He walked over to a small fountain in the center of the garden. “Please put your arms out with your hands facing palms up.” He put his hands over mine, and tingling began in my palms. I closed my eyes and watched as the light around the king started to glow even brighter. Slowly the brightness pulled in on itself, condensing to form a small ball that glowed so brightly I could barely look at it. I opened my eyes and saw that the king was glowing a little bit, even with my eyes open.
I closed my eyes in time to see the small ball of condensed light flow from his hand down to mine. I gasped. The ball of light exploded around me, and I opened my eyes so I wouldn’t see what was happening. I felt tingles all over my body, and for a second, I thought I was going to be sick. I stood quietly, letting my body relax again and absorb the light. Once I felt calmer, I closed my eyes and could make out a bright blue glow coming from around me.
“What did you do?”
“I gave you some of my power,” I looked at my friends and caught sight of Hilail. His mouth was hanging open, probably from shock. I turned away, not wanting to face the fact that something crazy had happened.
“Why?”
“It will help you find the staff. Think about where it is. You are the only one now who can find it.”
I thought about the staff and immediately felt a slight tugging sensation around my body. It wanted to go right, “I think I know where it is. I can feel it tugging at me. Why couldn’t you do this?” I asked him.
“I haven’t been able to get it to work since I was cursed. Now you must go and find it as quick as you can. And bring me evidence if my daughter is the one behind this. I need to know for sure.”
“Ok,” I told him. “We will do our best.”
He led us back to the door and opened it, “Go now, before anyone else knows. Hilail, you have the crest, so you will be able to get them anything else they need while you are gone. Please be careful and bring the staff back.”
“Let’s go. The sooner we find the staff, the sooner we can get answers and leave. We don’t want any more trouble,” I said.
Hilail opened the door and took us a completely different way then we had gone before. It eventually led us to a double door that opened up to the back of the castle and a stable. Hilail took four horses out, and we mounted up and started riding down the only path. I was riding with Richard, and Abby was with Tider. Adam got his own horse.
I looked around to appreciate the view. Everywhere I looked, I could see waterways intersecting with the roads. The sun reflected off the water, making it look like glittery glass lay everywhere. I looked back at the castle and caught my breath. It was almost entirely surrounded by water except for a couple roads leading away from it. A thought struck me.
“Hilail, did you ever hear of Atlantis?”
“No, I haven’t. Why?”
My excitement vanished. I thought I had found the lost city, Atlantis. The castle and surrounding area looked almost exactly like what I had pictured Atlantis to look like.
“No reason,” I told him. “It’s just a myth that humans have.”
“I never would have thought of that, but it makes sense,” Tider said. “Maybe humans made it up after the elementals were banished so they wouldn’t forget them. Maybe that’s why it’s never been found. It was here all along, in another realm.”
“Maybe,” I said, letting myself feel excited again. It would be awesome to discover Atlantis, even if I couldn’t tell anyone about it.
“You need to stay close to me in case we get in a fight so I can protect you,” Hilail said.
“We aren’t as defenseless as you think we are,” Tider said.
“You’ve never fought one of us before.”
“I’m sure we would do fine, especially if you gave us some pointers,” I said.
“I don’t think I should be telling you how to beat my own people.”
“Come on, Hilail. We need all the help we can get. There’s a good chance the princess has elementals guarding the staff. We need to be able to fight them.”
“Fine, I will try to help you when we stop for the night. We will need to find a place that’s private anyway. That way, we can have a fire without worrying about anyone noticing us.”
I was already looking forward to the end of the day, and we had only been riding for an hour. My butt was sore, and my back was stiff from trying to hold myself away from Richard. It was an incredibly uncomfortable ride. Once, when our horse hit a low spot in the forest, we had been thrown together. As soon as Richard grabbed me, the energy sparked between us.
He pulled back quickly but not before Abby got a glimpse of it. She gave me a look, and I shook my head. I still didn’t understand why sometimes when we touched nothing happened, and other times we made sparks fly between us. When things calmed down, we would have to figure it out.
We rode for another hour before Hilail called for us to a stop. “We will make camp here,” he said. “There is a town only a few minutes ride ahead of us. I will go there and get us some provisions while you get the horses their feed and set out our tents for the night. They are in the saddlebags on your horses. I will be back as soon as I can. And don’t let anyone see you,” he rode off.
We went through the saddlebags and pulled out the few things in each one. There was some food and water, and one even had matches. They all had a few small squares of fabric that we put together in a pile.
“What do we do with this?” I asked.
“No idea,” said Tider.
Abby tried moving the squares around, “I don’t have a clue.”
“Maybe we have to use water,” Richard said. “Remember, Hilail said they put everything into their magic when they fight, maybe it’s the same for everything they do.”
“Any idea how to do it?”
“No,” he looked down. “Maybe we can just wet it.”
“I doubt it’s that easy, but let’s give it a try.” Tider pulled his magic to him and let a little water in the air condense and fall on the fabric. We all watched for a while, but nothing happened.
