Free Hidden Power by Tracy Lane Page B

cowering mortal as the battle waged. “The Orb of Ythra is not yours to summon, Kronos. Nor is it yours to steal. Give it back and you will go unharmed.”
    “Nor yours to retrieve,” Kronos cautioned as another ball of fire seemed to leap into his palm as if from mid-air. “That is my job, seeing as my naïve squire made the blunder of removing the orb from its holy resting place.”
    Iragos watched as another powerful ball of hot, white light flickered just above Kronos’ raised palm, letting it remain there until it had reached maximum power. 
    “Your squire?” he bellowed. “That’s rich! And how is a simple squire to overpower the most deadly guards in all of Ythulia?”
    Kronos narrowed his eyes but held his ball of flame in check. “That’s just what I hope to find out when I question him back in Mage City, Iragos. For now, leave me be so I can find the orb and return it to its rightful place.”
    Iragos shook his head, the sound of steed steps thundering behind him. “You know I can’t do that, Kronos.”
    Kronos was looking at something over Iragos’ shoulder, but the light mage could ill afford to turn his back on the dark mage for but a moment. Instead he watched as Kronos let loose his ball of flame, aiming it high above Iragos’ head.
    At last Iragos turned to see the fireball sailing right for another mortal’s head. Instantly Iragos loosed his ball of light so that, before it could consume the frightened mortal it instead clashed with Kronos’ fireball and rendered both harmless.
    But the mortal’s steed bristled and bucked and down went the mortal, landing on his back and shuddering away on his hands and knees as the tree behind him burst into flames.
    By the time Iragos turned, Kronos had aimed another fireball; this time squarely at his head!

16

    Hilliard felt the singe of falling ash on his collar as he cowered on the ground. He watched as his steed scampered to the side, six legs fidgeting but unwilling to desert his mortal master.
    Hilliard felt a flare on his thigh and looked down to find a red-hot ember burning through his britches, threatening the pale skin below. He stamped it out with his hand and got to one knee, trying to take in the scene in front of him.
    Two mages, silver hair flying about their heads with the power of their magic, faced each other in the front yard of his friend Lutheran’s humble cabin. Two trees crackled with intense heat, no doubt victims of the mage’s powerful balls of liquid power.
    Lutheran cowered, trapped on the other side of the battling mages, clinging to a humble Nayer so petrified its eyes never closed. The air was alive with power. It crackled in the sky and shivered through the leaves and creaked through the branches.
    The mages battled one another, the sky filling with light like lightning, flames raining down on the grass at their feet. Their robes shimmered, maroon and flowing around their long, lean bodies. One bore a white beard, the other black. Around their heads, almost identical silver hair writhed and flapped like snakes.
    Hilliard knelt, powerless, frozen, watching Lutheran do the same. Hilliard wondered if Aurora had been serious after all. What were the odds, he pondered, of his daughter speaking of Ythulia on one day and, the next, Hilliard coming upon two mages pitted in a life or death battle down Below?
    But it was impossible, Hilliard knew. Mages, Ythulia, a crystal city legend said one could see clear through, it was all just that: a legend. So much myth, fairy stories to keep the little ones happy as you read them to sleep. And yet, what mortal could open his palm and watch as a white-hot sizzling ball of power filled it?
    Hilliard crept forward until he was kneeling behind a watering trough for his friend’s horse. Steam rose from the water, such was the power of the mage’s intense and raging battle. Balls of power sizzled and flew across the air, striking each other as often as they struck the ground, a fence post or