“You handled yourself well in Canor,” Anithistor said. “However, I don’t want to take any chances yet. Saul will track them and he will have the support of Marcus and Theron at his disposal.”
“Some help they’ve been,” Damon said almost to himself.
Marcus and Theron snarled at this, but Anithistor held up a hand to keep them calm.
“You will be needed if the three of them fail,” he said.
The usual answer, Damon thought.
An answer you should be proud to hear, the voice whispered in his mind. We are saving you because of your tremendous power. You must not forget this.
“If Silas ever reaches the Red Gate, we will need you,” Anithistor said. “You have a gift that should not be wasted early in our operations. We will need you in our darkest hour.”
Damon sighed deeply. This is what they kept telling him. He wondered if they just said this to him to make him feel included – to make him feel like he had a real purpose.
“Do you think it is wise to simply kill Silas?” Saul asked. “We could capture him, make him the eighth Sleeper.”
“That had been the plan at the beginning,” Anithistor said, looking at Marcus and Theron. “Killing him will be your first priority now. If by chance his capture becomes an easy possibility, then so be it. But I don’t want any of you to take chances. Silas is dangerous.”
A heavy silence fell in the room. There was nothing left to be said. Damon would remain in Mudavé and wait for his day to shine, fully knowing that day may never come. He feared that if Silas made it far enough to attack the Red Gate then it might be too late. It would take tremendous ability for the boy to make it that far into Mudavé again. The Stühocs would be ready this time. He would not take them by surprise. If Silas made it to the Red Gate that would mean all the other Sleepers had failed, and the only ones left to fight would be Damon and Anithistor. He was their last resort.
Nevertheless, Damon would be waiting for Silas. He would meet him, and destroy him.
Chapter Nine
Silas had never seen the city in such a state. The people of Jekyll Rock were scrambling around each other so there had been no time to celebrate the return of the three captives. Dublin had come to greet them at the east tower where the sarians were normally kept and Nalani ordered the old man to warn Darius Umar of the coming army. Within the hour, the several thousand soldiers of the Dunarian Order began fortifying the city.
When Kaden, Alric, and Lorcan had come back, Kaden made an announcement to the regular citizens about the coming horde, though no formal warning had been needed. When the citizens saw the commotion of the soldiers, it became apparent that Jekyll Rock would soon be under attack.
Kaden ordered all the older citizens and small children to be housed within the castle, though after Nalani’s description of the army, he feared the soldiers wouldn’t be able to keep the enemy out for long.
After the address, Kaden and Silas stood together on one of the outer walls of the city, overlooking the grassy plains for any sign of the coming army. Silas remembered how the Stühoc soldiers had looked when he flew over them this morning. They had run as if they would never tire. They weren’t here yet, but they would be soon.
Silas gripped the staff of Uriah firmly. “I met the Possessor,” Silas told him. “Hroth.”
Kaden turned his head sharply when he heard this. “Scary, isn’t he? I met him too. He tried to get inside my mind. Almost succeeded too. It was good that you came and got me out of Mudavé when you did. I don’t know how much longer I could have resisted.”
“You mean you never heard him speak? In your mind, I mean.”
Kaden shook his head. “No. Why, did you?”
Silas took a deep breath. He knew this wasn’t good. Hroth had told Anithistor that Silas would be easy to turn. Access to his mind had been simple.
“Yes,” Silas said. “Almost without effort. I couldn’t block him.”
Kaden’s expression betrayed his thoughts, though he said nothing. There was just too much to be concerned over to worry about Hroth at the moment.
Silas reached into his cloak and pulled out the orange medallion. Kaden’s eyes went wide for a moment.
“I know it’s not much use to you now that we no longer have the other medallions, but I thought you might be interested in having this,” Silas told him.
Kaden reached out his hands, accepting the medallion graciously. “How did you find it?”
Silas shrugged. “Same way we escaped. Got lucky.”
“Things would be a lot different right now if Julian hadn’t acted so impetuously,” Kaden said.
“But we can’t let that stop us,” Silas told him. “We can get them back. I say we negotiate with the Erellens to get the green medallion and then we force Julian to give us the other ones.”
“It won’t be that easy,” Kaden said.
“I don’t see why we shouldn’t try. The Erellens will give us the green medallion. The Gatekeeper said it was necessary to obtain them all.”
The Gatekeeper had said that a lot of things were necessary. Silas sighed, looking off into the distance.
First, Silas had to get all of the medallions. He had been shocked to hear about what Julian had done to the council members. Dublin had told them all about the dreadful day earlier that morning. Nalani had taken the news pretty hard, but instantly recovered as she went into survival mode. She had said something about finding her stepparents in Jekyll Rock and making sure they were going to be safe.
Julian had made Silas’ job more difficult. Julian, as well as Kaden, thought that all they needed was to use the medallions to activate Marenon’s Map; to use it as a colossal weapon against the Stühocs. But only Silas and Inga knew the truth. Silas needed the medallions to obtain the Gatekeeper’s power for himself. The pedestal standing in front of Marenon’s Map would open up to Silas, and he would become the most powerful being in Marenon. He wished he knew what that even meant.
