“Well, the thing is, there’s a little girl here in the palace that’s from that village. She told me some fantastical tale about waking up in the library here, of all places. She also says that you’re working on breaking the curse.”
Sevana felt a chill go up her spine. Lockbright Palace sat a good hundred miles away from Chastain Village. To be transported that far.… “Wait a minute, Pierpoint.” Ducking back outside, she called, “DECKER!”
It took a few seconds, but he rounded the corner and gave her a look askance. “Yes?”
“You’ll need to hear this,” she told him grimly, waving him to come inside. “Pierpoint, this is Decker, a hunter from Chastain Village. He just hired me on for the job of breaking the curse. Decker, this is Pierpoint, the court magician at Lockbright.” Meeting Decker’s eyes, she added, “He’s calling here because a little girl from your village was found in the palace library today.”
“What?!” Decker dove for the Caller before abruptly checking himself, apparently realizing that grabbing the Caller would do no good. Instead he hovered, arms half-stretched toward the white figurine on the table. “Who?”
“She said her name is Clari. Clari Hanh.”
Sevana watched with interest as the color just drained from Decker’s face, leaving him looking a remarkable shade of pale yellow. “Someone you know?”
“My niece,” he responded hoarsely, putting a shaking hand over his eyes. “Sir, tell me she’s alright.”
“Oh, she’s fine. We found her an hour ago in the library, sitting on top of a stack of books with another open in front of her. Apparently she had every intention of finding someone and telling them what was going on, but the pretty books distracted her.” Pierpoint chuckled in rich amusement. “Quite the little girl, your niece. She’s now having a grand time with Princess Hana, I understand, having an outdoor tea party while I figure out the situation.”
“Sitting on top of books,” Decker repeated in a mutter. His hand dropped, the color returning to his skin as his terror faded. “Why am I not surprised…wait, she’s with the princess?”
“Hana’s a sensible sort,” Sevana assured him absently, as her mind spun in a different direction entirely. “She’s from Milby, actually, and I trust her more with a child than the rest of the palace put together. Pierpoint, did you take any sort of magical reading on her?”
“I did, first thing. That’s what made me believe that she wasn’t just spinning tales. The magical signature on her…I’ve never seen the likes of this, Sevana. I’ve never even heard a legend that described something like this. Just what is going on?”
“I don’t know, not yet. I haven’t even had a chance to get to the village yet and do an inspection.” And why, why didn’t she have a portal anywhere in that area? The border area to the north had a lot of poorer villages, none of them rich enough to afford her clocks. Maybe she should cut them a good price, just to get one or two in that area…not that it really mattered at this particular juncture. She still had a wolf, horse, and a hunter to transport with her. “Pierpoint, sit on the girl. I’ll be there in two days to get her. And be a friend—take daily readings on her for me.”
“I most certainly will. You do realize that as soon as you get here, King Aren and Prince Bellomi will want to talk about the situation.”
“Yes, yes,” she flapped her hands at him. “Shoo. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“I’ll tell them.” He turned to Decker and said kindly, “Your niece will be well taken care of until you come for her, Master Decker. I promise you. And she’s truly well—there’s not a bruise on her. In fact, she’s having the time of her life here. Do not worry for her.”
Decker gave the man a deep bow. “I am in your debt, sir. Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. But do be prepared to speak to the king and prince when you come. They will want the full tale from you.”
“I will.”
“Good. Sevana—I suggest hurrying.”
“I suggest going away so I can pack,” she responded mock-sweetly.
Pierpoint gave a snort, but the Caller fell back into its seated position, becoming a faceless figurine again.
Sevana shortened her mental list of tasks and said to Decker, “We leave in one hour.”
The man didn’t even attempt to argue, he just nodded, worry and relief clashing on his face, spun, and sprinted out the door, his wolf at his heels.
Sevana followed at a similar pace. “Big! Get the skimmer out!”
A hundred miles. A hundred miles. No spell, curse or magical artifact that Sevana knew of could do that kind of magic without some serious repercussions. Doing such a thing would leave quite the aftermath in its wake, showing in the land itself—or at least it should. Decker had described it as a curse.
Sevana knew better. It was a disaster of epic proportions waiting to happen.
Sevana sat at the front of the skimmer, guiding it along as they travelled east over Windamere, and even though her back was to her passengers, she could feel Decker’s eyes studying her intently. He’d likely heard some fairly fantastic rumors about her, most of them contradictory. Kip would sometimes regale her with the more outlandish ones that he heard while travelling. But she wasn’t the monstrous woman that the rumors painted her to be. She really didn’t look like some overpowering woman, just a slender blonde with a pretty face and a no-nonsense attitude. Because she didn’t care for frippery of any sort, she dressed like a man, with trousers, long sleeve shirt, vest and boots. For Windamere culture, this style of hers was odd but most didn't dare to comment on it.
Most probably didn’t care for her brisk manner of dealing with people, but Decker hadn’t complained about it. He seemed thankful for her quick reaction, but it clearly also worried him. She reacted to this curse as more than a job, more than a challenge, but a real threat that she wanted to subdue as quickly as possible. Judging from that intent stare, he likely wondered what she knew or had guessed but hadn’t shared with him.
He didn’t try to ask questions as they had loaded on board her ‘skimmer.’ He did pause and give it a long study before approaching it, though. For him, it probably looked oddly familiar but strange all at once. It looked like a barge with railing on all sides, a wall of wooden cabinets in the back, and angled, billowing sails out at the sides. It had taken considerable coaxing to get Roki on board and even now the stallion looked about with wide eyes, feet braced on the decking. She’d given them both an amused smirk at their caution (which Decker hadn’t all appreciated). Well, since they were high up in the sky, with a good five or six hundred feet between them and solid ground, he had cause for that unease. He himself sat in the middle of the skimmer, well away from the sides, with Gid at his side. (The wolf didn’t care for this height any more than the stallion did.)
At one point, she turned and gave them a glance, smirk lifting the corners of her mouth. “Nervous bunch, aren’t you?”
Yes, and you’re enjoying our discomfort, his expression said. But the words he spoke were, “How safe is this…vessel, Artifactor Warran?”
“Perfectly safe unless lightning strikes us or we’re caught up in some major storm.”
He relaxed a tad.
“Although I did crash it once,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
He froze again. Licking dry lips, he ventured, “Do I want to know how that happened?”
“Probably not.” Her smirk became an outright evil smile.
He gulped, lifted his eyes to the heavens, and crossed his fingers from mouth to heart in a quick prayer.
With his prayer winging its way to heaven, he inquired, “Do you mind if I ask some questions?”
“It’s going to be a long trip if you don’t talk.”
Encouraged, he pointed at the grandfather clock tied securely to the very back of the deck. “Why the clock?”
“It’s a magical portal.” She turned her eyes back toward the sky and the land, shooting off another stream of clouds. “It wi
ll connect back to Big. I didn’t want to pack up my research room or laboratory, but I have a feeling I’ll need access to both.”
Decker turned and gave it closer scrutiny. “The way you reacted to my description of the curse makes me think that this is more dangerous than we’d assumed.”
The humor on her face faded, mouth flattening into a grim line. “Yes. It is certainly that. Decker, I’m no historian and I don’t pretend to be, but my Master is. He told me that there’s only a handful of documented cases where large transportation spells were used. And those were from the days of great magic, not from recent times.”
“Then this curse….”
“Isn’t normal by any stretch. I also highly doubt it’s a curse. I rather think that it’s a spell, or an inscribed incantation, or even an abandoned artifact that your village has somehow activated.” She shook her head, unhappy at her own conjectures. “The power level alone necessary to transport anyone a hundred miles is mind boggling.”
“It worries you?”
“No, it scares the light right out of me,” she confessed bluntly. “Power like that can destroy a whole landscape, a nation even.”
Swallowing hard, he repeated the prayer gesture. “Which do you think it really is?”
“An artifact,” she responded instantly. “But I’m not jumping to conclusions until I get there and can properly investigate. Now, let’s put your time to proper use.” She jerked a thumb at the cabinets in the very back. “There’s quill, ink and paper in there. Draw me a map of your village, and include every detail. I want to know if there are any ruins nearby, where the underground streams are, if there are any deposits of minerals, any ancient trees, all of it.”
He obediently fetched everything, and although he didn’t have the best artistic skills, he sat on the deck and drew everything out carefully. This proved slightly tricky as the wind kept ruffling the paper, so that he had to draw with one hand and hold it down with the other.
“Mark where everyone lives, too,” she added.
As he drew, he asked, “Can you put up some sort of magic that will prevent people being taken away?”
“I have to figure out what’s causing it first. Magic doesn’t just counter magic because the castor wants it to. We have to know what’s causing something to counter it.”
He glanced up at her. “Then you have no way of knowing how long this will take to solve, either.”
“Not the slightest clue.” She shrugged, as this didn’t bother her. “But I can do some damage control when I arrive. I can put locating charms on everyone so that I can easily fetch them, and even put shield charms on them to prevent them from being hurt. If we really do have someone that dreams of being in the ocean, the shield charm will keep them from drowning until I can get to them.”
He let out a breath of relief, a taut line of tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that.”
“Oh, I might.” She gave him a quick look over her shoulder, eyes trying to see everything in an instant. “Hunters are also the protectors of a village because of their skills with weapons.”
She left unsaid, Which is why you look worn out. Truly, he was and couldn’t feign otherwise. It didn’t take a genius to guess why, either. Aside from running all around the countryside fetching friends and family home again, he’d been half-afraid to sleep himself for fear that he too would fall to the curse. After all, who guards the guardians?
Over the next day and a half, she quizzed him on anything and everything related to the village. The map that he drew for her gave her a preliminary sense of the lay of the land, as well as the village layout, but she knew she wouldn’t get a good grasp of everything until she stood looking at it with her own eyes. While she thought on things, she had him write out a rough timeline as well, listing every major event that he could think of that had happened within the past five months. Everything from births to renovations of the village to major weather storms that had passed through. Decker at first couldn’t think of much, but as his mind turned to it, things occurred to him and the timeline gradually grew from a half page to four full pages of cramped words.
Sevana glanced over both map and timeline as she navigated their way to Lockbright. Nothing leaped out at her—no odd events, major storms, or anything suspicious had happened. She could see well now why the magicians Decker had consulted with had advised hiring an Artifactor. It would take one to see past this seemingly ordinary course of events of village life.
The fact that interested her greatly was that the hunters didn’t all live outside of the village’s boundaries. She’d assumed they must, simply because they were the only ones unaffected. But two of them lived in the village itself and two of them lived well outside of it.
Curioser and curioser.
She could hardly dwell on the mystery and safely navigate at the same time. (A fact she had learned painfully well the first and only time she had crashed the skimmer.) So she set the papers aside with only an errant glance here and there until they settled on a clear patch of lawn in the palace courtyard.
The skimmer moved slow enough, and attracted enough attention, that they had a greeting party outside one of the side doors by the time they landed with a solid thump. Sevana had a bet going on with herself on who would manage to escape the confines of the skimmer first—stallion aside, Decker and Gid could easily jump the railing and abandon ship. She put her mental money down on the wolf getting out first.
They’d no sooner touched earth when Gid hopped to his feet, and with a quick lunge, cleared the railing, landing lightly on the manicured lawn. Decker looked after the wolf with longing eyes, clearly wanting to do the same thing, but he restrained himself and dutifully led his stallion clear first.
Sevana chuckled under her breath. Yes, good, she knew Decker wouldn’t abandon his poor horse on the skimmer. So now that she’d won that bet, what would she do? Hmmm, perhaps buy that rather expensive book she’d had her eye on? Yes, that sounded like a fine plan.
