Sky Jewel Legacy- Heritage

by Gregory Heal

  As the Shepherd resumed his post in the sky, Victor pointed to an open spot near a line of trees near the edge of the enclosure. “Right down there, Skar.” Skarmor spread his talons out, landing softly on the neatly-trimmed grass.

  The first to dismount, Jen noticed movement by the tree line and made her way over to check it out as Victor stayed with Skarmor, explaining to the griffin that he had to stay in the enclosure. A few seconds passed before the familiar face of Treeow poked out.

  “Hey,” she said with a smile, “what are you doing here?” Jen reached out to pet the cat, but it jumped back into the bushes as Victor approached.

  “Jen, you ready?” He said behind her.

  “Right.” Jen got up slowly, wondering why the cat showed up.

  “Our flight didn’t get you sick, did it?” Victor asked, concerned at Jen’s change in mood.

  Jen shook her head. “No, I just . . . Treeow’s here.” She pointed at the bushes.

  Victor pondered this. “Watercress is a long way from its home. It probably smells the food being prepared inside and wants the leftovers,” he joked.

  “Maybe,” Jen responded, too preoccupied to pick up Victor’s attempt at humor. She remained thinking about it as they made their way along the open promenade toward Watercress Castle. There were bouquets of carnations and banners that said Sesquimillennial Jubilee adorning the pathway as they walked by.

  “So you’ll be fine while I meet with the Grand Mystra?” Victor asked.

  “Trust me”—Jen patted the bag containing her dress and makeup—“I have work to do.”

  Victor laughed. “I’m sure you do.”

  They walked across a stone-cobbled bridge to a drawbridge that overlooked one of Lac Cravath’s spring rivers. Jen stared down and around in splendor as she tried to keep up with Victor.

  “Is there anything this castle doesn’t have?” Jen asked, half-rhetorically.

  “Air conditioning,” Victor said to her, looking out the corner of his eye.

  “You’re kidding.” She snapped her fingers after discovering Victor was indeed not kidding. “Darn. I hope we don’t get overheated tonight.”

  “You don’t need air conditioning when you have terramancers who can cool this place down with one spell.” Victor twirled his staff lavishly.

  “Good point,” Jen said as she walked under the retracted spikes of the main gate.

  “The main bathrooms are past the first hallway on the left.” Victor pointed ahead. “And I’ll see you in the ballroom later.”

  “Sounds good,” Jen said, already beginning to unzip her shoulder bag to check if she remembered to pack her eyeliner. She did.

  “I’ll let you know how the meeting goes,” Victor said in all seriousness.

  “Thank you.” She touched his arm, then broke off before she missed the hallway that led to the bathroom.

  Victor continued on to the Elder Synod council chamber, where the rest of his search team was waiting for him.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Beth Smith was nestled comfortably in her husband’s embrace as she lay awake. Even though she was scared, being in the Lair of Despair as she was, her fear was greatly suppressed whenever she was next to her Richard. Feeling somewhat safe and calm, she hugged his arm close and felt his chest rise and fall. Before long, she had synced her breathing to his: in and out . . . in and out . . . in and—

  Beth inhaled, but didn’t feel Richard’s chest move at all. Her eyes shot wide open in fear. Beth turned around and put her ear to her husband’s chest. She waited and waited for her worry to be a false alarm, but with every passing second, it instead turned into shock.

  “Rick . . . ?” she whispered. She found one of his wrists and took a pulse.

  Nothing.

  “Honey, wake up.”

  She caressed his face, feeling a lack of warmth that only meant one thing.

  “Richard!” she screamed, not caring about her volume. All she wanted was for her husband to wake up and tell her that everything would be okay; that he loved her.

  Instead she was met with silence and a limp grip.

  “Richard!” Beth screamed again, feeling all her strength leave her. She let her head fall to Richard’s lifeless chest as her sobs echoed in the darkness, joining the mournful calls of the destitute and forgotten.

