The Orchard of Hope (28 page)

18

Trouble is Brewing

Nicholas was in misery. He had been
watching the sorcerer for at least an hour a day during the past
few days. It was exhausting work and emotionally draining, and at
times he also found it boring because the sorcerer told the same
story over and over again whenever he came into contact with
someone new. Nicholas heard him tell the story yet another
time.

“He really likes that story,”
Nicholas said as he watched the sorcerer finish narrating and
present a business card to the troll with whom he had been
conversing. The troll looked over the card for a few moments and
then set it down on the table in front of him. After saying a few
words to the troll, the sorcerer left the room, and Nicholas
followed him into his laboratory. The sorcerer was alone there, but
he was doing the same thing he did every time he was there. He
checked the temperatures on his simmering liquids and adjusted the
air locks on the glass bottles to release the smelly gas that was
bubbling up from the contents. Nicholas reported everything he saw,
and Newton wrote it all down in his notebook.

“Try looking out the window,” Moss
suggested. “Anything we can learn from the scenery might help us to
figure out where he’s hiding.”

Nicholas went to the window that
was the farthest from where the sorcerer was working. For some
reason, this felt safer to him. The sorcerer’s castle felt
oppressive everywhere, but the more closely Nicholas watched the
sorcerer, the queasier he felt. The darkness always felt thicker
near the sorcerer’s shadow. When Nicholas reached the window, he
glanced over the scenery.

“He’s very high up,” Nicholas
said. “I can see snow on the window sill, and I’m overlooking a
valley, which still has flowers and trees blooming.”

“It must be much warmer down
below,” Moss concluded. “Or the valley is an illusion.”

“There are vineyards nearby,”
Nicholas continued. “I can see rows of grapevines. There are also
wildflowers in a field behind the vineyard. It’s very
pretty.”

Suddenly the view rotated, as if
Nicholas were riding in a carriage and he had just turned a corner.
Nicholas let out a gasp. “Now it’s different. I’m looking out the
same window, but now I’m seeing something totally
different.”

“What’s there now?” Moss asked as
he leaned forward. “What do you see?”

“It’s another vineyard. It’s a bit
similar, but not exactly the same, as if we’re traveling down a
road. I feel as if I’m looking out a carriage window watching the
scenery go by.”

“That castle is moving?” Newton
asked.

“Or there’s a spell on the windows
to change the view in order to convince us it’s moving,” Moss
replied. “We can’t tell which one it is from scrying. We’d need to
physically be there in order to figure it out. Very
clever.”

“I wish I could see,” Newton
remarked. “I think I could figure it out.”

“No, I don’t think you could.
Besides, it’s too risky. Neither one of us can scry on him. He’d
know immediately.”

“Move back from the window,”
Newton suggested, “and then try looking out again and tell us what
you see. If the window is enchanted, you might be able to see more
clearly if you back away from it.”

Nicholas did as he was told, but as
soon as he moved away from the window he couldn’t see anything. The
glass became dark.

“There’s nothing there,” Nicholas
said. “I can’t see when I’m not up close.”

“That’s interesting,” Newton
replied.

“It could be the glass,” Moss
suggested. “Or it could be a part of the spell.”

“Are there any other doors open?”
Newton asked.

“I think there was one in the
first room.”

“Look through there,” Newton
suggested. Nicholas followed this advice and went back through the
room where the sorcerer had been meeting with the troll. He
continued through the doorway on the other side, but he felt as if
he was being followed. He knew there was no one behind him, but the
sorcerer’s castle just had that creepy feeling no matter where
Nicholas was scrying in it. He felt as if someone was following him
and might reach out to grab him at any moment.

“Glass bottles – thousands of
them, and they’re all brown. They’re stacked in rows and have white
labels on them. This must be a storage room.”

It was dark, and Nicholas didn’t
see any sources of light. There were no windows or candles, only
the light coming in through the door where he had entered. He could
smell a mixture of vinegar and something sweet coming from
somewhere in the darkness.

“Go read the labels,” Moss
suggested.

As Nicholas moved forward, his
vision became fuzzy and things started to go dark. He felt as if a
thick fog was forming around him. The only good thing was that he
felt the darkness thinning around him.

“It’s like I’m going blind,”
Nicholas said. “It’s very dark and cloudy.”

“You’re losing the connection,”
Newton replied.

“Yes,” Moss agreed. “Your link is
to the sorcerer, so the farther you go away from him, the weaker
your link to the place becomes. You’ll need to backtrack or we’ll
have to start over.”

As Nicholas moved back through the
room with the troll, he could hear the troll reciting the
sorcerer’s story aloud, and he told Moss and Newton about
it.

“Why would he be telling the
story?” Nicholas asked.

“I told you that words have
power,” Moss explained. “The sorcerer may have others telling his
story to help enhance his power.”

