“Boy, are you alright?” The world slowly faded back into view around Kalos while he pushed himself up onto one elbow and took a deep breath. His head was spinning. His eyes fluttered as the blurry image of a stranger’s face hovered right above him.

“Kalos!” Nava leaned forward as if she had been eagerly waiting for him to open his eyes for hours. Realization sank-in about who the stranger was like a slap across the cheek.

“Nava, get back!” He quickly sprang to one knee and held out an arm in front of her as if he could somehow keep her safe now that he was awake. The storyteller stepped back slowly while staring at him with a flat expression.

Kalos’ eyes flickered over his surroundings. The two of them were now sitting on a large, comfortable pillow that stretched at least a few paces across the floor. Thick, red curtains with heavy, gold trim on both sides of the tiny room barely swayed with the breeze. Behind each set was a small window that, when cracked open, allowed light to pass through to illuminate the interior. Kalos realized they were inside one of the Mercari’s caravan wagons.

Kalos slowly identified a vast assortment of exotic furnishings in his mind throughout the tiny room. His eyes drifted upwards toward several shelves that’s been fastened to the front wall. They were loaded with knick-knacks and elegant items of various shapes and sizes including an unusually ornate, well-tempered hourglass with a pure silver base crafted onto each end. Flowing through it was an odd measure of black sand that appeared to be halfway through its cycle by the time he realized what he was looking at.

Next, he noticed stacks of exotic gold and silver boxes with numerous tooled etchings upon them below the shelves which seemed to be loaded with contents. From the rear wall hung an old fishing net with multiple blades of long, pointy instruments and strange weapons unlike anything Kalos had ever seen, all held fast by large, intricate bowknots of various shapes and sizes throughout.

“I apologize for what happened earlier, boy.” The man towered over them in the center of the room. Clearly this was his home and he felt no need to make his presence any less overbearing while Kalos clamored off of the large, squishy pillow he had been laying on to gain better footing.

While Kalos gathered stability with all four of his limbs, he felt a stack of hard, sturdy rectangles under a cloth that had been placed just under the corner of the large pillow he had been sleeping on, and instinctively snatched one up from underneath with his bare hand to defend himself with. He immediately held up a thick, narrow bar of poorly refined metal longer than his forearm like a dagger in front of him. Every fiber in his being suddenly snapped, tightened, and began humming with unnatural power as adrenaline surged through him like a flood. His muscles, bones, and tendons aligned perfectly in response to the rush he felt as his mind started recalling an arsenal of skills and self-discipline he never remembered acquiring. It was like he had suddenly been shoved into the mold of a battle-hardened warrior who had been fighting wars for decades in the blink of an eye.

Anyone watching might conclude that he was at a disadvantage in such a duel as a result of his smaller frame and lower position relative to the large, tall man right in front of him, but his defiant gaze never wavered. He knew he could call on any number of available techniques to give him the upper hand should the man suddenly decide to attack either one of them. Recognition of what he was capable of terrified him, but his mind was perfectly clear, and his focus was intense. He was ready for anything.

At the very edge of his peripheral vision, Kalos saw Nava’s eyes widen in response to the shift while a sudden flicker of intrigue cracked the storyteller’s otherwise stony expression.

Kalos simply waited to see what would happen next. Utterly bewildered, Nava abruptly leapt to her feet.

“What are you doing?” she snapped angrily at him, throwing him off-guard.

“You fainted outside. Everyone was worried! He calmed everyone down and ran to help. He’s seen this kind of thing before. He knew just what to do! You needed some water, and to get out of the sun right away. He even carried you all the way here by himself!”

“I do get carried away with my stories sometimes,” the Storyteller humbly conceded to break the silence. He reached into his jacket and slowly pulled out a narrow, black bundle from an inner pocket before carefully revealing the dagger to them.

“I don’t always get to show such rare treasures during my stories. Perhaps I was a little too excited to do so. Ark is such a special place. I thought it would be well-received.” His oily explanation was hard for Kalos to swallow. His logic sounded plausible, but contrived, and vaguely insulting somehow.

Carefully placing the weapon on a nearby stand, also carved from some unknown black metal that matched the blade, the storyteller turned to wave one hand over the net of weapons behind him with a subtle flourish of the fingers.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“The tale of the Dark Assassin is one that benefits tremendously from props like these. At least beyond Sultrani borders.” He shrugged helplessly before folding his hands behind his back a little too cautiously before gently pointing at Kalos’ make-shift weapon of choice.

“Fine choice by the way, albeit rather crude in present form... Are you still feeling well, per chance?”

Kalos glanced down at the bar while the man shared more of his thoughts.

