by Mike Shelton
Roland had reached out to Bakari when he had been trapped in the Citadel through some other power. He had ran across the lines of the true power—the power of the spirit—the power that the dragons and other magical creatures held. He needed to do more research on that. The true power could help him become the most powerful wizard not only in Alaris but maybe even in the southern kingdoms.
Walking back into the Citadel, Roland was greeted by a group of four guards, who instantly followed behind him. Grabbing his formal golden cloak from a hook in the hallway and running his hand over his chin-length blond hair, Roland made one last stop before meeting with the delegation.
If they had brought five wizards with them, he would bring more. It was, he anticipated, going to be a showdown of power between the two groups. So Roland sent guards to have three council members join him—one from each discipline of magic—Jandon, Analeyea, and Eryck.
Roland poked his head into the common room and called Gorn to follow him also. The man had said he was retired after the battle in Celestar, but Gorn had proven his worth and loyalty. And having someone as large and solid as him in the room wouldn’t hurt either. Along with a young and promising apprentice, named Loreleigh, and Tam, who would already be in the room, Roland would have six other wizards with himself.
A servant opened the double doors, allowing Roland’s guards to enter first. Then Roland took long strides into the room to meet the southern wizards. The additional wizards at his back had the intended effect, and all five of the visitors stood up at once. Though, one, a brown-haired man, seemingly in his mid-thirties and the youngest of the visiting group, did take more time in doing so.
Standing in the middle of the room, on an ancient but colorful rug, Roland spread his hands wide and said, “Welcome to the Citadel.” Then he put on his best and broadest smile for his guests.
The brown-haired man stepped forward. His eyes were wide with surprise. “Younger than you thought, huh?” Roland asked him.
The man nodded slowly and then seemed to come to grips with the situation. “Sir, I am Caylb, and these are my companions. Greetings from the Sanctuary.”
Roland stuck out his hand and shook Caylb’s hand in the Alaris way, one-handed, but Caylb wrapped both of his hands around Roland’s one. Roland felt a jolt of power, and a tendril of darkness was trying to sneak into his mind. Closing his thoughts off, Roland slammed a barrier in the way.
Then Roland took a step back and said, “Is that how you greet everyone, Caylb? By trying to get into their minds? You won’t find that so easy here.”
The man grinned only briefly, as if he had finally been caught, and said, “It is our way in the Sanctuary. There are no secrets there. Please excuse my ignorance of your customs.”
Two women from Quentis stepped up beside their apparent leader. Roland surveyed them all, extending this moment of silence. The last two from Quentis, who looked to be a man and a woman, stood in the back, their heads bowed.
Roland reached his power out tentatively toward the two, barely scraping the edges of their powers. They were both extremely powerful, more so than the three wizards standing up front.
Pushing through to the two in the back, Roland stood in front of them until they raised their heads. He did all he could to not jump back as he surveyed their golden eyes. A power—not exactly the same as but definitely related to the Chameleon’s—shined forth from them. These were the dangerous ones in the group; Caylb was just a front.
Instinctively, Roland threw up a wall of magic between the two wizards and himself. Bringing up their own hands, the two called forth a dark power, gray mist flowing from their fingertips. The mist pushed against Roland’s wall but did not penetrate it.
“I have felt the power of the dark before, Wizards,” Roland said. “I will not fall prey to it so easily this time.”
Roland motioned for the rest of his wizards to surround the group. But memories of being held in the rooms below the Citadel and of having his magic be taken away by the Chameleon rose up in Roland’s mind. He was, admittedly, a little intrigued by their power, but he would not bow to it again.
“I know you feel a longing for our power, Roland Tyre,” the woman with the golden eyes almost purred.
Roland strengthened the barrier between himself and them. Whether he was interested in the power or not, he wasn’t going to be forced or manipulated by it.
So Roland replied, “We have more than enough wizards at our disposal to stop you, here at the Citadel.” Roland ground his teeth with the extra effort it was costing him to keep their tendrils of evil magic away from himself and from the rest of the group.
Without their noticing, Tam had crept behind the two. Bringing out two daggers, he twisted them in his hands and with handle held out from him, hit both of the wizards hard in the head. Immediately, their dark magic retreated, and they slumped to the floor.
Caylb and the two female wizards with him moved to stop Tam, but it was too late. Analeyea and Gorn, two battle wizards with Roland, intervened and wrapped a spell of magic around the three visitors, stopping them in their tracks.
“That is enough!” Roland yelled at the wizards from Quentis.
The two wizards on the floor began to awaken, but Tam and Loreleigh tied them up and kept them from striking out. Then Roland motioned for Tam to haul them up onto their feet again, and he strode over in front of them.
“We accepted you here as our guests—one wizard academy to another—and this is how you greet us. Is this what wizardry has turned into while we were behind the barrier? Explain yourselves. Now.”
The woman with golden eyes held her chin high, her short, graying hair framing her elderly face. “I am Deganya,” she said with a slight accent that turned their vowels short. “And my companion is Hyam. You will bow to our master, Young Wizard, or we will wipe your Citadel off the face of the earth.”
