The Blood Witch (The Blood Reign Chronicles Book 1) (38 page)

“Wait…. I have my talents. I can help. Whatever it is that you require I will do. Just please teach me great wizard,” the tiny man implored.

“I am not a wizard,” Benjim said with a crooked smile.

Mortikus looked confused. “But you do know magic. You can teach me right?”

“Perhaps,” Benjim said, thoughtfully tapping his finger on his chin, “some have more talent for it than others. Some can learn quickly, and become quite powerful. Others can spend their lifetime trying, and never even light a candle. But in either case, it still takes many years of practice to do much of anything.”

“Ohhh I want to learn,” Gin chimed in, “can you teach me?”

“I asked first,” the little man said petulantly.

Benjim studied them in turn for several moments before saying, “It’s been a long time since I have taught anyone…… perhaps I can.”

“I have no family or clan, they were lost to the Vashi eighty or so years ago. If you let me come with you and teach me, I will be your loyal subject,” Mortikus implored with a strange urgency in his voice.

“Eighty years ago? How old are you?” Jak said in surprise. He didn’t think the little man looked much over thirty, if even that old.

Mortikus gave Jak an irritated look, and then straightened before answering. “Next name day I will be one-hundred and twenty-three years. I am not a child.”

This time Jak gaped. What was the little man talking about not being a child? If what he was saying were true, Mortikus was older than Jak’s grandfather, much older.

Benjim proceeded to explain that the gnomes lived to be very old by human standards. They could easily live to four or five-hundred years. That set Jak’s head spinning. He had never heard of a gnome before, and was amazed that anyone could live that long.

“So can I come with you? Will you teach me?” Mortikus asked expectantly with that same keen sense of urgency in his eyes and his voice.

“You aren’t actually thinking of letting him come with us, are you?” Nicoldani asked throwing up his hands in dismay.

“We can’t just leave him here all alone, Nic. He’s like us, he needs family too,” Gin said sullenly.

Nicoldani rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Do you have a horse?” Nicoldani asked the little man, after it was apparent the old man was not going to turn him away.

“Horse? No I don’t have a horse,” Mortikus replied a little bewildered. “I prefer my own two feet over trying to climb all the way on top of one of those monstrous beasts.”

“He can ride the pack horse,” Benjim said with a grin, “after all, he is not that big a load.” Mortikus shot the old man an almost venomous look, before quickly schooling his expression.

Finally, it was decided. Mortikus was going to come with them, but it took Nicoldani grasping the little man and hoisting him onto the pack horse. It was against Mortikus’ protests, but Nicoldani said that he would slow them down too much if he walked. There was nothing the little man could do against Nicoldani, so Mortikus sullenly gave in, and sat between the supplies on the horse. With a wry smile, Nicoldani offered to strap the little man in with the rest of the supplies so he wouldn’t fall off. Mortikus shot the big man a murderous look before realizing it, and returned to his sulking.

Jak wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about the stranger joining them. Mortikus was a strange little man, and Jak couldn’t see how he could be of any help to them. It also seemed odd to Jak that the little man would be out here by himself with no horse and few belongings. But if Benjim said the little man could join them, then Jak supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything.

As it turned out the little man was incredibly talkative. It was a little unclear exactly how long it had been since Mortikus had been orphaned, as he called it. He was the only one who had been able to escape the Vashi attack that killed his family and clan, but he just barely escaped with his life by hiding in a dung pile. Mortikus had just been getting by on his own, with no family no clan, and no other gnomes of his kind. Gin thought that it was sad that he was all alone.

Mortikus said that he had been doing the same
act
on this road for many years. It was surprising how many people actually fell for it. People were superstitious as a whole, and didn’t want to take chances. The price he asked as a toll was fairly reasonable he thought. No one wanted to risk being turned into frogs for such a small price.

When they stopped for the night, Mortikus wanted Benjim to start teaching him magic right away. Actually, the little man had tried many times throughout the day to get the old man to show him the great feats of magic. But Benjim said that it was not something they could do properly while riding. Gin was very interested in learning as well, and sat in for the lessons that night.

Jak wasn’t so interested in what they were talking about, but he did overhear a few things by accident. At least he picked up that black magic was different somehow from regular magic. That was about all he really heard that made any sense. Jak stopped listening after a while since he was tired, and just wanted to sleep.

The next two days were much the same, with the days of travel being long and uneventful for the most part. Benjim spent most of his time talking with Mortikus and Gin about various exercises and schools of thought concerning magic. There were lessons on history and the like as well. Benjim said they needed to understand magic before they could start to practice it. When they would stop for the night, the lessons and practice would continue. Jak found himself feeling a little left out. Nicoldani was keeping to himself for the most part, and with Gin and the little man taking all of Benjim’s time, Jak was left to himself.

After the second day, they began to climb the rim of the Lihali plateau, at least that was what Benjim called it. It was a fairly steep climb, and when they reached the top Benjim told them they were now in the High Jaharian Desert. Jak had never seen a desert before and didn’t know what to expect. There was little vegetation and no trees at all in sight. There was only a sparse blanket of scrub grass and a few scraggly bushes. All and all, it was rather desolate Jak thought. That night they reached the junction where the Three Forks road came west out of Yilavo City.

The party began to setup camp just before sundown. There was really no wood to be found for a fire, since the only trees to be seen anywhere was a few scrawny trees near a spring. Benjim wouldn’t let them cut any of the trees, since it seemed this junction was the only source of water or shade in the entire crossing of the desert. Instead, it was left to Jak and Nicoldani to gather as many of the scrub bushes as they could find, and break them up to build the fire. Jak grumbled about the task, wondering why Mortikus couldn’t help gather sticks too, since the little man was after all supposed to be helping them.

