I shook my head sadly. “No, I can’t take that risk with my family.” I glanced at Zofie. “Besides, I need to get my princess back to normal.”
She nodded. Clearly not liking it, but understanding.
And so, I retrieved the Griffin’s Key from Docila and gave it to Spraggel to store in his ever deep pocket. Then we said good-bye to my family. They gave us each a hug and especially thanked Fumiko for saving them. I couldn’t help but smile at her embarrassment.
And of course, I kept my word to Docila and promised my mother I would visit her in the spring. My mother teared up, Floria bounced, and Docila gave me a sly smile. I guess they weren’t perfect, but then again, they were mine.
So with Spraggel, Fumiko, Cabrina, and Zofie in tow, we headed back. Gray clouds obscured the sky as we entered the vicinity of the house. We were also losing our daylight, which would make this even more difficult. We used the barn for cover as we paused and carefully surveyed the area for signs of Lilith and Wort. Although we saw no trace of them, there were a thousand places between us and the road that they could be hiding.
With little choice, I motioned us forward but abruptly stopped when my bracelet suddenly flashed hot. I stepped back.
“Coren,” whispered Zofie unexpectedly. “They’re close and will chase you as soon as you show yourselves.”
I glanced at my party. That was exactly what we wanted, but we also needed a way to outrun them.
Zofie continued, “However, the princess has an idea.”
There must be enough danger that Zofie and Abe were able to talk to me again. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or not.
I leaned closer and whispered, “What is it?”
“The princess says...” There was a pause and then some mumbling. There seemed to be another conversation going on in the background. “...that won’t work, I tell you... Anyway, she says... Hey! Don’t mess with that... Ouch! ...You’re going to hurt yourself...” A pause. “See, I told you you’d get hurt. Serves you right.” There was a longer pause. “Well, I guess that might work... Ouch!”
“What is she doing?”
“Your damn woman is once again messing with my insides. And I’m not liking this one bit. Creator blasted myst seers don’t think the universe’s rules apply to them. Hey! Don’t touch that!”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, that is Zofie.”
“Will you stop...” A pause. “All right! I’ll tell him. The princess says, go to the road. And don’t be surprised at what happens.”
I rolled my eyes. Oh no, what was she up to now.
And sure enough, the sky opened up, and it began to snow.
Hard.
A chill breeze stirred the air making the snow swirl around us. I pulled my cloak tighter and checked to make sure that Zofie’s was bundled tight. I wasn’t sure this was a good idea. The ground was already cold, so the snow immediately began to accumulate. Which meant it would be easy for them to track us. Then I realized Zofie’s reasoning. That was the whole purpose. So they could track us. Lilith would see our trail and know we weren’t there anymore. She didn’t care about my family, so she’d come after us.
I motioned the others to follow me and headed down the hill toward the path leading to the road.
We hurried as fast as we could through the snow. I couldn’t believe how fast it was piling up. Cabrina got so distracted staring at the white covering that she slipped, and would have fallen, had Spraggel not caught her.
And sure enough, just as we reached the bottom of the hill, we saw two figures coming after us. Only the snow seemed to be hindering their progress. I saw Wort slip and fall. Lilith didn’t even pause, intent on leaving him, but she too fell.
The wind suddenly rose, grabbing at our cloaks and pelting us in the face. My first thought was that my luck had suddenly shifted, but then I realized it had helped clear the path ahead, and at the same time, push it toward our pursuers.
But the snow wasn’t the only surprise. When we came to the road, a large carriage, completely enclosed and crafted of highly polished wood, sat there with the horses still harnessed to it. Definitely not the shabby one we had used to get here. It seemed to be waiting.
I trotted up to the driver who was checking his horses. “Hello,” I called. “Why are you just sitting here on the road.”
The man frowned. “I’s won’t be fer long. It’s almost even’n, and I needs to be get’n back.” He turned toward me. “I carried a pair here’s earlier, but they said they’d gives me double if I waited. But I’s haven’t seens hide nor hair of them since.”
I smiled. “Would you be willing to take us instead? That couple decided to stay. You might say, we had a bit of a falling out.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “They still owes me at least two silver. Ones for the trip and ones for the wait.”
I reached into my coin purse and pulled out four. That was going to seriously hurt my travel funds.
I put two of them in his hand. “This is to take my friends and me to Oddfrid Vandobarre’s place.” I then placed the other two with them. “And this is to not stop for anything.”
He glanced over my shoulder and saw our pursuers in the distance. “Anyth’n?”
“Not even the Creator himself.”
He smiled. “I thinks I can do that. She t’was a bit of a bitch anyways.”
While the driver climbed up on top of the carriage, we hurriedly piled inside. He started forward before I could even get the door shut.
Like the outside, the interior of the carriage was much plusher than the one that brought us. I would say it almost rivaled the royal one. The inside was also much more spacious, so we all fit comfortably.
I leaned out the window and looked behind us. As quickly as it came, the snow stopped, and we were soon on bare road. I could easily see Lilith and Wort not too far behind us as they won free from a snowbank. Lilith didn’t hesitate to launch herself after us, with Wort trailing behind.
