The Watcher Key (Descendants of Light Book 1)

by Troy Hooker

  Flat on his back on the sandy forest floor, Sam opened his eyes to find the old woman standing over him, palms outstretched, a pulsing blue beam of light extending from her palm to his chest.

  “Who are yeh?” she said in a low gruff voice.

  She looked directly at him, unlike before.

  “I—I…you don’t remember? My name is Sam! You just got done telling me about the Ayet Sal!” he choked out.

  “Boy, I don’ know who yeh are, but yeh need to neve’ sneak up on an ol’ woman,” she barked. “An’ I don’ know nothin’ about Ayet Sal, ‘cept it’s a place yeh don’ wanna be.”

  Sam tried to move, but the beam held him securely to the ground.

  “A place? You told me it was a person.”

  She seemed to see his evident frustration with restriction of movement and recognized that he wasn’t a threat, so she released the light on his chest. The flowing light particles disappeared back into her palm and Sam was free once again.

  “Boy, I think yeh need to check yer facts. There ain’ no Descendant nor Watcher—Light no’ Dark—that want ta’ go to Ayet Sal.” She eyed him curiously with her bright yellow eyes. “Yeh bes’ be gettin’ back, alrigh? This fores’ may be property of Lior—buncha’ ignoran’ fools—but it’s still gots’ its potential fo’ problems yeh want nothin’ a part of.”

  Sam thought about pressing her for more information, but it was obvious that the dazed woman with the glassy eyes was no longer with them.

  “Yeah, thanks. Sorry if I startled yeh … I mean you,” he corrected himself quickly.

  “Think nothin’ of it, boy,” she mumbled a little less gruffly this time. Then she turned and hobbled around a rise and a few medium-sized boulders that resembled her same hunched form.

  When Sam made it back inside the City and up the path to the cabin, Emma was sitting long-ways on the bench in the pavilion reading an extra thick book. As he walked up the rise through the trees to the opening, she merely lifted her head in acknowledgment and stuck her nose back in her book.

  “She’s in there waiting for you,” she mumbled snidely.

  Chapter Eight

  City Center

  Emma, I don—” Sam started to say but was stopped by the approaching form of Talister Calpher with his long brown hair and a shiny robe.

  “Samuel! My boy!” Talister smiled largely and held out his hand, which was just as large as his smile. “Are you ready? Oh, maybe you’ll want to clean up a bit, eh?”

  “Uh, yeah, sorry about that,” Sam said quietly, looking down at his dirt-crusted pant leg. He figured the rest of him looked nearly as awful.

  “Not to worry, Sam. Not to worry,” he continued to smile. “Plenty of time ‘till we need to be there! I’ll wait out here and talk to this beautiful young lady here while you get cleaned up.”

  Emma’s face broke into a smile and she immediately began to tell him about how life had been in White Pine, while Sam headed up to the cabin. He walked as slow as he could to catch what she was saying, but couldn’t make it out over the sound of the distant ocean waves.

  He was concentrating so much on what they were saying that when he entered the cabin and kicked his shoes off, he didn’t even notice Sayvon, Miss Karpatch and Mrs. Sterling sipping tea at the dining table. Sayvon smiled when he finally noticed her, but then immediately went back to her conversation with the older women.

  Sam said nothing, but ran upstairs to clean up. He wanted to throw on a new outfit, but Mrs. Sterling must have taken his to wash, so he splashed some water on his face and changed into the one clean shirt he had, then carefully wiped his pants down so they resembled a fresh pair. Looking around Gus’s things, he spotted a little bottle of what looked like deodorant or body spray and spritzed a little under his arms.

  “Sorry about that. I am ready now,” he said awkwardly when he was finally downstairs putting on his shoes.

  Sayvon hugged Miss Karpatch and Mrs. Sterling and then brushed teasingly past Sam on her way out the door. She was wearing a silk blue shirt that matched her eyes, while her hair was up in a wispy but purposeful braid. She walked so gracefully that Sam wondered if she could float.

