Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-four

“So that’s all the basics you need to know to set up camp.” Eleniah gestured around at the tent, fire pit, and basic latrine she’d made while Kay watched and helped a little. “You remember it all?”

“I think so. Basics we need, things we sometimes won’t do and when we won’t, and things to watch out for. Pretty sure I remember it all.”

“Good, we’ll go over everything together a few more nights before I start leaving you to it.” She wandered over to the rocks they’d commandeered for seating. “Now, we’re going to talk about your training.”

“You waited a while before bringing it up.” Kay sat across from her.

“We needed the right environment for it.” She glanced up into the tall trees. “You got taken in broad daylight in the middle of an at least somewhat busy street.” She waved off what he was about to say, “I’ve lectured; you’ve apologized and promised to do better; I’m just saying this as a fact.”

Kay nodded and shut his mouth.

“We’re going to be doing the training out here in the forest where it’ll be harder for you. If you learn to deal with ambushes and sneak attacks here, in places like cities and towns, it’ll be a lot easier.”

He glanced around at the shadows made by trees of various heights in the light of the moon, the tangles of undergrowth and root, and the way trunk after trunk seemed to line everything he could see until it formed a massive wall of bark to his vision. “I understand.”

“Good. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to be vanishing on you.”

Kay gave her a worried look.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tear off on my own or anything; I’ll just be trying to hide while I follow you. If you notice me ‘escaping’, then I’ll stay until I try again. When you lose me, I’ll follow along slightly behind or ahead and try and ambush you. Your job is to detect me coming before I hit you. If you don’t manage to do that, I’ll attack. If I get you with a ‘fatal’ attack or manage to ‘capture’ you, you lose. Then we’ll go over what you did wrong and what you need to improve on, then keep going.”

“What happens if I lose?”

“Well, I’m going to smack you around to simulate a real fight as best I can without actually hurting you too much, and your face is going to get ground in the dirt when I ‘capture’ you.” She glanced around the camp. “As for an actual punishment? I’ll think of something annoying but not terrible to try and motivate you.”

“That’s what I thought.”

She shrugged. “It’s motivational.” She smirked at him. “You’ll get much better at it, eventually. And then you won’t have to worry about the punishment.”

“What do I do when you vanish?”

“What? You try and find me and not get ambushed; I just said that.”

“No, I mean like outside of the ambushing. Do we have a goal we’re after, a place we’re heading to? What are we doing?”

“Oh, right.” Eleniah straightened out her posture and looked directly at him with a severe expression.

Kay instinctively mirrored her.

“Congratulations!” She burst out with a cheesy smile and some jazz hands. “You’re now in charge of our two-man expedition into the wilds!”

Kay stared at her. “What?”

“You’re in charge. Go wherever you want to. See something cool, and you want to check it out, do it. Randomly decide to change directions? It’ll be your call.”

He shook his head. “Why am I suddenly in charge? I don’t know anything about what’s out here!”

“I don’t either, and since I’m literally going to be following you around trying to get the jump on you, it only makes sense for you to pick where we go.”

He scrubbed at his face with his hands. “Alright, so I just go?”

“Uh... sure? Just don’t think of anything dangerous.”

Kay’s mind drifted to the tiny, trapped dragon currently hibernating in Eleniah’s regular pack. Murunel had reconfirmed her decision to sleep the time away instead of interacting with the world in the limited way she was forced into having. Only being able to pantomime and not affect the world around you in any way really wore at the dragon’s spirit. Kay put his hand all the way in the bag and thought of an item that breaks enchantments.

His hand closed around something.

Slowly, with a look of surprise on his face, Kay pulled out a metal wand with a large blue stone halfway down its length. The metal of the wand wrapped around the stone like a spider web, leaving only bits of the glowing blue color visible.

Eleniah stared at the wand. “What did you think of?”

“Something to break Murunel free.”

Eleniah blinked a few times, then reached into her bag and pulled out Murunel’s ball after a few moments of digging. Silently she held out her hand for the wand.

Kay scooted closer and gave it to her.

She stared at it for a second. “Touch to the magic you want dispelled. Easy enough.” With Murunel in the ball in one palm, Eleniah slowly lowered the tip of the metal wand to touch the glass ball.

Clink!

They stared at it for a moment before deflating as nothing happened.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Eleniah muttered. “Maybe this,” She held the wand out point up, “Isn’t powerful enough to dispel the enchantment trapping her in there.”

“Oh, is that what you guys were trying?” A voice Kay had never heard asked. “That sucks. But hey, you guys are the first people to even try and free me, so I’m not going to cry over the first try not working.”

The voice was female and kind of young-sounding. It also seemed to emanate from the small glass ball in Eleniah’s hand.

Kay and Eleniah stared down at the dragon.

“Oh, they aren’t putting me away.” A sigh. “I’ll just go back to sleep.”

“Murunel?” Kay took the ball and held it up to his face.

“Yes, Kay?” The tiny dragon bent her flexible neck to look at him.

“Is that you talking?”

“Is that...” Murunel froze, so still, she looked like a statue. “You... you can hear me?”

Eleniah leaned in close. “It looks like the wand wasn’t enough to free you, but it removed the magic preventing us from hearing you.” She looked at the wand again. “Can it be used more than once? Oh, recharge time of... oof. That’s a long time.” She held up the wand in front of the ball. “We might be able to use this again to get rid of the rest of the magic trapping you, but it recharges slowly from ambient magic in the local area. If we can find someplace with a lot of ambient magic, it’ll go faster, but as it is right now, it’ll take a few months.”

In the ball, Murunel stared at the wand, then slowly turned to look between Kay and Eleniah. “You can hear me. You managed to break the magic at least that much.”

“Yes, we can,” Kay replied.

“And you have a real possibility to free me that will take a few months at the longest.”

“Right.”

She stared at them for a moment, then burst into sobs.