Lowsunn used to be a real village with another name, but none of the original townspeople were there anymore. No one was sure why, but then again, there had been a lot of madness when Advent came. Wishes being used left and right, and without restraint at the time. All the Elders knew for sure was that the founder (Judge bless his soul) had used one of his wishes to restore the village to its rightful, pre-event origins, and then used his second and final wish to throw a massive, invisible barrier around it, preventing from entering all those who didn’t have permission from the chosen Elders. Without having to worry about the danger that was outside of Lowsunn’s walls, the village was able to truly focus on the only real task at hand: surviving.
“You think the Elders will ever give us a scouting mission?” Isaac asked as they reached their quarters. All single men and women bunked together in their own respective cabins as if they were at boys’ and girls’ academies. They were each at separate ends of the village (boys to the south, girls to the north) but it wasn’t necessary considering there were few midnight excursions. Everyone knew the risks. Getting caught after curfew meant banishment. Banishment meant death.
“What are you talking about?” Aidan replied, half-listening.
“I hear they’re going to announce their selections at the dance,” Isaac said. “You know. The Dance of Yesterday?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you ever wonder how we get our away missions?”
“I never paid much attention. The odds of me being picked for one are astronomical.”
“Because the Elders hate you. Your birthday is probably what they call their Advent. But I might be picked for one. Would you be sad if I left?”
“You wouldn’t be gone long, so no.”
“What if I got killed while I was away? Would you be sad then?”
“You would have gone on the mission knowing full well the possibilities.”
“So is that a no?”
“That’s a no.”
“You’re the only thorn in the rose garden, aren’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aidan groaned. “And what’s with the hypothetical situations? There’s only one thing we should be worried about right now. The end of our fifth year.”
“You mean how we’re supposed to give our wishes to the Elders?”
“Exactly.”
“I take it you have no intention of following through on that.”
“Do you?” Aidan asked, turning to face Isaac for the first time in their conversation. Isaac grinned and shook his head.
“Hey, Aidan!” a student of Mr. Young shouted from behind them. They turned to see a short, stocky boy with glasses that were more like goggles. “Heard about your threat during Mr. Young’s presentation. What are you doing? Trying to graduate early? You know you’re not getting expelled while those are still active.” He pointed directly at Aidan’s right arm.
“I understand that, Jared,” Aidan said.
“Then what’s the deal?”
“I have a plan.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“I would rather not,” he said, staring forward. “The walls have ears and the wind is an excellent messenger.”
“Isn’t he hilarious when he gets all metaphorical like that?” Isaac laughed. “Don’t know where he gets it from.”
“Fine, whatever,” Jared huffed. He turned to Isaac. “You watch out for this one. He’ll get you in trouble too.”
“Oh, I’m fully aware,” Isaac chuckled. Jared waved bye and ran off to the right as the two boys remained outside their home. The crowd from the presentation must have decided to mingle in the village center, located further north and in the opposite direction the boys had gone. The voices were now at a tolerable volume.
“Guess I don’t have to blow a hole in the shield next week,” Aidan said, looking towards Isaac for a reaction. All he did was raise an eyebrow in puzzlement.
“Because you have a master plan all of a sudden?”
“Tell me more about these missions.”
“Basically the Fourth and Fifth Years are their strongest and most mature, so the best of them are sent on missions outside of the Institute.”
“I already know that part.”
“You want to learn something or not?”
“Fine. Go on.”
“I think the Elders use the somewhat established adults because they don’t want to risk their own lives to procure supplies and information.”
“I don’t even want to know what it takes to get established around here…still, what I don’t understand is why they use Fifth Years. They have the most to lose. They could stay out there as long as they pleased, and if anyone tried to bring them back, they could just use their Yen to resist.”
“There are chaperones of course,” Isaac replied.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So your master plan is to go on one of the missions and then bail?”
“Exactly.”
“Like no one has thought of that one before,” Isaac scoffed. “And I’m sorry but it’s too late for you. You said it yourself. No one’s going to send you out there without a leash, a bridle and a muzzle. You’ve caused too much trouble.”
“But you’ll be selected, won’t you?” Aidan asked, looking hard into Isaac’s eyes.
“Doubtful. I associate with riff-raff like you.”
“When they’re desperate enough, they’ll take you,” Aidan nodded with confidence. “And when that happens, I’m coming along for the ride.”
“While getting me killed in the process.”
“What are friends for?” Aidan chuckled.
