Excerpt from Karen's Adventure Part 2

Knowing that Tide was a few feet behind her,Karen turned to face her friend after the chanting outside the throne room had faded into silence.

"What is it?" asked Tide searching the questioning expression on Karen's serious and beautiful face.

"I need your chief of security to accompany me to Leonid's cell," said Karen with a quiver in her voice.

"You just made me promise you that I would not go to him, and now you want to visit him," protested Tide.

"I want to know where he killed our parents, we deserve to know that much, don't you think?" replied Karen.

"All right then, you are correct, I have just summoned Xenon so he can escort us and I will go with you as well," said Tide.

Karen nodded at this as Xenon came into the chamber and saluted Tide. He wore a grey, suit of leather armour with a sword encased in a sheath slung over his shoulder.

"At your service, your majesty," he stated respectfully and looking past Tide with unblinking eyes.

"I would like you to escort us to Leonid's cell," said Tide.

Upon hearing his words, both Karen and Tide turned to follow Xenon out of the room with Karen walking alongside Tide when they were in the hallway.

Villagers who saw Tide and Karen down the long and wide corridor stood aside and bowed to Tide who nodded pleasantly at the passers by. As the trio neared a door on the far right wall of the passageway,a chill escaped Karen.

Suddenly, Xenon opened the heavy door by pushing it inward, after which all three of them progressed into the well lit underground prison and strolled steadily ahead where they came to a stop at a locked and guarded cell.

On seeing Karen and Tide through the vertical bars, Leonid cringed and backed himself against the northern wall with a look of fear in his eyes.

"Please don't let them near me, please," he pleaded in a trembling tone.

Karen went closer to the narrow bars of the cell.

"Where did you kill our parents!" she demamded.

"In the incinerator room of my palace," said Leonid stuttering and cringing once again.

Karen then turned to Tide with pain in her watery eyes.

"You did not have to kill them, did you Leonid," to Karen's surprise,it was Tide who blurted out the words.

Leonid looked at both girls without responding.

"Don't waste your time with him, Tide, it won't bring them back," said Karen as she prepared herself to leave the dungeon. When Tide motioned to depart as well, Leonid stopped his cringing and stood up to watch them and Xenon make their exit with Xenon walking ahead of Karen and Tide. Leonid strained his neck to look at them until he could no longer see their shadows in the dungeon's passage.

On returning to the throne room, Karen sighed.

"I have one more thing to ask of you," she said to Tide who listened attentively for her friend's request.

"I would like to see that incinerator where Leonid put an end to our parents' lives," continued Karen.

Tide looked at Karen.

"Are you certain you want to go there?" asked Tide.

"Yes,why do you ask?" said Karen with a little frown.

"There is so much pain between us already," replied Tide.

"I know you may have your reasons for not wanting to return to Leonid's palace, I can go alone," returned Karen glancing at the jewelled tiara that Tide wore.

"I will go with you," said Tide.

"And what will you do about the fire in the incinerator?" asked Karen.

"We shall see when we get there," came Tide's reply.

Karen sighed at this and turned her eyes to the glass window.

"You are afraid that I will be taken again, is that it?" Tide's question stunned Karen into spinning around to face Tide who was only a couple feet away from her. Karen then nodded affirmatively with a concerned look on her face.

"I guess I have good reason to fear that, now don't I," said Karen.

"Well I will have to be very careful then," said Tide thoughtfully.
With that said both Karen and Tide prepared to depart for Leonid's palace which was outside of Xuslu and several thousand miles to the north from where Karen and Tide were.

Chapter Two

On arriving in Leonid's throne room, Tide and Karen were greeted with an uneasy silence in a place void of other living creatures. Karen's eyes combed the large room searching for any signs of life when a chill escaped her.

"There's no one here," she said to Tide as they began to stroll cautiously to a door that was located on a wall to the far right side of the chamber. As they neared that door, with Karen walking just a few steps ahead of Tide, Karen felt a surge of heat that emanated from the room beyond the door.

"Will you wait here?" asked Karen.

"All right, but if I do not get a signal from you, I will enter," replied Tide.

Karen nodded in agreement and pushed the unlocked portal ajar, giving her just enough space to slip her slim body through. She gasped on seeing a large, round hole at the middle of the room. At the rim of that hole, she saw a yellow, fiery flame that filled the area with a bright light.

