Things Lost and Found (a Waglington and Mianite fanfiction)

Chapter 18

I used the wizard lore from Jordan's S1 episode 62 and Tucker's S1 day 94 as the inspiration for this chapter. This chapter may or may not be very important to the plot... ;3

*James's POV*

~Flashback~

The sun beat down on my head as we climbed higher into the mountains. I paused to catch my breath in the thin air and drag a white sleeve across my fair skinned face to remove the sweat there. I turned to look back down the mountain and felt a sense of accomplishment at how far below us the desert now sat. The town we had left at dawn was a mere speck on the horizon. I felt a pang in my heart gazing back at the walled cluster of buildings and promised, I will be back for you.

"Are you coming, James?" Matt yelled from above me. I turned back from the desert to see my brothers waiting for me a few feet from the top of the pass. Matt's red hair almost seemed on fire in the bright sunlight. Phil leaned against a boulder cleaning his goggles on his stained shirt while he waited, and Tom was looking through the scroll he'd discovered back in the town's library. He may or may not have stolen it. "Tom thinks it'll be in the next valley over."

I plastered a smile on my face as I climbed up a rock shelf to rejoin my brothers, and we continued on together. "Thinking about her again, weren't you?" Phil asked, seeing through my fake smile.

I nodded before replying, "Once we have enough power, we'll go back for her. I just hope we're not too late." I tried to shove these thoughts aside, but I didn't have to try for long. Reaching the crest of the pass, we stopped in our tracks. Before us lay a narrow valley—lush and full of life in stark contrast to the scorching sand dunes on the other side of the mountain. A trail wound down the steep mountainside until it reached a cobblestone building with a high, peaked oak wood roof. Its arched red and yellow stained glass windows sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. Before us stood the Cathedral of Athar, if the scroll's description was accurate. My brothers rushed down the trail with a few excited whoops, and I followed close behind them, smiling a real smile and laughing in disbelief. We finally did it! We found the athar's resting place. The cathedral at the foot of the trail was proof if the standing stones spread in a circle at the far end of the valley were not.

As we reached the level ground before the cathedral, we stalled. There was a sign in the middle of the trail. Tom read the warning posted there: "Any who pass must face Mianite's wrath. He has cursed this place." Tom read the scroll in his hand again before turning to us. "Strange, the scroll mentions there being a price to pay for the athar's power, but it says nothing about a curse."

"Well, we've come too far to back out now," I said cheerily as I slung the pack from my back and started digging my armor out and setting it to one side. Next, I carefully lifted out the most valuable things we owned, two wizard robes that had been in our family from times forgotten. I handed the blue and black one to Tom; I knew it was his favorite. As the two oldest, Tom and I had inherited them when our father disappeared during the war. We had been forced to flee our home shortly after. Wizards, even young, untrained ones such as ourselves, were welcome nowhere these days. "Better safe than sorry," I said as I pulled my dark grey and crimson robes on then started fitting my armor on over them. The robes would help us focus the few spells we did know that might come in handy if we got into trouble.

My younger brothers followed suit, putting on a hodgepodge of iron, chain, and leather armor: whatever we'd managed to salvage, trade, or buy during our time as nomads. Matt pulled on his ridiculous helmet that he'd picked up in the city we'd left today. I couldn't help but chuckle at his choice. It was an iron helm with a visor shaped like the face of some beast with sharp teeth, and the hinges had small golden wings behind them. Why some smith had made the thing and why Matt had taken a fancy to it were beyond me. "You'll definitely scare Mianite with that face," Phil said before bursting into laughter. Matt glared at him menacingly from inside his helmet before we unsheathed our swords and cautiously advanced around the side of the cathedral. If there was a curse on the area, we wanted to waste no time. We had already memorized the ritual laid out in the scroll while traveling today.