Roland was taken aback by the woman’s boldness for a moment, then he let out a laugh and said, “Bold claims for someone in your position.”
“Our master works through us and will deliver us,” Hyam said when he spoke for the first time. His low, raspy voice did not fit his younger, smooth face as he added, “We are prepared to die for his cause.”
Roland flipped his hand out. “Well, that’s stupid of you. Why would you die for someone else’s cause? You look hardly older than me. You are prepared to throw away your life for some master?”
Hyam opened his eyes wider and seemed to be thinking about what Roland had said. With less vehemence in his voice, he continued, “You do not understand the way of our master.”
Roland saw that he might be breaking down Hyam’s resolve and decided to continue breaking down the man, but then Caylb spoke again.
“Our master rewards us for our deeds. His power is greater than yours.” Caylb tried to take a step forward, but Tam held him in place.
Roland turned to regard the outspoken wizard. “And, what is your reward?”
As he watched Caylb turn and look into the eyes of Hyam and Deganya, Roland understood.
“Ah, I see, the eyes.” Roland turned back to Caylb. “They are a sign of the power. You want eyes that glow.”
Caylb smiled and nodded. “You don’t understand the power.”
Roland was getting tired of this conversation and of people telling him that he didn’t understand power. He would show these renegade wizards what true power was.
Reaching deep inside himself, he found his reservoir of power. Briefly, thoughts of when it was taken from him by the Chameleon ran through his mind. But that just gave Roland a stronger resolve to show these wizards what he could do.
Then Eryck stepped up to Roland and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, this is not the time,” the senior wizard whispered. Roland shook his head. Eryck had been a good advisor but was as timid as a mouse, never wanting to show forth the power at their disposal.
“Now is the perfect time,” Roland said. “I will show these wizards and their master wha
t they are up against.”
As sweet power filled him, his senses expanded. Roland could hear the birds outside and the whispers of servants out in the hallways. His vision picked out every thread in the tapestries hanging on the wall in front of him. The ocean scene in one tapestry seemed to come alive in front of him. He smelled the dirt on the travelers’ robes, identifying the regions they had traveled through to arrive here. He pulled this all up inside of himself.
His gold cloak floated around him with winds of power as Roland held his hands up in the air. Then golden light surrounded him, and he breathed in deeply. As he did so, the other wizards of the Citadel stepped backward, and those from Quentis watched him, their eyes wide open.
The golden power came out from Roland and wrapped itself around the five intruding wizards, bringing them tighter against each other. Hyam fell to the floor in obvious agony. And Roland could feel the evil in the man fighting and pushing against Roland’s own magic.
“So much power,” Caylb said in fear. “I never knew.”
Roland nodded. “Your master is not the only one with power, Caylb.”
“But how?” the man inquired, a desire to know shining through his eyes. “I thought our master and his brothers had the greatest powers.”
Roland faltered for a second. “And his brothers? Who is this master of yours?”
When no one answered, Roland stepped closer to Deganya and squeezed his power around her mind. She grimaced and fought to stay in control.
“He is one of three,” she finally said. “Brothers who will rule the world under their father, the true wizard king.” Then Deganya spat at Roland.
Three? Roland thought. The Chameleon must be getting around. Was he only one person? Or, were there, in fact, three of them?
“Brothers, you say?” Roland asked.
“Three men of such enormous power that you will shrink in their presence,” Deganya continued. “At this time, they are gathering followers—wizards and kingdoms all over the West.”
Roland thought about his encounters with the Chameleon and paled, thinking about having three of them loose on the world. He pulled more power into himself and then opened himself up to the specific stream of power that he had felt one time before, when he had called for Bakari to come and help him.
Riding on that stream of power, Roland felt Bakari’s presence farther north. A sadness enveloped his friend’s soul at the loss of his dragon. But Roland could feel the dragon farther west of Bakari. Then Roland felt Alli’s presence to the south, in Quentis. She and Jaimon were in trouble there. Roland ground his teeth in frustration, but he knew that he couldn’t do anything about it at the moment. The last presence Roland felt was Breelyn’s. She had just left him days ago. Breelyn was east, in Solshi. But, as Roland got closer to her presence, he noticed a flare of darkness around her.
Suddenly, in the room around Roland, an evil presence appeared. Hyam stood back up, his lips pulled back as if someone else were controlling his actions.
“Feel my power, boy,” Hyam said.
Within moments, a black fog had surrounded the five wizards from Quentis and an evil presence was filling Roland’s magical mind. Then Tam fell backward and let out a loud scream.
“Wizards, attend me,” Roland ordered, to get the others to supplement his power. Additional white light filled his being, and he pushed back against the darkness. Then he pulled additional power from his fellow wizards and dug deeper into the stream of magic. He sensed others there also, other wizards in faraway places farther north: a king, an emperor, and a female wizard, who all flared brightly in the stream of magic. Their control of the mind, the heart, and the earth was amazing. They joined with Roland now to push back the evil darkness.
Yellow eyes flew into the darkness, trying to control his mind, and Roland felt a crack opening in his own power.
“Noooo,” he yelled out loud.
