“Water,” one said as he handed Jack a skin to sling over his shoulder.
“Eat this while we walk,” the other said, handing him a large bowl full of a steaming broth with a spoon.
They walked with one in front and one behind, leading Jack back up a flight of stairs, and down several halls. They walked slowly, giving Jack time to wolf down the surprisingly delicious soup. It did wonders for his head. The halls were lit by glass globes set in metal brackets attached to the dark grayish-brown walls. They burned with an intense white light that seemed to have no source.
Eventually, they came to a large door at the end of a hall, the guard in front of him took the bowl from him and set it to the side on the floor, and swung open the door. They walked into a large room that had no ornamentation or furniture other than several huge mirrors set in thick wood frames along the walls. Jack started to count them, but as he looked around he saw Drakin standing to the right of the door they had entered. He wore the same blood-red robes and carried the same staff as before.
“Excellent,” Drakin said. “Hold him.”
The two guards moved immediately, and Jack suddenly found himself lifted off the floor, his arms pinned to his side by one guard holding him around his torso while the other guard held his feet with his knees bent so his feet were behind him. Drakin stepped forward and encircled his neck with a silver band. His cruel looking mouth whispered harsh-sounding words, and Jack felt as though the band had come alive and was clawing its way into his neck. Thousands of needles wormed their way under his skin, and Jack’s back arched as he screamed. It was over as quickly as it began.
“Set him down,” Drakin said. The wizard pulled a black cloth from a hidden pocket in his robe and offered it to Jack. “Wipe the blood. It shouldn’t bleed anymore.”
Jack took the cloth and reached up to wipe his neck. The band had grafted itself to his skin. Through the fog of pain, Jack felt something very wrong with his head. It was as though someone were looking over his shoulder while he read.
“What have you done to me?” Jack said while wiping blood off his neck.
“Much,” Drakin said. “You are the greatest tool I’ve ever created. I cannot tell you how many people I had to try the spells on before you survived them. Exhausting, painstaking work, but I did not give up as person after person of all ages failed to be strong enough to hold my magic. It took years, but then you came along, the most helpless of babies, youngest of a village I had taken. And you lived.”
Jack was horrified. His stomach churned, and for a moment he thought he would throw up again. Whole villages killed? To what end?
“But you were probably referring to the collar,” Drakin continued. “It’s from the time before the First Wizards’ War, when wizards needed an easy way to deal with an enslaved people. The collar gives me a variety of options in dealing with you. But more importantly, it gives me absolute, accurate knowledge of your location. On both worlds.”
Drakin turned and strode toward a mirror on the wall to the left. The two guards held Jack’s arms and dragged him along after Drakin, who stopped at the mirror and spoke cold, dark words. The mirror changed, as though it were now reflecting a different room, and Drakin stepped into it and was suddenly in that other reflection. Jack’s mind struggled with what he was seeing as the two guards stepped forward with him through the mirror.
Jack felt the shift in the Lodestones, and realized they had just traveled a great distance once again. Drakin had stopped on the far side and again spoke words that sounded creepy to Jack. The mirror was suddenly just a mirror again. Drakin turned and strode across this new room, and the guards holding Jack continued after him. They were in a small building made of logs, and they quickly walked through a door into a small green surrounded by huts. Several of the kilt-wearing warriors lounged around, but all stood as Drakin walked into their midst. He stepped to the center of the green and waited for Jack.
“You are to think of your home world,” Drakin commanded. “You are to focus on it intently, do you understand?”
“Why should I?” said Jack.
The silver band embedded in his neck caught fire. Jack screamed and fell to the ground, clawing ineffectively at it. A moment later the pain was gone, leaving Jack gasping on the ground. His neck didn’t seem to be burned or damaged, other than a couple scratches he’d just given himself.
“You are to focus on your home world intently,” Drakin repeated as Jack staggered back to his feet. “Do you understand? I suggest a happy place, like your home.”
