For anyone new to this blog, I’ve been serializing one of my stories, Lost and Found, by posting one chapter every other week. If you’d like to start at the beginning (which is a very good place to start) you can follow this link and it will take you to the main page for Lost and Found where I’ve got links to all the posted chapters, reviews and all that good stuff.

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Chapter Eight

They left their campsite as dawn was just beginning to light the sky. Xavier had rubbed some herbs Colby had given him on the burns on her back. They weren’t terrible and shouldn’t blister, but even so, she wasn’t moving very quickly. They had wrapped his ribs tightly which greatly decreased his pain, so he insisted on carrying Colby’s bag; she couldn’t possibly stand its weight on her back.

“How long will those vines hold them, do you think?”

“The scroll said it would turn the vines to stone for a day.”

Xavier nodded. “We should be out of the swamp in a couple hours at this pace so that should be a good head start.”

“Once we’re out of the swamp we’re nearly there.”

“How do we actually get from Aphanasia to Terricina, Colby?” Xavier asked, realizing that in all the action of the past few days he’d never actually asked.

“There’s a portal up in the hills by Haven.”

“And no one has stumbled across it?”

“They can’t see it.” Colby pulled the map out of her back pocket and pointed to a part in the hills just east of Haven. “It’s there. Marked by some big white stones. It only opens when you stand by it and say the word of command to activate it. It doesn’t stay active long either, so when I open it, don’t hesitate before stepping through. I’ll be right there with you.”

Their steady pace brought them to the edge of the swamp long before the sun reached its zenith, and with their feet following a packed road rather than wading through stagnant water or dodging plants and roots, the going was easier. The road would take them to the outskirts of Haven, then they would leave it and climb up into the hills to the portal. They should be in Terricina helping Colby’s brother before nightfall.

Then Xavier saw something that filled him with dread. Up ahead, on the road, a small cloud of dust obscured the horizon. He stopped, still as a statue, as Colby kept walking. After a few steps she paused and turned to look at him. Curiosity quickly turned to anxiety on her face and she rushed back to his side. “Xavier, what is it?”

“Other people—I can’t—I’m a freak.”

Colby looked up at him, her face filled with sympathy. “You’re not—” She stopped and then started again, lacing her fingers through his as much as the webbing between them would allow. “You’re a wonderful man Xavier and you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

A curl of desire, like smoke, drifted through his body at Colby’s touch, but was quickly dissipated by the dread of being seen by strangers. He swallowed hard, trying to moisten his suddenly dry throat, and said nothing, but watched the dust cloud grow larger.

“We can stay off the road if you want, Xavier.”

He heard a snort of derision from his feet and faked a cough to try to cover it up, but Colby’s eyes fell to his shadow just the same. Staying off the road would allow him to remain unseen, but it would slow their progress and increase the danger Bayne was in. He could just imagine what his shadow would have to say about that…

“No,” he shook his head. “No, we’ll stay on the road.”

Colby gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. She looked like she wanted to say something, but then didn’t. Xavier was glad, the less said about his appearance the better.

They passed the first wagon soon after. It was driven by a man no older than Xavier himself, and a young woman shared the seat with him. As they passed the girl covered her mouth with her hand and stared openly. The man, however, met Xavier’s eyes and nodded a greeting in passing. Perhaps, Xavier thought, to make up for his wife’s reaction.

The encounter gave him hope that his fears had been exaggerated, but as they drew nearer to Haven and the road became more and more crowded that hope was quickly strangled. Most of the travelers were human with a smattering of dwarves and at least one Mountain Elf. Still, he was the most unusual being on the road by far.

He felt eyes on him all the time, though sometimes when he turned around no one was looking in his direction. Groups of travelers would fall silent as they passed and he heard one child ask ‘What is it mother?’ His stomach roiled, and his knees felt weak. Colby’s hand in his helped him swallow his pain and humiliation and keep putting one foot in front of another but every step was agony and their pace had never felt so slow.

Then they passed a small group heading toward the swamp, and Xavier gasped as he recognized one of them. Jaliena, a beautiful woman with an eye patch over her left eye. He dropped his gaze to the ground as soon as he saw her, and picked up the pace, pulling Colby behind him.

“What is it Xavier?” she asked.

“That woman, I know her from Scholar’s.” She was one of his cruelest guards, always ready with a sharp kick, or a sharper word. He kept those details to himself.

Colby looked up, while Xavier kept his head down and kept moving. He could see the gates of Haven now, so the portal couldn’t be far away, just up into the hills.

“She saw you. She’s talking to the people she’s with,” Colby reported, and Xavier felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Hurry, we need to hurry,” he grasped her wrist instead of holding her hand, and pulled her urgently toward the hills.

“Ouch!” Colby cried in surprise and pain, then, as strangers stopped to look at them, she dropped her voice. “Careful, my back still hurts anytime I move too much.”

“I’m sorry Colby but I—” Xavier lifted his eyes to look at her, but instead saw Jaliena over Colby’s shoulder, her friends at her side.

“He’s getting away. Get him!”

“Drek!” he swore. “Run, Colby, run.”

She turned to look behind her, then looked back toward him and broke into a run. “Good idea.”

Adrenaline sped their flight, and the ground flew by beneath their feet, then they began to climb the hills and their pace lessened. When he dared a glance behind him he saw that many in the crowd had turned to observe what was going on, but only Jaliena and three of her cronies were pursuing them. He could hear their pursuers feet pounding the ground behind them, hear them pant for breath, and with each step they sounded closer.

Then he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, the blur of Colby’s hand as she was pulled backward by her ponytail. He tried to stop but his momentum was such that even going uphill it took him a few moments to stop and turn around, and by then it was too late. Jaliena was behind Colby, one hand wrapped in Colby’s hair, the other around her chest, holding her fast.

“I’ve got you now girl,” Jaliena said, her voice dripping with venom and Xavier could see the malicious gleam in her eye. He cringed at the way she pulled Colby’s head up by her hair.

Colby twisted and struggled in Jaliena’s grasp, but her strength couldn’t hope to compete with the trained fighter’s, especially with her injuries. Xavier grabbed a stone from his feet. It was twice the size of his fist and heavy; more than enough to do some damage. He pulled it back as though to throw it.

Jaliena pulled back on Colby’s hair once more and Colby cried out. “Izart!” The sound echoed off the hills around them, and resounded in Xavier’s skull. Her struggles lessened and Xavier had no doubt it was due, at least in part, to the burns on her back.

“Let her go!” Xavier shouted.

“You think we’re afraid of a little rock? Drop it and I won’t hurt her.”

“Let her go. This rock is more than enough to crush one skull before you overtake me,” he looked at Jaliena and the three men with her one at a time before continuing. “I wonder whose it will be.”

“Not mine. You’d have to go through your friend,” Jaliena scoffed. “Scholar may have invested a lot of time in you, but I’m sure she could keep him entertained for a time…”

Colby kicked at the woman who held her again, but it was ineffective. Jaliena merely tightened her grip and Colby cursed again as her back was rubbed up against the other woman’s chest.

“Xavier,” Colby shouted, locking her gaze with his. “Run! Save my brother. Save Bayne!”

“I—”

“Go! Run!”

He understood Colby’s position. If he didn’t get to Bayne soon he would be turned. Colby had gone through so much to ensure that didn’t happen, to be so close now of course she would sacrifice herself and hope for rescue, but he knew the hands she was placing herself into, and couldn’t abide it. To the nine hells with it then. Scholar had tried to make him into a soldier, so he’d do like a soldier and fight.

He feinted left, then threw the rock with all his might at the shin of the mercenary furthest to the right of Jaliena and Colby. His left broke with a resounding crack that made Xavier wince, and with a sharp cry of pain the man crumpled to the ground.

“So much fer crushin’ skulls,” his shadow said, his voice too quiet to be audible to anyone but Xavier, especially in all the yelling that followed his attack.

“Get him,” Jaliena said, gesturing to the two thugs remaining at her side.

Xavier took a step backward as the two men, staying low and moving in a way that reminded him of nothing more than snakes about to strike, began to inch toward him. They each drew daggers that rested comfortably in their hands and reflected the fading sunlight up at Xavier as they cut through the air menacingly. His eyes darted back and forth, but no tree branches or rocks were in the immediate vicinity to aid him.

He looked from one to the other, then for lack of a better plan of action, threw himself at the one nearest him, the blond. Xavier caught him around the waist and drove him to the ground. His tentacles wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides and rendering his weapon useless. Behind him he heard the brunette approaching at speed, curses flying from his lips.

“Might wanna—” his shadow began, and Xavier rolled to the side so he could see the attacker as he neared. The brunette’s blade flashed up and then down, and Xavier felt a sharp pain in one of his tentacles.

Curling his hand into a fist, and still holding the blond with his tentacles, Xavier punched him directly in the face. Again and again. At the same time, one of his tentacles grabbed his hand which held the knife and slammed it into the ground in time with the blows to his face.

