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(My Submission for the short story contest, It just called out to me this last week while I had some time at work. I had a lot of fun writing it and hope you have some fun reading it. Though I had to cut words like they were my children to get it under 10,000.)

Someone has taken one of the few things I hold precious, and I intend to get her back. I have wrecked worlds, scattered tribes, slain dragons and stolen princess from sleeping Elven Kings. I have laid armies to waste and led them to victory, I have crushed spirits and captured souls, and some of that was against people I liked.

Call me Max

My Brother in law can be a son of a bitch.

Not literally, I had met his mother and a kinder, more considerate lady, I have seldom had occasion to meet on this or other worlds trust me I’ve looked. And that includes actual ladies, with titles lands and men at arms all ready to make you mind your manners. My opinion of him though was not improved when I opened the door to my apartment and was met by his ugly mug and a sock to the face.

“Where is she, you sick little bastard? Where is Sarah!” he said punctuating the question with some kicks to my side.

“Look around the place Jake,” I said blocking one of his new attempts to kick me. “This is a one room efficiency does it look like I could be hiding my niece under the carpet. And how exactly would a runaway five year old kid have gotten a thousand miles from home.”

“She didn’t run,” said Jake collapsing in my chair. “She was taken.”

Well didn’t that just send a chill down my spine. My sister had the sense to marry well, they lived in a rich section of East Texas with well armed police and better armed civilians. Big Jake Harris was part of a loved and deeply entrenched family that most people were afraid to hand parking tickets too, much less kidnap the sweet bundle of happiness that was my niece Sarah.

“Tell me everything,” I said coldly getting up off the floor and looking Jake hard in the eye. “Leave nothing out, not the slightest thing, including why you are not down south with a pack of bloodhounds as we speak.”

“It’s Rachel, after it happened all she could do was say get Max, find Max, Max will know where she is. She begged me…My wife has never begged me for anything in her life even though she could have. I’d give her anything. And now the first thing she wants is her deadbeat brother so I get into my plane and fly up here and now that I am, I realize she must be crazy, what the hell good could you do? I mean look at this place,” he said indicating the general disarray of my apartment.

“I don’t have much money Jake, that’s true. What I do have is a very particular set of skills that I’ve used the worlds over to make sure that people know not to mess we me or mine. It’s clear however someone hasn’t gotten the memo. I’m a wizard.”

“A what, I don’t have time for this bullshit Thorson, my wife must be out of her mind,” he said shaking his head.

“A Wizard, Big Jake, subtle and quick to anger, look down.” I said indicating his feet.

“Huh,” he said, losing the color to his face as he noticed that he was now floating four feet off the floor. The look of confusion was quickly lost as I cut the power and he was released to fall forward onto the floor landing on all fours. I was mildly displeased that he was able to get back up again with a minimum amount of trouble, I was still smarting from that sucker punch he had given me by way of introduction.

“And sometimes, we’re not so subtle.”

***

Magic is real enough, the reason we don’t get taken much seriously by the general public is twofold. For the longest time a person would be born, live work and die within a few miles of the same spot. Humanity got by just fine without beings constantly plugged into facebook. And when modern technology progressed to the point when word from the next village down was not taken as hearsay that same technology made much magic redundant. Take a fever, what use to mean precision work from a trained professional with rare and precious materials and an all day incantation could now be solved by a .25 cent antibiotic pill. Makes you cry.

My parents had died when I was 8, to the most mundane of car accidents. My sister and I were sent off to our nearest relative which was my father’s uncle, a drunken never to be sufficiently damned old sot who took us in not over any real sense of filial duty but for the check the State of Nebraska was kind enough to send him every month for our care and feeding. Which mostly went towards the lowering of his own life expectancy by liver poisoning, so it was it can be understood I hope than when he took me aside on my sixteenth birthday and told me I was descended from a long line of magically minded super humans stretching back past the druids, I thought he had been hitting the sauce a little too hard that evening.

Now for most people in my situation thinking their relatives were crazy was a perfectly understandable and much practiced reaction. I however did not have that option. It was a few months later when I was accosted by a objectionable young gentleman at my public school who took offense at me making time with his girl, who didn’t seem to mind, and proceeded to whop my ass. I got up off the ground didn’t even take the time to brush the dirt off my shirt and hit him in the jaw with the literal impact of a decent sized truck.

He lived, just. But he was never really all there in the head afterwards if you know what I mean. The impact pulverized his jaw and sent several of his teeth into his brain. The doctors explained it away afterwards as some congenital defect in his skull and I believed that, at the time. One of the reasons that I live so poorly is that I send money to him every month at the nursing home his parents stashed him at. I don’t have too you understand, It was in front of a couple dozen witnesses and the school cameras bore out that he started it and landed ten punches to my one so the cops declined to pursue charges. The parents made some stink about a civil case but I was only one step up from a ward of the state and there wasn’t any money to sue for. He’s a nice little boy now, and he’ll always be a nice little boy, even now when he’s in his thirties. If you ever get up to Omaha and are looking for a crackerjack tic-tac-toe game you should look him up. Brian Peck at the Catholic Family Services 402-555-4825.

The boys didn’t mess with me much after that fight, which I didn’t mind. But the girls didn’t mess with me either which I sort of did. A few months later I followed my resident father figure and started drinking. There was plenty around and he was never in enough shape to keep track of what didn’t go down his own throat. One morning, well… mid-afternoon, I woke up to the sight of our neighbor’s house burned to the ground, fortunately enough they were away at the time. The arson investigators could never figure out how someone could have used a flame thrower and not have been seen. Me I was more worried about how I had got these burns on my hands.

