Fan Fiction ❯ Journey of Hope ❯ Journey part 12 ( Chapter 12 )

Journey of Hope
Written by VegetandAru (lord of the underworld)
Everything is my own, Please be nice as far as criticism goes, however if you do have something about it that you don't like then don't flame, just tell me about it if you would.

This was written quite a few years ago now, but I just stumbled across it on my hard drive and I've began to patch it up, it's still not finished but I'm working on it.

Yours VegetandAru (vegetandaru@yahoo.com)

<o0@0o>

'To the world you may be one person,
But to one person you may be the world'
(anonymous)

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"What are you- Trayant! Let go!" The brunette grabbed the dishevelled blonde by one slender wrist and physically dragged him out through the commons and onto the upstairs landing. It had taken Trayant what seemed like hours, to move from his huddled space on the floor outside of that awful room last night. When the tears had finally stopped flowing and the blockage in his throat seemed to lessen just slightly, he had dragged himself up from the ground and fled blindly away from that room.

It had taken him until dawn to find the commons again, and now he was ready to show Zak the truth.

He pulled the blonde hastily through the halls and down the grand staircase until they arrived at one of the many the entrances to the opal hall.

Looking around, Trayant set eyes on the maid from the previous evening and called her over too them, letting go of the younger boys wrist, he quickly and politely requested a meeting with Parron through gritted teeth.

She stumbled off as he finished speaking, hastening to comply only to return less than a minute later, followed by the blurred man who stalked over through the halls towards them.

"You are responsible for this." Not waiting for Parron to even greet them, he jumped straight to the point, glaring up into the ever changing eyes of the other man, even though he was easily shorter by no less than five inches .

Once again the lord didn't seem to mind.

"Okay then Trayant. Tell me. How did you come to this conclusion?" Trayant gave the other man a slightly vague look, eyes glazing over as though he was searching for the right words.

"I'm not sure what you are-"

"I'm a druid dear boy."

"Quite, but, that isn't really the point. The point is that you are the person who is doing this to the occupants of this town, and I'm going to make sure that you stop." Zak peered down at his friend like he was insane, and cast a worried glance tat the Gibbin Lord.

"And do you have evidence of that boy?" He raised an eyebrow, sliding into the vacant seat.

"Yes." Not bothering to wait until the look of shock on Parron's face had passed, Trayant launched straight into his explanation. "I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach about you when I first arrived here. I'm used to working around magic, twenty four seven, so when I met you, I know straight off that something was definitely wrong. So I decided that I would go searching last night, lucky for me, I came across the library. Overthrowing the Lord of Gibbin Parron, really I'm surprised." he didn't really look it. "Then, there was still the mystery of the people here, the newspaper article I read hinted that something was going on with them but It didn't tell me what so when I left, I headed off searching again. I was in such a disarray, that it took me a moment before I realised that I could hear voices. I headed off and came to that." He trailed off and swallowed hard, eyes shrouded with the memory, before continuing on. "That door. I looked into the room, you were chanting and-" he broke off with a dry sob, and carried on in barley more than a whisper. "She was just a little girl for Christ's sake. And you- you just..." he left his words hanging as his voice abandoned him and looked up at Parron, the sight wasn't exactly a comforting one."

Parron had started flicking from form to form again, this time faster than before, the difference being that this time, those devils eyes, stayed the same. Glowing a tremendous, thin slits shinning out of his head.

"You deceived me. You children will not live to tell any others I swear." His voice boomed, echoing around the room. Trayant and Zak began to edge backwards towards the door before turning to flee. Zak was quicker than Trayant and reached the door before him. He rattled the handle and pushed all his body weight into the door.

"It won't budge!" Zak cried as Trayant reached him.

"What!!!" Trayant rammed his shoulder into the door to no prevail. "It's locked!"

"What are we going to do?"

"You tell me you're the one who's been trained as a sword fighter."

"That doesn't mean anything." They turned and saw Parron approach laughing a laugh full of grim satisfaction.

"Have the little boys run out of ide- AHHHHHH!!!" He turned quickly in pain and anger. His back had the feathers of a cross bow bolt sticking out of it, they were stained red with blood.

"YOU!!!" He cried. Saria was standing on the balcony above the platform, she lowered her crossbow and smiled at Parron.

