Chapter 2

Ledger

Ledger looked at the spinning wheel. He had twelve small blocks evenly spaced around the outer edge of the two-foot-wide wooden wheel. He had spaced six repelling blocks around the outside. They were barely far enough away not to touch the wheelblocks. When he added power, the spinning would start, continue for a minute, then slow down to a complete stop, even with the power on. He had tried pulsing it on and off. That worked a little better, but he couldn’t do it all the time. He finally called over the others in the shop so they could try to figure out what was going on. One boy said he could feel a charge on the wheel side of things. That was causing the wheel to stop.

The boy, Rishin, asked, “Could you set the power to cut on and off?”

“How I can’t stand here and do it fast enough,” replied Ledger.

One of the girls, who tended to say little but thought a lot, picked up a few bits and began fastening them to the shaft. She set two thin sheets and affixed them to the axel. She made sure they did not contact each other. She attached wires to each, then ran one set to every other powered push block. She repeated this from the other sheet to the remaining blocks. She put a wire on the power source, held it to one of the sheets, and spun the wheel. It spun faster this way than it had with a solid hook-up. She held the contact wire in place until it started heating up too much for her to hold on to. When she let the wire go, the wheel slowed and stopped immediately.

Ledger was smiling, “That just solved several problems I was having. The pumping version just retired before it can get started, though I think it would make a great water pump for wells and mines.” Ledger was sketching and measuring as fast as possible to ensure nothing of the basic design was lost. “I want all of you to work on a power delivery system for this. It should be easy to build, reliable, and easy to fix should it wear out or break.” He paused as several more ideas came to the fore. “It will also need to be waterproof. Can you imagine a motor that can move ships without sails? How about a self-propelled ground cart, no horses needed.” He watched as the wheels turned and burned behind the bright eyes of his fellow enchanters and inventors. “I have several things to attend to; please, if you come up with anything, document it completely.” He stood and removed his shop apron that kept bits and sparks from ruining his street clothing.

As Ledger left the building, he saw it was already late afternoon. He looked down the nearest alley and saw it was still packed with dried mud from the flooding he had caused. The young caster had heard that twenty bodies had been buried in that pile of dirt by the water. He felt remorse over the loss of life he had caused when he restored the power to the world. He looked towards the sea and started walking down the sloping road. He would need to hurry to get back to the Broken Sword. He saw a storm building rapidly off the coast from his current vantage point. The road was on a small hill, allowing him to see the distant coast. He felt a faint pulling in the weave, and then it vanished. Ledger watched the storm dissipate as fast as it had blown up. He reached out, feeling for the source of the pull, but couldn’t find anything, so he started towards his current home at a brisk pace. He was looking forward to a freshly cooked steak and vegetable pie. The chef was quite good at making that treat.

Brena

This particular day had been annoying from the start. The invisible thieves had managed to break into the Royal treasury the night before. Brena had spent most of the day with the new head of the Knight Guards, trying to explain what was going on and how the current threat had originated. No one in the castle was happy but recognized the Thieves Guild was working on eliminating the threat these new invaders represented. She also took time to fully update them and the King on what had been learned about the Ice Spine. She could tell they did not see this as a threat that must be dealt with quickly. ‘So be it,’ she thought as she left the castle. ‘I will meet with the merchants and the other leaders in this city. Maybe they will see this threat for what it is.’ She walked quickly to make it to the Broken Sword. She had a date with her man. They had very little time together with the rebuilding and repairs.

At dinner with Andrew, Brena told him about her day and how the royals had treated her warnings of a new threat from the north. “Andy, they don’t see this as a problem. These lizards have been here for untold ages and not known about. Whenever they arrived, it had to have been before the other races arrived.”

Andrew sat in silence as she spoke. Bloodrend had finally cracked and briefed him on everything he had known of these creatures before he had been imprisoned in the blade. Andrew understood the danger but didn’t see a way to stop them from enslaving humans again. So long as one breeder queen remained, they would remain a threat.

“Brena, first off, we have no idea what the actual numbers of the Ice Spine are. If they have one queen, then the numbers are limited. If the queen brought here has produced more queens, we may be dealing with a population numbering in the millions.” He stayed silent as Brena thought about this new data.

