Yazen (Ponith) (15 page)

“I’m surprised that you all have made it this far. I want to welcome you to our home. If you do not know already, my name is Caoell, and this is Kumbricia. We are the rulers of Yazen. May
I ask as to why you’ve come barging uninvited into our domain?” Caoell asks with a smirk on his face.

Caoell is very tall with white skin and pure white hair. His hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and his eyes are blood red. Long, dangling earrings hang from each ear, and a silver talon with a piece of obsidian attached to it hangs from his neck. He wears a long purple robe with gold trim all over it, and in the center the gold trim makes a skull face. To me it looks like a
toga. There are tiny talons hanging from the skull face, and he has wrist armor that has three large golden spikes on each one. His boots are a golden color as well.

His companion wears a crown in the shape of the top of a trident.
Kumbricia is also very tall with white skin, but she has dark black hair. She has black shoulder pads on and it looks like a large metal belt that goes around her waist. Two skinny pieces of black cloth connecting to the shoulder pads barely cover her. She has slits on both sides of a long black dress with black boots to match. She has black armguards on that match her shoulder pads and has the same obsidian gem around her neck.

“We have come here today to take back my daughter Narissa and our o
ther family members and friends you have kidnapped. We’ll not allow it anymore; this time you’ve gone too far. The Unicorn has come to us and he has brought us someone who will help us bring Yazen to peace again. That means getting rid of you,” Nytril says in an intimidating deep voice.

Everyone steps to the side so I’m standing in the middle, all alone. I feel betrayed
and exposed. They can kill me at any second so I try to be brave, stepping forward, “You will give us back Narissa and leave this planet at once!”

Caoell and Kumbricia look at each other and lau
gh. I guess I’m a joke to them. I won’t stand here and be ridiculed like this.

“So, Zac, you think you can just walk in here and
take care of us? Then take over our stronghold and this planet?” Kumbricia asks in a mesmerizing voice.

“Don’t let them play mind games with you, Zac,” Nytril says while stepping beside me
. Then Calina, Laderic, Drakoe, Ovvar, and Alex join me. It feels better having friends by my side. Jenn understandably stays back with Rowin, Korla, and Kolin.

“I came here today to get my friends back and to retrieve the Yazen gem so Yazen’s portal can be active again. If you’re not going to cooperate with us, then we’ll have
to take it from you with force. We’re not just going to walk away from this,” I say in a stern voice.

“Isn’t he just adorable
, Caoell? He reminds me of you when you were a kid. He really thinks he can beat us. He has no idea what he is in for, now does he?” Kumbricia says in a mocking voice.

“I guess he does sound like me, but the only difference is, he won’t succeed,” Caoell shouts while taking the purple barrier away. He raises his staff and aims it at me. Out shoots a purple
beam of light. I drop down, barely avoiding it as it shoots past me overhead.

I know
that the Wood Elves said that they are the Dark Lords with dark arts, but what kind of magical spells are they capable of? Are they witches?

“Be careful, Zac
, they’re not only physically dangerous but they can pack quite a punch as well with their staves. They’re dangerous, keep your distance,” Drakoe whispers in my ear. I notice he grabs his gem when he uses his magic as well. There’s nothing green in here, so I’m not sure what he plans to do with it.

Everyone’s
spreading out a bit now and focusing on the Dark Lords. They have stopped attacking and put their purple barrier back up.

“Very quick reflexes, my young boy. I do have to say,
I didn’t think you’d dodge that one,” Caoell says to me. I’m starting to shake from fear as I’m racking my mind trying to figure out how we’re supposed to beat them.

“Well, well,
look who finally decided to show up,” Kumbricia says. Champion has come in and is standing next to me. “So is this the legendary Unicorn everyone has been telling us about? So you do exist. Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” she says while eyeing Champion. Champion neighs loudly at her.

“Let’s see how well
Zac and his friend here do against both of us. Let’s pick them up and teach them a lesson on barging in on people,” Caoell says while smirking at us. What does he mean by that? I stand ready to dodge once more.

Before I have a chance to say a thing, the purple barrier is down, and Champion and I
both get wrapped up in a thin purple bubble. Everyone backs away from us as we both begin to float in air. I feel a weird tingling sensation all over my body as it begins to burn. I can’t seem to control my thoughts. I just feel like screaming!

