A/N: Yep, I fail at updating once a week. Well, it could have been worse, right? Thanks to all the people who did for reading and reviewing!
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"Oh bother, I am still alive." the previously dead-looking boy said.
"Isn't that a good thing?" I muttered, bewildered. A thoughtful expression flitted across his face.
"Perhaps. Where did I manage to come to?" he asked. I had no idea what he was talking about.
"What?" I said listlessly.
"You're somewhere in Keave." said Ridillyn. The boy nodded.
"Ah, you are the demon Ridel, son of the demon Karek and Vividia Aria." he told Ridillyn. "And you are Safirus Elio, daughter of Evalsi Elio and Merrill Normin." he said to me.
"What? No, my father was Andrak Fen!" I protested.
"No, no. I can see it, and your father was definitely Merrill Normin." he argued.
"Who are you? How do you know this?" I demanded.
"Why, I am Fate. And I am trapped in this inconvenient form." he replied. I noticed what I had not before; there was a pair of small, black, horns jutting out of the back of his head.
"Fate?" I muttered, puzzled.
"Darkness, my master." Ridillyn whispered. He knelt and bowed his head. "I thought you had been freed."
"I had, in essence, but I must die before I can be released from this body. There's a bit of a problem there. It seems that I cannot age or be killed."
"Oh, yes, I would agree that that is an issue, sir."
"What's this all about?" I asked. I was completely lost.
"Kite, this is Darkness, the god of fate, and my master from my previous life." Ridillyn explained.
"That about sums it up." said Darkness. "Although I am not in the best position to be answering anyone's prayers." he grimaced.
"Oh." I said, trying to process this unexpected information.
"Bother, I need spiritual energy to function in this form, don't I?" he sighed. "Care to offer me some?" Did he want my blood too? I groaned inwardly.
"I suppose." I said. After all, if he was a god, it wouldn't do good to make him mad. He took my hand and closed his eyes. My insides turned cold, and my strength seemed to drain away.
"Thank you, Safirus." Darkness muttered, letting go of my hand. I was confused as to what had happened. Then I realized that he had simply sucked my spiritual energy from me. I supposed it was some godly power or something. I nodded. "Ridel, I sense anxiety emanating from you. Is there something amiss?"
"Well, a book of the Demonica is missing, and we are on a mission to get it back." Ridillyn said slowly.
"Oh dear, that is unfortunate. Hm, I wonder if I could use the emergency world collapse portal to escape back to the spirit world. What are your thoughts, Ridel? Speak."
"We need every book to create the collapse portal, but in theory, that should work."
"Splendid, then let us go and retrieve the lost piece of the Demonica, the gate to the spirit world!" Darkness said, sweeping his hands grandly. So that was what "Demonica" really meant, a portal to the spirit world. How strange! Darkness stood up and stalked into a thicket of trees. I hoped that his sense of direction was better than Ridillyn's. It was. Soon enough, we ended up back at the wagon. I had no idea how Darkness had known where to go, but it was probably godly intuition, or something of the sort.
As we came to the wards, we saw Clyde standing outside, banging his head in frustration on what appeared to be thin air. Ridillyn chuckled. Darkness looked on nonchalantly. Ridillyn waved his hands around and Clyde fell down face forward as he tried to hit his head again. He looked up nervously.
"Who's that?" he muttered, pointing dazedly at Darkness.
"It isn't really your place to know." Ridillyn sneered. Clyde flinched.
"Mind your manners, Ridel. You there, you can call me Thymas." said Darkness.
"I-I- my name is Clyde." Clyde stammered. Darkness walked over to him, and he recoiled. He held out his hand. Clyde took it tentatively and let himself be pulled to his feet.
"I think we should head off now." Ridillyn told Darkness.
"Yes, I agree. The piece of the collapse portal is approximately that way." he replied, waving his hand up the path.
"How did you know?" I exclaimed. That was amazing. "And is your real name Thymas?"
