The Dark Shadow of Spring

by G. L. Breedon

  The thought hung in his mind like some ripe and familiar fruit ready to fall from its tree. What did it mean? What memory could it lead to? What about a pure soul? Did Nina need to have a pure soul? Did he need one to make a rune-spell that would free her? If only he could release the invisible restraints that bound her. But how was she bound? Was it her body that was bound? Surely not, if the Shadow Wraith was the source of the magic. Then what held her immobile and seemingly lifeless? Not lifeless, but as though a cloak had been thrown over her life force. Her life essence masked. Her soul covered. “Yes!” Alex said aloud, seeing clearly the problem and what he hoped was a solution. But he would need to see the problem more than theoretically.

  Alex rose and stood next to Nina’s bed, staring down at her. He focused his breathing and his mind and tried to clear all his thoughts away but one. A memory more than a thought. A memory of what looking at his own astral form and that of Batami had been like. What he had seen and how. He tried to see with those same astral eyes, even as his physical eyes were wide open. Tried to see the spirit nature of his sister stretched out on the bed before him. He expected it to happen slowly, but it was as though he were looking at some optical illusion where one second you are staring at an old woman’s head and the next you are seeing a young woman in a dress.

  In that instant, Alex found himself staring down at Nina, glowing a pale, ashy blue. He was seeing her astral body. And as he stared, he noticed something at the center of her chest. Something darker than the luminescence that surrounded it. It looked like a tiny ball of blackness at the center of Nina’s heart. As he examined it more closely, he saw that the blackness was not solid, but was like thick, viscous oil covering something underneath. Something that occasionally managed to break though the oily surface and shine briefly, like a firefly trapped in blackstrap molasses.

  Alex did not need to be told what this was. He knew instinctively that it was his sister’s very subtle essence. Her soul-essence. As he stared at the black ooze that held it captive, a rune-word came to his lips and as it did, he reached out for the magical energy of the land and focused it with his willpower into the word.

  “Jah-Ne-Pha-Elon,” Alex said aloud and concentrated on the blackness cloaking his sister’s soul. “Jah-Ne-Pha-Elon,” he repeated and watched in near amazement as the vile substance began to evaporate faster and faster until all that remained was a pearlescent miniature sun blazing with a clear white light.

  “No!” Nina gasped and sat up in bed, her hands raised in fists as though to defend herself. Alex was so startled his vision abruptly returned to normal.

  “Nina!” Alex cried and wrapped his sister in his arms. “It’s okay now.”

  “What happened?” Nina asked. “I was having a nightmare of being held down while wicked creatures…And I couldn’t move. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s okay now,” Alex said. “It was the Shadow Wraith.” He explained what had happened.

  “You saved me,” Nina said, her eyes filled with tears as she clutched at her brother’s nightshirt.

  “You’d have done the same thing,” Alex said.

  “But I wouldn’t have known how,” Nina answered, her voice soft.

  “You can help me,” Alex said. “We need to rescue Mom next.”

  Alex found that the spell was actually easier the second time as he freed his mother from the Shadow Wraith’s magic. His mother clasped him and Nina to her chest as she wiped tears from her eyes.

  “Thank you, Alex,” his mother said. “Thank you for saving your sister from that. And me.”

  Alex didn’t know what to say as he felt the wave of relief flood through him and his own eyes began to tear up. A noise from below caused all three of them to turn their heads in unison.

  “Dad,” Alex said and leapt from his parents bed. Moments later, all three were dashing down the stairs to greet his father. His father’s arms swept his mother off the floor as he kissed her. As he placed her feet to the floorboards, Alex could see his father’s eyes glisten in the early morning light.

  “Sophia,” was all that his father said, the tone of his voice carrying the deep concern that could not be put into words. Releasing Alex’s mother, he knelt and embraced Nina, stroking her hair gently.

  “Alex saved us,” Nina said as her father let her go.

  “How?” his father said, staring in surprise at Alex.

