She went to a brewing pot, where something the colour of sickly mucus was steaming. Immediately, I didn’t like where this was going. I knew this was meant to be ingested, and my stomach turned at the thought.
I think my friends had the same idea since we all exchanged worried glances.
Sure enough, the woman hobbled around, hunched over, took out empty shells, and used them as cups to dip into the liquid. It ran over her hands, still steaming, but she didn’t seem to notice. She thrust the makeshift cups into our hesitant hands and sat on a low wooden stool, waiting.
Everyone turned to Garrison. I wanted to see him take the first sip. He smelled the liquid and recoiled, but then shrugged, plugged his noise, and drank everything from the little shell.
I thought briefly about how we had come so far and escaped so much danger just to be poisoned by a little old woman in the jungle.
Garrison seemed to be okay, so Seth and Moira followed, with me being the last to drink out of my small cup. Though I had plugged my nose, the disgusting taste stayed in my mouth. It was like a mixture of earth, grime, and some kind of oil. My heart sped up, waiting for something magical to happen. The woman made herself busy, weaving a basket together from her low stool, humming to herself as if forgetting we were there.
A few minutes passed. We all sat around waiting, nervous and expectant. I slowly began to feel very silly for actually thinking any of this would work. A witch doctor surrounded by predictable paraphernalia in a jungle filled with tourists could not help us with our magic. And who knew what she thought we were there for? We hadn’t even said anything about it. Maybe she thought we were lost. Or had a case of traveller’s diarrhea. Communication was a problem.
I stood. “This isn’t working.”
The witch doctor didn’t even look up at me. Her humming was starting to annoy me. It seemed louder than before. The humidity was itchy, and being so hot was making me cranky.
I looked to my friends. It had been ten minutes since the woman was yelling at Moira and stabbing her in the chest. Now Moira didn’t look so great. She was still sitting, waiting for something to happen, but her long, dark hair was soaked with sweat and she looked considerably paler. In fact, so did Seth and Garrison.
I needed air.
Though the hut was small, by the time I reached the doorway the woman’s humming was all I could hear. An impulse I couldn’t identify pushed me to get out, urged me to move even if my limbs were getting heavier. I took two steps out from the hut when I heard my name.
“Gwen, wait.” Seth was coming after me, but he was struggling. The same thing was happening to him. He reached out for my hand and managed to take it, just as we both fell backward and everything went dark — but only for an instant.
A bright light burned through my eyelashes. Daylight and a bright blue sky made me squint. We weren’t in a jungle anymore. I lay on cool grass with Seth resting his head on my stomach. He looked up at me just as I stared at him — this wasn’t like any other time I had seen a memory. Though I knew this was a different place, I still felt like myself. I listened for my past life, but she remained dormant.
We were younger than in any of our other memories, closer to teenagers. Dressed in many stiff layers, I knew the body was not my own, but still, I felt more in control than I had ever been. Garrison and Moira were nowhere in sight.
I tried to ask where the others were, but no words escaped my mouth. I could only stare. I couldn’t tell if Seth was having the same problem. He slowly stood and I followed. We huddled together as we surveyed the small clearing where two horses grazed under cover of the trees. He wrapped an arm around me and I felt more at peace than I had in months. Unfortunately, that only lasted for an instant.
I noticed I held something in the hand that wasn’t entwined with Seth’s and opened my fingers to find an intricate wooden carving of an eagle biting into my palm. Seth turned to me. It was the first time I had seen him so young in the past. While I was still modern Gwen, I began to feel my past life in my chest. She loved him, and all of the negativity, fear, and insecurity that would come later didn’t exist yet.
He gripped my hand tighter.
“Through all of it,” he said, “we stay together.”
I nodded. The world around us melted away. I had to plant my feet and grip Seth’s hand just to keep from falling over. It was like the sped-up movie Kian had pulled out of my head when he first kidnapped me, but now I was at the centre of it. Through past Gwen’s eyes I saw my life from young girl to grown woman, and for the first time I could see how Seth was an integral part of it.
I saw us playing as children and showing the first signs of magic. I witnessed us getting in trouble for using magic and scaring the elders. We pushed our limits and were always together. I saw the old man I knew to be Seth’s father. His crown was silver. I met the others in our tribe with magic. The two dark-haired women I had seen holding each other and crying now sat together, brushing the hair of the little girls. I saw the lives of Garrison and Moira. Others — a stout boy, thin girl, and boy with a long braid, were intertwined with our lives.
In instants, or what could have been years, we grew. There was a reason Seth was to marry Moira, but I didn’t know what it was. The two women appeared again, happy with the union, and I realized they were sisters. People came and paid tribute to the king, leaving gifts.
The magicians came, and I nearly lost my balance in shock. The same men who had hunted us in this world laid gifts at the king’s feet. Kian was a baby, and they each placed a kiss on his forehead. They bowed to Seth.
The king made a marriage for me, but I wasn’t happy. The sight of my past husband still made my heart beat faster. I hadn’t forgotten that my memory of him became too real and attacked me. I had killed him, or at least tried to. In these memories, though, he was kinder, trying to win my attention. I wasn’t interested. I could never give up the bond I had with Seth — not for anyone.
