by Booth, John
“You be wanting somethin’?”
Apparently I’d hopped out of Wales as that was a distinctly English accent.
“I’d like to use my metal detector in your fields.”
The farmer groaned as he stood up from the cow he’d been examining. “Do you hear that, Betty? Young man here wants to find all the nails we’ve dropped over the years.”
I thought he was talking to the cow until a tinkling laugh came from somewhere deeper in the shed.
“We’ve never found anything, have we Dad?” a pleasant sounding female voice replied.
“Not for the four generations our families have farmed this land,” the Farmer continued. “But he’s Welsh judging from the accent and probably thinks the fields of England are filled with gold.”
“If cow muck’s gold, he could be right,” Betty agreed.
The Farmer straightened up and looked me in the eye. “And what’s in it for me, if that mine detector of yours finds anything?”
“You get to keep any land mines I find?” I suggested. Again, a hidden tinkling laugh followed my words.
“Let him, Dad. What’s harm’s he going to do?”
Her father was staring aggressively at me and I tried a simpler tactic.
“It’s fifty-fifty. If I find anything we split the profit right down the middle.”
“Can I trust you, is the thing?”
At that moment his daughter appeared from behind a stall, wiping her hands on a towel. She looked to be in her early twenties and the denim outfit she wore suited her. She was a broad built girl, but believe me when I say none of it was superfluous. As soon as she saw me, her eyes widened and a smile twitched at her lips.
“I’ll keep an eye on him, Dad. You never know what he might find, was he to go looking for it in the right places.” I swear she winked at me.
“I dunno.” Her father glowered.
“Make up a proper contract, Dad. It would only take a moment.”
He seemed to think that was a good idea and the three of us traipsed over to a small office in the far corner of the milking shed. He typed into a tablet pc, asked me my name and address and a few moments later a small printer zipped out a couple of sheets of paper.
He handed me a copy. It had both our names and addresses on and the fifty-fifty split thing. I found I was well over a hundred miles from home and his name was Mr. A. Hardy. I signed both copies and he signed too.
“Have we finished?” Betty asked. “I like to go and show Jake our best patches of grass.”
Her father gave her a look and she giggled.
“He hasn’t even brought a spade with him,” Mr. Hardy complained.
I should have thought of that. However, Betty wasn’t concerned.
“I’m sure he’s got a big one with him somewhere. But we’ve got plenty anyway.”
She led me out of the milking shed by the hand, picking up a spade on the way.
“There’s some hay we can lie on over there, once you’ve found your treasure.” She squeezed my hand in a way that suggested she knew where I should looking if I wanted her treasures.
This thing with young women letching after my body was getting disconcerting. They were falling over themselves to offer me their all and that just wasn’t normal. Married-man thing or not; I never got this lucky.
“Let’s try looking in the middle of this field,” I suggested firmly and took my hand from hers.
“Dad won’t like it if we upset the cows, and I can be a bit of a screamer.” Her hand slid down her shirt opening buttons on the way.
I strode towards the treasure as fast as I could without running and she chased after me. We were going to get very lucky, very quickly and then I was getting out of here. There is only so much provocation a virile male can take without having to find some release. I wondered where Jenny would be at this time of day.
The cowpat disappeared before Betty could get close enough to see it. I didn’t fancy digging through it. I put on the headphones and scanned the detector over the ground while making straight for the ex-excrement marked spot.
“You won’t find anything in this field,” Betty advised. Her shirt was fully undone and she seemed to be about to start on her jeans.
“Here, let’s dig here,” I suggested, having detected the treasure.
Rather than hand me the spade she started digging where I’d pointed. She lifted a good chunk of grass and earth, going down six full inches with every spade full.
“Deeper,” I suggested, putting a little compulsion into it. I hate doing that to people, but better that she was lifting sod than plowing my furrow.
She hit something at a foot down. The hole was a couple of feet square by then. She rested on the spade as I used my hands to uncover the top of a large earthenware pot. Its mouth was about six inches in diameter and the pot was over a foot wide.
“I thought that thing of yours found metal,” she asked. Her eyes still shone wickedly when she looked at me, but curiosity had mostly overwhelmed the lust.
I took the spade and began to dig round the pot. It went down another twelve inches.
“Let me lift it”, she suggested. She strained at it and then the bottom of the pot gave way. Bright gold, silver coins, and intricately worked jewellery scattered across the hole as she fell backwards. I stared at it in amazement. The pot must have been sealed when it was put in the ground because the coins looked brand new.
“Wow, aren’t you a lucky boy,” Betty said in amazement. “That’s twice you’re going to get lucky today. Do you think its stuff that’s been stolen?”
I picked up a gold bracelet inset with precious stones. I’m not a great expert on these things, but the design didn’t look remotely modern.
“Get to your feet and die,” a voice commanded. Betty and I looked up to see a guy wearing full chain mail with a big sword in his hand. “I have been charged with your death, Wizard Morrissey, and I fully intend to deliver it to you.”
