Tangled Engagements (The Memory Stones Series Book 4)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Where are you going to hide the king and I?” Letta asked intensely. “With guards all over the palace, there won’t be a safe place to hide.”

  “Maybe we better hide him in the city then,” Theus answered. “Some place close by. We need to get a place for you to gain your white magic, so we can do two things with one apartment.”

  Letta shook her head.

  “Just show me what you know about the king’s route through the palace in the morning,” Theus cajoled her. “Let’s take a look and discuss it.”

  Letta harrumphed, but complied. “Three days a week, he’s in this room at ten o’clock in the morning,” she pointed at a nearby door. “He receives visiting dignitaries and nobles. He comes here after breakfast, which is usually in his chambers.”

  “Show me the path he walks to get here,” Theus asked.

  “This way,” Letta turned and entered a narrow, small side door in the hallway, beyond which was a servants’ corridor.

  The short corridor intersected a larger one, in which palace slaves carried out the mundane tasks of operating the palace, out of sight of the privileged occupants.

  “The bodyguards bring him along this corridor, coming from the residential wing to the west,” Letta indicated.

  “Let’s walk that way,” Theus proposed.

  “Letta!” a voice called a moment later. “What are you doing here this afternoon?”

  It was one of the guards, who looked from Letta to Theus. He seemed friendly, not suspicious.

  “I just want to make sure we can roll our carts through here when we have big dinners to serve,” Letta glibly answered. She patted the man’s shoulder as they passed by.

  “Okay,” Theus told her moments later. “I’ve seen enough. This will do.”

  “But we could be trapped back here!” Letta argued. “There’s no escape. If someone raises an alarm, palace guards will pour in from either end of the hall; it will be a trap!”

  “We’ll be able to get away, don’t worry,” Theus assured her. “We’ll have ways they won’t expect.

  “Now, let’s go find a place to stay for your introduction to white magic. We’ll go out of the palace and find an apartment,” he said. He began to walk down a side corridor, searching for the way out.

  “This is it?” Letta asked. “This is when I commit to following you and leaving the palace forever? There’s no going back?” she asked.

  “There isn’t likely to be any going back to being the head slave in the kitchen,” Theus affirmed. He could see the shadow of doubt still in her eyes.

  She closed her eyes, and Theus saw her lips purse, as if in pain.

  “Let’s go Theus. This palace took my son away from me, and I’ve never forgiven it. This may be my chance to finally avenge his death,” she decided.

  Theus reached his hand out, and she placed her palm against his. Hand in hand, they strolled through the palace corridors, drawing comments and whistles for their intimate conduct.

  When they reached a door to exit from the palace, Theus spoke softly. “We’ll turn invisible now,” and they heard a gasp of astonishment as a maid witnessed their disappearance from view. Unseen, they walked away from the palace grounds, and rented an apartment for a week from a leering landlord who privately held to the belief that they were having an illicit liaison. Theus and Letta went to the market to purchase supplies for several days in the apartment, days that would be spent allowing Letta to incorporate the lessons of white magic.

  By the end of the day, they sat on the floor in their unfurnished, empty apartment, and finished the meal they had purchased.

  “So Theus, now what?” Letta asked.

  “Now we begin the end of Donal,” Theus said.

  Chapter 24

  Theus reached down the neck of his tunic, and pulled out the chain and ring that Coriae had given him.

  “That’s a lovely piece of jewelry,” Letta complimented him as he lifted it over his head.

  “Lovely and powerful,” Theus agreed. “It’s from the northern girl I’m going to marry, when this is all over,” he told her, as he began to tinker with the prominent jewel, and pulled it away, revealing the smaller stone hidden within the ring.

  “Here,” Theus handed her the stone, as he stepped around to arrange the blankets that surrounded her.

  “What do I do?” she asked, looking at the artifact in her hand.

  “I have to make a small cut, so that the stone touches your blood,” he explained. “May I?”

  “So this is what you really wanted – to scar me?” Letta asked, but smiled.

  “You’ll have no scar; you’ll still be a beauty,” he said distractedly as he pulled his knife free and knelt in front of her. He gently placed the point of the knife high up, just above her hairline, then pressed a slit for a fraction of an inch in length, just enough to cause a trickle of blood to seep and run upon her skin.

  “Now, place the stone against your forehead where the blood is, close your eyes, relax, and listen to the voice. Pretty soon, it will start to deliver spells to you, and you’ll pass out. I’ll be here to take care of you,” Theus assured her.

  She looked at him, gave a grave smile, then closed her eyes, and pressed the stone against her forehead. Theus crouched down next to her, ready to cradle her and gently lay her on the floor when she collapsed.

  After several seconds, he was surprised to see her eyes open, and then her fingers pulled away from her forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” Theus asked.

  “It says it wants to talk to you,” she told him with eyes that were round and wide. “It really spoke to me. It said to let it converse with the other white magician who gave me the stone.

