Act Two

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…

The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted assassin. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the evil EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its grand prize, the EARTH EMERALD…

EPISODE THIRTY-FIVE: ACT TWO

One night before the tournament.

As soon as the red velvet curtain went down for the interval, Ryn turned to Nuthea from where he sat next to her and said “What do you mean she’s Jewel-touched?”

He had tried to ask her while the play had been going on but it had been too difficult to talk in whispers without disturbing the people around them and making a scene–a different scene to the one happening on the stage, that is–so she had repeatedly shushed him, to his obvious frustration.

“What do you mean?” he pressed her again, now he had the opportunity. Everyone else around them was talking about the spectacle of the first half of the play they had just watched.

Nuthea brushed her hair out of her eyes. She felt slightly lightheaded. But she didn’t need to call the answer to mind. She had been going over and over it in her head ever since that lifelike dragon had appeared on stage.

“One of the Jewels…” she answered him, speaking quietly so that they wouldn’t be overheard, but not so quietly that Ryn couldn’t hear. “...the ‘Spirit Carnelian’...is supposed to grant the gift of being able to ‘summon’ creatures from the spirit realm… to give physical, animal shape to projections of spirit. Not very much is known about it, except that, and it’s thought that the Jewel has been lost for many thousands of years. There are very few mentions of spirit-projectors in the lore; you have to go back centuries to find even a single one, and even then the references are somewhat…mythical. Some argue that the Spirit Carnelian has never been found since the One hid it somewhere in Mid or that it doesn’t exist at all–”

“Well then how would anyone know about it?” Ryn butted in, interrupting her flow.

Nuthea frowned. He could be so annoying sometimes, speaking over her. “Well, these are ancient legends we are talking about, obviously. Their origins are shrouded in distant time. But we can trust the sacred texts of Oneism. They have been right about the other Jewels so far, after all...”

“So why do you think that actress has touched the ‘Spirit Carnelian’?”

“You saw that dragon, Ryn. It was real.”

“You don’t think it could have been some sort of stage trick, or made out of something else?”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” She had decided this while they had been watching the play.

“Alright then,” said Ryn, and stood up.

Nuthea grabbed his arm, horrified. “What are you doing?” He’s trying to be heroic, isn’t he? For my sake. Oh dear.

“You want to go and talk to her, don’t you?”

“Yes, but not now! If she is Jewel-touched, we will need to speak with her at length–ask her where she made contact with the Carnelian, whether she knows its present location, and so on...” Perhaps whether she even has it, Nuthea thought. “That will take some time, more than we will have during this interval, and if the second half of the play is delayed then we will cause a commotion and draw attention to ourselves. We should wait until the play has finished, then go and find her backstage.”

“Okay.” To her immense relief, Ryn sat down again.

They waited for the second half of the play to begin while the other members of the audience chattered excitedly around them, mainly about the dragon and how impressive it had been. From what Nuthea could overhear, the other audience members were convinced that it had been some sort of a trick, as nobody had been known to tame a real-life dragon before, at least in living memory.

Her attention drifted away from the chatter. If we do get to speak to this young lady, which we must, how will we convince her that we know about the Jewels?

Normally she would make a small display of her lightning projection, but there she faced the problem that she was still blocked for some reason, and her conversation with Cid hadn’t unblocked her. It had been nice to be distracted from all of that by the play, and then by the appearance of this spirit-summoning girl, and not to have to think about her lightning projection being blocked for a while.

Nuthea sighed. She would have to rely on Ryn again to make a display of his fire projection in order to convince the girl that they had knowledge of the Jewels, just as she had done when they had been trying to gain an audience with the Governor.

“Are you alright?” Ryn said to her, apparently having noticed her sighing.

“Hm?” said Nuthea. “Oh, yes, thank you, just thinking…”

She didn’t want to take advantage of Ryn, but it was very useful having him around for occasions such as this.

The trouble is, I don’t want to lead him on, either…

Was she leading him on? Why had she agreed to come to see a play with him? She had made it very clear that this wasn’t a signal of any kind of romantic interest. But then again, going to see a play with someone was quite an intimate activity in itself, regardless of what one called it…wasn’t it? And Sagar had been so rude to her; she had to admit that at least in part she had agreed to go with Ryn in order to spite the skypirate. That wasn’t really fair.

