The East Gate (Dawnbringer, Book 2)

by Elon Vidal

  “The beginning of anything in existence is a thought and a decision. Nothing can become something when there is an outward expression of what first existed in the mind.”

  Damon seemed to think that over for a second before responding, while Dawn could only look at them in confusion. Nothing was making sense, and she wondered how any of this would help them get Elijah back.

  “Can you show us?” Damon asked.

  The djinn was quiet again before turning to look at her. “The question is not if I can do anything, the question is if I will.”

  “Well? Will you?” Dawn asked with all the politeness she could muster.

  He held out his hands, which had markings all over, even on the inside of his palms. Depending on the angle, their tonality changed from golden, to reddish, and then to a a pale grey. Whorls and wiggly or jagged lines ran across his naked torso and around his arms with scattered symbols of arrows, forked scriptures, roots, and circles of different sizes that seemed incomprehensible to Dawn. She could make some sense of what appeared to be a sun and a moon on either side of his chest. His marks were not be confused with a tattoo as they revealed a slight unevenness. She knew from her studies that the more markings a djinn had, the more knowledge they carried. Which meant that despite the old man’s infuriating riddles, he was a well of information.

  “Do you know what these are?” he asked, turning his hands so she could the back as well.

  “Markings that show how many spells you have mastered,” she replied.

  The old man laughed, startling her. She had not been expecting that. He had a loud and deep laugh, strange coming from a creature such as himself. She had never pictured djinn as anything but stoic.

  “In the ancient days, the Druids would communicate with the gods and give the people messages as instructed. These messages appeared as markings on their hands, and they would put the words on scrolls to preserve them.”

  “Are you saying those are messages from the gods?’

  “Do you think they are not?”

  “I think we are going around in circles.”

  “I would naturally assume going around implies one doing so in a circle,” he said with a small tilt of his head.

  Dawn clenched her fists and looked at Damon for some help. She wanted to punch something, or someone in particular.

  The djinn continued. “These are much more than spells, they are stories long forgotten. What the mind can’t seem to grasp and hold on to, but what magic will not allow us to forget.”

  “And what does that mean?” Dawn asked.

  “Small things can seem insignificant, and the mind forgets because it is limited. But magic does not.”

  Dawn frowned, still not understanding a word the old man was saying and again wondering if they were not wasting their time here.

  “It means, young Halfling; go to sleep,” the djinn replied before touching his forehead once with the tip of his index finger.

  “What—” Dawn’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she heard Damon call out her name as she fell into a dark and peaceful space.

  “Dawn,” a voice whispered.

  Dawn turned away from the voice, wanting to sleep a little longer. She was just so tired, and her shoulder ached. If only she could just sleep for a few more minutes, everything would be alright. Just a few more minutes.

  “Dawn!” the voice shouted now, making her jump.

  She blinked several times as she tried to adjust to the light in the room. This was not her room, was her first thought. And, looking around, she recognized the familiar walls.

  She was back in the castle.

  There was fog in Dawn’s brain as she tried to remember what she had been doing when she fell asleep, and she had a distant feeling that she was forgetting something.

  She stood and took a step towards the door, there was no use delaying the inevitable. She was now aware of her dream and knew what would come next. This time, Dawn wanted to ask the girl exactly what she had done. What was the light? She walked around the castle as she waited for the girl to appear, only she never did. Dawn walked and walked some more until she felt as if she had looked in every room at least twice.

  She stopped right where she had woken up, a remnant of what appeared to be a throne room. There was a large throne in one corner, covered in vines and the castle flowers growing off them. She reached out to touch one of the flowers, but the vines moved. Dawn screamed and jumped back. They looked like snakes encircling the flower, and Dawn’s skin crawled as she moved as far away as she could.

  Please let me wake up, she thought.

  The vines stopped moving when she reached the other side of the room, and she received the message loud and clear: no touching the flowers. She could respect a flower’s need for some personal space, she thought as she took another step further just for good measure. She looked around the room some more, careful not to touch anything else in case it felt the need to defend itself. Not that there was anything much to touch, everything in the room was either dust or covered in cobwebs beyond recognition. When she was done, she sighed in frustration, running her hand through her hair and gripping it tightly.

  And that’s when something on her arm caught her eye.

  Dawn frowned and lowered her arm slowly, her eyes widening as she took in the markings running from her elbow up her arm. She recognized the vine-like whirls from the pixie in her recurring dream. She quickly checked the other one and saw the same, making her pull up her sleeves to see if they were any more of them up to her shoulder. There were, and it prompted her to lift her t-shirt to see more of the markings on her stomach.

  Her Bruce Lee t-shirt. A faint memory came to the surface of Elijah making fun of her.

  “Enter the dragon? Really, Dawn? Isn’t it a bit dated to be wearing such a t-shirt in this day and age?” he was saying.

