Wild cards
Chapter 17
…
The morning dawned bright and clear. Tree's dripped with the evenings rain and shone a vibrant green in the early light and birds chirped gaily as they flitted about their birdy business.
It was that birdy business that roused Harry from a death like sleep. His body ached like that time Dudley had forced his finger into the electrical socket, but it faded quickly as he started to move around.
"Good morning."
He turned slowly and saw Andrew sitting nearby, "Morning" he croaked.
"Breakfast" he said, offering a handful of nuts.
Harry didn't know where they'd come from and he wasn't all that curious. He forced his protesting body to move, crawling over to Andrew and accepting his meal graciously.
"How do you feel?" the older male asked.
"Sore" said Harry, "what happened last night?"
"Our hosts tried to kill us" Andrew said looking at him curiously, "what do you remember?"
Harry mulled over the evening as he chewed, "I remember the heads. I remember the guy with the horse."
"Dullahan" Andrew interjected, "continue."
"I remember the Dullahan, it's a little fuzzy, I… I summoned the Magical Star Rod, that's where it started. Then that cloak threw a lightning bolt at me, then the Dullahan and… I can't remember."
"Little surprise" Andrew said, "with all the power you were channeling."
"Did we win?"
Andrew chuckled, "We didn't die" he said, "under the circumstances that's about as close to winning as we could have hoped for."
"Was it really that bad?" again he suffered from his ignorance.
"Dullahan are among the most powerful undead creatures anyone has ever encountered" Andrew explained, "the Lich are more magically powerful but it's really a matter of how would you prefer to be killed."
"Oh, that bad" it still wasn't much context, but it certainly sounded bad.
"Yeah, still not the worst night I've ever had, that one still haunts me" he said with a somber expression.
"Really?"
Andrew nodded, "And she takes every opportunity to remind me."
Harry's bewildered expression reflected his youth and inexperience which caused Andrew to chuckle.
"You're probably a little young to get that one. The punchline is, women nag."
"Oh, I know that" Aunt Petunia was a perfect example.
"Well, that'll do" Andrew said with a grin, "finish up and we'll head out."
"Where we going?" Harry asked doing his best squirrel impression with his breakfast.
"There's a spot not too far from here that should take us to the Sky realm. We'll be able to make a lot of distance there."
"Ownds ood" Harry 'said'.
"Uh, okay."
The two men smile. It was a new day full of possibility. The events of the previous evening seemed far away as they set out in high spirits. Harry especially was eager for a new realm, having had quite enough of this one.
One hour and a dimensional shift later he was wondering if it was too late to reassess his opinion of the last dimension. Sea Serpents and headless horseman weren't so bad, not compared to his new predicament.
He was falling, plummeting, descending through the air at an accelerating velocity. What was it with these dimensions that he had to fall into them.
"How ya doin Harry!"
Harry looked over to the looney responsible for his current state of descension.
"Are you crazy?!" seemed like a reasonable question.
"Maybe" he shouted back, completely unperturbed, "what's the problem?"
"We're falling to our death!" Harry cried.
Andrew shook his head, "Just falling" he shouted.
"What!"
"We're in Sky realm, the elemental plane of air. There is no ground."
"How is that even possible?"
Andrew shrugged, "The rules are different on the elemental planes."
Whatever that meant, Harry thought, "So what now?"
"Now you summon us a flier, and we get going."
Get going, but where? Wherever it was Harry hoped the rules made a little more sense.
Pulling the top card from his deck he slammed it onto his board, "Soaring Roc!"
A rumble of thunder signaled the arrival of the giant raptor. With no instruction it sailed beneath and picked them up without so much as a bump.
"Nice" Andrew opined, "this should get us where we need to go."
"And where's that?"
"There's an open beacon in this realm, helps to navigate" he said, "it's not a gate but it should tell us what all the nearest adjacent realms are."
"Which should help us get home?"
"See, now you're catching on."
Harry smiled. He wasn't used to people saying nice things to him, but he was pretty sure he could get there.
