Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons)

by Jacobs, Teddy

  I opened my eyes to see a face completely covered by a crimson hood.

  There was no face to look at, but it had to be my father. He was tied to a chair, and the chair was bolted to the floor. There was a hole in the hood for his mouth, so he could breathe. That was it. I listened intently. The room was still. I felt a touch on my arm. It was Kalle.

  Maintain the connection, and we’ll see what we can do.

  I nodded. I tried to keep focused, but anger and fear surged up. I wanted to tear through the gateway and cut my father’s bonds with my sword.

  And if anyone attacked me?

  I would cut them down as well.

  But if it was a trap? The circle grew fainter, then came back into focus. I needed to concentrate. Woltan’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and I felt strength and determination flow into me.

  Easy does it Anders, keep your mind calm and steady. We’re going to try a couple of things.

  Woltan said a word of power. The word flowed through me and out my mouth.

  Klarschauen.

  Suddenly I could see everything. My father, ahead of me, under the hood, breathing, alive; Gerard, the wizard from Spices, hidden in the shadows, asleep; and another presence, that I could see but not make sense of — some kind of magical being that shimmered darkly and changed color as I looked at it.

  We can try stunning everything and breaking the chair away. I don’t see any other option. The beast there is too strong, and so is the wizard. But I don’t think they have noticed us yet.

  They will if we make the opening any bigger. It’s tiny right now.

  We’ll do the spell to break the bonds of the chair first, and then hit them with a stun, and then maybe we can get him out of there, although I doubt that beast will be stunned for more than a moment.

  I felt two more hands on my shoulders then, and when my mouth opened a word surged forth and the word was frei. The word hit my father and rolled over him. I had concentrated on the chair but my father surged up as well.

  That’s when all hell broke loose.

  Everything that had slumbered and shimmered in the background seemed to wake up at the same moment. The beast roared. Flashing light blinded me. Cursing filled the air.

  I panicked, and almost lost the connection.

  But one of my hands touched the sword. I opened my mouth and out came song. The song reached out and pierced the barrier, forming a green protective sphere around my father that narrowed as it ran back to my mouth.

  Kara’s hand was warm on my shoulder. Wow. Keep that up, whatever you’re doing. And widen the barrier, but watch out. We’ll try to stun them, or at least protect you.

  I pulled then with all my body and soul, sucking and tugging at the green cord that bound me to my father — inside the green field of light I could feel my father reaching out to me, and then I heard him:

  Anders, is that you? Hold on to the sword, and don’t break the connection.

  He was weak, but himself. Why had my father never shown me any magic? Why had he left it all to my tutor? Why had he never carried the sword that hung by my side? I was filled with questions just when I need to concentrate most.

  The beast attacked then. It spat out red fire that ate at the green energy surrounding my father. It felt like it was burning my skin. But I refused it. I thought of cold, clean spring water, and the beast’s fire burned on but did not hurt us. I felt pain, yes, tremendous burning biting pain, but I refused it, as well, refused to close my eyes and break the connection. I was real, and the beast’s fire was not. Then there were words of magic spoken:

  Leicht

  My father seemed to lose all weight, and I pulled at him. He started to move through the barrier, the green sphere filling the circle completely, blocking out the spells that were flying at us from Gerard, who stood behind my father now, in a rage, cursing us magically with words I couldn’t understand but that still burned my ears with their malice.

  Durch

  The gateway became more slippery. My father was coming through, but it was tight, like giving birth to an elephant. I was afraid of what would follow him, but I pulled on.

  The globe popped out of the barrier.

  I fell back, the globe disintegrating, my father on top of me. The lights went out, as I shouted schliessen!

  But it was too late.

  My father was not the only thing that had come through the gateway.

  He rolled off of me and I sat up quickly.

  Before I could see anything I felt it, its breath on me like some alchemical fire. I had no time to speak a word of magic — it was slashing at my face, enveloping me in liquid flame. I wanted to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth as the beast enveloped my face with its chemical burn.

  My hand moved jerkily, fighting something unseen, to my sword. At last my hand was on the pommel, and an ancient word screamed out of the blade itself:

  Raus!

  The fire left my mouth. I saw the beast with my third eye. Like some creature of the ocean straight out of my schoolbooks, it hovered there in the room — an octopus, it was called, but they were creatures of the deep sea. This was some invention of a mad wizard or witch, a magical octopus that swam through the air, attacking me with burning tentacles and teeth.

  My sword was screaming, unheeded, as I stared at the magical creature, a glowing mass of red body and tentacles.

  The beast struck three more blows, rapid-fire, to my head, my shoulders and chest, and I reeled.

  Then my sword rose up, unbidden. I shook myself, and the sword spoke again, and this time I listened.

  Careful, Anders! Defend yourself! I haven’t fought a Gulk for around a thousand years. Chop at its tentacles, then go for its eye, and finally its heart.

  The blade flew through the air. My eyes were still clenched tightly shut and I saw a green glowing blade and my body that was green too, saw the beast glowing red, and other bodies around me that must have been my friends and father.

