by Jeffrey Hall
Those thoughts plagued him as he stood in front of Old Pander’s shop. The store rose from the edge of Bothane’s main land like the last tooth of some punch-ridden fighter. All around it were the bumpy, rocky guts of the stone and what was left of the surrounding buildings since the invasion from Glimmer. The Spear Spoke ran next to it, a less used road coming from the north and leading into the Virgin Hills, a place yet mined, a land with curves that rivaled a young woman’s. Just below it, he could see some lone strand of the Abyss rising up like a probing tentacle to see if it could wrap anything in its clutches. Requiem thought of taking the bait, but knew this wasn’t how he wanted it, not with so much commotion, not with so many people ready to tell stories about how they saw one of the Scarred give himself to the Abyss, if they could even figure out it was him.
He shook his head, dismissing the idea, and walked to the Geomage’s door, a rutted thing with a peeling painting of a blue stone and once white sparkles shimmering around its edges. He knocked three times.
“Yes?” came a soft old voice.
“Old Pander, I’ve need of your help.”
He heard a grumble, the scraping of a chair against wood, and the soft pitter-patter of feet on the other side of the door. When it swung open he could smell the overpowering citrus scent of algulite. Standing before him was a hunched man with a pair of glasses, one side of the lenses elongated with the help of a magnifying lens. The man was bald save for a shelf of white hair that ran around the back of his head. He wore a sleeveless shirt, revealing his flabby and vein-ridden arms.
“What’s the prob… oh?” His eyes fell to the girl. “What happened to her?”
“She’s got silent stone in her blood.”
“How’d that happen?”
He answered for what felt like the hundredth time, “Dread Cultists.”
“Cultists got a hold of a girl?”
Requiem shrugged. “Not sure how it happened. Think she may’ve been lost.”
“That, or someone made them an offering. Bring her in.”
Requiem had never thought of that. Would someone really have taken a girl to the Edge and dropped her in the lap of cultists? What for? Who would do such a thing? He envisioned the masked figure said to be looking for a girl…
He stepped inside and was immediately taken by the shelves of boxes lining the walls, each perfectly square, each labeled clearly in alphabetical order to make known the type of stone that was stored inside. In the back there was a desk with a glimmer stone lodged in a sculpted claw giving light to a thick tome. In the middle of the shop sat a workbench with minor dribbles of colorful stone decorating its polished wood face like blemishes.
“Set her down there,” said Old Pander, pointing to the workbench.
Requiem did, supporting her head, settling her onto the wood as if he were putting Mote to bed after he’d fallen asleep reading. “Can you help her?”
The old man shook his head. “Never treated with silent stone or any of its counters.”
A pit of frustration opened up in Requiem’s stomach. Of course he couldn’t be so lucky. “Then why are you having me set her down?”
“Want to confirm it’s silent stone before I send you in the right direction.”
“That’s what a healer from Drip told me.”
“Drip? And you trust them?”
“No one else to ask,” said Requiem, shrugging.
Old Pander let out a loud, “Humph.” He looked her over. “She cut?” He pointed at the stain of Requiem’s blood that dirtied the robe she was wrapped in.
“That’s mine.”
“Ohhhh, musta had some tussle with those cultists. Take an ear of theirs but don’t take a sacrifice. So at least I hear.”
“Something like that.”
The man turned the girl’s head. “Kept her watered enough from the looks of it. Clean too. Well, clean enough.”
“Tried to.”
“Definitely silent stone within her.” He slapped his hands together as the skin he had just touched was dusty. “Well, let me see here. I should be able to point you in the right direction.” He pulled down a thick tome from atop one of the shelves and flipped through it. “Silent stone. Silent stone. Ah!” He mumbled to himself as he read.
“Well?” said Requiem, impatient.
“Dadaline ought to counter it, pull it right out of her.”
“Dadaline?”
“Indeed.” He slammed the book shut. “Rare stone to be treating with. Not good for much other than preserving food and creating a temporary roof over your head.”
“Know anyone who can handle it?”
He scratched his head. “I think so. But you’re going to have to kiss the purple.”
Requiem knew the term and knew what he meant. Old Pander was telling him to take the stairs that wound around the exposed rock beneath the city of Bothane and visit the under city. The one built into the stone, the one so far below the surface that it flirted with the Abyss, which danced and floated along the hole that was punctured into the other side of Moonsland. A beaten-down place. One out of the eye of the Elder and those who pranced about topside, unabated by the gaseous maelstrom that lurked beneath. A poisonous thing, slowly affecting the minds and bodies of the poor populace who called it their home.
If he found a Geomage down there they’d just as likely make the girl explode and run through the last of his weight by the time her pieces hit the ground. But what other choice did he have?
“Any recommendations?”
“Try Dashinora. She once had a practice near the towers.”
“Once?”
“She began to become somewhat undone.”
“Great,” said Requiem.
“She has the right background to use something like dadaline.”
“Right background?”
“Spent most of her childhood on the streets.” Old Pander nodded towards the door and slid the tome back onto the shelf, slowly, as if to ensure the spine of the book aligned with the shelf’s edge.
