The Sorcerer of Wands: Azabar's Icicle Part 2 Read online

  The Sorcerer of Wands – Azabar's Icicle Part 2

  Jem I. Kelley Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2015

  Amazon Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Kelley, Jem I. (2015-July). The Sorcerer of Wands, UK English Edition (Part 2 of Azabar's Icicle)

  With Special thanks to the Hawk-Eyed Proofreading of Troy Therkilsen

  AZABAR’s ICICLE

  The Sorcerer of Wands

  Chapter 33: The Plateau

  An odd force tugged at Aden’s clothing causing it to flap and pull, despite the air around him not stirring. The roof and the grandpas vanished and all he could see was swirling colours. An odd smell, like after a lightning storm, surrounded him, and then the ground gave way, and Aden fell into nothingness.

  He flailed his limbs and screamed.

  His feet landed on hard ground and dizziness consumed him.

  His finger left the Disc-Artefact as he staggered to the right, and fell over.

  Pain lanced through his shoulder as he crashed to the ground.

  Dust erupted around him, entering his mouth, causing him to cough.

  He fought to regain control. He pushed at the ground and a searing heat burnt into his palm. He whipped his hand away.

  He coughed again to clear his lungs.

  Bliss’s arm appeared, and Aden grabbed hold, and hauled himself up to standing, finding himself surrounded by a cloud of dust.

  “Are you all right?”

  Aden gave a nod: “Probably.”

  He rubbed his shoulder to try to get life back into it, it ached after smashing into the ground.

  Bliss was staring at her surroundings, jaw dropped.

  “Wow!”

  They were on an platform, circular in shape. A sculpted rock platform built... on a mountain? Grey rock suffused with ribbons of colour: rust, saffron, puce.

  On either side of this platform the shear face of the mountain plummeted. Above, light poured from an azure sky devoid of cloud. Heat swam across Aden’s body; but, there was not the faintest breeze to ease it.

  “Where are we?”

  Aden stalked three paces, kicked at the dust which lay deep everywhere, causing more to erupt into billowing ochre clouds. He walked more carefully now, then crouched and eased the dust away from an undisturbed section of the rock platform.

  Etched markings were exposed: harsh engraved runes. He cleared another section. The line of script ran in a curve that followed the curve of the circular platform.

  “This platform is like the Amari circle in Haverland.”

  Bliss frowned.

  “What circle?”

  “The one they built a dome over to protect. North West of Haverland, where the Amari settlements were.”

  Bliss stared at the exposed hieroglyphics.

  “Are you sure?”

  Aden inspected yet another section of the carved runes.

  Bliss followed and watched.

  “Do you think Disc-Artefacts always lead to circles like this?”

  Aden’s brow creased.

  “We’d know if we’d been to the Disc-Man Academy. I’m sure each artefact has one fixed destination. Whenever the button’s pressed the Disc takes people to that one destination, yeah? Whenever the button’s pressed the second time, the artefact returns to where-ever it was when the button was first pressed. In our case it’ll return us to the roof, because that’s where we pressed it.”

  “You positive that’s how it works?”

  Aden scratched his head, and shrugged. “I think so, putting together different things I’ve heard said. If so, then you’d be right; the Amari would carve circles at each Disc-Artefact’s destination point, so people don't block the landing spot.”

  “What happens if people do put things on that spot?”

  “I don’t think a Disc-Artefact will work if the destination is occupied.”

  “Are you sure it won’t just arrive near where it was aiming for?”

  “No. But I don’t think it does. So we got to worry that your granddads don’t put anything big on the place we disappeared from, otherwise we can’t get back. They’ll know not to - I think.”

  “Bloody hope so. I don’t know why the Amari couldn’t have carved a circle on our roof to warn people not to block it.”

  Aden blinked and shook his head.

  “No, you don’t understand. We can press our Disc-Artefact from anywhere and it will take us to this stone circle, that’s where this Disc-Artefact is designed to go. We could press the artefact’s button in Dazarian and we’d come to this circle. We could press it from Hacknor's office, and we'd still come to this stone circle. We press the button again, from wherever, and we arrive back in Dazarian or Hacknor's office, etc. It’ll always return us to the place we left from as long as the place hasn’t been blocked by anything.”

  Though Bliss listened, her eyes didn’t light up in the way they would if she understood the explanation.

  “Why does a artefact need time to recharge?” She asked, changing the subject.

  Aden shrugged.

  “Stuffed if I know; I suppose it takes a lot of magic to jump across worlds. Probably takes a while to drain the magic out of the air and store enough for another jump.”

  He rose and brushed the dust from his knees. He raised his head to the sky. A large sun hung low in the sky.

  “The sun’s massive. It explains why it’s so hot.”

  He licked his dry lips, and struggled to swallow.

  “At least we know we’re not on Adventurine, that world’s got lots of cloud, lots of ocean and lots of rain.”

  Bliss shaded her eyes with her hands.

  “I figured as much myself. Where are we then?”

  “Stuffed if I know, this is when disc-man training would come in useful.”

  “Not as smart as Alicia then, Aden?”

