Chapter...the next one. ~ Confusion

Charity, Levi, Clesseath, Marina, Cless, and Bonnie stared at the goblins pouring into the dim cave. Clesseath let out a blood-curling roar that sent a large percentage of the goblins scurrying back the way they came. Levi, Cless, and Marina charged forward, screaming with rage at their departed friends and seeking revenge on the living pieces of filth attacking them. Charity stood by Bonnie, a strange expression on her face, and swayed slightly with her sword gripped in her hand. “Flint,” she whispered. Bonnie’s eyes grew wide when she recognized the look in her friend’s eyes.

“Levi! Marina! Cless! Get over here and stand behind Chair!” her voice was urgent and they moved to her instructions without question. “Whatever you do, don’t go in front of Chair!” They watched, curious, as Charity’s fingers turned white. Her face was still on the goblins and the exit Flint had used. She re-gripped her sword, permitted an evil smile to spread across her features, tilted her head back, and let her voice erupt in a throaty sound they had never heard before. Then she ran full-throttle at the cave exit filled with thorns, her sword cutting down any and everything in her way or remotely close to her. Without a thought, her weapon impaled three goblins that had foolishly rushed at her.

“Stay close at her heels!” exclaimed Bonnie. The group rushed to keep up with the maddened girl. Clesseath offered to carry Bonnie, an offer she gladly accepted considering her shoulder was wounded, and they flew directly above Charity. The light of the cave turned green as Clesseath’s emerald hue bounced off the crystals. The people on the ground were rapidly approaching the hole bordered with thorns and thistles, and the goblins were thinning out. Most of them had figured out that this group was not to be messed with, but those stupid enough to lag around and attempt to prove their bravery were struck down by Charity. If they attacked from behind, Levi would cast a spell that turned their heads around backwards. Marina and Cless took care of any side attacks with their arrows. Charity either didn’t see the thorns or didn’t care, for she ran right through the opening still wielding her sword and chopping down bushes in the process.

Emerging on the other side of the hole, everyone blinked in the sudden sunlight and found themselves in a deep, green forest. Charity was chopping away at trees in vain a few feet off. Clesseath had trouble squeezing through the narrow exit but he made it through by breathing in deeply and then letting out a puff of air once he was out. The green tint lasted a few seconds before the light stopped playing on his emerald. Charity was growing tired. Peering through the trees, she discovered she could see the ocean. Unfortunately, Flint had long since escaped and taken Will and Render with him as well as their dragons. She sighed and knelt on the ground, staring at her friends with distant eyes.

Clesseath landed and Bonnie slid clumsily off his back, falling onto her rear and refusing to stand up again. Levi spoke consolingly to Clesseath and stroked his shimmering green neck. Marina approached Charity hesitantly and sat down next to her.

“Hey…” she said, resting her hand on Charity’s arm. “It’s ok; we’ll get him next time. And we’ll get him twice as hard.”

Charity’s pained, green eyes focused on Marina and she offered a weak smile. “I hope so.”

Cless paced for a moment and then addressed everyone present. “That was really unusual.”

“No kidding,” said Levi. Cless shot Levi a dead serious look that wiped the smile from his face.

With narrowed eyes, Cless continued, “The last time I saw that stone it was in the hands of some pirate. How Flint knew about it and where he got it is a mystery.”

“Not quite,” corrected Charity. “We borrowed the stone from its owner a while back and used it to open a portal in a volcano. How it got into Flint’s hands from there is a mystery.”

“Er…not really,” interjected Bonnie. Her right hand clenched her left shoulder, and dark blood covered it in a sickening way. “I took the stone off of the pedestal after Render disappeared the first time and have carried it with me ever since. Flint must have taken it from me when he captured me or it could have fallen out of my pocket. There’s nothing mysterious about that.”

Charity’s eyes widened and she hastily got something out of one of Clesseath’s saddlebags. With fumbling fingers, she unwrapped some white cloth. “You’re bleeding,” she stated.

“I’ll be fine,” Bonnie protested. Charity shook her head and removed Bonnie’s hand from the wound. Blood covered half of her arm and beads of the dark red liquid had run down as far as her fingertips. The small hole in her shoulder made by the sword was black and made Charity’s stomach lurch. Something was very wrong.

Levi peeked over Charity’s shoulder. “That’s a magic wound. It needs proper care. Its most likely poisoned and infected by now; I’ll be surprised if you still have control over the movements in your arm.”

Bonnie stared at him. “Gee. Thanks.” She sighed. “All I need is some chocolate and I’ll be fine. Do you know if there’s any magical way to heal it?”

“I wouldn’t mess with it. Will or Render might know…all the more reason to get them back,” said Levi.

Bonnie frowned and said, “Back to Flint…why does he want Will and Render? There must be some reason he took control of the riders and their dragons.” Charity wiped some of the blood off of Bonnie’s skin and began to bandage the wound. She shook her head, not having any ideas.

“They would make good weapons,” commented Marina.