  Beth’s commotion must have caught the attention of one of the guards, for amidst her weeping, she faintly heard the jangling of keys as her rusty cell door swung open.

  “No!” She desperately hugged Richard, refusing to give him up. Softly kissing her husband’s lips, she whispered, “I love you, Rick. I love you so much.” She lashed out when she felt a hand grab her shoulder. “Get away from us! You’re not taking my husband away from me!”

  The guard tapped her with a finger and she went limp as the sleep spell took effect, sending her into darker unconsciousness than ever before.

  Beth stirred. Richard was nowhere near her. Still keeping her eyes shut, she frantically patted around her, praying that she would feel him, but the ground felt . . . different. She knew the texture of every inch of her cell, and she wasn’t in it any longer.

  “You can open your eyes,” a muffled voice said.

  Beth tried her hardest, but she could barely open her eyelids a sliver against the harsh light in the room . . . whatever room she was now in. Having kept her eyes closed for almost two weeks in the dark prison bay, her eyes hurt from the sudden blast of light. Bringing her hands up to shield her eyes, she demanded, “W-where am I? Where’s my husband?”

  Blinking through tears, she made out a dark figure wearing a visored helmet and, immediately to his left, the prone form of Richard.

  “Rick!” she exclaimed, crawling over and sweeping him into a hug. Her elation quickly faded into sorrow as she felt him limply sway in her arms.

  It hadn’t been a dream. Her husband was dead.

  “You’re in a containment chamber just outside the prison bay,” the masked guard said.

  Too shocked to respond, she stared at Richard’s face for the first time in two weeks. He had a full beard, which masked his sunken cheeks, and looked to have lost twenty pounds. Beth guessed she didn’t look any healthier.

  “What are you planning to do with him?” She brushed a tuft of graying hair behind Richard’s ear, not wanting to take her eyes off her husband.

  The guard took off his helmet and said, “We’re going to wait for him to wake up and then make our escape.”

  Beth whipped her head around to look at the guard. Her jaw dropped when she recognized the man staring back at her. Granted, he looked twenty years older and considerably thinner than she remembered, but she could never forget his face.

  “Charles!” she gasped.

  “It’s all right, Beth.” Now fully shaven, he smiled solemnly, placing his guard helmet on the floor and kneeling down next to her.

  “Is Richard really gone?” Tears streamed from her eyes.

  “It only looks that way. Richard is completely fine. I used a telemancy spell to slow his heart rate to make him seem dead.”

  Beth looked back at Richard, whose skin had regained some color. With elation, she could feel a murmur of a heartbeat.

  “Richard and I agreed that this was the only way to get you out of your cells. I hope you can forgive us.” Charles put a hand on her forearm.

  “Richard knew?” Beth could not believe what she was hearing. She wanted to be furious, but all she could feel was relief.

  Suddenly, Richard twitched and lurched upward, gasping for air. Charles stood up, smiling tightly as he let Beth calm her husband down.

  “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Beth rubbed Richard’s chest with her hand.

  Richard squinted from the light as his eyes adjusted. “Beth?” he said between shallow breaths.

  Beth kissed him long and hard, and everything else melted away.

  Beth pointed at Richard, sniffling as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Don’t you ever do that a
gain.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Richard whispered, closing his eyes to give them a break from the light.

  “All that matters is that you’re alive,” Beth replied. She propped Richard up and turned to Charles. “Thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary,” Charles said, tipping his head forward.

  “Where’s Jocelyn?” Beth asked.

  Charles pursed his lips and looked at the ground. “She died twenty years ago in an explosion.”

  Beth and Richard stared, shocked. “I’m so sorry, Charles,” Beth said.

  Charles exhaled. “Me too.”

  “How did you escape?”

  Charles cleared his throat and picked up his helmet. “I’ll fill you in later. We have to keep moving.” He went to stand next to the chamber’s door. “I apologize for my curtness, but Draconex should be coming back soon. Do you feel like you can walk, Richard?”

  Richard swallowed. “Yes.” He leaned on Beth as he stood up—a little wobbly at first, but he quickly balanced.

