The Sword of the Wormling (12 page)

Mordecai removed the coin boxes and other heavy items, then carried the chest back to the fire, where Watcher was tending a fresh roasting of skolers and fish. Owen followed with the huge sword, which seemed to render Watcher speechless. She just stared at it and at Owen.

Owen left the sword with her when he moved to the water to wash up. When he returned, Watcher was looking at herself in the reflection of the blade. She seemed fascinated with her face, opening her mouth, looking at her teeth, and pulling a tuft of fur from over her left eye.

“You need a mirror, not a sword,” Owen said.

“What's a mirror?” Watcher said, sticking out her tongue and moving it from side to side.

Now famished, Owen finally sat with his mouth watering. He had eaten only breakfast and lunch each day on the island, snacking on pineapple or coconut milk to keep his strength up. That had made him stronger and leaner. He had more stamina and grew faster and more agile every day.

Mordecai skewered the fish and skolers and removed them from the fire. He pulled a green fruit from his pocket, sliced it with his knife, and squeezed the juice onto the fish. He poured coconut milk onto the skolers and let it soak in until the milk bubbled, then put all the food back on the fire. He rubbed his hands on his tunic and opened the chest. “I need to show you something.”

Owen sniffed at the chest. It still smelled of the smoke that had permeated the scorched papers and jewelry.

Watcher picked up a gold necklace and gasped, “It's beautiful.”

“It belonged to the Queen,” Mordecai said. He took if from her with his scarred hand. The necklace matched the color of Watcher's fur, but its beauty made Mordecai's red scars look even more hideous.

Owen took it and held it up to the sunlight. It had become darkened by soot, but Owen was still impressed to actually be holding a piece of jewelry owned by a queen. “How do you know it was hers?”

“I just know.”

Owen put the necklace back in the chest and took out a watch.

Again, Watcher was agog. “What is that?”

“A timepiece,” Mordecai said. “It tells you how far the sun tracks across the sky each day and then the moon at night.”

Owen thought that was an interesting way to explain a watch. “I have the same thing on my arm. Only it doesn't have hands, just numbers.”

Watcher examined the black digital watch on his arm, which had become dirtier the more he trained. It was one of the few connections with his world, other than his clothes and his backpack. And the book. Always the book.

Owen pulled from the chest promissory notes, papers that said a certain person owed the King money. There were also forgiven debts, people for whom the King had canceled the money they owed.

“Seems like a pretty nice guy,” Owen said. “He sure helped a lot of people.”

“He was the best,” Mordecai muttered.

“So who do you think hid this in the cave?”

“I don't know,” Mordecai said. “Perhaps someone trying to put all the pieces of the King's life back together. His plan. He was a man of ideas, always sifting information, anticipating events.”

Owen wondered how Mordecai knew so much about the King, but he wasn't ready to ask. “It wasn't just a thief then, stashing the loot?”

“Oh no. Think, Wormling. A thief would have long since sold the coins. And the sword and the jewelry would claim quite a price too, from the right buyer. No, whoever stashed all this was probably looking for something. Or someone. A clue to the whereabouts of the King, perhaps. Or maybe something about the King's Son.”

“Maybe they wanted to lure someone here,” Watcher said. Owen and Mordecai looked up at her, and she stepped back. “You know, as bait. Maybe they thought the Wormling would come here at some point, and they could do him harm or worse. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Mordecai coughed. “Pardon me, but I hadn't thought of that. It shows you're . . . thinking quickly and with a good head.”

“Well, you needn't appear so amazed. Excuse me if I'm feeling less than appreciated.” She strutted off in a huff.

“Watcher, come back,” Owen said. “It's almost time to eat and you'll like this. Please.”

But she had already disappeared into the jungle.

Owen rose to go after her, but Mordecai put a hand on his arm. “We've offended her somehow. Give her time.” He retrieved a fish from the fire and examined it. “You should be glad she's accompanying you. She really does have a good mind—and not just for watching.”

Owen nodded and helped Mordecai remove the food. They let it cool while Owen examined a few more pages from the chest. One was burned and almost unrecognizable, but at the bottom of the page was a footprint, the kind you see on birth certificates.

Owen showed Mordecai and the man recoiled. “That is the royal certificate for the King's Son.”

Beneath it was another, not quite as charred. “And this?”

“His sister. Gwenolyn.”

Owen flinched. “No one told me he had a sister! Perhaps she knows where her brother is.”

Mordecai sighed. “There is much to learn, Wormling. Not just about the sword and how to work with Watcher. I fear for your future.”

Owen's shoulders slumped. “Why does this have to be so complicated? I really believed I could simply find the King's Son, he would unite the worlds, and I could go back home.”

“You will need to go back. That's certain.”

“Why?”

Mordecai shook his head. “There is much to tell. Let me show you something. Wait here.” He climbed the vine to his cave with surprising agility and quickness for such a large man.

The sun was setting now, the smell of the food overwhelming. Owen couldn't resist opening the frond and picking off a white piece of fish. The taste exploded in Owen's mouth. He couldn't wait to dive in.

Soon Mordecai returned, the vine creaking under his weight. He held a parchment similar to the one containing the initiation ceremony, but Owen could tell it was much different.

“Your presence here means something is happening in the invisible world,” Mordecai said, “and in your world as well.”

“That's what Bardig said.”

Mordecai handed Owen the fish and skolers, along with a crude fork. “He was correct.” Mordecai ate with his fingers and downed the fish in three bites.

“I can't read this,” Owen said.

