"Teleportation is safe they said" His fine leather boots slipped through the coarse sand and he windmilled to stay upright.

  "The probability of a faulty transfer are near zero" at the peak of the dune he trips and rolls down the back.

  Well, I guess I'm a statistic now.

  Anthony began to curse the world, starting with his family, his friends, teachers, his textbook authors and finally the sun. His position on the side of the dune, laying with his head towards the base, gave him a perfect view of the oppressive orb.

  It seemed to hang low in the sky over the endless desert he had appeared in. Anthony hid his face behind a voluminous sleeve of his robe, a gaudy affair of light blues and greens soaking in his sweat. He had only been enduring the sun for an hour and with the intense heat and discomfort he had managed to go through the stages of grief several times. So far he had not managed to get to acceptance just yet.

  "Please, Goddess, why me?" His sobbing went unanswered but for the wind that blew the sands about him.

  "Haven't I been doing better? I worked hard and graduated, late, but I still passed my classes! Even professor Allensworth said he was impressed by my change!" He spent some time righting himself, rolling in the sand and getting a lot between his robes. With a shout he tore them off, leaving him in his casual clothes he had prepared underneath for the after party. A green short shirt and light blue pants tucked into his leather boots.

  "I studied! I spoke with my peers and made nice! Hell, I gave to charity and even volunteered at church!" He gestured to himself and the hellscape he had found himself in.

  "What did I do to deserve this?!" His voice didn't even echo, snatched away by the winds flitting through the dunes. Some far off ears twitched at his barbarian speech, but disregarded it. Anthony collapsed to his knees, running a hand through his light brown hair, mumbling under his breath.

  "A test maybe? A trial? I'm no Saint or martyr, what could this be?" He did not deign to return to the idea if this was just some tragic mistake, a malfunction of the teleportation magic that had with a miniscule chance sent him somewhere far away. Maybe they were looking for him? But he remembered the news article he'd skimmed while eating breakfast one day.

  Of the miniscule number of transporter mishaps that occur, an even smaller number are ever rectified or found. Most faulty transfers end with a limb splinting with someone and the blood loss leading to death. Or of course the odd case of the user being sent seven miles above the transport station, scaring the populace when they finally returned to the ground. No one even had time to cast a levitation or featherfall on the poor man.

  "Well, it's not that bad, at least I'm intact." When he had appeared in a snapping, crackling shunt through space he had been several feet above the ground, and the forces created by the transfer had seemingly made a vacuum free of air or sand… hopefully. Anthony was wondering if the itching he was feeling was from sand within his robes or some stray grains that had suddenly made their home in his skin.

  Glancing at the terrible orb he sniffed and hobbled around the dune into the small recess of shade on the other side. Laying out his robes before sitting on them he experienced the first moment of comfort since arriving wherever he was. That moment was all he needed to collect himself and look about with his third eye. He had felt it as soon as he had landed here, but had been distracted by the harsh and unfamiliar surroundings. The thickness of it, Mana roiling languidly through the sands, the sky full of twisting rivers of power.

  “Where the hell am I? The Mana is so strong I can taste it.” A few mumbled words followed with some flicked fingers and the small shade between the dunes grew, sand hardening and rising in a tent. The sun hammered down on the impromptu shelter, the wind suddenly became a gentle breeze devoid of stinging sand.

  “If I ever see Mrs. Marigold again I will give her a kiss. Learning every spell from Wizzo’s 135 Spells for Every Situation has paid off. Took me two years but it’s worth it.” A glass appeared in his hands, made from the very sand that had filled his robes. A small amount of water trickled into the glass.

  “Hmm, very little water Mana, I can barely pull any from the air.” His gaze sharpened, and he gazed out from the opening he had made facing away from the sun. Magic traced familiar patterns through his eyes, slowly revealing the truth of the world to him. This place was… different. Vibrant and humming with the flow of Mana through everything around him. It was like looking through a dense fog, but by tweaking the spell empowering his eyes he filtered through the viscous power overwhelming the spell.

  “Never seen Mana this dense in such a large area. Even in the University it was difficult to artificially create such a dense gathering, and of so many types!” Colours swirled before him, textured and layered in such a way he was actually able to see the more esoteric Mana from the distortions. Earth, sand, air, wind, heat, sun and even fate and authority twisted around him. Creasing his brow he stopped channelling mana into his eyes and relied only on his “third eye”. A true Wizard's third eye was all you truly needed, but sometimes taking a peek with your vision to make sense of the mess helped.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Hmm, maybe..” He muttered and began to hesitantly make small gestures with his hands, fumbling over a long ago forgotten spell that he had learnt as a precocious boy wandering the woods outside his hometown.

