A/N: Yep... you can say it, I suck!!! I haven't updated in forever, literally! It's been what? 4 months? Well, I procrastinated, and then got a writers block. I rewrote part of this chapter at least 15 times before I decided on a fitting situation. Hahaha, but at least I didn't kill the story. In any case, this is the end of this story. The prequel/sequel will be going up pretty soon. The first chapter may be pretty short, but the rest will be normal update length.
Kite's Point of View
The carriage was approaching the outskirts of the port town. The air was tinged with a salty tang, and there was a slight breeze. We stopped the wagon at the official entrance to the town. As promised, we hitched Kysis to our cart and returned the real horse and wagon to Clyde and Malcolm. Ridillyn smiled coyly and waved goodbye with the tips of his fingers. Clyde looked like he wanted to hit him and scream profanity, but it appeared that he dared not do so.
It was nearly dawn. We would find a decent inn with a stable, and then set about searching on foot. Sirros of course, would stay put. Ridillyn seemed for the most part back to normal, whatever that meant. However, he did tell me rather bluntly that if we didn't find the book now, we would be pretty much screwed, because if it made it overseas, we'd never be able to find it. Now all I could do was pray for a stroke of good luck. The only problem was that I wasn't sure who I could pray to.
Apparently, it didn't matter, because Ridillyn and I noticed the same thing at once. There were odd vibrations in the air, as if energy was pulsing through the area. Ridillyn stiffened beside me.
"Is it the book?" I inquired excitedly. He frowned and nodded his head slowly. His eyebrows knit together, and he squinted. Finally, he slapped his hands to his ears and clenched his teeth tightly, as if in pain.
"This is bad." he muttered, stumbling as he walked. I was confused. Ridillyn seemed to be in agony; he was trembling visibly, and his breathing was labored. I could feel the waves in the air, but they weren't really affecting me at all.
"What is it?" I asked him, gasping as he stumbled again and nearly fell over. I managed to catch him before he landed on the ground.
"Cover... my... ears..." he panted. His eyes were rolling back into his head. I lowered him to the ground and did as he asked. He seemed to feel better at once. "That frequency is..." he stopped to take a breath, "nothing short of torture to hear."
"What do you mean? I don't hear anything." He didn't respond. Well, that was foolish. Of course he couldn't hear me, I was covering his ears. But he seemed to understand what I meant.
"It's out of your range of hearing." he explained. "And it shouldn't be affecting you anyways."
"What is it?" I asked, before realizing again that he still couldn't hear.
"It's a fairy, singing at the top of his voice. That way." he rasped, pointing in the general direction of west. We made our way along the road slowly, receiving many odd glances. Ridillyn was leading, with me behind him with my hands over his ears. His hands were clamped over mine, in an attempt to keep out as much sound as possible. As we went along, Ridillyn seemed to become more and more agitated, before he finally collapsed onto his knees, groaning in pain.
I opened my mouth to say something before I remembered again that he still couldn't hear me.
"Keep going!" Ridillyn urged, although he seemed unable to stand on his own. I couldn't take it anymore.
"Why don't we go back, if you're in this state?" I suggested loudly. I would have probably gotten more weird looks, except I realized that there was no one else on the street. Apparently, the strange waves that no one could hear were making people uneasy, and they had all moved away from the source, whether they were conscious of it or not. I felt Ridillyn's head shift from beneath my hands. He was shaking his head. Unbelievable!
"We're so close, we have to get there!" he cried out. I was about to force him to go back when he suddenly stood up by himself and peeled my hands from his ears. He looked around cautiously.
"Did it stop?" I asked. He nodded.
"Be careful." he whispered. We moved warily, peering around every corner before proceeding. We were about to round another bend when Ridillyn stopped and put a finger to his lips. I peeked behind the wall of the building we were passing. A large, colorfully painted caravan of sorts was stopped next to the wall. I could feel a strange magical thrumming from within, the likes of which I'd never felt before. I realized wit ha start that it was the book.
"Come on, let's go." I whispered. Ridillyn shook his head.
"It's too quiet, it could be a trap." he muttered. I groaned in frustration.
"So what if it is? We have to try!" I hissed. He shrugged.
"Well then, here goes." Before I could react, he had whipped out his wand and cast a spell. I felt a familiar queasiness in my gut, and realized that we were for the most part invisible, just like when we infiltrated the caves of the Nolls. We inched towards the caravan. Closer... closer... almost to the door...
"AHHH! You great big--" came a screaming female voice from inside. I flinched in surprise.
