Akatika's Legacy Page 15

  As gently as he could manage, he reached out and shook her. This time she swatted a hand at him. He judged she was still asleep from the lack of conviction in the swat and the heavy breathing.

  He crawled fully through the window and shook more vigorously this time and called out; “Gabby.”

  Gabby sprang upright instantly, looking around the room to see who had woken her. She scanned past Lafe and swung her head back at him. It was a look of pure shock and disbelief. He tried to stay still to give her time to wake up fully.

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she sat staring at him. She lifted her hand toward him as if to touch him, then stopped. The tears fell from her eyes and she began to whimper. She grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it and began to rock back and forth, a muffled wail coming from beneath the pillow.

  Lafe moved to beside her and sat on the edge of the bed unsure of why she was crying so hard. He placed his hand on her back and gently rubbed her back. She stopped moving then, the crying vanishing instantly. She was frozen in place, his hand resting on her back.

  “Lafe?” She asked through the pillow.

  “Yes.” He whispered back.

  “How are you here? You’re dead. We interred you several turnings back. Are you some sort of ghost?” Gabby questioned.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on. One moment I was dying the next I woke up in a box, it felt like days had gone by. I thought I was in Belthir, everything was dark, and I was in a box. I couldn’t move. Then I got out and I thought I was blind.” Lafe explained.

  “You weren’t dead? But I saw your throat, it looked like something took a big bite out of your neck. I saw them bless you and put you in the coffin.” Gabby was clearly confused; her eyebrows were drawn down and she her lips were scrunched up in frustration.

  “Something hit me from behind and I had pain in my neck and blood everywhere. I don’t know much more than that. If I was dead, I’ve been brought back somehow.” Lafe offered.

  “All that matters is that you’re back. We can…” Gabby started but was cut off.

  “I have to leave Gabby. I don’t know why, but I’m being pulled over there somewhere.” Lafe said pointing out her window.

  “WHY!? You just came back now your leaving again.” Gabby exclaimed as the panic and anxiety from losing him started to come back again.

  “I can’t explain it. Something is calling me, and I have to go. The longer I resist the angrier it feels. I needed to see you. It doesn’t feel far away, maybe I can come back once I see what it is.” Lafe said.

  Lafe pressed his lips to Gabby’s before she could say anything else and started out the window. He knew that he was breaking her heart for what looked like the second time, and it crushed him. He had to go to where he was being directed. He turned and looked at her one last time before he departed.

  “I love you, Gabriella.”

  Chapter 16

  Gabby woke up the next morning with renewed hope. It had been like a dream at first but when his hand rested on her she knew he was here. She didn’t know how he was back, only that he was, and it gave her strength.

  He had left her again, but he was still alive. Gabby could find him, finding someone is not so hard, she thought. She splashed her face with water from the basin and pulled on her adventurer’s pants. She was going to find Ivy.

  She grabbed an overshirt on her way out of her room and slid it on as she descended the stairs. She had been so focused on getting out to tell Ivy what had happened the shirt had been an afterthought. She could only imagine the scandal had she went out only wearing the sleeveless top garment. Her mother would defiantly skin her alive, she thought.

  It was early in the morning and the street was lined mostly with people getting on there a way to their jobs. The fog from the night before was gone and the air was filled with the smell of fresh bread being baked. The smell made her stomach growl. Maybe she should have grabbed a biscuit or an apple before she left, after all, adventures were always prepared.

  She dodged textile laden carts and the ever-growing crowds of people starting their day. A few times she almost slipped and fell as she raced down the street. She was determined to get to Ivy before Ivy made it to the apothecary and that made her somewhat careless.

  Gabby spotted Ivy as she turned down her street. She yelled for Ivy, just as her foot landed in a fresh pile of manure. She lost all traction and fell, sliding forward and landing on her back with a loud grunt.

  “Iv-uuuuh!”

  People going about their business paused and looked at the girl laying in manure. As soon as it was apparent that she was uninjured the group began to laugh. This was not supposed to happen. Gabby thought she should have cat-like reflexes by now. Instead, she had the grace of a long-eared puppy that can’t help but step on her own ears as she ran.

  Ivy turned around to see what the commotion was about. she tried not to laugh seeing her friend sitting in what could be the largest pile of manure she had ever seen, but the look on Gabby’s face was too much. It looked like embarrassment and annoyance were fighting for control over her face. Her eyes were wide with her eyebrows somehow pulled down, cheeks bright red and lips pulled into a deep frown.

  Gabby stood up and tried to compose herself as best she could. This proved to be a hard task as manure still clung to her backside. Walking at a confident pace she began to make her way to a still chuckling Ivy. As she reached Ivy, she cleared her throat and started wiping her hands on Ivy’s skirt.

  “Did that make you feel better?” Ivy said, looking as annoyed as Gabby.

  “A little, but now you have an excuse to take me in your house so we can talk.” Gabby said.

