The Dreamer's Curse (Book 2) (3 page)

Bel took the option right out of his hands. He went directly
to Decker and held out a hand, a disarming smile on his face as he offered, “Bellomi
Dragonmanovich.”

The hunter blinked at him, caught off-guard for a long
moment, but cultural reflex kicked in and he took the prince’s arm in a
warrior’s clasp. “Decker of Chastain Village.”

“A pleasure, Master Decker.” Bel’s smile became particularly
charming, one that Sevana knew he’d learned from Kip. “I’m sure you’ve
travelled a very long way in a short amount of time, and would prefer to rest,
but I do need to speak with you.”

Clari hung on to Decker’s free hand and looked up at both
adults. “Bel’s been waiting to talk to you, Uncle Deck. I told him about the
curse and he said he’d help us. But he said he needs to know more. I couldn’t
tell him much.”

“I
do
need more details,” Bel agreed.

“Your Highness, I will tell you everything I can,” Decker
responded gratefully, thawing from his nervousness. “But I’m afraid what I know
can be easily summed up in a few sentences. I doubt I can add much to what
Clari has already said.”

“Regardless, come inside and tell me your take on this,” Bel
invited with a wave of the hand. “Sevana?”

“I’ll be talking with Pierpoint,” she informed him. “He has
some information for me. Be warned, I plan to leave here in an hour, so make
your questions quick and to the point.”

Bel’s attention on her sharpened. “Is the situation that
grave?”

“I don’t dare give this—whatever it is—more time to
escalate.”

Bel’s eyes searched her expression for a moment and found
whatever answer he needed. He nodded curtly. “I think I see. Then we’ll convene
back at these steps in one hour.”

“What is this?” Sevana whispered, voice shaking. She stared
at the readings that Pierpoint had taken for her, grateful that she sat on a
chair in his cluttered office, and wasn’t standing. She felt so shaken that her
knees would likely have given out and sent her straight to the floor. The
number written on the page in his scrawled handwriting wavered in front of her
eyes. Numbly, she looked up at Pierpoint. “This must be a mistake. You
had
to have made a mistake.”

He looked back at her soberly, eyes tight with worry. “I
thought the same thing. I convinced myself the first two times I took the
readings that I did something wrong. But I couldn’t convince myself the third
time. It’s not wrong, Sevana.”

She slammed the thick, leather-bound book down, making everything
on the table jump and rattle. “This is so wrong that it’s beyond words!
Sixteen.
The power rating is sixteen!
That’s simply unheard of,
Pierpoint!”

“I know.”

Unable to contain herself, she shot to her feet and started
stalking from one end of the room to the other. This proved a little difficult,
with all of the cluttered worktables, bookshelves, and chairs crammed into the
room, leaving a very narrow walkway. She batted away some of the herbs hanging
from the ceiling as well, not slowing her pace, trying to escape the icy
tendrils clawing at her spine. She didn’t have a lot of experience with this
emotion, but she recognized it—raw fear.

“This is unheard of,” she repeated, speaking more to herself
than to him. “Even the anti-spells don’t go over fourteen. I’ve never seen
anything more powerful than a fourteen! And those spells are ridiculously hard
to create. They’re usually so unbalanced that they tear themselves apart before
they can even do what they’re created to. How in the wide green world can anyone
create something with a power level of
sixteen
and make it balanced
enough to work?!”

“That I don’t know.” Pierpoint dropped heavily into an
armchair, making the springs squeak. He put his head in his hand, letting out a
long sigh. “But our modern understanding of magic is limited compared to our
ancestors. In the days of great magic, they could do something like this.”

True. She paused mid-stride. “You think that this—whatever
this is—is a relic from that time?”

“It has all the earmarks of it. The only transportation
magic that could move people over this kind of distance existed in those times.
We certainly can’t do it now.”

She opened a hand, silently acknowledging his point. That he
had made the same assumption as she didn’t surprise her much. She stared
sightlessly out of the narrow window, thoughts whirling. “But why would it
activate now, almost five hundred years after the days of great magic? Why lie
dormant for so long and then suddenly start working again?”

“That, you’ll have to discover.” Pierpoint finally raised
his head, his attempted smile strained and forced. “I don’t envy you the job.
The book you just threw down is your copy, by the way. I have my own of the
readings.”

