Prologue: Death of the Swordbearers

"How many are still standing?"

Lightning forked outside the tower as a figure, cloaked in black like it was a shield (including his mask) , gazed out the window at the battle taking place just outside the firm walls of the castle. Fire exploded, ice piled against and slowed down his defending forces.

Behind him--because no one had seen his face--a humble and very timid voice answered, "Only the three Swordbearers are standing, sir. The others have either been killed in battle or captured."

The masked figure laughed. "Excellent. But I did not expect them to be so naive."

"Yes, sir. Your plan has gone perfectly."

"Death is a hungry and relentless creature. A few more lives will fit the price in exchange for my power.  But I need those swords. Get them for me."

The masked man watched as, in less than an hour, the lightning, fire and ice slowly disappeared and were swallowed into the darkness of the night. He smiled with satisfaction.

"Sir," an excited voice said, "the Swordbearers are dead--all of them."

"Death will be pleased--only their souls will be lacking," he added regretfully. "And the swords?"

"Locked under a spell, sir. One would have to be a magician to unlock them again. Like you, sir."

"But of course."

There was a triumphant pause, then, "What happens now sir?"

"We destroy their children of course."

"They could not take the swords if they tried, sir. Your plan was a brilliant one."

"Of course, I know that," the Magician said with an arrogant smile that shadowed his mask. His back was still turned. "But I want to make an example of them. The legacy of the Swordbearers must die here."

"Of course, sir." Footsteps echoed away. "As always, you are brilliant sir. Brilliant!"

"I know." The Magician looked out the window at the dissolving smoke as the police marched into the village. "And my son will a successful heir."

****

13 Years Later....

"He's coming! Hurry up!"

The voices in the hallway of  Benson Manor—Melaine's and and the Inspector's—were growing clearer by the second. Josh, Jackson and little Maria were already down in the basement. Dylan held the door open for his other younger sister, Darla.

She jumped inside, pretty much skipping the whole ladder. He could hear footsteps rapidly nearing the library—one of the many in Benson Manor. There wasn't time to follow after her. Dylan kicked the secret panel in the floor shut, as quietly as he possibly could. Then he silently dashed down a hallway (opposite to the one where Melaine and the Inspector were coming) that led to another library, trying not to be seen.

This library was the one with several suits of metal armor on display. In the very middle of the room, in a glass case, was a sword from some great knight of long ago. Dylan looked at it for a second and then focused on listening for the voices.

"Yes," Melaine was saying as they neared Knight's Hall (that was what Melaine called this library), "this mansion has been in my family for generations—ever since the days of the Twelve Knights."

"You have a fascinating collection of books," the Inspector commented emotionlessly.

"Then I suggest you come at a break time to relax and read some."

Their voices were echoing—Dylan couldn't tell where they were coming from. He didn't want to be caught running. That would make the Inspector think he might be up to something—and Inspectors were usually paranoid about everything.

"I'm a busy man, Miss Benson."

"Everyone should have time to read," Melaine replied matter-of-factly.

Dylan realized too late that they were coming into Knight's Hall. He wondered what his explanation should be when the Inspector saw him.

The two of them entered and paused when they spotted him. The Inspector jotted something on his notepad. Melaine managed to look calm and unconcerned.

"Who is this?" the Inspector asked, turning to Melaine—as if Dylan wasn't there himself to answer the question.

"An assistant of mine," Melaine replied. "He helps me manage the libraries sometimes."

Well, Dylan thought, that was true. He had been nominated Official Duster more than once by Melaine.

"How often does he come?" the Inspector asked.

"When he can," she answered.

That was true also. If he wasn't locked in the basement with his younger siblings when visitors came (which had become more frequent lately).

Dylan did his best to look unconcerned like a normal citizen of the Middle Ground Society should. But he was fumbling in his mind for answers to the questions he knew would come. Melaine had drilled him on this before. If he could just remember what he was supposed to say....

"Where are you from?" the Inspector asked, finally addressing Dylan himself.

"I was born further from this city, still within the dominion of the Middle Ground," Dylan answered with a shrug, avoiding a glance at Melaine to find out if he'd said the right thing.

"But you live here in June City?"

"Yes."

The Inspector jotted more notes as he asked, "What is your clan and status?"

That should have been easy to answer. But although Dylan knew his clan (Jones) and his status (fugitive), he wasn't ready to give that information out. Finally he remembered what he was supposed to say.

"Your clan," Melaine had told him one day, "is Smith. And your status is neutral."

From that memory, Dylan answered the Inspector's questions. Then the Inspector asked, "What is your name?"

"Dylan," he answered. That was fine to say--it didn't give anything suspicious about his background.

The Inspector finished looking around Benson Manor and Melaine escorted him out, still giving no visual trace about the uneasiness of what was probably going through her mind.

"That was too close," Melaine said to Dylan, going to Exploration--the library where the secret basement was. Dylan followed her and opened the secret panel on the floor.

Darla came up the ladder after the three younger ones (Josh, Jackson and Maria) and gasped dramatically as if she had been suffocating.

Maria grabbed Dylan's hand and said, "I want a banana."

