Page 77 of Joy Guardian
KURAI
“Icounted twelve,” Gefred reported.
“That’s manageable.” I nodded, carefully matching the potion bottles by size.
Two kinds of potions were needed for this spell to work, and the bottles had to hold roughly the same amount. A considerable imbalance between the potions would either not bring any result or create a devastation far beyond what I had planned, possibly even killing us all.
“Where do they hold humans? In the tents, you think?” I asked.
Gefred crouched by my side, hiding behind a dune from the view of anyone from the camp of the criminals whom they called “pleasure traders.” The name made my skin crawl with disgust and my insides burn with anger. Joy was not for sale, and neither were humans.
Raimus and his brother Sakin came closer, crouching out of sight too. Our group consisted of only five people against twelve traders. But I also had the Joy Guardians’ magic on my side, and that was more powerful than many men.
“No humans in any of the tents. I’ve checked them all,” Gefred replied to my question.
Malis gave him a worried glance. “You went into the tents? What if someone was in them and saw you?”
“They’re all out by the fire, eating. And I peeked in carefully, from the back.” He slung his arm around her shoulders and drew her closer.
She relaxed against him because sometimes that was all we needed for comfort—having the person we loved near us.
I winced against a sting of longing in my chest and tried to focus on my potion jars. The emptiness that had reigned inside me ever since Ciana was taken from me could not be filled with anything or anyone else. I had to get her back.
“This is what I want you to do,” I said to my tiny army. “I’ll give each of you two jars, and you will set them into the sand where I’ll tell you. Once you do that, you’ll have to uncork them and dip the ends of these cords into each, so that one cord connects both jars. Do you understand?”
They nodded, but I doubted anyone who hadn’t dealt with the explosion potion could fully comprehend how devastating the potion could be when combined with an appropriate spell.
By law, Joy Guardians were forbidden to take part in wars and rebellions. But it had happened once or twice when a Joy Guardian had been persuaded either by wealth or a promise of power to join a cause unrelated to the safeguarding of the Joy.
Twenty-five centuries ago, the High Lady of Sumakis rebelled against the ruling queen over a dispute about taxes and the Sumakis City defense. She hired a Joy Guardian, promising him riches and a position at her court after he’d been bypassed for the position of the Master Guardian at the temple.
The man used the explosion potion to annihilate the queen’s army, killing himself and the High Lady of Sumakis in the process, as well as razing the nearest city to the ground. Even those who were underground didn’t survive.
Back in the queen’ssarai, I’d spent weeks calculating just theright amounts of potion drops and the locations for the jars, based on the exact devastation effect I’d planned in Kalmena.
Now, the challenge was even greater because the explosion had to be far more precise. In Kalmena, I didn’t care about anyone’s survival as long as all the humans were dead. Now, I had to make sure that none of my people got hurt and no humans died.
At the same time, I had no time or equipment to be this precise. I used my hands to measure volume and my fingers to determine the length of the cords. The process had to be different for those reasons. I needed the second potion to counterbalance the first. We had one chance to position the jars in just the right spots of the camp. I couldn’t risk being discovered while setting them all up alone, and that was why I needed help.
“Ready?” I looked at my motley crew of desert dwellers.
Counting on the rough, uneducated people to do the job that required precision and could have devastating consequences if done wrong, might be reckless on my part. But I had no choice, spurred by urgency and desperation. I figured that “uneducated” didn’t always equal “ignorant.” One had to possess a certain intelligence to survive in the desert for as long as these people have done.
“Take these two.” I gave a couple of jars to Malis. “Place this one on the right, this one on the left. Will you remember?” She nodded, biting her lip in concentration. I poked a finger at the map I had drawn in the sand. “Get them right here, behind this tent and as close to their campfire as you dare. Wait for the light signal before uncorking them. And be very, very careful when opening the jars. Make sure not a drop is spilled.”
Gripping the jars in both hands, Malis slipped into the night. A lifetime of living in the desert, hunting for food, and sneaking into camps and caravans for looting had taught her to be exceptionally stealthy. Malis moved like a breath with the breeze—a dark shadow in the starry night.
“All right. You’re next.” I turned to Raimus.
After all the jars had been distributed, and my helpers left down the dune, sneaking around the traders’ camp from four sides, I took two star shards out of my satchel and counted in my head to give my people enough time to get in their positions. Then I struck the shards against each other, eliciting a single black spark.
As the spark flew up into the dark sky, it turned from black to bright blue and then to white. After reaching the summit, it plummeted down, reduced to a speck of dust.
To anyone else glimpsing the spark tonight, it would look like just a shooting star. But my team was expecting the signal. Now they knew that I would start the spell soon.
I counted again to give them time to open the jars and dip the cords in.
“Hey, who are you?” a rough voice shouted down in the camp. “Why the fuck are you sneaking around here?”
