A Light After Endless Darkness

Chapter 13

The next few seconds were complete pandemonium.

For half a blink, there was absolute silence as everyone froze, unable to process that the most feared, evil man in all the worlds was here tonight, on a night when the good people were supposed to be celebrating the arrival of their hero.

Then that blink paused, and everyone began screaming.

Chaos erupted in the ballroom with a noise loud enough to break glass as the men rushed to close the door, hoping it might buy them all one precious second to hide.

Jackson rushed to the center of the room, pulling up a tile and revealing an old staircase into a hole in the ground. "In!" He yelled over the panic. "Everybody in! Now!!"

The crowd, mostly women and children with the men lagging behind, rushed down the stairs and into the darkened hole, still screaming bloody murder.

Elizabeth felt like she should've been, too. Felt like screaming was the only response that one could have to learning that one's abusive ex-master had returned to claim them, or send them back to hell, or... or just kill them outright. She felt like she should've been screaming, crying, curling up into a ball on the floor and waiting for the inevitable, because no amount of swordplay or practice can protect you from some true monster, something that is truly evil.

But the odd thing was, she didn't. She didn't feel fear, or anger, or frustration. She just felt kind of... tired. And yet awake. Like a dose of ether had been administered to her soul and now she was just a hollow shell, numb to the screams and the horror that buzzed around her like angry bees.

This isn't so bad, she thought madly as Hagen practically picked her up and carried her into the hole.

"Oh my god," Hagen was whispering. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god," over and over, like some sort of protective chant.

She didn't know protective chants.

Sydney had not taught her any magic yet.

That thought was enough to push Elizabeth out of the emotional paralysis that had seized her. She gave a loud gasp, pulling away from Hagen in the dark room with nothing inside it. It was easily the simplest room in the house, made of nothing but metal walls, and the one staircase that had led everybody down there. Of course, this did not mean it was not large.

After all, everybody in Gardenia was in the chamber with room to spare.

"I thought he was banished!" A woman's voice cut through the crowd.

"He was," said Sydney. Then he moaned, "oh, he must have learned some sort of penetration spell during his exile."

"Well now what do we do?!" Demanded Miss Aggie.

"Now we wait down here until he goes away!" Barked the baker.

"You don't know Zarix, Matthew, he'll tear this place apart brick-by-brick until he finds us," said Dabir darkly.

"King Nicholas made this room completely attack proof," said Jackson desperately.

"Yes, but it's not magic proof!" Wailed Rei.

"Rei-Person?" Said Aynna in the smallest voice anyone had ever heard from her. "Are we going to die?"

This caused an uncomfortable pause where nobody spoke, not one word. Nobody wanted to say yes, of course, but nobody liked the odds, either. Zarix knew every sword trick that had ever been invented, and didn't get tired or afraid. And his magic... it had been rumored that he sold his soul to learn every spell there was. Even ones masters like Sydney and Dabir hadn't even dreamed possible.