Chapter 15

Even with as big as the truck was, six people was a bit tight. The back seat wasn't all that big, but I didn't mind riding there. Mom and dad were up front, and the girls were all with me. The roads weren't impassible, but it still took two hours to get to Trail City. Pop shocked the hell out of the salesman at the store, too. They had eight snowmobiles in stock, and he bought them all. We had to look three other places, before he found a trailer big enough to haul all of them.

Ann asked why we needed so many, and he explained "Because, if something was to happen to y'all, I damn sure want to be able to help you out. I can sure as shit get there faster on one of these contraptions than I could on a horse. Besides", he added, "y'all might need a couple of spares."

He wouldn't elaborate on that, but mom cracked up for some unknown reason.

The trip home was even longer. Trailers are kind of tricky on slick roads, and the wind was picking up. By the time we got home, it had started snowing again. Dad just pulled the whole rig into the barn, and we called it a day.

Grandpa was the bearer of good news. There hadn't been any school today. He had already done the chores, too. He had help, though. Frank and Jean had come over to see the rings. I was glad when all the 'oohing and ahhing' was over. I was starved, and Jean had fixed supper. Frank sure wouldn't go hungry. She could cook almost as good as mom could.

They had planned to head home after we ate, but that didn't work out too well. This storm looked even worse than the first one. We were snowed in, again. We spent the evening pretty much like the last one. Bernie and I studied, while Ann and Denise drew.

We checked out their work before we went to bed. I was shocked at the size they had in mind. It made this house look like a cottage. Ann straightened me out on that, pretty quick.

"There are going to be LOTS of kids in that place", she reminded me, "and every one of them will have their own room."

I almost fainted when Bernie chimed in with "We'll probably have to add on later. There are only twelve bedrooms, after all."

She wasn't kidding. The house was 'U shaped', and one side was all bedrooms. The middle contained the huge kitchen, and an even bigger living room. The other side had a large recreation room, a den, laundry, and a room they described as 'a place for aspiring wizards to practice'. There was also a stable, barn, and several large outbuildings. Once I got over the shock, I realized it was perfect.

We started playing with the new toys as soon as we could, in the morning. I think dad and grandpa had the most fun. The rest of us enjoyed the snowmobiles, but I'd rather ride ride Diablo. He was a lot more fun to be around than a machine without a brain. I could see the advantages, though. I wouldn't want to try and ride him in the kind of snow we had on the ground. Not only would it be dangerous for him, it would be pretty uncomfortable.

The trip was postponed until the weekend. Dad said he wanted to rig up a way for us to carry some supplies with us. He said he'd rig up some sledges, and we would be able to carry a light load, at least. I helped him, but there wasn't much to do. They were already in the barn, and he just wanted to wax the runners and check them out. He used them every year, so they were in good shape. Changing them to attach to a snowmobile instead of a horse took the longest.

There wasn't any school again on Wednesday, so the routine was the same. Denise and Ann were just about satisfied with their work, but Bernie and I had hardly begun to scratch the surface. At one point, we unloaded the trunk, just to see how much was in it.

Talk about a surprise! The pile of books we ended up with was twice as large as the trunk! After we got over that shock, we noticed there was more than books in it. The amount of cash in the briefcase was just a drop in the bucket, compared to the load in the bottom of the trunk. I was pretty sure we could pay for building the house without even touching the offshore accounts.

We were learning, I think, but it was hard to tell if we were absorbing the material very well. Since we couldn't practice, we'd have to wait in order to find out. There was one thing I was really curious about. The first book had said there were five elements, Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and Spirit. It explained that, except for very rare occurrences, a wizard would obtain mastery over only one of them. This was described as having 'an affinity for the element'.

Bernie thought she might have the talent of 'Earth', and I believed she was right. It involved 'being attuned to the beasts of the land', and healing. There were other attributes, but these stuck out the most. As for me, I wasn't sure. I knew that the only success I had in healing, was to myself, or through Bernie. The affinity with animals fit, but little else. As far as I knew, I'd never tried anything with the other elements. There were tests that could be taken to determine a talent, but they involved the use of magic.

Before we went to bed that evening, Denise and I did something we had been anticipating with a mixture of excitement and dread. The two 'personal' trunks were moved to the den, for us to open. Everyone else insisted that we should do this alone. Maybe they were right. I hate for people to see me cry. I can't even remember the last time I shed tears, but I sure did as I went through 'my' things.

Mostly, it was letters and pictures. There were also some other items, most of which seemed odd at first glance. One was a necklace with a strange jumble of lines on it. The letter accompanying it called it an 'Amulet', and said that it should be worn at all times. It was supposed to be 'attuned to my life force', whatever that meant, and had various uses for which detail wasn't provided. Denise had a very similar object, so we put them on together.