It was enough to wake me up that something was going on with me and I started investigating. I asked around at the local physics and magic shops and when I finally made it understood that I was serious I usually got laughed out of the joint. Lucky enough for me, my fumbling attempts at magical discovery came to the attention of my area High Wizard who, once I had been tested, sent me on my way just as fast as he could.

I was a War Wizard.

Magic users are relatively rare, particularly in the United States where we all tend to be a mongrel mix of dozens of different tribes and bloodlines. The odds going these days are about one in 30,000 and for that lucky one most never attain any real power either because they lack knowledge of their heritage or the patience to learn the arts. Mages can learn any spell out there, given enough time, treasure and temperance, but we all have a certain affinity for a particular type, and mine was for destructive magics. One in 30,000, that’s the magic ratio, but I was something rarer. In the whole damn North American continent there was only five War Wizards, two of them wore the black, one was driven mad and the other who was not me was Major General Bernard Browning may he burn in hell forever.

I don’t care what you were taught in school, you can and I was drafted at sixteen. Made warrior apprentice to a stalwart, hard charging, take no prisoners madman, the likes of which had not been seen before or since. With the benefit of hindsight I cannot fault his methods, you don’t leave a potential nuclear bomb wrapped in a boy’s body alone untended. For thirteen years we fought the good fight and did what’s right, vanquishing all before us until battle at the Bridge Between Worlds. I lived, he didn’t and now I was an army of one. You had to hate him a lot, not to love him a little. I hated him a lot, don’t misunderstand me, but I cried at his funeral and for three days afterwards.

My High Wizard gave me leave after that, which was big of him, I had only just saved the whole damn WORLD, the ungrateful mook. I returned home to build a life that didn’t involve ending it. My sister was smarter than me. Both to never get involved in the family business and to capture a full scholarship to the University of Baylor, I exited the portal to find her married off to the man beside me. A Texan, how a trueborn daughter of Nebraska could have fallen so far as to marry beneath her I’ll never understand but it must illustrate some great moral failing in our family. I consoled myself to the fact that he was a Baylor man and not from the University of Texas. What? Don’t look at me like that, wizards can be football fans to, which when you think about certain games starts to explain a whole lot.

***
“Take this,” I said as I handed Jake my backpack.

“Um,” he said still trying to cope with the change in his worldview.

“And pack this,” I said handing him item after item from my safe.

“Ah.”

“Big Jake, I’m gonna need you to man up and use words of more than one syllable, your daughter’s life is at stake here.

“Yes, Max…well.” He finished hesitantly.

“Maximus, three syllables, Maximus James Thorson, not Maxwell, didn’t your wife ever tell you my full name?”

“We didn’t really talk about you much.”

“Thanks Jake, I love you too.”

My place of power was a walkup above a Chinese restaurant in midtown. I had feng shuied away a demon that was eating away all the profits as well as most of the better customers and in gratitude the owner gave me a great rate on the place upstairs. Plus it’s handy having food just a stairway away. It helps to not have to cook dinner when you have various pots and cauldrons boiling away that could do terrible and semi- permanent things to a body if accidentally ingested. My High Wizard makes his place on a floor of the Sears tower that the new owners don’t know about and wouldn’t want to get to if they did. I never really understood the whole Ivory tower crap. To want to be in a tall place and look down upon the peasants said things about a person and to take an office in the tallest building on the continent also said interesting things about certain body parts. Plus it was tantamount to taking out an advertisement to all and sundry nasty beings that said “here I am, slay me in my sleep.”

“Where was Sarah last seen?” I asked grabbing my coat.

“The lake house at Fern, we had a few people from church over for a cookout and Sarah was playing with their kids trying to catch tadpoles on the shore. The next time anyone thought to look she couldn’t’ be found and their was a big black scorch mark on the ground next to the dock.”

“Fern Lake, that’s your little gated community right?”

“Sort of, the one road in is gated and you need a code to get in, but its not like we can fence the whole lake in, it would cost a fortune. Someone can get in on foot or with something like an ATV.

“Cameras at the gate?”

“Yeah, but they are busted, the owners commission is still fighting over the money for repairs.”

“How fiscally sound of them.”

“Now wait a minute,” said Jake angrily. “If I knew someone was going to do this I wouldn’t have worried about a few bucks in repairs. Sarah means more to me than money, more than… than anything.”

“Don’t worry too much Jake, the people who would do this and get away clean are probably not the sort to be found by CCTV. Now show me where this place is on a map.”

“Map, screw the map I’ll just take you there. I told the ground crew to keep my plane fueled up we can be there in seven hours.

“We don’t have that much time.” I retorted, and invoked my second spell of the evening.

***

If this were television, or some of the higher form of low fantasy, after passing through the portal from my place of power to the lake house I would sedately step on the ground with a wry smile on my face and a steady quip of “the only way to fly,” or some such. Instead we landed with a thud, I in the mud, and he in the water, if fortunately shallow enough for him not to drown as neither of us were in much of a condition to swim.

“Man, did that SUUUCCCKKK!!” I shouted in the world’s general direction. Wise enough world, it knew better than to talk back when a War Wizard had a monster headache.

