“Phillip, let the past be the past. Haile and its miserable Knight Guard are dead to me! I serve a new master, a new purpose now. Make no mistake, this is no joke. This is Kastor Char, Master Dark Sorcerer of Veronicia.” Razzius motioned to his partner. “We are going to march on Haile, burn it to the ground, kill Mayor Flint, and destroy the Knight Guard. We are taking over Forme, then all of Veronicia. I know your hatred for the mayor, for the city that cast you out, and especially for Lawrence Sanctus. I know your embarrassment over Elsie. Travel with me to the Black Swamp, beyond the Frozen Mountains, and recruit our soldiers. Join us, Phillip.”
“Ha,” Phillip scoffed, pointing to himself, “does it look to you like I’m in a position, in a condition, to do anything? I haven’t eaten a decent meal in months. My family is out of money. My father has disappeared. My legacy is gone. I work all day just to make enough money to scrape by. I loathe my own existence.”
Kastor whisked his hands, and a plate of roast turkey and potatoes appeared on a table in the kitchen. “Phillip, eat, please.” Kastor motioned for Phillip and Razzius to follow him into the kitchen.
The trio sat in the rickety chairs that surrounded the table. Phillip ate ravenously. The meal seemed to replenish his constitution. He thanked the sorcerer for his hospitality.
“How do the two of you plan to defeat the entire Hailian Knight Guard?” Phillip asked.
“To the north, in the Black Swamp, my master has told me of the existence of the Black Sangres. They number a million strong and will serve me, serve us,” Razzius explained. “Join us, Phillip, and I promise you the answers you seek about your father’s whereabouts. And, I promise you your vengeance on Lawrence Sanctus.”
Phillip was silent. The only sound was the loud chomping his mouth made as he devoured more of the turkey leg he held. He weighed his options: stay home, alone and malnourished and work himself ragged with no end in sight, or join these two and destroy those who had wronged him. Phillip had little battle experience, and little formal fight training, but if an army one million strong stood ready to fight, as Razzius had claimed, it seemed like a battle they couldn’t lose. Razzius seemed sincere in his reconciliations with Phillip; and Phillip desperately wanted a chance at revenge against Lawrence.
For two, long, miserable years, Phillip thought of Lawrence Sanctus and the decision he had made to let him live that night in Haile. Had Phillip killed him quickly in the street, instead of toying with him, no one would have suspected him as the murderer. Lawrence would have been out of the picture, and Phillip and Elsie would be together in the castle. Phillip’s momentary lapse in his own judgment caused a tailspin of events that led to the disastrous position he now found himself in.
“I hate Lawrence Sanctus. I want him dead. And the enemies of my enemy are my new best friends!” Phillip yelled ecstatically, hateful desire overtaking him. He pounded his fist on the table, shaking it violently. “I will help you lead your army, Razzius. And after we destroy Haile, I will kill Lawrence Sanctus, while that ungrateful bitch, Elsie Pyre, watches from the gallows.”
Razzius and Phillip wasted little time in preparing for their journey over the Frozen Mountains. Phillip questioned Razzius’ plan, reminding him that no one had ever crossed the mountains and returned safely. But Razzius was undeterred. He was convinced that his new master would show him a quick and easy way through the impassable terrain. Razzius told Phillip that they would leave the next night, and make the near half day trek by horseback.
Razzius looked at Kastor, who sat patiently, contemplating the trio’s plans at the far end of the table. “Kastor, it is time. Go to the Everglen. Destroy it. My master will tell me when the job is done. Once he does, we will ride on Haile! We know what we must do. We bid you farewell, friend.”
Kastor stood up and looked at the two men. He had waited for this moment. He was ready. It was so great to be needed again. His immense skills and talents that he had worked so hard to improve were finally in demand by someone with goals and aspirations that mirrored his own. Kastor radiated a deep, sinister confidence. He would not fail. He would wait one day, then travel to the Endless at the next nightfall. He would attack the Everglen as the sorcerers were sleeping. His victory would be assured! It would be easy!
