Darkin: The Prophecy of the Key (The Darkin Saga Book 2) (16 page)

“What? They all jump to their deaths?” Adacon retorted.

“No—in fact, they’re quite capable of that drop, and they are experts at finding food once they reach the ocean—I’ve seen it myself,” Falen continued. “They swim around the whole ice shelf once they’re done, and climb back up, all the way to their homes in the outer mountains.”

“Amazing,” Adacon said, watching the Warblers as they staggered single-file toward the cliff. “Rather plump things, aren’t they?”

“How would you do without a coat here?” Falen responded, laughing heartily. Adacon smiled and shivered, his heart warmed by the friendly presence below.

They flew on in silence with nothing new to observe but the bare, passing surface of smooth, glass-like ice. The wind began to pick up as they approached low-lying hills of snow. Krem suddenly raised his arms high, muttering incoherently. A shock of warmth enveloped Adacon, as if in response to the biting winds that stung him, and he grew comfortable again as his body regained full feeling.

“This is great—what took you so long?” Adacon said jovially.

“I was saving it for the winds,” Krem replied.

“Winds?”

“They pick up quite a bit once we reach the outer hills.” Adacon didn’t pay it any mind: he was too happy to once again be warm, feeling like he’d been wrapped in an invisible bubble of heat.

“I don’t like the look of that,” Falen said. Adacon’s attention returned to the view in front of them, but he saw nothing to be alarmed about.

“…Neither do I,” answered Krem after a long pause.

“What is it? I don’t see anything,” said Adacon.

“Should I land for awhile?” Falen asked. Adacon’s alarm grew, but he saw nothing in the distance, or below them, to be concerned about: the sky was still blue, and the mountains in front of them, while growing steeper and steeper, appeared lifeless and unchallenging for the drake’s nimble power of flight.

“Perhaps, let’s wait and see…” Krem answered; a tone of fear had crept into the old man’s voice.

“Come on, out with it,” Adacon begged.

“Quiet!” Krem railed; Adacon fell silent in shock at the outburst. He looked again at the mountains in the distance as they flew over the first few jutting peaks, icy hills reshaped into perilous needles. He finally glimpsed something: a faint stream of black smoke curled up from a distant crevasse, barely visible amidst the vast range. The smoke disappeared as it trickled upward into the blue, a thin fading line. Adacon couldn’t believe he’d missed the column in the horizon; still, it didn’t look like much, other than perhaps smoke from a fire, and Adacon wondered why his friends seemed so alarmed, but he dared not ask, as Krem had snapped at his last question—the last thing I want to do is land here, thought Adacon, and have to leave this cozy bubble of warmth.

Falen flew forward, picking up speed in reaction to the sight of the black streak.  At a subtle command from Krem, Falen veered off to his right, spreading his wings wide and carrying them away from the smoke.

Adacon grew restless in his new warmth, angry that Krem wouldn’t answer his questions. He peered down at the icy crags that swept by one after another in unending succession, wondering what was so important about a line of smoke—it certainly shouldn’t have scared old Krem, he thought, or Falen. As Adacon peered down at the icy needles that stabbed up at them from the ground far below, a great shadow swept into his vision, entering from behind—the sun was suddenly blotted out by an enormous cloud, and the bright snowy crags below turned dark grey, as shade cascaded over the landscape beneath.

“Look down!”

Krem looked; having been too distracted by the black gas that was leaking into the atmosphere to their left, he hadn’t noticed the enormous shadow. He witnessed its quick crawl along the ice below. Falen craned his neck, also having been distracted, and noticed the shadow. Immediately Krem looked up—Adacon followed the old magician’s gaze toward the heavens and saw the source of the shadow, and what must have been the biggest creature in all of Darkin: A hawk the size of a small mountain, appearing from thin air it seemed, flew several hundred yards overhead: it had enormous red feathers, a golden beak, but its wings didn’t flap; it glided silently, blackened against the sun, spreading its vast shadow over the icy scape beneath. Adacon gasped in awe at the beautiful creature that nearly filled the whole sky—orange-silver talons fatter than trees were tucked inside its coat of feathers; its deep red breast sparkled, despite no light from the sun hitting there. It had an aura of its own, its feathers radiating light.

“What is it?”

