The Legend Of Black Eyes

I felt a warm tingle run down my spine as she activated her essence and sent it into the flower. Its red petals turned to pink then to white. They turned from white to earth brown then started crumbling.

I kept an eye on the flower even when Raiya stopped releasing essence. I watched as its remnants floated in the air and changed. I followed the remnants with my senses then directed the broken pieces toward it. I willed some essence into my hand and watched as the pieces turned to dust then flew away with the wind.

My essence, mixed with the remnants of the spell Raiya had used, floated in the air after the spell ended. I sensed it change until it became pure energy. Then it vanished among all other, invisible things.

"It"s gone," I told Raiya.

"Again," she barked.

I groaned as I saw that look in her face. "We"d been practicing this vision thing since dawn," I said. "I still don"t see whatever you want me to see in there."

"Again," she barked.

She took another flower then activated her essence. I took broken pieces and got ready to do my part. We practiced all morning, skipped lunch, and kept working until the sun disappeared. When Raiya finally decided to call it a day, I fell to my knees.

My head throbbed. My clothes had gone wet from sweat. It felt like I had been running all day without taking a break. My eyeball felt sore. I"d been trying to open my third eye in order to see the time energy that flows in the air, invisible.

The third eye, as it turned out, is my senses mixed with my actual sight. If I manage to merge the two, I"d be able to see more than the remnants of spells in the air. I"d be able to see the energy that causes one spell or another to activate. I"d be seeing the elements.

"We"re doing something wrong," Raiya said as I sat on my knees, trying to calm my breathing.

"How about you explain this vision thing one more time?" I said. "Maybe I didn"t get all the instructions."

"No," she replied. "There"s something else. Tell me again about the last time you were in mortal peril," she said.

"It happened a few days back, against Wanda," I replied. "Why the sudden interest?"

"You said the Fragment spoke to you," she said. "You said you made a pact with it."

"Yes," I said.

"Tell me more about this Fragment. What does it look like?" she asked.

"It looks like a snowflake," I said, "with six hands and a circle running across all the hands in the middle."

"How many hands do you get to fill?" she asked.

"How do you know about that?" I asked.

"In case you forgot, there was a time when people called me the Time Witch," she answered with a heavy frown. "Now answer the question."

"Three," I said. "Did you have a Fragment too?" I asked.

"No, and I consider myself lucky that I don"t," she replied.

"Lucky?" I said. "According to you, this is the most powerful Fragment there is."

"It is," Raiya said. "That"s why it hasn"t appeared in the Holi Wars for centuries, perhaps millennia."

"Why did it appear now then?" I asked. "I swear, every time I think I"m getting closer to an answer, someone comes along to push me into an ocean of questions."

"Minsec, the Primordial Lord of time, decided to retire from the Wars," Raiya said. "n.o.body knows why or how that happened, but the gift of lord Minsec had stopped appearing in the Holi Wars. Everyone thought that time had no interest in the Wars anymore. This year, however, things have changed, and I wonder if it"s Minsec"s doing."

"What does this have to do with our training?" I asked.

"The fragment feeds on time energy," Raiya said. "Time energy exists everywhere, if you manage to see it that is. You spend essence to cast spells. In order to refill it, you meditate, eat, sleep, or bathe in the Aether Spring. The more time you spend refilling your essence and refining it, the more energy you store in your fragment, is that correct?"

I nodded.

"That"s what makes the time fragment difficult to master and merge with," she went on. "You need to spend a tremendous amount of time to finally make it yours. Minsec, however, used to help his champions in the a.s.similation process."

"Wait," I said. "Are you telling me that Minsec might not have given me the Fragment?"

"If he didn"t give you the Fragment…" Raiya said. "It must be an ancient one, lost or stolen. It would be like you"re holding a rusty weapon and trying to scrub it clean…"

She"d usually go into interminable monologues when she had to sort things out. I let her mumble and think while I processed all the information she"d given me. Minsec retired from the Holi Wars, but I received the Fragment anyway. If it wasn"t Minsec who"d gifted it to me, then who was behind it? Dif…

"What did the Fragment sound like?" she asked, s.n.a.t.c.hing me away from my reveries.

