“Ah,” Nigel nods. “That would have been a small fish called a Cuterfish. They are rare, but if you can get some, they are worth it.”

  “And I guess as king, you can always get some,” I tell him with a snicker.

  “Pretty much,” he replies with a massive grin. “It’s one of my favorite dishes as well.”

  “I can see why. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

  He nods at my observation. “That’s because their diet consists of eating a sweet plant that grows underwater. Somehow it infuses their meat.”

  “Ah. Almost like the Macoa,” I tell him, remembering how the Macoa’s meat was slightly spiced up because of the plants it ate.

  “Precisely. Though, I have only had it a couple of times. It was quite an enjoyable experience. Now, shall we go to the library and have tea and coffee?”

  We all nod, and once Nigel stands up, we follow him back out into the room we had come from, as he heads to a door on the opposite side of the dining room. He opens the door, and following him, I stop and whistle in appreciation at all the books and scrolls in the library.

  There are thousands of books and scrolls on the shelves. Turning around, I see there are even bookshelves above the door. Yeah. Over a thousand books, easily.

  “By the gods,” I hear Bo say, awe in his voice.

  Nigel turns to him and chuckles. “See anything you want to read? Go ahead and grab it. If you wish, I can see if I have copies of some of these if one catches your interest.”

  “Hmm,” Bo says awkwardly, bowing quickly at the king. “Thank you.”

  Nigel goes to one of the large, comfortable looking high backed leather chairs and sits down. Next to him is a large round side table with cups, two large jugs, and two small containers sitting on top of it. Even from here I can smell the coffee.

  “Help yourselves,” he says, waving to the table’s contents. “There’s coffee, green tea, and milk with sugar. If you require something else, let me know.”

  Without being asked, I take out a mug of Dwarven ale and pass it to Tia.

  “Thank you,” she says with a beautiful smile on her face.

  Leeha stage whispers, “You’re going to spoil her.”

  Before Tia or I can answer, Sara stage whispers as well, “Too late!”

  Everyone in the room laughs in a good-natured way.

  Grabbing a coffee for myself, I put some cream and sugar in it and go find my own chair. The room is large but comfortable, with over ten chairs and three sofas.

  Once I’m settled in, Nigel asks, “Can I ask the reason for your visit here? While my daughter dreamed that you were coming, we didn’t know why.”

  Taking a quick sip of my coffee, I try to figure out just how much I should divulge. I only met these people, and while my gut says to trust them, do I go into details?

  Leeha, sitting in the chair next to mine, taps my leg and nods. “Go ahead,” she says quietly, knowing what I’m thinking. “They might be able to help or give us information.”

  I smile and nod at her. Leave it to my smart Elven beauty to understand my thought process and fears. She’s right. Maybe if I tell them everything, they might have information that proves useful in the fight against Lucifer. If I leave anything out, I might miss some critical point that could make a difference in how much or the type of information they give me. And my body and life are on the line.

  So, nodding at Nigel, I tell him what I think is in the Temple of Mar. At first, he and his wives all look skeptical, but quickly that changes to shock. By the time I’m done, there are looks of anger on their faces.

  “Can you kill him?” Nigel growls.

  “I’m not sure. Like I said, Lucifer wants to take over my body. As an Avatar, he can take over others, but I’m not sure of the mechanics behind it. I do know there is some kind of blood oath involved. Is that a Magical ceremony of some sort?”

  Nigel seems to ponder the question, but it’s his wife Micah who answers.

  “There is such a thing, though it is vile. We consider it Dark Magics. It’s a form of bonding that allows someone to control, limited even though it is, someone else, or even see through their eyes and speak for them, even at long distances. They think they are getting a boon of extra strength or stamina, but they don’t understand that they use their life force quicker. Most who enter this contract do not live long.”

  “Why would someone do such a thing or even allow someone to do such a thing to them?” Sara asks, horror on her face.

