The Elemental Heist

The Elemental Heist

Five men gathered around a flagon of wine. Well, it was not a real flagon; real flagons would not lower themselves to the standards of the establishment these five chose to gather in. In fact, the wine was of so poor a quality it qualified to be prized vinegar to season the drinkers’ throats rather than palate them. So, to recapture the image, five men were gathered around a flagon of nothing that resembles wine.

Outside, brown dirty rain kept on its journey forever downwards and sometimes sideways, flooding the muddy streets of Haboria the capital city of the opulent kingdom of Moloria with an impressive layer of brown slush which passersby couldn’t really distinguish wither it came from the bowels of hell below or fell on their heads from above. Except in the area surrounding the temple of the elements three hundred cubits away, where the most adapted of all elemental sorcerers kept residence, studied and granted their service at excruciatingly high prices to the populace; namely the cream top of Moloria.

Above the temple, by about twenty cubits the rain sloshed in a lake suspended in the air, bounded and contained by very strong air magic. It occasionally sloshed over the side into the streets around the temple totally drenching the already wet passersby. Rain sloshed to the sides because it usually had vindictive thoughts when it hung above the temple; it madly thought what those foolish mortals are trying to stop? Let’s put the wetness of the gods in their pants and their underpants, or at least let’s drench their guards and porters. Unbeknownst to the rain, the sorcerers didn’t really give a damn who the rain wets as long as it was not them.

The five men were gathered inside not to escape the rain; this was not a gathering of men afraid of wetness, even if the aforementioned wetness drenched their underpants. In fact, for those five men, wetness was a thing that happened to other people, the necromancer with his body covering tattoos was protected from all kinds of water, including holy water, a natural deterrent to his lively hood, the undead. This is why necromancers stink and have an aura of being unwashed forever; it was a privilege of the job, well, for people who rather spend their time with the dead than the living it was at least acceptable. The air sorcerer with his unmistakable blue silvery robes can call on air to be his umbrella whenever he needed it, but generally, rain tended to avoid him for fear of being pulverized by his omnipresent air elementals. The shade, being a shade, which was a creature that defied the laws of nature most of the time, just accepted but part of this reality and rain was not part of this acceptance. The dwarf always traveled underground and didn’t take rain seriously unless it caused an underground landslide and the regular looking man in this myriad group of inn patrons, just entered the inn from the torrent of rain outside mysteriously dry.

“So, they move it at dawn you say,” the dwarf, considered here a man since men of ill reputation liked to be called men even if in fact they were of different sex, species or even status of being alive or dead, it is part of the vibe really. This brings the ephemeral shimmering man into focus; the shade was nothing less than a shade of color and nothing more occupying a seat at the table, solid colors meant little to shades anyway, they were more into shades and subtle tones. Shades are usually very self-conscious creatures about their status and their urges; it is why they turned to shades when they died in the first place. But enough about shades, as the story will turn shady if this line of telling goes on.

“This is the twentieth time you made the same statement Roger; it is really not healthy, for you, to keep trying to vent your anxiousness on us,” the only seemingly normal man among the group addressed the dwarf in a warning tone.

“He isssss really annoying, I want to ssssuck his life forcccce” the shade made a slurping noise then he added, “now,” the shade gave a wheezing laugh in a voice scrapped with grave dust and his tones of color turned a shade greener as he contemplated his comrade the dwarf, ”maybe after the heisssst,” he sighed a rather disturbing sigh as he ogled the dwarf.

“I didn’t come here for idle chit-chat shade; I am of a mind to just banish you to the nether realms right now,” the necromancer glared through tattooed eyebrows and snorted through tattooed nose as he said these words through a tattooed mouth giving the impression of moving letters like the ones seen in those magical commercials for the richer more successful establishments. But of course, it was not, necromancers didn’t believe in commerce, in fact, they operated on the concept of I wanteth therefore I taketh, and commercial establishment owners were more than welcoming to this concept; not a lot of people entertained the idea of crossing a necromancer, it usually involved your innards seeing the light of day, something that nobody wants on any given day. Necromancers were actually a paranoid type of people; the tattoos were permanent invocations of protection against their very subjects, the undead.

“So, they move it by dawn you say,” Roger the dwarf winked conspiratorially to the sorcerer.

