“Anyway,” Acarius continued, “word spread among the magical peoples about ‘the son of prophecy’ being trained by the prince of the Ancients.” He smiled. “For a while, we were quite the celebrities. But then the Worldforce spun into chaos again once Jana came through, and the humans couldn’t be kept in the dark anymore. When ground-tsunamis, earthquakes, and random sinkholes are happening all across the land and lightning rains down randomly from the sky, it’s hard to pretend everything is fine. That was around the time Lytira came to find us. She believed in the prophecy, and her mother’s visions of me, and wanted to help save the world. We all did – it was our noble quest.” He laughed again, but not happily. “You see how that turned out. Anyway, as word spread people began calling for us, asking us to come rescue their cows from sinkholes, or to settle disputes between magical clans and their human neighbors. We went. How could we not? We were heroes.” His voice bit down on the last word. “But word spread too far. The forces in Galgor heard, too.”
“Oh,” Lex said, not liking where this was going.
“At first it was just wrasseks showing up – a sure sign Galgor was after us,” Acarius continued. “But then the Aiacs came. That was the first we’d ever seen them.” He gave a small shiver. “After watching a few of our friends be taken as Aiacs, we learned they were tied to Ardis and the Ancients. Only a demon-goddess like Ardis could do something like that. It seemed your people and Galgor had teamed up to ensure the prophecy didn’t get fulfilled.”
“Why Galgor?” Lex asked. “What do they want from all of this?”
Acarius shook his head. “We don’t know. Not much is known about Galgor, but the stories say it is a place of darkness, of dark magic and monsters and demons – perhaps even where Ardis first emerged; many of us never believed the story that she emerged from the Worldforce. The Worldforce is good and balanced – or it used to be – and Ardis is anything but. I still don’t know the exact wording of the prophecy the Ancients received, but during that time you did tell me two things about it: that it involved a son of prophecy and a daughter of power… and that the son of prophecy was meant to survive whatever happened; he would not die. You meant it to reassure me, that I would be okay. But a few weeks after the Aiacs and wrasseks came after us, so did Malleck.”
“I don’t understand,” Lex said. “He’s just a king, right? How could he be worse than Aiacs and wrasseks?”
“He was powerful, more powerful than any Ancient, but with a dark magic unlike anything I’ve ever seen, except for in you. Malleck’s abilities are different, but it’s the same dark energy. We knew they were trying to stop the prophecy, but when they finally came in full force and trapped us, they didn’t target me and Jana, they targeted you and Jana… and suddenly I realized the prophecy never had been about me. It was about you all along. I didn’t have a chance to figure out why the Ancients sent you for me if it had always been about you. Things went horribly wrong, and even your magic was no match for Malleck. When you and Jana died, the Worldforce spiraled out of control, the whole land was thrown into chaos, and I knew we had failed. The Aiacs and wrasseks disappeared – their job was done. The ground tsunamis, sinkholes, the things you’ve seen – those have been happening all over Arameth and getting worse for the past seven years, ever since you died. People live in terror of the very ground they stand on. Nowhere feels safe. But the Aiac and the wrasseks had all but vanished until you reappeared. They’re here for you – the son of prophecy, the one who survived after all – and the daughter of power with you. And if the wrasseks are involved, that means Malleck Dross is, too; I’m certain of it.”
Nigel sprang up again. “Stop saying that name!” he shouted.
“Gah!” Lex cried, startled. “Why does he keep doing that?”
Acarius sighed. “Oh yeah, that,” he said. “Nigel was attacked by Malleck personally, during the battle that killed you and Jana. He only just escaped with his life by sending out an energy blast from the device he’d brought to do the emergency LEX protocol – like a channeled portal which turned the energy into a laser. It knocked Malleck back and injured him enough for Nigel to escape in the chaos and find his way back to us. Since you exploded soon after, everyone believed Malleck to have been destroyed in the blast that killed all the Aiacs and wrasseks. But given what we’re seeing now, I’d guess he survived.”
“I need more blankets,” Nigel said, throwing himself back under the covers.
