The Pass by Zion Kistler (books to read romance TXT) 📖

went against all his instincts to carry such a mistake of nature with him.
But presently he made it, and hoping not to attract any attention he ran up the stairs of the house, his boots making a lot of noise…maybe no one would come that way.
He made it before he heard anything. He saw where they all slept: no one was there. So he up and ran towards the stairs, the last of the house, only a few feet in front of him. There he opened the hatch with a bang and jumped up to the floor. There he stopped, panting. Then he reached for his pocket, his hand enclosed around the object, and he pulled it out. Not wanting to look at it he put it into a small corner that was partially covered with boards, so that even if someone did come up they wouldn’t see it easily. And then he opened the hatch again and crawled through.
Just as he did this he heard some kind of noise. His face turned white. Someone was coming up the stairs. Uh oh… he thought. he needed to think of something, but then he abandoned the idea and ran down the stairs. There in fact was only a janitor.
Realizing that he was going to be very late for his training he sprinted down the rest of the stairs and out the door. He slammed it with a bang and he was out in the streets again.
He was barely breathing when he made it to the alley again. Not any sign of light as he walked into it. But after a few steps oh yes he came across the boxes again. He quickly walked past them.
In a second’s worth of time he was seeing the light easily and he knew that it was sunny though in the city one could hardly tell.
As he stepped into the light he looked in front of him and behind him and to the sides. No sign of Noedar. Damnit. Why the heck wasn’t he there? He looked around again—nope, not there. And on the ground there was no sign of the dent that the boulder Treaf had dropped had made. There wasn’t even the pebble that he had moved for the first time. Looking around he saw that all the plants were wilted, or even fully destroyed. And the fence for the ‘protection’ of that area and the city was gone. What the hell is goin on here? “Hmmmmmmm…” he found a small rock in the alley and threw it at where the fence should have been. Nothing. He didn’t trust it yet though, and so he decided not to touch it—something wasn’t right. The only thing that I can think of is that they’re using curses for somethin. But the funny thing is tha’ there ain’t nothing to use them on. No enemy, and I haven’t seen anyone in the city suddenly dying. Unless of course the Death Bonds aren’t visible…


Chapter Twelve
The Creation of the First
Spirit
The Dagmon has the capability to create only half of a Bond. Though a weak spell, it does not require much energy, since the amount of energy to create a spell is the same as how much the spell uses. To create one, one must take the energy from that of an object with no life, which is called Eth.. This may be acquired through buildings, yet it is quite hard to abstract.
One must make the appropriate hand signs assigned to the spell, along with having enough mass for the spell in the first place. If there is not enough mass than the spell will do likewise what the Kagra and Jernon has been known to do.
However this is not as threatening as the other two spells. It will not eat everything in its way—the spirit inside will only take what mass is around it. If not controlled than this habit can take apart whole cities, the spirit only to die the next day.
This ‘halved’ Bond can be used to take individuals without harming anyone else in the process. Also, the bond is not large, (one half of an inch of loosely bound matter,) which can be difficult to see. It travels at speeds of forty miles per hour, however, and can pierce anything that does not involve the warding of magic. This is the third and most mass-taking of the Ten Bonds of Death.

Treaf lay on his heap of things. His eyes hurt…the rest of them had already dined. But not Treaf. The Dagmon seems to be the easiest to master, if I have enough mass. So doing the testing won’t be so safe in this house after all. I’ll have ta do it away from the city so that even if the Bond does come free it’ll only destroy a forest or rocks. Where and when, however was the problem. If he were to do it when they began traveling again there would be the chance of the others seeing it, and he thought that oh yes! what he was doing was completely pointless but even so he was going to do it. Didn’t know why, but he seemed to be troubled by this small thing in the city. It might have been possible that it wasn’t the Second Society doing it after all, but I can’t imagine what else would have snuck into a city and dropped a few boxes with homunculi in it. Unless the enemy is among us once more, as Malock had said, but…had that warnin’ been valid? Didn’t seem likely. To Treaf anyway, though he didn’t know what to think anymore.
With that he realized that the sunlight or any light at all had ended, so he put the paper in his pocket again and heard the others coming up so he pretended to be doing nothing and waited till they were all in position and then the light ended at once. All of it.

He had been told that the Elder was in the residence of one of the ‘special’ houses on the outskirts of town. Somehow Treaf had been expecting this.
He knocked on the door and right away there came a noise and the Elder up and answered the door.
“Hi Elder I need ta’ ask ya’ somethin’ if ya don’t mind,” Treaf said. The Elder nodded.
In a few seconds Treaf was inside and seated. The Elder had asked if he had wanted tea, but he said no, he wasn’t in the mood. In fact he didn’t even wait for the Elder to do his little speech that he seemed to like to do to Treaf for some reason. He right up and said what had been on his mind, “I wanna know the exact properties of the Kagra and related spells,” he said. The Elder looked right down shocked. In a second, though, realizing that Treaf was to waist no time he said, “How did you learn of such things?”
“The Second Society.”
“Very well,” he sighed, and then continued with what Treaf had mostly heard before. In fact he realized he already knew all about it—the paper that had been given to him had had more about the Death Bonds than he had thought.
The Elder finished presently—Treaf guessed it was about twelve in the morning.
“…And would it be possible to take the Kraug from homunculi? Are homunculi even living beings?” The Elder looked right evil now.
“ ’Cuz I found some in the city in a box. I have one with me if ya wanna take a look.” He pulled out the small being that he had brought with him. He had actually gotten used to it by now. And he had drained all the blood from it—not on purpose, but since he had stabbed it with a relatively large blade than well of course it was gonna bleed to death.
The Elder right out looked disgusted. His upper lip was curled, and he seemed to not want to smell the thing. Treaf could not say that he had been any better when he had first seen it.
“This has been stabbed. Are you the one that did that, Treaf?” he said. Treaf said that he had.
“For what purpose?”
“I wanted to see if it had the same anatomy as that of a human. It seems to—the body is completely right, only shrunken. And yes the color of blood is deep red.” The Elder nodded.
“I can’t see a reason for this though,” the Elder said. Treaf nodded but after a second of silence he said right away, “Ya it seems weird but wouldn’t it be likely if someone was using them to work curses? Most of ’em need the Kraug to complete the task anyway and it looks like these weird thingies produce Kraug.” The Elder lifted his head from the mistake of nature and looked right out real long and hard at Treaf.
“What’re ya getting at?” Treaf asked. The Elder said nothing; he was too deep in thought, so Treaf realized that this was his opportunity and he didn’t let it go past.
“So I was thinkin that the only way to see if it produced Kraug would be ta test it with the Kagra.” The Elder raised his eyebrows.
“Well what the hell, I know I don’t know how ta do it yet but I think you could, right?” The Elder looked disgusted again now. Treaf grimaced and sunk slightly lower in his chair.
“Hey I’m only tryin ta get to the bottom of this. I also saw that the enchanted fence thingy around the city doesn’t work no more. And the small crater I left in the ground from when I dropped the boulder ain’t there neither. Somethin’s goin on, and I find it reasonable that I should really try ta figure t out.” There was another pause.
“And I thought