Something niggled at the back of Sarn’s mind, something he’d overlooked, but he couldn’t call it forward. Sarn glanced at the forest beyond the menhirs standing dark and impenetrable under the westering sun and shivered. Not a single leaf moved. Tonight, he’d have to go in there but not now while he had his son with him.
Above, Mount Eredren’s snow-capped peak sparkled in the sun. Angling his steps toward the north side of the mountain, Sarn struck out for the secret entrance. No one trod the trail leading up to it and no one would if he ascended quickly.
“We’ll check on my brother,” Sarn said to his son, who sucked his thumb. “Everything’s alright. I’ll find you both somewhere safe to wait while I work tonight.” Somewhere close so he could slip away and check on them.
Ran nodded and clutched a handful of his tunic at the mention of ‘work.’.
Sarn hiked up the trail, legs burning from all the walking he’d done today. No time for the lie down his body craved, not until after work. Shrubbery hid the trigger for its secret entrance, but his sixth sense directed his foot to an igneous lump, and a section of the rock wall slid aside.
"How'd you move it?" Ran pointed to the rock.
"It's a secret."
The north stairwell had no helpful lumir crystals embedded in its enclosing wall. So the entrance framed a slice of darkness until Sarn stepped over the threshold. Lots of narrow twisting stairs appeared as his eyes' glow peeled back the shadows.
"You'll tell Bear and me the secret?" Ran lifted his stuffed companion so Bear's button eyes could add their plea.
"I don't know if I can."
"Why not?"
"You're not a Ranger or a Guard."
Ran lowered Bear and fingered Sarn's sleeve. "Are you?"
"No, and I'm not supposed to know."
"But you know, and you'll tell me."
"Maybe someday."
Taking the stairs three at a time, Sarn emerged onto the third floor. Pulling up his head map, he checked for people nearby as he lingered on the landing. Gregori’s icon flashed red as the man approached. No doubt the burly fool headed for the staircase he'd just vacated.
Cursing his ill-luck, Sarn ducked into an alcove seconds before Gregori turned the corner. He backed as far as he could into the shadows, eyes squeezed tight shut until he bumped into something hard. Freeing a hand, Sarn felt around behind his back, and his fingers closed on a handle just as a buzzing assaulted his ears. A mass of squirming things looped around his chest and pulled. Sarn stumbled over a threshold as his gorge rose.
Between him and the now closed door was a man-shaped thing made of an uncountable number of insects. An invisible field held the unnatural thing together. It blinked large compound eyes at Sarn.
“Don’t let him see you.”
“Him who—Gregori?” That worthy’s icon passed the storeroom and kept right on going.
The creature shook its head. Nausea punched Sarn in the gut. Black energy crackled as the creature shoved him aside. This time his magic got between him and the ground in time to cushion his fall.
“He’s coming,” the creature said before diving into a palm-sized hole in the false floor.
“Who’s coming?” Ran asked as he wriggled free from Sarn.
“I wish I knew. I’m so sick of these riddles.” Dropping to his knees, Sarn peered through the hole at the knights swatting at the receding horde of insects. In an eye blink, they were gone without a trace leaving the knights free to resume their interrupted sparring.
“Me too.” Ran leaned against him.
Fascinated by their deadly dance, Sarn stretched out full length on the ground ignoring the dust. The events of the past couple of hours receded from his mind as a dozen knights squared off. Wearing leather jerkins to protect their organs, they all dueled with wooden practice blades. Their real swords rested outside his view, but he felt their bejeweled scabbards and hilts.
“I want to be one of them. A man noble in heart and mind like the legendary Guardians were.” Sarn sighed and put his impossible dream away. Below sparred men who were as close to his ultimate heroes as one could get. The Guardians were centuries dead, but their code lived on in Shayari’s chivalric orders. And those ranks were closed to a bastard son of a whore even if he worked off his indenture.
“One of who?” Ran sat down hugging his Bear and looked from his father to the hole mesmerizing him and back again. “What’re we watching?”
