The Fourteenth Key (The Chronicles of Terah Book 3) (40 page)

“Landis, only a handful of people around the castle know you’re Rolan’s sister, so keep that information to yourself, and if anyone asks you any questions, let me know who,” Kevin said as he took out his key. “Don’t let anyone know where you’re staying or that you’re working with Glendymere. Don’t even mention his name while you’re in Camden. If anyone asks if you’ve ever met him, say no. Don’t mention anything about the giants, Taelor, Crinsor Run, Hayden, Gwynn, or that you’ve known Rhianna most of your life. Don’t give anyone any information that might lead to where you’ve been, where you are, or where you might be in the future. Your safety depends on no one knowing anything about you. If anyone asks why you’re not living at the castle, say you’re not even sure you want to be a sorcerer, so everything’s on hold until you decide what you want to do.”

“Well,” Landis said, “at least that last bit has the ring of truth.”

Kevin nodded as all three of them put a hand on his arms. Then he turned his key and they left the island.

The sun hadn’t quite made it over the mountains when they got to Kevin’s office, but they could hear noise coming from the reception area. As Kevin walked towards his door to find out what was going on, Chris glanced towards Rhianna. “Do you need anything from your bags?”

Rhianna shook her head. “Not until tonight.”

“Then let me have them,” Chris said as he held his hand out for the bags. “I’ll take them upstairs. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling once he opens that door we’re going to be busy. You can pick up your bags later.”

A quick glance out the window in the reception area explained the early morning meeting going on around the conference table. Downed tree limbs and debris were lying all over the yard.

“Good morning,” Kevin said as he stepped up to the table and looked over Ariel’s shoulder at the piles of messages scattered around. “Are all of those about the storm?”

Ariel nodded. “Some are fairly easy, trees blocking roads and driveways, a few mud or rock slides, things like that. Then we have the ones about trees leaning on roofs or blocking doorways. There are even a few about trees crashing through roofs and knocking down walls. In a couple of cases, a tree knocked the whole building down. Fortunately though, so far, no injuries.”

Gen. Crandal pointed to a stack in front of him. “I’ve got a squad eating breakfast right now. They’ll be ready to head out in half an hour. They can take care of these repairs.”

“And I’ve got some guards who’ve volunteered to go wherever we need them to help out,” Darrell said. “I thought I’d send them down some of the roads to see if we have any that need to be cleared.”

Kevin nodded. “Have them check out the streams near town for downed trees, too. Marcus and I’ll check the ones deeper in the woods later, but I want to be sure the people and livestock are safe first.”

“You’ll need a bodyguard with you,” Darrell said. “Alek and Rigel will be here in a few minutes.”

Kevin nodded. “One can go with me, but the other goes with Marcus. He has two observers today.” Kevin nodded towards Landis and Rhianna, who were standing off to the side, quietly watching, taking it all in. He waved them over and introduced them to the group.

While Kevin was making introductions, Alek and Rigel walked in.

“Rigel, you’re with me today,” Kevin said. “Alek, you go with Marcus.”

Alek walked around the table and pointed at the stack of messages in front of Marcus. “Ours?” he asked. When Marcus nodded, Alek picked them up and started flipping through them.

Kevin glanced at the stack in Alek’s hand. “Do all of those need a sorcerer?”

Marcus nodded.

“Split them up and I’ll take half.”

Alek started sorting them into two stacks. “How about north of town and south of town? They seem to be about evenly split that way.”

Kevin nodded. “Rigel, you keep up with ours.” Then he looked over at Marcus and asked, “Have you eaten?”

Marcus shook his head no.

“We haven’t either. Let me speak to Landis and Rhianna for a minute and then you can head down to the dining room.” He motioned for Landis and Rhianna to follow him back into his office.

Once they were inside, Kevin shut the door. “Today’s going to work out a little differently than we’d planned. Marcus had set up some simple jobs, things that would demonstrate the skills without much risk. With all these downed trees and debris, I have no idea what you might run into today. I still want you to go with Marcus, but be careful. Stay out of the way and keep a close eye on what’s happening around you. I’ll be busy today too, so there’s a good chance I won’t run into you again until dinner. Stick with Marcus, listen to Alek, and be careful.”