“This is it; I will kill him right here and right now,” the sorcerer shouted at the assemblage.

“Calm down Fred, Roger is the best digger in the business,” the seemingly normal man called to the air sorcerer to calm down, “he also happens to be as much interested in this venture as you.”

“But he isssss very annoying Cole,” The shade slurped noisily while he spoke to Cole, the seemingly normal human, seemingly because in Moloria it is usually unwise to assume the normalcy of an individual by his looks, this kind of lapse is considered a lack of wisdom that frequently led many a speculator of normalcy to death.

“Silence in my presence foul spirit, I Philip the necromancer commands you,” the necromancer cried out in a theatrical voice while waving his hands in complex patterns at the shade. Normally, if any other necromancer would have uttered these words, the shade would have been forced to be mute until released by will and invocation, but in this very instance, the shade just felt compelled to look away while he mumbled incoherent hissing insults.

“Calm down all of you,” Cole signaled to all of them with his hands to calm down as he spoke “Zortan, you are here to regain physical presence on this world, remember the rewards, you will no longer be a non-effective shade, and you will gain the body which was lost to death,” he smiled as he turned to face the necromancer, “Philip, you know that your hold on the dead and the undead had wavered since you were stripped of most of your power by the temple of the elements; this is your chance to regain this power,” Cole regained his sway on the group of misfits, then he turned his attention to the dwarf, “Roger, nobody in the criminal world would hire you because of your halitosis curse; it could be felt like a pain in the nostrils a mile away, Gods know we are feeling it to the depth of our bones,” he made a sign to his nose as Roger nodded apologetically, then he faced the sorcerer, “Fred, you never were allowed to pass the fifth circle of magic ritual for the mark of desire on your heart,” he reached to the sorcerer who naturally flinched, so, he ignored the gesture and continued, “passing the fifth circle would have increased your ability ten folds; you are anguished by your dark desires for the power you can’t attain,” Cole passed his gaze from one of his co-conspirators to the other, “you all need this heist more than anything to fulfill your most wanted desires.”

“Cole, I never knew what your stake in all of this is,” Fred looked critically to Cole as he spoke, “you gathered us, you devised the plan, you assigned the roles of each of us, and yet I can’t see any benefit for a non-magic user, cursed individual or magical creature from stealing the batteries.” The sorcerer finished the accusative question he threw at Cole who sat calmly to his right, then he added “I don’t see you in this plan and I don’t like it,” Fred made a clicking noise at the back of his mouth, one that under normal circumstances would be a signal for people present to start running, as this is how sorcerers usually call on their dedicated elementals, but not these people, and not in this inn, “nobody does anything of this magnitude without a personal stake in it.”

“I like your skepticism Fred, I really do,” Cole smiled and continued, “What my stake is mine alone and I don’t want to share it,” he gave Fred an innocent smile and continued, “ plus a favor exacted from each one of you when I need it,” his smile grew as he turned to each one of his co-conspirators, “by then, you all will have the power to fulfill it.”

“Still not convinced this is enough, you are already infamous as the most powerful underworld crime strategist in all of Moloria, rumor says that you are far richer than the king, and more secretive than the temple of elements masters,” Fred continued in an exasperated voice, “it doesn’t add up.”

“Who cares sorcerer?” Philip intoned gravely, “It serves our purposes.”

“Excuse me, good people, are you going to order something else?” the landlord of the tavern approached them rubbing a talisman around his neck nervously, “we have to pass the accounts to the grave shift.”

Normally the grave shift would mean the late hours shift in any other inn in the multiverse, but not in Moloria where magic was a normal everyday practice, almost like dentistry in other realms, just slightly less painful.

The original founder of the Black-Eyed Clown, the tavern where our conspirators sat, is a man turned ghoul through the grace of one of his regular clients who happened to be a necromancer and never wanted his favorite cocktail mixer to go from this world after his demise , he also happens to be the ancestor of the present hapless owner. When the grave shift is announced, most living souls have to leave in a rush, for the new arriving clientele matched the ghoulish proprietor. Ghouls were a raucous and mirth loving bunch usually, but their debauchery frequently involved eating anything that moved, including other patrons. Suffice to say, not all ghouls returned to their underground hideouts by the end of the night, especially nights spent in the Black Eyed Clown. Apprentice sorcerers usually had a gruesome rite of passage involving waiting near the Black-Eyed Clown carrying a toothpick, a can of apple juice and the aid of a minor demon, some of them actually returned to tell the tale. The practice was encouraged by the senior sorcerers as a method of culling out the future competition.