“Move!” his shadow snarled, and he rolled to the side again, just as the blond released his grip on consciousness along with his knife. The dark-haired man’s blow missed him entirely, and releasing the man he held Xavier scrambled to his feet once more, this time armed with a dagger.

Down the hill Xavier heard Jaliena’s voice purr wickedly. “You’ll come to us then.”

She began to speak softer then. Though Xavier didn’t understand the words he recognized the cadence.

“No!” he shouted and moved forward, but his dark-haired attacker intercepted him, charging forward and wrapping his arms around Xavier’s knees. The stranger’s momentum carried them both to the ground. Pulling the man up with his tentacles, Xavier leaned forward and smashed the top of his head into the thug’s face. He went limp in his grip, and when Xavier dropped him, barely conscious, to the ground, he couldn’t help but notice the man’s nose was at a decidedly uncomfortable-looking angle.

He looked up to see Jaliena, Colby and the thug with the broken leg huddled together in a tight pack. Colby looked terrified, her eyes were wide and every muscle in her body was tense. She wasn’t moving at all except for her eyes and the slight movement of her chest as she breathed.

“Bayne,” she mouthed, and then before his eyes, the group vanished. There was no sound, no gradual fading away. They were there and then they weren’t. He looked toward the forms of the companions they’d left behind, still breathing but unaware.

“Drek!” he shouted up at the uncaring sky, and then turned and sprinted up the hill, eyes scouring the ground for the white rocks that marked the portal. He couldn’t possibly save Colby alone, but who better to help him than her family.

Ahead he could see a few scattered white stones. Had Colby not told him to look for them he wouldn’t have thought them out of the ordinary, but forewarned he knew them at once for what they were. “Drek,” he said, as he neared them. “I don’t know the word to open it.”

“Ye moron,” Shadow said as they reached the rocks. “She told ye. Izart!”

The air in front of them began to shimmer with magic and Xavier stepped through the portal.

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found

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The audio version is read by Bill Ratner.

Chapter Seven

Colby stood in the shadows holding her backpack with one hand while the other covered her mouth to muffle the involuntary groan of dismay she’d made when she saw the scarred man kick Xavier over and over again.

When she’d heard the struggle just outside the camp, some instinct had kept her from calling out. Instead, she’d snatched her backpack up from beside the fire and headed into the swamp. Now she watched, helpless while two men held Xavier down and a third kicked him.

Colby suspected she had only a short time before the men turned their attention away from Xavier and started to look for her. While part of her told her to run and pray they let her go, another, stronger, part of her advised her to stay put. She couldn’t save Bayne without Xavier, and even if she could, she couldn’t just abandon him to these men.

She did a mental inventory of her assets and came up wanting. She had some magical scrolls still, but most of them were benign, water purification spells and the like. Still, there were two…

Colby tore her eyes away from Xavier as he went limp, and while his attackers dragged him toward the fire, she moved further into the shadowy embrace of the swamp.  Digging through her bag she used the meager light of the moon to read the labels on her scrolls. Finding the ones she sought, she tucked them into her waistband and looked through her herb pouch. Once she located the appropriate envelope she stashed it with the scrolls, grabbed a pair of leather gloves from the depths of her backpack, stuffed the bag into the nook of a tree and knelt down.

She scoured the ground for vines. When a sound of alarm from the camp came to her ears, she forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm her shaking fingers.

She pulled the gloves on, spilled some of the dried herbs into the palm of her hand then slid the damp vines, one by one, through them. Each time she stopped to replenish the herbs in her hand she tied the vines together so that they formed one long rope.

A slight tremor remained in her fingers despite her deep breathing earlier, but somehow she managed to cover all the vines in the dried herbs and tie them all together. Once that was done she began to string them from tree to tree in a web-like pattern along one side of the camp.

She furtively watched the men by the fire while she worked. Xavier still wasn’t moving but seemed to be breathing. The other men, the ones she could only assume worked for Scholar, were standing over him, moving their arms angrily. She couldn’t make out their entire conversation but enough fragments floated to her ears for her to know they were arguing about whether or not to pursue her. Her stomach fluttered and she offered a prayer to Calamyr that they wouldn’t make up their mind before she was done.

The goddess must have been listening because the men were still bickering when Colby finished weaving her vine web. She moved several feet to the left and with one more steadying breath, stripped off the gloves, let them fall to the ground and pulled out one of the scrolls. She broke the seal, unrolled it and held it close to her eyes, squinting to read it in the moonlight.

Her whispered words stumbled at first, but as her eyes grew more used to reading in the faint light and magic replaced the fear in her body, she became more confident and sped up. As before, the syllables began to flow over one another, naturally, like a waterfall or an avalanche. This time, however, when she reached the final word she didn’t whisper it and fall silent, rather, she stood and shouted it, closing her eyes and pointing her slender finger at the pitiful campfire in the middle of the clearing.

With an audible whoosh the flames flared to life and then vanished. Colby opened her eyes once again and held her breath. Her eyes, closed when the fire suddenly grew bright, adjusted to the darkness far quicker than the three men hovering around Xavier. She watched their silhouettes stiffen with shock and heard their arguing become even more frenzied. She picked up a fist-sized stone and hefted it in the direction of the web of vines. It crashed through the brush loudly. The man who’d kicked Xavier made some sharp gestures in the direction of the noise, and his two compatriots ran into the swamp toward it.

Colby smiled grimly as she heard the vines reverberate as the two thugs ran into them in quick succession followed by the sound of bodies dropping to the ground. She’d hoped to get all three but, she told herself, at least she’d evened the odds. The man still standing started and looked around nervously.

“Marcus? Samar?” he called with a slight tremor in his voice.

A low moan answered him to his left, but no sound came from the right. Realizing that his eyes would soon be as adjusted to the moonlight as hers, Colby wrapped the ends of a short length of vine around her hands, leaving a fair bit of slack in the middle, and crept out of the concealing shadows of the swamp. Internally bemoaning the fact she hadn’t had enough soporific herbs to cover the vine in her hands as well as those around the camp she moved, silently, toward the extinguished fire. Again the man called out for his friends, and was answered only by a nearby bullfrog.

Colby’s heart pounded so hard she could feel it throbbing in her skull. Each step brought her closer to her opponent. She took a quick look at Xavier, prone on the ground, then at the back of the man who’d put him there and pounced. She shifted her hands so they crossed at her wrists with the vine held slack between them. She covered the space between she and Xavier’s attacker in two quick steps. In one motion she threw the vine over the stranger’s head, waited until it was even with his neck and then pulled it taut by uncrossing her wrists.

Taken by surprise the man tried to dig his fingers under the vine and pry it away from his throat. Colby winced and felt tears sting her eyes as he struggled against her and made choking and gagging noises, but she held on tight, using the vine’s cross-over to her advantage. Even so, he was much stronger than she and she could feel him getting his fingers between the vine and his skin. She shifted her grip and pulled harder, but the man kicked back. His foot caught her in the knee and she stumbled.

They fell into what had been the fire. Colby felt the residual heat from the partially burned wood against her back as the man’s frame crushed her chest, knocking the breath from her lungs. The coals beneath her burned, and she would have cried out, but the stranger’s weight on her chest made it impossible to breathe. As she lay on the ground gasping and squirming to get away from the heat at her back, the man got his fingers under the vine and ripped it from her hands. He scrambled to his feet and stared down at where she lay, struggling to get out of the coals at his feet.

“Stupid bitch!” he snarled, his voice gravelly-sounding from the trauma to his neck. As he pulled back his foot, preparing to kick her, Xavier grabbed it from behind and yanked. Colby saw the look of surprise on the man’s face and twisted out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed under his weight again.

She rose to her feet, and grabbed the unburned end of one of the logs she’d been laying on. While the stranger frantically tried to get his feet underneath him, Colby used both hands to raise the log over the top of her head, and then brought it down hard against the back of his skull. She heard a dull thud, then he collapsed, unconscious but still breathing, at her feet.

Xavier stood slowly, breathing with obvious effort and with a look of pain on his face. “Colby?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Are you okay?”

The log slipped from her slack fingers and fell to the ground beside the unconscious stranger and she looked up at Xavier. She was filthy and winded, her back was burned, the pain intensifying anytime she moved, and she could feel tears washing down her cheeks. She considered his question for a long time before nodding slowly. “Are you?”

“I’ve been worse.”

She looked up into Xavier’s eyes and half-smiled. They stood in silence, watching one another in the moonlight for a long moment, then a moan from the left brought reality crashing back down upon them.

“What are we going to do with these guys Colby?” Xavier asked. “I’m no murderer.”

“I have a scroll that might work.”

Xavier started to laugh, but then clutched at his side as the sound turned into a low groan of pain. Yet, once it had passed a smile was on his lips and he looked down at Colby. “Of course you do.”

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found

My family celebrates a secular version of Christmas I’ve taken to calling Giftmas. This year’s Giftmas was very book-centric.

I got:

• The Hunger Games trilogy
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galxay trilogy (I know I should have read it before now, but I haven’t. Don’t judge :-p)
• Entice by Carrie Jones
• Dragon Bone by Patricia Briggs
• Red Hood’s Revenge by Jim C. Hines

Whoot!

