The Mystical Knights: The Sword of Dreams (10 page)

“The fact that I was dying—or quite possibly already dead—never crossed my mind once during that instant.  It was like I was being suffocated—there was light at the end of the tunnel, and I reached out for it—but it just pushed me backwards—back to the numbness.  And then I felt it—the pain that was stitching down my back, that feeling of blood pulsing in my ears.  I blinked—and I pushed myself up, doing my best to ignore the ache that shot up my spine, or that tingling sensation that rushed down my arms and legs.  The older kid that jumped in after me was almost there—he yelled at me, told me not to move, that I’d hit my head.  I slowly reached up and touched my head, felt the brand new scab that had formed right across my hairline.  I was confused—baffled, even.  I knew I had fallen, and quite possibly broken my neck—but I felt fine.  In fact, that pain I had felt before was gone.  I looked up and saw Quinn staring down at me, his face just as pale as his hair.  He looked sick—as though he had seen a ghost.”

“How were you able to sit up after falling like that?  Did you go to the hospital?” Nia asked. 

Fiona laughed darkly.  “I wish it was only that simple.  I was startled out of my mind.  After that day, I tried anything and everything to hurt myself.  I jumped from trees, twenty feet high, deliberately crashing my bike...I even tried to make Quinn drive over my legs with his Gran's lawnmower...”  She shuddered, shaking her head so that her loose red curls bounced along her shoulders.  "He would never, though..." 

"And nothing ever happened?  That's...that's not even possible," Nia said.

Fiona’s tone became as tense as a taut wire.  “I’m Silver Phoenix.  What are phoenixes known for?”  The redhead shook Nia’s shoulder roughly, her fingernails digging into her flesh.

“Rebirth,” Nia answered, yanking her shoulder away while giving Fiona a rueful look.  “But aren’t we
all
reincarnations in some way?"

“
Not
all of us.” Fiona sounded very irritated now.  “I was created this way, out of the fire and ash.  I was made to keep the cycle—to make sure the Zindel'Tyr's dying wish was kept.”

With a jolt of energy, Nia’s eyes snapped open.  She gasped, looking at Fiona incredulously through the dark before swiveling her gaze towards Kenzie who had been strangely quiet throughout the entire story.  “You mean—”

“That’s right.”  Fiona solemnly nodded, her angular face hidden in shadow.  “I can’t
die.
”

Chapter 8: The Sword of Dreams

              “You can't
die?
” 

              The world seemed to tilt from underneath Nia momentarily, and she found herself digging the tips of her fingertips into the carpet in a desperate attempt to hold on.  This story completely tore away everything Nia had been taught to understand:
We are born, we live, we die, and sometimes we come back
.  Nia swallowed the lump that had formed uncomfortably in the hollow of her throat, staring at Fiona in mild disbelief.

              “Not in the literal sense,” Fiona calmly explained.  “There comes a point in my...existence...usually around the age of eighteen—when things start to happen to my physical body.  My hair will start to fall out.  My body will begin to weaken and malnourish and my abilities will slowly dilapidate.”  Her smile was a poignant one.  "And then the next cycle begins and I am reborn again." 

              “What happens when you are reborn?”

              Fiona let out a strange laugh; it was colored with humor and bitterness.  “I spontaneously combust, pretty much.  When the fire is done, my ashes are simply swept away with the wind—and when it comes time for me to be reborn again,” she shrugged, unsure of what else to say.  “Sometimes when I’m reborn, my hair is a different color—but nine times out of ten, I look exactly the same.”

              “But your parents?” Kenzie asked, swinging her feet over the side of the bed, “Do they just come home one day and...you’re just not there?”

              “That’s how it used to be—in the beginning,” Fiona explained carefully, playing with the hem of her nightgown.  “But over the years, it’s become harder and harder trying to detach myself mentally from my parents before my rebirth is about to cycle.  For the past couple of decades, I’ve written my parents notes—explaining to them that I went off to find my birth parents—or just to find myself.” 

             
For the past couple of decades?
  Nia, no longer tired, stood up right out of her sleeping bag.  “You've
really
been around since ancient times?”

              The corners of Fiona’s mouth turned upward wearily.  “Sometimes, it feels like it has been much longer than that." 

              Nia was silent;
Tep Zepi really happened
....She pushed her palms into her forehead idly as if she could squash out the useless tidbits her memory decided to keep so that she could make more room for the more important things.  “Your pendant?  Did you find it sometime after your incident at the Leap?"

