Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Fantasy

Zackerious kept the hood of his red robe up as he walked through the streets of Cymleth. After passing the temple, he turned to his right and headed into the housing area of the town. On his left were the smaller houses, while the larger houses were on his right, and on both sides the houses were in rows of three. Zackerious went past the first two rows of small houses and went down the third row, stopping at the house in the middle. 
The wizard knocked at the door and moments later a young man wearing a ragged tan tunic and leather pants answered the door. “Can I help you, sir?” the young man asked. 
Zackerious stood there for a moment and when he saw no sign of his fire elemental within the man, he slowly shook his head. “Not you,” he stated calmly, then raised his hands and cast a fireball spell at him. 
The young man did not have time to duck or run out of the way and screamed in pain as his clothes and body caught fire. He was dead within seconds and the wizard stepped over the burning corpse without even looking down at it. He found the wife and crying baby hiding at the back of the parents’ bedroom closet. As soon as he opened the closet door, the baby’s hazel eyes flashed red and a burst of fire blew him backwards across the room. When he recovered from the blast and came to the closet door again, there was a wall of fire in the doorway. 
“Seriously, elemental? You are hiding in a child?” he asked, staring angrily into the baby girl’s glowing red eyes. “You belong to me!” 
With clenched fists and a determined gaze, he began casting his strongest spells at the firewall, trying to bring it down. While he was casting the spells, the frightened mother gazed down at her young daughter in shock and confusion. When the wizard finally stopped casting he breathed heavily, as though he had been running for a long time.
“Fine! You win this round, but mark my words! I will not rest until the child you protect is dead!”
He stormed away, his stomps echoing through the small house. Only when the front door slammed did the firewall vanish and the baby’s eyes return to their natural hazel color.



Chapter 1

Throughout Phoenix’s life, wizards had been coming after her, but each time a forest dragon protected her. At the age of six her birth mother disappeared, right around the time she received her powers, her ability to create and control fire--and the wizard attacks became more frequent. From then on her light-brown hair turned dark red and her eyes became a bright red color that almost seemed to glow. Now at the age of thirteen, she came home from school one day to hear her adoptive parents talking about her. 
“Adopting Phoenix was a bad idea,” her father was saying as Phoenix entered the house.
“How could you say that?” Rosetta, a female forest dragon asked. “She is only a child!”
“She is dangerous, Penny,” the man replied. “If she lost control again our house could be a pile of rubble within seconds. You heard about what she did to that Eric guy--the same could happen to either of us!” 
Rosetta cringed, feeling guilty about leaving Phoenix alone with the outraged drunk. She shook her head. “That was not her fault; he attacked her while she was asleep! What was she supposed to do, let him kill her?”
The man stared angrily at who he thought was his wife. “Are you really going to defend that ….” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Phoenix still standing in the doorway, so he pointed at her as he finished. “That monster!”
Phoenix shook her head, starting to cry. “I am not a monster!” Before they could react she turned and ran out of the house, sobbing.
Rosetta was furious to see a smile spread across the man's face. She let out an angry hiss, letting her dark-green eyes show through the pale-blue ones of the human woman she was pretending to be. The man slowly looked at her and as soon as he saw her eyes he knew exactly what she was. Then he saw how furious she was and fell backwards, begging for forgiveness. She stood over him, her now-clawed hands clenched into fists at her sides. 
“I will never understand how you humans can cast out that poor child, just because she is different. Consider yourself lucky I am not evil.” She finished with another hiss, and then turned herself into a bird and flew out the still open front door. 
Phoenix went to Pendryn Forest near the town. She often came here to climb a tree and escape from reality. And as always, Rosetta stayed close by, but out of sight, to protect the young human girl she considered her daughter. She walked and walked until she found an enormous lake. The water was so still that she could see her reflection; she could also see many fish of all different sizes, shapes, and colors.
 The lake was known as Golden Lake. She followed around the edge of it until she found a cave with a large entrance nearby. “Hello?” Phoenix said as she nervously approached the cave entrance. “Is-is anyone here?” There was no answer so she decided to stay in the cave for the night.
 With a few hours of sunlight left, Rosetta watched from a nearby tree as Phoenix gathered some stones and sticks. While gathering, Phoenix found a hunter’s trap with what looked like an earth dragon hatchling stuck inside. Feeling bad for the poor little dragon, she set the sticks and rocks down and opened the trap. Instead of coming out though, it backed up as much as it could and hissed.
