by Guy Antibes
~
Jack kept looking at the cube. It had stopped for a while. “Maybe he is dead,” he said as they all helped prepare dinner. “No movement for at least an hour.”
“Licking his wounds,” Amara said. “I can sense him. He has blundered about and paid the price for invading my home. If he were a decent man, I would pity him.”
“What should we do?” Jack said. “Take the fight to him?”
“No need,” the wizardess said. “He will come to us, where I am the strongest.”
Jack and Grigar set out dishes at one end of a long banquet table.
“I suspect Amara rarely eats in here. When I visit, we usually eat dinner here, like we are doing tonight,” Grigar said.
“How can you two be so calm?” Jack said. “It is like drinking tea in a bear’s den.”
“For one, the more Gant tries to get to us, the more his power will drain. Amara is under more strain than she lets on. You saw how she was affected when Gant broke through her major defense. Each time the defenses punish Gant, she is punished, just a little, but there are more objects of power involved in the defenses than that little iron.”
“I thought it was an iron,” Jack said.
“It is an ancient, ancient implement, but not as old as your cup,” Grigar said. “Keep that on you. The man has no defense against Takia’s fire.”
“Maybe he really would trade it for the Serpent’s Orb.”
Grigar shrugged. “Anything is possible, but we won’t know until he shows up.”
Jack checked the cube, but the patriarch hadn’t moved.
“Maybe he is dead,” Jack said.
Grigar shook his head. “Amara would tell us. Calm down and be patient. I know it must be hard, but you only make me more nervous.”
“Haven’t you been afraid the whole time?”
Grigar smiled. “Of course I have. My life is no less valuable to me than yours is to you. I haven’t been in so much constant danger at any other period during my fifty years.”
“You don’t look a day over sixty,” Jack said, trying to relax.
“I am sure that is true after the last few days.”
Helen entered the dining room bringing a bowl of fruit. “You can help bring in dinner. Amara aims to fatten us up before we are attacked.”
Tanner brought in a ceramic pot. A stray feather decorated his hair. Helen plucked it off and showed him. He made a chicken sound. “Chicken coop in the back. Amara calls herself the Queen Biddy. There is some more to bring in.”
Jack and Grigar finished carrying dinner into the dining room. Jack was surprised at how spotless the large kitchen was, and Amara only used a corner of it. Their hostess brought a bottle of wine.
“I don’t have a vineyard in the keep, by the way,” she said. “I’m not quite the recluse my brother might make me out to be,” she said. “Sit all of you and bow your heads.”
Jack did as she asked.
“O Takia, Goddess of the Skies, we greet you in prayer before we feast on the bounty made possible by your light and the moisture that your clouds deliver the world. We thank you for what we will consume, and we do so in your beloved name, Takia.”
Jack bowed his head, but he didn’t close his eyes. Grigar was the first to the pot of chicken.
“I am a white meat person,” he said as he sorted through the chicken parts. “Magic is wonderful for speeding up cooking.” The man looked ecstatic as he found what he wanted.
Jack still couldn’t achieve the calm that the others had. Tanner and Helen bantered about as they always did, much to the obvious enjoyment of Amara. However, Jack’s appetite seemed calm enough, for he soon found his plate full and his stomach eager to be filled. Amara kept asking them questions about their pasts and their shared experiences on the road. Grigar seemed happy enough to join in when his role was mentioned toward the end of the saga.
After biting into an apple, Amara gasped again. She looked a bit more alarmed. “He has finally breached the keep,” she said. The wizardess took a few more deep breaths and shut her sightless eyes before one final breath. She straightened her dress. “He will arrive soon.”
Jack, Tanner, and Helen put armor on. Jack made sure he had everything with him. He even had the wizardry manual tucked next to his chest beneath his cuirass, although it would do him little good in a confrontation.
He checked the cube and watched it move. The blue indicator moved under his gaze. The patriarch had to be very close for that to happen. He adjusted his helmet and took one more bite of the apple before he drew his wand. His hand was on the pommel of Fasher’s magic sword, the only magical protection Jack had available to use.
