EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (25 page)

As she started to lose consciousness, she felt a sharp stab as he cut the layer of skin just above the bulging mass in her throat. The pain helped her stay alert. As he cut deeper, she did a battle mage’s work. Lending her strength to the blade so that it went like a hot knife passes through butter to get to the bone and stopping the blood from flowing through her wound.

She could only stop the blood temporarily, but that was enough for now. She wasn’t in mid-battle, fighting opponent after opponent, but rather surgery that would save her life.
 

She watched him bite his lip harshly as he drew back the knife slowly and squeezed the mass out of her throat with his other hand.

Sara felt the object plop out and she struggled to sit up.

“Don’t!” shouted Ezekiel as he hurried to his pack. He didn’t know she was controlling the blood loss.

But it didn’t matter; she didn’t move but only because she could see the object that had come out of her now. Before he disappeared Ezekiel had put the little thing on top of her chest. It was the slimy, half-digested carcass of a dead dragonfly. As she watched, it began to change and transform but she didn’t have time to watch it further.

Ezekiel came over, forced her head back against the cot firmly, and sewed up the small cut in her throat quickly. When he put a burning liquid on the wound to seal it over, she passed out.

The next time Sara woke, Ezekiel was sitting cross-legged with his head bent over hers.

She blinked as she woke groggily. “What are you doing?”

“Your eyes have been open for a while,” he said disturbed. “But you wouldn’t say anything.”

She licked her dry lips and said, “Well, I’m awake now.”

She felt for the hole in her throat. Forgetting for a moment that he had sealed it shut. When her fingers brushed off across the surface of her skin and found nothing, not even a scar, she looked over at him. “What was in that ointment?”

“A lot of healing magic,” he said tiredly.

Sara turned her eyes to look at the mass on her shirt.

“So glad you left that there,” she said dryly. The slimy liquid on the dragonfly had dried to form a crusty shell. But what was weirder was that the whole thing looked like a perfectly round ball. It had certainly gotten larger after a brief stay in her body.

“I couldn’t move it,” Ezekiel admitted.

She raised an eyebrow and looked back and forth.

“It’s the size of my hand,” she scoffed. Not in a particularly good mood after that rat-sized thing had nearly killed her.

Ezekiel didn’t bother speaking, he just put his hand on the ball sitting on her chest and tugged. It didn’t move. He yanked. Still nothing.

“See?” he said.

Sara reached up with her left hand in trepidation. She really, really didn’t want a ball full of dragonfly guts stuck to her chest. Her hand brushed it lightly, then she grabbed it firmly.

With a yank she pulled it with all the strength left in her body. It turned out she should have lightly tapped it first. Her arm flew back so fast that she managed to hit Ezekiel squarely in the nose.

He fell back with a yowl and then sat up quickly holding his offended body part. Looking over at her with his glasses askew and blood dripping out between his fingers, he glared.

She winced and fished in her pocket. Holding up a relatively clean handkerchief, she handed it over as she sat up and whispered, “Sorry.”

When she was upright, she was pleased to note no lingering effects from the near-death experience. Aside from a wickedly sore throat. Carefully, Sara held up the dragonfly puke ball in her hand up to eye level. She couldn’t really see the dragonfly anymore, just shadows in the ball. The outside was a thick, opaque shell that seemed much denser than whatever had been in her stomach at the time. Turning it over, she prodded the yellow shell and watched as something interesting happened. Every time her finger touched the shell, the point where her flesh met the crust would light up. If she removed her finger, the light went away. After it was pretty clear this was happening only when her fingertip met the shell, she reached out her hand to hold the ball in front of Ezekiel.

“Touch it with your fingertip,” she demanded.

He looked up with a swollen nose. “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s not dangerous, just interesting.”

“Tell that to my nose,” he said.

“My throat begs to differ about your nose’s plight,” she said hoarsely.

He reached out a tentatively fingertip and then pressed it against the ball’s shell.

Nothing happened.

“Try a different spot,” she demanded.

