Sorcery, Schemes and Skelt: The Kinowenn Chronicles Vol II

by Rachel Ronning

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we may not stay at inns at all. Once we get out of Fredamonn territory, there isn’t much worth staying in before we enter the lands of the Skelt. Fredamonn is dangerous for us right now. Any inn north of there, we will draw attention that we don’t want. People will wonder what we are doing. I’m not sure we will come up with a plausible story that won’t leave an impression. My father already knows that’s where you intended to head. He may have declined having soldiers follow us, instead choosing to send them the fastest route to get in front of us and cut us off. I’m not sure we should risk running into them or letting them know where we are,” said Joss. “Any farther north, is Skelt territory and there are no inns. Skelt don’t need them, wouldn’t use them, and don’t want to encourage outsiders to visit.”

  “Agreed,” said Justin, “Camping it is.”

  Lucy sighed, “At least we seem to have enough supplies.”

  Lucy enjoyed staying at inns. It was a chance to see how local people lived and spent their time. She liked to see how they looked, and listen to how they talked. She enjoyed local music and dancing. She agreed with the safety aspect though. With their wards up, they were safest camping.

  “How long before we reach Skelt territory?” asked Lucy.

  “If we have good weather and keep up this pace, we should reach the edges of their territory in about a week,” said Joss.

  “That’s when we really need to be careful,” added Justin. “We are here to do some reconnaissance and potential item recovery. We are not here to get captured by the Skelt and involved in whatever their latest scheme is.”

  “Do they always have a scheme?” wondered Lucy.

  “Of course, they’re part cat,” responded Maya.

  So the group continued to travel and camp. The weather stayed sunny and dry so they moved quickly. Justin scanned for people around them and following them. They did not run into anyone. They figured this was because any small group traveling would be just as eager to avoid detection and them. Joss was pretty sure King Temarr wouldn’t send any of his men into Skelt territory, so they would at least be safe from that threat if they could reach the border.

  That night, Lucy dreamed of Ishalla. At least, she always thought of it as a dream, but you never could tell with Ishalla. Perhaps Lucy really did sit on a bench beside Ishalla and stare at the waterfall.

  “I see you found a new set of arches,” commented Lucy.

  “Yes,” replied Ishalla.

  “I’m sorry about that. Is there something I can do in exchange?”

  “Do not worry about it. Repayment will come in time. How are you doing finding balance?”

  “Not well,” replied Lucy, unable to look her in the eyes.

  “Tell me about it,” Ishalla demanded calmly.

  So Lucy did. She told her everything. The sounds, the smells, the fire, the vomit, the Giants, the iceballs, how she felt, and what she did. She wasn’t always chronological. She wasn’t sure she always made sense, but she kept talking. It was a relief to talk. It helped that it wasn’t a friend. She knew if she talked with Justin about it, he would try to make her feel better by rationalizing everything. Or even worse, patronize her. She didn’t want that. She didn’t need a pep talk. She wasn’t a hero. In fact, she almost hoped Ishalla was here to put her on trial. If she were punished for her actions, would she feel better? Certainly that much devastation and killing deserved punishment. When she got to the end, she cried. When she was done crying, Ishalla handed her a handkerchief.

  “Whether or not you like what you did, you must accept it. You do not have to think of yourself as a hero, but neither are you a victim of circumstance. You could have chosen healing instead. You could have chosen imprisonment. Technically, given your powers, you probably could have turned into a bird and flown away. You must accept and find balance. You must grow from this or it will overwhelm you and you will fall beneath it. You cannot fear your power or run from it.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” Lucy said with a small laugh.

  “No, acceptance is not always easy. Neither is growth or finding balance. Some people can live without finding balance. You are not one of them.”

  “Any advice on how to do that?”

  “Not at this time. You must try to find some of it yourself. Sometimes the journey is part of the answer. I cannot deprive you of that. If you stray too far, I will bring you here again. I think we are destined to have many small conversations together,” replied Ishalla.

