---Chapter 10
“If there is no plague,” Amber asked, “why is there a purple cross on the door of that tree-house at the other end of the path?”
Leaflow tossed the twig lightly away. “That is the house of the Keeper of Light. He has been shut away since the calamity and does not wish to be disturbed. The purple cross is a sign of what shut him up and a symbol to keep the curious away.”
Lenny was puzzled with his explanation. “If you and the Keeper of Darkness are the only people here, than how is there a Keeper of Light and why does he worry about people bothering him?”
“The Keeper of Light and Dark is one man,” the stranger told them in a tone that was almost grim, “and you came here, didn’t you?”
His eyes seemed to be looking through Lenny then, seeing everything that was between one side and the other. Not liking the feeling, the young man changed the subject, hoping to distract him. “We don’t mean to ask too many questions, sir, but you see, one of our friends is hurt and needs help. We were hoping to find a doctor or healer of some sort, one who knows about poisons.”
“Poisons?” Leaflow began walking along the stones towards the tree-house. “The Keeper knows much about poisons and has given that knowledge to me. If you take me to your friend, I may be able to do something for him.”
“What about the Keeper? Couldn’t he come see Jax?”
Leaflow stopped to give him another long, thoughtful look from his brilliant green eyes. “As I said, the Keeper sees nobody at present. No one unless he trusts them. The calamity has struck him hard...”
The young travelers did not mention bringing the Keeper again. They followed Leaflow as he walked back along the stones, exchanging anxious looks behind his back. Was this being really going to help them? He looked awfully like something that the purple corruption would create. And the corruption obviously wanted Jax dead. What easier way to kill him than have a ‘healer’ come and finish him off?
On the other hand, if Leaflow were telling the truth, there was little other choice of people to ask for help on this world. They agreed with their looks that they would have to watch him carefully.
“You’ll have to keep an eye on me,” Leaflow commented a moment later, as if reading their thoughts, “you can not trust things of the dark in the worlds as they are. Especially when those things are poisoners.”
His tone was still grim, but there was an undercurrent of amusement in it. By now they had come out into the clearing, where the starlight allowed them to see a little more of their guide’s form. He appeared to be wearing a dark, hooded robe or cloak, which fell past his knees. Underneath, he was wearing dark leggings and footwear as well, so that he looked either like a solemn monk or an alarming assassin. Something silver glinted on his left wrist as he moved.
Lenny and Amber exchanged another glance. Was he mocking them or being serious with his warning? There was no way for them to tell, but they both knew that, if he could help Jax, it was worth running the risk. They simply would not leave him unwatched for a moment.
When they reached the other end of the path, where the house was, Leaflow let the other two lead the way. Amber used her pistol to get a reading and set a line south, back the way they had come. They went through the trees and across the bridge into the city of wrecked towers.
Lenny found himself walking beside the cloaked one, as Amber was leading them alone. “Was it the purple corruption that ruined this town, or had it already fallen apart before? It does look like it has been in ruins for a long time, since the road is covered over.”
Leaflow looked sideways out of his hood, around at the stubs. For a minute it seemed he would not answer, but then he said, “it has been like this since the calamity came. Before...everything was different.”
“Were there many people?”
“Thousands.”
Lenny felt chilled by his simple answer. Had they all died in that short a time?
He dared not ask, strangely afraid of what he might learn about this world. Even with one of its inhabitants accompanying them, there was something about the place which felt mysteriously dangerous. The darkness was not simply an absence of light. It lurked like a living thing between the trees. And yet, the cool air made Lenny feel more awake and alive than the air of any world he had been to before.
He looked up at the stars for a minute, trying to decide if they had moved very far since they had first arrived. “How long is it until dawn?”
“Years, perhaps.” Leaflow shrugged, pointing a gloved hand at a tree branch with vines straggling over it. “Until the effects of the calamity are broken.”
Lenny decided that he did not want to ask any more questions about this world at all, not unless he had to. Amber scouted the way through the small grove of pines, which still moaned softly in an upper wind. There was no sign of the white stag here now, nothing but the little lights which moved just out of range. In silence they walked into the clearing with the hump and pine tree in the middle, passing it closely. They had just reached the far side of the hill when Amber stopped, looking up from her compass. “What’s that noise?”
Lenny had been hearing it for the last few minutes, but had discredited it as more wind noises. Now it was becoming louder and moving nearer, a steady whipping noise almost like a dog’s tail hitting the floor. But much louder than that, reverberating through the air at every blow. He stiffened, looking up at the sky. “It’s almost like a helicopter.”
