The Keepers Of The Light (God Stone Book 2)

by Andrew Schafer

  Once the two had eaten themselves practically sick Rosa ushered them off, not even allowing them to help clean up.

  “Come, I will take you to Sarah,” Juan said.

  “Sarah?” Breanne said, stepping softly through the doorway. The room was small, with a wood-planked floor. A small wooden table with a single candle sat casting a flickering glow over a still form.

  As Breanne and Gabi approached, the woman’s head turned slightly. Breanne tried not to show a reaction to seeing Sarah’s face. She was almost unrecognizable. Half her face was badly bruised, her nose was slightly twisted, and one eye was swollen shut.

  “Oh! Breanne?! Gabi?! Is that really you? No, no of course this can’t be real, you can’t both be here. Not unless… unless I’m dead? Yes, and you are my angels. Oh, god, please let this be heaven!”

  The woman’s voice came in a slur, whether from some medication or the swollen face Breanne couldn’t tell, but the sight of Sarah brought both girls to tears. “Sarah, we are really here, and we are going to get you help!”

  “Gabi, I thought for sure… I thought…” Abandoning the thought, her eye darted back to Breanne. “If you’re here, then your father? Where is your father, Bre? Oh please, I want to see him too!”

  “He isn’t here, Sarah. He’s… Well, he’s… It’s hard to explain, but he isn’t here.”

  Half of Sarah’s face frowned in confusion, and she turned to Gabi. “I’m sorry. Gabi, I’m sorry I couldn’t save them! Sorry I was in such a damn hurry to know! God, I’m sorry!” Sarah said, her open eye blinking back tears.

  “No, Sarah. This is no more your fault then it is mine. We were all right where we wanted to be. No one could have known. The ones to blame are the dragon… and the giant,” Gabi said, a hardness in her voice.

  Breanne looked at the girl anew. There was something in Gabi’s tone, something she hadn’t seen until now – a hatred, deep and angry.

  Sarah tried to smile at them. “You are really here?”

  Gabi fished into her pocket and pulled out the long gold chain with her mother’s ring on it. She slid the ring off, stuffed it back into her pocket, and held out the chain.

  Sarah lifted her unbandaged hand shakily, gently clasping the chain. Then she looked at Breanne. “Do you know who this belonged to?”

  Breanne nodded, reaching out to touch the chain. “My father – he gave it to you when we were in Egypt. I was with him when he bought it.” She smiled at the memory. “I remember he was so nervous, Sarah. We must have spent the whole day looking for the perfect necklace for you.”

  “Yes. God, I miss him. I remember that day he gave it to me…” She shifted in the bed. “Did you feel that?”

  Breanne’s eyes knitted together. “Yes! What was that? Gabi, did you feel… There! I felt it again!”

  Gabi let go of the chain.

  “It’s so weird. It’s gone now but for a second it felt like…” Breanne shook her head. Then for some reason she thought of the snake and the memory of her mother and Gabi talking to her. An idea occurred to her. “Gabi, take the chain again, please!”

  Gabi reached out and put her hand around the chain, right between Sarah and Breanne’s. “There it is again! I feel… I feel my dad! Like he is sitting right next to me!”

  “I feel him too!” Sarah said.

  Gabi sat still for a long moment with her eyes pressed tight. She opened her eyes and looked from Sarah to Breanne. “He said he is glad we are all safe, and wants to know how you got here and where your brother Paul is?”

  56

  Band of Holes

  Saturday, April 9 – God Stones Day 4

  Pisco Valley, Peru

  Bright light faded from Apep’s vision to reveal a barren landscape of loose, rocky soil. He found himself in the Pisco Valley, staring up at one of the most mysterious places on earth, the Band of Holes.

  Just another of the many forgotten details of human history, the Band of Holes consisted of over six thousand holes, a meter deep and a meter wide, placed in neat rows of eight that marched up the side of the remote mountain the Spanish had named Serpent Mountain. A fitting name for something humans had no memory of creating.