“True, but there’s got to be more reasons than that,” Levi said.

“Remember that cave? The one that can only be opened by three dragons?” asked Charity. “Is there anything else like that? Something that can only be opened by dragons? A kind of filtered force field?”

Cless snapped his fingers. “Yes! Some spells can be set to let only certain beings through! You can do it anywhere…I’m not sure a designated place exists; you can cast the spell anywhere you choose.”

“So,” started Marina, putting the pieces together as she walked back in forth and created trenches with her dark boots, “What’s you’re saying is Flint is using Render and Will to open a portal that can only be opened with two dragons and their riders?”

“As far as we know,” said Levi. “There can always be another reason unknown to us.”

There was a short, thoughtful silence, quickly interrupted by Charity.

“Can you move your arm?” she asked, nervously packing away her healer’s equipment and stowing it on Clesseath’s handy saddle.

Bonnie stared at her arm and grimaced. “No,” she muttered, slamming her other fist into a nearby tree. “I hate this!” she exclaimed. “I can’t move my arm, Maya is gone, and we don’t know where Render and Will are. Thunder!” she exclaimed, getting up and raising her arm to thump against a boulder in frustration. After a while of venting to the rocky wall, she sighed and slumped down onto a rock. Levi and Cless exchanged glances that suggested they were communicating telepathically.

“Now you know how I felt when I broke my wrist,” said Charity, a grim smile on her lips.

“Yeah,” said Bonnie, smiling back. “You’re amazing, Chair.”

Marina was standing up with her eyes closed and her head tilted to one side, shaking slightly. She opened her eyes and said, “I think they’re going that way.” She half-raised her hand in a southern direction. Her hand dropped to the side and her brown eyes narrowed. “But I’m loosing them…they’re getting farther away.” A blank look registered on her face. “I can’t sense them. Any of them.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “They’re gone.”

That, of course, was not entirely true. “Gone” usually refers to someone dead, lost, or permanently unreachable, and the riders and their dragons were only two of these three things. In fact, at this very moment, both Render and Will were awake and in the brig of the Dark Trepidation. They moaned as their vision slowly cleared and they found themselves on the grimy, wooden floorboards of the cursed ship.

“Ugh,” Will mumbled, sitting upright as he spotted a rat sharing his cell. He discovered his wrists were handcuffed with grobdenite and his ankles were likewise chained. Render stirred opposite of him and sat up, resting his back against the splintered, wooden wall. He tried to rub his head but his chains prevented him. He frowned and discovered he couldn’t shoot spells and cause things to burst into flames.

“What happened?” he asked Will. Will shrugged and looked clueless. He stared at the dingy walls.

“Well, whoever’s house we’ve ended up in this time has no taste,” he said with a straight face.

“Will…” said Render in a thick, groggy voice. “I don’t believe we’re in a house. Houses have nice tea sets and curtains and lots of pretty things in them.”

“You don’t say…that would explain the water leaking through the walls and that fishy person standing over there,” replied Will, proud of his deductive reasoning.

“Aha! They’re awake!” called a fish-man outside of their cell.

“Excellent,” replied a cool, calm voice laced with ice. Shadows fell across the floor as the person whose voice this belonged to came closer. Will and Render stared at each other and then back at the emerging profile. Their minds were beginning to recover from being invaded and they could think more clearly. A laugh answered their unspoken question; a chilling, grating, deep, threatening sound.

As one, they questioned the identity of the individual. “Slyth Brandy?”

“Well, we can’t just stand here like a useless pack of brainless monkeys,” said Levi, clambering onto Clesseath’s back.

“Well, where are we going to go?” asked Charity.

“The direction of the ship—south. We have to follow them and find what they’re up to, and I’ve a hunch the treasure is that way anyway,” answered Levi. Marina nodded her head and turned to face Bonnie.

“Where’s the Golden Dawn?” she asked.

Bonnie waved her hand in a general downward motion. “On the other side of the island, where we first came off. If you and Cless come with Chair and me, we can reach the spot in about half a day.” They decided to call it a plan, so they go ready to go and took off in that direction. The sun was setting as they came through the last cluster of trees and beheld the Spanish galleon, trimmings and accents glinting gold in the dying gaze of the sun. By the time the stars were swimming both above and below them, they were sailing in the direction Marina had last sensed the ship going.

“They won’t be able to outrun us for long,” claimed Charity, patting the wheel she was steering. Clesseath had taken Levi ahead of them as a scout to see if he could catch the pirate and their friends first. Cless stared at the retreating silhouette of a dragon and his rider, eyes thoughtful.

Bonnie tiled her head to one side, taking in the contemplative look on his face, and ventured to ask, “What’re you thinking?”

He shifted positions but his eyes monitored the dark figures, now only dots on the horizon. “I’m remembering the visions from the Whirlpool of Knowledge,” he spoke in a voice of one lost in thoughts.