The Gatekeeper had said that Silas would need Inga to help him control the magical ability he would gain. Silas couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to have that kind of power. He knew people looked to him for leadership now – how much more would they expect from him when he had the magic to face Anithistor?
Kaden rubbed the orange jewel at the center of the medallion. “This wouldn’t save us even if we did have the other four medallions. We don’t have time to get help from the Erellens.”
“Do you think we stand a chance?” Silas asked.
Kaden shrugged. “You tell me. You saw the army. We’ll only have a few thousand fighters, so I guess we’ll be outnumbered about ten to one.”
More like thirty to one, Silas thought, but he didn’t voice this. It didn’t make much of a difference. Unless there was some sort of miracle, this would be the last day for the Dunarians. Jekyll Rock would fall.
“But we’ve got you today,” Kaden said. “The Meshulan. The Deliverer. The one that can’t die.”
Silas said nothing to this. Since his meeting with the Gatekeeper, Silas had so much more knowledge about his destiny than he had before. He knew about the misleading prophecy; he knew the Gatekeeper never claimed that he was invincible. The real prophecy simply stated the possibility that Silas could deliver the people of Marenon. The only reason the Gatekeeper had kept this information to himself was to give the people hope. Silas wasn’t about to take that from them. Especially not from Kaden now.
“Might as well put this where it will be safe,” Kaden said. He motioned for Silas to follow. They walked through the halls of the stronghold until they came to the statue of the Human king, Harold. Kaden knelt to the ground and touched the feet of the king and muttered a small word that Silas had grown to know well. “Shelinsa.” The statue moved inward as the wall behind it opened on its hinges.
Silas knew the password because Kaden had brought him here before. The word Shelinsa was one Silas had heard very few times in his life, but it carried a personal si
gnificance. It was the name of his Erellen mother.
Of course Silas felt no longing sadness when he heard mention of her. There was nothing to miss, because he had never met her. He only wished that things had been different; that she had survived Silas’ birth.
Kaden must have noticed Silas’ contemplative expression. “Your father loved her very much,” Kaden said as they walked down the stairs to the underground bunker. “Their love had been a secret to most of us, but it eventually came out when your mother became pregnant.” Silas looked at Kaden after he said this, but the man averted his eyes as if to conceal his thoughts about it. “Your father was lost in battle before he could see you born, but I’m sure he would have been proud.”
Silas smiled thoughtfully as they walked forward.
They finally found themselves in front of Marenon’s Map. The pedestal stood in front of the stone wall, empty until Kaden placed the orange medallion in its designated slot. The gray wall lit up on the top right corner, revealing one sixth of the map. The desert land of the Northeast glowed orange and brown. Kaden used his thoughts to move the picture closer to the city of Voelif.
The two of them watched as Nestorians worked to clean up the aftermath of a large and bloody battle. Alric had told Kaden of the uprising and the creation of a new army. Silas had learned of it from Nalani and Coffman. The Pyramid that held the Sphere was nowhere in sight, however.
Bodies littered the ground and smoke filled the sky as the Nestorian soldiers piled the remains of the dead onto flaming mounds. Kaden searched east of the city but found little. He had hoped that some slaves might have escaped the battle to freedom, despite what Alric had told them.
“So, Nalani, Coffman, and Alric were the only ones to survive?” Silas asked.
“Actually no,” Kaden answered. “The Erellen prince Daewyn Florelle was there and got out. There was another couple. A man named Dink and his wife, Emma.”
The name sparked a memory. “Did you say Dink?”
“Yeah, why?”
Silas couldn’t help but smile. He had never known another Dink in his life. It had to be the same man.
“A man named Dink was with me in the gauntlet. He survived it too. Said something about going to find his wife.”
“Well, they’re here in Jekyll Rock,” Kaden said.
Silas couldn’t believe it. It didn’t seem fair for the man to have been reunited with his wife, only to face more hardship and war. Now they probably wouldn’t survive the battle to come.
“Kaden, why aren’t we evacuating the city, maybe to Canor?”
The man sighed, still watching the map as the light began to fade with the setting sun. “Well, for one thing, Jekyll Rock is more secure than Canor,” he said. “Also, by the time we got the people out of here, the Stühocs would be close enough to easily overtake us. There aren’t many soldiers in Canor, and even if there were, they wouldn’t move without the king’s orders.”
“Have you tried to contact Julian? I know what he did was terrible, but he probably doesn’t want the Dunarians to be wiped out.”
“I have tried,” Kaden said. “He’s not wearing his wristband anymore. I contacted King Jiaros of the Erellens, but they will not come. We don’t have time to wait for them anyway. If they did come, they would be able to fight the enemy that remains, but we would already be gone. Wiped out.” He turned his head to Silas. “We are alone.”
They both turned back to the map and Kaden moved the picture south of Voelif. He searched for something, but he didn’t know what. The map stopped the instant Kaden noticed a giant moving object.
“What is that?” Silas asked.
