Dashyl's Quest

Dashyl ached all over. Kymla was a warrior, or so she seemed. She had wrested with her two trainees, thrown them, made them lift heavy rocks and run laps around the courtyard. He could hardly keep his eyes open when Fretly reached under his mattress, pulled out Kilkarak’s journal and tossed it to the boy.

"I almost forgot, Dash."

“I didn’t. I thought about it all day. Never thought I'd see the book again, I had forgotten it existed until you told me about it. ” Dashyl said. Something occurred to him. “Did you read it, Fretly?”

“No. Well, I only skimmed it. Your dad was into some crazy things. That science stuff is a little over my head, really,” Fretly admitted.

Dashyl shot Fretly an angry glance.

“Whoa, don’t worry,” Fretly protested with his hands up. “I won’t tell anybody anything. I’m not on the side of the Legion or the Protectorate. I’m independent, I remember that much about my past.”

Dashyl shook his head and smiled at his friend. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Fretly replied. The young man yawned and leaned back into his pillow. “I don’t know if I’ll go sneaking around tonight, so tired.”

"Fretz, where did you find this Journal,” Dashyl asked. He hadn’t the heart to open it yet, he just turned it over and over in his hands.

“That book must have been important to these ladies,” Fretly replied. “It was in a room past the kitchen with lots of other locked drawers and a few writing tables.  It was in a cabinet that loked like it ought to be locked, too. I think the laundry is through that room. If I didn’t see the cabinet door sitting open slightly, I would have gone past it and into the laundry room, but I got distracted by the journal and ran out of time. There’s got to be an exit out the laundry room, right? Oh well, it might have to wait until we get a break from this combat training.”

Dashyl didn’t hear the last Fretly’s sentences, he had finally opened the journal and sunk into bed reading the first entry.