Chapter 19 - The Magi

Cold air filled the room with its stale bite. Giles breathed it in deeply upon waking, and it brought a pain to his chest. With a bout of coughing, he sat up, bringing himself to life once more. His entire body tightened with stiffness, making him feel as though he had been still for a century.

With a wince upon fully sitting erect, he brought a hand to his chest. The contact his fingers made with the strange fabric made his eyes open once more. Looking down at himself, he found that he now wore a plaid tunic, dark green in color. Below them were a pair of wool pants, well worn and fraying around the cuffs. Both garments were a size too big for him.

The stone wall directly to his right had a window halfway up, shining a ray of white dawn through its rectangular opening, and acting as the sole source of light for the space he now found himself in. The light fell upon the opposite wall, halfway down its mossy stone, and revealed a wooden table. Upon it stood a planting pot, the vegetation within it having long since lost its battle with the autumn. His eyes still weak, he struggled to find any understanding of the room beyond this, as the rest remained behind shadow.

The cot he had been lying on stood firm as he moved about on it. And, looking up to the high window, decided to stand upon the bedding to look out to the world beyond. Once he got up to a standing position, and his upper thighs rubbed together, a burning sensation screamed across his groin and he let out a cry, falling to his knees.

He gritted his teeth as he fought back the sensation of pain. Once it had subsided, he undid the cord holding his pants up and dropped them around his ankles. From groin to knee, the inside of his thighs were swollen with white blisters. Any area not bubbling up with liquid had been colored a deep crimson color.

“Oh my.” The words came out through a raspy whisper. For a moment, Giles wondered if he had contracted some horrible disease, fearing the implication of its location. Then, all at once, the days of riding flooded into his mind. How far had he gone? How many days had it even been? He could not remember once stopping to give his body a rest.

He put his hands on his hips, looking down at his burning thighs, and chuckled to himself. Something he felt he had not done in some long time.

“Small price to pay for staying alive, I suppose.” Then the smile faded when he remembered who all had not been so lucky as himself. “Very small price.”

He attempted to stand up once more, this time keeping his legs wide. His fingers gripped along the stone making up the bottom of the window, and a breeze rolled against them. When he managed to bring his face up between his hands, the same cold air billowed against his face, wafting his black curls back. The white light of the day stung his eyes for a moment before fading away to reveal the world beyond.

For a moment, Giles felt unsure about what he saw. Indeed a vast red and yellowed forest stretching away some hundred miles before losing its distinction for his eyes. Beyond it were the mountains, closer and larger than they had ever appeared to him before. They stood black and snowy, forming their impenetrable wall to the left and right, only finding a single space between them perfectly in line with where the sun rose now to late morning.

Then, realizing how little he saw upon his own level, he looked down. A great wall of stone circled a vast courtyard of similar design. The wall appeared to be made of the same rock that formed the room he now stood in. However, every several feet, Giles noted a newer rock had been carved from to be placed within the wall, suggesting renovations of a sort had taken place.

Beyond the wall lay a small town, connected by a bridge reaching from gate to road over a wide moat. It too, being made of the newer stone, stood bright, with flags of yellow and green fluttering atop the roofs to match those flying along the wall. Puffy pillars of smoke rose from the chimneys and fluttered away into the open blue sky. While a homely sight, compared to the days prior, Giles found his attention drawn to the courtyard within.

Men moved about, many no older than seventeen; those that were tended to be forty or so years older, but they were few. Giles noted how they walked between tables and booths that had been set up. Similar to a market, they would go to each one, trying out what was offered, and pick something before moving to the next area. However, instead of new boots, or delicious foods, these men picked their way through weapons. The glint of the blades in the sun reflected their newness, and the men held them in wonder revealing their similarity to the steel. Giles found himself counting the figures far below, but lost track around a hundred.

“Where have I gotten to?”

“That would be Northguard.”

Giles dropped from the window, and whirled about, forgetting for a moment about his thighs, sending a searing pain up them when they rubbed together. He doubled over, clenching his eyes shut in pain before attempting to rise again.

“Careful. You seem to have ridden for some time to get here.” A laugh rang out. “You should see the pants we found you in. Practically shredded. Good thing you got here when you did. A bit more riding and the same would have happened to your legs.”

Giles peered around the opposite side of the room where he heard the voice coming from, but it remained shrouded as ever. From the shadows to the left of the table, there came the sound of wood being scooted along the stone, and a slight jingle of chain. Boots clacked their way forward, and within moments a figure stepped into the light.

A man, wearing a similar plaid design as Giles, only his being blue and gray, and designed in a similar fashion of an elegant robe rather than a standard tunic that the men below adorned. It revealed his thin narrow frame of a body beneath rather well. His face held a broad smile, as he looked Giles up and down, unabashedly excited by what he saw.

Giles, on the other hand, felt uneased by the stranger. Not simply for the fact of him choosing to remain hidden while Giles looked about the darkness for as long as he had, nor for the perfect confident posture the man held with his arms crossed confidently over his chest. No, neither of these. Instead, he found the face of the man something strange to look upon.

