Opening a portal to the edge of the land was, in fact, easier than Ozahr thought. The desert is vast and it was hard to miss such a giant landing pad. Portals are attracted to sources of energy as well, so surely he landed somewhere convenient, like a remote village or even one of the abandoned dig sites of the ancient kingdom.
When Ozahr stepped foot outside his portal, he was met with a warm wind. Tiny grains of sand collided with his hands and cheeks, stinging his skin ever so lightly. Around him was… sand. Lots and lots of golden sand stretching until the horizon where it meets the intense blue skies. When Ozahr turned around as the portal’s exit was dissipating into blue sparks, behind it there was… more sand.
"Where the hell am I?" Ozahr muttered to himself. The warm winds blew from every direction. Wherever he looked, there were only dunes upon dunes of golden sand, warping in the scorching heat of the desert. Now that he thought of it, he wasn't even sure if there was any other civilization here besides Shamhara.
Not a problem, Ozahr figured. He'd just open another portal. He raised a hand in the air, but the blue sparks immediately fizzled out.
"...What?!" His shout of surprise was dampened by the hot air. "Don't tell me my portal ate all the energy—" Ozahr crouched to the ground with his face in his hands in a moment of despair. With the heat in the air, it was hard to tell where magical energy was and where it wasn't.
“I should’ve stayed home,” he muttered into his hands. “Only I would manage to go on a grocery shopping trip and end up on the edge of the continent looking for lost kingdoms because a dragon told me to. What am I going to tell Elidyr…”
Ozahr’s self wallowing was interrupted by a large shadow hovering above him and blocking out the sun. He tilted the brim of his hat upwards, and in the sky was the gigantic, flat belly of a flying beast, not 10 paces just above him. It was shaped like a kite, flapping its sides until they turned to a series of waves.
"What the hell is that!"
The shout was heard all the way up to the beast's passenger. The young man sitting on the speckled skin of the animal furrowed his brows and shifted the white cloth wrapped around his head to make sure he heard correctly.
"Wait, let me befriend you!" Ozahr called out to the gentle beast floating away. Something shifted in the hot air as it passed. A blue spark escaped Ozahr's fingertip and he gasped with happiness. You're mine now!
He gathered his magic and shot it through his feet, propelling himself into the sky towards the animal. It was just enough energy to lift Ozahr high enough to touch the beast's wavy flaps, but they were far too soft and silky for him to grab onto.
As he scrambled and slipped away, he got a glimpse of the rider sitting up top. They caught each other's gaze before Ozahr lost his grip and began falling back down.
The rider quickly whipped his arm out towards the falling man and a golden ribbon extended out of his palm. Ozahr's fall was sharply stopped just before the ground. The call was so close that the tip of his hat was brushing against the hot sands as he was slowly tipping upside down.
Oh thank goodness, Oz was just about to say before the air got knocked out of his chest. He was pulled upward so swiftly that his stomach turned into a knot when he hit the highest point in the air. He got a better look at the rider now, wrapped from head to heel in white. He was standing now, the living rope clearly extending from him and keeping Ozahr suspended above him.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Ozahr tilted his upside-down hanging head curiously. That is, until the rider pulled his arm back and Ozahr finally realized what the motion was for.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Ozahr tried to shout and wave his arms in protest. The rider whipped the rope and sent Ozahr flying across the barren land, leaving his hat behind. A cloud of yellow dust rose in the distance where he hit the ground.
The rider shrugged and picked up the hat that fell on the beast's back. It seemed so foreign, like it didn't belong to any nation he knew.
It sort of matches the clothes from the grass plains... The rider thought to himself, twirling the blue hat and inspecting the subtle embroidery. But the shape is a bit... He made a face at the tacky wizard hat. Another student of magic or alchemy perhaps? Who would wear such a ridiculous uniform, let's see...
Just as the rider was going through the list of schools of magic, he heard a series of muffled booms behind him, getting closer and closer.
He lifts up his head and looks back. The strange sorcerer he thought he got rid of now looks like he's flying, or rather jumping in the air, propelling himself with some sort of blue discharge of energy.
The rider quickly grabs the long reins strapped to the beast and directs it closer to the ground, shouting some sound that the beast responds to. They accelerate. The wing flaps pick up the loose grains of sand below and toss them in the air, leaving a sandstorm behind them. For a moment, the booming stops.
The rider looks back twice. He figured out the sand rays leave behind magical energy, yet he's not from here... No, not even people from here would know that. Any attempt to logic out who might be pursuing him just left the rider more perplexed.
He looked behind a third time. The mysterious pursuer completely disappeared in the sand and dust.
Ozahr took this opportunity to catch his breath before taking a steady stance. With closed eyes shielded from the sand, he threw out a wide shockwave high enough to not disturb the sands below, but strong enough to disperse the dusty, orange air that was suffocating him.
The rider's senses were alerted a second before the exploding sound of magic behind him. He pushed the sand ray down, sending it to burrow under the sand, and sent himself high up in the air with a golden swirl beneath him.
Ozahr opened his eyes and spotted the elusive rider with his precious hat in his hands. His thief was floating gracefully in the air, followed by his ribbons of magic that seemed to be guiding him farther ahead. Not nearly as fast as the beast he rode, but fast enough that Ozahr didn't want to lose more time by standing around.
This time, he had to catch up by foot. A slight miscalculation left no magical energy for him to continue booming forward—an error that would fuel his physical exercise for the next month at the very least.
Ozahr began running and kicking up sand in all directions. The rider was still gracefully floating down in the distance, though the number of ribbons following him was rapidly decreasing until both them and their sorcerer vanished before they hit the ground.
"What the—" Ozahr stopped momentarily and squinted ahead. With all the sand flying around and the scorching heat warping the horizon, he assumed it must've been an illusion. But the closer he came to the spot of disappearance, the clearer it became that an illusion of a different kind was at play.
The wind and the sands were perfectly still. The distant wail of the beast reverberated even in the suffocating air. It was cruising along the sand off to the side and circling around, but never advancing forward past the point Ozahr stood.
Hesitantly, he put out his hand in front of him. When nothing happened, he inched closer one step at a time and still, nothing happened. In an attempt to defeat doubt, Ozahr pulled his hand back and fanned out blue flames that stopped abruptly halfway through the motion.
He took one last step forward, crossing the invisible barrier that kept swallowing his magic. The sunlight seemed to dim dramatically. When Ozahr lifted his gaze up, he realized why.
Before him appeared an ancient temple made of blackened stone, towering high enough to block out the sun. With the hat thief nowhere in sight, Ozahr could only assume he escaped inside. The arched entrance was wide open, inviting inside even the sand to cover its floor long past where the sunshine can still reach. Ozahr stepped inside, where he was greeted by colder and quieter air.
"Hello?" His voice echoed against the stone. Perhaps announcing his presence was not the brightest idea, but he wasn't looking for a fight with the rider. He merely wanted his hat back and perhaps directions to the nearest area of civilization. The notion that this idea is silly was even sillier based on the fact that Ozahr has only met one person who could use magic when he couldn't, and Elidyr has never turned that power against him. At least not yet. It was one sorcerer with no powers against another—what could possibly go wrong?
Ozahr stepped far enough inside now that the sun was no longer catching onto the polished stone. The large, cavernous entrance hall seemed darker than it probably was after the time Ozahr spent outside. The thief, on the other hand, already had a few extra seconds to accustom himself to the darkness.
Two arms reached out from the shadows and grabbed Ozahr—one around his shoulders and one pressing a wet cloth firmly over his nose and mouth. Ozahr had but a moment to think his last thought before blacking out.
Ah. I should not be trusted with grocery trips anymore.