Jack was beat, and he knew it. Tears flowed from his eyes as he closed them and thought of his home with Edalwin. The goodness of the memories only served to increase his tears. A sudden sense of dislocation swept over Jack, and everything changed yet again. Jack’s eyes popped open, and he frantically looked around. He stood in a grassy park overlooked by a line of skyscrapers. He was dumbfounded. Where was he? He reached out for the Lodestones, and was shocked to realize he was back on Earth. But that wasn’t possible. It was the middle of the afternoon, not dawn or dusk, and he was nowhere near a Lodestone.
Jack looked around frantically, and didn’t see Drakin anywhere. He ran toward the nearest of the buildings several hundred feet away. A sudden, wrenching pull yanked on his gut and brought him to a standstill, grasping his stomach in pain. It felt like he was being pulled out of his skin. Thunder cracked beside him, and a concussion hurled him to the ground. Jack rolled over. Drakin stood with his two guards where he’d just been, a grim smile spreading over the evil wizard’s face.
“I believe that is a success,” Drakin said, looking around.
“What have you done?” Jack asked, gasping as his insides sorted themselves out.
“The impossible,” Drakin said. “And for an encore, I’m going to do the unthinkable. Now, let us return.”
The two guards sprang forward and hauled Jack to his feet.
“Jack,” Drakin said, “you’ll need to focus on Artaeris now to the exclusion of all else. Do you understand?”
Jack was spent. His head still throbbed with a fiery pain, and his body felt like it had been turned inside out. Worst of all, Jack finally realized why Drakin wanted him. They could travel between the worlds anywhere, anytime. He wasn’t sure what Drakin intended to do with that power, but he knew no good would come of it.
“Please,” Jack said, “I don’t think I can even stand up. I need a few minutes to recover. I can barely think straight.”
Drakin’s eyes narrowed for a moment. “Five minutes.”
The guards released him, and Jack sank to the ground. A memory sprang to mind from three years before. He and Edalwin had watched a movie in which the hero narrowly escaped death because the bad guy had to tell the hero all about his amazing plan. While the bad guy rambled on, the hero escaped. Jack had thought it was dumb, but Edalwin had disagreed. She’d said that evil people are often motivated by pride, and that the proud love an audience.
“What exactly did you do to me?” Jack asked, still panting. “I’m like a Lodestone at dawn, where the worlds overlap.”
“Very good, Jack!” Drakin said. “Yes, I took you, a boy born of Artaeris, and created a living Lodestone. Then I took you to Earth, where you grew and developed. It should have only taken eight years for the affinity to that world to grow in you sufficient to my purposes, but Edalwin’s meddlesome involvement delayed me. Now, you’re a Lodestone that is perpetually near both worlds. It’s no trifling matter to push you across the worlds, but I had that part worked out years ago. And once there, or anywhere, your new collar lights you up like a beacon. It’s a simple thing to pull myself over using you.”
“It didn’t feel simple to me,” Jack said. “It felt like you were pulling my guts out.”
“Really, Jack, a small price to pay to be part of the greatest magic ever wrought. You should be proud. And we will do greater things tomorrow.”
“And you knew where I would appear on Earth?”
“O
f course, though no ordinary mind could make the calculations,” Drakin said. “It’s not as though the spatial relationships between the worlds are plain to see. Now up! We return. Think of Artaeris, boy. Feel it in your bones.”
Jack saw no point in picking a fight at that moment. He needed time and rest to work out a plan. He concentrated on Artaeris, and a moment later he felt Drakin hurl him over the divide, sending him back to the small village green. Jack had the satisfaction of seeing one of the kilted guards knocked from his feet by his arrival. A handful of seconds later, however, Drakin seized him from Earth and pulled, and he was sent tumbling as Drakin and the guards arrived.
