Choose Your Own Misadventure - 10

BACK

Lorcan had no desire to see anyone else die because of him, much less do the killing personally. He froze the air around Wexton’s hands and the fireballs that Wexton held winked out.

“Try this,” Lord Cumberbatch suggested. Lorcan felt a bizarre tingle inside his skull as one of Cumberbatch’s memories settled into Lorcan’s mind.

Lorcan sent a barrage of tiny round ice pellets at Wexton. They no doubt hurt like hell, but did not piece his skin. The other sorcerer stumbled backward, trying in vain to deflect the ice with his arms.

“See what happens when you let me guide you instead of ripping memories out of me?”

“I’ll thank you properly later. I’m still a little busy,” Lorcan muttered under his breath so that no one else could hear.

Lorcan hit Wexton right above his eyebrow with one last extra-large pellet. Wexton wobbled and then toppled over onto the wooden floor.

The entire room was staring at Lorcan, waiting. Lorcan looked around, clueless.

“Isn’t anyone going to tie him up?” Lorcan finally asked.

The Seafury side of the chamber let out a sigh of relief almost in unison. Luciana stepped forward.

“The Duel is one of the Trials,” she explained. “I don’t think anyone expected it to take place so soon, but there is no specific order the Trials must be carried out in.”

“Um…okay.” Lorcan was still confused. Senator Seafury’s men were all congratulating him and Senator Torgough was scowling at Lorcan.

Luciana seemed to understand Lorcan’s cluelessness. “The point of this Trial is to defeat your rival and then show him mercy. You must demonstrate a certain level of control over your abilities to use them non-lethally.”

Lorcan grinned. “You mean I did something right?”

Luciana gave him a level look. “Yes, but don’t let it go to your head. You’re still an idiot.”

A guttural roar preempted Lorcan’s comeback. He spun around to see Wexton leap to his feet and hurl an enormous fireball at Lorcan and Luciana. Lorcan stepped in front of Luciana and pushed her back with his right hand while extending his left to freeze the oncoming fireball.

Lorcan’s eyes widened as he realized that the blazing sphere hurtling at him was too hot to dissolve in time. Pain seared the left half of Lorcan’s body as the flames consumed his left arm up to the elbow before he managed to extinguish them. The soaking wet jacket and shirt that Lorcan had been wearing were burned away, his skin was an angry shade of red, and his left arm ended in a charred stump just above where his elbow had been.

“You’ll find this to be an appropriate response.” Cumberbatch sent another memory to Lorcan.

Lorcan brought his remaining hand around in a wide swooping gesture and a U-shaped ice crystal formed above Wexton and slammed down on top of him, the points of the U piercing the floor and knocking Wexton to his knees. He knelt, dazed underneath the arch of ice. Ice crystals began to grow rapidly from the inside of the U until Wexton was encased in a cocoon of ice. He struggled, but with only his nose and eyes remaining uncovered he could not even scream.

The burns covering the left side of his body finally overcame the temporary shock of his sudden injury and Lorcan’s legs gave out on him as the pain overwhelmed him. Luciana caught him carefully.

“Easy there, sorcerer. Let’s set you down gently.” She guided him over to a nearby table and got him lying down on it. Luciana turned and began barking orders at her father’s people. “Get someone to Weyrd Mountain immediately! Take the fastest horses and bring his great-grandmother and the other witches here! Go!” Lorcan heard men running out of the Elder’s Hall, but all he could see was Luciana’s dark red hair as she continued issuing commands. “You three get buckets and bring cold water. You go get herbs for burn wounds from the healer in town. You go with him and bring back as many bandages as you can carry. Father, get Torgough and his cronies out of here, we can’t have him trying to kill our sorcerer while he’s wounded.”

It was getting harder to breath and the fringes of Lorcan’s vision began to fade to black.

Luciana snapped her fingers loudly right in front of Lorcan’s eyes. “Hey! Stay with me, sorcerer! You aren’t dying on us now!”

Lorcan tried valiantly to keep from passing out, but the pain was too much. His body shut down and everything went black.

Lorcan stood in a beautiful garden. Bushes cut into the shape of animals and perfect flowers could be seen in every direction. The sun was shining overhead and birds chirped or sang from trees with leaves instead of needles – Lorcan had only heard of such trees, but had never seen one before.

