CHAPTER TWO

"Where. . . Where did you get that?" She stammered, visibly confused by what she was seeing.

"My father found it," Isaias said, and she became even more curious.

"You should not be in possession of such a thing. Take whatever you find to the castle and maybe you'll be rewarded. I'll take care of it," she said as she moved toward Isaias, trying to get to the gem as quickly as possible.

"No! Do not... Do not touch it? He found it," Isaias said, and she giggled. 

"Look around, you are not in a position to tell me what to do. I'll take it to my sisters and we will decide what to do with it," she said.

She moved forward. Somehow she was careful with her movements. It was more like she could not just walk up, take it and go. Her facial expression revealed that she was not aware of the consequences of touching it. 

"So it exists, our sisters will be proud of us for finding it," she said to the younger girl.

"You did not find it, my father did," Isaias shouted, and she ignored him.

"Take it!" said the younger one, and she nodded.

She reached out her right hand for the gem. 

"Don't!" Isaias cried out and everything around them shook momentarily. His father and everyone else on the ground regained consciousness from the shaking. 

The witches quickly moved away from the gem, and their eyes locked on Isaias.

"What did you just do?" she asked, and he did not even know what to say because he was equally shocked. Mandrins had no magic, now what ever just happened was nothing close to the ordinary.

"I do not know," he stammered.

He felt a burning in his throat leading to his head. He held his chest and moved his hands quickly to his head as he screamed.

He buried his face in the sand. He took his hands off his head as he felt his fingers lengthen. He dug his fingers into the ground and was surprised at the ease with which they went through the hard stones in the ground. He felt his fingers cut through every rock and stone they touched.

He lifted his head from the sand and looked up at the witches.

"What have you done to me?" He shouted and they both took a few steps back. He cries to them in pain, he cried for mercy.

"Your eyes... They are green!" the younger witch said to Isaias, who was visibly confused.

He looked to his father and everyone else in front of him and realised they were all experiencing the same thing. They were all screaming, holding their fingers to their heads and rolling in the sand. Dalmatius cried out as he grabbed his hair and was almost about to pull it out. 

"The witches, I think they are punishing us," Amyas said, looking up at his son Isaias. 

Isaias saw in his father's eyes something that looked like a flame, but as green as an emerald and as bright as the gem that floated high above them.

"No! This is not my doing," the older witch said, and Isaias looked at her and saw how confused she was by it all. He could tell that she was not behind it. 

"Please, make it stop!" cried Erastus, begging the witches to release him from the punishment. He also thought that she was responsible for what was happening to them.

"This is not my doing!" she roared.

Although the witches had done worse to them, Isaias knew that they were innocent of this. 

"Sister, we must inform sister Isidora about this," the younger one suggested, running toward the bridge.

It was not long before the young witch arrived with an old witch whose matted grey hair matched her grey stone pendant. 

Isidora stopped the moment her eyes met the gem. 

"Callibra! Sisters, blind me... do not let my eyes deceive me," Isidora said to the other witches.

"Your eyes bring you nothing but the truth, sister," the young witch said to her.

At that moment, Isaias, along with all nine men, felt all the bones in their bodies reshaping, dissolving and coming into shape. 

Words could no longer explain the pain. Their body was changing, very gradually. Everything under her skin. 

The hair on their body, apart from the beards, brows, eyelashes and those on their head, fell out.

"CALLIBRA, its curse. . . it is having its effect. Alert our sisters. Seal the gates, cast the cloak," Isidora ordered the two witches.

"But sister..." said the younger witch.

"They were cursed, we can not let them get to us," Isidora told her.

"Their bodies are changing because of the curse they brought upon themselves," Isidora told the two.

"What happens when the transformation is complete?" the other witch asked.

"They become the creature, the fire-breathing beast of the air, the Drágôn," she said.

"What is a dragon?" cried Isaias.

Their skins became smoother than the shell of an egg. Their spines bulged and grew longer. 

Their clothes cracked as they all gradually but steadily increased in size. The extreme smoothness of the skin was no longer present, as they developed a reptilian skin with a skin colour in the darkest shades of brown.

Isaias felt the hairs at the back of his head give way to something that stuck out at an angle backwards from the back of his head. There were two, less than a few inches apart and of equal length. He clasped them with his hands as he felt them rip the inside of his skull as they protruded further and further. Each strand of hair on his head turned into a scale, creating overlapping scales. 

