The grizzled veteran shook his head.
“Not for a while. I did get a letter that Darlan forwarded to me with the last group of reinforcements the academy sent up, though. Ambassador Valtrek says that Justan has been sent abroad to study with a master wizard that ‘specializes in his particular talents’, whatever that means.” A slight grin touched his lips and he added teasingly, “Have you heard back from him since you sent that letter?”
“No,” Jhonate said, unconsciously twisting the ring on her index finger. “I was just curious.”
Why did he always look at her like that when she asked about Justan? It had gotten worse since she had sent the letter. She didn’t understand what he found so funny about it. The letter was just to congratulate Justan on becoming an apprentice and make sure that he remembered to keep focused on his training.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure that he will respond as soon as he gets it. He had probably already left to study with this new master by the time your letter arrived.” They came upon an ogre corpse and stopped for a moment. Each lifted a leg and began dragging the body towards the burn pile. “The MageSchool will forward the letter on to him.”
“Is it common for them to send second year students abroad to study?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It does seem kind of strange, but I get the feeling that Ambassador Valtrek has Justan on an increased schedule since he plans on leaving as soon as possible. I get more letters from that wily old wizard than I do from Justan.”
“That is good,” she said and they strained together to heave the large ogre’s body onto the pile. “Justan is focusing on his studies.”
“Well,” Faldon said. “At least we know that he hasn’t been caught up in this war.”
“Sir! Faldon the Fierce, Sir!” Poz, son of Weld called. “We found another one. Over here!”
Faldon and Jhonate ran over to him. Poz had hair so blond it was nearly white and his face was covered in freckles. It made him look so young that some of the other students had taken to calling him Baby Face behind his back. The young man was very talented with the sword, though. He carried a magical weapon named Limber. He said that it was a dwarven joke. The blade was enchanted to cut through bone like butter.
Poz had a large grin on his face. He pointed to a large boulder to the side of the battle site. Jobar and Qenzic, along with three other advanced academy students stood around the boulder with weapons drawn.
“This one’s still alive, sir.”
“Jhonate, get a net.” Faldon said, but he turned to see that she had already run towards the supply packs. He chuckled to himself. The girl had true potential.
Faldon knelt down and looked into the darkness under the boulder. Two large glowing orbs stared back at him unblinkingly. A chittering moan came from within. It was another moonrat, though this one’s eyes had a sickly orange tint to them instead of the normal yellow glow.
Faldon had thought it peculiar when Jhonate had described the behavior of the moonrat they had found with the trolls, but this new moonrat was the third one they had found since then. Each time they found the beast near a battle site. He hadn’t been able to figure out what the beasts were doing so far from the tinny woods.
Jhonate was under the belief that the moonrats were somehow controlling the army. Faldon had fought the things enough times over the years that he didn’t think it possible. He was fairly sure that they were just drawn to the smell of the dead. The disgusting creatures would eat anything. They even ate each other.
Jhonate soon arrived with the net. Faldon instructed her and Poz to hold the net open at the front of the boulder. He had the other students fan around the sides and poke their weapons inside, trying to coax the beast out. The moonrat shifted around in the darkness and hissed angry chitters at them, unwilling to leave.
“Be careful,” Faldon said. “Try to avoid getting scratched. This one might be diseased. Its eyes look funny.”
“Look at him,” Poz said to Jhonate, shaking his blond head with a grin. “It’s like he understands that we are trying to capture him.”
“It is just afraid, Son of Weld.” Jhonate remarked, lifting the net a little higher in case it jumped.
“No, seriously look at him . . .” The grin was stuck on his face and his gaze was transfixed. “She really wants us to lower the net.”
Jhonate looked into the darkness and tried to figure out what Poz was seeing. The orange glow of its pupilless eyes bored into her and she too felt the compulsion to drop the net. Why not let it go? He was just a harmless frightened little beast. It would be cruel to capture and hold such a thing. His-.
“-mother would miss him.” Poz said sweetly and his hands began to lower the net. “She really wants us to let him go. Such a precious child this one.”
Jhonate shook her head and took a half step back. Her vision had started to take on an orange haze.
“Poz, raise the net,” she said. His eyes were still fixed on the moonrat.
“What’s going on?” asked Faldon.
“Poz, raise the net!” Jhonate shouted.
“But he is so sweet. One mustn’t disobey one’s mother.” A bit of drool began to leak from the corner of his youthful mouth. He dropped the net. “Mother?”
The moonrat leapt from its hiding place under the boulder and bolted for Poz’s side of the net. Poz smiled weakly at it. Jhonate dove over the student and tackled the beast in the snow. The moonrat thrashed and scratched and bit at her as she struggled to wrap the net around it.
A voice echoed in her mind. “Let him go, you insignificant girl!”
Jhonate cried out. A presence filled her mind that was dark, blacker than pitch and full of decay. It was all at once filled both with hate for her and love for its child. Its immense will bore down on her, trying to force her to roll aside and let go of the net. The creature that thrashed and bit at her was most precious. It must be free.
Jhonate refused the presence’s commands. She felt violated. This thing that had invaded her mind with its filthy presence and it had no right. No right at all. How dare this being enter this most intimate part of her?
“Get out!” Jhonate screamed and wrapped her hands around the moonrat’s throat, oblivious to its thrashing claws. All around her the other students were yelling. Some of them grabbed the netting. Faldon’s strong hands grabbed her around the waist and tried to pull her off of the creature. She began to squeeze its throat. “Get out or I kill it!”
