giant’s deep voice echoed off the distant walls and ceiling. “More night reading, daughter of the earth?”
Sapphira cringed. No matter how many times he taunted her with that name, it never failed to sting. Firming her chin, she strode into the towering giant’s shadow and crossed her arms over her chest. “At least I can read, son of putrefaction.”
Anak roared with laughter, making his muscular torso quiver. “A new insult from the queen of glib tongues.” He reached down and patted her on the head. “Morgan must keep you around for entertainment. I would have fed your carcass to the birds by now.”
Sapphira kept a stony face under the giant’s condescending hand. “She keeps me around, because I was smart enough not to teach Mardon everything I learned while he was gone. Without me, her garden of giants would produce nothing but fools like Anak and his sons.” She moved her hands to her hips. “If I remember the story Morgan told me, one of your sons lost his head at the hands of a shepherd boy.”
“Acid-tongued wench!” Anak wrapped his huge, six-fingered hand around her face and shoved her backwards, making her flop down on her buttocks. “David and his sons rot in their tombs while I live on.”
Sapphira climbed slowly to her feet and pulled out her coif. “Only by Morgan’s black arts.” As she spoke, she crept nearer, tying on her covering and keeping her eyes locked on Anak’s. “What would happen if you passed through the portal back to the land of the living?” She began tucking her hair into her coif, slowly making a circle around the portal. Anak’s gaze followed her, his body turning with his head. “If you went there, you would be a rotting corpse, because you died in that dimension, just like Mardon, and you’re stuck here because Morgan uses her arts to keep you from passing on to your eternal reward.”
Anak glared at her. “What do you know about eternal rewards? You’re stuck in this hellhole with me.”
With slow, furtive steps, she passed by him and eased closer to the swirling column of pale blue light. “I can’t argue with that. But at least I have hope. I have never died.” She withdrew the Ovulum from her pocket and laid it in her palm, pausing for a moment to make sure the giant moved his gaze to the egg’s mirror-like surface as it reflected the portal’s dancing light.
The moment he looked down, Sapphira leaped for the portal, but with a lightning fast sweep of his arm, Anak snatched her right out of the air and threw her to the ground. She tumbled head over heels and slid to a stop, scraping her elbow.
Anak extended his long arm and pointed at her. “Devious vixen! Get your scrolls and be gone!”
Sapphira rose slowly and brushed herself off, taking a second to examine the trickle of blood oozing down her forearm. It stung pretty badly, but at least she had managed to cling to her Ovulum. She slid it carefully back into her pocket and headed toward the tower, making a wide circle around the scowling Anak. As she passed through the broken doors, she clenched her fists. She had gotten so close! Just a few more inches, and she would have been on her way back to the upper realms, to the land of the living!
Keeping well away from the tree in the center and its twelve saluting statues, Sapphira shuffled to the outer wall and grasped the sides of one of the tall ladders that lined the stacks of shelves. Putting one foot on the first step, she paused and looked back at the portal’s bluish glow. What if she had made it into the column? Would it really have led to the upper world? Morgan had expressed her doubts long ago, and she was usually right about things like that. Still, it might be worth exploring if she could ever get past Anak, but would she be able to find her way home? And if she got lost in another dimension, what would Morgan do to Paili?
Sapphira slapped the side of the ladder and whispered to herself, “You should have thought of that earlier.” She began climbing the ladder, skipping over the familiar weakened rungs as she scurried upward. At least with this journey, having tried it before, she knew where she was going and how to find her way back, and so far no one else seemed to know