Cairo screamed. Kevin lunged to his feet and ran for his cycle. However, the great beast seemed unaffected by these proceedings. It just stared at Cairo as if wondering which part of him to eat first. Cairo was rooted to the spot, his legs refused to obey the repeated instructions of his brain to run. Cairo felt fear, like he had never felt before.
Suddenly, a lot of things happened at once. Kevin who was already on his bicycle, had picked up a big stone and had flung it across at the ginormous dog with such absolutely precision, that he completely missed. Instead of hitting the monster, the stone hit right on the back of Cairo's head, and he collapsed, at the same time, Cairo felt the amulet in his pocket grow warm, and also saw the dog turn its head towards the Kevin, snarl at him, and pounce at him. After this, he saw nothing. All he knew, was that his head was very painful. But somewhere within him, he knew that Kevin was in immense danger, and he used this thought to get himself to wake. He slowly got up, and heard distinct shouts of fighting. He ran towards the noise even though his head felt heavy and painful.
He reached a clearing in the woods, and ducked just in time to miss a blast of fierce hot fire from the dog. Two people were trying to restrain it. One of them, he noticed, was Kevin, but the other was a girl he had never seen before. She had hair, which was very much like Cairo's but her eyes were strangely dark red. She was holding a long golden spear and was fighting the two headed dog so fiercely, that the beast was forced backwards. She kept on piercing her spear on different parts of the beast's body, and it howled in pain.
Suddenly, she chanted something under her breath, and the spear grew bright red. And with immense power, she threw it at the dog, and the spear(unlike Kevin's stone) hit straight on its mark. It went straight through one of the dog's heads, and with a loud distinct howl, it collapsed, and burst into dust. The spear fell with a loud clang.
"Phew" said the girl.
Kevin, who had just noticed Cairo, rushed towards him, and pulled him into a hug. "I thought you were a goner" he said. He had been holding his cycle handlebar to fend off the dog. It seems the dog must have melted his cycle with that fire breath.
"Thanks, I wouldn't have survived if you hadn't helped"
Kevin, who thought it was sarcasm, said-"Look, I am not really good at aiming, it was a mistake." Cairo just shook off the apology and walked towards the girl. Kevin followed.
"Who is she?" he asked Kevin softly.
"That, is a very good question" said Kevin. He rushed towards her. She had picked back her spear from the dust and was cleaning off the dog-blood and dust from it.
"Hey! My friend here wants to know who are you and what are you doing here" yelled Kevin. The girl looked at them coldly.
"I am Chloe. And incase you didn't notice, I just saved your stupid heads."
"I noticed it, thanks" replied Cairo. He didn't really like the attitude of this girl.
"My name is Cairo and my friend here is Kevin" he said. They shook hands.
"Now, can anyone tell me what the bloody hell was that thing?" asked Kevin, pointing at the pile of dust.
"That was a Kwelan" said Chloe. "They are dark creatures. Always in search of drinking magical blood"
"Magical blood? It would really help us, you know, if you would be a bit more explanatory" said Cairo.
"We don't have time for that" she said, pointing towards the sky. Kevin and Cairo were shocked by what they saw. Clearly, the sky seemed to have been cut by some sword. and now left a large hole in the sky.
"What the-" began Kevin, but he was cut off by Chloe.
"Its a portal. The Kwelan's howl managed to make a cut in the portal system, and somehow, I have a feeling that we might have to fight more of them coming from that portal."
"More?" murmured Cairo weakly. Kevin and Cairo looked frightened at the very thought, but Chloe looked absolutely delighted. However, seeing the expression on Cairo and Kevin's faces, she just snorted. "Well, if you don't want to face them, then you had better come with me. This place is not safe." and with that, she ran off towards the woods, without waiting for a reply.
Kevin looked at Cairo. Clearly at a loss for words. Cairo knew that the girl had not been lying, that their lives were in danger, but then, seeking help from a complete stranger might be even more dangerous.
"We don't have much of a choice" said Cairo. Kevin nodded, and together, they both ran after Chloe.
She ran extremely fast. They finally caught up with her, and soon they arrived at their destination. They had reached the caves where Kevin and Cairo had once camped.
"Why are we here?" asked Cairo. Chloe said nothing, instead she took out an amulet from her pocket, which looked exactly like Cairo's amulet minus the runes and the blue sapphire. Her amulet had a red gem(probably a ruby). Seeing the amulet, Cairo wondered whether the gem on his sapphire had returned to its normal color. Cairo made a mental note to check his amulet if they ever got out of this mess.