  “Am I really here then? I thought this was a dream.”

  “Does one exclude the other?” she asked with a small smile. “Just because you are dreaming, does not mean you are not really here.”

  Lucy laughed. It sounded a little manic to her ears after all the crying, but it felt good to laugh anyways. Uplifting.

  “I cannot do much at this time, but I can help tonight. Sleep tonight without dreams, and heal,” said Ishalla as she kissed Lucy on the forehead.

  Lucy slept through the rest of the night, and felt better in the morning. She grew stronger every day, despite the travel, and felt physically recovered from the battle. On the other hand, mentally, she was still traumatized. Other than the one dreamless sleep Ishalla had given her, she had nightmares, and did not sleep well or restfully. She hoped she would be able to avoid ending up in any more battles. She supposed they were a possibility as long as she wanted to continue going on quests. She didn’t know how many more of them she could survive intact. Perhaps staying in one place and healing people wasn’t a bad option. She could always leave, if things started to look warlike, and start over somewhere new.

  Lucy thought about balance as they rode. How could she achieve inner balance? What did that even entail? At least learning how to balance across a beam involved a physical beam and trying to walk across it until you figured it out. Mental and spiritual balance was a much more obscure concept, with less obvious visual success. She assumed some form of acceptance was key. How could she accept the killing she had done? How could she make it right? How could she balance it? Somehow, going around healing people for the rest of her life didn’t seem to be the answer. It sounded too easy.

  If the world disapproved of what you did, but you approved, you could carry on. Your sense of self-righteousness would sustain you for a long time. However, if the world approves of what you did, and you don’t, there is no punishment. No one holds you accountable. No one prevents you from doing it again. No one but yourself.

  Chapter 15

  As Joss predicted, about a week after they started traveling they reached Skelt territory. The partial trails they had been using disappeared completely. The forests were thicker with a lot more undergrowth and there were no roads. Skelt tended not to worry much about trade relations. Their own land produced everything they needed. They would rather not deal with any of the hassles of trade than enjoy the many benefits.

  The forest was old, Lucy could feel that. It wasn’t humid, but there was a closeness to the forest and the undergrowth that made her feel like she couldn’t breathe freely. They could see the treetops waving in the wind, but the breeze didn’t reach down to where they were. Roots from the ancient trees reached and twisted everywhere, sometimes causing the horses to stumble. The ground was covered with moss; thick luscious moss with little pale blue flowers, thin scraggly yellowish moss that Lucy wasn’t sure was dying or thriving, and moss that was every shade of green between. The moss made the ground comfortable for sleeping, if you could find a place between tree roots. There were plenty of birds, squirrels, rabbits, deer, and other animals they could hear rustling in the undergrowth even if they never saw them. There weren’t any mosquitos, for which Lucy was thankful, but there was some kind of insect that made a constant, annoying high pitched buzzing sound that Lucy was never able to fully ignore.

  “Do we have any plans?” asked Lucy one evening at dinner.

  “Find out what’s going on and not get captured,” said Gavi
n.

  “Great,” said Lucy. “Would anyone care to expound on that?”

  “We don’t know how well Skelt can sense magic, but I think it’s best if we travel with wards around us. We’ll have to limit talking as well. We do know they have exceptional hearing. Once we get closer to their main cities, we may even want to travel invisibly,” added Justin.

  “Will that work?” asked Maya.

  “I’m not entirely sure. No one knows the extent of their natural talents. It could differ from Skelt to Skelt. It might depend on how much cat verses human ratio each one is composed of. We know they can’t do magic, but they could be able to sense it. Cats can sense all sorts of things naturally that humans can’t. They may even be able to see through invisibility spells.”

  “That would be something I’d like to know in advance,” said Gavin.

  “I agree,” replied Justin. “We will be learning all kinds of things this trip.”

  “I like to learn, but I’d also like to make it out of here to share whatever we learn with the next people crazy enough to do something like this,” added Maya.

