A Darker Shade of Sorcery - - (leveled readers .txt) 📗

we know him?” Arantay asked.

“No. This brings us no closer to stopping these attacks. Where the hell is Vanderain?”

Even Tarensen had admitted there may be more demon attacks. Evan couldn’t let that happen because of him. Because of him, Cera could’ve died.

“Tarensen,” he called out, “I-I think I should go.”

“Go where?”

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“Away from here, back to Earth. Or maybe to one of the other Realmer strongholds. I’ve been attacked twice already. It’s a danger to everyone the longer I stay here. I couldn’t bear it if someone was killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Don’t be stupid, boy.” said Tarensen. “Admirable sentiment, Umbra, but impossible. They will find you wherever you go. You cannot escape them. Veneseron is the safest place for you in all the realms. Especially once Vanderain returns.”

“But he’s not here now, is he? He hasn’t been since I arrived.” Evan argued.

“He will be soon,” Tarensen replied fiercely.

Evan fell silent, not wishing to raise the Master’s ire. He wished Vanderain truly would return. Knowing demons could come back for him again was too much to take.

Tarensen inhaled heavily before giving out his commands. “Taretta, tell Elorian to track down Vanderain. You said last time he contacted you he was on Eventyre. Tell Elorian to search there first, ask around, someone must have heard a whisper to his whereabouts.”

Taretta nodded and left the chamber.

“Padrake, inform Master Li-Azar he is to scour the demon realms and find any information about this Kurrlan. Whoever he is, he’s interfering with Veneseron and endangering our Venators. I’ll station city paladins at every door of each castle.”

“I will,” Padrake bowed before leaving, striding purposefully in place of his normal jaunty gait.

Arantay stepped forward.

“No Arantay, you are ideally placed in the forest. If the demons are gaining access that way you’ll be first on the scene. You’re more than able to handle yourself if the situation arises. Alert your family and the other elves, we all need to be on our guard.”

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Arantay conceded reluctantly, but then left the room also.

Tarensen turned to them at last. “I shall inform Urkzul that all Venators from this moment on will need to be equipped with their enchanted weapons at all times. We can’t take any chances. Umbra, you are to go nowhere alone. I shall notify all the instructors to keep a close eye on you. I want you to keep inside the Fortress too, no city, beach or forest trips.”

“Yes, Sir,” Evan replied grimly.

I might as well go down to the forest now than risk anyone else being attacked just for being near me. What if they decided to come when I’m eating in the Banquet chamber, or training in the courtyard? There’d be too many casualties.

“Come,” Tarensen finished, “I’ll escort you to your room.”

It was a ghostly, silent walk back to Castle-Coterie. The only light outside came from the glittering walls of the Fortress itself, the triplet moons obscured by bruised clouds as rain smashed down ceaselessly.

Evan bid an awkward farewell to Cera as they entered the castle, thinking how their goodbye would have been different if demons had never attacked. Kissing Cera was one of the few good things that'd happened to him throughout his life, and even that had been ruined.

Tarensen walked him to his door and checked Evan’s room thoroughly.

“Um,” Evan said fretfully, “who’s Ezanathul? Only I heard the devil mention his name.”

“That was gibberish,” Tarensen replied, refusing to divulge further as he left.

Evan entered his room anxiously, half expecting another monster to jump out at him.

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Before, it'd been bullies hunting him. Now, it was demons. But he loved living at Veneseron. On Earth he'd never fit in. Here he at least had a place, a home. But what could he do now? It was agonising to simply sit and wait for another attack. Evan couldn’t get images of the grotesque demons out of his mind, no matter how hard he tried. He didn’t have the power to leave, to find them on his own and sacrifice himself, and was he really brave enough to do that? It was inevitable, it was horrible, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

Eventually, after hours of brooding and struggling against his own mind, he fell into a fitful sleep, plagued by nightmares.

*

By the following morning, the storm had grown silent and the sky was once again an unblemished ocean of blue. At first light Evan was in the Archives, scouring the aisles. If Tarensen and the other Masters weren't going to give him any answers, he'd find them himself.

Setting himself the task also distracted Evan from his paranoia. He couldn’t take putting anyone else in danger.

It took two hours rifling through the demon section, but finally Evan found what he was looking for in a demon history book for Mid-Realmer level Venators: Millennia ago there was a demon god named Ezanathul, also known as World killer. When Ezanathul was alive he was the biggest threat to the existence of all the realms, unlike any other. He rebelled against the other gods and tried to enslave all the realms to his will. Ezanathul destroyed billions of lives and wiped

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out whole races and realms. After much struggle and strife, the other gods banded together and ultimately sacrificed their own lives to destroy Ezanathul and put an end to his reign of horror.

Evan almost dropped the heavy book on the floor as he remembered the demon-devil’s words. He’d claimed Kurrlan was trying to resurrect this god, or at least thought it was possible.

