by Trista Shaye
Diana just shrugged, looking unconcerned.
Rould marched over to her and seethed into her face. “Where is he?” he asked coldly, his eyes holding a sort of unhinged chaos inside them that made her internally shudder.
But she kept her fear hidden and just shrugged again, as best she could. “He’s the Gilded Mage, no telling where he went.”
“Must moths!” Rould shouted and turned back toward the door again. “Don’t go anywhere,” he ordered and was gone for a second time.
“Can’t go anywhere,” Diana mused pulling at her ropes. They gave way.
“You can come with me,” said Kendel from behind her as he moved to untie Matilda next.
“You came back!” Diana exclaimed, pulling her ropes away from herself and moving to help Matilda while the mage moved to open Shaarg’s cage.
“I can’t save the world on my own,” Kendel said, sliding the cage open, a key in his hand. “Turns out, I need my friends’ help.”
“Friends’ help!” Shaarg cried, then rushed over to the desk and snatched up all the rocks. He grabbed the pebble and snorted. “Heh, magic man not even close. Dis one, for summoning toads.”
“That might have been fun to watch.” Diana giggled, then looked to Kendel, “What do we do?”
“I have the scroll,” he said, pulling a scroll out of his robe, just so they could see and then stuffed it back in again. “It’s the fairy ring spell. But there weren’t any quills or other paper for rewriting or writing new ones, so I came back to let you all free so we could find what we need and distract Rould and get this finished with.” He shivered a little. “I still don’t much like adventures, necessary or not.”
“No one said you had to like them,” Diana said. “I’m beginning to have a new appreciation for normal life myself.”
“Diana, you can come with me. I know where we can get quills and paper. Shaarg, you go with Matilda. I’ll need you both to keep Rould far away from us. But be careful, he’s dangerous.”
“And crazy,” Diana added, remembering what she’d seen in his eyes.
“I’ll find you and Rould after we’ve fixed the spell and then I suppose we’ll have to deal with him … somehow,” Kendel figured.
“We’ll decide that when the time comes.” Matilda nodded, saluting him. “Until then, good luck. Come on Shaarg, let’s find this wizard.”
“Or he’ll find you. That seems to be the way of it,” Rould said from the doorway with several more wizards standing behind him.
“Run!” Kendel shouted and grabbed Diana by the arm. There was a flash and the two disappeared from the room entirely.
“Find him!” shouted Rould. “He’s the mage that’s been causing chaos in the realms!”
Everyone scattered and Matilda and Shaarg charged into the fray.
“Where are we going?” Diana cried at Kendel who was pulling her after him as they madly dashed down the cobble-stone halls of Castle Majestic.
Even if she hadn’t been slightly dizzy and disoriented from the transportation spell, she would have been utterly lost. Everything looked the same to her – just a bunch of sandstone blocks, long winding halls, and wooden doors.
“Just run!” Kendel called over his shoulder, then suddenly jerked her into an alcove in the wall to hide as a group of wizards charged past. He peeked both ways before they continued on.
Diana thought they might run on forever, but Kendel finally stopped at a door and pulled it open.
“In here,” he said, breathlessly. “Go up the stairs.”
Diana did as he told her, expecting it to be a couple flights up. But it wasn’t. It was much, much more and the spiral staircase made it seem like they were running in circles at an upward slant. When they finally made it to the top Diana fell into a heap on the floor pulling in deep, ragged breaths, trying to refill her lungs.
“Now I know how you felt, trying to climb the stairs in The Magic Vale,” she gasped, her throat feeling tight.
Kendel nodded, hands on his hips and his mouth open, sucking in the air. “Why didn’t you just fly up?”
“I didn’t think about it,” she huffed. “And indoor flying is much more uncomfortable, my wings would brush the stones on the sides. Such a weird feeling.” She shivered.
Kendel shrugged and pointed over to a desk by a window. “This is the librarian’s scribe tower – I’ve never actually been in here before, hence why we didn’t just transport up here and all the stairs and the running.”
