Trail of the Gods: The Morcyth Saga Book Four (3 page)

“Oh,” says James.

“Anyway, I’m a dye merchant,” he continues
when no further comment is forthcoming. “And recently a competitor
has set up another shop close to mine.”

“And?” prompts James.

“And, he’s hurting my business,” says the
man. “He’s selling his dyes far cheaper than I’m able to. How, I
don’t know. If something isn’t done, he’ll ruin me!”

“And you want me to do what?” he asks.

“Why, cast a spell on him or something that
will make his dyes be of lesser quality,” he explains. “Exactly
what, I’d leave to your judgment.”

Where Jiron is amused, James is anything
but. “Let me get this straight,” he says, coming to his feet. “You
want me to ruin a man’s business because he’s cutting into your
profits?”

“Yes,” replies the man in all sincerity.
“I’d pay you for your troubles.”

Eyes smoldering, he says to Jiron, “Get this
fool from my sight!”

“You better go,” Jiron says as he brings the
man to his feet.

“But,” the man says as Jiron begins to lead
him to the door, “I’ll give you a hundred gold!”

“Get out!” yells James. The frustration he
had felt before when this idiot disturbed his experiments blossoms
into full fledged anger. “I’ll not take a million for such a deed.
How dare you even ask me!”

Struggling against Jiron as he’s being
pulled from the house, he cries out, “But you’re a mage! You’re
supposed to do things like this!”

Ezra pokes her head in from the kitchen to
see what’s going on.

Roland appears at the door, axe in hand.
James glances at him and says, “Assist Jiron in getting this man
off my property.” To the man he adds, “Don’t you ever come back
here again!”

Setting his axe on the floor, Roland takes
one arm while Jiron takes the other and they drag the dye merchant
out of the house. James watches from the window as they take him to
the end of the lane.

“He doesn’t understand,” he hears Ezra say
from behind him.

Turning around, he sees her framed in the
doorway to the kitchen, “Understand what?”

“You,” she says. “You are not like other
mages we hear about. You are kind and considerate, no one expects
that from one such as you.”

His anger slowly subsides until he’s simply
frustrated. “I suppose,” he says.

“All our lives, the stories we hear of those
with the power are ones of terror and pain,” she explains. “People
just can’t believe that a mage, wizard, or whatever can be anything
but bad.”

Sighing, he nods his head, “I know. Whenever
anyone has found out I’m a mage, their first reaction is usually
one of fear or trepidation. Only by getting to know me do their
opinions change.”

“That is true,” she agrees. “Sorry to have
intruded, but I thought you should know.”

“Thank you, Ezra,” he says. “I do appreciate
it.”

She then returns to the kitchen to resume
whatever it was she had been doing.

Turning back to the window, he sees Jiron
and Roland returning, the dye merchant stands at the end of the
lane for a moment. It almost seems like the man still hasn’t
grasped the idea James isn’t going to be helping him. Jiron turns
around and yells something at him. When the man still doesn’t
leave, he draws one of his knives and advances on him.

Seeing the drawn knife, he finally gets the
idea and starts running down the road toward town.

Jiron replaces his knife and catches up with
Roland as they walk back to the house. James moves to the doorway
as they walk up, “He wouldn’t leave?”

Shaking his head, Jiron says, “That guy
simply would not listen. It wouldn’t sink in that no amount of
money could sway you.” Cracking a grin, he adds, “So I finally had
to chase him off.”

Returning the grin, James says, “Yeah, I saw
that.”

“The problem is,” explains Roland, “is that
word about you is getting around. People are talking I’m
afraid.”

“Oh?” he asks. “And just what are they
saying?”

“Mainly that you’re a mage and that you’ve
helped some people out,” answers Roland.

“Great, notoriety,” sighs James. “That’s
just what I wanted.” Glancing at Jiron, he continues, “Would you
mind going into town tonight and find out just what they’re saying?
I’d like to know.”

“Sure,” he says. “I can take a couple of the
guys and down a few at the Squawking Goose.” Then he smiles and a
short laugh escapes him.

