by Sam Ferguson
Feberik was the last to stay with her. He sat on the floor in front of her silently as she let the tears fall from her face. She glanced down to the letter and reached for it, but her fingers fumbled it and it fell to the floor. Feberik gently picked it up and held it out for her.
“Shall I read it for you?” he asked.
Kyra shook her head and took the paper from him. She opened it and her eyes traced the words on the page. She must have read the first line more than a dozen times, but she couldn’t comprehend it. None of the letters made any sense to her. After several minutes of trying unsuccessfully to focus on the letter, she dropped the paper to the floor and let herself fall onto her side on the bed.
Feberik rose up from the floor and placed the letter beside her.
“I will arrange to find you a private dorm, if you like,” he offered. “Usually they don’t do that until you are a fourth year and working on your own research, but I think we can make an exception.”
She didn’t respond.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
Again, Kyra was silent. She closed her eyes and rolled away to face the wall. A moment later she heard footsteps followed by the sound of the door opening and closing.
She cried until her body had spent all of its strength, and then she gave in to sleep.
*****
Janik closed the door to his small room and began to unbutton his shirt. He stopped suddenly, now aware of the fact that he was not alone. He turned toward his bed and waited for the man sitting there to speak.
“Lady Caspen is dead,” Cyrus said in hushed tones.
Janik nodded. “My brother told me,” he said. “Was that your doing?”
Cyrus snapped his fingers and the candles on the nightstand burst into flame, their yellow light chasing the shadows away. The old wizard shook his head and tugged on his beard with his left hand. “I was there, but not until after it had already happened.”
Janik nodded, not sure if he believed Cyrus. “Who was it?” he pressed.
Cyrus turned a fierce eye on Janik and pointed a bony finger at him. “I want you to go to Kyra’s room and look for something,” Cyrus said, ignoring Janik’s question.
Janik sighed and nodded. “What am I looking for?” he asked.
“A dagger. You will know it by the three rubies set in the hilt.”
“A dagger?” Janik echoed. “What do you want with that?”
Cyrus rose slowly from the bed and moved close enough to Janik so that he could whisper. “That was the other item I sought when we fought the vampire. All this time I thought he had taken it with him when he escaped from us, but now it appears he no longer has it.”
Janik narrowed his eyes on the old wizard. “How do you know that?”
Cyrus put a finger to his nose and sneered. “Because the vampire is dead. He was slain with the dagger for which I search. More than that, it seems that someone else is hunting the item as well.”
“If I find it?” Janik asked.
“Then bring it back to your room. I know where to find you,” Cyrus said.
“What is so special about this dagger?” Janik pressed once more.
Cyrus shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. Just bring it to me if you find it.”
Janik nodded reluctantly. “So the other person that is searching for the dagger thought that Lady Caspen had it?”
Cyrus smiled wickedly and laughed. “That would be the logical conclusion.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I was there. I saw the marks of a ghoul in Lady Caspen’s study. There was likely another creature as well, as I can’t imagine she would have been defeated by a single ghoul. Nevertheless, those are the only marks I saw in the room. Her desk was shattered, and books were strewn about. The rest of the house was undisturbed. They were looking for it.”
“Maybe they were looking for something else,” Janik said.
Cyrus shook his head. “There are scrying tools that help unravel the mysteries of the past.” The old wizard smiled. “I won’t bother you with the details, but I know she had it.”
“Are you sure the others didn’t find it?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Of that I am not certain, but I am optimistic. I know the man who is hunting it. Let’s just say that if he had it, I would know by now.” Cyrus turned and put the candle out with a flick of his finger. The room went dark again. “Search the girl’s room. If it is there, bring it here. If it is not there, then keep an eye on her. Watch her carefully. I have a feeling that the others will come for her next. If they do, you had better keep her alive until I get back.”
“Why not just take her and have her tell you where it is?” Janik asked.
“No, that would turn her against us. Your first priority is to make her an ally. When she is grown, we will need her strength on our side. We mustn’t jeopardize that, not even for the dagger.”
“You keep saying that, and yet you don’t tell me what it is we need her for, or even why she is so special compared to the other hundred Apprentices of the Staff in Kuldiga Academy. Is the daughter of a vampire truly so remarkable?” Janik asked. His words were met by silence. “Cyrus?” Janik whispered. Still no answer. He moved to the far side of the room and lit the candle. He was alone.
CHAPTER 5
For about a month, the other apprentices ceased teasing Kyra. They weren’t overly nice to her, but the rumors all but stopped and the mean pranks were abandoned. Still, she would have gladly had all of the bad treatment back, even doubled, if she could also have had her mother returned to her. She still hadn’t been able to bring herself to read the letter that came on that horrible night. She placed it on top of her dresser in her dorm room, which she now shared with no one. She hardly spoke, and her studies suffered considerably. Feberik tried to cheer her up, but it didn’t help much.
Now she was more alone than ever before. In the few days immediately after the news had come, other professors would sit with her at lunch and offer their condolences for her mother’s sudden passing, but of late even they keep their distance.
As the time passed and Feberik continued to call upon Kyra both morning and night, the rumors began to flare up again. Another two weeks and the other apprentices fell right back into their old habits.
