By Jordan Neenan
English Coursework :Original Writing
The Ring of Light
A well-built young man stood in the doorway of a small thatched cottage,
'Has anyone seen Wilfred? Mum?' His mother was a plump woman with dark hair and blue eyes. She was sitting in a large armchair reading a book entitled 'Does the Ring of Light Really Exist?'
'No, sorry Danny dear, I haven't been out today. I'm not feeling too good, maybe your father has.'
'Mum why do you read such nonsense? ' Asked Danny.
'Its not nonsense dear, I'm just...'
'Expanding your mind, yes I know, you say that about every book you read but you know I'm right.' Danny said this in a frustrated tone but his mother didn't seem to be listening, so he walked back out of the door.
Now in the light you could see Danny was a tall handsome young man, long dark hair the same as his mothers in a ponytail and the most brilliant green eyes you could ever imagine, he had a broad-sword hanging from his waist, a quiver of arrows on his back and a bow in his hand. 'Father.' He yelled,
'Yeh?' came a reply from a rather large barn stood on the edge of a field.
'Have you seen Wilfred?' He asked,
'No, and why don't ya stop wastin' time with that stupid hoarse and help me for once, there are a million jobs that need doin' and you ain't doin' none of 'em.' By the time he had finished the sentence Danny was already half way across the field heading to the forest.
He eventually arrived back at the barn where he found Wilfred grazing quite merrily beside the barn; Danny was just about to lose his temper when he noticed a large plume of smoke rising from the cottage. He ran, but half way there he could see two bodies next to each other burning, red flesh clinging onto charred black bones. He fell to his knees, tears filling his eyes, then, suddenly he heard a noise coming from the barn, he smashed down the door and looked up just in time to dodge an axe that came at him at a tremendous speed, it hit the door only a few inches away from Danny's head. Then he saw what had thrown it. It was about four foot tall, green skin, blood red eyes and very sharp teeth. A goblin stood in front of Danny grinning; Danny drew his sword and dived at it but it shot off out of the barn and was speeding towards the forest. Danny drew an arrow, aimed at the goblin and fired, it hit the goblin in the shoulder. It fell over yelling in pain but got up and started running again. Within a few seconds it had vanished into the forest.
The next day started early for Danny, first burying what was left of his parents and then collecting some supplies. Danny wasn't going to stay and rebuild the farm, he was going on an adventure, what he had always dreamed of, but he wasn't excited, he was angry, he was going to get revenge on those who killed his parents, he was determined. At about midday he left for the forest on Wilfred. She was a beautiful black mare with white hooves and moved as if she were royalty.
He rode for a whole day deep into the forest until night came, found a clearing where he made camp. He had a hard night, he kept on hearing sounds around him, an owl hooting, a twig breaking or even a whisper that he thought was the wind but it sounded too familiar it couldn't possibly be the wind, he could hear words,
'Is it really him? No? It looks like him, it is him.' Danny blamed this on his imagination playing tricks on him but he wasn't sure. The next day Danny rose about midday because of the restless night he had had. He kept on riding east in hope of finding a town or village where he could eat and drink but it didn't come. Nightfall came and Danny tried to sleep again but this time there was something around him, he could feel it. He grabbed his sword and shot up out of bed. The noises had vanished, complete and utter silence surrounded him, but suddenly he heard deafening shouts from every direction then a net incapacitated him. He could not move for it was so tight around his arms and legs. He felt a very sharp pain in the back of his head and then nothing, into a deep sleep he fell; something or someone had captured him and he was powerless to free himself.
