©1994-2001 Ian A. Ralph & Kelly C. Naylor
Chapter
II: Discovery
Children laughed and screamed as they chased one another through doorways and down alleyways. Women tended to their laundry or cooking of the day's supper. The smith and stablemaster were at their accustomed posts; the remaining men of the village tended the crops in the fields at the edge of town. The townsfolk all knew well enough not to disturb a Mage, especially one who seemed as distracted as Jehane obviously was. They all knew, that is, except one small toddler who seemed determined to reach the diminutive woman with the sparkling skirt. The child's mother realized the child had wandered into dangerous territory just as two chubby hands grasped a shiny trinket hanging from Jehane's skirt. "Deeta!!" screamed the child's mother, as the basket of laundry she had been carrying tumbled from her arms. She stood in the doorway of her cottage, paralyzed by fear, one hand covering her mouth and tears forming in her eyes. She had heard terrible stories about Mages all her life -- stories about what they did to children. Never mind that most of her new neighbors told her she was being foolish. She knew. Terror gripped her, preventing her from rescuing her daughter. The scream, coupled with the gentle tugging at her side, brought Jehane out of her reverie. As she glanced down at the smiling child, she sensed the radiating fear of the child's mother. Her fear was so strong, Jehane was certain even the un-initiated could see the mana disturbances. Indeed, many of the woman's neighbors were looking at her in exasperation. From the looks on their faces and the colors of their auras, Jehane guessed that this was not the first time the woman had displayed her irrational fears about Mages. "Naga ba ha. Maa. Ahn, ahn?" said the winsomely smiling child as she tugged harder on the small crystal on Jehane's skirt. The Mage smiled at the youngster. Judging by her uncertain footing and unique language, Jehane guessed Deeta was just over a year old. Kneeling beside the child, she examined the crystal that so fascinated the young girl. It was barely bigger than her own thumbnail, yet cast a bright glow visible only to those with Mage talent. "So, little one... you like this?" The child squealed and laughed in response, pointing to the small gem as she continued babbling in her own language. "Yes, you seem to have the Gifts," said Jehane. "And so young!" The Mage picked at the threads holding the crystal in place on her skirt. Deeta seemed to understand what she was doing, and fell on her round bottom, clapping her hands and giggling with delight. When the crystal was freed from its web, Jehane handed it to the child. "Now, you mustn't swallow this, little one," Jehane instructed the child. Looking solemnly at the Mage and shaking her head, Deeta replied, "Dee no." The child then clutched the gem in both hands under her chin. "Dee me. Me!" Jehane laughed. "Yes, Deeta, it's yours now." She raised the child onto her hip as she stood up. As she walked towards the child's mother, she could see the woman's eyes were liked those of a trapped animal -- full of fear and anger. Inwardly, Jehane sighed. There were still stories circulating throughout the world about evils perpetrated by Mages, but that's all they were. Jehane didn't understand why people actually believed the untruths. The violence and hurtful words thrown at her and her fellow Mages were all born out of ignorance and fear. She wondered why this family had moved so close to the College of Mages if they were so fearful. Perhaps it was just Fate which brought this family here -- as Deeta would surely have the talent in future years to be a Mage. Jehane brushed the thoughts aside and brought a warm smile to her face as she reached the cottage where Deeta lived. As Jehane set the child down beside her mother, the woman's paralysis eased and she reached out to grab the little girl. Her eyes, still fearful and wary, never left Jehane's face. "Good mistress, little Deeta has brightened what has been a tiring day for me, so I have given her a small gift as a token of my thanks." Jehane indicated the small gem Deeta was holding up for her mother to see. Relief flooded the woman's face when she realized her daughter was safe, and that the Mage was not angry. "They say Mages be evil and possessed of the devil," said the woman. As Jehane's eyes clouded with a look that could only be intense sadness, the woman whispered so that only her daughter and the Mage could hear. "But maybe they be wrong." She turned quickly and went back to her kitchen, pushing her young daughter ahead of her. Jehane's sigh was all but inaudible. 'Yes, they're wrong,' she thought. 