The Prophesy: Book 2 - The Right Hand of Destiny

 

The beast had been hunting for days, not finding any food whatsoever along its usual hunting grounds. Ever since the giant waves had washed away the nesting places of its favourite food, it had been unable to find any morsel worth a bite. Oh, it had fed on the bloating carcasses for days, but a dead prey was not as satisfactory as a hot, terrorized one! And the sea hid a dangerous competitor that seemed to eat away at its reserves! Using an updraft from a radioactive pool of molten rocks, it gained altitude to glide to the next one, while keeping an eye for anything moving and edible. No use expanding energy when the heat did the work. She, for it was a female, also needed to find a mate. The unexpected eruption of the volcano near her nest while she was away hunting had destroyed her freshly laid eggs. Then there would be the need to find another suitable nesting site, and maybe fight off its occupant. If only the breeze would bring a whiff of a big prey, but all she could smell was the odour of bare rocks beaten into submission by the heat from within and from above! Not even the seashore had anything appetising to offer. Her last meal had been a mix of that giant fish, and the few scavengers that already had been busy digging their way into the carcass. The rotting fish had left a bad taste in her mouth, but the scavengers had at least reminded her of her usual food. Unfortunately, they were few and strangely impassive, like they were sure they could not be chewed up! She had showed them! Oh, how she loathed fish, its slimy cold nature! Anything for a hot meal!

***

The megalodon had been roaming the waters off the coast. The great tremors that had travelled its domain had produced bounties that made for easy reaping, and she was ready to give birth to her five young, and would hunt for a mate shortly thereafter. As soon as they were born the youngsters knew they had to hide in narrow crevices and escape getting caught by their own mother. Generally, it was the runt of the hatching that paid the price for the others to escape. Such is nature, and it insured the survival of the fittest.

The megalodon carried many scars revealing the mating ritual of its species, and also the fact that she was twice as big as the male. The bite marks, just below her ventral fins, marked the love bites of her suitors. None had survived the pleasure of fertilizing her eggs, as, the moment they had done their deed and tried to escape, she had killed them. She was not going to share a mate with the next female in heat!

She had dived to the great depths and won yet another fight with an octopus, biting off its arms one by one in great snaps of its jaws before dealing with its now harmless body. Its pilot fish had eaten well once again, and she had taken a rest in the calm depths while surgical fishes cleaned her wounds, both old and new, of infestation. She had stayed there for hours, slowly moving in circles to facilitate her breathing, mouth agape as the dentist fishes removed scraps of her last meal between her teeth or cleansed the gaping hole left in her nine rows of teeth by the battle, prior to the new teeth moving into place. Finally, a shudder told the little scavengers it was time to move on to another customer, and she slowly left the sandy circus that marked the domain of the carers and resume her patrol. As she climbed from the depth, she felt another big wave flow around her. There would be another bounty to reap from the coast when the sea retired.

Nonetheless, she stayed clear of the shallows, weary of getting chewed by the sea's teeth or getting caught it its jaws. It had happened to her as she was off the coast in another vast domain, hunting for her last mate. There had been that huge wave, and she had been thrown violently on the jaws of the sea, only to find herself high and dry as the wave had retired. Five times, she had been thrown on the teeth, before she had been freed by another wave, to find herself in a deeper but very narrow channel. The megalodon had managed to escape the deadly trap just before the tide turned and began retiring by navigating the channel to the open sea, but not without letting more of her skin and meat to the hungry sea.

She had found her mate gorging himself in a sea of food, and they had courted for a month before the male, reasonably assured he would not end up a meal for his partner, had consented to get near. The mating dance had been spectacular, for that she felt grateful: her offspring would be dynamic and able to fend for themselves effectively if they had as much to show as their daddy! His jumps, back flips, deep dives and double rolls clearly showed he was young, fertile, and full oh so full of himself!

The mating itself had been anticlimactic; the male's organ had penetrated her and, all eager to release his seed, the male had hooked himself to her. Spasm after spasm had travelled his body, as the female waited for her own release that would indicate she had her fill of semen for her needs. The male continued to orgasm, now totally oblivious to the growing fatigue that would spell his doom.

Suddenly, she tensed: the time was near! The male, too off in his pleasure to notice the change in his partner, continued on, literally masturbating himself on her. Another mighty release left him dazed, but suddenly a searing pain travelled along his body. The female had violently rotated on her side, virtually tearing his penis off, and then the pain increased to blackness, as he felt his body crumble under the powerful side-bite of the female.

The female had stored the sperm in seminal sacks, for use when her eggs reached the optimal size for fertilization, and had devoured the male mercilessly. After all, if she was to feed his offspring for two years, he might as well contribute to their growth by feeding her first. After that she had left the area, and following the coast, had circumnavigated the world several times. It was her third passage along that coast since these events, and she relished the warm waters and the hot breeze her dorsal fin could feel as she enjoyed the slowly setting sun's rays.

At first, she thought it was a cloud passing in front of the face of the sun, but its small size, high density and regularity told her it was something else, a bird flying low over her course. A mistake it would never repeat! But then, as she watched it, she realised that, if, indeed, it was a big bird, it was far bigger than those she had set her teeth into. It looked appetizing, and her hunting skills took over. She slowly slipped under the waved and, honing her skills, turned on her back so she could see the surface's light play. She used the shadow she could see from underwater to track her prey, following it as it slowly came closer to the surface, probably to hunt fish, her larder!

***

The Lord of the Sky, as she liked to call herself, was hunting, and getting hungry, hungrier than ever since she had hatched and eaten the nestlings that had been unfortunate enough to come after her. She saw a dark dense pack of fishes in a distance and began to descend toward the sea's surface. As she got closer, it seemed to vanish below the waves. She resumed her search pattern as she continued to descend. One hundred fifty feet, one hundred and twenty-five feet, one hundred feet, where was that damn school of fish?

