Order of The Rose: Forsaken Petal (11 page)

Why is John telling him so much? What if he is with the witch?

Caspin looked over at Tom raising his eyebrows and John spoke on, “He is able to use his life energy to create magic, but not only that, he is able to combine that energy with a counterpart. His counterpart is Kristiana’s apprentice, Aithnea.”

Caspin looked at Tom studying him intently.

Why is he looking at me? I’m not that special.

He stood and came close to Tom lifting his hand to Tom’s chest. Caspin mumbled a few unknown words as he moved his hand up to Tom’s forehead. He then sat back down in his chair.

Tom fidgeted as Caspin stared at him longer.

“
You speak the truth,” Caspin said, “He does have the gift of the old Order of the Rose. It is strong in him but I have never heard of the order using or needing a counterpart.”

John nodded, “We are planning on going to Darthmoth where we can get a ride to the mansion of Archelaus. Archelaus recruited him and we were training him there until we were attacked,” John said.

Tom sat on the floor wondering who Caspin was and how odd it was that they had come to this place at the same time. He was intrigued by how much knowledge he possessed about the Order of The Rose.
Why would a cleric know so much about the order?
The odd thing about it is, is that I trust him. It feels right that he is here and how strange that we would meet here.

John sat down next to Caspin. “I still don’t know how they could have found us. The witches have grown powerful. Kristiana had protective spells up at all times.”

“It sounds as if you may have been betrayed,” Caspin said.

“
No one knew where we were but a select few. Those who knew were loyal to Archelaus,” John said.

Caspin put his empty cup down on the table and looked around. “Well I’m much too tired to think about this tonight. I think it would be wise if we all went to sleep and talked about it more tomorrow.” He stood with a groan. “I will bless this shack. We need not worry about our enemies tonight.”

Caspin knelt on the hard wood floor and blessed the home. Tom’s heart and mind were filled with peace, his worries fled and he found that he had become very tired. Stumbling to his bed he almost fell asleep as he walked the short distance. He laid down and was asleep before his head hit the floor.

Chapter 1
4:

Tom woke with the sun shining in his eyes. He had slept so well he wondered if it had all been just another nightmare. He quickly realized that it wasn’t when he looked at the old wood surrounding the window.  He thought about the previous day and remembered the news of Karman’s death. The peace he felt a short moment ago was once again replaced with sorrow.

He lay for a little longer thinking about Karman and all that he had learned from him. He remembered Karman’s gruff smile when he made a mistake that let Tom know that it wasn’t really that bad. A tear rolled out of his eye and down his cheek.

“Tom, there will be many that you care for who will go from this world into the next,” Caspin said, “It’s important that you feel their passing and remember the good that they have done for this world.”

Did he see me crying? How does he know what I’m thinking?

Tom looked up at Caspin. He was watching the rising sun. “The danger lies in not letting them go,” he said. He looked down at Tom.

He looks so sad.

“The danger is that you continue to hold them so tight that you forget about those who remain. And when that feeling of sadness turns to bitterness all you have left in your heart is hate and anger.”

Caspin was sitting in the old wooden chair with the sun shining through his scraggly grey hair making him glow. He smiled at Tom softly. He began to pat his chest as if he was looking for something.

Tom sat up.

Caspin pulled his pack to him and began to rummage through it. After a few seconds of searching he pulled a wooden figurine out. “Here Tom, take this. It was a gift that was given to me a long time ago from a very close friend.”

He handed the figurine to Tom. The figurine was of a man holding a child in his arms. The craftsmanship was extraordinary, the details of the hands and face where so well done that Tom could see the individual wrinkles carved into the soft wood surface. As Tom held the figurine he felt unnatural warmth radiating from the small carving.

“
It’s very special to me but I can see that you will need it much more than I will in the future.” He sipped at his tea. “Keep it close it will give you the comfort you need to make it through the night.”

“
Thank you sir,” Tom said.

Caspin nodded then turned and began talking to John about the day’s plans.

Tom studied the small figurine. To his surprise the figurine began to change in his hand, he almost dropped it. The piece of wood took on a new shape and it was no longer a man holding a small child but a much larger man with a long beard holding a large hammer over his shoulder. When the wood finished changing Tom smiled warmly at the figurine that was now an exact duplicate of Karman. The miniature Karman was smiling back at him with one of his huge wide mouth grins that always made Tom feel so important and special. One last tear fell from Tom’s eye. The tear landed on the figurine and Tom said, very softly, “Karman, I promise that I will not let you down.”

