Historia III

Bumps on the dirt road can be felt at every rotation of the wheels. The fish-like horse galloped with a speed of a fish cutting through ocean water. Hooves clap the ground in a rhythm that could turn anything into a lullaby— if one was tired enough. All the distance traveled on foot minuscule at the might of this wagon.

Ahh… all that wasted time.

The wagon had flown by all that I had walked. Backtracking to the crossroads, the man turned to the furtherest path to the left before the creature continued to gallop its merry way. He cracked the reins. A dampened neighing rings out from the creature before the wagon moved again. Then, every shifted inside the wagon bed as the whole dashed down the correct path. I had gone the complete wrong way.

“We’re making good time, Starfish!” The man loudly instructs, “We’ll be there in short time. I’ll be dropping you all off at the town’s inn. Have your things ready, people.”

His words like dreams made real. The anticipation nearly too much to bear. If not for the throbbing pain of the cut on that one hand, this death grip on the dagger wouldn’t have been enough from passing out in relief. Things are fading in and out of consciousness, but none of that is enough to ignore what else accompanies the wagon bed’s contents.

A pleasant shade blankets the inside of the wagon bed. While not too important under a clear night sky, a roof is a luxurious comfort to the mind all the same. More importantly, a breeze returns. At the speed of the horse-like creature, it isn’t too chilling like it was walking. Euphoric is this whistle of wind. Almost enough to make a girl fall asleep. Almost.

Crates clutter the edges of the area. Some of them containing supplies. Others filled with livestock. Animals just as odd looking as the one outside. Shared water sits in the middle of the wagon bed. And, two pairs of pupils stare daggers my way.

One a little girl, the other a boy. The corners of his eyes are nearly as sharp as his stare at me. And, I can’t blame him. Cloth-like shirt and pants of various greens and browns; the boy’s clothes nearly as light as these desert pants. Bags under those eyes, too. Makes sense that he’s also as wrapped up in a wool-like blanket as I am. He doesn’t like too much younger than myself.

Must’ve been a long night for him, too.

On the other hand, he couldn’t be any more different from the girl. Her fists are pumping vigorously. A bright gleam is coming out of her wide irises. Those things aren’t staring at me though. They are pointed more downward. They are looking at the jeweled dagger.

“Can I see it? Can I, can I?” Her cute purple prairie gown bounces at the end of every question.

“Sherri”, the boy speaks up, “you can’t keep asking strangers for their weapons. They aren’t toys. Especially, not one that powerful.”

“But”, Sherri pulls out her puppy eyes, “it looks so pretty! Can I play with just this one?”

The boy’s face crinkles a bit. “Y’know”, he points towards her mouth, “that eye technique doesn’t work so well when you’re drooling like that.”

“Huh?!” The little girl jumps back. She moves to wipe the evidence away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

This exchange continues for a tad longer. Excuse and counter; there routine like a practicing comedy duo. It has some potential, really. Ultimately, it concludes with a pouting kid and the boy’s attention reverting back towards me.

“Don’t fall asleep on us.” His words are sharp. Not as much the terms themselves, but the tone in which he speaks them. Like the old man outside, it comes off as more of a command than a mishandled suggestion.

Although, my eyelids couldn’t lie. They were drooping in the middle of his short statement. The dim wagon bed didn’t help matter. I don’t get any of this.

“I’m sorry”, words escape out of the weakest smile I could muster, “but I don’t understand. Really. What exactly is this dagger?”

“You really don’t know?”

That weak smile crumbles. In its place, only a similar pout forms. “No— and, now, I’m getting pretty angry of all of these accusations that I do.”

He lets out a disappointing sigh. “You’re childish, too?” His question is tinged with the slightest warmth of a tiniest smile.

In a huff and a puff, “Who are you calling childish?!” To be called a child by someone that barely a teen himself. Brutal.

Pleas of peace kinda come from his lips— followed by a chuckle. The small waves of his hands are good enough with how things are now. Trust.

“So”, I reiterate, “the dagger. Why are you all so scared of it? What is it meant for?”

His face loses its color. This putrid loss twisted against the peppermint fragrance the supply crates had been creating inside. A wincing expression replaces the chuckles. “It’s a legend made real. Proof the story isn’t just a scary story parents tell us kids. The thing that has killed hundreds of humans in the most horrific of ways. It isn’t the blade that’s dangerous. It’s the hilt.”

The two pause at these words. An aura of sadness washes over the two kids. The little girl—now absorbed into our conversation—isn’t pouting anymore. Her expression is blank; sheet white like a ghost. Seems even she’s aware of this tale.

“It’s why you shouldn’t touch it,” the teen boy explains to the little girl before turning his head back to me, “it’s said to drain the souls out of anybody unable to keep it fed.”

“Keep it fed?” Any filter for my mouth has dissolved hours ago. The exhaustion and need for some sort of understanding of this place fight for dominance. “Treat me like I know nothing. About anything. Like I’m dumb.”

