Perilous Travels (The Southern Continent Series Book 2)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “I’ve been protecting you,” she told him, “and the time has come for my protection to reach its culmination.

  “I carried you through the waves to where that sweet little girl could take you ashore. I worked through her father to give you lessons in hand-to-hand combat as this land practices it. It’s appropriate for a slender fellow like you when it’s taught properly,” she told him conversationally, as he walked along in bewilderment.

  “And then when you got here, I put together the protective uniform you wear now, the one that is going to be a life-saver for you,” she said confidently.

  “What are you talking about?” he was bewildered by the random things she told him. They were drawing very near to the front of the Queen’s box, and he needed to focus on what was happening. He didn’t believe there was any good news in being summoned by the Queen in front of thousands of people.

  “I’m talking about this ambush,” the woman answered.

  Grange was just taking his spot in front of the royal box, when he stopped and turned to look at Rigan, once again baffled by her babbling words.

  “Grange!” he heard Grace’s voice. “It’s a trap!”

  Rigan began to glow, with a darkness that was bright, a glow that absorbed light, yet still glimmered with a dark radiance. At the same time, there was movement in front of the royal box, abrupt and violent movement.

  “Brielle! Ariana!” without knowing why, Grange shouted loudly, calling for his distant weapons – left behind because real weapons were supposed to be prohibited at the Melee – the ones that were alive with the implanted jewels that gave the blades powers and abilities.

  The movement he saw was the eruption of a quartet of armed men – two with swords and two with bows and arrows. They rose from positions of hiding, and Grange saw other people struggling inside the box.

  Rigan’s glow expanded out in the fractions of seconds that the assailants raised their weapons, then the woman beside him contracted instantly into a small glowing black jewel. Rigan the jewel flew towards Grange’s chest and attached herself to his clothing, the very outfit that she had prepared for him herself. The contact between the jewel and the cloth produced a profound ringing in his soul. As she did, his yellow vest turned black, a deep black that matched the clothes Grange was wearing. His outfit grew hot, and felt alive with power, while it seemed to writhe across his skin, then harden.

  The two archers fired their arrows at Grange from point-blank range. It was impossible for them to miss their target, the center of his chest, and both arrows struck him simultaneously, with their powerful momentum driving them into the material.

  Grange sensed that his living weapons were arriving. He threw his arms out in reaction to being slammed backwards by the arrows, and to try to catch his weapons simultaneously, as their hilts struck the palms of his hands.

  Instead of piercing him, the arrows bounced off his clothing, and fell to the ground, while the people in the stands started to panic and shriek.

  Not knowing what he was doing, Grange reacted instinctively, all the fighting practice of his days and months and hours with the women-jewels driving his motions. Grange’s arms tossed his weapons forward, sending both the knife and the sword flying with tumbling somersaults through the air to strike the two sword-wielding assailants in front of him.

  At the same time, Grace threw up a protective dome, one akin to the dome that Grange had used only moments earlier on the floor of the arena, and akin to the dome she herself had used many weeks earlier in Palmland. Grange’s eyes spotted the wizard apprentice, protectively grabbing and hugging the Queen to her chest within the dome as it erupted around them.

  “Ariana! Brielle! Return!” Grange called, and he leapt forward, his hands meeting the flying weapons as he rose into the air to leap at more of the attackers. He slashed with the sword and tossed the knife, then began fighting with desperate energy against the many armed men who seemed to occupy the royal box. A number of unarmed royal guests were down, slain or wounded by the group of attackers who had taken over the box, while a small handful of royal guards fought desperately to stay alive, as a part of the attackers tried to fight them and to penetrate Grace’s dome so that they could get to the Queen.

  Grange called Brielle back to him, as he swung Ariana, and felt Rigan’s protective clothing repel two strikes that penetrated his defenses or came from behind him. He waded impulsively forward, always attacking the men who were trying to attack the royal guards, or who were fruitlessly assaulting Grace’s defensive dome, or who were terrorizing anyone else left in the vicinity.