 “It is all right, little one. I am not the one who set this trap. I will not hurt you.”
 Phoenix moved back and to the side, leaving plenty of room for the little dragon. Slowly the little earth dragon crawled out of the trap. Phoenix noticed then that its hind left claw was bleeding and that he was holding it off the ground while walking. 
“Aww, poor little dragon, you are hurt. If you let me, I can heal you,” she said, slowly kneeling down and holding her hands out to the little dragon. He stood still for a moment then hobbled over to her and climbed into her hands. She gently laid him down in her lap and started whispering a few words while holding her hands over the wounded claw. “There, all better,” she said a few moments later. 
She set him down on the ground and smiled as he tested out his newly healed claw. While he ran around, Phoenix picked up her pile of stones and sticks and headed back to the cave she found earlier, followed closely by the small earth dragon. She used the stones to make a small, tight circle, then broke the sticks in half and placed them in the circle. Using her power, she lit the campfire and sat against the wall for about an hour.
Bored, she decided to explore the cave, first taking the fire from the camp and making it hover above her. With the little earth dragon wrapped around her shoulders, Phoenix walked down the winding tunnel the fireball stayed above and a little ahead of her, lighting the way. Rosetta, now in the form of a bat, followed slowly behind, staying close to the ceiling.
 When they got to the end of the tunnel it appeared to be a dead end at first. Upon closer inspection, Phoenix could see faint lines on the wall. There was a big circle about halfway up the wall and something in the middle, but she couldn’t tell what it was from her point of view. She took half of the fireball and flattened it out to a disk, then hopped on and floated upward to take a closer look at the image. She knew right away that it was the claw print of a dragon. 
“Uh-oh, this could be the door to a dragon’s lair!” She quickly turned around and found herself face to face with Rosetta in dragon form. 
The scales on Rosetta looked like green oval-shaped leaves; hanging from her face were leafy vines about five feet long, and two long branch-like horns came out the back of her head. “That it is,” she said calmly to a stunned Phoenix.
When Phoenix first tried to speak the only sound that came out was a faint whimper. She swallowed and tried again. “P-please forgive my intrusion. I-I did not know this was your home,” she said, slowly moving down to the ground.
Rosetta just smiled and reached over Phoenix to open the door. As her claw came in contact with the door, a green circle of light appeared around it, before the door started moving downward. “There is nothing to forgive, my dear. You are welcome here,” she said, motioning for Phoenix to go first. The tunnel opened up into a large oval-shaped room, and all along the walls were thick flowery vines. Along the right side Phoenix saw three hallway entrances and on the left there were two. “Sooner or later I was going to bring you here anyway.” 
When Phoenix gave her a confused look, she explained, “After your parents were killed, it was my job to take care of you. You knew me mostly as ‘Mother,’ or sometimes as a pet.”
At the mention of her birth parents, many questions raced through Phoenix’s mind, but one kept coming up. “Do … do you know what my real name is, my birth name?” She always knew that Phoenix wasn’t her real name; it was just a nickname that the people in Cymleth came up with.
“Your birth name is Helen Waterlily,” Rosetta replied, “And my name is Rosetta, or just Rose. … It may seem a little odd at first, but if you would like, you may still call me Mom.” She transformed herself into a human woman, the last mother Helen had before she ran away. “I can stay in this form, if it makes you feel more comfortable,” Rosetta finished with a smile. 
“Why do I have this ability to control fire?” Helen asked. “And why are people so afraid of me?”
“Well, there are what we call, elemental mages,” Rosetta began to explain. “Each mage can control a different element: fire, earth, water, air, and electricity. These mages are as evil as one can get, and bring nothing but death and destruction to Volenair, our world. Thankfully, only two can be active every one hundred years. A thousand years ago a prophecy was made that one day all five mages would be active at once, but one will be good and pure of heart. She would be much stronger than the others and able to defeat them, bringing permanent peace to Volenair at last. 
“As for people being afraid of you…they just do not understand. They think you will grow up to be an elemental mage bent on destruction; they do not know who you really are.”
Rosetta showed Helen around her lair, explaining that the first hallway on the right led to a storage room, the next one down was a kitchen, and the last one was a training room equipped with all types of weapons and armor. On the other side of the main hall the two hallways led to bedrooms, the larger one being Rosetta’s. At the end of the main hall was a large circular oak table with flowery designs painted on the surface, and two matching chairs opposite each other. 
“Now get some sleep. In the morning I am going to start training you,” Rosetta said as she showed Helen to her room.