“Uhh…”, his eyes like a deer in headlights, “o—okay. As the legend says, the dagger drains magik from its wielders in order to fulfill their deepest desires. No one has every been able to wield it for more than a day. Especially, not humans. It seems like it just absorbs the life out of us until we are dry husks.”

“Then”, the dagger drops from my shaking hand, “why did you all tell me to not drop the thing?!”

The boy begins to sweat, “Umm… the typical work around has been to have something stuck between one’s hand and the dagger itself. Like, a glove or something non-conductive. But, you’ve had it held in your bare hand this whole time. So—“

“That’s not an answer!” The fearful shouting reaches outside the wagon bed, “What’s going to happen to me?!”

Frantic as I am, the boy isn’t any calmer. He looks towards the back of the old man and back to me. His hands are waving wildly— as if to deny the situation that he caused. Like someone out of their depths, desperately looking for a lifeline. That is, until, the old man speaks up.

“You’re a strange one, missy!” The old man shouting from out of sight; the clapping hooves nearly drowning him out. “If you were gonna die, it would’ve happened already! You’ll be just fine, ya hear!”

“Huh?” My head spins on a dial back to the boy for dets, “What does he mean by that?”

An exhale swirls from out from the boy’s teeth. His sweat decreasing just as quickly as it appeared. “The ‘life sucking’ properties are rather immediate. If it—“

The old man cuts him off, “Hold it tight! Little Sherri is quite the thief! Don’t let her touch it!” His shouts growing louder the more the little girl’s name pops up into the man’s warnings.

“Okay!” The boy—disgruntled—shouts back, “Thank you, sir!”

Without missing a beat, the boy regains his shoddily stoic composure. Continuing where he left off, “If it was going to happen with you, it would’ve been a husk we would have found instead of a lost girl with weird clothes.”

Relief on one hand, but burned on another. “…”, my ruined eyebrows drop down, “Was that last bit necessary?”

Again, the boy chuckles. “Sorry”, scratching his head, “it’s just not something one sees everyday is all.”

Shaking my head away from these collapsing eyelids, there are more concerning matters to deal with than his atrocious taste in fashion. “The dagger”, getting things back on track, “tell me everything. I need to know why it isn’t doing what you said it should be to me.”

“I don’t know,” any light-hearted expression turning back to stoicism on the boy, “but there are two possibilities, I suppose.” That stoicism changing once more into inquisitiveness with his hand placing itself on his chin. “One way: you have a large enough mana pool for it not to have an affect on you as quickly as any other being. A crazy, huge pool of it. The second way: you nullify it. All of it.”

Shaking my head intensely, the boy continues his breakdown. “With saying that…”, he hesitates, “I don’t think it can be option number one. If that was the case, the dagger would have shown signs of it retaining that much mana at once— and that you seem to be human, too. Stuff only my dad had heard of before; glowing, pulsating, and whirlwinds all around the wielder. Lots of crazy stuff. But, that only leaves option number two.”

“So”, chiming in for confirmation, “this— what you’re saying— is nullification magic?”

“I can’t say”, the boy slowly shakes his head, “there has never been an instance of that happening naturally for a being— much less a human. It’s all a touch too unbelievable. Usually others use an item or something to nullify such a thing, but those have never worked on this dagger. It’s pretty overpowered— whatever it is you possess. And, it’s pronounced ‘magic’.”

“Hmm—“, his tiny verbal jabs gnaw away at the little patience left in my body. This desire for info is paramount on so many things, but this nasty thirst for sleep just wants the destination to come sooner and sooner. There isn’t any guarantee that these people will be anywhere in sight if I do pass out. Or, where I could find them if they were close by. I need to know everything I can while I’m still able to ask. I have too many questions. But—in this state— I can even hold onto any extra info if I tried?

All of this amazing, new stuff would so much more fun if I just didn’t—

“Miss”, the boy taps my face with his dirty hands, “we’re almost there. You cannot sleep now. Not yet.” His leg keeping the curious Sherri back from frothing over the dagger.

“Ah! Huh—“ soot fingermarks freshly tatter across my cheeks, “you said your father told you all of this. How— where did he hear it from?” My injured hand grasps the dagger from the wood flooring of the wagon bed. Tucking it under my multi-pocket jacket, my eyes lose their preppy shape. Only daggers stare back at the boy— pun not intended.

Sadness radiates from the boy. Just a teen himself, the way he looks aimlessly down at the same wood flooring isn’t foreign to those that know. A drowning sensation from the inside. Taste of metal nothingness. A hole where the heart should be. His words get choked up within his vocal cords.

He monotonously pushes them through, “He was a groundskeeper at Laumė Castle. He cleaned the place outside and in. After his injuries, of course. City kings and sea lords from all around would tell stories of their adventures and victories in that great Court of Kings— and dad was lucky to hear it all. Even about the stuff passed down from the ages— the stuff they hung up everywhere.”