  Sighing, Micah nods towards her. “Power. If you are stronger, even for a short time, it can mean the difference between being weak or strong. Imagine if you were a warrior, and had more strength than your enemy? You would win. However, these contracts have not been known to the races in ages.”

  I frown at her. “Then how do you know so much about it?”

  She smiles at me. “Because I am not just the king’s wife. I’m also the Mage’s Guild’s Librarian. It is my job to know stuff.”

  “And also,” Nigel says with a snicker, “she loves things that are macabre.”

  She laughs at her husband’s comment and sticks her tongue out at him.

  “So even though you are all the king’s wives, you have jobs?” Leeha asks around, intrigued.

  “We do,” Lyna says with a laugh. “I’m the king’s treasurer, while Fiona is the king’s architect. She’s the one who helped build these domes.”

  I look at Fiona in surprise. “You created the domes?”

  “By the gods, no!” she exclaims with a burst of laughter. “I help create the new ones. The original plans and how they are built were created by someone eons ago. I just follow that, but I do tweak it to what we need for each dome.”

  “Still! That’s amazing,” I tell her.

  “Thank you,” she says, bowing towards me.

  “And you honestly think that this Lucifer is in our Temple?” Nigel asks me, returning to our original subject.

  “I do,” I tell him. “But I do not know how I’m going fight him. What exactly is this Temple of Mar anyhow? What or who is Mar?”

  Nigel nods slowly, and I can see he is marshaling his thoughts, but I can also see the hesitation. Lyna, who we found out is the oldest of all his wives, though they all look the same age, puts a hand on her husband’s leg.

  “I think you are good in telling him, husband. I know it’s a secret we Mer have kept for eons, but I think this young man and his party need to know.”

  He looks at her, putting his hand on hers, and squeezing it.

  “That is my thought as well. Thank you for giving me that extra push, though. You are correct. If they are going to the Temple of Mar, they need to know.”

  Confused, I ask him, “Know what?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Nigel holds up a hand to forestall any questions I might have.

  “The Temple of Mar is a holy place, but it’s not a temple to any gods. Mar was a Mer, one of our most powerful mages, from ages ago. He built the Temple to guard something that he created. We aren’t sure what it is, but we are to protect it with our lives. History says that only someone powerful enough will be able to use it. Whatever or whoever that is, we aren’t sure.”

  “But,” Lyna adds. “The issue is, any Mer trying to get close to the Temple now, dies. For the last 60 years, we have not been able to get close. Any Mer that goes there does not come back alive.”

  I frown at that. “But then how is it that humans who end up in the Temple are able to come out alive?”

  Nigel sighs. “And that is the conundrum. I have a feeling that we Mer must have something within us that prevents this oath from happening to us. This contract. I would wager a good sum of gold that we Mer are somehow immune to becoming this Lucifer’s Avatars.”

  “Damn. I would love that ability,” I say with a sigh. “So, was this Mar powerful?”

  Nigel smiles at me and nods. “He was one of your predecessors.”

  I frown at him, not understanding, until Leeha blurts out, “He was an Elemental Summoner, like Alex!”

  Nigel’s smile turns into a grin. “Correct. Though,” and he looks at me, “I doubt he was like Alex. But Mar was still a very powerful Elemental Summoner.”

  I nod, now understanding why he was so powerful. He wasn’t just a Mage. He was one of the Elemental Summoners that came to this world every 1,000 years. It wasn’t just humans who had that title in the history of this world. Leeha had mentioned once that there was even an Elven one. So why not a Mer one? Hell, for all I know, there might even have been a Dragon one, I think, looking at Tia thoughtfully.

  She must realize what I’m thinking because she laughs and shakes her head.

  “No husband. We never had a Dragon Elemental Summoner. The gods felt we Dragons were already powerful enough without adding the power of an Elemental Summoner to our reservoir.”

