by Rich Scribes
Then he did a random hand gesture and six other men appeared.
“This can’t be any good,” I whispered under my breath. My mother heard me.
“You see, Bryce, there are others that want to aide Zelter create a better world. A world that your father was too short sighted to see,” my mom sneered.
“I guess we need more alligators.” Zalgon whistled some more, and three more alligators joined him on the river bank.
“You think you’re going to stop us?” Zelter questioned. Zalie came back to the fight and started to fight Zelter again. The six guys seemed ill prepared for Zalgon’s special alligators. Me on the other hand I just stood there. It was silent for a few seconds, but a ringing sound was reverberating in my head. Then a pair of green eyes with white teeth came snapping at me. A blue whisp of air saved my ass.
“Boy, they are supposed to help us! Get out of the damn way…” Then a fire ball exploded in front of Zalgon knocking him to the ground again. How these guys survived all this is beyond me. I looked around, and I saw the alligators retreating into their watery home. Zalgon and Zalie seemed barely alive. They couldn’t win against seven of these ‘Dragalyns’. I guess my time was up.
“Come,” my mom urged as she grabbed me by the arm and started to pull me closer towards Zelter. “They tried to win a fight they simply couldn’t win.”
“Well…well…well so, we meet again, young Bryce.” Zelter said. He slid off his hood. This man looked like he was in his early thirties maybe mid-thirties. He had a crew cut and a light beard. His grey eyes looked deep into my own. “You see…I need you. Your father was such a stubborn man. He thought the best thing for our race was to live out here in this part of the portal. Some of us didn’t like that idea, but your father had so many followers; he was so strong that no one dared to oppose him. I did the only logical thing there was to do: kill him.” Zelter smirked.
“You bastard!” I shouted and threw myself at him. It wasn’t much of a fight. A couple of his cronies soon had me subdued, and then tossed me on the ground. I didn’t bother getting up.
“It is over. We have won. Our world and this world will unite, and we will rule all of it. Your foolish father thought that we had to live in peace and harmony with this world? Why? I didn’t get the logic. We are stronger than these people that call themselves humans. We are far more superior than they are, so why not rule them?” Zelter kept going on and on about how his people were better.
“So, why do you need me?”
“Ah, the question of the century,” Zelter muttered as he circled me like a vulture. His goons surrounded us while he and I were in the middle. “You see, your father put in security measures for things like this…”
“You mean a hostile takeover?” I replied.
“Oh, I like the way you think,” Zelter stated as if giving me a compliment. “And yes. However I didn’t know what type of measures he took. So I needed someone on the inside…” Zelter smiled and he looked at my mother who had remained outside the circle. “You see, I knew she would come running to me eventually. She wanted to be one of us. She wanted to live as long as we did, and have our powers. Your father just showed his power off to her, and I knew she wanted it. She wanted the power and the life we lived. I just had to be patient. As she grew older, she knew that she wanted to live longer, and there is the problem with that race: their longevity. I simply needed to let her know there was an offer if she ever was inclined.”
This man was off his damn rocker, “How old are you?”
“I am three hundred and ten years of age,” Zelter claimed as he stood in front of me.
“Yep, thought so. Old age has gotten to you.” I replied.
“You will not live long enough to see your next year on this planet. But that is neither here or there. You see, your mother dug up some information on what your father was planning…” Zelter stopped and looked at my mom again. “Your father was in love and trusted your mother. What a fool. He told her that he created three keys that were the gate way between our worlds. Three keys that can also open the gate. Three keys that would enable me to merge the worlds together.” He said.
“Again, why does this involve me? You know you can just let me leave. I think I was adopted.”
“Oh, you see your father wasn’t the leader of our race without reason. In order to use these keys I needed the blood of the person who created them, along with their locations. You are the heir to him, you are his blood…”
“Wow, too bad for me I wasn’t really adopted,” I muttered. “So, what you want a blood sample?”
“Oh, no, Bryce, I need you. It is complicated. The blood has to be spilling from your body during the time of the opening of the gate while the world’s mesh.”
