Return To Sky Raven (Book 2) (18 page)

“Why are you two up and in our room?”

Dusk responded with forced enthusiasm after glancing warily back at the two nebulia, “Why, we have brought you your morning meal, my Prince, Princess and pixie!”

“Huh?” the three of us chimed in together. But neither the twins nor the maidens seemed to be listening as the nebulia clapped their hands sharply together and pointed. Almost as if stung by a bee, the dragon girls quickly set down their trays and retrieved small bed tables from under our bed frame, deploying them in a crisp well-rehearsed manner. Then they began setting them with utensils, napkins and finally the plates of hot food. It was obvious the positioning of every fork and spoon was being scrupulously observed by the watchful eagle and hound eyes of the stern-looking maidens. With everything in place, the twins earned a grudging nod, and the nebulia exited respectfully, bowing and leaving the girls alone with us.

“They’re finally gone,” they both gasped in unison and keeled over dramatically on the end of our bed in exhaustion.

“What’s going on?” asked Maya.

Both of them rolled their eyes, and Dawn yawned and answered, “Last night you both were brought up here to get some sleep; we were brought to the kitchen to start our training. Turns out that your parents are holding us to our promise to you.” Dusk elbowed her in the side, lighting up Dawn’s eyes. She waved her hands in the air and they got off the bed. “No, please don’t misunderstand, we love this opportunity! But we have talked too long, eat; we know you’re hungry. After you’re done, we have a lot of work to do.”

The food was great but, sadly, finished way too quickly. Then the twins had baths prepared for us which, unfortunately, also meant I had to get out from under the covers still in my abbreviated bedclothes. Dawn and Dusk, even though tired, still managed to summon up the ability to gawk as they walked around me in obvious delight.

“Dibs on Alex!” Dawn hissed, giving Dusk a glare of challenge.

“Sister, that is most unseemly of you,” Dusk retorted. “To be eager to do a job well is one thing, but to get shamefacedly giddy about it, is quite another! It’s much too perilous for you. I shall accompany Master Alex to his bath with the proper decorum.” Unfortunately, she ruined the entire high moral ground debate by giggling uncontrollably for a few seconds.

“Sister, dear one,” Dawn smiled evilly, “you have no concept of how perilous this is all going to get if you don’t stand aside.”

“Enough, both of you,” Maya scolded as she grabbed them both by the arms. “I believe you are my handmaidens, not Alex’s; he’s a big boy.”

“Yes, we can see that,” the dragons interrupted.

Maya paused, plainly annoyed; and then she stopped for a long moment, looked at me appraisingly, and snickered. “Anyway, as I was saying, he’s a big boy. I think he can take a bath by himself, so you will both attend me - where I can see you at all times!”

The spurt of energy left both dragons as they sagged tiredly and sighed, “Yes, you’re right, Mistress. Please forgive us, it’s the lack of sleep talking.”

Back from the baths and with that awkward situation thankfully out of the way, we were asked to get into our armor. As I was putting it on, I noticed that someone had cleaned and polished both of our suits. Who could even have done that? Regardless, we got suited up and the twins escorted us down stairs and out the door.

Back in the courtyard, we both stopped and stared at the commotion around us. The wizards and servants were running all over the place, moving stuff, cleaning, hauling stones around, everything. The thing that really surprised us was that they were all smiling and laughing with each other as they worked.

The twins just shrugged as if the object of our surprise was a common fact. “Morale is on the rise. Apparently, the accommodations here are not as bad as you would have thought after four hundred years of neglect. Obviously, there was a lot of damage, but once the excavators dug everything out, they found that most things were still intact. Rosa claims there are a lot of enchantments still functioning in this complex. And, apparently, this place has some form of heating system that is fed by the large hot water spring. All the outbuildings have pipes that have warm air flowing out of them as well as others with hot water; the kitchen staff is simply ecstatic.”

As if she knew we were talking about her favorite things, Rosa came bustling around a corner, happy as a lark. She scooped both Maya and me up, she attempted to anyway, but the armor stopped her. Undeterred that she couldn’t hug us the way she wanted, she continued to bounce up and down, squealing in glee. “This place is amazing! There are so many new and wondrous things to discover and explore!” She was almost as happy the day she found me…almost.