I can’t wait to get reading them, though I don’t know where to start. A dear friend of mine, Amber, sent me a crapload of books just before Christmas, and I want to read them too. I need a few more hours in the day, please. That would be fabulous. It’s also fabulous to have so many books I can’t wait to dive into

In related-to-my-book news I have a new review of Lost and Found to share. Clayton Bye, of The Deepening, reviewed it and he liked it. I liked his review, in fact it made my day yesterday.  Why? Well, in part because he said this:

Parrish represents a fresh and powerful voice in fantasy

*happy dance* How cool is that?

As you may have guessed he mostly liked the story with one notable criticism. The review is right here if you want to read it in its entirety, but be warned, it’s pretty spoilerific. If you don’t like spoilers you may want to wait until you’ve finished the story before popping over.

Speaking of the story, the next chapter will be going up on Monday

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~ Direct Download ~
The audio version is read by Bill Ratner.

Chapter Six

They left the village behind, and walked into the moonlit swamp. The trees still grew close together here, but the moon was so bright it penetrated the foliage and cast weak shadows at their feet. The night was filled with the sounds of crickets and the soft splashes of animals entering the water that lay off to the side. Away from the custody of the Reptar and under the impression their pursuers wouldn’t be following them any longer, Colby relaxed slightly. She would have been happier if she actually possessed the stone, but Xavier said he knew where it could be found and that reassured her. A little.

“Why didn’t they kill us?”

“We passed the test. I guess.” Xavier shrugged. “Did you feel the stone there flipping through you like a book?”

Colby nodded. “I did. I’d have guessed that would be something like rape, but strangely, I didn’t mind really.” Xavier didn’t respond so Colby continued. “What is furtma? Is that where Scholar lives? And how could his men have stolen the stone if it was taken decades ago?”

Xavier smiled at her, then stubbed his toe on a tree root and stumbled, nearly falling.

“Did you hear something?” Colby asked, looking in the direction of Xavier’s shadow. “Like a muffled curse?”

Xavier shook his head, and Colby quirked an eyebrow. “Are you okay to keep walking? I’ve slept, but you haven’t, and with all the stress and walking, especially with your injury…”

“I’m fine. Z’thandra’s heart restored my strength. Completely. Let’s talk while we walk,” he took her elbow and continued along the path. “I think we ought to put some distance between ourselves and the Reptar before we make camp in case they change their minds about how they feel about enemies of furtma.”

Colby nodded and fell into step at his side.

“First, yes, furtma is what the Reptar call Scholar’s castle. As far as I can tell it means wrong. As for Scholar, if he was ever human he isn’t anymore. I’m not sure what he is exactly. Perhaps he’s a victim of his own insanity. I wouldn’t be shocked to hear he’d operated on himself. His lifespan is not measured in years Colby, more likely it spans centuries, and he’s had people working for him for much of it.”

Colby’s mouth formed an ‘o’ of surprise, but after receiving that tidbit of information she pressed for the most important one, “And the stone? You haven’t told me where the stone is.”

He took hold of her wrist and moved her palm until it rested over his chest wound, “I tried to indicate in the tree…it’s right here.”

Colby frowned. “Really? In your chest?”

Xavier nodded. “Absolutely. Think about it, Colby. You said the stone you’re looking for has the power to heal and gives strength right? Well, Scholar was trying to increase my strength when he implanted this thing in my chest, and you said it yourself; I heal faster than anyone you’ve ever seen.”

He paused a moment and Colby felt a slow smile spread across her face before he continued. “Combine that with the fact Scholar had a piece of the heart and it becomes a near-certainty.”

“A near-certainty, yes, but—how would we get it out? I mean, there has got to be risk—I don’t know if it’s a smart risk based on a near-certainty.”

“You wouldn’t be willing to take that chance to save your brother’s life?” Xavier asked, looking down at her.

“I,” Colby weighed the options carefully before conceding, “I don’t know.”

“You flatter me, Colby,” Xavier said, using a tentacle to brush a stray hair off her face, “but it was unfair of me to ask such a question because it’s not a near-certainty after all. I know the stone is inside me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I could feel Z’thandra’s heart beating inside me, in my chest wound. It filled me with serenity, with strength. I think it sensed its missing piece and was calling to it – there was definitely a connection of some kind there.”

The pieces fit, yet Colby didn’t feel relief. “Will you…are you willing to have it taken out?”

Xavier nodded without hesitation, and Colby instantly felt better, though still uneasy.

Terricina was meant to be a secret. She didn’t know anyone here in Aphanasia she could ask for help, and she certainly wasn’t going to cut into Xavier’s chest herself. There was no help for it, she was going to have to take him home with her, to Terricina. She didn’t have a choice.

“I guess,” she said. “The thing to do is make camp before dawn and then take you back home. There’s something you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“Where I’m from, Terricina. It’s not in Aphanasia. It’s a whole other plane of existence, a whole other world.” She blurted the words out, speaking as quickly as she could, like pulling off a bandage.

“A whole other world? Well, I’ve heard of places like that, doesn’t it usually take great magic to get to them?”

“Usually, yes,” Colby admitted, relieved that Xavier didn’t seem to think her mad or be upset. “We’ll take a portal though, all it takes is a word to activate it.”

“And you said there were all sorts of beings there, that I might not be the only,” he paused and then went on, “the only freak there.”

“You’re not a freak Xavier,” Colby said, resting her fingers on his shoulder.

Xavier laughed self-depreciatingly, and then looked up at her, his brow furrowed. “You don’t look happy Colby, why? You have what you came for.”

“I’m happy. I am. But I’ll be happier once I know that I’m not sacrificing one man to save another.”

~*~

As they walked they shared stories of their childhoods, swapped riddles and studiously avoided talking about the stone in Xavier’s chest.

Once Xavier decided there was sufficient distance between them and the Reptar village, they found a patch of nearly dry ground and made a hasty camp. As they set up Xavier felt Colby’s eyes on him. “What do you think the Reptar did to those guys?”

“I don’t know. Don’t think I want to know really,” he replied.

“But what do you think?”

“I think…” he considered all the stories told in and around the swamp about the Reptar. Tales meant to scare children into behaving as well as the darker, more likely stories told around community campfires late at night. “I think it’s better if you don’t think about it.”

Silence settled around them like a cloak, but it was a comfortable silence. As dawn drew nearer, Colby blinked and looked over at Xavier. “I hadn’t realized how late, er, early it was getting – and you haven’t slept. Go ahead, I’ll take first watch.”

“Sounds good,” Xavier jerked his head toward a small stand of bulrushes. “I’ll just make a quick stop there first.”

Colby smiled, and settled herself on her bedroll, and he moved into the swamp to relieve himself.

His shadow and that of the reeds sparred and tumbled over top of one another all around him as he stood at the edge of the plants, his back to the campfire. “What?” he whispered. “I know you want to say something, so out with it.”

“Ye drekkin’ insane lover-boy?”

Xavier laughed and turned toward his shadow. “Well, that remains to be seen doesn’t it?”

“Yer gonna go to a diff’rent world an get cut again jus’ for a piece a ass? Ye can pay fer that here ye know.”

“It’s not for a piece of ass. Terricina could be a fresh start for us, I really – what was that? Did you hear something?”

“I ain’t heard nuttin’ ‘cept you being all –”

“Shh, I think–”

Xavier’s sentence remained unfinished. Several pairs of strong arms grabbed him from behind, pulled him backward to the ground, and pinned him there. While five hands held him down, a sixth jammed a dirty gag into his mouth.

Foul breath assailed his nostrils as one of the men hissed in Xavier’s ear. “Ahh, all the enhancements in the world don’t help the prey when the hunter’s usin’ magic, do they?” He laughed quietly before continuing. “Now to get a piece of that pretty young thing you’re travelin’ with – she didn’t look too shabby from what I could see earlier.”

Xavier’s stomach flipped and he felt bile rise in his throat. He tried to call out but the filthy fabric in his mouth muffled him to the point where it was futile. With his hands and tentacles pinned to the ground and the scarred man he recognized as Tobias, a guard from Scholar’s castle, leering in his face, Xavier did the only thing he could think of – he slammed his forehead into Tobias’s face.

Tobias screamed in pain and anger as his nose crumpled. Jumping up he drove his boot into Xavier’s side and smiled at the cracking sound that resulted. “Bastard!” Again and again his boot slammed into Xavier’s side. He grunted into his gag with each impact, and rode a wave of agony-induced nausea.

Then through the haze of his pain Xavier looked over at Colby’s bedroll to find it empty, and as unconsciousness claimed him, the corners of his mouth pulled up into something halfway between a grimace and a smile. She, at least, had escaped.

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

~ Direct Download ~
The audio version is read by Bill Ratner.

