Red Jade: Book 1: Journeys In Kallisor

by Stephen Wolf

  After propping Kitalla’s head up on a pillow, Dariak set the glass jade on her chest to signify her breathing. The vibrations of the jade kept making it fall off, but eventually he was able to keep it in place. He set the water jade upon her belly, watching it rise and fall like a soft ocean tide. The earth jade he set on her brow, keeping it closest to himself, for he knew its powers more than the others. Kitalla’s feet were separated slightly, and Randler kept his shard on the bed, midway between her ankles, keeping the line of jades running straight from head to toe. He seemed reluctant to set the jade down, but he needed his hands for the spell, and Gabrion was too focused on the incantations to even look ready to steal it.

  Dariak accented the jades with other small crystals he had been gathering since reading about them in one of his handbooks. He set a small green kunzite on each of the three major wounds: one on her right arm, one on her chest, and one on her thigh. He set a dark-green tourmaline next to the jade she clutched to her heart, seeking emotional balance for her pain. From there he placed pink rose quartz among a number of lesser wounds. He then balanced the pink hues with light-purple amethyst and the green hues with yellow citrine along opposite sides of her body to complete the symmetry.

  He could feel the pull of the energies already. They were mild in essence, but he felt the symmetry he had built was allowing them to work together. He looked at Randler as the bard smiled slightly, apparently sensing the resonances himself. Gabrion was glancing from one gem to the next, wondering if he was supposed to see something happen.

  As practiced, Dariak raised his hands up in front of his chest and cast a sweeping motion down Kitalla’s body. He then curled his fingers around and drew his hands toward his left side, following Kitalla’s chest up to her left shoulder. Another sweep extended down to her left leg, where Gabrion was posted. Dariak then drew the energy up the leg and down the other, then back up to her right arm. He spiraled his arms around his own head, representing hers, and then pushed one final sweep from his right side and back down toward her heart.

  In the process, he felt the energy follow his motions, but there were some flaws. He knew there would be, for she was covered in crushed veins, broken bones, sprains, and so forth. But more than that, he felt the external energy he was drawing in didn’t have the right flow to it. So, he read the path again and adjusted several of the minerals he had set out around her before reading the energies again. It took a few tries to get a solid measure, especially when Kitalla’s movements shifted some of the pieces, but eventually the mage was satisfied.

  He stood again at her head and pulled his hands in close, palms together, signaling the other two that the process was about to begin. He had several spells he was weaving together now, and although he would be following the same basic path his hands had just traced, his fingers and hands would be bending and twisting in more complicated forms. While he made these motions, the others would mimic him, hoping to coax the energies into an impassioned form of healing.

  “Hemoderishad farthinaritug klea noreth vatra-forfeth.” The water jade responded by casting a pallid blue glow, facilitating the spell for improved circulation. Because the jade was at her navel, it acted as the central point of the spell. As Dariak worked the spell, the energies leaned in for support, anchoring the healing in a way he hadn’t expected.

  The next spell he spoke only upon exhalations, for it called upon the power of the sand shard to promote proper breathing. He hadn’t spent much time with Gabrion’s jade, but he could feel its power well enough to know it would hear him. “Uliashios frethulie langshalas eriotho.” As he cast the enchantment, he kept his arms moving around her body in wide, healing sweeps, but now he bent and extended his knees in representation of breath. Thankfully, Gabrion and Randler followed suit, and he trusted the warrior in particular to keep a constant pattern going, for his own thoughts were busy, and Randler would soon be tapping into his jade. With the two men at the other end of the bed slowly bobbing up and down, Dariak simply needed to match them and focus on the rest.

  At this point, Kitalla started responding with painful moans. Dariak suspected that one of her lungs had been damaged, or at least the broken ribs were causing her pain, but he wasn’t skilled enough to target a lung specifically. With her increased breathing, the pain in her chest amplified, and part of him wished he could just cancel that part of the spell for her. However, there was worse to come. Dariak’s only hope was that he wasn’t going to injure her more.

  Setting aside such thoughts, Dariak concentrated on the next spell. It was time to promote some actual healing, now that the energies, blood, and air were flowing. He glanced at the others, making sure they were continuing their bobbing stances and circling arm movements. Then he dove into the next portion of the spell. “Sielios wai deownud carthra porthilos frajuliar mentiss.” The jade poised on Kitalla’s forehead cast an eerie brown glow that made her face seem more tan than usual. Under the slight illumination, Dariak could already see the beginnings of wrinkles at her eyes, signifying an increase in the aches.

  He looked at the other two and nodded sharply. Now that the initial mending spell had been enacted, Randler and Gabrion needed to repeat it in unison with Dariak. Meanwhile, Dariak needed to sense other issues that required tending and then make adjustments along the way, matching up with the other two when he could, in order to keep the chant going. This would have been hard enough with three fully trained healers who could each pull in energies on their own, without having to rely on one single mage to perform the actual casting.

  “Sielios wai deownud carthra porthilos frajuliar mentiss,” they all said in unison, as Kitalla’s moaning grew louder. She started twisting and writhing, but her body couldn’t really move. The blood-flow spell was effectively keeping her still, because it was being powered by the energies surrounding her, spiraling around the center water jade. “Sielios wai deownud carthra porthilos frajuliar mentiss.”

