“I know,” Kevin said with a nod. “I would like to offer the hospitality of Camden to you and any of your brothers and sisters who would like to live there. I can’t guarantee your safety, but I can say that I’ll do everything within my power to protect you from Rolan.”
“I appreciate that, but I don’t think so,” Robyn said. He paused for a few moments, looking deep into Kevin’s eyes. Then he said, “I have a contact inside the castle. As long as I’m here, I get reports of what’s going on, reports about Rolan’s plans. If I were to move to Camden, I’d lose that. But I do appreciate the offer, and I’ll pass it on to the others.”
“If you need my help with anything …,” Kevin said as he stood up.
“I’ll send a message through the Sisterhood. And if I hear of anything suspicious, I’ll send that along, too,” Robyn said as he stood up also. “Now, I guess I’d better get back, just in case someone’s watching me.”
“It’s been nice meeting you,” Kevin said. He held out his hand to Robyn. “Until we meet again, stay safe.”
After Robyn left, Kevin waited for Sister Glenice. When she returned to her office, he said, “Thank you for playing go-between. Please let me know through Brena if anything happens to Robyn, even if it appears to be completely natural or accidental.”
She nodded.
“Then we’ll be on our way,” Kevin said as he took out the key. Chris put his hand on Kevin’s arm and they vanished.
~ ~ ~ ~
Once they were back in his bedroom, Kevin said, “I like him. Too bad he isn’t the Seated Sorcerer of Brendolanth instead of Rolan.”
“If he were strong enough magically, he’d have already challenged Rolan,” Chris pointed out. “You can’t do anything about that.”
“No, but I could offer to help him if he wants more training.”
“If he did, I imagine he would have found it by now.”
Kevin sighed. “I guess you’re right, but things would be a lot smoother in Trendon with Robyn in charge.”
“Well, don’t be surprised if he ends up there.”
“What?”
“Remember your vision. Apparently Landis is supposed to fight Rolan. If she wins, I bet Robyn will be one of the first ones to offer his services, and if she’s smart, she’ll jump at the chance to get him.”
“You’re assuming she’ll win,” Kevin pointed out.
“You said that Yvonne told you that since the ending wasn’t foretold, it’s in your hands. You just have to make sure she’s good enough to win,” Chris said with a shrug.
Kevin mumbled, “Easier said than done.”
~ ~ ~ ~
Friday afternoon Kevin closed the door to his office and asked Chris to make sure that he wasn’t disturbed. He thought through his upcoming meeting with Gaynor, tried to anticipate all of the possible scenarios, and figured out what he wanted to do in each case. After he was satisfied that he was as prepared as possible, he sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander.
As usual these days, his thoughts wandered right back to Crinsor Run and Rhianna. He couldn’t seem to get her out of his head. She was always there, not always front and center, but there, in the wings, waiting for the unguarded moment. This was something completely new for him. Never before had anyone taken up residence in his mind like Rhianna had and he wasn’t sure what it meant.
While Kevin was secluded in his office, Chris took care of the details for the next day. He spoke to Miranda about the basket of food for the island and arranged to pick it up after dinner. Next he found a couple of barrels for water and asked one of the grounds men to set them inside the stable and fill them with fresh water. Then he went to the storage room and found a sleeping tarp, a couple of blankets, a sleeping pad, a small glowstone lamp, a couple of plates and mugs, and some utensils. He packed everything inside a stuff sack and carried it out to the stable, ready for Kevin to take out to the island later.
When he got back to the office, he called Ariel and Elin over to his desk. “We’re going to hold a competition for a district sorcerer tomorrow. The competitors have been told to report to the castle by 10:00. You’ll need to make sure the office is straightened up, set out the refreshments, greet them, introduce them to Karl and Joan, and in general look after them until Myron gets here.”
Elin blushed and said, “I’ll take care of it for you. It’s an honor to serve as your hostess.”
Ariel looked at her and rolled his eyes. Then he turned back to Chris and asked, “What time do you expect them to arrive?”
