“David,” I said, placing a hand on his wrist. “It was Dilwyn who told me about the Tiamat Stone in the first place, remember?” I nodded slowly at the chief. “It’s okay, he knows,” I said it as gentle as I could so that I didn’t rattle him. My friend looked like a gentle breeze could beat the life out of him right now.
The chief let out an exhale. “Okay, good. Great, in fact. Dilwyn, glad to have you on board with this. And, you’re familiar with the terrain already, so that’s good.”
Remember I told you about the time David and I had to use the waterfall as an exit from Burning Peak? Well, it happened twice. And Dilwyn Werelamb accompanied us on our second ‘drop.'
“Chief, I’m more about ‘How to tame your dragon’ than ‘Godzilla,' if you know what I mean?”
David patted Werelamb several times on the back; a non-verbal ‘thank you.'
“So, you’re gonna try those falls in reverse then?” Dilwyn asked, standing up and scattering some of my kitties. “You aimin’ to climb up through them?”
The chief stood with his hands on his hips; his neck craned upward at the torrent of fresh water. I followed my friend’s gaze and felt immediately weak-kneed at the sheer height of the cascade. I had to take a couple of steps backward to gain enough perspective to spy the cave at the top of the falls. It had been this rock tunnel from which David and I had leapt into the swirling, green waters, so long ago now. It was hard to see through the watery deluge, but it looked like the cave had been mostly blocked off. I could make out the dark edges of the tunnel, and a small short fissure, but a giant rock wall, or boulder, covered the bulk of the entrance.
I lowered my head to shoulder level, wavering slightly as a lightheadedness took over my brain.
David took off his shoes and tossed them to the side of the green pool.
“Uh, what are you doing?”
He turned to me. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m finding a way up the waterfall,” the chief said, placing his glasses and wallet in one of his discarded shoes.
“David, we need to discuss this first. We don’t even have a plan of attack.”
“A plan of attack for what?” The chief’s face looked dumbfounded.
“To climb this waterfall, of course. To navigate the rock face behind it. What did you think I meant?”
My friend shrugged and unbuttoned his shirt. He had to grab onto a nearby rock to steady himself.
“I think you should let me do this.”
He guffawed. “Not a chance. You and the cats stand back. You can yell out instructions if you see me get stuck. You’ve got the bigger picture from this far back,” he said.
The cats gathered around, and hunched down on their quarters to watch the chief’s movements intently.
David removed his shirt and lay them on top of his shoes. I couldn't help it, my eyes locked onto his contours, and they refused to budge. I allowed my eyeballs to drift over his chiseled physique.
Goddess, he's a God.
David pulled me from my thoughts.
“I’m going to wade in here, and get behind the waterfall. I’ll check out the terrain before I start climbing, okay?” My friend’s face looked as white as the foam gathering at the top of the pool. David splashed the glacier liquid on his face and shook his head so that the droplets rained down on my spectator kitties.
“Watch it, bozo,” Gloom sniped, wiping her face. “Cats don’t like water, in case you didn’t know.”
“Duly noted, kitty,” CPI Trew said, and with that, he waded toward the back of the cascading veil. He looked over his shoulder. “Hat, you stand over there,” he pointed with one pale hand to the left of the falls. “Dilwyn, you stand here, so you can see what’s going on on this side,” he instructed.
Dilwyn said nothing; he merely shuffled over to his station as per David’s suggestion. The farmer gave me a nod across the pool to confirm he was in position.
“I-I don’t like this,” Fraidy said, hanging from my pant leg. “The chief, he don’t look so good. What if he falls in there? What if he drowns?”
I won’t lie, I felt my jittery cat’s alarm. But, of course, I lied, to cover it.
“He’s going to be fine, sweetie,” I said, reaching down to give Fraidy a reassuring tickle under his chin. “David’s strong. A good swimmer,” I said flicking my sandpaper tongue over my parched lips.
“He doesn’t look strong, right now, boss lady,” Shade said. My Romeo cat had his paw over his eyes, so he wouldn’t have to witness David’s weak attempts at conquering the falls and the rock face.