Darkness' Point of View (Happening Simultaneously)
I gradually regained consciousness, suddenly aware that there was something hard and cold pressed up under my arm. Awkwardly, I maneuvered my limbs around so I could get off of it. As it turned out, it was a crossbow bolt. Immediately, I remembered the events that had led up to my crash landing. Hurriedly, I scrambled to my feet and looked myself over, judging the damage. Surface wounds and broken bones had healed, but I could still feel phantom pains when I moved. My phaging cloak had repaired itself, and it whispered to me impatiently, rustling and billowing about despite the lack of a breeze. I studied my surroundings. I had landed in an uninhabited grassy plain, uninterrupted for miles and miles as far as I could see. That brought up the mystery of where the crossbow bolts had come from at all.
My cloak flapped at me, reminding me of the task at hand. It was imperative that I made it to Sonfun as quickly as I could. Silently, I commanded the cloak to form into a pair of massive black wings, easily capable of churning through the air at high speeds. However, before I even finished my second power stroke down, my head slammed painfully into something I could not see. Instantly alert, I summoned my magic to my fingertips.
"Lissonil spelldi, waaway sapardis nishvan." I chanted, infusing each syllable with power. As I expected, the environment around me dissolved into a vastly different one, that of an underground cave.
"Tut tut, someone's senses are a little rusty." an amused voice said behind me. I froze on the spot. My wings melted back into the shape of a traveling cloak. I turned around slowly, dreading the face I would see. It was him, but it was the face of a woman. But I could see his features clearly, even in the softer and rounder curves. Slitted pupils watched me, glowing in an intense violet. The thin eyebrows and sharp nose were the same. The hair was longer, but in the same dirty blond color and ruffled style. I almost expected to see furry cat ears and horns protruding from the sides of his/her head, but there was only a pair of human ears. He, or she, smiled smugly.
"You!" I rasped, raising my hand shakily.
"What, unhappy to see your own brother? Or should I say, sister?" 'she' smirked.
"You're not my brother!" I hissed. "Not since you sided with the fairies." 'She' laughed, batting 'her' eyelashes playfully.
"Oh, don't worry; I'm mortal and material, kind of like you, except I didn't go messing anything up. I even have an earthly sister, but she's not one of us- not a god. Just a plain old human with big dreams."
"Let me go, you imbecile." I snapped. This was not the best time to be chatting with my long lost brother in a dingy hole.
"Well, someone's rude." 'she' muttered. "I'll tell you what happened to your beloved followers, free of charge. I merely took the life forces of those two demons, using them to create my own place in the mortal world. Now I know that it wasn't worth it. Still, I doubt they minded." I glared at 'her,' but really I was relieved that nothing had happened to Sonfun itself. I wasn't worried about my so called brother lying-- he was just like me. He could never have lied with so straight a face, even if he had been under the influence of fairies for an extended period of time.
"The book, the last piece of the collapse portal. Your lot had something to do with its disappearance, didn't you?" I snarled. I wasn't in the mood to speak diplomatically.
"So quick to suspect, dear brother. Certainly, one of my lot, as you call them, was trying to steal it, but it certainly had nothing to do with me. His name is... oh, I can't remember, but he's a renegade fairy. Kill on sight, I believe was the order from the Queen." 'she' replied. I sighed. Fairies were ruthless, but I wasn't going to complain when the target was mutual.
"I'll be going now." I muttered, summoning my magic once more. I opened my wings and flapped hard, using my magic like a drill to drive through the rock. I was too out of sorts to use anything but brute force.
"Oh, and the sister I was telling you about. She's involved too!" my brother called after me with a sneer. I turned to give him/her a scathing glare, but he/she was already gone. No matter, I would get out of this miserable hole and get that book back as soon as possible."
Kite's Point of View
Ridillyn and I dared not move further, and our prudence was rewarded. Out of the back of the caravan flew a spitting and hissing mass of limbs, clawing at the air furiously even as it landed with a sickening thump on the cobblestones before us. Dark blood oozed from the pile, which moaned in pain.
"That's what you get for disobeying the Queen, you filthy traitor. I always hoped to be the one to finally kill you. Idiot lowlife, attempting to obtain immortality that was never yours to have." spat a figure standing just inside the caravan.
"H-How? A human..." the quivering thing lying in the pool of blood gasped, raising a claw to point.
"I should de-wing you for your impudence. But you're going to die anyways, so I won't bother. You don't recognize your own fai commander? Pathetic."
"You call me p-pathetic, b-but you don't kn-know what it's l-like t-to know th-that you'll b-be g-gone just l-like that wh-when you d-d-die. Y-You c-c-creat-tures with i-immortal souls w-will n-never know my d-d-desp..." suddenly, the thing gave a great shudder and took its last breath going limp.
"Hmph, disgusting." muttered the person in the caravan.
"What, the demon book! Where is it? Aha, sister, shame on you for trying to stop me!" cackled another desperate sounding voice from inside. The first person backed away nearer to the doorway, and I could see her face now. She had catlike violet eyes, remarkably similar to those of Darkness. Her hair was a dirty blond, framing her face. Her features were twisted in a mixture of surprise and outrage. A blurry mass barreled past her and out of the open door, carrying the distinct a rectangular object- the book! I whirled around to chase after it, and felt Ridillyn do the same beside me. However, before either of us could do anything, a disheveled black bundle fell from the sky and rocketed straight into it. It took me a moment to realize that it was Darkness.