Suddenly, a breeze from the sea brought her a whiff she had not smelled in years! Her favourite dish was upwind, and not too far at that! She veered on her wings and dived to gain speed! Food was waiting! Lunch was served!

The sudden change of behaviour from the bird caught the megalodon by surprise, but she adjusted quickly. She gained tremendous speed and, just as the bird was going to be out of her reach from its slow and laborious climb, she jumped vertically out of the water, slamming her giant jaws around the bird and swallowing it whole, even before falling back in the sea on her back.

The Lord of the Sky, distracted by her thoughts of a hot meal, completely missed the ripple that marked the speeding shark underwater. It never occurred to her that something could attack her from below in her own domain. When her sense of imminent danger kicked in, it was too late, and she found herself encased in giant jaws and swallowed alive, intact and, more importantly, totally surprised. She was furious! That damn fish was preventing her from eating her meal, for it went without saying that catching the food was mere playtime!

As the surface of the sea returned to its normal state, wiping any trace of the events that had occurred, two observers stared, mouth gaping, at the sea, commenting about what they had seen: Sitar and Timor.

***

Sitar and Timor left the Canary Islands taking to the sky again, slowly moving toward the interior of Africa. The collection of animals and insects on the Canary had been good, revealing numerous small animals, typical of restricted environments afforded by this type of habitat. Teleported to the Ark's special decontamination section, they were taken over by Elves, Humans, and the Royals. Those that needed washing and decontamination from radiation dust were soaked in fresh warm water or passed through a special field that captured radioactive elements or heavy metals. Others were healed, and every single one of them required some form of parasite control. The last stage was placement in stasis pods. Labels were apposed to the pods indicating species, source, and reference number to the Book of Life. Even the parasites were treated the same way. Parasites are an essential part of the cycle of life, and many contribute to their host species' survival by degrading essential elements that would not otherwise been available to their host. Plants, seeds, spores, insects, everything was systematically collected, with an objective to being able to recreate the habitat should this be necessary at a later date. As every hundred pods got filled, they were moved into the Ark Tessaract, as the boys had named the twenty-first one they had assembled. Life was being rescued on a vast scale. The flow of life coming from Harp and Thorsten had been constant as they crisscrossed South America. Their reaping had also included fish and reptiles, including alligators.

The two they did not bother with were the crocodile priests, and the orcs. Colonies of orcs had been found under the cover of trees, and for the first time, young orcs had been seen. Studying the orcs' infancy might have shed light on the origins of their behaviours, but Harp and Thorsten had other issues to deal with. Strangely, the orcs did not seem to bother the primitive humans that inhabited the forest, probably because they were met with these poisonous darts. A modus vivendi had been reached and each species stayed out of the other's hair. As for crocodile priests, a surprising alliance between the orcs and humans showed up: Harp and Thorsten witnessed the two groups cooperate to corner a priest party, the humans attacking from the ground while the orcs attacked from the trees. So much for the atavist aversion between orcs and humans: necessity made law.

"Well, maybe we should reconsider our view on orcs, Thorsten. Maybe, after all, they are worth the effort. Let's move up in the mountains. I have a place to reach."

"Maybe it is not the same species. The orcs here seem a lot smaller than those we are used to up north."

"I noticed. I also notice the humans are a lot smaller as well. I wonder if it is not due to the habitat. Being tall in a forest environment might not be beneficial. Anyway, we have a series of animals to pick up in the Andes, and a number of horse herds to pick up in the open plains, the Pampas. And a visit to Machupicchu is in order. We have something to recover. I will have to ask for help from one of our brothers for that part."

"What is it?"

"A crystal."

"A gem?" asked Thorsten, whose eyes flashed at the possibility of the value of a gem that might be big enough for his hero, Harp, to need help in carrying it.

"Sort of," replied, enigmatic, Harp, amused at the play of emotions he could see on Thorsten's face.

The two boys resumed their search and rescue mission, collecting species after species, and progressing ever deeper in the South America. Collecting the horse herds proved an easy task, as the Equine conscience had prepared the herds for their displacement to the Elvin kingdom. Soon, the grass of the Pampas no longer resonated under the hoofs of the horse herds. Bovines and other herds of herbivores were also reaped to the last individual, and put into stasis pods. The Ark Tessaract was becoming full, and there were still so much to recover, so, after a last sweep of the eastern section of South America, Harp returned home to ready a second and third Ark tessaract, of the same size as the previous one. One would continue receiving entire animals and samples, but the other would receive egg and sperm samples from animals, while a section would be reserved for seeds and spores. Fish and marine life would get its own tessaract in time, as the Aquarium was becoming as unmanageable as the zoo had been. Aviaries would also be planned in another tessaract.

***

The arrival of Paschal and Enron with the crystal they had recovered from under Stonehenge made sensation on the royals. Harp had arrived earlier that day from the Pampas to help settle the horses, and was elated at the news of the recovery of one of the crystal of Atlantis. The boys had been in the air for nearly six days to cover three thousand four hundred and some miles. The boys were totally shot and, after eating like two little pigs to replenish their energy, they took to the bed and slept forty-eight hours non-stop.

Meanwhile Harp had been down into the guts of Thebes and prepared it to receive an additional crystal. Harp and Thorsten had moved to Thebes to proceed to the cleaning up of a birth for the crystal. Tons of dust spilled out of the city, creating a dark cloud that could be seen from a hundred miles. It was like a new volcano had been born in Lava Flows. Once the dust had been removed, Harp began inspecting visually the connectors, and explaining to Thorsten what to look for. The process was painstaking, but Thorsten would have walked through fire to please Harp and became a veritable maniac at the task he had been assigned. His instincts at spotting badly polished gems came into play and Harp rapidly realised Thorsten's eye for defects and corrosion was unsurpassed. The work was rearranged to best put his qualities to use. Thorsten would inspect a freshly cleansed connection, and signal any defect; Harp would come behind and fix it, while Thorsten inspected the next connection. Once a batch of ten was done and the fix had time to set and stabilise, Thorsten would polish the connection until he was satisfied. Harp would then follow and proceed to a magical inspection. A perfect connection would give an interference pattern that would reveal any residual defect. Not once did Harp have to ask Thorsten to polish anew a connector. It took them seven days to finish the inspection and connection repairs. By then, Paschal and Enron were back on their feet, and ready to move the crystal into place and bound the crystal to the magical core.

