Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) Page 2

  It was awkward, lying there, helpless, with a strange guy covering me in some kind of earthy-smelling goop. While I could only stare, I took in his face again.

  The face I had seen following me through the rain had been a slightly distorted version of the man who stood in front of me now. He looked much younger, and though his nose was still a little too long for his slim face, his expression was pleasant and friendly.

  I looked up at his brown eyes. His eyelashes were exceptionally long and swept up towards dark brows, which were knitted together in concentration. His pale face brought out full lips, and my eyes were embarrassingly on those when I realized he was speaking to me.

  “Sorry?” I asked hoarsely.

  “I asked how you are feeling,” Kian said.

  His face was stony — not mean but impossible to read. But I could have sworn there was some laughter going on under all his layers of tranquillity. He was being so calm it was frustrating.

  Cautious, still under suspicion that he could be some kind of cannibal serial killer lurking in the Oregon woods, I did the only thing I could think of: comply.

  I wiggled my fingers and toes and realized nothing was broken. I might even be able to make a run for it. I smiled in relief, again despite myself, and he took that for an answer.

  “You should lie still for another little while,” he told me, getting up off the floor and gently releasing my arm. It was covered in a fresh layer of green goo. He stood up and had to duck between the low rafters as he threw the leftovers into the fire pot. The smell filled the small room.

  “Perhaps it is better that way, however,” he said as he cleaned the little area. “You may want to be lying down.”

  “What?” I asked immediately. My voice was flat and nervous.

  Kian came over to me again and sat cross-legged on the floor. His face was level with mine and he looked at me so seriously I was sure he was about to tell me someone died. It’s the kind of face that makes you instantly nervous and upset, and definitely makes you want to ask more questions instead of listen patiently.

  My suspicions about him forced me to back up as much as I could into the row of chairs I was lying on, as he sat in front of me inches from my face. He eyed me again with a patient, stern look and I calmed down some more, wary that I was falling into his plot.

  Kian shook his head, and grasping the chair legs pulled all three chairs closer to him. I immediately realized he was strong, and my chances of bolting diminished greatly.

  “Don’t be afraid of me,” he told me, almost pleadingly.

  His face was so close to mine that I held my breath. I wanted to believe him. The urgency in his voice and his honest face made it hard to imagine him being a serial killer. But I had watched too many crime shows to let down my guard. I continued to stare at him silently, my mind in total conflict.

  “I’m here to rescue you,” Kian said finally.

  A thousand sarcastic replies flew to my lips but I swallowed them down. “From what?”

  “Three magicians.” He raised three fingers to illustrate the point. “They are trying to conquer this world. But they need more power.”

  I continued to stare blankly, so he went on.

  “Magic is rare today. Only you and a few others have it.” Kian looked up at the ceiling, searching for words. “The magicians want to capture you and steal your magic.”

  That’s not so bad, my thoughts tried to reassure myself.

  “Your magic is attached to your soul. If they succeed in stealing your magic, your soul will be enslaved forever.”

  Very little of this made sense to me, and I opened my mouth to tell him so. I didn’t like words like steal, soul, and enslave in the same sentence. I thought of a few classic arguments to make, such as you’ve got the wrong girl or you must be confusing me with someone else. Magicians and past lives weren’t something I dealt with.

  Kian must have seen my protest forming so he rushed to reassure me.

  “It may not be easy to hear, but we’re running out of time. Your consciousness mixed at our proximity. I saw it. Your power will not stop developing. I am here to help you.”

  His gaze fell back to me, and I nodded stupidly. He was urgent, as if this news was the most important thing in the world. His hushed tone drew me into him.

  “You are very special, Gwen Carlisle,” he said. “Many things you believe are truths are not. But you need to run or risk being captured, though I had hoped you would have more time to grow.”

  A silence stretched between us, and finally, I could only manage another weak, “What?”

  He cocked his head to the side, the universal symbol of someone trying to be understanding and sensitive. I felt like he was trying to examine me, figure out how to approach whatever it was that he wanted to reveal. My nervousness grew by the second.

  “What if I told you that you are not actually who you think you are?”

  Again, I opened my mouth to interject but he kept going.

  “What if I told you that with my help, you can unlock memories and capabilities inside of you that could save your life and possibly countless others?”

  Kian was staring at me like the cue had happened for me having a revelation. On my part, I was only getting fed up and nervous. This sounded like a speech he had rehearsed.

  “I don’t follow,” I told him flatly.

  “Gwen …” Kian leaned in and looked into my eyes. I could feel his breath on my face. “I can only show you.”

  Before I could flinch, he placed his hands on my ears, as if trying to keep me from hearing. But after an instant had passed, I felt a searing pain in my head. I winced and tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he was too strong.

  Even prone to migraines, I had never felt anything like this before. As if my brain had exploded and taken my eyes and ears with it, I thought I would pass out from the pain … again. I don’t know if I cried out. But as soon as it had started, it was over. I gasped in relief and like with migraine, felt a giant weight being lifted. Dragging in breath, I saw what was in front of me.

