by Guy Antibes
“Takia, let them burn!” He yelled the trigger word, and a spear of flame leaped from the sword and hit the leader on the chest. The fire splashed back to the first few riders.
Jack urged his mount onward, and the battle began. Wizard bolts began to fly back and forth as they closed in. Helen grunted as bolts hit her, but she drove on, sword in hand. She struck the first burning wizard she passed and grimaced as another bolt hit her breastplate.
Jack rode in front of her and began painting more of the wizards in Takia’s fire. The other bolts didn’t have as much punch as his, but soon the numbers were evenly matched. Rucco had gone down, but Jack couldn’t lament his loss at this point. He attacked wizard after wizard, suffering burns to his hands and face.
A bolt hit his horse, which reared up and threw him off. Jack shook his head as he rose from the dirt. He couldn’t find his sword, but the bracers were always with him. He began shooting ice at the hands of the enemy, especially those close to Helen.
Myra Pulini stared at Jack as Helen plunged the feather into the last Black Finger before swiping at his neck with her sword. The ex-priestess’s eyes widened as she realized she was alone and galloped away. Jack realized the woman hadn’t lifted a finger to help the Black Fingers in the battle, so instead of spearing her with a wizard bolt, he snapped a wizard bolt on her horse’s behind. The horse reared, tossing the wizardess to the ground in much the same way that Jack’s horse threw him.
Jack walked up to her and helped her up. “You are our prisoner. Try to escape, and you will become just like them: dead.”
Jack tightened his grip on her wrist and said the word “clean” to purge her of any new coercion spell. She began to lose balance and collapsed to the ground with Jack still holding onto her arm. While she was unconscious, he tied her up and left her in the dirt.
Helen was staggering from wizard to wizard dispatching the injured Black Fingers. She performed a task that Jack didn’t know if he could do or not.
“What damage to us?” he asked Helen, but she didn’t respond.
“Rucco didn’t make it,” Torlo said. Jack could hear the distress in his voice. “I am burned, but alive.”
“So am I,” Penny said.
“Helen?”
She clutched her leg and fell to the ground. Jack removed her armor. She had sustained burns all over. A few bolts had even pierced her breastplate that burned past her clothes.
Jack looked at Penny. “I’ll help Torlo take care of Rucco while you help Helen. Myra is trussed up like the sow she is,” Jack said.
Jack didn’t pick up the feather’s metal case and let it lie on the ground while he fetched the three rods he had taken from the Abbey in his saddlebag from his horse. At least it hadn’t run away.
“Take this,” Jack said to Torlo as he tore the burned cloth from the burns the monk had sustained. “It looks like you’ll live.”
“Unlike Rucco. This bar will help me enough. Take care of Rucco’s body first.”
Jack nodded. After handing two rods to Penny, he approached Rucco. He wouldn’t bury him up here, so he froze his body with the blue cuff and wrapped it up in Rucco’s blanket. Then he began the grisly task of removing ten Black Finger bodies from the road and levitated dirt and rock from the ground to bury them in a mass grave.
Three of the wizards were charred as a result of Takia’s fire. Handling them just about turned Jack’s stomach, but it had to be done. Two horses had succumbed to the fire, and Torlo ended up helping Jack levitate them off the road.
When that was done, Helen was sitting up wearing a different shirt. She clutched a healing rod in both hands.
“I can help Torlo a little more,” Penny said as they gathered horses to take with them.
Jack frowned as he turned back to look at the scene of the battle. He felt awful about losing Rucco, but the rest of them were glad to be alive.
The feather was now in Penny’s saddlebag as they headed down the hill. Myra Pulini had recovered, but she was now tied to her saddle and forced to be silent by a tight gag that Helen applied. They would have to be careful since the woman could still attack them at any time.
Despite her injuries, Helen still led them down the trail. Jack rode next to Penny, since Torlo insisted on leading the horse that carried Rucco’s body. He handed Torlo’s recharged energy rod to Penny.