  “Ah! Sayvon, Sam, are we ready then?” Talister smiled at them.

  “Yes, daddy, Sam just had to change … and apparently apply some gnat spray on himself.” She looked him over and scowled while plugging her nose.

  “Huh? I didn’t know …” Sam was dumbfounded. But before he could finish his sentence, Emma broke out into an incredible sinister laugh that only Lillia would appreciate. Hearing this, both Sayvon and Mr. Calpher broke into a roar that sent three shades of pink to Sam’s face.

  They were laughing so hysterically that Mrs. Sterling ran out of the cabin to see what the ruckus was all about. She too burst out laughing when she heard about his misfortune with the spray, but at the same time failed horribly at trying to comfort him with her usual sympathetic nature.

  When the group finally quit laughing—partly due to their inability to breathe and partly because Mr. Calpher realized their potential tardiness to the meeting—Sam was thoroughly embarrassed to the point of sweating, and he wished instead of going to the City Center that he could just crawl under a shady rock for the rest of the afternoon.

  Sayvon did her best to make Sam feel better the whole way to the City Center, but she couldn’t help smiling every time she saw a group of gnats swirling in the sunlight.

  As they came up to the massive doors of the red hall entrance, Mr. Calpher strolled through the smaller entrance to the right without so much as a look from the entrance guard. Sam and Sayvon followed him through another door into a long hallway that led to a set of ornate stairs and yet another door.

  Sayvon stopped short of the entrance and turned to Sam.

  “In the common room past this door is where I will wait for you.”

  Then she smiled softly and turned to follow her father through the door.

  Inside the common room were huge ornate columns leading upward to massive sculptures of silver dragons emerging from the stained glass ceiling. Along the outer edges were twice than life-size statues of winged creatures and warriors—all who seemed to be looking upward toward the ceiling’s rotunda and a three-dimensional cutout of what looked like a tree that was engulfed in flames.

  There were two smaller wooden doors and one larger one near the far end of the common room, each carved with a perfect embossing of a flaming tree. The larger of the three, however, included a warrior kneeling before the tree in flames, the man’s head buried in his hands.

  Sayvon left them and wandered over to one of the many benches that were inset along the walls in the common room, while Talister led Sam through the smaller door on the left and up another set of stairs where still another ornately carved door stood with a similar image on its face. Two guards nodded slightly and opened the door as Talister held out his hand, where he displayed his leather armband with a deep blue stone marbled with faint black rippling throughout its exterior. For one moment, Sam thought he saw the blue glow, then disappear.

  The guards held large staffs that glowed instantly blue when Talister and Sam approached, covering the archway to the Chancellor’s office in light.

  As they walked through the light, one of the guards held out a hand suddenly and stopped them before they could pass through the door frame.

  “I’m sorry sirs, but I must ask you to step back while we search you,” said the younger guard in a commanding tone, staring intently at the light in front of them, which had slowly begun to cloud with an inky smoke-like substance in the corner. It was subtle, and for a moment, Sam wondered if Talister even noticed it.

  The older guard grabbed the younger’s arm and pointed at the silver cuffs on Talister’s robe, whispering something furiously in his ear. After a moment, the guards turned to them and nodded for them to pass. Taliste
r nodded back, the entire time his smile never left his lips.

  They walked in through the small doorway to an expansive, sunlit room with glass windows looking out to the dome-shaped rotunda of the City Center. Around the office stood four evenly spaced pillars that curved inward to meet at the top, forming an arch with its center hovering directly above the Chancellor’s desk. Thin, blue wisps of light made their way up the arch legs until they met at the top and disappeared into the ceiling above.

  The Chancellor met them immediately at the door, his white and silver robe gleaming in the rays of sun that were pouring through the glass.

  “Talister, Talister, it is good to see you again. How was your trip to the Outer Edge?”

  Talister stepped forward and put his hand on the Chancellor’s shoulder, smiling largely.

