The Second Prophecy (Part 1 of the Dragdani Prophecies) (38 page)

“
Tell me you
both saw that, or you better check me into the nearest nut house,”
said Peter sarcastically, but at the same time his jest was
dark.

“Her face changed,” said Jert fearfully.

“
Yes, I saw
too,” said the innkeeper.

This new
expression was different then before, for the smile seemed warm and
caring and completely different than the girl who sat there seconds
earlier. In seeing her now, Peter felt relief run through him. And
in that short time, he even thought he knew her from somewhere. In
fact, he felt he knew very well, but from where?

“
Damn, it’s
on the tip of my tongue,” he said to himself.

“
What’s on
the tip of your tongue?” asked Euol curiously.

“
Nothing,”
said the boy defensively, “nothing important.”

“
I don’t know
about the two of you, but I can’t stay in this room a moment longer
with them staring at me,” said Jert, who was almost fully recovered
from the terrible shock of seeing two of most ruthless people their
world had ever known.

“
I’ll get rid
of it,” said Euol. He lifted his wand to face the
portrait.

“
No,” said
Peter, “not yet. You can do it later. I feel the same as Jert. I
want to get out for a while, too.” The boy was hoping to get
another good look at the girl to try and figure out if he did know
her or not, even if the whole thing did completely freak him
out.

“
Fine,” said
the innkeeper, “I’ll do it tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

“
Yeah, that’s
fine,” said Peter sounding satisfied.

Chapter Sixteen

The
three friends went down again to the main room
of the establishment, where the people who had at first given Peter
the darkest and most distrustful looks they could muster were
playing music, laughing, dancing, and singing their happy hearts
out.

“
You see,
they’re not that bad. It really is amazing how things change when
you get drunk, isn’t it,” laughed Euol.

The other two
laughed as they descended the last steps to reach the
floor.

“
Yes. Their
bark’s worse than their bite. I only wish I could say their dirty
stares were worse than their singing,” Jert whispered. “And I’m
afraid I’m not much better, worse maybe.”

“
Yeah, that
sounds about right,” the innkeeper chuckled.

Peter laughed.

Jert said
nothing; he just smiled, though Euol knew that Jert was less than
happy, for the farmer liked telling jokes but hated being the butt
of one.

They joined
in on the party, which is usually a daily thing. The two Wizards
even started a few songs, and Peter tried his best to sing along
with the rest, and to do that, he had to leave a one-second
delay.

Tired and all
sung out, the three friends found the darkest and most secluded
booth at the top right-hand corner of the room. They needed
privacy. The last thing they wanted was for anyone to overhear them
talking about Wizards, although no matter how private it was, it
was still a big risk.

They were
sure that no one would be able to hear them over the racket that
everyone else was making; in fact, they could barely hear
themselves think over the bellowing and hollering of the locals’
merrymaking.

The smoke
that swirled all over the room from the pipes of punters only gave
them more cover, and they certainly did not mind. They welcomed
it.

Jert took out
a fat rectangle piece of brown paper out of his breast pocket then
unfolded it, and there in the middle of the paper was unmistakably
weed. Though it was a lighter color than Peter had seen, there was
no mistaking the smell.

“
Jert, I
don’t have a pipe. It fell out of my pocket and was crushed by a
beer barrel two days ago,” said the innkeeper as the farmer
rummaged through his pockets for his own pipe.

“
Oh no,” said
Jert, “it seems that in the rush to leave the house, I forgot to
lift mine.”

“
Never mind,”
said Euol. “Rutula usually carries a spare about with him; I’ll ask
him if we can have a loan of it. But knowing our luck, this’ll
probably be the day he hasn’t got it with him.”

“
No need,”
said Peter, taking what looked like a nut and bolt out of his
trouser pocket. “You can use mine if you want.”

The two
Wizards looked at each other. “That doesn’t look like any pipe I’ve
ever seen,” they said together.

Peter
unscrewed the head of the bolt, and when he pulled it away, there
was a mouthpiece attached to it. He unscrewed the mouthpiece and
then screwed it into the place where the head once sat. He then
turned the nut a little, and in doing so, he revealed a small hole,
which he then screwed the head of the bolt into.

When he held
it up, the others saw their doubts laid to rest.

Jert took the
pipe from Peter and set a small amount of weed in it. From a small
round vase on the table, he took a small thin strip of wood. Then
using the candle beside the container, he lit the strip and then
the weed. He took two long draws and passed it to Euol, who in turn
passed it back to Peter.

They sat
there for most of the night, the two Wizards reminiscing about the
things they used to get up to when they were kids. And they told
Peter their accounts of what happened at the battle of
Kealhal.

Halfway
through their talking, Euol’s wife and son joined them when the inn
had shed at least half of its customers.

The next week
passed quickly and quietly, and Peter knew this was the day he
would have to tell his friends whether or not he was going to the
Wiz-Wit city. He went from his room and headed down to the
bar.

“
Good
morning,” said Kireth as she was putting the chairs down from the
tables.

“Morning,” said Peter sleepily.

“
Well,
look who fell out of his
flea pit,” said the innkeeper.

“
Where’s
Braten?” asked the boy.

“
He’s out the
front putting salt on the ground,” replied the
innkeeper.

“
Snowing
again last night?”

“
The
snow that was already there
froze over. And the last thing we want is for our costumers to fall
on their arses and go sliding down the street before they get in
the door.”

“
Right.”

