final plan into action. But before that happened, he would once more have to commune with Kerberos.
“Katya, promise me that you’ll protect Zac from all of this. He’s too young to understand.”
“I promise. But you have to promise that you won’t hide from us anymore. No matter how strange things get, no matter how dangerous, you mustn’t forget that you are a husband and a father.”
“I promise. I love you.”
He kissed her long and deep, and then went to find Bestion.
Kelos bowed as his audience applauded. The tiny apparition that he had conjured chased the children, who squealed with delight as they tried to escape from the purple bear with the glowing green eyes. Catch them it did, though, before exploding in a cloud of candy-coloured butterflies, each singing an aria before disappearing in a burst of bubbles. The children rolled in the sand, laughing until their eyes leaked and their sides ached. The adults looked on, amazed and delighted by Kelos’s conjurations. Ever since the mage had felt the presence of magic — the source not far distant from them now — he had taken to entertaining the travellers of an evening. Admittedly, he could do little more than basic cantrips and conjurations, but once they reached the source of that raw power, he would be able to do so much more. For now, these small sorceries were like a long drink of cool water on a baking hot day.
“Someone’s enjoying themselves,” Dunsany said, as he stepped into the circle of spectators.
“Ah, ladies and gentlemen,” Kelos said, performing a gesture with his hands that outlined Dunsany’s form in a glittering gold aura. “My beautiful assistant.”
There were wolf-whistles from some and Kelos noticed the appreciative glances of a handful of women, not to mention a couple of men.
“Well, you can’t have him. He’s mine! But for now, my glamorous assistant will help me to demonstrate… the disappearing man!”
“The disappearing man?” Dunsany whispered.
“Yes, the disappearing man. You remember that one, don’t you?” Kelos whispered back.
Dunsany shook his head.
“Back in the day? That grubby little place we had above the butcher’s shop in Allantia? Performing shows twice nightly down at the Broken Oar just to meet the rent?”
“Ah, yes! Sub-dimensional pocket?”
“Sub-dimensional pocket.”
Noticing that the audience was growing restless as the performers whispered between themselves, Kelos produced a sack from the folds of his cloak with a flourish.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the disappearing man!”
Kelos placed the sack on the ground and opened it out before stepping in. He pulled the hessian up around himself and above his shoulders, before finally ducking his head below the opening. Dunsany secured the mouth of the sack with a rope and stepped back.
“Now,” Kelos said from within the sack, “I need absolute silence. Glamorous assistant, will you please intone the words of power? On the count of three: one… two… three!”
“Dissapeariariumanissium!” Dunsany shouted.
Kelos dropped feet-first into the sub-dimensional pocket — the opening to which was located in the base of the sack — before closing it around himself. The air within was musty and the darkness absolute. Sub-dimensional pockets were handy for storage, but weren’t somewhere you’d necessarily want to spend much time. Kelos knew that, above him, the sack would have crumpled, seemingly empty, and he was about to re-emerge with a flourish and reap the applause when he sensed a presence.
Something was pushing against the walls of this mini-dimension. That should have been impossible; nobody but a sorcerer of the highest calibre could intrude on this reality.
A thin line of light drew itself across the darkness before his eyes, as a wickedly curved and lethally sharp talon tore into the wall of the sub-dimensional pocket. There was the sound of voices raised in song — Kelos thought of Emuel — and then the mage was tumbling towards the light, his stomach turning over and over as though he were falling a great distance. He prepared himself for a bone-shattering impact, only to find himself kneeling on all fours, warm sand beneath his palms.
He didn’t dare look up, because he knew that the source of the raw magic he had sensed from far across the desert now stood before him, and the thought of looking upon so much power filled him with terror. He considered that perhaps he was in the presence of an adept shadowmage; one who had mastered control of all the known threads of magic. The low growl that emanated from somewhere above him, however, put paid to that theory.
A great clawed foot thudded into the ground just inches from Kelos’s head, and he cried out. Finally, he looked up.
Nothing that Kelos had read in ancient texts or seen painted onto the walls of Old Race ruins could have prepared him for the sight of the dragons. He felt awestruck, deeply moved and profoundly honoured that he had been graced with the presence of these legendary creatures. Without understanding how, he knew that it was the dragon standing directly before him — its huge azure wings unfurled, its head held proudly to one side — that had plucked him from the sub-dimensional pocket. Although they were just as beautiful, the two smaller dragons flanking it didn’t exude the same raw power; they seemed subservient to the azure dragon, hanging back as it examined the mage. Experimentally, Kelos reached for the threads of sorcery that flowed from the azure dragon, and was stunned by the possibilities they offered. Usually when he prepared a spell, he found only the thread of elemental magic open to him, but here every channel of power was open. The azure dragon — he realised — was magic itself; the very stuff of creation.
“Kelos?”
For a moment he thought he was hallucinating. Being in the presence of concentrated magic tended to have strange effects on the human mind; this would certainly account for the vision of Emuel sat atop the black dragon. The vision called his name again and Kelos decided to play along.
“Emuel… why are you riding a dragon?”
“It is you! It really is!”
The eunuch dropped down from his enormous mount and raced to gather up the mage in a very un-Emuel-like bearhug. Feeling the warmth of the young man against him, Kelos realised that this was no vision.
“Good gods, Emuel! We thought you lost when the Llothriall was destroyed.”
“The spell that was supposed to retrieve the ship backfired, and the Faith retrieved only me and Ignacio. The Order of the Swords of Dawn brought us to find the rest of you, but I got parted from the main party. I don’t know what happened to Ignacio or the Swords, but my friends here rescued me from the desert.”
“Your friends? You do realise what these creatures are, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Beautiful aren’t they? The black one, that’s Calabash. Piotr is the silver-grey one over there. The azure one… well, I haven’t named it yet. Really, we’ve only just met.”
“I can’t believe I’m seeing this. All my life I’ve read about these creatures — their role in the cycle of magic, theories on their extinction — but I never, ever thought I’d see one, let alone three. There is such… such power here. Any sorcerer would give their right arm to be where I am right now. The possibilities these creatures open up are almost boundless. In fact…”
So lost in his reverie did Kelos become, that it was only when the eunuch shook his shoulder that he realised he was trying to talk to him.
“…I said, where did you come from? Are the others here?”
“What? Oh… yes, yes. The others. Yes, sorry, Emuel, you’re right. We must get back to them, though I’m afraid to say that Ignacio and his new friends are now amongst their number. No matter. It may be that I can use the power of the dragons myself to perform a sorcery that will send us all back home. Just imagine it! The most audacious spell ever performed, breaking down the boundaries of time and space!”
“Old man, you’re babbling.”
“Sorry, sorry. Quite right, Emuel. Quite right.” Kelos looked up at the stars above him. “Right, I must return and inform the others.”
“In that case, hop up beside me.” Emuel said, mounting Calabash.
“Hop up?”
“Yes. It will be far quicker to fly.”
