by Rain Oxford
“How do I get proof without your…? Hmm. Ever thought of having kids?”
“I’ll end you.”
“Fine. Anyway, supposedly, you should be able to induce a vision using both of these at the same time.”
“You had to make me question my entire family history just to tell me that?”
“Well, you needed to understand.”
“I still don’t understand, but never mind. I’ll try it.” I took the book and ball in one hand and slipped on my ring. The vision came abruptly and with a stabbing headache.
* * *
I was standing in a dark bedroom. It was a dingy-looking place with holes in the walls and a thick layer of dirt on the scuffed wooden floor. The only furniture was a mattress on the floor with two boys sleeping on it, huddled together to ward off the cold. A miniscule amount of light spilled in through the only window, which was tiny and very high in the north wall.
I had control over my movement. I looked down at myself and saw, to my surprise, me. Unlike in my other visions, I wasn’t seeing through someone else’s eyes. What that meant, I had no idea. Maybe I should have asked Darwin to explain it better.
An alarm rang in the distance, which didn’t wake the boys. After a minute or so, a woman burst in the door and picked up the boys. This woke them. They both had dirty, dark brown hair that was cut unevenly and gold eyes. The boy who appeared to be a few years older, maybe around seven, was calm and rested his head against the woman’s shoulder. The other boy cried and fought against the woman’s hold as she frantically tried to hush him.
The woman set the calm boy down, moved aside the mattress, and pulled up three loose floorboards. The calm child crawled into the hole without being asked, then reached up to take his brother. “You have to stop crying, Kea,” the woman whispered.
He ignored her, but when his brother took him, he quieted down. His brother held him in a tight hug as the woman replaced the boards and mattress. Suddenly, I was standing in the dark beside them, looking up at the cracks between the floorboards.
The door opened again and the older boy put his hand over his brother’s mouth. The person who entered wore heavy boots that shook dirt from the boards as he swaggered slowly and confidently into the room. “Don’t you know what the alarm means, woman?” the man asked. I recognized that voice instantly and groaned.
Keigan Langril was standing right above me.
“It means you’ve come to slaughter more people. What’s your excuse this time?” the woman asked. I could hear the fight in her voice.
Langril laughed. “I don’t need an excuse. Excuses are for people who have masters. I have no master; I answer to no one. As for the reason, it’s quite simple; Dothra is overpopulated. It puts too much of a strain on my power, and that’s unacceptable. Your family offers nothing to the soul guards, so you are just a waste of resources.”
“Each of your followers uses more resources in a day than my entire family does in a month.”
“Yes, but the key word is ‘waste.’ As in, your family is a waste of resources that my followers need. You’re not useful to me. Besides, I already killed the rest of your family. Too bad you don’t have any children; I might be willing to make a deal if you had something to offer me.”
He paused as he waited for her to confess. She remained silent. After a moment, Langril sighed and I saw a flash of something metal. The woman grunted before hitting the floor. Blood dripped down in a gory waterfall, barely missing the boys. The younger boy cried out so loudly that not even his brother’s hand could muffle it. Suddenly, the boots vanished and Langril appeared right in front of the boys. He didn’t seem to care that the woman’s blood was now dripping into his hair.
He was recognizable, but he looked a great deal younger than he did as a professor. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would guess he was in his early thirties. He wore black jeans and a black button-up shirt with seven different necklaces of crystals or magic pendants and at least a dozen rings. I had no doubt each necklace and ring had a different sinister purpose.
“Well, it looks like I was being lied to after all.”
Sometime later, the boys were huddled together in a dungeon cell. Three of the walls were stone and the fourth was made of bars. There was nothing in the cell for the boys to lie on, nor was there a sanitary place for them to go to the bathroom. It was too dark to see much through the bars. That was, until Langril appeared right outside the cell.
The younger boy cried. “Why did you spare us?” the older boy asked with the same fire in his tone that his mother had.
Langril smirked. “Because you’re useful to me. Not yet, of course; you’re too young. Soon, though, you will be old enough to join my followers.”
“Why would I ever serve you?”
“Because my followers get what they want more than anything; power. When you join my followers, you will train to be a soul guard. Soul guards get to travel to another world. This other world has all the food and water you could ever want, lots of people who would never try to kill you, and sunlight. Do you know what sunlight is?”
“Mother said it was a myth.”
“It’s not. Dothra used to have sunlight. We had three suns until they started to burn the world. It boiled away all our ice and water. When we destroyed one of them, we thought the other two would be okay, but we threw off the gravity and now we don’t have any sunlight. At least, that’s what history tells us. It does seem rather fairytale. Either way all the other worlds have sunlight.” The younger brother was no longer crying as he paid very close attention to Langril’s words.
The scene changed again. Although the boys were still in the cell, it was obvious that several years had passed, because they were both older. The seven-year-old was now about fifteen and his brother was about twelve. They were both severely malnourished and dirty. I doubted they had a bath or even interaction with other people in the years they spent in the dungeon.
