Free Hidden Power by Tracy Lane Page A

nature beast at the slightest movement. Instead a small Nayer, hungry and weak, limped forward out of the brush. 
    Kronos gasped. Could this be the Nayer Kayne had told him about? The one in whose saddlebags his young squire had hidden the mystical Orb? Kronos approached the Nayer eagerly and quickly snatched hold of its rope before it could trot away. 
    He used his free hand to root through the smelly beast’s saddlebag to no avail; he found nothing but spare bits of cloth and rancid jerky and dried fruit.
    By now the mortal had come to see what Kronos was doing. He approached the Nayer with his dirty hands and petted its head smoothly, as if the two were perhaps old friends. 
    “There, there Falcor,” said the man with great affection. “You’re home now.”
    “Are you the owner of this beast?” asked Kronos, eyeing the family reunion with disdain.
    The mortal looked up at him, eyes questioning. “Yes, it’s mine. She got spooked in the brush last week and I’ve been looking for her ever since. Falcor’s a great help around the—”
    “But what about the girl who had this beast earlier?” Kronos barked, advancing on the puny mortal with his staff extended menacingly. “I thought it was her Nayer.”
    The mortal looked confused. “What girl?” he asked, still petting the mangy beast and feeding it fresh roots straight from his herb garden. “I live alone and couldn’t even afford proper crops for harvest time, let alone a field hand. I really—”
    Kronos turned, staff at the ready, and aimed it at the mortal. “Tell. Me. Where. The. Girl. Is,” he insisted, emphasizing each word more than the last as he backed the man nearly to his cabin door. “I must find her! Now !”
    The man, his back to the door, shook his head wildly. “I know not of whom you speak,” he said, pleading with Kronos. “There IS no girl here. That is my Nayer!”
    Kronos raised his staff, eager to apply the Truth Spell to this common mortal; they were so much easier to weave spells on than squires. As he raised his staff, an explosion of light bounded from the brush. Kronos turned, just in time to avoid being struck by a surge of light from Iragos’ staff!
    The fiend had been hiding in the bush again!

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    Iragos stood from the brush, his staff in one hand, his free hand engulfed in a white light of pure energy that sizzled around his fingers, his palm and his wrist like a great ball of light. He aimed it at Kronos and let fire, the air whiffing with danger and sizzling with power. 
    The dark mage only just managed to avoid the Paralysis Spell, spinning at the last minute, the hem of his maroon robe twirling, white hair crackling around his head as the ball of power sizzled just out of reach.
    Clutching his staff for support, Kronos summoned his own charge of power, fiery and yellow as it flickered to life around his free hand, and shot it at Iragos. 
    Iragos managed to dodge the dark mage’s powerful spell, feeling the tree behind him catch fire as the scorching circle of light launched itself into the dry, bare trunk at his back.
    A mortal cowered by a humble cabin, clinging to the rope of a frightened Nayer as the battle between the two mages began in all its fiery, crackling glory. Iragos turned his attention to Kronos and bellowed, “Move away from this mortal; this is not his battle nor does he wish to join it and risk the life of his beast.”
    “Forget the mortal,” Kronos warned, eyes gleaming an unholy yellow as the fireball glowing in his hand. “It’s your skin you should worry about, Iragos!”
    Another ball of pure, yellow power launched itself from the palm of Kronos’ bare hand, but Iragos quickly diffused it with his own globe of hot, white light. Between the two strong mages, the sky glowed a radiant red where the two powerful orbs flew into each other, sending sparks and flame on high and low.
    “I know why you came Below,” Iragos revealed, trying desperately to come between Kronos and the