by Jaci Miller
She reached softly for the ancient tome, her hand gently brushing the thick dust off its cover. A slight vibration ran through her fingertips as they grazed the worn leather. She touched the embossed symbol on its cover tracing the raised outline with her finger. It was a familiar symbol—the double pentacle surrounded by the five runes.
“What does this symbol represent,” she asked.
She felt Rafe move in closer, standing slightly behind her, lowering the torch so that it illuminated the front of the tome. “That is the symbol of the Five Realms. It represents all the races and the elements that guide them.”
She nodded, understanding now why it was engraved on the stone box that held the portal stones. It was the symbol that united all the different races and thus would unite the Arcanists.
Her curiosity peaked, she opened the front cover, a cloud of dust wafting into the air. The first part of the book was a detailed history of the Thanissia Universe, its creation, and descriptions of its multiple realms. From there the book detailed each individual race beginning with the oldest; the celestials. The pages contained race history, connection to their governing element, and how the opposing life forces contributed to a specific balance within the universe. She scanned the pages quickly hesitating only when she got to the section on the witches, the ancient sorcerers, and enchantresses—her ancestors.
After briefly reading through their history she flipped to the back of the book, searching for any mention of the prophecy. The final few pages contained information about the consortium of ancient Druids, the last of their kind, that lived among the peoples of Athir, the realm inhabited by the fae and elves.
The pages revealed that the Druid priests knew the elemental magic contained within the realms would survive the Great War although it would mark the end of the supernatural races. They feared that even in stasis, the Thanissia Universe would be enticing to any predators who may find their way into its dimension. Without the protection of its people, the magic would be vulnerable. Looking for answers as to the fate of the universe the Druid priests went to the Pool of Sight, a sacred place ripe with knowledge and insight. There, under the light of the Athirian moon, their worst fears were revealed—the ancient dark would rise again.
Flipping to the final page, she was confused to find that the only thing displayed on its yellowed parchment, was a language she did not recognize. The page was filled with a jumble of interesting strokes, curves, and dots.
“It is ancient Druid script,” Rafe said moving in close behind her.
“Can you read it?”
He nodded, handing her the torch his brow deepening as he studied the strange language. His voice took on a somber tone as he recited the words aloud.
Our lands have been ravished by a dark evil and its defeat has cost our kind greatly. The time of magic has come to an end. Our lands are barren, the magic depleted. Stasis will heal the realms over time, but those that harness its elemental power will be no more. A new world has been born and in it, magic will be forgotten but the end of our time is not final.
It has been foreseen, by the Druid priests, ancient seers of the realms, that the ancient dark once defeated will rise again, bringing havoc to the new world and unleashing a new kind of end. Magic will return in these dark times but those able to wield its power will be few and only those born of ancient blood will have the power required to defeat the ancient dark once again.
Six in all will be chosen, their individual destinies tied to one another through a birthright written long ago. They will represent each of the fallen races and carry the sacred blood of the ancient immortals. They will be known as the Arcanists and will initiate the rebirth of the five realms as rightful heirs to the powerful elemental magic of their ancestors. Branded by these elements and linked by destiny, they will be led by a fierce warrior, the one whose blood is touched by both the ether and the earth, the first of her kind born to a family as old and powerful as our world itself. Her birth will signify the beginning of a destiny that will end in a fight for the very souls of mankind. Her ascension to immortality will mark the beginning of the Second Rising.
The Arcanists will be powerful, more so as they stand as one. They will have the ability to not only harness the power of the elements but to control them and bend them to their will. But be forewarned—they will be marked by the shadow of separation, an ancient essence that identifies a fractured destiny, of which either good or evil can unfold. There will be an end to mankind if they fail to defeat the ancient dark—an end that may come from their hands alone.
She looked at him, a puzzled look clouding her face.
“That’s it?” She said bewildered by the lack of information on the prophecy. Flipping the pages back and forth she looked for more, anything that would provide more answers than questions. “How is this supposed to help?”
He could sense her aggravation. He grasped her shoulders, pushing a calming energy into her before responding.
“Prophecies are not directives Dane, they foretell of the future, guide an individual, or shape a destiny. Seers from our world interpret their visions as best they can, and the result is often more of a puzzle than an answer. If the one reading the prophecy is the one it is intended for, then it will eventually reveal its truth.”
Shaking her head in disgust she scanned the page again looking for more clues. Under the flickering light of the flame, she noticed something faint in the bottom corner of the parchment. It seemed to fade in and out with the torchlight’s glow. She grabbed the torch from his hand and held it close to the Book of Realms.
“Careful!” He shouted as the flame of the torch came dangerously close to the page. “The book is ancient and fragile, it could ignite quickly.”
She moved the torch back a little further but concentrated the flame’s glow across the bottom corner. As she moved the light back-and-forth something written on the parchment appeared.
