The Second Prophecy (Part 1 of the Dragdani Prophecies) (6 page)

“
No,” said
John, “The room’s real. The corridor’s the illusion.”

“
I’ll never
get used to this,”’ said Helen.

“
Probably
not,” said John with a smile. He thought the situation was great;
he knew all of the tricks and secrets of the tower and the rest of
the Wizard and Witch world.

“
Why are
there so many illusions?” asked Helen.

“
Well,
you see Wizards hate the
thought of living Normal lives, or even to think that they might
have Normal lives,” said John, “so they create up illusions to make
their lives as abnormal as they like.”

I
guess that makes sense
, thought
Helen.

John was
standing at the left side of the bed, which was twice the size of
their King-sized bed back home. At the head of the bed, at either
side, were two long windows that looked out in the direction of
Cayer-Huld. John stood peering out of the one on his side and he
found himself wondering if the city he had loved and missed for so
long had changed.

While the
Wizard-Elf continued to stare blankly out across the land, Helen
was taking a look around. The walls of the room were a light red
color, and on them were V-shaped torches that were evenly spaced
throughout the room, with blue flames dancing on the both stems of
the V’s. The floor was made of stone and looked like ash, and there
were two fireplaces, one to the left of the door, and the other at
the opposite end of the room. And in them the fires were full and
high with Normal yellow, red, and orange flames, which surprised
Helen greatly. She half expected the flames to be blue, or purple,
or some other color, maybe even multicolored.

Helen
realized that though there were two fireplaces. The room was not
hot. In fact the temperature of the room was nice. Helen wandered
about it. “Shouldn’t it be warmer in here? I mean, with two raging
fires.”

“
Well,
yeah, it should be warmer
with two Normal raging fires, but those fires aren’t Normal. They
don’t give off any heat,” replied John. “It’s the floor that does
that.”

“
The
floor? But I can’t feel any
heat off of the floor,” said his wife as she looked down at her
track shoes.

“
It’s not
roasting hot. There’s just a little bit of heat. If you take off
your shoes, you should be able to feel it.”

“
Are you sure
that the ground won’t swallow me whole, or teleport me to an
alternate dimension?” asked Helen jokily.

John laughed.
“No,” he said, “Just a little heat that’s all. Trust
me.”

“
If only I
could,” said Helen.

John had a sly grin on his face.

Helen took
off her right track shoe and hesitated. Then slowly she set her
bare foot on to the floor, and true enough, she could feel a
smidgen of heat coming from the floor. She took her left shoe off
and decided to walk around the room barefoot, for it felt very
soothing. “Is there a bathroom nearby?” she asked.

John was
standing with his hands over his mouth and was breathing hard into
them as if they were a gas mask. “Can’t you just put those monsters
away so I can breathe again?” asked John funnily.

“
Very funny,
smart arse. You know sometimes I wonder why I ever married you,”
Helen teased, clearly not at all amused.

“
I thought it
was for my fantastic good looks, brilliant personality, and great
wit,” said John, holding his head back and chin up
amusingly.

“
Whatever.
Now tell me is there a bathroom? I need to pee,” said his
wife.

“
Yes, over
there,” replied John. He was pointing to the wall opposite him, but
there was no doorway.

“
Where is
it?”

John walked
over to the wall and put his arm though it. “Here. The reason you
can’t see it is because I put spell on it.”

“
You put a
spell on your bathroom?”

“
Just on the
door, to hide it,” said John.

“
But why
would you?”

“
I did it
because once when I was out on a date, my friends, knowing we would
be coming back here, thought that it would be funny to hide an
Orslat in the bathroom and let it stink out the place.”

“
What’s
an Orslat?”
asked
Helen.

“
It’s a very
smelly creature,” said John. “It’s something like a skunk, although
it doesn’t spray. The smell comes from its skin, and it’s about a
hundred times worse. So after their little stunt, I moved the
bathroom from that end of the room to this end and put a spell on
the door.”

At this
point, Helen was laughing to herself.

“
Yeah, they
thought it was funny too,” said John.

“
It’s not
that. It’s the part where you said your friends used that Orslat
thing to stink out your bathroom,” replied Helen.

“Yeah, and?”

“
It’s just
that you don’t normally need any help in that department.” She
could no longer control her laughter as tears ran down her
face.

John grabbed
one of the pillows off of the bed and threw it at her. She caught
it and threw it straight back. She then ran to where John put his
arm through the wall.

“
Where is it
again?” she asked crossing her legs. Just then her hand went
through the wall. “It’s okay, I’ve found it.” Helen put each of her
hands at either side of the doorway.

“
Say ‘lock’
if you want the door to lock, and say ‘open’ when you what to come
out again,” said John just before she stepped through. She was not
in the toilet long when John saw her reappear.

“
What do we
do now?” she asked.

“
Well,
now that you’ve most likely
stunk out the toilet, we wait until Delsani comes to take me to
start my training,” said John.

“
Ha ha,
you’re so funny,” said Helen, and then stuck out her tongue at
him.

John, who was
sitting on the bed merely said, “Revenge.”

They waited
at least three and a half hours before Delsani came. He gently
knocked on the door. “It’s time John.”

John and
Helen got up together and followed the old
Wizard. He did not lead them to the training room; instead
they went back the way they came when they arrived, back to the
entrance hall. When they got there, they saw that the Wizard
Council and the Council of Witchcraft were there. All of the
Witches and Wizards that worked in the towers were also there, as
well as young Wizards and Witches from the Wizard Colleges, and the
Witch Schools of both Cites, who had all come to see their new King
and Queen.

