Pilgrimage (14 page)

Caia and Roland had found a table in the corner of the restaurant and waited for Griffith in silence. The other tables sat empty. Griffith wove past the tightly packed, glossy wooden tables and chairs towards his companions. Their table was near an open fireplace. Griffith's chair scraped across the hearth when he pulled it out. Caia ran her fingers around the rim of a glass of water and Roland was half-way through a beer by the time Griffith sat.

“How did you pay—” He began.

“I did. Go ahead and get a drink, it's on me,” Caia answered. Griffith weighed the benefits of a free drink against weaving his way through the room a second time and eventually settled on the drink. He left the table and returned a few moments later with a lemonade.

“Thanks. So where were we? Oh right, the jewellery. I'm right, aren't I? There's no way you could do it without a focus.”

“Partly.” Caia extended an arm to Griffith, showing him the wooden bangles. Each one was marked with a different pattern of interlinked shapes. “The designs are the focus. This is just how I remember the patterns.”

“Hey, I've got an idea! Let's pretend one of us at this table isn't a freak and doesn't know what you're talking about.” Roland said between sips of his beer. Griffith turned and offered an apologetic smile. Roland just glared.

“I'll explain,” Griffith said. “So by now you've probably started to wonder how many stories and legends about magic are true or at least based on real sorcerers. The answer is: most of them. You know how you always see magicians with wands, witches chanting and a wizard with a big staff? Well, at one time or another, all of those stereotypes have been true, but not because any of those things are inherently powerful. Sorcerers have different tools that they use to focus themselves when casting a spell, because it's just generally easier to do that. A few can cast a spell just by thinking it and they can do it just as fast as a sorcerer with a focus. Those are the most powerful sorcerers. For them, there is no separation between their thoughts, their will and the universe. For everybody else, something to help them focus is necessary to communicate with the universe. It's like an extra step between you and the magic, as though you're not really doing it. It's symbolic, in a way, but it's still powerful.”

Caia nearly choked on her water. “Communicate with the universe? That's what you're going with?”

“Well, isn't that true?”

“Yeah, but it sounds terrible.” Caia turned to Roland. “Look, when Nancy-Boy here talks about communicating with the universe, he doesn't mean it in the new age, hippy, communion with Mother Earth kind of way. It's not an open dialogue. With magic, Mother Earth is your bitch and, if you say something is going to be on fire, then it damn-well lights up. If Mother Earth has a problem with that, she can man up and take it.”

Griffith pouted.

“I get it,” said Roland. “So you focus on shapes?”

“Yes. Each curve or point or link in these patterns is part of the language I use to channel my will. A language only I can read. It's like...” Caia paused to think. “Have you ever gotten so absorbed by what you're doing that there was nothing else in the world but you and your thoughts and whatever you're doing?”

Roland didn't answer.

“Well, that's the frame of mind you need to be in. By reading the spells on my bangles, my necklace or braided in my hair, I can cast the same spell again and again.”

“In your hair? Really?” Griffith stared at the braids in Caia's hair, leaning uncomfortably close until she pushed him back.

“Yes my hair. The drawback to all this is that the patterns are hard to remember so I have to have them written down somewhere.”

“So are all your spells written somewhere on your clothes?” Roland asked.

“No. Some spells I've cast so many times that it's almost a second nature. I can just see the formula in my mind.”

“And each pattern you're wearing is one focus for one spell?”

“Correct.”

“What about this?” Roland took off his stolen ring and placed it on the table. “Where does this fit into everything?”

“Unlike a focus, your ring is inherently powerful,” Griffith answered. “Somebody, probably Pentdragon, has put magic into that ring. It's just a little bit and it only does one thing, but inside that jewel is raw magical energy. That's why it will continue to work forever, as long as it's there, because it's like the ring is casting the spell.”

“So it's not a focus?”

“Nope. Think of it as a small, artificial sorcerer who knows one spell.”

“Or like a Weird? That kind of energy?”

“Yep.”

“I don't get it. Where does this energy come from?” Roland's question was followed by a long, uncomfortable silence. Griffith eventually broke it to answer, timidly:

“I'm not sure. I don't know if anybody is sure. Magic just seems to have this presence in things. It's like a spirit or electricity. Somehow people's emotions and their will act to generate it. Some people make more; that's why magic comes easier to some than others. That's why it seems like magic is stronger when particular people use it. I'm not sure if it's in the blood, or in the mind or maybe in your soul. I just know that it's there. Sometimes you hear legends that people have lost their magic by giving it up or having it taken out of them. I've heard stories of people absorbing that raw power and becoming incredibly powerful in a short burst, as if they were supercharged by it or something.”

“So could you absorb the magic from this?”

“Maybe. I don't know how. Things with magic in them tend to explode if you break them. I wouldn't know how to absorb the energy.”

“Explode?”

“Yeah. It's amazing how many big accidents happen that way. Even small magic things make pretty big booms.”

“I'm getting another drink.” Roland left the table abruptly and made his way to the bar.

“That's a lot for a guy to process,” said Caia.

“Yeah. But it seems like Roland can handle anything.”

“Most people, when they find out, are either jealous or depressed that everything they thought about the universe is wrong.”

“They're not wrong. There's just more to it than what they thought.”

Caia looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, the other way people react is to want something from you. Has he asked about God, yet? It's always God.”

“No.” Roland's arrival back at the table was a sudden and forceful as his departure. “Why, do you know something the rest of us don't?”

“I don't believe in him.” Caia's answer was almost as curt.

