“I don’t know exactly where Amory and Redford are. We’d have to spend a lot of time in the wilderness looking for them. It’s better just to go to Stoke,” he answered aloud.
“Why does your magic make you so weak?” Amelia pursued a tangential thought.
“All the magic I can do comes from the energy inside me, my own life,” he explained succinctly. “The black magicians like Donal, they take life energy from other people – like he did to you,” Theus continued. “They take a lot of energy from a lot of other people – they kill them,” he continues soberly. “I can only take and use the energy I have.”
“Don’t take so much that you kill yourself!” Amelia exclaimed in horror. “But isn’t there any place else you could go to get energy – not from other people?”
“I don’t know enough about it yet,” Theus told her. “I’m pretty new at this.
“I didn’t have time to learn a lot; I found out you were in danger, and so I came as fast as I could.”
The expression on her face softened, and she came over to place an arm around his shoulder and lean against him as they strolled along the mountain path. “I love you; you’ve been the best friend I’ve ever had,” she told him.
“You’re a good kid. You’re a special friend too,” he agreed.
“Well,” he said a moment later, after a silent pause, “are we ready to leave?”
“Ready,” Amelia agreed.
Theus wrapped his arm around her in a snug embrace, then embraced the energy he had, and he pressed his leg forward between Amelia’s legs, in a step that ended in a mountain stream valley deep in shadows. He immediately collapsed, and the embrace he shared with the girl brought her toppling down on top of him as well.
“Oh Theus, are you all right?” she immediately asked as she raised herself to her feet.
He breathed heavily for five seconds. “I’ll be fine,” he grunted. “Go; find a place for us to sleep.”
Amelia stood up, and looked around in the dim light that reached down into the crevasse between mountains. There was no trail evident, only the sounds of the water that flowed in a brook off to her right. She chose to walk to the right, lifting her feet high to step over the ferns and plants that grew in untrammeled profusion in the moist soil of the valley floor. She reached the edge of the floor, the line where the mountains asserted themselves and began to rise upwards. There was a jumble of lichen-covered boulders that pressed against one another, with many crevasses and ledges, a suitable place for the two refugees to spend the night, Amelia decided.
She tramped back to Theus with her news.
“Can you walk just a little way?” she asked. “I found a spot.”
He weakly rose, and with substantial assistance from Amelia, he accompanied her across the short stretch of land to reach the stones. She helped him up onto a low ledge of stone, and then lay down beside him.
“Thank you Theus,” she murmured as she pressed her body against his, wanting the comfort of human contact. “You have done so much for me. I’m so glad you found Amory and me in that basement in Steep Rise on the day of the invasion.”
“You’re welcome, my friend,” he said gently, and then he fell asleep. Minutes later, with an arm extended across Theus’s chest, Amelia followed suit.
Chapter 10
The next day was simply a day of travel. When Theus awoke, he was ready and restored adequately to resume traveling. Together, the pair made three more of the magical steps, one immediately after awakening, one at midday, and one again in the evening. And at the end of the third jump, taken in the waning light of the setting sun, they reached the northern edge of the mountain range.
“Theus, these look like hills, not mountains,” Amelia reported.
“I’d love to see flat lands again,” Theus wheezed in exhaustion.
The following day, the beginning of Amelia’s third day of freedom from Donal, they determined they were leaving the mountains. Theus had tried to maintain a course heading as northerly as possible, and with his first jump of the third day, they left the mountains completely, and found themselves beginning their walk for the morning, in a gently rolling landscape.
Theus found walking sticks for each of them, and they had a pleasant stroll during the morning as they foraged for plants to eat and talked about their lives growing up.
They made two more of the magical transitions during the day, so that in the evening they were far out on the savannah, far from the mountains – which were no longer even in sight on the southern horizon. And while Theus slept that night, he had a vivid dream, a message from his companion the Voice.
“Theus, it is time for you to prepare to face the serious challenges,” the Voice told him.
“What could be more serious than walking into Donal’s own tower to set Amelia free?” the boy demanded to know.
“There are great challenges ahead, greater than the individual adventures you have known. You are to be a champion now, and on your success or failure will ride the lives and future of multitudes and generations,” the Voice spoke words that were powerful and frightening.
“You must go to Limber,” the Voice began to explain.
“What about Amelia? Can’t I at least take her to safety first? Doesn’t she deserve a chance to be safe and comfortable somewhere, instead of being sent off on painful adventures?” he asked with a trace of bitterness. He still thought of Coriae, and the destruction of his planned engagement to the desirable girl.
“Leave her as you plan to,” the Voice agreed. “Then come to Limber. Your duties there will be waiting. But don’t you wait too long; the need grows urgent.”
“What duties? And why Limber? It doesn’t exist anymore,” Theus asked, but there was no answer.
When Theus awoke, the dream was a vivid memory, and he felt disturbed by the thought that the Voice had decided to send him on another mission. He longed for an end to the pain and fear that he encountered through his activities – the types of activities that he never expected to ever experience. As a farm boy, he had always believed that he would live and die as a farm boy. And though his immersion in the unbelievable adventures of his journey had brought him many positive accomplishments, it had brought him the heartache as well as the pain he had suffered so recently.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked Amelia as he gently raised her off his chest, and sat up.
