The Lightwielder Files

Chapter 7

Adam flipped through the pages of almost all the books on Lightwielder lore that he had and tried to find ones that were based on more modern cases namely the Breaking. He didn't technically need it, he had the major parts of the Breaking memorized almost most of the Order did and he had had a particular advantage over some of the older members, his dad had played an active role in countering the threat the Breaking caused, it was after that that he had been promoted to head  of the Chicago branch of the Luce Order.  

“Where is, where is it, where is it?” he murmured under his breath and instantly wished that he had a system for filing things just as good as the system he had for arranging his clothes. 

When he was about to throw down the book, he currently had in his hand, he saw a glimpse of green highlighter. That was strange, he rarely highlighted things, unless he thought that they were really very important ,he always prided himself on how good his memory was, except for where kept important notes. 

He looked at the highlighted section and saw it was a green eyeliner that Mona had gotten him for his birthday instead of a highlighter. Oh well, he was known to improvise during the worst of times. He read through the section thoroughly and carefully making note of the things that he hadn’t committed to memory , especially about the part that Max’s father had to play. He was the one found after Algar Fray, a newly minted Darklighter had opened another portal trying to bring monsters in the world had all but disintegrated due to malcolm’s light. Just like what happned with Max earlier today, Adam thought as he read on. Like father, like son. 

One of the main points of the trial was if there had been no other way to save Algar or at the very least apprehend him, or even if that couldn’t have happened, a way to kill him without his whole body being reduced to ashes. 

  Adam always thought it very unfair, the way they treated Malcolm. He saved them from the threat of being overwhelmed by monsters and other dangerous otherwordly beings and now he was on trial about his method.  What didn’t help was the fact that there was no witness to the confrontation between Algar and Malcolm. Soon after the kangaroo court sham in Adam’s opinion was over, Malcolm left never to be seen again. The strange thing was that he stayed in Chicago not too far from the Chicago branch of the Luce Order.  Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to really leave for real. It was his home for so long after all.

How was he able to disappear without anyone doing that her was right under their noses? Adam wondered. He’d have to ask Max if they ever lived elsewhere before moving to Chicago, it was very much possible and it would make sense. He put a Taco Bell receipt in the book to mark his place as he heard a crash and footsteps near his door. 

He went to open it and saw Max and Mona walking towards him. 

“You’re going to want to see what I found”, he said without greeting going back into his room. Mona bounced onto his bed that he had just made even.

He glared at her but she just shrugged playfully.

“Your bed is softer than mine," she said innocently. 

Adam ignored her poorly thought-out explanation and handed the book to max opening the page he had left off. 

“You used a Taco Bell receipt as a bookmark?” Mona quipped from her place on the bed. 

“You rather I used a dagger?” Adam quipped back holding the book open. 

“Yeah, I rather you would. It’s an almost ancient book.”

Adam shook his head then pointed to the paragraph that he had highlighted.

“It’s about your dad and how he stopped a coming monster invasion”, Adam explained. “He had to kill this new Darklighter Algar fray then he ended up being put on trial for the unlawful murder.”

He put ‘unlawful murder’ in inverted commas.

 “Is there even such a thing as lawful murder?” Mona questioned. “Just call it manslaughter like normal people.”

“Well you aren’t exactly normal”, Max replied in a voice that was deadpan.  Adam placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“They never convicted him, you know”, Adam said softly. “They ended up dropping the charges against him.”

“But there were charges, to begin with”, Max snapped, pushing Adam’s arm away. Then he flinched, his cheeks darkening to a deep shade of red. “I’m sorry, but if there were charges in the past, someone may try to bring them up against him now.”

Adam shared a look with his sister. They both knew that that was very much a possibility. 

“We’ll figure it out”, Adam soothed. He moved from his side with a clap of his hands, a trait he and his sister seemed to share.

“I don’t know about you but I feel hungry”, he said already close to the door. “I’ll get us something.  Just sit tight Max.” Then he turned to Mona who was sitting on the edge of his bed with a slight smile probably at the prospect of being fed, Mona was not a breakfast person at all. 

“And you don’t mess up my room, or look through my stuff or do anything for that matter.” He made an 'I’m watching you' gesture as Mona raised up her hand as if about to give the pledge of allegiance to not mess up his room while he was gone. 

“I swear on my honor," she replied with a mock salute. 

Adam muttered something about not believing her for a minute but left the room, all the same, all the while thinking about the trial after the Breaking. There were so many parts about it churning in his head as he went to the kitchens to get some food, so many parts that he did not yet know. 

A gleeful brightness came over him as he realized something, something that may help them get to the bottom of this, once and for all.

He returned with three bags of tortilla chips, a jar salsa (much too tame for his liking), guacamole (fine if you were a rabbit), and cool chive sauce (poor people’s caviar). 

