Legacy of Dragonwand- Book III Page 6

  Meeting up with the next battalion of golems, Morris rode for the street where the Rakki estates were. One by one he would round up every citizen of Thendor and put them in camps where the golem guard would keep them at bay while the King finished his work to bring peace to Gallenor. This was a holy duty, according to Morris. He was the last loyal person in Gallenor and he would ride with his head held high knowing that though the people resisted, it was for their own good. They were as children beneath the wisdom and understanding of the king and his captain.

  When the dawn broke and life returned to normal in Gallenor, they would praise him for his loyalty. They would lift him up and build statues to him in place of the Dragon that would be destroyed.

  A truly insane smile crept across Morris’ face as he considered what he was doing. The king had only him to trust in now. Even if the court was called back and the treasonous nations were allowed to send representatives, it would be Morris that the king would remember who had never left his side. The king was a man who had no heir, so he would need a man to sit on the throne when he finally passed on; a man who acted like a good son. No other Gallenorian deserved it more than Morris. During the brief moments of solitude and daydreaming, he mused, “King Morris has a nice ring to it.”

  ***

  The Rakki estate had a smaller crowd than the Shlan. Norl had given his speech and took questions. He was about to dismiss them to their homes when their good hearing picked up the sounds of screaming and marching golems.

  “Lord Norl, what’s going on?” a Rakki man asked.

  Norl got down from the steps of the Rakki house and listened with his tall ears. “I don’t know. It sounds like a battle, and it is coming out way.”

  Before anyone could ask what to do, a legion of golems marched down their street with Morris leading. Quickly the Rakki guard came from inside the house and prepared arrows.

  “No! Lower your weapons. Do not antagonize the situation before we know what is going on,” Norl ordered.

  The stone army stopped and Morris rode to meet the Rakki. “Ahh, the dogs.”

  Norl cleared his throat and then said, “Captain Morris. We have sent couriers to find you. What is the meaning behind this strange army coming down our streets? And, why do our ears hear battle in the capital?”

  “Do not try to fool me, Rakki,” Morris countered. “I know what you and your people have plotted. I know the ploys and schemes you thought you could get away with.”

  “Ploys and schemes? What...”

  “Don’t think I’m a fool!” Morris barked, cutting him off. “I caught your little girl you sent out to get the wand. I know that it was you who turned the kingdom against King Anthony.”

  “Crystal,” Norl whispered. A sickening feeling sank into the pit of his stomach. “What are you saying? Do you think that we had anything to do with the madness of this king?”

  The boiling rage in Morris bubbled over as he kicked Norl in the head, toppling the old Rakki over. One of the guards caught him just shy of hitting the floor. Two of the Rakki guards pointed arrows at Morris. “MADNESS! HOW DARE YOU!” Their defense was stopped by their leader.

  Norl held up a hand. “No, do not shoot!”

  Morris wore a snide smile. “Count yourselves lucky, dogs. King Anthony has ordered me to only keep you quiet and secured. If I had my way, you would all be dead right now. I only have the authority to execute any guards. Send out your guards. Tell them to fight, I want to see those little arrow shooters cut down.”

  Norl knew he had no other choice. “These are my personal guard, the only Rakki guard currently in Thendor. The others were sent home.” With a quivering lip, he dryly spoke to the two men on either side of him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No arrow play?” Morris asked mockingly, referencing the golems as he stared at the Arrow guards. “Fine. Execute them.”

  Norl winced twice as two flashes of red light killed the men beside him. They were good men who he had trusted for years as his personal security. Norl winced. “This is such a terrible, senseless way to die.”

  “Well then,” Morris said, wiping his hands. “Sit, and stay.”

  Norl kept his composure and turned to his own. “Everyone, gather together and have a seat.”

  “Just so you know, I’m terribly disappointed that no one resisted. I wanted a reason to slaughter the whole group of you,” Morris said with a chuckle. “Perhaps I’ll get the chance at a later date.” Morris rode on with the other golems. “Alright! You two, stay here. The rest, with me.”