He awoke to a large crowd of elves. Elves are about six inches tall and renown for their troublesome behaviour. Danny had ended up in an elfish town and this was not good news for him, or so he thought. He was treated exceedingly well; he had nice chambers and as soon as he awoke was whisked away to a giant feast where he seemed to be the guest of honour. This was very surprising as the stories that Danny had heard about elves were not very good and this made him very suspicious. Something was wrong but Danny couldn't imagine what it was. Then he heard voices in the streets outside his window, something was happening. He saw small objects moving through the air, fairies, in their hundreds. But this confused Danny even more. Fairies did not ever meet with elves; elves were considered vermin by the fairies. They were just passing by Danny's window when all of a sudden they stopped. One came out from the crowed and rested itself on Danny's windowsill; fairies were basically elves but with beautifully delicate wings, she had a crown on her head and appeared to be the Queen. Danny knelt down and looked at it curiously,
'I am hevenia. I am the Queen of the fairies.' She said this in a magical and mysterious tone of voice, almost as if she was standing in a room of echoes.
'I am...'Danny started but was interrupted,
'I know who you are, you are Danny, the one chosen and sent to us by the Ring of Light.' As soon as she had finished the sentence all the elves and fairies started talking in a light mumble.
'Sorry?' Danny asked becoming more and more confused by the second.
'We must hurry, you must ...
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'I am hevenia. I am the Queen of the fairies.' She said this in a magical and mysterious tone of voice, almost as if she was standing in a room of echoes.
'I am...'Danny started but was interrupted,
'I know who you are, you are Danny, the one chosen and sent to us by the Ring of Light.' As soon as she had finished the sentence all the elves and fairies started talking in a light mumble.
'Sorry?' Danny asked becoming more and more confused by the second.
'We must hurry, you must start your training if you are to destroy evil, there is no time to spare.' She said, not noticing Danny's question. A large box appeared out side the window; it had two chairs inside of it and around twenty fairies holding it up in the air. The Queen gestured for him to get into it so he did, she joined him,
'I feel that you have many questions to ask, save them until I have finished the story. About twenty-five years ago this land was a happy one; everything was in perfect balance until he was born.'
'He? Whose he?' Danny asked,
'He is the Prince of Darkness, the only one more evil than him is the Devil himself or maybe even the Devil isn't so evil, but anyway he has great magical power and only uses it for evil. The reason we are still here is because of the Ring of Light, it protects us from him and his dark ways, but he is growing more powerful everyday and soon even the Ring of Light won't be able to protect us; but, there is one that is more powerful than him, yes that's right, its you.' Danny was a bit shocked about what the Queen just said,
'But how could it be me, I know no magic, I haven't a magical bone in my body and why do you hate him so much, what has he done?'
'He thrives on death, where there is light he brings dark, he does not kill directly he makes the creatures suffer before they die, he evaporates water, he destroys food sources, he makes habitats freezing cold or boiling hot; creatures are only safe within the bounds of the Ring of Light, they need it to live, and if it is destroyed it will not come back.' She said this with great terror, 'If it goes then everything that we know will be destroyed along with us.'
'So you want me to learn the magical ways of your world in a short period of time to try and kill a man capable of destroying anything he wants to when he wants to as brutally as he wants to! This is crazy!' Danny said in a sarcastic tone,
'You don't understand,' The Queen went on, 'It has been foretold that you will destroy the evil in my kingdom and become a great warrior.' There was a great amount of urgency in the Queens voice and Danny could not bear to let everyone down, it must be important if the Fairies are talking to the Elves so after a few minutes consideration,
'Ok, I'll do it,' This was said very enthusiastically maybe too much so because at this point Danny didn't know what to feel, the Queen looked at him, smiled and nodded as though she knew he was going to say this, he was frightened and excited, angry and hopeful and he was tiered, he needed rest.
They stopped several hours later outside the most beautiful building Danny had ever seen then he looked at the surroundings. He was standing in the middle of the Emerald city, a city that hangs two hundred metres in the air, all of the buildings made of gold and crystal, creatures of all types roaming around the dazzling city of wonders. Danny couldn't believe he was standing in a city of pure legend or what he thought was legend and everyone there knew him and what he was going to do, he was already a hero without even doing anything, it was the best feeling Danny had ever had, he was going to do this, he wasn't prepared to let all those people down, he would try and succeed, he was determined not to fail, he would try harder than he had ever imagined he could after all he had nothing to lose.
