Chapter 5

It took a few moments for the king's daughter to convince him we had rescued her. He dismissed the guards, but only after I had been relieved of my sword. The dagger I was allowed to keep.

"You two have my gratitude for rescuing and returning my daughter to me. The best of our wizards has been sent for, but he will not arrive for some little while yet. Tell me, how is it you were able to find her when others couldn't? Also, how did you break the spells in the walls, and use magic to enter the city?" he asked with his arm around his daughter.

I was about to try to answer, when Mathew nudged me to be quiet as he spoke.

"We were most happy to be of assistance to your daughter, and through her to you. As for the protections on your walls against spells allowing persons to enter, it is still in place and has not been tampered with. We utilized an older more powerful magic, that your wall protections do not cover," Matt responded.

"Father! They live in a most wondrous place! The very air inside their dwelling is warmed, and keeps one comfortable..." she went on while her father smiled and listened to her.

She was in a rush to tell of all the wonders she had seen, and she kept stumbling over some of them.

In the meantime the king pulled on a bell rope, and there was a ringing in the distance. A moment later a servant appeared. The king instructed him to send for the queen. Since this was the apartment where the king went to relax between functions during the day, the queen was at the opposite end of the castle.

When she arrived, there was yet another emotional reunion. I could tell both the king and Queen were very fond of their daughter. Hell, they loved her. I sighed to myself. It would have been nice if my parents had treated me like that.

Sometime later I was in my assigned guest quarters, which was a nice two room suite. A receiving room which had the door into the castle hallway and a door leading to a balcony to stand on in good weather and take in air and the view, and a bedroom.

The dressed stone walls were covered with heavy hangings of various materials, I supposed to keep the cold and wind out. I had heard castles had been drafty things. The bed had a canopy on it, with more coverings bunched at the corners, which could be pulled closed to keep out any other drafts. I would say they needed a little help in building and stonework, if it leaked that badly. Two fireplaces, one in each of the rooms, provided heat.

A brazier of some sort was in the bedroom. Oh great, nothing like dying from asphyxiation, just to stay comfortable. I shook my head at that, but it made me wonder just how cold it got, here. I looked again. Oh, the brazier was filled with rocks. Ok, they heated rocks. and put them in this brazier to heat a small area. I could live with that.

About twenty minutes after I had gotten to my rooms, there was a knock. I answered the door. It was Mathew.

"You have some explaining to do, old man," I started angrily.

"Calm down, boy. If you will let me in, I will try to explain everything to you," he said, and limped in.

I noticed his cast was gone. A broken leg did not heal that quickly. While he still had a slight limp, he should not have been able to walk at all. I looked pointedly at his leg. He sat in an over stuffed chair, close to the fireplace, and lay his staff across his knees.

"You deserve an explanation, and it is best I start at the beginning. First, I am much, much older than I appear to be. I won't say how old, but suffice it to say I have a few centuries behind me.

"It was magic that granted me my long life. A very few other people have this gift as well. The magic is sealed in our world, Frank, the world we come from. Those of us left that can or did perform magic, and use the magic field, used up what was available centuries ago.

"Ever wonder about Stonehenge? It was the result of a huge spell to seal the magic from that portion of the earth. The giant stone ring was built on top of a major source of magic. The same is true of some of the pyramids in Egypt. Look at south America. They have discovered pyramids there that predate those in Egypt.

"After all sources of magic were sealed, there remained some small amount of ambient magic left loose. Some of us gathered what we could to ourselves over the years, and with it we did a major spell, using a majority of the remaining magic. It extended our lives, and as a side effect, we heal quicker. We are very hard to kill, as well," Mathew said and paused.

I looked at him and noticed he had a very pensive look on his face. He seemed a bit sad, too.

"What's all this got to do with what you have been doing since we got here?" I asked still angry at his high handedness.

"I'm getting to that. Some of us were changed during the casting of that spell. I grew very large, from my original size. Would you believe I used to be around five foot one, at about eighty-five pounds?" he said with a sad sort of smile.

If that were true, he'd had a hell of a growth spurt.

"You expect me to believe that there used to be magic in the world, and you and a few others are still hanging around, and are users of it? Come on," I said putting as much scorn into my voice as I could.

"Boy, there are stories of magic in almost every culture in the world. How do you think those stories got started? A liar's club? No, they heard stories from the days when magic was a reality. They passed on through the generations, some of what they'd heard.

"Ever hear of Merlin? He was a loud-mouthed braggart. Still, he had a gift that was rare. Unfortunately he was not averse to using it in public, thus all those damned stories of King Arthur and his knights. I could go on. Our group took care of Merlin. He broke a trust with his exhibitionism. We could not allow that to happen, of course," he said with a sigh.

"What happened to him?" I asked curiously.

"We are hard to kill, true, but it is not impossible. Let's just say that he contributed to the food chain some time ago, and leave it at that," he replied with a flat stare.

I blanched as I thought of this gentle giant working to kill someone. Come on, he was like... well, like a giant, loud, Panda bear. Big, but harmless.

"The long and short of it is this. While the spell that sealed magic away was done ages before my birth, it was very strong and powerful. There is no way to remove those spells, unless we can get access to a very large amount of magic, and there is nearly none left in our world.