Chloe was fiddling with her amulet. She held it open in her hands, closed her eyes and murmured "Please guide me". A glowing red symbol appeared in the air, directly above her head. It had four arrows pointing towards four opposite directions, and was enclosed in a rectangle. It floated unsteadily in the air and moved towards one of the caves. The three followed. The caves were dark, but the glowing rune acted like a headlight for them. Cairo and Kevin had never been so deep inside any of the caves before, but this cave didn't appear to have a dead end either. Every time they reached a partition, the symbol guided them to a certain direction. Cairo and Kevin were equally surprised. They had gone into every one of these caves during their childhood, but somehow, now that he thought of it, they had never entered this one. As if the cave had hidden itself every time either Cairo or Kevin passed by it.
Soon, the passage started to lower down, and they had to crouch a bit to move. Suddenly, they heard a distant sound of howling. Kevin face looked petrified in the dim light of the symbol on hearing the howls.
"They are closing in on us" said Chloe, through gritted teeth.
"Whatever you are doing, do it fast, we won't have much place to run here" said Kevin.
Cairo felt unnaturally calm, as if his mind was adapting the coolness of the caves. Suddenly, they saw a small light glowing up front. Kevin cowered behind Chloe, expecting another attack, but Chloe, just walked forwards steadily.
Soon, they were came out of the tunnel, and had entered a wide low ceilinged cave with lots of stalagmites and stalactites. The source of the light was a small flickering candle placed on one of the stones.
"Back again Chloe?" said a loud rasping voice.
All three of them whirled around. Standing in front of them was a little man, almost completely shrouded in the darkness.
"Will you stop scaring us like that Kil?" asked Chloe coldly.
Kil, the little man just snorted. "Going to go on another ride, eh?"
"Yes, Salcombe Harbour"
"Ah! I see, I see. That will be twenty twigs" replied the little man.
"Twenty!?" exclaimed Chloe "Why then? You are asking too much!"
"Ma'am, with all the inflation in our world, I will need that much. And with those two little friends of yours, it will be sixty."
"I am afraid I don't have that much" replied Chloe.
"Then how about that beautiful spear of yours along with forty twigs" suggested Kil.
No one knows how Kil managed to see the spear in such darkness, but Cairo knew quite clearly, that Chloe would never part with her weapon.
Apparently Kil thought so too, because he said after a moment-
"Otherwise, how about the beautiful amulet that this young man has in his right pocket?"
The little man had managed to shock Cairo. He saw Chloe's eyes narrow, and Cairo avoided her.
"No" he said "absolutely not."
What a creepy man, thought Cairo. He could see through clothes. no wonder he managed to live in the dark. Cairo now thought that nothing could surprise him.
Kevin, who had been silent till now suddenly moved forward, and showed something to Kil, and said-"How about this?" The thing in his palm was a long fang, nearly twenty centimeters long. Cairo had a distinct memory of seeing the exact same tooth in one of the heads of the Kwelan.
"It broke off when that kwelan tried to bite Chloe's spear, and I picked it up"
Kil whistled in a cruel and pleased way. "Of course. I can offer you my services for one of these fangs and twenty twigs"
Chloe sighed. She had no option left, and this was the best she could do. She took out a little bundle from the small bag she was carrying and placed it into Kil's outstretched hands. He seemed very pleased with him self.
"Now follow me, my good friends." he said and moved into light. Now that Cairo saw Kil in full light, he was quite repelled by his looks. He wore ragged clothes. He had hair coming out of his ears, with fleas all around him. He had an ugly face with a bald head with a sickening cut on it. He had such narrowed down eyes, that Cairo was surprised he could find his way through the cave, let alone see through clothes. He had long arms and really long filthy nails. He walked barefoot and even his leg nails were equally disgusting.
By looking at Kevin's face, Cairo saw quite clearly, that Kevin to was equally disgusted by Kil. They walked a bit, and finally they reached a dead end.
Kil placed his hands on the wall and murmured something. The he turned towards them "Walk through these doors, and you shall reach your destination." and with that he left them and merged into the darkness. Cairo squinted at the wall and noticed that a handle had appeared on the smooth stretch of stone. He grasped it and pulled. The whole wall swung around to reveal another passage, but this time, the walls were plain white and they couldn't see the other end. They entered this passage and closed the door behind them. As soon as Cairo let go of the handle, the door disappeared, leaving them no option but to carry on with their journey.
