Something fought to free itself from within his mind, but as it was not able to or not allowed to, it levied pain. Pain that wrenched its way through his body, twisting away at his innards and his soul. His vision grew dim. He fell to the ground at the foot of the tower.
Thoughts filled his mind like a dream, reality bound by dreams. It was a strange and frightening dream. He dreamed of the boy he had once been. He dreamed of home, of his father and mother. He tried to force the thoughts away.
“Vilmos, control!” a friendly voice said to him.
He fought the pain, tried to listen to the voice. “I am me!” He cried out between clenched teeth, “I am in control!”
The pain grew. It was in brief moments of consciousness that the voice spoke to him, telling him to find control, to find a way beyond the pain. “The pain is their leash. Break the leash, become free.”
Other voices cried out. He gulped for air as if he had just returned from the dead. White-hot pain followed. It felt as if he were being burned alive. He wanted to tear off his skin to be rid of the pain. But he wouldn’t allow the pain to sweep him away again. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live.
His struggle was brief. Darkness enveloped his thoughts. The voices cried out telling him to come back to endure the test, yet he would not.
“Xith!” he cried out.
“I am here,” came the answer from beyond the darkness.
“Is it night already?” Vilmos asked as he sat up and looked at the night sky.
“If you say it is, it is.”
Vilmos started to reply. Xith cut him off. “We haven’t much time, Vilmos. We must hurry. Your struggle is not over. The real fight has only begun.”
“Struggle? Fight?”
“You have learned to get around their controls. They must never learn this. If they do, they will ensure you fail this test.”
“What if I fail?”
“If you fail, we won’t be able to let you live in this place. We will be forced to kill you here, once and for all eternity.”
“We?” Vilmos asked, “Kill me?”
“It would be necessary to try.”
“Try?”
“Silence, listen. Our time is growing short. I have things of great import to explain, things you must accept.” Xith moved out of the darkness. He sat on the ground beside Vilmos and stared into his eyes. Another approached out of the darkness but did not move fully from the shadows.
“Who is that?”
“All in good time,” Xith said, quickly re-directing Vilmos’ attention. “This is a dangerous business, this thing between you and I. Do you understand?”
Vilmos nodded.
“I knew what you were and yet I helped you into the world. Kept you safe. Have I made the right decision?”
Vilmos didn’t respond.
“Don’t struggle with the truth. You know. A part of you has known ever since I first came to you.”
“What have you let me become? What gave you the right to let this thing come to pass?”
“Even if I had wanted to I couldn’t have done what needed to be done until I was sure, so I waited and watched. When the time came near I felt the presence. It was then that I left. I watched you in the shadows of your thoughts, offering guidance as I could.
“If you refused my guidance I knew I would then have to do what must be done. The magic in you is great but your past does not have to be your future. Control it, without letting it control you. At times it will be difficult. You will feel it. This is when you must seize the moment. Focus. You are the key to the wild magic.
“The wild magic of the beginning when all was chaos. In life or death all things have a beginning and an ending. When one era comes to an end, a new one starts. It is an endless cycle. In the end all things revert back to the beginning. Out of the chaos comes order, but only at the very end, and at a cost that cannot be known.
“Long have I troubled over my decision. The great burden I have placed on everything and everyone you will ever touch. It may have been pity for a child that spared you. That pity may also be what changes the course of the path.”
Vilmos waved his arms, a caged bird trying to fly. “You talk as if you are leaving.”
“Of course I am, don’t be foolish. Our time is spent. Fight, Vilmos. Don’t give in. I will find you again.”
Darkness swept in from the corners of his mind. Vision returned. Reality spilled upon dream, dream upon reality. The robed figures around him started running as they realized what had returned from the darkness. Their rhythmic chants faded to a cacophony of muddled screams.
“Fools, don’t stop! You must maintain the rhythm!” cried out a strangely compelling voice, “Now we must begin again…”
“Begin again… begin again,” the words echoed in Vilmos’ mind.
A voice cried out to him in one last attempt to put reason into his mind, “Find, control… Remember, you are the sleeping dragon.”
* * *
Adrina collapsed onto her bed. She was exhausted, but pleased that Seth had been able to help Myrial. Friends, true friends like Myrial, were hard to find.
She tried to sleep. Her body was weary, but her mind wasn’t. She had so many questions, needed so many answers. She was struggling with her thoughts and deep in concentration when a hand clasped suddenly, unexpectedly to her mouth. Eyes round and wild, she resisted, fighting with all the strength she had.
She broke the grip, slipped to the side of the bed.
Strong hands grabbed and groped. She bit down in the fingers of the hand at her mouth, tasted the leather of the gloves on the attackers hands.