The dining room was tense. Tanner’s nerves finally got the best of him, so he moved next to the door, out of sight if the man barged into the room. Helen stood next to Amara. Grigar continued to eat along with Amara.
“You shouldn’t swallow without thoroughly chewing, Jack. It becomes even more important when you get to be as old as I am,” she said casually. She sighed. “He has arrived.”
~
The door flew open, slamming into Tanner. The patriarch looked to the side and smirked, but the man looked like he had been attacked by a pack of rabid dogs. His clothes were torn. Dirt smudged his face. His arms and hands were crisscrossed by a myriad of tiny cuts. Even his shoes were shredded tops and bottoms.
He spotted a chair and sat. “You didn’t wait for me?” he asked, in an out of breath sort of way. He leaned over and grabbed a pear from the bowl. “I like these,” he said, taking a big bite. He looked at Amara. “You must be the lady of the house?”
“I am. Although your manners could stand a correction, feel free to dine at my table,” she said.
Jack could feel more power emanate from the woman than he had since they had arrived. He suspected she was tapping into objects of power. He could feel the air sparkle with magic.
The patriarch nodded and slid Tanner’s plate over and ate while the others observed in watchful anticipation. He played like he had all day to eat, but even Jack could tell the man seethed of something inside. Jack couldn’t tell if it was malice or impatience or frustration.
He had one more morsel of the pear, and when he had finished, tossed the core on the table, deliberately missing the plate. Even Amara flinched at the move.
He pointed his finger at each of them except Amara and smiled. “I led you all on a merry chase, didn’t I?” He spread his arms, resulting in another flinch. “Welcome to my new home,” he said. “I have come to take possession of it.” Aramore Gant leaned forward. “Don’t you think I have earned it?” he said as he put out his hands as if to show the tattered remnants of his attire.
“I don’t think you have earned a penny,” Amara said.
“You first, old woman,” the patriarch said, the pleasance gone, replaced by a venomous intensity.
He pulled out a small wand. Jack recognized it as an object of power, most likely much more potent than his own. He blasted a gout of concentrated flame at Amara. So Gant used that to produce that awful flame he tossed around the front of the gatehouse, Jack thought.
Jack stood up and backed up against the wall, his hand clutching the magic sword as tightly as he could.
The flame died. The patriarch’s power exhausted for the moment, but if he were a helper like Jack, he would be able to do something in a few minutes. Everyone looked at Amara’s seat, which didn’t even smoke, even though the table did.
“Now that isn’t even polite,” Amara said, standing up. “Your mother should have taught you better manners.”
The patriarch’s eyes grew. “How?”
“This isn’t your house, yet, and it will never be your home,” Amara said, her own voice dripping with the menace she directed toward Aramore Gant. “I would rather you leave before you do something you will really regret.”
She put out both hands and spears of ice grew from her fingers and flew into the patriarch’s own defenses, knocking him over
onto the floor.
“You will have to do better than that. I have the Serpent’s Orb!” He pulled out a white orb about two inches in diameter. It matched the indentations in the box that held it at Derr Mason’s house. On one side a black slit that widened halfway down from top to bottom gave the object its name. “I can bring this keep down using the power in the orb.”
“But you can’t,” Amara said calmly. “It doesn’t respond to you. I can tell. It is a useless bauble that you hold in your hand, unlike my little trick. She unleashed another fusillade of ice shards at the patriarch.
“A stalemate,” the patriarch said. He rose and edged his way along the wall, putting the orb in his pocket before he ran out the door.
“You won!” Jack said.
Amara looked at Jack. His breath caught when he could see the sadness in her eyes. “The fight has just begun. He withstood my best spell,” she said, pounding her fist on the table. “I am afraid I am impotent to truly stop him. My power will run out before he does.”
“A frightful truth,” Grigar said.
“But you stopped his fire.”
She sighed. “At the expense of one of my objects of power,” she said. “I won’t be able to stop another,” she smiled, “but he doesn’t know that. Dinner is over. Leave the dishes where they are. We will hope to be alive to clear the table before the evening is over. I do like an orderly house.”
