Adventures of Jacko the Conjurer, Jamie Ott [great novels to read .txt] 📗

your brothers and sisters?”

“Yes, sort of. I’d rather not talk about it.”

He gave his uncle a look that said “later.”

“Okay, some other time.”

The next day, Jacko went looking for bird eggs when he spotted some paw prints in the bushes and decided to go hunting.

“Great idea, kid! Hopefully, we’ll be eating juicy suckling pig or even chewy gamy venison. You know, I’m gonna come with you. You couldn’t tell what kind of prints they were, and I’m sick of fowl!”

Jacko picked up his bow and arrows while Uncle Bally grabbed his rifle. Julius barely said goodbye to them, as they left.

“What’s wrong with Julius?”

“He had another dream. Neither his mother nor his brother survived.”

“What?”

“She found his brother, but then there was a tsunami: they drowned.”

“That’s awful,” he said, remembering what Aurora told him.

He pointed to the bushes where he found the paw prints.

Uncle Bally knelt.

“What do you think?”

“Well, it’s probably a young one, but I think it’s a deer! Judging by the moisture in the print, and how everything else is dry, I’m guessing it’s a doe. You see, she pees and the buck comes and sniffs. Sometimes, they might repeat this process, and then he’ll track her down. I don’t care what, I’m gonna have me some real meat. Since I’m the better hunter, here’s what we’re gonna do: You’re gonna wait there.”

He pointed to a tree several feet across from where they stood.

“I’m gonna track the doe. Stay still and quiet. If the buck or doe comes back, and you get it, we’ll be set.”

Then he walked off along the path while Jacko went to hide in the trees.

He pulled a rock out of the dirt and turned it over to make a flat surface to sit on.

An hour passed.

He’d nodded off.

There was a light crunching noise.

He jolted upright.

As quietly as possible, he rose and walked up to the tree trunk: it was the buck. He launched an arrow on his bow and took aim, but he didn’t release.

The buck seemed to be looking right at him. For a moment, he felt as if it knew him, and wanted to talk.

The animal drew closer, its head crooked upward, keeping its shiny black eye on him. Then a terrible hacking noise came from it; its mouth contorted as the sounds bellowed out. The sound was like the time his dog threw up grass in the living room, but not before heaving loudly for a few minutes.

Frightened, Jacko took a step back.

Suddenly, it bent its head down to the ground, still hacking, and a little thud noise sounded.

The deer bounced off into the bushes.

He didn’t bother trying to chase it, for what it left behind had caught his eye.

A matte yellow gold ring lay on the ground. He knelt to get a closer look.

A smooth red jewel shined from the top.

Despite his disgust of what just happened, he picked up the ring and held it close to his eyes. A voice whispered to him; it said, put it on.

The chunky, lightly weighted band fit nicely on his right hand, middle finger. A feeling of confidence and know-how washed over him. It was almost like he could do anything, and learn anything.

Something seemed to move beneath the stone’s surface. A white light within that turned over, repeatedly, sending out beams the way a star or a street lamp does.

He flinched at the sounds of footfalls.

“Jacko?” called Uncle Bally.

He walked into the clearing.

“Look what I got!”

Draped over his shoulder was a nearly grown doe.

