The Warlock's Shadow

Hidden History

It had been three days since Mr. Roland tried to get me to use that magic circle. He went missing the next day after he administered my “test” and no one has seen him since. His desk and office were cleaned out, his class was hereby canceled for the rest of the year, and he had vanished without a trace. I had no idea what exactly it was that Mr. Roland tried to get me to do. All I knew was that it didn’t feel right. The power that started to build up felt good for sure, but it wasn’t what I wanted. It felt, I don’t know, gross and sticky. I wondered if that’s what corruption felt like. If that is indeed what corruption felt like; the disgusting, tar bath feeling then I would never mess with it again.

During those few days I was pretty withdrawn. I barely left my room, barely talked or participated in class. I was hardcore depressed and felt a huge vacuum within me after having that much power fill my mind. I kept wondering if what I did was black magic. The idea that any moment that Knights would show up at our door to take me to be branded a Warlock for doing black magic sat in the back of my mind and refused to be moved. Nocturne looked how I felt. He seemed just as down as I was. He still checked on me in his own way quite often and somehow made sure I ate even if he didn’t. I gently scratched the top of his head as he pushed his head into my hand and started nuzzling it. He must have known how I had been feeling as he slept on my chest the whole time curled up into a little ball.

I started to feel better about it by the weekend. When I got back to school, the Principal had assigned me a new mentor, Ms. Nephinae, the history teacher. We met formally in Principal Ashrith’s office. I mean She knew who I was since I was her student, but to talk one-on-one was different. Being in closer proximity was a lot different than from afar, I could see why some people were infatuated with her looks. She was very conventionally pretty when it came to elves. Decorated ears, shapely face, very expensive looking clothes that complimented her body. It was definitely a little difficult to look into her eyes. After getting over her looks I realized it was pretty convenient that my new mentor was the history teacher who probably lived through some of the history, which I think worked out pretty well. If I was lucky I could always try and ask about the history of my amulet; I mean, she might know something about it.

But, before all of that, Lisa, Sasha and I needed to ask a certain shop keeper if he would allow us to look deep into his store for any information about the amulet. There was definitely a lack of organization in the archives and there probably wasn’t a way back into it now. We’d gotten lucky and there was no way we were going to push out luck.

Immediately after school we made our way to Crowley’s Tomes, Oddities and Bookends.The streets were unusually busy with cars and people today. What normally took us a few minutes to walk took nearly thirty minutes. We had no idea why the streets and walks were suddenly so busy. Seemed the only place that was normal was Crowly’s. We jerked open the stuck door, the bell rang to acknowledge our existence and rang again when it closed with a short bang. We crept in a bit slowly as usual since the old man tended to lurk and pop up unexpectedly.

“Excuse me? Crowley?” Lisa asked, shortly after we walked into the shop on the weekend. But there was no answer, which wasn’t unusual for the last few times we had been here. “Crowley?” She called out again. Nocturne and Zero flew off to look around the store for him.

“Let’s just start looking,” Sasha said, skipping in a mid thigh skirt and crop top through the store to the endless back. Topaz chirped and trilled happily in time with Sashas skips.

I followed Sasha who was following Lisa towards the back to see if the old man was back there. We wandered into the far back where the lighting started to get dark and the setting looked more like a medieval library. We noticed a lot of labels that showed what kinds of books were on the shelves, which was immensely more helpful than what was at school. Lisa found a section that was labeled “Encyclopedias” with different subsections down the incredibly long shelf. Following each other we walked down until we found a small sign that said “Medallions and Amulets”.

“Why is it always you three in my store together?” a familiar voice said behind us made us all jump.

“Because we’re precocious little hatchlings?” Sasha said with a large toothy grin. Crowley sneered and gave a small growl. We all gave an audible swallow.

“We’re just looking for information on Alex’s amulet and any connections it has to some upcoming celestial events. Thought you might have more than our school,” Lisa said. At that moment Nocturne and Zero returned and nested themselves on our shoulders.

“This is not a library. You better be buying something this time,” he said as looked down his nose at me, still sneering.

“I will,” I said quickly. “Promise. As soon as I find what I’m looking for.”

“You’d better,” he said distainfully and walked away.

“That was scary,” Lisa said. We all agreed and set to looking as quickly as we could so we didn’t upset Crowley anymore than we already did. We looked through dozens of books but couldn’t find anything at all. While grabbing books at random I had a feeling about a red leather book I came across. Its title was embossed and in gold but written in a language that I didn’t recognize and started to flip through it.