  “It was wonderful, Chancellor,” he said, smiling largely. “Many good days of rest. And how are dealings with the Tanniym? Any progress?”

  The Chancellor frowned and motioned toward two large leather chairs facing a long, dark wood desk.

  “Unfortunately no,” he said sadly as he sat opposite them. “The Tanniym are extremely stubborn, and still skeptical that we are going to turn against them once again I am afraid.”

  “Oh to have the free spirit of a Dragon Keeper,” Talister smiled.

  “Yes, yes, if only we could leave the pressures of political life behind and live life in the freedom of the mountains. But that is not why we are here today—to discuss Lior diplomacy, are we?” the Chancellor eyed Sam.

  “No we are not,” Talister reached out and put his hand on Sam’s arm. “This is Samuel Forrester, Chancellor Almeous. He has come to us from White Pine.”

  “It is good to meet you, Samuel,” said the Chancellor. “I fear you slipped out too early at the feast for me to introduce myself.”

  “I am sorry, sir—Chancellor,” Sam corrected himself. “I didn’t realize …”

  “Not to worry, boy, not to worry. I am just glad to finally meet you,” he said genuinely.

  The Chancellor did not take his eyes off Sam at first, but then turned to look at Talister.

  “And how did Samuel come to us, then?”

  At that moment, Sam wondered why Mr. Sterling didn’t take Sam to the meeting himself. He, too, was important in Lior, and as the head of the Protector group in White Pine, he would have more information than Talister did. And this seemed like a pretty important thing, seeing as how Mr. Sterling was the one that brought him here in the first place.

  “Jack Sterling accompanied him through the Northern Gate. He would have been here for this meeting, however he had some business at the Protector’s Office to tend to.”

  The Chancellor did not look away from Sam, which made him feel like he was back in White Pine with every eye watching him. But he knew now that it was mostly Emma, Gus, and Lillia that he saw peering behind the shelves at Iggy’s, or following him up Main Street after he had ducked out of school a few minutes early. They had watched him ever since arriving in White Pine. It had certainly had its element of creepiness to it.

  The Chancellor picked up a parchment from his desk and scanned it briefly.

  “So how certain is he?” the Chancellor finally looked away. “There hasn’t been one found in Creation in many years.”

  “Jack is pretty certain.”

  “I see, I see,” the Chancellor frowned suddenly.

  “How many of the Council and Protectors know he is here?”

  “There are twenty-two of us that are aware.”

  The Chancellor smiled, and then purposefully changed the subject as if he had already said too much.

  “And what of this that you heard in the forest the night you came through the gate?” he said suddenly, taking Sam off guard.

  “I’m sorry sir?”

  “The night you came to Lior … you heard a noise in the trees. You said it was right in front of you.”

  “Uh, yes, that’s true, but I didn’t see it,” Sam stammered. “It could have been an animal or something.”

  The Chancellor peered at Sam once again, then looked at Talister and shook his head.

  “Given the presence of the gate shield, I fear that is impossible.”

  “I have already tasked the Protector’s Office to investigate. It is possible that perhaps the Lazuli shield generator was malfunctioning,” Talister offered.

  “Yes, yes,” the Chancellor waved his hand at Talister, then turned toward the window, frowning as he did. “But we will need to find out more about his background, and I am uncertain how the High Council will respond to his being here.” Then he smiled compassionately at Sam, “Forgive me for discussing this as though you are not here.”

  “I count on a bit of a tussle with the Telok and the Nais halls,” Talister said. “But if you will let me, Chancellor, I could talk with them first.”

  “Yes, yes, you have a good rapport with the members. They will listen to you,” the Chancellor nodded. “But let’s see what the Research Office comes up with first.”

  Then the Chancellor strode to the window, gazing at the lazy blue light rising up the spire on the other side of the rotunda.

