by Sever Bronny
“I told you, no, Jengo—”
“But if you’ll just let me—”
“I said, NO!”
“Of course, my apologies,” he mumbled. “Uh, why don’t I leave you to it then.” Jengo quietly excused himself from the room, which Augum finally recognized as Mr. Okeke’s. It had a nice spruce truss above that reminded him of Sir Westwood’s thatched house.
Leera rubbed her face. “I’ve been short lately. Patience ain’t exactly my strength as you know.” She lifted a bowl of potato and leek soup and dipped a spoon in. Despite the many pains, the smell made Augum realize just how hungry he was. He couldn’t even recall the last time he ate.
Leera gave the first spoonful to Bridget, then had to wipe her mouth. She sighed and brought Bridget to sit in her lap. “Poor girl, what are we going to do with you?” She fed her another spoonful of soup. Bridget made a yucky face.
Leera brushed hair aside from Bridget’s cheeks. “You have to, I know you’re hungry.”
Bridget shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”
Leera sighed again. “Fine, let’s feed Augum.” She gave him a wry grin. “Like two babies over here.”
He tried to smile but it hurt too much.
“We’re all hoping Mrs. Stone comes back soon.” Leera held onto Bridget while carefully pouring a spoonful into his parched mouth. It tasted divine. “Maybe she can heal you. It has to happen soon though, before the damage sets, or whatever. You remember Haylee …”
Augum thought of Haylee and how she still limped even after receiving arcane healing. It was an imperfect art. He wondered if he would have to resort to flying around in a chair like Lien Ning.
“I tuned to the Exot Orb,” Leera continued, feeding him another spoonful. “I’ve been in touch with Caireen in Antioc. City’s a mess. Even the constabulary went up in flames.” She froze thoughtfully, spoon hanging in mid-air, while Bridget squirmed in her grip. “I can’t believe we survived,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Your father … I saw him. He arrived the moment I shoved us into that portal. It was a giant roaring blast.” She chuckled nervously. “Pretty sure the tunnel came down behind us.”
Augum moaned—all he wanted was that spoonful. He hated being immobile and useless. He hated the pain, the discomfort.
“Right, sorry.” Leera fed it to him. Then she went on to tell him how everyone was doing. Malaika and Charissa still had not returned. Mr. and Mrs. Haroun were worried sick of course, the latter irate. Mrs. Haroun had even accused Leera of withholding information, and had to be led away sobbing by Mr. Haroun. Leland was with the Agonex all the time now, and he was acting strangely, though Leera didn’t clarify, and Augum couldn’t exactly follow up with questions. Haylee and Chaska were doing all right, though they still argued now and then. Apparently Chaska was taking his town watch thing very seriously, patrolling every moment of his spare time. Devon was with him every step of the way. He and his father were also busy making evacuation plans in case the Legion arrived, though she thought that was a waste of energy, as the kind of warlocks they’d face would quickly overcome any local resistance. And of course, everyone was dreadfully worried about him and Bridget, and hoped Mrs. Stone would return soon.
After feeding him, Leera put the bowl away and had Bridget lie on the floor, telling her, “Go to sleep, okay? Bridget? Go to sleep.” She made a head-on-pillow gesture. “You know—sleep,” and soon Bridget was snoozing peacefully.
Leera appeared by his side again, face troubled. “I miss holding you,” she whispered, stroking his neck.
I miss you too, he wanted to say.
She sighed and curled up beside him on the bed, still stroking his neck, and soon both of them fell asleep again.
The Abyss
Augum was startled awake, thinking he had heard a familiar reverse-sucking sound—that of someone teleporting. The Legion were here! Someone do something! But he couldn’t move or make a sound. He was deteriorating, he could sense it. His body felt hot and shaky. A flu was coming on, a strong one.
The candles had all gone out during the night. The room was as dark as the window. Rain pelted the glass. It plonked against the roof. Wind whistled through the cracks in the beams. Outside, trees swayed and rustled. Leera snoozed away peacefully by his side, nuzzled into his flank and covered by a blanket, while Bridget’s slow breathing could be heard nearby.
