With the knowledge that the large rings didn’t work, they decided to switch to one of the other rings, though Humanius decided to keep the larger rings with them since they did work in a fashion. Belaroan complained about having to carry the large ring around with her, but Humanius gave her a dark look that quickly silenced her complaints.
It didn’t take them long to learn that the second ring was useless, as soon as they switched Humanius noticed the scions turn in their direction almost at once and head toward them. The third ring had them moving off and fumbling around again and it looked as if they had completely lost their scent. Humanius still didn’t want to take a chance so they started moving southeast. It would bring them closer to the city, but still be hard to tell their desired destination in the event the scions could still follow their movements.
After two full days of walking with only minor trouble, Humanius declared it safe to head toward the palace. Belaroan was still skeptical since one scion still seemed to follow their movements. Humanius had admitted that the lone scion that continued to match their direction without error bothered him, but he figured that it wasn’t a danger, as the other scions, even the ones they passed close to, seemed blind to their movements.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, the scion that had been following them was nearly on them. Belaroan thought it would be best to wait in ambush for the creature, but Humanius wanted to push on. In the end, Belaroan wouldn’t let it slid and they had to agree, though Thad had to agree with her this time.
They chose a place at the edge of the city where the roads were still small and the buildings around them were of normal height instead of the ones farther that tried to reach the sky. It wasn’t perfect, Thad would have preferred trees or anything that gave some cover from the ground, but there was no place like that in this world he had seen so far.
Thad saw the scion as soon as it came over the small hill. It followed the road almost like a traveler. Thad couldn’t help, but watch the scion as it moved closer. If it was not made of crystal, Thad would have sworn the thing were human.
Just before the scion reached where they hid in ambush, it stopped and looked where they hid. “I have come to talk to you,” the creature yelled its voice loud, booming yet still sounding musical to his ears. “I do not wish to fight.”
“Are you serious?” Belaroan asked as Humanius moved out from behind the side of the building.
“I can take on one scion easily,” Humanius replied to his sister who had taken a place on top of one of the buildings. “I see nothing to fear from the lone creature.”
“A wise choice,” the creature said with an odd looking smile.
“What is it that you wish to talk about?” Humanius asked as soon as he stood before the creature.
“I wish for you and your friends to accompany me to my mistress,” the scion said, tilting its head slightly. “She wishes for your aid and said that the one she had prepared has come to free her from the usurpers hold.”
“The one she has prepared?” Humanius asked with a frown etched on his face. “Who would that be?”
“I do not know whom she met,” the scion said. “I only know what she has asked me to tell you.”
“Kill it and let us continue,” Belaroan said huffing.
“What do the rest of you think?” Humanius asked of them.
“Why do you want their advice?” Belaroan asked her face pinched in anger.
“They are on the road with us and should have the same say in what we are doing,” Humanius replied. “This is one decision I will make on my own.”
“I think we should go,” Thad said not knowing why he felt that way.
“As do I,” Bren echoed.
“Fools,” Belaroan said, more than loud enough for everyone to hear.
My thoughts as well. Why would you risk meeting with such creatures? It could be an ambush that will leave you all dead. I don’t even know why I am even talking about it. I know full well you will ignore my advice as you have numerous times before and each time you have ended up in a dire situation.
“Well why change now?” Thad said with a laugh to himself that he knew Thuraman could hear. After saying that, Thad couldn’t help but be a little fearful of what might happen. The staff was right about one thing; each time he hadn’t listened to the staff’s warning he ended up in a bad way. As they began to follow the scion, Thad decided to keep his eyes open just in case the worst should come to pass.
The scion was quiet and kept a fast pace. The scion also didn’t look around as it had before, it kept looking to the west with little care for anything else. When the night began to take a full hold and the scion showed no sign of stopping, Humanius called to the creature. Humanius had to explain that they had to stop a few times before the scion understood what they wanted.
Thad began to sit up in his bedroll, but his eye couldn’t help but notice the scion who sat by itself on the group, just looking into the distance.
“Something bothering you?” Thad asked as he walked up behind the scion.
“No and yes,” the scion replied. “I have been remembering what I once was and those memories are…Painful.”
“What do you mean?” Thad asked, not completely understanding what the scion was talking about. “You were human, and those memories hurt?”
“Yes,” The scion said in a soft voice. “Once I was a man much the same as you are. I was a level two mage in the employ of a duke. I was not a strong mage and my lot in life was not great, but it was much better than the countless magic-less who toiled in the fields. I had a wife, though I can no longer remember her name. It is the thoughts of her that bring me pain. I have not thought of her in centuries, but seeing you and your companions have brought those visions back to me.”
“I am sorry that we have brought you pain,” Thad said honestly.
“It will pass,” the scion replied.
