In The Cards Part Three
Part One
Part Two
It didn’t take too long for Josiah to talk one of the servants into letting him in and taking him to the room where Lord Standish was apparently lying in his sickbed. It had been a few days now, the maid said, and he wouldn’t wake up. To Josiah’s questions, she replied that the Baron hadn’t sent for the doctor, or done much besides command that Lord Standish be left alone.
When he asked about JD, she wouldn’t answer.
She left him alone in the room. Lord Standish was lying in the middle of a massive bed, looking peacefully asleep. Josiah looked at him and wished that he had Nathan’s medical knowledge. It didn’t look like Ezra was hurt, but this was not his area of expertise.
Josiah cast a few spells to try to find the cause of Standish’s unnatural sleep. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the cause was magical, which at least was something he knew something about. Josiah considered Lord Standish’s sleeping form, and put together one more spell. This one, if it worked correctly, would help him see what was going on in Ezra’s mind.
Josiah waited, eyes shut and one hand on Ezra’s forehead, to see something, anything. There was nothing, and at last he opened his eyes, disappointed.
The room was gone. Standish in the bed, the entire mansion, had all disappeared. He was standing in a beautiful garden.
He blinked and turned around. Yep, definitely a garden. And he was definitely standing in it. Josiah looked down at himself. Those were his clothes and his shoes. It seemed the spell had somehow moved him someplace else.
That was when things started to get weird. A flock of birds flew past, but when Josiah looked at them, he realised they weren’t birds. They were some kind of fish, swimming through the air. And not that Josiah was an expert on fish or anything, but he was pretty sure those colours were a bit out of the ordinary. He watched them fly out of sight, and turned the other way to see that a few yards away, there was a forest made of giant flowers, while patches of tiny trees grew in clusters between them. He started to walk that way, but as he reached the edge of the forest, he realised that it only went so deep, and after that there seemed to be an impenetrable mass of... green. Not green anything, just... green.
Josiah turned around to go back the other way, and suddenly there was someone standing there. He jumped back with a gasp.
It was a boy, maybe ten years old, with short reddish brown hair and a lightly freckled face.
“Who are you?” Josiah demanded.
“Who are you?” the child retorted. “I don’t know you. You don’t belong here.”
Josiah blinked at that. “I’m Josiah,” he said at last. “Where is here, exactly?”
The boy looked at him, confused. “It’s here,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“It’s strange,” Josiah said, as he saw from the corner of his eye a small fox wearing a crown burrowed up from the ground and scampered away.
The child reacted strongly to that. “Well, so what if it is?” he demanded. “There’s nothing wrong with it!”
“Oh, no, of course not,” Josiah answered quickly. “Sorry.”
The boy sniffed, and Josiah ventured, “What’s your name?”
“Ezra,” he answered.
“Ezra,” Josiah repeated. “Ezra, I’m not sure how I got here,” he admitted. “Do you have any ideas?”
Ezra shrugged, not seeming too concerned.
“Is there anyone else around who I can ask?”
“Mother’s over there,” Ezra said, pointing with one hand to where a lovely fair haired woman was sitting at a table, writing something on a sheet of paper.
Josiah looked closely at the woman. “That’s Lady Standish!” he realised with a start. He looked back at the child. “Ezra... Lord Standish?”
The boy just looked up at him, seeming puzzled, and not reacting to the title. Josiah looked around the strange landscape once more. Oh, shit.
“This is a dream,” he murmured, disbelieving. He looked back at Ezra. “This is your dream. We’re inside your head.”
Ezra looked back at him, not really reacting to his words but seeming confused. “I don’t really think you’re supposed to be here,” he said. Josiah could hear it now, the inflections of Lord Standish’s voice in this child’s words. He shook his head and turned away.
If it was a dream, and that seemed the likeliest explanation, Josiah mused as a snake rolled past in a hoop with its tail in its mouth, then the woman sitting nearby wasn’t really the Lady Standish. It was actually the idea of her that existed in Ezra’s mind. She couldn’t know anything that Ezra didn’t know.
For a lack of other ideas, Josiah set off to walk towards the woman and see if she would be more talkative. He walked quickly, but seemed to get no closer to her. He walked faster with no effect.
“You can’t reach her,” said Ezra at his side.
“What?” Josiah asked, startled and nearly tripping over because he hadn’t realised Ezra was following him.
“It won’t work,” Ezra said with a shrug. “You’ll never get there.”
Josiah looked back to where Lady Standish sat. Ezra was right. She was only a dozen or so yards away, but he’d walked at least triple that distance and she wasn’t any closer. As he watched, she filled the sheet of paper she was writing on and flipped it over to start writing on the other side.
Josiah sighed. “Where else can we go?” he asked.
Ezra perked up. “I’ll show you my house,” he said. “It’s very nice. Come on!”
Josiah followed. They walked four or five steps and the garden scene was abruptly replaced by the door of a giant house. Josiah was startled but Ezra looked like this was exactly what he’d expected. He opened the door and ushered Josiah inside.
If the house had been big on the outside, on the inside it was gargantuan. They stood in a foyer the size of the town square back in Four Corners. Hallways branched off from it in every direction. The floor was marble and the ceiling was far, far above but it seemed to glow and cast a soft light over the room.
“I keep my toys down here,” Ezra said, and led Josiah down one of the hallways. They came to a room filled with all sorts of things... porcelain dolls dressed in clothes far nicer than anything Josiah owned, or indeed, anything he’d ever seen anyone wear. A rocking horse sat in one corner, and in another was a chess set with pieces which seemed to be made of precious stones. There were all sorts of other things Josiah couldn’t even describe. He wondered at first if these were the sorts of things rich people owned, but then he realised that when he tried to focus on any one particular item, it remained indistinct and fuzzy. So the room wasn’t actually furnished with real things, it was just Ezra’s idea of what a wealthy child should own.
The unnerving thing about the whole place was how empty it was, how devoid of life.
“There’s no one else here,” Josiah said without thinking.
“Sure there is,” Ezra argued. “I’ve got loads of friends, and they all live here. Watch.”
Josiah heard footsteps, and a moment later a long line of people started pouring through the door. First was a man and a woman, wearing crowns encrusted with diamonds. There was a man wearing a sword with a diamond studded hilt, and following him were ten others, each with diamonds stitched into their clothes. Josiah gaped as they all marched into the room and lined up, facing him and Ezra. Josiah gasped as he realised that, for all the newcomers were all shapes and sizes, every one of them wore Ezra’s face.
“Let’s play a game!” Ezra said, and the thirteen of them chorused,
“Yes, let’s!”
“We’ll play tag!” said Ezra. “I’ll be it!”
The others broke ranks and fled the room, shrieking and laughing. Ezra grinned at Josiah.
“Run,” he said, “Or I’ll get you.”
“I can’t play games right now, Ezra,” Josiah argued. “I’m trying to find a way to wake you up, do you understand?”
“Oh, well, you’re it, then!” Ezra announced, tagging Josiah on the arm and dashing away.
“Stop, Ezra!” Josiah yelled, without much hope. He chased after Ezra and found himself back in the maze of corridors that made up the ridiculous house. “Damn it,” he muttered. He started to walk, fuming. He turned corner after corner, every one looking the same as the last. He passed a window, and looking through it, he saw the Lady Standish. Josiah hesitated. Ezra had said he couldn’t reach her, but that was before. Right now, she was the only person in sight.