“He is going through each of the rooms. The objects are on the next floor. He won’t be there for a bit. If you choose to leave, you may do so. The Black Finger wizards have returned to the hamlet,” Amara said.
Tanner and Helen looked at each other. “We will stay, for now. If there is nothing to protect, we will leave.”
“You can protect yourselves,” Grigar said. “I will be here for my sister.” He walked to Amara and took her hand.
Jack sat down in a chair and shook his head. “I still need to retrieve the Serpent’s Orb. After all this time, I have actually seen it.”
Tanner glanced at Helen. “It is in our contract to protect you, so we stay. If something awful happens, there are letters hidden within the lining of my saddlebags to send.”
“If any of us survive, you mean,” Helen said. “I’m sticking it out to the end too.”
Jack leaned back in his chair. “That means a lot to —” He leaned too far and fell backward, his helmet clunked against the wall and he felt the dent that it made.
“Helping Gant destroy my keep?” Amara said with half a smile.
“No, ma’am,” Jack said scrambling to his feet. He pressed his lips together. “I am usually better at this.”
“In your dreams, onion boy,” Helen said.
“He has climbed the stairs. We should protect the objects,” Amara said. “Follow me.”
The woman jumped up. “I can’t stand this mess. At least bring your own plates.”
Jack took a swig of the wine before he cradled crockery in his arms and deposited it in the kitchen. Amara opened another door, leading to a servant’s stairway. “He won’t know about this,” she said.
They followed Amara up the steps and emerged in an alcove at the end of a hallway.
“This isn’t the one he’s on,” Grigar said.
“At least you haven’t lost your vision,” Amara said. “Follow me.”
They stepped into a long narrow room, the drapes were drawn but the remaining light of the day outlined the shape of the windows.
“Real glass not that wretched waxed paper stuff,” Amara said offhandedly.
“Get ready.”
Jack jumped into the hallway, both swords in his hands. The patriarch shrunk back but then looked. “Oh, it is you.”
He flicked his wrist and sent a ball of flame Jack’s way. He cringed as it splattered and dissipated. The magic sword had saved him again.
“What?” The patriarch said.
Jack lifted his wand and sent a thick sizzling, twisting bolt of lightning that pushed the patriarch a few steps down the hall.
“How do you do that?” he said. “You are just a boy.”
“I have my tools, just as you have yours,” Jack said.
“Indeed he does,” Amara said. “Get him outside,” she said softly in his ear.
“Do you still want to trade?” Jack pulled out the sack with Takia’s Cup inside.
“The orb for a priceless relic from a goddess? Even I know what it is. That cretin Igar Khotes didn’t even understand the treasure he held in his hands.”
“Do you know how to use it?” Jack asked.
“You do?”
Jack nodded. “Its power melted the stone at the gatehouse. It is called Takia’s fire.”
Gant looked astonished. “That was you?”
“It was him,” Grigar said behind Jack.
Tanner and Helen were behind Grigar, still in the room and Jack was glad for that since they didn’t have protection.
“If you want me to demonstrate we will have to go outside,” Jack said.
“Gladly. Don’t think I won’t return to take care of the rest of you,” the patriarch said.
He turned, confident, Jack supposed, that no one would attack him and stepped on to the east-facing walkway of the keep. The parapet that Jack had leaned over with its view of the abyss was along that entire side.
Jack was tempted to fry the patriarch right there, but he didn’t have the confidence to try. He took the bowl in his hands and looked at Gant.
The sun had set on this side of the mountain, and the shadow had extended far into the plain as twilight approached.
“If you try anything this gets tossed,” Jack said, putting on his gloves. He pointed the bowl across the chasm and said ‘Takia’ after filling himself with power. He only allowed a thin stream of fire, but it went straight across and splashed against the other side, illuminating the shadowed area.
“It went straight and for hundreds of paces,” the patriarch said.
Jack’s hand still felt burned, but he took off the gloves while the patriarch still looked across the abyss.