  As Norl quietly sat, he carefully wrote something using the back of the decree he had been reading from. A young man noticed and leaned over. “Lord Norl, there are other guards here from the Rakki?” he asked in a whisper.

  Norl whispered back. “I know. There was no hiding those two. But, the others are more easily hidden since we do not don flashy armor. I try to always tell the truth, which is hard in politics. In this instance, telling a lie saved lives.” He looked back at the two golems, their glowing eyes staring right at the crowd. Rolling up the parchment, he slipped it to the boy. “When you see an opening, run. Go home. Give this to Lord Kellus. Do not stop running until you are in the Blue Forest. Do you understand?”

  The thirteen year old Rakki shook his head. “No. I can’t. I...”

  “Yes, you can,” Norl sad, cutting him off. “We have to get word back home. They have to be told that Crystal is caught. Where Markus is with the Dragonwand, I don’t know. I’m afraid that things have not gone as planned.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Norl took a moment to make sure the golems weren’t noticing this conversation. They hadn’t budged; it was hard to tell if they even saw anyone talking. “It’s okay. We are all scared right now. We don’t know what’s going on. All we can do is fight against the darkness. Now, I am going to see if we can’t distract those stone things, when you have a chance, get out. Be careful. I know you can do it.”

  “I’ll try.” The boy held the parchment close to himself.

  Norl spoke loudly. “Fellow Rakki. Death is in our midst. Two of our own have died this day. We must honor their deaths with a traditional prayer of the trees.” This prayer hadn’t been common tradition for several generations, but everyone knew the ritual. Norl stood with his hands held high, and then sat back down. “OOH. Like the leaves falling. So has life come down.”

  The people responded by standing with their arms up and then sitting back down. “OOH,” they replied.

  Norl stood again. “OOH, to the earth they return.”

  The people stood up again, and loudly wailed, “OOOH!”

  During all of this, each time the crowd stood up, the boy crept further and further through them. The golems each took a step closer to the crowd, but didn’t seem to be alarmed by this.

  The final passage of this dirge came and Norl stood alone, his eye catching the fleeting child in the tall grasses outside of town. Looking down at the fallen men, he let himself grieve as much as he wanted to. Through crying hones and tears he wailed, “OOOH. Let the new trees remember their fallen leaves. Let new life grow from the fresh soil. We will never forget you, Alek and Mobar. We shall...” He found it hard to finish and simply wept.

  The crowd didn’t stand the last time but merely lifted their arms and said, “OOH, let tears fall like rain, roots replenished.” This was the final line of the ancient dirge of the dead for fallen honored Rakki.

  Norl sat down and held the hand of a friend as he continued to cry and the golems stepped back into place.

  Chapter 8: Awake

  Hallond climbed the long spiral stairwell to his room at the top of the highest tower of Thendor Castle. He spent centuries in this room planning and working for Kings and Queens of Gallenor. Sometimes he was the court wizard, other times he played the historian or librarian. But each time he made certain to have the ruling royalties’ ear so he could manipulate things according to his plans
. It was sad that it would be destroyed along with the rest of the palace. This tower was a haven for him, a place where he could sit and ponder about his next course of action, or the means by which he would attempt yet another destruction of the damned dragon statue. Perhaps he would leave this one tower standing, a shrine to the eons he spent preparing the return of his people and the ascension to the throne of the new God of Gallenor.

  Once he got to the top, he took a moment to catch his breath. Damn this old feeble body, it could not handle simply climbing a short few stories of stairs, he thought. One last time he looked around at the room and considered the many days he spent in here working on spells and plans.

  He had little time for wistfulness; things were moving fast. He went through the room and gathered all of his magical mirrors. He had used different ones at various times for separate means. Some were designed to communicate with the other wizards under his command as court wizard, while other ones were meant for spying on the races and keeping tabs on the comings and goings of the non-magic folk. He used one in particular to keep an eye on the college of wizardry.