  “The long standing rule in Lior has been never to allow a human entrance into the City without evidence of their ancestry.” He turned and leveled his amber eyes at Sam, causing the age lines on his face to wrinkle just a bit more. “Samuel, you must understand that your background is of utmost secrecy in this matter. We cannot reveal anything until we know for certain.”

  Sam swallowed hard. Suddenly he was the center of a potential conspiracy for all of Lior. He was a liability, in fact. One that jeopardized the secrecy of all Descendants.

  Suddenly, a small orb of blue light appeared in the window of the office and drifted through the glass to where the Chancellor stood. At its sight, the Chancellor reached out and put his palm to the orb until it unfurled itself into words. Quickly, the Chancellor stood in front of the message, blocking any chance that Sam had of seeing its contents.

  Gravely, the Chancellor turned and faced them once again, having wiped the message away with his hand so that it became pieces and specks of light before it blinked and disappeared.

  “Can I count on you to be silent, lad?”

  “Yes, sir. I will,” he said automatically.

  The Chancellor smiled a moment, lightening his tone.

  “Sam, don’t mistake me. There are reasons I believe that you should be here too. We just need to approach this carefully.”

  Talister stood and motioned for Sam to stand as well.

  “We will take good care of Sam, Chancellor Almeous. You can be certain of it,” he said.

  “Good, good. And before we part, Talister, do you have something for me from your most recent trip?”

  Talister held out his hand, and Sam watched a small blue orb emerge from it, floating gently over to the Chancellor, where he carefully reached out and scooped it into the pocket of his robe.

  “The latest report from the detectors.”

  Once the orb was safely hidden, the Chancellor held out his arms and smiled, reminding Sam strangely of Talister.

  “Please give my regards to Jack, and thank him for bringing this matter to me. Now if you will excuse me, I must prepare for the Council meeting.”

  The Chancellor shook their hands before seeing them to the door. Even for an older man with strong features, he looked tired. Something was definitely causing him a lot of grief.

  Talister led Sam past the guards and back down the stairwell to the common room. Before stepping through the door, however, he stopped Sam with a hand on his shoulder.

  “The Chancellor is right, Sam ma’ boy. I think it best you not share any of this with anyone except those closest to you. The less people who know the better.”

  Sam nodded silently. His group alrea
dy knew, but did he mean his grandfather? Or others in the circle? He wondered if any of it had ties to what he saw in the forest that night. It seemed to trouble Mr. Sterling, and now the Chancellor. Could he have been just meters away from a Metim or some Dark creature? It was a sobering thought, and he had seen neither of them.

  Talister seemed to wait for him to confirm his vow of silence, but hearing none, seemed to accept the nod as sufficient that Sam understood.

  “Now then, I believe Sayvon is waiting for us,” he said.

  They walked back out into the common room where he was surprised to see it filled with people of different ages and races, whisking from group to group in their region’s robes, laughing and visiting with one another. The larger wooden door was open and people were filing into the amphitheater in the heart of the City Center.

  Talister waved to his daughter, who was tucked away on a bench reading.

  “I will leave you in the capable hands of my daughter now, ma’ boy. The dreary work of politics calls.”

  When he was safely enveloped in a group of robed politicians, Sayvon took Sam’s hand and smiled long into his eyes.

  “Are you ready to see some of the City Center?” she held up a set of peculiar looking keys for him to see.

  Sam could feel his face getting hot as she squeezed his hand.

  “Sure, let’s go.”

  She grinned and led them to a small door around the corner of the common room.

  “I don’t suppose you hate politics as much as I do?” she said. “Both my father and grandfather have been in politics nearly their entire lives. What do your father and mother do?”

  “My foster parents? Phillip is a Senator, and Sylvia—well, uh—she just embarrasses him,” Sam said jokingly, but quickly changed his tone at her questioning look. “But I suppose she just helps him with some of his fundraisers and political parties. You know.”

  Sayvon removed her shoes to silence the clicking that echoed behind them. “Yes, I know all too well, I am sad to say.”