But, on the one occasion he dared look back, he didn’t see anybody following them.
Chapter 20
Tristan was in the dumps. He had lost his second bite at the apple, and he knew it was his last. He had taken an elixir for centuries that prolonged his life, but while it did slow the roaring flood of aging to a slow trickle, even the slowest trickle eventually forms a large pool. And while he had amassed incredible knowledge throughout his centuries, he had nowhere near the raw power he once wielded. A century ago, he could have flung all of the traitorous pholungs and smashed them against the cliff.
Successful wizards accomplished at least one grand objective in life apart from leaving behind a highly trained apprentice who could carry on the goals and the philosophy of that wizard. He was going to be a double failure. He had long ago chosen as his grand objective the absolute conquest of Sodorf but had failed. And he had never chosen an apprentice.
He thought many times throughout his long journey through the dreary passageway that he should end it all, so that he could end honorably, as General Sivingdon had almost done when he was to be used as a scapegoat by the cowardly king of Dachwald. He had chided General Sivingdon because he needed him, but he had inwardly lauded Sivingdon’s intended course of action.
As he mulled over this gloomy topic, a strange awareness began to grow inside of him. He had ignored it vociferously at first, thinking that perhaps his imagination was seeking to placate him with fanciful hopes, but as it grew stronger and stronger, he knew it was not his imagination at all but something very real.
Someone was calling him.
It grew louder and louder until he could almost see the person’s face. He focused, as he journeyed onward, and during what he had intended to be a well-deserved nap he fell into a deep sleep that lasted for days. He saw a boy in a dark place chanting phrases few men had ever heard before and doing so with a power and a focus that gave him a chill even though still asleep.
As he plodded onward, he now knew he could see the boy’s face so clearly in his mind he could spot it in a crowd of a thousand. As assurance grew to confidence and confidence to certainty, a renewed vigor entered his step, and he resumed taking his elixir. He might have failed at his grand objective, but perhaps he could still leave a successor.
Chapter 21
“Very good.”
It was a calm, non-threatening voice, but it startled Eddie so badly he nearly found himself on his way towards meeting Brian in a bone-shattered heap on the ground below.
He turned but saw nothing.
“Up here.”
He looked up but still saw nothing.
“Don’t be stupid!” the voice sounded angry now, and he supposed he knew why. He knew where the voice was coming from—why did he pretend otherwise?
Scrambling like a monkey, he began climbing up the tree. Branch after branch disappeared beneath him as he headed upwards towards the Hideout. When he got there, he saw an old man sitting calmly.
“That’s right. You followed your instincts. You’re learning a lot about that, aren’t you Ed.”
“Yes, sir,” he responded, not asking any stupid questions like How’d you know my name? Eddie knew well enough how this man knew . . . or at least thought he did.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” he asked dumbly.
“What you just did—you knew who, or at least what, I am, which is why you didn’t ask, but then you started to doubt yourself. Most people would do well to doubt themselves a great deal, Ed. Their intuition is as strong as a dandelion. But not yours. You trusted it today. That’s why Brian there didn’t get his nickname today but instead will be lucky to survive till nightfall, and if he does, he’ll be lucky to walk normally again. Had you not followed your instincts—had you doubted yourself for a second—it would be you there on the ground.”
Eddie simply nodded. His instincts at this moment told him it would be wise to do a whole hell of a lot of listening and very little talking, an art he had cultivated and fine-tuned under the tutelage of his explosive father.
“But only follow your instincts when they are certain. Weak instincts must be subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of logic. There will be many times when you have to ask questions. My point to you a moment ago was only that you shouldn’t ask questions you know the answer to.”
Encouraged by the license the strange visitor had just given him, Eddie asked, “Do you always know what people are thinking?”
“Up close, usually. When it happens from afar, it’s something special. I heard your thoughts many miles away, and that was when I knew you were going to become my apprentice. I gathered the information about your tormentors both by watching their actions and reading your thoughts about them. You had analyzed them perfectly.
“I’ve been watching you for some time, Ed. I watched yesterday when those friends of yours gave you a real drubbing. I almost gave up on you at that moment, but I sensed a fire in your spirit. I see I wasn’t wrong. There are many things I have to teach you.”
Eddie nodded his head eagerly. The man in his dreams had come.
Chapter 22
“I tell you, sir—servants are like horses; if you don’t beat them every once in a while you can’t expect to get much in the way of respect,” announced Ambassador Rochten to a well-bred gentleman named Lord Hutherton, relating to the lord the difficulty he had exacting perfect compliance from his servants on the long journey from Sogolia to Selgen, the capital city of Selegania.
“It is an aphorism that cannot properly be disputed, good sir,” said Lord Hutherton approvingly of Rochten’s insights. “That is why I never leave the house without this,” he said, pointing to a riding crop that attached conveniently to his finely polished leather boots, “which I find works on the backs of obstinate horses and recalcitrant servants alike.”