When he entered his room, Mona was still at her place on the bed flipping through a book on weaponry namely daggers, while Max had taken a seat near his dresser eyes fixed on the paragraph about his father. 

Adam felt rather sorry for him and hoped that what he had figured out on his way to the kitchens would help them. 

He spread out the snacks on the floor and ordered the two Lightwielders to sit with him.

He gave them each a bag of tortilla chips and Max looked taken aback when he was offered his. 

“Are you sure this is okay?” he said. “A whole bag?”

“Please”, Adam scoffed gently shaking the bag in his face. “The only thing this has more than light and daggers is tortilla chips.”

“I swear”, Mona said already digging into her bag. “I think we may be sponsored by tortilla chips, I mean they are very...light.”

Both Adam and Max shook their heads before Max took his bag from Adam’s hands and began munching. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until he noticed he was halfway through his bag without using any dip. That was odd for him.

“Come on boys”, Mona cajoled. “You have to admit that was pretty good.”

“Hey guys I was thinking of something”, Adam said, wiping his fingers with some napkins he brought with him. “We could go look on the files on Malcolm’s case to see if there was anything that we missed or they missed.”

“We’re supposed to be looking for Malcolm, not diving into his life story”, Mona pointed out. 

“But Adam’s right “, Max said with a jolt in his voice and body. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. Maybe what happened during the Breaking and the trial  has something to do with why he’s missing.”

Mona chewed thoughtfully. “You’re not wrong there.”

Max couldn’t help the smile that was coming up on his face.  He was going to get some answers about his dad, about his past. Then Mona frowned tapping on her dark-covered knee. 

“Boyne won’t let us in.”

“Boyne?” Max repeated. 

“He runs the library and all the documents”, Mona explained with an inexplicably sour look on her face. “He guards them like a dragon. You can only take them out during certain times of the week and some he won’t even let  you look at.”

Max looked despondent. “So the trial files?”

Mona shook her head slowly. “I think those arse some of the ones he’d be the most protective over.”

“Unless you can charm your way in”, Adam said brightly with a mischievous smile on his face.

“He doesn't sound like a guy who’s easily moved," said Max finishing the last of his tortilla chips. 

“Oh not with words”, Adam said with a forceful flourish of his hands and a handful of sparkles that looked like stars emerged from his fingertips. “But with some good old-fashioned Astra magic.”

“Oh this should be fun”, Mona said with a conspiratorial nod, her mood much improved. 

Max was just happy to have a chance to get his hands on the files of the trial. 

So they got up, shaking off the remains of the tortilla chips, and headed to the door on their way to the library.

“Wait, I thought only Lunars would control minds”, Max said as they passed some training rooms labeled with the different primal sources of light. 

“Extamundo”, said Adam as he peered into a lab, where they worked with prism shards to amplify powers. “But Astra’s like me can manipulate memory in small ways if we so choose.”

“Thar’s a dangerous ability to have”, Max wondered out loud. “It’d be easy to abuse.”

“Oh, I don’t go crazy. Just a little trip here and there especially if it is important for a case. And besides, it’s not that strong that it’s permanent. It wears off after a while and the memories are restored, some can manipulate memories to their liking but removing them it’s only temporary. “

“So if there was something someone wanted to forget for a long period of time…”

“Then an Astra would have to cast multiple times for that to hold.”

“That is so crazy," Max gasped. 

“But you’re right about there being abuses of power, There’s this story about a Lunar who drove their human lover mad after they got rejected.”

“Yikes.”

“Yep, apparently hell hath no fury like Lunar scorned but if you ask me, one of the most dangerous Lightwielders would be a Lectra.”

Mona gave out a sharp laugh startling the two boys.

“A Lectra, the most dangerous type of Lightwielder? I’m sorry but have not seen the burners, who can, I don’t know burn you alive?”

She turned to Max with an odd sort of pride in her voice.

“We are a powerful bunch true, but even we have our limits.”

Max thought back to the mosaic on the lobby floor.

“The wizard’s apprentice who brought in the monsters, wasn’t he a Lectra?”

Mona went silent for a minute. “Yeah, he was.”

“So was Algar Fray I read.”

Adam noticed a flush appearing on Mona’s cheek so did Max and suddenly he felt rather guilty but then to his shock Mona just laughed, bright, high, and titering obviously fake. 

“So it would seem we Lectra’s have a certain call to the dark. Which is weird. I mean lightning strikes at any time of the day but the moon and stars only come out at night.”

Adam was beginning to get worried.  Mona only rambled like this when she was really put off her game, which was rarely ever. But then she composed herself as they came closer to the library. 

“Okay Adam”, she said pushing her little brother forward. “You’re up.”

Adam made a motion of leaning his head to both sides of his shoulder and flexing his knuckles before walking up to the ornate gold and bronze desk where a man in his mid-thirties or forties sat stamping various documents. 

