by Amy Neftzger
“He really likes that story,” Nicholas said as he watched the sorcerer finish narrating and present a business card to the troll with whom he had been conversing. The troll looked over the card for a few moments and then set it down on the table in front of him. After saying a few words to the troll, the sorcerer left the room, and Nicholas followed him into his laboratory. The sorcerer was alone there, but he was doing the same thing he did every time he was there. He checked the temperatures on his simmering liquids and adjusted the air locks on the glass bottles to release the smelly gas that was bubbling up from the contents. Nicholas reported everything he saw, and Newton wrote it all down in his notebook.
“Try looking out the window,” Moss suggested. “Anything we can learn from the scenery might help us to figure out where he’s hiding.”
Nicholas went to the window that was the farthest from where the sorcerer was working. For some reason, this felt safer to him. The sorcerer’s castle felt oppressive everywhere, but the more closely Nicholas watched the sorcerer, the queasier he felt. The darkness always felt thicker near the sorcerer’s shadow. When Nicholas reached the window, he glanced over the scenery.
“He’s very high up,” Nicholas said. “I can see snow on the window sill, and I’m overlooking a valley, which still has flowers and trees blooming.”
“It must be much warmer down below,” Moss concluded. “Or the valley is an illusion.”
“There are vineyards nearby,” Nicholas continued. “I can see rows of grapevines. There are also wildflowers in a field behind the vineyard. It’s very pretty.”
Suddenly the view rotated, as if Nicholas were riding in a carriage and he had just turned a corner. Nicholas let out a gasp. “Now it’s different. I’m looking out the same window, but now I’m seeing something totally different.”
“What’s there now?” Moss asked as he leaned forward. “What do you see?”
“It’s another vineyard. It’s a bit similar, but not exactly the same, as if we’re traveling down a road. I feel as if I’m looking out a carriage window watching the scenery go by.”
“That castle is moving?” Newton asked.
“Or there’s a spell on the windows to change the view in order to convince us it’s moving,” Moss replied. “We can’t tell which one it is from scrying. We’d need to physically be there in order to figure it out. Very clever.”
“I wish I could see,” Newton remarked. “I think I could figure it out.”
“No, I don’t think you could. Besides, it’s too risky. Neither one of us can scry on him. He’d know immediately.”
“Move back from the window,” Newton suggested, “and then try looking out again and tell us what you see. If the window is enchanted, you might be able to see more clearly if you back away from it.”
Nicholas did as he was told, but as soon as he moved away from the window he couldn’t see anything. The glass became dark.
“There’s nothing there,” Nicholas said. “I can’t see when I’m not up close.”
“That’s interesting,” Newton replied.
“It could be the glass,” Moss suggested. “Or it could be a part of the spell.”
“Are there any other doors open?” Newton asked.
“I think there was one in the first room.”
“Look through there,” Newton suggested. Nicholas followed this advice and went back through the room where the sorcerer had been meeting with the troll. He continued through the doorway on the other side, but he felt as if he was being followed. He knew there was no one behind him, but the sorcerer’s castle just had that creepy feeling no matter where Nicholas was scrying in it. He felt as if someone was following him and might reach out to grab him at any moment.
“Glass bottles – thousands of them, and they’re all brown. They’re stacked in rows and have white labels on them. This must be a storage room.”
It was dark, and Nicholas didn’t see any sources of light. There were no windows or candles, only the light coming in through the door where he had entered. He could smell a mixture of vinegar and something sweet coming from somewhere in the darkness.
“Go read the labels,” Moss suggested.
As Nicholas moved forward, his vision became fuzzy and things started to go dark. He felt as if a thick fog was forming around him. The only good thing was that he felt the darkness thinning around him.
“It’s like I’m going blind,” Nicholas said. “It’s very dark and cloudy.”
“You’re losing the connection,” Newton replied.
