Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (15 page)

“That’s just it, Tanta,” said Jacqueline, “Dad and Mom had to go get her. So we have to come with you. Or now, I do. And I
was
all packed to come, but this guy came to the house and … can I please explain it all in the car. Please?”

“I suppose. Sure. It was nice to see you again, Nash.”

“Tanta,” said Orie, “Meet us at the ‘Ice Cream Barn’, would you please?”

“Orie, we don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t have any cash on me. I jumped in the car and came straight down like your mother asked.” She suddenly looked embarrassed.

“Oh that’s okay,” he said, “I just need to talk to Jacqueline about a couple of things.”

“I have money,” said Nash. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, why can’t you talk here?” Kendra asked.

“Tanta, please?” he said. His voice sounded tight, like it was about to break.

“I guess so,” she said, then, “When’s your mother going to get home, anyway?”

He pretended he didn’t hear her and jumped back into Nash’s car. “Step on it Mr. Jones,” he ordered. “Please.”

“Orie, what’s gotten into you?” Mr. Jones asked. “Why are you so jumpy?”

“Because my mother and father just beamed out to a parallel dimension to rescue Stephanie, who was tricked into going there for who knows what reason by a wizard named Hemlock Simpleton that my dad met on the way home from work yesterday, and Jacqueline and I
did
see a creature from ancient Greek mythology that you guys thought was a guy in a costume, and we’re all in danger of dying any second if we sit here any longer,” he thought. But he said nothing. He needed some time to sort it all out.

At the Ice Cream Barn, Nash bought all the kids a cone and made small talk with Kendra while Orie and Jacqueline talked well away from the group.

“You’re going to be fine at Tanta’s,” Orie said. “Call me on Mark’s cell phone as soon as you get there. I need to get that thing that Hemlock left in the pumpkin. I'm sure I know which one it is.”

“What about the Minotaur?” she asked.

“Don’t worry Jacq’,” he answered. “I have a plan.”

“Do you really?”

“No, but I’ll think of something.”

The last thing he saw as she drove away with her Tanta was her little face looking back at him out through the rear window. She looked terrified.

Chapter 8

Orie gave her the thumbs-up as she drove away. He tried to look upbeat and smiled. He showed her a
big
smile, lots of teeth. He gave the universal, “I’ll call you” sign with an imaginary phone. She acknowledged it, which made him feel a little better. Other than that, he was full of doubt. But, he knew it was important to get whatever it was inside the third pumpkin in from the right. It was an easy sneak. He knew the exact approach and could do it absolutely silently in an hour, in and out.

“So, O-Man, are you coming with us? What’s going on?” Mark asked.

“Tell you what. Mr. Jones,” said Orie, “can we all hang out here for a couple of hours? It would be good for these city kids to get some fresh air for a change.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Mr. Jones.

“I don’t know,” said Orie, “Hang out, do some shooting, play some basketball, I don’t know. Something? Nothing? Heck, I don’t know …”

“Orie, you're turning into a real hick out here,” laughed Mr. Jones.

Orie smiled. “Well, what do you guys want to do? Do you want to hang out here with Orie?”

“I don’t know,” said Mark. “We might stay over if it’s all right with Mrs. Strong.”

“All right. Well, call me.”

He sped off, tires squealing, the small macadam rocks flying all this way and that and rattling as they rained down in the irrigation ditch beside the New England small-town country road. It was silent as soon as the hum of Nash’s engine died in the distance.

“Hey Orie,” said Ryan, “Let’s go mess with that guy in the costume down at your house. We can grab some pears from your dad’s trees and pelt him.” Jordan and Mark howled their agreement. There was no doubt that this was how they wanted to spend the next hour of their young lives.

“Hey, who is this guy?” asked Ryan.

“Guys,” said Orie, “we have to talk.”

“I will insist on a perfect performance by every single one of you,” said the doctor to his assistants. “What we are about to attempt is extremely delicate.”

“Not to mention that it should have been done weeks ago,” he thought. This being the case, he gave this operation less than a one percent chance of success. He wondered to himself how the Trolls had managed to get fluids into her. But evidently they had, or she would be dead. Her unconscious state must have been intermittent was all that he could come up with by way of explanation.

He called his assistants to the bedside, positioning them just so.

“We are performing this operation on the direct order of Malance Venomisis himself, so failure is not an option. You,” he spoke to one of them, “will do this as hard and as fast as you can, against her skull, here, until I tell you to stop.” He made a drilling motion with his hands, spinning a piece of iron roundstock that he had sharpened to a wicked looking point. “Stop when I tell you to stop. If you go even one cycle after I tell you to stop, I will be very displeased. When I tell you to stop,
keep
the piece of iron
exactly
where it is, and I will replace you.” He spoke to the other three assistants. “When I tell him to stop, I will take over for him, and you will hold her down. She may start to move, and your job, as well as his, will be to
keep her from moving
! We are attempting to drill a hole in this girl’s head to drain the blood that is trapped there under pressure. Does everybody understand what to do?”

