Chapter 10

“That lazy, rotten, good-for-nothing, lying bastard! I will have his liver for this,” she growled, then buried her face in her hands for a moment. “Look, Hank, I am sorry. I made that. I created the spells, layering them one after another, pouring my very soul into that lens for ten years. Ten years, Hank, every joule of energy I could get went into creating my masterpiece. And you wear it around your neck!”

She paused for a moment, then picked up her glass and sipped.

“It was stolen from me. Disappeared one night when I was on a ship, bringing much needed supplies to Mindanao before it fell. The ship was hit by a Jap U-Boat, torpedoed, and sunk. Seventy-three of us made it to the lifeboats, and thank the Maker, the U-Boat didn’t surface and gun us all down. It was not unheard of for them to do that, they waged total war with no concept of innocent lives.”

“The ship went down, and I thought my lens went with it, but I heard rumors after the war. Rumors that someone had sold it, and then it sold again several more times. The last rumor I heard was a dying woman in the United States, in a place called Jacksonville, had it. Unable to find a buyer, I hired a law firm over there to acquire the lens by any means possible. They told me it could not be found, and they believed it to be a false lead. Soaked me for almost twenty thousand American dollars in the bargain, the bastards.”

“That is an amazing story, Ms. Groton, but...” She cut me off, holding up her hand.

“But how can I prove it? I could show you pictures, but one monocle looks like another in an old photo. Tell me, Hank, what do you see when you look through it? Ley lines, I suppose?”

She was looking at me expectantly, as if hoping for something but not really expecting it to occur.

I had already decided I would give it to her, and to fetch the Mage compass box that once held it as well.

“I see ... beauty! Yes, ley lines, but they are just the most powerful of sources. I see ... I see the life in you,” I said, holding up the lens to my eye. “I see the electricity flowing through the walls of your house, and I see the blood flowing through your veins. I see the sparks of nerve impulses traveling back and forth from your brain to your toes. I see the life force in the mosquitoes that hover outside my shield, and I see the sap moving in the leaves on that plant at your elbow. I see ... everything, Sylvia.”

She looked shocked and pleased. Surprised and excited too!

“You are the only one who has ever seen what I see! No one else has ever been able to see all of it, all of the energy. Can you see these things ... inside, I mean, with your inner eye?”

“Yes, but not as easily and not as bright as I can with your lens. It is truly a marvel, and it is what convinced me that magic was real; that the book I had was not fiction, but real, and that I might be a Mage!”

“You ... you could see the magic, the power, before you emerged? How is that possible?”

I spent the next hour telling her, with a lot of blushing, about the lead up to my emergence and about the ley line and how it breached in the waterfall where I played ... and played. It was funny to see her smile and laugh; it was like it took twenty years off of her.

I did give her the lens and she cried, grateful and happy to have it back again. When I asked her leave to pop home for a moment, then returned with the puzzle box, she got angry for a minute, but then shook her head and smiled again.

“This box ... I know who made it, and now I know who stole my lens in the first place. Marcus Cane, my lover and friend and fellow Mage, was the man who got me involved in the war effort in the first place. He wanted to lease my ship to carry supplies and, of course, I came along with it. We had a wonderful, torrid love affair for two years before that fateful day.”

“I never suspected that he would have taken the lens, he knew how much it meant to me. I suppose,” she said, pausing and looking off into the past, searching her memories, “I suppose that is why we ended after we were rescued and returned home. He said he was off to find another ship, and I never heard from him again. I assumed that our affair was his way of keeping me happy and the lease payments low.”

We ended up having lunch together and she really was a sweetheart. She knew the Mage I was to visit next, Nathan Hughes, and wanted to accompany me on the visit. She contacted him and despite his protests, told him we were coming and to be ready with a cold drink!

We teleported to a small path that seemed to be deep in the wooded slope of a steep hill. The path wasn’t used much, as the undergrowth was encroaching, but Sylvia lifted her monocle, smiling at me as she did so, and looked first one way, then the other, and pointed uphill.

“He’s that way. He has an illusion cast on the trail, making it seem impenetrable ahead, but the magic glow gave him away. He must have purchased it from someone who isn’t as skilled as Helmut. Helmut would never have let his illusions give themselves away like that!” Sylvia set off at a brisk pace, and I watched with fascination as she walked right through a tree.

How cool was this! I walked forward too, half expecting to get a Coyote treatment after the Roadrunner runs through one of his painted tunnels. Instead, I passed right through the tree as well and appeared in a well-kept garden in front of a very neat, open air designed house.

“What the hell do you want, woman? And who is that? Why are you bringing strangers here? I should have dropped a fireball in your lap while I had the chance!”

