by Sam Ferguson
He snaked out onto the nearest beam, careful to move slowly and silently. He didn’t hear any talking from below, but there was no way to be sure the room was empty until he removed a ceiling panel. For all he knew, Headmaster Herion might be sitting in the office reading, as he was often wont to do.
Fortunately, as Kathair reached down to pull up his favorite panel which rested above a sturdy bookshelf that reached up all the way to the ceiling and had an actual ladder that he could drop down to, he found the office to be empty.
He maneuvered himself through the open panel and lowered himself down until he was hanging by his hands at arm’s length, and then he dropped to the bookshelf. He scurried down the ladder and went for the mahogany desk a few feet away. He had been in the office several times, so he already knew his way around fairly well. He had even stolen Herion’s journal before, so he was certain he could find what he was looking for.
He pulled the right drawer out first and rummaged through the two small books in there. One was an old journal, the other was a ledger of some sort for the school. Below them were a few papers, letters mostly. Lepkin scanned through them, but was disappointed to find that they were from nobles. Some were donation pledges, and others were about various apprentices at the academy.
Lepkin shoved them back into the drawer and then closed it as he moved on to the next one. He found a small bottle filled with brandy and a snifter beside it. He pulled the drawer out farther, but found nothing else besides a pair of white napkins. He closed the drawer and moved to the bottom drawer. This one was locked.
It had always been locked.
Not wanting to fail in what might be his final chance to help Kyra, he took a step back and then kicked the front of the drawer. The wood cracked, but didn’t entirely succumb to Lepkin’s strike. He hit it once more, putting all of his weight behind his kick this time. The wood split and squeaked as the small nails were yanked out around the edges and the wood went into the large drawer. Lepkin pulled his foot back with some effort, and then bent down to put his hand into the drawer.
There was mostly empty space. He reached deeper, and then his fingers touched upon some papers. He seized them and pulled them free of the drawer.
The first was a letter from the king. Lepkin scanned it quickly and saw that it had to do with the secret group Herion had been leading. His eyes moved along the page faster, hoping it would talk about an assignment to attack the vampire, but it didn’t. It was mostly speaking of organizational matters, and was frankly useless to Lepkin.
He tossed the letter aside and then moved on to the next letter in the stack. He scanned through four more letters before he found the one he needed.
This particular letter was dated several months ago. It was signed with the drawing of a bird instead of a name, but it claimed to know the location of Severin’s lair.
Lepkin read through it quickly, and saw that the letter indeed described the very port town he had seen through Herion’s magic when Master Baird and Lady Stirling had tried to subdue the vampire.
He smiled and folded the letter until he could fit it into his left shoe. He then turned and moved to put the thick stack of letters back into the broken drawer when a heavy envelope slipped out and fell upon the floor. Lepkin stuffed the letters into the drawer and then reached down for the envelope. He recognized the wax seal along the back and noticed that it was unbroken.
“What could the elves of Tualdern wanted to say to you, Headmaster Herion?” Lepkin asked aloud. He turned the envelope over in his hand and nodded when he saw the handwriting. He knew exactly who had sent the letter. Underneath the addressee portion, he saw the words ‘regarding Kathair’s history,’ and he squinted at the envelope.
My history? He knew his own history well enough, and it was not so remarkable. The things he had forgotten of his home had been taught to him by his guardians in Tualdern. There was nothing mysterious about him. Certainly nothing important enough to send in a letter like this.
Or was there?
Curiosity got the better of him.
Lepkin stood up and turned the envelope over once more. He slipped his finger under the flap and slid it toward the wax seal. It took a bit of effort, but the seal broke and the flap lifted backward. Lepkin unfolded the envelope completely and stared at the visible portion of the folded letter in his hands. It was thick enough that Lepkin guessed there were several pages there.
On the top of this paper were the following instructions.
This letter is to be given to Kathair Lepkin upon his graduation.
Kathair drew his brow in tight, confused as to what could be so important. He unfolded the letter and began to read the first few lines of the letter aloud.
“Master Kathair Lepkin, my friend, I must first apologize to you. I have held several secrets from you in your youth. It is not normally in my nature to do so, but in your case I had to make an exception. I hope that by the time you receive this letter, you will have the wisdom to understand why I did what I did. I will not presume to ask your forgiveness, but trust that I had your best interest at heart.
“Your history is complicated by your specific lineage and homeland. The strife and troubles your family persevered through, and the sacrifices of others made on your behalf must be unfolded to you now. Nothing is as you thought it was.”
The door opened and Lepkin’s breath caught in his throat. He looked up to see Headmaster Herion.
The old wizard looked down to the pile of papers and he sighed heavily. “Oh, you should not be reading that.”
Lepkin didn’t think. He gripped the letter tightly and ran past Herion.
“Kathair, come back!”
Lepkin was sprinting down the hall as fast as he could. He turned at the first stairway but crashed into the solid bulk of Feberik Orres as the large warrior was coming up the steps.
“Easy there,” Feberik said as he reached out and grabbed Lepkin by the arm.
“Let me go!” Lepkin shouted.
