The Elemental Jewels (Book 1) (19 page)

She released her hold on his face, and smiled at him.  “Come along.  Let’s go spoil the honeymooners’ fun and make them go out to dinner with us,” she directed him.  He looked at her blue eyes again, and felt compelled to obey.

They found Deana and Garrel in their room, and forced the giggling couple to come out, then all of them walked down the flights of stairs to the street.   At a nearby street vendor they purchased simple meals of grilled meats and vegetables on skewers, then ate their food as they strolled around the city in the twilight dusk, until Deana and Garrel excused themselves.

“We’d like to go back to the apartment,” Garrel said as the two of them stood holding hands.  The instantaneous transformation that had come over Garrel astonished Grange, as he observed the complete infatuation his friend had displayed for Deana since the wedding ceremony.

“Maybe it’s a good thing you’re the way you are,” he said to Ariana, as he threw away his emptied skewer.  “You can’t make me feel in love.”

“Can’t make you feel in love?” Ariana said with some heat in her voice.  “I can make you fall in love with me any time I want.  I just choose not to.

“Hear that?” she changed the subject, as the sound of a band playing a dancing tune filtered through the air.  “Let’s go see what the prospects are for your future employment,” she directed him.

“You could not just make me fall in love,” Grange continued the conversation as they strolled towards a festive square in the city, where candle-lit lanterns were hung in multitudes from strings above the tables and musicians and dancers that were crowded together.

“I could make you fall in love,” Ariana calmly replied as the two of them began to shoulder their way into the crowd.  She stopped him suddenly and impulsively bought a flagon of ale from a vendor, then insisted they share it. 

“Now, let’s dance,” she told him as he put the ale on a table after a cautious sip.

They entered the dancing crowd and began to shuffle and sway with the rest of the dancers, as the musicians played a sedate tune.

There was a sudden set of screams on the far side of the festive gathering, and some disturbance was evident.  The musicians continued to play on though, ignoring the commotion, while those on the dance floor continued to move to the music.  Grange and Ariana were among those who were intent on their own moment together.

"You aren't just a regular girl from a mountain village," Grange told Ariana, ignoring the ruckus nearby as they danced.  So much had happened during the day, he felt compelled to speak to it, to try to understand it.  “What are you up to?  Why have you traveled all this way with us?  Are you up to something?  Are you going to leave me soon for something else?" he asked.  "I know you could."

She looked at him with a directness that lacked the usual condescension he thought he usually saw in her eyes.   After a moment’s hesitation, she spoke.  "I didn't expect this to be like this.  I thought it would be simple to travel with and teach you until the time came.  But I've learned that your lives are more," she paused, "I've been captivated more than I thought I would be."

"Until the time came for what?" he asked, wanting to know when she planned to leave him.

"A demon!" she hissed, pulling apart from him suddenly.

"You'd leave me for a demon?" he asked in horror. 

She pulled her hidden sword free from her skirts.  It gleamed with the blue sheen that Miriam's statue had bestowed upon it in the temple alcove.

"What are you doing?" he asked in shock.

"There's a demon coming for you," she twirled the sword, pressed the hilt into his grip, and pointed over his shoulder. 

He was suddenly aware once again of the ruckus in the festival around them.  People were shouting and starting to shove one another in their agitation.   He turned, and saw a large man, an enormous and imposing figure, who was disheveled in appearance, shoving people about, his swinging fists mowing down anyone who happened to be in the vicinity.  He was swinging with a violence that was inflicting painful injuries on those he struck, while he simply shrugged off anyone who counter-attacked.

The man was coming directly at Grange, and his eyes were fixed on Grange.

And he had a demon riding on his shoulders, the top of its body buried inside the berserk man’s head.

“What do we do?” Grange shouted the question.

“Kill it!  Use the sword – that’s why Miriam empowered it.  Just slay the demon, not the man,” Ariana commanded from close behind him, speaking over his shoulder.

“Hold the sword the way I taught you!” she shouted angrily.  “This is your mission, your duty in life!”

The possessed man was drawing close to Grange, and he drew a wicked-looking knife from his waist band as he picked up speed and rambled forward.

Grange hastily balanced himself, flexing his legs to provide strength and agility, while he bent his elbow and raised the point of the sword.

“I will eat you for dinner,” a reverberating voice came out of the possessed victim’s mouth, “and I will feast on your soul for all of eternity.”

The man came within range, and he swung his knife with an inhuman speed, making Grange hastily lower his blade and angle it to block the attack, making the knife slide down towards the floor.

He raised his foot in anticipation of the knife striking the cobblestones; he planned to trap the knife under his boot.  But somehow, the man managed to overcome momentum, and stopped the weapon from descending into a trap.  Instead, he raised it back up, and sliced the bottom of Grange’s right arm as the blade sped past.

Grange yelled in surprise and pain.  The other people on the dance floor had scattered far away from the assault, all except Ariana, who still stood just a few paces behind Grange.

He felt momentarily alone, his arm in pain, and the demon-possessed assailant uninjured and unconstrained.  The man stabbed straight at Grange, and as he did, the training Ariana had drilled into Grange took control of his reflexes; he stepped to the side, turned his body sideways as well – displaying a narrower profile to the attacker – so that the stab passed through empty air, then he maneuvered his sword around so that the point passed through the misty, insubstantial demonic being that sat on the shoulders of his attacker.

Except that the extraordinary nature of the sword caused it to feel resistance from the tenuous nothingness that composed the demon.  Grange felt the momentum of the tip slow slightly as it passed through the demon, while the demon instantly jerked upward, pulling its head out of its victim’s head.  The demon opened its mouth and gave a horrific howl, one in a disharmonic pitch that seemed to pierce Grange’s ears painfully for the long seconds that it lasted.

