The Lodestone

by J. Philip Horne

  He didn’t get any further in his thoughts before he felt the wrenching pull just before a loud thunderclap sent him sprawling. His ribs flared with fiery pain, and Jack lay on the side of the hill and wept. Rough hands pulled him up and took him to the crest of the hill to stand before Drakin. He stood there for a moment before he was thrown back to Artaeris.

  He looked around for any sort of shelter, but there was none, so he lay down in a ball on the ground, crying. The pull came, the explosion washed over him, and Drakin and the guards stood nearby. Drakin immediately reached into the leather belt bag and pulled out the Seal. He held it up and stared at it intently. Minutes passed, and then a slow smile spread across his face. Drakin mumbled something to himself, but Jack only heard the phrase “dozens of times or more.”

  The rest of the day was a waking nightmare for Jack. Drakin sent him back and forth between the worlds, and each time Jack felt his insides slowly tearing apart. He tried to run a few times, but Drakin always popped into the world right next to him. After several more trips he stopped bothering to uncurl his body as he lay on the ground in the fetal position. Drakin never relented, and didn’t stop for lunch. The only relief Jack was given was the occasional sip of water by one of the guards. By the afternoon, Jack thought he was going to go mad with the pain, and he started spitting up blood.

  Lurking behind the pain was the feeling he had utterly failed. Jack had no idea what Drakin was achieving, but it clearly pleased the mad wizard, whatever they were doing. Every handful of trips back and forth, Drakin would remove the Seal from the bag and study it. Each time he acted as though some progress was being made. Drakin was using Jack in some incomprehensible way, and Jack could do nothing to stop him. He was hurled between the worlds at Drakin’s whim, and there was no point in running or resisting. Toward evening he started hoping he would die before Drakin finished whatever he was doing.

  Then a startling idea came into his mind as he was once again sent to the Hillacre Lodestone. Jack counted as he waited for Drakin and the guards to appear. He counted again and again as he was tossed between worlds, and as the sun set, he knew what he had to do.

  Drakin had gradually exhausted himself and was leaning on one of the guards by dusk. As the sun set, he waved them back toward the jungle palace where they had arrived via the mirror. As Jack was dragged along by a guard, no longer able to walk, he felt the sickening fear of the past day gradually replaced by a calm resolve. He would do what he had to do. He hadn’t gone looking for this fight, but he’d finish it.

  Chapter 25

  HILLACRE

  “WAKE UP!”

  EDALWIN’S voice yanked Sally from her sleep. She sat up on her pallet behind some kegs of beer and looked around. A single lantern hanging from a hook lit the cellar. No light leaked in through the trapdoor to the courtyard. It was still dark.

  “I know where he is,” Edalwin said. “We must go. At once. We must beat the dawn.”

  “Did you sleep?” Fortuna asked, walking into Sally’s line of sight.

  “Of course not,” Edalwin said, picking up a mirror. “I’ll have some breakfast sent down. Look for a portal to open in the other mirror in about an hour. Hide it in the back of the cellar.”

  Edalwin ran up the stairs and through the door to the inn’s kitchen, while her cats stayed in the cellar but milled around nervously. The previous evening, Sally had been given a thin sleeping roll, a skin of water, and a bag of food. She gathered her things and joined the others as the innkeeper came down carrying a tray of food in each hand. Derek had strapped his gun and ammo back on, and the others were also well armed. They ate, and then they waited, taking turns standing in the far corner of the cellar and watching the mirror. It was Sally’s turn when its dark reflection changed into a rough sketch of a forest lit by earliest dawn.

  “She’s opened it!” Sally said, and scooted through.

  She stood near the stream at the base of the Lodestone hill. Edalwin was striding up the hill ahead of her, so Sally followed. The cats shot by her and quickly caught up with Edalwin. The others came through after, and Edalwin turned back toward them when she reached the top.

  “Gerlock,” Edalwin called down the hill, “hide the mirror among the roots, and then run. Dawn is upon us.”

