Where’s Armaan? Ash thought frantically.
Suddenly the wind picked up again, screeching around them and everything blurred. Ash lost all sense of direction. The stallion neighed shrilly and lengthened his neck as he reached full gallop. Ash squeezed his eyes shut and clung on with every muscle in his body. A winged horse would come in handy right now! That was his last thought when his horse unexpectedly veered and he tried to counterbalance the sudden change in direction. The sand beneath its flying hooves sank away – both rider and horse careened off the edge of a monstrous sand dune, plunging downward into a chasm.
Ash woke with a start, half-buried in a two-foot deep trench with only the desert around him. At least he’d survived the storm: The dark thunderclouds had dissipated. In front of him the sun licked the horizon and the entire sky smouldered in red-orange flames. Nearby his horse whickered and trotted around the curved sand dune to greet him. As he stretched out his hand the stallion nuzzled his palm affectionately.
“Hey… where’ve you been Raid?”
Puzzled he looked down at the trench. Someone had dug this for him for protection from the storm. He glanced around for the other warriors. No one was there except him. Raid nuzzled him again. Just then a beautiful song sounded in Ash’s ears and, rising up in front of him, a mirage undulated off the hot desert sand. Incredulously an elusive apparition approached. He rubbed his eyes, expecting the apparition to disappear, but it didn’t. The girl strolled up to Raid and placed a delicate, caramel-brown hand on the horse’s dark mane.
“The trench – it worked – you’re alive,” the girl said in a charming voice.
Ash gaped at her.
“I couldn’t move you. You weigh a ton, by the way.”
Staring at her as if he’d seen a ghost, Ash stammered, “Where… where’re the others?”
“I heard them calling you, but you were on this side of the dune, knocked out cold.” The girl indicated to the mountainous sand dune. “Luckily your horse wasn’t injured.”
Ash flicked his tongue over his parched lips. Water, he needed water. The girl sensed his thirst and unknotted a leather pouch slung around her shoulder. She crouched next to him and placed the spout to his lips. Ash chugged the cool water down, only realising his greed when it dribbled down his chin. Wiping the water away, he continued to stare at her.
The girl stood up, fastened the pouch across her body and placed her hands on her hips.
“Do you know who you really are?” the girl asked.
Ash’s eyes blurred, he blinked and shook his head. Raid nudged his cheek, slobbering down his face. When Ash’s eyes refocused, the girl had vanished.
Confused, he dusted the grainy sand off his body. After manoeuvring himself to his knees, he crawled out of the shallow trench. His body ached from the battering sustained by falling off Raid and tumbling down the sand dune.
“It’s getting dark,” Ash said to Raid. “We’d better go find the girl.”
Reaching up he grabbed onto the saddle and attempted to hoist himself up but instead he toppled over backwards. An intense pain spiked up his left leg. Looking down he was shocked to see his ankle bulging over the top of his leather boot.
“Great… I’ve broken my ankle.”
Raid snorted.
Ash untied his boots, relieving the pressure. The blood rushed back into his foot and the numbness disappeared. He placed both hands around his ankle; the light that radiated from his palms cocooned his foot in a healing pod. A burning sensation spread throughout his body. Next, a tingling zinged into his foot and his ankle miraculously returned to its normal shape and size. Maksimos had been right.
“Raid did you see that!” Ash exclaimed. “I can heal myself – pretty neat, hey?”
Ash leapt up onto his horse’s back. The stallion sidestepped and pawed the sand. Ash scanned the dunes around him and the hairs on his arms prickled with intuition. Something was watching them. From thirty feet away, four snarling hyenas closed in.
“Easy boy,” Ash soothed, tightening the reins.
Slowly he unsheathed his sword and directed Raid sideways. The first hyena launched without warning, gnashing its massive jaws at Raid’s neck. Ash swung his sword down, slicing the beast’s face and eye. Painful yowls sounded from the injured animal as it tucked its tail between its back legs and scampered into the desert defeated, while shapeshifting back into a Ghoul.