‘Hank, hold out your hands.’ Sir David’s voice was clear in my mind, and I did as he asked, surprised, but not surprised, if that makes sense, when a bottle of scotch appeared in my outstretched palms.

‘Thank you, sir!’

“Think nothing of it, dear boy!’

“Mr. Hughes, Sir David Drummond sends his regards and this.” I said, stepping forward and holding out the bottle with both hands.

He looked at me suspiciously but stepped forward, his eyes on the bottle. I got a chance to look him over without being rude, and he was an impressive man! Several inches above six feet and weighing in at probably over twice what I weighed, he was big! He had striking tattoos on his face, neck, arms, and his bare chest as well. He looked every bit the proud, fearsome Maori warrior in the images I had seen in the library at school.

“Macallan... 1935, eh? That’s a right nice gift my good friend David sends to me. He must want something dearly.” He said with a scowl, then shrugged. “For scotch this good, I guess I can afford to listen. Come on, you two, sit down already and tell me what the hell you want,” he grumped, holding the bottle close to his chest and walking back up on the porch.

Sylvia winked at me and sauntered after him, taking a chair next to him and leaving the ones across from him open.

“What I want can wait until after the boy is done with his task,” she said softly, but not so softly that I couldn’t hear her. “Remember that summer in 1928? When that madman tried to teach us to surf and we spent a whole week camping on the beach? Damn sand got into everything.”

Nathan looked surprised for a moment, then a slow grin spread across his face as he looked at Sylvia.

“That was a wonderful summer, wasn’t it?” he replied softly, then cut his eyes over to me. As for me, I was pretending not to listen and was looking around as nonchalantly as possible at the house, the woods, the grass, the floor...

“So, boy, what’s your name and what is this lovely single malt going to cost me?” he asked, sounding resigned. When I looked up, there was still a bit of a grin on his face, so he wasn’t as put out as he was trying to portray.

I told him everything. About myself and my affinity for power, about the reservation and the poison that was killing kids and making people sick, and how it could be fixed. I told him about the earth Mage I needed to help re-route the river so I could hook the filtering spell to the existing ley line.

“And you think I can help? Yes, Michael and I were friends when we were younger, but I was friends with a lot of people.” He said, shaking his head.

“Yes, but Michael was always a prickly sort. He only ever had two friends, Nathan. You and Dirk.” Sylvia said, laying her hand on his forearm.

“Dirk died on Rabaul, and I ... I guess I hid from the world, eh? Michael lost both friends.” Nathan said, shaking his head again, but this time at his own thoughts.

“We let so many of our friendships just ... fade away, after the war. You have to understand, Hank, it was a horrible time. So many good men and women dead, just blotted away like they never existed. They wouldn’t let me enlist, damn them, so I went in anyway. I fought and killed until I couldn’t kill anymore and then I came home. I hid here, pretending to be mad at the world, but really just sick at heart.”

“Well, I haven’t forgotten you, Nathan, and I doubt Michael has either. If you and I can rekindle old friendships, then why not him? Help us, Nathan. Save lives instead of taking them. That’s what we all wanted back then, to make a difference, no?”

He nodded and then stood abruptly, stomping into the house and coming back out with four tumblers. “Come on then, no sense in hanging about.”

We landed on a small dirt track in the middle of nowhere. I mean, nowhere! There wasn’t a vehicle, a building, even a bird or insect to be found! It was cold too, not freezing, but low sixties anyway, and I was dressed for summer in New Mexico! It had been in the seventies at Nathan’s place, and even a bit higher at Sylvia’s, but here was it windy and just nasty.

Before it could be a problem. I extended my shield to cover all three of us and excluded the wind. While it didn’t actually warm things up, without the wind sucking the heat away it did give that impression. Nathan surprised me when he gave off a bit of heat, actually warming up the air inside the shield.

Smiling at me, he seemed to be saying that he could do tricks too! I gave him a smile and a thumbs up.

Closing my eyes, I let my sense search out any power in the area and found a sizeable ley line running just off to our left. It led to and through a huge jumble of various types of power just ahead of us over a small ridge.

The ridge was suspiciously smooth and even, and I had no problem believing that the Earth Mage had raised it to hide his place from passersby!

We were met at the front gate by a tall, rangy man with weather beaten skin holding a shotgun, a growling dog at his feet.

“What the hell do you lot want. Trespassing, you are! Get lost!” the man growled, shaking his shotgun in our general direction.

“Not bloody likely, you old fool. I have been lost for too many years already, and I am staying found.” Nathan growled stepping forward. “Put down the gun, Michael. We’ve all seen too damn many of those things, enough for a lifetime, even for a Mage.”

