Taken In (The Red Enchanter Book 2)

by Mary Swift

  They had had limited news of the outside world during their time in Wildbush. Enchanters and mortals occasionally passed through. Many of them were sick and travelling south to look for remedies. Logan would usually let them stay in the house for a night or two. The travelers would often tell them that Firesea was shut tight, no one came or went from the front gate. The Master Enchanter hadn’t been seen in years. Some people had heard he was suffering from an affliction and that had left him confined to his chamber, others said he was dead.

  It took a day and a half for Rowan and Kip to walk to Firesea. “How close do you need to be?” Kip asked. They were standing on a hill overlooking the circle. Kip squinted. He had cast his spell a few years before. His eyes were like telescopes, they could zero in on the smallest detail miles away.

  “Your father said to get as close to the wall as possible. The closer I am the stronger the spell will be. I wish we could go inside.”

  “Maybe we should try.” Kip said. “Maybe they’re all dead in there.”

  Rowan doubted that. He had instincts like his father. Just because Firesea looked lifeless didn’t mean it was. “Are there any rangers nearby?” He looked down at Kip.

  Something else had happened in the last few years. Rowan had grown significantly taller. Somewhere between the ages of fifteen and sixteen he had grown over ten inches. He was now exactly six feet and one inch tall, a couple of inches above Kip. The one thing that hadn’t changed was his hair. It was still red and brown. Every time it hung in his eyes it reminded him of his father and why he was doing all of this in the first place.

  “I can’t see any rangers.” Kip told him. “Damn it. I was hoping to kill some.”

  Rowan had stopped trying to curb Kip’s homicidal tendencies. They balanced each other out quite well, Kip wanted to kill and Rowan wanted to heal. “Are you ready?”

  “Hell yeah, I’m ready.” Kip grinned and tightened the leather straps across his chest. Each one held several knives. He had a bow on his back along with a quiver of arrows. He had become quite a collector of weaponry. He had often traded things in Killian’s house for knives, swords, even a mortal pistol and ammunition. Rowan was certain that Kip now had most of the collection attached to his body.

  Kip had also taken to walking about shirtless. Rowan suspected he was copying the Firesea protectors that they had spent time with years before, although Kip did manage to wear long pants. Whatever the reason it certainly impressed the women that passed through Wildbush. On more than one occasion Rowan had seen them coming out of Kip’s room in the morning.

  They started walking towards Firesea. The pines soon gave way to meadowland. It took them hours to cross. The sun was overhead was warm. No birds, moths, or other creatures could be seen. Even the wildflowers and grasses were stiff and brittle. They skirted around the wall, the empty guard towers loomed over them.

  “Let’s just do it.” Rowan told Kip. “Can you draw the circle? I’m too nervous.”

  Kip took out a long knife and drew a circle in the dry dirt. Rowan had watched when Kip cast his spell. He knew he had to step into the circle, wait for the energy to surround him, and then say what he wanted. It had taken less than two minutes for Kip to enchant his eyes. If all went well they could be finished and on their way home without anyone knowing they had been there.

  “Go on.” Kip said.

  Rowan stepped into the circle and closed his eyes. At first nothing happened. Maybe he was too much of a mortal to cast a spell. He waited. Suddenly the air began to vibrate.

  “Start saying your spell.” Kip told him.

  “Make my healing hands the best the world has ever known.”

  The second the last word left his lips there was a thunderous crack. The air in the circle formed a massive swirling column that went up into the clouds. The humming increased and turned into a scream that pierced the air. Rowan’s hands began to burn. Red smoke filled the air. It choked his throat and made it impossible to see anything. Rowan gritted his teeth. His fingers felt as though they were on fire. Finally the noise stopped and the air cleared.

  “Uh Rowan.” he heard Kip say.

  He turned around and found Kip was being held by two Firesea rangers, both of them had sores on their faces. Next to them was Dante.

