Gemworld (25 page)

He just hoped, for Marissa’s sake, that a certain one-eyed diamond mage would turn out to be one of them.

***

The smell of burnt bacon tickled at Sal’s nose, coaxing him back to consciousness. He might have ignored it, returning instead to that restful darkness, but his stomach barked loudly, waking him as thoroughly as any rooster could.

He moaned slightly as he stirred, opening his eyes. He found himself on a thick pallet of luxuriant furs, piled high in the corner of a dimly lit, musty room. He snaked one hand through the fur quilt that covered him, easing his fingers to the floor below. Dirt, swept and packed. He cast his eyes to the wall opposite him. It was wood—stacked log, actually—and lined with more pelts, stretched for tanning.

My God. A prison, a tent, and now a trapper’s lodge
.

It reminded Sal of his days in college, when an all-nighter could land him anywhere from a strange woman’s bed to the drunk tank at the county jail. He could almost hear his mother’s voice saying, “Jimmy, you’d better slow down or one morning you’re gonna wake up dead.” That one always got him.

“Ah, ye be awake,” came a kindly voice. Sal stiffly craned his neck and found an old man—impossibly old, with skin as wrinkled and tough as the leather he was tanning—sitting next to the fire. He was very animate despite his age, and apparently strong as well, having brought Sal here from where he’d fallen. The codger shook an iron skillet over the fire, sloshing the popping bacon grease over the flames.

“Nay, nay, don’tcha move,” the old furrier said sternly. “Ye were half dead when I found ye, and I’ll not have ye finishin’ the job.”

Sal didn’t think he could move anyway. As he tried to sit up, the pain that had been a dull throbbing, dull and barely noticeable, flared brilliantly. Spots swam in his vision as dizziness stole over him. “Where am I?” he asked thickly, fighting a wave of nausea.

“All depends on where yer wantin’ to be, I s’pose. Yer about a week’s walk northeast of Schel Veylin, or halfway between the Stormbreaks and the Icebreaks, or half a day north of the highroad, or a month west of Scholar’s Ford, or a month to twelve weeks from Bayton, take yer pick.”

“Bastion, actually,” Sal said after a moment’s thought. If he had any hope of finding the others—of finding Marissa—it would be there.

“Scholar’s Ford, then,” the furrier said sagely. “I dinna take ye for a trapper, and sure’n ye weren’t headin’ for Schel Veylin, not this far off the beaten trail. Methinks yer runnin’ from somethin’—hold ye there, friend, hold! I’m only aimin’ to help ye,” he added quickly, throwing up a placating hand to calm his startled guest.

Sal forced himself to lay back on the pallet, still holding his host with a suspicious eye.
Not like I could defend myself anyway
, he thought sullenly.
Right now, I couldn’t beat back a toddler with a loaded diaper
.

“I gave ye somethin’ for yer ails,” the man continued. “Ye were in great pain, thrashin’ around and such. Me herbs helped ye to rest. They should be wearin’ off soon, so I’m sure ye’ll be wantin’ to heal yerself. Milord mage,” he added nervously.

Sal started, caught off guard. His left eye saw the old man as clearly as his right, with no hint of a green tinge. His eye was diamond!

He remembered losing his grip on Emerald just before passing out. Not that it would have mattered much—the soulgem would have slipped from his magical grasp the moment he went unconscious anyway. But if the old man knew anything at all about the Gemstone Orders—and the fact that Sal didn’t exactly fit with any of them—he didn’t show it. He was just acting respectfully, if uncomfortably.

“The other mage?” Sal croaked.

“Dead, milord. Twisted around facing his rump, so he was. Took a mite to get him untangled, get his armor and whatnot from him. Sure’n ye’ll be wantin’ that for where yer goin’.”

“How thoughtful of you,” muttered Sal dubiously.

He wasn’t too sure about the old man. He sighed.
Maybe I’m just a bit punch drunk from all the running, fighting, flying, falling, and near death experiences. That kind of crap takes it right out of you
. Looking again at the old man, at the hangdog expression of the unappreciated, Sal softened. The old man was harmless.

“Sorry, rough week. I owe you one.”