“What is your name?” Thad asked. “You must have had one.”
“I don’t remember what I was called when I was flesh, but the mistress calls me Wardwell.”
“Your mistress,” Thad said. He had heard the scion mention her earlier, but Wardwell had said nothing else about the matter and Humanius had remained silent since they had left the city. “What is she like?”
“She is hard to explain,” Wardwell replied. “She protects us and we protect her. She is the voice and we are her eyes and ears.”
Thad had heard the term voice before, but it had come from a scion that had sought them dead. He wished the scion a goodnight and returned to his bedroll, once again expecting the worst.
I told you that you should not go along with this madness. Just wait, at the end, all you will find is pain and this time you do not have friends waiting in the shadows to save you.
“Then we will have to be careful,” Thad replied to the staff. “It is too late for us to decline his offer and the others would not agree.”
Belaroan would agree. She, at least, has a head on her shoulders.
“Thuraman,” Thad exclaimed. “I can’t believe you are talking nice about a female, even if she is a god, she is still a woman and yet you sound as if you like her.” As Thad spoke, he let the staff hear his laughter.
I do not like her nor trust her, but she has kept the most level-headed during this trip and I think you should listen to her advice a bit more. She can be no worse than that witch of a woman you married.
Thad had gotten so used to Thuraman’s complaints about Maria that he hardly noticed them anymore. “You just like her advice because it is the same things that you want, and most of the time you’re only concerned about your own agenda, the same as her.”
Just as you should be. You too often think of others and put yourself at risk. If you stop and think of yourself more often then I wouldn’t have to.
“You know, we will never agree on this,” Thad said shaking his head. He loved Thuraman and it was a part of him much the same way his hands were, yet they we
re different in most ways that mattered. Thuraman cared only about himself and Thad and never took others needs into account. Thad had tried many times to get him to look at things from the other side of the mirror, but nothing he tried worked. “One of these days you will love something other than yourself,” Thad said with sadness in his voice as he pulled his blanket over his head.
I care about you and your son. Is that not enough? The rest of the world is nothing to me, and I nothing to them. You may try, but in the end we both know it is an effort that will be made in vain.
That night as Thad drifted off to sleep, he found darkness pulling him in. At first Thad thought it was Maria pulling at him, but as the darkness coiled around him it felt different. As the darkness cleared he found himself standing in a large open field overlooking the ocean.
“Father,” a weak voice said barely above a whisper from behind him.
“Sandrea,” Thad replied slightly shocked to find it was his daughter that had called to him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I know, why spend time with a daughter you don’t know when mother is around,” Sandrea said her voice filled with bitterness.
“No, nothing like that dear,” Thad said wincing, knowing that he had said the wrong thing. “Forgive me…I am new to this. I have bumbled enough with your brother and I don’t want to ruin our relationship before it has even begun.”
“Mother was right,” Sandrea said with a smirk. “You are like a lost puppy when you don’t know what to say. It makes it really hard to stay mad at you.”
“That is not something you should say about your father,” Thad said in mock anger.
“I suppose it is not, but just like you, I have had little experience with dealing with a father,” Sandra said her comment biting Thad hard. “I didn’t mean that,” She said quickly, noticing the pain her words had caused.
“You have every right to say it though,” Thad said as he walked over to his daughter. “If I had not been so focused in my studies then I would not have been taken away, and none of this would have come to pass. In the end, it is my fault and I wish to make things better.”
“Then why are you not home,” Sandrea said biting back her words.
“I wish I was, but not everything we want comes to pass,” Thad said with a weak smile.
“That sounds like something mother would say,” Sandrea said with a thin smile.
Sandrea gave Thad a weak hug and for the rest of their short time together they talked about simple things. To Thad’s relief, she had not yet taken a liking to any boys, though there was no shortage of suitors available. Though little was accomplished, Thad felt good about the meeting when the darkness one again moved in to take him back to his own mind.
When Thad woke the sun still hasn’t risen. Looking around he found that the rest of the group calmly kept watch while the scion still sat in the same place looking as if it hadn’t moved an inch all night.
Shortly after he woke, the sun began to rise and they were once again following the scion who continued to walk in the same direction without once having to stop and take measure of his surroundings. As they walked, Thad couldn’t help but think of what the scion had said the night before. The talk about his Mistress and calling her the voice still bothered him. If she was the same one that had sent the others to kill them then it might not be the best idea to walk right into where she was, though he couldn’t help but admit that he had more than a little curiosity about what he had meant when he had talked about the one she had prepared.
Thad matched his pace with Humanius and walked beside the god. “What do you make of our guest?” Thad asked, his eyes still lingering on the scion.
“He is an answer to a question,” Humanius said.
“What question would that be?” Thad asked, looking at the scion even harder.
