“What do you have to do next?” Glenda asked him. She still couldn’t get past the fact that he was king and yet he had to go do all these trials.
“Next is either mixed or magic. Waiting to have someone come get me and tell me what the next trial is about.” Chris switched the conversation around. “Once the trials are over the real work is going to get started. I want to recruit people from the real world with Xandian blood and get them trained. We’re going to be fighting evil on this world and others and we need more people. I spoke to the council and told them I was going to find someone to head up the transition part of the program. We need someone who is great with kids and understands the world they are coming from and can help them transition to this one.”
Glenda was looking at him curiously. She was used to him bouncing ideas off her in these dinner conversations. She just wasn’t sure where he was going with this one.
“I’d like you to be that person if it’s something you’re interested in? I can’t think of anybody who could ever be a better mother than you and I think that’s going to be the biggest characteristic needed. You up for it mom?”
“Are you just trying to keep me busy because you’re worried I’m getting depressed sitting around up here in the castle talking to my cats all day?” His expression revealed that was exactly what he’d been thinking. Glenda laughed. “Perfect! Because this sounds like the exact thing I need. A purpose now that you’re running around ruling the earth and everything.”
Chris smiled at her and they talked into the evening about what the program should like and the best ways to make it work. Chris skirted around the one fear he had that a lot of the people they pulled over and trained would be fighting in a massive war before too long. Glenda may be talking people into a world that was going to get them killed in a war they’d never imagined was going on. It was getting late and Chris had a full day planned so he took his leave and headed over to his hall to get some sleep.
His alarm went off early the next morning and he crawled out of bed. His body hurt. He may be telling everyone the dragon was no big deal but inwardly he was still pretty amazed to be alive. He’d pulled some muscles during the fight but that was a ridiculously small price to pay for the victory he’d won. The high protectors had already held him in high esteem after the earlier fights they had been in with him. Now they were starting to ignore his age and look at him with a level of respect that he hoped he could live up to. He pulled on his workout gear and ran up the cliff to meet Omasa. He didn’t use any battle magic this morning just to make sure he kept his body well exercised.
He arrived at the top of the hill slick with sweat and panting heavily. Niko was standing at the top. She smiled at him.
“Your highness. Miss Penny is waiting to see you.”
“Where is she?” Chris asked. Pretty sure he knew the answer from the way Niko was grinning.
“At the bottom of the hill by your hall your highness.” Niko said with a straight face. “You get twice the exercise this morning.”
“Lucky me.” The young king turned and began running back down the hill. He was beginning to see why the instructors here were granted permanent positions if they wanted. The things they did to train the young nobles and royals could come back to haunt them otherwise. Chris ran all the way back down the hill without using any magic and went to look for Miss Penny. She looked down her nose at his sweaty appearance.
“Your majesty.” She stopped and let her eyes take in his disheveled appearance. He’d basically rolled out of bed and thrown on the minimum amount of clothing necessary to leave his room without causing any sort of scandal. “Your majesty. If you’d care to go cleanup we need to head over to the tower so you can find out about your next trial.”
Chris told her that sounded good and less than twenty minutes later they were on the way over to the tower. Chris had showered and thrown on his purple robe. He really didn’t understand why everyone in the world didn’t insist on just wearing robes all the time. They went up the tower into the familiar room with the same group of people standing around. Penny walked past Chris and to the end of the table where she turned to address an old mage with a huge white beard.
“Master Borotoa I present his royal majesty king Kristobal Alexander Eronin. He has completed the first part of his trials and slain a mighty Wyrm. He stands here now ready to accept the second trial of magic.”
“Your majesty.” Borotoa bowed deeply to Chris. Chris returned the bow and then waited respectfully for the elderly wizard to begin his remarks.
“Your highness. Those of royal blood have many talents and are adept at many of the schools of wizardry. The one magic that all royals must have in abundance is the ability to open and close portals. To lead our people in battle or deliver them to safety a royal must be a portal master on top of everything else.”
Made sense to Chris. He nodded and waited for the man to catch his breath and move on.
“I understand you have been studying some of the portal theory with your young friend. There is a portal here off the coast of the island that the royals use for this test. Your second trial of magic is to go through this portal and return with a coin. Your mentor, Miss Penny, will explain the details to you. Good luck your majesty and congratulations on the first trial.”
Everyone filed out leaving Chris alone with Miss Penny.
“I thought no one used the portals anymore?” Chris asked once everyone had finished filing out the door leading to the stairs out of the tower.
“They don’t. This is a special portal to a special world only used by the royals for this trial. The last person to use it was your mom and that was a while ago. This portal is off the coast of the island. It’s a small one and it only works at certain phases of the moon. That certain phase will be happening again in three weeks. You’ll need to dive off the boat, swim down about ten feet, then go through the portal.”