6. Good Knight
Now once upon a time I’d have been frightened by a hefty man in chain-mail carrying a big sharp looking sword. As it was, I was trying not to laugh. There was no trace of magic coming from him, so how he had arrived in the field was a mystery. Not that I cared. Betty stepped away from us and given how the situation must look through her eyes, I didn’t blame her.
“Do I know you?” As a rejoinder, I’ve done better, but this was all a bit unexpected.
The man took a deep breath. “By the power vested in me by the Supreme Court of the Diamond Worlds I am here to carry out their sentence. Wizard Morrissey, by agreeing to represent the Valhallans at the Conference Between the Worlds you have endangered the citizens of our worlds. The verdict is guilty and the sentence is death.”
“Did you bring an army?”
“Jake, run for the house.” This came from Betty. “We can call the police from there.”
The man in mail ignored her.
“You underestimate the Knights of Justice. It will be your last thought.”
There was something surreal about the situation. It felt like a dream. Men in suits of amour do not accost you in an English field. Nor do they formally announce that they are going to kill you. I shook my head to clear it.
He swung his sword at me. It was one of those broadsword things that they use in King Arthur movies. I instinctively stepped back as I used magic to bring his sword to a halt and trap it in the air.
The sword ignored my magic and if I hadn’t moved just far enough out of range it would have gutted me. Betty screamed
“You cannot escape. Accept your fate and I will be merciful in granting you a swift death.”
The Knight seemed incapable of talking and fighting at the same time, so I had the time to scramble away from him. Betty seemed rooted to the spot. She had her phone in her hands, but she wasn’t pressing any buttons.
He stood on the other side of the hole and I decided to hop behind him. That’s when I found I couldn’t hop. He smiled as if
guessing my intention.
“My sword and mail reduce your magic to nothing. You can neither fight nor flee.”
‘Some sort of damping field,’ the Star Trek watching part of my mind surmised. Since I didn’t have a tricorder handy, I used my magical sight to look at him. Though I was still pretty new to using it, I had an idea of what I was looking for. I saw a faint glow around the knight and his sword. He stepped forward and I stepped back, right onto the metal detector. It broke with a cracking sound. I lost my balance and fell backwards as he rushed at me.
My magic slowed my descent and I was already rolling when his sword cut a couple of feet into the turf where I’d been. As he tugged to free it I got to my feet.
By then I’d learnt something. My magic did work, at least on me. I might not be able to hop, but maybe I could fly.
Before the Knight regained his balance I flew into the air above him and then power descended, my feet aiming straight for his shoulders. He started to look up as my feet hit him and he was pushed flat to the ground. I bounced away, cursing because hitting him felt like landing on concrete. It damned well hurt.
“Jake!”
Betty threw the spade towards me and I caught it just in time to stop the Knight’s sword. The speed he got to his feet was beyond belief. The sword cut three inches into the spade’s stainless steel blade and when he twisted his sword he wrenched the thing from my hands.
“Worthy indeed,” the Knight mumbled as he used the momentum of the sword to wrench the spade from it. It flew thirty feet across the field before landing, startling an unsuspecting cow who ambled off. I inched back as he advanced upon me. I forced magical power through my retreating feet just before they left the ground, turning the earth beneath them into a bog. The Knight stepped into it unawares and sank to his waist. The ground hardened around him as his amour stripped the magic from it.
“Trickery.”
I stood out of blade range and caught my breath. Betty had retrieved the spade and was standing some way away, watching us. She must be either very brave or very stupid.
“Can’t we talk this over?” I suggested.
“In a hundred years, no wizard has lasted this long against Sir Grendon. I will give you that, wizard.” He seemed more amused than upset. That was worrying.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
That brought a full throated laugh. The amusement had turned to contempt.
“It is you that’s trapped,” I pointed out; a little wounded he wasn’t more impressed.
He dropped the sword and put his hands flat on the ground. This was going to be fumy because no one could push themselves out of the ground like that. When he flew out of the ground the laughter died in my throat. He dusted down his chain mail and reached for his sword. It flew into his hand like a broomstick in a Potter film.
Time for Plan B, except I hadn’t even come up with a Plan A. The thing with the ground had been pure improvisation. I’d done something similar to an army once.
My magic reserves were still growing at a fair pace. Damping my powers stopped me using them and nothing was currently sloshing out.
When I describe these things, it’s all metaphor because I don’t have the words, but now that the magic wasn’t sloshing around I could see what my subconscious had been using it for. That only left the embarrassing question of ‘why’.
I shot fifty feet into the air as Sir Grendon charged at me. As he gazed up, he didn’t seem bothered by the fact I was well out of his reach. He pointed his sword at me and I started to descend. Nothing I tried could stop it, though I slowed my descent down. I couldn’t even fly away. The sword was negating my magic and gravity was doing its job.
It might take me two minutes before I got within reach. I had to think of something.
‘What did I know?’ The sword and the amour suppressed magic around them. He could extend the range of the sword’s power by pointing it. Magic used near my skin still worked for me, but the sword and amour were pure anti-magic. ‘And what help was knowing all that?’
