Chapter: The Blacksmith's Sawhorse: 24 of ?
Author: Sam
Series: A Deeper Magic
Last Chapter: DG and Cain take care of a worsening Leona and Ambrose as they deal with their marriage masquerade. DG finally breaks down.
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The smell of river pod ointment teased Jeb's nostrils, waking him from his drugged sleep, though he felt refreshed after so many hours undisturbed. Perforce of habit, he reached up to brush his dark blond hair from his blue-grey eyes. As his mind focused, Jeb froze and looked at his hand, eyes widening. "What the hell?"
His voice seemed to awaken Mariah sleeping sitting against the bed, head leaning on the wall. She opened her liquid amber eyes and watched him, silent as ever, her ever present serious thoughtfulness crossing her face.
Looking back at his hands, wonder in his voice, Jeb said "how'd my hands heal?" He turned his long-fingered delicate seeming hands, checking from all angles. "No scars either?" The resistance leader lifted his eyes to the red-haired woman he'd met barely eighteen hours before. "Fireweed never heals neatly . . . only magic does." His eyes fell to the magic-blocking collar she wore.
She nodded and pushed herself from her seat on the floor. Holding out her hands to Jeb, she offered the barest hint of a smile, eyes crinkling at the corners.
That smile drew him like a siren's call, reminding him of their close call at the gates of Central City . . . and how they'd avoided the security check of the Long Coats. Jeb took her hands and let her pull him to his feet from the low pallet. Her strength surprised him; he could feel it in arms and hands that had been gentle during her provident healing of him and Toto the day before.
Mariah actually kept his left hand in her right as she turned to lead him to the old hipbath set near the back wall. The sound of water quietly rippling came from the tub and Jeb glanced at Mariah in surprise. She nodded once to him.
Jeb looked into the hipbath to find a woman with hair so black it almost appeared violet: one of the near-mythical Aquam.
His mother had told him tales of the different clans. According to her stories, Aquam could heal any ill or hurt, but the price for such magical aid was great as no one could touch an Aquam without magic of his own. Almost as elusive as the fabled Fire People of the Phlogiston Clan, the Ice Dwellers of Aquam Clan were strong fighters but were said to be distrustful of most strangers.
"Is she hurt?" Jeb let go of Mariah and squatted next to the bath, concern for the unusual woman over-riding his curiosity over his own injuries. He glanced up at Mariah. A shake of her head reassured him so he looked back to the stranger and had to smother a gasp; her eyes had opened to reveal pure luminescent white.
The Aquam woman smiled up at Jeb and sat up, putting her hand over her throat as she sat in the nearly full tub. "Hello," her voice echoed lightly and a soft liquid blue light seemed to emanate from where she touched her own skin. "You are much better now."
"Did you heal me?" shock coursed through him; he'd never thought he had magic. After all, neither of his parents had ever displayed any magical abilities in front of him. He'd assumed the Cains were like three-fourths of the Outer Zone: un-magical. To realize he was actually one of the minority startled the royal Tin Man. He wondered if he could learn to use magic this late in life. "What can I do?" he asked himself.
"Yes," the Aquam woman's answer interrupted Jeb's wayward thoughts. "I am Arista and I saw the Corde injured by the twisted evil in those collars," she gestured towards Toto.
Immediately, Jeb whirled around to check his journey companion, missing whatever else she might have said; he shuddered to see the dog swathed ears to tail tip in bandages soaked in the heavy narcotic: Toto was being kept in a drug-induced coma to aid healing. Something Arista said did draw Jeb's attention finally. "What Corde?" He hadn't thought any viewers would be at the abandoned academy.
Laughter bubbled up from the amused seeming water dweller. "I did not get their names. One was older, the other a mere boy. They tried healing the Sapientiam mage."
Frowning, Jeb looked again at Toto. "Sapientiam? Are you sure?" He walked over to the canine shape-shifter. "I've heard none of their magic House survived."