“You look like you need this,” he said.
Penny looked at him with weary eyes. “I do. I wish you had one that would take me back before we began this cursed errand. I thought it would be a diversion from my work with Fasher, but I’m afraid it has become a burden.”
Jack looked at her. “A burden?”
“I have memories I’d rather not have. The world isn’t a pleasant place. People disappoint you all the time. I actually knew that, but the consequences…”
“Were you so protected before you came to Raker Falls that you never knew?” Jack asked.
She just nodded, her eyes welling with tears. Penny sighed. “I’m no longer a child, am I?”
Jack had never thought of Penny as a child but as a particularly irritating teenager.
“Life has a way of disappointing you if you want to be disappointed,” Jack said. “If you want to feel slighted by every little thing and angry at them, it is up to you. Your life will be one never-ending disappointment if you do that. I learned about it from the other side. I was the disappointing one. I guess my skin is pretty thick. It always has been, just like my skull.” He smiled at her.
She barely smiled back, but her lips turned up. “I guess I’ll have to learn to be like you.”
Jack held out his palm in mock defense. “No, not like me. You just need to appreciate the good along with the bad. Everyone isn’t awful, although it seems that way sometimes when you are taken advantage of. There are good times in the past, and there will be good times in the future, but sometimes you have to look for the good times.”
“Is that why men go to pubs and common rooms?”
“Not just men…” Jack looked at Penny to see her frown. “But mostly men. Some good times are lubricated with a little alcohol, and others aren’t. Friends help when they aren’t turning on you. Tanner and Helen have helped me turn good times out of bad by being my friends.”
Helen’s head was beginning to droop up ahead. Jack took the opportunity to extract himself from an increasingly uncomfortable conversation with Penny.
“Are you tired? Should we stop and rest?” Jack said to the mercenary.
Helen nodded her head. “A little rest is what I need.”
They stopped along the road. A large tree had fallen into most of the trail, but it acted as a sitting place. Jack gathered the three spent healing rods and recharged them while they sat. He found a branch that had lost its bark and cut it into three pieces to make three more rods.
Jack gave three to Helen. She was hurting more than she let on, but she still let Penny check her before she mounted. The rest seemed to have done some good. Torlo got two rods and Penny one. Jack found a rock that he would use to charge up so he could take advantage of the healing spell himself. Myra had escaped injury. Jack didn’t quite know what to make of that.
They continued on. Penny rode with Helen, and Jack took the reins of Rucco’s horse while Torlo clutched a rod. All of them hurt, including Jack, but they would have to carry on.
Chapter Thirty-Two
~
T he track ran into a crossroads of sorts. It ended up being a familiar spot. Jack grinned. They were an hour away from Raker Falls. It seemed that he was the only one energized by returning. He grabbed the feather, wrapped in leather again, and galloped ahead. When he saw the rooftops of his home in the distance, he felt his heart beat harder.
Jack didn’t pass his home on the way to Fasher’s house. He arrived and unlocked the door, using the hidden key and called out to Tanner. There was a grunt upstairs.
He ran up the steps and stopped at the door. Tanner was a shadow of his former self.<
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“You made it back. Did you bring the feather?” he croaked.
Jack waved the leather-wrapped feather. He removed most of the leather. “Grab onto this,” he said.
Tanner did but shrugged his shoulders. “Am I supposed to feel something?”
“Yes,” Jack said. He sat on a chair. “The others are coming. Hopefully, Penny can do something with the feather that I can’t.”
He had come all this way, and the cursed thing didn’t work. How many lives were lost because of that feather? He sat back, dejected and probably feeling more like Penny had thought on the trail. He let out a big shuddering sigh.
“This is called the feather?” Tanner said.
Jack nodded. “It is inside.”
“Then why don’t you get it out? Maybe the case keeps it from working.”
“Can you open it? I can’t touch it.” Jack said, “and you probably shouldn’t either.
