When Josh returned, he dumped the firewood near the base of a tree and went about his own business. He glanced over at me a couple of times while I pored over the scrolls. He was probably wondering what I was reading that had me so entranced.
But my eyes distracted back over to him when I saw him trying to tap something onto a flat rock on the ground. The crystal casing glimmered in the firelight.
He whacked it onto the side of the rock then again, against some other types of coarser rocks lying on the ground around us.
He looked up at me.
I didn’t say anything.
He grimaced. “You wouldn’t have any idea as to how to open this damn thing, would you?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Nobody’s ever taken it from the Lake before. Nobody’s ever used it.”
“Yeah, yeah, as you so often reiterate,” he replied dully.
“Here, let me.” I held out my hand.
He tossed me a look of disbelief. “Yeah right!”
I huffed in defeat. It was worth a try.
Josh peered at the crystal cylinder as if to try to find a seal, or a lock, a wedge, an opening, a crack, anything, to no avail. He shook his head in frustration. “How the hell are you supposed to use this thing if it’s locked inside this damn case?”
I couldn’t help a smirk. “You don’t even know anything. Nobody can use the relic. It was hidden away for millennia for safekeeping.” I blew out an exasperated sigh. “It’s like it’s pointless to explain to you all. It doesn’t matter if you manage to steal the relic. One would need the highest level of Aquarian magic training to even wield it. Nobody has this. Not even me.” I shook my head. “I’ve never even seen the relic outside of its case before, let alone be used.”
He gave me a wry look. “Then you can send my compliments to whoever cast that spell. They sure thought of everything.”
“The spheres of protection.” I nodded nonchalantly.
“The what?” He wrinkled his nose.
I looked at him, surprised he wasn’t already familiar with the concept.
“Everything has its own sphere of protection. You just can’t see it,” I explained. “The trees, the villages, the kingdoms, Arcadia, even this blade of grass here.” I touched a long green blade on the ground. “Some spheres are weak and some are not. And then there are certain things that not only have stronger spheres but layers upon layers of protection around them. Like the relic.”
“Oh, I get it.” He nodded, looking thoughtful. “First the forest, then the lake, then this stubborn little case thing.” He frowned again as he tried to scratch through the crystal encasement.
I shook my head again. “It will have had several more,” I informed him. “Some might just be eluding your senses.”
He nodded again as if in approval. “That is so cool. You know there isn’t much interesting stuff like this where I come from. Stuff back there’s boring.”
“I’m sure that cannot be true,” I disagreed. “It is more likely that you have taken them for granted since they have always been available to you. Surely, having been away from your home so long now, you have realized that you yearn for certain things to which normally you would not have given a second thought. Is that not why you want to go home in the first place?” I ventured.
He looked a little annoyed. “Yeah okay,” he said before starting again. “You gotta admit though, all this stuff is pretty amazing. I mean, assuming you haven’t taken them for granted yet,” he repeated dryly.
I merely gave him a strange look for his retort.
He slipped the relic back into his pocket and took out something else. The object made a crinkling sound. He pulled across the top of what looked like a small package until it opened then he took something from inside and put it in his mouth—to eat.
I watched him. “What is that?”
“Oh.” He looked down at the bag then back at me. “Fish crackers, you want some?”
“Fish what?” I echoed in ridicule.
“It’s junk food,” he relayed. “It’s a bit stale now, but…” he trailed off with a shrug. “This’ll probably have to hold us for a while. Do you want to try some?” He rummaged in his pockets again before tossing me another packet.
I caught it in my hand, staring at the packet in puzzlement. “Hold us? Aren’t we stopping at the village to eat?”
He was already shaking his head. “Oh no, we can’t stop at this village. But we’ll stop at the next one, stay the night there.”
I watched him again, guessing he had gotten into some trouble at this village as well. He seemed to have trouble following him around. I peered at the small packet in my hand. “This is fish from your world?”
“It’s processed.”
I blinked at the bag several times before raising it to my mouth to try to bite into it.
“Hey, hey.” He put up his hand to stop me. “You have to open the bag first.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Oh.” I tried pulling the bag apart a couple of times like I had seen him do earlier, making a face in the struggle.
“Here, let me.” He got up, made his way over, and took the bag out of my hands to open it. He tried himself a few times, grunting as he did so, but managed little less than I had.
“Well…” He flopped back on the ground with a serious expression on his face. “This bag must have some serious sort of powerful sphere of protection around it, huh?”
I snapped an incredulous look at him. The next moment, I burst out laughing.
Josh blinked at me in surprise, before he grinned, looking pleased.
I couldn’t even look at him without laughing all over again. What he said was just so ridiculous, especially given the circumstances, I couldn’t help it.
“Okay, okay.” He waved to dismiss it after a while, looking embarrassed. “It wasn’t that funny,” he said modestly before pulling something else out of another pocket—something shaped like animal ears.