  In a matter of minutes the battle was over. The dozen assailants were all dead, each of them thoroughly killed by Grange or the remaining guards. Grace cautiously dissolved her dome, at the Queen’s order. The three royal guards who remained alive rushed to her side, while Grange stood among the bloody wreckage, panting from the exertion.

  He stared in uncomprehending shock at the scene of carnage, as his mind tried to digest what had happened.

  Rigan the seamstress had been Rigan, the black jewel. While it was a stunning and unexpected revelation, it was also something that had been hinted at, he realized in hindsight. She had spoken mysteriously, shown up on occasion with unerring timing, and had exuded an aura of competence beyond simply tailoring clothing.

  And the ambush at the royal box was also inexplicable. He couldn’t comprehend who had set up such an ambush, one that seemed aimed equally at him and at the Queen.

  “Grange! Look out!” Grace screamed.

  Grange turned and saw one of the dead combatants rise up with a knife in his hand, and a grisly wound across his abdomen. It seemed impossible for such a person to be able to live and attack, yet it was happening quickly and frighteningly.

  There was something on the back of the man’s neck that Grange suddenly realized was the hind parts of a demon. He slashed his blue sword, endowed by the goddess Miriam with the power to kill demons, and struck the man’s neck in a bloody attack that sent blood spraying in all directions and killed the screaming demon, making the body fall back to the ground, inanimate and dead once again.

  “Dear spirits!” the Queen exclaimed. “What madness has fallen upon us?”

  “Take her to the palace,” Grange shouted to the small coterie of guards who surrounded the Queen. “Take her there now and keep her safe.”

  He watched as the guards looked at one another, apparently without an officer left alive to command them, then they took hold of the Queen and began to escort her quickly away into the private passageway that the royal box enjoyed.

  Grange looked at Grace. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide with shock. “We need to perform for all the injured people, but I don’t have my flute with me,” he told her.

  She stared at him with vacant eyes for a moment more, then blinked. “Call it,” she suggested simply.

  It was his turn to stare at her, confused.

  “Use the power, use the old language, and summon the flute to come to you. You know where it is, don’t you? Visualize it and show the energy that you want it to come to you. That’s what you did with the sword, isn’t it?” she told him.

  “Not exactly,” he muttered.

  He visualized his room on the fourth floor, and the flute sitting on the table. Then he thought of Rigan, who had shown up in the room so mysteriously from time to time. “Oh Rigan,” he said softly. She was gone as a person, just as Ariana and Brielle were gone, once again in the form of a jewel, no longer flesh and blood.

  “Grange?” Grace said softly, bringing him back to the present.

  “Your flute?” she reminded him.

  He turned and absently looked at the spot where the Yellow team was still congregated together on the arena floor, tense, angry, and frightened by the explosive events taking place.

  “Os gwelwch yn dda, grym, yn dod â fy ffliwt i mi,” he called to the power.

  “Project your voice to the whole arena,” he turned and said to
Grace. “Let them all know that the Queen is safe, on her way to the palace, and let them know we will make the music to heal their wounds and illnesses, of any and all who are here, if they will wait for us.”

  She nodded at the suggestion, but before she could touch her wand to her throat, one of the royal guards approached her. “The Queen asked that you return to the palace with her,” the man said expectantly. He glanced over at Grange apprehensively, then stared only at Grace.

  Grace looked at Grange, who gave his head a slight negative shake. A moment later, his flute arrived and smacked against his hand, startling the guardsman.

  “I’ll come in a couple of minutes,” she told the guard, then touched her wand to her throat, and spoke.

  “Friends, the Queen is safe, and her guards have taken her from the arena, and back to the palace. The attackers are beaten,” Grace told the crowd, which had collectively gasped when another loud voice had descended upon them all.

