Clash (The Arinthian Line Book 4) (78 page)

“What are you—” She paused when she saw Jengo, and immediately launched a verbal barrage. “How
dare
you, I told you not to—”

“Stop,” Augum said, placing a weak hand on her arm as Jengo writhed on the floor, clutching his head. He could talk! It was a miracle! And his arm moved!

She gasped. “Aug—” and threw her arms around him, drawing him close.

“Careful, legs are still broken,” Jengo said. His nose was bleeding.

She withdrew, sniffing. “Jengo …”

“Thank you, Jengo,” Augum said, seeing she was speechless. “But are you all right?”

Jengo sat up to lean his tall frame against the wall, hands still clutching his head. “Is it supposed to hurt like this?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“At the beginning, yeah,” Augum replied, enjoying holding Leera, something he feared he would never be able to do again. “And especially when you push yourself. You cast wild, didn’t you?”

“I … maybe I did, I don’t know. Hard to tell.”

“You need a mentor.”

“We all do,” Leera whispered, face pressed into Augum’s neck.

Augum gently felt his arms and neck and jaw, impressed with how well Jengo had done. A serious stiffness remained in his left arm, but still … multiple breaks arcanely healed with one casting. Not bad at all. There was no doubt that was advanced healing for someone who hadn’t even achieved their 1st degree. It seems Jengo had been training and studying diligently. Augum was looking forward to giving him one of the Exot rings, but that would have to wait until he achieved his 2nd degree.

Jengo moaned as he dabbed at his bloody nose with a cloth. “Been secretly practicing on local volunteers. But the book doesn’t quite prepare you for the real thing when you cast wild. I have a theory too. I think apprentices learn better when they’re self-motivated. As much as I wanted to go to an academy, I don’t think I would have come this far in so short a time there.”

“How far ahead did you study?” Augum asked. Jengo’s words were familiar. Nana had said something akin to it, something about them learning in the field, which advances arcanery faster. It was the ancient way of learning.

“Just kept reading and reading, oh and practicing everything I learned from you lot.” Jengo sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, making a hissing noise. “Feels like someone’s smashing my brains in with a hammer. Am I going to—”

“—no, you’re not going to die,” Augum replied with a smile. “Just don’t push yourself so hard next—” He winced from the sudden and powerful flash of an eternal black void that momentarily blackened his vision and took his soul to a very cold place. He shivered violently for a few heartbeats.

Leera watched him with deep concern. “Aug?”

“It’s nothing.” Nothing except something fundamentally wrong in his very being. And the chill had returned. He was coming down with something very strong.

Jengo looked up from his seated position, ebony face framed in dim starlight. “I need your permission. You have to let me keep working on you. Especially your legs.”

“You have it. Thank—” but a gut-wrenching wave of cold nausea made Augum shiver violently again, forcing him to fumble for the blanket.

“Oh, Aug, you don’t look too good,” Leera whispered, stroking his head.

Jengo gave a firm nod. “I promise I’ll do better. I will work harder at healing than I have ever worked before. I mean, I know I originally thought you might die a screaming death in the process, but I really believed—”

“Jengo—” Leera said with an imploring look. “He’s not feeling too well.”

“Right, uh, why don’t I let you all get some sleep.” He stood with a groan, a hand still pressed to his temple, muttering, “I’m certainly going to need it.”

After Jengo stumbled out, Leera pressed the back of her hand to Augum’s forehead. “You’re burning up,” she whispered, drawing blankets over him. There was fear in her eyes. “Go to sleep, it looks like you’ve got another fight ahead.”

* * *

Augum’s fever worsened over the next several days. Jengo kept healing his body—and doing a great job of it too—but he could do nothing against the fever’s potency. People came and went, some administering medicine, some to pay their respects to “the hero of heroes”, as someone put it, which meant nothing to Augum. In fact, he repeatedly cut people off if they even hinted at anything so absurd as that. Others just stopped by to quietly say hello and wish him well.

But Augum slipped further and further away, soon thinking he was dreaming each visit. Faces blurred, voices echoed. After a while, he could no longer tell what was real and what was delusion.

