by Jaxon Reed
“That’s an interesting talent, to see the talent of another.”
“Nay, it doesn’t work that way. I can detect the use of magic, not the spell being used. One of my more pointless abilities. Or at least, I always considered it pointless. Who cares when you can tell someone is using magic? Then on my first voyage with Captain Cessic, I was watching a game just like this. One old man named Leet won almost every hand. He drew good cards, he rolled high numbers, and he pulled in the pot more often than not.”
Quent smiled at the memory. “I could tell he was casting a spell before each hand. Turned out to be a Spell of Luck. He was actually quite talented, in that one spell at least. And he was good about concealing the cast. Very good. They referred to him as ‘Lucky Leet.’
“I called him out and we threw him overboard. Ever since, I’ve been the guardian of the games. No magical cheating allowed on Wavecrest.”
Plinny’s laughter rumbled across the deck again as he won another hand.
Stin said, “Looks like Plinny is doing well tonight, without any lucky spells.”
“Mm. He’ll lose it all and more in tomorrow night’s game. But he’s a regular player. He’ll win some more later, then lose it again.”
They watched in silence as the men came to the last of their cards and played a final round. Plinny howled in frustration as someone else won.
He said, “Again! Let’s play another game, me hearties! And me clubbies! All me cardies! Bwahaha!”
Stin said, “I’m glad you’re here keep to the games on the up and up, Quent. I’ve come into a few coins recently. I think I’ll try my hand at bone cards tonight.”
Quent said, “Maybe you’ll get lucky and you can pay off some of your debts.”
“You know, that is a very good idea.”
Stin headed toward the circle of men around the gambling pot.
“Don’t get too lucky,” Quent said. “Remember what I told you about Lucky Leet. No magic!”
Stin sat down in the circle, turned and smiled back at Quent. He gave the healer a thumbs up with his left hand, then slipped his fingers into the purse of the pirate on his right and palmed a handful of coins.
Chapter 5
Etta, Mita’s mother, spoke to her in her dream earnestly as they sat in her room back home. The words seemed important, but Mita didn’t really hear them. Everything felt surreal, the dream world blending effortlessly with memories and warped images of reality.
Her upper consciousness barely registered. And like so many dreams, only snippets of memories would remain upon waking.
The room shimmered, and became her room in the wizard’s castle. Her mother’s voice changed to her father’s, although Etta’s face remained the same.
Deedles the blind cat walked through a wall in the room and sat on her haunches, watching Mita intently and apparently with great clarity. It appeared the cat could see perfectly in the dream world.
Her mother’s face changed into her father’s, finally matching the voice. Then his face melted, replaced by Otwa’s, her nanny.
A presence filled the room, and all talking ceased. Dread clawed its way into Mita’s mind, filling her awareness like a heavy weight pressing down.
A look of alarm crossed Otwa’s face, then her head ripped off her body, as if caught in the jaws of an invisible beast.
Mita’s full consciousness filled her dream-self now. She jumped up from the bed and into a fighting stance. The bedroom shimmered again, and they stood outdoors in the training ring she had spent so much time in back home before joining Oldstone.
She felt a rush of air as the beast charged her, and she shot off a spell of force in that direction. It did nothing to slow the beast, who tackled her to the ground and struck at her face, gouging her right eye.
She screamed in pain, her head thrown back in the pillow in the bedroom. Her eye swelled shut in her sleep.
Mita cast a fireball, and it did nothing, sailing through the air harmlessly. She felt the hot breath of the beast as it opened its jaws near her neck, warm spittle dripping on her skin.
She turned her head away and her one good eye found Deedles staring back at her. The cat hadn’t moved and still sat on its haunches.
Deedles purred and sent a thought to her mind: Wake up!
-+-
Mita took a long, hot bath that morning, in part to wash off feelings of dream residue the monster left, and in part to ease her aching muscles.
She dressed herself with the wave of a hand, opting for a simple white dress rather than the tight leather armor she normally favored. She bandaged her eye carefully, by hand. Then she headed downstairs for breakfast.
Cookie came out with a steaming bowl of porridge and said, “Oh, dearie, this is wonderful! I’ll have a chance to work up my poultice for you. It’s ideal when you’re in a situation where you can’t use magic to heal. I’ll show you how to make it!”
“Never thought I’d see the day I needed to make a poultice,” Mita grumbled.
“Oh yes! And a battlemaiden must be prepared for every eventuality, dearie. Now stay right here, I’ve just got to gather the ingredients and we’ll have you patched up in no time. What a wonderful opportunity!”
Mita didn’t share the facsimile’s enthusiasm, but she found the porridge delicious and quickly downed the whole bowl. When she finished, it disappeared, replaced by a steaming mug of tea.
Cookie returned with flowers and oils and fresh bandages. She mixed several items together with a mortar and pestle, then dabbed the concoction over the swollen eye and wrapped a fresh bandage around it, running several strands around Mita’s head.
“The main ingredient is calendula! It should have you right well in a jiffy, dearie!”
-+-
That evening Mita stood by Oldstone near a large, hazy yellow globe. Greystone apparated, stepping spryly through the portal.