I had seen Risten run before and knew she could sprint pretty fast. I had to assume Lilith would take advantage of that. The driver had urged the horses to their fastest pace, but that was only a fast walk. No way could it match her speed. If Lilith could maintain her pace, and I knew she could, she would catch us in just a few minutes.
I held out my hand to Spraggel. “The portal orb Oddfrid gave us. I need it now!”
Fumiko looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s not safe to open a portal while moving. Our forward momentum will also be transferred.”
I pointed behind us. “Got a better idea? She’s almost on us.”
Fumiko stared at me a moment and then shook her head.
Spraggel sat up straighter and smiled. “I’ll get it.” He immediately began to search in his pocket.
I groaned. “You put it in your pocket? I told you not to.”
He gave me a disgusted look. “Of course I did. Where else would I put it.”
He dug deeper—up to the elbow. He muttered to himself. “Well, I think I put it in here.”
I looked out the window. Lilith was close and gaining fast. I could see the whites of her eyes.
And she looked pissed.
I leaned back in. “Spraggel...? Any time now.”
He shouted in triumph and pulled it out.
I immediately grabbed it and squeezed the orb three times between my hands as Oddfrid had instructed. I then yanked off one of Zofie’s mittens and set it on the floor with the orb on top, so it didn’t roll away. After a moment, the orb began to slowly pulse with a pale blue light. We had ten pulses before the portal activated, and I began to count them.
One... Two... Three... Four...
The carriage unexpectedly rocked, and I knew Lilith had caught up with us. I could hear her climbing across the top, and then our ride began to slow. Apparently, she had convinced the driver it was the right thing to do. Probably with the aid of a knife at his throat.
Five... Six... Seven...
I huddled us together around
the orb, praying the portal had enough room to operate inside the carriage. It was tight, and we had to hunch over, but we were able to pull close. I hugged Zofie to me tightly with one arm, and Cabrina the other.
Eight... Nine...
The carriage was still moving when the door flew open. With knife drawn, a grinning Lilith stood looking in.
Ten...!
Suddenly, the portal opened beneath our feet.
The look on Lilith’s face was worth gold. “No!” she yelled.
I smiled and waved at her as we dropped through.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
First Portal,
Second Memory
We landed hard in front of Oddfrid’s house. Unfortunately, as Fumiko has said, the momentum we had while in the carriage also came with us. Slight as it was, it was like we had suddenly been tossed off a walking horse, which I guess in a sense we had. We rolled and came to a halt in a pile of slightly embarrassed humans.
I quickly knelt beside Zofie and patted over her arms and legs, making sure she wasn’t hurt. Thankfully, our heavier winter clothing provided a limited measure of padding. The other point of thanks was that Lilith and Wort had not been able to follow. But that didn’t mean we could dally.
Not a moment later, Oddfrid opened the door and surveyed us critically. He didn’t look happy. “How close behind you are they?” he asked abruptly.
I turned from helping Zofie stand and blinked at him. “How did you know we were being chased?”
He frowned. “That’s the way it always is with nobles and their games.” He folded his arms and leaned a shoulder on the doorframe. “So, how long do we have?”
I scratched my head. “If they drive the horses hard, they could be here within the hour.”
He sighed and held the door wider for us. “Come inside. I’m almost done.”
We started forward, but Fumiko held back. “I’ll stand watch,” she stated. “That woman may have a way to catch up to us more quickly.”
I shook my head. “Not before I bind your chest.”
Cabrina jumped up. “I’ll watch!” she offered. “I’ve never done that before. This body has good eyes.”
Spraggel put a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t we go watch together. If you stay with them, you’ll be saying they’ve had sex again.”
Cabrina turned to Spraggel in indignation. “But they did!”
“We did not,” I stated flatly.
The youth didn’t appear satisfied with the answer.
“Come dear,” said Spraggel. “Let’s do a quick check of the perimeter.” He then pulled her after him.
I ushered Zofie and Fumiko inside. We found ourselves in a wide foyer with stairs on the right, a door to what looked like a study on the left, and an open doorway leading into the back. Except for a few worn chairs that had seen better days and one dust-covered table, the room was bare.
I settled Zofie down into one of the less dusty chairs and turned to Oddfrid. “Do you have any bindings? My friend has been hurt.”
He frowned at us again and exited out the back doorway, but returned a moment later with some strips of cloth. He shoved them at me and then left, mumbling about having to finish his preparations.
Fumiko carefully removed her cloak, wincing as she raised her right arm. She released the ties of her shirt and went to lift it off, but was unable to. She gave me an embarrassed smile. “It hurts more than I thought.”
I stepped behind her and helped her gently raise her shirt. She slipped it off, and while modestly holding it in front of her, stood with her back fully exposed.
I remembered hearing that you can tell a lot about someone from their back. And as I stared at Fumiko’s, it whispered of a difficult past. She was of slender build but not skinny. Under her pale skin, I could see well-defined muscles across her back and shoulders—not a trace of fat on her. But marring her smooth flesh were a host of small scars starting mid-way and spreading down to her waist. They looked old, having long since healed. But what caught my eye was high on her right shoulder and completely unexpected—a small tattoo of a butterfly, beautifully done in reds and blues. A work of art all by itself, which seemed slightly out of place against the sea of scars further down.
