The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set

by William David Ellis

  “Harry?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry about your wife. You must have loved her a great deal. I am sorry you couldn’t have children. Did you tell her who you really are? If so, what did she think? Did you tell her about me?”

  The old man shook his head, frowning. Even in the dimly lit cab, Sarah could see his reaction. Finally, he said, “Sarah, I never married. There was never a wife.”

  Sarah leaned back in the truck seat again.

  “Put your seat belt on, please,” the old man requested quietly.

  Sarah moved across the seat, over to the passenger side, and snapped the seat belt. She looked back at Harry and whispered, “Why? Why didn’t you ever marry, Harry? You were young. I was as good as dead. I don’t understand.” Yet, maybe I do.

  The old man struggled to get the words out, “I don’t know. It just didn’t feel right. I got close a couple of times, but it was never… right, never the same. I tried to love. I had opportunity, but it’s like my heart wouldn’t let go… of that princess I met in the market so long ago. There was no room for anyone else, because I could never forget…”

  “Oh, Harry.” Even though a part of her had wanted him to say just that, Sarah began to cry. “How many times have I failed you? I betrayed you. I lost you. More than a thousand years separated us, and I couldn’t find you. Now we are just as far apart as we have ever been.” Suddenly her face changed, and a look of shock held it. Her eyes blinked, and then she said, “Oh, dear God! Harry… I remember… oh, I remember after you had driven the dragon into the ground, and it was breathing its last. I heard it speak. I heard it in my heart. It cursed us. That evil beast said, ‘Your love will never leave you, but neither will you have it… till it does.’ It cursed us, Harry. It cursed us, and now it wants to kill us.”

  The old man listened. He didn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t know what to do, Sarah. I don’t know how we got here, I don’t know how to change things. I don’t even know a safe place to go tonight.”

  As Harry was talking, the speaker interrupted. “Harry, you are still the dragon rider. You still carry the anointing of the King. And there are two things I need to tell you, three actually. First, an undeserved curse does not come to rest. It just won’t stick. Second, the blessing the King imparted to you breaks the yoke of bondage. Third, I know of a place within a few miles of here that will be safe from the dragon. He cannot enter there. You and Sarah will be safe. Be at peace, and rest tonight because tomorrow is story day and you need to be ready.”

  “He spoke to you again, didn’t he? What did the sword have to say?”

  “How did you know that? How do you know when he is talking?”

  “Well,” she said in her six-year-old voice, “you put on your listening face.” Then her 1,244-year-old self manifested, and she continued, “And you get this very focused, faraway look in your eyes. That’s when I can tell the sword has spoken. So, what did he say?”

  The old man shrugged his shoulders, understanding her reply, and answered, “He said you and I are stronger than a dragon’s curse. We will find a way to break it, and that there’s a place up ahead…” The truck headlights lit on a sign, and Harry laughed, “Of course! This is perfect.”

  “What is perfect, Harry? Quit doing that. I don’t have a clue what’s going on. You’re having a private little conversation with your age-old invisible friend, and I have to go potty—sorry, old habits die hard—use the restroom.”

  Harry laughed as he turned into the parking lot of a country church. The sign read St. Patrick’s Lutheran Church, visitors welcome. “I am an elder here. I have a key. Come on, I know where some blankets are, and if you’re nice, I’ll even show you where the bathroom is.”

  The old man stepped out of his truck, waited till Sarah crawled across the seat, then helped her out. They walked to the front doors of the old church. It was a typical church building built in the late-nineteenth century. Constructed entirely of wood, as it was hard to find stone in the middle of East Texas, the people who originally built it had been more interested in what happened inside it than its exterior siding, but it was lovingly maintained. It probably had at least forty coats of paint on it. With a hide like that, the old guardian had no need to fear weather, and as to the tornados that blew through from time to time, they had only peeled its roof on occasion.

  The preachers often claimed it was because the Lord would pass over His own. The old man kind of believed that and wasn’t interested in pressing the theology. He needed some passing over and wasn’t of a mind to mess with what was working. As they entered the sanctuary, the old man realized something he had never noticed before. In the dark, the church looked a lot like the great hall where the dragons and their riders had stood, and where he met the King. He thought, That’s just a coincidence. All buildings shaped like a hall will look like a hall.

  As they walked down the aisle, Sarah noticed the great windows and the stained-glass art held in place by lead lining. Each window told a story. As she walked around the room, studying each window, she came to one and stopped. The legend of Saint George. She felt Harry walk up to her and place his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him and asked, “Is that a light behind the windows?”

  Old Harry looked down at her and said, “What?” Then he looked at the window she was pointing to and saw the glow. It wasn’t lit by a brilliant light, but it stood out, like a nightlight in a dark room would cast a small glow, enough to push back the gloom. The window of Saint George was shimmering. Harry took a seat on one of the hard, wooden pews and stared intently at the stained glass.

  Sarah whispered, “Can you feel it?”

  Harry most definitely could, and smiled. “Yep, I can. I think we will be safe here tonight.”

  Sarah agreed, “Absolutely,” then snuggled in close to the old man. “It’s in the walls, you know.”

  The old man sighed, and for the first time in days, rested. He looked up at the glowing window and scanned all the other stained glass, his eyes finally resting on the centerpiece of the sanctuary, an old cross, which hung behind the choir loft on the baptistery wall. It was also lit. He stared at it for a while, then spoke softly, “Thank you.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The morning sun shone brightly through the stained-glass windows. One mischievous ray moved slowly across the old man’s cheek till it danced on his eyelids, sending a signal to his unconscious mind that it was time to wake. Apparently, the same ray decided to skip Sarah. She slept soundly on. The old man had slept fitfully in spite of the blanket of peace that rested on the sanctuary. The pews were too narrow for his broad shoulders to lie on, so he slept sitting up. It was uncomfortable but he would have been lying if he had said he had never slept in that position in church before. He dreamed of dragons, and blood, and swords, and screaming children. It was hard to rest in the middle of those nightmares, but now it was time. Sarah was covered with a blanket with her head using his lap as a pillow and the rest of her stretched down the cushioned pew. He tried to gently pry her head up and slip out. He was halfway through that procedure and about to congratulate himself when she opened her sleepy eyes and said, “Where ya going?”

  “Well, if you must know, I am going to visit the men’s room, and then I’m going to dig out my armor, put it on, drive into town, and kill a dragon and its demonized followers. What are you doing today?”

  Sarah sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and stretched like a cat. “Well, I’m hungry. A growing girl needs her breakfast. After that, well, I thought I would tag along with you and hand you things when you need them. If it got dark, I could hand you a flashlight, or hold it while you cleaved a few heads. I will try to keep it out of your eyes, but hey, you know six-year-olds, we get distracted…”

  “Hum… you think it is going to take us all day to lop off a few heads?”

  “Don’t know, but it’s best to be prepared!”

  With that Sarah got up and trotted off to the re
stroom.

  The old man snorted, enjoying the banter. As he made his way down the paneled hall to the restroom, he also realized that even though he had loved the heart in front of him for over a thousand years, the time they had actually spent together was probably less than a day. Any relationship manual would say love at first sight—or in his case, first fight—was iffy at the least, and dangerous at best, so what was he doing? Then he remembered the first time he met her in the market square, how she had covered him and tried to protect his pride. She was royalty and could have had him flogged, or worse, for even touching her, but she didn’t. She was a woman… then. He looked at the six-year-old that nuzzled up to him and thought, Sarah is a little girl, a very young woman, who, when she was an older woman… He laughed out loud. This is nuts! Absolutely nuts! I am going to wake up in a drugged stupor and find myself in an asylum. “Whew!” he sighed. Or I am going to get up, go to the café, put my armor on, and either kill or be killed by a dragon disguised as clergy. Good grief… could it get any more confusing?

