The Ancients

Blue and beautiful

The king and queen, with their son, the prince and some of the royal court sat at the table in the dinning hall eating while the small floating court jester performed for them. King Randor was at the far end of the oval shaped table with Queen Maralena and Prince Adam by his side. Duncan, also known as Man-at-arms, sat beside Adam. This was the most unfortunate seating plan for Duncan because Orko, the small floating jester with big ears, blue skin and didn't seem to have a face, was right behind him performing magic tricks for them as they ate. This was the worst place to sit in as anything could happen with Orko's magic, it was unpredictable. Across the table from Duncan sat Teela, his adopted daughter who one day would be the next Man-at-arms.

"Now for my next trick," announced Orko, "I will make this statue disappear!" He pulled out of his sleeve a small statue that couldn't quite be made out to be anything. "Magic powers far and near," continued the jester, "make this statue disappear!" The statue disappeared alright, but with an explosion. The room was filled with smoke while Duncan and Orko were partly covered in soot. When the dust had cleared Duncan could only grit his teeth and as he turned around to say something to Orko, he stopped and stared at the wall behind him, Orko didn't quite know what everybody was staring at until Adam asked, "Orko…what is that?" His voice was filled with curiosity and a tint of fear as he spoke.

Orko turned around to see something that kind of looked like a volcano on its side with some sort of claw like thing at the point of it. It was black and looked for all the world like a hunk of cooled molten rock sticking out of the wall.

As Orko was the only one standing, if one can stand while a few feet above the ground, at the time he edged forward a few centimeters, but this was all that was needed. The thing on the wall sent out its claw at the small trollan, and before anyone could react grabbed him by his shadowed face and then withdrew with Orko dangling hopelessly from its grasp.

Everyone stood up at this point. Adam rushed over and grabbed the trollan by the waist. He tried to pull him out of the grip, but it wouldn't' let go. Adam stopped pulling realizing that it was hopeless. Orko tried pulling himself out. But then Orko just stopped. He seemed lifeless. The room was tense.

The black claw that had grabbed Orko had totally covered his yellow eyes. Inside all Orko could see was these blue swirling lights before him. It was…beautiful.

After a few minutes the machine let Orko go and withdrew its claw so you couldn't even see it anymore. It must have been a one use only thing. It left Orko in mid-air unconscious still upright just floating there.

Duncan went over to the mechanism on the wall, careful not to stand in front of it. He took a quick glance at it, then at Orko, then back again. Duncan touched the object on the wall, waited, but nothing happened. As far as he could tell it was deactivated.

"Do you know what that is?" requested Randor.

"No," replied Duncan, "no idea." Next to Duncan there was a slight mumble and a groan.

"What," mumble Orko, "what happened?" He was regaining consciousness. This meant that the object on the wall didn't kill, at least not immediately.

"Orko what happened?" requested Maralena.

"Don't know," Orko replied, still a bit bewildered, "but my head really hurts." It did seem to be true, because he did seem to be rubbing his head quite a lot.

"Well what did you see?" asked Randor. "Lights," Orko paused, "these…wonderful blue lights that seemed to be almost alive. They were swirling in front of me!"

Then his eyes shut tight and he grabbed his head again as another sharp pain came upon him. "If you will excuse me, I think I will need to lie down for a while. Your highness." He said this, bowed still holding his head straightened and then the small trollan floated out of the room and up to his bedroom in the staff tower of the palace.

Meanwhile back in the hall everyone, except Duncan, sat back down to eat the rest of the disturbed meal. Duncan was standing in front of the thing on the wall. He was examining it as much as he could. He was also looking for a way to take it off the wall, he had already tried three times. So far he couldn't see anything of any use.

"Come sit down father, you've hardly eaten a thing." said his daughter Teela.

"No I need to try and work this thing out." replied her father still not taking his attention away from the wall. "I need to find a way of getting this off the wall," Man-at-Arms continued, "so far I haven't had any success though. It seems like it is fixed on for good." He still didn't divert his attention away. Teela left it at that there was no use in arguing with him, he had his mind fixed on this as hard as the thing was fixed to the wall, and he wouldn't change his mind now that there was a challenge to solve.

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