“That happens to be Sultrani Ostele. Have you heard of it? Tis the strongest metal in the Southern Kingdoms, said to be crafted from a particular recipe that imbues it with mystical, arcane properties. They say the recipe has been passed down through the Great Forgemaster’s line for twelve generations. It reacts... differently... every time it passes to someone new. In fact, not many can even touch it without severe consequences. Some far more terrible than others, of course...” The storyteller’s false smile wavered only slightly, but the intensity in his eyes is what betrayed him most. He was growing more nervous by the second.

Kalos suddenly realized that he hadn’t budged from his peculiar stance since the conversation began. His body was poised to react in an instant should the need arise. He didn’t feel a hint of fatigue due to the adrenaline constantly pulsing through his veins. His rigid, battle-ready mindset began to soften.

Tension slowly melted away while Nava stared awkwardly at him. His eyes shifted toward the pile he snatched the bar from earlier as curiosity grew in the back of his mind about what he had heard.

A small stack of bars like the one he was holding sat right beside him, splattered with several brownish-red droplets of some unknown substance. Several wood pieces of similar length and size were scattered about. The wood had been deliberately stacked at some point to conceal the metal bars beneath them. Kalos had somehow plucked one of the Ostele bars out of the wood pile without so much as glancing down, first. It almost felt like the bar had actually reached out to him, instead.

Upon closer examination, he noticed intricate, matching engravings etched into the steel toward one end of every bar. An image of a circle with several squiggly lines threaded along the outer edge made him wonder about where they all came from. In the middle of the circle stood a strange creature that had the wings of a dragon and the body of a cat. Someone had painstakingly tooled the image into each one, by hand. Kalos could only imagine how long it had taken.

Just as he was about to place the bar back on top of the pile, the storyteller stepped forward, raising his hands in front of him.

“Wait!”

The fellow blinked, startled by the forcefulness of his own voice. He quickly recovered and reached over to snatch the bar from Kalos with the black cloth that had been covering the Dark Assassin’s dagger, causing the blade itself to topple over the edge of the counter from where it sat.

Clumsily, he cupped his hand under the weapon as it fell, which turned out to. E far sharper than Kalos suspected, for when it lightly grazed the man’s skin, it sliced his palm open with ease. The man barely winced before placing it back onto the stand and stepping over to Kalos to finish dropping the cloth over the bar.

Kalos watched as the man wrapped the bar up with the cloth, making sure that he didn’t get any of his own blood on it with impressive dexterity. Within seconds, a wave of fatigue washed over him, nearly causing him to slump down to his knees after the bar was removed from his grasp.

The storyteller finished his task and cautiously held it out for Kalos to take with uncertainty.

“Consider this an apology for what happened earlier, will you?” He reluctantly allowed the package to drop right into the boy’s weakened hands before pulling him to his feet by one elbow. The same fake smile from before still lingered, but the quality was fading fast, being replaced by an urgent desire to end their conversation.

Kalos finally broke his silence, “I’m sorry, too. You’ve been helpful and kind, yet I’ve been nothing but rude since waking up.”

Kalos looked at the rectangular-shaped package in his hand and shook his head, “I couldn’t possibly accept such a valuable gift from...” His stomach lurched at the thought of giving it up. Confusion fogged his already cloudy mind even more. He had only held it for a few minutes, yet felt intensely sentimental about it already. The whole situation made no sense at all to him.

“Nonsense, just another one of the many trinkets I’ve gathered during my travels.” The storyteller reached out for the item as if to accept it back, but immediately withdrew his hand again before taking a step back.

“But they are somewhat valuable to me as a whole...” The man shifted uneasily before continuing, “You wouldn’t mention these things to anyone, would you? Or where you got that one from, of course?”

It was subtle, but the man’s eyes narrowed a bit, revealing the first real emotion Kalos had seen since meeting him. Somehow the storyteller’s tone made it sound like he was demanding compliance rather than asking for a simple courtesy.

“Of course not!” The boy chirped in surprise. Suddenly something in his gut urged him to escape. He needed to leave immediately, before something terrible happened.

“Very good, then. Now let’s get you back before someone suspects that some tragedy has occurred or something.”

Reddish liquid began seeping through the crevices and wrinkles of the storyteller’s hand from the cut. The wound was bleeding a lot now, but he didn’t seem to mind as he kept pressure on it by keeping his fist tightly shut. He stepped over and shoved open the tiny front door of his wagon to let them out.

Kalos and Nava turned to thank the storyteller one last time, but the door had already slammed shut behind them. The sound of several locks being firmly lodged in-place on the other side quickly reinforced the fact that he had nothing more to say to them.

“How unusual,” Nava whispered.

“I know. I don’t understand what happened there. Let’s just get out of here... Fast.”

©2024, K. M. Plum, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED