The Last Wizard

by Jane M. R.

I go to the door, stepping into the corridor. Zadicayn is leaning against the wall beside the door, one foot against it with his knee popped out. Gold eyes look at me. “Ride dragons?”

  “It has a romantic appeal.”

  “I wouldst hast thought my best features wert all that luscious black hair all over my face.”

  “Maybe second. Not your best.”

  “Let’s get him home so we can get married, yea?”

  “Yea.”

  We enter the room. Jaicom has positioned himself so his injured leg is unhindered as Zadicayn sits on the edge of the bed. “So… ye art the waghalter whose many great grandfather took my freedom by throwing me in the vault and then ye suppose to take my lass, too?”

  “I’ll take your castle and all your farmland if you don’t fix my leg since it’s because of you and your lass I got shot.”

  Zadicayn looks back at me. “He’s a’right by me.” Looking back at Jaicom he says, “What tis this wound upon thee?”

  “It’s a gunshot. You probably don’t know what that is.”

  “Nary a wit.”

  “Okay, so essentially I have a metal ball inside my leg about this big.” Jaicom shows all of us with his hands. “It tore out a chunk of my leg as it went in. Damage to muscle.”

  “A’right, so until I figure out how to relocate things without looking at them, I must still lay eyes upon this metal ball to withdraw it. Ye shan’t feel pain but ye wilt still hast sensation. I shall dig my fingers around inside it to see the ball.”

  “Okay.” Jaicom lays back and hugs the pillow tightly to his chest, smothering his face.

  I look away too, but in a matter of moments I hear a heavy thunk as Zadicayn puts the bullet on the bedside table.

  “Ye dress, Brine. I needeth bandages.”

  A couple layers of petticoat later, Jaicom has a tremendous bandage swathed around his leg.

  “Don’t you think that is too much?”

  “Hard to tell when ye art nary bleeding, but ye shall start upon leaving this realm.” Zadicayn stands up after tying the last knot. “Brine, whilst I was out of the room, I went outside to check the Fae Gate at both the canyon way and the boulder. Remember the Lethea?”

  The firefly looking balls that represent everyone’s pineal gland in the Fae Realm? “I do.”

  “There art Lethea in the canyon. But not on the boulder. I shall take Jaicom back the boulder way and… ye may cometh if ye choose. See thy family. It tis safe, but I still worry.”

  Hope spirals inside me. I will definitely settle much better with Zadicayn knowing I have some closure with my family as to where and why I’m gone. “I want to go.”

  He nods. “Ye ready?” he asks Jaicom.

  “Help me walk.”

  Between Zadicayn and I, we prop Jaicom between us and he hobbles along on one leg as we take him back to the Fae Arch.

  “Thy wound shall begin to pain thee upon walking through,” Zadicayn says. “I can nary help the pain.”

  “I’ll be alright.”

  We step through the arch back to the Human Realm side.

  “Holy church of blood and damnation!” Jaicom’s whole body clinches and I have to hold his arm so he doesn’t choke my neck. He sets his teeth and exchanges his curses for near-screams. “Take me back! Take me back!”

  “Ye shan’t heal in the Fae Realm.”

  “AaaahhhhhI don’t care!”

  “Crisy will want to know what happened to you.”

  “I’m going to pass out again! Or throw up!”

  “Ye be a’right. Thy body shall numb partially to it eventually.”

  “Not quick enough!”

  Jaicom’s labored breathing has caused his face to flush and sweat. His outbursts have turned into whimpers and grunts.

  “Jaicom,” I say, “when I was kidnapped by gypsies, it turns out they were assassins and your father hired them.”

  His sounds of pain change, though he says nothing.

  “And this last time I went to Bristol, the same assassin tried to kidnap me on the train. Zadicayn was there and put a stop to that.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Jaicom says under his breath.

  At the Fae Gate Zadicayn opens it with a complicated series of knocking and slapping against the stone. It opens and we walk through.

  Evening has encompassed the valley of Valemorren. We step onto The Boulder. Taking hold of me, Zadicayn relocates all of us in increments down The Boulder, through the forest, and to my lawn.

  “I shall take Jaicom home,” he says.

  “Not home! Take me to Miss Garfair’s house.”

  Zadicayn looks at me. “Pending thy family dost nary burn thee at the stake, I shall meet thee here.”

  “I’ll be safe. They are just confused.”

  He nods and, Jaicom pointing where he wants to go, they relocate out of sight. I turn to the house. Gas lamps still on. It must just be after dinner. I managed to eat something from the castle kitchen while Zadicayn was bandaging Jaicom’s leg, but it’s wearing off.

  I approach the door. Should I knock? But how absurd is that to knock on my own door? I am still their daughter. I walk in.

  “Father?” I hesitate. “Mother?”

  No response. I try again.

  “Brinella?” My father opens the door to his study next to the foyer. In three steps he has me in a crushing embrace, one I’m going to miss. “Janella! Come down!”

