The Warlock's Shadow

Forged in Fire and Darkness

“Sasha, do you know anyone who can translate the book Crowley gave us on the first day of school?” I asked. I dug the small black book out of my bag and thrust it into their chest.

“Oh um, yeah maybe one person now that I think of it,” they said, taken aback by me shoving the book at them. “My Grandmother probably could.”

“You need to ask her as soon as you can. It’s really important,”

“Why’s it so important?” Lisa asked.

“Because,” I whispered, drawing them closer so no one heard. “I think this book might have belonged to Blight.”

“What?” Sasha shouted. The cafeteria went quiet at their shouting.

“Shh,” I whispered loudly. The cafeteria went back to its normal dull murmuring.

“Why do you think it belonged to him, Alex?” Lisa asked.

“Well, you know how I said that Ms. Nephinea said that Blight had a book?” They both nodded. “I think Crowley might have given it to us.”

“Why do you think that?” Lisa asked. I started to clam up and I bit my lip. I could only hope that my friends would have my back.

“What’s wrong?” Sasha asked.

“Well, remember the other week when Mr. Roland had me do that test?” I filled them in and told them everything that happened and what led up to Mr. Roland’s disappearance as well as the giant circle that he had me draw, the black mass in the center. Sasha handed me the book back so I could flip through it and I pointed out the same circle in the black book.

“Whoa, Alex, this is serious,” Lisa said. “You better keep it down or else you might get in some big trouble,”

“I know, that’s why I haven’t said anything until now. It’s been kinda eating at me for a while honestly.”

“I’m glad you could tell us,” Sasha said. “We’re your friends. You can tell us everything.”

“Yeah, we’re here for you,” Lisa said as they both put their hands on mine as we shared a short moment with each other.

“Hey, Alex,” Sasha said. “You don’t think that Crowley could be behind some of this do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s super mysterious, dresses all in black, always lurking and popping up without a sound, then gives you this black book with weird stuff that shouldn’t even be in a bookstore.” I mean, Sasha did make a compelling argument. He did have a sinister aura about him.

“Should we call the authorities then?” I asked.

“No, we don’t have any actual evidence,” Lisa said. “For all we know he could have had the book for years not knowing what it was and picked it at random from a shelf deep in his store. You said it yourself, Sasha. There aren’t many people who can read Fae. And I doubt that some random human would be able to decipher Fae.”

“I suppose,” Sasha said disappointedly. “It’s just wishful thinking, you know?”

For the rest of lunch we postulated our own theories as to how this book came to be in Crowley’s possession while Sasha confirmed that their Grandmother could translate the text.

#

The following day Ms. Nephinea wanted to check on my progress with my darkness magic to actually help me control it and to look into Essence Weaving more. Her training was more intense than Mr. Roland’s if that could be believed.

“Do it again,” she said. “Summon as much darkness as you can in front of you.” I was sitting on the ground with my legs crossed, and my hands open, palms up, on my knees with Nocturne around my shoulders. Ms. Nephinea’s own dragon, perched on her shoulders, was a brilliant emerald green that matched her eyes with darker green spines down her back.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I tried to think of all the darkness and shadow I could imagine coming up from the ground. I could feel Nocturne looking around and chirping. Though I couldn’t understand him yet, he seemed to be offering encouragement. I gave some grunts of concentration and frustration trying to summon more and more.

“Good, now hold that level of intensity,”

“Easier said than done,” I struggled. We’d been going at this for a few hours already non-stop. I was mentally exhausted and I had formed a killer headache. But despite it all I kept up the intensity she wanted. Slowly the gross, sticky tar-like feeling inside me started to grow. I grimaced as the power or corruption or whatever it was, started to intensify and settle in my mind like a parasite. The longer I held it the more intense the disgusting feeling of power started to fill me. I noticed as the power inside me got greater, it became easier to maintain the amount of shadow and darkness I had summoned. The weird sticky tar feeling became easier to ignore.

“Alex, let up some.”

The feeling kept coming and it actually felt good. Why should I ignore this power? It was so easy, why not do more? I increased the power further. I half opened my eyes and saw the entire courtyard was almost completely consumed in darkness. It almost felt peaceful.

