by Gregory Heal
Now it was Jen’s turn to experience tragedy when her parents were taken from her.
Feeling a burden on her shoulders, she trudged down the side of the bluff behind Victor. They were almost at ground level when Jen saw something streak through the sky. Her worried expression dissolved into joy when she realized it was Skarmor. He was twirling, gliding, and playfully pecking with a flock of griffins in the late morning sun.
Looking up and covering her eyes from the intense glare, Jen wished she could be that carefree; able to drop all of her worries and doubts and blast off into the sky with no plan or purpose. For a moment, she fantasized about flying away from Camelore and letting the wind take her, until her conscience kicked in and berated her for even thinking of doing something so reckless.
Jen was never one to quit at anything. Growing up, her parents admired how she had focused and finished everything she undertook, no matter how difficult it might have been. Wishing that her parents were here so she could fill them in on everything that had happened to her, she was brought back to the present as she found herself walking up to the ceremonial chamber, which was even bigger than Jen had expected. With more determination than ever to face the unknown challenges that lay ahead, she crossed the chamber’s threshold and followed Victor inside.
It was exactly midday when the two of them stepped into the ceremonial chamber, and what greeted Jen filled her with rapture: an enormous, wooden roundtable. It looked as if it had been hewn from the largest tree trunk Jen had ever seen; its petrified surface glistened with the smoothness of calm glass.
“This is the Table of Prophecy,” said Victor distantly. Jen was so mesmerized by the table that she almost didn’t hear him. “Taken from our very own Arbor Sacré, the tree that sustains all of the plants on this floating island.”
Jen found herself inextricably drawn to the table. This breathtaking display of craftsmanship seated twenty-five, and on each chair rested a folded robe—except for one which was uncovered, the one facing the chamber entrance. The chairs looked to be carved from the same wood as the roundtable, which rested on a thick base wider than a manhole cover.
“How come that chair is empty?” Jen asked, pointing.
“That chair is reserved for the Light Bringer of Merlin’s prophecy.”
Jen was quiet for a moment. “I wish we could know who he or she is.”
“If only it were that easy. Every sorcerer in the Guild has been tested,” he reminded her.
Not me.
Jen pursed her lips in deep thought. “Well . . . what if the Light Bringer isn’t a sorcerer?”
Victor crossed his arms and held his chin between his index finger and thumb. After a few moments, he said, “The Light Bringer will be known when the time is right.”
Hoping that Victor’s faith wasn’t misplaced, Jen conceded and set her gaze back on the table. The attention to detail was amazing, but Jen’s breath was truly taken away once she saw what was on the tabletop. As the sunlight filtered through the shapes cut into the helioarch, a crisp artistic pattern began to form on the gleaming wooden table. As Jen walked closer, she got a better view of a mural that was solely made of light and shadow. In it, the profiles of two sorcerers seemed to be casting powerful spells at each other. She stopped inches short of the table and let her hands hover over the surface, not wanting to leave fingerprints.
“It’s okay, you can touch it,” Victor said with a wink. Jen relaxed a bit and gently placed her open palms on the table, still gazing in wonder at the sunlit mural. “This table was created by the first Elder Synod as a symbol of democracy for the original Camelore Twenty-Four. It’s one of the last remaining artifacts of that time period, and a reminder of our history so we aren’t doomed to repeat it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Jen marveled. “Is that the Great Battle?” She pointed at the shadows on the table’s surface.
“That’s correct.” Victor walked to the other side of the table to face her. “As the sun makes its journey through the sky, its rays filter through the helioarch”—he pointed at the metal arch above them, tracing it with a pointed finger—“giving a visual representation of Merlin’s prophecy. In the morning, when the sun is at its lowest angle in the east, the first scene appears: the creation of the MystiCrystals in the Big Bang. As the sun rises, it moves to depict King Arthur pulling Excalibur from the anvil atop the stone, and reaches its zenith at the historic Great Battle, which is what we see now.”
Looking down, Jen could tell the mural wasn’t as clear as it was before—a sign that the sun was continuing its path in the sky.
“As the sun sets,” Victor finished, “the shadows show events that have not yet occurred: the discovery of the Light Bringer and an enormous war.”
Jen was confused. “But . . . we win, right?”
Victor let out a long breath before answering. “We don’t know which side will be the victor . . . not even Merlin could say.”
Jen’s shoulders slumped. With effort, she picked up her chin and looked at Victor.
He noticed her dejected expression and quickly added, “The thing you need to know about Merlin was that he was human. But he had the rare gift of sensing energy, not only in the present, but also from the past and future. That’s how he was able to explain the creation of the MystiCrystals, and prophesize the union of England under King Arthur, and the Great Battle, and the Light Bringer’s arrival. But when his last prediction came, the energy was so strong that it overwhelmed him. He couldn’t decipher anything apart from there being a war between two strong factions.”
Victor made his way back toward Jen and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “With Merlin’s final prediction as uncertain as a roll of dice, the only thing we can do is prepare for this inevitable battle so we have the best chance of winning.”
Jen nodded once, trying to find her voice, but nothing came out.