"It's spitting out some of the excess of the spirit world. I can feel it even from here. And Thymas is my aspect, the second aspect, not my name. However, my aspect is a formal form of address." he explained. That kind of made sense, like being called Sir or Madam. So these bits of the spirit world was what Ridillyn meant about the book having a distinct feel. The magic of it came directly from another world. Of course Darkness could sense it; he was a god, he had to have an immense amount of magical power. This meant that it would be easy for us to find it. It also meant that I wasn't as important to the mission anymore.
We climbed into the carriage, with Ridillyn driving once again. Once again, it trundled along at an excruciatingly slow pace, barely faster than walking. Darkness was lying on the floor, fingering his horns thoughtfully. His stomach growled loudly.
"Such an annoyance, this material body with mortal needs." he grumbled, sitting up. He inhaled sharply, eyes widening. "It wants blood, of course. That substance which links the body and spirit." Clyde paled at this pronouncement and huddled in his corner. There was a groan from the other corner. I looked over, and saw that Malcolm was now awake.
I sighed. This brought the total number of vampires in the vicinity back up to two, and that wasn't a thought that I relished. One was more than enough. And since Clyde and Malcolm were not in the ideal state to have their blood sucked, that left me. Sure enough, Darkness stood up and walked towards me, taking a seat on the bench. He took my hand and raised it to his mouth, looking at me with beseeching violet eyes. I nodded and sighed. As expected, he had fangs as well, and he used them to pierce the skin of my palm. I was ready for the pain, and managed to stay relaxed.
Darkness did not drink for very long. After a minute or two, he straightened up and dropped my hand. With some astonishment, I saw that the cut had healed without a trace. I marveled at the sheer magical perfection. I wondered if I would ever be able to achieve that.
"Are you learned in magic?" he asked me, interrupting my thoughts.
"Not really." I replied with a sigh. How I wished I was!
"I should teach you now, shouldn't I?" Darkness mused, sweeping his gaze over my surprised expression. "I'm not such a bad teacher." he added.
"Of course you aren't, you're a god! But you would teach me?" I whispered, wide eyed. I didn't care how stupid and childlike I looked.
"I would definitely. I like to see my subjects put their gifts to use." he said. "And there's no time better than the present, so get on your feet!"
I hurriedly stood up, nearly falling over when the wagon hit a bump in the road. Darkness grabbed my arm and held me steady, circling around me and looking me over. He muttered to himself all the while, poking me here and there. I squirmed. What happened next alarmed me greatly. Darkness threw open the wagon door, clamped his clawed fingers around the upper rim of it, and flipped himself up onto the roof in an amazing acrobatic display. I could see his shadow on the canvas as he crouched in the middle. It was remarkable how little his added weight affected the supports. There was barely even a dent in the material. Suddenly, he stood up, and there was a cracking sound. I cringed, but then I realized that it was from outside the wagon. The blob of shadow that was Darkness moved towards the edge of the roof and he swung back inside, slamming the door shut and latching it once more.
"Hold this." he said, tossing a stick at me. It appeared to be off one of the nearby trees, explaining the snapping sound I had heard earlier.
A few seconds later, he snatched it back from me. I wondered what he was doing. I saw that he now had a thin knife in his other hand. He ran it down the length of the stick, splitting it down the middle. Then he stowed the knife in the depths of his robes and yanked out a piece of his hair. Sandwiching it between the two halves of the stick, he closed his hand around it and beckoned for me to come over. He leaned down, and, without warning, bit into my wrist. I emitted a strangled shriek at the sudden pain. He grabbed my bleeding arm and let it drip onto the stick. I stared in shock as the halves rejoined into a whole. Darkness licked the rest of the blood away and I saw that again, it was as if I'd never been hurt.
"I apologize for that. Here's your channeling device, you'll need it for some magic." he informed me. I looked down at the stick that had been shoved back into my hands. There was no trace of blood, and it looked just like a normal stick. But to my astonishment, I could feel a faint magical pulse emanating from it now. So this was my wand? "The first thing you should know about wizard's magic is that theory doesn't do it justice. If you're interested in learning the process behind it, ask a witch." said Darkness. I was relieved; I wouldn't have to process any immensely complex explanations that used super long words with obscure meanings.
"So where do we start?" I asked.
