Chapter Four

The Beginning

Ellis and Sophia meet with their parents who already have the plow horse ready to be ridden. Ellis asks, "Ma, da, how are we all going to get away with only one horse?" Sonia grabs Ellis and Sophia into a tight embrace and whispers in their ear, "I want you both to take this horse and ride off as fast as you can to the capital. "Take this road. The capital is to the South, so you will need to take a roundabout way to get there, all while hiding at night. We packed provisions for the both of you." Basil interjects. "Be safe." they both implied. "I have taught you as much as I could in the short amount of time that we had, and I want you to keep practicing and be ready for anything. Ellis, you know how to set the barrier, and you know how to ward yourselves from enemy magic. Ellis and Soph look after each other." They share a look at their father's warning.

Ellis and Sophia head East...

Sophia, who is sitting behind Ellis on the horse, looks back and sees their parents walk off in the opposite direction toward the main road turning south and disappearing past their family farm. She can see her father comforting their mother. "Please, let them be okay and may we be united again someday," she silently prayed. She turns back around, sniffing, and grips her arms around her brother, and gently lays her head on his back.

He whispers, "We'll see them again. I'm sure of it."

It takes them a day and a half on horseback before they turn south, heading towards the Capital, giving Ellis some time to think. He doesn't know what to say to his sister, mostly because he is also feeling down about separating from their parents. As the day comes to a close, Ellis searches for a place to spend the night. After a short time, he sees a huge tree with a hollow at its base, he calls softly to his sister, "Soph, wake up."

"What is it?" She answers groggily.

"Look, I found the perfect place for us to spend the night, as long as there is nothing living in there," he nervously chuckles. They climb down off the horse, realizing that their rear-ends are sore from riding horseback for so long. They grab their knapsacks, while rubbing their backsides, slide through the hollow of the tree to its center. They open their knapsacks and find a blanket, some rations, and a waterskin each.

After picking at the dried rations, Ellis tells his sister, "Go ahead and get some sleep, I will keep watch." She wants to tell him that he should sleep first since he was guiding the horse all day, but one look at his face told her not to object. "Okay but wake me up if you start to nod off and I will keep a look out," she demands.

The first hour was pretty boring. Ellis chose to sit in the entrance of the trees hollow where they were camped and covered up with his blanket. He could not see or hear anything, except for the wind blowing through the leaves in the trees. He started to nod off in his second hour of watch, when he heard a howl of a wolf and answering howls from what he presumes is its pack. Ellis stills and tries not to breathe; he keeps an ear out and waits for an answering howl to hear in which direction the wolves are headed. After some time, he hears the cries of the wolves less and less, moving away, from where he and his sister are camped, until he is no longer worried that they will be attacked.

Afterward he finishes up his watch and goes over to wake Sophia so he can get some sleep. "Soph, wake up." She groggily sits up and asks, "Did anything happen while I was asleep?"

"Not unless you count some wolves out hunting," Sophia's eyes widen. "But don't worry, they never came near us," Ellis finishes bravely seeing that his sister was frightened by the news. Ellis curls up under his blanket and is fast asleep in seconds.

In the morning...

Ellis slowly starts to wake and open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a big hairy spider staring him right in the eyes. He shouts, straightens up, and moves away as fast as he can. The commotion startles his sister, and only than does he realizes calming down from the fright, that she was sleeping on her watch. "Ahhh! what is it? Has that witch found us?"

"Shouldn't I be one to ask you that, it is supposed to be your watch," Ellis grumbles.

Shocked, Sophia apologizes since he is right. They pack up their knapsacks and mount the horse and head out on a new day; with Sophia insisting on guiding the horse to make up for falling asleep on watch.

They reach the end of the forest a couple of days later, and what they find is a massive plain spread out in front of them. What Ellis and Sophia, from the looks of it, can see are tall grass and sparse tree coverage, and very little water sources.

"We need to try to conserve as much water as best as we can, we don't know how long we will be in there or if we can find any water along the way," Ellis says wearily. They spend the night next to a stream. While resting, Ellis is going through his knapsack and finds: a map in one of the bags and discovers that Altwood Castle is southwest of where they are right now. When the map was unfolded, a letter was wrapped around something round and tied with a thick piece of thong, and something fell to the ground. He untied the letter; he saw that it was some kind of orb but forgot about it in favor of the letter because he recognized their mother's handwriting. Ellis called to his sister, and she got up from where she was resting to see what her brother found. When Ellis showed her the letter, they noticed that the letter was wet in some places; like someone was crying while writing it. The letter reads:

"My dearest children, By the time you find and read this letter, your father and I will have left you both to undertake this journey on your own. Destroy all the stones if you can and keep them out of the hands of those who only want the power that they bring. Be safe my darlings and take care. You have an important and hard trek ahead of you. Always be safe and have hope and faith inside your hearts that we will all be together again. Love, ma and da."