“I’m not sure, but I seriously doubt anyone will arrive before 9:00.”
“If they have horses, do you want Neiven to stable them until after the competition?” Ariel asked.
“Good point. I hadn’t thought about that. Would you find him and mention it to him? He was in the stable a little while ago.”
“I’ll go,” Elin volunteered.
“I’m not sure what time we’ll get back tomorrow, but I’d like to ask the two of you to hang around until we return.”
“We’ll be happy to,” Elin said with a smile. “Is there anything else we can do?”
“No, not that I can think of at the moment. If anything else comes up, I’ll leave a note on your desk, Ariel.”
Ariel nodded, turned towards Elin, and gently pushed her towards the door. “Go talk to Neiven, Elin, and then come straight back here. We have things to do.”
Chapter 13
Timera Valley
Friday evening, while Kevin and Chris were stashing food, water, and survival gear on the deserted island, Rolan was contemplating what he fervently hoped would be his final visit to Glenco for a while. This would be his fourth trip in less than three weeks. He shook his head at the inordinate amount of time he had invested in getting a pendant and sincerely hoped that Gerry wouldn’t wimp out tonight.
Last Friday night they had sat in the woods for four hours watching the chapel in Timera Valley. By midnight, all of the lights were covered and the chapel was silent. Neither of them saw any sign of anyone stirring around after that, but Gerry waited three long hours before she finally agreed to call it a night.
The plan called for him to meet Gerry at midnight and take her to the woods behind the chapel. Then, provided everything was as quiet as it was last week, she’d go in through the back door a couple of hours later. If things went like she thought they would, it would only take about fifteen minutes for her to make a pendant for him and get back outside.
Rolan smiled as he pictured a dragon’s flame pendant hanging around his neck. Nothing could stand in his way then.
He checked the time. He still had another hour to wait. Not enough time to send for a girl, but too long to just pace around his bedroom. He decided to head out early and drop by the tavern on that island near Wyndsor where he’d met those girls a couple of months ago. Maybe he could get something set up for Sunday.
He put on a dark gray tunic, black leggings, and grabbed his black cloak. His sorcerer’s medallion was hidden under his tunic and his red sash was safely tucked away in a drawer. He opened his bedroom door just enough for the guard to see his face and said, “I’m going to bed now. See that no one disturbs me.”
The guard nodded and stepped in front of the door as it shut. Then Rolan covered all of his glowstones, took out his key, and entered the energy flow.
~ ~ ~ ~
An hour later, Rolan materialized in front of the cave near Glenco with a grin on his face. His trip to the island had been worthwhile. Sunday afternoon three lovely young girls were going to join him for a picnic, and they had even insisted on bringing the food.
Gerry was waiting for him outside the cave and when she saw the grin on his face, she assumed it was for her. She rushed over to him, threw her arms around his neck, pulled his head down and kissed him. Then she tilted her head back and said, “It won’t be long now. By this fall, I’ll be your wife. You won’t have to go any farther than your bedroom to see me. Are you a
s ready for that as I am?”
Rolan smiled and said, “You have no idea.” Then he put his hands on her shoulders and gently urged her back a step. “Are you ready to go? I’d like to be there when they turn the lights out, just to make sure everything’s pretty much normal tonight.”
Gerry nodded, took Rolan’s hand, and closed her eyes.
A few moments later, they were standing at the edge of the woods behind the Chapel of Light in Timera Valley. Only one light hadn’t been closed for the night: the one in Brena’s bedroom. Fifteen minutes later, the chapel was dark.
Rolan and Gerry settled on an old log to wait. For two hours, neither of them spoke or hardly moved. They became so much a fixture in the forest that the night animals ignored them and went about their business as usual. Raccoons and opossums scurried around the forest floor and owls hooted in the trees above, but no one in the chapel stirred.
Finally, Rolan could wait no longer. He touched Gerry’s shoulder and nodded towards the building.
