“Victor?” I’d woken from a sharp kick in my back. I turned over to find the wizard thrashing madly in his covers clutching his throat. His body was shaking all over and he was sweating profusely. I sat up hurriedly and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him. He let out a groan which rose to a high pitched wail but still, he wouldn’t wake up.
“Victor!” I shook him harder and his face became paler as the scream rose in pitch until it disappeared from hearing. I wrestled him into a sitting position and he started the same body wracking cough that had plagued him yesterday. Blood spewed from his mouth and he shook harshly, never letting go of his throat.
As I noticed this, I wrenched his hands away and my stomach churned at what I saw. A sickly vine-like rash was spreading across his throat, covering it in red tendrils. It was sickening and I dropped him back to the ground as I felt bile rising up in my throat.
What could I do? I didn’t know the answer to the question, only that I had to figure out something, and do it fast. I leapt to my feet, making a hasty decision to attempt getting Victor to a healer. I yanked at the canvas tent and pulled it down quickly. It took me five minutes to wad the tent into a bundle and tie it to Shika’s saddle. I piled Victor, still coughing and clutching his throat, onto Xyle’s back and hopped up behind him.
“Come on girl,” I urged Shika as I looped her reins over Xyle’s neck and dug my heels into the black unicorn’s flank. I knew we needed to find a healer quickly so I headed back towards Kingston as fast as the unicorns could move. I hated to backtrack but there was no time to look at the map and see how far the next town was. Besides, Kingston was so huge I knew that there would have to be a healer somewhere.
The unicorns galloped speedily through the night air, their hooves pounding out a steady tattoo as I urged them to go faster. White lather flew from their bit laden mouths and their sharp hooves sent dirt clots flying out behind us.
The sky remained dark as the unicorns carried me closer. Time passed agonizingly slow but at last we sped around the bend and the huge walls of Kingston came into view.
The guards were dozing when I arrived in the dark hours of the morning, but the unicorn’s hooves roused them. Quickly one man approached me, angered at being caught sleeping.
“Look here, boy, what are you doing here at this wretched hour of the morning!?” he demanded as he walked towards me angrily.
“Guard. I need a healer, my traveling companion is dying. Do you know where I can find one?” I was panting as I spoke urgently through my chattering teeth. The guard must have seen the desperation plastered on my face, and he decided I wasn’t lying when he saw Victor’s rash covering his throat and neck. It was spreading quickly.
“Yes. We have a witch healer near here. I’ll bring you to her. Wait one moment.” The guard took off on foot and left me sitting on Xyle’s heaving back, holding onto Victor tightly, hoping he would live. The man was gone for a moment before he finally arrived riding a white unicorn out from behind the guard tower.
He nodded to me and turned toward the guard tower, motioning for the gates to be opened. They seemed to open painfully slow as if they couldn’t care less if Victor was dying or not. The gates finally opened up far enough for the unicorns to squeeze through and the man led me through and down several narrow streets when Victor finally stirred.
“Zavier?” He sat up slowly, still clutching his throat and looked around. “Where are we?”
“We’re back in Kingston. I’m taking you to a witch healer.”
He didn’t argue, which worried me. He slumped back down over Xyle’s neck and I couldn’t rouse him again when the guard stopped in front of a large blue building.
“This is Esmeralda’s house. She should be able to heal your friend,” he offered sympathetically. I nodded thankfully as I slipped off the unicorn’s broad black back. I tethered the unicorns quickly as the guard dismounted. Gently we shifted Victor off Xyle and the guard helped me haul Victor into the well lit interior of the house. He nodded once then left.
Victor was now struggling to sit up in his straight-backed chair, squirming and twisting. His expression was a mask of pain as he gasped for breath, his body writhing like a coiling snake.
A woman finally appeared from a black door at the end of the room’s hallway. She was a muscular and tall lady probably in her forties. She wore a plain black dress and had her greying black hair tucked into a bun covered by a hair net. She walked briskly across the tiled floor, a grim expression on her face. Her hard heeled boots made a clicking noise as she stepped quickly over the ceramic tiles.
“What can I do for you two boy’s this time of morning?” she raised an eyebrow as she sauntered over to Victor and pulled his hand away from his throat. The rash had now spread onto his chest, blending with his tattoos.
