Shipwrecked & Horny: A What Could Possibly Go Wrong Bad Boy Romance (Bad Boys After Dark Book 10) by Gabi Moore (36)

“Should be easy. Can’t you work something out with that uncle of yours? Doesn’t he have the fifth power?”

“Not the same thing. He bought it.”

“Oh.” She was quiet and watched the next level slide by while they could hear the storm rage outside.

“I hope this tower has a good foundation,” she said to him. “That storm is wicked. Too much rain could undermine the supports on this old structure.”

“The tower has seen worse storms, I am sure of that.”

After the next level slid past, Dion decided to make a little conversation with her. “So how did you get involved with the writers’ group? What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a botanist,” she told him. “I study plants. Help things grow, find out why they don’t. It’s rewarding, but doesn’t pay very much. I started reading novels on my spare time and decided I could write just as well as the ones I took off the shelf.”

“Anything ready to publish?” Dion asked her.

“Not yet,” she responded. “Still have to finish the one I’m working on right now. I keep changing the plot. Eventually, I’ll decide what it’s supposed to be about this week. So how did you end up here?”

“My uncle. He rigged somethings to ensure I would acquire the powers of the first four elements. Then he made sure I would have to come here to pick up the final one. He claims it was all to stop those things from coming down the tower and affecting my world, but I think there is more to this than what he’s telling me.”

“So you’re not from here?” she asked him. “Another kingdom?”

Dion didn’t quite know what to say. Even where he came from the existence of separate time circles was debated. He didn’t know what the local beliefs were and didn’t need to cause any problems by telling her information that might run counter to her belief system. So he went for the easy way to explain it.

“Oh yes,” he told her. “A whole different one. I’m sure you never heard about it.”

She opened her mouth to say something when the lift stopped at the highest floor. Dion stepped out before she could say a thing and into the formal eloquent chambers of the masters of the tower.

The level was still quiet. No further sounds came from the stairwell that was secured against the invaders. Most of the guards were relaxing on the floor or propped up against the wall, waiting for the next round. The nodded upon seeing Dion’s face, whom they knew from the mall.

“No further activity from up there?” Dion asked them.

“They’re being quiet,” one of the guards, said to him. “If I was a betting man, I’d put money on them planning something up there. They are determined to get to the bottom of the tower and I don’t know how much longer we can hold them.”

“Has anyone been hurt?” Kris asked him. She starred at the men who were exhausted on this level.

“A few bruises and cuts,” he told her. “Nothing too severe. We were able to secure the top level when it all happened months ago. For the longest time we didn’t think they would come any lower and the sisters spent most of their time trying to find a way to send them back. A few hours ago, those things became very active and fought their way down to this level. We’ve managed to stop them for now.

“Is there any way to see one of those them? Kris asked the guard. “Or is that too risky?”

“We’ve never had a good look at one,” he told her. “When they came through the gate with their leader it was dark and the storm had begun. It’s been dark outside since then and the weather never improved.

“Storm began when?” she asked him.

The guard had a look on his face, which Dion interpreted to mean he was trying to remember something. “About two months ago. The rain lets up every now and then, but the clouds haven’t broken in that time. I don’t know how they manage around here. From what I understand this is not the first time the weather has been so bad.”

“Two months is a long time,” She commented. “I’m surprised the place has any soil left outside. Must have something to do with the way the mud flows from time to time.”

“Let me get this straight,” Dion asked the both of them. “Storms lasting two or more months are common around here.”

“I wouldn’t say common,” she told him. “But you do hear about them. As the man said, the rain stops, but the clouds never break. Happens in the rainy season all the time in some places. We decided the bus had driven too far south when we ran into this place. I will admit this is one of the longer ones.”

“And we are sick of it,” the guard told him. “We get the lighting once or twice a week. Almost lost a man too close to the window during one thunderstorm last month. I don’t know how anyone lasts very long around here.”

“I’m told the farmers plan their seasons around the rains,” She explained. “I guess a person can get used to anything. On the other hand, most of them have moved north.”

Dion understood, at last, something about a place where he’d been dropped. The weather was vastly different from the world he’d left. The constant rains accounted for the stony ground he’d ran across to reach the tower. How difficult it must have been to construct this massive tower with the threat of constant storms. He had another thought and turned to Kris.

“Has this area experienced these long storms any time in the past?

“Not this place,” she told him, “We’re near the mountain pass and the weather patterns are different here than the rest of the valley. I think it was one of the reasons the tower was constructed at this location a thousand years ago. I’m sure if you looked in the records, you might find accounts of storms this bad, but I’ve never heard of them near the tower.”

It appeared his uncle had let more than this Queen Lilith and her Azuroth into this particular time circle. When he opened the gate, the weather was manipulated too. However, Dion was not able to see the air sylphs as he’d done in his home world. He wasn’t even sure if they worked the same way.

There was a ringing sound at the tube next to him and the guard went over to listen to it. He waited or awhile, then blew a whistle into it to let the other side know he was ready to send a message back.

“Received and acknowledged,” he spoke into the tube. “I’ll send down two guards to help. Everything quiet up here.”

He whipped around and turned to the former mall security men who were reclining near the barricade to the next level. “We have problems down on the main level. “Seems there are some of these things outside the tower trying to get in. I need two of you to go down and help secure the drawbridge. You and you just volunteered.”

Chapter 10

The men groaned and walked over the lift. One of them spoke into the lift tube to let the operator know they were ready to take the descent to the bottom.

“Just a minute!” Dion called to them. He turned to Kris, “I’m going down to help. I suggest you do the same. The lift doesn’t move too fast, you can jump off on the way past the great hall if you don’t want to ride it to the bottom.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “not much going on around here.”

They ran to the lift just in time to catch it as the elevator began its descent. Once again, Dion saw the different floors go by as the lift continued on its way down to the warehouse at the bottom of the tower. It was a quiet ride punctuated by the occasional boom of thunder. The passed a floor where two men in blue coveralls worked on a piece of metal. They looked up for a few seconds and returned to what they were doing.

“This storm has lasted the entire time you’ve been here?” Dion asked one of the guards.

“Pretty much,” the man replied. “It slows down, but, like he said, the rains never go away for longer than a few days. This place is crazy; I haven’t seen the sun once. The clouds only break at night and you never see the stars for more than a few minutes at a time.”

The elevator entered the opening for the great hall, which was taller than most of the doors to the lift chamber. Dion had asked one of the sisters earlier in the day how people kept from falling down the open shaft and was told it had never happened. “You just know better than to get near it if there is no lift in the shaft,” she told him with a look of astonishment on her face. “How hard is it to learn that?”

Dion saw one of the other women waiting at the great hall when they began to move past it. Just as Kris stepped off and into the main chamber, the new woman stepped onto the lift.

“It’s only another level down,” Dion said to her. “You could have met us at the bottom...”

“I know,” she said, “but I’ve been dying to ride one of these things ever since I saw it.”

In a few minutes, the lift stopped at the bottom, which was the warehouse level. A small crowd had gathered around the door to the entrance and took turns to look out a peephole cut into the doors. Dion recognized Kylie Mahen, although this time she wore shoes and held a spear in one hand that was much longer than the one she’d held when he entered the tower. She still wore the same black gown.

Around her were several men who appeared to be servants and attendants. One held a bow and the other a club. From the way the man held the club, Dion could tell he’d never used one in a fight. He kept dropping and picking it up off the floor. The other man plucked the bowstring with abandon, something else that clued Dion as to the man’s inexperience with it.

“Something happening out there?” Dion asked Kiley.

Twelve of those things outside at the bridge,” she told him. “I can’t make up my mind if we should send out the men and push them away from the bridge or haul it up.”

“I thought they couldn’t leave the tower,” Dion said to her. “Something about a fear of heights I was told.”

“Not the same kind. These have green fur and brought an entire encampment with them. Have a look.”

Dion went to the peephole in the odor and stared out into the distance. He could see movement at the edge of the bridge in the storm, but not much. There were small figures out there carrying weapons of their own that were indecisive about what they should do. Dion guessed it had to do with the storm. No one wanted to mount an attack in the middle of this maelstrom. As he watched, a bolt of lightning struck near one of the figures and it jumped back. The others beat a fast retreat to their hovels in the distance.

“How could you see what they looked like?” Dion said to her. “You can’t see much of anything out there in this storm.”

“There was a break in the rain for thirty seconds and the moon shone through,” she told him. “I saw forty of those things in their outside. They were on the bridge when the storm resumed and ran back across. I guess they didn’t want the wind to blow them into the moat.”

“Did anyone see where they came from?” he asked her. “I don’t recall any camp outside when you let me in. There wasn’t much of anything out there.”

“One of the servants let me know,” she told him. “He came down to make the watch and saw them milling around. He called me down while you were upstairs to let me know.”

“I’d raise the bridge,” he told her. “You have the storm working in your favor right now. With the lighting making things risky, they’ll not try to ford the moat. If this storm ever lifts, they might try to make it across, but you’re good for now.”

“That was my original thought,” she responded to him. “I needed to hear it from someone else. She turned to a pair of men standing next to a crank. “All right, bring it up.”

The men began to turn the crank a bit at a time and Dion could hear the bridge rise in the storm. He looked out the peephole and saw it begin to rise in the air. There were no movements on the other side of the moat, so he closed the opening and went back upstairs.

“I thought we would see some action down there,” the woman from the club who went down with him said as they walked back up the stairwell.

“Not today,” Dion returned. “Why, did you really want to have a go at those things...ummm…what was your name again?”

“Bernice,” she said, “Bernice Cosmo. I was in the dragon corps.”

“So you used those big fire-breathing lizards against ground targets?” he asked her. Dion knew what his idea of a dragon represented, he needed to make sure it was the same on this world.

“Nope,” she told him. “I was in the veterinary division. Never got to see one strike a target. I suppose you could consider them big, although I never saw one more than ten feet long. Nothing bigger can stay in the air very long. Many people think they are huge, but work around them long enough and the size is relative. The smaller ones are trained to make the first strikes. They escape radar detection.”

“So you can’t ride them….” Dion spoke aloud. His idea of a dragon was much different.

“Of course not,” she laughed. “You’ve been reading too many books. They don’t talk either. But they do shoot fire. Takes them awhile to recharge, you only get two or three burns before they have to fly back to base.”

“They sound scary enough,” he told her.

“Not if you work with them every day. They haven’t been used in battle in over a hundred years, but every kingdom keeps them on the ready. You never know. I’ve read enough history to know what a full-on dragon war is like and I wouldn’t want to be around for it. Whole cities burned to the ground in one night. Entire countrysides reduced to ashes. And they will fight each other if not trained right. It was hard enough keeping the females separated. You get several female dragons in a pen together and they’ll try to rip each other apart.”

Dion continued on until he reached the grand hall level and went back to the table where his parents were sitting once again across from his uncle. There wasn’t much else to do right now but wait it out. Dion noticed the servants bringing out blankets and bedding for the couches and chairs in the great hall. Apparently, the Mahen sisters decided it would be a better idea to have all the storm refugees stay downstairs in the hall with both the top and entrance to the tower under siege.

He thought about what the woman who worked with dragons told him. Too bad they couldn’t get any of them to take care of the creatures that’d infested the tower. On the other hand, would it be such a good idea to have fire-breathing lizards running all over the tower? It might be stone on the outside, but there was plenty of wood on the inside.

Right now, he didn’t feel like interacting with either his parents or his uncle. The Mahen sisters where nowhere to be found. He’d left Kiley Mahen in the bottom warehouse playing little major, but he had no clue as to where the other two went. The servants were bringing in bowls of stew to the women who hadn’t had a chance to eat. Most of them sat at the table and continued to discuss whatever they’d been discussing when he walked into the hall.

He saw the young black woman who had come in with the bus occupants standing by the window and watching the storm. She held a drink in a small glass and wore a tight dress and heels. She turned from the window, checked her make-up in the reflection of a mirror and returned to the storm. Dion decided he could do much worse than talking with her, so he walked over to her part of the room.

“I remember you entering with everyone else,” he told her. “But I’m terrible with names.”

“Sondasha,” she told him. “I remember yours. You’re Dion, correct?”

“Correct,” he affirmed. “Were you on the bus long before it broke down?”

“About a day,” she told him. “Kristen drove it most of the way. She has a license or something. I hope the men who work here can get that bus fixed tomorrow. I need to get back to the city.”

Dion decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask her what city and changed the subject. “It sounds like you have important work to do in the city.”

“I’m an actress,” she told him. “And a singer. I have a concert coming up in two weeks and I need to get ready for it. I’m told there are some important patrons who are coming to see me and I want to look my best.”

“It sounds like a hard way to earn a living,” he said to her.

“It’s not easy. Plenty of competition out there. But I’m just starting and I hope to get places before much longer. I’ve always heard success is all a matter of timing, so I want to be ready.”

“Did you see anything funny outside when the bus broke down?”

“No, it was dead out there except for the storm.”

“Did you want to get something to eat?” one of the women called to her from the table. “There’s plenty of food. We’ve worked out a way to compensate the sisters for their hospitality later. They’ll send the bill to the agency.”

“Agency?” Dion asked Sondasha.

“The outfit who organized this trip,” she explained. “They were supposed to send us to a hotel for the evening. As you can see, we got lost. One of the stipends in the contract is that they will cover any unplanned expense. I think this qualifies. My, that stew smells good; I think I’ll have some.” She wondered off to the long table, leaving Dion alone by the window.

Dion sighed and decided to go sit with his parents. There still wasn’t much else he could do until the elemental grandmaster returned. He wasn’t able to get any more information out of the sisters or his uncle and decided he would have to wait to gather any.

The sisters were back at the head of the table. This time they wore the same color scheme, but had jackets on over their shoulders. He noticed Kiley leaning over to her sister Susan in a deep conversation. He couldn’t hear what it was about, but the younger woman didn’t seem to like the direction the discussion was headed. She continued to frown while her older sister told her what she didn’t want to hear. Dion speculated it had something to do with Susan leaving the room earlier. As before, Loris was in the middle of it all, but tried to stay aloof. This argument might’ve been going on for years, for all he knew.

The women from the bus seemed to be excited by all the action at the tower. Most of them had led boring lives from what he could tell. This trip was a chance to get out of town and find something to write about. From what he picked up from the side conversations, there was very little actual warfare in this world. The presence of dragons, which were easy to breed although monopolized by the various kingdoms, made it difficult to wage war on a neighbor. The mere threat of a dragon attack was enough to bring negotiators to the table. It didn’t matter how many of the lizards each side trained, the other side could still wreak havoc on an enemy with a few of them. These reptiles seemed to be a lot easier to train than their equivalent on earth. Most large reptiles from where he came from couldn’t be trained; they regarded any form of warm-blooded animal as an enemy or food.

The groups had known each other a long time and commented on how each other’s husbands and or children were getting along. Pictures were pulled from purses and shown to one another. It was no different from a similar gather in from where Dion came.

“I need to get to a phone soon,” one of the women said as she ate from her bowl. “This stew is great; I need to find out how you make it.” She was a large white woman who wore her hair in a bun. Dion tried to remember her name. It came to him a few minutes later. She was the one called Beth Ravi.

“It helps that we have an endless supply of jackelopes out here,” Kiley Mahen spoke to her. “It’s why the meat is tender.”

“Wild or do you breed them?” the woman named Beth asked her.

“Wild. Too difficult to breed them. Not only do they kick each other but also the males will charge each other with those horns for territory. You have to be very careful if you keep jackelopes for stock and we have never had any luck with them. We use snipes to hunt them in the dry season.”

“Not much ‘dry’ here,” Beth replied, as she wiped a spot of grease from her sweater. “And you’ve had this storm for at least two months? I’ve never seen one last more than three weeks up north. Of course, we can go the entire dry season and not see a drop of rain.”

“The dry season is short down here,” Loris Mahen explained. “We need to get up the capitol sometime next year; you’ll have to let us know what the best sites to see are.”

“I don’t know what you like to see, but they did but in a new quezzrdo in the jeweler’s district. You might want to check it out.”

