Jake's Women (Wizards)

by Booth, John

  “Storm straight in without finding out what’s going on first?” I enquired.

  “That’s what you usually do.”

  She had a point, but she was also wrong this time. “And I’ve learned from it. Let’s sneak into Barren and find out what’s going on. We might be able to rescue Anna and Bronwyn before they figure out we’ve arrived.”

  “We will still have to deal with them. Earth and Salice are no longer safe havens from their wizards.”

  Urda was a bright person. She was right about that, but she was still wrong.

  “Once we have Anna and Bronwyn back we won’t have to pull any punches.”

  Urda nodded. We had reached an understanding.

  We arrived on the top of a hill some distance from Barren. It had been boulders and sand when I was here last, but now it was grassland and saplings were already dotting the landscape. A hundred years from now this would be dense forest. Barren looked bigger and more prosperous than I remembered and an ocean lapped at its far side. The sky was blue with wisps of white clouds sailing by. On the horizon over the sea, rain clouds were darkening the sky.

  “It’s changed a bit,” I said in what must be one of the understatements of the millennium. Urda nodded absentmindedly as she viewed my clothes critically. Moments later I was wearing a loose tie-dyed shirt and white baggy trouser things. Her own clothes changed more subtly, but to me she looked more like a tourist than a local.

  “Is this going to be inconspicuous?”

  “It will be in the Barren of today. It seems that prosperity encourages colorful clothes.”

  I took her hand. “Hop you down to the seaside?”

  A moment later we in a bustling port. This had been lower lying land when I’d been here last and also near the middle of the town. I could see the tops of buildings sticking out of the ocean, but not as many as I would have expected. The reason why soon became obvious. Men in white robes stood on a raft like boat in the harbor and in front of them half sunken buildings crumbled and the water churned. Little kids were watching and cheering from vantage points on the top of roofs. The magical clean up squad at work.

  “They’d have to be strong in magic to keep doing that all day,” I pointed out. Urda grunted in reply. I don’t think she wanted to know how powerful her countrymen had become. It certainly wasn’t going to make our task any easier.

  There was new construction going on everywhere. Most of the buildings were white, but waves of color cut through their lime wash almost at random. It seemed Barren was now a happy place and that was in stark contrast to the world Tydan had been.

  Looking at the locals confirmed that we fitted right in, clothing wise. We entered the market square, which was difficult because it was crowded with stalls, produce, and people. It was amazing that so many crops could have been grown since Bronwyn and I had fought in this world’s skies. I was kind of wishing I’d brought my camera.

  “Over there,’ Urda said in the local language. Learning languages is easy for a wizard and I’d learnt this one years ago. I looked where she was pointing and saw a massive building under construction. It had the look of a church.

  “The religious quarter is behind the cathedral. There’s a wall around the district which is constantly patrolled.”

  “That wouldn’t keep a wizard out,” I pointed out.

  “It’s not meant to protect them against wizards.”

  At least she didn’t add the word moron to that statement. I really should think before I open my mouth.

  The cathedral was far from finished, but sections of it were. It was deliciously cool as we passed through a portal (door doesn’t cover it) into a series of chapels. Each seemed to be dedicated to a specific class of magic, but the one at the end of the cloister had an image beaten out of solid gold above its entrance. She looked older and wiser than I remembered, but it was definitely Bronwyn.

  “The plot thickens,” I whispered to Urda who gave me a look of incomprehension. “Never mind, Earth joke.”

  I could hear a priest droning on in the distance. His words were lost in echoes in the cloister, but when we stepped into the chapel they became crystal clear.

  “The Goddess Bronwyn has returned – blessed be her name.”

  The congregation repeated the last phrase and Urda and I went through the motions. There was couple of statues next to the altar and I walked down the center aisle towards them.

  “Jake,” Urda hissed, but I ignored her. These people presented no kind of threat. Two men in white cloaks raised their equally white staffs and pointed them in my direction. I erected an invisible shield that would withstand anything they could throw at me.