There was a
sort pause.

“
You know
what day it is, don’t you?” asked Euol.

“
Yeah,
it’s Braten’s birthday, and
I’ve decided to go,” replied Peter.

“Good,” said the innkeeper joyfully.

“
That’s
great,” said Kireth, a little less enthusiastically.

“
I’ll go and
tell Braten if that’s okay?” said Peter.

“
That’s
fine,” said Euol.

Peter went to leave to find his friend.

“
Drago,
you’ll need to be ready for one o’clock,” said the innkeeper’s
wife.

Euol shot a
stern look at her. “He doesn’t need to see those
things.”

“
The
y said they want everybody out
in the town square this month,” said Kireth, “and you know what’ll
happen if they find that anyone’s disobeyed.”

“
Please,
don’t tell me you believe that crap they’ve spread around,” said
the innkeeper.

“
The
y said they have two hundred
friends that’ll tear this town apart and kill everyone in it,” said
the woman fearfully.

The Wizard
laughed aloud, which instantly offended his wife.

“
If that’s
true, then tell me why those creatures only take enough food and
drink to feed only five for a month, which just happens to be the
number which comes to collect their bounty.”

“
It’s better
to play it safe when it comes to things like this.”

“
Where I come
from, they call that spineless,” said Euol.

Kireth turned on her heel and stormed out of
the room in pure fury.

“
What’s going
on?” asked Peter.

The Wizard
put out his hand toward a chair at the nearest table. Peter in his
curiosity ran over and sat on it, and the Wizard took the one
opposite.

“
One day,
five creatures came to the town looking more than a little down in
the mouth. They demanded food and drink, or they would bring two
hundred troops to destroy the town,” said the innkeeper. “But as I
said, they don’t take enough to feed ten a month, never mind two
hundred.”

“
So you think
that these things are using the town’s fear to get what they
want?”

“
Exactly, and
they’re getting all they ask for.”

“
What are
these things, or creatures, or whatever?” asked the boy.

“
The
y’re known to this world as
Ledgites or Lores. The reason for that is because that’s what they
used to be part of, folklore and legend. It’s rumored that Salith
of Dempmage had purposely opened a gateway and drawn the creatures
out into our world with promises of victory, status, titles, and
the fresh tender meat of their enemies. However, almost all of the
promises were lies, all but the promise of the meat. Their sudden
appearance shifted the balance of power, and the first armies of
the Dark Lands were spat out of hell, or so some
believed.

“
If only the
idiots of this town would realize that if they stood up to them,
all this would stop.”

“
Why don’t
the townsfolk realize what their really doing?” asked the young
King.

“
As you said,
fear,” said Euol. “But there’s something strange about their visit,
this month for they’ve never asked for everyone in the town to be
there. I really think something bad is about to happen here, Drago.
You know, you don’t have to go out there like the sheep that follow
those things.”

“
I know, but
don’t you think that we should do something?” said
Peter.

“
I was hoping
you’d say that. That’s why I asked Jert to come here before going
to the town square.”

“
Jert
believes it?”

“
Ah, no, but
Huri, like Kireth, does. He only pretends to believe to please her.
Anything for a quite life,” said the Wizard.

“
Okay, I
should go and tell Braten that I’ve decided to go to Cayer-Huld. I
just want to see the look on his face,” said Peter.

“
Well,
if you don’t mind, I’ll
call him in, cause to tell you the truth, I want to see it
myself.”

Euol called
his son in out of the cold. The boy hurried in.

“
Yes?” he
said.

“I hope you have your bags packed,” said
Peter.

“
You’ve
decided to go?” asked Braten.

“
Yeah, you do
still want to go, don’t you?” asked the King.

“
Yes, of
course,” said the innkeeper’s son excitedly.

“
We have
something to take care of before you leave,” said the boy’s
father.

“
When you say
we, I suppose you mean the two of you?” said Braten, truly hoping
that he was wrong and they could perhaps need his help, especially
if it involved the use of magic in any way, shape or
form.

“As a matter of fact, I mean the four of us,”
said the innkeeper.

“
The
four of us?” said the boy
curiously.

“
Yes myself,
Drago, you, and Jert.”

“
So I can
help you? Is there magic involved?”

“
Yes to both
questions,” said Euol. “But know that this is a serious matter, and
we’ll all need to be very careful. If the townspeople see us for
what we really are, all the others will be exposed with us, and we
have no way of knowing how they will respond to the truth. They’ll
probably try to sting us up.”

“
THEY’
LL HAVE TO CATCH US FIRST!”
shouted Braten at the top of his voice.

“Shush,” said Peter and Euol together.

“
This is
serious, Braten. We can’t fight these people; they’re our friends
and have been for years. And I, for one, can’t and
won’t.”

“
But dad,
half the townspeople are Wizards and Witches.”

“
Yes, and
they, like us, don’t want to hurt anyone. Besides, they’re all too
scared to do anything anyway.”

“
But Drago is
the King. They’ll follow him just like us,” said the boy pointing
at Peter.

Peter did not
like that idea at all, for that would only draw more attention to
him, and that was the very last thing he wanted or
needed.

“
No, you’re
dad’s right. You shouldn’t have to fight your friends; it wouldn’t
be right,” said Peter. “I’ll tell you what -”

Just then,
the door of the tavern swung open, and the three sat up straight,
as though they were just sitting quietly. They were delighted to
see Jert walking in with chattering teeth and rubbing his hands
together.