“Roland, you asked how Caia managed to follow us from Pentdragon.” Griffith desperately steered the conversation away from religion. There was nothing good in that conversation.

“I wasn't following you. I overheard Pentdragon's men talking – they said they were going to grab two sorcerers who had broken his laws. I thought I'd ruin his plans but they beat me to your motel. I stopped following you after that, but fate decided we should meet again at the farm and then on the road today.”

“So it was a coincidence?” Griffith asked.

“I didn't say that. Once Pentdragon had you I knew there was nothing I could do. So I kept travelling north like I was originally doing. I was surprised when I picked up your scent again. I thought Pentdragon would have killed you.”

“He tried.” said Roland. “We escaped before he could.”

“Good. I hope you did a little more than steal his ring on your way out.”

“You don't sound like a happy subject of the kingdom.” Griffith said.

“There's no kingdom,” Caia scoffed. “Pentdragon is just some guy who let a lot of power go to his head. All his so-called subjects and servants are either his friends or people he's bullied into submission. Anybody with any sense just ignores him. Pentdragon isn't even his real name. He named himself after King Arthur's father – except he couldn't even get that right.”

“What do you mean?” Griffith asked.

“King Arthur's father was Uther
Pendragon
. There was no T.” Caia answered. Roland laughed and downed the rest of his second beer.

“Well that makes me feel a whole lot better.” Griffith breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. Pentdragon didn't seem so threatening any more. Then he asked: “Why were you travelling north, anyway?”

“I was looking for somebody.”

“Who?”

“You remember that car? The one smashed up on the highway? I'm looking for the one who did that.”

“You mean a person did that?”

“Not a person. Not any more. For a little while, he was my apprentice. I was teaching him the transformation spells but he got cocky and tried to go too far, too soon. Not only did the transformation spell go wrong but he couldn't undo it. Now he's running around wild, constantly angry and terrified. I have to stop him before they do too much damage.”

“Why bother? You could leave him be,” Roland suggested with a smirk. “Let him become a local urban legend. It'd bring the tourists.”

Caia gave him a disapproving glance.

“I think he already is,” Griffith added.

The others looked at him, waiting for an explanation.

“There's a flyer over by the door. The Blair Hill Beast Nature Walk. You go walking around Blair Hill and Warra State Forest looking for a legendary monster.”

“There you go!” Roland said. “Why not leave it at that? The locals can have their fun and turn a profit on it.”

“Right up until the tourists start getting eaten and he started doing to the towns what he did to that car,” Caia said. A vision of the enormous, black creature stomping around outside Thomas' farm appeared in Griffith's mind.

He slammed his hand on the table. “We can't let that happen!”

The conversation came to an awkward halt. Even the barman turned to stare at him. Roland rolled his eyes and left the table, heading for the bar.

“You want another drink?” Caia asked Griffith, as she watched Roland approach the bar.

“No, I'm still going on the first one.”

“Suit yourself. Roland, bring me another water!” She called. Roland waved in acknowledgement from the other side of the room.

“Do you know where your apprentice is?” Griffith asked.

“I tracked him to the farm but he ran north. He seems to come to this area whenever he senses danger.”

“Shouldn't we be out looking for him now, then? Before somebody gets hurt?”

“First of all, there's no we. You shouldn't get involved. This is
my
responsibility. Secondly, I'll catch up to him eventually. I'm in no hurry. Third, I'm not going hunting for a monster in the dark. That's stupid.”

“He does sound dangerous.” Griffith stared into his drink. He took in all the details and came to a decision. He'd found somebody who needed help and that's exactly what he was going to give her.

“What did I miss?” Roland set the drinks on the table and pulled out his chair. As soon as he was seated, he raised his glass and started drinking again. Griffith filled him in, then asked:

“We'll help her find him, won't we, Roland?” Another uncomfortable silence stalled the conversation. Roland was the first to speak, after a long sip of his beer.

“Aren't we a little busy?”

“Salem isn't going anywhere. And this is our chance to help somebody on the way. That's the plan, remember? Besides, Caia is paying for your drinks, so you owe her.”

“I thought she owed us for helping her at the farm.”

“I remember me helping her on the farm. And she only needed help because you shot her. That makes
us
even, but
you
still owe her for your drinks.”

Roland and Griffith stared each other down. Roland narrowed his eyes into a frown. Griffith never stopped smiling.

“Griffith, If you think I'm going to go looking for a fight with some car crunching, over-sized, psychotic sorcerer...”

“Yes?”

“Then you'd better get me another drink.” Roland leaned back and downed the last half of his beer in one long swig.

Chapter 10

They spent the night at the Red Lion Tavern. The next morning they set out eastward in a cold silence. Caia didn't protest Griffith and Roland following her but she didn't pretend to be happy they were there.

At the edge of the town Roland took a long look back at the Red Lion Tavern and the highway, sighed and accepted his fate. He remembered that somewhere, back near Armidale, the journey looked so simple. All they had to do was walk north for a while, stay in cheap motels or maybe do some camping and ask an old sorcerer to teach Griffith a few new tricks. Bam. Finished. Done. Sure, things might get rough and they might get a little cold but all they had to do was keep walking. Now they were hunting monsters, armed only with... with...

“So what are we supposed to do when we find him?” Roland asked.

“We find some way to help him change back, obviously.” Griffith answered. “We'll have to restrain him somehow but we'll figure that out.”

“This is sounding almost as stupid as your last plan.” Roland said. Caia didn't add an opinion. She walked in silence until the town started to roll beneath the horizon. Patches of old trees lined the road around them. Thick bushland stood only a few hundred metres away. They cast long shadows in the morning sun.