I bit my lip, gaping at the pink and white object in his hands.
He cut off the top of the bag and held it out to me. He noticed my stare. “What?”
“Wha-wha-what is that?” I struggled to stifle my laughter all over again as I pointed to the object.
“This? It’s bunny ears scissors.” He shoved the scissors back into his pocket. “It’s my sister’s, okay?” He sounded defensive.
“Oh, of course.”
He shot me a suffering look. “Would you just eat,” he instructed, settling back to his seat again.
I crunched through the food, still with a slight grin on my face.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I had laughed. Given the state of things, it was surprising that I managed to find some amusement in something so silly.
After he had finished eating, I watched Josh fiddle with another few items, taking them out of and putting them back into his several pockets as though he was looking for something.
I gave him another strange look as I watched. “What kind of trousers are those? There are so many pockets.”
“Oh, these?” He gestured to his pants. “Cargo pants. Sometimes I forget I leave stuff in my pockets. Look—” He stuck his hand into one other pocket, pulled something out, and held it up to me.
I jumped upon seeing my face before me. “Whoa!”
He grinned again, retracting his arm. “It’s just a mirror,” he explained. “Like a reflector.”
“Can…I see it again?” I asked in wonder, putting my hand out and he put it on my palm. I winced again when I saw my face and saw my eyes blink within it. “Whoa…” I stroked the smooth surface with my finger. “This is amazing wizardry. You’ve contained the surface of a still lake within this little circle.”
Josh smiled again. “You can keep that if you like.”
I pursed my lips. How? “I seem to be lacking pockets.”
“Maybe you could have someone make you a new outfit with pockets,” he suggested.
I frowned, my mood changing in an instant. “Maybe I don’t want a new outfit,” I snapped.
Josh held up his hands in resignation. “All right, all right, jeez. You sure are touchy about changing things, aren’t you?” he noted, taking back the mirror.
I kept my scowl. Humans lived such short lives they would never appreciate the importance of stability, of constancy.
My existence had been constant for three thousand years and likely would have been for another three more were it not for him.
There was no way this human could possibly understand the severity of the “change” that he had just brought about.
I turned away and went back to reading—well, re-reading by now.
I didn’t want to stop. I felt as though as long as I held on to those scrolls, I would be okay. These scrolls were the last remaining link I had to a previous part of my life. A time when everything was simpler, when the relic remained guarded and safe, and humans were just annoying beings passing through, and letting them die wasn’t something to think twice about.
I shook my head. Perhaps Dantilian had been right. I had a deep love for the Forest, the Lake, a deep love for my duty. I guessed that was why I still followed Josh. I glanced back at him with a pout of displeasure. The relic was my life.
“Shh,” Josh shushed me as we moved through the forest just outside of the nearby village, heading to the other end. He was keeping an eye out for any townsfolk to show but fortunately, it was too early in the morning and the village roads were still empty.
There was a slight fog rolling in but the crack of dawn air was muggy, and unlike my Forest, this one had bugs in it.
I shooed the insects away, making a face, and every once in a while, I whacked one away from my arm, my leg, my neck. I groaned in irritation, trying to tuck my hair up so that it didn’t touch the muddy ground.
“I said quiet!” Josh hissed back at me.
I shot him a pointed look. “I’m sorry but these stupid bugs keep biting me,” I retorted. “I don’t see why we don’t just take the path out there. Nobody’s around yet. It’s too early.”
He ignored me and moved on.
Then again, I’d been complaining for quite a while about the same thing.
I pouted, scratching my arms. “What are you so afraid of anyway? What could you possibly have done to offend anyone in this village this much?”
He still didn’t reply.
I rolled my eyes. I was watching my feet to be careful where I stepped and it occurred to me that I could have really used Nona’s shoes right now. I made another face.
This particular forest seemed to me too slimy. The ground was damp and reeked of some unknown toxic odor, algae formed on the roots and trunks of the surrounding trees. It seemed more of a marsh than a forest which was probably why the insects thrived in it.
I wanted to drift up into the trees, to avoid stepping on the ground, but I had tried to lift off earlier only to discover that I had lost that ability as well, probably at the same time that I’d lost my home.
Also without the Lake’s protection thus far, I had retained several additional bruises from the jump off the balcony from last night’s escape out of Cephiron.
I sensed a different odor and furrowed my eyebrows trying to guess what it was. I sniffed again. It was an odd mix of damp soil, smoke, and…alcohol.
I sniffed again. The smell seemed to be coming from somewhere up—
My eyes traveled up the trunk of one tree in time to see a huge figure jump down right onto Josh in front of me, pinning him unconscious to the ground.
I squeaked in surprise as several more men jumped out from behind the bushes, my breath catching in my throat as a rough, bristly arm came around my neck in an inescapable vise-like grip, and I squeezed my eyes shut in terror.