“Yes,” Moss agreed. “Your link is to the sorcerer, so the farther you go away from him, the weaker your link to the place becomes. You’ll need to backtrack or we’ll have to start over.”
As Nicholas moved back through the room with the troll, he could hear the troll reciting the sorcerer’s story aloud, and he told Moss and Newton about it.
“Why would he be telling the story?” Nicholas asked.
“I told you that words have power,” Moss explained. “The sorcerer may have others telling his story to help enhance his power.”
“Why would anyone help the sorcerer?”
“They may not know whom they’re helping, or they may be paid.”
“Or they may believe in whatever worthy cause the sorcerer has told them he’s working toward,” Newton added.
Nicholas listened to the troll speaking. He sounded like an actor rehearsing lines for a play as he recited the story and placed emphasis on different words each time.
There wasn’t much else to see in the room with the troll, so Nicholas turned back to the laboratory. As he passed by the window with the moving scenery, Nicholas noticed some writing on the walls. He tried to read it, but the characters didn’t come from the alphabet he knew how to read.
“There’s writing on the wall,” Nicholas said.
“Not surprising,” Newton remarked. “It’s common practice to write spells on the wall of a place you want to protect.”
“Can you read anything?” Moss asked.
“No,” Nicholas answered and explained why. He continued to study the characters for a few more moments, anyway. He wanted to be able to draw a few of them for Moss later.
Nicholas moved closer and watched the sorcerer take several jars from a cabinet. The sorcerer opened the containers and shook the contents into his palm to examine the pieces. Then he placed some small stones into a small marble bowl and he began crushing them. Nicholas told Moss what he was seeing.
“Get close!” Moss said as he stood up and leaned over the table. “Do the jars have labels?”
Nicholas did as he was told, despite the sick feeling he got in his stomach as he approached the sorcerer. When he was almost next to him, he saw the sorcerer pause from his work and quit crushing the stones. The sorcerer shivered, then carefully looked around the room, studying it. He placed the marble pestle down and walked into the next room to check on the troll. Nicholas rushed forward to quickly read the labels.
“There are five jars. He wrote a single word directly on the glass instead of using labels. The writings say Calvio, Tribulo, Gravamen, Adversum and Aporia.”
“He’s brewing trouble,” Moss said thoughtfully. “But his process is one of fermentation. He’s creating trouble, but we don’t know how he’s using it. This is both expected and unexpected. How interesting.” Moss combed his fingers through his long, green beard and stared into space. After a few moments Nicholas knew that Moss was lost in thought and might not speak again for an hour or more.
“He went back to the room with the troll telling his story,” Nicholas said. “I’m going to listen.”
Nicholas was already getting tired, and he could hear only pieces of the conversation. His eyes wandered around the room, but there wasn’t much to see besides the tea kettle and a few cookies on the table.
“What kind of cookies?” Newton asked with interest.
“Sugar cookies,” Nicholas said as he studied them closely.
&nb
sp; “With sprinkles?” Newton asked with a strand of drool trailing out of the corner of his mouth.
“Yes.”
“What color?”
“Green.” As Nicholas answered the question, Newton licked his lips. “There are at least two dozen of them.”
Nicholas wondered why there were so many cookies for only two people who didn’t appear hungry. He gave up on this train of thought and decided to look for any other clues in the room. As he was looking away from the plate, the corner of the business card caught his eye. He thought that he might be able to read the card, just as he had done with the jars, if he could only get close enough. Nicholas focused on the table again and tried to see the front of the card that the sorcerer had given the troll. He put all his energy into the effort.
“I can see his business card,” Nicholas said as he concentrated on the words. “Maybe it has his name on it.”
“He would never give out his name,” Moss said as he came out of his reverie. “It would be foolish. Once someone knows your name, they can gain power over you. The sorcerer will protect his identity.”
“He might use an alias,” Newton interjected.