“Did you find something?” Sasha asked me. They looked over my shoulder as I flipped through pages of the strange text.

“Whoa, hold on,” Sasha said as they looked over my shoulder. I had passed something that looked familiar. I slowly flipped back and saw a picture of my amulet in the book. “Look, here it is,”

“Wow, that really is it,” Lisa said. “But it looks like it’s written in a weird language.” The runes were strange, it looked like a bunch of small wedge-like shapes crammed together.

“You guys know what language it’s in?” I asked Lisa and Sasha. They looked beside me and our dragons also happened to look as well. As soon as our dragons looked over our shoulders at the book they started to go nuts. They squawked, trilled, chortled and made so much noise. “Whoa, hey what’s gotten into you guys?”

“Topaz, shush,” Sasha said, trying to calm down their dragon.

“You, too, Zero. I can barely understand you.” Once the three dragons calmed down Lisa and Sasha watched and listened to their companions.

“Dragon language?” Lisa said. “It’s dragon language? Can you at least translate it?” Zero let out an embarrassed sounding noise and hid her face under a wing.

“How about you, Topaz?” Sasha said. Topaz gave a similar sound and pretended to be distracted. “Well, that’s helpful.”

I turned to Nocturne, “I don’t suppose you know then?” He looked over at the book and started growling and clicking and making other noises. “What the–?” The other two dragons heard Nocturne and listened intently as he spoke in the strange language.

“Zero, what’s he saying?” Lisa asked. Zero listened until Nocturne was done reading.

“He said that the book talks about the amulet being a key. It can open and close specific Voids. And that it’s called the Jade Amulet of Banishment.”

“Wow, I wonder if that means it could be the Void that Blight was pushed into?” I said.

“Must be,” Sasha said. “That’s what we saw in the mirror at Kur’s place.” Sasha was right. Which means that this amulet was the most important thing that I could have ever hoped to have possessed.

“No wonder Dad wanted me to have it,” I said. “He must have wanted to make sure that it was safe and that I could keep the Void portal closed and that this didn’t fall into the wrong hands.” Wow, Dad actually wanted me to be a hero. I couldn’t believe it. I grabbed the book and closed it. “Alright, let’s go,”

I went up to the counter and paid Crowley the ten Favors for the book as promised. He looked more pleased this time around and not just because we were leaving his store. We went to the park and translated more of what we could of the book. Finding out that the amulet was ages old. It had actually changed shape and form over the centuries, having first started out as an adder stone, a simple ring of jade that ancient humans thought warded off evil. I suppose the ancient humans might have been a little right if this is what it was capable of back then.

“Um, hey guys,” a voice said behind us. It sounded familiar but at the same time not. We turned and looked and saw Samuel. They looked a bit different, almost androgynous. His hair was longer and he seemed a bit more slender. Maybe it was all the exercise in our dragon riding class.

‘Why was Samuel talking to us?’ I thought. ‘He never spoke to any of us outside of class before now.’

“Hey, Samuel,” Lisa said politely. “What brings you here?”

“Oh, not much,” he said shyly. “I was just meditating by a big tree and listening to Evergreen,” he motioned to his dragon. “When she heard your dragon, Alex, talk in a language she said she understood. I thought yours was just making noises, you know?”

“Did she tell you what Nocturne was saying?” I asked.

“No, she couldn’t make it out but was curious which made me curious.”

My mind started to race and I didn’t know what to say. Luckily Sasha had my back. “Extra credit,” They blurted. “Yeah, Alex asked us to help out with extra credit for History class. Ms. Nephinea is his new mentor and she asked him to do some extra research and we’re helping with that.”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “She’s having me do extra work since we’re about to discuss my Dad’s famous fight and she thought it wouldn’t be fair if I took part in a test where I already knew most if not all the answers already, you know? So This is basically my final project for the class and I was allowed to get help in research.”

“Oh, well that makes sense,” Samuel said. “What are you researching?”

I decided to tell a bit of the truth. “I’m researching the history of my amulet. It was my Dad’s and I wanted to know what it was for, who had it before, stuff like that.”

“Do you mind if I help?” He asked. The three of us looked at each other, I bit my lip in nervousness. Nocturne looked over at Evergreen and began to speak in their own special language. Evergreen chirped and trilled back. After a minute or two of us all watching the exchange, Evergreen looked at Samuel. Evidently speaking to him.

