The Forsaken Call

by Jamie Murray

  "I was a strong thirteen," Cyrus said, but it was obvious he was mostly just trying to convince himself. "And we learned a lot in our journeys around to the other nations."

  "Anything which has come in handy?" questioned Luke.

  "I've learned how to fight," said Cyrus. "Better than when Baloric tried to teach me. Now I know how to handle a sword."

  "And the Fighter has accepted you?" Jameson asked.

  Cyrus put his hand on the handle of the sword, his eyes wandering towards the sky as he exhaled deeply. "There must be a reason the power rejected Walden and went into my hand…"

  "Hey, you guys," Louisa called from inside the cart as she poked her head out. "What's all this serious talk out here?"

  "No serious talk," Jameson said.

  "Just man stuff," Luke offered.

  "In front of Tina?" Louisa said.

  "I can handle it," Erestina said, smiling.

  "You want to come back here with us?" Louisa suggested.

  Erestina nodded at first, but then looked back to Cyrus as if to ask his permission. She climbed off the cart and allowed it to pass her, then Louisa reached out to pull her into the opening of the cart. Once she was up and settled, she waved to the others and entered into the covered portion.

  "How long will it take to get to Gislan at this pace?" Jameson said, riding right up next to Cyrus.

  The younger man paused for a few moments, genuinely unsure of the answer. "We can make good time because there're enough of us to just keep switching off," he replied finally. "The rest of the night, at least. But that will just take us to the borders of Gislan. Joy Angel's territory is fairly deep in the nation."

  "You hear that Luke?" Jameson called back to his friend. "It's going to be a pretty long trip. I wouldn't be offended if you turned around and went back to the Forest."

  Jameson knew saying that to Luke would have no effect. After all, Luke had already committed himself to the trip but Jameson somehow found humor in bringing it up even after Luke had so adamantly announced his dedication.

  "You act like you want me gone," Luke said with a smile.

  "Maybe that's not far from the truth," Jameson said.

  "Yeah right, you practically begged me to come," said Luke.

  "Did you beg, Jameson?" Cyrus asked. At first, Jameson thought Cyrus was legitimately asking him that question, but then he realized Cyrus was actually joining in on the joke, something which he hadn't expected him to do.

  "A little," Jameson admitted, laughing a little.

  In the stressful time and place, Jameson was relieved he had people he could joke around with. Of course, that would have to be the extent of their joking, especially after they entered Gislan, since they had to stay on their guards at all times. But, still, Jameson was glad.

  31. In Line for the Princess

  Chapter 31

  Jameson's eyes sprung open. He wasn't sure if he had a bad dream or if something had woken him up. He quickly sat up and looked around, but didn't find anything out of the ordinary.

  Johanna was also inside the carriage with a small cup of water in her hand and Baloric resting in her lap. She seemed startled at Jameson's sudden burst of movement and nearly spilled her water before relaxing.

  "Are you all right?" she asked.

  "I think so," Jameson said. "Did you hear anything?"

  "No," Johanna answered. "Should I have? Did you hear something?"

  "No," Jameson said. "It's weird."

  He pushed the covers off of himself and rubbed his eyes.

  "How long was I sleeping?" he asked.

  "Not long," Johanna replied. "A few hours."

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm trying to get him to drink some water," Johanna said. "I mean, we don't need him to survive all this only to die because he's not drinking water."

  She held the cup up to Baloric's lips, but he didn't respond. Feeling somewhat awkward now that Jameson was watching her, she put her other hand on Baloric's mouth and opened it just a little bit. When she did, Baloric made a soft sound which sounded pained.

  Waiting until he was finished, Johanna tilted the cup slightly so some water went into his mouth. Baloric did not do anything to swallow and he oppositely decided to turn his head to the side so the little bit of water which Johanna had gotten into his mouth dribbled down his cheek and onto the floor. Johanna sighed and turned his head so he was facing forward again.

  "It's like this," Johanna said to Jameson. "He won't drink anything."

  "Maybe he doesn't want it," Jameson tried.

  "It's water. How could he not want it?"

  "I don't know," Jameson said with a shrug.

  Johanna's tone softened. "Jameson," she began. "Could you tell me about when you first met Baloric?"

  "Didn't I already do that?"

  "No."

  "Back in Miner Town. I told you about him."

  "I don't want to know about him."

  "But you just said…" Jameson trailed off, confused.

  "I want you to tell me what happened when you first met him," Johanna specified. "I know you found how he's the Powers and then you took him out of that Angel lady's place. But… is that the reason why he never goes back to Gislan? Because of the Angel? Or is it something else? Whenever I ask, Louisa goes all quiet."

  "Why don't you ask Baloric?"

  "I don't think I could," Johanna said. "Whatever it is, I think it's too painful for him too. And I think Louisa just won't tell me because she doesn't want me to bring it up to him because she thinks I'm a child. But I'm not a child. I can handle things and keep secrets."