I don’t care what you may have read, seen on television or what they are teaching at the colloquium these days. There are only really two ways to do magic. Good or evil, light or dark, Democrat or Republican it’s all BS. There is the easy way or the hard way… we went the hard way. With proper training and the right affinity a mage can craft a spell that gets things done in such a precise manner that a miniscule amount of power is used to accomplish it. There are wizards out there that can world walk with ease, and brother they make an absolute MINT as couriers. In my several wars I always made it a point to have one of those lucky SOB’s along with me but none of my guys were still alive. You put enough power into a spell you can sort of magically force the issue no matter your affinity, but elegant it aint, which described me all over. Show me a wall and show me a sledgehammer and I can make you a way through even if a door is just a little further down. It’s what made me very good at destructive magics

But as the great Missouri philosopher Bob Heinlein used to say There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Magic always has a cost and the cost of pushing that much power and getting us through with all of our original body parts attached to ourselves and not each other, was a big headache and a piece of my soul I may not get back again. One of these days I worry that I’ll pay too high a price and wind up the sort of Wizard I have been fighting all these years, one of these days…

But not today.

I stumbled over to Jake, walking like I had fallen off the wagon instead of out of the sky. I got him up on his feet and we both staggered over to a handy picnic table. He took advantage of the bench and collapsed, I was made of sterner stuff, or at any rate wanted to give him that impression. So instead of joining him I walked over to the area a few hundred feet away that was practically shouting out to my seventh sense. I spent a good five minutes in and around the scorched Earth that had marked my little nieces last known location. When I was satisfied that I learned all I was going to learn from the ground I walked back and rejoined a now ambulatory Jake.

“It’s real,” he said holding his own head. “I mean really real. I was there, and now I’m here. And it’s real or I have gone crazy.”

“Real is a … relative term, when describing magic. But if you have gone crazy there is nothing that you can do to help your daughter and if magic is real there is so lets operate under the assumption that you are sane, all evidence to the contrary. “

“How can I help, I don’t know the first thing about it, except for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and all that stuff.”

“Speak not the name of the devil or trademarked billion dollar franchises they both have nasty lawyers working for them and there are only so many bodies I can disappear before I get a reputation. Now, how much did my lady sister tell you of our family.”

“Hardly anything, you, her great uncle, and how quick she wanted to get the hell out of Nebraska.”

“Hey now!”

“Because of your uncle, I think mostly.” He said trying to placate me.

“And nothing about our heritage I must assume? As surprised as you all are about this.”

“You’re mother was half Italian, she said that once to explain where she got her lasagna recipe from. “

“I had that when I was last out here at Christmas, she used salsa.”

“I asked her to… you know, make a few improvements,” said Jake meekly.

Philistine

“Magical affinity, is passed down by heredity.” I said moving the conversation along. “Think of it like a recessive gene. We get most of ours from our father’s family, they never really amounted to much generally hedge wizards and charm witches. But our mother brought enough of the old Roman gods to power us up. I was taken away for training before Rachel had her awakening but from what I’ve found out she just let it atrophy. The potential was always and to a lesser extent is still there, as is whatever she passes along to her children. Normally Sarah would have been a mundane if she was lucky enough to have anyone else but you as her father, but she wasn’t.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m not a wizard.”

“No, nor anyone in your recent family but somewhere way back when there was a powerful Bakongo witch doctor I smelled it on you a year ago when we met.”

“Bekongo were the hell is that?”

“Central Africa,” I answered tersely.

“I’m not black!” he replied angrily.

“Touchy subject?” I answered trying not to smile… much.

“I’m not a racist, some of the best people who work for me are black. It’s just… my people have been in Texas since before Travis and none of them are black, we had our genealogy run a few years black this would have turned up.”

“It’s noting to be ashamed of Jake, go far enough back and we all come from Central Africa.”

“I’m not ashamed, because it’s just not true I mean look at me,” he said gesturing toward his face.

He had a point, he was almost an Aryan recruiting poster, tall, broad at the shoulder and lean at the hips, his blonde hair and blue eyes would have made the SS proud. At 6’3 he was probably used to intimidating people but I had another two inches on him and my own ginger haired, heavily bearded generally Viking looking visage tended to put me one up on 99% of the rest of my gender in the intimidation field.

“Very well Jake you’re not black.” I said with a nod and a slight bow at him. “You merely have a ancestor who was a practicing shaman in the sub-Saharan region.

“A Shaman?”

“Yup, big heap juju magumbo, he’d of been a Merlin if his type of wizard got any press.”

“What does this all have to do with Sarah?”

“The combination of bloodlines , it’s rare to have such a blend. My families old European powers and your, not European ones, makes her magically… tasty,” I said, though I had the good manners to look away while I did so.

“Goddamn Max, just, damn.”

“If we fail and don’t get her back. We would be lucky her body is all they’ll eat.”

“What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?”

“You’re a good Baptist Jake, you know what I mean.”

***

I was four years older than my sister but she looked fifteen years younger than me. Too many years spent on campaign I guess. Hell, I know. Two pregnancies had added a few pounds to her since the first bloom of her youth but all of it in strategic places. I tell her she looks like our mother but she had to take my word for that. She died when Rachel was only four and we weren’t allowed to bring any photo albums with us when we moved in with our great uncle. Jake and I walked upstairs to the Den/entertainment room that she had made her household domain. When she saw us she exclaimed in joy and rushed to hug Jake first then me afterwards. I tried not to resent that too much, as much as I loved my only relation she was married and had borne children to the schmuck beside me and I suppose he took precedence.

“Max have you found her, do you know where she is?” asked Rachel wiping tears from her eyes.

