The Dark Shadow of Spring (26 page)

A moment later, Rafael and Clark burst into the room and hugs were again traded between the Guild members.

“I know this will sound odd coming from me,” Rafael said to Alex, his voice tight with worry, “but I really hope you have a plan.”

“Hmff,” Clark grunted in agreement.

“Oh, I have a plan alright,” Alex said, looking around at the others and trying to project the sense of confidence he had felt while he was standing in the kitchen with his parents. “If we’re lucky, we’ll only have to use the first part of it.”

Chapter 21: Cavernous Calamity

Alex and his friends rode their bikes as fast as they could along the dirt path that climbed up the side of the Black Bone Mountains toward the cave that was the Shadow Wraith’s lair. Victoria brought up the rear of the procession, the path not being wide enough for her to gallop beside them.

The first part of Alex’s plan was to find Daphne and Ben, because they were essential if the second part of his plan didn’t work. And if that happened, and he couldn’t find Ben and Daphne, he didn’t know what he could do to stop the Shadow Wraith.

They had stopped briefly at both Ben and Daphne’s homes, hoping to find them trapped in slumber, but neither had been present and both houses had been empty, which could only mean that they and their parents were at the cave with the others missing from town. As Alex pedaled along the path through the trees, he tried to discern a pattern to those who were trapped in their beds, their souls bound by dark Spirit Magic, and those whose souls had been taken over and controlled by the Shadow Wraith. There seemed to be no reason for one person to be taken over and controlled and another held captive.

Alex was certain those who had gone missing over the past week and in the last few hours were under the control of the Shadow Wraith, their souls enslaved by magic similar to what had held his mother and sister bound against their wills. It must take enormous power to control that many people all at once. Maybe that was the reason for holding some in slumber. The Shadow Wraith’s power was still limited. It could not control the souls of the whole town, so it tried to hold those it could not easily control in a state where they could offer no resistance. But even that had stretched its power thin, leaving some of the townspeople unaffected. That was a good sign, Alex thought. The Shadow Wraith would need all its power to control the townspeople and lead them in an attack. That would leave it weakened and less able to protect the cave and the magical seal that needed to be fixed.

When they were about a half mile from the cave, they dismounted from their bikes and hid them in the underbrush, continuing onward through the woods, away from the path. Alex wanted to approach the clearing around the cave cautiously and scout the situation before deciding the next steps. They moved slowly and silently in between the trees, Alex taking the lead, followed by his sister, Nina, then Victoria, Clark, and finally Rafael.

“I hear something,” Rafael said in a low voice. They had learned in their many adventures that the sound of a whisper could sometimes carry farther than a simple, quiet voice. Alex stopped and crouched down low to the ground as he gestured for everyone else to do the same.

Through the trees, Alex could see people walking two by two around a curve in the main path. Mr. Fallowtooth, his teacher of Magical Principles, walked beside Ms. Mapledown, the town carpenter. They were walking in much the same way that Alex had seen Anna shuffling toward the cave the night before, with blank faces and stiff movements. They were followed by a parade of people from the town who had disappeared in the early morning hours just past.

Alex glanced at Nina and the others hidden beside him in the low underbrush. Their faces were filled with horror. He saw Rafael’s face tighten and his eyes go wide. Alex looked to see Rafael’s aunt among those shambling through the woods. It was as if they were marching. Not with martial movements, but with a synchronization of step that made it clear what they were — The Shadow Wraith’s army. At the back of the column of soul-bound soldiers came the Shadow Wraith’s surrogate, a billowing cloud of soot-black shadow mass, churning through the air behind the enslaved townspeople, seeming to drive them on like some malevolent shepherd with a herd of sacrificial sheep.

Alex held his breath, willing his mind to remain blank for fear that the Shadow Wraith’s proxy creature would be able to sense his presence. Moment blended into endless moment as he waited for the shadow creature and the townspeople it controlled to pass out of sight. When they were finally gone around the curve of the woodland path, Alex breathed a long, silent sigh of relief.

“Is that the creature you saw outside my house?” Victoria asked, her voice a quiet rasp filled with fear.