He did. Same result.

Ezekiel sat back. “Well, it looks like it only wants to be interesting for you.”

“
You’re
the dragonfly expert,” she countered. “Speaking of, how could you not know that thing was going to come back up my throat like a demonic hairball?”

He flushed guiltily. “There’s a part of the text about the dragonfly that I haven’t been able to translate.”

“The same text you said would help us find out about purple eyes? Because so far I’ve eaten a bug, had hallucinations that rival those of opiates, and nearly died. And that’s about it.”

Ezekiel sat forward eagerly. The blood dripping down on his legs looking a little ghastly while he did so.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing that had
anything
to do with the strange man.”

Ezekiel sat back with a frown. “That’s strange. The trance of the dragonfly is
always
supposed to find what you seek most. It was guaranteed to let you know the identity of the stranger.”

“How?” she said tensely.

“By stripping away the magical shields that clouded his form and eluded your mind,” he said.

Sara sat back as a shiver of apprehension ran down her spine.
 

“What? What is it?”

“Before I passed out I was looking for something,” Sara whispered as she turned around, “Something I had seen in my dream.”

Quickly she stuffed the dragonfly ball in her pocket as she looked at the object that was sitting by her side as it had always had. The sword that her father had given her when she turned thirteen lay on the cot, waiting to be used.

Sara gulped and grabbed it.

“I don’t understand,” Ezekiel said confused. “You saw your sword in your dream? What was the dream about? What were you seeking?”

Sara looked at him. “My dream took me back to my memory of my thirteenth birthday. My father was away on campaign, but he remembered his promise to buy me my first true weapon on that day. We were supposed to go to a sword smith together, but I learned later that he used the measurements for my gowns to have the man fashion a weapon ahead of time in his absence. It was delivered to me that day.”
“And it still works,” Ezekiel scoffed.

She gave him an irate look.

“I just meant that surely you grew since then,” he said while scratching his head absentmindedly.

She snorted. “Yes, and it grew with me. The sword smith was also a metal mage and he spelled it to lengthen with each increase in my height.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“I know you thought this would find the purple-eyed man’s identity,” she started to say.

“It’s not just that,” he interjected with slumped shoulders. “It was supposed to actually
work
. How did it find what you seek by showing you your sword?”

She smiled. “But if you had let me finish, I would have told you that it showed me
more
than just my sword.”

“More like what?”

“There’s the glow of magic on the handle,” she admitted. “One I’ve never noticed before.”

“And now?”

“I don’t see a thing aside from the slight residual magic that helps it grow,” she said as she hefted the sword up by its sheath.

“Hmm,” said Ezekiel. “May I?”

He held out his hands for the sword. Reluctantly, she handed it over.

Ezekiel turned it back and forth as he looked at it.

“You said it was in the handle?” she nodded.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Neither do I,” she said hoarsely.

Then she got an idea. Her father had loved to leave cryptic messages in different places for her to find when younger. Maybe this message had been waiting for her for four years.

“Give it here, Ezekiel.”

He handed it over, hilt-first, with no comment.

Instead of taking the sword, Sara took advantage of the way it was held out and put her hand on the handle. Gripping it, she twisted to the right. It didn’t budge. She did it to left. Still no movement.

 
Then she shifted her fingers to the very tip of the pommel. She had barely turned her fingers when the pommel began to glow and turn with her hand. She held her breath as she unscrewed the cap from the sword hilt and peered inside.

“It’s hollow,” she told Ezekiel. “And there’s something inside.”

Chapter XX

R
EACHING
IN
CAREFULLY
, S
ARA
PICKED
up a rolled-up piece of paper.

“Careful,” said Ezekiel. “It could be fragile.”

“It’s at least five years old. I have no doubt it is.”

“Actually,” Ezekiel said, descending into curator mode, his fingers drifting closer to hers, “the dry and contained environment should have protected it. I was referring to the material itself. It looks like it’s made of…rice paper.”

 
“The texture of the paper does feel oddly stiff and bumpy,” she said.