She inspected him closely for a moment then turned to me.
“So I see. Your friend here has a severe case of Magic Fever. He has held back his magic for so long that it is kind of like . . . fermenting in his body, rotting away. By the look of things he was a very powerful Wizard. If I don’t stop it, his own magic will kill him-”
“You can stop it though?” I interrupted. She shrugged then hefted Victor to his feet as he started his hacking cough again.
“We’ll see,” she muttered thoughtfully, ignoring the spluttering cough as she walked him through a blue door on our right.
She set Victor down a wooden examining table in the middle of the room. Quickly, she stepped back a pace before ripping off his shirt. His tattoos-originally a dark black- were a burning red color, mingling with the thread-like rash as it spread towards his heart.
“I have the potion that will save him but it’s already progressed too far-”
“What’s that supposed to mean? It will still work right?” The witch sent me a seething glare as I interrupted her.
“Wait here and don’t let him do anything stupid.” She left before I could inquire of anything else and Victor’s coughing subsided immediately. He sat up and glared at me.
“We have to leave, Zavier. She’s a demon witch. She’s seen my tattoos and will do anything to destroy me. We have to get out of here, I think I can walk.” He slid off the table and I supported him under one shoulder as he hobbled to the door and opened it.
“Either way you’re not going to last long without any help,” I complained, not knowing whether to force him to stay or help him escape. When it came to the rivalry between witch and wizard I knew very little.
“No, not here,” he panted breathlessly.
“Victor, did you know this was going to happen?” I grunted as we limped towards the front door, tantalizingly slow. He shook his head.
“I was told of it a long while back, but it slipped my mind.” he coughed again and blood dribbled onto his bare chest.
“Your shirt!” I let go of him but he grabbed my arm.
“Forget it. We have to get out of here now!” He attempted to go onwards and slipped on the slick floor, hitting his chin on the bronze door latch, issuing a sickening cracking noise. The force of the fall sent his body sprawling across the floor. I rushed to him just as the far back door opened and the smiling witch glided towards us.
“I told you to stop him from doing anything stupid, boy.” Her white teeth gleamed as she picked up Victor, seemingly effortlessly. “Don’t worry. I won’t kill him using poison, that isn’t like me. I will heal him ,” she laughed loudly, “then we will have a proper duel.” She turned and headed toward a green door on the left, carrying the wizard over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
I followed her closely, never letting Victor out of my sight, I was terrified that he was seconds from death. She descended a set of steep stairs and entered a dark room that held a large wooden machine in it. Moving quickly, she set Victor on a cold metal table beside the machine, it looked so foreign to me that I was half-inclined to remove Victor’s trembling body from the strange table. The witch turned and grasped a heavy object that looked like an armored chest plate with lots of wires and tubes threading off of it. She hefted it up and sat it on Victor’s chest before clutching a large wooden lever. I quickly grabbed her arm away from the stake.
“What are you doing to him!?” I demanded, panic filling me voice. But she shoved me off, revealing a surprising amount of strength, causing me to fall to the floor.
“Foolish boy. I am neutralizing the disease so it can no longer spread to his heart and kill him,” she snarled back. I realized that her intent to heal him was true so I reluctantly let her continue and when she switched the handle over, bright magic sparked as it crawled up the length of the cord and spread through the chest plate and into his body. He shook forcefully, his body lifting off the metal table from the magic’s strength.
I bit my lip, drawing blood. The pain must have been excruciating. After a short while, she switched it off and removed the chest plate. The rash had retreated to a red splash on his neck and his tattoos were now a dark purple. The Witch picked him up again and motioned for me to follow her as she returned to the hallway and entered a white door which held two rows of curtained beds. All but one seemed to be empty.
The room was a bright white, as were all the beds and curtains, and it smelled strongly of potions. She lay Victor down in a bed next to the occupied one then pointed to the bed across from it.
“You may sleep there. When your friend wakes feed him this.” She retrieved a small black bottle from the sash at her waist and set it on the wooden side table. “Don’t worry, it won’t kill him. If he has another seizure, give him a few drops of this.” She held up a green bottle and sat it next to the other one.
“Thank you,” I offered quietly, only to receive a scowl in return. The witch shrugged before turning to leave then motioned to the occupied bed.
