Halcyon was unlucky to be allergic to the spider bite, Theus thought, because not everyone was allergic to it, at least not to such a degree. And that was good news, because the spider was fairly common, though he wasn’t able to make his eyes fall into a pattern to see and recognize the spider, at least not immediately. He slowly strolled along the riverside, his eyes focused down, then he turned and started back towards the village, before he finally saw one of the targets of his attention. He stepped on the creature, then gingerly picked up the dead creature, and carried it and the fresh tubers back into the tavern.
The girl’s father was standing in the kitchen, lining items up on the counter. “Here are the things you asked for,” he told Theus, as the servant looked on from a distance with discreet curiosity.
“Thank you. Can I use your stove top?” he asked as he placed his items next to the father’s collection.
“Sure,” the man shrugged, still torn between hope and doubt about Theus’s ability.
Theus grabbed a nearby knife and began to hastily cut apart the tubers he had plucked from the moist riverside soil, then he began to measure and mix the other items in the remedy, as the father and the servant occasionally stood and watched.
He mashed it all together, and placed it in a pan on the stove top, then added some water as he heated and stirred it to cause the ingredients to blend and interact. When he took it off the heat minutes later, he poured it into a bowl, to let it cool.
The father was not present, so Theus grabbed his bowl and a spoon, then climbed up to the girl’s room on his own, and took up his position next to the patient’s head. He was distracted; he knew he was spending time that he wanted to spend traveling towards Amelia, but he felt determined to treat the girl and give her a chance to live again.
He propped her head on her pillow, then pulled her chin slightly to create a gap between her lips, and he began to patiently spoon his medicine into her mouth, tilting her head back to cause her to unconsciously swallow the concoction little by little. Ten minutes later he was finished, and he placed the spoon in the empty bowl on the bedside table, satisfied with his work.
There was nothing more for him to do to help Halcyon. She would recover on her own, he knew. And he felt ready to move on. He’d spent hours since his first white magic traveling step of the day, and he felt recovered – ready to take another step and move on. He looked out the window to find the position of the sun, oriented himself accordingly, then engaged his magical use of his own energy and stepped out of the room, the building, and the village.
He arrived in an empty prairie further to the south. He bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees, gasping for breath as a result of the use of his energy to make the journey.
The weather was pleasant, sunny and warm. After momentarily collecting himself, he began to trudge south, unimpeded by hills or valleys or animals or men. It was an empty expanse of land, with dormant grasses growing thigh-high.
By late afternoon, he felt largely recovered from his last great step, and he contemplated taking a third one. He remembered the pain he’d felt the previous night, after a third journey in a day, but he felt stronger. Perhaps it was a case of his body adjusting to the rigors of the energy usage, or perhaps it was the strength he had gained by eating a full meal at the tavern. In either case, he knew he had decided to make the third step
He prepared himself, then delved into his own interior and grasped his energy. It felt once again as though he was gaining an incomplete hold on the energy, but for the third step of the day, it was satisfactory, he felt. He released his energy as he stepped forward, and then landed on his knees once again, his strength consumed by what he had done. He eyes were cast straight downward, and were only inches from the pavement beneath him.
“What’s happening here? Had too much to drink?” a man’s voice asked roughly. “Get yourself in the alley at least before you get sick all over yourself; have some decency,” the voice commanded, and then Theus heard steps walking away on the pavement.
The reality of his situation suddenly registered. He was on a paved street, with other people. He raised his head and looked around.
He was in a narrow street, one that was lined with tidy-looking buildings made of stone and brick. A few people were walking, though they were circling wide of his position on the side of the street. There was no apparent end to the street. He was in a large city, it seemed.
“Voice? Where am I?” he asked hoarsely.
There was no answer.
Could he have reached Steep Rise already, he wondered. He might have surpassed the expectations of the Voice and traveled farther south than seemed reasonable. He had managed to make three jumps that day and the day before, little short of a week’s worth of travel.
He hoped he hadn’t already reached his destination. Steep Rise would be a dangerous, deadly place, and he was in no shape to defend himself.
Using the nearby wall, Theus pulled himself upright, and stood with slumped posture, as he wearily surveyed his surroundings once again. The street he was on appeared residential, but the nearest cross street had shops, and therefore at least some promise of an inn where he might stay for the night, as well as discover his location.
The man who had chastised him on the street seemed to express the opinion of everyone else on the street who encountered him staggering along the walls of the houses, as they all gave him a wide berth, and several added looks of disgust. Theus kept his head down and marshalled his strength as he slowly plodded forward, until he reached the corner, where he looked in both directions of the intersecting road.
He saw shops that were closed, and a pair of taverns that were open, but no inns.
The nearest tavern was very close. It offered a place to sit, and another meal to eat, he hoped, and so he slouched his way in that direction.