After an hour in Sky realm Harry had reached a conclusion. Flying was fun. Falling, not so much but flying, this he could see himself doing again, as often as possible.
He'd also come to realize without the land below there was no real way to judge their progress. The clouds continuously shifted and flowed and that made it impossible to measure time or space by them.
Andrew didn't appear overly concerned but Harry wasn't expecting him to, not at an appropriate time anyway.
A rumble in the distance drew their attention. There was a dark cloud, a stark contrast to the fluffy white all around it. Lightning flashed in frantic jolts and they could just make out something moving around it.
"What is that?" Harry wondered aloud.
'That' turned out to be a group of tiny tornados with eyes. They zoomed around the stormy black cloud like angry hornets, stirring it up, stuffing it with pieces of the surrounding white clouds.
"What are they doing?"
"Feeding it" said Andrew.
"But, what is it… they, all of them?"
"The little ones are air elementals. They come in various shapes, little twisters are super common."
Harry remembered a man who'd possessed such an elemental.
"The big one is a little worrisome. That's a storm elemental. A big storm elemental."
And getting bigger, Harry thought as the little twisters buzzed around stuffing it more and more.
"It hasn't fully formed yet. When it does though we are going to be in trouble."
"Trouble?"
"Storm elementals are all violent to one degree or another. It's just their nature. And this one looks like it'll be particularly bad."
Prophetic words. There was a terrific boom from the dark cloud and it began to ascend. The black storm expanded rapidly taking shape and awakening to itself. It looked like the upper torso of a very strong man with massive arms and fabulous pecs. It tapered halfway down its belly, trailing off into a fine black mist.
"Wicked" Harry whispered.
"Yeah, let's just hope he doesn't notice us."
He did of course. His flashing eyes set upon them, he pointed a thick dark finger at them and the hovering elementals jumped to obey.
"Here we go again" muttered Harry.
The roc saw them coming and dove hard, picking up speed. The little twisters were persistent, zooming along over, under, even through the clouds. The roc had the size advantage and generated more flying power, but the twisters had little physical substance to move which left them evenly matched. Except, the roc had passengers.
The twisters had nearly caught them when the roc made a sharp turn then shot straight up. Its cargo hung on for dear life as the giant bird bobbed and weaved at break neck speeds.
It looked like it might out maneuver the tiny tornados when the storm elemental appeared, looming over them like an angry god. The roc came up short, nearly plowing into the angry elemental. Andrew and Harry were not so lucky.
Plummeting this time held a whole new level of terror. It wasn't the abrupt stop at the end that was a concern, it was the swirling nasties moving in to intercept them.
Harry barely had time to note his roc being destroyed by the storm elemental or Andrew waving his wand at it. He gave a silent prayer to anything that might be listening, drew and summoned without looking.
There was an explosion, streams of fire, and Harry pulled himself onto the back of a green scaled dragon. The dragon, unlike the roc, was completely unimpressed by the little tornados. It plowed through them like so much sky debris.
Andrew made his way over and latched on behind Harry as they continued down. A thunderous boom, they looked behind them to see the storm elemental in hot pursuit.
"He's gonna catch us!"
"Time to go then" and he pulled out the D jack.
The portal was fast and ugly, holding just long enough for them to get through. The sudden shift left them still traveling in a downward direction, only now there was something below them.
"Pull up!" they screamed together.
The dragon fought gravity and the strong winds attempting to comply. The sturdy beast broke through the canopy before it managed to level and bleed off some speed.
Trees whipped by at dangerous velocity but, they were no longer flying 'at' the ground. They took a moment to catch their breath.
They could see a second canopy below them, hundreds of feet down. The reason for this was evident given the size of the trees. They were enormous, thick around as houses and who knew how tall. This created a massive space between the upper and lower canopy which they found themselves flying through.
"Awesome" Harry marveled.
"Yeah" said Andrew with far less enthusiasm.
Harry noticed and looked back at his friend, "What is it?"
Andrew looked around anxiously, "I think I know where we are."
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he was sure of it. He couldn't see them, but he could feel their eyes.
They were in High Lorraine.