by Chris Africa
Xander stirred and Jam helped him sit up. Xander raised his hand toward them and whispered something, and Chassy suddenly could not move anything but his head.
"What are you doing? We helped you!" Chassy said.
"I'm sorry if this seems ungrateful," he said, "but before I can trust you, I need to know why you are here and what you were doing chasing after this scoundrel."
"We were sent here by a wizard named Vornole," Nita said.
"Nita—" Andrev growled.
"Oh, be quiet, Andrev. We're in his house without permission and his servants have just been killed," Nita said. "Vornole is one of the Wizards of Xillith. This elf, Lyear, stole an amulet from him. Vornole asked us to follow Lyear and make sure the amulet was returned to the safely to the Wizards of Xillith. As you can see, Lyear didn't agree with that idea."
"But the amulet turns out to be missing," Chassy added. "I searched him and did not find it."
Xander gave Jam a stern look. "Jam?"
"What?" She looked innocent enough to Chassy, but wilted under Xander’s stare and pulled something from her pocket. "Fine, here it is. But it’s no good to him now. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have it."
Jam suddenly produced a large glowing object on a heavy chain, and Chassy gasped. The oval amulet was nearly as large as his palm, formed of a golden base with layers of some translucent stone that shone without any visible light source. The Mother Tree was carved into the stone. It looked almost… alive. As if to mock them, Xander took his time reaching out and taking amulet, dangling it in the air a few moments.
"When did she get it?" Chassy asked in amazement. "She didn’t go anywhere near the elf."
"Jam’s a small person, low to the ground." Xander’s frown looked forced. "Back in our adventuring days, I learned how good she is at lifting baubles without attracting any attention."
Chassy thought of the green head on the wall in Xander’s study, and the ruby that hung there. What kind of adventuring days had they had, anyway? He would have to ask, if they were ever on friendly terms.
"I'm going to have to ask you to give that back," Chassy said. "Our friend sent us to retrieve it for him."
"Why didn't this wizard fellow just retrieve the amulet himself?" Xander wondered. "Seems a little odd that he sent three children to do this job."
"Oh, he died," Nita said a little sadly.
Xander leaned forward a little, his eyes interested. "Are you deathsworn, then?"
Chassy hadn't heard the word before, but it sounded right. "I suppose we are. You can't keep that amulet. We're supposed to save our village from being destroyed, and it's all tied together somehow. It has to get into the right hands."
"What is your village?"
Chassy hesitated.
"I'll make this easier for you. I'm not even going to release any of you until I know the whole story. I still don't trust you or your mission." Xander crossed his arms.
Chassy glanced at Nita and Andrev, who nodded. The story spilled out of them. While they talked, Jam produced a small loaf of bread from somewhere and started munching it. When they were finished, Xander shook his head grimly.
"This is the Amulet of Hope, one piece of the Aegis of the Gods. Its magical properties are beyond my own knowledge, but it is undoubtedly a powerful artifact." The amulet disappeared into Xander’s robes. "I believe I shall study it thoroughly before sending it on to the council."
"Maybe you shouldn’t give it to the council," Jam suggested. "The spy hasn’t been found yet. If it fell into the wrong hands—"
"Listen," Andrev interrupted. "We traveled a long way to get this amulet here safely. We don’t know you any more than we knew Lyear. Why should you keep it at all? How do we know you didn’t kill this guy Zingimir and steal his house just so you could get it?"
At his words, Jam froze with a hunk of bread in her hand, staring open-mouthed at Andrev. She looked back and forth between Andrev and Xander.
"Are you calling me a thief?" Xander asked. His voice held a latent danger that Chassy did not wish to trigger.
"You and your little Halfling accomplice just took charge of an amulet which we were sworn to deliver to someone else, and you didn’t so much as ask our permission," Andrev said. "What is that if it’s not theft?"
Xander rose from his chair, his face reddening. "I’m no thief."