He smiled at Oldstone, then frowned when he saw Mita.
“What happened to her?”
“Mind monster,” Oldstone said.
“A mind monster! Do those even exist anymore?”
“Evidently.”
“Is it a battle badge or somewhat? Why doesn’t she heal it?”
Mita said, “You know, I’m standing right here.”
Both wizards ignored her.
Oldstone said, “Her wounds can’t be healed with magic. You should see her belly from the other night.”
Greystone stroked his blond and gray beard thoughtfully as he gazed at Mita’s bandaged eye.
Finally, he addressed her directly and said, “May I try?”
Mita acquiesced with a nod. He cast several healing spells on her eye, in different order and combinations. After several minutes he admitted defeat.
“I’ve never heard of magic-resistant wounds before.”
“My mind monster gave me one,” Oldstone said. “Broke my arm. It took weeks to mend itself.”
“Really? Weeks?”
Oldstone nodded. Inspiration flashed in Greystone’s eyes. He said, “Perhaps we can speed time up on her wounds. Heal them quickly that way.”
Now Oldstone stroked his beard thoughtfully.
“Time spells are extraordinarily difficult. Limiting it to one part of a person’s body would be . . . impractical.”
“Perhaps we could simply encourage her body to speed up the normal repair process. Avoid time spells altogether, but enhance her natural recuperative abilities.”
Oldstone’s eyebrows shot up, and he said, “Now I think you’re on to something!”
Mita grimaced and said, “I should have thought of that.”
“Tut tut,” Greystone said. “This fellow’s older than both of us. He is the one who should have thought of it.”
Oldstone smiled at the lighthearted jab and said, “Perhaps my mind is slowing with age. It happens when you pass the millennium mark.”
“Admit it, old man. You have the years, but I have the wisdom.”
Oldstone smiled again and said
, “If it makes you feel better, I’ll admit your intelligence makes up considerably for your inferior talent in magic.”
“Ouch. That was a backhanded compliment.”
“Nothing more than you deserved, I’m sure.”
Turning to Mita and focusing on the task at hand, Greystone worked carefully on the new spell, crafting strands of magic in the air with his fingers. Mita watched Greystone just as carefully, taking note of how the spell worked so she could cast it herself later.
“Got to be careful not to speed up your aging while I do this, just the healing process.”
The wizard concluded by folding his fingers together and thrusting them outward toward her chest. A bolt of golden light shot out from his hands and entered her body.
Mita felt the wounds on her stomach close as skin cells regenerated quickly. The swelling in her eye dissipated. She took the bandage off and called up a mirror. It floated in the air and she watched as the swelling continued to decrease, leaving behind a black eye. It visibly healed, growing lighter as she watched, promising to disappear altogether in a matter of minutes.
She smiled and said, “Thank you, Wizard Greystone.”
He bowed graciously and said, “Solving conundrums is my calling. Speaking of which, we’ll have a different sort of problem when the others get here.”
-+-
One by one wizards apparated into the floating castle’s library. First came the tall and almond-skin Loadstone with the shorter, freckled and orange-haired Redstone. They came through almost simultaneously. Old friends, they probably parted from the same location, Mita thought.
They were followed soon after by Brightstone, Sandstone, Hearthstone, Silverstone, Bluestone, and Goldstone.
Quartzstone came in last. Younger than the others, with a full head of hair and a short brown beard with no trace of gray yet, he scowled at everybody as he apparated into the room. Mita recalled he was the most quarrelsome of the three who refused to meet and fight Darkstone at the Battle of Greystone Village. Sandstone, Silverstone, and Quartzstone simply did not show up in the hour of need.
The threesome sat together for the meeting, taking up one side of the table. Brightstone, Loadstone, and Redstone took up another side while Hearthstone, Bluestone, and Goldstone took a third.
At the head sat Oldstone, Greystone, and Mita, her black eye no longer showing.
Quartzstone glared at her and said, “I thought this was to be a meeting of the Magic Council only. Since when did we start letting non-wizards attend?”
Oldstone said, “Initiates have always been allowed at council meetings. You know this. Or have you forgotten we voted unanimously to let her take Darkstone’s place, last we met?”
Quartzstone’s scowled deepened. He said, “I recall voting to let her begin the initiation. Have her trials started?”
“The process is private, as you are aware. As head of the Magic Council, I am allowing her presence. She is an initiate, and is entitled to attend even though she carries no stone. You did not refuse her presence before, and it’s too late to register discontent now.”
Quartzstone backed down, but let everyone know he still disagreed by the sour expression on his face.
Oldstone ignored Quartzstone’s expression and said, “Now, to the matters at hand. The Forlorn Dagger is somewhere in the Hidden Forest. As we all know, it was lost while Mita battled Darkstone. It remains imperative we find it before he does. The table is open for discussion.”
The “Troublesome Trio,” as Mita had begun to call Quartzstone, Sandstone, and Silverstone, immediately attacked her, blaming Mita for the loss of the dagger.
