Okay, it's not my fault...well maybe it completely is, because I'm the one who wrote it but...I'm trying to get through these boring chapters...and I hope these are the last two like this... sweatdrop
Chapter 11 Kera
Kera could still feel her heart pounding. Somehow that book had told her exactly what had been happening to that girl Sarila, and if that was right, Kera had a bad feeling. Sarila’s mother had said that Sarila had the power to destroy her. What did that mean? It had scared her, when exactly what she had just read had begun happening, the loud explosions outside the door as Sarila blasted the walls, the exact words she had shouted. Did that book tell the future? Strangely though, the book hadn’t mention Kera’s name at all, it had only said Sarila’s name Kera had been referred to as ‘the girl’ did that mean something?
Kera looked around her, she was no longer anywhere near the castle, in her haste to get away she had casted the teleportation spell, and it had taken her to this mysterious place. She found herself in a pitch-black room, where the only thing she could see was Sarila, with her pale blond hair streaming around her face, her pale skin outlined in the dark blue dress she was wearing, it might have been the light, but when Kera had seen her, Sarila’s skin seemed to be glowing, just as it had said it was in the book. Sarila’s face had been contorted with anger when she opened the door and Kera hadn’t known how to react, she had been frozen. But then, all of a sudden her stone had warmed her, shocking her to move and get away.
Kera remembered the difference in the warmth she had felt from her stone, it was desperate warmth, full of fear and necessity to get away. Kera couldn’t place it but she had known immediately upon seeing Sarila that it was imperative that she not get caught. So, when Sarila had somehow made her stop as she was about to jump from the tower her fear was terrific, everything had seemed doomed until once again her stone had saved her, glowing brightly and filling her with a familiar confidence, and Kera had known that she needed to teleport out of there.
But, now that she was gone, her fear had subsided and she now had new problems to worry about, she needed to figure out where she was, and she didn’t have any magic to help her out. The magic she had used to make herself invisible and then to cast the teleportation spell had exhausted her supply, and so she had to wait until morning before she could do anything. The only problem was that she was too full of adrenaline to sleep now, and she was ravenous as well, but she had no food. Kera took a deep breath and stretched her arms out in front of her searching for a wall.
She figured that the only way for it to be this dark was if she was inside, because she couldn’t even see her hands in front of her face. If she were outside there would be the moon or the stars as some light, and here there was none. The total absence of light reminded her of something Sharron had once told her,
“It is only in the total absence of light that the darkness is completely overwhelming,
But it is also only during the total overwhelming of darkness that light shines the brightest.
The only reason we see darkness as it is, is because we’ve seen light, and we see it every day.”
The memory warmed her, and she continued searching for the wall. She knew that if she could just find the wall that she would have more of a hope of getting out of wherever it was that she had unknowingly teleported herself. But, she was still plagued by the fact that she had no clue what else could be in the darkness around her, she didn’t feel any wind, and it wasn’t particularly cold or hot. It then struck her to see what the ground felt like, if it was stone that might mean she was in a cave of some sort, and if it was marble or something else, she might be in a building.
But, to Kera’s extreme confusion, the texture of the ground constantly changed, and in the strangest of ways. The first part of the ground that she felt was rocky, with small grains of sand sticking to her fingers, the second part, smooth and cool, like marble, yet the third part of the floor felt like rabbit fur, and another section felt like a greatly worn rug.
As soon as she discovered that this was no ordinary place she had teleported she knew right away that it was not at all in her best interests to go prowling around. She knew that she needed to just stop and rest, to wait for her magic to come back. She worried though, was it in her best interests to sleep in this place? She knew that if she stopped moving around that eventually her adrenaline rush would slow and then she would realize just how exhausted she was.
