Chapter 10
GOING DOWN
Devon inhaled deeply, revelling in the freshness and bite of the morning air in his lungs. Mist gripped the hills below them, leaving the campsite floating in a wispy nest of white and the forest smelling damp. The atmosphere muffled the sounds of waking villagers and birdsong that reached his sensitive ears. The leaves of the beech trees were starting to turn a radiant copper colour while their mast littered the floor and crunched underfoot. He could feel that autumn was beginning to take hold. That got him thinking about the time it would take to build insulated shelters for all the villagers – assuming they decided to stay with him, of course.
Today was a big day for him and Izzy. He was already up and busy, as was Gwen, who always made sure to keep Devon in view. Izzy was a rich shade of purple and whirled around his head excitedly. There was a heavy sense of anticipation in the air.
The three of them left the camp as quietly as possible, but several villagers watched them with interest. He saw several of the teenagers urging their guardians to wake up and get dressed. Others were only just starting to stir.
He walked the fifty yards to the enormous rock that was the peak of the hills. Gwen was next to him, and Izzy floated on the other side. Vegetation had left the sheer granite cliff face alone, and it stood out among the trees and bushes in its rugged glory. They stood right against the base of the black rock and looked up at the towering monolith. Devon knew this had to be the right place; it felt magical and somehow familiar.
He reached into his shirt and pulled out the pendant. It shone with a brilliant, deep-blue light that illuminated everything around, including the cliff face. Across the rock, hundreds of intricate symbols lit up and glimmered in the gem’s glow. The symbols rotated and writhed as the light hit them. In the middle of the sigils was a five-pointed star, and an exact representation of the pendant’s crystal occupied the centre of that star.
“Wwwoooowwwww,” Gwen whispered breathily, drawing the word out in wonder. “It really is magic. Proper, magic.” She could hardly contain her glee at discovering that all her dreams had just come true. All her life, she’d buried her head in every fantasy book she could get access to. She had always adored comics and books on the occult. Genuine magic was her dream, and here it was, happening right in front of her. “Life next to you just keeps getting better.”
Devon smiled to himself, sharing Gwen’s awe of the moment. He reached out and placed the crystal in the indentation, aligning it carefully with the glowing sigil. There was a deafening crack, then the thundering sound of rock scraping against rock as a vertical gap, more than thirty feet high, appeared in the cliff face and started to widen. He hastily retrieved the crystal from its seat and tucked it inside his shirt with reverence. The rumbling continued for over a minute until colossal doors finally pulled back into the surrounding rock. Ancient air rushed past them, and he could smell ozone.
In front of them was a large entrance over thirty feet square. Inside was a spherical cavern about seventy feet in diameter that stretched back into the granite. The base of the cave was flat and covered in moss of a greenish silver. There was an impressive doorframe over thirty feet square, built from finely carved, gold-flecked obsidian blocks in the centre of the cavern. Gold inlaid, arcane symbols covered every surface of the stones.
Behind the doorframe on the far wall was another glowing rectangle that was a mere twenty feet squared. It glowed with the same deep blue as the crystal did.
Izzy thought.
Gwen said with determination fortifying her thoughts.
Devon had nothing to add to Izzy’s words. He had no memory of building this place, but that came as no surprise to him.
He walked through the empty, black-stone frame and over to the keystone. Again, he fitted his crystal into its designated lock-space, and another sharp crack echoed around the cavern. He was tucking the pendant back under his shirt when the rumble of stone on stone ceased. The opened door revealed a road winding steeply down and away to the right. As he looked, hundreds of golden domes, fixed in various places on the cavernous ceiling, began to glow with a warm light. The light reflected off walls that were made from some sort of crystalline material, making them glisten.
Looking behind him, he noticed every single villager looking at the newly revealed cave and him with equal parts awe and unease. Mouths gaped in wonder.
Madi walked up next to him and smiled. “You are something more than we can comprehend, but being around you is the most eye-opening experience we could ever imagine. I feel like Alice looking down the rabbit hole. Please, Devon, may we come with you to wherever that goes? Maybe share your adventure?” she asked, gesturing to the road that spiralled down into the depths of the hill. There was pleading in her voice that she was not ashamed to reveal. “We have all decided that staying with you will be far more interesting than anything else we could ever do in a hundred lifetimes. We have a new leader, Devon. Please guide us well.”
“Madi, I can’t,” Devon started to say, but Madi placed her hand on his arm and shook her head.