  The Gulk whipped its tentacles, as my blade swung and chopped. And I began to smell a salty chemical odor, some twisted sorcerer’s idea of sea and the deep. The beast splattered everything with red blood that sizzled and burned.

  The Gulk jumped on me then, knocking me down. I stabbed upward, and stabbed deeply — the sword sang in triumph in my hands. The creature shrieked in pain, and pulled itself off of me, moving around crazily, drunkenly.

  The eye, sang Carolina, we have the eye. The heart is soon to follow. Stand tall, Anders son of Tomas.

  I sprang to my feet and opened my eyes.

  The Gulk was spinning around wildly, spraying everything with its acrid burning blood. I swung my sword against it. I felt the blow from my head to my toes. The Gulk, for its part, fell to the floor, but continued to writhe, changing colors as it whipped its remaining tentacles blindly around.

  Into the very center. Look deeply with your third eye and you will see a point of black light. Strike deeply there, at its heart. It has no mind, except in its owner.

  I looked and found the burning black deep inside the red. It blinked at me with malevolence and I heard a voice:

  Herr!

  I felt a great surge of energy then, hate and confusion, and grabbed the sword tightly in two hands. I brought it down swiftly, and there was a great popping noise, and a scream. I felt myself covered with burning blood, polluted by it.

  A few tentacles moved still, and then it was over.

  I fell down to a sitting position on the floor. Was it always going to be like this, exhausting myself, falling down in front of friends and family?

  But then I saw Kara and Kalle crouched down, gathered around my father. Woltan stood above them, looking down, muttering the words to an incantation.

  Kara straightened up. I was about to say something but she put her finger to her lips, came up to me and reached out a hand to help me up.

  Say nothing. We mustn’t interfere with Woltan’s spell. Your father is in grave danger.

  What’s the mat
ter with him?

  He’s unconscious and we fear his mind has been tampered with. We think he has been implanted as well with dark spirits.

  Dark faeries?

  Kara nodded. An imp, perhaps. Or several.

  What can we do?

  We must do a complete search of his aura and his body.

  She stopped, looking at me in surprise and wrinkling her nose. But you’re covered in that foul creature’s blood. We must wash you off, or it may pollute your essence. As well as doing nothing positive for your skin. Already your aura is strange.

  It was true, the blood stung and stank. I wanted to stay with my father, but Kara pulled me out of the room. We came quickly to a fountain, surrounded by cups and bowls. She grabbed a cup and before I could say anything, was pouring water all over me.

  Or was it water?

  Even with my eyes opened, without my third eye I could see it glowed with green energy. Was my third eye really shut, or was it always awake now?

  The water flowed like liquid ice over the burning blood of the Gulk. She poured another cup, and I felt cleaner, and the stinging eased. With the third cup I felt human again, just thoroughly soaked with the liquid. It was odorless, so perhaps it was water, after all. If so, it was water full of positive energy, good clean pure natural magic that washed way the contamination that had begun to enter my skin.

  She grinned at me, as I stood there dripping. “This, unlike the Gulk blood, should do wonders for your skin.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Normally, the blood of the Gulk burns and disfigures its attackers horribly. I don’t know why this didn’t happen to you, unless...”

  “It did sting me. Burned me a little, too.”

  Kara’s face lit up.

  “You’re the three-blooded prince, Anders, right?”

  I nodded. I didn’t know where this was leading.

  “It must be the merpeople blood. That means that you are master of sea creatures, and your skin is resistant to magic.”

  “I can’t be attacked magically?”

  “Resistant, not invulnerable. I learned about the merpeople in school, but I’ve never seen them.”

  What a fool I was. I’d read about the merpeople too, just never paid much attention. And why hadn’t I paid attention? Because I hadn’t believed. I had thought the merpeople were just one more thing made up to fill an old book. I had to hold back a laugh. What an idiot I was. Talk about not believing in yourself.

  Kara looked at me, dripping wet. “What’s so funny?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing, I just never thought the merpeople were real.”

  Kara smiled. “And now you find you have merpeople blood.” She paused for a moment, then smiled again. “I thought princesses were made up too, just in storybooks, until I found out three years ago that I was one.”

  I guess I looked surprised.

  “We Kriek, as you’ll find out, have no visible manifestations of rank, and all decisions are carried out in town meetings. I couldn’t attend the meetings until I was 10. That was when I found out my father led the meetings, and when I questioned him about it, found that he was the Kriek king, and that I as his daughter...”

  “Are a princess.”

  She nodded. “We should get you out of these wet clothes.”

  Now that was embarrassing.

  “I don’t have any others.”

  She smiled. “Perhaps we’ll just dry these off then, until you can shower and change.”

  She spoke a word then, that I had not heard before: sec.

  The clothes dried on my body, without any heat. The water just went out of them, vanishing. But they still didn’t smell too pretty.

  Kara wrinkled her nose. “I would destroy those clothes as soon as possible. They will never be free of the stain of dark magic.”

  “That creature called me Herr, before it died. Just like the keiler.”

  “I would ask Woltan, or my father what this means. I trust you’re not a dark lord, yourself?”

  I shook my head. “Let’s get back to my father,” I said.

  Chapter XII

  This couldn’t be happening. I refused to believe it. Whatever else my father had been, he had always been invulnerable.

