Jason regained consciousness while being rattled around in the back of a wagon. He was on a blanket but it barely softened the hard wood he was lying on. It was an open wagon, giving him a wide view of the rocky desert as he looked blearily around. In the wagon with him were Farrah and Anisa, while Gary was on a seat at the front holding reins. Rufus wasn’t in the wagon, but instead riding alongside. He was in the saddle on one of the two-headed horse-lizards called heidels, leading a string of them all tied together.

“Why would you bring those horrifying things?” Jason called out to him.

“You’re hardly in a position to talk,” Rufus called back with a laugh.

Jason could feel the blood monster flowing though his veins. It was unnerving, but he couldn’t help but grin at the sensation of power.

“How are you feeling?” Farrah asked.

“Tired,” Jason said, “but strong.”

“Are you still not going to tell me what happened to him?” Anisa asked Farrah, not even looking at Jason.

“Him is right here,” Jason said, “and you could ask him yourself.”

Anisa turned her gaze to Jason.

“Then what happened to you?” she asked.

“I said you could ask,” Jason said. “Didn’t say I’d tell you.”

Gary burst out laughing from the front, Farrah stifling a chortle behind her hand. Anisa schooled her fury into a look of blank disdain and turned away, staring out at the desert horizon.

24. Astral Space

24

Astral Space

“So how long are we going to be trekking through the desert?” Jason asked. “I’m not saying there isn’t a stark beauty to it, but I’d like to go someplace where even the sunshine isn’t actively trying to kill me.”

They’d left the manor at noon while Jason was still unconscious after his summoning ritual. By the time they stopped for the evening, he was feeling battered by half a day of riding in the wagon over rocky desert terrain. They camped in tents taken from Farrah’s magic chest and set off again in the morning.

The wagon’s progress along the little-used trail was slow but steady, only pausing occasionally to water the heidels from a barrel in the wagon. The creatures could handle the arid conditions well enough, but couldn’t forego water entirely. There were a dozen of them between Rufus’s string and the four pulling the wagon. Rufus had insisted on taking them over Anisa’s objection, refusing to leave them to starve in the stables of the abandoned manor.