The next day Danny had a bit of a lay in, that is until a fairy came in holding a large tray with some of the best food that Danny had ever seen,
'Breakfast sir?' she said in a shrill voice,
'How could I refuse such a delicious looking breakfast and such a gorgeous fairy?' she smiled and blushed as she put the tray on his lap, ever since Danny had arrived he was very impressed by how a single fairy could carry so much.
'Do you know what I am going to do today?' Danny asked,
'The Queen says that you should get some rest, you have a lot of work to do and you need energy.'
Danny did start his training the next day, he learnt how to magically direct an arrow from the bow using his mind and how to do some simple black magic protection spells, but this sapped Danny's energy as though it were sand in a sieve and by mid-afternoon he had to stop. This training went on for weeks that turned into months; Danny worked himself into the ground learning and was becoming an excellent magician and a cunning warrior. Then came the final test, Danny would test his own skills against the Queens own personal magician, he was a tall man with a purple coat that seemed to hover along the ground behind him, he had a mystical look to him as though he was always suspecting something to happen but also looked wise and that he was in control. They stood opposite each other about ten metres apart with their hands stretched out, the one who went first would be the one who could show the most beautiful display of colours that he could, the Queens magician or bogswash as he was called by the Queen produced the most fantastic bright red with a thin swirl of yellow around it, this performance gained loads of 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the crowd and then they burst out in an uproar of cheers. Then next was Danny's turn, he spun his hands and a thin sprinkle of gold dust appeared hanging in the air, then from the middle of the dust a dark blue started to spread, in and out of the gold it wove itself and then to finish his opening a great purple flash seemed to swallow the blue and gold up in an instant, the crowd stood silent in awe, not knowing what to do for they were so amazed that a man who has been training for just a few months had been able to defeat a magician that had been learning the arts for the whole of his life. Bogswash stormed out of the Great Hall, he had never been beaten in a duel but now to be beaten by an amateur was very embarrassing for him and he could not stand this. The Queen flew up to Danny,
'He'll get over it, and well done to you, you are well on your way. You shall leave in three days, you shall get an escort to the Dark Fortress but you are on your own from then on, good luck, you shall not see me again, well not until you beat him.' She said with a smile and left.
Over the next three days Danny felt more and more nervous as the time came nearer when he had to leave. When the time did eventually come three guards came and took Danny to the stables for him to get his hoarse, but they did not stop at the turn to Wilfred's stable, instead they kept on going, Danny tried to tell them but they wouldn't listen so he just followed them. After about five minutes of walking past hundreds of beautiful and well bred horses they came to the Royal Families own horses, each one perfectly marked and perfectly behaved, but they only stopped at the very last stable, this one was different, it had a normal entrance but when you looked into the stable it seemed to be more of a private barn for one horse, the only problem was that there was no horse. They walked to the end of the barn where there was another door, this one led to what seemed as a never ending pasture, an extraordinary white horse stood there, it was a blindingly perfect white with even white eyes, it seemed to glow, but when Danny examined it more closely he could see, what could he see?
'Wings! Wings! Wings?' Danny shouted suddenly with confused excitement, then a voice from behind him said
'A Pegasus, the only tamed one alive.' Danny turned around, his friend; the fairy that served his meals hovered behind him,
'Denaya, what are you doing here?'
'I have come to explain a few things before you go.'