"No, he’s absolutely not calling you a thief. He apologizes." Chassy said. "He is just trying to make the point that we don’t know if we can trust you. It looks like our whole summer has been a waste of time. Either we followed a criminal here or we met a criminal here. We have no way of knowing which it is."
The red left Xander’s face, but he did not sit down. "It wasn’t a waste of time, I guarantee. Zingimir is a faithful disciple of the Wizards of the True Faith, and he is currently being tried by the Council at Xillith—the wizards’ council—for stealing artifacts. No one knows where he’s been selling them, but he had amassed quite a small fortune. And someone is collecting these powerful magical items, for what use we don’t know. If you care about the free world, you should be glad he's under lock and key."
Xander waved his hand, and Chassy could move again. He nodded slowly. Xander's words had the ring of truth, though nothing could be absolutely certain.
"And what will the three of you do now that your duties are finished?" Xander asked.
"Go home, of course!" Chassy looked at Nita, but she was staring at her hand. He felt badly for her and wondered what the folks back home would think. It wouldn’t matter, though, would it? They were her family and friends. They would accept her for who she had become.
Xander laughed. "You won’t be going back to Waet Tree Village just yet, boy."
"Why not?" Chassy asked.
"Because that’s a summer-long journey, and you don’t have enough summer left to do it."
35: Winter Plans
"I'm not going back," Andrev told them later when they were alone in the garden behind the house. "Xander said I could stay and use the library over the winter."
Live in the library is more like it, Nita thought. She could picture her brother in that big room, surrounded by walls of books, sleeping little and eating less as he absorbed all the words he could stuff into his head.
"And then what? Are you planning just to live here for the rest of your life?" Chassy asked.
Andrev stared south. "In the spring, I might head for Xillith."
"The wizards' colony?" Nita was shocked. He was going to leave them? "What are you going to do at a wizards' colony?"
"Xander said they take apprentices. I'm hoping that's where I'll find this power that I am supposed to have."
Nita supposed wizards meant books, and that would probably suit Andrev just fine, even if he never found any power.
"Well, you can't go by yourself," Nita argued. "Look what happened in just the short time the three of us were together. Plus, I don't think the prophecies are complete yet. I think we still have something to do."
Andrev shook his head. "I still think that Nydwon was a fake."
"Then why go to Xillith to explore your 'power?'" Nita challenged.
Andrev glared at her. "So only you and Chassy are special enough to learn to use magic, is that it?"
Nita was momentarily speechless. "That's not what I meant," she said quietly.
"Look Nita, even if the prophecies are real, we don't know when they'll come to pass," Chassy said. "I think we need to just get on with our lives, Andrev to Xillith and us back to the village. Nita, you and I can start back tonight. Maybe we can find a safer—"
"I'm not going back," Nita interrupted. "Not anytime soon, anyway."
"What? Why not?"
"Because I can see now that running an inn is not what I'm meant to do. Think of the people I could help with my abilities!" She was thinking, in particular, of the poor people she'd seen walking into slavery inside the walls of Sunoa. "Besides, William is obviously in serious danger if one of the gods is hiding his
location from another. We can’t just leave him alone, after all he’s done for us. We have to go back and search for him."
"His own men will be looking for him, and they’re a lot better equipped to handle search-and-rescue than we are. Besides, if the gods are involved in this, what are we going to do about it?" Chassy said.
"I brought some butter cakes to eat with your tea." Jam walked into the garden carrying a tray as wide as she was tall, stacked with finger cakes. She placed it on the table in front of them. One thing was for sure here—they would all grow fat if they stayed the winter with Jam. "What’s this I hear about leaving?"
"We’ve been gone all summer," Chassy said, taking a cake from the tray. "We were just talking about what to do next, and I was thinking our families might need us."
"Oh, trust me, your families are just fine without you by now. I wasn’t even gone a full summer before mine—well, the people who adopted me—had my room made over for some visiting relatives." Jam took a seat and helped herself to two cakes at once.