All of this would be a lot easier if she knew how she felt about Ryn.

The trouble was, she didn’t know how she really felt about him. He was her friend, for sure, and they had been through a lot together. They had already forgiven each other for a lot. And he was sweet, and sometimes charming, and sensitive. And handsome, in a youthful, boyish sort of way.

But it was just too confusing and muddled to contemplate anything like that so soon after…so soon after her mother’s death. She had enough to think about at the moment, what with that, and finding the Jewels, and being blocked…

Just then a clear bell rang from somewhere behind the curtain, signalling that the second act of the play was about to start.

When complete quiet had fallen on the audience and the last of its chatter had died away, the curtains came back up.

Zigfrid Alantherous was waiting behind them at centre stage in his finery, and immediately launched into a monologue about how he was going to find the Princess to rescue her from the Evil Dragon and save the kingdom which she represented.

Nuthea wasn’t able to pay proper attention to it. She hadn’t been able to pay proper attention to the plot of the play ever since the green-haired girl had come on and summoned the dragon. She let it wash over her, waiting for the next appearance of the green-haired girl, waiting for the end of the play when they would go and find her to talk to her, contemplating how she would explain their plight to her and wondering what sort of attitude the girl would respond with.

Eventually, the green-haired girl reappeared on the stage.

She ran on from stage left, with big, deliberate movements to unconvincingly communicate that she was tired; huffing and puffing and overacting.

This time the dragon followed her, its menacing green form pursuing her from offstage, powerful limbs pumping.

The girl turned, then swooned, putting the back of her hand to her forehead and letting out a bad excuse for a falsetto scream.

In response, the dragon reared its head and roared, opening its jaws to issue a plume of green flame into the air.

The audience gasped.

The dragon was more convincing in its acting than the girl was.

Now Zigfrid sauntered onto the stage too, sharing a scene with the girl for the first time.

The audience clapped.

“Fear not, Princess!” he declared. “Now that I have found thee I will save thee from this fell beast!”

He drew his fake sword–well, at least Nuthea assumed it was fake–and brandished it at the dragon, leaping forwards to do battle. Fortunately for him it didn’t simply breathe fire on him there and then and burn him to a cinder.

Somebody in the audience yelled.

Wait, why were they yelling?

Nuthea twisted round in her seat.

Other people were turning too, distracted even from the spectacle unfolding before them onstage.

At the back of the playhouse near the doors, someone was causing a commotion.

A flurry of irritated protests and shouting had started in reaction to it.

“Oi!”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Hey, I paid good money for this seat–get off me!”

Someone was stumbling over the rows of playhouse chairs clumsily, banging into people, knocking them over when they stood up to get out of their way, making all manner of fuss.

Someone with an eye-patch, a ponytail and a somewhat fetching high-collared coat.

Oh no.

“Prinshesh!” yelled Sagar. “Pup! We’ve gots to show you shomething!”

He was followed closely by purple-haired Elrann, and seemingly also with someone else in tow–a stranger in a grey cloak with their hood pulled up over their head, carrying a lute case and barely managing to keep out of harm’s way as Sagar dragged him by the hand across the playhouse audience towards them.

“What in the hells is he doing?” whispered Ryn.

Nuthea’s cheeks were hot. “Just pretend we don’t know him,” she said, turning back round and covering her face with a hand. She had enjoyed being anonymous, and not a princess from another land on a life-and-death save-the-world quest, for once this evening. That anonymity was potentially about to be ripped to shreds.

“Too late,” said Ryn. “He’s spotted us. Anyone would recognise that golden hair of yours a mile off.”

Sure enough, Sagar was making a beeline straight for them, Elrann and the hooded stranger following close behind. As he barged past people or stepped over them or just knocked into them they were yelling and shouting and swearing at him. There was nothing for it–the pirate had definitely seen her and Ryn.

“Prinshesh! Pup!” Sagar repeated when he finally reached them, a trail of cursing and irritated theatre-goers in his wake. His breath stank of alcohol. “I’ve got to tell you shomething! Thish man knowsh about the Jewelsh!”