Amber fell back closer to him as the noise approached, gasping when a black shape covered the stars. It was huge, as long as the train with all three cars, with giant wings shaped like a bat’s spread against the sky on each side. Lenny switched the power over to his energy cannon, preparing once again to use it. He would prefer not to fire it where Amber could see, but the thing in the sky was too large to ignore.
“Is it one of the things of the night?” he asked Leaflow, who had also stopped and was gazing up at it.
“Yes.” The cloaked one raised his hand in a signal, almost a command. “It is Stoneleaf.”
The shape began to descend, wings cupping the air with a whistle like a jet plane coming in to land. Lenny saw a long, flexible neck, swishing tail and huge claws striking downwards. There was only one image and word in his mind that fit what he was seeing. Dragon.
“Is it safe?” he pressed, still ready to blow it out of the sky with his power if needed.
“No,” Leaflow’s answers did not ever seem to be very reassuring, “but he will not hurt us as long as we do not offer him harm. In fact, he is the gentlest of the Keeper’s four pets.”
With a thump that could be felt through the ground, the dragon landed at a little distance from them. Moving with a sinuous grace, it crawled towards them. Its body was long and streamlined, with the wings folded on either side to create bulky bundles like a ship’s sail furled to the mast. Lenny had to brace himself to stand still and he knew that Amber was just as frightened, though she did not move away either as it approached.
When it was near enough that they could hear its deep breathing and smell the smoke on its breath, Leaflow stepped forward and held a hand to the dragon’s snout. It snuffed it gently, like a dog, then reared its head back to stare at the two interlopers with gleaming green eyes, slit pupils solid black. Its scales were black as well, with a glint along the edge of them like newly-sharpened steel.
“This is Stoneleaf,” Leaflow explained, “he guards the air. The Keeper’s other pets are, from gentlest to most powerful, Blackthorn the tiger, Silverbark the wolf and the black daisy which has no name. They watch the grounds and the Keeper’s estate.”
“Er, nice.” Lenny backed a step away from the dragon as it moved a claw curiously towards them. “Could we keep going now? Jax is in a bad condition.”
“Just a moment.” Leaflow beckoned to Stoneleaf, who dropped his head down to the cloaked one’s level. Leaflow murmured something in its ear, which Lenny could just make out part of with his heightened hearing:
“Tell the Keeper I will return once we know...these might be the ones...I will not let him...bondage.”
He stepped away from the dragon, who raised his head with a small snort, which seemed to be one of agreement more than derision. It settled back on its haunches while Leaflow gestured for Amber to continue leading the way. They walked out of the clearing, leaving the giant beast crouching behind them. Lenny could feel its bright green eyes watching as they walked away. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw it sitting in the same place, wings folded.
“Can you really talk to him?” Amber asked once they were out of sight, “Stoneleaf, I mean.”
“Of course,” Leaflow gave her a glance, “but it doesn’t mean that he’ll understand what I say.”
The young people gave each other yet another worried look, though they said nothing.
It did not take them long to get back to the train. Lenny saw it glimmering ahead of them in the trees and a double emotion seized him. The first was a feeling of relief, to be coming back to the sanctuary of safety and light that the train had become. The second was one of anxiety, because he did not know how Jax would have fared while they were gone.
No matter how annoying and argumentative the world-traveler could be, it was hard to not like Jax. He was so full of life and energy that seeing him pale and still from illness was all the harder to bear.
Leaflow did not ask any questions when he saw the train. Obviously, his world had been fairly technologically advanced before the power core had taken it over. He would have seen complex machines and vehicles before, even if none of them were quite like this one.
They took him through the caboose, which he seemed to take in with an approving glance, before leading him into the passenger car. Lenny went first, eager to see how his friend was doing. The first sight that greeted him though, was not Jax on his couch. It was Patch and Raggsy, sitting on the floor with a game board drawn in charcoal lines between them. On it lay a handful of leaves and pebbles, while in front of each sat piles of food, metal knobs and trinkets. They were playing a gambling game of some sort.
“Raggsy, Patch!” Lenny could not help letting a touch of accusation into his voice. “How is Jax?”
The Ratperson lifted a claw and leaned casually over to feel their friend’s hand, which was hanging out of the blanket. “He’s still alive.”
