Vale…

 

“Hey, Garet!” Jenna called.

Garet’s eyebrow twitched as he wondered which village girl she was going to try to set him up with this time.  The younger Mars Adept seemed to feel that everyone involved with the lighting of the Lighthouses should have someone, since she and her brother had managed to obtain romantic interests.  Ivan, Mia, and Piers had managed to escape Jenna’s matchmaking  by returning to their hometowns.

I should have gone to Lemuria with Piers, he thought sourly as he turned.  I never did get the chance to see it.  He wouldn’t admit, even to himself, that Jenna’s relationship with his best friend, Isaac, was a large part of his grumpiness, and that her matchmaking only made the sting worse.

Then he realised she looked worried.

“Garet, have you seen Rose?”

It took Garet a moment to connect a face to the name.  When he did, he came up with bright green eyes, a shy smile, and a basket of herbs.  From there, he followed the image through his memories until he located the most recent recollection of seeing her.  He didn’t like the answer he came up with.  “Not for a week, at least.”

Jenna didn’t like his answer either.  “Since her last delivery to the Apothecary, you mean.  Nobody else has seen her since then, either.”

“Has someone checked her house?”

“Felix and Isaac went.  They said it was empty, and that nobody had been there for awhile.”

“How long?” Garet demanded.

“Four days, Felix said.  And… she had a guest.”

Garet scowled.  Rose never had guests.  The girl was very much a loner, having lost both her parents long before Saturos and Menardi’s failed first attempt to solve the puzzles of the Sol Sanctum.  Jenna’s next words, however, collected his full attention.  “Felix thinks Alex kidnapped her.”

“WHAT!?” Garet roared.

Nobody had heard from Alex in the six months since the lighting of the Mars Lighthouse.  Garet, like his team-mates, had been more than happy to assume that the power-hungry Mercury Adept had perished when Mt Aleph sank into the earth.  In hindsight, he realised they should have looked for a body.  The manipulative Imilite was like a cockroach.

Six months, he realised, was more than enough time for Alex to recover from any injuries.  Especially with his Psynergy.  Especially if Rose and her herbs had been helping him.  “Why does he think Alex is involved?” Garet demanded, fighting down a surge of protective anger.  Felix might just have been assuming –

“He found Alex’s cloak.”

“Damn it!” Garet burst out angrily, not noticing the sly gleam in Jenna’s eyes.

“Come on, Garet,” she urged.  “Brother and Isaac want to talk to us.”

In the end, it was decided that Felix and Garet would leave Vale once more to search for Rose, hopefully picking up Ivan or Sheba on the way.  Mind Read, as nervous as it made Garet, was a useful tool.

 

-§­§­§­§­§­

 

Kibombo…

 

Blaze was furious.  How dare Akafubu reject his suit for Njeri!  It wasn't enough that the young warrior had fire powers; apparently he was supposed to magically develop wealth overnight?  Akafubu hadn't objected to Blaze's courtship of his sister before becoming witch doctor, Blaze reflected angrily as he stormed past the borders of Kibombo.

Once he was far enough from the village, he turned to a lone bush and snarled, "Flare!"  To his immense satisfaction, the innocent shrub burst into flame.

"An interesting display of temper," a cool voice commented.

Startled, Blaze whirled, raising the spear he was never without at the same time, coming to face a pale man with blue hair.  The pale man merely smiled calmly.  "You can put that away.  My companion and I mean you no harm."

"Companion?" Blaze demanded, keeping his spear at the ready.

 The stranger signalled with his left hand.  "Come on out, Rose." 

After a few seconds, a girl not much younger than he was stepped out of the shadows.  She was slightly darker than the man, though not as dark as Blaze, and her hair was the colour of tree bark.  Most importantly, she didn't seem like a threat.

The warrior lowered his spear.

"Good man," the stranger said with a chilly smile.

"Who are you?" Blaze demanded.

"My name is Alex.  I come from a town called Imil.  My friend is Rose; she comes from Vale."  Rose nodded to Blaze before kneeling by the torched bush.

Blaze raised an eyebrow before turning his attention back on Alex.  "My name is Blaze.  I'm a warrior of Kibombo."

Alex arched an eyebrow in turn.  "Blaze… that's an odd name for one from Gondowan."

Blaze flushed, but didn't explain.  "What do you want with me?" he asked now.

The Imilite shrugged.  "I have need of your particular power," he admitted.  "You're a Mars Adept - Guard class, if I'm not mistaken."

This pronouncement was met with a blank stare.  Alex smiled.  "Of course, not coming from a village of Adepts, you wouldn't know the source of your power, would you?"

Blaze opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a soft, "Growth."  He and Alex turned to see the girl Rose surrounded by rings of blue light.  Green spheres spilled from her hands to fall onto the bush, making it bigger and getting rid of any sign that an angry Kibomban had burned it.

Alex smiled.  "Rose is a Venus Adept, ironically of the Brute class.  As you can see, her powers pertain to earth."

"…Brute?" Blaze asked incredulously as Rose stood up and moved back to Alex's side.

"Yes, well…"  Alex said, smiling at the girl.  That smile made the young warrior shiver.  "In any case, as to what I want with you… I have need of your power, Blaze.  In return, however, the quest will make you much stronger."

Blaze was suddenly very interested.  “Tell me more.”

 

-§­§­§­§­§­

 

Gondowan/Tolbi…

 

His legs were starting to go numb.

Well, it was a nice change from the pain, Gale reflected, wincing as he looked at the boulder pinning him down.  Perhaps using Whirlwind to hold it up hadn’t been the brightest of ideas.  The boy grunted and tried to pull himself out again, failing yet again.  If he couldn’t get out before the sun set… well, he’d be able to get out after.  Maybe.  If someone didn’t see him.

