Deadly Wands Read Online Free PDF Page B

warriors. "I think I got them all, but you better sweep the
perimeter to make sure while I check on the baby."
    This time, the wet nurse did not shoo him
away. William found their beautiful baby boy suckling his mother's
teat while the other ladies made silly baby noises. What a
difference a few minutes makes.
    "He looks like a blond Chinaman," William
joked. Liz raised her hand to hit him, but then laughed
instead.
    "I want to name him after his father," she
proposed.
    "No," William replied. "Wang is a terrible
name. We better call him Billy."
    Actually, they already agreed to put Temujin,
the birth name of Genghis Khan, on his birth certificate because it
was the most popular name among the Khan's male descendents.
Society would accept their son more, he’d blend in with the
thousands of other Temujins, and it gave him status as a direct
descendent of the Immortal through his fake ancestor, Taran the War
Hero.
    "I love you so much," she declared.
    "I love you more," he answered, unable to
tell her that they’d have to flee the city because he could not
keep her safe.
     

CHAPTER 6
     
    William, Liz, and six-year old Billy left
their ger -- a portable dome-shaped hut -- careful to not
step on the threshold because Mongols are either in or out. Snow
still covered the tips of the distant Altai Mountains. Smoke rose
from the other hundred or so huts that formed this horde, one of
thousands that roamed the seemingly endless Central Asia
steppe.
    To their joy, Billy was a prodigy, sparking
his first wand at age three. Very few people could use wands before
puberty. He literally flew before he could run. Not all prodigies
were powerful, but their boy seemed to have a real gift for wands,
so they trained him intensely to prepare him for a hard life.
    Billy excelled at wand games like Tag. He
could evade kids twice his age for hours as they chased him through
the trees. Blessed with great vision and depth perception, the boy
had the unnatural ability to miss trees by centimeters when flying
full out. He especially enjoyed playing Rock, where he had to avoid
kids throwing rocks at him. It usually took years to develop fine
dexterity skills, but Billy displayed a mastery of the air that
William enjoyed with his hands. He did his first somersault in the
air at age five, not appreciating how much that shocked the horde,
and flew upside down like other kids did hand stands. It was rare,
unnerving, and really awesome.
    Billy was pure joy until he accidentally
burned their hut with his boot wands. From that moment on, they
lived in terror. Until then, they thought only Genghis Khan could
blast, project steel, or extend fire from boot wands. Anyone else
mysteriously died.
    Fortunately, nobody saw it because otherwise
his unique ability would have been a death sentence. Billy would
have been shot on sight and his killer given a huge reward by the
Great Khan himself. Sharing the Khan’s ability meant that the world
was not big enough for both of them. One of them had to kill the
other.
    Or so they told Billy.
    All his life, William thought he was too
paranoid. It was not until that moment, watching Billy laugh at the
fire coming from his boot wands, that he realized he was not
paranoid enough.
    They moved to China, Japan, and India to
learn those languages, study martial arts, and develop their wand
abilities in relative peace.
    Most quads train to fly far. William,
instead, emphasized flying high. Every flier has a maximum height
called a “ceiling.” If you can fly higher than your opponent, then
you can shoot him, but he can’t shoot you. Greater height means
thinner air, however, which meant reducing the body’s need for
oxygen. Therefore, the family practiced meditation to slow their
heartbeats.
    To their shock, monks taught Billy to drop
his breathing to near zero. Liz once could not find his heartbeat,
even though he was smiling at her at the time. Chanting something
relaxing helped Billy fly higher than either parent. Chagrined