Josiah looked around for a door, and only a little further along, he found one. He opened it with relief, but only found himself in another hallway. He looked up and down, and found a window which he looked through, seeing again the Lady Standish sitting on a sofa, drinking tea.
“Right,” Josiah muttered, striding to the nearest door and flinging it open. Once again, he was in a new hallway, and there was the window, and he could still see the Lady Standish, but when he went to the door, it only led him into another hallway. “This is stupid,” Josiah muttered. “I should be back where I started by now.”
He turned in the other direction, and opened a door on the opposite wall. He found himself outside again, but instead of being in a garden, he was standing on an open field. A short distance away, a group of people were attacking one another with clubs.
Josiah moved closer to see what was happening. There were around ten of them, and they were fighting amongst one another with no apparent allegiances or any evidence of ill will when they were hit.
“What’s going on?” he asked when the slightest of them was knocked down and landed at Josiah’s feet.
“Battle,” answered the small man, hauling himself up. Josiah was disconcerted to realise he was looking into Ezra’s face again. As he looked around at the other people there, he could see that they all bore Ezra’s features too.
“But why?”
“It’s what we do,” he answered, throwing himself back into the melee with a cry.
Josiah shook his head and turned to walk away. The mansion was gone and in its place was an imposing structure, a castle or a fort. A wide moat surrounded it, and a drawbridge was lowered across it. A guard stood in the middle of it, watching Josiah intently.
Josiah moved to step onto the drawbridge, and the guard stopped him. “You’re not permitted,” he said sternly.
Josiah paused uncertainly, trying to decide if he should try to overpower the guard or go somewhere else. He didn’t think he could be hurt in the dream, but depending on the magic Baron Creshaw was using, he couldn’t be sure what might happen. But before he had to decide, Ezra appeared at his side once more. He was older now, looked to almost be a man, but Josiah could tell it was still him. He looked more real than the rest of this place.
“Let us pass,” Ezra ordered, and the guard stepped aside. Josiah followed Ezra under the portcullis.
“What is this place?” he asked.
Ezra frowned, like he wasn’t sure himself. “There’s something here,” he said. “Something important.”
They walked through a courtyard which sat within the castle walls. Guards stood around the edges of it, standing silent and watchful. Ezra brought them to a doorway which they passed through, ending up in what seemed to be a stable. Ezra’s horse was there, or at least Josiah assumed it was his horse. Ezra went straight up to him and stroked his nose.
Someone else was in the room. Josiah didn’t realise until they walked out of the corner carrying an armful of hay.
“JD!” Josiah exclaimed. JD was probably the last person he’d expected to see. JD didn’t look at him at all, dropping the hay under the horse’s nose and grabbing a brush.
Josiah glanced over at Ezra. “The really important thing you dreamed this place up to protect is your horse?” he asked incredulously.
Ezra sniffed at him. “He’s a very fine horse,” he answered.
“Well, sure,” Josiah allowed. Far be it for Ezra to own anything that wasn’t of the highest possible standard.
Ezra and JD fussed over the horse and praised his many excellent features for a few minutes. Josiah heard a low rumble and the building trembled.
“It’s not safe,” Ezra said, but he didn’t move. The walls shuddered again and the horse tossed his head. They all tensed, and then something came out of the back wall of the room. Or maybe, it was a part of the wall itself, coming to life. It was human-shaped, but it had no texture, no detail that could be picked out. It looked like a shadow, or a hole in the air. And it went for JD.
The thing put its... hands... around JD’s neck, and he gasped and went white. Josiah yelled. Ezra seemed frozen, although Josiah thought he’d heard the other man whimper, or whisper something.
JD went limp, and the thing faded away. JD collapsed to the floor and lay there, still.
“He’s dead,” Ezra said. “It killed him.”
“He might not be,” Josiah insisted, going to JD’s side. “I might be able to help him.” But JD was disappearing before his eyes, his body becoming transparent. Josiah put his hand to JD’s shoulder, and it went straight through.
“I didn’t stop it,” Ezra said miserably. Josiah blinked, and between closing his eyes and opening them again, he was back in the garden.
The child Ezra was back again, glaring at him and insisting that he didn’t belong. Josiah didn’t pay too much attention to him this time, instead walking away and finding himself back in the enormous house. It was still full of Ezra’s friends. The diamonds. Josiah went to the room that was full of toys and looked for something that would make noise.
“You need to wake up,” he explained to Ezra again. “You’ve been asleep too long. There’s folks that need you.” Ezra ignored him, tagged him on the shoulder and called ‘it’ before running away.
Josiah went back into the hallways of the house. He didn’t bother to try to retrace his steps from last time, but he still wound up in the same place. The clubs were fighting, and then Ezra led him into the castle, and JD was there.
Josiah took action straight away, moving around the room and putting JD between himself and Ezra. Between them, they could protect him. He was sure of it. Except that he couldn’t, because the shadowy creature got past him before he even realised it was there, and JD was dead once more. And then he was back in the garden.
“It’s a loop,” Josiah explained to child-Ezra’s perplexed expression. “That’s how the spell works. You’re stuck in this endless loop, and I think the only way to stop it is to keep JD alive.”
“Okay,” said Ezra, “But can we play tag now?”
“In a second.” Josiah looked around and found a candle sitting on a table. “Can you keep this with you?” he asked. “You might need it.” He grabbed a candle for himself, and held onto it tightly as he went back through the house, out to where the clubs were fighting and into the castle. He lit it and held it up where it shed its light over the small stable, and the horse, and JD, but an icy wind blew it out, and Ezra had lost his candle somewhere along the way. And then JD was dead.
He tried everything he could think of to stop the shadowy creature. He tried to get JD and Ezra out of the room, but the thing pounced before they got out, every time. Even the time he raced ahead of Ezra, picked JD up and slung him over his shoulder, and bolted. By the time they got outside, JD was merely a fading silhouette in the sunshine.
He couldn’t count the number of times it happened, and each time, Ezra barely reacted to what was going on. He was no help, even though Josiah alternately told, demanded, pleaded and screamed for him to do something. Anything.
Eventually, Josiah had had enough. He was back by the flower forest, and this time he started walking deeper into it instead of going towards the house. As he got further along, past where the flowers were defined and into the part where the forest became just a mass of green, it became harder and harder to see what was up ahead. It made Josiah nervous, but he pressed on ahead anyway, and eventually he came out the other side.
It looked like a desert. Well, no. Josiah had seen deserts. He’d travelled in the desert for months at a time. Deserts didn’t usually look like this. They had plants, and wildlife, even in all the dry barren landscape there were usually things to see. This looked like what a child might imagine a desert to be, if they’d never seen one. There was just sand, for miles and miles. Nothing moved. Nothing grew.
Josiah wondered if he should turn back. Maybe out here, away from the part of the dream Ezra’s mind was actually creating, there was just nothing to shape the dream or populate it. There was probably nothing he could do here.
He was about to go back when something in the sand shifted. A figure. It wore clothes which were covered in the dry, brownish sand, so no wonder he hadn’t noticed it before.
“Hey,” said Josiah, walking towards the person. He finally got there and realised that once again, it was Ezra.
No. Not exactly. This was clearly Lord Standish. It was the same person he’d just seen lying unconscious in bed. And he looked at Josiah and said, “I know you,” with only a hint of uncertainty.
