The Shadowed Manse by David Alastair Hayden, Pepper Thorn Page B

… normally, you would have been taught all of this from the time you were born.”
    If a light bulb could go off over someone’s head, Arthur would’ve had a giant, 1,000-watt floodlight hanging over him at the moment. “Oh! I bet my dad did tell me about all the Paladin stuff. I bet he was telling me about all the things I’d be doing and learning as I grew up. But then he left me, and I was too little to actually remember the details. That’s why I’ve always had this feeling in school, like I’m supposed to be learning something bigger and more important, like I’m supposed to be learning how to save the world. And I’ve always dreamed about spaceships and strange alien creatures, too.”
    Ylliara nodded. “And by now you would be far along in learning to be the Paladin. You would be actively training for battle, alongside your cousins and siblings, if you had any. But alas, there is only you. No one else can do this.”
    “Wait, all the members of my father’s family are gone? I’m the only one left?”
    “All of them were assassinated, one by one, over the span of a decade. Then your mother was assassinated, shortly before we lost contact with your father.”
    “My mother was assassinated?! She didn’t die in a rock-climbing accident?!”
    “No, of course not. I thought you knew …”
    Arthur’s heart ached; a lump formed in his throat. “I … I really don’t know anything. Who killed her?”
    “We never found out. I assume your father was working on that when we lost contact with him.”
    “So they … they must’ve gotten him too, then?”
    “Perhaps.”
    Morgan leaned forward, chewing at her lip. “You said there was a powerful shadow man in the Manse …”
    “A warlock. Under his command are powerful wraiths and, if I’m sensing correctly, hundreds of shades like the ones you encountered — summoned from more crystals, like the one you destroyed.”
    “So they must be the ones who killed my mom and dad?”
    “I doubt a warlock and a group of wraiths could kill your father, especially in the Manse. Under normal circumstances, with the Manse fully powered, there is no way a wraith could even cross the threshold and enter.”
    Suddenly, the lights dimmed noticeably, and the flames in one fireplace died out. Ylliara shot a nervous look toward the door leading deeper into the Manse and said, “We have little time left. I must tell you everything you absolutely must know, as simply and quickly as possible. I am sorry, but you will have to learn the rest on your own.”
    “You mean we have to fight the wraiths and shades inside by ourselves?!” Arthur exclaimed.
    “Obviously,” Morgan sighed.
    Ylliara nodded, and so Arthur turned to Morgan. “You should leave. This isn’t your fight, and I don’t want you to get hurt, or … or worse.”
    Morgan stared at him intently. “Friends stick together in hard times, right?”
    “Well, yeah … I guess so.”
    “Then I will stick with you.”
    “But that’s crazy . You could walk out that door and return —”
    “To a normal life?” She chuckled. “Yeah … I don’t have one. Besides, if I die … I die. Big deal. It happens. Besides, opportunities like this just don’t come around … well, ones like this aren’t supposed to ever come around.”
    “I am glad that you feel that way,” Ylliara said. “I think you will make an excellent official companion to the Multiversal Paladin. I am doubly glad, because there is no way for you to return home right now. The Manse has shifted into the Song Between the Verses. If you walked out of the Door To Many Worlds right now, while the Signal is red, you would step out into nothingness.”
    “What signal?” Arthur asked. “What door?”
    Lady Ylliara gestured toward the door through which they’d entered the Manse.
    Two old-fashioned light bulbs protected by wire cages — the sort of lights you’d see on a ship or in an old bunker — were fixed above the door. One light was red;