“Well, this is highly suspect,” a pleasant, sweet voice muttered from the shadows between the two cabins. The boys turned, half-worried that too much had been heard, when the intruder stepped into the moonlight. Isaac smiled with glee.
“Morrigan! How good it is to see you! To what do we owe the pleasure of being able to bask in the glory of the marvelous, radiant, magnificent – ”
“ – put a lid on it, Isaac. I’m sick of your false praise,” she snapped, pushing her maroon, thick, horn-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of her nose.
“But I thought you liked that sort of thing. Sucking up,” he grinned. “Or is it only acceptable when you’re the one doing it?”
“I love people sucking up to me,” she smiled through her rapidly blinking eyes and thick green lipstick, “but I would hardly consider you a person. Something between a virus and a deformed toad is more precise.”
“Yet I’m still on the evolutionary chain. There’s hope for me yet. Oh, Morrigan!” Isaac pretended to swoon as he pranced around her with clasped hands. “Your compliments are like the kiss of snowflakes upon the cheek.”
“That wasn’t even remotely intelligent.”
“So, what do you want?” Aidan said bluntly, crossing his arms. “Ms. Head of the Discipline Squad. Here to follow up on some rumors?”
“Are they rumors, Aidan?” she asked, leaning close to his face. “Considering every single person present at that presentation is ready to testify against you?”
“Oh, is that how many people I have to kill tonight?”
“You’re not funny.”
“Murder never is.”
“You have a subpoena for tomorrow morning at 8 a.m.,” she said, handing him a folded packet of paper. Isaac whistled at the size. “I assume you know where the Squad’s chambers are located.”
“You assume wrong. I’ve never been there in my entire life.”
“And afterwards, I can tutor you in the library on proper use of the Obsidial language. It can help with whatever…backwards, wild man grunting thing that’s dribbling off your lips.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not green,” he said, gagging at her lipstick. She gave a false smile, her cheekbones raised as high as they could go.
“Language doesn’t have a color, imbecile. See what I mean about havin
g to tutor you?”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned us getting together,” Aidan raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“I would rather choke on my own vomit,” she said with an up-curled lip. “And I would never do such a thing as to taint my reputation.”
“Taint?”
“Do you even know the meaning to -” she turned to Isaac. “Can you please enlighten your dense friend here?”
“Enlighten? What poetic enunciation is this?” Isaac batted his eyes. “Perhaps the lady cares to educate this backwards gent on the particulars. You know green happens to be my favorite color.”
“Go jump off a bridge,” Morrigan said flatly. She shoved them aside and headed back towards the village center where the crowd was enjoying themselves. Both of them couldn’t help staring at her strange, multi-layered clothing ensemble and bouncing pink pigtails as she walked off.
“You think that’s her natural color?” Aidan asked, but Isaac ignored him.
“Her speech loses some of its bite everyday,” Isaac sighed. Aidan unfolded his arms and glanced at him. He didn’t know what to think of their strange relationship. Sometimes he was sure Isaac was in love with her, and then in the next second, it couldn’t be anything but loathing. What went on in that head of his?
“All of Lowsunn knows I’m not going to that hearing,” Aidan declared out loud. Isaac nodded in agreement as he continued staring off in the direction Morrigan had disappeared.
“She knows too, but it’s part of the job description. Has to keep up a good standing for the higher-ups. She is the only villager our age to gain their favor. She probably has an exemption.”
“Ugh,” Aidan gagged. “Then who would want to be here a moment longer? I’ll never understand women like her.”
“You don’t understand women, period.”
“Oh, and you’re one to talk!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You drive me nuts every time I see the two of you interact,” Aidan shook his head. “Your eyes study her whenever she walks by like she’s a new species, but then your lips say otherwise.”
“I’m maintaining my distance until I’m sure of who she is, that’s all. I know what I’m doing. Unlike you.”
“Are you talking about Leah again?”
“You said her name. Not me.”
“I know her well enough,” Aidan said, glancing away and re-folding his arms.
“Oh?”
“We have a class together. Woodworking.”
“Right. I’ll make sure to check the roster and see if it exists.”
“We were partners. The teacher put us together. She made me a practice sword.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I didn’t say that. I just suspect there’s more to the story than you’re willing to admit. Don’t you remember who you’re talking to?”
“Right,” Aidan said, closing his eyes. “The last thing I need is to be thrown on your radar. I don’t know what’s worst. Being a part of your conspiracies or listening to them.”
“I would say listening, because then we can work together. We’ve yet to figure out the mystery of the disappearing chocolate cake.”
