The Power Stones

(18) The dark Gate

John stepped off the plane and took a full minute to take in the scenery, his home, place of his birth and he hoped for death. He abominated the thought that he might not actually live to die in his home country. There was no greater pride in their culture to have stuck with the land from the beginning till the end, and anything else was a disgrace. As he walked through the town he soon noticed that despite the giant gap between when he left and now it looked more or less the same. The only difference he could find was that A, there was now some modern technology here and there and B, there was a giant golden statue of him in his own square.

Now, John knew that this "dark gate" was supposed to be somewhere in the mountains, but he had no clue where. He would need a guide, luckily there was a local tourist building to his right. He entered and immediately began looking for tours up the mountain, but to his surprise there were none. "Umm, hello?" he said to the rather large man at the counter. "Yes." "I was wondering if you have any tours to the dark mountains." "And why would you ever want to go there!?" "Umm, I heard they were beautiful this time of year." He lied, the mountains were anything but beautiful.

"Naw, you don't want to go there. BAD spirits." "Spirits?" "Yess, BAD spirits." The man spat as he said bad. "What sort of spirits?" The man leaned over the counter to get close to him, put one hand on his shoulder, looked him dead in the eye and said,"It is rumored that parts of the darkness are still out there, looking for a rematch." He said in a low whisper. "But, didn't our great John destroy the darkness?" "Not all of it."

John no longer felt so grand, he was so sure that he would have vanquished all of it, then again maybe it was just an urban legend with no truth behind it. "Spirits or not, I want a tour to the mountains." "What's up there that you want so badly?" "Well, I'm looking for a "Dark gate"." After saying Dark gate everything went quiet. All eyes fell on him. After a minute one of the men yelled, "Destroyer!" Every man in that room suddenly lunged at John, he dodged a few tackles and then jumped over a shot man then slid under a tall man. He barely made it out the door, but the mob didn't quit.

"Destroyer! Destroyer! Destroyer!" They chanted as they chased him though the streets, every citizen who passed seemed to have joined the group. "I'm not the destroyer!" John protested, but they continued to chase and censure him. John had never heard such hateful critiques before. He had just rounded a corner when a set of hands grabbed him and yanked him into a dark room, the door slammed shut after him.

He could hear the crowd stop outside. When they realized that they had lost him they all began to vilify the name of the mystery man and then went back to their own things.

"Who, who's there?" He asked, something about the room made him very uneasy. It just felt so dead. He just sat there for a few minutes before his eyes adjusted to the dark and he noticed a figure sitting only a few feet in front of him. "Umm, Hello?" He said. "Hello." said a cheery bright voice. "I couldn't help but overhear that you're looking for a tour to the Dark Gate." "Um, yes. Wait, how could you have known?" "Isn't It obvious?" said the figure as they stood up and started spinning the room in a sort of circle around him. Very strange. "All the people are hunting you down and chanting destroyers, therefore you must have asked about the Dark Gate."

"Umm, would it be ok if we had some light in here?" He said. At this the shadow froze. "Uhhhh, sure?" The shadow walked out of his line of view then came back holding a sort of mettle cylinder. They struck a match to light up the lantern. The light was enough so that he could see her clearly, but not much else. He was staring at a bright and cheerful woman of maybe twentie, maybe twenty four.

She extended her hand to him. "My name's Lucy, what's yours?" She said, She had a gap between her two front teeth John noted. "Um, John." he said a little nervously, he didn't know how long it would take for someone to make the connection of who he truly was. "Oh, so you're named after the "Great warrier" John" She made air quotes as she said "great warrior. "Yes, I guess so. Any day do you do tours to the gate?" He asked hopefully. "Yes, though those locals out there have been chasing away my business for the past four years."