The banks of the pond rose sharply along the far edge directly into the rocks and trees of the ravine, but on this side there was a wide, flat strip of grass before the ground sloped up again. It was a perfect area for picnicking or playing in the sun before taking a dip in the water. Ava ran down onto the grassy flats, twirling as she went spinning and spinning before she fell to the ground dizzy. Her infectious laughter caught Verin and Nathan and soon they were laughing along with her.
“Come on. You two can come back and explore more another day. I have more I want to show you before we head back into Balta,” said Verin as he turned to head back up the steep ravine.
While Verin headed up the ravine, Nathan and Ava stood for a moment longer soaking up the view. Nathan had always found the water to be comforting. It was why the pond back at Elderwood had been his favorite place, it was also why he knew this was going to be his new favorite place. “We are coming back here very soon, okay?” said Nathan as he glanced over at Ava to gauge her response.
“Are you kidding me? This place is amazing; I am coming back here every chance I get.” Ava punched him in the arm. “You are not the only who loves the water. “ She laughed when he pretended her light hit had hurt his shoulder. then continued. “Let’s keep this place to ourselves for a while. Just like our old spot.”
Nathan beamed, “I’d like that a lot, now let’s hurry before our guide decides we are lost.”
When they caught up to Verin he acted as if they had been with him the whole time. Nathan appreciated the subtle ways of his uncle. Silently, the group walked together through the forest, occasionally Verin stopped and pointed out a plant for them to identify, Ava got almost all of them right away. Nathan had to admit to himself he was impressed, they had not been in Mithbea long and already Ava was familiar with almost all the local vegetation. I am going to have to take another look at the books in my room, he thought to himself. Obviously, Ava had learned much from hers. The path became steeper as they continued their climb through the forest.
“What is next on our list to see today?” asked Nathan.
Verin said nothing, walking towards a small rise ahead. When they reached the rise, the trees open up. They were on top of a large hill overlooking the valley below. From this point they could see for miles. To the north, the forest went onwards all the way to the coast. A few miles to the east they could see the beginning of the badlands, the vast desert that spanned between Balta and Morthon. The desert formed a rough triangle with the kingdoms of Balta and Morthon at two corners and the port city of Pailtar forming the third. To the south of the forest they could see a change in vegetation.
Ava recognized this from her books. “Is that the jungle down there?” she asked excitedly. Her books had warned of many dangers but also an exorbitant number of exotic plants like nothing they had back in Solotine.
Verin nodded. “Yes. Beyond the river is the jungle, it is a vast and dangerous area. I know you’re curious to explore it, but never go alone and never go too far from the river. If you get lost in the jungle you may never return, it is even more dangerous than northern Solotine.
Nathan thought back to the vraber attack that he and Verin had barely survived. If Verin thought that area was more dangerous than the north, then he wanted nothing to do with it.
Verin turned his attention to Nathan. “As a ranger, much of my time is spent in these woods. The Hocton Forest goes from the coast north of Balta all the way to the coastal mountains on the far southwest. The desert and jungle is a natural barrier between Balta and the other kingdoms of Mithbea, but it doesn’t stop rivals from trying to attack our kingdom. As rangers we are the first line of defense, always scouting and protecting the woodland communities that surround the kingdom. Soon I will be resuming my duties and my time with you will be limited.”
Nathan was not surprised that Verin would be leaving the city soon; Aunt Avera had mentioned that Verin had been on an extended leave to find him. Nathan would miss having his uncle around. His uncle’s guidance and calm, logical way of doing things had taught Nathan a great deal. “How long will you be gone for?”
“Usually a few weeks at a time or longer, but I will be coming to the city frequently to check in on you…so no slacking on your studies or training. I don’t want to come back to find you have turned into a lazy, no-good prat while I’m gone.”
Nathan laughed. “Oh I doubt that could happen under Aunt Avera’s supervision.” He was glad and relieved that Verin planned to keep tabs on him, he welcomed the opportunity spend more time with his uncle.
