Aster Wood and the Wizard King (Book 5)

by J B Cantwell

  “I’ve given that question much thought, myself,” he said. “Because you’re right. Though I, myself, have no desire to bring you harm, clearly the other—the other side of me wants nothing but to harm you. I only have one guess.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “That the spirit, ‘Dad’ as you call him, is in someway, too, possessed. I hate to think of myself in that way, you know. Possessed. When I am here with you, my mind feels free. There is no voice inside directing me toward evil deeds. Yes, sometimes there are inklings of where I might go next. Like instincts, perhaps. But they only ever guide me. They never command.

  “And yet, when he comes out and tries to attack you, I simply disappear. It’s almost as if I’ve gone to sleep. I never remember any of it.”

  I turned back briefly, making sure that the rest of the wizards were, in fact, following us. Sweat was already beading up on several faces, and I felt sure it was only Kiron bringing up the rear that was keeping them moving forward.

  “It’s almost like when I am here, it’s to protect you,” he went on. “It’s hard to explain.”

  Hard or easy, it seemed true. When Father’s black eyes shone, I seemed perfectly safe in his presence. It was only when his possession faltered that I was in any real danger. Were those nothing more than tiny accidents? Hiccups in the possessor’s power to control Father?

  And why—the question swirled around and around in my head—why would they be trying to keep me alive? Could it really be the Corentin who had been possessing Father all this time?

  I gulped at the thought and wondered if I wasn’t meant to arrive at the Corentin’s doorstep, whole and ready for slaughter when the time came.

  Well, I was alive now, and for the time being that was all that mattered. I didn’t trust Father or my dad’s spirit when Father sometimes lost control. But trust seemed hard to come by these days. It seemed that with each day that passed my trust in others was ebbing away. I couldn’t rely on my friends to save me or make my decisions for me. Not anymore.

  Within Father there was caring, something almost like love, that shined through his onyx irises. That was what Cait was able to see in him. But there was malice, too. I would always be fighting my desire to connect with the man who had abandoned me, walking a tightrope between desire of a bond with him and the danger of getting too close.

  We walked for an hour before any further grumbling began. The men, having been holed up in that mountain for the past several weeks, were already tiring from the journey. Several had already gone through half of their water, and most everyone was sweating profusely.

  I knelt down beside Cait and held one of my water jugs up to her lips. She broke her eyes away from our path and they widened as she drank deeply. Of everyone on the journey, I found it funny that the smallest and most delicate among us had yet to complain about a single thing.

  Then, a shout erupted from Donnally, who had been walking towards the back of the group. He jumped to his feet and scampered ahead, pointing at something in the distance.

  Water.

  The word came to my mind before it dropped from his lips. I could see it, too, now, shimmering in the hot desert sun. I, who had been steadfast and stoic about the difficulty of the journey that lay ahead, was suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to reach that sparkling pool and dunk my whole body into it.

  Everyone was on their feet, and as we set off again, nobody complaining now. Our pace quickened the closer we seemed to get. Tongues smacking across dry lips, my own included.

  We walked. And we walked. And yet we seemed to get no closer to the pool we so longed to find.

  Cait was as focused as ever, and her path was leading us straight for the water. I let her walk on, didn’t question her at all.

  But the hours began to tick by, and our pace slowed. Perhaps the location of the water was simply farther away than we had originally thought. Even I, in my haste to reach it, had drained my second bottle of water, believing that we would soon be to the place where I could refill it to my heart’s content.

  “When will we get there?” I asked Cait, trying hard not to sound like a little kid. “I’m so thirsty.”

  She spoke without looking up.

  “There won’t be water,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “We can see that there’s water.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Anyway, we’re almost there, and if that’s really water, it’s very far away from here.”

  “We’re almost where?” I asked. “I thought you were taking us to the water.”

  “I’m taking you to the chamber,” she said, her brows furrowed. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  I kicked a small rock that lay in my path. It skidded across the dry, cracked ground.

  Of course that was why we were here. I had just thought that the small issue of keeping us all alive might outweigh the need to get to the first chamber as quickly as possible.

  “Well, how much longer until we reach the chamber, then?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow, I think,” she said.

  Tomorrow. No water until at least tomorrow, if she was right and the lake was even farther away than the chamber was.

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  We walked.

  Very little changed in the environment as we stumbled across it. Cait seemed the only one who refused to complain. Even Father, usually so willing to go in any direction I pointed him in, was starting to whimper a little as the day dragged on.

  “Are you alright?” I asked. I had fallen behind Cait, taking it in turns to walk beside her and Kiron. But Father’s sigh from farther back in the group had caught my attention.

  “Yes,” he panted. “Just a little tired.”

  “You and me both,” Kiron grumbled up ahead.

  “We’ll probably stop soon,” I said. “The sun is getting ready to set.”

  “No,” Kiron said. “We should walk in the dark. It will be cooler that way.”

  “Yes,” Father said. “He’s right.”

