Elementals

Deep inside of the earth, well into caves, old enough to have been created at the same time as the earth herself. A boulder made out of pure energy started to crack. The thing was made out of the will of the previous elementals, the fight that occurred here hundreds of years ago was magnificent. They fought for hours, the battle seemingly lost when a burst of energy came forth from the  leader of the elementals, knowing there was no other way they all flung their energy at Zalo the creature who could not die, and imprisoned him a ball of energy. Over time the ball collected moss, which turned solid because of the cool air, and in time the ball of energy became a boulder, forever imprisoning him. Or at least that was what the elementals had hoped would happen. Knowing that giving their energy to a force larger than themselves, would most likely kill them in the process, they were happy to do it. They knew the cycle would be broken, and the power of the elementals would be forever kept in the sphere holding Zalo. But the sphere had to use its own energy to hold him and so 250 years later the sphere cracked, and set off a burst of energy to be stored in five humans who in 16 years would inherit the rest of their powers.

The bubble popped open, and Zalo was able to step out.

" I'm free! Finally those damned elementals are going to pay for this." He grunted realizing that the cave he was being held in had gotten deeper with the years that he had been trapped in that (fucking) sphere.

" first I need to get out of here, a simple teleportation spell should work." He said with a smile, his brows furrowed as he thought it through. Damn what if the location he chose no longer existed, or worse what if it had been changed with time to become a living area. No, that wouldn't work. Zalo paced to remnants  of the cave and thought.

"Hmm, what if I blew the rocks aside? No that would make the whole cave collapse right on top of me." He spent hours debating which magical way was best in getting out. In the end he decided that no matter the consequences he was going to teleport himself out. It was simple really all he had to do was think in clarity the place he wanted to find himself and poof all of his particles would disperse and collect together in the area of his choosing. Well okay no it wasn't that simple to a beginner but he had been doing magic since he was just barely off the ground. When he had turned of age Zalo had enchanted himself to appear and feel in his thirties for the rest of eternity. Magic was splendid thing. Even if it did come with a price.

CHAPTER 1

 Terra clutched her notebook close to her chest, relief swelled in her heart at having it close. Terra would have to remember to thank the paramedics who allowed her to keep the notebook close instead of having her mother carry it away. 

          Well she had to thank one of them, the other two had no interest in her, they talked over her as if she were some practice dummy they needed to fix in order to get an A. They had been focused on stabilizing her racing heart, and mending all the cuts, bruises and broken arm the earthquake had caused. 

          The whole ride to the hospital had been one fuzzy blur for the most part, filled with the blabber of the two men talking about her vitals and what-not, and the smell of sterile needles and bleach. The female paramedic had been the only kind thing in that car. She actually wanted to know haw Terra felt, if she was nauseous or if her head hurt. 

          When Terra asked to keep her notebook, the other paramedics just kept talking but she asked her what she meant, and later asked her mother for the book and handed it to Terra, as soon as she did Terra's heart rate stabilized to a normal rate and she relaxed for the first time since the earthquake had begun. 

          For the rest of the ride Terra found herself falling in and out of consciousness. She remembered the paramedics telling her to stay with them. Terra found it odd thinking that once she was better she would have to leave them anyways, but it was a moot point saying this, because Terra no longer had the ability to speak, her voice wasn't cooperating, instead all she could do was lay there wide awake till the ambulance pulled up in front of the hospital and Terra was pulled out and through the hospital to some white room with a lot of silver knives and needles, after that the fight was over and Terra fell asleep.   

          To think the evening had started out so calm, just Terra and her two closest friends Ashley and Jenna, sitting in a corner booth at "Ser Nicks" the hang out for most teenagers from her small island  of MYSTICUM SPELUNCIS" but everyone calls it mystic spell island, there is a legend that all the inhabitants hear when they first get into school about the origin of the island and why it's named thus, but its so boring and useless that no one really listens until high school when there's a project about it. Ser Nicks was a pastry house in the most part, but if you knew how to ask you could also get a burger and some really tasty fries! 