  Nodding in understanding, I have to agree. Having seen her fight, I think the only reason I was able to fight her on equal footing was because I brought something from my world here. Lasers. If you were to add the power of an Elemental Summoner to that, he or she would be unstoppable.

  “So, what are you protecting in this Temple of Mar?” I ask Nigel.

  “We are not sure. It’s in the middle of the Temple, in a room that has no doors. We have no idea if we are protecting a weapon, a book, or even something like a trinket. For all we know, we might be protecting just a bust of Mar himself.”

  “Yet, you still protect it? Not knowing what is there?” Tia asks, and she isn’t able to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

  Nigel smiles at her as if this isn’t the first time the Mers’ dedication was called into question.

  “You must understand. Mar was an Elemental Summoner. He was a powerful being who kept the races together. Even the humans. This was before,” and here he growls low with hate, “a human was chosen and destroyed all that we worked towards. We had golden ages, with untold Elemental Summoners. The last one,” he bows towards me, “or the one before Alex, was the one who destroyed many of our races.”

  “Well,” I tell him. “I have it under good authority that she was not the one controlling her power.”

  He looks at me with a frown, so I explain to him about meeting up with the last member of the Order of the Elements and finding out that their leader was the last Elemental Summoner. But she was still under their control. She was being controlled by a Magical collar, almost like what I had created.

  Nigel asks me with skepticism, “You say she is still alive?”

  I nod and smile at him. “She is. Her name is Pina Moltar and she’s actually an amazing young woman. She’s still here on Orac trying to help me.”

  “Wait,” he says, holding a hand up. “You let her live?”

  “I saw no need to kill her,” I shrug. “It wasn’t her choice. Until I came here to kill the Order of the Elements and their leaders, she still had a collar on and was still being controlled. It just so happened that she escaped and got the collar off. But I was already chasing her. I cornered her in a cave.”

  “Wow,” he says, sitting back with an introspective look. He finally looks up at me again and asks, “And you trust her?”

  “I do,” I tell him with a firm nod. “She hated what happened and is now making up for it by helping me. She is working with the races to bring everyone together, including humans, whether they want it or not.”

  Nigel snorts, as I had a massive grin on my face when I said that last part.

  “Good. I assume you still wish to go to this Temple?”

  I nod, sighing. “Yes. I have a feeling I know what I will see there, but I need to see this to its conclusion. I have someone that wants something, but I don’t want to give it to him. So the only way out of this is to kill him.”

  “The ghost?” Lyna asks me.

  “The ghost,” I tell her. “Though he isn’t a ghost, per se. He’s a fallen Angel, or you would know him as a Devil.”

  At the word Devil, Nigel and his three wives jerk in surprise, as does Binna.

  “A Devil, here on Boromour?” Nigel says in horror.

  “Not a full one. It seems that he is able to stay under-” I stop abruptly. I had been about to mention that he stayed under the radar from God because he essentially got rid of his body. “Let’s just say that the powers that be know he is there, but because he has no physical body, they can’t do anything.”

  “But he is killing our people,” Nigel growls at me.

  “And I’m about to stop that. Hopefully,” I say with a sigh. “What can you tell me about this Temple that I should know?”

  Nigel looks at his wives before he answers me. “It is deeper in the ocean, about five miles from here. Though, I will admit Alex, I am not sure I can send one of my own people to their deaths with you.”

  I shake my head. “No need. All I need is a direction. Is there a key to get into this Temple of Mar? Is it locked?”

  “No, here. Let me show you,” he says, getting up from his seat and going to one of the bookshelves and grabbing an enormous book. He brings it back to his desk and I go over to see what he has. The girls do the same, and even Bo and Bryan get up to look.

  Nigel had grabbed a massive book, which looks to be about two feet wide by three high. With a thump, he drops it on his desk, and a cloud of dust comes off it. Jesus, it’s that old that it collected dust?

  He opens the book to the middle, and that’s when I see a map of sorts. No, wait. It’s more like a blueprint. A layout of a building. Looking closer, I see that it has a large round section in the middle, with a small square room in the middle of that. He points to it.