"How about basic telekinesis?" he suggested. "You simply concentrate on an item, and imagine picking it up or flinging it. It helps to move your limbs along with it." he said, demonstrating by waving his arm and causing cushion to fly across the room. I stared at it and mimed hitting it, making it slam into a nearby wall. As I had suspected, it was the same as when I had threw Clyde away from me. Speaking of Clyde, I saw that he was asleep now, leaning on Malcolm, who was dozing again as well. Darkness raised his eyebrows. "You've done this before?" he inquired.
"Yes, actually. Not too long ago." I muttered. He nodded, frowning. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied the cushion surreptitiously floating back onto the bench.
"Well, you seem... talented at throwing things. Try aiming now. Go on, throw it at me." I shrugged. This time, I made a motion of throwing it at Darkness, but instead of hitting him, it hit the door.
"Oops." I muttered. He chuckled.
"You want to aim from the object's point of view. It's a little difficult." I responded by slamming it into his face. Now that I knew how it worked, I would be able to do it. I had always had good aim, having thrown various tools and pieces of wood to my father when I was young. The thought of my father brought in a flood of painful memories, and I stiffened. Then I remembered what Darkness had said back at the field. He had claimed that Andrak Fen was not actually my father. But who was it that he had named? I racked my brains, but I couldn't remember.
"Who did you say was my father again?" I asked. If he knew then, he would know now.
"Oh? Merrill Normin." That name seemed familiar. In fact, I felt as if I'd grown up hearing it all my life. Merrill Normin... Normin. As in Lord Normin of Inctum! I gasped.
"I'm the daughter of the Lord of Inctum?" I shrieked, shocked.
"No, that couldn't be. Merrill Normin is dead. By Lord of Inctum, could you be referring to his cousin, Esset Normin?" I felt another pang of sadness at the fact that my real father was dead. Wait, real father? Andrak Fen was still my father, for he had raised me for as long as I could remember, although he was dead too. But my biological father was also dead. Still, it meant that I was related to Lord Normin, which was astonishing.
"How could I be related to Lord Normin at all? All of his relations, even second and third cousins, are living at Cyvit's castle. If I was his niece, I would have been there too!" I cried.
"Unless he didn't know that you were his niece." Darkness replied. Then it hit me. Andrak Fen was raising me, pretending to be my father. What if my real father, this Merrill Normin, had entrusted me to his care because of something he needed tending to?
"When did Merrill Normin die?" I asked urgently.
"So many of my people die every day, it's difficult to remember. I believe it was around 1248." he responded. That was over fourteen years ago, which would have made me nearly one. That meant that Merrill died shortly after leaving me with Andrak, for whatever reason. But was I even left with Andrak at all? Perhaps it was like in those tales where children are left out in baskets. Maybe father merely found me out in the forest one day. However, that theory didn't really make sense. Andrak had always told me that my mother died giving birth. How could he had known that if he had just found me, abandoned, and why would he bother to lie about it?
"When did my mother die?" I asked again. A sad expression crossed Darkness' face.
"Now I remember why she seemed familiar. I will never forget that day, the day that I was reawakened. The twelfth of Octavian, 1248 of the Draconian Era." he murmured. "In fact, Evalsi and her husband died the same day, in the forest fire." She died on the same day as Merrill Normin? That meant that she hadn't died giving birth. Maybe it was what Andrak had been told? But that didn't make sense either, because Merrill wouldn't have said that if my mother was still alive.
"It just doesn't fit together!" I groaned. Darkness still seemed to be lost in his thoughts.
"If your mother was the one who reawakened me, her story would be part of the world collapse portal. Just wondering, but which book of the Demonica was lost?"
"The last one, why?" He grinned.
"Then that lost book contains the memories of your mother and anyone else who touched anything of mine."
"What?" I gasped. Now I had my own reasons to want to get the book back. I wanted to know what really happened!
"Ridillyn!" A surprised voice called. I recognized that voice, it was cheerful... beseeching... Sirros.
"What a coincidence, I was just wondering how I would find you again." said Ridillyn. The wagon stopped, and I heard them chatting.
"Who is he talking to?" asked Darkness.
