To Everyone! Another Excerpt form The Wizard's Magic! This is the best one yet! Everybody! You gotta read this! Please!

A/N  If any of you guys read the other excerpts, know that this is before the others in time.

9: The Void of Nothing
Lynce was in pretty bad shape, but talking didn’t hurt her at all.  In fact, she pretty much babbled like a brook.  She just couldn’t stop talking.  She had always appealed to me as a shy person(dragon).  I guess that when she finally got to know me, she eased up.  That was fine with me.
I just couldn’t believe that I had actually done it.  I had saved Lynce and now she was my friend!  How weird is that?  When we first met, Lynce got so mad at me to the point that she started crying tears of anger.  But now, she was totally different.  Of course, I had no objections to the new Lynce.  It was perfectly fine with me.
“What happened after I became unconscious?” Lynce wanted to know.  I didn’t mind telling her.  “When you went out, the tunnel was about two feet wide.  But then, when there was only one foot of space left, the walls stopped moving…and the ceiling started coming down just like the walls.  Michael and me dragged you to what I thought was light.  When we got closer, we found that the light was only a crack in the bricks.  By this time, all the torches were burned out.  We felt around until we found something that could help us get out.  That thing was a loose brick.  I shoved the brick out and tore off another, and another, and kept on shoving out bricks until there was a wide enough space to get through.  That’s how we got out.  The light that we saw turned out to be the phosphorus that you see.  And that’s how you ended up here.”  Lynce nodded.
I arose and asked everyone if they wanted to go yet.  Everyone seemed to be ready.  We all got to our feet and walked up the remaining steps. 
I couldn’t help thinking how the cave was created.  I mean, obviously, God created it, but why would someone build the underground horror land right next to the cave?
At the top of the stairs was a door.  I was about to open it when I realized that there was a small message inscribed upon it.  I recognized the note to be the same one as the one within the corridor, except pumped up several sizes bigger.  I read the message.
Very good, Alex.
You’ve survived.
But can you get
Past this next
obstacle that I’ve
devised?
Yours truly,
Kisis

I wanted to scream.  Kisis was responsible for everything.  He had created the underground house of mayhem.  But what disturbed me the most was this: he seemed to have known that I would survive.  (That and the fact that the word Kisis was written in blood.)  Creepy.  I didn’t know if that had something to do with his magic or not.
He had written a direct message to me.  The wizard himself.  How did I react?  I just calmly closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  It seemed to work.  When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t mad anymore.  My game face was on.  I was ready to roll.  I was ready for anything Kisis was going to throw at me for that matter.  I cracked my knuckles.
That’s when I finally realized what the wizard was saying.  I had been so angry that I couldn’t concentrate.  Now that I could, I read the freaky poem again.  What jumped out at me this time was the part about an obstacle.  Would Kisis lie to me?  It was likely.  But I felt that I had to trust him on this.  It was almost as if he felt that he had an unfair advantage and he wanted everyone to be in the same position as he.
But the only reason he would do that was if he absolutely knew for sure that he could still beat us.  Well, bring it on Kisis.  I was now prepared for any obstacle.
I wrapped my fingers around the door handle and swung open the door.  I then took a confident step into a void of nothing.
Yes you read right.  A void of nothing.  A chasm.  It seemed like we had found the obstacle that Kisis was talking about.
I quickly drew my foot back after nearly falling in.  That wouldn’t have been fair after going through what I’d just been through.  Not at all.  I caught my breath.  The others gasped.  We had really come a great distance.  I couldn’t believe it.
I’m serious.  The door led right into the chasm, which I couldn’t see the bottom of.  Not a good sign.  It seemed as if the cave that we had come upon was a little raised island in the chasm.  When we had first entered funhouse of horror devised by Kisis, I hadn't realized how far we had traveled underground.  We had traveled right into an upraised island in the middle of the chasm!  I was certain of one thing: magic was involved.  You don't just pop into the middle of a chasm without something supernatural gong on.  I know this is confusing, but bear with me.  You may never understand my hectic life.  This is just another one of those details that are just so confusing, you can just make up your own little theory as to what happened and go along with it.  In fact, you might find yourself having to do that a lot.  I know, I'm not the best writer ever.  But heck, you've gotta give me credit.  I am only eleven years old.  If you are able to follow along with this, I congratulate you.  You officially have a brain.  If you're still not figuring things out, you might want to go back and take another look at the map.  Y'know.  Just to get your bearings-although it probably won't help you.  It's quite possible that you're just as confused as I am...and that's saying something.
