Wards and Wonders

by Kay L. Ling

  Kaff’s heart skipped a beat. “You have Dark gems?”

  “A few,” Beniah confessed. “We have a source who can get us anything we want.”

  “Except for the rarer ones,” Yomir complained. “Most of the time, someone else gets those.”

  Beniah nodded. “He’s probably promised those to a particular customer.”

  These woodspirits probably wanted to see what Dark gems could do. That might be part of the reason they’d paid his bail and taken him in. If they brought him Dark gems, would he dare use them? It would be difficult to refuse, but without S or Elias to guide him, it would be dangerous. And he had his trial to consider. Someone might be able to tell he’d infused Dark gems. Did he want to risk that? The woodspirits were smiling at him now, but that didn’t mean they’d never turn against him. If he didn’t play along, he might find himself friendless in an unfamiliar city.

  Chapter 23

  It would be good to get away for a couple days, Franklin told himself as he and the breghlin drove through the forest. Ben and Tina Ann had talked him into this trip, saying he shouldn’t work all the time, and they were right. When he wasn’t teaching classes, he was working on the cabin, and he deserved a break. The two-room dwelling was starting to feel like home, but it wasn’t much to look at, and compared to Elantoth it was like living in a shoebox.

  He still considered it grossly unfair that he, Elias, and Jules had been told to leave. Elias had gone back to Strathweed, which he preferred anyway, and Jules had gone with him, but Franklin was too stubborn to let gnome bureaucrats in a distant city run the whole show around here. He would play a useful role, and if that meant working with breghlin, that’s what he would do, even though he had despised them not long ago. Breghlin had beaten and maimed him during S’s reign, and that was hard to forget. But to be perfectly fair, S had rewarded them for being evil, and tortured them if they didn’t follow orders, so what choice did they have? He found it easier to forgive them when he thought about that.

  Amulet gnomes would eventually rule themselves, but they hadn’t been ready—not even close—when Mierek banned human involvement. None of the gnomes wanted the burden of running Elantoth. Raenihel was the de facto leader, but he wasn’t a young gnome, and anytime he could hand off responsibilities to someone else, he did. Gem Master Ertz had usurped Raenihel’s position lately, but Ertz would leave eventually, and unless a younger gnome stepped in, Raenihel would be in charge again, whether he liked it or not.

  What bothered Franklin most was Mierek’s appalling lack of gratitude. Who had freed the gnomes from S? Humans. Who had discovered that Elantoth Fortress had once belonged to the gnomes? Humans. Who had realized that gnomes had gem powers and found a way to activate them? Humans. Who had found the way to restore the malfunctioning Amulet so gnomes could reunite Ahmonell? Humans.

  “Looks like rain,” Ben said, interrupting Franklin’s thoughts.

  “Hope it don’t start till we makes camp,” said Tina Ann, who sat beside Ben on the driver’s box. “After that, I be lookin’ for gems, rain or no.”

  * * *

  Franklin surveyed the darkening sky and ran a hand through his wind-blown graying dark hair. Their maraku started down the hill, and Franklin felt a couple of raindrops. A tarp covered the supplies in the rear of the cart, and Franklin supposed he could pull part of it over himself and the breghlin, but it was never pleasant driving in the rain.

  The land they were passing through now looked familiar, though he had only been through here once before. The breghlin might remember it better than he did, since they had been here twice. “How much farther to the stream? Do you remember?” he asked them.

  “We be almost there,” Tina Ann assured him.

  It had been a long day. Work crews had improved the roads, but even so, you couldn’t go very fast if you didn’t want to be jarred to pieces. What he wouldn’t give for a four-wheel-drive Jeep, he thought with a wry smile. Preferably with air conditioning. He was glad they didn’t have much further to go. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of his own sweat and the two unwashed breghlin, but they would all be getting a good bath once they reached the stream.

  A few more miles of downhill, winding road brought them within sight of the stream, and Tina Ann called, “There! Told ya we be close!”

  The water gleamed silver under the cloudy sky, beckoning them to camp on its grassy banks.

