The beast seemed to be hesitating, and then in an unsure voice that confused me, he announced, “You have BOTH absorbed spirits!” He paused, then laughed ominously, shaking off any insecurities. “This just became a lot more fun for me!”
Before it could get over its glee and kill us, Kam raised the bow with an arrow nocked and fired. The arrow flew straight and true, but right before the human/dog hybrid got hit, it threw both of its daggers. Kam’s arrow hit the beast right in the forehead, and it let out a screech of pain before melting into shadows.
Both daggers flew towards me in slow motion. I yelped before I realized that both of them had missed me. The first one planted itself in the wood floor at my feet. The second one went past my left shoulder, under Kam’s upraised arm, and into my mom’s abdomen. By the time I turned around, her shadow was already dissipating. Kam and I shared a look of complete and utter horror.
Before we had time to process all that had just happened, we heard someone stomping up the front doorsteps. Kam nocked another arrow and I yanked the knife out of the wood at my feet. Though the polychromatic flames were gone, the blade was still wicked sharp. I held it up, ready to take down whatever the next new threat was. We backed into the bedroom and waited for our new opponent to appear.
To my surprise, a boy walked through the kitchen doorway and into the living room. He looked only a bit older than Kam, but before I had any time to think about that, Kam let his arrow fly. With a loud clang, Kam’s arrow hit the boy in the chest and bounced off. Other than being knocked off balance a little bit, the boy hadn’t been visibly hurt by Kam’s arrow. He was wearing old-fashioned armor, kind of like what the Spartans wear in the movies.
“Hold up!” said the boy, raising his hands towards Kam in a surrendering gesture before he could nock another arrow. “I am here to help. Where is the Bakshazani?”
Kam must have decided the boy wasn’t a threat, because he lowered his bow and allowed the boy to step through the hole in the wall and into the bedroom. I lowered my guard as the boy came closer but watched his every move for any sign of aggression. As I watched him, it occurred to me that the boy had referred to the monster as a Bakshazani, which confirmed that I hadn’t just hallucinated that name.
He had obviously been in situations like this before because he took note of everything in the room as he stepped through the doorway. He focused particularly on the knife in my hand and the bow in Kam’s as if we might attack at any second. While he was doing that, Kam said: “If you’re talking about the dog-headed thing, we already killed it.” Then he added, sarcastically, “Thanks for the help! You can leave now.”
The boy stared at us for a moment and then blinked. “You killed it all by yourselves?” he said incredulously. “But how—Ohhhh I see…” he said, noticing The Box on the bed behind us. “So, you both got spirits, aye? Great, that makes my job harder. Come on, I will take you to Argos.”
“Argos? We aren’t going anywhere with you until you explain some things,” I growled. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kam’s grip tighten on his bow, keeping it lowered but still vigilant.
The boy gave a sinister grin. “I was hoping you would say that.” He attacked before either of us could react. First, he leaped at Kam, knocking him to the ground. Kam dropped like a rock, his head hitting the hardwood floor. Then the boy turned on me and I raised my dagger to defend myself. He took two quick steps towards me, ducking my swing and shoving me backward. I tried to jab him again with the dagger, but he caught my wrist and twisted the knife out of my hand. Before I could yank my hand away, he pulled me towards him and twisted me into a choke hold. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t break his grip. The last thing I saw as the world darkened was a very disoriented Kam struggling to get up.
Ἀργοναῦται
I woke up on the ground and stood up, brushing the dirt off of my pants. I heard a groan from behind me that made me jump. I turned and swung without looking. Thankfully, I didn’t have the knife. My fist connected with someone’s shoulder and I heard Kam grunt in response. “Ow!” he yelled and took a swing at me in retaliation. “Sorry!” I yelled back as I ducked his punch. Lucky for me, he is not as good of an aim as I am.
Then I heard a girl’s voice say, “See! I told you he would take a swing!” I looked around and saw we were standing on a cobblestone road in an expansive walled compound. The voice came from the front porch of a large house right in front of us. The boy we met earlier and a girl that I didn’t recognize were standing there watching us. Without the armor, I could see that the boy had short, black hair. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the girl. The girl, who accepted the money smugly, had curly red hair that reached past her shoulders.
“Welcome to Argos!” said the boy, giving us a sweeping gesture, “Or home, whichever you prefer.”
Forgetting how angry I was at the boy, I turned to where he was gesturing and saw a massive wall all around. Inside the wall was a bustling city with people going in every direction. Towards the center of the city was a giant Arena with faint but very apparent sounds of metal hitting metal. It took us a few moments to take it all in before we could respond.
“Where are all of the adults?” asked Kam, coming out of the daze first. He was looking at the people in the streets. All of the people going about their business were teens or children. The oldest was maybe 18 if I had to guess.
It took me a second to register what he said because I was busy staring at the heavily armored guards on top of the wall. All of them were armed with bows, crossbows, swords, spears, javelins, etc.
“And why does everybody have old armor and weapons?” I asked.
“Come inside,” said the red-haired girl, “We will explain everything.”
