| | | | I approached the vast pyramid. Zan’ne had told me to defeat some manders and free their souls in exchange for a reward. Since Daniel was off helping Merle organize, I was stuck with Eric and my dog for the day.
The inside of the pyramid was magnificent. A gigantic stone statue stood in the center, holding a brazier filled with blue flames. It kind of represented some Egyptian pharaoh back on Earth, but it was a Krokotillian instead.
“Zan’ne had told us to go to the Royal Hall, right?” I asked Eric, who was busy drawing in his spellbook.
“Errrrriiiic!” I shook him and he dropped his pencil.
He looked up at me with a smile on his face. “Who do you think this is?” He turned his spellbook so it was facing me.
The drawing looked exactly like me! It had my hair, eyes, nose, mouth, everything down to my faint freckles and that small patch of light brown hair on top of my head. The Orthrus barked at the photo. He probably thought it was me.
“Why does that look like me?” I was kinda weirded out that he drew me.
He shook his head. “That’s not you. That’s the prophecy child from a millennium ago. Denise Icebane. She defeated the duo that use to threaten the Spiral. The Dreamers.”
I raised an eyebrow. “The Dreamers? Who the gods were they?” The Dreamers sounded like a funny name, so I was interested.
“The Dreamers, mind you, were the strongest wizard children ever to be born. They defeated Merle Ambrose once with one Dark Sprite, for crying out loud!” He sighed. “But Denise Icebane…she defeated them. She also had a companion named Aldin Starriver, who was a Death wizard. Nobody knows what happened to him after the battle. He just disappeared.”
I nodded. “Well, I’ll ask Merle about them when we get back. Let’s get going.” I scratched my head. Why did Denise Icebane look so much like me? Was she related to me somehow? Was I a copy of her? I shook my head and focused.
Eric was already halfway down the corridor, sitting at a corner and waiting for me. I hurried over to him, my feet making echoes throughout the hall. He stared at me with annoyance. “Why are you so slow?” He asked.
“I’m not slow, I’m just—” I heard a loud whistle, and a horse appeared out of nowhere.
“Hop on,” Eric said. He patted the seat behind him and smiled. I stared at him.
“There is no absolutely no way,” I started climbing onto the horse, “that I will ever hold onto you.”
He smirked. “We’ll see…” He clicked his tongue and the horse bolted down the hallway. Statues of royalty zipped by as we raced through the dimly lit hallways.
“E-e-e-eri-i-i-c!” The horse was bouncing everywhere, so it was bumpy and hard to speak. “Slow down the ho-o-o-rse!” I dug my nails into the sides of the saddle to steady myself. It didn’t help much, but it steadied me a little.
Daniel
Helping Merle organize was a pain. We had thousands of files to go through. But the work all paid off. He gave me 10,000G and a new spell. I’d never even heard of Wild Bolts. I don’t think I was supposed to learn it now, but learning higher spells earlier has its advantages.
As I was walking out of Merle’s house, I bumped into these two adults who were Ice and Death Wizards. Their names were Denise and Aldin; Denise looked surprisingly like my Sabrina, but as an adult. She could be her twin sister or something. And the weird thing was, she had that same patch of brown hair that Sabrina had…
Sabrina
After about thirteen minutes of rocks falling on my head and breaking all of my nails, I decided to hold onto Eric. I didn’t feel like getting injured, so honestly, I had no other choice. I quickly wrapped my arms around Eric. For a Life person, he was probably the hottest guy ever, temperature wise, because my arms felt like they were on fire. I bet Daniel would be jealous if he saw me now. I rested my head on Eric’s neck and wished we should just get the mander souls and get out!
And of course, just when I was starting to enjoy riding a horse, he pulled on the reins and the horse stopped. He hopped off and my head fell flat onto the saddle.
“Agh, gods!” I rubbed my forehead and sighed.
“You okay?” Eric called up to me. He was rummaging through a wooden chest and picking stuff out.
“Reagents…gold…stuff…” Then he gasped. “Mander souls! And three of them too!” He exclaimed.
“Really? We find them that easy?” I sighed. “That’s highly unbelievable.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’re such a smarty pants, Brina. Calm down for once.” He stuffed the mander souls into his pocket and looked up.
“DON’T CALL ME BRIIIINAAAAA!” I screamed and attempted to slap him, but instead I watched him freeze up into an ice cube.
I gasped and was about ready to put myself in the hospital for what I did.
“Eric!” I hit the ice cube with my fists. “Eric! Are you still alive?” I continued hitting it with my fists, but added the affect of my feet too.
I had made no progress shattering the ice block that held my friend. Maybe if I said some crazy words like Daniel, I could get him out! I began the incantation unsure, but got the hang of it later on.
“…sed unleash vim tempestatis duobus dominis!” I finished the incantation and lightning shot from the sky. A shadow of a man and a cloud appeared in the smoke.
“HOW DARE YOU SUMMON ME, WIZARD! WHO ARE YOU?” The man’s voice boomed. The walls began to shake and the cracks filled with electricity. I staggered back and shocked myself on the walls.
“Ow!” I shouted. My fingers were sizzling. I smelled my flesh being burned off, and believe me, it didn’t smell too pleasant.
“Agh, that burns…” I moaned and clutched my hand.
The cloud man looked down at me and he waved his hand. The smoke cleared, revealing a bearded man holding a lightning bolt and wearing a purple toga.
“You’re Zeus!” I exclaimed.
He nodded. “YES, I’M ZEUS. BUT EVERYONE REFERS TO ME AS ‘STORM LORD’. I DON’T GET WHY THEY CALL ME THAT. JUST CALL ME ZEUS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD …” He looked at me closely and gasped. “YOU’RE AN ICE WIZARD! HOW DID YOU SUMMON ME?” He shouted.