Dion had the most intense desire to ask her what as “quezzrdo” was, but let it fly. There would be time later to understand the basic differences between this world and his. Right now, he needed to wait and see if the elemental grandmaster would return. He didn’t enjoy the thought of leading everyone to that door for which his uncle possessed the key, but if it came to it, he would do it.

“So what kind of things do you enjoy writing about?” Susan Mahen asked her. Dion wondered when she would break her silence.

“Sports,” she told her. “I’ve written several romances about rockball. Do you follow any of the leagues?”

“Not able to follow much of anything out here,” Susan responded. “We have enough trouble having magazines delivered.”

‘Wow, you are isolated. What happens if you have an emergency? How do you get a doctor out here in a hurry if you have to?”

“We haven’t had that problem in a long time. Rudy is certified in most areas and can handle the occasional household injury. In a real emergency, we have messenger bats that roost on the top of the tower. Haven’t been able to use them in the past few months because of that detestable Queen Lilith and her crew, but we’ll breed some more as soon as we get rid of her.”

As Dion listened to them chat he began to wonder how effective his elemental manipulation powers were in this time circle. According to his uncle, they were very limited here, but he could summon a few elementals for a limited time period from his own world.

Dion still felt very much alone in this place. Back where he came from he could always watch the elementals at play. Air sylphs he could watch dance in the wind and fire salamanders loved to play in the flames of a burning log. As an elemental manipulator, he could always see them. Up until today, he’d assumed it was due to his family lineage, but now he wasn’t so sure. If he was half-Olympian, was it because of that part of his background? He tried not to think about it and returned to his attempts at seeing elementals.

He finally spotted one rolling around on the ground. It wasn’t one of the kinds he’d seen on his own world; this elemental had to be particular to this time circle. He watched it spin around the floor and roll up the walls, then down them again. It stopped when the elemental saw him watch it move across the floor. The small black sphere, invisible to everyone but him, rolled back and stopped in front of his place on the table. It spun around three times and zipped under the door to one of the partitions in the grand hall.

It took Dion a few minutes to realize what kind of elemental it was: an aether elemental. He’d never seen one this bold back on his own world; they were extremely hard to see except in a few locations on Earth. They were the rarest of them all, but here they must be quite common.

The aether was the source of all other elements and aether elementals were difficult to utilize. Only a few elemental manipulators at any given time could work with them. His uncle had some limited ability with them, but even he had more than Dion. He needed to be authorized by the Aether Elemental Grandmaster to use them. He turned to see if his uncle had noticed the small elemental, but his eyes were on the Mahen sisters when it entered the room.

If his uncle couldn’t focus on the small elemental, then how was it that he could see it? Dion wondered if his uncle truly had any aether elemental power at all. He closed his eyes and decided to see if he could summon anything at all from this world in the aether element. Dion concentrated and felt something near him. He opened his eyes and found the form of a black sphinx looking up from the ground. It was only three feet high and no one else in the room seemed to notice. The sphinx waited for Dion to make it an offer, but he simply told it there would be time later for some real employment. The sphinx sniffed the air, collapsed into another small ball and rolled away.

Chapter 11

“What were you doing there?” It was Bernice again. Dion turned to face the older women who had a keen sense of observation. She was close to the color of the Mahen sisters, but a few shades lighter.

“I was communicating,” he told her, not knowing what else to say. Dion had no way to know what the locals thought about elemental manipulation, so he let it be.

“Are you one of those guys who can work with a sphinx?” she asked him. “I haven’t met too many. Adepts, I think you’re called, right?”

Not knowing how to answer her question, Dion told her ‘yes’. He waited for a reaction.

“Never could see the reason for fooling with those things,” she told him. “I’ve had neighbors swear they can guard your house and more, but what kind of natural force comes in so mixed up? Face of a human, wings of a bird, body of a lion. It’s as if someone couldn’t make up his or her mind what kind of creature to construct. I always said they were built by a committee.”

“Now a dragon,” she said, “they have character. You always know where you stand with them even if they look at you as food. You feed them on a regular basis, work with them, play with them and they’ll look after you. If I were allowed, I would take the one I used to work with home with me. Can’t do that because of the regulations. They aren’t allowed off the base, even though you bond with them after a while. I was so close with some of the females I cared for they would even let me approach while nesting. Most people would never even consider being near a dragon when it’s nesting, too dangerous and a good way to get cremated.”

“You sound quite the expert on dragons,” Dion laughed. “It sounds like you miss them.”

“I do,” she continued. “People never liked getting too close to them, but they liked the air shows we put on once a year. It was really something to see a whole pack of dragons flying in formation around the base. They could roast an entire barbecue on the ground. Folks would ask to get their picture taken with them, but we couldn’t do that, too risky for anyone to get near a dragon unless they’ve trained with it.”

“Here,” she told him, as Bernice pulled out some pictures from her purse. “These are from right before I retired.”

She let Dion see the photographs of her standing next to an enormous lizard with wings that almost covered the both of them. The lizard was her military spec dragon, which she trained from the moment it hatched. Bernice went on to tell him the dragons had long lifespans and she personally taught her replacement how to work with the beast.

“She sends me updates every few weeks,” she finished. “And the dragon is quite fine.”

“So anyway,” she changed the subject, “just what is upstairs in this tower that the sister is worried about?”

“I’m not exactly sure myself,” Dion told her. He looked across the table and saw the form of his uncle starring off into space.

“Uncle Seth,” he asked him. “What is up there in the tower you let in from the abyss? You’ve talked of Queen Lilith and her Azuroth, but you haven’t been too specific about what we’re up against.

“She waits at the gate, always trying to get through to any time circle she can find,” Seth Bach described. “I don’t know where she comes from, or how long she’s been there, but anyone working the abyss has to find a way to keep her under control. I thought we had her boxed in, but she found a way to get through when we weren’t watching. She managed to bring through some minions called the Azuroth with her and we have both of them to contend with now. At least they’re not very powerful, but there are enough of those things to be a nuisance. The aether grandmaster was supposed to find a way to send them back, but she has yet to return.”

“What about the ones out at the front of the gate?” Dion asked him. “How did they get out there? Kiley claims they are a different species.”

“I have no idea how that batch got through,” his uncle said. “I hope the elemental grandmaster gets back soon enough because if she doesn’t we will have to deal with both groups without any help. That is not a prospect I look forward to.”

“And you have no idea where the grandmaster went?” Dion asked him.

“Not a one. She was here one day, the next she was gone. She said something about needing extra help and that was the last conversation I had with her.”

Something didn’t seem right about this whole affair to Dion. According to his uncle, everything he’d suffered through over the past year was from the efforts of his uncle to get him to the tower from the other world and return Queen Lilith and her horde back to the abyss. But he wondered how much his uncle was telling him was true. What if he was holding crucial information from him? It was strange that his uncle had worked so hard to keep him away from the elemental grandmasters back in Ohio, yet claimed he needed Dion’s help.

What if Queen Lilith was far more dangerous than he allowed everyone to think? It would explain all the obstacles he’d put in his path. His uncle wanted to make sure he had the right fortitude before he put him against the things upstairs and now out in front of the tower. Dion tapped his fingers on the table and thought it all over. He didn’t like what it all added up to, but there was nothing he could do about it right now.

Dion’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of men who ran out of the stairwell that led up wards to the next level. There were two of them and he recognized them as the security guards from the mall. They were guarding the tower’s upper levels against the invasion. Both of them looked exhausted, which meant they ran all the way down the tower without the elevator. One of them nearly tripped over a chair as he made his way to the great table. He was surprised by so many outsiders in the great hall.

“Word with you, ma’am,” the other guard managed to breathe out as he reached the table. He looked direct at Kiley Mahen. His face was flushed and his uniform covered in sweat.

“You look exhausted,” she said to the man. Kiley leaned over the table and handed him a glass of wine. “Go ahead and talk, I need to hear.”

He drained the cup in one gulp. “Thank you,” he said to her. The guard turned to Kiley. “They broke through, but we’ve been able to stop them.”

“How far did they get?” she asked him.

“Right over the sauna,” he told them. “They caught us off guard. We finished securing the stairwell from the nursey and they calmed down. We heard some noise up there, but not enough to get excited about. So I had the men stand down and take a break. I thought they might be tired out after that last rush and wouldn’t try anything for a few hours.”

“I was wrong.”

“About fifteen minutes ago, they slammed hard against the door and knocked the barricade loose. I had the men fall back to the level below it. We secured that door, but I knew it wouldn’t hold them for long, so I kept falling back, locking doors behind me as I went. We went through the living areas and school floors until we got to the sauna. The door is smaller on that level for some reason, so I had the men use what bits of furniture we grabbed on the way down to secure it the right way. We finished blocking it up the best way we could the very moment we heard some noise in the level over it. They’re still trying to get through, but I believe we’ve held them for the moment. There isn’t much else I can do other than get the pikes out and distribute them to the men.”

“I don’t want to go that far,” she told him. “Why didn’t you take the elevator down?”

“It all happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to call the operator. Besides, the elevator is at the sauna level. If we use it, the shaft will be open and I don’t want to give those things any opening to the inside of the tower. I know they’ve been scared to climb down the tower on the outside, but they might not be so scarred of it on the inside.”

“You did good,” Kiley approved. “Take your time about returning to the sauna.”

“We have to get back up there. It’s important we’re there because one man less means that floor has fewer men to secure it.”

“I’ll go with them,” Dion spoke up from his place at table. “They can use help up there. And perhaps I can summon something to assist them if they can’t stop the advance.”

Kiley Mahen turned to Dion’s uncle and gave him a puzzled look. “My nephew can work some of the basic elements,” he told her. “I don’t think he can send them back without the grandmaster help, but Dion can do some basic work to assist the guards. It sounds as if they could use it. Until the Aether Elemental Grandmaster returns.”

“I suppose they can use the help,” She responded.

Kiley looked in the direction of Dion’s parents. “So long as it’s alright with them.”

His mother nodded. “I trust Dion to make the right decision,” she said to her. “I’ve done my best to raise him with an understanding of his abilities.”

As Dion began to get up from the table, he heard the voice of Bernice Cosmo. “I’ll go too. You could use someone up there with a little field experience.”

They headed up the stairwell just behind the two guards who’d rested from the trip back downstairs.

Chapter 12

“I don’t mind the climb,” Dion spoke to her, “It’s the time it consumes. We’ll spend more time on the stairs then we will fight those creatures.”

“Imagine how bad it must have been doing this in armor,” she replied. “Think about wearing another sixty-five pounds of chainmail and plate while you’re climbing the stairs. Also, you’d have a metal sword in one hand and a matching shield in the other. I think we have it easy.”

“Notice the curve of these stairs,” she told him as they crossed from one level to another and made for the next stairwell. “There is a slight bend to the right in each one. Can you guess what that might be?”

“They wanted to make it easier to get from one level to the next?” Dion asked her.

“No, they wanted to give the defenders an advantage. The stairwells always curve to the left. Most people are left-handed and it gave them an advantage in swinging a sword. The attackers needed to hit the defenders with an off-handed sword blow, while the defenders’ target had a direct line to swing a sword.

Dion almost corrected her as nearly every one he knew was right-handed until it dawned on him that it might not be true in this world.

They continued the climb to the level still under control by the tower’s defenders while Bernice rambled on and on about the tower and its history. It figured with prominence in many of the kingdom epics and she recited lines of poetry where the tower was mentioned. Dion admitted it was a quite a construction accomplishment. The tower was built when the techniques were very crude. Most of the blocks were hauled by carts and horses from the nearest quarry, which was twenty-five miles away. Angles were calculated with a square and compass.

Dion and Bernice arrived a few minutes on the sauna level behind the guards. The instant they walked into the room, which was sectioned off like the others, they heard a loud noise at one end. It reminded him of someone pounding on a door. Dion looked down the hall formed by the partitions and saw the guards attempting to hold the door with a pile of broken up furniture and wood.

Whatever was on the other end of that door was not happy. It was a thick door, just as all the other doors inside the tower were. This one still had its military function and was covered in steel studs and held together with metal hinges. It shook constantly as something began to force it loose from the frame. Dion could see plaster fall from the walls from the shock waves created from the impacts. In between the slams to the door, he could hear the snarls and grunts of large animals. Had he not known about what was on the other side of the door? Dion wondered if they were up against a herd of boars.

“It won’t hold this time,” one of the guards said to the man who acted as sergeant. “And we won’t be able to retreat fast enough either. I suggest we break out those pikes.” He waved to the wall where a row of spears with ax blades attached sat at the ready.

“If you use those pikes, you better know what you’re doing,” Bernice yelled at the defenders. “A few of them turned around to see who addressed them.

“Do any of you know how to use them?” she yelled over the sound of the pounding on the door. “If not, you better grab them and run to the next level. I don’t know what’s behind that door, but it sounds pretty mean.”

She walked over to the pikes and picked up a few of them. She grabbed three and turned back to the other men. “Come on, let’s go downstairs, I can show you some basic bayonet drills, they work the same!”

A few of the guards picked up the pikes and joined her. The rest tried to shove their weight against the doors, which were under attack by the creatures on the other side.

“Everybody to the next door!” Dion finally yelled. “I’m going to try something, if it doesn’t work, take the pikes downstairs and use them if you have to!”

The guards responded to Dion and Bernice’s commands. They didn’t hesitate to abandon the door. The crew hadn’t made much progress anyway, as the doorframe began to crack. They ran to the stairwell that led down and waited. In a few more minutes, the horde would be through it. Dion let them run past him and planted his feet in the middle of the hall, ten feet from the door as it began to break open.

He began to concentrate, to feel his own time circle from where he’d traveled to reach this new world. He felt his mind reach out to the world he called home and make contact with the elementals over there. He searched out what he needed and made the request for them to come and help him. The response was intense and Dion knew he’d reached them.

He opened his eyes and saw the door push open and a furry hand emerge from it. It was full of claws that looked very sharp. Then another furry paw came from behind the door as it pushed open. The furniture and boards holding it in place were pushed backwards by the combined force of whatever was on the other side.

Dion looked to his rear. The guards and Bernice waited to see what he would do. He turned back to the door. It began to open as the boards broke away from it and the furniture barricade moved back.

However, this time there was one significant change in the tableaux in front of him.

The ghoul cleaners were there. They stood at attention in their work uniforms ready to go into action. Dion didn’t know how effective the small creatures would be, most were no more than five feet in height. All wore the standard mirror shades to protect their eyes from light. The shopping mall where he’d found them had used the ghouls all over the place, but their home and loyalty was to the element of earth. As the door began to swing open and the first of the furry creatures emerged, Dion realized he had to let the ghouls decide how best to take care of his problem.

“We are under attack by what’s on the other side of that door,” he told the ghouls. “I need you to prevent them from getting past this level. Also, I need them sent back to the other side of the door and the same door secured against them.”

One of the ghouls nodded and turned to the others to make sure they’d received the order. The ghoul cleaners never said anything and Dion couldn’t figure out how they communicated to each other. But they had understood the instructions and were ready to carry them out.

As Dion watched, the ghouls tore apart an expensive piece of furniture in front of them. It was a small cabinet the guards hauled down from the upper areas to use as a barricade, but never had the chance to put it in place. In seconds, the twelve ghouls each had a board and turned to face the first one of the Azuroth horde as it ran screaming at them.

The first ghoul hit it hard with a wooden board. As the Azuroth came at it, the ghoul slammed the board directly into the thing’s stomach area. Dion assumed it was the stomach area because, although the Azuroth horde ran on two legs and possessed a set of arms to match, they were covered by hair. It reeled back and bumped into the second one of its kind as it also ran out from behind the door. More came out once the door opened up, but the ghouls began to employ the boards as weapons with fiendish effectiveness. The Azuroth were sent sprawling across the hall and none of them made it past the ghouls.

The furry little demons realized they were up against a force determined and one that did not miss when they swung a board. Howling with pain, they began to retreat back to the door under the savage blows of the ghoul cleaners. When the last one was on the other side of the door, the ghouls slammed it shut hard.

Dion watched as the ghouls grabbed the hammer and nails left behind by the fleeing security guards. They formed two teams organized to perfection and began to disassemble every piece of furniture or fitting they could find. The wood was hammered into an intricate pattern designed to keep the door in place with maximum efficiency. Dion watched them finish and secure the door at unbelievable speed.