  Two more days of quiet travel led them close enough to the settlements that they decided trying invisibility. Justin was sensing lots of sentient forms nearby. Lucy put up invisibility shields while Justin tried to sense where Skelt were in the vicinity so they could steer clear of them. In one day, they made an important discovery. Skelt could see through invisibility shields. Not all of them could, but enough to find them despite Justin’s avoidance attempts.

  Apparently, some of them had a natural ability avoiding magical detection. Justin and Lucy were constantly sending out feelers to see what was around them. Lucy was frustrated because she could sense a small group of 4 or so moving around and then they would simply disappear. After a bit, they would reappear again in another location. When she mentioned this anomaly to Justin, he agreed and said he was having the same problem.

  “I thought Skelt didn’t have any magical powers,” said Maya.

  “As far as we know, they don’t,” answered Justin. “At least, not any that they can intentionally use. What we are sensing is probably innate residual magic carried over from centuries ago. They are doing it automatically, like breathing. They most likely have no idea they are doing anything at all.”

  “So, what’s going on? Why do they flit in and out? They aren’t trans-locating or anything are they?” asked Joss.

  “I highly doubt it. The movement in between appearing and disappearing is consistent with walking. I don’t think the talent is developed. It could be triggered by an emotion like fear; associated with the smell of a predator. Or, inversely, stimulated by the hunting instinct, reacting to the sound of prey or the sight of movement,” Justin mused.

  “Like a chameleon blending into his surroundings?” asked Lucy.

  “That’s my basic theory,” shrugged Justin. “There haven’t been a lot of wizards running around Skelt territory doing research on their possibly innate magical abilities.”

  “Maybe there should have been,” commented Joss wryly.

  “I agree,” said Justin. “I don’t think it occurred to anyone that it might be important knowledge. The Skelt were dangerous aggressors, and not to be messed with as magical shape shifters. Once the aggression stopped and they no longer appeared to have their former magical powers, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. As far as I know, we are the first people to infiltrate their territory with the ability to sense what we are sensing. Maya, can you sense anything?”

  “You know I’m not very good at that,” Maya protested.

  “Please try, I’m curious about what you do sense.”

  Maya closed her eyes, began to hum, and extended her magical senses. She had power. More than Gavin, but far less than Justin or Lucy. Lucy and Justin excelled at non-verbal spells, but her strength was in her voice. She was good at little things, like lighting a fire, mending a tear in cloth, heating or cooling water, multiplying food, and cleaning magically. Things that she could touch while she sang or hummed. Extending her senses beyond her body was more difficult. After a few minutes she opened her eyes.

  “It’s odd,” she tried to explain. “The whole area seems to pulse with some kind of underlying magic. It’s faint. I can’t tell if the magic stems from the ground and trees or the movement of the Skelt. I can’t sense particular pin points of magic or anything like that,” Maya shrugged apologetically.

  “Thank you,” replied Justin. “That’s good to know. I wonder if the area is hiding them or if they are hiding themselves?”

  “This theoretical discussion is interesting, but how does it help us right now?” asked Gavin.

  “The more we know, the more we can combat. Or, at least, try to combat. If we know where their magic stems from perhaps we can find a way to work with it or around it,” Justin smiled. “However, for all intents and purposes, the theories help us very little in actually avoiding randomly disappearing and reappearing Skelt. They could change their direction at any time while we can’t see them and suddenly appear in front of us.”

  “Do you think they have any natural defensive ability or will they die like any other normal creature?” asked Gavin, getting to the heart of the matter from his point of view.

  “I don’t know,” spoke up Lucy who had been quietly scanning the area while the others talked, “But I think you get to find out. A group of about 6 are right ahead of us and coming this way. I think they know that we are here; they heard us. I think a confrontation of some kind will be unavoidable.”