  "I don't know what you want to hear."

  "Tell me what happened…" Johanna started. "The woman, Quinn. The woman who killed my father. We all hate her for that, but Baloric hates her for another reason, something to do with Gislan. Tell me what happened then."

  At first, Jameson only thought of his recent defeat of Quinn and didn't know how he would be able to relate that back to Baloric. Then, he thought about how she stabbed Walden right through the middle, and that made his own chest hurt a little bit just remembering it, and remembering Walden's wide eyes. For a moment, he was lost in that memory, but when he looked back up at Johanna holding Baloric, it occurred to him what she was looking for.

  "It's kind of a long story, I guess," Jameson said.

  "We've got time," Johanna whispered.

  "Well, we escaped the Angel's place and we had just found out Baloric was the Powers after all because he was able to send power through the stones," Jameson explained in a quiet voice. "During our escape, I guess no one noticed, but Baloric had been shot by an arrow right here near his shoulder. And so this woman and her sisters came and stopped and they told us they had some medical training and we trusted them. It made sense and Baloric really needed help."

  "It was Quinn," Johanna inferred.

  "In short," Jameson said.

  "What did she do to him?" Johanna asked, her grip on Baloric noticeably tightening, as if to protect him from the story.

  "She had a power to implant her shadow inside him where it waited for a while, but none of us knew. We had to fight another Forces and Baloric ended up getting injured pretty badly and we thought he was going to die. Then he was able to heal himself and that was exactly what the shadow was looking for. As soon as Baloric was all healed, it completely took over his body. It had the power to make him feel pain and give him the impression that he would be able to fight his way out, but told us it was impossible."

  "Obviously, he's all right now," Johanna said. "But what happened back then? What did it make him do?"

  "Well…" Jameson said with a sigh. "He stabbed me in the leg. And they made him fight against Walden. In the end, the only way we could get the shadow to come out of him was to convince it to go in Walden instead."

  "My father?" Johanna said, still looking down at Baloric.

  "He volunteered. We were supposed to get Baloric to quickly use his magic to overwhelm the
shadow as soon as it left him. In the end, it worked, I guess. We killed the shadow. But Baloric was pretty shaken up about it."

  "How shaken?"

  "He wasn't going to come with us at first," Jameson said. "He said that he didn't think his power would be any use if he couldn't fight off the shadow."

  "What changed his mind?"

  "Louisa, actually," Jameson said. "Believe it or not. She talked to him for just a few minutes and he decided to come along with us after all."

  "Weird," Johanna remarked. "The way things like affect people so much that they don't want anyone to even know about it. I mean, what damage could it have possibly done just to tell me?"

  "He said…" Jameson began thoughtfully. "He would rather die than let that monster control him again."

  "His way of ensuring that another one would never get him was just to never go back to Gislan," said Johanna, smiling slightly. "I hope he's not too surprised when he wakes up."

  "Speaking of waking up," Jameson said. "Why are you awake? You should get some sleep."

  "I can't sleep," Johanna said. "Not next to him. Especially not next to him. Not when he's like this."

  "You need to be rested," Jameson said, heading towards the end of the carriage. "Try to sleep."

  Johanna didn't answer as Jameson came out of the carriage and landed on the ground, stretching and yawning. Even after his little talk with Johanna, he still felt on edge like something was missing, or perhaps something was coming. After all, he had woken up for some reason.

  "Jameson, you're finally awake," Luke observed from his seat in front of the carriage, holding the reins for the horse.

  "Jo says I didn't sleep long," Jameson said, jogging around the cart to the front side. With a yawn, he grabbed the empty place next to Luke and pulled himself up to have a seat.

  "What's going on back there?" Luke asked.

  "Nothing much," Jameson said, resting his head in his hands. "Jo's trying to get Baloric to drink some water but he won't. And that's pretty much it. The Princess and Cyrus?"

  Luke laughed a little bit and pointed a few feet in the distant where Cyrus was riding one of the horses with Erestina tightly holding onto him, looking as though she would faint with fear.

  "She's very frail," Luke said.

  "That seems about right," Jameson said. "She's been through a lot after all."

  "Well, you now," said Luke. "Have you ever thought about it…I mean, aren't you sort of first in line?"

  "In line of what?"

  "In line for the princess," Luke answered. "When she finally becomes queen, you should be her king."

  "Me and the princess?" Jameson laughed, and then quickly lowered his voice just to make sure Cyrus and the Princess could not hear them.

  "The Princess and the Prophesized One," Luke said. "Sounds good, doesn't it?"

  "Adorable," Jameson agreed, making sure his tone was obviously sarcastic.

  "I don't think you think so," Luke noted.