Fifteen minutes later, they were finished. The door was barricaded by professionals and the Azuroth hordes would reconsider their attempt at storming through to the other side. Dion had no idea what this Queen Lilith creature would do from her end.

The ghoul cleaners lined up for inspection in front of their accomplishment. Dion walked up to the door and looked it over. There was no way it could’ve been secured in as good and little time by anything else.

Dion walked up to the ghouls. “Dismissed,” he said to them and they vanished.

He turned to the guards on the other end. They were speechless until Bernice Cosmo said something.

“Guess we won’t have to use these pikes after all.”

Bernice and Dion decided to take the elevator down while the guards were deployed back to the sauna and watched the door that the ghouls barricaded. Dion was tired from summoning the ghoul elementals and didn’t want to endure the long walk down the stairs to the great hall. He used the speaking tube and had the operator send the elevator for him and Bernice. She didn’t feel like a long walk down either.

And she wanted to talk.

“What were those things you summoned?” she asked him. “I thought you manipulated elements, not dwarfs with sunglasses.”

“Ghouls,” he told her. “The place where I came from used them for cleaners. They’re earth elementals.”

“Are you going to use them again? I’d like to see them in action one more time.”

“Can’t,” he told her. “According to my uncle I can only use elementals from my time circle once. Then I have to use another elemental. This means I’ll only be able to do what you saw three more times until the Aether Elemental Grandmaster appears and authorizes me to manipulate the fifth element.”

Dion leaned back on the small elevator, which was on its way down the shaft and looked up. For some reason, he had the strongest sensation someone was up there. The elevator had a little covering over the top. Most of it was open so the shaft could be seen above it

Furthermore, the few boards on top of it were perfect for an adult sphinx to roost.

“Sorry about this, kid,” the sphinx said to him as it began to saw away at the rope holding the elevator with its claw, “but once I’m paid to do a job….”

Chapter 13

Dion knew he had to act fast. The sphinx could fly back up the shaft and didn’t worry about the cable. The elevator passed the opening for one floor, but he didn’t think the next one would come up in time. Dion closed his eyes and concentrated on the air sylphs while Bernice put a hand to her mouth in shock. He found them quick since the connection with the other time circle had opened when he brought the ghoul cleaners over to this one. Now it was much easier to bring over another elemental across.

The sphinx stopped sawing on the rope when it noticed the cheerleader who stood in front of it. It reared back in confusion, as it had never seen a young woman dressed in a skimpy outfit holding a baton before. This allowed the elevator time to stop. The top of the elevator was exposed to the opening of a floor Dion and Bernice already went past. The elevator halted in place all of a sudden.

“That’s right,” said the girl wearing red, white and blue to Murph the elevator operator at the ground level. “Don’t move it again until I give you the word.” His hand was holding the crank for the pulley system, but he’d clicked the brake handle on her command.

The woman held a long bar in the center and aimed it at him. It wasn’t the size of the metal bar which concerned Murph; it was the fire burning from each end. The young woman twirled the burning bar to show him that she knew how to use it.

While the sphinx stared at the air sylph who was in form of a cheerleader, it neglected to notice the open door to its back. Nor did it notice the four other air sylph cheerleader elementals behind it in the room where the top part of the elevator had stopped. Likewise, the sphinx didn’t notice the elementals that carried large batons meant for spinning. They could bring some serious pain if wielded by someone who knew how to use them.

Such as cheerleaders.

The cheerleader standing in front of the sphinx hit it hard in the middle with her baton, which sent the creature out of the elevator shaft and into level fourteen, the art gallery. The sphinx spun back only to encounter the other cheerleaders who began to hit it with their batons. They showed no mercy.

“Okay,” the woman with the flaming baton said to Murph, “take it down one more level and allow them to get off. Wait for him to tell you whether or not he wants to use it the rest of the way.”

Murph nodded, unhooked the brake and began to move the elevator down to the next level. When he was certain the car was level with the floor, Murph locked it in place and decided to wait and see what the woman with the metal rod wanted him to do next.

The sphinx went flying through the air and landed in front of the next cheerleader who managed to pin it down with her baton. It struggled to get up, but four other cheerleader elementals were on top of it. Another one materialized with a set of handcuffs and locked the sphinx in place.

When Dion and Bernice ran up the stairwell to the art gallery, they found the air sylphs with the chained sphinx. Dion stopped and took the sight in. The sphinx had tried to kill him and he was in no mood to be sympathetic.

“Don’t worry about him,” one of the elementals announced as she held on the struggling figure of the sphinx. “We’ve got a high school he can guard for the next three hundred years.”

“Can we go now?” one of the other elementals asked him.

Dion nodded and the cheerleader elementals with their captive sphinx disappeared.

Dion walked over to the speaker tube mounted in the wall next to the elevator shaft and yelled into it. “Murph! Is there anyone down there with you?”

“Was until ten seconds ago,” came the response. “Young blond lady with a burning metal bar. She made me stop the elevator. Are you okay?”

“We’re fine up here. Don’t worry about her, she works for me. Go ahead and take the elevator down to the bottom of the shaft, we’re walking down the stairs to get to the great hall.”

“You summoned up those women?” Bernice asked him as they walked down the stairwell. “How did you ever learn how to do that?”

“It’s a natural ability I had when I was born,” Dion told her. “Most people have some ability to work with elementals, I have more than most. But I can’t do much with them in this world and the ones I can manipulate need to be brought over from mine. Single use, too, which means I am down to two other elementals.”

“Let me know when you need to use them,” she mentioned. “I’d love to see that battle again!”

Chapter 14

When the exited the stairwell at the level of the great hall, Dion saw his uncle in a heated exchange with the three sisters who controlled the tower. Kiley Mahen, dressed in her customary black, sat in her high chair and listened to him with boredom. It was plain to everyone in the room that she had endured this before.

“You have to do something about the situation out there and up in the tower,” he yelled at her. “Eventually, they will find a way down and inside this tower. When that happens, we’ll be trapped in the middle.”

“I just found out your nephew had some of his elementals secure the door to the level above the art gallery,” she told him between claps of thunder, “I don’t think the ones outside want to risk the lighting strikes, so we can afford to wait. Besides, we have no way to know what is out there in all that wind and rain until the storm dies down. Which it doesn’t intend to do right away.”

Dion sat down next to his parents who never seemed to express much of an opinion. They were quiet people and he could hardly ever recall either of them raising their voices. His mother was on the tall side and sat next to his father, who was an inch or two shorter than his wife. Funny, Dion remembered his father told him once that they were the same height. They wore the same kind of tunics Dion noted the tower retainers wore, but they’d been here over a year and were abducted by his uncle’s men. Whatever they wore came from this time circle.

“I think this whole experience is pretty groovy,” said the woman who sat next to him. Dion had noticed Bernice wondered off to another group of women when they reached the great hall level.

“Depends on your definition of the term,” Dion said to her. “I don’t find it very groovy we are caught between two different kinds of demons under the command of some fiend from the abyss.”

“It’s more adventure than I have back home,” she told him. “China. China Masters.”

“Dion,” he introduced himself. “I’m sorry you had to get caught up in this mess. I can’t do much to remedy the situation until the fifth elemental grandmaster returns. No one seems to know where she went, but she’s supposed to be back soon. I hope.”

“It beats sitting in the tea shop everyday waiting for customers,” she told him. Dion noted the woman was light of complexion and had long gray hair tied into a bun.

She also had a tattoo of a star around the back of her neck, which was unique. Dion hadn’t noted any tattoos on the women from the bus or the tower. She wore a knitted top, which reminded him of the sweater worn by mountain dwellers in Peru. Dion could only speculate on the chain of events, which brought her to the bus trip.

“Always was a big reader,” she told him. “I’m working on several books at the same time, but never can get around to finishing any one of them. I’d hoped this trip would take me somewhere where I hadn’t been before and give me some new ideas. At least I’ve had my share of new experiences.”

Dion almost told her that a mad rush from the Azuroth wasn’t an experience he would wish on anyone, but kept his mouth shut. Who had brought the sphinx over to attack him? A sphinx was aether elemental and seemed to be native to both time circles.

“We have to consider the worst case scenario,” Susan Mahen spoke to her sisters. Dion was a little surprised to hear the youngest sister speak aloud.

“What do you define as a worst-case scenario?” Loris, the middle sister, asked her. “Things are pretty dire right now.”

“What happens if the Azuroth break through to this level?” she asked. “We have to get out of the tower if it’s compromised. The storm is still in progress outside, but it could lift at any minute. All the thunderclouds have to do is move on and the rain will diminish. When that happens, the other Azuroth at the front gate will pin us inside the tower. If we can’t go out, we’ll have to attack those creatures in the upper tower. I have no idea how many of them are up there. Do any of you know?”

“I saw ten when the door busted open,” Dion spoke from his side of the table. “There could be a lot more behind them. My earth elementals sent them back and fixed the door barricade before the rest could emerge.”

Loris turned to Dion. “Can you get those elementals back?” she asked.

“One-time use,” he told her. “I just summoned some air sylphs to take out the sphinx in the elevator shaft who tried to kill me. And no I can’t use them again either.”

“Which leaves fire and water,” Kiley Mahen brought up.

“I’d rather not use them until I need their help,” Dion pointed out. “Keep those two in reserve for whatever happens until the grandmaster returns.”

“What about elementals from this world?” Kiley brought up. “Can you make use of them?”

“I don’t feel anything when I try to sense them. If there are elementals here, I can’t do a thing with them.”

“So how is it you can with the aether element?” Susan asked.

“The aether is the root of all the other elements,” Dion explained to her. “The same aether works in this world as in all others. It’s why so few people have ever mastered it.”

“How are we going to get out of this tower if the guards can’t keep those things upstairs from flooding into this level?” Susan changed the subject back to where it was. “Even if we get the drawbridge down, we still need to deal with what is on the other side.”

“We have enough bows, arrows and spears to arm the guards and household staff,” Kiley pointed out. “I don’t know how many of those things are outside, but they should be able to send them back with what we have. We’ll have to make a run for it to the gate Dion and his uncle used.” She turned to Dion’s uncle. “You do have the key which opens it, don’t you?”

“Yes I do,” he responded. “I have the sigil disc with me which will open the door to my world. I wouldn’t think of it as an option since none of us know how to get across these rocky lands to it unless the Azuroth are gone.”

Dion stood up and walked over to the collection of women who were milling about at the other end of the great hall. They seemed to be in the middle of a detailed conversation and he wondered what it was. They didn’t seem to mind his presence, so he wondered over to the small crowd of women, just out of hearing range, near the big table where everyone else was seated. Another burst of lighting sent flashes through the windows. The storm didn’t show any sign of cessation.

The first woman he encountered was a thin woman with a slight Asian appearance. She wore a long jacket of some type, but he had no clue if it represented anything in this world. She was drinking from a glass when Dion approached her.

“You’re Betty, aren’t you?” he remembered. “Betty Mook?”

“Correct,” she acknowledged. “I seem to recall your name as Dion?”

“Also correct. It seems there is big discussion taking place.” He was about to say something else when a clap of thunder drowned him out.

“We’re trying to figure out which book had the most sales last year,” she explained to him. “Some of us think it’s Bobbin Herrod’s The Wastoids, but I think it’s James St. Susan’s Mountain of the Soldiers. Have you read either one?”

“Sorry,” Dion apologized. “I haven’t had much of a chance to read this past year. I was forced to move in with relatives and spent most of the year adjusting. What line of work are you in?”

“I teach women how to defend themselves,” she explained. “With all the crime these days, it’s important they learn how to do it. I’m certified in three styles and am working on another one. You ever do martial arts?”

“Not yet. It is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time.”

“You should give it the opportunity. Plenty of good schools around and no shortage of qualified instructors. I spent last weekend watching four people learn how to grapple on the ground. You can never tell how those kinds of things will turn out. I was surprised to see the one woman in the group come out on top of them all.”

“So have you written anything yourself?” Dion asked her. He needed to make small talk and get some angle on this woman. She didn’t seem to be what he’d assumed on the first meeting.

“Just some poetry,” she told him. “I don’t give readings very well. I need to work on my delivery and my rhyme scheme. Do you fancy any modern poets?”

“I don’t know enough of them to make a difference,” Dion told her, which was true. He was clueless as the art and literary accomplishments of this time circle. All he could see was the tower, which was impressive enough.

As Dion turned and looked at the women who congregated at the far end of the hall, he began to wonder about them. It was very convenient they showed when they did. They claimed to be tourists on a holiday when their bus broke down in an area plagued by thunderstorms for months. Somehow, their bus managed to miss the Azuroth encampment just outside of the tower. It was too dark and difficult to see anything in this storm beyond the moat, so the bus was not visible. Granted he could summon another one of his two elemental forces that yet remained, but this would be a waste of his resources.

He watched them interact with each other and realized he didn’t know much about this group. As a matter of fact, neither did anyone else in the tower. From what he could tell, the tower and its inhabitants were isolated from the rest of the kingdom and didn’t know much of what happened in the world outside it. How they managed to survive as long as they had was a mystery to him, but there was the mention of tenant farmers who used to live in the valley and the lands around the tower. The tower was of no military value or it wouldn’t have been leased a hundred years ago to the Mahen family.

Did this group of women figure into the plan his uncle had for using the energy from the abyss? His uncle wanted to enrich himself and expand his power base back in his world. Dion looked at them and watched the women continued to talk to each other in the same idyll fashion they’d used since entering the tower. Even Bernice, the one with a military background, didn’t seem too worried over what lay outside the moat or over them.

Still, there was the problem of their arrival. Way too much of a coincidence from Dion’s point of view. He was certain there was a connection to them and the events it the tower. However, he had no way to prove any of it. Right now, it was merely a sensation, but Dion learned a long time ago to trust those.

If they were connected to the assault on the tower, then what was the connection? Dion hadn’t arrived early enough to meet the elemental grandmaster, so he didn’t have a means to judge any link between the women and her. There were ten women in this group, he knew. Ten was a powerful number. Many divine beings came in a series of ten. There were all kinds of decimals in the universe. Elementals came in a series of four, so no connection in that aspect. He watched five women in the far end of the hall talk to each other. He had a difficult time believing they were connected to the attack on the tower. Sometime there were coincidences in the universe. Perhaps now was such a time.

Chapter 15

Dion walked back to the table and seated himself between his parents and the three women at the head of the table. His uncle was still across from them and the fire blazed high at the end of the hall. It was a little hard to see how the fire provided warmth for the hall. It wasn’t too cold outside, but that fire couldn’t possibly supply the heat for the rest of the tower. He didn’t know how the seasons worked in this world, but if they were anything like the ones back home, it meant this place would endure freezing weather three months out of the year. Did each level of the tower have its own fireplace? Perhaps they shut down most of the tower during the colder months. The place was drafty enough and Dion could only imagine what it was like when the inhabitants were all military.

The height of the tower made it an excellent watch on anything coming down the mountain pass. By the time any force penetrated into this side of the pass, the tower could see it and launch their own forces. Even if the advance wasn’t halted, they could send a messenger to the nearest castle or fortress to let them know the enemy was on the march. Plus, the pass was narrow enough that it wouldn’t take too many armored men to halt the advance and plug up the gap.

As he watched one of the tower servants turn the wood and stoke the fire, Dion saw another man in tower livery walk up to Kiley Mahen and hand her a written note. She read it over and tossed the paper in the fire in disgust. Curious as to what it was about, Dion paid close attention to what happened next.

“Tell them to make ready and let us know if anything changes,” she told the man. “I’m going to station someone at the speaker tube. We don’t need it for the elevator since it’s grounded at the bottom of the shaft.”

“What was that about?” Loris asked her sister. Even Susan Mahen took an interest in the note.

“The Azuroth have begun to pound on the door again,” she told them, while the flames leaped higher not three feet from them. “Dion’s elementals sealed it better than any of our people could have done, but they’ll get through eventually.”

“Do we need to have the servants bring out our body armor?” Susan asked her older sister. “It’s downstairs in the warehouse. I had it taken down there when this whole mess began.”