  Sally didn’t bother turning around to watch, but continued up the hill. She’d seen enough of magic. She wanted to see Jack and know that he was safe. A few minutes later, as the sun rose, they all stood in a circle around Edalwin. Sally looked from face to face. Gerlock, Fortuna, Derek, Edalwin, and Verdag. Then she giggled. Verdag wasn’t going to fit in very well in Kansas.

  She felt a shift, and the shade was gone. Dawn broke over golden fields. Much of the grain around the Lodestone hill had been harvested, and the dirt road was easy to spot a short distance away.

  “All right,” Derek said, “what’s the plan? Edalwin, where is he?”

  “Still on Artaeris, but near the twin Lodestone of the Lodestone at Hillacre. It would be hard travel on Artaeris to get there, even for me, as a massive rainforest stands between Fortress and that Lodestone, but I thought we could drive there if we were on Earth.”

  “Drive… in what?” Derek asked.

  “Oh,” Edalwin said. “I suppose one of you mentioned something about Jack driving the Camry at some point.”

  “We’ll sort this out,” Derek said. “Just need to find someone with a cell phone.”

  Derek led the way to the dirt road and Edalwin pointed toward the rising sun. The group trudged along toward the paved road that stood on the edge of the fields. Sally scrunched her eyebrows together and tried to figure out what was wrong.

  “Derek?” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you call the FBI, how can we go after Jack? Everyone will freak out, and they’ll want to question everyone, and I’ll have to go back to my parents, and I want to see them, but we need to find Jack first.”

  “Huh,” Derek said.

  “She’s right,” Edalwin said.

  “Okay, no phone calls,” Derek said. “No car. No calls. This is getting trickier. We may have to take some more extreme measures, but I’ll get us a car. I still have a gun and a badge. We’ll improvise.”

  About ten minutes later they came to the small road running north and south.

  “Are we north or south of the Greedon County Sheriff’s office?” Derek asked.

  Sally thought back to Jack driving the Camry.

  “We turned that way, didn’t we?” she said, pointing to the south.

  “Yes,” Fortuna said, “we turned right.”

  “All right,” Derek said, “then let’s head north. Does anyone have something of real value on them we could give away?”

  “I have a few gold crows,” Gerlock said, reaching into a small belt bag.

  “Gold is good,” Derek said. “Can I have the bag?”

  Gerlock untied the bag from his belt and tossed it to Derek.

  “A bit less than a pound. Let’s see… probably worth north of twenty thousand dollars. That should do.”

  A car approached from the north, and Derek waved the group off the road as it passed. It was a small, four-door sedan. A few minutes later, a large SUV appeared in the distance to the south. Derek got out his badge and waited as it approached.

  “Tell me if you see kids in the vehicle,” he said.

  Sally saw only the driver, and when it was about a hundred yards away, Derek stepped out into the road and held both hands up toward the driver, his badge in his left hand. The SUV braked hard and came to a stop well short of them. Derek ran forward to the driver side and said something, then pulled open the door and helped the driver out. It was a young man, and Sally wasn’t sure, but it looked like Derek may have actually dragged him from behind the wheel. Derek waved them over, and they all hurried to the SUV.

  “Look, John,” Derek was saying to the man, “I know this is highly unusual, but its life or death. Edalwin, please empty John’s personals out
of the Suburban. John. John! Look at me. Here’s a bag of gold to hold on deposit for the vehicle. John! Keep looking at me. Yes, it’s an actual bag of gold, and yes, that’s a dwarf. Pretty weird, huh? All right, everyone in. You’re not allergic to cats, are you John, ’cause eight of them just got in your Suburban. Oh, Gerlock, give John a skin of water.”

  Gerlock handed the dazed man a water skin while Sally and the others piled into the Suburban. Derek swung in behind the steering wheel, and Gerlock got in the front passenger seat. Derek hit the gas and they accelerated forward. Verdag and Edalwin sat in the middle row, while Sally sat in back with Fortuna. The cats were everywhere, but quickly settled down.