“Just keep doing what you do. Finn and I will handle the rest. I promise.”
Devon’s brow furrowed as he thought about what Madi had asked of him. “Fine,” he huffed. “But please let us work all this out before everyone starts asking questions,” he said. Devon trembled with excitement for the coming events. He grinned at Madi. “I hope you all believe in magic.”
For nearly an hour, they wound their way down the road and into the depths of the granite hills. There had been a few moans from some of the children about the walking, which was fair enough. They’d spent the previous day travelling too. Devon had ended up giving piggybacks to at least five. The problem was, when he offered to do it for one of them, they all wanted a turn. It soon turned into a game, and Devon caught himself gambolling around while the children laughed uproariously. Seeing the person they were so in awe of behaving like a giant child put everyone at their ease. Even Izzy laughed along.
Some forty-seven villagers had joined him; nine of them were children. Another seven were young ladies who were just waving their teen years goodbye. Also strange was that there were only a few males among them. He had been distressed to learn that slavers always snatched the men first because they fetched a better bounty on the market. Whoever else they could grab was a bonus. The more he heard about the life they endured, the angrier it made him. There was no doubt he would do everything he could for these people, but he had a fairy queen to destroy as well. Izzy’s people were in just as much need as these villagers after all. Maybe he could combine the two? This place would make a perfect sanctuary for a lot of refugees. Not just humans, either.
He was also concerned when he learnt that none of the children had received an education other than that which their guardians could offer them. Izzy, Gwen, and Devon had talked about that last night, and Izzy had promised to speak to some friends she had after the fairy queen’s demise. She was sure that setting up a good school would be easy. Many elf children were in the same situation. It would also aid the integration of multiple species and cultures to the settlement. He was getting ahead of himself, though. There was a lot to do before schools became an issue.
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The road continued to circle downward in a broad curve until he finally spotted where it straightened and the walls angled away. As they rounded the last bend, his mind nearly broke with what he saw before them. They found themselves standing in a cavern bigger than he had ever imagined possible.
“Bloody hell! Would you look at that,” Gwen said in wonder. Other villagers shared her sentiment in hushed tones of awe.
Multifaceted, crystalline shards entirely coated the walls, bouncing and refracting the light from the golden domes. Rainbows shimmered within the walls to form a mind-numbingly wondrous effect. Devon felt as if he’d just entered a cathedral dedicated to the beauty of light itself. “Now this is where I would worship.”
“Wow! This place is just – wow!” Gwen said, awe saturating her words.
He went back to gazing at the magnificent view. Memories stirred in his mind, but nothing he could properly focus on. A lake of shimmering water stretched from wall to wall on the far side of the cavern, and five waterfalls cascaded into it after descending down the lake’s surrounding walls. The water made a strange hissing noise as it tumbled down; it didn’t sound like water at all. Like a veil lifting, a memory suddenly came into focus. ‘Ley channels!’ That’s right! That isn’t water. It’s dust formed from concentrated magical energy. I remember this place.
In the centre of the lake, there was a stubby column made of crystal mixed with obsidian. On the ceiling, directly above the pillar, was a stalactite of the same material. Devon knew that they were all that remained of the conduit that carried magical energy from this cavern to Earth realm’s surface. He also could now remember just how to fix it.
A low wall bordered the lake, preventing the dust from spilling out into the cavern. Devon strained to look more closely at the lake. He could see wispy creatures swirling around in the water’s depths—the mana-wyrms, he remembered. Earth realm was the only world blessed with enough raw magical energy to sustain such ethereal creatures.
The cavern floor was solid granite, but here and there, it had crystals embedded within it. The crystals contributed to the chaotic light patterns. They were absorbing the light in some places and reflecting it in others.
He walked down the last of the sloped road onto the smooth granite floor. He heard a noise behind him and looked back. He saw Jet, now a fraction of her former size, coming down the steps backwards, pulling the remains of her meal from last night. The villagers parted the way to let her through. A wise choice when confronted with a creature with that many teeth.
Izzy intercepted his pending question.
Jet craned her head around to face him and gave him a wide, bloody smile, then went back to dragging her snack over to a gipsy caravan parked beside the wall on the far right.
As soon as Devon saw the caravan, more memories slammed into focus in his brain. “HAVEN! My gorgeous, gorgeous girl, you’re alive!”
Everyone jumped as they looked across to what had excited Devon. All they saw was a twee little caravan, done out in gaudy yellow panelling with red trim. Sure, it was a relic of a bygone world, but nothing to get excited about. They’d think very differently soon enough.
