Jhonate saw a smoky white nimbus surrounding her staff. “This is the same smoke you used when we examined the troll.”
“Yes indeed. Now look at that! Interwoven between the strands of earth and water, do you see it?” Locksher laughed.
“Do I see it?” How could she miss it? Something shining a hot white, underneath those blue and black strands. “What is it?”
“This is binding magic!” he said. “Somehow a wizard long-long ago, bound the spirit of some kind of animal or creature to this ring. It is the energy of that spirit that makes it so powerful and the intelligence of that spirit that tells the ring how to distribute its protection about your body.”
“I see,” she said in sudden understanding. “There are those among my people that can do that. Yntri Yni, the weaponmaster of my people, is a master at spirit binding. This is the first time I have been able to see what the magic looks like though.”
“Truly?” His grin was positively childlike. “I must go visit your people some time. From everything you have told me it seems that they know more about spirit magic than I have been able to find out in the deep histories of the Mage School.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “Lately I hear that my people have been letting more and more visitors into our land. They might let you in as long as you don’t tell them you are a wizard.” Jhonate returned her focus to the vision of the ring that floated above Locksher’s hand. “So this spirit . . . Is it the reason I am having this difficulty?”
“I doubt it. Do you feel any panic right now while I hold it?” She shook her head and Locksher nodded. “As I thought. The magic doesn’t seem to be interacting with you in any way right now. Still, perhaps I should have Vannya wear it for a few weeks and perform some tests, make sure that there are no ill effects-.”
“No! That will not be neccesary.” she said, reaching for the ring.
He smiled and pulled it back. “Did you see that? Just there?”
She blinked. “No, sir. What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” he said and tossed the ring to her. “The ring did nothing to cause that reaction.”
She frowned, “Then what is it?”
“Oh, you don’t really want to hear this from me. It would be much better for everyone involved if you just figured it out for yourself.” He poured some of the steaming liquid from the pot next to him in a small tin mug.
“What do you mean?” Jhonate asked. She hadn’t liked the weary look in his eyes while he said it.
Locksher sighed and took a sip from the mug. “This ring is not a danger to you. The reason you want to keep it on has nothing to do with its powers or any magic influences. So, you tell me. What is left?”
“Are you saying that there is something wrong inside my mind?”
“Ah! You girls! At least Vannya admits it to herself,” he said with a shake of his head.
Jhonate’s eyes narrowed in anger and she gripped her staff. “You will tell me what I need to know right now, Wizard. Remember, you are not my superior. I am not above beating the answer out of you.”
Locksher nearly choked on the liquid in his mouth. Anger crossed his face. “Fine, if this is the way you wish to learn. The reason you feel this way about the ring is because of who gave it to you. You are infatuated with the boy. You and Vannya both, which is why you keep fighting with each other.”
Jhonate’s jaw dropped.
“Quite frankly, I have known it for some time and I am pretty sure Faldon sees it too. At least, I think he hopes its so, because he would truly like to see the two of you together and-.” the wizard winced. “Sorry. I went too far there, didn’t I? I must blame it on lack of sleep. Ohh . . . Faldon won’t be happy with me for this.”
She looked down at the ring in her hand, her heart aflutter. With trembling fingers, she placed the ring back on her finger and watched the blue glow flicker back on. She repressed a shiver. Was it truly that simple?
She would ponder it later. Jhonate took a deep breath and composed herself, then gave the wizard a brief nod. “Thank you, sir. I apologize for my threats of violence.”
“Oh, um-.” He lifted the cup back to his lips and peered at her suspiciously. “I am glad to have been of service. Uh, is there anything else?”
She looked down for a moment. “There is one more thing. It is perhaps of more importance than the ring, but I have more difficulty speaking of it. I . . . Normally I would not come to a man of your age and experience with these kinds of concerns, but as you seem highly competent and you are the only expert in magic here, I-.”
“Jhonate,” Locksher said, stopping her. “Just how old do you think I am?”
She blinked, “I would say no more than thirty, sir. I hope you did not take offense. It is just that usually I would go to someone more experienced with this kind of matter.”
“Thirty?” He laughed and shook his head. “The kind of magic that I work with tends to slow down the aging a bit. Actually I turned forty-four last week. That still may be younger than you would like, but surely you have seen that I have more experience than my years would suggest?”
Jhonate could see that she had offended the man. “I am sorry, sir. I did not mean to question your abilities.”
“It’s fine. Please, go on. I will answer to the best of my ability and we can both get some rest, hmm?”
She swallowed and nodded, then said matter of factly, “My problem is that I have been hearing the voice of the mother of the moonrats in my head.”
