Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel (9 page)

Lars stood back to evaluate his crackling
fire.

“Yep,” he said proudly. “I’m a regular ole
Daniel Boone.”

“Who’s Daniel Boone?” Rolf inquired.

“Didn’t you learn that in school?” Lars
teased.

“What school?” Rolf replied. “On Future
Earth, we didn’t have time for all that. The last time I was in
school was back in the bunker, just before the quake. We were in
the process of memorizing the Spaghetti Berg Address.”

“Spaghetti Berg address?” Lindsey repeated,
looking like she was sitting on a laugh bomb about to explode,
which only made it harder for Lars to hold in his own snickers.
“Oh, my, gosh. That’s so dumb, it’s hilarious!”

“You guys still don’t get what life was like
for the Galatians who came here ahead of you,” Rolf retorted
defensively. “Whenever we settled in somewhere, the Alliance would
show up with armies spouting warnings about First Rights. Why do
you think getting the Blood Map is so damn important?” Rolf’s fist
had clenched into a tight ball. “How dare you look down on me.”

“I…I… Rolf…” Lindsey said, flustered. “I
wasn’t looking down on you.”

“Bullshit.”

Lars expected Lindsey to ridicule Rolf some
more, but instead she bit her lip and returned to cleaning the wild
lettuce she had collected. The exchange was forgotten for now as
the fish were slapped into the hot skillet. Just as they were
beginning to sizzle, the Bulwark returned.

“Eat them fishies quick, folks,” Hogard
said. “Time to get packing.”

“But I just got the fire going,” Lars whined
in protest. “And the fish aren’t ready...”

“We got a tail. Same tracks as usual, but
whoever it is merged with a larger group. I counted fifteen
separate prints.”

“How far behind us are they?” Dante
asked.

“Not sure—somewhere between half a day and a
full day. Don’t know what their up to, but I found this.” Loyl took
the small pouch and poured the content into his palm. Blue, red,
yellow and pink hard candy balls rolled out.

“Candy!” Josie and Lindsey squealed in
unison. How long had it been since they had anything sweet other
than fruit? Lars’s mouth watered in anticipation.

The prince sniffed, the bridge of his nose
furrowing in contemplation. “I detect strawberries, lembombas,
sugar cane, and calow wax, but there’s a bitter ingredient I don’t
recognize.”

“I don’t care.” Lindsey held out a palm.
“Hand them over.”

“Better to be unsatisfied than sick.” He
tossed the candy into the fire, much to the young people’s
dismay.

A moment later, the fire sizzled. Smoke
formed into a blue toadstool, which changed into a red flower, then
to a yellow bird, followed by a pink human skull, and then to the
head of a black bull with blazing orange eyes.

“Whoa!” Lars stumbled backwards.

Hogard’s war hammer was out in a flash, but
the blaze returned to normal ten seconds later. Prince Loyl jiggled
the rest of the bag’s contents into his hand. Small polished bones.
Black feathers, and a silver ring.

“Great Thunder,” Hogard said, running his
hands along his horns, counting the decorative bangles. “Gimme
that.” He snatched the ring out of Loyl’s grasp. “Won this boast
ring at the Battle of Brigalow. How’d it end up here?”

“Give it to me,” Lindsey said. “And I will
tell you.”

Hogard growled and held it away from her
grasp.

“Let Miss Burning take a look,” Loyl
encouraged. “She has The Rewind.”

“What the thunder is a rewind?”

“If she can touch object, she can read its
history,” he explained when he noticed the others’ confusion.

“No way.” Josie’s jaw dropped.

“Yeah way,” Lindsey said coyly. “It’s a
charisma. I can see images from the past as if they’re playing one
of those old sixteen-millimeter filmstrips. Everything plays
backwards—hence, the name. Why do you think I went along on the
last mission with Doctor Steelsun? And why do you think I’m along
now?”

Josie folded her arms and seemed peeved for
some reason. Was it jealously? If so, the feeling wasn’t strong
enough for Lars to pick up on it.

“No sarcastic response—Josie?” Lindsey
teased. “You never could handle the fact that someone might be more
talented than you in some way.” She opened her hand and the Bulwark
gently set his ring in her palm. “The Charisma Focus Committee said
I’m the only one they’ve found who can do this. They even let me
name it myself.”