  As I got closer, I saw the statues showed Bronwyn and me at the midpoint in our fight. The artist hadn’t captured my face right as I looked more like a demon than a man. Bronwyn was dressed in glowing robes rather than the tee-shirt and jeans I remembered, but her face had an innocence that was breath taking. Except for the fact it made me look like a villain, this was a pretty good work of art.

  “It is him. The evil one,” one of the white robe guys said. He surely couldn’t have deduced that from the sculpture. I was much more handsome than that.

  Bolts of lightning discharged from their staffs and went through my shield as though it wasn’t there.

  I imagine it was like being shot by a Taser, but I really wasn’t conscious long enough to form a definite opinion.

  14. The Harem

  I woke to the sound of tinkling water and girls giggling. What I saw when I opened my eyes was a harem as shown in countless films. It consisted of a large room with a central fountain and pond. Girls in veils and not much else carried drinks and food around the room on silver platters to other girls without veils or clothes sitting on long padded benches. Guards with even bigger white staffs and dressed in their ubiquitous white hooded cloaks stood impassively; looking down on the women from a high walkway that ran around the room. There were steps down from the walkway to left and right, which also led to where the doors were.

  I was bound into a metal harness against the wall. It held my arms by my sides and I quickly discovered I couldn’t move. I tried to hop free of my bonds but nothing happened. I tried using magic to break my bonds but that proved equally ineffective.

  Looking inwards I found that my magical reserves were being drained using my bonds as a conduit. Whatever was doing it was easy to stop and I had plenty of power in reserve. I just couldn’t use it.

  My magical sight was unimpaired and when looking around I found the room was crisscrossed with what might best be described as spells. Rivulets of compulsion preventing magic use formed a three dimensional web. This was a trap made for wizards to hop into, so they could be held on the wizard equivalent of flypaper. It was ingenious, but the gaps between the webs suggested an avenue of attack. Only if you could see auras, mind you.

  A girl in a simple white dress at the other side of the room stood up and clapped her hands. Without a word of dissent the veiled girls and the ones on the benches filed out of the room. The guards continued to look down on the two of us that remained. I almost didn’t recognize Bronwyn as she moved closer. In the time since I had held her limp body out to her parents she had grown up. She looked more woman than girl, though that must be largely illusion given her age. She certainly wore enough make-up to hide the little girl from sight. Her face twisted into an ugly snarl.

  “Lord Wizard of Salice, how does it feel to be the victim rather than the victimizer?”

  Now that was a bit unfair. I hadn’t realized she was holding a whip until she cracked its tip mere inches from my face.

  “Cat got your tongue, Jake?” she asked sweetly.

  “I take it you have recovered your memories?” Okay, that was a pointless question, but I was playing for time while I tried to figure out how to defeat the spells holding me. Once she started using that whip I probably wouldn’t be in a position to concentrate.

  “All my memories, before and after,�
�� she snarled. “I gelded those who opposed me here, back in the day. Perhaps that would be a good place to start with you?”

  One of the guards snickered. Bronwyn spun like a ballet dancer to face him.

  “My vengeance shall be private. I will not be laughed at in my own court.”

  The guard in question abased himself. He might also have wet himself from the look on his face, but those cloak things were all covering.

  “Forgive me Goddess. I was not laughing at you.”

  “Enough, you and the other guards are dismissed.”

  That didn’t go down well with the other guards and one started to say something.

  “I said dismissed. You may wait behind the doors and if I need you I will call. This misbegotten wretch is hardly going to break his bonds and attack me, is he?”

  It looked like that was the convincer. That and whipping me across the chest. I screamed because it hurt. A lot. The guards exited the room stage left and right.

  Bronwyn ran to me as soon as the doors closed. Her hand stroke the weal the whip had left and the pain vanished. Her magic was unaffected by the web of spells and I almost grasped how she was doing it as she healed me.

