Guardian: Protectors of Light (52 page)

“
SAMIRA!”
James yelled. “SAMIRA!” 

Hardly a few seconds
after Samira had smacked against the wall, James felt a sudden pain
rising up in his chest. He yelped out in pain. The Master glaring
at him was the last thing he saw before fainting.

All of a sudden, Samira’s
limbs started to jerk. Her back curled upwards in pain; then, she
stopped moving just as fast as she’d started to.

She slowly started to
rise on all fours; standing up, with her eyes shut
tight.

“
See?” Jason
said, pride resounding in his voice. “Now she’s on our side anyway,
Master.”

The Master didn’t seem
too impressed. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Your
Curses aren’t strong enough to last. But... She might just be
useful, for now.”

Shortly after the Master
had finished his sentence, the room’s door blasted open and the
Bond of Light and Protectors came barging in.

The Master stayed
surprisingly calm, despite the hostile position the teenagers
standing in front of him had taken toward him.

Sabrina and Jason,
however, didn’t manage to stay as calm. They’d drawn their weapons,
but the Master gestured at them to lower their defences. “This is
not our fight,” he said. “We can test out our new asset to take
care of this one for us instead.”

He reached for the belt
underneath his cloak, took the sword and threw it at Samira, who
skilfully caught it. The sword’s golden glow immediately reverted
to black smoke.

“
You know what to do, Samira,” the Master said.
“
Destroy
them.
”

Then, both the Master and
his “guard dogs” dissolved into black smoke, leaving the Bond of
Light alone in the room with Samira.
Samira slowly walked toward the Bond of Light and the Protectors,
while opening her eyes for the first time since she got back on his
feet.

As soon as her friends
caught a glimpse of her red, glowing eyes, they gasped in
horror.

“
Oh, no...”
Thomas whispered, and Bella whimpered silently.

Akilah,
however, didn’t seem too impressed. It was more as if she sensed
something as soon as she’d laid an eye on Samira’s eyes.

“
She’s not
cursed,”
she said. “It’s just a weak substitute. This wasn’t done by the
Master; I can revert this with the right spell.”

“
How?” Antonio shouted, slightly panicked and freaked out.
“We’re not going to have to 
fight
 him, are
we?”

“
Yes
,” Samira growled.
Her voice didn’t sound the same; it had gained something twisted
which didn’t belong in her own voice. “You 
are.
”

And, without anticipating
any possible following reactions, she attacked Antonio, who blocked
his attack with the silver Light Sceptre he still had, as it was
the only object strong enough to block the teenager’s attack, as
the glaive’s wooden stele would break instantly.

The Sceptre hadn’t
exactly ever been quite of use; Antonio had never even mentioned he
had it in his possession, since he viewed it as an useless piece of
silver.

“
Great! And
what are we going to do about this!?” Antonio shouted at Madeleine,
both demanding and irritated.

“
Antonio,
Timothy, Bella, you keep him busy!” Akilah ordered. “Violina,
Thomas, go see if James is okay. Madeleine, you can help me channel
my power to create a reverse spell!”

And she wouldn’t have had
to tell them twice. Bella had engaged a knife-to-sword battle with
Samira to keep her attention away from Antonio, but the
blonde-haired girl quickly got bored and moved on to Timothy.
Meanwhile, Thomas and Violina were checking up on James, while
seeking for any possible spells or injuries that had been inflicted
on him.

After a while, Samira had
apparently gotten tired of fighting Timothy and turned her
attention toward Antonio again. To Antonio’s surprise, Samira
handed James’ sword to him; Samira had retrieved one of Timothy’s
katanas in their fight. 

“
It’s time
for a real fight,” Samira said, but Antonio could beg to
differ.

“
No,” Antonio
said. “I refuse to fight you. This isn’t you, Samira. You’ve been
cursed.”

Samira
raised her eyebrows in amusement and grinned widely. “Who
knows?”

Antonio’s eyes flashed toward Akilah, Madeleine and
Timothy, who stuck up his thumbs at him, letting him know
everything was set and they were ready to go.
“Come on,
Sassy,” Antonio
said. “Snap out of it.” Samira didn’t know, but Antonio could see
Madeleine sneaking up behind Samira, preparing to cast the spell on
him.

“
I’ve had
enough of all this standing around,” Samira growled, clearly
irritated. “Come on, Guardian! Be a man and FIGHT
ME!” 

Samira lunged forward,
just at the right moment to be hit by Akilah’s spell. It engulfed
the teenage girl completely, pulling something out of her. Whatever
it was, it looked like black smoke.

As soon as the light had
pulled the black smoke out of Samira’s chest, the light engulfed
the smoke, shattering into thousands of small pieces and
disappearing.

The spell had worked;
Samira had been freed.

Samira just stood there,
staring at nothing, panting heavily.

“
Wha- what
just happened?” she stammered, then he noticed James, who was still
passed out and hanging “in” the wall. “James!” Samira shouted. “Is
he okay?”

“
Yes, he is,
fortunately,” Violina said. “But neither Thomas nor I can tell
whether the Master has done something to him or not.”

Samira swallowed. “We
need to get out of here. Now.”

“
How?” Thomas
said. “He’s going to come after us for sure... We’ll be lucky if
we’re even able to make it out of the castle.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’ll make it out of the castle just
fine.”

All eight teens – well,
except for those of them who were already facing him – turned
around to face the Master. “I must congratulate you all; I’m very
impressed with your skills. I didn’t expect you to be able to pull
this off... That’s why I’m allowing you to leave now.”

Timothy took a defensive and unbelieving stance.
“You’re... 
kidding
, right?” he
said. “I don’t think you’re planning on letting us go at all. This
is just some plot to get us killed.”