  My mother whooshes out of her boudoir, catching her hands on the railing upstairs. “Brinella?” She flies down the stairs and I’m smothered in embraces to the point I break it off first to get some room. My mother grabs my face, looking me all over. “Oh dear! Are you alright? How are you feeling? You tell us where the wizard is and we’ll get the constables –”

  “Stop. Stop. I need to speak with both of you, but it’s not about finding the wizard.”

  My father nods and beckons us into his study. I sit down on the window seat. My mother sits close to me, anxious and she won’t let go of my hand. I clear my throat. Where to start? Well, how about the day it all started. Durain’s funeral.

  OOO

  I’m surprised that I maintain my calm through my telling, despite in real life my emotions at the parts I am reliving had me panicking, screaming, and genuinely afraid for my life.

  My mother loosens her hold on me little by little as I recount my telling of how I met Joseara the thief during my gypsy kidnap, how I never went to Bristol with Joseara because I climbed through the canyon instead. She starts to scoot further and further away from me when I tell how I’ve been to the Fae Realm and all the things I saw there.

  My father’s expression does not change, except by maybe a lift of his eyebrows about Zadicayn going with me to Bristol who saved me from yet another attempt at kidnap by the same gypsy who was hired by Aklen the first time.

  I watch the hour hand on the clock spin around twice by the time I reach the part about Zadicayn’s proposal and my answer.

  My mother is weeping. I don’t know when she started.

  My father leans forward in his chair, resting both elbows on his knees. “Brine… this is all really hard for us to believe. I mean… we don’t have any proof that you’ve done any of this. It all sounds like… like you’ve been spelled to believe all this.”

  My final downfall. I hid my incriminating evidence too well. “Look… come with me.” I stand, leaving my father’s study fast enough to where he has to jog to catch up. My mother is slower.

  I take them to the bathing room and pull my ruined yellow dress and boots out from the corner. They no longer smell of the Whaerin lumber house fire but of mold now.

  “The day of the Whaerin lumber house fire,” I begin, shaking the dress in case they can’t see it hanging in my hand. “I was not in my room. I was found by Varseena in this tub smothered with honeysuckle oil. I crawled in through the small window above the sink, stuffed this dress smelling of smoke and splattered with blood –” I open the dress so they can see it, �
�behind here and drowned myself in honeysuckle so no one could smell the smoke in my hair. I pretended I was sick as my excuse. You called for the doctor.”

  My mother is shaking her head. Won’t look at what I have in my hands. I drop my dress and boots and walk out, proceeding up the stairs next. In my room I kneel beside my wardrobe, pulling up the hashed up chunk of carpet and show them the bloodstain there. “This is Joseara’s blood when Zadicayn used this bloodstone…” I stand and grab the stone off my vanity, “to relocate both of them into my wardrobe before going to his castle. I hashed at the carpet and flipped it over to hid it. And my hairbrush…” I show that next. “And the rosemary soap you made a comment once on, father. Both came from his castle, like I’ve said.”

  I can’t show them the notes written between myself and Joseara during her thefts because I had to eat them to dispose of them. “When you are able, call on Jaicom and ask him. He was with us tonight. In the Fae Realm. Zadicayn pulled the bullet out of his leg. You’ll find him at Crisy’s house because he can’t go back to his own.”

  My mother has her nose smothered in a handkerchief. My father flexes his fingers as if trying to find words. “I don’t know how to accept all this.”

  “I wish I could bring you to his castle tonight, but the church and the three families are still on the hunt for Zadicayn. It was a risk for even us to come here, but we had to return Jaicom and I wanted to tell you were I was going. But when things clear up, I’ll bring you over. I don’t know when that will be.” But now it is very late. Zadicayn is likely back by now. I didn’t see him in the foyer. My breath seizes as I think the worst might have happened. Again. “But I’ve got to get going now. Maybe Zadicayn is back.”

  They follow me out of my room as if I am a hearse in a funeral procession. Zadicayn is not in the foyer. My throat closes before I reassure myself that maybe he is waiting on the porch.

  I open the front door into a greeting of cricket song. The gas lamp on the porch is swarmed with moths. The wizard is swinging leisurely on the porch swing, one ankle laying across his knee. He must have relocated Jaicom’s blood out of his blue coat because I don’t see it anymore. He smiles and waves to my parents.

  My mother appears as if she’s going to faint. My father puts his hands on her waist and looks at my new fiancé. “So you’re the one responsible for upsetting Valemorren, the church, my family, society, and history.”

  “The very same. I be pleased to meet thee.”

  My mother has managed to gather herself together enough to where she remains on her feet, dabbing her eyes.

  My father clasps hands behind his back, like he does when confronting a new merchant to sell to. “Now here is the part where I would sit you in my study and make you answer for why you are the best man for my daughter and prove you can provide for her. But seeing as she’s going with you no matter what you say to me and what I think about that, we won’t be so formal. But I still demand to know how you think you are worth her.”