“Sorry about this,” said Elrann a bit more quietly as she arrived next to him. She was red in the face, uncharacteristically flustered. “He got it into his head that he needed to talk to you straight away. I tried to stop him but he kept blowing me off. Er…literally……”

“Never mindsh that,” Sagar slurred. “Thish man! Thish man shang a shong about the Jewelsh!”

“What is he talking about?” said Nuthea to Elrann.

“Excuse me,” said a loud voice from behind them, “but how very dare you interrupt my play?”

They all looked up at the stage as quiet fell upon the playhouse once more.

Zigfrid Alanthereous stood with his hands on his hips, his brows knotted in a look of pure righteous fury. The green-haired girl didn’t seem to mind so much–she stood nearby, close-lipped and vacant, looking…bored even. The dragon appeared to be waiting patiently in place, perfectly still, for the interruption to be sorted out.

“Do you know how much work has gone into putting on this masterpiece of theatre?” Alantherous went on, still in a stage voice though he was presumably no longer reciting rehearsed lines. “How many times I’ve been over these words, perfecting them? How much craft has gone into the creation of this dragon?”

“Holy poodoo!” Sagar said in response. “There’sh a kufeing great dragon up there! THERE’SH A DRAGON UP THERE!” he broke into a shout. “SOMEONE’SH GOT TO SHTOP IT!”

Without further warning Sagar jumped up and called the wind to aid him, bashing into several of the audience members in front of them as he flew towards the stage.

He landed clumsily in front of the wide-eyed Alantherous, tripping over his own legs and hitting the stage with a roll, then crashed into the actor.

“Agh!” screamed the man-who-was-pretending-to-be-a-king, going down in a flutter of blue hair and clanging fake armour.

The green-haired girl backed away to one side of the stage, watching them, a bit more animated now. The dragon remained poised in place next to her.

Somehow Sagar made it to his feet first and drew his two swords, almost wounding both himself and Alantherous in the process.

“BACK, YOU FOUL BEASHT!” he screamed. “DEATH AND GLORY!”

He ran at the dragon, pulling his swords back to strike.

Nuthea looked on in horror as, on the stage in front of them, the dragon opened its long jaws and breathed bright green flames at Sagar.

The skycaptain yelped and jumped backwards, swinging his swords across his body on reflex and making a gust of wind blow the flames back before they could reach him.

“It’sh a fire breather!” he cried as the flames subsided. He turned his head to face the audience. “Ryn! Get up here, Ryn! We need your fire-powersh!”

Ryn had his head in hands.

“Go!” Nuthea said to him, thinking quickly. “You need to de-escalate this as fast as possible! I can’t help you because I’ve become blocked in my lightning projection. We need to calm this down so we can talk to that girl. Don’t tell anyone who I am or about our quest!”

Ryn took his hands away from his face and blinked with surprise, probably at the revelation that she was unable to cast lightning at present, but then regained his composure and nodded acknowledgment.

“Right,” he said, and dashed forwards, pushing past other audience members to get to the stage and Sagar.

Nuthea shook her head.

Boys. How can they be so stupid?

“Er”... said Elrann nearby. “Should we go after them?”

The engineer wore a wobbly grimace. Next to her stood the man in the hooded grey cloak that she and Sagar had brought in with them. He had dark skin and sparkling deep blue eyes, like the ocean reflecting sunlight.

“Hey lady!” a man in the row behind them yelled at Elrann and the man all of a sudden. “Guy! Sit down! We’re trying to watch the play!”

“Yeah!” said someone else. “This is great! I didn’t realise they were going to use stooges planted in the audience!”

They think this is part of the play, Nuthea realised.

She quickly scooted up in her chair and pulled Elrann down by the hand to sit next to her in Ryn’s old seat. The mysterious new stranger followed suit, taking off his lute case and placing it on the floor in front of them, sitting down next to Elrann so that they squeezed in, three people to two chairs.

“No, we don’t go after them,” Nuthea whispered to Elrann, her eyes on the stage. Ryn had reached it, and leaped up onto it to join Sagar, the green-haired girl and Zigfrid. “At least not yet. I don’t want to give away that I am here in Farr. News will travel fast, and it’s too dangerous. The Empire cannot know of my whereabouts. And we need to keep an eye on that green-haired actress. I think she’s Jewel-touched. Depending on how this goes, we may need to go after her once the play is finished.”