The remaining three hyenas chattered as they closed the gap between them. The hyenas circled and Ash tried desperately to prevent Raid from bolting. He pulled the reins in, turning the horse in tight circles. The stallion blasted nervous snorts through his flared nostrils. With each turn, Ash locked his sight on the hyenas, flicking his head around and meeting their bloodthirsty stares. If they all attacked at once he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance – both he and Raid would die a brutal death in the desert.
Ash focused his energy on their movements, trying to figure out what they’d do next. Everything around him blurred into obscurity, except the hyenas, they became crystal clear. His sword burned beneath his fingertips and the triangular symbol blazed. Ash recalled Hektor’s words, “You all have the energy inside you. Use it to connect to your element. If you can achieve this, you’ll never stand alone in battle.”
In the distance, war cries suddenly pierced the inky sky. Hajaran warriors swarmed over the sand dune and plunged down the steep embankment. At that moment, Raid reared, flinging Ash backward where he dangled from the end of his saddle. A rush of air whooshed passed his ear as a hyena snapped inches from his head. Raid dropped down, flinging Ash forward seconds before the hyena pounced again, its jaws closing on nothing but air. Meanwhile Armaan galloped toward them, his muscles rippling beneath his dark skin. He clutched the reins in one hand and a glinting sword in the other. The silver blade flashed and the hyena thudded to the ground – its spine severed in two. Spasms shook its legs before it became motionless.
“Close one,” Ash called out to Armaan, thankful to see him again. Earlier in the desert he had believed Armaan was the fallen warrior. “I owe you big time.”
Armaan’s brown eyes gleamed. “Young Guardian… you owe me nothing. We fight together for the same cause.”
The last hyena dropped to the ground and the Hajaran warriors roared in jubilation. Raising their scimitars skyward, they cantered around the dead hyenas in a circle. The sun dipped behind the horizon casting them into darkness. But night was no longer a danger. They had slain all the Ghouls.
Late into the night the exhausted warriors stumbled through the cleft in the mountain and back into Hajar. Ash could see the relief flood Elektra’s pinched face when she recognised his horse and her gaze drifted up to his face.
The Hajarans had gathered outside the stone temple where they chattered all at once, wanting to know the fate of the Ifrit. When they found out that Boulos hadn’t returned with the group, a reverent silence descended over the crowd. They dispersed far more quickly than when they’d first gathered – their good spirits vanishing with this news.
Ash dismounted from Raid and patted his graceful neck, grateful that they’d both made it back alive. A groom led Raid away and Ash walked over to where Elektra and Zack were waiting. He glanced around, but Chance wasn’t in sight.
“You won’t believe this, but I used my healing powers and they worked,” Ash informed his friends excitedly. “In the desert, I fell off Raid and broke my—”
Elektra’s eyes widened. “Wait… you broke what?” She scanned Ash’s body to locate his injury.
“I broke my ankle and healed it. Look.” Ash hoisted up the leg of his loose-fitting pants and flexed his ankle back and forth.
“It looks normal to me,” remarked Zack.
“Well it wasn’t,” Ash snapped. “You should have seen it—”
Chance appeared from around the corner of the temple, slinking over toward them. Upon reaching them he announced dejectedly, “Zahir handed the book over to Maksimos. He’s taken it back to his q
uarters and didn’t leave it in the temple where it’s supposed to be.”
“So how we’re going to get it?” Elektra asked, frowning at Ash.
For the first time Ash looked stumped. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I need a day to think about it – to clear my head.”
The image of the desert girl’s face danced in his mind. Who was she? Or rather, what was she? He believed that she was undoubtedly a figment of his imagination, but then why had she appeared to him? What bothered him the most was why a hallucination would ask him such a strange question – Do you know who you really are? For now, he decided not to tell his friends. They’d probably think that he’d gone stark staring mad while out in the desert.