  The sweat across my back and neck was still warm from the afternoon, but the slightest of breezes came up from the scorched earth as the sun settled closer to the horizon. For a moment it felt nice, cooling my body as I trudged along. But soon, I knew, the wind would become an enemy. If this place was anything like the deserts of Earth, the night would be frigid.

  I sighed.

  “Not what you thought?” Father asked.

  Of course I had known the journey would be hard. I guess I had just expected it to not be so hard within moments of arriving on the first planet. It had been a foolish wish.

  “I don’t think it’s what any of us thought,” I said.

  As the sun slipped below the horizon and twilight descended upon us, I started seeing strange things out of the corner of my eye. I would see a movement and look up, but as soon as I did I found there was nothing there at all. Soon shivers began to tingle along my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

  Everyone was jumpy up ahead, too. From time to time someone would jig left or right, as if they were seeing the same things I did. Only Cait kept her focus fixed ahead and seemed oblivious to whatever it is the rest of us were seeing. And Larissa, so singularly focused on Cait’s safety, paid the movements of the night no mind.

  Suddenly, from right beside me, I heard a shout of fear. Father stumbled across my path, seeming to try to escape something. And as he passed me, I saw what. A monstrous insect, the size of a large dog, was baring down on him, its fangs snapping and claws reaching.

  Before I had a chance to react, myself, Father grabbed my arm and wrenched me away from the beast, dragging me after him as he fled the group. I held the staff in my other hand, but in that instant I couldn’t imagine what to do with it that might help us. It was Kiron who came to the rescue then, wielding one of the bright silver disks the group had once used to protect Stonemore, and he zapped the animal with a jolt of electricity that left it quiv
ering on the ground. We all stood around to watch as it writhed and spat its venom, too far away to inflict it upon us directly. Then, when it had stopped twitching, Kiron released it from the bolt.

  And it disappeared.

  All of us caught our breaths in our chests.

  Where had it gone? Had this been the thing that we had been seeing this past hour, the snippets of visual information that had made us all jumpy since the sun went down?

  Before the question had even made it to my lips, we were struck again, and this time it was Cait’s cries that pierced through the night.

  No.

  This time I held the staff firmly, and the jet of power I unleashed from it met its mark in an instant.

  But not before it had sunken its fangs into Cait’s left arm.

  The animal screeched as it hit the ground. All of us were distracted by its cries.

  Until Kiron shouted.

  And then Elidor.

  I looked up from the bolt that was holding the monster that had attacked Cait and nearly lost my grip on the staff.

  From every direction came waves of the monsters, suddenly visible in the dim light, their teeth snapping, claws clacking.

  “Kiron!” I yelled.

  Everyone looked up to see what I was shouting about. Men fumbled in their robes until each of them held out silver disks identical to the one Kiron wielded. They shot bolts from their weapons into the night sky, crossing the arcs of light until all five of them met in the middle and exploded out into a dome of light, encircling the party.

  I made a jabbing motion with the staff and flung the creature I had been holding steady away from us, through the shield and to the other side. Immediately, it stood, glaring at me through the magical protection as if I had merely swatted it away.

  All of us stood, chests heaving, shocked looks on our faces.

  “Will it hold?” I asked, shouting over the noise of the electric current. I wondered how long the group would be able to hold out, using their power like this.

  All night?

  It seemed Kiron’s plan to have us walk through the night was no longer going to be an option. I wondered if the monsters would disappear when the sun rose, leaving us to brave the heat.

  I had seen the little bugs as we had walked through the day, nearly stepped on a few of them as I trudged across the expanse of dried earth. I had wondered how they could survive in such a place where no water seemed to exist anywhere. Was it possible that it ever rained in a place like this?

  But these were no little bugs.

  Kiron locked his eyes with Finian.

  “I’ll release mine,” he shouted. “One at a time we can release our hold on the dome. Maybe we can hold it with fewer.”

  Finian first looked worried, and then his face hardened as he resolved to keep the dome alight without Kiron’s aid.

  Slowly the two men moved together, and when they were standing beside each other, Kiron pulled down on his silver disk. The electricity coming from it flickered, the bolt growing thinner and thinner until it finally went out with a fizzle.

  The dome held.

  Kiron looked around at the men, and I could tell he was trying to decide who were the strongest after the day’s journey. Whom he could trust to keep the dome intact despite their weariness.

  “Tristan,” he said, crossing over to the tallest wizard in the group. “You next. Move towards Elidor.”

  The wizard named Tristan did as he was told, taking step after shaky step towards Elidor. Then, when Kiron signaled to him, he gradually extinguished his light as Kiron had done.

  Kiron repeated this ritual with Donnally, and this time clear relief shined on his face when the dome still held. He didn’t seem willing to push it any further, though. Three wizards would have to stay awake to keep the rest of us safe.

  “We’ll take it in turns,” he said. “One hour each. Then we trade.”

  His eyes met mine, and then he turned to Cait.

  Larissa was huddled over her, but Cait was oddly quiet beneath Larissa’s robes.

  “Is she ok?” I asked, approaching.

