A Tune of Demons Box Set: The Complete Fantasy Series

by J E Mueller

  The next week went by quickly and soon we were departing once more with promises to visit again in the fall.

  As we made our way home we sensed something strange in the air. We soon stopped in our tracks.

  “Do you have the same feeling I do?” Lee asked with concern.

  I nodded, “It’s the same feeling I had when my brother and the troops were ambushed,” I said, easily recalling it.

  Lee’s eyes shifted into their magic state and I saw his face flush.

  “What is it?” I demanded, worried.

  “My mother was caring for someone with a stab wound who was holding a letter covered in blood. I haven’t got the slightest idea what this could mean.”

  “How far out is this event?” I asked.

  “We’ll just miss whatever caused it.” He sighed. “Let’s get going.”

  “Is this set in stone?” While part of me felt terrible to see one occur, another part of me was excited to learn more about it.

  Lee’s expression said it all, but he answered anyway. “Yes. There’s no changing that.”

  We fell silent and continued home at a quickened pace. When we arrived and rushed in the house Juni was surprised to see us. The person was tall - much too tall to lay on the sofa - and his wound looked terrible, but Juni did not appear to be overly concerned about it.

  “What’s going on?” Lee asked. The tension in his voice filled the room.

  “It’s a long story.” She took a deep breath as she prepared to explain, but the man on the sofa held up his hand.

  “I’ll explain. He should hear it from me,” the man replied.

  “But your wound…” I protested.

  He waved my concern away, “It’ll be completely healed within the hour.”

  “So, you’re who I think you are?” Lee asked softly, and then his face darkened with anger.

  “I wish we were meeting on better terms, son, but life isn’t always kind,” he agreed, handing him the letter.

  Lee took it and tossed it on the end table before crossing his arms. “Explain.”

  “Your mother’s being watched. Hunted. They know you’re Blessed born and want you to suffer. They want you to lose her,” he explained carefully. So much for a reunion.

  “And you’ve come out of the shadows to tell us this.” Lee’s fury was palpable

  “No, I came because now I can help your mother. But I am afraid I can’t help you. There is a small group that knows who you are and who you care for. They’ll use that knowledge as leverage against you.”

  “We can handle it,” he assured his father.

  “Not without help.”

  “We’ve got it,” Lee replied firmly. His lips were tight, and arms were crossed. It was clear that we weren’t going to get a better answer from him.

  His father sighed and shook his head. “The envelope contains a series of fixed points. I understand you know what that means.”

  “And what can you do to help, then?” Lee asked with an exasperated sigh. He was tired from the rushed journey and from hearing more bad news. “There’s no changing them, whatever they are. So what can you do to help?”

  He looked at me. “When the time comes, the Willow’s Gate is where you’ll find your answers.”

  The words struck home with me.

  “That is the most help I can offer you right now.” He looked at Juni. “I’m sorry… so sorry to leave so soon, but they know I’m here. If I stay, I will be putting everyone in this village in danger.”

  “I understand,” Juni replied, sadness filled her eyes and voice.

  With no further warning, he vanished into thin air.

  “You shouldn’t be mad at him,” Juni told her son, moving to comfort him.

  “I can be mad at anyone who upsets my mother. Even more so at someone who can never stay,” Lee retorted.

  “I’m not upset with him, dear,” she insisted.

  “Even when you told me your lie I knew it hurt, and now knowing that he wasn’t honest with you from the beginning… He upset you, and that can’t be easily forgiven.” Lee shook his head.

  Not wanting to argue, Juni left for her own room.

  Picking up the envelope, I handed it back to Lee. “We should at least see what it says.”

  Lee sighed as he reluctantly opened it. I watched as his jaw dropped and I rushed around him to read it as well. The first one on the list was going to happen this week.

  Juniper goes missing.

  Kegan is injured.

  Lydia is used as bait.

  “How can my mother go missing?” Lee asked. “Didn’t he just say he could protect her?”

