by Trevor Darby
“The Dragon Peaks,” Maps gasped, looking around in awe.
“Indeed,” Tiberius said, “but how do you know the name?”
"I've seen a map," she said, pointing into the distance, "That's where we fought Klugg.”
I squinted, barely making out a few large structures that must’ve been the Trolls’ homes. “Wait, does that mean there are other Dragons nearby?" I said, using my magic to probe the area for other magical beings. I sensed dozens, if not more, of powerful magical creatures in the mountains around us.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Tiberius said, waving me off nonchalantly. “I doubt they’re even awake at this time.”
I wasn’t as sure or confident as he was. “Let’s make this quick at least,” I said, looking to where Taz and Baby Blue were standing. He was hugging her close to him like a child with a teddy bear. “Time for goodbyes, Taz.”
It felt cruel to pry them apart, but I knew it would only get more and more difficult as time went on.
We waited patiently for nearly half a minute until Taz reached over and clipped Twee Twyla’s tracker onto a scale on Baby Blue’s shoulder, tears welling up in his eyes.
“Bye, girl.” He took a step back, giving her space to move.
“She’ll probably fly away if we move a little further away,” Tiberius said, gesturing for us to follow him down the mountain.
We moved to follow him, but she followed right behind Taz, nipping at his shirt after a few steps, stopping him in his tracks.
"Maybe we have to port back to the Human Realm, so she knows it's all right to leave," Raven suggested, "you can do that, right, Master?"
“Sure,” he said, shrugging, “I’ll take us back to the Human Realm and come back on my own in a while to make sure she flew away.”
Tears were again streaming down Taz’s face, but he pulled away from Baby Blue.
“She’ll be happy here, Taz,” I said, “we can try to figure out a way to come visit her now and then if you want.”
The very thought of returning to this area without Tiberius' protection made my skin crawl. Still, I'd do just about anything to keep that awful sadness from Taz’s usually cheery face.
He nodded, walking up to Baby Blue. “I’ll visit as much as I can,” he said, reaching out to hug her. But the second he touched her back, she jolted into action, diving her head low, beneath Taz’s legs and throwing him onto her back.
“Taz!" I shouted, watching in shock as Baby Blue took flight, soaring into the sky with Taz on her back like a bareback cowboy.
Maps gaped after them and muttered what we were all thinking.
"Uh, oh."
Chapter 16
A bubble of blue magic formed around us before I could even react.
“Hold on tight,” Tiberius called, lifting his hand and sending us speeding after Baby Blue, who was already a speck in the distance.
After nearly a minute of flying at a breakneck speed without making up much of the distance between the Dragon and us, he spoke up again, an oddly panicked expression darkening his face.
“We have a problem. Chace, no time to explain, but I'm going ahead, so you need to take control."
He poofed into nothing without leaving me any time to respond. The bubble lurched, plummeting toward the ground as I focused my magic on getting it under control, trying to ignore the jagged peak beneath us that was getting closer and closer.
I squeezed my eyes shut, sure we were about to crash until the moment I sensed a lifting sensation. I’d done it, though judging by a quick glance at the mountain below, we’d had less than a dozen feet left before our doom. Not exactly ideal, but at this point, I’d take it.
I flared my energy, sending us rocketing toward Baby Blue’s barely-visible form. “That was close.” I turned to look at Maps and Raven with a relieved and semi-hysterical laugh. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get my hands to stop shaking violently. I'd never attempted taking control of someone else's magical construct before, and it wasn't nearly as easy as I'd expected.
“I can’t believe Tiberius left us like that,” Maps murmured, a shell-shocked expression on her face.
Raven rolled her eyes, “Then you don’t know him well enough. He’s the king of throwing you in the deep end and seeing if you can make it work.”
I squinted into the distance, trying to make out whether or not Tiberius had managed to teleport onto Baby Blue's back. They were too far away to tell. "He looked so scared before," I said, still pushing the bubble to move as fast as I was able. “I wondered what’s going on?”