Chapter Five

Their armed escort, as well as a growing number of unarmed Reptar spread out around the glade, forming an impenetrable wall of scales and spears. The grey and the green who had argued in the swamp were amongst their number, and neither looked likely to be inclined to let them leave here alive if the shaman said otherwise. Xavier glanced down at Colby, who seemed wholly fixated on the tree, and then to the shambling shaman. The shaman drew nearer to the tree, and began to mutter something under his breath. His back was to him so Xavier couldn’t make out exactly what the Reptar was doing or saying but it seemed to be some sort of ritual involving complicated hand motions.

Once the Reptar fell silent, Xavier watched an opening, big enough for him to enter without stooping, slowly faded into existence in the tree’s bulbous trunk. The shaman disappeared jerked his head toward the hole and grunted. “Test.”

Xavier hesitated and glanced over his shoulder at the silent ring of Reptar surrounding them then sucked in a breath, let it out slowly and looked down at Colby. “Here goes,” he said and with her close behind, stepped into the tree.

A rough earthen staircase wound its way into the ground. Xavier cautiously made his way down, hugging the wall and dodging roots the entire way.  He could feel Colby close behind him. The still air smelled like wet earth and though there was no obvious source of illumination, the underground passage was as bright as day. As he continued his descent the wound in his chest began to throb. It didn’t hurt, on the contrary it was invigorating.

After traveling down the twisting staircase enough to make his head swim, they finally arrived at the bottom and stepped into a large round chamber. The roots of the tree surrounded them in an intricate web that formed the walls, ceiling and even the floor. The Reptar shaman stood to one side.

In the middle of the room, floating in mid-air and thrumming with power, was a red stone.

As he watched, the stone slowly rotated, allowing him to see every side of it. It was nearly the size of his head and was colored a rich ruby-red shot through with spidery veins of deepest black. It was rounded in shape, but longer than it was wide. Its sides were smooth but looked jagged at the base, suggesting that it had been broken off an even larger whole. It didn’t glow or smoke or hum to show its power. It didn’t have to. He could feel it; the ancient strength of the stone washed over him in waves that ebbed and flowed but never completely vanished.

The wound in his chest continued to throb in time with the waves of power, feeding his reserves of strength.

“The stone,” Colby whispered, her voice filled with longing.

“Now,” the shaman said, “test.”

Xavier looked from the shaman, to the stone. Colby moved to his side, the back of her hand brushed against his thigh but she didn’t notice. “I don’t understand. Test what?”

“Test you. Touch heart, heart touch you.”

Xavier heard a noise behind him and turned to see a row of armed warriors had joined them, walking single file down the twisty path behind them. They held their spears tightly, but kept them pointed up, neutral, presumably until this test, whatever it was, was completed. He sighed and looked at Colby, making sure she knew about the warriors and wasn’t going to try anything stupid now that they’d found the stone she was looking for. It wasn’t going to do anyone any good if they died retrieving it.

“Touch heart.”

“Will you let us go? If—” Xavier stopped, uncertain of how to end his question.

“Heart know if you enemy. If no enemy, Reptar let go.”

“I’ll do it,” Colby said, and after a long sideways glance in his direction, stepped forward, her arm outstretched. She moved slowly toward the stone, and Xavier held his breath. In its absence he felt the waves emanating from the stone even more powerfully, resonating in his chest and rippling outward throughout his whole body.

Colby was sideways to him when she reached the stone, and he could see that her fingers trembled then she touched the stone and in the silent room he heard her exhale softly. Her breath stirred the stray hairs around her face, and her eyes closed. She seemed to relax, and Xavier let his own breath out.

The shaman watched her intently, and Xavier alternated his attention between the Reptar and the girl. Colby’s eyes were closed, but moved beneath their lids, zipping back and forth, much like how they had when she’d read the scrolls. The shaman, in turn, seemed to be reading her. It leaned forward to peer closer at her, and, when she finally broke contact with the stone, gasped in surprise.

Colby looked up at him, then down at the stone, and back up at him again. The look on her face was indecipherable, and she didn’t say at word, merely stepped back to stand at his side.

“Colby, are you alright?” he asked, more than a little concerned.

She nodded, and before he could press her further, the shaman pointed at him, and then the stone. “You. Touch.”

Xavier crossed the distance between himself and the stone with three quick strides, and laid his palm against the stone. It felt warm beneath his touch, like a living being, and it thrummed against his hand like a pulse. A pulse he could feel in the restoring waves that swept through him. Then it touched him, touched his consciousness and he closed his eyes, breathed out his fear and allowed himself to drift with it.

Impressions swept through his mind, scents, flavors, colors, thoughts. He followed them as far as they went, then allowed himself to pick up the next and be carried along with it. It was like being a leaf on a stream, drifting from one current to the next helplessly. All streams end at the sea, and a quiet part of Xavier wondered where this trip would end.

He saw a pair of eyes, familiar and green, felt a flash of regret, a sweeping sense of empathy, fear. His parents, victims of swamp fever when he was quite young smiled at him from the back of a memory. The swamp flashed by in bits and pieces. Beautiful, haunting and tragic. He sensed a dragon, saw a pair of clasped hands; one chestnut and one ivory. The crocodile he’d felled right before Scholar captured him, the cabin he’d been raised in. Emotions swept through him, but while he experienced the pleasant ones in their entirety, he felt shielded from the painful ones, buffered.

When the connection broke it was by degrees, and it left him with a warmth in his chest. A warmth and a sense that everything would be okay.

He opened his eyes to see the Reptar watching him intently. He smiled.

The shaman did not smile back, but he nodded slowly and as he looked at the warriors surrounding them, Xavier saw them relax.

“You no Reptar enemy. You Furtma enemy. Why here?” the shaman asked, while Xavier moved back to Colby’s side.

“I need to borrow that…” Colby said, and then as if realizing the inanity of her statement, let it trail off and gestured lamely at the stone. She looked up at Xavier and he saw a deep sorrow in her eyes. “I can’t. They need it, their whole society…”

His heart went out to her, what could he say? She was right. That had been part of the message he’d received from the heart as they’d joined, shared. The Reptar needed this stone, it was the center of their society, the stone and the tree.

“No can have. What need for?”

Colby sighed “My brother swallowed vampire blood. He has a…a special sword, one that could heal him, but it needs your stone in its pommel to work.”

The shaman tilted his scaly head. “How big sword?”

The repercussions of his question struck Xavier. This stone was massive. If the sword wasn’t immense there was no way it would fit into the pommel. Xavier reached over to lay a comforting hand on Colby’s shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze.

“There is still time, Colby. We’ll find something else.”

“There’s no time.”

Xavier searched his brain for something to say to ease her distress. He found nothing. Then the shaman shuffled forward, put a rough hand under Colby’s chin and lifted her eyes to meet his reptilian ones.

“Yes hope.” He took a backward step and gestured to Z’thandra’s Heart—one part in particular. “Heart broke.”

Colby looked at the shaman and a flicker of realization crossed her face.

“Long time ago heart broke. Many pieces.”

“Where can I find one?” she asked.

“Furtma man has one,” the shaman said.

Xavier sucked in his breath and Colby turned to look at him. “What’s wrong?” she asked, interrupting the shaman in her worry.

“I think I know where the stone is,” Xavier whispered in awe before dropping his eyes to his chest wound.

“Are you sure?” she asked, obviously missing the import of his glance. “Where is it?”

Xavier nodded and whispered, “Trust me, Colby.” Then he looked over Colby’s head at the shaman and addressed him directly. “You remind me, men from Furtma have followed us here, they intend us harm. They are probably a couple hours out still, but they will find your village.”

The shaman’s brow furrowed and he nodded decisively and spoke in sharp, quick bursts to the warriors surrounding them. The warriors filed out, moving quickly, the clink and clank of their armor sounded around them.

Climbing out of the tree, Xavier felt the waves in his chest subside more with each step he put between Z’thandra’s Heart and himself. Once they emerged into the glade, the shaman barked more orders to the Reptar still in the glade which sent them rushing back toward the village. When he returned to the base of Z’thandra’s trunk, where he’d left Colby and Xavier, the shaman’s scaly face was twisted into a malicious grin.

“They no follow you now.”

Colby was holding Xavier’s hand and he felt her shudder at the Reptar’s words. He understood the feeling; he had repressed a shiver of his own.

“So, you’ll let us go?” Xavier questioned.

The shaman nodded. “Enemy of Furtma, friend of Reptar. You leave now.”

Xavier wasted no time in retracing their steps back up to the village center and then out of it. He felt the eyes of the lizard men on their backs long after he ceased to see their forms.

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

~ Direct Download ~
The audio version is read by Bill Ratner.

Chapter Four

Colby spread her tarp to protect them from the sodden ground while they rested and insisted on taking first watch. He, in turn, had the unpleasant task of waking her far earlier than he would have liked when he saw the thugs following them had extinguished their fire.

“They are breaking camp Colby, we need to start moving if we’re going to stay ahead of them.”

Her blanket slipped from her shoulders as she rose stiffly, she moved her limbs as though they were weighted with stones and it seemed to take a tremendous effort for her to fold the blanket and the tarp. Xavier watched as she moved, zombie-like, struggling through the fog of sleep deprivation to perform even the simple task of packing her bag.

“Let me.”

