Sacred: Eslura's Calling Read online

  Beside the piers, wicker huts lined the beach, their doors propped open for passersby to smell their fresh comestibles and eye their handcrafted wares. Palm trees cast shade down on the civilians who sprawled out on the sand, their backs browned by the sun.

  When Barnaby had run far enough that he could no longer see the market, he sat down against the trunk of a shady palm tree and caught his breath. He ran his gloved hands through the tiny sand pebbles and watched them sift through his fingers. Sand. He had heard of it, seen it in photos, but never once felt its grainy softness.

  He glanced around to make sure no one was watching him, and, seeing that no one was, he took off his shoes and dug his webbed toes into the sand. Though it was warm and soft, a chill ran up his spine and through his gills. He sighed and leaned his head against the tree.

  He gazed out across the bay at Ovallia’s famous lighthouse, which sat like a king on a throne atop the rocky shore. Its marble tower was circled with blue rings and stood more than a hundred feet tall. Its blue beacon shone brilliantly from its lantern room even in the midday sun, and its metal cupola gleamed like fire.

  In a guidebook, Barnaby had read that the Book of Water sat guarded within its chambers. A Sacred Book created eons ago by two gods of unfathomable power from a tiny yet mighty stone—or so the fables told. The Sacred Book of Water was one of the four famed tomes that ruled the lands of Eslura, and it was right in that tall lighthouse with its Ruler, Lumikki Otsby.

  “Mauz!” Barnaby said. “You’ve got to—” He suddenly realized his companion was not there to share his excitement. It wasn’t the same without him, and he missed the little toad already. “Peppersnakes,” he sighed and pulled out his postcard from his pocket. He looked down at the postcard, trying to distract himself from his companion’s absence, but what good did a journey do if there was no Mauz?

  Barnaby stood and brushed himself off.

  “Hey, look out!” a boy shouted as he collided into him. The blow knocked Barnaby down face first into the sand. The postcard fluttered out of his hands and onto the beach.

  “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” Barnaby said, pulling himself to his knees. He dusted the sand off his cheeks and readjusted his displaced scarf and cloak.

  The blonde-haired boy looked about his age and wore a blue silk robe—the traditional water-resistant garment of the Ovallian people. He scowled and narrowed his eyes at Barnaby. “Olphin,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “You’re the Olphin!”

  Barnaby turned his head to hide his scales. He glanced at the crowd gathering around him, hoping that no one heard the boy. Luckily, it seemed no one did. He reached for his postcard, but the boy was too quick. He snatched it up before Barnaby could grab it.

  “No, wait,” Barnaby pleaded, holding his hands up apologetically. “Please.”

  “The Eslurian Opera House?” The boy raised a brow and held the postcard to his face, pinched between his fingers like a dead rat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Please,” Barnaby begged. He dropped his head in defeat. “Give it back.”

  The boy laughed and a malicious smile crawled up his cheeks. “You won’t be needing this. The Opera House is no place for an Olphin.” In one swipe, he tore the postcard from corner to corner, and Barnaby felt his heart rend. Tears welled in his eyes.

  “What?” The boy bent face-to-face with Barnaby, a false sense of comfort in his tone. “You didn’t really think they’d allow a freak like you in there, did you? I’m only helping you out.” He laughed and let the shreds of the postcard trickle down onto the sand.

  “You’d better head back to Pemadee’s,” the boy whispered, “before something very nasty happens to you.”

  “There!” someone shouted. Barnaby looked up and saw two blue-cloaked Sacred Guards striding towards him. With their seashell-covered face masks hiding their mouths, it was impossible to tell which of the two had shouted.

  Barnaby got up, picked up his shoes, shoved past the boy, and fled down the beach. He took a sharp turn through a couple of palm trees and disappeared into the shadows of an alley, ducking under the low-hanging roofs and dodging the milling civilians who stood in his way. He slowed to a casual scamper, afraid to look back.

