* * *
I’m not a fast reader by any means, but at least I can read. That’s more than most people in this society. Somrusee was taught to read secretly by her father, but not many others were that lucky. It’s a skill I think more people will have to have if we’re going to maintain order.
Footsteps stop outside the doorway. It’s Quint again.
“You’re reading again?” he asks.
I barely glance up. “We have to find a way to get rid of that passage, Quint. We’re sitting ducks until it’s gone. Arujan’s probably plotting another invasion this very minute.”
“Exactly, Karu. You and the queen should be over by the portal, experimenting with hemazury and getting the portal closed. How can you huddle down by yourself in a room and flip through old books?”
I shut the book and glare up at Quint. “The answer is likely in one of these books, Quint.” Just not that one. I put it aside and pick up another.
Quint takes a step towards me, but then shakes his head and leaves the room. I watch him until he’s out of sight.
It isn’t that he doesn’t have a point. Skimming all these books is painfully slow. Back in grad school, I mastered the art of skimming books, articles, journals, and websites to find information. I’m finding, however, that the skill is not transferable across languages. All the letters in this language are the same height, which kills word recognition. And, there are no spaces between words, so everything becomes one alphabet jumble.
Still, I keep plodding along. Back in graduate school, Steve, my old officemate, rushed through every experiment. He always ended up with roasted bacteria or denatured DNA.
If only Quint would stop walking by and glaring at me.
I flip another page and start reading. As the meaning of the words solidifies in my brain, I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally. This page describes how to use hemazury to break down a previously-built hemazuric barrier. The instructions are in Togan’s handwriting. He would have wanted this magic to be developed in case he needed the mountains to be accessible, or in case Wynn became good and he wanted to release him.
In any case, these instructions should work on the passageway:
First, infuse a copper coin with sweat halfway through. Sprinkle blood on the barrier you want to get rid of, and then poke the blood while transferring your consciousness to the copper.
Seems simple enough. Not that I have any idea what it would be like to actually follow the instructions.
Quint will be happy the barrier will be gone, and I’m happy that I found the answer in a book. I’ll go find Lydia now, and we’ll get rid of the passageway to Cylus’s house. It makes me sad to think of destroying it. That passageway saved my life—and Somrusee’s. But it’s a liability now, and we have to destroy it before Arujan sends more men through it.
I stretch and stand up, my finger still in the book. Birds chirp outside. Metal clanks in the gardens. Quint must have made it out to endure his third training session of the day. The breeze comes in slowly through the window. It is a quiet breeze, just cool enough to keep me from getting hot, but heavy with the weight of an unseen enemy. There is still so much opposition against Lydia despite everything we’re doing. And yet we keep plodding forward, hoping for a day when things start to turn.
I open the book and fold the page down. Things will change soon. They have to! Quint will know everything I can teach him soon, we’ll get a real government in place, we’ll find Arujan. Once everything is settled and Lydia is safe, it will be time to go home. I’ve realized now that I can’t stay here forever. I follow Lydia around all day every day, present and yet invisible. Everyday Somrusee looks at me, and every day I can’t find the courage to break up with her.
My hope for a fulfilled life lies in the path that Cylus followed. I need to flee and live my life away from the Azurean queen that captured my heart.
I turn to leave, but the book catches on the edge of the desk and falls out of my hands onto the floor, opening to a random page in the middle of the book. As I reach to pick it up, my eyes fall on a word scrawled across the top of the page.
Sapphiri.
I haven’t seen anything about the Sapphiri in any of the other books I’ve looked at.
I start reading, letting Lydia and our safety wait another few moments. Unfortunately, most of this page is faded out, but I do make out a few words. Kinni, combine, change.
The page is about combining Sapphiri and Azurean powers. It wasn’t too many weeks ago that I was standing in a closet, holding my breath as inches away Goluken and Mara's father were shuffling through papers. Goluken said something to Mara’s father. Something about how the Sapphiri could combine powers with Azureans.
A lot has changed since then. Goluken is dead, and Wynn is gone.
The concept of Sapphiri and Azureans combining powers seems like it could make sense. Wynn used Buen’s blood to send Arujan past the barrier in the mountains. My blood would have probably worked, too.
I squint at the bottom of the page. See Legends of Sapphriana, page 15. Another book, but I recognize the title. Unfortunately, I’m sure we left that book back in the cave in the mountains. It was a book with children’s tales about a peasant girl with bright blue eyes. The first Sapphiri in this world, according to the legends.
We’ll have to find that book and give it another look. I fold the corner of this page down as well. Now, I need to find Lydia so we can at least get rid of the invasion threat. We’ll have time to explore how to combine Sapphiri and Azurean powers later.
Or maybe we won’t. How could we make it back to the mountains right now with so much going on? This keeps coming up though. Something that comes up so much has to be important.
* * *
Lydia doesn’t see me. I’m stopped in the doorway to the main hall, hiding in the shadows as she bends over the paper in front of her. Her face is scrunched up in concentration. Somrusee is teaching her letters.
Somrusee sees me and smiles. “We have company,” she says.