“What’s happening to them?” Jenn
yells out. I see her staring at me in fear. “Your skin is turning purple and your eyes are red. Zac! Snap out of it!” I’m trying to listen to her words, but it’s hard to pay attention.

Finally, the burning stops and Champion and I are put back down to the g
round. I look over at Champion, his beautiful white fur turned to a midnight black hue. The only other color standing out is his red eyes. He almost looks as if he’s a shadow.

I look at my arms
in surprise and find that I’ve been changed into something that looks like a Dark Elf. I can feel my thoughts turning as I am evaluating myself. It seems like my body could be a shadow as well … is it my eyes? My arms and hands are black, phased with shadows, lacking definition. All of my armor is gone, it seems; they must have destroyed it.

I
hear voices in my head, although they’re different. I think it is coming from Caoell and Kumbricia, but their mouths are not moving.

“Listen to us
, young fool. We’re the leaders of Yazen, not you. You’ll do as we say and you’ll be handsomely rewarded. You’ll have magical powers that you never knew you could have. These people around you here are trying to hurt us. You and the Unicorn have to eliminate them all. Do you understand?” the voices say. I nod my head in agreement.

I look over at Champion and he nods in agreement as well. “Let’s take care
of these filthy invaders,” I say to Champion.

My hands feel like they are on fire.
My eyes draw in the shadows around me and the world goes hazy once more. I hold my palms up in the air; they burn and I can feel the pressure there. Black flames burst out of my palms as I long to free the pressure building in my arms. I look around me and everything is slowly turning red. All of these pathetic creatures are backing away from me. Rightfully so.

Champion’s neighing like crazy and kicking his legs up in the air. Then I hear the voices
booming in my head again, “Kill all of invaders, Zac! Protect yourself!” The last line echoes in my head over and over again, louder until I can’t hear or think anything else. My head feels like it’s going to explode.

I
hunch over slightly and begin to focus, drawing from the black around the room, from the shadows and from the ground beneath my feet. I channel it up into my legs and around the edges of my chest, radiating out toward my arms. I can feel it burning and resisting as I will the energies into the palms of my hand. Flicking my palms up again, I conjure up much larger flames this time. I begin to throw some of the black flames at all of the creatures around me and jump on Champion’s back to pursue them further. A few of the smaller ones are on fire, unable to dodge my flames. I feel waves of pleasure going down my spine; I’m killing them. They’ll never take me down.

“It’s me
, Zac, it’s Alex. Remember me, I’m your friend,” one of the creatures tries to tell me. Stupid animal. I will not fall for any of their petty tricks. I flick my wrist at him, hitting him in his shoulder with flame. He falls backwards and begins to roll on the ground.

“Zac, please stop. Don’t do this. You’re not this guy, you’re better than this.
You’re not yourself! Remember your promise to me!” some young girl yells at me. She’s holding a small knife in her hands. I really don’t like her telling me what to do; it’s time for her to die.

I
need more, more energy to make the flames bigger. I can feel the heat of it flowing through my body. “Yes, Zac, do it, kill her,” the voices chime in. I aim my hands and, just as I am about to throw fire at her, I get knocked off Champion. I hit my head hard on the black floor and the world turns upside down.

A creature
with pointy ears rushes over to me with a group of creatures and they start to hold me down. One of them erects a shield around us and I can’t seem to get up. What are they doing to me? What’s this guy taking off of his neck? What is that bottle? “No, foul creature? What is that? Do not touch me with that, you animal, get off of me. I’m going to kill you all,” I scream at them. I can feel the rage building up inside of me.

The guy begins to pour
the liquid from the bottle into my mouth. At first it’s cool but then it begins to take away the heat from my body. I see him pour the same stuff in Champion’s mouth while Champion is trying to kick and shrug him away.

The voices are dissipating
and my vision gets bright. What have they done to me?

“You will be fine now. I had a small bottle of healing water that I wear on my necklace. Champion
should be okay. They tried to corrupt you; this should help,” Drakoe says.