For all understandable features such as the nose, eyes, and lips, the man would appear to anyone as nearing his late twenties. Not a youth like those Giles had seen through the window, but still relatively young when he compared him to Thomas. No, the man must have been young. But even so, something about him looked to be that of an old man nearing his final days. Nothing Giles could put a finger on specifically other than the sense of one who is dying and walking towards their grave with each passing hour.

“Where am I?”

“Northguard, my friend. Specifically Mountcrane. I hope you have enjoyed your stay thus far.” The man bobbed his head up and down, smiling all the while. Giles pointed over his shoulder to the window.

“But, there is no mountain here. Just trees.” He found himself wondering why he would ever waste time with such a stupid question. However, the man only laughed, a cheery sound in such a dark cold place, filling it wall to wall.

“Yes, that is a good point to make. However, it is not named for the mountain here. Rather out of what the castle is made from.” He broke into a lecture about some far mountain to the furthest north of Tovoran, Giles understanding little of this, and he only stopped upon noticing his audience begin to sway and their legs begin to shake ever so slightly. “Oh, right well I suppose this all can wait until some better time.” He walked a bit closer, but never crossed the halfway line of the room. “You were rather near death when the guards found you. And somehow you pulled through. The fever broke sometime last night. Friend, your brain has been boiling for two days since you’ve been here, and who knows how long before that.”

Giles brought a hand to his temple, feeling the warm skin.

“Don’t worry. You’re alright, however it will be a few days for you to really get your strength back. Which is good news.” He pointed out a finger to Giles, and wagged it as someone who has figured something out. “Indeed great news for the two of us. Tell me, do you remember much of your journey here? No, first I should ask, whose horse was it that you were riding? Or rather, I should be a good interrogator and ask if you are coherent enough to answer any of these questions?”

With each new question, Giles found himself slumping further and further until he was seated once again upon the cot, back pressed up against the cold stone wall. He shook his head, mouth open slightly trying and failing to form words.

“Yes I see. Fair enough.” The man looked above to the window, and judged the position of the sun. “Well, I was meant to leave and go back tomorrow before dawn. However, perhaps I can push it to late morning. This is a rather important matter.” He uncrossed his arms and placed them on his slender hips. “Right! Now, I will give you time to rest. However, I still need something to tell the royals who have you locked up here. They have a lot of things on their minds, and you were not meant to be one of them.” He strutted forward a bit more, coming fully into the light of the window. “Tell me, is your name Giles?”

Ever since the man had uncrossed his arms, Giles' eyes had been fixed upon the golden chain that had been hidden behind them. The symbol hanging at its lowest point, glinted in the light magnificently. His memory, fuzzy as it felt, recognized the design immediately as the same one he had seen on the dead priest. It felt like years ago when he had stumbled across it. It drew him in, and befuddled his already weakened mind. Before he knew it, he found himself answering the man’s question.

“Yes.”

The man nodded and looked away, as if talking to himself.

“Good. This is very good. To think such a gamble would pay off.” He wagged his finger once more at Giles. “It is good fortune that you have crossed my path before all others, Sir Giles.” He turned and walked back to the opposite wall. “I must go now. Much is happening in the world. Do not worry, I shall return this evening. Then, we can have a little chat about all the great things you have done.”

Giles blinked, feeling the trance of the necklace being broken. “Sir? Chat? Hold on.” He crawled forward on the cot, feebly reaching out for the man. “Who are you?”

The man stopped and picked up a cape hidden in the darkness. He threw it over his shoulders before turning to face Giles again.

“I am Abner, and I am currently the only chance you have at staying alive, my friend.” He started to turn once more, but stopped upon seeing the dead plant on the table. He shook his head, and looked over at Giles. “Shame that. I do so hate this time of year, don’t you?” He looked back at the plant, reached out his hand to it, and whispered. “Flaris” As his hand passed over it, Giles' eyes widened. Where the dead plant once slumped, a fully blossomed bunch of buttercups stood bright and proud. “There, much better.”

Abner looked at Giles once more, pulling the cape closer about him. Then, he began a slight coughing fit, raising his hand to his mouth. Pulling it away, he gave it a worried look before thrusting the hand back under the cape once more.

“Goodness. It would seem the weather does not like me much either.” With that, he turned and opened a door to the right of the table. Orange torch light flooded the room and vanished just as quickly, once the door clicked shut.

Giles had not taken his eyes away from the flowers for even a moment. He sat there, eyes wide as saucers, mind fully awake. After a moment, he struggled up to his feet and walked across the room. With one hand he reached out to the plant hoping to pluck one from the pottery. Instead, his fingers passed through them, giving the sensation of passing through water. Once he had done so, the flowers burst into glowing embers that fluttered about in a swirl before vanishing into the darkness.

Giles brought his fingers up to his eyes and rubbed them together. He looked over to where the door stood closed.

“So, it’s true.”

He no longer felt any fatigue. His mind worked at thinking up his next move.