The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) (15 page)

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” she said through clenched teeth.  “From what I understand, you and Acton are going to fight to defend all of us – everyone in Southgar and everywhere else.  Don’t you dare talk like you’ve got the option of losing that battle for all the people out there!”

Grange stood with his mouth hanging open and his hand pressed against the warmth of his cheek.

“Now, if a god told you to take the hand of one of King Magnus’s daughters in marriage, then you will do what the god instructed.  Or do you presume to be able to ignore the direct commandments of Acton?” she asked.

“So, are you still glad you chose me to be your counselor?” she asked a moment later, flashing a smile that looked to Grange to be more dangerous than her angry expression just moments earlier.

“Do I have to answer that right now?” he asked with an answering smile.

“Maybe there is some – a very little – wisdom yet in that head of yours,” Jenniline pronounced, signaling the end of the intensity she had inflicted on Grange.  He was rattled by the outburst though; it had brought home to him the seriousness of the challenge that was ahead of him.  Among the vast number of topics and memories and revelations that had descended upon him while on the temple stairs, the fact that he was going to be locked in mortal combat with demons, on behalf of every person on the continent, had to rise to the top, he was reminded.

“I think I’d like to see our suite of rooms,” he told Jenniline.  “I want to see what type of space we have, and where I can work on some things.”

“Our suite of rooms?” Jenniline asked skeptically.  “Don’t you mean your suite?”

“I suppose so.  I just want to know that you’ll be close by to help me when I need you,” he answered.

“What kind of a job is this?  I didn’t sign up for this, you know?” she answered.

“Neither did I,” he said in a quieter voice.  “Neither did I.”

Jenniline paused.  “I suppose that’s true.

“Let’s go,” she turned the page of the conversation.  “Let’s go see how well or how poorly they’ve decided to treat you – we’ll see where they’re going to give you space in the palace.”

She led the way out of the door, then stopped.

“Can you do anything to impress people?” she asked Grange, as she spotted a pair of servants down the hall.

Grange looked at her quizzically.

“You know, something that will make people know you have this great power, like when you made that sword fly through the air into your hand,” Jenniline said with a hint of exasperation.

“How about,” Grange considered for a second, then muttered a command to the power, “How about this?” he motioned towards the air overhead, as a circle of balls of light suddenly appeared above them, and revolved slowly in an orbit around their location.

“That’s something they haven’t seen before,” she said in bemusement, as she looked up.  “It’ll do for now.”

“What’s the point of doing this?” Grange asked.

“Because most of them know by now that just ten days ago you were a bound, helpless captive being tortured in the dungeon cells by Sweyn.  They think of you as vulnerable and weak, in a sense,” Jenniline explained with what passed for patience.

“You’ve got to completely overcome and wipe that impression out,” Jenniline said.

“I think I will,” Grange said, as he considered some of the things he hoped to accomplish.  He was going to experiment with charging his wand again, if, he told himself, if he could manage to receive some instruction.  He would charge amulets, and otherwise practice his use of the powers, to prepare for the cataclysm that was fated to come.

They walked down the hall with their bright lights orbiting overhead, Grange momentarily recollecting the tin mine in the wilderness, where he had cast lights down into the darkness of the doomed mine.  It was a depressing memory, and he shook his head, then looked around for some distraction.

“There’s the chamberlain,” Jenniline pointed at a man backing out of a room, unaware of the approach of the palace’s newest resident.  “Go make him take us to your quarters.  He’ll get to the bottom of things.”

“Traibble,” she called, causing the man to turn around, then jerk upright in fear at the sight of Grange and his circling lights.

“Traibble, take us to the new rooms that have been cleared out for the Champion,” Jenniline said authoritatively.

“I’m not sure where they are,” the man gave a fearful apology, as Grange came to stand directly in front of him, making the chamberlain flinch every time one of the light balls passed near his spot.

“Then take us on a trip to find them,” Jenniline would brook no excuse.