“How am I supposed to know how to go through a portal?”
“Beats me.” Penny shrugged and smiled. “I’m not a royal. Once you’re through the portal you’ll follow a series of golden stones to the ruins of a castle. Inside the castle there will be a dais with a silver urn on it full of coins. You take one and come back through the portal.”
“That doesn’t sound too horrible.”
“There will be challenges. You’ll need to use your magic to survive. You’ll be jumping off the boat in the middle of the night to find the portal in your underwear. As a royal you’re sworn not to tell anyone what you see on the other side of the portal. Keeps the challenges from becoming known and letting the candidates study specific spells before they go there.” Penny winked at Chris. “Is that enough horrible for you?”
“Wait. Did you say once I go through I’ll follow a path outlined by golden stones?”
Penny sighed and shook her head.
“So I just need to follow the yellow brick road?” Chris asked with a laugh.
“Your highness. This is a serious challenge that royals normally have had a lot more experience with when they go. No one living today knows what’s on the other side of that portal since you’re the last royal standing. There have been royals who never came back. So regardless of certain similarities to certain movies you’ll be taking a portal there and not a tornado. I would assume this world is not in technicolor and there’ll be more for you to have to deal with than a bunch of flying monkeys and annoying singing midgets.”
Chris had missed most of what Penny had just said as he had been stuck trying to remember the words to somewhere over the rainbow. With not much more to say on the subject of the challenge since nothing more was really known they left the tower. Miss Penny went to go make sure everything was organized and the calculations on the time for Chris to dive had been double and triple checked. Chris went to the library to see if he could find Nicole and Brent.
Nicole was nowhere to be seen but he found Brent asleep in a study carol in the main library. Chris started running light f
orce lines over Brent’s back. It should feel like a bug was crawling across his neck. Brent jumped out of the chair slapping at his neck and running around in a circle before spotting the king standing there. When he started trying to bow while slapping at his neck Chris could no longer keep a straight face. Understanding dawned on Brent.
“Great one your majesty. Keep it up and you’ll have killed a vassal by scaring him to death. Don’t you have better things to do with magic?”
“Absolutely not.” Chris managed to say while wiping at his eyes where he’d been laughing hard enough for them to tear up. “That was the best use of magic ever! Please let this place have security video tapes.”
Choosing to ignore everything that had just happened in an effort to salvage some dignity Brent asked Chris how the meeting at the tower had gone. Chris asked where Nicole was since he didn’t want to have to repeat the story twice. He was hoping Brent could help him cram for the underwater portal dive he was supposed to go on. Instead of waiting for Nicole to show up they started walking towards the main hall to look for her. They spotted her with a large group of girls and they stood off to the side waiting for her to see them.
“You faced a dragon like two days ago and now you’re scared to go over to a group of girls?”
“Terrified. Why do girls always have to be walking around in packs like that? ” Chris answered smiling at Brent who nodded in agreement.
Eventually the girls started noticing the purple robes and they all bowed and Nicole jogged over and gave him a big hug.
“I still can’t believe you killed a dragon the size of my house!” Nicole was gushing. She’d been unable to sleep until she heard he’d finished the trial and was alive. Chris caught her checking out this hands and asked what she was doing.
“Making sure you have all your fingers. Do you know your next trial yet? How can we help?”
Chris motioned for them to go get some lunch and they went in and grabbed picnic baskets and headed for the bluffs. Once they had their food out Chris filled them in on everything that had happened with the dragon and everything he’d been told that morning in the tower. Brent volunteered to get him some books and scrolls to read on how to open portals. Not much more to it since they didn’t know what the other challenges would be once he got through the portal. Brent seemed preoccupied with the notion that now him and Chris would spend a lot more time studying together since Chris had to become a portal master as well. Nicole just keep humming the follow the yellow brick road song. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter 26: The Yellow Brick Road
The three weeks flew by. Before Chris knew it he was standing on a boat off the coast of the island on a rainy night with the seas roiling around them. He was wearing a wetsuit and had a mask sitting on top of his head. He had a rubber pack strapped to his back with a set of robes and boots in plastic bags. Miss Penny walked out on deck and seemed annoyed by the sea. Deciding to disregard the arrogance of mother nature for the moment she asked Chris what he was waiting for.
“Are we started then?” He asked her over the noise of the rain and rough seas.
“No time like the present your majesty. That portal isn’t going to stay open forever. You need to get wet.”
Chris and Brent had pored through a ton of texts but had not found a way to easily find portals under water. The finding of portals seemed to take a lot of math and effort. The opening of portals just required focus. Since Chris didn’t know where the portal was he decided to just focus and see if he could feel it. As he calmed his breathing and reached out with his mind he felt something tugging at him from the starboard side of the boat. The portal had recognized a master poking at it.
