Fire & Stone_The War for Life Page 16
“Arimus, as I slept for all those years, I dreamed of the moment I would be able to see you again. In my thoughts, you will forever stay. Perhaps if we had more time, I would have been able to save you. I will miss you, Arimus. If we ever see each other again, don’t let them win,” Bliss said as she surrendered to the winds.
Arimus roared with pain, a roar so powerful that it silenced the loud winds. Soon after Bliss left, he lost consciousness and Obfuscuss returned. The winds and the dragon were the only two magical things that remained in the world. The powerful winds seemed as if they were not going to pull the dragon into the Gates.
However, the wager that Hellys made with the statue was absolute. The winds grew in power until the dragon could not fight them any longer and managed to drag the dragon back to the Gates. A trail of immense destruction was left behind as the dragon would not yield and tried to hold on to anything on his path. The dragon fought ferociously against the winds until his arms were the last thing showing outside the gate.
“I will honor my word, and I will destroy that world and will get her back!” Obfuscuss screamed just before the Gates closed its doors, holding him in.
As the Gates slammed shut on the dragon, a small crack appeared on the Gates itself. Holding in all the world’s magic and the restless dragon proved a threshold for what the Gates could do. The Gates of Oblivion and its three-horned gatekeeper sunk deeper and deeper into the ground, where they would remain for the rest of their existence, waiting.
Waiting for the day its Gates would open again.
Epilogue
The Human World
Being unable to understand most of what occurred, humans continued with life, telling the tales of what they witnessed as best they could to their offspring. Humanity flourished for many centuries. When writing and arts became available to them, they wrote books and fairy tales about magic, dragons, and gargoyles.
As the stories and arts were passed down from generation to generation, they were greatly appreciated by children, adolescents, and even adults. There seemed to be a great deal of truth about the stories that were shared throughout the many generations.
However, with the growing fast pace of the world, the tales of the brave gargoyles that fought for what was right, the tales of being with powerful magic, and the tales of dragons all became a myth and legend.
Humans forgot about the past, and they forgot about magic.
But magic did not forget about them, and magic did not forget about the things that happened.
* * *
The world had become a busy place. Humans went on living their daily lives without giving it a second thought. No spirit nor hope was needed to live, and especially no magic.
Somewhere in North America, magic was seeping back into the world in the form a special birth that would have a huge role in the events to come: a bright red-haired girl was born.
The parents of the newborn were astonished at the little girl’s bright red hair. Right away, they felt that their little girl would grow up to be special.
“What should we name her?” the father asked, with obvious nervousness, as he held her tiny fingers.
The mother thought for a second as her eyes were sparkling and fixed on her little girl. “Let’s name her something special, something you don’t hear as often nowadays.”
Putting sounds together and paying close attention to how the sound made her feel, the mother continued saying, “Nu … Nu … Vi … Nuvia!” Speaking directly to the little red-haired little one, the mother said, “Your name will be Nuvia.”
* * *
All throughout her young life, Nuvia was always regarded in a special way. Her parents thought that she was one of a kind, as she always seemed to be more interested in the past than the future. Nuvia was so interested in the past that she majored in history when she attended college. Her professors were proud of her for the level of detail she had in every paper she submitted.
Wherever Nuvia went, she moved gracefully as if she was in complete control of her body. Nuvia was very good in gymnastics, consequently making lots of athletic friends. Although good in the art of controlling her body, she paid little interest to the sport and merely did it as a way to distract herself from the cloudy thoughts that she often had playing in her brain.
Nuvia often dressed nicely, using scarves, dresses, and jackets on a daily basis. She always wore a dash of green somewhere in her attire. For reasons that she entirely did not understand, she was fond of the color green, not because it was her favorite color, but because she loved it.
The last thing that set Nuvia apart from the rest of the world was her love life. Although Nuvia was gorgeous and had the sweetest of personalities, with an almost perfect body, Nuvia remained single. She did not know how or why, but she was never attracted to any guy that she ever met. Her friends often asked her why she wouldn’t give “that perfect guy” a chance. Nuvia would simply respond, “I don’t know…I just don’t think it will work.” Her friends thought she was crazy for letting such “angelic” guys go.