I look back over to Champion, and he’s turning back to his original white fur.
Calina has a large green shield protecting us from the Dark Lords. I notice Jenn’s hiding behind Nytril, and she looks terrified of me. Was she the girl I tried to kill? What have I done? I turned against my own friends! All of my armor’s gone, and I’m standing shirtless, only in a pair of brown pants. They stripped me of my protection and dignity.

“Everyone, this battle is not over yet. We need you to get back on your feet and be prepared to fight
. This shield won’t protect us much longer,” Nytril announces. As soon as Nytril says that, the shield disappears.

“Well, Zac, sorry you couldn’t stay with us longer. You were beginning to fit right in. Well, if you don’t want to be one of us, we’re just going to have to kill you ourselves,”
I can hear Caoell say.

Caoell
drops his barrier and grabs a sword off of the wall, coming at me. Alex fires an arrow at Caoell, but he knocks it down with his sword. He has amazingly quick reflexes. Kumbricia’s standing back, watching in her purple barrier.

I pick my sword up off the ground and work my way toward Caoell. Everyone else is trying to fight him, but he let
s out an explosion of purple gas from his gem, clouding the room in a purple mist that dissipates unnaturally quickly. Anyone it touches, it seems to paralyze them in place. No one can move besides Champion and I, it seems. Caoell mutters a laugh as he turns his full attention to me.

I hold up my sword to protect myself from any spells he may try to hit me with. Caoell throws a
handful of flames at me. I see it coming, however, and am barely able to deflect it with my sword. The sword unfortunately becomes too hot with the fire still burning on it, causing me to end up dropping it as it starts to burn into my palms. I know if I try to bend down and get it, Caoell will just finish me off. I grab Nytril’s sword from his frozen hands and use it to protect myself. It’s a lot heavier than the sword I was using.

We begin to swordfight
but it quickly becomes futile. Caoell’s a lot faster than I am and much better then me. I can barely keep up with him and I’m starting to get tired, and my arms are beginning to burn.

I cannot hold him off anymore. It hurts too much.
I can feel pain in my chest, a pain I have never felt before. I look down to see Caoell’s sword sticking out of my chest, and warm blood is pouring down my stomach. I instantly fall to the ground in my own pool of blood. I can hear everybody screaming, but I cannot make out the words. Everything begins to get blurry and it hurts so much to breathe.

I feel Caoell rip his sword out of me and walk back to Kumbricia.
I watch the world start to close in around me as the light at the edge of my eyes darken.

This is it. This is when I’m finally going
to die. I at least tried my best; no complaints there. I try to focus on everything around me, but I am having a hard time staying conscious. I just want to go to sleep.

“Now, my friends, we’ll watch as this so-called Unicorn
-bound leader of Yazen dies a slow and painful death,” Caoell announces while standing next to Kumbricia, as they both laugh in hysterics. They have taken their barrier down since they have the spell on everyone else.

Champion kneels down next to me. I can see a teardrop falling from his eye. He nudges the side of my cheek. I give him a kiss on his nose
and thank him for his help. I feel something fall onto my chest. I try to look up and I notice that Champion’s horn has fallen off of his head and it has landed on my chest.

Did someone cut his horn off? I’m not sure how it came off. I hear everyone gasping. What has happened? I’m feeling the tingling feeling like I did with the healing water. Almost like a surge of electricity running through my body. I
can feel like I’m beginning to regain my strength. I slowly sit up and tentatively feel at my chest. My wound appears to be healing.

I look up at Champion, and his horn
is beginning to regrow on his head. It almost looks like he never lost his horn in the first place. I have my complete strength back.

“Thank you, Champion.
You’ve saved my life once again,” I say to him while rubbing his head. Champion neighs and stands up tall. I stand up next to him and pick up my sword once more.

“So it’s true after all. The Unicorn can give his horn to
the Unicorn-bound and heal them. Stubborn creature; when are you going to run out of tricks?” Kumbricia says in shock.

I’m standing near
Alex, and he has a frozen look like I have betrayed him. Which I did in a way and I can’t blame him for being mad at me. His hand is stuck in a position where he was rubbing his right shoulder where I hit him with the flames. His skin looks burned and scarred. I slowly take his bow from him since he can’t use it. He only has one arrow left. Caoell and Kumbricia are talking to each other with their barrier still down.