“Guys, quit it, please,” I urged. “You’re making me nervous,”
“Seraphim, might it have been pertinent for the chief to sit this particular … ah, obstacle, out?” Onyx inquired in a level voice. My head cat was perched, sitting tall, on a rock that afforded the best view of the unfolding spectacle.
“Don’t call me that, and what are you suggesting, exactly, Onyx? That I climb the wall?” The fact that my sage cat used my birth-name irritated me now more than ever. I mean, he often called me the name my parents gave me: Seraphim, but right now, I felt like anything but a mighty guardian angel. Why did my sage cat have to brandish me with this title when I felt at my most incapable?
Onyx didn’t answer, he just kept his regal pose on point and kept watching the chief’s progress.
David faltered in the water. We watched his head go under the surface. Was it intentional? Had he slipped?
I looked over at Dilwyn, who was leaning the whole upper part of his body over the pool of water, to keep a protective eye over my friend. Dilwyn’s face was a mask of uncertainty.
Werelamb’s facial clues only served to notch up my impotence level.
Reading my thoughts, Onyx’s head swerved toward me. There’s no need to feel powerless when you already contain all the power you need.
“What does that mean?” I spat savagely. “What power do I contain?”
“Just the power to move mountains,” Eclipse said, not looking at me.
I bit my lip and held my breath. I didn’t want to have this conversation now.
“If she wants to ignore her rightful inheritance, let her,” Gloom offered, still swiping at her fur to rid herself of moisture. “She’ll soon find out that ignoring one’s true potential just gets people hurt.”
A palpable silence fell over my cats and I. as we tried to process Gloom's acid words. Carbon shook his head slowly at his sharp-tongued sister. But, it was too late.
I whirled on my female kitty.
“Oh, yeah?” I raged. “How exactly did my all-knowing power help my parents?”
“If I were the all-there-is witch you guys make me out to be, then Mom and Dad wouldn’t have DIED in that fire!”
I tried to say more, but the words hitched in my throat. I felt the sting of hot tears course down my already moist cheeks. For once in his life, Jet was perfectly still. His lack of motion seemed surreally incongruent with his zippy personality. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that someone had had him stuffed.
Dilwyn Werelamb’s head circled toward us and the commotion, his eyes brimming with curiosity at our shenanigans. Thankfully, the crashing sound of the falls drowned out our words.
I could feel my legs shaking, as I tried to breathe away the heartbreaking memory of losing my parents.
Defeated, I plopped down on a rock and put my head in my hands. I looked up from under tear-laden lashes, and just made out David reaching behind the curtain of water in front of us.
Shade picked his way over the rocks and rested a well-meaning paw on my leg.
“Uh, boss-lady?” he said, craning his small head so he could look up at me. “I don’t think my sister means to bring up old injuries,” he said, permitting himself to give Gloom a case of stink-eye. “I think she just means that you DO have the power you need.” He pawed a pebble before him, and shifted awkwardly. “Of course, she ain’t the most subtle when it comes to saying how she feels.” Shade’s face
cracked into a shamefaced grin.
I looked over Shade’s head at the receding chief, and tried my best to not take part in this conversation with its jagged edges.
Fraidy was still attached to my pant leg. “U-using your gifts, isn’t a-always easy, Hattie.” His voice was gentle; barely audible over the crashing water. “B-but, sometimes the tools given to you to utilize your craft are all you need to invoke those talents. T-to make them stronger, to give your potential a chance to grow and g-gain momentum.” Fraidy pawed at my jeans pocket.
“What are you do--” I cut my words short. My timid cat was trying to alert me to the applewood wand I was carrying. I pulled the stick out and stared at it dumbly.
I’d found Grandma Chimera’s apple wand at the exact time all this mayhem in our isles started. The wand’s staff was inlaid with no less than five challenges. Five magical wards that my more than competent sorceress grandmother had been unable to unlock. And, yet, I -- that’s me, Hattie Jenkins -- had opened three of the great challenges so far.
A collection of fuzzy heads butted their way into my line of vision. My cats stared at the wand, and then back at me.
