The two reappeared on the Lotus, a boat aptly named as it resembled a flower on the water. Devlin looked above the coaming. The vastness of the ocean stretched out in front of him. The watercraft bobbed and swayed.

“I think I’m going to vomit.” Devlin said. He hated surprises. His mind wanted everything sorted and put in place, but his father relished throwing the unexpected at him. Think on your feet. In battle, the flow changes quickly. Your very survival hangs in the balance. You can’t be of any help to Arthur if you are not three, five steps ahead of his enemies, Merlin once said.

“The leaping eye Mondo tried to steal,” his father said, interrupting Devlin’s thoughts, “enables me to leap from one eye to the next.”

“I see.” Devlin pointed to his eye as he tried to hold off the vertigo.

The Warden had a quizzical look on his face. “What I find humorous is that your element is water. Yet you do not seem fond of it.” The wizard tapped Devlin’s head with a forefinger. “That should cure it. I need your wits about you on this matter.”

He rubbed his forehead. The nausea had disappeared.

“You’re welcome.” Merlin stretched his right arm and pulled a bouquet and a staff from the air.

The apprentice had seen his father do this trick a thousand times. It had something to do with making magical compartments in another dimension to store one’s belongings. However, like the other spells Merlin weaved, Devlin could not see it.

The warden stood leaning on his staff, the flowers resting on his chest, “I am waiting.”

“Oh, right,” Devlin sat straight. He needed to think of a question. Waiting meant his father wanted to impart a lesson and waited to hear the student’s question. He wondered if all wizards had taught in this manner. “Um, why do you have flowers in your hand?”

“Irrelevant. Think deeper Devlin.”

“Hmm,” he paused and pondered. Images floated in his head: Mondo, the battle, the eye, “Leaping Eyes!” He blurted out, “it makes you leap from one eye to the other. So there’s more than one. Which means you have another one here in the ocean?”

“Correct.” Merlin tapped one of the boat’s bows with his staff and then traced a line in the air in front of him. “It’s invisible, but I have tethered the boat to the gate so that you don’t float away while I’m gone.”

“Gate?” Devlin looked around. If one eye, no doubt rendered invisible, was here, then it meant, “The gate to Gaeus is here?!”

Merlin nodded.

Devlin fixed his gaze on the area where his father traced the alleged tether. He imagined the leaping eye and the gate. His heart brimmed with excitement. Then, he realized what Merlin had just said, “Gone? You’re leaving me on the boat?”

“You know the laws governing Errt and Gaeus. I can’t just take you with me.”

“But… you’re the Warden. You can give me your exception.”

“Exceptions need to be granted by the Gaeus council. You know that.”

Devlin could not rebut his father. Every law, every penal code, every page number was accessible in his memory palace. The bubbling joy in his heart popped and dissipated. “So, you want me to wait here? You said carnivorous sea monsters roamed this ocean with fangs bigger than a man. And yet, you are leaving me here when I can’t even do magic to defend myself.”

“I did not raise a spineless boy. And yes, there are monsters about, so do not leave the ship nor touch the water.” Merlin commanded, but Devlin swore his father was trying to contain a mischievous smile beneath the grey beard. “I brought you here to teach you about leaping eyes. Now, your next lesson is patience and reflection. So wait, rest your body, and ponder. When I come back, I expect answers born out of careful reflection and analysis. For instance, can I use other eyes to access the Errt eye?” Merlin said as he looked at the bundled flower. An oval light on the right side of his abdomen shone through his garments as he touched the air above the boat’s bow. Then he disappeared.

“Of course I saw that light,” Devlin said and sat with his shoulders deflated. The light given off by Merlin’s null ring and sigils were magic seen through the naked eye; the Pauper’s Sight. But Merlin said wizards could see the divine energy during casting through King’s Sight. Devlin wished he had King’s Sight to see the energy swirling around a wizard during spell casting. Or at least his dreams showed them swirling. Like all his other useless thoughts and ideas, he filed this in his memory palace, in a room he dubbed untested theories. He laid down on the floor of the boat. His gaze transfixed on the air in front of him. He pretended he had King’s Sight. He pointed. “There should be a tether, a leaping eye, and a gate there.”

He stood and moved to the bow, where Merlin tapped his staff. Devlin touched the surrounding air, but couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. No invisible rope or residue of magic. Is this part of Merlin’s test?

“A great wizard is not afraid to question the Universe,” the Warden once told him.

Devlin glanced at the bow and the ocean below him. The water current flowed Westward and yet the boat stayed anchored to its spot. “No, it’s moving against the current,” he mumbled. It proved his father tied the boat to something invisible which moved counter to the water current. He remembered Merlin saying the invisible gate was in perpetual motion to prevent prisoners from escaping Errt.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Devlin clung to the pulpit with all the force he could muster lest he fall off the boat. He stretched his right hand forward. A part of him wanted to believe it. “I’m touching Gaeus!”

Merlin appeared in the Ascran forest, a few meters before the clearing that led to the Living Gate. Gaeus had renamed it to Pandora’s Gate thousands of years ago; after the first human who discovered King’s Magic or Sigil Magic. Merlin checked if anyone had witnessed his sudden appearance. Unsatisfied with Pauper’s Sight, he closed his eyes and felt the invisible energy around him, feeling each living thing a few hundred yards away from him. There was no one around, save for the usual animals foraging for food. He nodded in approval. He waited for the Eye embedded in the tree to close its lid to become invisible once more. As he turned, his clothes changed from meager robes to a common traveling merchant. He put up the hood to hide his face; though he doubted anyone can recognize him on this side of the world. The legendary War Mage had not appeared publicly in this world for eighteen years. During that absence, layers of wrinkled skin had buried his face underneath, wild grey hair took over, and an even wilder looking long beard. He sighed. The wizard always reminisced when he made this annual trip. Merlin looked at the bundled flowers in his hand. “Always at your beck and call.” That was your greatest magic. He arranged a loose flower or two before walking towards Pandora’s Gate.

