Treasure

by K. T. Tomb

  “Take a look at all of that,” the jarl motioned to one of his privately employed sentients in the room. “When you say ‘mostly a success’, what do you mean by that?”

  “This is what I mean by that—two of our men disappeared. They’re there, we know that much. Not sure if they were alive or not, not sure if they’re captured… being tortured… I need to get my crew back there, and I need more men. We need more men—heavies and archers. And any one that can cast a thought halfway across a room. I lost two of my best and I need to go get them back;to bring them home.”

  “Very impassioned,” Algoth said. “And loyal. And brave. All the things a commander needs to be. As far as my involvement with your crew goes, it ends here. You have, in my eyes, fulfilled the obligations of your contract. You will be paid, upon your departure. Until that time, you are considered guests of my holdfast and will be accorded all the honors of a high hero. Whatever you desire within this hold, it is yours while you’re here.”

  “No! You sent us there. You hired us on. You! You are culpable to those men. While they are there, they are still under your protection—as their patron you are bound to do something.” Jarreth was practically screaming at their host.

  “C’mon Cap, we’ll figure somethin’ else out. We’ll get no help here. Let’s go. We’ll stop off in the kitchen on our way out and get some food, head back on the horses,” Hugh said, as he began moving Jarreth out of the hall. “C’mon Cap, let’s go,” he gently coaxed his captain out of the hall.

  They stopped off at the kitchen and grabbed a quick meal and then headed back to the stables, where they saddled their horses. Hugh focused on the horses and then Raven picked her head up and whinnied briskly and the two men rode off.

  “That,” Algoth said to one of his advisers, “did not go well. Not well at all.”

  “Sir,” the adviser said, “we need to draw the line somewhere. And here’s the thing—we could have lost men that we actually need. Men, we need to secure a foothold for the survival of our race.”

  “Do not think,” Algoth said dangerously, “for even one half of one half of a second, that we do not need those men. They are the sole reason that we even have this opportunity in the first place. Without those men, there is no way that we would ever succeed.”

  “Yes, sir,” the adviser said, quietly melding back behind Algoth’s chair.

  ***

  Hugh and Jarreth made excellent time, riding through the night and into the morning. They arrived outside the bar, and headed down into the bunk room off of the cellar.

  “Everybody up!” Jarreth shouted. “We sail with the next tide. We’ve got about an hour, so everybody UP and get your crap ready to go!”

  The crew jumped to and soon the ship was loaded and they were out on open water within two hours.

  “Cap?” Yvo asked. “Wharer thae jarl’s maen? We goin’ bahk wi’ no help ‘tall?”

  “Yeah Yvo. We’re goin’ back with no help at all. The jarl paid up and released us from the contract. We’ll figure it out from there. First order of business is getting Kaerl and Willem home safe. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  Yvo had a wild smile on his face. “I lae the odds en us. Le’s gae braing oor boyos haeme!”

  They quickly relocated the portal since both Hugh and Ri knew the feel of it and passed through. They landed in the same place they had previously made shore, and the crew was quickly over the side. They made a hasty march to the same camp, and established their previous perimeter.

  “Same shifts for watch,” Jarreth said. “This time, Hugh, that light stays in the sky all night. Teach that little trick to Ri as well. I don’t want the sun to set within fifty feet of our perimeter. Also, we’re gonna clear those trees out. We’re gonna clear ‘em flat and make a damn wall around this camp.”

  The crew moved out, and everyone helped to clear the brush and the trees in the near vicinity. The crew was exhausted by the time the light was fading. Hugh used the same trick on the men that he used on the horses to give them stamina and energy to keep the first set of watchers awake. He also taught it to Ri.

  “The trick is in tricking their bodies,” he said, “by influencing their brains.” And as he worked on Yvo and Mik, he showed her exactly how to give the brain a constant stream of energy by telling it to trickle adrenaline into the rest of the body every few seconds.

