Wizards

  "What are the poles for?"

  Tyden looked at me in astonishment. "The witches will be tied to them and burnt at Wickers Eve."

  "What witches?"

  "The ones being guarded. Are you blind?"

  I realized the piles of cloth were people sitting on the earth in despair.

  "That’s a lot of witches."

  Tyden squinted up his eyes. "Only a dozen, if that. Some years there are as many as three dozen. More may arrive with the caravans. The people from far and wide gather in Barren for the festival."

  "There are that many witches in this world?"

  "Many girls become witches when they become unclean. It is the way of women to be driven by evil."

  "How can you tell?"

  "They trick and beguile men with their wanton ways. It is a certain sign. They can ride the wind and cause milk to go sour. They are evil and deserve to burn in the fires of hell."

  I was lost for words. This society killed young girls by the dozen. I felt unclean looking at the town.

  "When is Wickers Eve?"

  "The third full moon after the summer solstice."

  I stared at Tyden and he realized I wanted a more meaningful answer.

  "Unless your world befuddles time it will be in three days’ time. When the sun sets on Wickers Eve the torches will be lit. The witches will scream in agony as the evil is burnt from their souls and the people will rejoice."

  I can’t defend my next action, but Tyden's obvious delight at the murders to come was too much for me. I punched him in the face sending him rolling down the slope of the hill. I would have preferred it if we had been standing on a cliff.

  It had gone well so far. Esmeralda agreed in principle to take the witches from Barren, should I figure out a way to rescue them. However, I knew she would want something in return and I wasn’t wrong.

  "You will attend all the balls from now until the end of summer," Esmeralda said.

  "Agreed."

  "And you will accompany me to half of them, just the two of us, without the presence of Jenny."

  "No. Jenny will be beside me, every time."

  "You are not in a strong position to bargain, Jake."

  "I’m in a perfect position, because I don't need to come to you at all. Perhaps I should take my offer to King Willim of Frode, or King Lantis of Alegon?"

  Esmeralda stamped her foot.

  "You came here asking for my help. Have you already forgotten?"

  "I came here asking you to take in a dozen or more witches from another world. And by that I mean potential wizards, female wizards who would be in your debt."

  "I liked it better when you were naïve. But you and I know these girls are victims, not real wizards."

  "I'm not so sure about that and I am a wizard. How can you be so certain? A dozen young women in your kingdom would be no hardship, and if even one of them has genuine talent she would be a major asset."

  Esmeralda batted her eyes at me and gave me a look that put me in mind of a lovesick cow.

  "Please Jake. The people of Salice are already questioning your absence. Just attend the Friendship Ball with me and without Jenny. She has you all the time as it is."

  "You forget, Jenny is my girlfriend. You’re just some crazy princess with a crush on me. I’m never going to marry you, Esmeralda. But I will turn up at your balls with Jenny and play along with this game until you find some way to get us out of this insanity without losing face."

  "Most men would be happy to marry a princess and have your children inherit a kingdom. Or is the thought of bedding me so awful? You seemed keen to spank me the other day. Would my lord wizard like a second chance to see if it gets his juices flowing?"

  I sighed, not for the first time since I hopped to Salice. I must admit, it had been a damned sight easier to get things done when she knew where I was and came looking for me. It took me hours to find her.

  "Will you take the girls or should I look elsewhere?"

  Esmeralda considered. "You will attend the balls?" I nodded. "Then we will take your girls into the kingdom."

  "Do you need to check with your father?"

  Esmeralda shook her head. I hoped she was right. I had hopped straight here from Barren, leaving Tyden on the hill where I punched him. He could make his own way to the town and seek a job. I was done with him and if he died, that was his hard luck. Finding somewhere to take the witches became my primary objective. Of course, there was still the little matter of rescuing them, but I needed someone willing to take them before I worried about that.

  It seemed amazing that only a day or two ago, Jenny and I had been sitting in a coffee shop minding our own business. Now there was a stroppy and somewhat damaged young female wizard to worry about, not to mention a whole group of girls about to be burnt at the stake. I couldn't ignore them now that I knew about them. I had to do something.

  "I need to rescue them sometime in the next three days, but according to my informant more victims may arrive so I’ll probably push it close to the third night before I make my move."

  "They’ll need food and water when they arrive, but there is always plenty of food in the palace and water is not a problem. Bring them to the courtyard when you can. I’ll place someone on watch night and day until they get here."

  I stood up and gave Esmeralda a quick kiss on the cheek. She blushed and put her hand over the spot.

  "Thank you, Esmeralda. I have to go."

  I hopped straight back to the gates of Jenny's college.

  "You'll get killed for sure," Jenny told me after I explained my plan to her.

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

  "Which would at least solve the problem with the police," Jenny mused. "They haven't dropped the charges against you, Jake. They just decided to let you go while they gather more evidence."

  "How do you know?"

  "I got my father to ask a friend of his who works in the police. He told dad that it's unusual for the police to do it, but not illegal. You're officially out on police bail."

  "They might have mentioned it," I muttered. As far as I could remember, all that happened was Sergeant Jones said I was free to go.