“Yes,” Alex said, placing a comforting hand on Victoria’s arm where she knelt behind a fallen tree.

“And you ran toward that to make sure I was safe,” Victoria said, staring at Alex with eyes he was afraid to look into for too long.

“I’ve never been very bright,” Alex said.

“But you are very brave,” Victoria said, placing her hand on his. “Both of you,” she continued, looking toward Nina, who squirmed with embarrassment under the young centaur’s gaze.

“We’re going to need a lot of bravery,” Rafael said, “if we’re going to save the town from that.”

“Hmmm, what’s next, Lex?” Clark said, standing up.

“The cave,” was all that Alex said. No one said anything in reply.

They continued their silent ascent up the mountainside, moving from tree to tree and keeping low to the ground, a feat that would have seemed difficult for Clark and Victoria, but one which they accomplished with ease. Clark moved through the woods as easily as Alex, whose father had taught him the skills of hunting and tracking since he was a child. Victoria moved with a grace that was common to her people, seeming to be at one with the surrounding forest. The ancient centaurs had been forest people, after all, so Alex was not entirely surprised.

As they came in sight of the clearing, with the now-open cave in its center, Alex and the others stopped and held themselves still. Alex squinted his eyes to make sure he was seeing what he thought he saw. Ben and Daphne were standing in a circle around the entrance of the cave, flanked by Dillon, Anna, the rest of the Mad Mages, and five other children from the town. They stood like stone-silent sentinels facing outward and down the mountain toward the town. Their faces were as slack and expressionless as those of all the soul-enslaved townspeople had been. Alex gestured to his companions to back away quietly.

When they had gained enough distance from the cave to remain hidden and unheard, Alex pulled them close.

“What are they doing?” Nina asked.

“Why aren’t they with the others, heading toward town?” Rafael said.

“I think they were left behind to guard the cave,” Alex said. “In case someone found it.”

“So what do we do?” Victoria asked, glancing back toward the cave.

“We have to get Ben and Daphne free,” Alex said. “If we can get them alone, I might be able to free them from the Shadow Wraith’s spells.”

“Well, how do we do that?” Clark asked.

“I have an idea that might work,” Alex said. He said a silent prayer that it would. He noticed how the others were looking at him. The intensity of their stares. He had always wanted to be their leader, always tried to think of himself that way, and now it was clear that they needed his leadership. Ben and Daphne, especially. He tried to call to mind that feeling of confidence that he had consumed him earlier with his parents. He found a glimmer of that state of mind and clung to it as he explained his plan.

Minutes later, Alex, Nina, and Rafael were crawling on their bellies along the forest floor toward the cave. When they were as close as Alex thought they could possibly get without being seen, he stopped and the others halted beside him. Then he waited. He wasn’t sure how long it would take Victoria and Clark to sneak around behind the cave’s defenders, but he hoped it wouldn’t be too long. The longer they waited the greater the chance of being discovered. When he had waited as long as he thought it would take for his two friends to reach their assigned position, he waited a little longer and then turned to the two beside him and nodded his head. As he did so, he began to quietly chant a simple rune-spell, repeating the word for wind again and again. He looked to see Nina and Rafael chanting the same spell.

Within moments, a strong breeze began to pass through the trees. Soon the breeze became a stiff wind, and seconds later, a strong gale. Alex wrapped one hand around the trunk of a small sapling and reached out to take his sister’s hand as he continued to chant. The wind had begun to circle through the trees and around the clearing outside the cave like a small tornado. The Mad Mages and the other soul-captured children guarding the cave scanned the forest, backing themselves closer together and nearer the mouth of the cave. They did not respond as normal humans would have, with fright or curiosity. Their faces remained as impassive as ever, the stiffness of their movements making it difficult for them to remain standing. Daphne, the smallest of those assembled to guard the cave, looked as though she might be lifted from her feet and blown away at any moment. The howling of the wind was so loud that Alex could no longer hear himself chanting the spell that helped create the windstorm. That was the whole purpose of this miniature hurricane. To provide cover for what happened next.

