by Tracy Lane
But… even if it meant offsetting the balance between dark and light that the Council worked so hard, for so long, to protect? He shook his head, swallowed and made his decision.
Kayne reached for the orb, feeling its power even as his trembling fingers clasped it, gently, and slid it into the leather satchel that he quickly clasped and slid over his left shoulder.
He inched back, past the guards, nodding at each as they bowed to his presence. He turned, about to sprint down the hall, when the open chamber caught his eye. He might have the orb, but if he left the door open, it would alert even the dopiest guard the minute the belief spell wore off.
He turned to the nearest guard, steeled himself for instant decapitation if the spell had already worn off and said, “The door.”
“Yes, of course,” said the guard, turning to his orange clad neighbor. “The door.”
One by one, the guards repeated the order, turning in turn from one to the next:
“The door.”
“The door.”
“The door.”
“The door.”
Finally, the last guard shut the door, nodding his red-eyed face toward Kayne as Kayne bowed, grateful that his unpleasant task was finally done.
And that he still had his head…
6
Heart pounding, underarms drenched with sweat, Kayne clutched the satchel to his chest protectively, even though it was securely fastened over his shoulder. He eased silently through the halls, heading toward Kronos’ chambers but pausing in the central hallway.
In his hands he held the power to change the course of history on Synurgus. Or, for that matter, any other planet. What Kronos wanted it for was obvious, though what he’d do with it eluded Kayne.
Or did it? Kayne knew Kronos was tired of living in league with the Ythurians, the Light Mages who essentially ran the Council of Bright Orders. Kronos was a proud Sinesterian and wanted to control the Council himself.
What Kayne held in his hand would help him do just that. Kayne was already late; no doubt Kronos was already looking for him. What’s more, Kayne had been bound to Kronos in a powerful ceremony linking master and squire together. It was Kayne’s sworn duty to fulfill his every master’s wish, but what if his master’s wish meant giving power to the dark mages on the Council?
He turned, instinctively, away from the hallway that led to Kronos’ quarters and back toward the Main Hall. Perhaps he could find Iragos there, and let him know what his master had done. Whether it was right or wrong, whether it would land him in prison or worse, Kayne knew he had to keep the Ythra Orb away from Kronos.
He walked, on the lookout for any of Kronos’ fellow Sinisterians, picking up his pace, until at last Kayne saw Iragos and his flowing silvery hair. Kayne hurried, clutching the satchel tightly, calling out the light mage’s name.
“Iragos, sir. May I have a moment?”
Iragos turned, his billowing maroon robes shifting to reveal a young girl and a small Nayer at his side. “Oh,” Kayne said, stopping in his tracks. The girl had raven-black hair and dark green eyes, and wore a rust-orange jacket with a high collar that nearly covered her ears. “I… didn’t see you had company.”
The girl flashed him a look, but Kayne wasn’t sure if it was curiosity – or fear – that made her green eyes so round and lovely. Kayne realized he was wearing his white tunic, the squire’s required uniform until he graduated to the light blue of a mage in training.
“Not at all,” said Iragos, flashing Kayne a smile. He put his large hand on the girl’s shoulder and said, “I’d like you to meet Aurora, a visitor from Below. Aurora, this is Kayne, one of our squires.”
The girl looked up at him and teased a lock of hair behind one ear. “Squire?” she said. Her voice was firm, but curious. And she’d asked Kayne, not Iragos.
“I’m training to be a mage, like Iragos here,” Kayne said, humbly nodding at the mention of the great mage’s name. “If my talents are worthy that is.”
“Talents?” she asked.
Iragos grinned. “All squires invited to train in Ythulia have shown remarkable talents down Below.”
“Below?” Aurora asked, concern furrowing her brow.
Iragos chuckled and patted her shoulder. “I would love to answer all your questions, dear, but duty awaits.” He nodded his fine head of constantly flowing, silver hair toward the Great Hall at the end of the glowing passageway. “Might I suggest that Kayne escort you to the Crystal Passage and beyond, to the world Below?”