“These are orders intercepted from the Dragon. Special orders for his elite troops. It talks of the truce between the King and the invisible kingdom. It confirms rumors of talks between the Dragon and the King. Whether it was face-to-face I don't know.”

“Can there be a truce with a being such as the Dragon? He doesn't seem like the kind who would keep his word.”

Mordecai nodded. “I wouldn't trust the Dragon to live up to any agreement that called for his doing less than controlling both worlds as well as the invisible realm.”

Mordecai took a bite of skoler and closed his eyes as if the taste had transported him. He licked his fingers and spoke with his mouth full. “The Dragon, it says, was prepared to sign the treaty of peace between the two worlds, but the agreement calls for his delivering the two ‘packages' wrapped and intact. This can mean only one thing.”

“The Dragon had the King's children kidnapped.”

“Exactly.”

“But why? Couldn't the Dragon have just killed the children?”

“Yes, quite possible. Probable even. But it strikes me that the Dragon wanted these two alive for his own purposes. They give him leverage to make a different deal with the King, perhaps.”

Owen studied the scroll. “Where did you get this? It wasn't in the chest, was it?”

Mordecai popped the rest of a skoler in his mouth and stared at Owen. “What does it matter where I got it? I have it today.”

“Where would the Dragon have taken the children, Mordecai?”

“No one knows, of course. This may be why the King disappeared. He conducted a search of the kingdom himself, checking every hamlet.”

“But
The Book of the King
says the Son is in prison, so we know that much.”

“Read it to me.”

Owen dug the book from his pack, and as he began reading, Mordecai closed his eyes and a smile crossed his lips. The words seemed to bring him life, like a man dying of thirst given a goblet of the best drink in the land.

When Owen read that the Son would one day save both worlds and unite them, Mordecai finally opened his eyes. “Now I can see why you were so determined to be initiated. I have heard those words before, but they were only whispers on the wind, hope and freedom in the darkness.”

“Do you remember when there were books?” Owen said. “Do you remember what the land was like?”

Mordecai nodded. “Knowledge was esteemed. People hungered for it. They would sit and listen to stories of old as their hearts turned to fire, and they wondered if there could ever be anything as good and as nourishing as apt words. And then came the fire, the burning and looting of wisdom. It began with the books and continued with the minds of my countrymen. We no longer hunger for knowledge.”

“
Your
countrymen?” Owen said. “You count yourself among them, and yet you live here?”

“Are you a Wormling or a meddler?”

Owen smiled. “Maybe both.”

A sensitive being, Watcher knew there were scarier things than just invisibles. At least she could tell when one of those was coming. With the humans, she could never tell when one would anger or betray her. She'd had her doubts about the Wormling at first, thinking he was just out for himself. The death of her trusted friend Bardig had been no small thing. But gradually she had come to trust the Wormling and believe he truly wanted to help his own world and hers achieve wholeness, as the book said.

But as soon as the Wormling had begun his training, Watcher sensed a change. Owen was becoming more aware of himself, more sure, more capable. He learned to swim. When she saw him with his sword, her stomach turned. She was losing him to a world of battle and crusades that could take him in any direction.

It was during these lonely times that Watcher sought solace in her hammock at the end of the island. Mordecai seemed so wrapped up in the initiation training that it seemed he, too, wanted her to fade into the background, seen but not heard.

And so she did fade, for a time, becoming a mere spectator actually taking delight in some of the exercises. One of her favorites had been at the hissing stones near the bridge that had been torn apart. In a shallow pool at the end of a lagoon lay a mist-enshrouded spot where water bubbled with heat from under the earth. Watcher did not believe this water could really be hot when the ocean was so cool, but one leg into the pond convinced her.

The Wormling's task had been to make it from one side of the pond to the other without falling in. Mordecai instructed the Wormling to study the water and traverse it barefooted when ready. The Wormling took his time—too careful for Watcher's taste—planning each step.

Watcher became so frustrated with the Wormling that she stepped in front of him and bounced over the rocks with ease, sure-footed and confident. Mordecai had laughed, but the Wormling had not. Especially when he nearly fell.

Enamored with Mordecai's attention, Watcher made a return trip, but at the next-to-last rock, something hot shot up her back and she screamed, falling.

Mordecai howled, and Watcher did not appreciate the laughter at her expense. The Wormling tried to help her up, but she would have nothing to do with him. She watched from a distance as he went back and forth over the rocks, even anticipating the gusts of steam.

“Good,” Mordecai had said. “Excellent. Now we will try it again, only this time blindfolded.”

To Watcher's surprise, the Wormling almost made the trip successfully. Almost. Near the edge, the steam zapped him from behind and he fell into the hot water. She had laughed hysterically, but that seemed to make him all the more determined.

Now, as she lay in the hammock watching the stars begin to appear, her stomach growled at the thought of the fish and skolers and brawn. She was the one missing out on the feast, not them. They probably didn't even miss her.

Watcher thought of her family, the meals her mother used to cook, the way her father relished each morsel and complimented the woman. Watcher closed her eyes and remembered the laughter, the love, and a pain struck deep in her heart—pain of loneliness and fear at the loss of both parents. She would never see them again, at least not in this life.

In that hammock, swinging gently with the wind, Watcher decided to return home. She would make a skiff of her own, and she had enough jargid skins and oil left that she could slather herself and keep safe from the Kerrol.

The Wormling did not need her any longer. He wouldn't even miss her. He could go on his one-man crusade, find the King's Son, and be the hero of both worlds without her help. She was sure of it.

Her mind filled with these thoughts until her ears twitched and her body went rigid. Something was coming. Something terrible.