And the eternal and shivering darkness returned more and more, until he felt like he was living in it half the time. It was a dreary and lonely place of vast nothingness, a place where he always thought there was something deep underneath him, as if he was swimming on the surface of an infinitely black ocean, awaiting a monster to swim up and snatch him. The darkness frightened him. He was a child in a living nightmare.

“It’s arcane fever,” he heard someone whisper at one point, the voice bouncing in his brain. “He overdrew.” But when he looked over, there was nobody there.

“I couldn’t fully heal hisc left arm that well,” he heard someone else say another time. “Too many fractures. I’m sorry. But … but his legs seem to work fine, as evidenced by his frantic kicking …”

“Hi,” another person kept saying again and again. Some girl with a simple look on her face. He vaguely recognized her, but his thoughts had become so jumbled, so distant, that nothing quite made sense.

He had lengthy conversations with faceless people, only to blink and realize he had been talking to a fluttering candle. He caught himself mumbling often, until he was too tired to speak. The void enveloped him in cold waves. Tendril whispers tortured his existence. They spoke of the peace of death, of letting go. Light, when it came from that other world, a world of warmth and tenderness, was a blessing. Light was life, darkness death.

Sad faces came and went. Voices echoed on and on, getting quieter and quieter, further and further away. The sun dreamily rose and set in the window; the stars left streaks across the sky. Rain, fog, wind. Sometimes a girl held him close. Sometimes she quietly cried. Sometimes she was gone. Shapes blurred. His body trembled constantly, or sweat, or went numb. Eventually he lost track of time, of night and day, of people. He didn’t remember eating. Existence became a quagmire of impressions. He felt himself growing thinner and weaker and ever more distant …

And then he slipped into the abyss, perpetually haunted by those tendril whispers. Like a shivering child clutching a blanket, he tried to hold on to them, for those whispers were all that remained of existence. Beyond was the silent unknown. The eternal cold. The great beyond, ever calling, ever waiting …

An arc of time passed, an abstract flow like that of molasses, yet he stubbornly hung on to a hairsbreadth of conscience. Somehow, he hung on.

Then, all of a sudden, he saw a glimmer of light in the far distance. It was but a pinprick. He was shivering violently, barely hanging on.

The time to choose had come.

But was it too late? There was a noise that he could hear—a wind—and behind that wind was chanting. There was a struggle. Something beastly roared. A battle was taking place … a battle for Augum’s soul. He was vaguely aware of it, but also knew he had a choice. Was he that tired of shivering that he’d willingly step beyond the abyss, to the silent unknown? Or did he want to experience again? Breathe and live and laugh and love?

The more he thought about it, the more came back to him. Memories. Voices. Faces. One face in particular called to him stronger than the others. Sharp brows. Raven hair. Freckles. Beauty.

The moment he remembered her name, he made his choice, and just like that, the sound grew to a full windy roar before abruptly disappearing.

He opened his eyes to see Leera directly over him, looking into his face—and smiling. She drew him close in a gentle embrace, weeping softly. And suddenly many others were hugging him and congratulating him for beating the arcane fever. They were so happy—unnecessarily so, in his opinion—that they heaved him onto their shoulders. He almost cracked his head on the spruce beam. What if it had knocked him unconscious? The thought made him roar with laughter. He briefly caught sight of a smoking mortar and pestle before they carried him out into the Okeke living room on their shoulders, singing
Champions of the Robe
, an old tune from the gladiatorial warlock days. Someone even pressed the pouch of coins he had won into his hands.

Almost everyone he knew in Milham was there—Mr. Goss and a happily moaning Leland, who of course held onto the Agonex; a clapping and smiling Constable Clouds and his son, Devon, who was one of the people helping Augum remain aloft; the constable’s guards—the red-haired Lieutenant Briggs and his blonde stoic companion, Sergeant Cobb; Panjita Singh was there, grumbling to her daughter Priya about the noise; Haylee and a fit Chaska, smiling and dancing together; Mr. Haroun and Malaika and Charissa, singing and clapping along; even the beetle-like Prudence Klines, which was a pleasant surprise!

“… and guess who brought you back,” Bridget finished saying as the crowd put him down on his feet. She took one of his arms to keep him steady lest his weak body collapse. But Augum could scarcely talk, so shocked was he that Bridget was her old self again, and looking so well-rested! And her hair was back to its cinnamon glory.