  “Good, but let me know if you need to rest.” Charles walked toward the door.

  “What’s over there?” Beth pointed at a sleek, black cylinder jutting out of the far wall.

  “That is where burial pods are prepared for deceased inmates.” Charles slid on his guard helmet and peered outside.

  “We’re escaping in burial pods?” Beth asked, her voice incredulous.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Richard reassured her, rubbing her arms.

  Charles stepped back inside the chamber and lifted his visor. “No . . . we’re not that crazy. Those pods are blasted out the bottom of Feralot and burrowed deep below the planet’s crust. We’d be signing our own death warrants.” He peeked outside again.

  “We’re going to walk out of here,” Richard explained.

  “We’d be spotted almost immediately, though.” Beth plucked at her dingy inmate garb to make her point.

  “We’ve got company!” Charles put a finger to his mouth and dropped his visor back over his face.

  Both Beth and Richard hid behind the burial pods and held their breaths, hoping they wouldn’t be caught.

  Beth remembered how their guards would often joke about the penalty for trying to escape, and she came to the conclusion that she would rather die than be slowly eaten by zombie leeches—or whatever they were . . . she didn’t intend to find out. She reached out and took her husband’s hand as her heart raced in her chest. It slowed slightly after Richard affectionately squeezed her hand and looked her in the eye, giving her a look that told her that everything would be all right.

  Motionless, they both peeked through an opening between two of the pods to see Charles quickly step out into the corridor.

  “Hey, burial pod 1620 is jammed. Can you give me a hand?”

  Beth didn’t hear a response, but she saw Charles step aside to let two guards enter. Behind the guard mask, one was stocky and tall. His friend, who looked to be no older than a teenager, was a few inches shorter—and a healthy amount of pounds lighter.

  For a second, Beth’s heart caught in her throat when she thought she locked eyes with the bald guard, but she started breathing again once she saw his eyes continue their sweep over each burial pod.

  “The red malfunction light isn’t on for any of the pods,” the stocky guard pointed out as the younger guard crossed his arms. “Who did you say you were again?”

  He never got an answer. Just as he turned around, Charles struck his solar plexus with a well-timed roundhouse kick, sending the stocky guard pinwheeling back on his heels, sputtering. Before the younger guard could call for help, Charles quickly dropped him to the ground with a leg sweep, knocking him unconscious. The stocky guard was still trying to find his breath as Charles quickly walked over and introduced him to Mr. Sandman.

  With a single wave of his hand, Charles motioned to the Smiths that the coast was clear. “Your regulation prison guard uniforms.” Charles tossed a helmet to Richard once he came out from behind the burial pods.

  “Which are fitted perfectly,” Beth mentioned in surprise. She held the shorter guard’s uniform out in front of her as she looked at her husband.

  “Charles knows how to pick ‘em,” Richard said as he and his wife donned their disguises.

  A few minutes later, Charles, Richard, and Beth walked out of the chamber wearing matching uniforms and leaving two Dark Watchers tied together in tattered prison clothes.

  In silence and amidst tears of relief, Beth and Richard followed Charles out of the prison bay.

  Fighting every urge to pick up and run away from the Lair of Despair as fast as she could, Beth anxiously marched non-nonchalantly behind her husband and Charles. She did not look back, for she knew that would only bring horrible, scarred memories of her imprisonment, which would surely and relentlessly assault her—and she knew that Richard felt the same. She didn’t know how long they had languished in their dark cell, but it felt like decades. The only thought that kept her relatively calm was making it out alive so she could see her children again.

  Her erratic breathing sounded amplified in the enclosed guard’s helmet, and Beth prayed that she didn’t look as distraught on the outside as she felt on the inside. The silence painfully dragged on as she and Richard followed Charles, trusting that he knew where he was going. Dark Watcher after Dark Watcher passed the trio, not paying any attention to them.

  Is this actually working?

