Messenger of the Dark Prophet (The Bowl of Souls: Book Two) (52 page)

Lenny chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’ll be done soon and one scoop of my stew will start a fire in you that’ll burn from the tips of
yer
toes to the ends of the hair on
yer
head. There ain’t been a winter day yet that could overcome Lenui
Firegobbler’s
pepperbean stew!”

Just then Zambon ran up to the fire. “I found the remains of a trail about three hours old in the snow ahead. Something must have slowed them down during the storm. From the signs I saw, there are six men on foot and a wagon pulled by four horses.”

Lenny slapped his knee. “Ha! That’s the first bit of good news we’ve had! It’s a good thing you found it, son. The elf was
makin
’ me feel a bit down in the beard if you know what I’m
sayin
’.”

Qyxal shook his head. “I don’t know. Gwyrtha is still acting about the same as she has since the night they took him out of the city.”

Lenny scowled. “See what I mean? Ain’t the elves supposed to be jolly people,
singin
’ and
dancin
’ in the trees and all?
This’un
ain’t sung a single song this whole trip!” Usually Lenny respected elves without reservation, but his concern about Justan and Qyxal’s attitude towards dwarves had rubbed him the wrong way.

“My sect is not like other elves,” Qyxal snapped. “I’ll sing a song the minute you pull out a pickax and start digging a mine shaft!” Before Lenny could respond, Zambon raised a hand.

“Please calm down both of you. This isn’t the time to be arguing. We need to solidify our plans. If we can keep up the pace we have been making, we should catch up to the men who left those tracks tomorrow.”

“I don’t think that Justan is with them,” Qyxal said.

“Where in the hell else would he be?” Lenny barked. “Gwyrtha let us know the minute the
boy’d
been taken
outta
the town. We been
trackin
’ ‘
em
fer
three days now and with the pace we’ve been
makin
’ no one else could be in front of us!”

“But it doesn’t make sense!” Qyxal retorted. “When we started out the trail was already old. They couldn’t have been able to get that far ahead of us. The more I think about it, the more I think that there is more to it then we are seeing. My biggest concern is the fact that Justan hasn’t tried to communicate to us through Gwyrtha again since that first night. To tell you the truth, I think that there may be magic involved.”

Zambon sighed. “It doesn’t matter who these people in front of us are. Even if Justan isn’t with them, the men who have Justan may have passed them on the road. At the very least they may be able to give us some answers.”

“
Durn
right,” Lenny said just as Gwyrtha let out a particularly loud yowl.
“Gall-
durn
it, Gwyrtha!
Stop that
yollerin
’. We can’t save the boy if you give us away!” He turned back to Zambon. “I swear
,
rogue horses are usually smarter than this. Can't the elf just put her to sleep or
someth
-?”

Lenny didn't get to finish his sentence. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground looking up into Gwyrtha’s sharp teeth mere inches from his face. She stood over the dwarf with one clawed foot on his chest.  Her growl was a throaty rumble. Qyxal rushed over and began whispering in her ear to calm her, but Gwyrtha ignored the elf and pressed down a little harder.

Lenny looked away from her teeth and into her eyes. There he saw a level of intelligence and understanding that surprised him. Not only was she worried for Justan, but she also understood that he had slighted her.

“
Dag
-blast it, I . . . I'm sorry, girl.” The dwarf ignored the pressure on his chest. “I'm worried about him too.” Gwyrtha's only response was a snort. She turned away and moved to the edge of the firelight, staring into the trees silently.

“What was that about?” Zambon asked.

“She wanted to make sure that they had an understanding,” Qyxal said and joined Gwyrtha, whispering to her gently in the elven tongue.

Lenny slowly got to his feet and brushed the snow off of his winter traveling clothes. He didn't say anything, but stood quietly instead, absently stroking his mustache as he stared into the small fire.

The minutes stretched out and Zambon shook his head. Before, the camp had been too loud for Zambon's tastes with Gwyrtha’s constant growling while Lenny argued with Qyxal or just complained in general. Now it seemed too quiet. He leaned over the fire. The spicy smells coming from the dwarf's cook pot made his mouth water.

“Is it done?” he asked.

“Sure, son.
Grab
yerself
a bowl.” The dwarf waived absently at the pot. Zambon pulled a small metal bowl out of the dwarf’s pack and ladled some of the thick mixture into it.

“You know, the last time I had this was back on the road from the academy to the
Mage
School
and I have been craving it ever since.” The dwarf grunted but didn’t say anything. Zambon took a bite and gasped. Tears began to stream from his eyes.
“
Glyfstag
!
This is much hotter then I remembered!”

Lenny laughed.
“
Yer
darn
tootin
!
This is my winter brew. I added in some of my pepperbean wine to enhance the heat. Just you
wait,
it’ll keep you warm all night! The only downside is you’ll be
findin
’ the bushes in the
mornin
’!” He paused and looked at the academy graduate curiously. “Say, where’d you learn orc curses
? '
Glyfstag
' is a particularly nasty one. 'Course, all orc curses are pretty
durn
nasty.”

Zambon coughed and sputtered as he explained. “My father used to use them every once in a while. My mother didn’t like him swearing and I think he figured that if she didn’t know what it meant, she couldn’t get mad at him.” 

The dwarf patted Zambon on the back. “Feels better now, don’t it?” Lenny asked with a wink.