“Great.” Diana nodded. “Where’s the stuff we need. In the desk?”
“Probably.” Kendel pulled the scroll out of his robe as he walked over to it and laid the old parchment down while Diana came over and began looking for a quill.
“Here you go,” she said, pulling out a feather with a metal tip and a bottle full of black ink. She pushed them towards Kendel who had sat behind the table in the large chair.
“Right, thanks,” he said in appreciation. He uncorked the bottle and dipped the pen in, bringing it to the page. He held the quill there then pulled away and asked, “What do I write?”
Diana threw her hands up. “I don’t know, you’ve read it – you’re the mage here, I’m not even supposed to be looking at it according to you.”
“I don’t know what to say or how to say it.” He looked down with great terror on his face. “What if I ruin it all?”
“What’s there to ruin?” Diana asked, leaning over the desk with her hands flattened on its surface. “The realms are already dying, there’s not much worse than that. Just write some words that’ll reverse the effects.”
“Okay.” He breathed to settle himself and then set the quill to the page again, but it was swept from his hand and thrown towards the wall near a bookshelf.
Both Kendel’s and Diana’s heads shot up in surprise.
“Fools!” Rould spat and stepped through the doorway of the tower. “You can’t stop this! No spell can be rewritten, you know that Kendel.”
Kendel rose from his seat and pushed the scroll to Diana with a meaningful look, then he stepped around the desk and towards the wizard.
“Really? Do I know that? Cause last I checked, you lied to me my whole life.”
“Not about everything, boy. Don’t be utterly ridiculous,” Rould said. He measured Kendel’s steps and they slowly began to circle one another.
“Am I being ridiculous, though? Really? I honestly don’t think so.” Kendel held up his hands, ready to ward off whatever the wizard would throw at him, for he surely would try something.
Rould chuckled and looked incredulous. “Please, stand down, I don’t want to have to destroy you like this. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“More lies, master.” Kendel shook his head sadly. “I so wanted you to be my friend, I so wanted to look up to you. And I did for so long, but all you did was keep me in the dark. For what? To obtain what?”
“For power! That’s what’s worth anything in the end,” Rould replied, letting a little electricity build on his fingertips. “Everything else will fall away and fade like the setting sun. Those with power are the ones who are able to do anything of use in the world.”
“Power is for people who need to hide behind something, for whatever reason – they think they’re weak mostly, without it. But that, too, is a lie. One you’ve fed yourself.”
“Oh get over yourself, Kendel, really!” Rould admonished and shot the electricity towards Kendel. “I know I have!”
Twenty-Two
Diana ducked as a fire ball flew over her head and smacked into one of the bookshelves that lined the circular room. She winced. The librarian was going to be quite upset.
She had grabbed the quill off the floor and dipped it into the ink, holding the metal tip just above the old parchment of the scroll. She swallowed hard, understanding how Kendel had fe
lt. It seemed so wrong to add new ink to this ancient work. What would happen if she did?
Diana debated and argued in her mind and finally grabbed up a new piece of paper and set her quill to that instead. But again, she hesitated. She didn’t know anything about writing a spell. Wasn’t a wizard supposed to do that? She was no mage. She didn’t even know the first thing about being one!
The room erupted with a shout and the entire tower rocked back and forth like a leafless twig in the winter wind. Diana clutched the desk with whitening knuckles, holding on for dear life, afraid the tower would split in two and they would tumble to their doom, the bricks shattering on the outer wall of Castle Majestic.
“Do it, Diana!” Kendel cried out, holding Rould off with his magic. “You have to write it!”
“I … I can’t! I’m not a mage, I don’t know what words do what or how to write anything with magic.” She looked down in utter terror. What if she wrote a spell even worse than a fairy ring and messed up everything so terribly that even Kendel couldn’t fix it?
