He woke to afterimages of those goddamned circles bouncing around. With tentative fingers, Sarn probed his overstuffed head while Ran sat on his chest, drumming his heels. Crumbs fell as his son munched on something and hummed between bites.
What the hell was the boy eating? Where did Ran even find food? Sarn shifted his son to his lap as he sat up to find out. His senses tried to stretch past his skin, but someone had opened his skull and stirred the contents, leaving a headache behind.
Ran glared, arms crossed in consternation.
He must have missed something. “What?”
“Why’d you fall? Why’d all the plants act weird when you went to the light? Why won’t you let me eat?” Ran pointed to a round table and a platter piled high with slices of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and bread. A lumir chandelier dripped silver light on the spread.
“Where are we?”
“The nice man brought us here after you fell.” Ran narrowed his eyes. “You touched a bad thing.”
“What nice man? I told you not to talk to strangers.” Sarn gifted his son with a glare of his own.
Ran shrugged and bit into a ripe strawberry. “And you’re not s’posed to touch glowing things.”
Laughter bubbled up at the absurdity of being scolded by a four-year-old, but Sarn crushed it. He’d never get anywhere if he gave into mirth now. “Did he give you the food?”
Ran nodded and snatched a wedge of soft cheese. Someone had cut the rind off and replaced it with crackers, making it safer, though messier, for a child to eat.
“What did you mean when you said the plants acted weird?” Sarn surveyed the platter seeing more evidence of a caring hand at work. Someone had removed stems, deseeded, skinned and cored the fruits and vegetables safeguarding a small child who would eat anything put in front of him. Maybe life had cut him a well-deserved break.
“Don’t you ‘member? They tried to stop you.”
“Oh. Still, they shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s a ring of standing stones encircling this mountain,” Sarn waved toward the ceiling, “and there are no enchanted plants inside their cordon.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s just how the Litherians set things up.”
“They built this place?”
Sarn nodded then started at the sound of approaching footsteps.
“The nice man comes,” Ran announced as he polished off his cheese and cracker sandwich.
Each footfall prodded Sarn to take his son and flee, but there was nowhere to go. This chamber had only one entrance, and a stranger approached it. Squeezing his eyes shut to hide their glow, he hung his head and pulled his cowl down until it almost touched the bridge of his nose. His heart pounded, beating twice as fast as the newcomer’s slow gait.
Ran’s fingers grasped his hood and pulled. “Why do you hide?”
“Because I have to.”
“No, you don’t.”
The approaching tap-scrape-scrape-tap rhythm struck Sarn as odd. Did the man walk with a cane?
“Why? He can’t see.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s blind.” Ran yanked hard and succeeded in dislodging Sarn’s hood.
The implications of his son's statement staggered Sarn, and he opened his eyes. Could he sit here and take a bite of the orange wedge tempting him from the platter? It looked like a roasted potato if said spuds came with orange flesh.
His stomach growled its own reminder about lunch. Sarn looked from the orange wedge to his son. What if someone other than the blind man was coming toward them?
The tap-scrape-scrape-tap of approaching doom catapulted Sarn from the bench. He refused to risk his son on a ‘what if.’
Ran opened his mouth to protest, but Sarn covered it, silencing the boy as he backed away from the table. Books’ spines pressed into the backs of his shoulders as Sarn leaned into them, squeezing his eyes closed. Some of his fear must have leaked into his son because the boy quit squirming—until Ran saw who entered.
“Did you leave any food for me? Boy, why are you so quiet? Is everything alright?”
Tap-scrape-scrape-tap-thud—the sound repeated then changed to creaking. “Child? I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing. Has your father woken up yet? I think he has. I hear him too. Why don't you both join me.” The newcomer tapped his fingers on the table.
Surprised at the invitation, Sarn slackened his grip on his son.
“I told you he’s blind.” Ran kicked the air in frustration. “But you don’t listen.”