“True, your aunt will keep a good eye on you, on the both of you for that matter. Ava, I’m trusting you to keep this boy out of mischief while I am gone.” Verin gave Ava a small wink; he knew she was more likely to drag him into adventure than caution against it.
Ava gave her most innocent and pious look. “I will do my best, but you know how these boys are, always running from one adventure to the next. It will be difficult but I shall try to keep him out of trouble.”
Nathan’s head swiveled back and forth as Verin and Ava talked, Ava in charge of keeping me out of trouble? Talk about a recipe for disaster… “I’m standing right here, you two can stop any time now, and besides, I have no intentions of finding trouble.”
Chapter twelve
SHARON AND ROSE WERE sitting in the common area talking about Rose’s first few days of school when they heard a knock on their door. Nathan and Ava were getting magic lessons with Balthazar so they were not expecting anyone. Curious as to who was knocking, Sharon got up from the couch and went to the door. When she opened the door, she found a stranger looking at her. A slender mop-haired teenage boy stood timidly at the door. “Hello?” said Sharon.
The boy stood there for a moment, then stammered out a greeting, “Hhhello.” Sharon waited for him to keep talking, but the strange boy just stood there paralyzed like a startled deer. “Can I help you?” asked Sharon.
This got the boy’s attention. He shook his head a bit, as if to clear the cobwebs, and then replied. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting someone that looked like you to be opening the door.”
Sharon smiled. “Oh, am I supposed to look hideous? Be an old woman, a young boy? A redhead or a troll? What were you expecting?”
Her teasing revitalized the boy some as he chuckled before replying. “No trolls, I was expecting to meet a couple young ladies.” The boy paused, looking past Sharon to Rose then back at Sharon again. “I just wasn’t prepared for how beautiful they would be.” The boy lowered his head, embarrassed. How cute, thought Sharon, he is so shy.
Rose came to the door and introduced herself. “Hello, I’m Rose.”
The boy turned from Sharon to Rose and gave her a small smile. “Hello Rose, I am Quinton.”
Rose immediately smiled back, breaking into an ear-to-ear grin. “Oh I know who you are. You are the amazing genius magician that Avera told us about. You are the one who painted my room.”
Quinton laughed, “Aunty Avera is much too kind in her praise, she is my best customer, and at one point she was my only customer.”
Rose would not accept his modest reply. “Well I love my room, I think you are amazing.”
Quinton shrugged. “Thank you, Rose. I am very glad you like it.” Turning his attention back to Sharon, Quinton stammered, “I could do a painting in your room if you like… I mean if you wanted one. Aunty Avera said you might like something but it’s fine if you don’t.”
Sharon laughed at the shy boy’s inability to speak to her. “Are you crazy? Of course, I want you to paint my room. Your art is amazing. I love the painting in Ava’s room and Rose’s forest walls are incredible. I was feeling left out, being the only one without magic art in her room.”
Quinton blushed at Sharon’s praise. “Okay, I can start whenever you like. Do you have an idea of what you might like?”
Sharon thought about this for a while. She had seen most of Quinton’s paintings around the house, and all of them were
beautiful and unique pieces of art. Rose’s room was very interesting, with the trees and the forest that changed with the time of day, but the painting in Ava’s room of the people dancing at a ball was one that fascinated her. “My favorite painting is the one in Ava’s room. I would like something like that in my room if I could.” She looked Quinton in the eye and smiled, excited by the idea of having her own painting.
Quinton stared at her for a moment, before quickly averting his eyes. “Okay, I can do that for you.”
When Nathan and Ava returned from magic lessons, Quinton was still visiting with the girls, Rose had a million questions about illusions and Quinton was happy to answer as best he could. He found talking with the curious young girl much easier than trying to talk to the intimidating Sharon.
