Prologue

Elora is Kidnapped As A Baby

Freedom For Celestria

Celestria was a lush green planet with many enchanted forests and magical creatures. It was a warm and happy place to live for centuries. Its inhabitance lived a pleasant existence in their simple lifestyle until the arrival of the Hive. As the Hive’s presence grew, the land and its people suffered. The peaceful bucolic planet was turning into an industrialized war-zone. It was predicted that within twenty-five years the Hive would rule the planet and the good Kings and Queens would be dead; their title and positions abolished.

Doyle Draco was a Wizard of the Third Order and responsible for the presence of the Hive on Celestria. As a child he was mischievous, but quite clever. His parents sent him off to study with the wise and powerful Japheth Joaquin when he turned fifteen. For several years, he studied long and hard to master his spells and learn his history. These things bored Draco though. He longed for adventure and ached for power. Japheth never gave him enough responsibility or ever seemed to trust him to do advanced magic. Draco grew impatient and impetuous with his mentor, but Japheth never appeared to be affected by his protégé’s attitude. Every day Japheth gave him new assignments and had him practice much of what he had already learned.

One day Draco snuck into Japheth’s laboratory and began snooping around. It was then that he found a portal inside a treasure chest. Draco half jumped, was half pulled, into the portal. On the other side he found himself aboard a spaceship. The machinery clanked and buzzed around him, making him both excited and nervous. This was like no place he’d been on Celestria. Even the farm equipment that his father used didn’t feel or sound like the machine he was inside. It felt larger. It felt alive! After a moment, he noticed several armed guards standing near by. They had laser guns pointed at him.

“I…I,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to…I stumbled into this portal and, well, here I am.” 

The guard just stared at him with his big bulging eyes and waited for him to finish babbling. After he had stopped he pointed with his gun toward the front of the small room. He appeared to be pointing at the beehive at the top of the small platform.

A black, gray and red design adorned the wall behind it.

Draco stood there puzzled. “What? Why are we staring at this stupid metal beehive?”

“Ssshh!” another guard snapped. “We are in the presence of the great and mighty Keeper.”

“Keeper of what?” Draco demanded to know.

A loud hum came from the hive. It grew louder and then a voice came from inside, filling the small room. “I am the keeper of the Hive. It is I who brought you here. I had my guards open the portal and pull you through.”

“Why?”

“Because it is you who will bring the Hive to Celestria. I have had spies on the planet for sometime. I have decided that it is you who is best fit for the job. Guards go away!”

The guards bowed and then turned away. They scurried out of the doors that opened out of nowhere and then closed. Draco was alone with the metal hive.

“Step closer,” the mechanical voice commanded.

As he stepped closer he saw the hive open up. A door swung open and revealed a bright light inside. As Draco approached he saw that the light was really a bunch of tiny lights. Draco reached toward them. “Are you really a bunch of bees in there?”

The mechanical voice vibrated out of the light, “We are nanites�"mechanical bees with artificial intelligence. As a collective we command this ship and all aboard it. For longer than you have been alive we have been drifting out here. We have been looking for a planet to rule and live on. Right now I have five different planets competing for the honor of having me live on them. I would like to live on Celestria, but you must first prove yourself to me and prepare the planet for my arrival. Can you do this?

“Yes, of course I can.”

“Then you must take one of my bees and swallow it. This will allow you to use our powers. First and foremost, it will allow you to transform yourself into any machine you choose. In this way you will blend your magic with our technology, thereby beginning the planet’s transformation. Go ahead, reach inside and take one of us.”

Draco hesitated for a moment before reaching inside the hive. The mechanical bees tickled his hand as he placed it inside the swarm. He grabbed a hold of one bee and pulled it out. For a moment he studied it in his hand, then opened his mouth. As he swallowed it he felt a sharp pain. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He fell to floor as the nanoite entered his system. He retched and then convulsed. After a few moments his body contorted and turned into a bee. He flapped his mechanical wings and lifted himself off of the floor with astonishment.

The Keeper spoke finally. “Your transformations won’t always be that painful, nor will you always turn into a bee. Work with the magic, try imagining whatever machine you want and try to become it. In time you will transform at a mere whim.”

“Impressive. Now how do turn back to myself?” asked Draco.

“Focus on the image of yourself in your mind and then your body will follow.”

Draco thought, but nothing happened. He began to panic. “I…I can’t do it. I’m stuck.”

“NONSENSE” the Keeper hummed loudly. “Try again and this time don’t give up so quickly.”