“I know where to start looking for her and that’s the good and the bad of it,” I answered and tried to smile at her bravely.

“The good first,” she replied. “I’m not sure I can take much more bad.”

“The people who took her left a very distinct magical odor behind and I know just the tree to shake to find answers. “

“And the bad?”

“They are not very nice people, but don’t worry. I know how to be not very nice right back.”

“Max, I don’t know what to do. I…”

“Need to be strong,” I interrupted. “For yourself, for your husband for your son that is still safe but mostly for your daughter in that terrible place, a mother’s love is an old and powerful magic and I need you to send every bit of it. This isn’t some sappy sentimentality, I’m serious, she is a powerful adept, else she would not have been so tempting to our enemies. She will sense you, and it will keep her until we can arrive.”

“I also need some of your hair,” I continued, once I had gotten a nod out of her.

“Sympathetic magic?” Rachel asked.

“Just so, you and Jake here make two halves that add up to Sarah. The rite of similarity will let me home right in. Once I figure out which end of the Earth to start looking for her in.”

“And how will you do that?” she asked worriedly.

“I’ve got friends in low places…”

***

Vampires, as a general rule, don’t dig on sunshine. The trouble was, modern architecture had fallen in love with the whole natural lighting motif and if you went and purchased a nice four bedroom home in a neighborhood with a good school district and then proceeded to drape blackout curtains over every exposed window the neighbors started to talk. And you could only eat so many of them before someone like me takes notice. That’s where you got the stereotype of the creepy old mansion on a hill. Because those ancient houses tended to have enough dank and dark crannies that you just didn’t get in the suburbs these days.

My particular contact in the undead American community had her last place burned down in a little fraca that I almost had nothing to do with and didn’t have a good enough credit score to get a mortgage on a new place. For the last three years she had been living several hundred feet underground in a abandoned silver mine until her minions could gather enough ore or the housing market stabilized whichever came first.

“Maximus!” she said trying to sound pleased to see me, and failing. “However have you been, introduce me to your friend.”

“Big Jake, Sally, Sally, Jake.”

“Max!” she pouted at me, have to hand it to the old broad she does a good pout. Must be the five hundred years practice she has had at being sixteen.

“Jacob Harris, son of Marshall and Olivia, I acquaint you with Salventine Thrace, Lady of Endless Twilight, daughter of Lilith, Duchess of Silence, Protector of the unseen places, Paramour of the Son of the Morning Star, keeper of the unholy relics of Byzantium… the list goes on for about a minute Sally are you really going to make me go through them all?

“I should, but you never had much patience Max you’re almost as bad as a mortal, so young man, why do they call you “big” Jake? ” she asked with a suggestive wink.

“I um, I was pretty tall when I played junior varsity football,” Jake replied honestly.

“How mundane,” she answered demurely.

“Sally my niece has been taken, this is her father my brother in law.”

“Dear or dear, misplaced relatives how tragic. I never thought about you Red Wizards having families I always thought you sprung fresh from ground out of some war gods dropped blood.

“I have family Sally, though precious few of them are left. So I treasure every last one of them. And so should everyone else if they know what’s good for them.”

“Dear Bernie was family once; he was like a father to you. Died at the Bridge didn’t he?” the vampire asked coquettishly. “Where you left him behind I heard.”

“General Browning, died as he lived,” I said coldly and if freezing the air would have bothered her in the least I would have done it but vampires are beyond such worldly concerns. “Leading good men into battle, for a righteous cause… and the next time you speak his name unbidden, will be the last.”

We started at each other for a good twenty seconds while Jake beside me looked from one to the other confused and then started franticly searching about for an exit.

“I’m pleased we no longer have to pretend to be nice to each other wizard.”Sally commented as she pulled a shawl over herself to make her appearance a little less indecent. “It was getting so tiresome. Now, what do you want?”

“Information, from you and your little spider web of intrigue. I sensed blue mountain Kobolds, that particular species is the personal familiar of Halpernia.”

“Others use them, that’s no proof.”

“Others who have need of a young adept a before the new moon and the alignment with Venus?

“Yes, Halpernia was always a vain being. And all those little wrinkles do start to add up, what’s it to do with me. “

“Money,” I answered tersely. “As you are so fond of commented to me, even vampires have to eat. “

“You don’t have any money Wizard, everyone knows that.” she laughed at me.

“That why the girl’s father is here, I said indicating Jake. “He’s the money.”

“Oh, you’re suddenly interesting again big man. Very well, I’ll betray my close personal friend for the honorarium of one million dollars.”

“A real number Sally,” I countered angrily.

“That is a real number wizard; I’ve read about it in books, it must be real. And there is the cute little 25 bedroom cottage in upstate New York I have my eye on, but I need a bigger down payment. Come now sir, is your daughter not worth a million dollars?” she asked squinting her eyes at Jake.

“Well, ah, um. I’ll have, to, to sell a few things... I can write the check now if you give me a few weeks before you cash it.”

“Vampire noblewomen do not take checks,” Sally scolded rising up from her chair to haughtily stare at us. “Certainly not post dated ones. Come back when you have cash, gold or precious stones. Or Apple stock, I’ll take some of that.”

“I actually have shares, if you want to give me your brokers number…”

“We’re good for it Sally, “I interrupted him and placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him from offering her a mortgage backed security. “Time is of the essence.”

“Oh, Maxie… You were never GOOD. Ah ha ha.” The vampire said suggestively. “But I am prepared to be magnanimous. I shall take your check but also a bottle of your wizard blood.”

