Fractured Families (The Pearl of Wisdom Saga Book 2)

by Jason Paul Rice

  The horn-wound to the hand scared Riceros the most of all the giant’s cuts. Riceros cut strips of the husk and weaved them together to tie around Dioneer’s hand. He plastered the pulpy mixture down, put the silk strands on top and wrapped it tight with the woven husk. They rested for a long time before Dioneer could continue. The Brohan bull had pulled them off course again and the two blindly looked for a way out. The sun set sooner than he had expected, and Dioneer quickly went to sleep, snoring loudly. He still didn’t drown out the scary sounds of night in the Maize Maze. Riceros couldn’t sleep, fearing another guard would be dispatched to slow them down again. He looked at Dioneer’s leather pouch with two keys in it. Riceros guessed the final challenge would be the hardest if he could survive this mess. He had never been constantly scared for over a week in his whole life. The tension had caused him to grow up quickly and realize life could be crazy outside of the friendly confines of Mattingly. Even through the terror, Riceros stood tall and faced his fears. Both injured partners fell asleep for the night.

  The next day, the pair wandered around without positive results. Every area of the Maze looked exactly the same and they came upon another four-way intersection. Riceros looked up and wished the giant were only a few feet taller. The idea hit like an anvil and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of this solution earlier.

  Through a series of hand and body gestures, the boy communicated a system of escape to Dioneer. Two moments later, Riceros could see the sun. He sat on Dioneer's shoulder and could see over most of the Maze. He stood straight up while Dioneer supported him and he saw the path to get out. Riceros tried to guide them out of the death-filled Maze. He tapped the giant’s head to go straight and the left or right shoulder to indicate direction. After a rocky start, they started to move as one. Several hours later, the two were outside the Maze and had completed the second challenge. Riceros looked at his beat up friend and felt terrible.

  Dioneer noticed his look of concern and said, “Don’t feel sorry for me. I have been chosen, just like you. I accepted all that comes with this responsibility. We did it together, my friend.”

  Riceros’ mood raised with that revelation, and he pulled out the black board from the sling Dioneer had made him. Words were already on the board, “Congratulations, thou hath shown skills beyond thy years of experience. Natural talent is the great equalizer. To realize this talent is lethal. You hath now seen death and suffering caused by thy own hands. Thou shalt see much more death in the great fight. Yet, if we loseth the war, every man, woman and child will suffer and die. One challenge still remains to test thy abilities. Go back down the hill to where thou came in. The mermaids shalt take thou to the next challenge.”

  The board went blank again. Riceros motioned for Dioneer to follow and they headed for the third and final mission.

  The mermaids pushed Dioneer and Riceros up to the next island. The board had remained blank so Riceros walked up the wet sand and looked around the small island. There were many other small islands surrounding this one. He found some materials to work on the green pus coming from Dioneer’s hand. They started a fire and Riceros used a flat rock to seal some of the cuts like Count Sproul had taught him. Dioneer was shocked to see the boy pull the glowing stone from the fire with his bare hands and gently press it to the wounded areas. Riceros set the stone down and his burnt hands quickly returned to normal.

  He looked back at the board, and it said, “Thy final test is for a unique key. The third key is the fang of a blue-toothed wildebeest.”

  Riceros had heard the animals had tiny legs and a huge head with big blue teeth and four long fangs. They had two on top and two on bottom. Count Sproul had told a few stories involving blue-toothed wildebeests and it never worked out well for their opponents.

  Words appeared again, “These small islands all contain different items, but there is only one with food on it, the same island the wildebeests inhabit. That island is directly to thy left.” Riceros looked over to see the biggest island in the group and when he looked back to the board, it had gone blank.

