A/N: Wow, I updated again. Third day in a row! I won't have time for daily updates when winter break ends though, so don't get too used to it. Again, thanks for reading and reviewing people, I appreciate it.
Emily: I just got your review! Yes, this is way after our time, I think I described the place a bit in my profile. Just so you know, it is taking place in South America, which is called Herevetia in that time and consists of three separate countries, Sonfun, Lytas, and Keave. They aren't actually speaking English, this is just written in English. The disaster was a nuclear war, they decided to stop teaching science to the general public because they wanted to avoid it ever happening again. After awhile, people just forgot what really happened, and legends and myths warped the truth.
Please do tell me if there are any major errors pertaining to spelling or grammar, I will correct them. I spellchecked this and edited, but spellcheck is stupid, and editing yourself isn't very effective, so I might have missed some things.
xxxxxx
Everything had been filed away. Where I was born and raised, the date that I arrived, the circumstances, and a few other things. The file was then securely locked behind the strange looping net of my name. The spell was simple really, if you knew someone's name, you could get to their file.
Of course, there was the problem of getting there. To get to the sublevels, one had to fall into the stabilized class-A termite passage that the castle was built around. Now, "falling in" wasn't as easy as it sounded, because of a strange property of termite holes. If you knew that the passage was there, it wouldn't let you in. So, a complex spell had to be performed to trick the passage into thinking that you do not know that it is there, and that you are merely idling by the entrance for no reason.
If someone did fall into the passage by accident, they would be stuck in the core of the termite hole, where the white fog was. Termite holes automatically deposit inanimate objects, so if you don't manage to escape and end up dying, people will find you. It doesn't sound like a pleasant end to me, starving to death in a blanket of fog.
If you know how to navigate the place, it's easy enough to get out. Since the passage has been stabilized, it will not dump you into the highest energy concentration, like unstable passages will. Instead, you must know exactly what the place you are going looks like, and then you will be put there. The ends of the termite hole are attached to solid walls, so it appears as if you walk out of the wall.
No one knows the actual location of the sublevels, not even the king himself. The people who designed and built the place gladly had their memories erased. Ridillyn was explaining the whole system to me as we walked back through the castle. Lanveld needed to go help the king with some problem, so we were left alone.
"Why would the workers have agreed to have their memories erased?" I asked. I definitely would not want to have amnesia.
"There are... things in the sublevels that could scare a normal person to insanity. They guard treasures that the greedy would want to get their hands on, at any cost. By forgetting the architecture and location of the sublevels completely and announcing it publicly, the workers were safer from being hunted down and tortured for information.
"Oh." was all I could say. I don't think I want to even know what these "things" were guarding. I could never understand greed. Why couldn't people be satisfied with what they had? Besides, if you set your sights on something you didn't have, you forgot to enjoy what you did have.
"On a lighter note, it's almost lunchtime." Ridillyn remarked. Suddenly, my stomach growled. I realized that I hadn't eaten in two nights! I didn't notice before because of all the excitement. I wondered who's blood Ridillyn would be drinking.
"What about you?" I asked.
"Don't worry, I can go for weeks without feeding. If I don't overexert myself, my spiritual energy lasts awhile." he responded.
"How do you overexert yourself?"
His eyes glinted mischievously. "Wizard's duels."
Ridillyn explained wizard's duels all the way to the dining hall. I fingered my newly issued "official" neckerchief, which was white, blue, and silver. The blue indicated that I was still a minor, and would be removed upon my coming of age. The small streaks of silver meant that I would be a magician one day. When I received my "diploma" for magic, the silver would completely replace the white, and I would be classified as a full fledged wizard.
Wizard's duels had simple rules. In a casual duel, a person won when the opponent passed out. The duels were actually more mind games than real duels, since each person tried to get through the mental defenses of the opponent to make them black out. This constant battling of minds apparently drained spiritual energy at an alarming rate. A normal person would have to sleep off the effects for a day or two; a vampire would have to drink a lot of blood to recover.
In a real clash, a person won when the opponent died, obviously. It wasn't just mental then, it was physical too. The opponents tried to cause fatal wounds, adding mental jabs to weaken or disorient. It was like a fancy, double timed sword fight.
