The Ancient Ones (The Legacy Trilogy Book 3) by Michael Foster Read Free Book Online

indifference, observed him sprawled beside the path.
    ‘Come, Leopold. The longer you resist, the worse it will be.’
    ‘Damn you, you black-hearted devil,’ Leopold cried, his voice trembling.
    ‘Be comforted that I did not take his flesh, Leopold. Power exists in that as well. I thought I would leave your mother something to hold onto. She deserves that at least.’
    ‘Don’t mock me with your hollow compassion!’ Leopold hissed, looking up from the ground. ‘You know nothing of love. You are a demon, a murderer! I will never help you!’
    He felt foolish, a child throwing a tantrum, and yet he did not care. He gained his feet and fled, running to be with his mother.
    She was sitting quietly on the floor with her husband, running her fingers through his hair, touching his pallid cheek. Leopold hastened to the drawers and sifted for the biggest knife he could find.
    ‘What are you doing, Leopold?’ Mother asked him, looking up through her tears.
    ‘I’m going to kill him!’ he said, plucking out a large cleaver and facing his mother with wild eyes.
    ‘You will do no such thing,’ she told him patiently. ‘You will put that knife down before you hurt yourself and you will go with Samuel as your father told you.’
    ‘I will not!’ Leopold insisted.
    Mother gently placed the body of her husband to the floor, and stood, deliberately patting her skirts into place, standing before Leopold with her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes glistened with tears.
    ‘You are not a child any more, Leopold. You are a young man and it is time to behave like one. Your father did not give up his life so you could waste this chance to save us. Samuel is not what he was—not at all the reluctant saviour I remember—but your Father has enough faith to give him all his strength, his very self. He is there, in the magician now, and if you go with him, you may feel some of the noble nature of your father at work. If you stand here pining like a little boy then everything he has done is wasted.’
    Leopold sniffed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his sleeve. He placed the cleaver onto the kitchen bench and held onto the timber top with both hands to stop from tipping. ‘Very well,’ he said, holding back more tears. ‘I will go. But I will come back to you, Mother, as soon as I can. I will not abandon you.’
    He turned, and the woman—sensible, reliable, loving—looked back at him with pride. She swallowed him in a hug and squeezed him hard, and he did the same in return. Finally, she kissed him on the forehead and pushed him away.
    ‘Go,’ she said. ‘I will think of you and your father every moment. Come back to me safe, Leopold. You are my hope. You are the crutch to Samuel’s failings ... do not forget that. He will need you, no matter how strong he appears, so do not let him down.’
    Leopold nodded and, with determination, he stepped past the body of his father and left the house.
    He dreaded going back to the magician, but he marched dutifully over the sandy paths, as he knew he must. He said nothing as he reached the three of them—the magician, the old man and the boy—waiting on the windy beach beside their vessel.
    ‘Get in,’ the magician said, letting Leopold clamber aboard.
    The polished black wooden box took up a large portion of space in front of the mast pole. Leopold eyed it warily before settling down behind it.
    The magician pushed the boat from the sand, faced it out to sea, and climbed in. He was wet to his middle, but did not care or notice. He stepped to the front of the vessel, stood straight and waited while the boat bobbed and threatened to return to land. He was immune to the rocking and pitching, a flagpole of black fixed upon the boards.
    Moments passed and they did not move—the boy and the old fool certainly did not possess the sense to help.
    ‘So what now?’ Leopold asked. ‘Do we sit here, or are we to travel by magic?’
    ‘Set the sail. Take us east,’ the magician