by Elon Vidal
Dawn didn’t know much about the gemstone except that it was a large, bright sapphire blue stone that allowed those not born to the water to breathe in it. Would it have other powers? Could it be misused in the wrong hands? Was it connected to the Ocean Treasure and the Hidden Gate of the West?
Dawn thought back to the beautiful lady in her dream. She was so focused on her angelic face that she only remembered now that the lady actually had a scaly, shimmering tail instead of legs for the lower half of her body.
She was a mermaid more likely. Dawn tried to piece the clues inside her mind under the soothing warmth pouring from the shower head.
Dawn felt anxious at the mermaid’s final image; she seemed distraught. Who wouldn’t be if Hades had sucked you into his dark abyss?
Why was this happening to her just now? Was this connected somehow with Hades’ appearance, or had the Mimic tampered with her thoughts when he entered her memories?
The fresh showerwater began to clear the salt from Dawn’s hair. Dawn deduced that it had been more than just a dream. It also wouldn’t be a side effect of the Mimic tampering with her mind. She feared that she had been transported into another pocket dimension while in her sleep. She had met with another powerful magical creature, much like at the East Gate.
Dawn moved under the drizzling drops running under the shower to let it wash the remaining salt from her body. She pondered on. The mermaid also warned her about humans destroying the planet, as if setting the stage for the wrath of darkness.
Dawn felt the pain of those words. She loved nature, plants, and wildlife and was horrified by reports and documentaries recounting the pain inflicter on it without much regard. In her EOS candidacy she aimed to play her part.
It pained her to watch rainforests slashed for profitable crops. She cried when oil spills decimated countless marine ecosystems. She found it hardest to witness nature destroyed by wars, plagues, and greed for skewed and marginal gains.
At the rate that humans were going, Dawn believed that mankind had maybe a century left before the planet would collapse. If the darkness were to accelerate that collapse, then she might not live to see next year’s sunrise.
The darkness. Hades. The mermaid’s warning. The dream’s messages swirled inside her mind as Dawn’s eyes fixated on the shower drain beneath her. She was trying to fit the pieces in her mind.
She had just closed the East Gate. That rejuvenated Eos’ powers to imprison Hades. With the West Gate, there seemed to be more places where Hades could sneak from her grab.
She didn’t want to jump to conclusions. She needed to find out what she could about the Ocean Diamond, and Ocean Treasure, and the West Gate. Her memories of the East Gate were recent, but were there more? Could she find it before Hades and his minions?
What was the Chosen of the Flowing Light to the mermaid?
Magic, Dawn knew, came from the light, but hers was different. She felt her power coming from within. She had always struggled with even just the simplest form of spells. It was only after Eos, the goddess of light, had contacted her that she had been able to tap into a power unbeknownst.
Even with all the newfound power at her disposal, Dawn felt uncomfortable to be considered any kind of savior.
Dawn didn’t feel like anyone’s savior. She didn’t seek or want that.
Much to her dismay, she had been charged to help Eos save the earth and keep Hades locked away. She was hesitant to accept the responsibility until she realized that her family was in danger and had no other option but to fight back.
But now, things were different. No one close to Dawn was in any imminent danger. She had no obligation to follow this trail of warnings and mystical threats.
Yet something gnawed at her heart, compelling to step into this path.
She was pitted against a literal god and a wily, deeply vengeful one.
Dawn smiled under the soothing spray of the shower water. The odds seemed insurmountable.
What chance did she stand to outwit Hades?
She didn’t like backing down from a challenge, but this was on a whole other level. With Hades around and about, this was not your typical Sunday match.
She ended her shower with a cold burst to wake her up. Three seconds, three breaths to spark her back to reality. She knew it activated her circulation.
Dawn confidently walked out of the bathroom and changed into her training clothes.
Maggie hovered curiously behind her best friend, “And where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to see Damon and Elijah,” Dawn replied as she headed for the door.
