Trail of the Gods: The Morcyth Saga Book Four (15 page)

“Oh nothing,” he tells him.

“What’s going on with my sister?” he
asks.

“Nothing to be worried about, I assure you,”
he replies. Then he nods to the bundles sitting on his bed, “Your
sister is waiting for these I believe?”

Giving James an annoyed look, he picks them
up and takes them to his sister’s room.

“Just what are you up to?” Miko asks him
from the hallway.

“Like I said, I like surprises.”

From the other side of the house, James
hears Tersa’s door slam shut and then he sees Jiron stalking into
the front room.

When he sees James looking at him, he says,
“She kicked me out!”

“Why don’t you take Miko and see if you can
bring in some meat?” he asks.

“Alright,” he says. Then to Miko he adds,
“Grab that crossbow of yours and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Okay,” he tells him as he moves to get
it.

James watches him go,
I suppose I
could’ve told him, but I do like my surprises. This won’t generate
a great deal of coins, but it should bring in some.

Getting up off his bed, he heads back out to
his workshop to see about resolving the hiding spell. The rest of
the afternoon flies by as he works on it and by the time dinner is
almost ready he thinks he may have it. But he is so tired from all
he’s done that he decides to wait until morning before attempting
it. No sense in taking chances when he is this tired.

After dinner, Tersa lets him know she’s
done. While they’re all in the front room relaxing, he has her
bring it out.

“Finally!” exclaims Jiron.

They all wait expectantly while she goes to
her room to get the big secret. When she returns, she has in her
hands, an object. It’s about a foot in height, with two stubby arm
and two stubby legs as well as a mouth sewn on and two eyes.

“What is it?” asks Roland.

“A teddy bear,” James explains.

“What’s it for?” he asks.

“Tersa, give it to Arkie,” he says.

Bringing it over to where Arkie sits in
Ezra’s lap, she holds it out to him.

They all stare as he looks at it and then
tentatively reaches out and grabs hold of it. Brining it closer he
looks at it and then hugs it. He finds the soft material Tersa had
used for its outer shell feels quite soothing against his skin and
the stuffing within is soft and comfy.

“That’s what it’s for,” he says. “It’s for
kids, small kids mostly. Where I come from, every child has many of
such things.”

“You going to sell them?” asks Illan.

“Delia will, I’m sure,” he says. “Tersa will
get a copper each and the rest will go to The Ranch to help keep it
going and pay for the supplies.”

“You’re not going to be able to charge much
for them,” Roland says.

“Probably not,” admits James, “but it’s a
start.” He looks to Arkie who has snuggled up with the teddy bear
and has a most content look upon his face.

“Thank you,” Ezra says to him.

“You’re welcome,” he replies. In a world
where every woman can sew, there may not be a great market for
this, it’s true. But hopefully, initially, it will sell well. If
nothing else, it will bring the children happiness.

The next morning, Arkie is inseparable from
his teddy bear. Wherever he goes, he drags it along behind. “That
was a good idea,” states his father as he watches him toddle across
the floor. He glances up to James, who has just left his
bedroom.

“He does seem to like it,” he agrees. Moving
into the kitchen, Ezra gives him a quick breakfast before he heads
out to the forest where the stool marked with the ‘X’ lies. He
casts the spell of concealment upon it he worked out last night
before dinner.

Once it’s cast, James returns to the
workshop and picks up the mirror lying on his workbench.
Concentrating hard, he attempts to locate it. The image settles
upon the spot where he knows it to lie but sees a black spot where
it should be.

That’s no good! Whoever is looking will
know where it is even if they can’t see it!
Canceling the spell
he sits back and considers the problem once more. He needs to
prevent someone’s magic from even knowing where it is, not just
being unable to see it.
Maybe warp the magic around it, so
whatever spell is cast will pass it by as if it wasn’t even there?
Perhaps.

