Jacks School of Shines, page 8
The groups talked late into the night and got Mars Worth II, a first year at Shines, all wound up. He snuck off to the brooms’ lockers on the second floor. Two girls saw him fly away and screamed for him to come back. But, as he flew up and over the force field spelled by the Crimson Light, evil men saw him and pushed him into the flame of evil mesh, the forth deadly curse. The stream of death came in a five wand shot from a casting black wand that brought him down to nothing but ash.
In the last letter to the school, the Wizard Council stated to all that the evil presence was coming in too close to the Wizard Council monastery houses in the mountain of Hills Brooks Valley, and tried to persuade the men on the board to come over to the dark side.
The Council said, “As we feel it best of those left here, stay strong and fight anyway you can, for the witch or wizard will have to decide to do what’s right, for the Dark and Evil proves mostly overcoming to even me, the Head of the Valley of Wizards, Professor Timeoldy.
“Given not all students have gone elsewhere, it’s best for the staff to stay put and safeguard the children still attending school. The school year isn’t over and their parents advised the staff they want their children to stay at the school. It would prove best to stand our ground, the magical ground of old Merlin. In the text, Law 39 states the imperative to stand one’s ground and fight what had come back from old.
“Push away temptations of all evils and stay on the right path to freedom. Teach the power of the wizard’s truth. Seek who shall be known as a great witch or wizard, and show all others the way to the light. For its magical teaching will be used in a most trusting way.”
The staff took all precaution in watching over the children and resumed classes, to the best of their ability, during this time of unpleasantness and ill fate. The evil presence gained so much strength from the Dark Robes that it took over much of the land of fine wizards and witches. Now the evil felt it had a better chance against us.
However, the School of Shines was, to that day, the only structure still standing untouched by the evil, for the magic and power here just might give them a harder time to deal with.
* * *
I stood in the forest; the wind increased in its fury. Since the battle with the Dark Robes, the weather went crazy in this part of the forest. Thinking in hindsight, we were the oldest of schools and taught more great things about magic for wizards and fine young witches. This weather bore us no goodwill, for even Kah’la’s feathers ruffled back. I had braved the land, the weather and many Dark Robes. I reasoned that it was wise to take the fight as far as I could from the school and castle.
* * *
The girls and the house knew I’d saved them all those many long months by doing what they hoped and wished they could do themselves. People asked Eibhlin over ten times that day about Tom and my whereabouts. She finally gave in and took Tom’s sister, Casey, to the courtyard. There, she told what she had read in the lower house study and what came to her last night about us, for Tom and I hadn’t been together at all.
Eibhlin took one of Casey’s hands in hers. “I fear the worst for Tom.”
Casey had taken comfort in knowing that I was much older and wiser, like a big brother by his side. But to hear, as they walked along the south hall, that we’d been a part all this time put fear into her.
As they headed to the courtyard, a magical breeze came all through the girls and made them shiver. They looked at each other to see if it affected them the same way.
“That can’t be good,” one said to the other, crossing her arms. As they proceeded, they noticed the sky darkening. The two girls gasped when they saw Dark Robes in a ghostly appearance floating over the school. The worst of a haunting figure streamed along. The girls looked up in awe, for they’d never seen this before.
Eibhlin said in a shiver to Casey, “This is not the Dark and Evil that came before. These are men and wizards gone bad just for the evil magic.” When one flew over them, Eibhlin saw his wand turning black before her eyes.
“I don’t know what this presence is all about,” Eibhlin told her. “But it surely isn’t good. It’s got to be dark magic that’s come forward. It plainly can be seen that they’re watching us.” As the girls ran for cover to the other side of the schoolyard, the haunting presence came down for a closer look. The children could see Dark Robes flying by the school’s many open windows, and screams rang out from the classrooms.
Chapter 14: Babbling Words
Sparks flew from the tips of the Dark Robes’ wands. Why, they didn’t know, but it seemed their wands’ magic power had no effect on the school stone walls due to our protection from the Crimson Light force field.