“A knight of Shayari—they’re training below.”
“Why aren’t you one of them?”
“I wanted to squire for them. I was old enough when I—” Sarn stopped talking. He’d almost said when I traded my freedom for my brother’s education. “I mean I was almost sixteen, and there were squires around the same age as me. I thought—but he gave me to the Rangers instead.”
The injustice of the Lord of the Mountain's decision still angered Sarn. He’d be too old to squire for a knight when Lord Joranth released him from his indenture. Squiring was the only way to learn sword fighting.
Sarn laid there, arms crossed under his chin, staring at what he’d always dreamed of becoming. Ran lay next to him, using his back as a pillow. Wrapped in his blanket, his son sucked his thumb and listened.
“Before you were born I used to come here and watch them for hours.” Sarn had no idea why he was telling his son this when talking about his crushed dreams tore open old wounds. “I wanted to be like them. I thought if I watched them enough I might learn something but the angle’s bad.”
Sarn fell silent. He'd run out of words. Instead, he watched, and his imagination erased the plain stone of the training room and replaced the straw bales with monsters. Legendary battles played out inside his head, but they mutated into his encounters with mud and insect creatures, warring trees, Rat Woman and Hadrovel.
How would his heroes solve this? In his mind, Sarn took out all the pieces and examined them, but after a half hour, he was no closer to a solution. There were still pieces missing. He needed to go back to the beginning to where the murders had taken place, but this time, he would look through the magic’s eyes. Maybe it would reveal something to make sense out of this jumble. To go there, he’d need to elude his masters for an hour, but how?
Bells rang, but Sarn ignored them until his sixth sense sent a warning. Miren had left the library and would, if not intercepted, head down to their cave. Peeling himself up off the floor, Sarn picked up his dozing son and his stuffed bear. After a longing glance at the practice session still in progress, he closed the door and hurried to catch his brother.
Ran’s fingers twitched as his son counted the ringing bells. When the task required two hands, his son removed his thumb from his mouth. In the silence after the bells finished tolling, Ran whispered, “sixteen.” He turned his face into his father's chest unhappy at the number and the hour it signified.
The countdown had begun; Sarn had four hours until he had to meet his master. There was nothing he could do about the time dwindling away except to make better use of it. Statue-choked corridors flashed past as Sarn ran. At least he had a plan. It was a little light on details, but it was a place to start. Who knew what he would find in the forest.
“Why’d you lead me here?” Miren gestured to the storeroom. “Did something happen?”
Sarn ignored the question since he had no good answer for it. Instead, he concentrated on finding a soft place to lay his napping son. Those bolts of cloth looked promising. He kicked one at random until it rolled off a pile and lay flat. Ran cracked an eye open to see what he was doing.
“Rest, I’m not going anywhere yet.” He smoothed his son’s hair away from his face and Ran closed his eyes.
“Did you sleep at all? You look terrible,” Miren commented from where he stood next to the door.
“Not much, I've got a lot on my mind.”
“When did you last eat something? You did eat something since you came home from work, right? No, you didn’t. I can always tell. You get f
unny about things when you starve yourself.” Miren folded his arms over his chest.
“What are you talking about?” Sarn glanced at his brother over his shoulder. Though come to think of it, he did feel lightheaded. Maybe he should fetch some food. But doing so required more energy, so Sarn sat and his makeshift chair crunched.
Miren pulled something off a nearby shelf and handed it to Sarn, who regarded the parcel in confusion.
“Relax, it’s trail mix—you know dried fruits and nuts. I read the label.”
“Thanks.” Sarn untied the string holding the bag closed and dug a hand inside. A tug on his pant leg shifted his attention from stuffing his face to his son, who held out a hand for some.
Ran picked dried berries from his hand and a flash of Hadrovel looming over the boy made Sarn’s breath catch.
‘The bad man hurt you, and that hurt me,’ Ran had said.