“Alex, stop this,” Ms. Nephinea shouted. Nocturne chomped down on my neck.

“Ouch,” It broke my concentration. I opened my eyes and saw all the darkness. It quickly started to evaporate and fade back into the ground. “What happened?”

“You started to lose control and give into corruption is what happened. Here,” she said. She snapped her fingers and a first-aid kit materialized in front of her. She caught it and took out a square of gauze and handed it to me. She tossed the kit in the air, snapped again and it vanished. Probably back to wherever she procured it from.

“I lost control?” I said as I rubbed my neck. I pulled my hand away and saw a handful of blood. I took the gauze and held it to my neck. “Geeze Nocturne, did you have to bite so hard?”

“Yes he did have to bite that hard. You were completely unresponsive. And again, yes you were losing control,” she said as she kneeled down next to me. “Darkness is a very difficult thing to master, Alex. Normally mastering an element takes years and years, but the quicker you master your own the better. And the less likely you will be corrupted by it.”

“When you told me to hold, I felt this black stickiness inside me that made me feel sick but I could ignore it eventually and then it felt good.”

“Corruption and power go hand in hand. The corruption plants its seed and lets you feel raw power. It’s like a drug, it gives you a taste. Once it has you hooked, it becomes an addiction. Then, obviously, corruption can take over. The humans used to have a saying ages ago: “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. So you can’t give into power. No matter how attractive it feels.”

“Okay, I think I understand. Can we try again?”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, Alex.”

“Please. I need to try.” Reluctantly she agreed and I got back into position. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate again. I used my will to summon darkness and shadow again.

“Good, Alex. Now, again, maintain that intensity.” I did as she asked. I felt the tar-like feeling again but did my best to push it back. The longer I held it back the harder it pushed back against me. “That’s it, now form those shadows into a sphere. See it in your mind’s eye.”

I imagined this dark ball forming in front of me. I could see it condensing together in my mind. The tar pushed back hard into my mind trying to take over. I pushed back, thinking of what Master Elowyn said, ‘Darkness doesn’t just pull the light away. Sometimes darkness can lead you to the light’. Remembering that I imagined my mind in a steel trap to keep the tar away and focused on what I was doing, and finding the light.

“Alex.” I heard Ms. Nephinea say but unintentionally ignored her. I think I finally got the hang of it. I felt almost at peace as I felt the sphere made of shadows coalesce in my mind.

“Alex, look,” I opened my eyes and saw what Ms. Nephinea was talking about. I had made a perfect sphere of darkness floating about three feet off the ground in front of me. It was so dark it looked two dimensional.

“Wow,” I marveled. “I did that?”

“Yes. You did,” She praised me. “I’m so proud of you,” I smiled and my face flushed. Nocturne trilled in triumph.

“So what, did I master it already?”

“Oh goodness no, this is only the first exercise. But this is great progress,” We stopped training for the day. We both thought it would be better to end on something positive.

As I started to gather my things the corruption still tried to attack my mind. My amulet began to glow brightly in its original green. Something that felt like a migraine overcame me but felt much worse. I fell to my knees holding my head. Nocturne squawked and dropped off my shoulders and stood in front of me and attempted to speak in a way I’d understand. My fingertips began to tingle. I pulled them away to look and saw the very tips of my fingers were beginning to blacken. But the blackness would ebb like a tide. It would grow then fade, over and over not extending past my tips. My eyes widened in a small panic as the pain in my head intensified and I grabbed my head again. It felt as if it was going to split and two and my hands holding either side was the only thing keeping it together.

“Alex,” Ms. Nephinea ran over to me seeing what was happening. She placed her hands over my head and started to chat something in elvish. Slowly the intense pain in my head began to fade until it was gone. I looked at my fingertips to make sure they were normal and they were. My amulet’s glow faded as well.

I collapsed backward flat on my back with Ms. Niphinea asking if I was alright.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “I think the corruption tried to take over.”

“We will keep an eye on that,” she said. “We definitely don’t want that happening again.” I agreed as she slowly helped me back to my feet. Nocturne walked up my leg and body and settled himself across my shoulders with a worried look.

“I’m okay, Nocturne. Don’t worry.” I might have said I was okay, but I don’t really know if I was.

