Cycle of the Gem
After I defeated Master Kinchi I was reinstated into the Masked. Once again I could live among them and now I could get a little more respect. Shaun, Master, and I were training again as usual. I now outranked Shaun, but it didn't matter.
"Slade," Shaun asked, "how did you manage to beat Master Kinchi?"
"I'll tell you this," I replied, "Beating him was easier than beating the Fire Scath."
The instant I said those words, everything stopped and fell silent. Everyone was starring at me. "What'd I say?" I asked.
"The Fire Scath?" Master asked.
"Yeah." I replied.
"No Scath has ever had control over fire in over six hundred years." Master said. "I means only one thing, Trigon is ready to chose a new bride and create the next Gem."
"A new Gem, you know this just because I said there was a Scath that could control fire?"
"Slade, the only time a Scath ever has the power to control fire is when Trigon gives them that power to serve him. The Fire Scath is Trigon's chosen warrior. This Scath's job is to find a bride for Trigon and to protect the Gem until it is old enough to create the portal." Master said.
"Of coarse, the danger of this Gem depends on which sign it is born under." Shaun said.
"Which sign?" I asked.
"I'll show you." Shaun and Master led me away from the Training grounds and into the archives. Once in the archives, Master found a sheet of paper with four circles on it. In each of the circles was a picture of some kind of animal. "This is the cycle of the Gem. The first one is the Dragon, second is the Raven, third is the Giant, and fourth is the Fox. This Gem will be born under the sign of the Raven, so it is probably the sixth Gem."
"If this is the Raven, and the Raven is number two, doesn't that mean that this is the second Gem born?" I asked.
"No," Master replied, "we have limited records of the first Raven, Giant and Fox Gems born, but we do know that there have been two Dragons. The first Dragon was the one born 3000 years ago and was the first Gem. The second Dragon was born around the year 1400 A.D. His name was Malchior."
"Wait, I remember something." I said. "Is this the same Malchior in the story of Roreck the Wizard and Malchior the Dragon?"
"Yes." Master said. "The story goes that it was getting close for the Gem, Malchior, to fulfill his destiny and become the Portal. But the Masked were after him. In order not to be killed by the Masked, he found a wizard named Roreck. He pleaded with this wizard to turn him into an animal so that he would never be found by the Masked and so that he wouldn't have to become the portal.
When Malchior asked this of Roreck, the young wizard had to comply. He used a powerful spell to turn Malchior into an animal. But something went wrong and Malchior became the animal sign he was born under. The Dragon. With no one left to stop him, he started on a rampage, destroying everything in his path. The Masked could not stop him; the Scath could not stop him. In the end it was Roreck himself that stopped Malchior by sealing in inside the book in which all this is written."
"So that book we have here has Malchior trapped inside it?" I asked.
"Not ours. Ours is only a copy." Shaun replied. "Only the original has Malchior trapped in it, but no one knows where it is."
"Lets hope no one finds it." Master said. "Even though he's trapped, Malchior can still be released by the power of the next Gem. The Gem that will be conceived soon."
"If Malchior was the last Gem, and he was around in 1400, then the Gem has a six hundred year cycle. Every six hundred years a new one is born, right?" I asked.
"Exactly. And from what you've told us, the next one will appear soon. The Raven Gem." Master said. "This is something Master Kinchi must know about." So my Master left to go to the room of the council, but I followed in the shadows to hear everything.