The stones from Jo’s shoulder were the color of clear red wine. They were about an inch long and spindle shaped, with six lateral edges that slanted to a point at each end. Those from the abelaat’s blood were rougher in line and form, as though shaped too hastily. They were nearly an amber hue, and they were eight-sided.
Flinn picked up one of the crystals he had pulled from Jo’s shoulder, his dark eyes glinting in the bright light. He twirled the stone between his long, scarred fingers, his moustache twitching as he frowned.
“My guess,” he said at last, “is that the ones I removed from you, Jo, are better formed because the creature’s poison was in you longer.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I think the extra time allowed the crystals to draw more blood.”
“Draw blood?” Johauna’s eyes grew wide in sudden horror. “Flinn—Flinn,” she stammered. “Could these things be alive?” Dayin’s eyes also opened wide.
“No, I don’t think so.” He shook his head, his black hair grazing the collar of his tunic. “I’m no sage, but I think the crystals need blood to form, not to eat.”
Cautiously Jo picked up one of the wine-red crystals and peered at it. “It is kind of pretty,” she said after a moment, “though I still think it’s pretty gruesome how it was formed.”
“I wonder what purpose these crystals serve,” Flinn mused, rubbing his neck. “Perhaps they poison the victim.”
“Or maybe they preserve the body,” Jo added with a grimace.
“My father used to put them in fire,” Dayin piped up.
Flinn and Jo stared at each other, then at Dayin.
“Used to put them in fire? Just what did your father do, boy?” Flinn asked, setting the stone aside. “And what happened to him?”
Dayin shivered, and his eyes grew wide. But Jo put a gentle arm around the child and stroked his shaggy hair, saying, “It’s all right, Dayin. Flinn and I are your friends.”
“My—my father died almost two years ago. We… our home was near here, about four days’ walk north, I’d guess. We lived in a tower.” The boy paused for breath.
“Near the River Highreach?” Flinn asked. When the boy nodded, Flinn went on, “I think I saw the tower about a year back when I ran trap lines north. A three-story tower? Red granite?”
The boy nodded again. Jo looked at Flinn questioningly.
The warrior gestured with his hand, his eyes troubled. “Almost half of the tower had been destroyed in some sort of explosion. It was obviously abandoned, so I went in and investigated, thinking I might move there. The damage was too great to fix, though. What’s more,” Flinn paused and his keen eyes turned to Dayin, “the place smacked of wizardry.” The boy’s face blanched, and then he hid in Jo’s arms. She gently pushed him away after only a moment’s comfort. “Was your father a wizard, Dayin?” she asked, her tone serious, though her face was kind.
The boy could only nod, then added slowly, “My father was Maloch Kine, a great and kind mage. I—I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. I was just starting to learn from him.”
Dayin flung his hands into the air and murmured a quick, unintelligible word. A burst of bright red light flashed above the table and was replaced almost immediately by an aromatic, though faintly acrid, smell of roses. There, on the table before the astonished Flinn and Jo, lay dozens of fresh red rose petals. They touched the fragile pieces delicately.
“Dayin, did you do this?” Jo asked. She sniffed the handful of petals she held and smiled.
The boy was despondent. “It didn’t work, Jo. You were supposed to get whole roses—not just petals.” Dayin looked from Flinn to Jo and shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I guess I’m out of practice.”
Flinn laughed and clapped the boy’s back. “Are you interested in coming with us to Bywater, Dayin, when Jo and I leave for the castle? There’s a mage there who’s been looking for an apprentice for some time now. But all the children in Bywater are too stupid to even be considered. What do you say?”
Dayin looked from Jo to Flinn and back again, his eyes wide with fear. The boy turned to the warrior. “I’d rather go with you, Master Flinn, all the way to the castle. There’s bound to be a wizard there who could use me.”
Flinn’s eyes darkened. “We’ll see, Dayin, we’ll see. I’m not sure I want to be responsible for you that long.” He noticed Jo’s disapproving gaze, and his mouth grew grim. Then he looked away; he couldn’t refuse Dayin, not with Jo championing the boy’s cause. “All right, Dayin. If you’d rather come to the castle, then do so.” He glanced at Jo and then turned to the boy. “But that’s the end of the tether for you. I have no need of a wizard apprentice—a would-be squire’s all I can handle.” Flinn smiled, then laughed aloud. “Maybe I should leave Dayin with Karleah Kunzay. She’s batty enough to take on a boy like you.”
To Flinn’s surprise, the boy’s face lit up. “Would you really take me to Karleah? Really?”
“You know the old wizardess?” Flinn asked, incredulous. The boy nodded. “She used to visit us a lot.”
“That’s… interesting,” Flinn said noncommittally. Jo looked at him sharply, a question knotting her brow.
“You said your father used fire on the abelaat crystals?” Flinn asked Dayin in the pause that followed.
“Yes, I think so,” Dayin responded. “At least, I remember him holding a stone in a flame and saying, ‘Ah, this is good.’ He always said that when he was excited. Why it was good, I don’t know.”
Flinn fished out the eight-sided crystal from the mug and stared at it, bemusement written on his face. “Let’s try holding it in the candle flame, then. Jo, hand me my gauntlets, will you?” Jo retrieved the gloves from the cupboard and silently handed them to the warrior, who put them on.
He held the stone lengthwise a finger’s width away from the flame and stared at it, waiting for something to happen. Silence fell. Their heartbeats marked the passage of time. Flinn, impatient at the delay, began to wonder if the boy had mixed up the abelaat stone with some other kind. Slowly the crystal warmed, and he could feel the heat even through his heavy leather and metal gloves.
Then something moved inside the crystal. Flinn hissed, and Jo crowded to his side, leaning over his shoulder. He focused minutely on the plane of the crystal facing him.
A shape was forming within the crystal. The lines around the shape slowly resolved, and the colors grew clearer. Vaguely Flinn realized he was pushing the crystal closer and closer to the open flame. That seemed to clarify the murkiness inside the crystal, though he wondered how long his gloves could protect him.
Flinn’s eyes adjusted to the minuteness of what he was viewing: a scene in exquisite miniature played inside the shell of the crystal. Flinn gasped. “This—this is astonishing,” he muttered aloud. The stone seemed almost Like a stage on which tiny actors could walk. Jo leaned on Flinn to get a better view, and Dayin crowded closer.
The scene within the stone sharpened into recognition. It was the conservatory at the Castle of the Three Suns. The colors were muted and the shapes of the walls and furnishings were distorted. Otherwise, the conservatory looked much like Flinn remembered it from seven years before. Is this a memory? A dream? A prophecy? he wondered. The arrangement of the plants and furnishings were slightly different than he remembered them. “It must be the garden room as it stands now, this very moment,” he murmured excitedly.
Sunlight streamed through the glass ceiling panels in the room and filtered past the leaves of exotic plants that had been transplanted there throughout the centuries. Some ancestor of old Baron Arturus’ had decided to make this room into a conservatory, and the room had been steadily added to and renovated until it had become the pride and glory of the castle. Even in the coldest winter this room retained its tropical heat, allowing the delicate plants and trees inside the chamber to thrive.