by Blink, Bob
With the streets now suddenly silent, the Lieutenant looked around for other trouble.
‘Ferkle?” he asked, seeing the wizard examining his hand.
“I’m fine,” the Caster replied, although a brief flash of healing magic wrapped around his arm where he had small burns from releasing the staff too slowly. “I will be of little use if they return,” he warned. “I have never heard of anyone being able to destroy a power staff like that.”
The soldiers shuffled uncertainly. They had seen both weapons and magic fail. The strangers had pushed aside both effortlessly. It was unlikely they would be able to stop them if they returned.
The Lieutenant turned toward the two boys. “Go home,” he ordered. “Say nothing of what you witnessed. Fen, you may tell your father. He needs to report. I fear we might need every capable hand tonight.”
Fen wanted to wait and see if they returned and what other surprises they might demonstrate, but Garss, now frightened by what they had seen, was pulling him away.
“That went well,” Orna said sarcastically as they stood once again in the oasis from which they had left earlier in the afternoon. “What do we do now? We aren’t going to be very welcome back there.”
“We might as well stay here for the night. They can’t know where to find us. In the morning, we’ll have to go back. There are no other choices open to us. Somehow, we’ll have to make them understand we don’t want trouble. At least we didn’t have to kill anyone.”
“After what you did to that wizard’s staff, “I’m not sure it matters. They think we are something to be frightened of. They must have an enemy that we remind them of.”
“They had the Hoplani swords,” Lorl noted. “That means they know about the Duneriders. Perhaps they are the ones responsible for the Hoplani Farms. They might know about us and that’s why they attacked.”
“That seems unlikely,” Ash’urn replied. “Whatever the situation, we need to move forward carefully. If we can get back unobserved, we need to move away from that village until we can establish what the true situation might be.”
There was little they could do at the moment, and they all had a lot to think about. If anything, their situation was even more bleak than it had been earlier. There was no way back through the Ruins, and now they had made an enemy on the only path open to them. As the others settled in for the night, Rigo walked over and picked up the remains of his staff. He had brought it back here, but had abandoned it before going on to the village earlier in the day. He checked it once again, but it was completely useless. He wondered if Daim could have repaired it. Rigo had thought a lot about the staff since learning that it was resistant to the Ruins. He thought he knew how it had been made and what might be done to repair it, but he also knew that he lacked the skill and raw strength that Daim had used to create the thing. The Daim of that period so long in the past when the staff had been made had been far more capable and powerful than Rigo was. Even knowing what needed to be done, he had no means of making it happen.
Chapter 24
“Why did they attack us?” Orna asked as they lay in their camping blankets later that night. “We didn’t have any weapons drawn, nor were we showing any resistance.”
“There was some anger there,” Ash’urn said. “You could tell by the tone of voice the one who fired the first arrow used. I don’t need to understand the language to tell he was angry. I’d guess he had dealt with whomever their enemy is before, or has a personal reason to hate them.”
“All of them?” Lorl said doubtfully. “They should have had better discipline. The one who looked to be in charge never gave an order for them to fire.”
“I think Orna’s magic startled them,” Rigo said thoughtfully. He’d been replaying the events in his mind like the others.
“Why? They know about magic. That little one with the staff shot Brightfire at us.”
“I agree with Rigo,” Ash’urn said. “They didn’t expect us to have access to magic. I’m not sure why, other than whoever they are fighting must not have any magic.”
“That would make the battle pretty one sided,” Orna noted. “They shouldn’t need so many soldiers, nor should they be so nervous around them.”
“We’re obviously missing something,” Rigo said. “There’s more at work here than we are seeing.”
“Another whole land,” Ash’urn said suddenly, changing the direction of the discussion. “Can you believe it? They have existed for thousands of years without knowing about us, just as we have been totally ignorant about them. Do you think they have a problem with the Hoplani as well? Maybe they have a different solution.”
“I’m certain of it,” Lorl said. “Didn’t you see that sword. It is one of the kind made from Hoplani bones. That suggests they might need to fight the beasts At least they want a weapon effective against them.”
“I was wondering if maybe they were responsible for the Duneriders and the Hoplani Farms,” Orna said.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Rigo said. “If that were the case, why would so many Hoplani have been directed this way? The Farms were clearly built with the intent of routing the creatures both east and west. That implies they weren’t built by the people who live here.”
“Where did they get the swords then?” Orna asked.
Rigo shook his head. “There’s too much we don’t know, and I don’t see any immediate way of getting answers.”
“More importantly, what are we going to do now?” Ash’urn asked. “We know we can’t get back home by retracing our steps, and it doesn’t look very promising going back to that place.”
“We have no choice,” Rigo said softly. “We can’t stay here. Our food won’t last another day. The only hope is to go back and try and work things out.”
“They’ll be looking for us,” Orna said.
“Probably,” Rigo agreed. “That means we have to go prepared to use magic to defuse the situation rather than exacerbate it. Maybe we can create a situation where we aren’t seen as an enemy. I don’t know how we move forward from there, but I can’t see any other solution.”