“No,” I replied instantly.

“No?”

“Hell no,” I clarified.

“Is this child so unbecoming that you would shirk a small sacrifice. Your brother here is sacrificing a not so small fortune it seems rude of you to deny such a little treat.”

“What the hell Thorson, just give it to her,” said Jake starting to get angry. “I’m paying enough.”

“It’s different with giving blood.”

“Bullshit, why?”

“Because it is.”

“Why?”

“Because it is, it’s not just about drinking wizard blood, which is plenty enough to a vampire. Think about the finest hooch you ever had but instead of making you think you were stronger, smarter and prettier it actually made you so. That’s dangerous enough, but if she leaves even a little bit of it aside and hires out to some disagreeable fellows she would own me, body and soul and all my powers. And whatever you think that’s not just about me. My powers at her disposal or whoever she sold me off to would wreck worlds. You’re daughter is precious to me but she is not more important than everyone else on Earth, I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.”

He thought about that for a bit, I could see him running the numbers in his head like a good businessman, and he was coming up with figures he didn’t like.

“Take mine, “said Jake suddenly turning to reface Sally.

“Yours?”

“Yes mine, that and a million dollars is still a fine payday and the best deal you’re going to get today. So do yourself a favor and take it.”

“What would I do with your blood, you’re a mundane.”

“My bloodlines are tasty, I have it on the highest authority, Big Juju. Why do you think this Halpernia wants my daughter so much?”

“You don’t look very black.”

“Never mind what I look like, You’re a vampire, what do I smell like?”

“You smell like desperation big man, but that does add such a spicy bouquet to the experience. Very well, but I shall insist on a direct withdrawal…” she said as she walked sedately and grinning toward Jake.

***

An hour later we were back at his home and I was pouring orange juice down his throat like he was dying of scurvy.

“I got the impression Thorson,” said my brother in Law, in between slips. “That I was in the middle of lovers spat and she was taking it out on me. Did you make time with that girl?”

“Yes,” I answered honestly.

“Yes, just yes huh, in addition to the bloodsucking fiend part she looks like she’s jailbait.”

“Five hundred and jailbait years old, the statutory rape charges would never stick. On me anyway, I on the other hand was only seventeen when she first got her claws in me.”

“Why?” he asked totally confused that I could have a relationship with such a creature.

“She was safe,” I replied.

“How the hell, could sleeping with something like that, be safe?”

“I was never in any danger of falling in love with her, that’s how. Besides its all to the good, if she didn’t still have a fond place in what passes for her heart for me the price would have been much higher, on both forms.”

“I hope it was worth it,” he stated softly, he looked like he was about to die of consumption but if he kept replacing sugar and fluids he should be fine.

“We got what we needed. Just keep pressure on that, puncture wounds are the hardest to get to clot up.”

“Can’t you magic up a healing potion or something,”

“Not my affinity, I’m more the hurting people and breaking things type. And healing is not something you can power your way through, at least not for long, I would be just as likely to make your head fall off gangrenous as to close the wounds. We just have to do this the old fashioned way. “

“I know what you are thinking,” I continued. “That I was shirking out. But I’ve seen what happens when a master level War Wizard falls under the compulsion of malevolent third party. I was at Sullis, seven years ago, Mikron the Red took too little care of his safety and was enspelled. They used him in ways I hope you never have to imagine and by the time we got there it was already too late... We had to burn that world.”

“How do you burn a world?” Jake asked confused and he held the bandage tighter.

“With fire,” I answered simply and let it be at that.

Perhaps I was the son of a bitch in this relationship; But a War Wizard must be above the trials and temptations of mortal men and particularly can never afford to be vulnerable. We had such a capacity for destruction that we should never involve ourselves in the affairs most took for granted. Wives and children and the like were something for other men. General Browning taught me that, one of these days I may even forgive him for it.

But not today.

“I’ll be on my way now Jake, and I’ll bring your little girl back.”

“I’m going with you,” he said trying to get up.

“Sure Jake, you just walk five steps in any direction without passing out first, then you can go.”

“I’ll be all right in a minute,” he said waving me off. “I’ve come this far.”

“And you’ll come no further, where I go you can’t follow. And not to pull a dirty trick on you but I must remind you that you have a wife who should not be widowed and a son who should not be orphaned.”

“You get her back Thorson, I don’t care what you have to do.” He said looking away and staring toward the two doors that led to his son and daughter’s rooms. “You just bring her back.”

***

In a mostly misspent youth I had been a fan of Star Trek. Yeah I know the irony gets me sometimes too. I prepared for my battle by donning my robes of office. One bright soldier way back when finally got it through the councils head that billowing robes that could get caught on next to everything as he was ducking and diving about wasn’t going to increase their already endangered War Wizards life expectancy. So the tailors went to work and I wear a much more manageable tunic that is similar to what the British Army wore back in the days before they lost their fashion sense. When you get right down to it though, it’s a shirt, and it’s red. I’m a red shirt….I tried not to think about it too much, but somehow always did.

Wizards are grouped into colors to differentiate their affinity and alignment. And traditions pretty much mandate you wear your color for most occasions sort of going to the bathroom and I’ve seen some old laws on the books about that too. It must really suck for the woman. I lived with my sister enough before my conscription to know that if she was forced to wear one color and one color only for the rest of her life, heads would probably role and I don’t mean that figuratively.

White Wizards are prissy dressers.