Chapter 15
Elemental Magic
A cool breeze brushed against Ash’s skin and he rubbed his arms to keep warm. The ghostly moon shone above and he gazed at it for a few minutes, entranced, while he waited for his friends. White puffs blossomed out of his mouth and, with each breath, his thoughts drifted to the Third Realm. They’d be in the middle of their winter – a winter wonderland nightmare.
Waiting near the stone temple brought on a rush of nostalgic feelings. It reminded him of the time when he and his friends had broken the City of Seraph’s rules while on their first adventure. That day in the oak woodlands – the Groves of Dodona – they’d discovered the Hamadryads, the tree nymphs. How he longed for those times again when life was simple and pleasant. All they had had to worry about was a Guardian catching them (and Thanos had done just that). Now, everything was so much more complicated, yet stealing the book might be their only chance to return to the Third Realm.
Elektra, Chance and Zack appeared seconds after one another. They gathered around Ash.
“This desert’s cold at night,” Elektra complained, as she blew vigorously into her bare hands.
Chance handed her a thick cloak that he’d brought along. Taken aback by his unexpected gesture, Elektra hesitated, but he held it out to her determinedly. She took the cloak and smiled at him. Wrapping it around her shoulders, she tucked her frozen hands beneath its woolly warmth.
“So what’s your plan?” Zack asked while looking at Ash.
“Every time there’s a full moon Maksimos visits the temple.”
“And how do you know this?” Chance probed.
“I’ve… I’ve been spying on him. There’s a full moon every week… so it wasn’t difficult to figure out his pattern – he’s quite a creature of habit.”
Elektra glanced up, the full moon illuminating them. “I wonder what the moon has to do with this.”
“Not sure, but he takes the book with him,” Ash disclosed. “I still don’t trust him. Maybe he had something to do with concealing the spells.”
“We could spy on him from inside the temple tonight,” Elektra suggested.
Ash thrust his hands through his hair, thinking. “It’s risky… but there’s a storage room at the back…”
“So, what are we waiting for?” Zack’s eager eyes darted between his friends. “Let’s go now.”
Ash blew out the candles that were closest to them and murkiness enveloped them. He left the candles burning around the pedestal and on the wall sconces near the engraving. They hid behind a stack of dusty wooden boxes in the storage room. Elektra sneezed three times and afterward clamped her nostrils firmly between her fingers.
The wooden door creaked and, sure enough, Maksimos sauntered in. Under his arm the Book of Elements was tucked securely. He frowned, puzzled by the unlit candles, his thick, grey eyebrows bunching together – but then he turned away, deciding against relighting them. Striding over to the pedestal, he placed the book down, opening it to the first page and slowly paging through it. He smirked when he reached the centre. Smoothing down the blank, crinkled pages on both sides, he muttered under his breath.
Chance poked Ash in the ribs. Ash narrowed his eyes at him. He’d almost shouted aloud in fright. Elektra continued pinching her nose, squishing any sneezes, while her blood-shot eyes watered from the dust.
Maksimos stepped away from the pedestal and headed to the wall in front of him. He trailed his fingers over the rough surface but stopped when he passed over the triangular engraving. Placing his right index fingertip on the apex, he lightly traced the triangle in a clockwise direction.
“One,” he counted, when his finger reached the apex again.
“Two,” Maksimos said on the second trace.
“Three.” His finger stopped on the point as he completed the third trace.
Startlingly, a golden light lit up the triangle. Maksimos lifted his finger and sniggered. Spinning on his heel he headed back to the pedestal. Here he pressed both hands on the open book and chanted aloud, stumbling over the ancient dialect. His deep voice boomed around the stone temple but the sound was contained within the thick walls. His stuttered chanting continued for five long minutes until he stopped and gasped for air, his face flaming like red-hot lava.
Maksimos’s eyes flickered. “Damn! The spell… it’s not working!”
He paced up and down in front of the wall, mumbling under his breath, his words quite audible to the friends hiding in the storeroom, “Drakon – damn him! I need the blithering stone.”
Elektra gasped aloud.