We had reached the dining hall, and I was glad to see that it was well populated and well lit. The food was simple, but filling. Ridillyn sat next to me as I ate, making idle conversation. As almost none of the nobility was mortal, the dining hall was usually populated by servants and occasional guests. Therefore, everyone was surprised to see the crown prince himself sitting at a table and talking to someone as if it was the most common thing to do.
"So what does the staff here do?" I asked Ridillyn.
"Mostly cleaning. We have a librarian though, and people who work in the Sonfian Archives. Look, here's one." he said, grabbing a short man who was passing by on the arm. The man jumped.
"Y-Your Highness, is th-there anything you n-need?" he stuttered nervously.
"What's your name?" Ridillyn asked him cheerfully. He didn't seem to notice how much the man was trembling. Either that or he was ignoring it completely.
"F-F-Flanor."
"Flanor, you work in the archives, right? Sit with us, and explain to Kite what you do. I'm afraid I haven't been down there in forever, and I believe you'd be much more informative than me."
"Oh, y-yes sure." Flanor stammered. He seemed to have gotten back in control of himself once Ridillyn let go of his arm, because he began talking in a mostly normal voice about the archives. It was really very interesting, how a copy of every book in Sonfun was located in the archives. The archives were also part of the sublevels. Usually, the workers there did not come to the main castle, since there were living quarters and a smaller eating area there too. Flanor himself was up here to make a report.
"Well, Your Highness, I might as well report the problem right now, I suppose. Better to get it over with. There's a book missing. It's one of the records of Demonica, I believe of the release of Darkness from his imprisonment in borderlands of the Underworld." Ridillyn's eyes widened.
"One of the records of Demonica is missing? Are you sure it's not just misplaced?" he asked. I could tell that he was searching desperately for a way that it could be a false alarm, because Flanor had already told me about the spells on each book.
"We've sent the tracking spell over the entire castle, even the bathrooms. It's out of the range of the spell, which means that it's n-no longer in the b-building." Flanor muttered nervously. He recoiled, flinching, at the look on Ridillyn's face. It was pure fury, undisguised and demonic. His eyes burned darkly, and his teeth were bared in a grimace. He growled deeply. Flanor shrank even more, bur Ridillyn's fury wasn't directed at him.
When he spoke, it was with a calm, suppressed tone. "Kite, we are going back to Merlis. We're going to retrieve Sirros, Kysis, and the cart. Then, we are going to use every ounce of our power to recover that book. It's not just any book, it's the one of the Demonica, and if it falls into the wrong hands, dreadful things will ensue." By the time he finished this pronouncement, he was trembling in his fury, and the dining hall was silent. He told Flanor tonelessly to inform the king of this, and grabbed my arm and stalked out.
As we walked, he seemed to regain his calm, taking deep breaths and slowing down considerably. After a while, I dared to speak.
"Why are you taking me? Why not some other more skilled wizard?" I asked. "Not that I'm complaining" I added hurriedly at the look on his face.
"For this, we don't need skill. We need raw power, and that's what you have. I think I have enough skill to cover for both of us." he muttered. We went down the whole time, lower and lower until I was sure we were underground again. We stopped beside a beaten wooden door. Ridillyn grabbed the handle and threw it open. Apparently, we had arrived at the kitchens. Without a word, he stalked over to the food cupboard, pulled out his wand, and started muttering things and twisting his fingers. After a minute, he stopped, and nodded in approval. He turned to the kitchen workers. "Make sure this cabinet is always stocked with edible items." the head of the staff nodded fearfully.
Without looking back, Ridillyn snatched up my arm again and we went back up, higher and higher. Finally, we reached our destination, which was a tower room. As he opened the door, I realized that this was Ridillyn's bedroom. Instead of a bed, there was a woven mat and a neatly folded blanket. There were a few bookcases and a desk, as well as a cabinet that looked out of place. It could have been a study, but I could tell that it wasn't because it looked much too lived in.
Ridillyn went straight for the cabinet, and hefted it onto his shoulders. He walked back out and told me to close the door behind us. I did as he asked. We went down once again, emerging at the front hall. I wondered how Ridillyn could navigate this place. I for one was already completely disoriented, and was extremely surprised when the front doors came into view.