The group spent the next day resting, preparing supplies, and going over their plan detail by detail to make sure that everything would work perfectly. The next evening, the trio split. Kastor traveled south toward the Endless. Phillip and Razzius exited the desolate Galexia mansion and headed to a stable. Razzius and Phillip unhitched two beautiful chestnut stallions. They saddled the horses, and rode north toward the Frozen Mountains.
Chapter 30:
I snuck out again tonight. Everyone else is asleep, but I haven’t slept in days. This new power is incredible; they must never know what I have found. These sorceries are so potent, why have I not heard of them before? I wake up the next morning with a pounding headache, but it’s all worth it to practice and experience these mysterious sorceries.
- Journal of Kastor Char, Age 17
That night Kastor began his journey to the Everglen. He stood at the edge of Green Bryre, looking south toward the Endless. He would simply walk, knowing full well that it would take Razzius and Phillip a while to reach their destination. He had time to think, time to prepare his attack. He began his journey, each step cold, calculated, and loaded with purpose. Kastor looked out over the southern landscape as he walked toward the sprawling woods, each step bringing him closer to his destination, his fight, his revenge. He would wreak havoc on the Everglen, bringing death and destruction to those who had cast him out.
“Gorbin Gabrielle, that son of a bitch!” Kastor muttered to himself as he approached the Endless, his anticipation growing. “I will kill every one of his subjects, and then make him watch as I murder his precious wife before his very eyes. After I’m finished gutting her like a stag, I’ll make him suffer before I end his life.”
Kastor continued to muse to himself as he now stood at the edge of the forest, peering into the blackness beyond the first row of trees. Kastor stopped for a moment then murmured out loud, “Paths once lost, now made clear.” Upon finishing his incantation, a small flicker of light danced in front of him, and began to forge its way into the dark unknown of the Endless. This sorcery was a simple guidance incantation that would lead him all the way to the Everglen. The light slowly floated through the air and stopped at a distant tree. As Kastor approached, the light danced for a moment, and then continued on to another tree, like it was being pulled by an unknown force. Kastor kept following it to where it now hovered over a nearby log. As Kastor jumped the log, it moved onward to the next landmark. The light forged its way through the darkness of trees, leading Kastor to his destination. This continued for a long time, before Kastor came to a landmark he knew very well. It was a pond at the edge of the Everglen.
The Everglen shone with a luminescent light. The trees glowed with spiritual energy and a variety of ethereal beings lined their branches. Spirit owls and squirrels sat perched on tree limbs while raccoons made dens in their hollows. Kastor watched as giant spirit butterflies flew through the Everglen. Sparkling dust and spiritual energy emanated from each flutter of their glowing wings. They were a bright shining blue and green with a nearly translucent body. Patches of night flowers bloomed, their white petals sparkling in the moonlit grove. Kastor looked to the sky and could see the glowing, full moon high above, which helped give the Everglen a surreal ambiance. The grass was perfect everywhere he looked; hallowed ground unharmed by darkness for a long time. Kastor looked to the pond where he could see fish swimming about playfully, frolicking as he strolled by.
As his feet touched the ground, dark energy that emanated from him infected the area. It transformed the grass and nearby flowers into weeds, and dried up patches of brown, dead clumps. The creatures that lined the trees ran for cover, and the butterflies all but disappeared. From behind him, bats soared into the Everglen,
blocking out the moonlight. They covered the trees, roosting upside down. Their beady red eyes glowed menacingly in the dark clearing as its spiritual energy began to recede.
Kastor stopped for a moment, and thought about everything that had happened to him since he was first banished from here for his practice of dark sorceries. He had been in exile for seven years, and now he would finally have his revenge. Kastor observed the Everglen. The straw and grass huts of the sorcerers who lived there were scattered throughout the secluded clearing. The huts were humble and plain; they housed the Everglen’s many loyal sorcerers as they slept. But Kastor would surprise them; there would be no hope for their survival.
He slowly approached the first grouping of huts and uttered a dark incantation, “A darkness that creeps through the night, eating your dreams and bringing you plight!”
