Suggested by: Julieann Wright
The List:
Name: Seth
Place: Train Station
Time: Fall
Object: A Coin
The Result:
Darren
regained consciousness, but he could not move. He could feel his
eyelids so puffed with bruising that no amount of exertion could get
them open further than a sliver.
The goblins had worked till he passed out, but they were gone now. Faith was safe. He had not told them anything.
His
head throbbed where they had pounded him with clubs; his sides ached
where they had stuck him with javelins. They had tied ropes around his
wrists and ankles and nearly quartered him. Finally the blackness had
consumed him, and Darren had slipped away from the pain.
A
steady dripping echoed from deeper into the cavern underneath Alexander
VanTussel's stately mansion. A single torch near the front of the room
cast a sputtering, yellowed light to within three feet of Darren's cell,
but no further. He lay in the hard-packed dirt, just waiting for
unconsciousness to claim him again.
Footsteps crunched, but
Darren was beyond resisting anymore. They could just go ahead and kill
him, for all he cared. He wondered if Faith and Courtland had reached
Orkney by now. Soon the Midnight Dragon would be beyond the reach of
anybody... And then what?
"What the—Darren?"
Darren
didn't know what surprised him more: the human voice when he expected
goblins, or the fact that he knew the voice, despite not having heard it
in years. Slowly, he rolled his body toward the bars of his cell.
"Seth?" He croaked.
His
old friend stepped into the light of the torch. His face was much older
than the last time they'd seen each other, at the end of the fall term
at university, gearing up to join their respective families for the
holidays. But nonetheless, as Seth stood at the bars of the cage,
peering in, Darren knew—or he hoped—that his friend remained the same.
Seth grinned. "You always did have a thing for young damsels and quests for destiny, didn't you?"
What did he—was he mocking Darren? The prisoner grimaced as he heaved himself to a sitting position.
"Seth," he moaned, "what are you—"
"Oh,
save your breath," Seth sneered. "If you were any bit as good a
Protector as you fancied yourself, you would have seen me there at the
train station in Lancaster, following you... and the Ecrivaine."
Thoughts
and emotions rattled around Darren's mind, and he wagged his head in a
futile attempt to clear it. "Y-you... You're with him?" He panted.
Seth
grinned, but the mirth was gone. "Of course; I'm the one who told
VanTussel where you were. You might have lost the Ecrivaine by the time I
found you—but I know what she looks like, so we'll find her again."
Like
a candle in the rain, the hope sputtered and died. Desperately, Darren
lunged for the bars. "No!" He made it halfway and scrabbled at the dirt.
"You can't do this! You don't know—"
"About the dragon?" Seth
cut in again, slipping his hands into his pockets with an air of
nonchalance. "About the incredible power it would bring—"
"It would destroy Earth!"
"You idiot," Seth snarled. "He doesn't want to deal with Earth! He wants Phantasm!"
Darren frowned at the strange word. "What?"
"VanTussel
wants to rule the Dragon's world, Phantasm. He wants to use the
restraints that the Dragon has here–the Ring and the Ecrivaine—to
harness it before he returns with it and sets himself over that world."
Darren
snorted, but there was too much blood in his nose and instead he gave a
wet, gurgling cough. "And you think he's gonna share that with you?"
Seth shook his head. "No; I know that's never going to happen, he's said as much. I'm here for you, old friend."
Darren gestured to his bars. "Not quite the scene I pictured you saying that in," he commented.
The
gloating facade slipped for a moment, and Seth took his hands out of
his pockets. "Darn you, Darren! Why couldn't you just tell the man what
he wanted to know? What's so important that you had to keep mum?"
Darren
smirked as well as he could with a fat lip and leaned his head back on
the rough stone wall. "I'm a Protector, Seth," he mumbled, "It's what I
do." He raised his head and looked right at his former friend. "What are
you?"
"You're a fool, Darren," Seth snapped.
Grunting
and growling down the hall signaled the return of the goblins. Suddenly
Seth seemed eager not to get caught standing at the cage. He backed
into the shadows.
"I'll be back to watch you
die!" He yelled—a little too loudly, Darren thought. Something glinted
as it sailed through the air from one of Seth's hands, and clanked as it
hit the ground and rolled through the bars to Darren's feet. He quickly
snatched it up before the goblins arrived to torture him again. By the
time he looked up, Seth had vanished. Darren looked at the object in his
hand.
It was a coin. Grinning, Darren tucked
the coin where the goblins wouldn't find it. He would need it later to
make his escape. He only hoped it would be in time.
No comments:
Post a Comment