by Guy Antibes
“He is a wizard, all right,” Carlo said. “Plunked the bad guy right through the forehead.” Sammo’s brother pointed his finger at the wall and shook it once.
“I don’t know how to heal,” Jack said.
“I didn’t say you did, but you have a purity of power that is rare, even for a healer such as myself. Are you going to the monastery at Ullori?”
Jack nodded.
“You are going to ask for Grishel’s Feather?” the healer said.
“How did you know?”
“A woman healer and a young man with such power. Why else would you be in the mountains with this lout? I recognize his face. He has been through the village before.” He turned to Carlo. “Haven’t you two?”
“My cousin asked me to guide these people to the monastery. I’ve been a guide before.”
The healer nodded. “You have. You brought me a merchant, nearly dead after being beaten. I remember.”
“Ah, that was you?” Jack asked.
The healer nodded. “It was.” He looked at Jack. “You will have to be careful when you ask, but be prepared to be rejected. Be polite, or you will end up like the merchant. The prioress has a nasty streak. She practices the higher manipulations despite their rules and isn’t a person to antagonize.”
“Carlo warned us,” Jack said, nodding toward the brother.
“Good. You can always ask. I’m sure someone needs the feather.”
“My master and his new wife have been afflicted by a magical disease. He is the healer and says that only Grishel’s Feather can save them.”
“Then he is probably right. There are some strange spells in the world. Don’t you go seeking after them,” the man said. “After you reach a certain level, everything is dangerous, and that supposedly includes Grishel’s Feather.”
Sammo moaned. He opened his eyes, stopping the conversation. “I am alive?”
“As am I,” the healer said. “I will leave a powder for you to drink in a glass of water, not a mug of ale. Ale will affect its recuperative properties. You will be sleepy for some time, though. If you had intended to accompany this boy and the girl to the monastery, give it up. You need to stay in this bed for a few days or what good has been done to you will be undone.”
“I’ve been stabbed before,” Sammo said. He looked at Jack holding onto his hand and shook it off. “I’m not your boyfriend.”
The wizard nodded to Jack and rose to his feet. “Maybe not a boyfriend, but a saving friend. I will return in the morning.” He gave them a tight bow and left them.
“Do you feel healed?” Carlo asked his brother.
“Healed enough. I hate wizard healing. It hurts more than the knife sliding through me.”
“But you will be up and about quicker, and your wound won’t fester,” Jack said.
“What was he saying about your helping heal me?” Sammo said.
“You weren’t unconscious?”
Sammo laughed, but it seemed to hurt, so he stopped. “I was at some point when Penny worked on me, but when the healer showed up, I heard every word.” He grinned.
“I have some extra power inside me. I’ve lent a hand, literally this time, to give the healing a little boost. I didn’t realize I did this time, but—” Jack shrugged.
“The warmth that I felt from your grasp didn’t mean something deeper between us? I thought that you might be my next boyfriend?”
Carlo laughed, and Jack did too. “I’m glad to see you are on the mend,” Jack said. “We can’t take you with us, though.”
Sammo’s face turned serious. “I know that well enough. My last stab wound was worse than this. We should have faced those two with an armor bit or two on. Right, Carlo?”
Carlo nodded.
Sammo blinked a bit. “I am feeling a bit tired. Why don’t you get a bite to eat while I rest up?”
Penny poked her head in the door. “Is he feeling better? The healer said we didn’t have to watch over him.”
Jack heard a snore, and Sammo was definitely not listening in.
Chapter Eighteen
~
“T hank you,” Penny said.
“For what?” Jack asked.
“I don’t think I could go on, thinking that those two men were following us. Thank you for taking care of my fears.”
Jack couldn’t detect any emotion in Penny’s words, but it seemed she wasn't sarcastic.
“And thank you for lending me some of your power. I didn’t think I could do all that I did. When I worked with Fasher, he always had an object of power to give me when I healed on my own. That is what a helper does, isn’t it? I didn’t really understand before last night.”
Penny’s admission took Jack by surprise. On the one hand, he was pleased she might have an inkling of understanding what he was about, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t have any more fun with her not knowing what a helper really was. He sighed.
“What are you thinking? All I hear are faint rumblings.”
“I am still a bit confused about the healing stuff, that’s all,” Jack said.
“Oh.”
Jack looked ahead as Penny turned to look back at him. She rode with Barria this morning. Carlo was talking quietly with Ferrio and occasionally burst out with laughter. But knowing Carlo, that didn’t mean anything.
Jack found his old clothes, including his boots in the deceased bandits’ saddlebags. He did feel bad he had to kill to get them back, but if he hadn’t defended himself and the brothers, one of those on his side would be dead. At least they hadn’t discovered Jack’s crowns in the boot heel.
Helen scouted ahead, now that their shadows had expired in the stable yard, so Jack took his normal position in the rear.
He heard hoofbeats behind him. “Someone is coming,” he called up ahead.
Barria and Carlo drew their swords. Penny looked confused, as did Ferrio. Jack put his helmet on as seven riders came into view behind him. Where was Helen? He wished he could speak to her like he could with Penny. He felt a tinge of fear with the mercenary scouting ahead.