"Oh, his friend, Sirros. At least I think he's Ridillyn's friend." I replied. He nodded.
"I'll have to see him to know who he is." he said.
"You can just go outside you know."
"Of course." He proceeded to do just that, opening the wagon door and jumping onto the ground. Somehow, he made that simple action look elegant. I marveled at his strange godly grace. I heard an exclamation of surprise, and a gasp, probably from Sirros. Ridillyn made an introduction, and there was another sharp intake of breath. I decided to go outside myself.
"Hi Kite." said Sirros as soon as he saw me. I was glad that he still remembered my name. People had a knack of forgetting it rather quickly. I waved in response. Ridillyn snatched the wand, which I'd forgotten that I was holding, from my hand.
"What's this?" he asked, observing it from different angles. He gave it an experimental wave, and then dropped it, hissing in pain. Darkness chuckled.
"Lovely, isn't it?" he drawled.
"Shut up." Ridillyn snapped. "Sir." he added quickly. Darkness laughed harder. Meanwhile, I picked up the wand. What had it done to make Ridillyn drop it? It seemed completely normal to me, or as normal as a wand could be. Darkness saw me scrutinizing it.
"Since I used your blood to seal it, no one can use it but you. Well, and me, because my hair was the magical trace." he explained. Ridillyn scowled and crossed his arms.
"I don't recall her ever becoming your apprentice." he muttered.
"That's because you were driving while it happened." Darkness replied. Ridillyn sighed, shaking his head.
"At least I won't have to drive now. We'll be able to go faster with Sirros at the reins." he said. Sirros was busy hooking the cart onto the back of the wagon. When he was finished, he hitched Kysis up next to the other horse. The real horse edged away, snorting. Sirros winced. With a sigh, he moved over to calm it down. Darkness was already heading back to the wagon he grabbed my free hand and dragged me along. Ridillyn followed after. Clyde and Malcolm remained asleep. It seemed that all they did was sleep now. Well, it made sense, since they were captive in their own wagon.
"We should continue our lesson where we left off." said Darkness. I shrugged. "Why don't you try for higher control over the object? Move it around in different directions." I stared at the cushion, moving my hands where I wanted it to go. It floated up and flew towards the wall. I managed to make it swerve away at the last second, but it hit a different wall a moment later.
"How do I get it to go slower?"
"Follow the path you want with your eyes for now. You'll need to be able to do it blindfolded later, but we'll deal with that then." Darkness told me. I did as he said, staring at it. It sort of worked, slowing down considerably, but it made my eyes hurt, and as soon as I let my thoughts stray, it zoomed away and crashed.
I practiced with the cushion over and over again until I could get it to fly a full circle around the interior of the wagon. After that, Darkness had me make it do aerial tricks in the air. It was painful and difficult to roll my eyes like that, but I got the hang of it. Then came the blindfold. Darkness conjured it out of nowhere and tied it around my head.
"Visualize the object and its surroundings. Make it move like you did before." he commanded.
"Okay..." I muttered. I had some idea of where the cushion was, and started moving it. It rocketed into the back of my head and knocked me over. Ridillyn snorted. I directed it towards his voice, and a muffled grunt told me that I'd hit my mark. I heard Darkness applauding me on my right. Something whizzed by my ear and hit the wall with a thump.
"Ha, you miss--" and I was bowled over by an object much larger than the cushion. From the hard, sharp something digging into my shoulder, I deduced that it was Darkness. I winced as his horn broke through my skin. I heard two sharp intakes of breath. Then I realized that I was blindfolded and bleeding with two vampires very close by. I removed the blindfold as fast as I could. Both of those vampires were now right next to me and eying my bleeding shoulder. I groaned in frustration.
"One of you lick it before I get blood all over my clothes!" I snapped. Instead of lunging at me, they both looked at each other and politely offered the opportunity to the other. They were going to get stuck in one of those loops of politeness soon. "Sometime this century please." I hissed through clenched teeth. In response, Darkness shoved Ridillyn at me. He yelped, barely managing to avoid crashing into me. He glared briefly at Darkness, and then sat up and pulled my arm towards him, clamping his mouth around the wound. He healed me afterward, since I still had issues with that branch of magic.