“You can do it,” Kendel grunted out, pushing the massive stack of books that was being thrown at him to one side. “You have magic of your own. The Magic Vale needs you! We all need you!”
She didn’t know the first thing about what she was expected to do, but she had to write something, anything. So she just started penning words. It started like a letter to a dear friend crying out and asking for help. Slowly, she crafted it into something else, and steadily she began to gain more courage.
“Kendel!” she cried, waving the parchment in the air once she had spent her vocabulary on the matter. She snatched up the old scroll, as well. “You’ve got to sign this or something, right? To make it work, as the Gilded Mage?”
“Sure, yeah, just a minute,” he answered. He threw a snare of vines over Rould and bound him to the ground quite tightly then turned to the fairy girl.
“Here.” Diana handed him the page, feeling the heat from the fire burning along the outer edges of the walls growing warmer. “Quick.”
He glanced over her work and finally found the part that sounded like it might be the best for a spell. He read through it once and then translated it into the old language – she was sure he threw in a few of his own words, as well. Diana was a little surprised he could read it, after not being able to read anything in fairy script when he first arrived at The Magic Vale. But he had said he would learn, and it seemed he had done just that.
“No!” Rould screeched and broke one arm free from the vines, hurling them both backwards in a whirling wind.
Kendel pulled Diana up and shoved her towards the doorway to the stairs, making sure she had both scrolls in hand. “Take these and get out of here!” he cried.
“Come with me!” Diana shouted, tripping at his push. “Leave him!”
“He’ll die if the fire gets to him,” Kendel reasoned. “I’ll be right behind you, but I have to bring him with me. Even if he betrayed me, he was still my master at one time. Now go!”
Diana stopped arguing and ran down the stairs, feeling the wobble and shake of the stones beneath her feet. She hoped Kendel would be right behind her like he had said.
Suddenly, a stone gave way under her and she tripped and fell, crying out as she landed on her hands and knees. From above, she could hear the sound and shouts of the struggle as it continued. In that moment, it didn’t take much for her to decide to go back; Kendel had to get out of there.
The library tower was burning and everything, by now, was no longer salvageable. The smoke was billowing up, clouding the upper half of the room and trailing out the open window. Diana felt sorry for all the books they had destroyed and tried her best not to step on any that had fallen to the floor as she inched her way back into the room.
Kendel was lying on the floor and he seemed to not be moving, that she could tell. Rould stood a little way off, laughing to himself and creating a bubble so he could breathe in the thickening smoke.
Diana ran to Kendel and knelt down, a hand on his back. “Wake up,” she urged, shaking him a little, glancing back and forth from his unconscious form to the wizard.
Rould sneered. “He’s done, he doesn’t know half as much as me. I’ve always been the better magician and I’ll always be. He’ll die and the realms with him.”
“I won’t let you kill him!” Diana stood and clenched her fists, staring daggers at the evil man.
“That’s cute, but life doesn’t work like that. You don’t get to choose who lives and dies, it just happens as it’s meant to happen.”
“Then why do you get to choose? It seems like that’s what all this is, you choosing what you want,” Diana fired back, setting her feet.
He shrugged. “Whatever you’d like to call it to make yourself feel better. It doesn’t matter in the end. And this is the end, dear girl, however badly you tried to stop it from coming.” He pulled back his hands and charged up the dark lightning along his fingers and in his palms.
He pulled back and hurled the wad of light at Diana. But just as he did, Kendel grabbed her arm from behind and they blinked out of sight and away from the tower.
The lighting meant for Diana crashed into the wall of the tower and exploded the bricks all around it with devastating power. The tower swayed precariously and then suddenly, it fell, crashing into the outer wall of Castle Majestic and utterly destroying itself and whomever had still been in it.
Diana blinked awake and then blinked more as the sunlight blinded her for a moment. She put a hand up to shield her eyes and tried to get her bearings as she also tried to remember what had happened and what still needed to be done. Or had they been successful, had they finished what they’d come to do?