The floorboards creaked.
That wasn’t the Legion! Mrs. Stone had come! Finally! Now all that had to—
But it was Jengo’s face that appeared silhouetted in the starlight. A finger was over his mouth in a Shhh gesture. He gave a furtive glance at Leera before whispering, “Will you let me try healing you?”
Augum’s hopes crashed like waves against a rocky shore. Where was she? Why hadn’t she come yet?
Jengo nodded, imploring Augum to trust him with those caring eyes of his. At last, Augum blinked once, fearing a moan would wake Leera. He hoped Jengo knew what he was doing.
Jengo placed a gentle hand on Augum’s jaw, making him wince. He closed his eyes in concentration, then began mumbling an arcane phrase. A soft light shone from his palm and Augum felt a warmth slowly spread from his jaw through his face.
It was working! He could feel that wonderful buzzing, akin to a thousand ants working away, on his jaw and face, and then his chest and back. Jengo’s brow began to sweat and he winced, abruptly stopping the spell. He collapsed immediately with a painful moan. In the same moment, Leera jolted awake.
“What are you—” She paused when she saw Jengo, and immediately launched a verbal barrage. “How dare you, I told you not to—”
“Stop,” Augum said, placing a weak hand on her arm as Jengo writhed on the floor, clutching his head. He could talk! It was a miracle! And his arm moved!
She gasped. “Aug—” and threw her arms around him, drawing him close.
“Careful, legs are still broken,” Jengo said. His nose was bleeding.
She withdrew, sniffing. “Jengo …”
“Thank you, Jengo,” Augum said, seeing she was speechless. “But are you all right?”
Jengo sat up to lean his tall frame against the wall, hands still clutching his head. “Is it supposed to hurt like this?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“At the beginning, yeah,” Augum replied, enjoying holding Leera, something he feared he would never be able to do again. “And especially when you push yourself. You cast wild, didn’t you?”
“I … maybe I did, I don’t know. Hard to tell.”
“You need a mentor.”
“We all do,” Leera whispered, face pressed into Augum’s neck.
Augum gently felt his arms and neck and jaw, impressed with how well Jengo had done. A serious stiffness remained in his left arm, but still … multiple breaks arcanely healed with one casting. Not bad at all. There was no doubt that was advanced healing for someone who hadn’t even achieved their 1st degree. It seems Jengo had been training and studying diligently. Augum was looking forward to giving him one of the Exot rings, but that would have to wait until he achieved his 2nd degree.
Jengo moaned as he dabbed at his bloody nose with a cloth. “Been secretly practicing on local volunteers. But the book doesn’t quite prepare you for the real thing when you cast wild. I have a theory too. I think apprentices learn better when they’re self-motivated. As much as I wanted to go to an academy, I don’t think I would have come this far in so short a time there.”
“How far ahead did you study?” Augum asked. Jengo’s words were familiar. Nana had said something akin to it, something about them learning in the field, which advances arcanery faster. It was the ancient way of learning.
“Just kept reading and reading, oh and practicing everything I learned from you lot.” Jengo sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, making a hissing noise. “Feels like someone’s smashing my brains in with a hammer. Am I going to—”
“—no, you’re not going to die,” Augum replied with a smile. “Just don’t push
yourself so hard next—” He winced from the sudden and powerful flash of an eternal black void that momentarily blackened his vision and took his soul to a very cold place. He shivered violently for a few heartbeats.
Leera watched him with deep concern. “Aug?”
“It’s nothing.” Nothing except something fundamentally wrong in his very being. And the chill had returned. He was coming down with something very strong.
Jengo looked up from his seated position, ebony face framed in dim starlight. “I need your permission. You have to let me keep working on you. Especially your legs.”
“You have it. Thank—” but a gut-wrenching wave of cold nausea made Augum shiver violently again, forcing him to fumble for the blanket.
“Oh, Aug, you don’t look too good,” Leera whispered, stroking his head.
