Chapter 16 - The Ultimatum

Chapter 16 – The Ultimatum


The Shapechanger’s threat to burn Opal alive changed Tinder’s expression to one of fear.

Don’t listen to him,” said Opal. “I’m not worth a whole continent.”

Narkus laughed. “Fuera, de Opal!”

The trollkin started to scream. Dancing from one foot to the other, she gave Gerard the impression of one attempting to stamp out a fire. She flapped her hands as if trying to extinguish flames. Gerard knew that though this spell had no physical basis, Opal was in agony.

“Stop,” cried Tinder.

Gerard couldn’t move. He knew what he had to do. He just couldn’t summon the courage to go through with it.

“Accept my offer,” commanded the Shapechanger. “Either team up with me to overcome Acumen’s containment spell keeping me prisoner in this jungle, or let your friend suffer this and ten times this.”

“No, Tinder,” screamed Opal. “Don’t you dare!”

Tinder’s face screwed up into a knot. “I can’t let this go on, Opal,” Tinder said to her. “I’m sorry. Name your terms, Narkus.”

“You shouldn’t have done that Tinder,” she said.

The Shapechanger laughed. Opal stopped jumping around. She rubbed her hands and feet although no burns festered on her skin.

Gerard couldn’t move. His fingers stayed intertwined, unable to reach into his pocket where the Black Bloodstone lay. The moment I’ve been waiting for is finally here, he thought, and I can’t go through with it.

“Repeat the following vow, Tinder. Remember what I can do to your friend if you go back on your word.”

“I will keep my word,” said Tinder, knowing he was about to reach a point from which he couldn’t return.

Gerard remembered sitting at Narkus’s table ready to sign his own contract with the Shapechanger.

“You will lead your nation to the fate it deserves,” the Shapechanger had told Gerard.
“Give me the papers,” agreed Gerard, “and show me where to sign.” He made his mark on the line with a big X and stood to shake the wizard’s hand.

Narkus responded with a laugh so cruel it felt as if knives skewered Gerard’s flesh. “You should have done your homework. You believed I was a white wizard. But just because I said so didn’t make it true. Evil wizards can lie. You’re a slave of the dark now, Gerard. For life.”

“Were all your words about my people regaining their destiny untrue?” screamed Gerard.

“No, in that case I was honest. Nomads deserve to chew cud and roll in sties with pigs. That is the destiny I spoke of for them.”

Gerard stuttered, “Ya ya you. . .” The words stuck to the roof of his mouth.

The Shapechanger pointed his staff at him and spoke foul words from some language Gerard did not recognize. He was thrown to the ground where he squirmed, unable to breathe.

“From now on you will address me as Master,” said the Shapechanger. “You woll not question me."

Gerard regained his wind. “Yes, Master.”

The memory of that moment in which he damned himself for life filled Gerard’s mind with enough rage, He had to try to keep Tinder from making a similar mistake. He said, “I don’t think so. You are pathetic, old man. You attempt to leech off the powers of an uninitiated novice because you are neither man nor magician enough to do the job yourself.”

All the occupants of the room turned to stare at Gerard. “What? What did you say?” asked Narkus. The wizard beamed a pencil of purple light from his staff towards Gerard. Its diameter expanded to the size of a tomato by the time it reached the place where the Nomad stood. Gerard evaded the Shapechanger’s shaft of light using the skill Narkus had employed to enter the Interrogation Chamber. The reward of having paid attention to his master’s incantations enabled him to disappear on the other side of the room before the Shapechanger could score a hit.

“What if you get Tinder to break Acumen’s spell for you?” asked Gerard. “Rasturtian will crush you like a boa constrictor strangling a mouse.”

The Shapechanger brought himself to a stop, examined his staff, and aimed it in Gerard’s direction. A stream of purple balls erupted from it as if they were shot from a cannon.

Gerard ducked the torrent of magical globes and disappeared, reappearing on the opposite side of the chamber. “I’m sure your father hasn’t forgotten you. His precious son. His trusted heir. The family traitor,” Gerard laughed.