“I will trade. I don’t know what Fasher Tempest did to this, but it is useless to me. Everyone else wants it, but I want that!” Gant pointed to the bowl in Jack’s hand.
Jack was still stunned the bowl returned to room temperature as soon as the fire stopped. How could he use that to his advantage, he thought? The patriarch put the Serpent’s Orb on the ground. There was a chance that Gant wouldn’t be able to use the cup, but he couldn’t rely on that.
“You do the same. We use our power to retrieve the objects,” Aramore Gant said.
“Stand away from it,” Jack said. He withdrew his object bag. He noticed that Grigar and Amara stood at the doorway watching what transpired.
The patriarch nodded to Jack. “You do the same,” he said.
They looked at each other. Jack’s stomach flipped. He felt sick, but he had to get the Serpent’s Orb if nothing else before he died.
“I will count to three,” the patriarch said.
He counted, and when he hit three, the cup skidded along the walkway pavement. Jack moved to the orb and put it in the bag and stuffed it in his shirt. He ducked, almost knowing that an attack would follow.
“Takia!” the patriarch yelled. A gout of blue-white flame, much more substantial than anything Jack had seen erupted from the cup.
Too loud, much too loud, thought Jack. Aramore Gant, as powerful a magician as he was, had committed the mistake of using too much power that everyone had warned Jack against. The patriarch screamed in pain. The golden bowl had stuck to this hand, and Gant, in his distress, didn’t stop the fire. It bubbled the pavement as the wizard’s agony made him flail his arms. The fire moved like a living snake, burning everything it touched.
“Get away!” Jack called to Grigar and Amara, but it was too late. Takia’s fire furrowed a vertical line down through the keep’s stone wall and struck Amara, instantly killing her. Grigar disappeared, probably teleporting. “Stop the
spell!” Jack said.
The patriarch looked like a man in shock, but the fire stopped, but much too late to save Grigar’s sister. The keep began to rumble, and the ground began to shake. The wide-eyed patriarch shook at Takia’s Cup fused to his flesh.
“Take it off! Take it off!” He held his hand out to Jack.
Could this be a trick, Jack thought? He came closer, wand held out. The man was in pain, and if he had projected that much fire, his power had to be at an ebb. Jack took the patriarch’s hand and began to tug. A low-pitched roar echoed across the chasm together with an impossibly high-pitched scream that seemed to come from the roots of the mountain.
The patriarch began to fight with Jack. “Off, off, off!” he said.
The ground shook. Dust seemed to drift over the keep. Bricks and stone seemed to shudder and shake. The keep began to scream as the wall began to tilt, and the walkway careened toward the chasm.
Jack could see the tears of pain in the eyes of the man. He could feel that the patriarch’s hand was ruined as he tried to pry charred fingers from the bowl. Amara’s body slid past them and bumped into the parapet before being flung over by a convulsion in the failing fabric of the keep. In the blink of an eye, Jack was flung over the parapet, still holding onto Takia’s Cup. He hung in mid-air until the bowl broke free from Aramore’s hand. The patriarch fell head over heels, following Amara Soffez’s body.
Jack had managed to grab onto a knob of rock. He tucked Takia’s Cup into his shirt as he futilely scrambled to find another place to grab onto the mountain. He said goodbye to his parents and hoped that Grigar, Tanner, and Helen somehow survived. He looked up to see the eastern wall of the keep leaning over him when another shudder shook Jack’s hand from its tenuous grasp.
Jack began to fall. He grabbed the Serpent’s Orb. If it truly were a great source of power, he would try one final spell. If he failed, he was dead, anyway. He put his hand inside the sack and grasped the orb with his fingers and pulled as much magic as he possibly could from around him including all the magic stored in the orb.
“SHIFT!”
His body spun in the blackness for what seemed like forever. Jack kept waiting to be broken by the spires at the bottom of the abyss, but he kept waiting and waiting and waiting. A light seemed to begin as a pinpoint and then suddenly expanded with astonishing speed as Jack burst from the blackness and fell to the earth.
