it struck the dragon’s scales.

He has no magic, Wesley thought. But he catches it.

He’d never heard of such abilities. It was like he was immune.

And yet that wasn’t his biggest problem. The dragon.

No obvious weaknesses that he could take advantage of. The only thing he could think of was that it was a clunky behemoth that couldn’t maneuver.

He decided he’d take the rider over the dragon so he dove into the wooded area and tried to disappear among the thin birches. Another cascade of flame followed him but it was buttressed by the trees.

“Wesley!” called the rider. “I told her to stay behind. It's just you and me.”

An eerie kind of fog rolled in suddenly.

Could this one control the weather?

“I know things about you, Wesley.” His voice was whimsical and playful. Like a cat playing with its food. “So many interesting things.”

The rider was somewhere to his right.

“Who are you?” Wesley asked.

He didn’t need to outfight the man. Just to outsmart him. One thing he could tell was the rider had hubris.

“I think I like your world,” he replied thoughtfully. “So many lights. So many…things.”

Wesley was muttering a spell, delving into his mind so he could remember it from his time at school. They’d never spent much time on illusion spells.

“Cars? I’d never heard of them until he came for me. Avalon lacks many amenities. But it isn’t so loud…”

A lightning bolt hit the tree ten meters to Wesley’s right. It threw splinters in every direction, which forced him behind the trunk of another. The tree that had been hit burst into flames.

“Do you like my tricks?” the rider shouted. “This is my specialty.”

Another bolt struck some twenty meters away, near a projection of himself Wesley had made. He was duplicating them. Spreading them through the fog. When he’d done that, he cast a disillusionment charm over his own body and became like a ghost. Vaguely ethereal and translucent.

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“I’m sure you’re confused,” the rider said, his voice suddenly right behind Wesley, who flinched and swung his sword in a wide, messy arc.

He swiped nothing but air. Then he heard a ripple of the voice elsewhere. The rider had manipulated his voice.

Can he control soundwaves? Wesley wondered.

While he crept around, the rider continued to ramble. “I’m sure you’re confused. I was, when he came to me…then I understood, after he explained it.”

Wesley’s hand shook on the hilt of his sword, the fog hugging him like a cool blanket.

“I think we probably could have been friends. I lost my mother when I was young too. An accident, just like yours.”

Wesley almost corrected him but he bit his tongue. He had been projecting his voice but Wesley was getting closer, he could feel the power pulsing from somewhere in front of him. He must have to continue the stream of magic to keep the fog.

“Ah, you are not so foolish!” the rider called. He was so close now. “Perhaps we would not have been as good friends as I’d hoped.”

Wesley stooped, struck by a sudden idea. One his teachers at school would be proud of him for. Maronie too. She always pestered him about broadening these spheres of his mind. Whatever that meant. He tipped his wand into the soft earth and murmured a spell.

The ground began to ripple slowly, like eels just beneath the surface.

“Ahhh!” shouted the man with sudden surprise, his tone triumphant.

Wesley knew what to expect and all he had to do was survive it.

A thunderous bolt of lighting, the biggest yet, came like a shooting star, flat and streaking. It gouged the earth, throwing dirt in every direction.

But he had known. He had put himself behind a tree.

“Are you still breathing, my friend?” his would-be-killer called. “Do you need further coaxing into the void? Beyond those pale walls?”

The fog cleared swiftly and Wesely saw the tall, slender form of the rider standing over one of his illusions. It was his form, sprawled on the ground. What a beautiful sight it was. One he only admired for a moment, before moving forward, his sword stretched out.

“Ah, and he had such high hopes for you. The things we could have done together.” His tone almost sounded somber. “I will make this quick, my brother. “

He knelt, hand outstretched, the air crackling with electricity. But when he reached out, his hand passed right through where Wesley’s chest should have stopped it.

The cackle of laughter erupted before Wesley even had his blade at the man’s throat, brushing the tips of his long red hair.

“Do not move,” Wesley growled, though he did not mean for it to be such. “I will sever your spinal cord.”

The laughter was still bubbling from the man. “I’m so glad you aren’t dead yet. Perhaps you can tell me what a spinal cord is before I flay the skin from your body and slowly cook you for Winky.”

Wesley did not know who this Winky was but he had an idea. The picture in his mind was not pleasant. “You will lay face down and put your hands behind your back.”

“Ah, this is how you do it?” he asked curiously. “I would never allow you to embarrass me such. Not when he is watching. Gut me now or I will quarter you.”

“You will do as I say–”

He did not.

The rider spun, a knife coming from his waistband, a flicker of lightning growing in his other hand.

Wesley stomped the ground, calling the latent spell he formed earlier. The ground beneath them trembled and roots shot out, twisting and wrapping themselves around the rider, bringing him to a stop mid movement. He actually looked surprised.

“Now this,” he choked, a vine slithering around his throat. “Is something else.”

“Now,” Wesley said, clearing his throat. “Who are you?”

The rider could barely wiggle a finger, but he tried anyway. “That is not for you to ask. You either kill me now, or…” the air began to warm. “You die once I am free.” The playful little smile was back. “You’re choice.”

Then the roots began to sizzle. And quickly. Soon they were wriggling free, falling back into the ground.

Some visceral gut instinct, which had gone off many times in the last few hours, rang again. It came with a solemn truth: he could not take this guy in a fair fight.

Wesley’s blade sang.

The rider’s head hit the ground with a thud and rolled a few meters. Mud clumps caught the red hair and the dark eyes were staring into nothing. The air had suddenly become still. The shadows stretching like long dark limbs, reaching for him.

He keeled over and threw up all over the ground.

Careful to keep his bile from the head, he half-crawled away, dragging his sword along the dirt.

Before he knew it he was wheezing and stumbling back through the forest. Then he remembered what waited for him and he stopped, pulling himself up with the help of a nearby tree trunk.

“I knew you were worthy,” came a garbled voice from behind him.

Wesley jumped, spinning. He almost threw up again.

The rider was there, torso covered in blood. His headless body carried the head, which was alive, tucked beneath its arm.

Horror stricken, Wesley froze.

What trickery is this? His mind asked.

“Come, it is time for you to meet your maker,” he said, the head grinning.

Wesley raised his wand numbly, a spell fumbling from his mouth.

A bolt of silver lightning hit him in the chest. He crumpled but he didn’t lose consciousness. Soon a strong hand was gripping his jacket collar.

The ride dragged him through the park, through the trees. All the while, he was staring up the severed head as it smiled down at him.

“You know, you’re lucky. This challenge was easy. I had to kill two dragons. And fight a werewolf,” the head explained. “I will say, it would have been easier with that wand. But my sword did the trick. Have you ever had dragon heart?”

Wesley just stared at him. He couldn’t move his mouth to respond.

“Tastes like chicken. Can you believe that?” he asked.

They reached the tree line and the sky opened, smokey and starry.

“My Nocturne, your eternal eminence, your all-intelligent being, you were right, of course, I’ve brought you another one.”

Wesely lay there, helpless. The Nocturne came into his vision, upside down and sideways.

The rider was smiling like a child. “I’ve brought you a knight, my lord.”