Grishel's Feather
By
Guy Antibes
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Map of Corand & Passoran
Wizard’s helper Character List
Excerpt of the fourth book in the Wizard’s helper series – Battlebone
Copyright Page
Author’s Note
A Bit About Guy
Books by Guy Antibes
Copyright ©2019 Guy Antibes. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the permission of the author.
~
This is a work of fiction. There are no real locations used in the book; the people, settings, and specific places are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblances to actual persons, locations, or places are purely coincidental.
Published by CasiePress LLC in Salt Lake City, UT, July 2019.
www.casiepress.com
Cover Design: www.ebooklaunch.com
Book Design: Kenneth Cassell
Editing: Amy Hoffman
~
AUTHOR’S NOTE
~
I sometimes start a book with the title. Grishel’s Feather is one of those books. I didn’t have any notion about how the plot was to unfold until I came up with the title. I enjoyed writing about Jack, Penny, and Helen, who are the main characters in this episode. The overall storyline of the series churns a bit in this volume. I hope you like the churning.
— Guy Antibes
Grishel’s Feather Map
Chapter One
~
J ack Winder sat on a low rock wall, with a wooden rod as long as his hand, an object of power that he had created. He gazed across the street, waiting for one of Fasher Tempest’s patients to arrive home. He brushed off the white tabard that Fasher made him wear when on errands in Raker Falls and began to whistle.
“Do you expect a dog to respond to that mindless, tuneless sound?” a female voice said from behind.
Jack sighed. Who let Penny Ephram out of Fasher’s office? She was the bane of his existence, but he smiled nevertheless. “It looks like it worked,” he said with a smile.
He turned to see Penny sticking out her tongue at him. She quickly stopped and turned red.
“Do eighteen-year-old girls stick out their tongues? I thought that was more like something your ten-year-old sister might do,” Jack said.
“Fasher met the patient,” she said, pointing to the cottage where Jack’s errand had taken him, “and already gave him an object.”
“You volunteered to fetch me?”
“Ordered. Time to return, he has something to say to both of us,” Penny said.
Jack rose and removed the tabard. His errand was over, and he didn’t like wearing the thing any longer than necessary. It was a punishment anyway.
“Fasher will get mad,” Penny said.
“Penny is already mad,” Jack said.
That kept her quiet. He slipped the tabard back over his head when they came within sight of Fasher’s house, which served as the wizard’s office where they both worked.
“Lose your courage?” Penny said. She looked at him derisively.
“No. I just don’t want anything to detract from whatever Fasher has to tell us.”
She lifted her chin up in the air and walked ahead of him, presumably to tattle. Jack didn’t care. The girl was Fasher’s real apprentice, and she was still in the early stages of learning how to apply wizardry to healing.
Jack wasn’t in line to follow her. Fasher had told him he was headed down a different path, but Jack didn’t know what that was, other than being the wizard’s errand boy on two long, dangerous adventures, so far. He stepped up to the front door and entered the office part of Fasher’s house.
“In here,” Fasher said. “Join us for a little celebration.”
“What is there to celebrate?” Jack asked in an offhanded kind of way.
Fasher stood with an arm around Corina Bell, the old flame that Jack had brought back with him from his errand to Tesoria. Both of the older people were smiling.
“We were married this morning in a very private wedding ceremony at the temple,” the wizard said with a grin. It was a bit silly for Fasher to grin like that, but Corina’s smile wasn’t silly at all. “Corina wants to spend some time at the seashore, so we will be gone for a few weeks.”
Penny groaned. “You aren’t leaving me alone with him, are you?”
“Is there something wrong with that?” Fasher said. “You will be working with Amelia, Raker Falls’ best healer, while Jack will be doing some research for me.”
“No errands?” Jack asked.
Fasher smiled the sly way he normally did and shook his head. “None for the foreseeable future. If you find yourself at loose ends, help your father in his shop or something, but I won’t be pleased if you end up in jail.”
“Not I,” Jack said, looking at Penny. “I just hope your apprentice can stay out of trouble.”
Penny frowned and folded her arms.
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow. I will talk to you in the morning before I leave.” Fasher looked at Penny. “You may have the rest of the day off. I told Amelia that she could find you at your parents’ house.”
She looked rather stricken, Jack thought, as Penny left the office.
“Congratulations to both of you,” Jack said, grinning. He stepped forward and gave Corina a gentle hug and shook Fasher’s hand. “I’m glad to have been some small help to reuniting you after all this time.”
“Instrumental would be the term I would use,” Corina said, taking his hand. “I have never been happier. I take that back; when I first met Fasher, I was just as happy.” She winked at Jack.
Fasher cleared his throat. “We have things to do. Both of you may leave.”
On the way to his home, Jack thought that with Fasher gone, the old Jack would have been turning cartwheels on the street to his parents’ house, but not now. Jack wondered what kind of wizardly research fit into Fasher’s plan for him while his mentor enjoyed his honeymoon. He sat at the kitchen table, watching his mother do some early preparations for their dinner and told her Fasher would be gone.