That night Helen slept in her new room, the top of which was a clear crystal that you could see through, like a thick window. The whole room was under the water of Golden Lake. She stayed awake for an hour just watching the fish swimming by.
Early the next morning Helen woke up excited to start training, and found Rosetta already standing in the main hall. “What weapon are we starting with today?”  she asked with a big smile.
Rosetta couldn’t help but smile back as she led Helen to the training room. “I think we will start with something small and simple first: daggers.”  She picked a set of daggers off the wall mount and carefully handed them to Helen, then led her to a training dummy. “Now, daggers are piercing weapons--you want to aim for the lungs, heart, head, underarms, and sides,” she said, pointing to the spots on the dummy. “Go ahead and give it a try.” 
Helen poked at the dummy with the daggers a few times before really attacking it. She slowly circled around it, the daggers coming in at all different directions. 
Over the next three years Rosetta taught Helen how to use all of the melee weapons. Helens favorite being the short sword--with one in each hand she was unstoppable. They spent the fourth year using ranged weapons, including shurikens. 
On Helen’s 17th birthday she went out into the forest with Garreg, the miniature earth dragon now about the size of a dog. Together they went hunting for deer, also taking out any goblins and Mini Fadals—lizard-like humanoids slightly smaller than goblins--along the way. After half an hour they ran into their first group of four Mini Fadals and two goblins. Helen and Garreg watched them from atop a small hill, crouched down behind a bush. They walked in a circular formation heading eastward and Helen thought she saw something being dragged in the middle, but she couldn’t tell what it was. 
“We should check it out,” she said to Garreg, who nodded in agreement. He flew above the group and waited for Helen to strike. She crept slowly down the hill as the group passed by and followed closely behind them. From this view she saw that they were dragging an unconscious child with brownish-blond hair, who was bound and gagged. She looked up at Garreg and pointed to the young boy, wanting him safely out of the way before she attacked. Garreg nodded and dived down, grabbing the boy.  Instantly the Mini Fadals cried out and Helen stabbed the back one in the side of the neck then moved on to the next one. By this time Garreg was flying upward with the boy and as soon as they were out of harm’s way Helen used her power to create a circle of fire, burning the rest before they could escape. 
After about four seconds they were all dead and Helen looted the bodies. Only the goblins had loot: one had 7 silver and the other had a pair of gloves. Garreg landed nearby with the boy, cutting his bonds and taking off the gag. Helen checked to see if he was still alive then created a flying fire disk for him and one for her. They brought the boy back to Rosetta’s cave and Helen laid him down on her bed while Garreg went to get Rosetta. 
“What is wrong, Helen?” Rosetta asked as she entered the room. Then she saw the boy on the bed and came closer to get a better look. The poor boy was badly bruised and had several broken bones. “Who did this to him?”
“Garreg and I found him being dragged by a group of goblins and Mini Fadals. We rescued him. … Is he going to be okay?” Helen asked, looking worried. “Can you heal him?”
To Helen’s dismay, Rosetta shook her head. “He will be okay,” Rosetta assured her. “I can heal his bruises, but I do not know the spell to mend broken bones.” She paused to think for a minute. “But I may know someone who does. Her name is Mary; she lives in a small cottage with her husband about one mile west of Encora. Go to her and see if she is willing to come here to heal him.” 
Helen nodded and ran back to the cave entrance, followed closely by Garreg. They followed the wide dirt path north until they came to a four-way intersection, then turned left. They continued on the path past Encora until they reached the cottage more than an hour later. Helen stopped a few feet away from the four steps leading up to the front door, nervous about how Mary and her husband were going to react to her. 
“What if they think I am evil?” she asked when Garreg looked up at her questioningly. “Remember, I grew up in a city where most of the people either hated or feared me.” Garreg then went behind her and nudged her back. “All right, all right--I am going.”  She walked up the steps and hesitantly knocked on the door, muscles tense and heart pounding. As she waited she got ready to jump back down the stairs. Here it comes, Helen thought as the door opened. 
To Helen’s slight relief, it was Mary who opened the door. They both stood still for almost a minute; Mary was surprised and even a little afraid at first, and then realized that Helen seemed to be just as afraid as she was. “You … you are Phoenix, right?” Mary asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes, but I swear to you that I am not evil or dangerous.” Helen added quickly, “I actually came to ask for your help.” When she said the last word it came out as a squeak, as she saw a man wearing a blue robe coming up from behind Mary. A red flag went up in Helen’s mind: blue robe equaled wizard, and wizard equaled danger. Many times in Cymleth she had been attacked at random, most of the time by wizards. 
