The Tessellation Saga. Book Two. 'The One' (5 page)

The whole of
the lower half of his body was on fire and Jed could almost feel
himself swelling up. A vision of his swollen body stuck inside the
bole of the dead tree for all eternity struck him as incredibly
funny and it was all he could do not to burst into laughter. The
poison and the tense situation outside of Jed’s little world began
to take its toll as he began to hallucinate. A memory from
childhood, as real now as it was then, jumped into his mind. Sonal;
standing beside an ant mound with himself and Gideon sitting as
pupils on a stump not unlike the one he was stuck in.

‘The fire ant
venom is particularly nasty,’ Sonal was saying, ‘though it does
have certain medicinal qualities as well as being a deadly poison,
the ants won’t try to attack a face for example, but, if exposed
and the ants feel threatened, well, they
will
attack there
too.’ The vision disappeared,
well that’s handy ter know,
Jed thought wryly,
the poison will kill me but I’ll be ‘ealthy
when I die…,
he stifled frightened laughter as the as the ants
found his neck and face and he closed his lips tightly. He could
not move overmuch for fear of alerting the soldiers to his hiding
place so using his shirtsleeve; he tried unsuccessfully to prevent
the ants from climbing up his nose. Finally, both unable to move or
to breath he lost consciousness and laid still.

Dotty watched
the soldiers ride away into the distance but she continued to wring
her hands and plead, falling to her knees as the column became lost
to view. She remained where she was for a moment or two before
picking herself up and rushing over to her collapsed son.

‘They’ve gone
Lems!’ She said, smiling at the red-faced ‘boy’ who looked up at
her from her prone position on the ground. Lemba smiled in return
and jumped up turning toward where their travelling companions were
hiding. Rhoàld, oblivious of their near disaster was still fast
asleep recovering from Gath’s attack in the back of the cart and
neither Jed nor Varan could be seen anywhere.
‘Varan, they’ve
gone,’
Dotty sent out with her mind. As if in answer, the air
around the copse began to shimmer and the hollow log suddenly
shattered into pieces. Varan, visible once more collapsed exhausted
into the dirt.

‘Where is Jed?’
Lemba asked, flashing her fingers at Dotty as she helped the old
wizard to his feet and Varan, looking around at the shattered tree
took a deep breath. The bark of the tree had become as dry and as
brittle as the pile of dead fire ants inside it. Rushing to the
remains of the tree, he called quietly to Dotty.

‘Help me; we
don’t have much time...’ Dotty watched as Varan began to dig in the
pile,

‘What the…’ she
exclaimed as he brushed some of the dead insects aside revealing
Jed, his face and hands swollen with his mouth, nose and ears full
of brittle copper coloured ants, then as Varan started to pull at
his lifeless body they fell from his clothing in torrents. On
reaching clear ground, Varan pressed his fingers to Jed’s neck.

‘His heart
still beats; he has not as yet begun his journey but he’s not
breathing…’ Varan began, hastily clearing his airways of
obstruction using magic; the air around them grew perceptibly
cooler as the balance took hold. Life briefly seemed to return to
the bugs as unseen forces removed them, pulling them from Jed’s
throat and lungs attempting to leave his airways clear.

Jed watched
from the ether dispassionately as Varan knelt over his dying body,
pinched his nose, opened his mouth and blew gently, he looked with
yearning toward the golden gateway in the distance and the start of
his Journey into the afterlife.

‘
You must go
back,’
he heard and turning around he saw an insubstantial mass
floating next to him in the ether,
‘you must go back,’
he
heard again as the mass took form and shape. A beautiful but sad
looking young man stood before him, Jed wondered at his sadness
before noticing a line stretching from his form, down to the earth
below and straight into Rhoàld still lying in the cart.
‘He
sleeps…,’
the young man said,
‘your Journey does not begin
here, you are needed still, go back.’
Jed opened his mouth to
reply and coughed, his belly convulsed showering both himself and
Varan in yet more of the copper red ants that had filled his lungs
and stomach.

‘He will live
but he is very ill.’ Varan said as he took a knife from his
clothing and opening his hand immediately sliced through his palm,
the blood welled up thick and red. Dotty held open Jed’s hand as
Varan, taking his now bloody knife sliced Jed’s palm then holding
the young man’s hand in his own, Varan’s blood seemed to flow
directly into Jed’s open wound. Varan placed his undamaged hand on
Jed’s head and held it there.