“He is letting you and that Ephram girl spend all that time alone in his house?”
Jack laughed. “Nothing would ever happen between us. She has never forgiven me for killing her.”
“But you and Fasher brought her back to life!”
“Maybe that is what she holds against me. Even if I saved her life again, I doubt if it would change anything, not that I’d
want such a thing to happen.”
~
When Jack responded to the wizard’s call, Fasher Tempest couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. Jack wiped the vestiges of ink off his hands, slipped through Penny’s area, earning the standard scowl, and entered his mentor’s office.
“Sit,” Fasher said. He examined a hand-written document in front of him before looking up. “I have an agreement that I’d like you to sign before I go.”
“Agreement?” Jack said. “Aren’t I your helper anymore?”
Fasher’s grin turned lopsided. “Oh, you are indeed. I don’t want you using any of your god-given objects while I am gone, and I don’t trust a verbal oath.”
Jack leaned over to look at the list on the document. “The Serpent’s Orb, Takia’s Cup, and Eldora’s box? Do I have to leave the wizardry manual behind, too?”
Fasher shook his head. “These objects are more powerful than you know, and using them to experiment with what is in the manual may lead to more difficulties.”
Jack didn’t agree with that. He knew how potent each object was since he had used them and Fasher hadn’t, except for the orb. He could make weaker versions of the orb and the cup anyway, so it didn’t really matter, as long as he was stuck in Raker Falls with Penny.
“Are you going to take them away from me?” Jack asked the key question in his mind.
“No. You earned possession of the orb, but you understand I may demand it back at any time. The cup and the box were put in your care by the gods.”
“Not Takia’s Cup,” Jack said.
Fasher shrugged. “As you wish to see it. Don’t use them. You can make your own objects based on them all anyway.”
Jack groaned inside. He hadn’t told Fasher he could do that (except he hadn’t tried to duplicate the liquid fire that spouted out of the Serpent’s Orb). He suspected Fasher had found out about his experimentation.
“I’ll sign it.” He sighed as he held out his hand for the paper and then for a pen that Fasher dipped in ink for him. Another sigh came when he signed it and handed the paper over to the wizard.
Fasher examined the signature and squinted at him. “You aren’t going to renege on this, are you? The penalties will be severe if you do.”
Jack frowned. “That agreement didn’t mention penalties.”
Fasher pursed his lips. “Don’t try to mess with me, Jack Winder.”
The glower erased a faint smile. Fasher scared him when he became serious like that. It nearly sent shivers down his spine. “Have I ever fooled you?”
The smile returned to Fasher’s lips. “No, but you have employed silence as a ploy to get back at me.”
“I am an immature teenager, after all.”
“You don’t have long to use that as an excuse, boy,” Fasher said. “If you need me…”
“I have one question that I have asked before, but it has been bouncing around in my head,” Jack said. “What was the difference between the spell in the warded box that saved Jorey Balcon from the Black Fingers and the spell that Eldora placed in the fishbone that rid Gameton of them?”
“Intensity, for one,” Fasher said. “You powered my warded box spell, but in the case of Eldora’s Bone, you were the channel from the bone to the goddess’s reservoir of power in the sanctuary.”
“You mean the bone wouldn’t have worked had I just tossed it into the sanctuary?”
Fasher narrowed his eyes as he looked at Jack appraisingly. It was too penetrating a gaze for Jack’s comfort. “That was why a helper had to do it. You acted as a catalyst. That is an alchemical term that we haven’t discussed and might never do so.”
“Like the magical spark that can light a candle?”
“Close enough for today,” Fasher said, but Jack could tell it wasn’t close at all.
“I have a lot to learn, don’t I? Can I read my magician’s manual?”
“To your heart’s content,” Fasher said. “The same warnings still apply. Just because you haven’t killed yourself so far, doesn’t mean you won’t in the future.”
Jack snorted. “I know that much. If the fate of Tesoria wasn’t in the balance, I shouldn’t have followed Eldora’s commands.”
Fasher shook his head. “There may come a time in your life when following the advice of a god will lead to disaster. You may think gods are infallible, but their motives are not the same as men. One god can lead you to victory, and another can lead you to disaster.” Fasher got up from his chair and stretched. “You are dismissed until I return. Send Penny in before you leave. You have your key if you want to study here. I don’t think Penny will spend a moment more than necessary in the office with you here.”
~
Jack was very aware of his father watching him as he planed a plank of wood.
“You still are the best planer of any of my apprentices,” his father said. “Are you sure you don’t want to ditch the wizard’s helper job and come to work for me?”
“I am,” Jack said. “As skilled as I am in this task, I’m not patient enough to do the craftsman part of making something. I can master wizardry.”
“Is it a lazy man’s profession?” his father asked. “Fasher Tempest doesn’t seem to work very hard.”
Jack shook his head. “He saved Mother’s life, didn’t he? Was that laziness?”