  “Well, well, Rowan Cramer is casting his spell.” Dante said. “You needn’t have done it out here. Why didn’t you knock on the front gate? We would have let you in.”

  Rowan didn’t know what to say. Despite Kip being loaded with weapons he wasn’t sure if they could take the three of them.

  “You’re just like your father.” Dante said. “Weighing all of your options.” He stepped forward, brushing his long hair from his shoulders. “I’ll make it easy for you Rowan. You try to lay a hand on me and I’ll be happy to personally execute your brother, or whatever he is to you.”

  “You bastard Gavrashelli!” Kip cried. He struggled to break free from the rangers. Neither man looked well; puss oozed from the sores on their skin.

  “You’re a feisty one Chip, just like your mother.” Dante chuckled. “Too bad she was shot crossing the street. They got your brother the same day too, didn’t they?”

  Kip’s face turned red. He wrenched free and pulled out a long knife, it was the same one he had used to cut off Rowan’s hands. The rangers didn’t bother trying to stop him. They watched as Kip swung the knife at Dante. There was a metallic clang as it bounced off of the robe.

  “You’ll have to try a lot harder than that.” Dante slipped his hand into the robe pocket. Rowan knew he could pull anything from there.

  Kip swung the knife again. It sliced across Dante’s face, blood began spurting everywhere. The rangers laughed. Dante took his hand out of his pocket and pressed his fingers against the wound.

  “I’m going to cut your friggin’ head off!” Kip cried.

  “No!” Rowan shouted. “I want to try my hands.” He put his hands to the gash on Dante’s face, his skin tingled as he felt the wound healing beneath his fingers. Dante’s eyes grew wide. He pushed Rowan away.

  “What are you?”

  “I’m a healer.”

  “What else are you? I saw things.”

  “What do you want us to do with them Master Enchanter?” one of the rangers asked.

  Rowan looked at the rangers. “I can heal you too.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” Dante said. “Go back to Wildbush.”

  “But he can heal us.” said one of the men.

  “I’m letting them go.” Dante stared at Rowan. “I should have taken you as a baby when I had the chance.” He turned around and began walking away with the rangers on either side of him.

  “Can I kill him now?” Kip asked.

  Rowan shook his head. “No, it’s not the right time.”

  Kip sighed. “All right.” He put the knife away. They watched Dante and the rangers walk around the wall and disappear from sight. “It might be a trap. They’ll probably come back out with a whole army.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s something weird going on here.”

  “It seems that way.” Rowan looked at his hands. He had never healed anyone so quickly before. He had had plenty of practice. Kip was always cutting himself with his knives. Something else had happened during the healing but he wasn’t sure what. He was thinking of asking Kip to injure himself when an arrow whizzed by his head. It landed in the Firesea wall.

  Kip reached for his bow as another one went sailing past. They knelt on the ground. “I told you it was a trap!”

  Three more arrows hit the wall. Rowan’s heart was pounding, he felt sick to his stomach. Nothing was ever going to be the same again.

  Chapter 42

  Dante returned to the Firesea council hall and collapsed in the Master Enchanter’s throne. He looked as though he had seen a ghost. Finnegan watched him from the shadows. He had been slowly possessing Dante’s soul for the past four years. It was not easy. Dante was cunning and suspicious, bu
t he was also part mortal. Mortals had weaknesses that enchanters could exploit.

  “Is everything all right Master Enchanter?” Finnegan asked as he crept out of the corner. “You looked troubled.”

  “I just met up with a horrible creature.”

  “Was someone casting a spell?” Everyone in Firesea had heard the ear shattering scream and seen the column of red smoke outside of the wall.

  “Yes. There was a boy, he’s a healer, he did things to me.”

  Finnegan found himself smiling at the thought of something, anything, being done to Dante. He knelt next to the throne. “What did he do to you? Did he hurt you?”

