Excerpt: The Crystal Orb

“How do I kill it?!” He shook the orb, wanting another answer.

YOU CAN’T, came the same reply.

Frustrated and with his arm beginning to pain him, he hurled the crystal orb away from him. It just so happened that the Minotaur was charging into the line of fire at that time. The crystal orb struck solidly, sending the Minotaur to bellow shortly before crumpling to the ground.

Eton glowered at it before about to stomp away.

“Hold on, you have to finish the job!” The girl was quickly descending from the tree.

“What do you mean?” Eton asked, not catching on even as the girl handed him a knife.

“You have to kill him; slit his throat. Make sure he’s really dead.”

Eton blanched. “I can’t do that. That’s disgusting.” And he really had seen enough blood to last him more than his lifetime. He turned away, picking up the crystal orb again, saying, “You do it.”

“But you have to!” her plea followed after him, but he closed his ears to the sound. Stupid girls, he thought with some pang of guilt. They always made the guy do things, however practical or senseless it might be. “Come back!”

Eton did not turn back, and he might have continued onward had not the crystal orb grown suddenly heavy.

STOP. WAIT.

Eton stared down at it. “Why?” He hadn’t known the crystal orb could change its weight like that.

And then suddenly he heard the sound of something snorting softly. Behind him. He turned to find the Minotaur standing there, its furious eyes blazing the color of fire.

Eton couldn’t rip his gaze away from the hellish gaze of the monster and he knew he was a goner.

The Minotaur lowered its head, bringing one razor sharp horn low enough to graze his shoulder.

Eton closed his eyes, preparing himself for death. He wasn’t scared, oddly enough. He wasn’t terrified. Rather, he realized he was ready to go. There was nothing left for him here, no purpose to his journey, no one to look out for him. He was alone in a cruel world filled with monsters; some more literal than others. Take me, he almost dared to say out loud. But not quite.

A sharp pain pressed against his chest, but only for a moment. He heard a scream—the girl he had saved. And then the Minotaur bellowed a death cry. Eton opened his eyes to see a sword sticking through the creature’s body. The point of it had scored his own body, the sharp pain he had felt against his chest.

He fell back with a shout, clutching the spot where the sword had grazed. The sword withdrew from the Minotaur, allowing it to topple over onto the ground and revealing who had slain the beast.

“Claisen, are you okay?” The man didn’t even bother to look at Eton, his eyes searching for someone else.

“Yes, I’m fine.” The feminine voice replied. The woman, Claisen, Eton surmised, approached the man. “Thank you for that.”

“Not a problem. Who’s he?”

Eton scrambled backwards as the man lifted his sword again to point the tip at him.

“Don’t hurt him!” Claisen pushed down on his arm, lowering the sword’s point. “He tried to save me…”

The man snorted derisively. “Him? He could hardly lift a sword, let alone swing it.”

Eton glared at the man standing before him. The man looked easily twice Eton’s age, and stood purposefully. His dark gray cloak shifted around his ankles, revealing boots. There wasn’t much to see about him, since the cloak obscured the rest of his clothing. Eton didn’t much like the way the man was talking as though he couldn’t reply. “I don’t need a sword!” He stood up and brushed the dirt off his clothing, before pausing. He was filthy. Old blood still stuck to his clothes since he hadn’t had a decent dip for nearly a week. And his hair felt grimy.

“What’s your name, kid?”

Eton scowled at the patronizing tone, feeling self-conscious as the other man’s sharp eyes took in his appearance. “Eton. What’s yours?”

“Tallyn.” He glanced at Claisen, who smiled.

She stepped forward. “Eton, this is my brother.” Eton watched Tallyn warily. He didn’t trust him, not with the way he kept waving his sword around.

Tallyn’s attention however was on the woods surrounding them and wasn’t even paying attention. “Claisen, how many of those Minotaur are there?”

Claisen shrugged. “Just the one, I think.”

Tallyn nodded and then went over to the corpse of the Minotaur. He hefted his sword and brought it down in a mighty swing that easily lopped the bull’s head from the faintly human body. He wiped his sword off on the edge of his cloak, before sheathing it, saying, “There, that ought to take care of him.”

He turned on Eton.

“What were you doing out here in the first place?”

Eton lifted his hands in defense. “I wasn’t doing anything, just minding my own business. That thing,” he pointed to the crystal orb still lying on the ground, “pointed me here.”

Tallyn frowned and bent to pick up the crystal orb. Eton expected him not to be able to pick it up, but unfortunately he did so easily. He turned it over in his hands. “This thing led you here? How?”

Eton shrugged. “I just ask it questions and it gives me answers. Why? What are you doing?”

Tallyn’s hand easily dwarfed the crystal orb as he seemed to look through the object. He mumbled something that Eton couldn’t hear, then looked expectantly at the orb. He waited a few seconds then lost his patience. He tossed the crystal orb at Eton. “Here, it doesn’t work. You must have broken it when you dropped it.”

Eton barely caught it, his eyes filling with tears. It was broken? But then, what was he going to do without it? He had already come to rely on it for making decisions when he had nowhere else to turn.

Tallyn sighed, seeing his distress. “Look, kid, where were you going before you came out here?”

Eton shrugged, dropping his head to look down at the ground.

“Where did you come from?”

Eton felt his breath hitch. “I don’t have to answer to you!” He shouted suddenly, and then ran for his life.

“Eton!” He heard Claisen shout after him.

“Let him go,” Tallyn responded.

Eton ran until he couldn’t run anymore. It wasn’t much farther, just out of view of the other two before his body collapsed.