Rising of a Mage: Book 03 - A Mage Risen (25 page)

He really had gone mad. That had to have been a terrible decision for Jabaal. He would have to have been threatening the lives of all of them for Jabaal to do that. Wait
, what did he say about a man?

“What man
?” Anwar asked.

“Anwar
, there was only one man it could be. He appeared, then he knocked you unconscious with some kind of light. He looked at us, and told us to give you a message. He said to tell you not to worry. He said he was going to come back for you, and he would teach you to control it.”

Anwar thought about what Rundo had just said. Then he understood. He looked back at Rundo. “The Father?”

Rundo nodded. “Who else could it be?”

When Jabaal woke up
, Grizzle was sitting in a chair next to his bed. His body was sore, but his leg was on fire. He lifted his head just enough to look at it. It was that gash in his shin. It must be infected if it burned like this. Then again it could be whatever they had put in it to try to heal it that was burning. Grizzle was asleep in the chair. He was beaten up pretty badly, but if he was sitting up he must be all right. He had no idea how they had gotten them out of that armor. He lay back down. He closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.

Anwar and Rundo walked into Jabaal’s room. Grizzle was sitting in the chair next to his bed. Grundel had helped him get there. Grizzle was bruised and batter
ed, but otherwise okay. “How is he doing?” Anwar asked Grizzle.

Grizzle looked at
Jabaal’s leg. There area around the wound was black and swollen. “He is okay, but the best priest we have can’t heal the leg. They have tried everything. They used the remedies they have. If the infection keeps spreading they say they will have to cut off his leg. I don’t know how to help him, Anwar. He took that cut saving me.”

Anwar looked at Jabaal’s leg. It was a nasty
, swollen mess. They had left it open. They had marked a line along the edge of the skin where it had turned black. It looked like the infection had already begun to creep past it. Mariah would have been able to save him, he thought, but he couldn’t let himself be drawn into that grief. He could only think of one person who might be able to help. “I will go to Kampar. Master Gibbins might be able to do something. Even in Ambar we never found anyone as good at healing as he is. That was part of what led Mariah to her faith.”

Grizzle looked up from Jabaal’s leg to his friend Anwar, the man who had saved his people twice now. He didn’t have any words for this situation. Jabaal was
a friend to them both. They would both do anything they could to save him. Grizzle wanted to get up and thank him, but getting out of the chair would be extremely difficult and embarrassing. He nodded to Anwar instead.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Anwar said,
and then he turned and walked out of the room. Rundo came up behind him as he headed toward the entrance that he was assuming had been reopened. The dwarves would have blocked the secret entrance again by now.

“Anwar, what about
the Father? He said he would be back for you,” Rundo said.

Anwar didn’t even slow down. “If he was able to come at the right moment in the middle of a battle I am sure he will be able to figure out what I am doing and where I am. The Father will come for me when he is ready. When he does I will hear him out, and then I will decide weather or not I will go with him. Until then, I have a friend in trouble, and I will do what I can to help him.”

Rundo followed him out of the mountain and down the steps. If Anwar was going to go he wasn’t going to let him go alone. The fairy queen had said that he shouldn’t be alone. After what happened in the battle Rundo had a better understanding of why she was worried.

Once he was off the mountain and standing in the midst of thousands of orc corpses on the black
, blood-stained grass, he looked at Rundo. “Are you bringing your friends?”

“They will be ok
ay. We won’t be gone long. Bumbo is running around the woods, and Messah is quite a ways away,” Rundo answered.

Anwar shrugged,
then he reached out and put a hand on Rundo’s shoulder and pictured Master Gabriel’s office in his mind.

Master Gabriel nearly fell out of his chair when Anwar and Rundo suddenly appeared in his office. “Wow, that was disturbing. Anwar, is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. Delvidge has been stopped for now, but Jabaal is wounded. He took a wound to his leg and it is infected. The dwarves have done everything they can, but the infection is spreading. I was hoping Master Gibbins might be able to do something,” Anwar answered his old mentor.

“I’m sure he will want to help. If anyone can help, he can. Follow me; I will take you to him. I think he is overseeing some of the apprentices’ treatment of the sick today.”

Anwar followed his old mentor down the steps. Rundo didn’t know Master Gabriel, so he followed in silence. The place brought back memories
for Anwar, and his grief was building inside him. What he was doing was important, but being here was hard. They were walking down into Mariah’s old area. This is where he had spent hundreds of hours watching her heal the sick and wounded. Master Gibbins had actually turned over the responsibilities of the place to her. He had taken them back on when they had left. He couldn’t help but think how things would have been different if they had just stayed here.

He knew it wasn’t a healthy thought, but how could he not think about it
? If they stayed she might still be alive. His brother would be alive, too. Then he thought about all the people Miskrull would have killed if he hadn’t stopped him, and all the dwarves of Evermount he would have killed. He couldn’t say that the people of Freeman were better off, because he was fairly certain the only reason those goblins had been there was because of him. Could he really be that selfish? If he were given the choice, would he go back and stay? Mariah would never have been happy staying here. Jabaal might never have found Kalime. He would do almost anything to get Mariah back, but he was glad this wasn’t an option for him. That choice would be too hard for him to make.

When they walked into the room
, Master Gibbins was supervising one of the apprentices as he attempted to mend the broken bones in the man's hand using healing magic. For all his magical ability, healing was one thing Anwar did not have an aptitude for. The man screamed for a moment, and Master Gibbins stepped up and took over. He took the man’s hand in his own. The man sucked in air hard and then relaxed. When Master Gibbins looked up and saw Anwar, he became concerned. The man he had just healed saw it as well.

“What is it
?” the man asked.

