Magic Prophecy: A YA Portal Fantasy (Legends of Llenwald Book 3)

by DM Fike

  Isolde shook her head, panting but slower now. “Mt. Hornley is solid rock, difficult to penetrate with my earth-seeking magic. I would never likely find the temple itself from the surface, which is said to lie deep underground. Bedwyr’s army likely had to dig for months, even with experienced earth magic wielders, to create this entrance.”

  Kay stared at the base of the boulders. “Perhaps you could simply move the dirt away from the bottom of the stones and they will roll downhill.”

  Isolde shook her head. “If I did that, they would tip over and sink into any new hole I would create, still blocking the path. The elves who set these boulders here knew what they were doing. They chose stones of a certain weight so that you could only really remove them by rocking them out of the way, which would take earth wielders to do.”

  Avalon contemplated the boulders. They teetered like the toys she played with as a toddler, rocking back and forth on their weighted bottoms but always ending upright. “Are the rocks solid throughout?”

  “Aye,” Isolde replied slowly, as if she had been asked a very stupid question.

  “Then Kay should be able to help,” Avalon said.

  “I don’t wield earth magic,” he said.

  “You don’t need to. You can fly.” When both Kay and Isolde looked at her as if she’d grown an extra head, she explained from the beginning. “They need to be rocked out of place, right? Isolde’s pushing them from the bottom, where her earth magic gives her the best leverage. But you’re a fairy. Your best leverage is in the air.”

  Understanding dawned on Kay’s face. “If I push from up above, I can also help rock them out of their bases.”

  Isolde resumed her sumo position at the side of the boulders, ready to push as Kay flew into position. The fairy rested his gauntlets on the top of the boulder, wings flapping furiously to stay upright as Isolde shifted the ground underneath. At first, Avalon’s plan didn’t seem feasible, Kay unable to get enough leverage to tip the boulder over. But just as they were about to give up, he slid down a few feet and smacked his boots firmly on the boulder next to him, giving his wings a rest. Now Kay used his entire body to push the boulder as Isolde worked the bottom.

  Avalon held her breath as the boulder rocked back and forth, tensing every time it swung toward Kay. She worried it might crush him, but he managed to twist himself like an accordion, folding himself at the waist as the boulder swung his way, but then pushing out with all his strength to rock it the other direction. Finally, it popped out of place. Kay floundered as he lost his handhold, but he used his wings to keep himself airborne. The boulder rolled topsy-turvy down the hill.

  “Yes!” Avalon cried. Behind her, Mutt clapped.

  Kay perched on the tip of another boulder, breathing hard, but focused on the task at hand. “That’s one down.”

  “We’ve got… seven more…” Isolde wheezed. She then excused herself to catch her breath.

  It took an hour, but Kay and Isolde managed to rock the next boulders out of place. Each attempt became easier than the last as Kay and Isolde recognized how to work with each other to dislodge the rock. Still, when the last boulder rolled aside to reveal a small cave, she fell over and announced she’d need to rest for a while.

  Satisfied at this result, Mutt took his leave. “Farewell, I must say.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” Avalon asked as Kay rummaged through Isolde’s bag, making sure they’d have light to explore inside.

  “Back to gremlin camp, I must go. Like children, they are. Constant supervision, they require.”

  Avalon surprised him by throwing her arms around him. “Thanks for everything.”

  Mutt gave her a fierce hug back. “Welcome back at our camp, you are anytime,” he said, then turned on his heel back down the mountain.

  Kay waited until Mutt had wandered out of earshot before mumbling. “Not likely.”

  But Avalon wasn’t so sure as Mutt threw one last goofy wave before disappearing downhill. She secretly hoped it wasn’t the last she’d see of the Gadabout Gremlins.

  CHAPTER 19

  AFTER GIVING ISOLDE a half hour to rest, Kay took the lead with a crude torch he’d made from a stick, strips of cloth, and some foul-smelling liquid that Isolde kept as campfire fuel. It burned a flickering orange as they crowded into the rocky tunnel Bedwyr’s army had carved into the mountain. All around them, the earthen wall held bits of hard stone, just wide enough to let one person through. Avalon took the rear, watching with some apprehension as the sunlight faded into nothing.