More images tumbled together into an ugly whole. Sarn squeezed his son’s shoulder and Ran gave him a curious look. How had those dreams slipped his mind so completely it took a brush with a strange book to return them? Had all the magicking he’d done over the last couple days degraded his memory?
Appetite killed by the depressive thoughts looping through his mind, Sarn closed the sack and set it aside. The Rangers were always pushing food on him. And right now, he needed the reassurance cradling his son offered. Ran sucked his thumb and curled into him, clinging to his bear in much the same way he clung to his son.
“Talk to me. Tell me what happened. You wouldn’t have come here if everything was ok.” Miren perched on a crate opposite Sarn, hands resting on his crutch.
Trust Miren to ask the most uncomfortable question first. “There was an earthquake, and the aftershocks scared my son. So, we came here.” Sarn froze as a disembodied hand reached through the door and waved.
Not this again. Sarn glared at the specter. I just need a few hours to settle my family then I can help you. But despite his mental reassurance, the arm kept manifesting. Maybe ghosts couldn’t hear thoughts.
“What else happened?”
“I tried to get the Foundlings to come with us but—” Sarn shook his head. “We argued. They refused. Then some folks decided to make an issue out of the Guards’ presence, but we made it outside. It just took a while.”
“Are they all right?”
“I think so. We didn’t see any damage from the earthquake, just a lot of scared people.”
But their rejection still stung. For six years, the Foundlings were a dysfunctional family for Sarn and his brother. Was it their fault they wanted the attention and affection he reserved for his son? Maybe, but he still owed them for not treating him like a freak.
“Where are we staying tonight?” Miren looked around, but the ghost boy had retracted its hand.
“Not here,” Sarn confirmed. Until he knew whose side the Insect Man was on, this place wasn’t safe. So where was? “Things might still be unsettled downstairs, but I think it’s our best bet.”
“Or I can take him with me to the library and get some work done. No one will see us. I promise.”
Ran perked up at this news. “Yes, can we go?” and to his uncle, he said, “you’ll read me stories there?”
“Sure, there are lots of books in the library. There’s bound to be one you’d like—if that’s okay with your father.”
They both turned pleading eyes on Sarn, but he was staring at the spectral foot pushing through the closed door. What the hell did the ghost boy want now? He checked his map, but the corridor was empty save for the ghost.
“We should go back downstairs.” And they should go before anything else manifested through that door. Sarn rose still holding his son as the bells of Mount Eredren chimed the hour.
Using two hands, Ran counted the peals on his fingers. “Seventeen,” the boy said then buried his face in Sarn’s chest.
Sarn rubbed his son’s back. “You still have me for two more hours.” Then he had to report to Jerlo. Or was it Nolo? Damn, he had to pay closer attention to such details from now on.
Realizing there’d be no trip to the library, Miren’s face fell. “We should check on the Foundlings.”
“Yeah, there’s just enough time if we leave now.” Sarn headed for the door but stopped when their location registered. “Are any of those edible with minimal cooking?” Sarn nodded to the overstuffed shelves. Some of the packages looked familiar. Were those rolled oats over there?
Scanning the labels, Miren smiled and pulled a head-sized jar down. Red jelly quivered in its belly. “You won’t believe this.”
“What won’t I believe?” but even as Sarn asked the question, he was already smiling.
“Get your sack out. We hit the motherlode.” Miren tapped the jar with his free hand, “this is strawberry preserves.”
“I like strawberries.” Smiling, Ran reached for the jar.
“Then you’ll have strawberry preserve tonight.” Sarn set his son down so he could fish a burlap sack out of his pocket.
He kept a small supply of them always on his person in case fate provided and this afternoon it had.
“Here, catch,” Miren tossed another jar.
Sarn slipped it inside and closed the bag. “It won’t hold anymore.”
“Good, let’s get out of here. It’s really cold.” Miren shivered.
Sarn glanced at the door. No spectral body parts poked through it, but the temperature was dropping. Was nausea next?
“Can we go now?” Miren glared at Sarn.
