“But for me, it’s different,” Thor said. “I don’t quite feel as you. I feel more of an attachment to place than you. I can’t travel to other worlds as freely as Argon.”
“That is because you are half human,” she replied.
Thor thought about that.
“I am here now, in this castle, in my home,” he said. “This is my home, is it not?”
“Yes,” she replied. “It is. Your true home. As much as any home you have in the world. Yet Druids are not as attached to the concept of home.”
“So if I wanted to stay here, to live here, I could?” Thor asked.
His mother shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Because your time here, in the Land of the Druids, is finite. Your arriving here was destined – yet you can only visit the Land of the Druids once. When you leave, you can never return again. This place, this castle, everything you see and know here, this place of your dreams that you have seen for so many years, it will all be gone. Like a river that cannot be stepped in twice.”
“And you?” Thor asked, suddenly afraid.
His mother shook her head sweetly.
“You shall not see me again, either. Not like this. Yet I will always be with you.”
Thor was crestfallen at the thought.
“But I don’t understand,” Thor said. “I finally found you. I finally found this place, my home. And now you are telling me it is just for this once?”
His mother sighed.
“A warrior’s home is out in the world,” she said. “It is your duty to be out there, to assist others, to defend others – and to be become, always, a better warrior. You can always become better. Warriors are not meant to sit in one place – especially not a warrior with a great destiny such as yours. You will encounter great things in your life: great castles, great cities, great peoples. Yet you must not cling to anything. Life is a great tide, and you must allow it to take you where it will.”
Thor furrowed his brow, trying to understand. It was so much to take in at once.
“I always thought that, once I found you, my greatest quest would be finished.”
She smiled back at him.
“That is the nature of life,” she replied. “We are given great quests, or we choose them for ourselves, and we set out to achieve them. We never truly imagine we can achieve them – and yet, somehow, we do. Once we do, once one quest is complete, somehow we expect our lives to be over. But our lives are just beginning. Climbing one peak is a great accomplishment in itself – yet it also leads to another, greater, peak. Achieving one quest enables you to embark on another, greater, quest.”
Thor looked at her, surprised.
“That’s right,” she said, reading his mind. “Your finding me will lead you now to another – greater – quest.”
“What other quest can there be?” Thor asked. “What can be greater than finding you?”
She smiled back, her eyes filled with wisdom.
“You cannot even begin to imagine the quests that lay ahead of you,” she said. “Some people in life are born with just one quest. Some people, none. But you – Thorgrin – have been born with a destiny of twelve quests.”
“Twelve?” Thor repeated, flabbergasted.
She nodded.
“The Destiny Sword was one. You achieved that marvelously. Finding me was another. You have achieved two of them. You have ten more to go, ten quests even greater than those two.”
“Ten more?” he asked. “Greater? How is it possible?”
“Let me show you,” she said, as she came up beside him and draped an arm around him and led him gently down the corridor. She led him through a shining sapphire door, and into a room made entirely of sapphires, sparkling green.
Thor’s mother led him across the room to a huge, arched window made of crystal. Thor stood beside her and reached up and placed a palm on the crystal, sensing he needed to, and as he did, the two windowpanes gently opened.
Thor looked out at the ocean, a sweeping panorama from here, covered in a blinding haze and fog, a white light bouncing off of everything, making it seem as if they were perched atop heaven itself.
“Look out,” she said. “Tell me what you see.”
Thor looked out, and at first he saw nothing but ocean and white haze. Soon, though, the haze turned brighter, the ocean began to disappear, and images began to flash before him.
The first thing Thor saw was his son, Guwayne, out at sea, floating on a small boat.
Thor’s heart raced in panic.
“Guwayne,” he said. “Is it true?”
“Even now he is lost at sea,” she said. “He needs you. Finding him will be one of the great quests of your life.”
As Thor watched Guwayne floating away, he felt an urgency to leave this place at once, to race to the ocean.
“I must go to him – now!”
His mother laid a calming hand on his wrist.
“See what else you have to see,” she said.
Thor looked out and saw Gwendolyn and her people; they sat huddled on a rocky island and braced themselves as a wall of dragons descended from the sky, blanketing them. He saw a wall of flame, bodies on fire, people screaming in agony.
Thor’s heart pounded with urgency.
“Gwendolyn,” Thor cried. “I must go to her.”
His mother nodded.
“She needs you, Thorgrin. They all need you – and they also need a new home.”
As Thor continued to watch, he saw the landscape transform, and he saw the entire Ring devastated, a blackened landscape, Romulus’s million men covering every inch of it.