Her muffled screams were barely audible. The attacker was strong, wouldn’t let go. She stomped down, winced in pain as her bare foot met rock-hard boots.
“Dear Father, help me,” she prayed as she struggled. All she could think about were the events of the last few days. The turmoil in the palace. The whisperers who wanted to kill her father and everyone else who stood in the way of claiming the throne.
“Revolution,” Valam had told her. “You don’t want our family to end as King Frederick II’s.” She didn’t. King Frederick, his wife, and most of his family were murdered in their sleep. Two sons and a daughter escaped the slaughter, but they were hunted down by the new, self-proclaimed ruler.
A flicker in the mirror caught her attention. She could see the dark robes of the figure that was holding her.
She looked back to the mirror. It took a long, extended second to understand what she saw.
The attacker was a woman, just like the whisperer in the hall. Could it be the same person? Had she returned to finish what she started? Where was her accomplice? Adrina had heard two speakers—both feminine.
“Do not scream,” an ominous voice whispered, “I will lower the hand, but do not scream.”
The voice was feminine. Adrina recognized it as if from a dream.
Strong, steady hands twisted her around. She looked up into the dark eyes, saw the long flowing black hair. Momentarily her despair edged toward panic.
Then the hand was removed from her mouth. Adrina considered screaming. She could have, easily, and aid probably would have arrived within moments, but she did not scream. Instead she regarded the figure that stood over her.
“Must we always meet like this, sister?” she asked. “Can you not knock and announce yourself like a normal person?”
“Silence,” Midori said, touching a finger to Adrina’s lips.
Adrina would not be silenced so easily. “Not again, and not like this. Father has forgiven you in his heart. I know he has.”
“Dear sister, I am as an enemy to the crown and people, only the robes of my office will protect me if I am discovered.” Midori passed warding hands about the air. “It is time I told you the truth of it.”
“Truth of what?”
Another figure stepped out of the shadows. Adrina recognized the face of the burly captain immediately. “Captain Brodst?”
Midori understood the expression in Adrina’s eyes. She took Adrina’s hand and coaxed her into a chair. “Ansh and I are more than we seem.”
Adrina didn’t understand. She felt uncomfortable and suddenly underdressed in front of Captain Ansh Brodst.
“I know the ways of your heart and mind, sister. You think that King Jarom’s bitter harvest would not be so wrought if I had wed him as father commanded. Father thinks it and so do the members of the council.”
Midori paused, looked at the captain. He nodded. She continued. “I told you once that I remembered it all. That I lived with the pain and paid and paid and am still paying a debt that I never owed. You told me that you could not forgive me and that I was dead to father—that he had buried me and there was a grave marker to prove it. It is true, Adrina. No matter what I do, I am dead to father, but I am not dead to you.”
Adrina stared coolly at her sister. She started to speak. The captain cut her off. “Let her finish,” he said.
“I am not responsible for Quashan’ or the attacks on Imtal. Even if I had wed Jarom, it wouldn’t have changed the path. To the contrary, it would have hastened the path—Jarom’s path to power. He wants to sit upon Imtal’s throne and from there rule all the known lands of our realm.”
Adrina turned to Captain Brodst. “How can you know this with such certainty?”
“The shaman, Xith,” whispered the captain reverently.
Midori continued, “Xith showed me the path. With my own eyes I saw what the future would bring if I wed Jarom and birthed the child from my womb. The child that was…” She took Captain Brodst’s hand. “Not Jarom’s, but ours.”
Adrina looked from her sister to the captain, for the truth of it only their eyes could tell her. “Is the captain? Is the—”
“I am,” said Captain Brodst.
“Is that child Emel?”
Midori turned away to look out the window. A sound in the night caught her cautioned ear. “We have told you this, our deepest secret, so that you may know that you can trust us above all others. Knowing who you can trust will save your life in the days and weeks ahead.”
“Save my life?”
Midori’s eyes were drawn to movement few others could have seen. “I must go. The captain will tell you soon what we require of you in return. For now, I ask only silence and I give you this.”
Midori thrust a scroll into Adrina’s hands. Adrina unrolled the scroll.
“Read it now,” Midori commanded. “Hurry, we haven’t much time.”
Adrina regarded Midori quizzically. She started to read, felt the urge to turn back to her sister, but found that she couldn’t.
The words printed on the scroll began to move about the parchment as if they were marionettes controlled by unseen hands. The words stopped moving when they formed a dark ring. In the center of the ring these words appeared:
Dragon’s Keep
Kingdom of the Sky
Through danger deep
Death’s door does lie