Jake's Quest - Wizards V (11 page)

18.
              
Reward

Jeram patted me on the back in a friendly way, while Lana and Bob looked angry, but resigned. Estan was giving me a look I couldn’t completely fathom. There was anguish in it as though I had done a great wrong in saving her life, but there was also something else, possibly resolve.

The crowd had become subdued, though hushed conversations hissed around us. Estan was still staring at me so I gave her a broad wink. That didn’t seem to help and she retreated as far away from me as she could get. I wondered if she was annoyed that I had discovered that she was a girl, or even if she knew. Not everybody knows how healing magic works.

There was a tug at my shirt and I turned to find Harlan had crept up on me. He didn’t look particularly happy and I assumed he’d lost his bet. Served him right for not betting on me, I have a track record.

“Wizard Morrissey, we need to leave at once.”

I looked around and saw individuals attempting to lead the others away. We each had our own minder by the look of it. A stern faced girl was trying to get Lana to leave with little success. The young man minding Estan was trying to stop her reaching the Chancellor, who was in a huddle with the other judges. I guessed she wanted to complain about my interference. Bob and Jeram, on the other hand, were not putting up any resistance and I decided to follow their lead.

“Lead on, Harlan. What’s next on the agenda?”

Harlan ignored my question and hurried off in the direction of the door we had come in by. I guessed each applicant had their own door, corridor, eating places and cell. Though it seemed like overkill to me. Why would they want to stop us talking to each other? It was not like we could cheat.

I ran after him until I caught up and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Why are we in such a hurry?”

Harlan looked flustered. “The applicants should not fraternize. It was inappropriate for you to have talked to Jeram Wist at the beginning of the trial. It is frowned upon.”

“No one has given me a rule book.”

Harlan ignored my comment and removed my hand from his shoulder. “Fraternization with your helper is also discouraged.”

“Did I win?” I winked slowly and deliberately. “I won’t tell anybody you told me.”

Harlan pursed his lips and then spoke reluctantly.

“A number of factors are used to calculate the final score. You were first back though.” He sounded just a touch bitter about it.

“Did you lose a lot of money?”

“Enough to hurt. Never bet on a pretty face.”

I laughed. “You bet on Lana d’Fallon. Can’t say I blame you. She would be my first choice every time, not necessarily for winning contests though.”

He gave me the mother of all disapproving looks. It seemed that Harlan was a prude as well as a bad gambler.

“I will take you for your lunch. You have the rest of the day off, but you cannot leave your quarters except for meals. The next test will be at the same time tomorrow morning.”

And I couldn’t get him to say another word to me. Not at lunch or on the way back to my cell. It was almost a relief when the door closed on him, leaving me alone in my cell.

I returned to the problem of how to get the bracelet off my wrist without anybody knowing. It might be possible to disable it, if I surrounded it with the right magic.

An hour or two of fruitless trying later there was a knock at the door and Estan walked in. Now I knew she was a woman I appreciated how pretty she was. Even the page boy haircut looked cute on her. A guard closed the door behind her and we were alone.

“Hi. How did you get in? I thought we were prisoners?”

Estan frowned and leaned against the wall, which was about as far away from me as she could get.

“I asked them to let me thank you according to the customs of my people. We are not prisoners so much as being isolated. They don’t want us to know how well or badly we are doing.”

“We wouldn’t risk our lives if we knew we had already lost?”

The corners of her mouth twitched in a suppressed smile.

“Are you always so cynical?”

“A cynic is an optimist with experience.”

Again the twitch; bigger this time. I decided I was going to get her to smile properly before she left the room.

“They call you a murderer and yet you went out of your way to save my life.”

“I’m a complex kind of guy.”

“Did you really kill the Balmack Representative?” She looked appalled at the very idea.

That made me grimace.

“I did. He got in the way while I wielding a Diabli sword.”

She was suddenly furious with me.

“You make up lies about such a terrible thing? There are no Diabli swords since the Diabli destroyed themselves.”

“If you say so. Perhaps you should go?”

This talk of the many people I had killed was getting me down. I did my best not to think about it most of the time. Not being believed made it all the worse.

Estan’s fingers played with the laces of her shirt. Her breasts were still strapped, but I found the gesture sensual and it was way better to think of a woman’s body than all the deaths on my hands.

“You discovered I am a woman when you healed me. My real name is Esta though I would prefer you keep that to yourself for the time being.”

I nodded. I was much more interested in what her hands were doing than the conversation.

“In Prion, women are subservient in all matters to men. For calling you a liar, I should offer you my body to be beaten; for saving my life I should offer my body for your pleasure.”

“In Wales, women just say ‘thank you’ and shake the man’s hand.” And never ever admit it if they have made a mistake, in my experience.

‘Down boy’ I instructed a part of my body. It paid no attention. It never does.