“What did you tell her?” I whispered to Nocturne who gave a quiet trill and shrugged his shoulders. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“So, if I understand it right,” Samuel began. “Your Dad used that amulet against Blight, the same one that is having cults formed around him, and you’re worried about your darkness magic backfiring against you. So you’re looking into ways to keep it from backfiring and you think something with the amulet might be the key to it all?” We all stared in silence at Samuel who was surprisingly accepting, and how Nocturne carefully crafted all that without mentioning the Celestial Shadow.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s about it.”

“Then I can help with that. Principal Ashrith gave me unlimited access to the school’s archives.”

“You have unlimited access to the archives?,” I said.

“You know about the archives?,” Samuel blurted. We explained how I, and later, we, got access to the archives and how we attempted to look for books.

“Oh, well that’s your problem. There’s a special way to look for what you need in the archives.”

“There is?,” We said together.

“Yeah, you just have to know what you want and the archive will just float the books over to you. But, you have to be specific.”

“Well, that was our problem, we didn’t know what we needed at that level. We just now figured out the name of it. The Jade Amulet of Banishment.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help out,”

“By the way, how did you get unlimited access?” Sasha asked.

Samuel blushed and shifted in place, “oh well, it’s for special research. What with Evergreen being female and well, I’m not. So I got permission to research that as much as I can whenever I can.”

“I see, well let us know if you figure anything out.” Sasha said. We said our farewells to Samuel as he went and walked away muttering to his dragon.

“I wonder why Mr. Roland didn’t tell me how to research in the archives about essence weaving or my amulet. Didn’t Leif tell you how to research the archives, Sasha?”

“She might have said something but I honestly wasn’t listening,” they said.

“Why am I not surprised,” Lisa said as she rolled her eyes.

“Hey,” I said. “How about we relax with Kur tonight? We owe it to him.” The other’s agreed on the break we needed and we made our separate ways home to prepare.

#

That evening we decided that we should pay Kur a visit as promised. It wasn’t right to just keep coming to him for information. When we snuck out that night the streets were littered with recruitment posters for the new head of the newest Blight Cult.

“I know I’ve said it before,” I said. “ But who is crazy enough to join these nut jobs?”

Lisa grabbed a flier off of someone’s car and we all examined it. The poster showed a middle aged man with most of his face covered by a black hood and his palms up beside him. Flames floated over his hands with the caption underneath reading, “You no longer need to fear the darkness. Join now,”

“C’mon,” I said. “We need to run that special errand for Kur before we head over.”

“You’re right, let’s go,” Lisa said.

After our errand we got back on track and made our usual route to the school and down deep under the school.

“Ah. My friends. What a surprise,” He said warmly. The dragons went and chirped playfully and happily as they circled Kur’s head and nested on it. “And the hatchlings too. I’m glad you’re here. I have this itch under my chin that I can’t quite reach.”

“Hey, Kur,” I said. “We’re making good on our promise to come hang out for the sake of it,”

“Good, good,” he said. “Also, about that itch?” He lifted his massive head so we could move under it. We reached up and scratched the scales under his chin. They were thick and leathery, and he hummed as we scratched as best we could. “Ah, thank you. That’s been bothering me for hours. Did you bring what I asked?”

“Yeah, we stopped at the convenience store and grabbed all the beef jerky we could find on the way here,” Sasha said. We started pulling out all the few dozen wax paper packages of jerky we bought. “You should have seen the clerks’ faces when we bought all they had,”

“Too bad that it cost us all our collective allowances,” I said. “But I think making it up to you is worth it.”

“Thank you so much, friends,” Kur said happily.

Kur smiled as he scooped up all the packages of jerky with his claw and opened up his mouth wide. Sasha was freaked out a bit seeing the large amount of extremely sharp alligator-like teeth inside Kur’s maw. He closed it and chewed a little thoughtfully, tasting the dried meat.

“Mmm, teriyaki flavor,” he mused and smiled, I think. It was hard to tell honestly.

If you were wondering what it was like hanging out with an ancient dragon that’s more than a thousand years old, it’s a lot like hanging out with a grandparent. Playing old games you’ve never heard of, telling your own life story and hearing about all the strange and fantastical things they knew. Kur rather enjoyed story telling. He had a bit of a nack for it, even Sasha was enthralled by his stories. Kur had a way of captivating us with his tales of heroism and adventure. Hearing tales of ancient mages from the first Convergence, like the Sorcerer Lance and Witch Cassandra and how they stopped a Warlock named Omega. He also was great at telling us hilarious stories like how a few hundred years ago someone tried to slay him:

“...And to scare him away, I told him in my scariest voice, ‘do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, boy. Remember that you are crunchy and are delicious when flambéd.’” Kur laughed loud enough to almost shake the walls. “He was so frightened he soiled himself on the spot. He couldn’t run fast enough,” We all laughed with him. With all the stories, I got curious. I needed to ask him about the most important person in my life. No one would open up about him or tell me about what kind of person he was, outside of the obvious history lesson. I thought it was only fair that I ask about him and hear stories of his experiences.

