The Fool 23

The next morning, Orison awoke to the smell of gamey meat being cooked. It would have been slightly nauseating under normal circumstances. But after several days of ration bars, it nearly smelled divine. The small bag of flour and some mixed out powdered milk made for a fine gravy poured over some drop biscuits made in the same pan of cooked out grease.

Cray looked over Heath and Cole tearing into it with dreamy eyed gusto as prideful satisfaction settled onto his features. "Better get your vittles before one a these two decide to start swiping of your plate, Orison."

He didn't have to be asked twice. Finishing up with speed, the young mage decided to get a quick shower in before the cabin waved goodbye for awhile. Once he was out, the feline young man practically pushed him out of the way to have a turn, barely managing to finish up before having to run out of the trembling structure. It wasn't clear what the spectacle looked like to Cray but to the rest, it appeared as if the cabin tried to headbutt the archer as it shrank, knocking him off his feet.

Cray turned to the feline young man as he got up and said, "Next time, we ain't gonna have a foot race with the abyss spawn. When it's time to go, it's time to go. I feel like somebody socked me in the brain with a peg hammer."

"I'll remember," Cole said solemnly.

Looking between the two, Heath hissed at the feline young man.

While pointing insistently at Cray, the boy said, "Soley pa kay."

Cole looked back at the boy and said, "Remembering and not doing it again is better than a sorry."

The boy nodded but Orison could tell he didn't understand. He heard a 'sorry' and that's all that mattered.

He pulled on the young mage's hand and pointed at Cray's head. "E shama."

Bemused, Orison replied, "You want me to heal his head?"

"E shama... e-elu," Heath tried to repeat, not looking sure if what he was saying had the meaning he hoped it did.

Seeing no harm in it and the faint possibility that there might actually be an issue with a shrinking house passing through a head, Orison applied a couple of seconds worth of healing. Considering that Cray looked a little bit relieved, it probably wasn't that much of a waste after all.

The young mage said, "As grateful as I am to wake up to a real meal, I'm still curious why you tracked us down, Cole."

The feline young man shook his head like he was trying to knock cobwebs loose. "When you left, I got edgy. When I saw where we were headed, I felt that it would have been better to follow you. When I tried to convince Hunter and then sneak off when I couldn't, I found out for sure I should have.

"'Moon Goddess' caught me. She didn't stop me from leaving but she planted a whole bunch of orders in my head. I'm supposed to spy on you and leave signs where you are. There was some other things too but it's harder to remember them because they're sleeping or buried."

Dully, Orison said, "Cray stand between us just in case. Heath come over here and I'll give you a treat."

Heath came bounding over with a smile and a hand out.

Once he handed the boy another candy, he said, "It shouldn't be too hard to figure one out... I'm thinking about going back to kill the three of them."

An easy to miss sinister look floated over Cole's face. He smiled faintly and was about to say something when he scowled, clutching his head as if it were in pain. Orison reached out with his spiritual intent and tried to latch onto the faint amethyst tinted tendril of essence. Slowly, he teased it out and away from Cole until it slipped out of his intent's 'grip'.

As the tendril tried to pull itself back in, smoky essence from Cole's heart point wrapped around it like a snake trying to crush it's prey's bones. Slowly the tendril lost its luster and the smoky essence doubled back on it before returning to the heart point.

Cole's tail swished back and forth jerkily as the scowl only deepened. "Yup. That was one. I was supposed to keep friendly and then try to kill you... You know I can break them, right? They don't control me."

Orison sighed. "They do, just not for long. It would be long enough to do something regrettable if there was a more instant response trigger. I want to try something. It won't hurt or anything."

In an act of sheer fight against instinct, Cole managed to only flinch a fraction when the young mage touched between his brow. With Cray by his side to stop Cole from doing any 'instant triggering', Orison focused on the image of the key inside him. What he wanted to do was use it to look in hindsight for other thing he 'might' have done to trigger a response, take some of the guesswork out of finding more. That's not what happened.

A rush of half formed images cleared and the young mage found himself looking through Hunter's eyes. A pair of dark, enchanting ones stared through Hunter back at him. The 'silent beauty' tried to engage him in a war of wills but he didn't want her to hurt Hunter or Cole through what they were doing so he invited her in. momentarily surprised, she seemed poised between discussion and action.

He tried to take the initiative. "It seems like I'm exposed to you but I'm not. If you try to dive to my spiritual seat, all that will be left behind where you are is an unmoving vegetable. The damage to your will's strength and clarity will take quite some time to recover. And all that time, you'll be vulnerable to reprisal from me. Choose wisely."