  “We will play and sing wizards’ music for you; if you are wounded, or injured, or ill, our music will help you to heal more quickly,” she said, then looked at Grange to see if there was any further message he wanted delivered. He shook his head, and held up his flute to demonstrate that he was ready to play.

  “What song?” Grace asked him softly, then cringed when her words echoed across the stadium.

  Grange grinned at the small misstep. He was glad to have something to grin about in the midst of the violence and terror of the arena.

  She touched her wand to her throat again. “What song do you want to play?” she asked again, privately.

  “Is there a good palace song, like an anthem, that we’d both know?” Grange asked, then shook his head in the negative, realizing that he didn’t know any such songs from Kilau.

  “Let’s perform the song we did the first time in the palace together, ’You Will Always Have Me’,” Grace suggested.

  It was a song they both knew well, and it had been received well by the crowd at the palace dance when they had performed it before, Grange recollected. He nodded his head, and Grace touched her wand to her throat once again, re-engaging her powers to project her voice again.

  They began the music then, Grange playing the first introductory notes as Grace waited, then added her voice. The music was heartfelt, both of them moved intensely by the experiences of the previous half hour, and when they finished, they hugged wordlessly.

  “I’m going to join the Queen now,” Grace said. “You go see to your friend. I’ll see you soon,” she said. “Tell Bartar that I expect he’ll want to come to the palace tomorrow,” she said as she began to walk away with the guard, then disappeared from view.

  Grange turned and jumped back onto the arena floor, then began to sprint back towards the Yellow contingent. He noted that the Red fighters shrank back away from him as he passed near their gathering.

  “You all can go now,” he told them. “The Melee is over, and the Queen has left,” he advised. He paid them no further attention then, but ran onwards towards the Yellow team. As he approached, he saw the other members of the Yellow squad start to clap for him, and they opened a corridor for him to pass through on his way to see Jadie, and then they clapped him on the back as he passed through.

  Jadie lay on the ground, the knife handle still protruding from her leg, as blood continued to seep from the injury. Her face was pale and drawn.

  “Can you help her Grange?” Casey asked, kneeling behind him and placing her hands on his shoulders as she looked over his examination of the wound.

  “I’m going to take this out of your leg,” he told her. “It’s a jagged blade, so it’s going to hurt,” he warned her.

  Make the blade soft, a voice whispered.

  “What?” Grange asked.

  Turn the metal blade to rubber, to reduce the damage it does to the woman’s flesh, the jewel explained impatiently.

  No, not rubber, make it like her own flesh, one of the jewels improvised suddenly.

  Not flesh, why not blood? Another jewel offered.

  Or just air - make it change to air and leave the wound, a third voice spoke. They were talking over one another as they sought to advise him. He found it amusing to think of the great powers of the jewels, suddenly squabbling among themselves about how he could use the power, and he found it to be a welcome, momentary distraction from the deadly chaos in the arena.

  "That's good, thank you," Grange told them. He looked down at the bloody wound, and considered the concept and how to translate it to the appropriate language.

  "Os gwelwch yn dda, pŵer, yn cymryd llafn hwn i ffwrdd, ac yn gwneud fy ffrind heal," he called upon the energy, then studied Jadie's leg intently.

  The familiar glow of the energy grew for him to see, then the handle of the knife suddenly wavered as the metal blade beneath it dissolved into insubstantial air. Grange snatched the handle as it toppled, then he saw the wound knit itself back together.

  You were clever to ask the power to heal her too, one of the jewels contritely whispered in his consciousness.

  "Grange!" Jadie's squealed in astonishment. "I feel so much better!" she looked down at the wound as those who were crowded around her gasped and murmured in astonishment. "It's healed! I saw what you did when we were out at the farm, but I never dreamed you'd be able to do something like this!"

  "Here," Grange stood up, then extended his hand to help his friend rise as well.