In the end it turned out that she was already losing the adrenaline and her arms and legs were quite sore from climbing up to Sarila’s room. The only problem she faced now, was deciding which of the many parts of the floor to trust enough to sleep on. The further she traveled around the room, the more diverse the floor seemed to become, it really made her wonder what she would think could she see everything in the room. Only her sense of touch seemed to be working at the moment, as she couldn’t smell anything, and the only sounds she heard were those that she made herself. She knew much better than to taste anything on the floor, it just wasn’t sanitary, but the only thing that reminded her of, was her current lack of food.
She sighed, finally deciding on the patch of the ground that felt to her like rabbit fur, at least it was soft. After only a few minutes where she willed herself to relax, she was soon asleep, her dreams swirling with thoughts of home, her stone and the castle.
When Kera at last breached consciousness she didn’t quite remember where she was, she was just quite rather surprised by the soft fur she felt underneath her. Why was she sleeping on rabbit fur? Her hands strayed beyond the fur and they hit cool stone, by that point she was beginning to realize that she was no longer dreaming. She opened her eyes, and at first she wasn’t certain she had her eyes open, she still couldn’t see anything. She quickly pinched her arm, and the twinge of pain up her arm confirmed that she was awake. “Well…then where am I?” she called aloud, hoping that the echo she heard would say answer something other than her original question, but she had no such luck.
She remembered everything from the night before, and she wrapped her hand around the stone around her neck hoping that its warmth would help her think. She felt as if she had a small bit of magic that had come back to her from her nights sleep, but she knew she wasn’t going to recover much without food. She slowly released the stone and stood; watch the stone struggle to light itself in the darkness. It was like a small match trying to light a large fire, it sputtered and flickered out entirely before weakly struggling back to life. Kera felt saddened watching her stone’s battle to bring her light, it made her even worse when she realized that if her loyal stone couldn’t even help her then what she didn’t know what could. She was at a loss, the feeble light produced by her stone was amazing in the darkness, but it only shone half a foot away from her and she saw no walls that close to her no matter how long she walked. She wished desperately that it would produce the blinding light that it had last night, but that was too much to ask for. Kera sighed, enveloping the stone between her fingers once more, the light couldn’t help her, and so she might as well have it save energy.
Once the warmth of the stone lessened she knew that it had stopped its fight to remain lightened, and she let it go. She sighed closing her eyes, what could she do? It seemed to her that maybe if she asked herself enough times the answer would be obvious and come to her out of the darkness.
“Kera?”
Kera’s eyes flew open, was she imagining things or had she just heard her name?
“Kera is that you?” The same voice asked.
Was she still imagining?
“Kera, are you in here? How did you get here?”
It was again the same voice, but she had never heard this voice before, and in the echoing of this place she couldn’t discern whether it was male or female, only that it wasn’t her mind hearing the voice. “Hello?” She called back.
“Oh thank goodness we found you! Why is it so dark in here? What are you doing?” The voice inquired.
“Who are you?” Kera questioned, she didn’t know if it was really safe talking to whoever was asking her questions.
“Um…my name’s Adelle, I’m here to…uh…take you with me?” Adelle answered lamely, she seemed not able to come up with the words she wanted to answer Kera’s question.
“How do you know who I am?” Kera said accusingly.
“Well…that’s difficult to explain, and I’d feel much more comfortable talking to you if we could get out of here, I’d like to see you.” Adelle replied.
“I don’t know how to get out of here, why would I stand around in the dark willingly?” Kera shot back.
Adelle remained silent, and Kera instantly regretted her tone, she hadn’t remembered her manners, and her fear had made her rude. It surprised her how quickly she angered in this darkness, and how only a week of having no other human contact had caused her to become awkward around people. Kera knew that she wanted Adelle to help her, she had no other way of getting out of this place, and the last thing she wanted was to die of hunger. “I’m sorry, I was rude, would you please help me to get out of here?” She asked, making certain that her voice was polite.