  “I got lucky,” Alex said, not with modesty, but with honesty. It had been lucky to remember the correct rune when he needed it most.

  “He is a Spirit Mage, after all,” his mother said, her voice quavering with pride.

  “So he is,” his father said as he reached out and held Alex’s face with the palm of his calloused hand. Alex felt the pride of his mother and father flowing into him like cool spring water into an empty cistern. It gave him more confidence than he had ever known.

  “What’s happening in town?” Alex asked, feeling uncomfortable as the center of attention.

  “It’s bad,” his father said, standing up to his full height. “A third of the town is missing and another third is held captive in their dreams. The mayor, for good or bad, is awake. He has ordered a full town meeting to assemble at the town hall as soon as everyone can be gathered.”

  “Are they going to seal the cave?” Alex asked, his voice urgent.

  “That’s what I’ll be recommending,” his father said, his face hardening into a rock of determination. “It will take all the mages we can find, I suspect, but getting them to agree to it may be the hardest part. Even if they believe, they may be too afraid.”

  “You have to convince them, Dad,” Alex said.

  “I will,” his father replied. “I should go.”

  “You’re not going without me,” his mother said, pulling a long overcoat from a hook near the kitchen door and slipping it on as she thrust her feet into a pair of old work boots.

  “You’re hardly dressed,” his father said, frowning at his mother.

  “We’re wearing more than we were that time in Peru,” his mother replied with a fierce stare.

  “Yes, we are,” his father said, a smile nearly cracking the stone-like features of his face. “What about the children?”

  “I need to go with you,” Alex said, knowing that, while it was as true as any truth could be, he had no hope of convincing his parents of the rightness of the statement.

  “Like hell you do,” his father snapped. “You’ve put yourself in enough danger for two lifetimes.”

  “The both of you will stay here,” his mother said, staring into Alex’s eyes with a wild intent and she kissed him and his sister. “We’ll cast spells to ward the house against danger when we leave and you will be here when we get back or there will be hell to pay.”

  “You can’t cast spells against the Spirit Magic of the Shadow Wraith,” Alex said defiantly.

  “Maybe not,” his father conceded as he kissed Alex and Nina on the foreheads. “But we can cast spells to keep you here. So, you will stay here and keep your sister safe. And Nina, I’m counting on you to make sure your brother doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “That’s too big a job for someone my size,” Nina said.

  “Let’s go,” his mother said, taking their staves from the wall and tossing one to his father.

  “Yes,” his father said, snatching the staff from the air with a snap of his wrist. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  With a wave from his mother and a look from his father that seemed intended to root him to where he stood for a year, Alex’s parents departed. Alex stood silently for nearly a full minute staring at the door before he spoke.

  “We have to go to the cave and seal it,” Alex said.

  “How am I supposed to keep you from doing something stupid if you start out like that?” Nina asked in mock seriousness.

  “You know what the town meetings are like,” Alex said with contempt. “Even with Dad and Mom hounding him, it will take the mayor hours to decide that this is really t
he work of the Shadow Wraith and it will take even longer to get everyone with enough backbone up to the cave to do the job. By that time, anything could happen.”

  “Okay,” Nina said, “but how do we get out of the house? You heard Mom and Dad. They cast spells to warn them if we leave.”

  “I was saving this for sometime when I really needed it,” Alex said, “but I can’t imagine that I’ll ever need it more than I do now.”

  “Saving what?” Nina asked, her curiosity rising with the pitch of her voice.

  “You’ll see,” Alex said. “First, we need to get dressed and pack some supplies. And contact the rest of the Guild.”

  “Mumbling marbles,” Nina said as her eyes lit up.

  “Exactly,” Alex said as they raced upstairs. They skidded into Alex’s room and he snatched the large blue marble from his dresser top and plopped it into his mouth.

  “Mah menemon mear me?” Alex asked, trying to speak as clearly as possible with the marble in his mouth.

  “Moo miss mith?” Alex heard a voice in his head say. He thought is sounded like Victoria.