  “It wants to talk to you,” she told him in a puzzled voice as she held the stone out. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Theus looked from her face to the stone, then hesitantly reached for the stone and took it. He studied it carefully, then locked his eyes onto Letta’s face as he raised the stone to his own forehead.

  “Young apprentice, what are you doing? Where is the other?” the voice of the stone spoke inside his soul immediately.

  “I am preparing to fight Donal,” Theus answered. “I need an ally to help me,” he explained.

  The stone suddenly seemed to be within his memories, painfully churning through his soul. Theus found that his hand was locked in place, pressing the stone against his skull despite his wish to remove it.

  He moaned in discomfort, as he felt his psyche being upended, his memories examined, his emotions and motives judged by the stone, in a trauma that seemed to last forever.

  Suddenly, the ordeal ceased, and he felt the spirit of the stone withdraw.

  “You have done well,” the stone rumbled within his mind. “Limber chose you well, better than I expected. The value of the ancient bloodlines is proven. I would not have imagined that you would be able to develop the abilities that you have grown.

  “Your motives are pure, though your plan is weak. I will grant you this new magician, and I will hope for your success; I will help you if I can. Return me to the woman,” the stone told him.

  Theus held the small pebble in place for a moment longer, dazed by his experience, then he let his hand fall into his lap. After a moment of emptiness, he raised his hand and held it out to Letta. “You can go ahead,” he told. “Put it back to your forehead.”

  She looked at him speculatively, then accepted the stone and once again held it against her own forehead. As Theus observed her, her eyes widened, she stared vacantly for several long seconds, and then her eyes rolled upward and back, and she slumped backwards. Theus stabbed his hand out and cradled her head before she struck the floor, and he gently lowered her to a reclined position. She held the stone to her head through the entire incident.

  Theus breathed out a long, noisy sigh through his nose. “Sweet dreams, Letta,” he said softly, as he straightened out her limbs, and removed her boots to make her comfortable. Moments later, she
murmured, and her hand slumped away from her forehead, leaving the stone sitting unattended on the pale skin made sticky with blood. Theus picked it up and stepped back over to where the momentarily forgotten ring and chain lay. He replaced the stone in its compartment, then lifted the chain over his neck.

  He paused to look at the ring, and thought of far-off Coriae. He loved the girl. He had loved her before, lost the love, and rediscovered it. She was meant to be the woman he would always love, he told himself with a smile. He hoped that somehow, he would be able to return to her after his suicidal mission in Southsand and consummate the marriage ceremony he dreamed of with Coriae.

  After he dropped the chain over his neck and tucked the bauble back inside his shirt, he found that he had nothing to do but wait.

  And so he did. For the next two days he mostly remained in the apartment, keeping the unconscious Letta company, tending to her needs, and awaiting her awakening. He ran two small errands, going out to markets to purchase a handful of items he needed to prepare some healing and painkilling remedies in anticipation of the needs he thought the pair might have at the end of their quest.

  He sat at the window and looked out at the people who passed below the apartment, wondering if they ever imagined a life without evil and Donal inhabiting the palace that ruled over their lives.

  When Letta awoke during the third afternoon, Theus ceased to watch the market vendors squabble, and gently gave her a dribble of water to drink, followed by slices of fruit he prepared for her. He let her sit silently as she digested and adjusted to the strange elements that had been added to her consciousness.

  It had to seem strange to her, Theus reflected. He had at least grown used to listening to and viewing multiple memory stones, in addition to hearing the directions that Limber had spoken before the god had been resurrected.

  Letta had experienced none of those things.

  “Are you alright?” Theus asked after minutes of patient silence.

  “There’s so much happening; I can’t focus,” Letta muttered.

  “Is it all real?” she asked.

  “I think so. The things I learned and discovered were real. They’ve kept me alive,” Theus answered gently.

  “Would you like to go for a walk?” he asked. “You’ve been lying down for more than two days. It would do you good to stretch your muscles.”

  She nodded her head, still slightly dazed, as Theus held both her hands and pulled her up to her feet.

  “We’ll go walk around the market, and pick out some things to eat for dinner,” he proposed, and the pair went downstairs and off to the nearby market to buy gifts.

  “It all seems beyond unbelievable. Can I try to do some of these things?” Letta asked as they walked, as she began to shake off her sense of being overwhelmed.

  “We can practice some of the simpler things, the ones that don’t take much energy, when we get back to the apartment,” Theus promised. “And we can spend more time in the next couple of days helping you learn to do the things you’ll need to do,” he added.

  Letta didn’t wait long to begin using her new abilities.

  They took a sack of food back to the apartment, and Letta sat on the floor while Theus prepared the food in the corner that had the minimal kitchen furnishings. There was a knock at the door, and then four men crashed in violently.

  “You are under arrest as a runaway slave,” one man walked towards Letta.

  “And you are under arrest for abetting a fugitive slave,” another of the bounty hunters said as he walked towards Theus.

  “Who told you to do this?” Letta threw her voice, her ventriloquism making her voice speak from an empty corner.

  The men turned in shock to look for the source of the voice. As they did, Theus summoned breezes to blow them all violently against the wall, knocking them all to the ground.