Chapter Fifteen
To Jhonate’s relief, he did not scoff or laugh at her.
Locksher stopped sipping his drink and set it down on the floor next to him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Would you care to elaborate, Jhonate?”
“I think something may have happened to me when I battled the witch. Ever since that day, I hear her voice from time to time. It happens most often during battle, as if she is taunting me.”
His brow furrowed in thought. “And what does it say?”
“It says, ‘Jhonate Bin Leeths, you have been marked for death.’”
“Always the same phrase?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “It is the phrase she said to me the first time I faced her.”
“I see . . . are there any other effects?”
“I have . . . dreams. Dreams of a horrible nature where I am not myself and I am using my mind to control people and make them . . .” Her bottom lip trembled. “And make them do cruel things.”
Locksher nodded. “I was afraid of this type of reaction when you told us about your encounter. Then you acted so composed, I figured there was no need to worry.”
“How can I get her voice out of my head?” she asked. “Do you have a spell that will help?”
He shook his head. “You are being attacked by spirit magic, and I don’t have a spell to counteract that. I can, however, perhaps guide you to a way to fix the problem yourself.”
“I would be grateful, sir,” she said, twisting the ring on her finger. “Can we do it now?”
He blinked and a sudden weariness passed over his face for a brief second, but he forced it away, replacing it with a smile. “Of course. So what we will be looking for is some part of the mother of the moonrat, a small trace that was left within your mind. You will need to locate it and then find a way to destroy it.”
She clenched her jaw and nodded. “I am prepared to do so.”
“Very well. First,” He snatched another tin cup out of this oversized pack, then filled it with the steaming liquid from the pot. “Drink this.”
He held the cup out to her and she took it hesitantly. The cup was hot, but not uncomfortably so. She leaned down and sniffed the liquid. Its minty aroma filled her sinuses and she felt a clearing sensation within her mind. “What is in it, sir?”
“It is a special brew I discovered when studying with the Lisenti. It clears and focuses the mind. It is a common ritual there for students to drink a cup before beginning class.�
�� She hesitated and he assured her, “Don’t be concerned. I give it to you because it is late and you have been through a very tiring day. What you are about to undertake will require great focus and concentration. You will need all the help you can get.”
Jhonate nodded and sipped the liquid, expecting a bitter medicinal flavor. Instead, she was quite pleased to find that it tasted much like it smelled; minty and slightly sweet. She felt the warmth of it settle in her stomach and the tiredness faded from her muscles.
“Now I want you to close your eyes and fall into meditation like you did the day you held the eye. Don’t completely close off the outside world, though. I need you to be able to hear me and respond.”
Jhonate nodded and did as he asked, bringing up the soft whiteness that was her innermost mind. She built the figure within that represented herself; a woman, lightly armored holding a staff. “I am there, sir.”
“Good. Now the most likely place for this piece of the witch to be hiding is within your memories.” The small figure within her could hear his voice as a soft echo coming from the white emptiness around her. “What you need to do is pull up the thoughts that you sifted from the mother of the moonrat’s mind that day. Perhaps you pulled more than just memories back with you.”
Locksher spoke about memories in intangible terms, but Jhonate was a physical thinker. Her teachers had recognized this when she was a child and taught her to deal with her mental world in the same way she would deal with the physical.
The figure that represented her walked forward into the whiteness until she stood before an iron door. It opened into a wide room with walls, floor and ceiling of the same white mist as the rest of her mind, but around the edges there were tall bookshelves made of Jharro wood that held volumes upon volumes of memories.
She walked past them all, heading to a section of the library that contained all her memories of battle. There, in the corner, sat a locked chest. There was a black glow radiating from it, and she knew she had found the source.
“I found the memories,” she said, knowing that her body was repeating her words aloud.
“Y-you found them?” he asked, sounding confused. “Alright, have you sifted through them for her contamination?”
“I will start going through them now.” She reached for the chest and the locks fell away. The lid sprung open. Inside was stored all the memories of her encounters with the witch in the form of letters and books.
First, she removed several stacks of loose pages. These were the facts pulled from that witch’s mind that she had found most relevant the day of her attack. Jhonate flipped through them quickly, her mind instantly processing each page as she touched it. They were troop locations and movements, orders and processes. Now that they were weeks old, the information was basically useless. She found no traces of maliciousness in them.
She set the pages aside and picked up the book that contained her memories of her first encounter with the witch. This was where she had first heard the phrase that kept repeating in her mind. The event flashed through her mind again, but the thoughts within that memory were untainted. She lifted out the rest of the books, all containing her own thoughts and ponderings regarding the witch.