“Gentlemen, I think this is our queue to leave,” announced Cole, “we meet at the darkest hour of this night to achieve the impossible,” and he winked, which gave Roger the shivers, and he couldn’t really know why he did.

###

Every year at mid of winter, the temple of the elements sorcerers and priests would gather the surplus energies of prayers and practiced magic and store them in five elemental beings representing the five elements which they called “the elemental batteries”. Those elementals are then bound magically to a fortified carriage, one that was created as the ultimate achievement of sorcerers and alchemists, a one of a kind armored vehicle rumored to be impenetrable even to a seventh circle sorcerer. That carriage would then travel almost half the world away to be entered in the infinite warehouse of Gom, in itself the most secure place on the planet, not because of the ten thousand men strong army guarding it, and not because of the magic traps placed around the perimeter of the city for ten miles, not even for the presence of the most devious of booby-traps in the entire realm; it was the most secure because it doesn’t even exist in this realm of existence, the whole city of Gom was just a gateway to dimension only accessible from there. A depositor wishing to peruse the facility has to leave a part of his or her soul attached to what they wish to store, for the only way to retrieve your deposit is by calling on your own soul. Some theorized that the warehouse in Gom was a gate to the nether realms because of the soul involvement, as in most dealings with the nether realms, it involved soul trading, but unlike the nether realms and their famous deals, Gom offered only to take your soul, not give anything in return, which caused theorist to argue that Gom was actually the gateway to heaven, yet that also was refuted by the resident angel in the temple of elements, as she adamantly stated that heaven was a state of mind and not a real place, as she was just a reflection what men wanted her to be. The seat of esoteric studies commented on the statement of the angel that if what she said was true, where is the bust size to prove it, which she reacted by smiting him on the spot. The people in the know knew that souls were promised to be freely given in a future date in the practice of communicating with the denizens of the nether realms; hence it was called Soul Futures, also known as the stock market, for the known knowledge that souls are the stickiest part of all living creatures, and apparently, the nether realms needed a lot of stickiness to keep working, or that the denizens of the nether realms just ate souls, the perpetrator of this theory claims that he worked for ten years in an especially shady restaurant specializing in soul food. The price of depositing a gram of material is ten grams of gold, and in case of magical essences like in the case of the elementals, the price for one cubic centimeter of magical storage is one hundred grams of gold. It is a very exclusive facility where only the top of the elite finds reasons to use it.

Aside from the obvious unaccessible warehouse, the batteries travel in the company of a troop of two hundred of the king’s elite, two sorcerers of each order and of course the infamous Impenetrable Fort Carriage, in itself a marvel of mixing science and magic, and this is why nobody in the history of the elemental batteries journey had ever contemplated stealing them, not until now.

The first to arrive at the meeting point was the necromancer, Philip. It is a well-known fact that you can set your watch on one of the necromancers’. It was not really decency which kept them right on time; it was a life of rituals involving losing your mind, a limb or your own soul if you missed the exact moment of the proper incantation. This was also the reason most necromancers are very grave and serious, losing your soul doesn’t allow for a lot of humor, yet ironically it supplies enough material for the guild of jokers to keep on paying their bills year after year, the deal between the guild of necromancers and the guild of jokers goes back to centuries, some people theorize that this the main reason we have the playful spirits called poltergeist, they were members of the jokers guild in life.

Then, Roger, the dwarf arrived through the sewers’ canals at the side of the road; since his curse, sewers didn’t pose much of a challenge; any smell overpowering his own is usually emanated from the alchemists’ guild graveyard on stormy nights which was entered into Jorkos’ guide of Moloria as the most offensive smell in existence, sewers were mild in comparison.

Fred the sorcerer descended from the back of a minor air elemental dragon in their vicinity and proceeded on foot. Following him, step for step Zortan shuffled silently dragging a glowing sack.

