Wizard Dawning (The Battle Wizard Saga, No. 1) (13 page)

Thor walked up as Captain Dahman shut and locked the door to his office. He straightened and turned. "Let's get over to the school. They're pulling her papers for us to look at."

"Lead the way." Thor said.

†††

The school principle flashed an irritated look at them as they entered the school office. Drumming her fingers on the counter, she turned angrily back to a clerk. "Not there? How can her records not be in the file?"

"Is there a problem?" Dahman asked.

The clerk glanced at him in exasperation. "All her transfer papers, previous school records, guardian documents, everything that she gave me when she registered is gone."

"How did you get the address?"

The principle waved toward a desk. "That was on the computer. I accessed it from home last night." She turned to Dahman. "You say no one was at her home last night?"

"Not just last night. Nobody has been there in a long time." Thor said.

The principle walked over to the desk and bent to type. After a pause, she pointed at the monitor and read off an address.

"That's where we went," Dahman said after glancing at the address scribbled in his notebook.

The principle looked at Thor. "And you are…?"

Grampa Thor stepped forward and extended his hand. "Thor Arnsohn, Sig Stromgard's grandfather."

She looked to Captain Dahman. "This involves Sig?"

"He's missing and the girl is the last known contact. We thought she could provide information on his whereabouts or planned movements."

"She's a very attractive girl," the principle said.

"So I've heard, but it isn't like Sig not to come home or call," Thor said.

"Sig is a wonderful student, but since his father passed away, he's been bit troubled." She sounded skeptical.

"Troubled or not, he planned to meet a girl who seems to have falsified her records and now she also can't be found."

Dahman raised a hand. "Let's go. I'll issue missing person notices, for both of them and see what turns up."

Outside the school Thor and Dahman parted, Dahman to kick official wheels into motion. Thor planned his own investigation.

When Thor arrived, Meredith sat with her head bowed at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a tissue in her hand. She glanced at the bits of shredded tissue on the table and realized that it communicated her frustration and concern through the composed exterior she tried to maintain.

"What did you find out Grampa?"

"Not much. The school seems to have misplaced all the records on the girl. It's as if she doesn't exist."

The eyes she lifted toward him felt swollen. "What do we do?"

"Captain Dahman has started with the official inquiries. I'm going to use my own sources."

"What are those?"

He slumped. "I don't know. I have to think. I tried a seeking spell on Aðalbrandr and it didn't work."

"I don't care about the amulet. I want to find my son."

Thor dropped into a chair. "But it's part of him now. I thought that since it recently was mine I could make a connection." He shook his head in frustration. "My spell died."

"Why don't you just look for Sig? He's your great-grandson. Isn't that enough connection?" She said in exasperation.

"Meredith you don't understand…" He paused and stared at her. "Maybe I shouldn't assume. You know what they say about ASS-U-ME. I need a pan of water."

She hurried and brought back a black enameled roasting pan for him. He filled it with water and placed it on the kitchen table.

He gave her a small smile. "Now don't try this at home." He stood and bent over the pan.

Mumbling unintelligible words, he simultaneously motioned with his hands over the water. The water darkened, becoming opaque. He stared at it intently.

Meredith gazed into the pan from the other side of the table.

"Damn," he muttered. "See. Nothing." He swatted his hand over the pan in disgust.

But, there is something. "What's that glow over there?" She waved a finger over part of the pan.

"It's just a reflection, from…." His hand pointed toward the ceiling. However, where he pointed, there wasn't anything to cause a glow.

Thor waved his palm over the pan. The glow remained no matter where he moved his hand.

He leaned closer to the pan, scanning the water's surface intently and mumbling as if to himself. "If he were in the dark… Where is it dark? Night, a room, a cave, a car trunk, a container, coffin…."

"Coffin?! Don't say that," Meredith exclaimed.

Thor looked embarrassed. "Don't worry. I'm just thinking about how much I need to move the point of view to figure out where that is." He said, nodding at the pan.

He stared fixedly at the water, and began to mumble and motion with his hands. The only change came when the glow faded away. Soon the pan showed only blank blackness. Thor continued to mutter and move his hands. It took on a rhythmic chant.

Meredith continued to watch the pan. Suddenly it brightened and shapes began to form. "Look," she exclaimed.

Thor panted in gasps, eyes clamped shut, brows furrowed, and sweat beading his face.

His eyes opened and focused on the changing scene within. Browns and tans replaced the former black. Some green crept in. The colors took on shapes; becoming scrub bushes and rocks—lots of rocks—large rocks. He continued to chant and make pulling motions with his hands and then stopped. They were looking at a low-level aerial view.

"Does anything look familiar," he asked, between gasps.

Meredith looked at him with concern. "No, it could be anywhere hilly and rocky. There's just a dirt tracking leading to it."

"That's what I feared," he sighed and limply slid into a chair breathing rapidly. The vision in the pan disappeared.

"Are you okay? What can I get you?" She felt concern for him. He looked so weak and tired.

"Glass of water."

She handed him a glass as his breathing slowed.

He took it with a weak smile and a nod. He sipped a bit then a bit more. "Takes more out of me every time."

"Maybe you shouldn't do it."

"Have to. To find Sig."

"Did you find him?"

"That's who I searched for. It has to be him. I'm glad you suggested it. I didn't imagine he wouldn't have the talisman."

"How do you know he doesn't have it.?"

"If he had it, I wouldn't have found him. It keeps spells like remote viewing from finding him."

"Why wouldn't he have it.?'