“I’m not even awake yet,” she answered grumpily. “Can’t you let me wake up?”
“You need to wake up,” he answered as he stood up. He felt soreness in his hips from sleeping on the stony surface. “I’m going to stretch my legs. We should leave soon. The earlier we leave, the earlier I’ll be ready to make the next magical step.”
“You’re looking awfully thin, Theus,” Amelia commented, looking up at him.
“It’s part of trying to travel so fast,” he told her, without mentioning that carrying an extra person along only added to his labor. “Don’t worry. We’ll get to Stoke, and I’ll get to rest for a couple of days. So will you, as a matter of fact,” he told her with a smile.
“Well, you need to eat more,” she admonished with a matronly tone.
Theus smiled. She was a young girl, in a young woman’s body, speaking as though she were his mother.
The two of them soon grasped one another, and took their first magical step of the day, landing in a continuation of the open savannah of untamed prairies that were dotted with trees. They walked and ate the various wild plants that Theus found that were suitable for consumption. Near noon time, Theus provided the second great jump of the day, then spent a half hour lying on the ground resting, before he was ready to get up and start walking. When he rose, they did walk, slowly, across the gently rolling countryside until late in the afternoon, when Theus made his third and final magical movement across the flat lands. They decided to simply lie out under the stars at the spot where he landed that night.
They awoke once, when Amelia heard something prowling throug
h the grasses nearby, and she grabbed Theus for protection. There was no further noise or activity though, and they soon fell back to sleep.
The next morning, after Theus transported them further north, they discovered they had entered a countryside where people were in evidence. They saw herds of cattle, and a fence line. As they walked during the morning, they even came upon the road that connected Exlive to Stoke.
“This is the road I walked on when you warned me to flee from your uncle,” Theus explained. They turned right and began to walk due east along the road.
When a wagon of goods bound for Stoke passed them on the road during the morning, they received a ride on the wagon – Theus on the back and Amelia up on the front bench with the bashful farm boy taking his family’s goods to market. They learned they were only a few hours away from the city. Theus confirmed that information soon after, when hills that were the foothills of the Westland Mountains came into view; Theus had seen the hills on his previous trip to Stoke.
He thought about his first trip to Stoke, when he had arrived in the capital city, and run into a road block, literally. It had turned out to be a part of the process of trying Forgon for murder, and it had proven to be the event that had allowed Theus to reconnect with Coriae. And from that reconnection, many remarkable events had sprung.
They all were past and irrelevant, he knew. For him, the past – everything in the past – seemed to be irrelevant. His life was being driven by the Voice. And the Voice had a plan that involved preparing Theus to battle against Donal.
Theus didn’t think that his future seemed very bright, if it was going to lead to such a battle.
“There’s the city, Theus!” he roused from his drowsiness at the sound of Amelia’s voice speaking brightly.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then turned and saw the city walls ahead. There were buildings inside the city that rose above the walls, and buildings outside the wall as well, with heavy traffic moving in both directions on the road.
Once inside the city, the two travelers parted ways with their ride provider when he reached the fringe of the farmers’ market.
“You’ve been in this city before?” Amelia asked as they wandered away from the market.
“I have, and I know a few things we can do here before we move on,” Theus agreed.
“Move on? I thought we were going to stay here,” Amelia protested as they walked on.
“We’re going to the estate of a noble woman who lives in the country outside Stoke,” Theus explained. Coriae had once pointed out the estate as she and Forgon and Theus had ridden past it while on their last journey to Great Falls.
The noble woman Theus had in mind was Duchess Holstem, the aunt of Prince Holco, a close friend of Forgon and Coriae. Theus had sat next to the Duchess at a dinner one evening at the Prince’s home, and had learned of her allergies. He’d gone to the kitchen of the palace at that very moment, and produced a remedy to relieve the allergy symptoms. The duchess had been very appreciative, and had proven to be a gracious woman as well.
“She owes me a favor,” he explained. “I think she’ll be happy to have company at her estate.”
“Is she nice?” Amelia asked.
Theus thought back to the dinner and ball at Prince Holco’s palace. The duchess had been a friendly dinner companion, and seemed well-liked by the others at the party.
“She seemed nice to me,” he agreed. “Shall we go find some better clothes for you?” he asked.
“Oh Theus, could we?” Amelia’s eyes lit up, and she was once again the little girl he had gone to rescue.
“We will, and then we’ll get some good food, and then we’ll go to see the Duchess,” he offered a plan for their day.
They walked towards the clothing shops he had gone to with Coriae. When they walked past the Warrell family home in the city, Theus scrutinized the windows carefully, looking for evidence that the family might be in residence. There was no sign of habitation however, and Theus didn’t know if he was glad or disappointed.
When they reached the dress shop Theus had as a destination, the shop girl recognized him.
“Hello Theus? Where’s Coriae, and who is this – your sister?” the girl asked.