My bearings were totally messed up.  Magic had to be involved, because nothing was making sense.  Everything just wasn't adding up.  Nothing seemed like it did on the map.  I had a stinking suspicion that Kisis had something to do with things.  But could he really move entire landmasses?  I’m not trying to go all cosmic on you, but this whole magic thing was starting to get pretty serious.  What with all hocus pocus and abra cadabra, I admit, I was getting just a tad freaked out.  Okay, a little bit more than just a tad.
To my left, there was a cliff…about twenty feet away.  As for my right…well, that was just hopeless.  I couldn’t see anything.  The cliff to my left was mountainous.  That was the only thing that I recognized from the map.  If we could just get to the mountainous side of the chasm, we could get back on our way to Kisis's fortress.  If you remember correctly from the map, the mountains were just below the bog.  If only we could get to the other side of the chasm...
Something was pushing up at my foot.  I lifted up my left foot to reveal a small pebble.  Suddenly I had an idea.  I picked up the pebble and chucked it straight into the chasm.  I was hoping to hear it strike quickly.  I had no such luck.  About thirty seconds after I had thrown the pebble I heard a small noise.  Strangely, it sounded like dropping a marble into a glass of water.
The top thing on my to-do list: find some way to get to the left side.
The others stood gaping at the pit over my shoulder.  I figured that I was doing the same.  Kisis had said that he had devised this.  For the first time, I had no doubt believing his words.  It would be exactly like him to do something like this.  That’s when something struck me.
It was all because of my shoe.  If my shoe had never gotten stuck in the mud then we would never have gotten into Kisis’s funhouse of death.  I looked at my shoe in a funny way.  Was it by pure accident that my shoe had gotten stuck, or had Kisis snuck in behind the scenes?  I voted that Kisis had something to do with it.
I stared into space.  How the heck were we gonna get over to the ledge?  I had a sudden vague thought of Batman.  A grappling hook perhaps?  But where was I gonna get a grappling hook?  Wal-Mart?  I don’t think so.
Lynce had some logic.  “We can tackle the chasm tomorrow.  Right no we just need to rest.  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m just about ready to hit the sack.  We could also get something to eat.”  Lynce turned to me and frowned.  “And Alex, something tells me that you could use a swim in the lake.”
I looked had my arms and legs.  She had a point.  I suppressed a laugh.  “I guess we know what we need to do,” I said cheerily.  “Let’s go back down.”
With that, we trotted back down the steps and, well, Michael, Peter and me trotted.  Lynce didn’t exactly come that fast.
I was the first one down.  I was still trying to calm down from the previous events.  I relayed what had happened in my mind.
I was totally sure that Kisis had lured me in to here in the first place.  But then he seemed to know that I would survive.  Why would he go through all this trouble if he knew I was going to succeed?
I knew why. I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it before.  Kisis didn’t care about the underground place that he had lured us into.  All along his major goal had been to get us to this spot.  To trap us.  To make sure that we didn’t have a sliver of a chance of stopping him.  It seemed that Kisis was right.  Although we had survived, if we didn’t get out, we would still technically be failing.  That was the worst part.  Kisis didn’t harm us.  He just trapped us like mice.  I held my head in my hands.  How where we going to get out?
There were so many questions that I wish could be answered.  But there was no one other than Kisis to answer them.  A sudden pang of guilt flashed through my gut.  I had practically failed Nolak…
On that happy note, I took off my shirt and pants, slipped off my shoes, unbuckled my sword, and swung off my bow and quiver of arrows.  I hopped in to the frigid water.  I didn’t care whether my boxers got wet or not.  All I knew was that I was definitely not going skinny-dipping.  That would just be creepy.
The water felt like ice.  I waded out into the lake until I was treading water.  My entire body was numb, but after what I had been through, it felt pretty darn good.  I scrubbed all the dirt and grime off my arms and watched as the water around me grew murky as if I had just dumped a bucket of dirt in the water.  Technically, I had.  Except I wasn’t a bucket.  Never have been and definitely never will be.
