God of Magic 2

by Logan Jacobs

  I collapsed onto the elf’s chest, and for a moment, the only sounds in the world were our racing hearts and panting breaths.

  “Well that was certainly a great end to a long day,” I joked into the silence, and Aerin giggled as she smacked at my chest.

  Chapter 10

  We had the next morning to ourselves while the last wagons were being repaired. The water cart the bandits attacked was deemed a loss, but we were able to move around the rest of the caravan’s cargo to make space for the water barrels on a few of the other wagons, and Liam and a few other hired guards spent the morning moving them over. I’d half expected Uriel to enlist our guild’s help with that as well, but he seemed to think we deserved a rest and didn’t ask anything of us.

  Well, almost.

  The old man had woken me at dawn just as Liam and the other guards were about to set out.

  “I don’t want to ask too much of you,” he started apologetically as I followed him toward the river so we could speak without disturbing the others who were still asleep, “but you’re a mage, aren’t you?”

  I felt a prickle of nerves down my spine, but I forced myself to appear relaxed as I answered.

  “I am, why do you ask?”

  Uriel frowned and scratched at the back of his neck. I noticed there was a patch of skin there that was red and scabbed, and I wondered if he scratched the spot as a nervous habit. He’d certainly had plenty to be anxious about over the last few days, especially given his sudden promotion to captain.

  “Well, I can’t say I know much about magic, I grew up in a small town, we never had any mages, but can you do any type of water magic?” Uriel asked. “Liam told me one of the barrels was damaged in the attack. We lost some of the water, but there’s still enough that we’d want to take it. Problem is, the men risk spilling it when they’re moving the barrels. I was hoping if you could do water magic that you could help keep it contained.”

  Relief settled over me since this conversation had nothing to do with my being a manipulator. Still, I knew Uriel was only asking me because he was out of other options. All of the water mages that were part of the caravan must have been killed when the bandits attacked.

  “I can’t, I’m sorry,” I answered.

  The old man nodded in a resigned sort of way and rubbed his hand over the long stubble on his chin.

  “Well, if you can’t, you can’t,” he said. “Sorry to wake you, then, son.”

  “It’s no problem,” I replied.

  Uriel left me then to attend to some other business, but I already could tell I wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep again, so I didn’t bother to try. Instead, I got some of my books from my pack and settled down by the water to read.

  The contrast between that moment and the past few days was stark. The sun had only just begun to creep over the horizon, and a few lingering stars were still visible in the soft periwinkle sky above. The trickle of the river next to me was calming, and the air was cool and fresh. As I sat there with my books unopened on my knees, a small yellow bird dropped down from the trees overhead to land on a rock. It regarded me for a moment before it warbled out a short tune and took flight again. As it flew off, I heard other birds answer its call, and for a few moments, I just closed my eyes and soaked it all in. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so at peace, and I wanted to enjoy it. After all, we still had a rogue mage to hunt down in the mountains and an enchanted medallion to recover, so it could be awhile before I got another moment like this.

  A few minutes later, one of the merchants from the caravan passed by with a basket of bread, and I smiled and waved good morning when she looked my way. To my surprise, she then came over and handed me one of the rolls from her basket. I knew it couldn’t have been freshly baked, but perhaps there was some sort of enchantment that preserved it because I would have sworn it still felt warm from the ovens, and the delicate crust was golden-brown and perfectly flaky.

  “Just making sure everyone’s fed,” the merchant said quietly. “We’ve got to stick together out here.”

  “Thank you,” I said with a nod, and the woman smiled again before she turned and made her way over to a group of ladonae merchants.

  I opened up one of the field guides I had and flipped through it while I ate. I might have preferred to study from a spellbook, but given that all the spellbooks that would help me were illegal, I figured it would be safer not to pull them out in public. There would be time for them later when we’d left the caravan behind.