The old man brightened immediately. Apology accepted, all was well again. “Bah, t’weren’t nothin’,” he waved the gratitude off very self-deprecatingly. “I done what I had to. Sure’n ye woulda died without me help. O’ course, I woulda mourned yer death,” he said, his voice trailed off wistfully.

Sal started, and caught the shrewd glint hidden in the older man’s deceptively vacant eyes. Could this be a trap? What, out here in the middle of no where? Not a chance. Maybe he was just voicing concern for a stranger in need? Sal doubted it. Good Samaritan or not, what were the odds that he’d say those exact words to a total stranger?

He hesitated a moment longer to choke down any remaining suspicions, then took a chance, hoping his gamble was the right one. “But the Cause must survive,” he answered.

The old man cackled, slapping his leg in gratification and spilling a good deal of the bacon grease over the sputtering flames. “Aye, I thought so, so I did. I knew ye for one o’ me own soon as I laid me eyes on ye. Mikel du’Ander is me name, or Ol’ Mik as I’m called. I’m beyond carin’ which.”

“Pleased to meet you. James Salvatori, or Sal as I’m called,” Sal replied with a small wave.

“Sal,” Mikel said, the name sounding oddly familiar on the old man’s tongue. From far across the cabin common area, Mikel’s eyes seemed to flicker oddly, as if in recognition, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving Sal to wonder if it had just been a trick of the light.

“Well met, milord mage,” the old man said finally, growing sober and somewhat wistful. “Well met, so we are, and glad to know ye. Odd name, that. James Salvatori. It’s been many a year since I heard the like.”

“You’ve heard my name before?” Sal asked, at first startled, then just merely curious. If the old man had heard his name before, he’d surely learned it from his contacts in Caravan. After all, no one else on the planet knew he existed.

The question snapped Mikel back to reality. “Huh? Wha—? Oh! No, not quite like that. Similar names, to be sure. Ye can hardly be the traveled man that I am without pickin’ up an odd name hither and yon. But yers is such a one as I ain’t heard in many a year. Aye, since I was a wee lad...

“But that’s matters of a day long gone. Let’s have word o’ today, hmm?” Not waiting for an answer, Mikel leaned forward, his frying pan all by forgotten on a cooling grate near the hearth. “Word told o’ some big to-do far north o’ here. Troops amassin’ near Caravan, plannin’ to put the come hither on
el
’
Yatza
, the village, the Cause, the lot of it. Word come down to me too late to do much by it. Could only sit on me keister and wait to be useful. Thank the Crafter I did that, aye?”

Sal grunted his agreement. Be it God, or the Crafter, or whatever, he was definitely running up a big tab with Someone.

“Know ye if
el
’
Yatza
made good his escape?” Mikel asked, concern etched on his leathery old face.

“Yeah, he got away. Wasn’t too pleased with having to leave, but a certain emerald wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“That would be Jaren, so it would,” the old man chuckled. “Been lookin’ after his bacon since they was kids. And his twin?”

Suddenly, Sal was uncertain, concerned. It had all happened so fast. “I don’t know. I was in the air and chasing down that granite before I knew what was happening. I know we were holding our own up until that point, but beyond that...”

Mikel nodded his understanding. “The Cause is good and just, and what the Crafter wills, so shall it be,” he said with a confident nod. “Now then, let’s see to yer healin’. You
can
heal, can you not?”

Sal thought for a moment, then just nodded. No sense in confusing his mundane understanding of the arcane. He obviously didn’t know much about it, if he didn’t notice that Sal’s eye was clear and not emerald-tinted.

Reaching into his soul, he touched the emerald magic, drew it into himself. His gemstone eye shifted spectra, the familiar green tinge coming over his primary sight. He closed his eyes and got a sense of his body, his injuries. They were extensive, but not life threatening. He trickled mana into his body, dulling the various aches and pains he had. With Mikel’s help—the tottering old codger seemed to get in the way more often than not—they popped Sal’s hip into place. Even filled with mana as he was, waves of red hot agony shot through him as the joint slid home, bringing with them waves of nausea. He fought the pain, fought to remain conscious. Finally, his head cleared, and the pain subsided.

