Lymlock
Chapter 9
I found
a note in the throne room, tacked to the wall. It read: The person who dropped the chandelier on you was Kaolin Claystone.”
I
called a meeting. I seemed to be having a lot of those lately, as more and more
cracks started to form in my carefully, perfectly structured world.
Claystone
didn’t come.
I gave
only one statement at the meeting, and one promise. “Find Kaolin Claystone.
Whoever does will be rewarded greatly.”
The
sorcerers left the room quickly, each wanting to get the reward.
I sat
back on the throne and smiled. He would be caught soon enough, and I would get
my revenge.
The
throne room doors burst open barely a moment later. I leaned forward, curiously
and expectantly. They had gotten him so soon? I hadn’t expected that – after
all, they weren’t me.
It was
the boy himself. After all, that’s what he was – little more than a boy. A
teenager, if I wanted to be nice. Which I didn’t, at that point.
I
laughed, half expectant, half annoyed.
“I
called a meeting of all sorcerers. Did you not hear me?”
“I
did,” he replied.
“Are
you just too good to come to these meetings, then? Or are you just scared?” I
was trying to bait him, get him angry before killing him. It was fun to do
that.
“I
didn’t come…” I raised an eyebrow, pretending I wasn’t interested in what he
would say. He worried me more than he should have. “…Because I’m not a
sorcerer.”
I
nearly gasped aloud in shock. Was he implying…? I switched my vision to see energy.
For you
who don’t know, energy is what makes up your aura. The aura is the compilation
of all the magyk you’ve done, good or evil. Dark energy is used for evil, and
white is for good. My aura was almost entirely black, and still is. Most
magykans have a mix of black and white, with gray-streaked auras. Only magykans
are able to flip their vision to see the auras around other magykans. That’s
how we can tell who’s human and who has magyk, and whether a magykan is a
sorcerer or a wizard.
This Claystone
person’s was gray. Almost perfectly neutral gray. I could sense that he had
slightly more white than dark energy, but it was very close. One thing I knew:
He was a sorcerer when he joined my group to take over the castle.
“Traitor,”
I hissed, furious, and began the death spell. “Joq-“
“Tarka!” He threw up a hand and shouted
the shield spell before I could kill him.
Traitors
are the worst kind of magykan there is. Everybody on the side they used to be
on is their enemy. Forever. Most of them, the sorcerers for him, would rather
kill one who has betrayed our side than an actual wizard.
“By the
way, remember how the wizards escaped?” he asked pleasantly.
“What’s
your point?” I snapped. I wanted to kill him so badly, but there was no point
trying to penetrate his shield. It would eventually break down, but at that
point there was nothing I could do. I HATE not being in complete control at all
times, and that just made me want to kill him twice as much.
“I let
them go,” he informed me.
“You-“
I couldn’t even find words to express my fury. I tried to kill him three times.
It still angers me now, and still the thing I want to do the most is kill him.
He
waited, his shield spell holding up even against my rage.
Then
I remembered the emergency block I had behind the throne, just far enough away
so I could still cast spells.
I
pulled out the slab of caerthin and threw it at him. Hard.
He
was able to push it to the ground before it hit him in the head, but I could
feel his shield spell collapse. I tossed another death spell at him, while the
caerthin was still blocking his power.
He
yelled, “Tarka!” again. I smiled, knowing it wouldn’t work. Then my spell
disappeared.
“What!”
I shouted. This boy was so annoying.
I wanted him dead.
“I’m
immune to caerthin,” he said, grinning smugly.
Most
magykans have a gift, a certain thing that makes them special. It could be a
talent for a type of spell, it could be a special quality, or it could be
something else. Mine was leadership, one of the best, especially with what I was
doing. An immunity to caerthin, though? I hated this magykan.
I
tried to kill him a few more times.
Eventually,
I calmed down slightly and demanded, “Well, what do you plan to do? Walk around
the castle with a shield spell on all the time? How well do you think that’ll
work out? I still have normal weapons, you know. I could just slit your throat
while you’re sleeping.”
“No,”
he replied, still with that infuriating calmness. “I’m leaving.”
“And
why did you come here to tell me this? To make sure your shield spell actually
protected you?” He didn’t even seem to care about how mad I was.
“I came
because you seemed interested in seeing me, from what you told your sorcerers,
and to see just how angry you got.” He laughed.
