He coughed and groaned. “Melanie?”
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m here.”
“Did you accept what they asked?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Good.”
He slipped into unconsciousness again, leaving me in the silence. When the guards came back, they heard us talking and realised that Joren had woken up. They lifted the anti-magic spell and cast one on the wall between our cells, making it so I could see inside. They pulled Joren up into a standing position and one of the men jolted him with lightning.
Joren instantly woke and screamed; the longer it went on, the more intense the pain became. I couldn’t bear to look at them torturing him. That was when the other wizard joined in. All he did was place a hand on Joren’s arm. Joren screamed louder and writhed in agony. The guy did it again and again until Joren’s body was limp in the other guard’s arms, but that didn’t stop them. The lightning wizard sent another jolt through him, and Joren’s screams became desperate to the point where he was almost begging to stop.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I could see the pain in his muscles contracting everywhere the guard touched. I had seen his type of magic before— sensory magic. The ability to make someone feel precisely what you want them to feel simply by touch. It was dangerous magic that was outlawed not long ago.
The sensory wizard’s marks were different to his comrades’. He didn’t have as many as everyone else and his sun on the back of his head was off. Something was different about him. With more and more agonising screams from Joren, I couldn’t take it anymore. He was limp in the guard’s arms before he was woken again. I needed to stop it.
“Please, stop! I will do it. I will translate the books for you.”
The two of them dropped Joren’s limp body to the ground before reactivating the anti-magic spell on the cell. They opened my cell and pulled me back into the hallway. Flinching at the guards’ touch, I was terrified at what he would do to me if he had the chance. I tried to pull my arm away from him, and all he did was laugh and whisper in my ear.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t do it when you can fight back.”
His words sent a shiver down my spine and placed a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The room I was taken to was different than before. It was only slightly bigger than the cells, but it held a desk that was covered in the books. The room looked and felt cramped with no room to move freely, but I would have to make do knowing the fact that Joren wasn’t being tortured anymore. They locked me in the room for a few moments before their leader entered.
“I see you decided to help us,” he said, a slight smugness laced his voice.
“I need you to promise one thing before I start.”
He laughed. “You’re not in the position to bargain for things. It’s either do it or your wizard friend gets hurt.”
“I want you to promise he won’t be harmed if I do this for you.”
He paused for a moment and turned to his followers, other members of The Order. His face went still before turning back to me and smiling.
“Fine, your friend won’t be touched as long as you’re translating for us.” He paused for a moment, almost like to gather his thoughts. “Now that we have that out of the way, I need you to begin. Start with the Dragon Lore. We are confident you will find what we need in there, but we have all the others just in case it’s not.”
He didn’t say anything else before he turned his back to me and strode out of the room. I was left alone with no idea where to start. All I knew was I needed to get this done quick and figure a way out of there.
8
Drakor
Drakor was one of the hardest languages to translate if you didn’t know what you were doing or didn’t know the basics. When it was banned for its use, many people found that the language of Drakor was linked to many of the dark forbidden spells and rituals to call upon the ancient demons. I opened Dragon Lore and was swept up into a complex language and an ancient history that was lost for hundreds of years. My captors had made sure to give me the books I found to help me translate. Even with those books, it was still an incredibly hard language to read. The book told of the creation of dragons and their history and impact on the magic world. By the end of the first chapter, I was fascinated. I had never read about dragons to this extent before, the details of their lives were incredible.
As I had my eyes buried in the book, the door behind me opened and another member of The Order stepped inside. He stood there with his hood over his head, but I knew he was staring at me. Now I had no way of them not knowing when I found it. I sighed and got started. The next few sections of the book were about the early life of the dragons and the way they interacted with the humans. It also made a small mention of the beginning of magic in humans. This was when trouble started.
The humans became greedy, always looking for more power and devising spells to gain more. The dragons watched as the humans destroyed themselves for the sake of power. This was in the wizards’ history as “The Great Magic Depletion”, the worst war in the history of wizards and humans. However, I was surprised Dragon Lore told of this war. As I read deeper, I could tell something was different with the telling of the depletion. It spoke of the humans killing wizards to gain their power along with wizards killing other wizards, all while, the dragons sat to the side and watched as magic was almost torn from this world. In our history books, it told of this in a different way.
“This can’t be right,” I whispered to myself.
The Order member looked over my shoulder and read what was on my notes page. He grabbed the page and ripped it up.
“You have no need to know this! Just find the spell.”
“You told me to translate, I will need to make notes on all of it, so it all makes sense!”
“Fine, then start again.”
I mumbled a horrible word under my breath, loud enough for him to hear me. I restarted, even though I already did it once, this time I wrote it in more detail. Each time I made sure he wasn’t looking, I wrote a duplicate for myself for when I got out of there, hiding my own copies under my shirt so that it wouldn’t be found.