'There is no more evil among the Mages than among the farmers or the merchants.' But her spirits lightened as she continued her walk home and her mind returned to the weaving mana. As Jehane entered the house she shared with Master Gunstov and his young apprentice, Reger, she noticed the unusual stillness permeating the structure. There were no sound of Reger clanking and thumping as he cleaned the workrooms; no monotonic hums emanating from the Master's room as he puttered among his papers. Although it was still early in the afternoon -- far earlier than she usually returned -- she was surprised that the Master still slept in his accustomed mid-day nap. The heavy silence dampened somewhat her cheerful mood. She glanced around the kitchen as she neatly hung her cloak on its peg near the door. The room was neat, but not spotlessly clean. Reger's cloak was missing from its place, and Jehane assumed that he had been sent on some errand by the Master before he had finished his chores. 'No doubt it was something the Master forget to tell me about before going to the market yesterday,' she mused, smiling fondly at the thought of her sometimes forgetful mentor. That certainly explained the lack of clanks and thumps, but Gunstov himself was being uncharacteristically quiet. She hated to disturb him if he was working on something, but... The young woman crossed the room in a few short steps and started down the hallway towards the room where her Master did most of his living and work. She hesitated as she passed the first set of doors; these were the doors to her room and Reger's room. Although she habitually closed her door when she left each day, the door stood ajar. Her brow creased in confusion. Reger's door, which Jehane could not recall ever seeing closed in the two years the young man had been living with them, was firmly shut. Continuing down the hall, Jehane noted that the door to the workroom on the right -- the very one she shared with Reger -- was open wide. There displayed before her was a large room that looked more like the result of some natural disaster than a space for study. She sighed. Although it was no longer her task as a Journeyman to attend to the household chores, Reger never managed to get around to cleaning the workroom. Glancing to her left at the last door in the corridor, she noted the anomaly of an open door. True, the Master did leave his door open from time to time, but it was surely more the exception than the rule. Her puzzlement increased. As she stepped into the room, her first thought was that the Master had once again lost some seemingly important -- and almost certainly tiny -- scrap of paper. Baskets were overturned, papers were strewn everywhere, bottles had been knocked from shelves, and clothes lay on the floor with abandon. Again, the young Mage sighed. It would no doubt take her and Reger working together for the better part of a day to clean up this mess. And in the corner of the room, oblivious to the chaos around him, Gunstov lay peacefully sleeping atop the blankets on his bed. Shaking her head in fond exasperation, Jehane carefully picked her way across the littered floor to the Master's side. As she reached out to shake his shoulder, however, her healer's senses alerted her to Gunstov's illness. He was not a robust man, and today his skin seemed paler than usual -- almost gray. His white hair was tangled and matted around his head, and he looked far older than his seven and a half decades. Laying her hand on his forehead, Jehane took note of the clammy coolness. She moved her hands, palms down, the length of his body. His heart was once again weakened and, more distressing, his kidneys were nearing a point of failure. While any number of the tonics she had brewed while studying with the Healers might strengthen his heart, the kidneys were well beyond her capabilities. Even the Master Healers could do little for him in his present weakened condition. Her mind raced for a solution. Of course! The Goddess Stone! Nearly three years ago, Gunstov had gained possession of a unique stone which was said to convey immense powers upon the one who could unlock its secrets. For the past three years, Gunstov had been studying the stone, slowing becoming more familiar with its properties and capabilities. If any man alive could be said to know the stone's secrets, it was Gunstov. Six months ago, when she had received her Journeyman's rank, her Master had begun to introduce Jehane to the stone. It could not actually be considered alive, yet it was far more than a mere inert chuck of rock. While she did not possess the skills or strength to fully utilize the Stone, the young woman felt certain she could use it to enhance her innate healer's abilities, at least well enough to bring the Master out of his coma. From there, the Master Healers could take over. Sparing a last worried look for her Master, Jehane cautiously made her way