“Kur?” I asked. “I have a special request for a story.”

“Oh?” He said. “And what would that be, Young Alex?”

“Could you tell me anything about my Dad?” I asked. “I don’t know much about him and Mom doesn’t talk much about him either. It’s pretty hard for her to talk about. I just want to hear some stories of what he was like. What kind of person he was. Was he really a hero?”

Hrrrmmm…Kur exhaled. “Yes, I can understand that. The news was not easy to hear.” Our dragons stood up and rubbed their heads on his, apparently in comfort. Kur smiled. “So, you want to hear about when he was young. Well, he was smart and kind hearted, your father. He and his friend were always causing mischief. Nothing terrible mind you, harmless pranks.” He went on to tell us stories of their interactions together. Such as when they first met:

“...And when I came into the light and your father saw me for the first time he too almost soiled himself. I thought it was funny that I playfully tried to eat him. Maximilian did not. There was even a time or two where he and his friend would even spend the night during the summer months. I just wish I could remember the friend’s name.” Kur’s eyes squinted as he attempted to remember. “Oh well. I’ll remember eventually.”

“I wonder if any teachers at school would know?” I said.

“Oh, Ms. Nephinae might,” Sasha said. “She’s been at the school for like, fifty years,” Sasha began to yawn then so did Lisa and I. Lisa looked at her watch.

“Oh, gosh guys, it’s almost five in the morning. We need to get home,” We started to panic a bit and gathered our stuff and called out to our dragons who awoke groggily, glided over and perched on us right away.

“Thanks, Kur. It was lots of fun,” I said as we ran out.

“No no, thank you. I look forward to our next visit.” We ran up the stairs as fast as we could and out into the school yard. The sky was gray with the coming dawn and we all hightailed it home, hopefully before our parents woke up.

We all slept until the afternoon that day. We used our families crystal balls to call each other to go over homework and work off of each other’s notes and work. We also talked about what happened the night before and praised Sasha for getting more brave with every visit.

“For real, Sasha you’re doing great,” Lisa said.

“Yeah. I think you’ve almost overcome your phobia of Kur,” I added.

“I mean, can you blame me? He’s freaking huge. And those teeth? The claws? I still can’t believe that he just doesn’t eat any of us alive,”

“Can you though?” Lisa laughed. “He’s just a dragon. Even Alex has proven that even wild dragons are extremely misunderstood.”

#

The next few days of school couldn’t have gone slower. I wanted to ask Ms. Nephinea about being my new mentor, about my amulet, my magic, and if she could remember my Dad or not. But after what happened with Mr. Roland I was nervous about having a new mentor. I couldn’t talk to her, I was just too scared. During school and after it, I would go up to her desk, and she would politely ask, “Hello, Alex, did you need anything?” And everytime I would just stammer and freeze and say, “Nevermind,“, turn around and walk out with my tail between my legs. It was such a hard thing to broach all of a sudden.

Eventually I did successfully ask her about my darkness magic after class, well kind of. What I actually said was, “Magic. Darkness. Questions.” What ended up happening was her giving a short history on dark element users and which ones were known to succumb to corruption instead. Which was enlightening in and of itself. Thanks to that I now know one of the first signs of corruption is the darkening of the fingertips. However, the thought of it still made me nervous; that I could end up an example of what not to do in the textbooks. You know, one of the baddies you hear about and not in the most positive way? Any time I would practice my magic, since the incident with Mr. Roland, I still felt like I could get corrupted at any moment. Even though I didn’t like the gross sticky feeling from then, what if it was one of those things you learned to like? The thought of it made me constantly check my hands for any dark spots on my fingers.

I couldn’t take not knowing. I had to know more. The next day, once the history lesson was over, I took a deep breath, steeled myself and immediately walked over to Ms. Nephinea, and stood stoically in front of her desk. The class filed out into the halls while I stayed behind.

“Something I can help you with, Alex?” She asked. Her voice sounded melodious and a bit ethereal.