Josiah looked around. “What - what are you doing out here?”
Lord Standish shrugged. “I think I was... following someone?” he said. He looked off into the distance. “There she is, over there!” he exclaimed, and got up and started walking.
It was Lady Standish that he was trying to reach, dressed exactly as she had been every other time Josiah had seen her in the dream. Josiah stumbled after Lord Standish.
“You can’t reach her,” he said gently. Lord Standish didn’t even deign to look at him.
“Of course I can,” he scoffed. “I just have to walk faster.”
He sped up, and sped up some more, but they never got any closer to Lady Standish.
Ezra didn’t stop, although he slowed down to a steady pace that suggested he intended to keep walking all day.
“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” he asked. “I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing.”
That gave Josiah hope, because it was the first time Ezra had so much as suggested that he realised something wasn’t right. “You’re asleep,” he explained. “And this is a dream. Do you understand?”
“A dream,” Standish said. His voice was sort of flat, but he was listening and didn’t seem confused, so Josiah pressed on.
“We think Baron Creshaw has put you under a spell. To stop you from waking up. Does that sound right? Do you remember what happened?”
“He put me under a spell,” Standish said, but Josiah couldn’t tell if he was answering Josiah’s question or just repeating what he’d said.
“Can you undo the spell?” Josiah asked. “Can you wake up?”
“Wake up,” Standish said, and now he was definitely repeating Josiah’s words. He started running, taking Josiah by surprise. Josiah chased after him and realised he wasn’t heading for Lady Standish anymore. It was JD, suddenly out in the desert.
“Get down, JD!” Standish yelled. “Get out of the way! Move!”
But JD wasn’t a person like Josiah and Standish were. In the dream, he was just a prop, or scenery, and he didn’t react. The shadow creature got to him first, and Standish sank to his knees.
“I’m going to fail,” he said. “I always fail.”
And then Josiah was back at the garden.
He ran this time, ran through the forest and went straight to Standish in the desert.
“You look familiar...” Standish said vaguely, but Josiah interrupted him.
“You’re asleep,” he said abruptly. “This is a dream. You’re under a spell Baron Creshaw put on you to stop you waking up, but we need you to wake up. You’re in some kind of loop. JD keeps turning up, and something keeps killing him. Every time that happens it resets the loop. Understand? If we’re going to break this spell, we’ve got to keep JD alive.”
Standish looked at him for a long time. Josiah started to worry that he’d given him too much information at once, assumed too much from this Ezra’s apparent ability to understand.
“Can’t save him,” Standish said at last. “I can’t. Not strong enough.”
“You can,” Josiah insisted. “We can do it together.”
Standish shook his head. “I’m going to fail.”
“I’ll help you. You won’t fail.”
Standish looked stubborn.
“This is your mind. You have to know how we can stop the shadow thing. You thought of it. How do we stop it?”
“We can’t,” Standish whispered.
“Sure we can. But I need you to tell me about it. What is it? How does it work?”
Standish shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“But it came from you!” Josiah said, frustrated.
Standish’s expression was miserable. “I can never stop it,” he moaned.
“Is this a memory?” Josiah demanded, grabbing Standish by the shoulder. He didn’t answer, his gaze remaining fixed on JD who was now visible a short distance away. “Come on!” Josiah snapped, giving Standish a slight shake. “We don’t have time for this! I don’t know what bit of your past you’re trapped in, but all I need is to know what to do!”
Standish drew in a shaky breath and reached up to grip Josiah’s wrist. “Stop it,” he gasped. “I can’t, but you have to... I need you to. Stop it. Please?”
“How?” Josiah wondered, but Standish just watched JD with his eyes wide. The shadow creature was coming for him now, and Josiah ran towards it, certain that JD was about to die once more.
He reached JD’s side and stuck out one hand. The thing didn’t stop, and Josiah swung one fist at where its face would be, if it had one. His hand went straight through it, and the shadowy thing vanished like a puff of smoke.
Josiah spun around, wondering if they were about to be attacked from another direction. That had been far too easy. But Standish was beaming at him, and when he said, “You did it!” he sounded so happy. Maybe it didn’t matter how easy it had been. Maybe the difference was that Standish believed it was over.
Standish blinked. “Is it morning yet?” he asked, and a second later, the dream world vanished.
***************
The first thing Standish did, after Josiah explained the situation, was take what looked like a playing card from a pocket and tucked it under the bed covers. Suddenly, there were two Standishes in the room, one standing over the bed and one lying in it. “It won’t stand up to a close look,” said the one who was standing up. “It can’t be touched, for one thing, and Baron Creshaw might notice the use of magic if he’s paying attention. But it will buy us a little more time.”
Next, Standish collected all the items he insisted he couldn’t possibly leave behind, (there seemed to be a lot of them) and they made their escape through the window.
Standish insisted on collecting his horse from the stables, and then they travelled the short distance to where they had arranged to meet. The other five were there already, JD looking very much the worse for wear. Standish gasped when he saw him.
“JD!” he said. “Oh, no. What did they do?”
JD smiled a little, even though his lip was split and one eye was swollen shut. “They wanted to know if we told anyone else about what we were doing,” he said. “I didn’t tell them anything, though.”
“I should never have let the rest of you get involved,” said Standish, looking miserable.
“That was very brave, JD,” Josiah said seriously. “You might have saved the whole town. We’d all end up far worse off if Creshaw was left free to carry out his plans unhindered.” He looked sternly at Standish as he spoke. “It’s going to take all of us to stop him,” he said. “Not just one or two. We can’t worry about protecting each other if it means Creshaw getting away.”
They all took that idea in with serious expressions, and Josiah watched as they examined the truth of it.
“He’s killing people,” Standish said. “Not because of a grudge, or for profit. Just so that he can get more power for himself. People are just tools to him. He’s taken the trouble to cover his tracks so he can, can harvest the population of the town when it suits him.”
“What does he want?” Vin asked. Standish twisted his mouth.
“I can’t be sure. He’s making something, though. Some item; a weapon, maybe. If he crafts it well enough, it would give him the ability to cast powerful spells over and over without him draining his own resources. If he manages to finish it, we might not be able to defeat him.”
“What does him killing folks have to do with this weapon?”
This time, Standish’s face twisted with disgust. “I’m quite sure he’s been... retrieving parts of the bodies, and making use of them. As components in his work. It’s a sort of... shortcut to power. Sure, a mage could spend years learning to make every part of an item from scratch and directing enough effort into the endeavour that the result becomes a powerful magical item in its own right, but for a mage who doesn’t have the time or the inclination to do that, the same results can be achieved with a little blood and far less effort.” He looked around the room at them, and seeing that they were all listening raptly, he gulped and looked away. “It’s an illusion, of course,” he added. “The cost is just as high when you use that method. Instead of taking your time and work, though, it takes a little of your soul. A little of your humanity. And there’s no getting it back. No one is safe here. This town hasn’t been safe for a long, long time.”
“Are we sure he’s not finished his weapon?” Nathan asked.
Standish shook his head. “I believe he tried to engineer another ‘accidental’ death just a few days ago,” he said. “He’s still working on it.”
“What?” JD asked. “He tried to kill someone else? Who?”
Standish hesitated for a moment. “You, JD,” he said at last. “I don’t believe your riding accident was really an accident at all.”