back across the room. When she reached the door, she stopped, suddenly indecisive. Had Reger left before the Master became ill? Or was he, even now, on his way to fetch a Healer? Shaking her head, she continued towards the stairwell beside the pantry in the kitchen. It didn't matter. Her Master needed help now, and she couldn't wait for Reger to return. Seizing the stout candle from the kitchen take, she lit it before venturing down the stairs to the storeroom. At the bottom of the stairs, she noticed that the door was unlocked. She silently admonished Reger, who seemed to be extraordinarily forgetful when it came to things like locks. Stepping into the room, the first thing Jehane noticed was the faint smell of incense and candle wax. Before she could form the thought that the storeroom should actually smell musty and dirty, a small gray rat scampered out from under a pile of crates. The rat squealed and ran across her path several times. She recognized it as the Guardian her Master had asked to watch over the storeroom. She looked around the room, trying to determined what might have disturbed the rat enough to make this attempt to communicate. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. Her brow wrinkling in worry, she bent down to speak to the rat. "Guardian," she said softly, "what is your concern?" In response, the rat began squealing louder, then tugged on the hem of her skirt with its teeth. Its red eyes seemed to glow unnaturally in the flicker from the candle. "All right, I'll follow you," she said as she stood up. The rat released her skirt and, squealing, ran to the center of the room. There it circled a small spot on the floor several times and then sat down. Dodging cobwebs and disarrayed boxes, Jehane followed the rat. It sat waiting for her, simply staring at the floor. As she knelt beside the now calm and quiet rodent, she noted that its whiskers seemed to quiver with anger. 'Surely the Guardian is not angry with me?' She inspected the spot, glancing several times at the rat who was now sitting quietly, if not patiently, beside her. "I see what you are trying to show me, Guardian, but I don't understand what it means." The rat squeaked at her in reproach. "Yes, you are probably right... no doubt I am very dense." Jehane again stood up, and continued towards the back of the room. The storeroom had never been arranged neatly, and each year new tidbits, boxes, bags and crates were added to the disarray. Although the accompanying Guardian had no problem picking its way through the mess, Jehane was less fortunate. Several times, broken crates snagged her skirt, and once she nearly slipped on a greasy substance that had found its way to the stone floor. Finally reaching the farthest shelves, she set the candle down on a small table nearby. From the top shelf, she pulled down a plain wooden box and set it beside the candle. Again her brows furrowed. 'That's odd,' she thought, 'I can't see the wardings.' The smell of incense was stronger back here, and a niggling worry began to grow in the back of her mind. Pulling a ring of keys from the pouch at her waist, she located the proper key and inserted it into the lock. Passing her hand over box and muttering a few words, she released the wards on the box. Since the wards had been tuned to both Gunstov and herself, she should have felt movement of mana as the wards parted. But she felt nothing. 'Very odd...' Turning the key, she heard a faint click. As she opened the box, her heart nearly stopped. The Goddess Stone was missing! Again, the Guardian began squealing loudly and tugging on her skirt. "Okay, okay," she said as she picked her candle up from the table. "I'm coming." She wound her way back to the center of the room, where the rat sat waiting for her. It tapped its tiny paw several times on the spot she had inspected earlier, and quietly stared at her with its bright red eyes. "That has something to do with the missing Stone, doesn't it?" The rat squeaked as if to say, "Your swift perceptions truly amaze me." Returning to the rat's side, Jehane knelt on the stone floor. Lowering the candle to within inches of the spot, she thought it looked like a couple of drops of blood. She hoped she was right in guessing that the Guardian had injured whoever had taken the Goddess Stone. She set the candle aside and sat cross-legged, arranging her skirt comfortably. Closing her eyes, she passed her hands over the spot and settled into a Healer's trance. She muttered a few words and opened to eyes to view the aura of the blood's owner. She gasped in surprise, coming immediately out of her trance. "Reger? Reger took the Goddess Stone??" The Guardian nodded once and then began nipping at her feet as she stood up, shocked. How had he done it? She had no time to ponder that right now, for the rat