  “The men will be exhausted when they do finally sleep,” Hugh added. “It’s one of the side-effects of this type of manipulation. You can only use this when the need is absolute. In this case, it absolutely is.”

  Soon the palisade was finished, the walls held in place by crossbeams. Hugh cast his ball of light into the night, teaching Ri how to do so as well. “It’s about manipulating heat from the air into a relatively close… bundle. Once you have that, you can refract the light from the stars and the moon into the bundle of heat waves. Since the wave is dense enough, it will cast the light. The trick is getting the bundle large enough to self-sustain, but to also keep it small enough that it will not expand, burn everything around it to ash, and then implode.” He calmly guided her through the process. She exclaimed with pride when she finally created one of her own. Her light had a lovely palest green cast to it, and Hugh smiled.

  “I was wondering when we’d figure out what your aspect is,” he said. “You’re naturally gifted when we work within nature—that green color gives you away. See the gray of mine? It’s because I’m not particularly gifted in any one thing. Neither is bad, by the way,” he quickly added as he noticed Ri’s face fall slightly. “It just means that, whenever possible, you should try to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish by using resources around you. What I might accomplish by… say… manipulating someone else’s mind, you might be able to accomplish through the use of air, or water, or dropping a branch on someone’s head.”

  “Is that why I can communicate with some animals?” Ri asked, happy to understand that part of herself.

  “That would make perfect sense,” Hugh replied.

  “You want to take this watch?” Hugh said. “I think you pretty much got everything you need. If anything goes haywire… well… we’ll all get woken up anyway.”

  “Yeah, I can handle this,” Ri said. “And like you said, anything goes wonky, well, I’ll make sure to wake your wrinkled ass up.” And she smiled at Hugh. I never thought I’d bring an apprentice into the crew, he thought to himself. But I suppose that’s life. He rolled out his blankets and fell fast asleep. At first light, the crew awakened and ate eggs and meat fried in a pan.

  “Hugh,” Jarreth said, “can you and Ri find that barrier again?”

  “Way ahead of you, Cap,” Hugh replied. “I already know where it’s at, and we already know which way to go and how to get there,” Hugh added.

  “How in the world…” Jarreth asked. Despite the unknown that they were facing, despite the fact that they had no idea what they were up against, despite all of the things that could go wrong, Jarreth could not help but smile.

  “Actually,” Hugh said and indicated Ri, “it wasn’t me at all. Tell ‘em Ri,” Hugh finished.

  “Well… it’s not really… I mean…” Ri stammered, a little surprised at being thrust into the spotlight.

  “Go ahead,” Hugh encouraged her.

  “Ok, well… here’s the thing. The last time we were here, I connected with this big cat. She totally helped me figure out where the barrier is. She told me the route that is always empty, and the route that is safe to use. She said that there are others out there that look like us, but they don’t speak the same way. She said that they are terrible when they come into the forest. For that reason, not much goes near them. They’re further into the forest than we thought.”

  “But we have a way in?” Jarreth asked.

  “Yeah, we have a way in,” Ri said, smiling at Jarreth.

  “Then we have nothing to worry about, at least until we get there,” Jarreth said.

  They set out
into the forest, and moved forward in a tight group, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of an attack, or other shapes moving through the forest. Every once in a while, one of the crew would tense, but they never encountered anyone—or anything. In places the forest thinned, and in other places, they walked single file. Finally, night arrived, in another blazing-gold sunset. They stopped and camped for the night.

  The next morning, they continued pushing through the forest. Once they stopped for a drink at a stream. The water was clear and cool, and pure as crystal. Hugh looked up, and he saw something moving along the tree limbs. He quickly looked back down, and grabbed Ri’s wrist and said softly,

  “When we landed here, the first time, I thought I saw something like… people… up in the trees, watching us. And I blew it off until now. If you look, slowly, there’s something up in the tree, right in front of us. If you can, see if you can talk to it. See if you can get it to come down here.”