Lenny frowned, moving over to stoop down by the injured young man. Jax’s breathing was slow and rough, though steady, and his eyes were closed. His face looked very pale and when Lenny moved the bandage, he saw that the purple smear had spread all across the front of Jax’s throat. It was turning darker in the center, just like the scars on the walls.
Alarmed, Lenny checked again to make sure that Jax was breathing and held his hand to see if it was warm. It was, though cooler than he would have liked. Tucking it under the blanket, he looked up to see Leaflow standing at the end of the bench, a surprisingly compassionate look in his green eyes as he surveyed the unconscious boy.
“Is this fellow come to heal the lad?” Patch asked, jumping to his feet, “he looks like a druid, just as I said would live here.”
“He says he can help,” Lenny replied wearily, “though the wound is looking even worse than before.”
“May I see?” Leaflow asked, gesturing at the brandy-soaked bandage.
Lenny nodded, moving out of the way. The cloaked one went forward, leaning over Jax to pull up the damp cloth. He looked for only a moment before saying, “you did not tell me that it was the calamity. This is worse than I thought.”
“Will he die?” Patch pressed him.
“Every creation must pass away at some point.” Leaflow stood up again, crossing his arms on his chest. “This one does not have to go so soon. I can delay the action of the poison and hold it off for a time. But you will still have to find someone versed in the arts of healing rather than killing to save him. As it is, he would die in about ten hours. I can extend that time to forty-eight, in which time he will, at first, not feel the pain and awake for awhile. After forty-eight hours have passed...no one can save him.”
A saddened silence fell over the car. Raggsy quietly swept up the goods from the floor and put many of them up on Amber’s work bench, while others he stowed in his pockets. Lenny paced up and down for a moment, almost bumping into his companions in the tight space, before he said, “you would be doing us a great service if you could...help him until we find a healer. Is there anything you require to do it, or anything we can repay you with?”
“For now, all I need is for someone to go outside and find three of the glowing mushrooms. Bring them to me, but don’t sample them.”
Raggsy held up a claw. “I’ll get ‘em. I can smell them from here.”
“I’ll also need a bowl and spoon, if miss Amber will furnish them.” Leaflow went on, clearing a small space on the work bench. Amber quickly brought him what he asked for and he set them on the bench, pouring into the bowl a small amount of liquid from a flask in his pocket. Lenny, still wary of his intentions, watched carefully. “What is that?”
“Polissium Choroxide. Deadly poisonous.” Leaflow gave him a mocking look from his glowing eyes, which seemed even stranger in the light of the lanterns, as there was no face revealed around them. His hood cast a deep, impenetrable shade over all of his features except for those eyes, which were lit up brighter than the mushrooms which Raggsy soon brought.
“That is, it is deadly poisonous unless mixed with specified ingredients and applied only externally,” the cloaked one conceded after a moment, taking the fungi and crushing it into the liquid in the bowl with the tip of his spoon.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Now, these mushrooms also have very interesting properties. If you eat a bit of one, you will begin to experience a sort of wild ecstasy, filled with glowing visions and waking dreams. At first, it warms you and pumps you full of energy. But slowly, you begin to fade like a roughly-picked flower and will eventually die. I know: I tried it.”
“Then how are you here still?” Lenny challenged, tired of the word games this mysterious man always seemed to be playing.
“The Keeper of Light and Dark gave me the antidote. And told me not to be a fool, which is even more important.”
Leaflow felt the consistency of his mixture with one finger. Both of his hands were encased in black leather gloves, protecting him from whatever effects it might have. Once it was mashed to the thickness of wet oatmeal he called for fresh bandages and brought the bowl over to Jax’s bedside.
Amber found him more cloth, which he dipped in the mixture until it was thoroughly coated in gunk on one side. He made a move to take away the old bandage and replace it, but Lenny stopped him. “First, promise me that this will help my friend and not hurt him.”
Lenny still felt wary of the cloaked one, who had come so willingly and commented so little on what he saw. Especially as they had met him during the night, when the things created by the corrupt power core were known to plague worlds the most.
Leaflow halted what he was doing, bowing his head for a long moment in silence. Eventually he spoke quietly, “I can not promise you that it will help him. That would be to predict the future, which must tend to itself. But it will not harm him any more than he is already, of that I am fairly sure.”
There was no promise attached to what he said, but his words were very grave. They did not contain the mocking or almost insolent element that many of his answers had before. On the strength of his tone Lenny decided to trust him, at least for the cure. If Jax was going to die anyway, there was no reason for an elaborate assassination attempt by the evil power.
