Book Two - A Taste

TRIGON:  The Riddle of the Book (unedited)

Prologue excerpt:  A Secret Discovered

Difficult because of his cramped position, the demon waved the torn paper across his gapping mouth, mocking Emit, pretending to swallow the significant object. Then, he sighed, such a devious sigh as no living creature on Earth or anywhere beyond could manage. Only the demon could gesture in such an awful way, for only he, as time is his chosen name and essence, could still life’s breath so absolute. . .

The demon rolled over on his back, this time folding one clawed hand under his round head while using the other to flip the torn paper between his claws, like a magician performing a card trick.

"So, what do you think of my little riddle?" he said, again mocking Emit. "You do realize you cannot help them this time. Don’t worry. I must leave other clues for their simple minds. I must test them again, but this time they will fail. What fun I will have. They have no magic power, only scars from when I branded them during their last trials. You remember, when they found my weapons of power." He seethed. His hollow eyes slit; his small nostril flared. "I will have my weapons again. Oh, not like before . . . you know when I created them all those eons ago? Three little kings now my servants and . . . enough talking. My time begins now."

Placing the torn piece of paper in his mouth, the demon mumbled a spell:

"Thyme’s petals, small and white; Mint flavored herbs, healer’s delight;
Three wishes granted, to set me free; One last clue: serendipity!"

He gulped. The paper disappeared down his dark throat.

"Ah," he said, with a grin. "I see my trigon is ready, now you will sleep, wizard – Forever.

Chapter 1 excerpt:  The Demon Trigon

Emit awoke with a start, his eyes glazed with fear. "My book!" he wailed. "The foul creature has found its magic. He will release his imps . . . scatter my hourglass . . . Open my dagger. Take it to–"

Arin jumped to her feet, pushing her white shoulder length hair from her face . "Hugh," she mumbled, half asleep. Did a little voice in her mind just tell her to take Emit’s dagger? Or was she dreaming? She hesitated, thinking back to when they had trapped the demon, and Emit insisted he care for the dagger. It did, after all, belong to Emit . . . and the demon. Still, a desire to posses it overwhelmed her.

" . . . flower," Emit shouted. "Its flavor is . . . my magic is failing . . . find and repair my hourglass–" He lay silent.

Arin ran to Emit’s bed chamber, stumbling over Boyd who had fallen asleep on the marble floor again – how he could sleep on such a cold, hard surface tested her mind. "Emit," she yelled. "Wake up. Don’t go back to sleep."

Boyd sat up rubbing his muscular left shoulder. Finally, after twenty-seven weeks of therapy from Emit’s magic and Arin’s herb concoctions it had completely healed. Boyd really didn’t enjoy either of his friends remedies. Thankful for their help, he managed to overcome his fear of magic, even though each time Arin tended his wound she made jokes because he couldn’t say concoction right. Even worse, Emit’s magic still scared Boyd. No, he did like magic. Not before. Not now. Not ever!

Now, Arin had stepped right on the same sore spot. He flapped his arm two or three times to soften the pain. "What’s goin’ on?" he said, groggily." Rubbing sleep from his eyes, and glancing about the round, rust colored chamber for signs of trouble, he added: "What’s all the shouting about?"

"It’s Emit," responded Arin, eying the dagger beneath Emit’s blue and white robe. "He had another bad dream. This time I think he’s in a deep trance." She shook his stiff body. "He’s not responding. Hakim, wake up."

Hakim opened one lazy eye, which lost a flickering skirmish to a bright morning sun. An unusual moment, since Emit’s magic canopy of mist normally allowed just enough sun to warm the chamber, but today something was different, brighter. Here she goes again, Hakim thought, always yelling at someone. Why did Arin have to interrupt such a nice dream? Sleeping on a cot of clean straw and pillows stuffed with goose feathers had helped to mend the many nightmares of sleeping in damp, dark, rat infested mines. Hakim hadn’t slept this good in years; besides, he was enjoying himself. He liked dreaming, particularly dreams filled with snowflakes, lakes, icebergs, mountains, and silver glistening waterfalls. A welcome contrast to the hot, dark tunnels, whips, and stale meals of his past.

"Hakim," Arin shouted, "Emit looks sick. He’s almost as pale as me, and he’s sweating all over. What are you doing? Will you listen to me!"

"He’s albino like you?" asked Boyd, wide-eyed. "How could that happen?"

Arin pretended to ignore Boyd’s remark. Being albino or not wouldn’t help Emit. Why did Boyd have to be so dumb all the time? Why couldn’t he for once understand the real meaning of what she was saying. "Hakim," she repeated. "Will you get up."

Hakim finally stood, eyes closed, listless, trying hard to retain his dream. Somewhere behind that dream a shadow and a wizard were locked in mortal combat. Their struggle, though fierce and relentless, appeared to be a stalemate as each warrior tried to gain an advantage. Was it the dream of ice mountains or the terrible battle that engrossed Hakim? Unsure, he needed to dive deeper to find the answer. In the outer world, Arin would be yelling to him, but in this inner dream world, his mind must see deep into the falling waters, tumbling snow, and giant chasms filled with rivers of tiny silver flowers. Down, down he went, until the cool winter fell victim to a harsh flame of endless gas that consumed the last remaining snowflake with malice and desire. Gas exploded everywhere, filling him with fire, burning him inside. But still deeper, more fire and more gas raged. The shadow reappeared holding a giant sun in his left claw and an oversized, yet common, wood framed hourglass in his right. A faint form of a wizard seemed to plea from within the scorching sun’s center, a prisoner of a lost battle, engulfed in eternal pain. Yes, Hakim could see him now: Emit.