She laughed again, her voice echoing pleasantly low. "They are the only ones with the magic to be both animal and non-animal. I have only met two others, but I will never forget the magic aura they emit." Arista slipped under the water briefly then came back up still smiling. "And you found Mariah . . . that is good. We were seperated and I was worried." A swift frown came to the Aquam's face as she turned her odd white gaze to the readhead beside the bath. "But a collar, Mariah? How truly horrible for you. I hope we can find a way to remove it."
Mariah nodded once, looking quite serious.
Frowning, Jeb realized that an Aquam at their meeting place was too coincidental; Raw shouldn't have gotten to Mount Runcible for two days at the least. And didn't Arista mention two viewers at the academy? The resistance leader felt those two must be Raw and the boy, Kalm, stopping to rest on their way north.
"Arista? Why are you here?" he asked softly, watching her in sudden wariness. He walked back to the tub and squatted but remained poised for action.
As if called by his recent thoughts of them, Raw and Kalm walked almost silently into the room, but the Tin Man did no more than nod to acknowledge them. He kept his sharp gaze on this stranger.
Arista didn't seem to take offense though she stopped smiling and laughing. With a measuring look over the young gillikanese man, the dark-haired woman said "I've come to talk to Jeb."
Stiffening, the man shook his head. "How do you know my name? Who sent you?" Distrust laced Jeb's words, though Raw gave Arista a friendly smile of welcome.
Leaning forward, Arista studied Jeb. "You are Jeb who leads the resistance forces?" She tilted her head. "You do not look much like your sire, do you?"
He frowned. "Yes, I'm Jeb Cain," he spoke slowly, cautiously, ignoring her observation. He'd always looked more like his mother. "What do you want with me?"
She slipped her fingers down her dress front, causing him to flush though he did not look away. Pulling out something small and colorful, she held it up, offering it to him. When Jeb took it, she said, "I was told to tell you 'Sawhorse.' This is from your father as proof."
The dark toy tin horse looked old, worn, and very familiar, drawing Jeb's mind back to the day it had been made . . . and named.
"And that's the coronet," Adora Cain used the tip of her thin feather to point out a section right above the little tin horse's hoof. "The hoof is made of horn, like a cow's horns. The coronet is the place where the skin meets the horn." She dipped the barest tip of her feather into the pot of charcoal paint and ran the tiny brush lightly over the toy's hoof. Her long dark-blonde hair had been pulled back into a ponytail and tied with a simple ribbon, as always. She squinted her blue eyes to see the tiny details.
Beside her, five annual old Jeb clutched the wooden table with unusual thin hands, blue-grey eyes wide as he watched her careful work. He hadn't taken his eyes off the entire painting process; he'd been equally fascinated when his father had molded the tin figurine. Every time she applied color to the toy, her son asked questions, curiosity bubbling over as he watched the wonderful toy taking shape. "What's that? Why's it that color? What if it breaks off?"
Some of his questions had verged on the ridiculous, but his mother smiled and answered each one with the patience borne of motherhood.
Adora continued to paint with the dark smoky color, making sure to coat each hoof completely. She bent over the table, on the edge of her wooden chair, leaning close to the candle she favored as a light source while painting. "How many will this be, Jeb?"
With a look akin to horror, the boy with dark sandy hair and grey-blue eyes realized he couldn't recall the exact number of toy horses he owned. He straightened and pushed away from the table, rocking the paint pot so that Adora had to reach out and grab it to prevent it from toppling. Ignorant of the near disaster, the boy ran to his loft ladder and scaled it in seconds; Adora's uncle always claimed Jeb would make a fine sailor with his ability to climb and fearlessness of heights, but the boy planned to be a Tin Man like his father.
Once in his loft Jeb headed straight to his small wooden toy chest and flung open the lid. He reached in and grabbed one toy horse after another, lining them up on the bare boards of his floor. With the final horse placed Jeb turned to his line-up and began to count. He counted a second time. Confident of the number, he practically threw himself down his ladder and sprinted to his mother's side, this time careful not to knock the table or his mother. "That one's five."
"Well, then your collection is the finest I've seen. Even finer that Father's was when he was little." She smiled at the boy, her hand never slowing in its delicate task. "What will this one be named?"