“Oh right; I see,” said Elrann. “Alrighty then. Let’s see what happens. This is Quel, by the way.” She gestured with a thumb towards the hooded stranger.

“Hello, Quel,” Nuthea said to him.

“Hello, miss,” said Quel in an Umbarian accent. He gave a little wave from his side of Elrann.

“I am sure you have a good reason for bringing him along,” Nuthea said to the engineer, “and that you will explain everything once this fiasco is over?”

“Yep!” Elrann smiled. “Sure do, and sure will!”

“Alright then,” said Nuthea. “Keep an eye on the green-haired girl, like I said.”

“Okeydokey.”

With that, she sat back in her chair and watched utter carnage unfold in front of her.

*

Ryn landed on the wooden stage with a thump, extinguishing the flames around his feet just in time to avoid setting it on fire. His knees absorbed the shock as two little stabs of pain.

“Sagar!” he tried calling again. “What in the name of the One are you doing? Get off the stage!”

Sagar had his swords out and was waving them around haphazardly in front of the huge green dragon, so obviously drunk it hurt to look at him. He twisted around to address Ryn.

“Whadyou mean, pup?” he slurred indignantly, almost falling over from the twist. “Theresh a bloody great dragon here! We need to kill it before it eatsh the prinshesh! Death and glory!”

He continued round into a full turn and threw a clumsy swipe at the dragon, which merely took a step backwards, but also bared its teeth and growled, black smoke issuing from its nostrils.

A little way away the green-haired girl stood wide-eyed and pale with her mouth open, fists in tight balls. She looked as though she had absolutely no idea what to do.

“What do you think you are doing, you insolent wretches?” the lead actor, Zigfrid, shouted at them from his own place on the stage. “How dare you interrupt my great debut Farrian performance! Get off, both of you, now, or I will have Riss here set the drake on you!”

“Er, I’m sorry, sir…” Ryn fumbled his words. “My friend here–”

“Whadyou mean ‘what are we doing’?” said Sagar, turning on the actor and swaying slightly in place. He pointed behind him with his sword. “Hash everyone gone blind? There’sh a kufeing great dragon here to be shlain!”

“That dragon is a part of my magnum opus!” said Zigfrid, quivering with anger. “The magnum opus which you are interrupting and ruining!”

“Your magna wha’?” said Sagar.

“The play, you fool! My great work! The dragon is part of the show! It won’t hurt you! Now get off my stage or I will hurt you! If you don’t get off now and stop interrupting my play I will run you through, you drunken fool! This sword is real, you know!” The armoured actor rattled the blade that hung from a belt at his side.

Sagar’s eyes bulged. “A challenge!” He lifted his sword up and pointed it at Zigfrid. “You musht be in kahootsh with the dragon! I will shlay you too if I musht!”

“Sagar, don’t–” started Ryn, holding up his hands.

“Ahwoooooo!” howled Sagar, rushing forwards.

Zigfrid spread his feet and drew his own blade even as Sagar reached him.

One, two, three clangs, and their blades locked in front of them, each of them staring into the face of the other.

Wow, thought Ryn. Not bad. He can handle a sword. Or at least, he can handle a drunk Sagar.

Sagar seemed surprised too, from the fact that he didn’t react right away. But then he made a pushing motion with his free hand and wind gusted into Zigfrid, sending him tumbling heels-over-head back across the stage.

The audience whooped.

They were actually cheering and applauding, almost all of them. One large man in the front row was practically falling out of his seat with excitement. A good number of rows back, Ryn spotted golden hair. Nuthea. Her mouth was a tight line and her head was tilted down slightly. She stared daggers at him from across the theatre. End this now, her stare seemed to say.

“Godsdammit!” swore Zigfird, clambering to his feet with a clanking of tin armour over on the far side of the stage where Sagar had gusted him to. He had dropped his sword and lost his crown somewhere on the way over. “Nobody upstages Zigfrid Alanthreonusson! I don’t know how you did that, but you’ve forced me to do this, you rampaging plebian!”

