A Sky of Spells (Book #9 in the Sorcerer's Ring) (22 page)

Thor did not want to see them.
He did not want to go back and have his petty revenge. He did not want to go
back at all. He just wanted to wipe that village from his memory, even if it
meant shirking his duty.

Thor finally kicked his
horse and turned away from the road that led to his village, forking instead,
to parts unknown.

*

Hours passed as Thor rode through
wooded, unfamiliar territory, searching for a new village, venturing deeper
into a part of the Ring he had never been. Night began to fall, the second sun
disappearing below the horizon, and it was getting darker. Thick clouds
gathered around him, soon the sky turned black, and thundered clapped overhead,
as it began to pour.

Thor was getting soaked, as
was Krohn and his horse, and he knew they couldn’t continue on like this; they’d
have to find shelter for the night. He peered into the thick woods on either
side of the narrow road, and he decided to turn off and seek shelter beneath a
canopy of trees.

The forest was wet and dank,
thick with trees, and Thor dismounted, not wanting his horse to get hurt in the
darkness. He walked alongside it, tripping on gnarled roots, Krohn beside him,
as they all ventured deeper and deeper into the dark forest.

Thor wiped rainwater from
his eyes, wiped the hair from his face, trying to see where he was going. There
was no sign of shelter anywhere, and the rain poured through the trees.

Finally, up ahead, Thor spotted
a cave, a huge rock emerging from the earth, black inside. As the rain poured
down harder, he lead the others to it.

They entered, Thor relieved
to finally be dry, quieter in here, the only sound that of the rain pouring
outside. Krohn shook his hair and the horse neighed, all of them clearly happy
to be out from the wet.

Thor walked to the end of
the cave, on guard, making sure they were not sharing it with anyone, then
finally stopped about twenty feet in, satisfied. It was a shallow cave, but
dry, and large enough for them to take shelter from the storm.

Thor set to work making a
fire, salvaging the dry branches he found on the floor of the cave, and soon it
was roaring, the twigs crackling. Thor remembered the pieces of dried meat in
his saddle, and he fed the horse, then Krohn, then himself.

Thor sat before the flames,
rubbing his hands, trying to dry off, and Krohn came up beside him and lay his
head in his lap, while the horse stood by the cave’s entrance, lowering his
head and chewing the grass. Thor chewed his dried meat, warming himself on the
surprisingly cool summer night. He felt sleepy from the long day, and soon, his
eyes were closing on him.

“Thorgrin,” came a voice.

Thor opened his eyes to see Argon
standing over him, looking down at him in the cave. Argon stood there, eyes
opened wide, shining, holding his staff, dressed in his robe and cloak. Thor was
shocked to see him here. He looked over and saw Krohn sleeping, beside the
embers of the dying fire, and he wondered if it were all real.

“Thorgrin,” Argon repeated.

“What are you doing here?”
Thor asked.

“You have come to me,” Argon
said. “You sought me out. In this cave.”

Thor furrowed his brows,
confused.

“I thought I was lost,” he
said. “I thought I made a wrong turn. I did not mean to come here.”

Argon shook his head.

“There are no wrong turns,”
he said. “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.”

“But where am I?” Thor
asked.

“Follow me and see.”

Argon turned, and Thor rose
to his feet and followed him as he marched outside the cave. Thor still did not
know if he was awake or asleep.

Outside, the rain had
stopped. All was silent. The forest was eerie, dim, not dark and not light, as
if it were twilight, or the time before dawn. It felt as if the entire world
were still asleep.

Argon continued walking, and
Thor struggled to keep up with him through the forest trail. He was beginning
to get concerned about finding his way back to the cave.

“Where are we going, Argon?”
Thor asked.

“To complete your training,”
Argon replied.

“I thought my training was complete,”
Thor said.

“Only one stage of it,” Argon
said. “It is no longer about what you need to learn. Now it is about what you
need to do.”

“To do?” Thor asked,
puzzled.

“This journey, this road,
your town, the storm—it’s all come for a reason. You’ve come here for a reason.
The time has come for you to tap into a part of yourself you have not yet
reached.”

They finally broke free from
the woods, and before them lay a vista of rolling hills.

Thor followed Argon to the
top of a small hill. He stopped, and Thor stopped beside him.