  “It is very vague,” I pointed out. “It just says that she goes missing. I think he would have told us if we would be unable to find her again.”

  “Who are Kegan and Lydia?” Lee asked, confused.

  “I don’t know who Lydia is, but Kegan is an old friend of mine. An inn keep in Faraden,” I explained, feeling a pit growing in my stomach. “Her inn is called the Willow’s Gate. That’s why he told us.” Whatever was to come was going to quickly lead us there.

  “I don’t like where this is heading,” Lee confessed, tossing the letter aside once more.

  “Me neither, and I have the feeling it’ll start soon.” I looked at him, his eyes widened and he rushed to check on his mother.

  He came back after a few moments. “She’s fine,” Lee informed me while taking a deep breath. “But we don’t know how long that will last.” He groaned, sat down, and let magic fill his vision again. “By the end of the week.”

  “We should see if Emmyth is around. Maybe he can help,” I suggested.

  “Can you find him? Please?” He asked me. “I need to talk to my mother.” Lee got up and left to speak with her.

  Just my luck it would seem. Things had just been looking up. While I didn’t think it would last forever, I hadn’t expected any sort of demonic forces to regroup so quickly.

  I left the house, trying to ready myself for whatever was to come our way.

  There was no use dwelling on the events of the past year. It seemed like a century ago I was constantly on the move, hiding because of my curse. Things were somehow the opposite now. Instead of running from my fire, I was using it as a gift. Instead of hiding, I was often among friends. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that I was still on the move. Luck liked to have its way. I could only hope that with help from Emmyth we’d get answers.

  Much to my dismay, when I found him, he was already heading out of the village.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, surprised, and slightly breathless from my search.

  “I’ve been given a new mission,” he replied simply. “What’s wrong now?” He asked, glancing me over, assessing how bad it could be.

  “It’s really weird that you get a new mission right when we learned of imminent disaster.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Okay, explain.” We continued walking for a bit, stopping a few feet from the village gate where we were just out of earshot of the guards.

  “Lee’s mother is going to be taken. It’s a fixed event. We’ve been given three fixed events by Lee’s father and a message that the demons are watching. They know Lee’s blessed. ” I rambled it off. My sentences felt jumbled together but I hoped he understood the gist of it.

  Emmyth considered my ramblings for a moment. “The demons are a problem. If there is only a small group of them, they can be hunted and banished and Lee will be forgotten about again.” Emmyth thought about what he had said, “But Lee’s skills are just blooming, and he has no idea what he’s getting into.” He sighed. “I knew I should have left this morning. Now I’ll feel bad if I don’t help, but I’ve got somewhere to be.”

  “We’d really appreciate it,” I told him pleadingly.

  Emmyth thought for a moment. “When’s the first fixed event going to occur?”

  “Later this week,” I replied.

  “It will take me at least a week to complete
my task.” He grumbled to himself for a moment, “You said there were more? When is the next one going to occur.”

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “But somehow it’ll take us to Faraden and my friend Kegan’s inn. The Willow’s Gate.”

  “Are you certain?” Emmyth asked carefully.

  I could hear the hesitation in his voice. “Yes. Positive. Are we going to see you there?”

  “Yes… So it seems our two tasks are connected. This can’t be a good start to my mission.” He dropped his sack, pulled out a sheet of paper, and handed it to me. “While I will be in the area, I don’t know if we’ll run into each other. Do you remember what I told you?”

  “Valeon’s Lullaby is the saddest song I’ve ever heard,” I recalled as best as I could.

  “Close enough. That’ll get you where you need to go.” He tapped on the paper he had handed me. “We’ll meet up again soon.” Emmyth picked up his bag and continued on his way.

  I looked at the paper he had handed me. It was covered in symbols I couldn’t read and I had no idea what to do with it. Apparently it was important. I decided to take it everywhere with me just in case I would need it. For now, I had to get back. I was disappointed that Emmyth wasn’t going to stay, but the fact that our events were connected gave me hope that everything could be resolved in our favor.

