THE FOUR SECTORS WARS - Sample Chapters

TWO

The dust devil swirling in the doorframe looked like it might corkscrew its way into the very earth below Pilmadrin. Instead, it kept depositing masses of dust and earth, rock and stone until it had forged a golem. 

It was starting to look more and more as if another wizard was launching an attack on Almadra.  

But the golem made no movement toward her upstairs lair. She was no doubt sleeping. She was rarely impressed by Mother Nature's fits of temper, on the contrary finding the worst of storms rather soothing. She'd curl up with a good book, an oil-wicked lantern when candlelight wasn't enough, and some witch's soup, the contents of which would keep her forever young. Her aging, withering skin that made her look enfeebled and crippled by age was just a good mask to wear to throw off young wizards on the make. As a survival strategy, she was only too delighted to pair up with someone of equal power.  

When he was a child, Raikin had often seen her in her younger guise. But now that he'd hit puberty and his hormones were exploding, she nearly always kept herself within her old crone's disguise so as not to arouse him. He'd like to say he appreciated the thought, and that the last thing he needed was a twisted relationship with a mother figure. But his lustful desires tended to overpower common sense.  

The golem took another step forward, and that's as far as he got. The unhinged door rode the latest gale force wind, flying against Raikin's attacker. On contact, it folded itself around him like a magician's box. It then folded itself back down to two-dimensions, and returned to its rightful position hinged to the wall, guarding the entrance of Pilmadrin, no doubt using the mud creature to fortify its innards, combining its magic with its own. 

Putting the incident behind him, Raikin went back to attending his gallery of faces like a museum curator. These voyeurs were a strange sort, some craved participation, a chance to jump back into the action, while others wanted only to enjoy the show from a distance.  

Raikin took out his pocketknife and leant some shape to the face on the wall that was etched from blistering oak, using the spirit in the face itself to guide him, letting it seep into him like the rain soaked wood. But he miscalculated, and simply wasn't as good with the knife as he would have liked, and the changed countenance, courtesy of a few misplaced carvings, invited another guest entirely from the underworld. One he was far less pleased with than the original with whom he was just trying to commune in his own way.  

He didn't have time to bemoan his mistake. The golem was burning out of its two dimensional prison in the door. The wood turned red hot, shaped in the golem's outline and, once turned to charcoal, flaked away, exposing the mud-creature beneath. Interesting, Raikin thought. If there were few wizards more masterful than Almadra, there were also few wizards whose magic was more powerful than Pilmadrin's.  

The house, created by magic Almadra had conjured decades before, always proved impenetrable. She never had to upgrade her fortifications until now, or so it seemed.  

Clearly finished with her bowl of soup, and desirous of more, Almadra came padding down the stairs in her enchanted slippers. The two rabbit hides she was wearing on her feet - that never stopped babbling between themselves - took one look at the golem and folded their long furry ears over their eyes, and that was that. At least the creature had managed to shut them up, more than Raikin had managed all these years.  

"Ah, about the door..." Raikin said, dissembling. "Were you just in no mood for guests this evening? Because I rather fancy being attacked by mud-creatures in the dead of night. You forget about my insomnia. It's that or count sheep, for Christ's sake."  

Almadra smiled wearily at his weak attempt at humor under the circumstances. She eyed the golem burning its way through the door. "It appears to be after you, not me," she said, as if her concern ended with the realization.