Herion was there in an instant. “Hold him still, Feberik.”
Lepkin felt a surge of heat as the papers in his hand ignited. He yelled in pain and let the flaming pages of the letter fall to the floor. As they floated down, his eyes caught a single portion of a sentence as flames ate their way to it from all sides of the paper.
…their murder.
Lepkin stopped struggling and fixed his eyes on those two words. His mind raced. His parents had been murdered? That isn’t what he remembered. Who would have done that? Why?
He looked up to Herion with rage in his eyes and a fire burning in his heart. “My parents were murdered?” he asked.
Herion held a hand up in the air to quiet the boy. “Kathair, there is a lot to your history that is best left in the shadows for now.”
“You burned the letter!” Lepkin screamed. “I have a right to know!”
“Kathair, it isn’t as simple as you believe it to be.”
Lepkin was done listening. He lashed out with his right leg and kicked Headmaster Herion in the groin, hard. The wizard snorted and grimaced as he fell to his knees.
Lepkin felt Feberik squeeze his wrist so hard it felt as though his hand might pop off, but he was not about to back down. He turned and tried to kick Feberik as well, but the large man moved his knee out to block Lepkin. The young apprentice then lashed out with blinding speed and slapped his hand over Feberik’s left ear.
The large man grunted and leaned his head to the side.
Lepkin then jabbed a finger in the man’s eye.
Feberik let go and put both hands over his eye. “I’ll crush you for that!” Feberik snarled.
Lepkin then went in and put all of his rage into a kick that struck its target this time. Feberik moaned and doubled over. Then, Lepkin leapt down the stairs and ran as fast as he could for Kyra’s room, stuffing the tears down inside. First he would help Kyra, then he would find a way to uncover the mystery of his past.
*****
Kyra had just man
aged to slip into her nightgown when there was a strange thud on the other side of her door.
“Janik?” Kyra called out.
A key slipped into the door and unlocked it. The door opened, but it was not Janik who stood there. It was Lepkin, out of breath and all red in the face. Behind him, Janik was slumped over in his chair.
“You hit him?” Kyra asked incredulously.
“I don’t have much time.” Lepkin entered the room and shut the door behind himself. He locked it quickly and then left the key inside. “I have the vampire’s location.” Lepkin bent down to his shoe and pulled a folded piece of paper out.
Kyra looked at him strangely, narrowing her eyes. She had never seen him like this before. Sure, he had been excited at times, but this was something far more than that. “You hit Janik,” she said.
Lepkin nodded and stepped closer. “He would have stopped me from seeing you if I hadn’t,” he said. “I had to do it.”
“What has gotten into you,” Kyra said, ignoring the folded note in his hand.
“I…” Lepkin shook his head and looked to the floor. “It doesn’t matter. Here, you have to take this. They are sending me away in the morning. I won’t be able to go with you, but I had to give this to you. Herion had the vampire’s location written down on this piece of paper. It’s a letter from—”
Someone grabbed the door and tugged on it furiously.
“Open the door!”
Kyra recognized the voice as that of Master Fenn.
She turned to obey, but Lepkin grabbed her by both arms and pulled her away from the door and toward Linny’s old bed.
“Listen to me,” he said. “This will give you what you need. Follow the letter and take Leatherback. Finish this, once and for all.”
The intensity in his voice was nothing compared to his tempestuous blue eyes. They swirled a mix of anger and grief. “What happened?” she asked.
She never got her answer.
The door fell to the floor amidst a swirl of smoke and sparks.
Master Fenn stepped into the room, his eyes burning and fixing quickly on Lepkin. “Unhand her!” Fenn shouted. He lifted his hand and Lepkin was magically tossed into the wall at his back on the other side of Linny’s old bed.
“Don’t hurt him!” Kyra shouted. “He meant me no harm!”
“He has already attacked Herion, Feberik, and Janik,” Master Fenn said coldly. “I don’t rightly care what his future intentions are; I am here for what he has already done.”
Kyra stopped cold and looked back to Lepkin. He opened his hand and let the folded paper fall between the bed and the wall.
“Finish it,” Lepkin struggled to say.
Master Fenn whispered something and the two of them disappeared in a puff of gray smoke, leaving Kyra alone in her room. She glanced to the broken door and saw Janik beginning to stir. The man put his good hand to the back of his head and then looked to Kyra. His eyes rested on her for a moment, and then he looked to the door lying on the floor.
“I’m not fixing that,” he grumbled. “Herion asked me to sit outside your door and prevent you from leaving your room. He didn’t say anything about your friend Kathair coming and whacking me while I took a nap.” He made a show of rubbing his head some more and then he stood up. “I’m done. Let Cyrus or Herion watch your room. This is getting to be far too troublesome for me.”
With that, the crippled janitor limped down the hallway and disappeared.
Kyra lifted the door and propped it precariously back into place. Though it was by no means a sturdy barrier, it would at least afford her some semblance of privacy. She moved to Linny’s old bed and pulled it out from the wall. She reached around and felt for the folded paper Lepkin had brought. She found a paper and pulled it up, but it was not the folded paper Lepkin had dropped. It was an old letter from her mother.