“Now that you mention it, he seemed almost calm when Taz got taken, but he looked like he’d seen a ghost a few seconds before he left,” Raven said thoughtfully.
“Let’s focus on getting Taz back for now,” I said, pushing out thoughts of anything else. “We’ll figure the rest out later.”
After several more minutes with minimal progress, Baby Blue began to descend, headed towards a clear area on the edge of a forest of trees. An eerie feeling spread through my entire body that only felt grosser and more suffocating the closer we got to landing.
“Chace, do you feel that?” Raven asked, shuddering.
I nodded, “It’s horrible.”
“Chace!” Taz yelled from where he stood, still far below us, “come quick! Something weird is going on inside!”
Inside where?
I glanced around again, noticing, for the first time, that we were landing right in the clearing outside of the cave where Raven and I had fought the Sorcerer of Sumeria. I reached out to my sides, grabbing Raven and Maps by their arms, and teleported us to the ground beneath us. We had no time to waste.
“Let’s get inside,” I said, beckoning for Taz and the others to follow. Baby Blue stuck close to Taz, not willing to leave his side. Sounds of breaking rock and movement echoed to the outside as we jogged into the cave.
“Master must be in the midst of a battle,” Raven said, pushing ahead of the rest of us as she broke into a full sprint.
I increased my own speed, following her through the main cavern and up to the back room where I’d managed to imprison the Sorcerer. I knew who was fighting Tiberius even before I stepped inside.
“Be careful!” Tiberius shouted, forming a blue barrier in front of Raven as a huge magical blast nearly hit her in the face. Tiberius clutched his stomach with his free hand as the blast struck his barrier. He raised his magical sword at Seth, who stood at the other end of the cave. His blue anti-teleportation field, which covered the floor of the cave, stood in sharp contrast to the crackling, dark energy that emanated from Seth.
"We'll finish this later, Tiberius," Seth said, spitting the Master's name out as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. He put a palm to the wall behind him, and it split in half like a hot knife through butter. "Keep them occupied, won't you?" Seth said, putting his hand towards Baby Blue, who was at the back of our group.
He stepped through the door just as Baby Blue's eyes lit up in fiery red anger. Baby Blue let out a vicious roar and snapped her jaws at Taz, who stumbled to the ground just in time to dodge the attack.
“Back up, Taz!” Raven shouted, forming an energy blade in her hand and pushing Maps behind her.
Taz shuffled to his feet but, rather than backing away, he stepped towards the raging Dragon.
“It’s okay, girl,” he whispered, reaching out to hug her. Even though she was still flailing wildly and baring her fangs, she allowed him to put his arm around her. Taz put a flat palm up at Raven and shooting her a menacing glare, patting Baby Blue’s back. “You’re fine, you don’t need to listen to him,” he said softly.
The Dragon stopped moving, her eyes turning back to normal, as she shot her snakelike tongue out to lick the side of Taz’s face. A racking cough sounded from behind us, and I turned to look.
Tiberius was kneeling, one hand still on his stomach, on the other side of the cave, staring through the rip in stone that Seth had created a moment earlier.
“Nothing a little rest won’t fix,” he said, shooting us a pained grin.
Maps shuffled quickly to his side, cracking her knuckles. “Let me see your stomach.”
“We need to get-,” Tiberius started, waving Maps away.
“We’ll deal with Seth after you’ve been healed,” Raven said, a serious edge in her voice. I could only imagine how terrifying it must’ve been for her to see Tiberius, the only person she looked up to, like this after what happened to her father.
I walked over, putting my hand on her shoulder to lend her my energy as she healed him to the best of her ability. It was only a few minutes until he was no longer in obvious pain.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“As I was trying to tell you before the brat stopped me," he said, shooting a glance at Raven that portrayed more love than real annoyance. "Seth came for the Sorcerer of Sumeria. Look.” He pointed to the stone prison in the center of the cave. I could see through the open top that it was completely empty.