  Then he heard the speaker’s voice, “Harry, be careful what you ask!”

  Sarah trotted back into the sanctuary from the restroom where she had tried to freshen up. Her eyes were puffy and she was crying. “I can’t help it. I am so worried about Grandma and Grandpa… what if?”

  “Sarah, your grandparents are some of the most loving and gracious people I have ever met. I would like to get to know them much better,” he slowed down and whispered, “but I don’t know if they are still in this world or not.” Sarah grasped her head in her hands with that statement. The old man continued, “But Sarah, I do know this… wherever they are, they love you, and want you to live… and survive. Giving way to your fears right now is not the way to ensure that. Now try and think of something else, anything else. It is morning. Are you hungry?”

  She nodded and then looked up at him with red eyes. “My grandpa says when he gets real hungry, that his big gut is trying to eat his little gut. I know how he feels now. Where we going to eat?”

  “I have a special place downtown where I often eat in the morning. Let’s go there. But first, I am going to put on my armor.”

  “You brought your armor with you? I didn’t even know you still had it.”

  “It’s a long story, but the short version is I woke up with it on and was convincingly reminded it had certain qualities… one of which landed me in the mental ward of the hospital. If you remember, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to practice before I had to use it.”

  “What do you mean ‘convincingly reminded’?” Sarah asked, curious.

  The speaker intruded the old man’s thoughts, “This ought to be amusing. Are you really going to tell her that story?”

  The old man rolled his eyes and answered, “She is 1,244 years old; she only looks like a first grader.”

  Sarah heard the old man respond to the speaker and protested, “I do not look like a first grader!” Then she frowned, looked down at herself, and sighed. “Okay, maybe a little.” Her eyes twinkled as her face lit up in inquisitiveness. “The speaker is talking to you again!”

  “Yes, he is. Now, do you want to know what happened or not?”

  “Oh, most definitely, but can you tell me on the way to breakfast?”

  “Honestly, I could, but then you’d want to see it, so hold your taters and let’s get the armor.”

  The old man started to walk down the aisle of the church. Sarah grabbed his hand and walked beside him, still asking questions, “Did you hide the armor in the church?”

  “Nope.”

  “But you brought it with you?”

  “Yep.”

  “In the truck?” she persisted.

  “Well, of course it’s in the truck, silly. If I brought it with me, and I don’t have it on, it has to be in the truck, right?” he answered again, tight-lipped, enjoying every minute.

  She kept on, “In the back of the truck?”

  “Yep.”

  She hopped up on the sideboard of his old Ranger and scrutinized the back of the truck. “Where?”

  The old man dug into his pocket and drew out a key. He opened the tailgate and hefted his cranky body into the pickup bed. He crawled over to the cab on whining knees, placed the key in the lock of the huge toolbox that was anchored into the truck’s bed, and opened the lid. Sarah peered inside. She didn’t see anything but hammers, saws, pieces of copper wire, and plumbing supplies.

  “There’s no armor…” She was about to say “in here” when the old man started pulling out the tools, moving everything out of the box.

  Once the toolbox was emptied, he inserted another key into a small inconspicuous slot that could have easily been mistaken for a scratch or oil smear. The lock clicked, and the old man pulled up on the key to reveal a hidden shelf, just large enough for a fingerhold that he could pull up. “Dang thing gets heavier every time I dig into it,” he complained. Finally, with a lot of tugging and grunting, he got the lid out. Sarah peered into the hidden compartment. Inside was the bronze-colored armor she had last seen over a thousand years ago.

  “I don’t know who made this,” Harry began. “On the surface, it looks like German armor. It is, as you can see, brown with horizontal rings overlapping like fish scales. The helmet is open-faced and lightweight, with a hinged peak projecting out over the forehead like some kind of beak. Its detachable shin guards are held with leather straps…”

  Before Harry could finish his detailed description of the armor, Sarah interrupted, “Looks like a bug, a big, scaly cockroach.”