“Guys, now is not the time,” I muttered feebly. I looked into the pool of icy water for my friend, and the man I loved. “David needs--”
“Yep, yep. Jetpack knows what the chief needs, yep, boss,” Jet burbled. He leaped to the right of the waterfall, and sprang from rock to rock, keeping a careful eye on David all the while. “Yep, ahuh, I’ve got Trew-Love in my sights, yep,” my springy kitty exclaimed. “You do what you need to do, boss-lady.”
I turned to Dilwyn. Although the farmer couldn’t possibly know what was going on, he clearly gathered that it was important. Werelamb gave me a nod of his head, and returned his focus to the tumultuous lagoon.
I looked down at the wand in my hand, and seven furry black paws came to rest on my palm.
“You have two wards left, see?” Carbon pointed out the two runes that had yet to be unlocked on the staff of the wand.
I blinked tears out of my eyes. “But … but, what good will either of these wards do in a moment like this?” I looked at my cats plaintively.
“Let’s see what we have here, shall we?” Eclipse nudged his siblings out of the way and studied the wand. “Love,” he said tapping the rune that signified ‘love.'
“And, prosperity,” he pointed at the remaining rune for all things prosperous.
“Try the prosperity one,” Gloom suggested.
“But, why?” I tried. “How will ‘riches’ enhance our situation here?”
Gloom huffed. “Lady, if you don’t get on board with your witch-power now, we’re going to soon run out of time,” she stated as if it were fact.
I didn’t get it, though. “But, how is a prosperity ward going to help us in this situation right now?” I challenged my cats again.
Onyx’s turn to speak. “Hattie, it’s not important that you look for immediate results,” my wise cat stated. “What’s important here is that you use your magical gifts. To give them time to permeate and gain strength.”
Gloom, Fraidy, Shade, Carbon, Midnight and Eclipse nodded.
“Yeah, boss-lady. You need to stir up your magical currents, know what I mean?” Midnight offered helpfully.
I nodded, still unsure of what to do. By that point, Gloom had lost patience with me, and was evidently tired of pussy-footing around the issue.
“For Goddess sake, human, use the prosperity ward on Dilwyn there.” She flicked a perfectly groomed tail in Werelamb’s direction.
“Yeah, that’s good thinking, sis,” Shade chipped in, warming to his sister’s idea. “Dilwyn’s in financial straits, right? He wants to build that merman pool on his land. Bring in the tourists, like. Don’t reckon that’s gonna happen now. There’s talk of his farm being seized, even. What with all the court costs for his delinquent son, ‘n’ all,” Shade sniffed.
Dilwyn’s two teenage sons were a handful, that was a well-known fact. That Lye Werelamb had been involved --albeit, somewhat innocently -- with the Aurel Nugget murder, Dilwyn had spent his entire life savings on his wayward boy’s lawyer fees.
“It’s true, Hattie,” Eclipse said with a solemn expression. “Dilwyn Werelamb wants to expand his enterprise, not lose everything he has.”
My mind took a journey to Dilwyn’s smallholding. Where the merman pool was just a big, muddy hole in the ground, and almost an acre in both breadth and length. The poor farmer would never get the funds to finish that project, it was true. Violet Mulberry, whose gossiping skills rivaled Midnight’s, had already whispered that the bailiffs were knocking at Dilwyn’s door most days.
I looked at Werelamb. He was staring intently into the waterfall, tracking the chief’s movements with a practiced eye. I noticed how shabby his overalls were. His cheap, and tattered shoes as he stepped over the wet stones.
I pointed my wand at the man, and summoned everything I had to extract the long-buried power I had circulating inside me. I felt a jolt of electricity course through my wand arm, and pass through the moist air to connect with the financially challenged farmer. We watched Werelamb like a hawk, and for a second it looked like the farmer had felt the power of the magic. He stopped in his tracks, his face pulling into a puzzled expression. But as soon as the arc of wispy blue light hit him, it disappeared just as quickly as it manifested. My shoulders slumped.
“Satisfied with that immense jolt of power?” I asked with a sour tone.
“What are you expecting to happen?” Gloom hissed. “A bank vault of money to fall on the farmer’s shoulders?”
“Sister, I believe you should temper your discourse,” Onyx warned.