  Bliss was smirking and Aden landed a playful punch on her shoulder.

  “I’m not as smart as she thinks she is.”

  Bliss pointed at the rock face. In the direction of her finger, a dark entrance fell into the mountain face. Clearly a tunnel led from there, to somewhere.

  “High plateaus, carved circles and mysterious tunnels - and we’ve only been on the world a few minutes. This is pretty good going.”

  They exchanged looks, and walked carefully towards the tunnel. The entrance was the size and shape of a door. The light from the huge sun illuminated the first few feet, further in was anyone’s guess.

  Bliss swallowed nervously and then edged into the tunnel; she came out again.

  “Right, I braved the first few feet, your turn to explore the rest.”

  Aden held back a retort, braced himself and entered.

  The dark caused the hairs on his neck to tingle. He could see nothing; it was as if he moved from the world of the living to the world of the dead. Fears raced around inside of him and his breath seemed loud. High up here in a place echoing of ancientness, monsters could lurk.

  He slid forward with his hands in front of him. He felt something: flinched. Monsters lunged through his mind to tear him apart. Ropes of fear ran taught around his body. Something was there, something hard.

  Short feeble breaths pulsed, as he stood paralysed with fear.

  Time passed.

  Whatever was there hadn’t attacked him. He swallowed the saliva flooding his mouth and willed his hands forward
. He overrode the reflex to pull back as his fingers made contact once more.

  Cold and hard: rock, he told himself; cold hard rock and nothing more.

  The irrational fear eased.

  He began to explore.

  The tunnel had taken a turn, hence the wall before him. To his right there was an opening into a larger space. His eyes were adjusting to the light of the tunnel and he could see the short distance he’d travelled. The new part of the tunnel complex remained dark, because no light reached it at all.

  “What can you see?” whispered Bliss from the outside.

  “What do you think?”

  The air around him was cool; it smelt old.

  “You’ve hardly gone anywhere yet.”

  Aden gritted his teeth. He turned right, lifted his hand, felt for the wall of the tunnel. All his senses were acute; the rock was smooth, yet in the smoothness, he could feel imperfections.

  He put his foot forward, felt thudding in his mouth, placed his foot down. His heart beat like drums. He entered the new part of the tunnel. Systematically, he explored. Straight walls, it was a room. Another entrance led to what he thought was yet another room; he continued his journey until he re-entered the short tunnel to the outside and told Bliss what he’d found.

  “Resting rooms for travellers from the circle?” he suggested, glad to reach the light again.

  Bliss peered into the tunnel. “Maybe.”

  “We could use it as a base,” She said. “Get a lantern in there so we could see, bring something to sit on, it’d be great. It'd be cool in hot weather like this, but we could even make a fire if it ever gets cold and snowy.”

  “Reckon we could.”

  They regarded each other and Aden saw the excitement he felt mirrored in Bliss’s expression; an excitement and curiosity which replaced the gloom so far today.

  Bliss nodded to her left.

  “Something else, mate. Look. I noticed it while I was getting cooked out here in the sun, waiting for you to take five minutes to walk around a small room.”

  Aden grinned and followed Bliss until they’d reached to where the edge of the circular platform area joined the mountain-side.

  “What do you make of it?”

  A staircase ran down the mountain side. A staircase carved from the mountain itself: sturdy steps, which dropped a long way.

  “As wide as a road,” said Aden.

  Bliss sat on the top step then leapt up as the heat penetrated her trousers.

  “Long as a road too! Give you a heart attack to climb it. Wonder why they made the Disc-Artefact landing site at a point halfway up a mountain?”

  “I dunno. Who knows why they did what they did. If the Amari hadn’t scampered off years ago, we might have been able to ask them.”

  “They left completely Aden, from everywhere.”

  “I know.”

  Bliss looked around.

  “It’s an odd thing to do. Perhaps they left, because they’d made a artefact to a place they wished they hadn’t. Like here.”

  Aden saw an image of dark beasts striding across hot lands. He shook the image off.

  “Every year someone predicts the end of the world through the use of the Disc-Artefacts, Bliss: It hasn’t happened yet. Haverland is stronger and richer than ever. Without Discs Haverland would be poor. Stop worrying. If we see anything we don’t like we can go back, our artefact will be recharged soon.”

  Bliss bent, broke wind audibly and cracked a grin.

  “I’m just winding you up.”

  They climbed off the steps and strode across the circle to reach its far side.

  Bliss reached a rock lip which overhung a distant valley floor.

  “Get a load of this.”

  In the distance the land opened between two mountain ranges.

  Aden shielded his eyes and stared.

  The first thought which occurred to him was he couldn’t make out the horizon because too many mountains were in the way. Which meant the one bit of disc-man academy lesson he’d ever learnt didn’t amount to much.

  Alicia’s idea of working out the size of the planet by how heavy you felt didn’t help either. It was hard to tell if he was heavier or lighter than normal. Perhaps this planet was the size of the planet he’d lived on all his life.

  He focussed on the objects of Bliss’s interest. Far away were green squares. In the centre of these squares, something pale.