“Not yet,” Kiley responded. “We wait until they’ve begun a concerted move down to the main level before we go that route. I want to avoid bloodshed as much as possible. According to the accounts I heard from the guards, Dion’s elementals proved those creatures will flee if shown some pain.”

“So long as we are the ones who administer the pain,” Loris reminded her. “I don’t want to be on the receiving end of it.”

“We all know what to do if this situation gets out of control,” Kiley reminded her.

“Run to the hills?” Susan asked. “Can we make this gate in the rocks that Dion and his uncle claim to have used? There is no guarantee is it will work for us.”

“I’m not talking about the three of us,” Kiley snapped back. “Our people in this tower can make a run for the gate. You know it’s not an option for us. I refer to the prophecy.”

“Oh, there she goes again with the prophecy,” Loris sighed, as she leaned back in her chair. The glass she held made a loud clunk as it hit the table. “We’ve all heard it since the day we were born. Do you think it will apply in this situation?”

“I didn’t think so at first,” Kiley spoke. “But the more I think about it, the more I am convinced it will. Too many coincidences to think otherwise. When the fifth element grandmaster showed, I knew there had to be a connection.”

“I never saw her do much with her supposed abilities,” Loris said. “If she was so all-powerful, why didn’t she get rid of those things when they entered the tower?”

“She tried,” Kiley pointed out. “It was because of her that we didn’t have things become much worse. Do you not recall she stopped them from leaving the top levels? She summoned those dwellers from the threshold. Queen Lilith and her thugs went into full retreat.”

“Why didn’t she get rid of them at that moment?” Susan demanded. “Like I said, if she is so awesome, why are they still there? Couldn’t she use that thing she summoned to send them back to the abyss?”

“All I know is that she claimed they had too much combined power in this world to open the gate and return them without letting anymore of them inside. I was impressed enough by the stories everyone told me as to how she stopped them in the first place. Plus, she didn’t want the Threshold Dweller to stay around very long. Some of the maids still have nightmares over what they saw when she summoned it.”

“I wish she would get back soon,” Loris stated. “We could use her help. Those things stayed at the top of the tower until this evening for some reason.”

“Something she needed to find,” Kiley pointed out. “I didn’t get a straight answer from her about what it was. But there was something she needed we didn’t have that would get rid of Queen Lilith.”

“I hope she brings it back," Susan gave her opinion. “Because I am tired of living under siege in our own home. Several times I’ve been ready to take a pike up there and end our problems the quick way.”

“I don’t think you’d get very far,” Kiley pointed out. “There are quite a few of them up there.”

“So how long do you think this siege will last?” a voice said to his left. Dion turned to see one of the bus women he hadn’t spoken with sitting next to him. She was a tiny woman, not much taller than five feet with a pair of horn-rim glasses. She spoke in a soft voice, which was hard to hear due to the continuous conversation in the back of the hall.

“Mary Tangent,” she said, while offering her hand. “I was bored listening to all the talk about which writer was better than another, so I came over here.”

“Dion,” he introduced himself again after accepting her hand. These introductions were routine.

“I teach math,” she told him. “At the academy in Ynos. It doesn’t pay the best, but I like my work, so there is that. Symbolic logic is a hobby of mine.”

“If P, then Q?” Dion asked her with a smirk on his face. The fire began to die down so one of the servants worked to keep it burning.

“It begins with that,” she laughed at him. “Gets much more complicated later.” They were illuminated by a flash of lighting from the window.

“That storm is one of the worst I’ve ever seen,” she told him. “Worse than the one which took out most of the street lights in my hometown. I’d heard for years the weather was crazy up in the hills, guess I had to come here and see it for myself. Now I know it’s crazy.”

“Do the people in Ynos appreciate the work you do?” Dion asked her. He still knew very little about this world and not enough to make a judgement call.

“They claim my work is valuable,” she told him. “But if it had value, why do they make such an effort about money to support the academy? Every time there is a financial crisis, I and my colleges are recruited to get the kingdom out of a mess. They sing our praises later, but in a few years, another issue arises and they need us again. They claim our fees are too high and the budget could not withstand what we might charge. I think they are worried we’d dig a little too deep into their sources of income.”

“Furthermore,” she continued, “they waste all kinds of funds on absurd educational projects which never show results. In math, results are easy enough to duplicate and resolve once you understand the underlying equations. In these social sciences, not so much. They freely admit their results can’t be duplicated, and then wonder why so few of us take them seriously.”

“It reminds me of many of the arguments I hear in my own kingdom,” Dion told her. “So much money spent on nonsense just to make someone feel good about themselves or to line pockets. I think you will find it everywhere, no matter where you travel. At least I have.”

As Mary Tangent continued on about her work in symbolic logic, Dion’s mind began to wonder. Not only was the arrival of the women in the bus too much of a coincidence to be taken lightly, so was his uncle’s relationship with this Queen Lilith and her horde. According to his uncle, it was a minor issue that Dion was needed to send them back. However, he seemed to have invested a lot of time and energy into this tower project, and the one in their mutual world, for these things just to appear by accident. Did his uncle have some reason he wasn’t telling him? Dion wasn’t sure, but intended to find out.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said to the math teacher, “but I need to have a conversation with my uncle for a moment.” Dion got up from his side of the table and walked around to his uncle’s side of the table.

His uncle looked up at Dion. “What do you want, nephew?” he asked with sarcasm. “I am in the same tower as all of us, so don’t expect I have any solution to the current predicament.”

“Come take a walk with me, uncle,” Dion told him. “There are some wall hangings I would like you to tell me about.”

Not sure where Dion was headed with his line of conversation, Seth Back left the table with Dion. They walked to another part of the great hall where the sound wouldn’t echo as bad. Dion made certain no one was near them when he asked what was on his mind.

“So how much do you know about this Queen Lilith?” he questioned his uncle.

“Only what you have heard,” he replied. “She’s some being from the abyss that always looks for a way out.”

“Really, uncle?” Dion asked again. “It seems to me that it’s awful convenient you had a major force from the abyss work its way into this realm while you were opening the gate. Surely someone of your level of skill should know what is on the other side?’

“What are you trying to say Dion?” his uncle snapped at him. Although no one could hear them at this range, he fought to keep his voice down.

“I think it was very fortunate for you, this arrival of a demoness and her horde. Then you had a reason to bring me and my parents to this time circle. You claim I’m needed by the Aether Elemental Grandmaster, but she is nowhere to be found. Very handy accident on your part, I might ad.”

“Spell it out, nephew!”

“I once heard about a factory owner who was heavy in debt to the banks. He also was over-insured. When his factory burned under mysterious circumstances, he collected his check, paid the creditors and sold the business. To this day, people say the secret of his success was lighting a match.”

“You draw too many unrelated conclusions!” his uncle unloaded at Dion and stormed back to the table.

“Hit a nerve, did I?” Dion said to himself.

Dion walked back over to the table where he sat down next to his parents. His uncle returned to his place at the same table near the Mahen sisters, who were in another one of their deep discussions. He tried not to pay much attention to what they talked about, as it didn’t concern him. Finances. They were in a heated discussion about the monetary state of the family and of the tower. From what Dion could tell, they’d missed several payments to the kingdom on the lease of the tower. Susan let it slide that their parents had never had such problems when they ran the tower’s affairs. Kiley fired back that the financial status was in excellent shape, thank you, and anytime she needed to dip into the cash reserves she could do so. However, as the eldest she felt it irresponsible to run the bank account so low when there were plenty of retainers to take care of and a budget to maintain.

“She does have a point,” Loris said to her older sister, “we could let some of the people who work here go and we’d have more many to spend.”

“I’ll not toss the retainers who have stood by us all these years out the door!” Kiley thundered back at her while the lightening lit up the great hall. “Did you forget these are the same people who have taken care of you since the day we were all born?”

“You don’ have to make it permanent,” Loris replied in a cool voice, “Just send them away for a while. Only until we can get the tower back on its foundation.”

“Do you have the sensation they have bickered this way for years?” a voice to his right said to him. Dion turned and expected to see the math instructor.

Instead, he faced an older woman. She was the leader of the group, he seemed to recall. What was her name? Dion thought for a few seconds and remembered. This was Kristen Malar. He didn’t have a clue as to what she did, but it had to be important by the way the other women respected her.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said to her. “Their parents vanished suddenly, leaving all of them to handle the affairs of the tower.”

“In my line of work,” she said to him while swirling the glass she carried, “you want to minimize arguments between women. It creates a bad reputation for the establishment. Clients see all the negativity and they take their money elsewhere.”

“No argument there,” Dion responded. “What kind of work do you do?”

She hesitated which told him a lot. “I manage a social exchange club. We supply entertainment to clients for many occasions. Most of our customer base is men.”

Dion nodded. She had told him quite a bit.

A few minutes later, Dion saw Susan Mahen get up from the table and walk away. He had no idea where she was headed, nor did he really concern himself with her destination. The tower was vast. She disappeared into the stairwell, which led to the warehouse at the bottom. This was the same place Dion was greeted by Kiley Mahen when he first entered the tower. It still puzzled him why she was the one who greeted him and how she knew he was on the way. It had to do with his uncle, he decided. Uncle Seth had arranged things so he would be greeted by the chatelaine of the tower herself. No minor functionaries for his nephew. He wanted to see Dion impressed.

While Dion puzzled over the reasons for the bus arrival, the women on it, and his uncle’s real motivations, he felt a tap on the shoulder. Dion turned to see the chamberlain Rudy with a note in his hand. Rudy handed it to Dion and left the table. Rudy had timed his approach at the right time as Kristen Malar was back in the far side of the hall conversing with the women’s writing group. It would be of interest to find out what kind of reading material was popular in this world, as it seemed so much like his own in many ways.

Dion unfolded the note and read the message. “Downstairs in the warehouse,” it read. “Immediately. I need to talk to you about something.” It was signed by Susan Mahen.

Dion folded the note and stood up from the table. “I need to see about something,” he said to his parents. His uncle did not seem to notice what Dion was up to, but it could be a deliberate ruse. “I’ll return in a few minutes.”

Dion tossed the note into the fireplace as he walked past it, stopping briefly to make sure it burned.

When he departed the stairwell at the bottom level, Dion was greeted by Rudy, who pointed to their right. In the far corner of the warehouse level, he saw Susan Mahen standing idle next to a collection of wooden crates. She made eye contact with him the moment he looked at her.

Dion wondered what this all might be about. He’d felt some interest from Susan the first time they were introduced. If this were the case, he’d have to inform her that he had a fiancée who waited for him on the other side of the gate he’d taken to enter this world. Lilly might not rule over a huge tower, but she other qualities, which would make her a good wife.

“You need to see this,” Susan said as Dion walked up to her. She pointed down at the open crates.

Below him, inside the wooden crates, were twelve fully automatic rifles. The other crates, which were pried open, contained ammunition and spare parts for the weapons. Dion bent over and noted the maker of the rifles. It was a German arms manufacturer. He shook his head; only the best for Seth Bach.

“What the hell are these?” Susan demanded. “Rudy found these crates last week when he took inventory. They weren’t here the last time we inventoried this part of the warehouse. I know because we have to keep close records for the tax assessor. He just now opened them up. Does this have something to do with your uncle?”

“Probably,” Dion told her. “I can’t think of any other reason he’d have them here. Of course, they make the official reason he had for bringing me here absurd. He doesn’t need me or the fifth elemental grandmaster to get rid of the Azuroth if he has these.” Dion had a thought and turned back to Susan. “Did you just say you don’t know what they are?”

“I’ve never seen a thing like these devices,” she told him. “What are they?”

“Are you familiar with guns?” Dion asked her.

“What?”

“Nasty weapons,” he told her. “Ones that shoot bullets.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” she snapped at him. “Don’t treat me like a fool. Those things were banned hundreds of years ago, ever since the Rutrack Massacre. No one would even consider using one; it’s a capital offense in most kingdoms just to own one. Besides, where would you get the compound that makes them work? Didn’t they use some kind of flammable powder?”

Dion looked at the rifles and realized what his uncle plans were. He needed Queen Lilith to clear the tower of the inhabitants. Once he had everyone outside, he could distribute the automatic weapons to the guards who used to work for him. The Azuroth wouldn’t last five minutes when they opened up with them. He could do the same thing to the ones outside. Of course, there would be witnesses, but they would be outside when the slaughter began. Once he cleaned up the mess, he could bring everyone back inside and repeat the procedure outside. No one who was native to this world had to see the horror he was about to unleash on creatures who fought with their claws and had no protection.

A chill went through Dion when he understood there didn’t have to be any witnesses at all. In the end, his uncle would have an unlimited way to enrich himself by supplying cheap power to the sovereigns. He could use this to fund whatever activities he planned back home on their world. It was a ruthless plan and one in his uncle’s style.

“Make sure these are always under guard,” Dion told Susan. “They are far more deadly than anything you can imagine.”

She looked down at the rifles with disgust. “Is it safe to leave them here?” Susan asked.

“For now, yes. They are harmless unless you know how to make them work. If someone tries to use one with no knowledge of it, they could end up killing themselves. So I’d recommend you keep everyone away from them for the time being.”

Susan looked the rifles and ammunition over. “These things look scary. I’m not surprised they’ve been banned. Why would he bring them here?”

“Let’s just say that any one of these can kill the entire Azuroth force many times over. I think my uncle brought them across as part of his overall plan. He’s using the Azuroth to clean out the tower. Once the tower is under their control, you’ll have to allow him to distribute the weapons to the guards he brought with him. Most of the guards were soldiers and know how to use them. They’ll eliminate the Azuroth on both sides of the tower faster than you can imagine.”

She starred off into space, then returned her attention to Dion. “Don’t you find it a little strange the bus full of women writers broke down next to the tower before the second group of Azuroth appeared? They still haven’t given me an adequate reason for being in this part of the kingdom. The only decent road runs from the entrance of the pass to our tower. It was built hundreds of years ago to supply the garrison that used the tower. The only reason anyone uses that road is to visit us. We hardly ever see people up in these hills.”

“I thought they were too much of a coincidence too,” Dion agreed with her. “But I don’t get any bad feelings from these women. All of them seem to be transparent as far as their personalities go. However, I’m new to this world. What is your feeling?”

Susan, still wearing her basic red gown, put her hands on her hips and looked at the weapons again. “I don’t know what to think. They don’t seem to have much in common, which is what you might expect from some tourists. The only thing that unites them is a love of books. I’m scared to let them near the library, since it’s too close to those creatures at the top of the tower. Part of me wonders if they’re connected with the government in some fashion. The sovereign has used some creative methods to track down criminals in the past. This is just the sort of thing she would do.”

“And still no sign of the fifth element grandmaster,” Dion brought up to her. “Even if she was just an excuse my uncle could use to bring my parents and myself here, I wish she’d make an appearance. If nothing else, my uncle would no longer be able to hide his trued intentions from her after we show her this gun cache.”

“How do you not know the fifth element grandmaster is working with your uncle?” Susan asked him. Dion could see by the determined look on her face she was serious.

“It’s never happened,” Dion pointed out. “The elemental grandmasters have to be chosen with care. The other masters have to trust her with their lives. I can’t even conceive of a scenario where they’d risk someone who was capable of doing this. It would wreck their positions.”

“Too many coincidences,” Susan continued. “Too many things that don’t add up.”

Chapter 16

Dion wanted to agree with her, but he knew so little about how her world functioned. It was time to ask her a few basic questions. It was the only way he would ever find out anything about it.

“This sovereign of yours,” he asked, “Does she have a name? I’m sorry I have to ask, but the government functions differently where I come from in the other world.”

“Princess Menisha,” he was informed by Susan. “Guardian of the faiths, Lady of the Kingdom of Gwensea. She has about fifty official titles, but I doubt you want to hear them all.”

“That is quite alright,” Dion told her. “How is she chosen?”

“Chosen?” Susan looked at him with a combination of amusement and surprise. “She’s the oldest daughter of the previous Sovereign. That is the way it has always worked and always will work. Do you mean to tell me they choose your sovereigns differently where you come from?”