  The holes stretched back before recorded time, leaving the short-lived humans to come up with all kinds of preposterous theories, like that it was a mass grave. Their stupidity was almost comical, Apep thought. How does one conclude six thousand open holes are graves when not a single one has a bone in it? The explanation was so obvious. For a species that had been so close to complete annihilation to forget what it was that had almost destroyed them and where they came from was, well, idiotic.

  The humans spent hundreds of years investigating empty holes, but did they ever once think to look around at the other mountains in the valley? Of course not. If only they had picked a mountainside, in any direction, and dug. They wouldn’t have even had to excavate very deep. But what did they do? They dug in empty holes. Fools.

  Apep could have teleported the mile to the top of the mountain but instead he decided to walk. He wanted to think. Something was nagging him. Besides, the tips of his fingers were tingling and his joints felt like they were… stinging. He had been using so much power there were bound to be some – well, minor side effects. Nothing to worry about, but perhaps it was better he saved his energy for what was to come.

  After waking from his long, forced nap in Egypt in 1050, he spent years fighting the mage Turek until finally killing him but not before he’d hidden the God Stones out of reach. He spent several hundred years whispering in the ears of humans like Tesla and Einstein, helping them advance. Later still he funded the creation of a massive mining and construction equipment company, pouring money into their research and development department, so he would have the technology he needed to retrieve the God Stones once he learned where Turek had hidden them. But even with the best equipment money could buy, he knew he needed more than technology. Turek had been clever for a human. He had hidden the stones deep inside the bedrock itself. Still, Apep had been smarter. He hired his own clever human, Dr. Moore, and then finally the God Stones were his. Then came the boy – the descendant of the mage and his ridiculous prophecy of a chosen one. But he had killed him too, hadn’t he?

  This was Ogliosh’s fault. All his talk about the human being one of the gods. Could he be right? Could Turek really have been one of the seven gods? The god of humans? “Then why would the human god let you kill him? That’s what you should be asking yourself, Apep,” Ogliosh had said. Syldan had mentioned this too. Suppose there was truth to it. Then what is Turek playing at? If he were one of the seven gods, he could have just killed me years ago. He could have killed the dragons and the nephilbock. Why the dramatics? No, this can’t be… mustn’t be. Yet still the thought nagged.

  As soon as Apep reached the top of the mountain he found what he was looking for. It seems all the dragons managed to escape their prisons with the giant. Well, except for Sylanth, the one Garrett killed.

  The great scaly beasts were spread out across a stretch of steeply sloped mountainside. Each dragon exhaled bursts of flame onto the barren ground – ground already devoid of all moisture and life. It reminded Apep of the nightshade desert on Karelia, minus the shadow creatures that lived in the loose soil. Gods, he hated this place.

  Azazel and the others had wasted no time getting to work heating the soil and raising it to impossible temperatures. What lay dormant beneath the soil, undisturbed and undiscovered for centuries, would only stir under the perfect conditions.

  Long ago when Apep first led them through the portal, the dragons and their queen sought out a perfect place to lay and hide thousands of dragon eggs. As it had turned out, the rocky soil combined with the perfect altitude and climate of Peru’s Pisco Valley formed the ideal place to bury, incubate, and hatch dragon eggs. And so, with the enslavement of over a thousand indigenous humans, the dragons buried tens of thousands of eggs. Unlike egg-laying creatures of earth, dragon eggs were fertilized
by the male’s dragon fire. With the conditions perfect, over time the dragons began to hatch – and grow. Once the dragons learned to fly, they began to feed insatiably, ushering in a dark period in humanity’s history known then as the Dragon Wars – a period that, of course, humans didn’t remember.