Luciana shoved Vera to her knees in front of a man Lorcan did not recognize. Vera’s hands were tied behind her back and she wore an ornate purple gown with matching gems around her neck and on her fingers. Despite being bound and having Luciana’s sword pointed at her throat, Vera looked amused, only barely able to contain her laughter.

“Tell me it isn’t true, Mason,” Luciana demanded of the young man standing in front of her and Vera.

“Yes, Mason, tell her it isn’t true.” Vera snickered.

“Shut up!” Luciana snarled at Vera. She turned back to Mason. “Answer me! Tell me it’s just another one of her lies.”

“Anna, what’s going on? Do you know what the Emperor will do to you if he finds out you’re treating Vera this way?” Mason tried to step forward, but Luciana pressed her sword tighter against Vera’s neck.

“Tell me you aren’t a warlock and I’ll let her go.” Luciana’s eyes were locked on Mason.

“I—” Mason stopped. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then hung his head dejectedly.

“No,” Luciana whispered.

Vera giggled. “Still can’t lie to her, can you, Mason dearie?”

“Anna, please understand. I didn’t know what I was,” Mason pleaded.

“You bastard! It’s true?” Luciana looked so betrayed and hurt that Lorcan wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he knew it was pointless to try to interact with someone else’s dream.

“I only just found out. I…please don’t look at me that way, Anna.” Mason looked away.

“You used me to get close to the Emperor! How am I supposed to look at a traitor?” Luciana shot back.

“I—no—well, yes. But I swear, Anna, once I found out I wasn’t going to—”

“Enough of your lies!” Luciana spat. “Mason Torgough, I am honor bound to end your life in order to protect the Empire.”

“Anna, please don’t do this,” Mason begged. “I love you!”

“Warlocks don’t love.” Luciana brought her sword around in a wide arc that removed Mason’s head.

A single tear rolled down Luciana’s cheek.

Lorcan woke in a strange bed. Luciana was asleep in a chair beside his bed. In looking around, Lorcan decided that he was probably in the Old Fisherman Inn. No room on Weyrd Mountain was this fancy.

Luciana’s pale green eyes snapped open as soon as Lorcan sat up. “You need to rest,” she told him, stretching and standing up to check his bandages.

“How bad is it?” Lorcan asked her.

Luciana smirked. “Bad enough that you look better than you used to, you ugly idiot.”

Lorcan couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re one charming asshole, you know that?”

“Your great-grandmother said almost the exact same thing. She was very upset with me for letting you get your arm burned off.”

“Where is she now?” Lorcan asked. Great Grandmother did not like to leave her patients.

“She was exhausted after healing you and so were your aunts. Evidently you should be dead. You’re a tough son of a bitch to have survived.”

“We Moons are stubborn. We don’t like to die until we’re good and ready, no matter how much we ought to go sooner.”

Luciana smiled. “You saved my life yesterday. And…you saved Evie’s life before that. She would have bled out if you hadn’t found her in the forest.” Her smile faded. “Thank you.”

“But…” Lorcan began, though he did not know what to say next. He had failed to save Evie the second time her life had been threatened.

The door cracked open and Senator Seafury entered when he saw Lorcan was awake. He stood stiff backed beside Lorcan’s bed. “Son, I want to thank you for saving my…my only daughter’s life.” The senator was obviously not used to displaying emotion of any kind, but losing Evie and then Luciana’s close call shortly thereafter had – not rattled him of course, he was the unflappable sort, but perhaps brought him within an inch of showing actual feelings.

“Sir, I just—” Lorcan started, but Senator Seafury interrupted him.

“No, no. I won’t hear it. I owe you a great debt, son. I’ll see that your family has enough gold to live comfortably no matter what happens to you in the next few months. I wish that I could do more, but way out here all I can do is give you some of what I already have too much of.”

“Th-thank you, sir,” Lorcan stammered. His family had never had any gold unless you counted what Great-Grandpa had stolen and used to buy the land on Weyrd Mountain for his still.

“Your great-grandmother says you will live, but the burned flesh will never heal completely. I don’t know where you got the rest of your scars, but it looks like our sorcerer has already been through a hell of a lot. Yes, you’ll do just fine.” Senator Seafury clapped Lorcan on his good shoulder and then left.

