The Golden Scepter - Prologue

" Your kind?" He was silent for a moment.

" Come," he had dropped the subject as if it had never been discussed, " you must come with me if you value your life." She saw him raise his hands. The fire impediments disappeared from her wrists, and she rose.

" How can I trust you?"

His face went pale despite the light of his magic. " I am a priest for the Gods' sake. You can trust me as much as you can trust the Gods' themselves."

" I'm afraid I don't follow the religion you practice." Mariyn could hear him gasp as he shot his gaze back upon her.

" May the Gods bless this wayward child," whispering, he made the sign of the divinity, touching his eyes and then his ears. " I am here to help you, that is all I can offer. If you choose not to follow me then you can be captured and face imprisonment or death."

" But why are you doing this?"

" Because...you and I share the same interests." He touched at his cloak where the scepter was hidden. Mariyn moved her mouth as if to say something, but heard instead the voice of the Head Priest booming in the distance.

" Come!" He shouted, and he ran into the mist. She followed him, not that she had fully decided to do so, but because of the threat of the Head Priest. She was amazed as to how well he maneuvered in the mist, almost as perfectly as she.

" What is your name?" She called as they ran. It was a while before he responded.

" Xavier."

" Xavier what? What is your last name?" He turned his head to her, however; his course through the mist did not faulter.

" What is the importance of last names? I have none, and neither was I born with one." He turned around, and then suddenly stopped. Maryin's brain had little time to register this sudden event, and she ran into the folds of his cloak. For a second she could smell the incense that always accompanied a priest where ever he went. Xavier didn't seem to notice she had ran into him, but stood, arms around his cloak to protect the scepter, looking into mist as if he could see across the entire valley.

" Why are we just standing here?"

He hushed her with a finger to his mouth. Maryin huffed, and kicked some of the moist dirt at her feet toward him. Xavier was oblivious when it landed across his clean robes. Maryin could hear the other priest in the distance, but it sounded as if though they were getting farther rather than closer, but she knew it was a trick of the mist. Xavier looked into the sky and then said a prayer. Instantly, there was a shimmer of russet light, undulating and translucent as a sheen of water down a rock, coming from his fist; the fist that clutched the scepter as if though it was his heart. The light intensified in brightness, and a wind arose to disturb the concentration of the mists.

Xavier took out the flaming scepter and pointed it before him. A sound like a cascading water boomed into Maryin's ears. She uncontrollably fell to the ground in convulsions. She looked up and saw a portal of swirling fire had opened before them. She rose in terror.

" We must go through this. It will take us from here."

" You are not fooling me. I am not stepping through a portal of fire."

" Then I shall go before you!" Xavier held tight the scepter then ran into the fire. There was a hiss as he passed through. Maryin's mouthed moved in silent protest. She looked around her, as if the night could bring her courage. She hated the workings of magic, and hated even more when she had to interact with it. She walked to the threshold of the portal, peering in. She could see nothing on the other side, as much as she could tell it could be and entrance into hell.