  “Mith mis Malex,” he said aloud.

  “Mime smoo mlad mlour mafe,” Victoria said in his head.

  It took a few minutes of mumbled conversation, but Alex was eventually able to determine that Victoria, Clark, and Rafael were all safe, but he could make no contact at all with Ben or Daphne. He hoped that meant they were soul bound in their beds as Nina and his mother had been. The alternative was much less pleasant. Alex told the others to meet him at the Guild House as soon as they could. Clark’s parents were both trapped in sleep, while Victoria’s father had gone to the town hall, and Rafael’s aunt had been missing when he awoke.

  “Now we make our escape,” Alex said as he started to dress.

  “You’re not going to tell me how, are you?” Nina said with a pout.

  “That would ruin the surprise,” Alex said as he pulled on his shirt.

  Nina wasn’t pleased with not being told Alex’s plan in advance, but she dressed as quickly as he did and helped him stuff two small backpacks with everything they could think they might need, from rope and apples to snack on to magic pocket knives and a canteen of water apiece. Then Alex led Nina down to the basement.

  “You have a magic closet in the basement?” Nina said, wiping cobwebs away with a look of annoyance, but a hint of excitement in her voice.

  “Don’t I wish,” Alex said with a sigh. “Although someone must have used magic to make it, this isn’t a magic door. But it should avoid any enchantments that Mom and Dad might have placed on the house.” Alex walked to a section of the basement wall and pushed on a particular cinderblock near the floor. With a slight grating noise, a section of the wall the size of a small door slid open. Behind the door stretched a pitch-black tunnel.

  “You dug a tunnel under the house!” Nina exclaimed in shock. “Mom and Dad are going to ground you forever when they find out.”

  “First,” Alex said, taking a magic glow-wand from his backpack and causing it to blaze, “we’re going to be back before mom and dad know we’re gone. And second, I found it, I didn’t make it. It must have been built by the original owners.”

  “Cool,” Nina said, following Alex into the tunnel as he closed the door behind them. “Where does it go?”

  “Right into the Guild House,” Alex said, leading his sister down the small, brick-walled tunnel. “The Guild House was a horse barn before it was a tool shed and then we turned it into the Guild House. Someone must have made the tunnel to get to the horses in the winter without going outside.”

  “Must have been a house for dwarves,” Nina said, ducking her head at a loose brick hanging down from the ceiling.

  “Maybe the groomsman was a dwarf,” Alex said. “Or maybe they were too lazy to dig it any bigger. Here it is.” Alex opened a sliding brick door like the one they had passed through and led his sister into the small cellar beneath the Guild House. They climbed up a shaky ladder and opened a trap door into the main room. They only had to wait a few minutes before Victoria arrived.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Victoria said, grabbing Alex in a hug before he knew what was happening. “Both of you,” Victoria continued as she released Alex and hugged his sister.

  “It’s good to see you too,” Alex said. “What’s in the saddle cases?” he asked, pointing to the leather bags that hug from the sides of the horse half of her centaur body.

  “Just a few things I grabbed from Daddy’s workshop in case we ran into trouble,” Victoria said. Alex smiled, appreciating that Victoria was the kind of person who liked to think ahead as much as he did.

  A moment later, Rafael and Clark burst into the room and hugs were again traded between the Guild members.

  “I know this will sound odd coming from me,” Rafael said to Alex, his voice tight with worry, “but I really hope you have a plan.”

  “Hmff,” Clark grunted in agreement.

  “Oh, I have a plan alright,” Alex said, looking around at the others and trying to project the sense of confidence he had felt while he was standing in the kitchen with his parents. “If we’re lucky, we’ll only have to use the first part of it.”

  Chapter 21: Cavernous Calamity

  Alex and his friends rode their bikes as fast as they could along the dirt path that climbed up the side of the Black Bone Mountains toward the cave that was the Shadow Wraith’s lair. Victoria brought up the rear of the procession, the path not being wide enough for her to gallop beside them.