  On his third pass around, Dariak felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. He knew it was empathic because it shuddered and vanished, and when his sweeping arms reached that spot again, the pain started up once more. “Fasethulineir habraniethan felniar.” At once, the pain lessened, and he knew one of her ribs had started to mend. Other sharp contrasts of pain arose, and he handled them the best he could.

  They were all growing very tired, but there was much more to be done. He realized suddenly that they wouldn’t be able to heal her in one such session. They would need to repeat this process numerous times to really bring her back to health. But he was determined to pour as much power into this session as he could, hoping his estimates were false and that she would recover soon.

  A wound in her thigh drew Dariak’s attention, and he realized that there was a form of infection brewing there. When his hands swept over the spot, he spoke the key word they had agreed upon beforehand, so Randler would know to draw the shadows from that location in particular. “Drathnier,” he whispered. The bard had already been pulling darkness from Kitalla’s body, subduing some of her pain already, and so he was quickly able to shift toward the location and pull more forcefully. Kitalla’s whole body lurched within its magical constraints, and she released an agonized wail that cut through their concentration and made it hard to keep going.

  Dariak was ready for it, though, and it mostly mattered that he kept the energy flowing. So when Gabrion jerked upright and missed part of the incantation, the entire spell didn’t collapse. It took only a moment for him to return to the cadence, keeping his hands swirling around and his knees bending and flexing.

  Once several key injuries had called out for help, Dariak was able to sense other underlying problems. Kitalla’s right arm was in shambles, from what he could tell. It was so wholly damaged that he believed the healers tending her had given up on it as a lost cause. He wanted beyond anything to prove them wrong, partly for her sake and partly for his. Mending the shattered remnants of bone would be
, for him, like uniting the two kingdoms under a veil of peace—something that had never been done before but that he was just as determined to accomplish.

  “Fortios mendiss jalledir brakent frearis.” It was a call to the earth jade to bring the bone fragments together, rising up and mending back to their original form. And from the first moment that the spell took effect, a horrid cry erupted from the thief.

  At once, the jade clutched to her chest started to glow. Dariak felt a strange heat building up from his side, and once it became unbearable, he had to reach his hand down and pull out a dagger from his hip. It was vibrating angrily, and he sensed that it wanted to strike at him, severing his spell and his life. He quickly tossed the weapon away, terrified at the rage he felt within it. He looked back at the silver jade, its light glowing brighter now, and then he understood. It was protecting her by trying to stop the one now causing her pain.

  Dariak brought his arms up and around again, sinking back into the healing circle before its power was lost. As he approached her heart, he called to the metal jade, asking its forgiveness and inviting it to join to the energies surrounding Kitalla. It took numerous tries before the light diminished at all and the jade released a single wisp of energy to travel along with the rest, seeking the cause of Kitalla’s pain. After a few circuits, the jade released more energy and focused it on Kitalla’s right arm, fortifying the healing spell already in place. The two powers struggled at first to find harmony, but with a few passes through, Dariak was able to restore a sense of calm.

  “Sielios wai deownud carthra porthilos frajuliar mentiss,” Gabrion murmured, then coughed. His throat was terribly dry from the constant chanting, and his arms and legs were wearying from their continued motions. Likewise, Randler was sweating as he tried pulling more shadow from Kitalla’s right arm, reducing the pain within. Looking around and assessing his own strength, Dariak knew they had to stop for now. He swept his hands around a couple more times and then brought them together before his own chest, stepping slightly backward and pulling himself out of the energy stream. The other two did the same. Dariak smiled to himself, because the swirling energies continued to spiral around, centered on the water jade and now supported by Kitalla’s shard.

  “Well done,” he said softly, motioning them to step away. “That should continue on its own for a little while.”

  Gabrion hunched down with Randler off to the side of the room. “How much did we do?” the warrior asked.

  “More than I could have hoped without your help,” Dariak said proudly. “Still, though, she needs a lot of work.”

  Randler shook out his hands and rubbed his arms. “This place isn’t known to many others. So stay as long as you need.”

  Gabrion looked at the bard questioningly. “It sounds like you’re not staying.”

  “I’ll return,” he said. “But I have performances to run, and we will need supplies. And unlike you, I can walk around the city freely.”

  “Thank you for your help,” the warrior said. “Though I wonder at your motivations for helping us.”

  Dariak frowned, but Randler laughed. “Of course you do. And that’s all well and good. For now, just remember that you’re in a safe place, away from the guards, and we’ve all worked together well to heal your friend. We all have our shadows,” he said, holding up his jade, which he hadn’t left on the bed with Kitalla. “But then we all have our light as well.” He eyed the warrior carefully. “I see you’re not convinced. Then let me tell you of this place, so at least one mystery is solved.”

  With that, Randler began to sing:

  With deep regret, a man I met fell out of a tower.

  He was a thief, and to my grief, he so needed a shower.

  I turned my head, and then he said, “I’ve got for you a secret.

