by Edun, Terah
Mercenary mages hired by the guild, both of them. They sat with bored eyes and lazy expressions as they kept their illusion standing.
Ezekiel took note of her expression as she turned to look at him with stubborn tilt to her mouth. “You didn’t know, did you?”
“No,” she said. “No, I didn’t.”
Sara looked up to see a winding incline leading straight up to the top of the hill. No rocks, no branches, and nothing hazardous lined its surface. With a sinking stomach, she realized that the entire company had probably been laughing behind her back as she nearly broke her and her horse’s neck trying to get up and down the front.
“Those idiots,” said Ezekiel. “You could have broken your neck.”
Sara snorted and urged Danger forward. “You know...I don’t think they care.”
Ezekiel followed behind her silently as they crested the hill, and then he took her to a small cluster of tents with a standing area of wood poles where two other horses were tied up.
He quickly jumped, or rather fell, down from his mare’s back and tied her up. Sara did the same and walked calmly behind as he ran and tripped his way to his cream-colored tent.
As they entered the tent, she saw one cot against the left side of the tent, a wooden trunk with a lock directly at the head of the tent, and Ezekiel’s red bag in a lump on the floor.
Coming in slowly, she ducked and sat on the cot while Ezekiel hurried over to the trunk and got busy unlocking it.
As she did so, she said, “How exactly did you swing that?”
“Swing what?” he asked while fiddling with the double-breasted beast he used to keep his secrets hidden away.
“A fifteen-pound locker on a march to war,” she said dryly.
He looked at her from his perch on the ground with a guilty expression. “I know one of the cooks. In exchange for her storing my trunk on the food supplies wagon, I gave her some plants.”
“Plants?”
“Some rare ones, actually!” he said smugly.
“Laudanum? Lavender?” Sara asked, naming off two that she knew would be useful for their properties and were not easily acquired on the long road. The first was used to ward off pain. The second was great for the scent it gave off in even the mustiest environments.
“Thyme, coriander, and parsley,” he said as he finally opened the trunk with a loud creak.
Sara stared at him in amazement. “Herbs?”
“Yep,” he said as he dug in and pulled a book from the side. “She’s quite proud of her cooking skills.”
He put that book back.
Then he pulled out a small diary-sized book with a vellum cover and a tassel marking his last page. He quickly flipped through its pages until he found what he was looking for at the very end. Then he read a few lines from what she could tell, flipped a few pages more, and then closed the book with a snap of its pages.
“I know what we need!” announced Ezekiel triumphantly.
“That wasn’t it,” she said.
“Nope.”
He pulled out another, and Sara watched while the trunk lid closed on a space that, as far as she could tell, was filled entirely with books, and Ezekiel flipped around to face the entrance to the tent with his feet crossed.
She sat forward with eager attention as he dusted off the book he held in his hands and opened it. She expected parchment pages filled with writing and perhaps some illustrations to meet her eyes. Instead the open book revealed a secret compartment, and inside that secret compartment lay a vial.
As Ezekiel reached inside to pick up the small vial of colored dusky red glass, he unstopped the vial.
What floated out caused Sara to sit back alert as she said, “Ezekiel Crane, what have you done?”
Ezekiel looked up at her and said, “Found the answer to our mysterious visitors.”
“And broken more laws than I care to count,” she snapped.
Ezekiel held out a hand to the winged creature that fluttered in the air, dust drifting down slowly from its wings. The dragonfly alit on his outstretched palm with its four gossamer wings outstretched.
The damn thing had nothing to do with dragons. She had no idea why it was named the way it was, except for the fact that the devastation it could wreak was on the level of an enraged dragon even though it was as small as her finger. Dragons from Sahalia, of course, were measurably bigger. She seen males that were larger than twenty feet long.
“Those are forbidden,” Sara said urgently.
Ezekiel looked up at her fiercely. “Only because no one else understands them.”
“No one else?” said Sara. “Are you postulating that you understand how to do deal with that dragonfly?”
Ezekiel said calmly, “I do. Oh and it’s female.”
He took a finger and traced it down the spine of the dragonfly.
“I don’t care if it’s a she, put it back where you found it. Now!”
He’s crazy, she thought as she almost stood. The only thing that kept her seated was the need to know. The need to know how he had caught and tamed such a creature...and how it would help them find out more about the purple-eyed man who had disappeared in front of her.
“You do realize that if she gets angry, her dust will filter out, poison, and kill this entire company?”
“I know,” said Ezekiel, “but she can also unlock the truth of what you saw. Including whether or not we’re actually dealing with the legend of the purple-eyed mage in a living being. Unless you have a thousand-year-old Sahalian scroll lying about somewhere?”
“It’s not worth the risk.”
“It’s worth every risk if you weren’t hallucinating the whole thing,” he said tautly.
“I wasn’t,” said Sara, “but quite frankly, that’s just a legend. A myth. Nothing more.”
“Just like the golden eyes of the Weathervanes who first emerged just seventy-five years ago are a myth?”
Sara leaned back.