Draco closed his eyes and thought for a while. A few minutes had passed before his wings shriveled and disappeared. His torso lengthened and his legs took shape. When he completed the changed he noticed that his gray and red tunic had disappeared. Instead, he wore a white uniform overtop of a black shirt. A strange metal collar circled his neck. He pulled at it, but it would not budge.

“What is this stupid thing?” he demanded.

“You are part of the Hive and this is your uniform. The collar serves many purposes, including a tracking device and amplifier. It amplifies your powers.”

Draco swallowed and licked his lips. It was then he noticed that his teeth felt odd. They were also metal. “What happened to my mouth?” He touched his face and noticed that the pale peach skin he was used to was replaced by a smooth white metallic covering.

“Did I transform wrong? What’s going on?”

“Taking us in forever changes you. This is your natural state from now on�"part machine and part human.”

“I didn’t bargain for this. You didn’t tell me this would happen!”

“You never asked,” came the reply. “Now we must talk about our plan…”

Within a few short months Draco had set up a temporary camp along a river and began construction of his new home. It would be a castle unlike anyone had seen before. It would be a factory as well as a fort. From this machine he could take over Celestria! The Hive sent him Drones and he gathered a small army of followers for himself. He was supplied with a few weapons and the plans on how to create many more.

The first to join the Hive with Draco was his girlfriend Jinx. He had met Jinx at a tournament at the Highland Hopespell, which was held at the Cabala Castle every year for young Wizards and Witches. Jinx was tall and beautiful and full of greed. She gladly accepted Draco’s offer to join the Hive�"especially when he promised that her powers would be increased substantially through the Keeper. The Keeper sent a ship with the proper potions and a power sources. Jinx drank the potion and stepped into the glass cell. The power source began shooting electricity through her, but the process was not to be completed. Japheth had been spying on his absent pupil and was appalled by his actions.

When he saw another young witch being corrupted he had to take action. Under the invisibility spell, he took his staff and destroyed the power source. Jinx had undergone only forty-percent of the process, but it was enough to enhance her powers considerably and disfigure her. Like Draco, she was forever changed by the Hive. Her long black hair was gone. Her eyes had sunken into her head some and her skin had shriveled tightly around her skull. She looked ghastly and she knew it. From that moment on she wore a long black robe with a hood to cover her gaunt body and face.

Just a few months after he had joined the Hive, he attacked Celestria's High King Cornelius and High Queen Marina. They lived in a beautiful place on a cliff overlooking the south sea. King Cornelius stood on the parapet and watched as his army was slaughtered by weapons he'd never seen before. His arrows, spears, and swords were no match for these strange weapons that shot bolts of lightening from them. The machine soldiers and their vehicles just kept advancing through the rain of arrows and spears. Nothing seemed to faze them at all. Within a just a matter of minutes the Hive's troops were storming the gates. Cornelius realized all too late that he should have contacted the Oracle Hope or the Powerful Queen Seraphina for help. He could have charmed the castle against such an attack if he'd known his army would be helpless against their attackers. In a panic, King Cornelius fled into the castle. He found his Queen and told her that they had to flee for their lives. Immediately she ran into the nursery to gather her three-month-old twins. When she bent down to pick them up she recoiled in horror. Her baby Ean lie soundly sleeping, but her daughter Elora was nowhere to found. Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Queen Marina called for the nursemaid, but King Cornelius found that she was dead on the floor. Though bereft with grief, Marina had to think of protecting Ean, herself and her husband. Cornelius pulled her gently toward the secret passageway in their bedroom.

The good King and Queen fled by ship to a remote land across the sea. There they took on new identities and lived the life of Shepherds. They called themselves Belarius and Hermonine and raised Ean as Pericles. They never spoke of their past, not even amongst themselves. Cornelius worked in secret to form a rebellion and find a weapon or spell to defeat his enemies in the future, but he knew that for the time being that he had to keep himself and his family hidden. With Elora gone, Ean was

the only hope to be the rightful heir of Celestria.

What King Cornelius and Queen Marina did not know, was that Elora was safe in the arms of their enemy Doyle Draco. While his army was storming the castle, he used his jetpacks to fly up to the nursery window. It was his intention to steal both of the twins and raise them as his own. When they were old enough he was going to use them to claim the rightful throne of Celestria. By then the title would be only a formality, and perhaps a safeguard against some old magic he hadn't counted on. He took the little girl in his arms, but was interrupted by the nursemaid. He shot her with his hand that had transformed into a laser gun. Then he heard the King and Queen coming into their room, which was adjacent to the nursery. Quickly he fan toward the window and flew off with Elora.