  "I expect they have a couple of policemen ready and willing to swear an oath they heard it all being explained to you. The point is, if you get delayed in Barren or Salice they might claim you’ve done a runner and put out a warrant for your arrest. You'll be guilty just because they said you ran."

  "If I get killed, I won't be worrying about it."

  Jenny punched me gently on the shoulder. We sat in the coffee shop where this all started. I met Jenny as she came out of college and we managed to grab our favorite table in the cafe. When Jenny picked up the Evening Chronicle from the rack, I took it out of her hands and put it back. That paper seemed determined to kill me and I had enough trouble on my plate as it was.

  "Esmeralda got you to agree to go to all the royal balls?"

  "With you at my side. She wanted you to stay home for some of them."

  "I may have to. My grades are dropping through the floor." Jenny smiled at me. "I'm proud of you for standing up to her. You wouldn't have done that when we first met."

  "I have to start work tomorrow on Mr. Griffith's job. I promised him, and he's my only source of income."

  "Jake Morrissey, saving the world on the days he doesn't have to work in a wood yard," Jenny said with a sad smile on her face.

  I looked around the shop and spotted a couple of unexpected faces.

  "It seems the police are following us," I said in a whisper. "That couple over there are cops. I've seen them before at the station."

  "Let's go back to your house. We can hop to the cave from your room."

  When we arrived in the Bat Cave, I was surprised to see Fluffy sitting by the entrance in the side of the cliff. It took me a few seconds to realize he wasn’t alone and somebody sat beside him.

  "Bronwyn!" Jenny called out and the figure turned towards us.

  "I cam
e to see Retnor. Jake said I could," Bronwyn said defensively. Since anything I said would stir her up I went to the stove to make a cup of tea. The great thing about the British is we will stop any conflict long enough to sit and have a cup of tea with our enemies. It is our one inestimable contribution to civilization.

  Jenny and Bronwyn talked quietly to each other while I went through the tea making ritual. There’s something comforting about making tea. Warming the pot with boiling water from the kettle and emptying it out again. Adding the tea bags and waiting until the kettle water is boiling fiercely before tipping the water into the pot. The pot always comes to the kettle, never the other way around. I put the lid on the pot and waited for it to brew.

  A friend of mine turns the pot three times before pouring, but I think that’s silly. After letting the tea brew, the trick is to lift the lid and give the tea bags a quick stir before pouring.

  Wars have been fought and scientists have pondered the merits of whether the milk should be put in the cup before or after the tea. I have an uncle who proved to me he could taste the difference between the two. The truth is that those of us in North Wales prefer putting the tea in first though I can live with either method.

  "Sugar?" I shouted in Bronwyn's direction.

  "Two! Sweeteners if you have them."

  As if. She would have to put up with the granulated cane sugar. When I get fat I will start buying diet products, until then, I am a whole milk, pure sugar fanatic and to hell with health gurus.

  By the time I stirred three cups and one large mug of tea I was calm again. That’s the true magic of tea, the ritual gives you time to find inner peace. It just doesn't work when you make instant coffee.

  "I take it your parents think you’re at home?" I asked as I handed Bronwyn her cup.

  "Locked in my bedroom by my father. Jenny told me about the hopscotch court you keep under your carpet of your bedroom and I drew one of those. It took me ten goes to get it to work with the carpet covering it."

  "Mum scrubbed it off while I was away," I reminisced. "That’s how I convinced myself I didn't need a physical court, just the one in my mind."

  "With a little cajoling from your girlfriend," Jenny put in quickly.

  "That helped too," I admitted.

  "The police are trying to get me to say you assaulted me. Some inspector with a drooping face who can barely talk has been at me."

  "That would be Inspector Thomas. I wished him laryngitis and it seems to have stuck."

  "My boyfriend is an evil wizard and you must never copy his terrible magic."

  Bronwyn grinned and so did we.

  "I could get you arrested and sent to jail for child abuse," Bronwyn said, and the grins faded from our faces. "I'm not going too. You saved my life," she said hastily. "I'm just saying I’m going to be your friend."

  "And…?" I asked. There’s always a demand after a statement like that.

  "Please let me come up here and talk to the three of you, Jake. I won't be any trouble and I’ll tidy the cave up after me and everything."

  "I’ve told you before you are welcome here. But, you must never bring any friends here."

  "I wouldn't," Bronwyn said indignantly.

  "Then everything will be fine."

  We settled down to drink our tea. I commanded the cave to get a little warmer. It was getting chilly as the evening progressed. Fluffy sat upright with his mug in his hands. He was very partial to a mug of tea. I found that strange as he was a true carnivore.

  Perhaps it was because he used to share tea with me in my room when he was little. We would often sit by the window in the evening and watch the stars come out as we took sips from the same cup.

  I knew this was the calm before the storm. It wasn't only the witches I had to rescue; it was the certainty that with the police following me everything would change.

  I found I was smiling as I contemplated that fact. Apart from Jenny, I had a dragon and a damaged child as my friends. Somehow, the three of them seemed more than enough to deal with, whatever tomorrow brought.