That pretty much sums them up; they never get involved in anything that could stain their immaculate robes. But the world is a dirty place sometimes, and most of us can’t live above it. Those who wear the black, well I probably don’t need to talk about them much either. Don’t worry too much about them though, if you are ever unfortunate enough to meet one it’s already too late.

Healers wore blue, herbalists green, archivists silver, the alchemists use to insist on wearing gold but one too many centuries of boasting and we asked them to put up or shut up and they since had chosen brown the better to cover their various burns and what they all were full of.

And War Wizards wore red, the color of blood, the color of fire, and the color of the Nebraska Cornhusker football team. Don’t look at me like that, my profession chose me, not I it, the color of the uniform was just a happy coincidence… I’m not sure what I would have done if the council chose orange for me though. It’s for the best for everyone that we will never know.

Halperina was an evil queen a couple of different ways. First, she had ruled a nation in one of the leftover dragon realms that missed the great purge in the last age. The wyverns made issue of anyone else having amassed the power they traditionally reserved for themselves so she was driven into exile along with a tithe of her people who survived. And, well, she was a he. Now I don’t want you to make unfair assumptions, she wasn’t crazy because she cross dressed she was bughouse nuts because she was bughouse nuts. Dragon’s will do that to you, I know of what I speak. She was also a bughouse nuts wizard of the red order.

Five of them in these parts, when I first had my awakening, me and Browning, two who played for the team downstairs and one driven mad, that was Halpernia. I would have liked to have said the experience had robbed her of her powers but she had a hell of a lot more juice then I did, and a few more centuries experience on how to use it. Wizards don’t live forever, but we give it our best try. There are magics that can be used to halt the aging process but it takes a lifetime of study to get it right and tailored to the individual. Our own bodies are the hardest thing to make changes too. That’s where the stereotype of the grizened, elderly old coot comes in, because by the time we figure it out that’s how we spend most of our lives. But for some wizards, centuries, even with a reasonable vitality, aren’t enough.

S/he cut a deal when she first came through; in return for her war efforts she was given a 100,000 acre track of the far north woods to call her own. I’m not sure how much benefit it was, we had to have several grand masters as constant babysitters to make sure she didn’t go off the reservation but we were having a little spat with some Teutonic terrors in the last century and the council took any help it could get. She kept herself to herself afterwards and the council was content to let her and hers die quietly up in Manitoba. But apparently she was not willing to oblige. I could have called in major support to deal with her now that she had crossed the line in a big way; I was owed favors all over the worlds, but that kind of help would take time and the new moon was less than three hours away.

Sally had given me the accurate coordinates that I needed, Manitoba was a big damn place and would have fit 70 of the smaller countries into it. Halpernia had put up an interdiction though, a bubble fifty miles in every direction and I do mean every, where no one but a major god could portal into, and the only one of them I knew I owed some serious money too. Being in the middle of the frozen wilderness there were no roads or rail or even a convenient river passage. The taiga was so damn dense that even an all terrain vehicle would never be able to get through; hell it would have taken a bulldozer three months. If I had a little more time I could have rented or stole a chopper but there wasn’t so I had to get creative.
The spot I portaled too was just enough outside the bubble to matter and caused me to push enough power to pass out, but that was fine with me. I really didn’t want to be awake for the next part anyway. Now I want it made VERY clear, I was not in outer space. The atmosphere does end pretty much at fifty miles up but it’s still well within the Earth’s gravity well so I did not come crashing in from outer space, which constitutes the immense distances between planets.

I came crashing down from the thermosphere, that’s somewhere else entirely.

And crashing, was the operative word, there wasn’t much elegant about it. And the only reason I didn’t end up crushed to a thin red paste was that I cheated with, well, magic. I had wrapped myself in about twenty tons of iron then commended my soul to whatever god would have me. If the bright boys at NASA got a good luck at me I would look like a minor meteorite flaming across the sky. As a method of transportation I would not recommend it to my friends. The benefits were two fold, maybe three depending on how you looked at it. First it got me there, reasonably fast and reasonably hale. Second, Halpernia’s human minions were mostly dead of old age at this point so the blue mountain kobold’s were her primary mode of support. They live a long time kobolds, but they have a trade off of being dumb as bricks, I hoped to scare some of em away. And like several of the extra terrestrial species they have real nasty allergic reaction to cold iron, and I was about to scatter tons of it all over their home.

And lastly, hell, just between you and me. I do so love to make an entrance.

***

I walked away from the crash so I’m going to chalk that one up as a win. Not much else was going my way. The charm I had conjured with pieces of Rachel and Jake to help me track Sarah indicated I was still two miles away. Hey, let’s see you precision land a crashing piece of planetoid, I dare ya, I double dog dare ya. It was less than two hours from the new moon in the proper alignment and a mile an hour across the forest to the wicked witch of the north woods was not going to be pleasant, but was possible. Just.

There wasn’t much elegance to my plan of action; I’ll be the first to admit it. I hadn’t really thought about it much at all beyond the whole “storm the castle, save the girl” stage. There wasn’t the time for thinking. I remember what my old Master would have said about what I was doing.

“Son,” he would say to me, he was forever calling me son; probably because I was the closest he was ever going to have. “Son, if you’re entire battle plan is to count on the incompetence of your enemies then you’re not going to live very long in this business of ours.” And he argued with Custer before he rode into the Valley of Greasy Grass so he had some standing on the subject.