  Once Hallond had all of the mirrors situated around the room perfectly, he fetched a large orange crystal he had enchanted a long time ago. He used this crystal to enhance his communication spells to go further away than usual. Now he would put the crystal to a new use, expanding a single message to all sleeping minds of Gallenor. He was certain the sleeping potion Morris had used on the others was still suppressing them and maintaining their slumber. He had an opportunity to slip into their minds through this spell. Every living soul in Gallenor sleeping at this time would hear this, but it mattered little to Hallond. As long as it got to that boy it was enough for him.

  He put the crystal between his hands and chanted a spell over and over until the orange stone glowed luminously. Carefully taking his hands away, the stone hovered under its own power. As he continued to chant, it spun around and around, faster and faster until it was a bright ball of light and nothing more. Flinging his hands outward, he sent the magic into all the mirrors at once. Orange energy flooded them. A terrifically wicked look infused on his face as he began his message to all the sleeping minds of Gallenor.

  ***

  Markus wasn’t sure what was happening. He was cold and felt like a boulder had landed on him. The world was a strange place right now. Darkness filled the skies, yet on the horizon was a bright orange light. Looking around, he couldn’t find Treb or Kiin anywhere. The silence of the room was deafening. It reminded him that Crystal too was gone.

  He tried to call to his staff, but it would not come. Looking around the ground he searched for it, but to no avail. How could I lose it now? he thought. “After all we’ve gone through to find it, and even after the dragons left me with the responsibility to use it, I just go and lose it like this? I’ve got to find it. We’re on the eve of the most important event in Gallenorian history,” he whispered.

  “Markus!” The soft, sick voice of Crystal called to him on the breeze. It was like a distant echo of a memory long gone.

  He looked up to see a semitransparent visage of her floating in the air just past the edge of the cliff where he had succumbed to the potion. She reached out to him, begging for his help. “Crystal! I’ll save you!” He ran for her and jumped off the ledge only to find he did not fall, but could run through the air. This was not possible; he was actually running on air and moving fast. Yet, she moved away from him each time he got close to her. Like trying to capture smoke in his hands she simply continued to slip away from him.

  All at once he found himself standing on unfamiliar ground. In the distance he could see a large city with a huge maze like structure near it. He knew it was the Capital by the sight of the castle in the middle of the city, which must mean that the maze was in fact the infamous Pale Labyrinth where all the wizards were being kept. But why was he here?

  “Markus!” He turned around in excitement at the very present sound of her voice.

  But it wasn’t her. Before him stood a man he had never met looming over the fallen body of Crystal. She was out cold and he looked like a viper about to feed. Suddenly he looked at Markus and said, “She will die if you do not come.”

  Markus tried to conjure something but he was unable to even move. “What is this?! Where am I?” He struggled, but it was as if a giant rope had been wrapped around his body and bound him.

  The old man waved his hand over her and she convulsed in severe pain. “Bring me the Dragonwand and I will spare her.”

  “You’re….you’re…” It was then that he realized who was speaking to him.

  “Yes, I am he, the one who deserves the Dragonwand. The one who will rule all, the one who will destroy her unless you obey. Listen boy, the girl for the wand. You have one day to spare her life or you’ll see her head on a pike.”

  Markus was scared, furious, and wanted dearly to transform into his dragon form and rip this monster apart, but he still could not move. “I…I won’t let you win!” Markus struggled against the sheer force holding him at bay.

  Hallond waved his hand out and Markus tumbled across the ground. He lay on his stomach and was freed of the feeling of restraint. Yet, with all of his anger and desire to save her, he could barely crawl. “Crystal! I…I will save you…Crystal…don’t give up hope…Crystal...”