“Nathan? What the hell do you want? Finally come to pay me back for getting Dirk killed? Well, you might as well get it over with, I been waiting for this day for too long. I would’ve saved you the trouble, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” The man said sadly, leaning the shotgun up against the fence.

“No, Michael, I’ve come to apologize. If anyone is at fault, the blame lies squarely on my head. I was the one who filled his head with tales of glory, of defeating the savage slant-eyed bastards! Neither one of you would have signed up if not for me, and I came back with nary a damn scratch.”

“Well, if you two idiots want to stand around and blame each other, that’s fine, but Hank and I are cold and, frankly, I was hoping for a touch of that Macallan you are waving around like it’s a pop bottle.” Sylvia said acerbically, shaking her head.

The two men shared a look that seemed to say, “Women!” and together, as if it were planned, they shrugged. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud!

“Well, come in then, damn it. Bess, heel.” Michael Fitzhugh turned on his heel, his dog following loyally but casting glances backwards at us. Nathan smiled and opened the gate with a wave, beckoning us to follow.

An hour later, it was painfully obvious to me that none of them were going to be able to walk straight, much less make any real decisions, until at least the next day. Sylvia was the soberest of the three, and she was being very affectionate with the other two. Not that any of them were going to be able to get into much tonight, mind you!

Before things got completely out of hand, they agreed to contact me the next day, when they were sober again, and we could talk about why I was there in the first place. With that, I bid them good night and ported back to Santa Fe, exhausted but pleased with my progress.

Thankfully the Chief had dinner ready for us, since the three adults I had left were drinking theirs. I told him about the Mages and about what had happened. He seemed sad, but understanding, saying only that the war had been hard on everyone on both sides.

After dinner I ported home using my watch so I could come back again the following day. Once there, I had to tell it all over again, adding in the bits that prefaced my trip to Australia! It was past midnight when I finally crawled into bed, both Bernie and Maggie bookending me and keeping me warm.

The next three days saw me bouncing back and forth between Santa Fe, One Tree, and home. Michael Fitzhugh agreed to come and see the Chief and to scope out the problem. He wanted to see me in action as well, see if I could deliver what I promised.

When everyone agreed to their parts, it took another two days to get people together for the actual spell casting! The two who had to be there for the filter spell, Chief Hotawa as the anchor, Michael Fitzhugh as the Earth Mage, and me supplying the power. Sylvia even got involved, able to watch the flow of energy and direct me since I would have my metaphoric hands full actually shifting and supplying power from my mega jewels. (Punny, right?)

It was, without a doubt, the most taxing spell I had tried yet. I was supplying power to Michael so that he could create a new riverbed almost five hundred feet underground and through solid bedrock. At the same time, I was trying to divert the minor ley line so that it ran through the new river bed and hook the power of the ley line to the spell that I was powering, but not casting, to create the filter.

It was like trying to pat my head, rub my belly, and do a deadlift all at the same time while having my hands handcuffed behind me. Okay, so that analogy sucked, but it really did feel kind of like that!

It took three hours to move the riverbed, creating a half-mile diversion and back again to the original bed so it could continue to service the reservation and points south.

Powering the filter spell was much faster, but it had to be done in stages as the other parts of the puzzle were fitted together. That meant I had to hold that initial kickoff level of power steady throughout!

The ley line was actually the easiest. Once I got it shifted a bit, it seemed to recognize that the underground river was a much easier path than the quartz seam it had been using and leaped to its new home! I just had Michael seal off any small gaps where the two paths were closest so as to discourage a move back again.

When we were done, we were all exhausted. I had used over a thousand joules of energy during a single spell, and if that was not some sort of record, it damn well should be! At least when I told the others how much I had poured out, they seemed impressed.

Not wanting to mess with the small ley line and the trickle of power it represented, now that it was the power for the filter, I was going to wait to get home to refill my stones. I had about three hundred joules left in one of the twenty-five carat stones and my personal collection as well, so it was not like I was powerless!

We all gathered together for a big dinner before we split up to go to our various homes again. I made sure to thank each and every one of the folks that had helped and let them know how glad I was to meet each of them too.

Sylvia, before she left, handed me a small box. “Hank, this is something I was puttering with over the last couple of years. It is a refinement on my original lens, not as wide-spectrum and not as powerful, but it is adjustable, so that is pretty handy at times. Now that you have returned my masterpiece, I can add the new refinements to it as well, and I won’t really need this one. I thought you should have it for bringing mine back,” she said, kissing me on the cheek and teleporting out before I could even thank her.

