by Booth, John
“Are you ready?” Jenny asked. She wore a tight black skirt, black tights, and a black jacket over a white shirt, topped off with a small black hat with silk veil. It all looked very business woman about town.
“I've not seen you wear those before.”
“I wore them for Grimaldi's funeral. You were off trying to get yourself killed at the time.”
“It's not something I do on purpose.”
Jenny made me face her, tidied up my cravat, and straightened my jacket. I suppose I should be grateful she didn't get a handkerchief out to wipe my face.
“There, you'll do, I suppose.” Jenny took my arm in hers. “Now hop us to outside the cathedral and let's hope we're there in time.” She gave my arm a squeeze. “And do try harder not to get yourself hurt. I've no wish to wear this outfit to your funeral.”
The sun shone brightly while a light breeze stopped it from being too hot. A large crowd lined the road. By some happy fluke I landed us some distance behind the black horse-drawn hearse carrying Anna's coffin and a few yards behind Urda who leaned against Esmeralda as they followed it on foot. Urda wore a black cloak with a hood covering her face. It's impossible to run to catch people up with any dignity, so we began walking after them, keeping pace.
Our sudden appearance brought a few gasps from the crowd and a little finger pointing from the younger children. Seconds later a shadow covered us and there were major gasps and even the odd scream from one or two of the people watching.
[I love making a good entrance.] Fluffy said. He flew silently above us at walking speed, his wings outstretched. As I've said before, dragons fly by magic and the wings are more for show than use.
“Have you been waiting long?” I whispered at him.
[I've been in Glim following Urda and Esmeralda since the coffin left the Palace. I was beginning to wonder if you two would ever show up.]
“Women and clothes,” I whispered back. Jenny's elbow slammed into my ribs taking my breath away.
The hearse pulled to a halt in front of the cathedral and we managed to catch up with the others as they waited for the pallbearers to carry the coffin into the church. The crowd formed a semicircle around us, keeping a respectful distance. Fluffy did a slow motion landing keeping his wings outstretched.
“I've arranged for your bowtie,” I whispered.
“Jake, be quiet!” Esmeralda hissed at me. Urda's shoulders heaved as if she was sobbing. Through the folds of her hood I could see she had a handkerchief held against her mouth to stop her laughter.
[About time too.] Fluffy said with smug satisfaction. [I shall wait for you in the cemetery and save my grand entrance in the cathedral for your wedding.]
We followed the pallbearers into the church and down the aisle to the central platform under the dome. The Bishop waited in exactly the same clothes I'd seen him in before. Apparently the Church of Light doesn't go in for special ceremonial costumes. The coffin was placed gently on a table covered with a white cloth.
“We are gathered here today to say farewell to Anna Bretch, beloved sister of Wizard Urda Bretch. She was taken from us and returned to the Light far too young. Let us remember that no light is ever lost and what she was will remain, absorbed into the universe from which she was made, whole and eternal.”
The Bishop continued with his eulogy as I scanned the pews for any sign of Bronwyn. I couldn't turn around without looking disrespectful, but this was a service in-the-round and there were people sitting all around the platform.
Some way behind the Bishop sat the King and Queen along with what looked like most of the noble families of the kingdom. To the left and right of the platform sat the families of tradesmen. I saw Grimaldi standing stiffly on the front row and was slightly surprised to see his assistants standing to either side of him. Helda smiled as our eyes met. However, there was no sign of Bronwyn, or Wenna for that matter.
I brought my attention back to the Bishop's words. He seemed to have nearly finished the service.
“What made Anna, Anna has already fled this place and all that remains is fragile flesh and bone. Let us return them to the earth from whence they came, tokens of our remembrance of the spirit that once inhabited them.”
The pallbearers lifted the coffin and carried it to the left where an aisle led to a door to the cemetery. Urda followed with Esmeralda and Jenny urged me after them. Apparently we were regarded as Anna's family and would walk in front of the King and Queen.
The King and Queen followed us, walking alongside the Bishop. The other nobles followed behind them.
Fluffy stood beside the grave with his wings raised in salute. The coffin slid silently into the waiting hole on silk ropes. I walked beyond the grave and looked around. There was a flash of light and I instinctively cast a defensive shield.
The force of the blast flung me into the grave and I landed painfully on top of the coffin. It knocked the breath right out of me. I strengthened the shield around the mourners as the second blast hit. The pile of earth beside the grave shook and crumbled inwards. I found I was up to my waist in soil. I hopped back onto solid ground before I ended up buried alive.
Three blasts of light smashed into the top of a building outside the cemetery. Stone and mortar flew through the air and cries of anguish rose from that direction. All the mourners were lying on the ground. I saw the King and Queen get to their feet and looked in the direction the last blasts had come from.
The Valhalla wizards stood with their hands out as if ready to throw something. I figured they had beaten me to the counter attack.
“I'm going to look!” I shouted at them, pointing towards what remained of the building they'd hit. They nodded and I hopped.
I nearly fell as I tripped on rubble under my feet. Below me in the street, people lay injured, hit by the debris from the wizards' blasts. Some of them appeared to be badly hurt.
