First off, happy late Easter, everyone!
Yeah...
Okay, so here it is...
Today, I'm going to post ODAD Part 2, which I hope you'll enjoy! But hang on; that's not all, so don't get too excited.
I'm not going to post my story anymore before summer.
The thing is, I just can't do it. I have enough going on without this too. We have so many projects due its not even funny. Plus, our exams are coming up, and so is the school play. And you know how I tend to procrastinate? Well, that strategy hasn't been going so well for me (big surprise), and I'm really behind. AND I don't even have time to type because my computer is a slow-running pile of junk with a screen and a keyboard.
I may have time to finish Part 3, which I may post in the future. And I definitely will post here once in a while, but that's it. I'm really sorry, and I'll make up for it in any way I can. I'll go on a huge writing frenzy as soon as I have the time. I will make it a point to finish ODAD over the summer. But now, I just can't.
So here you go. Part 2 of ODAD. Enjoy! :) And I'm really really sorry about everything.
Of Dragons and Drakes
Part 2
Cyrus
“What did I tell you? It’s gotten worse.”
“Shh! Malistaire, you could wake him!”
Cyrus only barely heard these voices; he wasn’t fully awake yet. The image of the golden-scaled dragon was still imprinted in his mind.
He unconsciously let out a strangled moan that caused whoever was with him to temporarily stop bickering.
“I think he’s waking up.”
“About time. He’s been out for the whole weekend already.”
Cyrus’s eyes fluttered open.
At first, all he saw was a huge blur, as if he had opened his eyes underwater. But soon it began to come into focus. He was lying in bed in a small, bright room that he recognized as part of the hospital. He was still wearing his Marleybone-style dress robes.
He blinked, and the concerned eyes of Sylvia and Malistaire blinked back at him.
“Are you okay?” Sylvia asked.
“I’ve been better,” mumbled Cyrus sarcastically. He saw Malistaire grin behind his hand so Sylvia wouldn’t see.
With a groan, he shakily sat up, using the headboard for support.
“What day is it?”
“Sunday,” said Malistaire. “You were out for two days, almost.”
“What happened, Cyrus?” asked Sylvia. “Nothing like that’s ever happened to you before.”
At this, a warning signal went up in Cyrus’s mind. Should he tell them? Tell them about all the dreams that he’d been having? About the mysterious dragon who had mentioned, in his most recent dream, something about a prophecy..?
“I don’t know,” he lied. “Maybe it was the heat or something. Remind me to never again wear Marleybone robes at a summer graduation.”
He was hoping that this joke would soften them up a little bit. So his heart sank when Malistaire scowled.
“Liar,” he said. “This has something to do with those dreams, doesn’t it? The ones that you’ve been having all year.” When Cyrus didn’t respond, he grinned triumphantly. “See? I knew it! Now tell us the truth.”
“We won’t laugh or anything,” said Sylvia consolingly. “It can’t be that bad.”
Meanwhile, Cyrus was having something like an internal war inside, trying to decide whether to trust them and tell them everything or to refuse.
It’s just Malistaire and Sylvia, he finally told himself. They can keep a secret. Or at least Sylvia can. But Malistaire will find a way to force it out of you anyway, so what the hey.
He took a breath. Here goes.
Just as he was about to tell them, the door to his hospital room opened and two people walked in.
One of them was Merle Ambrose, eyeing Cyrus, even as he walked in, with a mixture of curiosity and concern. Following him was Lorraine Serevina, who was carrying a potion bottle filled to the brim with bubbling, green liquid.
“The healers told me to give this to you,” she said, placing the bottle into Cyrus’s hands. “It’ll help.”
“Thanks, Professor,” he said. He uncorked the bottle and took a sip. It tasted kind of like honey and grapefruit rolled into one.
Professor Serevina smiled. “I’m not your teacher anymore, Cyrus,” she said.
“What? Oh yeah, right—graduation.”
“How are you, Cyrus?” asked Ambrose. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’m doing fine, thank you,” said Cyrus.
“Are you sure? No headache? Nausea? Dizziness?”
“I’m sure,” he replied.
“Good,” said Ambrose. “I’m glad to see that you’re doing all right then.”
At this point, Cyrus hiccupped, and a small, green bubble came out of his mouth.
“Oh, sorry,” said Professor Serevina somewhat sheepishly. “That’s sometimes a side effect of the potion. It’s supposed to help you stay alert for a while, although I don’t think vigorous activity is advisable for the time being.”
“The thing is,” said Ambrose, “we’re trying to figure out what would’ve caused this. Some of the more fragile students are prone to pass out from excess heat.” At this, Malistaire smirked a little. “But I’ve never heard of a case where they remained unconscious for two days straight. So now you see, Cyrus, why it is liable to think that some dark magic may be involved.”