          When it had first opened nobody had taken its claims seriously, I mean come on 150 calorie brownies, they must taste awful. A classmate of Terra's was the first to try its and proclaimed that they were the best brownies she had ever had. Ever since then Terra and her friends had reserved a table indefinitely. It was a quaint little shop, the decorations were minimal, but the tables and chairs made up for that. They were white oak, and each had a specific design that went with both the chair and the chandelier hanging above. There were 7 chandeliers each of a different color surrounding the shop. They all gave of a dim glow that aluminized the table below. The tables them selves weren't all that special, but paired off with the right chair and you got a magical feel added to your experience. The tabled had a blank top for obvious reasons, but the legs were specially carved with tree's and little creatures nonexistent in the real world, which flew around the tree. The creatures in question had little wings and pointy ears, they were small as a butterfly, yet their presence emanated calmness throughout the shop. The counter was located at the back of the shop under a sign that said " Taste the World". The tables were spread out evenly around the shop, but in the same sense they clustered together, to create the image or a restaurant, in a pastry shop.

          The thing that made terra love SER NICKS the most was that it was open till after the sun set. Literally, it opened when the sun rose and closed when the sun set. Meaning it was open till around nine during the summer and close to five during the winter. The atmosphere changed when the sun was close to setting, Mr. and Mrs. Frederson would always become tense. They were still the same loving couple but during that time if a costumer asked one to many questions they would announce that the shop was closing early and that they would see us tomorrow. But then in the morning they would be back to their ever-tolerant selves.

          Terra and her friends have been going to SER NICKS since it first opened up and since then, it was where they celebrated all of their major events. Anything from birthdays to having hot guys notice them.

          Ashley had brought Terra to Ser Nicks with a blindfold on and had led her to their usual table  near one of the only windows in the place. Once Terra sat down the blind fold was removed and she was overwhelmed with the 16 bright burning candles sitting stop a purple cake decorated in blue roses, red tulips and yellow sunflowers. Out of the corner of her eyes Terra could see the counter, and behind It Mr. Fredrson the head baker, and his wife Milly.

          Her real name was Matilda but as soon as you called her that shed stare daggers into you, "Matilda is to old of a name for a lady like myself" is what she always said. Now keep in mind though that both Mr. and Mrs. Frederson were well in their 40's  both proclaimed to anyone who would listen that they had the hearts and minds of teenagers. In fact it was the ideas that came from those minds that brought so many people to "Ser Nicks". It was the only place that you could get a double fudge brownie with only 150 calories in a portion the size of a fist.

          The pastry shop was alive with people, which only made it even more embarrassing when Ashley and Jenna started singing "Happy Birthday" to her. Terra focused on the cake, instead of watching the onlookers gawk at her curious friends. The design was so beautiful, with the roses blooming out of a garden filled with tulips and sunflowers. All of which curtained the frame of the cake. Onlookers from outside looked in as they passed by and smiled at one another, the cars outside the busy street honked their horns as if everything was fine. But Terra knew it wasn't. She didn't know how she knew she just did. 

          "So what did you wish for? Asked Ashley, always wanting to know the things she really shouldn't even ask about.

"I can't say, it won't come true!" Terra proclaimed

"At least give us a hint" Jenna said.

"No way " said Terra with a laugh. The lamps flickered and took Terra's attention away from her friends. She could see the light bulb losing the battle, being so close to giving out and then poof. It shines brighter than before, as if it had just been replaced. Then a timer goes off somewhere and catches her by surprise. Terra jumps in her seat and starts to become agitated. All of a sudden she see's that her favorite picture of a Greek market, has been replaced by an Italian street, with a cobblestone road, and black lamps lining the street. Flower baskets hang from each lantern, each basket has a different type of flower planted inside, at the end of the street is a large red door with a round top. There are no shops on the street no people either, just the lamps and that one door.

"Hey when did that picture get there?" She asked her friends,

"What picture? You mean the market? It's always been there." Said Jenna

Terra blinks, and sees that the picture is in fact still of the Greek market, with its fruit stands and flowers splayed all over the ground. Strange, Terra could have sworn she had seen a different picture. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her, she had just inhaled a lot of smoke from those candles.