He grimaced and then looked up at her. "The answer to that question is what worries me."

"What do we do now?"

Grampa's head hung, facing the floor. "Please make me some food," he whispered. "I have to rest and eat, and then try again."

He started to rise from the chair and fell back, off balance. Meredith grabbed to prevent him falling. He grabbed her around the waist.

"Can you get me to the recliner? I'm so weak," he whispered.

She squatted and threw his arm over her shoulder. She rose, dragging him up. They shuffled into the family room and she maneuvered him until he could collapse into his chair.

He breathed deeply with eyes closed. "Thank the gods you're a strong woman."

She patted his shoulder. "I'll whip something up."

"Make sure it has sugar. I need quick energy."

She returned quickly with two sandwiches, one chicken salad, the other roast beef, and a glass of milk. Grampa breathed heavily, sound asleep. She laid the plate and glass on the table beside him and went back to finish preparing brownies.

When the brownies were ready, she took a plateful with her and went to wake him.

He was breathing more easily and his eyes snapped open when she shook his shoulder. "Wha . . . Meredith… We need to get Sig."

He tried to rise from the chair and she pushed him back.

"Not before you eat and drink. I don't want to lose you too." She pointed to the food. "Eat. Then we'll find Sig." Not wanting to hover while he ate, she went back into the kitchen.

When she returned, both sandwiches were gone as well as half the plate of brownies. "My you've gotten your appetite back."

"Not really. I have to eat. I've got work to do."

"What do we have to do?"

"I have to perform a remote viewing again and then pull back away from him until we can see the surroundings to determine where he is. It looks like he's in a cave or a shelter, although I didn't see any buildings."

"I didn't either, just rocks and vegetation.

"You said he went to work on his geology project. That could involve a cave."

"You saw his truck still at the library. There weren't any vehicles in the vicinity in the short time we looked at the scene in the water. He had to get there somehow."

"I don't like the situation at all. I have to find him." He started to rise and Meredith helped heave him up. He tottered back into the kitchen and slumped into a chair next to the pan of water on the table. He stared down into it.

"What do we do next?" Meredith asked.

"I'm going to find him again and then draw back, as before, but further. We need to find features, markers, landmarks, rivers, streams, roads, anything that will tell us where that is." Grampa said, pointing at the pan. "If we can get close, there are other things I can do, but we have to get within range."

"Tell me what to do."

"Note what you see when I start the viewing—anything that will help us find that location. Another set of eyes helps, like you've already shown."

She stepped over to the small desk in the kitchen and came back with a notepad and pencil. "I'll write down anything you tell me or that I see."

Grampa nodded and began to mumble and wave his hands over the water.

"Look there's the glow!" Meredith said, and then felt fear. "It's not as bright as before."

Grampa nodded slightly and changed to a pulling motion. The scene changed much more rapidly than last time. Where there had been black, suddenly color burst into being. Colors took on shape and became scenery. The scenery shrunk in size as the vision pulled away. It was similar to a movie where the camera went from a close up to a panoramic shot.

They travelled in the direction of the car track. It meandered into and out of view while they pulled straight back, rising at an angle above the woods. Meredith scribbled as the scenery changed. A small stream crossed the track and suddenly the track ended at a gate leading to a dirt road.

"Stop, there's a road. Can you follow it?" She asked.

"Not very well," he croaked. "I'm focused on Sig. I go closer and further, or around him. Can't follow the road."

Meredith considered those limitations. "Pull back, we'll try to see a crossroad."

"What time is it?" Grampa whispered.

"It's 12:30."

"Where are the shadows? That's north."

"Oh, yes, that helps." She scribbled again.

The view in the pan began traveling again, away from the dirt road, further from Sig. Movement accelerated. Meredith watched anxiously.

"Wait, through the trees, there's a road. It's to the right."

The scene steadied and then began to swing right. Grampa remained silent. His head hung over the pan.

The scene passed over a narrow paved road. "You passed the road. Go back," Meredith said urgently.

The scene slowed and finally stopped. Then it began to move, but not back the way it had come.

It approached the paved road on a diagonal, passed over it and then passed over the dirt road.

Grampa groaned. The scene shifted right, past the dirt road and then changed direction again. It approached the intersection of the two roads.

"There are signs. Get closer."

Grampa moaned.

Two signs. One square and white and the other a blue and white pentagon. Meredith copied down the two numbers, but couldn't read the county designation.

"Closer." She leaned forward closer to the water. The scene faded away and then the pan slid toward her. Water sloshed over the edge. Grampa's head hit the table and he rolled out of the chair in a faint.

"Oh no!" She dropped to her knees next to him to check his pulse. Still beating. He took shallow breaths, but he was breathing. She exhaled a sigh of relief.

She rose and retrieved a pillow from the couch in the family room. Tucking it under his head, she checked for cuts or lumps from his fall.

His eyes cracked open. "Let me lie. Get a blanket." She pulled two blankets out of the linen closet and draped them over him and then sat next to him and rubbed her fingers through his white hair. He looked so fragile with his eyes closed, breathe erratic.

She remained there while his breathing smoothed out. After almost ten minutes, his eyes slitted open. "Can you help me to the chair again?"

After he settled in the recliner, she stretched her back, glad for her natural strength.

"What can I do Grampa?" She asked, after she draped the blankets over him.

He looked up at her from under his white bushy eyebrows. "A Stoli?"

She smiled.

"And maybe some more brownies?"

She felt relief. He would live. Now they needed to make sure Sig would.