Lex wasn’t sure he’d ever quite get used to people talking about him exploding. But he had to ask. “What happened, exactly, when I… exploded? I only remember bits of it.”
Nigel piped up, just his head emerging from the covers this time. “It was like what you usually do, only in explosion form. It would have killed everyone, except I had just initiated the LEX protocol, which – as a safety precaution from the last time when I blew up half my lab – included an opposite energy push which put a bunch of us in a sort of safety bubble. When things dissipated, the ground around us was like a crater, and you and Jana and everyone else around us had been blown to pieces… but all the other Sephram around us were already dead or taken as Aiacs anyway, and Jana had already died, too, so I guess that was fine. And we know now that you didn’t completely explode, because part of you got caught by my LEX protocol and sent into the Worldforce for safe-keeping. That LEX protocol had been meant for me, you know, but I used it on you because you were supposedly important. It saved your life, I’m pretty sure. You’re welcome.” He slid back under the blankets.
Acarius turned to Lex. “Now Malleck, it seems, has come back to finish the job. Lex, if he had wrasseks in The Fallows, he definitely knew we would come here. It’s only a matter of time until he realizes we’ve killed the wrasseks he’s sent and sends more… or something worse. We have to get you and Amelia somewhere safer, before you or anyone else here get hurt.”
Lex knew Acarius was right, but– “Amelia is still too weak. We can’t leave until they figure out how to help her. Besides, where else would we go?”
“I have a place,” Nigel’s voice muttered from under the covers.
Acarius turned toward Nigel’s bed. “You still have it?”
“Of course,” Nigel’s voice answered. “Where do you think I keep my spare socks?”
“What place?” Lex asked. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nigel has a hidden place in the woods where he lived after we faked his death,” Acarius answered.
Lex blinked. “What?”
Nigel pushed the covers back and sighed. “Of course. I mean, didn’t you figure that out from the fact that I no longer go by Luther?”
“Um, no,” Lex said. “I didn’t. Could someone please explain why Nigel is pretending to be dead?”
“I’m not pretending to be dead,” Nigel answered, sitting up. “Luther is.”
Lex looked to Acarius, who shrugged.
“It started before the prophecy which sent you to me,” Acarius said, “when you’d just come back from being sent to Earth but had returned without a daughter of power to help seal the breach. That was a good thing, by the way. You later realized the Ancients probably just wanted to destroy Jana and prevent the prophecy, on Ardis’ command, since you’d been ordered by Ardis to kill me, too.”
“Wait, you knew that?” Lex asked. “I mean, I saw it in my memories, but…”
“Of course,” Acarius said. “You told me. We may have started as a kid prophesied to save the world and his guardian/trainer/designated-assassin, but we became best friends. There isn’t much you kept from me… I think.”
“Oh,” Lex said.
“Anyway, the Ancients were rather upset that you had come back without a daughter of power, but they were even more upset that you had betrayed them in order to save an Earthborn girl, then continued to stay and assist this crazy Earthborn man” – Acarius gestured to Nigel – “and help him try to find his granddaughter. When they sent you after me and you failed to
kill me as instructed, they turned sour on the whole thing and decided we all had to go. They were hesitant to kill you or me right away – you are the prince, after all, and I was a prophesied savior, so I think they wanted to be subtle about it – but they didn’t have those qualms about Luther. They kept sending assassins, and eventually we all got tired of fighting them and just decided to fake Luther’s death.”
“I died very tragically,” Nigel said, standing up. “Fortunately, I was already half-mad from the Worldforce constantly blabbering on in my head, so afterward all I did was stop trying to act normal. I ditched my earth clothes for these fine digs”– he spun, displaying his dirty, old tunic – “and embraced my inner crazy to become the amazing Nigel, an eccentric but brilliant old man and mentor figure to the great Acarius, once-prophesied-savior-turned-horse-rancher.”
“Wow, that’s very… self-aware of you,” Lex said.
