COBALT: The Red Phantom (Book One)

Chapter 18: The Torture of Cosmetics (Part 1/3)

          The weekend had come along faster than expected, with Truvius taking the day to finish Káel's stash of earthly textbooks and Jeremiah on his way with a thank you letter in tow to whatever rock his uncle was hiding under. Káel hadn't seen Ray since their last encounter, so he'd awoken at an ungodly hour with the intent of getting the battery out of the way for good.

          They wandered into the half-clean room and Káel approached the second Ceptrum he had concealed under a grimy, metal chest plate, opening the 'secret' secret room.  

          "Alright, one more time." Phantom cooed.

          "I think I've got it," Káel sighed, holding up a crumpled slip of paper that he'd scrawled the spell on. 

Silunas rictarun ilmnavrus cafktarinthuros,

lorlempxita kelzhantrilo limnari

          Even after ten minutes of Phantom berating him for messing up the sounds, the phrase still looked like murder.

          He sucked in a breath, reading it out and stopping dead when Phantom's repeated nods ceased.

          "What did I do? I'm saying it right, yeah?"

          Phantom bobbed his head from side to side as he twirled his hands. "Well yes, but there's a pause between cafktarinthuros and lorlempxita."

          Káel sighed. "Does it really matter?"

          "Definitely. Never mess up a single thing when you're using ancient spells. I accidentally lit a field on fire instead of making a flower sprout, that did not go over well with the locals."

          "Alright I get it, how do we do this?"

          "First things first, we need chalk, ink, and a lumience crystal clear enough to pass as ice," Phantom announced, a wash of excitement tingling his heart as Káel went straight to business, seizing the largest chunk of cobwebbed chalk he could find and turning out all the drawers for a bottle of ink.

          He finally found a small vial, corked and unlabeled with a thick black pool of liquid inside as the only hint to it's nature. Káel grimaced, knowing full well how deceiving looks could be without a proper label. "Is this ink?"

          Phantom gave it a solid minute of contemplation, bouncing his shoulders with lackluster enthusiasm. "I don't know, but it's enchanted so let's use it."

          "No! What if it's poison or something?"

          Phantom snorted. "Then don't lick your hand."

          Káel placed the vial with his chunk of chalk, giving Phantom a condescending point as he moved towards the uncleaned half of the room. "If I die, I'm haunting you." 

          "Not Ray? I feel special," Phantom chimed, hovering over Káel's shoulder as he sifted through the mess for a crystal. "By the way, the crystals are too valuable to be lying in this mess, Zalius had a thing for storing chests in..." Phantom trailed off, staring at the ceiling until he deemed a corner to be best suited for his mysterious phrase. "Roof hidey holes."

          Káel stared at the stretch of smooth ceiling, a perfect square of lines so thin you would have missed it with a glance. "You're kidding."

  —————  

          Káel winced as Puff pressed him against the ceiling, the dragon's nubby horns scraping against his tailbone as he balanced on his guardian's head to punch open the secret latch. With a drawn groan, his scrawny muscle finally drew a loud scrape, a perfect square of tiling resting on his hands as a waterfall of dust fell around him.