The Forgotten King (Korin's Journal) (30 page)

I covered my mouth, yawning again.  “If I don’t come back, I want you two to take rooms at that inn we stayed in our first night in Auslin, Idrolin’s Den.  Til’, with your woodcraft, it shouldn’t be a problem to keep rooms there for an extended time, right?”

“I guess,” Til’ replied poutily. 

“It’s going to be okay, Til’,” I assured him with a tired smile.  “We just—”  My head jerked up.  I must’ve fallen asleep for a split second in the middle of my sentence.  “We just need to keep our heads up.  We’ve gotten through bad situations before.  Maybe Thilis will shine his godly luck on us again.” 

“Loranis will see us through this,” Briscott added through a yawn of his own.  His head lulled downward against his chest and his eyes closed.

Til’, still looking a bit put out, went over to my backpack and pulled out my spare blanket and, after shaking out shards of the broken lantern, laid it over Briscott, who was already snoring, slouched in the chair.  He then pulled the blanket on the bed over me as I slid down from the headboard, my eyes lead weights. 

“I sure hope you guys are right,” he said.  “Good night, Korin.”

“Good night, Til’,” I answered drowsily as my eyes shut.  The blueleaf was certainly going to make sure that the myriad worries about the next day weren’t going to keep me awake.  Before sleep consumed me, I felt a spark of excitement at the prospect of being reunited with Sal’ the next day. 

Chapter 25

Here Goes Nothing

“Korin, help!”
Sal’ screamed in pure terror as she was carried away by two rotting, undead.  Her ice-blue eyes were wide, her pouty lips trembling.  Errant strands of wavy hair, drenched in sweat, were plastered across her face.  Her blue robe was ripped and torn, the fair skin of her slender body visible underneath.  The world was dark except for the sourceless light illuminating her and the undead.

I tried to run towards her but couldn’t.  It was as if I were merely having a vision of the scene, not physically standing there.  I couldn’t speak.  All I could do was watch helplessly as Sal’ was dragged away, screaming the entire time. 

****

“No!” I cried as my eyes snapped open.  I sprung upright, my clothes clinging to my sweat-slicked body. 

It took a few eyeblinks to realize I was still in our room at the Lost Wizard.  The lighted orb on the table still illuminated the room, but cast a dimmer light.  Til’ was curled up on the floor with his cloak thrown over him, a stack of detailed woodcraft and piles of wood shavings beside him.  Briscott had slouched further in his chair, just a hair’s breadth from falling on his ass to the floor.  His blanket had dropped to his feet at some point.  Given the volume of his snoring filling the room, it was no surprise that my nightmare-induced shout hadn’t woken either of them.

Thankfully, Briscott had been right about the blueleaf.  I felt well-rested and not the least bit groggy.  More importantly, Isilla also must’ve been right about the duration of the potion.  I no longer felt weak or sick to my stomach.  I hoped that how good I felt was a favorable portent for the day to come.

With that thought, and the fact that I felt completely refreshed, I knew I wouldn’t be going back to sleep.  I kicked off my blanket and swung my feet off the bed, the remains of the bread Til’ had brought me rolling onto the floor.  Though I felt rested, my stomach ached with hunger, so I made short work of the bread and walked to the table to finish off the remaining water in the ewer.

With a smile, I crouched next to Til’, taking up one of his pieces of woodcraft.  From part of a table leg, he’d somehow hollowed out the middle, a thin layer of impossibly delicate swirls and loops encircling both the inside and outside of the wooden tube.  I placed it down carefully, trying not to break his fragile work. 

Another section of table leg had been carved into a picture-perfect horse, its mane detailed with individual hairs.  It made me think of the wooden sculpture of Bhaliel that Til’ had crafted for me to give to my adoptive father.  That sculpture rested within one of the saddlebags that had been with my horse, Telis, who’d been taken along with Max and Sal’.  I wondered if it would be too much to hope for to find Telis and all of my belongings at the Wizard Academy.  Telis was like family, and the thought of having lost him forever set my heart to aching.

I was about to stand when I noticed a small square of wood about half the size of my palm sitting apart from the other pieces of woodwork.  There was a thin string tied together at the ends threaded through a small hole through its top.  Taking it in my fingers, I flipped it over to reveal a perfect engraving of Vesteir’s sigil, the same sigil from the hilt of the shortsword Chasus had given me.  The sigil wasn’t the simple version from my sword hilt, though.  The crossed sword and spear were exquisitely detailed over a circular shield that showed signs of wear as if it had withstood countless battles.  Below the sigil, “KORINALIS KARELL, MAY VESTEIR WATCH OVER YOUR SWORD” was carved in beautiful, flowing script. 

