by Guy Antibes
Tanner’s shield protected him, and Grigar knew some kind of protection spell. They both had metal in their cuirasses to combat wizard bolts. If any of them could throw fire like Grigar, they could be in trouble. One of the wizards went down. Helen moved faster than Jack, and he could understand why. The farther away she was from the wizards, the less effective she would be. She needed to be within a sword’s length.
Another bolt of flame from Grigar headed straight for Jack, but it dipped and splashed against the magic sword. Jack could feel the heat as it did so, but he was uninjured. Jack remembered the spell for protection from fire. He invoked it. A wizard looked back, and that was all Helen needed to begin to run. She survived a splash of fire and cut down two sorcerers before Jack had a chance to toss a wizard’s bolt their way, which he did. The targeted wizard looked on in amazement as the bolt erupted from the tip of the sword. The look didn’t last long as the man crumpled to the ground.
Helen cried out. A wizard bolt had hit her in the bicep. Tanner tossed the shield down, and the fight was quickly over. None of Igar’s backup made it through the crossfire from both pairs. Helen sat back, out of sight of the gatehouse, teeth clenched as she clutched her arm.
“Help me get these men out of sight,” Tanner said. “Grigar move the horses.”
In a few moments, they retreated around the corner. “I’m done for this fight,” Helen said. Her forehead shone with perspiration.
“Not quite,” Grigar said. He laid his hand on her upper arm and sang a little chant. Jack realized it was a string of trigger words repeated over and over. “My ministrations will leave a scar, but the pain should lessen.”
“It already has. You are a welcome surprise,” Helen said to the wizard.
“I have a limited repertoire, and wizard bolts through upper arms is one healing technique I have mastered.”
“There are others?” Tanner said.
“Don’t push your luck. I can’t bring anyone back from the dead, or near dead, if that is what you are hoping for.”
Tanner looked at Jack and winked. “Few there are who can do that. I wonder if the patriarch can. Didn’t he say he spent some time at the healing center next to the wizard registry, Jack?”
“He did. Who knows what Igar and the other wizard in there have done,” Helen said.
“Simara intended to do that next in Dorkansee,” Jack said.
Helen cooed. “You had been talking to her?”
“Talking is different from wooing,” Jack said. “I have wooed and won before.”
“I’ll bet you have,” Grigar said. “Are you going to learn to heal?”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Me? I don’t think so. I’d hardly classify my nature as nurturing. Don’t you need to be a nurturing kind of person to learn?”
Grigar shook his head. “Not to learn, but to make healing a large part of your life, like it seems your master Fasher Tempest has done.
Jack wasn’t enamored with the way the conversation was going. “Let’s move back up to the gatehouse before anyone chooses to come out,” he said.
Tanner held out a hand for Helen, who purposely ignored it. “We will go through the forest. You two can take the shields and move back up the road.”
Grigar clapped Jack on the back. “We can do that, can’t we, Jack?”
All Jack could do was shrug. He didn’t mind.
A spear of flame shot out from the gatehouse, but it didn’t reach them.
“We should be safe,” Grigar said, lowering his shield. “I wouldn’t chance my fire protection spell against the massive flame Gant can create.”
A gout of some of that flame shot out from the gatehouse.
“No!” Jack said, thrusting his sword between the flame and the wizard. “Not safe. I remember Gant being able to shoot his flame this far.
Grigar looked back. “I do believe you are right,” he said as he stepped back.
Jack drew a deep line in the dirt. “Not past this, unless you are protected.”
“You are protected, and I will be as soon as I need to be. Let’s retrieve the shields.”
As they inched forward another bolt of flame headed their way. A wizard bolt shot out from the gatehouse, but it was woefully short. They reached the shields laying close to the front door and pulled them up. When he picked up the shield, he realized he was too tall for it to protect him without crouching. Was he that much taller than everyone else? He always thought of himself as the same. He patted his helmet, and the pair of them walked toward the other two shields laying a few feet away. Since they were so close to the gatehouse, they were bathed with bolts and spears of flame, but they were protected.