“Can you make that out?” She asked, pointing to the numbers and symbols that appeared and then disappeared.
“It is magic ink,” he said. “The elders used it when passing confidential messages through different realms. Flame reveals its location but only one thing can bring it forward from the page.”
She watched as he rummaged through his pockets, looking for something he obviously thought was there. A few seconds went by as he searched the numerous pockets in his pants and jacket, relief spreading across his face as he pulled a small polished yellow stone from his breast pocket.
“What is that?” She asked curiously.
“Fairy dust,” he responded, holding his prize up in triumph. “Well, a fairy stone.”
He lowered the stone to the pedestal, using his hand to wipe away the thick cobwebs that covered its edge before rubbing the fairy stone gently across the rock’s surface. Tiny particles of yellow dust pooled onto the pedestal with every stroke until a small pile formed. He put the fairy stone back in his pocket and swept the fairy dust into his palm, carefully sprinkling it over the parchment where the magic ink was located. As it landed on the ink, the yellow powder twinkled, fizzled, and then turned black, sinking into the page and revealing the hidden Druid message.
She sighed, frustrated that the revealed message was just as cryptic as the prophecy.
“What do you think it is?” She asked reviewing the line of numbers and symbols again, “A date?”
Rafe looked up from the parchment, frowning at her in confusion, his green eyes questioning. “Date?”
“Yes,” she responded jotting down the message on a notepad she took from her backpack. “A period in time?”
“I do not understand this date you refer to,” he stated, shaking his head.
She was about to provide further explanation, when she hesitated, noticing the deep frown on his face. He was a billion centuries old immortal who existed in an
other dimension long before man started tracking time and creating calendars. A date was just another way to track the passing of time, and time meant nothing to the inhabitants of the Thanissia Universe.
“Let me explain it another way. On earth, time is a very important aspect of daily life and man has created a way of tracking it in very small increments. Long ago, man tracked seasons by the moon phases so that they could hunt and plant their food. As man progressed, became educated, and inventive, time became more important to everyday life, so a calendar was designed, dissecting time into increments that compartmentalized their existence within the natural world. For mortals, time is important and every small amount of it matters. In my world time is tracked in variations of seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, decades, and centuries.”
He looked at her, a small smile appearing on his face. “You mortals are a curious type. You hold on to time as if it is the very meaning of life.”
“It’s important to us because there is an end to that life.” She reminded him. “A mortal life is finite in comparison to the life of an immortal which is why our sense of time is very different to yours.”
“Our concept of time is very dissimilar, this is true,” he acknowledged. “Sebastian must have told you why time has no importance to an immortal.”
“Yes, he explained that when one lives a life with no end, charting time only slows it down.”
“In a sense, yes. To us, time and space are one—a void to which all the answers and knowing belong. Although we understand the concept of time and feel its passing, time is not of consequence because it is so expansive. It does not exist to control our lives as it seemingly does for you, so tracking it is redundant.”
He glanced back at the line of symbols and numbers that were revealed at the bottom corner of the page by the fairy dust. Tapping his finger on it in thought, he searched the recesses of his mind for a memory.
“I believe this is an ancient counting system,” he said, recalling the old elvish structure of hierarchy.
“What do you mean counting system?”
“The elves were a proud race and their elders were much revered in their social system. The elvish counting system was a way to honor these elders. They would carve lines and dots into the trunks of the Elfire—trees that grew in the Sacred Vale of Irin. The Elfire was thought to be a gateway to the ethereal divine, a capsule for the life essences of those from their race who had passed from this world. The carvings represented the length of the lifespan of each fallen elf. The dot signifies a starting point, the day an elf comes into being and the line indicates the portions of millennia—a section of an Elf’s life cycle that has passed.”
He grabbed the pen from her hand. “I will show you,” he said, jotting down some lines and dots in a sequence. “The more lines the longer the lifespan.”
She thought about the specific way the elves documented a life force’s time in their realm prior to it moving to the ethereal divine. If the Druid priests used this counting system to foretell the time of the Second Rising, then all she had to do was figure out how to transfer this counting system into today’s calendar.
Well, that should be easy! She thought, the sarcasm clear even in her own head.
Taking the pen back from him she began to separate the numbers and letters, using the intervals of millennia as a guide, pairing them with the smaller increments that man used in current time—year, decade, century. Trusting her instincts and the ancient knowledge building inside her she began to decipher the code.
After a long period, through which Rafe never said a word, Dane put down her pen and lifted the pad of paper, reading aloud her calculated guess.
