Kara (19 page)

The dark elf picked up the human, slung her
over her shoulder again, and proceeded into La’ard’s kingdom. Very
soon, Katrena would be able to put her quarry down. It had been a
long time since the dark elf had delivered a live mark to Kreitan
or any of her other employers. The task was usually much easier in
the Territories than on the human side because she was able to
blend in here.

No matter, her first destination was only a
little farther in a place called Willow Haven. With any luck, the
Mordock would have what she needed. Maybe a mule and cart and a
simple robe. Simple worked best for disguises.

The next issue would be getting Kara to
Kreitan. Before she set out for the human lands, she’d sent a
messenger raven to Kreitan, setting up the time and meeting place.
She figured the church would be the best place to make the
exchange. Lots of people and plenty of hustle and bustle. Her
carrier crows were usually reliable, although this new one had
looked a little ditzy. All she could do was assume her employer had
received her note.

Kara would be a nice package wrapped up for
Kreitan. The delivery would be simple and the payment sweet.

A large smile crept across her face, one that
hadn’t been there in a long time.

***

La’ard burst into the room, his blood pumping
through him like the River Kilarne. He was anxious and excited that
this whole ordeal would be over in just a matter of minutes.

He stopped short inside the door. Euphoria
stood, waiting for his arrival. But the creature was not the
beautiful daughter he remembered. Its skin was taut around the
face, like that of an old woman who would soon be breathing her
last. Facial bones were evident, especially around her eyes and
across her cheeks, both looking hollow. The once chocolate-colored
hair now appeared dishwater gray, hanging lifeless like the moss
that draped the trees in Hunidoas City. The hands that had once
pulled on the king’s hair and patted his cheeks had grown into bony
and blotchy corpse hands.

The king gasped at her appearance and took a
step back. Kreitan also seemed unsettled as he appeared in the
doorway moments afterward.

A gift. How nice.

“What have you done…to my daughter’s body?”
La’ard’s tone shook with horror but also rage. This thing was
taunting him again.

Euphoria walked to the bed and sat. Kreitan
closed the door behind him. As she walked, a subtle change happened
with each step. When she turned, Euphoria was back, radiant and
beautiful.

“Is this more pleasing to your eye?” The
raspy hiss of the creature’s words had disappeared. Instead, it
came out seductive, sultry.

The king broke the silence, once he had found
his tongue. “Enough! I bring you the missing piece. Let us be done
with this!” He turned to Kreitan and motioned for him to bring
forth the chest.

“By all means, let’s.” Again, the voice
remained alluring, but this time tinged with sarcasm.

La’ard popped the chest open and picked up
the shard. He turned slowly as if he had a newborn in his arms.
Then he approached the mirror, which remained dark and cracked.
Kreitan watched Euphoria, her expression turning to anticipation,
longing.

La’ard turned back to Euphoria. “I hope you
rot in hell.” Then he turned quickly and inserted the shard in the
mirror.

He stepped back, closing his eyes.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes again. A whispered
cracking sound emanated from the mirror. Each shard lost definition
as the cracks melted away. A popping sound followed the last
crack.

The mirror, although whole, remained
dark.

The king turned to look at his daughter.

She had fallen back on the bed, as if asleep.
Four strides and he was at her side pulling her into his arms.
“Euphoria…Euphoria!”

“Daddy…Daddy?” His daughter’s magical voice
once again. His heart leapt. He hugged her tight. Her arms also
returned the hug.

“Are you okay?” The king began to weep, but
he really didn’t care who saw him at the moment.

“Never better…stupid human.”

It took a moment for the words to penetrate
the king’s happiness, and even then, he did not believe it. “What?”
He broke the embrace and held his daughter at arm’s length.

A devious smile played upon Euphoria’s lips.
I’m still here.

La’ard jumped back from the bed, repulsed.
The raspy words echoed in his head, tearing apart the joy that now
was deflating, tumbling down.

“You monster!”

Euphoria laughed—a laugh that normally he
cherished. A laugh that used to remind him of his wife. La’ard
looked back to the captain for any kind of answer. Kreitan watched
from the wall, showing no reaction to the scene. Anger followed his
shock. Anger toward Kreitan, anger toward the thing, and anger
toward himself for believing the lies.