"Oh, there's a postscript at the bottom of the letter," Sophia exclaims.

"PS. You are probably wondering what that orb is; the one that was wrapped around this letter. Well, we never did get to discuss my side of the family. We, that is I, come from a family of sorcerer's, our power comes from learning and reading magic books and the likes, and that orb is to help guide you on your journey considering I have no magic book to bestow upon you. This will have to do for now. The orb is called 'The Orb of Cognition'. Use it well. Sophia, you will have to be the one to wield it since your power mostly comes from me. I wish we could have discussed this when we were together, but I am afraid that you will need to find it out on your own. Good luck my beautiful children!"

After reading the letter from their mother and father, Sophia was crying, and Ellis leans over and puts his arm around her to comfort her. Even though he has tears streaming down his own face too.

In the morning, they pack up their bedrolls and fill their waterskins, for the next leg of their journey. They head off steeling their nerves for whatever is waiting for them.

For the next two days, travelling on the plains was miserable for the siblings. They soon find out that it is the rainy season. The first day out on the plains, there was so much wind that they were in minutes, looking very windswept. The wind was roaring in their ears so much so that; even if they wanted to, they wouldn't be able to hear each other. Not to mention the wind was chapping their lips. Day two, is when the rain started, adding that to the wind. The rain never let up until the end of the third day. Once they realized the rain was going to continue past the second day, they decided to stop in their tracks and wait out the weather. They threw their blankets over their heads and huddled together, falling asleep just as they were. Very early the next morning of the third day, Sophia was woken to a heart-wrenching sound; looking over at her brother who was still sleeping, she decided to investigate the noise on her own. Leaving her bedroll and pack where it lay, she headed off towards the sound. 

A minute (or a thousand feet) pass, she comes in eyesight of the creature making the pitiful noise. It turns out to be a small, all-white she-wolf pup letting off a mournful howl. She is lying next to another white she-wolf, presumably its mother. Sophia crouches down and watches awhile, then when the pup finally takes notice of Sophia, slowly crawls towards the pup. She talks calmly, trying to soothe the poor mite, to get the pup's trust. After an hour of waiting for the pup to calm down and earning its trust, the wolf pup gets up, walks the last bit of distance to Sophia, and rubs against her; allowing Sophia to pet between the ears. 

Softly, she asks the pup, "since it appears that you are all alone, would you like to come with me?" "My brother and I are travelling, but you are welcome to join us?" The wolf pup looks up and tilts her head in confusion. Sophia is not too sure if the wolf pup understood all that, but waits a little longer, sitting on the ground with her legs crossed. Finally, the wolf pup bounds into Sophia's lap and lays down. Seeing this, Sophia picks the wolf pup up and walks back to her brother.

When Sophia walks back into the camp with her new wolf pup in her arms. She sees that her brother is already awake, looking very disheveled and very confused. He asks, "where did you find that, and why did you bring it back with you?" 

"The poor thing was crying next to her mother's dead body, and I couldn't very well have left her all alone, now, could I?" Sophia coos to the wolf pup. "I have decided to name her 'Serena'," she clarifies. Serena yips to let them know that she likes that name.

Ellis sighs and says, "you do know this journey will be dangerous, right? What happens to Serena if we run into trouble, and have you thought about what to feed her; she cannot hunt for herself yet. What will she eat?"

"I will think of something when that ever happens. Maybe I can train her to hide, and on what to feed her, I will share my dried meat with her," Sophia sticks her tongue out at her brother, indignantly. 

They quietly pack up, not talking to each other, annoyed with the others opinion of the subject on Serena. Ellis worried about running out of food with another mouth to feed, while Sophia is thinking with her heart instead of her mind. Ellis sighs and continues; silently, to put the pack up on the horse. 

With a new addition to their party, Serena, in Sophia's arms, Sophia sits in front of Ellis while his arms are around his sister, holding the reins of the horse. They continue on their journey. This is going to be a long journey. 

What neither of them noticed were the eyes peering out of the tallgrass.