The professors ran outside and pointed their wands at the ghostly robed men hovering above on their broomsticks. A group — so huge it darkened the sky — faced the professors in the courtyard. The Dark Robes thought they needed to say and spell only so many to do this job well. Throwing out a few had little effect by the quick response of the professors, whose magical spells cast upwards to the darkness and the men hovering above.
Now the encounter turned dangerous. Cast lightning pinged off the rooftop and bounced from the courtyard, making children duck behind windows, where they’d been watching. Dark Robes hung onto their broomsticks, which flipped and looped and spiraled to the ground whenever struck by a professor’s spell.
The professors matched strike for strike against the Dark and Evil. One professor stood and yelled, circling widely with his arm. At his signal, all the professors stood in a semicircle, arms pointed upwards, their wands spelling out, one by one. The spells flew up to the skies, aimed toward the men on the brooms. The darkened sky rolled back until it disappeared, leaving the blue sky and the afternoon sunlight. The force from so many professors casting spells at the same time shot the broom riders to oblivion.
The professors took great care in ridding the school of them, for that day brought something horrible and different. The skies above, now rid of the evil presence, came back to light once more. They hurried the children back inside where it would be safer just in case the evil men should return. For the haunted figure who came that day gave many a feeling of warning that much more was to come.
“These are becoming our darkest days, I’m afraid,” one professor said to a few of the students in the hall where they sheltered them. “The courtyards are off limits for the remainder of this week. If one needs to travel, though, an older student will accompany the younger one.”
Eibhlin whispered to Casey, “Follow me. I’ll tell you what I know.” The two girls went to the lower staircase and walked all the way down to the dungeons, for some of the girls watched Eibhlin closely. No one dared to tell anyone that Eibhlin took great chances and snuck out of the castle late at night.
Her friends worried, for what she was up to they hadn’t found out. The third eye of hers scared some of her friends. Waiting for a full moon, Eibhlin went outside of the protection barrier, for she needed the light to guide her into the deepest, darkest part of the forest. Out there, while she stumbled around, she hummed a long forgotten tune. She stepped heel to toe, sure-footed and gingerly over fallen trees and old dried up logs. Walking through the forest unguarded and without her wand, she looked for my notes. The Summoning Spell would begin magically for that very same tune. The song was created long ago from a spell her grandmother taught her, for her grandmother had a lost love, a love who never came home from the great War of Wizards and the King of a far off world.
Eibhlin’s Gran always spoke well of this young man who went to War. The only way to stay in touch was this very same method. The Summoning Spell brought pieces of parchment from anywhere, if the song was sung right and the tune was always the same. A magical wind blew it through the forest. As they fell, she wrote him back and blew the letter to him by the Breath Spell, which was very rare to do.
Her gran told that her love never did come back from that terrible War so long ago. To that day, she went out in the West Envies Forest where she lived and summoned by using the spell. She recreated it dozens of time, but it didn’t return any notes for the past 43 years.
Eibhlin followed in her footsteps and sang the same Summoning Spell song no one else knew or had heard, to summon the notes from me to come further into the forest where she walked. In her heart, she prayed she hadn’t lost me.
Now, though, in the dungeon’s deep, she sat down with Casey in a huge old oval doorway. In the dark, Casey struck a match and lit candles hanging on all the walls.
The big candle hangers were made of brass and mixed copper and were shaped like cats. They might have been made long ago. Each of the cats had one fang with a tiny crystal hanging from it. Red rubies for its peering eyes glowed in the dark before the match was lighted.
Eibhlin began to tell the story in a whisper of a little voice. She did get my notes each and every time she snuck into the dark part of the forest. Things weren’t good for us way out here. She tried to find a place to meet up with me, for she wanted more than anything else to see me and to convince me to come back to the school. It was for the best to save my life. She loved me and the loving feeling grew bigger the longer I’d been gone.