“Your problem, Thorgrin,”
Argon said, standing beside him, looking out, eyes aglow, “is that you do not
realize how powerful you are. You never have. You still don’t trust it. You
still don’t trust who you are. You are so reliant upon human weapons and
training, upon swords and spears and shields…. But you have all the power you
need, right inside you. And yet you are afraid of it.”

Thor looked down, reddening,
realizing Argon was right.

“I am,” Thor admitted.

“Why?”

“I feel that to use my
powers would not be fighting fairly,” Thor said. “I feel that I need to prove
myself, on the same terms as everyone else. I guess I still feel that my powers
are…something to be ashamed of.”

Argon shook his head.

“That is where you are
wrong. What is different about you is precisely what you should be most proud
of.”

Argon closed his eyes,
breathed deeply, raised both arms, and waited. Thor heard a trickling noise,
then felt a raindrop, and looked up to the sky and watched it begin to pour.

He looked back at Argon,
amazed.

“Can you feel it, Thorgrin? Can
you feel the water pouring down on us? Permeating everything? Feel it in your
skin and hair and eyes. Breathe it in.”

Thor closed his eyes and
held out his palms, and felt the drops hitting them. He tried to focus, tried
to become one with the rain.

“Now stop it,” Argon
commanded. “Stop all of it. Stop this rain.”

Thor gasped, unsure of
himself.

“I can’t do that,” Thor
said.

“You can,” Argon said. “Rain
is just water, and water is simply the universe. It is us. Now do it. Raise
your hands and stop it.”

Thor closed his eyes
tighter, concentrating, and raised his arms. As he did, he felt his palms
tingling, and he began to feel the energy of the rain in the air. It was
intense. Heavy. Limitless.

Thor slowly pushed his palms
higher and higher, taking on the energy, and as he did, the rain began to slow.
Then it stopped, the water hovering in the air. Then, Thor reversed it, shooting
it back up to the sky.

The sound of the rain
stopped, and Thor opened his eyes, amazed, to see the land dry all around him.

“I did that?” he asked,
surprised.

“Yes,” Argon replied. “You
and you alone.”

Argon turned his back, and
held his arms up to the sky.

“There is more you can do,
Thorgrin,” he said. “Do you see the night? Do you see the darkness? It is but a
veil. Lift that veil. Allow it to be day.”

Thor stood there,
flabbergasted.

“Me?” he asked. “Turn night
into day?”

“Night is but the absence of
light. Let there be light. You are advanced enough now.”

Thor gulped and closed his
eyes. It was hard for him to imagine himself with that sort of power, but
nonetheless, he held out his arms and raised his palms to the sky.

“Feel the fibers of night,”
Argon said. “Feel the threads of blackness. They are but illusion. The whole
world is but illusion. This, the sky we live under, the sky we breathe every
day, it is not a sky of man—it is a sky of magic, a sky of wonder. It is a sky
of spells.”

Thor tried to follow the
instruction, tried to feel the blackness. He felt a tremendous heaviness
weighing on the tips of his fingers.

“Now, Thorgrin,” Argon
added, “transcend the illusion.”

Thor felt his fingertips
burning, nearly on fire, and he closed his hands and bunched his fists. He
squeezed his fists as hard as he could, and felt a heat searing his entire
body. He leaned back his head and screamed.

When he opened his eyes,
Thor was awestruck. There, before him, it was daylight. Night was gone.

“All of nature is under your
control,” Argon said, turning to him, as Thor stared out in wonder. “The fox and
the mouse, the eagle and the owl. There, up high, on that branch. Do you see
that owl? It, too, is under your control. Command it. Leave your limited world
behind, and see the world through its eyes.”

Thor looked up at the huge,
black owl, a magnificent creature, and he closed his eyes and focused,
concentrating. Thor opened the owl’s eyes, and its eyes were his own. He saw
the world through its eyes. It was incredible.

Thor turned the owl’s neck,
and it looked out in every direction, at the limitless landscape. He saw beyond
the forest, above the tips of the trees. In the distance, he saw a road.

“Excellent,” Argon said,
beside him. “Now see where that road takes you.”

Thor kept his eyes closed,
seeing the world through the eyes of the owl, and silently commanded the owl to
lift off. He could feel the great owl flapping its wings above him, and soon it
soared through the air, flying along the tops of the trees. Thor watched the
landscape through its eyes, looking down through the trees, following the road
that led through the forest.

The road twisted and turned,
and soon it led him to a familiar place. Thor was surprised to see his hometown
below.