was once again squealing between the bites it was aiming at her ankles. She needed no special skills to understand what it was saying now. "Yes. Reger. Now get out of here and find him." Before she could begin her search for Reger and the Goddess Stone, however, Jehane had to ensure her Master's safety. She ran up the stairs, the storeroom door slamming shut behind her. Rather than take the time to return the extinguished candle to its place on the table, she shoved it into one of her pockets as she hurried to her room. The door swung open on its well-oiled hinges when she nudged it with her foot, and she moved quickly to the large chest beneath the window which held the assorted paraphernalia used by Mages in their rituals. While such props were not completely essential to the working of magic, they did allow a Mage to more easily manipulate the mana by giving the Mage's rational mind something to fixate on during spell casting. It was another part of the mind altogether that actually manipulated the unseen forces; unfortunately, many Mages found their own skepticism getting in the way of their work. The ritual objects allowed one, therefore, to convince the rational mind that it was the part actually doing the work. For a spell such as the one Jehane was contemplating, the ritual objects were no longer necessary for one of her rank. However, in her current agitated state, she didn't want to take any chances. Collecting several candles, a brass bowl and a bag of incense, Jehane rushed to Gunstov's room. His breathing seemed more labored, and his pulse was becoming weaker. She poured a small amount of the incense into the bowl, and placed it on the small table beside her Master's bed. With a thought, she ignited the incense. She then set the two blue candles beside the bowl and lit them in the same manner. She then lit the white candle in her hand from one of the other candles. She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. Then Jehane began chanting the words to the spell that would place her Master in a state of suspension. As the candle in her hand burned slowly, Jehane's Magesight revealed a cocoon of mana weaving itself around Gunstov. Bright ribbons of color wrapped themselves around the old man again and again. The chant continued until Jehane could no longer see her Master through the mana surroudning him. This carefully crafted spell could be dissolved with a single word, yet she was the only one who could speak it. She knew that several of the Master Mages could break the spell, but they would run the risk of harming Gunstov in the process. As she blew out the candles and began gathering her supplies, tears formed in her eyes. This man had been a teacher and a friend to her for the past ten years. He was the father she had never had. It was not out of any duty that she would track down the inconsiderate Reger, but out of love for Gunstov. "Master," she whispered to the comatose man, "I will find Reger and the Goddess Stone, and if I have to wring that little brat's neck with my own hands to get your stone back, I'll just have to do that." She wiped the tears from her face with the sleeve of her shirt. Gunstov had treated Reger with the same kindness he had shown Jehane -- she could not believe Reger's ungratefulness in treating the Master this way. She brushed the old man's hair back from his face before she turned to face the challenge of finding Apprentice Mage Reger. She returned her candles, incense and bowl to the chest in her room. Glancing around the room, she didn't notice anything out of place. Apparently, Reger had decided that he wasn't going to find anything useful in her room. She stepped back into the hallway, closing the door firmly behind her. She muttered the words of the show wardings spell; Reger's door was completely free of all magics. She turned the doorknob and murmured another spell as she stepped across the threshold into his room. She waited until the trace spell had sifted all evidence of Reger's aura into a sickly green trail that led out the door and through the kitchen. Slamming Reger's door behind her in anger, she followed the trail into the kitchen where the retrieved her cloak from its place by the door. As she stepped out into the late afternoon sun, Jehane activated the wards around the house and locked the door. No one but a Mage would be able to get in the house, and no Mage would enter a warded building without invitation. She followed the trail of Reger's aura as it led her back to town. For the better part of an hour, Jehane followed Reger's trail as it wound and twisted through every alleyway in the small village. Obviously, Reger had been apprehensive about being followed, but she doubted he even knew how simple it was for a Mage. As well as being forgetful, and apparently ungrateful and mean, Reger was not what one could call a good student. When she thought about how difficult even simple spells were for the young man, she had to wonder how he ever managed to learn the unwarding spell in the first place. Granted, it was only a second level spell, but Reger regularly bungled the most basic of the first level spells. 