He had been inside the library for what seemed like hours. Even though it was only small, he found a couple of books that contained some information that could be of use.

"The Lich can only be brought back by a sorcerer." One of the books read. After skimming through it he found that only the powers of sorcery can lock him back away, banishing him once again from this town.

There was little information about who had defeated him in the first place. The only thing he found mentioned that two people had conquered Skobex together, one of which was a sorcerer. The other a great swordsman, which just so happened to be descended from one of the greatest knights of Cinderash.

'Great.' Christopher mumbled softly to himself.

He decided to have one last look around the library for anymore books that were helpful. He was hoping that there would be some books about sorcery and how to use it. Possibly even the spell used to banish Skobex one hundred and fifty years ago. There wasn't any.

'Excuse me,' He asked the lady sitting at a small wooden desk, startling her. 'I apologise for starling you. I was wondering if you had any books about sorcery.'

She stared at him. 'They were all destroyed over a century ago.' She widened her eyes. 'Are you responsible for this?'

'No.' He lied, 'I wanted to find out how they did this in order to find who did it.'

She kept staring at him, deciding whether to believe his story or not. 'I'm not sure why you would want to do that, but either way, no books exist. All of them were destroyed after the Lich's first reign ended.'

He thanked her for her help and quickly left before he could make her any more suspicious.

He didn't realise how long he had been in the library, before being greeted with a dark sky and stars. Christopher had his thoughts running at full speed during his journey back, not planning on stopping any time soon to give his mind a break. What if he couldn't find a way to get rid of Skobex? What if he remained here, never to see his family again? What if something happened to him whilst solving this problem? What would happen to Cinderash? He couldn't let anything happen. He had to find a solution.

He felt a chill in the air around him. He wanted to just brush it off but he felt as though he was being watched. Possibly even followed. He picked up the pace but something materialised in front of him. Christopher stumbled backwards and tripped over his feet. After quickly getting to his feet he immediately changed direction only to have the shadowy figure appeared in front of him again. He looked around him and realised that purple smoke had surrounded him in a circle formation.

He could have attempted to run through it but he wasn't sure if the smoke would affect him. He instinctively motioned for his knife but remembered that he had left everything back at the house. He silently cursed.

'We meet again, young sorcerer.' The shadowy figure said.

'You're the Lich, aren't you?' Christopher asked.

'Who else would I be?' The Lich questioned. 'Besides my power is growing rapidly, and I never properly thanked you.' He paused. 'You would make a great vessel for my spirit and powers.'

The smoke wall surrounding Christopher seemed to increase in size. They continued to grow until they met at a point at the top, trapping Christopher with the Lich inside the dome.

The Lich reached out his smoke hand and placed it on just in front of Christopher's chest. The smoke in his hand as well as the dome seemed to darken until it was almost pitch black.

Before Christopher could protest, smoke crashed over Christopher like he was in a busted bubble underwater, the water flooding over him. He kept his eyes shut tight, not knowing what was happening.

He felt the darkness that emitted from the smoke—Skobex. The smoke seemed to swirl around him, waiting to enter into his body. Skobex cackled as he willed the smoke of darkness to consume Christopher.

His body began to feel weaker through his efforts. The smoke seeped into his skin. He was becoming hopeless. The Lich would take over his body. He would probably kill him slowly — or worse, the Lich could use him to kill others. He tried to avoid those thoughts but was having great difficulty doing so.

At that moment, Christopher had a twinge of hope. He felt as though something repelled the darkness. Like someone had placed a shield around his entire body. He opened his eyes and saw a small glimmer of gold ripple across his skin. The smoke recoiled and charged again a number of times. With the combined failures, the smoke dissipated.

Skobex screeched in anger. 'You've made a terrible mistake! You've made an enemy tonight, Sorcerer. We could've made a great team.'

His shadow figure began to vanish into the ground.

Before he completely disappeared, the Lich added, 'I'll find a way to hurt you. You will pay for not helping me.'

Christopher was now alone. He was still processing what happened. The gold veil that surrounded him quickly vanished like it was never there. He decided that he should get back to Anastasia's and Juliana's house as quickly as he could.

He did go the wrong way a few times but found his way back. He wasn't aware of how late it had gotten after his meeting with Skobex. The moon hung high in the sky, but only half of it glowed. Anastasia and Juliana were both still awake and sitting at the table.

'Where have you been?' Anastasia interrogated. 'Do you know how late it is?'

'I was at the library.' He answered.

'We were worried about you.' Juliana explained. 'We didn't anticipate that you'd be gone this long.'

'We thought something bad happened.' Anastasia added, still filled with anger.

'Actually...' Christopher's voice trailed off.

'"Actually" what? What happened?'

'I had a run in with the Lich.'

He was met with a stunned silence. Anastasia's expression changed to concerned one, so did Juliana's.

'He is in need of a vessel. He tried to use me but something prevented him from doing so.'

'It's because of your powers,' Juliana explained. 'You're a sorcerer. The powers that you control depend on spells. Those spells utilise an opposite energy to the Lich; light opposed to dark. I'm pretty sure that's the reason.'

Christopher looked confused. Anastasia had her head on the table, almost as though she had fallen asleep but lifted her head as her mother finished.

He wondered why Juliana knew this about sorcery. It's probably common knowledge throughout all of Cinderash since they've faced a similar problem once before. There's probably stories that speak of the powers of the previous sorcerer—power that Christopher knew he couldn't use yet.

But with that being said, he still wasn't sure about what happened with the Lich. He needs a spell to use his powers. That doesn't explain how the gold barrier surrounded him so the Lich couldn't use him as a vessel. He didn't know any spells—not yet anyway—so how did this protection appear?

'So that means that the Lich can't control him?' Anastasia questioned.

'Yes.' Her mother replied.

'So he should have no problem getting rid of Skobex.'

He wanted to disagree. He was having doubts about himself destroying Skobex. Skobex seemed powerful, a lot more than Christopher believed he could ever be. He also didn't want to make Anastasia more angry and upset at him.

Juliana suggested that they all head to bed and could continue their discussion later. No one argued as everyone headed to their respective rooms.

Christopher sat on the bed with his head against the wall. A small oil lamp sat on the small table beside the bed, emitting only a small amount of light throughout the room. He twirled his knife in his hand as he remained awake.

His thoughts were immediately drawn to himself, since finding out that he was indeed a sorcerer. If only there was something here to guide him. A book. A person. A spell. Anything that he could learn from so he could master his abilities before taking on Skobex. At the moment he would be flying blind until he found something.

Anastasia was laying in bed wide awake. She had begun to feel guilty about how she treated Christopher.

'I'm not going to forgive him though,' She thought to herself. 'He did resurrect the Lich and put Cinderash back in the danger it faced one hundred and fifty years ago.'

She sighed. It would be right to apologise but she didn't want to admit anything yet. Just incase he did something else to put Cinderash in more danger more.

Her eyes were beginning to feel heavy but she noticed something standing in the darkest corner of the room. At first she thought it was just a shadow casted by her oil lamp. But as she looked more, she wasn't so sure.

'It's just a shadow,' She thought, 'a very life-like shadow of a person or figure...'

The person looked as though it was made of nothing but shadows and darkness. It seemed to be standing still but small puffs of what looked like smoke flying off it and around the figure. Anastasia began to feel uneasy as the dark figure seemed to stare straight at her.

'Who... who's there?' She stuttered.

There was no response but the figure seemed to walk forward, straight towards her. It was approaching fast. As the shadow figure in the corner of her room grew close to her she heard herself scream.