But first, Harp and Paschal had to make sure all energy paths were off, so as not to create unexpected flux. While Enron and Thorsten watched them, they exchanged path information, verified that they had been correctly wired, and that the breakers were cut. Another week was required to verify everything, repair broken power lines, redo the connectors, and for Enron and Thorsten to repair them under the directives of either Paschal or Harp. Once this was done, the crystal was moved and settled into place, shining brightly within the darkened room from the influx of magic.

At some point, Thorsten again showed his sense of detail as he noticed something amiss that had escaped the three other princes. Apparently, as they were testing a power line, he noticed a cross-feed and what amounted to a spark on the line he was polishing. Careful examination revealed that the two lines showed badly insulated parts and that they sparked. That required pulling out the two lines and replacing the sheaths. Further inspections were called for and that would add more time. They first finished the pathway checks and the connection cleaning and polishing, before taking a break for a day. The next week was spent inspecting sheaths, and replacing eighteen of them.

"That is shoddy workmanship, Harp."

Figure 11: A binded Atlantean Crystal

"I know, Thorsten. I remember we hired some locals and trained them to speed the construction, but the natives didn't seem to take their work seriously."

"Nor did the inspectors, Harp. Shoddy workmanship can be expected from a large group of workers, but if the inspectors themselves do not do their part, it is bound to propagate," replied Thorsten.

"What you say is scary, Thorsten, but I admit you are very probably right. We will have to do a full inspection of the puzzle when it is possible. In fact, I think we need to begin a systematic inspection of this place before even continuing the assembly of the components. Proper alignment is, I believe, vital, but even if we are properly aligned, we may be in for trouble if the construction did not go as Paschal had made the plans. Before we move the crystal into place, I suggest we inspect the rest of the controls and the bin below us. We may be in for a few more bad surprises."

Paschal and Enron nodded their approval. After informing their family of their discovery, an inspection schedule was planned, under Paschal's supervision. The royals took to tracking every aspect of what had already assembled and verify every component for conformity to the plans retrieved from the Pharaoh's Library. Three long months were required for the whole process to be completed before the crystal could finally be moved into its berth. The test of the lines under full load revealed some more issues, but much less than what would have happened had Thorsten missed the sheared sheaths.

***

The megalodon had not been feeling well ever since her last meal. It seemed that the big juicy bird had not been so juicy after all, and it weighed on her. She tried to regurgitate it, but it seemed stuck down her throat crosswise. Swallowing food was a pain, and she had the impression of being torn from the inside. As she cruised westward toward the other side of Atlanticus for her selected birthing place in the Sargasso sea, where her progeny would find both shelter and food, she felt ever more sick. She tried to act nonchalant, but she knew if she did not get over that, she would be hunted down by others of her kind and devoured alive.

Finally reaching her destination, she used her last energy to release her younglings, and, too tired to even hunt for the runt of the litter, left her body drift in the northward-bound current. Normally, a parturient megalodon would swim away as fast as possible as the blood attracted predators to the birthing, but she was too weak to do so. The pain increased, and an involuntary spasm sent signals across the vast expense of the seas: A meal was to be had!

The megalodon trashed around in ever more pain, as she felt herself being torn from the inside. Just as the first of the guests to the feast came near and began circling to find a safe place to bite into the huge female without ending as food itself, an ugly thing burst out of a protuberance in the belly of the shark to shoot up toward the surface. The blood burst triggered a feeding frenzy by the now numerous sharks around the dying female, and it turned into a blood bath. The bird, using the confusion to his benefit, took for the sky before any shark had time to give hunt, busy as they were trying to eat each other while escaping the same fate.

As it emerged from the sea, the bird slowly gained altitude and moved out of reach of the ever more excited sharks, who kept jumping out of the sea to attack each other, some so intent on feeding to even notice what they ate was spilling out of their open guts. The bird moved off, fed up and tired of fish for a long while, and descended to a line of mountains it could see in the distance, in the setting sun. She had lost her hot meal, but vengeance had been hers in the end. Eight long days of eating relentlessly through the fish, burrowing her way into its guts, clawing away, and using all her arsenal to get out of the fish. At least she had fed to the point she felt full for the first time in years. Her wings trailed long bits of bowels, and her claws showed bits of rotting meat falling as she made her progress.

She moved to a group of volcanic islands slightly off the coast and used the hot updraft offered by vents to dry up and rest her tired body. After a period of leisure, hunger pangs again began to manifest and she reluctantly left the island. The warm current that bathed the island afforded for easy cruising and she decided to follow it up north until something better offered itself. The few days she had been filled had also triggered something else. She was getting close to being in heat, and another need seemed to come in competition with hunger: finding a partner. Her species being highly nomadic, they rarely crossed path except on the volcanic plateau it used to court and mate. Volcanism afforded the necessary updrafts for the rather acrobatic mating dance and coupling in midair the species performed, but her stay in the fish had made her lose her bearings and, until she could figure out where she was, the mating ground high up in the mountains that had seen her conception would remain elusive.

Unable to resolve the issue, she resumed her hunt. As she progressed further north, a westerly wind brought to her a smell she never hoped to find again. Veering hard inland she made for the origin of the smell, intent on getting a hot meal finally after waiting for it for so long. She flew over a coastal mountain range and made her way to where the smell originated. Oh frustration! The prey was hiding in its den. She decided to wait it out since she could smell more than one in it.

Intent on her meal, she became oblivious to anything in her environment, and that almost proved fatal. A giant bird, twice her size dove for her neck, with murder as its goal. The giant male easily twice her size had targeted the neck just behind the head, in order to sever the spine. But just as he was going to deliver the fatal blow, something made the female aware of the danger and she jumped left, just as the big male came crashing to the ground from behind.

