The Awakening

by Ryan Sova

  Heragald thought about this for a moment, then answered, “Odd, truly odd. Nephal, we now have two mysteries on our hands that both relate to the dead. First, how did the dead get into our lands? And second, where will they all go? I don’t believe for a moment that the dead have the ability to simply appear and disappear where they may. There has to be a logical explanation to all this, but what could it possibly be?”

  Nephal responded, “I have also thought a lot about how the dead entered into our kingdom recently. I still can’t figure it out though. Refresh my memory again Heragald, what kind of defenses did we have for our kingdom?”

  Heragald answered, “We had physical barriers which consisted of our two mountain ranges. We had the wall. And then the only other way into our kingdom would have been through the ocean onto one of our many beaches.”

  Nephal added, “And how were all of these barriers monitored? ”

  Heragald answered, “Well, we had the eagles that patrolled our mountains and shorelines. And we had the soldiers that patrolled the wall. We also had a full complement of sorcerers at the wall and over the oceans. We had sorcerers constantly running patrols because the king feared an attack from the sea.”

  Nephal thought about this for a moment, then answered, “The mountains were our weakest link then.”

  Heragald looked confused, “What are you saying Nephal?”

  Nephal continued, “Just like you said. We had soldiers and sorcerers at the wall. We had eagles and sorcerers at the shorelines. But for the mountains, we only had eagles. Did any of the sorcerers ever even take a look at any of our mountain ranges when they were doing their patrols?”

  Heragald answered, “You think that they crossed over the mountains? Nephal, the eagles reported back to us daily. They have eyesight that is far greater than that of any human. Do you honestly believe that five-hundred-thousand men, and HORSES AS WELL I MIGHT ADD, climbed those mountains and snuck past our eagles? Do you really believe that?”

  Nephal answered, “I don’t know what I believe anymore Heragald. But isn’t it worth at least going there and taking a look?”

  Heragald thought about it for a moment and then responded, “I guess your right Nephal. After all, what have we got to lose?”

  After a moment, Heragald continued, “Let’s go to King Noah’s office. He has a map there. We can use it to coordinate where we will be teleporting to.”

  Nephal and Heragald then left the Conference Room and walked to King Noah’s office. Once they had both arrived, Heragald opened one of his desk drawers and retrieved a map of the world. She laid this map out over his desk, then motioned for Nephal to come and take a look at it with her. After about a minute they had both selected a destination to teleport to. Nephal converted this location to memory, then Heragald and Nephal cast a teleportation spell and appeared at the summit of one of the many jagged mountains from the Blackrock Mountain range.

  The sight from the mountain summit was breathtaking. To the north, south, and east, Nephal’s view was obscured by the many mountains that shot up into the clouds around him. The air was freezing around him and thick snow covered the mountaintop where Nephal and Heragald were standing. To the west, Nephal could see some parts of the countryside through the cloud layer, however, most of his view was blocked by the clouds that were now beneath him.

  The mountains were not climber friendly. They had been forged in such a way that climbers would have to travel straight up and down each mountain they faced as there was very little ground anywhere to stand on aside from the summit alone. Anyone who might attempt to cross this hellish series of jagged mountains would be forced to make this climb repeatedly as they crossed anywhere from twelve to twenty separate mountains. For a climber who had finally completed this hellish ordeal, they would then finally arrive at the Kingdom of Noah.

  Nephal turned to Heragald and asked, “Can the eagles fly this high?”

  Heragald responded, “Yes. They have been modified to withstand high altitude flight. They usually make a pass through these mountains at least six to eight times a day. One group of them will fly below the cloud layer while another group will fly above the cloud layer. They all return to one of our many listening stations across the border where they report what they have seen and are counted for the day. Masters and Arch-Masters usually man these listening stations. By teleporting, we can have them man several different stations at once throughout the day.”

  Heragald then added, “By the way. We are going to need to modify our own bodies if we plan on staying at this altitude for much longer. I’ll also conjure a fire to keep us warm.”

  Heragald and Nephal then both cast a spell on themselves, instantly acclimating to the extreme altitude. Heragald then conjured a fire in the snow. Both Nephal and Heragald then stood near the fire and warmed themselves as they were both already starting to shiver from the cold.

  While Nephal warmed himself at the fire, he gazed into the flames. Such magic was still beyond him. Nephal could conjure and control fire easily enough, but to make a fire that burns continuously without any type of fuel requires the use of an enchantment. Enchantments are exceptionally complicated forms of magic and are the one thing that typically distinguishes an Arch-Master from a Master.

  A perfect example of the differences between a spell and an enchantment can be demonstrated by simply conjuring an orb of light. Now, even an Acolyte has the ability to cast this basic spell, but the light from this spell will only last so long as the Acolyte continues to maintain it. Once the Acolyte loses his or her concentration, the spell will instantly dissipate. But with an enchantment, the spell can maintain and govern itself. So the light orb could continue to last indefinitely, independent of its master's control. But even more than that, it could be assigned to only light up when a person enters the room and could also do this independently of the sorcerer who conjured it. So in essence, a spell is magic that you can control, while an enchantment is magic that can control itself.

