“I cannot see in the dark, Teka. And lighting orbs will only give away our position to whoever might be following us.”
I nodded in agreement to Thera’s reasoning. “Can you set up some wards around our camp?”
“Yes.”
“After the wards are set up, one of us will remain awake and on guard. We will trade guard posts every few hours—one awake, two asleep.”
The three of us did just that. Thera set up multiple and complex wards to prevent any intruder from overtaking us while we slept. Then we split the night into separate shifts. My shift was the first—uneventful. I was kept entertained by the amusing snoring coming from Ekvinöj. When my shift reached its end, I roused Teka from her sleep. I watched her get comfortable before I let my own exhaustion pull me into the dream world.
◆◆◆
I was awakened the next morning by Thera roughly shaking me. We packed up the camp quickly, choosing to break our fast while on the road. I was hoping that we had roused early enough to slip past whoever it was that might be following us. I prayed we were just being paranoid, that the would-be prince could not find the Sorcerers’ Isle.
Noon came and went. We were leagues away from our camp, and still none of us spoke a word. I ran through all of the Kinös Eldic terms I knew, repeating them again and again, over and over until I was sure I had them memorized.
The suns were low in the sky when a small hut came into view. It sat a good distance from the riverbank where a few skiffs were tethered to a short dock. Thera stopped her wyvern at a hitching post set up outside a rudimentary fence. We dismounted our steeds just as a handsome young man exited the hut.
“Good gozavé!” He waved as he called his greeting.
“Hello, Kínashe. I din ormá né alú a amyíac.”
Thera and he continued their friendly exchange for a minute more. Try as I might, I could only catch a word or two of what was said, for they were simply speaking too fast for me to keep up. I looked to Teka for help with the translation, but she was too busy unloading our packs from the wyverns to pay attention.
With the little details regarding the boat’s use worked out, the man led us down to the water’s edge where five green wood rafts were tethered to a small dock. The rafts themselves looked like the leaves of an yggdraberry tree—complete with the long curl at the front, which held a small lantern and a rudder in the shape of a stem. He guided us to one of the leaf-shaped skiffs and even helped load some of our gear. I hopped in and sat on the small bench toward the front and admired the craftsmanship even further.
“Tic kahl wah…?”
“Nai. Nai, Thera.” He smiled sweetly as he turned down her money. “Nír irím, bó kerím ska.”
“Shíkai ja, Kínashe.” Thera smiled as she untethered the skiff from the dock.
He gave the dinghy a shove to get it away from shore and waved farewell.
“He was nice about not charging us,” said Teka as she took up a leaf-shaped paddle and began to move us down the river.
“Kínashe is always nice like that.” Thera smiled. After a moment, she turned to look at me. “So were you following the conversation?”
“Believe it or not, I understood a few of the words you haven’t taught me yet, but I wasn’t able to follow the whole conversation.”
“Interesting.” Thera stared at me, and I could tell she was lost in her thoughts.
“What do you know about your life, Xy?” Teka asked after a moment of silence.
I looked her in the eye as I answered. “I washed up on the beach outside the Temple of Five Souls. A boy named Ríhan discovered me and had me moved into the medical wing where I spent the next week recovering. When I finally woke up, it was discovered that I had no memories of who I was or where I had come from. So the Palavant took me into the Temple’s care, and I lived there ever since, hoping and praying to one day learn who I was.”
“Apparently, you do remember quite a bit from whatever kind of life you lived before you ended up at the Temple,” Thera replied. “You have picked up a difficult language far faster than any other person with no experience in it, and you have mastered the simple spells I taught you only days ago. If I were of rank to take apprentices, I would say you would be graduated to Mage, if not Druid already.”
“Wow.” I could not suppress a grin.
“I believe you were already taught all of this stuff—fighting, magic, languages, and whatnot. Then for whatever reason, you lost your memory. Now it only takes a small insight into what you already know to have those memories come flooding back.”
I was quiet as I mulled this over in my mind. What Thera said was true. I was starting to remember far more advanced words in Kinös Elda than what she had already taught me, while magic and fighting came to me as easy as walking. I began to wonder what had happened that caused me to lose my memory in the first place.
I freed the Dragon Diary from my hip sack and began flipping through pages. Maybe the answer to my past was written somewhere in the ancient runes. I tried in vain to spark a memory that would reveal to me the words written on the crinkled parchment. Eventually I gave up, choosing instead to further study the drawings within.
One drawing in particular captivated my attention. It was a map of the world, but it looked different from the few others I had seen. There were islands, rivers, and lakes on this map that should not exist. And it included a detailed outline of the Sorcerers’ Isle.
Teka jerked my attention away from the map. “Well, we are definitely out to sea now.”
Our blue sun, Rishai, had already vanished below the horizon, while Aruvan just kissed the tops of the mountains on the small island in front of us.
“Ah. I love how the sunset reflects off the water like that,” Thera whispered.
“Vero,” Teka said quietly. “It’s beautiful.”
I blinked at them. “What water?”
My companions stared at me.
Finally, Thera pointed toward Aruvan. “That water.”
“That is an island.”
Thera and Teka glanced at each other then back at me.
