The Elixir And The Ring

Wick finds out what elixir the Scribe gave him, and decides on a risky path.

Wick was awake.

That was good, but he couldn’t move, so perhaps it would have been nice to wake up to something uncomfortable again.

“Young Wick.” Johtokin came around the bushes when a rather awkward amount of time had passed. “I would know why…”

Face down in the dirt, he could just smell earth and faint spicebush, but could not move his head to see Johtokin. He could feel his feet thrashing like a fish out of the bay. This, he realized, was slowly pushing his face further into the ground, and stop him from breathing.

But the guardsman pulled him up, and while nothing else would move under his control, he could suck in a full breath.

“Wick…oh.” He noted some dawning understanding in the man’s eyes, before his limp form was hauled over a burly shoulder. Yanking the gate open, Johtokin shouted a few names and asked for water, clothes, rope, and Self Heal herb.

Rope?

He hadn’t expected to gain entry to the manor again, at least not without extenuating circumstances of which he had a few up his sleeve had the need arisen. This was not one of this ploys, and neither had he intended to re-enter so soon.

Now, however, the stiffness began to enter his lungs, and as his chest stilled fear rose. The second or third time, counting the bridge and wood, that he thought he might be dying.

He was dumped onto a bed, which was thankfully soft as he didn’t find the motion all too gentle. One nice thing about being a rich noble was that even odd requests were met swiftly; even the herb arrived only a short two minutes after the request.

In those two minutes, his lungs froze further, until it was like a switch flipped and he began to pant hyperfast, and he felt his vision start to tunnel. True fear set in then, tingles ran across his limbs and extremeties, and he wanted to claw at his throat and chest to get just a gasp of breath but his body refused.

“Tie him.”

Air. Sharding air, and he couldn’t move anyways. What was Johtokin doing? Now it began to burn and his limbs felt like they were on fire and his vision went further black. Death loomed over him like a gleeful Valguard, finally catching someone who had thwarted him too many times.

A cool mint-scented cloth pressed to his lips, and a bitter tanin coated his tongue.

His lungs exploded out and sweet wind rushed into his lungs. Without control or pause the shivering became violent thrashings and the reason for rope became clear as the bindings bit into his wrists and ankles as he bucked in place like one possessed.

The springs and frame groaned as he thrashed around, and he thought his teeth might shatter he clenched them so hard. A gutteral choked growl ripped out of his throat in tattered fragments as every muscle in his body flexed.

Pain ripped through him. It felt like being beaten with solidified lightening. He felt control begin to return to him and it just let him renew his floundering to try and escape the torment. Red replaced the black in his eyesight and time felt an agony too long and absent all at once.

He could not tell when exactly it began to abate, but eventually cool mint and gentle hands took more notice than the torture.

When at last his faculties returned enough to wonder at things again, he looked around the room. And he was in a room, one of the smaller guest quarters often given to visiting servants when other great nobles and their entourages came from far places.

Johtokin sat on a chair in front of him, and he saw a wry grin light his face when he met his eyes.

“Young Wick. Do have to tell me where you found the Knight’s Elixir, hmm? Did nearly die, you did.”

The Knight’s Elixir? That’s what was in the water? Or, was the water. Why would the Scribe give him that?

“That’s what the stuff does? All the Knights go through this, yeah?” Maybe Graeltin knew and had intended that as a backup for killing him. And if Beris went through this…he would make for an easy target.

“They do, but they prepare, they do. Not so bad for them with the right steps.”

He would be strong though, now. Glancing at the ropes which still bound him, he tried to lift his right arm and break them. They held.

“Hah!” Joktokin pulled a knife from his belt, shaking his head. “Not so strong, you would not do the Red Guard, too scrawny when you drank.” He cut the ropes. “You could do a sword now, yes.”

Backing away, the man gestured for him to rise. Only having just gotten his senses back, he wasn’t sure that would be possible.

Nevertheless, he tried.

He shot out of the bed like a spring. The guardsman nodded knowingly, then withdrew the sword from his belt and held it out to him.

Taking it in hand, he looked at Johtokin in shock. It was…so light. Swinging it around, the metal swished and sliced through the air with speeds he would have struggled to produce with both hands, before.

“Does good, yes?”

“Better than I’ve ever felt.” He handed the sword back. “No Red Guard though?” It was a little disappointing, he had to admit.

“Do no worry, young Wick. Few are Red Guard.” He paused, and his eyebrows shot up. “More few have the Knight’s strength and are not one. I do ask again–”

Lord Ilcartius entered the room.

“Boy.” He turned to Johtokin. “Why is he here?”

The man bowed, curt and precise. “Mi’Lord.” In the pause that followed, Wick felt panic and iron bars rise around him. There were extreme penalties for possession of the Knight’s Elixir outside of Knightly endowed domains, and there would be nothing he could do to prove he had been unknowingly drugged with it, rather than intentionally acquiring it.

“He came to the gate sick, poison did him.”

“What with?”

“I do not say, Mi’Lord, I did him with Self Heal and his sickness passed.”

Ilcartius’s eyes narrowed, and figuring there wasn’t much further to fall from his graces, he jumped in.

“A Scribe did it. He intends to kill Beris.”

Johtokin’s eyes widened considerably, but Ilcartius glanced at him with idle scorn.

“Catch a dirty blade in the ring, hoping to regain my favor with pity? Wick, Wick.” He stepped to the side, and thrust his hand out towards the door. “Johtokin. Escort this boy out. Do not bring him in again, I care not if he is dying and we are his last hope.”

The guardsman was friendly to him, but true allegiance lay with the Lord of the Manor. In short order, Wick found himself outside the gates once more, and told in sad tones that should he came back, he would be barred from entry.

The gates clanged shut, and he was again at the top of the manor hill as golden sun grew across the city. Now, all he had to do was find a way to get to Beris faster than a King’s Scribe, but with no money, someone actively trying to kill him, and a noble that hated him.

Easy.