“Mr. Boyne sir”, Adam began his smile as dazzling as diamonds. “How are you today?”

The man looked up from his papers, his dirty blond hair mussed and his blue eyes scattered everywhere.  Max found it exceedingly difficult to believe that this man hoarded books like a dragon or maybe it wasn’t so difficult if the books were comic books. 

“Adam Davenyer”, he acknowledged, his voice light and crisp, unlike his shirt.  Max wondered instantly what his primal light source was. “What can I do for you?”

“I want to take out a file on the breaking case please”, Adam said going straight to the heart of the issue. 

Boyne opened a ledger by his side, then frowned. 

“I’m sorry Adam, but legal documents must be requested at least three days in advance.”

“That’s to make sure they have time to take out any unsavory stuff about the Order," Mona whispered into Max’s ear. He could feel a tang of bitterness at her words as if she knew of this first-hand. He shook away the thoughts and focussed on what magic Adam hoped to work.

“I understand that completely”, Adam simpered submissively but at the same time his fingers moved gently behind his back, forming what appeared in Max’s eyes to be little stars each a different hue of green for some reason. They flowed as if they were miniature ballerinas behind the desk and out of max’s line of sight. 

He felt a certain charged brightness in the air that disappeared just as soon as it had arrived. 

“But,"Adam continued sweetly, his eyes as wide as a doe’s. “I did call in on Monday to say I would be collecting  it.”

“Really?” Boyne replied, lifting a light eyebrow skeptically. “You really called in on Monday to ask for the Breaking documents?”

Mas was getting frightened now on Adam’s behalf. When was the magic he hoped to work coming?

“Yes”, Adam said, nodding vigorously his blue hair bouncing in the dim lights. “Don’t you remember Boyne?”

Suddenly the stars that had disappeared from view reappeared hovering close to Boyne’s blond head. He scratched his head barely missing one of the stars. 

Max held his breath, thinking for certain that they would be caught out but then an odd calm came across Boyne’s pallid features. He actually smiled and Max thought with a face like his, it would be near possible to get it to smile.

“Of course my boy you’re right”, he chirped in an airy dreamlike voice as if something in the back of his head was coaching him to say all this. “Monday at 2 o’clock you came here asking for the Breaking document, let me get them for you.”

He turned to a wrought iron gate behind him with shapes of different animals strewn across it and unlocked it going in. After a few heart bounding, nerve-inducing minutes, Boyne was back with a folder labeled confidential.

Before handing it to Adam, he said, “Now, it can’t leave the library but feel free to  have it for as long as you need.” 

He handed it over the desk to Adam who received it with another heartstoppingly brilliant smile. 

“I will, thanks, Boyne. You’re a real pal.”

Boyne gave a dopey grin at Adam’s retreating figure. 

“Happy to hear it, Adam.”

Max was 100 percent sure that Boyne’s cheery mood was a result of Adam’s meter and not any inner joyful side on his part.  But how long would it last? Hopefully long enough for them to find what they were looking for.

Adam triumphantly waved the file in their faces. 

“I told you it would work," he said brightly. 

“Don’t count your chickens just yet”, Mona chided directing the boys past shelves of books and tomes and flickering lights, ancient chests to an area where there were four stools and an oil lamp. Mona touched her lighting rod finger to the lamp and it gave out an ethereal white glow. 

“We need a place where Boyne won’t come looking for us immediately if the mesmer wears off too soon.”

“Are you kidding me?” Adam said with a theatrical sigh as he plopped down onto one of the stools nearest the oil lamp. “I think that was the strongest mesmer I’ve ever cast and you know how thick mine are.”

So that explained the almost catatonic look on Boyne's face after the mesmer was cast. Adam was a particular talent. 

Then Adam turned to Max seated next to him with a wide grin.

“Only the best for my bestie.”

Max couldn’t help but blush and smile a little. 

“Don’t be ridiculous," Mona scoffed prying the file from Adam’s hands and opening it out on the extra stool. “You can’t be besties with someone you just met.”

Max shook his head fondly at the pair of siblings, acknowledging the reference.

Adam’s hands shot to his chest in mock horror. 

“You can if you have a connection.” he playfully batted his eyes at Max. 

“Adam, what do you know about connections?”

“More than you, all you know is how to shut people out.”

Max clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the laughter in.

“Okay”, Mona said between shuddering breaths. “Back to work kids.”

She pointed at two of the pictures in the file. The title of the first section was ‘Deceased: Algar Fray’. In one picture was the man Algar Fray himself. Max didn't know what he was expecting to see when he heard about a man mastering dark magic, hoping to overrun the world with monsters, but he wasn't sure it was the man in front of him. 

Algar Fray in the picture taken some years ago had tousled black hair like some James Dean archetype. He wore a long white shirt looking like some regular office type. 