“Well guess!” Leera said, taking his other arm around her neck. She looked marvelous, face glowing, with her raven hair returned to its original state and as shiny as it had ever been.

Mouth hanging open, Augum confusingly glanced around at the jubilant faces, many wet with tears of joy; at the celebratory mead in their hands; at their expectation of him to put it all together.

“He’s still in a bit of confusion,” Mr. Goss said, taking a step closer. “You’re very weak from the ordeal. Take your time.”

“All right, enough games,” Mr. Okeke said with a smile, “let him see for himself.”

The crowd parted so he could see a small and withered figure in a chair.

What was Senior Arcaneologist Lien Ning doing there—!

Then Augum felt his face go slack as it dawned on him who it was. “Nana,” he blurted, stumbling as he tried to walk.

“Easy there, warrior,” Leera whispered, holding onto him tightly. “You haven’t got out of bed in over a tenday.”

He gave her a blank look. A tenday? It had only been
that
long? He felt like he had lived a lifetime in that eternal black abyss, a lifetime of shivering and loneliness. Now here he was surrounded by warmth, light, and life! And Leera and Bridget were all right! And Nana was back! It was so overwhelming he could not help the tears from flowing freely down his cheeks.

Leera nodded as if reading his thoughts. She gently wiped his tears with her hands before kissing his cheek, whispering, “Go say hi to your great-grandmother,” and the crowd went
Aww
. “Shut up,” she muttered with a smiling but suddenly crimson face, helping him walk and adding, “Weak as a kitten …”

Mrs. Stone wore a white robe that flashed silver bolts of lightning, similar to the one she had worn when Augum first laid eyes on her. But other than that, she was barely recognizable. Her hands were curled inward and she looked no larger than a child. Her face was as wrinkled and shriveled as an old apple. Gone was the long silver braid—all that remained was a wispy scalp. The crowd went silent as she glanced up at him with a perpetually shaking head. Those eyes, once as clear and blue as the sky, distant and foggy as a rain cloud.

“Come close, my dear child,” she croaked in a bare whisper. “I can hardly see you.”

The girls brought him nearer, setting him down on a chair.

“My vision is not as it once was,” Mrs. Stone said, staff clutched between her body and one arm. She squinted at him. “Ah, Augum … how good it is to see you, my foolishly brave great-grandson. You have grown since last we saw each other.”

The crowd chuckled.

“Mrs. Stone cast Abbagarro on you,” Bridget explained in a soft voice. “Remember that vortex spell Mr. Ordrid cast on her when she had arcane sickness?”

Augum nodded, still trying to wrap his head around all this. He had survived the abyss, but only barely. And Nana was back! She was back and unafraid and not running for her life!

“She also healed the rest of you,” Bridget added. “But your arm was too far gone.”

Augum awkwardly bent his left elbow a little. It wouldn’t go all the way yet, but maybe with time … It hardly mattered. He was just happy to be alive. “And how are you feeling, Nana?” he asked.

“As well as can be expected. I am most happy to be off the road, I must say. Most happy indeed.” Her face creased in a smile. “You have made me proud, Great-grandson. Mighty proud.”

“We told Mrs. Stone everything,” Leera said. “She’s been back for a day now and made us get the ingredients for Abbagarro while she gathered her strength. It’s been an exciting day.”

“I was only made better yesterday,” Bridget said, glancing over at Prudence Klines. “Thanks to Ms. Klines.”

Mrs. Stone wheezed a chuckle. “There’s a reason historically few people steal a scroll from the Antioc Library. Though I should not be one to talk, for I myself tried to get around that very limitation when I was young. But that is a story for another time.”

Augum gently drew her into a hug, whispering, “It’s good to see you again, Nana …” She felt so small and fragile in his arms. Her poor body would not stop shaking. He could distinctly make out a quiet hum, emanating from the scion on top of her staff. It was right by his ear, and reminded him of the great dangers that were out there, waiting for him, for there was one battle left, a final battle for the kingdom, a battle between him and his father, a battle that he now understood he had to face.

She patted him on the back. “And you, Great-grandson. Now come, there is much to discuss.”

Yes, there was, Augum thought. The legendary off-the-books spell, Annocronomus Tempusari—Cron—had aged her significantly. And she was going to teach it to them next, so they may face his father.