“Those eyes are a family trait passed down between generations. But you can’t compare the golden eyes to this,” she insisted. “Nowhere is it told that the advent of purple eyes are a family ability.”
“No,” said Ezekiel. “It’s a gift bestowed by the dragons and its magic, which is why we need magic to ensure what you saw was true.”
He held up the fluttering creature in his hand urgently. “Now eat it.”
Sara stared at him unhappily.
Legend said that if you ate a dragonfly, you became something more. A seer of sorts. Of course, she knew it was more than legend because her father had used that tactic. Twice. Once with a subordinate who became his greatest asset in defeating the Kades, and another time on himself. Of course, that hadn’t saved him from execution and a label as a deserter.
But she knew that Ezekiel wasn’t necessarily wrong. She just wondered how he knew how to tame the dragonfly and whether it was worth it to risk her life for it. Because not only was acquiring a dragonfly dangerous, but using it was even worse for the person involved. If she ate it and it worked, she would become a seer. If she ate it and it didn’t work, poison would wrack her body for days and she would be in her own form of hell locked inside her mind until it released her from her symptoms.
Either way, they would find the answer they sought. Whether or not the purple-eyed man was the second coming of a mage that had been long dead was on that list.
“It’s the only way,” pleaded Ezekiel.
“It’s foolish,” snapped Sara.
“And yet you’re not leaving?”
“And yet,” she echoed reluctantly. Then she plucked the dragonfly from his hands and hastily tossed it into her mouth. Ignoring the minute flutter of wings, she chewed and swallowed with haste.
The dragonfly hadn’t struggled at all. She wondered why.
Then Ezekiel spoke. “Is it working?”
The only thing that was working was the disgusting taste of crunchy dragonfly in her mouth and the urge to throttle Ezekiel for talking her into t
his mess.
Then something did happen. A warm feeling began to spread from her stomach to her upper body. Like a pleasant heat it took over her chest, her arms, and then her head.
Sara stared at Ezekiel and her senses enhanced. But not the senses she was used to improving, like her eyesight or hearing. No, this was her mage senses. Her mage sight turned on without her prompting and she watched the tent light up as several objects with residual magic imbedded in them started to glow. The vial in Ezekiel’s hand glowed like a small lantern and the trunk off to the side shone like a small sun.
Then the air around them began to shine. Sara watched in wonder as the ley lines of the world became visible. The ley lines were the remnants of magic used. They streaked and streamed with lines of gold, waves of amber, and spots of cerulean. She could go on and on. It was everywhere and in everything.
She blinked trying to get the lines and spots to go away.
“What is it?” asked Ezekiel excitedly.
She spoke up. “I can see the magic around us.”
“That’s good!” he said. “That’s supposed to be the second step.”
He pulled out his notebook while peering up at her with his quill poised. “I suppose that means you’ve already been through the first with your mage sight?”
She spluttered. “You suppose?”
“Well—” Ezekiel said.
“I thought you knew how this works!”
“I do,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve just never experienced it myself.”
“Lovely,” snarled Sara.
“You need to concentrate!”
“How can I? I’m going blind with the spots.”
“Close your eyes,” he urged. She did as he asked. “Good, now open up the final barrier to your recall ability.”
Sara opened her eyes. “My what?”
“Your memories. You should be able to recall each and every event that has happened to you in perfect recollection. Down to the last detail. And, more importantly, you’ll be able to use this enhanced mage sight to truly discern what is real and what happened in each memory.”
She pursed her lips. Sara closed her eyes.
Waiting for it to come. And then it came. But she recalled something much dearer to her and much further back than her morning meeting with a stranger on the lake.
Sara fell back into her memories. As she drifted off she remembered the day a man in uniform had appeared at mother’s home.
A servant had answered the door and he asked if the lady of the manor was at home.
At the time she and her mother had moved back to Sandrin, to live in their second home, as they usually did when her father was off to war. He preferred to spend his days in the villa north of Sandrin when he was off-duty, training and with his family. Her mother cherished those times, Sara had known, but she had also loved the festivities of living in the city.
So they had stayed in the posh Nobles’ Quarter in a small two-story home.
Her mother had come to the door and Sara had stayed hidden in the nook off to the side. She was thirteen then, gangly, with a body that hadn’t grown to match her legs. She also didn’t want to be seen at the moment as she was covered in mud from a fun fight that her mother wouldn’t approved of.
“Is there something you need?” her mother had asked curiously as she eyed the tightly wrapped scroll in the messenger’s hands.
“No,” said man. “A delivery from Commander Vincent Fairchild is why I’m here, ma’am.”
He held out a long object wrapped in fabric and tied on each end with rope.
Sara couldn’t contain a gasp of surprise and joy.
“He remembered,” she squealed as she leapt from her hiding place, her eyes focused on the object in her mother’s hand.
The messenger nearly jumped a foot in the air, but her mother only turned to her with a rueful smile. A smile that quickly turned to a frown when she saw that her daughter was covered in mud from head to toe.
