The Star of Morcyth: The Morcyth Saga Book Five (31 page)

“It’s not that I don’t want too,” asserts
James. “Just that circumstances warrant it.”

“I know,” he says.

“Everything going well with The Ranch and
the finances?” James asks.

“Actually,” he says, “while you were gone,
Delia returned and dropped off the coins she received from the sale
of the gems. It was quite a sum. That alone should last us almost a
year. With Tersa’s bears we should be fine through next
summer.”

“I’ll have Jiron or Fifer go back for more
gems,” he says. “But not until after winter.”

“I understand.” Making to return to the
barn, Roland says, “I better get back in there. I only have them
another half hour before they have to start their duties.”

“Very well,” says James.

He leaves as Roland enters the barn and goes
into the house to check when lunch will be ready. Ezra tells him
still another hour or so. Telling her he’ll be in his workshop, he
leaves through the backdoor. Crossing the yard he’s soon inside
with the door shut.

First thing he checks is the receiving
crystal. That’s the crystal which should emit a light if the hiding
place of the Fire is disturbed in any way. At some point he’ll have
to get this crystal set up in a secure spot where it’ll be visible
yet at the same time safe from accidental loss or destruction. When
he gets back from his trip to Ironhold, he may try to create a
relay which will inform him no matter where he is should the
receiver crystal receive the signal. But he doesn’t have time
before tomorrow.

Sitting down at his workbench, he pulls out
a crystal from the sack sitting on the floor next to his workbench.
Holding it absentmindedly, he rolls it through his fingers as he
contemplates what happened in Cardri.

From what Illan told him, he was drugged by
fumes coming from one of the torches which were burning in the
dungeon. If they can render him powerless without so much as
touching him, he’s got problems. Fortunately he has been
considering just such an occurrence and was able to realize what
was happening before he completely lost his abilities.

He made that little sphere which held three
simple spells, all of which were voice activated by him. No power
or even conscious thought was needed to activate the spells. Since
long before he ever went to Cardri, he had been thinking of just
such a thing. The question he had was, ‘If he was drugged how could
he defend himself?’ The answer was the sphere, of course the spells
which he had embedded within it had disastrous repercussions when
used on board a boat.

As he sits there and goes over the events on
the boat, he comes to the conclusion that maybe it would be
beneficial to have an ongoing spell which monitors and if certain
things happen, automatically counters hostile spells or actions. It
can’t be too complicated or it might not work. Just some simple
spells. First he’ll try an automated shield, that should be
easy.

First he casts his leech spell upon the
crystal in his hands and allows it to absorb power from him for a
few minutes until it has a small glow. Then he cancels the leech
spell and after working out the details embeds an automated spell
which will detect anything flying toward it at a rapid rate and
throw up a shield before the object comes close.

Once it’s done to his satisfaction, he takes
the crystal across the room and sets it on a box sitting against
the wall. Returning to his workbench, he activates the spell and
removes one of his slugs from his belt. Just throwing it naturally
without the added magic behind it, he watches as it arcs through
the air toward where the crystal lies.

As it nears, he feels a spike in the
tingling sensation and watches as the slug bounces off an invisible
shield which springs up around the crystal. Once the slug was
deflected, the tingling sensation subsides and the shield
disappears.

He walks over to the crystal and slowly
reaches his hand out toward it. Moving slowly, his hand is able to
reach the crystal and take hold of it. The glow within is greatly
diminished, but still perceptible.

It worked. However the tingling sensation
still resonates through him and that isn’t good. Any mage in close
proximity will recognize that another mage is in the area. This may
not work as well as he hopes. He can’t afford to declare to any
mage that he’s one, could have unfortunate results should the other
mage be unfriendly. He may have to stay with the voice activated
one.

In situations where his presence is already
known, then this would be a viable protective device. He’ll have to
think on it.