She did not protest as he pulled the bag from her limp fingers, finished cramming the tarp and blanket in, tied it shut and swung it over his shoulder.

“It’s not far to the Reptar from here, Colby,” he reassured her.

It took a couple moments for Colby to react. “Really?” she asked.

“Really,” he nodded, “The sooner we leave, the sooner we’ll be able to get the rock to save your brother.”

Colby nodded and pulled her unruly hair back into a tight ponytail that stopped just below her shoulder blades. “Okay, I can do this,” she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

As they continued on through the swamp Colby stumbled more than she walked and was far less talkative, but as the sun rose higher in the sky she seemed to catch a second wind; becoming more energised and dragging her feet less.

“Tell me about the stone, how is it going to save Bayne?” Xavier asked, trying to provide her with something to focus on and make the walk easier now that she seemed to have enough energy to have a conversation.

“The stone? Well, Bayne’s sword, Teyat, has got this part at the bottom of his pommel that’s sort of indented like,” she gestured with her hands. “Anyway, a magical stone used to fit into its pommel, but it was stolen a long time ago. The stone the Reptar have isn’t the same, but it might be close enough to work.”

“So,” Xavier continued as they began to walk again, “if you return the stone to the sword, it can somehow reverse the vampirism?”

“That’s the idea. Without the stone it can only slow progression, but with it and some luck…”

“That’s a pretty powerful sword.”

Colby nodded, “You don’t know the half of it.”

“Tell me,” he coaxed, but Colby shook her head.

“Is it far, Xavier?” she asked as the sun glared down at them from its perch high in the grey sky.

“No,” he lied, “it’s not far now.”

“Can we rest a minute?”

Xavier took in her sunken eyes and parched lips and nodded, gesturing to a large boulder. “For a minute.”

Colby collapsed onto the rock, accepted her canteen from Xavier, gulped down several mouthfuls of water and handed it back.

“How far behind are they?” Colby asked, pointing with her head toward their pursuers.

“Still four or five hours.”

The pair sat quietly, only the incessant buzzing of swamp insects broke the companionable silence. After several minutes Xavier rose to his feet. “Time to get going,” he announced. Looking down, he realized Colby hadn’t heard him – she was asleep.

“Poor girl,” he said and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face.

“Poor girl, my ass,” his shadow snorted. “She’s got ye twisted right roun’ ‘er lil’ finger.”

“So what if she does?”

“Ye think ‘at’s smart? Ye dunno anathin’ about ‘er.”

“What do I need to know? You think she’s going to hurt me after she saved me?”

“Yer a fool.  She’s jus’ usin’ ye ta get what she wants then ye’ll see who gets ‘urt won’t ye?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Drekkin’ lover-boy.”

Xavier opened his mouth to argue once more, when a sound from the scrub bush to the left of him caused him to fall into silence. When he heard the noise mimicked from the right, he knew they were in trouble, and reached down with a tentacle to nudge Colby awake.

~*~

Colby jumped, startled into wakefulness,  to find both she and Xavier completely surrounded by lizard-men she presumed must be the Reptar. Their primitive spears pointed inward, like the spokes of a wheel, all of them directed at she and Xavier. Her heart pounded in her chest and though she didn’t dare speak, she slid her hand across the distance separating she and Xavier and squeezed his hand. It was reassuring, at least, that she wasn’t here alone.

The Reptar were a dirty bunch. They stood on two feet and had scaly arms shaped like a human’s that ended in hands. Their fingers were joined by webbing and they had long, thick, crocodile-like tails that dragged on the ground behind them. None had any hair; instead, armor-like scales covered their entire bodies and shimmered in a variety of swampy colors: black, green, yellow and brown.

They wore a strange assortment of garments. One had only a dirty loin cloth and a tooth necklace for clothing, while another was covered in poorly-tanned leather. Most of the Reptar had nothing on their heads, but a handful wore iron cook pots as helmets. Colby could discern no obvious gender difference between any of the creatures. If two different sexes existed in this race, and if both were represented here, it was impossible for her to tell.

Other than the weapons trained on them, the Reptar didn’t seem too concerned. A few of them, and Colby estimated there was a dozen, were watching she and Xavier casually, their grips on the spears loose and relaxed. The majority, however, were watching two other Reptar just outside the circle, a large grey one and a mid-sized green one. They were in the midst of an intense conversation with one another, their animal-like language full of grunts and hisses Colby couldn’t begin to understand.

“Xavier?” she whispered, tentatively.

“I don’t know what they are saying. That one,” he gestured with his head to the grey Reptar in a rusted mail shirt, “seems to want to kill us. The other, I think, wants to take us somewhere.”

Colby cleared her throat, which suddenly felt as though it had a walnut wedged in it, and nodded. This wasn’t what she’d had planned. The research she’d done on Terricina had implied the Reptar could be traded with. She had hoped to sneak into their village, get the stone and get home, but in the absence of that had hoped to trade with them for it. She now realised she’d been foolish and naive. She squeezed Xavier’s hand one more time.

“We just going to wait and see what they decide?” she asked once she was able to trust her voice to work.

“Yes. If the big one wins the argument we’ll move on to plan B. If he doesn’t, we hope they take us closer to the stone you need.”

“What’s plan B?”

“I’m open to suggestions. Right now I’m going with ‘run screaming’.”

The grey Reptar grunted, hissed, then threw his spear down onto the sodden ground and stomped off into the swamp. The other Reptar turned to the group surrounding them and made a large circling gesture with his hand. In any language it meant, round ‘em up. Spears poked into Colby’s side, painful but not hard enough to draw blood, and she saw the same thing happening to Xavier.

“Up,” the grey said in trader tongue. “Up. Walk.”

Rising to her feet Colby grabbed her bag and canteen, then, her knees still weak with fear, followed the grey’s pointing scaly finger. She and Xavier walked side by side, their escort spread out all around them, never further away then the length of a spear. The grey led the group of them, marching straight forward with a confidence Colby envied.

“Are they going to kill us?”

“I don’t know Colby. I don’t think so. They’d have done that back there. I expect they want to question us first.”

“And then kill us?” Colby’s voice rose on the word then, bordering on hysterical even in her own ears. She sucked in a deep breath, held it as long as she could then let it out slowly. It didn’t help the hammering in her chest or the fluttering in her stomach, but maybe it would soothe her voice. Not, she realised, that she had anything to say just then.

They hiked through the swamp. The Reptar seemed to know all the firmest, driest places to walk so had it not been for the spears and fear surrounding them, it would have been a more pleasant route than they’d traversed the day before. The miles passed quickly and gradually, as day turned into night, Colby’s fear subsided enough to make room for other emotions like curiosity and acceptance. It never left her, but burrowed deeper, allowing her to function, to breath.

When finally they reached the village Colby looked around herself in wonder. The stars illuminated the scene, but the many shadows made it difficult to make out details.

Many of the crudely-fashioned mud and straw huts had been built inside the crumbled ruins of older, stone buildings. There were open fire pits in front of each hut, some of which still smouldered.

The Reptar marched them into the middle of the village, and other lizard-men came out of the buildings and shadows to join in the crowd surrounding them. Her research back on Terricina had indicated the existence of three separate classes in Reptar society. The warriors hunted for food and defended the village; shamans performed magic, brewed potions and served as the tribe’s wise men; and scavengers gathered tools, weapons, clothing and the like from the swamp and its victims. Those who had brought them here were obviously the warriors, and the Reptar from within the village all seemed as though they were scavengers. The grey who’d led them here waved his arms, and the subdued noises from the Reptar stopped. He spoke a few words and pointed, and one of the scavengers dashed off through the crowd, following the direction of the grey’s finger. Colby wondered if they’d been brought here as part of some trial, or merely for a more public execution than the swamp would have provided.

“Stop it,” she whispered to herself, balling her fingers into fists so that her nails cut into the palm of her hand, cutting off that line of thought and shoving it back into the depths of her mind where it belonged. She noticed Xavier looking down at her curiously, and shook her head. “Not you.”

“Does anyone understand me?” Xavier asked in trader tongue, raising his voice to be heard over the Reptar’s murmuring.

“I does.” The voice, deep and guttural, came from the rear of the crowd. The Reptar parted and Colby saw what she was certain was a shaman.

His scales gleamed grey and green, and he stood a full head shorter than his fellow Reptar. Even so they fell silent the moment he spoke and moved out of his way as he approached. He wore a leather belt around his waist and two more crossed each other diagonally across his chest. Pouches of various sizes and materials hung from all three. Colby presumed, with a tinge of envy, that they contained the ingredients for his spells and potions.

Xavier nodded giving Colby’s hand a squeeze, met the shaman’s sharp gaze.

“We mean you no harm. I escaped from Furtma and the girl seeks aid.”

The shaman’s eyes swept over the pair and lingered on Colby.  Inwardly she squirmed under the heat of his gaze, but did her best to hide it. The Reptar nodded. Turning to his brethren, he addressed them in their language. Once finished, the shaman jerked his head toward a path behind him. “We see. Let heart decide.”

