The Magic Pawn Series: The Discovery (Volume 1)

Chapter 27: The battle

'Look', I said angrily. 'Either one of you goes to find Baldric and give him our message, or I leave, no matter what you say. I am sure that Baldric told that you could not touch even one of my hairs, or else. So that means that you cannot stop me with magic.'

'Are you threatening us?' this two-meter tall guy asked me. He was quite a colossus. He came next to me.

'Count to three', I heard Maggie say, 'and then run.'

What the hell, I did not see her move her lips.

'Escero vista', she said and a curtain of dust lifted into the air and surrounded Baldric's men, making them close their eyes.

I started to run after Maggie, through the trees, passing by the gym. I saw some people standing at the entrance; the headmistress was there as well as many of my professors. They were tense, waiting for the morhs. They had still not gotten so close. Eric and Baldric were probably fighting them at the exit from the forest.

We passed the gym. I could feel my back burning worse. We were getting close. Then, it felt as if someone had set my back on fire. I clenched my fists as hard as I could in order to keep myself from screaming. But this was not enough. As I looked towards Maggie, I realized that the screaming had actually come from her. A morh was just a few meters away from her. In a second, it was right in front of me.

'Don't move!' I told them.

The morh seemed to ignore the girls. He was focused only on me. The smell it oozed was terrible, but bearable by comparison with how bad my back burned. Maggie however, did not resist; she vomited. Christine came next to her and I thought that the morh will be distracted by them, but it continued to look at me. It let his wings down and wrapped himself in them. Then I felt something. It's icky look was hiding a pair of eyes that seemed human. Sad eyes, filled with sorrow, and covered with mist so that you could not tell their color. Then it looked down. I looked at Christine who was babbling something; she was probably getting ready to make the spell. I took a step towards the creature. Unaware of what I was doing, I touched its face. I felt its rough skin that was full of small veins. It looked up at me and that is when I froze. I tried to pull back my hand but I could not.

It seemed I was in Kaeillindor but it was different. I could tell it was different from the tress I had seen when I first got there. This was not something that I could forget. There was a dim light outside and the sky was cloudy. I went past the screaming tree and I saw why they call it like that. Screams that seemed to express the pain of a crowd were coming from it; a mix of male and female voices. Around the tree, there were stones sunken into a pool of blood. The screams stopped and spots of light began to come out from the tree, turning into human shapes beyond the tangible – ghosts. Tormented souls that could not go across the barrier.

Then the image changed and I woke up in an old house. A girl was writing something at the light of a candle. She did not seem to be aware of my presence. I got closer to her to see what she was writing.

" The only element that I am missing is to find the spell that ties lost souls to the lifeless bodies of the dead. The Grimoire that is hidden in the place where magic was born, will be the answer to creating the living dead. I will have my own army and I will be able to get rid of the tyrants that are against magic and will not let us use it."

Then the image disappeared and I woke up in a dark cold. A strong light came out of nowhere. It went up into the air and lit the cave that I was apparently in. I saw someone blonde in front of the light. I got closer and saw a big book; light was coming out of it. The woman who was making the spell had a half-moon on her right arm. I saw a multitude of bodies on the ground, and then it all flashed before my eyes. Lost souls began to appear one at a time in the light emanated by the book, and lifeless souls were coming out from the ground. Each soul was entering a body; when they touched, the contact was as striking as the smell. I heard howling as they grew wings while they slowly turned into ...I chocked...morhs. The blonde head turned and I screamed when I saw that it was I.