“Have you found the contamination?” Locksher asked, his voice sounding impatient.
“No. And I have sifted through everything,” she said in irritation. There was nothing left in the bottom but tiny tatters of parchment. These scraps were all that remained of the big secret she had stolen from the witch’s mind. Jhonate had escaped with it, bringing it all the way back with her, just to have the witch tear it away. “Well . . . perhaps not . . .”
Darkness still radiated from within the chest. She reached in and lifted out the parchment pieces, tiny flashes of half memories and thoughts. These were ancient thoughts, and she recognized them as the thoughts that had invaded her dreams. Thoughts of someone hungry for power, ecstatic about domination, enraged by disobedience. Still, they were not the source of the darkness. She sat them aside. The chest was empty, yet it still burned black with malice.
“There is something else here, but I cannot see it,” she said.
“This is your mind,” said Locksher’s voice. “Focus. She cannot hide anything from you there.”
Jhonate gripped her staff and with a mental command caused white flame to burst from the end. She dipped the flame down inside the chest, illuminating the bottom. There, in the corner, she saw something, a tiny notch. She reached in and pried at it with her fingernails. It resisted, but then, with a creak, the bottom opened on concealed hinges.
“There! Memories hidden from me until now!” A series of black scrolls were lined up snug in the secret compartment. The smell of rot wafted up from them and they glistened dark and wet in the light of her staff as if covered in a filthy residue.
“Fascinating. Now be careful. If she was able to keep them hidden even within your mind, they may be protected.”
“Of course they are.” Jhonate smiled. The witch hadn’t taken everything important after all. “But that means they are valuable.”
She touched the burning end of the staff to her left hand, transferring the flame to her fingers. She reached her burning hand into the bottom of the chest.
“Careful now,” Locksher said.
“Of course. I am always careful,” she said. The blackness recoiled from the flames that enveloped her had as she grasped the first scroll. “I’m-.”
Her eyes fluttered open but there was no light, just dirt. Dirt! It scratched at her eyeballs! She tried to blink it away, but more came in until it became caked under her eyelids. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no air. Nothing but dirt. It filled her throat, covered her skin.
She struggled, trying to breathe, but finally realized it didn’t matter. Breathing was no longer a necessity for her. It was a pleasant sensation and allowed her to speak, but she had discarded the need some time ago, just as she had discarded the need to eat or drink. No, there was no need to panic. She would not die. But no matter how she strained, she could not move.
Trapped! Of course. They couldn’t kill her so they sealed her away. Her, the most powerful wizardess in the known lands, no, a goddess! Trapped under a tree. She would have laughed were her lungs not filled with earth.
Her enemies had chosen well. The tree was strong, and the weight of it along with the earth around her body held her still. The insult of her imprisonment ignited a fire within her. Rage burned like coals in her mind. She reached out with her powers, looking to seize the closest creature. Anything would do. Anything that could dig her out.
But nothing happened! Her magic traveled only inches from her body before dissipating. Somehow it was the tree’s roots. They surrounded her like a cage. She switched to mage sight, then spirit sight, then blood sight. Were it possible, she would have howled. It was one of the sacred trees; one of the immortals. Its roots were made of a wire framework of elemental magic, powered by the brilliant white of spirit magic, and pulsed with the neon rush of blood magic. She despaired.
Then she heard it, faint, a whisper. Time, it said and she recognized the voice of the Dark Prophet. You have time. Fight. Weaken this prison. I will come for you.
Jhonate gasped. The scroll in her hand pulsed, its blackness over taking her hand and climbing up her wrist.
“Jhonate Bin Leeths. You are marked.”
She frowned. Not here, witch. She flexed her mind and white flame burst from the skin of her arm, burning the blackness away until her hand was whole again. Then she turned the flame on the scroll, searing it until all the blackness was gone. The witch’s memory was hers now. She sat the scroll down beside the other memories.
“Jhonate! Are you okay?”
“I am fine,” she said, and white flames continued to blaze from her hand as she reached for the next scroll. She was eager to learn more, but more wary now that she knew what to expect. She focused on maintaining her sense of self despite the nature of the memories.
More time passes. She has slipped some tiny portion of her presence past its roots. The tree still holds her in place but she feels a sense of triumph, knowing that rot slowly extends in the soil around the tree. She can sense the decaying leaves of the forests, the worms of the ground, and the insects that live in the leaves.
The dark voice can still only reach her in whispers, but they have grown fainter rather than stronger. She cannot make out what he is saying. She realizes that the Dark Prophet himself is now confined.
The War of Stardeon (The Bowl of Souls) Page 23