The Fourteenth Key (The Chronicles of Terah Book 3) (33 page)

Joan laughed and shook her head. “Marcus, is your sister a sorcerer?”

“No.”

“Then you may survive the day,” Joan said, still shaking her head. “Good luck.”

As Joan left, still chuckling, Marcus looked at Kevin. “I guess we’d better go, but I’m not sure I’m looking forward to this as much as I was.”

~ ~ ~ ~

After Kevin dropped Marcus and Hayley off in Bridgeport, he went to the canyon lands to spar with Glendymere. An hour later, hot, sweaty, and tired, he was in Willow Canyon waiting for Rhianna to join him for their training session. When he saw her coming down the mountain all fresh and clean, he wanted nothing more than a quick shower and fresh clothes. Of all the conveniences on Earth he no longer had, his shower was the one he missed most.

“Good morning,” Rhianna said as she reached the floor of the canyon, “Although you look like you’ve already had more than a morning’s worth.”

“I feel like it, too.”

“We don’t have to work today. I can practice on my own.”

Kevin shook his head. “No. Let’s see what you can do.”

Rhianna took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and wrinkled her forehead in concentration. The wrinkles deepened and then began to smooth as she found a breeze to play with. After another minute, she opened her eyes and nodded towards a small bush by the stream. As Kevin watched, the limbs bobbed up and down. A few minutes later, Rhianna broke her connection with the wind and turned to Kevin. “So? Was that better?”

“Much. Now see if you can stir up the breeze into something stronger. Try to move the whole bush, not just one branch. But be careful. A strong wind can get away from you if you aren’t paying attention. Stay grounded.”

Rhianna closed her eyes again. After a couple of minutes, she opened them and nodded towards the bush. As Kevin watched, the bush shuddered, then started dancing, and finally swayed back and forth. After a bit, dust swirled along the canyon floor and the limbs of some of the larger trees began to move. Before things got out of control, Kevin called Rhianna back.

She broke her connection with the wind and frowned at Kevin. “Why did you stop me? I was doing what you wanted me to, wasn’t I?”

Kevin nodded. “I didn’t want to have to clean up Glendymere’s front yard.”

“What?”

“The wind was getting a bit strong. Much more and some of those dead limbs were going to come down, which might not be a bad idea, but I’d rather it not happen while we’re working out here.”

“Was the wind really that strong?”

Kevin frowned. “Weren’t you watching?”

“I was focused on the bush, not the trees.”

“You need to keep the whole area in sight. If you start the wind, you’re responsible for it. You have to keep an eye on it.” Kevin looked around for a moment. “Let’s try it in reverse. I’ll start a wind and you try to calm it down.”

Rhianna frowned. “Sounds like we’re going to end up doing a lot of that cleanup you wanted to avoid. You know I won’t be able to do it on the first try.”

Kevin looked around again, picturing the canyon littered with twigs and limbs. “Let’s go to the canyon lands. We can’t hurt anything down there.” Then he took her hand and turned the key.

A few moments later, they were on a cliff overlooking a deep canyon. “See?” Kevin asked. “Nothing around here the wind can hurt.”

Rhianna slowly turned in a full circle. “It’s beautiful here,” she said more to herself than to him. “All the different shades, the rocks, the ruggedness of it all. It’s like a different world.”

Kevin looked around and said, “Yeah. I’ve never really looked at it before. Guess every time I’ve been here, my mind has been on something else, like dodging energy bolts.

Rhianna laughed.

Kevin thought her laughter was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. If it was up to him, he’d spend the rest of his life right here, listening to it. But they had work to do. She had to learn how to calm the wind.

Kevin used his seeing eye to look around the canyon floor for some loose dirt. He took Rhianna’s hand and lifted them off the butte and floated them down to the canyon floor. “I’ll stir up a small dust storm so you’ll be able to see whether or not you’re calming it down.”

Rhianna nodded and closed her eyes.

“You might do better with your eyes open this time. That way at least you’ll know when I start.”

“Won’t I feel it?”

Kevin shook his head. “I’m not going to let the wind come anywhere near us. I’m filthy enough without adding a layer of dust to the mix.”

