Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy (12 page)

Steve was perplexed, and whenever he was presented with a problem that he couldn’t figure out, he would start mumbling to himself.

“
Maybe since it’s ours, only we can see it. Maybe that’s how possessions work here.”

Sarah snorted. “If that was true, then Kornal and Nilhanu wouldn’t have been able to see it.”

“
Good point. Okay, maybe jorii can only be used, and therefore seen, by people with a good heart.”

“
Unlikely, but if that was the case, what about the coin? It’s their currency. He should have been able to see that.”

Steve nodded. “Good point.” He started to pace, another indicator that some serious synaptic misfiring was taking place. “What about protective magic? Maybe there is security-type magic that prevents these things from being stolen.”

“
That knew we were about to be robbed? I don’t think so. He clearly said he wanted our money. Seemed very surprised when we didn’t have any.”

“
Another good point. Hmmm.”

Sarah watched as Steve continued to pace. She took her husband’s hand as he passed her the next time, pulling him to a stop. “Hon, umm, what if it was us?”

Steve paused in mid-mumble to look at his wife. “Huh?”

“
What if it was us? What if we did something to it?”

“
Us? Do magic? Yeah, right. Sweetie, we aren’t from around here. I don’t think it’s us.”

“
Kornal said that he had never met a human without some type of power.”

“
He also said that they didn’t get that many visitors.”

Sarah smiled. “Well played, dear.”

He grinned back at her. “Wouldn’t that be something, though? Having an ability to protect your valuables, without you even knowing we were doing it? If we could market that then our financial difficulties would be over.”

“
I think we do need to acknowledge, though, that something did happen to the jorii.”

Steve thought a moment and then smacked his hand on his forehead.

“
I’ve got it! What do you want to bet that that jorii thing, being magic, and strong magic at that, has some sort of built-in protection? And since it does, it probably was able to mask the disc and coin as well. Huh? Huh??” He playfully poked his wife in the ribs. “What do you think?”

Sarah considered. That scenario was actually plausible.

“
I obviously don’t know for certain if that’s what happened, but I like that idea. A lot. If it can protect itself, then there has to be a way that we can use this thing to get us out of this predicament.”

Steve hefted the jorii in his palm. “Okay, Mr. Marble, do your thing.” He held the jorii up to the closed trapdoor. Nothing happened. He gestured wildly, swinging his arms back and forth across the trapdoor. Nothing.

“
Maybe you need to be closer to it,” Sarah suggested. “The door, I mean.”

“
Okay, I’ll buy that. Let’s see. I can use some of this stuff to get closer.”

He dragged the moldy bales of straw directly under the door and placed several crates on it. Gently, ever so gently, he stood up on the crate and repeated his movements from before. The door remained fastened, and the jorii was still unchanged in his palm.

Since he was teetering precariously on his makeshift podium, he climbed down and glared at the door. Clenching the jorii tightly in his fist, he raised his arm and asked the door to open.

“
Open sesame!”

Sarah burst out laughing.

“
Open sesame? You have got to be kidding! Did you really think that would work?”

“
Hey, it was worth a shot,” Steve grumbled. Another glare at the door. “Abracadabra! Hocus Pocus!”

“
I have an idea.”

“
I’m all ears.”

“
Maybe it needs a spell.”

“
A spell? As in witches and wizards?”

Sarah held up her hands. “Hey, I’m just giving ideas here.”

Steve chuckled to himself. A spell. Great. This ought to be a hoot. That means he needed to come up with some type of rhyme, right? Let’s see. What could he use?

He took a breath and faced the door. With the jorii held tightly in his right hand he intoned:

As visitors to this land, we wish to leave

We don’t know what could be in store

So using the power of this jorii,

Blow away that God Damn Door!

The door was unimpressed. It was still locked, with nothing to even indicate that they were on the right track.

“
I’m impressed!” Sarah gave him a high-five. “I thought you weren’t good at rhyming!”

“
I’m not. That just came to me. Besides, what are you complimenting me for? It didn’t work. Stupid thing is still closed.”

“
Okay, let me try for a while.”

Steve handed her the jorii. “It’s all yours. I hope you have better luck.”

“
Maybe it has a mental trigger.” Sarah concentrated on the spherical object in her hand, willing something to happen. Anything. No luck. She drew a picture of a door in her head that led to the outside world and tried to invoke the jorii into making that a reality.

Steve suddenly grabbed her hand. “Umm, I think I know what the problem is here.”

“
You do? What is it?”

“
I just remembered what Nilhanu said about that thing. Remember? She said that a jorii enhances your jhorun to the point of being on the same level as the wizards. She didn’t say that it created an ability, only that it enhanced what you already have. So if we don’t have magic to begin with, how can it enhance what doesn’t exist?”

Chalk one up to her husband. Now that he had brought it up she did remember Nilhanu mentioning the fact that a jorii only enhances the magic inside you. Well, so much for this thing helping them esca- wait. Then what had happened to the jorii? How did it hide itself from the would-be thief? Was it something that one of them did? Keeping this revelation to herself for the time being, she decided to practice on the marble in silence.

