The Tome of Agrimar

Chapter Four

The cold steel bars felt harsh and unforgiving in her hands, as Kendra gazed out at the open space denied to her, her lower lip jutted outward in an animated pout. Her eyes locked with those of the guard on the other end of the confining barrier in a death glare. The prison warden just chuckled at her expression and slung her confiscated bag over his shoulder.

“Glaring at me won’t do you any good, little miss,” he said with an amused smile. “Time to pay for your crime.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” Kendra declared, bouncing on her toes like a temperamental child.

The guard just ignored her and placed her bag on a hook next to the belongings of some other prisoners in the rank, smelly little jail. Kendra glared after him, as if she could sear the back of his head with the intensity of her stare as he walked out of the room, leaving her with only the companionship of those locked behind bars. With a huff, the young woman folded her arms and plopped down right in front of the barred door, crossing her legs, and curling her lip with a dramatic pout.

She sat quietly, focusing on her bag as it swung back and forth on its hook. She imagined the face of the jeweler in place of her sack, and her pout turned into a scowl. That rotten thief! He’d stolen her statue and had her locked up for his crime! He was such… a… liar! She just could not believe what he’d done to her. It was so wretchedly, horribly, wrong!

“Urgh!” Kendra fumed, leaping to her feet and stomping her foot in a puddle, sending the water splashing out in a spray and soaking her leg. She then turned her back to her bag, imagining herself giving the jeweler the cold shoulder. Arms still folded, chin jutted up into the air, she finally took in the rest of her surroundings.

As she looked around her cell, Kendra’s misadventure was quickly forgotten. The damp, dark, smelly accommodations would sour the spirits of a normal adventurer, but Kendra was no normal adventurer. A steady drip from the ceiling revealed the source of the puddle she had just stomped, and a patter of feet drew her gaze to a scurrying mouse in the far corner as it quickly scampered under the stone bed and through a little hole in the wall. Lying on the bed was a man with his cloak resting over his body like a blanket, covering all from his feet to his armpits. His feet were shod with a pair of traveling boots, and his arms rested under his head to offer a pillow-like support, his face covered by the large, hooded cloak.

The petite young woman tilted her head to the side with curiosity, as she slowly crept up to her cellmate. She knelt next to the hard, slate outcropping that worked as a bed, bringing her face right up next to the hood. She tenderly took the edge of the cloth between two fingers and lifted it slightly, peeking underneath.

The first thing she noticed was a dark lock of hair, tumbling under the hood, held together by an intricately designed clasp looking like a large tree with the roots and branches intertwined along the edges. The clasp looked very familiar, and as she took in the rest of the man’s face, realization dawned on her.

“Talon!” she shouted in excitement, drawing the gazes of those in the adjoining cells. The man opened his eyes in shock, narrowing them as he took in Kendra’s exuberant smile and rolled over with a groan. He pulled his cloak around his shoulder, tipping the hood over his face as he turned his back to her.

“I thought I’d lost you!” Kendra continued gleefully, not seeming to notice his displeasure. “Where did you go? Well, here obviously. How silly of me. That was a stupid question. But how did you end up in jail?” She stopped, her whole body going rigidly frozen as if she’d suddenly discovered some conspiracy. “Were you framed, too?”

Talon let out an exasperated chuckle, and shook his head, the motion appearing funny to Kendra viewed from his backside with the cloak covering his features. “This has to be some kind of joke,” he said. “Lady Rokhr is amusing herself at my expense.” The last of his sentence was cut off with harried coughing, deep and phlegm-filled from the lungs.

“Talon?” Kendra peered curiously over his shoulder, standing on tip-toes and leaning over his side, her hair falling loosely around her face. Her ponytail had apparently come loose in her struggle with the guards, but she paid it no mind. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m alright,” Talon replied, voice ragged and laced with sarcasm. “I’m trapped in a smelly old dark stone cell with the most talkative woman in the world. Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

“Now that’s the spirit!” Kendra smiled and gave him a hearty slap on the back, resulting in another bought of coughing, but she didn’t seem to notice his distress. His sarcasm had been lost on her. “You’ve got quite the sense of adventure. That must be why you left in such a hurry this morning, huh? You couldn’t wait around for me to wake up, because you were filled with the rush of excitement. Excitement for a new day, a new adventure! Being locked up in a jail cell can be quite the adventure can’t it? It’s a challenge. I have to get out of here, and get that statue back.”

Talon rolled slowly over to face Kendra as the young woman skipped over to the cell door and slipped some tiny contraption out of her boot. The eyes of those in the adjoining cells seemed drawn by her action as well, several of them leaning against the bars in an attempt to get a better view of what she was doing. “You cannot just leave whenever it suits you,” Talon said softly. “That is the whole point of a jail cell.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kendra replied, looking over her shoulder to smile back at him cheekily, waving the little wiry contraption in her hand. “Watch me.”

