THE FOUR SECTORS WARS - Sample Chapters

SIX

"What are you doing?" Linara asked, a bit unnerved by the way Raikin was concentrating on the barren field before him. He was clearly in the midst of conjuring some spell and yet he was not using words of power.  

He ignored her. Whatever he was doing required his full concentration. In another few seconds, the field was barren no more. It was populated by a monolith of immense size. 

"What is it?" 

"It is a spaceship that crashed here eons ago," Raikin said. 

"Whatever is a spaceship? And how could it have crashed here eons ago if you just brought it into being with your spell?" Despite her fascination with the monolith, she could no longer fully take her eyes off him. After performing the spell, he was four years older, and the eighteen-year-old Raikin was a lot more fetching to her eyes than the fourteen-year-old version. The price one paid in Bolotaire for such things was already feeling more like a gift than a surcharge. 

"The old crone, Almadra, spoke of a dark wizard who was here, like me, to perfect the balance between science and magic, the precarious balance on which the future of humanity depended. She pointed me to the sites where the ancient ones who used science met with an untimely end. She ordered me to conceal the artifacts, thus giving me time to learn what I could from them, while depriving my alter ego of any such advantage." 

"So why reveal them now?" 

"You'll see." 

"You didn't answer my second question. What's a spaceship?" 

"It was a way to travel between worlds, to fight wars out there..." he said, pointing to the star-studded sky, "for control of entire galaxies." 

"Surely science is but another form of magic." 

"Surely," he chuckled. "But its laws are quite different. And yet, there are commonalities." 

"I want you to explain everything to me." 

The hunger in her voice was the clue into her true nature for which Raikin had been waiting. 

"Hello, Warnak. So nice to finally meet you, at last." 

Linara smiled warmly, before changing into Warnak.  

Raikin's hairs stood on end. "How is it you can be in two places at once?"  

"Technically, I cannot be in two places at once. Not yet. Linara is nothing but a thought projection."  

"Is there a real Linara whom I can hope to meet someday?" 

Warnak smiled. "I find it rather delicious I could make you fall in love with me in such a short space of time." 

"Not you, her." 

"Yes, there is a real Linara. And you will meet and fall in love and all those droll things lovers do. Though I dare say I will be a bit of a distraction through it all." 

The real Warnak landed before Raikin could get out his next question, the mighty dragon disturbing the air with its flapping wings. Raikin thought the gale force winds the dragon was stirring up would unearth his half-buried spaceship. 

With the real Warnak present, his doppelganger morphed back into Linara, which Raikin held protectively close to him. Warnak smiled at Raikin's instinctual move to protect someone he knew not to be real, until Raikin caught himself, and unclasped Linara's hand.  

"God, how is it she's so real? Doesn't seem like I should be able to touch a thought projection." 

"You can't. Your keen desire for her amplifies the power of the magic for me. You're doing most of the work filling in the blanks for yourself."