“But now that you’re awake, you might be able to tell us something,” said Professor Serevina. “So if you have any idea what happened that night, we need to know now.”
At this, Cyrus hesitated. Telling Malistaire and Sylvia was one thing, but telling his teachers? Who wouldn’t even be teaching him anymore, he realized. No doubt it would be all over Ravenwood by the time he got out of the hospital.
But then again, he realized, the last thing he would want them to think was that he was involved in some horrific scene of dark magic. And they might actually be able to help him.
So Cyrus cleared his throat and said, “Well, I suppose it all began…maybe two years ago. I had a dream that night. I kept seeing this image of a staff.”
“What did it look like?” asked Ambrose.
“It was black,” said Cyrus. “At least, the wood was. On the top there was a red glass ball. With a dragon curled around it.”
This was the first time he had told this to anyone. Well, once he had mentioned to Malistaire that he had been having the same dream over and over. But never before had he described his dreams to anyone in such detail.
“I kept having those same dreams…well not exactly…but variations, I suppose, every day after that. I didn’t know what it meant, that I kept seeing that staff. And afterwards I saw it on the cover of a history book and found out that it was real.”
“Did you see the staff before?” asked Sylvia.
“No,” he said. “Never.”
“So what happened on Friday, Cyrus?” asked Professor Serevina. “Was it another one of these…dreams?”
“Yeah, I think,” he said. “Only this one was different. I was at a range of mountains. And there was a dragon. It mentioned something about a prophecy.”
“Is that all?” asked Ambrose.
“That’s it,” said Cyrus.
Ambrose gave him a long stare, as if he were pondering an answer.
At last he spoke. “I know you’re very confused about this, Cyrus, and I know how you feel. I myself can’t comprehend this.”
“You mean you don’t know what this is all about?” Cyrus asked, his heart sinking. He had been hoping that by telling Ambrose, he’d be able to get some answers.
“No,” said Ambrose. “But I will talk to the other members of the staff; maybe they know slightly more about this than I. And I will come to you as soon as we find something out.”
Then he leaned over the bed. “And I will say this,” he said. “You said something about a prophecy? You might want to go to Bartleby about that…”
“I’ll tell the healers you’re all set to go,” said Professor Serevina. “You do seem well enough, after all.”
With a final nod from each of them, they exited the room.
Malistaire
It felt a little weird, Malistaire thought, to be wandering around the school after graduation. He looked around a little uneasily. Although he had called this place home for the last eight years or so, he still felt like an outsider, someone who didn’t belong.
Strange, he thought he’d never have to come back to this place again. Ever. That was why he had worked so hard to pass the exams. As if he would want to stay here yet another year, trapped learning the same things over and over. He wanted to get out, to see the world. At eighteen, he should be able to do all that.
But he had to admit, he was a little curious. After years of flatly refusing him anything, Cyrus had finally come clean and told them what his dreams were all about. He too wanted to help Cyrus and get to the bottom of this mystery. Even if the answers were waiting to be found at his old school.
A lot of the students that they passed were giving Cyrus quizzical looks, like, Weren’t you the one who fainted? But Cyrus appeared to be ignoring them. This kind of impressed Malistaire, as he would’ve probably shouted at them or something.
As they walked down the pathway, they passed Mr. Reagan giving a group of new students a tour of the grounds. They were all nervously looking around, perhaps feeling swallowed up by the enormous scenery or wondering frantically which school they would be placed in. How did he know this? That had been him ten years ago. He still could identify the signs.
“They’re so cute,” Sylvia murmured in his ear. “Do you remember when that was us there?”
“Yeah,” Malistaire muttered back. “But I still can’t believe we were that small when we started out.”
“—our Ravenwood graduation, you know,” Mr. Reagan was saying. “It was just this Friday. And speaking of, here are three of our graduates right now. Boys and girls, I’d like to introduce you to Malistaire and Cyrus Drake, and Sylvia Liferiver. What are you three still doing here, by the way?”
“School business, Sir,” said Cyrus, shrugging. “Just a few more loose ends to tidy up. Then we’ll be on our way.”
“Naturally,” Mr. Reagan agreed. “I was just telling these new students about our historic landscape. Would you care to join us for a few moments?”
“Well…” Cyrus began, but Mr. Reagan took no notice.
“Come along, then, all of you,” he said, taking flight above the heads of the students. “Now, I assume you all know about Bartleby. Aside from being the largest talking tree in the entire Spiral, his roots dig deep into Wizard City and hold the entire island together. Keep it from crumbling apart, see.”
They approached the great tree, some of the new students pointing or giving awe filled gasps. Bartleby was asleep at the moment, snoring gently.