“But it’s so early in the morning!” Maggie complained. Dawn knew that she was just envious because the ghost couldn’t get passed the charms and spells that guarded the training compound. “I haven’t told you what I found in Italy.”
Dawn would rather dream of Italy, basking under the sun in Tuscany’s hills, sipping wine from orchard to orchard. Instead her hand seemed forced once again to help out. Deep inside, she knew that she would regret it for the rest of her life if she wouldn’t, as the mermaid so poignantly put it, ‘go forth towards her destiny, Chosen of the Flowing Light’.
“I’d love to, when I get back. Now I have someone to apologize, a jewel to find, and a prophecy to fulfill it seems,” Dawn explained before rushing to the training grounds and leaving Maggie wondering what she might have meant.
THREE
“Damon, what do you know about Mermaids and Sirens?” Dawn asked as she easily used her right Sai blade to block a blow from his gladius, a two-foot double-edged sword brandished by many Roman soldiers during their empire’s golden days.
They both wore brown segmented leather armor, greaves, and sandals, similar to those of those soldiers, which Dawn thought made him look like a dashing general.
If only he hadn’t been wresting her in close combat training.
The Sai blades fit both of her hands like gloves and had became her favorite weapon. Dawn’s eyes lit up when she’d seen the rusted old blades in the training room’s armory. She’d felt connected to Raphael, the teenage mutant ninja turtle. That earned her Elijah’s laughing and Damon’s condescending look.
Well, he certainly isn’t condescending now, Dawn thought before she twisted her wrist and sent Damon’s sword flying to his left.
“Sirens and mermadais?” he asked, quickly picking up his sword from the rubberized, padded mat that served as their battleground. “Just the legends and stories told to us by the ancient ones. Are you trying to distract me by asking about stories of beautiful women?” he snarled.
“No, but thanks for the idea,” she said as he came at her again, blade swinging, eyes determined.
“That was just a lucky shot earlier. Don’t get cocky. That’s how you get killed in our line of work, Dawn.”
Dawn rolled her eyes and spun a graceful pirouette to block Elijah’s blow with one of her Sai, putting Damon off-balance as he stumbled past her.
“Cocky by your standards, but confident by mine,” she grinned at Damon. He couldn’t help but crack a small smile on his sweaty face. He stood up to face her.
Damon was one of the more skilled fighters Dawn had ever faced. He kept her on her toes.
“I don’t think you’d stoop to cheap tricks to distract opponents to win a fight, so why are you asking me about mermaids and sirens?”
Dawn deflected another blow, ducked down, and rolled across the mat, crouching in a stance. She’d seen Raphael use it in the cartoon series.
“I had a strange dream last night; a vision rather.”
Damon lowered his sword. Dawn approached him until she noticed he’d lowered his guard him and was slowly backing off from her.
“Wait! First, let’s make a truce,” Damon nervously requested.
Dawn giggled. “For someone that’s been doing a lot of dark magic on the side, you’re a stickler for rules. Fine.” She hung her Sai blades on her leather belt. “Happy?”
Damon she
athed his gladius and nodded, “Tell me about this vision,” Damon said with an inquisitive gaze as he took a step back and began to untether his protective gear.
Dawn sighed, reminded of the events of the previous night. “I had a dream last night that I was speaking to a Siren.” She, too, removed her protective face gear. Elijah, who had been watching from the side as a witness to their training, joined the duo after he saw them sheath their weapons.
“How did you know it was a Siren and not a mermaid? Not even scholars who studied them for decades could tell the difference just by seeing them.”
Dawn shrugged. “I just knew. But it’s not like this one was about to eat me or anything. She called me daughter of the light and water, the Chosen of the Flowing Light. The one fated to work with Eos to help heal the earth and lock Hades away forever.”
“Are you talking about the Siren prophecy?” Elijah interjected, his dilated eyes on her.
“I’m not even sure what the Siren prophecy is, to be honest,” Dawn felt a little jitter in her belly.
