A Stone Egg
The night of the third day of the Tree King Festival, Tristan sat up on his four posted bed of blue silk sheets and blankets. He had been studying the Stone Egg that Feligrihir had gifted him for most of the day. The evenings feast and celebrations had been exciting but short lived due to a newly enforced curfew. The Captain of the Guard was not taking any further risks than necessary. They still got to have their feast. It just had to be finished by nine o’clock.
He worried that his father had not been heard from. Surely a sprinter-hawk could tell of their whereabouts. He wondered if his father may be intending to keep his movements secret from potential moles within the system.
Why else would he not write to tell me of his adventures? Tristan wondered.
He looked over the arrows within the Replenishing Quiver, counting each of the remaining arrows to check if it had Divided to produce any new ones. Regretfully there was still only five in his Quiver. He had needed that last arrow, that pierced the eye of the Jinn-Magician, to save Elysia and Neverend. Yet by wielding that last arrow from the Quiver, it could no longer use the Power of Division to fill the Quiver until it was bristling with enchanted arrows.
His other great fear was that the magic might have also drained out of the five arrows that remained. They looked just like ordinary wood, feather, and metal arrows now. But that night when he chased the demon, they had glowed like flattened gold illuminated by True High Magic. The fact that these golden arrows could be used to track the Jinn-Magician but could also be used to seriously wound that demon were proof that a Spiritual-Enchantment resided in the Replenishing Quiver.
Old Rook would have believed it to be a Sign, a Message from the Many-Faced God, the fact that the gift was given moments before the Jinn-Magician attacked. That and the enchanted necklace that Elysia had been gifted right before the demon entered the church. The Maiden’s Ward had shielded Elysia and Neverend from the Jinn-Magician in a globe of burning blue electric magic. The lightning was not harmful to Elysia or the wolf pup, but the demon was completely unable to touch them while she wore the necklace.
He hoped she did always wear it from now on, too, he thought to himself. That Jinn-Magician may return for vengeance over the arrow through its eye. He may choose to exact his punishments upon Elysia, for her bravery to hold Neverend to her chest that night while the demon tried to steal them away.
He regarded the Stone Egg with the embossed wolf head that he squeezed between fingers and thumb. It was rock solid, it felt like nothing could crush that stone surface. Something else he had noticed these last few hours was that it was getting warmer to touch, the longer Neverend stayed by his bedside. He had tried walking out of his bedroom, leaving Neverend locked in his room, and he had walked the halls till he was certain the Egg was getting colder. Then when he returned to his rooms the warmth had returned to the Egg.
So, it was linked to Neverend. Meaning perhaps it was an old relic made especially for whoever was guardian to the Snow Wolf of each Age. If the Egg did anything more than this, he was unaware of what that might be. He hoped it was of some use against the Jinn-Magician. A guardian to one of the three spirit-guide animals of omens and fate, should have a strong weapon of enchantment to defend against vampires and demon hordes. The only chance that it did anything else was reliant on discovering whether it reacted differently in the presence of both Neverend and the Jinn-Magician at the same time.
If the demon attacked and the Egg did nothing, Tristan thought he might finally be out of luck.