" HEY WATCH OUT!" Someone yelled. Next thing she knows Terra is being pulled into the earth. Ok no that sounds crazy she wasn't being pulled into the earth, she was just falling into a hole that just created itself in the middle of a bakery, and only she was being pulled in none of the wonderfully carved wooden chairs or tables not even a fork had fallen in, only Terra. Because that happens everyday... But Terra wasn't worried. No she was calm because something in her knew she had nothing to fear. She knew that the earth was her friend. And that's when the voice came. It started out as a whisper. But the deeper she got the louder it became. It was like a chant the same phrase over and over again.

" vos electi fuerint, vos may nunc influere terra!"

After that everything went black.

CHAPTER 2

"Why isn't she waking up yet?" Asked an author active voice that Terra knew well.

"Ma'am as I've told you it takes time for the anesthetic to wear off" answered a male voice, probably the doctor. Terra kept her eyes closed and listened, she wasn't in the mood to talk with her mother just yet, she needed a few more minutes in relative silence. Once she opened her eyes her mother would start asking all sorts of questions and probably start crying, saying that her baby must have the lives of a cat. 

"She's gone now you can open your eyes." A voice said interrupting her thoughts. Terra opened her eyes and saw a girl laying in the bed next to hers. The girl in question had tanned skin, piercing blue eyes and sharp features. All topped off with black hair, that reached to about her butt and framed her porcelains face.  She was more on the thin side with hardly any curves, then again she was wearing hospital gown that looked like a loose bag covering a doll. on anyone else the combination would have looked horrible, but on her with her blue piercing eyes and strong features she looked stunning. Even though she was in a hospital bed.

"Who's gone?" Asked Terra

"The lady asking all those questions in her shrill voice." Answered the girl. The lady in question was of course Terra's mother, she was a cook at "Cachette Secrète" this fancy restaurant that took the only mother she had and made her work every evening till late at night. Truthfully Terra and her mom only conversed when they had to. When Terra woke for school her mom was fast asleep, and when she got home her mom was gone already off to the restaurant to prep her staff, and get her "read" on the upcoming crowd of aristocrats, lawyers and other rich people. I mean you had to be rich to eat there, the dishes were in the triple digits.

"Oh her, I  umm... can you not mention I was awake to her?" Terra sighed

"I knew it! There was no way you could sleep through that. I'm Katherine " 

"I'm Terra, would you mind if I called you Kat?" Katherine looked thoughtfully at Terra, and smiled. Terra didn’t know what to make of it when suddenly Katherine hiccupped.

"Oh it's so ironic though, cuz some people do call me Kat, and I absolutely hate water. Not like I don't take bathes because I totally do but like I don't touch the ocean or lakes or anything like that." Said Katherine with such a raspy voice you would have thought she was a lifetime smoker. She didn't say anything about the name, instead she heard something so insensitive, so rude Terra couldn't for the life of her figure out who said it.

"I hate to ask but why is your voice like that" Terra gasped that that had escaped her mouth, the anesthetic must have dumbed down her brain to mouth connection, she never would have said that on any other occasion, but the damage was done so all Terra could do was wait to see if Katherine answered.

" I bet your thinking that I smoke." Katherine let out a bubble of laughter that stopped short to a fit of coughs

"Actually I was sort of pulled in to the ocean by a stray wave and I nearly drowned. The doctors said I swallowed a lot of salt water and that's why my voice is so raspy. It should clear up in a few days." Katherine explained

Something in her story didn't add up to Terra, Katherine had said that she didn't go near the ocean yet here she was saying that she had been pulled into the ocean. All while thinking this Terra could feel her brows coming together in confusion. Katherine must have seen this because she continued saying.

"My friends threw me a surprise party. It was magnificent. There were 5 tents, no 6 tents. And they were all a beautiful shade white.” She said, you could tell by the dazed look in her eyes that even reminiscing about it gave her a warm feeling.

“ okay, now each tent was white right?” asked Katherine. Terra was about to answer when Katherine continued, obviously she had just asked a rhetorical question, jeez Terra really needed to socialize around people besides her two besties some more.