  Chapter Eleven: Witches of Barren

  It was late afternoon on the day of Wickers Eve. Here in Wales it was nothing of the sort, but it was the last chance I had to rescue the children staked out in a corral in Barren's town square. I looked critically at my image in the mirror.

  Jenny had been to the theatrical store in town and found me clothes that would be inconspicuous in Barren. Over the last two days, we had visited the outskirts of the town several times and spied from the same hill where I left Tyden to fend for himself. Against my better judgment, but at the strong insistence of Jenny, I had brought Bronwyn with us.

  Using Jenny's father's field glasses, we discovered that each of those imprisoned in the corral were chained to iron spikes driven deep into the ground. The prisoners had just enough chain to reach the trough set out for them to relive themselves and to drink from a bucket of water next to it. Bronwyn vomited when she saw how the children were treated. This was where she would have ended up if we hadn't rescued her.

  The chains the children wore were going to cause me problems. I needed to free the children before I could hop them to Salice. There were significant limits on my ability to transport people across the multiverse and I couldn't bring along the ground they were standing on.

  An added problem was the sheer number of children to rescue. When I first looked, there were less than a dozen young people in the corral. There had been enough room between them for me to mistake them for piles of clothes. I could never have made that mistake now because the corral was crowded with prisoners. They were impossible to count from our position on the hill, but there couldn't have been less than thirty children in the corral. It was possible there were forty or fifty.

  I'd been practicing my ability to create a shield, basing it on the one Wizard Plath used. I used it once before when I shielded myself from arrows. That was easy to create as the shield only existed in one direction and there was nothing in the way.

  Back in Wales, I found it difficult to put a circular shield around me and still be able to move. I kept walking into the damned thing and squashing my nose. I didn't want to trap the witches I was trying to save, so I practiced creating the shield with precision. I was beginning to appreciate why Plath made the damned thing glow. It allowed him to see where it was.

  Jenny was highly critical of my plan and I knew she had a point. The trouble was I couldn't think of anything better. In essence, I was going to hop into the corral to free the witches by magically cutting their chains. When I freed as many of them as I could hop at one time, I was going to hop them to Salice and then go back to rescue some more.

  With a little luck, the people of Barren would be too busy feasting and shouting 'death to witches' to notice what was going on until I had most of the children away. When they noticed, they would try and stop me. Most of the men carried bows as well as swords and knives, which is why I needed to get my shield working.

  "What's to stop them killing the girl's you don't rescue on the first trip?" Bronwyn asked.

  "They're going to kill them anyway if I don't rescue them. At least this way they have a chance," I said. Truth was, that was a weak answer and I saw contempt in Bronwyn's eyes.

  We talked about other possibilities, such as me putting everyone in the town to sleep. I just didn't believe I had the power to do it. After a lot of pointless discussion in which I repeatedly told Jenny she wasn't coming with me, she suggested I should cast a spell to get the crowd to ignore what was going on in the corral. Some of my powers act like hypnosis and there was no doubt this was a brilliant idea. Sending a calming message to those in the corral before I started to free them was also a sensible suggestion. It was Bronwyn who thought of that one.

  There was no point in putting things off any longer, so I hopped to the hill outside Barren. Barren was a little ahead of Wales in terms of time of day and it was nearly dark there. The town square was lit with torches and packed with pe
ople. The stage had men gesticulating on it. Even from the hill, I heard the ugly sound of shouted words of hate, echoed by the frightening rumble of voices that comes from a mob stirred into lusting for blood.

  I must admit I gulped and found myself having second and even third thoughts. How could I have thought I was going to get away with it? The whole plan was little better than insane. Somehow I managed to quell my doubts enough to act.

  I hopped to an alley just outside the square and joined the mob. Slowly but surely I pushed and shoved my way to the corral. My initial idea had been to hop to the witches, but as the numbers of prisoners increased that became a bad idea.

  "The witches will be cleansed in flame!" the man on the platform screamed. I could feel the power in his voice. This was a man who believed in his mission with holy fervor. "Their cries of pain will enrich our souls and destroy their evil. For is there not evil in every female heart and even more to be found between their lusting legs? We men are not made of stone and we must do what is right whatever the cost. This is for these demons’ own good."

  "Yeah, right," I muttered to myself. I didn't see any of these men volunteering to be burnt along with their children. Then I remembered there was something else I should be doing. I started to chant under my breath. "Nothing is happening in the corral" over and over.

  The guard with the sword didn't notice me as I climbed over the small wooden fence into the corral. He looked straight at me and I saw the mist in his eyes. My chant seemed to be working for the moment. I made the decision to start from the back of the prisoners and I changed the chant slightly, "Be calm, trust the stranger," in between "Nothing is happening in the corral". It was a bit like singing different parts in a choir and that skill is built into every Welsh boy's genes.

  Despite my chants, the first girl I freed stared at me in terror. I put my finger to my lips and indicated she should follow me. Her face was thin with starvation and her eyes black rimmed from lack of sleep. Feed her up and let her sleep and she would be indistinguishable from any child in Wales. She couldn't have been more than twelve years old.