Master Gibbins looked back down to comfort the man. “Nothing
, your hand is fine. The bones are healed, though it will be sore for a few days.” He patted the man on the shoulder and walked toward Anwar.

“What happened
?” Master Gibbins asked.

Anwar let Master Gabriel answer. He already felt guilty about Mariah
’s death for his own reasons, but being around Master Gibbins, who was like a father to her, just made it that much harder.

“Jabaal was injured fighting to defend Evermount. The dwarves tried to heal him, but he is getting worse. Anwar was hoping you might be able to do something,” Master Gabriel said.

Master Gibbins looked at Anwar. “What is his injury? Tell me everything you can tell me. How did it happen, and what does it look like?

Anwar thought about everything the others had told him. He had seen the wound clear
ly enough. He pushed down his guilt. Determination took over and he looked back up into Master Gibbins’ eyes. “It was some kind of orc blade. The dwarves think that either the dirty blade or the all the orc blood that got in his wound got it infected. Now the skin around the wound is turning black. They drew a circle around the infected area, but when I left it had already spread past the lines. They say that other than the wound he is fine. The infection had him a bit feverish. The dwarves believe that the only option is to take the leg.”

Master Gibbins processed everything he had heard before he replied. “The dwarves ha
ve the gist of it. Orc blood can be poisonous to humans. Some humans are immune. It’s really about a fifty-fifty shot how the blood will affect you. It will spread slowly, though. The infection typically spreads no more than a couple of inches a day. If we cannot stop it from spreading we will have to take the leg, but I have something that might help. We should leave right away. I will go get what I need and meet you in Master Gabriel’s office in a few minutes.”

Master Gibbins walk
ed into Gabriel’s office a few minutes later carrying a jar of some kind of yellow paste and a small bag that Anwar assumed had a change of clothes in it. “I’m ready,” he told Anwar.

“Master Gabriel
, you’re welcome to come as well,” Anwar said.

“No, I need to stay here. There is a lot happening here
in Kampar. It is better if one of us stayed. If you are unable to help there is nothing I would be able to do anyway. Give Jabaal my regards.”

“I will tell him. Master Gibbins
, if you are ready,” he said as he held out a hand. Master Gibbins took it and Anwar put his hand on Rundo’s shoulder. Seconds later they were materializing in the midst of what had just a day ago been the battlefield. Anwar made sure that none of them was going to materialize with their foot inside an orc before making everyone fully solid again.

Master Gibbins looked around at the tens of thousands of dead orcs. The smell was terrible. It was sickening even to Anwar and Jabaal, but they hadn’t been able to stop smelling it even when they were away from it. Master Gibbins bent over at the knees and emptied his stomach. He threw up again on the way to the stairs, and dry heaved a half a dozen times on his way up them. An hour later when they were finally inside the mountain he was able to stop.

“That was terrible. I have never seen anything like that,” Master Gibbins said.

“Neither have I
, and I hope I never will again,” Anwar said. “I am going out to see what I can do about the bodies once I know Jabaal is okay.”

Master Gibbins just nodded nervously.

Rundo started walking toward where Jabaal was being kept. It was a very awkward situation. He hoped to move it along. Anwar and Master Gibbins both seemed very uncomfortable around each other.

When they walked into the room
, Grizzle was sitting awake in the chair next to Jabaal’s bed. Jabaal was still asleep.

“Did they tell you what happened to him? You think you can save the leg
?” Grizzle asked Master Gibbins as he went to Jabaal’s side.

“I can’t be sure. I have a poultice that might help, but orc blood can be very
poisonous to humans if it gets in the blood. This might calm the infection enough to give his body a chance to fight it. My healing magic won’t help with this. Mariah might have been able to, but I can’t do anything for this,” Master Gibbins answered.

Grizzle didn’t stand
; he just nodded in understanding. It was a last-chance effort. “Do what you can. He needs his leg. He is a warrior. What is a paladin with one leg?”

“I will try to save it. The poultice should help. If not
, the only remaining option will be to take the leg.” Master Gibbins answered him. He opened the jar and scooped out some of the yellow paste with his fingers. He spread the paste into the wound, and then he drew another line along the edge of the blackened skin. When he was finished he looked up at Anwar. “All we can do now is wait and see what happens.” He looked over at Grizzle. “You are pretty banged up. Would you like me to heal your wounds?”

“They’re just cuts and bruises. It does a dwarf good to take a beating now and again. I
’ll let the wounds heal themselves,” the new king replied.

Anwar, Grizzle, and Rundo stayed with Jabaal. Others came and went. Food was brought, but none of them were really up to eating. They constantly checked to see if the blackness was spreading. It was still spreading. Hours later
, on one of Master Gibbins’ checks, he said what they all knew was coming. “The infection is spreading, and I have no way to draw it out. We are going to have to take this leg soon.”

That gave Anwar an idea. “Wait
. I might know someone who can bring it out. Don’t do anything unless you have to.” He didn’t wait for anyone to respond. He ran out of the room. He heard Master Gibbins trying to protest, but he was already running up the tunnels toward the entrance. When he got to the top of the stairs he leapt out over the mountain. He couldn’t travel in or out of Evermount, but the rest of his magic worked fine. As he fell he applied a magical pressure up against his body. He guided his fall with this pressure so that he was more gliding then flying. It was an amazing feeling. His hour trip down the stairs turned into a couple of minutes of floating. Then he was standing on the ground. He ran away from the mountain a little farther. When he knew for sure he was far enough away from the mountain he pictured the place he needed to be.

He rematerialized in Freeman. He was standing in the street staring at the steps leading up into the healer’s house. He walked up the steps and knocked on the door. The door opened and a teenage girl stood in the entrance. “Are you ill
, sir?” the girl asked.