Excited by the idea, he tries to come up
with a way for it to work, keeping in mind that the box will need
to be able to absorb magic from the surrounding area in order to
sustain the spells. If the magic is unable to be drawn to the box
by the crystals due to the effect of the concealing spell, then
he’s got a problem.

He considers the problem and then a thought
comes to him.
Is there a difference between magic at large in
the natural world, and magic that is being manipulated by a mage?
Could there be some slight alteration that he can exploit to make
this work?

The difference could be likened to a river
and a lake. A river being the force driven by a mage, and the lake
being the static magic in every living thing.

So intent is he in trying to figure this
out, that he doesn’t even realize it’s getting close to noon until
Ezra sends Miko out to retrieve him for lunch. “But I’ve almost got
it!” he exclaims to Miko.

“She said to get you or we don’t eat, so get
you I will,” he says. “It’ll wait a few minutes longer James, you
need to keep up your strength.”

Feeling slightly light headed from the
intense concentration he’s been doing all morning, he says, “You
may be right. I think I could use a break.”

“What do you say we go and take a bath after
lunch?” he suggests. “You haven’t taken one for several days,
that’s not like you.”

Suddenly feeling quite dirty, he says,
“You’re on.” He walks with him back to the house where Miko holds
the door open for him.

With a quick, “Sorry” to everyone, he takes
his seat and the meal commences. Afterward, he and Miko, along with
Illan and Jiron go out to his bathing pool.

They settle in and are ten minutes into it
when they hear someone approaching. He hears Miko give a short
intake of breath and looks up. There stands Errin several feet away
and she’s looking in their direction with a smile on her face.

“Get along with you!” Illan hollers over to
her from where he sits naked in the water.

Giving them all a mischievous grin, she
continues with her patrol and soon disappears in the trees. They
can hear her begin to whistle a merry tune.

“She’s got more pluck than any of the
others,” Illan tells them.

“I have to agree,” adds Jiron. “Definitely
more dedicated and takes to instruction better than the rest.”

“Women can be fierce fighters,” comments
James. “Why, where I come from they tell of a band of women,
Amazons they’re called and…” For the rest of the time they spend in
the bathing pool, they argue the various merits and handicaps of
having women fight. The consensus seems to be, that though they
don’t figure into the armies of this world, they can be good
fighters.

After they get out of the bathing pool,
James heads back to his workshop, resolving to figure this whole
thing out before going to bed tonight.

“Need any help?” Miko asks when he sees the
direction James is heading.

“No,” he replies. “Not with this, anyway.
Thanks.”

“Alright,” he says. “Might go and see if I
can’t bag some rabbits, Tersa asked me earlier if I could.”

“Why?” he asks.

“She said their fur would be good for her
teddy bears,” he explains.

Nodding, James says, “They would at that.”
Leaving Miko behind, he makes for his workshop.
Good to see
she’s taking a real interest in this.

Entering his workshop he begins working on
the problem. It takes him the rest of the evening and almost the
entire following day before he gets it to work. Ezra had sent Miko
to fetch him for dinner but he didn’t even bother answering his
call, so engrossed was he. She finally relented and allowed
everyone else to eat and was mollified by Miko bringing him out a
large platter of food to the workshop.

When exhaustion finally takes him, he falls
asleep at his workbench. In the morning when he wakes up, he’s
disoriented at first, not realizing where he is. Then he recognizes
his workshop and resumes working.

Just before dinner of the third day, he has
everything set. He’s taken one of his crystals that had been
charging and places it upon the stool in the woods. The crystal has
been infused with spells which he believes will hide the stool from
any type of magical searches.

Holding his breath, he picks up his mirror
and lets the magic flow as he concentrates on finding the stool.
The mirror remains normal, the image never even so much as
flickers.

Excited, he puts more and more magic into it
as he steps up to more intense searching. Still, the mirror remains
blank. Finally, he’s putting so much magic into it that his head
begins to hurt and his vision starts growing hazy. Suddenly, the
image in the mirror begins to shimmer and with a loud crack, the
glass in the mirror shatters.