Dion decided not to go into the whole concept of a democratic republic to her. It was an alien concept, he could tell. Better to find out what he needed to know and leave without the creation of a footprint in this world. Perhaps the same thing had taken place in his world’s distant past. It would account for many things.

“So the story about trained dragons is true as well?” he added. “Sorry, but they don’t have them in the place I call home.”

“We don’t see too many of them around the tower,” she told him. You might see one or two patrolling the skies, but not often. The whole reason our family was able to take a lease out on his tower was the dragons. Any army which tried to attack the kingdom through the mountain pass would be spotted and vulnerable to the dragons in the air.”

“I just wanted some confirmation on that one,” Dion told her. How could she possibly understand that dragons were mythical beasts in his world? Although larger lizards once existed, no one could ever find one that belched fire.”

“I’m going to leave these men here to guard the weapons,” Susan announced to him. “If you speak the truth, your uncle intended to use them against us eventually.”

Dion didn’t tell her his fear that his uncle didn’t plan to leave any survivors. It was too much of a speculation. It was also too much of an evil concept for his uncle. But it would eliminate the need to worry about witnesses. If projectile weapons were a capital offense in this world, his uncle was prepared to risk everything by using them. Whatever he planned long-term, it had to be worth the wrath of both governments. Right now, Dion didn’t want to speculate on it.

“I need you to come back upstairs with me,” Susan told Dion. “We have to confront your uncle and demand an explanation for these weapons.”

“My guess is that he’ll deny everything,” Dion responded. “He might even try and blame me for their being in the warehouse.”

Susan ruffled around in her gown and pulled out a piece of paper. “I found this in one of the crates,” she said. She handed it to Dion. “Does this mean anything to you?”

The paper was an invoice for three crates of machine parts made out to Seth Bach’s company. The delivery address was the mall in Ohio and the shipper was some company in Germany. Dion suspected the German company would turn out to be a fake address or a firm that specialized in discreet customers. The dimensions of the crates matched the ones on the invoices.

“It’s an order for three crates of machine parts,” Dion told her. “Appears to be the method they used to get them past the customs inspector.”

“He’ll deny it was sent to him, of course,” Susan spoke up. So far, the household servants hadn’t moved one bit from the crates.

“Not too easy to do. The shipment address is the shopping mall he owns in our world. Plus, the sizes of the crates match the ones over there. Any investigator would conclude the paperwork was written just to hide the true nature of what he was importing.”

Another clap of thunder echoed through the warehouse. Dion looked around it and noticed the entrance to the lion’s cage on the far end. The eyes of the big predator stared out at him and he heard the beast make a low growl. Maybe they could release it if Queen Lilith and her minions became more of a threat. The sisters seemed to have it under control. However, a lion was still a wild animal and unpredictable.

“Don’t move from these crates,” Susan told the servants. “We’ll be back. If you are needed upstairs, close them up and push them back to the racks.”

“What if we need to use the bathroom?” one of the men asked.

“One at a time. One man can use it while the other keeps these weapons under watch.”

Dion and Susan took their time going up the stairs. Dion felt the musty cold and damp air inside the stairwell. It was worse at the bottom of the tower. It must be due to the dampness rising from the flooded-out landscape. He prayed the foundation of the tower would withstand the constant barrage of rain. If this was the first time a storm lasted so long in memory, had one ever been so bad before? This tower was massive, he could think of no equivalent one back in his world. Most of the watchtowers in on Earth were much smaller and built less than five hundred years ago. Most were abandoned when their reason to be there vanished. A watchtower wasn’t needed when you had aerial reconnaissance. As it stood by itself, such a tower became target practice for cannons and guided missiles.

They emerged into the great hall to discover her sisters arguing with his uncle. His parents were sitting further away than the last time and pretended not to take part in the conversation.

“It was your idea to open the gate,” Kiley pointed out to Seth Bach. “You were the one who appeared out of nowhere and had this fantastic plan which would solve our financial problems. Now we have to figure out what to do about those things in the tower over us. I did not inherit this position just to watch the tower fall into ruin. If the sovereign finds out what happened, she’ll have us all removed and the tower placed under her direct control again.”

“I swear,” his uncle sent back, “that I had no knowledge as what was to happen. They caught me off guard just as everyone else. Had I advance warning what was to happen, I never would’ve gone through with it.”

“I don’t know about that, Mr. Bach,” Susan said, who had emerged from the shadows with Dion. “I think you may have planned this invasion all along.” Her eyes of fire contrasted with the rest of her, an effect that Dion hadn’t noticed before.

“That is absurd,” Dion’s uncle shouted to her as he spun around. “Why would I sabotage my own process? What possible reason could I have for doing such a thing?” Dion’s uncle sat straight in the chair he occupied at the table, the picture of righteous indignation.

“Perhaps you can tell, us,” she replied. Susan stopped a body length in front of him and towered over the man. “I just found three crates we didn’t know about in the first level warehouse. Do I need to tell my sisters what were in those crates?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about!”

“Talk to us,” Kiley Mahen demanded. Dion watched her eyes flush red too.

“The servants found three crates the other day which were not on the inventory list of the first level warehouse. They had me come down and look at them when just now when the crates were opened because they wanted one of us to have a look. I didn’t recognize what was in them, so I had his nephew brought down to see them. Dion tells me those crates contained projectile weapons, deadly enough to kill everyone in the tower, both human and otherwise. Isn’t that right, Dion?”

“More than enough to do it once,” Dion agreed. “There is enough ammunition down there to kill everyone in the tower several times over.”

Her sisters were livid. “Projectile weapons in our tower?” Kiley gasped.

“If the sovereign ever finds out,” Loris managed to speak, “we’ll lose everything and be turned out in the streets.”

“Only if she doesn’t have the three of us executed,” Susan added. “It is a capital offense to own one of those things.”

“Lock him up!” Kiley Mahen yelled to a few of her people who stood near the table. “Take him down to the spare room next to Draco’s pen! I will figure out what to do with Mr. Bach later.”

“You have no proof!” Dion’s uncle was pleading as three of the tower retainers hauled him down the stairs.

“Dion thinks he planned on using Queen Lilith to clear us out of the tower,” Susan Mahen explained to her sisters.

Kiley looked puzzled. “Why would he do that?” The air took a slow chill, as the temperature in the great hall seemed to lessen by a few degrees.

“He would reveal the weapons when the Azuroth were about to break through,” Dion explained. “You would have no choice but to allow him to use them against the invaders. He has people in this tower who are experienced with them. I’ve even heard them complain about their lack of weapons. Once they had their hands on them, the Azuroth, and their queen, would be mowed down faster than grass under a blade. Sure, you would have had to allow him to use deadly and banned weapons to do the job, but all of you would still be alive. You would also be forced to let him have his way with the tower or risk discovery by your sovereign.” He didn’t mention his fear that all of them could easily be eliminated as witnesses by one burst of those automatic rifles.

“What are we going to do with those weapons?” Loris questioned. “What happens if they are ever discovered here?”

“You can send them back with us,” Dion explained to her. “Or bury them some place. I’d recommend sending them back so there is nothing to show they were every here.”

“What about the guards who are holding the Azuroth back?” Kiley brought up. “Will they still listen to us if they know their employer is being held in the warehouse?”

“Who says we have to tell them anything?” Susan offered. “Besides, they are busy with the hordes. None of them can run out of here, where would they go in this storm?” Another flash of lighting punctuated her statement.

“What about reopening the gate?” Susan asked. “Can we do that? It might be possible to get the Azuroth back into the abyss if we open up the gated to it. Do we have the means to do it?”

As they talked, Dion turned and looked at the group of women who’d arrived on the bus. All of them were in the far part of the great hall in the middle of several conversations. From what he could hear, it was all about books. They were in danger both within and without. Didn’t their situation register to these women? At least a few of them were aware of the threat from the invaders over them. Whey didn’t it seem to concern the rest? What was he missing in this picture?

Dion heard a cry next to the open elevator shaft and saw one of the servants listening in to the speaking tube, which projected from the wall near it. He called out an acknowledgement into the tube and ran to the table where the sisters were still trying to figure out what to do about the latest revelation.

“Ma’am’s,” he began respectfully, although Dion thought this was an odd title to use, “those things have broken down the door to the sauna. They’re on the move down to our level.” As soon as he finished another clap of thunder rocked the great hall.

“We have to do something now,” Kiley said as she leaped up from the table. “Have the men get our armor out of the warehouse and have it brought up here. This is about to get bloody.”

“They’ve stopped them for the time being,” the servant explained. “The guard I talked with said the creatures halted at the stairwell to the kitchen. I don’t know how they did it, but it’s worked for the moment.”

“Go up and check on the situation,” she instructed him. “I’ll have the rest of the men bring out our armor and weapons.”

Loris stood up from the table as well and Dion could sense the mood change inside the hall. All three women went from bored aristocrats to responsible guardians of the tower. It hadn’t occurred to him they might have martial training as part of their background. It would make sense, as only their particular group of people would have the time to engage in the training needed to use edged weapons. The tower might not have any military value, but the family who leased it was still expected to defend it, and the people under them, whenever they had to do it.

And right now, they were needed.

Chapter 17

“I’ll go upstairs with him,” Dion volunteered. “I still have two sets of elementals I can use. I’d hate to deploy them right now, but I will if the Azuroth break through again.” He didn’t think the fire salamanders would have much trouble pushing them back to the top of the tower if he had to use them.

As Dion hurried away from the concerned looks of his parents, he ran after the steward who was headed up the stair well. The man was much older than Dion, definitely in his forties, although age patterns were something else he knew nothing about in this world.

“Right behind you!” Dion called to the man as he followed him up the stairs. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Miles,” he told him. “You’re the one they call Dion?”

“Correct. You’ve been around this tower for a long time?”

“All my life. It might not be the best job in the world, but the family treated me fairly and the pay is good. I’m worried the sisters are up against something they can’t handle.”

Dion could hear the air wheeze through the man’s mouth. He was a little over-weight and the stairs were hard on them both. It was a good thing they didn’t have to up the top of the tower.

They were about to step out on the sixth level, the kitchen, when they heard a clanging sound behind them. Since he had no idea what caused it, Dion started to summon one of the elementals. In this enclosed space, the fire salamanders would not be a good idea. This left the water nymphs, although there might be a problem in using them too. Dion reached out and found the location of the elementals he needed in the other world. Suddenly, the source of the noise became visible to Miles and himself.

It was Kiley Mahen in a full suit of body armor. It had to be her because the armor was coated in black.

She walked past them, a short spear in one hand a small round shield slung from the other arm. Dion noted the shield had a slight curve in it to deflect any weapons used against it. They stopped to allow her the opportunity to walk past in her full metal plate.

“They got me ready just in time,” she told them as she lumbered past. “Time to do a little demon hunting. I hope their blood cleans up better than the last bunch did.”

The armor was fitted to her and allowed Kiley to move in any direction she wanted without fear of a gap. She had a helm strapped to her head, which rotated inside a bevor. It protected her neck from any thrusts or slashes. Dion didn’t see the least bit of chainmail on her. Kiley moved with the armor in place as if it was a second layer of skin. It was obvious to Dion she’s spent plenty of time training inside the armor.

They stepped out from behind her to see a scene of complete abandon.

The guards were not as in control of this floor as they had pretended to be. The door on the other side was closed, but the Azuroth on the other side of it were busy. Dion watched as the guards attempted to reinforce the door, with hammers and nails busy pounding more boards in place. Most of the guards were from his uncle’s former mall security officers, but there were plenty of men with them attached to the tower.

“Give me a report,” Kiley, her voice muffled by the helm. “I need to know what is happening.”

They broke through a few minutes ago,” one of the guards said. “We heard them start up on the door, but knew it was better prepared by those little men Dion brought in to help. When it started to go, we grabbed what we could and ran down here. We started securing the doors leading down on the levels above us even before they broke through. But I don’t know how much longer we can hold them. Is that a real suit of armor?”

“It was the last time I checked,” Kiley Mahen responded. “And this is a real sharp spear. What happened to the pikes you were supposed to have on standby?”

“Left them two levels up. When they broke through, we had to make a run for it.”

Kiley moved to the center of the room with her shield now in the fist of her left hand. She cocked the spear under her right arm and stood ready at the door. The guards began to move away to give her some clearance.

“I don’t see how you’re going to take all of them out, ma’am,” one of the guards said to her. “Even if you skewer the first one out of the stairwell, they’ll be plenty more behind it.”

“I start turning them into targets and they’ll reconsider coming through,” she explained. “Once they see the first few go down, the rest will reconsider.”

“What happens if they decide to gang up on you?” another one of the guards asked. By now, all of them were gathered to the stairwell, which led downward. Since the warehouse took up levels one and two and the great hall the next two levels, it means a mad rush to the kitchen and laundry area.

“I doubt they have enough brainpower to consider it,” she told them.

Dion watched the lighting from the outside reflect of the black sheen on the armor. Good thing Kiley wasn’t outside right now or she would turn into a human lightening rod.

“I think we are about to find out one way or another,” Dion commented as the door began to heave open.

Once again, the large door pushed toward them, the hasty barricades breaking under the combined thrusts from the other side. This time the door separated from its hinges and fell forward as it was burst loose from the frame. When it hit the floor, the forms of a packed group of Azuroth were seen from the stairwell entrance.

It was at that moment Dion remembered the tower was built to defend itself against a force from the outside. Not only did Queen Lilith have the high ground, but she and her minions had an advantage in the way the tower was built.

The furry demoniod creatures stopped when they saw the figure in armor that faced them in the middle of the floor. Kiley Mahen thrusted at them with her spear. She wanted to show the creatures she knew how to use it. The stood there and looked at her in confusion until one of them figured out what to do.

One of the furry, clawed Azuroth reached down to the floor and picked up a section of a chair leg. It flung it at her and the section of wood connected with her helm. Kiley wobbled a bit, but managed to keep her ground. She was still a credible threat to her opponents and they knew it.

One of the other Azuroths picked up a chunk of wood from the floor and through it at Kiley. She neatly skewered it with her spear, and then chucked it to the floor. Kiley, her armor shined to a mirror finish, returned to her offensive pose and pointed the spear tip at the mob of furry creatures that faced her. Her opponents seem to hesitate and think about what they were up against.

Dion could feel the tension in the room. The guards didn’t seem to know if they should back her up or run down the stairs behind them. There didn’t seem to be too many options on what to do at that very minute. So long as Kiley stood there with the spear, none of the demoniods would try to run past her. But this could change at any minute.

They were inside a kitchen. The door to the stairwell which had fallen to the floor, opened to a food preparation area with large table and racks next to it. Dion saw an entire board full of knives they could use if the creatures tried to charge them at once. Right now, they were held back by one woman in armor who wielded a spear and shield.

The next object thrown at her was a pot from the floor. The pot had fallen from the wall while the Azuroth were in the process of breaking down the door. One of the creatures picked it up and sent it at Kiley, who neatly deflected it back at them with her shield.

Dion became concerned when he noticed one of the stoves, which vented to the outside. It still had a fire burning inside it. He couldn’t tell from this range what provided the fuel. It might be gas or wood. His main concern was the stove fire could spread if this conflict got out of control. Right now, that was a very real possibility.

The air filled with flying objects as the Azuroth decided no single one of them had the ability to take out the armored figure that faced them. Kiley blocked masonry, pots, wood, ceramic and anything else the demons could hurl in her direction. If not for the armor, she would have been pulverized by the objects they sent across the room. The guards were forced to retreat far back the stairwell as the missiles bounced off everything in the kitchen.

Dion thought she had created a stalemate until a large block slammed into the side of her helmet. Kiley wobbled again, but managed to hold her composure. The demons sent more chunks of stone at her, each one pulled from what came loose from the doorframe. Two more blocks struck her at the same time and she began to go over.

At the same time, a chunk of wood smashed into a lit stove, causing it to burst into flames. The demons stopped when they saw the flames and retreated when the fire began to spread across the floor. In addition to heights, they didn’t like fire either.

“We need to get her out of there!” Miles yelled to the right of Dion.