“The Ring,” he said, horrified. “It is no more.”
Thor felt a burning desire to race from here and rescue them all right now.
His mother reached out and closed the window panes, and he turned and faced her.
“Those are just some of the quests that lay before you,” she said. “Your child needs you, Gwendolyn needs you, your people need you – and beyond that, you will need to prepare for the day when you shall become King.”
Thor’s eyes opened wide.
“I? King?”
His mother nodded.
“It is your destiny, Thorgrin. You are the last hope. It is you who must become King of the Druids.”
“King of the Druids?” he asked, trying to comprehend. “But… I don’t understand. I thought I was in the Land of the Druids.”
“The Druids do not live here anymore,” his mother explained. “We are a nation in exile. They live now in a distant kingdom, in the far reaches of the Empire, and they are in great danger. You are destined to become their King. They need you, and you need them. Collectively, your power will be needed to battle the greatest power ever known to us. A threat far greater than the dragons.”
Thor stared back, wondering.
“I’m so confused, Mother,” he admitted.
“That is because your training is incomplete. You have advanced greatly, but you haven’t even begun to reach the levels you will need to become a great warrior. You will meet powerful new teachers who will guide you, who will bring you to levels higher than you can imagine. You haven’t even begun to see the warrior you will become.
“And you will need it, all of their training,” she continued. “You will face monstrous empires, kingdoms greater than anything you’ve ever seen. You will encounter savage tyrants that make Andronicus look like nothing.”
His mother examined him, her eyes full of knowing and compassion.
“Life is always bigger than you imagine, Thorgrin,” she continued. “Always bigger. The Ring, in your eyes, is a great kingdom, the center of the world. But it is a small kingdom compared to the rest of the world; it is but a speck in the Empire. There are worlds, Thorgrin, beyond what you can imagine, bigger than anything you’ve seen. You have not even begun to live.” She paused. “You will need this.”
Thor looked down as he felt something on his wrist, and he watched as his mother clasped a bracelet on it, several inches wide, covering half of his forearm. It was shining gold, with a single black diamond in its center. It was the most beautiful, and the most powerful, thing he’d ever seen, and as it sat on his wrist, he felt its power throbbing, infusing him.
“As long as you wear this,” she said, “no man born of woman can harm you.”
Thor looked back at her, and in his mind flashed the images he’d seen beyond those crystal windows, and he felt anew the urgency to Guwayne, to save Gwendolyn, to save his people.
But a part of him did not want to leave here, this place of his dreams to which he could never return, did not want to leave his mother.
He examined his bracelet, feeling the power of it overwhelming him. He felt as if it carried a piece of his mother.
“Is that why we were meant to meet?” Thor asked. “So that I could receive this?”
She nodded.
“And more importantly,” she said, “to receive my love. As a warrior, you must learn to hate. But equally important, you must learn to love. Love is the stronger of the two forces. Hatred can kill a man, but love can raise him up, and it takes more power to heal than it does to kill. You must know hate, but you must also know love – and you must know when to choose each. You must learn not only to love, but more importantly, to allow yourself to receive love. Just as we need meals, we need love. You must know how much I love you. How much I accept you. How proud of you I am. You must know that I am always with you. And you must know that we will meet again. In the meantime, allow my love to carry you through. And more importantly, allow yourself to love and accept yourself.”
Thor’s mother stepped forward and hugged him, and he hugged her back. It felt so good to hold her, to know he had a mother, a real mother, who existed in the world. As he held her, he felt himself filling up with love, and it made him feel sustained, born anew, ready to face anything.
Thor leaned back and looked into her eyes. They were his eyes, gray eyes, gleaming.
She lay both palms on his head, leaned forward, and kissed his forehead. Thor closed his eyes, and he never wanted the moment to end.
Thor suddenly felt a cool breeze on his arms, heard the sound of crashing waves, felt moist ocean air. He opened his eyes and looked about in surprise.
To his shock, his mother was gone. Her castle was gone. The cliff was gone. He looked all around, and he saw that he stood on a beach, the scarlet beach that lay at the entrance to the Land of the Druids. He had somehow exited the Land of the Druids. And he was all alone.
His mother had vanished.
Thor looked down at his wrist, at his new golden bracelet with the black diamond in its center, and he felt transformed. He felt his mother with him, felt her love, felt able to conquer the world. He felt stronger than he ever had. He felt ready to head into battle against any foe, to save his wife, his child.