She grimaced at him, glancing back at the now closed book.
The residual readings of a completed spell didn’t tell much. It would give the
overall power level of the spell, perhaps a hint of what kind of magic it
was—casted, cursed, or charmed—but little else. She would have to track down
the source of this thing in order to divine what elements were used to make the
transportations possible. “How much do the royals know?”

“I explained what I knew. They understand that this is
unheard of, perhaps dangerous, but I don’t think it really sank in
how
dangerous until they saw your reaction downstairs.” Pierpoint shook his head.
“After all, nothing rattles you.”

“This just did.” She blew out another breath, trying to
become calm. Panicking wouldn’t help anyone.

“You’re going to need help on this one,” he informed her,
not unsympathetic.

“If you mean
good
help, then yes.” She wouldn’t say
something like ‘I’ll take any helping hand at this point’ because bad help was
no help at all.

Pierpoint glanced at the grandfather clock tucked in between
two bookshelves and heaved himself to his feet, making the chair squeak again.
“We need to go back down. Our hour is nearly up.”

She caught up her book with the readings, tucking it into
her pouch at the waist as she followed him out the door and down the winding
stairs. Pierpoint lived and studied at the top of the east tower (people always
wanted to put magicians at the top of towers for some reason), so it took a
considerable hike to get back down to the main level of the castle and to the
courtyard where they had left a horse and parked skimmer. Bel, Aren, Hana,
Decker and his niece Clari were already waiting in the courtyard. They turned
almost in unison as the two magicians arrived.

Aren took a slight step forward, hand raising to catch their
attention. “Pierpoint, Sevana, I have a better grasp of the situation now.
Sevana, what can we do to help?”

“I need several things,” she informed him as she passed
through the open doorway and into the sunshine. “First, I want magicians. I can
put locating and shielding charms on everyone in the village so we can find
them easily, but it’ll still take time to run them all down and bring them
back. That’s time I don’t have. I need to focus on the problem at hand and not
be constantly distracted.”

“So you need magicians to retrieve the villagers,” Bel summed
up.

“Not just any magicians,” she corrected, lifting a finger.
“Magicians who specialize in retrieval or transportation magic. I imagine that
Pierpoint would know where to find them.”

Pierpoint nodded in support of this. “Indeed, yes. I can
think of several off the top of my head, in fact.”

“Call them in,” Aren commanded him. “I want them there as
quickly as possible. I’m declaring this a state of emergency and I want people
to act accordingly.”

Thank all mercy he saw the direness of the situation and she
didn’t have to beat that into him. For one thing, she didn’t have the time to
spare to beat it into him right now. “Second thing: I’m going to need expert
help. I have never heard of or seen something like this before. But I do know
two people who might know something about it. Aren, give me an unlimited purse
to work with. These two men are good but they’re certainly not cheap.”

“You have it,” he answered without hesitation. Turning to
his son, he said, “Bel, get me a royal seal for her to use.” As Bel took off in
a sprint back inside, Aren explained, “It’ll work like a purse for you. Just
write me a letter or quick note about whom this person is and what you owe,
press the seal onto the paper, and send it to me. I’ll see it’s paid for.”

Good enough. “One last thing. I left a note for Kip, but I
didn’t know just how bad this situation was at that point. If he comes to you
with questions, answer them, but do
not
let him follow me in there. I
have no idea what’s going on in that village and can’t predict what will happen
if a stranger stays there.”

“Worried about his safety?” Hana asked, tone and expression
sympathetic.

“I just don’t want this dreamer’s curse affecting him too
and giving me someone
else
to track down every morning,” Sevana
grouched. “Now. Where’s Bel with that seal?”

“Here!” he called from behind her. Bel skidded to a stop not
a moment later, not at all winded or flushed, and handed the seal to her.

It looked impressively genuine with the embossed coat of
arms of the Dragonmanovich family in a ceramic disk that filled her entire
palm. It also had a surprising bit of weight. Sevana dropped it into her waist
pouch and gave him a nod. To Aren she added, “I think I can reach Chastain in a
day, perhaps even by late tonight. I’ll take over finding people once I arrive,
but I don’t want to do that for long. Get those magicians up there as quickly
as possible.”

“We will,” he promised her.

She’d done all she could here. With a nod to the whole
family, she spun on a heel and headed straight for the skimmer, gesturing for
her passengers to follow as she walked. “Load up, people.”

