by Sam Ferguson
Kyra looked at him and drew her brow in tight. “But I haven’t lost just someone,” she replied. “I’ve lost everyone.”
Cyrus frowned and nodded thoughtfully, but he remained silent and allowed her to speak her mind.
“I lost my own future when my father sold my hand in marriage,” she began. “I know that is how things are done in the Middle Kingdom, but that isn’t what I want. I want to choose for myself. I want to be myself.”
“From what I understand, you have cancelled your wedding to Feberik Orres,” Cyrus put in.
Kyra shrugged. “He won’t officially cancel it,” she replied. “I have tried to make him do it, but he won’t. He’s stubborn that way. The best I can do is threaten him that if he forces me to go through with it I’ll blast him in his sleep.”
Cyrus chuckled, but then quickly composed himself and wiped the smile from his face when she shot him a disapproving look.
“I lost my mother,” she said then. “She was murdered by that shade. And for what? A dagger?”
“The dagger has enormous powers,” Cyrus reminded her. “It can open portals into Hammenfein.”
“I don’t care,” Kyra said. “Then, my father disowns me because of something that is not my fault, nor my doing. On top of this, I make three friends in all the world and now they are either gone, or are about to be sent away. Leatherback is in Viverandon, Linny has been sent home, but nobody will tell me where her home is, and Lepkin is about to be sent to Ten Forts to join the dragon slayers. I’ll never see him again!”
She hadn’t noticed it, but in her anger she had stood up and begun to pace back and forth. Lightning was crackling from her fingertips and her hands were shaking. She turned around and directed her glaring rage at Cyrus.
“You say everyone loses someone, well, I have lost everyone! Who have you ever lost?”
Cyrus balked at that and then turned away from her. Kyra stepped toward him, angry enough to want to have a witness to her wrath. However, when she yelled at him to look at her, she saw tears in his eyes.
She had never seen him cry before. Actually, he had only ever worn two expressions that she could remember. There was the stoic, stone-faced instructor who trained with draconian methods most instructors would abhor as far too dangerous to be used in a classroom, and then there was the smug, self-assured smile that accompanied his arrogant side when he caught her with one of his lessons wrapped up in a terribly annoying riddle that she was forced to unpack.
Now he was actively crying.
Tears rolled down his wrinkled cheeks and his voice cracked when he began to speak. “I lost my family,” he began with difficulty. “My wife shared the same name your parents gave you. My daughter had a similar spunk and spirit about her as you have, though I dare say she was more beautiful.”
Kyra took a step back and slowly found her seat.
“They were killed, taken from me while I was away. They were my everything, and I would have done anything to save them. So, I know how you are feeling.”
Kyra stared at him dumbly. Her mouth opened three different times to say something, but the words never found their way out.
“I would do anything now to bring them back,” Cyrus said. “But, no matter how hard I look for it, that kind of magic eludes me.”
Kyra began to cry as well, though now it was only partly because of her pain. The two of them sat in silence for a long while. Kyra was the first to clear her head. She stood up, and then reached out to take Cyrus’ hand.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get back to training.”
Cyrus didn’t come with her at first, but as she continued to pull him up, he nodded and reached up to wipe the tears from his face. Within a matter of moments, the sadness was gone from his eyes, replaced by the stoic, determined wizard she had always known.
“Let’s find that dagger,” Kyra said. “For your family, and for mine. Let’s find the dagger and then kill that vampire.”
Cyrus nodded. “For our families,” he said. “First things first, you have to be able to defeat his illusions. He won’t come at you with a frontal assault. He’ll play mind games first.”
“Hit me,” Kyra said.
Cyrus clapped his hands and the room went pitch black.
For the remainder of the day Kyra spent her time dispelling illusions, banishing summoned imps and battling creatures for whom she didn’t know the names. By the time the lessons were over, she and Cyrus were both breathing heavily. She had gained a few new bruises and a couple of cuts, but she felt invigorated, as if she had reached a new level.
As she walked toward the door, Cyrus called out to her.
“I think my daughter would have gotten along well with you, Kyra Dimwater,” he said.
Kyra turned back and smiled. “I’m sure of it,” she replied.
“I know I am not family, but you could think of me as an uncle, if you wished.”
Kyra smiled wider and nodded. “I would be honored.”
Cyrus smiled back at her, but it was not his arrogant smile. It was a genuine, proud smile. “I would be the one who is honored,” he said with a bow.
Kyra left the room and closed the door behind her.
Chapter 16
After being caught in the secret chamber, Lepkin had been left in his room with the door locked. A guard was posted outside his door to keep him in, but Lepkin was not about to spend his remaining time locked up inside a cell like a prisoner.
Headmaster Herion had informed him that he was going directly to Ten Forts. Before, the plan had been to send him after the dragon slayers sent replacements up to Kuldiga Academy, but now it seemed Herion was all too eager to be rid of him.
The idea had come to Lepkin while lying on his bed that if Herion had sent two masters out to the vampire’s lair, then there must be notes or a letter somewhere that explained how to get to the lair. If that was the case, then Lepkin had to find that information and give it to Kyra. With any luck, she could sneak away from the academy, find Leatherback, and attack the vampire before the dragon slayers ever arrived. After all, Ten Forts was hundreds of miles to the south. It would take a long time for them to arrive, and that might be enough of a head start that Kyra could be well on her way out of the Middle Kingdom with Leatherback.
