Then something did happen. A warm feeling began to spread from her stomach to her upper body. Like a pleasant heat it took over her chest, her arms, and then her head.
Sara stared at Ezekiel and her senses enhanced. But not the senses she was used to improving, like her eyesight or hearing. No, this was her mage senses. Her mage sight turned on without her prompting and she watched the tent light up as several objects with residual magic imbedded in them started to glow. The vial in Ezekiel’s hand glowed like a small lantern and the trunk off to the side shone like a small sun.
Then the air around them began to shine. Sara watched in wonder as the ley lines of the world became visible. The ley lines were the remnants of magic used. They streaked and streamed with lines of gold, waves of amber, and spots of cerulean. She could go on and on. It was everywhere and in everything.
She blinked trying to get the lines and spots to go away.
“What is it?” asked Ezekiel excitedly.
She spoke up. “I can see the magic around us.”
“That’s good!” he said. “That’s supposed to be the second step.”
He pulled out his notebook while peering up at her with his quill poised. “I suppose that means you’ve already been through the first with your mage sight?”
She spluttered. “You suppose?”
“Well…” Ezekiel said.
“I thought you knew how this works!”
“I do,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve just never experienced it myself.”
“Lovely,” snarled Sara.
“You need to concentrate!”
“How can I? I’m going blind with the spots.”
“Close your eyes,” he urged. She did as he asked. “Good, now open up the final barrier to your recall ability.”
Sara opened her eyes. “My what?”
“Your memories. You should be able to recall each and every event that has happened to you in perfect recollection. Down to the last detail. And, more importantly, you’ll be able to use this enhanced mage sight to truly discern what is real and what happened in each memory.”
She pursed her lips. Sara closed her eyes.
Waiting for it to come. And then it came. But she recalled something much dearer to her and much further back than her morning meeting with a stranger on the lake.
Sara fell back into her memories. As she drifted off she remembered the day a man in uniform had appeared at mother’s home.
A servant had answered the door and he asked if the lady of the manor was at home.
At the time she and her mother had moved back to Sandrin, to live in their second home, as they usually did when her father was off to war. He preferred to spend his days in the villa north of Sandrin when he was off-duty, training and with his family. Her mother cherished those times, Sara had known, but she had also loved the festivities of living in the city.
So they had stayed in the posh Nobles’ Quarter in a small two-story home.
Her mother had come to the door and Sara had stayed hidden in the nook off to the side. She was thirteen then, gangly, with a body that hadn’t grown to match her legs. She also didn’t want to be seen at the moment as she was covered in mud from a fun fight that her mother wouldn’t approved of.
“Is there something you need?” her mother had asked curiously as she eyed the tightly wrapped scroll in the messenger’s hands.
“No,” said man. “A delivery from Commander Vincent Fairchild is why I’m here, ma’am.”
He held out a long object wrapped in fabric and tied on each end with rope.
Sara couldn’t contain a gasp of surprise and joy.
“He remembered,” she squealed as she leapt from her hiding place, her eyes focused on the object in her mother’s hand.
The messenger nearly jumped a foot in the air, but her mother only turned to her with a rueful smile. A smile that quickly turned to a frown when she saw that her daughter was covered in mud from head to toe.
Her mother put a hand to her breast as she looked her only daughter up and down. “By the gods, Sara, did you roll in a pigsty?”
“Of course not, Mother,” said Sara happily. “Just a mud hole.”
Her mother glared at her. But Sara could see by the twinkle in her eye that she was close to laughing her head off.
Clapping her hands together, Sara had said, “He remembered, Mother. Father remembered his promise.”
“Of course he did,” her mother had said. “He always keeps his word, and today is your birthday.”
Sara had nodded and stepped forward to take the gift.
“Oh no!” said her mother with a warning finger. “You, young lady, are going to the servants’ quarter and taking a bath in their bathing room. You will not get this present until your skin is scrubbed, your ears have been cleaned, your hair has been brushed and combed, and you don’t look like a street ragamuffin.”
Sara deflated more with each item listed. “But that will take forever. Just let me see it, Mother, please!”
“No,” her mother said. “Now go wash. It will be here in an hour when you are finished.”
Sara turned her puppy dog eyes on. Her mother didn’t budge.
With one last rueful look, she had turned and sprinted off to do as she was told.
As she left she heard her mother say, “Thank you,” to the messenger and instruct the footmen to leave the package in her parlor. Where Sara couldn’t get to it unless her mother invited her in.
Chapter XIX
SARA REMEMBERED AS SHE DRIFTED through the hazy state of recalling her memory that for the next hour she had gone through the most rigorous cleaning she had ever done, and that included the time she had participated in the annual bull run of Lineaus, unbeknownst to her parents, and had come back covered in celebratory red tomato juice. Her mother had been apoplectic then.
When she emerged from the bath in clean clothes with her hair still wet, she had run to her mother’s parlor.
The footman at the door had dropped a pair of slippers at her feet with a quick whisper, “Better put these on, miss.”