  “I’ve tried sending just a… contented… feeling towards it, and it’s either impervious, or whatever it is, there’s more of them and they work like some kind of hive or something because it is not paying attention to me,” Ri said.

  “Well, maybe it’ll pay attention to this,” Hugh said. He whistled and got Jarreth’s attention. He signaled a couple of times with his hand, and Yvo, Haervey and Mik moved into position. The branch the creature is standing on snapped and the humanoid beast fell to the ground. The three heavies quickly surrounded it. The thing jumped up to try and get back into the trees, but Hugh hammered it back to the ground. Ri quickly built a cocoon of leaves and vines around the beast, using their natural sap to harden them until the beast was contained.

  “Now let’s see what we’ve got,” Jarreth said. “Ri, can you open this… uh… cage… up a bit so I can get a better look at this thing?” Jarreth asked.

  “I can,” she said, “but I’m warning you that whatever it is we have here, it’s strong. And it will not appreciate your intrusion.”

  “That’s fine,” the captain replied. “Just open it up a touch.”

  Ri focused for a few moments and then the hard, green and amber cocoon slowly cleared. Jarreth and the rest of the crew gathered round the captured biped. To them, it looked like an ape from their homeland, but not nearly as animal. It stood on its hind feet in a crouch, and it used its hands for balance. They could tell the beast was male, because he wore a barely concealing scrap of cloth around his waist. So they are civilized, Jarreth thought to himself. At least somewhat civilized. Maybe this is what we used to look like—where we came from.

  Hardly, human, the beast said in his mind. Jarreth was so startled he jumped back. And by the way, tell that woman out there that her attempt to reach me as an animal—her attempt to communicate with me as if I were some low beast was—and still is—insulting.

  “Ri,” Jarreth said, voice shaking. “This thing just listened in on my thoughts. He said that your attempt to reach him as, and I quote, ‘some low beast’ was very insulting to him.”

  Ri did not respond to Jarreth right away. Finally, she turned to him and said, “I apologized on our behalf for intruding. He appreciated it, but he said he would only speak with the alpha about anything remotely related to why we’re here. I am assuming that the alpha is you. So feel free to have at it.”

  My name, the apelike creature projected, is Music-of-the-Sunlight-Dancing-Through-Trees-and-Streams. That’s, at least, how it translates into your language. You may call me Sunny. It’s not even close to my actual name—which is in and of itself an insult to go by anything else—but if I am to be in your company for a while longer yet, well, you will have to call me something.

  Okay Sunny, Jarreth thought. I need your help understanding a few things. So I will make this very, very simple. Help me get back my lost crew members, and I will let you return to your home. In order for me to get my crew members back, I need your help. To get home, you need mine. Do we have a deal?

  You may ask me anything you like, Sunny said. And I will answer. The beauty and the curse of mindspeak is that, rather than using facial expressions and tonal intonation, you can literally read my every feeling in what I tell you. In this way, I will know if you lie or if you hide something. In return, you can do the same. In our culture, honesty is the way we have remained peaceful for so long. Whenever we communicate, not only is the thought communicated like this, in words, but it is also expressed in thought. We never misunderstand one another because we speak with our feelings. I can tell that you are worried for your clan mates. Do not worry that harm has come to them. They are well provided for.

  That is excellent to hear, Jarreth replied, his relief colored his words and, he was sure that it also showed on his face, because you are correct. I was significantly worried about them. Can you take me to them?

  No. Unfortunately, they are not mine to give back to you. We were like you, once. An industrious people, a—at least as you would describe it—civilized people. We thought we were sophisticated and at the height of our evolutionary tree. That was not the case. Like you, we destroyed our world. However, it was through those lessons that we evolved and became what we are today. A people that live in harmony with the forest, with the trees and the streams. We do not over colonize, we do not overpopulate. We have given certain technologies up in order to maintain our world. Whenever one of your kind comes here, whether in a clan as you are now, or by accident washing into the bay, they are assimilated into a family here. They are cared for and provided for. They have shelter and food aplenty. But they cannot return to where they are from. If they do, this world, and the balance we have worked so hard to achieve with it, would be destroyed.