“I’m sorry.” Sarn set his son down. Distrusting the man’s blindness, he kept his eyes closed and felt for the back of the padded bench. Finding it, Sarn slid into place, Ran at his side.
When the plate of colorful food came within reach, Ran resumed stuffing his face.
Polite society had rules but which ones applied to this situation? Flummoxed, Sarn sat there kneading a handful of his cloak.
Sensing his unease, Ran paused in his feeding frenzy, and his head knocked into a bruise left by one of Dirk’s friends. Had the fight in the storeroom taken place only yesterday? It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Why don’t you eat?” A note of worry crept into Ran’s voice right before he shoved something at Sarn.
Cracker crumbs decorated Sarn’s lap and cheese squished against his chin. Sarn wiped it away with his sleeve and gave sight a try. Meal time with his eyes closed had turned into a disaster.
No one screamed when he opened his eyes—a good sign. Sarn relaxed and met his son’s surprised eyes for an instant before they flicked away.
Ran looked at his hand holding the remnant of the cheese and cracker sandwich and sniffed. “Sorry—”
Sarn shrugged, “nothing to be sorry for.”
A tear squeezed out of Ran’s left eye, but he blinked it away, mumbling “sorry,” to his toes. Another tear had fallen before it clicked.
“This would have upset your mother, right?”
Ran nodded and turned his head, so his tears soaked into Sarn’s tunic. He gathered the boy in, not caring about the cheese smearing on his tunic. What was another stain? He couldn’t remember when he’d changed his clothes last—a situation he should rectify and soon.
“It doesn’t bother me. Your heart was in the right place.”
Ran nodded and mumbled ‘momma’ in a voice broken by grief. Nothing Sarn could do would take away the hurt of her leaving. So he said nothing and just held his son. Beku's abandonment set his teeth on edge.
She had called him selfish, but he was the one who’d stayed. What kind of mother abandoned her child two weeks before his fourth birthday? She should have left before Ran had a chance to remember her. It would have been better for all.
“The death of a loved one is hard on a child,” said the blind man reminding Sarn of his presence.
Great his spectacular parenting failure had an audience. Sarn gritted his teeth to keep the scathing reply trapped behind his teeth. Yes, he was a terrible parent. Yes, he was too young, too damaged and too ignorant to take proper care of such a precocious child. But he was all Ran had, and he loved his son.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“No, Papa thinks much and talks little,” Ran said between sniffs. A smile broke through at the word ‘little’ applied to his giant of a father.
“You feel better now?” Sarn asked his son.
Ran nodded and sat down on Sarn’s lap, using his abs as a backrest.
A smile, warm with understanding, turned Sarn's attention to the blind man. Milky eyes, gray beard, flowing robes—had he stumbled onto a religious retreat? No insignia adorned the man’s sable robes.
“You make a good father, son.”
The ‘son’ part knocked the breath from Sarn’s lungs. He hadn’t been called ‘son’ by anyone since his mother died eleven years ago. This man wasn’t his father. The magic gave a big head shake to that. The �
��son’ thing had been meant as a stand-in for a name, like the ‘boy’ and ‘kid’ tags the Rangers employed.
“I’m the son.” Ran stabbed his chest with his thumb then pointed to Sarn. “He’s my Papa.” A frown signaled a subject change. “Why don’t you eat?”
What Ran meant was—why do I have to remind you to eat? His pointed look made his opinion on the matter quite clear.
“You sound like my brother.”
Ran made no reply because anything the child said would complement his uncle and their rivalry left no room for it.
Sarn snatched an orange wedge and bit into it, satisfying his hunger and his son. Potato starchiness met sweetness and what a heavenly marriage they made on his tongue. Who knew potatoes could be sweet and orange at the same time? Good thing there were eight more wedges to enjoy.
“Yes, do eat before the child eats it all.”
“This is where all the food is grown for Mount Eredren, right?” Sarn asked between bites.
“Yes.”
“Are there more places like this?”
“No, just this one—it’s enough to manage.” The blind man shook his head, and the movement caused his beard to shift revealing a flat disc of obsidian bearing interlocking circles.