Grigar and Jack inched back, one arm through the loops at the backs of the shields and the other hand dragging the other shield. They finally reached Jack’s line in the dirt. The shields were heavy, and now he knew why Khotes took the packhorse.
“Those pesky tongues of flame suddenly stopped halfway here,” Grigar said.
“Probably because the patriarch realized the shields were better in our hands than in those at the gatehouse,” Jack said.
“Bright lad,” Grigar said.
Helen and Tanner emerged from the woods and joined them in the road.
“Good work. Now we can play around with them just like Igar did. We have them bottled up in the gatehouse,” Tanner said.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it playing,” Helen said, holding her aching arm.
“Let’s see what happens when we all advance. There is only one entrance, isn’t there?” Tanner asked Helen.
“Of course, and there isn’t a path leading anywhere but to the road,” she said.
“Oh,” Jack said. He had just found out what Helen had been up to.
“Grab the shields,” Tanner said. “Mine is too small for this.
They inched their way in the direction of the gatehouse, shields overlapping. The shields were slanted to prevent an attack from one of two upper windows.
Jack had his wand in his hand for this maneuver. The sword was too bulky. He slipped the wand through a tiny crack and let fly with a bolt through one of the windows.
“That works better than your sword,” Grigar said.
“The wizard bolt part of the sword was my first object of power,” Jack said. “You’ll have to excuse me if it isn’t as good as one Fasher Tempest made.”
“I forgive you,” Grigar said with a smile. “Shoot another.”
Jack used his magic to bend the bolts into each of the windows, shattering the shutters and leaving the waxed paper windows smoking. “I guess I opened the windows so they can shoot at us easier,” he said when a fusillade of wizard bolts hit them.”
They retreated behind the safe line while Tanner and Jack dragged some logs into the road so they could sit and rest.
“How do you feel?” Grigar said?
“I’m a little drained, but not so much I can’t feel my power restore.”
The wizard shook his head. “There is no question you are a Takia’s font. Remember your power isn’t infinite.”
Jack laughed. “I already have found that out; though, I think with all the practice I have been doing since we saved Heros’s family, I have more endurance, power-wise.”
Grigar nodded. “Good, good. As it should be. When a wizard gets to a certain age, their ability to absorb power decreases. Mine has, but not as much as others.”
“Igar Khotes said something to that effect,” Jack said. “I got the impression he couldn’t make many objects of power work.”
“Power is coupled to knowledge and will,” Grigar said. “Igar thought he was powerful enough to convert you into a Black Finger.”
“I don’t know how that is supposed to work. All that happened to me was some black soot on my fingers.”
The wizard laughed. “Conversion isn’t anything permanent. It is a form of coercion. The theory goes that once you have the spell that turns your fingertips black—a simple trick, by the way—coupled wit
h a little coercion, supposedly you are more susceptible to be convinced you are a Black Finger. With weaker individuals, that is all it takes, but you have to realize any wizard who doesn’t want to be a Black Finger won’t be converted.”
“So Simara wanted to be converted?”
“Of course. The Black Finger part isn’t permanent, anyway. They like to wear gloves to show their fealty to the society, but I’ll bet if we pulled the gloves off the dead wizards, you would find that two or three of them had fingertips just like you and me.”
“Huh,” Jack said. “I sort of liked the mystery.”
Grigar chuckled. “You can think that way if you want, just so you understand that a Black Finger wizard might be sitting right next to you.”
“You?” Jack said jumping to his feet.
“Might, I said. And I guarantee you that I am not a Black Finger,” Grigar said.
Jack pulled out Takia’s Cup. “Maybe it is time to use this,” Jack said.
Grigar held out his hand. “Can you feel the power that this bowl holds?” He returned it to Jack.
“It tingles like any object of power,” Jack said as he slipped it back in the little bag inside his shirt that held the wizard manual and the seeker cube.