  Such a shame, Apep thought. He would have so enjoyed seeing the Dragon Wars at their peak, but he’d slept through it. What he deduced, based on the open holes stretching up the mountain, was that nearly seven thousand dragons must have hatched and been roaming the earth at the height of the Dragon Wars. What he never understood was how the humans bested them. His working theory was that the dragons were exposed to something on this world and had succumbed to it. Perhaps some kind of deadly virus. Of course, now he knew the truth. The dragons’ defeat was only achieved with the help of his own brother… Syldan. Thinking about the deceit made him feel foolish. To think, he’d actually believed it possible that humans had somehow managed to defeat dragons on their own. He could see now the idea was ridiculous.

  The walk up the slope, the fresh air, the time to think and reflect, left him feeling good. He knew what needed to be done and he was ready. He spoke the words of power, and the light consumed him, transporting him two peaks over, a safe distance away from Queen Azazel’s breath should she try and annihilate him on sight.

  At the sight of Apep the dragons stopped their work, rushing up the slope to take up positions on both sides of Azazel, ready to defend their queen.

  The light around him faded as the elven wizard fell into a casual walk toward Azazel.

  “What do you want, dökkálfar?” Azazel asked in her strange dual voice.

  Apep held up his hands. “I came here to help you, Queen Azazel.”

  The queen’s forked tongue flicked out like a snake tasting the air. “And why, pray tell, do you think I require your help?”

  The other dragons hissed and cursed. “Kill him!” one said in a voice that sounded as though it belonged to a snake.

  “Yes! Smite him, my queen!” another said, its voice filled with strange, cackling laughter, as if something hysterically funny had taken place.

  “Smite the dökkálfar with fire and watch him burn,” another said. This one’s voice was strangely musical and angelic, as if the heavens opened and an angel began to sing. But the voice was a stark contrast to the menacing monster’s appearance as it sneered with its long, yellowed teeth, dripping saliva.

  Apep felt himself becoming annoyed. The Sound Eye crown atop his head began to glow. “Before you try and cast me away with your pathetic dragon fire, you should know I have united the God Stones and now possess the Sound Eye!”

  “Yes – we feel the power, but you should know, you cannot possess the Sound Eye, dökkálfar! You can only hold it,” Queen Azazel said.

  Apep swept his arm out, gesturing at the assembled dragons. “Well, I hold it! And with it I can destroy you all.”

  The dragons slowly formed a circle around him. “Are you sure, dökkálfar?” Queen Azazel asked. “Are you sure you can destroy us? I feel the Sentheye surging in me too… What’s to stop me from just reaching out and taking it from you?”

  The other dragons laughed and urged their queen to take the Sound Eye.

  Let her try! Apep thought, staring at the queen unflinchingly. By freeing the queen and a handful of others from slavery under his father’s rule and bringing them here, he thought they would obey him, but they had not. They had built their army and attacked the humans, but not at his bidding. It’s of no matter. Damn them all. I will kill them all if I have to. By the gods I swear, no one will take the crown from atop my head.

  He turned, focusing his attention on the dragon closest to him, still laughing and cursing. He vaguely remembered this one from Karelia, but its name escaped him. It was a magnificent beast, the largest of the six dragons, even larger than Queen Azazel. Its scales sparkled a brilliant metallic blue. Apep narrowed his eyes at the dragon, allowing his own face to contort as he sent the Sentheye forward in a dense gush toward the dragon. The thick liquid shadow wrapped around the dragon’s neck like an oversized lasso. Suddenly its toothy face became a wash of sheer terror as its eyes bulged under the ever-tightening squeeze of Sentheye.

  But the Sentheye didn’t stop constricting. Once any hope of capturing a breath was stolen, Apep held out both fists and twisted them in opposite directions as if ringing an invisible rag. “What’s the matter? You’ve stopped laughing. Am I no longer funny!?” The Sentheye began to twist the beast’s neck unnaturally, and its head began slowly turning backward. The dragon tried to scream as blood vessels in its eyes burst – but no sound came.