“What a strange world you come from. But I see the offer of my body did not displease you, or was it the thought of punishing me?”

Damn it. I would have to start wearing looser fitting jeans.

“You are a beautiful young woman, but I am married,”
Boy, was that an understatement
, “And it is not the custom on my world for a man to stray.”
Keep your face straight, Jake
. “So I must regretfully decline your offer.”

She smiled then, a sly smile with hooded eyes. I had won my bet with myself.

“It is your choice. Are you absolutely sure?”

The cloth she used for strapping her breasts materialized on the floor. Her small, but pert bosoms strained at her shirt. She pulled the cord free that held her shirt together and the material parted.

“I.”

Estan tugged at the cord holding her shorts up and they fell too. She had the figure of a supermodel and her skin was smooth as silk.

She walked over to me and pushed me down onto the bed, thrusting her hips towards mine.

“We should…” I tried, but that was as far as I could get.

She pulled at my jeans and hopped them off me. No one had ever done that to me before and it was a massive turn on. Her hand grasped me firmly and I knew she had broken any slight resistance I had left. I think this had been inevitable from the moment she made the offer, regardless of whatever I had told her.

I am only flesh and blood after all.

“When we finish, you shall spank me for my lies and then you shall take me again.”

Typical woman; as soon as she had me by the short hairs she was issuing instructions.

I helped Esta bind her breasts when we got dressed. She wasn’t talking and I wasn’t sure whether I had done something wrong. I had followed most of her instructions to the letter; though I refused to punish her, despite her request to the contrary.

She certainly hadn’t complained at any point. But still, it was as though I had disappointed her on some fundamental level. Perhaps I wasn’t as good as the last man she’d had? She was far from inexperienced in bed. In fact she knew things I would never have thought of.

“Why the disguise? You aren’t on Prion and I don’t think the Balmack Accord practices male chauvinism. They are generally an enlightened bunch.”

She pulled away from me and fastened the laces on her shirt, never looking up and meeting my eyes.

“There are no places where men do not use women. No place in the multiverse where a woman is ever truly equal.”

I had a fleeting fantasy of introducing her to Alisandra and the women of Malevon. That was a place the boot was firmly on the other foot.

“I didn’t use you. What we did was mutual.”

Esta gave a bitter laugh as she pulled up her shorts and fastened them.

“You are the same as all men. Do not try to deny it.”

“I thought we might have just become friends.”

She leaned forward till her nose almost touched mine and for the first time met my eyes.

“If the opportunity presents itself during the trials I shall cut your throat, murderer. Studying at Haldor University is my life’s ambition and you shall not prevent me achieving it.”

“And what we just did together?”

“I pay my debts according to the laws of my people. You had the chance to prove you were what you claimed and you did not.”

Esta knocked on the door and it opened. She walked out without looking back and the door closed silently behind her.

I went back to examining the bracelet for weaknesses. The room had become cold and I shivered.

19.
              
Landmines

Harlan must have taken the Chancellors words to heart as we were the first to arrive at the balcony. I had enjoyed the first test and was feeling confident. The Chancellor looked on me as though I was something he’d found stuck to his shoe. He didn’t make any other acknowledgement. Harlan waited as if expecting congratulations and the Chancellor gave him a look that might vaporize steel. Harlan took the hint and left.

“Nice day for it,” I informed the Chancellor and his bunch of peacock dressed cronies, who were studiously ignoring me. “When I was at school the tests were boring, we sat at little tables and were told to keep our eyes fixed on the paper in front of us.”

No response.

“That was to make sure we didn’t cheat. There was quite a competition to sit alongside Sally White as she was the brightest person in our year. Or it may have been because she was the best looking. I forget.”

“Shut up!”

My next comment would have driven him crazy, but I was upstaged by the arrival of Lana d’Fallon and her po-faced female minder. Lana eyed me up in a predatory fashion and I grinned right back at her.

“You only have a little one,” she said as she eyed the Knife of Truth on my belt, “Mine is much bigger.” She put her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Two could play at that game.

“I carry a concealed weapon that rises to the occasion.”

Her eyes focused on my crotch.

“There is little evidence of it.”

“And yet you would cry out should I use it.”

“I would never cry for a man, least of all you.”

“Enough, both of you!” I turned to find an enraged Chancellor. “You will be quiet or I shall remove you two from the contest.”

Lana and I shrugged in unison and walked to the edge of the balcony to look out on our new playing field.

Yesterday’s lake and jungle was gone. The arena was now the largest sand pit I have ever seen, or possibly the smallest desert. The surface was perfectly smooth and flat. The last twelve feet of the right hand side was green sand while the left hand side was red. The sand in the vast middle section was sand colored.

“Do you think we are going to be split into teams?” Jeram asked. He had snuck up behind us. I looked to the Chancellor before I answered. The man was deep in conversation with his fellow judges and was unlikely to hear us.