  With this new information gained, I made my way back to Lee. I took my time getting back. It had only taken an hour to find Emmyth, if that, and our conversation had not been long. I knew Lee needed time to talk with his mother.

  33

  Arriving back sooner than I wanted, I sat down and tried to work on my crochet project that was slowly but surely nearing completion. I kept pausing to see if I could hear anything, but I didn’t. It was several hours later before Lee came out.

  He sat down next to me. “Any luck?”

  “Yes and no,” I relayed my conversation with Emmyth to him.

  “That really doesn’t sound good, but I guess it’s not the worst news we could have received,” Lee agreed with my thoughts. “And I already hate that I can’t stop whatever’s going to happen to my mother.”

  “We’ll just have to solve it quickly.” I paused. “Since we know she’s going to be taken anyway, and there’s nothing we can do… Can we go onto the next step early? Will that matter?”

  Lee looked upset at first but considered it, “I actually don’t know what that’ll do.” He thought for a moment, “I would rather set up a game plan first. If mother is going to be missing, I don’t want anyone here to think that demons can just take people. It’s happened in the past, but it’s more of a bedtime story to make small children behave. No one remembers such a thing happening, but these stories are often based on truths. We’ll need to plan for a reason to be away, and then we’ll get ready to go.”

  It wasn’t hard conjuring up a reason to leave, especially since we could still tell people details that were true. People knew we’d be traveling to Faraden and that we had friends there. What was hard was coming up with a story that could convince Tella of our need to leave. She had a natural curiosity and asked twice as many questions as anyone else. After some debate, Lee told her he had a secret mission and would be back as soon as he could.

  “Is it about the demons?” she asked, surprising us.

  “Why would you think it’s about demons?” Lee asked.

  “They watch you all the time,” she declared as if it was a common fact we should have already known.

  I eyed Lee carefully before turning back to Tella. “You can see demons? Are you sure they’re demons?”

  “There’s lots to see. Ghosts, demons, angels. They’re everywhere, but Momma says if you mind your own business they won’t bother you and will eventually go away. Some do, some seem to stay forever,” Tella just shrugged it off.

  “I can see why your mother hasn’t told anyone,” Lee said carefully. “It’s a big secret to keep.” This poor guy couldn’t catch a break from family secrets.

  “Yeah, if everyone knows you can see them, they’ll ask all sorts of questions you can’t answer.” Tella agreed, sounding rather annoyed. That wasn’t like her at all and I wondered how she had learned that. “Demons rarely take a physical form, much like angels. They look very similar to ghosts but are more fiery.”

  “Do any of them talk to you?” Lee asked hesitantly.

  “Some try, but I ignore the bad ones,” she said cheerfully. “They like to say things to scare you, but they can’t do much if you don’t listen.”

  “What do the good ones say?” I asked, happy to hear she was shutting out anything negative. I couldn’t imagine how terrible that gift could be if she didn’t have that discipline. In some ways, I wondered if it was more like a curse, but kept the thought to myself.

  “Some just say to say hi to people, or give someone they miss a hug, but for the most part it’s boring. They tell me about the weather, or to add something to the stew, or that my ribbon fell out. I don’t lose ribbons much, at least.” She smiled, amused at some memory.

  “How old are you now, Tella?” I asked curiously, realizing I never did ask her age. She was younger, and even younger looking but from the way she kept these secrets, I was starting to think I had guessed her age wrong.

  “I’ll be fifteen next month.” She said proudly.

  “We’ll do our best to be here before then,” Lee reassured her.

  Tella looked off for a moment but quickly turned her attention back to Lee, “Since you know my secret, you can tell me yours.” She smiled pleasantly. “You’re not currently being watched, and someone you’re already mad at thinks I can help.”

  “Who?” I asked, confused.

  “Dammit, he’s still here isn’t he?” Lee grumbled.