Fiona smiled—it was achingly bittersweet.  She touched her pendant-the silver Celtic knot glittering off of her white nightgown.  “I’ve had this for as long as I can remember,” she replied softly with a voice that couldn’t belong to someone who looked so immovable.  “When I was a little girl, I used to believe that my birth parents had given it to me before they gave me up, sort of as a piece of them for me to remember them by.”  She cleared her throat, blinking hastily.  “When the school year started, Quinn found his amulet,” Fiona went on to say, laying back against her pillow.  “And then we met Kenzie—”

              “I found my amulet in the washing machine!” Kenzie added, sounding jubilant.  Nia’s eyebrows arched inquiringly, while Fiona provided Kenzie with a look of pure irritability.  Kenzie scoffed at their unenthusiastic reactions, swinging her left leg.  “Well I
did
...”

              Fiona cleared her throat.  “...In the eighth grade, Rowan moved here. And Thor moved from Texas the summer before ninth grade,” Fiona slumped back into her pillows, her long hair pooling out around her in an elegant fashion.  "We were starting to wonder if you'd
ever
show up.  For some reason, Nefertiti's descendants are incredibly difficult to find.  Or just incredibly stubborn."

              "Most definitely stubborn," Nia said under her breath. Fiona smirked, fiddling with her amulet. Kenzie was looking intently at her phone, a frown forming across her lips.

              "Everything okay?" Fiona asked sharply, sitting up. Nia's brow furrowed with concern.

              “It’s late.”  The tone of Kenzie’s voice was wrong.  It was monotone and empty as though the life and excitableness had been sucked from the depths of her spirit. She tucked her phone firmly underneath her pillow and laid down. “I’m going to bed.”  The bed softly protested as she rolled onto her side.

              “Okay... G’night,” Fiona yawned softly, shoving her head into the crook of her elbow, her sleeping bag curling around her shoulders.

              “Night...” Nia murmured too, her eyelids fluttering closed. 
She watched the colorful pinks and yellows blink and dance against the dark easel of her imagination as she succumbed into slumber... Somewhere in the distance, she could hear sniffling, but sleep had already sunk it's claws in tight.

             
She knew that this wasn’t an ordinary dream; the colors blurred together like cold condensation on the outside of a water glass and this dream smelled like burning metal and sulfur.  Nia wrinkled her nose as the rank scent enveloped her like a tourniquet.  Fighting the urge to choke, she stumbled through the dying forest.  Though the sky was black, the trees were covered in vibrant leaves that rustled dangerously as the wind rippled by.

              The old pines creaked sleepily in the dark and the large maples and gigantic oaks groaned oppressively.  There was something almost sinister about these noises—something hidden inside the still quiet that Nia couldn’t seem to touch.  She tried reaching for the reason in her mind, but it was like trying to scoop up a handful of clouds.

              “...would you shut your face, you blithering idiot?” a voice hissed sharply.  Nia froze and slipped down behind a scraggily bush, resting her knees on a cold pile of moss and dying brown grass.  She carefully pulled away some of the brush and weak limbs that were hanging between her and the angry voice like a curtain between the living and the dead.

              There was a boy—he must have been at least Nia’s age if not a year older—standing in a small clearing just beside a small pit fire.  He was dressed in a long black travelling cloak—its hood covering his face from sight.  He was standing with a sort of proud arrogance, his head inclined towards another figure dressed in black—obviously female.  Her arms were outstretched over the fire, in her hands—a tiny satchel.

              The two reminded Nia of people in a ritualistic cult; she had a sinking suspicion that they had met up in this same area before, not that long ago.  Nia’s eyes narrowed darkly, staring past the crackling flames.

              “I’m just saying,” the female snapped back—and Nia could have sworn that she had heard that snarky voice before—with cool intention.  There was an impish smirk across the girl’s shrouded face—Nia couldn’t see it physically, but she sure could hear it.  “Now let’s get this show on the road—I’m freezing my ass off over here!”

              “I’ll kindly continue if you keep shut that obnoxious mouth of yours,” the boy said, his voice eerily light as though he were commenting on the trillions of stars that lay scattered across the night sky.  He grabbed the satchel from the girl’s hands and dumped its contents into the fire.  The fire sparked loudly before it imploded, causing a cloud of dense smoke to curl up high into the starry sky.

              The girl coughed, waving a hand in front of her face.  “Well
there
goes my eyebrows...” she muttered.

              “Shh!”  The boy bounded precariously onto a rock, his arms stretched out wide, reaching upwards towards the treetops.

