Chapter 5

Jax took her pack off.

She pulled out one of the old socks that still held the original crystals she had harvested. She poured a generous handful into her hand and then pulled the magic from them, so they went dark. Having just used a lot of magic, this wasn’t hard to do, and she felt refreshed. She then roused Traz from his stupor.

“Traz, remove your gloves and hold out your hands. We are going to try and draw off some of the bad magic,” she told him.

The man did as he was told and automatically held out his hands cupped together. His sleeves were still rolled up from when he had laboured to pile the wood under the trees. Jax poured the crystals from her gloved hand into his bare hands.

He grunted, and his hands gripped tightly together as his whole body shuddered. The others looked on in fascination as what seemed like a black oily substance bulged into the surface veins on his face and forearms.

It drained from his face and appeared to run down his arms just under the skin in long black streaks. It seemed to pool in his hands, and then the fuel disappeared into the crystals.

As they watched, Traz’s breathing seemed to become more natural, and he stood straighter. He was still filthy and covered in sores, but something was definitely different about him.

“You may need to do that again, wizard,” Mai said, looking at Traz carefully. “You got most of it, but not all.”

David pulled a 10cm deep and wide stainless-steel-cased and ceramic lined canister from his pack. He unscrewed the wide lid. The lid was also coated with ceramic and had ridges that fitted over the lip of the inner ceramic shell of the canister.

“Get him to put those crystals in here,” he asked.

When David held out the canister, Traz put his hands over it and let the crystals fall in. He seemed relieved to get them away from his body. David seemed equally happy to get the lid back on the canister.

Jax placed a couple more crystals into Traz’s hands, and this time, he smiled as the fuel and fouled magic contaminating his body were drawn off. These crystals were not as dark as the others, but they still looked oily.

They, too, went in to David’s canister, and he put a containment spell on it just to make sure the fuel stayed in the container.

Jax got an odd thought, “I wonder if they put crystals into the fuel tanks to contain the Hyrodenzer.”

David replied, “That isn’t as silly as it sounds. We know the crystals will break down over time if not recharged every so often. That could have caused the fuel to leak out slowly over time if the magic holding it in place dissipated.”

“How about we put some canisters of crystals near the ship as close as we feel safe and come back and look at them tomorrow?” Jax suggested.

Ernie, Bluey and Blair agreed, and they headed back to the ship.

Jax looked at Traz, who now seemed more cognitive.

“Hi Traz, I’m Jax, and this is David. How are you feeling?”

“Better, much better, my mind feels clearer. Hum, why I am standing near the Nix village in my shirt sleeves?”

“You tried to burn down the village,” David replied.

Traz looked horrified, “Why was I doing that?”

“You blamed us for Iqama dying,” Mai told him sternly.

“That man was off his rocker. I tried to tell him to stay away from us. Every time he came to the village, someone else got sick,” Traz complained. He then scratched his head, “I think he put a compulsion spell on me.”

“Yes, and he poisoned you,” Mai stated as she nodded her head.

Traz shook his head, “I’m sorry, Mai. We tried to tell him to stop living in the old ship, but he insisted. I’m sure he got nuttier every year since Tiqua left with the others to form the new village to the west.”

“I was very small when that happened. My mother wanted to leave here, but we kept coming back. He told us that we couldn’t go to Tiqua’s village while we were sick. I don’t know if they had a spell that kept us away or if he had used spells to make us stay here.”

“Possibly both,” Mai stated. “Mother told us that if the people from the west village were sick, they found themselves put out of Tiqua’s village, and that is why they come to yours. If we saw new people, we were to stay away from them.”