David Bishop and the Mystic of Creation T.C. Crawford (icecream ebook reader txt) 📖

Search within your heart David, and you will find the answer you seek. said the voice.

Then suddenly, the fog cleared, and David could see the temple, clear as day. The orb was resting on a pedestal like the one it had rested on in the temple before. Its light exploded in a brilliant display of power, blinding his eyes in pure white light so bright it hurt.

A series of visions began flashing before his eyes, too quickly to discern what they were trying to show him. All he knew was that his chest began to hurt, like his heart was being ripped out and he could hear the sound of Erin’s voice screaming to him, calling his name, begging him to come back.

As he focused on Erin’s voice, her face suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye. She was crying and holding her arms out to him, running towards him as he drifted away. For some reason, he knew he had to leave. He didn’t want to, but he had to, and it was breaking his heart. Erin fell to her knees, defeated, sobbing heavily into her hands as she faded away in the distance.

Then something grabbed his shoulder and began shaking him fiercely.

“David! David, wake up!” came a distant voice.

David opened his eyes and Erin and Tyrius were kneeling above him. She had her hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently.

“David! Wake up!” she said, a hint of alarm in her voice.

When she saw he had opened his eyes she sighed in relief and plunged herself into his arms.

“Don’t do that to me again!” she said, sitting up and looking down at him.

“Do what?” asked David, confused.

“You were screaming, like you were being attacked or something. It looked like you were in pain.” said Tyrius, a look of concern etched on his face as well.

David decided to keep his dream to himself, feeling it was better left unsaid. He didn’t want to worry Erin any more than he already had, and for some reason, he felt like now was not the time to reveal to her what he had seen. There would be a time for that later.

Instead, he decided to quickly get up and start breaking camp. The other two eventually abandoned their attempts to get more information out of David and followed suit, keeping a cautious eye on him as they worked.

The rest of the day was spent hiking up the mountain and David kept mostly to himself. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that he was heading towards something he wasn’t going to like. He knew he had to do it, that much was certain, but he also had this deep feeling in the pit of his stomach that what he was going to find at the end of the road was something that he wasn’t really prepared for.

They crested the side of the mountain where the path crossed over from one side of the valley to the next sometime around midday. The chilling wind was whipping past them violently at this height, sending shivers down David’s spine and Erin’s hair flapping wildly like a dark banner. The sky was mostly overcast, as it had been for days now, and the sun was giving off little to no warmth, leaving them in a bitter cold that seemed to sink to the bones.

In the distance they could see the bottom of the path as it wound its way down the mountain and through the flat bowl-shaped valley. In the center of the white expanse of snowy ground, just barely visible in the distance, stood a solid black structure.

They reached the structure just as the sun was beginning to set. Its tall columns sporting sconces with ever-burning flames indicating it was in fact the one Tyrius had been brought to with the Master Elder and the King what seemed like a lifetime ago.

They hastily entered the protection of the structure, eager to escape from the increasingly violent winds that had been picking up as the day drew to an end. It had been causing wisps of snow to swirl around in twirling little whirlwinds as they made their way across the bleak valley floor and made it difficult to keep their cloaks wrapped around their faces, let alone see more than a few feet in front of them.

When they entered the doorway, they saw a stairway descending into the heart of the structure. As they descended, the air began to change from the cool, crisp mountain air to the still warmth of the underground.

David and Erin were fascinated by the ever-burning flames that lined the stairwell, wondering how such things could be burning for so long without any apparent source of fuel. Tyrius told them that those flames had been burning just as brightly when he had walked down these stairs with the Elders and King Eldergate, and that he, too, had been just as entranced as they were.

As they neared the end, David’s sense of dread that he had felt throughout the day was growing increasingly more persistent. His stomach began to cramp with anticipation of what was to come – he somehow knew that his time in this world was slowly coming to an end. He didn’t know how, but something told him that the powers he came here to find would also bring with them a price that was far beyond anything he had been prepared to pay.

When they descended the final step and entered through the doorway into the space beyond, they stood before a great chasm filled with enormous clusters of crystals across the walls and ceiling the likes of which David and Erin had never seen before. They were illuminated from within, glowing softly and creating a greenish blue aura throughout the vast cavern that allowed them to see far within its depths.

David could feel the power within his mind roaring to life. It was exhilarating and filled him with a sense of strength