The Archimage Wars: Huntress of Tartarus

By Philip Blood

The story of The Archimage Wars is an urban fantasy series. The story begins in current time, on Earth, but don't let the time or place fool you! Truth is stranger than fiction and the truth about Earth and what it really going on will confound and amuse you!
Join our wizard hero as he tells his crazy story and takes you on a diabolical journey where you will travel across the Ten Worlds. He must not only survive, but must relearn to use the magic he has forgotten if he is to survive the Ascension Quest, and unravel plots so twisted and deep you would need an Albus Sorceress to help you find your way through! Fortunately, you will have one to help you figure it all out.
On this journey you will discover things that are hidden in all of Earth's history, wars, religions, famous people, movies, books, legends and myths, and while doing so, uncover the truth about our universe! It is not what you think. This novel series will take you on a quest across many strange fantasy worlds, not the least odd of which is Earth. The worlds range from almost Tolkien fantasy settings, to modern day technology, and everything in between!
If you liked Zelazny's Amber series, Butcher's Harry Dresden series, and Farmer's Riverworld series, you should like my The Archimage Wars series.
In book 6, our hero continues his journey, going to the World called Tartarus to discover its secrets. Do you dare find out the truth?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Blood
• Release date: Feb 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370498109

Philip Blood

Philip Blood is a published author currently living in the Los Angeles suburbs. He is an avid scuba diver, a voracious reader of sci-fi and fantasy, a tabletop gamer (from way back), and a computer game junkie with MMOs being the top of his list.Mr. Blood recently finished the third and final novel in his Zone series, this one called Brethren of the Ark and will soon publish book 9 in his urban fantasy series, The Archimage Wars: Warlok of Sheol. Book 1 through 8 are all available now with just one more to come to finish the series. Book 10 will be finished by the end of 2020. In addition, he works on creating Audio Plays for his novels, with five already available and more to come!He also recently went back to his very first fantasy epic series, Cathexis, and did a deep re-write, fixing may of the writing issues of a young author (he wrote it 30 years ago) while leaving the story intact. All four books have been re-written and are now available in ebooks or print versions.Finally, Mr. Blood has begun outlining a new, more traditional, fantasy epic, which he will start writing in 2021. The series is called, Kingdoms of Magic.

Book preview

The Archimage Wars:

Diabolical Book 6

Huntress of Tartarus

by

Philip Blood

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Version 3.00

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PUBLISHED BY:

Philip Blood on Smashwords

The Archimage Wars: Huntress of Tartarus

Copyright © 2018 by Philip Blood

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any short quotes from other Authors, Movies, Writers or Composers works are within the bounds of the Fair Use Act.

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Dedication:

This book is dedicated to all my friends, the ones who stuck with me through thick and thin. In no particular order, Ed Cook, Todd Blood, Rhonda St. Laurent, Terry Nelson, Brian Tasse, and Ron DeRuyter. There are a lot more, some who have drifted away, some who are family as well as friends, you know who you are, but I appreciate all of you who have been in my life and accept me for who and what I am, good and bad. We all have a dark side, but these people have helped me stay in the light.

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Other novels by Philip Blood

SINGLE NOVELS

Dragon Slayer’s Incorporated

SERIES:

NexLord (3) zONE (3)

Dark Prophecies The End and the Beginning

Black Chains Pirate Code

Grim Realities Brethren of the Ark

The Archimage Wars (10) Cathexis (4)

Wizard of Abal Necromancer’s Dagger

Sorceress of Atlantis Conspirator’s Coin

Demon of Annwn Sorcerer’s Ring

Seeress of Yaochi Desecrator’s Sword

Necromancer of Irkalla

Huntress of Tartarus Kingdoms of magic (Forthcoming)

Divinity of Elysium Weapon of Destiny (Forthcoming 2021)

Magus of Nibiru Black Wizardry (Forthcoming 2021)

Warlock of Sheol Doomed Crusade (Forthcoming 2022)

Sibyl of Terra Witch’s Curse (Forthcoming 2022)

The story so far…

Welcome, one-time friends and others who have stuck with me through this sorry tale of woe. Before I even get started, if you have not read the previous volumes of my tale, stop reading! Go back to Book 1, Wizard of Abal and start from there. No, really. Spoilers coming!