“The 15th year, in the 1st century, of the 3rd millennium is the year 2016, in my world. The final two numbers and symbols, if representing the first new moon and the third full moon in that year, would be…”
She reached into her backpack and pulled out the Llewellyn’s witches’ pocket calendar that Stevie had gifted her at Christmas. Flipping to the first month of 2016, she scanned the days looking for the symbols that indicated the new and full moons. The first new moon was January 9th, her thirty-first birthday and the day of her second awakening. Flipping forward she counted the full moons, stopping when she got to the third one.
“If my translation of Druid code and an ancient elvish counting system are correct, the Second Rising would commence on March 23rd, 2016. We have a little more than two months to find all the others and reactivate all the Druidstones.”
Rafe looked at her quizzically, her statement meaningless.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she stated, “let’s just leave it at that.”
Chapter 32
They reached the top of the waterfall just as the sun began its descent toward the horizon. The sinking sun lit the landscape with an ebbing glow emphasizing the brutal starkness of the Dead Lands. Dane watched as heat waves on the horizon blurred the sweltering landscape, making everything slightly fuzzy as they rippled in the distance. Staring into the dusty ravine she felt the horizon alter slightly as its lifeless pulse intensified.
She squinted at the horizon. The heat waves seemed to move sideways as if something was interfering with their path, pushing them out of the way in an effort to move forward. She lifted her face up to the sky and closed her eyes, allowing her mind’s eye to open, pushing her consciousness forward across the barren expanse—searching. There was something out there something hidden, something that didn’t belong.
“We must go, Dane,” Rafe said, his voice echoing across the ravine that separated the two contrasting landscapes. “We need to get back to your world. Time is no longer on our side.”
She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice, lifting her hand in acknowledgment but not moving, as she continued to search the distant horizon. She could sense the change in the Dead Land’s energy as the heat waves continued to ebb and flow, distorted by the unseen interference. There was something coming across the Dead Lands toward them hidden by the haze dispensed by the sweltering heat. She could not see it, but she sensed its movement.
Squinting into the setting sun, she allowed her inner eye to focus her vision, pushing out her consciousness again. Slowly, the fiery orange gateway on the horizon began to shift, its vibrancy diminishing. From its hazy heat emerged one, two, five shadowy figures, the mysterious images drifting toward her over the dry simmering landscape. The figures flickered as the heat waves struggled to retain their space in the environment.
She could hear Rafe behind her calling her name, but she was unable to remove her eyes from the blurred figures. There was something else there, something behind the shadowy figures—something dark. She continued to stand very still, blocking out every other sound, emotion, and distraction pulsating through this world. Encasing herself in silence, she concentrated only on the figures that hovered in the distance, allowing the ancient magic inside her to explore. The figures kept moving forward, their silhouettes wavering as the heat from the horizon played with their energy.
Suddenly, the horizon began to change, like bubbling oil, a black cloud rose from the ground swallowing the figures in its darkness. A jolt shot through her as the ancient magic recognized a threat, blocking its attempt at entering her mind. Abruptly, the figures and the black cloud disappeared, the horizon barely visible as the last of the sun’s rays vanished behind it.
She stood in the evening breeze, a feeling of foreboding surrounding her. Staring at the distant horizon, she watched as the blazing sun ebbed into its final descent, a chill creeping slowly down her spine. The ancient dark had tried to enter her mind again but this time her powers repelled it.
Turning away from the darkening distance she looked at Rafe. “We may already be running out of time.”
He nodded, silently acknowledging his understanding.
They moved qui
ckly down the side of the waterfall and through the dense forest as they made their way back to the barracks. Entering the city through the west gate, she felt a whisper pass through her mind, a warning. She felt him tense beside her, his emotions erratic as he too sensed something about the marketplace was different. Putting his finger to his lips in a silent signal he pointed toward the town center, grabbing her hand and pulling her into the shadows of the stone buildings.
Cautiously, they headed toward the fountain their backs skimming the cool stone of the town shops as they inched their way quietly forward. As they came to the final corner, he stopped and peered around the edge of the building. She heard his breath catch in his throat as she felt his confusion and disbelief turn to joy at what he saw.
Curious, she peeked around the corner.
There, standing by the fountain was a man, tall with broad shoulders. His curly brown hair was shaved short at the back and sides, the top an unruly mess of unkempt waves. His back was to them and all she could see was the long, black, hooded coat that ended just above his boots. He stood perfectly still, his shoulders hunched slightly as if he sensed something.
She glanced at Rafe trying silently to get his attention, but his eyes were trained on the stranger at the fountain. Without warning, he left the safety of the shadows and walked straight toward the man. Caught off guard she could only watch as he strode confidently toward the fountain. Just as she regained her composure and darted out into the sunlight to follow him, the stranger turned, his sword unsheathed and pointing directly at Rafe.
Shock vibrated throughout the marketplace as the two men’s eyes locked and a surge of energy passed between them. She stopped abruptly, her head pounding as his memories flooded through her mind—he knew this man.