"Sound? It didn"t sound like anything. I just felt what it wanted from me," I said.

"Like psionic conversations," she said. "And it told you to fill three hands before receiving a revelation?"

I nodded. "It promised I could unlock its full potential after the revelation, but I"m never to try and unlock the other hands by myself."

"That"s an advice I would take seriously," Raiya said. "If the thing is giving you advice, then it means it likes you. Besides, ancient beings like formality, you have to respect it no matter what."

"That"s when and if I fill in three hands," I said. "I can barely fill the first one."

"That"s the problem I"m trying to solve here," she said. "I also remember you saying you talked with some old man."

"Oh, yeah, Dif," I said. "He"s the one who first explained the Fragment powers to me."

"An old man gave you a Fragment…" She started pacing around. "An old man told you how to use your powers… Did that old man also warn you about the Church attack back then?"

"Yes," I replied. "How did you jump to this conclusion?" My eyelid narrowed as a horrible theory started forming in my head. "Why do I get the feeling that you"re about to uncover something I really don"t want to hear?"

"What does the old man look like, Myles?" she asked. She sounded erratic. She suddenly started looking right and left, as though she expected someone to come out of the dark and attack us.

"You"re starting to freak me out here Raiya," I said as the sinister thought started taking shape. "Why are you acting so paranoid all of a sudden?"

"Answer the d.a.m.n question Stalwart," she hissed at me. "What does this Dif look like?"

"An old man," I said. "Gray hair. Gray beard. He looks like a grandpa who"d always welcome you home with a warm smile and great stories of adventures past."

"That"s it?" She asked. "That"s all you have for me?"

"I dunno," I said, scratching my head. "He"s got one of those faces.  What do you expect me to say?"

She jumped at me and put her hands around the back of my head. She put her forehead against mine then hissed. "Does he look like this?"

An image of Dif flashed past my eye. He was smiling. A little blond girl held on to his pinky. He was wearing a black suit with a dark brown vest. A gold pocket watch peeked from the vest"s pocket. Beside the fancy clothes and the arrogant att.i.tude, the old man was a spitting image of Dif.

"Who"s that man?" I asked.

I wished that Raiya wouldn"t answer the question. I just wished everything to stop then. I didn"t want to know who that man was. – Or rather, I knew, I just didn"t want to face it. – Raiya tried to speak but her mouth wouldn"t open.

When it did, her lips quivered then bounced as they parted. There were sweat drop slowly trickling down her temple. Her hair barely moved against the strong evening wind. It floated in the air, wiggling like a jelly fish underwater, but the movement was imperceptible. Even the wind that previously lashed against my face had now dampened.

I looked up and around. Raiya and everything in my immediate vicinity had slowed down, almost to a complete stopped. About few feet away from me though, everything was moving in an orderly manner.

There was a guard going on his usual patrol about a hundred feet away from us. He was walking by as though nothing had affected him. Then I saw a blurry crimson lighting zap through the air above him. Another zap followed… Then another.

With every step the man took, a zap would follow. No, scratch that. With every move he made, every breath he took, every place his eye pointed at, crimson lightning zapped above him. The air got suddenly colorful. Thousands of streaks flew above me. I felt overwhelmed and terrified at the same time.

The night sky was no longer this dark mantle that veiled the world. It was replaced with lightning streaks of all colors, shapes and thicknesses, zapping across each other in a disorderly fashion. I focused on the area of effect I had accidentally created. There were streaks all around me too.

They flickered as they floated midair. I felt drawn to a particularly fat one near an ancient looking oak tree. The power it exuded was terrifying, beautiful. Its energy imprint resonated with mine. It felt like food, and I was starving. How could I resist something so enticing, so irresistible?