As Nathan and Ava entered the room Rose yelled out to them. “Hurry up you two, Quinton has been waiting to meet you.”
Quinton stood up from the couch and greeted them. “Hello Nathan, Ava. Rose here has been telling me all about you.” Quinton grinned.
Nathan laughed, walked over, and shook Quinton’s hand. “Hello cousin, Aunt Avera has been telling me all about you as well.”
Quinton joined Nathan in laughter, while this was their first time meeting, both young men already knew quite a bit about the other. Nathan from hearing stories from Avera and, to a lesser degree, Verin, while Quinton had spent the last few hours trading stories with Rose and Sharon.
Rose exuberantly exclaimed, “Quinton is going to make a magic painting for Sharon and he promised to add something special in my room as well.” Rose bounced around, she absolutely adored magical items and was eager to experience more.
Ava smiled. “Rose, have you been harassing Quinton about magic while we were gone?”
Rose lowered her head and shuffled her feet. “Aww, only a few questions.”
Sharon laughed. “I think you mean a few hundred questions. Poor Quinton has been facing the firing squad while you two were gone.”
Rose groaned in protest. “Only because he just mumbles and blushes when you talk to him. I was just trying to keep him entertained until Nathan came home. It’s not my fault.”
Quinton again blushed. “Rose wasn’t bad at all.”
Nathan, seeing Quinton’s discomfort at being put on the spot about talking to Sharon, decided it was time for him to steal his cousin away from the girls for a while. “Come on Quinton, it sounds like everyone in this house has a magic painting but me. Come to my room and we can discuss you painting something for me.”
Quinton smiled said “Nice to meet you” to Ava, then turned to Rose. “It was a pleasure meeting you Rose, I shall be visiting for a few days so we can talk more later.” Quinton turned to Sharon last, “I enjoyed meeting you Sharon.”
“You better not forget about me. I will be waiting for my painting as well.”
Quinton turned towards the door muttering to himself as he went, “As if I could ever forget you.”
When they were safely alone in Nathan’s room, Quinton blurted out, “How do you do it, living in a house full of women.”
Nathan laughed, having been best friends with Ava for years he was used to girls, but even he had found living with them an adjustment. “It’s different. I hang out with Ava mostly, she is awesome, and the others are nice too. Sometimes it’s awkward when they start talking about girl stuff and I have no idea what the heck they are talking about. I’m pretty sure they do it on purpose. It would be nice to have another guy around once in a while.”
“I’m here a lot. Aunt Avera keeps a room for me. I do a lot of work for her.”
Nathan nodded, “Yes, she told me. Do you mostly do paintings?”
“Mostly, but I have started getting better at making magical statues, so I’m selling those now too.”
“You will have to show me how illusion magic works, Balthazar has been teaching us magic, but we have never really talked about illusions.”
“That’s not surprising, from what I understand you are just learning magic now, right?” asked Quinton.
“Yeah, I only found out I had magic blood in the last few months, I learned some things from an Ingla mage about bloodstones and imbuing. Balthazar is teaching us about attraction magic and working towards mind connections.”
“Woah, bloodstones? That’s rare, I’ve heard of mages that could work with it, but I have never seen it. You must have a strong earth affinity.”
Nathan nodded, confirming Quinton’s assertion about his affinity for earth. “Imbuing isn’t something many mages do?”
“No, you have to have pretty strong magic to imbue things. I can store a small amount of magical energy in inert objects, but I have been practicing for years and am just getting good enough to make small magical statues now, and I would be considered a fairly powerful mage compared to most. “
“Interesting. Balthazar never mentioned that to us during our lessons.”
“Most mages don’t like to share knowledge about how strong their magic truly is, It’s almost like a competition to see who can be the most secretive. Personally, I don’t mind talking about it. Especially with you, you are family.”
Nathan smiled, it felt good to hear Quinton say that. “Awesome, now what kind of magic are you going to put into my room?”
