The Battle of Tyrell: Cynthia by Nicola Collings (books for 9th graders .TXT) 📕

“You really think it should be tonight? And what of all the people on The Wynde who will die? What of the weapons that the authority on Boundary have? We don’t stand a chance!”

Ezekiel paused. He bent down to a small rose bush and picked a bud from the leaves.

“The people need equality. They need you to tell them what to do. And you have the key...”

He stood and looked at me.

I knew exactly what he meant. It was true, I did have the key... “But I have no clue where it is or how I get to it.”

“That’s something you must do. But do it quickly. You see the people through those trees.” He gestured in the direction of the mansion. “They need you. They are from now on, on standby, ready to reclaim. All they need is for you to awaken the subconscious idea that has been with every single soul born on The Wynde, since King Yoren’s reign. You know the legends are all true. Each and every one of them.”

He gazed at me with his lupine eyes. “I believe in you.”

Part 2: Look to the East

                “So. You must be the people who I see leading the Black Parade towards Boundary. I am Ezekiel. I share your desire to reclaim what is ours and to take revenge on everyone they’ve ever defiled.”

                Sam looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “Where’s the chick?”

                Ezekiel rolled his eyes. Despite Cynthia describing them as warriors, this one certainly didn’t act like it. In fact, Ezekiel may have gone as far as to say he belonged in the local mental asylum.

                “Cynthia is looking for something that will help us.”

                “Then why are you here?” asked the thin looking boy wearing nothing but jeans and a sleeveless denim jacket with no top beneath. Ezekiel thought Cynthia said his name was Gus. “Why are we sat here instead of doing something? Making a plan? Getting better guns? Anything?”

                “Don’t be so impatient! Believe it or not, this place is supposed to have an armoury.” Piped up one of the soldiers, the whose name was Seth.

                “Then why aren’t we in the armoury?” snapped Gus.

                Ezekiel closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead as the group began to argue.

                “QUIET!” he yelled, with a force behind his voice that sounded almost animal.

                The group stopped to look at him. Ezekiel sighed. “Cynthia will come back, having found what she needs, then we take action.”

                Once again, the group descended into miscalculated chatter of plans and weapons and the chaos of battle that was starting to seep through the walls.

                                                                                                *

                My parents were scientists, belonging to a project called the Quantum Project. It was run by Wyvern Industries and the only things I have heard about their career was what was written in their notes. I kept these precious pieces of memory in the rooms beneath the Archive. I called this section of the mansion the Old Archive, since everything old and valuable I had in the library I kept down here.  

                I gazed at the rows of volumes crammed into the shelves in the particular room where I kept information on my parents. How they died I have no idea. Certain bits and pieces of information lead me to believe that they were assassinated. By whom? And why?

                These are questions I’ve spent a life looking for the answers to.

                Yet, there was another reason I searched through the journals, books, novels and tomes, and that was to find the secret of the Vaults. How to open it, where exactly it was...

                Legend has it that my forefather built the mansion around the entrance, and locked it with a special door that only his own blood could open.

                Of my 24 years living and breathing within the walls of this mansion, I have never seen such a door.

                Yet I picked up a brown, leather book that had my father’s handwriting inside. His personal journal.

                It is the 40th day in the month of reflection and Jewel and myself have decided. We must do what must be done. We are leaving the Quantum Project. I can’t say too much, other than that what we are about to do is dangerous. I see that Jewel is nervous. I hate to see her face in a state if disarray, but soon, when we are back in Tyrell, everything will be alright. My father said we should never have given ourselves to science. We should have stayed and guarded the Descendents secret! Like my grandfather, Danin! He spoke sense!

                Unlike Heartlib. No one should ever have listened to that crazy bastard! To this day, they shouldn’t.

                Anyway, Jewel assures me the secret is still locked away. I trust her completely.

                I leaned over the words, trying to understand. Why was leaving their job dangerous? This was written several years before I was born, so they couldn’t have left so they could give birth to me. No, they had died a couple of weeks after I was born. And why was he talking about Heartlib? He was Danin’s twin, according to the family tree, so why should people still regard him ‘to this day’? I tried so hard to understand.

                It pained me.

                I tore another volume from the shelf, another of my father’s journals. There were many, most of them regarding his work with the project.

                I opened this one to what I thought was Kye talking about the Descendents.

                59th day of the month of Age. Tomorrow it will be Plague, and Jewel’s birthday. But something else is occupying my mind. I know I should focus, but I can’t shake these dreams. Something is coming. I don’t know what, but I hear noises, coming from Danin’s old chambers. They’ve remained untouched for over a century, so who could be in there?