  I knelt down beside them. Cait clutched one arm to hear chest, refusing to let me take a closer look.

  “Kiron!” Larissa shouted.

  A look passed between them, and Kiron immediately dropped his pack and began rummaging through it.

  “You’ll be okay, Cait,” I said. From underneath her clutching fingers, thick trickles of blood oozed from her arm. And yet she didn’t cry. And for several long moments I didn’t understand why.

  She breathed hard, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she endured the pain of her injury. But when she tilted her head back to scream in agony, no sound came from her at all.

  Kiron approached us with a small vial filled with yellow liquid.

  “Already I’m wishing I’d brought more of this,” he said. “Here, hold her.” He wrenched the hand of Cait’s injured arm away from her chest and made sure I had a good grip on it.

  What I saw made my stomach turn.

  Two long gashes tore into the flesh of her arm. But it wasn’t just blood that was pouring from her. A sticky, green mucous was foaming up around the edges of the wounds. Poison.

  Kiron didn’t hesitate. He poured half the bottle on one wound, the other half on the second. The potion sizzled as it met the raw flesh of her arm, ridding the foam around the wounds as cleanly as if they had been dipped into a mountain stream.

  She looked down at her arm, her mouth open in astonishment, and then stared up into Kiron’s concerned face.

  Then, as the medicine worked its magic and her wounds began to close, she gave in and passed out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The night was long. Once an hour we would trade responsibilities over keeping the dome intact. Tristan and Donnally took the second shift, and the moment the shield held steady again, Elidor and Finian dropped to their knees, exhausted.

  I gritted my teeth, waiting for my turn.

  Now that the buzzing of electricity had died down, we could again hear the snapping jaws of the monsters outside. It had the effect of making none of us feel safe despite the magical might that kept us out of their reach. Father, unable to do anything to help, searched through bags and produced a meal of sorts for the rest of us. Hard bread and dried meat was laid sparingly out before each man, though few of us touched it. I don’t know how much we would have been able to get down, anyways, after a day with little water to moisten our tongues.

  Cait sat quietly, not moving or speaking. She cradled her damaged arm and flinched away whenever Larissa tried to touch her. I made my way over to her.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said, kneeling down. “You doing ok?”

  Her wide, terrified eyes looked up into mine, and in the dim light of the lightning above I saw her open her mouth to speak. No words came. She tried again, but the only sound was her own breath exhaling from her throat. Her eyes got bigger as she released her injured arm and gripped at her throat, shaking her head.

  I didn’t know what to do. She was shaking from head to foot, staring at me as if I alone could help her, but all I could manage was to sit before her and watch the horror on her face morph from bad to worse.

  Larissa laid comforting hands on her shoulders, but Cait wrestled away, falling before me. Then, her face cracked, and the horror was replaced by a forlorn misery so sad I nearly started to cry, myself. Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling over onto her cheeks, and her mouth stretched open, longing to create the sound of pain that should have been audible.

  What was going on?

  I opened my arms and she fell into them, her body wracking with sobs no one could hear, the sweet little girl now silenced by a poison none of us had expected to face.

  My breathing was coming hard and fast as I tried to figure out what to do, what to say. All I could come up with was the usual.

  “It’ll be ok,” I said, nestling my chin down into her hair. “We’ll get through it.”

  She br
oke our embrace and stared up at me, her lips moving, head shaking.

  “Don’t try to talk now, child,” Larissa said. She had given up trying to force Cait into being comforted and now sat beside me.

  “No,” I agreed. “You should just rest. Your arm—”

  Cait’s face broke again, but this time she looked simply defeated. Her shoulders hunched and her head drooped.

  “Stay with Lissa,” I said, my hands on her shoulders. “I need to check with Kiron. Don’t worry.”

  Kiron had been watching the whole thing, and concern outlined the features of his face.

  “It’s almost our turn,” I said, staring up at the lightning bolts overhead nervously.

  “Yep,” he growled.

  Beyond the barrier, the monsters paced back and forth, jaws clacking, hissing. Every once in a while one would try to break through the barrier, but would then be forced back as if it were zapped by an electric fence.

  “How long do you think this will go on for?” I asked, looking at Donnally and Tristan. It had only been half an hour, and they already looked exhausted.

  “I hope only until morning,” he said. “They came at sunset.”

  “What if they don’t leave?” I asked.

  “Lissa,” he said.

  Of course. Larissa would make a new link to take us out of this place.

  “But then we will have failed,” I argued. “We can’t leave here. Not yet.”

  “If it comes to that, we’ll have to regroup and try again. Maybe with more wizards.”

  I pulled out the sheet of paper Jade had given me with her calculations about which planets would be the most difficult to traverse.

  She had thought this one would be the easiest?

  “Is this … natural here?” I asked, looking up from the page. “Are these … animals … in their natural habitat, and we’re just passing through it?”

  “Dunno,” he said. “Why?”

  “If they live here, then maybe we’ll be rid of them if we just push onward,” I said. “But if they’re here for some other reason …”

  “Guarding something,” Kiron picked up my train of thought.