Chapter 18 Part 2

They sat the rest of the night holding each other tightly, dreading every passing moment as if the unspeakable horror that they had seen would come after them. It was not until dawn lightened the sky that they took account of their surroundings and realized that they had no idea where they were or which way led back to the village.

The sun cleared the horizon and filtered in through the trees, and finally Dylan and Cindy disengaged from holding each other. “Where are we?” she whimpered.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “East of the village I think. I’m not sure.”

“Oh Blessed Creation, that was horrible. That thing took him. It consumed him.” Cindy broke down crying again. Dylan almost lost his own composure. But he had spent the last few hours employing mental exercises to calm himself and study his situation.

“That was a witch that summoned the devil,” he mused. “She tried to cast a spell at us, but something happened.”

“You cast a spell to stop those men,” Cindy reminded him as her sobbing waned. “I thought apprentices weren’t allowed to cast spells.

“That rule seems to be only enforced at the Academy,” Dylan told her. “I’ve actually cast several spells.”

“That one last night was a good one. Did you kill those men?”

“No,” He responded. “I just put them to sleep. The witch was too powerful for me to put to sleep though.”

“Yeah,” Cindy agreed. “She seemed pretty mad, too, and when you used that light, it really got her.”

“My master taught me the sleep spell and the light was something that Coran gave me. It was an accident that it blinded her like that. But the spell was something that I’m supposed to use only when I was in danger,”

“You can’t get in much more danger than last night,” Cindy told him. “I thought that monster was going to get us.”

“Me too. Maybe it was too tired from its effort,” he offered. “Either way,” I think we’re safe.

“I won’t feel safe until we’re back with Crystal and the others,” Cindy told him.

“We may not be too safe then either,” Dylan decided regretfully. “We weren’t supposed to come out last night. I’m sure Gage is going to turn me into a frog.”

Cindy took Dylan by the hand. “If I kiss you, will you turn into a handsome prince?”

Dylan laughed. It felt good to laugh after what they had just gone through. “That might make being turned into a frog worth it,” he told her.

Cindy just looked at him for a long moment. “It kinda creeps up on you without warning doesn’t it?” she asked.

“What does?”

“Love,” she told him. “I don’t know when it happened. And I don’t know about you, but I know how I feel.” She leaned against him and put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

“I love you Dylan. You’ve been my best friend, the person who I spend my younger years with, and now I know that I never want to be without you in my life again.”

Cindy put her cheek against his chest and held tightly to him. “I hope I didn’t scare you,” she told him.

Dylan returned the affection of the embrace. “No,” he told her. “You didn’t scare me, but I wasn’t expecting it.” He sighed deeply, the fragrance of her hair brought a smile to his face. “I suppose I love you too, I just never realized it until you said it.”

He was going to say more, but her kiss interrupted his thoughts. Unlike any kiss ever before from Cindy, that kiss was full of passion and longing and reminded him, for some reason, of haystacks.

The moment was frozen in their minds and hearts for an eternity. It was the first kiss of realized mutual love, and held all the promise of the first warm breeze of a spring day.

“That was more wonderful than any kiss anyone has ever given me,” Dylan gasped when
Cindy finally released him. “I hope it wasn’t the last one.”

“Oh no,” Cindy assured him. “There’ll be many more to come. And each one’ll be better than the last.”

Dylan smiled and hugged the girl closely. Without thought, he let his hands caress her back and hair. It was a moment he wanted to last, but like all good things, it had to end eventually, and when it was over, the world seemed to have changed.

“We have to get back, you know,” Dylan decided.

“We don’t know the way,” Cindy answered. She smiled at him shyly. “And when we do find the way back, what will we tell everyone.”

“I haven’t lied to my master before, and I’m not about to start. I’ll tell him we snuck out to see the ritual.”

“No, silly,” Cindy laughed as she held his hand tightly. “I mean what do we tell them about us?”

Dylan thought about that for a few minutes. “Do we have to tell them anything?”

“Why not? Are you ashamed of me?”

“No, but I just don’t see it as being anyone else’s business.”

“Well, you’re probably right, but I don’t want to hide my feelings.”

“Neither do I,” Dylan agreed. “Why don’t we just go along with what happens. If they ask, then we’ll tell.”

“Okay,” Cindy whispered and added another kiss to her growing tally.

“We still have to find a way back,” Cindy reminded him.

“Yeah,” Dylan laughed. “We seem to keep coming back to that problem don’t we?” He looked around at the sky, partially visible through the tall trees. “That way,” he pointed to his left, “is north. Telling the direction is easy enough, but I don’t know which way we ran last night. “We might need to go north, south, east or west.”

“Can we backtrack?”

“I don’t think so.” Dylan admitted. “The dirt’s too covered with brush and undergrowth. I don’t have the skill to spot our tracks.”

“Me neither,” Cindy agreed. “Crystal was going to teach me a little bit of tracking, but we never got around to it.”

“Let’s make sure that you get to learn that as soon as you can,” Dylan scolded playfully. “If we plan to run off in the woods every now and then to be alone, I’d rather we were able to find our way back.”