  While Kian still held my head and I lay on his chairs, covered in goo, it was as if a projector was playing a movie directly in front of my eyes. But the movie made no sense. It was emanating from me. The images had no sounds, and they moved too quickly to decipher them. I stared, barely blinking, straight ahead and up.

  Glimpses played in front of me of someone who looked familiar, even like me, but different. Different in the way that Kian was different, like some kind of statue or Renaissance painting. It was the depiction of a person whose age is unknowable and face unreadable: an obscure person.

  In my confusion the image made me sad, though I couldn’t understand why. I stared, mouth hanging open, at what I saw. What I somehow knew had come out of my own mind.

  The movie was on fast forward. Too fast, and I couldn’t make out a single thing being played in front of me. The images moved quickly, and I saw people. Places. I saw emotions. Loyalty, love, family. I saw an entire life, as if through some kind of new generation of role-playing game. I realized, shocked, that the world was spinning around me, moving quickly, but in this movie, I was always at the centre of it.

  I imagined this must be like having your life flash before your eyes, seeing nothing and everything at once. But this was not my life. I had led a quiet existence in Northern California, a place where most people lead quiet existences.

  Slowly, the images faded off the screen of silver light, and then it was gone, leaving only the dust around the ceiling slightly illuminated.

  I choked. My mouth had been open for way too long. I didn’t know how long the images had played out, but I noticed my limbs and torso feeling a little better. Was Kian’s goo working? It must have been several minutes at least.

  He let go of my head and sat back, looking at me expectantly and rubbing his hands together like they were cold.

  “What was that?” I whispered.

  My breath billowed out in wisps of stea
m as I spoke. My voice was feeling stronger, but it felt like a quiet occasion. I couldn’t explain what had just happened.

  By this point, I had written off Kian as some kind of lonely Oregon wanderer, and my walk across the ocean as inexplicable reef activity. But this was something else. I couldn’t explain this at all.

  It was the question he had been waiting for.

  “That was your past, Gwen,” he said, “And unfortunately, your future.”

  Chapter Three

  “You’re wrong,” I told him immediately, but Kian only sighed.

  “It is no coincidence that magic is dead in this world and yet you have it deep inside of you,” he told me. “You were once a great magician. A warrior in our tribe. That soul resides in you. You have heard of ancient lands and people?” he asked. “Your history?”

  I nodded, lying, and wondering what he was driving at. I never paid attention in history class.

  “You have probably not heard this.” Kian sat back and crossed his legs in front of him. He continued looking at me in an eerily imploring way, and I had no choice but to listen to his story some more.

  “In my land,” Kian began, “we lived in a place where the roots of time were deep beneath our feet. We walked the same soil as our ancestors, and their ancestors, and their gods. We were so intertwined with our past that some of our tribe still retained the magical strengths of their forebears.”

  Okay, not so bad.

  “We had a good king, and he had noble warriors,” Kian went on. “They were gifted and formed a group of men and women who had powers greater than any man could hope for. Some people said they were descended from the gods and had inherited their unique traits.”

  Kian smiled to himself as if recalling a happier time, perhaps when he wasn’t keeping a teenager hostage in a shack in the woods. When he looked up he seemed to remember I was watching him.

  “They could do incredible things,” he explained as if trying to convince me. “In that time, magicians were known to exist. They were not common, but they were certainly real.”

  It was getting weirder than I had anticipated. The tale of why I needed rescuing was very detailed for a crazy man. But I was determined to listen to his story. If I could find holes in his logic, maybe he would let me go. And I wanted to find out what that movie thing was that seemed to have come out of my own eyes. As if reading my thoughts, Kian explained.

  “What you just saw was a glimpse of that life,” he said. “I have very limited magic, and I can only unlock some of the reflections of memories you already have inside of you, but that was your past.”

  He sighed and scuffed his foot on the ground, as if telling the story pained him. I almost felt bad for him, and then I remembered I was being held captive, and his story was sounding crazy.

  Stockholm syndrome, I chastised myself.

  “Our tribe, however, was besieged. This was two thousand years ago,” he said.

  Red flag, my mind warned. He’s definitely crazy.

  His tone implied talking about two thousand years ago was as normal as talking about the neighbourhood dog.

  “We were fighting a neighbouring kingdom that had three very powerful magicians,” Kian continued. “They were using the earth against us. They had enough power between them to roll the hills beneath our feet and dry the earth for our harvest. They washed the salt water of the sea over our people and many were lost. Our own gifted warriors were fighting them, but then another problem arose.”

  Kian looked to see if I was following then went on. “At our borders, another type of beast was trying to break in. The Romans had come and had waged a war against our people, in a land where they had no business. We had very little gold or silver, no roads — none of the things they admired. But we had a love for our way of life and that was why we fought them. While the Roman machine was nearly at our doorstep, the magicians in the north were growing stronger. They shook the earth and brought ice and snow crashing over entire villages, and there were not enough children of the gods to stop them.”