2
The Explanation, Sort of
GARRETT
The inside of the house was gigantic. It was much more spacious inside than one would expect from the street view. It was also unexpectedly modern. With all of the armed guards and castle walls, I expected something different, maybe a dining hall with a pig cooking on a spit.
We walked through a kitchen that was like ours back home and sat on nice leather couches in the living room. As I looked around the room, I was once again surprised that the room was so normal. There was a huge flat screen TV with an Xbox hooked up to it. I glanced at the boy, thinking he must be the one who played it. It made him seem a little more human somehow.
An awkward silence fell over the room. They were studying me and Kam like they were sizing up how much we were worth. I got the feeling they were trying to decide how much to explain to us. I was too distracted by the stuff around the room to care, but I noticed Kam glaring at the boy.
When they finally did speak, the girl said, “Well, how are you feeling?”
“Like we just battled an evil demon dog and got possessed by a genie,” Kam replied. Then he gave me the evil eye and added, “Oh yeah, and I got punched.”
I shrugged, saying, “My bad dude! And as for how I am feeling, I am feeling like you have a lot of explaining to do, starting with where we are.”
“You are in a fortified city called Argos,” said the boy in an amused tone. “It is a safe place for people like us.”
“Us?” Kam said gesturing towards the girl like he was too annoyed to even speak to the boy, “You mean everyone here is going crazy? We aren’t in a mental hospital, are we?”
“No,” replied the boy with a hint of a smile, “but you are unusual. Like all of us, you have the ability to see the world differently. It’s an incredibly rare capability within your brain that allows you to see the world as it truly is. It is a little bit hard to explain because we don’t really know a lot about it. We call it Aptos. It’s a brain capacity that only kids under the age of about 20 develop, and most of them don’t survive past that time.”
He saw the blank expressions on our faces and laughed. “Okay, let me try to explain it in a different way. It’s sort of
like having a strong imagination, but not quite. It is a whole lot more complicated and unusual than simply having a good imagination. It’s like your brain is more willing to accept the extraordinary that IS the real world, rather than the simplistic version that normal people see.”
“Hold up,” Kam said, rubbing his temples like his brain was hurting. “So it’s almost like we have been brainwashed our whole lives into believing that some things aren’t real, but they are? And somehow when we opened The Box we could see all of this stuff?”
“Well, sort of,” said Hector. “Think of it this way: You have been wearing dirty glasses your whole life that have kept you from seeing everything for what it was, and when you opened The Box your glasses got cleaned. That’s where the spirits come in. They recognized the Aptos within you and called you to them. The spirits can only be hosted by someone with Aptos. It’s incredibly rare for that to happen, and it’s even rarer for two siblings to get them.”
“Spirits? You’re kidding, right?” I said. It didn’t register until later that he knew we were siblings, even though we look almost nothing alike.
“I wish we were…” said the girl wistfully. She was staring off, completely unfocused, but snapped out of it after a few seconds.
The boy, after glancing at the girl and looking slightly annoyed or possibly worried, said, “It’s a blessing and a curse. We can summon lots of useful items, which is helpful, and most spirits have unique strengths and abilities that they share with us. The spirits give us a higher purpose, one that is needed for the world to survive. For the most part, the spirits choose hosts that have similar characteristics to themselves. Like a spirit that is uniquely brave will look for a brave person, or a spirit particularly focused on strategy will find a person equally strategic.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands, “It’s no accident that you were chosen. Your spirits called you out and encouraged you to find them. When a spirit looks for a host, they choose the one that will be the best fit, like two puzzle pieces fitting together. Once you become their hosts, there is no way to get rid of them.”
He made eye contact with each of us in turn and there was no longer any humor in his eyes. “You will never have a normal life. Unfortunately, this means that the people who are closest to you are the first to suffer. Using your powers, especially the wishes, draws monsters to you and they will kill anyone who gets in their way.”
The boy looked at me with a hard, almost pained expression. It slowly dawned on me that he was talking about our parents. At the same time, I realized that his hard expression meant he had done this before and didn’t like what came next. I looked at Kam noticed he was completely pale.
“Our parents are…?” He stopped, unable to complete the sentence.
“Gone,” said the girl, who had tears in her eyes. “We got to you as fast as we could, but we were too late to save your parents. You were lucky that the monster didn’t kill you next. Many others haven’t been so lucky…”
Kam looked away, fighting back tears. I knew how he felt but had no idea what to say or do. I was devastated; how couldn’t I be? I guess I just bottled up my emotions so I wouldn’t lose it. Kam and I have our differences, but both of us feel the same about grief, sadness, and anger. Our parents taught us that emotions like that were of no use; they simply got in the way of what you needed to do. You just have to move past the emotion until it no longer matters.
I distracted myself by paying attention to the silent interaction the boy and the girl were having. I couldn’t figure out what the topic was, but I am fairly good at understanding facial expressions. From the look the boy gave her, I could tell she had said more than he wanted her to. The girl wouldn’t meet his eyes, as if she was feeling guilty about something. There is something major going on between them, more than me and Kam arriving, I thought to myself.
“You need to rest.” said the boy suddenly, “We will assign you a barracks tomorrow, but until then, you can sleep in the guest bedroom upstairs.” He turned and yelled, “Cory!”