“A fake name?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes,” Newton said. “But even knowing an alias can be helpful because when people make up names for themselves, it says something about them. It doesn’t tell you who they are, but it can tell you how they view themselves or who they want to be.”
“That’s very insightful, Newton,” Moss said with a note of appreciation.
“Well, when you hang around castles and churches for a few hundred years, you tend to learn a few useful things.”
Nicholas pushed closer to the card. It took a lot from within himself to get a clear view of the fine print, but he was determined to read it. When he had finally gotten his eyes focused on the writing, he read it aloud.
“It says ‘Crane Manufacturing: Building the life of your dreams.’” Nicholas paused as he considered the unexpected message. “What does it mean?”
“I think you’ve seen enough, Megan,” the sorcerer said as he leaned close to Nicholas, as if attempting to peer back through the scrying bowl. Nicholas immediately jumped back, throwing the sorcerer’s scarf on the floor and gasping for breath. He looked back and forth between Moss and Newton as he felt his heart racing.
“He knows,” Nicholas finally said when he caught his breath. “He definitely knows. But he called me Megan. Why did he do that? Was he guessing?”
Chapter
19
Conflict
Maggie was injured and having trouble walking because of the gash on her leg. The wolf had gotten a grip on her with his jaws and torn her calf muscle. The wound was open and bleeding. Kelsey dragged her friend several yards toward the abbey, fighting wolves back with her knife and watching them flee whenever she struck them. Several times she heard the loud clinking noise of her knife hitting against the wolves’ teeth.
Roland arrived to take a hold of Maggie and guide her. Maggie could feel him and his firm grip on her wrist, but she couldn’t see him, and his touch made her feel weak. The gash in her leg made it difficult to walk, but she kept going as Kelsey had instructed her. She was crying both because of the pain from her injury and because she was upset with Sister Clementine for ruining the negotiations.
Kelsey kept her eye on Bardou as she moved forward through the orchard with her knife drawn, striking back at each of the wolves who attacked her. A few got a little too close to her face as they snapped, and she could smell their rancid frozen breath. Her heart was beating so loudly in her own ears that she could no longer hear the sound of the wolves’ paws hitting the ground. The battle was silent for her, except for the sound of her own internal rhythm.
More wolves approached, lunging forward with their eyes focused on Kelsey’s throat as they snapped their teeth. The wolves’ crazed expressions gave the impression that they were craving blood far more than hope. Kelsey swiftly moved out of the way, striking one of the wolves with her knife as she did so. She was untouched by this confrontation, but as she stepped out of the way of the lunging animal, she landed on a flower that exploded puffy looking seeds along with tiny oval petals. They went everywhere, giving the brief illusion of snow mixed with pale yellow confetti. The flower’s seeds were like those of a slightly larger dandelion. After the first explosive discharge upward, the flower’s parts began drifting peacefully through the hostile air. If she weren’t in the middle of a fight, Kelsey might have taken the time to admire the falling petals and seeds. It looked as if there were bits of cotton and color dancing on the breeze.
At the current time, however, the floating flower seeds were a distraction. Even the wolves were momentarily captivated by the sight. Kelsey waved her knife through the air at the drifting particles, and the blade quickly eliminated almost all of them. However, one seed that landed on Kelsey’s right forearm burned her skin where it had landed. She didn’t have time to think about it, so she brushed the seed from her skin and looked around. The wolves were no longer enchanted by the flower, and they were regrouping.
Kelsey turned to face them just as the largest one lunged for her throat again. She steadied herself with her legs and heard her knife blade striking the wolf’s teeth as she deflected the attack. The wolf fell backwards and turned around to face her again. He was ready to spring, but he paused to stare Kelsey down with a fierce expression. When he finally moved forward, Kelsey struck him with her knife, and he quickly ran off. Up until this point she had kept the wolves from doing any extensive damage to her, though her arms and legs were being scratched.
The battle was complicated by all of the rows of trees, which obscured the lines of sight in most directions. All around her there were wolves and people engaged in battle, but Kelsey couldn’t see anything past her own situation.
