The Broken Sigil

Chapter 19: New Friends

   Katrina got off the horse and pulled the flask that she had attached to the horse, and walked towards a small stream, it was already morning and she had bags under her eyes, she hasn’t slept throughout the night she has been riding it all night to get away as far as possible from the Ashen Fields. He crouched down and lined up the opening of the flask to the stream waiting for it to fill up, she stood up and took a sip from the freshwater it was nice that she found some of it since she’s been saving it all night not sure if she would find some. She walked back to the horse and checked on Aldus he was still unconscious, she picked him up and laid him on the ground, she thought it was better since the position he was on the horse may not have been good in the long term for his blood flow and breath. She shivered a bit, crossed her arms, and looked around the area, it was fairly flat there were no mountains nearby just a couple of hills that weren’t that tall, she turned opposite and saw a large tree on top of a hill, she didn’t think twice and picked up Aldus carrying him all the way up there while the horse followed behind her, she leaned Aldus on the tree trunk and looked at him. She looked at him and wondered whether it would be a good idea to head for the White City, maybe replenish some provisions, and perhaps the masters can help her with the child, even though Lucius told her to go straight to Everpeak, the idea of going to the White City of going home and not worry whether Aldus will be alright or not seemed like the best idea to her, but when she thought further she remembered that the White City attacked Celvin and thus the noble family from Celvin is in disarray and her showing up with the prince on the back of her horse what will people say? At times she doubted herself whether she is good enough to take care of him considering the state that the kid is in, maybe Lucius made a mistake giving him to her, he was probably far better at this thing, she saw as a small mist came from his mouth indicating that he was still breathing at least that’s good news, however, it also indicated that he may have been cold. Katrina wasted no time and looked around since they were under a tree there’s bound to branch around somewhere. She circled around the tree and at the base of the hill she saw a big branch that had broken apart from the tree it looked big so it must have been the weight that broke it apart after it fell it broke into more pieces which made it all the easier for Katrina so she wouldn’t have to use her sword as an axe which would have significantly damaged it, if only she knew the ways of the Protectors, their incantations and magic. She would be able to stroke the sword and turn it into an axe to chop some wood, or better yet she would make her sword ablaze and she would be able to warm herself on the sword itself. She thought for a moment as she was picking up the branches in her hands, and it dawned on her suddenly, she sprang up and ran towards Aldus, she arranged the branches in a circle so that she could start a fire, but rather than going the traditional way she ran towards the horse and pulled out the brown book. If Marcus had really written that book, and Marcus was the teacher of the Protectors then there must be a written text explaining how to do magic, if only it were that simple, and as it turns out it might have been. She flipped the pages of the book and skipped the first half of the book, she would always skip that part because ever since she started reading it the book started with explaining some technologies and the way that space works the third and fourth dimension specifically, and of course, she couldn’t wrap her head around it, simply because all the equations and all the drawings were just gibberish to her. She kept flipping the pages until she saw a drawing of a sword with the symbols, on the page Marcus had written out all the details and instructions one would have to follow and obey in order to be able to produce the magic, she read carefully and nodded she understood it well enough, except for when she pulled out her sword and caressed it and at the same time speaking the incantation nothing happened. But how could it be, she did everything by the book if not better and it still didn’t work, she tried again and again, but to no avail, nothing changed. She picked up the book frustrated thinking that maybe she missed something, she read it again and again, the day was passing by, her stomach was rumbling and Aldus kept shivering, she tried for the last time, but it didn’t work. She finally admitted defeat and threw the book away as she picked up two stones, she also tore a cloth from her cape and placed it carefully amid the branches so the cloth could help her start the fire. She struck the two stones together and a spark came out of it, but it didn’t start the fire.

    “This is going to be the most frustrating start of a fire,” she spoke to herself, she struck the stones and nothing, she kept doing it but still it wouldn’t start. The anger and frustration piled up from the previous anger that accumulated from the book, all that anger made her strike the stones even faster until finally a spark landed on the cloth and ignited it. “Yes!” she celebrated barely catching her breath, she inhaled deeply and blew into the fire carefully so that it would ignite everywhere equally. After she made certain that the fire wouldn’t die out immediately she stood up and walked towards the horse and pulled a satchel as she opened it and picked up a piece of bread, she still had some provisions left from Celvin Castle. She sat down by the fire taking bites of the bread hoping to forget about the failed attempt of using magic, but how could she forget with all that anger still inside her reminding her of how she failed, that and the fact that the book she threw landed in such a way that it was in her line of sight reminding her even further of the faliure she had to go through or at least made herself go through. She stood up ready to tear apart the book, she didn’t care how worth the book was and didn’t care that the knowledge that was in the book could turn the Kin from a medieval civilization to a spacefaring civilization if it only went to the right hands, that was it, the book was done for, and after she is done tearing it apart she would throw it in the fire, it would be really poetic she thought because she couldn’t start a fire using the book and now the book will burn in nothing else but fire itself, she was poetic like that sometimes. She walked closer to the book and picked it up from the ground, and as she was picking it up she noticed that the book was opened on the first page, the pages that always baffled her, the gibberish pages, and again as if it was calling to her, speaking to her in some strange way, she couldn’t bring herself to tear it up to pieces. Maybe if I take a look again, she thought maybe I can understand it then, and sure enough there she was flipping the pages again but this time she didn’t skip anything, page by page she went through until she finally came to the page that had a sketch of a sword and how the sword transformed into different objects like a hammer or an axe. “This is it!” she said, all this time it's been hiding here, she was close. Except she wasn’t, she wasn’t close at all, she couldn’t understand the equations that were written out and the little text that she could understand was really strange because it had words that she had never come across until now, so she wouldn’t know what they mean, but someone from Steampeak might… she held the book and looked in the distance, could she finally have the solution? If somebody from Steampeak could explain to her what all of this means since they are so smart, maybe then she would finally be able to use magic, except for when she looked behind her and seeing Aldus leaned on the tree going to Steampeak was not the priority, she closed the book and was ready to put it away in the satchel until a harsh wind came blowing from the East and she ran to cover the fire so that it wouldn’t extinguish, the wind, however, blew the smoke towards Aldus and the smell of smoke and fire itself must have triggered some kind of a reaction or response in his head since the last he experience was fire and smoke at Celvin Castle and some fire and smoke at the Ashen Fields. His brain must have thought that it was in danger and adrenaline came rushing through his body. The kid opened his eyes immediately and stood up breathing fast and heavy, he looked around making sure he wasn’t in any danger, he looked at the figure that was covering the fire and stood frozen, maybe he was in danger, after all, Katrina lifted her head and looked at him, she was surprised to see him on his feet she fell on her back. Aldus also panicked and ran to hide behind the tree.