“I can tell.” Josie replied with the usual
vitriol, but Lindsey ignored her.

“I can read inorganic or dead objects, but
nothing that’s still alive. On the last mission into Sliven
territory, I discovered that certain types of spells interfere with
making imprints, so its not one hundred percent reliable.”

“And here I thought the mayor sent you along
for your shooting skills,” Lars said, while Josie scowled. “So how
come you didn’t do the Rewind thing on the part of the Blood Map my
father has?”

“I did, but think about it. Once the map was
torn in two, each piece going its separate way, their histories
became independent from each other. That means I can’t see the
history of the missing half without touching it. Duh.”

“Considering that the Seeker will lead us to
the map,” Josie added with a look of disdain, “your rewind seems a
little pointless.”

“Let me phrase this in a way you’ll be sure
to understand: the mayor didn’t want to put all of his eggs in one
basket. Especially a crazy basket like you.”

Josie rolled her eyes.

“A weird thing about the map is that your
fingerprints stay behind in the form of pink dots. Dr. Steelsun
says it’s a side effect of the map’s ability to read a person’s
blood. The prints fade away after a short while, but that’s how he
knew we had the real thing—not a forgery.”

“Did your charisma show you who was in the
battle where the map was ripped in half?” Lars asked. “If we can
narrow down the army, perhaps the map is in that army’s
nation.”

“Miss Burning has already been through a
vigorous line of questioning back in Galatia,” Loyl butted in.
“Please allow her to concentrate on the ring.”

She held the ring between her palms while she
closed her eyes. After a few minutes, her body began to sway. When
her eyes popped open, she immediately looked for Josie.

“What?” Josie asked testily.

“You’re okay.” She grinned. “He tried
to...you know, but ran out of time.” Josie closed her eyes and took
in a deep breath, grateful for the information.

“None of you guys’s business,” Josie added
before any of the men could ask the obvious question.

“Now onto the more pressing matter.” Lindsey
continued to concentrate. “A segment of time is inaccessible,
covered with gray fog—a spell was cast.”

A look of concern crossed the prince’s face,
while Dante pressed impatiently, “Tell us about the accessible
parts.”

“Remember the day we didn’t wake up until
noon and Hogard said an intruder had been in camp?” Everybody
nodded. “That naked man wasn’t a figment of Josie’s imagination. He
poofed into our campsite and shot all of us with his darts. Then he
went straight for the Seeker of the Four Winds, only taking it from
Josie’s wrist didn’t turn out to be so easy. He ran about searching
our camp for something to cut it off. He ran out of time, and poof,
he was gone.”

“Great thunder,” Hogard said, his watery eyes
searching the edges of the clearing in concern. “Sounds like a
guldarn warlock.”

“Did you see the dog?” Josie asked.

“Just a shadow in the shape of a dog.”

“Told you.”

“What would a magic user want with Hogard’s
boast ring?” Loyl posed the question more to himself than anyone
else.

“It looked like he took it as an
afterthought,” Lindsey replied. “But that’s not important—what
matters is that I recognized his face.” Eyesbrows went up. Breaths
were held in expectation of the big reveal. “It was Barrett Fade’s
friend. Oh, what’s his name? You know who I’m talking about—black
hair, copper eyes, super-hot, but a total freak show.”

“You mean magic balloon animal guy?” Josie
asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Magus Mull,” Dante said his name as if it
were a curse word. “I should have guessed.”

(Josephine Rose Albright)

Trees with weeping red fronds covered by
daisy-like flowers swayed in the distance. When Josie suggested the
fronds would make lovely necklaces, Dante and Rolf laughed.

“Strangling Url, they call it,” Dante
informed her. “Pick the fronds and it will leave a rash ten times
worse than poison ivy. Sleep near the trees and you’ll wake up with
fronds up your nose and down any other orifice they can reach. Once
they burrow in, they’re hell to remove. Awful stuff.”

“There’s so much to learn about this world,”
Josie said, feeling the forest had gone from beautiful to sinister
in the space of Dante’s explanation.

Just then, Hogard gave a horrendous fart.