Euphoria stood. Her beauty now intensified
even though the creature had not altered her shape anymore. There
was an invisible aura, or something that just heightened the
senses, about her.

“For a king, you are certainly stupid. Just
because you completed a puzzle, you think that I will… poof…” She
snapped her fingers. “…be gone.” She laughed again.

“It took Guillaud fourteen years to imprison
me in that mirror.” Euphoria paused as if reminiscing. “I’m not
about to hand you the key that will lock me away again.”

La’ard suddenly came out of his stupor. With
a yell, he ran at the mirror. Euphoria made no move to stop him.
His fist bounced off the glass with each hit, but the mirror did
not crack. The king grabbed the sides of it and started shaking,
then kicking it, and then grabbing heavy objects to throw at it. He
wore himself out shortly.

“And what’s that supposed to do, La’ard?”
Euphoria said with a smirk.

The king caught his breath, hands on his
knees. “Break the mirror…break your power….”

“Ha…the only thing you would wind up breaking
is your daughter’s soul.”

La’ard’s eyes immediately grew wide and
looked back at the mirror. He stood and then looked back at
Euphoria. “How can I trust anything you say?”

“Daddy…” This voice came from behind him, a
wispy dreamy voice. He spun and saw his baby girl in the
mirror.

“Euphoria…” His fingers traced her face on
the surface of the mirror. And all at once, she was gone. The
mirror was dark.

“No!”

“I’m sorry, my king. Parting is such sweet
sorrow.” Euphoria turned her eyes toward Kreitan, watching him
intently. Kreitan turned and returned the gaze.

La’ard glanced again at the captain, still
having contempt for the lack of reaction from the man. The king
took his time facing the thing he now truly despised. “I order
you…to release my daughter now.” From his belt, he drew his
sword.

Her eyes shifted to him. Euphoria’s eyes had
become cold and hard. The playfulness, like a cat playing with its
prey, turned to resolute determination. It stung like a builder’s
stone thrown at him, but his resolve was strong too. He took a step
closer.

“Release my daughter.”

“Or what? You will stab your only daughter.
Drive a sword through this heart.” She placed both of her hands
protectively on her chest. “The horror. What would your dear wife
think about that?”

Rage, anger, and blind panic caused him to
charge the taunting monster. La’ard ran at her forgetting all his
swordsmanship training. He ran at her, screaming his hatred as if
jousting, a knight charging, saber outstretched.

Before the king’s blade even came close to
Euphoria, a dagger, long enough to tickle one’s heart, plunged into
the back of him. Shock released the sword from his hands, but
La’ard remained on his feet. He staggered into Euphoria, who had
her arms open as if to embrace the man she once called father.

One hand found the dirk and pushed it deeper,
as her other hand cradled his head against her chest. La’ard could
only shudder and make inarticulate sounds. She patted his head in a
‘there, there’ motion.

Pain. La’ard felt nothing else as his life
slipped away. He slumped to Euphoria’s feet, not able to move, yet
still able to hear. He heard the wicked thing’s laughter, he heard
it call Kreitan king, and last he heard his daughter’s voice call
him ‘father’ for the final time.

Chapter Sixteen

“So, where do we start?” Snow asked. There
was a sad quality to her tone. She stared down at the floor from
the chair she was sitting in. Hambone realized that Snow always
wore her regular form whenever she was in a depressed mood. Dante,
on the other hand, preferred his fox form to mope.

Hambone shrugged, his shoulders heavy with
remorse. “What can we do? Katrena has Kara. How can we possibly
follow her if we can’t get over to the human side?”

Dante lay on the floor, his face between his
paws. He had not spoken for a long time.

“Dante, what do you think?” Snow asked in an
irritated voice. The fox snorted and shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh no, don’t think you are going to mope
right there.” Snow stood up and walked over to her brother. He
didn’t move. She kicked him in the ribs.

“Ow! What the heck did you do that for?”
Dante flipped to his feet.

