“You did not like it, did you? Having me inside your mind,” Jhonate said. “How many centuries has it been since you felt invaded?”
She chuckled. “You know nothing of me, girl. My idle thoughts could fill your mind a thousand times over. What little you saw was insignificant.”
“Then why are you so worried?” The black fingers kept searching in her head, leaving a slimy residue behind, but she continued to shift those important memories aside. She had fought too hard to have them taken away now. She flexed her mind, and armor appeared back over the clothes on her body.
“So you insist on keeping those thoughts from me?” The black figure withdrew her arm from Jhonate’s mind and moved forward until her face was inches from Jhonate’s own. “It is futile. I will have them.”
“Why are you so proud?” Jhonate glared into the creatures red eyes. “For all your power, you are trapped. Enslaved. I saw that much.”
“Trapped?” A peal of horrible laughter ripped forth from her throat. “Trapped? You caught but a tiny glimpse of my vastness. My eyes are everywhere. I have long ago escaped the bonds of a human mind.”
“So what I discovered was real. You were human once. What warped you into this thing before me?”
The face contorted into a snarl. The bands around Jhonate squeezed. It became harder to think. The armor began to melt away again.
“I marked you for death a mere year ago.” the creature said. “And now I have you. When you are dead, it will not matter what you learned.”
“And yet I live,” Jhonate responded, struggling to remain conscious. There was something she had learned, something important. What was it? What?
“Not for long.”
There was a crunch somewhere inside her. Jhonate’s thoughts faded. The whiteness surrounding them dimmed. What was it? What had she learned? Something important had resided in the center of the creature’s mind . . .
“I know your name,” Jhonate said. The perfect face was filled with terror. “You are Melinda.”
A howl of rage filled the air. The bonds tightened again,
“Release me,” Jhonate commanded.
The creature stepped back and Jhonate was free.
“You will have no power over me!”
The creature named Mellinda swelled. More and more blackness flooded through the window. Before Jhonate could issue another command, hundreds of black arms shot forth into the whiteness. The hands grasped, searching for the name. Jhonate tried to hide it, but there were too many. She was not fast enough. The hands seized the memory and tore it away.
“Now your commands are nothing!” The mother surged towards Jhonate’s small form.
Suddenly, an enormous gray arm came from nowhere, or possibly from everywhere at once, and seized the creature in its fist. The black tendrils withered. The beautiful face began to dissolve.
“Let me go, soulless one! Let me-!”
The voice cut off. Jhonate’s white world dissipated. She heard concerned voices and felt the chill mountain air on her face. She opened her eyes, but her vision was dimmed. A rough hand ripped the orange moonrat eye from her grasp.
Jhonate’s eyes cleared. Tamboor the Fearless, his glistening body still steaming in the winter air, brought the eye up to his face.
“Thank you, Tamboor the Fearless. She did not get it all,” Jhonate said. “She did not get everything.”
Jhonate felt hands trying to help her up and shook them off. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing her nerves to relax. Her head ached and her mind reeled from the mother of the moonrat’s last attack. She had torn such an important discovery from her grasp. What had it been? Jhonate remembered feeling such a sense of triumph before . . . but whatever she had lost, the creature had failed. She hadn’t gotten everything.
Jhonate stood. One important fact loomed large in her mind. She turned and looked at Faldon and Locksher’s concerned faces.
“We are too late. Ewzad Vriil’s army has begun the attack on the academy.”
Tamboor growled and squeezed his taught fist. Muscles bulged in his forearm and with a pop, orange ichor squirted from his hand. Tamboor threw the remnants of the eye to the ground.
Chapter Thirty Three
Justan exited the lodge, his belly filled with a hearty breakfast. He stepped into the street and took a deep breath of the crisp morning air, inhaling the scent of the pines in the forest mixed with the smell of hay and manure from the stables and the faint whiff of smoke already coming from the smithy. He stretched, feeling each individual muscle in his back tighten in a satisfying manner. His senses were sharper now, his body more aware. It was an exhilarating way to begin the day.
He walked towards the stables, but stopped before entering. He turned to look up past the log walls of Coal’s Keep and into the trees beyond. In the highest boughs of one tree he caught the briefest glint of eyes watching.
As he did every day, Justan greeted his new bonded. Good morning, Deathclaw, will you please let me fix that headache? The raptoids head still throbbed. The pain hadn’t faded like Master Coal had said it would. Justan had no idea how Deathclaw functioned as well as he did. Justan had to mute the sensation to avoid getting sympathy headaches of his own. As usual, all he received was an irritated hiss in response. Deathclaw did not like that Justan always knew where he was. Very well then. Will you be joining us again today?
Deathclaw hissed again. Still, Justan knew that he would follow.
Fist and Gwyrtha were waiting in the stables. Justan smiled. “Ready to work?”
“Yes!” Fist said. “Miss Nala said that she would be making meat pies this morning. I hope she also makes fruit pies.”
“So do I,” Justan said.
Gwyrtha nudged him. Ride.
Justan grinned and scratched her behind the ears. “Let’s go then.”