“Jen, I know how you feel. I’m scared too. If this is too much for you, let me know and we will keep you safe on Camelore until this is all over.”
After having seen—and felt—his memories, Jen knew that Victor meant every word. She remembered his feeling of heartbreak when he lost Malcolm to Draconex. With that, she knew that he would give his life before he lost another tenderfoot to this war.
The sun had moved farther west and, looking to her left, Jen noticed that the mural had elongated and turned into a person—the Light Bringer, she assumed. She couldn’t identify the androgynous depiction as male or female, but Jen saw the being holding a book—probably the lost journal of Merlin—high above their head.
Until the Light Bringer was revealed, Jen owed it to all of her bloodline to be ready for whatever happened.
“No, Vic. I want—need—to help. The Light Seekers need every sorcerer they can get so that humanity can have at least a fighting chance in this war. This is my destiny as much as it is yours.”
“You sound like a Lancaster,” Victor commented, his voice ringing with pride.
Jen shrugged and with a resolute smile looked down at her totem bracelet, touching her terramancy charm. “So . . . when do we start training?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When one sense goes, the others heighten.
That is what had happened to Richard and Beth Smith after five days in the pitch blackness of Feralot’s prison bay. Their hands could feel everything around them so well that they didn’t need sight to know every square inch of their small ten-by-ten-foot cell; their nostrils could smell the awful gruel that was their food even before it was given to the guards to hand out; their taste buds could pick up the individual ingredients of said gruel—and how their mouths would taste after long hours of dehydration; and their ears could hear the slightest rustle, raspy breath, or quietest whisper from the guards.
“Lord Draconex returned. Did you hear about it?” the tall guard asked. He was sitting down at the other end of the bay, but both Richard and Beth could hear him as if he were standing right in front of them.
“Well, I heard the reason he left Feralot was to capture that Lancaster girl himself,” gossiped the tall guard.
Immediately after hearing his daughter’s actual last name, Richard felt his wife’s grip tighten with surprise and fear. He continued holding her, gently rocking back and forth, dreading what would be said next.
“Really?” The short guard didn’t seem convinced. “Ever since Draconex took over our army, he’s hardly ever left his den. He orders his underlings to do his dirty work.”
“You know the Shift C lead guard, Garrett? He told me that his buddy was manning the eastern tower when he overheard Draconex in a yelling match with his mistress.”
“That Madame Diaema. She’s smokin’, isn’t she?” The short guard whistled, stopping his sharpening. “I’d let her suck my blood any day.”
“You bet,” the tall guard agreed. “Anyway, he said Draconex almost beheaded her when she told him to calm down after he found out Lancaster had escaped.”
Both Richard and Beth let out a barely audible breath of relief. Jen was still safe.
“What’s with this girl? She must be pretty powerful to evade capture from two Dark Watchers and Lord Draconex.”
The tall guard snickered. “She’s just been lucky. It’s a matter of time before we get her, but until then I’d advise keeping a low profile so you don’t upset Draconex.”
There was a pause as the short guard resumed the sharpening of his weapon, then he said, “Wait . . . does that mean I can’t ask off tomorrow?”
“’Fraid not.”
“For the love of . . .” The short guard’s words trailed off as he threw something, making a loud clatter as it hit the ground. “I haven’t had a day off in weeks.”
“Better to be alive and working than dead,” the first guard pointed out.
The second guard mumbled in frustration; that was when Richard stopped listening and hugged his wife, whispering, “Our Jenny Jasmine is safe.”
“I don’t know what I would do if they took her,” Beth said, barely audible.
Richard held her, still rocking back and forth, as the guards left to do their rounds and their idle chatter faded into numbing silence, broken only by the slight rustling of uncomfortable inmates in their cells and an occasional wail.
Then, suddenly—
TINK . . . TINK . . . TINK . . .
Their friend, flicking one of the metal bars their cells shared. “Hey, are you two all right? You sound pretty tense.”
Richard stroked his wife’s cheek, which he noticed was wet with tears. “Those guards were talking about someone we know.”
“You know Draconex?” His friend sounded surprised.
Richard inhaled deeply, mentally forcing himself to not get choked up. “No, we’ve, ah, actually never seen him. We know the girl he was after.”
A shuffling sound, maybe from moving closer to the cell bars. “Lancaster?” There was a pause. “What’s your relation to her?”
Richard felt his wife tightly hug him. “We raised her,” he said.
There was a shuffling sound again, but it was fainter than before. Their friend was moving away from them.
“Friend?” Richard asked, growing more worried every passing second. He repeated it one more time, but there was dead silence. Regretting that he had ever mentioned his connection to Jennifer Lancaster, he prayed that his friend wouldn’t inform the guards with this new information when they took him away.
Richard stopped waiting for a reply and tried to fall asleep, but his mind was too preoccupied to grant him that wish.
Malcolm felt as though he was turning a corner and feeling much better the day following his sudden-death battle with Draconex’s anaconda, Quickfang. Breathing didn’t hurt as much—unless he had to sneeze, which made him feel like he’d broken another rib. He was able to sit straight up on his cot, so he decided to kill the time by reading. He had spent hours trying to find a spell that would heal his broken ribs, collapsed lung, and, hopefully, his bruised ego; but each promising spell he came across needed certain ingredients that he didn’t keep on hand.