It felt warm against my chest, and immediately began to glow. Looking at Denise, I saw hers doing the same. By the time we had recovered from the shock, the strange glow was gone. I saw a difference in hers right away. The mess of lines that had initially been on it was now a very detailed etching of a hawk. I pointed this out to her at the same time she pointed at mine. I held it up to get a look, and gasped. Mine was a wolf, and it was beautiful. It seemed very large, judging from the background, and was as white as snow.

Neither of us had a clue what it meant, but we didn't take them off. Next were matching rings, with a pale, colorless stone. They seemed impossibly large in size, until we slipped them on. It was weird when they seemed to shrink to a perfect fit, but even more eerie when the color changed. Mine was a deep black, while Denise's turned sky blue. We pulled large robes out, after that. These were translucent, until we donned them. Again we went through the whole 'color changing thing', until they matched our rings. They also conformed to a perfect fit, just as the rings had.

We were more than a little bewildered, until Denise found a book in her trunk. It seemed to describe the properties of our artifacts, so I dug around until I found mine. It was interesting reading. The engravings on the amulet weren't mentioned, but it seemed as if everything else was. They had some unique properties. According to the book, they would protect us, up to a certain limit, and could be used to store power.

The rings could also store magical power, but could be used to focus it very finely. The robes were just that, robes. All it said, was that they 'defined our station in the hierarchy of magic'. Each of the items was attuned to its user, and could not be utilized by anyone else. We would have looked at the book more, but the pictures and letters beckoned. That was when the tears began to flow. We had never really thought much about our birth parents, but this brought it raging forth. These people had obviously loved us very much, and we couldn't even remember them. In the end, I don't know if we were crying for what we had lost, or for what our birth parents had.

It took us a long time to recover, and it was late. We carefully folded our robes, and placed them in the trunks. I halfway expected them to change color again, but they remained the same. The rings and amulets stayed on, as instructed, and we carried our burdens back to the bedroom.

Meanwhile, in Virginia:

The Wizard Harold had seemed pleased, but suddenly raised from his position over the scrying bowl, and blurted "I've lost them! Damn it all!, I was just getting an idea of what direction they were in. It was so weak that they are either not very powerful, or very far from here. Gah!, no matter. They can't hide from me for long. I WILL find them!"

"AH, wait! I can still detect something. West and north? Yes, I think so. It's much weaker, though. Perhaps a different person? Two in such close proximity is rare. I must get closer, so I can get a stronger reading. St. Louis should do it, I think..."

Our state of mind must have been very evident, because no questions were asked. Instead, we were ensconced in the middle of two very loving individuals, and held until we finally slept.

I didn't get much rest, even though I slept through the night. My dreams were all over the place. Some were very troubling. Those included war, and destruction. Not the war I was used to reading in history class, but one involving magic. I've never considered myself a violent person, but in my dream, I killed scores of people. Interspersed with these, were snippets of my birth parents. Those seemed to ease the pain of the others. Not as much as one other item, though. In all of the dreams, my three ladies were beside me. The only troubling thing about that, were the other faceless individuals with them. I felt like it meant something, but didn't know what.

One look at Denise, as we woke, told me she had also experienced a restless night. Both of us were silent on the matter. I guess she was still trying to digest it, too. Unfortunately, school was back in session. Any discussion on the subject would have to wait.

As soon as we got there, I ran into some disgusted teammates. It seems our new coach had been hired, and they didn't care for the choice. After listening to them describe him, I was inclined to agree. By his reputation, he seemed like a very boring and extremely predictable individual. Since our success this year had been wholly based on being unpredictable, this didn't bode well.

I put all of that aside. Practice was a long way off. Whatever was going to happen, would happen. It didn't make any sense to worry about it now. Bernie's ring was enough of a distraction. People usually didn't get engaged at our age, and it caused quite a stir. Most of the comments were positive, but some weren't We had enough support to kill the negatives pretty fast, though.

The rest of the week at school seemed to take forever, while the nights were too short. We studied as much as we could, but had barely scratched the surface. Finally, the weekend arrived. We hadn't had any more snow, but what had already fallen was still there. The temperature never got above the mid-teens all week.

The snowmobiles were OK, I guess. We hauled them over to Bernie's and rode to the cave from there. Each of us pulled a small sled, with the things we thought we would need. Most of the load on mine was books.

As we entered the cave, we realized that we had brought way too many blankets. The temperature only a few feet from the entrance seemed to be in at least the mid-fifties. Denise and Ann began setting up our camp, while Bernie and I made a different sort of preparation. This was one spell we had studied closely. Wards were the basis of any good shield, according to the text. If done incorrectly, it would make anything else we did useless.