Kiley was down on her knees. She’s dropped the small round shield, but stayed erect with the spear as a support. From the other side of the fire, more rocks were tossed at her by the creatures. They might not like the flames, but were determined to take control of the tower. Above the flames, they were doomed, should the fire spread upward. The only way to safety was through the armored woman who carried the spear. It wouldn’t take long for them to charge.

Miles lunged out to the figure of Kiley Mahen in the middle of the kitchen floor. Blood was flowing from her helmet down to the armor that protected her shoulders. The only thing that stopped him from running to her side was Dion’s hand. He grabbed Miles by the collar and pulled him back to the where they stood.

“Don’t!” Dion barked at him. “You’ll be killed for sure. The only thing keeping her alive out there is the armor.”

The fire began to spill smoke into the kitchen. This level of the tower had some ventilation, but not enough to allow the black smoke to leave the room they were inside. Dion knew there was only one thing he could do, even if it meant using another one of his elemental reserves.

There was a swirling in the room and six of the water nymphs appeared in front of them. They seemed surprised and were still in their swim team tracksuits. Dion saw Cynae from the days before turn to his direction. He could tell she didn’t like relocating to a burning tower, but he desperately needed her and the other water nymph elementals help.

“What is it this time?” she sighed to him.

“Protect the woman in the armor,” he told her. “Put out the fire. And get those things back up to the stairs. All the way to the top if you can manage it.”

“Can we return after that’s done or will you need more help?” Cynae asked him, her blond hair shimmering in the light.

“Just do it and go!” he ordered her.

There was a loud concussion as the windows of the kitchen level blew open. Most of the tower windows were small, since a window was a possible target for an arrow launched from the ground when the tower was built a thousand years ago. However, the family who leased it from the kingdom rebuilt the kitchen level to make it function better. This included larger windows near the stoves. The sound Dion heard was the glass blowing inside from a vast wave of water, which appeared inside the tower.

When the windows blew inside, more water, all generated from the storm, flowed into the tower and extinguished the fires. The nymphs had the water under control and used it to push the Azuroth back to the door. Huge waves battered against them as they howled in pain. Kiley Mahen was still on the floor, her armor soaked by the rain that poured into the kitchen level.

This time when Miles ran out to her, Dion didn’t stop him. The Azuroth were under assault by one wave of water after another which materialized out of the center of the room. He pulled her back, even though she was protesting all the way.

“I haven’t gacked a single one of them!” she yelled. “Let go of me, Miles! As regent of the tower I order you to release me right now.”

“As your trusted employee,” Miles told her while her armor rang across the floor, “I don’t have to listen to you. You can fire me later, but I won’t stand here and watch you bleed to death.” The blood flowed freely from the inside of her helmet. The Azuroth had struck her with combined force the last time.

Two more guards helped Miles with her when she reached the stairs. They helped him take Kiley down to the great hall. Rudy was down there and had enough medical training to take care of her until they could get Kiley better help.

Dion saw the spear in the middle of the floor and ran to grab it. He didn’t have a clue on how to use one, but it would give the Azuroth second thoughts if they tried to get through the waterfalls, which pounded them.

He looked up once the spear was in his hands and saw no signs of the furry creatures. The intense pressure of the water from the nymphs, which had equaled a combination of fire hoses, sent them back up into the tower. For the moment, they were gone.

However, this allowed their queen to emerge from the shadows and into the fray.

She had chalk white skin, black hair and eyes to match. Queen Lilith stood at the doorframe vacated by the Azuroth and filled it. She was a big woman, if woman could be used for her. In each hand was a weapon and she wore a leather scale armor on her body. She looked starved, more of a walking dead person than anything else. Dion knew it was this time circle’s approximation of her true form. The real appearance of Queen Lilith could not be shown on in this world without changing the fundamental state of matter, so what he saw was the sum of his, and everyone else’s, fear.

He didn’t want to use the fire elementals. They were hard to control and could cremate anything in range. He didn’t know how she would respond to fire salamanders, but he doubted they alone could stop her. Queen Lilith flexed her arms and starred down at Dion. She didn’t say a word because she didn’t have to say anything.

A rock from behind him sailed across the room and struck her. Dion turned around and saw one of the guards holding some blocks of masonry. He tried to warn him, but he sent two more stones at her, which struck seconds later.

For a few seconds they appeared to do nothing. The stones bounced away and landed to the sides of the walls of the tower. Queen Lilith smiled, which was terrifying enough. Dion knew something was about to happen.

“Put that down!” Dion yelled as another guard raised a stone. “We don’t know if it does anything and you’ll just make her mad.”

Queen Lilith took one of her weapons she carried, a scythe, and cut a chunk out of what remained of the doorframe. He folded her arms around herself and concentrated.

The next second she increased in size. Dion watched in horror as she grew another six inches. And then he realized something which had he should have known from the beginning.

“Don’t throw anything at her!” he yelled to the guards. “It only makes her stronger. She absorbs the energy from any strike and uses it grow bigger.”

“What do we do?” one of the other guards asked him, the fear visible in his eyes.

“Get out of here,” Dion said as he began to push everyone to the stairs. “Now!”

Chapter 18

Almost a minute later, Dion and all the guards were on the other side of the door to the stairwell. They shut and locked it, although it probably wouldn’t slow down what was on the other side. Queen Lilith stood and watched them in their retreat as they managed to get out of the kitchen level. Why did she have to hurry? There was no place else for them to go.

Minutes later, they tumbled into the great hall. The guest room level was still between the great hall and the kitchen, but it wouldn’t slow Queen Lilith and her horde down much. The poured into the hall, Dion still holding the spear he’d retrieved.

“What happened?” his mother asked as she ran up to him. “Did you have to summon more elementals?”

“Yes I did,” Dion responded, panting from the run down the tower. “I had to use the water nymphs and this means I only have one set of elementals left. Fire. Or at least until the Aether Elemental Grandmaster finally shows up. But what is worse, I saw Queen Lilith up there.”

“What’s she like?” his mother asked.

Dion described her while the guards tried to recover. He briefly described their encounter with her.

“She absorbs blows,” he told his mother. “Every time you try and strike her, it only makes her stronger. I saw her grow six inches just from three rocks that struck her.”

“What are you going to do about her?”

“Not much I can do until the grandmaster arrives. We have to wait until then.”

“Why would she get taller every time she’s struck by something?” his mother asked him.

“She absorbs offensive energy and uses it,” Dion explained. “It’s one of the signs something comes from the abyss. Normal rules of physics no longer apply to them. They can bend the fundamental matter of the universe around to their own needs. I know it happen before, just not in the last few years.”

“I don’t recall anything like this ever taking place,” his father told him. “Are you talking when we were back in California?”

“One of the nursemaids told me a story,” he continued. “This was long before my real father’s wife tried to have me killed. But I do remember it well. She told me about a huge battle which raged between an Olympian and a monster. It lasted for thousands of years. The monster couldn’t be killed by ordinary weapons. Every time the Olympian tried to destroy the monster, more monsters were created by the blood, which spilled on the ground. The Olympian came up with a way to send it back to the abyss. I can’t remember how it got rid of the monster, but that is the story she told me.”

“And you think this Queen Lilith works the same way,” his father concluded.

“It’s the only explanation I have,” Dion told him. “We can’t mount a full assault on Queen Lilith without her becoming too powerful.”

“Unless….” Dion said as he began to fade off in thought. His parents waited to hear what he had to say.

As he tried to figure out a new plan of action, the servants and guards moved the chairs and tables from the great hall to the stairwell to block the entrance. The secured the door again, but it had failed to stop the Azuroth from penetrating lower and there was no guarantee it stop them this time. The storm was still in progress outside, so at least they had it to keep the Azuroth from leaping down the tower and joining forces with the other group outside it.

There was no possibility of communication with the kingdom in this storm. The weather made the messenger bats useless and the tower didn’t have the new radio equipment that would have made it possible to contact the nearest city.

“Why did my uncle stockpile the rifles downstairs if he knew they would be of no use against Queen Lilith?” Dion finally left his trance and spoke. “He could’ve used them at will against the Azuroth or anyone else in the tower, but they would’ve been useless against her. Firing a fully automatic weapon at Queen Lilith would only y make her stronger than anyone could imagine.”

‘Maybe he didn’t know what she could do,” his father suggested. “I could see my brother striking all kinds of deals with creatures who intended to turn on him later.”

“He had another use for those guns,” Dion concluded. “Once Queen Lilith secured the tower, he could use it as a base of operations. The guns were for the advance guard of his troops. The kingdoms don’t use projectile weapons; they would be defenseless against them. Once his base was secure, he had some way to send her and the Azuroth somewhere else and consolidate his rule here.”

Dion starred off into space and ignored the chaos around him. “I should have seen this, but I didn’t.”

Kiley Mahen was recovered to some extent. Rudy removed her helmet the moment she was brought in by the guards and examined the wound. He managed to get a clean bandage over her head and checked her vital signs. After a few minutes, she came around and called for her sisters.

Dion noted her sisters had changed into armor, which matched the color of the clothes she wore. Loris was decked out in golden body armor and Susan had on armor that was green. Their armor looked clean and free from any kind of scratches. This told Dion the armor had seen little use. If it had experience combat, the armor would have borne the signs of repair and resurfacing. The three women were experienced in theoretical combat, but didn’t seem to have any actual experience. It didn’t surprise him since the tower was remote and hadn’t been threatened in hundreds of years.

“We have to get the people out of here,” she told her sisters. “That barricade won’t hold them very long. None of them has held Queen Lilith back so far. If they start a determined push to get control of the entire tower, we’ll be the only thing in their way.”

“So far,” Susan Mahen spoke up, “we are still in control of the tower.”

“Only because we have the bottom levels,” Loris pointed out. She seemed to find her armor comfortable and carried an axe in her left hand. “Once they push down here, we’ll have to make a run for it.”

“Can we get to the bus?” Kiley said to them. “There’s not enough room in it for everyone, but it might be able to take people back and forth to the gate while we hold off the Azuroth.”

“You forget there are more Azuroth out there,” Susan said to her. “You’ll have to do something about them.”

“They seem afraid of the storm,” Kiley brought up. “They retreated because of the lighting strikes.”

“What do you think will happen to us if we walk outside dressed in this fashion?” Susan said as she spread her arms wide so everyone could see the plater armor on her. “We'll all be fried if any lightning strikes near us.”

“I still have on elemental in reserve I haven’t used,” Dion called to them from ten yards away. He’d listened to their conversation and decided it was time to let them know. “I’ll have the aether power that I can use against them too when the elemental grandmaster arrives as well. But I know they’ll respond to fire. Every living thing freezes in terror when faced with it.”

The moment after Dion said the words, the barricade assembled by the servants and guards exploded in a shower of wood and splinters. Something very big struck it from the other side and boards flew through the air. The guards working to secure it were tossed back and slid across the wooden floor of the great hall.

The servants ushered the women from the bus down the stairs to the warehouse below. They all went down to the next level without showing any concern. It seemed they’d expected it to happen for some reason.

Kiley and her sisters slapped on their helms and took up their weapons. Even with little combat experience, their parents had made certain they would know what to do when the time came. Susan picked up the iron mace from the floor and leaned it on her shoulder, waiting for what would come next. Her sister Loris did a few practice swipes through the air with the axe and joined the others in formation, as they stood ready against whatever came through the entrance. They formed a reverse triangle with Susan behind her two siblings.

“Let me handle this!” Dion said to them, as he pushed his way out front. He knew there was still one elemental he could summon and it might buy them all the time they needed.

Dion closed his eyes and began to focus. In the world he’d left behind, he found the elemental he needed to bring over to this side. It would only take a few minutes and he knew it was something he could manipulate. It was also the last ability he could use.

The fire salamanders appeared at the entrance to the great hall. This time they didn’t have their human form. They appeared in their natural state as living tongues of flame, about six feet in height. Dion watched as the floor began to smoke. He didn’t have any options and the salamanders could manifest their powers with minimal damage to the tower if they worked fast enough. The pillars of fire turned around and looked at the young man who’d summoned them. Through the fire, Dion could see the shape of eyes on him and knew they were awaiting his command. He could only give these elementals one order. Once executed, they would return to their former time circle.

“Creatures from the abyss are trying to get at me,” he told them. “They are at that door. Stop them and limit the damage to the background.”

The wooden barricades fell apart and the Azuroth poured through the opening. They stopped when the flame barriers appeared in front of them. The furry creatures froze in terror as the wall of fire began to advance in their direction. They backed up and jammed into the stairwell, smoke filling the great hall.

The stones around the entrance to the stairwell, which led up to, the next level began to heat up from the salamander’s gaze. The Azuroth panicked and trampled over each other as they ran back up the stairs. Some of them fled with burning fur and pushed their way back. The salamanders chased them back upstairs in the form of a whirlwind that sent them screaming in retreat. Dion watched as the fiery cloud blew through a bust window on a level above them and vanished into the sky, a light to the sky in the storm that still raged outside.

“That was amazing,” Kiley Mahen gasped as the sounds of the Azuroth horde vanished upstairs. “You scared them good.”

“It won’t last,” Dion told her. “They’ll figure out the fire wall is gone and venture back down sooner or later. If they don’t want to come down, their leader will make them do it. They’ll be back; you can rest assured of it. I’d post sentries at the stairwell.”

While they debated what to do next, one of the guards appeared out of the stairwell, which led down to the warehouse, with someone Dion hadn’t seen yet. She was an older woman dressed in a formal tunic, similar to the ones worn by the retainers in the tower. The guard had a look of relief on his face when he walked her to the sisters. They still had their helms on and were faced-off against the door.

“She’s back!” he announced. “Do you want me to inform the older Mr. Bach? Where did he go?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Kiley Mahen stated through her helm. She pulled it off as her sisters did the same and placed them on the floor.

“Now that you’re here,” she said to the new women, “I hope this mess can be cleaned up and we can get on with what we were doing before it started.”

Kiley turned to Dion. “I want you to meet someone we’ve all been waiting for,” she said to him. “This is the fifth element grandmaster. You know, the one we were telling you about. The woman who told us you needed to be here so she could authorize your full use of the aether element and get these beasts out of our tower.”

“Not just in the tower,” the grandmaster told them, “but outside it as well. I had to run through a bunch of them on the other side of your moat. There’s a bus out there too. Does it belong to the women I passed by downstairs?”

“Yes it does,” Kiley confirmed. “They’re a travel group of some kind that showed up a few hours ago. You have no idea what a mess it’s been this evening. This young man made an appearance and Queen Lilith went crazy with her followers. Right now, they control everything above this level on the tower. I’m glad you’re back and can get rid of them. Did you find the help you were supposed to bring back to the tower?”

“There is no help out there at all,” she told her. “I didn’t even make it to the larger towns before I turned around and came back. What I saw outside told me all that I needed to understand. This place doesn’t function with the four elemental forces like my own time circle. There are elementals here, but they don’t line up the same way. And too much energy is wasted when you bring them across.”

“I’ve already found that out,” Dion told her. “But what about the fifth element, the aether? Isn’t that one the basis of the power of all other elements? Shouldn’t you be able to work it on this world?”

“Yes,” she told him,” it is one you can manipulate on this time circle. But you and I are not of this world. Our powers are still limited here. I can do one thing before I have to leave and that is to grant you full aether elemental powers. Do you accept this responsibility?”

Dion turned and looked at the doorframe around the stairwell where the Azuroth had tried to assault the great hall. Beneath him were a lot of concerned people and some who were very scared. The Mahen sisters looked frightening enough in their armor, but they lacked battle experience. If he didn’t accept the responsibility of the fifth element, everyone in this tower could end up dead. Including his parents. They might be his foster parents, but they’d done their best to care for him. He couldn’t let them down.

“I accept it,” he told her.

“We have to make this quick,” she said to him. “Get on your knees and take my hand.” As she spoke, they could hear noises of something coming down the stairwell.

Dion went down before her and took her thin hand. He couldn’t remember what job she had in the other world, but it wasn’t glamorous. None of the elemental grandmasters had careers outside their elemental work that would impress anyone. These were the hands of someone who had pushed keys and held phones for years. Yet, they possessed a strength that few people could understand.

“Do you promise to use the power of the aether for justice?” she asked him.