"Tsk, shabby landing. But I suppose it did the job, albeit sloppily." the first girl called out snootily to the pile that was Darkness, still tangled up with the second girl but holding the book triumphantly in one hand, out of reach of the flailing female.
"Just like you to criticize me in a time like this. Why? Why are you not trying to stop me?" he rasped, smacking the struggling girl under him and knocking her out.
"Do you want me to? Besides, what motive could I possibly have? I'm not lowlife filth like that." the first girl muttered, waving towards the corpse of the creature she had killed earlier. "I am one of the fai. We watch, we listen, and we do what must be done."
"I will never understand you, brother." Darkness sighed, getting up and dusting himself off. Wait, brother? But he was talking to a girl!
"Well, I'll be off." she, or he, said lightly, pulling out a wand and waving it in the air. She/He vanished. I felt a weird sensation in my stomach. Ridillyn was now clearly visible, and so was I, I realized.
"Sir, are you alright?" Ridillyn muttered, already running for Darkness.
"Yes, I'm fine. We need to round back to Kastinon, and quickly."
"What about Sirros and Kysis?" I inquired.
"We can come back for them later." he replied. I shrugged. Although it seemed kind of mean to leave them here, I knew he was right. Now that we had the book, it was imperative that we returned it to the citadel as fast as we could. Ridillyn was already holding his jar of powdered everlasting ice in hand.
"Kite, why don't you come over here? Watch me set this up closely. Remember the steps. I know you've already seen this done a couple of times, but it's always good to analyze each action." he said. I walked over to where he was setting up the pentacle and did as he said. Once he was finished, we stepped into the star and he shouted the incantation and destination, and the world went up in smoke. We were dumped out at the gates of the castle. I saw Archwizard Lanveld in the distance, rushing up to greet us.
"Did you get it?" he asked urgently, his frown breaking into a smile when he saw the book clutched in Darkness' hands. Then he looked up at Darkness himself and faltered slightly. "This is... this is--"
"Darkness." supplied Darkness himself, smiling toothily. Lanveld bowed before opening the gates and ushering us inside. We walked swiftly up to the castle itself, hoping to get the book back to its rightful place as quickly as possible. We hurried through the corridors, stopping only when we reached the 'dead end' where the entrance to the termite passage was. Lanveld proceeded to cast a spell, and I felt the familiar falling sensation before I landed in a foggy nothingness.
"The archives." I thought as hard as I could, and soon enough I found myself walking along a concrete corridor. I was joined seconds later by the rest of the group. We continued on down the corridors towards the Sonfian Archives. The building was huge, and if it weren't for Lanveld's extensive knowledge of the place, we would have gotten lose extremely quickly. However, we managed to get to the entrance to the section of the Archives where the dangerous and rare or unique books were kept. Of course, Lanveld, Ridillyn, and Darkness had clearance and easily got us through. We made our way to the 'D' section. Sitting in a neat row, all on one shelf were 6 books, all identical to the one we held in hand. Ridillyn and Lanveld stepped aside, and I hurried to do so too. Carefully, Darkness removed each book and laid them all down on the floor in a circular formation. He placed the last book, the one we had just recovered, in a space at the 'bottom' of the formation.
"Something is wrong." he muttered.
"Took you long enough, little brother." All of us froze and turned slowly. There stood the girl we had seen before, the one who was supposedly the 'brother' of Darkness.
"Itaph... not you again! Tell me, what have you done with the last book of the Demonica? I realize now that this one's a cleverly disguised fake. How did you get its magical signature to be so similar? And moreover, where did you learn to lie so well?" Darkness asked, somewhat sardonically.
"I was always better at things than you were. I would've been the Master of Thymas if I wasn't already the Ma-- God of humans. As it is, I don't see how everyone else could all be dumber than you, because you really aren't that clever." the girl snarled bluntly. "As for the book, it's right here." she said, pulling it out from behind her back and waving it around casually.
"How do we know it's not another fake?" I demanded. She laughed and walked towards us. Ridillyn moved in front of me, as if to protect me. I was touched by the apparently unconscious gesture.
"Stand aside, brother. I'll open your portal for you."
"If you were going to do this, why didn't you give us the book anyways, in the first place?" Darkness snapped angrily. His hair was nearly standing on end.
"Obviously, I needed a way to go with you. I couldn't have just asked you to take me with you, doubtlessly you would have refused. I merely was bored of the human world. So I gave you the fake so you could lead me to the archives. After all, I couldn't have found it otherwise. And now I have the real book so the portal can be opened. I have to say, my mortal sister got in the way quite a few times, going on her own whims. Such an annoyance." she said calmly, placing the book where it belonged in the formation. She and Darkness stepped into the space in the middle. "Mutatci demonica lario otrethona drowl." she chanted.