The procedure was carried off with perfect execution, and with the sudden gush of bright red blood the doctor was pleased. He was more so when Stephanie opened her eyes. He was less so when, in twelve hours, that is all she had done. Malance Venomisis had come to the infirmary twice to inquire about her status, and considering how busy he was taking report after report from his advisors on the status of the ongoing battles with the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves, two inquiries was a lot.

He wiped at the beads of sweat on his face and bald forehead as he inflicted some painful stimulus on his still unconscious patient. There was no response. He went through the list. She had an airway, and it was patent; moreover, she was maintaining it fine. She was breathing normally. She had a great pulse. He felt her cranium for about the twentieth time in a row, palpating the bones carefully to determine if there was any physical evidence of a depressed skull fracture. These were the bad ones because they were easy to miss. But no, her skull seemed to be clinically intact. He pulled back on each ear, inspecting the canals for the flow of fresh blood. None. He looked in her nose for evidence of blood or fluid. There was none. He continued downward. He had already done this several times and, for the life of him, he could not say why Stephanie was not waking up. He felt terrible about this. “Poor thing,” he thought, “so young, her entire life in front of her …”

He finished his exam, patted her on the hand, and started to turn away.

“Wake up child.”

Nothing. No response.

“Put these on,” said Hemlock. He handed Blake and Jessica each a small, round, gold bracelet. Each clipped it on their wrists. They fit perfectly.

“Communications?” asked Jessica.

“Universal translator,” said Hemlock. “Stephanie has the implanted variety, but we didn’t have the time so I procured these. They will work perfectly. The only disadvantage might be if we happened to get captured by the primitives. They might feel tempted to cut off our arms without waiting, to get them off quickly.”

“I’m not laughing,” said Jessica.

“You were not meant to,” said Hemlock, then, “enough of this.”

Blake was inspecting his weapons. His throwing knives were without change, right down to the scrollwork on the butts. His boot-knives as well. Mysteriously, his same longbow now had a twin. These, and a quiver of arrows, hung from his saddle as well. He reached over his head and felt his sword, sliding it up and down in its scabbard. The feel of it was just right, as he remembered from his years as an instructor.

“Mount up and let us go recover your daughter. We ride to Belcourt, the capital city of Ravenwild. There sits Rolan Fairman, the King. His son, Prince Erik, is the young man with whom she went for the visit. They will be at the castle. Now look, please. I know you are angry with me. I have lied to you. I have acted unwisely by letting your daughter come here without your permission, but I assure you everything is fine. Please take a moment to enjoy something that no other person on your planet will ever experience: A brief ride, on a beautiful horse, on a beautiful day, to a castle in a kingdom in a different dimension.

“So, we will ride to the castle, pick her up, say hello to the King and Queen perhaps, and maybe even enjoy a medieval dinner. Jessica, the Paint is for you. His name is Storm. Blake, yours is the Dunn. His name is Fire.”

Blake noticed that the horses were outfitted for several days of travel, with full saddlebags, sleep rolls, ground-leathers, waterskins, one great block of cheese each, other foodstuffs, and cooking gear.

When all were mounted up, Hemlock said, “Now remember, if at any point you feel you have to say it, you can always say, ‘I want to go home,’ three times, and you will be home in your bed, asleep, one breath removed from when you awakened this morning.”

“Not without our daughter,” said Jessica, directing a fierce glare at him. “Are you stupid, or are you just
pretending
to be stupid?”

She had to admit, he was looking extremely wizardly at the moment, wearing a plain gray robe and carrying his staff, and riding a pure white warhorse slightly bigger than theirs. His had no saddle and merely a strap to either side of his halter that he touched lightly, causing his mount to rear up proudly. “We ride,” he shouted.

Jessica was the slightest bit encouraged when she noticed he was smiling.

“This is going to kill these horses,” she thought. They had been riding at a full gallop for a solid hour now. “We have to slow down.”

But, oddly, the horses did not show the slightest bit of strain as they poured it on.

“How much further?” Blake called out as the countryside raced past.

It was hard to tell a lot about the terrain through which they ran, as fast as they were going, but it was clearly big-sky country. It looked as though they were right at the end of a great prairie, riding towards mountains that rose upwards for thousands of feet. Despite it being a warm summer day, the peaks were covered with snow. The land looked to be lush with edible grasses, and they began seeing herds of cattle and goats. The first Humans they had seen, who waved at the trio as they galloped by, were looking after them. Some seemed to recognize Hemlock and called out, smiling warmly. Neither Blake nor Jessica could quite make out what they were saying.

Rounding a bend, with the mountains now towering directly over them, they came to the end of the vast plains.

The land turned rocky and they started their ascent. They made a series of very steep upwards climbs, perhaps ten, continuing on at this blistering pace for what seemed like hours, when the trail turned into an affair that was about three feet wide on either side of them, falling off for thousands of feet. The effect was dizzying. For the first time since they had started out, Hemlock called for a rest.