'Like what?' Danny asked,
'The Prince of Darkness, he was a very nice boy; he lived here in the Emerald City. But this city was raided by goblins sent by an emperor, the Queens ex-personal magician,'
'Why ex?' Danny asked,
'He killed a criminal without consulting her, so he was banished. Anyway he took lots of people to work for him as slaves and yes, this boy was with them, the emperor recognised his power and used it to his own advantage, but his own evil killed him, the boy turned on his own master and killed him. The boy was called Rory and later discarded the name and became The Prince of Darkness but that's not the important part. His parents left the city where several years later they were killed by goblins this time sent by The Prince of Darkness, but they were not thorough enough, their son still lives and The Prince does not know that he does otherwise he would have been killed in the forest but luckily we got there first, as you have probably guessed that son is you.' She said watching anxiously for how Danny would react to this, but to her surprise Danny's face was expressionless, he walked towards the horse and mounted it, kicked with his heels and he was away and headed for the Dark Palace, he didn't have an escort like the Queen said but that was because fairies probably couldn't keep up with the Pegasus that went at an incredible speed. Now all was left was to kill the Prince of Darkness, he had his sword, his bow and all of the knowledge that he had been taught over the very short months. Was it enough to kill the master of black magic? Well he was going to find out and he wasn't looking forward to it.
He eventually arrived at the 'Dark Palace' but he didn't see anything bad about it, it was a lovely day and the palace looked amazing from the air, the only thing that bothered Danny was that it wasn't very big. When Danny had imagined palaces he imagined huge walls surrounding endless gardens containing a palace that started but did not seem to end. This was not the case, it did have a beautiful garden but it wasn't very big, about twenty acres he guessed. His Pegasus did not land in the palace gardens, or outside the gate, it flew straight over and landed about a mile on the other side.
Danny examined the area that they were in. it was an overgrowth, no animal tracks, no flowers, just plain Thorne bushes, no sunlight could push through the dense foliage. It would take him all day to gat to the palace through this. Then the Pegasus reared up and came down on his front hooves with a great crash, he had landed on something metal, a secret entrance was hidden with a camouflage enchantment, will thought that whoever had made this must have been a very practised sorcerer for he himself had only just learned it. Luckily for him he had learned how to counter it, if he hadn't it would have taken him hours to open for when he had performed the simple dis-enchant he saw the hatch did not have handles to open it. It did not seem to open at all. Danny tried an 'unlock' spell that usually worked but it did not. Then he thought of something his mother had said, he couldn't quite remember what it was, something she had read and was telling them about over dinner.
'Ah, a light lock!' Danny remembered. He looked up and shot an arrow into the dense thorns. Shouted 'Amilai amileus' and the bushes stated to, well, ungrow themselves. Instead of growing they were doing the opposite. Then a beam of sunlight hit the door and it melted away as if it were ice. Danny drew his sword and climbed into the hole.
Inside, the hole was dark and damp, not very well dug and not very well used, Danny guessed that was a good thing and put his sword away and conjured up a light spell which lit up about two metres all around him. The further he got into the tunnel, the better it got. It got higher and the walls gradually went from mud to tattered stone to brick.
Danny could see the exit of the tunnel and he extinguished his light because there was light coming from the door but then he heard a quiet noise behind him. He jumped around and drew his sword and slashed wildly in the air hitting absolutely nothing. Then realising that there was nothing there turned and went through the door.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he found on the other side of that door. A huge gateway stood about twenty metres in front of him, bright purple with swirls of silver where there were disturbances on the surface. Danny was so deeply mind boggled that he almost didn't see the three goblins advancing on him. He drew an arrow and shot one into the air it split into three and Danny guided each one to its target hitting one goblin straight through the heart, one in the leg and the other through the hand. The one with the arrow through the heart fell silently and hit the ground letting a pool of blood surround him, the other two were crying out in pain, well it was more of a wail. Danny drew his sword and ran for one of them cutting his head clean off while the other one pulled the arrow out of his leg and picked up his axe.
Danny turned and faced it, he recognised a wound in its shoulder and his heart filled with hatred against this little monster. Danny let out a great yell of fury and flew at his opponent narrowly dogging a slice at him. He regained balance and turned once more to see the all to familiar scene of the axe flying at him again. This time he couldn't dodge, it struck him full on in the jaw and knocked him flying. Danny looked up, dazed by this blow to see the goblin dive for its axe, in one swift movement Danny swung his sword and separated his legs from his body.