The boy stood, thoughtful, watching the tiny strokes of the feather. He contemplated the name he'd choose, silent for at least ten minutes. Finally, slowly, Jeb looked at his mother and bit his lower lip.
She smiled encouragingly at the boy, pausing in her painting. "What is it, Jeb? Have you thought of a name?"
He shook his head. "I'm not naming it. I want . . ." He broke off as the front door swung open, admitting Wyatt: tall, solidly built, with intense pale blue eyes and light blond hair.
Adora gave her husband a welcoming smile. She watched as Wyatt hauled Jeb into his strong arms, giving the boy a hug and kiss. "Hello, Mister Cain," she called.
Thrilled to be cuddled by his large bear of a father, Jeb threw his small arms around the man's neck. Too soon the boy found himself lowered to the floor once more.
Crystal blue eyes seemed to light up and Wyatt turned to Adora. "Mrs. Cain. I see the horse is nearly finished." He kept Jeb tucked securely against his hip with one strong arm as he gestured with his other hand. "She looks good."
Jeb tugged his father's sleeve, interrupting the adults. "You name her."
"Me?" Surprise lit his father's light, intense eyes.
Adora smiled, apparently at the surprise in her husband's voice. Seeming to catch onto her son's generosity before Wyatt, the blonde woman dipped her feather in the coal paint again. "I think he's giving you this mare, Sweetheart. I told him his collection was finer than yours." With one last daub, Adora placed her feather on the edge of her mixing pallet then arched her back, whimpering at the twinges and aches caused by the long held position.
Their son smiled at his father and hugged him around the neck in a chokehold again. "She'll keep you safe like in the stories."
The look of tenderness on Wyatt's face was priceless. Adora smiled and said, "that would be Sawhorse. But he was made of wood, not tin."
"Sawhorse." Wyatt laughed, hugging his son, able to ignore the choking hold from the boy. "I like it. I'll call her 'Sawhorse' and keep her in my gun box so she can protect my gun and badge."
Jeb nodded, bouncing in his father's arms with every bob of his head. "Right. Sawhorse."
Wyatt's crystal blue eyes met Adora's darker cerulean over their son's head, and she returned his smile.
Running his fingers over a toy he hadn't seen in thirteen annuals, feeling the smoothed and painted sides, Jeb's fingers caught on something. He frowned, turning the toy over. Blue-grey eyes widened. A bullet had impacted the horse's flank and remained embedded there. "Father was shot?" he breathed in shock, barely registering the fact that the tin horse had blocked the bullet.
A soft splash drew the young man's attention and he looked at the hipbath's resident, Arista. She smiled back at the resistance leader, nodding. He leaned towards her. "How? When? Is he okay?"
The Aquam woman nodded again. "He fell into the Northern Ice Lake last moon cycle, near the double eclipse. When I healed him, his chest had been impacted and bruised badly. Now he is very well. I completely healed him."
"You healed father, too?" Jeb sank to a seat on the floor, too many shocks finally overwhelming him. Slowly he asked, "can Aquam heal everyone? I heard they're . . . uh . . . poisonous."
Arista sank under the bath water again then came up with a wide smile, revealing double rows of sharp teeth . . . like some predator's grin. "We are toxic, not poisonous or corrosive. We cause neurological and hematological damage to those unprotected. But, if you have magic, it can protect you." She blinked her luminescent white eyes and Jeb jumped slightly, noting a set of inner eyelids blinking as well. "We can see magical auras and so know whom we may touch."
Jeb nodded. "Then I'm magical? And Father is?"
"Ah," Arista nodded, still smiling. "You did not know. Well, now you do. But," her smile faded, teeth once more hidden behind pale blue-tinted lips, "I have brought messages."
Mariah sank down to one knee next to the hipbath but carefully kept her hands to herself, presumably to avoid activating her cursed collar.
Arista gave her friend a smile. "First, troops of the darkness witch have attacked and been repelled by Aquam." She nodded a greeting as Raw and Kalm came to squat nearby as well. "The Spiritus Clan sent Mariah to aid me on my quest when my companion took ill. While on the borders of Finnaqua, looking for entrance to the Under Realm, we were attacked."
