The Dreamer's Curse (Book 2) Read online

  “Unfortunately true,” Sevana grimaced. Oh, to have some sort of device that would let her go back in time. It would make solving the current problem so much easier.

  “Indeed, by telling us what you have and giving us this wonderful drawing to look at, you’ve given us valuable information that we were in sore need of.” Master gave him a particularly charming, sincere smile known to make puppies whine and children giggle. “For that, you have my heartfelt thanks.”

  Hube nodded in acknowledgement, but he clearly felt rattled by the notion that he’d directly played a part in the current disastrous state of affairs.

  Sevana turned to the other two men. “As I see it, we have two options at the moment. Either we focus on the fountain and try to dismantle it, or we first go throughout the village and hunt up those inscribed stones and remove them. The second option won’t fix the problem, not really, but it’ll give us more leisure to work with.”

  Sarsen grimaced. “Although it would be very tedious.”

  “It would be just like a scavenger hunt,” Master disagreed, face lighting up with childish enthusiasm. “It sounds fun!”

  She and Sarsen both gave him a weary look. Why did he have to be so cheerful at the worst times? “I say we try dismantling the fountain first,” she said firmly.

  Master actually pouted at her, although his dancing eyes suggested that he was only half-serious. “You never want to play with me, sweetling.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Why do I always have to be the adult? Fountain first.”

  “I’m not sure if that will work well, Sev,” Sarsen warned. “I mean, look at what happened yesterday.”

  “Well, I’m half-inclined to agree with you,” she admitted with a wince. “But I’m still trying to be hopeful. Yesterday, we attacked the fountain magically. And we actually targeted the gadgick more than the fountain. If we can just remove one or two stones from the very base of the fountain, draining most of the water, we might be able to weaken the gadgick enough to turn if off completely.”

  “That’s a very large if, sweetling.” Master frowned and rubbed at his chin as he thought. “But I suppose it bears trying. We’ll need to approach this cautiously, though. Say, one of us tries to remove the stone, the other two have shields and protective charms at the ready.”

  If it meant avoiding the disastrous scene from yesterday, Sevana was all for it. “Then I’ll handle removing the stone.”

  Both men let out a squawk of protest, words overlapping.

  “Sev, you can’t take on the most dangerous part of the job—”

  “Sweetling, you’re still sore and aching from yesterday—”

  She held up both hands to forestall the rest of their objections. “This isn’t up for debate, gentlemen. This is a task that I took on. I will be the one that bears the brunt of the dangers. I would rather have the two of you protecting me in case this does go wrong.”

  “But sweetling—” Master started again, stubborn and worried.

  “No,” she said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “If you’re so worried about what might happen, then you’d best focus on casting strong shields around me.”

  Master stared at her for a long moment, eyes searching for any sign of hesitation on her part. He didn’t find any. With a long groan, his shoulders slumped and he complained to Sarsen, “She’s impossible to deal with when she gets like this.”

  “I know.” Sarsen grimaced, passing a hand wearily over his face. “Alright, Sev, we’ll try it your way.”

  “Good.” Turning on her heel, she headed for the door. “Let’s go try it, then.”

  “Wait, now?!” Sarsen objected, scrambling after her. “Oh, my thanks, Master Hube.”

  She paused and nodded thanks to the man as well—he had been very helpful—before asking Sarsen dryly, “What, you have something else to do on your schedule?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “This isn’t going to take any elaborate preparations,” she pointed out, not slowing her pace as she started up the street and toward the main square.

  “She does have a point.” Master kept up with her quick pace easily, not seeming to be at all fazed by her snap decision. “And if this doesn’t work, we need to know it now so that we can go on to the next idea. We have plenty of time, as it’s still relatively early in the morning. We might as well try it now rather than later.”

  “Well, I suppose you’re both right….”

