Taber

by K Fisher

  Ravena had always strived for power, dancing lines that I never approved of, but my love for her overrode all of my common sense. We were warlocks chosen by Desin to protect, meddling in darker magics like necromancy, and channeling the core magics of our world that we had not been allowed to access was frowned upon. Still she strived for more power and wished to make it so we could never die, forever powerful and forever connected to the magic of Desin. No others would be able to make us fear for our lives again, for we had been brought up in the mountainside, lands that still hated magic and all those who wielded it. They did not believe our new King Herrick would truly keep the peace and that he had to be the same as his father, cruel and hateful.”

  Alni tried to imagine anyone connected to Dora being cruel and hateful. It didn’t rest well with him, but he already knew the ending to the story and the good her father had truly done for their world. Thinking of Dora and how far away he was from her invoked feelings that had at first been a shocking discovery. Sure, he had already known he would miss her when he left, but the true feelings of the distance were far more terrible than he had thought possible. They had been a team. Now he journeyed with different players.

  Soon, I’ll get back to her soon.

  “We were wed and had a son together. As Taber grew, his power did as well and there was a change in Ravena that was subtle at first. It was a change I should have seen much earlier. She relentlessly trained Taber the moment we knew he was blessed by Desin and he could wield his magic, pushing him further and further despite how I tried to stop such things. But I was working for the new King and could only keep an eye on them when I returned from my duties, often exhausted and overwhelmed. Ravena poured over old texts of dark magic she obtained during her travels as a youth. When Taber was old enough to watch himself, she’d disappear and leave us for days at a time, returning reeking of power and no explanation. She was aggressive and territorial like an animal that had been kept in a cage too long and had just been let free.

  It was many years later that I realized what she was doing. Warlocks were few and far between, but still their numbers were decreasing rapidly. They were missing, no longer being killed by those who feared them, but gone altogether. There was something that stirred within me, a suspicion that drove me to follow her when she left our bed one night. Taber was asleep on his own, unaware of what his parents did or where the night would turn. She went deep into the forest, stopping only when she reached a being deep inside the darkness of Nevina. The woman’s body was trapped by the enormous tree behind her and abnormal binds. Alni, it looked as though she had been partially swallowed by the bark for her mouth covered by a heavy branch as she struggled. I do not know what spell trapped her there but I knew it was Ravena that cast it and that it was pure evil she was working with.

  I watched in horror as she approached the trapped woman, suddenly recognizing who it was. It had been one of the local warlocks we had met during a trip to Glade, her bright, curling red hair was not a sight I’d soon forget. Ravena had cast a spell upon the woman, power filling the area around me. I knew, without being privy to such magic before, that she was taking the essence of the warlock before me. It was a feeling and understanding I cannot explain, a comprehension that erupted from deep within me the moment her magic was released. A sliver of black had erupted from her fingertips as it wrapped around the hostage’s neck, the woman’s own shimmering power had left her mouth, urged by the darkness as it drained from her body. There was something beneath my feet, my own magic speaking the truth to me in warning as it begged me to run.

  Instead I tried to stop her, but it was too late. The warlock had been a victim to my wife, dead by the time I got to the tree to stop the spell. Ravena had consumed the power in her thirst for more magic, leaving only a shell behind while she relished in the new energy that surged through her. She begged that I see reason in her quest for eternal life, I pleaded in return that she seek help and confess her sins before the King found her and punished us all.

  For a while I truly believed that Ravena had heard me and the meaning behind my words, that she had stopped killing others. My blind, foolish love for her kept me from confessing what she had done to the King and turning her over for punishment. It was a cold, dark night a great many years later that I felt her leave the bed next to me once again. That week she had been distant, refusing to speak to Taber or myself. I had feared she would return back to the dark magic and to the murders that had given her power beyond any other. I did not realize how right I had been to follow her that night.

  This time, my wife did not rise to leave the home, but to enter the room of our son. He was only fourteen seasons old at the time, sleeping heavily as his mother entered his room with ill intent. I realized what she planned to do before the black magic even left her fingertips and touched our son. Rocked with the realization that my wife craved power enough to kill our own for his magic…It still did not stall my decision. I summoned all my power, fueled by the rage I felt at the sight of Ravena above Taber and took her unaware with my own magic, knocking her away from my son, the only thing that mattered anymore. The impact of the attack I sent did more than move her away from my son and stop her magic, it…” Bethinium stopped suddenly, his voice cracking as his dark brown eyes looked back to Alni.

  “It did not matter what I said, or what I did after that. Taber awoke to the death of his mother and I was the one responsible. I had killed her to prevent her from ending him and taking his magic, knowledge I could not bring myself to say to him at the moment. He ran from our home that night, leaving everything behind and using all the spells he had learned to keep me from him. Although he has to know I would never kill his mother without reason, he has always been an angry boy and I know that I deserve his hate…for no matter the reason, I took his mother from him. I buried her alone far from Castle Herrick. Although my son used his magic to check in on me over the years and to see my pain, his own rage and power has clouded any hope of him seeing the truth and forgiving me.”