“Maybe I’ll lead us out into the woods and pretend that we’re lost so that I can keep you out there with me?”

Dylan chuckled. “We’re getting silly aren’t we?”

Cindy agreed. “Yes.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here,” he decided. “Let’s start walking. We’ll go that way,” he pointed to the left again. “After a while, if we don’t see any signs of civilization, we’ll come back to this spot and try another direction. At least we won’t get any more lost.”

It was a good strategy, but it proved fruitless. Half the day passed while they were out walking, to no avail. “My feet hurt,” Cindy finally announced as she sat on a fallen log. “And I’m hungry.”

Dylan stretched and yawned. “We’ve been going all morning. A little rest won’t hurt us.”

“We could use some food.”

“I don’t have any spells for that,” Dylan told her.

“How about some honey?” She pointed up above them. There in the cleft of a tree was a dark hollow. A light scattering of bees flew to and fro from that crevice indicating the presence of a hive.

“Let me guess. You want me to climb up that tree, and get you some honey?”

“Please?”

“Are you crazy? I’ll break my neck!”

Cindy went silent for a brief moment. Then with a twinkle in her eye, she assumed a champion grade pouting expression. “Don’t you love me?”

“Oh cut that out,” he sighed as he prepared himself for the ascent. The tree was not too difficult to climb. It was a seasonal hardwood with low branches, and Dylan had climbed many trees in his younger days.

As he grew near the hidden hive, he was buzzed more and more by the occasional bee. The insects were not oblivious to his presence, but they were not yet angry.

Dylan paused. How was he going to get to the honey? His only spell that he knew would work on the bees was the sleep spell, and he had not had time to prepare the spell again since he had used it.

“What’s taking so long?” Cindy called up.

“I’d rather not get stung,” Dylan answered smartly, “if it’s all the same to you.”

“So use some magic.”

“The only spell that I have that’d work was the one I used last night.”

“Well use it again,” she suggested.

“I can’t. It takes a bit to prepare the spell, and that would take at least an hour.” Though Cindy had attended the Academy, Dylan recalled that he, himself, had not learned very much about magic as an initiate, and Cindy had learned even less since she had not been an initiate of magic.

Dylan had an inspiration as he remembered a scene from the Academy he had seen the grounds keeper perform one summer day. He sat on a limb and reached into his shoulder bag and withdrew a piece of parchment. It was a blank piece that he would probably have used someday to copy a map or work out some notes on a spell, but at the moment it had a much more urgent use.

He rolled the parchment into a cone shape. Then he plucked a couple of hands full of leaves and moss and stuffed it into the cone. Then he cleared his mind and whispered a couple of words for the cantrip that he used to light candles and fires.

It was a simple piece of magic, and quite harmless under normal circumstances, but his master had been encouraging him to find ways to use magic other than what was intuitive. In this case, the cantrip was used to start a fire, but not for reading or cooking, but to ignite a torch. The paper burned well and the leaves produced a massive amount of smoke. The smoke was what he was after to begin with, for he knew that bees fled their hives when smoke was blown into it.

Dylan took a small branch that he had broken off a nearby limb and fanned the torch and the smoke, forcing the latter into the hive. Bees scattered without molesting him, and in a matter of minutes, he could see that it was safe enough for him to retrieve a comb of honey.

When Dylan got back to the ground with his prize, he dropped the torch and stomped it out. Then he broke the comb in half and shared it with Cindy. Both youngsters consumed the honey greedily. Then Cindy announced that she was thirsty. Dylan too felt the need to wash his makeshift meal down.

During their wandering, they had passed a small body of water, but it was slow moving and dark. Dylan was concerned about impurities. But Cindy assured him that it was okay. Crystal had told her that the blackwater rivers that flowed into the Grog were deceptively pure. The waters were very clear of impurities, even if they didn’t look it.

So they made their way back to the stream. Once again, Dylan had second thoughts about drinking, but Cindy didn’t hesitate. After a bit of contemplation, Dylan finally gave in to his thirst and lay down on his chest along the bank. He dipped his hand down into the water and drew a scoop of the tea colored liquid to his lips. There was no taste to the water, and it was very cool, an added comfort in the hot sticky afternoon. He soon found himself drinking deeply and repeatedly.

“Hey,” Cindy poked him with her foot. “Put a cork in it. If you keep drinking, you’ll wind up sloshing around all day.”

Dylan picked himself up after one last drought. He brushed the sand from his clothes. “So now what?”

“Well,” Cindy looked at the sky. “It’s getting late, and it’ll be dark soon.”

“I guess we should find a place to hold up,” Dylan sighed. “We can try to find our way home again tomorrow”

“This place is as good as any,” Cindy told him. “At least here we have water.”

“I’m okay with that,” he agreed. “Let’s find some wood, and we’ll build a fire before nightfall. At least we won’t have to sit in the dark. They used the last hour of daylight to scrounge up a respectable pile of deadwood. Then Dylan built a fire. They were not so much interested in a large fire, as they were interested in a comforting source of light and protection from animals.