Sarn dropped a piece of hard cheese and stared at the plaque behind the blind man’s head. It was those goddamned circles again—they were etched into plaques on all four walls and inlaid on the tile floor as well.
His shock must have shown because Ran sat up and looked around too.
“How did you find this place? It’s pretty well hidden.”
“What do the circles mean?” Sarn asked in a voice scraped so thin it almost broke. There was a logical explanation. Only in tales did symbols stalk people, not in the reality he inhabited.
“What circles?”
“The intertwining ones—” Sarn swallowed a lump of fear. Words jumped into his mouth and burned as they fought free leaving questions instead of sense. “Chains within chains—”
His consciousness flickered for a moment interrupted by a vision of circles splashed with blood burning in a black fire as screams tore at his sanity. Sarn rubbed both eyes, but the last image remained seared into his retinas. They were connected somehow to the murders and everything else he’d dealt with over the last two days. He just had to figure out how.
“Are you alright?”
No, he wasn't alright and hadn't been for a long time. Since there was no fix for it, Sarn asked the question driving him mad. “What do they mean—circles whole and broken and the ones enclosing stars?”
The blind man opened his mouth, but a disembodied voice replied instead.
“Messages hidden in light—”
Its tone compelled Sarn to repeat its words. They made no sense to him or the blind man judging by the fellow’s furrowed brow.
“Circles you say?”
“Yes, like the pendant you wear. What does it mean?”
The blind man traced the etching, face clearing as something dawned on him. “Life—it means life.”
“The broken circle means death,” which should have been obvious from the damned vision. Sarn rubbed a hand over his face. Sometimes he was every bit the moron the Rangers thought him to be.
Footsteps approached, and his sixth sense fired off a warning. Sarn winced and rubbed his aching head. “Someone’s coming.”
“Who?” Ran asked.
“I don’t know.” Sarn shook his head. The icons on his map were unfamiliar.
“You have to go. Don't go out the way I entered.” The blind man’s chair scraped back. He fumbled with the books on a nearby shelf until the whole unit swung in on silent hinges. “Tell no one you were ever here.”
Well, that settled the secret issue. “Only if you keep quiet about my son.”
The blind man nodded. “Your secret’s safe with me. Go now. They can’t find you here.”
“Thank you for your hospitality.” Sarn gave the chamber one last glance. Had he missed anything? Like the cancerous rot, Mount Eredren had sent him to find? His sixth sense radiated out making one last check. No, this verdant place was an oasis of life. The cancer he’d sensed had been the utter opposite. Sarn pulled his sixth sense back in before it could kick off another headache but stopped when one of the books felt wrong—sick somehow. He skimmed its blank spine with his finger, and an image flashed across his mind’s eye—a circle with a thirteen-pointed star bleeding inside it. Hadrovel’s miserable eye peered through the bloody star.
A voice whispered, Eam’meye erator, and pain shattered Sarn. Images ricocheted across his mind’s eye accreting into fragments of memories. Hadrovel loomed over his frightened son. Cairns moaned and a white-clad sacrifice lit candles arranged to form a thirteen-pointed star. A dead boy opened pale green, unseeing eyes.
All the fragments fell into the black pools of Jerlo’s eyes. Sarn caught as many forgotten memories as he could and held onto them as he fell through the mote in the commander’s eye. Reality broadsided him, sending Sarn stumbling into a wall. His stomach twisted with sudden nausea. Bits and pieces of things floated in his mind. Maybe they were recovered memories. He could piece them together later.
Right now, he had to get that book. The answer to everything lay within its pages. Sarn reached through the closing door toward that book, but it flew off the shelf before he could grab it. A shadowy creature dropping the thick volume into Rat Woman’s hands before vanishing. Her mirrored eyes met his as Sarn pushed against the secret panel. But he couldn’t stop it from closing.