We walked back outside the gates, and Ridillyn set up the pentacle again. He chanted the same thing at first, but the last part changed to "Silrem Here!" Again, I was tossed around in a smoky haze, before stumbling out into the middle of town. I almost tripped over the cabinet, which had appeared next to me. As soon as the smoke cleared, Ridillyn made a beeline for Phaeon's hut. He knocked at the door and waited for an answer. A tired looking Sirros opened the door. He immediately stood up straighter at the serious look on Ridillyn's face.
"Sirros, hitch up the cart. We're going to find the last book of the Demonica, it's gone missing. We will comb the countryside, the world if we have to, starting from our most dangerous enemies." he said impassively. Sirros nodded numbly and went off to do as he was told.
"Who are our most dangerous enemies?" I asked. I couldn't help it, I was curious. I also thought it would be a good idea to know what we were up against.
"Nolls." he answered simply. That didn't really help.
"And Nolls are..."
"Well, they're a group of religiously fanatic humans, camped out just east of Voxith. If you came from Ken's Wood, you would have passed through their area. They're convinced that Darkness is something called 'Satan,' and accordingly label Sonfians as 'Satan worshipers.' Now, I couldn't care less what they thought of our country, if they didn't come over once in a while and raid our cities. I wish they could get it through their thick skulls that our gods are completely unrelated to their gods." Ridillyn explained.
"Why are they the most dangerous pertaining to the book?" I wondered aloud.
"If they have it, then they will likely burn it. The original of a book of Demonica isn't just a historical account. It contains memories and magic between the pages. If the book is destroyed, those memories are released, and they can warp reality if not recollected or destroyed."
"Oh. Let's get going then." I muttered, and jumped into the cart as soon as it pulled up. Ridillyn followed me in, setting the cabinet down on the floor, and we set off after a hurried goodbye to Phaeon.
xxxxxx
After what seemed like seconds, we were back at the Gate of Sonfun. Apparently, you didn't need to pay to get out. The gates opened by themselves, and we drove on through. We came to the forest at the base of the mountains later in the night, and stopped. Sirros hid the cart in the foliage, and Ridillyn disguised it further with a few twists of his hands and a muttered incantation. He walked around it, sniffed the air, and then seemed satisfied.
"Alright. Sirros guard the cart and take care of Kysis. Kite and I are going to infiltrate the caves where the Nolls live." Ridillyn declared. Sirros nodded, and Kysis made herself comfortable. I followed Ridillyn through the dense underbrush. How exactly could we infiltrate the place? I didn't even know anything about the Nolls, except that they were human and of an ancient religion.
We came to a stop at the area where forest stopped and desert abruptly began. Sure enough, the cliff face was littered with holes, some shallow caves and other deep mazes of passageways and caverns. We crouched, hidden in a mass of bristly sagebrush, and watched, apparently waiting for something. A figure holding a torch emerged from one of the openings, looked around, and stalked out confidently. It was humming to itself. By the tone of voice, I deduced that it was male. Before I could see more, Ridillyn motioned for me to go after him towards the hole that the man had come out of.
"Shouldn't we wait until he leaves?" I hissed.
Ridillyn shook his head and mouthed, "I'll explain." But he didn't need to explain, because as we got to the opening, we were already too late. Iron bars blocked the entrance, and our way in. I understood now. Unfortunately, the man had noticed us, and stopped humming. He came towards us with the torch, but stopped and gasped when he saw Ridillyn, who was making no effort to look less "demonic" by the Noll's standards. In fact, he was leaning forward, eyes wide and teeth bared, growling menacingly. I had a feeling that he was trying to scare the man away. If so, it failed in the "away" part.
The man was certainly afraid, I could see it in his eyes. However, he came at us, brandishing the torch in front of him.
"Devil! Heathens, away from this sacred place! Do not defile the--" he was cut off as Ridillyn lunged for his throat, tossing the torch aside.
"Catch!" he muttered, and I managed to get to the torch before it went out or set something aflame. I watched fearfully, wondering if Ridillyn would bite the man. But he only pinned him to the ground. "If you would kindly let us in, you can go. I don't care. Go warn your friends, run away, it doesn't matter. We aren't here for you, rather for a possession of our state that was stolen. If we do not find it, we will leave."