“Let us go talk to the housekeeping staff,” Traibble replied, his eyes nervously fixed on the lights above.

They followed the court official downstairs, where they were instructed by the head housekeeper to follow another servant to the designated part of the palace.  The growing group went upstairs and through halls, then across a garden and up further steps, in a part of the palace that looked run down and uncared for.

“This is not acceptable,” Jenniline said minutes later, as the servant stood on a landing in front of the door of a room on the next to top floor of the isolated stone tower they had ascended.

“No, no, I think this will be alright,” Grange countered.  “We’ll have access to the roof of the tower, won’t we?” he asked.  “I’d like to carry out some activities in the open air.  And I like to sleep under the stars,” he added with a grin.

“But look at this,” Jenniline objected.  “They’ve given us space where the mortar is rotting away from between the stonework.”

“Powers, please fix all the mortar in this tower, making it good as new, stronger than solid stone, and more attractive than gold and silver,” Grange muttered softly, his eyes closed as he focused on his effort to exercise the energy around him.

There was a series of gasps from the others in the group, and his eyes popped open.

The lights he had created overhead had dimmed tremendously, as they immediately surrendered a portion of their energy to the new task Grange had commanded.   All around the group there was a sound of crackling and popping, and streaks of pure white light were soaring across the walls of the tower, following the trails of the mortar joints between the stones, leaving gleaming metal sparkles behind.

“That seems better,” Jenniline said weakly, surprised and overwhelmed by Grange’s action.

“We’ll take this,” Grange said to the two palace staff members, while the whizzing lights continued to race among the mortar lines around them.  “Let’s see if there’s anything that needs to be done inside the rooms,” he added.  He reached forward and opened the door to the suite.

“You’ll need to have clean, good beds brought up here immediately,” Grange told Traibble five minutes later, after a brief walking tour of the rooms on the two top floors of the tower.

“How fast can you make that happen?” he asked.

“Immediately, my lord,” the chamberlain instantly answered.

“Good, go see that it is done.  Jenniline, would you go with him, and see to anything else you think we need done here?” Grange asked his ally.

She looked at him in surprise.  “You want me to go?” she asked.

“There’s no one else I trust any more than you in Southgar,” Grange answered.

It was true, but he also simply wanted a chance to be alone at last.  He needed to sit down and simply let the strange new reality of his life wash over him.  He needed to understand, and digest, and adjust.  He needed to begin to plan, and to experiment.

“Thank you,” she replied.  “It’s faint praise, but I accept it.”

The others left Grange alone in his rooms, and he stood still, glad to be alone.  He walked into the interior rooms and stopped.  He wanted a set of stairs inside the space set aside for him, rather than having to use the stairs in the center of the tower.  He could change it, he knew.  He felt a much stronger affinity with the power now, a better sense of what it would accomplish, and how he could control it.  He seemed to see the Flame of Focus within himself, lending him instant access to the self-control needed to call the energy.

What had caused it, he wondered, if it was even true?  He might be simply overstating his case to himself in the present, he suspected, while downplaying how much control he had held in the past.  No, he decided, it was a true case – he did feel more affinity with the power.  Perhaps it was the result of having been honed down to his own essential core while in the wilderness, or perhaps it was simply a part of the gift of God Acton – who had given him health and memories, and might have given him greater control of the powers as well, or perhaps, he thought sadly, perhaps it was something that had been catalyzed by experiencing the deaths of the jewel elementals.

Whatever it was, he felt he could take control of the energy better than ever before, a strength that sat within him beneath all the churning emotions and shocks that were running through his soul.

And so he challenged himself to create the interior staircase he wanted.

He went back to the front room of his quarters, and looked up at the ceiling where he felt he could attempt to create the space for the stairs – or perhaps accidentally pull the top of the tower down in a pile of rubble on top of himself, he gave a grim internal laugh.

He raised his hands and pointed up, then focused on the very mortar he had just hardened.

“Great energy, please help me to make those stones open up, to build stairs inside this room, up to the next floor,” he requested of the power.