****
"That was way too close," Melaine said, pacing her office as Dylan sat quietly on a chair in front of her desk, listening to her rant on. The kids were already in bed (although Darla would probably have punched him in the arm if she heard him call her a kid).

"But everything turned out fine," Dylan answered, stifling a tired yawn. It was getting late.

"We can't have him or any of the other Inspectors see you again. It's too dangerous."

Dylan waited for her to finish. She would be mad at him for a while and then forget about it when she had something else to talk about. And he had a feeling that she had another reason for wanting him here.

"Whatever report the Inspector gives," Melaine continued, "will go in my record. We've got to be careful to play our cards well. They'll never stop looking for you as long as there is a line of Magicians to claim the Lilithian throne."

Lilithia was the capital of the Middle Ground, a city always bustling with magic and activity—especially magic. It was the place where, during the days of the Twelve Knights, the King had first created the twelve Elemental Swords. Three of them, Ice, Fire and Lightning, had become famous during the days of the Rising Swordbearers. Now, no one spoke of those days for fear of being arrested by the police or disowned by their families.

"Is that why you called me here?" Dylan asked. "To tell me what I already know?"

"No," she answered, as he'd expected. "There's something I want to show you." Melaine  gestured for him to follow and moved aside a secret panel disguised in the wall behind her desk. "This is much better for you to hide in when the need arises. Darla will be especially happy about the small windows--you can see out, but no one can see in."

He followed her inside to a place that could have been a miniature house--there was a stove, two sets of shelves with books and dry food, and a storage cabinet that was partially open. Dylan opened it all the way and found mattresses, blankets and pillows.

"I've been working on it," she said with obvious satisfaction, "and I thought it would be a nice surprise." She looked at him with that serious, intense expression of hers and added, "I'll be expecting more guests to visit the coffee shop, especially as the procession is taking place and people pass through this city to get to Lilithia."

The coffee shop was a large, cozy area that was connected to the library Discovery (the most popular of all the libraries in Benson Manor, a place where people often came to visit). Even though there was a big wooden sign on the front of the coffee shop that read "The Cozy Corner," Melaine always called it, "the coffee shop."

"There's something else," Melaine said, pushing aside one of the bookcases to reveal a passageway. Dylan followed her down a set of stairs. As they descended, he was aware of a buzzing sound from below that grew clearer with each step.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a whole lab set up, with test tubes and other science tools scattered in an organized sort of mess across the whole room. The smaller objects were mostly on a counter in the center of the stone floor, while larger machines bordered the edges.

"What is this place?" Dylan asked, wondering just how many secret doors and rooms she might have that he didn't know about.

"Magic is a science no one fully understands yet," she answered as she walked toward the counter. "It never ceases to amaze, whether for good or for evil. Experimenting with it to discover more has been a hobby of mine, as it was for my father, his mother before him and every generation preceding them."

"What are you working on now?" Dylan asked as he walked over to an odd-looking machine that was large, resembling a giant can with various wires attached. It looked like it might still be under construction.

"This," she answered as she pulled out a box from a cabinet next to one of the machines. She placed it on the countertop, pressing buttons on the top for different numbers. It unlocked with a hiss. Inside there was a screen, and below that a small keyboard. She typed something up and then took a few steps back.

There was a crack that echoed in the room like a small bolt of lighting, and a huge black circle appeared above the open box. It spiraled and grew wider for several seconds, then became a window-like view into another place as the blackness disappeared. As the images grew clearer, Dylan saw the shores of an island.

"You made a portal?" he asked. "With what?" He was already going through the possibilities in his mind: some kind of magic dust, a spell...

"It doesn't matter," she answered quickly. "Where it leads is more important."

"Okay. Should I ask the obvious?"

She smirked and answered, "The island of Lorilia. Originally it was going to be called Mixien Lilithia, but the Explorers thought it was too redundant to name the island so closely to the capital city."

Dylan knew "mixien" was the word for "small" in the Lilithian tongue. Of course, that form of the language was so outdated that hardly anyone used it, except occasionally in music, drama, or poetry.

Just then they saw a girl crossing the beach, her shoeless feet leaving a trail of imprints behind her in the sand. She bent down to pick up a shell and looked up. A startled expression came over her face when she saw the window made by the portal, and she waved.

Quickly Melaine closed the portal by pressing buttons again, ignoring the friendly gesture. "It would be a good place for you and your siblings to go. It's not far from the valley of the Middle Ground, but it's far enough to where the people live independent of the Magician's rule. It would be good for you to live in a place where you're not always hunted by the police."

"Do you know anyone there?"

"Not many," she admitted. "But I was there when I was young—my family went on a "forbidden vacation", as we called it. No one from the Middle Ground is supposed to meddle with the Outsiders who don't live under the Magician's rule. There's still a problem I need to fix," she said as she closed the box, locked it, and put it back into the cabinet. "Only one person can go through the portal at a time. I'm working on different combinations of spells to widen its capacity. But so far I haven't had any success."

She pointed to their left, and Dylan saw a door. "That's a tunnel leading to several others beneath the city. At the entrance I left a map so that you could find your way through it, like a maze. Just don't forget to pick it up if something goes wrong and you end up needing to escape that way."