I clear my throat and step past the guards into the room. My eyes are still focused on Lydia. She looks good today. Like royalty. Untouchable.
“Your majesty.” I bow my head.
“For goodness sake, Karl.” Lydia stands. “You, of all people, should treat me like a human being.”
“A human?”
“Yes, instead of a position.” She glares at me and shakes her head.
I’m not sure if she’s joking or not. She looks the part of queen today. I walk up to her but stop when I get too close. I can smell her perfume. Citrus. Smell apparently is a sign of the royal class, and Somrusee’s been working on bringing in all kinds of perfumes. Somrusee’s been leading the charge on fashion, too. Apparently, people know what an Azurean queen should wear. Lydia’s wearing a flowing green dress, and it looks great on her.
No, she looks great in it. And she’s standing close to me. My face gets warm as I realize I shouldn’t have come this close, especially not with Somrusee in the room. Lydia’s eyes meet mine briefly, and she looks away. She doesn’t feel the electricity like I do. How can she have this kind of an effect on me and not feel anything?
“I, uh.” I have a hard time formulating the words in my mind.
“You’ve interrupted my lesson.” Lydia laughs and gestures at Somrusee. “Professor Somrusee has been teaching me my letters, and I can read words.”
“That’s great. I’ve been reading, too.”
“Oh?”
I place the book open on the table and explain the hemazury.
Lydia smiles when I’m finished. “This is great Karl. We’ll do it right now.”
Lydia leaves Somrusee and her letters and walks out the door into the main hall, telling her guards to wait there until she gets back.
I glance back at Somrusee before following. Her dark eyes are unreadable, but they stare at me. She takes me in. She wants me to say something.
“Thanks for teaching her,” I say weakly. Awkwardly. We b
oth know I should say more, do more. And maybe, if I could stop thinking about Lydia, I would commit to Somrusee. I’d marry her and we’d have babies and I’d adore her. But, I won’t do it. I can’t marry her when not a single kiss has compared to one magic kiss with Lydia.
And so instead we stare at each other.
“It’s a nice break from my work of teaching the people,” Somrusee says quietly. “Getting large groups of people to think in new ways is not easy, but the queen learns quickly.”
“That’s good,” I say.
“Yes.” She pauses and then looks at the floor. “Karu, I miss you. You have been so busy. Will you come see me tonight?”
I look at the ground and shrug. “I have a lot going on, Somrusee.”
“Karu.”
I meet her dark eyes.
“I want to be with you.”
My eyes drop. I know. Lydia’s footsteps are getting quiet.
“I need to go,” I say, and hurry after Lydia.
* * *
Wynn’s tower is surprisingly empty. Only two guards are in the tower, and they sit on the stairs chatting idly when we enter. They both stand when they see us.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Quint gave them the day off,” one of the men says. I don’t recognize him, but the guard is getting bigger every day. “The threat through this tower is minimal, and so he left us here to hold down the fort while the others train.”
I swear. The Quint I talked to earlier today knows that the threat to this tower is anything but minimal.
Lydia understands, too. “That doesn’t sound like Quint.” She pushes past me towards the men, but I hold her back. We are likely walking into another trap.
“I got this, Karl,” Lydia says calmly, and I let my arm fall. She pulls a piece of copper out of a pocket in her dress. She steps up to the guard and motions for him to move out of her way.
“He’s right,” the guard says, his eyes wide as he takes in the Azurean queen standing in front of him. “I wouldn’t go close to the stairs today.”
“Why not?” Lydia demands. She glares at him and starts to reach out to touch him.
“Um…uh...” The guard stutters and backs away quickly from Lydia. He trips over himself and falls backward on the floor. I look at his companion, who stands like a statue with a glare that could kill sparrows thirty feet in the sky.
These men are not our friends. I withdraw my sword.
The statue man yells, and his sword flashes out at Lydia. She screams, and I lurch forward, deflecting the man’s blow enough to allow Lydia to escape by jumping towards me. Instinctively, I let my arm slip around her waist, and I pick her up and hold her tight as I turn my body and deflect the guard’s next blow with my sword. The guard who fell stands and joins the fray. Neither of the men have been trained. Swords flash, metal clangs, and soon one of them is dead and the other is missing an arm.
And I’m still holding Lydia. I set her down gently, and she jumps away from me and starts to run up the stairs. But, she only gets up three stairs before a man comes out of the passageway. And then another. And another.
The men shout and point at Lydia. They are too close to her for me to reach them before they reach her.
But as soon as they seen her, they start to fall.
Lydia.
She’s throwing dirt, and her face is knitted in concentration.
In a second, I’m by her side with my sword out.
“What was it you said we need to do?” she yells above the clatter of men falling over themselves and yelling in pain as they come out of the portal.
“Splatter blue blood on the portal and then stab it with sweat-soaked copper while you transfer your consciousness.” I maneuver in front of Lydia and take a step towards the growing pile of bodies.
Two men manage to break free before they’re hit by Lydia’s hemazury. They stagger down the stairs towards me. I put a sword through one and engage the second, who is a tall lanky man swinging his sword like it’s a fly swatter. Unfortunately for him, I have more training than a housefly.