Landis nodded, and headed back out to join Marcus at the table, but Rhianna hung back, frowning.

“What?” Kevin asked her.

“I know Landis needs to watch Marcus, but I can swing an ax as well as any man.”

“I don’t doubt that, but I want you to watch Marcus. You need to know where all of this is headed.”

“We both know I can pick up what I need to know in five minutes with you. I’m a warrior elf. It’s my duty to help.”

Kevin shook his head. “I want you with Landis. Keep her safe.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Alek walked with Marcus, Landis, and Rhianna to the dining room, but when they sat down to eat, he said he was going out to the stable and saddle four horses.

Fifteen minutes later, Marcus leaned back and picked up his coffee cup. “Are you two ready to go?”

Rhianna nodded as she drank her last swallow of tea.

“Where are we going?” Landis asked.

“Basically north,” Marcus answered.

“And where is Milhaven?” Landis continued.

“It’s to the west.”

“Oh,” Landis said, disappointed.

“Why? Did you have something in mind for today?”

“I haven’t been to a town in years. I was hoping we’d get to go today.”

Marcus grinned. “I think that could be arranged. We’ll have to eat lunch at some point, and I don’t think it would be out of line for us to make a quick trip to town around lunchtime. We could eat at the chapel.”

“A Chapel of Light?” Rhianna asked.

Marcus nodded.

“We can’t just show up,” Landis said. “We need to let them know we’re coming.”

Marcus shook his head. “The sisters always have soup on the stove and plenty of extra bread. I eat lunch there several times a week.”

“But there will be four of us,” Landis argued. “We have to let them know.”

“All right. Brandon’s going into Milhaven this morning. I’ll write Hayley a note and get him to stop by the chapel and give it to her. Will that make you feel better?”

“Much,” Landis said with a smile.

“Now,” Marcus said as he pushed back from the table and stood up, “let’s get moving.”

~ ~ ~ ~

The first stop on Marcus’s list was a farm about two miles from the castle. A huge cedar had lost its grip on the ground and fallen in front of the barn, blocking access to the door. The tree was so huge the whole front side of the barn was completely obscured. When they got there, the farmer was standing in front of the tree with an ax, preparing to hack his way through to the door.

Marcus dismounted and handed his reins to Alek.

“Norris,” Marcus called out as he walked towards the barn. “Want some help?”

The farmer turned towards Marcus and grinned. “You’re a welcome sight. I’ve got some cows in there that need milking. I’m already a couple of hours late, and they know it.”

Marcus laughed. “Well, if they can hang on a few more minutes, you’ll be in there.” Then he pointed to the side of the barn. “Step over there, would you?”

Norris nodded. As soon as the farmer was out of the way, Landis and Rhianna watched as the cedar tree slowly rose through the air. When it had cleared the top of the barn, it began to drift over the barn and out to the far edge of a big field. Then the tree floated to the ground and settled.

While Marcus said goodbye to Norris, Landis turned to Rhianna and whispered, “How did he do that?”

Alek arched his eyebrows. “Haven’t you ever seen a sorcerer work before?”

Landis shook her head. “There weren’t any sorcerers where I grew up.”

Alek’s eyebrows arched even higher. “Must have been an isolated place.”

Landis nodded. “You might say that.” She looked at the tree again. “But how did he do it?”

Marcus walked up in time to hear her question. “With my outstretched hand.”

Landis frowned.

“It’s hard to describe, but you imagine an arm coming out of your head and extending to where you need a hand. Then you form the hand and use it to do whatever you need to do. Like with that tree. I brought the hand up under it and lifted it up. It’s not hard, as long as you have enough energy stored to keep the hand in place as long as you need it.” Marcus laughed. “The first time I tried to do something like that by myself, I made a mess of it. A small pine tree had fallen over on a shed during a storm. I lifted the tree up, moved it over the shed, and dropped it right on top of the roof. I had run out of energy.”

Landis’s mouth dropped open. “What did you do?”

“Wasn’t a whole lot I could do right then. Once I stored up some more energy, I moved the tree away, but it had smashed the shed. I had to rebuild it from the ground up.”

“Did anyone get hurt?”