For the next thirty minutes, Kevin stirred up winds and let Rhianna calm them back down. Then he switched and let her stir up some strong winds while he calmed them. After they’d been in the canyon lands for a little more than an hour, he called a halt.

“Next week I’ll bring Chris so we can work with storms.”

“Why do we need Chris?”

“To keep an eye on what’s going on around us and to pull me back when I start having too much fun.”

“So that’s what he does?” Rhianna asked with a grin. “Keep you from having fun?”

“That’s the way it seems sometimes. Now, are you ready to go back?”

When Rhianna nodded, Kevin held out his hand, and as soon as she put her hand in his, he turned the key.

~ ~ ~ ~

While Kevin was off in the canyon lands, Marcus was trying to figure out how his day had gone so totally off track. He’d pictured lounging around his sister’s house with Hayley all day, talking with Marcie, maybe taking Caleb and Rayne for a walk along Walker’s Creek, just a quiet, peaceful day with his family. Instead he was ankle deep in fish guts. And he hadn’t seen Hayley since five minutes after they got there. Marcus shook his head. Of all days to come home, he had to pick the day of Bridgeport’s fall fish fry.

His sister didn’t even live in Bridgeport. She lived in a small settlement two miles downriver. Six houses were scattered around a big rectangular field, all facing the field. Families lived in five of the houses, but the sixth, his, stood vacant at the far end of the field. The residents ranged in age from less than a year to the late fifties, with children outnumbering adults, and apparently they were all going to the fish fry.

As soon as Marcie answered the door, he knew something was up. Her hair, which usually fell past her shoulders, was pulled back in a twist. Combs held most of it in place, but frizzy tendrils shot out at all angles. She was doing some major cooking, and the absence of noise meant neither her son, Caleb, nor her husband, Lance, was in the house.

They hadn’t been there more than five minutes before Marcie told him to go make himself useful in town, she and Hayley would be cooking all morning and didn’t have time to mess with him. He’d offered to take his niece Rayne with him, but Marcie nixed that idea. She said Rayne was going to help them, especially with cleanup.

Everyone for miles around always came to the fish fry. The boats went out before dawn and the fishermen competed with each other to see who could bring in the largest catch. And since he’d literally missed the boat, he was stuck cleaning fish as the boats came back in. The only good thing was he’d been able to spend a couple of hours with his best friend, Thom, the village blacksmith and owner of the livery stable.

While they were growing up, they’d been inseparable. Marcus had been fostered with Thom’s parents, Morris and Gloria, and to this day, Marcus felt closer to them than his own parents. Although his parents had only visited about once a year, they’d let Marcie come as often as she wanted. It was during one of those visits that she’d met Lance, which had led to even more visits and eventually a wedding.

While they cleaned fish, the two men brought each other up to date on what had happened in their lives over the past six months. Thom’s big news was that he would be a father in about two months.

Marcus grinned from ear to ear. “How’s it feel to be an expectant father?”

“Terrifying, but not as terrifying as being married to an expectant mother. Marissa’s driving everyone crazy with her cravings and tears. I swear that woman cries all the time! The other day she saw a deer down by the river and burst into tears. When I asked her what was wrong, she said the deer looked so peaceful. Why did that make her cry?” Thom shook his head. “I never claimed to understand women, but I sure don’t understand pregnant ones.”

Marcus laughed. “It’ll be worth it the first time you hold your child in your arms.”

Thom sighed. “I just want my wife back.” Then he switched the focus to Marcus, asking questions about Marcus’s job and what it was like to work with Myron.

Marcus kept it light, talking about the jobs he did around town, life at the castle, and how normal everyone was. As the men who’d been out on the boats brought their catch to the cleaning tables, the crowd around Marcus grew, and so did the number of times he answered the same questions. After a while, some of the men who’d been standing around the longest started answering for him, and as long as they had the gist of it right, Marcus let them. He tried to speak to everyone who came by and ask them what had been going on in their lives, which he found a lot more interesting than the bits he was willing to tell them about his.

Some of the men cleaned fish while they talked. Others talked for a few minutes and then drifted off to tend the fires, set up tables, or clean the boats. Soon, things settled down and it was almost as if Marcus had never left.