Damon scoffed, “That’s an old wives’ tale that’s been passed down from drunken sailors and their sea shanties. No one believes that.”
Elijah ignored Damon. “I don’t remember the exact lines, but it’s been said that the Sirens have been waiting for a powerful magical being––a savior if you will––that would harken their call in the world’s darkest time and dispel the coming darkness. There is more to it, I’m sure, but that’s all I can remember.”
“You think that Dawn is the Siren’s savior?”
“Hey, why not? It’s not that far-fetched. She already accessed one gate and kept Hades from using it.”
“We’re not even sure if what she has is magic!” Damon replied. “Or how she even got it when she’s half-human?” He gave Dawn a small smile. “No offense.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. “None taken. Prophecy or not, this…Siren came speaking to me about an Ocean Diamond, and I woke up in a wet bed smelling like a whale had just thrown up on me.” As much as Dawn wanted to tell them everything about the dream, she was too afraid to tell them that Hades had also been there.
And of what he told her about Fisher’s tragic fate.
Dawn shook the image from her head. She realized that even Damon was clueless about the Ocean Diamond. She was going to have to ask the Djinn. She didn’t like it because the Djinn did not give out their knowledge freely. They hadn’t yet asked for a favor to help on her quest to encounter the East wind, but the experience was still fresh on her mind.
“Damon,” Dawn sighed dreading it slightly, “do you think you can use your connection again to get us into the Djinn Library? It’s the only option we’ve got to find out about what’s really going on here.”
Damon bowed mockingly in front of Dawn. “For the savior of the Sirens? Anything. Would you like some coffee and a massage while you wait, madame?”
Dawn decided that the insult was the last straw. With a single step towards Damon, she swiftly grabbed her right Sai with her left hand and struck the part of his armor over his ribs with her blade’s rusty round pommel.
Damon stammered back, coughing and nursing the area where Dawn had struck her. “Oh, you are so going to pay for that, Dawn.” With the fire of battle in his eye, Damon unsheathed his sword and charged menacingly at her.
Dawn’s body gracefully twisted and turned, avoiding the quick but shallow stabs from Damon’s gladius. If Damon were to use his entire arsenal of spells, Dawn knew she wouldn’t stand a chance. In physical combat though, Dawn was the biggest shark in this pond of sorcerers.
After a life’s training to offset her lack of magic, she no longer needed to will her body to move on the battlefield. She only needed the will to win.
If Damon played nice, she had all the will that she wanted.
She danced around Damon’s attacks as if she knew what he was about to do next. She even sheathed her Sai blades to dodge his attacks.
She didn’t have to do any of this at all. But Dawn wanted to teach Damon a lesson.
She had endured more than enough looks of disappointment and disdain in her entire life, a halfling who had nothing else to contribute to magical society than having a powerful Fae mother. But even still, she wanted to help out as much as she could by doing what she loved best, the study of biological life.
She studied hard to reach her dream but realized that without magic, she would need to find a way to defend herself if she would be on trips to magical biodomes filled with mystical and dangerous creatures, which is why she trained diligently on physical combat.
She didn’t have centuries of White Dragon bloodline in her veins.
She wasn’t born to a wealthy magical family whose sons were already groomed for success.
She was just the product of innocent love between a human and Fae. But she was proud because every second of her waking life was her own, even when she was forced to take on Hades and went on a life-threatening quest to the East Gate.
Yet, all that she got was the same discrimination from the most renowned magical practitioners.
She was tired of it all, especially the look on Damon’s face.
Dawn noticed that Damon’s movement slowed down after his recent swing and immediately got to work when he stopped attacking. She raised her Sais back into an attacking position and twirled like a tornado towards Damon, making him stagger back as he blocked her flurry of blows.
Dawn broke his defense with a clever feint and locked his blade in one of her Sai’s hooks before she flicked it away. Damon’s gladius was too far for him to catch as it landed in front of Elijah’s feet.
She had won, but her body unwittingly refused to stop moving. Her hand moved on its own and started to stab, aiming for the soft spot between Damon’s neck and clavicle.