I chuckled at the look on their faces. “You don’t see the island?”
“We see only water, Xy,” Teka explained.
“Luminös!” I made a small orb of light form in my hand so I could see the map in Dragon Diary again. The island I was seeing in front of me also appeared on the map. I pointed at it as I tilted the page so my companions could see. “The island is right there. You don’t see it?”
“That is a blank spot,” Teka replied after she had leaned in for a closer look.
“Okay. Relax,” Thera spoke gently. “Maybe the island is protected by a field that only a Dragon Keeper can see through. If that is the case, then we probably just stumbled upon the hiding place of the first dragon.”
“You will have to tell me if I am on course,” said Teka. “I cannot land a boat on an island I cannot see.”
“Okay.” I stood up and hurled the globe of light as far as I could. It splashed down on the water not far from the island and faded away.
“It vanished.” Thera smiled. “That means I was right about the field protecting it.”
“Thank the Gods. I was beginning to think I had gone insane.” I sighed as I sat back down. “Keep heading in the direction of Aruvan, Teka. We should reach the island in a few moments.”
“Aye aye!”
I chuckled at Teka’s enthusiasm as I tucked the diary back into my hip sack. A few minutes passed as I watched the pair, waiting in eager anticipation for their expressions to betray the moment they saw the island for themselves. It felt like forever before Teka’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.
“Oh, wow!”
“It’s huge!” Thera exclaimed, her expression a mirror of Teka’s.
I smiled as I turned away to look at the island a little more closely. It was slightly bigger than the island home of the Temple of Five Souls, and much wilder in appearance. A trio of jagged mountains cap
ped with the lingering snow of a winter storm dotted the interior. Enormous plants, each beginning to glow with a medley of bioluminescent colors against the darkening night, grew thick and untouched over almost every inch of the island. Where plant life did not grow, strange crystals of heights varying from a half meter to five meters sprang up. Each of them glowed a magnificent blue that seemed to pulse as a heartbeat.
Little spots of cerulean and white light flickered between the foliage, moving en masse like glow bugs around the shore and climbing higher. As I watched the glowing mass move upwards, I caught a glimpse of something dark floating high above the island – tucked safely between the mountains as if they were its guardians. As my gaze lingered on the floating shadow, something within me seemed to whisper, “I feel you…”
“I thought it would be a miniscule island.” The sound of Thera’s voice yanked me back, and I lost my concentration on the floating shadow. “For Amorez to shield one of this magnitude, she must have had help.”
“Either that, or she was more talented in magic than she let on.” Teka offered as explanation. “How do you think it was done?”
Thera cupped her chin in thought. “I think it works similarly to the field surrounding the Sorcerer’s Isle. We breached a field of magic projected to guard the island from intruders. Anyone who wasn’t deemed worthy of entry was just warped around the island without their knowledge.”
“It’s strange…” I heard Teka murmur. “I’ve come this way countless times and never once did I see this island.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you are seeing it now because I am here with you.”
“What is that?” Thera pointed at something behind us.
I turned around to see what she had spotted but could not see anything in the waning light as Aruvan disappeared completely.
“I hate to say it again, but I don’t see anything.” Teka squinted, hoping to see something.
Thera stood and flicked her wrist as she cast her spell. An orb of light erupted over her target, revealing my worst nightmare. A split second later, the spell was countered, restoring darkness to our pursuers.
“We have to hurry!” I exclaimed, trying to urge Teka to go faster.
“Who was that?”
“He is the Prince Valaskjalf wannabe who is after the Dragon Diary. And he brought some ugly old Judge and those two Dákun Daju women I fought at the Temple. The Godilaied one is the one who murdered Ríhan.”
“I think Pox was with them.” Thera frowned.
“Great,” Teka muttered. “We better come up with a plan to fend them off pretty darn quick.”
“We have to reach the dragon first. Who knows what those guys will do if they reach him before we do,” I said, watching the shore grow ever closer.
I am coming, Vortex.
The only thing I had really taken away from that first war council meeting was Thernu’s words, “Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.” She could not have been more right.
– FROM “THE DIARY OF AMOREZ” BY AMOREZ RENOAN
“I don’t understand why they would take such a tiny skiff this far out into the open sea,” Luna whispered.
Dimitri scoffed and continued to watch the dinghy in front of them as it sailed toward sunset.
They had caught up to the trio a few days ago. He had expected to obtain the Dragon Diary easily, but the young Feykin proved to be quite adept at defensive wards. Therefore, he chose to wait for another opportunity to present itself. Thus far, his patience had not rewarded him.
“I think they spotted us,” Godilai announced.
A globe of light suddenly erupted overhead. A heartbeat later, Piper cast a spell to counter the magic.
“Curse that girl!” Luna hissed. “I cannot wait to see her dead.”
Dimitri rubbed his eyes and blinked, trying to readjust to twilight. Finally, his eyes cleared, and he searched the horizon for the girls. What he saw shocked him. “Was that island always there?”
“What island?”
Dimitri pointed to where he could barely see the shadows of the girls against the outline of the island. They were scrambling to reach the shore. He would bet all the money in the world that there was a dragon somewhere on that strange island. “Get us there. Quick!”