The Master raised his
palms in defence and smiled in a creepy, seemingly sincere way.
“Calm down, young boy,” he said. “I swear you’re free to go.
Look.”

With a wave of his hand,
he released James; Violina and Thomas caught him before he hit the
ground.
“Go ahead; leave. The door’s open; I’ve ordered all my men to leave
you be until you’ve gone more than five kilometres away from my
castle.”

“
But that means we’d be nearly 
at
 the
Castle of Spirits when they’re allowed to attack again,” Bella
said.  ”Seems suspicious.”

The Master didn’t
respond. And though they didn’t trust him, the Bond of Light took
their chance and left anyway, taking advantage of the given
opportunity. Antonio, Timothy and Samira did throw the Master a
dirty look as they passed him, but nothing happened.
They left the castle safely, just as the Master had promised them
they would. Nothing seemed strange; save the fact that the man who
had sworn to find them and destroy them had just let his chance
slip by.

Or was it all part of the
Master’s plan after all, and had they all walked straight into it
with their eyes wide open?

We All have a
Dark Side

The Bond of Light had
made it out of the Master’s castle safely; now all there was left
to do was to get to the Castle of Spirits safely.

“
Don’t you
think we should be in more of a rush?” Thomas said, as he made sure
James was still lying safely on top of Glimmer’s back, who’d been
waiting for them just outside the castle.

“
If Asura
keeps his promise, no,” Madeleine said.

“
And you
expect him to do so?” Thomas said sceptically. Madeleine shrugged,
unsure of what to say.

“
It’s
possible that he will, you know. The Master might be a man of
deception, but he’s probably trying to get some fun out of this. He
won’t capture or kill us this easily.”

Thomas crossed his arms.
“Fine, then,” he said. “But we’ve got to keep moving.”

“
I agree,”
Samira said. “The sooner we get this over with, the faster we can
get back home.”
Without wasting any more time, they went on. The others now had
come to realize they were running out of time as well; the Master
had officially opened the hunt and put a bounty on their
heads.

All they could do was hope that the Master would keep his
word; if they were to be left alone until they were more than five
kilometres away from the Master’s castle, they would be as good as
inside the Castle of Spirits.
As the Bond of Light was still more or less convinced of their
safety, they stopped walking after a while to rest and talk about
everything that had happened that day.
“I just can’t believe Gabriel risked his life for us like that,”
Timothy said, as they sat around the fire. “
Again.
”

“
He has
always been a brave warrior, Timothy,” Madeleine said, putting a
hand on Timothy’s shoulder. “He wanted us to be able to keep
going.”

Timothy smiled. “Well...
let’s make sure that his sacrifice does not go to waste.” Pause.
“After all, after all of this is over, we’ll be set free to rest in
peace, too.”

“
What do you
mean?” Bella said. “Won’t they still need you guys around
here?”

“
Of course
not,” Madeleine laughed. “We were only here to guide the Bond of
Light as good as we could, until one Generation would rise and
succeed into performing the Ritual,” she said. “Once you succeed,
we will be relieved from duty, as the Light Spirits will separate
from our souls.”

“
Whoa,”
Antonio said. “That is deep stuff.”

“
Yeah,”
Timothy said.  ”Tomorrow we’ll go to the Castle and finish
this all... as long as the Master doesn’t stand in our
way.”

“
Of course he
will,” Madeleine said, resting her worried gaze on James, who
seemed peacefully asleep. “He already is.”

“
What’s the
matter, Madeleine?” Violina asked. “Do... you feel
anything?”

“
I felt it
when I looked at him back in the castle,” Madeleine replied. “I’m
afraid the Master has managed to curse him.”

Thomas lowered his
eyebrows. “What does that mean?” he said.

Timothy got up and walked
to James, searching the leather bag that had been put beside
him.

“
You can read in here what that means,” he said, tossing
Thomas “
A Guardian’s Guide to
the Light
”.
Thomas caught the book and flipped through it, until he found the
pages called “
Cursed
Spirits
”. His eyes widened in
surprise as he read what Timothy had written and clasped a hand
before his mouth. “Er... Is there a way to cure this?”

“
Not without
light,” Madeleine said. “Unless I’ve got power from the moon to
help me, the Master’s spell will be too powerful for any of us to
remove it.” She paused. “But then again, the moon will...”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence, as Thomas had expected she’d
already finished and had already started talking. “I’ll find a way
to get the moon out so we can cure him,” he said.

“
You should
all go to sleep, or at least get some rest. I’ll switch when I get
tired.”
The others went to bed without arguing with him, as they knew it
would be no use.

Thomas stayed up all
night, reading through the entire book, trying to find a solution.
Any kind of light source close enough to the moon would do for him.
Unfortunately enough, he didn’t find anything to solve his problem
except for Antonio’s Sceptre... But as he was yet to receive his
Guardian’s Totem, the Sceptre had very limited power. Using it to
cure James would probably not succeed.
But it was always worth a try. With that mindset, Thomas woke
Timothy up to take over watch and went to sleep.
The night was short. Despite the fact that morning didn’t bring
much light into the Land of Void, it was enough to help them see
through the dark.

The biggest surprise of
the morning was probably James waking up. He was able to walk, but
failed in recognizing or communicating with any of his friends. His
pupils had grown to the size of his irises; yet they still didn’t
seem to be able to see anything.

“
This is the
second stage,” Madeleine said. “We- we can try to wake him out of
it. After the third stage commences, it’s certain we won’t be able
to help him... That’s why we’ll have to do it now, if we want to
have any chances at succeeding.”

“
Please try,”
Antonio said. “It’s less fun without him around... What do you
need?”