Jengo gave a firm nod. “I promise I’ll do better. I will work harder at healing than I have ever worked before. I mean, I know I originally thought you might die a screaming death in the process, but I really believed—”
“Jengo—” Leera said with an imploring look. “He’s not feeling too well.”
“Right, uh, why don’t I let you all get some sleep.” He stood with a groan, a hand still pressed to his temple, muttering, “I’m certainly going to need it.”
After Jengo stumbled out, Leera pressed the back of her hand to Augum’s forehead. “You’re burning up,” she whispered, drawing blankets over him. There was fear in her eyes. “Go to sleep, it looks like you’ve got another fight ahead.”
* * *
Augum’s fever worsened over the next several days. Jengo kept healing his body—and doing a great job of it too—but he could do nothing against the fever’s potency. People came and went, some administering medicine, some to pay their respects to “the hero of heroes”, as someone put it, which meant nothing to Augum. In fact, he repeatedly cut people off if they even hinted at anything so absurd as that. Others just stopped by to quietly say hello and wish him well.
But Augum slipped further and further away, soon thinking he was dreaming each visit. Faces blurred, voices echoed. After a while, he could no longer tell what was real and what was delusion.
And the eternal and shivering darkness returned more and more, until he felt like he was living in it half the time. It was a dreary and lonely place of vast nothingness, a place where he always thought there was something deep underneath him, as if he was swimming on the surface of an infinitely black ocean, awaiting a monster to swim up and snatch him. The darkness frightened him. He was a child in a living nightmare.
“It’s arcane fever,” he heard someone whisper at one point, the voice bouncing in his brain. “He overdrew.” But when he looked over, there was nobody there.
“I couldn’t fully heal hisc left arm that well,” he heard someone else say another time. “Too many fractures. I’m sorry. But … but his legs seem to work fine, as evidenced by his frantic kicking …”
“Hi,” another person kept saying again and again. Some girl with a simple look on her face. He vaguely recognized her, but his thoughts had become so jumbled, so distant, that nothing quite made sense.
He had lengthy conversations with faceless people, only to blink and realize he had been talking to a fluttering candle. He caught himself mumbling often, until he was too tired to speak. The void enveloped him in cold waves. Tendril whispers tortured his existence. They spoke of the peace of death, of letting go. Light, when it came from that other world, a world of warmth and tenderness, was a blessing. Light was life, darkness death.
Sad faces came and went. Voices echoed on and on, getting quieter and quieter, further and further away. The sun dreamily rose and set in the window; the stars left streaks across the sky. Rain, fog, wind. Sometimes a girl held him close. Sometimes she quietly cried. Sometimes she was gone. Shapes blurred. His body trembled constantly, or sweat, or went numb. Eventually he lost track of time, of night and day, of people. He didn’t remember eating. Existence became a quagmire of impressions. He felt himself growing thinner and weaker and ever more distant …
And then he slipped into the abyss, perpetually haunted by those tendril whispers. Like a shivering child clutching a blanket, he tried to hold on to them, for those whispers were all that remained of existence. Beyond was the silent unknown. The eternal cold. The great beyond, ever calling, ever waiting …
An arc of time passed, an abstract flow like that of molasses, yet he stubbornly hung on to a hairsbreadth of conscience. Somehow, he hung on.
Then, all of a sudden, he saw a glimmer of light in the far distance. It was but a pinprick. He was shivering violently, barely hanging on.
The time to choose had come.
But was it too late? There was a noise that he could hear—a wind—and behind that wind was chanting. There was a struggle. Something beastly roared. A battle was taking place … a battle for Augum’s soul. He was vaguely aware of it, but also knew he had a choice. Was he that tired of shivering that he’d willingly step beyond the abyss, to the silent unknown? Or did he want to experience again? Breathe and live and laugh and love?
The more he thought about it, the more came back to him. Memories. Voices. Faces. One face in particular called to him stronger than the others. Sharp brows. Raven hair. Freckles. Beauty.