“Can you at least look at something for me before I get walking?”
“What?” said Old Pander, annoyed.
Requiem reached into the girl’s pouch and produced the dark, night-like stone. “You know what kind of clink this is?”
The man took it and held it up to his lenses. “Never seen it before in my life.” He held it closer. “The minerals inside of it glow with the light, almost like stars being illuminated in the heavens. And its shape… It’s so smooth on all edges except for the tip here. Very uncommon amongst stone unless found in a river…” He took it away. “I’d be happy to study it further for you.”
“No time for studying.”
He smiled and tossed it back.
Requiem grumbled as he put the stone back in the girl’s pouch and lifted her off the table, once more accepting her weight on his shoulder like she was a sack of stones he had just finished mining and was now looking to unload.
“One more thing. If you do go to Dashinora, be wary. I hear she’s become involved with some difficult company.”
Chapter 6
Dash stood upon the red rope bridge made of stretched and dried belly-grup intestines, the sides still glistening even that far down from the sun as if they had just been licked. To either side of her the Abyss rose like a playful thing, twisting, stretching, turning as if it were caught up in a game that it alone knew. The black door in front of her glared back at her menacingly. She adjusted the sack of fire bones slung over her shoulder, the stones rustling slightly to make a clacking noise. It sounded like a snicker.
“It’ll never work,” said a shadowy figure forming in the Abyss out of her peripherals.
“It will,” she snapped, refusing to look at it.
The figure laughed.
“It will, and then I’ll shut you up.”
“For now.” The figure laughed again.
“Stop snickering!” She spun, but the figure was gone. All that remained was the Abyss, formi
ng and fading, a never-settling smoke without a fire.
The black door swung open. A tall man draped in a black belly-grup skin jerkin stood there looking at her, his skin as pale as the moon. On his cheek below his left eye there was a tattoo of a spiral with a dagger in the middle. “You’re late.”
She hoisted the sack over her shoulders, glancing once more at the Abyss to ensure the figure was gone. “Can’t rush magic, Shint.”
Shint folded his arms so she could see the two blue daggers on his hip, the ones forged of skynite, a metal that would burn a man’s blood once it entered it. “We can.”
“Right,” said Dash. “You can, and so here I am.”
“He knows.” The voice came back suddenly and loud, startling her, near causing her to fall into the ropes. “You’re a fool to come back here.”
Shint looked out into the Abyss. “You’re low.”
“I’m fine,” said Dash, running her hand through her hair.
Shint looked her up and down, and then back out into the Abyss. “Carry is waiting.”
Shint turned and entered the corridor, leaving the door open for her to follow. The lowlight of glimmer stones greeted her first, followed by tooth-like stalactites painted with stripes of purple and green and blue, carved wooden spirals strung up and dangling from their tips like jewelry. On the ceiling there were paintings of the sun and moon, a feeble attempt to recreate the barely visible sky high up. Tunnels curved throughout, going to places deep within the stone, places Dash had never seen and could only imagine.
Others were at work within the caverns, some sharpening blades, others counting stone, a pair pulling a stubborn belly-grup by its reins, trying to force it down one of the tunnels. Every one of them stopped to look at Dash like she was an apparition come to haunt them.
“They want to kill you!” The voice came from the darkness now. “Run!”
“Shut up,” she shouted.
All faces turned to her. Shint stopped and raised an eyebrow. “You sure you’re fine?”
“Sure,” she said, eyeing the darkness of the cavern like it hid demons.
Shint shook his head. “Seer.”
“What did you call me?”
“What you are. A seer.”
“You call me that again and I’ll activate these fire bones here and now.” Seer meant she was an addict. A junkie. She was neither. She was just using temporarily. Temporarily for ten years...
Shint just smiled, and all the others kept looking on, stone-faced, to see if she would do it.
“Carry’s waiting.” Shint kept walking.
The voice in the darkness kept laughing. It took all her willpower to not tell it to go back to the Abyss where it came from. She hurried on, trying to outrun the voice before it could find her again. Soon you’ll shut up and soon I’ll be free of the darkness.
Shint led her to a chamber that rose out from the main tunnel. There, six long stalactites hung from the ceiling like lances, the base of each one a point to the edge of the purple spiral painted between them. Below, a large stone table had been carved from the ground. Boxes lay strewn across it, many filled with stones, shards, or herbs, while one was full of phosphorescent orbs that looked like eyes staring at her in the dark. And behind the table, behind the boxes, loomed Carry, his arms locked as he leaned against the stone overlooking the materials.
“There she is, Dashinora!” He wore no shirt, and when he clapped his hands together in excitement it sent a ripple over his muscles like her presence ushered forth some internal quake from his heart. “Finally, you have returned. And only a week later than expected this time. I hope Shint knocking on your door last night didn’t disturb your progress too much?”