Marble. Sarah chuckled to herself. He has me doing it now. It’s a jorii.

Sarah worked on the jorii well into the night. While Steve slept soundly (how does he do it??) next to her on the floor, she tried everything she could think of to activate her jhorun. Did she really have some magical ability lying dormant inside her? Could she walk through walls here if she tried hard enough?

She concentrated so hard, for so long, that her only accomplishment was to give herself a pounding headache. Admitting defeat, she snuggled next to her snoring husband. Being both mentally and physically exhausted, she dropped instantly off to sleep.

She was uncertain how long she slept, but at least she did sleep a few hours. Of that, she was certain. However, she could never sleep once the sun started to shine. She shifted her back a little. Why did her back hurt so much? Did she forget to turn down her Sleep Number bed? Why was there debris on the bed? Did the cats drag something up? Since her left arm felt pinned, she used her right arm to explore her surroundings. Damned if that didn’t feel just like straw.

Her memory of last night came rushing back to her. She groaned. Damn. Not a dream. They were prisoners in some damn cellar with no way out.

The sun! Why was it so bright in here?? Sarah’s eyes snapped open. Sunlight was streaming down from above. The trapdoor was open!

Sarah shook Steve awake. “Honey! Wake up! The door is open! We have to get out of here! The mugger might have come back early!”

“
Wha’? Timezit?” Steve rubbed a hand over his face and tried to blink his eyes. They refused to open. “Did the alarm not go off? Damn thing.” He started fumbling for the remote to the TV. In their household television, not coffee, woke them up.

Any other day Sarah might have found this amusing, but not now. She had to get him to wake up. Fast. She hadn’t heard any movement from upstairs, yet, and she didn’t want to take any chances.

“
I need you to wake up! The door is open! I swear, if you’re not awake in two seconds you’re gonna get the world’s largest zerbert!!”

“
I’m up, I’m up. What’s going on?” Steve used both hands to rub his eyes.

“
Look! The door is open!”

He craned his head to look up. Sure enough, the trapdoor was open. In fact, he blinked a few times, the door was gone!

“
What happened? When did that disappear?”

“
Disappear?”

“
That door isn’t open, it’s gone!”

Sarah peered at the opening. No door. She had assumed the door was open, leaning against the wall above, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, by squinting her eyes she could see that the locking bar was still protruding over the sides, securing the nonexistent door in place.

Steve yawned, stretched, and stood up. So what had happened to the door? Maybe one of the attempts to invoke the jorii actually worked! But what? There’s no way his “hocus pocus” attempts could have worked. So what else did they try? The arm gesturing, the scowling, the mental cursing. Hah! The spell! That cheesy rhyme he came up with. That had to be it!

“
I think my spell must have worked! It obviously took a bit longer to kick in. That has to be it!”

Sarah was momentarily confused. “You cast a spell? You don’t even know how to cast a spell. Oh, you mean the rhyme you made for the jorii?” She thought a moment. “Usually spells are instantaneous. I’ve never heard of a spell that had a delayed reaction.”

“
You’re basing this on, what, Charmed?”

“
Don’t be an ass. I clearly don’t know for sure, but all references we’ve ever seen have always led us to believe that when a spell was cast, either it worked or it didn’t. No gray area there.”

Sarah glanced up and listened intently. “I don’t hear him up there. No noise. Let’s get out of here. We’ll try and figure out what happened later. I just want to go.”

“
Agreed.” He looked at his rickety platform. “How do you want to do this? I can go up first then pull you up, or I can give you a boost and then come up afterwards?”

“
Why don’t you give me a boost up? I’d
rather
have you helping me up than yanking my arms out of their sockets.”

With Steve’s help, she climbed up onto the platform of wooden crates and bales of straw. If she stretched way up on her tippy-toes, she could just reach the lip of the hole. If only she was a few more inches taller, she thought angrily.

Steve jumped up on the bales of straw. “I don’t dare join you up on the crates. I don’t think they’d hold both of us.” He interlocked his fingers and held them out to his wife. “Put your foot here and get ready.”

Sarah took a deep breath and steadied herself. She put her right foot into the basket Steve’s hands had formed and braced herself. “Ready!”

Steve lifted, propelling Sarah straight up about four feet. It was more than enough to get leverage to brace herself and look around.

“
Watch out for that bar!” Steve cautioned. The locking bar was still extended, presenting an unwelcome obstacle.

“
Can you brace me for another couple of seconds?” Sarah asked.

“
Sure. What’re you doing?”

With Steve bracing her legs, she risked moving her right hand over to push the bar back out of the way.

“
Good one!” Steve was grinning. “That would have left a mark, no doubt about it.”

With Steve’s help from below, and straining every muscle in her body, Sarah was able to pull herself up out of the cellar.

“
You okay?” Steve called from below.