“Let’s push up the stairs to the portal,” she shouts. Knives clang on the ground—men must have gone up the stairs to try and attack us from out of sight—and men scream as Lydia continues to hit them the minute they step out of the portal.
“Why don’t we get out of here and find Quint?” I yell. I don’t think we’ll make it to the passageway, not with how many people are pouring out of it.
“This place will be packed if we do that. We’ll never be able to fight all these people, and they’ll run us out of the castle.”
I take a cautious step up another stair. Just two more to go.
Lydia pushes by me and sprints up the stairs.
I curse. One of the fallen men manages to grab her leg. And then another. She dislocates their arms. But the men keep coming while she fumbles with the copper. A big man plants a knife in Lydia’s foot. She screams, still several feet away from the portal. I cut off the man’s hand. There is blood everywhere, and a lot of it is blue.
I dip my hand in the blue blood and then splatter the blood on the wall. I get more blood on the latest emergent than I do on the wall. He falls down, but another man is already coming through behind him.
I put my sword through him, and he momentarily blocks the man pushing through behind him. My muscles strain against the push, and I feel something sharp pierce my left foot.
“Hold them there!” Lydia yells. If only it were so easy. I try to get my footing on the men I’m standing on, but two men are pushing against me, and the stairs do go down. Pain is searing through my left leg. I’m about to tumble down the stairs into a mass of struggling bodies.
“Don’t fall!” Lydia screams. I curse and feel my body start to fall backward. I’m going to fall, and I’m going to be killed. This is it. We’ve lost.
And then Lydia hits me from behind. Her legs wrap around my torso, and the momentum from her jump pushes me forward back into the wall. Blue blood is pouring out of Lydia’s foot as her feet dig into my belt. The blood soaks into my pants and runs down my leg. I struggle to withdraw my sword from the men who are now starting to move forward again. And then I feel Lydia crawl up my back and jump off my shoulders. She flies over the men locked on my sword and then falls on top of them. Her arm is extended towards the wall. And then the copper scrapes against the wall with a fingernails-on-the-chalkboard groan.
The men stop pushing against my sword. Lydia rolls off the men and hits the floor. I let go of the sword and pick Lydia off the ground. She puts her arms around my neck as I stumble through the men, down the stairwell, and back into the main castle.
No new people emerge. We’ve sealed the gap. Lydia heals her foot, and then she heals mine.
We are surrounded by dead men. It hits me before I realize what’s happening, and I lean over and throw up, my breakfast landing on a corpse’s head. A corpse that used to be a man. Between my sword and Lydia’s hemazury, at least a dozen men have fallen, wounded, bleeding, and dead.
I lean against Lydia, and she holds me with her arm around my back as I wipe my face. No judgment in her eyes, which study me as I take my focus off the room and look at her. Her dress is ruined, but she is otherwise intact.
“We got it closed,” she says, still panting from the exertion.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think it’s closed.”
We stand there and look at each other for what seems like an eternity, and yet it is just a moment. We did this, together. Just in time.
Lydia breaks the moment and surveys the room again. “I think I’ll ask Quint to clean up.”
I shake my head. “Look what we just did,” I say.
“We closed it,” Lydia says, and she moves past me and walks slowly out of the tower.
I stay behind. I wander back to the stairwell and push against the wall. Solid. Not too many months ago this portal saved my life. Now it’s gone.
I look at the men on the ground. Where did they
all come from? How many more are there?
13 Annoyed
Brit
A strong hand on my shoulder startles me awake. My head, which was matted up against the car window for the last few hours, aches as I pull it away. I stare blankly at the scenery as it races by. Sagebrush. Nothingness. I have no idea where we are. Where I am.
“I feel that you are not feeling the best you have ever felt,” the man sitting next to me says.
I study his face through bleary eyes. His expression is concerned, innocent-looking. He stares at me, and I almost believe he isn’t evil. I close my eyes and gasp against the pain throbbing through my entire body. Pain. It’s enough to remind me I can’t trust these people.
“What is your problem?” I say as I turn my head back to the scenery, or lack thereof, flying across the window. “Why do you say words so funny? You don’t have an accent.”
“I feel what you say. I speak with hemazury.”
“What?” My head really is pounding, which may explain why I can barely understand this guy.
“Hemazury. I came to your world through the hemazuric portal, and the portal confers upon me the power of your language.”
Whatever. He speaks clearly, though he does look foreign. Then again, he has some of the same features I remember Lydia having, which probably means not foreign.
I shift in my seat and my back aches terribly. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’m being dragged all over the country.
I close my eyes and try to distract myself from my predicament by wondering if the team managed to beat Arizona without me. Joana probably had a field day when she realized I wasn’t there. They probably won. Nothing more to wonder about. They don’t need me.
The man doesn’t touch me again, though he keeps trying to catch my eye with probing looks. I blush and look out the window. I’m not friends with these people. Not any of them. And I hate sitting, and I’m not comfortable.
Bob is driving. His bright eyes look at me occasionally through the rear-view mirror. I ignore him, too, keeping silent as I stare out the window. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything out there to distract me.
The Sapphiri Page 12