Tom slipped the figurine into his pocket still feeling the warmth of it there when Aithnea came up to him.

“How are you today?”

“
I’m doing much better. Caspin gave me the most amazing thing,” Tom replied.

He pulled the figurine out of his pocket and handed it to Aithnea.

She stared at the figurine and her mouth dropped open. “This is amazing, I have heard of these before. They were made by ancient healers who could not only heal people but the land and animals as well.”

Aithnea looked at him in amazement. “This is very special keep it close, always.” Aithnea handed the figurine tenderly back to Tom.

“I will take good care of it.” 

Tom put the figurine back into his pocket feeling the warmth once again.

“Ok, it’s time that we get going,” John said, “We will be heading toward Darthmoth and we should be able to reach it by tomorrow night if we hurry.” John looked over the small group and stopped on Cody. “Cody, you’ll need to stay on rear guard trying to hide our trail with Tom. Aithnea you are responsible for taking care of Kristiana and I will take the lead.” John turned to Caspin. “Caspin we are honored to have you with us and we will do our best to help you in your journey.”

Caspin nodded. “It’s a pleasure to be traveling with such an honorable group.”

Tom picked up his pack and Aithnea helped Kristiana up. Kristiana was doing much better but she was still weak from the energy lost in the battle. John looked over the group one more time before turning and heading out the door. Caspin followed then Aithnea and Kristiana while Tom and Cody took up the rear.

Tom and Cody took large branches and tried to cover their trail as best they could. It was difficult to hide their tracks in the snow though and Tom worried that it would only take a mediocre tracker to find and follow them. The day became colder and the sky turned from bright blue to dark grey as clouds moved in. Soon it was snowing, making the miserable day even more miserable.
At least the snow should cover our tracks better and maybe even slow our enemies down a little.

Caspin and John talked back and forth and John seemed to be upset by the conversation but Tom couldn’t tell what it was they were talking about. Aithnea supported Kristiana talking to her softly once in awhile. Tom and Cody passed the time talking about the training they had received and how they could improve on it.

He felt like they had walked forever and the feeling in his toes was nearly gone when John finally stopped the group in front of a cave. “This looks like a good place to camp for the night. Tom and Cody, go and gather some wood.”

Tom looked into the mouth of the cave.
Is this really a good place to camp? I guess at least it will be dry.
He looked a few minutes longer then caught up with Cody to help gather fire wood. There was plenty of dead wood but most of it was wet from the snow. Eventually though Tom and Cody found enough damp wood that they hoped would light and headed back to the cave.

John had already formed a crude fire ring and had gathered several large bushes and branches that could be put in front of the mouth of the cave. Aithnea had gathered some snow into a pan and had started making tea. Caspin looked exhausted as he sat on a boulder staring out the cave entrance and Kristiana, still weak, sat next to Caspin on the boulder.  Tom dumped the wood next to the fire pit while John lit some dry tinder.

John got the tinder lit and carefully put the damp wood onto the fire. To Tom’s joy the fire started quickly and was burning warm enough to help bring feeling back into his toes. He looked around the cave and saw that they were in a small room that had one passage going deeper into the mountain. Tom headed toward the open passage but couldn’t see too far because of the darkness.

Cody came up behind him. “I wonder if we have a little time to go exploring.”

“We won’t get too far without one of Aithnea’s light spells,” Tom said.

“
Aithnea, you wanna come?” Cody asked.

Aithnea looked at Kristiana.

She nodded.

“
Yeah I’ll come.”

“
Don’t go too far. You never know what’s down in these old caves,” John said.

Cody nodded and Aithnea cast a light spell as they headed into the passage.  Cody led with Aithnea following and then Tom. They followed it as it curved and wound deeper into the mountain. The walls and floor were smooth and looked as if no one had been down this way for many years. Tom had to duck several times as they walked deeper into the cave. The passage continued for another hundred yards when it bent sharply to the right. As they approached the bend Cody tripped on something and fell landing face down on the hard passage floor.

Tom stooped to help him up. “Are you ok?”

“
Yeah I’m fine,” Cody said. He looked closer at the floor and said, “Aithnea can you get more light down here.” He rubbed the dust away from the floor. “It looks like stone down here.”

“
Well, Cody, you are in a cave,” Tom smirked.

“
No, cut stone,” Cody said, emphasizing the word cut.