Years passed. Life turned hard. Kian grew. The others had their own lives to lead, and we didn’t see each other as much. The only time I felt happiness was when I was with Seth. The Romans came. The king made hard choices and Seth wore their uniform. People began to disappear. Everyone was nervous. Bodies worked to death would appear. War was on the horizon, but not with the army to the south.
Then familiar memories floated passed us, as if our lives had been rivers, and we stood as stones. Battles, war. The seven of us who had magic were reunited, though tensions grew between Seth and Moira. She was angry and bitter, just like my own husband. Still, I felt pride in fighting alongside my own kind and using my magic.
We moved the earth — we were more powerful than any enemy. But the magicians had more bodies, more slaves, and caused more death than we could imagine. We called them by another name. Godelan. It stuck in my throat as if my past hated it as much as my present. I saw the battle where we were too late, then the king’s decision for us to follow the Godelan, and then the fire and ritual that ended our lives.
Chapter Four
As Kian walked farther into the woods after the strange Godel, he tried to hush all of his protesting instincts. His heart wasn’t settled about the deal he had made with the man from the enemy tribe. Still, Kian had to admit he had a point. The Godelan who caused his tribe’s warriors to sacrifice themselves were dead. And the Romans had slaves, too.
If this man could lead him to his brother and the other warriors, then he had to try. The Riada needed their champions back.
“Where are we going?” Kian asked after an hour of walking. “My uncle will be looking for me soon.”
“Yes,” the man replied. “But he will not find you.”
Kian stopped suddenly. He had agreed to go with the Godel, not leave with him forever. The man turned around, eyes wide as if surprised at Kian’s reaction.
“You have enchanted these woods!” Kian accused. “I cannot run away. My tribe will think I am dead. Or worse, a coward.” He nearly stomped his foot in f
rustration, berating himself.
“Relax,” the man told him, hiking up his robe to walk through the underbrush. “When you return with your brother, the hero, everyone will thank you.”
The Godel waited for a few moments and then continued walking. Kian had only seconds to decide. Huffing, he continued to follow.
“You have yet to tell me how that is done,” he noted.
“You’re right, I do,” the Godel replied.
Kian waited, but it became obvious he wasn’t going to get his answer.
“What shall I call you?” he asked the man in front of him. “What is your name?”
The man clicked his tongue from up ahead. “So much power in a name,” he replied. “Why don’t you call me what I am?”
“A Godel?”
Again, he clicked his tongue. “You say it with such distaste. That won’t do. What else am I?”
“A magician,” Kian replied.
The man let out a sharp laugh. “You talk of magic with nearly the same disdain as you do your enemies.”
“It has taken away everyone and everything that I have loved,” Kian said.
“No.” The man stopped and turned to confront him. “That’s where you are wrong. Be careful of your opinions of magic. It can take away, and it can also grant. People, however, — the Romans, your father — it was their decisions that led you and me to this moment.”
Kian couldn’t tell if he was being bewitched or not. Magician was making sense. He knew he shouldn’t trust a man who had been living in the woods and who had practically abducted him, but he had to push forward and learn. If it meant getting his family back, getting the tribe’s champions back, he would have to try.
They walked for several hours until the sun was low. Kian had lost all track of where he was. The fall had disoriented him, and he was still in pain. Also, hunger and the chill of the evening had set in.
“Why don’t you tell me your real name?” he asked Magician.
The man answered without turning around. “If you hold a man’s name, and you are the right man, you can control him,” he replied simply. “Didn’t they teach you anything?”
“I don’t have magic,” Kian replied. “How do you control him?”
“That is not for you to know,” Magician said sharply.
“Why then?” Kian asked, trying again. “Why can you control someone with their name?”
“Because we come from the earth,” Magician replied. “From Goram and Eila, the gods who created the first humans.”
“I don’t understand,” Kian said honestly, but Magician had lost his talkative mood.
By the time they got to Magician’s cabin, all Kian wanted was food and shelter. Answers could wait.
The cottage was by a small lake, where frogs croaked loudly in the evening light. The forest began to thin as they approached the cottage, and by the time they got there, all the trees had bare branches. No greenery grew around Magician’s house.
Magician hadn’t said a word in a long while. The desolate cottage made Kian take pause, yet again, about his decision. At the door, Magician turned around.
“Reluctant, Prince Kian?” he asked, knowing the answer.
Kian felt if he left now, and Magician didn’t kill him, he’d die in the woods anyway. “What kind of a man lives in solitude like this?” he asked.
Magician looked around, as if surprised by the lack of company. “A busy man,” he replied finally. “You will learn to love it.”
As if to prove his point, Magician led the way into the small cottage, and with a flick of the wrist, a roaring fire was lit. The smoke rose neatly out of a hole in the thatched roof.
The rest of the place was bare — a few rugs, cooking pots, some logs on which to sit, and two small beds on opposite ends of the room. Hundreds of small items and objects littered wooden shelves, while the most prominent feature of the room was a large desk and bench. Kian eyed the sleeping arrangement.