Marina, who had been listening, commented suddenly, “You didn’t have one!” Bonnie turned to look at her, puzzled. “Cless didn’t have a vision,” Marina explained. “And Levi…” her voice faltered as a greater realization hit her. “He…he had power. And a small object” For a moment they were silent as each let their own presumptions play out before their eyes.

“But not all of them are true. At least not yet. Render hasn’t been in a hall of mirrors. You haven’t run down a hallway…and the dragons are still…alive,” said Bonnie, wincing slightly as painful memories of Maya whipped out and stung her.

“That means we still have a chance of stopping them,” said Cless.

“For now,” Marina muttered under her breath. A thick feeling of thoughtfulness settled over them, and they sat there for a while, thinking in silence. Suddenly, Marina snapped her fingers and leapt up in excitement. “That’s it!”

“What? Where?!” shouted Bonnie, hoisting herself up and peering critically around the ship.

“No, no, not here. Listen,” said Marina. “The hall of mirrors! Flint is taking them to a hall of mirrors! Like in the vision! Cless, do you know of such a place?”

A shadow crept over his face. “None is more well known than the Mirror Forest of Enlemoon. Strange creatures, people, bugs, and other beings not meant to walk upon the face of this earth dwell there, in the confusion of many reflections; waiting for a poor soul long since lost and insane to stumble upon them. They’re merciless and insist upon terrifying their prey before slowly devouring them.” He made a sickened face. “I can’t imagine why he’d want to go there.”

“Did you say…mirror forest?” asked Charity, trying to picture trees and shrubbery, bushes and vines made out of shimmering mirror material. She and Bonnie had switched turns at the wheel because Bonnie refused to be useless.

Cless nodded. “It was made in the days of old, when magic and lore were as common as the moon and the sun. There are many legends and theories as to how and why it was created, but all know that Enlemoon was never the same after.”

“So it’s outside?” Charity prodded. He nodded again. Charity’s excitement rose as she tried to re-arrange the facts in her mind to make sense. “Do you think maybe light could affect the stone? I don’t remember anything about that, but we only looked it up in one book and that was a long time ago,” she wondered out loud. “I mean, in a hall of mirrors, light would be reflected everywhere!”

“You might have a point there, Chair,” said Marina. “Maybe Levi would know. We should ask him once he returns from scouting.”

Levi was, at this moment, carrying on a conversation with Clesseath about beetles. They were soaring over the ocean at a blinding speed and could barely see the tumbling waves beneath them because their flight was so swift. “No, I wouldn’t want to be a dung beetle. I’d be a goliath beetle,” said Levi, out loud. Clesseath did a twirl and Levi gripped the saddle tighter, grinning and letting out a howl. The emerald dragon rumbled something in response, and Levi made a face. “You can’t be a cannibalistic beetle! That’s not fair.” There was a pause and he listened to his friend’s response. “No, you can’t be a beetle-eating bird either. Actually, you can be a bird. I’ll be a cat.”

The argument went on and on, until Clesseath was a wizard and Levi was a dragon. They realized how foolish the topic was and laughed. Unfortunately, they had been so entranced in their conversation they didn’t notice the darkening sky nor the approaching vessel. Their laughter died and the slow feeling of seriousness surrounded them. They were alone, approaching a ship, and it could rain soon. If it began raining too hard they would have to look for land because the wind and rain would sweep Clesseath off-course and make his wings heavy. The dragon swooped down to hover as close to the raging waves as he dared, unaware of the danger lurking beneath the shadows of the sea, in the murky depths, that was quickly lurching upwards and towards them.

Render and Will stared at their old enemy, disbelief evident in their faces. The man stood before them clothed in a crimson, velvet jacket with gold buttons, a faded cream shirt with ruffles and laces underneath, thick, black boots, brown pants, a belt laden with many weapons, and a large feathered hat. His square chin was lifted slightly as he looked over them, and his thin lips twisted into a taunting smile. “’Ello, captain,” he rumbled in a mocking tone.

Will stared at him then ran at the bars separating him from the man he so wanted to strangle. Slyth laughed as the fish-guard drew his sword and Will instantly drew back, silently fuming at the captain. He rattled his chain and stared at him as if that could hurt him. Render glared at the man also, but he made no move.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a low tone.

“You would want to know. As if I would tell you.” Slyth drew closer to the grobdenite gate, peering at them like someone trying to see if they had made the right choice in something already purchased. “A bit scrawny,” he remarked, his dark, unfathomable eyes roaming over Render’s features. “A bit short-tempered,” he commented about Will, next in line to be observed. Slyth drew back and reported to the fish-man, “With a bit of work, I think they’ll do.”

“Do for what?” questioned Render. He still sat with his back against the wall in a shadow.

Slyth smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Shut up,” the captain commanded, then turned on his boot heel and left with a flurry of his splendid coat.

Will turned to his friend. “What do you think they need us for?” The brig seemed empty and foreboding, the shadows lengthening and light dying in the dawning of day.

“I don’t know,” admitted Render. He repeated more softly and to himself, “I don’t know.”