Chapter 28 - The Master returns.
“The council is now in session," announced the clerk. The Elder swept in, but this time did not sit down. Instead, he motioned for all the others to sit, and he took the floor. He paced up and down the chamber, no movement beneath his garments, no sign of hands, face, or feet. He was almost like a ghost in his movement, slow and gracefully he continued to pace up and down, all without saying a word. Then, after some seconds, he spoke.
“High Elders of Trymyll. You have spent these last few days dealing with the inconvenience of trinkets from another land when a dark and powerful wizard from an alternate dimension walks our land freely. You have done all you can to ignore this situation hoping it will go away or that it never happened. Tell me, what plans do you have if this wizard who calls himself the Master should come to your city and wreak havoc and bloodshed among you? A rhetorical question, so no need to answer, I know that not one of you has faced up to this situation save High Elder Govannon Stealey of the Elven Community who has mobilised his massive army of elven warriors, archers, horsemen and horsewomen to oppose any attack by an army of whatever nature that may descend upon them. Valiant as his men and women warriors may be, they will be no match for the power of the Master. He fights not only with the weapons of war but with magic and sorcery of power unimaginable to most of you. We cannot wait for the Master to bring the battle to us. We must take the battle to him. We must, as High Elders, be willing to fight until not one among us is left standing, male, or female. We have some strong allies in the form of Flintock, and the sons of Llewellyn the Brave. We leave at dawn tomorrow for the Blue Mountains. You may bring your weapons, but I fear they will be of little comfort to you. We need your magic. Now our powers are restored, and Llewellyn has been temporarily banished for his mistake, we must unite against this terror and bring it down.”
The Elder then sat down.
“High Elder Brangwen Binnion has the floor,” the clerk barked.
“Elder of Elders, and High Elders present. It is harvest time and I really should be reaping and garnering my crops.”
“If we do not defeat the Master, there will be no crops to bring in and no mouths to feed. Remember his threat. He will lay waste the land and not a single living thing will be left, not even a blade of grass or an ant will remain alive. Once he is defeated, then you can worry about your precious crops. Any more questions or dissenters?” no one stirred, “right, dawn at the city gate. All of you.”
“One small question,” asked High Elder Aneta Stepanek, “without wishing to sound at all rude oh Elder of the Elders but are you not just a little too old and frail for such a battle. Would it not be better to bring back Llewellyn The Brave to lead the attack? He is, younger and more agile, plus he has already experienced the power and magic of this so-called Master and knows more than any what we are dealing with.”
The others in the chamber all nodded in agreement. Little murmurs of, “here, here,” and “she has a point,” echoed around the chamber.
“I may be a little old, but I am strong, my magic is undiminished, and I am not a coward.”
“No one would ever suggest such a thing. But we may lose an advantage if we must wait for you or defend you in the fray. I think we should have a binding vote of the council on the matter,” Aneta added.
“The motion is that the Elder of Elders should remain at Blaenoraid and that Llewellyn the Brave should be recalled to lead the attack on the Master,” announced the clerk, “all in favour say, aye.”
“Aye!” the cry went up.
“Any against say nay,” there was silence.
“The ayes have it,” announced the clerk, “council dismissed.”
And so, the council was dismissed. All departed except Aneta Stepanek who lingered until the others had gone and the chamber was empty. Llewellyn emerged from behind the Elder’s chair.
“Thanks, Aneta, now let’s hope I don’t get killed, or you’ll be short of an Elder of Elders!”
“My dear Llewellyn, if you are killed, then we will all be killed and there is no hope for anyone. I don’t think we really need to worry about a vacancy at the top.”
Next morning, five-thirty came and the High Elders, Llewellyn, Tom, Jon, Flintock, Tryg, Howel, Ren and Bevon all assembled at the city gate. News of their venture had leaked out and they were heartened to see that a small crowd had gathered to see them off, wish them well and cheer them on. The dragons were in their alter-egos of a small dog, a sparrowhawk, and a cockerel. Llewellyn and the boys lifted their dragons, the whole party then apparated away to the Blue Mountains as one, powered by Flintock, who was an absolute master at mass apparation. They appeared on top of the ridge; the sun was just rising over the opposite escarpment. Rocks, boulders, and small craggy outcrops threw huge shadows along the valley, stretched out by the low trajectory of the sun.
The light poured into the entrance of the cave; the outer rim was still blackened by the burnt dragons which had perished a few days earlier. As they approached, the stink of burning flesh still hung in the air. A little of the dried blood from when Jon vaporised their remains, stuck to the edge of the cliff face running down the steep walls, red, brown, and black streaks of a jelly like substance which still hung heavy with maggots, feasting. Tom was sick, again.
