Jonis by Rowan Erlking (free children's online books txt) 📖

again—and mean it.”

Oprin slapped Jonis’s hand away. “You liar! There are other ways out! Julwes! Help me out here!”

Julwes reached out but was repelled. He tried erasing the line with his foot, but he couldn’t even get near it. In fact, the more he tried, the stronger the shock repelled him.

Jonis squatted on the ground, writing with the stick. He looked up once in a while to see if Oprin was ready to cooperate. It didn’t look likely with the way Oprin was panting and staring over at the camp where their troop was heading off to the mess hall.

“Quit your nonsense, brat!” Oprin shouted. “We’re going to miss dinner!”

“No skin off my nose,” Jonis replied, still writing in the dirt. “I’ve been hungry before. It won’t kill me now.”

Julwes reached out to grab him, but stopped when he realized that if he touched Jonis he would only get hurt. Instead he shouted. “You had better let him out, or else!”

“I told him how to break the spell,” Jonis said looking right at him. “What more do you want from me? Turn back time and make it so he didn’t jump into the circle?”

“I’ll call over Sergeant Romley!” Julwes barked with his fists clenching. “He’ll kick the living tar out of you!”

Jonis stood up. “I’m sure that would give you great satisfaction, but that wouldn’t get Oprin out of the hate ward. It is up to Oprin if he wants out. Personally I think he is being ridiculously stubborn.”

Julwes glared at him, turned, and ran off for the sergeant anyway. Moaning loud, Jonis drew up another hate ward around himself and recited the incantation.

“Setting another trap?” Oprin hissed at him with a fixed look of loathing.

Shaking his head, Jonis sat down. “Nope, I think I just want a little protection so the sergeant can cool down some when he arrives.”

The sergeant arrived with Staff Sergeant Hybiss also. He looked triumphant, glaring at Jonis. Julwes marched right behind them.

“So! At last I have caught you! You will be thrown out of here so fast—” The sergeant had reached out to grab Jonis but was repelled by the ward. Sergeant Romley cursed, clutching his fingers.

“What is wrong, Sergeant,” Sergeant Hybiss asked, peering down at the Cordril sitting on the dirt.

“I don’t know. Some weird shock just stopped me from touching him,” Sergeant Romley replied.

“It is a hate ward,” Oprin said, sulking. He stuffed his hands stuffed under his arms. “I’m stuck in one too. He says I have to make a promise not to hurt him anymore or he won’t let me out.”

“That’s not what I said,” Jonis snapped, standing up. “It is nature of the spell on that ward. You cannot hate me and pass it. It is as simple at that. That’s why Sergeant Romley can’t lay a finger on me. Only friends can pass it to touch me.”

“Do you even have friends?” Oprin snapped back.

Jonis felt cold inside. He stared at the ground.

“Let him out, Cordril,” the sergeant hissed.

Sighing, Jonis said, “I can’t. It is up to Oprin. But if you want to beat me up, I’ll step out of this ward so you can do it.”

And he did. Sergeant Romley grinned, grabbing Jonis’ shirt collar, raising his fist.

“Hey! How many of those wards did you make out here?” Sergeant Hybiss shouted. “I’m stuck!”

Both Jonis and the sergeant turned and stared. Julwes screamed, jumping back into the black circle. He pointed at the staff sergeant. “That’s not a hate ward! He’s stuck in the demon circle!”

Chapter Nine: In Circles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Demons are unnatural formations of stifled energy, and are often malignant. Or more simply, they are a magic cancer.”

 

 

 

 

Jonis’s eyes grew wide. Oprin blinked, staring from his stuck position. The sergeant punched Jonis.

“You pest! Get him out of there!” Sgt. Romley shouted.

“No! Don’t do it!” Julwes shook his head violently. “Oprin walked over it, and he was fine. The staff sergeant is a demon!”

“Nonsense!” the sergeant barked back. He walked over to the white circle to pull Sgt. Hybiss out. “He is the sergeant. Not a demon like that brat.”

Julwes pounced on him, dragging Sgt. Romley away with screams too desperate to ignore. “No! No! I’ve seen these work! There are all kinds of demons out there! Even Cordrils can look like somebody else!”

Jonis had been sitting on the dirt where he had been knocked, staring at the staff sergeant. He watched the man struggle to get out of the white ring, to no avail. The Sergeant’s face contorted with anger, glaring back at the young Cordril.

“Let me out!”

Slowly Jonis shook his head. “Uh, no. If you can’t get out on your own, you aren’t something we want walking free.”

“Let me out,” Oprin hissed.

Jonis turned around, casting him a wry look. But when he saw Oprin’s face—white and staring at the staff sergeant—he shrugged and extended his hand. “Make your promise.”

Oprin took him in his grip. “Alright, alright. I promise not to try to hurt you again. Just don’t let me get stuck here with that.”

He walked freely through. The drawn line on the ground whispered about before it vanished in a cloud of dust.

“I told you,” Jonis said with a shrug. “Now what do we do about him?”

“Let him out!” Sgt. Romley shouted.

Both Julwes and Oprin shook their heads, watching the staff sergeant gravely.

“Oh, no,” Oprin said gravely. “We get General Gomrey.”

“And the doctor,” Julwes added.

Jonis raised his eyebrows. “To do what? We don’t even know what kind of demon the sergeant is.”