  "Princess Erestina," Jameson said somewhat uneasily. "Of course, she's royalty, she's beautiful and, what little I've seen of her, maybe she's more than just frail. I mean, she can ride her own horse and keep up pretty well, and she traveled on her own for all those years, so unless Cyrus did absolutely everything, then she's got to be made of at least something, you know?"

  "But?" Luke led.

  "I don't know," said Jameson, feeling strangely uncomfortable with putting Meg up in comparison to Princess Erestina. In the end, Erestina was certainly more glamorously beautiful and worldly than Meg, whose life was selling and making clothes in Market City. When he put the two women up next to each other in his mind, it didn't seem fair with Erestina's waving blonde hair which always had some kind of elaborate style compared to Meg who opted to simply put her brown hair into a braid or flick it over her shoulder. There really was no comparison between the two; they were both too short, too skinny and too pale, but most people these days had those attributes as well.

  "You don't know what?"

  "I'm just not interested in Erestina that way," Jameson said.

  He looked up and realized Luke had not been the one to ask the question, oddly enough, and it had instead come from Louisa who was naturally riding the second horse. Jameson had forgotten about her entirely, somehow expecting her to be inside the carriage even though he had just been there and obviously she wasn't.

  She was slyly looking at Jameson with her eyebrow raised in response to his passing comment.

  "Oh aren't you?" she asked.

  "I didn't entirely mean to say that out loud," Jameson confessed, now feeling slightly idiotic. He turned to Luke for some support, but Luke was only muffling his own laughter and would certainly not provide any help.

  "Don't worry," said Louisa. "I won't tell her."

  "She's probably not interested in me anyway," Jameson decided.

  Louisa let out a loud, HA! which made Cyrus and Erestina pull their horse to a stop and look behind them. When they realized nothing was happening, they cautiously faced forward again and continued pressing forward, hoping to see any indication of the Angel's territory.

  "You're wrong to think that maybe she's not interested in you," Louisa said, lowering her voice. "I think you should be more open-minded."

  "I don't need to be more open-minded," Jameson said. "When all this is over with, I'll figure things out on my own. I still haven't regained all my memory."

  "When 'all this' is over with, things might have changed," Louisa pointed out. "Things will be different. You may find yourself more drawn to the life of putting the nations back together with the Princess of Ailyth."

  "She's right, actually," Luke said, surprisingly. "You can't just do all this stuff and then say you're heading back to the Forest or someplace equally mundane. I mean, it doesn't work like that. Not as far as I know anyway."

  "Well, then you make your move," Jameson offered.

  Almost in response to Jameson's comment, Cyrus's horse reared, which caused Erestina to yelp and squeeze him tighter. When Cyrus calmed the horse, he trotted over to the carriage and Erestina promptly got down off the horse per Cyrus's strict orders for her to get into the cart where he could protect her.

  "What's going on?" Luke asked, standing up.

  "Bandits on their way," said Cyrus.

  32. Robbing Us!

  Chapter 32

  "All on foot. As far as I can see, no Gislan magic. It's not Joy Angel's."

  Jameson jumped off the front of the cart and pulled the horses reins to a stop. He reached underneath the cart and located the sword. He pulled the sword out, leaving the sheath in its hidden position. At the same time, Luke pulled one of the arrows from his quiver and loaded it into his bow as he stepped up on top of the cart, keeping it pointed at the ground, but ready.

  "Do we know for sure they're bandits?" Louisa asked, watching as Cyrus drew his sword as well. She stared at it hanging by his side and felt inexplicably contempt towards him for still using Walden's sword; the one he died holding. But right then and there would certainly not be the time to address this issue.

  "What else would they be?" Cyrus said, looking over his shoulder.

  "Travelers?" Louisa tried optimistically.

  "I'm not prepared to allow them threaten us first," Cyrus said.

  The people Cyrus had previously described began to appear on the horizon, slowly approaching at a pace similar to a march. Luke pulled the bow back tightly, but Jameson raised his arm to call him off.

  "I won't shoot unless they make a move first," Luke said in a reassuring tone.

  As soon as he finished his statement, there was the distant sound of a snap, and then an arrow sailed overhead, originating from the progressively advancing bandits. It was going noticeably slower than it should have since there was a long rope tied to the end. The arrow went straight for the cart and, thanks to the clear and obvious warning of its approach, Luke was able to step to the side to easily avoid injury. The arrow lodged in the wooden roof o
f the carriage. The other end of the rope remained rooted among the group in the distance.

  "That's a declaration of war," Louisa noted, sounding anxious.

  "What was that?" Johanna demanded, jumping out of the carriage with a sword of her own drawn.

  "Get back inside, Johanna," Cyrus commanded in a tone that suggested he was her father ordering her to close her eyes in response to an indecent scene. Johanna, naturally, ignored Cyrus entirely and ran up right next to Jameson to get an explanation.