From outside, he hears Ezra calling in
everyone for lunch. He didn’t realize he had spent that much time
on this. Deactivating the shield spell, he sets the crystal down on
his workbench. Leaving the workshop, he heads over to the house and
is soon sitting down at the table.

Dave is not present. Miko sees him wondering
about it and says, “He returned awhile ago and went back to bed.
Said he wasn’t feeling good.”

James commences eating, his mind on his
friend. What can be wrong with him? It’s not like him, maybe the
time as a slave really messed him up. They’re not five minutes into
eating before Arkie nails him in the side of the head with a piece
of slightly mashed tuber.

“Arkie!” Roland scolds his son.

Not looking the least bit sorry, Arkie grins
at him as James wipes off the residue of the impact from his
head.

“I’m sorry James,” Roland says as he slaps
his son’s hand. The grin from Arkie quickly vanishes as his father
reprimands him.

“Seems he has it in for you,” Miko says from
his place down the table. Giving James an amused grin, he holds up
one of the boiled tubers in salute then commences eating it.

At first it was amusing now it’s getting
downright annoying. An idea comes to mind and James excuses himself
for a moment and leaves through the back door.

“Think he’s getting a helmet?” Uther
jokes.

“Maybe full body armor,” retorts Jorry which
causes everyone in the room to chuckle. As soon as the door opens
again and James returns to the table, everyone quiets down.

“What did you do?” Miko asks with a
smile.

“Just got something from the workshop,” he
says. Taking his fork, he commences eating. All the while he keeps
an eye on Arkie from the corner of his eye. Sure enough after he’s
begun to eat, Arkie starts glancing in his direction. He sees
Roland begin to say something to his son but James shakes his head,
indicating for him to leave the boy alone.

Everyone in the room is watching the
unfolding event to see what’s going to happen. They know Arkie is
about to throw, but James appears unconcerned. Ezra is simply
beside herself. She wants to stop him but had seen James’
indication to Roland to leave him alone. Hitting the master of the
house with a mushy tuber simply is not to be encouraged.

Then all of a sudden, Arkie grabs a tuber
from off his plate and with a squeal, launches it at James. Just
before the tuber reaches him, he feels a tingling spike as the
crystal in his pocket creates a shield around him.

Splat!

The tuber strikes the shield three inches
from his head. Everyone looks to James in surprise and he returns
their gaze with a satisfied smile. Then all of a sudden, the shield
disappears and the tuber, now no longer upheld by the presence of
the shield, falls. Striking his shirt, it leaves a trail all the
way down to his lap.

He sees Arkie again pick up a tuber and this
time he doesn’t interfere in Roland’s attempt to discipline his
child.

“What happened?” Miko asks
incredulously.

“Just something I was working on,” he
replies. “I’ll not go into detail about it.”

“It stopped the tuber,” Illan says.

“And anything else speeding toward me,”
replies James.

“Anything?” asks Miko.

“Anything,” confirms James.

Miko suddenly grabs a large tuber and
launches it at James.

Surprised by the attack, he leans back in
his chair as the shield suddenly springs to life and stops the
flying tuber. The tuber disintegrates and plasters the shield with
a large area of tuber pieces. Then, just as it had before, when
there was no longer something coming at him, the shield disappears.
James scoots back quickly but not fast enough to avoid being hit
when the mashed tuber is no longer supported by the shield and
falls.

“Miko!” cries out Ezra. Enough is
enough.

He looks and sees the anger in her eyes. No
one acts that way at her table. “Sorry,” he says in his most
apologetic tone.

“It’s nice to see I’ll have some help
cleaning the dishes after the meal today,” she says, never once
taking her eyes off him.

James stands up, tuber coating him from
chest to groin. The others on the table break into a laugh. Arkie
looks around at everyone, thankful that the attention has been
diverted from him, and joins in with a high pitched squeal of
delight.

“Guess I’ll have to work on that,” he says.
Taking one more piece of meat off his plate, he leaves the kitchen
and heads to his room to get a change of clothes. He’s not about to
bathe twice the same day, at least not unless it’s warmer
outside.