  This prison here is rather queer, I think I’m gonna keep it.”

  Grendal, his name; stealing, his game; he said he was the best.

  But spent his time for every crime inside a stony chest.

  Was often caught, you would have thought that one day he would learn

  To take a stash and not be rash, be happy with his earn.

  Yet on the street, again we’d meet, so happy he would be,

  Just walking on like he’d belonged, onstage up there with me.

  He was a ghost, so said the most, a thief they could not keep.

  So on his lap, he liked to clap, which added to the creep.

  And then one day, he came to say, his time was running short.

  I asked him why, he did deny but said he’s off to port.

  As he left, I felt bereft; he clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Before I go, you ought to know, go press upon that boulder.”

  And so I did, and here I hid, one day when I was lost.

  I walked about, and I came out, where prisoners are tossed.

  This tower built, with hands so skilled, secret passageways unfound.

  To hide from view, all you need to do is simply look around.

  Randler finished, bowing his head and then chortling at the confused expressions on their faces. “Well, that’s the lore of why it’s the Prisoner’s Tower, not the Prisoners’ Tower,” he said with a slight emphasis. “It was Grendal’s tower, after all. He’d actually built a series of overlapping and crisscrossing paths that extended to various parts of the prison. So, when he would get captured with his loot, the guards would usually confiscate the goods and put them into a holding area while he was sent to a cell. He could slide the stones around and escape the cell, then steal back the merchandise from a similar hole in another room, and then wend his way out of the tower, safe and unharmed. Turned out he would hide here too under other circumstances.”

  “Remarkable,” Gabrion muttered. “But wouldn’t the guards notice he was missing?”

  “Of course! He had to sneak back in at mealtimes.” Randler chuckled. “He always seemed like the model prisoner, never making any noise. They would release him and then take bets on when he’d be back. One night, he got so drunk that he went in through his hiding place and curled up in his cell, forgetting that he wasn’t under arrest at that time! That’s actually what prompted his departure.” He shook his head, amused. “If you do go exploring while I’m gone, let me give you some advice. Don’t lean on anything unless you want it to open, just in case you happen across a hidden doorway. And if you do pass through an opening, I suggest you put something in the way to keep it from closing. You won’t likely find how to open it from the inside, and some of them can’t be opened that way anyway.”

  Dariak took a deep breath. “Too bad we didn’t know all this before.”

  Randler frowned. “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  Gabrion looked at the bard, his brows furrowed. “If you knew all that about this place, and you knew we were in here, why didn’t you—”

  “Bust you out?” Randler interjected. “Simple enough, and you can check if you’d like. The passages don’t go up to where mages are kept. That way, if a mage blasts through something, it won’t collapse the whole tower. I couldn’t have gotten to Dariak. And forgive me, but I had never met you; would you have even accepted my help? Would I have even recognized you from a rough coal sketch posted in the city square?”

  “There was nothing he could do, Gabrion,” Dariak interposed.

  With a grunt, Gabrion let it go.

  “Very well then,” Randler said. “I will return in a few hours with some supplies.” He looked over at Kitalla. “Good luck with her.”

  He then walked over to the first entranceway and dramatically pulled aside a metal handle, lifting the iron cage before pushing the stone wall aside, showing them how to escape. He then bowed his head and backed out of the room, sliding the stone back in place.

  Chapter 27

  Randler’s Tale

  Kitalla showed a large improvement afte
r the first major healing session, but it wasn’t nearly enough for the injuries she had sustained. Violent bruises splashed across her body in so many places that it was difficult to find an unmarked spot. Gabrion, Randler, and Dariak spent a good portion of each day recasting the healing regiment that Dariak had devised, propelling her body to faster healing. Randler left after each session to look in on his lodging and to keep up appearances at his nightly shows. He also occasionally didn’t return for a day, claiming that he simply couldn’t escape into the wall opening without being seen. Dariak accepted it well enough, but Gabrion had his reservations.

  The warrior struggled with the new imprisonment. He wasn’t able to directly affect Kitalla’s healing, only perhaps amplify some of Dariak’s work. He felt utterly useless, and so he took to investigating the secret passages.

  The first thing Gabrion noticed was that the passages were mostly very narrow, and he needed to traverse them sideways in many cases. It meant it would be impossible to carry Kitalla through them in the event of an emergency. But he kept his hopes high that he and Dariak would be able to fend off any danger. He also felt chill breezes seeping through the stony walls, his only reminder of the weather outside.

  On one of his many excursions, Gabrion found a pathway that spiraled up and behind the archers’ row that overlooked the prisoners’ pit in the center of the tower, where he had spent a rough couple of months too recently to think about. He could easily see that a number of bulky men had been recaptured, but something else caught his attention. Cavall, who had shown Gabrion around when he was first tossed in, was now doing more than simply talking to the other inmates companionably. He had a whip of his own, and it looked like his duties had changed. From a few additional glances in, Gabrion decided that Cavall had not rebelled that day, clinging to his leadership position in the cell. And when the other prisoners had returned, the guards saw that Cavall wanted nothing more than to scold them for their desertion, and they rewarded him with the whip.