“I do,” Dion responded.

“It’s done,” she said. “Now get up off the floor, I said we didn’t have much time.”

Dion stood up and looked down at the wooden floor. He could see the scorch marks where the fire salamander elementals had stood. There was still smoke left in the hall from their appearance. He was able to get them out before they set the entire tower on fire, which was always a problem when fire elementals were used.

He saw the small rolling balls, which indicated the presence of aether elementals. These were the basic form they took, he knew. If he activated them, they would take another. They’d been attracted to him from the beginning, now they were streaming into the room, iron filings to his magnetism. Jane Phologostron, the grandmaster, was right; this place was full of the aether elementals. Too full for him to effectively use them.

“You need to know one more thing,” the grandmaster told him. “I have a set of words you will need to activate her.”

“Activate what?” Dion asked. This was too cryptic, why couldn’t she get to the point?

“Decemius,” she explained.

“I can remember those words.”

“Those aren’t words, it's who you need to summon.”

“Could you please explain to me what this is all about?” Dion demanded.

“I wish I had the time,” the grandmaster apologized. “But I have to go. Now remember what I’m going to tell you.” She grabbed him by the shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

“I can remember the phrase,” he said. “What’s it for?”

“You’ll know. It only works once and you’ll need to summon her to get rid of Queen Lilith. The Azuroth aren’t the problem, she is.”

“Wait a minute,” Dion yelled as she started to leave, “I thought the fifth elemental powers would take care of her. Isn’t that why my uncle claimed he needed me here?”

“Guess he lied about that too,” She told him while vanishing down the stairwell to the lower level. “Sorry, gotta run. See you back in our own time. Hey! Watch the other door!”

Chapter 19

Dion turned his attention from the grandmaster to the other stairwell. It was filled with the furry Azuroth creatures again. This time the Mahen sisters were caught without their helms in place. As the things began to mass for a charge, they strapped the helms on and grabbed their weapons. Everyone else was downstairs.

Dion turned back to the other stairwell, but the grandmaster was gone. It was simply him and the sisters versus whatever was about to come through the stairwell entrance.

Once again, the Azuroth hordes poured through the door, with no fire salamanders to send them into retreat this time. Dion looked at the floor with all the small black spheres rolling around, invisible to everyone in the room except him. He closed his eyes and felt the energy from the aether flow through him and to the elementals. They were excited over their opportunity to be of service.

His order was simple. “Prevent the furry ones from taking control of the tower.”

Seconds before the Azuroth made contact with the sisters, the room filled with an equally large horde of winged sphinxes. As Dion suspected, they took the next basic form for their elemental class. Once again, the Azuroth halted their advance as they faced an equal number of large creatures with human faces, bodies of lions and wings of birds. This was not the lethal version of the sphinx, but they still could inflict a lot of damage on the Azuroth.

There had to be at least twenty black sphinxes in the great hall and twice the number of Azuroth. For a few brief seconds both sides were frozen as they faced off at each other. The furry creatures that came with Queen Lilith had some idea of what they confronted. The sphinxes knew exactly what they were up against.

The Mahen sisters, still encased in their body armor, stepped back from the spear point of the attack and moved to one side of the room. It wasn’t too hard for them to realize they would be in the way. Dion had stayed in his original position and watched the little black spheres on the ground metamorph into large sphinxes. Each one of the winged creatures where the size of an attack dog, but it was hard to tell them apart. Dion could hear the steady crackling of the fire in the fireplace as a silence descended over the great hall. He doubted a battle of this nature had ever been fought in the tower. It was only a thought because he knew so little about the history of this world. Right now, he would’ve been satisfied with one of Bernice’s dragons for support.

He couldn’t see Queen Lilith behind the Azuroth creatures. Dion suspected she would wait until the battle died down before she made her appearance. He had no understanding of how she fitted into what was inside the abyss or why she wanted out so desperately. He did know she had absolute control over the Azuroth and it was all he cared about at the present.

Both sides faced off and didn’t move until a clap of thunder broke the stalemate.

Four of the furry demons rushed the initial line of the sphinxes and collided with their opposite numbers on the other side. Two of the winged elementals were sent sprawling across the floor, while two more smacked the Azuroth hard after they ripped through the front lines. One sphinx grabbed an Azuroth and flew up the roof of the great hall, hurling the furry creature down at the front lines of its brethren.

The next thing Dion knew, the entire great hall turned into a massive rumble between furry demoniods and aether elementals. Tables flew through the air and the floor shook from the repeated slams of each side against it. The Azuroth made a roar when they fought, but the sphinxes unleashed a high pitch wail, similar to a cat on the prowl.

The Mahen sisters used their shields to block flying debris as it was hurled across the room. This time Kiley Mahen was ready when part of a table was thrown at her. Susan and Loris used their small shields to check chunks of wood, stone and even Azuroth, as they were sent airborne across the great hall.

Dion tried to back out of the way while two sphinxes grabbed an Azuroth and pulled it through the air. However, he was close to them when they swung their furred adversary in a loop. The Azuroth connected with him and Dion was thrown against the wall. His head connected with one of the blocks and all he could see was a curtain of light.

Susan Mahen saw Dion strike the wall and pushed her way through the massive fight between the sphinxes and Azuroth. She managed to dodge a chair leg as it was propelled through the hall. She reached Dion seconds after he hit the floor. With her shield in one hand, she repelled every interference attempt as she drug Dion across the floor back to the protective cover of her sisters.

“Is he okay?” Loris asked Susan as she brought him over to her side of the great hall. Over them, a wall hanging swung in the air after an Azuroth collided with it.

“He’s moving,” Susan said as she shoved a sphinx back into the middle of the room with her shield. An Azuroth had knocked it in their direction.

“We need to get him downstairs,” Kylie ordered. “He may have hurt his head against the wall. I’ll have Rudy take a look at him. Watch my back as I make for the stairwell.” It was located ten feet from where they stood.

The three women, while pulling Dion on the ground, made for the stairwell as the fight raged in the great hall. The furnishings were smashed to kindling as the sphinxes would fly down to the floor, grab something and use it as an aerial bomb against the Azuroth ranks. Because of the chaos, neither side paid the sisters and Dion the least bit of attention.

When they reached the stairs, the three women were confronted by the form of Dion’s mother, who put her hand to her mouth when she saw the blood flowing from his head.

“Get him downstairs,” Kiley ordered her youngest sister. “Help his mother take him down the stairwell. “Well keep the madness from going any lower.”

Dion saw it all through a sick haze of pain. His head still vibrated from the collision with the stone blocks on the wall. He felt something sticky flow from his head. All he could see as they took him down the stairs was figures of elementals bashing it out with their furry opponents. He prayed Queen Lilith stayed out of the fray for now, because any violence directed against her would only help the creature from the abyss.

Once down in the warehouse, Rudy quickly checked his vital signs over and bandaged Dion’s head. He sat Dion in a chair and waved a hand to check his response. Rudy seemed satisfied for the time being and gave Dion something to drink.

In the far end of the warehouse ground level, Dion could see the ten women with the writing club stand near the lion’s gate and comment on the big cat. Draco seemed to like the attention and let them pet his head through the bars. Dion wanted to warn them away, but his own head hurt too much.

He knew the sphinx elementals wouldn’t stop fighting the Azuroth until he either gave them the order or the Azuroth quit their attempt to take control of the great hall. He needed to get up there and check on the progress of the fight. If Queen Lilith decided to intervene, the entire tower could collapse. All it would take would be for the sphinxes to concentrate their assault on her; she would absorb the energy from it and begin to grow again. Unless she had some way to regulate the growth, she would eventually cause part of the tower wall to rupture when it could no longer contain her size.

Dion stood up and heard the sound of objects flying across the floor above him. He could hear the sound of glass breaking and both sides howling at each other. He needed to get back up there.

“Dion!” his mother, who stood next to him, yelled. “You need to stay put. We don’t know what kind of injury you sustained up there.”

“I’m fine, mother,” he told her. “My head hurts but I need to get up there and prevent the tower from being destroyed. The entire place could collapse if they keep it up and…do you hear something?”

“I hear that commotion upstairs,” she told him.

“No,” he replied. “I hear the fight, but I don’t hear the storm. Is it over?”

Dion wobbled over to the set of double doors, which protected the entrance to the tower, and opened the peephole. He looked out and saw the stars and, best of all, no rain, thunder, or lighting arcing across the sky. For the first time in months, the storm ceased its assault on the landscape. There had to be a reason for this to happen.

He needed to get everyone outside the tower while they still had the opportunity. Outside the tower, with the moat still between them, they might have a chance to escape the chaos on the inside. He looked at the ground on the other side of the moat and saw the bus the women took to get here. It was huge, big enough to get everyone in it and head for the time circle gate in the rock walls. He turned and looked at the small room where his uncle was locked up. Seth Bach still had the sigil that would unlock the gate and let them all through. It wasn’t the best plan he could come up with at the moment, but it was the only one he had.

Dion saw Miles who stood by the stairwell and went up to him. “You have to come with me,” he told him. “We need to open up the doors to the tower.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Miles asked him. “Aren’t we much safer inside here with the storm and all?”

“The storm is over,” Dion explained. “This tower could collapse if Queen Lilith tries to attack the sphinxes. She'll become so vast it won’t be able to contain her.”

Dion saw Susan Mahen, still in her body armor, began to climb the stairs back to help her sisters.

“Can you have your sisters come down here,” he told her. “We all need to get out of this place. The tower could collapse on all of us at any minute.”

“I thought your elementals had the situation under control up there,” she said to him in disbelief.

“They are part of the problem. I need to get them to retreat too, but I’ll wait until your sisters are down here.”

Susan’s helm nodded and she clanged back upstairs, shield in hand.

Dion and Miles went to the cranks which controlled the door and draw bridge. While the women of the writing club looked on with curiosity, they turned the cranks that opened the doors to the tower. It was a slow process, designed to prevent sudden attacks, but there was no way to accelerate it. Once the doors were open, Dion, his head a little more clearly, stepped out into the cool night air and looked at the landscape.

The stars shone over the hills of the valley and the moon illuminated the pass, which the tower protected. He could see the small pavilions and huts the other Azuroth had place on the opposite side of the moat. It was time to get the drawbridge down so they could reach the bus. Hopefully, the tower mechanic could get it to work while he had the sphinx elementals keep the Azuroth at bay.

“Get the draw bridge down!” Dion yelled. “We need to get to the other side of the moat.” He watched as the bridge descended to the fill the gap. It was still in poor shape and they would have to leave in groups.

The servants and guards streamed out of the tower as the bridge went down. Dion stood in place and made sure everyone was safely outside. His parents came out with his uncle, a foul look on his face. When the three Mahen sisters were outside the tower, the bridge made its final descent over the moat and rested to close the gap.

It stood there for a few minutes. Dion went over and place one foot on the bridge. It felt solid enough. He looked across the moat at the Azuroth pavilions on the other side. One or two heads emerged from them and starred in his direction. Time to put the next part of his plan into action.

Dion closed his eyes and ordered the elementals to cease the attack. They were to join him outside the tower to defend the tower refugees against the Azuroth on the other side of the moat. As they were aether elementals, he could use them repeatedly.

Dion watched as the sphinxes flew out of the open doors and circled around the tower. Perhaps it would all work out now that everyone was outside the tower. He did a quick head count and made sure everyone he’d seen inside the tower was safely on the outside.

“Is that everyone?” Dion called to Kaylie Mahen, who stood on the edge of the gathering of her servants and retainers.

“They’re all here,” she yelled back. “We can start to cross at any time.”

Which they would have done had the bridge not collapsed and fell into the moat, busting into sections as it hit the spikes on the bottom.

“I hope you have another idea,” Kiley Mahen called to Dion. “Because that one won’t work.”

Chapter 20

The Azuroth on the other side of the moat emerged from their hovels to see what caused the noise. As Dion stood there and watched, they began to fill up the space on the other side. Even if he could find something to bridge the gap between the embankments, they would have to contend with the other clan of furry demoniods. Dion noticed this bunch carried spears, unlike the ones, which accompanied Queen Lilith.

As he stood and tried to come up with another plan, Dion heard a sound from the front of the tower. Both massive wooden doors burst outward and were flung across the moat from the force directed against them. Masonry exploded into the front of the ramp and for a few seconds he worried the tower was at risk of collapse. The ground was still wet from the non-stop storms and the dust from the stone blocks was absorbed onto the ground. Nerveless, Dion could smell the mortar in the air, which was pulverized by the impact from the other side of the doors.

All the tower people backed away from the entrance. The ten women from the writing club did likewise; although they hung back to see what caused the blast. There were no fires or smoke, so it wasn’t a chemical explosion that took the doors off the entrance. Dion suspected the cause, but it was what he saw next that confirmed it.

Out of the entrance to the tower, lumbered the form of Queen Lilith. She was sixteen feet in height and had to leave the tower since it could no longer contain her mass. Dion’s fears came to life as the huge woman walked down the ramp and looked around, followed by her own horde of Azuroth, who looked up to their leader with a sense of fear and wonder. The flying sphinxes swooped lower and swept around the creature from the abyss, not sure what to do.

And then it all made sense.

Dion looked at the group of women writers who faced the enormous woman and it occurred to him that the Aether Elemental Grandmaster told him he needed to summon “Decemius”. Wasn’t “Decem” the Latin word for “ten”? Ten women who had appeared out of nowhere in the storm. It was so obvious! This entire trip to the tower was part of a plan, even though he couldn’t figure it out. Even the Draco the pet lion allowed them to stroke its mane.

Dion faced the ten women, who were in a circle next to the huge form of Queen Lilith, and said the words the elemental grandmaster had whispered to him. Then he stood back and watched. It shouldn’t take long.

The ten women began to shimmer in the darkness, illuminated by the moonlight. He was right; the words were a code to activate the only thing that could stop Queen Lilith. The shimmering changed to a ring of light, which spun around them as they stayed in place. Even the lion was included in the spinning light. As he stayed in place and watched the light condense, Dion was forced to turn away because of the brilliance. Then the light faded and he turned to see what remained.

Now there were two giants in front of the tower.

The new giant was also female and wore a set of plate armor on her. Dion looked to the crowd revering what was in front of them. The three Mahen sisters, still in their armor, were carrying their weapons, but they realized it wouldn’t have any effect on the two huge creatures before them. The crowd began to move back, more for safety than to give the giants some room. Even the Azuroth on the other side of the moat began to back up.

I’ve been waiting for you, Lilith, the new giant said to her opposite number. Dion didn’t hear the challenge in the usual way, but felt it through his very soul. What she thought was transmitted to everyone. He could see the same reaction on everyone’s face.

You think you can take me? Dion heard Queen Lilith send back to the new giant. Why don’t you try?

Dion inched his way over the assembled crowd who watched the giants face off. He needed to be with them, just in case they needed his help. It was a simple order he gave to the flying aether elementals, which circled the two enormous figures. Dion told them not to get involved in what was about to take place, but to protect the residents of the tower from any injury. The sphinxes flew away from the giants and swept down in front of the crowd. They were now a defensive barrier in front of the crowd against what was about to take place. Dino prayed the two didn’t cause the tower to topple over.

He made his way through the horde of Azuroth who were too amazed by what their queen had transformed into to pay attention to him. He could see the countless wounds from the damage the sphinxes had inflicted on them, but they didn’t seem to care about the injuries. They continued to stare up at the two huge women who were faced off at each other.

“What the hell is that?” Kiley Mahen said to him as Dion slid up to her.

Both giant figures began to move into position against each other. Although they were enormous, neither one of them were of mythic proportions. It was just possible a creature of humanoid status could grow to be sixteen feet high. And, as Dion noted from the way they moved, they would not function the same way a normal person might. Both of them were slow. If they were playing by the physical rules of this world, the reaction time of each would be much slower since the nerve impulses would take longer to reach their destination.

Dion once saw an elephant move slowly through a pen at the zoo and understood why it needed so much time to move. The elephant was huge and the cube- square rule applied to it. When the size of an organism doubled, its volume tripled. Therefore, the giants might be twice the size as the largest normal human, but their overall mass was nine times as much. This meant more power had to go into moving around than the most obese person on earth had ever contended with. However, they were built for the task.

