by GJ Kelly
Garin gripped the staff tighter, and shut his eyes. It was all so terrible, and so unfair. He could hear Taya sobbing about how hopeless it all was. Drake’s voice asking the elf if he could re-forge Felgardin. The overlord giving instructions to raise the crucible from the pit to prevent the gold from overheating. And through it all, he could hear the child’s whimpering, frightened now at all the raised voices and the clanging of chains echoing in the chamber.
No-one was paying any attention to Garin whatsoever. When he opened his eyes, and saw that he was completely ignored, completely unnoticed, a furious resolve washed over him. He ripped the thin cloth from his master’s staff…no! His staff! And gripped it tightly. The shocking icy numbness instantly began seeping through his hand, his wrist, travelling up his arm towards his elbow. He gritted his teeth and gripped the staff with both hands, clutching it as if he were strangling a snake.
Enough! He thought, never angrier in his life. The icy cold of rejection had reached his shoulders now, but still he clung to it as he heard Taya suddenly cry out, “Look! What’s he doing?”
Then he heard the overlord’s voice, shrieking with alarm. ”The fool’s trying to break it!”
That was the final straw. Garin opened his eyes, stared at the elf-tree staff, and then at the strange group of astonished people all around him. “I have had…Enough!” Garin cried, and then the symbols of a spell his once-master Eyan had never taught him flashed into his mind’s eye, and a dense green mist seemed to swirl all around him…
oOo
-13-
Sounds faded, and then suddenly he found himself standing in the middle of Eyan’s cottage. He blinked several times and looked around at the room that looked so familiar, yet so different. His sudden arrival had knocked over a chair and he stood it back upright.
It had been less than two weeks since he had left and it looked like the cottage of a stranger. He now knew that he would never be able to return here with his master and continue as things had once been. Nothing would ever be the same again.
He felt the numbing pain of the staff and took a deep breath then let it out slowly to ease the panic that was rising fast. He had intended to fetch the king, so why had he ended up here? Perhaps deep down he wanted to run away, back to the safety of being an apprentice.
The pain was rushing up his arm and he knew he didn’t have long. If he didn’t get it right this next time there would probably be no more chances. The staff still thought him unworthy and he could only hold on for a few more minutes. He held the staff in just his left hand and breathed deeply as he focused his mind on what he wanted and let forth with a string of words.
The peaceful interior of the cottage vanished and he heard shouts of alarm. When the mist cleared again, he was relieved to find himself standing face to face with King Peiter, in the throne-room of the great castle at Kinlock.
“What is the meaning of this?” the king cried, staggering from the throne to his feet. “How dare you…”
Garin, his face still flushed with fury, simply reached out, grabbed the king by the front of his tunic, and yanked him forward. “You’re coming with me, Your Majesty.”
Hands were reaching towards them, and Garin could hear the swish of swords being drawn from sheaths. But it was too late. Before the king had a chance to struggle, Garin muttered the spell, the green mist swirled around them, and they were gone from the royal court leaving a stunned silence in their wake.
When they arrived back in the mine the king began struggling and shouting. It was a mistake. They had reappeared on top of a workbench in the casting-cavern of Firestone Forge, and the king, standing on the very edge of the bench, lost his balance and fell, dragging Garin with him. They crashed to the floor and Garin’s staff rolled away from him. He glanced at his left hand and saw that the staff had burned right through the skin this time. It was still numb but with the heat of the cavern it was warming fast, and he knew it was going to be very painful, very soon.
“You!” came a voice that Garin instantly recognised.
Garin pushed the king away, staggered to his feet and found himself staring at the Wizard Kazar.
Wizard Kazar looked terrible. He was sweating, his long lank hair plastered to his face, his beard straggling and dirty, and the wound on his arm obviously inflamed and dreadfully painful. But it was the child struggling in the grip of his right hand that made Garin’s blood run cold.
“Once again, you interfere with my plans!” Wizard Kazar spat. “But no longer! Actually you just made this easier. I can redo the original spell with Eyan’s staff instead of trying to make a new one with mine!”
Wizard Kazar snatched up Eyan’s staff and let forth a string of words that oddly made sense to Garin even though he couldn’t explain what they meant. Then he cast aside the staff and picked up his own again.
