The Dragon's Flame (The Chronicles of Terah # 2)

by Morgan, Mackenzie

  “Where’s Chris when you need him?” Theresa mumbled as she put the basket in the wagon. “I’ll thank her again when we get back. Now, let’s go. We need to get settled before sunset.”

  Marcus mounted his horse and they set off down the road.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  By late afternoon, they were in the same valley where Theresa had found Prince Jaron nearly three months ago. When they got to the river, Hayley asked if they were going to stay at the same campsite.

  “I don’t think so. We pretty much cleaned out that area,” Theresa said. “Let’s head upstream this time. Maybe there’s a spot past the waterfall.”

  About an hour later, they found a couple of clearings close together. Marcus made a small corral for the horses in one of the clearings while Theresa and Hayley set up camp in the other. By nightfall, the smell of fresh coffee, stew, and hot bread permeated the woods.

  “I wonder if any gnomes are watching us now,” Hayley whispered to Theresa while they were washing the dishes.

  “Could be. Have you told Marcus about our last trip out here?”

  Hayley shook her head. “You said it would be best not to say anything to anyone, so I didn’t.”

  “Well, I think it would be all right for Marcus to know.”

  While they were relaxing around the campfire that evening, Theresa filled Marcus in on their last trip, Jaron’s injuries, and King Merdin’s gift. After she finished the story, she told them it was time to get some sleep because they needed to be up at least an hour before daybreak the next morning.

  “Are you serious?” Marcus asked. “Why so early?”

  Hayley grinned. “Because some of the herbs have to be gathered while the dew is still fresh. You won’t believe how much fun you’re going to have over the next few days. You’re going to ache in places you didn’t even know you had.”

  All three of them gathered herbs from an hour before daybreak until about mid-afternoon for the next couple of days. Then, during the late afternoons, they prepared the herbs for storage. By Monday evening, Theresa felt that Hayley and Marcus were ready to handle gathering and preparing the herbs by themselves.

  After dinner, while she and Hayley were putting away the dishes, Theresa said, “I need to talk to you and Marcus about something. Let’s have another cup of coffee around the fire.”

  Hayley nodded and followed Theresa back to the fire circle. Marcus had gone to check on the horses. When she saw him heading back, Hayley said, “Marcus, come over here for a few minutes. Theresa wants to talk to us.”

  Once they were settled, Theresa said, “I hate to do this to you, but you two are going to be doing most of the herb gathering for the next couple of days. I have something else I need to do.”

  They both nodded.

  “What are you going to be doing?” Hayley asked.

  “Do you remember the chimes King Merdin gave me when we were here last time?” Theresa took the pouch out of her pocket and held up the chimes.

  Hayley nodded.

  “Tomorrow morning I’m going to walk back downstream a couple of miles and hang these chimes. When the wind carries the sound to the gnomes, someone will come. I need to speak with King Merdin, and I’m hoping that whoever shows up in answer to the chimes will let him know I’m here.”

  Marcus frowned and started to say something, but Theresa cut him off. “Marcus, unless I’m by myself, I doubt if any of the gnomes will show up. I have to go alone. I won’t be in any danger. Remember, I have my pendant. And the gnomes will look out for me, too.”

  Marcus grumbled under his breath and then said, “I need some way to know if you need help. You could fall and break a leg.”

  “All right. How about this? I’ll stay on the trail until I get to the campsite that Hayley and I used the last time we were here. I’ll hang the chimes there. It’s not fifteen feet from the river. Feel free to use your seeing eye to check on me whenever you want to, and if I’m not back by nightfall, you can come after me.”

  Marcus thought about it for a few minutes and then nodded.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Tuesday morning Theresa got up a couple of hours before daybreak and made some coffee. While she waited for it to perk, she packed a brownie and a few of the cookies as well as some cheese and bread in a small sack.

  Hayley woke up when she smelled the coffee and got up in time to have a cup with Theresa.

  “Are you sure you want to go off by yourself? The gnomes know me too,” Hayley said.

  “I know, but I really don’t think they’ll come around with a sorcerer in the area, and I can’t see Marcus agreeing to let both of us go off while he cools his heels here. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re going to have one boring day, sitting there with nothing to do and no one to talk to. I think I’d rather be here gathering herbs.”

  “Truthfully, so would I.” Theresa turned up her cup and finished her coffee. “Guess I’d better get going. See you tonight.”

  It took Theresa about two hours to reach the campsite that she and Hayley had used during the spring. She took the chimes out of her pocket and hung them on one of the trees close to the river. Then she settled down next to a tree to wait.

  While she waited, she thought back over everything that had happened since the night Brena had been attacked, trying to decide exactly what she should tell King Merdin. After a few hours, she leaned back against the tree and dozed.

  When she woke up, it was mid-afternoon. She stood up and stretched trying to wake up, but she felt like her mind was full of cobwebs. She walked around the clearing for a few minutes to get the blood circulating, but when she still didn’t feel alert, she climbed down the riverbank and splashed some water on her face and neck. After she climbed back up to the clearing, she opened her sack and took out the bread and cheese.