  “This is the small room we protect. It has no doors or windows, and there is no way to get inside. Even with Magics, we cannot look inside. Trust me,” he scowls in annoyance. “We have tried.”

  “My husband is a powerful Mage himself,” Lyna says with a small laugh, putting a hand on her husband’s arm. “When he was young, he tried to break through the Magical barriers to see inside, but failed. We all do.”

  “And no one has been able to see inside?” Tia asks.

  He turns to her. “No one. We have no clue what is in there.”

  “And where have your people been dying?”

  Lyna takes over, and points to the doors of the Temple. There are four doors, one at each side of the building. Cardinal points?

  “The doors are at each of the cardinal points of the Temple. We cannot get close to the doors anymore. Any who get within ten feet of the doors die.”

  “How?” Leeha asks.

  Sighing, she shakes her head sadly. “We have no clue. One minute, they are swimming or walking toward the doors, and then suddenly they are dead. No injuries to show, no Magics on them to indicate they died by a Mage. Those bodies that we have been able to extract and examine, show signs of dying of heart failure.”

  I look at the girls and Bo and Bryan. They all have hard looks on their faces.

  “Well then, I guess I shall go to the Temple of Mar by myself,” I start, but suddenly I have seven sets of eyes glaring at me. Including one massive Shadow Wolf, who is suddenly standing where he had been sleeping on the floor in front of the chair I had taken earlier, glaring at me and growling while sending me a feeling of disagreement.

  “Or not?” I add humbly.

  “Yeah, you aren’t going into this without me at least,” Bridget growls at me.

  “Or me,” Leeha adds.

  “If they are going, so are we,” Sara says, her arms under her massive chest as she glares at me, waving at Tia and herself.

  I look at Bo and Bryan, and they are both nodding as well.

  “I will go wherever you go, Master,” Bo says, using the honorific to show how much he means it.

  Bryan only glares at me as if daring me to tell him he can’t come.

  I can’t help but feel a warmth inside my heart at my friends and loved ones. Humbled by their support, I nod and say with a catch in my voice, “Thank you. All of you.”

  “So you are still wanting to go to this Temple of Mar?” Nigel asks me quietly.

  I nod to him. “Yes. We shall find our way there and get rid of this pain in my ass.”

  “Very well. I will have a map drawn out for you, with directions,” the king begins, but Binna interrupts him.

  “No need, Father. I will be going with Alex.”

  Nigel turns to her and shakes his head. “Daughter, as much as,” he starts, but stops when Lyna puts a hand on his arm. He looks at her in surprise.

  “Let her go, husband,” she tells him softly. “She is not a child anymore.”

  “But she is royalty!” he growls at her.

  “And how did that excuse work for you when you went on all those hunts when we were teens?” she asks him softly, gazing at him with love in her eyes.

  He doesn’t answer but keeps glaring at her until finally, he nods slowly.

  With a deep breath, he tells Lyna, “You are correct. It did not work well. I still went on those hunts even though I was next in line for the throne. But, Lyna. She is our only daughter and next in line for the throne.”

  “And what does her being our daughter have to do with it? Are you saying that I did not train our daughter well enough to be part of this young man’s group? She made it through the Forest of the Giants on her own merit.”

  At that, Binna grins and stands up tall. I can’t blame her. While she might not have had to fight all the Giants we did when coming through the forest to meet me, I’m sure she still had to do battle with other monsters and creatures. The fact that she survived is a testament to her fortitude and strength. And while I can do all Magics, it would be nice to have a Mental Mage on my team.

  Nigel turns to me, knowing he has lost this fight. “You shall protect her?”

  “To the best of my abilities,” I tell him with a firm nod.

  “Then, so be it. Let me get you supplies you might require,” he says, closing the book with the map, with the worried look of a father on his face.

  I place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze it. “I will make sure Binna is protected.”