“Why would anyone help the
sorcerer?”

“They may not know whom they’re
helping, or they may be paid.”

“Or they may believe in whatever
worthy cause the sorcerer has told them he’s working toward,”
Newton added.

Nicholas listened to the troll
speaking. He sounded like an actor rehearsing lines for a play as
he recited the story and placed emphasis on different words each
time.

There wasn’t much else to see in
the room with the troll, so Nicholas turned back to the laboratory.
As he passed by the window with the moving scenery, Nicholas
noticed some writing on the walls. He tried to read it, but the
characters didn’t come from the alphabet he knew how to
read.

“There’s writing on the wall,”
Nicholas said.

“Not surprising,” Newton remarked.
“It’s common practice to write spells on the wall of a place you
want to protect.”

“Can you read anything?” Moss
asked.

“No,” Nicholas answered and
explained why. He continued to study the characters for a few more
moments, anyway. He wanted to be able to draw a few of them for
Moss later.

Nicholas moved closer and watched
the sorcerer take several jars from a cabinet. The sorcerer opened
the containers and shook the contents into his palm to examine the
pieces. Then he placed some small stones into a small marble bowl
and he began crushing them. Nicholas told Moss what he was
seeing.

“Get close!” Moss said as he stood
up and leaned over the table. “Do the jars have labels?”

Nicholas did as he was told,
despite the sick feeling he got in his stomach as he approached the
sorcerer. When he was almost next to him, he saw the sorcerer pause
from his work and quit crushing the stones. The sorcerer shivered,
then carefully looked around the room, studying it. He placed the
marble pestle down and walked into the next room to check on the
troll. Nicholas rushed forward to quickly read the
labels.

“There are five jars. He wrote a
single word directly on the glass instead of using labels. The
writings say Calvio, Tribulo, Gravamen, Adversum and
Aporia.”

“He’s brewing trouble,” Moss said
thoughtfully. “But his process is one of fermentation. He’s
creating trouble, but we don’t know how he’s using it. This is both
expected and unexpected. How interesting.” Moss combed his fingers
through his long, green beard and stared into space. After a few
moments Nicholas knew that Moss was lost in thought and might not
speak again for an hour or more.

“He went back to the room with the
troll telling his story,” Nicholas said. “I’m going to
listen.”

Nicholas was already getting tired,
and he could hear only pieces of the conversation. His eyes
wandered around the room, but there wasn’t much to see besides the
tea kettle and a few cookies on the table.

“What kind of cookies?” Newton
asked with interest.

“Sugar cookies,” Nicholas said as
he studied them closely.

“With sprinkles?” Newton asked
with a strand of drool trailing out of the corner of his
mouth.

“Yes.”

“What color?”

“Green.” As Nicholas answered the
question, Newton licked his lips. “There are at least two dozen of
them.”

Nicholas wondered why there were so
many cookies for only two people who didn’t appear hungry. He gave
up on this train of thought and decided to look for any other clues
in the room. As he was looking away from the plate, the corner of
the business card caught his eye. He thought that he might be able
to read the card, just as he had done with the jars, if he could
only get close enough. Nicholas focused on the table again and
tried to see the front of the card that the sorcerer had given the
troll. He put all his energy into the effort.

“I can see his business card,”
Nicholas said as he concentrated on the words. “Maybe it has his
name on it.”

“He would never give out his
name,” Moss said as he came out of his reverie. “It would be
foolish. Once someone knows your name, they can gain power over
you. The sorcerer will protect his identity.”

“He might use an alias,” Newton
interjected.

“A fake name?” Nicholas
asked.

“Yes,” Newton said. “But even
knowing an alias can be helpful because when people make up names
for themselves, it says something about them. It doesn’t tell you
who they are, but it can tell you how they view themselves or who
they want to be.”

“That’s very insightful, Newton,”
Moss said with a note of appreciation.

“Well, when you hang around
castles and churches for a few hundred years, you tend to learn a
few useful things.”

Nicholas pushed closer to the card.
It took a lot from within himself to get a clear view of the fine
print, but he was determined to read it. When he had finally gotten
his eyes focused on the writing, he read it aloud.

“It says ‘Crane
Manufacturing: Building the life of your dreams.’” Nicholas paused
as he considered the unexpected message. “What does it
mean?
”

“I think you’ve
seen enough, Megan,” the sorcerer said as he leaned close to
N
icholas, as if attempting to peer
back through the scrying bowl. Nicholas immediately jumped back,
throwing the sorcerer’s scarf on the floor and gasping for breath.
He looked back and forth between Moss and Newton as he felt his
heart racing.

“He knows,” Nicholas finally said
when he caught his breath. “He definitely knows. But he called me
Megan. Why did he do that? Was he guessing?”

Chapter