  The alley poured into the market square, and he wove into the crowd, squeezed through the stalls once again, and found himself heading back to the same, familiar alley he knew. The one he grew up staring out into, the one outside Tide Tale Alley Books.

  But no, Barnaby decided he would not head back to the shop. His quest surely did not lead him out the door only to take him back within the same day. He looked both ways down the alley—no Guard, he must have lost them—set his gaze on the giant statue that loomed up above the tops of the buildings. Bellbour. His only way out of the city was over that bridge.

  Adjusting his scarf, he headed toward the man.

  10

  The Eyearke Stone

  Reagan grabbed onto Galabear’s fur. With no saddle to hold her in place, she feared she might fall off. Bea and Alpin sat in front of her, and the gopher’s paws guided the giant beast through the dark forest.

  “Hey.” Bea pointed into the woods at the side of the path. “Someone’s following us.” Reagan turned and saw a cloaked figure, a woman, based on her shape and the moonlit cheekbones beneath her hood. She was leaping from branch to branch behind them.

  “Oh, great,” Alpin hissed. “C’mon, girl, we’ve got company.” He nudged his heel into Galabear’s side, and she lurched into a gallop, snapping their heads back.

  Reagan watched the woman fall behind, rustling through the leaves and fading into the distance. “I think we lost her,” she said. She turned forward again and realized her statement was far from the truth.

  The woman swooped down from the trees and landed in front of Galabear. The giant creature reared and roared, tossing Reagan, Bea, and Alpin off her back, then took off into the woods with her tail tucked beneath her legs.

  “Galabear!” Alpin yelped. He ran a few steps into the trees where his pet fled, and the woman grabbed him. She pressed a dagger to his furry chest. “You—” he shouted but stopped when she moved her blade up just beneath his little snout.

  “No one speaks, no one moves,” the woman hissed. Alpin squirmed, trying to get away from the knife, but the woman yelled, “I said, no one moves!” and he stopped.

  “All right, all right” he grumbled.

  “Speaking,” she growled from beneath her bandana. Alpin pursed his lips and the woman pushed him down onto the forest floor.

  Reagan looked toward Bea. She was still her counselor, her protector, even though they were far from Camp Tossbridge. But the woman stepped toward Reagan instead, pointing her gleaming blade at her. “You,” she said. “Follow me, and I’ll let your friends live.”

  As if it were not strange enough that Bea was some kind of royalty in this increasingly weird and seemingly dangerous place, Reagan was completely baffled that anyone should even pay her any attention at all here. “Okay, okay,” she said. She glanced toward Bea, whose eyes were wide, and at Alpin, who stood beside her sucking his teeth, then followed the woman into the woods. She had a noticeable limp, but it did nothing to slow her stride.

  “Hands up, walk straight,” the woman said, pressing the blade to Reagan’s back and pushing her forward. They walked for several minutes into the woods to a clearing, where there was a tall beast that resembled a kangaroo in every way except that it was as big as a horse, had floppy rabbit ears, large eyes, and a tail that split in two near its end.

  “That was too easy,” the woman announced. “Almost pathetic. And to imagine someone else could have gotten their hands on you before I did.” She didn’t seem to be expecting Reagan to reply, only spewing her mind. Reagan knew better than to speak up and defend herself. The woman’s blade was still out and glistening in the moonlight, a constant reminder of what could be lodged in her throat.

  “On your knees,” the woman demanded, shoving Reagan to the grou
nd before she had a chance to move herself.

  Reagan could not hold her tongue any longer. “What do you want with me?” If she were to die there, she would at least like to know the reason why, even if it were for nothing more than the pleasure of killing.

  Her captor ignored the question. She grabbed Reagan’s wrists and pulled them behind her back, nearly breaking her arms in the process. A rope tightened around them and Reagan yelped.

  This is it. This is how I go. This woman is going to kill me. Reagan wanted to scream, to call for help, but found her voice cut short by a hand pressing a wet cloth that smelled like nail polish remover over her mouth. She needed to stay alive for Bea, needed to do whatever it was she could to get back to her.

