Free Deliverance by Brittany Comeaux Page B

who then turned to the pillar.
    “You will not!” yelled Malcolm, who suddenly
shot a beam of blue light toward Bogdan. The beam hit the gem and
pulled it away from the greedy king. For several minutes, Malcolm
fought with Bogdan for the gem. The beam struggled against Bogdan’s
grip, trying to retrieve the Eye and give it to Malcolm. No one
could believe how well Bogdan resisted.
    “It is MINE! You will not take it!” yelled
Bogdan.
    “Then I fear I have no choice!” replied
Malcolm. Suddenly, the high elder’s body glowed and he seemed to
grow weaker. The light was so intense that everyone had to shield
their eyes.
    “Brother! Your spirit is fading! What are
you doing?!” screamed Thaddeus.
    “I am sorry, Thaddeus, but I can see no
other option. I must use my life energy to get it away from him,”
replied Malcolm.
    “NO! I will not let you!” yelled
Thaddeus.
    “Stay away! You must let me do this!”
Malcolm then turned his attention to the others, “Listen to me,
everyone. I am using my own life energy to split the Eye into five
pieces! I will spread them throughout the kingdom, and you must
find them before the king does!” he then spoke directly to Crystal,
“You must learn the ways of a holy mage, Crystal! You have the
blood that runs through you! It will be essential to destroy the
Eye once it is fused together again! You must find the power of
light!”
    With that, Malcolm glowed even brighter, and
with an explosion of energy, the Eye of Gaull shot through the
ceiling and into the sky. The red beam shot up and then five
separate beams split apart in different directions. When Crystal
looked again, Malcolm was gone, and only his staff remained on the
ground.
    The blast had knocked everyone off of their
feet, but Bogdan managed to regain his footing faster. He stumbled
around looking for the Eye, but discovered it was gone.
    “That damned mage did it! The Eye is GONE!”
he yelled. He then saw the pillar, “Saitar! Get over here and
transport me and the pillar out of here!”
    Saitar then rose and ran to Bogdan’s side.
Thaddeus attempted to stop him, but grew dizzy when he tried to
stand. Saitar put on hand on the pillar and the other on Bogdan,
and with a flash, they both disappeared in a cloud of smoke with
the stone prison.

CHAPTER 5
     
    The battle outside in the city ended not
long after Bogdan and Saitar escaped. Some of the mages along the
city wall saw the king and Saitar appear outside of the city and
order the surviving troops to retreat back to Cartigo, and then he
and Saitar disappeared again. The death toll was fairly high, but
in the end, it still seemed that the mages and the rebels held
their own very well.
    “The damage outside is massive!” Elder
Leldor told the rebels, “It will take months to rebuild
everything!”
    The elders met Crystal as she and Gavril
emerged from the chamber where the Eye of Gaull had been. The seal
of the chamber had been broken after the Eye had burst through the
ceiling, so the sealed door now stayed open. Crystal delivered the
good news that Bogdan failed to acquire the Eye to the elders, but
she regretfully informed them of Malcolm’s death, Saitar’s
betrayal, and finally how the Eye was separated into five shards
and how Malcolm spread them across Cierith.
    “How terrible! The high elder was such a
good man!” cried Bredewig.
    “He will indeed be missed. He was as kind as
he was wise, and not many men can have that said of them. And may
Saitar be cursed for the rest of his life!” Halmez said.
    “Of course, if it had not been for Elder
Bredewig, there would have been many more deaths,” Leldor pointed
out.
    Bredewig looked over his thick glasses and
with a stutter, replied, “W-what? B-but I—”
    “He’s right, Elder Bredewig.” agreed Ydon,
“If you had not told us of the threat, things would have ended much
worse. You may very well have saved hundreds, if not thousands of
lives today.”
    The plump little elder then smiled