  As a boy, he’d enjoyed swimming in the local creek, even though its fast-flowing water remained frigid until nearly August. Cider Creek had dozens of small waterfalls that appeared after a heavy rain and disappeared during dry spells. There were caves too, some of which went for miles, or so folks said, but he had been content to sit in the cool darkness, a little way in, imagining that he was a pirate with loot hidden in the caves.

  The Amulet had its share of caves, too, like the one where Elias lived, but until recently, aside from the underground stream that ran through Elias’s cave, there had been no other streams in the area. Now, without S around, the Amulet’s climate had normalized, and there was plenty of rain. Streams flowed through previously dry beds. The water table had risen, too, and Franklin had found two spring-fed ponds near his building site. The Amulet was starting to look a lot more like The Fair Lands, and while it would never truly be home, it made his decision to stay here a little easier.

  Ben drove the cart off the road. The maraku snorted and tossed its head, and Franklin suspected it was as eager as they were to reach fresh water.

  “Still not rainin’,” Ben observed as the cart rolled to a stop.

  “Better put up the tent first thing. It shouldn’t take long,” Franklin said. His back ached and his legs were stiff, but he dragged the tarp off their gear and started unloading. The sooner they got the tent up, the sooner they could get into the stream, and aside from wanting to cool off, he was anxious to see if they could find more of the gems Tina Ann had found on the last two trips. The stream had swelled considerably, but there wasn’t much current, so maybe it hadn’t swept them all away.

  Ben and Tina Ann had become old hands at erecting a tent, so he let them take care of that while he built a cooking fire. If he had gem powers, he could amplify corrustone’s heat, eliminating the need for wood, but as it was, he would have to start the fire with wood and then pile corrustone on top like so many charcoal briquettes. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and muttered, “Thanks, Lana,” before touching its flame to dry leaves and twigs.

  Elias and Jules, born in the 1800s, had come to Ahmonell before most of the conveniences Franklin appreciated had been invented. Lana had given Elias and Jules a few handy trinkets like lighters, but they didn’t want to become dependent on Fair Lands gadgets. Franklin, on the other hand, had only been in the Amulet for twenty-five years, and he wouldn’t turn down items that made life easier.

  Anything with a battery wouldn’t work here, and there was no electricity, but sometimes Lana took him to her town in the Fair Lands on trash pickup day, and he found plenty of useful items. Everything from plastic containers and glass jars to cookware and serviceable tools. Once, he’d even found a perfectly good Swiss Army knife. He wasn’t shy about asking Lana to find things for him at garage sales or thrift stores. Bad enough he had to live in a two-room cabin built with the help of a handful of breghlin. He deserved some creature comforts. And Fair Lands devices were a source of entertainment—for the breghlin as well as himself.

  Most breghlin weren’t too intelligent, but they were curious by nature and good with anything mechanical. They loved to figure out what his gadgets were for and how they worked. Once, Oliver had nearly set himself on fire with Franklin’s blowtorch, but that had been the only serious mishap. Xenon had dropped Franklin’s wind-up alarm clock, startled by the clanging bell, denting the case and breaking off one the legs, but the clock still worked. Breghlin continually carried off his ballpoint pens, though for the life of him Franklin didn’t know why. Maybe they drew pictures on tree bark or wood. He ha
d no idea.

  Following Ben’s example, several were learning to read, and many who said it was a waste of time were having second thoughts. Lana had given Franklin several learn-to-read books. Then he’d asked for novels, hoping breghlin would want to read if they knew how much fun it could be. For now, he was reading to them, but someday they would read the books themselves. He was midway through Treasure Island. Every evening, breghlin of all ages gathered on his front lawn.

  He looked around to see how Ben and Tina Ann were doing. The tent was up, and they were heading down to the stream. Neither could swim, but the stream was shallow, so they should be fine. When he went in, he planned to swim underwater and look for gems farther out.

  He finished building the fire, then changed into cutoffs and went to join them. Ben was sitting on the bank, tunic and pants soaking wet, calling encouragement to Tina Ann who stood in waist-high water, holding a spade and looking for gems on the bottom. A few pieces of gem rough lay on the bank.

  “Foun’ a few of the good kind,” Ben said. “A couple bad ones, too.”