The king struggled to his feet, and gasped aloud. All around them, dazed and confused dwarves lay groaning. Drake lay on the floor, perilously close to the edge of the lava-pit, a nasty-looking burn on his shoulder and the broken haft of Felgardin still clutched in his hand. Taya looked dazed and was being tended by Jerod the elf. Jervais stood over them with a sword in his hand.
“What is all this?” the king demanded.
“You’re just in time to watch, Your Majesty,” Wizard Kazar sneered. “The Overlord of Firestone is about to craft a new crown. All we need now is to add a drop of royal blood to the melt, to make the Crown of Kings! Pity, it’s not going to be your blood!”
Jervais grinned smugly, and held up his left hand, and then grimaced as he jabbed himself in the thumb with the point of his sword.
Garin stared in fury as Drake struggled upright. “Took us by surprise, by Cordak, just a second after you left… they followed Eyan down through the tunnels.”
“Let the child go, Wizard Kazar,” Garin demanded.
Wizard Kazar laughed, and then something in Garin’s eyes stilled the laughter. “Ah, do you want your master back, young Garin? Or do you believe you are now ready to take an apprentice of your own? Perhaps I’ll dump him on the streets of a city to become one of the many lost wizards like I did with you. How Eyan found you is still beyond me.”
“Let Eyan go.”
“Never! Jervais, you useless fool, get that precious royal blood of yours into that pot!”
“Fool, am I?” Jervais gasped. “Who will wear the Crown of Kings once my blood is in the melt? You, Wizard Kazar, or I?”
“Do as I say!” Wizard Kazar shouted, turning on the king.
Jervais faltered, and then edged towards the lava-pit, eyeing the bubbling gold in the crucible nervously and beginning to stretch his bleeding thumb over the edge.
“You’ll never rule my kingdom!” King Peiter shouted, advancing towards Jervais, who stood his ground and raised the sword threateningly.
Garin, unnoticed by all as King Peiter and his cousin, Jervais, raged at each other, slipped his hand into his pocket, and drew out the battered feather.
Ignor the magpie screeched a warning from where it perched near the cavern roof, and dived down at Garin. But before it reached Garin, a great streak of purple lightning ripped out from the feather, and struck the tip of the sword Jervais was holding.
Jervais screamed in agony as the blade was torn from his grip and flung into the lava below. He teetered on the brink of the pit, his balance failing as he slipped over the edge. He clung to the rim of the pit staring up at the king, who only paused for a heartbeat before kneeling to grasp his cousin’s arms.
Ignor, dazzled by the lightning Garin had summoned, screeched and wheeled, and flew straight into Wizard Kazar, and fell dazed at the wizard’s feet in a flurry of feathers.
“Impossible!” Wizard Kazar gasped. “Impossible! You have no staff!”
“Let the boy go!” Garin demanded, looking over at the staff that lay across the cavern. He pointed the feather at Wizard Kazar, having no other weapon to use. A clattering sound drew his attention to the staff again as
a dwarf kicked it across the floor towards him. Garin dropped the feather and grasped the staff firmly with his right hand. His left hand was now burning as painfully as if he had held a handful of lava. He glared at Wizard Kazar as he levelled the staff at him. The pain was starting already in his right hand but he swallowed hard and a string of words burst forth.
Wizard Kazar’s eyes went wide with surprise and fear. Eyan kicked the wizard in the shin and wriggled free just as a blue flame shot from the staff.
“This is not the end! I shall find you and finish you, Garin! This is not the end!” Wizard Kazar shouted, then a green mist surrounded him and the blue light from Garin’s staff burned a hole through empty space.
Garin dropped the staff and looked at his right hand. It was as burnt as his left and barely any skin remained unmarked.
“Help me cousin!” Jervais screamed, as King Peiter tried to heave him from the pit.
“You’re too heavy!” the king protested, struggling to keep a firm grip.
“Let me, Your Majesty!” Drake gasped, dragging himself to his feet. He leaned down, his face glowing red in the light from the boiling lava below, and with a single mighty heave he dragged Jervais from peril and threw him to the floor, and safety.
“Thank you! Oh thank you!” Jervais gasped, grovelling on the floor.
“Don’t thank me yet. The king might want me to chuck you back in.”
“What is all this about drops of blood?” King Peiter suddenly demanded, remembering that he was indeed king of the south, and had been abducted to this strange place from the comfort of his throne-room only moments before.
“Best ask the wizard, I reckon,” Drake mumbled, tenderly touching the burn on his shoulder. “I reckon he’s gonna turn the rest of us into frogs, and all you’ll get from us is croaks.”