Our prisoner was gone.
“What does he want with the Sorcerer?” I asked, fear chilling me to the bone. He’d been able to best Tiberius, albeit a slightly weakened one from lending magic to Maps earlier, on his own. If he had the Sorcerer of Sumeria on his side, who knew what he’d be capable of?
“He could use him to gain magical power,” Raven said, “he is a Warlock, after all.”
“But what would he do with it?” Tiberius asked thoughtfully.
“How strong is he?” Raven asked after a few moments of silent thought.
“He’s incredibly powerful,” Tiberius said, “Far more powerful than ever before. I don’t think I’d be enough to handle him even if I’d been in top form,” he admitted softly. “He’s clearly siphoned a lot of energy from other sources.”
“Then we need to figure out what he’s up to right away,” Raven said, “he’ll be impossible to defeat if he absorbs the Sorcerer of Sumeria’s magic. We can't let him gain any more power than he already has."
Tiberius nodded, “First things first, we should get back to the Human Realm and meet back up with Twee Twyla."
I turned back to look at Taz, wondering why he’d been silent this whole time. He was sitting on top of Baby Blue as if she was some kind of scaly horse, patting her cheek lovingly. I scrunched my eyebrows together, the image seemed familiar somehow. As I turned back towards Tiberius, the realization struck me like a bolt of lightning.
“The painting!” I said, waving the whole group over to the wall of the cave. “Look at this, Raven and I saw it on the last day we were in the Magical Realm for our training.” I pointed to the figures drawn on the cave wall, “It’s us.”
“Is that...?” Taz said, cutting off as his jaw dropped.
“It must be,” I said, shivering in excitement and an eerie fear. Whoever had painted the wall had predicted Taz getting Baby Blue and even him riding her.
“Incredible,” Tiberius said, putting his face inches from the painting.
“We figured you’d seen,” Raven said, “what’d you mean about our destiny if not?”
"There's been a prophecy handed down for generations. It was just a hunch that it could be referring to you guys," he said, moving over to the part of the wall that had the giant bluish-green circle that was in front of the painted Myth Squad.
“Which Realm do you think that is?” I asked, “we weren’t sure.”
“It’s both,” Tiberius said, turning, a gentle smile on his face that was at once chilling and terrifying. “I think it’s about time I tell you all the truth of your destiny.”
Chapter 17
“Before we get into all that, though,” Tiberius said, wiggling a finger, “let’s get back to Twee Twyla. She might have something to add. Chace, will you do the honors?”
Taz turned to Baby Blue, patting her head while already looking grief-stricken.
“No need to be sad, we should take her with us,” I said, grinning, “right?”
“Indeed,” Tiberius said, pointing toward the painting on the wall. “I think it’s pretty clear.”
“Really?” Taz said, tears of joy streaming down his face. “Are you guys serious right now? Because if you’re joking, this isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking, Taz,” I said, putting my hands out. "For now, we need to keep her close, so she comes with us. Now hang on tight, everyone!"
Taz looked like he had questions, but that could wait. I was much too anxious to hear what Tiberius had to say to worry about Blue at the moment. It seemed clear to me that the dragon was the least of our problems now.
A moment later, we were all hurtling through time and space, landing in Twee Twyla’s house a dizzying instant later.
“How’d it g-” Twee Twyla said, cutting off and skidding to a stop as she turned the corner to enter her living room. "I'm going to walk back to the kitchen, then turn around and come right back here. If there's still a Dragon in my living room by the time I get back, I'm going to feed you to her. Why is she even here, anyway? Weren't you going so you could say goodbye to her?"
“If she goes outside, I go too,” Taz said, crossing his arms.
“Wait,” I said, shuffling toward her and grabbing Twee Twyla’s shoulder, “It’s important. Tiberius has something to tell us, and we all need to be here for this.”
Twee Twyla looked to Tiberius, meeting his eyes, which were deadly serious, for a moment before nodding and gesturing for us to sit on her couch. “Fine, you have my attention.” She took a seat across from us on a small chair.