'Well, done is done,' she thought. 'I can only hope he's no better at thievery than he is at magery.' Through the worst neighborhoods and towards the riverfront Reger led her. She finally found herself in the wharf area. Buildings were packed close together -- for support, it seemed, as none of them were well built. Most of them were storehouses for the river trade, but there were brothels and taverns interspersed among them. The streets in this part of town were not paved, and most days they were little more than wide mud puddles. The weather lately had been fairly dry, so Jehane was able to avoid most of the mud. The wharves themselves were behind the row of buildings that flanked the street, and Jehane didn't need to see them to know they were there. The stench of garbage and rotting fish wafted along the slight breeze. Reger's trail led to a rickety building that boasted of being a tavern. Jehane was unsure how anything that unstable could still be standing. But unless Reger had slipped out the back towards the wharves, he was definitely in this hovel. Raising her hood over her head, Jehane took a deep breath to steel her nerves. She regretted it almost immediately as the smell burned her throat. Refusing to be daunted, she pushed open the tavern door and stepped into the dimly lit room. The patrons paid her no attention, and the bartender merely glared at her. Spotting Reger near the smoking fireplace talking with a tall figure in a hooded black cloak, she made her way to the nearest corner. The table was filthy and the bench was no better, but Jehane figured she couldn't be terribly picky at this point. Cringing slightly, she sat down with her back to the wall, and listened carefully to the conversation Reger was having with the stranger. She could only make out parts of the dialogue, but did manage to learn that the stranger was a member of the Thieves Guild and was being hired by Reger to accompany him on a journey. 'Now, why would you hire a Thief to be a guide?' Jehane wondered. Then she heard a name that froze her blood -- Gretmak. Was Reger proposing to pass the Stone into Gretmak's talons? No wonder he wanted a Thief along -- they could become wealthy with just a few of the baubles from Gretmak's lair. It was common knowledge, among the Mages at least, that Gretmak had been dormant for many years now. Reger didn't seem to be letting on to the Thief that he was also passing a talisman to the dragon. Whatever machinations Reger was planning, it would most definitely be a bad idea to allow a talisman of the Goddess Stone's power into the talons of a dragon. Dragons simply could not be trusted. Reger and the Thief had obviously concluded their conversation and casually sauntered out the front door. As he passed, Jehane could sense the greed and malicious delight that Reger was feeling. A burning anger suffused her, and Jehane could feel her arms quivering with the suppressed rage. As the door closed behind them, she muttered, "Your life is mine, Reger. You shall pay for this day's deceit. I swear this by all the Gods." For a time, Jehane simply sat in the dark corner. The bartender had apparently forgotten her presence, and she was left alone. With a Thief as a companion, Jehane knew she'd never be able to get close enough to Reger on her own to retrieve the Stone. She was going to need help. Her eyes roved the interior of the tavern as she thought her way through the situation. The bartender was loudly arguing with a drunken patron at the bar. A couple of wharf workers sat in sullen silence with their tankards of ale. In the corner, a handsome young man sat entertaining his delightfully proportioned dinner companion, who sat across from him watching him doing magic tricks. It wasn't until she looked at the young man a second time, and the fact that he was an Elf registered, that she realized the Gods were not totally malicious. As she left her seat in the corner, she pushed her hood from her head, then inspected the back of her cloak where she had been sitting on it. It seemed none the worse for wear. As she approached the table where the young couple sat, she heard feminine giggling and a voice she had come to know quite well. She found herself actually feeling happy to see the young man. Neither of them notice her until she slid onto the bench beside the Elf, and smiled warmly at both of them. "Hello, Timor. It's so good to see you again, my friend."
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