I
couldn’t believe the audacity of this stupid young wizard, for that was what he was now, the traitor. He had ruined my
plan that was so well made and executed, pretty much attempted to destroy my
hold on the kingdom, and was now laughing at me? He would pay.
Akeelay
Chapter
10
The next
day, we walked for a while on the plains until they ended in a forest. With
trepidation, we entered. Walking was getting boring and really making my feet
hurt.
Suddenly,
a shadow raced along the trees beside us and up the hill we were approaching.
Stepping out of the trees, a centaur pointed a bow and arrow at us.
“Halt,”
he demanded. We stopped, and my hand went instantly to my knife before
resisting. A knife wouldn’t do much good against a centaur.
“Do not
even think about it, wizard,” he said to Maybelle, shifting the arrow slightly
to point at her.
“How did
you know?” she asked, completely baffled. Magykans are the only ones who can
tell other magykans, and the only ones who can discern which type they are.
“You did
not reach for a weapon,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Your companion did,
which led me to believe that you have magyk. And you are not wearing black
clothes, nor does your friend look as though she does not wish to be traveling
with you. She most likely would were you a sorcerer. Therefore, I could
conclude that you were likely a wizard. Now, why are you in this forest?”
“First,
I have to day that’s brilliant,” I said. “And – as for why we’re here, that’s a long story.”
“I have
time,” he said, impassive.
“Okay,
if you want to hear the story.”
Maybelle
and I told our full story for the first time. Everything. From my first direct
experience with a sorcerer to the takeover to losing Jinx.
It took
a while.
After we
finished, the centaur said, “I am glad you came through here. I would like to
join you. My name is Dossik, and I believe I would be able to improve your
team.”
Dossik
had a strange way of talking, but I didn’t really mind it. I had nothing against
him joining us, and I said as such to Maybelle.
She
agreed, “It couldn’t hurt.”
“Thank
you for allowing me to join you,” Dossik said, still formal and mysterious.
And so
we walked. There wasn’t much difference in having one person as company and one
person and one centaur.
Sometime
about midday, Dossik said, “I believe that we are being followed.”
“By
who?” Maybelle asked, instantly on guard.
“I do
not know,” he replied. “I just feel as though we are being watched, and the
trees are rustling too much for only the wind to be affecting them.”
“Well,
there’s
not much we can do right now,” I said. “Let’s just keep going and wait and see.”
Time
passed. In early afternoon, we stopped in a meadow to rest for a bit.
A person,
dressed in black, stepped out of the trees. Somebody had been following us.
What
surprised me was that it was the same sorcerer who I had run into at the castle
that day so long ago. A sorcerer had been following us, and I didn’t know for how long.
Kaolin
Chapter 11
I
actually really enjoyed that conversation with Lymlock. It was so funny to see
him so enraged and unable to do anything about it. But now I had a different
goal in mind as I walked out of the castle. I had to find Akeelay, the one who
Lymlock wanted to kill so badly, just like me, and convince her to let me help
her.
I knew
how I was going to find her. The way she had been tracked and found by the
sorcerers was through a spell, of course. It wasn’t focused on her, though. It
was a general spell cast out to search for the castle wizards that I had set
free. The wizard travelling with her, named something like Mabel, was actually
picked up by it.
But I
didn’t have enough magyk to look through all of the remaining wizards and find
her. I had a better plan...
I had run
into her, or, more accurately, she had run into me at the castle just after the
takeover. She was actually kind of cute that day.
I wasn’t
certain that that was her previously, but I hadn’t seen her around the castle
since and she wasn’t dead. So, I made the leap in logic to assume that was her,
and I left. If it wasn’t, oh well, I had tried.
Why seek
her out? She was halfway across the kingdom, from what I had heard, and not
slowing down. She had to have some sort of goal in mind. And she was wanted by
Lymlock. With two of us - well, three if that wizard was with her - we had to
have a better chance, right?
So I
started out, “borrowing” a pegasus from the stables.
One day,
two days passed. I caught up to them. I set the pegasus free. Luckily, he
didn’t go toward them. That would have been hard to explain.
There
were three by then, which surprised me. They had a centaur with them. I
followed them as they walked for most of the day, wondering how best to
approach them.
They
stopped in midafternoon in a meadow. I decided to enter, hoping for the best.
Something like stage fright was starting to get to me, an emotion I didn’t have
very often.
I took a
deep breath and stepped out.
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