The Sword of the Wormling (11 page)

Watcher snorted and rolled onto her stomach, her fur hanging in her eyes. She stretched and tried to get the fur smoothed in a polite manner, but there was always a tuft sticking up somewhere. She just hoped it gave her a certain style.

She couldn't remember sleeping so well since the Wormling had come to her world. Every night in the cave she felt more and more at home. She yawned, her tongue snaking out and curling, and arched her back, feeling her spine crackle.

On the first day of Owen's training she made sure she went along—to protect him from the behemoth if nothing else. But as the days wore on and Owen and Mordecai worked on new tests of strength, Watcher became bored and began exploring the island or watching for the Kerrol from treetops. She had even strung herself a hammock, made from leftover vines near Mordecai's cave, at one edge of the place.

Now the standard breakfast was on the table—fruit and the jargid jerky Mordecai had cured. At first it had been difficult to sleep with food hanging right over her, but she had gotten used to it. And she had actually developed a taste for the meat of an animal that made a skunk smell nice. Watcher ate the fruit quickly, then stuffed the dried meat in her mouth. She could make it last an hour or the whole day.

On the table lay a hand-drawn map of what Mordecai had planned for Owen today. Owen had also drawn a picture on a leaf with a piece of blackened wood. The picture showed a big man with a boy by a mountain stream. Several landmarks were included.

When Watcher ventured outside, the sun was glowing on the horizon, and clouds passed so close that she could almost touch them. Down on the beach the waves lapped peacefully, and a great, white-winged bird glided.

The new grapevine hung from the tree near the cave, and like someone who had become used to walking on scaffolds hundreds of feet in the air, Watcher approached the ledge like it was no big deal. She wrapped her legs around the grapevine, the leaf tucked tightly under her chin, and hurtled over the edge until her hind legs cushioned her against the rock wall. Mordecai had tried to motivate Owen by saying, “Why can't you do it like
she
does?”

* * *

After the Wormling had gotten used to climbing down the mountain, Mordecai ran him nearly to death all the way around the island. He began at sunup and ran the sandy shores barefoot until he returned to where he started. Mordecai gave him until sundown that first day, but Owen didn't make it until well after dark. He was exhausted and hungry, his feet aching, but Mordecai made him get up the next morning at the same time and do it again.

Pushing, always pushing, Mordecai taught Owen many things, not the least of which were endurance and patience. While Owen ran the entire island, Mordecai went across the middle and met him on the other side just to tell him how far behind he was and how many more times he would have to run this same course if he didn't hurry. It was tempting for Owen to take a shortcut as well, but to his credit, he didn't.

When the Wormling made it to the end as the last rays of the sun disappeared, Mordecai showed him the obstacle course he had designed. The elaborate gauntlet was filled with dangerous traps. If at any point the Wormling made a wrong move, he could badly hurt himself.

“The real Wormling will be able to do this,” Mordecai said.

All Owen could think of was what a klutz he had always been at sports, even in gym class.

The Wormling hated climbing trees the most—that is, until Mordecai discovered he couldn't swim. He took Owen to the waterfall and shoved him into the deep pool beneath it until the Wormling was forced to learn to float and breathe and paddle. More than once, Mordecai had to shed his tunic and jump in to pull out the choking and coughing Wormling.

* * *

Watcher made it to the rapid stream down from the pool just as the Wormling whined, “How many more of these am I going to have to do to prove I'm who I say I am?”

“As many as it takes to make me believe
you
believe you're who you say you are,” Mordecai bellowed, laughing. “Now try again. And be careful of the oil on the fish's body.”

The Wormling stood in a rush of white water, struggling to keep his footing on the slippery rocks. He studied the surface, then lunged as something brown and red jumped up at him. “It hurts!”

“Of course, if you don't do it right. That's why they call them shock fish. They send a charge into the water when they sense danger. Again.”

As the next fish jumped, the Wormling tried to cradle it like a baby, but the effect was even worse. He danced on his toes like a barefoot man in a briar patch, yelping as the fish charged the water again and again.

Watcher could not help laughing. The Wormling must have heard her, for he turned, red faced, and rushed her. In midstream he tripped and fell on his face, which made Mordecai laugh. The Wormling arose, soaked and with red marks on his arms.

Mordecai's laughter filled the woods. Watcher had never before heard genuine laughter from him. His guffaws echoed off the rocks.

“You think it's so easy, Mordecai. You try it,” the Wormling said.

Mordecai knelt, leaning over the water, waiting. When the fish jumped, he shot out a massive arm and grabbed it around its middle, tossing it onto the shore. “Can't be easier than that.”

“Not fair,” the Wormling said. “You have so many scars; you can't feel the sting.”

Mordecai eyed the Wormling with a sour look. “My scars are none of your business.” He rose and stalked away.

“I didn't mean to insult you,” the Wormling called after him, but Mordecai kept going.

Watcher shook her head. “One moment he was laughing like a child, the next he was quiet . . .”

“. . . as a child,” the Wormling said.

“Let me try,” Watcher said, kneeling on the bank as another fish jumped. She missed the first but was able to lean down far enough to kick the second to the ground beside her. She laughed as the fish flopped and gasped. On the end of its mouth sat a shiny gray patch that glistened in the sunlight. It was this that sent the shock.

“If you got out of the water,” Watcher said, “they wouldn't be able to sting you.”

“Grounding,” the Wormling whispered. “That's it. When I'm in the water, I'm part of their world, but on dry ground . . .” He took his place on the bank just like Mordecai and Watcher, lunged at the first fish, and fell into the spray.

