LUCKY EXPECTED to find bliss on the other side of that membrane between worlds. Instead, immediately upon emerging into daylight, his nausea grew so intense he barely managed to spew over the side of his bed instead of on it. Unfortunately, Thurlock’s sandaled feet were in the splash zone.
If Lucky hadn’t been still sick, if he hadn’t been dizzy even though he was lying down, if his head hadn’t been pounding and every inch of skin hadn’t felt like it had been asleep and was now tingling to life with pins and needles, he would have been mortified about the barf. As it was, however, he lay back, far too occupied with his own misery to care that the wizard rolled his eyes and drawled, “We-e-ell, of co-o-ourse,” before flicking a hand to clean it up.
A rapid, rhythmic pounding on his bed near his feet alerted him to Maizie and her happy tail. She was licking his ear like crazy—some of those dog kisses he remembered foolishly wishing for. He couldn’t help but laugh as he scratched behind her much-missed floppy ears. He started to feel better—the pins and needles faded to tiny blunt pokes and the whirling ceiling overhead stuttered to a stop.
His head was still pounding, but when he propped himself up on an elbow, it eased a little. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to remember things he’d seen, places he’d been. He knew they were important, and Thurlock should know about them. Try as he might, though, he recalled only two images—his mother’s apparition sitting astride her grim horse, and Han—the red dragon. He smiled when he recalled Han coming gloriously to his rescue, the epitome of both strength and love. Lucky looked up to find Han sitting next to him, felt him gently cradling his hands. He hadn’t noticed it before, but—although he still felt weak and faintly sick—his hands hurt worse than anything else. And when he looked at them, cut and bloody, each holding tightly to one of his magical tools, he understood why.
Taking a deep breath, he made himself loosen his hands, which momentarily intensified the pain. “It hurts,” he said.
“I know,” Han whispered. He gently took the Key of Behliseth from Lucky’s hand and held it out to Thurlock, showing him the break in the chain. Lucky’s eyes followed the Key as Thurlock took it, made a gesture with his chin, and whispered some unintelligible word to mend the chain with magic. Thurlock dipped it into the washbowl, muttered again, and brought it out clean, dry, and shining like new. He passed the Key on its chain back to Han, who dropped it over Luccan’s head so that the Key rested over his heart as it should. Han took Ciarrah from him then, passed the Blade to the waiting Wizard, who cleansed it and returned it as with the Key.
Han put the blade down on the side table very near the head of Lucky’s bed, took up the damp cloth from next to the washbowl, and after removing the shreds of earlier bandages, gently cleaned Lucky’s hands. “I’ll make you a sheath for the knife,” he said. “Keep it close.”
It was the quality of his voice—low, rough, and oddly strained—that made Lucky meet his uncle’s gaze. To his utter shock, tears were streaming down Han’s face, a mask of abject misery.
“Han,” Lucky said, but he didn’t know what to add.
Han responded with a single choked sob, and an embrace so strong it redefined the concept bear hug. “I love you, Luccan,” he said. But then he immediately released Lucky, and he was already on his way out the door when he said, “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Bewildered, Lucky sat staring.
Thurlock took Han’s place sitting on the bed, and said, “Let me look at you.”
Lucky looked up and was drawn, as had happened before, straight into the calm seas that were the wizard’s deep gray eyes.
After a moment, Thurlock said, “You’re going to be all right, I think, Luccan. But you’ve had quite an ordeal. You’ll need to rest, and I don’t think this room is the best place for you to do it. For now, until I must leave the Sisterhold again, I’ll want you near me. You can stay in my tower—have the same room you had in Earth if you like. It will be like old times. Sound okay?”
“Yes,” Lucky said. “But, sir—”
“Just Thurlock.”
“Thurlock, sir…. Sorry. What about Han? Something’s wrong….”
“I fear you’re right, which is why I’m going immediately to see if I can’t sort him out for at least the hundredth time in his life. He’ll be all right too. You’ll see. Meanwhile, look.” He pointed toward the end of the bed. “I believe this is a friend of yours?”
“Henry!”
“Hey, Lucky!” Henry smiled.
“What…. How…?”
Thurlock said, “That will be a story for another time. Right now, Henry, and our new friend here, Olana—” This time he indicated a woman standing at the head of the bed. “—will stay and help you gather anything you need to bring with you to my house.”
Lucky twisted his head to see the tiny woman Thurlock had called Olana. Bewildered, he greeted her with a simple “Ma’am.”
“I’ll meet you at my place,” Thurlock said, rising. “Don’t tarry. There is a great deal of mischief and perhaps a measure of evil afoot even here at the Sisterhold. I don’t want you to try to meddle with any of it. What you’ve already done is quite enough.”
Shocked, Lucky started to protest that he hadn’t done anything wrong, but Thurlock winked and smiled before turning around, taking two long strides to the door, and exiting with his robes swishing behind him. Lucky laughed instead.
Odd how everything seems brighter when you smile, he thought. But then he needed to throw up again.