The Phoinix: Age of Demigods (10 page)

“You loved me once upon a time, but my
love for you is still here. Do not belittle my intelligence or my
memory of you. Do not forsake our brotherhood because we’ve been
separated for two hundred years. It was your choice not to make
things right between us. Romulus, I plead with you to forget the
hostility of our past so we do not vainly destroy a peaceful
era.”

Remus placed his hand on the cool wood
that separated him from his twin. Unbeknownst to Remus, Romulus
made the same gesture. The wood between their hands began to
heat-up and an orange-red light spread through the door.

“Romulus, don’t you see? The gods have
not given up on us. We still have the divine connection bestowed at
our birth. I feel your pain as you feel mine. We are forever
connected.” Remus’ voice cracked.

“Do not mistake vengeance for pain,
Remus,” responded Romulus callously.

“You cannot hide what is in your
heart, Brother, just as I cannot hide from you. If you follow
through with your plans the only emotions you will feel are
devastation and loss.” Remus sorrowfully bowed his head.

Romulus shifted
uncomfortably. He hated that Remus knew him so well. They had been
talking less than a minute and Remus already pierced through his
anger. He remained defiantly
silent. If
they kept talking like this, Remus would talk him down from his
attack.

Remus sighed at his brother’s silence
and removed his hand. The orange light faded from the door. His
palm instantly felt cold from the loss of his brother’s connection.
“Your choices are destroying the world’s finest
fellowship.”

Romulus removed his own hand from the
door. He felt his detestation from the last two hundred years start
to fade. Even after all the anger he held on to, he always missed
his brother: the soul mate that left him behind.

Romulus spoke as sad memories flooded
his mind, “You are the one who destroyed us, Remmy. The moment you
decided to leave our home at Palatine Hill. You broke us. It was
too easy for you to leave me.”

“Nothing was easy about leaving you.”
A lump formed in the back of Remus’ throat, causing him to stutter.
“I-I love you, Romulus. I am truly sorry for what happened. There
has not been a day where I did not think of you and our glorious
past. I regret how I left you, but I do not regret the life I have
here.”

“Do not speak of regret!” Romulus’
anger surged to full strength. “Regret brings you back to your
beginning. If you regretted leaving then you would have found your
way back to me. You did not return to our home, but made your own
with a woman who was not of our society. Not only did you forsake
us, you abandoned the old ways.”

“I have always kept the
traditions of our culture, but merely adapted to changes of the
world. Change is good, Romulus. We need to change with the world or
we will get lost in it. Have you learned nothing in our
nine-hundred
years? You have lost your
way, Romulus. Let me bring you back…bring you back to me.” Remus’
heart raced. He could sense his brother’s anger lessen as he
spoke.

Remus was eager to see his beloved
brother again. His heart pounded in his ears at the thought of it.
Without hesitation, Remus grabbed the door handle, his muscles
tensing ready to swing the door open. Knots formed in his stomach
from his excitement.

Wham!

The sound of a hard object colliding
with the door startled Remus, stopping him from embracing his
brother. The vibration from the impact stung his hand as he clung
to the door handle. The pain in his hand mimicked that in his
heart.

“Break it down!” Romulus ordered a
battering ram to break down the throne room doors.

Remus took strained steps away from
the door, biting his lip to hold back tears. Every ram of the door
felt like a blow to his heart. He loathed that ram. It destroyed
the reunion with his brother.

It took all of Remus’ strength not to
fall to his knees from heartache. Filled with grief, Remus’ spoke
to Romulus in a cracked, choked–up voice, “I see you have made your
choice. Regardless of how it pains me, I respect it. Never forget
the bond we shared.”

Silence fell among the warriors after
Remus’ heartbreaking remark. Even Romulus’ soldiers were speechless
and stared at their king, awaiting a reaction.

The silence broke with Romulus’ hushed
words of contempt, “You are only prolonging the inevitable,
Remus.”

Romulus’ voice filled the silent
throne room as he ordered his troops to ram the door again. Another
crash, followed by moans of pain from the men, echoed through the
halls.

“Again!” shouted Romulus. Another
crash and more moans. “Again!”

These steps repeated for what seemed
like an eternity to Remus. With each ramming of the door, Remus and
Brian’s soldiers stood silently, waiting for the doors to give way.
However, the sounds of wood splintering and charging battle cries
never came. The ramming became less forceful as Romulus’ soldiers
weakened.

Romulus halted his attack on the
doors. “I know who lies behind these doors, and I too brought a
charmed tribe. The only question is who is stronger?”

Remus sighed at his statement. “If you
know who is with me, why make a fool of yourself ramming against
the shield of Gàidheals?”

“I can hold out as long as it takes to
bring down your barriers, but how long can you last without food
and water?” Romulus retorted smugly.

Remus looked around at his men knowing
they could not out-last Romulus’ without supplies. He wheeled
around to Brian, but Brian shook his head. “We are not on the
ground. In order to conjure food and water, we must be near the
earth. Our powers connect with nature. We do not have the ability
to conjure anything we please whenever we please.”

Remus’ stomach sank. “Then we are
doomed. We cannot fight for days without food and
water.”

“We don’t have to outlast them, we
just have to outsmart them. We may not be able to conjure food but
we can still cast spells. If we can create a spell that will slow
down time then days will pass out there without deteriorating our
thirst and hunger,” said Cailean with a menacing look.

Brian slapped Cailean on the back so
hard he stumbled forward. “Well, little brother, when did you
become so clever?”

An elated Remus pulled the still
shocked Cailean into a bear hug and said, “You conniving little
fox! I wouldn’t want to be your enemy.”