  “About what?” Ivy asked as they walked back into Ivy’s house.

  “I’ll tell you when we are in somewhere private.” Gabby responded.

  They walked up the carpeted stairs to an elaborately decorated hallway. The wall was painted cream with straw thin sky-blue lines waving gently back and forth as they rose up the wall. The doors for each room were all the same light red oak color. Ivy’s room was at the end of the hall, her parents’ room and a guest room both abutting it.

  Ivy’s room adorned the same way the hall was. Walls painted and paintings hung throughout the room. In the middle of the room was Ivy’s down bed. Across from the bed were the wardrobe and mirror. The room was the nicest that she had ever seen, though not nearly as full as her own.

  Everything in the room was the highest quality but lacked any of the knick-knacks Gabby had in her room. Ivy’s father would not buy her anything other than what was needful for her to survive. Ivy had to buy anything more than that for herself with what she earned from her apprenticeship.

  Gabby went to the wardrobe and proceeded to look for a skirt that would fit her. What Ivy lacked in decorations and trinkets around the room she made up for in clothes. The wardrobe was full of skirts and dresses of all the colors of the rainbow. She settled on the plainest she could find and pulled it from of the others.

  “Lafe’s not dead.” Gabby said as she started changing her clothes.

  “Gabby, we were both at his last feast.” Ivy started.

  “I know how it sounds but I’m not going mad. He was in my room last night.” Gabby explained.

  “You saw him before they interred him, Gabby. How could he have visited you?” Ivy asked.

  “I don’t know, but it was him. Come with me and I’ll prove it. We can go check.” Gabby responded.

  “Alright, I’ll go with you, but it will have to be after I’m done at Gertrude’s.” Ivy conceded.

  They finished dressing and started on their way to the apothecary. Gabby keeping a keen eye out for more manure. She was not eager to repeat the same mistake. They continued to walk and make plans to go to the mausoleum after Ivy was done at the apothecary. Gabby planned on going to her father’s shop and seeing if she could help out.

  Gabby knew if she didn’t keep herself busy, she would end up getting herself in t
rouble. She had too much nervous energy right now. The emotions of Lafe being back and him leaving again warred within her. Hope was winning currently but there were moments when despair seemed to have the upper hand.

  The rest of the day seemed to drag on. Gabby’s father hadn’t had much of anything for her to do. So, she went to the house that Lafe had built. It was completed now and ready for her to move into should she ever want to. Legally she was the owner of the estate, Lafe being dead.

  She had made it from her father’s shop to her house in a little under an hour. She had only been once before when Lafe first purchased the land. He wanted to show her where they were going to live. It would have been a perfect place to begin a life with him, she thought as she walked into the house.

  The house was beautiful, the floor was some type of spotted hardwood that continued up the wall about a third of the way. A thin horizontal plank of wood ran along the edge of it. The upper part of the wall was bare wood panels of the same light color as the horizontal piece. If Lafe were here, he would know exactly what kinds of wood they were, Gabby thought.

  The front room was large enough for a good size kitchen table and furniture for a sitting room at the other end. There were two windows on two of the walls, letting plenty of light in. One wall had a door in it, a storage room Gabby guessed as she opened it revealing a closet. Around the corner from the wall with the door was a stairway leading up to the second level. That would be where the bedrooms were, she guessed. The other had an archway and a grand fireplace, that looked as if it could heat the whole of the house.

  Gabby left the main room through an archway that led into the kitchen. Windows let in abundant light here as well. The floor was bare stone along with one of the walls. She assumed this was for where the stove would be placed. The center of the kitchen had a countertop with shelving under it. All made of some sort of light-colored hardwood, oak she reasoned. There was a door leading outside and another that faced the interior. She opened the inside door and found stairs leading down to a small stone-floored cellar.

  Gabby went back to the main room and ascended the stairway. The stairs to the upper floor landed into a hall that had three rooms, two larger rooms and one smaller. The floors were more of the dark spotted wood. The walls didn’t have any of it. Either it was too expensive to do the walls on the upper floor with it or they ran out, Gabby supposed. The end of the hall had a ladder built into the wall that led up to a trap door. It most likely a way to the roof, seeing that the ceilings were flat. It was a pretty common practice in the area to have a flat roof, they had short walls around, and you could store stuff on top and spend the summer nights on top cooling off.

  Gabby climbed up the ladder to take a look up top. She had been right; indeed, it was a hatch to the rooftop. The view from the roof gave her an excellent look over the property. Lafe had chosen a beautiful place for a home.

  Gabby had never purchased a house before or ever talked to anyone about purchasing one, but she knew this was a very expensive one. Lafe had told her the wood from that strange tree was worth a fortune, but she never realized how much of a fortune he meant. This house wasn’t as large as Ivy’s parent’s house, but it was well made.

