The Pass by Zion Kistler (books to read romance TXT) 📖

Presently Mildo came over to where Treaf was sitting by the table closest to the door and neither of them spoke for a bit. Then Mildo said: “Hello.”
“Hi,” Treaf replied and drank the liquid from his cup. For a second more neither of them spoke as Treaf ate his eggs, his fork making a regular scrape against the plate between journeys.
“Are you going to train again with the rest of us today?” Mildo asked. He was leaning in on the table, his arms folded onto it. Surprisingly, Mildo was not presenting his questions with his regular jokey attitude towards life. In fact, Treaf suspected that he might be serious for once. So Treaf stopped eating and raised his head to look at Mildo and replied, “Nope. I’m busy with some business with the Elder.” As Treaf continued eating Mildo received this information and made a small nod, maybe as a sign of acceptance. But he had more questions.
“It seems like you’ve been meeting with him a lot recently. Are you two doing something? Like with magic?”
“Mhm, we are,” Treaf said and took another swig of what must have been laboriously squeezed fruit juice of some kind. Sorry, Mildo, I just can’t tell you exactly what I’m doing yet. Maybe sometime in the future, when we aren’t in danger of being arrested for illegal spells…
“Wouldn’t it be funny if there was magic that was so dangerous it was illegal?” Mildo said, and made a small laugh as he looked out of the window next to them absent-mindedly.
“Yeah, it would,” Treaf agreed and laughed too. It really would…
“Well, I’ve already eaten, so see ya. Time to bust my arse for the Second Society, as usual,” He mumbled off as he walked out the door. Feeling a small bit of restlessness, Treaf scraped up the last of his eggs and headed out the door as well. It looked like him and Mildo were one of the first people out; other than a few citizens walking past, the city was quite empty.
They waited there, Treaf’s hands in his pockets and his hood pulled close against the cold. Mildo seemed quite indifferent towards the biting air: he kept his head high and his arms folded across his chest, his breathing coming out in briefly lasting clouds of steam. As Treaf watched his own breath below him he said, “We only have a little time before we’re up on The Pass hiking in five feet of snow.” Mildo merely nodded.
“I wonder what it’s gonna be like up there. There must be different beasts than we have encountered so far…” Of these beasts Treaf did not have the slightest clue, but he was sure there would be something hostile to attack them, because in every region that they crossed there seemed to be a new wildly strange and ferocious type of creature.
Presently, after a short while of waiting, Treaf saw in the distance approaching a large crowd of people which he immediately recognized as the Second Society. As if to a response to their arrival, the door behind Mildo and Treaf burst open with an extra loud creak as the members of their ‘army’ filed out.
“Well, I guess I’ll see ya.” Treaf remained frozen in his place, but swung his arms back and forth and said, “Yeah, see ya.” As Mildo walked off with the Second Society Members, along with the other companions that had journeyed with them, Treaf wondered if the Second Society really was using homunculi for curses; but then again, that was why he was standing out in the street, to find out.
As Treaf began walking in the direction of the Elder’s house the sun began to rise slowly, its redness first coming up over distant mountains and then breaking through certain areas of the tall, impressive buildings that Treaf glimpsed as he walked past. The street’s numerous cobblestones could be seen individually as the light was reflected off of their wet surfaces, and overall the city was now a shining resemblance of the early sun.
Now some of the citizens of the city began to appear again, some coming from their shops doing who-knows-what, others pulling small carts filled with various supplies and crafts, and Treaf guessed that there must be a market around there somewhere, perhaps on the far side of the city that he had not been to, the one further west of the area filled with plants and factories spewing steam and smoke into the city air.
Being reminded of that, Treaf remembered the other interest that he had developed during his and all the others’ stay in the city: the oils plant. If he would have time to satisfy his wants for information in that area he seriously doubted, for he would be already too busily occupied by the tasks at hand which he readily admitted were more urgent. But there seemed to remain a dark veil over the truth of what was going on in the city, and whether this was true or not, Treaf wanted to find out.