Turning steel-blue eyes on his red-headed companion, Jeb softly said "Spiritus . . . no wonder you can't talk."
The muted woman nodded once, gesturing to the collar. In agreement, Jeb nodded. "Your magic . . ." but he fell quiet and turned back to Arista.
She didn't seem to mind their sidebar conversation. "When we were attacked, I was separated from Mariah so took to the waterways, which brought me to the Western Tower. There I made contact with your father and his wife . . ."
"Wife!" Jeb's voice rose in shock. "When did he . . ." the young leader clamped his mouth shut. A handfasting in front of an administrator could have taken only minutes; his father could easily have married at any time yesterday. Jeb had no trouble figuring out who Wyatt Cain would have married: Princess Dorothy Gale.
As the other four watched him, Jeb struggled with the idea of his father remarrying only four months after Mother's death. Jeb reminded himself that Wyatt hadn't known when Adora was killed; he'd thought she was dead for eight annuals. His father deserved to be happy, and he had been quite obviously attached to the woman he called DG. Jeb had noticed the emotions Wyatt had tried to hide, first when DG had gone missing then when they'd made plans to separate during the infiltration while in the final battle with the witch. At least Jeb didn't dislike DG; he just didn't know the young princess. Surprise widened his eyes as he realized his father would now carry the title of 'prince' or 'consort.'
Finally Arista interrupted Jeb's thoughts with her soft echoing voice. "They're prisoners of the Long Coats there, as is Ambrose. They need someone to parlay with Fortitudo Clan in the east."
The royal Tin Man nodded, trying not to worry about the prisoners he could not spare time to help yet. "I can do that," he volunteered, pushing personal problems aside. He would deal with his father's new marriage later . . . after the Clans were contacted and the prisoners were safe.
"Not alone," Arista reminded him. "I can go with you."
Mariah shook her head and tapped her own chest.
Everyone looked at her, but she couldn't explain why she should go instead of Arista. No one seemed able to figure a way to help her.
Kalm straightened his back and ventured an opinion. "Arista spy at Tower?"
As Mariah nodded once, Arista's eyes lit in apparent excitement. Jeb and Raw nodded their agreement.
"And help keep the resistance informed. Once my father and the others can escape, Ambrose can see to those collars." Jeb gestured to Mariah next to him.
"Agreed," Arista smiled. "I will need a message taken to Lady Rimi in the north to let her know what has been occurring." Raw patted his chest but didn't speak; the Aquam seemed to understand anyway and nodded. "Then we should begin. I will need to rest longer from my healing efforts but will go back to the Tower tomorrow early.
Standing and offering a hand up to Mariah, Jeb nodded. "We'll get provisions and head out soon." He studied the others. "Good journey." The Tin Man turned and walked over to the comatose canine. "Be safe, Toto. I'll help find a cure when I return." He sighed then turned and retrieved his sword from the nightstand by his pallet. He sheathed it and strode from the makeshift infirmary.
Mariah nodded to the group and followed her travelling companion out the door.
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Continued in Chapter Twenty-Five: Healing an Ally or Helping an Enemy
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The Twelve Clans of the Outer Zone with the Ruling House of Each Clan:
Aquam Clan/ House of Rimi . . . (Ice- Mount Runcible)
Cogitatio Clan/ House of Idae . . . (Milltown)
Corde Clan/ House of Animum . . . (Viewers)
Fortitudo Clan/ House of Greyhatt . . . (Guilds- Munchkins)
Lux Clan/ House of Gale . . . (formerly House of Ozma- Gillikin)
Mortem Clan/ House of Shiz . . . (Alma Mata- Gillikin)
Nature Clan/ House of Terrae . . . (Vinkus- Thousand Year Grasslands)
Papay Clan/ House of Somniabunt
Phlogiston Clan/ House of Pyre . . . (Fire- Desert surrounding O.Z.)
Sapientiam Clan/ House of Quinolui . . . (Quadling- Realm of the Unwanted)
Spiritus Clan/ House of Aeris . . . (Air- Lake Country)
Tenebris Clan/ House of Fugae . . . (Witch's Dark Tower- Gillikin)
