Jake's Quest - Wizards V Read Free Page A

We must have been a right sight. Both of us struggling to breathe and totally exhausted. Fluffy was curled up on the ground and I thought he might already be asleep. I wished I could join him.
    [IT SHALL BE AS YOU WISH. THEY SHALL BE EXILED FOR A MILLENIUM INSTEAD.]
    Whoever said dragons were never reasonable?
    “I need to lie down for a while.”
    [AGREED.]
    With a little effort I sat on the ground instead of falling. The world went away.
     
    When I woke I opened my eyes to find Fluffy looking down, reminding me a bit of a cat guarding a mouse. Galator was still asleep.
    “How long was I out?”
    Dragons always know the time; it comes of being telepathically connected.
    [Just under six hours. Thank you for saving Galator. The Dragons will not forget.]
    “It’s been eighteen months since the last time this sort of thing happened. I’d been hoping for a longer break.”
    Fluffy sighed, black smoke drifted between his teeth.
    [It does appear that the old Jake is back.]
    “We ought to be going.”
    Galator opened a massive eye. I could have sworn he had been asleep.
    [YOU ARE A GREAT HEALER, WIZARD. TOUCH MY CLAW AS A SIGN OF FRIENDSHIP AND MY OBLIGATION TO YOU.]
    I stepped towards his enormous claws and reached out and placed a hand on the nearest one.
    [MAY YOUR QUEST BE FRUITFUL.]
    I nodded and went back to Fluffy and mounted him.
    As we hopped back to the Bat Cave, I mused on the information Galator had surreptitiously passed to me during our brief physical contact. Now I knew how to make a Diabli sword, I wondered if the information would be of any use.

4.    Night in the Museum
     
    As soon as we got back to the cave my phone signaled a message was waiting. While of no use at all across the multiverse, it did allow people to keep in touch with me when I happened to be on Earth. The phone showed me it was nearly ten in the evening and the call was over three hours old.
    I slid my fingers across the icons to get to the message. I swear smart phones are trickier than magic sometimes. A few clicks later I got to play the message.
    “Hi Jake. If you get this today I am at the museum and plan to spend the night here. Drop in if you get the chance.”
    Betty’s Northern English accent always sounded more pronounced on the phone, but it didn’t disguise the invitation in her words. She wasn’t asking me to go and view the Highfields Hoard so much as to get my hands on treasures of a more intimate nature.
    “Got to go and see someone about something,” I told Fluffy.
    He huffed and black smoke billowed around me.
    [Do not think I am covering for you, Jake. We both know what that strumpet wants.]
    Strumpet? Where does he pick up these words? I’d forgotten how well he could hear.
    “She’s very important to me. I need to keep her…err satisfied.”
    [She is a Norn and not to be trusted. All they care about is making the future arrive exactly as they think it should.]
    Betty is human and only a tiny fraction Norn, but rather than continue the argument, I hopped over to the museum.
     
    When the fuss had died down about the biggest treasure hoard ever found, the towns nearest to Highfields Farm had bickered and fought to be the ones to house it. There was sufficient quantity for the British Museum to cherry pick the most outstanding pieces while still leaving enough of it to fill a whole new wing of a museum. Derby had won, and managed to persuade Betty to leave the farm and take up a new career as tour guide and assistant curator. They were paying the tuition costs for her degree in archaeology to sweeten the deal.
    I arrived in Betty’s tiny office and though the light was on, she was nowhere around. Going to the door I considered the possibility of wandering the corridors and probably setting off the alarms. Looking out into the corridor showed Betty had thought ahead. On the far wall was a sheet of paper with a big arrow and my name under it.
    The arrow trail led me to the main display vault, which was lit up