However, Nuvia never cared much about what her friends had to say. She had much deeper worries. Nuvia knew that her place in this world was not a pure coincidence of life; she knew that something big was about to happen.
She felt it every morning as she woke up, and her heart was racing. She often had vivid dreams of gargoyles, dragons, and magic.
* * *
Far away from civilization, in the coastal lines of the Arctic Ocean, a small group of miners, engineers, and scientists mined nonstop in hopes to find what they called, “a new kind of gold, the gold of the gods.”
The mine reached record-breaking depths in order to find this gold, and many lives were lost in the process, a small price to pay according to the greedy billionaires behind the massive project.
Years of digging passed until one dark rainy day, one of the miners said, “I hit something.”
Excitement was contagious throughout the cave; most of the miners cheered and screamed their lungs out because they would finally be able to go back home.
At once, the miners backed up the massive drill and started to dig with smaller tools such as shovels, and spikes. After a few hours of slow digging had passed, the mood in the cave went from cheerful to frightful as they unearthed an ancient and sinister three-horned head. Most of the miners fled the sight after seeing the three horns; others were simply unable to move out of fear. When the head was unearthed, it opened its infinitely deep dark eyes.
Shaking, the miner went down on his knees, and started to pray for his life. The mine was emptied of workers within minutes.
When word of the discovery got to the ears of one of the billionaires, he immediately rushed to the mine, accompanied by a few miners that got double the pay for going back down to the area.
When they reached the end of the excavation, both miners and the billionaire could not believe their eyes. An impressive cave stood before them, and in the middle of the cave, a three-horned statue with cracked, massive Gates behind it.
“This...this wasn’t here before. It wasn’t like this,” one of the miners said aloud.
“Never mind that. Look at the size of those doors. I bet anything that’s behind them is an immense amount of riches. The gold of the gods is in there!” the billionaire exclaimed, eager to claim his prize, greed rushing all over his body.
Without so much of a drop of fear in his greedy heart, he approached the three-horned statue.
“I am pleased to see that Greed survived into this new world,” the statue spoke with a voice that made the cave tremble.
As soon as the statue was heard, the other miners hurriedly left as they were scared for their lives.
“I am Armelious Montasco, and I want to see what is inside those enormous gates. I want to see it all,” Armelious said without an ounce of fear.
* * *
Far south, at the very same time the Gates were about to open again, it started to rain hard as Nuvia was he
ading home walking with her friends. Her friends ran for cover underneath a nearby tree as soon as the first drop of rain hit their faces, but Nuvia just stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, unable to comprehend what she was feeling.
* * *
“Very well. It shall be done,” the statue said, and the hundreds of latches on the Gates began to open.
Everything that the Gates had ever consumed, and all that was inside it came gushing out. In the middle of everything that came rushing out, a blood thirsty shadow was standing in front of Armelious Montasco.
“What did we do?” were his last words as the shadow quickly devoured him.
Afterword
This has been a story that has taken me many years to write and re-write. It was the first story I had ever written, and now in 2017 I finally feel that it’s worth the read.
The hardest part of the world of The Gates of Oblivion is the balancing of the story since that world is so rich in detail and occurrences; it can get a little hard choosing what makes in the book and what doesn’t, especially that I wanted to publish it within this decade.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it. And be on the lookout for the 3rd book in The Gates of Oblivion Series.
Book 3 will be taking place in modern day time. I am currently working on it, and I plan to publish it in late 2018. If you have any feedback, or something you would like to see incorporated in the book, drop me a line; become part of the community of Sky Gate Tale, as things are just starting to get good.
My beautiful wife, Hazel Lynne Robles, played an important role with this book, as she constantly pushed me to finish. She is a longtime fan of book 1 in the series. She also supported me through the long hours of writing I dedicated to it. Thank you for all your support.
I want to thank my editor, Sheina Magtuba, since without her, you probably would not be reading such a pristine copy of this book. Thank you for all your hard work, time, and dedication.
Most importantly, I’d like to thank you, my avid readers, for taking time to read this book from cover to cover. My utmost sincere thank you.
Sky Gate Tale Links
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