"Well, they’re probably worried to death," Chassy said.
"That might be true," Jam said. "But we could send a messenger pigeon to let them know you're okay." She seemed embarrassed to find more cakes in her hand and hastily put them back on the tray. "If you started back this time of year, you wouldn’t find many merchants going that direction. You’d be sort of on your own."
"But we could make it back as far as Two Currents," Nita insisted. "Right?"
Jam shook her head. "By the time you got to Two Currents, there would be snow on the ground. You’d have to stay there for the winter. Trust me, you’d rather be here. I was stuck in that town for a full year one time, and it was not fun."
"What’s so great about Death's End?"
"Why, the food, of course! The company! Two Currents is so small you’d get sick of seeing the same old faces all the time. And half the people are crazy."
Chassy recalled Mad Deek and the woman visiting the healer with her pigs. It was easy to see what she meant. "Okay, so what do you suggest?"
Jam shoved another cake in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. "Stay here with us, like Andrev," she said. "Xander has the most interesting guests, and he knows a lot of people. He might be able to learn something about your missing friend without you putting yourselves in any more danger."
"I guess it wouldn’t be so bad staying here if we could send letters home and Xander would help search for William," Nita agreed.
"And, of course, I’ll feed you," Jam added. She looked at the tray as if suddenly noticing it. "My cooking isn’t half bad, if I do say."
"What do you say, Chassy?" Andrev asked.
Chassy felt his head nodding, even though his heart wasn’t sure.
Well, they’d come this far together. What were a few more months out of a lifetime? At least they could be home in time for the next harvest. He’d make it up to his dad, and his life could get back to normal again. He wasn’t certain he remembered normal, or that he’d recognize it if he saw it again—but if it was going to happen, it would be in Waet Tree Village.
Epilogue
No fewer than five guards surrounded the girl, blocking her exit, all of them head-and-shoulders taller than her. She should feel flattered that they had shown up in such force, except that three of them were clearly watching the crowds for reactions and one looked so bored he might actually fall asleep. She wasn't worried about any of them. But the fifth one had a wicked red beard, black teeth, and a mean twist to his mouth that spelled trouble.
Allowing a little genuine fear to creep into her expression, the girl backed slowly away, as though preparing to run. When her right foot hit the log that she knew was there, she stepped up on it and lifted her other leg, flailing her arms and rolling the log in a great show of instability. The bell on the end of her long stocking cap tinkled as it flopped back and forth.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the previously uninterested townspeople forming into an audience. After a few seconds of near disaster, she turned to leap off—and fell flat on her face, on top of a steaming pile of horse dung.
The audience laughed uproariously and clapped. Redbeard yanked her up by one arm and then immediately thrust her away, a disgusted look crossing his face, as he must have caught a whiff of the manure.
"Get outta my city, yer stanking little rat. If I ever catch yer here again, it'll be the dungeons. Ain't no fancy acrobatics happening there."
The girl gave him a mock salute and then raced off down the mainway toward the front gate, followed by an equal mix of cheers and boos. The girl ran especially fast, and even if one of the guards had given chase, they would never have caught her on foot. As she flew past the gate guards, she rewarded herself with a cartwheel and three backflips. Astonished travelers watched her bolt off into the woods and disappear.
Thick brush soon forced the girl to slow, as she worked her way off the path toward the river that she knew was nearby. Her plan was to get the stink off of her as fast as possible, then head up into the caves for a meal and clean clothes.
A waterfall seemed the perfect location to take care of her business, as she did have to remove virtually all of her clothing. Ducking down behind the waterfall, she stripped off her tunic, undershirt and bloomers and set to scrubbing them against the rocks.
She was just wringing out the excess water, when there was a poof and flash of light, and Martu stood in front of her. The girl leaped back instinctively. She felt herself blushing as she realized she was only wearing her underclothes, but Martu paid no regard to her half-naked body.