  “How far is it?” Avalon pulled her sweater tighter around herself.

  “I can sense this goes for a few miles,” Isolde called over her shoulder. “But beyond that, I cannot tell.”

  They continued through dank earth with leaning walls that felt like they could collapse at any moment. The ceiling lowered, forcing them to walk at a crouch for a long stretch. At one point, they even had to crawl where a section of rock had collapsed. Kay squeezed aside to allow Isolde to repair the damage before they could go forth. As Isolde patched the soil and rock back into place, Kay glanced back at Avalon.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  A sense of foreboding lingered over Avalon, some of it from the claustrophobic conditions, but some from somewhere else. It seemed to ebb alongside the heaviness in her limbs and the flurries in her gut, an echo of her dormant magic. Or maybe it was simply a product of her own mind. Avalon gulped down her fear, reassuring herself that with a boulder elf, she should have nothing to fear traveling underground.

  “I’m hanging in there,” she replied.

  “I’m here if you need me,” he said.

  “I know.” Normally that would cheer her up, but the dread refused to go away, even with Kay beside her.

  Isolde soon finished, and Kay once again led them into the endless tunnel. Time passed, though how long was hard to judge in the gloom. Avalon’s fear transformed into a general malady: a trembling in her bones, a shortness of breath. Even when Isolde announced she could sense something beyond the tunnel, a cavern of sorts, Avalon did not relax.

  Don’t panic.

  Ladybug. Avalon flinched at hearing her familiar voice. She hadn’t heard it for so long. She wondered what it might mean as Kay announced he saw something up ahead.

  A pale green light flickered beyond Kay up ahead. It grew brighter and rounder as they approached the hole that Bedwyr’s army had carved. They stepped out of the earthen tunnel and into a large room held up by marble columns. All around them, torches flickered with emerald green flames, emitting no smoke, unlike Kay’s torch. Ornate tile flooring stretched across the room, creating simple patterns here and outlines of Aossi in other places: dressed in armor, wielding magic, dancing in rituals. At the far end of the room, at the end of a tiled path, stood a gaping metal gate, broken as if punched from the outside in, over an open archway.

  Isolde clapped in delight at the green-lit torches. “Eternal flames! I never thought I’d get to see them.” She scooted to examine the mosaic pictures on the floor. “What gorgeous artwork.” She stared up the marble columns toward the high ceilings, where one could barely make out paintings etched in between the golden relief patterns. “And the architecture. This whole place is awash in history and magic.”

  Kay focused on the damage inflicted across the room. Tile had been ripped from the floor in parallel rows, as if scraped by a massive claw. Burn marks and other remnants of a fight echoed in the nearby columns and down the other side of the spacious room. He bent over and whistled. “It’s like my mother described the Guardians’ final battle against Kryvalen. I cannot believe I’m standing in that very spot.”

  But to Avalon, all else faded but those iron gates. The gaping hole in the center, surrounded by twisted metal, reminded her of a monster with a pale face and hollow eyes. She had been here before but not in the real world. In her dreams, inside her mind.

  This is where Braellia had called for her.

  She’s not
here, Ladybug’s voice insisted, louder now.

  “Avalon.” Kay was talking to her. He had placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her lightly. “Avalon, are you well? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “That’s because I might have.” Avalon explained her dreams of Braellia in this very room, how the Child had always been trapped behind that gate, pounding on it to be free. How she and Ladybug had laid here paralyzed as Bedwyr had ripped Braellia out of her body.

  Kay tensed with her re-telling, sinking lower to the ground as if ready to spring, glancing about the room for someone to attack. When he reached for his sword hilt, Avalon shook her head. “This isn’t the same place.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, peering into the shadows.

  “It was this place but still different,” Avalon tried to explain. “The gate wasn’t broken, and there weren’t signs of battle everywhere.”

  Isolde clapped her hands together. “It must have been echoes of your former reincarnations.”

