Chương 63: Wild Goose Chase

As he bit into his meat pie, Jonny's gaze never left the top of the mage tower a few blocks away. Sitting at the very top, he could just barely make out the blue-gray colors of a cloud hawk sitting on the ramparts and staring down from him. He could not see Charles well enough to make out his eyes, but there was no doubt the hawk was looking right at him. Do it, Chuck, Jonny thought. I dare you. The young hawk had flown down into the streets once before since Jonny and Igrette reached civilization.

It had caused an enormous commotion, and he had mages hunting him for three days after. The nation of Oleira did not tolerate magic beasts roaming the streets and terrorizing its citizens by stealing their meat pies. Jonny was pretty sure that Charles actually had a small bounty on his head in that town now. However, Charles had learned his lesson, and despite Jonny's silent provocation, he stayed put. Choosing the local mage tower as a place to perch was certainly an interesting choice, but so far, it was working.

It was probably because Charles was currently only first layer, so he wasn't powerful enough to trigger the tower's automated defenses. If either of his parents had tried to sit there, they would have been attacked immediately. Charles wasn't originally supposed to come with them.

Igrette and Jonny had both actually said goodbye to him as they packed up and left, but over the next few weeks, some of the meat on the beasts they slew "mysteriously" disappeared, and a conspicuous white cloud could be spotted overhead as they hiked. They tried to get him to turn back around, but they really couldn't force him to do anything, and in the end, reluctantly accepted him as their third traveling companion.

It went well while they were still in the mountains, but when they crossed the border into Oleira and finally descended back into civilization, he started to be a problem. Even if cloud hawks didn't attack humans, a bird of prey bigger than most children with magical abilities wasn't really something people wanted around, and since Charles had grown up with humans, it took him a little while to learn that.

In the smaller, more rural towns, they had been able to get the locals not to run away from him, at least, but as soon as they got into more populated regions, he could no longer accompany them in the streets. At this point, though, Jonny would welcome him flying down. It would cause chaos, and it might get dangerous for the hawk, but it would be entertaining, at least. And entertainment was exactly what Jonny needed, because he was bored. It had now been almost four months since he and Igrette decided to leave.

Originally, their plan was to find a messenger in Oleira, send a letter to Igrette's researcher friend back in Feria, and then wait for him to come. The first half of the plan had gone well. It took a little over a month to get out of the mountains, then another week to get to a city large enough to have a post office, and they should have heard back from the friend a few weeks later.

They used some money they got by selling glass deer antlers to pay for a month at an inn, and spent that month relaxing and enjoying the company of other humans. Finally having spices and herbs and bread and vegetables after so long was heavenly at first, as was having a real bed, and not needing to rely on fire or mana-infused skin for warmth was incredible, but by the end of the month, they had both gotten used to it, and had still not heard back from the researcher.

About five weeks after they had sent their letter, they finally received a response back, but it had not come from the researcher friend. It instead came from his apprentice, and it explained that the friend had moved to Oleira after getting frustrated by the church's rules and regulations restricting what he was allowed to do. That wasn't actually bad, since he was already in the same country, and they could go find him. Except they couldn't find him.

The lab where the assistant said he had moved was on the opposite side of the country, so they went on the road for a month, finally arriving in Lina, the capital of Oleira where he was supposed to be working, and he wasn't there. They asked the other researchers there, and they called the man insane, and said they were glad he was gone. They would not tell Igrette and Jonny what had happened or where he went.

The only information they got was from the janitor, who had been on good terms with the researcher, and told them that he had gone north to "find someone who would appreciate his knowledge." So, north they went. That wasn't much direction to go off of, but the further north they went, the lower the population got, and Igrette's friend was distinct and memorable enough that even two years after he passed through, the locals still remembered him.

If they asked around the inns, they could usually find out where he stayed, and subsequently which direction he was heading. Jonny thought their methodology was a little bit sketchy, but it was working so far. The researcher had veered westward in his travels, and Jonny and Igrette had now traced him almost all the way to the Oleiran Sea, which made up the majority of the country's western border.

He had not stopped anywhere for very long, so the trail was colder than ice, but it existed, and Igrette kept saying he couldn't have gone too much further. He wasn't the type to stay on the road for long, so he had to have settled down somewhere. This town was one she had been hopeful about. In the last one, they met a man with Null Syndrome who said that the researcher had spoken with him at length for a while, then asked if he knew any Null children in the area.

The man had not, but that testimony proved that the researcher was looking for something in particular, and would likely have stopped for a while when he found it. It gave them a second thing to look for, and Igrette thought it was a promising sign. At this point, Jonny's curiosity about the man had reached its peak long ago. He had been excited to meet a man so distinct that random strangers still remembered him even three years later.

Then they failed to find him again and again and again, and at this point, he almost didn't care. He just wanted it to be over. He wanted to get back to proper training. He wanted to figure out the issue with his heart. He wanted to stop traveling and stay in one place for a while. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Before he knew it, he had reached the end of his meat pie, absent-mindedly reaching for the next as he stared at Charles from afar.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't noticed the tapping of Igrette's wooden cane until it was right beside him and she was speaking in his ear.