When he opened the door, the room was packed with men, and a very few women. The air was thick with smoke from both the fireplace and pipes, he judged from the aroma. He spotted one open seat, at a table where five other men were sitting, drinking wine from a bottle they passed among themselves. There were no other open seats visible, and his legs felt very tired, so he stepped over and sat down quietly.
“May I share your table to get dinner?” he asked the nearest man.
“Help yourself, bucko,” the man said. “Want a swig of wine?” he took the bottle from his companion and offered it to Theus.
“No thanks,” Theus declined.
The others at the table talked among themselves and paid no more attention to Theus after he declined their wine. A minute later a servant passed and Theus asked for a bowl of stew.
When his meal arrived several minutes later, he ate it ravenously, then breathed deeply in satisfaction.
“You didn’t offer to share with us?” the man across the table laughed. “You look like you need another one of those!”
“I do,” Theus smiled, feeling better after his meal. “I’ve had a long day traveling. I just arrived in town a little while ago.
“What town is this, anyway?” he asked.
His neighbor put down the wine bottle he had been about to drink from to turn and look at Theus. “You don’t know where you are? Where were you trying to go?” he asked incredulously. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been walking here from Great Forks,” Theus replied. “It’s been a long, lonely trip.”
“Nobody walks from Great Forks,” the man across the table exclaimed.
“I can see why,” Theus said wryly. “There’s nothing between here and there except for forests and grasslands, and a village or two.”
“Why didn’t you sail?” his neighbor asked.
The servant passed by at that moment, and Theus ordered a second bowl of stew.
“So why didn’t you sail?” the man repeated.
The truth wasn’t going to be the answer, Theus knew. But a partial truth might serve.
“The last time I was sailing, pirates a
ttacked our ship, and we were taken to Southsand,” Theus answered.
“Great gods of the waters! And you’re still alive to tell the tale?” the man on the other side of the table exclaimed.
“I’ve got a couple of scars as a result,” Theus assured him, as his bowl of stew arrived.
He began to spoon the food into his mouth.
“Well, you’re in Exlive,” his neighbor answered the earlier question. “Welcome.”
“How long will it take me to get to Steep Rise?” Theus asked.
“You don’t want to go there,” the man on the other side of the table said.
“There aren’t any good stories; it sounds frightening down there. Hardly anyone goes in or comes out, but they say there are new temples to a new god, a mean and angry god, with human sacrifice,” he embellished his answer dramatically.
“Human sacrifice?” Theus asked weakly. It was believable – unthinkable but horrifically believable. He’d learned enough about Donal and Ind’Petro to believe that the ugly, ancient god of the south would crave sacrifice and worship, even human sacrifice.
“I have a friend there,” he spoke aloud. “A friend who needs my help.”
“No ships sail there directly, or from there directly,” the man next to him said. “All shipping from Steep Rise has to go through Southsand. That’s why there’s so little news of what’s happening.”
Theus sat in silence, contemplating the news. He suddenly had no appetite to finish his half-eaten bowl of stew.
“Is there an inn close by, some place I can spend the night?” he asked.
“Down the street to the right, near the harbor, there are plenty of inns,” one of the other men at the table spoke up.
“It’s been a long day. I think I’ll go get a room,” Theus stood up.
“You take care young visitor. Those are dangerous places down south; some worry they may try to move up into our city as well,” his neighbor said. “Don’t you go down there unless you’re prepared to deal with serious trouble.”
“Thank you,” Theus appreciated the genuine concern the man expressed. He pulled extra coins out of his purse. “You have an extra bottle of wine on me, okay?” he plunked the coins on the table.
“Whoa ho, a generous visitor! We’ll drink a toast in your name. What’s your name?” the man across the table laughed.
“Theus, drink a toast to Theus, and to Amelia,” Theus answered. “And drink a toast to Coriae too,” he impulsively added a moment later, then he turned and left the tavern.
Where had the reference to Cory come from, he wondered as he began slowly walking in the direction of the harbor.
Chapter 3
Theus awoke the next morning, sleeping in a narrow bed in a small and shabby room. He felt refreshed, despite the state of his surroundings. The full night’s sleep, in a warm and dry room, had been good for him, and given him renewed strength. When he went downstairs and left the sailors’ flop house near the harbor, he saw that the sun was well above the horizon, and the morning was passing quickly.
He was in Exlive. He’d visited the city once before, with Amelia. Her uncle presumably was still the ambassador from Steep Rise, or perhaps not. Once upon a time, Theus had thought he’d reach Exlive with Amelia and Amory and Redford, their guard. The reception would have been less suspicious, he believed, if he’d had three witnesses to vouch for him. Instead, young Amelia had simply warned him of the suspicion and intent to harm, and he’d slipped away from the embassy. There was no point in going to the embassy to ask for news or advice, he knew.
