Light of the Dark

by N. Saraven

  Light of the Dark

  Book I of “Children of the Gods”

  by N. Saraven

  Copyright © 2017 N. Saraven

  Table of Contents

  Light of the Dark A note about fonts

  1. It had begun

  2. The school

  3. The Rim between two worlds

  4. The connection

  5. Growing unease

  6. The dream

  7. Questions and answers

  8. A little rest

  9. The meeting

  10. Life between two worlds

  11. The last day

  12. More complications

  13. Gathering darkness

  14. The impossible meeting

  15. The escape

  16. The return

  17. The unknown race

  18. The second crossing

  19. Forming plans

  20. The castle

  21. Meetings and partings

  22. On the other side

  23. Varomor

  24. Falling apart

  25. Endless arguments

  26. New secrets

  27. “If we let this to happen …”

  28. The lost tribe

  29. The map

  30. Life in the Tower

  31. The secret reveals itself

  32. Meeting the Gods

  33. A special agreement

  34. Dark plans

  35. Shades of the past

  36. Searching for peace

  37. The next day

  38. “Be a good little elven”

  39. A peaceful afternoon

  40. Elnor and Carus

  41. Nightfort

  42. The beginning of the End

  43. Raging forces

  Afterword

  A note about fonts

  Dear Reader,

  In this book, beside the basic font, we use the following fonts to distinguish the different languages in order to enhance your reading experience:

  This is a sentence

  This is a sentence

  This is a sentence

  This is a sentence

  If you turn off the ‘Publisher fonts’ on your Kindle Ereader, these will also be changed into the selected font, but will be typeset in slightly different sizes—try it on this page if you would like to. Please note, this difference in sizes is no error.

  If multiple fonts are not supported on your device (e.g., not compatible and/or older devices), then the same behaviour with the different sizes occurs.

  If you have a problem with this feature or just would like to share an opinion, we are happy to hear your feedback—you can reach us on Facebook and Twitter.

  1. It had begun

  The rain was pouring.

  The storm had reached its peak. The thick rainfall and dark clouds created a gloomy atmosphere in the city; it almost made nightfall despite late afternoon. The wind was blowing tenaciously, making the trees bend and moan in agony. The silver-and-blue bolts often meant the only light source, zigzagging through the sky. One of them struck into the electrical transformer, resulting in a blackout for a short while.

  No ordinary human dared to be on the streets. Only the sirens from the fire engines and ambulances could be heard through the howling of the wind. Many needed help since the gale had wrung out trees from their places or brought down utility poles. In some cases the electric wires broke off, making the wet road a death trap.

  Most victims cursed the terrible weather that made their lives miserable.

  Only one exception existed.

  A girl, who, unlike others, became mesmerised by the storm. She was sitting silently on her bed, elbows on the ledge, gazing at the raging forces through the opened window. She gasped in excitement when a jagged lightning ran through the clouds, followed by a deep thunder shortly after.

  Rita sighed absently.

  She just loved these kinds of big, strong, uncontrollable natural phenomena. She often wondered why though, because most people she knew only cursed such weather. She, however, thought that storms always gave life after leaving, no matter how much destruction they had caused. She saw their magnificent beauty; it almost literally hypnotised her.

  Rita had never understood the fuss about news that some people had died because of a ‘natural disaster’. Mother Nature was there first, then came the people. Still, the inhabitants took the occasional casualties as an insult. The media presented these kinds of situations as utter tragedies.

  Because of one person … when we are over seven billion! thought Rita, frowning. The maths was just not adding up. The news shouted all about these kinds of happenings, nonetheless. Occasionally, a newborn baby panda or tiger popped up as the positive side of the world. Who, rather, could thank the humans for their sad fates …

  Overall, Rita could hear about everything but her interests—American hurricanes, Japanese earthquakes, floods, landslides, or firestorms everywhere else. She could not be less interested in the floods in her own country, let alone something that happened thousands of kilometres away. She became fed up to the back teeth with people’s whingeing and complaining. Especially when it was all about the annoyance of the Earth’s disobedience towards humans …

  Rita inhaled deeply into her stomach, then let it out slowly to calm herself. She always got irked by these thoughts, so she tried to dismiss her negativity and rather turned back to the storm. She did not notice the passing time at all, just sat at the window, gazing at nature’s phenomenon. She could almost feel the force behind all of this—the electricity in the air and … something else …

  She admired and at the same time she envied the gales.

  They reminded her about her own smallness and insignificance. Humans were so little and fragile compared to Nature’s forces. Yet Rita did not think that this should be any different. She did not consider the Homo sapiens as a species worthy of a stronger shape.

  Suddenly, the rain halted like it was cut, and the setting Sun peeked through the grey clouds once more. As a result, two perfectly visible rainbows appeared in the sky.

  Rita gazed at them open-mouthed. She felt that this was worth living for. As far as she could tell, these kinds of phenomena rarely happened, and only during summer, when there could be such strong storms as the one that just was.