Helen backed up a few steps, about to run when Mary took hold of her hand, forcing Helen to look at her. “It is all right dear; my husband is not going to harm you.” She stepped out onto the top step and closed the door behind her. “Now, what can I help you with?” she asked, sitting down on the top step and patting the space next to her.
Helen took a few calming breaths, then sat down next to Mary and explained what had happened earlier that day. “Mother and I were hoping that you would be able and willing to mend the boy’s broken bones.”
Mary smiled and nodded. “Yes, I will come heal the boy; I have to get a few supplies from inside, though.” She stood up and started to open the front door, then paused. “Where do you and your mother live? I may have to spend the night if it gets too late.” 
“Well, we live in a cave actually, right next to Golden Lake.” Helen said, nervously fidgeting with her hands. “She is a forest dragon. Her name is Rosetta.”
“Oh wow, really?” Mary asked, eagerly. Helen just nodded and smiled, trying to hold back a giggle. “Well, this is exciting; I have never met a good dragon before. I will be right back.” She walked inside, leaving the door open. Helen could hear her excitedly telling her husband about meeting a good dragon. He then asked if he could join them, that he too had always wanted to meet a good dragon. At first she seemed to hesitate, and then she said to go ask Phoenix. 
Helen, still sitting on the top step, glanced back at Garreg, almost in a panic, and he knew then that she was considering running away to avoid the wizard. She came down the stairs and Garreg met her at the bottom, going up on his hind legs to stop her. By this time Mary’s husband was standing at the top of the steps, now wearing a simple tan tunic and brown leather pants. Garreg turned Helen around to face the man as he came slowly down the steps.
 “I understand why you are afraid of me. I know that many wizards have tried to kill you in the past, but I assure you that not all of us are out to get you.” He smiled kindly and extended his hand to her. “My name is Balor.” 
Helen hesitantly gave him her hand. “Y-you probably know me as Phoenix, but my real name is Helen.”
Before Balor could respond, Mary came down the front stairs again, now wearing clerical robes and a backpack. “We should get going if we want to be there before night fall.” She wrapped an arm around her husband, and looked up at him. “Are you coming with us?” 
He looked to Helen, as if asking her permission. “Yes, you may come,” she said after a little nudge from Garreg. She then created three fire disks for them to ride on. She hopped on the first one then turned to face the others. “It is all right--they will not burn you.” 
Balor carefully stepped onto his disk first, and then held a hand out to Mary to help her get up on her disk. They started out slowly at first and gradually gained speed. 
After only an hour they arrived at the entrance to Rosetta’s lair. Helen led the way to the main hall where Rosetta was waiting in human form. “Welcome to my humble home.” She greeted them with arms out wide and a warm smile. “The halfling is in Helen’s room,” she said to Mary after a few minutes of happy greetings and excited handshakes. “His right arm and left leg appear to be broken, and a few of his ribs as well.” 
Helen gave Rosetta a confused glance, “Wait, halfling? I thought he was a child.” 
“That is a common mistake people make if they have not seen a halfling before,” Rosetta told her. “They are a race of short people, most of them only three to three and a half feet tall. They are kept as slaves in most human cities; the poor dear must have escaped.”
Rosetta showed them to Helen’s room where the halfling was still resting. Mary got to work immediately, getting her spell book out and flipping through the pages. “Ah, here we are. To mend a broken bone I need… eswyrn flower petals.” She brought out a jar of large white flower petals and a roll of bandages. She carefully rolled up his pant leg and laid the petal over his shin and wrapped it with the bandages. She did the same for his arm and had to take his shirt off to get to his broken ribs. 
Not long after Mary finished, the halfling started to wake up. “W-where am I?” he asked, cringing as he tried to sit up, and then looked around fearfully. “Who – who are you?”
Mary laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It is all right, dear, just lie still and rest; you are safe here. My name is Mary; this is my husband Balor, and our friends Rosetta and Helen,” she said, pointing to each person as she said their names. “What is your name?”
He gazed up at Mary in confusion wondering why she would even care what his name was. “I – I am Th-Theodore,” he stammered. “I was on my way to Encora when the goblins and mini fadals captured me. They were planning to sell me back into slavery.” He paused for a moment and his face went a few shades lighter as he realized that they could do the same thing. “What are you going to do with me?” he asked, sounding as though he was starting to lose hope.