  “He’s going to continue to watch over Auntie Juni whether you like it or not.” Tella rolled her eyes. “But the good news is I can see them.”

  “Ooooh. I get it,” I liked this plan.

  “We’re not involving my cousin!” Lee almost shouted, outraged.

  “We don’t have to involve her in all of it.” I shook my head. “But if demons take your mother, she can see where they take her. She even knows how to not be noticed by them and how and when to acknowledge which presences are around her. It’s a great talent.”

  “Exactly.” Tella nodded to Lee before turning to me. “Aunt Juni is in trouble?”

  “It’s like you said before, they’ve been watching Lee.” I ignored his annoyance at my explanation. “They know he’s got the gift to actually hunt and kill them and that he does not know how to use it yet. If they can lure him out and get rid of him, that’s one less threat they need to worry about.”

  “I hate demons.” Tella made a foul face. “But I can still help. I can point you in the right direction.” She paused. “I don’t know if I’d want to do more than that.”

  “Good, because I won’t let you,” Lee agreed. “I’m not putting anyone else in danger.”

  Tella shrugged before glancing around. “Please don’t tell mom I said anything about the ghosts. She’ll ground me for a month at least.”

  “I really don’t want him sticking around here. Can you tell him that?” Lee grumbled at the ceiling.

  “He can hear you, you just can’t hear him. I’m not getting involved in a stupid fight.” Tella stuck her tongue out at Lee then skipped off.

  “It’s not a fight, I just don’t like him suddenly being around after abandoning us,” Lee muttered.

  “It will be interesting to hear what the reason was someday,” I mused.

  Lee rolled his eyes. “You can’t wait over twenty years and expect someone to be interested in hearing your reason for leaving.”

  Fair point. I couldn’t hold that against him. “Anyway, we are forgetting that we need to get things ready to go to make this plan work. That’s more important than a family squabble.”

  “Sounds good,” Lee agreed, happy to be off the parental subject.

&n
bsp; And with that, the week continued on. Halfway through the next week we were doubting whether or not the fixed event would actually come to pass. Lee constantly searched his vision for when it would occur until I made the suggestion to search for why it was delayed.

  “There’s a new player in the game.” He said in surprise, “I can’t see the face, and the outfit is strange. I haven’t seen one like it around here. It’s hooded, but instead of a round hood it comes down to make a V in the middle, blocking the face but letting the wearer see. It’s dark and she has daggers… At least I think it’s a she. The frame is small but it’s too hard to tell for sure.”

  “What’s her part in all of this?” I didn’t try to hide I was confused by all of this.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.” He grumbled. “I’m going to check in on my mother at my aunt’s.”

  Tella skipped inside while holding a box as Lee was heading out.

  “How’s my favorite little cousin?” he asked.

  “Good!” she called to him as he left. Tella paused for a moment and watched him leave. “Perfect timing.”

  “What’s that about?” I asked, not sure what she was up to.

  Tella glanced at me with a sly smile. “I know you’ll get this better than anyone. I need your help.”

  “All right, with what?” I asked, getting up to follow her into my room. Tella wasn’t normally sneaky, so this piqued my interest.

  Tella dumped the contents of the box onto my bed and went to lock the door as I stared at it. There were a set of daggers, and homemade leather sheaths, and a very well made cloak. It seemed that Lee was full of questions and I was getting all the answers.

  “Alright, I’m game. What do you need my help with?” I crossed my arms and turned to her. Tella had no idea she was accidentally getting more involved.

  She smiled. “Well, I’m sure you remember the whole mess with the village being attacked when I was captured.”

  “Of course.” I nodded and let her continue. She hadn’t spoken much of the incident, and I would gladly help her with whatever she needed.

  “I started practicing in secret, then but now there’s more stuff going on and I have a feeling there’s never going to be an end to it. I want to be able to fight for myself. I can’t be an innocent bystander forever.”