Kayne gulped, clutching the satchel containing the Orb. “But Iragos, my Master awaits my return.”
Iragos waved an imperious hand casually, as if Kayne’s troubles were hardly worth his time. “Kronos is due in the Great Hall, as am I. I will tell him I sent you on a small errand and you’ll be back by dinner, so… can you do a mage this favor, boy? I’ll be forever in your debt.”
Kayne smirked. Iragos knew that, be he Kayne’s master or not, the squire was duty bound to all mages until his training was complete. “Of course,” Kayne said, bowing his head as Iragos rushed off.
“What was that all about?”
Kayne watched the Light Mage go and joked, “Seniority.”
7
Aurora stood awkwardly in the passage, the little Nayer stamping nervously at the end of his coarse rope. She felt foolish clinging to the beast while Kayne stood in front of her, resplendent in his shimmering white tunic and long, blond hair.
He had strong, but fine features. He was tall and lank, but the shoulders beneath his tunic were broad, the hands that clung to the leather satchel hanging from his shoulder strong and veiny.
She felt like a bother, and told him so. “You don’t have to take me down ‘Below,’ as you all call it. I can find the Crystal… whatever… by myself.”
“Oh can you?” he joked, soft brown eyes twinkling. “I’m going to have trouble finding the Crystal Car and I live here.”
She laughed quietly, afraid anything louder might echo off the vast, sparkling walls of the great and mighty Ythulia, the Great Crystal City in the Sky.
He smiled, nervously, and said, “How did you even get up here?”
His voice was soft, gentle. He seemed genuinely curious, not bothered, as he had seemed at first.
“I got lost,” she admitted, turning to follow him as he led her down the passageway, walls glowing on either side of them as they progressed. “I found myself in a clearing, and as I kept walking this sparkling, see-through city just… appeared.”
Kayne stopped abruptly, pivoting in soft black shoes to turn toward her. “You… saw… Ythulia? Down… down Below?”
His eyes were dark brown and, at the moment, extremely large. His skin was pale, his cheeks hollow, his lips full as he peppered her with almost feverish questions.
“Yes,” she admitted, Iragos’ words about her “specialty” still lingering in her ears. “Why, is that… bad?”
He reached for her arm and pressed her forward more urgently. “No, not at all, it’s… uncommon, though. Most citizens can’t see Ythulia. That’s… kind of the point.”
“Citizens?” she hated to sound so ill-informed, but every new sentence, it seemed, turned up some new word unfamiliar to her.
“Mortals with no magical powers.”
“Oh,” she said, tucking another lock of hair behind her ear. “You make it sound so dire.”
He chuckled. “Why do you care? You obviously have some kind of abilities or you’d still be Below.” He paused and, as she opened her mouth to ask, he said, “Below means down there, on Synurgus. It’s where Citizens come from. It’s where… where I came from. ”
She nodded as he waved his hand in front of a glowing door to the see-through room he had called the Crystal Car. “I could have probably figured that out for myself.”
He nudged her with his shoulder. “Probably. You never know about you Citizens.” Then, just as she was about to point out that, at one point, he must have been a “Citizen” him
self, the door whisked aside and the Nayer neighed, startling several passersby.
“Come on,” said Kayne, guiding them all inside and shutting the door with another wave of his hand. “Things are pretty tense around here, we should probably go.”
The Crystal Car started moving as Aurora watched the city walls fall away outside their descending room. “What’s going on?” she asked, gently petting the Nayer’s head between his long, pointy ears to calm the beast as the floating room picked up speed along its descent.
“It’s a long story,” Kayne said.
She nodded and stared out the crystal walls of the moving car. Outside the sky was just as she’d left it, the warm glow of late afternoon. As the floating square landed without a sound, she saw outside the crystal door where Boer stood patiently, tethered to a towering tree and gently digging one of his hooves into the soft ground.
The door whished open and Kayne inched forward, toward the edge of the car. “Will you… be all right, on your own?”