“It’s a miracle!” Snow threw her hands in the
air in mock celebration. “The fox can speak!”

Schunk!
Dante transformed and went
nose to nose with his sister. Whenever there was going to be a
fight with her, he preferred to use his taller form.

“Oh, back off!” She pushed him back.
“Finally, we are getting some reaction from you. This is the most
I’ve heard out of you since the ‘dragon.’” Snow turned her back on
her brother and headed to the nearest chair.

“Well, at least I didn’t let my friend get
kidnapped by a psycho!” Dante shouted.

Snow turned around violently, pain and anger
in her eyes. “I did all I could!” She screamed back and then burst
into tears. She covered her face with her hands.

Dante stood there awkwardly, looking
ashamed.

Hambone tried to comfort Snow.

“No.” She pushed him away.

After a moment, Hambone said determinedly,
“We need to do something.” He pounded his fist into his hand.
Snow’s crying lessened.

“But what can we do?” Snow asked. “There is
no way we can follow Katrena to the human side. We have no magic
now that Grace…” She choked on the sprite’s name. “…Grace is gone.
So how?” Snow had told them about the crossbow and that she hadn’t
gone back to look for Grace. But if Grace hadn’t returned here on
her own, then….

“Hambone’s right. Sitting here is doing us no
good. I’m sorry, Snowball…bell. I was being a jerk because you
laughed at how stupid I was.” Dante approached his sister and put
his hand on her shoulder.

She uncovered her face and looked up at his
half-cockeyed grin. “Yeah, you were pretty stupid. Imagine
mistaking a crow for a dragon. What were you thinking?” Snow
giggled.

Hambone screwed up his face to hold back a
guffaw but finally gave up and roared with laughter.

Dante looked insulted for a moment but then
spread his hands. “It was an honest mistake. You had to be there to
understand.”

“Well, I
was
there,” said Hambone.
“And I still don’t understand. You screamed like a girl.”

This time Dante did laugh with the others.
“Yeah, I was kind of a dope. I’ll do better next time I’m scared.
I’ll keep my wits about me.”

Snow rolled her eyes. “That’ll be the day.”
She took a deep breath. The laugh had made her feel better, more
energized and in control. “So…what can we do?” she asked.

Hambone and Dante stared at one another and
then at Snow. They both shrugged.

“Not back here again.” Snow sighed.

“Well, I have a suggestion.”

All three jumped, as the voice seemed to come
out of nowhere. Their heads turned toward the door, which remained
closed. Snow ran to the window and looked out. A green ball of
light floated next to the Wizard Ynob.

“Grace!” Snow threw open the door and ran
toward the sprite. Dante and Hambone cheered, and Grace flew around
them as well.

“And no one wants to greet the wizard?” Ynob
said, stretching out his hands. The three looked at him, but said
nothing.

“Um, you threw us out of your house rather
rudely. Why should we greet you?” Snow said.

Grace twittered excitedly.

“Well, I did patch up this little glowball.”
Ynob pointed at Grace who flew around the room to show she was
unharmed.

“Thanks for healing our friend, but we have
bigger matters to attend to. So you can just run along.” Snow
flipped her hand at the wizard and turned toward Grace.

“Katrena took Kara.”

The sprite stopped. She glowed a bit red,
before she uttered a low chirp.

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Dante
huffed.

Ynob came farther into the room interrupting.
“The human was kidnapped?”

Snow turned to the man and stared at him.
“Like I said, bigger matters. Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Katrena…I don’t think I know that name. Why
did she take the human?”

“Excuse me, but the human has a name. It’s
Kara,” Snow snapped at Ynob.

Hambone pushed Snow aside before things got
too heated. He addressed the wizard. “Our best guess is because of
the necklace. Kara accidentally took it from Katrena’s booth at
Aladedas.”

“This Katrena had that magical artifact for
sale at the common market?” Ynob sounded so flabbergasted that
everybody looked at him again.

“What the heck is so important about that
necklace? No.” Snow held up her hand and cut off the wizard before
he answered. “Tell me straight. You were scared stiff when you
found out that thing was
active
. So now that you are in my
house, you will go by my rules. Have a seat and tell us.”