Chapter 6: Silence

I looked at my wrists, which were now freed from the chains they had been in. I stretched out my joints and flexed my fingers to get the feeling back in them. A wizard sat on the other side of me, asking questions. I refused to answer. Although I had to give him some credit, he was asking the right questions. But that didn’t mean I was going to cooperate with him, especially not after his friend had knocked me out. While he continued to ask questions I studied him closer.

He we pale, but had quite a few freckles on him. His skin complimented his bright amber and green eyes. His hair was a dusty, burnt orange that had been cut fairly short. He wore a cotton white tunic with a grey undershirt, along with brown, cotton pants and leather boots. Around his wrist he wore a silver charm bracelet. Most of the charms had to do with enhancing magic spells.

Although one charm sat apart from the others, it was of two connected eighth notes, the symbol of the city Eden. I looked him over once more and noticed that there was a wolf like presence inside of him. I thought the presence over in my mind. The form seemed familiar, my mind quickly flashed back to an image of a man standing at the edge of a harbor, then it was gone. I smiled, no doubt about it, it was a family curse.

I could tell from the way his voice had shifted that he was getting fed up with me not answering his questions, but I didn’t care. “Are you from Eden?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my own question.

He was taken aback by my words “Yes” he answered hesitantly, curiosity crossed his face.

“I though so.” I said calmly “That curse of yours must be irritating.” I said detachedly, almost like an afterthought. I eyed him suspiciously, waiting for the effect of my comment to land on him so he would leave the room.

I saw when his mind had finally processed what I has said. He stood up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. I waited for a moment until I heard the second door close behind him. Then I turned my attention back to the crack I had been making in the door.

The crack was getting progressively larger, until I hit the area where the seal on the front of the door started to have an effect. I sat back on the plank of wood, judging how much magic I would need to muster to break the enchantment. I cringed as the amount racked up higher than I liked. I looked at the metal clamp around my wrist, wondering if I would be able to conjure that much magic with the dampener. I tried to slide it off, only to feel the iron grind against my skin.

“Cara de.” I swore under my breath as a jolt of pain flared through my body. I looked back at the door as the numbers in my head finished calculating. I laughed uneasily at the amount of energy that would be required to break through the enchantment. I began to dig into the depth of my reserve magic and pull forward what I needed. The dampener was beginning to have an effect on my powers, I had to stop.

I decided the amount I had was going to have to work, I condensed the magic into a single point in my hand. As the magic was compressed it glowed brightly, then faded into a dark swirling grey, until, finally, it was pitch black. I walked up to the door and sensed for where the barrier was strongest. When I found it, the ball of energy wavered from the effects of the seal. I focused to get the energy back into a spherical shape. Then took a deep breath, and plunged the ball into the door.

The room was instantly filled with light, and the force from the magic slammed me back into the wall. As I fell to the ground I heard a loud crack, the door was broken. The smell of smoke quickly filled the room, making it hard for me to tell if the seal still remained. I heard the sound of the second door opening and looked up to see the wizard through the crack.

He reached out to touch the door. I did a quick analysis of his magic, light magic. My magic was of a darker variety than what he would be used to, even if we did both use light magic. If he touched the door he would either die or be consumed by my power. As his hand came closer to the door the world slowed down. I sensed my power leaving the door in little wisps, as well as his power slowly vanishing.

“Don’t touch the door!” I said quickly, jumping to my feet.

He didn’t seem to hear me because his hand didn’t stop. A moment before he touched the door, my hands hit the oak with a dull thud. All the magic that had been absorbed by the door flooded right back into me. The barrage was too quick. I wasn’t able to feed the magic back into my reserves, so I channeled it through my body. I felt my form adjusting to compensate for the magic, but I was in no way prepared for what happened next.

The clamp around my wrist turned a bright, red-orange, like it had been heated in an intense flame, then it stopped my abilities to absorb the magic that poured into me. My sight began to blur and my consciousness began to drift away. I knew if I kept this much magic in my body without any place to go, it would tear me apart while I was unconscious.

Against the burning of my body, I sloppily forced the extra magic to condense in my hand, then released it into the room. As I drifted into darkness I hoped the magic would be diluted enough not to harm the light wizard. While my field of vision began to narrow and blur, I caught a glimpse of a girl with blond hair pulling the wizard away from the door. The walls swayed around me. I felt the cold of the stone floor of the room, then everything vanished.

 

※

 

I lay on the same make sift wooden bed in the prison cell. The red headed wizard from earlier, who I had learned was named Magia, was gazing at the break on the door. He was rebuilding the spell I had destroyed, being careful so that the broken door wouldn’t affect the strength of the barrier. The hood on my shirt was covering my eyes, so he didn’t notice I was watching him reconstruct the charm. He took a breath to cast the final incantation, but stopped short.  He was debating whether or not to say the spell in front of me, his eyes darted away from me as he took another breath.

“If you’re wondering if I’m awake, I am.” He glared at me with alarm. He looked towards the door that lead out of the room and scooted closer to the entrance of the prison cell.

“What are you?”

This question was a repeat from earlier, but I still had absolutely no intentions of answering his query seriously. I smirked. “I’m the one that saved your life.”

“That’s not what I meant,” He said as I leaned up from the relaxed position I had been in “I mean what species are you, what time period do you originate from?”

I looked at my wrists and saw that they were both chained to the wall. This time with only a few inches of space. “Saved your life, and now I’m chained to a wall.”

He looked like he was on the verge of giving up. He took a shallow breath to ask me once more.

Before he could speak Gildar walked into the room and froze. After his moment of pause, he leaned down and spoke to Magia quietly. The light wizard nodded and stood up to go retrieve the keys hanging on the opposite wall.

“Looks like you don’t have to answer my questions, because Xanvan will be able to.” Magia looked back at me with a new fire in his eyes. He unlocked the door and used a spell that unwrapped the chains.

“What makes you so sure about that?” I looked at him as Gildar lead me out, and he caught his first glance at my eyes. I watched his expression change as he glimpsed the vibrant, crystallized purple that glowed with energy he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

He was speechless.

I was led out of the wagon and into the castle grounds of the wizarding capital. The tiles that covered the pathway to the main building were covered with alchemic symbols and the walls were made of light coloured stones that increased magical powers. Along every wall you could see ancient runic spells scribbled across the rocks. The entirety of the palace radiated magic like a living being. Once we entered the palace, the properties of the building changed and more common day spells began to appear along the walls.

 Soon, Magia, Gildar, and I stood in front of the large oak doors that closed off the entrance to the Grand Wizards chambers. These oak doors had also been enforced like the ones in the wagon, only these spells were more potent.

The two guards, who had stood at attention outside of the doors, now took the places of the two wizards beside me. One guard accepted the chain that Magic had used to bind my hands, while the other was there as an extra precaution. Gildar and Magia stepped in front of us and were about to open the doors, I stopped them.

“Do you mind if I put up the hood on the back of my shirt?” My hood had been knocked off as I walked out of the carriage, and for this encounter I would prefer it up instead of down.

The guards looked at each other, then the one to my left gently grabbed my hood and placed it on my head. Magia then carried on and opened the doors. As we walked in I glanced around the room, the walls had more of the runic inscriptions on them, and there were no guards except for the two escorting me. There was a throne in the middle of the room that reached up and connected to the ceiling, about half way up the throne was a striking diamond that seemed to illuminate the entire room.

The energy from the gem collided with me and caused me to stagger, but I kept observing. What I saw next was the man at the center of attention in the room. It was a wizard that looked to be the age of forty-five, he wore a long silver tunic, a hat that was the same shade, and golden bands around both his wrists. I grinned, ‘and so it begins.’

We stopped a few feet away from the Grand Wizard, the guards once again stood at attention, while Gildar and Magia bowed briefly. I stayed as still as a statue. From underneath my hood I glared at Xanvan, chances are that he wouldn’t even realize who I was, but I hadn’t forgot him. The man who had single handedly lead the purge against my empire.

 “Magia, Gildar.” He smiled, “What an unexpected surprise it is to see you here. You two don’t often make a habit of visiting our capital.” His tone was friendly and filled the room with power. “Might I inquire why you are here, and who this…” he hesitated for lack of a better word, “…child is?”

Gildar stepped forward. “I met this girl on my way back to restock at the markets in town, as for who she is, we were hoping you could answer that for us.”

Xanvan looked me over, he had a slight feeling that he should know who I was, that it was something extremely important, but he couldn’t remember. “Could you please remove her hood?” He asked while looking at the guard to my left.

 As my hood was removed I made sure Xanvan got a small glimpse of my eyes. But by the time he realized the importance of what he was forgetting, it was too late. He called for the guard to stop, but he hadn’t been quick enough.

The guard’s attention shifted to Xanvan, curious why he had been told to stop. I took advantage of the short distraction and quickly summoned some ice magic without the wizards noticing. I froze the chains around my wrist, then shattered them easily. Then I quickly froze the wizards where they were. The band around my wrist began to heat up again, and I felt the strain of the spell pulling on me.

I placed two fingers on each of the guards heart’s and sent a short burst of magic through their bodies. My magic collided with their hearts and the magic inside of their bodies strained, causing them to faint. With my magic beginning to falter, I released my spell on the room, and everyone was unfrozen.

The Grand Wizard looked at me and a single, terrified word escaped from his mouth. “Reaper.”

“Shocked to see me are you?” I questioned casually as I held his gaze.

As Xanvan sat on his throne trying to figure out what to say, Magi interrupted “Reaper? What’s a Reaper?”

“It’s what I am.” I broke my gaze with Xanvan and looked towards the young wizard. “And I’m probably one of the last of my kind, aren’t I?” My eyes met the Grand Wizards again, “After what you did, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Gildar took a step towards Xanvan. “What does she mean by that?” He asked, Magia looked at his master for an explanation as well. I faced away from him again, trying to control the anger that was bubbling to my surface. He sighed, still shaking, but before he had answered there was a large explosion.

The light in the room darkened and the symbols on the wall had stopped transmitting what little energy they still possessed. I looked around the room, trying to find what had caused the explosion, but I saw nothing but dust and smoke. I could no longer see or sense the other wizards in the room, I was alone again.

I slid down to the floor and took out the small, black, wooden stick that was hidden in my boot, and with a slight release of energy it transformed into two small daggers. The hilt of the blades retained their blackened finish from the wood, but the metal was almost as white as the moon, and an amethyst crystal rested on the base of each. With one blade in each hand I felt reassurance radiate through me, like the blades were telling me I had nothing to worry about.

As the dust began to settle I saw a large gap in the wall of the chambers; and standing right in front of it was a tall misty figure. With a small wave of his bone fingers the dust instantly settled, and the room grew lighter. The newcomer was nothing but bone surrounded by a light lavender haze, he wore a tattered old black cloak. Underneath the hood you could see two white glowing dots that resembled eyes. In his hand he held a black spear with an amethyst crystal like my weapons. He had a satchel that was held closed by a rat’s skull, and another shard of amethyst tied around his neck.

The figure began to look around and I quickly jumped up into the rafters, all he saw were three wizards and two unconscious guards. I looked at the figure, recognizing his presence and energy. I faltered for a second, ‘Madagran, but that’s impossible.’

The figure looked directly at Xanvan then began to speak. “Where is the creature, Xanvan?” His voice was cool and bone chilling, yet somehow soothing. I felt for the reassurance in my daggers and found it diminished, but still there. I lifted up my hood and summoned what little magic energy I had left.

I hopped down and landed directly in front of the figure. “Now now Madagran, you’re speaking like he owns me.” I smiled and looked at him confidently.

The dots that were his eyes narrowed into angry slits. His hand reached out and grabbed the collar of my shirt, lifting me off the ground. “Where is the Amethyst” he said calmly, while measuring how strong I was.

 Magia stepped forward to help me, but Madagran launched a quick spell at the young wizard that sent him flying across the room and into a wall. I quickly sensed for Magia’s life force, it was weak, but quickly regaining strength.

“Well, by the look of things, it’s around your neck” I stammered as the energy from his amethyst necklace began to destroy the power I had built up. I twisted my body and tried to attack him with my blades, he simply dodged.

“Useless” He looked disgusted with me, then threw me at the wall.

In midair I turned around and bounced off the wall, flipping back onto the ground. “Madagran, I know you’ve been sealed away for a couple centuries, but there is nothing proving that you have the right to call me ‘useless’.” I mimicked the tone he had used.

He looked at me for a moment, he was planning something. “Actually, there is.” He seemed to be grinning. I instinctively took a step back. I did a quick scan of the room with my remaining reserve magic. Abruptly the three wizards dropped to the floor.

“What.” I quickly focused my senses and saw their magic being drained from their bodies. I didn’t notice what Madagran was doing until I felt the metal on my wrist began to burn. I looked down and saw that the wizard’s magic was being funneled into me, I dropped my blades.

“When I had you earlier I took a quick look at your magic power, and I’m sorry to say but it’s basically depleted. Now, why a Reaper of your caliber has yet to absorbed more magic, I’m unsure. But, this did let me know that you don’t currently have enough power to stop my attack. Now then, this is bad for two reasons.

“First off, even though you have the same type of magic, theirs is a lighter variety, while yours is darker. Their magic could easily kill you like this. And the second one…” He placed his boney hand on my wrist and pulled up the sleeve that I had been using to partially conceal the dampener “Now that would explain it, a small remnant from the Purge I take. Either way, this magic suppression device has already closed off your abilities to absorb and convert magic into something you can use.”

He leaned closely to me, my body didn’t seem to be doing what I was telling it to, I couldn’t pull away from him.

“Of course I’m not going to kill you yet.” The magic being directed into me stopped and I collapsed, gasping for some sort of dark power to counteract the light. Madagran placed my blades into my hand, slightly restoring my balance, but now they radiated nothing but dread.

 He reached into his bag and pulled out another amethyst crystal. “Do you know what this is?” his voice soft so only I would be able to hear it. “It’s a dark crystal in the form of an amethyst, just like mine.” He motioned to the crystal around his neck. “This crystal can do all sorts of things. For instance, it will convert all that light magic into dark magic. Unfortunately for you, your body will reject the crystal, destroying what little magic you do have left.” He was eyeing the band around my wrist. “Sense you can’t be killed by conventional means, this is the only option to make sure you don’t survive. It will, however, take a while to kill you, and it will be most excruciating.”

His hand that held the crystal turned misty so that I could see through it, I instantly recognized the phantom magic. I tried to move away but my body still wouldn’t listen to my commands. His hand slid through my body like a ghost. He was moving slowly, being careful not to miss his target. I watched helplessly as his hand moved through my abdomen, searching for the crystal at the center of my body. Madagran stopped, he had found what he was looking for. Shortly after, he retracted his hand, the crystal was no longer in it.

At first, I felt nothing. Then I was seized away from the pain as the light magic began to corrupt. It was only a few moments after that I could sense my magic began to destroy itself. I rolled over, groaning, only to notice that Madagran was no longer by my side.

I looked up and saw him standing over the wizards. He kicked Gildar in the stomach, the young wizards body flinched from the pain. “Good.” Madagran looked over the other wizards “If I didn’t kill this brat, then the others should be fine.” I watched him use his magic to glide up to where the diamond was in the throne room. He grabbed it out of its place and softly placed it in his satchel.

A sharp pain shot through me, I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. Madagran looked down and smiled at seeing me in this sorry state. Then, in a cloud of dust, he vanished, almost as quickly as he had appeared.

I tried to shake off the pain and stand up, “Well that was a little anticlimactic.” I coughed and stumbled back down to the floor. I placed my hand on my forehead and sensed to see if I had any magic left. Another ache hit as I reached the power of the dark crystal. I knew that if I didn’t do something soon it would be the end of me.

“How did Madagran shift our power into you?” I turned to see Xanvan sitting back in his throne while the other two wizards were sitting on the ground, recuperating from the loss of magic.

“It’s easy.” I said, using all my strength to stand without showing weakness. “While the dust was in the air he placed magic currents on the ground. As soon as he saw were we all where, he manipulated the currents, attaching one end to each of you and the other ends to me. Then he used the currents to move the magic from you to -” agony blast through me as if I was burning from the inside out. I fell to the ground again, consumed by pain. The crystal was affecting me sooner than I thought.

“Are you okay?” Xanvan had shot out of his throne and was now by my side, so were the other two. I tried to answer but no sounds came out. I felt hopeless as I began to lose any control I had previously had over my magic. Power began to rage inside of me as the dark consumed it. I could feel the crystals holding my body together began to crack.

I search my mind for a place where I could get help, knowing that there was only one place I could find what I needed. As my life began to slip away I managed to get one word out through all the pain that reeled through me “E… Ethla” I stammered. Another wave crashed over me, breaking what little restraint I had clung onto. Darkness and pain were all the remained.

I wished for oblivion.

Author's Note

Any/all reviews are welcome.

Do you think too much happens in this chapter?