“I don’t think that worked,” I said. I picked up one of the squares of fabric and looked closely at it. I tried rubbing it to see if it was stuck together, but it wasn’t. “We aren’t going to be able to make this work. We know nothing about their magic or how they do things.”
“We can’t sit out here. It’s already starting to get dark, and the temperature is dropping. It will be too cold without a fire.”
“Why don’t I make my shield, and we can put the fire in it with us?” I asked.
“You still have trouble with the shield when there is a movement, and fire makes a lot of movement. The last thing we need is to have you exhausted if something bad does happen.”
“We’ve all read about hobbits. Their houses are underground. Why don’t we raise up a pocket of the ground for us to stay in? Then we could have a fire, and let the smoke out. We could put a hole in the roof to vent it,” Abby said.
“That’s a great idea,” I told her, “I will see what I can do.”
I called my magic to me and imagined the earth opening up to make a little pocket. I closed my eyes and watched as the magic went to work. It was beautiful to see, and within minutes it was done. It was a very rough looking space, and there was no door, but we would be inside, and we could make something to cover the way out.
Richard had grabbed some wood and started a fire to warm us up.
“I’m so glad we can take a break for a while. All that riding is hard,” Abby said.
“Yeah. I’ve never ridden a horse before. It’s harder than it looks,” Tider said.
“We need to eat something and then get some rest,” I thought about the staff and felt the same tingle in my middle. It was still pulling me the way we were heading. “We will have to go around the town tomorrow. I don’t think it’s in there. Somehow it feels farther away. “
“Well, let’s hope it’s not much farther. We only have tomorrow and the next day to
get the staff back to the king. Otherwise, we are all screwed,” Adam said.
“We’ll get it. I doubt they took it far. The princess isn’t going to want to wait for it when she can finally use it.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think she will be able to use it. Only the ruler can use it. The curse isn’t killing the king, only turning him evil. I think she expects him to die because of the curse. Someone is lying to her.”
“I can’t believe she doesn’t even care if her dad dies. How could someone become so twisted?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t want her guards to catch up to us, so we need to get moving first thing in the morning.”
I heard a noise outside and went to investigate. Hilail was walking into the clearing with a look of astonishment on his face, “What did you do?”
“We couldn’t figure out the tents, so we made an area for us to sleep and stay warm. He walked inside, looking around.
“How did you do this? Humans aren’t supposed to be this strong magically.”
“It really didn’t take a ton of magic. We only needed the ground to lift up a bit. It was way easier than your tent.”
“Which one of you did this?”
They all looked at me, “Why am I not surprised,” he said. “I received word from a loyal guard, the princess sent her own guards to your room to search for a trinket she says went missing while you were with her. She told them to look for anything else with the royal crest on it too since you are thieves and may have stolen from the king.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She must have known that the king gave you something, so she sent her guards in, thinking it would have the royal crest on it since it was her fathers. It’s all the proof I need that she is in on the king’s missing staff.”
“I’m sorry, Hilail. I’m sure you were hoping it wasn’t her.” Hilail looked upset.
“Let’s work on your magic,” Hilail said after taking a deep breath.
“Why don’t you all watch so you can help each other once you leave here? I’m not sure if these moves will help if you don’t have power over water, but it’s worth a try.”
“Sounds good to us,” we said.
We watched as Hilail started to call on his magic. It was almost instantaneous. He raised his arms in what looked like a dance position. He opened his palms, and rain started falling. He closed his palms, and the water pulled together into a large ball. It broke apart into thousands of pieces of ice suspended in the air when his hands twisted.
I closed my eyes and watched the magic. It didn’t fight Hilail. It was a part of him, and it knew what he wanted with barely a thought. The magic flew from his hand to the air around us, twirling in the air to keep the ice suspended. When his hands came together, the ice started to move, one piece at a time, into the shape of a snowflake. Hilail moved his arms slowly, and the ice snowflake turned into a real snowflake. The pieces broke apart and came to hover right before us. I opened my eyes and reached out a hand. A snowflake dropped onto it but didn’t melt.
“This is amazing. You barely have to think before the magic does what you want.”
Hilail put his hands into the air and pulled them apart. The snow completely disappeared. “That is what our children are taught,” he said.
“Wow. You’re right. We can’t compete with that,” Abby said awed.
“Maybe not, but I will try to teach you some of it. Which of you has a water element?”
“I’m a water elemental,” Tider stepped forward.
“No, you’re not. You have a water element, but I am a water elemental. You are human,” he frowned.
“It doesn’t matter what the correct term is, you can still teach us more about having a water element,” I said.
“Fine. I will show you each a move, and you repeat it but without magic. First, you must learn the moves.”
We followed along as Hilail taught us the different moves. Eventually, he stopped to get some rest so we would be ready for the morning.
In the morning, we woke up and grabbed a quick breakfast before stepping outside.