JD paled. “The Baron tried to kill me?” he asked, his voice squeaking.
“Probably not you, specifically,” Standish said. “He didn’t know you were going to be there. The spell probably just targeted the nearest horse on the racetrack at a specific moment. But he showed up in Four Corners far too conveniently for me to believe anything else.”
“What is he going to do next?” Josiah asked.
He was talking to all of them, but it was Lord Standish who answered him. “I think he’s getting closer to his ultimate goal. That means he’s going to speed up, escalate. And soon he’s going to notice that JD and I are gone and he knows that we’re onto him, so he’s sure to come looking for us. This town isn’t safe anymore. Everyone who lives here is just a source of spell components to him, and he’ll have to suspect that I might warn people. We need to prepare the town. Get people to fortify their homes. You should probably do that, Josiah. They’ll listen to you.”
Josiah nodded, and Lord Standish continued. “And then we need to, I suppose... work together. To defeat Creshaw. Josiah and I will need to prepare our magic first. And I know some of you can fight, but I worry about getting you into a situation where there’s magic flying around and you can’t defend yourselves.”
“Let us worry about that,” said Buck, and JD and Chris nodded.
“Well, then if you’re all willing...” Lord Standish said slowly, waiting for their agreement before continuing. “Then this is what I think we need to do...”
*************
JD was given the job of helping Chris and Buck to block off every way into Four Corners except for the main street. They had to make it look natural, so the task involved fencing off streets and bringing down tree stumps and making it look accidental.
Lord Standish had promised that they could do the work roughly and he would use illusions to cover the flaws, which made it easier to get everything done.
Inside the town, in the main street where they were trying to guide the Baron along with whoever he brought with him, Vin was building traps along with Virgil Watson and some of the other townspeople. Once word had got around about what had happened to Billy, everyone had rallied to pitch in. JD watched as Billy held a length of wood in place and Vin hammered it into the ground. Billy watched, wide-eyed with awe, and JD couldn’t help smiling at the sight.
“You paying attention JD?” Buck asked, and his attention snapped back to the task at hand. He was supposed to be doing a similar job, and holding up one end of the fence while Buck secured it. Chris was holding the other end of the fence, and JD noticed that he was watching Billy too, a look of pain on his face. JD worried for a moment that Chris was going to get angry and lose control of his magic again, but he didn’t seem angry. Just sad.
“What do you suppose will happen after it’s over?” JD asked tentatively.
“After what? After we kill the Baron?” Buck asked. “Things will be just the same, I figure. Just safer. What does he even do except for sit in his big house and kill innocent people? It’ll be better here once he’s dead.”
“If we manage to kill him,” Chris pointed out.
“Of course we will,” Buck said firmly. Chris looked back over to Billy, and Buck’s gaze followed his. “Of course we will.”
***********
Ezra watched Josiah put the finishing touches on one of his magic puzzles with envy. He’d thought that he had a pretty good grasp of his magic, and that what he hadn’t learned in his time at university he’d managed to teach himself from books and trial and error. A few hours of observing Josiah work had shown him how wrong he was. There was no wasted effort in his work; every single move he made served a purpose, or often, more than one.
Josiah set the finished puzzle on the table and assembled the pieces to start making another, but Ezra couldn’t keep himself from asking, “What does that one do?”
“It explodes,” said Josiah. Ezra just nodded and waited, because none of Josiah’s spells had been as simple as that so far. Josiah noticed his expectant look and chuckled. “It will only harm people who are working with Baron Creshaw, not any of us,” he explained.
“How did you do that?” Ezra wondered, and Josiah began to explain.
Ezra listened, but kept working as well. He was inking another deck of cards, trying to complete the deck before they had to go out and fight. His magic was more potent when it came from a complete deck. Josiah had been impressed when Ezra had explained how he could create different hands of cards which gave different effects.
“Have you ever learned how to make the paper yourself?” Josiah asked as Ezra cut up the paper Mary had provided.
“Oh, yes,” Ezra said. “It works well. But there’s no time and I didn’t bring my supply with me. I made the ink myself, though,” he added, indicating the red and black ink he’d been using.
Josiah nodded approvingly. “Good,” he said.
Ezra concentrated on the design. The more intricate he made it, the stronger the card would be, but there wasn’t enough time to go too overboard. Never enough time.
“How many more of those do you need to make?” Josiah asked.
“Nine,” said Ezra. “Just the smaller cards are left now, I went in descending order.”
“Are the higher numbers stronger? And the face cards?”
“Yes. Once it’s finished I’ll stack the deck so that the best cards are on top.”
Josiah frowned. “Why not just make a deck with fifty-two aces, if those are stronger?” he asked.
Ezra looked at him. “You mean, a whole deck? With just one type of card?”
“Sure,” said Josiah.
“But that... wouldn’t be right,” Ezra insisted. “You can’t have a whole deck made up of just one card. It wouldn’t work. You can’t have a hand of five aces.”
Josiah gave him a long look, and eventually nodded.
************
Nathan had spent the morning gathering the herbs he needed which he couldn’t grow himself, until Josiah and Vin had become twitchy about him being outside of the fortifications they were building around Four Corners. After that, he’d returned to his house to roll bandages and prepare the medicines he was likely to need. There wasn’t really all that much to do; he kept a good stock of supplies handy all the time, and he couldn’t do too much more without running out of space. Early in the afternoon, he went out to see if the others needed help getting the streets of Four Corners ready for battle.
Chris was in the main street, directing groups of townspeople to different areas to wait. Nathan walked towards him, but Vin stopped him before he got there and said, “Can you give me a hand?”
Nathan followed him the other way and Vin led him to the edge of Four Corners, where a massive oak tree stood, the largest for miles around.
“I’m going to climb up there, so I can see if anyone’s coming towards us,” said Vin. “But I need someone to wait down here in case I need to pass a message along.
“Okay,” said Nathan.
“And once I’m up there, can you pass up my bow?” Vin asked, handing it over along with a full quiver. “I don’t want to carry it with me while I’m climbing, in case it gets caught. I’ll drop down a rope.”
“Sure,” Nathan said. “Is there anything else you need? Water?”
“I’m set,” said Vin, and he started to climb.
Getting the bow up the tree after him was a trial. The branches were dense and to retrieve his weapon, Vin had to climb out along one of the trees limbs, much farther than Nathan thought safe. After that, it was just a matter of waiting.
It was a pretty long wait, mainly because they were all nervous and worried and that made every second stretch out unbearably. Nathan wondered how Vin coped, stuck up the top of a tree with nowhere comfortable to sit, nothing to do but watch the horizon. He was pretty quiet, except for the time he laughed at what turned out to be Buck and JD playing a prank on Chris.
“I’m not sure I’d have the nerve to do that,” Vin called down after he’d explained what happened. “I’d be afraid of getting set on fire.”
It was some time after that that Vin shouted down to Nathan, “I think I see something.”
“What?” Nathan asked, reaching for his sword, even though no enemy was in sight.
“They’ve all stopped just outside the village. Just inside the line of trees on the ridge, so they can’t be seen from the ground. And two of them are riding into town now. I think it’s the Baron - it looks like his horse. Don’t know who the other rider is. You should pass that along; I’m not sure what they’ll try to tell people once they get here, but there’s practically an army just a few hundred yards away.”
“I’ll tell them,” said Nathan, and went to do just that.