Once again, Langril appeared. “Congratulations to you both for surviving. Today is the day you are tested. If you are powerful enough, you will join my followers. If not, you die. Either way, it’s a good day for you.”
The younger brother looked excited, while the older one was apprehensive.
* * *
I was standing in a cave, in waist-high water, where the light was actually coming from a huge fountain in the middle. The fountain had a deep blue light in the center of it which illuminated the entire cave. Although I couldn’t feel the water, I could hear and smell it just fine.
Langril was standing next to the fountain with the boys. Twenty of his followers surrounded them in a wide circle, all dressed in black robes with their hoods hiding their faces. “I don’t want to be a soul guard,” the older brother whispered.
“Yes, you do. Give me your name.” Langril took the boy by his shoulders and held him right against the falling water of the fountain.
“Lystan.”
Langril pushed him into the water and held him under. After a few seconds, the child started struggling, but the older wizard didn’t relent. Then the water turned red as blood and the boy stopped thrashing. Langril released him and the teenager stood, wiping water from his face and hair. The water turned back to blue. “You did well.” He hugged the boy as if he was proud, and the boy’s face lit up. He probably didn’t even remember the touch of another person except for his brother.
The younger brother tried to get in the way. “My turn!”
Lystan stepped aside.
“Give me your name.”
“Kea.”
Langril pushed him underwater like he did to Lystan, but the boy didn’t struggle and the water didn’t turn red. After about three minutes, Kea started to thrash and Langril let him go. When Kea stood, Lystan tried to hug him, but Langril put his arm out to stop the older brother. “Kea, you do not have the power to be a soul guard.”
The boy’s faced drained of color. “But I want to be one. I want to go to Earth. Please! Let me try
again!”
Langril glanced at one of his followers, who pulled a sword from the folds of his robe.
“Please!” Lystan screamed. “Give him another chance! He’s not as old as me; maybe his powers are just developing late!”
Langril held up his hand and his follower stopped advancing. “There is one way he can gain power.”
“I’ll do it!” Kea promised.
“You need to kill other wizards to gain their power. Kill five people who are more powerful than you and return to me with their hearts. In fact…” he looked around at his wizards. “I may have too many followers as it is. Make a place for yourself. Five powerful wizard hearts, or the heart of just one of my followers.” He put his arm around Lystan’s shoulder and forced him to follow. “You have earned some food.”
Kea was left in the cave with twenty of Langril’s followers. The scene changed again to Kea alone in the cell and bleeding. Lystan appeared at the bars this time. “I convinced the master to spare you until you’re older and can try again.”
“I couldn’t kill anyone,” Kea said. His voice was quiet and hopeless, as if each word was a struggle. He wouldn’t even look at his brother.
“That’s not a bad thing. Killing isn’t the only way to get power. It can’t be. I’ll figure something out. You can trust me.”
“Why? You got in. You don’t need me.”
“I’m not going to let him kill you. I’ll get you in.”
* * *
Several years passed. Kea was now about fifteen. He wasn’t a weeping mess on the ground, though. He paced the cell like a restless animal, running his hand over the bars as he passed. Langril appeared out of the darkness. “My, you’ve grown.”
Kea was bigger than his brother had been. He was still malnourished, but he managed to develop some muscle anyway. He was nearing six feet tall with long hair that was wadded into an old cloth band. Instead of answering, he growled at Langril.
The wizard just smirked. “How often has your brother visited you in the last three years? Twice? Not very supportive, and now he’s forgotten you completely.”
Kea stopped pacing.
“He’s found a human to make a deal with. He’s even going to have a baby with her. Do you think he ever thinks of you?”
“You said I can gain power by killing. I’m ready.”
Langril pursed his lips. “Maybe. Like I said; bring me five hearts. You have three days.”
Everything went black for a second before I appeared with Kea on a dark street. I followed as Kea wandered the streets. From his cautious exploration, I suspected that he didn’t even remember his life before he went into the cell. When a group of six people turned onto the street and Kea saw them, he growled. Four of them laughed, but one pulled a knife.
“What’s your problem, boy?” he asked.
Kea didn’t move, not to attack them or to hide, until they were just a few feet away from him. When the guy with the knife made a threatening gesture and a loud noise, as if trying to scare off a dog, Kea attacked. The man wasn’t expecting it, so he went down. Kea bit and scratched at him viciously, until his knife sliced Kea’s arm.
Kea realized in a split second what the knife was for, so he bit the man’s arm until he could wrestle the knife free. When he stabbed it into the man’s neck, the strangers all took off running. No one was willing to help their fallen man.
After cutting out the man’s heart, Kea searched the streets for an hour with the heart in his hand, looking for something to put it in. Finally, in an abandoned grocery store, he found a cloth sack.
Fortunately, the scene changed again. Now we were standing in the main room of the Dothra castle. Kea was covered in blood as he handed the sack to Langril. The older wizard sat in the thrown chair, just like Astrid had— arrogantly. His followers surrounded them and Lystan stood to his right. Lystan was no longer malnourished, but he wasn’t as tall as Krechea and he was still thin.