She slugged him then, lightly, on the chest. “I got here, didn’t I?”
He smirked knowingly. “You got lost here, remember?”
She blushed, and gently led the little Nayer from the cavernous floating room. “There’s still plenty of daylight left to find my way home, see?”
She used her free hand to wave at the glittering forest. He nodded, but still looked uncertain. “Still, I could help…”
His words said “yes,” but his feet remained inside the Crystal Car. She shook her head and shooed him off, though she wouldn’t have minded a little company for the long walk out of Wandering Woods. Especially for someone as charming and handsome as her young squire guide.
“It was nice meeting you, Kayne.”
“You too, Aurora,” he said. “I hope… I hope to see you soon?”
She sighed, pinning him with her eyes. “Not sure when, or how, that would happen, do you?”
He chuckled, leaning against the door. The satchel he’d been clutching the entire way down to the Below hung at his side, looking so empty she’d wondered why he’d been so concerned about it earlier.
At last, he said, “Ythulia isn’t a prison, you know.”
“No,” she admitted. “But it is another world.”
He agreed silently, nodding until their eyes met. “Still, I hope I’ll see you again someday.”
She nodded and watched as, with the wave of his hand, the door to the Crystal Car closed. Though she could still see him through the clear door, the massive room quickly rose until she could see his shimmering white tunic no more.
8
Kayne fell back against the far wall of the Crystal Car and shook his head. “Stupid!” he said, pounding clenched fists against the back of the Car. “How could you be so stupid?”
He stumbled toward the front of the Car, looking down as it rose and rose, higher in the afternoon sky, up and away from Aurora and her tiny Nayer.
The leather bag at his side hung emptily, the Orb now hidden safely inside the beast of burden’s saddle pack, a fruit-sized crystal tucked away in a burlap sack, safe… for now… from the clutches of Kronos.
But for how long?
Kayne thought long and hard about simply turning the Crystal Car around and descending back to the ground floor Below, either to grab the orb back or run as far, and as fast, as he could from Ythulia. By the time he’d gone back and forth, forth and back in his mind, he had already arrived at his destination.
The crystal door opened and even before it did, he could see Kronos pacing at the end of the long hallway that led to his chambers. Kayne walked toward him, hesitantly, hands trembling at his sides.
Kronos saw him, or perhaps heard him, or even sensed him and, turning, the mage’s already dark eyes burned an eerie, fiery red. Kayne paused just outside the doors of the Crystal Car, wishing for all the world that he’d decided to stay on the ground with Aurora.
Kayne inched forward, glad that Kronos was moving away from his chambers. The last thing the trembling squire wanted to do was face his master in private, behind thick, closed doors.
“Kayne!” hissed Kronos, yanking him into a small vestibule off the main corridor. “I’ve been waiting in my quarters for hours!”
Kayne bowed his head in deference. “I…I…” he stammered. What to tell Kronos? The truth? Or a lie? Either would surely be his death. “I was unable to secure the orb, Master!”
Kronos leaned down, his lips in a violent sneer. “Do you know the penalty for lying to your master, squire?”
“Y-y-yes, master!”
“Then how dare you lie right to my face, you impotent fool? I’ve been to the Chamber, I’ve seen the guards. Why, even now, the spell is in place and working like a charm. Nor is the orb in its holy hiding place. So then, boy… where is it?”
Kayne felt the room grow warm, then hot. The collar of his white training cloak grew tight around his throat; his limbs sore as he gasped to catch his breath, sweat stinging his eyes shut. When he opened them, he saw that he was eye to eye with Kronos!
Looking down, Kayne saw his feet dangling inches above the ground. “Let. Me. Go!” he eeked through constricted vocal chords. “I. Can’t. Breathe!”
“Not until you tell me where the orb is, you pitiful fool!”
Kronos’ yellow teeth were bared and his thin, gray lips peeled back into a vicious, unflattering grin. Spittle flecked in his salt and pepper goatee, his hollow cheeks quivering with rage.
“I… I can’t!”