    “Oh… no, no, no,” Katrina stood up. “You can come out it's alright,” she called out to him, but the kid remained hiding. “Come on, I won’t hurt you, I have some food, I bet you are hungry,” Aldus hesitated for a moment that voice was familiar to him and it should be since he met her at the courtyard when she came with her family but for the time being he just couldn’t remember, and who could blame him, he’s been unconscious for a while now it will take time to recover. Katrina was right however, his stomach was rumbling he was indeed hungry, he slowly peeked his head from behind the tree and saw Katrina reaching the satchel handing him a piece of bread with a big smile on her face, maybe she was friendly after all and he shouldn’t worry. He slowly walked out of hiding, he slowly and with hesitation approached her as she made a sudden move towards him he fell back.

    “It’s alright!” she said still handing him the piece of bread. He walked slower and took the piece away from her, he started chewing on it immediately as Katrina stared at him making him feel ashamed. “It’s allright kid,” she walked away and sat next to the fire. “You can sit with me if you want,” Aldus looked at her and walked towards the fire as he sat down and looked at her. “Lucius told me we need to go north, to Everpeak,” she looked at him.   

    “Lucius?” Aldus finally heard a familiar name that he knew, after all, she may have been a friend of his, he looked at her hands holding the book tightly. “Are you a Protector?” asked the boy. 

    “Oh… no,” she dismissed. “My mother would have never approved, and now I don’t even know whether she is alive.”

    Aldus, of course, had no idea, the only thing he remembered was how he was at peace with his parents and the next moment chaos ensued, after that his whole world fell apart, and just like Katrina, he is left wondering whether his parents are alive too. Even if they are alive what state are they in and where are they. 

    “That book… What’s it about?”

    “Oh… It’s nothing really, you wouldn’t understand,” she put the book in the satchel.

    “It says it’s written by Marcus… That’s my uncle’s teacher.”

    “You know about Marcus?”

    “He’s been telling me stories about the Protectors, about the history of Oniphere, Echo, and Vega, even though my father hated him for it he did it anyway and I liked it, I don’t understand why the world sees them as something evil when they want to protect us.”

    “Well… what the grownups do like or don’t we can never understand them, but you said that your uncle taught you their ways, I don’t suppose he taught you about magic as well?”

    “The Protectors have two ways of using magic,” answered Aldus. “The first is the obvious the favor a Watcher.”

    “Yeah I figured as much, but wouldn’t a Watcher give them just one ability?”

    “Yes and sometimes an enemy requires more than one ability to be taken down, they needed more than being able to cast fire or ice… so they tapped into a different kind of magic.”

    “What kind?” Katrina was intrigued, she leaned closer to the boy wanting to absorb every information he had to say.

    Aldus hesitated for a moment, not quite sure whether he should be sharing this kind of information. “There’s this magic nobody is sure where it's coming from, it’s like it's from a different plane, a higher plane, at least certainly higher than ours.”

    “Higher plane than ours? What does that mean?” Aldus just raised his shoulders, he was just a kid how was he supposed to know all of these things. However, Katrina managed to piece together a few pieces from the puzzle and realized that all of that transformation that Lucius and Cristopher are able to do, transforming the sword into a hammer must come from the higher plane that Aldus had been talking about, and now more than ever she was certain that Steampeak was the right place for this knowledge, and if she could get Aldus to Everpeak and then make it in time to Steampeak there might just be a chance that they would be able to arm the entire world with the weapons so they can fight the skeletal army. There must be a chance otherwise there’s no way they are going to defeat Marcus and his army with normal weapons and the only thing left would be defeat.

    “What are you thinking?” asked the boy.

    “Nothing… It’s just time is against us… we must move, come on up you get!” she ordered him as she stood up, refilled the flask again with fresh water, and attached it to the horse together with the satchel. She made sure the book was in the satchel and then made sure that the satchel itself was properly closed, she couldn’t lose the book, the very same book that she was about to burn, she finally realized that it might be the most important book in the whole world as of now. She helped Aldus on the horse as she then herself climbed on it herself.

    “Hold tight!” she looked at him as the kid wrapped his hands around her waist and closed his eyes. Katrina shook the reins and the horse rode off into the distance.