We talked for the rest of the afternoon about this milestone. Ms. Nephinea had been researching anything she could find on Essence Weaving and how it can be harnessed and used. I told her everything that Mr. Roland and I had done together. Well, minus the very last thing. She didn’t need to know that. She got a better understanding and seemed to look a bit concerned when I told her what all we had done before. But she assured me that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I was probably just biting off more than I could chew and that Mr. Roland was trying to force progress. We mutually decided this was going to be a weekly exercise. So at the end of every week we would meet in the courtyard and try to make real progress, rather than skip steps.

#

Over the next couple days, even though the Celestial Shadow was still a month and a half away, my amulet kept acting weird. The pulsing came intermittently now. I couldn’t figure out a pattern to it or anything.

“Is there nothing in this book that can explain this?” I said exasperated. I flipped through the book I bought from Crowley but I couldn’t find anything.

“Take it easy Alex,” Lisa said. “I know you’re getting annoyed by not finding what you want but there’s no reason to rip the pages out.” She moved behind me and put her hands on my shoulders and almost immediately I relaxed. Well, as much as I could with your heart racing.

We all sat outside the school to hang out before it started. I wanted to check out the book more while we had time. But no matter what I couldn’t find anything about how the amulet and the eclipse thing were related. Granted even if it was in Draconic, there were still illustrations that were pretty self explanatory. Unfortunately all I could figure out was that the amulet changed after it was used in a major event. Nocturne tried to read it to me but since I don’t fully understand him or Draconic I was at a loss for anything helpful.

“Yeah, don’t break your back over it. I already said my Grandma is willing to translate the black book. She said she’d have it done by the weekend.”

I sighed, “Well that’s good. I hope it has something about this whole thing,” I gestured to my amulet. “It’s driving me insane,”

“What has the amulet been doing now?” Lisa asked. I explained that it was pulsing randomly in strange intervals that had no pattern. On occasion it seemed to turn fluid then immediately solid as soon as I went to touch it. Who knew what it was doing while I slept.

“Do you think it’s charging up or something?” Sasha suggested.

“What do you mean?” Lisa asked.

“Like, while the Celestial Shadow gets closer day by day, the amulet keeps acting more and more weird right?”

“So far, yeah,” I said.

“Well, what if this weird behavior is the amulet charging or getting ready for the big event? What if it needs energy or something when we do that ritual that Kur mentioned?”

“It’s possible,” Lisa thought out loud. “The book I had where we found that ritual didn’t not say anything about that.”

“I mean, that’s an interesting theory,” I mused. “It does get more erratic by the day.” I decided that I’d have to keep an eye on the amulet and make sure that the theory held up. My thought process was interrupted by the starting bell. All the dragons flew up and quickly went inside the roost to get out of the cool weather.

Training with Master Elowyn began to get more intense today. We were to maintain a perfect sphere of the element we had an affinity for. For some it was easier. Lisa was able to create a nearly perfect bubble of water between her hands about the size of an orange. Sasha struggled to keep the orb of air going, only really visible with some dirt and dust but it was mostly there. Samuel has the best luck surprisingly keeping the ball of light the size of his head perfectly floating in front of him. Everyone else was having a decent amount of luck maintaining a sphere of fire, earth, et cetera. Then there was me.

“For those who are struggling, dig deep and find the strength and push it out into your spell,” Master Elowyn said as he walked between students to check on their progress.

“C’mon, c’mon,” I said, struggling. Without Nocturne I struggled hard to summon the darkness. I took Master Elowyn’s advice and dug deep and tried to summon as much power as possible. I could feel it start to well up inside of me, the gross sticky feeling creeped its way into my mind. The darkness started to rise from the ground and coalesce into a single point in front of me. More of the disgusting tar flooded my brain as more and more darkness appeared. It started to pass and felt more confident. My eyes transfixed on the point the darkness kept collecting. The black sphere never seemed to get bigger, but more and more shadow added itself to the mass.

“Alex, good job,” I could barely hear Master Elowyn say. “Drop the spell safely and cool down.”

But I couldn’t, I knew I had to stop. I had to find the light and regain control. My eyes wouldn’t blink. I couldn’t stop staring at the singular point of darkness as the light around me started to dim. The sounds of other students practicing dulled and eventually died out completely.