The demon shuddered, then loosened its grip on the man.  It tried to stare at Grange, but it wobbled instead, then fell to the ground, shuddered, and collapsed in death.  As it did, the man it had ridden upon fell to the ground too, unconscious.

The demon’s body evaporated into a vile-smelling steam, and rose into the air in a plume that ascended with extreme rapidity, while the man on the ground started to tremble with a momentary seizure, then grew still, as his breathing settled into a steady pattern.

“Great job!” Grange vaguely heard someone shout from nearby.

Instead of acknowledging the call, Grange stuck the sword in his belt, and raised his right arm to examine the bloody wound he had endured, which was rapidly dripping blood on the cobblestones.

“Here, we need to take care of that,” Ariana said, stepping next to him.  She had an abandoned bottle she had picked up from the debris left by the fleeing crowd, and she liberally poured the wine upon the slice.  The liquid inside was clear as it poured out, and it burned where it entered the wound, making Grange wince.

“It will clean the wound out,” Ariana explained.  She tossed the bottle aside.

“That thing could have killed me!” Grange exclaimed, the impact of the moment starting to sink in.

“You had what you needed to kill it.  Miriam gave you the power,” Ariana said dismissively.  “And you’ve been training with the sword for over a month now.  There wasn’t any big worry.

“Let’s see how the victim is doing,” she said as she stooped to look at the unconscious mountain of a man on the ground.

The man groaned, as Ariana gently patted his cheek.  At the same time, others from the festival who had fled from the man’s brutal assault came back onto the dance floor, and began to heartily slap Grange on the back in thanks and congratulations.

The man on the ground groaned, then sat up groggily.

“Watch out!” someone said urgently.

“Have the patrol arrest him!” another commanded.

“No, let him go.  He’s over his fit,” Ariana replied, standing up.

As the man stood up, she explained to him that he had passed out, and needed to leave the vicinity of the festival.  She spoke in a firm voice as she tiptoed up to place her mouth close to his ear, and when she finished, he looked at her with a startled expression, then turned and ran quickly out of the gathering.

“Everything’s over; you can return to the festivities,” she urged loudly, then spoke in a lower voice to Grange.  “This is your chance.  Pull out your flute and start playing a dance tune for everyone.  The band will hear you and it will be like an audition.

“Go on,” she urged, giving him a shove towards the stage the musicians had abandoned.

Dazed by all that had occurred, he complied, leaping up onto the stage as he pulled his flute out of his back pocket.  He marveled for a fraction of a second at the durability of the small instrument that had traveled so far and endured such abuse without snapping or cracking.  As soon as he lifted the slender wooden instrument to his lips and began to play, its pure, sweet notes issued forth, proof that it had suffered no damage.  The milling crowd in the vicinity paused in its varied activities and discussions, as all heads turned to look at Grange.  He was playing a quick-stepping dancing tune, one that he had learned late in his apple-picking career, in a village not too far from Palmland, and he hoped that the proximity of the village meant that the song would be known and appreciated by the people who stared up at him.

“Look at you!  First a sword-fighter, then a musician!” one wag called out from the nearby crowd.  People began to edge closer in towards him, drawn by both the music and the desire to see the person who had drawn the sword and stopped the violence at the festival.  A couple, who were perhaps inebriated, began to dance to the tune, while others began to clap along, and then the dance floor filled, in a minute’s time, as more people returned to enjoying the entertainment they had expected to find.

Grange finished the song, received applause, and started another song.  As he did, the original musicians climbed up onto the stage with him, and began to accompany him for the rest of the song.  And then they all agreed to two songs after that, playing together as the taps on the ale kegs re-opened and the people forgot all about the strange, violent interruption that had come and gone so quickly.

“You’re good,” the band leader said to Grange when they stopped playing to take a break.  “Who do you usually play with?”

“I just got into town,” Grange replied.  “This is the first time I’ve played here.” He saw Ariana stepping up towards the edge of the stage.

The band leader ginned with a sly look.

“You bring a different sound to the music; none of the other groups have an instrument like yours.  Can you play with us?”

“How much do you pay?” Ariana asked from her position two steps below them.  She was looking up at them, as the band leader turned and looked down in surprise.

“This is my,” Grange floundered for a description.

“I’m his roommate,” Ariana finished for him.  “And I’m more practical than he is, so I want to make sure we can pay our rent and buy food.  He’s just a musical, fighting romantic.”

“How about two sou for each performance?” the bandleader suggested, talking to Ariana.

“Our rent alone cost us more than that,” she shook her head.

“You could get a job, you know,” the band leader suggested.

“Let’s go, Grange,” the blond girl held her hand up to him.

“I was just kidding!  Don’t take things so seriously,” the band leader immediately stretched his arm in front of Grange.  “You Southgar folks are so easily offended.  You need to get used to our ways – we’re a little abrasive, but you know what we think when we finish saying our piece.

“How about four sous for each engagement?” he renewed the negotiations.

“With a guarantee of five engagements each week?” Ariana asked.

“Absolutely.  I’ll even pay you in full tonight even though you didn’t play with us for half the night, just to show my good intentions,” the band leader said.

“Shake the man’s hand,” Ariana directed Grange.

“I’m Guy,” the man said as they sealed the deal.  “Good to have you join the group.”

“I’m Grange, and this is Ariana.  We’re glad to join with your group; we’re not from Southgar though,” Grange replied.

“Not from Southgar?  Look at you!  The girl might not be, but you – that complexion, those cheekbones, that hair.  If you’re not Southgar-born, there is no Southgar,” Guy insisted.