“I’ll start by filling you in on what happened while we were in the Magical Realm,” Tiberius began, addressing Twee Twyla. For the next ten minutes, she listened with rapt attention as Tiberius explained what had happened and what we’d seen inside the cave.
“Are you absolutely certain the drawing was of you all?” Twee Twyla asked, chiming in for the first time since the start of Tiberius’ story.
“See for yourself,” Raven said, cutting Tiberius off as she pulled out her phone. “Chace and I got a picture of it.”
Twee Twyla took the phone and studied the picture for a few moments, “Incredible,” she breathed as she stared at it. “Tiberius... you don’t think...?”
He nodded. “I do.” He turned away from her to face us and began to speak. “Long ago, the Human Realm and the Magical Realm were unified as one. Humans and magical creatures lived in relative harmony under the rule of a group of incredibly powerful magic users from a variety of species, including a few humans, called the Grand Council. For countless years they ruled with an iron fist, crushing everyone who opposed them and using their power selfishly.”
“Were humans able to use magic at the time?” I asked, in awe of all he was telling me.
"At the time of The Splitting, the head of the Council was a human sorceress named Shamhat. She was the first human to lead the Council, and she made every attempt to reform their government, promoting learning and bringing democracy to the world," Tiberius said. "The problem was that the Council didn't want to give up their power, and they feared the threat that human technology would pose to their positions. For that reason, they planned to go to war with Shamhat and the humans, intending to destroy them."
“Then who split The Realm?” Maps asked.
"I'm getting there," Tiberius said testily. "Shamhat caught wind of their plans and fought the rest of the Council by herself, losing after a day-long battle. On death's door, she put the rest of her magic into a final spell, splitting The Realm in two to protect humans from the Council's wrath. Her final words were a promise that one day, a group of heroes would bring The Realms back together, and technology would return to the Realm as the two became one again.”
“I don’t get why they don’t want technology there,” Taz said, his face scrunched up in confusion.
“Think about how technology has changed our world. Just fift
y years ago, if you lived on the other side of the world, the only way you could get to know someone or experience their culture was through letters. Now, we can see each other and talked to loved ones and make new friends. We can share knowledge and plan on a scale like never before. Once the lines of communication are so open and free, it makes it difficult for the powers that be to control the masses. They realize they have choices and can unite and revolt.”
“So they were afraid they would be removed from power as humans advanced the tech in the Magical Realm, and they couldn’t stand by and let that happen,” I asked.
“Exactly,” Twee Twyla said, shaking her head sadly.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Twee Twyla’s affection for tech had been the cause of her banishment from the Magical Realm. But that was a tale for another day.
“So you and Tiberius both believe we are the heroes she was talking about?" I asked dumbfounded. "The ones meant to reunite the Realms?”
"There are stories of others attempting to bring the world back together, but all have failed. After seeing this painting, though, I’m almost certain this is your destiny." Tiberius said, nodding and reaching for Raven's phone, which sat on the table. He held it up, pointing to the blue and green circle in front of the painted versions of us, "That’s a representation of the two Realms coming back together.”
“And you think that figure there is Twee Twyla?” Maps asked, pointing to the figure whose face was chipped away from the stone.
Twee Twyla swatted her gently on the head, “That’s clearly a male. It could be Tiberius.”
“I doubt it’s me,” he said with a laugh, pointing to his flowing floor-length wizard’s robe. The figure in the picture, in contrast, had a simple pair of pants on. “But whoever it is, it’s our job to help these kids along as they realize their destiny.”
“So, what next?" Raven asked, her face full of confusion and shock.
"Seth," Tiberius said. "He's the immediate danger right now, so we have to figure out a way to stop him. It won't take him long to restore the Sorcerer of Sumeria to his former glory if that's what he's after, so we only have a few days to prepare. The two of them together will be a force to be reckoned with.”