Other voices can be heard over the creatures hooves now. Their volume rising higher and higher. Stuff that sounds like bartering and arguing. More space fills in-between the hoof claps. Yet, that noise isn’t only coming from in front of the wagon now either. It’s coming from all around. The inside of the wagon isn’t as dark as before, too. Civilization, at last— but it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Why now?

Regardless, the boy is too distraught from his retelling to notice. He doesn’t pause. He keeps going as his voice rises as well. “My father would recount these every night. When he heard a new one, I would be the first to know. It was our favorite thing in the whole world. And, that bastard took that from us!”

Sherri begins to recede away from the boy. Her usual look of constant excitement sours into a trembling uncertainty. A fear to shake her body— and her tiny eyebrows.

“He took the castle”, rage fills his voice, “then he took the farmlands. Slaughtering everyone in the castle and any who opposed him. Even burned some of the Allies Whom Roam the Woods. That damn Usurper!”

The wagon starts to crawl to a stop. The old man can be heard hopping off the driver’s seat of the thing. We’re here, but the boy has not finished his grievances. “It’s just a graveyard now.” His former rage smolders into a familiar depressive husk of stoicism, “Even though he lost the castle in the end, it doesn’t bring anyone back. It doesn’t change what happened. I will find him, and—I swear— I’ll kill him. I have t—“

Wagon’s white sheets fly open from the back of the bed. Whatever the boy was about to say had been cut short. There stands the old, bearded man with a goofy smile, and— glowing from behind him— the break of the day’s first light. It is breathtaking. Even of the limited scope from the wagon bed, it stoke the fire of adventure within me. Still, what the boy said made the mood of the wagon dour. His plight, his anguish that I didn’t wish on anyone. This consideration of empathy— no, pity— I and Sherri felt over him probably wouldn’t make him feel any better either. Nevertheless, a thought from something that should’ve been buried deep slips through.

At least, he knows.

What an ugly thought to have. A thought enough to block out whatever the old man had to say just now.

“Didn’t I tell you kids that Starfish would get us to town quick?” Words spewing out of the old man’s toothy grin changes the mood swiftly. Warmth emits from his goofy openness, “Now, it’s time to exit the Laumė Express. I hope you all enjoyed your exquisite ride.”

That old man took us exactly where he promised: we are right in front of a place called ‘Bomba-Dil Inn’. The exterior looks so lavish! Various hues of yellow coats all the ornate architecture. Pillar swirls to welcome one at the entrance and detailed etchings tails from window to window. It looks like ancient Greece yet more modern than that ever could be. It even has its own identity in the door itself!

It’s like an archaeologist’s wet dream!

I and the boy get out from the wagon. First, the boy. Then, I, but not without assistance. He used both hands. One on my elbow, and one on my uninjured hand. Whether it was for keeping the dagger hidden or not, this gentlemanly act did surprise all of us.

Sherri did leave out a squeal almost as fast as the old man pat the boy’s back. “That’s it, young man.” The old man cackles, “I knew you had a bit of a charm somewhere in ya.”

Their acknowledgments cause the boy to blush. Muttering something under his cherry red face, he turns and rapidly walks away into the inn. Ignoring the two other’s sweet goodbyes.

“Bye Bye, shy boy!” Sherri cheers from within the wagon bed as the old man simply waves.

With an injured hand held tight against the jacket, I give my goodbyes to the two as well. But, not before the old man stops me for something. “Young miss”, he draws with a more serious expression, “did you keep your promise?”

The question, while oddly phrased, didn’t take long to figure out. Nor much more to answer. I lift my jacket up slightly. Not enough to lose my grip on the thing, but sufficient to show the old man the dagger. He merely nods, “Good”, with a satisfactory smile. Like a job well done after seeing one’s kid accomplish their task.

“Hey”, still speaking to the old man, “is Sherri not coming into the inn, too?”

Confusion must have been written in marker all over my face because the old man’s laughter returned shortly after the question. His complete expression reverting in a snap. The goofy old man calmly says towards the rising sun, “She was too young to have been left to the wildebeest. Out there in the wild yonder. When the time is right, she will leave the flock.”

Turning to me, he shines a goofy smile. With his eyes closed, “What else are granddads for?” His smile as radiant as daybreak in the strong rays of the sun. A smile that can give one hope.

As he gets back up onto the driver’s seat of the wagon, Sherri returns to wave me off. Her golden blond hair bounces back and forth as wildly as her prairie gown. As carefree and innocent as one can be. In the first authentic smile since leaving the castle, I wave back— matching her enthusiasm as much as my delirious self can muster. All until she goes back into that wagon’s bed.

“Thank you, Sherri! Thank you…!”, my shouts pause as I try to think of the old man’s name.

Crap! I never got the guys’ names!