He couldn’t leave by the door, but then, he didn’t need to. There was a small window at the top of his wall. It was only a little more than a foot and a half tall, but it was much wider. If he could pull himself through it, then he could get back to Herion’s office.
The grate in the laundry was likely sealed by now, but Lepkin knew another way to access the tunnel that would lead to Herion’s office.
He quietly pulled his mattress from his bed and placed it on the floor near the door. Next, he pulled a large wardrobe over, laying it down on the mattress to act as a barrier in case someone wanted to enter his room. Then he tipped his bed on its end and used the frame to climb up and access the window. He pulled a knife and worked at the edges of the wood frame, cutting away at the seam. It was arduous, painstaking work, but after nearly an hour he had the glass free of its frame without breaking any of it and risking the guard outside his door hearing him.
He sheathed the knife and then pulled himself up. He stuck his hands through the opening and then spread them to either side of the outer wall as he wriggled and wiggled his way through until he was half-in and half-out of the window.
He looked down and realized the one flaw to his plan. There was no ledge below him to grab or stand on. He was dangling from a window on the fifth floor of the northeastern tower. A fall from here would either kill him, or it would cripple him permanently.
Lepkin arched his back and craned his head around to look up. He smiled when he saw the sloped roof jutting out over him. He then turned to look around the outside of the tower to the south. It would be a longshot, but there was a ledge jutting out from a window the same height as his along the eastern wall facing the courtyard. If he could grab hold of the e
dge of the roof and then make his way to the wall, he could drop to the other window. From there, he could either break in, or he could climb further along the wall as the stones there appeared to protrude more, allowing for finger holds.
He pulled himself back into his room, and then turned around so that his stomach faced the ceiling, then he went back through the window. He pulled and wiggled until he was sitting in the open window, his legs hanging inside his room and his torso close to the outer wall as he stretched upward. He grunted when he realized he was about three inches short of grasping the outer edge of the roof. He would have to stand up to make it.
Carefully, he shifted to his right, pulling one leg through until his foot reached the window. Then, gripping the upper portion of the window opening with his hands, he pressed himself up with his right leg while keeping his left leg stiff and pulling it up and through the opening.
Soon he was standing fully upright, his hands gripping a wooden beam that ran along the eaves above him and out to the edge of the roof. He slid his hands along the wood slowly, doing his best to maintain his balance.
He just grazed the outer edge of the roof when his left foot slipped. He tried to catch himself, but his weight pulled him out and away from the wall. Lepkin knew he had a quickly diminishing chance of reaching his hand hold. He pushed off with his right leg, jumping up and out.
His hands groped and grasped at the roof. He managed to find a lip to grab and held fast as his body swung in the air, dangling high above the ground. Lepkin looked down and breathed a quick sigh of relief. Then he looked toward the eastern wall. From this vantage point higher up, he saw that the smart plan was not to drop to the other window. Doing so would be too great a risk. Instead, he should pull himself up over the lip of the roof, and then scale along it around the tower to drop down onto the eastern wall’s roof, which was only six or seven feet below the bottom of the tower’s sloped roof.
He looked up and muscled his way up and over the edge of the roof. Pulling himself up was not nearly so hard as changing the motion when his chest and stomach cleared the roof to finish pressing himself up. His muscles shook and quivered, but he was able to scramble onto the roof without slipping down to his doom.
Suddenly he became extremely thankful for the exercises the elves had made him do in his younger years, and he vowed that if he ever trained an apprentice, he would make the boy focus on pull-ups.
He crawled up and then spider-walked around the sloped roof until he was sure he was above the eastern wall. Fortunately, since each of the four walls housed many rooms and several corridors on the inside, the landing area he was shooting for was easily forty feet or more in width. He needed only to drop quietly enough to not cause alarm inside the building.
Lepkin slowly slid to the edge of the roof, then he gripped the same lip he had used to climb up onto the roof and lowered himself to full extension before dropping safely onto the roof of the eastern wall.
He took in a few breaths, thankful that everything had gone as well as it had, and a little embarrassed at how foolish he had been in assuming this would be an easy task to accomplish. Then he ran along the roof toward the southern end. His feet made hardly any sound with each step, for the elves had taught him how to run lightly as well as quickly.
As he neared the south-eastern corner, he stopped and looked out into the courtyard. The sun was going down, but he still wanted to be sure no one had spotted him.
The area below was entirely clear.
He smiled to himself and then ran across the southern portion of the building. He knew that if he could get to the south-western tower, he would be able to make it to Herion’s office.
Before long, he was lowering himself over the outer wall and down to a window, which had fortunately been left open. Dropping down to it was not nearly as treacherous as climbing out of his room window had been. He found himself entering a small classroom. The walls were lined with jars filled with various animal parts and organs suspended in a blue-green liquid. Occasionally there was an illustrated diagram of a dissected organ on the wall as well.