They talked a little bit during the early evening, but after a while they simply settled for sitting quietly together staring at the fire. In the dim light of the dancing flames, they once more allowed their feelings to come out and were soon embraced tenderly. They allowed themselves to surrender to their passions only briefly with kiss and caress, but were interrupted by a rustling sound.

“What’s that?” Cindy gasped as she squirmed in Dylan’s arms.

“What was what?” he asked. He had not heard anything above his own heart pounding.
Cindy’s eyes darted wildly. The scene of the night, the woods and the fire were too reminiscent of the night before and the horror that it had revealed.

“There it is again,” she said as she turned quickly.

That time Dylan heard it too. I sounded like a large bird, and the fire wavered as a puff of air brushed across the campsite. On the edge of his vision, Dylan thought he saw something above them, but when he looked up, all he saw was the twinkling of stars.

“I don’t think it’s anything,” Dylan assured Cindy. He wasn’t sure if devils could fly. But if it was a wild creature, the fire might be their only means of protection. “Let’s stay close to the fire.” He added as he tossed more wood on the flames, urging them higher and bringing a little more comfort in their light.

Cindy leaned closer to him, her body trembled slightly at the memory of the night before. Dylan comforted her, holding her close and stroking her hair and arms. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “We’ll be okay.”

“I just want to be with you,” she whimpered quietly. Her small hands found themselves around his back and she hugged him tightly.

“Perhaps, I should leave you to your own devices,” a familiar voice called from the edge of their firelight. “For you truly seem to be in no danger other than to each other, and I suspect that that is a danger that you wish to embrace freely.”

“Velar!” Dylan called out in surprise. The man had appeared almost as if by magic. Dylan felt relief of being found mixed with the relief of suddenly understanding the flapping sound and the glimpse of something large overhead.

Cindy guiltily tore herself away from Dylan. “However did you find us?” Cindy asked as she blushed furiously.

“The fire, probably,” Dylan suggested.

“You are most perceptive,” Velar told him. “The fire is quite visible from afar, and there are many who are looking for you. I just happened to have a better vantage point.”

“Well, we’re glad to see you,” Dylan told him honestly. “We really got turned around last night, and didn’t know which way the village was.”

“I think you would have eventually found it,” Velar told them. “It is downstream from this waterway.” Velar reached down and took a small faggot of wood. He let it catch fire before kicking dirt on the rest of the fire to put it out.

“If you would but follow, I shall lead you back to the village and our companions therein. I fear that there will be quite the consequences for your adventure. You will most likely be taken to task most keenly for your masters are vexed to a kind.”

“We’re sorry,” Dylan began, but Velar cut him off.

“Tell me not, for it is not I who has been worried sick at your disappearance. Instead, save your apologies for Gage, Crystal and Rathe.”

“Rathe?”

“Aye,” Velar stated gravely. “Our large comrade took your disappearance most harshly since it was he who was supposed to be protecting you. Gage and Crystal both chastised him greatly, but his own heart has punished him even more.”

Velar turned and started back down the stream. “We were very concerned when we returned and found you two missing. We managed to spot the atrocity that took place last night, but were powerless to do anything about it at the time since the possession had already occurred when we arrived. There had been some commotion, and we were unsure about how to proceed. Then when we returned and found that you had left in disobedience, the cause of the disturbance became evident. We worried greatly that you had met with a demise that should not be wished on even the most foul villain.”

Velar led them back for about two hours before they arrived on the northern side of the village. Then he led them back to the inn where they returned to their rooms. The rooms were vacant, and Velar indicated that everyone was out looking for them.

“Pray, stay hither,” he told them. “I shall go forth and spread the news that you have been returned safely. If I were you, I should behave myself for the next few days.”

Velar left, and Dylan and Cindy sat at the table. They knew the storm was about to hit when the others returned, but in a way, Dylan was glad that it had happened, for in the weakness of their terror, Cindy and he had revealed their feelings for each other. Without a word, Dylan reached out and touched Cindy’s hand. She grasped his back and the mutual affection served to help them face that which was about to descend on them.

About an hour later, they could hear heavy footsteps approaching, then the door flew opened and Rathe charged in, eyes wild and chest heaving. The big Minotaan didn’t stop, but instead bore down on them as if he were going to trample them beneath his feet.
Then at the last moment he swept them up, one in each arm and hugged them both close and hard. Dylan suspected that at least one rib may have cracked.

“I’m so glad you two vagrants have made it back safely,” he muttered. “I was worried sick.”

“We’re sorry,” Dylan told him. “We didn’t mean to get you into any trouble.”

“It’s my own fault,” Rathe answered forgivingly. “I shouldn’t have let that little wench distract me.” He turned his long bullish face first from Dylan then to Cindy. “By the way, which one of you authored that little bit of subversion?”

Cindy blushed and Rathe laughed. “Only a woman would be that devious.” Then he planted a big bovine kiss on her cheek.

Rathe put them down then turned to leave. Dylan chuckled in spite of himself, but his humor died in his throat as Gage stepped through the door. His master’s eyes were stone cold and very hard.

“Cynthia,” the young mage growled, “Crystal has requested your presence in your rooms. And I need to speak with my apprentice at great length.”

Dylan groaned inwardly. It was going to be a very long night.