“I can’t feel a thing,” Grigar said. “Only a font, or a helper in your case, will be able to use this.”
“What if the patriarch is a wizard’s helper?” Jack asked. “He has more power than any of the other wizards in the gatehouse.”
“Then we can only hope he doesn’t take that off your body,” Grigar said.
Tanner nudged the Soffez. “I hate to break off your little wizard discussion, but the door is opening.
Jack extended the wand and shouted, “ZAP!” A bolt of lightning bore a hole into the door. Jack could tell it didn’t penetrate, but the door shut quickly.
Grigar slapped his knee and laughed. “Raw talent and dangerous. Let me see the hand that held the bowl when you coaxed Takia’s fire?
Jack showed Grigar his palm. It was still red and hurt a little, days after he held it.
“You are lucky you still have the use of that hand,” Grigar said.
“I thought if I were to really use it, I would need something to insulate my skin.”
“A paradox. To make the fire more effective you need to touch the bowl, but touching the bowl burns the skin. What to do?” Grigar said.
Jack scratched his head. “You need an insulation spell, I guess.”
“You can work on that when you return to your master.”
“If he will take me back. I’ll miss my two-month errand. I was supposed to return the orb today.”
“I suppose the day isn’t over yet,” Grigar said.
Even Tanner laughed at that comment. “Takia herself wouldn’t be able to get to Raker Falls before midnight.” A movement caught Tanner’s eye. “The door, Jack. It is time to charge the gatehouse,” Tanner said. “Up all of you. We will try to get close enough for Grigar or Jack to blow the door open. Those won’t be the first wizards I’ve killed.”
“Even today,” Helen said, drily.
“Right, I forgot,” Tanner said, grinning. “Forward!”
They moved forward, crouching down low like Grigar and Jack did when they retreated with the shields. Jack kept shooting wizard bolts around his shield. The bolts were finally penetrating the door, boring bigger holes in the door as they went.
The door was flung open. Jack shot a bolt inside, but whoever was standing in front of the door used magical protection. Igar and Simara pushed Quist out, who ran toward the shields and threw his body into them. Grigar fell over.
“Traitor,” Jack said, just before bolts and flame began to pour out of the door. Quist was hit multiple times, and as Tanner called a retreat, the wizard’s burnt body was left in the middle of the battlefield.
“A pawn to the end,” Helen said. “I should feel sorry for Ozzie Quist, but I can’t muster the emotion.”
Tanner stared at Quist’s still-smoking body. “He wanted to be a Black Finger wizard. He has plenty of black on him now. Somehow I don’t think that was his goal.”
Jack wasn’t used to an acquaintance’s death. He stared at Quist, thinking about the advice the man gave. He wondered how much of it was true and how much was meant to mislead. His eyes drifted upward. Jack shot a wizard’s bolt at a dark form inside the upper window.
He was surprised to hear a scream. Good for him. “That was for Quist,” Jack said to no one in particular.
Chapter Twenty-Five
~
A fter some rest, Tanner stood up. “It’s time to try it again. Quist is dead, so there isn’t a sacrificial animal to use. We won’t see that tactic again,” Tanner said.
They scrounged for some food and water from the wizards’ horses before they attacked.
Shields repelled fire and wizard bolts as they got closer. Jack drew his sword and pointed it in a window, but the door was flung open, and Gant bathed them with a gout of flame.
“He shouldn’t be able to keep that up,” Grigar said. “Even with an object of power. I am wondering that he might, indeed, be as powerful as Jack.”
Tanner looked at the wizard. “Were you thinking Jack is stronger than Gant?”
“Oh, yes. No one here is stronger than Jack, but also no one here is as ignorant as Jack. But for a few spells, he is worthless,” Grigar said while the flames began to peter out.
Igar and Simara ran in front of the door’s opening. Jack couldn’t bring himself to shoot to kill, so he precisely placed a wizard’s bolt into her foot. She screamed. It was not the scream he heard earlier as her father dragged her back inside the door that slammed shut all on its own. Jack had forgotten that any wizard could do that.