Looking back to the cemetery I could see that where I stood was where the initial blasts came from. Gravestones and statues lay on the ground like toppled dominoes, pointing directly away from me. My initial shield had deflected most of the blast away from the mourners. People were sitting on the ground behind the grave and most were cautiously getting to their feet. There was no sign of Fluffy until I looked high into the air.
[There's no sign of who did it, Jake. Thanks for shielding me.]
I hopped to the Valhallan wizards. If Fluffy couldn't see anybody with his spectacular eyesight I had no chance.
“Did you see who did it?”
“Two people. They hopped when we fired back. Thank you for the shield Wizard Morrissey, we were not expecting to be attacked at a funeral,” Lagan said.
“Can you maintain a guard here while Urda and I attend to the wounded in the town?”
Lagan bowed. “It would be our pleasure.”
“One forgets what the uncivilized worlds are like,” Meldar Lind said dryly.
“They're only as bad as rogue wizards make them,” I replied before hopping over to Urda.
Urda was brilliant. She was faster than me at healing and sped from victim to victim as I dithered over each injury. By some miracle nobody had died. Urda pulled me over to help her with a little girl whose leg was horribly damaged.
“You keep her calm and stop her from going into shock while I repair her leg.”
“You can't heal that.” It made me sick to look at the damage a large piece of stone had done to it. Most of the girl's leg lay in big chunks on the cobbles.
“Yes I can,” Urda informed me grimly. She put her hands above what remained of the girl's leg and the torn flesh flew from the cobbles to rejoin the rest of her body. I gulped and used healing magic to hold the girl's internal organs together. Her whole body was in the process of shutting down in reaction to the trauma.
I was vaguely aware that people stood around us watching, but I needed all my concentration to keep the girl alive.
“It's okay, Jake. She can manage on her own now.” Urda's voice pulled me back up to re
ality.
People cheered as the little girl got unsteadily to her feet and smiled at us.
Towards the back of the crowd I saw the wizards from Valhalla hop away. Then Jenny and Esmeralda were all over me. Urda put her hood back over her head and vanished.
“That was definitely Bronwyn,” Esmeralda whispered in my ear. “People in the crowd recognized her. The wizard helping her was Wenna.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Barren
Jenny, Esmeralda, Fluffy and I convened a meeting on the grass square between the cloisters. Servants brought a buffet meal out to us, if you can call anything that includes two whole roasted sheep a buffet. I shall have to have words with my dragon before he starts getting fat. Until recently, one sheep a week would have been more than adequate.
Urda was back in Wales with her sister and given that Bronwyn knows where I live, it was best she stayed close to Anna. I'd get Fluffy to take her word of Wenna's betrayal.
“I still don't get it,” I said. “Why would Wenna betray us?”
Esmeralda looked exasperated and Jenny sighed.
“If we assume she attacked Anna it all makes perfect sense,” Esmeralda said as if explaining it to a child.
I picked up a large chunk of cheese before disagreeing.
“Not to me. We rescued Wenna from certain death in Barren and made her more than welcome in Salice. Why would she side with Bronwyn?”
Esmeralda threw a grape at me which bounced off my nose. Still, it was a lot less violent than throwing a mobile phone.
“Jake, Bronwyn is the wizard running Barren.”
“With Wenna as her accomplice, getting revenge on all those people who hurt her and killed her brother,” Jenny said.
[She was made an offer she couldn't refuse.]
“And Anna must have seen Wenna in Sparse,” I said, catching on. “When Wenna went into Bronwyn's room Anna probably screamed or something and Wenna had to try to kill her.”
“Wenna must be more powerful than we thought,” Esmeralda said, “if she's been hopping across the multiverse without a hopscotch court.”
“It's easy to teach and I've already shown you can increase a wizard's power if you're another wizard. I did it to Urda.”
“That's probably why Valhalla has so many wizards,” Jenny said. “They help each other to become capable and pass on their skills through the generations.”
“I'd better go to Barren and sort the two of them out.”
I waited for the inevitable protests, but all three of them nodded in agreement. Typical, the one time I was hoping someone would talk me out of something and they agree with me.
Esmeralda gave me a stern look. “Try and come back alive. I've put a lot of effort into this wedding.”
“And don't step in any magic circles,” Jenny put in for good measure.
“I thought you two would object.”
“Better you go and fight them on Barren than at the wedding where they'll be lots of innocent bystanders.”
“And you're going in prepared?” Jenny managed to make what should have been a statement come out as a question.
“I suppose so.” I turned to Fluffy. “Go and tell Urda to be on her guard against Wenna. You might suggest to Mam that they'd all be safer in a hotel. Not that I can see Dad going along with it.”
[Your mother is surprisingly intelligent, as is your father.]
I suspected I'd just been subtly insulted and judging by the grins on my brides-to-be I wasn't the only one who noticed.
I stood up.
“You should finish your meal first,” Jenny suggested. “Can't go fighting evil wizards on an empty stomach.”
Several witty retorts floated through my head and thankfully stayed there. The truth was, I'd lost my appetite and wanted to get on with it before I changed my mind. It was a bit embarrassing that a guy of nineteen was frightened of two girls, one of them only twelve, but suddenly I could remember all those months of agony in hospital. Bronwyn had read all those magic books by now, I was sure of it.