Suddenly, a small, round, shiny piece of matal that was inches away from the pit caught Karen's eye. With a gleam of enthusiasm in those eyes, Karen edged herself closer to the cavity in an attempt to grab the item, but the intensity of the heat made her retract herself to avoid the flames from within the abyss.

"Karen, are you all right?" called Tide from the outer room.

"Yes, there's something close to the pit I'm trying to reach, hang on," said a perspiring Karen. Determined to get a hold of the item, Karen crept with the use of her arms and legs in an attempt to become closer to the fiery abyss. Feeling a high temperature upon her face, she extended her right arm to seize the object, but as her fingers made contact with the hot, metallic article, Karen let out an agonizing scream as a burning sensation filled her fingers with pain. Upon hearing Karen's cry of hurt, Tide at once cautiously stepped into the chamber where Karen was.

"You are injured," said Tide keeping her distance just a few feet away from the door that led to the outer chamber.

Breathless, Karen nodded to indicate it was nothing serious, while holding on loosely to the object in her hand, shaking that hand every second or so to give her some relief from the burn.

In a few seconds, Karen got to her feet and ran to the much cooler, outer room with Tide quickly following. It was at that point that she then deliberately dropped the item she was holding on to the smooth, tiled floor after which she examined the palm of her hand that was an intense shade of red.

Tide ran to her aid and seized hold of Karen's injured right hand where she pressed the palm of her own hand against Karen's and closed her eyes in meditation.A couple of seconds later, a blue aura of light converged between both hands and then gradually faded away. When next Karen looked at the palm of that hand, the redness and pain were absent.

"We have all this magic and we could not save our own parents," said Karen as she began sobbing out of frustration while Tide looked on with reflective concern. Between the tears, Karen spotted the object she retrieved on the ground before her. With the thing still warm, she picked it up and jumped to her feet at the image she saw on the metallic substance. It was one of her father's cricket pins. The edges of the item were dark in colour from being in close proximity to the incinerator, but on closer observation, Karen noticed that in the middle of the pin was the engraved image of a cricket bat, and at the base of the bat, there was a charred icon of a discoloured, red cricket ball.

"It's my father's cricket pin," Karen blurted out.

Tide stepped closer to Karen to catch a glimpse of the scorched pin, and as both of them were looking at it, a strange thunderous sound was heard coming from the room that contained the fire pit. Karen quickly placed the item in the breast pocket of her blouse, after which she and Tide turned in the direction of the noise.

Out of the depths of the fiery abyss, there rose a gigantic, masculine creature all covered in a golden mass of fire.

"Who has awakened me?" its threatening voice growled when his enflamed feet touched the ground beneath him.

Karen and Tide attempted to run to the far end of the room as they heard the creature's pounding footsteps heading toward them, but they stopped when he made his entrance and turned to face him. Karen shuddered and swallowed hard while Tide looked on as the being advanced and stopped just a few feet away from them. Looking down at Karen and Tide from where he stood, for he must have been about eight feet tall, he let out a roar of sarcastic laughter after which he said:"Leonid has already satisfied my hunger, so what is it that you humans want?"

"Extinguish the fire in the next room," said Karen on finding her voice.

"And you expect me, Ileno, Lord of the Flame to do that just because you say so," replied the voice of the creature. Small flames were released from his mouth after each spoken word bellowed out.

"I was just making a request," said Karen as she looked intently at Ileno.

"Who are you?" asked Ileno, with his fiery eyes on Karen and Tide.

"I am Tidemoure Telia Timonia Lothar,daughter of King Lothar of Xuslu and she is my friend, Karen from the world above the sea," to Karen's surprise it was Tide who spoke.

"Oh, so you have come here to seek revenge, is that it," said Ileno looking first at Tide and then at Karen. Since there was no response from both youths in regard to Ileno's last statement, the creature spoke again.

"If you think you can defeat me, I can assure you that you will not succeed," with that said, he formed a yellow ball of fire in his hand and tossed it at Tide, who quickly recoiled as it went past her, missing her shoulder blade by a quarter of an inch. The ball of fire landed and dissipated on the ground fifty feet behind her and Karen.

"Get behind me," said Karen to Tide, keeping her eyes on Ileno.

While he was forming another fireball, Tide quickly heeded Karen's words and went and stood behind Karen, where she lowered her head.