I dunked my head.  I opened my eyes underwater, expecting everything to be hazy because of the dirt.  But surprisingly, everything was clear and calm.  I held my breath and swam deeper.  The water grew extraordinarily cold and my ears began to pop, but I kept swimming, wanting to know what was down below.  I passed fish of all sorts of colors.  I ran my fingers through my watery and weightless hair.  It felt good.
An eel passed by.  I avoided him.  I wasn’t sure if he was dangerous or not, but he looked mean and lean.  Not someone I wanted to get close to.
There was fish of all shapes and sizes to.  I saw rainbow trout and carp.  I also saw something far away that looked vaguely like a turtle, but I wasn’t sure.  I swam even deeper.
My body screamed not to, but I was oblivious to the pain of my ears totally freaking out.  I had always been a good swimmer.  Maybe not a fast swimmer, but a good swimmer.
I had reached the bottom.  There was nothing left to see.  My lungs felt like they were about to give out.  I started back towards the surface.
I felt a nibble on my foot.  I turned around to see an entire horde of ferocious looking fish that reminded me of piranhas.  They had teeth.  Sharp teeth.  I shot up towards the surface, increasing my stroke speed.  The piranha-like fish followed.  I wasn’t really worried.  Now, this kind of thing seemed like child play.  I was getting used to danger.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I came upon the surface and bobbed up.  I swam the freestyle over to shore.  The fish were fast on my heels.  I kicked at them, but it didn’t slow them down a single bit.
The fish were determined.  I reached out with my hands and grabbed shore.  I pulled myself out, dripping wet.  The fish couldn’t stop.  They kept on going and flew out of the water and onto shore right next to me.  They floundered around like, well, like fish out of water.  I laughed out loud.  In all, there were six of the little devils.  I heard a voice from behind me.  I turned to see Lynce, a hearty smile displayed upon her lips for all to see.
“It looks like we won’t have to eat dinner out of the packs tonight.  You caught plenty for all of us,” Lynce said.  “But don’t we have to cook ‘em?” I asked glancing at the frolicking fish.  “You don’t know me that well, Alex.”  Lynce blew a plume of smoke into the air from her nose.  I grinned and said, “Oh.  Well I guess you could do that.”
I helped carry the slippery fish over to where Michael and Peter were seated, right next to the steps.  I marveled at how large the cavern was.  (I had redressed, by the way.  I wasn’t running around more than halfway naked.)
I set the fish down on a rock within reach of Lynce.  (They had already been prepared for cooking, courtesy of me.  In other words, I did the gross stuff like skinning the fish with my sword.)  Lynce nodded her head.  I braced myself for the heat.  Lynce opened her mouth…and nothing came out.  Lynce seemed really worried.  “I’m guessing that’s a bad thing,” I guessed.  “That’s never happened before.  It must have something to do with my injury,” Lynce said.  She focused herself and opened her mouth wider.  She began to blow, and this time, a tendril of fire flaked out.  She kept the blaze coming until she ran out of breath.
In place of the fish were six, hot, delicious, crisps that only slightly resembled fish.  I made the mistake of trying to grab one, and got my fingers burned.  Well done, Alex.  I waited several minutes for the fish to cool off, and then I tried to grab a fish again.  This time, I was able to pick up a fish without burning myself.  I took a bite.  I have to say, despite the ferocious appearance of the fish, they were absolutely delicious.  I savored every bite.  Lynce didn’t.  She scooped up three fish and sent them flying down her throat.  I don’t even know if she chewed them.  Well, whatever works I guess.
I was totally full after we had eaten.  I had dried off by then, and I went to wash off my oily hands in the lake.  I trotted down to the shoreline and stuck my hands in.  Like before, my hands nearly fell off with numbness.  I was about to get up to go back to where we were camping out when I saw some kind of reflection in the water. 
I took a closer look and realized that the face was the same one that I had seen in the mysterious corridor.  I felt nauseous.  I knew that Kisis had done it with his magic, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t freak me out.  I then hurried back to where the others were situated and told them what I had seen.  Lynce nodded gravely.  “Kisis is trying to do something.  I just wish that we knew what it was,” Lynce said.  I agreed.  Right about then, I was wishing for a lot of things.  Wishing I could go home, wishing that Kisis would just go away.  But wishing didn’t help at all.