It was a particularly sunny Tuesday when everything came to a head.
Amelia, a tall, blonde apprentice walked by Kyra’s desk and pretended to accidentally knock Kyra’s book to the floor. The skinny blonde put a hand to her mouth and made a gasp of feigned horror.
“Oh dearest me, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“Oh I’m sorry, were you talking to me? I can’t hear you with that frog in your throat,” Kyra replied.
Amelia’s eyes went wide and she dropped her books, clutching both hands at a bulge in her throat. She opened her mouth, presumably to scream, but instead a large toad slipped out with trails of opaque slime clinging from it to Amelia’s lips. Amelia turned and fell to her knees, dry heaving.
“Miss Caspen,” Lady Priscilla shouted. “We do not use our magic like that in here. Let me show you why.” Lady Priscilla drew out her wand in a flash and banished the toad that Kyra had summoned. Next she turned to Kyra and glared at her. Kyra knew that it was common for instructors of magic to employ spells on the students as punishment, particularly if the students used magic to agitate each other, but Kyra was not about to back down.
“Let us see how you like it.” Lady Priscilla narrowed her eyes on Kyra and it was obvious that Lady Priscilla was not going to chastise Amelia for her rude treatment of Kyra.
As far as Kyra was concerned, the instructor had thrown her lot in with those who teased her.
No more. No matter how many demerits it cost, Kyra was done silently bearing everyone else’s rudeness and contempt. Kyra was not going to accept any more harassment. Kyra held up her left hand and cast a ward spell of reflection. No sooner had Lady Priscilla finished her spell than her own neck
bulged out in three different places. When the sorceress opened her mouth, not one, not two, but three green frogs leapt out from her mouth to rest upon her desk. Lady Priscilla’s watery eyes flashed red with anger. She glowered at Kyra as she raised her wand high over her head and prepared another spell. This time it was not to be frogs. A ball of sparks and fire gathered around Lady Priscilla’s wand.
Kyra felt an enormous wave of power rise up within her. It wasn’t just anger, she knew that much, but what it was she didn’t know precisely. She leapt up to her feet and gathered both of her hands in front of her. She sent a powerful gust of air rushing toward Lady Priscilla. The tall woman was blasted into the wall behind her and fell to the floor. Her wand broke and her spell fizzled into smoke.
Not a single student spoke. Many of them glanced between Lady Priscilla and Kyra, but none of them uttered a single word. As Kyra met their gazes, each student jerked their head downwards to stare at their desk.
Kyra summoned one more spell. Not one to attack anybody with, but something to cover her escape. The thick fog appeared in the classroom around everyone’s ankles. Several of the young girls, including Amelia, screamed and clambered on top of their desks. A couple of the boys did too. The fog filled the room and then Kyra left. The young sorceress bolted down the hallway, turning left at the first intersection and running straight for the southern exit.
She got outside as a class in procession with twenty-five or so students sat around a pair of male instructors, busily jotting notes in their field books about various mushrooms and herbs that were growing on the large stump in their midst.
One of the students looked up and the instructors rose to stop Kyra, but she was in no mood to slow down. She called the fog to her and disoriented the instructors as she ran by them out to the forest in the south. She must have run for thirty minutes, perhaps longer. She cried with each step, not because of what she had done to Lady Priscilla or Amelia; they had deserved it. No, she cried because she wanted to run to her mother, but she knew that was no longer possible.
There was no one left. Her father was of little use unless she wished to talk about books, and Feberik was so old he may as well have been her father. None of the instructors at the Academy could be trusted either. So she ran. She ran through the ferns in between oaks and pines and around blackberry briars. She ran through a shallow stream and then turned up to the north, climbing a gray hill that led into a small depression at the base of a larger mountain. She picked her way through the rocks and large boulders in the depression until she came to one that she could sit upon comfortably. She let herself cry till there were no more tears to give. When she finished, she stood on her feet and started to walk back. There wasn’t anything else she could do.
There would be hell to pay for accosting an instructor, she knew that much. Still, Kuldiga Academy was likely the only place she could call home now. She gathered herself together, smoothing out the front of her black dress and clearing her throat. Kyra stood, but she only made it four steps before she started to question herself.
“Why should I go back?”
She already knew the answer of course. Her mother had gone to a great deal of trouble to ensure that she would be provided for. If she didn’t graduate from the Academy and marry Feberik, then the land and the money would revert back to Feberik and Janik. Still, she had enough magic that perhaps she could run somewhere else. Perhaps she could live in the forest. She knew it wouldn’t be like anything she had ever known, but building a shelter and using her magic to find food was not such a daunting thought. Though most people might abhor the idea of living alone as a hermit, she was already alone, if she truly thought about it. Whether in a crowded room at the Academy, or sitting in her portion of her mother’s study at home, there was no longer anybody who would appreciate her presence. She corrected herself, Feberik would appreciate her presence, but she did not want his. Perhaps she could find it within her power to befriend Janik, if only he weren’t Feberik’s brother.