As another wolf rebounded to attack her again, Kelsey lifted her leg and kicked the animal away just in time to deflect an attack from yet another wolf. There were four or five of them leaping toward her from different angles. She struck at them one by one, and this is when she noticed their odd behavior. She wondered if it had started with the exploding flower, or if it had been happening since the beginning of the battle. What she noticed was that every time she deflected an attack and slashed a wolf, the wolf sat down on the ground and stopped fighting or simply ran away. These weren’t deep wounds. She wasn’t even striking them all that hard.
At first Kelsey thought the wolves were giving up easily, but after more than a dozen wolves exhibited this behavior, she began to see that this was a pattern. She didn’t need to actually kill the wolves to save hope. She just needed to wound them, and this knowledge made her feel more confident because wounding was much easier than killing. She glanced down at her forearm where the flower seed had burned the image of a petal. It was an odd mark, but Kelsey didn’t have time to study it. She was attempting to wound every wolf she could reach as she searched for the leader.
Brother Michael, on the other hand, was striking as many deadly blows as he could. He and the other brothers had already killed about two dozen wolves. Kelsey made her way over to him as she continued searching through the crowd for Bardou. Shortly after the wolf leader chased Maggie toward the abbey, Kelsey lost sight of him in the shuffle.
“Brother Michael,” Kelsey shouted. “You don’t need to kill them. They respond to simply getting cut. They quit fighting when they get hurt.” Kelsey inadvertently demonstrated this when she slashed at a wolf who jumped in her face unexpectedly.
“What?” Brother Michael replied as he continued to wield his sword.
“The wolves quit fighting once they get wounded.”
“I’m not wounding a wolf who wants to kill me. It’s the wolves or us, and I don’t want to be the one dead!” He continued fighting viciously alongside Kelsey, who had wounded about half a dozen more wolves.
No matter how many she saw run away, though, the wolves didn’t appear to decrease
in number. She wondered if she was wrong and if the wolves’ running away when wounded was a deception. Could it be some type of new war tactic that the sorcerer had invented? As she reached her arm out to strike another wolf, she saw that the flower petal on her arm had multiplied. There were now several petals forming an almost complete flower.
“Oh, great!” she exclaimed as she continued to fight. “I’ve got a flower fungus.”
“A flower fungus is the least of your worries,” Brother Michael shouted as he gasped for air in between words. He stabbed at another wolf and then looked over at Kelsey. What he saw made him stop fighting long enough for the wolf to sneak forward and grab hold of his ankle. Kelsey leapt forward and cut the wolf with her knife. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it drew blood. The wolf immediately let go of Brother Michael’s thick ankle and scurried away out of the orchard. “It does work,” Brother Michael said. He paused with his mouth agape to observe the wolf running away.
Brother Michael was quickly roused from his reflective state by another wolf jumping in his face. He attempted to cut the wolf in a less aggressive manner, but this only made the wolf angrier, and it bit Brother Michael in the face. They fell to the ground, struggling as the wolf held onto the fleshy portion of Brother Michael’s left cheek. Brother Michael was screaming as Kelsey jumped into the fight and tore at the wolf’s shoulder with her knife. As soon as the wound opened, the wolf let go of Brother Michael and sprinted from the orchard.
After spewing a few curses, Brother Michael tore a piece of fabric from the bottom of his shirt and blotted the wound on his face. The wolves were occupied in battle with others, and he had a few moments to breathe. He stared at the knife in Kelsey’s hand.
“What kind of knife is that?” he asked.
“I’m not completely sure.”
“That trick with the wolves … It didn’t work with my sword. Your knife has an effect on them. Where did you get it?”
“The king bought it for me. Well, he bought half of it,” Kelsey said. This was not the best time for a conversation on souvenirs from former quests. She looked around frantically. “We need to stop this. Do you see Bardou?”