Karen conjured a medium sized ball of transparent ice in her hand and just when Ileno released his fireball, Karen let go of the round mass of ice causing both objects to collide after which they evaporated as they landed on the floor between herself and Ileno. Not having sufficient time to place protective barriers around herself and Tide, Karen formed a couple more balls of ice, one in each hand. Before Ileno could discharge another one of his fireballs, Karen threw both iceballs at his head where a cooling, sizzling sound was then heard when the balls of ice contacted Ileno's blazing mass. Ileno's mouth opened widely at this attack, and he roared with agony. In another instant, he let go of a fireball that was aimed at Karen. She and Tide ducked simultaneously to avoid it. Quickly raising her body to a standing position, Karen made and threw one iceball after another at Ileno's head, the force of which made him shrink considerably until all that was left before them was a pile of ashes.

"Let's see if the fire in the pit has been extinguished," said Karen heading in the direction of the incinerator room.

Tide followed her into the chamber to view a darkened abyss that only a few ago was all aflame. A strong, foul odour that came from the hole in the ground made Karen spit out a small bit of saliva, after which she then ran to the outer room in disgust. At that same moment, while alone, apparitions of Karen's parents were displayed before her. Karen took a deep breath and looked up in front of to see both spectres.

"You have avenged our deaths enough," it was the deep, dark voice of her father that sent chills throughout Karen's slender frame. Her eyes were firmly fixed on them both and she blinked constantly to prevent already formed tears from falling.

"You are so young, honey, don't spend your whole life trying to bring us back, for we are gone," it was her mother's light voice that spoke this time.

"Wait," said Karen struggling with her own voice.

"There is so much I have to say to you," Karen continued.

"There is no need," came her father's voice, "for you have grown well, now go on with your life, get a boyfriend, and go to university to keep yourself busy," with these final words both apparitions were gone from her sight, as she looked wildly around the empty room.

Meanwhile, in the chamber with the extinguished fire pit, Tide was being visited by ghosts of her own parents.

"Mother, Father," said Tide in much surprise, staring at both of them in turn.

"The Kingdom is in your hands," began her father in a pleasant tone.

"I need some advice, I don't know how to run a kingdom," replied Tide.

"Just protect it the best you can, and make sure the villagers are happy," answered the King whose image began to slowly fade.

"Will you ever forgive me, after all it was my fault that Leonid..."

"You have been forgiven," said her mother with her reflection also starting to diminish.

"I don't want you to leave," said Tide.

"We have to go now, you have to let us go Tide," said her father.

Not taking her eyes off them, Tide reluctantly nodded in approval, after which her parents vanished.

In the other room, Karen stood silently in deep thought about her parents'visit as a thoughtful Tide emerged from the incinerator room.

"I just had a visit from my parents," said Tide after a moment had passed.

"Me too," said Karen as the walls that surrounded them began to shake.

"I guess it's time to get out of here," remarked Tide when dust and small portions of rocks began dropping to the floor.

Karen immediately ran to Tide's side where she placed her arm around Tide's shoulder with both of them using their forearms to shield themselves from the falling debris, lowering their heads for added protection as they did so.

Upon arriving in one of the sitting rooms of Karen's home, an amazed Penelope and now thirteen year old cousin, Harry who stood five feet and nine inches in height with a full head of dark, slicked back hair looked on with stunned, light brown eyes at Karen and Tide.

Penelope wore a faded pair of blue jeans with a light pink, long sleeved jersey like buttoned up top while a gold necklace dangled from her neck. Still not believing the sight of her niece and Tide before her, Penelope's passed the palm of her right hand over both eyes, thinking she must have been dreaming.

As for Harry who was dressed in dark blue baggy jeans and loose fitting buttoned up red shirt, his jaw dropped in shock as he looked at first his cousin and then at what he thought was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, Tide, with feelings of a boyish crush coming on.

Both Karen and Tide glanced at Penelope and Harry with a look of embarrassment in their eyes. A little half a smile left Karen's lips as she took a glimpse at the floor and then again at her aunt.

Not knowing what to say for fear of uttering things she did not wish to speak, Karen felt beads of perspiration on her forehead beginning to drip down to her eyebrows, as the tension and silence grew in the vast room of well placed, expensive but comfortable bits of furniture. Karen suddenly wished she were elsewhere, for now she knew she would have to explain to the family members in her presence not only who Tide was, but also the truth about her parents' disappearance.