The shaman shuffled slowly along the trail and Xavier, prodded by a spear, followed a respectful distance behind. Colby moved quickly to his side, not wanting to be jabbed herself.The soldiers surrounded them and the scavengers fell in behind. As the strange procession marched deeper into the swamp Colby’s apprehension grew.

The path looked well-used, worn into a distinct rut several feet lower than the ground around it. Here the swamp closed in once more. The trees crowded them and the air was heavy and oppressive. It felt as though they were traveling downhill, but when Colby looked up at Xavier, intending to question him about it he silenced her with a look before she’d even opened her mouth.

A dozen questions rested on the tip of her tongue, impatiently waiting their turn to be spoken. Where are we going? What is Xavier’s plan? Can I really trust him?

Get a grip, she mentally chastised herself, you’re just being paranoid.

That helped. The most important question she’d asked herself was ‘Can I trust Xavier?’ and since her gut told her with resounding clarity that she could, her troubled mind relaxed and she managed to muster up a little more patience and courage.

Feeling guilty for doubting Xavier, Colby gave his forearm a light squeeze and, when he looked down at her, smiled shyly at him. He blushed and looked away, continuing to follow the shaman.

Abruptly, the path levelled off and then, directly ahead of them, the shaman took a sharp turn and disappeared from view. Colby, close behind, took the same turn, then immediately froze and sucked in her breath.

They were in a large glade. Cold stars danced above them in a clear, black sky and in front of them stood the most amazing tree Colby had ever seen.

Its trunk rose from the ground like an immensely wide column and then narrowed as it ascended. Sphagnum moss clung in patches to its rough bark and some of its boughs, heavy with lacy leaves and vines, trailed to the ground and sank into the damp earth like living anchors. Scores of fireflies, the first Colby had seen since entering the swamp, swarmed overhead, illuminating the tree and adding their own special magic to the scene.

“Z’thandra,” the shaman intoned, gesturing.

Colby dared not speak, lest her words shatter the wonderful feeling of peace that had fallen over her.

“Come,” the shaman commanded, and they obeyed.

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found

The first review of Lost and Found is in. I sent Kari Wolfe of Imperfect Clarity a review copy of the manuscript, which means she got to read the whole story in one sitting instead of getting it a chapter at a time.

Kari said,

I love reading Rhonda’s work… I love the descriptions she uses.  She’s very exact in what she writes.  There’s no ambiguity here at all,  Each word has a reason for being chosen–they all have weight.  A substance.

There is a whole lot in between the first sentence and the second there in the original review, but I wanted to share both tidbits here. Hence the elipses :-p

Overall Kari seemed uncertain about her feelings for Lost and Found, which is somewhat disappointing, but whatcha gonna do? I’m grateful to Kari for taking the time to read and review my story just the same. You can read her whole review here. Then, if I may, I’d suggest heading over to the page for Lost and Found and either reading, or listening to the first few chapters. If you like what you read/hear then check back and keep following the story, and then you can make up your own mind about how you feel once we reach the end.

Incidentally, once you make that decision, I’d love to hear what you think. For better or for worse.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

~ Direct Download ~
The audio version is read by Bill Ratner.

Chapter Three

“You marked the trail for them?” Xavier frowned in confusion.

Colby nodded, and looked at the ground. “I didn’t think. When I came to find the cave I marked the way with chalk so I could find my way back. I should have known—”

Xavier shook his head. “There’s no way you could have.” He paused then continued, “Did you say you might be able to help?”

“Yes,” Colby whispered then tossed her blanket off and moved to her pack. “I didn’t come here completely unprepared.” She pulled out several scrolls of yellowing parchment, each rolled tight and sealed with wax.

“What are those?” Xavier whispered.

“Magic,” Colby answered, her eyes glinting with excitement.

“Magic? Are you a mage, then?”

“A mage?” She sighed. “No, but these scrolls have been enchanted so I only need to read them to cast the spell.”

“Oh,” Xavier said, drawing the word out. “What kind of magic?”

“Nothing too fancy, I didn’t expect I would need to escape from a cave.” The gravity of their situation kept him from laughing at her attempted joke, but he offered her a half-smile. “However, if we get creative I think we can pull this off. They aren’t too-too smart are they?”

Xavier shook his head, “No, they’re thugs mostly. Paid to take orders, not think for themselves.”

“Good,” Colby nodded and looked down at the labels on the scrolls. She set one aside, tucked the rest back into her bag and then pulled out a leather satchel. Xavier raised an eyebrow but fought his curiosity and remained silent as she opened it and peered inside. After some searching, and just as he was reaching the boundaries of his patience, Colby pulled out a small packet of folded and labeled parchment. Grinning at him, she nodded. “I think we can do this.”

Xavier glanced nervously out of the cave entrance, saw the sky beginning to pale where it met the horizon, and replied, “I’m glad you think so, but you need to let me in on the plan. It’s almost dawn.”

Brandishing the envelope, Colby explained, “This is filled with an herb that, while useful for making poultices, will create noxious smoke if I burn it. Not just a little bit either, I’m talking about great, black clouds that last for several minutes from only a few leaves.”

Xavier allowed the slim ray of hope he’d nursed since she’d first explained the scrolls to grow and penetrate his pessimism. With enough smoke to obscure their route, they might manage a slight head start before their would-be attackers followed.

“And that?” he asked, gesturing with a tentacle toward the scroll Colby had kept out of her pack.

“An auditory illusion. I thought it might come in handy if I wanted to evade hostile Reptar, but it will work just as well against hostile men.” She shrugged, smiling faintly. “If we manage to get out of here I’ve also got a map. It’s very old and ridiculously out of date, but it beats nothing.”

Xavier’s smile grew and, grabbing things with his hands and tentacles both, he began to break down camp and gather Colby’s things for her to pack. “It’s the best chance we have,” he whispered, “but we need to hurry.”

Colby squished everything he passed her into her pack and in a few short minutes the camp no longer existed. Only the fire remained, still blazing bright.

Xavier shouldered Colby’s bag, then held the packet of herbs tightly in one hand and suspended it over the flames. He watched as Colby unrolled the brittle-looking scroll. It crinkled with age and fine bits of parchment fell away from the edges to dust the cave floor. She held it carefully out in front of her.

“Ready?” Xavier asked.

Colby nodded and began to read. Words fell from her lips, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining momentum until they tumbled over one another and became a low, indistinct drone. Suddenly she stopped talking and closed her eyes. A moment of silence, disturbed only by the popping fire and the pair’s breathing stretched into two, then three.

Finally, Colby opened her eyes, met Xavier’s gaze, and nodded again. He dropped the packet into the flames. The fire nibbled at the parchment slowly, as though checking it for taste, then the illusionary sounds of their coughing began and Xavier realized their timing was off. Luckily the fire liked what it had consumed of the packet of herbs and quickly ignited it. Within moments the dried herbs were alight and great black smoke began to billow forth from the campfire. It wasted no time in filling the cave and pouring out of its mouth.

They filled their lungs with some of the last clear air, and then, while the sounds of their choking and cursing continued, they followed the smoke out of the cave and into the swamp.

~*~

They bolted from the cave, making as little noise as possible. The sounds of their enemies surprise was quickly replaced by distinct cries of attack sandwiched between coughs. “Quick, go in now while they’re distracted!” one man cried and was echoed by another.

Colby could hear them splashing through the water on their way into the cave. One man passed so near to Colby that she felt him stir the air at her shoulder in his wake. She held her breath as he passed, stifling the cough that threatened to burst from her lungs at just the wrong time. Xavier gestured at her, and she discovered she could breathe without coughing if she ducked low to the ground and took shallow breaths. In fact, she found it easier to breathe than to move without splashing through the nearly knee-high water of the treacherous swamp, but somehow she managed both.

Her stomach was doing summersaults and her fingers shook with the power of the sped-up pulse feeding them as her heart sprinted in her chest. She’d never felt so scared, nor so excited in her entire life.

Behind her she could hear their pursuers calling to one another in the cave. It was still filled with smoke and they were having difficulty locating their prey, unaware that the sounds they were hearing were illusionary. She couldn’t make out their exact words but the tone still carried. They were frustrated and growing angrier. The illusion would wear off soon and when it did those already-angry thugs would realize they’d been tricked. The key to surviving past the next hour would be to put a lot of distance between Scholar’s men and themselves, and do it while leaving as faint a trail as they could.

As morning wore on they picked their way through the swamp. They headed in a vaguely western direction because that’s where Colby’s map and Xavier’s experience indicated they’d find the Reptar settlement. They moved with caution, hiding behind scraggly trees, and taking care not to splash until they felt certain their pursuers couldn’t hear them. At first they didn’t even speak, and Colby contemplated their near escape, well aware they hadn’t yet made it out of harm’s way.

“That was amazing wasn’t it?” She whispered, and could hear the awe in her own voice.

“What was?”

“The magic. I mean, our timing was off a little bit, but it felt incredible to say those words, think about what I wanted to happen and then have it work. It worked Xavier, I cast a spell!”