Marcus shook his head. “I’d just started working with the outstretched hand. There was no way anyone would have let me attempt it if the shed hadn’t been empty. I’m pretty sure my teacher knew I’d mess it up, but he let me do it anyway. I felt really foolish, but I learned a valuable lesson that day. Always have more energy stored than you could possibly need before you start something.”

“Guess that’s why …” Landis bit off her words right before she said Glendymere’s name. “Guess that’s why they make us spend so much time learning how to store energy.”

Marcus nodded. “Eventually you’ll do it without thinking, but that takes years of training.”

“What else can you do?”

“Well, I can use my seeing eye to see the rock slide blocking this road about half a mile from here. Let’s mount up and see what we can do about it,” Marcus said as Alek handed him the reins to his horse.

As they rode out of the farmer’s yard, Landis asked, “What did you mean, use your seeing eye to see a rock slide?”

Marcus thought for a moment. “Have you ever looked through a spy glass?”

Landis nodded.

“It’s sort of like that. I can see things by moving an eye down a road, over a mountain, through the woods, into a building, things like that.”

For a while they followed the road in silence as it wound its way through the woods, following a stream towards the mountains. When they began to climb the mountain, Landis turned to Marcus and asked, “This seeing eye, do we all have one?”

“All sorcerers have one, but not all sorcerers spend enough time working with it to be able to use it. Forming the eye isn’t easy, and learning how to move it around takes a lot of time and effort, but it can come in handy.”

“How?”

“Well, for one thing, I was able to see this rock slide,” Marcus answered as they rounded a curve. A pile of rocks blocked their road. A huge boulder sat at the bottom of the pile with hundreds of other rocks scattered on top and around it.

Marcus dismounted and studied the side of the mountain. “Looks like the boulder broke loose and started the whole thing. I don’t think any more rocks will come down, but I can’t be sure, so I want all of you to go back around the curve while I clean this up.”

Landis shook her head. “The whole point of my being here is to observe. I can’t see what you’re doing from around the curve.”

Marcus looked around for a minute. “All right, but you’ll have to stand over there, out of the way.” He pointed to a ledge on the other side of the small valley and about ten feet above the road they were on.

“How am I supposed to get over there?” Landis looked around for a trail of some kind.

“I’ll lift you over there,” Marcus answered. “Just don’t fight me.”

The next thing Landis knew, she was rising through the air. “You aren’t going to drop me, are you?” she asked in a tight voice as she watched the ground fall away beneath her.

“As long as you don’t fight me, you’ll be fine,” Marcus said.

Landis watched as the ground leveled out and then started climbing again. When her feet touched ground on the opposite ledge, she took a deep breath. It wasn’t until that moment she realized she’d held her breath all the way across.

Marcus turned to Rhianna. “I don’t suppose you’ll go with Alek and help him with the horses, will you?”

“Well,” Rhianna said, looking over at Landis, “If he needs my help, I can, but I’d rather watch you.”

Alek grunted and gathered all the reins. As he headed back towards the curve with all four horses, Rhianna felt her feet lift off the ground. It wasn’t quite as smooth as her flight with Myron, but it was close. A couple of minutes later, she was on the ledge beside Landis. “Nice way to travel, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Personally, I’d rather walk.”

“You’ll love it when you can do it yourself.”

“You mean fly through the air?” Landis frowned. “I don’t think so.”

At that point, a sharp blast startled them. When they looked down, the boulder was gone. All that remained was rubble. As they watched, more rocks burst into pieces, and then the pieces burst into pieces. Marcus kept tossing energy bolts at the rocks until all that remained was a bed of gravel.

After he was done, and Landis and Rhianna were back on the road, they mounted up and rode back the way they’d come. They hadn’t gone far before Marcus turned off onto a smaller road and led them around a pond and through some woods to another farm house, and another fallen tree. This one hadn’t fallen against any of the buildings, but it was blocking the path the farmer’s cows took from the barn to the pasture. Fifteen minutes later, they were on their way again, to another farm and another tree.

Over the next few hours, Marcus removed trees from buildings, yards, and roads, cleared log jams in a couple of streams, helped repair a few roofs, and rescued a kitten who’d managed to get trapped under a fallen cedar tree. By the time they headed into Milhaven for lunch, they were ready for a break.