I move in one quick swoop,
as quietly as possible, and bring my bow up and aim at Kumbricia. While they’re still distracted I let the arrow fly and it hits right above her temple, killing her instantly. She drops to the floor.

Caoell is
furious, and his eyes look like they have flames in them. He comes charging at me with his sword. He raises it up and I’m ready for him to fight me one more time.

Unfortunately that doesn’t happen
, as Champion flies in between us and Caoell stabs Champion in the side instead. A black-colored blood begins to pour out onto the ground.

“NOOOOOOO,” I cry while
running forward to Champion, stopping myself halfway to him. Champion buckles and crashes down on his side and Caoell takes one foot and pushes off Champion’s side, freeing his sword from the now lifeless body.

I begin to back away from Champion. Caoell’s laughing at me, standing in Champion’s pool of
blood. His eyes are closed now and I know he has passed. Champion’s blood is running down Caoell’s sword, down his arms, and splatters of blood cover his face.

Caoell
suddenly begins to scream a horrifying cry. His arms are beginning to smoke and it looks like he is burning to death. Champion’s blood must be something akin to some sort of acid.

“You’re going to pay for this, Zac. You will not win this battle,” Caoell threatens me. His skin
looks like it is melting off of his body. His arms are nothing more than bone now. Then there is complete silence; Caoell is dead.

With his death, t
he spell is released from everyone affected and they can move again. Once everyone realizes what happened, they all come racing to me and pick me up, “You did it, Zac, you did it!” Calina shouts.

The ground begins to rumble, and there’s a loud noise outside. A few of us begin to run outside to see
what it is. We look up, and see that the damage to the sky’s barrier is closing back up. The Elementals are gone; the spell has been broken.

“Where do you think Narissa is?” I ask Nytril and Korla. I really want to make sure she is okay. I have not seen her at all this whole time.

“We need to search the castle. We have to be prepared, though. We don’t know what could have happened or what else could be lurking in there,” Nytril says.

“Very true
, Father, we should all split up in groups and go down the different stairwells. If any trouble is found, alert each other so we can take it head on,” Laderic says.

I head back inside while they figure out the plan. I walk over to Champion and kneel down. I try to stay away from his blood
so I don’t suffer the same fate as Caoell. He’s so beautiful, and to think he gave his life for me. I wish I could take it back and be the one who dies in his stead, so he’s still alive instead. I can feel myself trying to hold back the tears.

Alex
and Jenn walk over and kneel down beside me. They both give me a big hug.

“Thank you for
coming back to us and saving us. You have one hell of a shot,” Alex says, laughing.

“I’m sorry for hitting you with
those flames. Are you okay?” I ask Alex.

“It burns a lot but I’ll be fine. It almost looks like a tattoo of a spider web. Look how these black marks reach out all over my arm and neck,”
Alex shows me.

“That’s
pretty scary looking. I hope it’s nothing serious and goes away. Maybe go see a doctor when we get back home,” I tell him. I feel really bad now.

“Do you know where the Yazen gem is?” Jenn asks me. I completely forgot about it
until she just mentioned it. Luckily I have the compass around my neck so I pull it out to look at it. The arrow points to the left of us, but there’s a wall there, so it must be under us on another floor.

“It
’s somewhere here in this castle, but probably below us. It looks like we may have to go downstairs to find it. We have to find the others and save them first,” I tell her.

“We have decided to split up into groups and have everyone
split up to find Narissa and the others. Everyone needs to be careful because there may still be more threats in this castle. If any of you finds Narissa, shout as loud as you can so we can come and get her. Everyone understood?” Nytril demands.

I nod at him and
Korla walks over to me and gives me a big hug. She never says a word but she doesn’t have to for me to understand why she’s hugging me.

I go with the
Halflings, Drakoe, Alex, and Jenn. We decide to take the far left stairwell. It’s a long staircase that spirals down.

We go down the stairs slowly, watching for enemies. When we get to the bottom of the stairs, there are a few guards we have to
dispatch. The Halflings sneak around them and get their attention, while Drakoe and Alex bring them down with their bows and arrows.

We walk down a long corridor that has lit lanterns on
the walls. Drakoe leads the way and I turn on my watch to see if we are still heading closer to the Yazen gem.