***

The big bird had been patrolling its hunting ground when something strange had alerted it to a change a bit west of his current position. Dust was blowing from a region not known to produce much of it, and it smelled very strange. Curiosity had taken over and he had decided to investigate. He had found that strange-looking volcano and tried to make sense out of it. After spending a day looking at it from all sides, he returned home with some food for the female guarding the eggs, in the form of a rather sizable buck. He had returned on subsequent days, trying to make sense of what he smelled and saw. This was definitely a strange volcano.

On subsequent trips over the next few weeks, he had smelled strange thing inside the volcano, which, contrary to others he knew, never seemed to spew lava or, indeed, grow. Now here was that spiteful black cousin, looking at his toy! No, he was not just looking; he was hunting! Hunting on his turf! That would not come to pass! He gained altitude and making sure his shadow would not betray him, he took a diving plunge to kill the intruder, folding his wings like a falcon diving on a pigeon. Just as he was readying his jaws to take a bite and cut the spine, the offender moved out of the way so quickly he could not adjust his flight to compensate and he crashed into the earth, creating a mini-crater of twenty-two feet in diameter, and four feet deep.

The black bird lost no time on the ground and immediately took the air. On the ground, the opponent's size was an advantage; in the air she had it. She watched the big male clamber out of the hole it had dug when it crashed, look around and then, finally, up. A resounding roar of defiance came out of his throat, to which she replied in kind. An exchange of posturing and threatening calls were exchanged as the female taunted the male by flying just out of reach of his neck. Finally enraged, the big male took a big run and took flight, climbing up to meet the challenger.

The battle began in earnest, as the giant climbed up, his voluminous wings flapping violently to climb ever higher in the cloud-stricken reddish-blue sky. The black bird could climb higher, change direction faster, and, in the air, was the uncontested king. Nonetheless, the gold leviathan was not without some aces: he had longer reach, could glide better, and, in a dive, was able to out-speed his rival, although he had to begin pulling up earlier if he did not plan on smashing back on earth.

The female taunted the lumbering giant as they climbed out of sight of earth below, only their cries revealing their presence in the slowly reddening sky, as the sun rose ever higher over the eastern mountains. Thunderous clashes could be heard as, again and again, the two monsters clashed against each other, or passed the sound barrier in their effort to out-manoeuvre each other.

The dark one climbed high, way near where the sky turned the same colour as her skin, and dived at three times the speed of sound, trying to hit the gold speck from above, but it vanished in the rising sun's light, and she lost track of the male, only to be hit in the flank as she missed her target by a mere wingspan. She went tumbling sideways, and barely managed to recover in time to pull out of the uncontrolled dive the hit had put her in. As she moved to regain altitude, a sudden darkening alerted her that her foe was above her and diving for her back. She did a double barrel roll, just barely escaping the claws of the male, who overshot and skimmed the mountaintops, triggering a series of snow and ice avalanche before gaining altitude anew.

The gold juggernaut knew his limits and, although he had not been involved in a fight from time immemorial, he still remembered his days of battle with the Blacks, before they had been expelled for their refusal to conform to the Covenant of Amnesty. Their numbers were few, but the Blacks were to be held accountable for most of the incidents between other intelligent life forms and the group to which the history of the little people associated their different species. The presence of that Black female was not to be accepted, and constituted a casus belli for a renewed war with them. He would not, under any condition, let the Covenant be broken. As he climbed further up, he saw the Black one dive for him from above, and turned as sharply as he could right in front of the incoming mass, bracing for the broadside collision. He was not surprised and compensated. He lost only a couple of miles of altitude as he slid sideways from the impact. His feet grabbed the black from above, along the spine, and he took a dive for the nearest mountain face, as the Black twisted back and forth in an effort to escape the claws that held it firmly in place.

The looming rock face only served to galvanise her efforts, but the Gold tightened his claws and literally used her body to plough the mountains' knifelike summits. It did not do much to her skin, but it was mightily uncomfortable. As another vertical face loomed ahead, the Gold dropped her like a piece of dirty laundry and she smashed into the granitic cliff face, triggering a giant avalanche of snow, ice, and rock that buried her, if only for a few minutes. The Black one disengaged from the fallen and still falling rocks and ice with fury, sending huge boulders flying in every direction, and again took to the air, intent on vengeance.

The Gold behemoth had taken these minutes of respite to climb as high as he could, still well below the range of the Black bird, but still amply sufficient for his own plans. As the Black one moved below, the Gold made sure his shadow stayed behind his foe, and, as it turned east to begin its move across the lava flows, the dive began.

The Gold male pulled its wings tight against its body, and gained speed well in excess of five times the speed of sound. The atmosphere glowed white-hot from the friction at the wings' leading edges and tips; this gave the impression a meteor was falling to earth. The Gold impacted the Black violently and both rammed down into the earth a mile below, creating a crater over six hundred feet in diameter and five hundred feet deep, filled with molten rocks. Yet the two continued to battle on the ground as the rock lake began to cool, splashing each other with the magma as they tried to bite each other. Both climbed out of the pool and the Black one more furious than ever, again took to the sky, followed, a few minutes later, by the Gold male. The aerial battle resumed in earnest.

***

Harp had decided, that day, to take a break from their preparations in Thebes for the next crystal and took a break away in Eloise, taking turns playing with Ian and Sven. The distant thunder they could hear did not bother them the in least, as a rainstorm would be welcomed to clear the sky of its perpetual shroud of red dust. Paschal and Enron had returned to Asia to explore the high mountains and the vast lands found along Siam and Siberia. Maybe something had managed to live in these vast deserted areas. Sitar and Timor returned to Africa, intent on exploring its equatorial regions and finding the centaurs. Williams and Yamato returned to Antarctica in the hopes of finding another repository. Another team was formed of Dunbar and Greywolf to search for a repository up in the high north of the North American continent, which could be the equivalent of the one, found by Williams and Yamato in Antarctica. The only royals left in Eloise apart from the two boys were Harold, Annabelle, Samson, and the two dwarfs, Amethyst and Diamondcutter, still deeply depressed.