‘I am sorry my
boy,’ he said as he began to sing, as he sang, Dotty quickly
removed all of Jed’s clothing, attempting to rid him of the now
dead ants that had inflicted such grievous injuries. Varan’s blood
poured into Jed infusing him with life and strength as it raced
around his body expelling the poisons and calming inflamed and
swollen tissues. Frightened, Lemba stared at Jed with tears running
down her face and as she watched, moisture began to gather on his
skin, a clear colourless liquid pushing out of his pores. He was
soaking wet and covered in the poison.

‘Lemba, get my
pack for me please, hurry now child,’ said Dotty as the flow of
vile toxins began to slow. The instant Lemba returned with the
pack, her sister began collecting some of the liquid from Jed’s
skin into a small glass phial as Lemba squatted next to him and
took his hand in hers. As the toxins left his body he began to
stir, the swellings continued to go down and a normal healthy
colour returned to his skin. Varan, noticing the change in the boy
altered the song of the spell and the blood that had been flowing
copiously from his wound into Jed’s own, finally slowed and
stopped. Varan continued to sing as the wounds on both palms began
to heal, knitting together slowly and carefully from inside out,
the sliced skin and tissue joined and melded then lastly, the top
layer of skin joined leaving only a thin white scar. At last, Jed
opened his eyes to find everyone bar Rhoàld sitting around him on
the ground.

‘Careful,’ he
croaked, ‘there be fire-ants round ’ere,’ he looked at Lemba, her
face and neck covered in red stuff, her beautiful silver hair
hidden and covered in dirt and ash and he smiled, he loved her
dearly and suddenly wished they were alone.

‘Harrumph…careful young man,’ began a very tired Varan, ‘your
thoughts are, um…, on show.’ He winked and laughed as he tossed the
now ant free trews across Jed’s growing erection. Embarrassed
beyond words Jed sat up quickly and hurriedly replaced his trousers
as Lemba smiled shyly and walked away.

‘We must hurry
now,’ began Varan, ‘Gath will have felt the magic being used for
the healing. This type of blood magic has a very strong signature;
we must make for the water, which, I believe is over the next
rise.’ Varan strolled through the grass bending down only to pick
up a brace of dead partridges,
ahhh, Dinner,
he thought as
he passed the cart tossed the birds in the back and went to
retrieve his horse, leaving Dotty alone with the now semi-naked
young man.

‘He brought you
back from the veil of death young man,’ she said her eyes following
the wizard as he climbed upon his horse and began to walk away.
‘Finish dressing quickly, we must go,’ she added as she hurriedly
rose and made her way back to her position on the cart. As Jed
dressed, he stood and brushed the dust from his clothes and hands.
Something feels wrong,
he thought as he looked over as much
as he could of his body and clothing, lastly looking at both of his
hands. Both palms now held identical white scars. One old and one
very, very new,
death,
he thought,
she said I’d been
dead
. All at once, the memory of the ants stinging and biting
came back to him, how he had felt the ants crawling up his body and
into his ears and nose. He had not been able to breath and had
swallowed what seemed like hundreds of the things as he had fought
for breath. He remembered being somewhere else too, being out of
his body and looking down as Varan worked feverishly on the
swollen, red and lifeless form far below him. He remembered seeing
the great gateway, thinking he was about to start his Journey and
how the beautiful young man had come to him, had helped him to see
it was not his time.

Jed lowered his
palms and looked after the members of his small company fifty yards
ahead of him. When they were safe once more, he would find out what
had happened to the soldiers, why his hands were both scarred, why
Lemba’s face was covered in red stuff and finally, he would demand
to be told what was going on.

Toby looked at
the body lying on the floor of the Green Home Inn, Beatrix Drunner
was dead, killed in a fit of frustrated fury when Toby realised she
was on her monthly cycle, the sight of the menstrual blood had just
angered and frustrated him further.

‘Dirty bleedin’
‘oare!’ He had exclaimed, looking at his bloody hand after pulling
it from her underclothing, ‘yer dirty bleedin’ ‘oare...’ he had
shouted again as he knelt over her terrified form. His anger
fuelled, he grabbed her shoulders and banged her head against the
floor, shouting obscenities like a mantra. Bea’s skull cracked
open, leaving blood and gore oozing across the boards just as his
seed spilled into his trews and he smiled as he stood to avoid
getting blood on his clothing. The girl’s semi-naked body lay
unblinking in a pool of blood and urine and Toby’s disappointment
at the failure to capture Gideon and subdue Mayan lay sated for a
while.