“Where do we go back to?” Lorl asked.
“That’s part of the problem,” Rigo agreed. “That village is the only place here we know, so we have to go there. The only parts we are familiar with are the village common where we arrived earlier, and the walk into the village to the inn. That doesn’t leave us a lot of choice.”
“They’ll be waiting for us there,” Lorl said with certainty.
“You can count on it,” Orna agreed. “That little wizard whose staff you burned wasn’t very pleased.”
“Going back tonight wouldn’t be wise,” Rigo agreed. “Tempers and fear are running high at the moment, and they are probably searching for us or any like us. They probably have raised the guard. They’ll be watching the area we were seen walking, especially if they know anything about how Bypass portals work, and I think we have to assume they do. That means we don’t go back before morning. But how long do we wait? Do we go early when most are asleep, or wait until later in the day? Do we hold off more than a day?” Rigo looked at the others to see if they had any useful ideas.
The foursome bounced around the issue for some time. They finally decided it would be best to arrive early when most were asleep. By then the searches initiated tonight would have cleared the area, and the immediate furor should have settled down. They also decided that returning to the inside of the inn might be best. They would be sheltered from view, assuming the inn closed during the early dawn of the morning, and they could check outside for guardsmen before they tried to slip away from the area. They needed to expand the possible locations they could jump to as soon as possible.
“Are we agreed on how this is to be done?” Rigo asked. It was a couple of glass before dawn and he and Lorl were about to attempt a return to the inn. “No killing. That would end any chance at a peaceful conclusion to our attempts.”
“What if there are more wizards?” Lorl
asked.
“We contain them as best we can. We might have to allow ourselves to be captured if that looks possible without getting killed. We’ll have to adapt as the situation directs. In the worst case we come back here, either singly or together.”
Rigo looked from one face to another. Everyone nodded their understanding. Grimly, he opened the Bypass that would take them back into the inn where they had had the dinner. He and Lorl stepped through. Orna and Ash’urn would stay behind. If all went well, Rigo and Lorl would come back and get them once they had found a safe place or had established some kind of agreement with the locals. If matters went poorly and they were captured, Orna and Ash’urn could try and sneak in another way later and try and rescue them. It wasn’t much of a plan, but their options were severely limited.
Rigo and Lorl carried their swords on their backs. They had agreed not to draw them, as that would almost certainly provoke a fight. There had been some thought given to leaving the weapons behind, but neither of them were comfortable being disarmed, assuming they were able to slip away from the village without being seen as they intended. Who knew what they would find in the countryside, and they had found that magic didn’t always work and couldn’t always be counted on as it could back in the Three Kingdoms. From what they had seen, the influences of the Ruins hadn’t spread to the village, but why take any chances?
The moment Rigo stepped out of the portal and into the large room of the inn, now dark and quiet, he was aware they had a problem. It was too late to warn Lorl, who stepped into the area immediately after him.
“I’m cut off from my magic,” Lorl whispered behind Rigo.
He’d detected the same thing. He couldn’t see how that could be. There was no one here, and the room had not affected them the previous evening. Something had changed. They were still trying to decide how to proceed when the front and rear doors of the inn slammed open, a number of armed men pouring through the entrances.
Lorl started to reach for his sword, but Rigo held out a hand and restrained him. Neither of them were great fighters, and they were greatly outnumbered. Rigo stood in place and waited as the leader stepped forward, his sword extended in case Rigo chose to resist. Several men behind him carried torches to provide light. In the flickering light Rigo could see the walls of the inn had been painted with some kind of unfamiliar symbols. All four walls and the ceiling were marked with them. Then he noted the same symbols had been painted on the floor.
The two wizards held out their hands in submission while several soldiers stepped in behind them and relieved them of their swords. The man in the front shouted something at them, but the meaning was lost on Rigo and Lorl. Rigo shook his head trying to indicate he didn’t understand.
“They were waiting for us,” Lorl said. He received a sharp blow to the back of his head for speaking.
Indeed they had been. They had guessed where they might return. Either that, or they had covered the areas where they had been seen. Rigo suspected there were more soldiers outside and back in the commons. He was also certain that the symbols had something to do with his blocked magic, although he couldn’t understand how that would work. Now it was time to simply go along and hope they could find some way to communicate.
Outnumbered and weaponless, Rigo and Lorl watched as the wizard they had seen the previous evening stepped into the room. He glared at them as he entered. He was followed by a woman, this one likely a wizard as well seeing she carried another of the ornate staffs, this one even larger than the one the male wizard had wielded. Rigo was intrigued to see the wood of the staff was intricately covered with symbols.
The wizard motioned Rigo to hold out his hands, and when he did so, the man snapped a pair of thick bracelets onto his wrists with obvious satisfaction. Then he snapped a similar band around Rigo’s neck. Satisfied with his handiwork, he pushed Rigo toward a pair of burly soldiers. Then he repeated his actions on Lorl. Once they were both banded, they were dragged out of the inn and into the street.