Gerry slowly stood up and began to creep towards the back door. When she reached it, she gently turned the knob and pushed. The door opened soundlessly. Gerry glanced back towards the woods, towards the spot where Rolan was waiting, but he had faded into the shadows and she couldn’t see him.
Rolan watched as she silently stepped into the building. He tried to follow her with his seeing eye, but since he’d never expected to need that skill, he hadn’t spent much time learning to control it. All he could manage were a few seconds of sight before the eye collapsed.
Gerry removed her shoes as soon as she stepped inside the building and set them beside the back door. Then she tiptoed down the hall to Brena’s workroom. Just like the back door, the door was shut, but there was no lock. She slowly opened the door and stepped into the familiar room.
Rolan’s seeing eye focused just in time to see Gerry step over the threshold. He was concentrating so hard on keeping his seeing eye formed that he nearly missed the faint glow of light as a glowstone was uncovered in Brena’s bedroom. When the significance of that faint shimmer registered in his brain, he lost the seeing eye completely. Brena was awake, and apparently out of bed.
Almost immediately the light began to move as Brena carried the lamp with her. It looked like she was moving out of her room towards the hall. Rolan was on the verge of panic. He could vanish with his key, but he couldn’t leave Gerry there. She would never be able to keep her mouth shut. If she got caught, the whole of Terah would know he had tried to steal a dragon’s flame pendant, including Glendymere.
Meanwhile, Gerry, who was oblivious to the fact that anyone was awake in the chapel, started working her way towards the small closet in the back wall of the workroom where the lamp and pendants were stored. She was only about a third of the way down the room when she heard footsteps. She looked around for something she could use as a weapon, but the only thing she saw on the worktable was a large pestle. She grabbed it, quickly made her way back towards the front of the workroom, and hid in the deep shadow behind the open door. No sooner had Gerry stepped into the shadow than the light from the lamp flooded the room.
As Brena stepped inside, Gerry grabbed the lamp with one hand, slammed the pestle down on Brena’s head with the other, stepped into Brena’s fall, and trapped Brena between her own body and the worktable. She held her there long enough to set the lamp down, and then she gently eased Brena to the floor.
Gerry’s heart was pounding in her chest and she felt like she was going to be sick. She couldn’t believe she had actually bashed Brena over the head. She looked at the pestle with revulsion as she slipped it into one of the big pockets of her smock. The horror of what she had done crashed in on her as she looked at Brena’s still form lying on the floor.
As she stood there, frozen with grief and despair, she noticed that Brena was still breathing. Her breaths were shallow, but she was still alive. Gerry took in a deep breath and let it slowly escape through her mouth. She felt along Brena’s head to find the point of impact. There was a knot forming, and there was a little blood, but the scull didn’t seem to be cracked. Gerry sighed in relief. Brena was only unconscious.
Rolan could see the light glowing in Brena’s workroom, but he couldn’t see or hear anything else. Surely if Brena had come across Gerry, there would be some kind of sign. He tried to push his anxiety out of the way long enough to form another seeing eye so that he could find out what was going on.
Half-formed thoughts flashed through Gerry’s mind as the panic receded. No one but Rolan knew she was in the area, and he wasn’t going to say anything. Brena was the only one who could possibly have seen her, and Gerry was pretty sure that she had been behind Brena from the moment Brena had stepped through the door. And besides that, Brena obviously had a concussion. No one, least of all Brena, would trust anything she thought she had seen in the moments right before her head was hit.
Gerry reasoned that if it looked like Brena had slipped and fallen, then that’s what everyone would think, including Brena. She slowly and carefully maneuvered Brena so that it would appear that she had slipped, hit her head on the edge of the workbench, and knocked herself out. Then Gerry smeared a little of Brena’s blood on the corner of the worktable. Next, she pulled out a few strands of Brena’s hair near the wound and used the blood to adhere them to the worktable edge. Finally, she set the lamp on the little shelf that Brena always used.
Rolan managed to get his seeing eye into position in time to see Gerry finish setting the scene. He watched as she stepped back to study it.