  The storm came and went as if it had nothing better to do. One could still see lightning and hear thunder in the distance, but the weather became mostly clear now. Rita was completely lost in thought as she watched the Sun set from her window. She did not notice when her name was called. Only her father storming into her room startled her back to the present.

  “Rita! You still … how many times must I tell you, don’t sit at the open window?!” he yelled. She hastily turned to him. “You know how much I hate it when your windows are open in storms like this. You’ll catch a cold or something! Look at your T-shirt, it’s soaking wet!” complained Balint, her father, while she hurriedly closed the window. Then Rita obeyed her father’s wish and put on some dry clothes. As she delved into the wardrobe, Balint absentmindedly stared at the rainbows, tugging his short beard. It was a habit of his when he was lost in thought, and it meant nothing but trouble for Rita.

  “Ready. Why are you here?” asked Rita when she finished changing. Balint looked at her searchingly, making her uneasy. She did not think that the black sweatpants and black T-shirt would be a bad choice for whatever her father wanted her to do.

  She was not a short girl at five feet eight. At home she always tied back her long reddish hair, which was the easiest way to deal with it. She always struggled with her curls, and sometimes she mused upon cutting it to a boyish, short style. Yet Rita had never actually had the courage to do so. Even though she hated her hair
, especially the colour, she knew that her father loved it. It was one of her mother’s heritage.

  “Well …” he started again. “You clearly didn’t hear me the first couple of times, so I repeat—your bloody cat is stuck in a tree, currently miaowing the whole neighbourhood up. Please, get that animal down!”

  Rita stormed out immediately, pacing through the short corridor that started from her room. She loudly trotted down the stairs, picked up a torchlight, and put on a random pair of training shoes. Lastly, she grabbed her keys, then started for outside.

  Their house was on a little side road, next to a narrow ditch. Rita turned on the torchlight and started to look for the cat in the greenery. A moment later Balint joined her with a broom in his hands.

  “She’s on that one,” he said, pointing at a young acacia next to Rita. As soon as she found the cat, it started miaowing again.

  “Shut her up, everybody can hear her!” growled Balint, although he did not have any suggestions on how to do that. A cold breeze gave him goosebumps, and he shivered. He wore only shorts, as up to that moment he had been working in his shop.

  “Alright, calm down, Starlight.” Rita tried to quiet down the cat. She just thought about how on earth her father could know about Starlight if he, as he claimed, worked during the storm? Then she shook her head. It was not important. He always had a good intuition or could feel when something was not right with his loved ones.

  At the moment she should be thinking about how she would get to the cat. The young acacia towered above her, yet it was too thin to support her weight.

  “Maybe I can get her down with the broom,” suggested Balint, which resulted in a disappointed side look from Rita. But there did not seem to be any other solution. After a reluctant nod from Rita, he started shaking the branch with the broom on which Starlight crouched. At first, they just got wet from the raindrops showering them. Balint growled as he wiped a drop out from his eye, then continued. After a moment Starlight had had enough of the shaking branch, and with a calculated jump she landed on her guardian’s shoulder. Rita immediately embraced her and held her tight. She hissed about the cat’s claws digging into her skin, then they returned to the house.

  Rita never understood how cats could climb trees and then be unable to come down. She could not believe that they would not know better.

  “One of these days I’ll strangle her!” rumbled Balint grimly as he tried to lock the gate, standing between the dogs. After they had all entered the house, he also locked the front door.

  Rita just smiled and shrugged as she headed for her room upstairs. She knew how much her father loved their animals. They both did. She swallowed a laugh when her father shouted after her that she should not forget to dry Starlight with a towel, or else she could catch a cold. After Rita promised, she shut the door of her room tight. She fed Starlight—everything regarding the cat was in her room—who wolfed down her dinner.

  Rita got rid of her wet clothes. After a little thinking and hesitating, she put on her comfortable pyjamas. It was still early, but she had never liked changing all the time. She picked up her smartphone from the nightstand next to her bed, put in the headsets, and listened to some music. Then she got under the covers and looked around absently.

  Dim light occupied her room because her father shut the shades before he joined her outside. In a few minutes, Starlight joined her, licking her mouth, purring. She was obviously satisfied. She curled up between Rita’s shins and groomed herself a bit more. Then the purring stopped. She was asleep.

  Rita sighed in envy. She would not have minded if she could fall asleep like that. Some of her friends could do the same, even in public places like the school. Or when one had just an hour of nothing to do, and they could doze off to spend that time. Rita just stared at them, utterly baffled.

  Rita was never able to do that, nor to sleep eight or more hours at night. Some of her friends actually envied her ability to function with five or six hours of sleep, tops. However, Rita herself never considered this as such an accomplishment. This meant that she had too much time on her hands, which sometimes turned out to be a good thing, but mostly she just thought too much.