A dark shade burst forth from Kastor’s hand and crept through one of the dwellings, silently stalking the residents inside. There were no screams, and the sleeping inhabitants made no noise. It killed them quickly, strangling them while they slept. Kastor walked from hut to hut and watched through small windows as his fiend sucked the very essence of life from each occupant. His plan was working perfectly. As he moved toward the next group of huts, he noticed a small boy walking from one of them.
The boy saw him immediately, and before Kastor could silence the restless child, he screamed, “Ahhhhhh!”
The boy’s voice echoed through the still night. A host of sorcerers burst from their homes and rushed toward the boy who had turned to flee.
Kastor didn’t care that he had been spotted; he knew that none but Gorbin stood a chance against him anyway. There were sorceries that Kastor had mentally mastered, and would require no more than a thought for him to cast. He conjured these at the large group of sorcerers who were making their way toward him. Then he pointed his hands directly at the assembly of sorcerers and snarled, “Dark Siege!”
From his scraggly hands a black fog enveloped him, obscuring him from sight. From that fog, evil, vicious creatures appeared. Rabid wolves, ferocious bears, and giant, feral boars roared and raged their way carelessly toward the other sorcerers. The sorcerers began tracing runes and chanting incantations of their own to combat the dark horde. Hundreds and hundreds of dark creatures and shadows burst forth from the dark fog. Several sorceries hit their marks, dispelling some of the beasts in their tracks. But there were too many. The contingent of sorcerers was overrun. They were mauled, clawed, ripped apart by the deadly spirits.
While the other sorcerers were busy dealing with the attacks from his previous spell, Kastor prepared another deadly incantation. “Where life prospers, I feast eternal!”
Kastor clapped his hands, and as he did, a demonic weapon began to form amidst the darkness of the black fog. He reached for the large scythe that had a three-foot blade crafted from the same dark energy he had created earlier. He took the weapon and slowly made his way toward the group. “Die!” he shouted at one sorcerer. “Rigor Mortis!” he yelled at another. A black bolt of dark energy shot from his fingertip, and the recipient dropped to the ground. Kastor swung the unholy scythe, and severed arms and legs of the group of sorcerers. He impaled one of the sorcerers and lifted him high into the air with demonic strength. He watched as his blood and intestines slowly slipped out of his gaping wound. As the blood gushed down to the ground, he stood under the dead body, bathing in the downpour. He allowed himself to become covered in the blood, embraced by it. He feared nothing as he reveled in his bloody masterpiece of revenge. His immense power was unstoppable, and the unlucky group of novice sorcerers didn’t survive long. It took all of about five minutes for Kastor to claim the lives of the one hundred or so who had called the Everglen their home. Blood squished under his feet as he stomped about. Kastor licked his lips and breathed a deep, satisfying sigh.
“What have you done?!” a loud, booming voice tore through the night’s silence.
Kastor looked to see Gorbin Gabrielle and his wife walking toward him.
“What the hell have you done!? Those people! Their families! You monster!”
“Monster?! Did you forget, you made me!” Kastor shouted. “All those years ago, you cast me out! I was strong then, but I am even stronger now! I’ll kill you; I’ll kill all of you!” A dark energy shot forth from his hands toward his new target.
Gorbin quickly raised his hand and roared, “Impenetrus!”
A shield of the brightest light covered Gorbin and the woman, deflecting Kastor’s dark sorcery, dissipating it.
Kastor knew that Gorbin was a master sorcerer. His seven-year absence may have been long, but Kastor had not forgotten Gorbin’s long, dimpled face.
Gorbin’s fire-red eyes burned with intensity. He lowered his shield and said, “Kastor Char, you are an evil, vile man! How could you turn your back on your own people? I banished you from the Everglen because you had lost your respect for it, not because I harbored a personal grudge against you!”
“Silence!” Kastor commanded angrily. “You cast me out because I was a threat to your son, your successor, and now he is nowhere to be found. A lot of good that did you! You should have just let me kill him that day, and then none of this would have had to happen. Instead of burning these lands to the ground, I could be helping you save them!”
“What are you talking about, Kastor?”