A few hours went by and it was the dead of night. My mind was racing over everything I was reading so when I finally started on the second section of Dragon Lore, I only became more confused. The deeper I delved into the book, the harder it was becoming to translate. I found myself having a hard time understanding a particular part. There was a sword that was forged by the wizard gods. This sword was made from the melted scale of a dragon along with the strongest magic-enhanced metal in the world. Although it was never said what this sword was created for, it was said that the sword could kill a dragon with one scratch of its blade. In the book, it was told that there was another use for the sword.
Dragon Lore made no mention of where the sword was kept or what happened to it. It was almost like it dropped off the face of the world without anyone knowing about it.
As I was writing my translation of the sword section, I skipped over the sword for the notes they requested of me. I wrote them for myself and hid them before the cloaked man checked on me again. He was so close to me that I could feel him breathing on the back of my neck. Even though my magic was blocked in the room, I could still feel his magic pulsing from him. I knew exactly who the cloaked man was, he was the sensory wizard who had tortured Joren and threatened me. I didn’t want to be near him. His magic terrified me and whenever he got close, I flinched at the thought of his magic touching me.
“Would you hurry up with the translations? Our leader is getting impatient.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder and I flinched at his touch. The creep let out a low chuckle at my reaction and when I glanced over my shoulder, I briefly saw his eyes light up as he grinned under his hood. He chuckled again and sent a piercing spike of pain through my arm. I cried out and flinched in my chair which skid along the floor, causing me to fall to the ground, convulsing. His attacks continued as
his hands moved all over my body and shot the excruciating pain through each touch. My cries grew louder with each touch and tears burned my eyes. My body felt like it was going to explode. My screams echoed in the small room and the frantic tone of them terrified me even more.
The torture only stopped when the door slammed open and crashed against the wall. Three hooded men stormed in and pulled him off me. Even though his touch had stopped, my muscles continued to convulse. I watched through watery eyes as they dragged him out of the room and left me to recover on my own.
As the tears in my eyes faded and my vision became clear again, I noticed a floating crystal in the corner of the room. The Oarix crystal was small but I knew what it was created to do. Someone was watching me through the crystal. I could feel their eyes on me, watching me. An Oarix crystal was designed to hold small or even vast amounts of magic energy and could be made to do whatever the creator wanted. When my body finally recovered from the horrific attack, I stared into the crystal and reassured them that I was getting back to work. However, with them watching me, it made it harder to recreate my notes for my own use. That didn’t stop me from trying. I wanted to know as much as I could from Dragon Lore. The Drakor became more complex and made it even more difficult.
To make it worse, the pages in the book were slightly faded and some words weren’t complete. I had to translate it the best as I possibly could to save my and Joren’s lives. It was all I could do. I used all the light in the room to make as much of the book readable as possible, but it was still hard. While translating the second half of Dragon Lore, it gave me insight into the reasons behind the disappearance of the dragons.
The dragons lived away from the humans and wizards and posed no threat to the magical community. The royal magic council didn’t think of it that way. The dragons were constantly warning off spies who came to check on their magic after the depletion. Then one day, dragons went missing while others were dying in their community. A sickness that the dragons had never seen or dealt with before swept through the community. Then it became worse and they started to die. A group of dragons visited the royal magic council and begged for them to help find a cure or the dragons would die out, but they refused to help. When the group returned to the community, a quarter of their population had either died from the disease or went missing.
My breath hitched when I continued to read. Something I always had faith in was being questioned and unravelled before me. The royal magic council had turned their back on the dragons and sent them to their deaths.
A few months later, a small group from the magic council stormed their way into the dragon community and rounded up the dragons. The head of the group stood in the centre of his troops holding a large sword that gleamed in the moonlight. This was not the way we were taught the history and it made me curious as to why.
“The dragon sword,” I whispered. I took in a small breath and realised I spoke out loud. I waited for a moment to see if anyone would come barging in. When no one did, I continued reading to myself.
They lined up the dragons and killed them. Partway through the dragon massacre, the wizards realised the sword was storing the powers of every dragon they were killing. However, they didn’t know how to release the magic from within its blade. With hundreds of dragons to slay, the wizards grew impatient. Their leader sent one of his best men back to the council to find a way to kill the dragons at the exact same time.
It took months, the wizard group remained in the dragon community. They tortured them, starved them, and kept them in line while waiting for the wizard to return with a solution. When he finally did, he showed the leader the spell and added a distinct feature. The wizard was ordered to begin the spell as they rounded up the last of the dragons. The spell took days to complete at the size they wanted but when it was done, the dragons were doomed. A few of the younger dragons used the last of their magic and transformed into wizards themselves and camouflaged in with the council troops. Just before the spell was completed, the transformed dragons stole the papers and ran from the community. Once they hid the papers, they returned to a destroyed community.