“Brigands!” Carlo said, riding up to Jack’s side.
“How do you know?” Jack said.
“No uniforms, swords were drawn, and we are stuck here gawking at them when we should be riding as fast as we can up the road.”
“Too late,” Jack said.
Carlo nodded. “Use some of that magic on them, boy. Where is Sammo when we need him?”
Jack looked at Carlo. He undoubtedly missed his brother.
“You’ll get to tell our story,” Jack said.
Carlo brightened. “I will, won’t I?”
“Uh oh,” Jack said, as an arrow whizzed past them to land in the dirt.
Jack tried to find the archer and spotted him in the middle of the riders. He pointed his sword and guided a wizard bolt to strike the archer’s hand that held the bow.
“How did you do that?”
“I’m a wizard, right?” Jack said. He felt like grinning, but it wasn’t the right time. “These are the bandits you talked about.”
“Seven of them, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”
“This time, they aren’t. My eyes are telling me the same thing,” Jack said.
He aimed another, weaker bolt at the man in front. The man clutched his chest but ended up rubbing it. He stopped the horses and dismounted.
Raising his hands, he walked the distance from where the bandits milled around and stopped ten paces from Jack and Carlo.
“You are a better wizard than we are archers and swordsmen,” the bandit said. “Perhaps we can come to terms.”
“What kind of terms?” Carlo asked.
“A few gold crowns in our pockets might be enough to send us on our way.”
“So you know we are Corandians?” Jack asked. The Passoranians used different coinage.
“Who killed two Corandian associates of ours in the village below?” the man asked.
“Were they friends of yours?”
T
he brigand shrugged. “Of a sort, yes.”
“Do you wish to suffer the same fate they did?” Carlo said.
After a moment, the man pursed his lips. “Your brother will die by one of our brothers’ hand if we don’t return.”
Jack’s heart fell. He didn’t know what to do. Tanner wasn’t there, and Helen was scouting in the wrong direction.
“You want to die?” Barria yelled from behind them. “We will kill you and the assassin who waits for your word.” She passed Jack with her sword raised.
Jack saw another bow raised and had no choice. The fight was on, and it appeared it was to the death. He unleashed a few more bolts, but without Eldora’s warded box, he could feel the power drain. He used up the power stored in the knife as Carlo and Barria attacked, with Penny shooting a few inaccurate wizard bolts from the wand.
With a sigh, Jack realized he needed to retain enough power to help save Sammo. He had thought he was invincible, but without the power in the warded box, he was wasting his power. He rode into the fray, but a horse shot from behind him.
“Go to the village. Take Penny with you,” Helen said as she rushed past. The odds were more than even now.
“To the village, Penny! Follow me,” Jack said.
The two of them wheeled their horses around. Penny nearly fell off her horse, but Jack was there to help her get vertical again. They raced back to the village. They had already been on the road for half an hour, but the return trip would be a fraction of that.
Jack pulled up before they entered the village. “I’ve learned to change things up instead of heading directly into danger. We will circle the village and come in from the other side. I’m going to put on all my armor and you should too.”
Penny didn’t say a word to Jack while he buckled everything up. He inspected Penny’s armor and nodded.
“Just follow my lead,” Jack said. “Our purpose is to remove the threat from Sammo.”
Penny nodded. “He can’t defend himself for very long,” she said.
“I know a few more spells that I haven’t told you about. You should be prepared to use the invisibility spell in your knife. If things get dangerous, we can communicate without speaking.”
“You really know what you are doing?” Penny asked solemnly.
Jack laughed. “Not at all. I’m making it up as I go along, but I think that is part of doing something like this. We must react to the situation because we don’t know what it will be.”
“No plan?”
“Not this time,” Jack said, “but you must expect the unexpected.” He chuckled. “That sounded brave. I think I like reacting to situations, so I don’t have to think so hard. It makes it easier to plunge ahead. Let’s hope the bandit was bluffing.”
“You really think so?” Penny sounded hopeful.
“No. Those were hard people we defeated.”
“Are Tanner and Helen hard?” she asked.
Jack didn’t want to talk so much, but Penny seemed very nervous.
“When they need to be. Just concentrate on saving Sammo, and assume he needs to be saved.”
They continued to ride around the village and rode in from the opposite direction, taking back streets.
“Are we lost?” Penny said, back to her normal self.
“Not exactly. We are making our way in the right direction.”
Penny snorted, but then she nodded. Jack wondered what might be going through her mind. Every time he tried to read her mind, all he could detect was muddled and muffled.
“Can we take him with us if we need to?” Jack asked.
“Only if his life is in danger, because it will be, for certain, if he has to ride a horse.”
Jack pressed his lips together and rode on, eventually coming to the back of the inn. He looked up at the dormitory window. A man looked out at the stable below, but Jack thought they wouldn’t be noticed from their vantage point.
He dismounted and urged Penny to do the same. “Invisibility as soon as we step into the stable yard,” Jack said. “If the watcher doesn’t see us go in, we will have an advantage.”