The young woman moved quickly, her hands blurred in fluid motion though she had to bounce on her toes slightly, and in mere moments the door clicked open. The movement of the confining bars brought on an issuance of uproarious noise from the adjoining cells. “Oh, hush,” Kendra scolded, hands on her hips as she leaned in toward the hardened criminals. “I’m not letting you out.”

One scowled back at her and seemed about to snag the collar of her shirt when Talon appeared at her side and pushed her away from the bars. “Come, little one,” he said. “We must be off, before they bring the guards.”

Kendra huffed and turned on her heel, appearing to be in no hurry whatsoever. She came to the wall where her bag hung on a hook and looked up at it with a curious expression. It was far beyond her reach, and there was nothing she could use to climb up there. Before she could delay any longer, Talon snatched her bag and ushered her out the door.

The sack nearly fell to the floor as he pulled it off the hook, and Talon grunted as he adjusted to the added weight. “What on Rokhr do you have in this thing?” he asked. Kendra opened her mouth to answer, seemingly oblivious to the need for secrecy, hurry, and quiet in their escape, but Talon hushed her before she could answer as they rounded a corner and stepped outside without anyone noticing. As the pair slipped out of the city prison, there was a ruffling of feathers in the rafters, and with a cackle a large black raven alighted on Talon’s shoulder.

“Would you look at that,” Kendra commented, tilting her head to the side and watching the bird with interest. “He was waiting out here for you. Guess he’s not such an awful friend after all.”

Talon offered no comment- not even a smile, but Kendra was smiling wide enough to make up for his disinterest. “Come on!” she shouted, grasping Talon’s hand in an attempt to drag him toward the market. “We’ve got to get that statue back!”

The older man slipped his fingers from her grip and moved instead toward a dark alley away from the ominous building. Once distance and darkness gave him a relative feeling of safety, he glanced quickly from side to side to be sure they were alone in the alley then turned to speak conciliatorily with his small companion. “I am needed elsewhere, little one,” he replied. “Thank you for your help, but it would be best for us to part ways.” He reached out to hand Kendra her bag, but she only folded her arms across her chest with a pout and glared at him. Talon sighed. “What’s wrong?”

“Everyone always leaves me behind,” Kendra told him. “Which, really, it doesn’t bother me all that much. I guess I must annoy them or something, but I don’t mean to. I just get so excited. I love to travel. I love adventures. But every time I find a good adventure, I get left behind. Well, this is the first time I’ve found someone on an adventure twice!” She held up two fingers for emphasis, even leaning forward and looking up at her much taller companion on her tip-toes. “And you know what I think? I think its fate. I think Lady Rokhr wants us to travel together. And I think that if you try to leave me behind again, I’m just going to find you again. Just like I found that dragon statue.”

Talon’s exasperated expression suddenly changed, the strap of the sack nearly slipping from his fingers as he looked at Kendra with rapt interest. “You said you’re after a dragon statue?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kendra replied impatiently. “I have to find its owner. I found it on the road before I bumped into you, and then the jeweler stole it from me. He said I was a thief, but that was a lie. He wanted me to pay him money to tell me information about the statue, but I wouldn’t do it, so he told the guards I took it from him. So now he has it, and I’m going to get it back, because it doesn’t belong to him.”

“What did it look like?” Talon asked.

Kendra motioned her hands in front of her as if she were carving the likeness of the statue in the air. “It was made out of glass and lined with silver that sparkled in the light. It was curled up with its wings outstretched like it was going to spring into the air and take flight, and its claws were studded with rubies, and it had two bright sapphires for eyes.”

At the sound of this description, Talon did drop the bag and he frowned down at her, lost in contemplation. “Perhaps you are right. Maybe we are fated to travel together.”

“Why do you say that?” Kendra asked.

Talon held out his hand for her to see, and for the first time Kendra noticed a ring. At first glance, it seemed to be nothing more than a silver band, but on closer inspection Kendra could see that the silver had been carved in the shape of a dragon weaving around his finger. There were two sapphires embedded in the place of the eyes and several tiny rubies on the tips of the claws. “You see? It is the same dragon,” he said.

Kendra’s jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you say something sooner? I knew it! I knew I was meant to go on an adventure with you! Are you a wizard? Is this a magical ring? Is the statue yours? Is it magic too? Do you know how to summon the dragon? I tried, but I couldn’t seem to get it to do anything. Maybe you have to be a wizard to make it work. Why didn’t you tell me you were a wizard?!”

Talon knelt down so quickly the raven took flight as he clamped a hand over Kendra’s mouth. “Shhhh,” he said, shoulders tense as he looked around the alley. “I’m not a wizard. Please. Just calm down. Show me where the statue is. We can get that back, and then I’ll explain everything.”