While he changes his clothes, he thinks he
may need to make it that once the shield is activated, it will need
his vocal authorization to cancel itself. He remembers back to when
he and Jiron were coming back from Saragon and that magical attack
he fought off by the other warrior priest. There are definitely
times when it would be bad for the shield to disappear, such as
when a flesh eating goo is covering it. He can still recall what
happened to that captain at Mountainside when the shield
disappeared and the goo hit him. Wasn’t a pretty sight.

Before he’s done, Miko appears at his door
and says, “Sorry.”

James gives him a smile and says, “I’m not
mad.”

“I didn’t think you would be, but Ezra told
me to come and apologize,” he says with a grin.

“You don’t want to be on her bad side,”
James tells him.

“Don’t I know it,” he says, rolling his
eyes. “I have a whole afternoon of cleaning and other chores I’m
sure.” Then his mischievous grin appears and says, “But it was
worth it!”

James laughs, claps him on the shoulder and
they both return to the kitchen. On the way, he stops by the door
to the room Dave now calls his own. Not much more than a walk-in
closet really but at least it’s private.

“Good luck,” Miko says as he continues on to
the kitchen.

Opening the door, he finds Dave lying curled
up on his bed. His eyes open at the sound of the door opening. When
he sees James standing there, he says, “Come on in.”

James enters and closes the door. A very
little amount of light enters through the cracks in the wall,
giving them enough to see each other. He comes to sit on the edge
of the bed as Dave sits up. “You okay?” he asks, concern in his
voice.

Dave is silent for a moment and then
replies, “I just want to go home.”

“I know,” replies James. “So do I.”

“Do you?” he asks. “Do you really?”

Taken aback by the question, James asks,
“How can you even ask that? Of course I do.”

“Why?” he asks. “You were nothing there.
Here you are a powerful mage, have a house and many friends. I
remember you always used to say how great it would be if you had
magical abilities. The things you would do. Can’t imagine that you
would want to give all that up.”

James sits back a moment and thinks about
what Dave said. Does he really want to go back home? Up till now,
he thought the answer would be a resounding yes. But after what
Dave just said, he now understands what he would be giving up if he
went back.

“Thought not,” Dave says. “If you’ll excuse
me now, I’m feeling kind of tired.” Lying down in bed, he turns his
face to the wall.

James sits there a moment before getting up.
“You get some rest, tomorrow we’re heading north.”

Dave doesn’t comment just lies there
quietly.

Opening the door, James takes another glance
at his lifelong friend and feels like a wall of some kind has grown
between them. Saddened, he closes the door and leaves his friend to
rest.

As he passes through the kitchen he finds
Miko already clearing the dishes from the table. He pauses a moment
intending to tell Ezra to go easy on him, but then decides against
it. She can always use the help. Arkie has been removed from his
chair and is now over in the corner on a pallet nestled with his
teddy bear. He often takes a nap there right after lunch.

Leaving the kitchen he heads over to his
workshop where he continues working to perfect his automated
defensive device. Trying to put Dave out of his mind, he works on
making it so the shield will remain active once it’s been activated
even if nothing further is flying toward him.

When at last he has it just the way he wants
it and has tested it several times, there still remains one small
problem. He can sense it while it is active. Of course when it is
deactivated, it doesn’t work. So the problem is, if he has it
active to protect him, then any mage in the vicinity will pick up
on it. The tingling is slight, but there none the less.

He then works on applying several other
spells into it that may be useful in different circumstances. Not
too many, the more complicated it becomes, the more chance of
something going wrong. It takes awhile but he at last gets it
pretty much the way he wants.

When he finally leaves the workshop for the
night, he takes it with him and puts it into his pack. He intends
to take it with him on the way to Ironhold in the morning. It may
come in useful. Returning to the house, he finds Dave still in his
room. He joins the others in the front room as they spend their
evening time together.