Tanner sat up in bed. He looked awful, but he grabbed the metal object by the leather wrapping. “This has a top that probably screws in,” he said.
He tried to unscrew it but ended up tossing it on the bed. “That is worse than the disease!”
Tanner shook his head. “Could you get me some water? I can barely make it downstairs.”
Jack saw an empty glass by the bed and filled it with Eldora’s water. “Here.”
He drank it and leaned back. “That is good. I ran out of those rods you left me a week ago.”
Jack found a little pile of them on the floor and proceeded to fill them with power. By the time he had three done, the others had walked in the front door.
“He’s up here and alive,” Jack said.
Penny ran up the stairs.
“Try to open the tube. Tanner said the top can be removed,” Jack said.
Penny unscrewed the top and pulled out a light-brown feather with thin, black stripes ending with a black band topped with a white tip.
Jack couldn’t detect any significance from the markings. It wasn’t a big feather, just as long as his hand.
Penny gawked at the feather. “This is Grishel’s?” she asked. She touched Tanner’s forehead, but the man pushed her hand away.
“That is worse than holding the cylinder!”
“It doesn’t seem to work on Tanner,” Jack said.
“Let me try something,” Penny said. “I’ll use it with a healing spell.”
She held the feather for a bit longer and then dropped it. “I can feel my magic drain!”
Jack knew what to do. “Let Helen and Tanner have some time together. See what else you can do for Torlo. You might want to fetch the healer for the burns. Don’t let anyone touch the feather. I shouldn’t have let you touch him with it.”
Penny looked a bit perplexed but nodded. “Of course.”
“I’ll run home to get something and come right back.”
Jack ran down the stairs and paused by Rucco’s body. He paused to put his hand on it as he walked past and continued to hurry home. He took the stairs to his bedroom three at a time and grabbed the warded box. He could feel the power seep into his body as he clutched it all the way back to Fasher’s house.
He ran upstairs, but Penny hadn’t returned. The door to Tanner’s room was closed, and Torlo sat in a chair in the hall.
“We have to get Rucco buried,” he said.
“As soon as Penny comes back.”
He could hear the door open as he finished his words. Steps clunked up the stairs. The healer looked at Torlo. “Is this the patient?”
“One of them,” Jack said.
“You look like you need me too.”
“We all need you,” Jack said. “You can begin with Torlo. Fasher’s office might be a better place to help all of us.”
Torlo stood up and slowly went down the stairs, followed by the healer. Penny was about to follow, but Jack grabbed her sleeve.
“Tanner first,” he said. He knocked on the door. Helen opened it. She had tears tracking down her face, but she let them in while she wiped them away.
“We will try this again. I will hold onto Penny and feed her power while she uses the feather. The idea is to extract the illness spell.”
Penny nodded, but Jack could see the doubt on her face.
“You need to have the attitude that you will succeed or the spell won’t work,” Jack said.
He felt he knew what needed to be done, but he didn’t think the feather’s spell would work going through him.
He wrapped his hand around the warded box.
“What is that?” Penny asked.
“An object of power,” Jack said. “It isn’t Fasher’s, it is mine, by the way.”
“What does it do?”
Jack chuckled. “I think it is a helper’s helper. It gives magical energy to me. Helen and Tanner know about the box.”
Penny looked at it with distrust but didn’t say anything else.
“Use the feather while I feed you with power,” Jack said.
Penny took a deep breath before she picked up the feather on Tanner’s bed and touched it to his forehead. Jack could feel the power flow from the box to Penny.
“Expel the sickness,” she said forcefully. Jack felt a massive pulse of power move through him, but Penny fell across Tanner in a faint.
Tanner’s eyes closed as well, but then they opened. “It’s gone,” he said. “I’m still weak, but the sickness is gone.”
“I hope Penny didn’t catch it,” Helen said, lifting the girl from the bed.
“We can’t risk her again,” Jack said. “She isn’t able to handle the power.” He sat down, wondering how she could make it to the coast.