In his mind, she stood straighter, proud and calm. "I appreciate the warning. I don't know if I readily believe you have the strength you project but I'm also unwilling to test it. You believe it is true and that is enough for me, for now. What comes next?"

Orison said, "Did Hunter volunteer the knowledge of his connection with Cole or was he coerced, potentially tricked in some way to reveal it? Answer my question and I'll answer one of yours."

She replied. "Before we begin this exchange, is that the rule you set? A question for a question, favor for favor?"

Orison smiled faintly, "Such rules rarely end up with a fair result but they are a quite balanced set. I'm in agreement, if you are."

With a firm nod, she answered, "He was coerced but with mundane affection and charm only. He wants to be accepted. My son and granddaughter are amused with his lingering mortal innocence and admiration. I am of the opinion that their affections will linger long enough for their inevitable parting to be... bearable for all involved.

"I have many questions. It is difficult to choose which is the most beneficial to know the answer to. I will ask three. I would appreciate the answer to the one you will be most honest and clear about. What will you do when spring arrives? How did you make your companion into a princeling?... What are your thoughts on the guests who decided to winter with us?"

Orison replied. "I have a small amount of affection for Hunter and would be upset if he were harmed in any meaningful way. I support the freedom and well being of the Rogers youth only insofar as he will be reasonable in his withdraw from your care when he is ready to leave.

"I have no thoughts at all for the pack of curs that are only coincidentally human now. One or more of them raised hands to my people. If I knew which ones, they wouldn't have survived, much less be left to your mercy. Bone apatite."

She looked thoughtful for a moment and said, "If you tire of suspicion towards Cole as a conduit of my agency, tell him that he is welcome to return. I and Hunter would both be glad of his return."

Orison gave her a saintly smile. "I would return the same about Hunter but I don't care enough about what your doing to waste my precious time spying on you. However, Hunter is welcomed to visit as he pleases."

Pondering some more, she carefully said, "And would this invitation extend to us as well?"

Orison replied, "I think that both of us would feel more secure if one didn't make plans to visit the other but your son OR granddaughter is conditionally welcome as long as the banner of friendly cooperation remains true from this point forward."

Once again, she stood poised on the knife's edge of maintaining friendly relations or attempting to eliminate him. Orison's look of unwavering confidence made her wary enough to choose caution over her own confidence. On her way out, she attempted to leave a subtle mark only to feel it dissolve the moment her consciousness had returned to her own spiritual seat.

Almost on instinct, his desire to remove subtle traces of her passing had him dragging out two more hidden packages of essence reinforced suggestion laying dormant in Cole's mid. Find Objective and the key seemed to have a synergistic effect. The hindsight the key had shown before truly had been an effect of entanglement and worked much the same way on metaphysical grounds as it did in time-space.

Suddenly, he saw a little hope of leaving this world alive someday. Finding what strengthened his Entanglement Key might be a possible solution. He had little doubt that it could eventually add places to its ability to manipulate connections.

Sensing a little energy remaining in the key, he tried one more minor experiment before removing his hand from Cole's head. He tried to 'lock' the connection between Hunter and Cole. Severing the connection between two marked souls was beyond his strength but temporarily barring the way apparently wasn't as Lock/Unlock paired just as well with his phantom conduit.

Seeing Cole's bewildered and slightly lost look, he said, "She won't be happy about finding access to her spy barred but it will give her some piece of mind about Hunter. I should have asked first. I hope that didn't up-"

"Glad you did it. On the way here, I felt my debt to Hunter end. Do you have any idea why?" Cole asked.

Orison struggled before responding hesitantly, "He was seduced into betraying the bond you share. He has no clue how bad that is but whatever's keeping the karmic tally, it gives no f-orks."

He hated the self censoring but he wasn't ready to be responsible for the verbal corruption of a child's vocabulary.

The feline young man asked, "Is there a way to remove it?"

"The short answer is yes. But, naturally, it will take a lifetime or two. That's if you leave the burden of trying to maintain them on him and relinquish as much as you can. Never use them again and hope he lets go without a struggle," the young mage offered.

Cole snorted. "Fat chance of that. I was willing to try to keep him safe or even die for him but he don't own me and I'm not going to throw my life away for nothing... Can't you pull it out like you did with that... woman's. Is there anything that can be done?"

Orison said. "Your soul's not strong enough for me to forcefully pull it out. Once it was, forcefully removing it would make you lose most of your progress, possibly cripple you."

Cole waited to hear the 'but' that never came. "You do know something that can work, though. Is it that bad?"

Sighing, the young mage said, "An equally powerful soul or stronger can cover it over with their own mark. I had someone do it for me once. How is that any better?"

Cole said, "Someone stronger and wiser who would let go once their mark didn't need to be there, how could that be better than a dumb kid who left me wide open to mind r*ping bloodsuckers!? How much time do we have for me to answer?"

