Galactic Mage 4: Alien Arrivals Read online

  The Galactic Mage Series

  Book 1: The Galactic Mage

  Book 2: Rift in the Races

  Book 3: Hostiles

  Book 4: Alien Arrivals

  Book 5: (in progress)

  Prequels

  Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Harpy’s Wild

  Ilbei Spadebreaker and the Zombie Apple Collapse

  (in progress)

  John Daulton

  www.DaultonBooks.com

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  John Daulton

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  ALIEN ARRIVALS

  Book 4: The Galactic Mage Series

  The phrase “The Galactic Mage” is the trademark of

  John Daulton.

  Copyright © 2014 John Daulton

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9894787-5-5 (Paperback)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9894787-6-2 (Kindle Ebook)

  Cover art by Cris Ortega

  Interior layout by Fernando Soria

  DEDICATION

  In memory of Michael G. Burke.

  Contents

  Series

  Title

  ISBN

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  signup

  Chapter 1

  Pernie woke in darkness, her cheek damp where it lay upon something soft. She knew she was awake because her eyes were open. She blinked a few times, but there was nothing to see. The smell of damp stone surrounded her, mixed with a hint of sea air, as it had been when she’d gone to sleep.

  Voices murmured from around a bend. They belonged to the elves and that old woman with them. The three of them sat a few paces beyond the small chamber where Pernie was. Guarding her, she knew. The elves were the ones who had taken her. She’d tried to fight them off, to escape and run free. She even bit the Queen’s elf, Shadesbreath, on the hand, a good bite that drew green blood. Elves were salty and tasted like the sea.

  She sat up and looked in the direction of the sound. Somewhere in the darkness, a passage led from this small chamber into the outer one, but no light defined its opening. She didn’t want to go out there and talk to them anyway. That’s what they wanted. She wasn’t going to give them anything they wanted. Ever. But she was hungry. So perhaps she would have to in the end.

  Petulant lips pouted, unseen in the blackness, as she debated what to do, the stubborn side at war with the hungry side, a battle between mind and body. Inevitably, body won.

  Shadesbreath, in his black leather armor, dagger hilts protruding everywhere, sat upon a stool of carved coral near a boulder, watching as Pernie’s head poked out of the dark passage. He watched her as she emerged, already looking her way as if waiting for her all along. He glanced across the boulder, which served as table for all assembled there, to where Seawind sat. The two elves nodded. Seawind even managed something like a smile as the corners of his mouth grew a hair’s width wider into his pale green cheeks.

  “So, little one, you have decided to come into the light,” said the third figure seated there, a human woman of indeterminate years, many of them. She was wrapped in leather armor as brown as bark and which matched the color of her eyes so perfectly it had to be by design. “My elven friends suggested you wouldn’t be doing so for another half day.”

  Pernie frowned at the woman, but didn’t say anything. She scanned the tabletop of the boulder in search of food. There was nothing there.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, stepping out into full view. “You’d better not let me starve, or Master Altin will come and burn you to ash.”

  The old woman laughed, a long and throaty thing, her head tipped back and a few loose strands of gray hair dangling like vines around her neck. “Oh, I should think he would at that,” the woman agreed. “But don’t you worry about going hungry, young miss. We haven’t brought you all this way to starve you to death.” She turned in her seat, an orange-and-brown bit of coral work to match those upon which the elves sat, and took up a small leather sack lying near her feet. She tossed it to Pernie, who caught it naturally. “There, child, is enough to keep you for a week.”

  Pernie frowned at them all again, the three strange figures sitting there watching her, then pulled at the mouth of the sack and peered inside. It smelled of fish. She opened it further and found within a tightly packed block of fish strips, salted and dry. She looked up at the three of them. “I have to eat this for a week?”

  “You’ll get used to it,” the woman said. “The elves, for all their finery with wine and long lives, have not the patience for quality cuisine. I’ve had to make do on my own. After the first fifty years or so, you get over the old cravings. Food becomes fuel and little more. You will enjoy the fruits of the island, though. Those more than make up for what you’ve grown used to in the past.”

  Pernie’s thoughts flickered back to the heaping tables put forth by Kettle, the old kitchen matron back home and the only mother Pernie had ever known. The stout old woman would have a fit if she knew what the elves intended to serve as Pernie’s permanent repast.

  “Well, I don’t want to get used to it.” Her gaze flicked toward Shadesbreath. Her eyes narrowed. She looked to see where she’d bitten him on the hand, but there was no sign of the injury anymore. “I want to go home.”

  “You have already been told that is not going to happen, dra’hana’akai,” said Seawind as Shadesbreath quietly studied her. “It is best if you settle in.”