The tower was constructed on an island. The moat, which surrounded it, only went so far as the river and was supplied by it during the wet season. In the dry ones, the water in the moat had to be pumped from the river. The island was rock and on a higher level than the surrounding landscape, but it occupied only enough land to place the tower and some out buildings. The giants didn’t have much room to fight.

There was a loud retort as Decemius clashed with the huge form of Queen Lilith. The other giant nearly went down in the river as her opponent collided with her. Instead, she grabbed her attacker and pushed her down to the bank. Decemius angled her body and returned the pull, which sent Lilith into the river water. A ten-foot wave rose up from the river when she struck it.

“Did you know this would happen?” Kiley asked her as the two of them watched the battle rage.

“I didn’t have a clue,” Dion told her. “I was here to rescue my parents, free the elemental grandmaster and obtain the fifth elemental power. But not in that order. Or something. The grandmaster gave me some words to use, but didn’t tell me what they were specifically for. She told me they were to activate ‘Decemius’, but I didn’t figure it out until Queen Lilith burst through the doors and I saw the ten women from the writing group standing in a circle.”

“Where is Draco?” she asked him. By now, Kiley had removed her helmet, as she wanted to see as much of this fight as she could.

“I think he was sucked into it too. Something to do with the right combination of forces creating an opponent to the abyss.”

“What kind of outcome?” Susan Mahen asked him. “And how did the queen get so big so fast?”

“Energy absorption, like I said earlier,” Dion replied. “Whatever you through at her, she absorbs it and uses the energy to gain mass.” He watched the two giants struggling in the water. “But an attack from Decemius doesn’t seem to affect her. I guess that’s the point in her activation.”

“So this was all planned from the beginning,” Loris said as she removed her helm. “Your uncle was manipulated into bringing her across the gate. He thought he could use her to control the tower. We thought we could use your uncle to fill up our depleted bank account. Now, both of us were used. The only question remaining is, ‘who used us?’”

Dion turned and saw his uncle standing by himself. He didn’t appear to be interested in the outcome of the fight between the two giants. Why should he be? No matter how it went, his uncle would end up losing everything he’d invested in this venture. The only way he could possibly escape with minimal losses would be to use the sigil he possessed and escape across the gate in the rocks.

Dion realized his uncle was starring across the muddy plains. He looked directly at the rock wall where the door opened to admit Dion to this world. Which meant only one thing; he wanted to figure out a way to get back to the world where they came from. Right now.

Dion walked up to his uncle and starred at him until he turned around. “Don’t you even think about it,” Dion warned him and walked away.

Both figures were collapsed in the river. Dion couldn’t tell who had the advantage. The river wasn’t that deep, but it was little more than a creek to the both of them. He couldn’t tell if it was swollen from the constant storm, but the water was over the banks from what he could tell. It didn’t matter how deep the water might be, it was still possible to drown in it if you went down. From what he could tell, this was the ultimate plan for both sides.

He turned and saw something, which gave him a little hope. The giants collapsed the moat in their fight just enough to create a ramp over it. They had engaged each other close enough to the crumbled drawbridge and sent down a cascade of rock and soil. Most of it was mud, but enough was down there to make the passage over the moat less of a problem.

He turned just in time to see Decemius push her opponent down into the river in a magnified wrestling move. She slammed Queen Lilith down into the water and held her there. Her opponent began thrashing around, but was held underwater by the other giant. Dion couldn’t bear to watch it and turned away. But the time he’d turned back, Decemius was standing in the river watching the form of Queen Lilith float down the river. She began to shrink in size as her body was carried away by the currents.

Decemius stopped and watched her float away. Dion stood and watched the remaining giant slowly move through the river water and emerge on the shore. She was easier to see now in the moonlight and turned her face to him. The visage was indescribable and Dion felt a chill go through him. Whatever this creature was, she had no relation to the ten women who compromised her. They had merged to create something very deadly. The only relief he felt was in the knowledge the giant had served her purpose and was no longer needed.

Decemius towered on the shore and leaned back, her matted hair sticking to the body armor she wore. The Azuroth on the other side of the moat began to pack up their pavilions. This was something they’d done many times before, Dion could tell by the level of organization they displayed. The furry creatures were soon moving in a single column away from the tower. Minutes later, the horde of Queen Lilith joined them as they swarmed over the muddy dirt bridge created by the fight between the two giants. Dion stood in place and watched them move away though the mountain pass. He speculated on the relationship between the two different forms of Azuroth, but it didn’t seem to matter any longer. Both groups were defeated and were soon gone from visual range.

Satisfied, Decemius began to break down into her component parts. Dion watched as the light around her arose from the ground, blinding him once again. He covered his eyes with his hand until the light faded. When he lifted his hand, the giant was gone.

She was replaced by the form of the ten women from the writers’ club. They seemed a little dazed, but not much different than the women who entered the tower earlier it the night. What time was it? Dion looked across the horizon to see the first rays of sunlight. According to the people in the tower, this was the first daybreak in months.

Kristen Malar, holding Draco the lion on a leash, walked up to Dion and shook his hand. “Thank you,” she told him. “We didn’t know what word would be used this time or who would give it. You provided the trigger.”

“How long has this operation been planned?” he asked her. “I don’t like to assume things, but I get the feeling you’re not really a writer’s club.”

“I can’t imagine where you would get that idea,” she laughed. “We work for the sovereign. We’re a ten-woman unit she sends out to deal with threats to the kingdom. The whole operation was planned out the moment we learned your uncle had let something into this world from the abyss. It took a long time to figure out what it was that he’d let inside the tower. You were not expected, so we contacted the elemental grandmaster when we learned you’d came through. She provided you with the control words needed to activate the unit and you saw the rest.”

“The lion? You needed a lion too?”

“Not always, but it helps to have one when needed. Today it made all the difference.”

The rest of the tower inhabitants came over to make sure the ten women were alright. They too watched the giant transformation, but they didn’t seem as aghast at what happened as Dion. He’d just watched two giants fight it out in the middle of a river. This world was much different than he expected.

“You created the storm too?” he asked her.

“No, that was a by-product of Queen Lilith,” she told him. “When she began to engorge herself on the energy around here, the storm and lightning was the first source for her. It’s the problem with these abyss creatures. They thrive on the energy of any world they enter. You can’t let them inside for very long.”

“What about my parents and uncle?” he asked her. His uncle Seth still looked at the ground and scowled.

“You all need to leave as soon as you can,” she continued. “Take the door back; it will be sealed on the other side. No one from your time circle will ever be allowed back inside this one. Too much damage took place. Those men he brought over, the guards have to leave as well.”

“And the sisters? They were involved in this too.” He turned and saw them standing with the guards and their retainers.

“They fought well when the need arose. Still, they knew it was illegal to manipulate abyss forces because of what you just saw. And they tried to conceal what took place when everything went wrong. If we hadn’t been informed by someone in the tower, it might’ve been too late before the sovereign could do anything.”

Dion had the sphinxes finish the earthen bridge across the moat. It wasn’t very long before they had one assembled and everyone who needed to leave was able to cross it. Finished with his elementals, he returned them to their natural form. The last he saw of them were small black spheres rolling across the landscape. Of course, no one else could see them.

Kiley Mahen, still in armor, traveled with the small crowd who were headed back to the door in the rock walls. Bernice from the ten women unit traveled with them too. Bernice held the key that would open the gate to their home world. It turned out the one Uncle Seth held turned to dust the moment Queen Lilith was defeated.

“It could have worked,” Seth Back finally spoke up as they watched Bernice attach the sigil disc to the rock facing. “I was close. You still need cheap electricity in this place.”

“If it means cutting deals with fiends like Queen Lilith,” Bernice responded, “then no thank you very much.”

Bernice took out the sigil on the small disc and placed it on the rock wall where Dion emerged the evening before. She removed her hand from it and the disc stayed in place. Once again, it stayed attached to any surface it touched. The disc began to spin again until it was a blur. Once more, it rotated backwards and forwards until it found the right combination for the door.

They watched as the outline formed and the rock turned into the shape of a wooden door. The image coalesced and it became a solid wooden door mounted into the rock on an elaborate frame.

“I wish we could have met years ago,” Kiley said to Dion as she gave him a hug. “Thank you for ridding the tower of those things.”

“I’m sure we’ll meet again someday,” Dion said to her. “Fate has a funny way of running in cycles...” He turned and looked at Bernice. “In spite of what governments try and do.”

Dion put his hand on the doorknob. He turned it and pulled. The door swung open with ease as it was mounted to take advantage of the balance. Dion stopped when it was at the halfway point and turned to look at Bernice again.

“One question,” he said to her. He waited.

“Go ahead,” she responded.

“What are you going to do about all those Azuroth who came through? The last we saw of them was a column marching in the direction of the mountain pass.”

“I guess we’ll worry about them when the time comes,” she replied. “The sisters showed us the tower has some use as a military garrison. Perhaps the sovereign was too quick to decommission the army in favor of the dragon corps. We might have to turn it into a garrison again with the sisters in charge of the post.”

Kiley looked up with bright eyes when she heard those words. “Mother and father would’ve liked that,” she stated.

Dion pulled the door open all the way. “Everyone follow me, this is where we leave,” he ordered and stepped into the other side.

As before, there was a momentary flash of darkness and he found himself back in the huge library. He continued to move as the others needed space too. Dion stepped forward and turned around.

His parents were inside the library next, followed by his Uncle Seth. After them were the security guards who had been employed by the mall. Since no one else was coming through to the other side, he expected the door would slam shut.

But it didn’t. The door closed slowly and then locked itself with an audible click. Dion felt relived and turned back to face Adam Belial, the man who had taken him through the door to the next world where the tower was located.

“I didn’t expect anyone through here today,” he said. “It wasn’t on the schedule, what is the meaning of- oh, hello Mr. Bach!”

Adam faced his employer, Seth Bach. Dion’s uncle was not happy and pushed him aside as he thundered through the next door.

Adam watched him leave and turned back to the crowd. “Now what was that all about?” he asked.

“Mr. Bach is not having a good day,” Dion explained. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to leave with my parents.”

“Hey, what about us?” one of the security guards called out. “We’ve spent the past three months keeping those furry things away from everyone else. When do we get paid?”

“You’ll have to take that up with my uncle,” Dion explained and pulled his parents along with him. A few seconds later, he was through the next door and thundering down the stairs to the office where the twins had their office.

Anders and Blaze both stood behind their counter as Dion entered their office with his parents. He stopped for a few minutes and asked them if his uncle had just come through.

“Yes he did,” Anders, informed them. “Seemed to be in a bad mood. What happened up there?”

“I’m sure you’ll hear about it in due time,” Dion told them. “How did he leave?”

“The door on the wall,” Blaze said, as he pointed to a door where one had not existed the last time Dion had been in the office.

“It’s the same one you used when you came through,” Blaze explained. “But this one has stayed in place.”

“No it’s not,” Anders argued with his brother. “That one had red wood with a brass plate.”

“You’re wrong as usual,” Blaze snapped at him. “It was a brass frame over green wood.”

As they bickered and argued, Dion went to the door and opened it. Blackness again. There was only one way to be sure and he didn’t have time to run tests. He took his parents by the hand and pulled them together as he went through the entrance.

Seconds later, after the light returned, he found himself back in the antechamber where Edward took him before he left. This was the same place and even the little Englishman was standing there in his shirt and tie.

“My, that was quick,” he said to him. “Did you plan on going back and finishing?”

“What are you saying?” Dion asked him. “I was there all night. I’m beat. By the way, this is my mother and father.”

“Ah,” Edward responded. “Time dilation again. I should have known. Fine boy you have there.” He shook the hands of both of Dion’s parents.

Dion went back to close the door and noticed something odd when he looked on the other side. Instead of darkness, light streamed into a vacant chamber. He stepped into the chamber on the other side of the door and saw metal struts holding up an aluminum structure. The clock part of the tower was visible way up in the air. There was even a service ladder, which ran up to it.

He walked into the shaft further and looked around some more. It wasn’t the lack of any activity inside it, the tower was a shell, an artificial creation designed to have the appearance of a medieval clock tower, but it was made from cheap metal and fiberglass. He doubted it would last five years before it needed to be replaced. Of course, this mall would be around for another fifty years at least, his uncle, or whoever he sold it to, would need to replace the tower or remodel the mall. He betted on the latter option.

Dion turned and walked back through the door into the office of the mall.

Lilly almost knocked him over when she collided with him.

“Dion!” she cried out, “I missed you so much!” Lilly through her arms around him.

While his parents looked at Lilly in disbelief, Dion pulled her away and stood behind her.

“This is my fiancé, Lilly,” he told them. “Lilly, these are my parents. I went into the tower last night to rescue them. I was successful as you can see.”

“She wasn’t the only one who was worried,” another voice called from the opposite side of the office. Dion looked across and saw Sean and Emily.

“We were worried about you going inside there,” Emily told him. “I know we weren’t supposed to, but we had to be here when you entered the tower. We showed up late and found Edward standing by the door. He told us you were just left a few minutes ago.”

“Time dilation,” Edward explained again. “It happens when you cross time circles. To us, it seems Dion was gone only a few minutes. To him, it seems he was out all night. I’m sure the boy needs sleep.”

“A little bit,” Dion said as he put one hand to his head. He would need to see a doctor later about the blow he took to it. Surely, he could make up some story how it happened. Most members of the medical profession would look at you odd if you told them about being in the middle of a fight between demoniods and sphinxes.

“I managed to find the fifth element grandmaster,” Dion announced, “so now I have the power of the aether.”

“Did you rescue her?” Lilly asked him. “Wasn’t she kidnapped by your uncle?”

“It was a little more complicated than that,” he explained. Dion looked around the room. “As a matter of fact, where is my uncle? I thought he went through the door before me.”

“He did,” Edward explained. “And I let him go. He shot past us and never said a word. I daresay he has many things on his mind right now.”

“Dion,” his father said. “Can you take us somewhere? It has been a long time.”

“We can go to your other brother’s house,” Dion told him. “I’ve stayed with them since you disappeared last year.”

“Oh,” his mother commented. “We must be in Ohio.”

Epilogue

The porch over the mountains gave a good view of Mount Olympus. This was fine to the man who wore a silk dressing gown and sipped his coffee while reading the newspaper. He’d never accustomed to the modern smart phones and personal computers. The newspaper was enough for him and he liked to read his news after it had a few hours to settle down. He also took his morning meal alone, away from the petty troubles he had to endure later in the day.

So it was a surprise when the servant came into the marbled patio and stood silently by the breakfast table. The older man, who sat there with his newspaper, slowly turned and looked at the servant. The man who was seated at the table had a long grey beard and stroked it when he saw him. This was unusual. What could be so important it required is attention right away?

“Mr. Jupiter,” the servant said to him. “I have a man who wants to see you.”

“Does he have an appointment?” the greybeard asked. He took a sip of his coffee. What could it be this time?

“No, but I think you need to meet with him,” the servant replied. He’d worked for the Mountain long enough to know when to interfere with his boss’s routine. Now was such a time.

“You know my policy,” he thundered back. “No unannounced appointments. Now get him out of here.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” a voice said behind the servant. “He’s already here.”

A young man stepped from behind the servant and starred at the older man. The greybeard looked at him and nearly dropped his coffee. The eyes, it was the eyes. Only one other person on earth had those eyes. There was another one long ago, but she was gone, to his eternal shame.

Which meant this young man had to be…?

“Dion,” he announced. “My name is Dion. We need to talk.”

“You are my son,” Jupiter Olympus said while his voice trembled. “I am your father.”

“No you are not,” Dion said. “You might have some part in my conception, but my real father was the one who raised me.”

“Doesn’t all the money I spent to make sure you were adequately cared for count?” the older man snapped back at him. “It should amount to something.”

“Not any longer it doesn’t” Dion told him. “I’ve passed my own trials. I can show you an example later, but we need to talk. There is much you and I have to discuss.”

The servant was gone. He understood sometimes his presence was unnecessary.

Dion went and sat down next to the older man. The weather was good outside and was supposed to remain that way all day.