  While she was eating, she saw a faint movement near the bank out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked over towards the bank, nothing was there. A few minutes later, right after she finished her lunch, she saw a branch move near some bushes at the edge of the clearing, and a couple of seconds later, a gnome stepped out from behind them.

  He looked at her for a moment and then said, almost in a whisper, “May I help you, Sister?”

  “Yes, please. My name is Sister Theresa and I need to speak with King Merdin,” Theresa answered just as quietly.

  The gnome nodded. “I’ll have to see if he can come, Sister. Where are you staying?”

  “We’re camping a couple of hours upstream from here. My assistant and her friend came with me.”

  “I saw a campsite near the river this morning, but you must have already left by the time I passed. I didn’t see you.”

  “I got here shortly after daybreak.”

  “Have you been waiting here all day?”

  Theresa nodded. “I didn’t mind. I knew it would take a while for someone to hear the chimes and find me.”

  The gnome nodded again. “It will take me a day to get your message to King Merdin. Could you be here around noon the day after tomorrow?”

  Theresa nodded.

  “If for any reason King Merdin can’t come, I’ll be here to let you know. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, thank you. And thank you for delivering the message. I do appreciate it,” Theresa said as she stood up.

  “My pleasure.” Then the gnome bowed and stepped back behind the bush.

  Theresa packed up the remains of her lunch, put the chimes back in her pocket, and headed upstream to her campsite.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Theresa spent Wednesday gathering herbs with Hayley and Marcus, but Thursday morning, she left for her meeting with King Merdin right after breakfast. She didn’t want to risk missing him. She reached the clearing by mid-morning and settled down to wait.

  An hour later, she noticed two eyes floating near the bushes, and a couple of minutes after that, King Merdin and Jaron stepped out from behind them. King Merdin turned towards the floa
ting eyes, nodded, and Dani appeared out of thin air.

  Theresa stood up to greet the gnomes and Dani, and after a few brief hello’s and how are you’s, King Merdin motioned towards the tree where Theresa had been sitting.

  “Why don’t we sit down and talk,” King Merdin said as he and Jaron sank to the ground cross-legged. Dani curled up beside Jaron. “What can we do for you?”

  “About eight weeks ago, one of the sisters disappeared, and I want to find out what happened to her.”

  “Around here?” King Merdin asked.

  “No, in Glenco, a small village in the mountains of Prosidian. She was at the chapel when her aide left one night and gone the next morning. When she vanished, Brena, the head of the Sisterhood, asked Myron to take Hayley and me down there to cover the chapel until she could find a replacement. While we were there, we tried to find out what happened to her, but we didn’t have any luck.”

  “How long had she lived in the area?” Jaron asked.

  “Two years.”

  “What about her friends? Didn’t they have any ideas?”

  “I don’t think she was friendly with any of the people in Glenco, not even her aide. Sister Gerry was a very private person, and from what I gathered, not a very likable one. The only lead I have is a cave that Hayley lucked up on while she was out looking for herbs. We think that Gerry used it on her days off to meet someone.”

  “How do you know this Gerry used the cave?” King Merdin asked

  “The furniture in the cave came from the chapel. Her aide identified it.”

  King Merdin nodded. “How can I help?”

  “I just need a little information. Are there any gnomes living in that area? And if there are, is there any way I can talk to them? Would they come if I hung the chimes out near the cave? I’d like to find the man she was meeting and see if he has any idea what happened to her. I know the gnomes probably wouldn’t know him, but if they could give me a description, the direction he came from, anything.”

  “I don’t know for sure whether there are any gnomes living in the area or not, but I imagine there are. I’ll have to look it up on one of my maps,” King Merdin said. “If there are, would you like for us to go to Glenco and see if we can find someone who saw something?”

  “I really don’t want to put you to any trouble,” Theresa said. “If you think they’ll talk to me, I can get Myron to take me back down there.”

  “It’s no trouble, and they’ll be a lot more likely to talk to me than you, even with the chimes, but I can’t go right now,” King Merdin said. “I should be able to go around the beginning of next week. Can you tell me where this cave is? I’d like to start there.”

  “I can draw a map better than I can describe it. Would that be all right?”

  King Merdin smiled. “A map would be better. Do you have any paper?”

  Theresa nodded and pulled a sheet of paper and a pencil out of her pocket. “Here, let me show you.” Then Theresa drew a map of the valley, including Glenco, the road leading into town, the little pathway leading to the cave, and the bush hiding the cave entrance. “This pathway follows the foot of the mountain. I don’t know how far the path goes, but I can tell you that it takes me about thirty minutes to walk from the road to the cave. Does that help?”

  King Merdin nodded. “I’ll find it. You said that you think they probably met on her day off. How often would that have been?”

  “Every third Sunday of the month.”

  “So they only met once a month?”

  Theresa nodded.

  King Merdin frowned. “You realize that the chance that they were seen is relatively slim, don’t you?”

  Theresa nodded again.

  “Well, we’ll give it a try. Who knows? We might get lucky.” King Merdin folded the map and stuck it in his pocket. “I understand that you’re camping near here. How long do you plan to stay?”