Alex watched with mounting excitement and an equal amount of worry as Clark and Victoria simultaneously burst forth from the forest behind the cave. They moved so swiftly, and the wind was so loud, that they remained unseen and unheard until they were right on top of the cave’s guardians. Daphne just had time to turn her head as Victoria cast a stunning spell that caused her body to go limp. A moment later, Victoria swept Daphne’s slender form up into her arms and dashed away into the forest. Clark apparently knew no stunning spells and relied on a deftly placed fist to the top of Ben’s head to knock him unconscious as he picked up the small dwarf and ran back into the woods. It all took place so swiftly that most of the Mad Mages and the other children set to help them were unaware that anything at all had happened until the wind suddenly died down and they saw the absence of two of their number.

By that time, Alex and the Guild were running quickly through the woods toward a place they had agreed upon in advance. This part of the plan was crucial. Alex was counting on the Shadow Wraith retaining its guards rather than risk leaving the cave unattended. If instead the Mad Mages and the other soul-trapped children pursued them, Alex and the Guild would have to fight a pitched battle in the woods. One that he was not entirely certain they could win.

They came to a stop in a small hollow beneath the arching branches in a strand of evergreen trees and caught their breath. Victoria and Clark laid Ben and Daphne out side by side on the thick bed of pine needles that covered the soft earth beneath the trees. Alex looked to Rafael, who was scanning the woods behind them and sniffing the air.

“Anything?” Alex asked, following Rafael’s eyes as he searched the forest for movement.

“No,” Rafael said. “I think we’re safe. For now, at least.”

“Good,” Alex said as he knelt down beside Daphne and Ben.

“Can you free them?” Nina asked, bending down beside her brother. “The way you did me and Mom?”

“I don’t know,” Alex confessed. “I hope so.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Victoria asked, looking down at Alex, her face a mix of worry and admiration.

“Pray, maybe,” Alex said, trying to dispel the doubt that was feeding on his fears like a fox in a hen house. He knelt beside Daphne and focused his mind, trying to clear the thoughts that were rushing through his head. Thoughts about how long he had known Daphne and what a good friend she was and how she needed him not to fail, but to save her the way she had so many times saved him in the past.

He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, feeling his mind calm and still as he forced the worry from his consciousness. He felt his perception shift a moment later and he could see Daphne’s astral form, her spirit body glowing a pale, sickly blue. He saw, too, the fire of her subtle soul-essence blazing at her heart, ensnared in a web of oily tendrils that coalesced and gathered at a single point and then drifted away from her body, back through the woods like a slender tether of ink-black smoke. Alex had no doubt that this dark spirit chain led back to the Shadow Wraith in its lair at the cave and that it was the means by which the vile creature controlled its soul-bound subjects. What he did doubt was whether the rune-spell he had used to free his mother and sister would work for this particular evil enchantment.

“
Jah-Ne-Pha-Elon
,” Alex said, reaching out to the magical energy of the land and focusing it on the net of black, smoke-like threads that encircled Daphne’s soul-essence. The mesh of black strands shifted and spun as Alex repeated the spell, but he could see that it was not working the way it had before. The black threads repelled Alex’s magic, seeming to draw power through the twisting, black smoke-tendril that drifted through the forest and back to the Shadow Wraith. That gave Alex an idea.

He shifted the focus of his magical energy as he repeated the rune-word of Spirit Magic and tried to form the magical energy into the image of a blade in his mind. A blade that would slice through the tether leading from Daphne’s captured soul and back to its enslaver. The slender thread resisted the cut of Alex’s magical energy. It felt like trying to slice through a steel cable with a butter knife. Alex gathered more magical energy than he had ever attempted before, feeling it course through him like a mighty wave of water forced into a deep, but narrow riverbed. “
Jah-Ne-Pha-Elon
,” he said again, this time willing the dark filament of evil to grow thinner and thinner. To his amazement, it did. As he concentrated, the thread of power reaching back to the Shadow Wraith slowly evaporated until it snapped and disappeared altogether. When it faded, the web of black smoke encircling Daphne’s soul-essence withered and vanished.