Time passed slowly, and Gale fell slowly into delirium.

 

Blaze could not help but wonder when, precisely, he had been made Rose’s keeper.  Every village they stopped in, she would vanish until sundown, at which point Alex would invariably send him after the Venus Adept.  Why did he bother?  Surely Rose must have pulled stunts like this before the pair of them had recruited him…

Annoyed, he wandered outside Tolbi, heading for the nearest source of untamed plant life, which was where Rose would be found every time.

An hour later, Blaze reflected that of course tonight she would choose not to follow her normal pattern.  He’d gone all the way to Gondowan Cave and found no sign of Rose.  He stopped outside the cave, wondering if he should have gone north rather than retracing their steps, when Rose came flying out of the entrance.  “Blaze!” she cried.  “You’ve got to help – there’s an animal trapped under a boulder!”

Blaze began to protest, but she already had him by the arm and was dragging him into the cave after her.  With a resigned sigh, he followed, wondering why he let her drag him around.  “Where’s your cloak?” he asked as they walked. 

“He was shaking.  I had to keep him warm, so I put it over him.”

How in the world is her Psynergy Class Brute? Blaze wondered yet again.

 

At long last, they had reached the boulder holding the stricken animal down.  The Kibomban stared at it, then at Rose.  “And what, exactly, am I supposed to do about THAT?” he demanded.  “Lift it off and carry it away?”

Rose shook her head.  “Just help me shift it enough so we can pull him free,” she pleaded.

Blaze gave in before she could give him the Eyes.  “All right, all right…”  He planted his spear in the ground, then sat with his back to the boulder, wriggling to get purchase.  “Are you ready?”

The girl nodded, moving around to where the animal was and speaking soothing nonsense words to it.  Blaze grunted and pushed up with his legs, using all his strength as a warrior to move the boulder.  That thing is heavy! he thought, feeling the strain in his back and thighs.  “Hurry, Rose!  I can’t hold it for very long!”

“I have him!”

With relief, Blaze let the boulder drop, letting the accursed thing support him while he regained his strength.  “How is he?” he asked, some of his annoyance coming through his voice.

His answer came in the form of a Psynergy command.  “Cure Well.”

Blaze frowned, concerned despite himself.  “Are you sure we shouldn’t take him to a Sanctum?” he asked, rising to his feet and walking to see Rose and her animal.

He stopped short at the rather anthropomorphic body lying before her, its head in her lap.

“That… is not an animal.”

Rose gave him a sheepish look.  “I know.”

Blaze attempted to give voice to several thoughts at once, and only succeeded in a garbled succession of vowels before he managed, in a rather strangled tone, “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

“I didn’t have time for you to argue, Blaze,” she replied, much more honestly than he liked.

“I don’t argue about everything,” he grumbled.

She just raised an eyebrow before wrapping the… wolf-boy up in her cloak.

“Oh, no!” the Guard exclaimed.  “We are not bringing that back to Tolbi with us!”

“We can’t just leave him here!”

“Oh, yes we can!”

 

“How did I get talked into this?” Blaze growled.  He, Rose, and the wolf-thing were almost to Tolbi, Blaze having taken charge of it when Rose began stumbling from the strain of carrying it on her back.

“Face it, Blaze,” she told him, “You’re a nice person.”

“I’m a warrior of Kibombo!”

“Warriors can’t be nice?  I’ll have to mention that to Isaac, then.”

“Who’s Isaac?”

As they talked, they carefully shifted Rose’s cloak to more easily hide the thing – the last thing either of them wanted was to explain the strange creature in Blaze’s arms to Tolbi’s guards.  They made it all the way to the inn before Blaze said, “Alex is going to kill you.”

“No, he won’t.”

“He’s not going to let you keep it.”

Rose just smiled in a way that indicated that Alex might not have a choice in the matter.

Neither of them noticed a pair of startled golden eyes watching them.

 

At the sound of footsteps, both Saturos and Menardi tensed and reached for their weapons, but they relaxed as they saw the familiar green hair.  “Back so soon, Jacob?” Saturos gently teased the boy who had nursed him and Menardi back to health.

“I heard something… interesting,” Jacob told him.

Menardi rolled her eyes, but said nothing.  Saturos had overruled her when she had wanted to leave the boy in Lalivero, so as far as the female Proxian was concerned, Jacob was entirely his responsibility.  At least he was streetwise enough to make up for not being an Adept.

“What did you hear?”

Jacob’s golden eyes were clear and guileless.  “I think the Alex you knew is in Tolbi.”

Menardi spoke before her partner could.  “How can you be sure?” she demanded.  “Alex is a common name.”

“Not in Tolbi,” Jacob pointed out.  “I heard some people mention an Alex, so I followed them.  They met with someone who looked like the guy you described to me.”

Menardi smiled.  “Well.  We’ll have to ascertain this for ourselves, won’t we?” she purred.

Saturos held up a hand.  “Not now,” he cautioned.  “Tomorrow.  Confronting Alex is best done with a decent night’s sleep.”

Menardi sighed.  “If we must.”

The other Proxian smirked at her.  “Don’t worry, Menardi – I’m as eager as you to see if the so-called Wise One was correct about Alex’s motives.”

 

Gale came to slowly, fighting down his wolfish instincts.  To his surprise, he found himself lying in a bed, his legs no longer numb or in pain.  The young werewolf gingerly opened his eyes to see an older girl sleeping on the floor by the bed he lay on, her dark brown hair messy and tangled around her shoulders.

Had she saved him?

Carefully, the werewolf slid out of the bed, padding gently to the girl and kneeling by her.  She was smiling in her sleep, despite the cold, wooden floor and the cloak serving as a blanket.  Gale considered, then pulled the blanket off the bed and covered her with it.  It wasn’t as though he had need of it.