He stared at the camera which the photo was taking with almond-shaped brown eyes almost bordering on black, swallowing his pupils into their depths.

His face was long and narrow, his noses pointed with like an eagle's beak. 

He was a study of well-carved angles in Max’s regard but here was a certain softness in his chin going up towards his cheeks, that stopped his face from looking too hard. 

“Well he leaves quite the impression don’t you think”, Mona said breaking him out of his reverie.

“Well at least he did at one point”, Adam reiterated pointing at the second picture labeled exhibit  B.

It was of Algar but apparently after he was disintegrated by his father. All that was in the picture was black dust similar to the dust found when the hellhounds disintegrated earlier that afternoon. 

Max read transcripts of the presentations of the evidence against both Algar and his father. From what he read it appeared that both men were exemplary Lightwielders and demonstrated nobility and bravery countless times in the past and that they both had characters that could be highly spoken of. Well, except Algar in his later years when he became a Darklighter.

Malcolm admitted at many points Algar asked him to him but at times he refused to become a Darklighter or to help him in his pursuits. 

“It says here that Algar claimed that he had found a way to control the monsters from the shadow realm," Max said looking at Mona in particular. “Is that true?”

She shrugged biting her lip hard in thought. 

“Algar Fray was said to have gone mad with power in more ways than one, so I don’t think anyone really knows.”

“Didn’t he claim to have evidence though?” Adam added, flipping through the file to another part of the transcript of the trial.  “That he kept all of his experiments in a notebook.”

Mona and Adam looked at him blinking. 

“And you know this how?” Mona questioned.

Adam folded his arms defensively with a hint of smugness on his face. 

“I asked dad about it some time ago. If the shadow monsters could really be controlled. He said that Malcolm told him that Fray had done some experiments in his free time while in hiding and had kept them in a notebook.” 

“What happened to the notebook?” Max asked leaning forward, intrigued. 

“I don’t know, neither does dad. I always assumed the Order destroyed it to keep it from falling into the wrong hands.”

“Like someone who would follow Algar Fray," Max finished a tinge of disappointment in his voice. 

What else could have been in that notebook he wondered? It couldn’t have all just been about monsters and how to control them, could it? 

Max decided to read on in the case coming to the place, where the presiding judge asked if there was no way to have apprehended Fray without killing him. 

It brought an odd sort of feeling to Max’s stomach, like bile bubbling up on the inside of him, just about ready to explode at any point of time from now. 

His dad was also so gentle even he was being firm or scolding him. Max could see him now, carefully changing a fuse or crossing wires in different power boxes. Always so careful, always so sure of himself. It was hard to believe that his mild-mannered father was responsible for killing someone, especially someone he thought of as a friend. 

No, something else must have happened on that night of the Breaking. Something that drove his father to murder or manslaughter but unfortunately there were no other witnesses to that event according to the trial sheets.

“So what do we know so far?” he huffed leaning forward on the stool. 

“Apart from the fact that Algar Fray was either a madman or a b****y genius”, Mona said listlessly going through to the end of the file. “Nothing else that could be important to this case.”

Max drew a hand over his face. So bang went the theory that the trail file would give them much-needed help. But it hadn’t been all useless he had to admit. He was starting to get a fuller picture of who his dad was, or at the very least who he had been before as a Lightwielder. 

Then something odd started to nag at him as he looked at the picture of the remains of Algar Fray and then he thought of the black dust found after he blew the Hellhounds away.

“Hey guys”, he said, eyes still fixed firmly on the remains of Algar Fray. 

“What is it, Max?” Mona asked, something odd but companionable in her voice.

“Those Hellhounds were made of shadows and was able to blast them, right?”

“Right?” The siblings said in unison.

“So what happens if it’s a real person would they just be turned to dust?”

Mona and Adam looked at each other and then Adam’s eyes flew open. 

“You’re right”, Adam said astonished. “Mona, remember those pictures we have looked at when we were learning about the primal sources of light?”

“With those gaudy-looking pictures that overindulged in blood? Yes, I still have nightmares about it”, Mona said.

“But what did they all have in common?”

Mona thought long and hard for a minute it dawned on her like it had her brother. Max looked between the two of them confused as ever.

“In each of the pictures there were bones or at the very least white bone marrow”, Mona reasoned the flipped through each of the images.  The dust was as black as night with no hint of white. 

“Is this all the evidence?” Max asked squinting his eyes to see if he could see any form of white. 

“Yes, unless Boyne had time to remove some of it which I doubt”, Mona replied. 

“You know what this means”, Max said in a low raspy voice from fear of being heard or fear of what this meant for him and the Lightwielders, he wasn’t sure but something had changed he could feel in his chest or through the Light he had discovered, he didn’t know.

“Algar Fray isn’t dead.”

The words rang out hollowly through the small space. 

The siblings did not voice their agreement, but they didna;t voice their disagreement either.