“What happened while we were away and what is happening now. I know only that the scions were the guardians of the center, nothing more than that. I wish to know why they are hunting us and if there is a way we might work together. It would make things much easier if we didn’t have to fight once we reach the palace.”
“True enough, but do you think it will really be that easy?” Thad asked nervously.
“No, I do not,” Humanius replied. “I am sorry Thad, I know you have a lot of questions, but I need to think and figure out what I can before we reach our destination.”
Thad dropped back and continued to walk, watching the scion as the fears began to mount in his mind.
CHAPTER XIII
Five days on the road and they still followed behind the scion. Thad had tried many times to get the scion to talk about his mistress, but he never got more than he had the first night. At first Thad had thought the scion had the intelligence of a man, but he had found that he had been wrong, very wrong. What he learned scared him more than anything, not of the scion, but what his own fate would be should the crystal take him. It was already spreading and faster than he would like. His toes were now gone as were his fingers and most of the soles of his foot and the palms of his hands. It might not sound like much, but to Thad it was all the mattered.
“Would he end up like the scion, nothing but a scattered collection of memories and driven only by something more powerful than himself?” Thad asked himself as he followed behind the others.
Thad kept the gloves on all the time now for fear that his son might see what was happening and demand that his father return to their own world, though it was not like he could find the doorway or reach it alone. A part of Thad urged him to show his son and ask for him to take him to the door, but he knew that if he did that then they would never find the secrets they desired.
Everything would be easy to deal with if he only knew how much longer he must wait before they reached their destination. He had asked Wardwell how far until they reached the mistress, but like many other things, he had no knowledge of distance or time. All the scion would tell him was that she was not far. The first day he took that to mean that they would reach her by nightfall, but now he knew that could mean a year for the scion.
As the sun reached it midway point in the sky, Thad noticed a large hill in the distance. Thad couldn’t help but feel something when he looked at the mound of crystal. It was almost as if it was calling to him. When Thad noticed that the scion was walking in a straight line to the hill, Thad let his hope rise that they were near their goal.
As they neared the hill Thad noticed an opening in the face of the hill that might have once been a mine. Outside the mouth of the opening were two other scions that stood like statues. As they approached neither scion moved, but Thad knew they were aware of their presence.
The inside of the hill proved to be much larger than one would imagine from looking from the outside. The mine shaft led down and spread out and inside were numerous scions, most of them standing in long rows blocking most of the tunnels and none of them moving or showing any sign of intelligence.
The deeper they moved the more things changed. The ground around them slowly started to show small signs of dirt, and stone with only smatterings of crystal showing through. The scions also seemed different; the farther they moved, the more active the creatures were. When they passed a scion and he begged their pardon for being in the way, Thad nearly jumped in surprise.
The mine shaft soon opened up into a large room that would have put many palaces throne room to shame. Inside the room were five scions who stood around talking. For the first time, Thad noticed that he could tell which ones had once been male and which ones had been female, but one among the five stood out above the others. The scion was smaller than the others, but it was her color that shocked him the most. Unlike the rest of the world and the other scions, she was a multicolored crystal, but each part of her body was a solid color. Her hair was a dark black and Thad could have sworn that it moved, her skin was a light pink though it still sparked in the light that shone from what Thad believed were enchanted lights that were placed throughout th
e room. Though she was amazing, it was her eyes that caught him, they were made of emeralds and shone like stares in the sky.
“Thad, I see you enjoy my form,” the scion said flashing him a smile flashing teeth made of white pearl. “I made this body just for you.”
“Why?” Thad asked his voice stammering as the rest of the group turned to look at him, even Humanius looking as if he had been taken by surprise.
“Why,” the scion echoed with a small frown on her face. “I thought you would have known. I have been leading you to this place ever since you were born. I know you are smart enough to have figured that out.”
“What?” Thad said shocked. “How did you lead me here? I don’t understand, nothing you are saying makes any sense.”
“Oh dear, it seems that I might not have been as clear as I thought,” she said with a laughing musical voice. “Shall we sit and talk. I fear we have much to talk about.”
“Are you the one called mistress?” Humanius asked stepping in front of Thad and holding him back from moving toward the scion.
“Humanius, son of Trelan, I am glad that you are here and I wish for you to listen, but it is Thaddeus that I will talk to, as he is mine. You, I know, are your own and will always be such, just as your sister is her own and Bren is too confused at the moment to know where he might stand.”
Thad could tell that Humanius wished to say more, in fact Thad could see his lips moving, but nothing issued from his mouth. After a few moments of trying to speak, Humanius stepped back to his sister’s laughter and Thad moved forward and took a seat on the ground in front of the scion.
“Do you have any questions before I start?” the scion asked as she sat down across from Thad. “I find things are much easier if questions are answered first.”
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