Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1) (8 page)

“Did he say cut it out?” Ryff worriedly asked. “Cut what out?”

Bal said, “I think you’d better hurry, Gee-orj.”

“Uh, right. Here goes.”

“What’s he doing?!” the boy’s father bellowed as Me’oh and Fri’il gasped.

George brought down the blade and—

BOOM!

It wailed. The wagon quaked, knocking everyone standing off their feet except George, who seemed rooted. Vyss woke screaming an eerie, unearthly howl as Me’oh and Fri’il fought to hold him down.

The dark blade drew blood as George’s staff flared to incandescence. BOOM! again.

The wagon wheels collapsed and a foul smelly smoke made them all cough as it poured off the boy’s body.

The next thing George knew he heard the boy’s father shouting, “Vyss! What’s happened to Vyss!”

Hands were pulling back the canvas roofing as George and Balfour coughed.
Me’oh muttered, “By all the Lords of Cathart, what has happened?!”

George gasped, using his staff to help him push aside the blankets, assorted vials of herbal remedies, and the teapot that had fallen across him. “One demon excised,” he groaned. “I hope.”

The teenage girl was waving smoke away from her face when Vyss coughed, “Fri’il?”

She stared at him, “M’lord?”

“Fri’il, I’m cold.” The boy tried to sit up. “Hey, I’m not wearing any clothes!”

There was a sudden silence.

“Vyss?”

“Poppa?”

“Vyss! See to him, I’m fine! Hear that, De’ohr, my boy’s alive!”

“Well, Gee-orj, at least they don’t want to kill us.”

“That’s most definitely an improvement,” George said with a chuckle as he washed his face in a cold water basin the ladies had provided.

They had been given a rather fine looking tent as the Cathartans readied a celebratory feast in their and young Lord Vyss’s honor.

“M’lords,” Fri’il said from the doorway. “If you would, we would wash your garments.”

“You think you can wash the demon stink off them?” George asked.

She smiled, “It seems to come out with soap rather nicely. In the meantime, I’ve brought you some of Sire Ryff’s extra robes.”

They were beautiful, George thought, a cross between an ancient Japanese kimono and a silk garment similar to a skirt, though styled for men.

“Thank you,” Balfour said.

“Just set your clothes to be cleaned out here and I’ll be back for them.”

They nodded as she left, the George said, “Well, Bal, feel like a surgeon yet?”

His elfblooded companion laughed, “Not your normal surgery.”

“No,” the archaeologist replied, wondering just what he’d gotten himself into.

“You can’t be serious, Father!” Se’and shouted.

“They saved your brother’s life. I can do no less!”

The Mother Shaman intervened, “You must do more, Sire.”

“What?” Lord Ryff said, frowning.

“They’ve made the Prophecy possible again! You must do more than make them Cathartan Lords.”

Se’and reiterated, “You can’t!”

Her father sat back, “Se’and, De’ohr’s right. This is a matter of honor. I’m sorry, but there is no other way.”

“I’m not marrying him!”

Dinner was a truly magnificent affair. Young women performed songs, dances, and acrobatics. Cle’or was featured with the dance of knives, tossing daggers in the air like a juggler, while executing precise katas, as those in the eastern part of earth. She bowed as Sire Ryff slapped George’s back.

“She is my House’s finest champion!”

“Wonderful,” he said.

Sire Ryff glanced at his older half sister and nodded. She made a mental note.

Se’and personally served George a choice piece of the game they’d recently taken. She wasn’t smiling, which earned her a glare from her father. So she bowed rather invitingly to George, who found himself hastily needing to look up into the young woman’s eyes.

“Uh, thank you, but I don’t eat meat.”

She frowned, “Do you prefer fish or cheese?”

“Cheese is fine, but I don’t eat fish either.”

She bowed again, giving him the requisite view as honor demanded then left to fetch him a serving of cheeses.

Me’oh saw her stalking past.

“Se’and,” she said gently, “it might not be that bad.”

“He refused my offering! Who does he think he is?”

“Oh,” was all she said with an amused look as the young woman headed back to the kitchen, then, “Oh, you have it bad, don’t you.”