  A vivid picture had manifested itself in my mind. A snowy landscape, narrow mountain passes, shaking earth, terrified people. The sound of marching Romans echoed in my ears, and a panic I had never known until that day filled my heart. A thought seeped in slowly — I had never even watched the History Channel.

  “Against all odds, our warriors braved the spells cast by the magicians and captured their tribe,” Kian said. “But they were too late. The magicians had sensed a losing war and had done what no man had dared before.”

  His tone had gone hushed and the gravity of the situation pressed on me like a weight on my chest.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “They cast a spell on their own souls,” Kian whispered. “The three magicians were found dead. But a strong magic had stolen their souls and sent them forward in time to where they could be reborn to try their plot again.”

  “What?”

  I should have guessed that when Kian had first mentioned anything to do with magic, anything else was possible in his story. He must have been expecting my bafflement, since he seemed to have an answer ready.

  “There is a magic,” he explained, “that can capture your soul and keep it intact into your next life. Your memories, and more importantly your magic, are all locked away under the surface. It is called metempsychosis in this century, but for us it is an ancient ritual. In myths, the gods used it to live forever.”

  He paused to make sure the information had sunk in.

  My clothes were now nearly dry thanks to the warm fire, and the pain of my ravine wounds was coming back at full strength. Lying on the chairs was beginning to be very uncomfortable, but Kian’s presence and story enveloped me like a blanket.

  I lay listening, his words filling my head with images I had never seen before. My logical mind told me to run. A strange rebelliousness I was not accustomed to wanted me to stay. It wanted to see that life again, and to feel magic.

  “The three magicians had cast a spell to send themselves forward in time, where they would attempt to take over our lands once more.” Kian’s smile had turned into a wince. “We were naïve,” he said bitterly, “thinking they had skipped a few years into time and would attempt to claim our small kingdom. We could never have known how large the world would become.

  “Our good king was torn by the decision he had to make. The Roman power was at our door, and his warriors could now gather strength to defeat them. But if the warriors risked themselves in the war against the Romans, then there was no protection for the tribe in the future when the magicians would return in their next lives.”

  “What did he do?” I asked. It seemed like a lose-lose situation.

  “The king was selfless and decided that surrendering to the Romans might be better than being defenceless against the magicians when they returned to their full power in the future. He asked his most prized warriors to complete their duty by performing the ultimate sacrifice.”

  “What?”

  “Dying.”

  I gasped despite myself. Small strings of comprehension were making connections in my mind. The noise of thoughts resulting from Kian’s story was so loud that I fought to think clearly.

  “They were sacrificed in a ritual. It was a terrible solution,” Kian continued. “But their souls were cast in magic and sent forward. Nothing but faith promised that they would land in the same time as the wicked magicians, but our warriors were servants of our king, and they did as he asked.”

  I inhaled deeply, trying to settle my nerves. It was calming, but the smell of the green goo filled my nostrils and I could not avoid facing my situation. Then I realized I was getting a bad case of the crazies if I believed Kian’s story. Why was he telling me this?

  “The magicians have arrived in this time,” Kian told me, the stern look settling over his face once more. “Though ahead of you. And they seek power.” He spat the words. “They are the one final challenge for our king’s warriors.”r />
  I nodded. Okay. Fair enough.

  “The Romans invaded, taking everything,” Kian said, “and destroying the magicians now will be the only way to make the king’s sacrifice worthwhile.”

  He scuffed his foot again.

  “So …” I tried to make sense of his ramblings. “You think I’m an ancient warrior…” The word felt foreign in my mouth. “… that can fight some … evil … magicians?” It sounded ridiculous. How could he not think it sounded ridiculous?

  “No,” Kian answered, and I exhaled in relief, thinking he was going to say something saner. “I need you to run away with me so that I can keep them from gaining the power they need.”

  So much for that theory.

  “They can destroy this world in the effort to capture it.” Kian reached over and gripped my hands while he said this. It was like he was pleading with me, but I had no idea how to help him. “If they get your magic before you are strong enough to defend yourself against them, then all is lost.”

  The panic rose again in my chest and into my throat. Fear washed over me and I thought I would vomit. I couldn’t help but feel like his emotions were bleeding into me through his hands, and I wanted nothing more than to retreat.

  “What does this have to do with me?” I asked, trying to be calm. I was clamping my jaw shut, afraid of being sick. My main thought was to get out of this cabin and leave Kian behind with his supernatural problems.

  “There’s no reason to keep me here,” I told him, trying my luck.

  Kian slumped down again. The emotions that played out on his porcelain face were at the same time varying and muted. I tried desperately to read him, but it was impossible. The statuesque face was solid and set.

  “The king was a great man, Gwen,” Kian told me, trying to persuade me, as if I had disagreed with him. “He risked everything to save a future he knew nothing of.”