“That’s enough, Alex,” I barely heard Master Elowyn. I knew I had to find the light. I had to. This was going south fast.

“Alex,” I heard Lisa before a very cold and very large splash of water hit my face. She had hit me with her bubble of water. As soon as I felt the bubble hit my face I dropped the spell immediately. Suddenly the sun seemed brighter and the mass of shadow evaporated away. I fell backwards and landed on my back panting. Least getting a face full of water was better than getting chomped on by a dragon.

“Alex, are you alright?” Lisa asked as she sat next to me. Sasha sat on my other side and helped me up.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “I think I lost control for a moment. I was just getting frustrated and I think I dug too deep.” I stood up, my legs were shaky and rubbery.

“Mr. Umbra,” Master Elowyn said. “Come with me, your friends can help you along if needed.” Lisa and Sasha helped me along to follow Master Elowyn.

“Sir, I’m sorry for–”

“No need to apologize, Alex,” he said calmly. “This is something very difficult, I know. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to hold you to a different standard. I know you’re working with your mentor to help control and maintain that element of yours but you need to try harder.”

“I’m trying as hard as I can,” I protested. “When I don’t have Nocturne with me I have a worse time controlling it.”

“I get that, Alex. But you may find yourself in a position where he’s not around to help you.” He sighed and handed me a paper from his clipboard. “Your grades are slipping in my class. I won’t say anything about the others but you need to bring this up, or you won’t finish the semester.” I had found out that I was beginning to fail most of my classes. Apparently we all were letting our grades slip. This obviously wasn’t good because, as Master Eloywn said, we could possibly be kicked out if things didn’t improve.

During our free period we sat in our usual place for a private conversation. “So should we just stop looking into the amulet and everything?” I suggested.

“What? No way,” Sasha said. “The celestial shadow is just a few months away. We have to figure it out,”

“As much as I hate to say, Sasha’s right,” Lisa admitted. “All our grades might be slipping, but this seems like something that is super important and who knows what would happen if Kur is right and that barrier between the Void and here is weakened too much and Blight is allowed to escape?”

“Who would think that the bookworm would agree with me?” Sasha smiled. “Go figure.”

“However,” Lisa interjected.

“And there it is,” Sasha mumbled as they rolled their eyes at the expectant rebuttal to their idea to ignore academia.

“We can’t fully ignore our studies because that would be just as bad as not researching everything we need to. We can only do more research if we stay in school and don’t get kicked out.”

“Um, hey guys?” A shy voice asked. We all turned and saw Samuel standing next to us. “I couldn’t help but overhear but, if you guys need to study, I can help with any extra research.”

“But aren’t you already looking in the archives for information on my amulet?” I asked.

“Well, yes, but I can do more. I’ve kind of hit a roadblock on the amulet anyway.” That wasn’t surprising as we’ve just found information on it ourselves. The three of us huddled like before and decided we would only give him part of the information needed, but wouldn’t give him what might be Blight’s book, the “blank page” book or the book written in Draconic.

“Okay,” I said. “You can help us out more. We’re looking for any connection to the upcoming Celestial Shadow and my amulet. It doesn’t have to be significant, any small amount of information helps us out.”

“Got it,” Samuel said with enthusiasm. “I’ll work on that while you guys work on studying,”

Sasha got up and hugged Samuel. “Thanks so much. You’re a lifesaver,” Sasha looked them over after the hug, keeping their hands on Samuel’s shoulders “Is there something different about you?”

Samuel was clearly not used to Sasha’s level of personal contact, had blushed and stammered as they walked off. “N-nope. Not at all. Y-you’re welcome,”

#

At last it was the weekend again. Sasha’s Grandmother should be finished translating the black book so we would have an idea of what it was. We met at the park, at a secluded picnic table, in the early afternoon. Winter was beginning to end and spring was starting to renew the flora. The fauna started to make itself more known as well. Pixies started to appear, as well as tiny faeries and small annoying bugs. Birds started to sing again and other creatures made appearances to scope out the scene making sure the world didn’t end during hibernation.

“So what did your Grandma discover?” I asked anxiously. Waiting on the edge of my seat.