The burning in his mouth was still unbearable, but to Zambon’s surprise, the dwarf was right. The heat flooded from his stomach and traveled throughout his body, pushing the tendrils of cold away. He even began to sweat.

“Actually it does. Thank you.”

The dwarf nodded and began to stare into the fire again, the grin slowly leaving his face.  “Say, uh.
Whaddya
think the chances are that
this’s
the group that took the boy?”

Zambon shrugged. “I think that Qyxal may be right. There’s no way for us to know until we catch up to them, though.” Lenny slowly nodded and began to twist his mustache over and over with one thick finger. Zambon cleared his throat. He hadn’t dared to take another bite of the stew yet.

“Hey, why don’t you take a bowl of this fine stew over to Qyxal? He seemed pretty excited to try it when Justan told him about it on the way to Dremald.”

“Really?”
The dwarf looked at him with one bushy eyebrow raised. “Well there ain’t no sense in
makin
’ him wait, now is there?”

Zambon watched with quiet amazement as Qyxal accepted the bowl of stew from the dwarf with a smile. The elf devoured the bowl with rapture and asked for more, quite to Lenny’s delight. The dwarf slapped the elf on the back and went to bring him another bowl. Zambon shook his head and grinned. Perhaps they could rescue Justan without tearing themselves apart first.

They caught only a few hours of sleep that night, though with the help of the dwarf’s stew it was the best rest they had taken so far. Before the light of the sun reached over the horizon, they were up following the trail of their quarry. They moved quickly and it looked like they were going to catch up to the men they hunted, but they ran into a snag.

“They’re gone!” Zambon said.

The trail ended abruptly in the middle of the road. The tracks stopped as if a line had been drawn in the snow.

Lenny stuck his head out the door of the deserted wagon. “The
dag
-blasted thing's empty!” He trotted over to join Zambon and Qyxal, who were examining the tracks for any sign of what had happened.
“Magic?”

Qyxal nodded. “There are heavy traces of magic right where the tracks disappear. Intense
interweavings
of water and fire.”

“So what happened?” Zambon asked.

“It shouldn't be possible, but I think a gateway was opened.” The elf wiped a brow that had broken out in a cold sweat. “They were transported away.”

“Bah! That can't be done.” Lenny huffed. “I've known lots of wizards in my time and
they ain't never done
nothin
' like that
.”

Qyxal shook his head. “Transport is possible. At the
Mage
School
they have created large mirrors that act as portals to take someone across great distances. But those devices only allow travel from one mirror to another one made to match it. This magic is completely different. It would take a huge amount of power to transport just one person this way, much less six men and horses. It's inefficient.”

 “Nevertheless, it was done,” Zambon said. “So what do we do now?”

“Well we still
gotta
' find the boy!” The dwarf said. They looked to Gwyrtha. She stood as she had during their entire journey, staring straight ahead as if she could see something on the distant horizon.

“I for one will go on,” Qyxal pronounced. “I intend to find him even if it means I have to face the wizard that made this portal. Besides, I doubt Gwyrtha would let me do anything else.” Zambon and Lenny nodded in response.

“Okay, so we follow the rogue horse’s lead.” Lenny said. “I just hope the
boy’ll
stay
alive
long enough
fer
us to find him.”

*                      *                      *

It was always dark in Justan's cell. He had no way to know what time of day it was. Time crept by agonizingly slow. At first he tried to sleep, but the stench of the place was too overwhelming and he had to do something to keep his mind off of it.

He tried to pass the time exercising. He ran in place for a while hunched over with his head touching the ceiling, but the rough rock floor was painful on his feet so he switched to push-ups and sit-ups. With the stamina given him by his bond with Gwyrtha he was able to exercise for quite a while without collapsing with exhaustion. However, he had not eaten since before his capture and he could only work out for so long before lack of sleep and lack of food and water caused his body to shut down.

He collapsed on the wooden shelf physically exhausted but his mind was wide-awake. He thought about his mother and father. What were they doing at this moment? Were they missing him? He thought about the many friends he had made since leaving the Training School. He thought about the things he had learned in the
Mage
School
. He played Elements in his head against imaginary opponents. He commanded great armies in fierce battles.

All of these thoughts were short diversions, but it wasn’t until memories of Jhonate filled his mind that he was able to calm down. When he had been with her, he hadn’t exactly seen her as a calming influence, but now that she was far away and he knew that he would most likely never see her again, it was thoughts of her that brought Justan the comfort he needed to fall asleep.

During the next few days, Justan continued to keep himself busy by exercising and sleeping. Every once in a while a bowl would be passed under his door. It was always a runny soup with sparse bits of vegetable matter and occasionally a chunk of unrecognizable meat. There was little nutrition or flavor in this meal but it was all Justan had. From time to time Justan wondered when Kenn was going to show up and gloat, but he never came.

Justan continued to try and contact Gwyrtha. She was still too far away for him to communicate with her, but he took comfort in the fact that she was coming closer. He hoped that his other friends were with her.

Eventually the oppressive weightiness of the dungeon began to get to him. As the hours crept by, Justan became more and more aware of just how hopeless his situation was. The other men in the cells around him wouldn’t talk much. Some of them had their tongues cut out, others were so weak that they could barely speak, but the stories that Justan did hear were bloodcurdling. The tales were often so bad that Justan could not make himself believe what the men were telling him.