The Youngest Mage [Completed]

(11) A Shadow in the Woods

Dalbreath ran and ran in pure anger, and then suddenly he stopped, realizing he was lost. He sent an orb light to find Bekma, and then created an orb light to light up the woods and to hold back the darkness that seemed like a living thing. "I guess it's best to stay put," he said to himself. Then it was while waiting for Bekma that he began to feel a presence watching him from the shadows. Then he heard twigs snapping, brush swishing, and then something deep inside him began to awaken, and as it did a silvery light began to encircle his entire body. He could sense that whatever was out there was way more powerful than him, but he would put up a good fight anyway.

She came out of the shadows like a creature born of shadow, a large black panther with clear blueish crystalline teeth, and that's when Dalbreath knew the true meaning of fear. As his Mage instinct intensified the light around his body, the panther shape-shifted into a young girl with a panther's left arm from the elbow down. Her hair was golden colored, but seemed to drip with an evil wetness. She was naked except for a pair of red slippers that curled up and were pointy at the toes. And while she looked about fifteen years old, yet in truth she was ancient. She doused the light around him with a single hand gesture, and then she began to circle him.

"What have we here? A boy Wizard?" purred the cat-girl.

"Mage," corrected Dalbreath, "everyone knows that Wizards are really old."

The cat-girl smiled like a cat playing with a mouse. "Your soul is really old, Dalbreath. Too old to play with Wizards. Why don't you join me?" Asked the cat-girl. "You could become my student. That old man has nothing useful to teach you. All he can teach you is a bunch of old words with little power. I can teach you divination, amongst many other powerful things."

"What's so special about that?" asked Dalbreath, shaking off the tiredness he was feeling.

"You can see your enemies coming," she purred, "and you can find them before they find you. I can teach you the true meaning of evil."

"NO!" yelled Dalbreath, and charged, but the cat girl was as quick as a cat. She had him pinned against her side in a matter of seconds, with her cat paw across his chest. "If I scratch you, you will die a slow painful death. Join me, and in a few years we will rule all of Avalon."

"NEVER!" yelled Dalbreath.

She placed her paw on his shoulder. "Just one tiny scratch is all it takes," said the cat-girl.

Just then Bekma burst in on the scene, but he was too late. She scratched him before Bekma's lightening bolt could save him from that fateful scratch. The cat-girl laughed and funneled his lightening bolt into the ground with her right hand. Then she shape-shifted into a black panther and was gone.

Bekma ran to where Dalbreath lay limp on the ground in a poison induced coma. "I imagine Maurinn will kill me for this bit of negligence, and on his first day of training." Then he shape-shifted into a great red Thunderbird, and carried him in his great talons back to his treehouse, where he tended to Dalbreath's wound with many politices, elixirs, potions, salves, and prayers.

It was evening before he was certain he had gotten all the poison out. Then he looked up and saw Maurinn silhouetted in the doorway. He started to speak, but she held up a hand for silence.

"Why did you let her touch my son?" she asked, sadly.

"Dalbreath ran away into the woods."

"You must have felt her presence," she said.

"I thought she was far away in Niland. That's where you and I last encountered her two millennium ago." He paused a moment, and then said, "Deearo felt her presence in the woods, but I didn't know that. Some foolish code of silence in regards to the master, or some rot. I will teach the boy to speak when he senses things."

"I'm taking him home if he lives, enough of this Magery, he's not ready."

"You should know that she thinks he's the one," said Bekma.

"Impossible," sai Maurinn, surprised, "it's too soon to tell anything like that."

"Regardless, she'll stalk him now."

She was on the verge of tears. "Then teach him something besides shape-shifting."

"There is an order to the teaching," he said, wiping the sweat from Dalbreath's forehead.

"Then teach him how to protect himself."

"I will," he said, but she was already gone.