  The bread tasted fresh as well, and I discovered it had been baked with a piece of sweet cheese and some sort of tart fruit jam in the center. It was wonderful, and I savored every bite.

  The book was less exciting but still useful. I found notes for a few of the desert plants and animals we’d already seen and added in annotations of my own, such as Uriel’s advice to use a comb to remove the hellhound cactus. Then I flipped to a section that described the sort of flora and fauna we could find in the mountains.

  The gryphons, in particular, drew my interest, and the author of this field guide had dedicated several pages to them. I learned they lived and hunted in flocks, and there were usually anywhere from five to a dozen gryphons in a flock. That, the author explained, was the real issue one faced when it came to defending oneself from the creatures. Not only could an adult grow to well over five hundred pounds and was armed with razor-sharp talons and a beak that could crush bone, but it was all too easy for the flock to surround their prey from every angle and make self-defense, much less escape, completely impossible.

  According to the guide, they were omnivorous and would scavenge when they could rather than hunt, but they were also highly territorial and would attack anyone and anything they deemed an intruder.

  There were drawings as well, and the gryphons in the book were somewhat different than I had imagined they would be. I’d pictured the sort of gryphons from fairy tales, the head of an eagle on the body of a lion, but the gryphons of this world were notably more diverse. There were different breeds, it seemed, for one thing. Those that lived in the mountains had bodies that resembled snow leopards, large white wings, and the flat faces and amber-colored eyes of snowy owls, while a savannah-dwelling breed appeared to be one part cheetah, one part falcon.

  I flipped through the guide to see if the author included any tips on how to actually fight the creatures, if it should come to that, but the author simply insisted avoiding gryphons at all costs. I sighed and flipped over to another section about phoenixes, and I wondered if something less scientific might have been more useful in our present circumstances. People must have fought off gryphons before, especially the people who lived in the mountains. Someone had to have some advice on the matter.

  After that, my interest waned enough that I was mostly just thumbing through the pages to look at all the illustrations by the time Lena found me. It was still early, and the alchemist had clearly just woken up. Her honey-colored curls were coming loose from her braid, and the pink shawl she wrapped around her shoulders as protection against the morning chill was rumpled where she’d slept on it. Even so, she looked wonderful. She had such a relaxed, natural sort of beauty, I thought, she probably would have looked lovely in a burlap sack.

  She smiled and sat down next to me with her legs folded beneath her, and I saw she carried one of the rolls that the merchant woman passed around earlier. She clutched it close to her stomach, and her nails broke through the thin crust. It was only then I noticed the rigidity in her posture and sensed the waves of nervousness radiating from her.

  “You okay?” I asked with a frown as I closed my book.

  As soon as I’d asked, it seemed like a somewhat silly question. She had nearly been strangled to death the previous day, and that wasn’t even to mention the fights with the halflings, dragon, and bandits who had plagued us since we’d started out. I had known, as Lavinia, Aerin, and Maruk did, just how dangerous this journey could be, but even if Lena had read about the threa
ts, that didn’t prepare a person the same way as having lived through that sort of danger did.

  I wondered if Lena had come to tell me she regretted coming along with us now, or if she’d want to turn back and not go to the Canterrose Mountains after all.

  “I wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday,” the elf woman said hesitantly. She looked down at the roll in her hands as she spoke, her brow furrowed.

  “Go for it,” I replied when she said nothing else for a few beats.

  “I wanted to thank you again for saving me.” She looked up then, suddenly, and there was a strange sort of urgency in her violet eyes. “That was really brave. No one’s ever done anything like that for me before and I--” She broke off and bit her lip as she studied the bread again. “I just wanted to thank you again, and I’m sorry if kissing you was weird.”

  “Lena,” I said gently as I reached out and took the woman’s hand, “don’t worry. It wasn’t weird. Actually, I enjoyed it.”

  Lena looked up, startled, but then her fingers wrapped around mine and she smiled. “Really?”

