Once inside the castle, filled with frenzied anticipation, he raced down the right corridor to his sister’s apartment. He pounded on the oak doors. “Angeen, Angeen,” he shouted as he hammered the door with his fists.
The door opened and, in the doorway, stood a woman all rumbled in nightclothes with curling ribbons in her hair, some which were beginning to become untied. “What are you shouting about?” Angeen said rubbing her eyes, “it’s the middle of the night. You’d better have a good reason for waking me.”
“You silly cow,” her brother replied as he pushed past her entering the large ornately furnished living room, “Let me in quickly. I’ve got it,” he announced to his sister as he pulled the book from his leather shoulder bag.
“You’ve got what?” Angeen asked still yawning and seeming totally indifferent to her brother’s excitement.
“Fool, focus, get the cobwebs out of your tiny brain,” he ordered. “The book with the magic spells, potions and incantations. The forbidden book, that’s what I found. Shadel and Suri will be history, I’m going to rule Luminatia,” he triumphantly declared, then realizing he would need Angeen’s help he amended his statement, “We’re going to rule Luminatia.”
Queen Angeen, I like the way that sounds,” she said rising up off the large red sofa where she had been seated and standing next to her brother staring into the looking glass as she tried to fix one of her curl ribbons which was falling out of her hair.
“What Avadon didn’t know, is that the book of “Secrets of Dark and Evil” had been written in codes and parts of it was in an ancient language, foreign to Avadon,” Myadora explained as Winston was transfixed to the vision before him. “It took him years of pouring over the book until he believed he was able to decipher a potion which contained a spell to facilitate what he and his sister wanted; control of the kingdom. During that time, he hardly left his apartment.”
“Angeen,” Avadon called as he banged on the door of his sister’s apartment late one evening. “I’ve done it! I’ve finally done it!” he spouted sanctimoniously as he entered and flung himself down on the sofa leaning his head back against the gaudy red velvet cushion.
“Done what?” she replied with her arms crossed, standing in front of him. “You mean you’ve deciphered the book,” she gasped as if a light went on in her head.
“That’s right, I’ve decoded the spell and the recipe for the potion. Here,” he said elated as he handed her a piece of parchment containing the ingredients for the potion. “Tomorrow I leave for a very remote area in the eastern part of the kingdom. If I go in disguise no one will notice me and I will be able to easily use the spell I’ve deciphered on our brother’s subjects. It will be with great pleasure to see how they turn against Shadel and follow me. Then they will adhere to my every command.”
“You, my dear sister, need to collect the ingredients for this potion. When I return you will prepare it and make certain our beloved brother and sister-in-law drink it. It will transform them into pathetic babbling imbeciles and their beloved people will turn from them in disgust,” he prophesized. “The spells that I’ll cast will make the people worship and follow us.”
The visualization stopped; the large rocks of the mountain hidden by the vision were once again visible. “What happened?” Winston asked eagerly, puzzled by the abrupt halt of the images.
“I can only tell you what happened next,” Myadora explained to her impatient descendent. “It would be too dangerous for you at this time if you were to witness Avadon casting this spell. The powers you will be receiving as a guardian have not yet been bestowed upon you. In a short time when you begin to receive those powers then and only then will you start to understand how to keep yourself safe. Don’t concern yourself now, there’s much for you to learn,” she reassured him as she continued telling him the story.
“The next day, as promised, Avadon left for the outskirts of the eastern part of the kingdom. Once there, he encountered two men walking down a quiet street. There was no one else in sight. Avadon, disguised as a frail old man, walked over to these men and began reciting the incantation. Mesmerizing both men with the spell, as they stood motionless. Avadon created veils or layers of illusions in their minds making them completely forget the wonderful memories of their lives in Luminatia. In their place, he then created new negative memories of misery and hardship. What was unknown to Avadon was a side effect of the spell he was casting. It was twisting him into pure evil. Vapors of positive energy left his victims’ bodies and flowed into his. As the vapors entered into his body, the positive energy was then transformed into hatred and depravity. The book had fooled him by letting him believe the codes he deciphered would turn him into a beloved king like his brother, in fact it had the opposite effect.
The vision returned as Winston saw Shadel seated at his desk, in what appeared to be an office. Sitting on the other side of the, desk were two somber faced men clad in dark green ornate uniforms.
“Sir!” the man with the red moustache began in a grave tenor, “we’ve had extremely alarming reports from the east.” Dalgranca one of Shadel’s emissaries continued, “I’m afraid, Sir, your brother is causing severe devastation to the people of that region. Chaos has erupted and many thousands of people are missing.”
Calmly Shadel asked, “Do we know exactly what he is doing to cause chaos?”
“Sir! Witnesses have reported he has been gathering small groups of people together, he then delivers an incantation to them,” Veon, his trusted aid reported to the King with great concern. These witnesses claim to have seen a white vapor emanating from each of those people and that vapor then turned black as it flowed into Avadon. Your brother has also been altering their physical appearance so no one can identify them. In some cases, there have been reports of physical violence breaking out amongst the people.”
Shadel stood, “Gentlemen, thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll look into this and deal with it immediately.”
Winston watched as a messenger delivered a small wrapped box to Angeen’s apartment that same morning. Inside the box is a parchment folded in four.
Opening the parchment, she read the message:
“Dearest Sister…I think it would be quite thoughtful of you to prepare a special beverage for our beloved brother and his wife today. I’ll be returning very soon…Your Loving Brother, Avadon.”
After discarding the parchment into the lit fireplace, Angeen understood Avadon’s message and rushed into her bedroom. Eager to prepare the potion she sat at her dressing table snatching various ingredients she had previously concealed in bottles of perfumes and lotions and put them into a crystal decanter.
“The Queen’s favorite nectar,” she uttered aloud, grinning, as she reached into the cupboard for the bottle containing the fragrant nectar she believed would mask the vile taste of the potion’s ingredients. “When they drink this their minds fail and they will become idiots who can only babble nonsense. They will become nasty and will be hated,” she rambled in a childish contemptuous glee.
Later that morning Angeen brought the gift she had prepared of nectar in a crystal decanter to Suri. “I’ve prepared something very special. It’s a delicious, sweet nectar just for you and my beloved brother,” she exclaimed ever so sweetly. “I hope you’ll enjoy it with your lunch today, my dear sister-in-law. It contains the nectar of the rare pristol fruit that you love so much,” she gushed.
“Angeen, how thoughtful, of course we’ll have it with lunch this afternoon,” she said kissing her sister- in-law on the cheek.
“Just before lunch the queen opened the decanter and detected a peculiar odor coming from inside the bottle. Not wanting to hurt the feelings of her sister-in-law, she emptied the contents from the crystal decanter into a ceramic jar and refilled it with her own nectar,” Myadora added.
The nectar in the ceramic jar began to steam.