Charms and Tomes

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Grant and Chase climbed aboard their steeds and Ben helped Paul into our carriage. I slipped into the seat beside him as he slumped a little. His face was slightly haggard and his eyes were still unfocused.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked him.

He grinned up at me. “Never better.”

“Don’t feel too sorry for him,” Grant warned me as he trotted up beside the vehicle. “He’s been in more accidents than a toddler’s diaper.”

I glanced over to the ruins of the vehicle. “Will that be okay there?”

“Nobody’s going to steal it, if that’s what you mean,” Chase piped up as he came on the other side of the carriage. “It’s just a hunk of junk until we get it fixed up again.”

Ben gingerly climbed aboard Ferox’s back. The spirited steed eyed him with a sharp, ire-filled look, but Ben only smiled and patted the back of his neck. “I don’t like this any better than you, but it’s either that or walking.” Ferox bobbed his head up and down. Ben’s eyes twinkled as he grinned at the horse. “That will make you late for your afternoon grain.”

Ferox snorted, but faced forward and turned the carriage around. I looked wistfully down the road as we made a U-turn to go back to Validen. Some day we would reach Ben’s estate, but today was not that day.

Tomorrow didn’t look good, either.

We trotted back down the road while the two men on horseback bickered with each other.

“I told you we shouldn’t have let him behind the wheel,” Chase scolded his companion.

Grant rolled his eyes. “You know he wasn’t going to stop whining about it until we let him. How was I to know he would step on the fuel that hard?”

“Because he always does something stupid and almost gets himself killed,” Chase reminded him.

“So do you guys build, um, thunders a lot?” I spoke up.

Grant nodded. “It’s our calling.”

“They’re a lot more comfortable than this way, and a thunder won’t buck you off,” Chase chimed in with a sharp look at his companion. “If the Goon here wouldn’t stop messing about and wrecking our schedule.”

Grant glared back at him. “I keep telling you you’re too slow. Is it my fault if that’s the truth?”

Chase scoffed. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass.”

“So have you three known each other for a long time?” I asked them.

“It feels like forever. . .” Grant mumbled.

“Unfortunately, we’ve been working together for about ten years now,” Chase told me with a frown still on his lips. “We broke into the circuit about seven years ago and were just going to show this at the Plaza in Validen when Mouse there-” He nodded at the man seated beside me, “-asked to take it out for a trip.”

Mouse sheepishly grinned at him and rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry about that, but if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think it’ll take very long to fix it up again.”

“It better not,” Grant scolded him. “It’s only two days to the show.”

“Then you gentlemen are part of the thunder tract?” Ben guessed.

Mouse sat up a little straighter and lifted his chin. “We’re only the best of the builders.”

“The less said about the racing part, the better. . .” Grant grumbled.

Ben lifted his chin slightly and furrowed his brow. “I haven’t seen a thunder race in quite a few years. It still takes place in the emperor’s horse training track, doesn’t it?”

Chase nodded. “That’s right. We’ve entered the car-”

“Bashful,” Mouse spoke up.”

“I told you weren’t not calling it that,” Grant snapped.

“Why do you want to call it Bashful?” I asked my carriage companion.

“Because it’s as quiet as a shy lady,” he pointed out as he folded his arms over his puffed-out chest. “And that’s all thanks to my latest invention. We’ll make a fortune selling these cars to all those same women. You know the kind, the ones that don’t want to be heard.”

“Are most cars-I mean, thunders, that loud?” I wondered.

“Haven’t you seen one?” Chase asked me.

There it was again, that situation where I was a fish out of water. “I, um, don’t live near any of the tract areas.”

“No wonder you didn’t know who we were,” Grant spoke up as he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “As for your question, they’re very noisy.”

Chase stuck a finger in his ear and winced as he rubbed it exuberantly. “Painfully so.”

Mouse’s eyes widened and he shot up. He began patting himself furiously all over with both hands. “Wait a minute! It’s not here!”

Everything came to a standstill as we all watched him furiously beat himself.

“What’s not here?” I asked him.

“My lucky piece of wood!” he shouted as he turned his pockets inside out. Bits of twine, metal washers, and lint fell out, but no wood. “I must’ve lost it in the seat! We have to go back to get it!”

Grant scoffed. “Like hell we are. It hasn’t done you much good since you picked it up in the barnyard two years ago.”

“But it has!” Mouse insisted as he continued his furious search. “I’d be dead without it!”

“You’ll be dead if we have to go back for it,” Chase snapped.

Mouse’s face fell. “Come on, fellas, it’ll only take a minute. Besides, you know we need it for what’s coming up.”

Grant rolled his eyes. “And if I go back for it you’ll shut up for the rest of the day?”

Mouse crossed a finger over his chest in the shape of a cross. “I swear on the stone that I will!”

Grant sighed but turned his steed back down the road. “Alright. I’ll be right back.”

He galloped away, leaving a sheepish Mouse at my side and an irritated Chase glaring at his comrade. “You and your damned foolishness,” he scolded him.

Mouse winced. “Oh, come on, it isn’t that foolish. I mean, you haven’t changed your underwear yet, have you?”

Chase’s cheeks glowed red and his hands that held the reins shook a little. “That’s not what you’re supposed to bring up in polite company!”

Mouse studied Ben and me. “They are polite company, aren’t they? And they’ve got a nice carriage and horse, too. By the way, what’s your names?”

Ben twisted around in his seat atop Ferox and nodded at me. “The lovely woman beside you is Miss Millie Lucas, and I’m Ben Castle.”

Chase’s eyes widened. “Ben Castle? Not Count Benjamin Castle?”

Ben chuckled. “The same. Have you heard of me?”

Chase nodded. “We heard a ways back that you used to be quite the thunder driver.”

I whipped my face around in his direction. “Really?”

Ben chuckled. “That was a long while ago.”

Mouse took up one of my hands and, with his eyes twinkling, he pressed a light kiss on the back. “It’s an honor to meet Count Castle, but it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lucas.”

“Millie,” I told him.

He grinned. “I’m Paul, but those two-” He jerked his head in Chase’s direction, “-call me Mouse. I don’t know why.”

“Because you’re as short as one,” Chase retorted before his horse gave a little snort and flung its head. The man’s face went a little pale and he clung to the saddle horn. “Damn you and your stupid driftwood.”

“That’s what makes it even luckier,” Mouse insisted. “It’s a drifter just like us. You should be worshiping it as an idol.”

Chase looked like he was about to show Mouse some tough adoration when Grant returned. He tossed a brown, thin object some five inches long at Mouse. “Now shut up and let’s get going.”

Mouse caught the item and I had a good look at his lucky driftwood. It was a rough piece of timber with no discernible special features except that the surface had been smoothed by Mouse’s constant rubbing. He gave the wood a quick rub on one side before he tucked it into a pocket on the exterior of his vest. A supremely satisfied look featured on his face as we rolled along.