“Rould!” she cried, sitting up, then tried to stand. Wooziness overtook her and she quickly sat back down.
“He gone,” Shaarg said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You sit.”
She nodded and breathed in a deep sigh. “And Kendel? Matilda?”
“They fine. Just sorting things between other wizard and mage, setting all to right,” Shaarg explained.
“What happened? I just remember a bright light. And the scrolls!” She looked around frantically. “I left them in the library stairs!”
Shaarg once again put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from getting up. “They gone, burned. Crispy paper now.”
“Oh no!” Diana looked petrified. “I burned an ancient scroll!”
“Kendel say it fine, since it was Rould anyways who burn it. His fault. He pay.”
“And I guess he did,” Diana said quietly, remembering faintly the tower tumbling over.
“Where are we?” She looked around with curiosity, having seen so little of Castle Majestic that she didn’t know.
“We in eastern courtyard, far from smoke and burning things, so you feel better. It working?” Shaarg asked.
“Yes, I’m feeling a bit better. Just still not sure what’s fixed and what’s not and if we still have to worry about the world ending. I kind of want to go home, you know?” She looked down into her lap. “I miss it.”
“I miss home, too.” Shaarg nodded. “But soon, we go back. You rest, Diana.”
“I’m alright, really,” she assured him with a little smile. “I think I can walk now. I’d like to see the others.”
“We safe now, thanks to you, Kendel say. Rest,” Shaarg tried to dissuade her but she was determined.
“I’m alright,” she said again, and grabbed onto his arm, helping herself stand. “See?” she asked, and took a step forward.
Diana wasn’t sure what happened, but the next thing she knew she was on her knees on the cobblestones. She felt rather off balance.
“Whoa …” she said, but quickly got a hold of herself so Shaarg wouldn’t insist on her staying put.
Thankfully, the courtyard was empty except for the two friends an
d Diana fell a couple more times before Shaarg lumbered over, offering her his arm for support.
“I’m clumsy today. Goodness,” she muttered out the excuse with a nervous chuckle.
“No clumsy, just tired, just hurt,” Shaarg said again. “You take time, get used to walk.”
“I’m not hurt,” Diana insisted, letting go of Shaarg once more. “I feel fine. I’m not even dizzy anymore.” She took a step and fell again.
Her eyes widened and she looked up from her hands and knees on the ground. “What’s going on?” she asked, concerned and suddenly worried.
Shaarg sighed, a sad shadow dimming his bright eyes. “You take time, get used to walk,” he repeated.
“But I know how to walk,” she said, sitting on her legs where she had fallen. “Does the castle have a strange angle or something for walking? Are the stones all uneven?”
“Not for anyone else. Not strange. You just hurt.” Shaarg pointed at her. “Kendel did best he could. But wizard fast.”
“What?” she breathed out and tried to look at where Shaarg was pointing, but she couldn’t because it was her back. Her eyes widened in terror and shock as she felt behind her where her wings should have been. But they were gone – at least, most of the way – burned by the lightning of Rould.
Diana collapsed then and she felt Shaarg slowly lift her into his stony arms and carry her back to where he had been sitting, by a tree in the corner of the courtyard. She sat numb for a time, just staring at nothing, feeling nothing – like she had when she lost her parents.
Then, after a time the tears began to peek at the corner of her eyes and she began to sob and shake and weep.
Shaarg held her and let her cry, her tears mingling with the colors on his skin and running them together in places.
Although she had managed to save the world, and accomplished what she had set out to do, Diana’s world was forever changed in a way she had never imagined possible.
Twenty-Three
Diana did indeed get to go home, and she even got a house to live in among the branches high above the leaf covered ground. Trizet, of course, came to live with her there and she had plenty of room for visiting guests – like mages, trolls, gnomes, and the like. The council pardoned her for breaking Kendel out of prison and granted her several other privileges to help her as she continued to grow and live without the use of her precious wings.
