Son of the Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

could make some tests. Should have done years ago, but your parents didn’t want to expose you to any of this until you grew up.”
    “So I gather. Still, I have to do something. I guess that means I have to go to this castle and see if I can find them.”
    “I suppose you do, lad.” He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them. “And I suppose I need to go along. Not that I’ll be much use. I can’t even see well enough to conjure up a meal in the field.”
    “Then we’ll do it the old-fashioned way,” I said, glad to have any company at all. I was feeling way out of my depth. “There is game around, isn’t there?”
    “Plenty of game and fish, but it takes so long that way.”
    “Well, you have any idea where you might have lost your glasses?”
    “I expect they’re around here somewhere. Perhaps a packrat grabbed them.”
    “Wonderful,” I mumbled under my breath. Louder: “Maybe I can find them. I’ve got a good flashlight and I can see well enough.” I didn’t give him much chance to answer. I just got busy. The cottage was so small that I knew it wouldn’t take long to give it the once-over, even if I had to do it two or three times.
    “How long’s it been?” I asked.
    “I’m not rightly sure. Maybe a month or two.”
    “How do you get by?”
    “Oh, I know where ‘most everything I need is at. And I’m truly not here all that much.”
    I only needed ten minutes to find the glasses, but finding them at all was a fluke. I happened to glance up at the ceiling at the right place. The glasses were stuck in the thatch over the front door. The halogen beam of my flashlight glinted off a lens. The glasses were absolutely cruddy and the left lens was badly starred. I cleaned them as well as I could, then handed them to Uncle Parthet.
    “How in the world did they get up there?” he asked as he slipped the wires over his ears.
    “Somebody had to put them there, and I doubt it was your packrat.”
    “Much better.” He looked at me—still squinting.
    “How much difference do those glasses really make?” I asked.
    “Oh, worlds, worlds. I still couldn’t read anything but very large letters, but oh , this is so much better.” He came right over to me. “You look more and more like your mother, lad—the jaw line, the nose, the—”
    “When do we leave?” I asked, cutting off the comparisons.
    “First thing in the morning. No good starting out this time of the day.”
    I nodded. That made sense. Anyway, I was ready for sleep. I took the thermal blanket from my pack and looked for an area light on the cobwebs to spread it.
    “Just one more question for now,” I said. “Where’s the john?” That beer was screaming to get out.

3
Pregel
    I curled up in the back corner, next to the fireplace, and wrapped my blanket around me. I hoped that Uncle Parker’s packrat wouldn’t get too chummy. It had been a long day full of more shocks and surprises than any day has had a right to. Still, I got to sleep without much trouble, and that’s rare enough for me even when things are normal. It might be dramatic to say that I had a bunch of weird or frightening dreams, but if I did, I slept right through them and didn’t recall a one. What did wake me was a nasty cramp in my left leg. I woke with a painful jerk as the muscles knotted up, then sat up and massaged the leg. It was three in the morning by my watch, but that was Louisville time. Judging from the difference in sunsets, it was probably midnight or one in the morning in Varay, wherever Varay was.
    Sitting in the dark rubbing my leg gave me time to do some thinking without getting sidetracked. My parents were missing and maybe in great danger. My Uncle Parker—actually my mother’s Uncle Parthet—claimed to have been wearing, or at least needing, glasses for more than six centuries. He also claimed to be a half-baked wizard. What was worse, I was starting to accept the whole damn fairy tale: those doors in our cellar, the