  “Oh good sir, I am nary good for her. Nary allow her to lie to thee. I hath tried many times to chase her away from me but she is like lice and wants to keep coming back.”

  “Hey!”

  “So ye must asketh her those questions.”

  My father’s gaze turns on me. I try to telepathically transmit to Zadicayn that he can relocate us. Now.

  “So, Brine, the scepter is passed to you.”

  I shoot the wizard a look. He refuses to honor me with returning it.

  I hate moments like this. The center of attention where everyone is waiting on me for answers. Especially to personal questions. Questions I don’t know the answers to myself.

  I draw a blank, searching back to find that singular moment when I decided I wanted to love and be loved by the last wizard. But it wasn’t a singular moment. It was a gathering of seeds that once dumped on the ground, they sprung to life like root suckers, impossible to kill because they keep growing back.

  I give up. “He speaks Old English and I find that pretty alluring.”

  My father’s eyes lift to the overhang. “And so I must still stand by my statement. Can I have a hug before you go?”

  I stand, ready to be gone about two months ago. I embrace him, reaching for my mother next who begins crying again and clinging tightly onto me. It takes both me and my father to pry her off again.

  “I love you Brinella!” she wails.

  “Love you too, mother. You’ll like the castle when I am able to bring for a visit.”

  She nods, nestling close into my father. Rejoining back with Zadicayn, he takes my hand, waves, and we vanish with a pop.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  ZADICAYN

  Brine demanded we find a priest so our marriage would look right in the eyes of God, but I know of nary in the Fae Realm. Furthermore, I’m not nearly awake for finding a priest or what will happen after, so I’m made to sleep in a separate room than her so we can resume our search in the morning.

  It takes going to another realm entirely to find a priest where I have to transform his language into one we understand but the hard part is over. Or, at least I thought. Because upon entering my bed chamber back in my castle, she turns to me and says,

  “Not tonight.”

  Three hundred and a lot of years say otherwise, but I still bow under her request.

  “A’right. See ye in the morning.” Unabashed, I begin to undress, stretching a couple of times before slipping under the covers, grabbing my pillow as if I’m going to sleep. I look back at her. She’s facing away from me. “Wouldst ye like help out of thy dress? It looketh like it takes another person to undo the laces in the back.”

  “No. I’m fine. I’ll just… sleep in it.”

  “A’right.” I wait. “Are ye going to lay down or shouldst I sleep in another room?”

  “You’re fine.” She stalls another second, then blowing out the candles on her side of the bed she looks at me. I do the same to mine, hitting us both in darkness.

  A shuffling on the mattress and too much fabric moving everywhere heralds her laying next to me. Odd, really, how she was ready and willing to lay with me on the kitchen floor when I first left the vault. Hair, baggy yellow robe, and all.

  She continues to shift and turn for a long time. I can’t imagine that dress is comfortable to sleep in. Tight corset, vasquines layered so thick it must have her hips elevated. Everything rubbing, chaffing…

  “Still awake?”

  “Yea.”

  “Okay. You can loosen the laces in the back for me.”

  “A’right.”

  She sits up and I slid over, trying to find the damned knot in the dark. The wedding dress, she had explained, does not tie officially like the other’s do. Husbands are not taught how to tie and untie.

  I loosen the laces in the back so she can digress from it completely when she chose too.

  “Don’t look, okay?”

  “A’right.” It’s too dark anyway and her shadowy profile is just that, before she dives under the covers, keeping to the very edge of the other side of the mattress without actually falling off.

  It’s not exactly warm in the room. The blankets are not very thick. I find I like to be warm since leaving the vault, but now I get too warm with too many blankets.

  “Couldst ye honor me with a good night kiss before I sleep?”

  Her breathing makes some interesting noises. “Okay. Just a quick kiss.”

  The covers are nearly yanked completely off me so she can wrap them around herself. She scoots over, extending just her head with lips puckered. I service them, trying to recall what I did our first kiss to spin that heat again. I must have found it because she’s not the one disconnecting, the rest of her body scooting a little closer, and let’s just say I shall see ye all on the morrow.

  OOO

  My mother gave birth to me in the Fae Realm because it was a convenient way not to have any pain during birth. She wasn’t so lucky with my sister. My father was out hunti
ng and by the time he got the news and rushed back, my sister was already born. I’m glad that is not the case with Brine. I relocated her cramping into my hand but I’m not willing to do the same for childbirth.

  So the Fae Realm stopped the pain of birth but not the cries of my baby girl I accept into my arms. Before the midwives whisk her away to wash, my daughter opens her eyes.

  And gold irises echo back on me.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Jane Merkley has been actively writing for 13 years, having completed 7 novels. Not currently published, she is actively seeking to do just that so that someday she can quit her job, write books, and be happy. A sequel to The Last Wizard is in the works. (I’ll give away the secret: It’s going to be called, The First Sorcerous)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my husband for his continued support for all the time I had to spend writing and talking to myself. And a big thank you to all of my beta readers who have helped me improve my writing with their helpful, unbiased suggestions.