The men shared these deep insights inside Selgen’s Gentlemen of Selegania Club, whose coveted membership was only obtained by the most illustrious of Seleganian society. Orchestra music perfumed the air, rare whiskeys and wines floated around on silver trays carried by well-dressed waiters, and women bereft of the burden of clothing danced upon the stage.
“Tell me, good fellow; how are things politically these days in Sogolia? It’s been years since I’ve travelled there.”
“Well, we’re not all so thrilled about this military participation as of late. Of that I can assure you! This fellow Pitkins, a disgraced former Nikorian general came and convinced our fine king—and long live King Valen!—to permit thousands of our brave soldiers to go engage in some military adventurism in that second-rate country of Sodorf. Hmphhh!
“And then once they saved the necks of those nitwit Sodorfians by giving the Dachwaldians a good drubbing, the Dachwaldians turn around and ask for protection! And they get it! Several thousand of our fine soldiers now make up part of a defensive force in Dachwald to help them while they recover. What, good sir, may I ask, is this world coming to? It is not as if we don’t have our own worries, you know! Metinvur lies to the north, and heaven knows they’re always scheming about.
“Well, Dachwald started the damn war; let them face the consequences if they get invaded while they rebuild their god-forsaken country! It’s all due to the influence of that Pitkins fellow! He’s a cocky one, let me tell you. First, he’s found guilty of treason—and that verdict still stands in my court, if you will permit the metaphor—and then he returns and asks the king for soldiers!”
“It was my understanding—while perhaps incorrect—that his name had been cleared in the matter.”
“So they say; so they say. But if you ask me, where there’s smoke there’s fire, and if it turned out that one of the pieces of evidence against him was rigged, well, I’m sure there were plenty more pieces of evidence just waiting to be found!”
“It’s all very interesting,” responded Lord Hutherton, “and I’ll have to ask your most merciful pardon
, but I’ve had a long, rather dreary day, dealing with tortuously mundane matters at the Senate. There’s a vote to be had soon, and as if the bill were not painful enough to parse through, I’ve got representatives from various competing concerns vying for changes in the wording. There’s a lot of money at stake, and I don’t hope to make enemies of the vanguards of industry, but in this case their interests are too conflictive. I’ll make enemies of all if I’m afraid to make enemies of none.” And having said this, he let out a sincere yawn that seemed to originate from the very marrow of his soul.
“Oh, forgive me, dear sir, for boring your already fatigued mind with such trivialities. Please take a complimentary gift from King Valen’s court,” he said producing a small, handsome box and handing it over to Hutherton. “The king’s finest botanists have recently discovered what appears to be the very nectar of the gods. The botanists call it calinus ominesferus. We mere mortals call it Orgone.”
Not wanting to insult Lord Hutherton by forcing him to ask humiliating questions that would reveal his ignorance as to the meaning of Orgone (a form of energy), or as to how to consume this nectar of the gods, the fine ambassador produced his own box, extracted a small gold tube from a dainty coat pocket that seemed made precisely for holding the instrument in question, placed a small portion of a green powdery substance onto the table in front of him, stuck the tube up his left nostril, and performed the quickest disappearing act Hutherton had ever seen.
His body seemed to make a brief, delightful shudder. “There, I think I’ll have energy until at least dawn, should I not choose to mellow the ride with brandy,” he said smiling.
Then he looked slyly at Hutherton and said, “You may find this takes a bit of the dreary sting out of your tasks tomorrow.”
Lord Hutherton went to bed early that night and had a modest amount of energy this morning, but it seemed that with each clause and subclause and sub-subclause that he read, he kept hearing the ambassador’s words ringing in his head: You may find this takes a bit of the dreary sting out of your tasks tomorrow.
Every second that went by, it seemed as if the words were being repeated more and more frequently and more loudly, while the mind-numbing words of the proposed legislation tortured both his eyes and his brain.
“Excuse me,” he said suddenly to a subordinate, and then exited the room, headed towards the gentlemen’s room. The kind ambassador had been so magnanimous as to give him one of those attractive tubes—which, while not made of gold, was made of a fine silver—and as Lord Hutherton sat down inside a stall, he quickly produced the box of Orgone. He hadn’t had the foresight to bring a flat instrument with him, so he pinched out a little of the powder and placed it into his right palm, pulled out the silver tube, stuck it in his right nostril, and inhaled.
For a second, he felt nothing and wasn’t sure if perhaps the fatigue of his taxing labors had rendered his mind unreceptive to any form of assistance, no matter how potent.
Then, like an avalanche at full speed roaring down a steep mountain slope, it hit him.
“Wo!” he huffed in a most undignified gasp. It suddenly felt as if he were flying around the room, looking down on himself and all around him from above. His heart began beating rapidly; his thoughts focused. It seemed as if millions of thoughts were entering his mind at once; and, like an angelic clerk rapidly sorting out the millions of prayers coming up to heaven, his mind was quickly filing and assorting his thoughts into their proper places as if the task were no more difficult than arranging a dozen eggs.