  She noticed the small outbuilding next to the house. It had been hidden from her view from the road. After a few minutes, she had made her way down and out of the house to the small building. She walked to the double doors and tried to open them. They wouldn’t budge, must be barred from the inside she thought. She walked around to the other side and found another set of doors, also barred from the inside. The one remaining door was also locked but the key to the house also fit that look. Curious, she opened the door and walked inside.

  “Bless you Lafe!” Gabby exclaimed as she saw what was left in the tiny storehouse.

  Lafe had gathered all of the provisions that they had discussed all those turnings ago. They had everything needed to go on an adventure. Or, maybe they had everything they needed to go and find a missing member of their adventure party, Gabby thought.

  Once she convinced Ivy that Lafe wasn’t dead, they could get Tony and go find him. Once they found him, they could stop off at the monastery and get the treasure. Gabby stepped out of the building and locked the door. Energized once again by the afternoon’s revelations she made sure the doors to the house were locked and raced back to town to meet up with Ivy.

  She only had to wait a few minutes for Ivy when she arrived at the apothecary. Her journey out to her house and back had taken a good portion of the morning and afternoon. Once Ivy was finished, they started walking to the mausoleum.

  “I know it’s been hard for you Gabby, but people don’t just come back to life.” Ivy said.

  “I know that Ivy. But I saw him; Lafe came and visited me. You’ll see.” Gabby proclaimed.

  “I suppose we will.” Ivy conceded.

  “Yes, we will. And once you see that I’m right we can go find him. I went down to the house, Lafe collected everything that we need to go and get the treasure. We can use it to find him.” Gabby stated.

  Ivy didn’t have a response, so they walked the rest of the way to the mausoleum in silence. Once there they noticed that the door to it was wide open. The door being open was unusual. It was left shut so that wildlife didn’t come in and desecrate the bodies while searching for food.

  “Hello?” Gabby shouted as they walked through the door.

  No reply came, so they ventured a little farther in and repeated. Again, no answer came. No candles or lamps lit that either could see, either a careless worker left the door ajar or they were deep in the catacombs.

  Ivy produced a small candle that was nearly at the end of its life. Shadows danced around the chamber where they prepared and displayed the bodies. It gave a distinctly eerie feel to the room. A few minutes later they found a cloth in the middle of the hall next to an open door.

  “This is where Lafe was put.” Gabby explained Entering the room.

  Ivy gasped as she entered the room. Parts of a coffin lay all over the floor. It appeared that Gabby was right, or someone went to a lot of trouble to steal his body. That was an executable crime, which made it as unlikely that someone would do that as it was Lafe coming back to life.

  “See!” Gabby shouted; “I was right. I’m not mad.”

  Gabby was visibly relieved. She had known she seemed mad and that there was a chance that she had gone over the edge. She knew she was right though, and it felt extraordinary to have evidence that she wasn’t going mad. Ivy looked relieved as well. Perhaps the idea that her best friend was mad wasn’t the kind of thing she enjoyed.

  “We have to go and talk with the mage.” Gabby said. “We don’t need him to track the wolves, just Lafe.”

  “Do you think we should tell people about this?” Ivy asked. “The dead coming back to life…”

  “We can trust Siliras, can’t we?” Gabby asked.

  “We don’t really know him. Maybe he will think it is some sort of dark magic and tell the guard. Or worse Lord Clint.” Ivy replied.

  “But he can help us find Lafe. People will think he is as mad as you thought I was when I told you Lafe was back.” Gabby offered.

  “What if he has already found the wolves Gabby? We’ll have to pay him again, do you have that much coin? That was a lot of coin.” Ivy stated.

  “Yes, and I’d be happy to pay it to find Lafe. Let’s get all of this put back on the shelf so no one gets suspicious if they look in here.” Gabby replied.

  “Who’s going to look in here?” Ivy asked as she began helping put the debris on the self.

  “I don’t know. Let’s just get all the smaller boards in the back and put the side of the coffin in front so it looks undisturbed.” Gabby instructed.

  They did the best they could at making the coffin look like a coffin again, but without tools and know-how, there was only so much they could do. With any luck, no one would enter this room for any reason and find the busted-up coffin, Gabby hoped.
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br />   They closed the door and left the mausoleum. Now it was time to visit the mage and see if he could help them find Lafe. They hurried on their way to the Red Wave Inn to ask about a spell.

  Chapter 17

  Siliras had been going over the implications of the previous day. He had gone in search for some wolves and had found something else. Perhaps something that could aid him in his search for immortality.

  The university had provided him with few leads on his endeavor. Studies into immortality were generally looked at with a certain degree of disdain in the arcane community. Few mages had ever made any real progress on the subject unless you considered necromantic arts a path to immortality. The issue was few did; which made sense to Siliras because it was the art of reanimating the dead. It was not true immortality.

  There were a few that disputed the fact that existing in physical form was living, but they were shunned by most of the arcane community. That was primarily due to the extremism those who practiced necromancy had.