In the house of Crispen Genn the curse is battled through time, and again.

Suddenly Jarn was in front of her his Sword raised above his head to strike. She saw in that moment something that had not been visible before. As the creature was pivoted with its left side to the air, Cass could see the side of its face more clearly. There on the side, in front of its deformed ear was normal, healthy, human skin with a mark in the shape of a flower. Jarn was aiming for that exact spot.

Realization flooded Cass, she knew who this creature was. She gathered all her remaining strength and screamed. "Jarn, don't hurt her! Its Mercy! Please Jarn, don't kill her!

Jarn looked down at her, his sword poised to strike. Rage and hurt filled his eyes. Cass knew he wanted revenge and possibly also some vain hope of a way to save her. But she had come to love that little girl and she could not allow the man she loved to destroy that precious soul. "Please my love, have mercy on her. I...I love you Jarn." She whispered as the world went dark. The last thing she heard was Jarn's battle cry and the sound of metal hitting somthing.

Rage and despair filled Jarn as he saw the creatures leg explode through Cass’s back. His sword was instantly in his hand. As he stepped in front of her to drive his sword as far into this creature as he could he noticed a place on the left side of the creature’s face that had normal human skin on it. He was too blind with vengeance to notice the mark on the skin or what it meant. He was just the sword right now. He drew the sword over his head to strike.

Then he heard her voice. That melodic voice that had captured his heart. It pierced through the rage long enough for her words to register.

"Jarn, don't hurt her! Its Mercy! Please Jarn, don't kill her!

All the muscles in his arms strained to drive the sword into that area of flesh, but when Cass said who it was his vision cleared and he saw the mark of the flower and knew she was right. All his training, all his love, tore at him to avenge his wife, but her final plea defeated both.

"Please my love, have mercy on her. I...I love you Jarn."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her collapse and his heart broke, but he remembered her last request and with all his hurt going into his battle cry, he drove his sword into the ground.

There was a flash of light and the sound of metal snapping. When the light cleared he looked at his blade and saw that the last five inches of the sword had snapped off. The brake was clean and square and looked blunted and even though the pointed tip was gone the edges were still sharp.

Jarn felt his mind disappearing, he was disappearing. The two things that defined who he was had just been broken, and now so was he. Before he slipped into madness entirely though something registered. The remains of his sword shimmered, the blade now as reflective as a mirror. He could feel the vibration of the power that now coursed through his sword. In the mirror clear reflection of the blade he could see the creature before him but it shimmered and wavered like a mist. Inside the shimmering he saw a woman with blond hair tide back in a ponytail and wearing a red riding dress. On her left check just in front of her ear was a mark in the shape of a flower. That part of her face and the wavering image were touching.

“Mercy!” Jarn hissed. The love Cass had developed for this girl had transferred to him as did most things that touched her heart. He somehow knew instinctively what to do, as if the vibrations from his sword were talking with his soul. Jarn stood and looked once more at the reflection of the creature in his blade. Somehow he knew just where to strike. The creature looked at him and released Cass and stood straight before him screaming its ear piercing wail.

Jarn’s face was as unmoving as he focused on the spot he needed to hit. The creature lunged at him, but with all the quickness and precision of a life time of training and the enhancement of the serum, Jarn slashed upward and it sliced right through the creature diagonally. Light exploded and the creature evaporated into a putrid cloud of dark mist and the blond woman he saw dropped to the ground.

She moved slowly and pushed herself up and looked at him. She smiled. “Jarn. Thank you so much for freeing me. Where is Cass…”. She trailed off as she saw the unmoving form behind him. "Cass!" She screamed. She pushed past him and lifted Cass's head and laid it on her lap. Jarn went over and knelt beside Mercy. Tears ran down Mercy's face as Cass's eyes fluttered weakly open. Cass looked at Jarn and reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. He leaned his cheek into her hand and grasped hers with his. Cass then looked at Mercy and smiled slightly. "I'm so glad your free Mercy. I...I wish I had gotten to know you and your family better, but I'm thankful you’re okay. Take....Take care of Jarn for me." Mercy looked at her and shook her head. "Absolutely not! This is not how this is going to end. I spent many years talking with you Cass and you were such a big influence on me. I...I know now what I have to do. You freed my sister and you now have freed me. You and Jarn are the ones who will lift the curse off of the house of Genn. I know it." She looked at Jarn. "Please Jarn, don't abandon my family, keep fighting for us. Tell...Tell my father and mother and my brothers and sisters that I love them very much." He had a very confused look on his face but he nodded. "I will Mercy."

Mercy nodded and then hugged him. She then took Cass's face in her hands and looked into her eyes. "Cass you have been like a second mother to me, and I love you like a mother. All that I have is all that I can give you. I love you Cass." She said and a bright glow began to form around her. "Mercy....no...don't!." Cass said weekly. The glow around mercy continued to grow until it was as bright as the sun. Jarn and Cass both covered their eyes. "I love you both very much." Mercy's voice came to them as if on the wind. When the light returned to normal they were alone again. Mercy was gone, but the wound in Cass's abdomen was healed and she sat up with renewed vigor and strength.