“See you later, ladies.” I gave both girls a quick peck on the forehead and hopped to Barren.
There was a hill where I'd used to observe Barren. I couldn't remember if I'd ever hopped there with Bronwyn, but I didn't think I had. I arrived with a shield covering me from attack in all directions and in a kung fu fighting stance.
When you do that and there's no one around it's highly embarrassing. I straightened up and magically enhanced my vision. I left the shield in place, though, just in case.
The central square of the town looked like a scene from hell. Fifty people or more were hanging from wooden crosses arranged in a neat circle. A bonfire raged in the middle of the circle. Bodies littered the streets and many of the houses were burning out of control. Nothing moved except for the flames.
I hopped to the square and extinguished the bonfire with a thought. A quick scan of the area revealed no wizards, though I kept my shield raised.
Stepping over a dead dog I got closer to one of the crucified citizens. His hands and feet were nailed to the wood in the classic pose, though Bronwyn didn't leave him the dignity of clothes. I thought he was dead and when he opened his eyes I stepped back in horror.
“You're not one of them.”
I hopped him off the cross and did some simple magic to stop the blood flowing from his hands and feet.
“Or maybe you are.” He spat at me and missed.
“My intention is to stop them and take them from this place forever,” I said. “So tell me where they are.”
He laughed and then the laugh turned into a wracking cough.
“They come, they go. Killed my brother, my father, and me.”
“Where have they been living?”
He pointed behind me and I turned to look. A mansion stood alone on the side of a hill. I was debating what to do with the man when something pinged into my shield from behind me. I turned and found a knife hanging in mid-air a few inches from my back.
The man lay collapsed on the ground, all his energy expended after his failed murder attempt. That made my decision easier. I left him to fend for himself and hopped to the mansion.
There was a magic circle painted onto the marble paving in front of the door. I swept my hand in front of me and the paint vanished. There was still a buzz of magic in the marble and I stepped carefully around it. A page of one of Esmeralda's magic books appeared in my head and I looked up at the lintel. The main defensive circle was above the door, covered in white paint. That was where the book recommended it be placed. I gestured and the lintel disappeared, the stones of the wall above tilting down before locking again under their own weight.
The door was open. I stepped cautiously into the house.
A little girl saw me and screamed. She ran up a wide staircase screaming continuously. I figured that I'd lost any element of surprise and walked towards the stairs.
There were traps everywhere. I saw them as buzzing in my vision and there were so many I thought I might have a migraine coming on. Rather than destroy or trigger them I extended the shield under my feet and made it magic proof. As I walked up the stairs my shield stopped Bronwyn's magic from detecting me. Pages of books flashed before my eyes telling me that what I was doing was impossible. I grinned at the thought that my brides were right. I made a mental note never to tell them.
On the upper floor there was a corridor leading to three doors. Two of them were wide open so I went to the third. It opened a couple of inches when I pushed before hitting something. I imagined it downstairs and the door vanished.
Furniture had been piled up against the door. When the door vanished the chairs and other furniture fell towards me. They didn't touch me as I hopped them downstairs to join the door.
The room was probably a dining room. An enormous polished wooden table filled the center of it, being too big for the defenders to move.
There were at least forty of them cowering in the corner, forty children of both sexes, none of them older
than fourteen.
“Where's Bronwyn?”
Nobody answered. I got a lot of belligerent looks from them though. I decided that a bluff might be useful.
“If you don't tell me, you'll be in big trouble.” Damn, I planned to say I'd get bugs to eat their eyes, but they were kids and looked terrified already.
“They've gone,” a girl of nine or ten told me defiantly. “They said a wizard was coming to kill them so they had to leave. They said we should wait for you.”
“And what were you supposed to do when I turned up?”
“Bronwyn said you'd look after us.”
I picked up one of the chairs and sat on it.
“One at a time, tell me your names and how you ended up here.”
By the time the third kid came forward to tell me their story I was sincerely hoping that the adults they told me about were the ones hanging crucified in the square. Bronwyn was one sick child, but not everything she did was completely wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Orphans
By the twelfth child I called a halt to their stories and told them to sit down. I was going to have nightmares over what I'd heard. A quick count revealed there were forty-three children to deal with and I didn't have a clue what to do with them. Thank you, Bronwyn, for turning me into a foster father; it was just what I needed. As if my life wasn't complicated enough.
My ability to see magic seemed to be increasing and at least four of these kids showed the potential to be wizards. I wonder if Bronwyn knew about them. That was my main problem in a nutshell. These kids could be some subtle form of attack just waiting to happen. Maybe they'd turn into monsters when Bronwyn made her move. Okay, that sounded crazy even to me, but I couldn't be sure they weren't. The best thing I could do was to leave them in Barren until I could figure out something better to do with them.
“Why does Bronwyn think I'm going to kill her?” The kids stared back at me blankly. I'm the good guy. I don't kill people. The image of Talder Plath as his neck snapped came into my mind unbidden and unwanted. Okay, I have killed people, but I'm not a killer.
