She sighed and turned to go. "If you were the king, I’d say I just put you in check.”
Rich held his ground as she leaped back onto her mount and sped off into the distance. Rich left his sword drop blade first into the soft earth. He then fell to his knees, feeling that the torture had already begun.
All he could do was try to hold it together and keep the image of the bus in his mind. After a while, the image of the bus vanished all on its own, which he hoped meant they’d gotten off safety. He supposed it could mean that one of those creatures had caught up to them and destroyed them all. He had no way of knowing.
After a few minutes, however, he heard the buzzing of a high-powered engine in the distance. Rich looked in that direction and saw Aaron’s sports car trying to set a new land speed record as it approached him. Rich retrieved his sword and ran to meet him.
The door slid open, and Aaron didn’t need to tell him twice to get in. Rich barely had a chance to click his seatbelt before Aaron sped off, taking even the powerful engine to its limits. "Are they safe?" Rich asked.
"Safe, all of them," Aaron replied. "I can't say the same for anything else around here. It's like the entire world is on fire." He glanced briefly over at Rich, raising a questioning eyebrow. "And you—what happened there? Did you defeat the creature and its rider?"
Rich couldn’t meet Aaron's eyes, but stared into his lap and shook his head. "No," he said, his voice breaking with emotion. "It was Mallory." He then repeated to Aaron all the things she’d said, reliving his losses and the pain.
After he finished, Aaron kept silent for a few seconds. "If they want you, Rich, it’s the last thing you should do," he said softly.
Rich pounded both hands on the dashboard. "What am I supposed to do, Aaron? Let them all be tortured and killed? Let her burn down other towns? We don't have time to plan anything to get them out. You're supposed to be wise. Tell me what I'm supposed to do here!"
Aaron kept his eyes on the road and his voice level. "This is a question you should ask your grandparents. Anything I say will have to go through them anyway."
Rich shook his head hard. "That's not good enough, Aaron. I’ll tell my grandparents, but I want to know what you think. What would you do?"
Aaron stared ahead for a few seconds and then nodded. "I would not give in," he said. “I would rally knights behind me and storm their stronghold, fighting until my last breath to save them."
He fell silent again, and Rich grunted. "Well, I guess great minds think alike, huh?"
Aaron took them to what looked like the ruins of a barn that had recently been set on fire. He showed Rich to a secret passageway underneath the barn that contained a small room with a chessboard. Aaron made the correct move, and they found themselves back in the sanctuary.
It didn't sound all that much like a sanctuary now. Choruses of shouting voices, arguing, and pleading filled the room, including the many knights and others from the tribe they’d rescued.
At the head of the table stood his grandparents, wildly gesturing and giving commands one after another. Some of the children were being taken away down the hallways, and the adults and teenagers conversed with other knights.
As Aaron and Rich entered, however, a hush fell over everything.
"Philip, perform the bonding ritual now,” his grandfather commanded.
With some help, his father rose from his chair and approached Rich. He withdrew a sword and held it out. "Rich, I need you to kneel. Before, your knighting ceremony was done by your grandfather, and it was not as strong as it could be. Now that I'm back, you will have a direct link to the family line.”
Rich knelt before his father, who touched him on each shoulder with the sword. "I, Phillip Karsten Witz, do hereby bind myself to my son, a paladin of the order of the rook, and do so complete our link in the family chain."
The talismans around Rich and Phillip’s necks glowed with intense light, and for a moment, Rich felt his pains and troubles leave him. Phillip embraced his son. "It is done, Mother," Philip said. "And not a moment too soon."
“No," Minerva said. “Much later, and it might truly have been too late. It is a shame that Takka did not survive. We will work quickly to make sure these young ones undergo their training, which will strengthen us even more, but it will not be the same with their father gone. We do have much to be grateful for, however. With this balance restored, it should keep the dark knights from much of their mischief."
"But Oma," Rich said, "they've already got Laura, my cousins, and my friends. They only gave me twenty-four hours before they’ll start torturing and killing them! They want me to switch sides because I have something they need. What is it? Do you know?" Rich couldn’t remember a time when he felt so desperate, as though he were gasping for breath in a room filling with smoke.
His grandmother hung her head as if deep in thought. "Well, Wilhelm, should we tell him?"
His grandfather nodded and cleared his throat. "I suppose now is as good a time as any. Heinrich, you know that every knight has an inborn strength and a weakness. There are some that are common, and some that are not."
Rich nodded, remembering the symbols he’d seen on the backs of his hands. "Yeah, I’ve been told that. But what does this have to do with anything?"
"It means, Rich," his grandmother said, "that you were born with a blessing that makes you unique. It hasn't been held by anyone since Palad himself."
Rich suddenly became aware that all the eyes had turned toward him. He guessed that all this wasn't exactly public knowledge around the table.
His grandfather pointed to his temple. "It's all up here, Heinrich. Many of us have a vivid imagination, but yours is something else. You have the ability to imagine and create things with your powers that are more complex, durable, and much more useful than anyone else. Perhaps you have noticed this."
They were probably thinking of his ability to keep the bus intact long enough for the rest of them to get away. "Yes, that does make sense. And that's what the dark knights want?"