  Both Kay and Avalon stared at her. “What?” Avalon asked.

  Isolde rubbed her hands, warming up to her own idea. “You’re a Child of the Statue, right? Well, only sort of, but close enough. A Child of the Statue is said to be guided by the previous incarnation, an echo of Gaea herself, that lives in her mind and gives her wisdom from the past.”

  That would explain why Ladybug had always talked in her head, but Avalon found some inconsistencies in this theory. “If only the previous incarnation is said to be in my head, why did I have two? And why would someone be able to extract one by force out of me?”

  “I don’t know,” Isolde admitted. “I said you’re only sort of a Child of the Statue because of how Bedwyr forcibly created you. The rules bend for you, like how you only have magic with your Guardians around.”

  “Or how I can’t even use magic anymore.” Avalon sighed. “I get it. It’s just a theory. Everything’s a theory. Nothing’s concrete.”

  “That’s why we’re here, correct?” Kay straightened. “We’re hoping something here might help us against Braellia and Scawale.”

  At Kay’s direction, they split up and searched the room. It turned out to be an even larger hallway, more columns and tile artwork running farther until it came to a collapsed wall on one side. Isolde groped behind the rock with her magic and speculated that this was likely the original temple entrance, blasted shut. More battle damage manifested as gouges in the walls, floors, and even up in the ceiling. Kay recognized the scorch mark of a lightning bolt while Isolde pointed out disturbances from earth magic.

  With one section of the temple explored, the only way forward was through the hole punched into the metal gates, as large as any dragon. Isolde paused to admire the craftsmanship on the bars. “Ancient temples rarely used metal because it’s extremely difficult to manipulate with elemental magic.”

  “Why build the gates at all?” Avalon asked.

  “To guard something very important.”

  Avalon held her breath as they passed beyond the gate’s walls, letting out a sigh of relief when nothing happened. In fact, the hallway continued to stretch on hundreds of yards into the gloom, even the green torchlights dimming. This area felt more like a continuation of the previous room than its own separate area. No battle damage had marred this simple space. It definitely did not look like it held anything sacred, although she thought she sensed a low hum. Of course, that could be her nerves from revisiting a place that had traumatized her.

  The hallway finally ended in a simple pool outlined by a stone rim. None of the torchlights emitted this far into the gloom, so Kay had to relight his torch to view it. Non-descript gray stones stacked in a simple brick wall pattern surrounded the still body of water. It couldn’t have been more forgettable.

  Isolde frowned as she examined the pool. “I don’t understand. Temples are places of worship. Where are the living quarters, statues, and other adornments?” She bit her lip, staring down. “This place just has a pond.”

  Kay flexed his hand in front of him, a conjured breeze blowing through his hair. “My mother told me Kryvalen used this as his base of operations during the Second Reformation because it gave him added magic. I can feel it in the air.”

  Isolde closed her eyes and stomped the ground. “Aye, I feel it too, but that’s to be expected. It is a sacred temple of Gaea.”

  “Maybe the pool contains the answer.” Kay pulled off a gauntlet and shoved his hand in the water, but it only penetrated a foot deep before finding the bottom.

  Isolde poked her finger in the water, her reflection wavering under Kay’s light. “Other than its cleanliness, I see nothing special about this pool. It’s not for scrying. The water has no extraordinary properties.”

  Avalon said nothing, sitting on the edge of the pool, contemplating the water. She considered sticking her own palm into the water, but then the magical hum inside her heightened to a dizzying crescendo. Earth, wind, and lightning buzzed in her veins, bursting to be free. She quickly stood, wishing to put some distance between herself and the pool.

  “Maybe we were wrong about the other end of this temple,” Kay said. “Perhaps more lies behind the collapsed wall than we initially assumed.”

  “Maybe,” Isolde agreed, though she didn’t sound convinced. “It is worth checking out, I suppose.”

  The two Aossi wandered back down the rows of marble columns, Kay’s torch leading the way. Avalon moved to follow when something tugged at her from behind.

  Avalon.