  Finally, they both saw the sense of trying it now. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to see if it would work or not. Either the shield would not react or it would. It was as simple as that. Hmmm. But how to approach this problem specifically? They’d tried magic yesterday. Would it be better to go with a completely non-magical approach this time? Perhaps the shield had only been designed to react to magical interference. Perhaps taking a stonemason’s tools to it wouldn’t trigger the shield at all.

  Even inside of her head that sounded like wishful thinking.

  During the course of her career, Sevana had found it handy to carry a wide range of tools on her. Most of the time, all she really needed were her wands, crystals, potions, and the protective charms. But occasionally, she found it necessary to carve an incantation into rock and she didn’t like having to go all the way back to her workroom just to fetch the right tools. Because of that, her pouch always had a cross pein hammer and a bull point chisel, both tools of the trade for stonemasons. These two tools alone had the right weight and precision to let her carve fine details into stone. They might not be right for the job of working a stone out of a fountain, but for the purpose of testing a theory, they’d do just fine.

  Sevana crossed the square, not oblivious to the onlookers that paused and watched the three Artifactors make a beeline for the fountain. If they wanted to look, she’d let them. They had proven yesterday, after all, that the shield really would only react to whoever attacked it and no one else.

  She stopped right at the basin’s edge and took a look at the fountain with new eyes. The ‘decorative piece’ as Hube called it sat in the very center, on the third and upmost level of the fountain, and didn’t look at all extraordinary. Oh, it looked interesting, granted. Some ancient and long dead stonemason had carved it to be a fairy maiden with a jug on her shoulder and flowers all around her feet. The jug let out a constant stream of water that flowed from the basin at her feet and into the second level, and from there to the third. The water didn’t have a strong flow to it, compared to other fountains she’d seen, but it kept the water moving at a strong enough clip that some of it sprayed her face lightly with errant drops as she knelt at the fountain’s edge.

  She took out her bull point chisel and hammer from her leather pouch, shifting to try and find a more comfortable angle for her knees. “Are you two ready?”

  Master and Sarsen stood near either shoulder, their wands out in one hand, a protective charm clutched in the other. Hinun stood directly behind her, not only looking on with great interest, but keeping other people from getting too close. In fact, he stood so close that she could feel his breath against her back. Now, just where had he come from? He’d been napping on the inn’s front porch during breakfast and they’d left him there when they went to speak with Hube.

  “Ready, sweetling,” Master assured her calmly.

  Taking a breath, and casting a fervent prayer up toward the heavens that this would work, she leaned forward and placed the chisel in the mortar between two stones. Raising her hammer, she hit the chisel squarely.

  In the next second, a strong force threw her backward, knocking her directly into the wolf. Her breath escaped her lungs in a whoosh but she didn’t go far. Hinun had braced himself and caught her body weight, preventing her from doing anything more than losing her balance.

  She blinked, shaking her head slightly to clear it, and looked up. Master and Sarsen’s faces were strained with clenched jaws and brows furrowed, the charms in their hands flaring and burning in white light as they a
ctivated. Clearly, the fountain’s shield tested both of their magical strength. But it didn’t last for more than a few moments. As quickly as it had flared up, it died back down again, leaving no sign that anything had occurred. Even her attempt to chisel at the mortar hadn’t left a single scratch behind.

  Curse it.

  With a pat of thanks to Hinun’s back, she pushed herself to her feet. “That was a spectacular failure.”

  Master let his arms relax to his sides. “But it does answer our question. The shield protects from all interference, magical and otherwise. We are going to have to do this the hard way.”

  “Master,” Sarsen requested in weary resignation, “Why do you grin like a delighted child when you say that?”

  “I like scavenger hunts!” Master protested, smile becoming outright impish.

  Sevana looked at that expression and groaned. This would turn out to be a long, long day.

  Sevana landed roughly on her right side and skidded slightly on the ground, sharp pointy things pricking her and scratching even through the clothes. With a hiss of pain she finally fetched to a stop against a very wide tree trunk that slammed into her back. It knocked the air right out of her lungs and she gasped, eyes going dark for a moment.