As they were nearing the bottom of the barrel of fish, Lance and Caleb pulled up to the dock. Caleb was so excited to see Marcus he completely forgot about his father, the fish that needed to be unloaded, or the boat that needed to be cleaned.

“Marcus,” he yelled as he ran down the dock to where his uncle was working. “Are you back home?” he asked as he skidded to a halt right under Marcus’s elbow. “Or are you here for the party?”

“Neither one.” Marcus gave the boy a hug. “I came to see you, but when I got here, you were gone, so I helped clean fish while I waited for you to get back.”

Caleb’s eyes grew round. “You came to see me? Am I in trouble?”

Marcus laughed. “No, at least not as far as I know.” He frowned. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Caleb shook his head.

“Good. I just wanted to see you and find out if you’re giving your mother and sister a hard time. Are you?”

Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably, but I don’t mean to.”

“Caleb!” Lance called out from the boat. “You can talk to Marcus later. I need some help over here.”

Caleb nodded towards his father. “You’ll still be here when I get done, won’t you?”

“Depends on how long it takes you. I’ve got to be back in Milhaven this evening.”

“Won’t take me that long.”

“It will if you don’t get moving.”

Caleb ran back up the dock towards the boat.

Marcus grinned as he watched Caleb jump from the dock to the boat. He was a good boy, and he would be a fine sorcerer one day. Marcus turned back to the pile of fish and started back to work. There were still a few boats left to come in, but the fires were going and food would start arriving soon.

The thought of lunch made his mouth water, mainly for Marcie’s bread. He’d missed that more than anything else. He’d begged her to tell him how she made it, but she wouldn’t. She’d probably tell Hayley, but he hadn’t thought to mention it. Of course the last thing he’d expected was for Hayley to spend the day in his sister’s kitchen.

That thought brought a frown to Marcus’s face. They’d been together all day, and if he knew his sister, they’d been talking the whole time. What had they found to talk about? They didn’t have much in common. Marcie was a wife and mother. Hayley was a sister’s assistant. But they both knew him. He was what they had in common.

Marcus felt his hands go sweaty. What if Marcie read more into Hayley’s visit than there was? Would his sister think it meant they were betrothed? Marcus groaned. Would she ask Hayley about their plans? Where they were going to live? When they were going to marry? He felt butterflies start fluttering around in his stomach. Why in the world had he left Hayley up there by herself to handle Marcie’s questions? Would Hayley think he’d told Marcie they were serious without talking to her about it? The butterflies turned into vultures.

~ ~ ~ ~

Marcus was right about Hayley answering a lot of questions that morning. Marcie liked the young woman who had come with Marcus and wanted to know everything about her, and she wasn’t shy about asking. Hayley talked about some of her experiences first as a chapel aide and then as Theresa’s assistant.

Rayne, Marcie’s nine-year-old daughter, was especially interested in Hayley’s stories about Farowood and the gnomes, but she also enjoyed Hayley’s description of the caves in Rainbow Valley and the giant who worked with the herbs there. Hayley told them about some of the people she met and things she did in Drisden and Glenco, but she didn’t mention anything about Brena, Gerry, or what they’d discovered in Glenco. Those bits weren’t her story to tell.

Meanwhile Marcie filled Hayley in on life around Bridgeport and how she’d met her husband. She told tales of Marcus as a child, a young man, and as an apprentice, and even though she admitted most of the stories were hearsay, she said she’d witnessed enough herself to believe each and every one of them.

Marcie also told Hayley about the special bond between her son and her brother. She attributed it to the magic that ran through their blood, but regardless of where it came from, the bond was strong. And she admitted that one of her biggest worries was that her brother would get so caught up in his own life he’d forget about the boy who idolized him.

Hayley shook her head. “He talks about Caleb all the time. He won’t forget about him. You don’t need to worry about that.”

Marcie smiled. “I hope you’re right.”

A knock on the back door interrupted them and a young woman about Hayley’s age walked in. “I heard Marcus was here,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “Where is he?”

“Good morning, Lisal,” Marcie said. “I’m surprised you didn’t see him. He left for Bridgeport hours ago.”

Lisal shook her head. “I didn’t go down by the docks. It always smells over there. Is that where he is?”