Hooray!! cough yeah, ok. Well, I finally got this chapter up, but to tell you the truth I've been avoiding it. It didn't come to me as clearly, so it's a little rough. Please tell me anything that doen't sound right or has other difficulties. I promise to at least TRY and implement them,... eventually ; The next chapter is the one that starts the main, um, plot, shall we call it? look forward to it! please? ;P R&R as usual!

Chapter 8

Ariana woke early in the morning. The sun had only been up for half an hour or so. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked at the boy on her floor. He was still asleep, under her magic. She had released the binding and concealing spells the night before, but kept the barrier up. Sustaining the two spells had drained a lot of her spirit, but she had to keep it up until she could come up with a way to get him out secretly.

The boy -Jerik was his name?- looked peaceful, lying on the floor with her blanket spread on top of him. She had been surprised by how quickly he learned the night before, and by the color of his spark. Colors. She decided that she would have to go look up what that could mean in the library sometime. If she was ever allowed to leave this dreary little gazebo. She wondered how much longer her punishment would last. With the human now on the island, it might never end. She couldn’t bring herself to be sad or angry that he had come, though. He was special, somehow.

Suddenly she heard one of the escorts call her name from just outside the gazebo. She quickly pulled the blanket off of Jerik, cast a concealment spell on him and dropped the barrier. It was one of the three that came to get her the night before. She was sure they knew that the boy she took home with her had not left, yet they didn’t say anything to the Elder. Apparently they didn’t want to bring attention to the fact that not only did she break through their security, but she managed to bring someone back without them stopping her.

“Your presence is requested,” he said formally, ignoring the fact that there was no boy in the gazebo, despite having never left.

“Where?” she asked. She didn’t know where she would be called to, except for her Father’s home, and he had never once requested anything of her, only commanded.

“The Cage.”

Ariana figured that meant the Elders had convened and they wanted her to control the human and bring it to them. Her eyes could freeze a human if she wanted, or if her emotions activated them without her knowing. Suddenly, she came up with an idea that would allow her to get Jerik out of her quarters and keep him close enough that she could see if her theory was correct.

“Alright, but let me get ready. Just a minute.”

Ariana raised the barrier, walked over to where Jerik was concealed and released the sleeping spell. She formed a silence spell and waited to see how he would react when he woke. Jerik regained consciousness fairly quickly. He was surprised that it was morning, or at least he assumed it was from what little light came through the barrier. He saw Ariana next. She had spelled him! Twice!

Jerik opened his mouth to yell at her, but she quickly reached out and touched his throat with the spell she had on her hand. Jerik found that his voice wouldn’t come out! She spelled him again!

“Please calm down,” she started, helping him to sit up, “I have a way that we can get you out of here without suspicion.”

Jerik couldn’t help feeling she was sincere, but he was scared that she was going to cast more magic on him, and he couldn’t resist any of it.

“It will require you to become my helper, or assistant if you want to call it that.”

Jerik’s eyes widened. If he was her assistant, that would mean being close to the Elders, and he might get found out!

“Because you are my age, it will be easy for them to believe that I picked you because I knew you. It will help throw off some suspicion, but introduce a whole new level. They won’t think you were involved in the human coming here because I barely picked you, but from here on they will be suspicious of everything else that has yet to happen.”

Jerik looked at Ariana. He could rid himself of previous suspicions, but get new ones. Ariana was the lead, he could always blame it on her. He didn’t think he could do that though. She showed the same view he did, at least as far as he could tell, and he didn’t want to betray that. Become her assistant? It seemed like a good idea to him. Jerik nodded.

Ariana was relieved that he agreed. It would make things easier. Now she just had to explain the details.

Eric was awakened at sunrise by someone talking with the guard. They had switched during the night, and the one that went to tell the Elders was talking to a male angel of about 22 years, who was holding a rolled up parchment and waving it around. Eric couldn’t tell what they were talking about, but he feared it was from the Elders. The discussion became louder and Eric could barely make out what they were saying.

“I’m not going in there!” the messenger exclaimed, waving the message towards Eric.

“Well, there’s no way I’m going in there to get it, especially after Ariana took the chain offa it yesterday.”

Eric did his best to look like he was still asleep. He didn’t want them to lower their voices or he wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“Well, get her back here!” the messenger said, pointing the parchment directly at the guard’s chest.

“You’re the one with the decree saying ‘by whatever means necessary’! You use it to make her come here!”

The messenger paused at that. Indeed he did. He turned on his heel and took off towards were Ariana lived. A crowd had gathered, awakened by the shouting, and were milling about, waiting for something to happen. Eric continued to feign sleep, not wanting the crowd to stare at him again.