“
Why are all
these people here?” asked John.

Delsani
smiled
“They’re here because the Grand
Wizard wishes to present you with a couple of things that are yours
through birthright.”

Jaucal
stepped forward, and to John’s surprise, around the fingers of the
Wizard’s right hand was Dragdani’s Dragon. Once again it was
hanging from a thin black rope.

In Jaucal’s
left hand was the Sword of Light, Yeluilat. The Elves had brought
it with them so it could be given to the last living heir of
Dragdani.

John stepped
toward t
he Grand Wizard.

“
Lord
Jastark. The Wizards Council and the Council of Witchcraft have
decided that as you are the rightful King, you shall be the new
bearer of Dragdani’s Dragon and the sword Yeluilat, which once
belonged to your ancestor, King Dragdani,” said Jaucal. “So with no
further delay, in front of all of these witnesses I present you
with the symbol of Dragdani himself.” John bowed his head to
receive it, and Jaucal put the necklace around his neck. “May your
life and rein be long, my friend,” said the old Wizard.

“
Thank you,”
said John.

“
Now if you
would all like to make your way to the dining hall for something to
eat,” said Delsani, motioning his hand in the direction of the
dining room.

A feast was
held in the dining hall, which was one of the largest rooms that
Helen had ever seen. The walls were grey. Long rectangle tables ran
along the left wall, around the wall at the far end of the hall,
and back down the right wall again. Other smaller tables were
placed in the heart of the massive room, and it seemed every chair
at every table had an occupant. As Helen continued to look about,
she saw that halfway up the four walls that made the room ran a
border of gold. The border had depictions on it, but she couldn’t
see what they were from where she sat.

She continued
to scan the room, and again her eyes fell on the large silver
statues she had seen as she entered the room. There were ten in all
that were sitting on ledges set just below the golden border. Four
of the statues were on one side of the room, four opposite them,
and the last two also facing each other, one above the entrance and
the other at the far end of the room. These were the largest of all
the ten, one a Witch and the other a Wizard. Helen found herself
staring at the one of the old Wizard. He was dressed in long robes,
and in his left hand he held what looked like a page of parchment.
In his right was an old pointed hat.

Just as Helen
went to look back at her plate, the statue winked at her and then
smiled. She looked at the others all around the room, and like the
first, some winked, others smiled, a few waved and mouthed hello,
and last but certainly not least. The male Witch above the
entrance, after seeing the dazed look on the young woman’s face,
let out a loud robust laugh that filled the hall and made some of
the other people in room jump, so much so that it sent more than a
few forks, food and all, flying through the air. Most of them
landed on other tables and even other plates.

Delsani,
John, and Helen left early. They were not really that hungry after
the big lunch they eaten only hours before. Besides, Delsani wanted
to start John’s training as soon as possible.

There were
only mats on the floor of the training room; there were no special
devices or anything else that one might expect to find in such a
room.

“
How are you
going to train me?” John asked. “You said I’m the first Wizard- Elf
you’ve ever seen.”

“
I will use
this to train you,” said Delsani as he held up a folder. It was
brown with a clip in the shape of Dragdani’s Dragon locking it down
tight.

“
What is it?”
asked Helen.

“
In this
folder are the instructions that Thoiucil gave to Dragdani when she
was training him. Dragdani’s father wrote it all down.”

John nodded,
clapped loudly, rubbed his hands together and said. “Fine, let’s
get started.”

Helen sat down at the end of one of the mats
while Delsani and John got ready to start.

By the end of the day, John had done very
well and learned how to use a few of his abilities, even if it did
mean redecorating most of the room and replacing some of the
weapons that lined the walls, not to mention one of the four wooden
chandlers that formerly hung from the ceiling.

John and
Helen said goodnight to the old Wizard before heading back to their
room. John felt confident that he could remember the way. It was
quite late; there was not a soul to be seen in any of the
corridors. They could hear a rough wind bellowing outside as they
walked, but nothing else was to be heard except their own footsteps
on the stone floor. When they got to their room, they went straight
to bed, as they had an early start the next morning.

Chapter Three

Two years and
went flying by, and John being a very fast
learner
, had finished his training, or at
least finished what was in the folder. Whatever else he would learn
must come from experience, which he knew well enough.

During his
free time, the Wizard-Elf had talked to most of his old friends,
but only most, because not all of the old gang survived the
fourteen years of waiting. Two had lived their dreams of being
Ves-guards and had great adventures, which they loved to tell all
who would be willing to hear. Unfortunately, in the end they paid a
heavy price for those dreams and adventures, as they died within
just two days of each other.

The first was
Veris, the very talented Wicca. She was killed while trying to hold
the bridge of the fifth waters, which is on the very boarders of
their own country Opredanas. The second, Jebut, died only a day
before John and Helen arrived in Dorminya. He was killed from
behind while trying to defend one of the many colonies close to the
boarders.

John was
devastated to hear the terrible news, and although he hadn’t seen
them in seven years, he mourned for them greatly, his old dear
friends.

When he
wasn’t reminiscing with old friends, he was showing Helen the
Wizard and Witch World. He had taken her to Cayer-Huld, their
largest City where most of the Wizards, Wiccas, and Warlocks live
and work. He also took her to Rengeral Training College for
Apprentice Wizards, and even to Hadfold’s School of Witchcraft,
where the young Wiccas and Warlocks go to hone their powers. Helen
was not surprised to see that there wasn’t much of a difference
between the two.