“I—
I don’t know
…” Krem returned, and Adacon shuddered. Falen remained speechless, and for a moment they were all three stilled, staring recklessly, not taking their eyes from the giant beast. As quietly as it had come, with tremendous speed, the bird flew past them. Soon it was well out of their sight, as suddenly as it had appeared. Adacon watched in wonderment as the great shadow of the brilliant red hawk combed the terrain of treacherous ice needles, climbed the highest peaks in the distance, then disappeared beyond them. Once the bird was out of view, and its shadow lost to the northern wall of the Cloud Veil, Adacon returned his attention to his friends: they stared limply at the horizon in awe.

“What an amazing creature,” Adacon proclaimed, still trembling at the size of the bird.

“Look out!” cried Falen. Krem and Adacon snapped from their daze: Krem instantly ducked his head into the saddle as far as he could, and Adacon instinctively mimicked him; just as they pushed their faces down, into Falen’s scaly hide, a great gold-rimmed ball of jet black rock hurtled by, narrowly missing them. The wind force of the projectile sent the drake spiraling down toward ice daggers below. After a moment of turbulence, Falen righted himself. Krem looked up to see where the rock had come from—in their amazement at watching the scarlet hawk fly above them, Falen had drifted off-course; they were now directly alongside the line of black smoke. Up close Adacon saw that it really wasn’t smoke from a fire that was rising from the valley below—straining his eyes, he saw a congregation of beings surrounding a swirling hole of darkness, its rim aglow. Falen lost control again, unable to steady himself against a mysterious pull. They spiraled fast around the circumference of the hole, from which arced skyward the black trail, now a lightless abyss between two steep mountains.

Krem threw Adacon down, prompting him to hug Falen’s back hard. Another projectile whizzed through the air, nearly striking Falen’s head. The drake quickened his spin down as wind whipped furiously. Several more gold-rimmed boulders shot past, nearly striking the riders dead.

“I can’t keep us up; the suction from the magic is too strong!” Falen wailed, vainly trying to steady himself. Adacon watched the earth below spin violently closer—the beings launched volley after volley, aiming to kill; somehow Falen kept dodging them, by inches and less.

“Hold fast, Falen!” Krem roared above the whining wind which blew against whichever direction Falen tried to thrust. Adacon peered out from Krem’s shoulder, which he’d buried himself into, and saw an enormous rock tearing through the sky at them, the size of a hillside—this one he can’t dodge, he realized in terror.

“Hold!” Krem screamed. The wind surged viciously around them so that all they could hear was the screeching hiss of a tornado. Falen lost all control of his wings, and they bent in an odd angle, and he whined: the turbulence sucked them down in tinier circles, a plummet of doom. Adacon hadn’t taken his eyes from the giant black rock: oddly, it now floated as if in slow-motion. It curved to intercept their dizzying dive, adjusting itself in mid-air to compensate for the loss in Falen’s altitude, homing to hit regardless of where he was in the sky. The gold aura around the massive opal rock flared against the whipping winds. Krem sat upright in response, as if turning to face their imminent destruction. The shimmering boulder took up all of Adacon’s view, and he could no longer see the pristine ice below, nor the strange gathering of people deep in the crevasse—all he saw was an orb of the deepest black, a meteor from the earth, heaving itself toward the heavens, aligning its path so as to take the drake and his passengers along for the ride. He closed his eyes at last: nothing happened. He opened them again: Krem was waving his arms wildly, despite the tremendous force of the circling winds. From his hands, an emerald fountain flowed, issuing forth from his fingertips, welling up into a pool—instantly, the pool of jade light expanded, encircling them as a shield, spreading out for yards in every direction.

“Aaaagh!” Krem writhed in agony. He stood up on Falen’s back, somehow erect upon the saddle, keeping his balance despite the enchanted wind. The shield that flowed from his hands deepened its hue: the mild gloss of its shine was changed—the green had turned dark, then transformed to magenta; sparks of brilliant cyan flashed against the gold rim of the encroaching missile. The great rock collided with the shield; Krem roared atop the failing drake—the tiny Vapour spoke words unto the malevolent storm:

“Hold back, divisive mana, keepers of the ice!—yield to Krem the Vapour; Behold, the Magic of Light!” Krem’s spine struck straight. Amidst a tremendous flash, the charged rock froze in midair, ceasing its flightpath of destruction. There was a great clangor, and the rock cracked apart; each snaking line in the jet rock webbed into veins of tinier fractures: each fracture issued forth gold light, the same that rimmed the black missile. Soon, the entire rock was dismantled; each piece began to fall away. First it chipped apart at its edges, crumbling piece by piece down to the earth. Then in huge chunks, parts ripped away from the rock’s core and shot in many directions, exploding away from Falen. Adacon winced from brutal light and scorching heat, trying hard to keep watching the destruction of the rock. Despite Krem’s defense, he realized they were still falling fast. The tornado wind hadn’t ceased, and Falen still had no control over their dive.