A wind seemed to pick up in the area. Each of the books flipped open and blinding red light filtered through the area.
"No!" someone shouted. It sounded like Ridillyn. Through the brightness, I saw something hurtling outward, crashing into a bookcase nearby. There was another screamed "NO!" before the wind, as well as the glaring light died down. To my surprise, Darkness was still here. He was the one who had been thrown bodily into the bookshelf. I looked around. Lanveld was on the ground, blinking and shaking his head as if to clear it. Ridillyn... Ridillyn was gone.
"That imbecile! He pushed me out at the last minute!" Darkness shrieked in frustration, slamming the bookcase with his fist. The wood splintered and his hand went through.
"Don't you dare talk about Ridillyn that way!" I shouted at him. I then realized what I had said, and who I had said it to. Why did I care what he said about Ridillyn? Was it because we were friends? But were we?
"I'm not talking about Ridel; I'm talking about Itaph, my jerk of a brother! He threw me out of the circle! Wait... where is Ridel?" Darkness muttered slowly, standing up and rearranging the books that had fallen off of the shelf he had landed in.
"He dis... he disappeared." I murmured. Darkness groaned, closing his eyes and massaging his temples.
"I was planning on waiting for the portal to stabilize to just use it myself again, but it seems like it won't be that simple. Ridillyn's been pulled through back into the spirit world, back before his time. We have to get him back, or at least do something! As of now, there is no rightful heir to the Sonfian throne!
"But what can we do?" I muttered under my breath. The situation seemed hopeless. There wasn't a way to get back out of the spirit world in one piece. If anyone living went through, they would die. It was that simple.
"Theoretically, if we could somehow create a portal to return to the mortal world, everything would work out just fine. That way, we won't lose our bodies and will not be reborn." Darkness said slowly. "However, we don't really have the means to create this portal. Additionally, if we are to find out how, we must do it as quickly as possible, for it will take only 7 days for Ridel to lose all of his humanity altogether. That is, Ridillyn, as you refer to him, would go back to being the demon Ridel, with no ties to the mortal world."
"What about us?" I asked.
"Well, it will take you seven days as well to lose your feelings for the mortal world. I, however, will merely go back to being my full self as soon as I set foot in the spirit world. What you see in front of you, the person you are speaking to, is a toned down and restrained version of myself. You yourself, in fact, have less knowledge than you do in your collected spirit form. If we do go into the spirit world, everything will come to you naturally." Darkness explained. I nodded.
"What do we do then?"
"Research. Kite, I would like you to read the seventh and last book currently in existence of the Demonica. I'm sure you'll find a few interesting things."
I picked up the book and set it gingerly on my lap. I took a deep breath before opening the book to the first page. The curled Gothic font was slightly intimidating. Emblazoned on that very first page was what appeared to be the 'title' of this chapter of the Demonica. "Rising Darkness..." I muttered contemplatively. I turned the page. The world around me shifted, and I was greeted by a whole new scene around me. I could still see Darkness and Lanveld sitting in the library, but yet there was another image, that of a court room, overlaying reality. In fact, I could even feel everything and hear everything in this new world. I looked down again at the curled script of the book. As I began reading, the scene played out before me.
"Lord Normin sat on his gilt throne, twisting his graying beard in agitation. His son, Merrill Normin, stood patiently nearby, waiting for him to speak. 'Citizens of Inctum are considering-- imagine that, CONSIDERING moving, of their OWN FREE WILL, to that barbaric state bearing the name Sonfun. This must not happen! For the good of this state,' as well as his own pride, but of course the Lord did not say so, 'For the good of this state, we must stop them! We must show them, prove to them just how barbaric and disgusting Sonfians are. My son, you and your friends must go to that place and record your findings of barbaric behavior. Take these magic mirrors and go! Do not fail me!' he shouted, standing up resolutely. He called in his son's two most trusted companions- his best friend, Faith Marra, and his cousin, Esset Normin. Each was handed a magic mirror, a special recording device, and sent on their way. They were accompanied by Katori, the Magus of Lord Normin. The Magus was not actually versed in magic, which Lytians did not believe in. He was merely a wise scholar who gave advice to the Lord..." I stopped there to let my mind process the information. The actual visual that came with the reading did help quite a lot, for it showed me what had happened.
"You understand how that book works?" Darkness inquired. I nodded. "Good. You may skip the first part. It's merely the silly banter of the group. Why don't you go directly to the second... scene, if you will."
And so I flipped to the place where Darkness recommended I begin, and started to conduct this so called 'research.' Yes, Ridillyn is my friend. I WILL save him!