Vincent panted as he tried to force the skiff in the right direction. “The tide has turned against us, Dimitri.”
“Hold on to something,” Piper said, standing suddenly. She did not wait for the others to comply. “Aero bíraw!”
A great surge of wind and water lurched the skiff forward on a wave. But it stopped too short to get the team to land. Piper repeated the spell another time and another. Four more spells and Dimitri’s team could finally beach the skiff on the island, right beside the one they were following.
Xyleena’s team was nowhere to be seen.
◆◆◆
We could not help but gawk at the beauty of the island as Thera, Teka, and I pushed our way through the wyvern-sized foliage. Though I had taken the lead, I could not tell where it was that I was heading; I merely followed the mysterious pull I felt. It was as if something within me was guiding me to the place I needed to be; the place I knew I would find Vortex waiting.
“Aero bíraw!”
My attention was stolen for a moment as one of our pursuers cast the spell.
“Time to go!” I took off deeper into the overgrown wild faster than before. Thera and Teka were right behind me. As we shoved past leaves the size of tables, I heard Thera casting multiple wards. I prayed that they worked or at least bought us enough time to obtain the aid of Vortex.
The thick vegetation ended abruptly, and I came to a sudden stop. Thera and Teka barely managed to avoid running into me as I stood there, staring in wonder. They were both about to ask why I had stopped, when they realized what had won my attention. A crystalline archway stood before us, forming a doorway to a glowing, rainbow staircase. I traced the stairs as they wound their way through the trio of mountains and upwards, to a shadow floating about five hundred meters above the ground. Without a word to Thera or Teka, I rushed to the stairs and began the climb to the top. Teka took off after me while Thera lingered a moment to cast a spell.
Thera laughed as she landed on the stairs in front of me and folded her wings. “That one will be a nasty surprise.”
I wondered what kind of spell she had just set up to keep our pursuers busy.
My sides were burning, and my legs begged for rest by the time we reached the halfway point of the stairs. As much as I tried, I could force myself to run no farther. I slowed to a stop to catch my breath before continuing at a brisk walk.
The sounds of a battle wafted up from the stairs below. I glanced down to the base of the stairs to see the would-be prince’s team trying to fend off a strange plant. The plant appeared to be winning.
“That one yours, Thera?”
She grinned at me and nodded. “I call it crazy weed.”
“I like it.” Teka clapped Thera on the back. “Teach me that one sometime.”
A moment more of watching and we were on our way again. Many minutes passed, and the stairs still did not end. My legs were burning. My lungs could not seem to get any air. And my feet felt too heavy to lift another step. Nevertheless, I had to press on. I had to get to Vortex!
I gasped for air and forced myself onward. The sounds of the battle died away. I had a feeling that the Dákun Daju had finally beaten the crazy weed. I heard Thera start another spell as the final steps came into view at last.
I paused to study a black dragon statue that guarded the castle’s entrance. Its wings were folded along its back, and its tail curled around its feet. Ancient runes were embossed in the dais the dragon stood on.
“I wonder what it says.” I tapped the dais.
Thera glanced at it and shook her head. “There isn’t any time. The Shadow Keeper will overtake us if we don’t hurry.”
I followed her and
Teka into the castle.
The entrance hall spilled out into a huge circular room with easily one hundred corridors. And each one of the corridors veered off in a different direction. The floor was some sort of grey stone slab with a glow emitting from the joints, but the walls were all opaque crystal. More rainbow stairs wound their way upward into darkness.
“Okay, Xy, time to break in those new Dragon Keeper senses.” Teka sighed.
“I…” I slowly began to walk the circumference of the room, pausing by each corridor. “I don’t know!”
“Calm down,” Thera said softly. “Clear your mind and feel it out just like when you cast a spell.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. I let my eyes drift shut as I circled the room again. I felt a strange pull toward one direction. I followed it until it changed direction again. I opened my eyes and looked at the doorway I would need to take.
“The floor?” Teka sounded skeptical, not that I could blame her.
However, the crystalline oculus I stood on did look familiar. I stepped off the oculus and willed a memory of it to return. I knew it opened, but how?
“I don’t see a lever or switch,” Thera announced as she searched the room.
“Then how does it open?”
A word sprang from my memories, and I snapped my fingers. “Infé!”
As soon as the word was uttered, the oculus vanished, revealing another rainbow staircase.
Teka laughed and clapped me on the back. “Nice one, kid.”
I smiled and led the way down the new stairs. Thera fell behind just long enough to set up a ward and seal the doorway. As soon as the oculus was back in place, we were plummeted into darkness.
“Luminös!” I lit two orbs in my hands. I dropped one down the stairs to gauge how far it was to the bottom. “Thank the gods this isn’t another hour-long venture.”
“I don’t think I could take another set of a million stairs like that last one,” Teka muttered.
About halfway down this set of stairs, a bright light flooded down from the room above. A heartbeat later I was sent flying as a body struck me. The two of us plummeted to the floor and hit hard. It felt like several minutes before I could breathe again. By then my opponent was already on his feat, sword drawn. His crimson eyes glared at me.
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