  They paused and looked at each other, trying to figure out the best course of action. There wasn’t much space to fight on the small, winding trail they were following. Everyone checked or loosened weapons. Joss strung his bow and notched an arrow. Gavin drew his sword. Lucy wasn’t sure what to do. She would prefer to fight with her staff, but not on her horse.

  “Are you sure there are only 6?” asked Gavin.

  “In the group I can sense right ahead, there are 6,” confirmed Lucy. “If a group I can’t sense suddenly appears, there’s not much I can do about that.”

  As Lucy finished talking, 6 Skelt stalked onto the trail. Lucy thought they were interesting to look at. They were a variety of sizes. The largest was bigger than Gavin. The smallest was smaller than Lucy by a good 4 inches. The largest, tawny colored one, flicked his ears in an expression that Lucy interpreted as disgust.

  “Humans,” he growled low in his throat.

  “You are not welcome here,” growled a calico behind him and to his left, his tail moving with irritation. “The queen, purr, will not be pleased.”

  “Only if you are alive long enough to tell her,” said Gavin.

  Gavin was a blur of motion. He slipped off his horse, stabbed, swung, spun, flipped, jabbed, and kicked. Before Lucy could react, all 6 Skelt lay dead. A small black one pierced by Joss’s arrow, the only member of the group to react fast enough to do anything helpful. Gavin wiped his sword on the grass and sheathed it.

  “We can’t leave bodies of dead Skelt behind us. It won’t take them long to realize something dangerous is in their territory and start hunting it,” commented Maya.

  Justin nodded and dismounted. He put his fingers on the largest Skelt and pushed. The group watched in amazement as the body slowly seemed to breakdown and sink into the earth.

  “I think I can help do that,” said Lucy.

  Justin nodded. Lucy dismounted and walked up to a mostly white Skelt with black patches on his face. She put her fingers on his chest. She focused her magic to ask the earth to accept this creature back and use it to nurture the soil and trees nearby, bringing a sense of peace to the area. Lucy watched as this Skelt started to glow slightly and dissolve into the earth. She moved on to the next one. She was tired after doing three. It didn’t seem like a taxing process, but it obviously used more magic than one would expect. Although, she hadn’t used active magic much since the battle. Perhaps her magic was still recovering too, like
her body. She sat down on the ground next to her horse and sipped some water out of her canteen.

  “Now, that’s something I haven’t seen before,” said Joss.

  “It takes longer than digging a hole magically and dropping them in. It also uses much more magical strength,” explained Justin. “However, it should leave much less hard evidence. For the next few days there will be a slight trace. A wizard, or perhaps a Skelt, would be able to sense that something magical occurred here, but they shouldn’t be able to tell what.”

  “It would have to be someone strong to sense it,” added Maya after humming for a few minutes, “Because I can’t sense anything.”

  “Good,” said Justin. “Hopefully none of the Skelt will sense anything then.”

  “But of course you don’t know. You only hope,” said Joss

  “Correct,” affirmed Justin. “It appears there is much we do not know about Skelt.

  “On a positive note, they die like everything else,” said Gavin. This thought seemed to bolster his perspective on the whole affair. He was involved because of his skill with weapons. Obviously, they were effective. He was not there for his magical abilities so, he’d let the others worry about that.

  They proceeded to travel that day without further incident. Lucy and Justin scanning the areas ahead and behind them as small groups of Skelt appeared and disappeared. Lucy wondered a little about the groups. Were they families? Friends? Hunting parties? Scouts? How did Skelt live? Did they settle in one place? Were they nomads by nature? The second group that found them was bigger. Lucy wondered if they were being tracked for some reason or if a larger group happened to stumble upon them accidently. There were about 17 of them.

  “Oh good,” said Gavin, sliding from his horse, loosening his shoulders, and drawing his swords. “The rest of you get to play this time too. Unless, Lucy cares to blow them all up.”

  “I’d rather not. It might be noisy and will definitely be messy,” replied Lucy sliding from her horse and readying her staff. “I feel like pounding something for a bit,” she quipped.