  “Really.” I smiled back. “And if you’d ever want to do it again sometime, I’d be open to that.”

  Lena blushed slightly, but right then, a streak of black tore across the ground toward us, and before the woman could react, Merlin had snatched the roll from her hand and darted up the nearest palm with the bread in his mouth.

  Lena gasped and stared at the puca in shock, and Merlin blinked once before he promptly shoved the entire roll into his mouth and swallowed it in one bite.

  “I’m sorry, I should have warned you, he’s a thief,” I said quickly. I threw a stern look at the puca, but Lena just laughed.

  “It’s alright,” she said. “I wasn’t hungry anyway.” She held out her hand, palm up, to coax Merlin back, and after a wary glance at me to ensure he wasn’t about to be punished for his crime, Merlin crept down from the tree and sniffed at Lena’s fingers. He even allowed her to pet him, and he purred convincingly when she scratched him beneath his furry chin.

  “You’re a little troublemaker, aren’t you?” the elf cooed, and I could see some of her usual cheer had returned. Merlin yawned in response. “He’s a really good shapeshifter,” Lena said then with a glance to me. “He gets everything right except the eyes.”

  Merlin’s tail swished back and forth, and then he let out a small, rumbling growl, but evidently, he wasn’t annoyed enough by Lena’s comment to have her stop petting him because he didn’t move as she began to stroke the fur along his back.

  “Where did you find him?” Lena asked.

  “In the Diru Wilds,” I replied. “He sort of found us.”

  “I’ve never met a puca who was so friendly,” Lena commented. “He must really trust you to behave like this. It makes me glad I decided to trust you, too.”

  “Have you met a lot of pucas?” I asked.

  “They’re popular as exotic pets where I’m from,” Lena answered, and then her voice took on a sad note. “But they’re so smart, they don’t take to it well. All the others I’ve seen were little terrors. Their owners would get so frustrated they’d either release them again or lock them up in enchanted cages so they couldn’t shapeshift, and the pucas would have to live the rest of their lives in confinement. They’re not meant for that, they should be free, like this one. He’s your friend, not your pet.”

  I supposed that was true, and I reached forward to give Merlin a scratch behind the ears.

  “You seem to know a lot about animals,” I told Lena. “And plants, and, well, a lot of things. Are all alchemists so knowledgeable?”

  “Oh, I don’t know about all that,” Lena said modestly, and she blushed slightly and twirled a strand of hair around her finger as she spoke. “I always wanted to travel, but I couldn’t afford to for so long. Reading about all the places I wanted to visit was sort of the next best thing.” The corner of her mouth twitched up. “I used to daydream about the adventures I would have and the potions and things I could make, like--” She broke off abruptly and shook her head. “Never mind, you would think it was silly.”

  “What?” I pressed.

  “Well,” the alchemist said, “I had this idea for an elixir that could make someone invulnerable to any disease among elves and humans. I wanted to get a patent for it, but the people at the office wouldn’t take me seriously.”

  “That sounds useful,” I replied. “Why didn’t they take you seriously?”

  “It worked by turning the drinker into a cow,” Lena explained. “Cows don’t get the same diseases as elves and humans.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, and Lena put her head in her hands.

  “I knew you’d think it was silly!” she groaned. “People always do.”

  “Your goal was good,” I said sincerely. “I think the problem is just that, uh, most people probably wouldn’t want to spend the rest of their lives as cows, you know?”

  “I guess so.” Lena nodded sadly.

  “You said you wanted to get a patent,” I ventured. “Does that mean you got it to work?”

  “Oh, yes, it worked perfectly,” Lena replied solemnly. “My old friend Ferdinand tested it. He moved to a farm in the country after, he’s been very happy. Well, I think he’s happy. He can’t talk now, of course, but he seems happy for a bull.”

  “That’s an incredible accomplishment, Lena,” I told her, amazed. “I mean, you successfully created a polymorphic potion. If you could develop it so it wasn’t just for turning people into cows, and make it so the effects were temporary or could be reversed later, I think there would be a big market for something like that.”