The alert came as a shocker to the royals when, about an hour before sext, an elf came running into their room to tell them that a major meteorite seemed to have fallen south west of their position in the direction of Lava Flows. Barely had the announcement been made that the earth shook underfoot, confirming that the event had occurred not too far away from them.

Harp teleported immediately to Thebes, wanting to see for himself the area, and worried something bad might have happened to the College of Magic or the wards. Not that anything could happen within the realm of normal physics to these places, but normal physics had been tested hard lately! Without even thinking about it, Harp included Thorsten in the teleportation, so used by his presence now that he felt lonely when the dwarf prince was not near him.

The two boys materialised within the room they had been preparing for the next crystal and quickly began climbing out of the basements of Thebes for the battlements. What appeared on the far horizon, barely visible in the distance, was a battle of gargantuan proportions, a gold dot and a black dot seemed to hurl at each other, colliding with extreme violence and deafening noise. The repeated shattering of the sound barrier by the opponents were creating shimmers in the atmosphere, and the presence of a huge crater some miles west of Thebes revealed the cause of the tremor. Another, smaller one, less than two hundred yards from the battlement's main drawbridge revealed it was not the first nor, probably, the last of these craters to dot the landscape. In the distance, even if the mountains were several miles away, huge clouds of dust testified to titanic events occurring within their limits.

Harp, worried about his tessaracts, decided to walk from the drawbridge to the closest one, some three miles east of their current position, and, after a quick inspection, to visit Nestor and see how the College was faring given the events. Maybe the mages could fill in the gaps of his knowledge about what was occurring in front of his eyes. Something told him that the use of magic might attract unwanted attention.

***

The battle of the leviathans moved further east, nearer to the Gold's nesting grounds, which lay across the river, and this infuriated him even more. He lashed out at the Black female, now intent on killing her rather than just drive her back into exile. The problem with that plan was that nothing the two beasts could throw at each other could ever harm them. This is why the Blacks had simply been exiled, not exterminated. Nothing magical or physical could ever harm these beasts. They had but one enemy, and that enemy was not a weapon, but a feeling, of which neither the Gold nor the Black had an understanding.

The sound of the battle resonated across the flows, bouncing off the mountains, rattling the earth, shattering rocks and raising havoc all across the southern part of the kingdom. People hunkered down, wondering what else would befall their family after the past years! They had enough of unexpected events! Harp and Thorsten cautiously waded between boulders strewn haphazardly across the lava fields, trying to stay out of sight, while evading flying rocks that were sharper than razor blades and seemed to explode everywhere like grenades.

The boys made it to the first tessaract, which was still empty, since the displacement of the contents at the Tunnel's caves had been postponed for a while, priority being set to saving life rather than material good. Everything seemed in order; the magic field withheld remarkably well under the deluge of rocks, and the sepulchral silence that greeted the boys was a welcomed rest for their ears.

As their steps echoed in the vast void, they moved across the expense. They knew they would not be making much gain outside, as the ratio of a thousand to one brought their progress to three yards for the three thousand they had to walk, but, at least, they were temporarily safe from falling rocks. The boys emerged at the other end, and again found themselves in the open, faced with the horrendous trek to the dome that protected the College of Magic in the distance. They could hear the battle in the distance, getting closer to them by the second, and decided to crawl from boulder to boulder rather than be seen by the sharp eyes of the two animals. Better be slow and safe than be found out in the open, figured Harp, not knowing why he felt so uneasy.

***

The Black Quetzalcoatl¹¹¹¹ ("It is a feathered snake, an Aztec divinity well known for its inextinguishable thirst for human sacrifices."), whose forefathers had terrorized the Aztecs before their banishment by the other species of its kind and the establishment of the Covenant, gained altitude again, reaching the upper limits of the stratosphere as its enemy circled below. It was protecting something below, probably at the centre of the circular flight path! The nest, it had to be the nest! The beast tried to find the entrance from its position but, however hard it looked, it could not find it, unless it was hidden below the river and emerged in a cave only accessible by a narrow passage, in which case the family of the Gold could only be small, maybe at most a couple of eggs and a clutch nanny.

Unable to hold back its rage anymore, the black bird dove again to attack the Gold and ram into it for another time. It pulled into a tight, long and straight arrow, barely leaving the tip of its wings extended to prevent rotating wildly. It reached speeds in excess of seven times the speed of sound, and targeted the head of its foe, in an effort to break the spine. As the sun had kept rising and it was nearing sext, the shadows of the two behemoths were reduced to a mere speck on the ground below, difficult to distinguish due to the dust the ongoing battle had raised.

Just as the smaller one was to reach its goal, the Gold put the brakes and rolled on its back, hitting the Black female hard on her underside, the most fragile part of the species. The pain was such that the female temporarily lost her bearings and was hurled toward the earth with an added boost that brought her speed in the vicinity of nine times the speed of sound. She slammed in the ground, unconscious and unable to brace for the impact. Such pain, she had never experienced in her life! Nonetheless, her invulnerability to material impact saved her life and she clawed her way out of the new crater her impact had caused.

The Gold bird was pleased with himself. The trick had worked. She had been lured and his instincts were still honed to battle. As he watched the Black's effort to climb out of the hole she had created on impact, he descended on the ground gently, and waited in ambush. She would have to run to gain speed and he would be waiting for her, as her head would come over the edge of the crater.

***

Harp and Thorsten had witnessed the impact in the distance and felt the heat it generated as the Black bird had entered the Earth at tremendous speed. They could see the gold spec fly over the plume of rocks that marked the impact point, and gradually descend on the ground, until they lost sight of it due to rolling hills.

