Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
Wednesday the 11th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario
Cartoon physics would have had them flying hood over tailpipe, but real world physics still seemed to be in effect. Popeye punched right through the hood of the van and his arm got stuck.
“Get out!” I shouted and everyone jumped out of the van. I was glad I got the extra insurance on the rental. It’s a no-brainer when fighting Aether-creatures.
Popeye picked up the van and tossed it into the forest with a crash of trees. “The boss wants to talk with ya,” he said.
“Ga Bort!” I shouted and pushed my will against him. He was an Aether-creature but he’d been made by a wizard, which meant he had some defences against us sending him back to the Aether.
The others understood and started to help. He was a strong construct, pun intended, and he was able to resist five trained knights. I was starting to feel my will weaken when I heard Sylvie shout, “Glannchient!” and her will was added to the pressure of ours. With an audible pop and sploosh, Popeye became an equal weight of Aethergoo.
“Good job, group. Anyone’s cell working?” I asked as mine only reflected my face and wouldn’t turn on.
Each of them said no until Sylvie. “Mine is fine. My fiancée made it. It’s water proof, magic proof, and can actually stop a bullet.” She stared blankly at the phone and then asked, “Who do I call? Normally with this kind of thing, I call you.”
I laughed and said, “Let’s just look at how far we are from town.” The thing about Ontario is once you start driving, if you’re not familiar with the area, distances and time become useless. It should be a twenty minute drive to our hotel from where we started but how far we’d gone and how that translates to distance is a magic beyond me.
She pulled up the DT Maps app and it showed we were a ten minute walk from our hotel on the edge of town. With the night having finally covered the world, we trudged back to civilization.
“Did the devil send Popeye?” Sylvie asked.
“I doubt it,” Grant replied. “He felt too put together to be a random Aether-creature but he also was too weak to be made by the Devil himself.”
“That was weak?” Sylvie’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out.
“Unfortunately, he was a well-made Aether-creature but he wasn’t sapient. Which means he shouldn’t have been able to fight back. Unless he was created by a wizard. Probably expecting him to face one or two Gatekeepers, not six.” I patted her shoulder.
“Who then?”
“Same person who placed the Adlats and summoned the House of the Rising Sun,” I replied.
Looking expectant, Sylvie asked, “Who?”
“I have no clue.”
We walked in silence and as we approached the hotel I smirked and said, “Glannchient? Really? Every language in existence and you choose High-Pakahan?”
“Oh, leave me alone, it’s the only thing I could think of. At least it means, ‘to banish’. You literally say, ‘go away’.”
“Nerd,” I teased.
“Dork,” she rebutted.
We were all exhausted and the world didn’t seem to be imploding yet, so we separated into our hotel rooms. Ursula and Robin always stayed together. Robin and Grant had a hate-flirt relationship going and It was better to put them with an older and more level headed person. Clifford had taken to tutoring the younger man, whether he liked it or not, in business and real art.
I snored, so I got my own room. Also, I was in charge and didn’t want to deal with their bickering all night and day. Sylvie joined me in my room since she didn’t have one. She’d expected to go home by nightfall.
I managed to take off my coat and shoes but I fell asleep before I could do anything else. It had been a long day.
The smell of coffee and grease woke me up. “Aarrggg,” I said.
Snickering, Sylvie said, “Articulate. I can really hear the Oxford accent there. This is why you get all the girls.”
I glared at her and took the breakfast and coffee she was offering. When I was finished, I looked at her and said, “How do you look perfectly put together? It’s…” I looked at my watch. “Six?”
“I’m not new to the road life, cuz. My mom dragged us across the country. I learned how to look military clean before I was six. What’s your excuse?”
“My excuse is that I used more energy yesterday than I ever have and it was just a bunch of near misses. I have no idea what or who we’re up against.” I didn’t like admitting it.
Silvie made a face as she sipped from her cup, “The Dancing Goat has really spoiled cheap coffee for me.” She paused and asked, “Don’t you, I mean, we, have a chain of command?”
“Each knight is apprenticed to someone until they’re ready. Then they wander the world trying to help the helpless and all that. Once they’ve completed a few quests, they apply to be posted somewhere and the council posts them where they are most needed.”
She swore, “That sounds like a military version of a pyramid scheme. Who decides the council?”
“They’re appointed when their swords turn to gold,” I replied.
“Hum… Who gives the swords?”
I shrugged. “There are a lot of ideas but no one really knows.”
She summoned her sword and I nodded. It took Clifford a week before he could do it consistently.
Looking at the long thin blade, she asked, “Why is it rainbow coloured.” She was right, the metal looked like it was forged in multicoloured waves.
“Rainbow is associated with knights that are ideologically linked with protecting freedom.”
Dismissing the sword, she said, “We’re colour coded?”
“Not really. Council members are gold, freedom knights are rainbow, and most other knights are silver.”
“And what about you? What colour is your blade?” she asked. She might have seen it but it was in a stressful situation.
I summoned the blade. It was pure black with dark grey swirls that glowed a gentle light. “It’s black. It’s for the knights that have sins to atone for basically, I’m on divine probation.”
While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:
- 2024 – Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises: A Sun Speaker Story (Space Opera)
- 2023 – The Suns of War (Sci-Fi, Epic)
- 2022 – Birth of the Aetherverse (Fantasy)
- 2021 – Diamond Stars and the Galactic Heist (Sci-Fi, Heist, Romance)
- 2020 – Point Zero (Superhero, Sci-Fi)
- 2019 – Seren Plentyn and the Secret of Hokulua Station (Sci-Fi Adventure Mystery)