Standing there, alone in its
center, was a woman he was shocked to recognize.

His mother.

She stood there and looked
up the sky, as if looking for him, and held up her arms.

“Thorgrin!” she called.

“Mother!” he called back.

Thor opened his eyes with a
start, jolted out of the vision, and looked over to Argon.

“My mother,” he said,
breathing hard. “Is she there? In my village? How can it be?”

“She waits for you,” Argon
said. “It is time to meet her. Your very life depends on it. The final clue you
need lies there. In your home town.”

Thor turned and looked out
at the road before him, wondering.

“But how can it—” he began
to ask Argon.

But as Thor turned, he saw
no one. Argon was gone.

“ARGON!” he screamed out.

There came no reply save for
the sound of a lone owl, screeching high up in the air.

Selese walked slowly down
the aisle on her wedding day, and she knew something was not quite right. All
the chairs were empty on either side of the aisle; she looked over and saw,
instead, rows of thorn bushes, black and ominous. She looked down and saw that mice
scurried beneath her feet, and that the aisle, instead of being lined with
flowers, was lined with mud. She was terrified.

As she reached the end of
the aisle, Selese looked up and saw Reece standing there, at the altar, waiting
for her. But as she approached, desperate to get close to him, she noticed a
huge spider web between them, and she found herself walking face-first into it,
it wrapping all over her face and body, sticking to her. She flailed,
hysterical, trying to peel it away. She finally managed to tear it off, but as
she did, she noticed she was tearing off her wedding dress instead, leaving her
in rags.

Selese stepped onto the
altar, shaking from fear, and looked across at Reece.

He stood there, staring back
blankly, expressionless.

“I wish we could marry,” he
said. “But I love someone else.”

Selese gaped, not
understanding—then suddenly, there appeared a woman next to Reece, a beautiful
girl, Reece’s age, who reached up and wrapped one arm around his, turned him
and led him away.

The two of them walked back
down the aisle, and Selese just stood there, horrified, and watched them go.

Selese felt the ground
tremble beneath her, and she looked down and watched in disbelief as a hole opened
in the earth. The hole grew greater and greater, and before she could get out
of the way, she found herself falling, into the blackness.

She shrieked, flailing, raising
her hands for someone, anyone, to save her. But no one did.

Selese woke screaming.

She sat straight up in bed,
sweating despite the cool summer night. She looked all about her, trying to
understand where she was, what had happened.

It was a dream. It had seemed
so real—too real. She sat there, gasping. She reached up and rubbed her face
and hair, trying to feel for the spider web. But there was none—nothing but her
cool, clammy skin.

Selese surveyed her
surroundings and saw she was still in the safety of the Queen’s castle, in the luxurious
room given to her by the queen, lying on a pile of furs. A slight breeze
stirred through the window, it was a perfect summer night, and absolutely nothing
in the world was wrong.

She got up, crossed the
room, and splashed water on her face. She breathed deeply, rubbing her eyes
again and again, trying to understand.

How could she have had such
a dream? She had never had nightmares in her life. Why now? And why had it been
so vivid?

Selese walked over to the
open-air window and stood there, looking out at the night. Beneath the faint
light of the second moon, there was King’s Court, in all its splendor. She could
see her wedding preparations, perfect below, everything in order for her double
wedding with Gwendolyn. Even at night everything was so beautiful, the flowers
glowing beneath the moonlight. The wedding was still a half moon away, and yet
all was ready. Selese was in awe at the spectacle it would be.

Selese was so honored to be
getting married together with Gwendolyn, so grateful for the kindness that her
future sister-in-law had shared with her. She also felt overwhelmed with a surge
of love for Reece. She did not need any of this lavishness; all she wanted was
to be with Reece.

But as Selese stared down below,
all she could see was her dream. That horrible aisle; the thorns; the web; falling
through the earth; the other woman. Could any of it be true? Was it just a
horrible dream—or was it some sort of omen?

Selese stared out at the
clouds racing beneath the moon, and she wanted to tell herself it was all just fancies
of the night. Perhaps it was just the stress of preparing for the wedding.

But deep down, Selese could
not help but fear it was something more. She could not help but feel that
Reece, out there somewhere, was in terrible danger.

And as she looked down at
the beauty of all those wedding preparations, she could not help feeling, with
a deep sense of dread, that their wedding would never come to be.