  “Come with me,” he told Letta calmly. He grabbed the bag of food supply and walked over to her, then took her hand and exercised his spell to let them travel out of the city and onto the steep side of a mountain.

  “I did it Theus!” Letta exclaimed gleefully. “I used a spell and made my voice move! I feel tired,” she added.

  “You did well,” Theus congratulated her. “Now, we ought to go back to the city. Do you know another place we could stay?” he asked.

  “I had an old uncle who lived above a shop on the south side of the city. We could go see if he’s still there,” Letta suggested.

  Theus moved them part of the way back to the city, and they walked the rest. By the time they were inside the city, the sun was falling, and they settled for a room at an inn.

  They kept to themselves, and quietly practiced most of the magical spells Letta was able to access within her newly planted memories. That night they went to sleep late, and awoke late. They moved to a different inn in a different part of the city, giving up on the proposal to find an elderly uncle, and they kept to themselves again, as they practiced further.

  The following day, they left the city and went to a deserted portion of the beach, so that Letta could practice both capturing sunlight as energy – taught to her directly by Theus, as well as the art of taking magical steps across great distances.

  “I think we’re ready to go to the palace tomorrow,” Theus told Letta that evening, as the weary woman nibbled slowly on her dinner in the third inn they moved to in Southsand.

  “I’m ready to try,” she agreed.

  Chapter 25

  Theus and Letta slept in a bed together, back to back, both knowing that there was no physical intimacy expected or planned between them. When they awoke on the third full day following Letta’s promotion to the status of white magician, they both knew what they were planning to do. They’d discussed the plan repeatedly and analyzed it from numerous angles, certain that they could make it work, or come closer than anyone else would have believed possible.

  “Let’s go to the palace and make sure nothing has changed,” Theus said as they walked to the room where breakfast was offered.

  “I’m ready to go now; I’m too nervous to eat,” Letta agreed.

  Theus felt an overwhelming calm descend upon his spirit. They were finally about to embark on the mission that he had been divinely appointed to complete. Though it might be a suicide mission, the act of beginning the mission was fulfilling.

  The pair walked out of the inn, hand-in-hand, as they had become accustomed to going everywhere, to allow Theus to share his better-honed abilities with his co-conspirator. With the sun shining overhead, Theus cloaked them in invisibility using the energy the sun provided. They walked to the palace, then passed undetected through the gates, and circled around the palace to visit the small building where Letta had formerly had one of the small two-room apartments that were given to slaves of high rank in the palace.

  The apartment was empty, but a shambles. Everything within had been vandalized and wrecked.

  “They haven’t moved anyone else in here though,” Letta said as she listlessly walked among the ruins of her former residence, touching and examining the mementos of the things she had valued just a few days earlier. “We can use it.”

  “Let me prepare the dose,” Theus said. He cleared off a tabletop, and spent several minutes mixing together the dose of tranquilizer that they intended to give to the king they were going to kidnap.

  “That’s finished,” he said when the last ingredients were successfully mixed in the ceramic jar they would use to carry the medicine with them into the palace.

  “We’ll walk as much of the way as we can outdoors,” Theus unnecessarily reminded Letta as he placed the dose in his backpack, then pulled the pack on. He stuffed his staff in place, and nodded his head to proceed.

  They joined hands, and walked invisibly through the palace grounds, relying on Theus’s capture of the sunlight to maintain their undetectability until they reached the door they had used days earlier to enter the palace. Once inside, Theus and Letta each began to use a portion of their o
wn powers to cover their progress through the public wing of the palace. They slid through an open door to reach the service corridor that Letta had scouted out for their ambush of the king.

  And there they stood, side by side. They had discussed their plan and knew what they would do when the king came by. Theus slightly relocated a set of shelves when no one was looking, and they waited longer, until a pair of bodyguards came carelessly sauntering along, walking at the same slow pace as the royal ruler who followed them, talking to one another without attention to the everyday surroundings of the corridor.

  The king followed behind, limping on gouty feet as he walked alone, while a third bodyguard and a young female attendant walked together, paying more attention to one another than to the king.

  “Switch spots with me,” Theus barely breathed the words to Letta as he slid in front of her to her other side, then he waited for the moments to pass when their audacious plot would begin to unfold.

  The leading guards began to pass by first Letta, then Theus. He held her arm and inched them both forward slightly, as his other hand reached over to grab the set of shelves that held clean towels and linens. Four steps behind the bodyguards, the king walked in a seeming fog of inattention.

  As the king passed Letta, Theus suddenly sprang into action. He reached past Letta and shoved hard on the tower of shelves, causing it to lean and then fall between the king and the pair of startled attendants behind him. Theus then turned and dove at the feet of the two bodyguards in front, who were spinning around in bewilderment at the cacophonous sounds behind them.

  Letta reached forward and grabbed the unsuspecting monarch himself. As she touched him he became invisible. She clamped a hand over his mouth and pulled the king against the wall beside where she stood.