“Help him!” Fox ordered the remaining bodyguard, and then, taking advantage of Xavier’s distraction, he lunged at him. Fox’s shoulder slammed into his ribs, and pain exploded throughout his body. If the initial contact weren’t enough, Xavier was tackled hard to the floor, and Fox delivered several hard jabs to his ribcage before delivering a hard punch to the face.
Sounds of intense fighting from the patio reached Xavier’s ears. His father was outnumbered! He had to get to him. He had to help him! Finding it hard to concentrate on gathering his powers while being beaten to a pulp, he struggled to escape the older boy’s clutches. He kicked out at the boy, but it did little to dislodge him. He was just too big and heavy. His powers were all he had left to protect himself. He had to engage them somehow!
His father’s sudden yelp was all the encouragement Xavier needed. Fear coursed through his blood, chilling him to the bone. Suddenly the assault stopped, and he peeked through his battered, swollen eyes. Fox sat above him in mid-strike, frozen like a statue. The only thing that moved on the older boy were his eyes. He glanced frantically down at himself before his eyes settled fearfully on Xavier. Fox was helpless. Xavier could kill him easily, but he had a more important mission. Save his father. Wiggling his way out from under the older boy, he stood and staggered, lightheaded, toward the patio door.
The dark guard and Danson had his father cornered at the rear of the patio. The blood oozing from the king’s left side sent adrenaline into Xavier’s body, and he raced toward the fight. His father blocked Danson’s strike, but in doing so, it left him exposed for the guard’s devastating blow.
“NO!” Xavier screeched, lifting his hand as he ran toward the men. The guard swung his sword as Xavier reacted to the assault. The guard exploded into millions of bloody pieces, spraying his father with the carnage. Unfortunately for Danson, he was standing too close to the empowerment and his left arm disintegrated. With a scream, he fell to the ground and clutched his bloody stump. Within seconds, he bled out.
“Dad!” Xavier gasped, running to his father and hugging him.
“I’m okay,” his father wheezed. “Lana…”
“She’s okay. I sent her to Loren and Ephraim so they could keep her safe.”
Suddenly the king dropped to his knees with a groan, clutching his side.
“Dad! You’re not okay. Let me see your wound,” Xavier demanded, shoving aside the king’s shirt and exposing the large gash there. It looked deep and was bleeding a lot, but it didn’t look life threatening. Closing his eyes, Xavier started the healing process.
“Xavier! NO!”
Suddenly Xavier was shoved roughly to the ground. Xavier looked up at his father as Fox LeMasters impaled him with the Sword of the Chosen.
“NOOO!” Xavier screamed as Fox pulled the sword from the king and kicked him to the ground. He crawled to his father, who coughed up blood and struggled to breathe. “Dad?” he moaned.
“Now, we’re even. You took my father, and now, I’ve taken yours,” Fox announced smugly. “It’s a shame you won’t live long enough to truly appreciate the pain of losing a father.”
Xavier glared up at the older boy and slowly got to his feet. He felt the air pressure around him drop and converge toward him. Fox’s smug expression dropped, and he staggered backwards.
“Wh… wh… what… what are you? Your eyes… they’re… fire!”
Xavier drew in energy from every living thing around him until he could feel the energy warring inside him to be released, but he hoarded it inside him a few seconds more, allowing it to grow stronger. Then he released the energy with a yell. The concussion from the release destroyed everything in its path, including Fox, who disintegrated into nothing. The Sword of the Chosen clattered to the ground.
Chapter 25
“Dad?” Xavier gasped, rolling the king onto his back. Blood soaked his cloak and torso and a large puddle continued to grow on the floor. “Oh, God! Dad!” Xavier cried pressing his hands over the profusely bleeding wound. It was time. He had failed to prevent his father’s death.
“Xavier, don’t cry, son. I wouldn’t… h… have changed a thing,” Jeremiah rasped out weakly. “B… be brave. Everything will… be fine.”
“No! It will never be fine!” Xavier cried. “I… I need you, Dad. I can’t lose you. I won’t lose you!” Xavier swiped the tears from his cheeks and raised his hands above the king’s abdomen.