The wizards left the bodies of their dead friends and families as a message. Return the spell or the rest would die. A note was left with the survivors. The dragons still left alive were infected with the virus that had plagued their community. It told them the creator of the virus: the council.
“No,” I gasped.
After almost two days of constant reading with no sleep, I finally found what they were looking for and now that I knew what it was, the pitting feeling of fear was rising in my core. My eyes were glued to the page as it recalled the final moments of the dragon community. The small group that escaped told them about the spell that the council had created and they told every part of the spell in detail, how to cast it, how it worked, and they finally said the name of the spell.
The Dragon Song; the spell that would drain the dragons of all their energy, killing them in a violent and painful death.
9
Dragon Song
By the time I found exactly what they wanted, I was exhausted. My eyes were blurred and my arms could barely move enough to write but when I saw what it was they wanted, I was shocked to my core. The spell had been created to give its caster one chance to drain the power from dragons and give it to whoever the caster deemed fit. As I read on, I was more and more shocked until I hit one section, the one thing the spell needed to work, the one thing that would give them endless magical power. A dragon sacrifice.
All the details were there from how to write the magic circle to how to start the spell, and most of all, how to kill the dragon. I shook my head knowing full well they were watching me through the Oarix. I couldn’t let them go through with the spell, I couldn’t let them kill Joren. I needed a way to stop them, but I couldn’t think of anything. I continued to translate the spell and write it for The Order. With each word I wrote, tears swelled in my eyes. That was when I saw it, my only way to stop it from happening. As a smile lit up on my face, the Oarix disappeared from the corner of the room and moments later, three cloaked men burst through the door. The instant I saw them, I dropped what I was doing and paused. The sight of them still caused me to flinch.
They allowed me to grab my papers before pulling me out of the room. As they walked me through the hallway, I could see out into the sky through a small window high in the wall. The sky was the colour of a tangerine, meaning it was getting very close to sunrise. I prayed it would give me enough time.
The cloaked men led me into the same large room that I was originally taken to. There was a strange circle in the centre of the room and all the cloaked men surrounded it. When they dropped me on the edge of the circle, I could see Joren slumped over by a wall. Don’t worry, we will get out of here, I thought to myself but wished he could have heard me.
Their leader entered the room and everyone went silent. He approached me with his hood down and the sight of the marks on his face terrified me. Nausea filled me but I refused to let it get the better of me. When he finally stopped just short of me, his men fell to their knees with their heads down. I looked around, confused by the movement. They hadn’t done it before.
“Men! Soon we will regain the power that the council has taken from us. Soon, we will get revenge on those who thought they could control us and all thanks to this young wizard. She has found the spell that will give back what was stolen from us!”
The men cheered but their heads remained looking at the ground.
“Come, young wizard, and tell me of the spell that will restore us.”
I waited, but no one moved. “The spell is called Dragon Song. Its caster has to draw a magic circle while he and his men chant, then when the circle is complete, and it is the right time of the day, the spell will rip the power from a dragon when its caster kills it in a specific way. Then, the caster can either keep the power or give it to anyone else they want.”
My voice was shaky and my tears threate
ned to return as I thought about them killing a dragon. Their leader moved away from me and began his preparations while I was dragged to the side of the room. In my line of sight, I could still see Joren. He had moved slightly but was still slumped over.
Occasionally, the leader would return to me to gain more information and see if he was doing it right. By the time he got to the part where he needed to write the circle, I knew my plan would work. The sun was getting higher in the sky and the longer it took, the better it was for me. The magic circle wasn’t too complex to draw but it was the size of the circle that made it take the time. The circle needed to be big enough to hold the caster and the dragon so that when the dragon was killed, the blood filled the whole circle. When the leader was about to start the circle, I noticed something was off.
“Wait!” I called. The leader instantly stopped and came over to me. “You forgot the chant. Because you are calling for the power, you and your men need to chant it.” I lowered my voice. “Unless you want to use the power for yourself.”
His face turned to a stone-hard gaze as he snatched the paper from my hands. I watched as he showed the chant to every one of his men, using more of his time. So, when he finally got back to drawing the magic circle, I could feel my energy slowly returning to my body. I focused my gaze on Joren who was now sitting up and staring at me. I gave him a reassuring smile before returning my attention to The Order.
The leader finished a few runes on the ground which were now glowing a bright green, exactly as it said in Dragon Lore. The next few hours went horribly slow. With each rune that was drawn, it was a step closer to the spell being finished.
Every few seconds, the cloaked men in the room chanted for the spell. Their words echoed in the vast room, but it didn’t take away from the eeriness of them all chanting together. A creepy shiver crawled up my spine. I could feel the magic energy rising in the room, it was intense, like a pressure building against everything.
The Elite Wizard Games (Elite Wizards Chronicles Book 1) Page 6