“So where is our architect of mayhem?” Philip asked the others, “is it possible the infamous Cole would arrive last?”

“I am right here my friends,” Cole stepped from behind a boulder, “I don’t like to be standing in the open in the way of the convoy of the batteries.”

Roger actually jumped a foot in the air in surprise, “That is a nifty trick, I didn’t feel your feet touching the ground at all,” dwarves had a keen sense to anything geological, including seismology, footsteps cause minor tremors for even the lightest of creatures; dwarves can usually sense that accurately in a mile radius, it has to do with their evolution from earthworms; it also is the reason dwarfs usually live underground and enjoy eating toxic mushrooms of Hokk, like there is no tomorrow, although for any other being these very mushrooms will never be considered a good source of nutrition since they tended to leave their consumer in a stupor, hallucinating, in severe diarrhea and eventually vomiting. Nevertheless, the Priests of The Fearsome Bunny God maintained that ingestion of those mushrooms was soul cleansing and was the best way to communicate with the combatant god, specifically through cleansing the innards, which they called detoxification, and they usually charged an arm and a leg for their toxic mushroom inclusive formulas. The mythos that claims that all dwarves evolved from earthworms has been approved by the council of priests of the dwarfs’ race as coinciding with the vision of their Gods, especially the God of wet dark places and the God of harvest, who was said to spend a lot of his time tasting and testing the infamous mushrooms.

“No tricks my friend,” Cole smiled as he walked to the edge of the road, “just a natural gift I guess for stealth.”

“So, Philip you arranged the transportation?” Cole turned to the necromancer.

“One haunted carriage,” he looked at his wristwatch; a ridiculous contraption usually carried only by necromancers as nobody else would enjoy the ridicule it harvested being a five-pound glass with thousands of ticking pieces inside and all, Philip continued, “arriving right now.”

Around the bend of the road, a glowing shape came hurtling at an incredible speed seemingly about to crash the gathered five.

Roger jumped back; Fred flew up and Zortan faded out of his state of shimmering while Philip watched his watch standing in the middle of the road with casual disregard to the chagrin of the others. Only Cole stood beside him with a vague smile on his face.

The hurtling carriage came to a sudden stop without raising a speck of dust half a meter away from the necromancer.

“You are late,” Philip consulted his watch, “by ten whole seconds.”

The carriage moaned and hissed apologetically, it even showed a shade of pink slouching around its contours, it was apparently embarrassed at disappointing its master, or it was a female as pink usually was a trademark of unmarried females of any culture in Moloria, believed by other married females to look rather cute on the hapless younger ones. According to tales of old, it could also mean that it was in the search of a good match, and as that particularly worrying thought ran through the mind of Roger, himself a perpetual bachelor always on the run from aforementioned pink attired females, it caused him to feel a short but strong torrent of natural to occur panic.

“Did you prepare the ditches at the precise points I have shown you on the map?” Cole turned his attention to the recovering from panic dwarf.

“It wasn’t easy,” he complained, “I didn’t sleep a minute all night.”

“I assure you, Roger, that of the ones who could sleep among us, none did,” Cole had a glint in his eyes as he spoke, “this job is the ultimate for any of you.” According to lore, the undead and necromancers can’t sleep, something to do with cheating death on a daily basis, and even if they try, death’s grumpier brother ‘sleep’ would never grant them this rest something to do with family matters and so on. This was yet another reason why they are usually as short-tempered as your average mother in low on the anniversary of meeting her offspring, even if said offspring is about to be a mother in law for some hapless fool.

He then turned to Fred, and said, “are you fully charged, my friend?”

“As charged as I ever could be as a fourth circle sorcerer,” Fred shrugged.

“Don’t give me the fourth circle nonsense,” Cole countered while giving his unsettling wink, “we both know you are as powerful as any fifth circle user; I even think far more powerful,” he almost reached to the shoulder of the sorcerer, who flinched away as usual, “you just don’t have access to their spells, but soon you will.”