“But they weren’t boring, No they each had a different theme to them, like the one with food was purple, as in not only was most of the food purple” Katherine paused seeing the look in Terra’s eyes, “and no I don’t mean it had all gone bad, or started rotting or anything. I mean it was all died purple with food coloring. Then there were the banners. OMFG the banners were sooo well done. I mean there was a different pattern on each banner and each banner spread from the top left corner of the tent to the bottom right.”

“But wasn’t it hard to get in the tent?” Terra interrupted.

“what, no, it was easy, sorry I guess I dint explain it right, uggh ok so the banner did stretch from the top left to bottom right but it wasn’t a straight rectangle. It was more like an arch, right, yes an arch that was sideways.” Katherine stopped seeing the confused expression in Terra’s eyes.

“ Here I’ll show it to you.” Katherine said. She took out her phone and started scrolling threw her photos.

“here this is probably the best picture I have of the tents. The picture Katherine had on her phone was of a basic tent with a few flaps opening to let light and fresh air in. the banner looked to be a piece of paper cut to look like a crescent with a pointy edge where it should be round. Katherine was right though, the tents looked outstanding each of a different colour banner, each banner portraying a different aspect of Katherine’s life, the purple was food the green was school, with pictures all around the inside depicting her from the start of school till now, and so on with the other tents.

“this is amazing Katherine, how did your friends do all this it must have taken them hours.” Terra Exclaimed

“ I know right! And I had to ruin it. Sad isn't it I'm in the hospital on my birthday." Katherine exclaimed 

"Your kidding" said Terra the very thought of Katherine faking all of this was absurd and just sad, thought Terra. Katherine's brows knit together and a strange look crossed her eyes.

"Why would I kid about it I nearly drowned I'm not telling you this so you think better of me or whatever I mean its not like I'm some attention whore!" Katherine exploded with her emotions and with every word she uttered her hands became more and more exasperated.

"Wow there slow down I'm not implying anything, It's just strange because today is my birthday too." Terra was overwhelmed, hee hee, overwhelmed it’s like people can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed but can anyone ever truly be whelmed?

"Umm hello earth to Terra, any lights on upstairs?" Katherine's words brought Terra back, she was always doing that getting so lost in thought that a bomb could go off and she wouldn't even notice.

"Sorry, I do that sometimes" ok all the time " I just start thinking about something and its like I can't focus on anything else. Anyways you were saying about your birthday." Terra answered 

" yeah I was umm ok so like i said earlier my friends threw me a surprise party" Katherine said, but something didn't fit.

"At the beach?" Terra asked skeptically, her eyebrows rising in an accusatory  way.

"Well no one really knows about my water fear.. thing" Katherine said with a sign of embarrassment.

"I don't blame you for not sharing, but something still doesn't fit I mean if the party was at the beach why did you go near the water why didn't you just stay near the tents?" Asked Terra

" Ugh ok so this is gonna sound crazy but I heard a voice coaxing me to go near the ocean. Like not near me telling me to go, but one that was inside of me. She felt so warm and inviting, that I forgot all about my fears and wanted to be consumed by the water.” Katherine finished and sat back waiting for Terra to reply.

Terra laughed “you know if you had told me that yesterday I would have thought you had gone crazy. But as it so happens, that’s sort of the reason I’m here too.”

“ wait im confused, your in a hospital because you heard a voice in your head?” Asked Katherine.

“No, well yes, ugghh… let me explain. Okay so I was with my two best friends and we were at Ser Nicks. They were treating me to a birthday treat. When all of a sudden a pillar or something fell and then I felt like I was falling, but I wasn’t really I just, well I felt like I had fallen into a black hole or something and I was scared. Then I heard her and I cant explain it but I felt relief.” Said Terra, she didn’t know how Katherine would take it, but she wasn’t expecting her to ask what the voice said.

“I don’t really know what she said I just know it wasn’t English but it went something like Vos eleti furit, umm Vos may, something something Terra.” She said.

“wow you have a horrible latin accent. If im hearig you right it would have been more like vos electi fuerint, vos may nunc influere terra, right?” Katherine was full of surprises.

