Hunted

by Paul Eslinger

  A shiver ran down my spine. If Sorcha had told us the truth, then the sapphire wielders hadn’t always operated from the shadows. There might be something to learn from the book.

  Ara paused and looked at Peninah. I knew from the appraising look in Ara’s eyes that she was proud that she hadn’t stumbled on a single word, not even the unusual names.

  She smiled at the helpful woman. “I’ve never read anything about this time, so I’ll read this book. However, do you have any books about the time Mashda and his friends arrived in the region of Falkirk?”

  “Nothing that old,” Peninah said. “We have one book that records events about eighty years after they arrived.”

  “I’ll take that one,” I said. The book upstairs in my pack described detailed events at the end of their trek through the Brizo River Valley and the first twenty-five years after they arrived. The last few chapters contained information that overlapped with the time in the book Ara had chosen to read. I decided not to mention my book.

  Peninah chose another book from a shelf and laid it on the table in front of me. It was smaller than the one Ara was reading and the cover looked even older. I opened the cover and looked at the first page. The script was readable, but not as clear as the book upstairs in my pack. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Certainly,” Peninah said before turning to Trey. “How can I help you?”

  “I enjoy drawing and painting,” Trey replied. “Do you have books about that?”

  I continued to listen rather than beginning to read. To my surprise, Ramona asked for a book on family names after Trey started reading his book.

  Peninah smiled broadly, “We have a complete genealogy. You need to look at it.”

  That night, after the evening meal, we all gathered in the room Ara and Ramona were using. Ara looked around with excitement in her eyes. “What did we learn today?”

  “Wait,” I said and held up both hands. I waited until all three of them looked at me before continuing, “Trey, you are good at using magic to listen for faint sounds. Can you make it so others can’t hear us?”

  A startled look came over his face and then he nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “Me, too,” I added, not wishing for anyone to overhear the coming discussion. In addition, I called up my guardian squirrel and had it sit in the hall outside the door.

  Finally, I looked around the room. “We can talk now.”

  Ramona spoke first as if she wanted to be sure she added something to the discussion. “The genealogy records go back to Mashda and the seven others who arrived with him. They have information on everyone born since then. When they were born, when they died, who their parents were, and the names and birthdates of their children.”

  “Did you find anything of special interest?” Ara asked.

  “I started by looking at more recent births,” Ramona continued. “We are all in the book.” She glanced at Ara and lifted her eyebrows. “They list your father as Ozias rather than Romulus.”

  Ara’s face grew stony and her voice was sharp. “Ozias? I never met him. I only heard of him a couple of weeks ago.”

  Ramona nodded and turned her head to look at me. “Your parents were Romulus and Miriam. Miriam was the daughter of Demarcus and Liora. Demarcus is the son of Palti and Sorcha.”

  I hadn’t ever expected to know the names of my ancestors and hearing the names gave me a new sense of belonging. Then, a troubling thought struck me. “Do they list the cause of death?”

  “They do for most people. A man named Judd murdered my parents.” Ramona shivered and her voice was barely audible. “He drowned crossing the Quail River the next spring after they died.”

  I didn’t want to discuss who had killed Ara’s father, so I changed the subject. “Ara, what did you learn?”

  “Three whole books of family trivia,” she said with a sparkle in her eye and then her face became solemn. “There used to be more magicians in the past and magic was used openly. There are fewer magicians now and they have weaker abilities.”

  “And you?” I asked looking at Trey.

  He shrugged. “I enjoyed reading about drawing techniques and looking at old masterpieces. However, the oldest pictures of a Vassago were drawn about three hundred years ago. Pictures of Effigia start about fifty years later.”

  Ara scooted forward from where she was sitting on a sleeping mat and rested her arms on her thighs. “What does that tell us?”

  Trey shrugged again and held up both hands. “I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t around earlier? They have striking shapes and drawing them would be fun and interesting.”

  “How about you, Reuben?” Ara asked.

  “I read a lot of history and then found a group of books describing magical powers just before the dining bell rang. I’m going to read several of those books tomorrow.”

  Ramona broke the short silence. “Reuben and Trey, a Vassago killed your great-grandfather Palti.”

  “Really?” I asked. “One of them almost killed Sorcha.”

  “An Effigia killed your grandmother Liora and badly injured Demarcus,” Ramona added.

  Ara sat there with wide eyes, not looking at anything in particular. I waved both hands to get her attention. “What are you thinking?”

  “Father knew you could do magic when you were a baby and he chose to hide in a small mountain valley rather than living in comfort here. Why?”

  We had eaten a big lunch and even bigger evening meal and I was getting too tired to think. Instead of trying to continue the discussion, I stood and looked at the others. “Let’s get some sleep and study more books tomorrow.”

  All four of us spent long hours in the library the next day, interrupted only for meals. All of the thirty or so adults in the dining room gave off similar emotions of urgency and concern, but they only talked about trivial problems of the day rather than real issues. Even though I was excited at the information in the library, my irritation started to grow when Sorcha, Demarcus and Bilqis did not seek us out or come to the meals.