“Were you expecting someone?”
“Of course,” Magician replied. “I have always had an offer for you. The question was when you would be ready to accept it.”
Weeks went by and the summer passed into winter. In the north, fall lasted only a week or so, and Kian guessed Magician lived even farther north than where the Riada had moved since the leaves barely had a chance to change colour before they were frozen in frost. Despite the seasons, Magician’s cottage looked the same, barren.
Magician was expert at dodging Kian’s questions. Since coming to live with him, Kian had not seen anyone else in the forest at all. The man had chosen his location well.
Kian was still suspicious of his motives, but the man had magic. Kian knew magic could do wondrous things, and more than anything he wanted to bring back to the Riada what his tribe needed most: a king.
Despite apparently having waited for him for years, Magician was mostly indifferent to Kian’s presence. He did request that Kian cut his long black hair and get rid of his cloak. When Kian asked why, Magician only danced away from the question.
“These are the terms of my offer,” Magician said.
Kian doubted it was the truth, but he couldn’t see the harm in cutting his hair or getting a new cloak, so he agreed.
Kian served as an apprentice, working at a narrow bench and helping Magician with various magical tasks. Still, the man had given no inclination Kian could ever work magic himself — a fact that wasn’t lost on him.
“Where does your magic come from?” he asked.
Magician did not stop his work, scratching flakes off of a scaly purple rock with a chisel and collecting them in a satchel. “All magic comes from the earth. Everybody knows that.”
Kian considered. “But you were not born with it,” he said. “You are not descended from the gods like the Riada.”
“No,” Magician said, “I suppose I am not. Some people are not born with power. They take it. And that’s what I did.”
The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.
Kian smiled behind Magician’s back. He had hoped to get some kind of emotional reaction from him — anything that would push Magician into revealing the truth about who he was and how we was going to get the warriors back.
“By sacrificing people without magic?” Kian said. “Would that not make it dark magic? Evil power?”
The Magician didn’t skip a beat. “You speak of evil as if you know it. The strong take power. Those who do not must not be strong.” Magician looked up at Kian for the first time. “And do not forget, your beloved Romans have slaves in every corner of this world and sacrifice more than you can imagine for every one of their gods.”
“The Riada do not love the Kaligan,” Kian insisted, getting angry.
Magician went back to his rock. “Well, they certainly do all that is asked of them,” he said. “You either love your master, or fear him. Which is it?”
Kian stood so quickly, he nearly knocked over the table. His fists were clenched and anger throbbed in his head. “The Kaligan do not master the Riada!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Magician failed to show any kind of surprise at this outburst. Only when Kian had stormed outside, slamming the small wooden door behind him, did he realize that Magician had turned his own plan against him.
Kian crouched with his head in his hands by the pond. If only there was a sign that he was doing the right thing. Anything could be happening with the Riada right now, and he was not there to help. He reminded himself that his ability to help was limited, but not knowing was worst of all. And what if his tribe thought him a coward? How long would they wait before they gave up on him?
Footsteps roused him from his thoughts. He bolted upright to find Magician standing behind him. The smaller man wore his old, dirty cloak as if it were a royal cape.
“I want to send a letter home,” Kian said without turning around.
“Fine,” Magician said.
That night, Kian scrawled the few symbols of their language that he ha
d learned as a child. His pictures of the animals that created the world and became the written language of the people looked as if a small child had drawn them. Still, he managed to communicate that he was safe and that he would return soon.
During winter, Kian spent most his time just trying to stay alive. Bitter cold enveloped the cabin, and when he was not searching for food, he was bringing in firewood. He missed his home, though in reality it was the people he longed for. The Riada had only lived in the new village for a few years after the Kaligan forced them to move. Still, Kian missed his uncle Eched and the rest of the tribe he had known his entire life, and who had taken care of him after the death of his brother, father, and mother.
Kian soon realized Magician had no intention of actually teaching him magic. And that was fine with him, as long as he could perform the task Magician wanted him to and find his brother.
“Why don’t you use your magic to keep us warm?” he asked one night, his hands cracked and bleeding from the frozen branches in his arms.
“Magic is fading from this world,” Magician said, lost in his work at the bench. “I must conserve as much as I can to accomplish our goals.”
Kian took a deep breath. Every time he asked the most important question, he only got a tiny piece of the puzzle. Now, enough time had passed that he could ask again.
“How will you bring the Riada warriors back?”
“I already told you,” Magician said. “You will.”
“But how will I find them?” Kian pressed.
“I am figuring that out,” Magician replied.
“And when?”
“That is for me to know,” Magician said.
It was all Kian could do to not punch a wall, or Magician. He knew both would probably end badly for him.
Two months into the winter, Magician finally gathered enough of whatever he had been extracting from the rocks to clean up the workbench. When Kian came in one morning to see everything gone, he thought for an instant that Magician had left without him. When the man came in from outside, snow turned into icicles in his wild hair, Kian actually breathed a sigh of relief.
Lives of Kings Page 5