Rosetta came over to stand next to Mary and gave Theodore a reassuring smile. “First we will let you rest tonight, then tomorrow when your broken bones are healed I will take you to Encora and make sure that you will never be a slave again.”
It took a minute for Theodore to respond, unable to believe his good luck. “Oh thank you,” he said with tears of relief and gratitude brimming his eyes. “Thank you so much! How can I ever repay you?”
Rosetta chuckled and shook her head. “There is no need. Just rest--you have a big day tomorrow.” With that, she and the others left to let the halfling sleep.


Over the course of the year Balor came to visit three times a week to teach Helen how to fight against wizards. One way was to continuously dodge the spells until the wizard runs out of manna. The second way was to get close to them as quickly as possible. Many of their spells had a large radius, making it very dangerous to cast them at close range. On the other four days during the week, Rosetta continued to teach Helen archery and how to correctly throw shurikens.
Early in the morning of her 18th birthday, Helen rested peacefully until images of the four elemental mages invaded her dreams. The first one, the Earthmage, was a dwarf. The second was the Watermage, a psygodyn (lizard-like humanoid). Third is the Lightningmage, a perrogen (wolf-like humanoid) with light brown fur. The last one is the Airmage, a fairy.  Each mage looked normal at first, but as their respective powers seemed to engulf them, they came out changed. The dwarf grew to the size of a human with dark-brown, almost black eyes. The female psygodyn’s light-blue scales darkened greatly. The perrogen’s fur pattern was that of a winter wolf and when he received his power, his fur turned to a golden color and jagged silver stripes appeared all over his body. When the fairy received her power, her entire body became slightly transparent. Her long hair then turned white, as well as her eyes, and light-blue swirling designs appeared on her silvery wings. The designs also flowed down her arms and legs. 
Helen woke up with a start, feeling a surge of power flowing through her entire body. She quickly got out of bed and ran to Rosetta’s room where the dragon lay sleeping. Helen went right up to her face – careful not to step on the vines attached to her lower jaw – and urgently patted her nose. 
Rosetta’s eyes snapped open and she slowly lifted her head. “Helen dear, what is wrong?” she asked, turning herself into human form. 
“It has happened, Mother. The other elemental mages, they have received their powers,” Helen said excitedly, telling her about the dream she had and the power surge she felt when she woke up. 
Rosetta took Helen by the hand led her toward the main hall, talking as they went. “We have to act quickly. Go wake Garreg and meet me at the dining table.” Helen nodded and headed back to their room. Within minutes the three of them stood at the dining table looking down at a large map of the known world. Rosetta took four stones out of a small leather pouch, one representing each of the elements. “I do not know how well this is going to work, but in theory the stones should point to the elemental mage they represent.”
She handed the stones to Helen and on contact they began to glow. Helen placed all four stones in the center of the map and watched as they moved off in different directions. The brown one went north to the mountains and stopped at the main dwarf city of Caldicot. The blue stone went east and out into the ocean. The yellow stone headed south to the grasslands and landed on Wegrays, the southern most of the Perrogen villages. Lastly the white stone went to Lothir Jungle on the large southeastern island. 
“So, what is our course of action?” Helen asked, studying the map.
“Well, the last four times the elemental mages emerged, they came to this mountain here.” Rosetta pointed to a huge mountain just off the southern border of Pendryn Forest. “So far the water dragons guarding the Tetra Isles have always been able to stop them from reaching the islands. But with all four mages active this time they will need our help.” 
Rosetta looked directly at Helen as she continued. “Whatever happens, we must not let the mages get to the center of Tetra Isles. There is a four-headed dragon at the bottom of the volcano on the center island. Not even the four strongest good dragons could defeat it; they had to trap it in the volcano.” She turned back to the map to study it for a few moments. “I suggest going after the Earthmage first. History shows that the he has always been the smartest and quickest to act.” 
She then started lightly pushing Helen back to her bedroom. “Get your travel backpack and some clothes, and make sure you have room for food.” Within twenty minutes the three of them-- Garreg sitting faithfully at Helen’s side--met back at the entrance to the cave. “The two of you go up to Caldicot and take care of the Earthmage. I will find the others and try to slow them down.” 
Helen wrapped her arms around Rosetta in a loving embrace. “Be careful. Do not attack them directly.” 
Helen pulled away and created a fire disk and hopped on, as she took off Garreg flew beside her. 



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