“Yeah, about that,” Fred gave the gathering a smile, “I am powerful, but I am not so sure I can actually stand against ten magic users alone,” Fred had a playful smile on his lips, one that Roger knew was the death wish most air sorcerers were famous for, at least this was the running rumor. The reality was that air sorcerers were extreme optimists, hence the nickname airheads were given to anybody who hoped for the best as he held a long metal rod in a lightning storm, which was an integral part of being identified as an elemental sorcerer, a method practiced of old. Some people say that all those things practiced of old had a pearl of internal wisdom to them, specifically the ones that had to do with magic, as nobody wants a timid or shy magic-user, those are the seeds of Dark Masters, as everybody knows.

“I assure you that you will have help,” Cole smiled, “it is being arranged as we speak.”

Cole then moved to almost be touching the shade, gave him one of his infamous winks and said, “did you gather them all?”

“I did, they were ssssssso hard to convinccccce,” he glowed brighter, and he said in a pleased voice, “but I sssssuccesssseded”

“Excuse me, Cole I have to say something,” Roger tried to pull their attention down to his level by raising his voice above the level of launching a newly born air dragon, a noise most akin to the sound produced by the sudden outburst of a thousand windmills.

“Yes?”

“I am a little bit confused, seeing that I know only a small part of the plan,” Roger gazed around the gathered five, and even though he didn’t receive the encouragement he hoped to receive, he continued, “I mean you are the master strategist and all, but still, it worries me not knowing the entirety of the thing.”

“Dwarf, trust Cole,” the necromancer turned to Roger, “I had to deal with him in the past; his plans always have hidden parts and always are successful.”

“I also know of his reputation,” Roger said, “it is just that too much depends on this venture.”

“I understand your worries Roger,” Cole answered calmly, “but I assure you that you, meaning all of you have perfect alibis and exit plan in case anything goes sideways,” he smiled and said, none of those exit plans involve meeting the grim collector I assure you,” and he gave a big raucous laugh, one that further caused Roger to shivers. After his casual mention of Death, he said, “rest assured that this was part of my pre heist planning.”

Cole moved towards the ghostly carriage and said calmly, “Shall we, gentlemen?” and he pointed to the door that swung open to show a luminescent green light dancing on the inside of the carriage.

“I am not sitting beside the shade,” cried Fred, “he is ogling the carriage in a most unwelcome way,” he looked to Cole pleadingly, “it is as if he wants to have its babies.”

“I too would be very upset if he tries mating with my carriage,” Philip said as he entered the carriage, “I wouldn’t care for ectoplasm all over my shoes.”

And thus, they moved.

###

A few minutes later, they stopped, almost one hundred miles away from the city, and they came out of the carriage in a rush, actually, they were falling out of it screaming, at least Roger was.

“It ate it! It ate it, I tell you,” he screamed at Cole, “the most treasured part of my body is forever gone,” he cried, “I will never amount to anything again, all dwarves will mock me to kingdom come,” he wailed endlessly, “I am ruined.”

“I am sure it will grow back,” Fred comforted him, using the vague and uncertain knowledge that most sorcerers have about anything not magic, “I heard dwarves get it removed on occasion.”

“From where did you get this silly notion?” Philip snorted “dwarves have the same anatomy as us; a male dwarf is having it integral to his self-image just like you do.”

“Sssssssssso ssssssssssad,” Zortan chortled, “but he got it coming, he inssssssulted her after all.” Thus, Zortan proved that the carriage was, in fact, a female one, he should know, being a shade granted very good vision even past the covering wood.

“Hmmm, what exactly did you lose?” Cole inspected the collapsed dwarf.

“The last digit of my pinky finger, of course, can’t you see it?” Roger waved frantically his hand at Cole.

“Actually, I think all your fingers are intact Roger, all six of them are there,” Cole touched Roger’s hand and added calmly, “check it yourself.”

Roger looked intently at his hand, counted his fingers, pressing on each digit to check if it is real or not.

“I swear the ghost lady in the carriage bit it off,” Roger was perplexed, “yet here it is, whole and sound.”

“Must have been a ghost digit she bit then,” Philip turned to watch the hand of Roger with some interest, who still turned his hand over and over searching for the bite marks.

“It was his pinky finger?” Fred asked in confusion “I had the impression it was something more vital, more important to a man.”

“It is, dwarves also raise the pinky while drinking tea just like the rest of us,” Philip turned to face him, “imagine his embarrassment in tea parties, it is just not seemly.”