  She whispered in my ear. “I’m sorry, Jake. They had to be convinced I hated you.” She nibbled at my ear as though there were other things she wanted to do with me.

  As she continued to hug me I examined her mind. They had restored her powers, but nowhere near as much as she used to have. She was closer in power to Urda than to me. Once, we had not been far off equal, though marriage had increased my powers since then. But Bronwyn had refined her powers by reading many books on the subject. She probably knew magic better than any other wizard alive.

  “You don’t hate me?”

  She thumped my chest lightly. “I got my memories back, but they aren’t really mine. She was someone who envied your life and became twisted inside after being raped and tortured. I remember those feelings, but I don’t own them anymore.”

  “Then we need to escape. And rescue Anna.”

  Bronwyn shook her head. “She’s been pinned and can’t be helped. Magic cannot free her. You have to escape before they do the same to you.”

  “And you?”

  “I have to stay here. I’m the only one stopping them raiding Earth and turning Salice into their first imperial conquest. I’ve told them they must not attack anyone until my magic is fully restored. That could take them months.”

  “If I escape, they might suspect you of helping me.”

  She kissed me on the cheek. “You always were a clever man underneath it all. I have a plan, but first I have to show you how to escape.”

  Bronwyn put the palm of her hand against my forehead and images and methods flowed through my mind. I was right about how to overcome the magic in the room. I also knew how my bonds worked and how to defeat them. The third and most surprising thing she gave me was how the staffs worked.

  They projected a cache of stored magic in almost raw form. Magic goes through everything in the universe without leaving a trace unless it is modified into something by the will of a wizard. The compressed magic the staffs fired was modified by a spell to become something when it hit. They’d knocked me out with an electrical magic. As it had travelled towards me its edges turned into lightning, but the pure magic went through my shield untouched and then I’d been electrocuted. The staffs in this room held dragonfire and if a burst hit me I’d be vaporized.

  All that went through my mind in the space of a second. When I returned my gaze to Bronwyn, she knew I knew.

  “I’m going to run towards that staff by my throne while screaming for help. By the time I fire it at you, the guards have entered the room in time to see you destroyed. But you hop instead. Get it?”

  She turned to leave me and I used magic to drag her back to me. Our faces were once again almost touching.

  “Jake, I didn’t know you cared. But we haven’t got the time.”

  “I’m not going without Anna.”

  A flicker of something that might have been disappointment crossed Bronwyn’s face.

  “I’ll show you where she is and why you can’t rescue her.”

  Bronwyn touched my brow gently and I knew where Anna was. I saw the silver bolt through her leg bone and the chain that bound her to the solid stone in the cell. I saw how the chain and the bolt could not be removed by magic. How she could not be hopped while the chain remained fastened to the wall.

  “You see?” Bronwyn asked. “If you are seen here after you vanish, they will do terrible things to me. Perhaps turn me back to the Bronwyn I used to be.”

  “I will protect you, brave girl. I promise.”

  She kissed me on the cheek before she pushed herself away from me.

  “Guards! To my side!” she screamed as if the devil himself had caught her.

  As she reached for the staff I saw Urda appear on the walkway behind her. The guards flung open the door and Bronwyn pointed the staff at me.

  Energies stronger that Dragonfire rocketed towards me and I was engulfed in flame.

  15. Anna

  Doing three things at once was never my greatest skill, but the alternative was roasting to death so I was unusually motivated. At least three bolts of fire hit me from Bronwyn and the guards. I created a ‘me’ shaped shield, though a better understanding of it would be as a magic slosher. I sloshed the magic away from me and down my body while putting a layer of heat resistance between me and it. The result was a body shape engulfed in searing flame.

  At the same time I set up a hop to Urda and then to Anna. A second after the flames hit I hopped in front of Urda. Grabbed her before she could loose off a bolt of magic at Bronwyn and milliseconds later we both staggered into Anna’s cell and fell onto the floor.