Eibhlin looked to Tom’s little sister and held her hand. Casey wondered why. Her third eyesight seemed to come over Eibhlin. “For your brother.” She started off by whispering, “I am sorry to say this. He will truly never be the same if he makes it back.”
Casey pulled herself forward into Eibhlin’s lap and felt her hot breath spreading across her bangs and her face.
“I saw him in some sort of old wizard’s maze,” Eibhlin continued, wide eyed. “Going back and forth and feeling lost.”
Casey tried to smile. “Well, Tom’s never been too good with directions. He’s a bit of a burbles in his ways.”
“I saw your dad.”
Casey grabbed her arm and stopped her. “My father? I’ve never met him. How do you really know it’s my dad?” she demanded. “He’s been missing for all my life. He went to help out a wizard named Tory Fulsome, a family friend. It was supposed to be a short cross country flight one afternoon before I was born. He had to fly by broom for a day and a half. No word came back on his whereabouts. Ever. Not a soul has spotted him. My father never showed up at Tory’s home in West Village park lands. My family and many others have searched for his remains, wondering if he got caught up in something that went wrong.”
“I see your dad coming to Tom’s aid soon, and close behind them both are a couple of Dark Robes who got caught up in that maze, too. Danger is headed their way.” Eibhlin felt faint and leaned out of Casey’s grasp. “The enchanter is now gone,” she spit out before getting sick in the corner. It’d been overwhelming for Eibhlin seeing and telling all this misery, especially since they knew Tom and me. But seeing Tom’s father was quite a magical feat for that was great news to tell.
“I see him and your dad saves him, but winds up losing his own life. Sorry to tell you, but you asked. I’ve been afraid to say anything to anyone lately.” Eibhlin continued being sick in the corner of the dungeon way back in the dark.
“We have a lot to worry about, for there’re only two of our friends left.” Eibhlin told, scared and fearful. “In addition, the odds are greater now for they are not together. They don’t know where the other one is. But through your father’s coming sacrifice of his life and love for his son, Colin will run into Tom, but truly, that’s all I’ve seen in my spellbound dreams.”
Eibhlin went back upstairs, but Casey stayed down for a while. She blew out the candles on the wall and stroked the cat made of brass and copper. Flicking one of the crystals, she sat down in the dark and cried. She whimpered a tiny, “Daddy.” Never getting a chance to meet her father and then, to hear that he’d die for Tom’s safety, overwhelmed her and she couldn’t stop crying.
* * *
Tom took a breath and stepped forward to embark onto the next road, scrunching his freckled brown face. “At this point, one of these many roads should be the one,” he said, and took the next step forward. He saw before his eyes something or someone headed his way. Tom heard someone whistling without a care in this life. Tom stepped lively and zeroed in on the tune. A man, a tall man, and very thin, appeared.
A wizard strolled along, flicking his wand in a non-caring way as if he had nothing else to do all day but to walk and carry on whistling. Pointing his wand, he created a dragonfly here and butterflies there and a ringworm flyer the next moment. That one tune over and over again was a happy little tune. As he came closer to Tom, he stopped.
“Oh, hello there. Who might you be, young man?”
“I’m Tom. Did you come from down that road just now?”
The man stepped back, looked over his shoulder, then looked back at Tom and answered, “Why, yes,” as if he was surprised he did come from that road just now.
Most remarkable, Tom thought, not a care in the world, to my reckoning, just like me. He has the same crooked smile as well.
The tall thin man said, “You look to be a little on the downside, son.”
“I am.” Tom shook his head and watched the man draw closer. Tom said, “Buffedelites.”
The man looked surprised. “What did you just say?”
“Buffedelites.”
“Well now, I know that expression. I say the same thing when I’m baffled or cross.”
Tom busted out a big smile and said, “Admaze-mentilerly.”
“Now what now did you just say?”
“Admaze-mentilerly.”
“Raffled?” the man replied.
“I say that, too.” The exchange of the babbling words went on through the late afternoon between the two as the expression of words and sayings continued through cracks of smiles.
