The Sword of Paracelsus: Tongues of Men and of Angels, Part 1

Sword & Stone 2 001

 

Morgan slammed the heavy book shut and shoved it back into an empty space on the shelf.  It was Sunday night, eleven o’ clock.  The dungeon was damp and cold, his eyes heavy and burning, his stomach pinched and growling with hunger.  So far his weekend-long search had yielded nothing.

For two days the thought of Eny’s disappearance had weighed heavily on his mind.  Fears and worries for her safety and well-being crushed his spirit and kept him from concentrating on his work.  Unlike George, who had gone to Los Angeles to aid Moira in the search, he didn’t believe that Eny had been the victim of a mere kidnapping or a run-of-the-mill street crime.  Not for a moment.  He thought he knew exactly where she was—in the Otherworld.  He also thought he knew who had taken her.

“All the more reason to get there myself somehow,”he muttered grimly as he turned away from the shelf.

Shuffling back to his dingy little workspace, he gave the leg of the desk an angry kick and threw himself into the creaking swivel-chair.  Of the many obscure antique books he’d set himself to examine over the last two days, only one was left:  one last little book remaining between him and all his dearest hopes and dreams.  Nearly sick with exhaustion and discouragement, he picked it up and held it to the lamp.  It didn’t look promising:  a small, thin volume covered in dull black cloth.  Neither cover nor spine bore title or description of any kind.  He yawned.  Elbow on table and chin in hand, he lazily flipped it open to the title page.

“Hold the phone!” he muttered to himself, sitting up straight in the chair and brushing a strand of hair from his eyes.  Rubbing his aching temples, he got to his feet.  Then he bent down and gazed intently at the little book.  “What in the world do we have here?”

At the top of the page, in bold black ink, stood two words or names written in the same bizarre characters he had found inscribed on the crossguard of the sword:

 

Liber Logaeth 001

 

This was followed by a title in English:

 

Liber Logaeth

 

(To be continued …)

 

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