Kronos shook his head, lips forming a cruel smile. “Oh, but you shall boy. You shall!”
With that Kayne was thrown against the far wall of the vestibule, back bruising against the crystal clear wall as he slid down its slick surface. He landed on the floor, slumped, sore, aching, scared. Kronos stood and, from across the room, began chanting silently.
Kayne shook his head, biting in a whimper as his skin flushed and sweat poured from his forehead. He felt alternately warm and cold, eyes popping open and fluttering shut as his ability to control himself quickly fled.
He could feel Kronos’ power in his veins, a magical spell turning his brain into his master’s servant, prying his lips open even as Kayne struggled to bite them shut!
“Tell me, boy! Tell me what you did with the orb!”
“I…” Kayne struggled, his head pounding, his joints throbbing, his eyes bulging as Kronos inched forward, falling to one knee in front of him. “I… can’t.”
“You will!” Kronos spat before moving his lips silently. “You must!”
Kayne squirmed, sliding flat onto the floor, skin a flushed red as Kronos worked his magic with a confession spell. The pain was excruciating, turning his limbs into iron rods and his skull to cement. He held on as long as he could until, at last, tears sprung from his sweltering eyes, nearly boiling as they slid down his fevered cheeks, evaporating before they could stain the front of his sweat-drenched cloak.
“The girl!” Kayne admitted, hissing through gritted teeth and hating himself the whole while. “I gave it… to… the girl.”
“What girl?” Kronos screeched, standing as his silver hair swirled violently around his angular skull. “What have you done, boy!??! What did you do with MY orb?!?”
Kayne squirmed, knowing he’d already said too much, unable to hide from his master’s superior power. “Aurora!” he revealed between lips that felt so swollen and tight they might burst at any moment. “From Synurgus. From… from Below. I don’t… I don’t know any more than what I’ve already told you!”
“Who was she with?” Kronos burst, pacing, his maroon robe flowing around his feet. “Who sent her? Was it the Council? Iragos? One of the other light mages?”
He paced, hands waving, hair waving, lips moving at a blistering pace as he alternately spoke aloud and to himself.
“No one,” Kayne muttered, feeling spent, tired and powerless against his master’s magic. “She wandered in from the forest, saw the
Crystal Car
and—”
“Liar!” Kronos spat. “No mere mortal can see Ythulia. That’s the whole point of the Illusion Spell.”
“She could,” Kayne added proudly. “She said… she said she was just stumbling along in the Wandering Woods and… and… saw the whole city right in front of her.”
Kronos considered this carefully, but not long enough to forget his rage over Kayne’s betrayal. “Now, squire, before I burst your head like a bunion, where is the orb?”
“In the Nayer’s saddlebag!” Kayne burst before sagging back to the floor like a child’s toy just robbed of all its stuffing.
Kronos chuckled to himself, shaking his head.
Kayne lay, limp and spent. He was powerless, defeated, at his master’s mercy. And Kronos was a man who knew not the meaning of mercy. And yet… and yet… behind his clenched lips, teeth still chattering from the effort, Kayne fought back a small smile of triumph. He must have learned something as a squire for even in Kronos’ rage, Kayne had been able to hold back one piece of information.
He hadn’t slid the orb in the Nayer’s saddlebag; he’d slipped it into Aurora’s knapsack. It might not save Aurora when Kronos found out that Kayne had lied, but it might just buy her enough time to escape before he ever found out.
Kronos knelt down, none the wiser, and patted Kayne’s shoulder before clenching it tightly. “Thank you for your… honesty… boy. Even if it was forced out of you by your master’s spell. And now, prepare to—”
“Kronos!” came a pleasant voice, offered in greeting, from behind. Kronos immediately lifted his hand from Kayne’s shoulder and turned, hiding the broken boy with his flowing maroon robe.
9
“Iragos!” Kronos’ voice was sickeningly sweet as, using the diversion, Kayne sat up and surreptitiously slid out from behind his master’s back, scuttling along the floor like a crab. “What a pleasant surprise.”