  He looked up at the disappearing crowd in the stands. "We ought to be going," he said to Jadie and Casey. "I need to go to my embassy. Someone must know why all this happened," he said in a low voice.

  The trio joined with the others from the Yellow team in filing out of the arena, then walked together towards their own quarter of the city. Others peeled off in various directions as they progressed, so that soon the three of them were alone.

  "You saved the Queen and you saved Jadie today," Casey told him. She grasped his hand between both of her own and squeezed it in gratitude. "And you showed us some amazing things," she added. “You’re even more extraordinary than I realized.”

  He was changing, he realized. He was growing comfortable with the use of the energy of the wizards. His practicing with the wand, repeatedly filling it with power and then discharging it, had made calling the power feel like a mundane activity, when he knew it was anything but. Yet even so, he found his knowledge of the ancient language was too incomplete for him to truly master the energy, to be able to call it to do anything he wanted – at times he had to grope for words, or find alternative ways to explain what he wanted.

  Jadie suddenly threw herself at him, and then Casey changed the handholding into a hug as well, so that the three of them stood at the street corner where their paths diverged, and held on to one another.

  “Why are you here, Grange?” Jadie asked. “You seem to have the ability to go somewhere and be in charge. Why are you just wasting time with us?”

  “I’m not wasting time when I’m with friends,” he said sincerely. “And I don’t want to be in charge of anything in particular,” he added. “And I’m still learning what I can do.

  “And you two have been a lot of fun to practice with,” he added.

  “I wish my fiancé could hear you say that,” Casey told him.

  “Fiance? I didn’t know you even had a boyfriend!” Grange exclaimed. “My heart is broken,” he laughed.

  Casey pinched him in retaliation. “That’s not nice. Talking about a boyfriend while working out with swords never seemed important,” she told him, as the three of them broke apart. “But my fiancé is convinced that you think Jadie and I are more than ‘fun’. He thinks you want to date us yourself.”

  “Do you?” Jadie asked.

  Grange sputtered, until the two girls laughed.

  “Don’t worry Grange, we’ve heard all the gossip about the girl in the palace; she talks about you all the time, apparently. And your eyes light up when you see her, apparently,” Jadie stroked his arm sympathetic
ally.

  “Will we see you at the second day of the tournament tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Will there still be a second day?” Grange asked. “After the Queen halted the Melee, and then the attack at her tent, I’m not sure.”

  “We’ll meet you here, and then go to the tournament together,” Casey told him. “And we’ll find out together.”

  The group went their separate ways, and Grange was back at the front door of the embassy minutes later, as the sky began to grow darker.

  “Grange! What are you doing here? We thought you would be at the palace with the Queen!” Bartar said as soon as he saw Grange enter the building. He hustled the wizard into his office and quickly shut the door, as Astel hurried into the room as well.

  “She was safe, and her guards – the ones who were still alive – took her back to the palace,” Grange answered. “And I think Grace went with her,” he added.

  “We ought to take you to the palace as quickly as possible – tonight,” Bartar told him.

  “Do you know what happened? Whose fighters were those that attacked?” Grange asked.

  “We don’t know. Nobody knew. We don’t know why the Queen stopped the Melee, or why the attack occurred at her box. We thought you might have the answers,” the ambassador said.

  “Are you up to going to the palace tonight?” he asked.

  Grange thought about the palace and the queen, and then he thought about Shaylee, who Casey and Jadie knew about, and had said such intriguing things about. “Yes, I think we should go,” he answered. Shaylee had probably been at the arena watching the Melee, and had seen the conflict that arose.

  “Astel, you stay here and watch things at the embassy,” Bartar told his page, and then he ushered Grange out the door and on the way to the harbor.

  “We’re told that the palace docks are closed to all strangers tonight,” the ferryman said when Bartar tried to hire him to take them to the palace.

  “They’ll make an exception for us. This is the warrior who saved the Queen today,” Bartar insisted.