Reach out and find it.
I was so close. I’d come all this way. I stepped forward and reached out my hand, letting the sunlight touch my skin.
This was it—this was the answer.
“It’s not real,” I said quietly. “None of this is real.”
“What?” Kull asked.
“The sunlight, the visions, the broken gate—that’s why they needed so much potion. They weren’t transforming a person, they were transforming a place!” I turned to the princess. “How do you reverse a goblin’s spell?”
She opened her eyes, seeming confused at first. “It is the same as with any spell, you must take away the source of the enchantment.”
“The source?”
She nodded.
What would be the source of the spell? I grabbed the glass ball from Kull. “This was the source. What happens if I destroy it?”
The princess blinked, coming out of her trance. “The potion has already been used. Destroying the container it was kept in will accomplish nothing.”
“No, but it could lead me to the source.” I held the bauble in my hands, focusing on the drop of liquid inside. Now it was my turn to play with magic.
The goblin’s potion shone with a gray luster. I searched the room for similar signs of gray magic and found it shimmering from inside the ruined gate. As I stood over the cracked stone, I peered inside the silvergate’s fissure. Gray magic glowed inside the stone. “It’s inside!” I told Kull.
Once again, he put Bloodbane to good use. He held his sword high, muscles bulging in his back and shoulders, and then slammed it down with enough force to split the remaining rock apart.
Greenish liquid oozed from the broken stone. The nausea made my knees buckle, but I wouldn’t let it have me. I called my Earth magic, letting it support me as I moved forward.
“Someone has poured goblin potion into the silvergate,” the princess said.
“Yes,” Kull answered, “they have done this in order to disguise not only it, but this entire place.”
“It’s all an illusion,” I said, holding out my hand as swirls of amber light danced over my skin. “If the gate had really been destroyed, this magic would have been the result, as the Earth magic would have released once the gate was destroyed. But it’s not real. It was not destroyed by Earth magic because it was never destroyed at all.”
“Then how are we to break the illusion?” Kull asked.
I squared my shoulders as I readied my magic within me. “I will destroy the potion.” With confidence, I reached my hand toward the potion. I knew what I had to do.
“Banish!”
Sparks of amber light filled the tower. Swirling in a glittering wave, the magic embraced the poisonous liquid and destroyed it.
The room faded.
The bricks, the sand, the sunlight, all disappeared. Once again, we stood in the goblin’s fortress. And before us sat the silvergate, completely intact.
Xanthocus stood by the gate. I shuddered at the figure of the specter—its ashen skin, the wispy white robes, the fervor in its livid, gray-tinted eyes. When he spoke, his lips did not move, but his voice seemed to pierce to the innermost part of my soul.
“It is my solemn duty to protect this gate. I cannot let you harm it.”
Kull held his sword tightly as Princess Euralysia grasped the glowing crystal shard.
Xanthocus glided forward. “You shall not destroy the gate!”
Lightning crackled around the spirit. Thunder boomed, making my hair stand on end. Around him, the light intensified until it formed a swirling vortex. Wind wailed through the room, a sound that threatened to deafen us. The wind tore the room apart, starting with the bricks in the walls, and then the floor gave way.
“Hurry!” the princess screamed over the wind. She reached for Kull. He took the crystal from her and moved toward the silvergate. “Place it in the gate!”
Through the cyclone, Kull moved forward, his sword in one hand and the crystal clutched tightly in the other. Grasping the bloom, I followed close behind him.
The wind grew in pitch until it became an earsplitting wail. Buffeted by the high-pitched, unnatural gale, my body felt as though it might split apart. Small stones blasted my skin, stinging at first, though as the larger bricks broke loose and struck me, I stumbled back. I cradled the bloom to keep it safe as the wind spiraled around us.
We moved forward one inch, then another, as the wind battered us. Finally, we reached the stone. The wind’s power increased, bringing us to our knees.
The room shook.
The floor split apart beneath me, and I jumped back as rocks crumbled from the ceiling above. Large stones fell around us as Kull crawled to the silvergate.
He reached for the portal on top.
Xanthocus raised his arms, and the entire room split apart. I could hardly see the silvergate through the spiraling debris. The wind’s pitch rose higher and higher until I felt my body would be ripped to shreds.
The crystal’s faint blue glow pierced through the darkness, glowing brighter until I saw that it peeked from the opening on top of the rounded stone. Although I couldn’t see Kull anywhere, I knew he’d made it to the gate. Time seemed to slow as I placed my hand on the silvergate and used my spell to destroy it.
Xanthocus hovered above me. I felt pleading desperation in his presence. As soon as I destroyed this last gate, his temple would cease to exist, and he, like so many others before him, would be no more.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, “but I must restore the magic, and in order to do that, this fortress cannot exist. I will not forget you, Xanthocus.”
“And I will not forget the promise you made here today. I will restore all that I can, although Death has already claimed many victims. I can no longer protect this place, so I leave its knowledge with you.”
Overhead, his face seemed to transform, and I no longer saw the visage of a