"What makes you think something ever will?" Dylan asked in a dull tone. "We've been hiding from the Magician for years. He thinks we're dead."

"I'm not entirely sure of that, actually," Melaine told him. "That's what I used to think. But now I've begun to wonder."

They made their way back up the stairs and Melaine slid the bookcase back to its original spot. They left the secret room and went back into the office, where Dylan closed the panel. So they were ready for emergencies. But would they ever need it?

Just then, there was a knock on the office door. One of the kids must be awake, Dylan thought. Maybe they can't sleep....

Melaine opened the office door a crack and then, her eyes wide, opened it fully as a man with a bloodstained t-shirt stumbled onto the red carpeted floor. She looked as surprised as Dylan to see the wounded stranger. Who was he? What was he doing here?

"Jonas?" she asked softly as she pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and started to stifle the flow of blood on his shoulder. "What are you doing here? Never mind, don't answer that." She turned to Dylan. "Call the doctor. Then get your siblings down into the paneled room and sleep there. I don't want to risk anything."

"No, no," the man gasped a little and then coughed. In a calmer voice he said to Dylan, "Don't call the doctor."

"What in the world happened to you?" Melaine demanded.

He smiled a little and answered, "Don't you think you should have married me a little sooner?"

"The nerve..." Dylan started to mutter, then decided it wouldn't help anything.

Melaine was unmoved by his romantic attempt. She asked, "Was it them?"

"Blackhearts," he gasped again.

Dylan was aware that Jonas was wearing a knife holstered at his side, and on the other was a gun. The man's black hair was cut short but still a little curly. His blue eyes darted around the room, checking out the surroundings. Dylan wondered with more than a hint of irritation why he had never heard of this Jonas before.

The man's breathing was irregular, but between gasps he began to speak. "They tried to make me talk. They wanted the descendants."

The descendants? Dylan thought. Is that us? Well, assuming this had something to do with the Swordbearers and his dad, the Ice Keeper. He felt like he should help somehow—but, as usual, Melaine was so focused on her current task that she didn't take notice of him. And she usually wanted to do things on her own anyway.

"I know we got off at a rough end," Jonas said, his breathing finally relaxing. "But I wanted to come and make things—," he gasped for a few moments and then said, "right."

"You're a busy man," Melaine said a bit angrily. "And a man full of excuses. Why would you care?"

If he was hurt by her comment, he didn't show it. Instead he said, "They'll be here soon. They're waiting. I didn't realize they were following me until it was too late."

"You of all people," she muttered. "Dylan," she said in a suddenly calmer and more controlled voice—but he could tell there was a hint of urgency. "Get them in here." She pointed to the paneled room. "There isn't much time."

****

"I want to sleep," 7-year-old Jackson muttered, turning on his bed.

"We need to get downstairs," Dylan said, carrying sleepy-eyed Maria, who had just turned five several weeks ago.

"Come on Jacks," Darla, thirteen years old, pulled him to a sitting position.

10-year-old Josh was already awake, sitting up in bed. He yawned and reluctantly pushed aside the covers.

Finally everyone was together in one piece—sleepy and disheveled, but together just the same. Darla led the way to Melaine's office but stopped when she saw the stranger, who was now propped up against the wall as Melaine looked through the drawers of her desk. Dylan adjusted Maria's weight to one arm and used the other to ease the not-so-secret panel aside—if Melaine had been comfortable enough to point it out in front of Jonas, she was probably fine with him seeing it opened.

"Who's that?" Jackson asked.

"What's he doin' here?" Josh added. Maria yawned. Darla folded her arms and waited for answers.

"Is he okay?" Maria asked in a sleepy voice.

Jonas smiled, but Dylan could see that he was struggling to breathe again—and he looked weak. One hand pressed the cloth against his shoulder, but it looked like the bleeding had lessened.

"Dylan's going to show you a new hideout," Melaine said in a voice that was meant to make the children enthusiastic.

Dylan led the way into the hidden room, tuning out the questions and complaints of his younger siblings. He closed the panel of the office wall after they were all inside and asked Darla to help him set up the mattresses.

"I'm hungry." Maria reached for a banana in a basket that was set on one shelves of the bookcases.

"You're always hungry," Jackson mumbled sleepily. Maria couldn't reach it, so Josh took one off the bunch and handed it to her.

Melaine entered the secret room. "Darla," she said, handing her a flashlight, "take the kids down the passageway." She moved aside the bookcase. "Dylan," she said, turning to him, "I need your help with Jonas. He'll need to be moved in here."

Dylan passed Maria to Darla and the four of them descended down the stairs. "Close it behind you," Melaine said to her as she and Dylan left the secret room.

Whatever happened to sleeping in the secret room? He wondered. Melaine had obviously changed her plans on the spot. Why? "Aren't you afraid of them touching your stuff?" Dylan asked. "In the lab."

"I made it child-proof," she answered.

Suddenly there were voices from outside the office door. Dylan realized too late that several police were swarming into the room. Just before they could see him, Melaine pushed him into the secret room and slid the panel into place.