  There were no guards in the cell, which was fortunate as I would have had to kill them to keep our secret. Anna lay on a pile of straw in the center of the room. Piercing her lower left leg was a quarter inch bolt of solid silver, the ends of which were riveted into a heavy silver chain. The chain was fastened to the wall.

  “Jake…Anna?” Urda crawled on all fours to her sister. I felt her power strike the chain that bound her sister and watched it fail. Anna looked sick. There was yellow puss seeping from her leg where it met the bolt. It didn’t look as though the Cult was bothered if she lived or died. Urda tried healing her sister and Anna’s body grew well everywhere except where bolt met body. Urda looked at me with horror written on her face.

  “I have a plan.”

  This was true. However, it wasn’t much of a plan.

  I concentrated and my clothing changed until it looked exactly like the Cult’s white cloaks. I pulled the hood over my head so nothing of my face could be seen.

  “You need to get out there and pretend you are looking for Anna. Make sure you’re seen. Take about five minutes to get back here. And don’t hurt Bronwyn. She’s on our side.”

  Urda kissed her sister, who was breathing much more easily, but she had not woken since we entered the cell. Urda stood and faced me.

  “I am ready.”

  “Not yet.” I took her hand and passed on the knowledge that Bronwyn had given me. Urda didn’t possess the raw power I had, but she should have enough to block a staff blast and stay out of hop traps.

  Taking one last look at Anna, Urda vanished.

  I hopped to the equipment shed in Mr. Griffith’s Woodyard. It was a surprise to find myself face to face with both Mr. Griffith and Malcolm.

  “How the wizarding business, boyo?” Mr. Griffith asked, using that excruciating fake Welsh accent that only the English can perform.

  “Jake?” Malcolm put in. “Have you joined a monastery or something? White doesn’t suit you.”

  “Can’t stop. I need to borrow that.” I reached behind Mr. Griffith and took down the largest bolt cutters in the shed.

  “Problem with a lock?” Malcolm asked

  “Tell you later.” I hopped back to Anna.
r />   Sure magic couldn’t touch that chain. But good old fashioned Welsh technology was another matter. At least that’s what I was hoping.

  I put the cutting edge of the cutters two links back from the bolt and made sure it was touching the floor. Then I applied all my strength to the handles, and when that didn’t work, added a touch of magical strength. The link broke, though Anna screamed as the chain pulled at her leg.

  “Jake?” She sounded completely out of it.

  “Getting you free. Just waiting for your sister.”

  Anna nodded, but it was clear she didn’t have a clue what I was saying to her. I picked her up and moved to the side of the cell door, flipping the bolt cutter handle up with my foot on the way, so I could take them with me.

  From the moment I’d returned there were sounds in the distance that could be best described as world war three. They were getting closer, shouting, screaming, and the occasional wail of terror in-between explosions.

  The cell door flew off its hinges and hit the opposite wall with enough force to put a door shaped dint in the stone. Then Urda entered the room, blasts of magical fire bouncing off her shield and diverted back into the corridor.

  “I think I have their attention,” she told me calmly. “What now?”

  “Salice, the Palace.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder and we hopped.

  We arrived in Urda’s room. She didn’t sleep there much as she had a cottage in the country, but it was fully furnished with a made up bed. I put Anna onto the bed and watched, feeling a little helpless as Urda tried to heal her sister.

  While she was busy, I examined the bolt. It was connected to the remaining three kinks of chain via a horseshoe shaped piece of metal. The bolt had been riveted onto it.

  Grinding off the rivets looked feasible. That would leave her with a bolt sticking out of her leg something akin to Frankenstein’s monster. At least the chain wouldn’t keep dragging on her leg, aggravating the infected flesh around the bolt. It was weird how that area resisted magic for at least three inches beyond the bolt. I could see my probes bend away as they tried to reach it.