They entered the cave, Tryg lit the torches as they approached each one with just a flick from his eyes. Ren morphed into his true self and flew down the cave into the cavern. He needed no light to see where he was going. As he entered the cavern, he cloaked himself in invisibility and circled around the vast circumference sniffing the air as if looking for something. He spoke to Tom. Tom could see, feel, and hear everything that Ren could see in the back of his mind.
“Here is the portal door, it is, as you can see, closed,” Tom could see it through Ren’s eyes even though they were still some distance from the cavern.
“Ren has found the portal door. It is currently closed” he said to his dad.
Llewellyn passed the information onto the others. They whispered amongst themselves.
“If the door is closed, we should seal it up from this side, then the Master cannot come through again.”
“Good theory," said Llewellyn, “but if the master is through the door and in our world, then we just sealed up his exit. No. We must make sure we know where he is before we seal up the portal. At least we now know the position.”
They all entered the cavern. Both the other dragons now reverted to form but cloaked in invisibility. Ren and Bevon were completely invisible, but Howel still had a slight purple glow about him and again looked like the cartoon character Tom had first met in the hidden cave. The thought made Tom smile to himself. In the event of a fight, all dragons would make themselves visible again so that they might not get hit by any stray spells. The Dragons were big, very big, but the cavern was vast, many hundreds of feet across, possibly a thousand, and high, two or three hundred feet high. In the centre, hanging about one hundred feet up was an exceedingly small swirling disk, set horizontally in the air, not more than the size of a penny across, visible only in the infra-red light thrown up by Ren.
“No wonder we couldn’t find it, it’s tiny, right up high and outside of the spectrum the human eye can see, clever,” Llewellyn muttered to no one in particular.
The small disk suddenly expanded to about three feet in diameter and up from the disk rose the Master. As he rose, his deep Afro-Caribbean voice boomed across the cavern.
“Oh my, I am honoured, the whole Council of High Elders has come to pay homage to me. I do hope that you are all here to bend the knee to me. If you do, you may find me an especially useful friend. If you don’t, you may find yourselves dead.”
Tom noticed that Trevonn Brice was separating himself slightly from the rest of the High Elders. Tom decided to quietly summon Ren to assist with a little but gentle probe inside his mind to see what he was thinking and why he was moving away. Ren silently communicated with Bevon for backup. Bevon sent a thought to Jon about what was just about to happen. Jon threw up a force shield around the group just as the Master was about to make his move. Jon then sent a stinging shot across the crowd and Trevonn fell to the ground. Wounded, unconscious, but not dead.
“What the...," shouted Llewellyn. The Master disappeared and the floating disk closed back to the size of a penny.
Tom quickly announced, "He was just about to take you down dad, we had to act fast.”
“Why? He’s on our side.”
“Ren probed his mind when I saw he was moving away. The Master knew we would throw up a defensive shield if he started to fight, but then he would have had a stooge inside the force field to take us out, starting with you and Flintock.”
“It is true,” Aneta said, “I too saw him moving away and read his intentions.”
“Anyone see where the Master went? Is he here or in his own domain?”
They all shook their heads.
“When the commotion started, we all turned away to look. No one saw where the Master went.”
“Rubber necks, all of you,” snorted Llewellyn.
Tom started to probe the minds of all the others in the room. All except one, Flintock. His mind was blocked and solid. Despite his mighty gift, he could not get in. Even Aneta, who was supposed to have the strongest mind-probing abilities and best block in the land of Trymyll was open to Tom. Then Tom felt Flintock send him a thought.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for Tom, but don’t. Now is not the time or place,” Tom was flabbergasted, surely not Flintock. He was dad’s oldest friend. He must be on our side.
“Next time we see him, don’t lose sight of him. Whatever is happening around you, you must keep an eye on the Master,” Llewellyn barked it out like a sergeant major.
The circle opened and up rose the Master again.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, you disappoint me. So, you have found the first of my stooges. But will you find them all in time to save yourselves?”
Tom quickly gathered his thoughts. He knew that all the other High Elders were clean, perhaps this was just a bit of psychological warfare by the Master, trying to put distrust between allies. He was obviously on the right side as was Jon and his dad. The only one he didn’t know about was Flintock. He sent a thought to his dad, “We’ve had a quick look inside the minds of everyone here except one and they are all on our side.”
The reply came quick enough. “When did you learn thought control? Never mind, who’s not on our side?”