  Franklin was still amazed by Tina Ann’s ability to sense Dark gems.

  He put a tentative foot in the water. It was cool but not unpleasant, so he waded out a bit and began to swim, exhilarated by the cool water and the pleasure of swimming again after so long. He hadn’t been able to swim during the years he’d spent as an enchanted bird—or when he’d been human, but crippled. Now that nightmarish era was behind him, and he felt like a boy again, swimming in Cider Creek. He might not be a pirate, but there was treasure here, he told himself as he dove underwater.

  Most gem rough looked like rocks with veins of crystal, and he saw a few pieces that looked like the ones Tina Ann had found before. He put them in his pockets, swam toward the bank, and tossed them onto the ground.

  Encouraged by Franklin’s success, Ben waded in again, and after a brief water fight with Tina Ann, during which she dunked Ben and held him under until he came up gasping, the three of them scoured the streambed and found quite a few pieces.

  Laughing like children, they finally slogged up the bank and sat down to examine their treasures. They had a couple dozen white rocks with chunks of green crystal embedded in it, several pink stones flecked with gray, and a few yellow ochre stones.

  “The yellow ones be bad,” Tina Ann announced. “Foun’ one before, and Elias say leave it here. This time, I be keepin’ ‘em. Better we has them than somebody else.”

  “What do they do?” Franklin asked.

  “Make ya hate yerself and yer whole life,” she said. “Foun’ that out after we tooked one away from Jules.”

  Ben said, “He be shakin’ all over an’ lookin’ bad.”

  “I’ve heard of gems like that,” Franklin said. “Negative energy stones, they’re called. Elias said a gem master can project the bad emotions onto someone else and not get any harmful effects himself.”

  “We best lock up the yeller ones,” Ben said, eying them warily.

  “What about the other ones? What do they do?”

  “The white ones with the green stuff are called do-somethin’-or-other. Docina, I think. Give you good health and make you live longer.” She looked pleased with herself for remembering. “The pink ones be, um, ferdum—no, that ern’t right . . . feridium,” she corrected herself. “Sharpens yer senses and makes ya feel good. They puts it in fialazza.”

  “Really?” Franklin said, picking up one of the pink stones. “They grind it up?”

  “Guess so,” Tina Ann said.

  “Must be it works even if you don’t have gem powers,” Franklin said as he examined it.

  “That be what Elias say,” Ben said, getting up. “We go fetch the boxes.”

  Franklin had made a few wooden storage boxes for this trip, and he’d also brought an old metal cash box that usually held personal belongings he didn’t want breghlin poking through. He pocketed a pink stone, and when Ben and Tina Ann returned, he packed the good gems in the wooden boxes and locked the yellow ones in the cash box.

  After putting on dry clothes, they laid their wet clothes near the fire to dry.

  The sun was lowering, and a cool breeze had picked up. Franklin made a pot of raaka and started dinner. The breghlin could have their raw meat and spoiled fruit; he’d have a proper cookout. He’d brought a pheasant, cut up and ready to cook, and Tina Ann had appropriated maraku steaks from Elantoth. He’d also brought diced potatoes and turnips, and some kind of berries that looked like plums but tasted like blueberries. What he didn’t eat tonight, he’d have for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

  By the time they’d finished their meal, the sun was dipping below the horizon, and the corrustone fire felt good. They sat cross-legged around it, drinking raaka, which unlike coffee, never kept Franklin awake.

  “Folks from Aberell be lookin’ for gems, but I bet they donno ‘bout this stream,” Tina Ann said.

  “NE3 say there be lotsa Outcasts lookin’ for gems, too,” Ben added.

  NE3, the head of one of the breghlin clans that lived near the border of the Amulet, had a group of scouts that kept an eye on travelers. The scouts seldom rode as far as Elantoth, but others relayed information to Wally and Grace in the Ministry of Breghlin affairs.

  “If official work crews find the gems, it will help this region. The sale of the gems is supposed to fund development here,” Franklin said. “If Outcasts find the gems, they’ll sell them on the black market.”

  “What be a black market?” Ben asked.