"Found him." Jonny jumped, then turned to face her, wide-eyed.

"You did?!"

"Yes," she said.

"Where is he?"

"A small village a few miles away. We can make it by nightfall. He's staying there with a family of ranchers whose youngest daughter has Null Syndrome. He sometimes comes to this town to shop for things he can't find in the village, so he's a known figure, and was last seen here only three days ago.

"Finally!" said Jonny as he scarfed down the rest of his second meat pie.

"Let's go!" Igrette smiled, then turned and started false-hobbling down the street. Jonny speedwalked ahead of her, stopping occasionally to let her catch up. Her disguise was very annoying at times like these when he wanted to move faster, but Igrette insisted on maintaining it. In Oleira, they were beyond the main church's sphere of influence, but that didn't mean she couldn't be recognized, and if she was recognized, he would be recognized too, and that could only go badly.

Only when they got far enough outside the town that no one could see them did she finally straighten up and start walking more quickly. Charles had joined them as well, perching on Jonny's head. He was far too big to be perching on Jonny's head, and if Jonny didn't reinforce the skin of his scalp, the talons would dig into it, but Jonny had given up on trying to shoo him away. Charles always came back.

They reached the village about an hour before sunset, and as the wooden houses came into view, Jonny wanted to run, while Igrette had to return to hobbling. Jonny ended up running anyway, jogging ahead to get a better lock while Charles tried to balance on his head, then waiting for Igrette to catch up before doing it again.

"Charles," said Igrette when she caught up to them a few hundred feet from the village.

"You know you can't stay there." Charles gave her an offended look, and Igrette returned a stern one.

"Go," she said.

"Find a tree to sleep on for tonight. We'll figure out what to do with you tomorrow." Jonny doubted that Charles knew what she was saying, but her tone was clear enough that a few seconds later, he took off, flying toward a small, tree-covered hill to the east of the village. Jonny and Igrette continued inward, and after asking a local working at the inn, they found the place where the researcher was staying.

Ten minutes after they arrived in the village, they were standing at the front door of a large ranch house, as heavy footsteps approached the door. The door swung open to reveal a burly man in his 30s with a bushy black beard and a resting mean face. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall, peering down at his two uninvited guests with suspicion.

"You're not from 'round here," he said. He spoke in a thick Oleiran accent, which Jonny thought sounded a lot like Texan. He didn't really understand why this world even spoke English, but he no longer bothered to question it.

"No, we are not," said Igrette.

"My name is Ignacia and this is my grandson, John. We heard that Oliver was staying here."

"Ollie?" asked the man.

"You got business with him?"

"I'm an old acquaintance of his," said Igrette.

"I was hoping he might be able to help my grandson here." The man looked over at Jonny, then nodded.

"He's out with Emily right now, but he should be in soon. You can wait inside. Dinner's almost ready. Should be more'n enough."

"Thank you," said Igrette, bowing her head. The man stepped aside, letting them in, then led them down a long hall into a large dining room. The dining room was already half-set, and when the bearded man barked out some orders, a pair of identical boys just a few years older than Jonny emerged from another room to set out two more plates. Jonny could hear sounds coming from the kitchen where he assumed someone was preparing food, but the door was shut, so he couldn't see inside.

The bearded man directed Igrette and Jonny to have a seat, and then he sat down across from them and started asking questions. It was clear that he didn't fully trust them, but he remained polite, and when Igrette got vague with her answers, he didn't press too hard. Igrette told him that they were from Feria, and that she had been a healer in the war, and had briefly worked with Oliver.

She also gave a sob story about how Jonny's parents had passed away recently, and how she was all he had left, and that she wanted to give him the best future possible, which was why they had come here. There was no actual sobbing involved, and both Igrette's face and the man's stayed stoic, but she must have reached him, because a few seconds after she finished, he nodded.

"I understand." A second later, there was a commotion from somewhere outside the house. Jonny heard footsteps, and a pair of voices talking and laughing. One was loud and deep, and the other was very young and giggly. A door opened somewhere behind them, and the voices and footsteps got louder and louder until a pair of figures entered the dining room. The first was a little girl who looked a year or two younger than Jonny currently was.

She had the same black hair as the bearded man, and pale gray eyes, and she froze in the doorway with a smile on her face when she saw Jonny and Igrette. While she stood there, a second figure stepped up behind her, standing so tall that the top of his head was hidden by the door frame. He gently pushed her inside, ducking to get in, and then he too stopped and stared.

Jonny had already known what he would look like from the questions Igrette had been asking while they tracked him, but they didn't properly prepare him for how overwhelming the man was. He was least seven feet tall and muscled like a bodybuilder. He knew that Oliver had to be as old as Igrette was, but if he couldn't see the man's face, he would have never known it. His hair and beard were white as snow, and was wider and rounder than Jonny would have expected based on his frame.

He almost looked like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus was huge and buff. He glanced at Jonny, then turned his full attention to Igrette and stared for a few seconds. Then, he broke out into a wide smile, showing off a front tooth gap wide enough to fit a third front tooth.

"Iggy!"