Read Online Undone Deeds by Mark Del Franco - Free Book Online Page A

lips. “You more than anyone knows that.”
    I wasn’t sure if that was a dig or not. “I have a question for you, Belgor. Actually, it’s your expertise I need to consult.”
    Belgor rolled his wide expanse of shoulders. “I am a simple store merchant, Mr. Grey.”
    “Can we cut the bullshit for once, Belgor? I need an answer on something, and if you know something, I’ll be out of here faster than this conversation is going.”
    His ears flexed down and back. “And here I thought this was a social call from a dear old friend. What can I do for you?”
    I leaned down and withdrew the dagger from my right boot and placed it on the counter. “What can you tell me about this?”
    Belgor’s face smoothed in surprise, and his ears shot up. “Where did you get it?”
    “That’s not important. I want to hear what you have to say without any context,” I said.
    As he reached for the dagger, his hand trembled. A few runes etched in the blade lit with a cool blue light, and Belgor withdrew his hand. “A moment,” he said.
    He maneuvered his large mass sideways behind the corner and ducked behind the curtain that led to his back room. He returned wearing an antique pair of jeweler’s glasses, a wired contraption that hooked around his ears. Thin metal arms jutted from the bridge and ended with polished lenses that hovered several inches from his eyes. He used a thick cloth embedded with glass to pick up the dagger. “It’s an old blade out of Faerie. The markings indicate it has passed through several hands.”
    “Enchanted swords were a dime a dozen in Faerie,” I said.
    “Not like this. There are ancient magics on this blade from more than one source. I do not recognize some of these runes,” Belgor said.
    “Does it have a name?” I asked. Swords—important ones anyway—often had names in the deep past. They commemorated great battles or where they were fought, famous people who owned them or died. The dagger was hard to read. While runes covered parts of the blade and pommel, they seemed related to spells. I hadn’t been able to tease a name out.
    Belgor hummed, tilting his head up and down to adjust his vision through the lenses. “I see many references to chaos and….” He frowned. “It is hard to say. The phrasing is old, like Old Elvish or even Gaelic. Break? Notch? Perhaps, a gap between two forces.”
    “Gap?” I said. That’s the word Brokke had used when he spoke of the darkness within me. He called it the Gap that arose in the moment between the end and the beginning of the Wheel of the World.
    Belgor shifted the blade and sighted down its length. “Perhaps. How did this come into your possession?”
    “It was a gift, a loan of sorts,” I said. When Briallen had given it to me, I had sensed its age and value, and thought it was too much to accept. I took it on the condition I could give it back to her when I was done with it. I wasn’t sure I regretted that decision now, but it might not have been one of my best. I had no idea at the time that I was binding myself to the blade with a geasa—a form of taboo that would have ruinous consequences if I broke it.
    Belgor placed the dagger back on the counter. “Someone did you no favor. I do not know this blade, which, I must say, concerns me. There is something of the Wheel about it, something dire. I do not think it serves the wielder but purposes beyond our ken. How much do you want for it?”
    That made me laugh. “Like I said, it’s not really mine to give.”
    “I do not think it is anyone’s to give, Mr. Grey. Things like this appear where they need to. It will be difficult to move, but I am sure it will find its next possessor,” he said.
    “I wanted confirmation that it was as old as I thought it was,” I said.
    “Older than any I have seen. I would not use it. Such things appear at times of war and chaos, and bode no good thing,” he said.
    I pushed away from the counter. His words echoed Brokke’s too much for comfort.