“What?” James asks.

“Did you ever hear why the place is called
the Squawking Goose?” he asks.

He sees Roland start to grin as he shakes
his head and says, “No.”

“Well, it’s rumored that the owner’s wife
never shuts up, and, well that’s it,” he replies.

“He named it after his wife?” James asks
incredulously. “Doesn’t she get mad?”

“This is the funny part,” says Roland. “The
wife doesn’t know, she thinks it’s because they serve goose a lot.
But she does talk more than most.”

All three start to laugh. Roland grabs his
axe from where he’d set it down and heads back to the wood pile.
They can hear his laughter as he walks away.

“Going back to the crystals?” Jiron
asks.

“I think so,” he replies. “I might have had
it, if it wasn’t for that pest.”

“I’ll keep an eye out and make sure you’re
not disturbed again,” he assures him.

“I’d appreciate that,” James says. He turns
to go through the house and out the kitchen door as Jiron exits
through the front door. Giving Ezra and Arkie a quick nod, he
leaves the house and makes for his workshop.

Once inside, he closes the door and relishes
the peace and quiet of it. Before resuming his tests, he sits at
the workbench and tries to calm himself and to get his mind to stop
churning about the interruption.

Picking up another of the crystals that lay
on his workbench, he rolls it between his fingers absentmindedly as
he recalls the spell he used the last time. When he thinks he’s
remembered it exactly and his mind is better able to focus, he
takes the crystal and places it on the table after clearing a spot
for it among the shattered remains of his previous experiments.

He moves back to where he was before and
then concentrates only briefly before letting the magic flow. This
time he lets it go quickly and braces himself for the crystal to
shatter, but it remains intact.

The leeching of magic from him begins and
the reddish glow can be seen growing within it as it holds more
power. When it darkens to a deep crimson, he backs a few more steps
away nervously, just in case. But, as before, the crystal reaches a
certain point and the leeching diminishes until it’s almost
imperceptible.

He watches it for several minutes, giving it
time to explode if it was going to and then starts toward the table
where he picks up the crystal. The deep crimson color isn’t a
light, it’s simply a part of the crystal. The leeching of power
suddenly stops altogether.
Must’ve reached its limit so it shut
down.

Satisfied, he sets the crystal down on the
workbench. He picks up another of the crystals and takes it over to
the test table to see if he can duplicate the results. Setting it
down, he moves away from it and casts the spell again.

This time, the leeching of power is much
less.
Odd,
he thinks to himself.
I would’ve thought it
would be the same.

He watches the crystal and the reddish glow
begins to form within, just as the previous one. As it reaches the
deep crimson color, it begins subsiding again as if it’s losing
power.

The leeching abruptly stops and he watches
as the red glow within the crystal begins pulsating from light to
dark. Gradually, almost imperceptible, he starts feeling a
vibration in the air.

Taking a few steps back from the crystal, he
looks around the room for the source of the vibration. Suddenly,
his eyes fall upon the first crystal that’s lying on his workbench.
It too is going from light to dark and back again.
They’re
leeching each other!

The vibration in the air begins to get worse
and he can see the two crystals begin to vibrate where they sit.
Casting out his magic, he tries to stop each of the crystal’s
active spells. But instead, his magic is sucked into them, each
taking half and almost seems to be fighting for what the other had
taken.

Cutting off his magic, he looks to the
crystals and now both are a deep crimson after having taken more of
his magic. The vibration increases and a high pitched tone can be
heard.

Realizing he may not have much time, he
dives for the door and hits the ground outside just as both
crystals explode at the same time. The resultant explosion is by
far the worse yet of any failed experiment and actually cracks one
of the walls of his workshop.

As he gets up off the ground, he sees the
girls coming out of the kitchen door and Jiron and Roland running
around the side of the house. Roland has his axe ready and Jiron’s
knives are out as he looks for attackers.

James holds up his hands and says, “It’s
okay, I’m alright.”

“What happened?” Tersa asks as she comes to
his side.