  For several long moments she just lay there gasping for breath. Alive? She must be. She was in too much pain to be dead. As she got her breath back, she took mental stock. Her skin sent up pain signals from the scratches—for purely superficial wounds, they were putting up quite the fuss—back aching right down to the bones from the trunk digging into her, her whole right side complaining in general. But none of it seemed serious enough to prevent her getting up and moving.

  She’d been transported. She’d been TRANSPORTED. In the dead of night, just like all the other villagers! Sweet mercy, even though she’d taken precautions against something like this happening, she wasn’t remotely happy about being dumped outside in the middle of the night!

  Something wet and slightly smelly touched her face. Flinching back from it instinctively, she looked up, forcing her eyes to focus. Black. Black and…gold eyes. Eh?

  “Hinun, did you come with me?” Granted, he’d been sleeping with her, but—

  Hinun let out a soft huff and nosed her again, this time getting her cheek nice and wet with slobber.

  “UGH, off!” Pushing him away, she wiped at her face and struggled to sit up. It hurt more than expected, but not enough for it to be from broken bones. She’d probably have quite the pattern of black and blue bruises to show though. Sitting upright, she leaned her back against the trunk and took a good look around.

  Her heart abruptly sank. Not a single thing looked remotely familiar.

  Sevana traveled a great deal because of her profession and she had been in and around the world more often than she could count. That said, there were still areas that she’d never been to and this appeared to be one of them. (She couldn’t see how the evil fountain would know that, but she just knew it had somehow done this on purpose.) In every direction all she could see were trees—large, thick, ancient trees that rose so high into the sky that they obscured all sight of the sun. It felt like twilight in here because of the dimness. Most of the ground had nothing but moss and boulders with a few errant saplings here and there struggling to survive.

  Where in the world had that thing sent her?

  For that matter, why had she also been affected?

  She turned back to the wolf that sat patiently next to her. He didn’t seem injured in any way, as he just sat there and panted, not at all distressed. “And how in sweet mercy’s name did you manage to follow me here?”

  He leaned forward and bit her sleeve in a demonstrative manner before pulling back.

  “You grabbed me?” she repeated in shock. “Why? Trying to prevent me from going?”

  Hinun let out a soft huff.

  Incredible. Just how sensitive was he to magic that he could feel the spell building and react that quickly? Maybe she should look into getting a wolf of her own—oh wait. She couldn’t. She had a cat. A useless one at that.

  She used the trunk behind her as a support as she pushed her way to her feet. Her body sent signals of don’t do that! She ignored them and kept moving. “Hinun, can you smell people anywhere nearby? Fire or food being cooked, anything like that?” It would at least give them a destination for now, and once she knew where they were, she could call for help. Useless to do so now—the first question they’d ask would be “Where are you?” and Sevana hated the words I don’t know with a passion.

  Hinun lifted his nose in the air and started sniffing, his head swiveling this way and that as he sought a scent. He did this for a good minute before he stepped forward a few feet, sniffing harder.

  “That way? You don’t look too sure of that. Too faint for you to be certain, eh? Well, it’s as good a direction as any. Lead on.” She fell into step behind him and they weaved their way around the massive trees. Sevana felt about as tall and significant as an ant in this place. This primitive, untouched forest must be at least two thousand years old. Very few forests in Mander could boast such an age and it gave her some sort of clue on their whereabouts.

  Unfortunately, most of the forests that fit these surroundings were in far western Kindin. It would be quite the task of fetching her home again if she really was where she thought she was.

  She couldn’t make it more than two steps before the bad lighting forced her to light her wand with a quick spell. It hovered in front of her forehead, lighting her path, letting her see her surroundings a bit better. At least, it let her see where she put her feet down. The massive trunks of the trees blocked her light from penetrating more than a short distance in any direction. Sevana judged it to be pre-dawn, but she couldn’t see anything more than smatterings of the sky above her and it didn’t give her any solid clue to the time. The grayish-blue color could belong to twilight or just before sunrise.

