Ollie stopped in midair for a moment when the rift closed, hanging there in surprise. Three of the chitin armored horned men wearing lizardmen as backpacks were fighting the soldiers and militia, and he’d been dodging the two remaining harpies, throwing spells at them when he could, but he lost all concentration. Michael had run through the rift, then half the prisoners had returned, then the other half. He’d expected to see Michael come through next, sealing the rift behind him, but instead it was gone, and Michael with it. A universe away.

  A harpy dove toward him talons first, scraping her claws across his arm as she did so.

  The pain snapped him back to reality and he roared with rage, extending his will to the harpy and creating a cube of barriers around her. She panicked and he clenched his fist, crushing her like a car compactor. The other harpy dove toward him and he flew to meet her smashing the tip of his staff into her sternum, breaking it, and grabbing her with loops of magical force before tossing her body at a horned man with enough force to kill them both.

  He began to speak in two voices as he dove toward the giant chitin armored warriors that had emerged from the rift. In each of his hands he created a fireball, then he compressed them, and compressed them, and compressed them, until they were just the size of gumballs. He landed on the back of one that had cornered Laird and Blake and when it roared he popped the fireball into its mouth. They had barriers protecting them from magic, but those didn’t extend to their innards. He leapt off of it and flew toward the one fighting Lance. This one didn’t scream, but when it turned toward him, he threw his other fireball at it. Some of it penetrated the barrier created by the horrifically alive lizardman on his back, but not enough to kill it. Fortunately, it distracted it enough that Lance was able to sink his silver handled sword through its ribs and into its heart.

  The last one was in the midst of soldiers and militia, and Ollie felt himself tense as he watched it run a young man through. A man that Michael wasn’t there to heal and save. He began muttering foul curses and vile oaths, two voices speaking simultaneously from his mouth, and threw a lightning bolt at the creature, which bounced off its magical protection. Then he threw another, and another, and another. Casting full power offensive spells without stopping, throwing them from his hand and staff in non-stop succession. He heard a moan of pain from the lizard bound to the chitinous horrors back, and increased his efforts. When the lizardman died, its magicka channels drained completely, he threw more until the beast was a charred corpse on the ground.

  After that Ollie was a magical tide of death. He dove down like the harpies, grabbing lizardmen to drop from great heights even as he prepared to throw bolts of lightning and balls of fire at the remaining horned men. He would open small portals and extend his hand through it to grab a horned man’s face and immolate it. He could feel his magicka straining to the breaking point, but he ignored it. They took his friend, and they would suffer for it.

  When they were all dead he landed where the rift had been. He slammed his staff on the ground, remembering the spell translations of Sylas. He felt all of the coils he’d made begin to tremble and go ice cold. He could feel the remains of where the rift was, the remnants, and he began to feed them. The air around him seemed to tremble and shake, and then his magicka bottomed out.

  He forced himself to his feet and began to try again.

  “Ollie! What are you doing!?” screamed Lance, but his voice was far away.

  The air began to shift again as he pushed himself past his limits. The air began to vibrate and for a moment, there was a pinpoint of shifting red light. Then he lost consciousness.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  …

  Michael followed the lizardman into the storage room, through rows of barrels and shelves, until they reached the back where a small servants door had been obscured. It was sized for lizardmen, so he had to hunch over to keep following, but hearing the pursuers behind him dealing with the fire he left them, he didn’t have any time to complain.

  He was painfully aware of the loudness of his armor as they crawled from servant passage to servant passage and cast a quick muffle spell. Some of the doors were taller, others were even smaller than the first one and he was forced to crawl. More than a few times the lizardman he was following would take a quick glance into a room and they’d be forced to turn around. He had quickly lost all sense of direction, but he had the impression they were heading downward and toward the center of the castle.

  After they’d been moving for quite some time they reached some servant halls that seemed to only experience light use. Heavy dust only broken by a few sets of three toed footprints. They reached a small door and the lizardman in front of him held up a hand as he walked out.

  Michael waited there for a few moments, but heard some kind of scuffle, and a short exchange of words in languages he didn’t recognize.

  Michael frowned and walked out of the door. He saw a horned man holding the lizardman by the neck and yelling at him. His eyes widened as he saw Michael, but he wasn’t able to react before his skull was crushed by Michael’s mace.

  The lizardman clutched his chest and took a few moments to calm himself while Michael took stock of their surroundings. They were in some kind of dungeon. There were cages all along the walls of varying sizes. Most were empty, but within a few he could see lizardmen in small piles, perhaps trying to keep warm. They seemed paler than the ones he’d seen before, as if the color had drained from their scales.

  Almost all of them were missing fingers, toes, or even hands and feet. A few had been blinded, and some had their tongues cut out. Most were in such bad shape that they didn’t even react to what had just happened, but a few were aware enough that they went to the bars of their cages, their eyes reflecting what little light there was in the dark.

  The one that had been guiding him recovered and searched the body in front of them until it found a key and then it led him deeper into the dungeon. It was surprisingly large, and he counted nearly a hundred lizardfolk in cages all throughout it. Eventually they reached a particularly large cell at the far end.

  The lizardman fit the key into the lock and turned it, letting out some kind of clicking noise as it worked. He then pushed open the door.

  Inside was a wide circular cell, and in the center of it was a lizardman bound with chains at the wrist and ankles. Like the others he’d been mutilated, but his was far more extreme than the rest. He had no fingers left on either hand, his eye sockets were hollow, and many of his teeth had been broken, as well as his tongue cut out. Michael also got the impression that he was old. His scales were cracked in places, and there was a kind of hunched over nature to how he held himself even beyond what could be the result of his torture and imprisonment.

  The lizardman moved over to the one in chains, sorrow in his motions, and placed a hand on the disfigured one’s shoulder. He jumped, fearful of the touch, until the other one leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. He went still.

  For a moment there was no movement, then Michael began to feel something. His magical senses weren’t as well developed as Ollie’s or Pyotrs, but he could sense a buildup of magicka, a stirring in the air as something was cast. He looked at the lizardman that had brought him there, but he didn’t seem to be casting anything. Then he looked at the injured one in front of him. He was perfectly still, but Michael could feel a thrum of power coming from him. After a few moments, the magicka stopped building, and there was a mild amount of it released into the air around them.

  Michael looked around, trying to sense what had changed, when the lizardman that had brought him there looked at him.

  “Wrath of Gold, I have brought you here in the hopes that you will heal Sorcerer Prince Azalaceus.”

  Michael blinked, surprised to be hearing speech in not even Hume, but in English. He looked at the blind, fingerless, creature in chains amazed at his ability to cast a spell so complex even in the state he was in.

  “I believe he would be your only chance of returning from where you came from.”

  Michael wasn’t sure about that, but he also hated to see anyone in the state he saw the Prince in.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  HERE