In the meantime, Benjim sat there with Gin and Mortikus talking with them and teaching lessons. As Jak was walking back to camp after gathering an armload of brush, he suddenly saw flames shoot up from where they had piled some of the bushes to build the fire. Benjim wore a profound look of shock on his face.

Apparently, he had been trying to teach the two pupils how to light a small fire. It was supposed to be one of the easier tasks to learn, but even then, it could take many weeks, if not months or years to accomplish. The best that could be hoped for after such a small time of instruction and practice, not too mention natural ability, was possibly to make a small stick smolder and smoke, if the student were lucky. But what Jak had just seen had not been just a little smoldering. It was a big flame that shot up and consumed all the brush in the pile. Jak was surprised at how quickly Mortikus had been able to learn the trick. But it was then he noticed that Benjim’s astonished look was not directed at Mortikus, but instead at Gin.

The little girl clapped her hands in delight. “Jak! Jak! Did you see that? Did you see what I did? I started the fire. I did it with magic!”

Jak was indeed in shock, and noticed Nicoldani with an equally confounded look on his face. Apparently Gin was an extraordinarily fast learner with a tremendous amount of natural ability, and once Benjim began to teach her more exercises, she picked them up quite quickly.

Now Mortikus actually seemed more interested in having Benjim perform displays of his power, rather than actually learning for himself. Impatience tinged the little man’s voice as he tried to get Benjim to perform great feats. It was a little strange and Jak thought that Mortikus just liked the show of it, and wasn’t really interested in learning. Or perhaps the little man was trying to see exactly how powerful the old man really was with magic. The old man just kept to the instructions and routines of practice with the two. But Mortikus seemed to be loosing interest quickly.

Later that night, after they had all eaten, Mortikus pulled something from his belongings. The thing the little man produced looked like a bowl with a hole in the middle, and a long handle protruding from one side. Some sort of strings were attached to the end of the handle, and strung down across the opening in the bowl. Mortikus said it was called a lute, and it was used to play music. The tiny man began to strum his fingers across the strings and make a delightfully pleasant musical sound. Mortikus continued to strum his fingers across the strings of the lute, and started humming softly in time with the music. It was pleasant and relaxing and Jak found himself wanting to lie down and go to sleep.

Jak tried to fight the sensation since he wanted to hear more of Mortikus’ song, and besides it was still fairly early. Jak noticed through his heavy eyelids, that Benjim and Gin were beginning to yawn, and their eyelids were half shut as well. Even Nicoldani seemed to be nodding off a little. It was all strange, and something wasn’t quite right about the whole thing. The strangely soothing music kept playing, so calming and relaxing. The last thing Jak remembered was seeing Mortikus sitting across the fire strumming the lute with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

Chapter 13

Jak struggled to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt heavy and he had trouble keeping them open for very long. It took a several moments for his vision to clear enough to be able to see anything at all. Everything was blurry and out of focus, and he couldn’t see any features of his surroundings clearly. Jak wasn’t sure where he was, or how long he had been asleep. One thing was certain; he knew Mortikus had something to do with it.

Jak’s eyes began to slowly adjust and the blurriness cleared from his vision so that he could begin to make out other shapes in the darkness around him. It appeared as if he was in some sort of cave or cell with rough stone walls. It was dark since there were no windows or openings visible and even he was having trouble seeing any details clearly. He could see that the cell was somewhat square and only a few paces in each direction. There was a dank wet smell filling the air and an even worse underlying odor of decay and waste.

It suddenly occurred to Jak that he was standing, or rather being held upright by something restraining him to the wall. He looked down, and could see that he was bound tightly with strong ropes. His hands were tied snugly behind his back as well, and thick chains wound around his chest and legs securing him to the wall so that he could barely move at all. Jak glanced around the cell to see Nicoldani directly across from him chained in the same manner, and apparently still asleep. At least Jak hoped the big man was asleep since he was not moving.

Gin and Benjim shared a wall to Jak’s right but they were hobbled in a different manner. They had folded strips of cloth tied around their heads and covering their eyes. The two didn’t seem to have chains constricting them, only ropes and they remained still and unmoving. Jak strained to focus his eyes on them and was relieved when he could see their chests rise and fall with the intake of breaths.

As the sleep cleared from Jak’s eyes and they adjusted to the darkness more fully, he could see a tiny thin rectangular outline of light on the wall opposite Benjim and Gin. Normally it would have been the first thing he would have noticed, however he was too worried about his friends and sister. He supposed the light filtering in might be the door. After all, there must be some way they were brought into the cell. As he looked closer, he could see that it was indeed an iron bound wooden door with large iron hinges but no handle was apparent on this side of it. He began to hear strange voices coming from the other side of the door but they were low and muffled, so he could not make out any of what they were saying.

Jak struggled against his bonds to test them, but they were too strong, and he was far too weak to break free. It took a great effort for him to even stand on his own, and found that he was slumping against the bonds for support. His wrists and ankles were sore from the ropes digging into his skin. Judging by his overwhelming thirst and hunger, he must have not eaten or drank anything in two days or more.
Had they really been asleep for two days, or possibly more?
It was too difficult to tell since he had no idea if it was even day or night. But he could surmise from the way he felt that he needed food and water badly.

After a time in the darkness, and several unsuccessful attempts to wake the others, Jak could hear more voices talking outside the door. The voices continued for a few moments before a bright solid rectangular light appeared in the center of the door. Jak squinted against the brightness of the new light. After the darkness of the cell, his eyes struggled to adapt to the light flooding through the small opening.