“I want you to show me what you did to create this, but this time uncreate it,” Hilail said to me.
I closed my eyes before directing my magic toward the earth. The ground caved in and slowly knit itself back together. It didn’t look any different from the rest of the area.
“Is that good?” I asked.
“You have a lot of magic, but you are still fighting it. Next time ask the magic to come to you willingly. It will be faster and easier to use.”
“I will try. Thank you,” I told Hilail before getting on the horse with Richard. Hilail brought us incredibly warm cloaks. We all had them on, but the hoods were down. If anyone approached, we would put the hoods up to cover our faces.
We skirted around the edge of the town, staying far enough away that no one could see us but close enough that we wouldn’t lose as much time. We picked up the road again on the far side of town and were able to pick up the pace. I had given up on trying to stay as far away from Richard as I could, and now leaned against him as the horses climbed up a steep hill.
Suddenly I felt a tugging sensation around my stomach. “We need to change direction,” I yelled up to Hilail. “It’s this way.” I turned the horse to the left and set off. The tugging sensation kept getting stronger until I felt like all my stomach muscles were being pulled apart. Finally, the tugging stopped, and I looked around. We were on top of a giant cliff face. A few more feet forward, and we would fall off. The rest of my group rode up behind me.
“Where is the staff?”
“Below us,” I said quietly.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I don’t think there’s a way down.” I looked out over the cliff to see a vast ocean below us. There was no path leading down, but that didn’t stop Hilail. He pushed his hands out, and part of the ocean rushed towards us. Before it hit the cliff face it froze, turning into ice steps.
“We will have to be very careful so we don’t slip, but I think there will be a cave down here that we can get into,” Hilail said.
Hilail and Richard went first with the rest of us following. Tider went last in case he needed to help one of us if we slipped. Halfway down, Abby saw a cave ahead of us. Hilail used his magic to create a walkway to the entrance, and soon we were all standing on dry ground.
“Well,” Adam said, looking around, “we found a cave that might have the staff in it. How do we find it from here?”
“We will have to look for it,” I said.
We hiked forward trying to figure out where we were. I knew we still had to be close to the staff since it wasn’t tugging at me. Our tunnel split into two, and we quickly went left. Tider used a rock to scrape a mark into the wall near the tunnel we were going down.
“Good idea,” I told him.
“I don’t want to get lost down here.”
“Sally, why don’t you use your magic to make us a way out?” Abby asked.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m sure the princess has something protecting the staff, so I might need all my energy. Plus, if I try to make a hole in the ground here, it could cause other parts of the tunnels to collapse, and we might not be able to get to the staff.”
“I guess we keep looking,” Abby said.
“We will follow this tunnel and see where it leads.”
We hit another split in the tunnel and decided to go left, but Adam stopped us.
“Look at this,” he said, pointing to the wall where the tunnel went right. Scratched into the rock was a small wave, no bigger than my thumb. “I think the cave is marked so her followers can get here without getting lost. I didn’t look at the last one, so I’m not sure.”
“I saw this on the last one but didn’t think anything of it. I figured it was a normal scratch but now I see the wave. We should follow this tunnel and see if the next one is the same,” Tider said.
We agreed and set off with more determin
ation in our step. At the next split, we looked for the wave and found it on the left tunnel again. We kept following the wave until we finally came to a tunnel where we could see a faint light at the end.
“I don’t see anyone, but we better be careful,” Hilail whispered. “It looks like another tunnel. I think it opens up after that turn.”
We started walking into the tunnel, trying to be as quiet as possible. We made it to the turn and peered around the side. I looked out into a vast cavern. All around the edge were torches, and in the center was a giant chest surrounded by a lake of water. I knew the staff was in there. I went to step forward when Hilail grabbed me.
“Stop,” he whispered. “There are elementals in here,” he slowly pointed to one of the shadowy areas. I stared for a few seconds and was about to look away when I saw a slight movement. I couldn’t tell what it was, but something was definitely there.
We all stepped back into the tunnel, “What do we do now?” Tider asked.
“How many do you think there are? Can we take them?” Richard whispered.
“Give me a second to look. I might be able to tell how many there are,” I said.
I peeked back around the corner and closed my eyes. I looked at the same shadowy spot again and saw a faint blue color. I wasn’t sure why the color was so faint. I scanned the rest of the cavern and saw three more figures, all with the same faint blue color.
The one I was watching shifted and moved silently towards the torches. I gasped. They weren’t weak. Their colors were a faint blue because the rest of the magical signature was black, so I couldn’t see it in the dark. I moved back to my friends.
“We have a problem,” I told them. “There are four elementals, and they have been doing dark magic. Their signatures are almost completely black.”
“We need more help. Let’s leave, and I can go for back up.”
“We can’t Hilail. We need that staff now. Your king doesn’t have time to waste. We won’t get back to him in time if we don’t act. We may already be too late,” I said.
Lost Tides: Elemental Seekers Series Page 24