“Wow! Slow down, Rosa, we don’t want an old lady to die from a heart attack,” Maya grinned snidely.

Rosa slowly calmed down. “Enchanters, ancient enchanters, were here before us. The beds are still here and as soft as the day they were new. The kitchen has a set of cookware that hasn’t rusted and rotted away, and don’t even get me started on the waterfall. Almost everything here has been enchanted with something. The only things that aren’t are the walls and the keep; but then they have very strange flows in them like your father said.”

I didn’t even have to use the link to know that she didn’t go to sleep last night, but she didn’t seem to be slowing down any, either. “Not only that, but everything here is a new enchantment for me. I have learned so much in one night; it’s exhilarating!”

“We thought you would be impressed,” came a voice from behind me. I spun around and found both my parents standing there. Father looked me over again and smiled. “I see you’re both outfitted and ready to go. I take it you both remember where you need to go, correct?”

Without hesitation, Maya stepped forward beaming. “Yes sir, we do; we’re heading to the dark elf capital.”

He smiled. “Maya, please, there is no need to be so formal with me.”

“Sorry. But I thought of another question last night; what happens when the magic runs out?” she asked.

Father frowned. “Now that’s a bit of a hard one to understand. Put plainly, no more magic, no more magic creatures.”

This shocked all of us. “We die?”asked Nia.

“No, you won’t die. But without magic, new generations of magical creatures will slowly shrink down to nothing. Not because it kills you, but because it makes reproduction almost impossible. The only ones who will thrive are the humans because they aren’t reliant on magic to function. I know of one world, the inhabitants call it ‘Dirt’ or something, that is a prime example of what happens when the dark wins over the light. Right away, an age of death washed over the land. When it finally ended, no magical creatures were left. The fools even hunted down and killed the wizards of their own kind, leaving no trace of magic. But life itself went on. However, once all the magic was gone, even the clueless humans realized something was missing from their lives so they sought to find meaning in their paltry existence by creating puerile religions…over 4000 of them on one planet! Most of them either mistrust or downright hate the others. The wars, petty politics, famine, corruptions of the soul and general disheartening conflict were never ending; it was an incredible mess! I took your mother there for a couple days once just to show her the place, and she was so upset afterwards, she could barely speak for weeks!”

“That sounds awful,” we all agreed.

He stopped and looked at our horrified expressions and forced a smile. “But don’t worry, nothing like that will happen here; that is, unless we don’t get you two on the road.”

I looked around and noticed that Mother had slipped away somewhere during the story, but the cause of that mystery was short-lived. Panicked screams filled the morning air, followed shortly by our two stable boys sobbing as they came around a corner. Quickly spotting us, they ran over to us, dropped to their knees, and hung their heads, begging for forgiveness. “We’re sorry! We’re so sorry, we didn’t mean to!” they both stammered as tears ran down their faces.

I looked at Maya as we both knelt to their level. “What is this all about?” I asked.

“Mister Alex, Miss Pretty Elf, we’re so sorry! We heard rumors that you might be leaving this morning and we wanted to show you that we were grateful for your trust in us. So we got up early and started brushing and cleaning your horses and getting your gear ready; you know, food and other supplies. Your horses are so beautiful and amazing that we wanted them to look perfect. We were brushing their tails and we must have been brushing too hard because their hair lit on fire! We tried to put it out, but water wasn’t working, and by then, the fire had spread over the rest of their bodies. We’re sorry; we didn’t know what else to do so we ran to find you!”

Maya got wild-eyed with panic and jumped up to race to the stables, and I wasn’t far behind, but a large hand clamped down on each of us. “Hold up,” said my father. “There’s no need to rush, your mother is already working on it.”

“But they need our help! They could die any second!” Maya said, her green eyes brimming with tears, but Father just smiled and squeezed our shoulders calmly, or maybe not so calmly since I could feel it through my armor.

“The horses are fine, trust me on this,” he told us. Most of us looked skeptical, but the two stable boys at least stopped crying and looked at us hopefully.