“Just another experiment that didn’t go
quite the way I planned,” he explains.

Replacing his knives, Jiron says, “You need
to be more careful.”

“I know, but there’s no one to teach me
about this stuff,” he tells them. “I try to be, but magic isn’t
exactly the easiest thing to work with.”

“Probably why there’re darn few mages in the
world,” Roland adds.

Nodding his head, James replies, “Most
likely.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ezra asks. When
she gets an affirmative from him, she says, “Alright then, just
don’t do it again.” Then she turns and with Tersa in tow, returns
to the house.

“Let’s see what happened,” Jiron says as he
moves toward the workshop.

The interior of the workshop is a shambles.
His desk now has a large hole in it and the test table has
completely disintegrated, shards and pieces of wood coat every
surface of the workshop. The other crystals that had been lying on
the workbench are gone, most likely are part of the crystal shards
scattered all over. He checks the sack of crystals on the floor and
finds them unscathed, much to his relief.

“Man, what a mess,” exclaims Roland as he
enters the ruined workshop. Shaking his head, he picks up a broom
in a corner and begins to sweep up the debris.

“Here,” Jiron says to James as he takes one
end of the ruined workbench, “let’s take this out.”

Taking the other side, James lifts it up and
they carry it out where they set it down along the side of the
building. When they come back in, Roland pauses in his sweeping and
says to James, “You go on in the house while I clean this up. You
look like you could use a rest.”

Suddenly feeling how tired he really is, he
replies, “Thanks, I think I’ll do just that.”

“We’ll get this place cleaned up and you can
start again tomorrow,” Jiron assures him.

“Alright,” he says and then leaves them to
finish cleaning up the mess. Returning to the house, he’s greeted
by Ezra in the kitchen with a cup of ale. Taking it, he says,
“Thank you.” He then moves on out to the front room where he sits
in a chair by the window and stares out while he sips his ale.

The spells had taken more out of him than he
realized, must’ve been concentrating too much on the effects of the
spells and less on the effects they were having on him. He sits
back and relaxes as he thinks of what went wrong.

When the second one began to leech from its
surroundings, of course it would take magic from the other one.
Then when the first began to drop in power, it started leeching
from the second, and so forth.

The strain of working against each other
must’ve been what caused them to begin vibrating and ultimately
explode. Going to have to find a way around that.

He must’ve dozed off for a while, for when
he comes awake, it’s near dusk and he sees Illan coming back with
the hunters. They have several large game animals and Miko seems
very happy with himself. Getting out of the chair, he opens the
door and goes outside.

“James!” hollers Miko exuberantly when he
sees him come out. Rushing over, he says, “I got the biggest
one!”

Uther comes up behind him and claps him on
the shoulder. “He sure did,” he affirms. “Put us all to shame.”
Giving James a grin and a wink, he returns to the others who are
taking the animals around back where they’ll begin getting them
ready for the fire.

“You better go with them,” James tells Miko.
“If you killed it, you better help butcher it.”

“You’re right!” he says as he turns and
rushes to follow them.

James grins at the exuberance of his friend.
He’s sure come along way since James first found him on the streets
of Bearn. The changes the Fire had wrought doesn’t seem to bother
him the way it does James. Guess most boys wish to grow up
quickly.

He walks around the house to the workshop
and again sees the ruined workbench sitting outside. When he goes
inside, he’s amazed at just how well they have already cleaned up
most of the mess. They even brought in another workbench for him,
though not nearly as nice as the other one had been.

His sack of crystals rests on the floor
beside the new desk. Going over to it, he reaches inside and pulls
one out. Holding it up, he peers within it, not really looking for
anything.

From the door, he hears Jiron says, “Haven’t
you had enough for one day?”

Turning to him, James gives him a sheepish
grin and shrugs. “I hadn’t planned on doing anything more tonight,”
he replies. “Just came to see how the workshop turned out.”
Glancing around, he continues, “You guys did a good job,
thanks.”

“Not a problem,” he says. “Just try not to
make it a habit.”