“It won’t work,” a hoarse voice said weakly behind him.
Xavier turned abruptly, an electro force spinning menacingly in his hands. The Prophet, Abraham Vincent, stood tensely at the other end of the patio, his eyes watery and aware. The force evaporated from his hands.
“I can heal him! I can. You don’t know what I’m capable of… the powers I have now. My powers are incredibly strong,” Xavier argued.
“It won’t work,” the older man stated again, his voice quavering faintly.
“How do you know? I have to try!” Xavier yelled as fresh tears soaked his cheeks.
Abraham walked toward the boy, his face twisted with sympathy, and something more. “Xavier,” he started softly, “your father will die before your healing force can complete its course. It’s too late.”
“How do you know that? You don’t know that!”
“I do know! I know because… I’ve already tried it.”
“You already t… tried? What in the hell does that mean?” Xavier blared, his fear turning to anger. “You said we could save him! You said you had a plan!”
Abraham knelt next to Xavier his eyes never leaving the boy’s face. “Prince Xavier, you’re a bright boy. Haven’t you determined who I am yet?”
Xavier stared at the man kneeling next to him, and suddenly he began to wonder about him, about how the prophet knew so much about him and his life. He wasn’t a prophet. He was a time-traveler, but being a time-traveler didn’t make him all-knowing about his life, his thoughts, and his feelings. Their first meeting flashed into Xavier’s memory. He had mysteriously turned up at the palace with urgent news for his father. Xavier had been intrigued and snuck out of his room and eavesdropped at the library door, where the men had argued cryptically about him. But the prophet had known he was there.
The prophet sighed and continued more calmly, “Now, will you please invite young Xavier, who’s eavesdropping at the door, into the room so that I can meet him?”
Xavier hissed a string of curses and opened the door, glancing up at his father with a small grin. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Come here, boy,” the old man commanded.
Xavier looked directly at the prophet for the first time and was taken aback. The man’s face was grotesquely deformed as if someone had doused his head in acid, causing his skin to melt down his face a couple of centimeters. His mouth drooped at a perversely obtuse angle on one side, and a string of spittle dangled from the corner of his mouth. His snowy hair was tied into a knot at the base of his neck. From Xavier’s perspective, the man seemed quite elderly, but he stood tall and proud. He was nearly as tall as Jeremiah, and Xavier could feel the man’s strength pulsating in the close air around him. But, as scary and ugly as the man’s appearance was, Xavier saw something gentle and oddly familiar in his gray eyes. He slowly approached the man.
The prophet studied him with silent intensity that left Xavier feeling like a rare artifact. Finally, he spoke. “Hello, Xavier. I’m Abraham Vincent. Now I know you heard every word your father and I said, so let’s just cut through the formalities, shall we? You mustn’t tell anyone, even Robbie, that the Divination is planned for tonight. Do you understand?”
Xavier nodded his head vigorously, intimidated by the man’s appearance and the obvious power he possessed. Abe gave him a horrific lopsided smile. At least, Xavier thought it was a smile though it looked more like a snarl.
“Sire?” Abe turned to Jeremiah. “May I speak to the boy alone?”
Jeremiah hesitated briefly and then said, “Ah, sure.” He looked at Xavi
er. “I’ll be just outside the door in the receiving room.”
Then he left the room, leaving Xavier alone with the hideous man. Abraham studied the timid boy a moment before speaking. “Your father is a good man and a superb king, boy. Watch him, learn from him, so that when your day comes, you will be just as honorable. But,” Abraham moved within inches of him, and Xavier could smell his sour breath, “if your Divination goes as I know it will, you will be a far greater, more powerful king than your father ever dreamed of becoming.”
Xavier looked up at him in disbelief. More powerful than his dad? It was hard to imagine!
“Xavier, there’s another reason why I am here now, and why I did not wait for your thirteenth birthday to perform the Divination. You may not believe me. In fact, I am certain you will not, and that you will not take the Divination seriously at all. But you must be warned.” The Prophet paused before continuing in a low, strained tone, “There is great evil oozing its way into the kingdom. The dark seeks to return, and you, your father, and all you value are in grave danger, boy. The Dark Lord will come, and you and your father must take heed!”