  Authority mana was considered esoteric as mana goes, strange and difficult to truly understand like any mana was. It only ever appeared in small quantities throughout lands that were “owned” and had many wonderful uses. Anthony put it to one such use now.

  “Lead me to fine people and a safe road.” The words added nothing to the overall spell, in fact the spell had a bad habit of leading people towards animal trails deeper in the forest sometimes, but it was reassuring. Authority and wind coalesced into his open palm, becoming a gold translucent compass leading off into the dunes.

  “I'm glad I learned you.” Anthony said fondly to the spell, smiling at the intricate patterns set into the compass. As a boy it had been a crude bronze arrow pointing him home, often cast with a child’s wand and nearly exhausting him. Now as a full Wizard it was a work of art leading him to safety and he barely felt a pull on his own reserves.

  He stood, and hardened sand around him rose with him to guard him from the harsh elements. Grabbing his robes he went off, following the golden point towards salvation.

  ----------------------------------------

  Far away, a little to the right of Anthony's own path, a lithe figure went completely still as she lay back on a fine couch. Her peers likewise reclining noticed and turned to her as she sat up. Myriads of servants froze and glanced at each other, wondering if they were to blame, and to be punished. Slowly, gracefully, she stood. Black silk shifted over her bronze skin as she made subtle movements to adjust the gold hanging about her. Short black hair was smoothed down and a pair of triangular furry ears twitched from atop her head. The room was large and lavish, with stone walls gilded in gold and covered in murals and carvings. The guests were seated in small groups, waited upon by their lessers. Pungent incense mixed with the smell of cooked meats and wine.

  She slowly turned to a raised dais sitting in the centre of the gathering. Bowing low, ignoring the gazes of her fellows she waited for the figure sitting above them all. Slit pupils lay on her, from a body that never stirred. The hall waited, until finally the bowing woman raised her head and her own slitted eyes met the other. They could be said to seem similar, but side by side they were nearly alien to each other.

  “Your Imperial Highness, I apologise for interrupting. I ask for your leave to depart this gathering for a short time.” Her ears twitched again and the slit pupils of her green eyes relaxed and widened in affection and submission. The Dragon’s pupils did not change, and the stillness in the room was only broken by a small gesture, a flick of the wrist, dismissing her. Quickly the cat backed away and left the room, moving through the surprised crowd of servants like wind through the trees.

  “Hescalt, to me.” she whispered, and at twenty paces from the door, as soon as she passed the guards wearing foreign steel and exotic features she was joined by a hard, weather beaten man whose own triangular ears twitched. He was shorter than her, black hair with grey grit, and dressed well, but for the sun beaten roads that he seemed to carry with him. A long black tail flicked from the black silks of her dress and tapped his tail, and his own brown tail relaxed.

  “What do you require, your Grace?” she glanced sharply at his smirk and sighed. Already they were in her own rooms, away from prying eyes, and hopefully, ears.

  “I can’t be away long, but I need you to send a message to whatever militia we left.” the old man raised a brow, his own brown slitted eyes watching her and noting the movements of her ears and tail. They were tense, but not overly so, indicating that this wasn’t an emergency, yet.

  “What has happened?” He stood relaxed, his tail the only indication that he was curious and ready.

  “My Mandate was… altered.” she hesitated, not quite sure what it was she had felt over such a great distance, only that she had never felt it in all her fifty years of life save for once. But this didn’t have the brutal arrogance the Dragons had used.

  “What does that mean? Has someone invaded our lands? Is the castle safe?” Hescalt’s mind raced at the news, uncomprehending of the scope of what had occurred. She shook her head.

  “No, but I don’t know what it means. To attack us through the desert would be ridiculous, and no one here would dare make a move on me while I still hold some Grace. Send a message to whoever we have available at the castle, tell them to check for strangers in the villages in the direction of the Great Desert.”

  “At once, Baroness of Endless Sands.” He bowed and smiled at her, then flexed his will and was gone, wind and shadow in his wake.

  “Good luck little iryt Anippe.” the wind whispered in her ear and she swatted at the air. Even now she couldn’t catch him. She looked around the guest room she had been given as she composed herself.

  She walked slowly and calmly back to the side hall where the landed Nobility had been called by the Imperial Dragon. The halls leading to it from her guest room passed right by the entrance to the Royal wing of the palace. Where her own room had once been. She knew the Imperial Dragon had done it on purpose, and did her best to ignore the many long banners that still seemed haphazardly draped over the walls and furniture even after all this time. Each featured the face of the Empire, the Divine rulers of their lands. A Dragon, glaring down at its lessers.