After about fifteen minutes, the messenger returned. He looked triumphant and relieved, which meant that he had gotten Ariana to come, Eric assumed. Suddenly there was a thump on the roof of the Cage and the whole crowd turned to look. Eric figured it was Ariana.

Suddenly, he heard a voice, almost breaking his effort of looking asleep, “Eric!”

Eric was throw off for a second, before he remembered it was in his mind.

Jerik continued, “We have to take you to see the Elders.”

Ariana felt the old magic again, but there were too many people. With everyone watching her, she couldn’t cast a spell to figure out who it was or even try to match Jerik’s magic to it. She released the concealment on Jerik and he walked inconspicuously into the back of the crowd. Now was the time to put their plan to the test.

Ariana flew down and landed next to the messenger. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Get the human out of the Cage safely and take him to the council place,” the messenger answered.

“What am I supposed to restrain him with? I can’t make him move with my powers, only hold him still,” Ariana replied in her best haughty voice. “He looks strong, too. How am I supposed to control him with my body size?”

“Um, well...” the messenger started.

“Never mind. I’m sure that someone else here can be useful to me.”

Ariana turned to the guard, “Get me a rope, about two feet long.”

Ariana turned and scanned the crowd, looking for Jerik. She hoped he was ready to act convincingly. She assumed that the guard would be able to fill her command quickly, but the rest could be tricky, especially if the human boy didn’t cooperate. Jerik gave her the “ok” signal they had decided on before, running his hand through his hair, and the guard returned with the rope.

“I’ll need someone who is strong enough and who I can trust. You there! I recognize you,” she said, pointing to Jerik. “You will help me.”

Jerik did he best to seem like it was a total surprise, but he was not sure that Ariana could fool everyone, especially if some of the people recognized him as the one she took with her the day before. He worked his way through the crowd and stood in front of her. She handed the rope to him, turned and unlocked the Cage door. Eric by this time had abandoned pretending to be asleep, and was doing his best to avoid Ariana’s eyes. He was worried at what was happening.

“What’s going on?”he asked Jerik as the two of them entered the Cage and started towards him.

“Relax. We are trying to make sure you will be safe. We don’t trust anyone else with you. They are too scared and have too little an idea of what you are like,” Jerik explained.

Ariana felt the magic again and noticed that the human, while avoiding her eyes, didn’t seem to be looking at anything. His eyes were out of focus. She made note of it in her head, but now wasn’t the time to be evaluating his behavior.

Eric wasn’t sure he trusted what Jerik said, but once again, he had no choice. He was going to have to meet the Elders eventually, and at least Ariana and Jerik seemed like they cared for his well-being, at least a little. Jerik was holding a short rope. That meant he was going to be restrained yet again. Eric was getting tired of being tied up.

Ariana stopped about five feet in front of where Eric was sitting in the corner. Eric waited for her to make her move. He wasn’t entirely convinced that their plan was for his benefit, but he couldn’t shake his feelings towards Ariana. Something in him longed to look in her eyes. Ariana wasn’t positive how she was going to get Jerik to restrain the human if he remained on the ground. She needed him to stand.

Ariana decided the best way was a direct approach, “Stand, please.”

Eric didn’t move. She had actually talked to him, and she was polite, but he resisted the fact that she assumed to have authority over him. Just because the Angels all treated her like a dignitary didn’t mean he did.

Jerik noticed that Eric didn’t like what was going down. It was the only way to ensure that every angle would be covered, though. “Please, do what she says. If something goes wrong in the future, you need us to be the ones that take you.”

Ariana felt the old magic, and saw the human’s eyes flicker to something behind her for a moment. Then he slowly stood up, still avoiding her eyes. She was surprised he was so diligent at avoiding her gaze. He obviously didn’t know that she could control when it froze him. As she thought on it, when she saved him on the cliff, she was too emotional about the rescue to have been controlling it then. She must have froze him without knowing it.

Jerik stepped forward towards Eric and the crowd gasped. They couldn’t believe he would go near the human when it wasn’t immobilized. “You need to let Ariana freeze you so no one will be suspicious,” he told Eric.

Eric didn’t want to. He was finding himself more and more afraid of just the idea of not being able to move.

Jerik saw that the human didn’t like that suggestion. He wasn’t sure he would either in this circumstance. Then he came up with an idea, “Then just pretend. Look at her forehead. Keep focused on it even if she moves and it will look like you are looking at her eyes. You will have to be very still, however, but I think it will fool everyone.”

Eric thought it was probably his best chance. He looked at Ariana and tried to freeze his movements. Ariana was shocked. A moment before, he wouldn’t even look close to her eyes, but now he was doing something clever like looking close to them, but not quite at, and far enough from them that a sudden movement wouldn’t initiate contact.

Jerik walked behind Eric and thought to him, “I’m going to have to tie you, let me move your arms. I will try to not hurt you.”