Part Four
Part Two
It didn’t take too long for Josiah to talk one of the servants into letting him in and taking him to the room where Lord Standish was apparently lying in his sickbed. It had been a few days now, the maid said, and he wouldn’t wake up. To Josiah’s questions, she replied that the Baron hadn’t sent for the doctor, or done much besides command that Lord Standish be left alone.
When he asked about JD, she wouldn’t answer.
She left him alone in the room. Lord Standish was lying in the middle of a massive bed, looking peacefully asleep. Josiah looked at him and wished that he had Nathan’s medical knowledge. It didn’t look like Ezra was hurt, but this was not his area of expertise.
Josiah cast a few spells to try to find the cause of Standish’s unnatural sleep. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the cause was magical, which at least was something he knew something about. Josiah considered Lord Standish’s sleeping form, and put together one more spell. This one, if it worked correctly, would help him see what was going on in Ezra’s mind.
Josiah waited, eyes shut and one hand on Ezra’s forehead, to see something, anything. There was nothing, and at last he opened his eyes, disappointed.
The room was gone. Standish in the bed, the entire mansion, had all disappeared. He was standing in a beautiful garden.
He blinked and turned around. Yep, definitely a garden. And he was definitely standing in it. Josiah looked down at himself. Those were his clothes and his shoes. It seemed the spell had somehow moved him someplace else.
That was when things started to get weird. A flock of birds flew past, but when Josiah looked at them, he realised they weren’t birds. They were some kind of fish, swimming through the air. And not that Josiah was an expert on fish or anything, but he was pretty sure those colours were a bit out of the ordinary. He watched them fly out of sight, and turned the other way to see that a few yards away, there was a forest made of giant flowers, while patches of tiny trees grew in clusters between them. He started to walk that way, but as he reached the edge of the forest, he realised that it only went so deep, and after that there seemed to be an impenetrable mass of... green. Not green anything, just... green.
Josiah turned around to go back the other way, and suddenly there was someone standing there. He jumped back with a gasp.
It was a boy, maybe ten years old, with short reddish brown hair and a lightly freckled face.
“Who are you?” Josiah demanded.
“Who are you?” the child retorted. “I don’t know you. You don’t belong here.”
Josiah blinked at that. “I’m Josiah,” he said at last. “Where is here, exactly?”
The boy looked at him, confused. “It’s here,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“It’s strange,” Josiah said, as he saw from the corner of his eye a small fox wearing a crown burrowed up from the ground and scampered away.
The child reacted strongly to that. “Well, so what if it is?” he demanded. “There’s nothing wrong with it!”
“Oh, no, of course not,” Josiah answered quickly. “Sorry.”
The boy sniffed, and Josiah ventured, “What’s your name?”
“Ezra,” he answered.
“Ezra,” Josiah repeated. “Ezra, I’m not sure how I got here,” he admitted. “Do you have any ideas?”
Ezra shrugged, not seeming too concerned.
“Is there anyone else around who I can ask?”
“Mother’s over there,” Ezra said, pointing with one hand to where a lovely fair haired woman was sitting at a table, writing something on a sheet of paper.
Josiah looked closely at the woman. “That’s Lady Standish!” he realised with a start. He looked back at the child. “Ezra... Lord Standish?”
The boy just looked up at him, seeming puzzled, and not reacting to the title. Josiah looked around the strange landscape once more. Oh, shit.
“This is a dream,” he murmured, disbelieving. He looked back at Ezra. “This is your dream. We’re inside your head.”
Ezra looked back at him, not really reacting to his words but seeming confused. “I don’t really think you’re supposed to be here,” he said. Josiah could hear it now, the inflections of Lord Standish’s voice in this child’s words. He shook his head and turned away.
If it was a dream, and that seemed the likeliest explanation, Josiah mused as a snake rolled past in a hoop with its tail in its mouth, then the woman sitting nearby wasn’t really the Lady Standish. It was actually the idea of her that existed in Ezra’s mind. She couldn’t know anything that Ezra didn’t know.
For a lack of other ideas, Josiah set off to walk towards the woman and see if she would be more talkative. He walked quickly, but seemed to get no closer to her. He walked faster with no effect.
“You can’t reach her,” said Ezra at his side.
“What?” Josiah asked, startled and nearly tripping over because he hadn’t realised Ezra was following him.
“It won’t work,” Ezra said with a shrug. “You’ll never get there.”
Josiah looked back to where Lady Standish sat. Ezra was right. She was only a dozen or so yards away, but he’d walked at least triple that distance and she wasn’t any closer. As he watched, she filled the sheet of paper she was writing on and flipped it over to start writing on the other side.
Josiah sighed. “Where else can we go?” he asked.
Ezra perked up. “I’ll show you my house,” he said. “It’s very nice. Come on!”
Josiah followed. They walked four or five steps and the garden scene was abruptly replaced by the door of a giant house. Josiah was startled but Ezra looked like this was exactly what he’d expected. He opened the door and ushered Josiah inside.
If the house had been big on the outside, on the inside it was gargantuan. They stood in a foyer the size of the town square back in Four Corners. Hallways branched off from it in every direction. The floor was marble and the ceiling was far, far above but it seemed to glow and cast a soft light over the room.
“I keep my toys down here,” Ezra said, and led Josiah down one of the hallways. They came to a room filled with all sorts of things... porcelain dolls dressed in clothes far nicer than anything Josiah owned, or indeed, anything he’d ever seen anyone wear. A rocking horse sat in one corner, and in another was a chess set with pieces which seemed to be made of precious stones. There were all sorts of other things Josiah couldn’t even describe. He wondered at first if these were the sorts of things rich people owned, but then he realised that when he tried to focus on any one particular item, it remained indistinct and fuzzy. So the room wasn’t actually furnished with real things, it was just Ezra’s idea of what a wealthy child should own.
The unnerving thing about the whole place was how empty it was, how devoid of life.
“There’s no one else here,” Josiah said without thinking.
“Sure there is,” Ezra argued. “I’ve got loads of friends, and they all live here. Watch.”
Josiah heard footsteps, and a moment later a long line of people started pouring through the door. First was a man and a woman, wearing crowns encrusted with diamonds. There was a man wearing a sword with a diamond studded hilt, and following him were ten others, each with diamonds stitched into their clothes. Josiah gaped as they all marched into the room and lined up, facing him and Ezra. Josiah gasped as he realised that, for all the newcomers were all shapes and sizes, every one of them wore Ezra’s face.
“Let’s play a game!” Ezra said, and the thirteen of them chorused,
“Yes, let’s!”
“We’ll play tag!” said Ezra. “I’ll be it!”
The others broke ranks and fled the room, shrieking and laughing. Ezra grinned at Josiah.
“Run,” he said, “Or I’ll get you.”
“I can’t play games right now, Ezra,” Josiah argued. “I’m trying to find a way to wake you up, do you understand?”
“Oh, well, you’re it, then!” Ezra announced, tagging Josiah on the arm and dashing away.
“Stop, Ezra!” Josiah yelled, without much hope. He chased after Ezra and found himself back in the maze of corridors that made up the ridiculous house. “Damn it,” he muttered. He started to walk, fuming. He turned corner after corner, every one looking the same as the last. He passed a window, and looking through it, he saw the Lady Standish. Josiah hesitated. Ezra had said he couldn’t reach her, but that was before. Right now, she was the only person in sight.