The archer, who had been patiently waiting on the sidelines, suddenly said, "Cole, explain all this to me, buddy. You've been a little strange after we came back with that scary gilly."

Cole looked at Cray oddly and said, "You don't remember, do you? We died while we were hunting. There were close to a dozen bugbears. I think they were curious and frightened by everything that had happened down south.

"A short spear took you down so fast, you didn't even have a chance to know what was happening. I lasted a little longer... There was something holding our souls from leaving, fixing the damage but not strong enough to bring us back. Stuck like that, dead but not able to move on, Some of the knowledge and bits of spiritual wisdom that Orison gave me, made sense. They became so clear.

"The green flash that brought us back to life, it took some memories from us but I brought that back with me. Life and death, things that are hard to put into words, I made them a part of me. I can only still feel them clear when I'm not trying to directly think about them and I can't share it but..."

Orison said, "Your soul is partially phased. It has a foot dipping toes into the afterlife. There are things we're not allowed to know when we're here, alive. I guess you can feel those things, draw some kind of power from it. Remember to keep a balance between that special life and death cycling essence you have."

Cole nodded solemnly and said, "You brought something back too, Cray. It's something even harder to describe but... 'The Calm'. Whatever sands away all the edges, takes the sadness and pain away, while it was taking, you took some back... That's not right... I think that whatever was left in us from that ritual Orison did, it took some of that and used it to fix you.

"I was really worried about that. Not The Calm but the ritual you did, Orison. It didn't matter if we were alive or dead. It kept fixing us. I'm not so worried about it now. It's starting to fade. Something about this place, the curse in it turned your ritual into something else, that's why it went... crazy. I think it 'ate' the curse trying to fix and heal... everything."

Something clicked in Orison's head. The golden essence that kept trying to 'fix' him even though he could sense that wasn't what it was supposed to do exactly, it was flavored by the ritual circle. He was glad the thing exploded. The last thing he needed was a second conduit with dangerously uncontrolled abilities. Some things weren't good to be 'healed' or 'mended'.

The phantom conduit made of his memories of 'the boy's key and whatever unique personal traits he had, it was influenced and flavored by the passing of that circle. He thought that it might be possible that the circle would have 'fixed' itself again but the forming key had taken, absorbed his connection with the circle and used that to strengthen itself. The radiating warmth of the late fall sun cast an even deeper chill in his heart than the crisp air.

A vague echo of some man that Al knew talking about 'tunneling' and 'fusion' drifted through his mind. The sun, his key, a terrible and indiscriminate destructive power, shadows of possibilities both benign and malignant danced through his mind before he wiped them away and distracted himself. What was to come would come but dwelling on maybes wasn't helpful at all.

"For now, the connection between you and Hunter is locked. I'll keep an eye on it. We can discuss overwriting his mark when we have the minimum safety necessary to do it," the young mage said.

Throughout the day, they meandered in a slightly northern bent eastern route. The map provided by 'Snow White' kept them from walking right into the territory of another tribe of goblinoids but didn't keep them from having to deal with far range hunters. Roving in bands of one spear thrower and one to two 'beaters', they didn't up being much of a challenge to Cole's vigilance and Cray's deadly speed and accuracy with his new 'girlfriend'.

Watching the archer pet and coo at his 'Lucy' while retrieving his arrows from the eye sockets of two 'beaters', Cole whispered to Orison, "Do you think the cabin hurt his brain?"

Chuckling, the young mage responded, "I don't recall it clearly but I think he was like that with his standard issue bow. I think I vaguely remember him asking 'Betty' why she had to roam from soldier to soldier instead of being just 'his girl'. It disturbed me so much, I had Droya buy him one of his own.

"It didn't help. He had weird conversations with his new spicy 'elven mama' too. I kind of wondered if his overly affectionate attitude towards that bow had any relation to his sudden strong interest in the elven girl he dated for real."

Cole shared some of his acidic observations on Chosen and their weapons while Heath tried to 'tell on them'. The boy had made himself useful in surprising ways on the trip. From finding edibles to pointing out potential places to rest safely, he was like an immature and easily diverted guide. And the way he acted around Cray, it would be easy for an outsider to take the pair as father and son from a blurry eyed distance.

Cole tried hard not to sneer as he said, "You know, he could be one of the ones who killed us."

Orison shook his head. "I'm not even sure if he was originally one of their species much less one of their group. There's no real telling but they shunned him from the start and he latched onto Cray like a life ring. If he was one of theirs, he was an outcast and had as much reason to avoid them as we do."

An unfamiliar feminine voice said, "No need to guess. I can tell you what that child once was."