  “I don’t want to settle in. I want to go home. When Master Altin finds out where you’ve taken me, you’ll see. This whole cave will be filled with fire, and Sir’s dragon will gobble you up alive and chew your bones to dust. Just wait and see.”

  “Sir Altin has already been informed, and the War Queen of Kurr has already acknowledged our right to take you. You are here because you are The Bodyguard, Protector of the High Seat, chosen by Tidalwrath himself.”

  “I’m not a bodyguard. I’m only a girl. Even I know that. Kettle always said the elves are supposed to be smart, but that doesn’t seem very smart to me.” />
  The old woman laughed. The elves seemed incapable of it.

  “You are correct, child,” the woman said. “You are not a bodyguard, at least not entirely. One day, though. Perhaps one day soon, if my friend Shadesbreath has the right of it about you.”

  “I don’t want to be a bodyguard. I want to go home.”

  “That is not possible.”

  Pernie pulled out a strip of salt fish and nibbled on it. It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. They watched her eat.

  The old woman rose and went out for a time, then came back with a silver goblet filled to the brim with water. “Here, child, drink.”

  “Stop calling me child. My name is Pernie.” She would have refused the water as a show of defiance, but the salt fish required that she drink, leaving the name issue as the only convenient one for the display.

  “I am Djoveeve.”

  Pernie thought the name sounded weird, like there was something stuck in the woman’s mouth. She might have laughed at it another time.

  “If you’ll let me,” the woman said, leaning down and putting her hands on her knees, “I’ll show you how to use your magic.”

  “I don’t need you to show me how. Master Grimswoller is my teacher back at magic school. And once I’m done with my lessons, Master Altin said I could be his apprentice.”

  “Well, Master Altin is going to have to find another apprentice because Tidalwrath has plans for you.”

  Pernie scowled up at Djoveeve then, her eyes narrow, feral. If she were a cat, she would have hissed. The old woman watched her silently, the two of them watching back and forth. They might have stayed that way for hours had not Pernie been distracted by the pink edges of the woman’s eyelids, bright pink, so bright they seemed lit from within. They reminded Pernie of raw meat. A few eyelashes still grew from them, the last and hardiest weeds clinging to ground in which nothing else could grow. Time had killed the rest. Pernie had always thought of Kettle as old, but this woman redefined aging. Pernie had never seen a woman that looked as old as Tytamon, the ancient magician who had presided over Calico Castle for most of Pernie’s life, a man rumored to have been approaching an eight hundredth birthday had he lived another pair of years.

  Djoveeve noticed Pernie’s distraction as it began to glaze her eyes. She watched as Pernie’s thoughts turned inward. She smiled patiently and looked up to her elven companions. “She is still very young.”

  “No younger than you were when you arrived,” said Seawind. “And she is far more accomplished than you were at that age, far more and in many ways. Yours was better magic, surely, but you had nothing on her with a knife.”

  Djoveeve nodded at that. There was no question about Pernie on that account. She’d heard the stories of the young girl’s ferocity during an orc invasion on Calico Castle. The child possessed every instinct of a killer, and she had the courage of all the greatest predators. She would make a powerful Sava’an’Lansom for the High Seat.

  Pernie heard them talking about her. She knew grown-ups well enough to recognize when they were trying to talk over her head. She made a face, mostly to herself, and pulled another stick of fish out of the pouch.

  Djoveeve considered her for a bit longer, then returned to the table that was a boulder. She drew in a long breath, looking up at the ceiling not far above. Pernie followed her gaze, tilting her head as she regarded the flecks of pyrite sparkling in the dark brown stone like stars of pale gold. “Is that gold?” she asked, pointing with a half-eaten bit of fish.

  “No, child. But it does look that way.”

  “I said stop calling me child. I’m nine years old. I’ll be ten at the end of summer.”

  “But you are a child. That’s what being nine is.”

  “I’ve fought orcs, you know. I’ve even killed some before. Just like grown-ups do.”

  “Yes. That is why you are here.”

  “Orcs?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “I hate orcs.”

  “Everyone does.”

  That made her think. Somehow she expected more arguments from them. “Elves aren’t afraid of orcs,” Pernie pointed out, looking to the elves sitting silently nearby. “So why should they hate them?”

  “Are you afraid of them?”

