Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God by Scott Duff

this very privately. The fact that Father and your mother were
in the room at the time adds to the supposition since it’s normally
done alone. That’s the picture with all the oily stuff in the
background.”
    He flipped the album back to a picture and
tapped it. I vaguely remembered the experience from the picture. A
lot of it involved making the goo on the wall do stuff like make
geometric designs and move in strange ways. I remembered it as
being fun and it made Mom and Dad really happy that day.
    “You tested off the charts,” he said, looking
intently at me.
    “What does that mean?” I asked, feeling like
an idiot.
    “It means, little brother, that you were too
powerful at five to be judged by a test,” he said. “But twelve
years later, you haven’t been trained on anything. For some reason,
Father has left you as tabla rasa. That power, that potential still
exists, as does the question of why. And unfortunately, you have to
make a decision without enough information.”
    He paused. I waited. I knew he was trying to
lead me into something, but I was too tired to think and too much
had happened today already. He was gonna have to say it outright.
He sighed and went on.
    “You’re not the blank slate anymore,” he
said. “For starters, you now hold a huge and powerful Pact. The
magic you can learn delving into that alone is enormous. You hold
five weapons heavily laden with magic. You can now see in truth and
control consciously small amounts of light and sound. You called
them firecrackers?” I nodded at the question in his voice. “Now,
correct me if I’m wrong, but you have no intentions of sitting in
this house while I go look for your parents, right?” he asked.
    “Hell, no!” I said, emphatically. I’d already
stayed still too long.
    “Then that means I have to teach you how to
protect yourself,” he said, seriously. “How to see who we’ll be
dealing with. Who else is out there in the world, the Worlds,
really. Because somebody is after you for something and I can only
protect you so far.”
    “I thought you had to re-learn things
yourself,” I said, yawning.
    The smile was contorted while he figured out
how best to say what he wanted. “What I have to re-learn is like
playing a piano concerto while I’m teaching you ‘Twinkle, Twinkle,
Little Star,’ and even that is a poor analogy.”
    “All right,” I said. Looking at the shelf of
financials, I decided I was too tired to go through them tonight. I
pulled those off the shelf and piled them on the floor. Gesturing
at the remains of the bottom shelf, I asked Kieran, “Do you want to
look through any of these?”
    He glanced up, saying, “No, I’m familiar with
those, actually.”
    I pushed down slightly on the shelf and the
bottom two shelves disappeared into I don’t know where with the top
three snapping back into place, yellow tint shimmering slightly. I
took that to mean the spell was still in place and took half the
pile of financials to the desk. Ethan followed behind with the
rest.
    “Thanks,” I muttered. “I’m going to bed.”
    “Good night,” Kieran said, reading the third
page of notes, not looking up as I left the room.
    My dreams were filled with dancing puppets
and cartoons that night. Much better than a nightmare of dying
elves, I suppose.

Chapter
5
     
    I woke at a more normal 6:50 a.m. to an empty
house. The sun was shining through the window, promising a nice day
out. Shaking the sleep out of my head, I took a quick shower and
dressed in shorts and a T shirt, opting not to shave again. I
could sense Kieran and Ethan down the hill in the clearing moving
around quite frenetically. I couldn’t tell what they were doing,
though. Shrank was flying toward the house along the trail. I
grabbed some socks and trainers and headed for the kitchen.
    “Good morning, Master Seth,” squeaked Shrank
merrily as he flew through the dining room door, left ajar, I
assumed for that purpose.
    “Morning,” I grunted,