Cyrus frowned, and Malistaire knew that he was thinking about how he wouldn’t be able to ask him about the mysterious prophecy.
“Now, both of Bartleby’s eyes have magical properties. Perhaps you can tell everyone what they are, Mister Drake,” he said, looking at Malistaire.
“Uhh…” Malistaire looked around, seeing the new students looking expectantly up at him. “Well, one’s… the Eye of History, right? It lets him remember things that happened in the past. Sometimes times he’s never been in.” He racked his brains, trying to remember. Why couldn’t he have asked Cyrus instead? “The other one is the Eye of…Future? Yeah? Well, that enables him to predict things. To tell the future.”
“Very good,” said Mr. Reagan, smiling. “Bartleby’s roots have magical properties too, you know. Do you know their purposes too?”
“Uh…well…” Truth be told, Malistaire didn’t know. He didn’t waste time learning the things that he thought he wouldn’t need to know.
Mr. Reagan gave him a rather stern look, he thought. (It was difficult to read the expressions of a pelican.) “Very well. Cyrus, do you know?”
“Certainly,” he said smoothly. “Bartleby has four main roots, and each one has a different purpose.
“The first one is the root of nature. It preserves all of the nature in Wizard City and keeps every single plant healthy and beautiful. It also can grant nature magical properties, such as giving the school trees the ability to talk.
“The next one,” he went on, “is the root of the Spiral. It’s what keeps Wizard City afloat in the Spiral. Without it, we’d probably flip over or veer out of control. At best.
“The next root is the root of dreams. It keeps the hopes and dreams of every single person alive because without dreams, there would be no possibilities.
“The last one,” he said, his voice starting to take on a slight tremor, “is the root of prophecies.”
Both Malistaire and Sylvia turned to look at him.
“Indeed,” said Mr. Reagan. “And what is its purpose?”
“It’s said,” said Cyrus, “to contain the secrets to every prophecy ever made. It makes sure they are carried out at the prepared time.”
Mr. Reagan gave a satisfied nod.
“There is also a legend about the root of prophecies,” he explained to the students. “Would you care to tell them, Cyrus?”
“I would, but I’m afraid I don’t know what it is,” Cyrus admitted. Only rarely was he able to say that.
“Really, then?” inquired Mr. Reagan. “Then I will. Now, let’s see…the root of prophecies...
“Legend has it that if you follow the main root all the way to the end, it will lead you to an ancient room far beyond the realm of imagination. This place, being connected to the root of prophecies, contains the secrets to every prophecy ever made. Past, present, and future.”
Malistaire, Cyrus, and Sylvia exchanged a look.
“How many are there?” asked a small ten year old girl.
“Thousands. No, millions,” Mr. Reagan said dramatically. The crowd of students gasped in awe. “And more are still being added. It gets larger every passing week.”
“Have you ever been there?” This question came from a tall, fair-haired boy in the first row of students.
“Been there? Goodness no,” said Mr. Reagan. “Only a legend, my boy. A myth.”
Malistaire’s heart sank at this. But then again, what did Mr. Reagan know about myths anyway? That was more Cyrus’s turf.
This room could be real.
“Which way does the root go?” he asked innocently.
It was Cyrus who answered. “They run in the four main cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. The root of prophecies, I believe, goes west.”
“Quite right,” said Mr. Reagan. “And thank you three for helping us out today. If you would care to join us, we were just getting to the School of Life right now…”
But they were gone even before Mr. Reagan had spoken. Heading west.
It was harder than one might think to follow a tree root, Malistaire thought. Their only clues were their gut instinct of which way was west and an occasional bulge in the stone pavement. In fact, he didn’t know what they would’ve done if Sylvia hadn’t been there. As a life wizard, Sylvia was intuitive to nature, and she would know if they were on the right track.
“Where to now?” Cyrus asked Sylvia. In response, she closed her eyes and ran her toe along a stray crack in the sidewalk.
“That way,” she said, pointing down the road. “It’s in Golem Court. Come on!”
Together, the threesome dashed down the road, their shoes slapping on the cobblestone tiles as they ran. Several curious student heads turned their way, but after a quick glance, didn’t feel the need to inquire them.
They approached the end of the tunnel and, as one, skidded to a halt when they reached the courtyard.
“Okay…what now?” Cyrus wondered aloud.
Hmm…Malistaire thought, also looking about his surroundings. There had to be a secret entrance or and underground tunnel…or something.
Then his eyes fell on the tower before him. And he grinned.
“Maybe this secret room’s in Golem Tower,” he said eagerly. Already he was getting excited, picturing going inside right now. He hadn’t been in there for ages, but he was sure it would be easy to defeat the clockwork golems inside. He had a sudden vision of the scarecrow spell he had just learned and smiled; those puppets wouldn’t stand a chance.