“Change has come to Forme, Gorbin. My actions today will help usher in a new era of darkness and corruption. Today I will do what I couldn’t do when I was younger. I will kill Gorbin Gabrielle, and watch as the Everglen transforms into my personal dark utopia!”
“You are insane. I will defend my home. I didn’t allow you to harm my son that day when you two fought, and I certainly won’t allow you to destroy the Everglen now.”
“You speak as though I am giving you a choice, Gorbin. You misunderstand. Today you will die!”
Gorbin fired first, pointing at Kastor. A white bolt of energy hurled itself toward the dark sorcerer.
As it approached, Kastor simply lifted his hand and said, “Dark Impenetrus.”
Upon contact, the white bolt turned black and reflected back at Gorbin who was unable to react in time. He had never witnessed a counter-spell so powerful. He took the full blunt of the blow. He hit the ground hard, as dirt clouds erupted on all sides of him. He could feel himself struggling to breathe. The dark sorcery was sucking his life away. He tried to sit up, watching in horror as Kastor approached his wife.
Kastor looked at the woman with hateful rage. He reached out and grabbed her around the throat. “Because of your husband’s actions, you will die! Cry out for him, call to him! Beg him to save you, please do it!” He couldn’t help himself. He had her life in the palm of his hand, and there was nothing Gorbin could do to save her.
“Gorbin!” she shouted out in a scratchy whimper, her words strangled by Kastor’s inescapable grip. “Our son will come!”
The woman’s mentioning of her son infuriated Kastor even more. He raised his other hand and roared, “Death’s Grasp!”
Gorbin watched helplessly as a black energy bridged from Kastor’s hand to her body and began to rapidly age his wife. Gorbin saw her wither away in Kastor’s hands. Her skin became even more wrinkled. Her eyes sank into her skull. Moments later, he saw nothing more than an unidentifiable mass of rotted flesh and bones, suspended in air by Kastor’s hand. The Dark Sorcerer soon threw it to the ground like he was discarding a pile of trash.
Gorbin stared in disbelief at Kastor’s diabolical actions. “Kastor, you are a monster, a despicable, evil person. Deminion himself has taken hold of your soul, and you now have lost all connection to this world. I knew you would come; I saw a dark omen in my visions. I must tell you something before you take my life.” His body heaved with sadness and exhaustion. He was still hurting from Kastor’s counter.
“Speak quickly, my tongue longs for the sweet taste of your death,” Kastor replied. He licked his lips with his black, pimpled tongu
e.
“Your plans, they will fail. Your master, he will be defeated. My son will come to the Everglen, he will avenge us. No matter what you do and no matter how hard you fight, you will never succeed. Evil will never hold claim over these lands. There will always be heroes that will stand up against evil and fight for what is right.” Gorbin coughed up a little bit of blood as he continued to sputter. “Kastor Char, mark my words, you have chosen the wrong path, a dark path. It is a path that only leads to sadness and death.”
Kastor pointed his index finger on his right hand at Gorbin and exclaimed, “Black Arcanus!”
An intense black force shot forth, enveloping Gorbin, draining his life force. He struggled for a long time, attempting to breathe, forcing himself to stay alive even against certain doom. Finally, the clutches of death became too much. Gorbin slipped away, into the darkness. His eyes closed and his body went limp. Kastor had succeeded.
Chapter 31:
My Dearest Flint,
It has been four days since I have seen you now and my heart yearns for your return. I had hoped I could wait until you returned to break the good news to you, but I cannot for I am too excited. I am with child, my love. We are going to have a baby, a child of our very own. I await your return with joy in my heart.
With all of my love,
Maggie
- Love letter from Maggie Pyre to her husband Flint Pyre, June 15th, 2 P.W.
Several ominous clouds hung over Haile as Lawrence finished his guard duty shift. Lawrence watched as the civilians of Haile meandered about the city, going about their business. Store owners prepared to close their shops. Dusk had come, and Lawrence took a lit torch and was relieved by a fellow Knight Guard member. He returned to the castle. Upon passing through the gates, he noticed a familiar face waiting for him. It was Elsie.
The Trinity of Heroes (I Will Protect You Book 1) Page 24