My eyes started to tear up as I looked back to Til’.  I absolutely hated that I was making him worry to the point that he’d make such a thing for me.  Assuming that Til’ was planning on gifting the piece to me, I held on to it.  I hoped that my sword wasn’t going to be necessary—I planned on leaving it behind with Til’ and Briscott so I wouldn’t have to worry about keeping it invisible—but I would use Til’s words as a general prayer to the only god I truly believed in to watch over me on this day.

Suddenly, a series of booming crashes sounded against the door.  The door shuddered in its frame, the wood lucky to not splinter.  Til’ and Briscott jerked awake and scrambled to their feet.  I’d already stepped over to the table and grabbed my sword, ready to unsheathe it at a moment’s notice. 

“You have less than an hour to get out of here,” a gruff voice announced coarsely.  “You hear me?”

Letting out a relieved breath, I called back, “Yes, we’ll be out on time.”  The dim light of the windowless room had fooled me into thinking it was earlier than it was.  Resisting the urge to yell some choice words at the man who’d just about scared us all senseless and whose resounding footsteps were fading back down the hallway outside our room, I dropped my sword back onto the table.  I’d take a false alarm over a Wizard Guard raid anytime.

“That was a nice blighted wakeup call,” Briscott mumbled, wiping his eyes as he yawned.  The fact that Briscott was only just waking didn’t hamper his ability to curse.

Til’ stretched as he yawned as well.  “Hey, Korin, I made you something,” he said as he started sifting through the woodcraft piled on the floor.  “I know it’s here somewhere . . .”

Holding up the wooden square, I gestured to it with my free hand.  “You mean this?” I asked. 

Til’ beamed with pride.  “You got it already?  Good.  We Kolari sometimes carve sigils of gods onto square pieces of wood for those in need of special prayers.  We call them fortune blocks, or prayer blocks.  I thought you could use a special prayer for today.”

“Thank you, Til’.  I can’t tell you how much this means to me.  I’ll feel much better with this on me.”  I slipped the fortune block over my head, tucking it into my shirt so that when I took the potion, it would be invisible from the contact it made with the skin of my chest.  Til’s smile nearly split his face in two.

Briscott had stared at the fortune block with reverence, his eyes turning to Til’ as I tucked it under my shirt.  “Til’, do you think—” 

Before he could finish, Til’ pulled another square piece of wood from his satchel, this one with Loranis’s sigil of the rising sun over a rounded horizon.  I couldn’t read the words below the sigil, but like mine, the fortune block was beautiful.  Briscott threw his over his head as well, smiling fondly at the proud Kolarin.

I changed into my spare shirt—a long-sleeved, gray wool one—having sicked up on my other one the night before.  After retrieving another ewer of water to wash up the best we could and cleaning up Til’s pile of wood shavings, we went out to the common room to enjoy our breakfast together before braving the Wizard Academy.  The food was terrible—stale biscuits with some sort of bitter blue jam and water—but we enjoyed each other’s company and the fact that it was free.  We each took another of the meat rolls Ulys had given Til’ to make up for the poor breakfast while still having two left for Max.  I hoped with all my heart that we’d actually have the chance to give them to him.

The common room was mostly empty, only our table and one other occupied.  The other had three hooded wizards leaning forward and speaking conspiratorially.  One of them kept glancing towards our table as if to make sure we weren’t attempting to listen in.  Behind the bar, a large man—large as in thick muscled with a tree-trunk neck—cleaned the bar with a rag.  I assumed he’d been the one who’d banged on our door.  Though he never looked directly at us, I could tell he was observing both tables. 

After I finished my meat roll, I started digging the shards of lantern glass from my backpack while Til’ and Briscott finished theirs.  “Briscott, would you mind holding on to this while I’m gone?”  I gestured to the backpack.

“Sure thing, Korin, but you better blighting come back for it,” he replied solemnly, his expression somber. 

“Look, worrying about what’s going to happen isn’t going to do us any good, so let’s just assume that everything will go perfectly,” I responded with as much of smile as I could muster, though my nerves were worn. 

I did have every right to be nervous, though.  Even if I was able to get Max, Sal’, and Xalis, I still had the aftereffects of the potion to deal with.  Those effects had been all but debilitating the night before.  The remaining half of the potion, which I’d poured back into the bottle, weighed heavily in a pocket sewn into the waist of my pants.