I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, which was sort of hard to do because of the always-glowing phosphorous substance littered all over the cavern.  It was good during the daytime to help you see, but during the night when you wanted to sleep, well, that ‘s different.
I was sleeping on the mat that was in my backpack.  (Unbelievably, Lynce still had my backpack around her neck.  You would have thought that she would have dropped it ages ago, but she didn’t.  Crazy, huh?)  It wasn’t exactly comfy, but it wasn’t like sleeping on a rock.  Bobart had done well packing our things.  At least that was a good thing, considering all the bad things that kept happening to me.
Thoughts rushed through my head at one hundred miles an hour.  I was supposed to be calm at this hour, but instead I was hyperactive.
All the little thought in my head were like files in folders.  I would take a file out to examine it and then I would put it back in the folder.  I was doing this when I came upon a particularly interesting thought: Lynce could fly before she broke her wing right?  If she hadn’t had that injury, then we would be able to just fly across to the other side.  That meant something bad.  I don’t know if you realize it or not.
Kisis could see the future.  I don’t know if he used magic or the classic crystal ball.  But one thing was for sure: Kisis could see the future.
I lingered on that file/thought a little bit longer than the others, but I eventually placed it back in the folder and returned it to the file cabinet that was my brain.  Then, I closed my eyes and shut them more tightly than the time before.  I concentrated on going to sleep.  I relaxed, and drifted off into dreamland. 
I had a dream.  I wasn’t sure whether it was a nightmare or a regular dream.  All I knew was that it was out of the ordinary.  I never dream.  Maybe I do and forget.  One thing was certain about this dream though: it was being burned into my memory permanently.  I was never going to forget it.
I floated around aimlessly, surrounded by utter nothing.  The scenery around me was just an endless space of white.  Suddenly, the white began to ripple, and the scene changed.  I was still floating above, seeing everything below.
I was in some kind of castle.  It wasn’t the Castle of Nolak.  An aura of evil was thick in the air.  I floated down the halls and corridors, and glided through passageways.  I rounded a bend and came face to face with a boy of about my age, except a little older.
He was the one with the evil face.  I gasped out loud.  The boy looked up, and his features seemed to burn into my skull.  I looked away.  He pointed a bony finger up at floating me.  “Soon,” he said.  “Kisis and I will destroy you, and with you gone, we will take over Nolak, and then we will move on to your own time.” 
The boy’s image flickered and disappeared.  I then returned to the whiteness, and everything grew hazy, until I couldn’t see anything.  The world went black, and I was left in total darkness.
*  *  *  *  *
I woke up the next morning in shock.  I confided with the others and told them about my strange dream.  Lynce seemed very disturbed.  “Kisis used magic to interrupt your sleep and give you a dream.  He did this once before, to one of King Bobart’s most trusted advisers.  In the dream, Kisis told the man that pay for supporting King Bobart.  The next day, after the dream, the man died.  Many think that it was a coincidence, but those who understood Kisis knew that it was no coincidence.”  I sat ashen faced.  The fact that I might die had shaken me up.  It couldn’t be true.  “But in the dream, it wasn’t Kisis who spoke to me, unless Kisis is a boy, which would be weird,” I protested.
Lynce shook her head.  “The fact that Kisis even sent you that dream means that he considers you a threat, which if you look at it the right way, means that Kisis is almost doubting that he will destroy Nolak.”   Well, that was at least one good thing.
I stood up and paced.  “Well, if I’m gonna die, it won’t be because of lack of effort to save Nolak.  We need to figure out a way to get across the chasm.”  Peter stood up and drew some rope out of the bag.  “Peter, where did you get that rope?” I asked.  “Peter replied, “I stole it from my bedroom at the castle.”  Great.  My little brother was becoming a juvenile delinquent.  Or more accurately, he already was.
