Soul of the Sorcerer - Part Three: Daughter of the Dragon (33 page)

Brother Kenneth sat in the library at the very top of the single tower above the school of Arrenloft. It was only the eighth day, in the last year, that he had managed to find any serious time to allocate analysing, researching and decoding the glyphs and symbols that Master Darrion had taken from the place known as Stonehenge, on the world where the Sorcerer was raised.

He had determined, at the earliest stages, that it was definitely a holy site, somewhere people would gather to worship at certain times of the year. But he went in circles for a few days, when several glyphs seemed to indicate that it was the place where all humans went to both give birth and die. In the end he had some help from an older monk and it was decided that the glyphs and runes meant
beginning of life and death
in a broader context.

Perhaps this Stonehenge marked the beginning and the end of the creation process; had the world called Earth been the central point of creation, the first world to be made and not this world? Brother Kenneth decided to have a tankard of ale; as he poured, a drop of the light brown liquid splashed out onto one of the sheets of Darrion’s notes. It landed by a symbol that was smaller than the others, almost insignificant in the scheme of things, but Brother Kenneth remembered seeing it before; he had seen it in the forbidden tome that Lloyd Brook had taken home with him.

The symbol was often referred to as that of the Great Sorcerer, which to those with knowledge was something else entirely. Brother Kenneth knocked back his ale and ran from the library, his face undecided on whether to express excitement or fear. “Find me an Air Master I need to get a message to Master Darrion and that mangy former monk friend of mine. We may have just uncovered the greatest discovery of all time!”

The black sphere tore and dissolved into nothing, revealing the male and female Ebony Beings, standing hand in hand. It was difficult to actually discern the colour of their skin; because they were currently being illuminated by a myriad of lights, emanating from the giant circle of stones that surrounded them. The male looked up into the tear in space and time that sat about five hundred feet in the air above them, through it was blackness, blackness deeper than ebony; it was the event horizon of a reality sphere, the Sorcerer’s greatest and most terrible work, currently recharging hungrily from the Sun, which was struggling to maintain its nuclear furnace. This had been the third piece in the puzzle allowing the capability to time travel.

Occasionally, as some large piece of matter entered the reality sphere, a bright light was produced, which illuminated the earth for a brief second, in a light as bright as lightning. Light reflected off of the myriad of weaponry used by the last remnants of the human race, to try and bring down the protective shield that sat around Stonehenge. Some of the weapons were the latest anti-gravity tanks developed by a company called Intelligent Weapon Systems; the company logo could be clearly seen on a number of vehicles.

They had tried, all of them, on many worlds; but he, Lloyd Brook, Sorcerer, had defeated them all, but it had cost him his heart and above all his soul.

“So what happens now, nothing seems to have changed here Lloyd?” The Ebony female said eyeing the Sorcerer with a bemused look.

“Patience Beth, patience. I do not know whether we stand now in another version of existence, or whether this will all change once there is no longer any power left to maintain the protective sphere.”

A whimper from their left, by the central two meter tall altar stone, as it was called, made them turn. There, flickering in the purplish green light given off by the stone was a creature huddled against it. To their eyes it looked old and frail, with pieces of skin peeling away from cracked flesh underneath.  Another flicker of bright white light revealed the skin to be leaves and the flesh clay and other soils, cracking from a lack of moisture. Where her eyes should have been were two empty cracked sockets. Her long hair, usually like a long green grass, was withered and brown.

“Water...please” the Queen of the Mae pleaded, reaching a weak arm out to touch Lloyd’s black tattooed leg.

His eyes currently white, Lloyd knelt to take the Queen’s hand and opened his water portal.

“Aquastream, Aquafast, stream of water, water fast”; the words felt unusual on his tongue and the power, one he had not used by itself for so long, slightly alien. The spell still worked and he fed a steady stream of water into the Queen of the Mae. Her flesh and skin absorbed it readily and finally, after a minute, she was able to stand and was nearly twice the size she had been earlier.