“Well, is she really this stupid?” Gloom countered, arguing over my head with her academic brother. “She thinks her power should present itself at her beck and call?”
“Who’s ‘she,' the cat’s mother?” I said, my voice glum.
“Ha, ha, nice one, boss, nice one,” Shade chortled.
I shook my head. I didn’t understand what Gloom was getting at about wanting to see results immediately. I mean, wasn’t it my grumpy cat who expected to be fed straight away, even if it meant it was three a.m in the morning, and I was fast asleep? Pot meet kettle, much?
We didn’t have the luxury of discussing my impotent talents, however.
Jet interrupted our magic-making in a fit of startled statements.
“Oh, dear, yep, he went under. The chief went under, yep. He’s not coming up, nope.”
My catnip addict cat bounded from rock to rock, hunching down low so he could get a clearer view of the turbulent lagoon.
I jumped up. “Can you see him, Jet? Can you see David? Where is he?” Each of my words getting more high-pitched and hysterical as they fell from my mouth.
“I see him,” Dilwyn shouted, already wading into the tempest of gushing water.
I threw off my shoes, and ran into the pool to help the farmer, ignoring the icy grip around my heart. I waded in until the water was up to my chest. I could see David’s limp body, pinned down under the force of the falls. I tried, as best as I could to swim against the raging torrent, but the immense pressure of the falls kept me treading water in one place. I saw Dilwyn was experiencing the same hold-up. Oh, Goddess, no. Oh, Goddess, no.
From the corner of my eye, I could see a host of small, black shapes moving in toward David’s still body. They arranged themselves in formation before me and synchronized their efforts until Gloom dived under the chief’s chin and arched her back to push my friend’s face up from the water. Shade and Onyx each dipped below the liquid until they were beneath David’s arms. Their soaking wet faces bobbed to the surface, their eyes wide in alarm. Fraidy joined Gloom at the chief’s chin. David’s head popped further above the water line, but his features were still.
Carbon and Eclipse circled the back of David. They nudged his legs upward until my friend was in a front crawl swimming position. Midnight took the chief’s midrif
f. Like this, they pushed my friend forward to the shallow edges of the violent liquid. Dilwyn and I did the rest. We heaved David from the dangerous current, and lay him on his side. The cats dragged themselves up to the gravel shore, coughing, spluttering, shaking off the offensive wetness.
Jet raced deftly over the slippery rocks to join his brethren.
“Oh, wow, yep. That was something else, guys, yep. Is he okay? Trew-Love’s okay?” He said, pacing like he was a cat on a hot tin roof close to David’s head.
“Emergency kneading?” Eclipse suggested to his brothers and sister. They didn’t answer. Instead, all of them jumped on David’s prone frame and began kneading on his chest, head, legs, arms. It was a peculiar sight. Dilwyn and I could only look on with held breath.
Fraidy used all four paws to knead the chief’s chest. I watched in morbid fascination as my scaredy-cat circled and pummeled, circled and pummeled around David’s heart. When he was helping others, Friday didn’t even think to be scared. Bless his socks, he didn’t even realize that his cowardice evaporated whenever someone else was in real trouble.
My friend responded Fraidy’s loving ministrations. David took in a deep breath, and he sputtered out a plume of water, his eyes flying open at the same time.
I bawled. I literally sobbed until my body racked with violent tremors. Luckily, the moisture in the air, and the crashing sound the falls made as they tumbled blocked out my show of weakness.
I dared to peek at David Trew, the man I loved with every fiber of my being.
My friend’s eyes cleared, and he sat up, still coughing up alarming amounts of fluid. His eyes searched for me.
“Hat?” His voice gurgled with wetness. “I’m okay.” Entirely out of breath; he couldn’t say any more than that. He just needed to look for me and let me know that he was alright. I was his priority. His head fell back to the rock with a weighty thunk.
I said nothing. I would say nothing.
I needed to distance myself from my friend’s well-being from now on. I knew this. My steely resolve just kicked up a notch, as I realized that there was every likelihood that I was going to lose David Trew from my life; and soon.
The Warlock Weapon Page 7