An uncomfortable minute later, my mother returned in a flash of light wearing a very pissed-off expression. Even though I don’t know her well, the raw magic emanating from her in stark angry waves gave me the chills. The object of her ire also appeared, with her hand firmly clamped on his ear. Naton Rad had apparently convinced or threatened one of the seamstresses into fashioning him a new set of Fire Tower red robes. He was attempting to put up some form of resistance to the ear hold but wasn’t having much luck from what I could see. Finally, Mother cast him into the dirt with an offhand flick of the wrist, getting his new robes filthy.

He boiled up off the ground furious, “What the hell is wrong with you? Stupid old lady! Do you even know who I am?” Naton demanded.

Her face took on a stony hue like it was chiseled out of white marble and her eyes burned with fire; and I mean real fire, with flames and molten lava! She raised a hand and pointed; instantly an ice blue bolt of lightning ripped down from the cloudless sky above and struck the ground at the fire wizard’s feet, showering him with even more debris.

“Enough!” Mother spoke calmly, but somehow the words reverberated off every surface around all of us, the effect amplified many times over and her voice took on a bristly electric tone that threatened to overload our brains if it rose any higher. “I will not tolerate this from the likes of you! The question is Master Rad, do you know who I am? Insolent worm, you are nothing to me, yet you have the overwhelming arrogance to backtalk the very ones who gave you your power? You misuse your gift to try and harm my son and future daughter and attempt to delay their efforts to save this world!” Her eye flashed even more dangerously. “And on top of it all, you would have killed two innocent young boys. Do you have no care for the lives of others? Are you so supremely arrogant that you feel entitled to play god?”

Naton dusted himself off in a casual manner and glared back at her, replying, “They are just servants. Who cares what happens to them.”

Instantly, a glittering golden great axe appeared in her hands, and with a thought, Naton was driven to his knees in the courtyard, apparently unable to move. “Wrong answer,” she hissed and raised the axe into the air with almost no effort. But just as she was bringing the massive blade down, someone shouted and her blade stopped a mere few inches from his head. We all looked over to see Captain Higs running up, out of breath. He must have been roused out of bed as he was shirtless and just wearing pants and no shoes.

“Wait,” he said again, “you can’t just kill him. That is something only the Headmaster or the King of the wronged kingdom can order!” He looked around at us for a second, embarrassed. “And now I just realize how stupid I am; both the Headmaster and the King are here. Well, have fun in Hell Naton; we won’t miss you!”

But before she could raise the axe again, Father placed a hand on her forearm. “I don’t believe death would be the proper punishment, dear.”

She looked disappointed for a second before the axe vanished from her hands. She then turned to look at Naton with bright, very scary smile. “You’re right, I have something better. She took a breath and stated formally, “Naton Rad, a wizard with no intelligence, no sense of duty or loyalty, and most of all, no compassion is an abomination. Those two young boys, whom you so callously look down your long nose at, are worth one hundred of you…so be it!” And the sky resonated with a thunderclap, and it was over.

I looked at Naton who was sitting on the ground; the only difference I could see was that, instead of the luxurious red robes he had been wearing, he was now outfitted in the shabbiest of peasant clothing. He stood up red faced and looked around sneering.

“That’s it? All these stupid theatrics and all you did was to take away my robes? Ha! Big deal. I’ll have a servant make another set even if it takes her all night. Tomorrow I’ll be back and running this place,” he crowed.

Mother simply smiled, but Rosa’s eyes widened in surprise.

“She took away your magic…like, all of it!”

Naton grinned contemptuously and extended his hand willing a fireball into it - and nothing happened. Suddenly panicked, he tried again, and then again.

“You will never again cast a spell as long as you live,” Mother said without pity. “But don’t worry, I’ve given your powers to someone who will put it to far better use than you ever would. This world needs a new cadre of fire wizards who do not abuse their gifts and who remember whom they serve. As for this,” she said, indicating Naton, “now he is just a weak, pitiful, ordinary human with no real world skills, and he has to learn to survive among the very people he so recently despised. Good luck with that. Captain Higs, please get him out of my sight.”