Eric didn’t like the sound of “try,” but he let Jerik move his wrists behind his back. The Angel moved Eric’s arms so the palms of both hands were resting on the forearm of the opposite arm, and his fingertips were almost touching his elbows. Then he looped the middle of the rope around them. After a tricky tie, Jerik knew it would only come undone if cut right next to the knot. He wasn’t sure what exactly Ariana had in mind, but if it came down to it, it would be easy to release the human.

Ariana couldn’t see what Jerik was doing, except through her peripheral vision. She had to pretend she was freezing the boy in front of her, just like he was pretending to be frozen. She didn’t know why he suddenly began to cooperate, and why he was being sneaky about it, pretending to be immobilized, when he could just as easily not.

Jerik held the loose end of the rope and signaled to Ariana. She dropped her gaze and the human relaxed. He hadn’t been completely still, there was no way he could, but it was enough to fool the crowd. Ariana turned around and started walking out of the cage.

“We have to go now,” Jerik explained, gently pushing Eric forward. “The Elders’ council meets in the Upper Level, and it’s a little ways by foot. If you don’t resist, there shouldn’t be any incidents along the way.”

“I got it. Just be a good little human and go peacefully to my doom,” Eric thought back bitterly.

“It shouldn’t be that bad.”

“How would you know? This has never happened before, right?”

Jerik didn’t reply. He knew Eric was right. He had no idea what was going to happen. But he was going to be prepared for anything, just in case.

Eric was getting grumpier as they moved through the village towards what Eric assumed was the Upper Level. Angels lined the street, talking softly. Eric was getting annoyed at them. He wished they would just talk like normal people, not in the hushed, fearful toned they were using. In front of them the ground jutted up about twenty feet, before continuing relatively flat to a mountain. As they ascended the rough stairs cut up to the Upper Level, Eric got a good look at the form of the island. Back towards his island in the east, Harvenii, it was a forest. To the south were two very tall mountains, very close to each other, and to the north, beyond the Upper Level, was another, shorter mountain. Several streams flowed off the tall mountains, through the village, which was situated in about the center of the island, melded together and then went past the small mountain.

Ariana noticed that some of the crowd were brave enough to follow them up the stairs, but no further. She didn’t know that the Upper Level was so forbidding to the common people. But now if she felt the old magic she could properly discern who it was. There were too many people before. They probably would have reacted badly to seeing magic, like Jerik did, and it would have confused the spell. But now there were only a few around. The messenger was leading them and the guard was following behind Jerik, who was behind the very sullen-looking human. Some of the residents of the Upper Level watched them as they passed, but there were decidedly fewer of them.

After about fifteen minutes had passed since leaving the Cage, they came to the council room. It wasn’t actually a room: it was open to the air, like most everything built on the island. A path paved with old white stones led through some underbrush to an open area that was almost a perfect circle. Along the far side from the path were pillars, about thirteen feet tall, that held up the remains of a stone ring that must have gone all the way around the court. Now only six pillars held up the remains. To the left were stone chairs, raised about three feet on stone steps. There were eleven of them. Behind them were ruined pillars, the tallest not even above the height of the chairs. To the right were more pillars, following the circle. About four of them were mostly intact, and they each had iron rings attached to them. There was one at about waist height, two at ankle level and two about shoulder height on each pillar. The final side of the circle, where they had entered, was vastly overgrown, which obscured whatever remained of the pillars that must have been there before.

The messenger led them to the middle pillar and motioned to Jerik to tie the human to the middle ring. Jerik did so, but tried to leave as much slack as possible in the rope, just in case he had to cut the rope in a hurry. That way he wouldn’t cut Eric on accident.

“That is all,” the messenger told Ariana, in a voice full of importance.

“I think I will stay here for the council,” Ariana countered. The messenger had no real authority, so she knew she could get away with it. Her escorts thought she was under direction of the Elders and the Elders wouldn’t find out she was there until it was too late to send her back. “And my assistant will stay with me, in case I need him.”

Jerik frowned slightly. He wanted to be there just in case something happened, but he didn’t want the Elders’ attention on him. Maybe he could stand behind the prisoner pillars. That way he would only be part of the background and the Elders wouldn’t pay close attention to him. Jerik moved behind the pillar next to the one Eric was tied to and leaned against it so he and the human were facing opposite directions. Ariana flew up and sat on top of Eric’s pillar. Eric didn’t even have time to try and complain to her or Jerik, because about thirty seconds after she sat down, the Elders arrived.

They were all relatively old, from about forty to sixty-five years old. They flew slowly, each landing in front of their own chair. After the last one arrived and took his seat in the middle, the rest sat down.

The one in the middle stated, in a voice that was surprisingly loud to Eric, “The council of Elders will begin.”