OK, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

As you all now know… I am The Dragon. You have, up until recently, called me Nick, yet one of my many real names is Abaddon Dragon, the most hunted mage on the ten Worlds.

Once upon a time… I actually had friends, though they all hate me now. Regardless of their change in feelings, I still care.

Some of you might not recall all the details of how I reached this sorry state, so let me bring you up to speed. Assuming you are not already out to kill me, after you hear this you will probably join the hunters on my trail. Of course, if you do remember everything, and are already after my blood, just skip to Chapter One and join the hunt.

For those of you who are still here, let me see if I can jog your memory…

Some time back, I woke up on a stone slab in the ancient Egyptian ruins of Karnak, having forgotten every damn thing about my personal history. I did not even know my name, but I could speak many languages and I know how the world works, at least Earth, but we will get to the other Worlds, soon enough.

A Hunter, from Morrigu’s House, named Stewart Hentan, tried to kill me as part of the Ascension Quest. That is what the Houses call their game where they all try to eliminate the other nine Houses on their way to winning a stupid ‘King of the Hill’ contest! All this warfare is just so that their supreme ruler may ascend to the Silent Mother’s throne. That means that their Archimage would get to rule the universe, or the PTA, or something, as God.

At that point, I traveled to England, where I ran into a wizard and tourist named, Hydan. He is a lush on holiday; no, really. He travels the Worlds to drink and collect new alcoholic beverages. I was soon reunited with my old girlfriend, Fiona, a kick-ass, Second-Tier Sorceress from House Albus. She is the single most beautiful girl on this side of Andromeda. Not that I remembered her or anyone I had known in the past, due to my wonky memory.

Soon, we were off to a new World, called Abal. On the way, I met a bloodthirsty Tarvos sorceress named Myrka, who only wanted to stay near me so that she could find The Dragon when he came to do me in. Everybody thought I stole something from the master of evil, and that he wants it back, or that he just wants to kill me because I borrowed a wrench and did not bring it back…or something.

Myrka and the rest of her House are tainted with a power called the derkaz. It is something that, once voluntarily taken into your soul, makes a mage callous and violent.

Once we arrived on Abal, I gathered another wizard into my little group, a very honorable Bakemono mage, named Toji. I saved his life, so he swore to serve me for a Yaochi year. That is his home World.

During our little adventure on Abal, I bumped off a mage who had returned from the dead, he also happened to be the insane son of the Archimage of Abal, Mordred. Then, I rescued a guy I thought was my dad, who turned out to be the Archimage of Abal, Mordred’s father. His name is Merlin. Yes, he is ‘the’ Merlin, of King Arthur legend.

Merlin did not blame me for doing in his son. That little shit had caused a civil war on Abal and he had imprisoned his dad in a crystal cocoon, though I eventually busted Merlin out.

I also met, who I thought was, my long-lost mother, the White Enchantress. With her help, I had managed to stop a thousand or so year civil war on Abal.

That is when I learned that my father is not Merlin, of House Sivaeral, but was some House Albus wizard called The White Knight. I figured that the White Knight was Lancelot of the same Earth Arthurian legends, with Guinevere being my mother, The White Enchantress. It made sense, though it was all a lie. However, I did not know that yet.

When I thought they were my parents, my previous Nautilus Glyph, of House Sivaeral, changed to what I thought was my actual House, becoming the Spider Glyph of House Albus.

I then returned to Earth and did a little research into my newly discovered House. While doing that, I met a Hidden Soul, which is a mage who does not know they are a mage and, because of that, they do not show a House Glyph on their left cheek, at least, not yet. His name was Casey Griffith.