Langril took one of the hearts out and licked it. “This one is good; a mother of three with more than enough magic.” He took another one out and licked it as well. “Yuck, an enemy of mine. Oh well, he was still powerful.” He did this again with the next two hearts. When he pulled out the final heart and licked it, he scowled. “No, this won’t do at all. Pathetic.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Kea asked harshly.
“This is the heart of a vermin with no more magic than a newborn.” He made a motion with his hands and one of his followers drew a sword. “You have failed your task.”
“No! I can get another one!”
“You’re out of time.”
“Please, no!” Lystan begged. “Let him kill one of your followers!”
“I already gave him that opportunity and he failed. However…” He made another motion with his hand and the follower handed his sword to Langril. The curved blade pulsed with a sinister red glow. “Since he means so much to you, you can kill him yourself.” Langril said, holding it out for Lystan.
Lystan’s face went white as a sheet. “No.”
“You don’t tell your master ‘no.’ Do you know who tells their master ‘no’?”
“Vermin.”
“That’s right. And what do we do to vermin?”
“We kill them.” He took the sword hesitantly. “I can’t kill my brother, though.”
“I’ll make it easy for you. You two will go into that room there,” he said, pointing to a door on the south wall. “You will kill him and come out victorious, or I will kill you both.”
The followers moved without instruction. Two of them grabbed Lystan, who didn’t fight as they dragged him to the room. When three of them grabbed Kea, he punched, kicked, and bit them every step of the way. I appeared inside just as they slammed the door shut. Lystan dropped the sword and hugged his brother.
“What are you doing?” Kea asked.
“We need to think of a way to get out. I’m not going to kill you.”
“But the master said to. He’ll kill you.”
“No, he won’t. I’ve made a deal with a vampire from another world. She wanted to stay on Earth and so did I. We found a loophole so that we both can. We just need to have a child.”
“So you have a child?”
He grimaced. “No. It’s not that easy, apparently. We’re having a difficult time with it, but that’s why the master can’t kill me; he wants her soul when she dies. He can’t get it until I fulfill my part of the deal, which was to make it so that she can stay on Earth.”
“But then he’ll get her soul when she dies.”
“Vampires are immortal. Now, let’s figure out how we can get you out of here. It’s all true. Earth has sunlight and it’s the most wonderful thing there is. There’s food and drinks. People are friendly and don’t care about power.” Lystan started to search the room for some crack in the wall or other means of escape. “There are a ton of secret passageways in the castle.”
While his back was turned, Kea picked up the sword. “I know how.”
Lystan turned to his brother and Kea stabbed the blade into his stomach. Shock and horror spread over the older brother’s face. “Why?” he whispered, his voice weak with pain.
“You and the master taught me something I will never forget; people with power are happy. I’ll take your power and that will be enough for me to be happy.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Lystan said.
“Yes, it does.” He twisted the blade.
I closed my eyes. I had seen some gruesome murders in my life, even from the eyes of the murderers themselves, but this churned my stomach. This time, I felt a change in the air, so I opened my eyes. I was back in the main room and Kea was coming out of the small room, covered with blood. He held up his brother’s heart.
“I got a fifth heart.”
Langril’s eyes were wide with shock, as if it was any more horrific than sending Lystan in to kill his brother. “You killed an active soul guard. Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?!
You lost me the soul of a pure vampire before he was able to get her pregnant! I wanted that vampire! Now I’m going to have to get her to make a deal with someone else!”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m powerful enough now to be a soul guard.” He approached Langril, ignoring the shocked followers. “I’ll make a deal with the vampire.”
Langril slapped Kea across the face. “You will never be a soul guard.”
I could see something in Kea’s eyes as he just snapped. He growled. “Then I will become even more powerful than you, rip out your heart, and take over the soul guards.”
“Kea, you will kneel.” The power in the wizard’s voice caused his followers to tremble, but Kea just smirked.
“That was your first mistake, Master. My name is not Kea.” One of the followers reached for him, but he vanished in a sudden cloud of darkness.
Chapter 13
I snapped out of the vision feeling like I had been running in the dark for hours and had food poisoning. My muscles cramped, I was soaked with sweat, and I was shivering. From the foul taste in my mouth, I knew I had thrown up.
Henry was trying to pull me up, but I was too disorientated. When Darwin handed me a glass of water, I realized Rocky was there. “How bad was it?” I asked.
“You stopped breathing for a minute, but no heart failure, thanks to Rocky.”
Darwin slipped my ring into his pocket, but I decided not to say anything. I wasn’t ready to have another vision for a while. I wanted to drink a gallon of water, eat, and go to sleep in my soft, clean bed. Instead, I handed Darwin the water and passed out on the floor.
* * *
The next time I woke, it was to yelling. “Get the hell out of my way! You know I can kick you out of the school.”
I sat up with a groan. My head throbbed with both sharp and dull pain, but I had actually had worse. At least it meant I was alive. “Remy, don’t shout.”