“I can handle it,” Myra said. “I can handle it, but it looks like she won’t be able to ride.”
“How did you get untied?”
Myra smiled. “A lady has her ways.”
Torlo struggled up the stairs. “She needed to wash up,” he said. “Myra could have run out of the house, but she didn’t.”
Jack sighed. “If Penny can’t ride, then you will have to come with me. Can you handle changing sides one more time?”
“I expected you to kill me along with the other Black Fingers,” she said. “Addio had me under his spell, and then when he died, I was converted again.” She showed them her clean fingers. “I prefer my fingers pink.”
Jack didn’t know if he could trust the woman, but he didn’t have the luxury of waiting any longer, not with the way Tanner had looked.
“You and I will travel to the coast,” Jack said the Myra. “Helen isn’t in any shape to ride any more than Torlo or Penny.” He looked at Tanner. “Will you show me where the village is?”
Tanner nodded. Already he looked better than when Jack arrived.
Jack walked into the spare bedroom on the upper level. He had never set foot on the second floor until he sought Tanner. Penny rested quietly, but she was still out. He took her hand.
“I’m sorry you are like this,” he said. “If you don’t wake up, and if Fasher can’t bring you out of wherever you are at, I promise you I will find a way. I didn’t know the spell would affect you.” Jack let out a shuddering breath. He had been so good at not trying things out, but when it came to his friends’ lives, he took the chance, and it didn’t work. He left Penny’s room with a lot of guilt.
By the time he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked up and realized if he had to do it all over again, he probably would have made the same decision. Tanner was healthy, so the spell worked. His sadness multiplied when Torlo, Helen, and he took Rucco’s body to the village cemetery. Torlo said a few words and offered a prayer to Grishel before the man’s burial.
~
After a quick change of clothes and a few words with his parents, Jack, now carrying the orb and the warded box, along with a bag full of rods stood in front of Fasher’s house.
“I will look after Penny,” Torlo said.
“We will look after Penny.” Helen glared at the monk.
> Tanner had made it downstairs. “You haven’t gotten your horses yet. You should take spares.”
“We won’t be using horses,” Jack said. “Too slow. Now that I have a few more objects, we will go by other means.”
Myra stared at Jack. “What other means?” she said.
“Hold my hand.”
“I won’t do that until you tell me what you are going to do.”
“Teleport,” Jack said.
She coughed. “You know how to teleport? So what? It will take us days teleporting a few feet at a time.”
“I once teleported from Lajia to Raker Falls,” Jack said.
Myra laughed, and it was Torlo’s turn to cough. “No one can do that,” the monk said.
Jack pointed to Tanner and Helen. “They are witnesses.”
“Partial witnesses,” Helen said. “But he made it from Lajia to Raker Falls weeks before we made the same trip.”
“Your hand?” Myra wiped her hand on her new dress. She had cast off her robes. Her grasp was tentative, but it was enough.
“Grab a little harder,” Jack said. The woman squeezed the life out of Jack’s hand. “Somewhere in between.”
The others laughed.
“Good luck,” Torlo said.
Jack nodded and took Myra to a crossroads a few miles from Raker Falls. They dropped a foot to the ground.
“The spell errs on having you arrive above ground level. When I teleported to Raker Falls, I think I fell six feet to the ground.”
“That would take an amazing amount of power.”
Jack showed her the Serpent’s Orb. “This object stores a great deal of power,” Jack said. “I used it all up. Fasher was very upset with me.” Jack looked into the distance. “I think we can safely teleport as far as we can see ahead. That would be the safest from here on out. I am familiar with this crossroads. You and horses would be too much, even for the orb.”
“I know enough to realize that,” Myra said. She grabbed Jack’s hand again.
“In case you are thinking about taking the orb, bear in mind that only Fasher Tempest and I can probably use it.”
Another teleport and they stood at the top of the road. Jack could look back and see the crossroad a few miles behind them.