Once she was satisfied that Brena’s concussion would be interpreted as an accident, Gerry hurried towards the back wall and open a small closet door.
Before Rolan could see what she was doing at the closet, the eye collapsed. He cursed to himself and tried to focus again, but before he could form another eye, he saw a faint glow as Gerry open the back door and signaled for him to come. She was huddled around something and her hands were too full for her to be able to shut the door.
Rolan grimaced and stepped to the edge of the woods. He really didn’t want to leave the shelter of the trees. There were at least a hundred feet of open moonlit yard that he was going to have to cross to reach her. He cursed to himself again and then sprinted across the yard and slipped into the shadow of the building right beside Gerry.
“Here, take this,” Gerry hissed as she thrust the old oil lamp that was responsible for the light on Rolan. He quickly clutched it to his chest and tried to shield the front with his cloak.
One of Gerry’s hands was clenched in a tight fist. She reached down, grabbed her shoes with her free hand, and set them back down on the porch. Then she gently pulled the back door to and eased it shut until she heard the faint click of the latch. She snatched her shoes off the porch with her free hand and shoved her other arm through his. “Take me out of here! Now!” she whispered in near panic.
Rolan didn’t dillydally around getting his key out and opening the energy flow. They were gone almost before she finished speaking.
When they materialized back at the cave, Gerry collapsed to her knees and began to shake. Rolan set the oil lamp down on the table and then gently eased her up and settled her into one of the chairs.
“Did anyone see you?” he asked as he shook her shoulder. “Was anyone else up?”
“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone else,” Gerry moaned. Then she began to cry. “Rolan, I hurt her. I really hurt her. She’s unconscious! What if she dies?”
“Look at it this way, if she dies, she can’t tell anyone what happened, right?” Rolan said brusquely. “You can’t beat yourself up over this. What happened happened. She would have been perfectly safe if she’d stayed in her bed where she belonged. See? It wasn’t really your fault. It was hers. She put herself in danger by walking around after everyone in the chapel was supposed to be asleep.”
Gerry looked at him as if he had lost his mind, but she didn’t say anything else about it. “Well, at
least I got your pendant,” she said as she opened her fist. Nestled in the palm of her hand was a black opal surrounded by turquoise. The black opal looked dull. There was only a tiny hint of a flame buried deep inside. “All I need to do is wake up the flame. Then it’ll be ready for you to put on a chain. It’ll identify with your life force when it comes to rest against your chest, and it’ll stay connected to your life force until you remove it or die.”
“You mean I have to wear it all the time?” Rolan asked with a frown.
“Of course. If you ever take it off, it won’t work any more.”
Rolan watched carefully as Gerry held the pendant with her fingertips and slowly lowered it into the flame of the oil lamp. The flame in the lamp swirled around the opal and Gerry’s fingers for several minutes before the flame in the opal began to flicker and glow. Once the opal’s fire was steady, Gerry removed it from the flame and held it out to Rolan.
“Won’t it burn me?” he asked. “Isn’t it still too hot to touch?”
“What are you afraid of? I’m holding it, aren’t I?” Gerry said with a bit of a sneer. Then she sighed and added, “It’s not hot. The flame’s inside the stone.”
Rolan reached for the pendant and gingerly touch the stone. It was cool, so he took it out of her hand and examined it. “What am I supposed to do with the turquoise?”
“Don’t do anything with them. They’re part of the pendant. If you start trying to remove them, I don’t know what will happen to the opal. They’re meant to go together, as a unit, to a Sister of Healing.”
“But anyone who sees this will know it’s a sister’s pendant. How can I explain how I happen to have one?”
“There’s no way you could. You can’t ever let anyone know about it, Rolan. If word gets back to Glendymere, he’ll come after it himself,” Gerry said sternly. “No one can see it. No one.”
Rolan’s mouth dropped open. “You mean I have to wear it all the time, yet no one can see it? What about when I take a bath? What about …”
The Dragon's Flame (The Chronicles of Terah # 2) Page 17