Chapter 22
THE SEAL
JACK LAY IN the plush bed and stared at the ceiling. He couldn’t see it very well, as the room had no window and the guards had removed the room’s one lantern. A bit of light crept under the door, showing the barest outlines of the small room with only a bed for furniture. Jack stared at the ceiling, but it held no answers. After crossing back to Artaeris, Drakin had taken them back through the mirror to the castle or fortress or whatever it was that Drakin called home. Jack had been hustled off to the room in which he lay. His stomach still felt full from the tray of food the guards had brought him, and a short time ago they’d stepped in and removed the light. With nothing else to do, Jack tried to sleep, but his mind refused to cooperate.
Drakin planned to use him, and from what he’d heard, Jack was pretty sure it was something big. And because it was Drakin, he had to assume it was not just big, but big evil. Jack was determined to stop him, but how could he stop a powerful wizard from doing something when he didn’t even know what that something was? The only thing he could think of was to remove the one thing Drakin needed to succeed. Drakin needed Jack, that much was clear, so if Jack were no more, then Drakin would be stopped.
Lying there alone and scared, Jack realized he didn’t want to die. He’d never wanted to die, but he’d never had to actually think about it before. He had promised himself he would do whatever it took to stop Drakin. What if Drakin could only be stopped by Jack dying? Was he willing to do it? Jack didn’t even know how to consider such a horrible thought, and finally gave up. Something would come up, and when it did, he’d be ready.
Sleep came to him eventually in the early hours of the morning, though he tossed and turned fitfully. Finally his body calmed and he slept deeply through the dawn and early morning. When he finally awoke, he got up and knocked on the door. A guard brought lanterns into his room, and then later returned with a large tray of food. Jack ate his fill, and then lay down again. His head felt better, but his body still seemed to crave sleep, and he drifted off again.
Someone shook him, and Jack’s eyes snapped open.
“It’s time,” the guard said.
Jack got up, and the guard led him out of the room. The second guard dropped in behind him, and they led him back to the hall of mirrors. Drakin once again awaited him there, and led them through the same mirror, out into the village green.
“Earth, boy, as before,” Drakin said.
Jack had already decided he would play along until he had some sense of what was going on. He didn’t want to fight back blindly and merely flail about. He turned his mind to Hillacre, and immediately Drakin hurled him across the divide between worlds to the green park in the midst of the city on Earth. He looked around and saw a bike path a short distance away that he had not noticed the previous day. A cop was riding a bike along the path, and Jack made a split-second decision. He took off running, waving his arms and yelling for help. As the cop turned to look, the thunder-crack of Drakin’s arrival sounded, and Jack was thrown forward to the ground.
As he lay on the ground, Jack looked up to see the policeman, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, leap off his bike and go for his sidearm. Drakin shouted an order from behind Jack, and a knife flashed over Jack’s head, tumbling end over end, and buried itself in the cop’s chest, throwing the man backward. One of the kilted guards calmly walked forward and pulled the knife free, wiping the blade on the policeman’s uniform. Jack hung his head and wept.
“You really shouldn’t involve other people, Jack,” Drakin said, stepping up to him.
Strong hands lifted him once again and dragged him forward until he could get his feet moving. Jack hated himself. He’d decided not to act rashly and immediately done just that, and now some innocent man was dead because of him. He wept, and did not bother to wipe the tears away.
They walked across the park, and Jack kept quiet as they passed other people who openly stared at them. Jack could only imagine what they thought, seeing two medieval warriors dragging a boy along with a tall man in a flowing red robe. Eventually they reached the far side of the park, which was also lined with skyscrapers, and Drakin angled into a small stand of trees bisected by another bike path. They stopped in the middle of the trees.
“Artaeris, Jack,” Drakin said. “And please don’t get anyone else killed.”
As he spoke, Drakin nodded toward a young-looking mother pushing a stroller that was approaching on the bike path. Jack continued weeping with frustration, but concentrated on Artaeris, if only to draw Drakin away from the woman and her child.
Pause. Shift.
Jack stood in a dimly lit hall of magnificent proportions. Massive columns reached up fifty feet to the ceiling along each side. A single set of doors could be seen at one end, and the other end of the hall was a blank stone wall. The hall was easily a hundred feet wide and twice as long. Near the blank wall at the end of the hall stood a single stone pedestal, and atop the pedestal sat the room’s source of light. Jack tore his eyes away from the light, and lay down on the floor, curled up in a ball.