It was Sylvia, however, who shattered his plans of total golem domination. “I don’t think so, Mal. Look.” She pointed to a spot somewhere to the right of the tower, and Malistaire followed her gaze.
Sylvia was pointing at a tree root, one that had actually broken free of the ground, and after a graceful arc, sank back down again. It was aimed towards Dragon’s Mouth Cave.
“Oh,” said Malistaire, disappointed. Cyrus, however, strode right up to the shattered gate and ran his hand along the remains. He wasn’t…exactly...smiling. He just looked…serene, maybe? At ease?
“This is it,” he said. “I don’t know how I…I just feel a connection somehow. I mean…I don’t expect you to…”
Cyrus looked down, somewhat ashamed. Sylvia then walked up to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“I know.”
Malistaire stepped forward. Then, before he could stop himself, he said, “I feel it too.”
It was indescribable: this strange but powerful link that once had no meaning to him whatsoever, save a few years back when he went in for about thirty seconds to pluck a fire crystal and then left.
“I’m almost afraid to go in,” Cyrus admitted suddenly. “I mean—there could be anything behind that gate. Anything. And if it’s something bad…”
“What are you talking about?” Malistaire blurted. “This is what you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? You’ve been having these dreams for months! Months! And now you finally get to figure out what this is all about!”
Cyrus bit his lower lip. Malistaire could tell that he knew he was right.
“We’ll go in together,” Sylvia comforted. “Mal and I will be right behind you, Cyrus.”
Cyrus nodded. Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside.
Malistaire didn’t know what he expected, stepping into the cave behind Cyrus. Maybe for a glittering staff to somehow fall out of the sky. For the cave to undergo a sudden, glittering transformation into the secret room Cyrus and Mr. Reagan were talking about. For a huge, powerful boss monster to appear or something.
But as Malistaire stepped into the cave, his first thought was, I’ve seen this before. A small, stone-walled cave met his eyes, speckled with red crystals that peered out from behind brown slabs of rock. Nothing magical or exciting.
His second thought was, This is boring.
“Well…” he began, but Cyrus spoke at the same time. “Nothing.”
Cyrus wandered around for a little bit, fingering the cold rough surface of the cavern wall. When he had traveled almost half the entire perimeter, he sank to his knees.
“I thought…”
“Don’t give up now,” Sylvia consoled. “It can’t be just as easy as walking in and having something handed to you on a silver platter. Right?”
Cyrus looked up at her, giving a sort of half smile. But there was an ashamed pink tinge to his cheeks.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he confessed. “Sorry, guys, I was just being stupid.”
Dang right you were, thought Malistaire. But he didn’t say anything.
“Here, let’s split up,” Cyrus suggested, standing up. “See if we can find anything…unusual.”
“Roger that,” said Malistaire cheerfully, joining Sylvia at the nearest cave wall. Cyrus, meanwhile, wandered toward the center of the cave, alternatively looking towards the ceiling, then down at the floor.
Staring absentmindedly at Sylvia, Malistaire gave a loud, somewhat obnoxious sigh and leaned against the rock. Sylvia, who was running her hands up and down the stretch of wall, scowled at him.
“Will you get off your butt and help, please?” said Sylvia. “Search around the wall or something; I don’t know. This is for your brother, you know.”
Instead, Mal was seized by a sudden stroke of genius. He reached up and plucked the nearest fire crystal from its crevice in the wall. Then he handed it out to Sylvia.
“For you, my love,” he said with a flourish.
Sylvia gave a small little smirk as she took the crystal from him. “How…thoughtful, Mal.”
Although sarcastic was her tone, she still felt the need to give him a small peck on the cheek before she withdrew. Apparently, all was forgiven.
Score!
Meanwhile, Cyrus was in a squat position, staring at something on the floor. He frowned, scratched his head a bit, paused to roll his eyes at Malistaire and Sylvia, and then again stared back at the floor.
At last, Malistaire couldn’t take it anymore. “What’chya looking at, Cy?”
“This,” he said, beckoning for them to join.
Curiosity winning them both over, both Malistaire and Sylvia walked over to see what he was looking at.
“See?” he said, pointing at something imbedded in the gray stone. Close to the cave wall was a flat, hexagonal stone with an orange fire symbol etched upon it.
Malistaire could sort of see where Cyrus was coming from on this. The light brown tablet and the orange fire symbol stood out boldly against the floor. But still…
“I don’t see anything particularly special about it, Malistaire sniffed. I mean thing’s always been there, hasn’t it?”
“Yes it has,” said Cyrus. “And we’ve both seen it before. But there’s something else too.”
He then proceeded to kneel down, blowing stray dust away from both sides of the tablet. After a few more wipes with his hand, both Malistaire and Sylvia could just barely see the thin line protruding from either side of the stone, disappearing into the wall on both ends.