After walking past an area of the city where the houses and shops were densely growing thicker, he knew that he was nearing the Elder’s house. A little ways after the dense architectures there was an opening and then a less packed area of separate housing units, which is where the Elder was. I guess I never really realized that he has always stayed in an actual house whenever we stay in a city, Treaf thought. He was walking under a small arch now which connected two large towers together in a sort of bridge, perhaps for quicker transport to get from one to the other. After this there were two more large buildings parallel to it which formed a tight alley. Actually, Treaf realized that he hadn’t come through this part of the city yet, at least not on his regular journeys to the Elder’s house.
After the alley Treaf came upon the houses that were by the Elder’s and paused. All the houses looked quite the same, so every time he came this way he had to confront this problem again and again. I need to pick out something different from the Elder’s place than the others,’ he realized.
But, after a few minutes he figured out which one it was and walked up onto the small porch and knocked. The Elder opened the door and welcomed him in.
Once they were both seated by the round table, the Elder with tea, Treaf asked: “Have you figured out anything to do with putting wards around us and all the objects yet?” The Elder grunted in a pleasant manner.
“I am pleased to say that yes, I did. To put wards around both of us and perhaps protection around the objects by us takes quite a lot of energy, but I have figured out how to do so,” the Elder replied, and then added, “And yes I have tested this. It worked well on my first try.”
“Did you test the spell, or its effectiveness?” Treaf asked. Because Treaf didn’t think it made sense; perhaps, if the Elder had laid the ward around himself and then tried to harm himself with magic, or…
“I did both. And they both worked.” In that case, if the spell rebounds, we will have protection, Treaf thought. And if he puts protection around the area, it will stop the city from being destroyed if the Spirit escapes and is thirsty for Krog energy sources.
“Well, that’s good. So now we won’t be harmed if it doesn’t work in the first place, right?” The Elder nodded.
“I have also worked out the whole scenario. There’s a lot that can go wrong, but if we calculate precisely, we won’t be in any danger.
“One of us will draw the Kagra circle on the ground somewhere. Since you have it on your armor, we can have a double activator, which will make sure the spell continues if one part of it goes wrong. This will be because half of the energy will activate in your armor, and the other half in the circle. And once we both have wards laid on us, the Spirit will not be allowed to kill or injure us, because the wards would rebound the Krog signals and instead attack an alternative energy source. This is the only major problem. The Kagra spell requires Krog energy, so it would need to feed off of a human soul. We don’t have one.” Treaf thought about this. Even with his little knowledge of magic, he understood all that the Elder had said. But he could not see the dilemma in the whole thing.
“But that’s what the homunculi are for: Krog energy sources,” Treaf said.
“Yes. But if they fail, we have nothing to back us up. Once they fail, the Spirit will try to get any Krog energy it can.” At this Treaf thought, Us. The Elder continued, “But we are warded, so its attack will only rebound.” Oh, I see…Treaf thought, realizing that he was wrong. The Elder continued talking yet again, “So once we are guarded, it will have no choice but to attack another energy source. So that is where the alternative energy source is needed.” This realization suddenly fell on Treaf like a weight.
“So who would be the alternative energy source? If we got a living, innocent sacrifice, than that would be brutal murder.” Treaf expected the Elder to reply with something or other, but he did not. Instead they both sat there thinking for what must have been minutes. Treaf could not think of something to put in place of he and the Elder as alternative energy, except for artificial human beings, which returned to the homunculi in the first place, which they were testing to see if they supplied Krog energy. And the original concern was that we would be attacked in its place if they did not supply it, but now that that problem is extinguished, we have another large problem. Actually, now that he was thinking about curses, he remembered the first time that he had tried the Gurvisorm Radjak Poshaden sub-curse. It was the first time he had ever tried another kind of spell besides Anverfwick. But why, back then, had the spell not rebounded on me? Since it seems only humans can do it, does that mean that it takes Krog energy from the user? This did not seem plausible. Because, in that case, all spells cast by humans would be Krog spells, not Essacar or Trîte. But if this is not the case, what energy does it use? Is there a substance that supplies only Pure Energy? An ultimate source?
They both