"Do you really have to do that?" she demanded. Martu was always handsome in a dark, older-gentleman kind of way. Today, he wore curly black hair with a beard and goatee, which also lent him a sinister look.
"Do what?" Martu spread his hands innocently.
"The poof and flash. It's very jarring," she said.
"It's dramatic. Cherise, of all people, I should think you would understand my love of the dramatic," he said. "Here, let me help you with that." He flicked his hand, and the water fell out of the bloomers as though the wind had just blown it out. She noticed as she was putting them on that they also now had a fresh floral scent, which most certainly did not come from washing them against the rocks.
Fully dressed, Cherise leaned against the cavern wall, smelling sweeter than she had in months. "I think you like to frighten people and show off, that's what I think."
"That's a tad ungrateful, girl," he said, not appearing the least bothered by her ingratitude. "Let me ask you a question. How is it that, even when you are very nearly naked and washing your clothes behind a waterfall, your hat never leaves your head?"
She ignored his question. "What are you about, Martu?"
"Can't an old friend just drop by for a visit?" He raised an eyebrow. "No? Well, okay then, I'm here because I need your help."
"I've told you before, I'm never going to serve you." Even as she said it, she felt a pang of guilt mixed with apprehension. She owed him her life, and he was going to remind her of that.
Martu's face darkened. "I haven't even told you what I need. I promise, it won't go against your righteous personal moral code. If you get me what I need, it may even free you of your debt. Remember, I saved your life once. I could take it away just as easily."
And there it was. "You saved my life because you thought I was someone else," she pointed out.
"True. But that does not make you any the less alive," he shot back.
"And I have no fear of you. Whatever else you are, you are no killer."
"Also true. But I work for Erise, the grandest killer of all time. Murderers follow me by the scores. It would not be hard to find someone willing to kill you."
Cherise sighed. "What do you need from me?"
"I have a certain human merchant under my protection—"
"A prisoner, you mean?"
"That's quite an unfair way to look at it. I saved him from a gang of roughneck
sailors down at Two Currents, and he's sought after by a Nydwon and her monstrous Dalatois henchmen—not to mention some half-giant mercenaries. I have saved him from the consequences of his own poor choices. All I've asked for in return is information, which he is refusing to give me." Martu stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger. "He's been transporting weapons somewhere, in support of the resistance, and I need to know where. I want you to use your wiles to coax the secrets from him."
Cherise shook her head. "You know I don't do those kinds of things."
"I'm not asking you to do anything unconscionable. I only want you to become his friend, make nice with him—perhaps flirt a little."
"And then would I be rid of you? Would you leave me alone for good?"
"Oh, sure, of course I would," Martu said.
Was he mocking her, or was he simply incapable of sounding sincere? In any case, Cherise had made her decision. A man needed freeing. Who else would do it, if not her?
"Fine, I'll help you," she said. "Now, let's go get some food and celebrate our alliance."
Appendix A: Prophecies of the Nydwon
Chassy: Your hope is in the trees and carried as ash on the wind. Your destiny takes you to the sun and stars. Protect that which is important, not that which you desire.
Nita: This gem is not for you. It is for a dying enemy. Use it wisely, for you shall have many, and it is only for one.
Andrev: You shall be the fall of the Waet. You shall draw the vengeance of Ana and Asa. Your power is an abomination, and your blood shall mend the divide.
All: Your purpose is to save your people. He (Andrev) is not of your people. If you save him (Andrev), your parents shall die. If you save him, the Mother Tree will burn and the groves will scream as they are consumed by her flames.
Appendix B: The Gods of Ayzwind
The Greater Gods
The greater gods stand eternally in communion on the Shelf of Gods. Each town or city has its own shelf, sometimes inside a temple and sometimes outdoors (as with Waet Tree Village). Rehn and Falise are the greatest of all gods.