  The old man looked back at the little girl who stood on his pickup truck runner wearing a most sincere expression. He couldn’t tell if he was looking at a naïve six-year-old or an irritated and very hungry 1,244-year-old. He finally decided it was an agitated mix and proceeded with his lecture.

  “Are you sure we can’t have this conversation on the way to the café? I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours and my blood sugar is getting low. Or at least I think it is. That is what Grandpa always says when he is harassing Grandma about dinner.” At the mention of her grandparents, her face clouded and her eyes began to glisten.

  The old man cast a steely gaze back at the six-year-old, who was vainly trying to look innocent, and replied, “Remind me again. You didn’t turn into a dragon, right? Because right now… oh, wait a minute. I forgot you’re a princess, and you aren’t used to not having your way… Excuse me, Your Highness. I was just trying to keep both of us from getting killed, and then, while I am at it, figure out a way to kill a dragon and rescue your grandparents. Sorry for inconveniencing you.”

  He turned away and continued to pull out the bronze armor. Sarah became quiet. He was trying to untie a leather strap but kept failing to loosen it. Frustrated, he turned back around to face her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, a heartbroken look across her face. With trembling lips, she said, “I’m sooorrrrryy… I didn’t mean to complain. I’m just scared… I’m scared for my grandparents and scared for you, and for all the rest of the children who are going to be at the library.”

  The old man looked at her and then crawled back across the truck bed toward her. He held out his arms, and she hugged him. She was shaking, sobbing, and trying to talk. He just held her.

  “Okay, it’s going to be okay. We are here for a reason. And, we are together. There is too much going on, too many things coming together for me to believe this is all going to end poorly. Have faith, Sarah. Hold on. We’ll get through this.” He felt her body relax as he hugged her close.

  She sighed and drew back. With a twinkle in her eye, she asked, “Now can we go get something to eat?”

  “Yes, but first, help me get into this armor.”

  “You’re putting that on now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Over your clothes?”

  Exasperated, Harry looked at Sarah and explained, “What I have been trying to tell you is that this armor is… I hate the word magic because I have a feeling thi
s isn’t magic, but science, which some wise crone once said appears to be magic to a culture that doesn’t understand the science.”

  The speaker interrupted, “I think you are referring to the words of Arthur C. Clarke. What he actually said was ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”

  “And just how do you know that?” Harry stopped in mid-sentence and asked his invisible friend.

  “Harry, I remember everything you read, and everything you hear. I confess that sometimes, when you aren’t using your body and choose to sleep, I borrow it and read. I’ve read every book in your house, including that old encyclopedia in your attic.”

  “Is that why I wake up tired some mornings with my eyes burning?”

  “Gripe, gripe, gripe. But just think. You have immediate access to an incredible amount of knowledge anytime you need it.”

  “Why, after sixty years, am I just finding out about this? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  The speaker paused and said, “Well, to be honest, I don’t know. The truth is you were fighting dragons or other types of evil critters, so I just didn’t think about it. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you. I just didn’t think you cared to know.”

  “Harry, you have that I-am-talking-to-the-speaker look on your face, and since I am not privy to that conversation, do you want to tell me about your armor so you will be happy and I can go to breakfast?” Sarah interjected.

  Harry looked at the tyrannical munchkin in front of him and laughed, then continued, “As I was trying to say… this armor has capabilities that make me wonder two things, and I have no idea which of the two is correct, but I can only think of two possibilities. First, I believe the armor is the product of an extremely advanced civilization, either from the future or, and I tend to lean this way, from a civilization that lived and died on this planet a long time ago. Either way, it has some amazing qualities. It can adapt to the body size of the person wearing it. It can cast a veil over itself so it becomes invisible, not only invisible to the eye but intangible to touch, hiding from both visual and tactile observation.