  “There was a crazy man with a knife. He cut me and then the creature healed me. He made me see things, things I had done, consequences.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him here? He could try curing the sick.”

  Nearly everyone in Firesea was suffering. Hundreds had already died. Bodies were stacked in piles in the center of the circle and burned once a week. Dante and Finnegan had remained unharmed. The only explanation that Finnegan could think of was that the robe was somehow keeping them healthy. The same could not be said for the protectors in the hall, some of them could not even stand.

  “He was a demon.” Dante said.

  Finnegan chocked back a laugh. “There are no such things as demons.”

  “He had a plume of red hair in the front, like the devil.”

  “Was it Rowan?” He was the only person Finnegan knew with hair like that. He reached out and touched the robe. The silk slipped through his fingers like sand. It wouldn’t be much longer.

  Dante looked at him and sighed. “I’m so tired.”

  “I know you are.” Finnegan was so close, so breathlessly close. Dante’s soul was nearly his. Tomorrow he would draw a circle on the floor and he and Dante would step inside. The robe would come to him and the world would be put back in order.

  Chapter 43

  Nora and Constantine made it to Darkhill as they had planned. When they got there they discovered that the circle was gone. There was nothing left. They wandered about for days hoping to find something. Finally they stumbled into the nearby mortal town of Rudder and were told the awful truth. Killian had become a Founder and the Founders were all dead.

  Nora remembered everything now and the thought of Killian being dead was overwhelming. She couldn’t think about it, couldn’t imagine it. Sometimes she pretended it never happened at all. Constantine had told her that the house from Wildbush had been brought to Darkhill. But there was no sign of it near the circle. That gave her hope that maybe, just maybe, it was somewhere else and its occupants were still alive.

  One morning she and Constantine were wandering around Firesea looking for signs of life. They had heard rumors that everyone in the circle was dead. They spotted two young men in the meadow as they hid behind a patch of scrubby blueberry bushes. One of the men had stopped to cast a spell. The sound it created was ear shattering. The ground shook as a column of red smoke shot into the sky and through the clouds. They watched Dante and two rangers come out and a skirmish ensued.

  As soon as Constantine saw his father he swore. “He should be dead by now.” He raised his bow. He had found it in an abandoned mortal house.

  “No, don’t.” Nora told him. The shorter man had dozens of weapons strapped to him. He seemed slightly disturbed and he looked familiar. They both did. She was afraid to get her hopes up. “I think the tall one might be Rowan. That man’s hair is two different colors.”

  “I could kill my father from here.”

  She touched Constantine’s arm. “Just wait a minute.”

  He lowered the bow. Dante was shouting something. The man who looked like Rowan put his hand on him like a healer would. A few seconds passed. Dante pushed the man away. Suddenly he and the rangers walked away. Nora and Constantine watched as they went around the Firesea wall and back inside. The two men were left standing in the meadow.

  “Let’s go talk to them.” she said.

  “We’d better let them know we’re here.” Before she could object Constantine sent an arrow sailing over the heads of the men. The one with all the weapons reached for his own bow. Constantine shot four more arrows and then stood up. “Hold your fire!” he shouted.

  Nora wasn’t sure if they were too far away for them to hear. Constantine started running, Nora followed him as best she could. The bottoms of her feet were covered with sores, her shoes had disintegrated long ago.

  As Nora got closer to the man with the two colors of hair she knew she had been right, it was Rowan. He was alive.

  “Rowan!” Nora cried.

  He stared at her. “Mama?”

  Nora put her arms out and he ran to her. It had been almost five years since she had held her baby in her arms. He said something but she couldn’t understand him. It didn’t matter. He hugged her tightly. Finally she let go and held his face in her hands. “I was afraid I would never see you again.”

  “Is it really you?” he asked. She could see the conflict on his face. He was afraid to believe.

  She brushed the tears from his cheeks. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “I thought you wanted to be the Master Enchanter.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Dad is dead, and probably Lucy too. I thought I was the only one left.”