It was all Watcher could do not to fall over laughing. She helped him up, and he grabbed the next fish without getting stung, but it slipped from his hands back into the white water. He was successful with the next, tossing it onto the pile with the others.

* * *

By noon, Owen had finished catching all the shock fish they could carry, so he tore from a plant a thick frond, as big as an elephant's ear, and stuffed all the fish inside. Watcher held one end, and they carried the heavy load to the beach near the grapevine.

Mordecai had started a fire and stuck a thin, sharp knife in a stump. “Clean the fish there.”

“I don't know how.”

Mordecai grabbed a fish by the tail and with one slice opened the belly and spilled the insides onto the stump. That didn't seem to bother Watcher, who had caught and eaten lots of fish, but to someone who had grown up over a bookstore and had never fished in his life, it was disgusting.

Mordecai had laid out several vegetables called brawn, which looked like cucumbers with the edible part surrounded by a shuck, like an ear of corn (without the silk). Mordecai pulled out the vegetable and placed a fish inside, then wrapped it tightly. He sent Owen to look for skolers, a potato-like vegetable that grew in the moss-covered regions of the inner forest. Mordecai wrapped these in the skin of the brawn and put them in the fire next to the wrapped fish.

They rested in the shade while the meal cooked, Mordecai evidently content to let Owen have an afternoon off. Owen already felt the difference in his body, a strength that started in his feet and ran through his legs, all the way up to his neck. His arms had become stronger too from doing chin-ups in the trees.

If he went back to school in his own world now, Owen wondered whether he would be able to handle Gordan and his crowd without help from the invisible force.

The slow-cooking fish and vegetables smelled delicious, but as Mordecai and Watcher dozed, Owen felt restless. He wandered toward the waterfall, where a huge jargid crossed his path, waddling toward the water, apparently unaware of Owen. Usually the animals sensed humans and fled, but Owen stalked the animal as Mordecai had taught him. He grabbed its tail, making the animal shriek and run. Mordecai would have wanted Owen to kill and skin it, but he couldn't bring himself to kill more than they needed.

Hungry as he was, Owen knew if he just waited for the meal he would be crazy with anticipation. He waded into the shallow pool where the stream flattened out and watched the cascading water. He couldn't have conceived of a place so beautiful, so full of life, so wild, so dangerous, and he wished he could share it with someone, someone like Clara Secrest back home. They had talked only a couple of times, but there seemed to be a sharing of their souls, a connection Owen couldn't get over.

The sun was slowly making its way down the other side of afternoon when Owen noticed something in the waterfall he hadn't seen before—a break in the white water, a blackness behind it. He moved closer and reached into the falls to feel the powerful surge. The sound and the coldness combined with the force of the splash on the rocks made him feel like he was visiting some place from his past, some echo he had never heard.

Owen moved onto the rocky path behind the waterfall between the rushing water and the face of the wall. Looking out through the sheet of water into the sun-drenched stillness of the island reminded Owen he was in a whole new world. The island took on an even more surreal tone, as if it existed only in some artist's mind.

He inched along, his back to the wall, careful of snakes or anything else that might slither along these slippery rocks. Suddenly, as if the wall behind him had moved, he backed into an opening, turned around, and found himself enveloped by a dense blackness. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Owen saw he had entered another cave.

Curious, he moved along a narrow corridor, the rocks so close together that he thought he had come to the end. But just beyond the narrow passage, the cave opened into a wide expanse. He had the same feeling as when he had discovered his father's secret underground hideout, but here there were no torches on the wall nor any stone staircases.

The floor was damp and trickles of water dripped, echoing. A pinpoint of light came from above or Owen would not have been able to see a thing. He cautiously stepped deeper into the cave until he came to a long stone table. On it sat a long padlocked chest and what looked like finely woven robes of velvet.

Owen was scanning the area for a key when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped and turned, holding his breath, unable to speak, facing the dim outline of a face.

“So you really are the Wormling then.”

The voice was Mordecai's. He rested a hand on each of Owen's shoulders as if to calm him, then moved toward the table. “You found the secret stash. I figured it would take you a lot longer. This was to be your final test—finding this place.”

“What is all this?”

“Remnants of the attack on the King's castle. Garments stolen. Some of the looted treasure.”

Owen stepped back. This was why Mordecai had been exiled? He had stolen from the King? “You brought this?”

Mordecai shook his head. “I found it here, along with the key.” He ran a hand along the padlock. “Perhaps hidden by whoever attacked the castle. Perhaps by someone else.”

“What's in the chest?”

“Coins. Parchments. Records of the King's family—those who survived the fire. And one other item that should interest you.”

“I'm listening.”

“The Sword of the Wormling.”

“I get a sword?”

“Since you do not battle only against flesh and blood, your weapons are often of the mind and the heart.
The Book of the King
tells you all you need for battling evil. But there will come times when you need to wield a physical sword.” Mordecai unlocked the padlock and removed it. From within the chest he pulled a long sword.

Owen could tell from the glow of it under just the pinprick of light that it would gleam like the noonday sun outside, but we will not add anything to this story that would not make sense to a rational reader like yourself. Suffice it to say that it looked magical.

The handle sported the head of a lion in full roar, the rest wrapped in thick leather up to the blade, where all the design and pomp ended. It was simply two sharpened edges that ran to a pointed tip. Even in Mordecai's massive hands and strong arms, Owen could tell it was heavy.

“Take it and learn quickly,” Mordecai said. “Your time is nearly at hand.”

Owen grasped the sword, feeling as if something missing from his life had suddenly returned. All fears, all questions faded with the great weapon in his hands. It was too heavy to maneuver now, but he was already stronger than when he had arrived, and he would grow stronger still.

He couldn't wait to show it to Watcher.