No healing spell and no rings.
Malcolm was still bitter about Draconex destroying his Guild-sanctioned totem ring, but he was even more bitter about him keeping his other totem. He’d passed the most sadistic, suicidal test, and here he was being punished for it. He had killed Quickfang, unlocked the door with the key, and survived without using terramancy. What more did he need to do?
Instead Malcolm was confined to bed, stuck nursing a broken body back to health, and forced to be alone with his thoughts, which had only sunken to deeper depths of depression since.
Giving up in frustration, he slammed the book shut and threw it across the room. He had a bad sense of déja vu when the door opened just as the book flew into the wall next to the surprised visitor.
“You must be back to your old self—you’re throwing books again,” said Lord Draconex.
“Only my anger,” Malcolm said dryly.
“Good,” Draconex said mockingly. “I want you to channel that during your next lesson.” He gave Malcolm back his totem, tossing it carelessly onto the boy’s lap.
“I’m still recovering,” Malcolm said, closing his eyes in both pain and relief.
Draconex glided over to Malcolm as though on wires, but seemed to restrain himself from choking the life out of the poor boy. “Do not give me excuses. I have been pushed to my limit already, so I suggest you take this”—he pulled out a vial of teal liquid from the folds of his cloak—“and cease your whining.”
Without a second’s hesitation, Malcolm took the vial, popped the cork, and drank it until the last drop was gone. He didn’t even bother to ask what was in the vial, for fear that Draconex would make his threat come true.
After the liquid was swallowed, Draconex placed his fist on Malcolm’s chest none too softly. The dragon ring on his middle finger glowed orange; a muted light poured out of his ring and onto Malcolm’s chest.
“Reparer,” Draconex said.
Malcolm was afraid to look at his chest, but he did once he felt a strange warmth radiate below his ribcage and inside his left lung as the orange light interacted with the liquid he had just ingested. He watched the light slowly fade away as his strength began to return.
“Now get up,” Draconex said apathetically.
“What was that spell?” Malcolm pushed the sheets off and stood, feeling his ribs as he inhaled fully for the first time in days.
“I harnessed the healing properties of an Earth axolotl salamander to heal your external wounds. The libation you drank was a mixture of its secretions and a reactive agent that, when put in contact with my spell, regenerates organs and bones.” Draconex put his hands on the sides of Malcolm’s face. “I can teach you that—and much more—through dark magic.”
Malcolm’s eyes shined with wonder, his anger freshly bubbling inside.
“You’re ready for your next lesson.” It was more of a declaration than a question.
“Yes, master.” Malcolm lowered his gaze as Draconex let go of his face.
“Do you still feel the anger swirling inside you?”
“Definitely,” Malcolm said; a lopsided smirk curled his lips.
“Then put on your totem ring and don’t disappoint.” Draconex had already started walking toward the door.
Malcolm, letting his anger simmer like a pot on a stove, dutifully followed. He didn’t expect a conversation during the walk to Draconex’s den; frankly, he wasn’t in the mood to chat. After so many humiliating failures, Malcolm was ready to show how truly angry he was.
Angry at how he’d let Jen escape his grasp twice; angry at Victor for foiling what should have been such an easy kidnapping; angry at Draconex for making him spend forty-eight hours in sheer
agony with broken ribs and a collapsed lung; angry at himself for letting it all happen. He was determined to either turn the tide and show Draconex that he was worthy of one more shot . . . or die trying.
Malcolm’s lesson began the moment he stepped foot inside Draconex’s den.
“Life and death . . . day and night . . . good and evil . . . yin and yang. There is true balance to everything in the universe, including sorcery,” Draconex was saying. “When the MystiCrystals were forged at the advent of the universe, another crystal was created from their combined residual dark energy. This ShadowCrystal possesses a wicked concoction of a more powerful, controlling, insatiable power than that of the MystiCrystals. A power that can even make its wielder read the heavily encoded lost journal of Merlin.”
Malcolm’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say what he was thinking. Something only the Light Bringer can do . . .
“And now, the fabled ShadowCrystal resides in the bowels of this fortress.”
Malcolm found himself in a dark room with nothing but a pale light shining on his kneeling form. He could barely make out Draconex in the shadows, but was able to follow his glowing red eyes, which were slowly circling him.
“For ages, there have been sorcerers whose hunger for knowledge and power have led them to dabble in the forbidden art of dark magic. Lord Ferox felt it, I have felt it, and now it’s your turn to feel it. But dark magic can only work if it is rooted in the strongest emotion known to man: anger. Through anger, you are uninhibited, focused, ruthless. You care about nothing else except fulfilling your purpose—which, in this case, is to resurrect Lord Ferox from his eternal slumber. And who has what we need?”
“Jennifer Lancaster,” Malcolm said, letting the name slide through his barely-open lips, like a ventriloquist talking through his puppet.
“The girl whom you let escape . . . twice,” Draconex coldly reminded his pupil. “You should have been able to capture her with no effort at all, yet she has been able to evade you and evade you again. How humiliating, boy.”