Quinton laughed. “How about I make one of your practice dummies talk, so every time you hit it with a sword it screams out in agony.”
“You could do that? That would be so funny if one of the girls tried hitting the dummy and it screamed at them.”
Quinton thought about it for a while, “Actually if you wanted something like that I probably could do it, but for it to be really good, you would have to make a bloodstone for it. I can’t do much with bigger objects yet.”
“Okay, what about a painting that talks to people? Could you do that? Or something on my door like the lock the girls have.”
“What about a really angry face on your door? If people give the right password it lets them in, if they don’t he insults them.” Quinton smiled, it was going to be fun having Nathan around. With his illusion skills and Nathan’s ability to make bloodstones, they could create some really fun things together.
Nathan was thinking exactly the same thing as his cousin. Having the ability to make bloodstones was a powerful tool, but Quinton’s ability to make illusions was equally impressive. He would have to get Quinton to teach him as much as he could about the skill. Before they got too distracted by magic he did remember to ask his cousin one thing. “Are you going to ask Sharon on a date?”
Quinton’s smiled disappeared, “What?”
Nathan laughed, “Man, you should see your face. You don’t talk to many girls do you?”
“None that look like Sharon. Am I really that obvious?”
“Even Rose could tell you liked Sharon. You are in trouble.”
Quinton just groaned, “Do you think anyone would notice if I just hid in here for a week?”
“It’s not that bad. Sharon is really nice, and besides you already agreed to create a magical painting for the both her and Rose, so you are going to have to interact with her. ”
Chapter thirteen
IT WAS LATE WHEN Ava woke to the sound of a scream from Sharon. Ava rushed out of her room and into her friend’s. Sharon was sitting up in her bed, sweating despite the cool room. She had suspected her friend was not sleeping well since being rescued from the duke and his men, but this was the first time Ava had noticed a nightmare. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Sharon nodded, still too shook up to talk.
Ava jumped onto her bed and gave Sharon a big hug, holding her tight. “It’s okay, it was only a nightmare, you are safe.”
“I know, it is just when I sleep, I have nightmares that those men come back to attack me and I am defenseless. I hate feeling that way.”
“You know there is an easy solution to this problem.”
“Oh really?” Sharon gave a soft, sad smile. “What is that?”
Sharon gave her a small smirk. “How do you propose we go about becoming not defenseless? Turn into boys?”
Ava scoffed. “Oh please, you are in better shape than most men, and smarter than them, too. What you need are weapons and someone to train you how to use them. And it just so happens that I have a boyfriend who is a famous magical blacksmith that kills bandits and rescues damsels in distress in his spare time. He will train you and that will be that.”
Sharon perked up a little. Nathan was pretty badass, and his black steel weapons were scary. Maybe, with his training, she could become a just a little dangerous too. “I like that idea… but for tonight can you sleep in my bed? I might get some sleep if you are here.”
“Of course,” Ava smiled, Sharon wasn’t the only one suffering poor sleep these days. Staying with her friend would be easy.
The next morning before breakfast Ava knocked on Nathan’s door. Still half-asleep Nathan answered the door. “Morning Ava, what’s up?”
“Can I come in? We need to talk.”
Nathan frowned, he didn’t like the sound of this. “Sure, come on in,” he replied before closing the door and taking a seat on his bed. When she sat beside him he repeated, “What’s up?”
“It’s Sharon, she’s having nightmares about being kidnapped. I didn’t tell you this before but she had it worse than Rose and I. The men took her away from us and used her badly during our captivity.”
Nathan did not know how to respond. Inside he was growing angry at the thought of those bastards mistreating the girls, but he had already killed most of them, he wasn’t sure how he could help now. “Okay, how can I help?”
“She feels defenseless, she dreams that men come and try kidnap her again and she is unable to stop them. I think if you trained her to defend herself, she would be able to sleep at night.”
The Missing Mage Page 7