Adelle still remained silent, and Kera feared for a few moments that Adelle had left Kera to get out on her own. But, suddenly the room was filled with light, and Kera could see everything. She was in a vast empty chamber, the walls were almost eighty yards from her in every direction, but instead of walls, they looked to be mirrors. Kera glanced down at the floor, it wasn’t quite as strange now that she could see it, the majority of the floor was mostly plain stone, but there were rugs of different kinds strewn all along the floor as well. As Kera looked around though, she noticed that she was the only one in the room. “Hello?” She called gingerly.
A scraping noise behind her caused her to jump and turn around. One of the mirrors was splitting open noisily. Once the door opened Kera saw a woman, poking her head through the door her ebony hair sticking out at all sorts of angles. “Kera?” She smiled, “Nice to finally be able to see you for once, I’m Adelle.”
“Hi…” Kera greeted her in turn, not sure what to say.
“Well, you want to get out of here? Come on, let’s go!” She ushered Kera towards her.
Still uncertain, but eager to be rid of this place and the possibility of being able to find some food made the decision for Kera, she ran over to Adelle. Once she was closer she saw that Adelle looked extremely travel worn, her clothes were loose and baggy around her tall frame, and her green eyes were dull and lackluster. “Alright Kera, let’s get you out of here okay?” Adelle offered her hand and Kera took it, allowing herself to be pulled out of the room. The mirror smashed closed behind them, and Kera heard a shattering on the other side of the now solid looking wall.
“Whoops, didn’t mean to break it, I hope Sherwin doesn’t hate me for that, he loves that room.” Adelle shook her head, smiling to herself.
“Who’s Sherwin?” Kera couldn’t help herself asking, she figured she could trust this woman by now, she had gone to the trouble of saving her after all.
“Sherwin…well, you’ll meet him in a few minutes, but first, I’m sure you’re hungry!”
Kera nodded, “You have food that I can eat?”
“We sure do! As much as you want to, you’re a lifesaver kid; we’ll finally manage to get William off our backs by finding you. That’s worth anything!” Adelle’s eyes sparkled mischievously.”
Kera figured that if William was anyone important Adelle would say something else about it later, so she didn’t bother to ask, her mind was already onto other things, like eating food.
Chapter 12 Sarila
Sarila floated lightly back into her room, clutching her mother’s spell book. It seemed that maybe this book would be worth holding onto after all, the more she flipped through the pages the more it intrigued her. No longer would she be plagued by this book, because it no longer held only legends! It was filled with pages and pages of spells and enchantments that she was just itching to learn and try out. She still found several pages that after reading a few lines of she could tell were legends, but she didn’t have time to read those now, and besides when would her mother find out?
Sarila wondered if her mother really was going to make her leave the castle tomorrow morning. Sarila still didn’t understand what she was supposed to do on this journey, why did she want to attack people? She was certain that these people had never done anything to her; they couldn’t have done anything because the only thing that Sarila really cared about was the forest. Looking out her window she saw clear evidence that the forest was still there, strong and healthy as ever.
A tentative knock at her door interrupted her thoughts. “Who is it?” She called. The only reason she answered was because she could tell that it wasn’t her mother, that knock would have been hard and demanding.
“I-I’m here to help you pack for tomorrow,” Came a timid voice from the other side of the door.
Sarila felt her temper flare, but she knew it wasn’t right to take it out on the servants. She opened the door and let the girl in. The girl looked to be about Sarila’s age. “My mother’s really sending me out tomorrow…” Sarila mumbled, somewhat afraid.
The girl nodded slightly, placing the travel bag and saddle on Sarila’s bed. “She told me that I should give you this list and your bags. Would you like me to help you?”
Sarila considered, did she want company, or would it be better to do this on her own? In the end she decided that she would much rather try out some spells to pack things for her, and she didn’t want someone else watching. She might as well make the best of this circumstance and get some spell practice. “No thank you, I can pack myself.” She declined, making certain that she kept her voice even and polite.