“It’s gonna be tender!” He grinned. “What’s that you got on your finger?”

~~~

Back at camp, Julius hitched on a smile, yet sadness still emanated from his eyes.

Jacko tried to be extra kind to him. Somehow, he couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for what happened to his family. If he could, he’d end it all; the war and send the gods and demons packing, and then put everything back the way it was.

Immediately, Julius noticed the ring on Jacko’s finger. He said nothing, however, and asked not a single question. Throughout the evening, he shot Jacko and the ring glances.

He could hardly keep his own eyes of his finger. The stone bothered him. It reminded him of something; tried to drag a distant memory from somewhere.

Uncle Bally was too thrilled to notice their preoccupation. After preparing the deer, he filled a large tree bark he’d whittled into a pot, with water from the river; then he set it to boil with several large pieces of deer meat and chunks of fat. Next he hacked off the remaining bits of meat, slid them onto wood skewers and draped them across a stand he’d made.

Uncle Bally cooked the meat well into the night. He wrapped the leftovers in leaves he’d gathered, and then stowed them in his bag.

The smoke of the meat was just as good as the taste of venison.

After a while, though, it started to bother his eyes and sinuses. He laid back and shut his eyes, trying to ignore the irritation.

Heaviness weighed down on his chest as he lay there, breathing shallow so as not to pull too much smoke into his lungs.

Once, his mother told him the story of Heraclea. She was given a ruby that shined so bright that she’d use it to light her room in the evening. The ruby was said to empower its wearer, making one’s ineptitudes vanish.

Something long and yellow pecked at his ankle.

He opened his eyes and saw that it was the beak of a stork.

He breathed in, sharply, as he realized that he no longer lay in his hammock. He looked at the sky and saw that it was wine colored once again.

All around him was black soil for miles. He turned around, looking for the mountain, thinking he needed to get back to his Uncle, and back to the summit.

He stopped. A few miles out, someone in a black hooded cape rode toward him, on a horse. He heard the galloping of its hoofs on the wind.

Inwardly, he told himself to run, to get back to the summit. He couldn’t, though; he just stood there and watched the person get closer.

The horse slid to a stop, spraying up dirt at him. He climbed off the horse. As he did so, his cloak flapped, revealing a black shiny armor that looked like painted metal, only it fit his torso too perfectly, melding against his skin and emphasizing every lean and oversized muscle he had.

The man stood ten feet tall. Around his waist was a silver belt from which hung a matching sword. The man set down a bag that was similar to Jacko’s cunnan, only it held silver arrows, and a bow to match.

He drew the sword long and slow, and stood there facing him, waiting. Jacko tried to see his face, but the hood fell too low. He knew the guy wanted to fight, but Jacko didn’t have his sword.

However, the man didn’t care. He raised the sword skyward and held it there a moment. Jacko should have been scared but he wasn’t because this was all so familiar. He knew what the man planned to do, and Jacko knew just how to counteract.

The sword flung down at him.

Jacko merely side stepped.

It was an effortless strike, and he knew it. He raised the sword again, only he flung it down, faster. Jacko side stepped again, only faster, too.

Next moment, the guy was flinging the sword left and right, almost like figure eights from the left side of his body to his right, over and over.

Jacko moved just as quickly, like a weaving boxer, stepping right, and then left, repeatedly. Fluidly, they moved together, almost like a dance.

This went on and on, and Jacko knew he mustn’t tire of it, or he’d be sliced.

Finally, the man stopped, only to lunge at him, repeatedly with a full body front thrust. He poked forward at his head, neck, shoulder-to-shoulder, chest and gut.

Jacko found it especially difficult to dodge his attempts. He knew it’d be easier to thwart him, with his sword.

Suddenly, it appeared. He held it with the tip pointed skyward, and thrust it, forcefully, left to right, and up to down. Together, they made a zig zag motion up and down his body.

After a while, the motion exhausted him, so as he countered the next strike, he spun around and pushed the man in the back, making him fall to his knees.

His eyes flipped open once again. He was looking at the blue sky through brown branches.

Uncle Bally was still smoking venison.

He sat up and ran his hands through his hair, trying to make sense of the dream. It felt almost as if he’d astral projected in his sleep again, only different.

Uncle Bally was snoozing on his hammock. The metal can was steaming.

“Uncle Bally,” he said softly.

“Hmm?”

“Got enough tea for me?”

“Surely.”

He sat up and poured them.

As he stared into the flames, while sipping, it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t touched his sword in weeks.

He went to his bag and pulled it out. As he did this, a shock traveled up his arm. Once more, thoughts, like memories, tugged at his mind, but he couldn’t quite pull them to the fore of his brain so he could view them.

~~~

After a bit of scrambled pheasant eggs and salmon roe, Jacko decided to go foraging. A strong scent of citrus had been washing over their camp for a few days, now.

Uncle Bally and the bats were off hunting, and Julius had gone off without a word.

He knew there were, likely, hundreds of other beings there on the summit, but it felt almost like they were alone. Not once, did Jacko or the others meet another individual in the woods.

The sound of running water came from some feet ahead. He followed it to a dirt basin with a rock cliff. From the cliff water fell through a fissure, like a small waterfall. Julius was sitting on the edge, staring thoughtfully into space.

“Hey, Julius.”

He flinched.

Jacko sat next to him and watched the water tumble down.

“You know I can’t believe that this is it,” said Julius. “I mean, we just climbed a mountain to escape the fissures. Will we never be able to return to civilization? Or is this the final end? Are we the last people on Earth? And if so, are we stuck on this mountain.”

“Things could be a lot worse. We have food, water, and we’re safe. Try to look on the up side.”

“There is no upside, if this is it every day for the next fifty years. We come from a time where every day is filled with purpose, and now we have none. Doesn’t that bother you, at all?”

“Well, no.”

“How could that be? Why are you okay with that? You went to find your family, and you didn’t, I’m assuming by the lame response you gave, yesterday. Don’t you care at all?”

Jacko fell into contemplation for a moment.

“Julius, there are some things you should know. We didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t believe us. You probably still won’t, but I’m gonna try anyway. The truth is Faunus really is a god, just like in the legends.”

“Oh, Jacko…”

He turned back to the water fall.

“And this is the real Mount Olympus as you’ve probably read about. The reason the world is a disaster is because the gods – Olympians, Titans, demons, and angels – are having a war. When we happened upon you in the Garden of Hera, we were on our way here because we knew it was the only safe place.”

“Jacko, please. I’m being serious.”

“I think, in some way, you’re a part of this war. The dreams you keep having. They mean something, don’t they?”

But Julius had done. He got up and left without a goodbye.

He sighed loudly. Then he got up and continued his search for oranges.

A few minutes of walking and he approached another cliff. On the end,