Fred almost jumped at Philip before Cole started to speak, like mentioned before, sorcerers are known to have a death wish, but he stopped in midair as Cole said, “In ten minutes our prey would have crossed thirty miles of carefully placed ditches, most of the elite troop would be in tatters by now,” he checked his pocket watch, although almost as cumbersome as the wrist one, it was accepted as an integral fashion accessory for the discerning gentleman, and that is the fashion to you. The watch’s demon hissed in indignation the time, preferring to annoy its master by always phrasing the time in the Conefertium way and not the Molorian, “and after thirty minutes they would reach us.”

“Mr. Zortan, would you be so kind and call your forces to attack?” Cole turned and addressed the shade.

“Gladly massssster Cole,” with that Zortan vanished.

Little known fact, not all the undead are similar, aside from the classification of beastly, fleshy and ethereal; there is another more crucial classification; classification according to the mode of team action or lack thereof of it, for instance, vengeful spirits work alone, werewolves, vampires and poltergeist work in packs, while liches, wraiths, and shades usually have minions and the more powerful the undead of this category, the bigger his or her fellowship in numbers and in power. Zortan was low on the hierarchy of the undead, yet he had his own minions, around ten thousand of them.

“He has ghost flees,” Cole answered Philip question.

“How many are they?” Philip asked.

“I think around ten thousand,” Cole explained the number “he used to be a beggar while alive, died in a fire with all his flees.”

“Formidable, I think ghost insects feed on magic, right?” Fred interjected in the discussion.

“Soul energy and magic,” Philip answered, “basically they would render the swordsmen as weak as a six-month-old babe and would render the magic users useless if given enough time.”

“You really put a lot of thought in your choice of the shade,” laughed Fred, “I bet every one of us was truly studied thoroughly.”

“It is my job, Fred,” Cole smiled, “And I enjoy it thoroughly,” and he gave him another of his really unsettling winks, with some glint to his other open eye, that doubled the effect on everybody present, even the necromancer blinked, which is the equivalent of a powerful shudder for other people.

###

Zortan arrived at the place the carriage of the batteries was in the blink of an eye, which was fifteen miles of his comrades' hiding point.

The whole entourage was bedraggled; the strategically placed ditches broke the legs of half the number of horses of the carriage and of the riding swordsmen.

What should have taken them less than an hour to traverse consumed four, the troop fell down from two hundred strong to only one hundred and twenty, the other eighty had too many injuries and logistic problems, lack of horses as an example, another lack of walkable legs, that they either had to fall back or hinder the progress of the whole troop, and the carriage couldn’t wait for them so they were left to crawl back home.

The rest of the troop and the sorcerers were tired and pissed off, the ditches appeared to be the work of burrowing animals, a whole clan of them, heavy on the infamous toxic dwarf mushrooms or something as sinister. The earth sorcerers couldn’t determine the type of animals yet they left a hideous stench that destroyed most of the earth’s essence in the area rendering it impossible to track, and this was the base for the toxic mushroom ingestion by whatever dug through the road so viciously.

Zortan saw the entourage coming slowly towards him and he released his minions for their one mission, to suck as much life force and magic from his targets as possible.

In less than five minutes, the unaware troop felt the pressure of the sun harsher, the ride on their horses became harder to the nether areas, and every movement was a jarring jolt. But none could fathom that this was called upon them by unseen life-sucking flees, they didn’t itch or feel the sting of their bites, for there was none to feel.

Zortan then leached himself to the carriage itself and started his job of sucking its magic energy for the remaining fifteen miles.

###

Cole checked his watch and again the demon hissed in anger, and then turned to Fred, “now is a good time to do your thing.”

“Are you sure I have no less and no more than two minutes?” Fred started to do complex hand gestures.

“To the second my crafty friend,” Cole moved away from the road to watch from their post behind a rather conspicuous boulder, although it was there for as long as the road existed, today it looked really conspiratorial in the way it leaned by the edge of the road.

Fred knew that it takes exactly two minutes to set his magical trap, if he did it before the very arrival of the carriage, he would be found out and he wouldn’t be able to match ten sorcerers even if they were depleted as Cole promised. He had to finish his trap at the exact moment the troop reached them by the second, and this was the plan.