                They’re strange noises, yelling, the cool swing of metal, the soft noise of breaking flesh. It sounds like battle.

                I have asked my dear friend Evanna, but he tells me to ignore them. He says it is because we escaped a cruel fate. He says we need to put some time between us and our time at the project. Personally, I don’t think this has anything to do with the project at all.

                I gazed at the name. ‘Evanna’. It didn’t sound like anyone who lived on The Wynde. Maybe he was a fellow Descendent? Maybe someone who also worked in the Quantum Project? And something about his dreams and my forefather’s old chambers bugged me. Danin Duskgate built the mansion and his chambers were behind the central courtyard behind the Archives. Maybe those noises he heard in his dreams meant something...

                                                                                                *

                Nicki gestured to Rick who handed her a bottle of beer.

                “Who’s that, over there?” she asked in a hushed tone, although there was no point. There were so many people that no one would have heard her anyway.

                Rick followed her gaze. “I don’t know...” his brow furrowed as he tried to place the ice cold face that stood by the cloisters that separated the party from those who just stood chatting.

                The man stood out like a sore thumb. He didn’t wear leather, or denim, or clothes that looked as though they’d been stitched together. He wore an expensive looking suit with a tie and there was a small black ear piece just visible beneath his black hair. And what was even stranger was the way he acted. He just stood, not talking, not drinking, just...watching.

                As Nicki watched, she saw his lock eyes with someone behind her.  She turned to see another man, dressing identically to the first one.

                “There’s another one!” she gasped, pointing.

                Rick frowned. “Something’s not right.”

                Nicki nodded. “What do we do?”

                “Warn someone. Cynthia. We need to find Cynthia.”

                Rick turned and started to move away, when he stopped and turned. “Where exactly is Cynthia?”

                Nicki was about to say she had no idea, when a happy voice chirped from behind her.

                “Who needs Cynthia?”

                Nicki turned to see a short, chocolaty-skinned girl wearing a steam punk corset, baggy leggings that reached her bare ankles and a brown leather gun holster with a bronze handled gun nestled inside. She was barefoot, which usually meant that she was close to Cynthia. Nicki didn't know why being barefoot meant this, only that Cynthia and her close friends never really wore any shoes at all.

                “Look at that man over there, and tell me he belongs here.” Rick pointed to the suited man near the band.

                “Erm...he defiantly doesn’t belong here.” The dark skinned girl replied.

                “And over there.” Nicki pointed out the other one.

                “Ok, that is not right. I’m Rhiannon, by the way. I think I know where Cynthia is. I’ll go tell her.”

                Nicki was about to object, when Rick took hold of her shoulder. She could only watch as Rhiannon sank into the crowd.

                “Why did you do that? We could have helped!”

                Rick smiled slightly. “We would be better keeping an eye on them to see what they do. If anything bad happens, then we’ll be here to either stop them, or warn someone.”

                “Hhmm.” Nicki turned to watch one of the men again. It was then a plan started to flower in her mind, like a shape taking place on a blank canvas.

                “Rick, I have an idea.”

                                                                                                                *

                Upon my father’s mention of Danin Duskgate, I decided to turn to his story, in the hope that the man who built the mansion had left some sort of clue as to where this damn door was. I wandered the hallways of bookcases, in search of the small room where the seriously old stuff was. The air was thick down here; dust covered every surface like a thin veil of silk and the deeper I delved, the more I found items that resembled ancient artefacts with indecipherable labels strung to them. I found old journals with yellowing pages among lumps of stone with lines carved into them, vases that looked antique, and the shapes of paintings wrapped in fabric.

                Until I found a small break in the bookcases that covered every wall. There was a small desk with an old gas lamp and piles of papers and books. I searched among the clutter for the familiar feel of the cracked leather of my great grandfather’s notes.

                I gazed upon the weak bind, before opening to an early page, sometime after he’d apparently left the Quantum Project.

                I’d read the journal before, and I only knew vaguely of the Quantum Project and how my parents worked for the science involved. I knew Danin worked for it too, until he was killed. But I wasn’t here for information, I was here for answers.

                I must work quickly. The foundations have been put down, now I only need them to raise the roof and then I shall be clear to start to get to work. I hope this does work. If not, then I fear for my family, for the child I put inside Hana and for the rest of The Wynde.

                It is funny; I see The Wynde as my extended family and I find it strange that I should be building this house not only for my family, but for them. I do love them all, so dearly.

                I sighed. These were all pages I’d read before. I knew that shortly after this journal, Danin was killed. How or why, I didn’t know, but one thing I did notice- he wrote with a hurried pace, as though he was on a set time.

                Was it as if he knew he was