There was a series of thumps as someone ran down the stairs. Then a freckled kid appeared on the staircase to our right. He was about nine if I had to guess. He looked remarkably like the redheaded girl and was without a doubt her younger brother.
“Yeah?” he said in a testy voice. He made it very obvious that he detested the older boy.
“Show them their rooms. Once they are there, run to the market and get them some clothes, and possibly food if you can.”
“AWWWW! Do I have to? I was right in the middle of—”
“Yes! Of course you do!” his sister interrupted. The younger brother didn’t like taking orders from the boy, but he obeyed his sister without question. He beckoned us over and led us up the stairs.
He grumbled all the way up the stairs and down the hall. He showed us a room with two beds in it. Without even thanking him, Kam and I crashed onto the beds in exhaustion. Despite the early hour, we both fell asleep instantly. As soon as my head hit the pillow, my dream began.
I was fighting on a battlefield with enemies all around me. It was chaos as shouts and war cries came from all around me. I didn’t have much time to look around though, because three warriors broke away from the chaos and charged me. I cut them down easily like I had done this a hundred times. By the time I finished with them, another detachment of warriors came after me. It was hard to tell who the enemy was, so I simply attacked anyone that got close. From what I could tell from all of the bodies strewn around me, I had been doing this for a while.
Within a few minutes, most of the enemies around me had fallen and I got a clear view of the battlefield. There were hundreds of other warriors to my left and right with arrows raining down from massive castle walls above us. It seemed like I was on the side that was trying to invade the castle that spread out before me. I was right in front of the castle gates, which were opening to let more warriors into the fray. I yelled at another warrior with a bow and together we charged up the battlefield to meet the new group of enemies.
Right before we clashed with them, someone shook me awake. I was so charged with adrenaline from the dream that, naturally, I swung at him.
“Whoa!” yelled Kam as he avoided my punch. “What’s up with you and punching me?!” He was leaning over me, all dressed in new clothes that seemed to fit him perfectly. The shirt was bright yellow, which was an odd fashion choice. The pants looked like Kam’s favorite pair of jeans, but I knew that he wasn’t wearing those yesterday.
“Sorry, bad dream. It’s been a long night,” I said as I got my bearings. At the foot of my bed was a fresh change of clothes, very similar to the ones Kam was wearing. Next to the clothes was a breakfast pastry, which I scooped up and munched on as I put my clothes on.
“Yeah, I had one too. It wasn’t like any dream I have ever had before,” Kam said. Only then did I notice the dark semi-circles below his eyes. He must have hardly slept. Before I could reply, there was a knock at the door. It flew open and Cory stood there, looking much less grumpy than yesterday. He had two books in his hands, which he promptly handed to us. The book’s covers were made of leather and didn’t have a title. I opened mine and flipped through the pages. There was no writing on any of the pages.
Kam and I shared a confused look. “Ooooookaaaay,” I said, “so these are empty. What do we do with them?”
He rolled his eyes as if I had asked the most obvious question in the world. “These are your Edicts. They help to identify you, or your spirit I mean, and give you a better understanding of their powers and weaknesses. Beyond that, it will literally let you communicate with them. That comes in handy for those of us who don’t have powerful spirits. The more powerful ones don’t even need the book to communicate. They can just talk to you in your minds.”
He trailed off for a second but quickly snapped out of it. “They also give you assignments that will help keep the world aligned. They will give you a part to play in history, even if you don’t get the sp
otlight.”
“In fact,” he said with a smile. “Every major historical event that you can think of had at least one of our warriors taking part in it. There have been legends of warriors in history who were far greater in battle than their companions or enemies. We can look back now and realize that it was the spirits giving them power, but most people during their times chalked it up to divine favor.”
He must have seen the confusion on our faces, because he added, “The Trojan War is a good example of that. Many of the warriors involved in that conflict had spirits, including Achilles, Odysseus, Ajax, and even Hector! They had spirits that called them to battle for a great cause.”
I had so many questions to ask, but Kam beat me to it. “Wait, weren’t Achilles and Hector on opposing sides? The spirits fought against each other?”
Cory nodded his head as if he had expected the question, “Not all spirits have common goals. Like humans, sometimes they take different sides in conflicts. Some of the worst battles, even wars, have happened when two opposing spirits clash. When that happens, others are called into battle to back their ally. It basically turns into a civil war every time two spirits clash. Like humans, spirits have prejudices that affect the decisions they make. Think of any major war or battle: There were spirits involved in every one of them, if not leading the charge! Many of the famous leaders from the history books had the spirit advantage, which is what set them apart from everyone else.”
When he finally stopped to take a breath, I pushed in with my question. “So how does the book identify our spirits?”
“It’s kind of complicated. Basically, it observes how you act and talk and finds the spirit that best matches it. It pretty much takes an educated guess on what spirit you have by which one you would be most compatible with. It isn’t a perfect system, but it works almost every time. If it does get it wrong, it will figure it out pretty quickly. There are certain quirks about every spirit that are dead giveaways.”
The Wish Box Page 2