  Unable to alert Dioneer of the great dangers on the island, he thought he should investigate the land himself. The wildebeests stood so low to the ground, they could fell the giant and sink their long, sharp teeth into him. They walked in the green water toward the wildebeests’ island. When the sea became too deep, Riceros held onto Dioneer until it became shallow again. It reminded him of hanging on to Jasper when he went swimming in Mattingly. They walked up on the big island and Riceros communicated to Dioneer to stay on the orange sandy beach. A trail led into a forest and Riceros saw a dragon-fruit tree. The tasty red snacks made Riceros’ dry mouth water. He was scared again, but he had become used to the emotion by this point.

  His concentration was broken by an angry growling sound. He turned and ran back to his friend and didn’t look back. He broke onto the beach and saw Dioneer’s wide eye. He ran into the Cyclops’ hands and Dioneer retreated back into the Sea of Green. Five wildebeests ran up to the water and quickly backed off. His heart pounded and he tried to calm down as they went to look at the other islands.

  They were all like the original island he had landed on, with no food to be found. They tried to fish several different ways and couldn’t catch anything. The two went to sleep starving and in a cruel twist of fate, both wished they had some corn to eat. After not sleeping well, Riceros woke up with his stomach pulsating and feeling like it was trying to eat itself. Riceros had been raised in a castle, sleeping in a comfortable bed until a few months ago. He remembered how Jasper used to jump in bed with him during thunderstorms but that was abundantly better than sleeping in these harsh conditions. He couldn’t sleep well, no matter what he tried, on the earth’s ground.

  He hatched a plan to get some food for the pair. They went over to the island of the wildebeests in search of food. They had discovered apple trees, peaches, corn, onions, dragon-fruit and carrots just inland, off the beach. He sent Dioneer down the other side of the beach.

  The Cyclops let out a tremendous yell. Several seconds later, the animals emerged from the wooded area to chase Dioneer back into the sea. With the distraction in place, Riceros raced into the carrot patch and pulled as much as he could carry. He ran back down to the beach, dirt falling from his vegetables. Dioneer retreated into the Sea of Green and acted like he was going back to the other island as the beasts went back into the woods. The big man turned back around to get Riceros after the animals disappeared. They went back to another island and ate the take. The boy’s growling stomach eagerly accepted the food. After the meal, he went from starving to very hungry. They had figured out how to get food to survive, but Riceros wasn’t any closer to obtaining the third key.

  OLLOR

  Captain Wallace had private business to take care of and Ollor received a week away from work. He spent the first two days sitting on a small bench along the main trail in the village of Harga. He studied the people and noticed the tendencies of several citizens. He struck up a few awkward conversations and focused on men around his age.

  The village had old, busted up shops along the path. The next town to the west sold luxury items and Harga only had staples and survival items for the poorer villagers. Ollor could smell the camel stables behind the shops and hear the animals making a fuss. The people bartered intensely and Ollor could have sworn he’d witnessed a man sell his daughter for five camels. He wasn’t fluent in Gaman but the merchant left with the man’s daughter and the man left with the animals. Seeing this made Ollor feel sympathy for the girl, but in the same breath happiness for his kids being in safe hands. Ollor spent two more days watching the people, but couldn’t find a worthy soul. He had talked to a few citizens but couldn’t zero in on a target.

  A man of small stature strutted down the street without a care on his face. He wore a long, black, twisted robe that extended from shoulder to knee. Ollor estimated the man’s age to be around fifty. The man looked Gama Trakan with dark skin and hair. He wore
a white head wrap and two silver rings on his left hand which sparkled in the bright sun. The man ducked into a stable behind the shops.

  Ollor decided to take a chance to test his abilities. He grabbed the liniment from his pocket and propped his thumb on the cork for quick access. He suspected this man might be the owner of the stable and quietly peeked in to analyze the situation. There were about fifteen camels but the man was nowhere to be seen. Ollor entered the stable and the man emerged from behind the imported bales of wheat stacked in the back.

  Ollor immediately realized this man wasn’t the owner. In fact, the man thought Ollor was the stable owner and inquired in Gaman about the camels. Ollor played along, “These are some of the best camels around. They can go weeks on barely any feed.” Ollor became nervous because his Gaman might not have been perfect.