  We do not seek to destroy your home, Jarreth replied, still grasping at the concept that this being could mean everything he said with absolute sincerity. Jarreth could even feel, in the communication from Sunny, that Sunny grieved with them as he would grieve for a lost member of his own family group.

  Our men—they need to come back with us. Jarreth added, if you can’t take us to them, will you bring them to us?

  Jarreth. The beast shook his head; Jarreth could see how his pain affected Sunny. No Jarreth. I cannot bring them to you. As I said, they are not mine to bring to you—they were not assimilated into my family group. The family they are with is working diligently to bring them into our culture and to teach them our ways. Seeing you would cause absolute regression, and they could end up doing more harm than good to themselves and to you.

  I would prefer to be the judge of that, Jarreth pushed back. They have their own families at home—away from here. Please, you must let us return them home.

  You are a good alpha, Sunny replied. His words were colored with respect as well as dismay. But I can do nothing for you, or for them. I have answered your questions. Now please, let me go.

  I can’t let you go, Sunny, Jarreth told him, his words edged with the steel of his resolve to show Sunny that he meant to do exactly as he said. I can’t let you go until I get my men back, even if that means keeping you hostage all the way to your city, or wherever it is you dwell. I will find it, and I will get my men back.

  Then we have nothing more to say to one another, Jarreth, Captain of the Veiled Lady.

  “What do you think?” Jarreth asked Haervey. “I dunnae wha’ tae thin’, Cap. I’m nae mucha tinker to begin’ wi’ sae…”

  “Hugh?” Jarreth asked. “Well, this is what I think. I think we should camp here for the night, see what morning brings us. Maybe Ri and I can figure out how to get that leopard-cat back here so we can get some more help from her. Ri—and the cat—led us this far, right?”

  “Naet a ba’ plan atall,” Yvo chimed in. “I sugges’ we take bonny lad o’er there ba’ tae our defensible, walled in cam’ aye? From tere, praps we cin ge’ them tae come tae us.”

  That simply will not work, Sunny quickly pointed out. I am not worth risking the entire group. They will consider me a loss; my family group will mourn me for a ti
me, that is true. But they will not come after me if you take me outside our territory. And, at the first opportunity I get, I will take my own life. Eventually you would come to the conclusion that you could use me as a bargaining chip, so I will get you to that point now. My people will abandon me. Why lose ten when you can lose one?

  Is that supposed to be a veiled suggestion that we just count ourselves lucky we weren’t taken and get out? Jarreth asked.

  There was nothing veiled about it, Jarreth, Sunny replied, the hurt at the accusation of being dishonest written across his face as well as permeating his words, the emotion so overwhelmingly powerful that Jarreth took another involuntary step back.

  “He said they won’t come for him if we leave the territory,” he relayed to the group. “Looks like we’re going with Ri and Hugh’s plan. Come the morning, we push on.”

  “Haervey, you have been with me the longest,” and here he looked at Hugh and added, “it just took us a while to get you out of that monastery they had you locked up in, Hugh. If push comes to shove, Harv, I need you to get back to the ship. At any cost. You have to get back and let someone know what is going on here.”

  “Aye Cap, bu’ less hope it ne’er comes tae tha’,” Haervey said.

  Night fell, but none of the crew could sleep. They were arranged in a circle around Sunny, shoulder to shoulder, shields covering the left halves of their bodies and weapons at the ready. Hugh and Ri both had their glow-balls up at their maximum capacity. All at once, both were extinguished. As natural air rushed in to take the place of the glowing orbs, the circle is knocked flat. Stunned, the crew laid still for a few moments. In those moments, each member of the crew’s mind was invaded and Sunny’s voice projected like a battle captain giving orders through a hollowed-out ox-horn,

  I AM HERE. A picture of their area was projected forward with such speed and ferocity that it left the crew stunned another few minutes.