He thought of how easily they might loose their bright, obnoxious friend made Lenny feel solemn. Especially as he knew that Leaflow was only buying them a little more time, a handful of precious hours.
He watched Leaflow carefully apply the medicine-soaked bandage, before asking, “will he awake now?”
“Soon he will, for a while. I believe that this purple infection effects the mind quickly and that is why he is unconscious. It is a self-defense mechanism of the mind, like some people fainting when they are frightened. But a slightly misplaced one, I’m afraid. The more alert you are, the longer you can fight it.”
When he had finished his explanation, Leaflow gave the bowl to Amber, who was standing in the next row of chairs, watching over their backs. She took it with a soft hiss from her mechanical hand, moving to put it gingerly on the work bench. Meanwhile, Leaflow laid a hand on Jax’s forehead as if trying to feel a pulse at the temples. After a long moment, he said in a commanding tone, “you must wake up now.”
Jax stirred and his eyes slowly came open. He had a little more color in his cheeks, though his eyes had the glassy look of sickness. He stared up at the cloaked one for a minute, before mumbling, “Grummage, where did you get those hokey Electro-eyes? Your parents will throw a fit if they find out you’re wearing them in public. Wait a minute--”
Jax struggled to sit up. “You’re not Grummage!”
Leaflow retreated, moving back across the aisle to lean on the work bench, while Lenny stepped forward and helped his friend sit up, propping him against the window. “It’s alrght, Jax. He came to help you. He’s from the new world we landed on.”
“Oh.” Jax smiled palely, fingering the bandage at his throat. “Come to think of it, I do feel better. Thanks, mister Electro-eyes.”
“Of course.”
Jax turned to look around until he spotted Patch, who was hovering anxiously nearby. “And thank you too, Patch MacCore. That thing...it would have killed me right there and then if it wasn’t for you.”
He shivered at the memory, face turning pale again.
The pirate gave him an encouraging grin. “Aye, it was nothing, lad. Ye helped me in the fight against the Hannry’s men, so I owed it to ye. We have to keep our backs together against that type of scum, 'ay?”
“So what really did happen with the creature and these Hanny people?” Raggsy asked, scratching one funnel-shaped ear delicately with the tip of a claw. “I never ‘eard what happened, everyt’ings been movin’ so quick lately!”
“I didn’t hear much about it either,” Amber confessed, “would you tell us what happened, Mr. MacCore, after I get something to eat and drink for all of us?”
“Make it a hot drink, for him,” Leaflow pointed to Jax, while Patch nodded uncomfortably.
“Yes, ma’am. But would ye all just call me Patch, if’n ye please? It makes me feel like I’m at the hangman’s dock already, bein’ addressed by my family name all the time.”
Amber agreed, with the stipulation that he call all of them by their first names as well. She checked on the Di-jump, but found it too warm to use, before she went into the caboose to fetch the provisions. Lenny followed in order to pick up the few move able chairs and bring them into the passenger car, arranging them so that they could all sit facing each other near the end of Jax’s bench.
Though there was plenty of seats in the car, it would have been awkward to talk, all sitting facing the front. When he was done with this task, Jax beckoned him over to whisper in his ear, “hey, er, Len. Did this fellow in the cloak actually cure me? I don’t mean to be a worry-wart, but...my throat still feels a little funny, even though it doesn’t hurt like it did.”
Lenny bit his lower lip for a minute, trying to decide how to break the news to his friend. He decided to tell part of the truth, but not all of it.
“He didn’t cure you, Jax, he said that his medicine would only keep you alive until we can find a healer. Right now we’re waiting for the machine to cool off a little. But don’t worry: we will find someone to help you. Even if we have to melt the Di-jump skipping through worlds to do it.”
“You’re a good friend too, Len, despite being pushy and fussy.” Jax gave him a shadow of his former cheeky grin. “By the way, what sort of guy is Electro-eyes?”
“A strange one.” Lenny glanced over his shoulder, lowering his voice when he saw that Leaflow was still unoccupied at the bench “He claims that he is one of only two people who survived the coming of the purple stuff in this land. The whole world is uncanny. Dark, mysterious...there’s even a dragon that he talks to.”
“A dragon? Hot dog!” Jax twisted his head to look out of the window as if hoping to catch a glimpse of it through the gloomy trees. “I wish I didn’t feel so tired. I would take my hoverboard and blast through the whole place until I found the dragon. Dragons are so cool. Griffins are too. Are there any here, do you know?”