  “Crystal!” Markus opened his eyes in the real world and found himself on the mountain where he had been put to sleep by the potion. He was crawling across the ground in the same manner he was in the dream. When he looked ahead, he had hoped to see her lying where she had been in the dream, not far from him. But she wasn’t there. The weight of his pain and the extreme lack of strength from the magical slumber was nothing compared to the heartache knowing how far away she was from him right now.

  Treb coughed and started to move. Kiin groaned and rolled over holding her head. They were all coming around at the same time as Markus. Hallond intended the spell to break the slumber, for he needed the wand now and could not wait for the potion to wear off.

  Treb slowly lifted himself up, resting his rear on the ground. He held his head. “What a headache. What just happened?”

  Markus got to his knees and blinked the extreme dryness out of his eyes. “I don’t know, but I think Morris hit us with a sleeping spell or potion, or something like that. We were definitely under some kind of magical attack.”

  Kiin was the first to her feet, but she was walking like a drunk. “Oh, I feel like I have been on the ground for days. How long were we down?”

  “I don’t know.” Treb pulled himself to his feet by use of a wall of stone. “But when we went down it was late morning and it is early morning now, so it must have been at least a day. Probably more.”

  Suddenly Kiin remembered what had happened. “Crystal? CRYSTAL!” She began to run for the ledge looking for her daughter.

  Markus shook his head. “She isn’t here. She’s at the capital. Hallond has her.”

  Treb’s eyes widened. “Wait. I had a dream where I saw him talking to…well it looked like me but I was watching it through someone else’s eyes.” He cocked his head as he looked at Markus. “Yours, I think.”

  Kiin nodded and stumbled over to Markus. “Me too. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Did he contact you?”

  Markus held out his hand and called the Dragonwand to him so he might use it to stand up. “Yes. And, since you were there, you know what he wants.” His tone was mature, solemn, and wrought with conflicting emotions.

  Kiin held Markus’ hand and he pulled her upright. “We can’t hand him the wand. That would doom us all.”

  Treb interjected. “No, wait. If we don’t he will kill Crystal.”

  Kiin closed her eyes. “The good of Gallenor is bigger than one girl.”

  Treb tried to walk directly over to her, but his knees buckled, and he stumbled. “Wait, I can’t believe you would say that I…”

  Markus held up his hand to st
op the argument. “I will not allow him to kill her.”

  “I hope you have a plan that does not involve handing the Dragonwand to that man,” Kiin said.

  “Not yet, but we’ll think of one before we reach Thendor. We have to. She is my reason to live, and I won’t give her up so easily.” He allowed Kiin to take Treb’s hand and let them assist one another with standing. Markus then walked toward the ledge with his staff at his side.

  Treb stated the obvious. “We cannot get back to Thendor in a day. It’s simply impossible from here. It took us far more than one day to get here from our home lands and Thendor is even further away than that.”

  Markus turned around with his back to the ledge. “I don’t intend on walking.” With that, he fell backwards off of the cliff and a huge white flash filled the canyon. Suddenly a magnificent dragon swooped up from the canyon and circled once in the sky and then landed near Treb and Kiin. He lowered a wing to let them get on his back. In a deep, new voice he said, “We fly.”

  Kiin was holding Treb now from the shock at the sight of the dragon.

  “What do you think?” Markus asked.

  “I’m a little more impressed than shocked,” Treb replied.

  “You’re beautiful,” Kiin added. “But are you sure we can do this?” she asked, a bit skeptical.

  Treb added, “Do you know what you’re doing? You’ve only been a Dragon for a little while.”

  Markus answered, “In my sleep, Tolen continued to teach me. I don’t know how long we truly were down, but I spent many days in my mind learning from him. I know I’m asking you to put your faith and trust in me, but we have to trust each other and push forward.”

  Treb solemnly answered. “Agreed. I’m not going to allow anyone to hurt my little girl, and I’ll do anything to see to that.” Feeling better, he grabbed up their bags and then helped his wife get on the dragon. There was a ridge of large boney spikes down Markus’ back giving them perfect places to sit and hold on.