The Secrets of Serised

Elt Sopa studied Xander, long and hard. “You know Lily much better than I, Xander. Tell me. Do you honestly believe that she would save her own life at the price of thousands of others?”

Xander hesitated and then shook his head slowly. The old man was right. She would give all of herself for the cause. “No, she wouldn’t. She’s not that kind of a person.”

“I didn’t think so. But as we speak, she is being forced to choose: the mark or death.”

“Lily would never take a mark that meant she was a slave to evil.”

“They will torture her until she does, and if she doesn’t, they’ll kill her. You must not waste time. You must find the Lost Kingdom before it is too late.”

“Yeah, well, sea serpents and whirlpools in the river don’t exactly help!”

“Nah Taivel is a servant of Sefil. That creature was sent to stop you but fortunately did not succeed. Teamwork and self-sacrifice saved you all.” At that, Xander’s heart skipped a beat. At the same time that he was infinitely proud of his companions and their bravery, he was disappointed in himself. He had stood by and done nothing in a time of dire need.

“But, Xander,” Elt Sopa said, “the whirlpool was not the river’s. It was yours. It grew out of the true feelings within your heart, your doubts and fears. They were strong indeed. Stronger than your will to go on.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. It disappeared!”

“That is because you chose to do the right thing, despite your fears. Just as you made it appear, you also forced it away when you decided to jump. Quite literally, you took a leap of faith, and your friends followed. Do you know why they listened to you, Xander?”

“Because they were faced with jumping or getting sucked into a swirling vortex of death?”
Sopa shook his head, a small smile appearing at the corners of his lips. “They feared death either way, so that is not it. They followed because they trust you. They will listen to your orders. Hewhay has given you the gift of leadership, yet you throw it away.”

“I’m no leader,” Xander mumbled, ashamed of himself.

“Only because you do not wish to be. Hewhay does not force things on people! Just as Lily wished not to be able to read the symbols that she herself carved, so you wish not to take on this burden of responsibility.”

Xander didn’t want to talk about it. He looked instead at the Messenger. “It was you who saved us! There was no way we would have made that jump. You helped us, didn’t you?”

The Messenger hummed on, neither answering nor even acknowledging the question.
“When the Messenger last appeared to us, in T’Sol, it said that it would not help anymore.”

“The first thing you should know,” explained Sopa, “is that it said it would not speed your course anymore, not that it would no longer aid you. The second thing is that it helped only because your intentions were pure, and because you did the right thing.”

Xander felt himself being drawn backwards, away from Elt Sopa. “Wait . . . I have more questions!” He was speeding quickly, faster and faster, leaving Elt Sopa behind just as they had when they’d set off in the boat.

“And they shall be answered!” Elt Sopa cried. “If you will only listen!”

“Elt Sopa!” Xander cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted loudly. “What is the true name of the Lost Kingdom?”

Elt Sopa did not answer, but a strange crackling in the air behind Xander made him twist around. The Messenger was there, and it had opened one of its mysterious holes in space. Xander was speeding toward it at a dizzying pace. As he felt himself being sucked through, a voice in his head answered him. It was the Messenger’s voice, speaking clearly in a language that Xander could understand without Lily’s help.

“You seek the Kingdom of Ne De, child.”

Then he had passed through the hole, and he felt someone shaking him by the shoulders. As he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the sky. To his surprise, he realized that the sun was in the same position it had been in when he’d drifted to sleep. It could not have been more than a few minutes ago. But why was he being they awakened so soon, when he had hardly slept the night before? He was about to complain angrily that his very important dream had been interrupted when Thaladria cut him off at the pass.

“Xander!” Thaladria whispered harshly, still shaking him. When she saw that he was now paying attention, she pointed west, behind him, and he turned to follow her gaze.

The sight before him drove all weariness from his body.