Sara had smiled at him brilliantly and slid her feet into the linen footwear. Then she opened the double doors in search of her mother.
Fortunately, she was sitting, as predicted, on the parlor chaise. The package was still wrapped and she held it on her lap, waiting for Sara.
Sara let out a slow breath as she forced herself to walk over slowly to her mother’s seated form.
Smiling, Mistress Fairchild had patted the seat beside her.
As she obediently sat down, young Sara had looked at the package with eager eyes until her mother had lifted it and put it in her hands. “Happy Birthday, my darling daughter.”
Back in the tent, Sara smiled sedately. Still lost in the memory but aware of her surroundings and Ezekiel sitting in front of her.
Ezekiel knew not to say anything. He sat quietly at her feet.
Taking a deep breath, while wondering why exactly this memory had surfaced after so long, and especially when she’d eaten the blasted magical bug to find a much different memory, Sara dived back into the history of her past.
When she closed her eyes on the physical space of the present, she reopened to find herself back where she left off. In her memory, her hands were practically trembling as she hurried to untie the rope at each end of the long, slender gift.
As she tore through her father’s wax seal, she could barely breathe from excitement.
She knew what was coming in the memory, but she couldn’t help the thrill that went through her mind as she started to pull back the cloth to reveal an object incased in crinkling butcher paper in the center.
Young Sara had given her mother an expectant look. Her mother had dipped her head, urging her to go on.
With no further push needed, she tore the paper from its denizen.
Then young Sara of the past gasped in delight while older Sara of the present, watching the festive birthday like a ghost resident in the room, g
asped in shock.
Because the sword that her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday was just as beautiful as she remembered, with its steel-forged blade, bone handle wrapped in taut leather, and inscribed runes on the handle’s base. But there was more this time. This time the handle of the sword shone with a magical light that Sara knew came from residual objects.
Young Sara hadn’t known this. Delighted she had leapt up swinging the sword until her mother scolded her harshly for running with the blade.
As the memory faded, the recall having done its duty, Sara emerged from its depths gasping for air. It was like she couldn’t breathe as she desperately leaned forward against Ezekiel while grasping his shoulders.
“The s-sword,” she coughed out.
“What?” Ezekiel questioned, puzzled as he leaned forward to hold her up. “Breathe, Sara! It’s all right!”
She was coughing and choking. She couldn’t speak anymore.
It felt like something was lodged in her throat.
Desperate, Ezekiel pushed her to lay back on the cot. He leaned over her to see. “There’s a mass in your throat.”
She couldn’t speak as she desperately clawed at his shoulders. Sara knew that if Ezekiel didn’t do something soon, she would pass out and die from lack of air. She couldn’t survive like this.
Desperate, she reached for the knife at her waist. Hands shaking, she pressed it into his hands.
Ezekiel looked from the knife to her throat, frantic. “No, Sara. No. You’ll bleed out.”
She firmly looked him in the eyes. He didn’t have a choice. She knew there was no other way. Besides, she had a trick she could use to stop the blood flow and ease the knife through her trachea. As long as she didn’t lose consciousness first.
Firmly, she guided his hand holding the knife to her throat, to the place on her skin just where the bulge surged up under her flesh. Then she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“There’s no other way? Can’t I get some forceps and get to it that way?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“You’re turning blue.” His voice was frantic as her vision began to get fuzzy, but his hand was steady.
As she started to lose consciousness, she felt a sharp stab as he cut the layer of skin just above the bulging mass in her throat. The pain helped her stay alert. As he cut deeper, she did a battle mage’s work. Lending her strength to the blade so that it went like a hot knife passes through butter to get to the bone and stopping the blood from flowing through her wound.
She could only stop the blood temporarily, but that was enough for now. She wasn’t in mid-battle, fighting opponent after opponent, but rather surgery that would save her life.
She watched him bite his lip harshly as he drew back the knife slowly and squeezed the mass out of her throat with his other hand.
Sara felt the object plop out and she struggled to sit up.
“Don’t!” shouted Ezekiel as he hurried to his pack. He didn’t know she was controlling the blood loss.
But it didn’t matter; she didn’t move but only because she could see the object that had come out of her now. Before he disappeared Ezekiel had put the little thing on top of her chest. It was the slimy, half-digested carcass of a dead dragonfly. As she watched, it began to change and transform but she didn’t have time to watch it further.
Ezekiel came over, forced her head back against the cot firmly, and sewed up the small cut in her throat quickly. When he put a burning liquid on the wound to seal it over, she passed out.
The next time Sara woke, Ezekiel was sitting cross-legged with his head bent over hers.
She blinked as she woke groggily. “What are you doing?”
“Your eyes have been open for a while,” he said disturbed. “But you wouldn’t say anything.”
She licked her dry lips and said, “Well, I’m awake now.”
She felt for the hole in her throat. Forgetting for a moment that he had sealed it shut. When her fingers brushed off across the surface of her skin and found nothing, not even a scar, she looked over at him. “What was in that ointment?”
