Late again – sorry

And even if it did work, he may not have the control he’d need, given the limited vocabulary he had to work with. He had the recording of Urasmian’s translocation spell as well as the sizable collection of Minoan words he’d painstakingly built up over the last few months, both before and after he’d presented his Doctoral Thesis. The trouble was that the words from the tablets were all descriptions used for accounting purposes, such as animal and equipment totals, five sheep, or whatever. They weren’t a general vocabulary of sentences forming an entire language like you would get from a novel, for instance. So he knew it was going to be hard to use the limited word choice to both do things and control them, and that was presuming this even worked!

He had the broom handle with the aluminum foil end bits semi-welded onto each end by whatever the spell did with him. He retrieved it from the pick-up and added it to his collection of materials before sitting down on another handy rock outcrop to consider what he intended to do for a minute or two. Alright, he thought to himself, let’s start with what I know. He opened the laptop up and put his headphones in, and listened to the recording he’d made of Urasmian speaking the translocation spell as he embedded it in the wooden handle. Even though he now understood the words, he re-ran the recording a few more times until he was sure he had it memorized.

He then recorded his version and listened to the replay. The laptop’s built-in microphone wasn’t the best, but it sounded pretty right to his ear. He listened to the original and did a second recording. That was better. He had left off the bit at the end that actually enabled the spell just to be sure his laptop didn’t go whizzing off somewhere! He couldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been able to understand the words used in the spell, or at least the meanings of the words used. He was glad Urasmian’s translation spell was still working! Which brought up the question of how long it would continue to work. That was something Jason had no idea of the answer, as Urasmian had never said.

He then considered the list of words he had from the tablets and found only one that was any sort of match for the broom handle. So, it would be pronounced like that. Hmm. Right. And phrases would probably sound like this… Right.  The broom handle could be called an axle, as in the word used on several tablets to record the number of chariot axles a person owned. He got the impression that chariot axles tended to break regularly as everyone listed as having a chariot always had more than one axle.

Okay. Let’s see if that works. He ran the modified translocation spell through his head several times and listened to the original a couple more times. He substituted in the word for five paces for the distance and axle instead of the word for a person and moved the broom handle to a clear spot ten yards up the track. He stepped back and said the spell aloud while focusing on the broom handle. It disappeared and clattered to the ground about four yards further up the track!

Chapter 8

Whoa! I’m magic!

Back home, he found that he kept pondering whether it was the right plant, and if so, could he do magic now? That was the big question. He had no idea, but he knew he had to find out. It was almost two weeks after getting home before he escaped his parent’s supervision. They had taken it in turns for one or the other to have a day off from work to make sure he wasn’t left alone in case of a relapse or whatever. Not that Jason felt sick or anything. By the second week home, he was doing push-ups and star jumps in his bedroom, trying to regain some of his fitness even though his folks banned him from going to the gym. Not that he had ever been a gym junky, but after the hospitalization, he had felt very weak.

Finally, they decided he would live without one of them being present twenty-four hours a day and resumed their normal work routine. Yes! Finally, he was free to see if he could do anything. Even better, his dad had left the truck at home, at least this week, being dropped off and picked up from his work site by mum! Okay! He deliberately waited two days before doing anything, studying Google maps and deciding on just where he would go. Once in the truck, he kept the map open on his phone and headed out.

It wasn’t that far until he reached the area that he had decided on as the place to try things out. Satisfied the place matched the map, Jason got out of the truck and looked around the immediate vicinity. The track off Willow Glen Drive wasn’t used to access the water tank at the top of the bluff anymore but still saw regular use by trail bikers. The spot he remembered was still accessible and apparently untouched. It offered a view back down to Willow Glen Drive and a fairly good view all around so he could tell if anyone was coming. It also offered some concealment amongst the stand of rather stunted trees on the otherwise rather barren hillside. Getting out here so early in the morning meant there were no trail bike riders out using the trails as yet, which would have attracted attention if only from the noise. Not that there it was likely that there would be many on a weekday, but there could be some, especially late in the day after school was out. The current peace and quiet suited him just fine, and he hoped he wouldn’t be interrupted. He’d find out, he guessed.

He grabbed his laptop and found a bit of rocky outcrop to perch it on in an area that he hoped would be covered by the shade of one of the scraggly trees. It was still early enough in the morning that the sun was still behind the mountains, but it would be up in an hour or so. Right. Let’s get this experiment underway, he thought to himself. Then he laughed at himself as he hadn’t really needed to come all the way out here to do his experiments, and he was going to feel pretty stupid if nothing happened! On the other hand, while he hadn’t been feeling sick for some days, he had been feeling very strange mentally ever since the episode on Santorini, and he hoped that meant this was going to work. It wasn’t like he thought he was going to pass out at any tick of the clock, but there were these shooting stars in his vision regularly and occasional dizzy spells, which he had been careful to hide from his folks.

As of Kyron the Warlord

sorry this is late

The doctor shrugged and told him not to do anything too energetic for the rest of the day and that he would see him later. He had barely left the room before a different nurse appeared and inserted a new catheter in his other wrist before drawing a new blood sample which she bore off like a trophy. He visited the bathroom again and then propped himself up to watch the television.

An hour later, his parents walked in, surprising the hell out of him. Apparently, they had flown to Crete as soon as they could get airline tickets and visas organized. Once there, they caught the next local flight to Santorini, dumped their bags in his hotel room, and immediately headed for the hospital. Much emoting followed their arrival, even from his father, which surprised him a bit. His father was not, as a rule, the overly physical contact type usually. They were clearly very upset at his near-death! His sister hadn’t been able to come but sent her love.

They had get-well messages from many of his friends, relatives, and even a couple of his professors! And they brought his laptop! With an amazing display of self-discipline, he forbore opening the device and disappearing into it while they were there. Eventually, they were sufficiently satisfied with his recovery that they were persuaded to retire to the hotel to catch up on their sleep. After they had finally departed, he found his email account overflowing with get-well emails. He had never had all that many friends, and getting emails from people he didn’t even know was a strange experience! The fame he had engendered for himself with his translating Linear A, at least amongst the Classical Studies world, was brought home with a rush by the sheer number of messages he had received. And he wasn’t even game to look at his social media accounts! Ha, they would probably be less full if the truth be known.

The doctor reluctantly signed him out the next day as, to all intents and purposes, he was completely recovered, if more than a little weak and very pale looking, and the new blood tests had come back all normal.  His mother made him stay at the hotel on Santorini for another day, which was awkward with them sharing the room before they began the trip back to the States. Jason found himself so weak and prone to the shakes that her maternal hovering was actually welcome rather than annoying. The flight home was long and boring and included a three-hour layover in New York, making the trip seem even longer. At least by the time they arrived back in San Diego, the shakes were finally starting to subside.

He thought back over the trip and wondered whether the leaves had done anything to him? Apart from apparently killing him, twice, that was. Hmmm. Then there was all the strange carry-on with the blood tests. Urasmian had said normal people had a two in a hundred chance of dying from drinking the tea made from the leaves of the right plant. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing if he had actually found the right plant or not. He didn’t feel magical, that was for sure! But at least he wasn’t dead, which was a good thing!