The Harry Ferguson Chronicles Box Set

by William David Ellis

  “Obviously,” Harry sighed.

  While Harry had been scouring blood, barn dirt, dragon mucus, and smut off his body, Lizzy saw to Sarah’s basic needs, like Cheetos, soda, and a few pounds of ground beef from Grandma Grace’s kitchen. When Harry got back from his cleaning, the barn had been transformed. A plastic table from the hall closet now held a five-gallon bucket of soda and three large sacks of Cheetos, which had been poured into a crystal serving bowl and gracefully set on the table along with a notepad, pencils, and pens.

  Harry sat down at the table and said, “Now what?”

  “Well, Dad, Sarah and I have been talking…”

  The sword, who had been unusually quiet, slipped in, “You’re in for it now, buddy!”

  To which dragon Sarah replied, “I heard that, Speaker! And Harry, you don’t need to nod or think anything in response. Just sit there quietly and say yes ma’am in the appropriate places.”

  Harry thought before he could stop it, The dragon killed and ate me. I died and arose in a barn… with two bossy women… dang!

  Sarah giggled. Harry thought she sounded more like a donkey braying but slammed those thoughts shut before they clothed themselves in words. Lizzy had not been introduced to the speaker, so she was at a loss as to what was going on.

  “Why do I think I am the only one here who doesn’t know what the joke is?” Lizzy asked, pulling her chair back and crossing her arms.

  Harry sighed, “Well, Lizzy, how do I explain this?”

  “Oh, Harry. It’s simple. Don’t complicate it,” Sarah replied as she reared up and put her dragon hands on her dragon hips like a normal woman explaining a complicated thing to a simple man. “Miss Lizzy,” Sarah began, only to be interrupted.

  “Just call me Lizzy, Sarah, because I don’t think you’re just six anymore.”

  Sarah looked down on her and stopped in mid-sentence. “It is a little complicated, isn’t it?”

  “Hah!” Harry bellowed. “Now ya see, don’t you, Miss Priss?”

  And then they both began to talk at once about speaker swords, and age differences, and time streams, and nano futuristic armor, and Harry’s boyhood, until an hour later, Lizzy, who had been trying to keep up, yelled, “Enough! Enough! Basically, as I understand what you’re saying, is that you are the story you were telling. Right, Dad?”

  “Exactly, honey. You got it.”

  “So, now what are you going to do?” Lizzy asked.

  Sarah looked at the floor and settled down with her huge muzzle a few feet away from the table. Harry leaned back in his chair. Neither said a thing. Lizzy answered her own question. “You don’t have any idea, do you?”

  They both shook their heads no.

  “Wow,” Lizzy whispered. “Wow.” Then a bright idea leaped into her heart and caused her eyes to sparkle. “You know, sometimes, when you just put aside your own problems and help others, your problems either become clearer, work out on their own, or go away. I think this is a time to set aside your troubles and help others with theirs.”

  The sword interjected a thought into both Sarah and Harry. “Ahem… Ahem. I would be honored to make the acquaintance of Miss Lizzy. I think it would go a long way to expediting this conversation, as well as the many more that will follow.”

  Harry beat Sarah by responding aloud for Lizzy’s benefit, “How? How do we do that? I am bonded to you by blood. Sarah is a dragon bonded to me, so thereby, also to you. But Lizzy and I, although father and daughter, don’t share the dragon to dragon rider bond. So, how do we introduce her to you?”

  Lizzy looked at her dad a little surprised but also curious. She had been told about the speaker sword, and a briefly translated conversation had taken place between her and the sword, but due to the inconvenience of translating, and the out-of-sight, out-of-mind principle, she had not considered knowing the speaker sword an option, except through Sarah or her dad. She nodded quickly to her dad, listening intently to the conversation.

  Her father acknowledged his daughter’s nod and continued, “Lizzy wants to be introduced to you as well, Speaker. So, how does this happen?”

  The speaker laughed, “Harry, I can see the thoughts forming in your head before you can. Lizzy is your daughter and is used to your teasing, but you need to be sure, before you proceed with this little joke of yours, because she does have an advocate in Sarah now that she did not have before.”

