“This dagger,” Yennit said, holding the blade up for all of them to see, “belonged to the last leader of the Harven race, Thalson Harvenstrong. Where some kings wear a crown as a symbol of their leadership, the Harven chief carried this dagger.
“It is said that this dagger was forged in the bowels of the Earth, deep beneath the Harven Mountains where legend has it that the rivers of earth blood that sustain our world originate. Some say that if the Earth has a heart, it beats beneath the Harven Mountains. This dagger is an object of pure earth power, a weapon created for destroying darkness. You all saw what happened just now. The way the shadows simply ceased to be when the dagger was held under the light of the sun.
“My friend, you have uncovered one of the greatest treasures of our past that anyone has ever discovered. But more importantly…” Yennit’s face took on a mask of peace and exultation, “the prophecy has begun at last.”
“What prophecy, Yennit?” Jerron asked, his eyes alight with wonder. He was completely entranced by Yennit‘s story.
Cano wasn’t so impressed. He had no time for ancient daggers, Harvens, or prophecies. Maehril still lay near him, imprisoned in a dream from which she could not wake. To him, these fantastical tales were a waste of time.
“The prophecy of Harmony Alexidus, my boy,” Yennit said. “A prophecy delivered over a thousand years ago by Desirmor’s interned wife. A prophecy that documents the series of events that will lead to Desirmor’s death and restore the balance of light and dark.”
“I’ve no time fer ya prophecy, Yennit,” Cano suddenly exclaimed. He had heard enough. “I care nothing fer ya children’s tales and folklore. If ya can’t help me with the girl, then let me be on my way. Time’s a wastin while ya fill the boy’s head with this foolishness.”
Yennit studied Cano for several moments and then looked sadly at Maehril.
“I must apologize, my friend,” he said sadly. He turned the dagger over in his hands several times. “This dagger is something I have sought after since my youth. To see it at last, to hold it in my hands… I’m afraid it caused me to forget the reason you came to me.”
“Is there anything ya can do?” Cano asked desperately.
Yennit paused thoughtfully, then smiled cleverly.
“There is one thing that might help her, though I must warn you, it is dangerous.”
“I don’t care bout danger,” Cano said. Then he looked down at his hands and added quietly, “I’ll do anything to help her.”
“It may cost you your life. And I cannot guarantee that it will cure what ails her,” Yennit said grimly.
“Would ya jest tell me what I need to do, already. Fer the light of heaven!” Cano threw up his hands in exasperation.
“There is a tree that gives a fruit that can cure any ill. If a man is within a hair’s breadth of dying, the fruit of this tree can restore him completely.” Yennit made the pronouncement bitterly, as though he were revealing a secret he was loathe to tell. His once blue eyes, dulled by age to a soft gray, had the haunted look of broken promises.
Cano felt a surge of hope. A fruit that can heal any ill? Why had he never heard of such a wonderment before?
“The tree is difficult to reach,” Yennit continued. He absently caressed the dagger’s blade as he spoke. “It lies within a cave halfway up an ocean cliff on the eastern shores of Merrame. To reach the cave, you must scale the cliff face. Once inside the cave, you will find a family of shraels. If you’ve never encountered a shrael, I must warn you that they count humans amongst their very favorite meals.”
Cano knew all about shraels. There weren’t many left in the world these days, because when a nest was discovered, locals usually got together to kill them. Shraels always made their nests near the ocean, since after people, pelicans were their second favorite meal. They were big, winged beasts, and if the tree was truly guarded by a family, his task was nearly impossible. Living out on the water, he’d been attacked more times than he could count. The only thing that ever worked for him was to dive under his boat and wait for them to leave. Shraels were infamously impatient. It usually took only a few minutes before they gave up and flew away. Once again, Cano felt his spirits dropping.
“How many are there?” he asked dejectedly.
“At least five,” Westin said. He had been sitting quietly with his hands folded across his spacious waist.
“I believe five is right,” Yennit agreed, nodding his head approvingly at his farm foreman.
