A Whisper of Destiny

2. How to Summon a Human

It was always cold in the netherworld. And damp. And dark. And boring. He hated it here.

Draston muttered a curse under his breath and tightened the cloak around him before continuing his way through the endless rows of cauldrons. He was supposed to check one by one, however he knew the equipment hardly malfunctioned and it was unnecessary. Checking one every ten was enough and allowed him to leave work before Firedown. The extra time allowed him to meet with friends and sometimes even spend a couple of time turnings in the library before he was forced back home, before the curfew.

Ever since he was a little child, the curfew had been enforced. His parents and others explained it was for their safety, but Draston always wondered what had they to fear in the darkness. Were they not the Tribe of Darkness? Were they now what people in the UpperWorld feared? And still, their tribe leaders enforced strict curfew measures. Even for Cauldron Engenieers, who oftentimes needed to be working every turning, be it during Firedown or Firerise.  

Draston came from a long line of Cauldron Engenieers -an important position considering the Netherworld depended on the cauldrons for everything: lightening their twilight city, harvesting food, keeping fire and staying warm, filtering water, powering their equipment. Without the Cauldrons, their city would perish in less than a fireturn, considering they had no other source of energy. Their ancient enemies had sought to punish them for endless generations for their betrayal.

His mother often vaunted their great-great-great grandmother had lived in the UpperWorld before the Great Cast Out, when other tribes stripped them of magic and vanished them to the arid, barren lands and caverns of the netherworld.

The Hazethorne were one of the few families who could trace their ancestry all the way back to before the Cast Out. As such, Draston was expected to join one of the three factions responsible for plotting their perpetual revenge. The offence they had suffered would not go unpunished. It didn't matter that their last fifty plans had failed, their anger and outrage burned as brightly as it did centuries ago and dreamt of, some day, returning to the Upper World and vanishing the descendants of those who had vanished them.

There was only one problem, Draston didn't want to get revenge. He didn't want to waste away his life plotting impossible plans, executing failed operations and dreaming of the terrible tortures to punish the inhabitants of the UpperWorld. He hated the netherworld's cold and humid lands, and dreamt about the sunny, colorful lands of the UpperWolrd he read about in the ancient library. Could such a beautiful place really exist? If it was real, Draston did not mind sharing it with the humans, elves and other light races. He was sure he could offer a mutually beneficial agreement, instead of seeking their downfall.

Such ideas, however, bordered on betrayal. The first time he had mentioned this idea to his parents, his mother had slapped him so hard, his face hurt for five fireturns, his father had given him the silent treatment for twenty more, and his younger brothers had burst into tears, ashamed their oldest brother did not wish for revenge against the humans and elves and all other light creatures who had wronged them.  

He had to feign regretting his words and even had managed to splutter a string of curses against the light creatures to recover his good standing with his family. Draston learned there and then he was to keep his peculiar ideas about the light races to himself and don himself in resentment and yearn for revenge with others.

It made Draston feel incredibly alone. Even more because there was one other secret he had carefully concealed for the past four years, when he turned 14 years old.

When the other tribes had cast out the Tribe of Darkness, they had stripped away all magic. For centuries, Draston's tribe had tried to recreate the lost knowledge without success, managing to replicate only the weakest, most useless spells -like how to turn mint tea into black tea, and how-to lose again a recently found object. Certainly, nothing that would make their life easier, or would allow them to reclaim their old place in the UpperWorld.

When Draston was fourteen, he realized there was something different about him. Something wrong. He was a natural-born warlock. Or wizard. Or enchanter. Draston was not sure what was the difference between them. All he knew was that he was capable of casting spells, even against his will.

If someone ever discovered his little secret, his life would be over. His parents would willingly hand him over to the tribe elders to be used as a tool, a weapon against the light creatures from the UpperWorld. A key to access their secrets and inflate their world to deliver the long-delayed and long-awaited revenge.

Draston wanted no part in it.

When he was seventeen, he moved out of his parents house and joined other trainees to become a Cauldron Engenieer. It was a solitary job but it provided food and lodging away from his family. It safeguarded Draston against someone witnessing him accidentally using his powers. As he became older, it became more difficult to hide them, bursting out of control whenever he was tired or angry.

It was better to voluntarily live a life as a loner. It was the only way he could be free. It was the only way his life would be his own.

"Haze!" He heard a shrilling voice behind him. There was only one person who called him Haze -an abbreviation of his last name.

Draston turned around to find Marzin -an old schoolmate and current colleague in the Cauldrons training program- running towards him.

"Hi, Marzin," answered Draston.

"Have you heard? Everyone is gathering at the town hall."

"I didn't know, what is going on?"

"Apparently some Archeologists discovered an old manuscript from before the Cast Out. Intact. A magic manuscript."

Every so often, a new intact, magical manuscript was discovered, and their elders promised it was the power they had been waiting for to enforce their revenge. Of course, they always turned out to be a dud. Or to be useless, how could one defeat an enemy if all one could cast was a spell to turn their carrots into celeries (disgusting as they were). Draston often wondered if they buried the same manuscript to be accidentally discovered later, as part of the ruse the tribe leaders played on everyone to keep their hatred alive.

The worst part of this new discovery was that Draston would have to go to the meeting, even when he was longing to return home and feed Geratt, his miniature pet gargoyle. Geratt always destroyed Draston's home whenever he was late feeding it as retaliation for making it wait. Gargoyle were vendictive creatures.

"How exciting," Draston answered, muttering as much fake enthusiasm as he could, and followed Marzin and the others heading to the town hall.

Inside, Draston found his parents and younger brothers sitting on the left. He nodded in acknowledgement and sat down with his colleagues. Everyone settled down and fell quiet when the Tribe Elders walked on stage, carrying a pergamin.

As every other time, they spent nearly one turning detailing the miraculous discovery. Draston could almost recite their speech word by word and wondered if the others didn't really notice they repeated the same words at least thrice a year.

Apparently not, considering how enthusiastically everyone clapped when the tribe elder finally finished and revealed the name of the manuscript.

"Behold," she said, "How to summon a demon, a ten-step guide."

Demon, the slur term light creatures used when talking about his kin. Tiefling was the politically correct term -not that anyone outside the Tribe of Darkness used it.

This was new. Draston leaned over, restless. This was a new manuscript, not recycled like the others. Was this a true discovery? Had they finally found an ancient spell?

"Our experts have found a way to modify it to summon a human instead. We will summon the most powerful, most important, most vital of the leaders from the Upper World and hold them captive, until they yield all their secrets to us and we find a way to collapse their world," ended the tribe leaders with a wicked laughter everyone else echoed except Draston.

"This manuscript calls for two people. An elder and a youngster. I, your leader and oldest of them all, will read the part of the elder. And we have organized a lottery to select the youngster from among the new trainees in the Cauldrons Department."

Draston's heartbeat increased as he saw one of the councilors take out a piece of paper from a box and read it out loud.

"Draston Hazethorne!"