  Harry laughed and thought back to the sword, realizing that Sarah had been left out of this particular conversation. “I don’t know what you’re talking abo…” And then the thoughts formalized, and he grinned, but quickly changed it to a frown.

  The speaker continued, “Even so, it only takes a very small amount of blood, like a paper cut, to connect us. Now mind you, I am not responsible for the lie you are about to tell, just so we’re clear. Have her gently pull a finger over my blade to draw the smallest amount of blood, and I will do the rest.”

  Harry looked at his daughter and very solemnly asked, “Honey, are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Absolutely, Dad. Good grief! Having access to an ancient artificial intelligence that can provide instantaneous information. I am a librarian! Of course I want to do this!” But she cocked an unsure eyebrow at her dad and frowned as doubt began to radiate off her like heat from a fireplace. “Why do you ask, Father? What is going on?” The only time Lizzy used the word father was when her dad was telling her some made-up story or something troubling. She instinctively slid into that frame of mind and asked again, “What is it?”

  Sarah had been watching the whole exchange and was also growing cautious, wondering why the speaker had chosen to exclude her from the conversation, so she echoed Lizzy’s question, “Yeah, Harry. What’s going on?”

  “Well, you both know that I originally bonded with the speaker by accident. I cut myself on the blade as I tried to place him back in his sheath. That blood became the basis for our bond, and, well, Speaker informs me that he can also bond with you, Lizzy, and be able to communicate directly, if you share some blood as well.”

  Lizzy gulped and then bravely nodded. “Okay, I can do that. So, what’s the problem?”

  Temptation got the best of Harry. “Well, you know it will hurt.”

  “So yeah, I get it. You have to get cut to bleed… so?”

  “Well, ah… hmmm. Well.” Harry hem-hawed teasingly, not yet ready to give away the trick.

  Sarah’s eyes narrowed, and she began to inhale involuntarily, the tension building.

  Harry continued, holding his left hand up, stroking the end of its pinky. “I mean, I will do the surgery, Lizzy, and it will only take the last knuckle of…”

  “What?!” Lizzy and Sarah both yelled. Lizzy continued, “The last knuckle! Just how much blood do you need?”

  By then, Sarah, apparently apprised of Harry’s teasing by the speaker sword, reached down and as gently as a mother cat lifts a kitten, placed her mouth around Harry’s head and sealed him in with her lips. “Hey!” came the muffled protests.

  “He is messing with you,” she tried to say, but it came out more like “ee s essing ith ew.”

  Having lived with her father since she was a child, Lizzy understood perfectly and began to laugh and howl at her father’s predicament.

  Harry was also laughing, but Lizzy could tell it was tinged with an edge of nervousness. “Lizzy! I was just teasing!” Harry’s voice echoed like he was in a cave. “It only takes like a paper cut. Okay? Sarah, you can let go now.”

  Lizzy looked up smiling and nodded courteously to her new best friend. “I suppose that will do. Thank you, my dear, for taking my side. He has teased me since I was a child, and I just think karma caught up with him.”

  Sarah opened her mouth and pulled away, leaving Harry covered in dragon slobber. A normal person would have been terrified or furious, but not Harry. He thought it was hilarious, and he fumed and fussed while wiping handfuls of dragon drool out of his hair.

  Finally, after Lizzy had got
ten a washcloth, towel, and extra shirt for him, Harry continued. Sarah was still snorting, which had the effect of blowing ever-expanding smoke rings around everyone. Harry looked at her, scowling, and said, “Now, let’s get this over with so we can plan whatever you two have in mind.” With that, he unsheathed the speaker sword, laying it carefully on the table, holding it gingerly on its edge. Then he directed Lizzy, “Lizzy, this is razor sharp. Rather he is razor sharp, so be extremely careful. You could slice off way more than you intend if you are not careful.”

  Lizzy nodded. She had grabbed a first aid kit from the corner of the barn and had a warm washcloth, a roll of bandages, Band-Aids, and triple-antibiotic ointment ready, just in case. Slowly, she reached forward with her right hand, her thumb pulled back about a half inch along her index finger and, like a nudist creeping around a fire ant hill, barely touched the tiniest piece of her finger, as gently as possible, on the edge of the blade.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Yee-ow!” Lizzy wailed as a needle-thin line of red oozed up from the end of her finger. “That hurt!” She looked at her father and grimaced, then suddenly her head began to sway, and she slumped back into her chair.

