Download Sleeping Beauty - Harper Voyager Books

world outside.I saw my sword, still lying there in the dust as if it held no value.I’d no time to pick it up and little good it would do me in my lefthand. Even so it pained me to leave it as I carried on down thecorridor.Hakon held back, allowing the yard between us to grow into two,three. ‘Take a look, Jorg.’I glanced over my shoulder. The cavern opened out behind me ...onto a sea of tangled green, deeper than a man is tall. Small redflowers peppered the curls and hoops of the briar.‘You know thorns, Jorg: that much was written on you whenyou came. Perhaps it was this variety that marked you so? Thehook-briar?’I looked down at my chest, arms... ‘Gone?’ The scars had vanished.I’d borne them so long but it took until now to notice they had gone.I felt more naked than ever. The scars had been an armour of sorts.An account of my personal history set down in blood and permanence.The scars were to be with me forever – taken to the grave. The lossunsettled me more than eyeballs in frozen jelly or the reanimatedcorpse of a friend. Those I’d seen before. ‘How?’‘This is a medical facility, Jorg. Look in the skin-flask.’‘The what?’‘It’s on your back. Depress the third, seventh, and sixth button.’I took the cylinder from my shoulder and set it down before meby its strap. I knelt and pressed the numbered bumps as directed,glancing down only briefly, expecting to be rushed. I leapt back asthe lid began to unscrew along a previously unseen seam. The topfell away with a hiss and I leaned forward to peer at the contents.