‘I didn’t mean
fer yer ter die, Bea,’ he said adding, ‘but yer did it fer me
anyway…’ the door to the inn opened and a guard walked in stomping
loudly on the wooden floorboards.

‘The slavers
are ready ter leave serge,’ the guard said, ‘shame about that one
though,’ he added, nodding toward Beatrix, ‘she’d ‘ave fixed us a
pretty penny I’ll be bound.’ Toby turned to the guard inadvertently
standing in the pooling blood.

‘Arrange ter
meet the slavers in Devilly on our return, we ‘ead toward Branton.’
Toby commanded and looking once more at the body realised he was
standing in the rapidly congealing fluid, ‘that’s really
disgustin’,’ he said to himself as he lifted his foot and wiped the
sole of his boot against Bea’s lifeless form, then checking his
boot was free from blood, he walked out of the inn without a
backward glance.

Gideon’s father
pulled the horses to a halt in front of his parents’ cottage,
leaned in to the carriage itself and shook his son awake.

‘Gid lad, we’ve
arrived,’ he said, smiling at the sleeping form. Sonal opened his
eyes and looked closely at Gideon; he had not been able to sleep
himself knowing that something seemed wrong at the very heart of
magic, at the root from where all life begins its journey and he
was worried. He had spent his own journey going over and over all
he remembered about Gideon from their very first meeting. Fumbling
in his pocket, he retrieved the small rough diamond that had become
his lucky talisman and he remembered how he had plucked it from the
air when he had first met the boy, so many years ago and how
surprised he had been when his spell had worked so well. The
strength and power of the light spinning from the stone itself was
something that he had never seen before.
Gideon!
He thought,
all the magic and the various spells I have used over the years,
my own ability to draw repeatedly from the magic’s root, the spells
that have always appeared so much more powerful when Gideon is
around. How have I not seen it before?
He asked himself as he
looked at Jed, his best friend who was leaning forward gently,
shaking his son awake and for the first time he tried to find a
resemblance. Gideon was tall and blonde with eyes so blue, that at
times they seemed piercing, whilst his father, though also tall,
had the dark brown eyes and hair that were distinctive of the
people from the Beaut Valley. Sonal mentally shook himself, ashamed
of where his thoughts were taking him.
It is not my
business;
he told himself and gave the sleeping boy a gentle
push with his mind to awaken him. Gideon opened his eyes, his
headache still present but more bearable.

‘Sleepyhead!’
laughed Mayan as she poked her head into the carriage, ‘we’ve
arrived, Gran and Gramps are ‘ere, come and say ‘ello afore yer
fall asleep again,’ she giggled merrily at her drowsy fiancé.
Gideon’s grandparents had claimed her and her twin as their own for
as long as she could remember and she loved them dearly. ‘Yer Da’s
unloading all the new wood fer Gramps and I’m gonna see iffen ‘e’s
dun anythin’ new in the barn.’ Gideon smiled at Mayan’s departing
head as he realised he had slept through most of the last day and
for him the journey had been that much shorter.

“Ello boy, your
Da finally let yer outa yer forest an’ in ter the big wide world
eh?’ Laughed his grandfather, as Gideon climbed sleepily out of the
carriage.

‘Come over ‘ere
Gid and don’t yer be listening ter yer grandfather teasing the way
‘e do,’ his grandmother interrupted as she pulled him into a tight
embrace. ‘So, you an’ Mayan ‘ave finally decided ter marry,’ she
added winking at her son. ‘Yer do know Gid, that we all knew it
would ‘appen long ago,’ she laughed as she ushered the family into
her home.

Gideon had
never visited his grandparents’ home before; his grandfather had
built it and the adjoining barn when he had first moved away from
Green Home Village. The cottage lay on the outskirts of the town of
Branton along a well-used road and close to a large wood. Small and
compact, the cottage was not unlike his own home deep within Green
Home Forest and seemed to be just as filled with the ornately hand
carved wooden furniture that both Gideon and his father
preferred.