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Jarn immediately embraced her and kissed her with all the feeling he had for her. It was long moments before they were able to brake apart and look at each other. "Cass, oh my Cass. I...I thought I'd lost you. I...I almost slid into madness."

"My dearest Jarn, thank you for being such a man of honor. Thank you for sparing Mercy. By doing that you saved my life too." It was then that she saw what happened to his sword. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. "Jarn....your sword? What...what happened?"

He looked down at the blade. "Instead of driving it into the creature I drove it into the ground. When I did the blade snapped at the tip. It snapped in a way though that it was a perfectly clean break, squared and rounded, and perfectly streight. It is not normal. It also now carries this mirror sheen. that was how I saw Mercy trapped inside the creature. I could see through the creature to her. The sword even now vibrates with Power."

Cass looked closely at the blade. "Look Jarn writing, in the old tongue. It...It says. The Blade of Mercy.”

He nodded in understanding. "It happened after the sword broke. There was a blinding flash of light and the sword broke. I almost lost my mind. You were dying and my sword had been broken I..." He took a breath.

She had never seen his confidence shaken like this before. She placed her hand over his and squeezed it. "I'm so sorry Jarn. It was my fault, I was out of position, I…I let my love for Mercy cloud my judgement.”

He took another deep breath and shook his head. “It wasn’t your fault Cass. I was not paying attention either. I should have noticed that the scenery was changing again.” He looked down at his broken sword and then back at her. “It’s weird, but I think my sword is now more powerful then before. Even though it is broken it is through the reflection in the blade that I was able to see Mercy trapped inside the creature, and it was its power that freed her. The whole time the sword was humming with power, it still is.”

Cass reached out and touched the hilt and withdrew her hand immediately. “Jarn, what does this all mean? Mercy called me her second Mother. How can that be? We only met them once.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know Cass, but it would seem to indicate that we need to keep going back there and get to know them, maybe that will help us defeat this curse. We need to brake it Cass.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then at his sword. Slowly she nodded her head. “For the Genn’s, let’s Dance my love.” She said with a smile.

He smiled back at her and helped her up. “Now that the kitchen is safe we should go gather supplies.” He said, sheathing his sword.

She nodded and moved behind him and placed one hand on his shoulder and with the other grabbed her cloak. Something caught her eye as she did and she looked down. She gasped.

Jarn turned around. “Cass, what’s wrong?”

She looked up at him and smiled and lifted her cloak yo for him to see. The rips that the creature had made previously were mended. He smiled at her and then turned back toward the house.

“Jarn, do you think that creature was Mercy or was it a separate creature and she was just trapped?

He shook his head. “I’m not sure Cass, I’ve been pondering the same question. It looked like she was separate and trapped, but her face did form part of that creatures.”

“She said it was a curse, maybe it was that she was both trapped and the monster.”

He nodded. “It could be Cass.” He said as he opened the front door, sword at the ready.

The entry parlor was the same as when they left it. Cass looked at Jarn. “Should we see what food may be left and untainted?”

Jarn looked around at the locked doors and then into the sitting room where a page was just turning as he looked at the book. He looked at Cass and nodded twords the book. “In a moment Cass, I want to see if anything is different since we met them.

“…a couple came to visit us today, wanderers from beyond the great sea. Mercy took an instant liking to them as did the Master. Mercy wanted to show them the tree out back of the house but she came back crying saying they had disappeared. My master consoled her as only a loving Father could, with soothing words and a sweat. Alas, right after my Master was called away to the High Master’s table. He left direction that if Jarn and Cass return that they are to be treated as honored guests.”

They stared as they saw their names being written in a book by a man who lived two centuries ago, but, yet they had just met in person fifteen minutes ago.

Jarn looked at Cass. “Somehow it is true Cass, we were taken back two hundred and fifty years in a second and met this man, and one of the fabled Masters in person. Somehow Time is thinner in this house, where we can pass back and forth through it like a curtain.”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “How do we do this Jarn? We are now part of a story that has already been told. If we don’t go back then Mercy won’t know us, but she just said she knew us for years. If we do keep going back then what happens to us? I mean she said we would be the ones to brake the curse, but if when she was eighteen she became cursed, dose that mean we failed, and if we failed how can we now succeed?”

Jarn shook his head and looked at her. “I do not have the wisdom or knowledge to even begin to make a strategy for this Cass, but perhaps together we can find a way to free this family. First, however we need to find food and water and get some rest or we will be no help to anyone.” He reached into the pouch at his waist looking for the Key. His eyes became suddenly wide and he looked at Cass. “It’s gone Cass, the Key is gone.”

“What? How?” She looked at the empty pouch and then back to him. Dear flooding her eyes. “How will we unlock the rest of the doors?”

“I don’t know Cass, but I think somehow it got lost in the past. I felt it in the pouch when we first got there but now it’s gone. We will try to go back around the house again in the morning, but now let us find our much needed supplies and sleep. There was something deeper when he said sleep. She smiled and left the room with him and followed him to the kitchen. They found dried meats and grains, bread and cheese, like the logs in the fireplace they looked as if they had been added to the pantry yesterday.

Cass made them an amazing dinner and then they retired to the sitting room and Jarn shut the two french doors to the room.