Maksimos stopped muttering and swivelled around. Ash ducked and pushed Chance’s head out of sight.
Elektra’s eyes widened when Maksimos spoke, “Who… who’s there?” The friends remained motionless but Maksimos took a tentative step closer. “Show yourself.”
Ash peeked through a crack in the boxes. Maksimos hesitated, unsure of what lay before him in the dark. Ash lifted his right hand and twirled his fingers in the air. Elektra’s eyes widened even more as she watched Ash. Zack was crouched low behind them so he couldn’t see Ash’s movements. Ash had pinned Chance’s forehead to the ground with his other hand.
The wooden temple door blew open and banged against the stone wall. Maksimos spun around as a gust of wind swirled over the pedestal, flapping the book’s pages wildly until the heavy book slammed shut. Next, the wind extinguished the few burning candles and a frightened yell escaped Maksimos’s mouth. Footsteps scuttled toward the door in the darkness and Maksimos disappeared into the moonlit night.
Elektra stared at Ash, her forehead creasing deeply. Ash shook his head indicating that she was to remain silent as to what she’d seen.
Chance bashed Ash’s hand away and peered over the boxes. “What the heck did I miss?” he blurted out, before finding out if the coast was clear.
“Maksimos… he’s gone,” Elektra whispered in a flabbergasted tone. “But… but he left the book.”
Squinting in the darkness, tiny slivers of silver moonbeams filtering through the open doorway and illuminating the pedestal, the friends stared in awe at the Book of Elements.
“Quick, get it.” Zack bounced to his feet.
“No…” Ash said breathlessly. “Maksimos was right all along. The book and the—”
“What? We didn’t do this for nothing… almost getting caught. If we keep it for a day no one will notice it’s gone,” Chance said, waving his hands theatrically.
“And what good would that be? We can’t uncover the concealed spells. We need the stone – the Onyx,” Elektra replied.
“Maybe we can figure something else out instead.” Chance turned, facing Ash.
“By the sounds of it,” Ash said, “we need the stone.”
“We should tell Kyros,” Elektra suggested.
Ash shook his head decisively. “No – not now.”
“So taking the book isn’t going to help us?” Chance’s shoulders slouched as if deflated by the anti-climax.
“Not at all,” Elektra reiterated.
“It’ll only raise suspicion,” added Zack.
“And we know that Maksimos needs the concealed spells to complete whatever he’s trying to do. So… the book’s useless to him at this moment as he can’t see them,” Ash st
ated. “I bet he’s cursing the other Guardian right now.”
Chance chuckled, straightening his shoulders.
“The symbol…” said Zack. “…did you notice he traced it three times?”
“Three. It seems to be the dominant number – three Realms, three traces – the Trinity,” Ash said looking perplexed.
“Three sneezes,” chirped Chance.
Elektra ignored Chance’s comment. “The light! Ash, the light from the symbol… could, could it be—”
“—a doorway.” Ash jumped up and hurdled the boxes. “The same as the doorway through the Wall.”
Elektra followed, climbing out of the cramped storage area and into the open space of the temple. Zack and Chance were behind them. Ash darted over to the wall and touched the apex. He traced the symbol in the same way that Maksimos had done earlier and a tingling sensation zinged up his arm. His fingertip glowed. Ash chanted the incantation and, on the wall before him, ancient words appeared in an arch over the triangle. The energy surged through him and the glow spiked up his arm, illuminating his face. As he completed the third trace, the symbol burst into flames, narrowly missing his face. Diving to the side, he retracted his hand. But as quickly as the flames had started, they vanished.
The other three had ducked behind Ash, their arms protecting their faces.
Elektra rose first and her voice came out in a hoarse whisper, “What was that?”
Ash shrugged and turned to face them. “I don’t know. But I’m guessing it’s what Maksimos wanted to happen.”
“You have a habit of doing that – first the book in the woods and now this symbol,” Chance grumbled.
“The incantation that you said… was it the same one that Maksimos chanted?” Elektra asked.
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