  After Nephal had warmed himself, he asked Heragald a question, “I heard that the kingdom has billions of eagles in its service?”

  Heragald responded, “You heard right, Nephal.”

  Nephal continued, “Then how could a handful of sorcerers accurately account for billions of eagles on a daily basis?”

  Heragald answered, “We don’t, our enchantments do. Much of what we used to do with our eagle's scouts was by way of enchantments.”

  Nephal quietly thought about this for a moment when something suddenly occurred to him, “Why was the king so dead set on keeping the gates barred shut? Why didn’t he just seal the gates closed using an enchantment?”

  Heragald responded, “Nephal, take a look at this fire. Given the slight breeze that we are now facing, this enchantment might last two or three hours before it extinguishes. Now, if the wind were to suddenly start blowing something fierce, this fire would then only last a minute or two. You see, enchantments need to be renewed or else their power will just fade away. And the more resistance an enchantment faces, the shorter its lifespan will be. So in answer to your question, King Noah could have exerted huge amounts of willpower to seal the gates closed as you have suggested, but after only a few minutes the dead men and beasts pushing against it would have quickly drained the enchantment’s power. The enchantment would have then failed and the gates would have opened.

  What King Noah did instead was to alter the chemical makeup of the wooden gates, making them much harder and also giving them immunity to fire.”

  Nephal then asked, “So all enchantments have to be renewed then?”

  Heragald responded, “Yes, some more frequently than others. For instance, the enchantments running the lights in the palace can usually last for a good eight months before they have to be renewed.”

  Nephal responded, “The shield that the Gods created to protect us from the demon. Isn’t that an enchantment also?”

  Heragald responded, “I know what you’re thinking Nephal. Yes, it is an
enchantment, but not like what you would think. The Gods gave this enchantment the ability to renew itself. It does this by leaching energy from all living things on Earth. So long as there is still life on this planet, their enchantment will never weaken. The only way to destroy such an enchantment is to first destroy all life on Earth. Only then would the enchantment fade away and disappear.”

  Nephal responded, “So if a demon from heaven wanted to claim this world as his own, he would first have to kill all life that is presently on it?”

  Heragald answered, “Yes, that is essentially what he would have to do.”

  There was a short pause, then Heragald spoke, “Well, what do you hope to accomplish here Nephal?”

  Nephal responded, “I really don’t know anymore. A miracle maybe.”

  Heragald responded, “Well, we're not going to find out anything by just standing here, so I’m going to get a bird’s eye view of the area.”

  Heragald then jumped off the summit, casting a flying spell as she fell. Within moments she had soared back into view, passing between several of the mountain peaks nearby. Then, without warning, she took a sharp turn and soared directly at Nephal. From the look on Heragald’s face and her sudden erratic movements, Nephal could tell that something was wrong.

  Heragald made a quick and rapid landing. Once she had reached the ground, she looked at Nephal as if she had just seen a ghost.

  “Nephal, you need to fly!” she said with a look of grave concern on her face.

  Nephal responded, “What did you see?”

  Heragald answered, “JUST, FLY”

  Nephal cautiously took to the air. He soared down below the cloud layer. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. He then rose in altitude, whipping past several mountain peaks. He still couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then he turned towards the mountain peak that he had originally launched from. This mountain peak looked perfectly normal also, except for one thing. There was no sign of Heragald or the fire that she had conjured anywhere on the summit.

  Nephal banked in his flight and started heading back towards the mountain summit. He still couldn’t see any sign of Heragald or the fire as he descended for a landing. Then Nephal finally landed.

  Within a few feet from reaching the surface of the mountain, Heragald and her fire suddenly appeared on the mountaintop. Nephal looked at Heragald with a confused look on his face.

  Heragald spoke, “I have never seen anything like this before in my life. It’s some kind of illusion and it perfectly resembles every detail of the mountains.”

  Nephal then asked, “What kind of magic could do this?”

  Heragald answered, “Nothing. There is no magic that I have ever heard of that could create an illusion like this.”

  Nephal responded, “Until now, that is.”

  Heragald continued, “Who could have done this, though? The dead can’t use magic and, even if they could, no sorcerer on Earth possesses magic like this.”

  Nephal thought about this a moment, then added, “I’ll bet you that this is how the dead made it into our lands for the attack. With an illusion like this, five-hundred-thousand men could have easily snuck past our eagles.”

  Heragald answered, “For the men maybe, but what about the horses? How could they possibly get five-hundred-thousand horses over these mountains?”

  Nephal responded, “Maybe I should take a look and see. I am a time traveler after all.”

  Nephal started chanting. After a few minutes, he had successfully teleported a ghost form of himself two and a half weeks into the past.

  Nephal looked around, everything looked the same as it had before. He thought about this for a moment, then realized that the dead most likely didn’t cross here. Had they, he and Heragald would have seen all of the footprints left behind in the snow. This left Nephal with the enormous task of figuring out where the dead might have crossed.