Even the horses seemed to glare in the
Bulwark’s direction as they twisted their ears back, flared their
nostrils and curled their upper lips, causing Josie to chuckle,
until the wind blew his stench to her nose. She tried to breathe
through her mouth but that just made things worse; she could taste
his funk. When she turned to tell him a thing or two, her mouth
froze in place. Hogard’s usual irritated expression had been
replaced by exhaustion.

“Are you feeling okay?” she called back to
him, only to be ignored.

The entire squad was getting strafed by
insects, but not nearly as mercilessly as the Bulwark. As the day
progressed, flies tornadoed around his head, making him swat and
swear at them. Part of it was Hogard’s own darn fault for being so
stinky.

The Seeker continued to lead the Red Team
though thick vegetation and slurpy mud. Rolf worried that one of
the horses would get stuck in the viscous brown slop. Burrs had
worked their way into Josie’s socks, and the mosquito repellent had
worn off them all.

Supplies were running low, but Loyl said they
would have enough to last them until Blue River Junction, only
three days away. When the prince had promised they could sit at a
table, enjoying properly prepared food and maybe even a piece of
Blue Junction’s famous honey pie, a sense of sweet relief spilled
through Josie. Soon the squad would be sleeping indoors on elevated
beds and clean sheets. Their clothes would be properly cleaned and
so would their bodies. The horses would be groomed by someone else
and sleep in the stables. It would be two days of rest and
relaxation for everyone. Hurrah!

Throughout the day, signs of civilization
began to appear. A dirt walking path wound down a steep hill
through a young forest of fir trees to a field of stubble and bales
of hay. Or was it straw? Josie didn’t know the difference. But
crops meant a farm, which meant a house, and maybe even a town.

“Civilization,” Josie celebrated, “here we
come!”

The sun rose higher, and as
the trees disappeared to give way for more farmland, it beat down
hard with the heat of Indian Summer. Tough ole Hogard said he had a
headache and was feeling
right
poorly
. They finally came upon a lonely
spreading oak in the middle of a field. A pumpkin color had spread
over half of its jagged leaves signaling the arrival of fall. Loyl
ordered everyone to take a breather under its welcoming
shade.

As they sat around relaxing in the soft
green grass beneath the tree, Josie watched as Lindsey gingerly
picked at the wicked white blisters in the center of her palms.

“You’re holding the reins too tight,” Rolf
told her.

“I swear, I’m not.”

“What else could it be?” Rolf said, an edge
of sarcasm in his voice. “It’s not like you’ve been holding
anything else recently.”

Loyl turned his hands over to look at his own
palms. “That’s strange—I have blisters, too.” His face twisted in
concern. “Everybody check your hands.”

“Poison sumac?” Dante questioned, setting
down the berries he was eating for his dessert to look at his own
hands. “Not just on my palms, but between my fingers.”

“Me too,” Rolf said. “It’s a rash of some
kind.”

“Got’m on my hands. And I think I feel some
on my head,” Hogard said, touching the area around his right
horn.

“Mind if I take a look?” Lars asked. The
Bulwark bowed his head and Lars parted his his shaggy fur. “Once
upon a time, my Dad had me on the pre-med route, but...” He trailed
off. The skin around Hogard’s horn had putrefied to gelatinous gray
goo. Lars gagged. Hogard didn’t see his reaction, but the others
had. Now everybody was looking at Hogard with deepened concern.

“What do you see?” Hogard said worriedly.

“An infection of some kind. How’s that
headache?” Lars asked.

“The worst I’ve ever head.”

“Any other symptoms?”

“Dry mouth and my guts hurt. I feel all
wiggly—like spiders are inside my skin.”

“Me too,” Lindsey said in alarm, holding her
stomach.

Loyl’s ears twitched. He showed his hand to
Lars for a checkup. The center blister on one of his palms had gray
edges, similar to Hogard’s horn.

“Smack,” Josie hit her forehead in emphasis.
“I know how everybody caught the rash. Hogard’s ring. I was the
only one who didn’t touch it. And look at the places on your body
that are infected.”

“Right where we touched the ring,” Dante
said. “Son-of-a-bitch.”

“Poor Hogard,” Lindsey said. “He’s been
wearing the ring on his horn all of this time. No wonder he’s
sicker than the rest of us.”

“I touched it,” Lars pointed out. “And I
don’t have the rash.”

“Count yourself lucky. This rash has black
magic written all over it.” Loyl said.