  She struggled against the woman, her attempts at freedom growing less purposeful with each second the cloth stayed over her mouth. Her vision went fuzzy, eyelids heavy, too heavy. She felt her limbs go limp and her body collapsed into the woman.

  Reagan shifted uncomfortably, blinking her eyes open at the dark, sandy ground. Everything spun, making her feel like she might throw up. She tried to move, but found her arms were bound tightly behind her back, burning her wrists. Her mind ran in circles as she bounced up and down on her stomach and tried to remember what happened.

  Hooves trod through the sand below her, thrashing her head to and fro on top of the beast’s powerful thigh. She groaned and rolled her stiff neck, sore muscles battling her along the way.

  She looked to the side and found herself eye to eye with a dead animal. Flies swarmed around its bunny-like face, its tongue lolling from its long snout. Its eyes were open wide and empty, locked onto Reagan’s as if to tell her “run.”

  She shrieked and launched herself away from the dead animal, tumbling off the back of the hooved beast. Unable to brace her fall, she landed on her side on the ground, knocking the air out of her. She wheezed; her cheek pressed into the sand.

  “Hey!” her hooded captor shouted, and the beast skidded to a halt. She turned it around to face Reagan writhing like a worm on the cold sand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Reagan thrashed harder, feet scrabbling for purchase on the sand. The woman dismounted and strode over to Reagan, her cloak flapping open behind her and revealing thick robes beneath. Not one inch of her skin was visible, only her bright, purple eyes that stuck out above her bandana.

  “Please,” Reagan pleaded as the woman drew closer. “What do you want?” Reagan could not help but think the worst. She had been snatched off Galabear’s back with such expertise it could have been a choreographed dance.

  Her captor stood over her, reached down a gloved hand, grabbed Reagan’s shoulders, and hoisted her up to her feet with ease. Reagan gulped. She looked to the woman’s eyes, but found they were fixed on the stone around Reagan’s neck.

  “Do you want it?” Reagan offered, trying to point at the necklace with her chin. She was desperate for freedom, even if it meant giving up the only thing she had left to remind her of her father. “You can have it. Please, take it!” Her captor shook her head and scoffed, then proceeded to drag Reagan across the sand back to the beast.

  “What do you want with me? Please, tell me, I’ll do anything. I don’t even know how I got here,” Reagan pleaded. Anything to get back to Bea. What had the woman done with Bea and Alpin? Did she go back and kill them? Where were they now? Were they okay? She had to find Bea and get out of this place. Reagan felt her heartbeat speed up and she glanced around for any means of escape.

  Her captor ignored her question, lifted her at the waist, and set her back on the beast with the rest of their luggage.

  “Would you quit your whining already?” the woman hissed. “You’re making it hard to want to help you.”

  “Help me?” Reagan said. “You kidnapped me and slung me over your…your whatever this thing is like a dead deer!”

  As if the beast could understand, it perked up and bleated like a sheep.

  “It had to be done,” the woman said, staring at her again with her penetrating purple eyes. “You wouldn’t have listened to reasoning.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance!”

  The woman sighed. “Like I said, you wouldn’t have listened.”

  “All right, then, how about you give me the chance now? Please, just tell me what you want from me.”

  The woman glanced around and put a hand on what Reagan assumed to be a weapon hidden beneath her robe. “Not here. At least not until I’m completely certain that we’re alone.”

  Reagan joined her in peering at the endless plain of sand. There was no hope of rescue for her out here. Rolling dunes stretched as far as she could see, the occasional cactus or tumbleweed dotting the land. Not a single, breathing soul, save for her captor and the snorting beast below them, was anywhere to be seen.

  “You’d be surprised where they’ve got ears these days,” the woman said. She kicked the beast into a trot again.