  “She sure does faint a lot, Harry,” Sarah asked. “Is she okay? Does she fatigue easily?”

  “Not usually. Most of the time she runs herself ragged, then collapses. I think this is just a consequence of the last few days. It has taken its toll on all of us.”

  Then both Sarah and Harry heard, “Something is not right. I have never seen this reaction before. She shouldn’t have fainted, and I should already be able to speak to her. I should at least have access to her memories and thoughts, but I am shut out. Locked out would be a better word. I don’t understand this.”

  Sarah responded first, “You don’t have any experience with this reaction? Have you a lot of experience with blood bonds? Perhaps you just haven’t seen enough of them?”

  The sword responded, “I am not limited to my own experience. I have memories shared from every sword that has ever existed, and that means thousands of bonding experiences. Some are ancient and not all are immediately accessible. I need to meditate upon this. I have a vague impression, only one actually, but I am not ready to share it yet. Please be patient. I am going to need some time.”

  “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Harry asked, worried. “This is my daughter here. Should I take her to the hospital, or what?”

  “She is, isn’t she…”

  Something about the speaker’s statement bothered Sarah, but she couldn’t quite place it. Her focus quickly shifted, and the speaker stopped talking, his presence in her mind gone.

  Harry wasn’t thinking about the speaker’s tone or his sudden disappearance. He was used to the sword being there and then suddenly not being there. He grabbed a piece of ice and gently began to move it back and forth across Lizzy’s face. “Come on, Lizzy. Come on. Wake up. You have to stop this. If you keep fainting every time something…”

  Lizzy’s hand moved to push her dad’s ice cube away. “Yuck, Dad. What is that? You’re getting me wet.” She blinked, frowned, and tried to sit up, fussing.

  Harry was so relieved he didn’t mind her complaining about her wet blouse or the water running down her neck.

  Later, after Lizzy had gotten something to drink and toweled off from her dad’s well-intended but sloppy attempt to resuscitate her, she looked up at Sarah and her father and said, “Did it work? I don’t hear a voice in my head. Does it take a while, or what?”

  Harry shrugged at Sarah with an are-you-going-to-answer-that-question-or-am-I look.

  Sarah answered his unspoken question, “Hey, I may look like a dragon and sound like a 1,244-year-old medieval princess, but at heart, I am really just six. I have noticed my vocabulary has improved, but I am severely limited in my understanding, and especially in my experience with the sword, who, by the way, seems to have gone quiet.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you either, Lizzy, except that there are more things we don’t know than we do know, and blood bonds with mystical swords is one of the things we don’t know much about. I am sorry, honey.”

  Lizzy sighed, then beat back the downcast look that wanted to own her face. “Well, we tried,” she said woodenly, in a way she hoped would encourage her dad and Sarah. It didn’t, but everyone understood the effort and danced to the tune a moment longer.

  Harry scratched his chin. He hadn’t shaved in a week and his face was starting to itch. He looked at his daughter, squinted, and said, “Lizzy, all of us are walking down paths few have ever walked. The few who have are not available to counsel us. I don’t know why Speaker cannot, or will not, communicate with you, but I know this, this journey is not over. Like you were sharing before, we attempted to… to… heck, I don’t know what you call what we were trying to do… but hey, it didn’t work, or better, it hasn’t worked yet. We don’t know that it won’t work. Speaker didn’t say he couldn’t make it work. He said it wasn’t working, and he intended to find out why. He is a very formidable researcher, honey. So, like you said a little while ago, let’s focus on helping someone else and push aside our own fears for the moment.” Harry blew out a long breath and continued, “What did you have in mind?”

  Lizzy nodded and pushed back her disappointment. “You’re right, Dad. I need to practice what I preach. Soooo… here is what I believe needs to happen. Several people in this little community were involved in rescuing the kids in the library and taking down the cultists. Some of the children were probably earmarked for sacrifice, and they don’t even know it. All they know is that their parents are dead or are in jail, and they are in a foster home.”