‘Something about the term Anti-magic?’ Inspiration struck and in any case I was out of any other ideas. Concentrating as if my life depended on it, I drained the magic from my reserves into my right hand, fashioning it into an invisible sword. Magic doesn’t do anything on its own, that requires will. But this was the densest purest magic ever seen in the real world. I needed it to be visible so I gave it a metallic glamour. When the sword appeared in my hand I was still twenty feet above the ground. I released my intent to float and fell to the ground.
The impact knocked the wind out of me and forced me down onto all fours. The sword slid into the ground without leaving a mark of its passing. It came clear without any sense of it being inside something when I raised my hand. I didn’t even need to hold it as it was part of me.
Sir Grendon paused. He hadn’t been expecting my fall and he might have struck me while I got to my feet, but I had hoped he was not that kind of man and I was right.
“I see you plan to fight with honor,” he said, nodding towards my sword.
“I intend to win, Sir Grendon, and for that I apologize. Tell your masters that I may not look so kindly on any others they send against me.”
“A brave speech, young wizard. But even a sword conjured by magic cannot stand against my blade.” He held his sword vertically and saluted me with it. Then he struck.
I parried with my sword, stepping back as I did. His sword went through mine as though it wasn’t there, which in most ways it wasn’t. The unexpected impetus of his swing sent him spinning off balance. I stepped in close and swung my sword through his body diagonally one way and then the other. Nothing happened and I stepped back.
“A sword that isn’t there? Has madness overtaken you?”
“Look,” I replied
A black stain had formed in the part of his blade where my blade had passed through it. As he stared at it in disbelief, the front half of the blade parted at the stain and then both ends of the sword turned to dust eaten from the point where they split.
“Impossible,” he whispered as a black X formed across his chest. I knew there would be an identical one on his back. His chain mail fell from him and crumbled to dust as it touched the ground.
The suppression field was gone and I snapped my fingers. Sir Grendon fell to the ground in his pink underwear and lay still.
“Have you killed him?” Betty asked as she stepped cautiously towards us. “Should I call the police?”
That was all I needed. I shook my head to both questions and reached down to touch the man.
I imagined Sir Grendon as a stone I could throw across an imaginary hopscotch court. His image bounced on its squares before vanishing on the last bounce. I sent Sir Grendon after his imaginary doppelganger. He would wake within seconds when he was back on the world he came from.
Betty was shaking with reaction and I put my hand on her shoulder. She grabbed my arm tightly in hers. “Take me now, on the grass and I won’t say a word about what happened.”
I pulled away gently. “Betty, I’ve got a confession. My subconscious has been spilling out a magical command for girls to desire me. I don’t know why, since I just got married to two women.”
She gave me a quizzical look. “Two women, I’m surprised you can walk.”
“Well they haven’t exactly been putting out.” God knows what led me to tell her that.
“I can stop it now. You’ll feel the difference.” I closed the leaks. It was easy now that I knew what they were doing.
“Is that treasure real?” She nodded at the hole, where the hoard glinted.
“Absolutely. I need some money to buy a house and I located it by magic. It must have been there for hundreds of years.”
She stepped closer and put her arms on my shoulders. I was uncomfortably aware how luscious she looked. “So Mr. Wizard, have you removed that magic love charm you were talking about?”
I nodded. She moved her full lips till they were
practically touching mine. She smelled wonderfully hot. “Have you ever considered that when you are having sex with one of your wives you’re cheating on the other?”
I nodded again. That was exactly why I’d run when Esmeralda had knocked at Jenny’s door.
“So it really wouldn’t be much different if you cheated on both of them and had sex with me, now would it, Mr. Wizard?”
One of her hands had left my neck and was working on my zip. Her lips touched mine and I felt an electric tingle run through me. The adrenaline from the fight was still coursing through my veins and my mind ceased to operate at a rational level.
When we showed Mr. Hardy the treasure, he grunted. His eyes took in the grass stains on our jeans at the knees.
“Messy business, finding treasure. I’ll look up who we have to call.”
“Messy, but very satisfying,” Betty said grinning at me. “I don’t think I’ve felt so satisfied in a long while.”
“Well, I’d call it more a stroke of luck. It should get our overdraft down.”
“When do you think we will get the money?” I asked.
“Think years rather than months, boy. Treasure trove isn’t decided overnight.”
“I think its wizard that Jake will have to keep coming here while we sort it all out,” Betty said cheerfully. “I can see him coming quite a lot.”
I kept my groan mental. How did I get myself into these things? And I was no nearer to getting the money to buy Jenny a house.
7. Complications
I arrived in the Bat Cave and dropped onto the beaten up couch with a heartfelt sigh. Throwing the broken metal detector into a corner I wondered what I’d tell Malcolm when I next saw him, but when it came right down to it a broken toy was the least of my problems.
Before I left the Hardy’s, Mr. Hardy had arranged for us to meet an archaeologist to come to the farm the next day at two o’clock. The archaeologist would determine what our objects were worth and look at the hole we’d taken the pot out of. Apparently, if he thought the hoard was worth anything, then we could apply for treasure trove. As the finder, I had to be on the farm tomorrow to make the claim.