“Can ya give me any men, Yennit?” Cano asked. He doubted there were only five.
Yennit shook his head sadly. There was shame in his eyes. “None would follow you Cano. I will ask, of course, but these are simple village men, with wives and children. I don’t know a man around here that isn’t terrified of those foul creatures. I can’t even get them to gather into numbers to clear out that nest.”
“How do ya know bout that tree then?” Cano asked. “If none of ya’s got the stones to challenge them things, how’d ya find out it’s there?”
“It was a recent discovery. Something that must remain a secret.”
“I’ve seen these things first hand,” Westin said grimly. He pulled a pale yellow handkerchief from a pocket on his brown burlap vest and wiped away the sweat that was building on his forehead. Cano thought the room was fairly cool. Was the man truly overheated? “Nasty beasts. Picked one of the field workers right up off the ground. Ripped him apart and flew away. We started putting archers around the perimeter after that happened.”
“I don’t know who or what this girl is, Cano, but is she truly worth risking your life?” Yennit asked carefully, studying Maehril as he continued to rub his fingers along the dagger’s blade.
“She is,” Cano answered simply.
“I’ve known you for many years now,” Yennit tried to reason with him. “You’ve always been a man who prefers to be alone. By your own admission, you only knew her a day before she lost consciousness. And a mute as well. What hold does she have on you? Are you certain you haven’t been bewitched?”
Cano looked over at Maehril. His heart longed to see her awake and smiling.
“There was a moment on my boat when that evil was rising from the sea, closing in all around us, and I knew I was going to die.” He pointed at Maehril. “That girl saved my life. Light poured out of her. It was like the light of heaven itself was shining from that little girl.” Cano felt himself choking up. He could feel the tears beginning to well up in his eyes. “She’s special. I know it. I feel it in my bones.” He captured a sob in his throat, mastering his emotions. The next words he spoke would sound crazy, but he believed them with every ounce of his being. “This girl is the Creator made flesh. She is light itself.”
Yennit’s face was a blank mask. He studied Cano with heavy, thoughtful eyes. Westin and Jerron stared at him with mouths hanging agape.
“You’ve lost it man,” Westin said, wiping at his face again. He pointed a chubby finger at him accusingly. “That rover yesterday, it must’ve knocked the sense out of you.”
“Be easy, Westin,” Yennit said. “Do not mock a man for his beliefs, dubious though they may be. The girl has obviously incited a passionate response in our friend. Let him think as he wishes.”
“The Creator made flesh, though Yennit?” Westin exclaimed. “I’ll not listen to such blasphemy.”
“Where’s the cave, Yennit?” Cano asked. Westin’s sudden vehemence had only stoked his resolve to be on his way.
“Is there nothing I can do to talk you out of this?” the old man asked. Cano shook his head. Yennit sighed with resignation. “Head east until you find the coast. It’s about half a day's ride by horseback. Go north up the coast until you see an outcropping of rocks just off the shore. The rocks look like three descending arches. You’ll understand when you see them. The cave lies on the cliff face.”
Cano stood up and reached out to shake Yennit’s hand.
“My thanks to ya old friend. Will ya take care of th
e girl until I return?”
“Don’t worry about Maehril; just come back in one piece.” Yennit struggled to his feet, causing Westin to rise and give him a hand. “Westin, see that he gets a horse and some good rope. And an overnight pack. If he actually manages to get to the tree, he won’t be able to get back until tomorrow.” He handed the dagger back to Cano. “Thank you for showing me this treasure, Cano Ash’amar. I owe you a great debt.”
“No, no. Ya keep it, Yennit,” Cano tried to hand the dagger back, but Yennit refused.
“This belongs to you Cano. I know you don’t understand, but the dagger has chosen you. Its innate power can only be unleashed by a chosen wielder. You have become that man.”
Cano looked down at the knife, doubtfully. It sounded like more nonsense to him, but he would need a weapon if he was going to tangle with a family of shraels.
Jerron stood up as well. He had remained quiet throughout the conversation, listening intently to everything that was said. He looked determined.