  Nora took his hands. “A few minutes ago you thought I was gone, now I’m here. Don’t give up hope.”

  The other man cleared his throat. Nora recognized Kip. She was glad to see he was alive too, it gave her hope for the others.

  “I hate to be this way, but we should probably do this somewhere else. Dante could come back.” Kip said.

  “Let him try.” Constantine said bitterly.

  Rowan looked confused. “Why is he with you?”

  “I have some things to tell you.” Nora said. She didn’t want to explain who Constantine was out in the open, next to the Firesea wall. And Kip was right, they needed to move.

  “We could make a camp on that ridge we passed.” Constantine suggested. “There was a stream nearby too.”

  “Yes I think so.” She smiled at him. He so wanted to have a brother. He had talked about it many times during the last four years.

  “Will you be able to walk?” Constantine asked. “Or should I carry you?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Rowan asked.

  “My feet are in bad shape.”

  “I can fix you.” Rowan told her. “I’m a healer. I just healed Dante.”

  “Yeah, after I cut his face up.” Kip bragged.

  “What else did you do Rowan? Dante looked frightened.”

  “Nothing.”

  “He was probably just scared.” Kip said. “I scare a lot of fellows.”

  “I’ll bet.” Constantine muttered.

  Nora gently punched his arm. He bent over and she climbed onto his back as she had done many times before. Rowan stayed at her side as they left the meadow and made their way into the woods. Nora rested her head on Constantine’s back and watched her youngest son. He was so like Killian. She hadn’t really noticed when he was little, but now it was all she could see.

  He smiled at her. Tears suddenly started streaming down his face. “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I know. I’m sorry I left you. I didn’t want to; I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  His eyes lingered on Constantine. He was trying to figure out why they were together.

  “I’ll explain everything to you, I promise.” she said. “And I want to know who cut off your hands.”

  “I did.” Kip said proudly.

  “I asked him to. I wanted to be a healer like Dad.”

  “You asked for it?”

  “Yes.” He looked at his hands. “And just now I cast a spell on them.”

  “What kind of spell?” Constantine asked.

  “To make them the best at healing.”

  “After we get settled you can try and fix my feet.”
Nora said.

  “She’s been in so much pain.” Constantine said. “We were hoping to get close enough to Firesea so that she could use its energy to try and heal herself.”

  “And I was going to try to heal you too Constantine.” Nora said.

  “Why are you here Constantine?” Kip asked. “Were you looking for someone else to order around?”

  “What’s it to you Kip?” Constantine snapped.

  Nora started to say something and then stopped. She would wait until they made camp to tell Rowan that he had a brother.

  Chapter 44

  The last thing Rowan had ever expected was to find his mother. He had never stopped hoping he would see her again, now he felt as though he was dreaming. She was right in front of him, watching Constantine as he finished setting up their camp. Rowan was confused by their relationship. He supposed that they might have become lovers, but it didn’t seem that way.

  He sat on the ground and looked at Nora’s feet, puss was oozing from the sores. He started to touch her and then stopped. “Are you sure about this? I’m not sure what I’ve done to myself. Dante seemed pretty freaked out.”

  She smiled and brushed her dark hair behind her ear. Her face was weary and pale, but otherwise she looked the same as the morning she said goodbye to him before he left for school. If only he hadn’t skipped that day. If only, if only. He couldn’t let himself go down that road again.

  “I trust you Rowan.” she said. Constantine sat next to her and took her hand.

  Rowan was tempted to ask about them, but it could wait a few minutes, and he might not like the answer. He put his hands on her feet, the sores wet his fingers. Rowan closed his eyes. His hands began to warm, he felt her skin healing.

  Nora suddenly cried out. Rowan opened his eyes. Her mouth was hanging open, her eyes were wide. He let go. “What are you?” she cried.

  It was the same thing Dante had said. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did it hurt?”