Witchbreaker (Dragon Apocalypse) by James Maxey Read Free Book Online Page A

it, a look of peace that reminded her of a sleeping child.
    “Is he breathing?” Bigsby asked.
    Sorrow furrowed her brow as she stared intently at the man’s chest. It was perfectly still. She also noted the man didn’t possess an aura. All living things carried a faint glow of energy she’d been trained to detect, and this man was completely devoid of inner light. “I’m almost certain he’s dead.”
    “Quite well preserved, isn’t he?” Brand asked.
    “Perhaps he isn’t even real,” said Sorrow. “You can craft a figure out of wax that looks eerily lifelike. It’s difficult to believe anything that once lived has been buried for centuries without rotting.”
    “He’s in glass,” said Bigsby. “Maybe he’s pickled.”
    Sorrow suspected the light would refract differently if the coffin had been filled with fluid. But she did notice that the coffin didn’t appear to have any seams. Since she knew the art of glass weaving, she knew it was possible to craft a container, heat it to drive out air, then seal it before it could refill, creating a vacuum. The weaver who’d taught her this trick many years ago had used it to preserve flowers. Could the effect be scaled up to preserve a body? Were walls of thick glass enough to hide this corpse from Rott’s gaze?
    “Well, as treasure goes, this is something of a dud. He’s not even wearing any jewelry,” said Brand.
    “Really?” Sorrow asked. “We encounter something this mysterious and all you can think about is the lack of loot?”
    “The Black Swan might buy him,” said Bigsby, now speaking in his normal, male voice. “She used to buy all kinds of weird stuff from Stagger.”
    “I’m here for knowledge, not wealth,” said Sorrow. “Somebody went to a lot of trouble to preserve his body. Aren’t you curious who cast the spell? For that matter, aren’t you even more curious who he is?”
    Bigsby nodded. He said, once more in his annoying falsetto , “Maybe it’s the knight.”
    “What knight?” she asked.
    “You know. The knight from Knight’s Castle.”
    “Stark Tower? The Witchbreaker?”
    “Why not?” Bigsby squeaked.
    Sorrow sighed. “You know, real women don’t sound like that. Just use your normal voice.”
    Bigsby put his hands on his hips and pushed his voice even higher as he said, “This is my normal voice.”
    Sorrow was sorry she’d brought the subject up. She returned to the topic at hand. “I can’t imagine it’s Tower. He was a hero to the church. They wouldn’t bury him naked in the middle of nowhere.”
    “Do you want me to smash open the coffin?” asked Brand.
    “No,” said Sorrow. “I can weave glass, so opening the coffin isn’t a problem. But I don’t want to tamper with anything before I get the chance to do some research. We’ll need to pull this coffin out and take it back to Commonground. I’m not selling anything to the Black Swan, but she might have some information as to who he is.”
    “That sounds like a lot of work,” said Brand.
    “I’ll see that you’re well compensated for your efforts. For now, let’s continue digging the hole you started. Perhaps our mystery man has a brother.”
    The second grave went quickly, thanks to the combined efforts of both Brand and Trunk. They were aided by the fact that the soil of this grave was bone dry, starting a few feet below the surface, and crumbled easily beneath the assault of the shovels. Sorrow stood near the edge of the grave, chewing her nails. What if this grave held another preserved body? Of all the things she’d imagined digging up, a naked man had never entered her list of possibilities.
    At the same depth as the first grave, they again hit a stone arch. The structure soon proved to be much larger. They spent hours clearing out an area twice the size of the original grave, and still had failed to find the final shape of the building.
    Impatient that their efforts weren’t yielding results more quickly, Brand dropped to his knees