Cailean steadied himself from their
rough approvals and began scribing the spell he would need. “Give
me five minutes to work out the wording.”

“Ha-ha! Take ten, Cail! If you do this
right we have all the time in the world,” Remus laughed.

Cailean did not look up from writing
his spell as he addressed his brother and Remus, “Ok, I am going to
try and set the spell so that for every half hour that passes in
here, a whole day will pass out there. That is the slowest we can
go without completely disturbing nature and removing us from our
plane of existence.”

“I see it’s safe to use,” Remus said
with a smirk.

Cailean smiled back. “What’s the
matter, Remus? Don’t trust me?”

“Don’t get smug, Cail. The deed is not
done,” Brian said as he left the group to look out the
window.

“Just you watch me, ol’ wise one,”
Cailean answered his brother teasingly. “The student will now
become the teacher.”

* * *

Eight minutes later…

“
Perfect!” Cailean shouted
and stood up with the spell, “Alright everybody, hope for the best
and prepare for the worst.”

Brian raised an eyebrow and shook his
head. “Great words of encouragement.”

“Oh, shush and watch me become your
hero,” said Cailean with a crooked smile.

Cailean searched around the room for
dirt or dust, but the room was spotless. Frustrated, Cailean yelled
out to Remus, “Do you have to keep such a tidy palace? By the grace
of the gods, Remus, no other royal is as clean as you.”

Remus chuckled at his friend’s
frustration, “Well not all of us can be as flawed and filthy as
you, Cail.”

Cailean unsheathed his dagger and
chipped away at the stone walls. He moved to each corner of the
room, removing small pieces of wall.

Aghast, Remus shouted out, “Cailean,
what in Hades are you doing to my walls?”

“I need something from each corner of
the room for the spell to work and since you have no dirt, this
will do nicely.” Cailean put away his dagger after digging out a
small portion of the fourth wall. “Should have kept a messier
house, Rem” Cailean muttered with a grin as he passed
Remus.

Cailean moved to the center of the
room with the spell and the four tiny chunks of wall in hand. He
shook the pieces nervously in the same motion one would shake a
pair of dice.

“Alright, I can do this,”
Cailean said, looking at his brother and psychically saying
‘
I hope this bloody
works.
’

Cailean stood with his feet shoulder
width apart to steady himself. He was not positive how the spell
would react, if it worked at all. He took a deep breath, held out
his right hand with the stones and recited the spell. The paper
fell from his hand as he closed his eyes. He worked so intently to
get the words perfect that he knew it by heart.

“Am seasmhach anois, a
ligean ar deighilt am
...”As Cailean
performed the spell the stone pieces trembled in his hands. Faint
gold light circled the stones as they floated into the air.
“…
Camadh ár mbraighdeanas a bheachtú
tríocha
.”

As soon as he finished the
incantation, the four stone pieces rose above his head and each
soared to a different corner of the room. The stones whistled
through the air and gold light trailed behind them, enveloping the
room. Each stone piece traveled to the corner from which it had
been carved and blasted a small hole in the wall.

When the gold light
subsided, smoke poured out of the tiny holes created by the shards.
One soldier walked over to get a closer look and touched the small
crevice. He yelped in pain and wrenched his hand back, shaking it
as the singed skin begged for cool air. The hole was smoldering
hot. His fellow comrades roared in laughter and shouted different
insults
:
“Are you
blind, Cornelius? Did you not see the smoke?” “My own mother could
handle pain better!” “Nice yelp, Corn! Didn’t know you were part
dog.”

“Easy, men. Cornelius, are you
alright?” Remus asked the young soldier. “Go see one of the Gaels
and they’ll heal your hand. We don’t need a soldier wounded because
he was too curious for his own good.” The soldiers laughed louder
as even their king jested at Cornelius’ expense.

Cailean still stood with his hand held
out. Breathing shallow with a look of shock on his face as Brian
walked up to him.

Brian gripped his brother’s shoulder
firmly. “Cail? You alright?”

“Ummm, I think so…”

“Well you don’t appear to be injured.
Maybe its mental shock that you pulled off a complicated spell
without it backfiring,” Brian laughed, tightening his grip in
approval.

Remus rushed over to the two brothers.
“Did it work? I promise, Cail, if it worked and we survive this
battle I will make you and Brian here the richest men in any
kingdom.”

“Let’s gander
out the window shall we?” Brian pointed to the
massive windows.

The three men rushed to the nearest
window. It was so high up they had to push one of the long oak
tables underneath it to stand on. Despite all three being over six
feet, they were barely tall enough to peer through the stained
glass.

Other soldiers around the
room did the same, desperate to see if the spell worked. The men
looked like little boys
spying as they
strained their necks to see out the window.

“What exactly are we looking for?”
asked Remus.

Cailean nervously prayed for any
evidence. “Well, time in here is moving thirty minutes to every day
out there. Which means…” Cailean scrunched his forehead.

“Don’t try and do math little brother.
It’s not your strong suit,” Brian poked fun at Cailean’s painful
expression.

Cailean jabbed an elbow into Brian’s
ribs. “I don’t see you answering his questions.”

“Look at the bird! And the trees!”
Remus shouted, ignoring the brothers’ quarrel.

A bird flew so fast across the sky it
was nearly impossible to follow. It zipped across the skyline as a
colorful blur of royal blue and yellow. The tall pine trees that
used to dance in the wind now rocked back and forth as if waving at
the childlike men.

Remus and the o’Conaills
jumped down from the tables, smiles stretched tightly across their
faces. “Congratulations, Cail!
Looks like
your spell is a success,” Remus beamed as he patted Cailean’s
back.

“Yes, indeed. Congratulations. You
gave us a fighting chance,” Brian said proudly.