Loadstone jumped to her defense. “Preposterous! It’s hardly her fault the dagger dropped from the sky in battle. How was she supposed to catch it without losing her ability to fly?”
Despite the profound logic of that statement, the argument raged on for several more minutes.
Redstone ended it by saying, “You three weren’t even there for the battle. Hardly seems reasonable for you to criticize the way it was fought.”
Conversation suddenly stopped. All three of the troublesome wizards grew red in the face, nearly matching the color of Redstone’s staff, Mita thought. They stared at him in mute outrage.
Redstone shrugged and said, “There’s no sense being polite about it. You weren’t there when we needed you.”
Silverstone, a short, squat man with an equally unimpressive short, squat beard snarled and said, “I’ll have you know, I was on a very important mission and could not simply—”
“Enough,” Oldstone said. “Now is not the time for recriminations. We have a dilemma. The dagger is missing. And we need to find it before Darkstone does. What do we intend to do about it?”
In due course, a search party was formed. Redstone and Loadstone agreed to go look in the general area of the forest Mita remembered the dagger falling. Then they began discussing the calendar, and found each other busy at different times. At last they agreed to search soon, but at some indeterminate point in the future.
The meeting wrapped up, with only a few other minor matters of discussion. Then the wizards departed, disapparating through the hazy globe, heading back to their prior locations.
“We’ll start out from Greystone Village as soon as we can manage it,” Loadstone said before walking through the globe. Redstone smiled at Mita and winked at her, then followed his friend. The remaining wizards filed after them until only Greystone remained.
He turned and grinned at Oldstone, white teeth showing through his blond beard.
“That went well. Do you think they’ll go for it?”
“I don’t see why not,” Oldstone said. “We gave no indication of subterfuge.”
“What are you talking about?” Mita said.
They both turned and smiled at her.
Greystone said, “We just set a trap!”
-+-
Truly, this must be the worst part of being a king, Endrick thought.
Having to deal with matters of court was surely his least favorite part of wearing the crown. The Emerald Throne was built to be impressive, not comfortable. Carved from a solid chunk of emerald, it looked amazing but in no way conformed to the one sitting on it. Perhaps worse than its discomfort, the petitions Endrick faced were long and boring and the petitioners were bothersome and annoying.
Personally, Endrick thought as yet another approached the throne to make a plea, he would have preferred to hand this off to some administrative sort. Someone who could listen to the hours of pleas from peasants and nobility alike. Someone who would take the time to read royal letters from neighboring kingdoms and draw up responses in Endrick’s name. Someone who could do all these boring bits of being a king so that Endrick could enjoy the power and privilege and prestige that came with the crown.
But Darkstone would have none of it.
Darkstone has ideas of what a king should be, what a king should do. And I have to conform to his ideas, Endrick thought.
Meanwhile, the petitioner’s conclusion intruded on his thoughts. “And that is why, Your Majesty, the Council of Councils with representatives from all the small towns and villages in the Emerald Kingdom, humbly beseech you to reconsider the grain tax this year. We simply do not have the men to bring in that large a harvest now that so many have been tragically lost in the battle against the wizards.”
“No.”
The man before him, an old farmer dressed in his best clothes for the occasion, gulped. He turned and looked at the four men behind him, doubtless there to buttress his arguments and lend support. The man turned back to Endrick and licked dry lips, gripping his hat so hard his fingers turned white.
“Your Majesty, we simply don’t have the men for—”
“I said no. You will not defy a royal edict. You and your town councils and your farmers and your simple, sniveling peasants have complained to me every single year about the grain allocations.
“I have explained to each one of your repres
entatives that the cities must eat. Without your grain, the cities starve. I have explained this simple concept repeatedly every year, and yet every year you return and request more grain be kept in the countryside.
“No. Absolutely not. We need more grain than ever right now. The tax remains the same. Truthfully, it should be increased.”
Sweat broke out on the man’s brow. He licked his lips again and began fidgeting with the hat.
“Your Majesty, we just don’t have the manpower! Ever since you took our sons off to fight, every village in the kingdom is short of the men needed to deliver half your tax, much less feed our own people!”
Endrick stifled a yawn.
“I’m tired of your insolence. How many times do I need to repeat myself? I am the king, and I should not have to say things twice. Guards, arrest them. Throw them in the dungeon. Perhaps they will realize questioning my authority bodes ill for them.”
Their faces turned ashen as several guards approached.
“Now see here, Your Majesty—”
One of the guards struck the speaker in the mouth with a chainmailed fist. The old man crumpled to the ground. The guards herded his friends out, then two of them picked him up roughly by the arms and dragged him after the others.
As they left, Darkstone entered silently from a side door and walked up to the throne with his hands clasped behind his back. His charred and tattered robes stood in stark contrast to Endrick’s green silken trousers and tunic.
He said, “Arresting another set of petitioners, I see.”
Endrick glanced up at the wizard and frowned. He said, “I can’t tolerate insolence. They act like they can talk me out of a decision once I’ve made it. Pox on them.”
Darkstone smirked. Then he took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. He said, “They might have a point, though. I fear many crops may go to waste this season. We are rather short of men to work the fields.”