"I will never let you in! You'll desecrate the place, demon, and I cannot allow that!" the man exclaimed.
"If you really want to die, I'll grant you the favor." Ridillyn snarled, giving the man a clear view of his teeth. "But, it'd be much appreciated if you would make things easier for us and your little coven by opening the door."
"No!" the man spat. Ridillyn shrugged and leaned his head in. The man screamed and shuddered as he was bitten, thrashing around. Ridillyn restrained him and continued to drink. After awhile, the man stopped moving and he pulled away, licking the last of the blood from his lips.
"Right, let's get back to business. Give me the torch, we should burn the body. Try and figure out how the door works. We don't want to waste magical power if we can help it." he told me. I felt kind of sick, seeing him kill with such little feeling, but then again, he did give the man a chance. And he was technically just eating.
The barred door was activated by a switch far on the inside, unreachable. Ridillyn had finished disposing of the man, and he came to my side. Gesturing for me to stand aside, he produced a staff and stuck it through the bars, wiggling it to try and hit the button. It took a long while, but he finally managed it.
"What if we meet someone?" I asked him as we made our way in. I hoped he wouldn't just kill anyone we saw. He didn't seem that bad.
"Hopefully, we won't meet someone. If we do, I can make us temporarily blend into the surroundings. I'll have to draw on your magic to cover you, however, and it will feel odd, so try not to make a sound." he said. "And, if it comes to the worst, well, I could always use another drink." I shuddered. I fervently hoped it wouldn't come to the worst.
We went in, walking along. As promised, Ridillyn managed to make us "invisible" whenever he picked up the sound of footsteps. There was a cold, queasy feeling in my gut every time, but I ignored it. He led the way, and I had no idea how he knew which way to go.
"Are we lost? I asked bluntly after we made another random turn. The labyrinth of cave passages was making me dizzy.
"I'm not sure, we might be. We're heading somewhere where there are a lot of people though. I can feel the spiritual aura from here if I try hard enough. You could too, but I don't think you know how yet." We walked a bit more and I decided to stop trying to remember which way we came from and focused on following Ridillyn. I was focusing so hard that I didn't notice when he stopped, and almost ran into him.
"What?" I whispered.
He shushed me, pulling on our "invisibility." I heard voices, but they weren't coming closer or moving away. They were stationary, barring our progress. I hope Ridillyn didn't consider this to be "the worst."
"I haven't seen Rag since he went out for fresh air, Father. Do you think he's in trouble?" a female voice asked worriedly. Rag must have been to man who tried to stop us. I felt a twinge of pity for the woman.
"Ragneithur wanders sometimes. I'm sure he's fine, Clara." a deep, male voice sounded.
"And I'm sure you're wrong." I thought, grimacing.
"But there's a meeting tonight, he knows not to be late. What if something's wrong?" the person named Clara muttered.
"Yeah, agree to go look for him or something so we can keep moving."
"Nothing's wrong, evil cannot enter a blessed haven like this. Relax, Clara." the male voice said.
"Bloody hypocrite." I heard Ridillyn mutter next to me. I kicked at him, but missed, hitting the rock wall. I froze, putting my foot back down slowly.
"Did you hear something, Father?" Clara asked. The two walked towards us, looking around. I could feel Ridillyn glaring accusingly at me, even though I couldn't see him. I glared back at where I thought he was. The priest was extremely tall, with a somber face. Clara looked a lot like Ragneithur, and I guessed that she was his younger sister. "I swear, there are ghosts here." she whispered fearfully.
"There cannot be such spirits in these chaste halls." the priest said. Ridillyn snorted. I suddenly had a brilliant idea. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I blew a steady low tone into them. It reverberated around the hallway, making the two look around confusedly. Clara started shivering, and the priest put an arm around her. They walked away.
"Finally." Ridillyn sighed, letting us come back into view. "Good thinking. Don't try to kick me next time, though, I might lose concentration." We kept going, hiding systematically when people passed by. Finally, we made it to the "meeting room." Hundreds of people were gathered there, milling about. We slipped stealthily through the throng, our presence only rippling the air slightly as we moved. We stationed ourselves at the back of the room. That was when I realized that we had a problem.