Kaden zoomed the map in closer to the ground until there was no mistaking what it was. Thousands upon thousands of Humans, Nestorians and Stühocs marched onward, and at the center of the massive army was the Pyramid. The structure was rolling somehow, possibly on wheels, but Silas couldn’t really tell.
“It’s their weapon,” Kaden said. “Looks like they’re headed to Mudavé. They’re almost to the edge of this part of the map. We’d need the red medallion to see them go much farther.”
“You don’t need the red medallion to see they are a force bigger than the rest of the Humans in Marenon,” Silas said. “This doesn’t even count the Stühocs in Mudavé, and the army that will attack us today.”
“Anithistor is assuring his victory,” Kaden said. “He’s made for himself the largest army Marenon has ever seen.”
Silas nodded absently. “Yeah,” he said. “And most of them will be here tonight.”
Chapter Ten
Nalani had tried not to think about what Julian had done to the Dunarian Council, but her attempts at placing her mind elsewhere failed. Even with the enemy legion headed to their tiny city, she couldn’t keep her thoughts off of him. She was glad that she had never agreed to marry him, though she wondered if she had, whether it might have changed his actions.
She should have seen this coming. She should have been more supportive of him and more willing to help him. But they had drifted apart. He had wanted her to drop everything and go with him to the castle in Farlaweer, but she knew she never could have done it. Her job with the council came first. They both understood that.
She walked down the streets of Jekyll Rock alone. The people seemed frantic and rightfully so. Soldiers instructed all that were able, to gather their weapons and meet at the city’s eastern wall within the hour.
She was headed to her parents’ house near the center of the city. These were not her real parents, but a couple who had adopted her when she first came to Marenon as a child. Her father’s name was Patrick and her mother was Sarah. The two of them had died on Earth many years before, and it made her sad to see them aging now. They had always been supportive of her and so proud when she had become part of the Dunarian Council.
She now feared for their safety.
She knew her father well, and she knew that he would not want to flee from battle. She could see the older people and children gathering into a large group at the city center. Her parent’s house wasn’t far now.
Before Silas had returned to Marenon from Earth, she had visited her parents frequently, though only for brief periods of time. Since the arrival of the Meshulan, she had visited them only once, and that had been to tell them she would be going on a short mission far away. She did not convey to them any details, and because of this they knew it was dangerous. The two of them had embraced her for a long moment and told her that they loved her.
A voice from behind broke her thoughts. When she turned, she saw Alric trying to catch up to her.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.
“Going to see my parents,” she said.
Alric nodded and stopped short of her awkwardly. They stood there, saying nothing for a long moment.
“Alric, why don’t you and your group get out of here? You aren’t Dunarians. You don’t have to be here. You still have time to leave safely.”
Alric swallowed hard and looked around at the gathering people. “We’re not going to do that,” he said finally. “I mean, I may not be officially part of the Dunarians, but I’m not interested in anything out there.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, looking away.
“I’m here because of you,” he said, grinning. “You’re quite an interesting woman. I’d hate for some Stühoc to get the best of you.”
Nalani raised an eyebrow. “So you’re here to protect me?”
“That’s right.” He puffed out his chest and pretended to march like a soldier. “Nalani Geldwin, consider me you personal bodyguard. I promise that while I am near, no harm shall befall you!”
She couldn’t help but smile at him. Truly, Alric’s presence would be a comfort when the battle came.
“Is it possible that you’ve found something to believe in?” she asked.
Alric’s face became serious at the question, and he looked at the crowded city, then back to Nalani. “I don’t know
how I feel about groups or factions, and fighting for a cause. I just know I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”
Nalani felt her face go red at his words, and Alric felt sheepish as he quickly changed the subject.
“So, you’re here to meet you parents? Why don’t we get them on your sarian and out of the city.”
“My father would never do it,” she said as they began to walk. “He’s too proud to admit that he’s too old to fight with the soldiers.”
“I see.”
When they made it to the house, Nalani took a deep breath and looked up at the door. She couldn’t bring herself to knock. “I just don’t want to lose them, Alric.”
“You won’t!” he said. “I’ll make sure of that.”
“You make a lot of promises.”
“Yeah, I do. But I always follow through.”
“The enemy force is huge, Alric. I don’t know if you can keep your promises today.”
With that, she reached a hand up and rapped her fist on the door. It instantly swung open and a white-haired, wild-eyed man, carrying several swords, knives and even a quiver of arrows, met them.
“Sweetheart! You made it back safely!” He dropped all the weapons to the floor and wrapped his skinny arms around her and squeezed tightly. “Sarah! Nalani’s home!”
A short old woman sprang out from one of the back rooms of the house, ecstatic to see Nalani.
“I see you’ve heard about the attack that’s coming,” Nalani said.
“Sure did,” Patrick answered as he bent over to pick up the weapons. “Getting ready to take down some Stühocs! As you can see, I’ve been preparing for a day like this.”
“Father, I want you to go with the group meeting at the city center,” Nalani said.
“You mean with the old people?” he said looking at her, bewildered.
“And I want you to take Mother.”
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