“yes that’s it how did you know?” asked Terra

“cuz the voise said something similair to me. It said erm, Vos electi fuerint, vos may nunc influere Katherine. Yes that’s it.” Exclaimed Katherine.

Terra was confused this was Latin, she didn’t know that Katherine spoke latin, then again she had only knows her for about an hour.

“okay so its Latin but what does it mean? And why did it say my name?” asked Terra,

“well it means something along the line of you have been chosen you now have power over the earth. Oh and in Latin Terra means earth. Just like Katherine means water. Its confusing I know, my mom studies ancient languages, its how I can speak some Latin, if you want we can meet tomorrow and come up with an idea as to why we both heard a voice that said we had power over an aspect of um life I guess.”

Terra was about to answer when the shrill voice returned.

“My Baby! Oh my baby’s awake.” Said her mother,

Terra looked at Katherine and nodded, and asked if she knew where Ser Nicks was. Katherine nodded and Terra said “ okay il meet you there at 1pm.” To which Katherine nodded and then looked up to see a woman approaching her with tears in her eyes.

“Terra I would like to introduce my mother Celia, Mom this is Terra, and her mom, umm…” Katherine stammered

“ I’m Silvia, its nice to meet you Celia, I would love to chat but I need to get Terra home and give her some real food and not this hospital mush.” Her appearance fixed and her voice no longer shrill, Silvia was an exceptional lady, her blonde hair complementing her feminine figure, and her sky blue eyes. Her cheek bones didn’t look aged and she herself didn’t look anywhere over 30, when in fact she was in her mid-forties.

“I’ll see you tomorrow I guess, stay alive I have more questions I want to ask you.” Terra said before her mother pulled her out of the bed and into a change room, where she changed into her favourite pair of Hollister sweats, and her navy blue, baby tee, and headed home with her eccentric mother.

CHAPTER 3

He could feel it weakening. He knew it was ready to burst, ready to let him have a hold of his powers again. Ready to allow him his full glory of being a wizard.

          Back when he was still trapped, he had tried, and tried for what seemed like hours but none of his particles split, they didn't even move. Teleporting out of the cave was impossible if he couldn’t even split apart his particles. He had been stuck when by a lucky star a bunch of rocks fell and opened up a tunnel, whether it was a backlash of his initial spell or some outside force helping him out, Zalo never found out. The tunnel in question led him up to the surface in a matter of hours. Zalo emerged into light that hadn’t touched his skin in over two hundred years. The scars magic had brought him were more clearly visible now, as his robe had disintegrated a nasty bit. Little white lines forever engraved onto his arm. Some clearer than others, giving other wizards a taste of just how powerful he really is. Each time he casts a spell blood must be drawn, most wizards use others as sacrifices, but Zalo knows that by using his own blood he only proves to the world that he is the MOST powerful wizard that ever existed.

          When he had gotten out of that darned cave, Zalo was astounded at how the world had changed. He saw people trapped in large metal boxes that were round; they also had balls with holes in them stuck to the bottom. He didn’t interfere of course. Ha had no way of knowing how the people of this era would react to magic. It could be another Salem witch trial with him as the one being hanged. Instead he walked silently to what he would later find out as a store, and he persuaded the shop owner to give him some clothes that would pass for the current time.

          Zalo knew he had to find a way to get rid of the elementals. It was the only reason he could fathom the sphere weakening enough to allow him to escape. Of course Zalo was an astounding wizard but the magic cast on him was ancient, and a different kind than his, not to mention more powerful. Most spells required some blood, that sphere had drained the elementals of their power leaving them ordinary humans older than they looked seconds before their leader sent the first blast towards him. He knew he was great but he wasn’t arrogant about it. Arrogance was a weakness; it caused missteps, and mistakes.

          He needed an assistant. Zalo needed to find a child he could manipulate into becoming something that this time has not known. He needed a child with the ability to master skills of a “Naschet” (Nashet) an assassin with some skill to cast spells. And he needed one now. The child had to be at least two years of age at this time, old enough to understand his role yet young enough to not question him.