  On Apep’s opposite side a red-scaled dragon screamed. Its scream was not a pained cry, but one of pure rage, building to an angry roar that could only mean one thing. The Sound Eye glowed bright, alternating colors as it appeared to distort his own face. Apep held out an open palm in the direction of the red beast. Fire shot from the angry dragon’s mouth like water shooting from an oversized fire hydrant. The blast of liquid fire churned a trench into the ground as it swept toward Apep, set to swallow him in an all-consuming flash. Nothing on earth – whether manmade molten iron from a foundry ladle, nor natural lava from the heart of a volcano – could compare with the liquid hell barreling toward him.

  Yet the elven mage did not panic, or flee… or burn. Instead, the dragon fire changed shape, narrowing into a fine stream thick as a sturdy rope. The rope of spectacular dragon fire streamed into the wizard’s hand, disappearing as easily as a long ribbon in the hands of a magician. But this was no sleight of hand with a ribbon.

  The midnight-blue dragon’s eyes rolled back in its head as its neck continued to twist.

  Without releasing his grip on the Sentheye, Apep reeled on the fire-breathing dragon, seething. He would teach these insolent beasts to dare breathe fire in his direction. He opened his mouth and roared until the fire he had absorbed through his hand burst from his mouth in a crescendo of grey-blue flame – dragon fire laced with Sentheye.

  All the dragons’ eyes went wide as the red-scaled dragon scrambled backward, trying to escape the flame – but it could not. In a panic, it halted its retreat, opting instead to use its own wing to shield itself. But the wing caught fire and the dragon cried out in agony, falling to the ground atop its wing in an attempt to smother its burning flesh.

  “Enough!” Azazel shouted.

  Apep shot Azazel a smug sneer as the ground around him smoldered, casting him in smoky shadows. His vision blurred, his hands tingled, and his whole body felt strangely – what? Singed. He felt the weight of the crown pressing down, resting heavily against his ears. The Sound Eye – so much power sat atop his head, but it was all his. He alone was destined for greatness. Destined to be the most powerful being in the universe.

  Apep turned back to the midnight-blue dragon, continuing to twist. He wanted to keep twisting until its insolent head separated from its body.

  “I said enough!” Azazel shouted again.

  Apep released the blue dragon from the grip of the Sentheye.

  The dragon collapsed to the ground in a heavy heap, dry soil clouding up around him as he released his breath into the dirt and began gasping greedily for air.

  Apep stepped forward through the fog of smoke smoldering up from the scorched earth and spoke in a stern voice. “Queen Azazel, if you want to live, I implore you to listen to my next words very carefully.”

  The dragons circling Apep froze in place, motionless. No longer did they taunt. No longer did they laugh. They were silent now. Their queen too was silent. Apep looked from one to the next, taking time to lock eyes with each. Each looked at him in return, then turned their gazes down to the dirt. They were afraid – as they should be.

  There could never be peace between his people and dragons, nor did he ever wish it. As such, he knew better than to try and make promises of peace with them now. “You will listen to me and you will do as I say, or I will strike you down
here and now!” he bellowed, his voice echoing down the mountain. “In a few months’ time I will open the portal back to our world. I will overthrow my father with an army of overwhelming force!”

  Apep began pacing. “On our planet, many of your kind are slaves to mine. If you want to free them you will bring your army of dragons through the portal and wage war against my kingdom. Once my kingdom is defeated, your kind will be freed and you will go, leaving my kingdom forever, or so help you I will use the power of the Sound Eye to rid Karelia of dragons for all time. I am not threatening you, queen of queens. I am promising you.” Apep paused for effect.

  Azazel’s nostrils flared.

  “But it needn’t be that way,” Apep said, softening his tone. “Karelia is big enough for all of us, but you must obey me now. What happened in the past is the past. My brother Syldan caused you this grief. He and the human mage destroyed your dragons and placed you in the deep sleep with your enemies. I too was cast in sleep. I escaped, I took the God Stones back, and I freed all of you. Most importantly, I killed the mage and… I killed my brother.”