Page 134 of Echoes of the Raven
“There is no treasure here, Cuervo.” I crouch and pet his neck.
He peers at me sideways and insists, “Treasure.” His dark beady eye shimmers as his membranous eyelid opens and closes. I pause. There… that shimmer again. What is that? I glance over my head, squinting at the air, feeling as crazy as Cuervo.
Then I see it, a small glimmering light like a tiny star hanging at waist level. I stand and, as I blink, lose track of it.
“Where did it go?” I ask.
“Where didwhatgo?” Jago starts circling the spot with me, mimicking Cuervo and me, flapping his arms like wings.
I shove him. “Stop being ridiculous and help me find it.”
“I promise,” he says solemnly, “I don’t know where your sanity went.”
“I see it!” Korben exclaims, walking in from the side.
I take a position slightly behind him, mimicking the tilt of his head to follow his gaze. There it is again. I stare at it mesmerized.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“I… it is said that Aldryn Theric, my great grandfather, stumbled upon a tear in the fabric of our realm.” His dark eyes rove all around, the speed of his thoughts, apparent in his expression. “He didn’t open or create the veil. He simply widened that tear.”
“You think this is…”
“Yes, yes!” Galen exclaims. “Korben is right. I remember reading an account of the events.” He starts pacing behind us, trying to spot the anomaly. “I see it too.”
He shrugs Korben and me out of the way, gingerly moving closer to the glimmering spot. “If that’s all that needs to be done, maybe I can…” He kneels, squinting, then raises his hand, a red espiritu outline around his fingers.
“I don’t think you should—” Korben doesn’t finish his sentence because as soon as Galen touches the spot, there’s a loud sizzling sound, followed by a blast, and the sorcerer goes flying backward.
Korben approaches him, looking concerned for a moment, but then Galen groans and lifts his head, dazed.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have touched that,” he says, shaking his head as if to clear it from the impact.
“You always have the brightest ideas,” Korben puts in.
“I still don’t see it,” Jago complains, stomping his foot like a child.
I grab his shoulders and position him just so. “Squint your eyes a little, search about two arm lengths away from you, then try to unfocus your eyes.”
“Would it help if I stick out my tongue too?”
I swat his arm. “You don’t take anything seriously.”
He laughs. “I already saw it, Val.”
“But of course.”
“All right,” Jago says, “so if this tiny star is a tear in the fabric between our realms and the sorcerer there,” he points at Galen, “only managed to get zapped, are we supposed to assume that Val won’t because she has The Eldrystone? And in fact, she will open it?”
“That’s how it worked for my great-grandfather,” Korben says.
“So what exactly did he do?” Jago puts his arms up and swings them from side to side. “Did he dance a little jig?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know what he did.” He turns to Galen. “Did you happen to read anything about that?”
Galen looks up from his hand, which he’s slowly flexing. “No, I didn’t.”
“Fantástico,” Jago says sarcastically.