The girl nodded once and curtsied and then left the room leaving Sarila on her own. Once the door was closed again Sarila began flipping through the book looking for a spell. It seemed that her mother really was going to force her out of the house, but that didn’t mean Sarila had to see this as a bad thing. This was her chance to get away from her mother, and how would her mother know where she went? Sarila smiled, remembering spells and enchantments, already making plans to escape to the forest. All she really needed to do was find a spell strong enough to keep her mother away.
Sarila found a spell to pack her things and began trying it out, but nothing happened. She flicked her fingers and spun her hands counterclockwise exactly as the spell instructed, but nothing happened. She read the spell again and again, but still nothing changed. The spell said that all she had to do was recite the spell and then her hands would begin glowing, then after that all she had to do was call out the name of what she wanted packed. Sarila stared at her hands, nothing had changed they didn’t look any different than normal, so what was wrong with her magic?
Sarila began flipping through the book trying to figure out what was wrong with her magic, but suddenly the book snapped shut, pinching the tips of her fingers in between the pages. She flinched dropping the book on the floor, when it hit the floor it flipped closed. Startled Sarila bent to pick the book back up, but when she had the book open again, all of the pages were blank. She flicked rapidly through the pages but still no words appeared; all the pages were blank.
A short, impatient knock at the door interrupted her search through the book. By the knock she knew that it was her mother, but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk to her. But, sadly Sarila realized that her mother was the only one that would know what happened with her powers, so she slowly moved to open the door. Sarila glared angrily at her mother upon opening the door, “Yes mother?” she asked, her voice just barely qualifying as polite.
Her mother walked into the room and sat in the chair at Sarila’s desk before answering, “You see Sarila, you didn’t believe me, and I knew you wouldn’t. You were plotting against me, and this is what happens. What were you planning Sarila?”
“What?” Sarila stared confused at her mother. How could she have known about that? There was no way she could have known! She had just begun planning it a few minutes ago!
“Yes, that’s right Sarila, I knew, the spell book and your powers are linked. When I decided to be the one to help you get your powers it involved giving you a small store of my own powers, and for you this is a bad thing, because so long as my powers still run in you, you can’t do anything against me. If you try to use your powers for something that you’re planning to use against me, then you’ll lose those powers for that spell.” Her mother smiled confidently.
“What? Why are you doing this?” Sarila found her voice rising.
“It’s not me doing this, you are, that’s the way that the ceremony works. You wouldn’t have your powers at all if I hadn’t helped you, so the ceremony spell makes sure that things work out positively for me. So, I just hope you understand that now, you have no choice. Now, I think you should get packing, you might not have time tomorrow.” Her mother stood, “Oh, and before I forget, don’t use your powers too much in the next few days, you need to give them a chance to become permanent or they’ll run out for good.” She smiled once more and left the room.
Sarila gaped after her mother as she left the room, this could not be happening…
Slowly and on auto-pilot she began packing, putting all her travel clothes and things into the bag. After she finished packing she changed into her sleep wear and still in denial fell asleep.
Sarila woke up the next morning slowly. For quite a while she just stayed lying in her bed with her eyes closed, trying to contradict everything that she knew was going to happen. But after almost half an hour, she still couldn’t see a way out, and the only thing she could think to do was get up and prepare for the trip.
After washing and getting dressed she headed down the stairs to the dining room carrying her saddle and bags. When she reached the dining room she found it re-made after the party, it was back to the way it normally looked. The long table had two cloth bags sitting on it and Sarila added hers next to them.
“Well good morning Sarila.” Cavan greeted her from the doors that lead to the kitchen.
Sarila turned to stare blankly at him, “Good morning…” She noted that Cavan was also dressed for travel.
“Are you excited? We leave today.” He smiled, walking over to stand next to her.
“We?” She asked befuddled.
“Of course, didn’t your mother tell you I’m joining you?” He asked, just as confused as she was.