The presence pushed harder on her mind, trying to wrest control from her, and Jhonate squeezed the moonrat’s throat harder. Its struggles slowed. With a snarl of anger the presence retreated from her mind.
“You have been marked for death, Jhonate, daughter of Xedrion bin Leeths,” she promised. Then she was gone.
Jhonate released the moonrat’s neck and let Faldon pull her off of it. The other students made sure it was well wrapped in the net. The beast was still alive.
“Are you okay?” Faldon asked. He was afraid that they would need to send her to a mage with the way the beast had been attacking her. To his surprise, he didn’t see any blood. Her hardened leather breastplate had taken most of the damage, though her winter leathers were shredded. They would need to be replaced.
“I am fine,” she said with one hand to her head, looking disgusted. “The beast’s attacks did not pierce my skin.”
Faldon didn’t understand how that was possible. He swore that he had seen it bite into her shoulder several times. Still, there was no blood. Perhaps the ring that Justan had given her really did have protective properties.
Poz approached them, a look of anguish on his face. “I-I am so sorry, Daughter of Xedrion, I don’t know what came over me.”
Jhonate whipped her staff around and delivered a painful thwack to the side of his head. He stumbled back a step with the force of the blow.
“That was unacceptable, Son of Weld! You do not let anything into your mind!” She took a step forward and poked the surprised student
hard in the forehead with her forefinger. “That is your most sacred ground. Do you understand?”
Everyone was staring at them now. Poz held a hand to the side of his face where Jhonate had struck him. Her eyes bored into his and to Faldon’s surprise, Poz nodded and lowered his head.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “I will not let it happen again.”
“What was that about?” Faldon said, a tone of command entering his voice. “You two tell me what just happened.”
They looked at each other as if not sure how to answer. Poz spoke first.
“She was trying to control us,” he said.
“She?” Faldon asked. “What?”
“It,” Jhonate clarified. “When we held the net, there was a presence that used this creature to try and control our minds, sir. It was so . . . repulsive. What I mean to say, sir, is that it tried to control us the way that the first moonrat I saw weeks ago controlled the trolls that we attacked.”
“So,” Faldon tried to wrap his mind around the concept. “This ‘presence’ attacked you and tried to control you? Why? What did it want?”
“She uh . . . It wanted us to let the moonrat go. It said that it was her- I mean, its child,” Poz tried to explain. Jhonate sighed.
“The presence wanted us to let this moonrat go because it is somehow special. I do not know why, but I think that it is crucial that we take it back for study. We cannot let it go.” She thought for a moment. “Then again, perhaps we should kill it instead. It may be too dangerous.”
“What if she attacked more of us back at camp?” Poz said. “I don’t want her in my mind again.”
Faldon looked at the beast in the net and its orange eyes seemed to lock onto him. He walked over and stared down at it. The moonrat let out a pitiful chitter. It was quite sad really. The creature had to be frightened. It was so far away from home and surrounded by strange creatures that had attacked and tormented it. The poor innocent thing. They really should let it go so that it could return-
“-home to its mother,” Jobar da Org finished, a look of pity in his eyes.
With one smooth movement, Faldon drew the Monarch from its sheath at his back and swung it down, shearing through the net and lopping the moonrat’s head from its shoulders.
The head rolled a few feet away. It moved its jaw a few more times, then the glow in its orange tinted eyes blinked and went out. A scream of anger echoed out through the corners of his mind. Faldon shook his head in disgust.
“No need to study it,” he said. “I believe Jhonate. Let’s burn the damned thing and get out of here.”
“Ow!” Jobar said as Jhonate struck him across the back of his head with her staff. She began giving him the same lecture that she had given to Poz.
Faldon decided to have a talk with her about disciplinary techniques when they weren’t in front of the other students. He looked down at the dead creature and shivered. He could still feel lingering traces of the seductive power of that presence in his mind.
This war was getting too strange. He needed something physical to fight. This force wasn’t something he knew how to handle and it made him feel old. At that moment, Faldon just wanted to go home. For some reason, he needed to hold his wife.
He sheathed his sword and pushed the thoughts of home away. There was still too much to do here. They would need to stay at the main camp for a few days to make sure that the enemy retreat was for real. Then he and his students would have to make the trek back to the academy for debriefing with the council. He could worry about home afterwards.
He ordered the students to throw the body of the moonrat on top of the burn pile with the corpses of the rest of the beasts, though Jhonate was the only one allowed to handle the head. She grabbed it by the jaw and tossed it up as if it was something she did every day. Faldon did notice, however that she didn’t take a single glance at the dull orange eyes.
They set the pile ablaze before heading back to camp.
No one saw the large orange eyes pop out of the moonrat’s skull and roll down the pile away from the blaze. Though singed and still smoking from the heat of the fire, tiny claws sprouted from the bottom of the eyes and dug through the bloody slush and mud. The orange glow winked back on.
Slowly the eyes disappeared into the ground.
Afterword:
The Universal Deck is Real
My father created the Universal Deck in 1977, the year after I was born. It was an attempt to create a single card deck that you could use to play any card game. We played the games that became Elements and Unity every week growing up. We even had local card tournaments.
When I was designing the magic system used in the Bowl of Souls series, I thought of the cards and everything fell into place, the colors, the symbols, it was perfect. It is the same deck used by the wizard in the Mage School to play the games Elements and Unity and to teach the different elements of magic.
If you want your own deck, you can order a copy via email at [email protected] or check out the Bowl of Souls Facebook page. The rules for playing Elements and Unity are included.
Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) Page 45