Hakim tried to call to him, but screaming from the outer world muted his words. "Where are you?" is what he tried to ask. "What is this ball of fire? I don’t understand."

Emit did not or could not answer. The sun’s massive rage devoured him, only his hourglass remained, somehow able to withstand the immense heat. Inside, beneath the smoldering glass, a tall structure of an ancient unlit lighthouse dominated the upper chamber. A single grain of sand slipped through the narrow funnel which led to the lower glass chamber. The sand grain fell to join millions of partners that had made the same journey from upper chamber to lower, where they rested, again reunited, in a neat and symmetrical pile.

Arin’s voice from the outside called again, but Hakim had to finish this dream. The lighthouse lights flickered on. Hakim must hang on for a few more seconds.

The lighthouse rested on a barren mountain, accessed by one lone path that crisscrossed up the mountainside. Bright and bold, light sprouted from its apex, built high upon layers of boulders supporting massive wooden beams and other materials Hakim did not recognize. The hourglass would burst from so much light, easily drowning out the shadow’s massive sun that had consumed Emit’s image.

With a sneer and hiss, the shadow shook the glass. Mumbling strange words from an unknown language, it breathed a foul mist that encircled the lighthouse to suffocate the light. Smiling with hollow eyes, tiny nostrils, and an empty mouth, the shadow peered at the glass, watching as bright light succumbed to a dull purple haze forming inside the upper hourglass chamber. A large crater ridden moon broke through the haze, followed by two smaller moons that circled their larger companion in near identical, but opposite orbits. Faster they spun, moving inward with each completed cycle, once, twice, thrice. The large moon’s slow revolutions speed up too, its massive gravity pulling both circling moons in at an incredible speed. Inward, faster, faster, until – wham! – they collided, sending billions of tiny white sparks that swept away the haze, filling the glass with light.

The shadow’s sneer deepened. Mumbling more foul words and by waving a clawed hand over the hourglass, he made the light diminish to darkness.

A rainbow then appeared from that same darkness, with a spectrum of red, green, purple, blue, yellow, and orange hues that danced within the glass, above a shimmering crystal lake.

Again the shadow hissed, only to be drowned out by Arin’s constant screams. They broke through, killing the dream. In one last second of darkness before Hakim’s eyes opened, Emit’s tortured voice screamed something odd: " . . . my book. . . SPY! . . . RIDE! . . . NIGHT!" Then the shadow appeared one last time, cramped and squirming within a small dark compartment, and the outer world was again upon Hakim."

Chapter 3 excerpt:  Slug Soup

Hakim could only open his eyes after all the screams finally faded, expecting to find Boyd’s and Arin’s concerned faces hovering over him. He didn’t know what to say to them, the screams were unidentifiable, unnatural. How could he explain them? He didn’t know himself where they came from or who’s they were. All he knew for certain was their concentration of pain and an overwhelming desire to die. That’s what he’d tell Arin and Boyd: "The screaming voices wanted to die. They couldn’t stand any more pain. They preferred death. I’m certain of it."

"Hugh?" he mumbled instead. "What? How?" The chamber, Arin, Boyd, Emit – everything – had vanished. He lay in mid air, floating, above a dark planet. Three crescent moons, each a different shade of mauve, had secured a safe place in the purple sky. Not a star shown through the deep matte, but hundreds of red flaming meteors somehow had figured a way to appear and disappear, leaving long yellow rails of vapor and dust behind. The moons seemed impervious to the chaotic meteor display. They somehow knew they were safe. Maybe because they had found – by luck or trail, Hakim didn’t know – orbits that steered them free of crashing projectiles. Or, maybe because they dominated the scene with an appearance of a giant ghostly face – two smaller moons for eyes and a larger crescent for a mouth – waiting to munch on stray and unsuspecting galactic travelers passing a little too close.

Non of this made sense. It must be another dream. Hakim pinched the back of his hand hard to make sure he’d wake up if dreaming. No, not this time, his hand hurt.

Not a dream, he thought. But I did have a dream of Emit and an hourglass with three moons inside. I need to find an hourglass. Could this be where I start? Or is this where those voices came from? And how did I get here? Did Emit send me here? Or . . . did the demon swallow me? More riddles?

Normally when thinking deep and complicated thoughts such as these, it was difficult for Hakim to break his concentration when someone tried to interrupt. He would later tell Arin she’d be jealous if she saw how easily a meteor did just that. Crash! He would also later swear the meteor came directly from the ghostly moons’ face, right where a nose should have been, but the object hit him so hard and at such a high speed, he had no time for such thoughts. Down he went, spiraling out of control toward a dark metallic planet.

"Aww!" he wailed, wondering why the object hadn’t blown a hole through his chest. Certainly a quick death would be much better than dive-bombing into mountains of bronze and tarnished tins. Soon he would be mush, splattered across a foreign world formed by layers of dark metals – what a way to end. And traveling at super fast speeds can blur ones senses, but two buggy eyes, two groping feelers, and a long, slimy body sitting on his chest made Hakim an exception to this axiom.

"Yow . . . Get off! Get your slimy body off me!" He tried to brush the slug away with the back of his hand. No luck. The gooey creature just peered at him with big piercing eyes.

"Go away," he moaned, trying to pry the creature loose. Still, the slug would not budge. Mountains of metal rushed by as he continued his descent, half aware of the giant wheels, tall spikes, long rails, piles of scraps, and complex machines that covered the planet surface. His other half aware of only the slug. It had started to inch toward his chin with an obvious interest to investigate Hakim’s mouth, leaving a trail of slim on his bare chest as it squirmed forward. Maybe he should have listened to Arin’s constant and nagging advice to wear a shirt, but he preferred going shirtless and never thought he’d need protection from a meteor slug’s droppings. 

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