  Back in our room that evening, I looked over at Trey in the dim light after we had practiced several magical techniques together. He couldn’t pull in nearly as much magical power as I could, but he had finally learned to access the strong magic and he was improving. “Have you been able to overhear anything?” I asked.

  “No,” he said grumpily. “Someone with a lot of magical power is interfering with magical hearing. It’s like I can only use my ears.”

  “Maybe I can try,” I said, simply to keep the conversation going. I lay back on the bed, relaxed, and stared a magical scan. Everything inside the hill seemed muted, so I tried reaching toward the Pig’s Ear Tavern. It was the same. Without knowing how I did it, I reached out further. Soon, I realized that I could reach more than a day’s walk in every direction.

  I looked back along the river and suddenly encountered a feeling with the texture of a bad dream that fades just before waking. I had felt it before, just before Father died. The evil feeling didn’t really come into focus. However, I knew from experience that it would lurk in the dark regions of my mind, waiting to pounce when I slept again. I gagged and sat up.

  “What’s happening?” Trey asked.

  “Something evil,” I whispered, holding my head in my hands. “I felt it once or twice when I was at my house. It’s coming this way.”

  “Another Vassago?”

  “It’s different,” I said, hoping my pounding heart would slow to a normal rate. “I don’t know what it is.”

  Even though we talked for a while, I couldn’t give Trey a better description. He soon went to sleep, but I stayed awake until long after Celina set.

  After more long hours in the library the next day, where I read about dozens of new and highly interesting magical techniques, some of them useful against attackers, we headed to the dining area. For the first time s
ince we had arrived, Bilqis ate with the others.

  She beckoned for me to approach after the others she had been sitting with left. She spoke softly when I reached the edge of the table, “We are having a strategy meeting tomorrow at noon in the room where I first met you. Please come.”

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  “We?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Ara, Trey, Ramona and I are traveling together,” I replied.

  She pointed at me with a bony finger. “You are the only one invited.”

  I considered agreeing with her and then decided against it. Although they had been generous with food and a place to sleep, and they supposedly were my blood relatives, I didn’t feel any compulsion to do as she asked.

  “Four or none,” I said.

  “Very well,” she responded with a hint of fire in her eyes. “Noon tomorrow.”

  Chapter 37 – Strategy Meeting

  I jumped in surprise when Ara touched my shoulder. The book I had just found described new ways to defend against magical attacks and I had only read the first third of it. Some of the techniques sounded odd, but several of them made a lot of sense. I needed to find a place I could practice without endangering any onlookers.

  “It’s almost noon,” she said. “We need to head downstairs.”

  “Noon?” I asked, suddenly focusing on her rather than the book. “How do you know?”

  She leaned close and whispered, “Haven’t you been checking where people are? New people just arrived in the meadow.”

  A feeling of shame swept over me. Once again, I had forgotten to keep up with the basic magical scans that might help keep us alive when we left Casselton. “Uh, no,” I said and did a belated magical scan. There were four wolves and two other new minds close by.

  I ignored the new arrivals while I thought about what Ara had just asked me. I kept my voice low as I closed the book and stood. “How did you know they were out there?”

  “I learned how to do a scan last night,” she said smugly. She pointed to her left. “Let’s grab Trey and Ramona and go downstairs.”

  Unlike the stairs on the upper levels, the stairs outside the library were wide enough we all walked side by side down them into the main hall. At the same time, figures darkened the door leading outside.

  A golden dragon, who I recognized as Sorcha, walked in front, flanked by two other dragons. They were orange-red in color rather than golden, slightly larger than her and their folded wings nearly touched the ceiling. Behind them, walking two by two, were four wolves. Their heads were erect and they moved with smooth grace. Their nails clicked on the stone floor.

  I spread my arms and slowed the others with the intent of letting the dragons and wolves enter the meeting room before we did. I spoke to the others privately, using magical address, “I think, from what Zephyr said, that the four wolves and two dragons form the Zviera Council. They don’t like human magicians and they have kept human magicians from using strong magical powers for over two thousand years.”

  Ara looked thoughtful as she replied in the same way. “We’re just a bunch of kids. Why did Bilqis invite us?”

  “We’ll find out,” I said. Both anticipation and dread had grown in my mind over the last three days and dread had the upper hand right now. “But I’m not sure we’re going to like what we hear.”

  I moved forward quickly when the last wolf entered the meeting room. I had started to enter the opening when a big man standing inside the room turned toward me and reached for the door to close it.

  “Let them enter,” said a voice I recognized as Demarcus. We had not seen him other than the quick meeting on our first day. Today, he sat in his chair on the far side of the room. Bilqis flanked him on one side and a man I had seen once in the dining room flanked him on the other side, sitting on the far end of a two-person bench.

  There were two short couches close together in the back of the room. I headed for one with Ara by my side. Trey and Ramona headed for the other one.