“Wow,” said Malistaire dryly. “I’m really impressed now.”
As Cyrus shot him a look, Sylvia traced the line with the toe of her boot, her eyes following the slight curve of the line with growing interest.
“It looks as though it could be part of a circle, Sylvia mused. She looked at Cyrus. “So are you saying that this secret room..?”
“...is in the middle of the circle,” Cyrus finished. “Well, it does make sense. Think of all a circle represents: life, magic, existence...when you think about it, time prophecies...they should be at the very center...” he trailed off, deep in thought.
“You know,” interrupted Malistaire loudly, “that I hate to interrupt a genius at work. But...there happens to be a wall in the middle of the circle.”
“I know,” said Cyrus impatiently. “I’m working on that.”
Almost instinctively, he carefully placed his fingers around the edges of the tablet and made to rip it from the ground.
“No use,” he announced after a few seconds of work. “It’s cemented in.”
At this, Sylvia went over to stand by the wall. She paused to look at it a few seconds. She tugged her earlobe in thought, a cute habit of hers that she never got around to breaking. Then she reached out and lightly tapped the wall with her fist.
“It’s hollow,” she said, surprised.
“Really? Let me try.” Cyrus walked over beside her and knocked on the wall precisely where her fingers had touched it before. “It feels solid to me.”
“Trust me,” Sylvia insisted. “There’s definitely something behind there.”
“Hmm,” said Malistaire thoughtfully. That’s when a brilliant idea grabbed hold of him. He reached into the pocket of his robes and withdrew his spell deck.
Unfortunately, Cyrus saw where this was going at once.
“Don’t be an idiot, Malistaire,” he said irritably. “We can’t just use magic to knock down a wall. School property, no less!”
“Who says?” said Malistaire slyly, thumbing through the cards in his deck. It took a while, but he finally found what he was looking for: a helephant card. “I’m doing this to help you Cyrus. And you know what? I say we’ve got nothing to lose.”
“A helephant?” said Sylvia, seeing the card. “In here? Mal, you’re insane! It’ll destroy the cave!”
Malistaire started to trace the fire symbol into the air. “Relax guys. I can control it now. I’ve gotten way better since last time; watch.”
“Fine,” said Cyrus, crossing his arms. “Your funeral, then.”
Malistaire didn’t care the slightest. Why should he? He could control it. It wasn’t like they were in any danger of it going crazy.
He waved his wand and activated the symbol.
A deep rumbling sounded throughout the cave. Both Cyrus and Sylvia launched themselves out of the way as a circle of flames appeared in the center of the floor. There was a loud trumpeting, and a huge creature was born from its depths, so large that its head scraped the ceiling.
Maybe Cyrus and Sylvia did have a point, he thought as a spider web of cracks appeared on the ceiling. The thing was enormous; it took up maybe about half the cave’s area.
But there was no turning back now, Malistaire reasoned. He cleared his throat and faced his creation, which stood frozen in a battle stance, as if awaiting an order.
“Um...er...hi,” said Malistaire. He had never given orders to a helephant other than “attack” before, but how hard could it be? “See what you can do about that wall over there, will you?” He pointed at the said wall so as to not be misunderstood. “Uh...thanks.”
He waved his wand.
The helephant sprang to life, stomping its gigantic feet continuously on the ground, trumpeting into the air, and swinging its fiery sword left and right. Small chunks of debris rained down from the ceiling as the enormous creature lumbered over to the wall. Once it had reached its designated spot, it slowly turned its head around to look at Malistaire, as if to say, You ready?
“Go ahead,” said Malistaire calmly. Sylvia covered her eyes.
The helephant charged.
It was chaotic. Blow after blow the helephant issued upon the wall, becoming increasingly frustrated when it wouldn’t give. A small explosion sounded each time it swung the sword, and the three of them could hear students screaming in between. More cracks appeared in the ceiling.
The helephant gave a final wail of rage. It started to glow bright orange, bright tongues of flame and shining embers beginning to seep from its nostrils. Fire eagerly spewed from its sword as if itching for the flame to catch.
Then, with a tremendous effort, the helephant stampeded forward and collided with the wall.
BOOM
A colossal explosion threw Malistaire, Cyrus and Sylvia up against the far wall. They struggled to get up, but and endless round of heat waves kept forcing them back. The helephant was gone; in its place was a cloud of smoke and dust that looked almost thick enough to be solid. And a deep rumbling sound that seemed to come from within the walls.
Okay...thought Malistaire, ...maybe they did have a point...
“Nice job, Malistaire,” Cyrus shouted above the din. “Now the whole cave’s coming down!”