Shint had nearly broken her door down the night prior, demanding the fire stone she had promised them. Luckily she had been at her workbench when he came. Ten minutes earlier he would have seen her with her head back, eyes closed, looking into the Abyss. Still, even with the false illusion of her at work, he and the rest of Proth’s Prodigy were displeased with her delay. More than displeased. Actually so displeased that Shint had threatened to drop her off a Spoke once and for all. She had thought about his offer and wondered if she would meet her father down there, but didn’t have the courage to say yes. Instead, she worked double time, changing the essence of the stones, turning them into their powerful selves… Well, at least most of them. It was hard to work when the Abyss was constantly whispering in your ear. The others, well, the others she may have destroyed by using the incorrect spell or forgetting where they were in her shop...
“You should have run.” The voice whispered this time, as if it were an inch away from her ear. She batted it away like she would a bug.
“Dashinora…” said Carry as if he was scolding a child. “Are you running low again, my sweet?”
“Not for much longer,” she said, dropping the sack of stones on the table.
“Tisk, tisk, you should have finished faster and you wouldn’t have had that problem.” Carry nodded to Shint, who went to her bag. “Although I must say that your hair looks lovely a shade more purple.”
She ran her hand through her hair, trying to hide the purple there. She didn’t like the way Carry looked at it, nor did she like how thorough Shint was with her inventory. Brushing her hair was the only way she could hide the terror she felt rising in her heart.
“Looks to be all here,” said Shint.
“Sample?” said Carry.
Dash’s heart dropped. Please don’t choose the wrong one.
Shint pulled out one of the white stones and held it up. The orange sparkle of the activated essence—or maybe paint—shone beneath the light of the glimmer stone. Shint took one of the blue daggers out of his belt and slapped it against the stone. Immediately the fire bone sparked into a small blaze, activating the stone exactly as she had commanded it do when she’d transformed its essence. Shint threw it into the darkness of a nearby tunnel, where it exploded on impact, sending a shower of stone and debris into the air as if the darkness had just coughed.
“You fools! Are you trying to cave us!” shouted Dash.
Carry laughed. “Just trying to ensure that my sweet Dashinora wouldn’t be lying to us.”
“Why would you ever think that?” she said, trying to control her voice.
Carry sauntered along the other side of the table, dragging his hand along its surface. “Oh, I can think of a time when you shorted us by about a dozen stones.”
“Or what about the time she turned the erudite useless and tried to convince us she had activated it so soundly that its essence was in hiding,” said Shint.
Carry snapped his fingers and pointed at Shint. “I had forgotten about that.”
“They know you are a failure!” the shadows snapped.
“Those were mistakes,” said Dash, glaring at the darkness.
“Mistakes? Or shortcuts? A quicker, lazier way to get what you seek?” Carry lifted a small bag from the table and let it jangle. It sounded like coins, but Dash knew what it was.
“Do we have a deal or not?” Her heart was racing as she stared at the bag.
“You know that won’t work,” said the voice.
“Yes it will,” she whispered.
Carry laughed to himself. “It appears that we have a deal.”
He jiggled the bag like it was a plaything for a pet.
She exhaled and walked across the room to stand before the table. She reached out for the bag like it was a god extending its hand to receive her. Just as her finger brushed the burlap, Carry dropped it back to the table, grabbed her wrist with his now free hand, and slammed it down. He brought forth a giant cleaver from the back of his belt, and Dash’s eyes slammed shut as she braced for the pain.
But it never came.
“Are you telling the truth?” shouted Carry.
“Yes!” She squirmed beneath his grasp like a rodent in a trap.
“What’s in that bag is what we’ve requested?”
“It
is!”
He squeezed harder and brought the blade of the cleaver into her skin, pressing so hard that it drew blood. Somewhere above her screams she heard the shadows laughing.
“Is it? This is your last chance to come clean.”
“Yes!”
He stared into her eyes, refusing to look anywhere else until he found some satisfaction from her gaze. At last, he threw her away from the table, and then the bag she sought into her chest. It fell, the shiny purple contents falling onto the ground like broken glass.
Black lens. The Abyss’s eye. The stone of the shadows. Her vice. Her savior. Her everything.
She dropped to the ground and scooped up the black lens, careful not to let a single shard of it become lost in the dimness of that place, sweeping it into the bag.
“Don’t lose a bit of it now,” said the voice.
She was so infatuated with the crystal, she ignored the voice and didn’t even notice the blood dripping down her wrist from where Carry’s blade had left its mark. Satisfied she had grabbed every last bit, she stood, securing the bag safely on her hip. Already the weight of it against her body was giving her relief. Already she could feel the voices of the shadows leaving, but that feeling faded when she saw Carry on the other side of the table, patting his cleaver like one would the head of a child.
“We can’t be too careful, Dashinora, you know that.”
“Then you know I almost popped your head like a grape.” From another pouch she brought forth a blue stone the size of her pinky.
Shint drew one of his daggers. “Put it away!”
But Carry only laughed. “Come, Shint. Do you think she would really cut the bucket that lowers her to the bottom of her well?”
Shint looked from the blue stone in Dash’s hand to her face, seeing if she was really about to use that stone. Dash glared back him, her brow furrowed, her teeth bared. She was in no mood to be toyed with.
“Besides, she’s sloppy. I bet all I have on this table that she doesn’t even remember the spell needed to turn me to the mush she so desires.”
