The Final Redemption by Michael Manning (little red riding hood ebook free .txt) 📕

Chapter 40

Flying without using my enchantedstones was an exhilarating experience. Even though my armorprotected me from the worst of the buffeting by the air, theexperience of having the wind tearing at me greatly enhanced thefeeling of speed. Since my rebirth as an undead monster, it was thefirst truly enjoyable thing that I had done, aside from my recentkilling spree. This had the distinct advantage of being aguilt-free pleasure. Even my inner spectator could find nothing tocomplain about.

After a while I got usedto the wind, and it felt as though I was no longer moving veryfast, so I pushed harder. The world moved slowly by below me, andalthough I knew this was an illusion, I found myself wantingmore. You can’t die. What’s the worst thatcould happen?

The most difficult part of the entiretask was the fact that my armor wasn’t exactly designed with flyingin mind. The higher my velocity the more problems its oddaerodynamic properties created. Eventually I went ahead and createdan impromptu shield around myself, shaping it to my will andenabling me to more easily control my attitude anddirection.

My first efforts nearly sent me intothe ground several times, and at one point I destroyed a tall pinewhile tumbling through the air out of control. Somehow I recoveredat the end and vaulted skyward before clipping the top of a rockyhill.

Hours later I wascomfortable and feeling at ease with my new method.This is the sort of experience a living wizardnever gets. If I had tried this while alive, I’d have killed myselfa dozen times over by now. I soared, Iflew, and my earthly problems no longer seemed so heavy.

The moon was up and nearing full whichgave the ground below a ghostly luminescence, beauty of a sort Ihad rarely had a chance to appreciate previously. While I didn’tneed the light, I found myself grateful for my lunar companion. Itwas always there, just over my shoulder, like a friend enjoying thenighttime landscape with me.

I sailed over the southernextension of the Elentir Mountains not long before dawn, whichsurprised me. I was traveling far faster than ever before.At this rate I’ll be at Cameron Castleshortly. That led me to the possibility ofmeeting Penny again, something I now looked forward to. I wantedher, though I tried to keep the thought below the conscious levellest my inner observer begin nagging me again.

I spotted the clearing with CameronCastle miles before I reached it. The morning sun had lit the topsof the trees with golden light, while the lower branches were stillcloaked in shadow. The skies were clear, empty of clouds and haze,which combined with my high altitude, gave me a view that even theeagles might envy.

The distance was so great that even mymagesight couldn’t find what my physical eyes could see; meaningthe castle itself was more than a mile or two in the distance. Iwas so besotted with speed and wind that I couldn’t be certain. Theair was so clear that my view to the horizon must encompasshundreds of miles which made it hard to ascertain the distance tosomething so close. The castle might be five, ten, or fifteen milesaway. I had no way to guess.

At last it occurred to me to enhancemy physical vision. I had done something similar while still alive,using my aythar to mildly reshape my eyes for better distancevision, but when I tried that here it was completely inadequate. Ithelped, but I wanted to see farther. I finally settled on creatinga different type of shield in front of me in the air. I kept thisone ephemeral, so that it wouldn’t affect the wind and disrupt myflying, and then I began altering its opticalproperties.

I had learned long beforethen how to alter a shield’s color and transparency. Walter hadalso helped me improve my illusions in the past by teaching me howto change the way that a shield bent the light passing through it.A few minutes of experimentation and I had created a lens of sortsthat greatly improved my view. Ahh, howthe astronomers would love this, Ithought.

Focusing on theapproaching castle, I was able to make out an incredible amount ofdetail. Now I could see a few small clouds of dust rising from thecourtyard. Tiny ant-like people running along the tops of thewalls. Something exciting was happening. They’ve started fighting without me! I laughed silently.

I saw one of the massivedragon-like flyers that Tennick had created hovering over thecastle. They must be preparing toassist. A flash of light and a large partof the creature vanished while the remainder fell from theair. That can’t be good.

Expanding my view, Isought the source of the attack. It had come from the direction ofthe ground. I pushed harder for more speed and magnified the vieweven further, though I struggled to keep it stable enough to remainfocused. There’s Harold, and that’sKarenth with him, I noted. They werefacing something odd, a large spider of some sort. It was hammeringat them with strange blasts of energy. I was still too far to‘feel’ it with my magesight, so I couldn’t guess at its strength orwhat the type of attack was.

It didn’t look good for Harold though,Karenth was backing up slowly, and everything else within thecourtyard had been obliterated.

Then I saw Penelope.

Shit.

Time was no longer something I couldspare. I pushed—hard, and then I pushed harder still. My velocityhad become something beyond common measurement. Idly the back of mymind considered repeating the experiment someday using markers sothat I could calculate the speed. It’s funny what the mind does inthe middle of a crisis.

The envelope around mybody was growing hot from the blistering force of the wind, and Irealized then that my landing would be anything but gentle. Therewas simply no way I could hope to suddenly overcome the vastmomentum I had created. I smiled at the thought, and instead put mypower into the shield around me. I can’tdie, and I have several Celiors worth of power. Why the hellnot? My shield would be myweapon.

I traveled the last mile in a flash,covering the distance so quickly that the spider-thing probablynever got a chance