“Ignore this one, he’s going to die soon, anyway.” Moments later she was gone and the door was bolted shut.
Victor was still out cold, so I decided to get some sleep. Hopefully the Witch would take care of our unicorns. I still had Valsephony strapped to my back and I wasn’t about to part with her so I lay on my stomach as I threw myself onto the bed.
“Hello?” a small voice spoke from the curtains next to Victor and so I rose to my feet and approached the bed, curiosity overcoming me.
“Hello,” I answered as I pulled back the curtains and let out a stifled gasp. A small boy lay there. He looked to be about seven years old and had black ratty hair. His legs were bowed in a sickly fashion probably preventing him from walking very well. His taught skin was dry and pale and his eyes were sunk in.
A small smile crossed his pasty lips and his gaze brightened. “Wow. I haven’t had anyone to talk to for a long time, in fact ever since Stella left. Will you visit with me for a while?” His arms were also bent into an odd arching bow and his hands had a feeble uncontrollable twitch to them. I shrugged my shoulders feeling sorry for the boy, so sat down on one edge of the bed.
“Sure. What do you want to talk about?” I answered hesitantly. His hand darted about as he desperately tried to raise his arm. He sat it in my lap then feebly squeezed my hand and I squeezed back causing him to smile again.
“Tell me a story. Auntie used to before she got too sick to do so,” he mumbled quietly, his slurred speech almost difficult to understand. I nodded, thinking hard before I began. I decided to tell him my story but in a way which sounded like one of some great hero. Hearing it put like that, it did indeed sound like an odd, unreal fairy tale, not my own journey. The boys gaze got big as I described the dragon and the magic power that had filled the man who in turn had freed the chained dragon. The troll faced girl and the evil father, the unicorns, the sickness, the chase, the girls, the princess. Was this really my life? His hand remained in mine throughout the tale, I think it comforted him.
“Wow, Zavier, that is a neat story, better than most of Aunties. Now it’s my turn to tell you one,” he quipped eagerly as I came to the end of our journey, just after escaping the wicked man’s father. The sun had risen by now and Victor still hadn’t woken. The room shone bright from the suns glow and I wanted to sleep, yet for some odd reason I longed to keep the boy company.
“First though, what’s your name?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t think I ever really had any real name but Auntie called me Timmy.” He smiled once again and I returned one.
“I’ll tell you my story, at least the one Auntie said was mine. I was born to a very poor family and they couldn’t afford to keep a defective child. My legs and arms were bent and my hands wobbled. Auntie took me in and cared for me as best as she could. She told me this really neat story of this place, the Palace of Eternal Sleep. She said that it was told of in legends and most people confused it for death,” he wheezed, struggling for breathe for a few moments.
“She’d studied it though,” he continued, “a long time ago when her daughter got a paralyzing sickness. She knew more about the place than anyone else alive. She and her daughter were on their way to the valley where the palace lays, but her daughter didn’t make it and died. She said she went on anyway, yet her daughter was not healed because she was dead. She was sent home, her memory cleared of the palaces location. She said that if I could, I should try to find this place and go there to be healed. Then maybe my parents would accept me as their own.” He yawned and let my hand slip as he snuggled deep into his pillow. I tucked his hair behind his ears and pulled his covers up close to him. As I closed the curtain, his gaze slowly drooped.
“Good night, Zavier.”
“Good morning, Timmy.”
A distant memory haunts me as dreams shift in and out of my mind in my restless sleep. It is about the boy, Timmy. There is something troubling about him, as if I know him from a distant life. I try to shove the thoughts from my mind and rest but it is not to be.
Finally I grasp at something but it quickly slips from me. There is something that connects us, the two of us. It is not magic . . . but what is it then? His small sunken face fills my mind, his pitiful longing filling me.
Suddenly, more than anything, I feel his longing for the palace which he spoke of and deep down I know that the place must exist. But is it safe? Should we go?
And then as if a vale is lifted, I know the answer and the rest of my slumber is peaceful. We must go to the Palace of Eternal Sleep.
They are trapped. I was so hopeful that They would come and now the Wizard is dying. If He had just continued on, I could have healed the Wizard. She is restless once again. She doubts herself more and more, but I have not lost Hope yet. They must get out, how I don’t know. Magic. It is the only way.
Gender:
Points: 2973
Reviews: 102