Lenny shrugged. There could be any number of beasts here, probably most of them which he would not have believed were real, not so long before.
“Maybe I’ll come back later on to see the dragon,” Jax sighed, “oh, but here comes Amber with something good.”
The girl walked in carrying one plate loaded with sandwiches and one balancing a collection of small, steaming mugs.
“Sorry, just sandwiches again.” She set the trays on the workbench, beginning to distribute the cups. “With hot cocoa. We’re starting to run low on supplies. I never kept very much, as I usually stopped in a town every night, and there was only me to feed. Bread and milk are the things I have the most of.”
“An excellent combination, when the milk has fermented long enough,” Leaflow commented, “and been solidified.”
“Yeah, I love stinky ‘ol cheese, too.” Raggsy helped hand around the sandwiches, but Jax wouldn’t take one. He said he wasn’t hungry and that it might hurt his throat. So he just sipped slowly at the cocoa, while everyone else settled into their seats.
“This is what I call a cup ‘o grog!” Patches exclaimed after he had tried his. “Though it could do with a dash of rum in it.”
“Have some brandy an’ get tellin’ your story.” Raggsy offered him the bottle of ‘emergency’ alcohol, which Patch carefully tipped a splash of into his cup. Then he settled back with his giant rubber boots crossed one on top of the other and related all that had happened since Jax had come into the inn. At Jax’s urging, he also told the tale of the strange storm at sea, throwing in just a few little embellishments which had not been there the first time.
“Doesn’t it sound like something caused by the corruption?” Jax said when Patch had finished the story of the storm, leaning eagerly forward in his chair.
“Yes, it does.” Lenny swirled the dregs of his cup thoughtfully. “We seem to run into or hear of someone in control of the power every time we stop on a planet.”
“Pardon me anchoring in your bay,” Patch inserted, “but I don’t understand all this chin-wag about purple corruption and powers. Aye, the storm was purple. And the creature what bit the lad had purple poison, I suppose. But what ties these all together?”
“If you don’t mind, I would like to hear of your adventures as well. It might be informative,” Leaflow added, glancing from one face to another.
“I guess we’ll tell you, then.” Lenny nodded at Jax. “But he should start telling it. If it isn’t too much for you, Jax?”
“Not at all, the cocoa’s made me feel spiffy.” The young man felt the bandage at his throat again, before launching into a tale of his experiments with Grummage and the Di-jump. After that he told how he had run into Lenny in Belltoh and they had decided to leave together. From there on, all three of the young people and Raggsy helped tell the story, ending only when they had got to the floating town on Patch’s world.
Patch began mulling it all over in a deep, brooding silence. Leaflow had a hand to his chin, or where a chin should be on a normal man.
“Excuse me for interfering, but may I make a comment?”
Lenny gave him a nod.
“So far, from what I have heard, you are simply bumping around the worlds hoping to find the answers. Which works, up to a certain point, but if you really want to defeat the calamity, you need a plan of attack.”
Everyone was quiet for a long space after he had spoken, letting this sink in. Slowly, the youngest three and Ratperson looked at each other.
Amber said quietly, “but we know so little. How can we, alone, attack it without knowing more?”
Leaflow nodded understanding. “I see. But I know a little more that may help you, if you wish to hear it.”
Jax sat up straighter and stopped craning his head to look outside. “If you know anything, man, tell us. So far we’ve been groping in the dark.”
“I only have a tiny candle flame to give you...but here it is.” Leaflow spread his hands out on the work bench beside him, tapping his fingers as he spoke. Lenny noticed then what the glinting thing on his left wrist was. It was a narrow band of silver, with a pair of simple leaves and a black symbol worked on it. The symbol was a round hump of a hill with the outline of a pine tree on it.
“I don’t think that Jax’s idea of the galaxy of dimensions before the calamity is quite right. You see, I have traveled between dimensions. Previously, I often went between planets in this universe, but I have skipped to other dimensions as well.”
“Really? Cool!” Jax interrupted, only to be silenced by a motley collection of looks.
“Yes, really, cool,” Leaflow went on dryly, “but that was not the point. You see, I don’t believe that there was, exactly, a power center in the galaxy of universes before the calamity. From what I saw and understand there was more of a grid-work of power, connecting to every planet and flowing between them. This celestial weave touched all worlds, making power alleys and secret ways between them. When the calamity came...it was something that began to take hold of those lines of power and force its own energy along them. It touched a certain number of dimensions--”
“Nine.” Jax inserted irrepressibly.