  He pointed to one of the several camels in the corner and continued, “Here is one of our prize breeds right here.” The man approached the camel with his back to Ollor. He seized the opportunity and touched the man on the back. See it, be it. See it, be it. He quickly rubbed the liniment into his eyes and touched the man’s shoulder again. This mix hurt worse than the previous batch and Ollor couldn’t open his eyes for about a minute and they still burned. When he did manage to get them to stop watering, he realized his point of view was much lower.

  Ollor turned around to see his own body, standing silent and still in time. He moved the body to the back, behind the stacks of wheat. He hid the body under some hay and moved through the camels and to the front of the stable. He was surprised the owner hadn’t shown up and rapidly exited the building. Ollor felt aches and pains he had never experienced inside the strong desert eagle. He wanted to ditch the flashy rings because he could already see them drawing attention.

  He kept them on and decided he would only walk up and down this main trail a few times and then go back into his own body. Ollor seemed to understand Gaman better but his hearing had dulled. This body felt much older than his own battered body. People looked at him and Ollor thought he was smiling but no one returned the gesture.

  An oncoming angry mob of about twelve men came up over the hillside toward the small village. A few men had scythes and others carried clubs or other blunt objects. Somebody was in deep trouble and Ollor wanted to see who. He moved to the side of the road, but the armed group came directly at him. He thought they must be after the shop owner who was probably standing behind. When he turned around, nobody could be seen. “There’s that son of a bitch,” one of the enraged men shouted. When Ollor turned back forward, he caught the butt end of a wooden-handled ax in the chest. The men held his frail body down and tied his arms and legs right on the side of the trail without anyone trying to help. They easily picked up the small, bound body and carried him west.

  “Your stealing days are over,” he heard one man say. “Wearing the rings you just stole, we should hang him right here,” cried another man. A third man spoke up in a much calmer fashion than his counterparts, “We cannot get our gold back if we kill him now. But with some good old fashioned torture, he’ll tell us where the gold is.”

  “He’s a gambler, the gold’s good as gone,” the first man said. “Then he will die a slow death, piece by piece,” the third man promised.

  The sand turned to dirt as the captors carried Ollor face down, occasionally letting his face scrape on the ground. His shoulders felt like they were about to break due to the intense pressure from the way the men carried him. They had tied his legs and arms together, behind his back, causing great tension to numerous areas of the body. What have you gotten yourself into? The friend told you to learn about the individual and you don’t even know this man’s name. Come on, you worthless old man, how are you going to get out of this one?

  Ollor’s thoughts even came in Gaman and he became scared of dying in the older man’s body, effectively killing two men. Ollor passed out from the pain and when he came to, he found his arms and legs tied to a wooden chair. The wide arms of the chairs were heavily stained in dried blood. A small, dark room, barely lit by a flickering candle, created a sinister tone.

  The three men who questioned him earlier entered the room with wooden clubs and long daggers. “This can be very, very easy. Where is the gold?” the man in a red robe asked. “Look this will sound mad but...” Before Ollor could finish, the men used their clubs to crush Ollor’s face, chest, stomach and legs repeatedly. He tasted salty blood and worse pain than the beating at the School.

  “I don’t like to ask the same questions. It makes me very angry. Where is our gold?” the red robed man asked again. Ollor answered, “I honestly cannot tell you. If you would let me explain.” The man approached Ollor’s naked body and raked his curved dagger blade from his elbow to the wrist. Purple liquid rushed out of his tied-down arm to join the other stains on the chair. “We will be back in a while and we will return even angrier,” the torturer promised.

  The friend had told Ollor not to become cocky because the first change came easy to him. The friend said it was much easier to control a man whose actions are simple. Ollor knew nothing about this man except he had looked like a good candidate. He didn’t have a clue as to where this man had hidden any gold or if this entire event was a hoax. He soon exhausted his mind, matching his beaten body, and fell unconscious.