“Maybe if you stopped yelling, I would tell you.” I retorted.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry about that. My loud voice was on.”
“Well, I heard an incantation from a Storm wizard named Daniel Everheart. He’s only a Journeyman, like me. He was trying to summon you early so he could have advantages.” I brushed off my clothes. “I didn’t know what it was. I thought it could unfreeze my friend over there,” I pointed to Eric, “because I need to get outta here. So can you help?”
Zeus smiled. “That’s an easy unfreeze. And not many wizards have the power to freeze objects like you can. In fact, I’ve only seen two in my whole lifetime! You and Denise Icebane!”
I nodded. “So how do I unfreeze him? A magic word?”
“Just say ‘Shatter’ and he’ll be out in no time. Try it now.”
I walked over to the ice block and placed my hand on the ice. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, and it shined like a diamond when I made contact with it.
I swallowed and took a deep breath. “Shatter…” I whispered.
At first, nothing happened. I sank down to my knees and looked up at the ice.
“I couldn’t break it…” I felt my face get hot and a tear roll down my cheek. It fell onto the ice, and then it happened.
The ice shattered, and showers of ice pellets the size of golf balls flew everywhere. I shielded my face with my hands to avoid going blind. I peeked out from behind my fingers just in time to see Eric fly out of his ice dungeon and head down straight for me. My eyes widened and I tried to scream, but I lost my ability to even speak. The Shatter spell had taken all the energy out of me.
Eric landed flat on me, his head connecting with my stomach.
“Agh!” I yelled, and then lost my breath.
Eric looked at the remains of the ice and then at me. “Maybe you could save the world someday, Sabrina!” He chuckled and helped me up. I sucked in air and clutched my stomach.
“Can’t…breathe…” I sucked in more air and leaned on Eric for support.
“We better, uhm, get those mander souls back to Zan’ne, dont’cha think?” He shrugged and put on an embarrassed face. I nodded, still clutching my stomach.
“If we’re going to get anywhere, you better climb on.” He whistled and the horse appeared once again. It neighed with happiness and pawed the ground. He climbed on the horse and helped me on. I wrapped my arms around Eric’s waist, and he clicked his tongue. The horse neighed again and bolted off down the hallway.
We turned the corner, and when the horse hit the ground, I heard a faint click.
“Eric, stop the horse! I heard something!” I yelled.
Eric slowly pulled the horse to a stop and looked back at me. “What is it?”
“I heard a clicking noise when you turned the corner.” I pointed to the lowered stone in the ground.
“Well it’s probably nothing but a—!” He was interrupted by a dull rumbling noise that seemed to be getting louder.
“Eric…I think you triggered a trap…” I looked back and saw rocks coming this way.
“RUUUUN!” We both screamed. Eric kicked the horse in the side and it bolted down the hallway.
The rocks were quickly gaining on us.
“Eric…if you could go faster maybe we wouldn’t die!” I shouted. He looked back and then at me.
“Use your powers and—!” A giant chasm opened up in front of us. We weren’t directly in front of it, so we could probably jump it!
I snatched the reins from Eric and pulled down. The horse neighed in delight and jumped.
When it jumped, everything had felt like it slowed down, and everything was four times slower than before.
I looked down and saw carcasses of dead animals and a large purple coffin the size of a queen bed. I looked back up, handed the reins to Eric, and held on to his waist again.
We hit the ground with a loud jolt and I flew up off the seat. I saw light coming from the second hallway down, which we were just about to pass.
“Eric!” I yelled. “The exit! Go!” I tried to use my freezing powers to slow the rocks down, but had no such luck.
Eric pulled the reins toward the exit hallway, and we raced down the corridor. The rocks started falling on the cave entrance, which made Eric panic and let out a huge yell.
“Agh!” He screamed and pulled back on the reins.
“No!” I yelled. I grabbed the reins from him and clicked my tongue. The horse looked at me, a new fire in its dark brown eyes. It let out a howl and its eyes flamed. The horse charged toward the rocks and lowered its head.
“Is it going to charge through?!” I yelped.
“Probably!” Eric braced himself against the horse’s neck.
The horse charged through the rocks and we landed on the carpet outside the pyramid. Everyone was looking at us as if we were crazy.
Eric fell of the side of the horse and onto the carpet covering the stone floor. I pulled the horse to a stop, even though it wasn’t moving that fast anymore, and slid off right next to Eric.
“You still have the souls?” I asked him.
He turned toward me and slid his hand in his pocket. He pulled out the little, wriggling pouch safe and sound.
I took it from him and raced out of the pyramid.
“Hey, wait up!” he called after me.
“These are rare mander souls, wizards. How did you find these?” Zan’ne asked us.
“Oh, you know. The Typical Way: battling!” Eric said, and winked at me.
“Well, okay then.” Zan’ne took the souls and poured them into a pot.
“Now I can find out who you really are,” Zan’ne told me.
I tilted my head. “Who I really am?”
Zan’ne nodded. “Yes. No other wizard has ever captured these rare souls, no matter how hard they tried. And so they never found out who they were.” Zan’ne stirred the liquid in the pot and it turned light blue, the color of ice.
Zan’ne reached for a bowl on the shelf and scooped some of the liquid into it. He sloshed it around and stuck it out to me.
“Stick your finger in there, please.” He said.
I stuck my finger in the liquid and hieroglyphics appeared. His eyes widened and he said, “It can’t be…” He looked at me with wide eyes.
“What did it say?” I asked.
“Y-you’re an Icebane…the prophecy child…You’re one of the Chosen Three!”
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