The woman wizard shouted something once they were outside, and walked over to stare closely at the two of them. She was tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. Rigo could see the intelligence and strength in her gaze, and knew this one was more powerful than the small wizard they had encountered the evening before.
“Rigo,” he said, awkwardly pointing at himself and hoping to initiate conversation. Her lip curled and she swatted him with a touch of magic, which stung and took his breath away. Before he could recover, she had shot a quick series of bluish energy at the metal bands, and Rigo knew she had welded the joints to ensure they couldn’t be removed. It would take tools or his magic to have any hope of getting them loose.
After repeating the procedure with Lorl, the woman pointed down the street and shouted a command to the soldiers, who roughly shoved Rigo and Lorl in the direction indicated. He paid attention to the way they headed in case he could use the information later. He still couldn’t access his magic, and he suspected the bands, which he’d noticed were also liberally covered with symbols, had something to do with that. He was concerned that Orna and Ash’urn would come looking for them when they didn’t return by the promised time. He hoped they would wait and give Rigo time to try and settle matters. If not that, Rigo hoped they would wait until the situation here became calmer. Of course, there was no way Ash’urn and Orna could know what had happened here, and sooner or later they were bound to become concerned. Also, he knew that they couldn’t wait too long given the limited supplies they had available. He was aware from previous experience that Orna wasn’t known for her patience. Unfortunately, the people here knew from the previous evening there had been four of them, so they would continue looking, and they could have easily ended up like himself and Lorl.
Assuming his orientation was correct and the Ruins were to the west, they were taken almost directly south for a considerable distance. They attracted a surprising amount of attention given how early in the day it was, but the battle with magic the previous evening had probably alerted the entire village. Eventually they came to a large stone enclosure, which Rigo correctly assumed was the barracks for the soldiers. They were shoved inside, and led down a hallway in the back of the building, then down a set of stairs to the stockade. On one side of a wide hallway were small individual cells. On the other were a pair of much larger cells that could easily accommodate a half dozen prisoners. They were pushed into one of the larger cells, the door closed and locked behind them.
“Well, I suspect we’ll get a chance to try and talk with them now,” Rigo said, trying to make light of their situation to a dour faced Lorl.
“How did they block our magic?” Lorl asked sourly. “We had no problem when we were here before.”
“I think it has something to do with the symbols they painted everywhere,” Rigo said.
“Symbols don’t do anything,” Lorl scoffed. “Only a few like yourself have the ability to block another’s magic.”
That was true. Rigo could do it sometimes, depending on the strength of the opposing wizard and his preparedness. Someone who was expecting an attempt was much more difficult to cut off. It was something that Daim had passed to him. Nycoh and Jeen and two others in their family of wizards at the Outpost had demonstrated the ability. It was a skill that was difficult to master, and the wizard performing the blockage had to be present continuously or the spell failed. Whatever had been done here worked even in the absence of the two wizards that Rigo had seen. He raised his hands and looked at the bands of metal that wrapped around his wrists. He was certain the symbols were similar to those he’d seen back at the inn. A quick check also verified the bands weren’t going to simply slip off.
“Something is different about their magic here,” Rigo said. “They seem to be linked to the symbols, and obviously know some things we don’t.”
Rigo couldn’t help wondering if their magic was considerably more powerful than their own, and whether that included the ability to create, and thereby destroy,
the Hoplani Farms.
They didn’t have to wait long. The two wizards they had seen previously walked into the cell area, and stood just outside the large cell where they were being detained. The smaller wizard, the man, was clearly standing back and letting the woman take charge. She was the senior wizard here.
“Talik ran dinturu,” she demanded.
Rigo shrugged, pointed to his head, and shook it, trying to indicate he didn’t understand. “My name is Rigo,” he said hoping the words might have some effect on her. She tried again, then a third time, this time glaring at Lorl. When neither replied with anything she could understand, she huffed and spoke to the smaller wizard behind her. He hurried off, returning moments later with a sheet of coarse paper. She took it, wrote something on it and passed it through the bars to Rigo. He looked at the paper with the indecipherable text, then wrote his own message in return. He passed the paper back through the bars. The woman looked at it, muttered in disgust, and turned abruptly and walked away.
“We need Ash’urn,” Lorl said when they were alone.
“I doubt it would matter. Ash’urn was correct. We have no common starting point. It is going to take a long time before we manage to communicate.”
No one bothered them for a while. Rigo examined the cell and the metal bars that enclosed them. It had been a long time, but he’d been in cells before. He was impressed with this one. The stone base was well made, the heavy blocks positioned and fitted together with barely a noticeable seam where they joined. The bars were made of metal, but were smooth and solid, nearly perfectly formed. They were deeply embedded into the stone without any free movement. He watched as the guard had locked the door, and had seen that a far more complex key than he’d seen used in cells back home had been employed. He suspected the lock to be equally more complex, and even had he access to his magic, forcing the lock might be a challenge. With nothing else to do, he walked over to one of the six cots in the room and sat down.