“It touched nine worlds and somehow took complete control of their power flux, cutting them off from the greater weave and drawing them closer together. Its influence is growing in every one of these dimensions with accelerating speed. And there is only one way I know of that it can have this much power on every world.” Leaflow’s fingers tapped out each word firmly. “It has to have found something, a thing that represents a worlds characteristics the strongest, to connect with on each world. With this connection in place, it not only owns the power flux between the worlds. It can gradually come to rule each dimension fully.”
“Whoa.” Even Jax looked a little stunned, though he had seen something like that coming. “So there is some object on each world that this mysterious being uses as a focal point to rule them? But that means, if we found out what these focal points were, we could destroy them and cut off its hold over the dimensions! That’s what we have to do. We just need to think: what are these Power Cores?”
Lenny had been listening, quietly turning things over in his mind. What things had they seen on every world that would typify their characteristics? And what did the power flux between worlds usually work on? The Di-jump machine could utilize this invisible connection, but it did not flow through it. The thing the power flowed through, was people.
“What if it isn’t an object at all,” he suggested slowly, “on Amber’s world, Mendo Drann seemed to rule the night. Remember how the creatures flickered when I hit him on the head? And in Patch’s story of the storm at sea, that sea-witch said something about ‘doing whatever she wanted’ with the world. What if the thing that is being connected to isn’t objects at all, but people!”
By the end of the sentence, he was on his feet, face flushed with discovery, “Think! The Di-jump power flows through us to take us to other worlds. It uses the same energy as this corrupt controller or power core does to control the worlds. If the corrupt power has attached itself to people...people who typify the world’s energy in some way, it can use them as focal points or ‘Power Cores’ to control the world!”
He realized suddenly that he was almost shouting, and sat down again, embarrassed at his show of emotion. But everyone else was nodding, looking at him with the light of triumph in their own eyes.
“Heh, maybe Ratcombo is the Power Core in my city,” Raggsy suggested, “they do say that he’s gone crazy ever since the Change.”
“I don’t know who it would be on my world.” Jax tapped his cocoa mug thoughtfully on the back of the chair. “I don’t think its anyone that I know. Not Grummage, that’s sure. Nor my ‘ol father Iax.”
“It could be anyone. The highest ruler, the poorest peasant, anyone in the world,” Amber pointed out.
“I think that you are on the right track,’ Leaflow agreed, “now you need to lay plans to follow it up.”
So the three young people and Raggsy all held a ‘council of war’ to decide what they should do with their new knowledge. They talked for a long time, trying to decide how they could either free or permanently disconnect the Power Cores from feeding the one central power. Patch entered in there to suggest that they just kill them all, while Amber argued that they might be able to convince them to fight against the central core, helping to free the worlds instead of control them. Jax said that they would have to find a way to attack the central core itself, after they had disconnected all of the Power Cores. He also thought that they should still find more people to help them on each world they went to.
“Not only because they might know someone who is the Power Core of their world,” he said, “but because then, if we are attacked by all of the Power Cores at once for some reason, we will be equal in numbers.”
“We still have to find you a healer, first of all,” Lenny pointed out, “which reminds me, we should check the Di-jump again soon.”
Amber jumped up. “I’ll go feel it.”
She hurried out of the room, while Jax leaned back and closed his eyes, tired by all of the excitement. Lenny was sunk in thought until Amber returned and declared that the device had cooled enough to travel.
“Thank you again for helping us, both with Jax’s wound and our problem,” Lenny said, looking towards Leaflow. “You never answered me earlier but...is there anything you want in repayment?”
“There is one thing I would ask.” The cloaked one ran a finger over the bracelet on his wrist, gazing down at it. “If you will grant it. Take me with you.”
Jax was the first to speak, before anyone else could think of an answer, “let him come. There is not much of a choice of people to take from this world and we need someone. Besides, we owe him.”
The other three travelers shot uncertain looks at each other but did not argue. Jax was right, though they would have rather not brought the secretive man with them.
“And you?” Lenny switched his gaze to Patch. “Will you stay with us?”
“Nay.” Patch shook his head, “not past the time ye heal the lad. I need to make a living, man, and I am a pirate. A pirate needs loot to live and lots of it. This crusade of yours sounds like an empty pocket, to me.”
Lenny nodded. If the pirate did not want to stay with them, he would be returned to his own world as soon as possible. And someone else could be found there to replace him.