Balfour was drinking the Imperial wine. Tasting it, he knew it an excellent vintage. He remembered sharing a bottle with—
well
best not dwell on that. She was likely married by now and I had been a failure at the Healer’s Hall, after all.

Staff twinkled across the room where George sat as Se’and returned with a heaping platter of cheese.

‘Bal, you’re not a failure,’ staff mentally said to him. ‘Stop thinking that way. Your talent is just on the human side of the equation.’

Through the link he heard George say, “Thank you,” to the young woman, who was wearing a rather tight fitting and revealing dress.

“May I join you?” he half heard Se’and ask George.

“Uh, sure,” George replied scooting over on the pillow that served as his chair.

‘Bal, is there something about Cathartan mores I should warn George about?’

I don’t think so
, he replied, watching George’s reactions to his environment.

The herbalist Me’oh brought Balfour a plate, “I brought you some fruit.”

“Thanks. Uh, bringing fruit doesn’t have any special meaning, does it?”

Me’oh chuckled, “Not fruit, no.”

He watched her walk away and thought at the staff,
Uh, you might want to mention to George—

‘Oh, don’t give it another thought,’ staff replied. If Balfour didn’t know better by now, he would have thought that the computer was laughing.

Se’and edged closer to George, “You were heading west when we found you.”

“Uh, yes, Bal and I are going to the Empire.”

“You do not speak with an Imperial accent. Where are you from?” she asked.

“Oh, from quite a distance, you wouldn’t have heard of it.”

“I have studied the geography of the entire known world. Being Vyss’s only full blooded sister, I was expected to manage the affairs of his House.”

“Well, I’m from someplace I doubt you’d have heard of,” George replied.

“Pray tell!”

“Well, I most recently lived in Europe, for example.”

“Urp?”

“Yes, quite a historic place really. Gave me plenty to do.”

“Do? You are a mage, yes? Or a healer?”

He laughed. “No, I’m an archaeologist, a department head at the University.”

“Arki-mage at uni–ver–sity?”

“Close enough.”

She frowned, “You really have no elvin blood?”

“No, and of that I can guarantee, I have the DNA scans to prove it.”

“You are a very strange man,” Se’and said.
“Believe me, since coming to these parts I’ve seen stranger.”

She glanced at her father, who was smiling and nodding to her as her brother Vyss watched closely, and realized what their father intended. Vyss hurriedly rose and took Fri’il’s hand, she had been sharing his seat cushion and had served him at the beginning of the meal.

Se’and got the oddest feeling that the staff was somehow focusing on her, staring at her curiously. It also twinkled, as if to wink at her.

George glanced at the staff, paled a bit, then took a rather large gulp of wine before hastily rising.

“Uh, you’ll have to excuse us.”

“Us?” she muttered as he marched off with his mage staff.

Vyss had no sooner gone out of the tent with Fri’il, than George, clutching his staff hurried out. Vyss heard Je’orj muttering, “You could have warned me!”

Fri’il and Vyss exchanged light glances as George, seemingly chastising himself, passed. Fri’il pensively beheld Vyss.

“Are you alright, Vyss?” Fri’il asked, worried.

“I’m fine. Father’s got to be planning to bond Se’and to him,” he said, ignoring Fri’il’s concerns for his health.

“What?”

“It makes sense, he saved my life.”

“Yes, but making Je’orj an honorary Lord of Cathart is likely something out of the old stories about Lord Kyrr.”

The conversation paused as Vyss looked upon his wife with the same look of concern she had given to him.

“Fri’il, I know you and I haven’t—”

“Vyss, I was given to you as your wife. I knew you were sick and what was expected of me. If it were at all possible, I know we—”

“And, uh, it wasn’t, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t. But it is now, isn’t it? Do you want to, um…”

“No! That wasn’t what I brought you out here to discuss. Fri’il, it was my life Je’orj saved. I have so little to show the honor I owe him.”

Her eyes widened. “You don’t mean… oh.”

The moment was punctured by Sire Ryff shouting back at the celebration.

“Cle’or, where has our guest of honor gone?”

She gestured to a half dozen others and they hastened out.
“Se’and, did you say anything to offend him?”
“Nothing, m’lord!”

“Hmm, De’ohr!”