“Well?” the king demanded.
Garin was still trying to fight down the pain and he barely heard the question.
“The overlord needs a drop of royal blood, for the crown,” Taya said softly as Jerod the elf helped her to her feet. “It’s the only way to ensure that the crown can only be worn by a true king of the bloodline.”
“Why was I not told of this before, instead of being abducted and dragged into this peril?”
“We, uhm…we didn’t know,” Taya mumbled.
“You didn’t know? How could you not know!” King Peiter demanded of Garin.
“It’s your hat, Your Majesty, if anyone should’a known you should,” Drake rumbled, eyeing his broken sword sadly.
The king stood, flabbergasted, at first angry, and then sheepish. “I suppose I should have at that,” he conceded.
The overlord stepped forward and held a small knife out to King Peiter. “The spell has been spoken, add your blood quickly or all will be lost.”
King Peiter did not hesitate and a few seconds later a small spark of light burst from the crucible.
“It is done. We will craft the crown. It will take some time though,” the overlord said in a tone that was clearly a dismissal.
“Are you all right, Garin?” Taya asked as they all made their way back to the cold mountain air outside the caves. She did not appear to see him as quite such a fool any longer.
“No, my hands are burnt.”
“The wizard is hurt!” Taya called back into the cavern. Several dwarves hurried after them and one smeared a great dollop of waxy looking cream onto Garin’s palms.
“They will need a great deal of care to heal,” one said, shaking his head. “You will not be able to hold anything for some time to come.”
“And now you can take me back to Kinlock, wizard, with my crown,” the king demanded as he and Drake came back to see why Garin had not joined them outside. Jervais remained waiting at a distance, looking sheepish and unsure if he was welcome. “We’ll take my cousin. He has a lot of explaining to do before we send him back to his father.”
“I can’t,” Garin sighed.
“What do you mean you can’t?” King Peiter gasped.
“Aye! Come now, Master Garin, we’ve all seen that you truly are a great wizard! You’ll have to come up with a really good excuse to persuade us otherwise! You went pooft! in a cloud of smoke, and came back with the king! If that’s not being a wizard, my name’s not Rydan Drake of Jarak. And it is. My name that is.”
Garin held up his hands, palms forward, and both Drake and the king winced as if they could feel the pain.
“Well then. We’ll just have to walk, won’t we?” Drake grinned, trying his best to sound cheerful.
“Walk? To Kinlock?” the king gasped. “Carrying the Crown of Kings, through the wildlands filled with bandits? Are you mad?”
“Wildlands filled with bandits?” Taya gasped angrily. “You never mentioned those when you told us to come to Mount Renga to replace the crown!”
“Uhm…” King Peiter began, looking sheepish again.
“Hmmf.” Drake snorted. “What’s a few bandits? Nothing that I can’t handle as soon as Felgardin is fixed. We’ll nip back to Kinlock with the king and his new hat, then I’ll escort you back to that fish-stink village. Since you’re the new owner of the twig I guess I’m staying there to serve you as my ancestors decreed.”
Garin frowned. So he was to just return to the cottage by the sea and carry on as if none of this had happened? Was he supposed to hope that his magic became strong enough to be accepted by the staff without more training? There was nobody to train him anyway.
Jerod came out to join them, holding Eyan’s little hand as the boy stared wide-eyed at everyone around him. He seemed unharmed from all the excitement but stayed shyly a little behind the elf.
“We will care for Eyan until you are ready to take him on as an apprentice,” Jerod said. “He will be safe here.”
“Someone will have to carry the staff for me. It will need wrapping with cloth,” Garin said sadly.
“Your familiar can carry it without being harmed. It is one of their duties,” Jerod said, nodding towards Taya.
“So we’re both bound to Wizard Garin then?” Drake boomed, slapping Taya on the back and grinning broadly. “We make a good team.”
Garin stared at Drake sadly, eyeing the wicked-looking burn on the big warrior’s shoulder. Then he gazed at Taya, and the dark bruise and black eye. This time, she gazed straight back at him, staring him in the eye. It was a challenging look that said she did not like what she was, nor was she going to be ordered around.
Garin sighed. No, nothing would be as it was before. And somewhere, far from Mount Renga, nursing wounds of their own, were Wizard Kazar, and Ignor. He knew Wizard Kazar would return and next time he would have to be ready.
