Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (detective books to read txt) 📕

reached it, the passageway suddenly opened out into a fairly big open space. I stopped at the very end of the passage, making sure I was still enfolded in the shadows. The last thing I wanted to do was set off any other wards that might be a landslide of fecal matter raining down on my head before I was ready.

In front of me was the Garden of Ward and Curse.

In truth, I thought that it could have used a bit of a wash and brush up. A little TLC from a landscaper that knew his business.

It was a circular area, surrounded by waist-high stone walls. At first glance, it reminded me of that scene in The Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo and the rest of the hobbits are accosted by the Ringwraiths on the top of Weathertop. There was a dilapidated feeling to the place; tumbled stone and tussocky weeds growing up through cracked stone.

There was a pool in the middle of the garden. It was so still that it might have been painted on the ground, like one of those cool illusions that people draw with chalk or paint on sidewalks. Even the slight breeze blowing over the parapets of the tower did not stir it. The water was flat and dull, and only the reflection of a smattering of stars gave it any semblance of reality.

Stars?

I looked up and caught my breath. I hadn’t really noticed it at first, as you so often don’t take note of the most obvious things, but the night sky was spread across me like a veil. I knew I was standing on top of the tower that we had just climbed, but there was no way that it could be nighttime. Leah and I had arrived almost first thing in the morning. It could only just be lunchtime now, if that.

An enchantment then. A way to disorientate the lonely adventurer. To compile the exhaustion that they were expected to feel after ascending that fucking staircase.

The stars, in contrast to the gloomy pool and gardens, shimmered in a way that made me feel as if I was at the business end of an acid trip.

I puffed out my cheeks, shrugged my shoulders, and mentally touched the mana reserve that all mages carried deep within themselves. My father’s crystal staff felt good in my hands; familiar.

I had one last scan of the area.

Everything looked quite serene and boring. No sign of any prowling nasty. No bones or arbitrarily discarded lumps of meat. As secret relic gardens went, this was most definitely one of the less diabolical and sinister looking ones that I might have imagined.

Nevertheless, in my admittedly brief but varied experience, it was precisely at moments like this that I could almost guarantee I was about to be shit-fanned.

I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders, loosening the muscles. Magic tingled in my palms and itched at the back of my throat. I could feel the pulse thudding, strong and heavy, in my chest.

Still alive, baby.

Not being one to play things by convention, I cleared my throat and bellowed, in a throaty roar, “Honey, I’m home!”

Even though the garden was at the top of a tower and open to the air, the acoustics were phenomenal. My voice bounced and rang around the cracked stone pillars for what felt like a full twenty seconds. It was extremely satisfying. Iron Maiden could’ve put the show of the century on in that little al fresco amphitheater.

A deep growl resonated from out of the murk.

“Here we go,” I said to myself.

A dog emerged from behind a large clump of ratty weeds.

Now, to make a clean breast of things, it was a big dog. A very large dog indeed. Like Rottweiler sized. It was the kind of dog that looked like it was powered mostly by the need to shred the flesh off anything or anyone it encountered. The kind of dog that junkyard dogs aspired to be when they grew up. It was an animal made to kill; yellow teeth, psychotic red eyes, and fur that looked more like the bristles you might find on the Calydonian boar.

A hellhound, though of a variety I had not encountered before.

Still, though, after all the shit that had tried to have me for lunch, it was just a dog.

I took a couple of steps into the cavern. Behind me, another horizontal portcullis snapped across the passage entrance, barring my exit. I took a deep breath and prepared to let loose my best battle cry, before I used a Blazing Bolt to send this hellhound to whatever afterlife awaited it.

There was a swishing sound, and a ripple spread from the very center of the pond in the middle of the Garden of Ward and Curse. The ripple reached the edge of the pond and continued, taking to the air. It spread until it lapped up against the edge of the circular space and engulfed me.

Nausea assailed me. I bent over involuntarily, clutching at my cramping stomach.

And as I bent forward, the ground seemed to come up to meet me.

“What the fuuuu—” I moaned as the world contorted, stretched, and grew suddenly large.

In the space of five heartbeats, the desolate garden seemed to have grown around me. I felt about as large as the average garden gnome.

Comprehension dawned.

The garden had not warped and grown—I had shrunk.

A deep, volcanic rumbling filled my tiny ears.

“Ah,” I said.

The murderous dog did not look so little anymore. On the contrary, it now looked like it was the size of an elephant.

I nodded and bared my teeth in a smiling snarl.

“Should’ve known it was looking too easy,” I said to the enchanted night.

Chapter 15

The hellhound roared its challenge and charged toward me, its claws kicking up