  Teleporting in a ghost form can be compared to a person holding a laser pointer in a large parking lot. For instance, when you shine your laser pointer, it will generate a red dot on the ground where it is aimed. If you didn’t have a laser pointer, you wouldn’t be able to make this projection of a red dot. But because you have a functioning laser pointer, you can move this projection with a flick of your wrist and send your projection hundreds of feet in less than a fraction of a second.

  When a sorcerer teleports in a ghost form, he or she is making a projection of themselves. To create this projection, the sorcerer needs to cast a spell, or in other words, they need to have their own functioning laser pointer. To cast a spell that will project themselves to another location takes a moderate amount of willpower. To cast a spell that will project themselves to another period in time requires an extreme amount of willpower. Either way, once the spell has been cast, the sorcerer can then project their image wherever they want to by just making simple tiny variations.

  In this way, King Noah had been able to fully explore thousands of possible futures by projecting himself within each possible future and then exploring it. To look at another possible future though, King Noah was required to use a different laser pointer, or in other words, he needed to cast a new spell for every variation of the future that he wanted to visit and subsequently explore.

  Nephal started his search. First, he moved forward in time until he was only a few minutes prior to the present day. Then he started hopping from mountain top to mountain top looking for any possible disturbances in the snow. After two hours had passed, he found a location where the dead might have crossed.

  Nephal then rewound time, arriving back in time two and a half weeks in the past. He then slowly sped time up, waiting for the dead to arrive where he was standing. The dead finally came. Nephal then slowed down time again and watched as thousands of the dead crossed over the mountaintop where he was standing. The dead all had various weapons of war strapped to their waists as they passed by Nephal. They also carried pickaxes that they would drive into the mountainside as they were climbing. In addition to this, they also had spikes on their boots to give them even more traction. Each dead man and woman that he saw was carrying a large bag that was strapped to his or her back.

  After watching this large group of people for a few minutes, Nephal was sure that these were the same people who had charged the gates from the west. One question still remained though, where were all the horses?

  Nephal watched the group of dead men and women as they crossed over the mountain. Once they had all completed their journey through the mountains, the dead started gathering in groups. Nephal took notice that each group consisted of just twenty people.

  Nephal closely observed one of these groups. Every person in this group removed the bag that they had been carrying and pulled what looked like a large pile of blood-soaked rags from their bag. They then started unwrapping each of their rag piles revealing several large chunks of flesh. The dead then started connecting each chunk of flesh. The flesh then started combining, taking the shape of the torso of a large animal. One of the dead men then pulled a severed horse head from his bag. He attached the horse head to its torso. Within moments, the dead horse had taken form and risen from the ground. One of the dead men from the group then mounted the horse and rode away, leaving the others behind.

  Nephal ended his vision.

  Heragald, noticing that Nephal had come out of his vision, then asked, “What did you see?”

  Nephal answered, “I know how they got the horses over the mountains. They dismembered each horse and carried them over the mountains in bags that were strapped to their backs. Once they had arrived on the other side, they connected the pieces and rode the horses into battle.”

  Heragald was confused, “Do you know how many pieces you would have to cut a horse into to do that!”

  Nephal responded, “Twenty, they cut them into twenty pieces.”

  Heragald paused a moment, then responded, “Then what we saw attacking us was only a fraction of their army then. To get that many hor
ses over our mountains, they would have needed to have at least 10 million climbers. Why didn’t any of our patrols ever find them? How could we have let 10 million people slip into our lands when we were constantly running random patrols both day and night?”

  Nephal answered, “Who or whatever it is that we are facing obviously has some powerful magic at their disposal. Perhaps King Noah and I weren’t the only ones who can see into the future. Think about it, if our enemy could also see into the future, they would have been able to predict our patrols and plan their troop movements around them.”

  After a slight pause, Nephal addressed Heragald again, “You know Heragald, there is something that has just occurred to me. King Noah was obsessed with looking into the future. He was convinced that the future would somehow hold the answer to our dilemma, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe the future isn’t where we should have been looking. Maybe all our answers lie in the past. Didn’t that lady from the Vestillian Empire say that this plague started in the Yessitic Empire where it wiped out their entire ruling body? Wouldn’t you like to know how this plague began?”

  CHAPTER 26

  Garry woke up. He was in a much better mood now than he was in yesterday. He joined Detective Grant’s family again for breakfast and then began quietly contemplating what he had seen in his dream from last night.

  Detective Grant, seeing that Garry was in a better mood walked over to talk to him.

  “You seem to be in better spirits today,” Detective Grant said with a smile on his face.

  Garry responded, “Nephal might be about to uncover something that could give us all some hope.”

  “What is he about to learn?” Detective Grant asked.

  “How this undead plague started,” Garry answered.

  Detective Grant thought about this for a second, then asked, “But it’s not as if you can go back in time and change anything, right. So how will knowing how this thing started help any of us now?”

  Garry answered, “You might be right. Knowing how this thing started might not do us a bit of good, but it could also make every bit of difference. Think about it, we have been facing this undead plague blind this whole time. We didn’t know what it is, we didn’t know where it came from, and we didn’t know what, if any, weaknesses that it might have. If this undead plague does have a weakness though, a weakness that I can exploit, we might be able to start fighting back soon.”