  And Dawn remembered answering, “There’s a ton of Bruce Lee merch you can find online. Keep being nice to me, and I might get you one for your birthday.”

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  And that’s when it started coming back to her. They had gone to visit the Pixies, and Elijah had been taken. But she didn’t know how she had ended up here.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ an echo of a voice sounded in her head.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to remember. Damon, the wraiths, the djinn. The djinn! She opened her eyes and looked at her arms, studying the markings. He’s said they were like a record of information, memories. She had no idea what it all meant, though, or even where to start.

  She looked at the markings more closely, noticing how every tiny symbol was connected with vines. There were only four that she recognized, a symbol of the cardinal points, a compass, a flame, and the castle flower. The rest were too small for her to make out and looked like letters of a foreign language than actual images of anything.

  “So what does it mean?” she said out loud, looking around the room again as if it could provide her with some answers.

  “The girl!” she exclaimed excitedly as the thought came to her.

  That was what the djinn had been saying. It was all about her markings. She hadn’t paid much attention to them before in her dream, but she knew now that they must mean something important. The answers could be in the girl’s map of magical memories. Too bad she didn’t appear now so Dawn could take a closer look at them.

  But this isn’t a dream, she thought. She was dream walking, like what the mimic had done with her. So the girl wasn’t here; this was just her memory of the dream. She didn’t know what to do next and wished the djinn could have at least told her what to do.

  “Think Dawn, think,” she muttered, biting her lip and pacing. “The eclipse happens, I go all supernova, then the thing with the hound and then the wraith…”

  She stopped as an idea came to her. The hound! Of course. If they were still connected and it could find her, then she could find it. And whoever had sent it!

  She looked at
her markings again and recalled the old man’s words. “What the mind can’t grasp, but our magic won’t let us forget.”

  Then another thought occurred to her: Damon. He had used the same concept of memory magic, but with the air. She had never seen that kind of magic before, and even though she hadn’t trained for more than a day with the First Guard and didn’t know the extent of their powers, she knew now that was too much power for a young warlock like Damon. What if it was dark magic? Since he did have Wiccan acquaintances, the idea didn’t seem too far-fetched. But was Damon really that kind of person?

  She needed to find out.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ a voice whispered.

  When Dawn opened her eyes, she took a second to recover from her short trip into dreamland before sitting up. She was no longer in her dream. Damon looked at her expectantly, and she knew that she had to make a quick decision about him now. Her instincts told her what she wanted to do was a bad idea and taking Damon with her could be worse. She was a bit wary about mixing potential dark magic in this quest.

  “Did you find the way?” the djinn asked.

  Dawn looked at her arms, expecting to see the markings, but they were gone. It didn’t matter though; she remembered. She looked at the djinn again and nodded.

  “What did you see?” Damon asked.

  “The truth,” she simply answered before focusing on the old man who looked like he wanted to smile. “Can you use the mark of the hound to find it?”

  “Are you certain?” the djinn questioned, tilting his head to the side.

  Deep down she knew that she was right, and she had to find out. So she nodded, and he stretched out his hand towards her.

  “What are you doing?” Damon asked.

  “It’s time for some answers, let’s follow the hound’s mark.”

  The djinn’s hands hovered over Dawn and her surrounding was quickly engulfed by sparkles and wavy distortions.

  The last thing she heard was Damon calling her name and shouting “I can’t come...” before she was transported on her own to a white room and landed with a thud. Her appearance startled three men who were also in the room.

  “Well, well; what do we have here?” spoke one of them. He was tall, but thin and not much to look at. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing tattoos on his tanned skin. She couldn’t see clearly what they were from where she stood, but they looked like regular tattoos and not any kind of magic markings

  She looked up at him, he was now smiling, then glanced at the two men behind him. Great, she was outnumbered.

  “You are the one with the mark!” he exclaimed excitedly. “Oh great. We are having a family reunion.”

  She was probably going to die, but at least she had been right, she thought with a groan. Talk about priorities.

  EIGHT

  “You can call me Fisher. I believe you got quite acquainted with my hound.”

  Dawn glared at him as she stood up, surprised that this was the man causing all this trouble.

  “You must be some kind of fighter to survive that, I’m impressed,” he continued. “Speaking of which, let me just relieve you of your weapons before you get any silly ideas.”

  He waved his hand, and even though she didn’t feel it, she knew her knives were gone.

  When she didn’t say anything, he sighed loudly, stepped out of the way, then snapped his fingers. His two bodyguards did the same, and Elijah appeared behind them as if he had been cloaked by magic all along.

  "Elijah!" she cried out, starting to run towards him, but the two guards held her back.

  Elijah looked at her, his eyes widening before he turned to his captor.