"Let's stop for tonight." Darkness suggested. I nodded, levitating the cushion back to its original position on the seat. I walked over to the bench and lay down on it. Darkness came over and sat down on the edge of it.
"What're you doing?" I muttered.
"Well, I'm not sleeping on the floor. Move over." he said. Reluctantly, I pushed myself farther into the bench and let him lie down next to me. I was astonished at how innocent his boyish features looked, apart from the horns that jutted out of the back of his head. He opened one purple eye. I looked away, realizing that I had been staring. Sandwiched in between Darkness and the back of the bench, I decided to try my best to go to sleep.
xxxxxx
Dim rays of sunlight filtered through the canvas roof, bathing the wagon in a warm glow. I deduced from the color that the sun was setting. While Kysis was in silvaen form, the train of vehicles moved slowly with only one horse to pull it along. However, it had still made considerable progress during the day, and I could see the trees thinning out as we neared the edge of the forest. Malcolm was sprawled on the cot in the corner, while Clyde paced back and forth. Ridillyn was leaning on the wall with a bored expression on his face. I realized that Darkness was missing. I turned around and nearly fell of the bench in shock. He was perched on the back of the seat, balanced precariously on the thin rim. His eyes were closed, and he seemed somehow absent from his body.
"We're almost to Port Oleus. Although, with luck, we won't even have to get to the town. Since we've been traveling mostly nonstop, we could even catch up with our query." Ridillyn informed me.
"That's great!" I exclaimed, perking up and mostly forgetting about Darkness's strange state.
"I do wonder what we'll do with these two..." he muttered.
"What you'll do with us? You don't have any right to decide what to do with us!" Clyde snapped angrily. Ridillyn slouched lower down on the wall.
"I suppose we'll just drop you off at the port. Since we have our own cart back, we will return your wagon." he continued, ignoring Clyde's statement. Clyde crossed his arms and bit his lip.
"Ridel, I bring bad and good news." whispered Darkness. I looked over at him. He had finally gotten off of the back of the bench, and now was sitting on it normally with a grim expression on his face.
"Let's hear the good news first." murmured Ridillyn.
"Well it ties in with the bad news, really. In any case, the good news is that I have most of my godly Vision, even trapped in this world. The bad news was received by using my Vision. Ridel, your father, Karek, has died." Darkness said.
"Why is that bad news?" Ridillyn asked. I was bewildered. How could the death of his father not be bad news?
"I know that the death of a demon in the mortal world is usually a good thing, but don't you see the problems this presents us with? Ridel, you are now the king of Sonfun. That means you are needed back there! The country can't run itself!"
"Can't my uncle take over for a while?" Ridillyn muttered. I didn't even know that he had an uncle! Then again, I realized that I didn't know much about him at all.
"Fabien died too." Darkness said simply. Ridillyn nearly fell over.
"How? It's not every day that two vampires in perfect health drop dead at the same time!" he shrieked.
"I think something might have happened at the citadel."
"You think? Can't you make sure?" Ridillyn was nearly howling.
"I said I had most of my Vision. I can't see far off places physically anymore, which makes sense, since I happen to be in the physical world." Darkness replied patiently.
"I have to go back! What if Inctum invaded us? What if the humans from the Isle of Dreams managed to sail over and destroy us with their technology? What if there's been a peasant revolt?"
"Now you're being ridiculous, Ridel. There aren't enough people or resources on the Isle of Dreams to destroy even one village. The peasants of Sonfun don't have a reason to revolt. Besides, if they did, the necromancers stationed in each town can easily stop the uprising. And if they were the ones trying to overthrow the king, I would have known immediately."
"Inctum still could have invaded."
"I suppose that's true. You should go back and make sure everything is alright." Ridillyn hung his head in despair. When he looked up again, I saw real fear flicker across his face for the first time.
"What if I don't come back?"
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A/N: *Sniff.* I have some sort of inability to end a chapter well without something cliffy-esque. Anyways, the new character was needed, and if you don't like him, well, he'll go away soon.