“I hope so,” I said with a bit of a shaky voice. “Since you’re my new mentor, I can come to you for just about anything right?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’m here to help you in any way I can, and guide you the best way I know how. I thought we discussed that already a few days ago when I took over your mentorship.” I couldn’t explain it but, hearing her voice was very comforting. It had a warmth to it that I had never experienced before now.

“Yeah, I remember,” I said. I shuffled my feet in nervousness. “So, I wanted to ask if you remembered teaching my Dad, Maximilian Umbra?”

“Indeed I do,” she said, as she smiled and walked over to a nearby bookshelf. She ran her fingers over the spines of old yearbooks looking for a specific one. “I remember every student I’ve taught over the years.” She grabbed a book and opened it up and set it down. She pointed to a photo of a boy around my age to whom I shared a frightening resemblance. He had a mop of dark hair, was kinda scrawny, and was overly average looking.

“Wow, I’ve never seen anything from when he was my age,” I said in awe. “All I’ve really seen is just pictures from when he and my Mom were dating and just before…well you know.”

“Yes, he was quite the student,” she sat back down at her desk. “He was all but inseparable from his best friend.” She flipped a few pages forward and pointed to a boy who looked like Dad’s polar opposite. He was a half elf, his hair was blonde and coiffed expertly, his features were dashing, even his smile looked like it could break hearts. He for sure could have been one of the popular kids. “You could say they were joined at the hip,” Ms. Nephinea said.

“Caelus Nox…,” I said reading the name. “No wonder he couldn’t remember it.”

“Who couldn’t remember what?” she said.

“Oh, no one. Nothing, heh.” That was a close one. So that was Dad’s best friend? I needed to play along for a while. I couldn’t let Kur’s existence slip or even what we all have found out from the archives.

“So what happened to Caelus? I’ve never heard of him, much less seen him until now. So what gives?” I said as I flipped through more of the book looking for other pictures of Dad and Caelus together. I found a few of them and she was right. Always right next to each other. Whether it was student council, dragon riding, even senior prank day where they put Principal Ashrith’s fancy car on the school’s roof.

There were even a few pictures of my Dad and Caelus using magic. Dad was using some earth based magic and Caelus was using what looked like light magic, I think. But it looked kind of weird. I wasn’t sure if it was a bad photo or a bad angle or something.

Ms. Nephinea quickly closed the book before I could get a better look and put it away while muttering something in elvish I couldn’t understand. “Caelus was killed by Blight in his last year at school.”

“The Warlock?” I said. “How’d it happen?”

“Blight created a portal into the school. He always seemed to have a secret resentment towards Caelus for some reason. Least that’s what he said that day. Caelus didn’t have a mean bone in his body, so no one knew what Blight was on about. He took out a small book and cast a strange dark looking spell. A large black pool opened up beneath Caelus and he was swallowed up. He was such a brilliant student.” She trailed off.

“A black pool? He was just swallowed whole?” I asked. “He had a book?”

Ms. Nephinea nodded solemnly. “It was right in the courtyard.”

“Was Blight a student here?”

“I think that’s enough for now, you’re going to be late for the next class,” she said, as she dismissed me and did not want to talk about it further. That was strange to say the least. Luckily she didn’t realize I had lunch next. I made my way to the cafeteria and grabbed whatever they tried to pass off as food today. After I had found Sasha and Lisa and sat down with them I told them everything that just happened.

“Caelus Nox? What a forgettable name,” Sasha said.

“That’s what I said,”

“So it’s true then? Blight killed your Dad’s friend?” Lisa asked.

“Apparently. But it was really weird how Ms. Nephinea just rushed me out of the classroom as soon as I started asking more questions.”

“That’s true,” Lisa said. “You think it has anything to do with Cealus’ death?”

“Maybe, something didn’t quite add up though,” I said. “I briefly saw a picture of Caelus using light magic. But it looked really weird. I couldn’t get a good look since she closed the book pretty quickly. And how he was just swallowed up by this weird black pool?”

“What about Blight having a spell book?” Sasha said. “We don’t use spell books per se. Just write down equations and circles and alchemy formulas. I’ve never heard of anyone using a spellbook before.”

“Yeah that doesn’t make sense,” Lisa concurred. “So, how are we going to find out more information about Blight? We’re kind of out of options and I don’t think there are many who will openly talk about Blight.” We really were out of options and had nowhere else and no one else to ask. Seemed this was a dead end. However, I still had that book that Crowley gave us at the beginning of the semester. And it did have the same circle that Mr. Roland had me draw out. I wonder if there was a connection between it and Blight somehow. Too bad we’d probably never know what it said.

Unless…