She turned around and searched the depression until she found a wall of rock jutting up from the ground. It was smooth and concave on one side, with a fairly large overhang that provided for a natural shelter against the elements. With her magic, she could easily use the spare rocks around to build the walls out a bit more. As she studied one of the rocks, she noticed there was a small, gray lizard no longer than her middle finger standing on the granite, cocking his head up crookedly to look at her with one eye.
“Hello there,” Kyra said. Unlike most of the girls at Kuldiga Academy who would fawn over horses or cats, Kyra had never felt any sort of bond with an animal before. Certainly she was not one to see a fluffy ball of fur and start to swoon. This lizard however, was different. The way its scales interlocked and slid seamlessly over each other as the animal moved intrigued her. Perhaps it wasn’t the kind of animal most others would consider cute, but she found herself enjoying its company. She reached a hand down to scoop it up.
The lizard turned in an instant and darted down the opposite side of the rock. Kyra smiled and followed it, now tempted as much by the chase as she was by the lizard itself. She hopped over the boulder and watched as the little creature darted around the rocks and then leapt three feet to a lichen-covered boulder. It scurried up and over just before Kyra’s hands dropped down on the stone. She growled at her failure, but didn’t give up. She pushed off from the rock and continued to follow the little lizard until it finally disappeared down a hole in the ground amidst four larger rocks.
“Clever little bugger, aren’t you?” Kyra said. She knelt down and pulled away the rocks, allowing herself to get closer to the hole in the ground. The first rock was slightly larger than her head, but it moved easily enough. The second was a great, flat stone. As she lifted it, her eyes went wide with surprise. There, next to the small hole in the ground, was a large egg.
Kyra cast a quick glance around herself. She didn’t see any sign of other eggs nearby, nor could she see any hint of what might have laid this particular egg. She slid the large, flat rock off to the side and marveled at the large egg. It was a creamy color, with no markings other than the smears of dirt and mud around it and bits of black and white lizard excrement, presumably from the egg’s neighbor that lived in the ground nearby.
She stretched out her right hand and placed her palm on the shell. She could feel a great warmth coming from the egg, as if a fire burned from within. Soon it became uncomfortable to leave her hand upon it and she had to pull back. Kyra stared at the shell for a long while, wondering what to make of it.
The little lizard emerged from its hole after many minutes and expanded its throat just before opening its mouth and hissing at Kyra. The young woman regarded the lizard curiously. Certainly the little creature had no relation with whatever was in the egg, but it almost appeared to be guarding it. She decided to test her feeling by slowly inching her hand closer to the egg. The little lizard jumped onto the egg and snapped its small, toothless mouth at Kyra’s finger.
Kyra laughed and pulled back her hand quickly. “Well aren’t you just full of surprises?” she asked. She moved her right hand toward the little lizard, keeping its focus on her index finger while she moved her left hand out in an arch behind the lizard. When she was certain she was close enough, she scooped up the lizard in her left palm, cradling it just behind the forelegs so it couldn’t bite her.
The lizard responded by expanding the pouch of thorny skin below its lower jaw. The thorns looked much more ferocious than they were, especially when the sack of skin became purple and red in color, but the threat didn’t work on Kyra.
“I mean you no harm,” Kyra said. She waved her right hand in front of the lizard, casting a charm spell that her mother had taught her when she was younger. The lizard relaxed and the skin flap deflated and returned to its normal, tanish color. Kyra opened her palm and the little lizard curled up and went to sleep.
Kyra turned her attention back to the egg. It was more than half as big a
s she was. Just under three feet tall from base to tip if she had to guess, and at least as big around as a large man, perhaps even thicker. But what dropped it here? She set the little lizard back near its hole and then retreated off a safe distance to wait for whatever had laid the egg to come back. Given the size of the egg, she thought it best to not appear as a threat.
Her mind started to race. Could a dragon have laid the egg? No. That was preposterous. Dragons were extremely rare in these times. Ever since the great battle in Hamath Valley, there were no regular sightings of dragons. Those dragons that did remain were wicked, vile creatures with an insatiable thirst for blood. That said, no dragon had been seen north of Ten Forts in over a century and a half. Certainly none had been allowed to nest within the Middle Kingdom either.
So if it wasn’t a dragon, what was it?
She waited for hours to answer her riddle, crouched behind a large rock and carefully glancing over her shoulder every so often to ensure nothing was sneaking up behind her.
Nothing came.
She sat there until the sun began to hang low in the sky. The only movement she saw was when the little gray lizard tracked her down and curled up on a rock in front of her. She tried to shew the creature away, but it wouldn’t go. Thanks to her charm spell, it was more than content to stay by her side.
Kyra watched and waited, having fully forgotten about the events at Kuldiga Academy, until the sun dropped below the western horizon and the sky was set ablaze with pink, orange, and red hues. Only then did the little lizard get up and make its way back to its hole. It darted down, only to come up a moment later. It stood rigid, its head high in the air and its forelegs nearly straight on their claws as it cocked its head at Kyra and made a chirping sound. Three chirps and then it disappeared down again. A moment later it came back up, looked right at her, and chirped three more times. When Kyra didn’t respond, the lizard became more animated.