Xavier smiled over at Colby and nodded. “You sure did. Is magic rare where you come from? It’s pretty common here.”

Colby thought about her home world of Terricina and smiled. “No, it’s common there too, just not for me. Have you ever cast a spell?”

“Nope. The only thing I’ve ever cast is the line on my fishing rod. It’s the only thing I want to cast too.”

“Really? I think magic is,” Colby paused, trying to find the right word, then with a self-deprecating grin finished, “magical.”

Xavier chuckled and then nodded. “Where did you get the scrolls if you’ve never cast a spell before?”

“My mother gave them to me. I think they used to be my father’s, but I’m not sure. Mother is pretty dead-set against mages and magic, but when I insisted on coming here I think she figured I’d need all the help I could get.”

Xavier laughed. “I admit, I was wondering why you’d been the one sent on this dangerous errand. Not that I’m not grateful, you’ve saved my life twice now, it’s just…”

“I’m not the adventurer-type. I know. Truthfully I came because there was no other choice. ” Colby paused. “Long story. Anyway, it was me or no one.”

“What’s the long story? If you don’t mind my asking.” Xavier wiped a stream of sweat off his brow with the back of one hand. “Since we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

“I don’t even know all the reasons,” Colby laughed weakly, short of breath from walking. “Mother is pretty tight-lipped about anything that happened before we—. Well, the thing is, my brother has a magical sword. Once I get the stone from the reptar and fit it into its pommel, the sword should be able to cure him.”

“That’s a pretty short long story.” Xavier chuckled, apparently completely unsurprised by her revelation about Bayne’s sword. Of course, she hadn’t told him everything. It was best she keep as many details to herself as she could.

They walked in relative silence for much of the morning. Swatting at the ever-present blood-sucking insects and occasionally checking the map. The sun was filtered by clouds, bathing the desolate landscape in a bizarre half-light that made everything feel two-dimensional. Their shadows were weak and those of the few scraggly bushes and trees that peppered the marshy terrain were just as lacking, adding to the illusion of flatness. As the sun rose higher, Colby peered over at Xavier.

“How is your chest feeling?”

Her voice sounded unnaturally loud as it broke the silence and Xavier answered her in hushed tones. “It’s a little stiff, but not too bad. Whatever you did while I was sleeping seems to have worked a miracle. Another scroll perhaps?”

“All I did was dress it. I was tempted to use a herbal soporific to help you sleep but I wasn’t familiar with…” she paused uncomfortably before surging onward, “your race, so I didn’t dare use any herbs or spells. What cures one race can kill another.”

“Well, I suppose I can add freakish healing to the list of modifications I can thank Scholar for,” he replied in a wry tone.

Colby took a couple quick steps to catch up to Xavier so she could trudge through the ankle-deep water at his side.

“Was it terrible?” she asked, taking her eyes off the uneven ground long enough to look up at his profile.

Xavier stopped and looked down at her. Her curiosity didn’t originate in a morbid place and she hoped that fact showed on her face. It must have because after a long moment he nodded and looked away. “Yes,” he said. “It was terrible.”

Colby glanced over her shoulder and started walking once more. Xavier fell in beside her, obviously lost in thought. She didn’t push but walked quietly, listening to the sound of a nearby frog croaking and leaving Xavier to himself.

After a while, he cleared his throat and spoke. “It was terrible. His men kidnapped me one day when I was out hunting and turned me into this. He was trying to create some sort of super swamp-soldier. He gave me skin hard enough to act like armor and colored to camouflage. He altered my feet until they were webbed and gave me tentacles so I could wield several weapons at once. He operated on my eyes too, changing their color and making it so that I can see as well at night as you can during the day.”

“And your gills?”

Xavier reached up to touch the slits on the side of his neck. “They don’t work—though Calamyr knows he held me underwater more than once trying to shock them into action.”

“I’m sorry,” Colby said, her belly sick with sympathy. She laid her hand lightly upon his forearm.

Xavier looked down at her. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

Afternoon gave way to dusk, and a misty, grey gloom settled over the already desolate land. She and Xavier paused only long enough to take turns relieving themselves in a small thicket of trees and to pull out more dry rations to eat while they walked.

Colby shoved a strand of dark hair that had escaped her braid behind her ear and sighed wearily. Her legs burned from her exertions and her feet had blistered long ago. Occasionally dirty, stagnant water splashed over the tops of her knee-high boots, soaking her socks and breeches and increasing her discomfort. Every step hurt, only her focus on the rhythmic jingle of the buckles on her pack and the fact Xavier was carrying it kept her going.

Xavier, too, seemed to feel the effects of their long march. His tentacles moved with far less energy than when they had started out, and his pace had slowed considerably. His breeches, already tattered and dirty, were now soaked up to his waist and, as the sun fell, had to be getting progressively colder. And though Colby knew it was merely an artifact of their exhaustion, even his shadow seemed to lag behind him. Still, Colby considered it no small miracle he could walk at all, let alone for miles without a break.

Even as the sun set in front of them, they struggled onward. Colby slipped on a slimy rock once and would have tumbled into the muck but Xavier caught her with one of his tentacles. He held her until she regained her balance and looked into her weary face with concern before letting go.

The moon rode high in the sky when he finally chose to stop. They found a piece of relatively dry ground where he set her backpack down with an audible sigh of relief and sat on a nearby rotting log. Colby joined him and pulled her boots off, wincing at the multitude of broken blisters and bloody spots on her feet.

Hobbling to her pack, she dragged it to the log, and sat down again. She dug around inside until she found a jar of salve then slathered the sharp-smelling ointment over her feet and pulled on a new, clean pair of socks.

“How are your feet?”

Xavier’s teeth flashed bright in the moonlight. “They’re fine. It takes more than sticks and stone to penetrate my skin.”

Colby nodded, and put the jar back into her bag. “Do you think we can risk a fire?”

Xavier shook his head and pointed through the brush back in the direction they had come. Colby frowned and followed the direction of his finger with her eyes. At first she saw nothing but the silhouettes of fallen logs, boulders and the dwarf trees of the swamp, then she noticed what he was pointing at and her heart sank.

Across the swamp she saw the unmistakable light of a campfire.

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found

You know, I’m still not happy to be unemployed, but I am beginning to feel like my life is more under control than it has been. For the longest time I’ve been doing too much and trying desperately to try and figure out how to balance things and where to cut back. Now I’m getting things done and the other day I almost managed to do everything on my to-do list. I realise how pathetic that sounds, but it’s absolutely true. And it’s progress. Could be that I’ll go back to work sooner or later, but right now I’m truly enjoying feeling like I’m climbing out of the hole I’d plunged myself into.

We’ll have to wait and see if NaNoWriMo plunges me right back into the pit. It could happen. I have a basic premise for the story and one character and that’s it. Not exactly a strong platform to go into NaNo on, but it’s what I have so I’m going to work it. My plan is to embrace this as a chance to feel out the story and find out how to tell it. I don’t expect anything good but I’m not going to resort to any of the word-padding ideas so popular in November. We’ll see how it goes.

In other news, my poem After The Storm is up at Tales of the Zombie War. They have a comment option so you can tell me how much you hate it (Kidding, please don’t. I want you to like it. Like it, I say! :-p).

Finally, World of Warcraft has recently gone through a very disruptive patch. It’s been kinda crazy and overwhelming, in no small part because I have far too many characters with too many specs that I need to relearn how to play. Still, I’m muddling through. Right before the patch, however, I allowed my WoW nerdiness and my fiction writing to collide and snuck off to take a screenshot to share.

Please note, this screenshot is rather spoilerific if you’ve not read Shades of Green. Also, if you’ve not read Shades of Green you won’t likely find it very amusing, so click with caution.

(more…)

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~Audio Direct Download ~
The audio version is read by Bill Ratner.

Chapter Two

“This one will make you strong. Yes, strength, that’s what you’re lacking.”

Xavier heard the madman whispering to himself, his dry voice like the crinkling of fallen leaves.  Looking around as best he could, Xavier found himself in Scholar’s operating room.  Tables, cupboards and counters filled the space, each cluttered with braziers, bubbling pots and glass flasks filled with a bizarre assortment of materials.  It smelled of blood, acid and dried herbs.

Scholar drew nearer and though Xavier desperately wanted to run, he couldn’t. Iron bars held him down against a bare metal table.  One across his chest held his tentacles and arms tight to his sides while another pressed his ankles onto the cold surface. A light so bright it seemed magical flicked on above him and blinded his sensitive eyes but did not affect his ears. He could still hear the breath hiss past the old man’s lips, right next to his head and he tensed, anticipating the pain he knew would soon come.

Scholar’s hands, sweaty and hot, poked and prodded him. A maniacal cackle echoed in the air of the laboratory as he looked down at Xavier on his operating table and gushed, “Now this is going to hurt a little, but when I’m done you’ll be the strongest creature on Aphanasia.”

Xavier felt the scalpel press against the skin of his chest and begin to cut.

His scream woke him.