  Either her captor had an eye for abandoned campsites, or she had been camping out in the desert for quite some time. They stopped next to a tall jutting stone, wind worn almost into the shape of a tree, with a drooping, torn tarp tied from its top to a stake in the sand. From another line hung several cloaked hoods like the one the woman wore. Beneath the tarp were enough supplies to last a cabin at Tossbridge at least a week. There was also a makeshift bed with dirtied sheets, a wash bin, and a blackened fire. Reagan thought it looked like just about every site a murderer would conduct their business at—far enough away from civilization that no one would hear her screams.

  Reagan’s captor jumped down from the beast and led it over to what appeared to be a tripwire rigged with bells. The contraption surrounded the small camp, evidently to scare away whatever wildlife might try fleeing with any of the food or supplies.

  Once the woman had tied up the beast to the tree rock and put a pail of water out for it, she began unloading the boxes and sacks attached to its sides, first grabbing a large, blue chest with gold engravings which stood out among the rest of the beige and brown sacks. She carried it with both hands over to the bed and set it down lightly, then came back to retrieve Reagan and set her down beneath the tarp.

  The woman pitched a fire and placed the dead animal from the beast’s back on a stick above it.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Reagan asked. The fire crackled and tiny flecks of ember floated into the air near her head. She leaned to the side to avoid them.

  Her captor ignored her question and shook off her hood. At first glance, there was nothing extraordinary about the woman. She had short black hair curled tightly on top of her head, but the more Reagan focused through the flames, she realized that her dark face was covered with purple scales, and matching purple fins grew out the side of her cheeks where her ears ought to have been.

  “Here.” The woman ripped a charred piece of meat off the cooked carcass with her bare hands and held it in front of Reagan’s mouth. “Eat.” Steam rolled off the meat and up Reagan’s nose. She hesitated and looked up at the woman’s face.

  “What? You think I’d poison it?” the woman said. Reagan thought she just might. “It’s rabintail. Only a fool would waste that kind of meat. Now eat.”

  Even if she wanted to, her hands were still bound behind her back. “Would you—uh—please untie me?” Reagan asked while the woman bit into the hunk of meat.

  “No,” she said while chewing. “I won’t risk chasing you out there. It’s far too dangerous at night.”

  “If I were to run, where would I go?” Reagan said. “I don’t even know where I am.”

  The woman thought for a moment, then nodded. “All right.” She stood and walked over to Reagan, but instead of untying her, she tied another rope around her waist: a leash. So, what? I’ve moved from prisoner to pet? Then the woman pulled a dagger from beneath her cloak and sliced at the thick twine between Reagan’s wrists. The rope snapped and her hands fell free. Though it wasn’t exactly what Reagan had hoped for, it
was a step in the right direction. She rolled her shoulders around to loosen them up.

  “Thanks,” Reagan said. She massaged her wrists, which were scratched red and bruised purple.

  Not wanting to offend the woman’s cooking skills, Reagan bent down, picked up the darkened meat. She grimaced and tossed it in her mouth. It was tough and chewy. She swallowed, and the pieces scratched her throat as they went down. One stuck there, and she coughed and choked until tears ran down her cheeks. At last, it loosened, and she swallowed it. She wished she had eaten more at Tossbridge. Though the camp food was borderline inedible, it was still better than whatever her captor had cooked up.

  The woman watched her as if waiting for Reagan to compliment her cuisine. Reagan half smiled and turned her eyes back down toward her “dinner”, though dinner did not feel like the right word for the meal she was suffering through. “Are they okay?” she asked, picking at the meat. “Bea and the gopher, I mean. You didn’t, uh, go back for them, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t go back to kill them, if that’s what you mean. I have no use for them. Just you.”

  Reagan closed her eyes and exhaled. “Oh, thank goodness.” She placed a greasy hand on her heart.

  “I wouldn’t be too relieved if I were you,” the woman said. “If I’m not mistaken your friends have a Shadow Reaper on their tails. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.”

  “You mean, you’ve seen one before?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. They used to serve Obellius. Though, fortunately for us, most, if not all of them, were killed in the war. Poor things are probably lost without him—scum’s been locked away in Morgaedion for about as long as I can care to remember.”