  As the corridor opened up into an immense hangar, Beth saw that the ground dropped off ahead into a chasm that was so deep that light could not reach its true depths. Not slowing down, Charles kept making his way toward the chasm and Beth almost said something—until she realized that there was a wide bridge that connected both sides of the hangar.

  Their guard boots clanged on the hollow metal bridge as Beth began to hear strange noises echoing all around her. At first they sounded like the groaning of rusted metal, but as she walked off the bridge toward a winding staircase that led to Feralot’s dungeon, she found the noises becoming more organic, but just as terrifying.

  What is that . . . ?

  Their boots resonated on the metal stairs like the mournful calls of ghosts as they descended deeper and deeper into Feralot. The groans became louder and more frequent, sounding more like angry roars than metalwork. One particular roar was so ear-splitting that it shook the entire spiral staircase, making it feel as if it would buckle at any second.

  Unable to contain herself any longer, Beth grabbed Richard’s hand and asked, “What’s making that horrible noise?”

  Her husband shrugged, having never heard that kind of noise before, but Charles answered.

  “Dragons.”

  Richard squeezed his wife’s hand reassuringly. Naturally, neither of the Smiths had seen a dragon before—let alone believed them to be real—but now, as they followed Charles to the bottom of the staircase and could see cages filled with creatures that could only be dragons, there were no doubts left in their minds that those mythical creatures were real.

  A stale smell of burnt flesh wafted to their noses, causing them to stop in their tracks. “Your helmets have air purifiers. Press the button by your right ear,” Charles explained as he turned on his purifier. They followed suit as cool, fresh air filtered in, nullifying the putrid stench.

  Still holding her husband’s hand, Beth followed Charles down a row of caged dragons.

  All were enormous hulks of scales and horns, each creature having its own menacingly distinct look. There were dragons that looked malnourished while others had bulging muscles as they paced in their cages, hungrily eyeing the trio as they slowly walked by. A few were sleeping, wrapped up in their wings in the back corners of their cages. A couple of the dragons that noticed the three walking by either rammed their scaly tails or spewed white-hot flame into their cage’s electric barriers, making both Beth and Richard flinch. The barriers held the onslaught as the dragons fumed, frustrated that they could not ge
t out.

  In some way, Beth sympathized with them. Not that long ago, she, her husband, and Charles were the ones stuck in a godforsaken prison.

  “Why are we down here?” Beth whispered to her husband once she found her voice.

  “We’re going to fly out of here on Charles’s dragon,” Richard said.

  “He has a dragon?!” If events weren’t happening as fast as they were, Beth would have surely fainted. “How does he know if it’s even here? It’s been twenty years! Do they even live that long?”

  “Jocelyn and I were captured on my dragon. Draconex brought us through that tunnel”—he jutted a thumb to his right to a dark path—“and tossed Silvress in here as a souvenir. He collects them for sport,” Charles said with contempt.

  Finally, Charles halted in front of one of the last cages. Letting his helmet drop to the ground, he stared longingly into the cage.

  “Silvress.”

  The Smiths came up behind Charles to see a slate-gray female dragon sleeping in the center of her cage. Her tail curled around her body and her wings spread over her back like a blanket as she slept.

  Looking back at the Smiths, Charles said, “Do you trust me?”

  Both of them nodded.

  “In a few seconds I’m going to open Silvress’s cage and have you get on her back.”

  Underneath their visors, Richard and Beth were scared to death. Unable to offer a better plan, they stayed silent and watched as Charles willed terramancy through his makeshift totem ring—a tight band of torn cloth from his old prison uniform—to block the energy current to the cage’s electric barrier.

  ZZZZZZZZZZ—

  The noise made by the power block awakened Silvress. She shook her massive head and stood on her haunches, bearing sharp teeth. Stepping inside, Charles put a hand out and said, “Easy, girl. Remember me?”

  Silvress swiped a large claw at Charles, who evaded the attack by rolling out of the way. “It’s me! Charles!” He put two fingers to his temple and sent out a familiar telepathic message to the dragon.