  She glanced purposelessly around her room, occasionally humming the tune she listened to. Even the thought of sleep eluded her completely. It was the end of August, thus school was about to start. Regardless, this was not the reason for her sleeplessness, more like a Feeling …

  A Feeling that ran over her every autumn. As the cold weather and colourful leaves arrived, they somehow brought this Feeling with them in every single autumn in the past three years, as if it knew Rita was the most vulnerable in this period. It ate itself into her mind and did not let go for a long time, tormenting her.

  Rita tried to describe, to categorise this strange Feeling from the first moment she felt it, unsuccessfully. She only knew that it bubbled up from somewhere deep within her, and that she could hardly restrain it. Every year, the Feeling came back relentlessly, with even more strength than the last time, as if it knew its victory was only a matter of time. Of which it had plenty, apparently. The battle against it was always difficult, long, and exhausting. Rita did not know why she wanted to confine it, only that she must. At least, if she did not want her ordinary life to change.

  Rita snorted.

  She was deceiving herself; she knew it in her heart. She never was ‘normal’, nor lived the same life as her fellow students. It was no mystery why she became abandoned by her own kind.

  Rita always thought about things, things that were of no interest to others. Or about concepts that nobody wanted to face and accept. She made peculiar discoveries about everything she encountered, evolving those theories as she lived through life. Although she was never keen on sharing these ideas of hers. In the rare occasions that she forgot about herself and did talk, people gave her disapproving side looks and grimaces, even her so-called friends. At other times, Rita accidentally corrected somebody in their faulty views or made a side note in a matter.

  Then she never heard the end of it … not because she was not right about the thing, but because people did not tolerate, nor like to be corrected in any way.

  As a result, Rita was alone, forming her thoughts in silence, rather than living life in its fullness. Whatever that meant, she added grimly. She had never cared for her fellow students’ folly, so she turned to her inside world. Especially when autumn arrived and brought school with it. At the same time, Rita started to feel more and more uneasy. She just could not find her place.

  Rita shuddered in her bed when autumn and the Feeling came to her mind. There was no way she could elude it, she knew that much. She had tried that before and failed. And nobody could know what it would bring this year.

  I could contain it last time, but what if I cannot do it now …? I was almost defeated the last time, she thought. Then a new idea came through. What if I let it win? she asked herself. As a result, a chill ran down her spine. Somehow Rita knew if she let the Feeling win, it would mean many strange happenings for her.

  But why not? I wanted something exciting all my life, she mused. Rita felt rather than knew that she was different from the others. She could delude herself no more with the thought that until three years ago she was normal. I was never normal, she assumed with a lopsided smile.

  She could not have known how much her life would be altered because of her decision.

  2. The school

  The school bell rang.

  It meant that the classes were about to begin, so the students hurried to their seats. Their teacher was one of the few punctual ones.

  As soon as the last student took his place, the classroom door opened, and the teacher strode in. As he got to his desk in front of the room and turned to his class, everybody fell silent. Jonas Axe stood there straight, holding the class’ logbook. When he was convinced that everybody would stay silent, he sat down at the desk in a lively manner. He had very energetic movements; he did everything with big gestures. I
t was quite a sight because of his tall, slender body with arms and legs that were a bit too long.

  Jonas Axe opened the logbook at the right page, wrote up the missing people, then looked up. Silently, he peered around the classroom with a too-serious gaze, which resulted in soft chuckles everywhere. His short red hair stood up in every direction possible, emphasising his blue eyes; his face looked like it had been carved with an axe …

  “Well, well, I can see that nobody learned proper manners during the summer,” he said in a fine baritone as he stood up. He wore slightly bigger clothes than needed, which were also quite outmoded. His trousers were a bit short, paired with brightly coloured socks and black shoes. Under his streaked waistcoat lay a one-coloured shirt with a very unusually patterned bow tie.

  His unusual wardrobe still was nothing compared to his personality. He had at least twenty different gazes and twice as many mimics, each meaning various things. He was a true rarity in the Coloman, the learned high school in Székesfehérvár.

  “So,” he continued. “What class is this? And what shall I teach?” he asked absently, although everybody knew he was perfectly aware of both answers.

  “It’s the eleven’s B class, and biology,” whispered a helpful young man, although Jonas Axe had already stormed out of the room, as if he intended to leave, and looked up at the number on the classroom door.

  “Sixty-sixth.” The students heard the teacher’s muffled murmur. Then he marched back to his desk, closing the door with a somewhat quiet thud. “So this is the classroom of the eleven’s B class, and if I can recall correctly, today’s Wednesday, and their first class is biology with Jonas Axe.”

  He announced this information evenly, as if reciting a chant. As soon as he was finished, he froze in one place, just next to his desk, which stood before the board on the wall. Slowly, with one index finger pointing up, he turned back to the students. Then he leaned on the desk with his right arm, left hand akimbo, and declared his conclusion.