“We must return one more time, there is one more event to check” Lloyd said in his deep voice.

“I am not certain I have the power anymore; even the power beneath this place, combined with my own is struggling to wrestle with the black void above us...Why not just let things be!” the Queen protested in a voice etched with frailty.

“Because we must know whether we have saved Edala,” Bethany responded “we have to see whether things can be different.” She then turned to Lloyd and embraced him with a kiss; there was no happiness on her face, however, only sadness.

“Do you think that if things change we will vanish?” she asked once their lips separated.

“I do not know Beth.”

“I feel sad if it is to be. The world will always speak of your love for Edala, but it was my love, my friendship, that brought you back Lloyd. It is my love that should be remembered!” she said with silver tears running from her white eyes. Lloyd lifted up an ebony hand and rubbed the tears from her tattooed cheeks.

“I am sorry that you suffer Beth; but you know our love was a thing of desperation, friends brought together by grief. We lost so many friends and loved ones...some of whom may still yet perish, despite the changes we have made. But even if no one remembers or knows; that in our timeline, it was your actions, so many years after Edala’s death, that brought some semblance of humanity to my tortured soul, I will always be grateful” he kissed her gently on the lips again.

“But if time forgets that it was you that aided me in this path to total annihilation then I will also be grateful.”

“Me too” she said, tracing her fingers around the Pendant of Daria sitting around his neck; alongside it was the Talisman of Joran that had started Lloyd’s journey so long ago. These days the symbols were hard to distinguish on its face through the molten burn marks where it had been damaged long ago.

Lloyd looked at the Queen of the Mae, “DO IT!” he ordered.

“No I cannot; I do not want to die.”

“If this works then none of this matters, do it!” he ordered again.

“I cannot... I’m afraid” the Queen dropped to her knees, her water filled eyes somehow looking petrified.

Lloyd’s eyes turned black and where, for Beth, he had had a gentle smile on his face, an evil leer now replaced it.

“Then I will do it...the last evil act of the Sorcerer!” he exclaimed grabbing the queen by the neck. He then lifted her up and opened his black portal; within it were his four elemental ones and the silver portal of the dragon. He drew first on his powers, before pulling the raw elemental force that was the Queen; just before her dried husk collapsed and vanished in the wind that had arisen, she uttered three last words.

“Remember the Promise.”

Lloyd then began to absorb the myriad of coloured energy pouring from the monoliths of Stonehenge, glyphs and symbols appeared in a fiery green upon every rock face. His tattoos also began to glow brightly, causing Bethany to shield her eyes. Finally he drew upon the store of energy from the reality sphere and a new crack appeared in the fabric of time and space causing a time travel sphere to grow around them. With a strange screeching sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard it then shrank and vanished. Leaving both the Sun and Earth totally dark and utterly lifeless.

The End.

Lloyd, Edala and friends will return in “Son of the Sorcerer” the startling conclusion to the Soul of the Sorcerer series.

The author likes to hear from people who enjoyed the books, if you would like to say hi then please visit the Facebook Page – Soul of the Sorcerer
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and remember to like it.

Would you like to get a special mention in book four? I’m looking for a name for Lloyd and Edala’s son. So please like the Facebook page and leave a suggestion in the comments section of the Name the Baby Competition.

You can also follow me on twitter @sorcererseries

Finally if you liked the book please let your friends know about the series and leave a review on Amazon.
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Regards T R Brown.

Terry R Brown lives in Kent and has worked for over 30 years in the video production industry as both a writer and director.

He wrote the majority of Soul of the Sorcerer Parts One and Two in 1999; after much tweaking, the books (which were originally intended to be one volume) were finally published on Amazon Kindle in April of 2014.

Much of this book, Daughter of the Dragon, published in December 2014, had been planned during the writing of the first two. He is looking forward to finishing Lloyd’s story in the next book.

Terry loves science fiction and fantasy, being both a huge Star Trek and Lord of the Rings Fan and fondly remembers his misspent youth playing Dungeons and Dragons 2
nd
Edition!