Josiah looked around for a door, and only a little further along, he found one. He opened it with relief, but only found himself in another hallway. He looked up and down, and found a window which he looked through, seeing again the Lady Standish sitting on a sofa, drinking tea.
“Right,” Josiah muttered, striding to the nearest door and flinging it open. Once again, he was in a new hallway, and there was the window, and he could still see the Lady Standish, but when he went to the door, it only led him into another hallway. “This is stupid,” Josiah muttered. “I should be back where I started by now.”
He turned in the other direction, and opened a door on the opposite wall. He found himself outside again, but instead of being in a garden, he was standing on an open field. A short distance away, a group of people were attacking one another with clubs.
Josiah moved closer to see what was happening. There were around ten of them, and they were fighting amongst one another with no apparent allegiances or any evidence of ill will when they were hit.
“What’s going on?” he asked when the slightest of them was knocked down and landed at Josiah’s feet.
“Battle,” answered the small man, hauling himself up. Josiah was disconcerted to realise he was looking into Ezra’s face again. As he looked around at the other people there, he could see that they all bore Ezra’s features too.
“But why?”
“It’s what we do,” he answered, throwing himself back into the melee with a cry.
Josiah shook his head and turned to walk away. The mansion was gone and in its place was an imposing structure, a castle or a fort. A wide moat surrounded it, and a drawbridge was lowered across it. A guard stood in the middle of it, watching Josiah intently.
Josiah moved to step onto the drawbridge, and the guard stopped him. “You’re not permitted,” he said sternly.
Josiah paused uncertainly, trying to decide if he should try to overpower the guard or go somewhere else. He didn’t think he could be hurt in the dream, but depending on the magic Baron Creshaw was using, he couldn’t be sure what might happen. But before he had to decide, Ezra appeared at his side once more. He was older now, looked to almost be a man, but Josiah could tell it was still him. He looked more real than the rest of this place.
“Let us pass,” Ezra ordered, and the guard stepped aside. Josiah followed Ezra under the portcullis.
“What is this place?” he asked.
Ezra frowned, like he wasn’t sure himself. “There’s something here,” he said. “Something important.”
They walked through a courtyard which sat within the castle walls. Guards stood around the edges of it, standing silent and watchful. Ezra brought them to a doorway which they passed through, ending up in what seemed to be a stable. Ezra’s horse was there, or at least Josiah assumed it was his horse. Ezra went straight up to him and stroked his nose.
Someone else was in the room. Josiah didn’t realise until they walked out of the corner carrying an armful of hay.
“JD!” Josiah exclaimed. JD was probably the last person he’d expected to see. JD didn’t look at him at all, dropping the hay under the horse’s nose and grabbing a brush.
Josiah glanced over at Ezra. “The really important thing you dreamed this place up to protect is your horse?” he asked incredulously.
Ezra sniffed at him. “He’s a very fine horse,” he answered.
“Well, sure,” Josiah allowed. Far be it for Ezra to own anything that wasn’t of the highest possible standard.
Ezra and JD fussed over the horse and praised his many excellent features for a few minutes. Josiah heard a low rumble and the building trembled.
“It’s not safe,” Ezra said, but he didn’t move. The walls shuddered again and the horse tossed his head. They all tensed, and then something came out of the back wall of the room. Or maybe, it was a part of the wall itself, coming to life. It was human-shaped, but it had no texture, no detail that could be picked out. It looked like a shadow, or a hole in the air. And it went for JD.
The thing put its... hands... around JD’s neck, and he gasped and went white. Josiah yelled. Ezra seemed frozen, although Josiah thought he’d heard the other man whimper, or whisper something.
JD went limp, and the thing faded away. JD collapsed to the floor and lay there, still.
“He’s dead,” Ezra said. “It killed him.”
“He might not be,” Josiah insisted, going to JD’s side. “I might be able to help him.” But JD was disappearing before his eyes, his body becoming transparent. Josiah put his hand to JD’s shoulder, and it went straight through.
“I didn’t stop it,” Ezra said miserably. Josiah blinked, and between closing his eyes and opening them again, he was back in the garden.
The child Ezra was back again, glaring at him and insisting that he didn’t belong. Josiah didn’t pay too much attention to him this time, instead walking away and finding himself back in the enormous house. It was still full of Ezra’s friends. The diamonds. Josiah went to the room that was full of toys and looked for something that would make noise.
“You need to wake up,” he explained to Ezra again. “You’ve been asleep too long. There’s folks that need you.” Ezra ignored him, tagged him on the shoulder and called ‘it’ before running away.
Josiah went back into the hallways of the house. He didn’t bother to try to retrace his steps from last time, but he still wound up in the same place. The clubs were fighting, and then Ezra led him into the castle, and JD was there.
Josiah took action straight away, moving around the room and putting JD between himself and Ezra. Between them, they could protect him. He was sure of it. Except that he couldn’t, because the shadowy creature got past him before he even realised it was there, and JD was dead once more. And then he was back in the garden.
“It’s a loop,” Josiah explained to child-Ezra’s perplexed expression. “That’s how the spell works. You’re stuck in this endless loop, and I think the only way to stop it is to keep JD alive.”
“Okay,” said Ezra, “But can we play tag now?”
“In a second.” Josiah looked around and found a candle sitting on a table. “Can you keep this with you?” he asked. “You might need it.” He grabbed a candle for himself, and held onto it tightly as he went back through the house, out to where the clubs were fighting and into the castle. He lit it and held it up where it shed its light over the small stable, and the horse, and JD, but an icy wind blew it out, and Ezra had lost his candle somewhere along the way. And then JD was dead.
He tried everything he could think of to stop the shadowy creature. He tried to get JD and Ezra out of the room, but the thing pounced before they got out, every time. Even the time he raced ahead of Ezra, picked JD up and slung him over his shoulder, and bolted. By the time they got outside, JD was merely a fading silhouette in the sunshine.
He couldn’t count the number of times it happened, and each time, Ezra barely reacted to what was going on. He was no help, even though Josiah alternately told, demanded, pleaded and screamed for him to do something. Anything.
Eventually, Josiah had had enough. He was back by the flower forest, and this time he started walking deeper into it instead of going towards the house. As he got further along, past where the flowers were defined and into the part where the forest became just a mass of green, it became harder and harder to see what was up ahead. It made Josiah nervous, but he pressed on ahead anyway, and eventually he came out the other side.
It looked like a desert. Well, no. Josiah had seen deserts. He’d travelled in the desert for months at a time. Deserts didn’t usually look like this. They had plants, and wildlife, even in all the dry barren landscape there were usually things to see. This looked like what a child might imagine a desert to be, if they’d never seen one. There was just sand, for miles and miles. Nothing moved. Nothing grew.
Josiah wondered if he should turn back. Maybe out here, away from the part of the dream Ezra’s mind was actually creating, there was just nothing to shape the dream or populate it. There was probably nothing he could do here.
He was about to go back when something in the sand shifted. A figure. It wore clothes which were covered in the dry, brownish sand, so no wonder he hadn’t noticed it before.
“Hey,” said Josiah, walking towards the person. He finally got there and realised that once again, it was Ezra.
No. Not exactly. This was clearly Lord Standish. It was the same person he’d just seen lying unconscious in bed. And he looked at Josiah and said, “I know you,” with only a hint of uncertainty.