Together with Casey, Fiona, Hydan, Toji, and Myrka, we had gone to yet another of the ten Worlds, this one called Atlantis, the home of House Albus. At that point, I thought these were my people.

Once on Atlantis, I battled with Morgana, a Dokkalfar necromancer who teamed up with a dark entity called The Unspeakable. I later discovered that The Unspeakable was the split-off, dark half, of Jenidan, the Archimage of House Albus. This dark half named herself ‘Draok’, also known as the aforementioned, Unspeakable.

During one battle, Guinevere was killed and, later, Lancelot, the man I thought was my father, got kidnapped by Draok. If that was not bad enough, Draok inhabited Myrka’s body, using something called a ‘Heart of Stone’ to take control. To find and rescue both my father and get Draok out of Myrka, I had to go to another of the Ten Worlds, Annwn.

Annwn is the home of House Tarvos, a bunch of derkaz crazed, bloodthirsty, nut job mages… just like my pal, Myrka. I went there pretending to be a captured mage slave since they do not allow other mages on their World. On Annwn, while tracking down Draok to rescue my, supposed, father, I discovered that the Tarvos are dying off due to some inability to breed with another Tarvos mage who has embraced the derkaz. To keep breeding, they have been capturing and enslaving mages from other Houses and using them as breeding partners.

Not only that, but their planet is slowly spiraling in toward its sun, which has already made the surface so hot it has become uninhabitable. I had solved their breeding problem by finding some of their mundanes who were in hiding. Now the Tarvos mages can breed with them, instead of enslaving foreign mages. Next, I blackmailed the Archimage of Annwn into releasing all his mage slaves. Along the way, I met Melusine, an Argoth girl, who knew me from way back, before I lost all my memories. After I set her free from slavery on Annwn, she told me that she owed me her life, so she decided to tag along to repay her debt by protecting my sorry hide.

Then, the man I thought was my father, sacrificed himself to get the Unspeakable out of my bloodthirsty Tarvos friend, Myrka. Unfortunately, Myrka then also sacrificed herself to save me from her own derkaz crazed Archimage. Before she died, I, stupidly, promised Myrka I would save her people. Damn my mouth! That turned out to be extremely difficult. Nearly all of them, including their Archimage, Arawn, had embraced the derkaz, making them uncaring, bloodthirsty killers. And, at that point, I thought that no one had any idea how to get the derkaz out of a person once they took it into their bodies! At least I solved the Tarvos breeding issue and put a stop to their enslavement of other House mages for procreation.

After that, we returned to Earth to help Toji. His family had been disgraced and his Grandfather’s position as Warlord on Earth taken by another Bakemono wizard named Jiro. Toji had been coerced into helping that very mage, the man who disgraced Toji's family line. To reinstate his family’s honor, Toji made a deal with Jiro to challenge the Bakemono Executioner to a duel. Normally, this would be suicide for a Fourth level mage to challenge a Second, but I had obtained a rare and powerful Actuality weapon, called Excalibur, yes, that Excalibur, and Toji… er… borrowed it, without asking, so he could use it in his duel. If he managed to kill Hotaru, Toji planned to commit honorable seppuku, happily dying by his own hand, knowing his family’s honor would be reinstated. What an idiot.

I threw a monkey wrench into that plan when I challenged Hotaru to a duel before Toji could do the same thing. Hey, it sounded like a good plan at the time! This solved the immediate problem of Toji dying in the duel, but Hotaru is like a lawnmower on nitro when she uses a Katana, the very weapon we would use in our duel at the Winter Solstice, which was coming up swiftly!

I had also learned, from a message in a ring given to me by the now-deceased, Guinevere, that my father is not Lancelot, The White Knight! She told me that my father is really… wait for it… Arthur Pendragon.

I started searching Earth, looking for my pop, you know, the Once and Future King? We had a lot of catching up to do. The problem being, I thought I was being hunted by the evilest being, well, ever. Everyone calls him The Dragon and he was once part of the ring of Ten Archimages. These are the ten immortal Archimages who each created, at least, one intelligent mage species on each of the Ten Worlds. The Dragon is also the only surviving son-of-a-bitch to break the Archimage Accords… twice, which got him tossed out of the Ring of Ten.