“Yeah!” he yells as he stands up quickly.
But the intense use of the magic has weakened him greatly and his
legs fail to hold him. Crashing to the floor he lies there, bruised
but smiling.
It worked!

The door to the workshop opens up and Fifer
comes in, sword in hand. Seeing James lying on the floor and the
shattered mirror on the workbench, he begins to sound the
alarm.

“It’s okay,” James croaks from where he lies
on the floor.

Pausing, Fifer comes closer to hear him
better and asks, “What?”

“Don’t worry,” he tells him. “Everything is
alright.”

“You don’t look alright,” he says, returning
his sword to its sheath.

Jiron rushes into the workshop and Fifer
says, “He’s okay.”

Giving James a cursory glance, he asks, “Do
too much again?”

James nods as Fifer helps him to his stool
before the workbench. Sitting down, he rests an arm on the top to
keep himself steady. “I had to,” he explains. “I had to see if it
would work even with everything I had working against it.” Giving
them a smile, he adds, “And it did!”

“Congratulations,” Jiron says. “Now, let’s
get you inside to rest.”

“No, no, no,” protests James. “I’m not that
bad off, just give me a moment to catch my breath. I need to go see
what happened to the crystal which was hiding the stool I was
searching for.”

“We’ll go with you,” Fifer says.

“If you want,” he tells them. “But I’m
okay.”

After resting a moment to regain some of his
strength, he gets up and finds his legs are still a trifle wobbly.
Jiron lends him a hand and they make their way into the forest to
where the stool sits.

The crystal sitting on top of it, the one
whose spells prevented him from seeing the stool in his mirror,
still has a barely discernable glow within it. It would seem the
effort to counter what James had been doing took almost all of its
power. Had James possessed more power, then the crystal would’ve
exhausted its internal supply and the spell would have failed.

James cancels the spells of concealment that
are still active in the crystal and replaces them with the slow
leech spell. He then takes it over to where the other crystals are
sitting in the woods absorbing power. The other crystals have a
deep crimson glow within them, indicating they have maxed out their
capacity.

Leaving them there, they return to the house
where Ezra has dinner almost prepared. She’s setting a bowl full of
steamed tubers on the table when the door opens and turns to see
him being helped in through the door. Taking in his condition, she
gives a small shake of her head.

He flashes her a grin as they help him
through to his room where he collapses on the bed, feeling
completely drained.

As they leave, he says to them, “Tell Ezra
I’ll not be joining you for dinner.”

Jiron pauses at the door and replies, “I’ll
tell her. You just get some rest.” He closes the door and leaves
James by himself.

Too tired to even attempt to get out of his
clothes, he tries to get comfortable and allows sleep to claim
him.

The morning drill of the recruits again
disturbs his slumber.
Going to have to ask Illan to take it
somewhere else.
He just lies there listening to him instruct
them in proper defensive techniques for awhile, too comfortable to
get up despite having slept in his clothes.

I did it. I can now hide the Fire with
the concealing spell.
Feeling very good about himself, he
relaxes and tries to put the rest of his cares out of his mind. The
money situation continues to plague him, disturbing the inner
tranquility he was trying to achieve.

With the money he has now, both here and at
Alexander’s, he can keep this place running for several months with
no undue hardship. However, he’s got to figure out a way to
generate a steady, reliable source of income that will last for
years. The teddy bears will bring in some, but not nearly the
quantity he’s figuring to need.

Finally giving into the inevitable, he
swings his legs over the side and sits up on the bed. The room
starts spinning and he has to remain still for several minutes
before it stabilizes. A slight headache and a trace of fatigue is
all that remains from the exhaustion he experienced the day
before.

Holding onto the bedpost for support, he
stands up and the dizziness returns, but only for a second before
subsiding. He slowly changes out of the clothes he slept in and
into a fresh clean set Ezra has laid out for him on his chest.

Once dressed, he opens the bedroom door and
makes it out to the kitchen where she provides him with a plate
with eggs and a ham steak.