“I’ll need a horse too,” he said.
They all turned to look at him as though he had said the most absurd thing in the world. Westin’s expression grew hard.
“What kind of foolishness is this now, son?” Westin asked in a strict fatherly tone.
“I’m going with Cano, Pa,” Jerron said.
“You’ll do no such thing!” Westin commanded.
Jerron didn’t blink. He looked at Cano with resolve cemented in his face.
“I figured you’d need some help and all. If you’ll have me?” he asked hopefully.
“He’s not going anywhere with you,” Westin said angrily to Cano. “He’s my only son. I won’t risk him.”
“I’ll be fine, Pa. I can fend for myself,” Jerron argued defiantly.
“We already lost Ansonia. Your mother and I can’t lose you too, son. I won’t allow it.” Westin’s big, round face was flushed and angry. His eyes threw invective accusations at Cano.
Jerron stared back at his father. Intransigence poured impossibly from his homely face and innocent blue eyes. “You taught me to always help a friend in need. Never turn your back. What kind of man would I be, if I let him walk away to die alone. I won’t do it. I won’t. It’s not the way you raised me. It’s not the way Ma raised me.”
Westin’s hands had balled into fists. Short, furious breaths pushed through his gritted teeth. Then his round sweaty face began to contort from an expression of incendiary rage to one of shame. The hard lines of anger slipped away, and his mouth fell open, whispering inaudible protests that lost their validity as the rationality of his son’s impassioned speech answered all of his arguments. His shoulders slumped forward, and he released a long, resigned sigh.
“Just come back to me then, son,” he uttered hoarsely. “Please.”
Jerron nodded solemnly.
Cano stood uncomfortably quiet. He was glad to have some help, but in the depths of his heart, he knew there was no hope of surviving this task. Death was imminent and acceptable. Cano was willing to die, fighting to keep the promise he had made to himself that first morning after Maehril had wandered into his life. Yet, like Westin, he was unwilling to see the boy die on a fool’s errand. He could not abide by Jerron’s choice.
“I go alone,” he said sternly.
He expected a strong objection from the boy, but the argument never came. Jerron merely shook his head and laughed. His laugh was deep and full, a release of the tension held over from the battle of wills he’d just fought with his father.
“You can’t stop me, fishman,” he chortled. “If you leave, I’ll just follow. Either at your side, or a distance behind. Mark me. I’m going.”
Cano opened his mouth to object, but his protests died in his throat. Westin managed a reluctant smile and shook his head at him.
“We’re Massoniel, Cano. Once a Massoniel has made up his mind, you’d have better luck making a mountain stand aside.”
Yennit grinned in agreement. Standing next to Westin’s massive bulk, his frail old frame looked like that of a child.
“Alright,” Cano surrendered. The boy was stubborn if nothing else. “Jest don’t go getting yerself killed.”
Westin led Yennit away and Jerron ran off to fetch supplies for the road ahead. Cano took a seat beside Maehril and studied her sleeping face. She looked to be at peace. Her lips curved into the slightest hint of a smile, as though her dreams were of joyful memories. He hoped they were.
He considered the terrallium dagger in his hands. Yennit had said the dagger had chosen him, as if that were even possible. He had found the thing lying at the bottom of the sea, a relic of a time long past. The truth was it should never have been discovered. Was it coincidence or the purposeful machinations of a greater force beyond his capacity for understanding?
His wife, Ahtarah, had often lectured him on the forces of fate and circumstance. She believed that everything was already predetermined and that people were following a path laid out long before they had ever taken their first breath as infants.
Cano was a man of God. His belief in the Creator was absolute. He had been raised to believe that man had been created from love and he was free to live his life as he wished. Those that lived morally, in faithful recognition of the Creator, were welcomed into the realm of the heavens at the moment of death. His unwavering faith in this doctrine had kept him alive when despair over the loss of his family had been at its most damaging.