  “We’re gathering herbs. I can stay as long as I need to.”

  “Again? I thought you got enough herbs to last a while the last time you were out here.”

  Theresa chuckled. “We don’t really need them. I just used that as an excuse for the trip. I came out here to talk to you.”

  “Can you meet me a week from today? Next Thursday? At noon?” King Merdin asked.

  Theresa nodded. “I’ll be here.”

  “See you then,” King Merdin said. Then he, Jaron, and Dani stood up, turned to walk away, and disappeared.

  Chapter 28

  August Council Meeting

  As soon as Kevin called the August meeting of the Council of Sorcerers to order Saturday morning, he recognized Damien of Nandelia.

  Damien slowly stood by his chair, cleared his throat, and began. “We have three proposals. Do you want me to go through all three, or just the one that we’re recommending?”

  “Go through all three, and give your reasons for or against them,” Kevin said. “Then we’ll open the floor to discussion

  Damien nodded. “First of all, we could go back to the old way and just pass the chair to the closest living magical relative, no matter what. The advantage is that it’s quick and keeps the chair in the same house, for a little while anyway. Of course, once you get past the immediate family, the closest living magical relative becomes hard to identify. If you have to go to nieces and nephews, do you look at the oldest, or to the children of the oldest brother or sister? Or do you go to aunts and uncles before you go to nieces and nephews? Even if you ignore the fact that most of our relatives have lives of their own and don’t want the seat, it could get really complicated, and who’s going to sort it all out? The Master Sorcerer?”

  Damien paused for a minute. No one said anything, but most of the sorcerers had frowns on their faces. “Another approach could be to let the seated sorcerer name his or her own replacement. The advantage is that we would know immediately who gets the chair. The disadvantage is that the person could get impatient and decide to help the seated sorcerer vacate his chair a little early.”

  When Damien paused, several of the sorcerers shook their heads no, but no one said anything. “The third plan, and the one we recommend, would be to hold an open competition for any and all sorcerers who have lived in that province for at least three years. We thought about limiting the number of applicants, but how would we do that? Take only the first ten? Take only the ones who applied within the first day? We finally decided to leave it open until the actual day of the competition. Since there would probably be a lot of sorcerers signed up to compete, we could split them up and hold preliminary trials.”

  Jason of Prosidian spoke up. “What sort of trials?”

  “We thought we’d pick four very specific tasks, one in each of the areas plus flying, and have them demonstrate their competence. Anyone who couldn’t perform any of the four tasks would be eliminated.”

  “Who would judge?” Geoffrey of Havernia asked.

  “We would. We thought we’d pair off and that way we could run six sets of trials at a time.”

  “There are thirteen of us,” Malcolm of Glyndal growled.

  “No, there would be only twelve,” Damien said patiently. “One of the chairs would be vacant. That’s the reason we’d be holding the competition.”

  “What would we do? Pick the best in each lot?” Judith of Riordan asked.

  Damien shook his head. “No, just eliminate the ones who shouldn’t be there. Anyone who can pass the four initial tests can compete for the chair.” He waited a minute to see if there were any other questions. Then he continued. “After the trials, the competition would begin.”

  “Who decides the tasks? Him?” Gwendolyn of Landoryn hissed, pointing at Kevin.

  “No, we thought each seated sorcerer should prepare one task for each of the three areas, and two that are more complicated, that involve more than one skill.”

  Judith nodded. “That sounds good. A seated sorcerer should be able to do more than one thing at a time.”

  Others nodded in agreement
. Then Starvos of Jardin frowned and said, “That’s a lot of tasks. If each of us submits one task for the seeing eye, that’s thirteen right there. So, the single tasks would come to thirty-nine. And if all of us submit two complicated tasks, that’s another twenty-six. How long is this competition going to go on?”

  Damien shook his head no. “We thought we’d put all the seeing eye tasks in one jar, outstretched hand in another, and magical energy in a third. Myron could draw two or three in each area, depending on what we decide. Then he could draw maybe five or six of the more complicated tasks.”

  “Why not go ahead and decide what tasks will be in the competition now?” Starvos asked.

  “We thought it would be better if no one knew for sure what tasks would be involved until the day of the competition.”

  “But some of the more complicated events might need some setting up,” Geoffrey said.

  “Keep that in mind when you devise your tasks. Don’t use anything that wouldn’t normally be available.”

  Geoffrey nodded.

  “What about sparring?” Jason asked. “Are we going to ask the competitors to demonstrate their ability to defend themselves?”

  Damien slowly shook his head. “All of the competitors know what’s at stake. If they can’t defend themselves, they have no business even considering a seat on the council.”

  “And besides, that will be tested soon enough,” Regan said quietly.

  “Just who would decide the winner of this competition?” Malcolm asked.

  “We would,” Damien said. “By secret ballot.”

  “Secret ballot?” Malcolm sneered. “Is there anyone here who would be afraid for the others to see how he cast his vote?”

  “No, but maybe it would be better if the new seated sorcerer didn’t know who voted against him. All we’d be voting on is the level of magical skills demonstrated. None of us will know any of the competitors. Why not use a secret ballot?”