The energy from the portal was swirling. With his eyes mostly closed Chris saw a blue swirling light coming up from a spot on the ocean floor. It was tucked between two vicious looking rocks. The waves from the storm were smashing hard against the rocks. There were ways to control the ocean and storms but it took an enormous amount of energy. Not wanting to expend any additional energy Chris focused on getting down to the portal without being smashed to pieces on the rocks. Not really seeing a way to do that either he decided to just wing it and took a few steps over to the edge of the boat and hopped into the ocean.
He automatically used his magic to help him swim towards the rocks. Now that he was in the water he realized with his magic that he was able to maintain some control. He took a deep breath and stroked mightily through the waves towards the rocks. Once he got there he used his magic to push himself to the bottom while maintaining a safe distance from the rocks. As he moved closer to the swirling blue lights he could see in his mind’s eye he tried to switch his focus to going through the portal. He reached out and tugged at the portal with his mind. Trying to wedge into the center of it and pull it out at the sides. That wasn’t working. He was starting to think he’d need to go up for air when he tried twirling the portal instead of prying it open.
That worked. He felt the portal open and start pulling him towards it. His lungs were burning with the need to breathe but it was too late now to try and go to the surface for a breath. He passed out from lack of air right as he drifted through the portal. His body slammed into a hard rocky surface and started drifting towards the edge of a cliff. The water was pouring through the portal still as he woke up breathing hard and saw that he was fixing to go over the side. Summoning his magical strength he stood up and made a wall around himself to divide the waters such that they flowed around him. Breathing hard and trying to clear his head he reached up with his mind and twisted the portal closed. As the water stopped pouring through Chris took a look around.
He was standing at the top of a natural peak. A platform had been built to support the portal with rocks welded together all around it to make sure the platform stayed at the right angle and height. The concrete floor had been designed to funnel the water off the cliff that surrounded him. If he hadn’t woken up in time he’d have been swept off and skewered on the rocks and treetops far below.
Looking up into the night sky he saw two moons and some really bright stars shining down. He’d been expecting that since he knew he was on a planet so far from Earth that it would take millions of light years to get to through conventional space travel concepts. If it weren’t so far that it was just plain impossible to reach. These distances were what made everything so alien. He thought back to the conversation with Niko around how early explorers had been amazed by the animals they’d found in Australia. The conversations about how discoveries at the bottom of the sea floor kept expanding the knowledge of the human race. Knowing that such short distances on his home planet could reveal such amazing new discoveries meant that the distances involved in what he had just done made the laws of reality on his home planet inconsequential.
He assumed it was night time here as it was dark and he could see those moons overhead. The moons reflected enough light so that it felt like dusk back on Earth. Exploring further among the relics he spotted rectangles of solid gold lined up and going over the edge. It was obvious they were intended to help him begin his search. He stripped off his wetsuit and stood in the air for a minute feeling the strange winds of a new planet brush against his bare skin. Then he pulled on his robes and put the wetsuit in the bag and slung it over his back. Trying not to think about how far down the drop would be if he slipped he began to climb steadily down the side of the cliff with the gold bricks leading down.
Just when he was beginning to wonder if he should maybe use magic to try and float down to save his arms the mountain began to flatten out and he discovered a cave. Inside the cave was a place to start a fire and a stack of some kind of moss looking stuff. It was actually pretty warm out so he ignored it and just sat down on the floor of the cave to think. It occurred to him that the royals who had come before him might have been from an age without Ziploc bags and wetsuits. In which case if they had come here during the winter months this cave with the fire pit was probably the first basic te
st of their skills. Chris was glad it was warm out as he had no clue how to use magic to start a fire. He was confident he could puzzle it out but luckily for him this first challenge was not one he needed to worry about.
Sitting there procrastinating wasn’t accomplishing a whole lot so he got up and began following the yellow brick road again. It ran down into a fog covered valley. He kept expecting the fog to clear up and to be able to see what was in it but the closer the got the more solid the fog looked. When he finally reached the fog he realized it was actually solid. The bricks had led him to a giant lake of some kind of dingy white gelatin. His hand went through it easily. The bricks went right into it and kept right on going. Chris felt around within his mind and using his focus he saw lines of force near where he was. He bent one of them and funneled it to form a tunnel. Then he motioned it to flow into the gelatin. He pushed it through like a giant straw and then stayed focused to ensure the invisible tunnel he had just created didn’t dissipate. Wondering how far he’d be able to make it before the weight of the gelatin collapsed his tunnel and buried him alive he started walking down the tunnel.
Son of the Keeper: Book 1: Principles of Magic Page 22