Crest of Power: Kevin and the Magician

15 The Headaches

Krevik called to his men. They were leaving the village. He was unwell. His men left ahead of him. He couldn't turn to face the child. He knew he would never leave if he did; and he needed to find that crest. He stole a look at her through his helmet. She was crying. His heart broke. He didn't want her to cry. He wanted to turn back and tell her everything would be alright. He rode on forward after his men instead. He was already in enough trouble. He hadn't allowed the village to be raided. But there was no way he could have finished. Not after seeing her.

*=*=*

Krevik marched up the stairs with more bravery than he could ever remember doing. He didn't know why. Maybe he was in shock. He should be shaking with fear. He didn't even hesitate to knock on the door. This feeling was strange. Was he actually happy? That couldn't be it. Something was obviously wrong with him.

"Come," the Magician's voice commanded. He was standing cloaked in the middle of the room. It was obvious the Magician had just been pacing. Now that he was before the Magician, his fear suddenly hit him, he froze in his tracks. What was going to happen now?

The Magician paced. Every step, every moment of silence made Krevik's fear grow inside of him.

"Why," the Magician began, startling Krevik, "did you just protect the one girl? Why not the woman who fainted?" Krevik looked up and answered immediately without thinking.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. The Magician knew it was an honest answer. Krevik only lied when he could think of a really good one. And his lies never began with 'I don't know.'

"I did it before I even knew what I was doing. She looked... familiar, and my head hurt to think about her."

"I see," said the Magician. So the boy had acted on instinct, how unfortunate! "What do you think would happen if you came across her again?"

"I don't want to," said Krevik. "I don't know what would happen, but I don't ever want to see that girl again. Please, don't make me see her again," Krevik begged. He truly never wanted to see that child again. Now his stomach was aching.

The Magician smiled. Krevik hated it when the Magician smiled sometimes. It was never a happy smile. It always seemed to be contorted in pain or anger, and sometimes both.

*=*=*

Krevik was able to go on with his day unpunished. He had never been punished before; he was glad that today was not the start of it. He had heard the screams of those punished by the Magician. It was something he never wanted to endure. Only he and Phineas had not been punished in all the years that Magician had cared for him. He knew this failure demanded punishment. Whatever he had said in there had obviously been what the Magician wanted to hear. It didn't matter what it was, he wasn't being punished for it. That was a plus. The Magician, in his rarely shown mercy, told him that this day had been hard enough. It had. His chest still hurt, and his stomach was churning. Thank goodness his head no longer hurt. He wasn't thinking about the girl. He refused to think about her. Instead he blocked her from his mind.

The rest of his day he spent in his room with books he had taken from the library. He liked reading. It was like a daydream that someone had merely taken the time to write down. It always fueled his imagination, and made his daydreams worse sometimes. Fuel for his imagination was definitely not something he needed.

If anything He needed a smaller one. He was a king. He knew he should be reading on the past decisions of other kings and how it affected the kingdom. Partly so he wouldn't make the same mistakes.

But he simply couldn't bring himself to read all those tedious explanations on how the king decided to disperse the crops on a certain year, because of a certain event. No Krevik longed to read about adventure. He wanted those invigorating images to leap off the page as they often did. He reveled in the misadventures of Michael the Small. He loved reading about all the fairies and goblins. And he really enjoyed the legends about the western desert. He read anything that had adventure in it; anything that took his mind off of the events of the day.

He often went to bed thinking about what he had read. And he would dream about it. Sometimes though, the dreams differed greatly from the stories. He went to bed thinking about the fairy Ern. He wondered how beautiful she really was. He was dreaming before he even realized it.

*=*=*

Krevik was playing hide and seek with the girl from the village. They were both younger. She had just found him, and now it was his turn to find her. He went looking for her in the vast darkness of the forest. She wasn't there. He couldn't find her! He was beginning to get frantic in his search for her. Suddenly the Magician appeared before him and held him there. "Too late!" he cried to Krevik. He saw the girl walking through the forest suddenly attacked by a flock of black birds. She ran batting them away. Then the wolves came. He stared on in horror as he realized the sight was so familiar to him. He fell to his knees; the Magician was blocking his view. "Jesse!" Krevik heard his voice cry out. The scene went black and the Magician faded. A woman so beautiful Krevik almost couldn't look at her appeared before his eyes. "In order to save her, you must remember Krevik," she said. He knew deep down that this was the fairy Ern. "Remember who you really are...." Her voice faded, and with it the dream.

*=*=*

Krevik woke in a cold sweat. That girl again. His head hurt. He thought he could forget her on his own. He couldn't stand the pain in his head. His chest hurt too. Why did it matter so much to him what happened to her!? She was just some village girl right? He needed to forget. He needed to stop the pain. He got his robe. And headed to Phineas' room, the Magicians lab.

He knocked.

Phineas peered through the door he had just cracked open. Then he opened it all the way.

"I was wondering when you would stop by again," said Phineas. "Your visits are getting more frequent. Any stronger and you'll forget who you are completely."

"I want to forget," Krevik said. If it meant getting rid of this pain he wanted desperately to forget.

"That's what I thought." He walked over to his bed and retrieved a vile from under his pillow. "I can make it stronger next time," said Phineas. "Here," he handed the vile to Krevik.

He drank it in one gulp. His mind was fuzzy for a moment. He had forgotten something. What was it? Whatever it was, it didn't matter.