  “It’s when you sell to someone secretly to avoid taxes and government control. Sometimes it means selling something you’re not supposed to own.”

  The breghlin thought this over and seemed to grasp the concept.

  “Mebbe the Outcasts keep the gems, not sell ‘em,” Ben speculated.

  “’Specially the Dark ones,” Tina Ann agreed. “Can’t get ‘em no other way.”

  “You have a point. Over there, everything is highly regulated, so they’re coming here to get free gems while they can. Maybe we should tell officials about this stream.”

  “When we gets back, we ask Gem Master Ertz what to do,” Tina Ann said.

  Franklin looked at her in surprise. “Ertz? I thought you didn’t trust him.”

  “Didn’t, but Tyla and Gem Master Elias say he be all right.”

  Franklin poured himself more raaka. “Elias is pretty shrewd, so if he trusts Ertz, that’s a good sign.”

  “Any gems we fin’ we gonna give Elias,” Ben said.

  “’Specially the yellow ones,” Tina Ann said.

  “You can sense Dark gems and know they’re evil, but can you tell what they do?” Franklin asked.

  Tina Ann shook her head.

  Franklin remembered the pink gem in his pocket. “Ben, do me a favor and get my tool box.”

  Ben came back with the box, and Franklin rummaged through and found a metal file.

  “Whatcha gonna do?” Ben asked, sitting down beside Tina Ann.

  “I’m going to file a little of this stone onto my plate, and then we’ll do an experiment.” He scrubbed his plate reasonably clean with some grass and set to work.

  “Wet your finger, dip it in the powder, and taste this, then let me know what you feel.”

  Ben and Tina Ann did as he asked.

  “It be like drinkin’ fialazza,” Tina Ann said. “I feels calm and good inside.” She cocked her head. “An’ I hears better. Bugs soun’ a lot louder.”

  Franklin looked at Ben. “What about you?”

  “Same as she say. I wanna put this in beer.”

  Franklin smiled. Breghlin preferred beer to fialazza, probably because they liked sour and bitter flavors. “I think alcohol would counteract the effect.”

  Ben looked disappointed.

  “Yer turn,” Tina Ann said to Franklin.

  He wet two fingers, picked up the remaining powder, and analyzed the flavor while waiting for the effects to kick in. It was bitter but not unpleasant, and
after a moment the bitterness went away and his tongue began to tingle.

  Then the effects kicked in.

  The stream and insect noise was louder, and he could hear the breghlin breathing. He could pick out individual scents of weeds and grass. He smelled the soil, the stream, and everyone’s body odors. The hairs on the back of his hand came into sharp focus. He felt more alert, and his mind seemed to be working faster.

  The breghlin hadn’t seemed too impressed with their results, so his reaction must be stronger, but was that because he had ingested a larger dose or because his body chemistry was different from theirs?

  “Tell, tell!” Tina Ann cried. “You be lookin’ strange. Sorta red in the face.”

  “I’m feeling all the effects that you mentioned, and it’s very intense. Do you still feel anything, or has it worn off?”

  “Mostly wore off,” Ben said.

  “I still be feelin’ it,” Tina Ann said.

  “Interesting. The effects must vary by user.”

  “All right if me and Tina Ann go for a walk?”

  “Sure. You’ll probably sleep better.” He was glad to be alone to monitor his sensations without distractions.

  The breghlin walked along the stream, and he could hear what they were saying. Around fifteen minutes passed before the effects began to wear off. At that point, his enhanced senses faded rapidly. Even though he wasn’t an adept, this was, in a sense, a gem power. It would be interesting to compare his results with Elias, Lana, and Jules, who had gem powers.

  He took the toolbox back to the cart and sat thinking about his experiment. It would be wise to put some of the powder in a small container and carry it all the time. There were many situations where heightened senses would come in handy. He was still daydreaming when Ben and Tina Ann returned from their walk.

  “There you be!” Tina Ann called. “Did ya bring yer book?”

  “We be ready fer ‘nother chapter of Treasure Island ‘fore we goes to sleep,” Ben said.

  Franklin laughed. “Yes, I brought it, and I think there’s enough daylight to get through a chapter. Maybe even two.”