There was a sense of strain.  The energy seemed to be considering the request, seemed to be interested in attempting the onerous task, but seemed not to be convinced, or perhaps strong enough, he couldn’t decide what resistance he felt.

“Energy, this is my request and command, to create the stairs here.  Be my partner in this, all energy in the area,” he rechanneled his attention, closed his eyes, looked for that internal Flame of Focus, and sought to find enough power in the vicinity to make his vision a reality.

There was a loud clunk, and he opened his eyes, to see that a stone had fallen from the space he had pointed to.  It sat on the floor, directly beneath where it had come from, where there was now a hole in the ceiling.

A grinding sound began, and a second stone fell into place.  As Grange watched, new mortar crumbled away, and stone by stone, the ceiling opened up, creating the opening for a stairway to rise to the next level.

Except, when the opening finished creating itself there were only a portion of the stones needed to build the stairs.  He had a few steps up, and then nothing more – an incomplete task.

Grange opened the door of his space, and looked out at the stairwell that rose up to the top floor.  It would no longer serve any purpose, he decided, and so its stones could be salvaged and reused for his stairwell inside.

“Energy, let us finish this task by using these stones from this stairwell to complete the task,” Grange spoke to the power, as he motioned both hands towards the staircase he wished to disassemble.  The blocks of stone groaned, as Grange watched the glow of arriving energy envelope them, then began to lift them free of their moorings and steadily move them through the doorway and across the floor, then up the rising steps, to settle into new spots.

He stepped from the doorway, back into his suite of rooms, to watch the new staircase rise, then was startled when he heard a shout from the doorway, and turned to see Jenniline and three servants carrying furniture up the tower stairs and into his suite of rooms.

“Grange, what are you doing?”

“Oh my word!” she said as she spotted the growing set of stairs.

“You’re,” she paused, as a stone came trundling through the door and past the wild-eyed furniture haulers, then lifted itself into place, “you’re making the stones move?  You’re creating stairs?”

“I am,” Grange agreed.  “Can you put the bed down there?  I’ll move it to where I want it later,” he told the movers nonchalantly.

“That’ll be all for now.  You can go,” Jenniline told the men, who bowed their heads and left the suite immediately, the sound of their boots on the steps clattering rapidly away.

“What about you?  Do you want them to bring a bed up here for you as well?” Grange asked Jenniline.

“I think it would be better for all if I do not sleep in your quarters, in any way, shape, or form,” she answered coolly.  “I have my own room in the palace, and I can be here soon enough if needed.  There’s no need to give meat to wagging tongues.”

“That makes sense,” Grange said, understanding the delicacy of the situation while feeling a small sense of disappointment that he would not have a companion within his quarters.

“I don’t know that I need you do to anything else for me at the moment,” he told her.  There was a loud clunking sound, and he turned to see that the last stone had slid into its position, creating the new staircase between the floors of his chambers.

“You can return to your life.  I’m sure you had things planned to do today,” he glanced out a window on the far side of the room, and saw that it appeared to be mid-afternoon.  “Can you come back at dinner time and show me where meals are served?”

“What are you going to do?” She asked.  “I don’t have to leave; I can stay if you need help,” she seemed to sense that she had stung him by refusing to reside in his quarters, and wanted to make amends.

“No, I need time alone,” Grange said sincerely.  “I need time to,” he paused, “to adjust.”

Jenniline nodded her head.  “I’ll be back at dinner time, if you still have stairs available to reach this place,” she told him, then left the room.

Grange smiled, and listened to her descend the stairs, then climbed up to his second floor.  He walked through the rooms, and decided which he wanted for his bedroom, and summoned the bed to rise up the stairs to meet him, then settled it into place.

There was one more thing he wanted to do, while he was exercising his powers so fully, one more physical, tangible activity that would improve his quarters, and occupy his attention while he did it.  Then, once it was done, he would think; he would have to think, and consider, and try to make sense of more than he could possibly comprehend.