Sheol, his World, was then destroyed and House Dragon marked for extinction, with the other eight remaining Houses hunting him and his descendants. There are only a few mages left from House Dragon, but their Archimage, The Dragon, was still out there, causing havoc, pretending to be mages of other Houses (which only an Archimage can do), while committing all kinds of atrocities and other evil shenanigans. Oh, and I was sure he was hunting me for some unknown reason.

Arthur Pendragon is of House Dragon and is the man I now thought was my father. Pendragon means: ‘From the dragon’s enclosed land’, or ‘from House Dragon’. Since I still thought my mother was a second of House Albus, I figured that made me half-Dragon, which also means I was now half-sentenced to death. I was quite sure that my being a half-Dragon crossbreed was enough for any mage to want my head stuck up on a pole.

I wisely kept this new family relationship a secret, even from my friends.

Fortunately, at this point, my Glyph still showed an Albus Spider, which I thought was due to my mother’s side of my blood. Guinevere was a Second of House Albus, while Arthur was a Second from House Dragon, which would have made me a Crossbreed Bastard Second. At that point, no one, except me, knew of my dark side connection.

That is when I got this great idea to go talk to Mordred… yeah, the guy I killed on Abal, and his wife, Morgana, who I had also killed when I went to Atlantis. It turns out they knew things I needed to know, but I had killed them without asking those questions first. I figured I was screwed, due to that ‘dead men tell no tales’ thing. Then my new Argoth pal, Melusine, informed me that she knew a mage who could get me to a place called the Netherworld… yeah, the land of the dead. Once there, I thought I could ask the dead souls of Mordred and Morgana some pertinent questions.

So, like an idiot, OK, not just like, but as an actual idiot, I separated my soul from my body and made the trip to this Netherworld. For my trouble, my soul was nearly eaten by the dead souls of those I have killed and, to save me, the souls of my dead friends protected me so that I could escape. In doing that, they damaged their souls, and now they were on borrowed time before their souls dissolved unless I figured out how to release their souls from this Netherworld. You see that place was not natural! Someone created it to trap souls instead of letting them go on to a place some people call, the ‘Origin’.

Upon returning to the land of the living, the Winter Solstice was nearly upon me. No big deal, right? Except, remember, I stopped Toji from challenging Hotaru, the Bakemono Executioner, to a duel by insulting her first, thereby, getting into a duel with her myself! That was one of my dumbest ideas, and that is saying something!

My friends and I decided that I would have to uncover the whole plot, which led Toji’s family into disgrace, or I was going to have to face that katana-wielding master slicer and dicer in a duel!

So, we went to spy on Jiro in Okinawa, where we witnessed him making a deal with Bloodmoon, the mage spy who is impersonating dead mages. This time, he or she was playing the part of Fiona Albus, my girlfriend. However, we did not get any proof of Jiro’s guilt in framing Toji’s grandfather.

Then I ran out of time and ended up in Japan, where no matter how much I tried to avoid it, I ended up in that very duel with the katana wielding Hotaru!

By some miracle, when an avalanche obscured our battle, I managed to disarm Hotaru and pick up her sword. However, in some stupid act of chivalry (where did that come from?), I gave her sword back and then offered her my apology… and life if she wanted it. I promised her I would find the proof of a plot going on against Toji’s family. She decided to let me live, much to Jiro’s chagrin!

After that, I had to go to Toji’s home World to find that proof of the plot that I suspected Bloodmoon had concocted with Jiro. We uncovered a much larger conspiracy. Jiro was plotting with the Second in charge of Yaochi, a guy named Susumo.