The two boys resumed their trek towards the College, weary of being spotted, but being reassured by the presence of the hills shielding them from view. They reached the College's wards and quickly passed inside, to be met by a college in full effervescence. The uproar was such that they went unnoticed to Nestor's study, and knocked. After getting a 'come in!' they opened the massive oak door and entered.

"Hello, Nestor! Do you like the new doors I made for your office?" exclaimed Harp, all chirpy, even if he knew the events outside were serious.

"They are much better than the old ones. Thank you. But I'm sure you are not here for a promotion on magic doors? After all, Harp, you do not need publicity. Your stunts speak for themselves."

"No, this is not a courtesy visit. Have you been following the events outside of the College, right at your doorsteps?"

"Yes. It started at sunrise and had been going on ever since. Since the sun rose around an hour before prime, this battle has been going on for seven hours and is still raging on."

"Have you managed to identify the opponents?" asked an always-practical Thorsten.

"I have been able to identify a Quetzalcoatl, or feathered snake, in the small black one. The much bigger one, gold, I suspect is of a parent family. They seem to be both invulnerable, which does not bode well for this area if they continue fighting overhead. I do not know why it is claimed to have feathers, so far I have seen none, but given the speed of fly-bys, it is hard to judged. I was looking at what we know of the small one, which is next to nothing. It used to live in the region of Mesoamerica occupied by the Aztecs, a long lost people whose bloodthirstiness rivalled the orcs'. The Quetzalcoatl was their main divinity. Yet, when the migrants from across Atlanticus collided with the Aztecs, they never did see the fabled flying snake, as if something had forced its migration elsewhere. What could have forced that migration, disposed of sufficient power to force them to move? This is a total mystery."

"Maybe it lay dormant, in hibernation? After all snakes do hibernate in caves," Thorsten suggested.

"You may be right, young one. By the way, we have not been introduced?"

"Oh, sorry, Nestor. This is my friend Thorsten, prince regent of the Dwarfs. Thorsten, this is Grandpa Nestor, Great Grand Master of the Order of the Light, Dean of the College of Magic."

"For what's left of the Order, Harp, you could have skipped that part. It's my biggest shame. Anyway, glad to meet you, Prince Thorsten," replied Nestor, extending a hand to the young man. Thorsten, unused to this ritual, nonetheless did the same.

As the two hands met a pure whitish-blue spark jumped from Thorsten to Nestor, which lasted but a fraction of a second but shook the old man.

"Ah, you have found another one! You are welcomed within the brotherhood of mages, Thorsten."

"But I have no magic! I am not a mage."

"Ah, you have not been granted access to your powers yet, I see. But do not worry; you are very close to gaining them. From the colour of the spark, you will be one to deal great power, Thorsten. Use it wisely."

"I will, Great Grand Master, under the guidance of Harp!"

"That's what worries me!" exclaimed Nestor, laughing heartily. "But call me Grandpa, like Harp does."

"I have lost my grandpa to treachery, and you are not my grandpa, but Harp's."

"Grandpa is a term of endearment. I am no more the blood grandfather of Harp's than I am yours. Nonetheless, it makes me feel good to hear him and his brothers call me that in my old days. At least I have the impression I still have a family. My son betrayed us and lost his mind and the few magical capacities he had for it. He will never have children, too focussed on playing with wooden cubes to even wipe his own ass and go to the bathroom on his own. The only thing I am grateful for is he will not live much longer. The loss of his magical core has led to a very accelerated aging, and his thousands of years are catching up on him at an astounding rate."

Nestor's story brought tears to Thorsten, who hugged the old man, telling him all would be fine in the end. As both wiped tears, Nestor asked Thorsten to tell him how he became the Regent of his People. He knew his dad, Diamondcutter, and his mother. Something terrible must have presided over his reaching the condition of Regent so early.

"Haven't you talked to Ferriday?" Harp asked, curious.

"Not since we moved, Harp. We suspended our weekly consultations since I was overworked. And I figure Ferriday did not attach much importance to the events since he doesn't necessarily know everything about the College and my dealings with the outside world. The Dwarfs were on a need to know basis, and even you were kept in the dark about them lest you tried to jump the gate. And sometimes, it is better not to know too much as we try to fulfil expectations not what must. This is why I worry so much about prophecies. They are too easy to break because people want them to conform to their wishes."

"I worry about that, but I also hope to get tips as to what to look for."

"It would be better to stay open to all options rather than follow a path we think is best, but which may lead to a dead end. Knowing too much may paralyze in a critical moment, and force a path that leads to disaster. Be natural, Harp, be who you are! That goes for you, Thorsten. Follow your instincts, follow your heart, they will never fail you."

Nestor procured a glass of apple cider for the boys, and waited. As the boys finished their glasses, he again took the initiative and turning to Thorsten, looked at his sorrowful ice-blue eyes.

"So, Thorsten, how about sitting on my lap while telling me your story?"

"I better lean on the wall, grandpa. Sitting down with a war axe and a miner's hammer is not fun. Their handle tends to stick where it hurts the most, and getting up is a pain."

"I noticed these impediments. Yes I understand your problem. Come lean against the wall there, we will be able to watch outside while you tell me your story."

The three moved to a window overlooking the outer courtyard, where they could see the sunlight reflect off the body of gold bird in the distance, as it lay waiting patiently near the impact crater for the emergence of his enemy. Thorsten began his story, relating the events in random fashion, too moved still to have put any order in them. By careful prodding, and the help of Harp, the whole picture emerged, from the murder of Thorsten's grandfather to the constant hazing Thorsten had to endure, to the final betrayal of Opal and her execution by Timor, to the erasing of the Royal Records by Harold's decree, and the sorry condition the events had left Thorsten's parents in; and last, the proclamation of the Regency by right of Liege Lord with Thorsten as regent.

The day wore on, and the boys were invited to partake to vesper's feast, and to stay the night at the college, which they gladly accepted, after Harp had informed his dad of the developments. For the first time, Thorsten slept in the same bed as Harp, and had a dreamless sleep, as he felt secure and loved. The two boys slept face-to-face, wrapped in each other's arms and legs, more tightly interwoven than vines on a tree. Morning found them in the same position, nose-to-nose, and peaceful.