“Thank you,” Nigel said, nodding. “We told everyone I was a former scholar with a slight case of addle-brain his parents hired to be his tutor after he returned home from Zeriphath. I had to live in his family’s barn for a while, but I liked horses anyway, and eventually I got upgraded to my swanky hut in the woods.”
That was an upgrade? Lex thought.
“Anyway, no one’s thought of me as anything but Nigel for years now. We were already a year or so into the mentor act when the battle with Malleck and the others went down. I’d been at the ranch the whole time you were training Acarius, although I suppose no one guessed you and Acarius had also been teaching me to fight. I’m spryer than I look, you know.” He winked.
“Nigel’s hut might be just the place for us to stay while we figure things out,” Acarius said. “No one but Nigel even knows where it is.”
“And it was meant to stay that way,” Nigel said, narrowing his eyes. He sighed. “But I suppose plans change.”
“What good will it do to hide out in the woods?” Lex asked. “Isn’t there something we should be doing to stop all this?”
“It won’t be hiding out,” Acarius said. “We just need time to contact our allies in other places and figure out what’s really going on so we can form a plan. But it’d be best to do that somewhere isolated, where others won’t be put in danger by our presence.”
“Right,” Lex said. “Okay.”
Acarius clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s set, then. As soon as the healers clear Amelia, we’ll head to Nigel’s hut. I’m sure the king will be glad to be rid of us.”
It didn’t escape Lex’s notice that Acarius said nothing about Lytira. Lex wondered if she would join them, and how her talk with her father might be going.
Nigel suddenly got a thoughtful look very unlike himself. “Arcalon,” he said, turning to Acarius. “They’ve got to be involved in this somehow.”
Acarius nodded. “I agree.”
“What is Arcalon?” Lex asked.
“They’re a nation down to the south beyond the mountain range known as Batherol’s Stand,” Acarius answered. “They are a fringe faction of the Ancients who broke off from the rule of the Core during the Great War. However, Batherol’s Stand is also home to the human fortress of Raith, an isolated city of eccentric, superstitious people who for whatever reason avoid all contact with the outside world. Arcalon is the only nation in communication with Raith these days.”
“I thought no humans remembered magic,” Lex said. “Does Arcalon pretend to be… normal?”
Acarius shook his head. “Raith was the only remaining human city – at least to our knowledge – who remembered the existence of magic. The spell which wiped everyone else’s memory somehow missed them, and the knowledge of what lived outside their walls drove them to lock themselves inside. But eventually they needed supplies, so they established trade with Arcalon. The Ancients of Arcalon bred with some of the humans of Raith, creating their own mixed race. Over time, the Ancient blood was diluted to the point that the Arcalon people don’t really do magic anymore, except for producing some of the most talented seers the world has ever seen. The Ancients nearly destroyed them after the Great War for breeding ‘abominations,’ but part of the peace treaty required that the half-Ancients of Arcalon would not be harmed, so long as they stayed walled off beyond Batherol’s Stand, in their own small part of the world.”
“So they just stay trapped there?” Lex asked.
“They don’t seem to mind,” Acarius answered. “They have a whole region of the land to themselves which many of the humans don’t even know exists since the mountains above them are so impassable. They have a beautiful lake-city, Elar’eludan, which feeds out to the sea. Many suspect they actually do travel beyond their restricted boundaries by water, but if it’s true, they do so carefully. They’ve never been caught. None of the magical clans have anything against Arcalon, except for the Ancients themselves, but they have something against pretty much everyone. The Sephram-Alomman Alliance has a port where Batherol’s Stand and the Sea of Aram meet, which their merchants use for trade with Arcalon.” He paused. “That’s how the pippits got loose, actually. But other than the Port of the Alliance and occasional trade with Raith, Arcalon pretty much keeps to itself.”
Lex attempted to process all this information. “You said they have seers?” he asked. “Like the ones at the Core? And like Lytira’s mother?”