Balfour moved to slip out but a couple of black liveried women cut him off, “Please sit, M’lord. Sire Ryff wishes to express his thanks to you and your companion.”

Me’oh came back with dessert as the elfblood hesitated. She asked, “Would you join me at the table?”

“If you promise to tell me what’s going on,” he replied.

“It’ll only be a guess.”

“Lead on, then.”

De’ohr frowned at their sitting down together.
Outside, George was having his own meeting.

“Of all the–! What are your crystalline circuits using for brains, Staff?!”

‘Now, George, when in Rome…’

“Don’t give me that. Yes, she’s damn attractive, but if they think I’m going to sleep with her as—”

“Ahem, m’lord Je’orj?” a feminine voice inquired.

He turned around and saw Cle’or with a dozen of her unsmiling friends.

“If you’d be so kind as to return to the dining tent, Sire Ryff would like to express his gratitude more fully.”

‘George, don’t make a scene. They seem more annoyed than seriously threatening.’

He half whispered, “I noticed that.”

George smiled and nodded at the women, gesturing for them to lead the way, saying, “Of course.”
 

“Ah, our guest of honor has returned at last,” Sire Ryff said as he rose from his divan. “All here know of how you have saved my stricken son Vyss from death’s door. This festival meal is not enough to express our thanks. The Curse has been the bane of our people for thousands of years. Our greatest prophecy says that when a secondson has a secondson, the Curse will be forever broken. My son Vyss is the first secondson born in nearly four centuries. Your healing him, casting the evil that we could not see from him offers us the promise of the Prophecy in our generation!”

There were cheers and applause all around.

“I couldn’t have done it with Balfour here.”

“Oh yes you could have!” the elfblood quickly shouted back, glancing in shock at the herbalist Me’oh beside him, who had given him a very clear idea of what gift Sire Ryff was about to bestow. “Really, it was all his doing!”

George motioned to Balfour, “You’re too modest, my friend!”

“Not this time,” he muttered, “oh, well, no good deed goes unpunished, my father always says.” Balfour covered his eyes.

The Mother Shaman stiffened, sensing a sudden stillness all about them. She hardly dared to breathe as she felt something focusing intently. First she feared it was centered on her brother or nephew. She realized it was focused on George.

Sire Ryff said, “We must honor you both for your deeds this day. Je’orj du Bradlei, Balfour du Winome, for saving the life of Vyss, the secondson, I pronounce you lords by bond. Rise, my daughter, Se’and, greet thy lord husband, Lord Je’orj.

“Rise, my wife Me’oh, herbal healer of the People of Cathart. I free you of your charge of my life and that of my now healthy son, and bind you to these men. See to their care, learn from them and teach them, choose between them who shall cleaved to them for the remainder of their days. Cle’or, my daughter, champion of this house, I bind you as champion to their houses. Choose between them who you shall cleave to for the remainder of your days, and safeguard them always on their journey.”

There was utter silence for a moment.

“Father!” Vyss shouted from the tent’s entry, “I too would honor them for saving my life. I have but one precious offering: my wife, Fri’il, who has to this day remained only affianced, I bind to the houses by bond of Je’orj and Balfour. Beloved, first of my house, choose between them who you shall cleave to for the remainder of your days, safeguard them on their journey, and bear them strong and healthy daughters!”

His father nodded, “Such is your right. Such is the honor due. None shall contest your choice, nor my will in this!”

Every woman in the room bowed as George stood dumbfounded, then glanced at Balfour who mentally explained.

“What do you mean, married?!” he shouted.

De’ohr felt a rush of air drive her to the ground. She collapsed and heard an exultant shout as she lost consciousness.

“See to De’ohr! Fetch me the moment she wakes!” Lord Ryff ordered.

“Uh, Sire Ryff,” George said, “excuse me, but you really don’t—”

“I understand, it is no easy responsibility I give to you both, but women are very good at dealing with obstacles. Cle’or can see to their ongoing weapons training, particularly the young woman Fri’il’s. She comes from a long line of respected sword swains. My lovely daughter Se’and is strong and will bear you many healthy daughters. And with Me’oh her herbal knowledge should aid your own healing efforts nicely, Master Balfour.”

“But Sire Ryff, you don’t understand,” George protested, trying not to look at the four rather attractive women. “I’m, uh, not from around here.”