  There was a silence that followed Bethinium’s words, Alni watching him as he felt his heart skip a beat and the weight of the knowledge settle on him. Finally, Alni knew what he needed to say, waiting no longer to think on how he felt about the tale and the man he had come to think of as a friend and mentor.

  “You did what you could to save your son, Bethinium.” Alni remembered his own power and the outbursts that happened when his emotions got the better of him, as well as those who had been harmed during them. The man who had died. “We are going to find Taber and make sure he knows the truth. I don’t know what you really hope to gain in all this, but if Taber is using any dark magic and if this little girl was born with it…we need to get to them no matter the outcome. Why did Taber decide to find the necro-”

  He froze, emerald eyes widening as the realization settled within him, understanding finally what they were dealing with, and the severity of it all. “Bethinium…did he see where you buried his mother?”

  “Yes. Alni, I believe that Taber hopes to use the necromancer to bring her back.”

  Chapter Six

  The Elven Lands, Castle Herrick

  “You’ll never be rid of me, Princess.”

  Dora jerked awake, her ears pinned against the side of her head in anger as the familiar voice filled her ears once again. Scrambling out of bed with her knife at the ready, she all but growled at the dark shadow that lingered by the door to her bedroom. Still it taunted her, returning to play games with her patience and steal her sleep until she was naught but a shell attempting to rule the lands and gain allegiance.

  “Keep up with that, why don’t you? I’m bored with your lack of variety in regards to late night haunting.”

  Talking back to the shadow did help regain some bit of control for Dora, a strength overriding the fear that the unknown provoked. The darkness shrunk once more towards the cold ground, draining beneath her doorway and the hallways beyond as it slithered away from her. Phillip a
nd Nickolas had been given the evening off, relinquishing watch over the Princess for the night while two other less familiar guards remained. All were exhausted from the day of meetings they had to follow Dora to, the small tasks they had to oversee.

  Dora was already dressed, her satchel wrapped tightly around her body beneath the robe she wore. She had been planning and prepared to follow the shadow during her meetings if it returned, or at the very least make her way back to the hidden passageway she had discovered the previous day.

  Sneaking towards the door, she placed one long ear against the delicately carved wood and listened for the guards that were keeping watch. She was able to hear their low tones but it wasn’t coming from right outside her quarters. Her nimble fingers unlocked the door before her, slowly opening it just as the dark shadow traveled around the corner and out of sight once again. Dora could hear voices more clearly despite not seeing the two guards that were supposed to be keeping watch. Quickly, she darted down the hallway after the shadow and around the corner.

  “…They have their doubts, you know? Even with how evil the King was, it was all to protect…”

  “Shut your mouth. They didn’t rise up when he took over and started using the dragons once more, they won’t stand up now. Besides, she’s the true heir, he was not.”

  “She is a child.”

  Dora wanted to turn around and race down towards the two, her keen ears picking up on their words and the doubt they instilled. She knew it would not be long before the guards heard her shuffling and she wanted to be down the passageway before they did. Their conversation was enough of a distraction, though, their attention focused on speaking ill of her instead of listening for those sneaking about and what was happening right under their noses. Dora wished she could sneak up on them and see the looks on their faces when they realized she heard their whispers. It would be a brief moment of realization and fear before she shook them both up the way their words made her wish she could.

  Instead she paused, took a deep breath in a forced expression of self-control, and continued on down the hallway after her tormentor. The doubt cast upon her reign from the people she watched over in Desin was something she would have to deal with soon but it would not do her well to tackle it with no sleep and an evil force that tested her.

  Dora stopped abruptly before the stone wall at the end of the hallway she remembered from the night before. Crouching down, her hands slid against the floor where it met the wall, stopping when the small stone there started to give way. Her breathing was collected and her struggle silent as she wiggled the stone around, pressing and turning in an attempt to reveal what was just on the other side. Dora’s hands wrapped around the stone, realizing that when she started to pull it towards her body there was some give, almost as if a tight string were wound on the other end and provided some resistance, but not as strong as the hands that yanked it and the will behind them.

  She paused, holding the stone in both hands before she pulled it as fast and as hard as she could, elbow jetting out behind her with the movement. The stone in the wall was attached to a long piece of rope and the moment she tore it free, the ground beneath Dora gave way, sending her toppling into darkness. She let go of what was in her hands and looked up as the floor secured once more above, erasing all of her light as she landed awkwardly on what felt like a stone staircase a few feet below.