It was a monocular, kind of like golfers use, and it had a rubber eyepiece as well as a focus wheel. Only, unlike a regular monocular, this focus wheel cycled through various types of energy, bringing first one, then another into focus! I could choose to see what type of power I wanted, whenever I wanted. This was seriously cool magic!

I got a small gift from the chief too, a bracelet made of silver with turquoise inlays in the shapes of familiar looking sigils.

“Hank, until you learn to transport, you are kind of dependent on others, and I think this will help. It will allow you to choose up to ten destinations and set them so you can go there at will. You will have to actually go to the spot first, then activate one of the links to lock the spell down, but that is a small price to pay. Normally, I wouldn’t do this, most people wouldn’t have the power to spare and could get in trouble, but you, well, you don’t have that problem!”

The end of June and most of July were idyllic for a teen boy. My plans to visit Scotland and England were scotched when Sir David was called away to deal with another outbreak of mad cow disease. This time there were signs it was trying to jump species and a couple of pigs were acting suspiciously. Sir David was sure it was a hedge-witch hex or something similar, but he had to check.

Instead we found things to do at home, or near home. We weren’t near the coast, and the closest lake was more than an hour away. Then there was the Savannah River but that was pretty polluted and there was a lot of traffic. Still, my little swimming hole and waterfall were right around the corner. I spent my days there with four beautiful young women who adored me, and life just really couldn’t get much better than that.

Oh, we did other things. Movie marathons, late-night drives, dates with each of them separately and in smaller groups, but nothing beat a hot day, and hotter bikinis at the waterfall.

The cherry on top of the ice cream for me was a surprise that Dad had been working on. It seems that the land the waterfall was on belonged to the county, and with the right paperwork and a signoff from the environmentalists that there were no endangered species around, it could be had for a price.

For the princely sum of one hundred eleven thousand, six hundred dollars, the five acres around the waterfall, excluding the private property already owned out by the road, of course, was mine! MINE, MINE, MINE!

I felt like a five-year-old at Christmas, dancing around and shouting as Mom and Dad laughed at me, but this was major! Sure, from a magic standpoint, I kinda owned the county anyway, but this was legal all across the board. Even if, someday, some other Mage inherited Richmond County, Georgia, this land would still be mine.

The first thing I did was plant the seeds that Juna had given me, creating a safe zone around the waterfall itself. All I had to do was introduce a person once and they would be able to walk through the brambles of needle-sharp spikes without a scratch. Each of my girls and my parents, of course, were all introduced!

I had always been worried about people befouling the waterfall and pool, even before magic came into my life. Now it was secure from all but the most determined, and anyone that determined would set off alarms that should give me time to react.

The end of July came way too fast for me, though I am sure the month crept by for Pat. I knew how difficult this operation would be for everyone involved, and as much as I wanted this for him, I was not looking forward to it at all! I felt enormous pressure and that wasn’t something I was used to ... Adulting is harder than I expected.

The day arrived, and I transported to Dr. Atkinson’s small office at the hospital. Pat had been there since the previous night, and I had ‘spoken’ to him the night before. He had been in good spirits and had high hopes about the operation.

“Morning, Hank! Pat is being prepped right now. The same team we used before will be assisting on this one too, as they are all loyal to me. Victoria will be scrubbing in as well, not so much because she can really help, but because she would be a total wreck if we excluded her.” Dr. Atkinson said with a grin.

“Sometimes the best treatment is not always targeted on the patient, Hank. Their support system can make or break a recovery, so if you have a chance to bolster them too, take it! You ready to do this? We need to get you scrubbed in too.”

“Yeah, I am ready Doc. Nervous, but ready. I have enough power to just clone him if needed, so no worries there.” I joked, trying to loosen up a bit.

Dr. Atkinson froze for a moment, his eyes unfocused, and when he turned to me, I could tell something had caught his attention.

“Remind me later to talk to you about that, Hank. I wonder if we could replace an organ by duplicating one that is damaged? Could we create exact replacements using donor organs and bypass the worries about rejection? That is a very exciting thought!” He said happily, gesturing for me to follow him.

Me and my big mouth! I didn’t want to be a doctor. This stuff freaked me out enough when I was just watching!

Once the operation started, it was a bunch of hurry up and wait for me, at least at first. The doctor worked slowly, but confidently, and exposed the area that had been injured. Next, he had to verify what he had seen in scans and X-Rays, so he knew the best way to proceed. Planning is one thing, he had said more than once, but reality is not always as neat.

Once he was set and sure of his next steps, he had to expose the scarred areas and clean away the old scar material to give us the best chance of having the ends reattach. This is where I came in, and he had thoughtfully provided me with a comfortable stool I could use while we worked.