If Yennit’s belief proved to be true and the dagger had indeed chosen him, then his whole concept of life would be shattered. Ahtarah would be right. There was no such thing as coincidence. Cano would be left to wonder whether it had truly been his own choice to camp on the beach that night, rather than on his boat. That choice had led him to this mysterious, mute teenager who had stirred within him sentiments of love and loyalty that he had long ago abandoned as emotions he was incapable of feeling. And that meeting had brought him to a dagger which had waited for him in the chest of a sunken ship for countless years.
It would also mean that his mutation was a predestined act. The gills that had grown behind his ears, causing the eventual death of his loved ones, and his alienation from society, would prove to be the ultimate catalyst for everything that had occurred these last few days.
All of these thoughts possessed his mind as he watched Maehril sleeping on the sofa. Was his next task the predesigned will of fate as well? Would his death come at the hands of a family of shraels, desperately trying to find a cure for the unnatural slumber that had taken Maehril?
He closed his fingers into a tight grip on the dagger’s hilt. Cano was an old man -- too old to be getting mixed up in battles and adventure. For now he would keep to his faith, and trust in the Creator to guide him, either back to Maehril, or into the heavens above.
Chapter Fifteen: Shraels
The horses were packed. Two silvery blue geldings stood next to the barn, saddled and fed, waiting patiently for their riders. Westin stood beside them, holding their reins, gently stroking their manes and noses.
Cano stood in the back doorway of the manor house with Jerron and Yennit, taking a last moment to think his plan over. It wasn’t much of a plan.
Based on what little he knew of shraels, they liked to hunt in the evening, just before sundown. There was no hierarchy among their kind. Any adult shrael that wanted to eat left the nest to hunt. His best chance was to enter the cave while they were hunting and get the fruit as quickly as possible. This plan was of course contingent on his hope that there were no chicks in the nest. If the family had recently birthed, the mother would stay behind to guard the young.
Jerron had no idea what he was getting into. He was full of wide-eyed wonder and misguided juvenile bravery. He carried a battle axe, given to him by Yennit, from his collection of artifacts of ages past. Yennit told him a maul or a hammer would have been a more appropriate weapon for a Massoniel to carry, but for now the axe would suffice. The long, crescent blade looked sharp and
polished, but Cano worried that the boy would just end up cutting himself. He doubted that Jerron had ever swung a battle axe. In fact he wasn’t sure if the boy was capable of doing anything other than picking vegetables.
He assumed Jerron could shoot an arrow. His proficiency had been proven the day before when he’d saved Cano and Maehril from being torn apart by the rovers. But a bow and arrow wouldn’t do much good in a cave against the shraels. Still, Cano was glad to see that Jerron had packed a sheath of arrows and carried a bow, slung over his shoulder.
Cano viewed the horses with a heavy dose of apprehension. He hadn’t ridden a horse in nearly thirty years.
Since his youth, he had tied his life to the sea. His first job had been an apprenticeship on a small fishing vessel when he was barely old enough to shave. A boat was something you could control. Tighten the sails, move the rudder and the boat would turn just the way you wanted. Horses were living creatures with personalities. At any moment the one you were riding could take off or rear up and drop you on your backside. He didn’t trust them.
He had taken a few moments to watch the two geldings with their silvery blue coats, and thick black manes. One of them seemed gentle enough. It melted into Westin’s caress, nuzzling the fat man affectionately.
The second horse made Cano wary. It had a shifty look in its wide black eyes. Cano felt certain that the horse was watching him, plotting something mischievous. As soon as he walked over there, Cano was sure the horse would try to bite him, or lift its hind legs and spray him with urine. Westin reached out to pet its nose, and the horse moved its head aside, although its eyes never looked away from Cano.
“Ya won’t get any of this flesh, here,” Cano cried out suddenly, waving his arm tauntingly at the horse.
Yennit and Jerron abruptly stopped the conversation they’d been having and looked at him as though he’d gone mad. That unwavering stare from the horse had rankled him, and he didn‘t care if they thought he was a loon.
“He’s plotting something. Mark me on that,” Cano defended himself. “I won’t ride him. I won’t.”
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