"Go now and extend my orders. If we keep the gem, we can get more answers and know how to reverse the curse," Isidora said to them and they both ran towards the bridge. 

"What about you?" the older witch called out to Isidora.

"I can protect myself," Isidora called back, nodding.

Isidora turned away from the men and focused her undivided attention on the gem.

She touched the gem with only her right index finger, and the gem emitted a wave that knocked her off her feet and hurled her at an axe. The blade dug into the back of her neck. She struggled to get air back into her lungs.

Whatever they had become bore no resemblance to the human form. They became something else, something of the old order.

Their necks lengthened and they grew huge bat-like wings, marking the end of the transformation.

"This is it, the fire-breathing beast of the air, as Isidora called it, the drágôn," Isaias said, and he noticed how croaky his voice was. 

"You brought this upon us, Amyas. Now we are cursed and must all live as winged reptiles for the rest of our lives," said Cicero. They too noticed the change in his voice.

"Leave Amyas alone! You would have done the same thing if you were the one. Besides, you were willing to share the benefits of what it was with him," Dalmatius said. 

Cicero was the first to test his wings as he rose into the air and gained complete control of his movements. He flapped his wings to keep his balance in the air. He struck Dalmatius in the neck with the sharp, sword-like structure on the edge of his wing.

Dalmatius clawed at the ground with the claws of his hind legs, gained his balance and thus prevented a fall.

Isaias tried to stop them, shouting, "Stop fighting!" And what came out of his mouth was fire. The shock froze them. Their undivided attention was focused on Isaias.

Silence flooded their midst. He looked down at his segmented front and saw that it revealed a little of what was happening there. It was like a place where rocks were being pounded into fire. 

"Do you know what that means? It means we can fight a war against the witches, knock down all four castles and free our people. Cicero, Amyas has found our way to freedom. We may have lost our humanity, but we still have friends and family between those walls. We can free them," Elvio said and everyone agreed.

They launched themselves into the air and flew across the bridge.

Something was not right. They arrived at the place where the castle was supposed to be, but they could not see anything. The entire castle, including the quarters of the witches and the Mandrin blocks, was nowhere to be seen.

"I am afraid we have come too late. It's already been cloaked," Elvio said. 

Even when Elvio broke the news to them, they still would not give up. They stayed in the area until nightfall - hoping that the camouflage would disappear.

"We need to find shelter," Isaias suggested as they all stopped floating and returned to the ground. 

"I think you are right!" said Dalmatius.

"Why do we need a shelter? I think you are all forgetting that we are the most dangerous of all! The lions, the tigers, the wild animals and everything behind the forests. We are the predators," said Cicero.

"We are predators, yes! But what about the witches? You know what they are capable of, you know what they can do, you saw them kill Bastian..." said Isaias, and Cicero interrupted him.

"That was Bastian - a person who was foolish. Look what has become of us. Do not you see that the witches are afraid of us? They have covered the city walls because they see us as a threat. You say these things because you are a coward," Cicero told him.

"Do not you dare call my son a coward!" Amyas warned Cicero and Cicero gave him a stern look while his eyes blazed with green flames.

"He's just trying to weigh our options," Elvio said in Isaias' defence, and Cicero turned to him.

"It seems you are all cowards. You can seek shelter elsewhere, but I am not going anywhere... I'll stay here and wait for the cloak to be lifted," Cicero said, folding his wings back so he could rest comfortably.

"Where shall we go?" asked Erastus.

"The only place we can rest and be safe from the witches' traps is in the caves. They rest beyond the deserts," Dalmatius suggested and everyone agreed except one person, Cicero. 

"I have been there before. I am not sure I can find them," said Erastus.

"I do not know where it is either, but I am sure since we are all travelling by air, we will find it much easier," said Amyas.

"Keep it, Iasias. Do not lose it!" said Amyas, to his son. Isaias knew he spoke of the gem.

Before Eflie, one must walk through a great desert. Not many have seen the land. Only stories about the caves from the elders who were once free before the captivity. Even when they were free to move about. In the deserts, they say, people thirst for a sip of their own urine. The land is barren and there is no source of food or water. Crossing the desert and reaching the cave is like a journey one would never wish to take. Only a few have made the journey and returned with a story to tell.