“Well, what use is rope if there is nothing to lasso it on to?  Unless there’s some kind of boulder on the edge of the chasm, we can’t use the rope.  So, we need another option.  Anybody have an idea?” I asked.  I didn’t expect Lynce to speak so I didn’t quite understand what she said.  “I’ll do it,” Lynce said weakly.  “What?” I queried.  “I said, I’ll do it.  I’ll fly us across.”  “Lynce!  You can’t do that!  The pain would kill you!” I exclaimed.  “I said, I’ll do it, and that ‘s what I intend to do,” Lynce said, determined.  I didn’t think that it was such a hot idea.  'Cause if Lynce decided that she couldn’t go any further when she was directly over the chasm, well, the boy in my dream would be correct.  We would be dead.  I needed some time to think, but I didn’t have it.  I was on a tight schedule. 
I made my decision.  “Alright Lynce, if it’s really what you want to do.  Just make sure you don’t give out while we’re flying.  That might hurt a bit.”  Actually, it might hurt a lot.  Of course, I would be dead before I could experience any real pain.  I was quick to get that thought out of my head.
We ate a meager breakfast of bread and water from our canteens.  After we ate, we went and refilled our canteens from the lake and packed our things up.  (I was hoping that I wouldn’t get sick from the lake water, but there wasn’t much I could do.)
Then we started up the rock stairs.  When we reached the top, we came face to face with the eerie message on the door again.  This time though, we disregarded it.
Lynce took a deep breath.  “I just want you guys to know, if I don’t make it across, please forgive me for all that I’ve done to you guys.  I didn’t mean what I’ve said to you.  Now, hop on, and let’s get ready to fly.”  I nodded and opened the door to the chasm.  The big black hole seemed scarier and more dangerous this time.  I guess it was just because I was just about to fly over it on a dragon with a broken wing.  No biggie, right?
With a moment’s hesitation, I gently climbed on top of Lynce’s back, careful to avoid her poor wing, as did the others.
Lynce heaved herself off the ground and out of her crouched position.  We were getting ready for take off.
I closed my eyes and prayed that I wouldn’t die.
Lynce’s wings started beating.  I flinched.  Was she gonna make it?  Lynce growled in pain, but she persisted.  Her wings began to slowly beat faster, and we began to hover.  Then, we began to move out the door.  Lynce wheezed.  We hadn’t even left the underground cavern, and Lynce was ready to go lye down.  Great.
We were over the chasm, flying towards the cliff.  Lynce's tail scraped the edge of the doorway.  She didn’t bother to close the door.  Why should she?
I felt as if we had just left planet Earth, and well, technically we had.  We had left Earth and gone to Nolak.  But that’s technically speaking, so it doesn’t really matter.
I looked down.  It seemed as if the enormous chasm was trying to swallow me.  I cringed and kept myself from looking down again. 
Flying was taking an immense toll on Lynce.  Her scaly body was wet with sweat.  (Yes, she has sweat glands.)  I was afraid of slipping off she was so wet.  I grasped her back tighter and rayed that I would have the strength to be able to stay on and not fall off into the chasm.  Let’s leave it at that would not be a good thing.  Actually, it wouldn’t be a bad thing either.  It would be worse.  You could call it a “fatal thing”.
I was becoming more and more nervous by the second.  We were now flying over the chasm.  But was that such a good thing?  I wasn’t sure.
I looked down into the pit of endless darkness and shivered.  Not for the first time, I wondered if that day was going to be the day that I died.
My confidence in Lynce was waning.  I wasn’t really sure we were gonna make it.  Then I realized something.  I had only been looking at the pit, not at where we were supposed to be going.  I looked up.  We were only several feet away from the edge.  Things were looking up.
Lynce screamed in agony.  Her injured wing gave out.  We floated in the air a moment.  I looked up into the sky.  “You tried Lynce.  You tried.”  Just feet away from the edge, we fell, tumbling down into the dark expansion.  Lynce’s prophecy rang true.  I was gonna die.
The air rushed past my face.  I wasn’t really scared.  It was definitely not the first time I had been falling helplessly through space.  No, it was the third.  I just closed my eyes, folded my arms together, rubbed my palms together, and prayed that I was goin’ to Heaven.  I am a Christian, but I didn’t want to die and turn up in the other place.  That would not be good.  If I was gonna die, when I died, I was gonna live in paradise, and meet my Father who art in Heaven.  (Sorry about the cheesy who art in Heaven thing.  I couldn’t resist.)
We hurtled down, down, down.  I couldn’t see anything.  My surroundings were totally black.  “I’m sorry,” a voice said softly, “I have failed you.”  It was Lynce.

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