  He awakened to a slap across the left cheek from a large hand. “We didn’t want to do this but it’s time to think about your family. Rozlo, it’s over, we have captured them too,” a voice said in the dark. A man with a candle entered the room and a woman and two toddlers followed.

  “Rozlo,” the woman exclaimed, but was stopped when she tried to rush to her husband. The name crushed Ollor’s soul and the bitter irony was the man’s name was almost exactly the same as his birth name. If he hadn’t taken over this man’s mind and body, he could have confessed or wouldn’t have even gotten caught in the first place.

  Seeing the bound woman reminded Ollor of his first wife’s death. A rival family in Waters Edge had kidnapped Veralee and demanded that Rollo Etburn deliver the ransom. When Rollo had arrived, he realized it was a set-up. They had his wife bound and slit her throat as Rollo rode up on a black stallion. He had barely escaped the scene with his own life but vowed revenge. His father tried to strike a marriage pact with the Wamhoffs for protection and the Pendergasts yielded on the field of battle but the concessions weren’t enough for Rollo. He went after House Pendergast and killed anyone who had ever been sympathetic to them. He had thought all the killings would bring closure on Veralee’s death, but it had only made him angrier about the situation. He blamed himself for her death because a few weeks before, he had fought a Pendergast in a tavern. Rollo had thoroughly embarrassed the man who vowed to get revenge as he ran out of the tavern.

  “You thought you could blatantly stand on the trail in Harga with rings of guilt after stealing our gold. Now you speak like you barely know the language. We can tell you are nervous and lying,” one of the captors said. He grabbed the son’s right hand and put it on top of Ollor’s. He pulled a dagger and drove it through both hands and into the wood. The boy cried in agony and blood spurted onto Ollor’s body. “Spend some time with your son. Maybe he can talk some sense into his father. If not, we will let him go, minus his head, of course,” the man in the red robe warned.

  Ollor literally had this family’s blood on his hands. He racked his brain trying to come up with a possible solution. The captors left the room again and the family pleaded for Ollor to tell the truth. He convinced the family, whose names he didn’t even know, that this was a case of mistaken identity. He told them that this act happened all the time as someone always had to be blamed, and the family believed him.

  Then he came back to the bigger picture at hand. I’ve created a terrible situation, but this is no reason to feel sorry for yourself. Let’s get this man and his family out of this mess. Wait a damn moment, could he have been hiding the gold in the stables?

  The next day Oll
or asked to talk to the captors alone to admit where the gold was hidden. He confessed to stealing the gold and they only took two pinkies instead of both hands. The men had already gashed his arms and shoulders with cuts when they put the dagger in and twisted it around several times.

  Three men dragged the bloody mess known as Rozlo back over to the village of Harga. He led them to the camel stable, but the owner didn’t want to let the men in. Two of the captors took care of the unwilling owner and they entered the smelly stable. Ollor went to the back and saw his body still covered in straw but too many men were close to him to make the change.

  He moved to the other side and pretended to look for the gold. The search proved fruitless and the men beat Ollor again. The clubbing loosened the rope around his wrists and Ollor moved his hands, trying to free them. He focused on the men’s sheathed scimitars. Ollor knew they were harder to draw but this might be his only opportunity. He summoned all the remaining strength in the older man’s body and made the move. He slid his right hand through the jumbled rope and grabbed the snakeskin grip. He ripped upward, pulling the sword loose. He sliced down, splitting open one of the kidnappers’ chest. A second man fumbled with his scimitar and Ollor came with a backhand motion across the man’s neck, causing his dead body to fall on top of the first man. The final man swung his blade around like a maniac and the two swords met in mid-air. Ollor’s strength had already been depleted and the larger man, although not extremely skilled with a sword, didn’t seem to be tiring. They traded blows and thrusts only to be blocked again and again until Ollor noticed a pattern in his opponent’s attack. He waited for the man to start his routine again and countered with a side stroke of the curved, short blade, opening his foe’s belly and spilling guts on the manure-ridden ground.