“Okay, I admit it, you were right,” said Malistaire grouchily. “Happy now?”
“Not particularly.”
“Stop it, you two!” Sylvia shrieked. Come to think of it, it was a miracle that she managed to make herself heard. “In case you haven’t noticed or something, we’re going to be crushed unless we don’t so something!”
At that particular moment, a chunk of ceiling almost directly above their heads decided to rip itself from the other pieces of neighboring rock. It started falling.
“Scatter!” yelled Cyrus.
The three of them dove in different directions, the slab of rock smashing down precisely between them.
When Malistaire next looked up, Cyrus was tracing the Myth symbol into the air. Seconds later, a minotaur appeared, equipped with a giant axe. Back and forth the axe swung, shattering the giant boulders to splinters
There was a small whimper. It had come from him. When was the last time a sound like that had escaped his lips? He neither knew nor cared at the moment. Instead he pressed himself up against the nearest wall and closed his eyes, trying not to think too much about but always somehow coming back to death.
Weird how fast one could go from cool and confident to scared out of their mind if their death was falling from the sky.
He could hear Sylvia’s screams. Cyrus’s yells. The grunts and wails of the minotaur, which he wasn’t sure if it was doing more harm or good.
Then...silence.
He opened his eyes, just barely wider than the width of pine needles.
Cyrus was there, brushing a layer of dust off himself. A slight movement out of the corner of his eye told him that Sylvia was pushing herself out of a pile of rocks and other debris.
Sylvia...
He ran across the room, withdrawing his deck.
A slight moan came from inside the pile. “No more spells, Mal. Please.”
“Right,” Mal agreed. He then proceeded to shift through the pile, throwing rock after rock against the wall, until Sylvia was clearly visible.
“Oh, Mal...”
She threw herself into his arms and sobbed into his shoulder, and Malistaire gently patted her hair. “Shh...it’s okay...”
“I thought...”
She stopped. Cyrus had just approached them.
Nothing came out of his mouth. No words of resentment. No acknowledgments to how they could’ve all been killed. Not even threats to tell everyone how Malistaire had cowered against the wall.
Sometimes, a simple gesture can be more affective than any of these. And that’s exactly what Cyrus did. With a simple point in the right direction, he caused both Malistaire and Sylvia to stop what they were doing. To stare at him in agreement. To follow him to where he was leading them.
For Cyrus Drake had just pointed out a crack in the wall. A small one, one that a person could barely fit through.
And, in silence, the three of them went to discover the secrets that had, thus far, remained hidden form them.
Sylvia
She tried to open her eyes...only to discover that they were opened already.
Huh, she thought. That’s weird.
“No one move,” she said nervously. “Otherwise—”
“Oof!”
“Cyrus, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” came his voice somewhere to her left. “I just tripped, that’s all.”
“Over my foot,” Malistaire grumbled.
“Well, I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault I can’t see...”
“Oh, this is stupid,” said Malistaire. “I’ll just cast flare, and then...”
Both Cyrus and Sylvia shouted, “NO!” at the same time.
“There’s got to be another way...a light or something,” Sylvia hastily explained. Invisible footsteps came from in front of her, and she jumped. “Lord, that’s creepy.”
“Relax, it’s just me,” said Cyrus. “I’m going to see if I can find a light source somewhere.”
A sudden realization struck Sylvia: they might not be alone. Someone or something could be among them at this very minute and they wouldn’t be able to tell. The thought sent chills up her spine.
As if I wasn’t paranoid enough when I walked in, she thought.
“That’s funny,” said Malistaire softly.
“What is?” Sylvia asked.
“Look behind you,” was all he said.
Sylvia looked. “I don’t see anything.”
“Exactly,” said Malistaire. “Where’s the light coming in from the tunnel? We should be able to see an outline of the crack, at least.”
“Hey guys!” Cyrus called to them. “I think I found something.”
“That’s great!” said Sylvia. “Except...where are you?”
“Just follow the sound of my voice.”
Seconds later, Sylvia heard Malistaire’s footsteps beside her, and then a small thud.
“There’s a wall in front of you, genius,” Malistaire grumbled, his voice slightly muffled.
“Then go around it,” said Cyrus impatiently.
Sylvia took a deep breath. Then, feeling like a blind person, she put her arms out in front of her and started to walk forward. Her hands found a wall as she walked, so she felt around it and walked on.
She rounded what she thought was a corner; then she looked ahead.
“Wow,” she breathed, seeing what Cyrus had pointed out.
There, right before their eyes, was the only light source in the room. It was small, and in the shape of the ice school’s own snowflake. Behind the tiny, precise, wooden crystals, Sylvia could see sunlight on the other side. But the snowflake shaped hole cast no light around the area, which an ordinary skylight should have. They couldn’t see anything beyond it; the light was simply there, as a light.