Xavier coughed out a nervous laugh. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you always talk in riddles?” he blurted, trying to sound more secure than he felt.
Abraham grabbed him roughly by the collar and hissed irritably, “Don’t presume to mock me, boy! Your jokes don’t make it any less true. It will happen, and you’ve begun to sense what lies ahead.”
“But I haven’t…”
“Yes, you have!” the prophet barked, shaking him. “You’ve already envisioned the fall of the king, and yet, you and your father have chosen to ignore it!”
“What are you talking about?” Xavier whispered, his anxiety toward the man escalating into fear.
“The dream, boy! The dream! You dreamt of your father’s fall two nights ago. You dreamt of Father O’Brien ordering your father’s most trusted assistants to beat him while his enemies looked on, buying time to attack.”
“How do you know about that?” Xavier questioned, his entire body shuddering.
Not only had Abraham known he was outside the door, but he had known about the dream. He hadn’t shared that dream with anyone but his father! He had known the details of the dream as though he had had the dream himself.
Then there were their meetings and conversations at the mountain. The prophet seemed to always know where to find Xavier. He just appeared at the river where Xavier had sat sulking over his father’s actions after he broke up with Lana. It never occurred to Xavier then to question how the prophet knew that he would be sitting next to that river. He had been so focused on his own misery and worries.
Finally, after discovering that he was the Chosen, his father, his generals—Loren and Ephraim—and the prophet had cornered him in the fencing room. It was at that moment that Xavier had naïvely decided to return to Warwood to face LeMasters by himself so no one else would die in his name. It was a decision that nearly cost him his life. It was in that decisive moment that the prophet had fallen to his knees in agony.
“Abe! Abe, are you all right? What is it? What’s wrong?” Loren yelped, hurrying to the old man’s side.
The prophet dropped to his knees in obvious agony. A sudden spasm of pain sent the man to all fours, and he cried out. For several long seconds, he knelt on the cold stone floor, panting and heaving violently. Then another invisible torment slammed him onto his back, and he screamed, clutching his right hip while blood crept to the surface of his trousers.
Loren grabbed Abe and tried to steady his seizing body. “Abe! What’s going on?”
Jeremiah rushed over and dropped onto his knees next to the prophet.
“Hold him still, Loren. I’ll apply pressure to the wound and try to stop the bleeding.”
Xavier wandered toward the men, watching his father press his hands against the bloody wound.
The prophet yelped and swore, perspiration beading on his flushed face.
“Abe, what hap…” Loren began but was unable to finish the question as the prophet’s body pitched and arched against another invisible force. Tremors violently threw his body against the hard, rocky floor.
“Hold him, Loren!” Jeremiah yelled as he struggled to keep pressure on the now profusely bleeding wound.
Abe let out a long, loud scream as some invisible force severed the finger on his left hand, leaving a small bloody stump.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!” Abe hissed as a long ugly scar ripped its way across his jaw. There was one last painful shudder as blood oozed over the front of his cloak, and his face grew white and colorless.
Rasping for breath, the prophet’s eyes bore into Xavier’s as he moaned, “Xavier… d… don’t… please…” Before any of them could ask him what he meant, there was a great blinding silver light, and the prophet disappeared.
“What the hell?” Jeremiah hissed, looking to his general. “Loren, what happened?”
The invisible attack on Abraham that day had mirrored the torture Xavier had endured at the hands of William LeMasters. Unconsciously, he rubbed his right hip where LeMasters had impaled him while fighting him at the Academy. He looked down at his left thumb and the white scar that ringed it. His eyes darted to the prophet’s hand, and he saw the same scar on the same hand.
Xavier looked up at Abe, who smiled wearily.
“Yes. I know everything about you. I know your thoughts, your dreams, and your hopes. I know everything because I am you,” he whispered.
Xavier studied the man, dumbfounded. God he was… old. He was kind of handsome for an old guy, and tall!
Abe snickered. “Thanks, youngling. You’re quite handsome yourself for a little boy.”