His grandfather leaned forward over the table. "Precisely. I believe you know the story of the two sovereigns, the leaders of our order who are in constant combat. But you might not know where this battle is taking place."
His grandfather narrowed his eyes. "You see, Rich, this is the reason why the Corridor of Keys is so special to us. In its heart rages the battle that will decide everything. The Corridor itself was built to shield that battle from outside influences."
Rich started to see where this was going. "So the nemeses want to find where the battle is in the center of the maze? Why can't they get there?"
His grandmother cut in. "Oh, many have tried, and some have even obtained the final door, but from there, they could go no farther. It is really a series of doors within doors. Sure, you can open the first with the skeleton key, but as soon as you are through, it shuts behind you. Then you're faced with another lock, which can be opened, but will also shut once you’re on the other side. In order to gain passage, all the locks must remain open. The regular keys have been scattered around the world, and most are completely unaccounted for. They have complex shapes, far beyond the normal powers of knights to copy, but the nemeses think that your extraordinary gifts might allow them at last to enter. Then, their mightiest warriors could assist their leader in defeating Palad definitively."
The room fell silent for a while before Rich asked with seemed him to be an obvious question. "If I can make keys, why don't we just do that and help our side win?"
This time, the answer came from St. George, who sat farther down the table. "Indeed, on the surface, that would seem a wise course of action. But therein lies the problem—only the knights of Nemes know the way to the ultimate
door. Only we have the means with which to open it. So unless we were somehow to work together, there is no chance of the door ever being opened, and whatever is happening inside, which seems to be going quite poorly, will simply have to run its course."
"Besides," Rich’s grandfather said, “simply tipping the balance so far to our side would be a disaster as well. We must find a way to get them to stop fighting and resume the cooperation that was the original intent. It is obvious how the powers of chaos, if left unchecked, would be a disaster. But we need them nonetheless. What if nothing ever decayed when it died? What if nothing ever grew old so the new could replace it? That would also be a disaster. The cycles of the seasons, among other things, must be allowed to grow, to die, and to be reborn. Both growth and decay are needed."
Rich could see what his grandparents were getting at, but they still hadn’t answered his original question. He tried to keep his voice level as he asked again about his friends. “So giving up is not an option. What do we do? If we’re going to do something, we need to do it right now."
Minerva put her hands flat on the table, looking from knight to knight. "Agreed. We will assemble a team of our greatest warriors to launch a rescue mission immediately. We cannot let them hold this over Heinrich. No one should have to endure such torture."
Rich shot up from his seat. "Great! When do we go?"
His grandfather shook his head emphatically. “You, my boy, are not going. It's you they want, and so by no means should we march you directly into their stronghold. We might as well put a bow on top of your head and write a Christmas card.”
Rich wanted to yell, to scream, to protest, but he couldn't argue with his grandfather's logic. If he went on the mission and they captured him, they’d have both him and his friends, and he didn't want to know what came next. He sank back into his chair and let his head fall against the rest. "Then what do I do?"
One of the curtains on the other side of the table flew open, and a familiar figure stepped through. "Well, Rich, you can start by giving your mother a big hug."
Rich vaulted over the table and tackled his mother in a tight hug. Before long, his father tapped his shoulder.
"Son, it's my turn.”
On seeing him, she dropped her arms to her sides and tackled Phillip in a tight embrace. "Is it really you? Are you a ghost?"
He stretched his arms to her. "Come and see for yourself."
Rich turned away, not sure he could take watching the reunion between his parents. Other knights stepped out from behind the curtain, looking bedraggled and some of them slightly singed. "Ten blasted fell chariots on our tail all the way back," complained a knight with red hair, ruddy cheeks, and a long beard with beads and gems woven into it. Rich recognized the voice as belonging to Sir Hoffenreich, the knight who had told him about fighting Gigantaurs.
Rich thanked him and the other knights over and over for bringing his mother back.
"Aaron,” Minerva said, “go see Rich and his parents to their quarters. They will be remaining here for now. I advise you all to get some good rest. You will need your strength, and likely very soon."
Rich followed Aaron down the hall, followed by his parents. Rich could hardly believe any of it. The coming days would likely be painful and dark, but for that moment, he felt nothing but joy. They were going to be difficult days, but at least he’d be facing them with family.
The End
About the Author:
1
Michael D. Young is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Western Governor’s University with degrees in German Teaching, Music, and Instructional Design. He puts his German to good use teaching online German courses for high school students. Though he grew up traveling the world with his military father, he now lives in Utah with his wife, Jen, and his two sons. Michael enjoys acting in community theater, playing and writing music and spending time with his family. He played for several years with the handbell choir Bells on Temple Square and is now a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
He is the author of the novels The Canticle Kingdom Series, The Last Archangel Series, and the Chess Quest Series. His also authors several web serials through BigWorldNetwork.com. He publishes anthologies for charity in his Advent Anthologies series. He has also had work featured in various online and print magazines such as Bards and Sages Quarterly, Mindflights, Meridian, The New Era, Allegory, and Ensign.
You can learn more about him at his website: http://www.writermike.com.
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