The Shapechanger’s face literally turned as purple as his gown. He lifted his staff and uttered, “Ar vyeth, como byruth und pyrreah!” Gerard understood it translated from the Dark Language to mean, ‘Go sleep in your sarcophagus!"

The Nomad withdrew the Black Bloodstone from his pocket and held it in front of him. When the wizard’s light ray contacted the Bloodstone, an eruption of lavender exploded in Gerard’s brain. The radiance metamorphosed into a needle of white luminescence, tunneling through a black cloud. A cocoon wrapped around him to guard his soul from any harm as his life oozed away.

#

The blast blinded the Major. He rubbed his temples and waited for his eyesight to return. When he could make out his surroundings, he examined Narkus. Lying in a clump on the floor in front of his throne, he was dead.

“I won’t shed any tears for his passing,” concluded the Major.

Tinder ran to Gerard lying on the opposite side of the room. The troll took one look and turned away, overwhelmed with grief. The Major felt unable to comfort the troll. He had lost many soldiers on previous campaigns but had always hidden behind his officer status in order to avoid sharing his feelings. “It was his way of redeeming himself,” he said.

“He had nothing to redeem,” said Tinder.

“Not to you or to us,” said Major Wright. “But to himself.”

Tinder didn’t hear the Major’s words.

Opal made an attempt to comfort her comrade. “He wanted this, Tinder. He knew he could never escape.”

Tinder said, “This is the second person who has died for me. I swear I’ll never let it happen again.”

“Look at him, Tinder,” said Opal. “Remember how much anguish he was in? He is filled with peace now. He didn’t do this for us. He did it for himself.”

The Major examined Gerard’s body closely. The glow the Major remembered Gerard having upon their acquaintance in Suva had returned. The lines on his face had disappeared and his squint was gone.

Major Wright attempted to put his arms around Tinder’s shoulders but Tinder pulled away. The Major stepped back, stooped near the Nomad and unclasped Gerard’s hands. “This must be the Black Bloodstone,” he said.

“I’ll take that,” said Tinder. “Acumen will know what to do with it.”

“I’m sorry for leading us into this damnable jungle, Tinder,” the Major said. “This was my fault.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Major,” said Opal.

Tinder nodded.

Respecting the troll’s need for solitude the Major suggested the troll withdrew from the antechamber and went to mourn in a private place.

The sooner we depart the sooner we can forget, he thought. “We’ll give Gerard the best burial we can. He deserves a full honor guard, but we can’t provide one.”

“I can write the eulogy,” said Opal. “I used to be Felina’s scribe.”

Servants and former slaves poured through the door. “We felt the curse lift,” said a short, chubby faced man with long stringy hair.

“Who are you?” asked the Major.

“I’m Griff, the head houseman. My comrades and I felt the release from the spell we were under and the regaining of our freedom. We came to do whatever we can to help.”

“I need hands to build a casket and muscles to dig a grave,” said the Major.

“It’s as good as done,” said Griff.”

“I’ll deal with Narkus,” said Opal. She dragged the wizard’s corpse out of the Interrogation Chamber and threw it out of the nearest window. “The ravens can have him,” she said.

#

Major Wright oversaw the preparations for Gerard’s funeral. When they were finished, he decided he wanted a whiff of fresh air. He descended the stairs and searched for an exit. When he reached the bottom landing a pair of opposing half-moon shapes caught his eye. They were door latches that opened to a luxurious garden. He believed the grounds must’ve been filled with filth and rot before the Shapechanger’s fall, as nothing so luscious could have existed under the dark wizard’s rule.


A fountain of water with the statue of a doe drinking from it sat in the middle of the garden. Strategically placed stones channeled a stream into the woodland. Red and white water lilies graced the sides of the channel, as the spring season emerged from a long-suffering hibernation.

Tinder was bending over a headstone placed at the plot of ground dug for Gerard’s casket. The tombstone read:

{c}Gerard