Abe winked down at him, and Xavier started to smile, but a rasping breath snapped his attention down as his father stared at Abe incredulously. He opened his mouth to say something but a sudden spasm violently shook his body and he stopped breathing.
“DAD!” Xavier shook the lifeless king. “NO! DAD! DAD!” He looked pleadingly up at his older self. “Please! Help him! You know I need him!”
“Xavier, I can’t! You know the rules that govern my ability. I can’t do a thing even if I wanted to. Only you have the ability to save your father now.”
Xavier stared helplessly down at his father. Abe was right. Only he had the power to prevent this from happening. Suddenly hopeful, he jumped to his feet.
“How? How do I jump back in time?”
“If you do this, you will seal the time-line, and you’ll not be able to jump into times prior to this point. Do you understand that?”
Xavier nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes!”
“And all memory of me will be erased. No one but you will recall me. I will have never existed as the prophet. All my work, my interventions, will be viewed as miracles, unexplainable coincidences. When you return, I will be gone. You will never see me again,” Abe explained.
Xavier paused slightly at this news before whispering solemnly, “It doesn’t matter. Dad has to live!”
Abe smiled, his face mirroring the relief he felt. “Okay then. In order to leap, you simply focus on a time prior to the attack on your father. However, and heed this warning, you cannot be seen by yourself. If you see yourself it would have unpredictable consequences!”
“But I see you!”
“Ah, but you didn’t know who I was until now. Think, boy. What would you do if in the heat of battle you see yourself?”
Understanding, Xavier nodded. “Okay. I’ll make sure I’m unseen.” He looked at Abraham hesitantly. “Thank you. Thank you for all you’ve done for… me.”
Abe smiled mischievously and winked. “No thanks needed. I did it for the good of the kingdom. I did it for my family. I did it for me. Be careful, boy. I would like a future to go back to.”
Chapter 26
Xavier nodded, closed his eyes and began the task of leaping backward in time. Maybe it was because he knew he could do it, but time bend
ing was easier than he thought it would be. He felt a sensation similar to that of teleportation, only stronger and more nauseating. When the sensation subsided, he sat, eyes closed, trying to settle the rollercoaster sensation in his stomach. It didn’t work. He threw up on the floor in his bedroom. It was the only place he could think to bend to without being seen, and sure enough, when he opened his eyes, the room was silent and dark. Not sure how far back he had jumped, he looked at his bedside clock. It was just before noon. He would still be at school arguing with Spencer to let him leave to find his father.
Slipping out of his room, Xavier scurried down the hall and into his father’s bedroom, but where to hide? The closet! He started toward the closet but cheers from outside drew him to the patio doors. Curious, he stepped out onto the patio as his father’s resonating voice echoed from the front of the palace.
“The time is now, men. We’ve been preparing for this attack for months. We are ready. There will be no retreat this time. We are the last line between freedom and oppression for all of mankind. We cannot fail! We cannot give in! We cannot surrender! This is the moment to show what we’re made of: are we lesser men or greater men? This is war for the light and goodness in the world! We will not be defeated, for we are on the side of righteousness. So we must fight through this night of hell, so that the morning will be a glorious day in the light! We will not go gently into the dark, my friends! Rage against the dark so that light may prevail! The time is now, my friends! Who will fight with abandonment for our kingdom?”
Hearing his father’s vibrant voice brought tears to Xavier’s eyes. He was alive, for now. He had to save him! He just had to! Unable to stay focused hearing his father’s voice, Xavier closed the patio door. It wouldn’t be much longer now. He had jumped too far back in his time stream, but it was better he was too early than too late. He crossed the room to the bedroom closet and opened its mirrored sliding door. It was a large closet and now Lana’s things hung on one side next to his father’s. Another loud cheer came from outside. Most likely, it was his father introducing him as the Chosen. He smiled at the thought. No sense hiding in the closet just yet. It would be a half-hour or so before his father would return to deal with the invasion on the palace. Xavier sat on the edge of the bed. If he could just succeed, it would all be over, and he and his father could live in peace for the rest of their lives. No more prophecies hanging over their heads. No more attacks on the kingdom. Life could finally go back to normal, whatever that meant.
The Prince of Warwood and The War of Kings Page 24