  “What’s the green. Alligated fields?” He asked.

  “What’s ‘Alligated’ when it’s at home?”

  “Alligation is ditches which take water from rivers to fields,” he said, trying not to sound pompous. “I heard about them when we were in Dazarian. They use them because it’s so hot and dry there.”

  “I thought big lizards that lived in swamps were called allegations and alligated was what they did to you?”

  “No,” said Aden, not totally sure; but, deciding certainty was important in an alien land, even if you were wrong. “They’re irrigators.”

  “Okay, even if you're right,” said Bliss, clearly not sure that he was, “if the land is alligated, where are the rivers feeding the fields?”

  “Why do you ask awkward questions?”

  Bliss grinned.

  “Why don't we go there and take a look, we’ll know then.”

  Aden stared at his friend.

  “You’re joking. It’d take ages to get there, we’d be burned alive.”

  “You go then, I’ll wait here,” said Bliss playfully.

  Two can play at this game, thought Aden.

  “Okay, but, if I find treasure you won’t get any.”

  “Treasure? What treasure are you going to find?”

  “Who knows what might be scattered around long deserted alien cities?”

  Bliss considered the matter.

  “We go back to Haverland get kitted up, then make the journey.”

  Aden was about to give a jokey retort back, but then paused and realised that Bliss might have had a good idea.

  “If we miss the afternoon shift on the market, people might get suspicious.”

  “So this is it?” Said Bliss. “We've got a working Disc-Artefact and we do nothing in the world it leads us to?”

  Aden pursed his lips and frowned. “No. I think we should explore, but plan it a bit first. Find a time when we're not working, for a start. If, on one of our days off, we say we’ve gone fishing for the day no one will miss us until evening. The granddads won’t say anything.”

  “How about we go this weekend?”

  Aden stared at the distant green patches, and felt a sense of excitement rise in him about what he and Bliss might discover there. “Okay, let's do that.”

  “You know,” said Bliss. “What I don’t get is if the Disc-Artefact works, why did Sardohan drop the court case? He would have been bound to win the case; we’d have got in trouble and he’d get the Disc-Artefact back…”

  Aden shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t know it worked. When Alicia told everyone in the Disc-Man Academy class the artefact was a dud, I think she meant it.”

  “But if the artefacts in the Prison Governor’s office haven’t been tested, then I’d have thought he’d more likely have gone to court to get ours back.”

  Aden shrugged.

  “Don’t know. If the Dazarians have got a bundle of untested discs, maybe they might not want Haverland to know? Perhaps they make out the ones we stole were tested duds and hope their gamble was right? After all, ninety nine times out of a hundred they would be right, yes? We might never know the truth. I can’t see them telling us.”

  Chapter 34: Grandfather Eavis

  They pressed the button on the Disc-Artefact and returned to the roof of Bliss’s house.

  Aden staggered, but kept his feet when 'landing' this time.

  Granddad Todd was sitting on the bench, peeling potatoes. He raised his head as the friends returned. He seemed serious. Aden guessed he’d been worried.

  “Like the trip, Bl
iss? Bit hot weren’t it.”

  Bliss laughed and rushed over to her Grandpa. “A bit hot? Stuff me, I feel like a pig on a spit. Still, I’m not complaining.”

  Granddad Todd tapped the side of his nose and winked without humour.

  “Best how we keep it for now, eh?”

  “It is a new world, isn’t it?” said Aden. “I mean, the Disc doesn't take you to any of the previously discovered worlds.”

  “Dunno.”

  Granddad Todd, cut a peeled spud in two and let it drop with a splash, into the pail at his feet. “Can’t recall a world with such a large sun. Course, I ain’t no expert. Perhaps one of us can ask a few questions to artefact academy people over the next few weeks. Better be careful how we ask, mind, so as not give the game away.”

  “You’ll help us explore those green squares that are in the distance?” Asked Bliss.

  “Good Gabrien, no, I won’t! Them steps is a bit much for my old knees. This adventure is for you young ‘uns. Just be careful how you go about it. I’ll have a job to do explaining things if you get killed by a dragon.”

  “Where’s Grandfather Eavis?” said Bliss, looking around. “Couldn’t he wait for us to come back?”

  Granddad Todd licked his top lip. His eyes seemed moist.

  “I think he hung on for something good like this to come along.”

  Bliss laughed.

  “What do you mean, he hung on?”

  Granddad Todd put down the knife he’d been using to peel the potatoes tousled Bliss’s hair.

  “Your grandfather Eavis had been sick for some time, Bliss. You knew: the cough.”

  The smile, which was on Bliss’s face evaporated. Aden felt a tingle of panic.

  “You see,” said Granddad Todd, “Your Grandfather Eavis was Seventy Nine. At such an age a cough ain’t a light thing.”

  Aden tried to speak, his mouth was dry, more so than when he’d been on the alien world.

  “What, what do you mean, was?”

  Granddad Todd’s voice broke.

  “You know, Seventies might be nothing for folk on the houses up Regent way, but it’s pretty good going for people like us. Heck, people like us don’t tend to get past sixty.”