Only to the eye of a fourth circle adapt and higher, the air magic could be seen taking the form of something resembling the gossamer threads of a huge spider web hanging from the ground and up twenty feet from the road.

Just as he finished his last hand movement, the carriage came racing over the road.

Even non-magic users could see the trap taking hold of the whole troop including the carriage and its occupants.

They stood suspended as if time stopped around them, yet if you looked more closely you could see their eyes darting around in anger and fear.

Cole stepped from around the boulder and walked slowly towards the carriage, “good day gentlemen, this is a heist,” he motioned Philip to approach the stopped carriage. Zortan disengaged from the carriage and floated away from the way of the necromancer, having depleted almost its entire magical aura.

“You don’t need to be alarmed, in fact, you can’t be alarmed,” Cole smiled widely, and gave them a specially crafted wink to further discourage them from any thought of action, “since you are all trapped in a very powerful air cushion.”

Philip touched the carriage and started to speak very softly and fast, bolts from the carriage started to unravel and wooden bonds started to rot away.

Necromancers didn’t just control the undead, they had sway over the dead, and wood is actually dead trees.

Bit by bit the carriage disassembled itself uncovering the side and the roof, and inside sat the five elemental beings, called the batteries because unlike the normal elementals, these had no spark of intelligence, they were just conduits of the stored magic.

Cole produced from one of his pockets a small object; it was a statue of a fat grinning man holding an upturned cup. He attached the statues cup to the first elemental, and there was a sound resembling the sound of a tight cord being snapped. Besides the elemental, a pool formed then it started to take form to resemble the elemental only smaller and, in a way, denser. When it reached one third the size and height of the elemental, Cole moved to the next elemental.

In less than five minutes there were five juvenile looking elementals standing at attention beside Cole. He then reached inside a hidden compartment behind the elementals still sitting in the carriage, a compartment that none of his accomplices or even the troop knew anything of. Inside it stood a sad-looking feather ruffled eagle, only it was pure gold. It looked like a statue, yet it tilted its head towards Cole in alarm, then recognition washed over it and it almost purred to his touch. In the blink of an eye, the eagle flew up then came so fast charging Cole.

Fred and Philip stood stunned watching their colleague falling under the talons of the eagle. The eagle plunged deep in his chest and disappeared totally, tail, feather and all inside Cole.

There was a moment of hesitation, Roger and Zortan approached at this very moment seeing their leader lying still on the ground.

The web of magic started to unravel, magic needed concentration and energy to maintain it, and Fred was losing both.

The troop started to stir, Roger drew a vicious looking serrated ax from his back scabbard, Philip started an incantation to call the dead from the ground beneath their own feet, Fred started a low whistle while weaving his hands in front of his face calling an air elemental dragon to their aid while Zortan started to glow an ominous purple with drops of poison dripping from his hands.

The troop was in control of their full faculties now, and even though their power was quite diminished, the odds were almost thirty to one against the company of magical thieves, even with their powers diminished they still posed a great threat.

The first arrow from the troop was let in the air hunting for the heart of the most formidable of opponents, Fred the air sorcerer.

Just as the arrow was touching his chest, the whole world seemed to freeze with a booming “Stop”.

Cole stood glowing golden in the middle of the fray. He plucked the suspended arrow and turned it to dust just by touching it.

“I am Calldark the Crooked, God of thieves; waylay men, treacherous meetings and dangerous roads,” and he winked, and as he winked, the whole place seemed to swim for that instant in darkness, “I was forced into human form one hundred years ago and had my divinity was stripped from me by the practitioners of the Temple of elements,” the glint in his eye, suddenly fell and it was a gold coin that he flipped in his hand, dazzling al with its golden light. He moved among the almost to be a battlefield, “they summoned me to gain wisdom of the treachery of the elder gods, the ones who came before us human adopted gods,” he smiled and it was as if the sun shone brighter for a moment, “I scoffed them and refused to grant them divine knowledge, so, they performed the rite of dissection, a rite as ancient as the gods themselves, and they enslaved me in this human form as I watched my divinity taken away from me,” he stood and all the heartbeats on the road skipped a beat, then he said, “They kept me prisoned for ten years, but I eventually tricked them and escaped, I was immortal, yet had none of my divine powers,” anger tinged his voice, and the earth rumbled in rhythm to his every word, “I worked for this moment for the last ninety years.”