“Heave!” Krem spoke into the storm winds. What was left of the great rock disintegrated into splintered shards. With a motion of his hands, he commanded the splinters as razor weapons, raining them on the assaulters below. The daggers radiated cords of magenta light—the gold aura around the hole began to flicker out. Adacon trained his eyes on the circling beings below, much closer now—it seemed the black hole from which they shot their giant missiles had been the source of wind. The funnel line turned from a stream of black to one of snow and ice. The beings below scattered at the rain of impaling shards, fleeing in every direction, but most fell dead, pierced to death. Adacon saw one of the running beings fall to the ground, twist in pain; then another fell, and then another—as fast as they could run, they could not escape Krem’s wrath. As each creature fell, Falen seemed to regain more control of his wings. Soon, the last of the creatures had fled or fallen into red-stained snow. The tornado emanating from the black hole lost all strength. To Adacon’s amazement, the black hole itself shriveled up and disappeared, dissolving into barren ice. The twisting lines of icy spray dissipated. One last creature fell dead against the tight-packed snow of the crevasse wall.

Falen leveled out, again in control of his wings, twenty yards from the ground; it was enough space to spare their lives, and Adacon sighed deeply. Krem finally sat back down, and the pool of magenta energy that had been steadily sparking from his fingertips receded back into his hands. Falen landed heavily on the ground, in desperate need of rest—he’d exhausted all strength keeping them in the air as long as he had, buying time for Krem to retaliate.

“What on Darkin were they?” Adacon gasped, hopping from Falen before he felt any sicker, slipping on the hard sloping wall of the crevasse the moment he touched down.

“Gaigas knows…” Falen grumpily barked between heaving breaths.

“They are the League of the Mage,” Krem replied, and without wasting a moment he too jumped from Falen, sliding down the icy slope between the two mountain faces, arriving at the flattened bit of plain where the League had congregated and created its black hole of magic.

“League of the Mage?” Adacon repeated.

“Quite harmless really, unless you cross their path,” Krem replied.

“Really? I couldn’t tell…” Falen whined.

“What were they doing?” Adacon asked, finally feeling his stomach settle once again, looking around to take in the huge mountain walls surrounding them; they stood bleach white, pointed like skyscrapers toward the still blue sky.

“The League seeks to destroy Darkin’s moons, for reasons I cannot fully explain—it has something to do with a legend of theirs, a myth,” Krem responded.

“Destroy the moons?” Adacon looked up to the sky and beheld against the clear blue a faint outline of three orbs, each barely visible in the bright light of midday.

“Yes, they’ve been at it for centuries; no one bothers them, and they keep mostly to themselves—unless, as I said, you cross their path. In the days of old…” Krem continued, walking up to the nearest dead body, “they were exterminated for their beliefs, murdered by all righteous kingdoms of the world—that is why they fled to Nethvale and Aaurlind, the two most remote countries in Darkin—so that they could conduct their magic in secret, unobstructed by the laws of Darkin’s kings and emperors.”

“But isn’t anyone worried that they could succeed?”

“No, they underestimate Gaigas’s energy—you see, laddy, it is
impossible
to destroy a moon,” Krem continued. “It would take a collective of energy too strong, something more powerful than Gaigas’s whole life-force itself.”

“They’re very strange looking,” Adacon said, poking one of the fallen beings lying in a blood-red slush of melting snow. The bodies were robed in thick furs, animal coats, he presumed, and each had a staff in its hand—many of the staffs were scattered now though, strewn about the sides of the snowy mountain. He bent down to peer close at the face of one of the creatures: to his surprise, it looked almost like a human, except it had no eyebrows, and no facial hair—its eyes hung lidless beneath the brow, stark green, without an iris or pupil. He recoiled with a start, noticing that the strangers had serrated teeth; the one he stared at had had its jaw rent open by Krem’s stone rain spell.