But why the hell does he want me? Can you resurrect something if it’s been dead for thousands of years, even if it was a god?

Hundreds of questions raced through his mind, but more than anything, anxiety and dread threatened to consume him.

*

For the next week, Evan was jumping at the slightest of sounds. His hand was straying to Ruaden whenever a shadow flickered nearby.

His mind was swollen with a paranoia that infected his every waking hour and even tormented his sleep.

Wherever he went, Evan felt he was being watched by demonic eyes. He'd always had a vivid imagination, leading him to write stories about flawless heroes who could combat any foe, no matter how terrible. But this was different, this was real. He wasn’t flawless, Evan was hardly a hero, and he knew the foes hunting him could easily kill him, or worse.

It wasn’t just Evan who was paranoid. Everyone in Veneseron had discovered what had happened to him and Cera. They either came up to him grimly, voicing

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encouragement and telling him how brave he'd been, or they avoided him at all costs; probably in case of another attack. Evan didn’t blame them. He was surprised his friends stuck by him at all. Jed even made light of the situation once Evan told him the details.

“You and Cera kissed!”

“Well yeah, but it’s the demons I’m concerned about at the moment.”

“Yeah, but at least beforehand you got a slice of Cera action eh,” Jed winked.

Evan didn’t smile back, reflecting on how close she'd come to death because of him.

Why?

The thought reverberated through his head relentlessly.

Why are demons hunting me?

He was exactly the same as everyone else, well, every other Venator.

Finally Evan decided what he had to do. He couldn't keep them all in the dark any longer.

Three anxiety ridden days after the attack, Evan found Elijah and Jed before training and asked them to gather all of their friends, and Cera too. Cera he was dreading most of all.

Elijah and Jed both agreed, but also asked why.

“I'll tell you tonight, all of you, we'll meet in the Archives this evening, yeah?”

*

“Av it!” Jed cried, bowling his Ogre eye and hitting a strike.

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“I win, in your face,” he laughed at Emillia, ducking seconds later when she launched her Ogre eye at his head.

They were in one of the many rec rooms of the Fortress. The TV was airing a dating show where a Hobgoblin and a Banshee had just won a holiday to the world of Bealurn, where it was always sunny. The Banshee had been screaming in happiness for five minutes now.

“So Brooke, you're saying this Lyella is single now?”

Brooke glared at him.

“Oh…er yeah, because what I was going to say… is it doesn't matter how hot she is, I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole.”

“I'm so sorry about her, Brooke.” Emillia hadn't stopped apologising since Brooke had told them about the fight.

“It's not your fault,” Brooke reiterated, “you can't choose who your siblings are.

Let's just hope vicious attacks don't run in the family.”

“I dunno',” Jed smirked, “you two are welcome to mud wrestle one another anytime you want.”

The girls ignored him.

“Lyella went too far,” said Emillia, “are you going to tell the Masters?”

Brooke shook her head. “There's no proof, she'd probably find a way to get out of it. But if I hear she's tried bullying another girl I'll make sure she gets punished.”

“Be careful,” Emillia warned, “my sister will take you down with her if it comes to that.”

“Yeah, she's a right Bliak,” Xavier chipped in.

“Bliak?” Jed asked.

“A female Taeny troll, the ugliest type of troll there is,” Xavier said.

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“We've got bigger things to worry about,” said Brooke, “both Evan and Cera could've died in that attack.”

“Yeah and Evan's not handling it too well, poor lad,” said Jed.

“We'll just have to make sure we're there for him,” Brooke said.

Jed didn't want to let on how worried he was about Evan. He wished the demons were after him instead, better yet, Jed wished the demons would just leave Evan alone for good.

Last night he and Brooke had promised each other they'd be there if, or when, the demons attacked again. Evan shouldn’t have to face them alone.

Jed turned to take a swig of his Fiznizz, (a gnomish juice full of vitamins,) only to see the bottle flying out of the door instead, being stolen by two fairies.

“OI!”

Ignoring Emillia’s and Brooke's giggles, he slumped down on the sofa opposite Zeke and Xavier.

“Here, take my Mavla,” Xavier offered.

“Really? Thanks dude.”

Jed took Xavier's glass and drank eagerly. Seconds later he gagged.

“Eurrgh. Is this… vinegar?”

Everybody roared with laughter as Jed spluttered, realising too late Xavier had used illusion magic to make vinegar resemble Mavla.

“I'll get you back for that,” said Jed. “You don't know what you just started.”

“Oh it's on.” Xavier grinned.

Izekiel and Xavier returned to the books they'd been reading as Emillia continued to chuckle.

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Zeke was reading a comic with the pictures full of blood and gore, whilst Xavier was reading a romance novel named, “Bryan and Boris: two trolls against the world.”

A purple and gold scaled Droge was curled up on the sofa in-between them, its head on Zeke’s lap. The Dog-dragon growled pleasurably as Zeke