Hearing a purring sound, Thor looked over and was elated to see Mycoples sitting not far away, slowly lifting her great wings. She purred and walked toward him, and Thor felt that Mycoples was ready, too.
As she approached, Thor looked down and was shocked to see something sitting on the beach, which had been hidden beneath her. It was white, large, and round. Thor looked closely and saw that it was an egg.
A dragon’s egg.
Mycoples looked to Thor, and Thor looked at her, shocked. Mycoples looked back at the egg sadly, as if not wanting to leave it but knowing that she had to. Thor stared at the egg in wonder, and he wondered what sort of dragon would emerge from Mycoples and Ralibar. He felt it would be the greatest dragon known to man.
Thor mounted Mycoples, and the two of them turned and took one long last look at the Land of the Druids, this mysterious place that had welcomed Thor in, and thrown him out. It was a place Thor was in awe of, a place he would never quite understand.
Thor turned and looked at the great ocean before them.
“It is time for war, my friend,” Thor commanded, his voice booming, confident, the voice of a man, of a warrior, of a King-to-be.
Mycoples screeched, raised her great wings, and lifted the two of them up into the sky, over the ocean, away from this world, heading back for Guwayne, for Gwendolyn, for Romulus, his dragons, and the battle of Thor’s life.
Chapter Four
Romulus stood at the bow of his ship, first in the fleet, thousands of Empire ships behind him, and he looked out at the horizon with great satisfaction. High overhead flew his host of dragons, their screeches filling the air, battling Ralibar. Romulus clutched the railing as he watched, digging his long fingernails into it, gripping the wood as he watched his beasts attack Ralibar and drive him down into the ocean, again and again, pinning him beneath the waters.
Romulus cried out in joy and squeezed the rail so hard that it shattered as he watched his dragons shoot up from the ocean, victorious, with no sign of Ralibar. Romulus raised his hands high above his head and leaned forward, feeling a power burning in his palms.
“Go, my dragons,” he whispered, eyes aglow. “Go.”
No sooner had he uttered the words than his dragons turned and set their sights on the Upper Isles; they raced forward, screeching, raising their wings high. Romulus could feel himself controlling them, could feel himself invincible, able to control anything in the universe. After all, it was still his moon. His time of power would be up soon, but for now, nothing in the world could stop him.
Romulus’s eyes lit up as he watched the dragons aim for the Upper Isles, saw in the distance men and women and children running and screaming from their path. He watched with delight as the flames began to roll down, as people were burned alive, and as the entire island went up in one huge ball of flame and destruction. He savored watching it be destroyed, just the same way he had watched the Ring destroyed.
Gwendolyn had managed to run from him – but this time, there was nowhere left to go. Finally, the last of the MacGils would be crushed under his hand forever. Finally, there would be no corner left of the universe that was not subjugated to him.
Romulus turned and looked over his shoulder at his thousands of ships, his immense fleet filling the horizon, and he breathed deep and leaned back, raising his face to the heavens, raising his palms up to his sides, and he shrieked a shriek of victory.
Chapter Five
Gwendolyn stood in the cavernous stone cellar underground, huddled with dozens of her people, and listened to the earth quake and burn above her. Her body flinched with every noise. The earth shook hard enough at times to make them stumble and fall, as outside, huge chunks of rubble smashed to the ground, the playthings of the dragons. The sound of it rumbling and reverberating echoed endlessly in Gwen’s ears, sounding as if the whole world were being destroyed.
The heat became more and more intense below ground as the dragons breathed down on the steel doors above, again and again, as if knowing they were hiding under here. The flames luckily were stopped by the steel, yet black smoke seeped through, making it ever harder to breathe, and sending them all into coughing fits.
There came the awful sound of stone smashing against steel, and Gwen watched as the steel doors above her bent and shook, and nearly caved in. Clearly, the dragons knew they were down here, and were trying their best to get in.
“How long will the gates hold?” Gwen asked Matus, standing close by.
“I do not know,” Matus replied. “My father built this underground cellar to withstand attack from enemies – not from dragons. I do not think it can last very long.”
Gwendolyn felt death closing in on her as the room became hotter and hotter, feeling as if she were standing on a scorched earth. It became harder to see from the smoke, and the floor trembled as rubble smashed again and again above them, small pieces of rock and dust crumbling down onto her head.
Gwen looked around at the terrified faces of all those in the room, and she could not help but wonder if, by retreating down here, they had all set themselves up for a slow and painful death. She was starting to wonder if perhaps the people who had died up above, right away, were the lucky ones.