“I will follow you,” she said.
“As if,” Jack thought.
“What do you mean, as if?” Penny stopped putting her fists on her hips and looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “It is hard to get used to us working with each other rather than against each other. Bad habits are hard to break.”
“You are the bad habit,” Penny said, “but we will have to endure each other for the rest of the trip, so watch your thoughts.”
Jack smiled. She sounded a little like Helen. When he reached the gate to the stable, he spelled invisibility and peeked around to look at the window. The same person looked out. It wasn’t a casual glance at all. The man was analyzing all that he saw. Jack had hoped for a bluff, but it didn’t seem like this was one.
“Invisibility, but we will hug the wall. Our shadows can be seen,” Jack said. “Invisibility is an illusion. Remember that.”
Penny gulped and disappeared. He could feel her hand grab his. That was good thinking or a nervous reaction. Jack didn’t care at present. He began to approach the inn’s door.
A horse galloped into the yard. Jack looked up at the window, and the two men nodded at each other.
“The bandits are about to execute Sammo,” Jack said. “We have to hurry upstairs.”
“If you hadn’t gotten lost in the village, we would have had more time.”
Jack sighed. “Lost or not, he was able to make a straight line through the village to the inn, we didn’t.”
“Right,” Penny said.
Jack yanked on her hand and slipped into the inn while the rider was dismounting. He continued to pull her along as they made their way to the dormitory. Jack tried the latch. It was locked.
“I am going to teleport us into the room. Draw your sword and try to keep from sticking me with it. I will continue to hold your hand.”
“Teleport? You can do that too? Fasher will be livid.”
Jack shook his head with exasperation. “Now is not the time.”
“I have to switch hands then,” Penny said.
Jack flashed into visibility so she could see his hand, and then he was invisible again. He drew his own sword and touched the hilt of his knife for a dose of magical power. Once he felt the power transfer. He moved.
“Here we go.”
When Jack teleported into the room, he saw two men were standing above Sammo’s bed.
“Looks like it’s time you kicked the bucket, Torito.”
“C’mon,” Sammo said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You killed our Corandian contacts before they could pay us,” the other man said as he drew his knife.
“Watch the door,” Jack said to Penny as he aimed his sword at the closest brigand.
Jack was about to let the bolt go when the door opened, knocking the sword out of his grasp. The bandit must have had a key.
Penny screamed, let go of Jack’s hand and instantly became visible.
“How did you get in here?” the newcomer said.
Jack used his knife to shoot one bolt at the man leaning over Sammo. The brigand fell to the ground. Jack took advantage of the confusion to grab his sword. He became visible, pointing his weapon at the new man, closest to Penny.
“Over here, Penny,” Jack said.
She ran behind Jack, the point of her sword dragging on the wood floor.
“Corandian contacts?” Jack said.
“You are a more adept wizard than we were led to believe,” the man who watched the stable said.
“Move away from Sammo’s bed,” Jack said.
He snapped a bolt close to where the man stood. That was enough to make the brigand move away from Sammo.
“Check him out,” Jack said, “please.” His request had sounded too much like a command, even to him.
Penny hurried to the far side of the bed, tripping over the body on the floor. She gasp
ed but continued.
“They didn’t hurt me too bad,” Sammo said.
Jack tried to ignore him.
“Corandian contacts, you said. Why did you need to contact them?”
“We were going to help them get a woman out of the monastery. They promised to pay us a lot of money,” the rider said.
“Why kill Sammo?”
The two men looked at each other. “Because you killed some of our brothers.”
“All your brothers,” Jack said, trying to picture Tanner speaking. “You two are the only ones left.”
The rider pulled a rod of some kind and pointed it at Jack. A wizard bolt splattered on Jack’s cuirass. Jack drilled a big bolt through the man’s chest. Jack smelled burned metal as he watched the man’s eyes looked shocked before he crumpled to the floor.
“I suppose you want to join him?” Jack asked. “You are brothers, after all.”
“Actually, I’m an only child,” the man said.
“Then leave and don’t bother us. If you do, you will join them, brothers or not.”
The brigand opened the door. Jack could hear him clunking down the stairs. In a moment, more footsteps were on the stairs. Jack moved to the bed to shield Sammo. The door opened.
“Is everything over?” the innkeeper said.
The old healer poked his head over the innkeeper’s shoulder. “You prevailed?” He sounded like he didn’t expect Jack to have bettered the bandits.
“We are alive, and they aren’t,” Jack said.
“We captured the one you let go.” The innkeeper said before he stared at the two bodies before the healer examined both bandits.
“This wizard bolt was yours?” the healer asked pointing to the scorched tunic revealing a breastplate beneath.
“It was,” Jack said. “It cost me a lot of power.”
“I didn’t think anyone could do such a thing.”
Jack raised his sword. “This is an object of power. It amplifies what I can do on my own.”
“So that is what is in the sword. I wondered about that,” the healer said. “A swordsman doesn’t have a chance against you.”
“But many swordsmen together and archers do,” Jack said. “I am not invulnerable.”