“Wow, isn’t that a little harsh? You guys don’t know how to make things easier, huh? I’d think one of those tubes from the doctor’s office would have been good enough.”
“We need the locations, Bryce.” My mom said as she crossed the barrier of goons.
“What? Dad didn’t tell you? That sucks, huh?”
“He claimed I had no need to know and refused to divulge that information.” She said. I’d never heard my mother sound so bitter. Where had the woman gone who’d soothed my grief only a couple days ago? In her place was a cold hearted bitter woman. As if my mind and heart weren’t already reeling.
“Get up…” Zelter took me by the arm, and pulled me up. “You will help us, and then you will die.”
“Oh, wow. That’s a great way to get me to come with you. You know you could have asked nicer.” All of a sudden the wind started to pick up. A blue gust of wind knocked everyone to the ground including myself, but Zelter remained standing.
“We have to go. Right now.” I heard a soft voice say to me. It was Ziora. She helped me up, and we started to run. Zelter threw a fire ball at us, and we both hit the ground.
“Hold my hand. We have to dragon port.”
“No, I need to go back for Zalgon and Zalie,” I shouted over the roar coming from Zelter.
“We have no time for this,” she pleaded.
“Well, we have to make time,” I announced. I wasn’t leaving without them. The six men were getting up and coming after us. I knew this wasn’t going to work, but I needed to try and save them. They had tried to save me.
“I don’t think I can do both, Bryce. That dragon port the first time left me tired. I’m not used to using my powers like this.” We both glanced around as animalistic growling filled the air.
“Yee, haw! Let’s go! Zalie hop on. They gonna take care of the rest,” Zalgon declared in the distance. The six men turned around to see what all the commotion was only to see the two of them vanish out of sight into the tall grass.
“Get them, you fools. We can’t let them get the boy,” Zelter was yelling. Another two guys went down. Then I saw an odd shadow coming towards us: Zalgon was riding an alligator and Zalie was holding on for dear life. The whirlwind that Ziora had created helped put out the fires, but I doubted that Zelter was going to quit.
“My buddies came back to help out, but we don’t have much time. Zelter will regroup.”
“Come on! Everyone hold hands. We have to go now. Like he said… my father will regroup. Maybe even call more re-enforcements.” Ziora said. We all joined hands. The same feeling that hit me the two previous times hit me again, and in a few moments later we landed in front of my house.
“What are we doing here?” I asked as the waves of nausea passed. “Ziora?”
“Boy she is not in good shape.” Zalie said. Zalgon was holding an unconscious Ziora in his arms.
“What happened?” I took her from Zalgon and tried to bring her inside. But Zalgon’s big hands grabbed my shoulder. “Let go.”
“Kiddo, we have to check it out first. We don’t know what is in there,” He explained. That made sense. “Let us check it out first, and t
hen we can tell you if it is safe or not.”
I nodded in agreement as I held Ziora. I moved to a little gazebo my mom had set up amongst her trees. At least in here we weren’t visible to every passer-by and neighbor. Ziora saved our lives. What happens if that horrible conversation a few days ago was the last conversation I was ever going to have with her? Would I be able to live with myself? Zalgon walked back out of my house and motioned to come in. I hurried inside and placed Ziora gently on the couch.
“What happened to her?” I asked Zalie. I doubted Zalgon was full of answers.
“Boy, some of our powers take up a lot of our energy source. Eventually our exertion can kill us. The more experienced and practiced one becomes the easier it is to use these powers, which means less energy is used. She is not used to using her powers. She’s young-for a Dragalyn- and unpracticed. I doubt Zelter trained her properly to use these powers.”
“Will she come out of this?” There was a silence in the room. “Zalie? Zalgon?”
“I don’t know. She is young. But she was foolish to do what she did.”
“What…she saved our asses! You should be thanking her.” I exclaimed.
“We don’t know her intentions still,” Zalie said.
“Well, right now I’m thinking she is on our side. Pretty sure that her almost dying proves that,” I said. Zalgon plopped himself onto the vacant couch.
“Boy, I’m telling you she can’t be