  Sarah moaned and another plume of steam shot out her nose. “My friends! They’re all my friends.” Harry slipped an arm out and laid his hand on her tear-stained muzzle.

  Lizzy continued.

  “Some of the police officers and first responders watched an old man, protected only by his street clothes, swing an ancient sword to fight a dragon, then saw two dragons fight, and watched Kenneth and Grace die beneath an onslaught of gunfire. Then, in stunned awe, they watched Grandpa Kenneth rise up, when he should have been dead, and single-handedly blow the fool neck of that awful beast.”

  “Yes, he did!” Harry yelled, slapping his fist into his hand. “Yes, he did!”

  “Well, those people need, ought… deserve closure. They need to hear the rest of the story, Dad. They have been told by well-meaning—I think well-meaning—federal agents that the whole event had to be the product of drug-induced hallucinations. Most people were smart enough to tuck their heads and say yes ma’am and no sir in the appropriate fashion. They got bullied into signing forms saying they wouldn’t sue anybody and made statements that nobody believed. It has been a week now. The federal agents have packed up and gone on to the next crisis. The funerals are over, and now people are settling into thinking or forgetting, whichever suits their nature. A few have contacted me, truthfully, more than a few. They want to know where you are and what happened to Sarah. I haven’t said anything over the phone, and I’m not going to. But I am going to see some folks face to face and tell them that you’re okay, and that if they want to see you, they can come here to find out what really happened. I’ll make sure they know that nobody is going to laugh at them, or bully them, or threaten to arrest them, or put them away. So, are you and Sarah okay with that? With finishing this out?”

  Lizzy, a born teacher, had begun to pace as she processed. She was waving her hands, emphasizing her points. Then she stopped, looked up at her dad, and asked, “Don’t they deserve to know? Some may not want to know. They would rather leave things as they are. I don’t know how many people will show up, but I think we need to do this. I also think many of these people need to make restitution or repent for not speaking out when they had the chance. They were afraid, rightly so. Laden Long was a killer from a long line of killers.”

  Sarah puffed out a long roll of smoke a
nd nodded. “Yes. Absolutely, yes. We need to do this.”

  Harry was less enthusiastic. “Lizzy, this is not my first experience with the government or some group’s attempt to clamp down on information. I have even contributed to it myself in the past.” Lizzy looked at him, puzzled. “It’s all in the diaries under my bed, hon, and the problem is, people believe what they want to, see what they want to, and if they are forced to change their worldview too quickly or too drastically, they revolt. So, what you expect to happen may not. Who you expect to show up, and who needs to show up, they may not come. You need to realize that.”

  “Dad, I know what you are saying is true, at least I know it in my head, but my heart tells me we have to try. It’s not like I am going to put up posters all around town or advertise in the paper or on the radio. Remember, half of these people were a part of that cult, and they know how to communicate secrets. Even the sheriff and deputies are aware. Nobody is talking. But everyone who knows wishes deep down that somebody who knew the truth will talk.”

  “Okay, honey, gather your tribe.” He looked around the barn and said, “I think this barn is big enough, for the few that will show up.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Three days later

  The morning of the event that Harry referred to as the secret meeting, he woke up restless. His head told him everything would be fine and all precautions had been taken, but his heart wasn’t buying it and hadn’t shared why. Harry had learned, through excruciating circumstances a lifetime ago, that the key to understanding his own motivations was to ask the right question, even if it required scathing honesty. He might not like the answer, but he knew that if his heart was right, his head would get there eventually. Although he said he didn’t know what was making him uneasy, he had a pretty good idea. Finally, he admitted it to himself and went to find his seven-and-a-half-ton dragon. Sarah had begun flying off at night to prey on the wild hog population that had, up until recently, been a blight in the county. She usually came back long before dawn to hide in the barn the rest of the day. She had also started growing. Harry thought a pig or two a day would do that to a person but wasn’t inclined to point it out to his lady-dragon friend. Harry searched the fire marshal’s property for Sarah. He walked most of the large and wooded farm, until finally, after hiking out to the farthest, most isolated corner, he found her.