“Most pleasant,” the tall man said. “Most refreshing to talk to someone in my way.”
Tom said, “Here’s that realty-begotten use making us friends.”
The man replied, “Gargoyles.”
Tom waved his arms. “Each road seems the same.”
“I guess.” His eyes spun counterclockwise. “Young man, do you know what day this may be?”
Tom took a better look at this tall, thin wizard as he scratched his wand on his cheek. “What’s the rush?”
“I see you walk the same way as I,” said the man who Tom could see clearly was a wizard. He stated, “If I still had my broom, I’d be out of this mess. But for being stuck in the crossroads, I’d be on my way home.”
A way out would be the best thing to happen to both man and boy. Now for Tom, he needed to get back to the school, or find me, who he hadn’t laid eyes or ears on all this month. Soon summer would arrive and who knew what would happen to the evil magic that lay in the forest. It’s temperamental from the cold of night and wetness of the rain. With summer around the corner, what would heat from the summer sun do to it? Would the evil magic change most horribly?
Tom started to tell him of his school and the evil presence that came one day and wiped out their Headmaster. For Tom hadn’t seen anyone in a long time and he needed to warn the school of what all he knew and heard. Tom was babbling on and on about what’d come about.
The man said, “Easy now, boy. All in due time. We’ll camp here, for you see I’ve been in here a long time. We’re in a maze of lost direction. I gathered that much ten years ago, but paid no attention for I guessed I would get myself out soon, but soon never came. We need to find a way out first, then we’ll head to the school. You’ve seen we all walk the same way to get home but wind up here at the start of the crossroads.
“Most baffling, my young fellow. I was flying over one day,” the man told him. “The overwhelming pull of being dragged into the whirlwind swept me up and I landed here on the forest floor. Now I’ve been unable to walk out and misplaced my broom long ago. I’ve been here so long, I even forgot my name, or why I’m here. Anyway, warm yourself by my fire.”
The wizard sparked out a flame from the strike of his wand. Tom moved up close; the fire felt nice and toasty. The man talked through the night about his wife and son and young child about to be brought into the world, a girl. Tom paid no mind, for he saw in the soft soil different footprints than his and the man next to him by the fire. Tom interrupted him and had him take notice of the extra footprints.
The wizard stood to look at them and said, “Bloody hell, those are remarkable to see. For I haven’t seen any other footsteps in all this time, just old dragon bones littered about.”
Tom told him, “I’ve seen that the statues are not the same at the beginning of two of the roads from this point only.” Tom took him over and showed him by wand light what Tom believed was a piece to the puzzle in taking the right road.
The man clapped him on the back. “Bravo, young man. I’ve been here all this time and hadn’t noticed. But look,” he added, “if you look this way, it does point to a path I have not seen before.” The wizard looked to Tom with hopeful eyes that he might agree. The tall thin wizard placed his arm around Tom’s shoulder and said, “Well, boy, no time to waste. Shall we go?”
As the two struck out right foot first, they began their first step together and started whistling the very same tune in the dark, lighted only by their wands. Tom had an unseen path in his mind’s eye and warned the wizard that trouble could be around any corner of this trail.
Dark Robes had seen the two and started down the pathway after them.
Chapter 15: The Queen Spider
I took Kah’la out of this windstorm and headed for cover. The bird told me that the evil side needed him out of the picture if they were to succeed taking over Jacks School of Shines Witchcraft And Wizardry. Dark times lay ahead, too dark and difficult to image coming true.
I told him of my last few months on the outside. What new evil has come from long ago and why now? The bird had been in a long slumber, hidden in a secret cave until the time came for his magical power to be woken again. Kah’la explained his last true master, a young wizard boy, also became great through use of the new magical skill — the facon de parler. That was the ability to speak in all languages, which was needed to win over the rest of the evil that lay hidden after the rebirth of Merlin. The rebirth took place when the land almost died due to the lack of caring for all magical creatures and plants.