The actor flicked back his blue hair, then thrust forward two hands, palms outstretched.

“LEO!” Zigfrid yelled, loud and theatrically.

There was a flash of light, and an enormous blue lion appeared on the stage in front of him, complete with flowing mane.

Ryn blinked in shock.

He had seen pictures of lions in books, but he didn’t think they were meant to be as big as this. It was nearly the same size as the dragon on the other side of the stage.

It had very pale blue-tinged fur, almost white, but its thick, rugged mane was a deeper, royal blue. Its facial features were almost human, but for the feline nose, Ryn could see from the other side of the stage near Sagar. Like the dragon, its big black eyes had a personality to them.

It crouched low now, terrible strength gathering in the bulging muscles of its legs, tensing its huge clawed paws, scratching the stage.

How is this happening? Ryn wondered. Then he realised. The Spirit Carnelian that Nuthea mentioned. Zigfrid must be Jewel-touched too! He’s summoned a spirit!

Sagar’s forehead contorted into a skew-whiff frown.

“LEO, KILL!” shouted Zigfrid.

The lion roared, bass and brutal, and pounced at Sagar.

“No!” Ryn called out at the same time as someone else.

The dragon sprang towards Sagar too from the other direction and smacked him to one side with a leg.

The skypirate tumbled over the edge of the stage, bounced on the floor, rolled a couple of times and landed on his back at the feet of the front row.

The audience went wild. The large man in the front row, whom Sagar had landed in front of, seemed to almost be wetting himself with excitement.

Two inhuman roars echoed through the theatre.

The massive blue lion was standing up on its hind legs, its paws locked against the clawed feet of the dragon. It snapped at the dragon’s neck, but the dragon drew back its head, then darted in to bite at the face of the lion, who backed off in turn. The two of them wrestled and writhed, roaring and snapping at each other, trying to land a bite on the other’s body.

The animals broke apart and crouched a few paces away from one another, panting and growling from their bout.

“Riss!” shouted Zigfrid across the stage, radiating fury. “How dare you combat my summon with your own to defend that barbarian?!”

“You were going to kill him!” the girl yelled back in a horrified voice, the first thing that Ryn had heard her say since he had been up onstage. “He didn’t deserve that!”

Zigfrid shook with fury. “Disrespect! You will be disciplined for this, child, make no mistake! Leo, put down that dragon!”

The lion crouched low once more to pounce.

Ryn had very little idea what was going on, but he knew whose side he was on.

As the lion leapt to attack again, Ryn put out his hands and shouted “FIRE!”

Flames blossomed in the air and rushed over the lion.

It stopped in its tracks immediately, shrinking back and covering its face with its paws, making a mewling, whining sound.

Ryn ceased the flames.

Guilt pulled at his guts immediately. He had scorched the lion’s fur brown and black. But it had been about to hurt the dragon, and possibly the girl, hadn’t it? And it’s just a spirit. Isn’t it?

“What deviltry is this?” said Zigfrid, then promptly fainted. He keeled over backwards and hit the stage with a smack. The blue lion disappeared at once.

The audience went crazy. They gave a standing ovation, almost all of them getting to their feet, holding up their hands, clapping and hollering so that the noise of their praise filled the theatre.

“You can project fire?” said the girl over the din, staring at Ryn across the stage, eyes like two green-tinted full moons.

“Er, yes,” Ryn said simply.

The girl nodded, and something in her eyes seemed to betray a decision. “Please, quick, follow me!”

The girl ran off the stage, past the curtain which hung to one side of it, then down some steps that led from backstage to a door.

Ryn sprinted after her, got halfway down the steps, then remembered.

“Wait a second!” he called after the girl. “I just need to get something!”

He turned and ran back onstage, where Sagar, having somehow managed to sheathe his swords and climb back up even in his drunkenness, was beaming at the applauding crowd, waving at them, and taking bows as they whistled and hollered and cheered.

“Come on, Sagar!” Ryn grabbed his hand and yanked him off the stage, back down the steps and through the door after the green-haired girl.

“They love me!” Sagar declared as Ryn pulled him along. “They love me!”

The stage door banged shut behind them.