He mounted up and they left the keep, Fist walking beside them. Justan sensed Deathclaw nearby, shadowing them in the trees. The raptoid tried his best to remain undetected, staying downwind and keeping to the shadows, but he couldn’t hide from the bond.
He follows, Gwyrtha said. Evidently he couldn’t hide from her either.
“Yes he does, Gwyrtha,” Justan said, patting the side of her neck. “It’s okay.”
On a hunch, he decided to widen his connection to Deathclaw’s side of the bond. The pain of the raptoid’s headache leaked through, but it wasn’t intolerable. Now Deathclaw would hear their conversation despite the distance. A brief sound in the forest beyond told Justan that Deathclaw had been startled by the sensation.
Fist glanced in the trees. “Why does he watch us?”
“He is curious,” Justan answered. “He can sense the bond, but he does not understand it.”
“Tell him then,” the ogre said.
“It’s not that easy. I’ve tried. But he doesn’t like it when I contact him directly.”
“Why not?”
Fist was asking “why” questions a lot lately. Why do all humans sleep in separate rooms? Why are rocks heavier than wood? Why is the sky blue? Justan supposed that it was a good thing the ogre wanted to understand the world, but that didn’t keep it from being annoying.
“Deathclaw is different from you and me, Fist,” Justan said. What little he knew about Deathclaw came mostly from what he had learned the night they bonded. At the time, thoughts and memories had flooded Justan’s mind and he hadn’t been able to process them all. Deathclaw had fended off every attempt to learn more since. “He wasn’t always like us. He used to be a wild beast before the wizard changed him.”
“He is no longer a beast?” Fist didn’t quite believe it.
“Not truly,” Justan said. “He is just afraid.”
“What is he scared of?”
“I’m not quite sure. Himself maybe. He doesn’t quite know what he is.”
“Either do I,” Fist said candidly. “Am I still ogre? Am I now part human?”
Fist is Fist, Gwyrtha said.
“Yes.” The ogre grunted in agreement. “I am me. Squirrel is Squirrel. Gwyrtha is Gwyrtha. And Justan is Justan. That is all I know.”
Justan is Justan, Gwyrtha agreed.
“Good point, Fist,” Justan said with affection. “We have all been through a lot of changes. But we are still us. That’s all that is important. Deathclaw on the other hand hasn’t come to grips with that.”
Justan felt a tightening on Deathclaw’s side of the bond, as the raptoid somehow squeezed it shut. The pain of the headache left as well. Evidently he no longer wanted to hear exactly what they were saying. Still, that didn’t stop Deathclaw from watching them through the trees as they worked.
That afternoon, Justan arrived at the study before Master Coal had arrived. He was trying to decide whether to wait inside for the wizard when he noticed Qyxal kneeling next to the honstule garden that stood in front of the study. The elf had a large leather-bound book open on the ground in front of him and was transcribing notes into a smaller notebook with a quill pen. It wasn’t the first time Justan had seen him like this. While Justan spent his spare time working and training, Qyxal seemed to always be tending the gardens.
“Kind of an odd place for a read, isn’t it?” Justan asked. “Aren’t you uncomfortable reading all hunched over like that?”
“Just a second.” Qyxal made one more quick note and looked up at Justan with a half grin. “It’s fine. My feet may get numb after a while and I’ll have to sit. What are you up to? Is Master Coal not in yet?”
“He’s not. I wonder what’s keeping him. He’s usually leaning back in his chair, sipping a cup of tea by the time I get here.” Justan walked around the edge of the garden to where Qyxal knelt. The sweet smell of honstule blossoms hung in the air and Justan felt the warmth radiating from the soil. Coal kept the garden heated year round. “What are you studying?”
“This is one of Old Honstule’s field journals,” the elf said. “At the end of his life, he devoted all of his time to the development of this vegetable. He calls it ‘specimen p405’. They didn’t start calling the plant honstule until after his death.”
“It’s pretty impressive, isn’t it, a goblin creating something new like that?” Justan said.
“Pretty impressive?” Qyxal shook his head and laughed. “Justan, don’t you know how amazing this plant is?”
“Well it certainly tastes good.” Justan replied. “And everyone says that it’s great for energy.”
“Justan, this plant is much more than that. It is a miracle. That little old goblin created a plant that is practically perfect for cultivation. It grows all year round. You never have to replant it. It lives on a minimal amount of water and you only rarely have to fertilize it. You can harvest the entire plant by cutting it down a few inches above the ground and it will regrow within a month. Every part of the plant can be eaten.”
The elf was so animated that Justan couldn’t help but smile. “Master Coal says that it should be a staple in every farmer’s garden.”
“Farmers that grew this plant wouldn’t need anything else. Justan, lean in close and look at this plant. Come on, kneel down,” Qyxal said and Justan did so. “Now switch to mage sight.”
There was a faint but unmistakable glow of magic radiating from the plant; an intricate mix of earth and water and air magic interwoven throughout the fibers. “I see it.”
“This is the same type of magic that you would see in an apple grown from a tree in an elven homeland,” Qyxal explained. “This plant has elven magic.”