In the end, we exposed Jiro, who committed Hari-kari, and then I tricked Susumo into revealing his involvement in the plot with House Argoth to weaken Yaochi. Nuwa, a Seeress who can see possible paths into the future, and who is also the Archimage of Yaochi, took charge and put things in order. She put Susumo’s fate in my hands, but I remembered what a little saeran girl taught me, and I spared his life. I did get Toji’s line reinstated and their honor restored.

And all was right in the universe… for about two seconds.

Nuwa offered me a reward, and foolishly, I took it, even after she warned me that the knowledge would not bring me happiness. She told me where to find Arthur Pendragon back on Earth, the guy I was so sure was my father.

I left my friends and headed to find Arthur. I did not want them to learn that I am half-Dragon yet, little did I know, it is much worse than that! I found Arthur, and he took me to the dungeons beneath, what had once been, the location of Camelot Castle. There, he showed me a giant crystal with a boy trapped inside. I broke the crystal, something Arthur, a Second of House Dragon, could not do. He knew I could do it, firstly, because I had already broken Merlin out of such a prison and, secondly because Arthur knew something I did not… I am an Archimage.

I learned that the boy inside the crystal is Arthur’s son, Nicholas. I know, wait, I am his son, Nicholas… but as it turns out, I am not. Arthur is not my father… and, holy bat-twist, I learned that it is the other way around; I am Arthur’s father! That makes me the Archimage of Sheol, the monster who is the basis of every legend of the Devil, and just about every other evil bastard in history! I am The Dragon.

Coming to grips with this was… hard. All this time, I thought The Dragon was after me, but someone else has been disguising themselves as The Dragon while I was in my coma for 27 years, and for who knows how long before that! Now I had to find out the truth. What evil acts am I responsible for? Or, has someone else been doing them in my name? So, I called up Professor Casey to help me dig up some information on the devil. I arranged to meet him at the University of Oxford England.

That is where we discovered that the Dokkalfar mages had dug up the bones of some old guy who may have been the ‘Typhoid Mary’ of the Black Plague, which turns out to also be the base ingredient in a deadly mage plague. Following Bloodmoon, I saw the Imposter steal something from a museum. She swiped something called the Alfred Jewel. This turned out to be a magical key that unlocks the catalyst that turns the Black Plague into a mage plague. Without it, you cannot use it on mages, with it, you can wipe out an entire House!

However, while we were following Bloodmoon, Hydan managed to steal the Alfred Jewel from the Imposter’s room. At this point, we figured that the Imposter is the Archimage of Irkalla, Kali. As it turns out, Kali is the Archimage who knows how to remove memories! Since mine have been stolen, I decided it is worth a trip to Irkalla to get my memories back from Kali.

Once there, we discovered that Irkalla is a tidally locked planet. Where half of the population are vampires and the other half their food. Well, sort of vampires, close enough that they are behind the myths of what Earth people consider vampires.

We traveled to the dark side of Irkalla to find Kali, and in the process got captured and bitten, thereby contracting the vampire virus. This started to change us into blood-sucking monsters driven by ‘the thirst’.

I met Kali, and we had a little chat. It turns out, I had a lot of things wrong. She convinced me that she is not the Archimage who has been impersonating The Dragon. She claimed she was visited by me, The Dragon, and that I gave her the vampires virus. I, supposedly, told her it was a way to change her people so they could live on the cold side of Irkalla. Once taken, they were stuck with it and now they must feed on their mundanes to survive.

But I convinced Kali that I had not given her the virus. I told her that someone impersonating me had done so. That mysterious person, who must be an Archimage to take my form, also started the blood feud between the Tarvos and Dokkalfar and got them both to take in the derkaz taint.

I made a deal with Kali, I would solve their vampire problem by using Earth science or the Friare brewers to make an antidote, in exchange for the memories she had stolen from me. It turns out she made a deal with Morrigu, Archimage of House Hentan, to steal my memories. Morrigu wanted to use me and Kali wanted revenge since she thought I had given her people the vampire virus.

In Kali’s palace, I ran into that very Archimage… and Morrigu confirmed my theories… admitting to playing my part. She admitted to pretty much everything! Then she escaped, taking my memories with her when she headed back to her home World of Tartarus. She even invited me to come after her, where she is strongest, and would have her hunters track me down.