Briscott leaned forward, his tilted eyes serious.  “If something happens, we’ll respect your blighted wishes to not come after you the best we can, but I’d rather not have to be put in a situation where I might have to reconsider.”

My eyes narrowed as I looked back and forth between them.  “There will be no reconsidering,” I said seriously.  “Stick to the plan we discussed last night.”

Briscott shrugged.  “I’m just
saying, don’t put us in that blighted situation.”

“We’ll stick to the plan,” Til’ affirmed, his silver eyes meeting mine.  “But that doesn’t mean we won’t spend our time trying to find another way to help you.”

With a sigh, I stood, putting on my backpack under my cloak.  “Let’s go back to assuming all will go well.”  I pulled the Vesteir-sigiled fortune block from under my shirt.  “After all, I’ve got this, right?  Anyway, take your time finishing up, and I’ll go see if Muscle Head over there can give me any information about the location of the laboratory.”

The big man behind the bar fixated his too-small eyes on me as I approached.  Before I could get a word out, he placed both of his meaty hands on the counter, leaning forward with an intense gaze.

“Muscle Head, huh?”  His rough voice sounded as if it held the promise of a good beating. 

I swallowed, cursing my foolhardy mouth and Muscle Head’s superhuman hearing.  “Uh, I meant it as a compliment?”

Muscle Head let out a snort that may have been laughter, but his expression still looked like an angry stone.  “Whaddya want?”

After a bit of uncomfortable conversation in which I was threatened with having my . . . um . . . area kicked so hard it would come out my mouth if I spoke a word of what he’d told me to anyone, I walked away with the knowledge that the laboratory was in a thick-walled basement below the main building of the Wizard Academy.  I decided to wait until we’d left the Lost Wizard to share my newfound information with Til’ and Briscott, not wishing to test Muscle Head’s threat.

As we were about to leave, I had a sudden realization.  “We’re going to have to be really careful with the Wizard Guard after me,” I groaned.  As I preemptively raised my hood to shadow my face, I noticed Til’ flashing me a giddy smile.  “What?”

“You’ll see,” he replied excitedly as he rushed to the door ahead of us. 

We stepped into the chill fall morning, the sky painted orange and red as the sun ascended over the jagged teeth of the Glacial Mountains.  Directly in front of us was a red-painted carriage with gold-gilded accents.  Two harnessed black mares stamped their feet impatiently before it.  A man dressed in fine black livery, the tails of his long coat nearly brushing the ground, stood outside the carriage’s door.  His curly brown hair was well-groomed, his boyish face clean-shaven.

“Hello, sirs,” he greeted in a monotonic drawl.  His eyes matched the boredom of his voice.  “I am here to provide your transport.”  His eyes slid down to Til’ expectantly.

Til’ reached into his satchel and pulled out a piece of woodcraft—the hollow one that had impressed me that morning—and handed it to the stodgy carriage man.  The man took it without a word, tucking it into his coat pocket as he opened the carriage door.  He simply made a gesture for us to enter before climbing up to the driver’s seat.

“Take us to Augril’s Stables and Smithy, please,” Til’ requested.

After a grunt of acknowledgement from the man, we climbed the two steps into the carriage.  The inside was not as extravagant as the finely painted outside had me expecting.  Narrow wooden benches with no padding were built into either end with about enough leg room between them for anyone under the age of twelve.  It was perfect for Til’, at least.

Once we were in, the carriage lurched forward.  The carriage bumped and bounced on our way to Augril’s Stables and Smithy, despite Auslin’s smooth roads.  I assumed that the carriage was one meant to provide an image of luxury to those on the outside, giving those inside the illusion of class.  That way, people wanting to look important could do so for less coin. 
Oliphia-blooded idiots.  She’s the goddess of vanity. 

“So, Til’,” I began as I watched the Black Magic District pass by through the curtained windows, “care to explain this?”

Til’s ear-to-ear smile revealed how proud he was about our chauffeured trip.  “Since Ulys was so happy to take that woodwork in exchange for the potion, I thought maybe she could set us up with transportation to save us time today if I offered her another piece.  She said that enchanted Kolarin woodcraft—which is what she planned to create with what I gave her—sells for about a dozen gold.” 

My mouth dropped.  “Maybe I should rethink this quest.  I could get Max to enchant your work and retire on the beach in less than a year.”

Til’ sucked in a deep breath in surprise.  “Hey, but what about—”

“Til’, I’m joking,” I interrupted.  “I think.”

Briscott gave a hearty laugh.  “Sounds pretty blighting tempting.”