  At the same time, Sorcha walked past Demarcus and Bilqis and stepped behind a cloth screen hanging between two posts. Her wingtips disappeared from sight and a few seconds later, she stepped back out into sight, wearing the now familiar robe. She walked to the empty spot on the bench and then turned to face the dragons and wolves. “Thank you all for coming today,” she said and then gestured at the man sitting next to her. “I know that making human speech is difficult for those in wolf or dragon form. Cullen has the ability to hear magical speech and broadcast it for everyone in the room.”

  “You asked us to come,” one of the wolves said. “Explain what we have to gain by listening to you.”

  To my surprise, Cullen’s broadcast of the thought came so quickly it seemed like a shadow of each individual word rather than a separate repeat of a sentence.

  Demarcus leaned forward and clasped his bony fingers together in his lap when Sorcha took a seat. “A Vassago showed up here in Mitanni just over three centuries ago. That was the first one seen here since the end of the Third Age over two thousand years ago. An Effigia arrived fifty years after the Vassago.”

  One of the dragons twitched her wings and said, “That is ancient history.”

  “History, yes,” Demarcus replied with a hint of color in his cheeks. “But, not ancient history. However, a new Vassago has just arrived. It has already fed and killed.”

  The same dragon shook her head in a human-like gesture. “It has killed, but it did not feed.”

  A flush moved up Demarcus’ throat. I could tell he didn’t like being corrected, but he held back his anger enough to speak smoothly. “How do we drive it away or kill it?”

  The ensuing silence stretched for several heartbeats before one of the other wolves tapped her immense paw on the floor and spoke brusquely, “The Vassago cannot be killed.”

  “We think they can,” Sorcha said.

  The same wolf snorted and wagged her head. “They overran the Kingdom of Nairi nearly a thousand years ago. They kept a few humans around for several centuries so they could feed.”

  “We still think it is possible,” Sorcha said.

  “Not a chance,” said a dragon. “No one has ever injured one, let alone killed it.”

  Ara’s elbow poked me in the ribs and then she leaned over with her lips close to my ear. “They have been around a long time, but they don’t know everything.”

  More than one person looked in our direction before Ara finished talking. Demarcus cleared his throat and his voice sounded like Mother scolding me for misbehaving, “Do you have something to tell everyone?”

  A hot flash of anger burned through me and I stood before I stopped to think. Perversely, I didn’t want to depend on Cullen’s abilities, so I spoke so every magical being could hear me. “I do. A new Vassago may have arrived, to use your words, but the person it attacked injured it before dying under a toppled tree.”

  One of the wolves rose to her feet and faced me. “Zephyr told us about you, young pup. Why should we accept your words?”

  My anger subsided slightly, but I wasn’t about to back down or shut up. “I watched the fight. The Vassago was bleeding from several wounds before Talindra toppled a tree that landed on her rather than the Vassago.”

  In the past, I had poked a nest of hornets with a stick to see what would happen, and the current response to my comment made the response of the hornets seem tame. So many people talked it was chaos.

  One of the dragons bugled so loudly it was deafening. She started speaking, looking at me, as everyone else fell silent. “We heard of the killing, but not who was killed.”

  I shrugged. “Then you also don’t know that Almedha, Chamylla, and Lythienne sent men carrying imperium pila to ambush and kill us half a day’s walk from Falkirk.”

  Long fingers twitched as the dragon stared at me. Finally, she cocked her head side
ways. “Yet, you stand here talking to us.”

  “I do, although Sorcha arrived before the battle ended and helped me. All three of the attackers ran.”

  The dragon swung back around and looked at Sorcha and Demarcus. “If this is true, then there may be some hope. Faint hope, indeed, but still hope.”

  Sorcha looked at the other dragon. “It is true, I smelled Vassago blood when I visited the fight scene a few hours after it occurred.”

  The wolf who had stood previously was still on her feet. She turned to look at Sorcha. “We must unite forces to have any chance of success. We must cooperate rather than work against each other as we have in the past.”

  Sorcha spread out both hands as she responded, “That is why I asked you to come. We have tried in the past by ourselves … and failed.”

  The wolf let out a long snort. “You have failed. Your husband is dead and you are so weak you can’t live as a human. Demarcus tried and failed. His wife is dead because she assisted him and he only lives because four healers labor over him every day. Demarcus also lost a brother and a son to the Vassago.”

  Sorcha’s normally pale face turned bright red as she stood. “At least we tried!” she shouted.

  The wolf threw back her head and howled, not as loudly as the dragon had bugled, but the sound filled the room. “Your grand-daughter fled with her son when he displayed magical talents from the time of birth. She knew you would sacrifice him on that same altar.”

  The wolf stifled her next comment when the dragon who had been speaking extended a wing and draped it over the wolf’s shoulders. The dragon looked at Sorcha. “Fighting without a chance of success is suicide. We have studied the recorded information about the Vassago and Effigia since Guldur erected the defenses around Mitanni, Nairi, and Isuwa to keep them out. Nairi has fallen, and Isuwa suffers from incursions just as we do. We need at least one of the sapphire wielders to join with us to have any chance of success.”