  "I'm doing what you want, let her go!"

  Fisher laughed and raised his hands, "It wasn't me, I promise. Your little friend is the one who came looking for me, or maybe more accurately, you."

  "Dawn?" Elijah turned to look at her instead, looking as if he wanted to scold her and hug her at the same time.

  Maybe he could do both, once they got out of here.

  "You are alone?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  She saw the hope leave his eyes right then, and she couldn't even bring herself to regret the decision she had made.

  "You okay?"

  She nodded, even though she wasn’t sure how okay both of them were going to be after this.

  "Please let her go," Elijah tried again.

  Fisher gestured to the table in front of Elijah, "Go on and finish that spell."

  When Elijah didn’t move, Fisher raised his hand, making a gripping motion. A thread of smoke unwound from his hand and flew straight to Dawn. The wisp wrapped around her throat, twisting tighter and starting to choke her. She coughed and tried to breathe, inhaling more smoke in the process.

  "Stop!" Elijah shouted, looking at Dawn in desperation. "Please!"

  "The spell, if you please."

  Elijah turned to the table and began reciting a spell.

  "Wrong!" Fisher's voice boomed, startling Elijah.

  Dawn watched helplessly as her friend panicked and started over again. To her relief, Fisher let her go. She coughed as she ran her hand over her throat. She wanted to move away as the man walked towards her, but the two guards behind her wouldn't let her.

  "Your boyfriend is really good at this," Fisher said. He stopped right in front of her.

  Any other time Dawn would have gritted her teeth and countered that Elijah was not her boyfriend. But it didn't matter now, she guessed. This man could kill them, and the thought that was going through her mind right now was regret for the life she would never get to have. She wouldn't even get her first boyfriend, let alone experience all the stupid little things like getting a screensaver with his face on it. She was too young to die!

  "What do you want?" she asked instead, getting her mind back on track.

  "What do I want? Hmm, such a heavy question."

  Fisher tapped his chin for a few seconds, then snapped his fingers as his whole face brightened.

  "An ice-cream sundae perhaps, or world peace. Yes, I think that would be nice.”

  Dawn resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I mean with Elijah, with me?”

  “You came barging in here, remember?”

  Dawn opened her mouth to ask him to stop playing games when what he had just said registered. Actually, everything that had happened since she had appeared. This was all about Elijah and not her. Fisher had confirmed it twice now that she was just an unwanted visitor. But she had been the one attacked by the hound, not Elijah. She was the one with the strange power. What was really going on here?

  “What do you want with Elijah then?” she amended.

  “Just the warlock magic in his blood.”

  Dawn studied him, taking in his brown eyes and raven black hair. He looked just like any ordinary human would, which made her curious. “And what are you?”

  “You are a curious one, aren’t you?” Fisher said.

  “I’ve been called that from time to time.”

  “I’m what you kids would call complicated, but I suppose you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

  Dawn forgot to breathe for a second, wondering if this was the moment he would reveal that he actually knew about her, and he wanted her power, like she was living in a bad satirical movie. The same power that had done nothing to help her through all this.

  “What do you mean?” she feigned innocence.

  Fisher laughed and tapped her nose, his expression turning serious for a second. “You remind me of my daughter; she was a Halfling too. But those eyes…”

  “What about them?” Dawn asked quietly, not sure she wanted to know now. The mimic had said something similar too. She was half-human, which made sense for her not to have all her mother’s Fae traits.

  “They don’t teach you about the good old days, do they?” Fischer chuckled. “I suppose not, since that’s full of the good stuff, and gods forbid any of your little light magic minds be corrupted, right?”
r />   “I don’t care about that,” she replied honestly. “I just—”

  “I don’t hear you reading the spell!” Fisher’s voice suddenly boomed, startling Dawn.

  He turned and walked to where Elijah was, making her friend step back a little. She almost kicked herself for forgetting for a second there that Fisher was insane, and not an encyclopedia. But she knew that she had to keep him talking so that she could find out everything that she could.

  “My magic is weak,” Elijah said with an exhausted tone. “We’ve been doing this for hours.”

  “Finish it,” Fisher said with a dangerously low voice.

  “What is the spell for?” she asked, getting Fisher’s attention again.

  “You will find out soon enough,” he replied.

  “Did you cause the eclipse?” Dawn decided to just throw in as many questions as she could.

  Fisher didn’t grant her a response.

  A tall woman walked in, and he leaned as she whispered something in his ear. His jaw clenched as he listened, then nodded. “Prepare for our departure.” The woman gave him a firm nod in return and walked out again. Dawn felt a new wave of panic hitting her as she thought of where Fisher would take them. He walked back to Elijah and conjured a small hourglass, slamming it onto the table.

  “A little more urgency, please, I have somewhere to be.”