The Fifth Academy - Fantasy Direction / #Wattys2018

Chapter twenty. The Ragweed Elixir.

By Jason

I opened my eyes and closed again, blinded by the bright light of the hospital. Oh, I became such a very frequent visitor of this place! Two times in one day was my new record!

When I had opened my eyes again, I didn't want to close them again. There was Max (safe and sound) and Diana (quite disapproving but glad to see me anyway). In my short life had never been happier!

Although I wasn't so uplifted for very long time. Soon come scolding and disapproving of my father, Diana's worries and Max's regrets. Thankfully, the high and mighty of this world - magir's king and orc's chieftain, didn't let the news spread.

"You have a very tempered and bold son!" admitted the King Lysander on the next meeting with orc-party.

"That's because you have a very beautiful daughter!" answered him the chieftain, his son was silent and sheepishly stared at the floor.

"Even the strongest love-portion loses its power with death." explained Max, after about a week from hospital, he still had pale and sickly look. "Drago practicality has died and then returned to life again. So he has been successfully cured from the Rosaline's love-spell."

"Good! At list I didn't kill him for nothing!" replied I, but the joke wasn't quite funny. Max closed his blue eyes painfully, he looked almost fainting. I grabbed the boy's right hand - it was skinny and cold, like ice. "What is going on with you, dude? You are melting away!"

He sighed deeply and opened his clear-blue eyes again. They looked like two huge lakes among white snow of his skin. Something was utterly wrong...

"I am dying," whispered him softly and opened to me his bonny palm. There was a small blue-feathered dart, its sharp metal tip was smeared with something dark-red and jet-black. "Dry blood and the black one is the Dark-death, the strongest of demonic poisons. I am dying because of it! Somebody got me in the night garden with that tiny arrow, aiming for you..."

"Damn it!" I interrupted abruptly and loudly, eager to hear about only one thing. "What is the antidote for the Dark-death?"

Max closed his eyes again, this time he made a few deep sighs.

"There is the only one antidote for that poison – The Ragweed Elixir," replied the boy, when I was almost sure, that he wasn't going to answer. "And it is beyond our reach."

"No! The Ragweed Elixir?" exclaimed I, glad, that I had learned something on my magic chemistry. "It is here! It the King's Treasure Room! I mean, in The White Palace! We can get it! Let's ask Diana for her invisibility cloak and..."

"Jason, NO!" answered he, practically yelling at me.

"Max, YES!" replied I even louder.

"That's the high treason! To rob the King himself!"

"Kings or slaves! Gods or demons!" exclaimed I, and then lowered my voice sensibly. "I going to rob no matter whom, if it could save the life of my friend! Let's go!"

"You have gone crazy, Jace!" muttered Max, clutching the poisoned dart in his weak hands. Somehow, this tiny deadly weapon looked pretty familiar to me.

"Where have I already seen it?" thought I, but any way, I had never remembered, that the Rosaline's personal elf Dayson had tried to fire the similar looking dart, smeared with the love-poison, into my heart. "No! I can't remember anything! Let's go and find the invisibility-cloak! But first Diana..."

And we made it... I meant the robbing stuff.

As was easy to guess, after I and Max had ritually shared our blood and secrets, we never parted, doing everything together, and finally made the biggest mess in the history of the magirs! Actually, nothing special – we just had stolen one ancient and powerful magic artifact from The White Palace of The King. To be more precise – we did not even steal, but drunk a few sips each of very rare The Ragweed Elixir with disgusting taste. I did it, of course, because I was thirsty, but Max had no other choice – without elixir he was going to die! And yes, we were totally aware, that it would be punishable by death, but at that moment we both still were under age. Magirs usually attained their full age a year earlier, than common mortals did. By the way, I was older – without two weeks seventeen.

Thus we took all the risks, made the perfect bold plan, broke into the most sacred place in The White Palace (by the way, it could be easily The Princesses' bedroom), successfully drunk the magic ancient portion and had been happily unexposed for three long days. Then, everything begun...

Max had betrayed me. He quietly went to my father, who happened to be none other than The Great Commander of the White Legion himself and told him everything about our "brave" deeds. Why? Did he really think that we could be mercifully forgiven for that? That little traitorous bastard, who happened to be my friend, named himself the chief of our "robber-band" and thereby took nearly all the blame and, of course, the punishment on himself. Unfortunately, I found out too late that our raid had been disclosed and Max must be publicly executed on The Main Victory Square that precise day by midday.

Somehow Max managed to send me a whisper about what happened.

"Our burglary was discovered. I took all the blame and going to be executed."

I dropped everything and run to the square like a madman. I had no idea then, who and how had reported on us. I simply jumped on the scaffold and loudly swore on the blood of all my noble ancestors (thankfully, they all were already dead, otherwise they would have been burning with shame for me) that it was I and only I, who directed the theft and made Max to obey my greedy wishes. I swore three times in front of all The White Legion, almost in the smirking face of the yang executioner – my older brother Arest. There were no doubts – I was older, stronger and had all the necessary power over the common soldier Max Firesteel, because I was a Sub Lieutenant and in addition – the second son of The Great Commander. This way I took the bitter lot of my friend. Even after The Ragweed Elixir Max was much weaker than me and twelve hits of the iron whip could easily blow the life out of him. The thousandth crowd of legionnaires was serious and deadly silent like on the hero's funeral. Something was utterly wrong.

Oh, hell! Why? Why I always first did then thought?

I had taken all twelve lashes of the cursed iron whip before I was told, that Max had betrayed me! That it was HE, who had reported everything to my father! We could have stayed undisclosed for a very long time! Everything could be normal and even quite well! However, no!

I didn't know, what was more painful – to be severely whipped by sharp unmerciful iron or to be stricken with the betrayal of the best friend. I was literally heartbroken and in hot blood cursed and damned Max. How could he do this to me? And WHY?

In one second everything between us was razed to the ground, he turned from my best friend to my deadliest enemy. I swore on my ancestors' blood, that I would never ever speak to him again and would instantly kill the betrayer if we ever met.

After my long and hot speech, I mercifully fainted. But before I hit the ground I had caught some shouts from the solders' crowd, like "Jason the Successor", "Crowd-lashes", and "... swear by Jason's bloody back!"

They considered me a hero – it was very brave and noble to take the punishment instead of your soldier, even if he eventually turned to be a turncoat.

"Crowd-lashes" meant that whole The Great White Legion was willingly going to take all of my future punishments. No matter what it would be – lashes or death, it would be equally divided between all the solders, lieutenants and everyone else, who had sworn to bear it. Thus, it meant that I would never ever be punished again! Even a million whip-lashes could easily disappear in the numbers of The Magir's Legion.