His father pursed his lips. “No. I see what you mean.” The man sighed. “Get those boards planed and then come back into my office so we can go over the designs from Lajia and Tesoria that you brought back for me. I finally have enough time to make some prototypes.”
Jack laughed.
“What is so funny?”
“A sword maker used my Lajian sword for a pattern and took something off the price of my knife. It wasn’t much different from what you got from me, a few sketches of Lajian furniture for some traveling expenses. You nearly got them for free.”
Jack’s father looked shocked. “Free? Who paid for your room and board and nursing since you were a babe? It is fair payback.”
“You are right. Why does there need to be payback between a father and a son?” Jack said. “I never asked to be paid for the designs. You gave me the money on your own, and I was very happy that your did.”
After staring at Jack for a minute, his father broke into a sad smile. “You are growing up, aren’t you?”
“Not me,” Jack said. “Let me get this finished.” He could feel his cheeks burn from his father’s comment. It was the best conversation he had ever had with the man.
~
Jack sat down at his desk in the back of Fasher’s office and felt something seep through his breeches. He jumped up and put his hand on his backside. He smelled the goo and decided it was honey. Something sweet from Penny, it had to be. He turned to see if she was in the house, but he couldn’t see her or hear any evil giggling coming from Fasher’s office or from any of the other rooms.
He went into the kitchen and took off his sticky breeches and washed them out, pumping water and rinsing the clothes. Jack didn’t have any spare things in his work area, so he slipped on the helper’s tabard that Fasher still insisted he wear when on errands in the village. It didn’t cover his sides, but he felt better having something on while his pants dried.
He checked everything on his desk for more honey and found a strip of honey on each of his pens. Jack wondered what he would do to counter this latest attack, but he decided he would be subtler. He went to Penny’s desk and began to shift her things to different places. Jack vowed to change their locations every day for the two weeks of Fasher’s absence.
Jack could hear the door open. Penny had arrived to see how Jack reacted to her joke. He could only smile as he returned to reading the wizardry manual and making copious notes, the sides of his underclothes and bare legs in full view.
He heard a gasp. Jack turned as languidly as he could and smiled at the girl. Penny turned red in embarrassment as she reversed course and stomped out of the office. When she cooled down, she would reali
ze her joke had worked all too well.
The next day, Jack was back at his desk. Penny’s desk had returned to its original organization. He heard the door open, but he hadn’t detected any joke from Penny. He wondered why she was in the office. He rushed to think of something embarrassing, but couldn’t come up with something suitable when he spotted movement at the entrance to his workshop.
“Tanner!” Jack said when the mercenary appeared at the opening to Jack’s space. He looked weary. His journey back to Raker Falls seemed to have taken a lot out of him.
“I’m glad you are here. Helen has gone to retrieve Penny. I have some bad news. Come into Fasher’s office.”
Jack closed the manual and followed Tanner into the office.
“What is wrong?” Jack asked.
“I’ll tell you both at the same time.”
Penny was virtually pushed into the office. She plopped down on the other chair in Fasher’s office, while Helen jumped up and sat on the examination table.
After glaring at Jack, she looked at Tanner. “Why am I here? Fasher said I could stay at home while he was gone and only had to work with Amelia.”
“You’ve been in here at least twice so far,” Jack said.
Penny folded her arms and looked away from him.
“Fasher has come down with a magical illness. Corina has caught it as well,” Tanner said. He coughed. “I’m afraid I have caught it as well.”
“I feel fine,” Helen said, looking at Tanner with a worried face.
Tanner seemed to look deflated. “I’m too sick to go, for obvious reasons if I’ve come down with it. I’ll have to sequester myself in Fasher’s house,” he said.
“But…” Helen said.
“Let me read Fasher’s message.” Tanner pulled a folded parchment from inside his tunic. “This is for Penny and Jack…”
“See, he addressed my name first,” Penny said.
Tanner looked disgusted and shook his head. “You are the apprentice, and Jack is a mere helper,” he said, looking at Helen with the barest of smiles. “I will continue:”
Corina and I have come down with a magical illness. The local healer has never seen it. I know the source, but I won’t describe it in this letter. A few others who live in the village have contracted the same illness. For some reason, my magic has no effect on it, and since all those stricken are wizards, we can only do so much for each other. About all I can do is slow the effects of the illness. Tanner and Helen were there to congratulate us, so Helen will go with you to Passoran if Tanner can’t continue, since he caught the illness, too, but insisted he accompany Helen. You must retrieve an object of power called Grishel’s Feather. Grishel is the god of the Passoranians. I don’t know where it is, but there is a wizardess that I ran across in my travels who might know. I met her when she lived in Bartonsee. Her name is Myra Pulini. She has a history in Passoran that might be helpful. Time is of the essence, but I can forestall the effects until you arrive. Fasher Tempest.’” Tanner looked at them. “There is a postscript for Jack. ‘The agreement you signed in my office is still in force.