  With a grunt, Dora slowly lifted herself to her feet and grabbed for her knife once more, the only protection she had in the darkness. It had so easily been slipped away from her side when she first struggled with the stone and entry to this secret place. She held her breath as she stood there and listened for any sign that her fall had been heard or that anyone resided in the staircase with her. She was met with nothing more than the continuous dripping of water from an unseen source nearby. Dora slowly slunk down, keeping close to the stairs as she lowered herself to the bottom, counting each step along her descent.

  The shadow had gone there, she knew it. Dora would find the source and destroy it whether she had any light to see it or not. She found a fresh, bitter relief that she hadn’t told any of the guards or demanded they follow her on her trek. If they spoke so freely about their doubt when they were supposed to be guarding her life, they would think she was solidly mad if she told them a dark energy that mimicked Mallor was waking her each night and sending her on a wild chase.

  When she reached the bottom, she slid a foot along the cold floor, her skin touching the dirty ground and the half inch of water. Her entire body involuntarily shivered and for a second time that night she swallowed back her first response and stood, trying her hardest to focus on the task at hand and not about what she was stepping in. She knew she could be silent barefoot, her boots would have only alerted the guards faster. But now she had half a mind to seek out a healer the next day to ensure she didn’t produce a growth from contact with the unknown liquid.

  No…no…she had traveled through much worse in the past.

  Just before she took a venturing step forward in the darkness, Dora felt the weight of eyes upon her. There was a chill of dread that came from her front, her body filling with the sensation that something raced towards her despite not hearing a single splash. Instinctually, she tucked to the left and against the stonewall of the black room, feeling the air whip past her body as the unknown energy slashed through where she had just stood.

  “Dora, duck!”

  This time, the words in her ear were not Mallor’s, the guards, or even her own. It was Alni’s voice that spoke out to her, providing no direction to his location as the words filled her mind and demanded her attention. Had it been any other voice, she would not have listened so quickly, but the moment the command sounded Dora dove for the floor. She felt the wind of another attack above her head narrowly missing her. Rolling forward, she ignored the wet floor soaking into her clothing as she sprang to her feet and faced the direction the energy had attacked from.

  “Alni?” she softly inquired, ears twitching as she tried to regain her bearings in the pitch darkness.

  As if someone could read her mind, the softest of amethyst strands of magic illuminated the area before her, exploding into the air as it trickled downward like falling stars. As they landed, they brightened beneath the murky water, providing enough light for Dora to see the room she was in. But more than that, the purple glow presented her with a familiar face she had missed terribly.

  Alni was not solid before her, instead his body was a mass of flickering, amethyst power. He lifted one hand, appearing to inspect it before he looked towards her and offered up a smile and a small wave, eyes flickering to life behind the magic that kept him there with her in the unknown room, warm and kind as she remembered. The lights gathered along his jawline like the shadow of a short beard.

  “What? How?”

  “No time for questions, we can talk soon. What’s attacking you? I can barely see anything going on over there…”

  His voice was cracking and breaking, barely audible against the constant dripping in the dark room, the light before her flickered for a moment as the energy keeping him there appeared to lessen.

  Dora kept her knife before her, turning away from Alni as her eyes searched the room, prepared to fight. “Whatever it is, it better show itself so I can destroy it. I’ll gut it for playing with my mind, and my sleep.”

  His response was a soft, miserable laugh behind her.

  “Oh Dora, I missed you so much.”

  Chapter Seven

  Dora’s words were held as the room started to come into clear focus around her. Jars littered the ground around the edges of the floor and vials and books were stacked in a teetering fashion on a wooden table across the room. The table was leaning to the side, the legs destroyed from the water on the floor. Although the musky scent had originally left Dora thinking the room had not been accessed for years, there were no cobwebs or dust collected on any of the jars or the table. In fact, there was one gnarled plant in the corner
of the leaning table that still had one green leaf among the dead.

  Someone had been there recently. Perhaps not that day, or even that month, but recently. Was this an office of Mallor’s or a private place that a dark presence returned to from time to time? There was no possible way the being who sought refuge in this damp, dark room was anything positive or anyone who had good intent, that much was confirmed by the confines of the jars along the wall.

  Dora gasped as she leaned down and reached for one, bringing the liquid-filled jar towards her face. The magic light spread throughout the room presented her with enough illumination to see the thing held inside. The fairy within floated in the orange sludge around it, unmoving and yet unmarred. Suspended and trapped within the jar, Dora knew at once the creature was not alive anymore. She quickly put the jar down, eyes searching each one in turn as the purple light around her shone on the fairies within, along with other items that Dora could not place; some looking like jagged pieces of rock, others like a bit of stones or plants.

  Alni whistled under his breath behind her, his feet not making a single sound as he walked on air to her side. There was no sign of further attack from the mysterious force before, her senses calming to a point where not even the discovery of the jars could convince her to leave and never return. The only thing she could assume was they had been precautions put in place to ensure someone did not get within the room - which was all the more reason to find out what it was hiding.