Sylvia stood up on tiptoe and peered through the hole in the wall. But since she had seen nothing but darkness for the past few minutes, the sunlight temporarily blinded her, and she was unable to see what lay outside.
“There’s a door!” Cyrus exclaimed suddenly.
“Pardon?”
“Feel around here—there’s a crack in the wall,” he explained. “It has to be a door, and it’ll lead us somewhere.”
Sylvia reached out to touch the wall only to leap back with a yelp of surprise. “Yikes! It’s freezing cold!”
“Forgot to mention that, didn’t you, Cy?” asked Malistaire smugly.
Instead of a snappy retort, they heard Cyrus muttering: “There’s got to be a way to open it somehow...wait. Here’s something...I think this may be...”
There was a click, and a door seemed to materialize out of thin air and swing open right before their eyes, striking all of them with the first sunlight they’d seen in what felt like hours.
All three of them let out a gasp and, as a reflex, squeezed their eyes shut at once. But although Malistaire and Cyrus, who had adjusted to the pressing darkness far too quickly, took much longer to recover, Sylvia was much more used to brighter places. After about two seconds, she chanced to open her eyes a crack. A few more seconds later, her eyes were wide open, and she was stepping out into the world before her.
“What the—” she paused as a cold blast of wind hit her, and as she heard the familiar crunch of snow. She was in Colossus Boulevard.
She glanced behind her. Her gaze wandered past Malistaire and Cyrus, who were struggling to open their eyes past a squint, and locked onto the door from which she had just come. She appeared to have emerged from a giant glacier.
Weird.
Sylvia turned back around, trying to get a better glimpse at her surroundings. Having rarely been to Colossus Boulevard—cold weather didn’t really suit her—it took Sylvia a while to figure out exactly where she was. Most of what she could see was obstructed by a huge tower, but...yes. There was the tunnel to the Shopping District. She couldn’t be too far from Ravenwood.
She took another step forward, and her foot touched something that wasn’t snow. She looked down.
Her toe was touching a large flat stone, hexagonal in shape. It looked just like the one in Dragon’s Mouth Cave.
Except...she realized as she bent down to brush snow off it...this one didn’t have the fire symbol on it. It was a beautiful, detailed snowflake, the symbol of the Ice school. Other than that, everything was the same: the shape, the size, even the line protruding from both ends.
“A circle...” she breathed, swiping snow and dirt away from the indention of the line with her finger. What did it mean? What did it stand for? What other places did it connect?
“Sylvia.”
She turned around.
Sunlight appeared to have broken into the cavern at last. All three of them watched as, in slow motion, a stream of sunlight crossed the room, lighting up a path as it went. At last, it hit the opposite wall, or rather, a torch on the opposite wall. And as the sun hit it, it ignited. This seemed to set off a chain reaction. Torch after torch burst into flame, illuminating the room once bathed in darkness.
And what a room they were in! They appeared to be among a maze of stone walls, minus the glacier they had just emerged from. Each wall had a picture on it, a beautiful colorful picture, more entrancing then what she had seen in any book. She could stand here for hours and just look at them all...
“What is this place?” she asked, almost to herself.
But someone answered her. Not Malistaire or Cyrus, but a different voice. Who did answer her was a mystery; she couldn’t see anyone besides the three of them. All she knew was that the voice was deep and masculine, and that it seemed to come from within the walls themselves.
Welcome to the Hall of the Prophecy.
Sylvia soon figured out that it became very easy to forget Cyrus’s motive for being in there.
As soon as they could see clearly, Cyrus had started giving orders, something that came naturally to him. “Let’s split up,” he said. “The staff that I saw was black with a red glass ball and a golden dragon curled around it. Look for anything similar to that. Then we’ll be on our way.”
But Malistaire and Sylvia soon became distracted by all the other pictures on the walls. It was hard to look for any one thing when there were so many other places to turn. Although Cyrus repeatedly reminded them to stay on task, they often found their eyes and minds running elsewhere.
“Find anything yet?” came Cyrus’s voice, yet again, from behind the corner. But Malistaire and Sylvia barely heard him, or else dismissed his voice. They were looking at one of the more elaborate pictures on the wall. It was five people on a dueling circle: one man facing four young children, three girls and a little boy. And it may have just been her but the man on the opposite side seemed really...menacing and evil and...strangely familiar...
She tugged on her left earlobe in thought—when would she learn to stop doing that? “I don’t know how, but it feels like I know that guy from somewhere.”
“Really?” Malistaire studied the picture some more and snorted. “I don’t know what you mean. Crazy maniac. Who does he think he his, attacking a bunch of kids? Anyway, we’ve got to keep looking.”
Sylvia nodded, crossing over to the opposite wall.