  The first part of Alex’s plan was to find Daphne and Ben, because they were essential if the second part of his plan didn’t work. And if that happened, and he couldn’t find Ben and Daphne, he didn’t know what he could do to stop the Shadow Wraith.

  They had stopped briefly at both Ben and Daphne’s homes, hoping to find them trapped in slumber, but neither had been present and both houses had been empty, which could only mean that they and their parents were at the cave with the others missing from town. As Alex pedaled along the path through the trees, he tried to discern a pattern to those who were trapped in their beds, their souls bound by dark Spirit Magic, and those whose souls had been taken over and controlled by the Shadow Wraith. There seemed to be no reason for one person to be taken over and controlled and another held captive.

  Alex was certain those who had gone missing over the past week and in the last few hours were under the control of the Shadow Wraith, their souls enslaved by magic similar to what had held his mother and sister bound against their wills. It must take enormous power to control that many people all at once. Maybe that was the reason for holding some in slumber. The Shadow Wraith’s power was still limited. It could not control the souls of the whole town, so it tried to hold those it could not easily control in a state where they could offer no resistance. But even that had stretched its power thin, leaving some of the townspeople unaffected. That was a good sign, Alex thought. The Shadow Wraith would need all its power to control the townspeople and lead them in an attack. That would leave it weakened and less able to protect the cave and the magical seal that needed to be fixed.

  When they were about a half mile from the cave, they dismounted from their bikes and hid them in the underbrush, continuing onward through the woods, away from the path. Alex wanted to approach the clearing around the cave cautiously and scout the situation before deciding the next steps. They moved slowly and silently in between the trees, Alex taking the lead, followed by his sister, Nina, then Victoria, Clark, and finally Rafael.

  “I hear something,” Rafael said in a low voice. They had learned in their many adventures that the sound of a whisper could sometimes carry farther than a simple, quiet voice. Alex stopped and crouched down low to the ground as he gestured for everyone else to do the same.

  Through the trees, Alex could see people walking two by two around a curve in the main path. Mr. Fallowtooth, his teacher of Magical Principles, walked beside Ms. Mapledown, the town carpenter. They were
walking in much the same way that Alex had seen Anna shuffling toward the cave the night before, with blank faces and stiff movements. They were followed by a parade of people from the town who had disappeared in the early morning hours just past.

  Alex glanced at Nina and the others hidden beside him in the low underbrush. Their faces were filled with horror. He saw Rafael’s face tighten and his eyes go wide. Alex looked to see Rafael’s aunt among those shambling through the woods. It was as if they were marching. Not with martial movements, but with a synchronization of step that made it clear what they were — The Shadow Wraith’s army. At the back of the column of soul-bound soldiers came the Shadow Wraith’s surrogate, a billowing cloud of soot-black shadow mass, churning through the air behind the enslaved townspeople, seeming to drive them on like some malevolent shepherd with a herd of sacrificial sheep.

  Alex held his breath, willing his mind to remain blank for fear that the Shadow Wraith’s proxy creature would be able to sense his presence. Moment blended into endless moment as he waited for the shadow creature and the townspeople it controlled to pass out of sight. When they were finally gone around the curve of the woodland path, Alex breathed a long, silent sigh of relief.

  “Is that the creature you saw outside my house?” Victoria asked, her voice a quiet rasp filled with fear.

  “Yes,” Alex said, placing a comforting hand on Victoria’s arm where she knelt behind a fallen tree.

  “And you ran toward that to make sure I was safe,” Victoria said, staring at Alex with eyes he was afraid to look into for too long.

  “I’ve never been very bright,” Alex said.

  “But you are very brave,” Victoria said, placing her hand on his. “Both of you,” she continued, looking toward Nina, who squirmed with embarrassment under the young centaur’s gaze.

  “We’re going to need a lot of bravery,” Rafael said, “if we’re going to save the town from that.”

  “Hmmm, what’s next, Lex?” Clark said, standing up.

  “The cave,” was all that Alex said. No one said anything in reply.