He was in a small cave. A cheery fire crackled nearby and the girl from the swamp sat on one side while he lay on the other. He sat up slowly, testing each muscle before putting any weight on it. The girl watched, but made no move either to help or run away. After several minutes, he sat upright, staring across the fire at her.

She spoke first.

“I’m glad to see you awake,” she said calmly, her eyes holding his. “My name is Colby.”

Though his throat felt like a desert, he croaked, “Xavier.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you must be thirsty.” Colby picked up a nearby water skin and brought it over.  She didn’t move as though she were scared, but still stayed as far away as possible while handing it to him.

He accepted the bottle with a nod of gratitude. As she returned to her spot on the other side of the fire, he tilted his head back and poured its contents into his mouth. The water was warm and tasted slightly of the leather it had been held in, but it was wet. He cleared his throat, took another drink, then nodded and smiled.

“Thank you, Colby. I owe you my life,” Xavier said, pleased it no longer hurt to speak.

“So, you are friendly.” She sighed and he could see much of the tension flood out of her body.  “I was half-worried you were going to eat me when you woke.”

Her words stung, but Xavier laughed self-deprecatingly. “No, I may look like a monster but I’m not one.”

“What are you then?” Colby asked, and her face flushed with color. “What I mean is, what race? I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“Nor will you.” Xavier looked into the flames while he considered her question. Eventually he looked back up at her. “I don’t know what I am anymore. I was a man once.”

“Before Scholar captured you?” Colby prodded gently.

Xavier stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

“You’ve been having nightmares about him ever since I brought you here this morning. I managed to piece a little bit together.”

“It’s been a whole day? Drek.”

Colby giggled, “I didn’t know people said ‘drek’ around here.”

“What? Oh, well, I say it. Can’t speak for anyone else.”

She stood and dug around in her backpack, pulled out a small grey bar about the same thickness as a man’s finger but with the texture of clay and handed it to him.

“You must be starving. Here, have some of this. It tastes like dust, but my mother swears it’s good for you.”

Xavier accepted the food with a thankful nod, tore a chunk off with his teeth and chewed it a long time before swallowing. “Anything that tastes this horrible has got to be good for you.”

Colby joined him in hislaughter, and some of the tension between them dissipated.

“You’re not from around here then?” Xavier asked.

“No, I’m from,” she paused and then waved a hand dismissively and said, “elsewhere.”

Deciding not to push the matter, he picked a different, though similar question. “So why are you here?”

Colby paused again, chewing on the corner of her lip before speaking. When she did, she seemed to be picking her words with great care. “My brother is sick, he’s infected with vampirism. But the Reptar have a stone, a magical one, which may be able to help him.”

“The Reptar?  You don’t want to go see them, especially not alone, they can be pretty dangerous.”

“I don’t have any choice.  I have to go, and I have to do it quickly.”

Xavier paused, and tilted his head so far to the side that one of his curving horns rested on his shoulder as he regarded Colby.  “Then why did you stop to help me at all?  Especially since I look like this,” he added, gesturing with his hands at the tentacles that undulated around him and the horns on his head.

She shrugged and shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his stare.  “I couldn’t just leave you there to die, especially after you spoke.”

“I still don’t get it.  You had no idea what manner of creature I was.  I could very well have jumped up and devoured you when I woke.”

“But you didn’t.”

“You had no way of predicting that.”

“I couldn’t just let you die!” Colby snapped, then took a deep breath and looked across the flames at him. “Where I come from there are many forms of intelligent life, growing up as a human I was the minority, the freak.”

She blushed again at her choice of word, but didn’t take it back.  “I couldn’t grow up there and not come to understand that appearances mean nothing and that you can’t judge anyone based on them – especially after watching the discrimination my brother was subjected to. I was frightened when I saw you, but you spoke and I couldn’t just leave you there to die.” She spread her hands out at her sides, before letting them drop back into her lap with a sigh. “I just couldn’t.”

He was curious about where she’d grown up, and her brother, but decided against asking any questions right now. He had more immediate concerns. Scholar’s men hadn’t given up pursuing him. By helping him Colby had undoubtedly saved his life, but she’d also put her own in danger. His mind wrestled with the situation, turning it over and over and inside out, seeking a solution. Only the crackle of the fire and the sound of their breathing interrupted the silence in the cave. Finally, as the silence started to become awkward Xavier nodded and smiled. “I’m glad you didn’t. Let me come with you. Let me offer you what protection I can while you look for this stone for your brother.”

Colby met his gaze and held it. “I can’t wait for you to recover, Xavier. Bayne could be dying even as we sit here. I need to get the stone right away. I’m sorry.”

“You won’t have to wait. I can travel. Let me come with you.” he repeated truthfully. Despite his long night, lack of food and injuries from Scholar, he felt remarkably well. Sore, tired and hungry, but not nearly as poorly as he had at dawn. Besides, Colby had no idea the danger she was in already, nor the peril she was running to. The least he could do was help her as best he could, to return the immense favor she had done him. Anyway, moving was better than sitting in a cave waiting for discovery. Scholar’s men weren’t geniuses but they would find him eventually. “I can’t stay here, the men from the castle will be looking for me. I need to run somewhere, since no one ever seeks out the Reptar, that seems as good a direction as any. They won’t think to look for me there.”

Colby caught her lower lip between her teeth and dropped her eyes to her lap. Xavier didn’t look away, and before long she looked back up at him and nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Xavier.”

“It’s not safe to travel in the swamp at night,” he said. “We’ll leave just before dawn. You sleep, I’ll take first watch.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.  You’ve been watching over me all day, it’s my turn to return the favor.” He stood cautiously, and then stretched, his tentacles swaying gently, as though in a breeze. Each muscle in his chest and arms was sore, but not as much as they had been before he’d collapsed. Not even close. He only winced once, when he flexed his wounded chest muscles, but even then it wasn’t unbearable.  “Besides, it feels good to stretch out and move again.”

He handed Colby the blanket she’d given him while he’d lain unconscious.

“Thank you,” she whispered, wrapping it around herself and curling up on the ground beside the fire.

Long after her slow, even breathing told him Colby slept, Xavier sat, gazing silently into the flames but not really seeing them. The fire crackled and danced across the logs, causing the shadows of everything, from Colby to the boulders that peppered the floor, to move and twist at its whim. All save one.

His own shadow stood fast, resisting the shifting light. Often when he moved to watch his slumbering companion, his shadow hesitated before following suit. After some time his shadow stood and began to pace the small cave, though he himself remained seated by the fire.

“They’re out there ye know,” the shadow hissed.

Xavier let his head fall into his hands and sighed. “I know.  I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the silence betrays them. No insects chirp and no night birds call.  I know they’re there.”

“She don’t,” the shadow stated flatly, jerking its head in Colby’s direction.

“I know.”

“I told ye ta kill the guard.  Least it woulda given ya a head start ‘fore they knew ye were missin’.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“Bah, ye don’t know what ye is,” the shadow mocked, waving his tentacles derisively.

The shadow’s dry laughter sounded like a desiccated corn husk being tugged off the cob. It sent shivers down Xavier’s spine. He gritted his teeth and flexed the muscles of his tentacles, trying to blot out the sound and looked back into the flames, thinking. Even his tentacles stopped swaying and rested peacefully at his side.

The shadow continued to pace. Its tentacles flailed violently around it, and occasionally one pounded angrily into the palm of its hand.

“They’re jus’ waitin’ till their backup gets here.”

“That’s what I thought too. You suppose they’ll attack at dawn?”

“I s’pose it depends on how long they bin waitin’.”

“I don’t think they were there when I woke up, but I don’t know. They could have been there the whole time I slept, just waiting for a sign that Colby wasn’t alone.”

“If they’ve ‘eard ye talkin’ I ‘spect they know she’s not alone an’ they won’t waste time.”

“Yeah, I expect they do.” Xavier sighed. Standing slowly, he moved closer to the mouth of the cave and peered out. The sky hadn’t begun to lighten yet, but the stars had grown faint.

“Kill ‘em,” his shadow whispered, but Xavier shook his head.

“I’m not a murderer.”

The shadow threw up its arms and tentacles, in exasperation. “Fine, be a martyr, but don’t ferget the main thing ’bout martyrs.”

“What’s that?” Xavier whispered.

“They’re all dead.”

The shadow fell silent and stopped pacing. It slid across the cave and took its usual spot on the side of Xavier opposite the light and began mirroring his movements, albeit with a slight delay.

Xavier’s shoulders slumped as he moved back into the depths of the cave. Dropping to his knees at Colby’s side he reached out a hand and shook her softly.

“Colby,” he whispered, “Colby, I’m sorry, but you need to wake up.”

“Wha…what is it?” she murmured, obviously fighting through the layers of sleep that held her.

“Men followed me from the castle. I don’t know how they found me so quickly, but I think we’re going to have to make a run for it.”

Colby sat up slowly, a frown marking her features. “I may be able to help. It’s the least I can do after marking the trail for them.”

***

If you like Lost and Found you may also like Shades of Green which is set in the same swamp, or “Sister Margaret” which has some familiar characters.

All other chapters can be found here –> Lost and Found