Devon made himself relax and forced his excitement away from his beautiful home. Haven had been his refuge and friend for thousands of years, but right now, he had bigger things to keep him busy.
There was a loud, communal gasp just as Devon felt an arm slip around his waist. “My lord,” an extremely feminine voice purred below his ear.
Devon looked down toward the origin of the arm. What he saw was the most beautiful elf he had ever laid eyes upon. She was petite with raven-black hair that reached down toward her waist. Her features were softly curved and gentle, with narrow, full lips that underlined a small, strong-looking nose. Her pointed ears were prominent, but her most striking features were her softly glowing eyes that shone a deep shade of azurite blue.
“My gods and their tiny angels... Izzy?” he uttered. After that, he was silent because his words had simply fled.
“You’re Izzy?” Gwen asked excitedly.
“I am.” She beamed a happy smile at Gwen, who couldn’t help but return it. “I needed magical energy to take my natural form. Up until now, I have had to resort to a tiny manifestation which Devon calls a wisp.”
“Are you the one he has been talking to when he goes all distant?” Beth asked from the front row of the villagers.
“Yes, indeed. Gwen, Devon, and I can communicate using our thoughts,” Izzy said. “He is no spy.”
“I know that now. It’s all so hard to comprehend. None of this should be real, and yet here we are.”
“Okay, Izzy,” Devon said. “We made it here. Shall we get our magic first?”
“I have never experienced or dared to imagine what it would be like to have more magical energy than I needed to stay alive. I am so nervous,” Izzy said. She sounded scared, too.
“So how does he get magic?” Beth asked.
Devon marvelled at the fact that it had been Beth who had asked the question first. He had imagined that she would be the most sceptical of all the villagers.
“I think the best thing to do first is to explain what magic is,” Izzy said. “Magical energy is what anything magical, such as Devon, me or any faie creature, needs to survive. We need it to live just as you need oxygen.”
“Is that the same power you use to cast spells?” Gwen asked, her voice bursting with enthusiasm.
“No, casting requires a much stronger magical power called mana. It is a power that must be created by concentrating the raw magical energy in the air around you, then refining and purifying it. Only then is it strong enough to change the world around it. Its purity and concentration define its power.”
“How does it change the world?” Beth asked. “There is no room for magic in physics. It’s all actions and their reactions.” Her astute scientific mind was focusing on the one thing that bothered her most.
“Magic does not change your physics. Your sciences have no concept of magic, and so they ignore it. I am afraid I am not an expert, Beth, but I can tell you how I understand it,” Izzy said.
Devon marvelled at how she already had everyone here focusing on her every word. The elf was a natural at teaching.
“All things are made from tiny particles that like to cling together,” Izzy explained. “Your sciences struggle to break matter apart or form new substances using various particles. Sometimes it requires vast amounts of energy or lengthy, complicated procedures. Magic is a power that can easily break apart and reform matter in any way just by structuring its power in prescribed ways. That’s how I understand it anyway. Let me ask you a question, Beth. I believe water is made from two different substances. Hydrogen and oxygen, correct?”
“Yes, we call them molecules,” Beth answered.
“Semantics. What would you have to do to persuade water to change back into hydrogen and oxygen?”
“Normally, we’d apply electricity to the water and use special metals to catalyse the breakup. It’s called electrolysis. It’s not a very efficient process, though.”
“Raw magical energy is not strong enough to change matter, but apply the right structure of mana to water, and it will instantly split into its component pieces. No mess, no fuss. That is what mana powered magic can do.”
Beth mulled Izzy’s words over and seemed slightly mollified by what she had heard. If this power could affect things in any way at a molecular level, the possibilities were limitless.
Izzy hadn’t finished, though. “Most creatures cannot process raw magical energy into usable mana. Not even gods or goddesses can do that. Mana is the power that you will need to utilise your spells and magical abilities,” Izzy explained. “Because you need mana but cannot make it, you need to team up with something that can. You need an assistant, something that will take the magical energy in the world around you and compress and purify it into mana. That something is called a symbiot, and that lake is swarming with them,” Izzy finished indicating the vast pool in front of them.
Izzy’s last words must have triggered alarm bells for some people.
“Something?” a young lady asked. Her face was red, but she looked giddy with excitement.
“Yes, something,” Izzy replied. “If you could all line up along that low wall by the lake, I will continue.”