Two miles and three holy oaths to quit smoking later and I came upon her stronghold. Five stories tall, and built in a style this world had not seen in a long time The entrance closest to me was guarded by two Kobolds, one dead and one most of the way there. My ride had broken up just soon enough to scatter cold iron particles all over the site, and these two had got a good caking. Damn kobolds, dumb as bricks and twice as ugly they would have been fine if they had thought enough to head inside but no one had told them that was ok so they died at their posts. I would have admired them if it had been any sort of bravery, instead a quick fireball dealt with the survivor and I was inside the lion’s den.

Where she had got the stonework I’ll never know, probably had killed off the last batch of her people by making them quarry it by hand. It was the quality though uneven fitting that you just don’t get when done by machines. My charm told me Sarah was above me, some things never change, and though there was no magical reason for it Halpernia was going to initiate her rite from on high. There was nothing so convenient like a elevator, so I had to hoof it up the spiral staircase and was not in any fit state to present myself as a dapper and dashing young Wizard when I pushed open the hatch that lead into the towers inner sanctum. There were three Kobolds, Halpernia herself and my little niece Sarah strapped by all fours onto the back of a soulforge.

You ever hear the expression, they don’t make them like that anymore. A Soulforge was one of them. It was antiquity incarnate, the magic of the old gods that ruled our lives before humanity grew up enough to know better. But their works remain, and my day had just gotten worse. It had already been activated and their was no way to stop it until it had completed it’s purpose.

Someone today, was going to have to die.

“Hello young man, a pleasure to meet you again.” said Halpernia calmly. “You’re Bernie’s boy aren’t you? Mike right?”

It was always the crazy ones that were the most polite, a cosmic trade off I’m sure. Halpernia was in the center of the tower dressed to the nines in floor length evening gown that must have been stiffening in the heat of the chamber. Not to be catty, but she didn’t pass. The makeup caked on did a good job but not good enough to hide the masculine traits that were evident. Time and nature had not been kind to her and I was in no mood to give her any breaks myself.

“Max,” I corrected her, keeping a wary eye set for traps. I had all my defenses up and enough attack spells to destroy small armies but the being across from me could say the same so I was content enough to try to reason with her first before throwing down.

“Oh yes, Max, I won’t forget again, I would ask what brought you to the neighborhood but I saw how you came in, A very nice show I must say, all the hallmarks of your masters particular style. He would have been pleased.”

“Nothing about this would have pleased him.”

“Yes,” She said carefully examining me and all my works. “I believe you’re right after all, he was a difficult man to make happy… I am very sorry for all this. Now that I have you both in one room I can of course sense the connection. The child is yours?”

“My Niece.”

“I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” She shook her head.

“I believe you,” I answered honestly.

“I would much rather have not done it of course, I’m not a real monster no matter what you may think. But time is slipping away! Always away! You! Look at you! The arrogance! I’ve heard stories ,I know. You have wrecked worlds, scattered tribes, slain dragons, stolen princess away from sleeping Elven kings and yet you are a young man still! You have centuries ahead of you. All I have is behind me, and I want MORE!! Is that so wrong? The things that were done to me, even this cursed body the gods bestowed on me it was all the most terrible joke. I would laugh at it if I could stop crying. I deserve a second chance, a new life. I can do better, think about it. My powers and all my skills, in a body renewed, placed at the whim of your council to fight all the things that are after all much more terrible than me. All in exchange for the soul of one girl who wasn’t even using it anyway. They would take that deal, they have don’t it in the past. Isn’t it your duty War Wizard to inform them of my terms…Think of all the good that can be done for just this one little evil. You can always have more nieces.” She said, finishing her rant and taking a long breath to recover.

“Are you done?” I asked a few seconds after she had stopped speaking.

“Yes,” she sighed as she prepared a spell, “it would appear I am.”

***
“Mommy,” said a little blonde girl as she pushed the door open to her parent’s room. The parents had not been sleeping, just laying awake in the dark worrying about their child but not wanting to keep the other from slumber.

“Sarah!” said Rachel Harris as she jumped out of bed to clutch her daughter into her arms with a bear hug. If it was up to her she would never let her go again.

“Baby, how did you get here? What happened? Are you all right? Let me look at you?”

“I’m hungry mommy,” said Sarah more concerned about other things. “Can we have Pizza? Pep a oni?”

“It’s 3AM baby all the pizza places are closed. “

“Where is your Uncle Max Sarah?” asked Jake as he kneeled down by her side.

“Oh, Uncle Max was there! He made the mean lady angry. There was lights and fireworks and the loud noise when you hunt daddy. I was so scared, but Uncle Max said not to be, so I wasn’t, he said to walk through the blue light and he would be right after me.”

“But where is he,” asked Rachel turning to her husband. “Max !,” she shouted through the open bedroom door. “Max where are you.”

“I’ll go look for him,” said Jake. “Maybe he’s downstairs.”

“I came through on the roof daddy, I fell a little bit but it was ok, I was able to jump in the bushes.”

“I’ll look there too, he said he would bring her back and he did, he has to be right behind her, right? He has to be.”

***
IN MEMORIUM

Maxiumus James Thor’s Son. Wizard of the Red Order, Master Class. Warden of the Midwest. On the 20th day of June. In Battle. Lieutenant Colonel, 4th battalion 3rd US Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) Army of the United States. Secondment, Legio tertia decima Gemina, Légion étrangère, Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers. Awarded, CMH, KCVO, VC, OM, SMOM, El Cid Campeador, Grand Cordon the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, Grand'croix Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur. Adumar order of purity and truth (4th class.) Lord Protector of Harvest Reach. Twice acclaimed, by unanimous assent of the council, a hero of the light. Battles. Coralaine, Sullis, Bundisium, Kim’Di’En Bay, Ohio, Daemon’s Run, and the Bridge Between Worlds. Survived by his sister Rachel Harris, her family, and none of his enemies. We shall maybe know great men, but we will never know better.