  “Okay, I kept a few of the coins, so first things first. We need to pawn the coins to get cash. I’ve got some credit cards, but I want to stay off the grid, so no credit cards, and no traffic cameras. Then we head for Texas, right?”

  Sally had trouble staying focused as they drove. They turned east at the first chance, and drove slowly through a small town, but didn’t see any pawn shops. As they drove out the far side on the small state highway, Edalwin tensed in front of Sally.

  “Jack just came here. He’s at Hillacre!”

  “Okay,” Derek said, “I don’t think that changes our plans, does it? I still need to pawn the gold so we have cash for gas and food, and then we avoid the interstates, right?”

  Sally saw Edalwin’s shoulders rise and fall as she took a deep breath. “You’re right. No change in plans.”

  A few minutes later, Edalwin said, “He’s back on Artaeris. What game is Drakin playing?”

  They’d just driven into another small town along the highway, and Derek pulled into the parking lot of a dusty strip mall. Sally ducked down so she could see the store signs through the window. A pawn shop.

  “Be right back,” Derek said, “and wish me luck.”

  “Luck,” Fortuna said under her breath in the seat next to Sally.

  A few minutes later, Derek returned and got in the driver’s seat. He pulled back on the highway, then said, “We’ve got plenty of cash now. Let’s gas up and buy a map and some food, then we make for Hillacre.”

  “How long will it take?” Edalwin asked.

  “Staying clear of traffic cams? No interstates?” Derek paused in thought. “Probably ten hours or more.”

  “After sunset, then,” Edalwin said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Derek said.

  A few minutes later, they stopped for food and gas, and got back in the car. Edalwin sat up front with Derek to navigate with the map they’d bought.

  “He keeps flipping back and forth between the worlds,” Edalwin said. “I fear Drakin’s found a weakness in the Seal.”

  “How so?” Gerlock asked.

  Edalwin turned in her seat so she could look toward the back of the Suburban. To Sally her face looked grim.

  “When Arameth and I met, after he created the Seal and trapped the Horned King in the mount, I learned something of how he did it. He didn’t simply lock the Horned King in the mount. The Seal holds it in the mount out of phase with both Artaeris and Earth.”

  “What does that mean?” Sally asked.

  “I’m not really sure,” Edalwin said. “Arameth was beyond me. But Drakin has probably been working this over for two hundred years, and he may have figured out how Arameth did it. He is currently going back and forth between the worlds, over and over, using Jack. I’d wager the transition has some effect on the Seal and its ability to confine the Horned King in the mount. Drakin means to set loose the Horned King on Artaeris again.”

  “What else happened, Edalwin,” Verdag asked, “when you and Arameth met? Why did you both disappear? And you come back into history now fighting your old master?”

  Edalwin sat quietly for a time staring out a window, and Sally thought she saw a tear trickle down her cheek.

  “I was a fool,” Edalwin said at last, “and I used my power to work so much evil. Arameth stripped me of my power, but only for a time. He left me on Earth. And he forgave me.”

  “Huh. And what of him? Where is Arameth?” Verdag asked.

  “I don’t know,” Edalwin said, “but I intend to find out.”

  They drove on and on. Edalwin consulted the map regularly, and Derek carefully stayed to the speed limit as they wound southward along small highways and farm roads. Sally didn’t think she would need to sleep, but the insanity of the previous week and a half had left her perpetually tired. She soon slouched over onto Fortuna and fell asleep.

  When she woke, it was the middle of the afternoon. Nothing had changed. They still drove mostly southward, and sometimes eastward. Derek took them around any larger towns, though it added hours to the trip over the course of the day. They stopped a couple times to use restrooms accessible from the back of gas station buildings, and carefully snuck Verdag to and from the Suburban. For dinner they feasted on several large pizzas and sodas, but ate in the Suburban while continuing to drive. As the sun set, they crossed the Red River into Texas on Highway 271.