Josiah looked around. “What - what are you doing out here?”
Lord Standish shrugged. “I think I was... following someone?” he said. He looked off into the distance. “There she is, over there!” he exclaimed, and got up and started walking.
It was Lady Standish that he was trying to reach, dressed exactly as she had been every other time Josiah had seen her in the dream. Josiah stumbled after Lord Standish.
“You can’t reach her,” he said gently. Lord Standish didn’t even deign to look at him.
“Of course I can,” he scoffed. “I just have to walk faster.”
He sped up, and sped up some more, but they never got any closer to Lady Standish.
Ezra didn’t stop, although he slowed down to a steady pace that suggested he intended to keep walking all day.
“I’m missing something, aren’t I?” he asked. “I feel like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing.”
That gave Josiah hope, because it was the first time Ezra had so much as suggested that he realised something wasn’t right. “You’re asleep,” he explained. “And this is a dream. Do you understand?”
“A dream,” Standish said. His voice was sort of flat, but he was listening and didn’t seem confused, so Josiah pressed on.
“We think Baron Creshaw has put you under a spell. To stop you from waking up. Does that sound right? Do you remember what happened?”
“He put me under a spell,” Standish said, but Josiah couldn’t tell if he was answering Josiah’s question or just repeating what he’d said.
“Can you undo the spell?” Josiah asked. “Can you wake up?”
“Wake up,” Standish said, and now he was definitely repeating Josiah’s words. He started running, taking Josiah by surprise. Josiah chased after him and realised he wasn’t heading for Lady Standish anymore. It was JD, suddenly out in the desert.
“Get down, JD!” Standish yelled. “Get out of the way! Move!”
But JD wasn’t a person like Josiah and Standish were. In the dream, he was just a prop, or scenery, and he didn’t react. The shadow creature got to him first, and Standish sank to his knees.
“I’m going to fail,” he said. “I always fail.”
And then Josiah was back at the garden.
He ran this time, ran through the forest and went straight to Standish in the desert.
“You look familiar...” Standish said vaguely, but Josiah interrupted him.
“You’re asleep,” he said abruptly. “This is a dream. You’re under a spell Baron Creshaw put on you to stop you waking up, but we need you to wake up. You’re in some kind of loop. JD keeps turning up, and something keeps killing him. Every time that happens it resets the loop. Understand? If we’re going to break this spell, we’ve got to keep JD alive.”
Standish looked at him for a long time. Josiah started to worry that he’d given him too much information at once, assumed too much from this Ezra’s apparent ability to understand.
“Can’t save him,” Standish said at last. “I can’t. Not strong enough.”
“You can,” Josiah insisted. “We can do it together.”
Standish shook his head. “I’m going to fail.”
“I’ll help you. You won’t fail.”
Standish looked stubborn.
“This is your mind. You have to know how we can stop the shadow thing. You thought of it. How do we stop it?”
“We can’t,” Standish whispered.
“Sure we can. But I need you to tell me about it. What is it? How does it work?”
Standish shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“But it came from you!” Josiah said, frustrated.
Standish’s expression was miserable. “I can never stop it,” he moaned.
“Is this a memory?” Josiah demanded, grabbing Standish by the shoulder. He didn’t answer, his gaze remaining fixed on JD who was now visible a short distance away. “Come on!” Josiah snapped, giving Standish a slight shake. “We don’t have time for this! I don’t know what bit of your past you’re trapped in, but all I need is to know what to do!”
Standish drew in a shaky breath and reached up to grip Josiah’s wrist. “Stop it,” he gasped. “I can’t, but you have to... I need you to. Stop it. Please?”
“How?” Josiah wondered, but Standish just watched JD with his eyes wide. The shadow creature was coming for him now, and Josiah ran towards it, certain that JD was about to die once more.
He reached JD’s side and stuck out one hand. The thing didn’t stop, and Josiah swung one fist at where its face would be, if it had one. His hand went straight through it, and the shadowy thing vanished like a puff of smoke.
Josiah spun around, wondering if they were about to be attacked from another direction. That had been far too easy. But Standish was beaming at him, and when he said, “You did it!” he sounded so happy. Maybe it didn’t matter how easy it had been. Maybe the difference was that Standish believed it was over.
Standish blinked. “Is it morning yet?” he asked, and a second later, the dream world vanished.
***************
The first thing Standish did, after Josiah explained the situation, was take what looked like a playing card from a pocket and tucked it under the bed covers. Suddenly, there were two Standishes in the room, one standing over the bed and one lying in it. “It won’t stand up to a close look,” said the one who was standing up. “It can’t be touched, for one thing, and Baron Creshaw might notice the use of magic if he’s paying attention. But it will buy us a little more time.”
Next, Standish collected all the items he insisted he couldn’t possibly leave behind, (there seemed to be a lot of them) and they made their escape through the window.
Standish insisted on collecting his horse from the stables, and then they travelled the short distance to where they had arranged to meet. The other five were there already, JD looking very much the worse for wear. Standish gasped when he saw him.
“JD!” he said. “Oh, no. What did they do?”
JD smiled a little, even though his lip was split and one eye was swollen shut. “They wanted to know if we told anyone else about what we were doing,” he said. “I didn’t tell them anything, though.”
“I should never have let the rest of you get involved,” said Standish, looking miserable.
“That was very brave, JD,” Josiah said seriously. “You might have saved the whole town. We’d all end up far worse off if Creshaw was left free to carry out his plans unhindered.” He looked sternly at Standish as he spoke. “It’s going to take all of us to stop him,” he said. “Not just one or two. We can’t worry about protecting each other if it means Creshaw getting away.”
They all took that idea in with serious expressions, and Josiah watched as they examined the truth of it.
“He’s killing people,” Standish said. “Not because of a grudge, or for profit. Just so that he can get more power for himself. People are just tools to him. He’s taken the trouble to cover his tracks so he can, can harvest the population of the town when it suits him.”
“What does he want?” Vin asked. Standish twisted his mouth.
“I can’t be sure. He’s making something, though. Some item; a weapon, maybe. If he crafts it well enough, it would give him the ability to cast powerful spells over and over without him draining his own resources. If he manages to finish it, we might not be able to defeat him.”
“What does him killing folks have to do with this weapon?”
This time, Standish’s face twisted with disgust. “I’m quite sure he’s been... retrieving parts of the bodies, and making use of them. As components in his work. It’s a sort of... shortcut to power. Sure, a mage could spend years learning to make every part of an item from scratch and directing enough effort into the endeavour that the result becomes a powerful magical item in its own right, but for a mage who doesn’t have the time or the inclination to do that, the same results can be achieved with a little blood and far less effort.” He looked around the room at them, and seeing that they were all listening raptly, he gulped and looked away. “It’s an illusion, of course,” he added. “The cost is just as high when you use that method. Instead of taking your time and work, though, it takes a little of your soul. A little of your humanity. And there’s no getting it back. No one is safe here. This town hasn’t been safe for a long, long time.”
“Are we sure he’s not finished his weapon?” Nathan asked.
Standish shook his head. “I believe he tried to engineer another ‘accidental’ death just a few days ago,” he said. “He’s still working on it.”
“What?” JD asked. “He tried to kill someone else? Who?”
Standish hesitated for a moment. “You, JD,” he said at last. “I don’t believe your riding accident was really an accident at all.”