It took some serious coaxing to get both wolf and stallion
back on board. Sevana didn’t even try to help Decker during this process, just
sat in her chair and impatiently tapped out an irritated rhythm against the
wooden deck. The worst delay was Clari, who had to say proper goodbyes to her
hosts, but eventually the little girl climbed on board too.

Satisfied that everyone had settled enough to not fall off,
Sevana lifted the skimmer off the ground with a slight scrape and groan. Clari
clapped her hands and laughed aloud. “Uncle Deck, we’re
flying
!”

Oh? Sevana cast a quick glance over her shoulder. Unlike her
uncle, Clari apparently had no fear of heights and was looking around with
wide-eyed wonder. She kept asking questions on how this all worked, and wasn’t
satisfied with the one word answer of “Magic” that her uncle gave her, either.

Sevana lost track of their conversation as she navigated
their way around the top parts of the palace and higher into the air, then
pointed due north. It always felt exhilarating up here, with the wind rushing
past her skin and ruffling her hair. This season of the year, it carried hints
of spring and growing things that tickled her nose and cleared her head. As
scary as the “curse” was, she couldn’t focus on it entirely and lose focus of
everything else. She inhaled a deep lungful and let it out again, feeling
better for it.

“Clari,
please
don’t go so close to the edge,” Decker
pleaded nervously.

Sevana hooked the skimmer up to a long stream of clouds
before daring to half-turn in her seat. Clari stood right at the railing, both
hands on the top, and her head leaning out over the side to see the ground
below. Decker had grabbed her by the ankles and was insistently tugging at her,
trying to draw her back toward the center.

“Uncle Deck, I’m alright,” she insisted, not letting go of
the railing.

“You’re
not
alright,” he shot back. “What if you
fall?”

“She can’t,” Sevana piped up, finding the sight humorous.
When Decker shot her a confused look, she elaborated, “There’s a charm on this
vessel that prevents people from falling. She can’t go more than three inches
before the charm will activate and push her back inside.”

“An anti-falling charm,” he grumbled not quite under his
breath as he released his hold on Clari’s ankles. “
Now
she tells me.”

Sevana cackled.

~ ~ ~

They picked up a tailwind from the south and made better
time than Sevana had dared hope for. They arrived at Chastain just as the sun
was setting. She got a very good bird’s-eye view as they slowly reduced their
altitude, coming in to land at the village’s outskirts. From the air, it
certainly didn’t look like much. It had that interesting blend of Kindin and
Windamere architecture—the bold colors of the trimming on the houses were pure
Windamere, but the bases were made of stone and brick instead of the usual
thatch and wood. This village hadn’t just grown every which way as most did,
but had a semblance of order to it. Actually, it looked like a giant spider
web. The center had a very large fountain that gushed water endlessly with a
courthouse, bank, church and meeting hall around it in a small circle. Then
from there were short streets that connected to four long streets, all with either
businesses or homes, all of which glowed with lamplight at this late hour. It
seemed like a very peaceful, unassuming place.

Pity appearances were so deceiving.

Even at this hour, someone noticed them coming in, and a
loud bell rang out three times in quick succession. Several people poured out
of their homes and rushed toward the edge of town, all of them carrying weapons
of various sorts. Considering recent events, and the interesting neighbors they
had in Kindin, Sevana didn’t blame them for their caution. “Decker, shout out a
word before someone tries to shoot arrows at us.”

He didn’t get the chance before his niece beat him to the
railing, leaned out, and called down in a surprisingly loud voice, “Don’t
worry! It’s us!”

From below a voice called back faintly, “CLARI?!”

“Yes, it’s me! Uncle Deck’s here too!”

A lot of chattering went around in the group below, but no
one tried to get more information until Sevana found a clear spot to land. Most
of the area seemed to be farmland with a smattering of trees here and there.
She found a spot big enough for the skimmer quite easily and set it down with a
solid thump. As she furled in the sails and secured the charts at the desk, her
passengers gratefully got off, the horse more so than anyone.

Seven men crowded around, all of them firing off questions
in quick succession. Sevana stepped onto the cool grass slowly, eyeing each one
of them in turn. In this group, she would say two men were hunters (both older
than Decker), one of them a butcher (judging from that wicked knife in his
hand), one retired soldier, and three other burly men that she couldn’t quite
pin a profession to offhand. One of the men took Clari by the hand and escorted
her directly into the village, and likely to her very anxious parents.