"You have used me for too long, I heard what they were saying and I'm not going to let you take away my immunity against your soul sucking creatures without a fight." She put down her cross bow and flung herself over the balcony to land crouching on the platform. She stood up and drew her sword.

"Ha fool. I can destroy you too Saria. You may be strong but I am stronger. You can't defeat me."

"Is that a challenge." She jumped off the platform and brought her sword round in a double handed swing aiming for his middle. He moved backwards to dodge her blow, but she had been expecting it and in a seconds flash was behind him and her sword had been embedded into his spine. He gave a scream and twisted around on the balls of his feet and thrust out his open hand. She went ridged. He closed his hand into a tight fist, then lifted it above his head. Saria rose up into the air, gritting her teeth to stop herself from crying out in pain.

"He's using magic." Zak mumbled under his breath, "We have to help her Trayant."

"How?" They looked up at her in time to see Parron open his hand and push it forward. Saria was flung like a rag doll against the far wall before dropping limply to the ground where in a matter of seconds her head was surrounded with crimson blood. Trayant and Zak looked up to the wall that she'd hit. One of the swords that hung on it was dripping red.

"You... You killed her. She helped you for all these years and you just killed her." Trayant's nose wrinkled in rage and disgust his hands shook with loathing for the man he saw before him. His outer shell was still fuzzily flicking but his inner self was clear and Trayant saw that this man was nothing but a murderer. "Zak get her sword." Saria's sword had fallen to the ground a little way away from them, Zak picked it up. "Saria's got a skeleton key hanging off her belt, if I can get it then we can get out of here, but you're going to hold him off, just for a second. Okay"

"Right." Zak ran out and swung Saria's sword round in a blow for Parron's head. But Parron was ready and blocked it. Zak thrust blow after blow at Parron. He was faster than normal, he never needed to see whether he had hit him because he knew he hadn't, this allowed him to be ready with the next blow quicker than normal and this is what he was depending on to distract the Gibin Lord.

Trayant ran on behind the fight to where Saria lay, he skidded on her spilt blood and had to support himself on the wall to stop himself from falling to the ground and distracting Zak from his fighting. He crouched down carefully and undid Saria's belt. Cringing as blood so dark it was almost black stained his hands, he couldn't keep himself from looking down at the young women's face. Grey eyes had rolled back into her head showing only bloodshot whites and her once tanned skin was know as pale as a porcelain dolls. Garnet blood trickled down her chin from thin white lips, opened in a silent gasp.

Forcing himself to look away from the pitiful sight he focused his attentions on the silver key hanging from her belt. Long, nimble fingers quickly and unbuckled the thick leather and pulled the keys quietly from it.

"Got it." He whispered to himself, in hushed tones, as he picked up the skeleton key, "Zak! I've got it!" Parron turned to see Trayant running to the door, he turned back round to find that Zak too had fled. They were faster than him, for one they were younger and for another then they didn't have to run with a cross bow bolt in their back. They got to the door first and Trayant began to unlock it as quickly as he could.

"Trayant stop it's Tomato!" He shook Trayant's shoulder, it was ridged with fear and loathing amongst other sour emotions.

"Zak! What are you going on about, we don't have time for this!" Zak grabbed Trayant's arm, pulled him around and pointed up towards the window in the roof. Parron had stopped when he saw Trayant turn.

"Tomato!" The griffin was hovering above the window looking in on them with curiosity. Parron followed Zak and Trayant's gaze up to the window.

"AHHHH! What is that... that... that... that thing." Parron reeled back, repulsed at the griffin's peculiar looks.

"Tomato! Help us!" The two boys yelled in chorus. The griffin took the hint and smashed through the glass with a mighty thump. Landing with her foot over Parron's torso. She lifted her other foot and brought her talons down into Parron's neck. There was a crack of shattering bone and a blood curdling scream. The griffin took flight hovering above the dead lord's body. Trayant unlocked the door and Zak and himself pushed their way through the streets of confused people asking each other questions like "Who am I?", "Where am I?" and "What has been going on?". They all looked healthy, tired but healthy. Their skin had colour as did their cheeks and their hair, their faces and voices were filled with expression and the hollow look once found in their eyes was no longer there.

Zak and Trayant forced their way out of the city, Tomato following them, and didn't stop running until the sun was low in the sky and the colours of dusk had officially set in. Then without talking they lay down on the grass and fell in silence to a dream filled sleep. Knowing that tomorrow was still to come.