Tom and Aithnea laughed and Aithnea lowered the magic light closer to the ground. Cody scraped the dirt away, clearing more of the floor. Tom knelt down next to Cody and began examining the floor and saw that the floor was definitely made of stone that had been cut by tools. He stood up and looked closer at the walls, the walls were rough and appeared to have been cut naturally by the wind or water but definitely not tools.

“This is odd, it looks like there are only about ten blocks laid down here and then it’s back to the cave floor,” Cody said.

Aithnea walked to the opposite wall of Tom and began to scrape at the wall.

“Look at this, guys,” Aithnea said, “There’s more cut stone over here.”

Tom walked over to Aithnea and looked at the wall, beginning to dig at it. He found that the cut stone on the wall connected to the ones on the floor. Aithnea and Tom cleared the wall of dirt and found that the cut stone covered a large space on the cave wall. Tom studied the wall for a moment and then scraped along the edges. The bottom was not connected to the floor like he expected.

“It’s a door,” Aithnea exclaimed.

“
That’s what it looks like, but how do we open it. There isn’t any apparent way to open it,” Cody said.

Tom ran his hand over the entire door. “There’s something engraved in the door.” He scraped more of the dirt away from the engraving on the wall. “It almost looks like a flower,” Tom gasped and then scraped more away. “More specifically, a rose.”

Aithnea tapped her chin with her finger, “Maybe it’s a key hole and we need the key to open it.”

Cody stepped closer to the rose in the door and examined it. “I think you’re right Aithnea.”

“No I don’t think so, it’s a puzzle of some sort we are just missing part of the puzzle,” Tom said.

Tom started to feel along the opposite wall looking for any abnormalities. As he ran his hand across the wall he hit a small part of the wall sticking out oddly. Tom brushed the dirt and dust that had built up around it. After he got the dust brushed away he saw that it was a dial of some sort. The part that stuck out from the wall was a knob that pointed to several symbols around it. Tom scraped around the symbols and loosened the knob so that it could be turned. “Aithnea, bring the light over here.”

Aithnea walked over next to Tom and the light illuminated the symbols on the wall.

“
Do you recognize any of the symbols?” Tom asked.

She looked at the dial and the symbols on the wall, “yes…” she squinted, “…well some of them.” She touched the symbols one by one, “fire, water, earth, and wind,” she pointed to the next four, “I’m not sure what these four are.”

Tom looked back at the door. “Do you think that this has something to do with the Order of the Rose?”

No one spoke as they studied the wall and symbols.

“Well there is the rose symbol on the door,” Aithnea looked again at the engraving on the door and then looked at Tom, “and when you were reading out of the book it talked a lot about the four elemental powers.”

“
If this is something the order did then something I read may be a clue,” Tom said. “The book talked about how the colors of the roses represented each of the elements.”

Aithnea’s face lit up and she began twisting the dial, “those other four symbols represent each of the four colors.”  She twisted the dial one way and then back the other way, there was a click.

Cody jumped away from the door as the rose turned blue.

Aithnea let go of the dial. “hmmm have we thought this through completely.”

Cody smiled at her. “No, but keep going.”

Aithnea hesitated a moment longer then turned back to the dial. There were three more clicks and the rose turned from blue to red then white and finally brown.

A gust of warm air hit Tom in the face as the door slowly swung open. Bright light came from the entrance. Beyond the opening was a well lit hallway that ran for several hundred feet. The same cut stone that outlined the wall and floor was used inside the hallway.

“
Maybe we should go and get John, remember what happened last time we headed out on our own. Plus, it is getting late,” Aithnea said.

Cody looked at Aithnea and smiled. “Are you scared?”

Aithnea glared. “No, I just don’t like to head off down unknown passages.”

“
Let’s just go a little ways and then we can give them more information,” Tom suggested.

Cody smiled at Aithnea again and walked through the door with Tom following close behind. Aithnea hesitated only a moment before following after the boys. The hallway was lit by bowl shaped fixtures that had brown glowing crystals in them. The floor was covered by many years worth of dust and cobwebs were strung across the hallway and ceiling. They walked farther down the hallway where it split off into two directions.

The lights continued down both directions. The hallway to the right ended with a door and the one to the left bent farther to the left. Cody turned right down the hallway that led to the door. The door was made out of pine and had a metal rose shaped handle. Cody opened the door and a gust of wind hit them in the face.