Nearly crazed by the vampire virus, I got into a fight with Stewart Hentan, a Second, who I purposely set onto my path to kill me. You see, I thought I was going to turn into a vampire and have the derkaz in me as well. I planned to take in the derkaz since it was the only way I could collapse the Netherworld, thereby releasing the trapped and decaying souls of my dead friends. Not wanting to turn a derkaz-crazed, vampire Archimage loose on the Worlds, I concocted a plan to let Stewart know where to find and kill me, but only after I saved the souls of my friends. I did all that, and it got rid of the derkaz taint! However, because I had Kali remove the memory of my setting Stewart onto my trail, he nearly killed me. However, Kali saved my ass, yet, in doing so, revealed the fact that I am The Dragon to my one-time friends.

They immediately attacked me. Why not? Every other mage of every House, except mine, is out to kill The Dragon. I managed to escape by following Stewart Hentan through a portal back to Earth. That had the fortunate effect of taking away the vampirism infection, which is only in my Irkallan body back on Kali’s World. Now free of the derkaz, from going to and collapsing the Netherworld, and free of vampirism, due to returning to Earth, I was home free, except for that little part where everyone now knows that I am The Dragon and wants to kill me and salt the earth where I die.

Peachy.

And that brings us to this moment in time…

Chapter One

I got to get to rockin', get my hat off the rack

I got to boogie-woogie like a knife in the back

So be my guest, you got nothin' to lose

Won't ya let me take you on a sea cruise?

-Frankie Ford

If there is one thing I hate, it is being woken up early, particularly by a wrinkly skinned little bastard with a bad case of body odor. Pox, my nasty little phantom servant (I have no friends) has just appeared on the other small bed in my ship’s cabin. Among other things, this means there is now a disgusting pool of slime on the bed covers… I’ll have to have them burned. In fact, I better ask for another cabin since whenever Pox appears, he brings the lingering stink of death.

I cracked open a crusty eyelid but did not get up. I am somewhat used to Pox now; if anyone can be used to this nasty gnarly gnome.

What now, Pox? Have my ex-friends found me… again?

Soon after I had arrived back on Earth from Irkalla, I had stolen some poor sap’s fancy car. I planned to leave him £50,000 in the glove box. Hey, just because I am the devil does not mean I have to screw some poor old geezer whose car I ah... borrowed. As I drove his car away from Stonehenge, Pox appeared in the passenger seat next to me. I added another £50,000 to my planned ‘gift’ for the car owner because he would now have to replace the entire interior of the car. Pox informed me that my old friends, now enemies, are after me in another car, hell-bent on my destruction.

With Pox’s aid, I had managed to stay ahead of them, playing cat and mouse, me being the mouse, traveling the back roads of southern England and avoiding any stand-up battles. Since they now know I am The Dragon, of course, they want to kill me, but I do not want to hurt them, they were my friends, once. If I do not fight back and we get in a battle, I am dead. So, I decided that my best bet is to just outrun them and then lose them on the back roads, somehow.

Anyway, back to the present… Pox opened his mouth to answer my question about my ex-friends finding me, and a couple of cockroaches ran out and down his chin. It just goes to prove that cockroaches will live in the most disgusting places.

No, Master, the Friare and Bakemono wizards and the Argoth Sorceress have not reacquired your whereabouts… yet.

Toji has joined Melusine and Hydan? I demanded.

He gave me a perplexed look for a moment, and then added, Oh yes, Master. They all hunt you now.

Peachy, I noted dryly, then added, So why are you here? I told you to keep an eye on them and let me know if they are getting close.

He nodded his nasty noggin in agreement and some kind of puss coated scab fell off onto the floor; it started to burn a hole in the carpet.

Pox then replied, I discovered a group of mage hunters on board this craft, they are Hentans!

Stewart? I asked, slightly concerned, definitely angry.