Before he could speak, Ran tugged on his pant leg.
“Bear wants to see where we’re going.”
Of course, Bear did. How had he forgotten? Sarn rearranged the smaller sack until Bear sat on the jam jar. After the day’s frights, Ran had earned some concessions.
“How does the bag feel? Is it too heavy?”
“Can Bear see?” Ran twisted his head around and smiled when Bear's button eyes met his.
“Yes, are you sure it’s not too heavy?” Sarn supported the bag with one hand, afraid his son would topple if he let go.
Ran looked so small and fragile with such a large jar weighing him down. But once Ran took possession of something, he didn’t give it up. The sight roused Sarn’s magic, and it wrapped around the sack, taking some of the weight. Sarn let go and Ran stayed on his feet.
“It’s okay. I can carry it.” Ran settled the magically lightened bag higher on his shoulder.
“Alright but if it gets too heavy, you tell me, and I’ll add it to mine.”
“Can we go now?”
Nausea made his bile rise as Sarn resisted the urge to snarl something mean at his brother. Something unnatural was nearby. Maybe he should throw Miren at it. Since the brat returned from school, Sarn had received nothing but attitude. Had he been that bad at fourteen? You were worse. The reminder downgraded Sarn’s ire to mere annoyance at the brat.
“We go down now?” Ran looked up at Sarn but there was no fear in his son’s eyes, just eagerness to eat those preserves.
Maybe Ran had forgotten all about the whole earth-shaking thing. Or more likely, thoughts of dinner had distracted Ran. In fact, a simple meal of boiled oats and jam sounded good. Sarn relaxed. One less meal to fret over, thank Fate for small favors.
Now he had two plans queued up for execution. The night was looking up. Now he just needed to get his family away from here before something happened.
“Yes, are you okay with going back down there?”
“He’s fine with it. Let’s get this over with I have a report to write.” Miren hobbled past Sarn and pushed open the door before he could stop the angry teen.
“Wait—Miren—damn it,” Sarn said as he engaged his head map and scanned for danger. No one traversed the hallway or the nearest staircase. And the Rangers—Sarn sorted through the map’s iconography for them until Ran tugged on his pant leg.
“What’s wrong?”
Ran pointed at the hole in the floor and the insects cr
awling out of it. They grouped together forming a mouth.
“Go now. Don’t let him find you,” said a voice like a thousand bees buzzing in concert.
“Who’s coming?”
“Go!” The lips dissolved into a pile of insects fast fleeing this place.
“Come on,” Sarn swung a much larger sack over his shoulder and shepherded his son into the corridor. No one had ever replaced the broken hasp, so he left the door unlocked. A quick map check verified the closest staircase was still free of pedestrians save for Miren of course. It turned up nothing else, but the nauseous feeling remained coiled tight in his belly as they departed and it set his teeth on edge.
Ran grimaced at yet another narrow, spiral affair curving into darkness, but he squared his little shoulders and descended, keeping a hand on the enclosing wall. Sarn followed aware he’d used this staircase too often in the last three days. Ran's safety hinged on secrecy and unpredictability—two things he’d let slide since meeting the ghost boy. When he reached the Lower Quarters, he’d have to vary their route.
People icons popped up on his map, freezing Sarn mid-step. Where had they come from? He watched their icons move away from here before continuing.
Miren remained silent taking those two hundred and forty steps at a fast hobble, which was fine. Miren could take care of himself. Only Ran required protecting, so Sarn hunted for the safest route.
A burst of intense cold punched Sarn in the back, and he slammed a shoulder into the enclosing wall to stay upright. Magic cushioned the impact, but he collapsed, limbs spasming, as the ghost boy tore out of his chest. It clutched a handful of silver filaments, but they faded away.
Warnings sounded in Sarn’s mind as Ran screamed and tipped forward. He must have kneed the poor child when the ghost boy hit him.
“No!” Sarn shouted as his son fell toward stairs spiraling into the bowels of the earth.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 34