  “Wake up,” I said, softly.

  There was no response.

  I said it again, louder. But the room was still. I wanted to believe I could hear quiet breathing in the stillness.

  They had to just be sleeping deeply. Woltan and Kara couldn’t be right. I refused to believe my parents couldn’t hear me, couldn’t see me.

  Sure, my father’s face was a little blue and his eyes were closed. But he’d been through a lot. I crouched down next to him where he lay, next to my mother, and I spoke a work of power: Wach.

  Was there a twitch in his eyelids?

  I couldn’t be sure.

  I tried to speak a greater spell, pulling deep within me. It was so frustrating. There was so much magic I didn’t know.

  Excitare.

  Did my mother move, or was it just a flicker of the candlelight?

  I put my hand to my sword, to try to pull greater power.

  Anders, you need to stop. You won’t help them this way.

  I pulled my hand away from my sword in a rage. What could Carolina know? Did she have parents?

  I had parents once, Anders. Even the fair folk feel pain, Anders.

  I blocked her out of my mind, and looked at the two bodies. I had trouble putting together what I saw with my memories. Were these the same people from just a few days ago? When I had argued with them about covering my pimples?

  Now they were so silent and their skin so blue they might as well have been dead. How could they do this to me? How dare they never tell me about the dangers, about the sword I now carried at my side.

  “Mother!” I yelled, but it was too late now. “Father!” I yelled.

  There was no reaction. How could they do this to me — leave me all alone, without knowing what they expected from me? And now just lie their like logs, and leave me to be the parent.

  Look at me, I wanted to shout at them, I’m a three-blooded prince!

  But they lay there not moving a muscle, blue skinned and pale.

  I touched my father’s skin and it felt stone cold, smooth and cold as marble.

  This wasn’t my father. This was just some blue-tinted copy of him, that didn’t do anything. My father was gone, and I didn’t know where he was anymore. My mother was gone, and I had a cold blue statue here instead.

  Someone was playing a nasty joke on me. It was all a trick, and any minute my parents were going to sit up and laugh and say, “Surprise!”

  But I knew that wasn’t true. And that’s what made me so angry.

  Their souls were trapped inside these bodies, their minds were there too, but if they couldn’t be contacted, what was the point? They might as well be dead.

  If I could only talk with them just one more time, find out what they needed me to do.

  “Anders?”

  Someone was speaking to me.

  With words, not thoughts.

  I had one reply for him. Leave. Me. Alone. This was his fault as much as mine, and had he helped any? I wanted no one in my mind, not now.

  I stood up slowly, and turned.

  Woltan stood looking at me. There was pain in his face, and compassion too, but I wanted none of it. It wasn’t his parents who lay there cold and rigid like statues, was it? What did he know about what I was feeling?

  “Anders?”

  “What?”

  It came angrier than I’d meant, but what did he want, anyway? Had anyone ever asked me if I wanted to be a prince, to have my parents turned to stone and a whole army of dark forces looking for me?

  “We have to probe them, Anders. Now, before any more damage is done.”

  I was angry now. Woltan wasn’t worried about my parents. Had he ever worried about them? He just wanted to make sure they weren’t carrying any spies. “You
just care about your lost city,” I told him.

  Woltan shrugged. “Anders, you’re angry now. That’s normal. I would be too, in your situation.”

  “Don’t talk to me about my situation, Woltan — you have no idea. All you care about is your forgotten city. If I hadn’t passed your test, I probably would be as dead to the world as my parents.”

  I kicked my foot out, knocking over a chair. It hurt. But the pain felt good. I needed to feel pain, right then. It gave me a reason for the tears I felt welling up in my eyes. I wanted to knock Woltan out of the room and pummel my parents until they woke up. How could they leave me alone to deal with their problems, with my problems?

  “We don’t believe in killing anyone except those who want to kill us. Listen, Anders, I care about my city, my people, my friends — about you too. Everything connects. Remember if we are destroyed, then your parents will not longer be of any use to the Dark Lord, and he will destroy them too.”

  “Woltan, just shut up and leave, okay? I really don’t want to hear it right now.”

  I shook my head. Maybe it was childish to react like this. But how else could I react? These were my parents. Parents who drove me crazy. Parents who slapped me in anger. Parents who locked me in my room so I would study. Parents who made me study with a horrible tutor and never once asked me what I wanted. Parents I loved.

  I felt tears begin to flow. But I was too angry to be embarrassed. I turned my head. My face felt hot and wet with tears and I wanted to be alone then, more than anything else. But I knew that Woltan would probably deny me that pleasure.

  Woltan looked away. “Although I don’t think it’s for the best, I will respect your wishes. I will leave you alone for a minute, and then I will need your help.”

  “Thanks you,” I said, surprised.

  Woltan left.

  A small skylight in the ceiling lit the room, and sunlight filtered in through its colored glass. My parents lay on two long cots, separated by several feet. I barely suppressed a bitter chuckle. My parents had slept in separate rooms as long as I could remember. Now they slept together, if not in the same bed. And now Woltan said they needed to be probed. That maybe there were spies inside them, put there by the dark lord.