“He is not a demon!” Sgt. Romley moved to get Sgt. Hybiss out again.

Jonis stood in his way, pulling on the buckle strap to his glove to take it off. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

Julwes jumped in between them, facing Jonis. “Stop this! If you touch him, no one will believe you!”

Oprin ran from the clearing. “I’ll get help!”

 

Help came several minutes later. Gen. Gomrey was fuming. Mostly he was shouting that the recruit was being insolent. The doctor looked more worried. Their martial arts master had also come, as well as Lt. Chappel and their old drill sergeant. They all stared at Jonis.

“What is this all about!? This idiot here is saying that there is another demon in camp and that he is Staff Sergeant Hybiss!” the general barked.

“That about sums it up,” Jonis said with a shrug. He stood four feet from the circle while the Julwes struggled to hold Sgt. Romley back.

“It is a lie!” Sgt. Romley shouted back. “That demon was making magic circles out here, trapping his fellow recruits. We came to deal with it, and the sergeant ended up stuck in one! Now the beast is claiming that the sergeant is a demon!”

At the mention of magic circles, the men all stared at the ground.

Jonis walked forward. “You have no worries, gentlemen. If you are human, these circles will have no effect on you.”

“They didn’t really affect you much either,” Oprin muttered. Then he added, “But he is right. I walked through that white one. Nothing happened to me.”

“That is a demon circle,” the master said glancing at Jonis. “But how can you make them?”

Turning somewhat pink, Jonis said, “Well, the general knows that I have been studying the magic arts so I could be a magister, besides working for the army. My guardian had left me scrolls and—”

The doctor said, “So you’ve been practicing out here?”

Jonis nodded. “I was just finishing a hate ward when Oprin and Julwes showed up. We had a little conflict, and accidentally Oprin walked into the ward and got stuck. Julwes ran for help thinking I had done it on purpose, but as you can see Oprin is free.”

“And that?” the master pointed to the black circle.

“That is a demon repellant,” Jonis said. “A demon cannot get in.”

“Except for you,” Orpin snapped, now sulking.

The men stared at Jonis.

Sighing, Jonis at last said, “Well, I’m not exactly a demon.”

They stared even more.

“What about me? I’m stuck!” Sgt. Hybiss moaned. “He made this wrong, and now I’m stuck.”

Everyone turned to face him.

The master of martial arts shook his head slowly, circling the white ring Jonis had made from stones.

“No…I’ve seen how demon circles work. If you do them wrong, they just don’t work. They don’t malfunction. Magic is precise.”

Jonis nodded. “Which is what I am afraid of. If he can’t get out, that leaves only one option. He’s a demon.”

“Nonsense!” Sgt. Romley shouted again. “He has brown eyes! That man is a…man!”

“Eye color is not the only indication that someone is a demon,” the doctor replied. He stared at the staff sergeant, shaking his head. “There are other shape shifters abroad. He could be a Sky Child.”

Jonis blinked. His long memory was filled with Sky Children that his ancestors had fought. The word Camus tickled the back of his thoughts as another name for them, but he still did not remember the connection to the name from the dream Emrit had overheard. Generally, Sky Children retained the eye color of the person they drained, but only for a few years. Eventually their eyes turned back to blue. The other demons in his memory were different. There were several that had a human appearance, but those were easily spotted in a crowd of people because they retained their demon traits also. Jonis blinked again and stared at Sgt Hybiss who was rolling his eyes with irritation while trying to convince the doctor that he was not a demon but merely stuck in a deviously made trap by a manipulative Cordril.

“Yeah?” he heard the doctor argue with the staff sergeant, “Then how come you can’t exit the circle?”

“It must have a hate ward with it,” Sgt. Hybiss snapped.

Oprin shook his head. “No way. I told you I could walk through it. There is no hate ward in that circle.”

Jonis scratched the back of his head. He peered at the staff sergeant. The man’s eyes were clear and brown. He looked well. Shrugging, he turned and said, “Well, he could be a Sky Child. There is only one test for it. I have to shake his hand.”

“What?” nearly everyone exclaimed.

The martial arts master nodded.

“Of course. That is the test. Rebound.”

Everyone blinked at him except Jonis.

“Rebound.” Jonis turned and walked over the white line. He took off his glove.

The staff sergeant backed away. “Keep your hands off me!”

But Jonis did not take Sgt. Hybiss’s hand. He touched the man’s face, waiting for the sharp jolt. Nothing happened.

Jonis shook his head, watching the staff sergeant immediately look faint. The sergeant’s thoughts were nothing more than a surge of hateful emotions. Jonis removed his hand and crossed back over the line. “Nothing.”

Most stared, surprised that he could come back.

“He’s not a Sky Child,” Jonis murmured.

“I’ll get you, Cordril,” Sgt. Hybiss hissed.

“He’s hurt!” Sgt. Romley jumped into the white circle. His foot skidded over the white line, knocking apart the stones. “Look what you did to him!”

“The line’s broken!” Julwes jumped back into the black circle, dragging Oprin with him.

A loud squawk scratched the air.

Feathers burst out of Sgt. Hybiss’s back, tearing his clothes apart. Eagle-sized wings sprung out, flapping and batting off Sgt. Romley. When Sgt. Hybiss looked up, his face went narrow and pointed.

“A bird demon,” the doctor murmured.

Gen. Gomrey jumped into the black circle, joining the