The goblin lay there wailing letting out so much blood that it was amazing that he still looked inflated. Danny had a battle with his conscience, whether to let the goblin die slow and painfully or to give it the decency of a quicker death. He chose to finish it off he placed his sword on its heart and thrust it in killing the goblin instantaneously. Now he wondered why he wasn't dead, an axe had just flown into his jaw. He realised it had hit him with the wrong end, he was struck by the wooden part of the axe and not the blade, but goblins are so highly trained with an axe that it couldn't possibly make a mistake like that. This was a mystery, maybe it was just good fortune.
Now Danny had more time to look around. He had entered a very large hall. He was standing on a green marble floor with grey streaks now and again. The walls were metallic blue and the ceiling looked black but it wasn't really visible in the dim light, and it was so high up he couldn't really see where the walls stopped and the ceiling began. The hall was empty, all except the gate, which stood against a wall in front of Danny. The circular surround was made of pure gold that shone even though the light was poor. There were strange symbols around the surround of the gate, symbols that have been lost in time.
'What does it do?' Danny asked himself, but he was not expecting an answer.
'It's a porthole.' Said a voice behind Danny, he spun around readying his hand to draw his sword.
'Who are you?' Danny asked, suspiciously aware of this beautiful woman standing in front of him.
'I am a friend.' She said in a calm voice.
'A friend, and I suppose those goblins were as well, oops.' Danny replied sarcastically.
'O.k., I am a spy for the Queen of the Emerald City.'
'Oh good, so where's the Prince of Darkness?' Still not trusting her.
'I don't know.' She said,
'Well that's convenient, so you are a spy for the Queen, although she never mentioned you, you have been here for?'
'Two years.'
'And you don't know where the Prince is. Do you know anything that might be of any use at all?'
'No one knows where he is, only his General and his second in command.' She said, but they didn't have time to finish the conversation because at that moment three Orks burst through the door with a terrifying roar. Danny drew his sword without hesitation and faced the Orks. The were similar in appearance as goblins, the only difference being that they are seven foot tall with a double headed axe in one hand and a six foot long sword in the other. Danny was just about to run at one when six fairies appeared and shot towards the Orks catching them by surprise and immediately getting the upper hand, in fact one of the Orks was so surprised he couldn't defend himself and he was dead within a second. The fairies were all male, carrying armour and swords bigger than themselves but they still carried them with ease
Danny turned to the girl again and asked her name,
'I am Saphia.' She said.
'We must go Saffia; the fairies might not be able to hold them off, where would you say we should go?
'To the generals quarters, we shall make him tell us how to find the Prince of Darkness.'
'Then we shall go, lead the way.' Danny said, already following the girl. He didn't know whether to trust her and follow her or to creep away quietly and go his own way. He eventually came to the conclusion that whatever he did would be his destiny so it didn't matter; he stayed with the girl, hoping it would be a good decision.
They walked through countless hallways, all looking exactly the same but it seemed as if Saphia knew where she was going. They eventually reached a stairway, it didn't seem to have an end, well Danny couldn't see it if there was one. He knew it was going to be a hard climb because it seemed that it went on for at least a mile before disappearing into darkness, but he followed Saffia and within a few minutes she stopped and opened a door That Danny couldn't see,
'Huh?' he said confused.
'You can't see it because your mind won't let you,' she explained, 'it is a trick to confuse intruders, this is the only way to the top floor.'
'But there's more than two floors, I saw it from the air.' He said,
'Another trick, as we were walking through the hallways we were going up, there is a very slight slope, it seemed we were walking along flat ground. We couldn't see out of the windows because they were too high so we couldn't see the ground.'
'Very clever but why not use stairs?' Danny asked