He nodded. “Rice paper has a rather fascinating curing process. It was first discovered across the seas by servants of the dragons trying to make a special type of insulation but it was too thin for…”

Sara interrupted. “Could we stay on track, please?”

He cleared his throat. “Oh, right, of course. Do continue.”

She looked backed down at the object in her hands.

“Why would my dad send me a note etched on rice paper?” she asked. It was certainly a valid question. It was an odd way of sending a message. Especially, since the material itself was so fragile.

Just then the paper began to float off of her hand of its own accord. It rose to the height of her face, right in the middle of the two of them. It looked so fragile that she was afraid to grab it for fear of the paper crumbling underneath her desperate fingers. Still her hand twitched upward, as if to clutch it.

Ezekiel reached up and grabbed her hand to stop her.
“Because rice paper is the best conductor of time-resistant magic I’ve yet to see,” he said breathlessly while still restraining her hand.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this was clearly activated by—and only by—your touch,” he said excitedly.

The paper unrolled without a crinkle before their eyes.

On its browned page was script written in black ink in swooping lines and dashes.

“Do you know what it says?” asked Sara.

Liebste Tochter,
Wenn Du dies liest bin ich bereits nicht mehr unter den Lebenden. Der Tod, ist sowie das Leben, ist ein natürlicher Zustand.
Ich weiß aber, dass wenn Du dies siehst, mein Tod schon lange vor seinem natürlichen Termin eingetreten sein wird.
Es gibt vieles was ich Dir sagen möchte. Aber ich kann nicht zu viel sagen, falls es in die falschen Hände gerät. Sei im Bewusstsein, dass ich Dich und Deine Mutter liebe.
Finde einen Mann namens Hillan. Suche bei den Flüssen nach Karen.
Sie werden die Antworten haben und Dir helfen den Weg zum inneren Frieden zu finden.
Ich konnte es nicht vollbringen. Aber Du besitzt die Stärke meiner Familie, sowie den Mut der Familie Deiner Mutter. Beeile Dich liebste Tochter. Denn die Feinde welche hinter mir her sind, suchen auch bereits nach Dir.

“It’s in the old language of Algardis,” he said, “before we switched to the modern dialect.”
 

“I figured,” she said with a frown while looking at the cursive script. “My father said that no true officer of the military was complete without an education in the old war techniques. Unfortunately, most of the memoirs of ancient commanders were written in
Deutsch
, something that even I have trouble reading when it’s written out like this in blasted cursive swirls and swoops that look more like a child ate too much candy when they sat down to scribble a note.”

He chuckled at the description.

“You mean the child was hyperactive and really unable to focus.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

He shook his head wryly. “Let me concentrate, then, so I can decipher this swirly mess.”

“Be my guest,” she muttered as she watched tensely.

Five minutes passed before she noticed that something strange was going on with the flat paper.

“Ezekiel,” she said with a poke. He was busy translating each word as he went. He then scribbled the words in notebook one-by-one.
 

“Almost there,” he mumbled.

“Ezekiel,” she hissed.

“What?” he snapped as he looked up.
 

And then the magic appearing in the paper’s script caught his eye, as well. He dropped the quill as they watched each word light up one-by-one with a golden glow. As each one did, they transformed into the more modern script.

Sara read it aloud as the five-year-old letter from her father unfolded before her eyes,
 

“
My dearest daughter,

If you’re reading this, I have passed on. Death, as Life, is a natural state.

But I know that if you see this, my death has come long before its true time.

There is much I wish to say to you. But not much I can say in case this falls into the wrong hands. Know that I love you and your mother.
 

Find the man called Hillan. Search the rivers for Karen.
 

They will have the answers and will help you find the way to peace.

I couldn’t do this. But you have the strength of my line and the courage of your mother’s.

Fly swiftly, daughter. For the enemies that seek me, seek you, as well.”

When she concluded, she leaned back, stunned.

“Your father knew about Mercenary Hillan before he died?”