Pox shrugged and answered, I’m not sure yet, Master.

How did the damn Hentans find me? I demanded.

My decrepit drudge replied, No time to tell you, Master!

You mean, they know I am here?

The little larcenous leech replied, They will be at your door in moments!

My covers went one way and my naked body the other, as I leaped to my feet, inadvertently stepping in Pox’s toxic scabby pool of puss.

It burned my bare skin and I kind of hopped over to the small bathroom and then into the vertical coffin they call a shower on a cruise ship. I turned on the water to wash off my foot, thereby banging my head into the shower stall wall.

As I just mentioned, I am, currently, aboard a cruise ship, staying in one of their outside cabins. These things have bathrooms smaller than the old phone booths, where, somehow, Clark Kent managed to change clothes into tights. That would take a super man. I can assure you that there is not enough room to do that in a cruise ship bathroom. The shower is so small you can just spread soap on the walls and then spin your body around to lather up.

Once I had banged my head, and somehow managed to rinse off my foot, I squeezed back out and into the short hall where the closet is located. Rather than try to struggle into clothes, I just imagined up some new ones onto my body. Sure, I probably could have gotten rid of the acidic puss burning my foot the same way, but when you are in pain, well, you do not always think clearly, at least, I do not.

Pox! Are those hunters nearby yet?

He nodded, Yes, just outside your door.

I lowered my voice and hissed, Crap on a stick!

Pox looks perplexed, I can fetch a stick, and do that if you wish, but I don’t know how it will help.

You go do that, I stated. I really just want to get rid of him; his stink, concentrated in this small ship’s cabin, is making it hard for me to think.

Pox disappeared, his body dissolving, which left a foul smear on the bed.

I figure that the mage hunters are going to break through the only door into my cabin at any moment, so I looked at the small porthole. Now, there is no way a human body, which I am currently in, can squeeze out a small round porthole, I had come out looking like a spaghetti noodle. Fortunately, I am a wizard, and reality is mine to deal with when I can think clearly. With Pox out of my breathing space, I managed to concentrate and believe my porthole is actually a door.

It changed and I, immediately, dashed out.

Behind me, I heard my regular door explode inwards.

I sealed the wall behind me, changing it back into a porthole. I hope this will make them think I was already out, rather than just escaped.

I ran down the outside deck of the cruise ship, passing several passengers who looked at me strangely. I guess I have an expression of terror on my face, or maybe they smell the lingering reek of Pox on my skin?

I ducked into a door and made it to an elevator, where I punched another floor at random.

As the elevator doors closed, I recalled another recent escape, which led to me boarding this cruise ship.

I am currently driving through the English countryside in my stolen car and I have no doubt that Hydan and his pals are hot on my, proverbial, barbed tail. I have been thinking about what I should do and where I should go before they manage to catch up with me.

The thought of my old friends pursuing me is extremely depressing. They might be following in another car, an air balloon, or some other crazy contrivance that Hydan cooked up. If that is not bad enough, every other mage from most of the other Houses must also be out to do me harm! However, I am not about to help them all out by killing myself, no matter how enticing that might seem.

As I have said before, I am not the suicidal type. No, I figured, if I am going to kick the bucket, it is going to be while attempting some completely idiotic and ridiculously dangerous plan to do in my true enemy, Morrigu Hentan, Archimage of Tartarus, murderess, imposter, thief, and stealer of identities, including mine. She even stole my heart, or at least a chunk of it, getting me to care for that bitch!

So, at first, while continuing my race to escape in the car, and hurtling down English country roads like some crazy version of a driver in the Gumball Rally, I had started thinking about where to find another World portal so I could get on with my revenge tour on the planet, Tartarus. That is where I plan to find and kill Morrigu. But, while at the wheel of this Aston Martin, I had been forced to think, and that is always dangerous for me… thinking, not driving.

When you are driving a car, you cannot sleep, at least, not healthily. However, you can let your subconscious do the driving, which means your mind is free to ponder