"Ridillyn, how will we know if the book is here?" I asked him. I hoped he'd thought about that before I did.
"Oh, we'll know if we get close to it. That book gives off its own magical aura. But we have to be near it to feel it strongly. That's why we need you. Your enormous magical potential means that you can sense it from farther away that I can. We still need to be relatively close to it, though." he replied. I was glad that we wouldn't have to comb the entire place through to find it. Then I remembered that it might not even be in this place at all. I repressed a groan.
The room quieted as a man walked to the front, where there was a podium. His voice rang out. I listened, but soon was distracted. He was talking about things that I could only assume related to the religion of the Nolls. In fact, I would have dozed off if not for the fact that I was standing, and Ridillyn was holding onto my arm securely.
"He's making no mention of any book. Either it's secret, or not here at all." I heard him hiss into my ear.
"Should we leave?" I whispered back.
"No, people might notice. We should wait until this is over." I shrugged, and then remembered that Ridillyn could not see me.
"Alright." I said, and leaned back on the wall. This would be a very boring wait.
xxxxxx
The meeting finished eventually, and people got up and filed out. We moved with the crowd, our rippling unnoticed. Ridillyn led us through various dark tunnels, asking me periodically if I felt anything. I didn't at all by the time we finally emerged back outside.
It was day, and Ridillyn groaned and leaned against me. I think he might have lied when he said that sunlight did not affect vampires at all.
"Are you okay?" I asked him, worried. He really did not look well.
"Keeping that spell working throughout the entire meeting took a toll on me. I don't think I would have been able to do it for so long if I hadn't fed before." he muttered, dragging his feet as we walked back into the forest. We stopped for a rest, and he leaned against a tree, sliding into a sitting position. I sat next to him. His face was cupped in his hands, and he took deep breaths.
"Are you sure we can keep going?" He looked tired, and I thought that it would probably be a good idea for him to rest. I didn't feel too great either.
"I need blood." he finally conceded with a sigh.
"I can give you mine." I blurted. I mentally cursed how nice I was. I did not fancy the idea of him drinking from me, it made me feel sick. Perhaps he would decline.
"I suppose." he muttered. Nope, there was no chance of him declining.
"Do you have a knife?" I asked him. I'd left the one he'd given me back at the castle. It seemed so far away, I couldn't believe we had been there just that evening.
"No, I don't." he replied quietly.
"Not even in your ever-stocked sleeves?" I teased. How did I still have the energy to tease? I was about to let him drink my blood again, this time making the wound myself.
"They aren't ever-stocked; I merely put a lot of things in them. I only had that one knife that I gave you. I can always bite, if you relax it doesn't hurt so much." he said, removing his hands from his eyes to look at me. I seriously doubted that, remembering how the man, Ragneithur, had screamed.
"Won't biting me contaminate me or something?" I asked him. He looked at me strangely.
"What?"
"Never mind." I muttered. It was probably just more myth. Ridillyn beckoned for me to come closer. He took my arm, passing his gaze over it. Then he rested his teeth on my skin.
"Relax, and try not to jerk your arm." he said softly, before biting down. It hurt more than the knife. I winced, and used all my self control to stop myself from pulling away. I knew that if I moved, it would tear the wound. I watched Ridillyn. He gulped slowly, apparently savoring the taste. This time, I could feel not only the blood, but the energy passing into him. I could feel it as not only his body, but his mind too, recovered.
Ridillyn pulled away rather reluctantly. The bite marks healed as he tapped them.
"Thank you, Kite. I appreciate it very much." he said, standing up. He did seem a lot more energetic.
"Your welcome." I told him. No, he was not welcome!
"We need to find Sirros again. I think it was this way..." I followed him through the forest. It was annoying how completely unplanned and unorganized Ridillyn was. He didn't even know for sure where the cart was! Just because he was a wizard, didn't mean he had to be completely sloppy.
We came to the edge of a clearing, and what we saw made us both gape.
It was the book, lying innocently on the ground.
xxxxxx
A/N (again): Sorry for the cliffy, but it's better than if I stopped a sentence before that, right? And, if I'd kept going, I don't think I would have been able to stop writing somewhere. And besides, I'll probably update again tomorrow, so you shouldn't complain.