Kyra smiled. She realized the letter must have fallen by the wall around the time Linny had been sent to room with her. She had shifted some of her things then to make space for her roommate, so it wasn’t at all surprising that one of her mother’s old letters might be lost there by the bed. She placed it on the bed and then reached back down for Lepkin’s paper.
She found it and brought it up as well and began to unfold it. She read the letter and felt a mix of joy and sadness at the same time. This would lead her to Severin’s lair. Lepkin had come through for her once more. Where she and Cyrus had failed to figure out how to find the dagger and lure the vampire to them, Lepkin had found the vampire. Now she could bring the fight to Severin.
Then again, that might not end so well.
She remembered watching Master Baird and Lady Stirling die at Severin’s hands. Surely they had been preparing for the fight, yet they were no match for Severin.
Kyra wasn’t even sure she could find Leatherback again. She had only traveled to Viverandon through Njar’s portals. She had no way of finding the place herself. She also couldn’t sit and wait in the aspen grove for Njar to come for her. The grove was damaged now, and news of the dragon slayers’ deaths was sure to spread.
If Severin wanted to lay a trap for her, he could easily wait at the grove himself now that its location was no longer secret.
She looked at the bottom of the letter, wondering who might have signed it with the drawing of a bird instead of a name. Was it another agent in Herion’s special group, or was it some other spy?
She dropped the letter and picked up her mother’s letter. She let her eyes course over the page as she rubbed her mother’s signature with her right hand.
“If only you were here,” she said. “You would know what I should do.” She stared at the letter as though it would answer her if she watched it long enough. She smiled after a few moments and brought it up to her lips and kissed it. “I miss you,” she said.
As she pulled the letter away, a violet shimmer ran across the paper. Kyra nearly froze. With all her work with Cyrus, she now realized there was a charm on the letter.
She sat up straight and held the letter eagerly in both hands. Kyra spoke the words of an incantation that dispelled magical charms, but it didn’t work. She tried again, but still nothing happened. Holding the letter up over her head, she tilted the paper this way and that, watching the faint shimmering color flash before her.
“What are you hiding?” she asked the paper. She then tried to focus on the charm. She tried every method to dispel it that Cyrus had taught her, but nothing worked. She became so frustrated that she growled and shook the letter. “Show me!” she snarled.
The young sorceress scoured her mind for ideas, but she had tried everything she knew. She had used everything Cyrus had taught her to dispel the charm.
Then, something else came to her mind.
She jumped up and went to her bed. She bent down and reached under the frame. She had almost forgotten about the present her mother had slipped into her bag before she came to Kuldiga Academy.
She retrieved the book from its hiding place and opened the front cover. Once more she read the note her mother had sent along with the book, now tucked lovingly inside the cover.
My Darling Kyra,
As promised, here is the first of so many letters, you will not be able to endure them. I know that you are worried about your studies this year being less than you might have hoped. When you feel yourself in need of a stretch, have a look at the spells which you will find here. Be careful not to let your professors find you with this book; they will most certainly disapprove.
Love,
Your Mother
Kyra began flipping through the pages. She had been so bent on solving her mother’s murder, and swept up in the events that happened so quickly after finding Leatherback’s egg, that she had hardly opened this book while here. In fact, she had nearly forgotten about it altogether.
She turned the pages quickly, barely scanning the headings of various spells and incantations before moving on through the book. She was nearly half way through the book before she sa
w a hand drawn symbol at the top of a page.
It was a small heart, drawn in her mother’s hand.
Kyra began to feel not only excitement, but great joy swell up inside her when she read the title of the spell on that page. “The Stalwart Letter,” Kyra read aloud. “This is a simple, yet highly effective spell used to conceal written messages from prying eyes and ensure that only the intended recipient can ever read it.”
Kyra devoured the instructions for the spell and then held the charmed letter in front of her. The instructions to work the charm were far simpler than she had hoped, but therein lay the genius of the spell, for giving the simple gesture and pass phrase was the only way the charm could ever be opened.
Kyra had already unwittingly figured out the gesture when she had kissed the letter. The missing phrase she now knew from the book her mother had given her.
She brought the letter to her lips and kissed it gently. Then she said, “Speak, for the friend is listening.”
The violet shimmer glowed brighter now, and the ink on the paper was wiped away, erasing the letter that had been written on the paper before. In the previous letter’s place, a new message was written as if by an invisible pen with fiery ink. The bright spot flourished along the paper, matching her mother’s handwriting exactly and leaving a new, plainly legible letter for her.
My Dearest Kyra,
If you are reading these words, then you have figured out the true reason I gave you the book. As I write these words, I fear for our safety. There is a great evil that hunts us. Hopefully, I will manage to defeat the monsters that hunt us before you ever figure out how to open this letter. But, if I fail in this endeavor, you should know that I have a plan that might work for you, but it will be dangerous.
There is a dagger, hidden in our home, that commands great power. I have only now come to have a modest understanding of its true capabilities and origin. I have kept it because it is one of few weapons that can kill a vampire as easily as a dagger might slay a normal human being.