It wasn’t long before she felt a slight tug at her consciousness. She turned her head and the pull got stronger. It was...almost like she was being drawn to someplace...
She walked along the wall, but all she could see were seven large rectangles that reached from ceiling to floor, each one a different color.
Only they weren’t rectangles, she realized. They were lists! Each was embroidered in its own color...in a school color! Red, blue, purple, brown, yellow, green, and black.
She walked over to the green one, feeling pulled toward life’s color. Then she picked a random place on the list and started reading down.
Esmee Cypress
Autumn Mongala
They’re names, Sylvia thought. She read more:
Emily Moonstone
Amy Starfriend
Irene Serevina
Serevina?
Perhaps a relation of Lorraine’s, she pondered. She’d have to ask her.
Sylvia Liferiver
Sarah Spiritheart
Marisol—
What the—?
Her eyes snapped back up the list.
Sylvia Liferiver
No matter how many times she read it, it still didn’t make sense. What would her name be doing up here? What was it supposed to mean?
She looked up and down the list of names for any explanation, but there were none. All she found was a symbol in the bottom right-hand corner: the life leaf intertwined with a heart.
She frowned. “Mal? Can you come over here for a second?”
“What is it?”
He was cut off by Cyrus’s exited yell: “Malistaire! Sylvia! Over here! I found it!”
Cyrus
He smiled as Malistaire and Sylvia came running over to join him. This was it!
“What is it? What did you—” Malistaire stopped, seeing the picture of the staff on the wall, just where Cyrus had pointed out. Under the staff were these words:
Forged by the masters
So nears the hour
For the chosen necromancer
To wield the staff’s true power
“Chosen necromancer...” Sylvia murmured. “Cyrus, do you know what this means?”
He nodded. “It’s me.” A grin was spreading slowly across his face. “Isn’t it amazing? It’s me! Me! I never could have imagined this!”
Malistaire let out a whistle and patted him on the back. “Congratulations, Cyrus.” He looked back up at the wall. “I guess you get that staff then, huh? Very nice. Looks like it could deal about a hundred fifty death damage at least.”
“Really?” Cyrus mused. A sort of excited glee was rising up inside of him, a realization that he, out of all people, was chosen to be a part of this. A world of possibilities was right there at his fingertips, most of which were seeming to end with his name in a history book somewhere.
“Absolutely,” Malistaire replied. “Only...where is this powerful weapon of yours?”
Cyrus’s heart sank. Leave it to Malistaire to ruin a perfectly joyful moment.
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly,” said Malistaire. “So why get your hopes up about this staff if you can’t even—”
“Wait a second,” said Sylvia. “What about your vision the night of graduation? Did that tell you anything?”
“Wait—yeah! It did!” Hope was beginning to well up inside him again as he struggled to remember. “I was on...a mountain, and it was huge! Thousands of feet high! And...” he suddenly remembered, “...there was lava everywhere! I was in Dragonspyre!”
“A mountain in Dragonspyre?”
Sylvia’s and Cyrus’s eyes lit up at the same time.
“Pereputual Peak!”
“Per—what?” asked Malistaire, a bit slow on the uptake. But neither of them noticed. As if he had ever paid attention to History of Magic anyway.
“That’s it!” exclaimed Cyrus. “It’s on Pereputual Peak!” He reached into his knapsack and pulled out his map of Dragonspyre. He then pointed to an island off the coast, not to far from the Basilica. “That’s where I need to go.”
“But Pereputual Peak is the tallest mountain in the Spiral,” said Sylvia. “It’ll be dangerous. You know that.”
Cyrus nodded. It would take days of preparation for the journey. And even with all the food and supplies they needed, there were still all sorts of dangerous creatures to be dealt with: hags, ghosts, draconians. Sylvia was right: it would be very dangerous.
“I know,” he said. “But it’s something I have to do.”
“Then we’re coming with you,” said Sylvia.
Cyrus hesitated. As much as he admitted he might need them, this was something that he felt he just may need to do alone.
“Don’t be a moron,” said Malistaire. “You wouldn’t last a day out there without us. And you wouldn’t believe how boring it is stuck up in that school for eight years. Helephant, I’m ready for some fun.”
Cyrus cracked a smile.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go pack.”
As Cyrus, Sylvia, and Malistaire exited through the passage to Colossus Boulevard, the writing on the wall which they had been looking at changed.
It was instantaneous: one minute there was the prophecy, the next, blood red letters dripped down the wall to take their place.
On one last note beware
Of the assumptions you make
They can bring danger
And in themselves control fate
They will cause a great change
Unless you are protected
With open minds and hearts
And expect the unexpected
If, perhaps, they had stayed long enough to see this, they might have been able to save themselves from what was to come.