  In a village with a transportation artifact acting up, she had never dared to get completely undressed, and that was to her aid right now. She did not have shoes on, so the odd sticks and pebbles on the ground dug into her feet, making her wince and curse. But at least she had warm trousers and a sweater instead of a flimsy nightgown. Although she firmly intended to buy shoes the minute she reached a town. Or village. Or a random trading post, for that matter.

  With no clock, and the sky blocked overhead, Sevana had no way of keeping track of the time. It felt like an endless eternity before she stepped around the last massive tree and entered what seemed to be a more normal forest. At least here, the trees didn’t loom overhead and she could climb one if she felt inclined to do so. The lighting also improved, mellow sunlight filtering in through the leaves. Alright, so it looked like dawn had arrived while she wandered aimlessly through a pitch-black forest. First good news she’d had all night.

  “Hinun? Any signs of people?”

  He huffed in agreement, his pace picking up slightly. Obviously, he had a firmer line on a scent this time.

  “Good.” She followed him on aching, cold feet, trying to avoid the obvious sticks that waited to trip her up. She missed a few of the ones buried under a thick carpet of dry leaves, unfortunately, and got scratched for her efforts. “From now on,” she promised herself between clenched teeth, “I will go to sleep with my boots tied to my wrist.”

  They abruptly left the forest, stepping into a wide expanse of rolling grassland. In the near distance, she saw a thriving port town that sat right on the edge of the water, the docks busy with ships coming and going. Blinking to let her eyes adjust to the brighter light, she lifted one hand to her forehead and did a slow turn, taking in everything in front of her. The coastline turned and twisted like a snake, making a rough crescent shape until it faded off into the far distance. To her left, she had another shoreline with the same sort of massive trees and primitive forest like the one she had just left.

  Her heart sank. She had never been in this part of the world, but the way
the land was shaped and the landmarks she saw were unmistakable. That thrice-cursed, gormless artifact had transported her completely across the world! She was on the far west coast of Kindin, near Ocean Woods. It would, in fact, take the better part of four days to fetch her back to Chastain.

  Letting her head fall back, she let out a groan. “If it wasn’t a priceless artifact, I’d take great delight in smashing it into little tiny pieces for this.”

  Hinun let out an inquiring whine.

  “It’s alright,” she assured him with a long sigh. “I know where we are.” Digging through her pouch, she lifted her Caller out and let it rest on her open palm. “Master.”

  It didn’t even take a full second before the Caller came abruptly alive. “Sevana! Where are you? You’re not doing anything reckless, are you?”

  What, did he think she got out of bed at some forsaken hour of the morning to test out a theory? “Master, I’m not in Windamere.”

  The Caller went abruptly still, Master’s expression on the white porcelain becoming set, as if he had just braced himself for the worst. “Then where are you?”

  “Just outside of Boscareno, near Ocean Woods,” she responded sourly. “That thrice-cursed gadgick transported me in my sleep.”

  “IT DID WHAT?!”

  “We obviously didn’t find enough stones yesterday to make any real difference.” She made a face. “Unfortunately. It would make our lives simpler if we had.”

  “Never mind that right now. Are you alright, sweetling?”

  “I’ve had better nights, but I’m fine. So’s Hinun.”

  Master rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “My wolf is with you?”

  “Well, he was sleeping with me.” She shrugged. “He said he grabbed me when he felt me abruptly shift. So he tagged along on this adventure.”

  “I suppose I am relieved to hear that, in a way. Wait, how are you able to call me?”

  “Fortunately for all, I’ve been wrapping the strap of my magic pouch around my wrist and sleeping with it every night since I came to Chastain. Just in case something like this happened.” And to think last night she had nearly not done so because she thought the danger mostly passed. Who said that paranoia didn’t pay off?