With everything back in its proper place, Sal released the magic full on into his body, to seek out and repair any damage it might find. He felt the magic spread from his heart outward like ice in his veins. He shivered as the emerald wave flowed slowly from chest to neck, shoulders to arms, abdomen to legs, leaving healing power in its wake. He could feel cuts sealing themselves, forming the smallest puckered scars. A grinding sound issued from his ribs, his hip, his leg, as jagged bone fragments met, knitting themselves back together. The throb in his hip quieted as the stretched tendons mended. As the magic spread, the pain diminished, then disappeared all together. By the time the spell reached his toes, there was not a sore spot on his body. He was again whole.

He didn’t know how long the healing took, but when he opened his eyes again, Mikel was scraping his skillet out over the embers of the fire. Not that his eyes stayed open long. The spell had drained him so that he was snoring moments later.

***

Sal woke before dawn the next morning, the grey half-light seeping through the pane glass windows of the hearth-lit cabin. But if he thought to sneak away before the old man woke, he was sadly disappointed. Mikel was already up and about, bustling around the cabin as if he’d been at it for hours.

“Morning,” Sal said groggily, though more from an excess of sleep than from a lack thereof.

“Aye, mornin’ back to ye, milord mage,” Mikel returned, not slowing a bit. “Are ye ready to set yer feet to the dusty trail?”

“Yeah, I feel great, thanks. But what are
you
doing?”

“What’s it look like to ye? I’m packin’ me things up. Even by wagon, it’s two weeks to a half-month ride to Scholar’s Ford, dependin’ on how hard ye push yer horses, and if we aim to get there afore I die, we needs be headin’ out. I ain’t got many years left, don’tcha know.”

That got Sal up. “Whoa, wait a second. You know what’s going on out there. It’s dangerous. I can’t let you go risking your life on my account.”

The old man waved him off. “Bah! I’ve been in and outta trouble with the Highest most o’ me life. In fact, I kinda been missin’ it, stuck out here in the boonies as I am. Semi-retired, I guess ye could call me. Truth be known, I could really use a break from these ol’ walls here—get the blood flowin’, don’tcha know. Why, I can remember the first time I found meself on his royal Highestness’s own bad side...”

Mikel chattered away, never ceasing in his business. One pack was no sooner full of cooking supplies that he began filling another with spare clothing, still spieling out his yarn. It was clear before he even started that Sal was going to get nowhere trying to convince the old codger to stay home.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” he sighed, his comment lost in Mikel’s torrential chitchat. So join him he did. In an hour, they were loaded in a rickety horse-drawn flatbed and bouncing along the deep ruts of a well-worn trail. The sun was just breaking the horizon as they left out, Mikel’s cabin vanishing into the dense foliage of the Veylin woods.

It turned out to be a beautiful morning. The air was pleasantly cool and humid. The song of myriad forest animals rose with the thick morning mist, greeting the new day. Free of the musty cabin, the smoky hearth, the dusty firs, and other trappings of civilization, Sal found that he could smell honeysuckle in the air, strong and vibrant.

Honeysuckle, of all things! Strange that he should smell such a familiar scent in this world so far removed from his own, but there it was—along with pine, and alfalfa, and many other scents that seemed to speak to him from his childhood, scents he’d long forgotten. After years of military life—of boats and desks and deserts—it never occurred to him how that kind of life could weed out such “unnecessary” memories. He closed his eyes and took it all in, and for a time he could almost pretend he was a kid again.

He could see himself, sitting on the front porch of his granny’s house, a scant fifteen miles from home, but seeming a world away. He had his feet propped up and his eyes shut, just soaking in the first Saturday of summer break, the last summer before high school. He didn’t know it yet, but it was gonna be a summer to remember. Cane poles leaned against the wall where his cousin Ben has set them out the night before. They almost begged him to take them down to Abbey Creek and haul in a mess of crappie.

About that time, Buckwild came running around the end of the porch, his floppy jowls partially hiding the rabbit he’d killed. Dangit, he was gonna have to get after that mutt before Granny found out. He wouldn’t do it just then, though. He might disturb her while she was working on lunch—or “dinner”, as she called the mid-afternoon meal, which was followed promptly five hours later by “supper”.