“He’s going to the Empire, Father,” Se’and said, feeling torn.

“Then this gift is a double boon to you,” Lord Ryff stated. “They can protect you.”

“I really can protect myself,” George said.

“Even a mage needs mortals to watch over them,” Ryff said.

Se’and glanced at her husband’s backside. “Hmm.”

George caught that look and seemed at a sudden loss for words. The staff twinkled.

Once back in their tent, George said, “Let’s make a break for it.”

”Gee-orj, I don’t think that’s really a goo—”

Balfour was interrupted by Se’and entering and carrying her livery in a bundle, along with her sheathed sword.

“My lord, where are you planning to sleep?”

He stared at her, searching for the right words. “Ah, I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight.”

She gave him an unreadable look, “If that is your wish.”
“Uh, no, I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, blushing.
She smiled, “I’d hoped not, m’lord, but, I’m… willing.”
Balfour coughed awkwardly as Me’oh came in with her bundle and sword. “Where you sleeping, m’lord?”
He choked.

Se’and neared George and said, “I know this is awkward, but can you help me unbutton my dress.”

“Um.”

“I’ll help with that,” Me’oh said.

George turned his back and realized he was facing a mirror. He turned to the left, facing another mirror as Se’and’s dress fell to the floor. She smiled at him in the mirror, noticing his staff was doing that strange twinkling thing again.

Outside, the Mother Shaman stood beneath the stars, speaking to the sky.

“I know you are there.”

Hmm, can’t fool you.

“What are you doing here?”

I mean no harm to you or yours.

“Who are you?”

An interested party, nothing more.

“I don’t believe you.”
Vyss, the secondson lives, isn’t that enough?
“Why are you watching Lord Je’orj?”
A
s he has helped your people this day, I believe he can help the world.

“I sense much more.”
You are wise. Know this, your House’s fate lies with his.
“That was fated from the moment he saved Vyss’s life.”
Likely longer than that. Hence a boon I would ask in both our interests.

“I make no promises to unseen creatures.”
Merely consider is all I ask. Je-orj seeks to leave our lands forever. Warn your bound kinswomen that he must not. They must do all in their power to bind him to our fates. Else, I fear, the world shall have no hope.

“You ask them to only do their duty to their newborn House.”
No, I ask they do much more than their duty – else all may be lost.

“Bal, you’re not making this any easier,” George said to his smirking friend.

“So. I’m watching, so what? You want to take down those heavy mirrors?”

“Great idea. Come help!”

“I can help with that,” Me’oh said.

“No, just get dressed for bed, we can handle this,” George said.

“We are dressed, as you call it, for bed,” Me’oh said.

“Shit,” George muttered.

“Is something wrong?” Se’and asked, standing hands on hips. “If the mirrors really bother you we’re more than happy to help move them, M’lord.”

“Just cover them up… Please,” George rasped, shutting his eyes, face flushed.
 

George and Balfour slept back to back that night. Me’oh frowned and Se’and shrugged. It made for a peculiar wedding night.

Fri’il said hesitantly, “Which one should I, uh…”

Cle’or said, “Does it matter? Try either one out, then the other. That’s what they did in the old stories anyway.”

George rolled over with a groan, feigning sleep. He found himself facing his loudly snoring friend. Staff laughed.

“Stop it!” George mumbled.

There was a rustling.

Se’and peered down at him, “Something wrong?”

He squeezed his eyes tight shut. “Nothing, bad dream.”

She paused then bent and kissed his cheek, “Good night, husband. We’ll leave at first light.”

“Good.” It couldn’t come soon enough for him. Se’and left him in peace.

More rustling, a kiss on the cheek, “Good night, m’lord.”

More rustling.

‘This is going to be a long night, isn’t it, George?’

A light whisper, “Good night, m’lord.”

Later, more rustling as someone lay down beside George.

“Hey,” George said in surprise.

Se’and said, “I’m cold… Just cold.”

“Oh.”

‘Is she cute or what, George?’

Mass rustling. Balfour woke, “Hmm… Mmmm, Cle’or?”

“Just, uh, cold, m’lord.”

There was giggling.

It made for a hell of a long night.