Her mother put a hand to her breast as she looked her only daughter up and down. “By the gods, Sara, did you roll in a pigsty?”
“Of course not, Mother,” said Sara happily. “Just a mud hole.”
Her mother glared at her. But Sara could see by the twinkle in her eye that she was close to laughing her head off.
Clapping her hands together, Sara had said, “He remembered, Mother. Father remembered his promise.”
“Of course he did,” her mother had said. “He always keeps his word, and today is your birthday.”
Sara had nodded and stepped forward to take the gift.
“Oh no!” said her mother with a warning finger. “You, young lady, are going to the servants’ quarter and taking a bath in their bathing room. You will not get this present until your skin is scrubbed, your ears have been cleaned, your hair has been brushed and combed, and you don’t look like a street ragamuffin.”
Sara deflated more with each item listed. “But that will take forever. Just let me see it, Mother, please!”
“No,” her mother said. “Now go wash. It will be here in an hour when you are finished.”
Sara turned her puppy dog eyes on. Her mother didn’t budge.
With one last rueful look, she had turned and sprinted off to do as she was told.
As she left she heard her mother say, “Thank you,” to the messenger and instruct the footmen to leave the package in her parlor. Where Sara couldn’t get to it unless her mother invited her in.
Chapter 19
Sara remembered as she drifted through the hazy state of recalling her memory that for the next hour she had gone through the most rigorous cleaning she had ever done, and that included the time she had participated in the annual bull run of Lineaus, unbeknownst to her parents, and had come back covered in celebratory red tomato juice. Her mother had been apoplectic then.
When she emerged from the bath in clean clothes with her hair still wet, she had run to her mother’s parlor.
The footman at the door had dropped a pair of slippers at her feet with a quick whisper, “Better put these on, miss.”
Sara had smiled at him brilliantly and slid her feet into the linen footwear. Then she opened the double doors in search of her mother.
Fortunately, she was sitting, as predicted, on the parlor chaise. The package was still wrapped and she held it on her lap, waiting for Sara.
Sara let out a slow breath as she forced herself to walk over slowly to her mother’s seated form.
Smiling, Mistress Fairchild had patted the seat beside her.
As she obediently sat down, young Sara had looked at the package with eager eyes until her mother had lifted it and put it in her hands. “Happy Birthday, my darling daughter.”
Back in the tent, Sara smiled sedately. Still lost in the memory but aware of her surroundings and Ezekiel sitting in front of her.
Ezekiel knew not to say anything. He sat quietly at her feet.
Taking a deep breath, while wondering why exactly this memory had surfaced after so long, and especially when she’d eaten the blasted magical bug to find a much different memory, Sara dived back into the history of her past.
When she closed her eyes on the physical space of the present, she reopened to find herself back where she left off. In her memory, her hands were practically trembling as she hurried to untie the rope at each end of the long, slender gift.
As she tore through her father’s wax seal, she could barely breathe from excitement.
She knew what was coming in the memory, but she couldn’t help the thrill that went through her mind as she started to pull back the cloth to reveal an object incased in crinkling butcher paper in the center.
Young Sara had given her mother an expectant look. Her mother had dipped her head, urging her to go on.
With no further push needed, she tore the paper from its denizen.
Then young Sara of the past gasped in delight while older Sara of the present, watching the festive birthday like a ghost resident in the
room, gasped in shock.
Because the sword that her father had given her on her thirteenth birthday was just as beautiful as she remembered, with its steel-forged blade, bone handle wrapped in taut leather, and inscribed runes on the handle’s base. But there was more this time. This time the handle of the sword shone with a magical light that Sara knew came from residual objects.
Young Sara hadn’t known this. Delighted she had leapt up swinging the sword until her mother scolded her harshly for running with the blade.
As the memory faded, the recall having done its duty, Sara emerged from its depths gasping for air. It was like she couldn’t breathe as she desperately leaned forward against Ezekiel while grasping his shoulders.
“The s-sword,” she coughed out.
“What?” Ezekiel questioned, puzzled as he leaned forward to hold her up. “Breathe, Sara! It’s all right!”
She was coughing and choking. She couldn’t speak anymore.
It felt like something was lodged in her throat.
Desperate, Ezekiel pushed her to lay back on the cot. He leaned over her to see. “There’s a mass in your throat.”
She couldn’t speak as she desperately clawed at his shoulders. Sara knew that if Ezekiel didn’t do something soon, she would pass out and die from lack of air. She couldn’t survive like this.
Desperate, she reached for the knife at her waist. Hands shaking, she pressed it into his hands.
Ezekiel looked from the knife to her throat, frantic. “No, Sara. No. You’ll bleed out.”
She firmly looked him in the eyes. He didn’t have a choice. She knew there was no other way. Besides, she had a trick she could use to stop the blood flow and ease the knife through her trachea. As long as she didn’t lose consciousness first.
Firmly, she guided his hand holding the knife to her throat, to the place on her skin just where the bulge surged up under her flesh. Then she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“There’s no other way? Can’t I get some forceps and get to it that way?” he asked.