  The voice sounded both like Ladybug but also like someone else. A sense of serenity draped over her. She knew she had nothing to fear as she turned around.

  An eternal green flame, not much larger than Avalon’s fist, flickered in the exact center of the pool. Avalon, it called, pulsating with each syllable, beckoning her forward.

  Overcome by its beauty and radiance, Avalon stepped over the rim of the pool, her sneakers sinking into the water but somehow remaining dry. The light cast a pale green glow on her skin. For once, instead of feeling pain jolt near her Miasmis bruise, she felt a surge of something comforting and warm, like the caress of a mother on a child. As Avalon waded toward the light, it grew ever larger until it could encompass her whole.

  Avalon.

  “Avalon!”

  Someone else may have been calling her name, but it didn’t matter now. The light beckoned. She stepped into the green flame, now towering above her, and fell into a bottomless pit. Her mouth and ears filled with water as she dove down, down, down toward that voice.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE SERENITY LASTED until Avalon’s lungs screamed for air. The trance broken, she panicked, surrounded by water on all sides. Green light trickled through floating strands of her red hair. She flailed toward the source. Not the best swimmer, she hoped she could make it before she inhaled water into her lungs.

  Fortunately, a blurry figure materialized at the surface of the water. Its hand plunged into the water, reaching out to help her make the last few strokes. They grasped each other by the wrists, and Avalon forced her airway shut until she broke the surface. Then she gulped air, water blurring her vision, as those same hands guided her back to the pool’s stone rim.

  Avalon hacked and coughed as soothing hands stroked her back. After inhaling mouthfuls of air, she said, “I thought I wasn’t going to make it there for a minute. Thanks, Kay.”

  “I’m not Winged Wonder,” a gleeful female voice replied.

  Avalon pushed wet hair out of her face and found a cloaked gremlin with frizzy hair grinning ear to ear, canines prominent on the sides of her lips. “L-Ladybug? What are you doing here?”

  “Hey, don’t pin this one on me,” Ladybug drew her hand over her breast in mock indignation. “You’re the one who entered this realm.”

  “‘This realm?’” Avalon glanced around her. Everything appeared like before: the same simple pool at the end of the same columned hallway. The only difference was the blazing green flame that now
swished like a huge bonfire in the middle of the water, albeit without any visible fuel source or sound.

  Ladybug snapped to get her attention. “You can’t possibly be that dense. Look up.”

  Avalon jolted, staring upward. Far overheard was a shimmering circular light, the way water reflects on a ceiling. She could see the faint outlines of Kay and Isolde peering down from up above, lips moving, obviously frantic, but again no sound escaping their lips.

  Avalon cupped her hands over her mouth. “I’m okay! Don’t worry!” But they flailed in full panic mode. Kay in particular wore a terrified expression as he shouted into the mirror.

  “They can’t hear you. You’re inside your own mind, gone from them.”

  “Then I’ll go back.” Avalon could not take her eyes off of a desperate Kay. “They shouldn’t worry about me.”

  “Then I guess you don’t want the answer to your question.”

  Avalon paused, distracted by Ladybug’s coy response. “You mean, how to defeat Scawale?”

  “Not Scawale,” Ladybug clicked her tongue. “She’s just a symptom of the real problem: Braellia. You have a corrupted Child of the Statue on the loose.”

  “So Braellia is running the show.”

  Ladybug nodded. “This is what happens when an idiot dryad rips a Child of the Statue from her eternal prison.”

  “Prison?” Avalon repeated.

  “I’m afraid if I don’t start from the beginning, it’s going to be a long conversation. I don’t have a lot of strength, but let me show you what I can.”

  Ladybug tapped her index finger onto the water’s calm surface. As the ripples separated, they showed not their reflection but that of a teenage Aossi with flowing red hair, ears long and pointed, and dressed in bright green from head to toe. If she had worn a T-shirt and jeans and kept her ears hidden, she could have easily passed for Avalon.

  “Meet Braellia, a Child of the Statue. Gaea chose her as she chooses all of her special children: based on her purity of heart, her courage, and her strength.”