Free Aster Wood and the Book of Leveling (Volume 2) by J B Cantwell

clutching at my jacket. “Oh, son! I thought I would never see you again!”
    He released me momentarily and looked up into my face, his decrepit, stooped body shorter than mine. His eyes were round and gray, and they searched my face hungrily. It was the wrong face, I knew, but it made no difference to him.  
    “How did you get back?” he asked. “After you jumped, I saw the rift and I knew that I would never see you again. How did you manage it?”
    “I don’t think that I’m who you think—”
    “Did you find him? Did you succeed? Please tell me that you did, son,” he shook his head sadly, defeated by years of failure, waiting for me to disappoint him.  
    I felt horrible. But I had to tell him.
    “Sir, my name is Aster. I’m not Brendan.” I felt sure that this fact would bring him to his senses.  
    “Did you find him? Did you? And what of the ore? Was it waiting for you in the great mountains of Earth? Where is it?”
    It was like I hadn’t even spoken at all. Had he heard me?
    “I’m not Brendan.”  
    I looked back at Jade, who peeked out from behind the big door, watching our exchange. Her face was so wet with tears it looked as if she had just had a shower.
    “What is he talking about?” I said.
    Almara turned away from me and began puttering around the room, mumbling nonsense to no one. I looked back and forth between the two of them.  
    “Jade,” I began, but her eyes vanished from behind the door. I went after her and found her standing with her back to the wall outside the stuffy room.
    “What is going on?” I asked.
    “He’s mad,” she moaned, wrapping her arms around her middle. “He’s gone mad. He has the sickness.”
    “What?” I said, glancing back towards the library. He was just mistaken, thinking I was Brendan. He was an old, heartbroken man. And he had been holed up in this castle all alone for who knew how long. He couldn’t be crazy. Could he? “But how can someone with power like Almara get the sickness? No, just give him a chance. It’s been a long time. Maybe he’s just confused.”
    She was sobbing outright now, and fell to the floor in a heap. I knelt down beside her, but I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t give her what she needed now. The only one who could was pacing around in the other room and currently thought that I was his long-dead son.  
    “How could he possibly be sick?” I asked, partly to her, partly to myself.  
    Her eyes remained on her fingers, twisted together now in a heap of tension and despair.
    “Power doesn’t matter,” she said. “Magic doesn’t matter. When the sickness comes, it comes for all of us, regardless of our abilities.”
    “But how do you know?” I asked, starting to panic.  
    But Jade didn’t need to answer me. The truth of her words swirled in my brain and stuck there, refusing to let go. The old man in the other room reminded me of someone I knew, someone very familiar. I had a measure of madness, and the yard stick by which I measured it was my own father. As my heart fell into my stomach the truth crashed down upon me. Jade was right. Almara was lost, just as my father had been.
    I stood back up, trying to calm myself and work out a plan all at the same time.
    “It will be ok,” I said, pacing back and forth. “We’ll work this out.”
    She didn’t look at me again. Instead, her head fell into her hands as the tears streamed silently down her cheeks.  
    I walked back into the library, taking care not to startle Almara, who was poring over a stack of documents on a long, wooden table.
    “Almara?” I said quietly.  
    He looked up at me, startled and dazed. And then his eyes came into focus.
    “Son?” he said. “Is that you? Brendan?”
    He moved across the room to me once more, and thrust his arms around me, patting me hard on the back.
    “Oh!” he said. “I never thought I would see you again! Tell me, did you find him? Did you find he who can save us all on