“Yes and no,” Acarius said. “Seers can be from any clan or race – except full-blood humans of course – and no one quite knows how they get their abilities. But for some reason, seers born of the half-human-Ancients of Arcalon are far more powerful than other seers. They have more clarity to their visions, more detail. They can predict things quite accurately, whereas most visions are more abstract. My sister, Liz, the adopted one – she is a seer. She has visions frequently. They seem a lot like your glimpses, which is why I thought you were having a vision when I first saw you collapse on the hill. She was found as a baby outside the border of Arcalon by my father on one of his trips and when he tried to return her, her aunt and uncle insisted there was a family dispute happening which had killed her parents, and that she’d be safer with humans. So my parents adopted her.”
Liz, Lex thought. The blonde one. The one he’d momentarily mistaken for Jana. No wonder she looked different than the rest of the family. But that raised another question. “If you’re also adopted,” Lex asked, “then why do all the rest of your sisters look so much like you?”
Acarius shrugged. “It’s not that uncommon for adopted children to end up resembling their families in some way.”
All three men jumped as the door to their room burst open. The king rushed in. “Have you seen Lytira?” he asked, his voice strained. “Is she here?”
“No,” Acarius said, shaking his head. “We haven’t seen her since she left to meet with you.”
“Curse the very air and ground and every bit of earth that–” The king’s shouted curses trailed off as he rushed out and back down the hallway.
Lex glanced at Acarius, who was suddenly like a spring compressed tight with anxiety.
“If she– I– I need to go,” he said, rushing for the door.
A guard blocked his path. “You must stay here,” the guard said, filling the doorway. “We will deal with the king’s daughter.” He pushed the door shut.
Acarius pulled against it and shook the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. “They’ve locked us in,” he said, sinking to sit against the door.
Suddenly there was a knock. Acarius jumped up in surprise and pulled the handle, and this time the door opened.
A Sephram woman stood in the doorway, covered in a full-length leather dress which touched the floor. Etchings of animals and symbols swirled across the surface of the leather, featuring mostly some sort of heron.
“Healer,” Acarius said, bowing his head. “Please, come in.”
Lex saw Acarius’ eyes glance past her, as though assessing whether he could make a break for it, but the guard stood close behind
her.
“I am not staying,” the healer said. “I have a message for the son of prophecy.”
Lex hesitated a moment before realizing she was talking about him. He moved toward the door.
Acarius stepped back, moving out of the way as Lex came forward.
“Sulanashum,” the healer said, nodding to Lex. “I have word on the daughter of power.”
“Amelia?” Lex asked. “How is she? Is she coming back here now?”
The healer met his gaze. “No,” she said, “she is not.”
Lex felt panic climbing up his throat. “Where is she, then? Can I see her?”
“No,” the healer said again. “The daughter of power is unwell. She has gotten worse.”
Lex clenched his teeth, swallowing the panic. “What happened?” he asked, almost a whisper.
“We have her stabilized now,” the healer answered, “but she is weak, and there is still much to do. Many things to check. For now, she must rest. When she wakes, you may see her. We will call for you.”
Lex breathed out, feeling some relief. “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”
The healer nodded and turned to leave.
Suddenly Acarius let out a wordless shout. Lex spun, just in time to see Acarius jumping back from the window. “Move!” Acarius yelled, spinning toward him. “Let me through!”
Lex rushed to the window as Acarius pushed past him, trying to spot what Acarius had seen. The courtyard looked fine, everything was normal, except – there, outside the wall. A large man lumbered toward them through The Fallows, carrying a dark bundle in his arms.
Lex raced after Acarius, who had already burst out into the hall. The guard shouted after them but decided to follow rather than stopping them, clearly alarmed by Acarius’ behavior.
Lex followed the rushing Acarius down the winding staircase, through the lobby of the palace, and out into the courtyard.
“Open the gates!” Acarius screamed, a panic in his voice Lex had never heard before. “Open the gates!”
The guards turned to him in shock but seeing the urgency on his face, chose to obey rather than questioning, something which impressed Lex at the same time it surprised him. They pulled large ropes on either side of the gates, and the heavy doors swung open.
The Edge of Nothing_The Lex Chronicles_Book 1 Page 27