A white mist exploded from her left, and a moment later, Ezekiel’s hand grabbed her wrist just before she could make the killing blow. He wore nothing but his loose black robes, giving the impression of a thin, sickly old man, but Dawn was surprised at how strong he actually was.
“Oh, God!” Dawn fretted as she looked at Damon’s horrified face, “Damon, I’m so––“
“Shush,” Ezekiel interrupted before turning to Damon, “You will take her to see the Djinn later, is that understood?”
Damon looked down, ashamed as he nodded.
“Good, now, it’s time for magic practice, Dawn.”
Ezekiel snapped his fingers, and the room around Dawn transformed into an infinite space of white, a setting that she was all too familiar with.
“You don’t seem to look surprised at where we are,” Ezekiel commented as he took the Sai blades from Dawn with a wave of his hands.
But Dawn had more pressing concerns in her mind, “Ezekiel, I was seriously going to stab Damon! I don’t know what came over me!”
“Ah, that,” Ezekiel mentioned as he took a step back while the Sai blades hovered to his sides, “Interesting choice of weapons here, Dawn. There were hundreds of them at the armory; why did you specifically choose the oldest and most worn-out of the bunch?”
Dawn thought hard to say something meaningful but only had the truth to say, “I wanted to be like Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I didn’t care what the weapon looked like.”
A genuine smile cracked from Ezekiel’s stern face, “I spent a lot of time forging those weapons, and yet, you chose the one that I didn’t make.”
Dawn remembered that Elijah’s house had a workshop when she visited him a few days earlier. “I don’t follow, Ezekiel.”
“Hades”, Ezekiel continued, “is the master of the underworld. Ever since the fall of Olympus, most of the other gods were relegated back into the ether. Some, however, traveled to other dimensions, such as Hades’ domain. One of those gods who traveled to the Underworld was the great god of craftsmen, Hephaestus. These blades are of his making. Not only that, they were purposefully planted in the armory so that you would choose them.”
Dawn gasped in horror, “Did Hades set a trap?”
Ezekiel softly nodded as he gazed upon the blades, “These blades bear the black god’s mark and have flourished dark emotions within your heart, Dawn. Hades must have wanted you to fall to his side with these.”
Dawn felt nauseated at the thought of joining forces with Hades. “I’d rather eat your nasty food than join him, Ezekiel!”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, why would Hephaestus join Hades?”
Ezekiel frowned, “Master Hephaestus is a stubborn god. His love for the craft offsets the duty that he has to the other gods. When he found out that Hades offered him a spot in his kingdom with unlimited access to the rarest metals and magical materials in the etherverse, it was too tempting for him to resist.”
Master? Had Ezekiel learned his tricks from Hephaestus? Dawn wondered but thought against asking when she saw the Sai blades beside Ezekiel vibrating.
“Ezekiel! What are we going to do about that!”
He gazed at the two blades, lightly tapped on each of them, before waving them back unto Dawn’s leather belt.
“You are going to learn the next lesson, Dawn. Fight fire with fire.”
Dawn scurried away as she tried to take off the blades from her belt and throw them away. But as she tried, they always found a way to magically manifest back on her belt.
“It’s no use, Dawn,” Ezekiel calmly explained, “I’ve cursed those two to you, and only I can remove the curse from them.”
“Ezekiel! Have you gone mad! This is what Hades wants!” Dawn complained.
Instead, Ezekiel shook his head, “No, what Hades wants is for you to fall to the darkness by exploiting the shadows in your heart. You’ve already had some inkling of control of your light magic, but that magic comprises only half of your soul, Dawn.”
“Are you telling me to use dark magic?” Dawn thought out loud. It could explain how Damon used his and why there was such a strict ban on its usage.
Ezekiel shook his head, “the lecture is over, Dawn. You must learn this lesson on your voyage and discover the virtue needed to overcome your demons. Now, tell me more of this dream you mentioned earlier at your training.”