“I might have injured the fourth Black Finger,” Jack said. “Did you notice the other wizard?”
“I wasn’t exactly watching,” Helen said. “I didn’t want my hair to get too curly, you know, frizzled?”
Another bolt followed by a diminished stream of fire hit them. Jack pointed his sword on the side of his shield and triggered Takia’s fire into the front of the guardhouse. Even he was surprised when a thick cord of brilliant blue-white fire shot into the upper floor boring a hole through the stone. Glowing red drips of rock solidified as soon as the bolt hit. Jack fell back with his shield on top of him, but there was no return fire. Helen and Tanner dragged Jack back to their safe spot.
Jack raised his head. “Who needs a real wizard to make Takia’s fire work?” he said. “I’m at least as wasted as the patriarch.”
“We noticed Gant’s fire was much weaker,” Tanner said. He gazed at the still glowing edges of Jack’s projection.
“My sword,” Jack said, raising the guard. The spell had melted the three points. “I burned out the object of power.” Grigar touched the hilt and nodded. “One time only at full strength, it seems. The cup is the only thing that can withstand that spell, I would guess.”
“And it wasn’t aimed at anyone, so it did us no good,” Tanner said.
“I don’t even hear crickets,” Helen said. “I think both parties are licking their wounds.”
“Is that what Simara is doing? Is she some kind of contortionist?” Jack managed to say.
“Of the eleven wizards, seven are dead, and two are injured. Only Igar and Aramore Gant may be seemingly uninjured,” Helen said. “And all we suffered was my broken wing.”
“So far,” Tanner said. “Honestly, I don’t know how much longer the gatehouse will be standing.”
Scorch marks and the hole in the upper floor along with all the windows being scoured of shutters and waxed paper gave the gatehouse an even more abandoned look.
“I’m going to have to rest,” Jack said.
“We all do, and so do they,” Grigar said. “I’d say we’ve fought our last battle for today. I could use some recuperation, as well.”
They brought some more food from the horses, and by the time they had finished eating,
the sun had set on this side of the mountain. Everything was bathed in shadows, but a bright moon had risen.
“I have one small task for Takia’s Cup,” Jack said, getting up and stretching.
“Be careful,” Tanner said. “Do you need help?”
Jack shook his head. As twilight turned into dark, he crept toward the guardhouse from the side and used the bowl in a very controlled way to fuse the hinges shut on the door and crept back, Takia’s Cup cradled within a singed piece of clothing.
“Now they will have to climb through the windows,” Jack said when he returned. He looked back and saw the heated hinges giving up the last of their glow.
Helen and Tanner agreed to move closer to monitor the gatehouse. Jack laid down, feeling stronger as he drifted off the sleep.
“Wake up, we have a visitor,” Helen said.
Jack lifted his sword.
“Watch that thing!” she said.
A dark form sat in the darkness as Helen roused Grigar.
“Amara!” Grigar said. He scuttled to the figure and hugged her. “How are you holding up?”
“Ah! I had hoped to retire in peace, but there is no rest for a wizard.”
“Not one with more than one hundred objects of power.”
“One hundred?” Jack asked. “Did you make them all?”
Amara scoffed. “The hundred that my brother speaks of are ancient and very powerful,” she said. “You have two ancient ones in your presence, that I can see.”
Jack pulled out the seeker cube and Takia’s Cup. “Are these the ones you sensed?”
“That is the crystal cube tied to the Serpent’s Orb. What is the significance of the bowl? I can’t sense a thing.”
Grigar laughed.
Jack put the seeker cube in Amara’s hands.
“Ah, I can barely touch the power inside. You can’t at all, can you Grigar?”
The wizard shook his head.
Amara continued. “Few can tap into the power of an object associated with the Serpent’s Orb. That is why it fell into the possession of Fasher Tempest.” She raised her hand to forestall any comments. “I have tracked many major objects for the past twenty years,” Amara said.