  A few minutes later, as Derek was driving them around Paris, Texas, Edalwin said, “Jack has stopped moving back and forth. He’s staying put on Artaeris.”

  “Still no change of plan, though, right?” Derek asked.

  “No change. We’ll head around Hillacre to the southwest side and pull off the road a ways to hide the Suburban, then walk to my house once it is late.”

  Sally hadn’t heard these plans before, and she realized they must have been made while she slept.

  “Can I take a shower?” Sally asked.

  “Water is fine, but no lights,” Edalwin said.

  About thirty minutes later, Derek turned off the small road they were on and the Suburban bounced along for another minute as he drove around behind a thicket. He killed the engine and the lights.

  “It’s 8:30,” Derek said. “How long do we wait?”

  “Until 11:00,” Edalwin said. She opened the door and let her cats out. The animals quickly disappeared into the darkness. “They’ll keep an eye out for us.”

  Time dragged by with excruciating slowness. Within ten minutes, the Suburban was stuffy and hot, and Derek turned the engine back on.

  “This is dumb,” he said. “Let’s meander around to burn the time. We can stay out of town and never drive the same road twice. At least then we can run the AC. Your cats are okay for a couple hours, right?”

  Edalwin nodded, and Derek drove back to the road. Sally leaned her head against the window and watched the stars. Derek stayed to unlit roads, and the stars shone fiercely. At long last, he returned to their previous spot and killed the engine once again.

  “Edalwin, lead the way,” Derek said.

  They all got out and collected their supplies and weapons, then walked single-file through the scrubby terrain. It was slow going, but eventually they reached the stream and its path and turned toward town. Sally saw a cat flash by now and then, and once they entered town Edalwin made her way along the stream very slowly. As they neared a road where the stream cut through a culvert under the road, she stopped them well back from the road for a long time. She then signaled them forward, and they hustled across the road and back down to the stream bed.

  Edalwin’s house stood lonely and dark, a couple strips of police tape still angling across the back door. Edalwin reached into a flowerpot near the back door, then stepped up to the door and unlocked it. They all carefully stepped over the police tape, ducking under the other strip.

  “Feel free to shower if you want,” Edalwin said, “but sleep while you can. We must be back at the Lodestone before dawn.”

  Chapter 26

  FINAL COUNTDOWN

  SALLY TRUDGED UP the hill in the predawn light with the others. She was still feeling peevish about her argument with Edalwin that morning. For some insane reason Edalwin had thought she should wait at the house until after dawn and then go home. It sounded great, but what was she supposed to tell her parents? They would think she was
crazy, and the police would swarm over Hillacre, so if the group needed to use the house again, they wouldn’t be able to. No, she needed to see this through with the rest of them. They neared the crest and gathered into a tight group.

  “At dawn, we go across, and may God be with us,” Edalwin said.

  “I still don’t get,” Sally said, “why we don’t just wait here until Drakin comes across and then Derek shoots him?”

  “Well, Sally,” Edalwin said, her eyes narrowing a bit, “we don’t know if he’s coming back across, and we don’t want to risk waiting until dusk. We have to go at dawn.”

  “Okay,” Sally said, “but I think—”

  A loud crack sounded just up the hill, and a wave of air washed over them. Sally pushed past Gerlock to look up toward the tree. Jack stood fifty feet away, still wearing all black, hunched over and clutching his ribs. He was staring out past the tree, waiting. A second ticked by, and then another.

  “Jack!” Sally cried.

  He turned, startled, and cried out in pain. Jack looked down at them, but did not move.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  No, no, no, no, no. Sally started running toward him. Another second ticked by.

  “I love you, Miss Edna.”

  Jack’s words sounded all wrong. He should have been thanking them for finding him, or asking for help, not saying goodbye. He should be running toward them, not standing there looking at them. Sally felt a terrible fear as she struggled the rest of the way up the hill.

  She was forty feet away, then thirty. Jack looked at her and smiled. A silver band circled his neck. Blood was leaking out of his nose. Then he turned and ran toward the cliff.

  ~~~~