“A lot of healing magic,” he said tiredly.
Sara turned her eyes to look at the mass on her shirt.
“So glad you left that there,” she said dryly. The slimy liquid on the dragonfly had dried to form a crusty shell. But what was weirder was that the whole thing looked like a perfectly round ball. It had certainly gotten larger after a brief stay in her body.
“I couldn’t move it,” Ezekiel admitted.
She raised an eyebrow and looked back and forth.
“It’s the size of my hand,” she scoffed. Not in a particularly good mood after that rat-sized thing had nearly killed her.
Ezekiel didn’t bother speaking, he just put his hand on the ball sitting on her chest and tugged. It didn’t move. He yanked. Still nothing.
“See?” he said.
Sara reached up with her left hand in trepidation. She really, really didn’t want a ball full of dragonfly guts stuck to her chest. Her hand brushed it lightly, then she grabbed it firmly.
With a yank she pulled it with all the strength left in her body. It turned out she should have lightly tapped it first. Her arm flew back so fast that she managed to hit Ezekiel squarely in the nose.
He fell back with a yowl and then sat up quickly holding his offended body part. Looking over at her with his glasses askew and blood dripping out between his fingers, he glared.
She winced and fished in her pocket. Holding up a relatively clean handkerchief, she handed it over as she sat up and whispered, “Sorry.”
When she was upright, she was pleased to note no lingering effects from the near-death experience. Aside from a wickedly sore throat. Carefully, Sara held up the dragonfly puke ball in her hand up to eye level. She couldn’t really see the dragonfly anymore, just shadows in the ball. The outside was a thick, opaque shell that seemed much denser than whatever had been in her stomach at the time. Turning it over, she prodded the yellow shell and watched as something interesting happened. Every time her finger touched the shell, the point where her flesh met the crust would light up. If she removed her finger, the light went away. After it was pretty clear this was happening only when her fingertip met the shell, she reached out her hand to hold the ball in front of Ezekiel.
“Touch it with your fingertip,” she demanded.
He looked up with a swollen nose. “Are you kidding me?”
“It’s not dangerous, just interesting.”
“Tell that to my nose,” he said.
“My throat begs to differ about your nose’s plight,” she said hoarsely.
He reached out a tentatively fingertip and then pressed it against the ball’s shell.
Nothing happened.
“Try a different spot,” she demanded.
He did. Same result.
Ezekiel sat back. “Well, it looks like it only wants to be interesting for you.”
“You’re the dragonfly expert,” she countered. “Speaking of, how could you not know that thing was going to come back up my throat like a demonic hairball?”
He flushed guiltily. “There’s a part of the text about the dragonfly that I haven’t been able to translate.”
“The same text you said would help us find out about purple eyes? Because so far I’ve eaten a bug, had hallucinations that rival those of opiates, and nearly died. And that’s about it.”
Ezekiel sat forward eagerly. The blood dripping down on his legs looking a little ghastly while he did so.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing that had anything to do with the strange man.”
Ezekiel sat back with a frown. “That’s strange. The trance of the dragonfly is always supposed to find what you seek most. It was guaranteed to let you know the identity of the stranger.”
“How?” she said tensely.
“By stripping away the magical shields that clouded his form and eluded your mind,”
he said.
Sara sat back as a shiver of apprehension ran down her spine.
“What? What is it?”
“Before I passed out I was looking for something,” Sara whispered as she turned around, “Something I had seen in my dream.”
Quickly she stuffed the dragonfly ball in her pocket as she looked at the object that was sitting by her side as it had always had. The sword that her father had given her when she turned thirteen lay on the cot, waiting to be used.
Sara gulped and grabbed it.
“I don’t understand,” Ezekiel said confused. “You saw your sword in your dream? What was the dream about? What were you seeking?”
Sara looked at him. “My dream took me back to my memory of my thirteenth birthday. My father was away on campaign, but he remembered his promise to buy me my first true weapon on that day. We were supposed to go to a sword smith together, but I learned later that he used the measurements for my gowns to have the man fashion a weapon ahead of time in his absence. It was delivered to me that day.”
“And it still works,” Ezekiel scoffed.
She gave him an irate look.
“I just meant that surely you grew since then,” he said while scratching his head absentmindedly.
She snorted. “Yes, and it grew with me. The sword smith was also a metal mage and he spelled it to lengthen with each increase in my height.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.
“I know you thought this would find the purple-eyed man’s identity,” she started to say.
“It’s not just that,” he interjected with slumped shoulders. “It was supposed to actually work. How did it find what you seek by showing you your sword?”
She smiled. “But if you had let me finish, I would have told you that it showed me more than just my sword.”
“More like what?”
“There’s the glow of magic on the handle,” she admitted. “One I’ve never noticed before.”
“And now?”
“I don’t see a thing aside from the slight residual magic that helps it grow,” she said as she hefted the sword up by its sheath.
FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy Page 319