The watch instituted by order of Nestor overnight had not revealed any changes about the opponents. The Gold still waited for his opponent to show up and the Black one seemed to still be busy trying to dig himself out of the hole.

***

As the boys were having their breakfast in the refectory with Nestor, Thorsten asked a question that took Nestor and Harp by surprise.

"There is one thing I don't understand, Nestor. Why haven't the beasts attacked the college, or for that matter the city, Thebes is it? They stick out like warts on the nose in that otherwise desolate place! It's not like they were hidden in mountain valleys!"

"You mean you see them?" asked Harp.

"Well, doesn't everyone? After all who can miss buildings that scrape the sky?"

The two mages looked at each other, stunned. Harp immediately teleported outside of the ward dome to look at it. It completely masked the contents, giving the impression the ground was unoccupied, natural, intact, and more important, uninhabited! Harp could see the dome only by using his mage sight, and even then it shimmered, making details blurry. He popped back beside Thorsten, smiling from ear to ear!

"Thorsten, you will be one heck of a mage! You see right through a camouflage ward! No non-magical being can do that! You are getting close, so close! It's incredible! As for the city, it is visible for all, but the dragons seem to ignore it."

"What dome? There is nothing above us!"

The two mages gasped in shock. They quickly teleported to the roof of the college with Thorsten, and Harp asked his to describe what he saw.

"I see the mountains east and west, the green carpet of what I suppose is a forest just beyond that silvery band of mithril. I see the tiny gold speck of the bird, lots of craters everywhere, a huge pile of precious stones laying on the ground there, the city over to our left, and the college. Is there anything I should see?"

Nestor and Harp whistled, and Harp hugged Thorsten.

"It's not what you cannot see that impresses us, Thorsten, it is what you can see and should not be able to. That huge pile of jewels is our test run at moving things into the tessaracts. You should not be able to see them except from very close and then, only by using mage sight! Even I cannot see them! I know where the tessaracts are, but I have to bump my nose on them, well almost, to see them."

"But that's impossible! The visibility is clear except for that pesky dust!"

"Clear? You do not even see the shimmer of the dome above us that hides this place from others?"

"No, what dome are you talking about?"

Another appreciative whistle escaped the two mages, as Nestor explained that even he saw a shimmer when he looked outside, telling him he was under a magic ward.

"Is this a bad thing?" asked Thorsten, worried.

"That remains to be seen, Thorsten. All depends on what type of ward, and how you will interact with them. Colliding with an invisible wall of energy might not be your favourite waking call!"

"Nestor's right, Thorsten. I teleport across the barrier, but most mages cannot succeed that feat. Nestor has yet to master simple translocation from point to point, and crossing a ward isn't as simple as I make it seem."

"Simple translocation? You make me feel inadequate!"

"Oh, sorry, grandpa!"

"Don't worry, Harp, I'll get even! Anyway, I doubt you will have any problem with translocation once you grow into your powers, Thorsten, all this from the height of my inadequacy," replied Nestor, winking at Harp.

The three returned to the refectory to resume their breakfast, and Nestor, after asking Harp's and Thorsten's permission, introduced the Dwarf prince, as a mage, much to Thorsten's embarrassment. His red face was taken as shyness and modesty, and endeared him to all that saw the tiny figure at Nestor's table. Had they known how deadly that double-edged axe was and how effective the Dwarf prince was with it, maybe they would have had another opinion? Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

***

The morning was spent casually strolling the campus as Harp introduced the dwarf prince to its prominent features. An hour before sext, a young apprentice came running to get Harp.

"Great Grand Master Harp! Nestor requests your presence at his office! There is a development!"

Materializing an ewer filled with icy water aromatized with lemon zest, and a cup, Harp gave the items to the short-breathed apprentice, who was grateful. In a blink of an eye, Harp teleported to Nestor's office, taking Thorsten with him.

"What's the problem?" he asked as he appeared in the office.

"The gold speck has vanished after a big cloud of dust shot up in the sky. We have no idea what it means."

"We cannot wait to find out with these beast around. Who knows what catastrophe they may cause! I'll go there to see for myself!"

"We go there, Harp! I will not let you risk your life alone, even if I feel very small in my boots. I meant what I said to dad, and nothing, absolutely nothing will stand between me and my vow!"

Harp knew how stubborn the Dwarf prince was, and the lightning he saw in his blue eyes told him he had no chance whatsoever to change his mind. He shrugged, admitting he defeat. Nestor was surprised, as he had expected some thunder from Harp, but Harp might know something he didn't so he kept quiet. The two boys began to walk toward the ward, and Thorsten walked right through it, again surprising Harp and Nestor, that had accompanied them to see them go. A bit of translocation brought Harp beside Thorsten, and they began the long trek east toward the last know position of the golden bird.

***

The female had been stunned for a few hours, and, as she woke up from her comatose state, she began trying to dig out of the almost vertical hole she had dug during her fall. Things were not going well, as the nature of the bedrock was layers of lava interspersed with compact and thick layers of compressed volcanic ash. She had to move in a circle around the hole, tearing the rocks with her claws, and digging out the ash like a mole, compacting the ash and lava she used to fill the hole by jumping on it repeatedly until it no longer moved.

Gradually the hole widened into a conical shape, and she rose up as it filled. Her fury rose at the same rate as the bottom, and by the time only a few yards was keeping her from reaching the top it had turned into cold hate. She realised the male would be waiting for her when she emerged, at her most vulnerable. What could she do?

Night had long fallen, and the lack of moon or stars made the hole pitch dark, yet she continued her incessant work, ever aware that the big male was close. She decided to prepare a slanted exit at the opposite position she could smell her foe, and, keeping quiet at that end, continued to give the impression of working hard near the waiting mass of her enemy. The work near the male was interspersed by quiet time so as to give the lurking male the impression she was growing tired. These quiet periods were used to pack ash by rolling on them, creating an exit ramp. She returned near the waiting male regularly to dig out ash, and scrape lava rocks that rolled down, masking her true work. She finished her ramp at lauds, but she was not satisfied. The ramp would let her out, and was barely wide enough for her slender body.

