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The Lost Stars ChronicleChapter 16: Wizard's Return
Bjarn, dozing in his chamber, licked his lips. Tyco, he was thirsty. The old Forestman sat up and reached for a goblet, then nearly had a heart attack. A person, clad in folds of cloth, was sitting next to his bed.
“Who the bloody--!” Bjarn gasped, clutching at his chest. He wondered if he really was having a heart attack. Did heart attacks cause hallucinations? The door to his room was secured and locked, the windows tightly shuttered and barred against the raging snow. There was no way the person could have gotten inside.
“Forgive me, Lord Bjarn.”
The voice was cool, but warm at the same time. It was the voice of one who had seen much, suffered much, done much.
“I am truly sorry I startled you like that…but I do not think there was any other way.”
“Bloody…tyco…” Bjarn gasped, still panting, “I’m not as young…as I used to be…”
“A logical statement.” chuckled the figure. Something moved under the robe, a protrusion that couldn’t have been any human limb.
“Who…are you?” Bjarn managed to say.
“We haven’t met…but we do have a mutual friend. My name is Daner Pluto.”
Bjarn stopped gasping. In fact, he stopped breathing at all.
“Don’t do that, Bjarn. Breath.”
Bjarn did so. “Daner? Reno’s mentioned you…a while back” he stated.
“Yes. I have been keeping a keen eye on that one. His brothers too.”
Bjarn did a double take as he was about to sip some water.
“Brothers? You are mistaken. Reno only has one brother, Aros.”
“I’m afraid you are one who is mistaken, Lord Bjarn. Reno has two brothers, Aros and -- oh Yonky!”
The hood of Daner flew back and a brown monkey, chattering and wheezing, leapt onto Bjarn’s bedpost. It began grooming while eying Daner huffily.
“I am most sorry…Yonky is getting most aged and senile…he can’t stand being cooped up anymore.”
Nothing would really surprise Bjarn now, after discovering a wizard in his supposedly secure room. He offered Yonky a biscuit and turned to Daner.
“About Reno…” he prompted.
“Ah yes…you see, Reno truly has two brothers…Aros…and Luxus.”
Bjarn gaped.
“You are surprised?” queried Daner, his eyes twinkling, “I wasn’t when I found out. Let me explain. Months ago, the power-crazed Breck Silandro lusted after Ninjaria and nearly managed to overrun it with the undead army of Adamapolis. However, I stopped him, and Breck was dealt with by a traitorous blade in the dark. During the battle in Morcia, I rescued Luxus from the burning rubble, receiving instructions from someone I assumed was his mother to take Luxus to Reno. However, later when I had indeed brought the young lad to Reno, I realized something was amiss. How would this woman know of Reno, and why would she want Luxus to go to him? The woman was dead, so I could not ask her, so I did a little research. Do you know much about Reno’s past?”
Bjarn thought for a moment, then realized that he hadn’t. He didn’t even know when and why Reno had lost his eye. In fact, Reno’s past, and Aros’s for that matter, was shrouded.
“No, I don’t.” he said simply.
Daner took a breath and then continued, “Reno was the first child of Krask and Lacrecia Regga. Krask was a great war hero, and was in many battles. Lacrecia was a poor Crusader peasant girl, and everyone was shocked when the famous warrior Krask married her. Soon they had Reno, and they spent the next seven years very happily.”
“Then relations between the Crusaders and the Dragon Masters crumbled, and a bloody war commenced. During the final assault on the great Crusader city of Kaladon, the Dragon Master king Lord Deruldoth was killed, and so was Krask. Crippled and leaderless, the Dragon Masters retreated and nearly collapsed into civil war until an obscure wizard who called himself Void claimed the throne and slew anyone who disputed it. Meanwhile, Lacrecia, in her grief, gave birth to her second son Aros a month early. She and the baby nearly died, but they did survive.”
“Long ago I was contacted by another wizard and instructed to recreate the Twin Pendants Of King Kris so that the spirit of the evil Lord Inion could at last be destroyed. Once the Pendants had be made, I was to deliver them to the sons of the great warrior Krask. I sent a young knight called Repsac Neverroads on a quest to gather the ingredients I needed, and he served me proudly, returning with everything required even though his own life was near spent. After an intense year of spellbinding and smelting, I had at last recreated the only two objects that could rid Dametreos of Inion’s evil forever.”
“But why give them to Reno and Aros?” Bjarn interrupted.