JD paled. “The Baron tried to kill me?” he asked, his voice squeaking.
“Probably not you, specifically,” Standish said. “He didn’t know you were going to be there. The spell probably just targeted the nearest horse on the racetrack at a specific moment. But he showed up in Four Corners far too conveniently for me to believe anything else.”
“What is he going to do next?” Josiah asked.
He was talking to all of them, but it was Lord Standish who answered him. “I think he’s getting closer to his ultimate goal. That means he’s going to speed up, escalate. And soon he’s going to notice that JD and I are gone and he knows that we’re onto him, so he’s sure to come looking for us. This town isn’t safe anymore. Everyone who lives here is just a source of spell components to him, and he’ll have to suspect that I might warn people. We need to prepare the town. Get people to fortify their homes. You should probably do that, Josiah. They’ll listen to you.”
Josiah nodded, and Lord Standish continued. “And then we need to, I suppose... work together. To defeat Creshaw. Josiah and I will need to prepare our magic first. And I know some of you can fight, but I worry about getting you into a situation where there’s magic flying around and you can’t defend yourselves.”
“Let us worry about that,” said Buck, and JD and Chris nodded.
“Well, then if you’re all willing...” Lord Standish said slowly, waiting for their agreement before continuing. “Then this is what I think we need to do...”
*************
JD was given the job of helping Chris and Buck to block off every way into Four Corners except for the main street. They had to make it look natural, so the task involved fencing off streets and bringing down tree stumps and making it look accidental.
Lord Standish had promised that they could do the work roughly and he would use illusions to cover the flaws, which made it easier to get everything done.
Inside the town, in the main street where they were trying to guide the Baron along with whoever he brought with him, Vin was building traps along with Virgil Watson and some of the other townspeople. Once word had got around about what had happened to Billy, everyone had rallied to pitch in. JD watched as Billy held a length of wood in place and Vin hammered it into the ground. Billy watched, wide-eyed with awe, and JD couldn’t help smiling at the sight.
“You paying attention JD?” Buck asked, and his attention snapped back to the task at hand. He was supposed to be doing a similar job, and holding up one end of the fence while Buck secured it. Chris was holding the other end of the fence, and JD noticed that he was watching Billy too, a look of pain on his face. JD worried for a moment that Chris was going to get angry and lose control of his magic again, but he didn’t seem angry. Just sad.
“What do you suppose will happen after it’s over?” JD asked tentatively.
“After what? After we kill the Baron?” Buck asked. “Things will be just the same, I figure. Just safer. What does he even do except for sit in his big house and kill innocent people? It’ll be better here once he’s dead.”
“If we manage to kill him,” Chris pointed out.
“Of course we will,” Buck said firmly. Chris looked back over to Billy, and Buck’s gaze followed his. “Of course we will.”
***********
Ezra watched Josiah put the finishing touches on one of his magic puzzles with envy. He’d thought that he had a pretty good grasp of his magic, and that what he hadn’t learned in his time at university he’d managed to teach himself from books and trial and error. A few hours of observing Josiah work had shown him how wrong he was. There was no wasted effort in his work; every single move he made served a purpose, or often, more than one.
Josiah set the finished puzzle on the table and assembled the pieces to start making another, but Ezra couldn’t keep himself from asking, “What does that one do?”
“It explodes,” said Josiah. Ezra just nodded and waited, because none of Josiah’s spells had been as simple as that so far. Josiah noticed his expectant look and chuckled. “It will only harm people who are working with Baron Creshaw, not any of us,” he explained.
“How did you do that?” Ezra wondered, and Josiah began to explain.
Ezra listened, but kept working as well. He was inking another deck of cards, trying to complete the deck before they had to go out and fight. His magic was more potent when it came from a complete deck. Josiah had been impressed when Ezra had explained how he could create different hands of cards which gave different effects.
“Have you ever learned how to make the paper yourself?” Josiah asked as Ezra cut up the paper Mary had provided.
“Oh, yes,” Ezra said. “It works well. But there’s no time and I didn’t bring my supply with me. I made the ink myself, though,” he added, indicating the red and black ink he’d been using.
Josiah nodded approvingly. “Good,” he said.
Ezra concentrated on the design. The more intricate he made it, the stronger the card would be, but there wasn’t enough time to go too overboard. Never enough time.
“How many more of those do you need to make?” Josiah asked.
“Nine,” said Ezra. “Just the smaller cards are left now, I went in descending order.”
“Are the higher numbers stronger? And the face cards?”
“Yes. Once it’s finished I’ll stack the deck so that the best cards are on top.”
Josiah frowned. “Why not just make a deck with fifty-two aces, if those are stronger?” he asked.
Ezra looked at him. “You mean, a whole deck? With just one type of card?”
“Sure,” said Josiah.
“But that... wouldn’t be right,” Ezra insisted. “You can’t have a whole deck made up of just one card. It wouldn’t work. You can’t have a hand of five aces.”
Josiah gave him a long look, and eventually nodded.
************
Nathan had spent the morning gathering the herbs he needed which he couldn’t grow himself, until Josiah and Vin had become twitchy about him being outside of the fortifications they were building around Four Corners. After that, he’d returned to his house to roll bandages and prepare the medicines he was likely to need. There wasn’t really all that much to do; he kept a good stock of supplies handy all the time, and he couldn’t do too much more without running out of space. Early in the afternoon, he went out to see if the others needed help getting the streets of Four Corners ready for battle.
Chris was in the main street, directing groups of townspeople to different areas to wait. Nathan walked towards him, but Vin stopped him before he got there and said, “Can you give me a hand?”
Nathan followed him the other way and Vin led him to the edge of Four Corners, where a massive oak tree stood, the largest for miles around.
“I’m going to climb up there, so I can see if anyone’s coming towards us,” said Vin. “But I need someone to wait down here in case I need to pass a message along.
“Okay,” said Nathan.
“And once I’m up there, can you pass up my bow?” Vin asked, handing it over along with a full quiver. “I don’t want to carry it with me while I’m climbing, in case it gets caught. I’ll drop down a rope.”
“Sure,” Nathan said. “Is there anything else you need? Water?”
“I’m set,” said Vin, and he started to climb.
Getting the bow up the tree after him was a trial. The branches were dense and to retrieve his weapon, Vin had to climb out along one of the trees limbs, much farther than Nathan thought safe. After that, it was just a matter of waiting.
It was a pretty long wait, mainly because they were all nervous and worried and that made every second stretch out unbearably. Nathan wondered how Vin coped, stuck up the top of a tree with nowhere comfortable to sit, nothing to do but watch the horizon. He was pretty quiet, except for the time he laughed at what turned out to be Buck and JD playing a prank on Chris.
“I’m not sure I’d have the nerve to do that,” Vin called down after he’d explained what happened. “I’d be afraid of getting set on fire.”
It was some time after that that Vin shouted down to Nathan, “I think I see something.”
“What?” Nathan asked, reaching for his sword, even though no enemy was in sight.
“They’ve all stopped just outside the village. Just inside the line of trees on the ridge, so they can’t be seen from the ground. And two of them are riding into town now. I think it’s the Baron - it looks like his horse. Don’t know who the other rider is. You should pass that along; I’m not sure what they’ll try to tell people once they get here, but there’s practically an army just a few hundred yards away.”
“I’ll tell them,” said Nathan, and went to do just that.
Part Four