  Pernie had to think about that. She didn’t want to be afraid of them, but they were very scary. They had huge long teeth, and their lower jaws stuck forward in terrible ways. Their skin was green, greener than the pale shades of the elves, green like the leaves of oak trees and the needles of pines. Some were lighter hues, like pond scum. She’d seen one that might have been the color of earwax once, had it not had just that touch of green. Pernie thought they were green in a way that seemed an insult to forests, grass, and even weeds. They were mean and they ate people when they could. They’d almost eaten her once. And it was true that she had killed a few in the raid on Calico Castle, but she’d been terrified. She didn’t want to admit that she was afraid. Not to this old woman with the pink-rimmed eyes and the two pale green elves sitting there.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Hmmm,” hummed Djoveeve. “We shall see about that.” She turned to Seawind, who had already gotten up. He left the chamber, his movements fluid and graceful. He wore a suit of scale mail armor that appeared to be made of leaves, silent leaves that rippled as if stirred by the wind as he walked away.

  He left through a passage whose entrance was at such an angle that Pernie hadn’t known it was there. She watched him vanish through it as if he’d simply walked into the stone. She went over to it, peered around it as if looking around a dressing screen. Seawind was just rounding a bend in a narrow tunnel leading away.

  She turned back to Djoveeve with her lips twitching from side to side. “Where are we?”

  “You are on Fel’an’Ital. It is one of many islands in the elven lands of String. In the common tongue of your homeland, Kurr, Fel’an’Ital means ‘Island of Hunters.’”

  “What kind of hunters? I’m a hunter. I hunt all the time.” She reached down to her waist, feeling for the homemade sling that was usually wound around her as a belt. “You took my sling,” she accused. “Give it back.”

  “We took your necklace as well.”

  Pernie reached up to her throat and felt for the small pickaxe amulet that had hung there by a leather thong. “That’s mine too!” she snapped. “You give it back. That was a present from Master Spadebreaker. It has magic in it, and Master Altin says I can keep it. You give it to me right now.”

  “You can have it back when you are able to use it properly.”

  “I can use it just fine.” She tried to intimidate Djoveeve with crossed arms and an icy glare, but the old woman’s face was as immutable as the stone all around.

  Seawind came back into the room, leading a prisoner in chains. Pernie let out a cry and scrambled back so suddenly she struck the wall, her eyes wide with fright. The prisoner was an orc.

  “So you are afraid,” said Djoveeve, though there was no condemnation in her voice. “I thought as much.”

  Pernie stood stiffly, as if pinned to the wall.

  “You’ll have your magic weapon back when you can face this creature without the fear that fills you now. Not sooner.”

  Pernie barely heard the words. She could only gape at the orc. The fact that it was battered and worn looking made no difference to her. It was an orc. The most horrible of all creatures. Manlike. Men who ate men. She shuddered, a whole-bodied tremor from head to toe.

  The orc looked up at her, saw her through glassy eyes. She was sure she saw hatred there. Or at least that’s what she convinced herself was there. In truth the orc made no movements, no aggressive acts. No expression came upon its broad green face at all. Another observer might have reckoned the orc looked tired, worn out. Pernie, however, did not, and she remained where she was, teetering on the brink of flight. To where, she had no idea.

  “Take the pet away,” Djoveeve said. �
��You’ve seen what you needed to see.” Seawind and the other elf, Shadesbreath, who served as the Royal Assassin to the Queen of Kurr, exchanged glances once more before Seawind led the orc out of the room again.

  Pernie was a few moments before she calmed herself.

  “You must learn to face your fear,” the old woman said, rising and coming once more to stand before Pernie. “The Sava’an’Lansom cannot be afraid of an orc, not even an orc with magic. I will teach you not to fear them. When you are ready, you will face that one and defeat it on your own.”

  Pernie’s eyes went wide with fright again. She tried to summon up her courage, tried to remind herself how it felt to jam her tiny knife into the firm green flesh, but all she knew was fear. She’d been afraid the whole time she fought the orcs last time. It was as if the person who’d been in those fights hadn’t been her, the frightened her who lived behind her eyes and who had looked out and watched as someone else operated her hands and feet that day. It was someone else who had stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. When it was done, when the screaming and bleeding was over, the inside Pernie had come back out, bringing the fear with her.

  Djoveeve seemed to see all of that. It was as if the old woman looked right in through Pernie’s blue-eyed windows and saw it too, even felt it. Her expression softened, and she got down on her knees. She leaned back, resting on her heels, and smiled. “You won’t fear them when you are through. I promise. That is the gift of the Sava’an’Lansom. You will see. You will hunt without fear. Fight without fear. You will decide the fate of humans, elves, and orcs. This I promise.”

  The two elves stood and said it too. “This I promise,” each of them repeated in turn.

  What remained of fright was washed away by the oddity of what she’d just seen. They both looked so severe.

  Pernie’s lips twitched from side to side again as she contemplated all of it. She looked back to Djoveeve, who remained seated on her heels. “So what does seven land some mean?”