She looked at Bloodrend, “I suppose it was Bloodrend that gave you the information?”

“Yes. The vampire was old before being imprisoned in the blade.” Andrew really didn’t want to have to tell her the entire story he had been given.

“I won’t ask right now, but I will want to know in time. That Sword has a history that scares me. I don’t know why, but I can feel it at times; the need to feed it has.” Brena shivered, then continued eating in silence. She jumped when a planter near them unexpectedly fell over, scattering dirt and plants all over the floor. Brena saw some land in the air like a person’s leg standing too close when it fell. Without a thought, Brena sent daggers to where she thought the invisible listener was right then. Two failed to reach the wall, and a man’s voice started cursing loudly as blood appeared in the air. Andrew was on his feet and charging the floating daggers and flowing blood.

“MASTER!” Bloodrend screamed in his mind, “Don’t do it!”

It was already too late as Brena was on her feet to try and stop Andrew from running into a much larger dagger that appeared under the two throwing daggers. Andrew glimpsed it and began to spin away, but he was too late to avoid contact with the blade. He grunted as he felt the blade cut through his clothes into the skin along his right arm he had thrown up in defense. The slice raked down to the bone, opening the arm from elbow to wrist.

Andrew still managed to reach out and felt the head of the spy. His momentum and mass drove the man into the wall hard enough to stun him and jar the amulet out of his hand. The spy was visible and shaken sufficiently that other guests could grab and hold him. Andrew felt he was bleeding fast and tried to raise his right hand to find out how badly he was hurt. His arm refused to do anything he wanted it to do.

Brena began to scream for help. The serving staff arrived and saw what had happened. The spy was bound, so he couldn’t escape. He was growing pale from the blood loss now. “We need a healer,” cried Brena. She saw the damage and realized Andrew was bleeding out. She heard Bloodrend in her mind, ‘Lay me along the wound. I can slow the bleeding but not stop it.’ She pulled the Sword free and did as it had commanded. The blood began to clot all along the cut. Now, she could see the cut running along Andrew’s arm’s length. She could see several cut arteries and veins in the open wound. His lifeblood was flowing out. Without help, he would be dead in minutes. It started just under the elbow where the blade had gone deep, then pulled out as Andrew spun away, dragging the cut across and down to the wrist.

Gareth pushed his way in and saw what had happened, turned, and ran for the lobby. He needed to get to room 102 for the one item to save the boy’s life. Brena held Andrew, feeling his skin grow clammy and cold. He had started to shiver as he went into shock. Brena was crying, begging him not to die, her hands over the gash. Brena felt something burning in her right arm. Her first thought was the pain and anguish. Then it spread down her arms into her hands. She watched as her hands took on a yellow glow that seemed to flow and crawl around on her hands. It spread out over the wound, causing it to close and heal. The blood that Bloodrend had used to seal the wound was sucked back into the arm, leaving clean skin behind.

Brena started screaming in apparent agony the entire time this was happening. She felt like her arm had been doused in boiling oil and lit on fire. The flowing energy ran up and down her body several times, then spread out, covering Andrew in its glow. When the cut had closed and vanished, leaving only the cut clothing, the energy returned to Brena’s hands and seemed to sink back into her. She collapsed when this happened, laying across Andrew.

Gareth returned after she had been unconscious for about a minute. He looked and didn’t see any blood anywhere, “Will somebody, in the least hysterical manner possible, tell me what happened,” he asked.

One woman spoke in a whisper, “She healed him. She touched him, and she healed him.”

Gareth looked back down, considering what to do, when Andrew spoke, “If somebody would lift her off of me, please.” Several hands lifted Brena off Andrew and gently set her beside him. He looked around at the staring crowd, “I remember being stabbed and sliced, then things got a bit fuzzy; what happened,” he asked.

The woman spoke again, “She touched you and healed you.” Gareth shushed her and motioned for a staff member to escort the woman to the lobby to wait. Once she was gone, Gareth knelt down with a groan and to the sound of creaking joints to join Andrew on the floor.