“Healers,” Lepkin said to himself as he realized what kind of classroom he was in. He moved to the door and opened it carefully. He hadn’t come all this way to bump into someone in the hallway.
After seeing that the corridors were clear, he darted across the hall and down the stairs. He knew of one more room that had a small pipe-like tunnel that would lead him where he needed to go.
As he reached the bottom floor of the academy, he peered carefully around the corner, inspecting the area for any movement. A long ways off down the hall to his left he saw a pair of women walking and talking together. He left the stairs and went to the right, quick-stepping to the first door on his right. He pulled at the bronze knob, twisting as he did so.
Lepkin slipped into a janitorial closet and took in a deep breath. He had found this tunnel after exploring the offshoot tunnels deeper in the bowels of the academy. That particular day had ended when he had nearly reached the large grate in the stone basin at his feet. He had been maybe ten or fifteen feet in the tunnel still when Janik had entered the closet and dumped a large bucket filled with gallons of dirty mop water. The ensuing slide back down the tunnel left him cold, wet, and smelly.
This time, however, there would be no mop water. Or, so he hoped.
He moved to the grate and pulled on it.
It didn’t budge.
Lepkin frowned and pulled again.
He sighed and shook his head. He could have sworn that the grate had moved before when Janik poured the water in. The grate had been loose, he knew it.
“Herion must have had all the grates fixed,” Lepkin surmised. He then looked to his right and searched through the tools. There were two mops, a pair of brooms, and a shovel. Lepkin couldn’t guess as to why a janitor would need a shovel inside the academy. He could only suppose that anything too messy for the broom or mop must needs be removed with the shovel. He tried not to think about the fact that such waste was likely tossed down the same tunnel he intended to go into.
He took the shovel in hand and began tapping around the grate. Ting, ting, ting, tapuk! He smiled as he found a weak spot. He leaned the shovel against the wall and went back to the door. He checked down the hall and saw that the pair of women was gone. Then, he went around the opposite corner to check the other corridor. No one there either.
Good. No one will hear me.
Lepkin hurried back into the janitorial closet and locked the door behind himself by sliding a broomstick over the doorknob and wedging it across the doorway. Then, he grabbed the shovel in hand and lifted it over his head for a strike. He brought it down hard.
CLANG!
The shaft vibrated in his hand. He hit the spot again, and then a third time before a large section of stone chipped away. Lepkin smiled and reached down to tug on the side of the grate. It wiggled a bit, but was not fully free. Lepkin struck the same area four more time, and then the grate popped up on one side. He pulled the metal grate out of the basin and set it to the side.
He lowered himself into the slanting drain, careful not to catch himself on the jagged edges along the rim that he had created by busting the grate out. Then he gave a push and let the slippery moss and mold along the bottom of the drain do the work for him.
He shot downward at a slight angle for nearly fifty feet, and then he leveled out and slid another few yards before his momentum stopped. He got up onto his hands and knees and crawled the remaining fifty yards to the junction.
He stood up in a small, rectangular chamber that he had been in several times before. In each side of the chamber there were additional tunnels. The one on his right led back to his secret chamber with the table and the bookcase. He bent down and looked through it, but this time he saw only darkness.
Herion must have ordered someone to fill that tunnel in.
The drain to his left was similar to the one he had just used. It led up to another drain in one of t
he smaller kitchens. The shaft was large enough for him to crawl through, but the grate over the opening was much smaller, perhaps only as big around as a pumpkin. Then, there was the tunnel on the opposite side. He had never explored that one. It sloped downward to what Lepkin could only assume was a great underground pit for waste. He always meant to explore that last tunnel someday, but after the incident with Janik’s mop water, Lepkin always feared that someone might unleash water from somewhere and sweep him away forever.
Lepkin brushed his hands off and looked up. He smiled when he saw his chosen handholds in the jutting rocks above him. This was what he had come here for. He climbed up the wall of the chamber and then squeezed into a space that went straight up. It was narrow enough that once he was out of the junction chamber below, he could push his back against the wall behind him and scoot upward with his hands and knees. It was essentially like crawling again, only this time if he slipped, he would end up with a lot more than just a face full of moldy water.
Up he went, about thirty feet or so, before he found the ledge he was looking for. He reached out with his right hand and pulled himself into a chute that ran horizontally. It gave him a chance to rest his knees a bit. He wormed his way through for about twenty feet and then the chute turned upward again. This time, it was wide enough that he used one hand and one foot on either side, using a kind of half-jump to propel himself vertically for another twenty feet. At the top, the chute opened up into a large, square area with beams of wood running parallel to each other across it and smaller poles crossing underneath the beams. The poles held wooden panels in place in the ceiling above Headmaster Herion’s office.
It had been an accidental discovery the first time, but once Kathair had found it, he had often returned to this spot. Just lying on the beams above the wooden panels was close enough for him to hear any discussion in the office. Some of the conversations had been horribly boring, but many had been quite informative. Between his time in the secret wall adjoining Herion’s secret meeting room, and eavesdropping in Herion’s office, Lepkin had learned more about the Middle Kingdom than he had in all of his years before, and that included when he had studied with the elves of Tualdern.