Merlin stepped out of the clearing. The Gate was a thousand yards away. He could leap to cover the distance, but today he was only a merchant. He looked at the ancient ten-story structure before him. A beating heart in the middle of the ancient gate; the Heart Lock, kept the metal monolith secured and unopened. Pandora added the live heart because of his own foolishness. Thank you Pandora, but damnare Pandora was a normal phrase that wizards learn in magic school.

The gate’s heavy doors rose and fell as if it breathed. The wizard shook his head; reminded of the many lives sacrificed to get locks from beginning to present. He slowed his walk when he caught sight of a figure hovering near the Heart Lock. He squinted his eyes. A dark blue dress uniform? What is an elder..?

The Elder turned his head; signifying he had detected Merlin’s presence.

Don’t arouse suspicion. The wizard moved forward, bringing the bundled flowers to his chest while masking his magic presence.

The Elder landed to the ground as the wizard reached the bottom of the Gate.

Merlin bowed. “Forgive me, Elder, if I have disturbed you.” He looked at the man’s face. He is young? Younger than when they invited me to join the wizard council. “I am Roan, a merchant,” Merlin said.

“I am Kellan, and not at all. You did not disturb me,” the council member bowed. “Not all travellers are brave enough to go near this gate. What brings you here?”

“Just paying my respects, sir.” Merlin showed the bundle of flowers. “A friend died in the last war to close the Gate.”

“Was your friend a wizard?”

“She wished,” he chuckled, “but she was only a fellow traveller. Went to this gate because a person she loved fought in the war. In the end, she ended up being killed.”

“And now you follow her into this scary place? We do a lot of things for love or friendship.”

“That we do.” He nodded in agreement.

The Elder smiled, “I will leave you then to pay your respects to your friend.” Kellan bowed and floated to the gate’s heart lock five stories above.

Merlin bowed in return. He felt a flash of new magic and looked up. A monocled butler appeared beside the Elder, as well as a flying ship a hundred stories above.

“Sorry to intrude, sir, but there’s a message from the council,” the manservant said as he handed a sealed folded note on a tray. “The vessel is ready to take you to the station.”

Kellan’s demeanor change after reading the note, but the Elder regained his calm composure in an instant.

“Alright then,” Kellan told his butler. The Elder looked at the merchant below and nodded goodbye. “We don’t need to land the ship,” the council member instructed his steward. “We’ll just leap.”

The manservant instructed the ship’s captain to open the ship’s door. Kellan looked and tapped his butler’s arm. Both disappeared, then reappeared in the once empty doorway.

A textbook look before you leap moment. “But that was considerate of him.” Merlin knew Kellan did not want to disturb his prayers and directed the vessel not to land. There is hope for this new generation. As the flying craft sped away, he laid the flowers at the feet of the Gate, bowed and clapped thrice. Hello, Kushina. Yes, he is doing well. No, as usual, he does not know that I visit you. You made me promise, after all. Merlin’s thoughts wandered a bit to the past. He imagined Kushina in front of him and answered questions she would ask him if she were alive today. If only there were magic spells to conjure a person’s spirit. That would be something.

After paying his respects, Merlin looked up to the Heart Lock. Thank you Pandora, but damnare Pandora. The first user of King’s Magic, deluded by the few drops of sigil magic power, made him curious to open the Living Gate. Pandora used King’s Magic to break the gods’ seal. He opened the Gate and saw the evils beyond it, evils that would lay Gaeus to waste. They ran towards him when the gate opened. Pandora let out a fire blast and barely closed the gate in time. He tried to repair the gods’ seal, but he was no god. The seal was too ancient and too advanced for him to understand. He realized he needed to sacrifice his own life to close it, binding his heart and life force to the gate to lock it. It remained closed until Pandora’s heart died, and the Wizard Council hastened to replace it with another sacrifice. They found immortal hearts did not work and realized more than a hundred years later that a Memitim’s heart lasted two or three times longer than any mortal one. Merlin remembered Iphigenia, the last sacrifice. He looked above and paid his respects. He clapped thrice. You were a great Head Memitim. I believe you left behind one or two young children? I hope they are well. And I pray they spare your daughter of your fate.

It was getting late, and Merlin needed to go back to Errt. Thoughts of monsters are probably distracting Devlin on the Lotus. Might as well save him from his misery, he thought. But before that, he had to satisfy his curiosity. Something was brewing. Merlin opened his mind and let the energy flow through him. He extended his sensitivity to more than a thousand yards. Checking if anyone was in the vicinity. All clear. He hopped to let the air catch and move him up. He hovered to the exact spot as the Elder.

The War Mage found a circle of flowers steeped in magic surrounding the pulsing Heart Lock. The magic rendered the flowers invisible from the ground, but not at this height. He inspected the spell with King’s Sight. No traps, no alarms. Just a spell to hold the lilies of the grim for a few hours.

He shifted his attention to the Lock. It beat as a normal heart should. And then it thumped erratically. The Gate expanded, contracted, and creaked. A hairline opened to let the sounds of cackling and growling through. Familiar discords last heard in the war.

Du-dum, the heartbeat went back to its regular rhythm. The small crack disappeared, along with the voices.

Merlin put his hand on his mouth and gasped. The Elder came to inspect the Heart. It was dying. “The sacrifice is coming.”