Drakin’s arrival ripped his insides as it had before, but the concussion was far more manageable curled up on the floor, and Jack quickly stood up. Drakin arrived facing the doors, and slowly turned toward Jack and looked past him toward the pedestal. A look of pure delight spread across Drakin’s face, followed by something far uglier.
“Come,” Drakin said. “The prize I’ve sought for two hundred years is at hand.”
Jack struggled to understand as the guards pulled him forward with Drakin. As they approached the pedestal, Jack saw that the light emanated from a perfectly round, clear stone the size of a softball that seemed to be filled with a miniature lightning storm. He reached out and felt familiar Lodestones, the one in the Darksbane they had originally used to travel to Artaeris, and the more distant Lodestone in the Daggerfels. He closed his eyes and let the guards guide him forward, concentrating on the Lodestones.
He was in Fortress. He had to be. But what was this lightning stone that Drakin prized so much? As he struggled to understand, Drakin put up one hand, and the guards stopped and held Jack in place. Drakin proceeded to slowly walk around the pedestal, unleashing all sorts of magical forces at the stone, all of which fell short and dissolved to nothing about a foot from the stone itself.
Jack watched mesmerized as time rushed by. He had no idea how long he stood there and watched, but Jack finally shook himself and tried to concentrate. What had Verdag said was in Fortress? Jack struggled to remember, and then it came back to him in a rush. The Fortress of Arameth housed the Hall of Telling, and Arameth himself had safeguarded the Seal of the Horned King in the Hall of Telling two hundred years before, after Edalwin and Drakin had freed the Horned King from his eternal prison. Drakin was using him to get the Seal. He was after the Horned King once again.
“Drakin!” Jack said. “Please! Why do you want the Seal? You can’t control him! Don’t do this!”
One of Jack’s guards casually slapped him with the back of his hand. The blow staggered Jack, and his mouth filled with blood. He spit it out on the floor and wailed in frustration, then thrashed against the iron grip of his guards. It was too late. He’d already let Drakin win.
“Jack!”
Jack’s head lifted and turned. Behind him at the far end of the hall, the doo
rs stood open, and Edalwin strode into the hall.
Chapter 23
MIRRORS
SALLY WALKED BESIDE Fortuna and followed the others through the maze of corridors. Edalwin strode at the head of their group with her cats streaming around her. All eight had appeared within minutes after they set out. It sometimes looked as though the cats led and other times Edalwin as she traced some internal sense she had of Jack’s location.
Edalwin was terrible to behold, and Sally was glad to be a friend rather than her enemy. She never hesitated as she took corner after corner, and minutes later the stairs up toward the servants’ quarters came into view. Edalwin didn’t slow, leading them up the stairs. Just then, a group of soldiers appeared above them, and when they saw Edalwin, they immediately drew their swords. Edalwin thrust her hand toward them, palm out, and the guards were thrown back out of sight. As she entered the hall at the top of the stairs, Sally was relieved to see that though the men were strewn about the hall unconscious, they were still breathing. Gerlock and Fortuna both retrieved swords from the men, and Verdag found a small war ax, but Edalwin never slowed and they had to run to catch up.
After that, everything was a blur to Sally. They never entered the populated areas of the fortress, but encountered two more groups of soldiers who acted as though they were looking for Edalwin. She dispatched each group with a thrust of her hand, but the last time paused for a moment and leaned against the wall before continuing. Eventually they came to a passageway with a brick wall built in it, sealing it closed. Edalwin placed both her hands on the wall for a time with her head bowed, and pushed. The wall collapsed away from them in a massive jumble of brick and dust. A pair of massive wooden doors a short distance down the hall slowly came into view as the dust settled.
“The Hall of Telling,” Gerlock said. “He’s here? How is this possible?”
“I don’t know how it was done, but he’s here,” Edalwin said.
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