"Who was that guy?" asked Kevin.
"A goblin... They are all for business. Try to scam people a lot, but they are pretty damn useful sometimes."
"And the twigs that he mentioned?" asked Cairo.
"It's like a currency in the magical world. You can sell some of the twigs of The Rhizhalia, an ancient tree in our headquarters. It has magical properties. Can make a prophecy, act as medicine for many poisons and wounds and does many more things"
"Now that we have enough time" continued Chloe. "You wanted to ask something right?"
"Yes please" said Kevin immediately. "Can you tell us what is all of this? Like from the beginning...please?"
"Oh you people are hopeless! I guess I will have to tell you the whole story... Are either of you familiar with the book 'The First Phoenix'?" she asked.
"Yes" said Cairo and Kevin together.
"Ok, that makes things much more simpler. So... remember the two knight brothers in the story? Both of them were actually from a completely different dimension. Hence, they were way above the level of the humans at that time. Now-Don't interrupt me! Good. So These two brothers had found a way to travel through portals and were experts at travelling through time. We are currently walking through a portal. Just the difference is that this portal connects two places temporarily. But the portals that those two brothers were acquainted with, were much more complex and powerful. They could use these portals to travel between different realities. It is very similar to warping. It is a general belief, that the two brothers somehow turned against each other. Thath, the older brother, was a god for his subjects, but his brother, Morec, had always liked enslaving humans to do his bidding. One day, Morec decided to kill his brother because then, he would be the only powerful being on earth. So he challenged Thath to a duel. Thath, naturally, accepted, thinking it was a fair duel, but Morec obviously never fought fair. He used his powers to create a miniature version of himself, and made him fight Thath. Although being a mere copy, Thath had to use all his might to beat Morec's dummy, and got very tired, at that very time, Morec appears, and tried to finish Thath for good. But Thath was prepared. He split his powers into seven copies, in very much the same making as Morec's copies. Together they managed to restrain Morec, but couldn't kill him. So Thath used his magical abilities to extract Morec's soul from his shell and entrapped it in a small orb and hid it somewhere."
"Ever since Morec's downfall, Thath ruled the world peacefully, and appointed his copies, to look after different parts of the world. He even had such a tender heart as to look after Morec's copy, which was technically Morec's son. But as a wise measure, he took away all his powers in case he turned evil like his father."
"Years passed happily, but alas, misfortune struck Earth again. The sons(copies) of Thath were scared of their father's powers and decided to get rid of him, so that they could rule Earth freely. Although Thath was very powerful, he was still very old. He soon became overwhelmed by the combined forces of his sons. Fortunately, he kept his own small army of brave men and women from his kingdom who served him specially. At the moment of dawn, Thath imparted the last bit of his powers to each and every one of his soldiers, but to his horror, many of his own soldiers turned against him, and this made him realize how truly right his brother had been. He should have used force, wherever it was needed. Except those soldiers who fought on his side, Thath crushed every mortal and even managed to kill two of his own sons. But in the end, he lost. None of his magical soldiers had survived the great war, and he had destroyed a great amount of humans. Not wanting any of his remaining sons to gain his majestic powers, Thath managed to leave his body as an essence and merged with the life force of Earth itself. Some say that Thath is still vengeful towards humans for their dishonesty, and all these earthquakes are a result of his anger. But his powers have greatly depleted, and it would make him very weak with every time he causes some problems for humans."
"Some descendants of the magical warriors survived Thath's rage and all the magical races that currently exist on earth, are actually descendants of Thath's army."
"It is our job to ensure safety to all humans against the evil forces that Thath keeps sending at us. The portal that opened in the woods, was actually made by Thath, not by the Kwelan's howls. Almost all the creatures of the dark are his creations"
"And what about Thath's and Morec's sons?" asked Cairo.
"No one knows. Vanished, according to some people"
Chloe's voice had nearly gone hoarse with all the talking. But Cairo felt completely filled with knowledge. His head was buzzing but he felt weirdly satisfied on hearing the story. Even Kevin was silent.
"We are there now" said Chloe. The reached the dead end of the passage, and as soon as all of them stopped, the floor beneath them fell open and all three of them fell straight down.