“I don’t know, but Flintlock’s put up a massive mental block which I can’t get through, and he’s warned me not to try.”
“Interesting,” his dad thought, “But he may have his reasons.”
“So why do you run and hide at the start of any trouble oh great Master,” Llewellyn said with a big hint of sarcasm.
“Llewellyn the Brave, I do not run or hide, I merely went to get my pet.”
The portal widened even further and out slid a massive three-headed serpent dragon. He must have been one hundred feet long and each head was the size of a small car. It thrashed its tail around throwing tonnes of boulders and stones up into the air as it did so. The three dragons uncloaked and prepared for battle. Jon ran across to Bevon and jumped on his neck.
“No Jon!” shouted Llewellyn and Tom in unison. But it was too late, they were away. Ren and Bevon were straight into the fray, Howel kept his distance a little, but each of them was spilling out immense quantities of flame, it was so hot that rock was melting in the chamber. The assembled High Elders and wizards backed up the cave a little to keep out of the way. Tryg rushed forward, taking the fire out of one of the heads and into himself to protect the entrance of the cavern There was an almighty crack as Jon let go of what must be his biggest surge of pure energy ever. The head nearest him simply vanished and the long neck now hung down like a piece of meat in a butcher’s window. Bevon reared up taking an almighty blast of fire into himself, he then expended all that energy and all his own fire in one mighty firestorm which literally cooked the second head all the way down to the end of the neck. At the same time, Ren appeared out of nowhere with what looked like a massive golden sword that sliced through the third neck as if it were butter. All went quiet as the massive beast just fell to the floor of the cavern. Dead.
“Impossible!” shouted the Master, his magnified voice bouncing around the cavern and breaking off pieces of rock. With that he launched his own attack, first against Bevon and Jon, a powerful bolt flung from his hand and bounced off Jon’s impenetrable shield ricocheting back and nearly hitting the Master. He then started throwing random bolts of energy at anyone and anything. Ren was unaffected, a Golden Dragon has its own defensive shield which is more than enough for the Master's energy bolts. Howel was not so well protected and took a couple of hits which wounded him quite badly. Two of the High Elders were down, and he even sent a bolt into Trevonn Brice, finishing off what Jon had started. Howel summoned his strength and let the Master have a full blast from his firebox. He was momentarily disoriented, and Tom managed a powerful and accurate blast that took off one of the Master’s hands. The Master was visibly shocked, he had never seen such power before. He had never met with real resistance ever. All other worlds had just crumbled before him. He made a hasty retreat through the portal and the disk slammed shut.
At that moment, the Elder of Elders appeared in the cavern just below the portal. He floated up to the spinning disk. Cupped it in his hands and muttered an incantation. The portal disappeared. The door was shut. Trymyll was safe. For the time being anyway. The Elder floated gently down again to the floor of the cavern and disappeared again. Once the smoke had cleared and the torches were re-lit, they could assess the damage. Three High Elders were dead. Traveon Baughan, Brangwen Binnion and of course Trevonn Brice who may or may not have been a traitor, finished off by his own Master. Llewellyn looked round. Flintock was missing, this was not good.
Tom was attending to Howel, his wounds were bad, but not life threatening. One wing was broken and hung at his side, and he had a bad wound that was bleeding profusely. Tom seemed to pour healing into the wounds, and they were soon healed enough for Howel to be moved back to the surface if he morphed back into a dog so he could be carried. He had just enough energy and strength left to morph. So, Tom picked up the small limp Jack Russell dog and gave him to his dad.
He looked down at the bodies of the three High Elders, he wanted to be sick, he wanted to cry, he wanted to shout out loud in anger. He looked at the remaining High Elders.
“Well, thanks for all your help. Why not just stand there and let a couple of teenagers with their dragons take on the most powerful wizard you’ve ever seen. Thanks for nothing!”
Tom then stormed past them and up the slope to the cave entrance, a sparrow hawk on his shoulder. Jon followed him, cockerel under his arm and smoke still rising from his scorched cloak, glaring at the fine bunch of wizards just standing there, gawping. When they hit the surface, they didn’t wait for the others, they apparated away back to the hideout without speaking.
Back in the cave, the others gathered up the bodies on makeshift stretchers which they magicked up by combining staffs. They had no wheels; they just floated and were easily pushed up the steep slope to the surface. Once they were out and everyone except Flintock was accounted for Llewellyn send a mighty bolt of energy into the cave, collapsing the roof as half the mountain fell in on itself. No one was using this cave again as a portal from anywhere.