  Lena looked surprised for a moment, but then she blushed and smiled through her hands.

  “I guess I didn’t really think of it like that,” she said quietly.

  Just then Lavinia approached with Aerin and Maruk in tow. It was still quite early in the morning for the latter pair, and both wore peeved expressions as they shuffled behind the ranger with their blankets wrapped around their shoulders.

  “They’re back with the water,” Lavinia reported. “We’re about to head out, the old guy wants us to guard one of the wagons.”

  I stood and helped Lena to her feet, and then we followed Lavinia over to the water cart Uriel had assigned to us to guard. Four of the original eight barrels were there, and a little ways off I could see the second cart and the last three barrels. Liam and a few other guards stood around it, their faces squinted up in the early morning sunlight. I realized Uriel entrusted us with more of the water, and I wondered if that was because the other caravan guards would have to look out for the merchants’ wagons as well, or if the old man simply believed we could do a better job.

  Around us, the rest of the company was packing up again from their short respite at the oasis. The camp had been busy while we were away getting the bark and sap. Since a few of the wagons were too damaged even to try to repair, the contents of the rest of the wagons had to be shuffled around to make room for the remaining cargo. I could tell by the surly looks and grumbles that were passed around the camp even now that most of the merchants weren’t too pleased, and I didn’t envy Uriel the responsibility of dealing with them.

  Within an hour, the caravan was finally ready to hit the trail again. There weren’t enough horses for any of us to ride one, but the caravan would move slowly enough that we’d be able to take turns walking alongside the wagons and driving the cart. By the time we’d moved our belongings over from Clay’s wagon to the water cart, it was time to set off, and I couldn’t help but feel a little wistful as we left the oasis behind and continued our journey to the Canterrose Mountains.

  Chapter 11

  Traveling with the water cart, even when it was my turn to walk, turned out to be leagues better than bumping along in Clay’s wagon surrounded by the sulfur-belching, fire-breathing toads. Of course, I appreciated that the dwarf had let us join him originally, but the fresh air and occasional exercise were s
till better. I’d even begun to get used to the heat, at least somewhat. More than anything, though, it felt good to be on the road again. With all the chaos of the last few days, I’d almost forgotten why we were on this mission at all, but as the mountains rose up in the distance, their peaks stretched along the eastern horizon like the knotted spine of some enormous creature, I began to think more and more about what lay ahead for us.

  We were going off the Stewards’ information regarding the location of the medallion we searched for. It was the only lead we had, but Aerin was confident that the rival guild would have been able to buy good intel, especially for a bounty like this. It was a private bounty, for one thing, and those almost always had better rewards than public bounties. What was more, if we were successful in retrieving it, we would prove to other potential patrons we could be trusted as a guild and would likely get more offers to collect other private bounties.

  I knew the Stewards had held on to this bounty for a few months before we’d won it from them, but I didn’t know to what lengths they’d gone to retrieve it, only that they’d been unsuccessful so far. Had they come out into the desert like us? If so, what made them turn back?

  I supposed I was frowning at my feet while I considered that because Aerin leaned in and bumped me on the shoulder. She gave me a little smile and raised her eyebrows in question when I turned to her, drawn out of my thoughts.

  “You doing alright, Gabriel?” the healer asked. “You look like you’re trying to turn the sand into glass.”

  “What?” I asked. “Turn the sand into glass?”

  “You know, burn it with your eyes,” Aerin replied. “You look really focused and intense. I mean, it’s a good look on you, don’t get me wrong.”

  “Can people actually do that?” I was still learning about the magic of this realm, but laser vision still seemed a bit out there, even for this place.

  Aerin shrugged. “I heard there was a fire mage who could set things on fire just by looking at them, but that might have been a rumor. You didn’t answer my question, by the way. Are you okay?”