“We’ve been told off for talking,” I whispered. Jeram ignored me and continued with his train of thought

“I hope not. Who would want me on their team?”

“I would,” Lana said, “You showed the most wisdom in the previous test.”

Jeram’s wrinkled face broke into a smile.

“But I came second.”

Esta and the mysterious Bob stepped forward to join us. I scanned Bob with magical sight and was not surprised to find he had placed a magic field over his body, blocking me or anybody else who tried to look. Oh well, we all have our secrets.

The Chancellor coughed and the crowd quietened.

“The second trial is deceptively simple. All that is required is for the wizards to walk from the red to the green section. An element of the score is time taken, so you should hurry. Hidden beneath the sand are magical explosives more than capable of killing you. You cannot screen yourself with magic as their blast will go through your own shield to kill you. You may enter the arena when you are ready. Hop to the red section. Good luck.”

Given what had happened the last time there was no mad rush to get to the red zone. We stood on the balcony and scanned the sand below.

“It is impossible,” Esta said after a moment’s observation.

It took me a little longer to confirm her opinion. Below the sand was what amounted to an array of mines. There was no meaningful gap between them. It was mines everywhere.

“Shall we take a closer look, Wizard Morrissey?” Jeram asked.

“Why not?”

We hopped down onto the red zone. The others followed behind us.

Jeram stayed well back from the mines and I followed his lead. The others were not so cautious and went right up to the line.

Bob hunkered down on the border and extended his hand over the sand.

“Pressure sensitive. Each one blasts upwards with a cylinder of energy.”

“The answer is obvious. Who will partner with me?” Esta asked. Lana stepped forward.

“I will.”

Now that was very likely suicidal. They were relying on one dubious interpretation of the Chancellor’s words. I thought they were crazy.

“Don’t be stupid. What if you’re wrong?”

“Then we will be dead, Wizard Morrissey,” Esta said grimly.

She and Lana stepped to the edge of the minefield and gathered up their magic each shielding the other. At a nod from Esta they stepped onto the mines together. Titanic forces burst upwards but their shields held. Each one defended by the other’s magic. It looked like their interpretation was right, but it seemed to me that they had used a stupid way to find out.

The women made their way slowly across the sand with explosions beneath them all the way.

Jeram looked at me and I shook my head.

“You go ahead with Bob. I want to think about it for a while.”

I watched the men step warily onto the desert in perfect synchronization. One good thing about their method was that neither could cheat the other without killing themselves on the next step.

The crowd cheered as Lana and Estan reached the safety of the green zone. They did not hop up to the balcony but waited for the rest of us. I waited until Jeram and Bob had reached the other side before I stepped closer to the edge.

The mines that the men and women had stepped on were still live and kicking, so there was no chance of using their footsteps as a way across. However, I could see from the edges of the blasts that the sand was five or so inches thick. I hoped that would be enough.

The crowd staring down at me jeered and called me all sorts of names as I walked away from the disturbed sand to somewhere it was still smooth. I touched the sand and concentrated. This kind of magic took a certain amount of discipline as I had to do what I wanted without any movement from the sand I was changing.

Stretching out from my finger the sand turned to glass. This was a simple change as glass is made from sand, but I had to do it without melting the grains as that much movement would set off the mines. The sand dropped in volume as it changed, glass occupies much less space as the molecules bind together. It took many minutes before I had finished.

When I looked at my handiwork I was surprised to see that the glass was blue. There must be impurities in the sand. The big question was whether it would hold and spread my weight sufficiently to avoid setting off the mines.

I gently placed my left foot on the glass, calculating that would be the leg I would miss the least if I had got it wrong.

The crowd had stopped jeering and I stepped onto the glass in silence. They were so quiet I thought they might have left, but when I looked up they were still there, fascinated by my actions, holding their breath in much the same way as I was.

The walk across the glass was terrifying. Every step brought cracking sounds and I saw a crack cut spread for yards on either side of me. When I reached the other side, Jeram offered out his hand. The edge was without doubt the most dangerous place. I took his hand and hauled myself onto the green sand.

The crowd went mad with wild applause.

Bob fixed me in his gaze.

“Why did you let me go with Wizard Wist?”

“It all depended on what was being tested.”

The four stared at me

“The test could have been one of cooperation, or ingenuity. I bet on ingenuity.”

Bob thought on my words and nodded.

“If it was one of bravery then we won,” Lana said and Esta nodded.

“If it was one of caution, then Bob and I are the victors for letting you two go first,” Jeram said, unable to keep dry amusement out of his voice.

“One thing is for certain,” I said and they all looked at me.

I nodded up at the balcony where the Chancellor and the other judges were huddled in conversation.

“That lot aren’t going to tell us anything, one way or the other.”