***
Three Months Later

I opened my door, to see my sister glaring down at me.

“You’re a son of a bitch you know that?” asked Rachel as she brushed by me and into the cabin’s main room followed shortly thereafter by her suddenly much more menacing husband.

“Look lady,” I said trying to look scared and failing, what with being out of practice and all. “My parents are gonna be back soon and if they find you here there gonna call the cops.”

“Honey, maybe we have the wrong place and should head back to the helicopter, that thing you have is…” said Jake before being interrupted by his wife.

“Can it Jake, give me credit for having eyes Max if not for the skill of my mail order tracking charm,” Rachel stated before handing me the device. “Even if all I had was a direction I didn’t feel you were dead, so I kept at it….You look just like you did when you were ten.”

“Well hell,” I said sitting down in my chair and lighting my pipe. “It would have been a lot less embarrassing if I just stayed dead. I mean look at me. I ate that crazy bints spell right in the chops. For her it would have brought her back to adulthood, I was much younger to begin with so I get to look forward to growing up again, sue me if I didn’t want to advertise the fact.”

“Making someone who loves you, think you are dead is quite evil Max. I’m not sure I will forgive you.”

“Fine, the doors that way.”

“Max I’m not going anywhere until I know you will be all right.”

“I’ll be fine, I have heat and fresh water, and there is plenty of food to be had out in the forest, once I get back to young adulthood I’ll start talking to people again instead of Kobolds and in the mean time I have plenty of books to read to try to figure a way out of what was done to me.”

“What else was done to you, aside from the fountain of youth, you look fine,” asked Rachel concerned.

“Come with me,” I said as I led Rachel to the bathroom, “Jake you stay here.”

We were gone just long enough for me to prove my point and for Jake to get nervous. When we came back he was quick to ask what was going on. I had a sudden problem with my hardwood floor and couldn’t be bothered to look at him so Rachel answered for me.

“The spell,” said Rachel with an amused look on her face she should take off if she knew what was good for her. “Max is now… Maxine.”

“I positively LOATH that name.”

“We, will think of something else cute for you then.” Rachel retorted with a grin.

“We will do nothing of the kind, I’m just fine here.”

“You’re not fine, leaving aside what could happen to a little kid out in the wilderness alone, even if you do have an adults memories, you have a free ride now but in a few years you’re going to become a young lady and you will need someone to show you what you need to know.”

“I may not exactly be a gynecologist Rachel, but I have a workman’s like understanding of what all goes down there thank you very much.”

“I believe you do have a MAN’S understanding but that isn’t good enough, you can’t stay here alone.”

“Well then what would you suggest sister of mine, I can’t exactly go home like this,” I said waving at my poorly dressed body. “All else aside my magic is all hosed up, my affinity may even have changed. I can’t do much destructive anymore but I scraped my knee a few days back and I was able to do a simple healing spell. “

“Your affinity has changed? I thought that was impossible,”

“Everything is impossible, until it’s not.”

“You can’t stay here,” Rachel reiterated “I’m mostly a mundane and even I can sense the ghosts up here.”

“I still haven’t heard a suggestion. “

“You can come live with us,” said Jake breaking into the conversation. “Until you figure out a way back or you grow up again whichever way you want it. We owe you a debt which can never be repaid.”

“Yes, you can come live with us, we have plenty of room, and no one looking for you which they will here sooner or later.”

“I come home with you, people will ask questions, even in Texas you can’t just show up one day with a kid, how will you explain me away to people like child protective services? Hell’s bells Rach I look like a younger clone of you and the resemblance is only going to get worse as I get older.”

“You’re our daughter,” said Jake firmly once he settled on the idea. “It would be too complicated to say you’re your own father, where would the mother be after all. The last thing we need is officialdom to question custody, I have some friends that can fix paperwork but not fabricate a mother out of nothing. Rachel says you look about ten but I think a little younger, which would make you just about the right age to be born the summer after we started dating in college. Rachel was to ashamed to have a love child of a rich man’s son, didn’t want to be accused of being a gold digger so she sent the baby up north to be raised by you, her uncle. When he died she told me the truth and now that we are happily married we both took you to be raised with your real family.”

“That is one big pile of bullshit,” I said chuckling.

“It has everything,” Jake continued pleased with himself. “Money, tragedy, forbidden love, the fallen woman, and the good ole boy who did the right thing. The book club biddies will have something to talk about for a month and then some other great scandal will occur and we can all get on with our lives.”

“It works Max,” said Rachel grabbing the pipe out of my mouth and tossing it in the sink. “Those things will stunt your growth. Now let’s pack everything that you will need for your research and bring it to the chopper. This is a fresh start Max, and chance for a new life where you don’t have to go out and kill people for a living. I know that’s never what you wanted and now you have a shot at something better.”

“I don’t know the first thing about being a girl ‘mommy,’” I said sarcastically. “And you put me in a room with small town southern high society and you just wait and see how long it takes me to start blowing things up.”

“You met my mother Max,” said Jake grinning. “You’re new grandmother can turn anyone into a lady, even and SOB like you.

The End?

---

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