“How did Honstule accomplish that?” Justan asked.
The elf pointed to the large leather-bound book. “According to his notes, the majority of Honstule’s work on this plant was done while he lived at the Mage School. He says that the soil in the gardens at the school was mixed with soil gifted to the wizards by various elven tribes over the years. This means that several small sections of the Mage School gardens are actually elven homeland.”
Justan was impressed. An elven homeland took hundreds of years to create. When Elves moved into an area they seeded the ground with their hair, their waste, and the bodies of their dead. Over time this imbued the soil with their life essence. Trees and other plants that grew in that soil stayed green all year round and never rotted. Justan had eaten elf-grown food before and he had actually been able to feel the life of it enter his body.
Qyxal reached into a pouch tied at his belt and pulled out a small handful of seeds. To Justan’s mage sight, they glowed black with earth magic. “See Justan, Honstule developed a plant that produced seeds that were themselves full of elven magic. If you take a seed from an apple grown in an elven homeland and plant it somewhere else, it doesn’t grow to produce magic-enhanced apples. The magic in those seeds would be borrowed magic. If not planted in the soil of an elven homeland, the plant would grow heartily, but the magic is long gone by the time the tree is big enough to bear fruit. But this plant is different. Its magic isn’t borrowed. Its magic is inherent like the magic of the elves themselves!”
“So . . .” Justan tried to wrap his mind around the concept. “What you are saying is that this plant will produce magicly-enhanced fruit no matter where it is planted?”
“Yes! And look at this.” He picked up a handful of soil. “Master Coal says that this garden was planted just ten years ago. Look at the magic within. Each honstule leaf or flower that is allowed to re-enter the soil as fertilizer has left its own magic traces behind. Its very growth cycle creates homeland!” Qyxals eyes were brimming with excitement. “My people are living in constant battle with the decay of the moonrats. There has been a stalemate for years. For every foot of new homeland we create, another foot of forest begins to rot. With honstule plants my people could create new homeland five times as fast.”
“That’s great, Qyxal,” Justan said, clasping the elf’s shoulder.
“This is why I joined the Mage School. To find a way to help my people with my talent! When we leave here, I will be able to return to the forest. With these seeds and all the growing techniques I have learned while we have been here, we will win the fight. That’s what I have been up to while you were learning bonding magic.” Qyxal picked up the book he had been writing in. “It is all right here. And when the battle in the Tinny Woods is over and the moonrats are driven out, I can take Old Honstule’s plant from farmstead to farmstead and village to village.”
“With a plant like this, a farmer could live anywhere,” Justan said. He was catching on to Qyxal’s dream. “It is a great ambition you have, Qyxal. All I’m trying to do is master my magic and enter the Battle Academy. I haven’t thought much further than that.”
Qyxal chuckled and shook his head. “Justan, I have known you for nearly two years now. In that time you have saved the Mage School from a marauding golem, become named twice, liberated a dungeon full of prisoners from an evil wizard’s castle, defeated a rock giant, and you have even found time to teach an ogre to read. I think that you will find a way to make your future important.”
“Well, that’s an exaggeration,” Justan said. “But I’ll tell you what, Qyxal. If I can help you with your dream I will. That is a promise. Maybe when I am done with my time at the Mage School, I will stop in to help your people fight off those moonrats for a while.”
“I will hold you to it,” Qyxal said.
Justan took his leave and walked back to the door of the study. The wizard still hadn’t arrived, which was strange. He sat on the top step and decided he might as well get some practice in while he waited.
Justan leaned back against the door and closed his eyes. He immersed himself in the bond. Deathclaw was up in a tree beyond the wall, still watching and eating a fox or something as close as Justan could tell. Fist was at Miss Nala’s and he didn’t know where the wizard was. Gwyrtha was out on patrol with Samson. Coal wasn’t with them and she didn’t have a way to ask the centaur about his whereabouts.
With nothing else to do, Justan tested his other bonds. They were fainter,
and without a person on the other end to communicate to, he still wasn’t quite sure how to use them. Ma’am was in his room back at the lodge and as usual, he felt only an eagerness from her. She wanted to shoot. His link to his naming dagger, or to be more precise, his links to the two individual blades of the dagger, were odd. Lenny had been working on a way to incorporate them into his sword designs and a few days ago the signals had been jumbled and strange. Today they were as clear as ever. They were at the forge and close together. Perhaps the dwarf had given up. Justan hoped that wasn’t the case.
Finally, and most reluctantly, he delved into his connection with the rune on his chest. He was leery about trying to communicate with whatever living thing the Scralag had placed inside of him, but it was something he made himself do every day at Master Coal’s urging. As usual, the bond ended abruptly as if blocked by a wall. Justan had tried coercing it, yelling at it, assaulting it; nothing had changed. This time, he eased his presence up to the blockage and ran his senses across it. The blockage was smooth as glass and unyielding. He switched to his mage sight and was greeted with a spiderweb of glowing blue and yellow. It was frost magic, just like his own.
Hunt of the Bandham (The Bowl of Souls: Book Three) Page 36