“I already told you,” Aidan sighed, slapping his forehead. “The head of the dining commons ate it whole.”
“But she’s so nice.”
“She’s fat,” Aidan stressed. “And noticeably fatter after the incident.”
“That’s stress from the job.”
“For someone who’s paranoid, you sure are willing to dismiss those you like.”
“She could be pregnant.”
“Yeah, you go ahead and ask her.”
“I’m a gentleman. I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Uh-huh. Or is it because she gives you the leftover cookies after hours?”
“You saw that?”
“Now who’s part of a conspiracy?”
“At least you’re not,” he smiled. “You’re not on my radar…yet.”
“Lucky me,” Aidan said as he began heading inside the cabin. “Lucky me.”
***
The nightmare was more vivid than usual, and what made it worse was that for the first time, Aidan couldn’t wake himself up. He was back home again, falling out of bed over the piercing screams he heard coming from outside. He thought it was all a figment of his imagination, that he had just conjured it up in his sleep, but the shrieks didn’t let up. Disoriented, he staggered to his tiny, clay hut window, and scanned the area.
His neighbors were outside his window.
And they were on fire.
Aidan rushed out through the open door, so concerned with the plight of his neighbors that he didn’t even think of whether his parents and little sister would be okay. They had been outside the safety of their home.
As soon as his feet hit the dirt, however, he was paralyzed.
The sky had turned a blood red. The clouds, a lightning blue; and a sickly yellow rain drizzled from the heavens, slowly corroding the clay of their homes and withering their bountiful harvest. Aidan stepped back inside as soon as he realized the effects of the yellow rain, but it didn’t appear to affect his skin any more than regular water did. Still, he took off his shirt and wrapped it in a turban around his head for protection, then rushed back out and searched for a solution to the fires. A way to save his people.
Water, sand, blankets – nothing worked.
And as he watched them all stumble and fall, barely even twitching once they hit the soil - he wondered why he was the only one not afflicted. He felt like throwing up, and the only thing that prevented him was the sudden boom in the distance, sounding as if the planet itself had just cracked in half. He ran to the source, past the smoldering clay huts and the recently deceased until he hit the edge of what was once his home, now just a land of fertilized soil, sitting atop the second mountain of Tilkin.
A firestorm was coming towards him, rolling across the adjacent mountains and valleys with a mix of thunder, flames, sand, and destruction. Aidan stayed frozen in fear as it approached with a deafening roar. Nothing he did could save him. His fate would be no different than those of his people.
And he didn’t mind at all.
He closed his eyes as he felt his skin begin to singe and crackle, the hairs on his arms and head already gone. He winced and grit his teeth through the tears, accepting his certain fate when unexpectedly…
A voice asked him a question.
“What do you wish for right now?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the sole survivor of Quinn spoke.
“I wish I was protected from the fire!” he cried aloud.
Just as the firestorm descended upon him, he screamed, not over the incoming storm, but the intense ripping sensation that came from his right arm. Three seals appeared in an instant. Two illuminated, signifying wishes yet to be granted, and one dark – blackened over the words he had just uttered. He had no time to examine the symbols. The pain in his arm was too great. All he could do was roar within a cloud of mixed emotions as the firestorm engulfed him, destroying his village, his friends, and everything he had ever loved within seconds, leaving no trace behind. As if his life had never existed.
He screamed and screamed and at one point, he went mad.
But then it was over.
The storm subsided, vanishing into thin air as if it had achieved its sole purpose…and only Aidan remained amidst the smoking ruins. Two tornadoes of fire, as small as bracelets, circled his wrists at an increasing rate of speed, but he wasn’t looking at them or the devastation at his feet. He couldn’t contain his rage any longer.
It erupted like a solar flare and in an instant, everything within a five mile radius was reduced to flat land, mountains and all. The village of Quinn and the mountains of Tilkin were wiped clean from Obsidian.
Aidan barely survived the fall from the mountaintop as it crumbled beneath his feet l
ike an avalanche. Even after he awoke, all he could do was breathe in the soot, and cough, and swear.
What had happened to his people…his village – it could not have been an act of nature. Nature had been a catalyst, but it was surely not the cause. Red sky? Yellow rain? No, this was a biological attack of some sort. And someone had definitely spoken to him before the firestorm had arrived. That voice…that voice would know what had happened to his people.
It would know who was responsible for their deaths.
It would know who had to die by his trembling, eager hands.
Obsidian Sky
NOW AVAILABLE
The Complete Seven Sorcerers Trilogy Page 58