“Well it took all week but she converted all the Fae text into something more common,” they said. “I haven’t looked at it since she gave it back.” Sasha handed it back to me as my heart pounded. The book seemed newer somehow, I couldn’t explain it. It just felt different. I looked at random parts of the book to see the changes that were made. I looked like the Fae writing was never there and was written in a more common language. Like it was originally written that way. My bookmark was in the same place as the page that had the magic circle drawn out that Mr. Roland had me recreate on a larger scale.

“Sasha, this is amazing. How did she do this?” I asked. Sasha shrugged their shoulders.

“I don’t know. She couldn’t actually read them, but she knew some old translation spell that could fully translate any text into any other language.”

“That’s amazing,” Lisa said. “Imagine, being able to just cast a spell to hide anything in an indecipherable language,”

“Yeah, think of all the notes that could be passed,” Sasha said in a more mischievous and playfully sinister tone.

“Let’s see what that circle Mr. Roland had me draw was used for,” I said as I flipped the section that held my bookmark. “Here it is. It says, ‘Void Portal’?,”

“What?” Lisa and Sasha exclaimed together.

“Yeah, apparently it’s for summoning a Void portal,” I said. My voice shook with fear. My hands trembled and I felt the color drain from my face. “He had me attempt to open the Void. But why?”

“I don’t know,” Lisa said breathlessly. Apparently just as shocked as I was. “Mr. Roland was always such a good teacher. He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Summoning these portals when they weren’t authorized by The Council were not looked on positively. It wasn’t black magic but it wasn’t anything good either.

“Do you,” I swallowed hard as my hands shook. “Do you think the name of the owner of the book is in the front?” My voice shook with fear.

“Maybe?” Sasha said just as nervous as I was. I could see Lisa biting her lip as well. Her fire opal eyes shimmered with worry behind them.

My mouth and throat became dry as a desert. I licked around my mouth and lips to get them wet again to stave off nervousness and slowly flipped the pages beneath my thumb towards the front of the book. Slowly page by page it moved to the front until none were left. I lifted the hard cover and turned the blank cover page to see:

’Here are the thoughts, workings and spells of Caelus Nox, from here on out to be known as, BLIGHT’.

“But, Blight killed Caelus,” Sasha said. “Didn’t he?”

I was at a loss for words. I had no idea what to think or who to believe. Blight was Dad’s best friend? But how? Why? My mind raced with questions no one could answer for me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the amulet glowing the same pale violet. It didn’t pulse or flicker, or do anything else weird, just had a solid pale glow.

“Guys?” Lisa said. “Look up.”

I shook my head and looked up at the sky. The sun peered through the thin veil of clouds making it safely visible. Just below it the moon could be made out. It rested just under the sun making it look like they were touching. The Celestial Shadow was approaching fast. The Celestial Shadow was only about two and a half months away now.

“What was it that Kur said?” I asked. “We have to harmonize with nature together, right?”

“Something like that.” Lisa said.

“Can we actually do it though?” Sasha asked. “We’re just teenagers.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of can or can’t at this point,” I said. “It’s: will we or won’t we?”

We all stared at the two celestial bodies so perceptively close to each other we couldn’t help but be in awe of something we wouldn’t see again in our lifetime, or perhaps ever again.

With that sobering feeling, we decided to use the next couple months to catch up on our school work as well as our magic. I buckled down with not only Ms. Nephinea’s private lessons, using Nocturne as my conduit to summon darkness, and learn to control it and push back the corruption safely. But also in my own time at home without Nocturne’s help. He would sit and watch and would give me a nip whenever he thought I was going to lose control. Meanwhile, Samuel was relaying any interesting information he found about the amulet and its relation to the Celestial Shadow. He couldn’t find much but what little he found helped. Thanks to Samuel we found out that it had been used several times before and confirmed that with every direct use the amulet would change shape and gain more power over time. Apparently when my Dad used it, he didn’t use the power of the amulet itself, but channeled his own through it, so the shape didn’t change, since we saw its exact shape in one of the books.

We would also meet together and do our best in honing our magic in our mutual free time. Doing our best to challenge each other. It was all going to come down to our own abilities and what we can do. And we’d have to make sure we were strong enough.