“Sarila and Cavan! I’m so glad that you’ve already found each other, we’re preparing the horses now, so if you want to hurry and eat before you leave hurry.” Sarila’s mother called from the top of the stairs.
“Mother…” Sarila began, but before she could ask anything else her mother had already left. She turned to Cavan instead, “What is going on, I’m really not going to stand for this…”
Cavan gave her a meaningful look before replying, “It’s what we have to do…” He then pulled her into the kitchen and forced plate of eggs and bread into her hands. “Eat, or you’ll be hungry later.”
“What are you talking about? There isn’t going to be a later! I’m not leaving!” She shouted, controlling herself enough not to throw the eggs into his face.
He stared calmly at her, and gave her a chance to calm down before saying anything. “Sarila, you have to trust me, I know you don’t know me very well, but if you want anything to work out, you’ve got to trust me.” He murmured urgently, his voice barely above a whisper.
“What are you talking-“
“Sarila, come along, you need to get going now!” Sarila’s mother called from the dining room.
“Come on, just remember one thing, trust me and follow my lead.” Cavan urged her, pulling her from the kitchen. “We’re ready.”
Sarila’s bags were already gone from the table, but she didn’t have time to ask who’d grabbed them, she was just pulled without say out to the stables. Two horses were standing prepared for Sarila and Cavan in the front of the stables, pawing the ground nervously. When they reached the horses Sarila’s mother greeted them beaming, “Thank you Cavan for accompanying Sarila on this journey, I’m confident that you’ll do her some good.” She turned to Sarila, “Here, you don’t want to forget the spell book do you? You’ll need this!” She handed Sarila the spell book smiling.
“Thank you mother…” She stared past her, watching as the sun slowly poked its face above the horizon.
“Not a problem dear. Now, I know that last night I said there would be a farewell party, but I’m certain it will be much easier for you if you head out now instead of waiting.”
Without another word Cavan gave Sarila a leg up onto her horse before easily swinging onto his own horse’s back. “We shall hopefully see you soon in much better conditions, if I may say darker ones.” Cavan smiled and nodded to Sarila’s mother, kicking his horse into a slow run. Sarila copied him and adjusted her seat to her horses stride.
After several minutes on the trail Sarila couldn’t stand it anymore. “What are we doing!? I can’t believe we just walked away!”
Cavan grinned, “Don’t worry, we’re free now! Both of us! I never thought I would get a chance like this, but then you came along and the opportunity was too good to pass up!”
“What are you talking about?” Sarila demanded completely forgetting her manners.
“Us, we’re escaping your mother and all her plans.”
“What?” Sarila’s attitude changed completely, “We are?”
“Yes, you see, your mother has known me for most of your life, she’s always thought I’ve agreed with her ways, but I’ve just been playing a little game nature likes to call survival of the fittest. I knew your mother would like me better if I pretended to be the person you saw last night, and so I was, and have been for the last fifteen years, but I’m done with that now, I’m free!” He looked overjoyed, and she was surprised, this was a startling change from the night before.
“Why did you ever have to agree with her?” Sarila asked, somewhat worried.
“Well, like I said survival of the fittest, as soon as…our…what shall I call it, our side?” He was silent for a moment, mulling something over in his head, “Well, our side, darkness I suppose, found out that you were going to bring darkness to the world, and suddenly everyone had to suck up to your parents and get on their good side. With that said, it’s been tortuous, but at least I’ve managed to get away.”
“Um…you do realize you’re not making any sense to me right?”
“That’s okay, the basics, as long as you don’t plot to do anything bad to your mom, we’ll be fine, sound good?” He asked, grinning slyly over at her.
“But won’t not doing what she wants be plotting against her?”
“Not exactly, as long as you don’t see it that way it shouldn’t be a problem anyway, at least until a few months have passed and your mom’s powers aren’t so much of an influence to your magic.”
“Right…” Sarila nodded slowly, “Whatever you say…”
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