Talon was working in his room when he heard children playing and yelling outside his door. He angrily slammed his hands on his desk. “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself. “Will they not give me a little peace at this moment?”
He strode to the door, and flung it open. And there were Conor and Susan outside in the hallway playing with a ball. Enraged, Talon uttered a guttural cry, and a flash of light came from his staff. The ball burst into thousands of tiny pieces. “What are you doing here?” he yelled. “Do you have to play right outside my door?” Conor and Susan looked shocked as they saw their toy disintegrate. Susan looked like she was about to cry.
“Dad made us play out here,” she said. “He said it’s too dangerous to play outside, and he doesn’t want us making noise in our rooms. So he said to go out and play in the hallway.”
“Well I’m sure he didn’t mean my hallway,” said Talon (not knowing that George had indeed pointed them down to the hallways near Talon’s end of the castle. But Talon’s tone of voice was mellowing already. He was generally fond of the children, and, in less busy times, he often spent a lot of time playing with them. Which is why they regarded him as a sort of kindly old grandfather figure. “I’m sorry I destroyed your ball,” he said.
“Can we have another one?” asked Conor.
“I’m afraid magic doesn’t work that way,” said Talon. “But come into my room. I’ll make you a hot drink.”
The children came into Talon’s study, and he put a kettle on over the fireplace, while he gathered some ginger herbs. Soon the kettle was steaming, and Talon picked it up and poured the children some ginger tea.
“What do you spend all day in this room doing anyway?” asked Susan.
Talon smiled. “Sorcerer stuff. I don’t think you children would understand.”
“Are you going to be able to stop the monsters from coming out?” asked Conor.
“Well, I certainly hope so.”
“I don’t get it,” said Susan. “How are you stopping the monsters from in here?”
“Well, it’s complicated,” said Talon. “But the spells which kept the monsters in the magical realm were spells that the sorcerers guild created hundred of years ago. They’re ancient spells, and no one quite remembers how they work nowadays. And even if they did, they’re too complicated for any one sorcerer to pronounce. The whole guild needs to work together.”
“Where is the guild?” asked Susan.
“Well, that’s just the problem. The guild isn’t anywhere. There’s no building where all the sorcerer’s are at the moment. They are scattered all throughout the known world. And some of them are even in lands unknown.”
“So you communicate with each other by magic?” asked Susan.
Talon smiled. “Magic doesn’t work that way. I can’t just use a magic spell to call someone up and talk. But, we can project things. Images. Feelings. Shapes.”
“Project?”
“Yes, for example, look at the kettle. If I concentrate hard enough, I can project the image of that kettle into the minds of the other sorcerers, wherever they are. But they also have to be concentrating on receiving it. If they’re busy eating lunch, then my message will be lost. So first I have to send them messages by ravens, and then we have to arrange a time when everyone will be concentrating. That’s why I got so mad when I heard you playing ball in the hallway.”
“We didn’t know,” said Conor.
“Yes, I realize that. I’m sorry I blew up at you.”
“So what are you going to do now?” asked Susan.
“I don’t know. The connection seems to be lost for now. I’ll try again in 20 minutes maybe.”
“And if you can get the connection up?”
“Then we need to work together to put the ancient spell back. Only then can we seal off the realm of the monsters.”
“How do you put the spell back?”
“It’s a long incantation. It needs to be uttered by several sorcerers at once. The problem is right now no one knows what it is. All the sorcerers who created it are long dead. But I have fragments of it in my head. Bits and pieces I was exposed to during my training. If I can only remember the right bits, and if the other sorcerers could remember their bits, then maybe we can put the spell back together.”
“Hmm,” said Susan. “I don’t know why you’re just starting now. You guys should have written the spell down years ago.”
“We sorcerers are busy,” said Talon. “Do you think this is the only crisis going on in the world right now? There are dangerous beasts and marauding armies all over the globe. Not to mention the dark magic, which we always have to be constantly fighting against. And I have to be constantly working to keep all the evil spirits in this forest under control.”
“What is dark magic?” asked Conor.
“I’ll explain some other time,” Talon said. “You’re not old enough to understand yet.”
“I am,” Conor insisted.
“You’re not,” Talon replied, in a tone that wouldn’t allow debate. He took a quiet sip of his tea, and watched the children silently for a moment.
“What are you thinking?” asked Susan.
“I think I’d better try the contact again,” said Talon. “Maybe the other sorcerer is ready now. You two are free to stay if you wish, but you must be quiet.”
*********************************************************************
“Where have you been John?” Grace asked John when she finally saw him at the dining hall. “I haven’t seen you for two days.”
“Weren’t you worried about me?”
“We had been,” said Henry. “But Jason said he saw you in the library, so we figured you were alright there.”
“Yes, I’ve found some fascinating scrolls,” John said. “They took a little bit of digging to find. They weren’t on the shelves in the library, but there’s a back closet where a lot of the old scrolls are kept in pots. Jason and I were going through some of them, and we think we found one about the creation of the realm of the monsters.”
“What did it say?” asked Grace.
“It was written by the castle sorcerer at the time,” said John. “I guess this castle has always had a sorcerer on duty. He was writing about the battle with the monsters, and he wrote about how he was recruiting the sorcerers from all over the guild to create a new realm to put the monsters in.”
“I thought that violated the rules of magic,” said Grace. “Didn’t Talon say you can never create something out of nothing.”
“I don’t really understand it myself,” said John. “There was something about moving some of the air and land from the above ground, and putting it under the ground. It says quite clearly in the scroll, however, that nothing like that had ever been done before in the history of magic, so they had to invent all the spells themselves. And then once they had created the place, then they had to magic all the monsters into it. He wrote that they were never one-hundred percent sure that they got all of them, but he said that they scavenged the whole forest looking. And then, after that a monster has never been seen in the forest for about 300 years.”
“So why didn’t King Carlyle know anything about it?” said Henry.
“He says in the scroll that it was all kept secret from the king of the castle. All the sorcerers took an oath of secrecy to protect the place.”
“Then why was it written down in a scroll?” asked Grace.
“That’s the odd thing,” said John. “I don’t know. And Jason says he’s never seen that scroll before.”
“I hate to say it,” said Grace, “But we might have to give this to Talon. He might know what to do with it.”
“Talon tried to banish us to the realm of the monsters,” said Henry. “I’m not helping him.”
“I know, I don’t like him either,” said Grace. “But it sounds like we all need him to contain the monsters.”
“I’m not talking to Talon,” said Henry. “We can give the scroll to King Carlyle if you like. Maybe he can give it to Talon.”
“What does Jason say?” asked Grace.
“Jason is talking to King Carlyle now,” said John.
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