The bill started to seem incredibly simplistic to him now, and he suddenly realized how Lord Melgers, president of Melgers Mining Co.; Lord Childers, president of Steel and Copper Industries, Inc.; Lord Robbins, president of Selgen Bank; and a great many others all had parts of the bill that would benefit them. And as to those parts that did not, in a blink of an eye he envisioned three straight-forward options he could present to all of them, giving them certain benefits and concessions, arranged in order of greatest to least benefit, depending on which one lined his pockets the most generously.
While Lord Hutherton was just one amongst forty senators, he had an influential voice in the senate and knew he could attract at least ten votes at a minimum should he choose to do so, and that would probably be sufficient to tip the balance in favor of his . . . clients’ preferences, as many of the senators were finding the task as dreary as he had been until moments ago and would probably be quite readily inclined to jump on board if they sensed the wind blowing in a particular direction.
With an energy and optimism he hadn’t felt since being elected to the august senate body—something at the time he had believed would bring him immeasurable satisfaction and joy for the rest of his career—he marched back to the chamber where he and some aides were piecing together various proposals and counterproposals to the bill.
“Write this down!” he said, with a contagious and powerful energy in his eye. His dutiful aides, who had been as bored as he but better at hiding it, found his enthusiasm innervating and began transcribing their suddenly passionate master’s words as quickly as their rapidly bobbing wrists would allow them.
Chapter 23
Big Timmy had a lot on his mind tonight. In fact, he had had a lot on his mind over the last several days. Poor old Brian had died. And it hadn’t been a pretty death either. He had heard from his dad, who was pretty good pals with Brian’s dad, a few of the gory details. Moaning, groaning, and coughing up blood until he suddenly gasped his last.
He never had gotten around to deciding what nickname he would give Brian if he pulled off the successful raid of that runt’s tree house, and with no small amount of relish, he realized that it wouldn’t have to trouble his mind any longer. Brian’s dad was Big Timmy’s dad’s boss at a local furniture store, and while they were good pals, Timmy never felt too comfortable about the fact Bri’s dad (“Bri” was as close as he ever got to a nickname, Timmy noted with sick satisfaction) was his dad’s boss. It only served to increase his suspicions that Brian aimed to prove the maxim like father like son and unseat Timmy from his rightful place as head of the gang.
But Timmy aimed to make something out of himself, and he didn’t like it too much that his dad seemed so comfortable working as a lowly manager for Brian’s dad, who was the owner. Timmy had far bigger ambitions, and he knew that if Brian unseated him now, he would never be able to turn back that course of events, and he would probably end up working for Brian someday, a cruel fate he had been dead set on avoiding at all costs.
Thus, the death of Brian seemed like a harbinger of good things to come. There was no way Snobby or Hairy would ever dream of challenging his authority, and he could easily see those two louts working underneath him someday at his store. What kind of store he had no idea because Timmy wasn’t exactly the most committed student, and he scraped by with Ds—or, if he really tried—Cs, but he was thinking that was going to change now soon. He saw a brighter and brighter future by the moment.
He had cried such impressive crocodile tears he was convinced he had not only persuaded his and Brian’s dad of his intolerable grief, but that Snobby and Hairy had bought it as well.
“We were just playing, Mr. Ruggins. Brian said, ‘Bet I can climb across that tree branch,’ and off he went. We ne-e-ever thought ANYTHING like this was going to happen!” he had told Brian’s dad. He smiled widely, as he recalled the memory. He had coached those two runts Hairy and Snobby about what had happened, from start to finish, and none of it involved a wizard-drawing weirdo named Eddie.
“We’ll take care of Eddie ourselves soon enough,” he had told them and convinced them it wouldn’t be in their interests to let it be known Eddie was in any way involved. That could have led to Mrs. Reichart bringing it to somebody’s attention, Brian’s dad most likely, that she suspected Brian and some others had been bullying Eddie severely outside of school and that she thought maybe this whole matter ought to be looked into a little mo
re closely before it was all deemed a tragic accident .
“I want it cut down!” Brian’s dad had roared, grieving over the body of his lifeless son. “Some other kid’ll fall off and b-b-b-break himself into pieces!” he had cried and then broken down completely into tears.
That was when the ingenious idea that currently occupied Timmy’s mind this dark evening had been born. Cut it down? No, that wouldn’t be too convenient for me just yet.
He knew somehow that very branch was going to be the means by which he took care of Eddie once and for all.
From his right hand dangled a saw he had swiped from his old man’s shed before slinking away in darkness that would have been complete if not for the hauntingly full moon beaming above like a large Cyclops’s eye. He was going to cut underneath that branch just enough to weaken it.
Let’s see that creep’s balancing act when the branch starts dancing!
Tomorrow, he was going to announce to the gang he’d just like to see that Eddie kid try the same trick on him because he was going to climb up that tree after him, march across that branch—come hell or high water—climb up to his tree house, and pulverize it in order to avenge Brian. He would then give Eddie one hell of a trouncing, and all would be made right in the universe.
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