“No! How do you open the door?” Sarn felt along the wall seeking a trigger, inside his head, his magic screamed at him to run. But the answer was in there, so he pounded on the wall. Magic coated his hand turning it luminous as it repelled him. Sarn stumbled into the blind man who seized a handful of his tunic and shook it.
“You must come with me. They’ll kill you if they find you here.”
“What? Why?”
“Don’t ask me. Ask the Lord of the Mountain. It’s his law.” The blind man shrugged and swung his cane to check for obstacles.
“But there’s a book in there I need to see.”
Ran tugged on his pant leg. “Papa, I want to go home now.”
A familiar rat darted out and trod on Sarn’s boot.
“What does your mistress want with that book?”
“Which book?” Ran asked. “There were lots in there.”
“Never mind. I’m sure I’ll run into her again.”
“Who?”
“Rat Woman.”
“She was here? Where?” Ran looked around but there was nothing but tons of granite surrounding them.
“Rat who?” asked the blind man.
Rat Woman’s spy rose on two legs and chittered at Sarn as it brandished its paw.
“What do you want?”
“Us to go away. Come on Papa. It’s time to go.” Ran clasped Sarn’s hand and started walking. He gave the blind man’s leg a gentle shove to get their guide moving.
Sarn let his son tug him away from the closed door as Rat Woman’s icon vanished. She’d absconded with the book and all hope of answers—damn her. Maybe all wasn’t lost. When he’d touched the book, he’d seen things. Sarn sifted through those fragmented images swirling about his mind until a voice called him.
It sang a song of power and Sarn followed it around a bend. Everything glowed. Crystals crisscrossed forming a web of arteries carrying magic of all colors and types. They each hummed a different chord in a great symphony, and the magic in his blood danced to its beat.
Toward a rainbow-hued latticework pulsing with hundreds of gradations of color and magic, Sarn drifted. He extended his hand to touch a fat green crystal whose basso profundo rumble invoked images of stone, shelter, and safety. The three things he craved. Its song strummed his veins making them vibrate with need.
One touch would tell him where the power in the pipeline went and what it did. Then he could explore its neighb
ors and discover what magic was sky blue, crimson, gold—
“No Papa!” Ran jumped into his path, arms outstretched. “Touching glowing things is bad. No touching!” Ran wrapped his arms around Sarn's legs and shook his head.
“What glowing things?” The blind man bumbled into Sarn’s path patting empty air.
Sarn bent and pried at his son’s arms, but Ran fought him, and the magic’s light made the tears spilling down his son’s face glitter. The sight broke the enchantment, freeing Sarn.
“I’m sorry I scared you. You’re right. I won’t touch them. I don’t know what I was thinking.” The magic had hijacked his good sense again. Why did it tempt him so much? Because he was as inquisitive as the boy he held close to his heart. He had enough magic running amok inside him complicating his life. He did not need more of the stuff.
Ran nodded and wiped his tears on Sarn’s tunic.
“Lead on,” Sarn said to the blind man.
“These glowing things you mentioned—do you think they’re conduits for magic?”
“That’s my guess. They must be something left over from the Litherians.”
Lumir provided the light for the farm cavern, and Mount Eredren had plenty of fresh water. So what did it need magic for? But the question, like so many others he’d stumbled upon over the last few days, might not be germane to the problem he was supposed to be solving. Sarn cast it aside until a six-sided crystal came into view.
Standing twelve feet on a side on a bejeweled pedestal, the giant stone blazed with raw power. Its pure white light wrapped around Sarn drawing him close. Symbols flared, combined and disintegrated in a shower of sparks in the crystal's center. They formed new patterns faster than he could identify them. Sometimes they flashed by as individuals and at others, in long chains flowing into the crystals branching off its crown and base. The subordinate crystals were conduits, and this was a magical hub of some kind. What was all this power fueling?
“No Papa, you promised.” Ran smacked his father, hitting him square in the jaw. “No touching glowing things. Touching them is bad. We talked about this.”
Shock dropped his gaze to meet his son’s. Before now, Ran had hit only inanimate objects like stairs never people.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 32