“Coriae is in Great Forks still, I think,” Theus replied awkwardly. “And this is my friend Amelia, from Steep Rise. We’d like to buy a nice outfit for her to wear, instead of my extra clothes.”
“Are you and Coriae separated?” the girl shrewdly asked.
Theus bit his lip, and silently nodded his head.
“I see,” the shop girl said. She looked at Theus, the looked at Amelia. “You’re beautiful; you deserve something much better than what Theus put you in!” she told her new customer brightly. “Come with me to the back for some measurements.”
“I’ll just step outside and wait out on the street,” Theus reported, as he recognized what would happen next, a long session between the women discussing colors and styles and sizes.
There was a bench in front of the shop, and Theus took a seat, glad for the chance to sit and relax. He hadn’t relaxed in some time, he realized, not for several days, as he had pushed himself to travel as quickly as possible using the white magic.
“I hadn’t heard you were back!” a voice called. It was Galeci, one of the young nobles who he had met through Forgon and Coriae, someone he had practiced against at the armory. Galeci was directing his horse off the road, over towards Theus.
“Just arrived,” Theus shared.
“Cory is inside?” Galeci asked as he reined his horse to a stop so that he could talk easily to Theus.
“She’s not here in Stoke, I think,” Theus said. “I left Great Forks several days ago.”
“Was Forgon feted and celebrated at home?” Galeci asked a new question, without considering that Theus might have broken away from the tightly-connected Warrell clan.
“He was a hero!” Theus smiled in recollection of his friend’s homecoming, when they all had returned to Great Forks together.
Just then the door opened, and Amelia leaned out, holding up a green blouse in front of her torso. “Do you like this color, Theus?” she asked.
Theus turned to look. “It looks nice,” he said encouragingly. “You should get it.”
“It matches my eyes!” Amelia said happily, then withdrew back into the shop.
“Who was that?” Galeci asked in astonishment.
“She is the princess of Steep Rise, Amelia,” Theus answered in an even tone.
“She’s with you? A princess? And you say Coriae is in Great Forks?” Galeci sought to make sense of the news, without asking any embarrassing questions.
Theus knew he needed to be open about the status of his broken relationship with Coriae. He needed to admit it to everyone, including himself; he needed to say it out loud. But he hesitated. It hurt; it hurt to no longer be loved by the girl, and it hurt to know that he no longer could look forward to her friendship as the best feature of every remaining day of his life.
He couldn’t do it – he couldn’t make the admission yet.
“I’m sure she’ll be here any day now,” Theus said. “And Forgon too, of course. I better go inside and check on Amelia,” he stood from his seat on the bench. “We’ll see you again soon,” he waved, then hastily entered the shop.
“Oh good,” Amelia spoke as she looked at Theus’s reflection in the mirror she was studying. “Do you like this outfit?” she asked of the blouse and skirt she wore.
“I do. We’ll take it,” he told the clerk.
“We added some, um, foundational items,” the clerk tried to be discreet.
“My underthings,” Amelia explained.
“That’s all fine,” Theus opened his purse and pulled out more coins. His supply of funds was beginning to noticeably diminish. But he hoped he’d need to spend little more while traveling to the Voice’s designated destination of the lost city of Limber. He wasn’t even sure where to find the lost city, he reflected.
“My lord?” the sale clerk caught his attention and pulled it back to the shop. He dropped the coins in her hand, and waited as she quickly made change, then returned the small coins to him.
“I hope we’ll see you again soon, my lord,” she told him.
Theus did a double take; he wasn’t likely to be a customer at the dress shop again any time soon. He gave the girl a weak smile, then led Amelia out to the street.
“Now we can eat?” Amelia asked, to the point. “And thank you for these clothes! These are just the right kind!” she added, then hugged him. “It feels ever so nice to wear good clothes. When we lived in the palace, before the invasion, we had to wear such heavy gowns so often, or other clothes to impress people because we were the king’s family. You know how that is,” she explained.
“Not really,” Theus replied with a grin.
“Oh, that’s right,” Amelia recalled the stories Theus had told her when they had spent days together walking through the wilderness, stories of his upbringing on a poor farm.
“That servant in the shop said so many wonderful things about you, I’m sure she thinks you’re nobility,” Amelia mentioned. “Besides the fact that you’re a white magician and my very favorite rescuer hero!”
“Would you like to eat a late lunch here?” Theus asked, as they reached the restaurant that Forgon and Coriae and he had visited on several occasions.
“If you think it’s appropriate,” the girl demurely agreed.
Inside, they were seated at a table by a front window, as Theus was recognized by the staff as a local celebrity among the young nobility of the city.
“What should we eat?” Amelia asked.
“The lamb chops are always good here, and the noodles,” Theus recommended.
They ordered mugs of juice, bread and lamb and noodles and cake, then watched the flow of traffic outside the window. More than one person going by recognized Theus and waved, and a few came in to welcome him, to ask about the Warrells, and to be introduced to Amelia.
Unpredictable Fortunes (The Memory Stone Series Book 3) Page 9