“My father, the great sentimentalist.” Luciana chuckled when he was gone.

Lorcan scoffed. “Calling the pot black, kettle?”

“Hush, you. At least I didn’t give you money as repayment for one of your limbs. My father is a good man…but my lack of interest in human connections surprises no one who knows him.”

“I…I didn’t mean to, but I saw…um…” Lorcan trailed off, embarrassed to explain that he’d seen Luciana’s dream.

Luciana smiled sadly. “You read my dreams while we slept. Yes, it is an old dream and one that haunts me often. I have read a great deal about what sorcerers and warlocks are capable of. I tried to stay awake, but as soon as I dozed I knew you would share what I dreamt. I suppose you have questions.”

Lorcan shook his head emphatically. “No! I…uh…I just wanted you to know that I knew.”

“Well, thank you for telling me. You are turning out to be a decent sort of idiot.”

“You’re too kind.

“Now get some rest.” Luciana left Lorcan in his dark room. His eyelids felt heavy and he found it easy to comply with Luciana’s command.

“Oh my God!” Mandy whispered.

“So cool!” Errol and Earl gasped.

“Shut it, you two! He just needs the love of a pretty girl to nurse him back to health,” Thomas chided his cousins.

One or more of Uncle Cal’s girls squealed and ran screaming from the room. Someone snickered at them until someone else hit them for being inconsiderate.

Lorcan opened his eyes slowly. His entire family was reluctantly filing into his room. With the exception of some of his younger cousins, everyone looked terrified.

“Hi everybody.” Lorcan did his best to smile without wincing, he doubted it worked well.

Mandy sat down on his bed and held Lorcan’s hand. “Does it hurt?”

Lorcan nodded. “I’ll live, though.”

“Is Luciana going to nurse you back to health?” Thomas asked hopefully.

Lorcan groaned. “Little bro, what did I tell you about Luciana? She is off limits for your crazy fantasies.”

“But she stayed by your side and changed your bandages and–” Thomas protested.

Lorcan cut him off. “No. Find some other girl to have me marry in your imagination. I didn’t survive all this just to get stabbed in my sleep.”

“I’m sure she’d wake you up first,” Great Grandmother chimed in. “She’s the honorable type of girl.”

“Oh, now you like her too?” Lorcan rolled his eyes.

“That insufferable ice queen with the pompous attitude who looks at everyone else like insects crawling on her fancy boots? Yes, actually. She’s good people. Keep her around, but don’t take your eyes off her knife hand,” Great Grandma advised.

“I really think there are better things to talk about than my love life right now,” Lorcan told them.

“You really don’t know us very well, do you?” Mandy chuckled.

“Unfortunately, I know you too well,” Lorcan answered.

“So, son, what happens next?” Lorcan’s father asked in order to save him from Thomas and Great Grandmother. Lorcan gave him a grateful look.

“He heals,” Luciana answered. Lorcan’s relatives parted for her as she entered the room. “Wexton remains imprisoned in Lorcan’s ice cocoon. By the time that the Divinatrix and the Emperor’s emissary arrive he should be ready to continue the Trials.”

“You can’t intend to go on with this lunacy after what happened to Lorcan already?” Mandy stared incredulously at Luciana.

“I’m afraid we must,” Luciana answered coolly. “Overly dramatic though it may seem, the fate of the world may depend on us proving that Lorcan is the New Sorcerer and Wexton is a warlock.”

“He’s my brother,” Mandy glared menacingly at Luciana. “I won’t let you get him killed.”

“Easy, Mandy.” Lorcan squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I’m not going to get killed.”

“Fine,” Mandy growled. “What happens after all the fancy-pants folks come to town?”

“Well, Lorcan gets to make a choice. He can opt to see the Divinatrix immediately and receive what advice she will give him about his future or he can choose to see the Imperial Emissary’s description of each Trial that he is to face as he proves himself. The rest of us only know a few vague aspects of what the Trials entail and will be of little help. The Duel is done, but there will be many more yet to overcome,” Luciana explained.

What does Lorcan choose?

1)      Hear what the Divinatrix has to say about his future.

2)      Learn details about what he will face during the Trials.