As she skipped off the deck, a little girl of about ten flew out of the palace, black hair trailing along in the air, arms outstretched. She didn’t look a thing like her uncle, with that slightly upturned nose and clear blue eyes, and Sevana knew very well that the pink ruffled dress she had on must have been a gift from Hana. No way a village girl could afford to wear something like that.
“Uncle Deck!”
Decker took two long strides to her, before catching her with a grunt. “Clari,” he said with a long sigh of relief.
She hugged him around the neck for a brief second before drawing back and saying with animated excitement, “Uncle Deck, I’ve had so much fun! Princess Hana and Prince Bel let me read whatever book I wanted to, and I’ve had tea parties with them, and I even danced with the king last night, and they let me play Captured Princess in the tower and sleep in a biiiig—” her arms stretched out to either side as far as she could reach “—princess bed with a canopy and everything.”
He gave her a wry smile. “Well, I’m glad you had fun, sweets. How many books did you end up reading?”
“I lost count,” she confided in a loud whisper.
Shaking her head, Sevana walked past the reunion, heading up the small staircase where Bel, Hana, Aren and Pierpoint stood waiting. Bel surprised her by walking down the three steps and meeting her partway. Then he surprised her again when he wrapped both arms around her waist and lifted her off her feet in a strong, affectionate hug.
“Sevana,” his deep voice said against her ear. “I missed you.”
Beyond flustered at this totally bizarre greeting, she put both hands against his shoulders and tried to push him away. “Bel! Sweet mercy, put me down.”
Laughing, he did just that, eyes crinkled at the corners. He’d grown another inch since she’d seen him last, and filled out a tad more, looking more adult than teenager. With enough application of some hot irons and thumb screws, she might be willing to admit aloud that she enjoyed se
eing him, too, especially so hale and hearty. But for now, she gave him a suspicious look and edged away.
Her expression didn’t deter anyone, as Hana followed her husband’s example and also swooped down the stairs and gave her a warm hug. “Despite what you might think, Sevana,” the princess pulled back enough to give her a smile, “we do miss you. We even like being around you.”
Sevana fended her off. “What is this? Some sort of hugging disease going around the capital?”
“Nothing of the sort,” King Aren assured her, stepping around his son. He extended a hand, smile warm but also wry. “Sevana.”
Grateful for a more normal greeting, she clasped his arm in turn with a firm grip. “Aren,” she said with a nod. The arm under hers was firm and steady, nothing like the shakiness or thinness he’d had after his curse broke. He didn’t look like an animated skeleton anymore either. He had flesh in his cheeks, a hint of sun on his skin, and the clothes he wore fit right instead of hanging off of him. Seeing him steadily recuperate from ten years of being a somewhat invalid relieved her.
There was a distinct silence behind her. She reclaimed her hand and turned, gesturing Decker forward. “Well come on, man, you can introduce yourself.”
Decker shot her an anxious look, head shaking minutely. He obviously did not want to speak directly with royalty if he could help it.
Bel took the option right out of his hands. He went directly to Decker and held out a hand, a disarming smile on his face as he offered, “Bellomi Dragonmanovich.”
The hunter blinked at him, caught off-guard for a long moment, but cultural reflex kicked in and he took the prince’s arm in a warrior’s clasp. “Decker of Chastain Village.”
“A pleasure, Master Decker.” Bel’s smile became particularly charming, one that Sevana knew he’d learned from Kip. “I’m sure you’ve travelled a very long way in a short amount of time, and would prefer to rest, but I do need to speak with you.”
Clari hung on to Decker’s free hand and looked up at both adults. “Bel’s been waiting to talk to you, Uncle Deck. I told him about the curse and he said he’d help us. But he said he needs to know more. I couldn’t tell him much.”
The Dreamer's Curse (Book 2) Page 2