I put my hand the streak and felt its energy try to invade me. I didn"t fight back. In fact, I welcomed it, let it travel through my conduits and collide with my own essence. As soon as the foreign energy touched my own, they merged. I felt instantly invigorated. The fat streak immediately vanished and got inside my conduits.

I felt it go around my body multiple times, and at tremendous speed. My energy kept building up as it did. All the essence I wasted during the day came back. I felt rejuvenated, awake, renewed. The energy kept building up though. My conduits started expanding, then began cracking.

It felt like being full, but still forced to eat more. I instantly willed the energy I built up to move toward the time Fragment. The crimson energy kept travelling through my conduits at lightning speed. It didn"t look like it was going to stop any time soon either. The more it traveled the more energy I acc.u.mulated.

The dark thought that had formed in my head earlier vanished. A newer, happier thought replaced it. I was producing enough energy to feed the Fragment and further my a.s.similation. The golden circle around the snowflake was shining brightly. The first hand I had been entrusted to feed with essence was also reaching its limit.

Yet the crimson streak didn"t slow down. I redirected the energy toward the second hand, then the third. They were all full, and the streak had just started slowing down. I swore under my breath. Perhaps I"d bitten more than I could chew… I was sweating profusely. My heart beat faster. My muscles started aching, and my bones felt like they were about to shatter.

My conduits expanded beyond their limit. There was no way for me to fill in the next set of hands without another session with the Fragment. I couldn"t attempt speaking to the Fragment while this monstrous energy was wreaking havoc inside me either. My body started shaking. I could no longer bear the excess energy that was building up inside me. I had to do something about it, or risk exploding.

In fact, it felt like I was about to explode any second now. The time energy zapped inside me, building up more and more essence. I could see my veins glow under my skin. I felt my body temperature rise, and my skin started crumbling like burnt parchment. I was about to disappear. I could feel it.

Then the unexpected happened.

My time fragment whirred into action. It started turning on itself as though it was a wheel. A dark cloud appeared before me. It looked like a tornado, and I was staring into its center. I felt its force draw me in. Then my feet departed the ground.

I felt like I was freefalling. All the air suddenly got knocked out of me. Images flashed past my eyes as I fell through a dark abyss. I saw me train with Raiya. I saw me complain as Raiya was ordering me to go on.

I saw the sun reappear from the western horizon then travel all the way toward the east. I saw myself sleeping, groaning as I twitched left and right. I saw me stab a piece of steak with a silver fork while Elsa argued loudly with Hilda. Then my fall slowed down, and I found myself sitting in the dining hall.

"We still don"t know how to defeat Harwell," I heard Elsa say as the world finally got back to normal. –Well, as normal as it could get in these circ.u.mstances anyway.– "Breaking into his Fort is suicide."

The Fragment inside me slowed down then came to a complete stop. I was panting and I felt extremely dizzy. An uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu overwhelmed me. I remembered being here, although it felt like I was here for the first time. It all felt bizarre and awkward.

I knew what Hilda was about to say next. I even knew that she and Elsa would argue all night long until Raiya comes up with a solution to our problem. I felt hungry though, and I got busy devouring roasted chicken and juicy steaks fresh out of the grill.

"Pray tell me," Raiya and I said after a while. –Her, out loud. Me, silently.–"Do you really believe Hartwell needs two carriages to transport a single helm?"

"What are you insinuating?" Elsa asked.

"Don"t believe what everybody tells you," I said instead of the time witch. "If it"s a trap, it only makes sense to send us after empty carriages. I"d do it if I were Hartwell. He"d have us where he wanted, and without a chance to s.n.a.t.c.h the prized helm."

"s.h.i.t…" Elsa swore. "How could we be so gullible? This changes things…"

Raiya shot me a quick, worried side glance. "How far away are you from?" her angry voice boomed inside my head.

"A day, give or take," I answered.