“Because,” Daner’s eyes twinkled again, “King Kris’s blood, the man vanquished by Lord Inion, runs in the Regga family line.”
Bjarn motioned Daner to continue, as enthralled in this revelation as a child listens to ghostly Fright Knight tales.
“The Pendants are two complex pieces of magic. They entrance anyone who sees them, and they hold great power within. They were forged of dragon’s ore, and so have great power over dragons. The god-dragon Eroth Gamus’s life was particularly tied to the Pendants. You see, Lord Inion had great power over dragons…but I am getting side tracked. Anyway, once the Pendants were re-forged, I teleported to Lacrecia and instructed her to give them to Reno and Aros when she thought the time was right. I left them, thinking my job accomplished. However, I made a terrible mistake. Lord Void had learned of the Pendants, and the dormant egg of Eroth Games, and lusted after them greatly. He only knew that they were in the possession of the Crusaders, and so he started to send out dragon raiders to scour every Crusader city until he found what he was looking for.”
“During one of these attacks, Lacrecia was badly wounded and it was thought that she would die very soon. Fearing her life would soon snuff out, Lacrecia gave the Pendants to her two sons, now ages ten and three, and had them sent off to a safe place with an aunt. They never saw their mother again. Lacrecia vanished, and it was assumed she had died of her wounds. Worse yet, on their way to their aunt, Reno and Aros were separated, and never saw one another again until they met up on my ship the Shaldo, or as you know it, the Shadow.”
“Here I ran into a roadblock until I discovered something astonishing, Lacrecia had not died, at least not that night when she sent her sons away. I learned at last that she recovered and had moved away to the Ninjas, where she married a local Shogun and lived happily, almost forgetting her troubled past. Years went by, and they had a son, whom they called Luxus. When Luxus was seven, the undead army of Adamapolis overran Morcia and his father was killed by them. Later his mother Lacrecia was killed when her house was destroyed. Yes, that Ninja woman was Luxus’s mother, and she was also Reno’s and Aros’s mother. That is how she knew of Reno, that is why she bid me take her son to his half brother. The mystery, at last, was unraveled.”
Bjarn was gob smacked. For a while there was no sound in the room save the quiet chattering of Yonky.
Then Bjarn asked at last, “Why do you tell me this? Why not Reno, Aros and Luxus, to whom is matters most?”
Daner nodded in understanding. “Bjarn, you were the father Reno never had. He loves and admires you deeply. I am merely an acquaintance. He will listen and believe you, his friend and mentor.”
“But why now? Why suddenly come out of the blue and tell me all this?”
“Because it is your destiny.”
“That’s the most mega blocks cliché thing I’ve ever heard.”
“True.” twinkled Daner, “But that’s the way it is. The duty of the Pendants has not yet been fulfilled. The spirit of Lord Inion still lurks through Dametreos. It is in part thanks to Lord Inion that this blizzard engulfs half of Dametreos.”
“Voolmark informed me that this snow is not normal, that it is saturated with dark magic and it cuts off the flow to the Mana.”
“That is true. BloodVaine, though dead, still can effect Dametreos with his evil. And Lord Inion helps. Before this storm completely deep freezes Dametreos it must be stopped, and to be stopped the Pendants must be used to accomplish what they were created to do.”
“But what must I do? The Pendants are Aros’s and Reno’s.”
“You must inform them of their fate, and their relation to Luxus. Then you must accompany them to the Temple Of Lost Stars.”
“The former I can do, Daner Pluto, but the latter, I’m afraid, is impossible.”
“How so?”
“Look at me!” snapped Bjarn, “My legs are broken, my shoulder shattered, my hand squashed and I am half deaf. I am unable to even walk, much less track though snow and sleet to some obscure temple.”
“Rise Bjarn.”
“Are you deaf as well?”
“You have suffered enough, Bjarn. Your bravery not just on the battlefield but in the sickbed had my admiration. You deserve a gift. Rise.”
Bjarn raised his mangled hand to shake it at Daner angrily when he stopped dead.
“Megablocks…”
Daner smiled.
“Use your gift well, Bjarn, leader of the Forestmen. You are a great man, you will know what to do when the time is right. Farewell.”
Daner Pluto, wizard of old, wielder of a thousand spells and wisest among wise, vanished, along with his pet monkey Yonky. Bjarn was left to stare at his hand, a hand, worn, weathered, rough, scarred and callused, but no longer crippled.
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