She began undermining the male's position from right under him but thought better of it. She tried to remember what would be the best way for the mastodon to walk from his position to her exit ramp, and, having figured out the best path from memory, dug a tunnel that would lead her to just below the layer of lava that covered the surface. She then removed additional ash and spent the early morning hours to fill in the hole some more. A thin layer of lava now covered a narrow, but very deep hole that would collapse under the male's weight lengthwise. He would be unable to move and defend or extract himself from that precarious situation! She filled the tunnel entrance with rocks and covered it with ash as the sun rose and revealed her work.

The male had been keeping watch all night, but the situation for an effective surveillance was far from met. He felt reassured as the noise from the female continued over the night. As dawn peeked over the eastern mountains, he saw the female hard at work packing ash over yet another layer of lava. The eastern rim of the hole was still invisible in the shadows of the mountains, and he failed to notice the narrow ramp leading out. As tierce came to pass, the male noticed the female begin to run for the other side of the crater and begin to climb a narrow ramp that had escaped him! Furious, he stood up and ambled as fast as he could around the rim to intercept the female before she managed to exit the trap! As he reached a narrow passage between two hills, the ground gave way under his weight, and he fell into a narrow hole. Fortunately for the big male, he had left his wings open to lighten his impact on the ground and they stopped his fall. The roar of joy he heard from the rim and the smell told him the story: The female had laid the trap for him! Nonetheless his situation was dire! How could he get out of that situation?

The female was sure he had fallen down and did not even bother to go check on the result. She took off on foot, wanting to find the nest and destroy the eggs! Since aerial inspections had revealed nothing, ground search was in order. Vengeance was hers!

***

Harp and Thorsten walked slowly, making sure they did not stand out in the desolate and barren rock field. An hour before sext, they managed to reach, undetected, a rise overlooking the last known position of the gold bird. It was nowhere to be seen, but huge footprints clearly indicated where the animal had strolled off.

They began to follow the tracks, even more carefully than before, and, using every possible crack and nook of the terrain, made their way further. At first they heard a roar then saw the gold bird sticking out of the ground, apparently trapped, held in place from falling further by his giant wingspan. It seemed to be crawling forward and trying to dig steps in the surface in front.

"It's so beautiful, Harp! Look at all these gold scales, these beautiful ruby ones, and the magnificent emerald of the other ones!"

"Yes, Thorsten, it's a dragon! The two 'birds' we saw fighting were dragons!"

"We got to help it! It's stuck!"

"How? Dragons are immune to magic, Thorsten. Remember the Book of Life!"

"There must be a way. Let's get closer, maybe we will figure out what to do!"

Without waiting, Thorsten climbed down the hillside and walked resolutely toward the trashing dragon. Harp couldn't do anything more than follow him down. The closer they got to the beast, the more impressed by its size the boys became. It was indeed a magnificent specimen of a Gold Dragon, in the prime of his age, and also very desperately trying to get out of its precarious situation. The dragon totally ignored the puny humans that walked around his wings and moved toward his head. Humans were negligible quantities in the life of creatures his size. He saw them stop out of reach, as if he had been interested in their puny morsels!

***

The black dragon had been roaming around the area she had seen the gold male trying to protect, but nothing could be found either from the surface, from the air, or indeed, from underwater. Frustrated, she was reminded of her hunger by noises in her belly, and suddenly remembered the humans she had smelled the previous morning. At the memory, her stomach grumbled loudly again and she began walking west, too tired to fly off.

As she neared the rise overlooking her trap, she became aware of the strong smell of the male again, but, tiny and persistent, the smell of humans! Salivating profusely she began to crawl low on the ground, using all the hiding the terrain could offer. She was in no mood to play with her food today. She peeked over a mound and saw two tiny humans barely out of reach of the jaws of the gold male. These ones were either unconscious of the danger or braver than most, but it did not bother her. They were both looking at the male and away from her. She began to slowly move down, the vibration of the ground masked by the efforts of the male to escape the trap.

The male dragon saw the sneaky black female close in from behind, and frantically tried to escape, adding to the ground's vibrations. Realizing his error, the male suddenly stopped moving completely, hoping the little ones would feel the earth shaking behind them.

At first, the violent movement of the Gold Dragon made the boys move back, even closer to the approaching menace, but his sudden halt of any movement intrigued them. They moved slowly closer, weary of another bout of frantic movements. The silence was only broken by the wind's gentle howl across the jagged rocks, as the black dragon had stopped moving, waiting for another tremor to hide her next step.

A rolling rock from his left alerted Thorsten to something, and he turned to look at it. Slowly, he moved his eyes and saw, in the periphery of his vision, the low-lying black dragon eyeing Harp and him.

"Harp," he whispered, "do not move a muscle! The Black dragon is just behind us less than fifty yards away and is watching us!"

A shiver went down Harp's spine. This was Thorsten's moment of truth! Would he be up to it? Was he ready?

"Thorsten, listen to me carefully! I know you are afraid, but you need to get over that or we both perish! I cannot do anything magical against the Dark Lord. This is your ordeal. May you fight with valour, dignity and love to victory! I will have to play dead to be invisible to the dragon, and only you can face him. Bata is powerless. Do what you must, my love!"

Harp slowly, very slowly let himself down on the ground, his face up and looking at the frightened Thorsten.

"Remember your vow!"

Thorsten, galvanised by these words, slowly turned to face the Black Lord, took out his axe and hammer, and, in a voice he had no idea he possessed, defied the dragon:

"You shall not pass sext!"

As the call resonated across the desolate plains to rebound over and over in an unending echo, Thorsten stood, camped legs wide above Harp's prone body, defying the black dragon lord.