He walked as if floating towards the edge of the road, “for a hundred years the prayers of my subjects never left this earth to replenish my divinity, as prayer does to each one of the gods from the beginning and till the universe ceases to exist,” he moved silently, even more than he did as a human when he surprised Roger, “the temple priests diverted the prayers and stored their energy in a one of a kind elemental, an elemental made from the remaining divinity of a stripped God, feeding it the prayers every time it went on the road on its annual journey,” he touched briefly the dwarf as he walked and magical blessing cascaded over his whole body in a golden shimmer, his curse was healed, you could tell by the absence of the usual curled nose of the people nearer to him.

“Because I am the god of the roads and treacherous journeys, this was the only means for them to store the prayers in this unique elemental, it had to travel on a long treacherous journey to collect all the residual energy of the prayers,” he touched Fred who glowed briefly red, Fred now was a fifth circle sorcerer by divine ordinance.

“The whole battery scheme was just that, a scheme,” he laughed and thunder rolled to his laughter, “they just needed the journey itself every year,” he touched Philip as he went, and tendrils of smoke rose from the ground and enveloped him, Philip was now the most powerful necromancer living or dead.

“What the whole practice was for, charging the prayer elemental to absorb every last prayer still lingering on this realm,” he then touched the shade and all the world exploded in color, the shade disappeared and, in his place, stood a thirty-something man with powerful features.

Calldark spoke to him calmly, “you were cheated of your destiny by the very people who tricked me; beggars never turn to shades prince, because this is who you are,” Calldark smiled and patted the stunned resurrected man on his shoulder, “they wanted to place one of their own on the throne, so they stole you as a young boy and since kings’ blood carries a curse, they left you in an orphanage, hoping that when the king, who they affected his ability to sire any other children after losing you, dies without leaving an heir they will push their man to the throne,” he smiled to the astonished Zortan, “when you reclaim your throne with the aid of your friends here, promise to erect a small corner in every temple for my subjects to reach me.”

He then turned to all the gathering, waved his hands and the troop, carriage and its occupants vanished to reappear at Gom, with their memories totally wiped about the details of the whole journey.

Calldark then faced his former accomplices, “you have the real batteries, the rest was just trickery to make them seem bigger and larger to impress the masses, use them wisely.”

He started to glow really brightly, “never give your crooked ways away; you are now my priests, always remember to pass me a prayer every now and then.”

And with this, he disappeared.

A full minute passed in silence, broken by Roger, “now that I am a priest, can I still pursue the affection of the ladies?”

“My friend, even though I doubt the ladies would enjoy your pursuit, I think you are entitled, after all, you are a crooked priest after the image of our own god,” smirked Fred.

###

Five minutes later the leader of the troop stood in front of the gates of Gom facing the crossbows of two hundred or so guards.

“Who are you?” a guard called from the top of the gate to the troop standing in bewilderment.

“We are the entourage of the elemental batteries” The leader of the troop answered back.

“You can’t be; you are supposed to arrive in two days,” the guard shook his head vigorously, “so, who are you again?” the guard gave his annoyed question while he fiddled with his crossbow.

“I assure you we are the troop, although I don’t know how we arrived here at all.”

“Then where is your famous Impenetrable fort carriage carrying the batteries?”

“I wish I knew,” he looked around at the wreckage of wood and iron where the elementals sat, “but we seem to have the batteries with us”

“They seem malnourished in comparison to the last year.”

“They do seem smaller, I can see that.”

“So, what happened to them?”

“I really wish to know, as much as you do,” he looked desperately around to the tattered troop then back to guard “Look, can you send a messenger to the king? And would you kindly supply us with food and drink for the wait?” he added fast, “We will pay in gold or magical favors.”

The incident was studied thoroughly over the next months by the members of the temple of the elements; some of them even deduced what really happened. But to the general public, it was declared a magic interference on the Belmona triangle area, as they usually do when the public is to be kept in the dark, just as they did when the grand airship Tectonic disappeared with all four hundred passengers and crew.

But that is a totally different story.

The End.