Realizing I was staring, I slid my eyes to her side. I grimaced. Midway up her torso, I could see the injury—it was turning a deep blue. I gently probed it, and she hissed and jerked away. The skin had been broken in a couple of places, but there was no major bleeding.
“He sure got you good. I guess you’re lucky it was a shovel,” I said as I started to wrap her chest. I was careful to keep my eyes on her back and away from the more private places in front. I couldn’t help but notice how warm her skin was.
“True.” She said through gritted teeth. She looked over her shoulder at me. “Coren, you’re going to have to make it tighter.”
I frowned. “If I make it too tight, you won’t be able to move.”
“And if you don’t make it tighter, it will hurt too much to move.”
She dropped her shirt which pooled at her feet. Maintaining her back to me, she held her arms away from her body. “This will make it easier.”
I glanced at Zofie, feeling a little better at having her close by as a chaperone. I unwound the little wrapping I had done and started again going a little tighter.
“Higher, Coren.”
“But...”
She sighed. “I know I’m a woman, and you’re embarrassed, but you’ve got to do this right. Would you rather I get Spraggel?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll do it.”
I started once more, moving higher up her chest and making it tighter. I tried not to think about the feminine parts I was touching.
I glanced at the art on her shoulder and tried to distract myself. “Where did you get the tattoo? It’s beautiful. Does it mean something?”
She was silent for a moment, and I thought she was going to pull one of her ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ diversions. But she answered a heartbeat later. “The emperor’s royal artist did it. I was quite proud of it at the time. It’s nothing myst related, but more of a sign of my previous station. Only the elite got them.”
“Is it related to the training I saw in your memories?”
She gave me a worried glance over her shoulder. “Yes.”
I smiled. “Then it must be a sign that you graduated.”
She was silent a moment. “I guess you could say that.” She looked back forward and didn’t speak further. I sensed a delicate topic and just worked in silence.
I tied off the binding and diverted my eyes as she pulled on her shirt. She rolled her shoulder tentatively, smiled, and nodded. But her expression fell as she faced me, turning to one of sadness as she searched my eyes.
Suddenly the room went eerily quiet, and I realized Fumiko had just covered us in an area of silence. Which meant Zofie would not be able to hear what came next. “That tattoo says I was once part of a special group in service to the emperor. Only a select few graduated, and we received only the most difficult of assignments. But while I left that life behind...” She reached up and gently touched my face. “I can never escape it.”
Fumiko abruptly turned away, and the room’s sound suddenly returned. Oddfrid strode back into the room carrying a well-used leather satchel. He plopped it down in the center of the floor. The satchel was faded and worn, tired almost, and like its owner, looked to have made this trip many times before.
“Gather everyone together,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
I did as he asked, and moments later, we stood nervously in the foyer. Oddfrid gave us a quick inspection and nodded. He stood erect and put his hands behind his back. “Our destination this evening will be a town called Piredrop in the kingdom of Zeveiltia. It’s about a third of the way to the Kuiojia Empire and is much colder than it is here. In fact, at this time of year, they will likely have a lot of snow.”
He paused for a moment looking at each one of us in turn.
I somehow felt this was a well-practiced lecture. “Now,” he continued. “Going through a long-range portal is very different from a short-range. The difficulty and amount of myst required for any portal doubles with the distance traveled. So the amount of myst to transport you back from your family’s home was about five mystumns...”
Spraggel held up his hand. “What is a mystumn?”
Oddfrid blinked at Spraggel like he had been thrown off his lecture. “A mystumn is a unit of myst usage. I don’t have time to go into the details about it.” He cleared his throat, looked up, and seemed to find his place. “In any case, if I were to open a short-range portal from here to Piredrop, it would require over two hundred thousand mystumns, which is far beyond what a normal human could do. So, you might ask, how do we do it?” He leaned forward and smiled conspiratorially. “We actually don’t. Instead, we use a naturally occurring portal that happens to open close to our destination. You could almost think of them as tunnels in the universe. This greatly reduces the effort required.”
I gave him a puzzled look. “Naturally occurring portals? But wouldn’t that mean people would be falling into them all the time?”
He smiled like this was his favorite question. “Ah, just because they’re naturally occurring doesn’t mean they’re readily accessible. I have to make a short-range portal to reach into it, then another to pull us out when the time is right.”
Spraggel stroked his beard. “This is all well and good, but why are you telling us this?”
He nodded. “To simply let you know... you’re in for a very bumpy ride. Don’t be surprised if you feel nauseous or can’t tell up from down. That is all normal.” He started to turn away. “Oh, and you’ll be in absolute darkness the whole time, which may last a few minutes.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly. “But don’t worry, I’ve done this hundreds of times and only had something go wrong a few.”
I had to ask. “Did anyone die?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. We never found them.”
I sighed. “Dear Creator. Can we just get on with it?”
He grinned in reply.
Assassin of Curses: (The Coren Hart Chronicles Book 3) Page 19