              The dark gray smoke began to swirl, spiraling through the air like a cyclone, ten feet high.  The funnel billowed and twisted, causing the dying leaves that hung on tree branches to rattle and spin like propellers to the frost covered ground.  There was something strangely unique about this manmade twister that made Nia watch in terrible awe; it was just as marvelous as it was frightening.  As the smoke spun wildly, it made a maniacal cackling noise like insane laughter.  No—Nia’s eyes darted quickly to where the boy stood, arms still outstretched—the malicious laughter was sounding from
him
.

              “Can you feel it!” he shouted wildly, glancing around at his companion.  “This time it’s going to work!”

              “I could have sworn you said those exact words the last time...” the girl mumbled listlessly, twirling a twig along the tips of her fingers.

              A bright silvery light, shining like a glorious beacon, broke through the smoke and haze; Nia squinted, shielding her eyes with a cupped hand.  There was a shape—an object hanging like a twinkling ornament on a Christmas tree in the misty rays.             

A sliver of the bizarre light caught the edge of the blade the way the sun crept through a crack in the window; the curved blade twinkled and sparkled as though it were encrusted with a trillion diamonds—rainbows like prisms poured down through the mist, cascading like waterfalls.

              Nia had seen this weapon before—it had once been the subject of her dreams for as long as she could remember.  It was a Khopesh; an ancient Egyptian short sword that had been used to cut the grain from fields of gold.

              Why this particular weapon dangled prophetically against the silver clouds, Nia couldn’t guess.  The Khopesh wasn’t a fighting weapon—its blade was far too short and blunt and its curves mimicked its distant relative, the sickle.  But there it was, dwindling between space and time for the three of them to see.

              “
That
is your glorious resolution?” the girl asked cynically.  “An ancient rusty butter knife?”             

              “That,” said the boy, his eyes alight with fascination, “is nothing to be mocked. 
That
is The Sword of Dreams.”

              Silence, and then a stifled snort. “’Scuse me?”

              “The Sword of Dreams, you imbecile!”  The boy leapt from the rock he had been perched on, his eyes soaking in the sword like a starving man.  He never turned his sight away from the sword, as though he were afraid it would simply evaporate along with the mist.  “A most ancient sword—one that had not been seen for centuries upon centuries...it is said that this sword has the power to manipulate anyone it is used upon.  Its legacy is full of death and destruction, but its heavenly blade has never been dirtied by the blood of any living being.”

              Nia heard an exasperated yawn.  “Sounds
thrilling
.”

              Something dark and uncouth flickered from within the boy, awakening from a long slumber.  “I want it.”

              “Reach up and grab it then.”

              The boy’s eyes flickered away from the sword, only for a moment.  He scowled.  “I can’t just grab it,” he gestured to the mist.  “It isn’t real.”

              The girl clicked her tongue, fighting the urge to say something snarky.  Her tongue got the better of her.  “And you say
I
have issues.”

              “This is an illusion, you moron,” the boy snapped, “a vision if you will.  If I were to reach for it—” and he put his hand through the mist and his fingers longingly grazed the place where the blade should have been— “it will disappear.”  As his outstretched hand clenched into a tight fist, the Sword of Dreams vanished; the lights, the fog—everything that had been before—was simply gone now as if it had never existed.  Nia blinked her eyes furiously as her pupils shrank back to the size of pins.

              “I want that sword,” the boy whispered, his baritone voice thrumming louder with each spoken word.  “If I find that sword, the Greys will respect me
—
give me the authority I deserve.  With that sword, I will be all powerful—and nobody will be able to foil our plans.  Not even those
stupid
, meddling Mystical Knights.”

              Nia swallowed back her gasp into her throat, nearly choking on the large lump it created.  Could this boy be—it had to be—but he looked much younger than what she had expected.  Human-like, too.

              “I hate to be a killjoy Axel, but those plans are yours and yours alone.”  There was a sense of lucidness underlying the girl’s silky tone.  “I’m just along for the ride.”

              Axel smirked wickedly.  “Aren’t we all along for the ride?”

              Nia inched closer, trying to catch a clarifying glimpse of Axel’s face.  Night’s shadows created an eerie silhouette; a hood of darkness hid his pointed elegant face from sight.  As her hands slid across the dew covered forest floor, a loud crack sounded from underneath her; her knee had collided across a gangly stick that was propped just so against the frosty moss.

              “Nia.”

              Axel’s head snapped up, his wild eyes piercing the night where she lay, sprawled on her stomach.  Nia’s heart plunged deep into her stomach and suddenly she was hurling skyward into the stars.  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe; all the breath she had been holding had been knocked from her lungs with a desperate lunge of fear.... Axel was stalking closer towards the clump of trees where she had been spying—but Nia wasn’t there any more...she had never really been there in the first place...