Theus walked to the first bakery he found, and asked for a fruit tart. A random memory of the bakery he had visited on his first day in Great Forks floated to the fore of his consciousness. He’d never tasted such a refined and satisfying baked good as the tart he’d received on that day, a day that was only a few months past in respect to the calendar, though it felt like a lifetime in terms of the experiences he had gone through in the meantime.
He ordered a loaf of bread as well, and stuck it in his small pack.
Coriae would be appalled at his state of dress and hygiene, he was sure. He’d not changed or washed in several days, nor was he likely to for several more. He saw an alley across the street, and he dodged wagons and carts to step into it, while he looked up at the sun and tried to guess what direction he would travel in. His goal was to reach the vicinity of Steep Rise without actually entering it. He wanted to sleep outside Steep Rise, so that he could enter the city in the morning on foot in the usual manner, full of the energy he would need to be able to escape in a hurry once he found Amelia.
“Voice,” he suddenly spoke out loud. “Voice, I have a question for you.”
“You seem to be getting along quite well,” the Voice spoke to him.
“I think so,” Theus agreed. “I’m learning; it doesn’t feel natural, but I know what to do now.
“But I only know two things – how to travel and how to make light. There are other things – other white magic power spells – that I should know. What are they?
“I think I might need them soon,” he explained without pause. “I want to know every trick possible before I get to Steep Rise.
“I hear it’s terrible there. They say terrible things are happening in the city,” Theus reported.
“I can no longer see in the city,” there was terrible sadness in the tone of the Voice. “Many more people are suffering because of Ind’Petro. It is a great sadness. I hope we will see this through,” he said. “I will go all the way – as far as I must or can – with you to put an end to this evil madness.”
Theus paused, respectful of the pain the Voice felt.
“Can you teach me these other spells, and how to use them?” he asked again.
“They are right there in your own mind,” the Voice pointed out. “The powers you have not accessed are invisibility, ventriloquism, and control of the wind.”
“What does ventriloquism mean?” Theus asked, puzzled by the word he had never heard used before.
“It means,” the Voice suddenly seemed to be speaking from a point behind him. Theus whirled about at the unexpected sound, but saw no one.
“It means you can make your voice seem to come from,” the Voice spoke again, from his left side.
“Different locations,” the Voice finished from a point on his right.
“That was a demonstration,” it finished.
“That is a power? It seems more like a trick,” Theus said doubtfully,
“I’m going to move now, then look into such powers,” he said. “Which direction should I go?”
“South-southeast,” the Voice recommended.
Theus aimed his direction, straight at a building wall just four feet in front of him, then engaged his energy, and stepped forward, out of the city, and into a land of settled farms and ranches. He stood in a fallow field, and saw fences that confined grazing herds of cattle.
The climate had grown warmer as he had travelled south, he realized. He was scores of miles south of where he had begun the previous day, and the air held none of the chill that Great Forks had contained.
He saw a woodlot of mature trees on the other side of the field he stood in, and he walked towards it, tired from the use of the white magic to leave Exlive. Once inside the forest, he sat against a tree, and closed his eyes as he sorted through the memories that had been deposited within him by the stone he’d taken from Coriae’s ring.
There were many, many memories. Yet they all were tantalizingly blurred beyond recognition. He could sense them but not grasp them. Except for a few, the few he was allowed. What was behind that curtain, he wondered.
Then the breeze spell was suddenly in the center of his attention. He saw it, and digested its requirements, then suddenly grasped how it worked. He would use his own body’s energy to move the air around. It seemed as though it should be a simple spell, one that would require little use of his energy. But it was an indirect process, he realized.
He raised his hand experimentally, and looked at the simple sight. Then he focused on his intention to move the air around it. He grasped his inner energy, which he found to be in short supply while he was recovering from his recent step away from Exlive. With what he was able to grasp, he warmed the air on the back of his hand. He felt the warmth there, and he felt the air rising.
Then he focused on replacing that departing warm air with a supply that breezed between his fingers and around his hand.
It worked. It was simple. At least on such a small scale.
To use it on a larger scale, to cause a wind to blow through a village, or even to blow over a single person, would require a great deal of energy he realized. It would be the same as traveling a day’s worth of distance in a single step.
He blew air out noisily, and searched for other forms of magic. He found the invisibility spell, and examined it as well, then practiced it. He felt no different as he applied the spell to himself, but when he held his hand up in front of his face once again, he could not see it, nor was his view of anything beyond it obscured in any way.
He stood up. His energy level had recovered enough to resume walking south, until he was ready to take another long step with white magic. He wasn’t sure how far the distance was to Steep Rise – when he and Amelia had walk much of the distance they had needed a week, but they had followed the shoreline, not walked in a straight line. Regardless, he wasn’t going to attempt more than two magical steps for that day. He would not risk entering Steep Rise unable to defend himself.
Unpredictable Fortunes (The Memory Stone Series Book 3) Page 4