In front of him, Hyam and Deganya broke free of the Citadel wizards’ control. Bringing their hands up, Hyam and Deganya sent out evil tendrils of black power, as thick as ropes. These tendrils clung to Roland’s legs and began to wind their way up his torso, enveloping his body in blackness. But his mind held strong.
Slowly but surely, Roland felt his body begin to convulse. His breathing slowed, and his heart began to skip beats. He realized that his body was dying, succumbing to the evil power of the Chameleon and his brothers. But Roland’s spirit soared through the stream of magic, gathering as much power as he could.
As Roland’s physical eyes began to close, Roland watched Tam stand back up and come to his aid. Tam tried to pull off the black tendrils that were encasing Roland’s fragile physical body.
“High Wizard, no!” Tam yelled. “Fight it!”
But Roland knew that he couldn’t fight off both the physical and the mental attacks. He had to choose one or the other. So, to not have his soul fall victim to the evil blackness, Roland had to let his body fail. He took one last deep breath as the dark gloom covered his body, then felt and heard himself fall to the floor among the screams of the other wizards in the room.
At the moment of his body’s collapse, his mental and spiritual senses increased, and Roland knew exactly where the Chameleon and his brothers were—Quentis, the Realm, and Solshi. Their evil emanated from those points, and Roland felt fear creep through his soul as he realized that the dragon riders were there.
Running to a corner of the stream of magic, Roland burrowed himself in deeper and covered himself with layers upon layers of magic. He would have to hide from the evil until he could figure out a way to save the world from their mad plans.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bakari leaned over the back railing of the governor’s medium-sized ship and watched Belor fade into the distance behind him. Not ever having been on this style of ship before, he only knew that it was a medium-sized ship because he had seen larger and smaller ones in the small port off of Belor.
“Rather than head straight up the coast,” their captain informed Bakari, “we will be heading out east, into the ocean, and then turning around and heading back in a northwesterly direction to reach White Island.”
Watching the water speed by underneath the ship reminded Bakari of flying on Abylar. He clenched his mouth tight and tried to push these thoughts to the side of his mind. This was the only way he could handle it. His pain from the loss of their bond was still too great.
He felt traitorous by moving farther away from his dragon rather than searching for him. But once again duty called. And, in the deepest pit of his stomach, Bakari knew that he needed to go north and find the other dragon and its rider first.
Just that morning, he had felt a lurching of the magic inside him. Letting his mind roam the magical stream, Bakari had felt the frantic touches of Roland, who once again appeared to be in trouble. A dark magic was chasing after Roland. Bakari had wanted to help him, but then, at that moment, the captain had informed Bakari and the governor that their ship was ready to be boarded. Roland would have to learn to take care of himself, for Bakari couldn’t help everyone at once.
Feeling a firm hand on his shoulder, Bakari turned to find the governor standing next to him. The governor’s smile was infectious, and Bakari smiled back.
“Looks like you’re lost in some thoughts,” the governor said. “Your jaw was so stiff I thought it would break.”
Bakari let out a deep sigh and glanced around. They were alone—well, as alone as you could get on a ship. “Sometimes, being a dragon king is not as glorious as it sounds, Governor.” He stared down at the ship’s deck.
Then the governor said, “Call me Kelln, Dragon King.” As Kelln smiled, Bakari couldn’t help laughing. The governor’s attitude clearly brought out the best in people.
“Please just call me Bakari, or Bak, if you prefer. It’s hard to be a dragon king without a dragon.”
“You are not the Dragon King because of your dragon, Bak. You are a dragon king because your heart is as big as a dragon. I can
tell… You are a good person who wants to do what is right.”
A wave hit the side of the ship and sprayed a cool mist over the two of them. Kelln backed away from the stern’s edge, motioning Bakari to follow him.
As they strode toward the passenger cabins, Bakari continued, “But I can’t be everywhere and help everyone at once.”
Kelln nodded his head. “That is a heavy duty you bear, Son. You can burn yourself out that way. You told me you stabilized Alaris, the rest will come also—in time. You say you are the answer to prophecy.”
Bakari ducked his head as they went back down underneath the deck toward a small galley to find some food.
“I don’t know much about prophecy,” Bakari said. “Seems that I should have a say in things.”
Kelln laughed. “That sounds just like my friend Darius. When he was younger, the Cremelinos had a prophecy about him—though, he didn’t know it was about him at first. He wanted to make his own way and his own choices. But, in the end, it worked out well enough. He is the king and has been a good one!”
They found the galley and watched the cook scramble around for a moment, getting ready for the evening meal.
“You like fish?” the cook asked as he turned to Bakari.
Bakari turned his head toward Kelln then back to the cook again. “Sure. I guess so. I used to eat river trout in Cassian.”
“Ever had ocean salmon, baked in an oven?” The cook’s eyes twinkled, his oversized belly shaking with delight.
“No.” Bakari shook his head. “I didn’t know you could bake on a ship.”
“Well, we didn’t used to bring fire on a ship,” the cook said. “You know, being wood and all. But our illustrious governor has a history of working with metals and invented a metal oven that works on a ship.” The cook winked at Kelln. “I heard that his friend, the king, infused it with some type of magic, which keeps it from getting too hot on the outside and burning up the ship.”