The moment he remembered her name, he made his choice, and just like that, the sound grew to a full windy roar before abruptly disappearing.
He opened his eyes to see Leera directly over him, looking into his face—and smiling. She drew him close in a gentle embrace, weeping softly. And suddenly many others were hugging him and congratulating him for beating the arcane fever. They were so happy—unnecessarily so, in his opinion—that they heaved him onto their shoulders. He almost cracked his head on the spruce beam. What if it had knocked him unconscious? The thought made him roar with laughter. He briefly caught sight of a smoking mortar and pestle before they carried him out into the Okeke living room on their shoulders, singing Champions of the Robe, an old tune from the gladiatorial warlock days. Someone even pressed the pouch of coins he had won into his hands.
Almost everyone he knew in Milham was there—Mr. Goss and a happily moaning Leland, who of course held onto the Agonex; a clapping and smiling Constable Clouds and his son, Devon, who was one of the people helping Augum remain aloft; the constable’s guards—the red-haired Lieutenant Briggs and his blonde stoic companion, Sergeant Cobb; Panjita Singh was there, grumbling to her daughter Priya about the noise; Haylee and a fit Chaska, smiling and dancing together; Mr. Haroun and Malaika and Charissa, singing and clapping along; even the beetle-like Prudence Klines, which was a pleasant surprise!
“… and guess who brought you back,” Bridget finished saying as the crowd put him down on his feet. She took one of his arms to keep him steady lest his weak body collapse. But Augum could scarcely talk, so shocked was he that Bridget was her old self again, and looking so well-rested! And her hair was back to its cinnamon glory.
“Well guess!” Leera said, taking his other arm around her neck. She looked marvelous, face glowing, with her raven hair returned to its original state and as shiny as it had ever been.
Mouth hanging open, Augum confusingly glanced around at the jubilant faces, many wet with tears of joy; at the celebratory mead in their hands; at their expectation of him to put it all together.
“He’s still in a bit of confusion,” Mr. Goss said, taking a step closer. “You’re very weak from the ordeal. Take your time.”
“All right, enough games,” Mr. Okeke said with a smile, “let him see for himself.”
The crowd parted so he could see a small and withered figure in a chair.
What was Senior Arcaneologist Lien Ning doing there—!
Then Augum felt his face go slack as it dawned on him who it was. “Nana,” he blurted, stumbling as he tried to walk.
“Easy there, warrior,” Leera whispered, holding onto him tightly. “You haven’t got out of bed in over a tenday.”
Leera nodded as if reading his thoughts. She gently wiped his tears with her hands before kissing his cheek, whispering, “Go say hi to your great-grandmother,” and the crowd went Aww. “Shut up,” she muttered with a smiling but suddenly crimson face, helping him walk and adding, “Weak as a kitten …”
Mrs. Stone wore a white robe that flashed silver bolts of lightning, similar to the one she had worn when Augum first laid eyes on her. But other than that, she was barely recognizable. Her hands were curled inward and she looked no larger than a child. Her face was as wrinkled and shriveled as an old apple. Gone was the long silver braid—all that remained was a wispy scalp. The crowd went silent as she glanced up at him with a perpetually shaking head. Those eyes, once as clear and blue as the sky, distant and foggy as a rain cloud.
“Come close, my dear child,” she croaked in a bare whisper. “I can hardly see you.”
The girls brought him nearer, setting him down on a chair.
“My vision is not as it once was,” Mrs. Stone said, staff clutched between her body and one arm. She squinted at him. “Ah, Augum … how good it is to see you, my foolishly brave great-grandson. You have grown since last we saw each other.”
The crowd chuckled.
“Mrs. Stone cast Abbagarro on you,” Bridget explained in a soft voice. “Remember that vortex spell Mr. Ordrid cast on her when she had arcane sickness?”
Augum nodded, still trying to wrap his head around all this. He had survived the abyss, but only barely. And Nana was back! She was back and unafraid and not running for her life!
“She also healed the rest of you,” Bridget added. “But your arm was too far gone.”
