Holes in the Veil

by Beth Overmyer

  “I told him about your plan,” Slaíne said. Before he could panic, she told a smooth lie. “But your friend don’t like the idea of selling off Dewhurst’s private papers. Thinks he’s better’n you.” She winked at Aidan, who could have kissed her out of relief. The less Tristram knew of the Goblets Immortal and Aidan’s quest to kill Meraude, the better.

  Blushing, Tris muttered something about lies and an apology. “It’s just that it could reflect badly on the Ingledark name when you reestablish your position here. No one’s going to respect a thief, Aidan.” His voice trailed off and he frowned as he again studied his old friend. “You are reclaiming your birthright, aren’t you?”

  It was tempting, sorely tempting. Aidan thought a moment. Could he return to the land he had once called home, find a way to clear his name, and stake his claim to lordship? It seemed like a possibility. But who would avenge his family? “I can’t, Tris. I can’t stay.”

  “Aren’t you tired of running?” Tristram continued. “You can make it work. We can make it work. I know a good solicitor in town. He’s new, mind, but he has won a few serious cases….”

  Hesitation gripped Aidan’s stomach. Could he? “I’m afraid not, old friend.” Before Tristram could argue, Aidan cut him off with a groan. “Times change. People – change.” He gave Tris a pointed look. “I’m moving on, Tristram. This land has nothing for me anymore.”

  “But your family, the land, it—”

  “My family is dead,” said Aidan. “The land is yours.” He sat up a little and clapped his friend on the shoulder, though he felt far from congenial. He was, after all, a man without a home and without any real hopes of ever having one again.

  Tristram’s frown deepened. “You’re up to something. Aidan, what are you getting yourself into? And don’t tell me any lies about selling off Dewhurst’s things and settling in your mother’s homeland.”

  One look at Slaíne confirmed that she had told a complete lie, but apparently had not been convincing enough. With her help, Aidan was able to sit up all the way, though the world spun and his head felt light. He accepted a tin cup of water that she had on hand, and drank it in one large gulp.

  “Aidan.” Tristram’s tone was a warning one, as if he were scolding a young child. “What are you doing?”

  He did not respond at first, but Summoned some food from his cache in Nothingness, and bit off a mouthful of brown bread from the Romas. Chewing in silence, he reoriented himself with the Pulls in the room. There were three human Pulls: his, Slaíne’s, and Tristram’s, and no other human ones for at least a mile, as it should be. Aidan finished the small loaf of bread and then Summoned some dried and salted meat, which he tore into. He hadn’t eaten in two days, and he was feeling the effects. At last he answered Tristram, who was still glaring at him. “The less you know, the better.”

  That did not seem to sit well with Tristram, but he made no further comment or objection on that matter, and changed the subject altogether. “Why don’t you rest some more? I’ll keep watch.” He looked at Slaíne with apparent dislike. “I guess she can sit with you. Hasn’t left your side, hardly. Like a dog, that one.” And with that said, Tris rose and left the room.

  Once he had gone and his Pull had moved out of earshot, Aidan tried to get to his feet.

  “What’re you doing?” Slaíne demanded, pushing him back down without much difficulty.

  Aidan bit down on a smile and decided to tease her a bit. “Now, see here. I managed just fine before you came along to boss me around.”

  Slaíne snorted. “Right, but before you was half-starved and ready to fall over.” When he appeared ready to argue, she threw up her hands. “Fine. Ain’t my place to say.” She perched atop a sideboard as if she were a bird ready to take flight, making nary a sound.

  How does she do that? Aidan shook himself and Called into his hands the maps he had Summoned. The use of his abilities made him even more lightheaded, but he ignored the sensation and went over the papers, looking for anything familiar to orient himself. After a moment, he swore. “North. Cedric’s grave is closer to Meraude than I would have liked.” He scratched his chin.

  “So you do mean to go after the rest of the Goblets, then?” As she spoke, Slaíne produced the sack containing the Goblet from Dewhurst’s manor. “Which one do you suppose this is?”

  Aidan concentrated on it, as if that might enlighten him. He had held the Warring Goblet before; at least, that was what he assumed from what Meraude had told him in a vision. After a moment, he gave up and put his hand out for it.

  But Slaíne made a face and seemed unwilling to part with it. “Are you sure—”

  “Hand it over, Slaíne.” He paused and amended his statement to, “Please hand it over.” He was getting a strange, pulsing feeling from the Goblet, something he hadn’t been able to decipher before. It was almost as if…but no, that couldn’t be.

  “What?” Slaíne asked as she reached to place it in his hands.

  In that moment, with her hand on the stem of the Goblet, and his on the rim, the cup grew warm and glowed a rosy hue. Strange words were impressed on the back of Aidan’s mind: At last. Well met, brother. Salem’s presence could no longer be felt at the back of his mind, but had been replaced with images of birds in the sky and clouds scattering through the air.

  Startled, Aidan tried to drop the Goblet, but his hand held fast and the glow intensified until he had to look away or risk being blinded. The cup began to vibrate, and pain shot through Aidan’s veins, which had begun to glow as well. He did not cry out, could not cry out, and he knew by instinct that Slaíne was having a similar experience. The pulsing from the Goblet grew stronger, and the pounding in Aidan’s head increased tenfold. Closing his eyes tightly shut, he waited to die.

  Thud, thud, thud. His pulse slowed, the pain ebbed, and slowly, ever so slowly, the light dimmed to the point where he could chance another glance. The Goblet fell from both of their hands as if it had a mind of its own, and then rolled across the floor and back again, resting against Slaíne’s heels.

  Breathing hard, Aidan looked up at Slaíne. “What…?” he began but did not finish.

  “I dunno,” Slaíne said with a frown.

  Aidan looked at his arms to make certain his skin wasn’t still glowing, and was pleasantly surprised to find that he didn’t feel as weak or as tired as he had but moments before. Curious, Aidan held out his hand in front of himself and flexed his fingers. The tin cup flew into his grasp, along with a glass decanter that had been resting on the sideboard. Well, he hadn’t exactly meant to do that. Then, with a breath, he Dismissed the objects, along with Slaíne’s silver sword lying on the floor. There was no accompanying headache or lightheadedness.

  “Do ya think….” Slaíne scratched the back of her neck. “Did you hear things?” She picked up the Goblet gingerly, and then replaced it in the sack, which she set back on the sideboard. “It called me ‘child’.”

  That made Aidan laugh. “And that offends you?”

  Slaíne did not respond to that. “The Drifting Goblet.” Her face brightened. “This has to be the Drifting Goblet.”

  “What makes you say that?” Aidan felt stronger now, so he got to his feet and picked up the maps that he had dropped.

  “It did nay call me a child, but child. I’m a Drifter, child of the Drifting Goblet, if you want to be poetic.” She thought for a moment. “That don’t explain what happened to you.” Slaíne studied him as though the answer would pop out at her from his forehead. “You heard something, yes?”

  With a shake of his head, Aidan Dismissed the maps. “I heard a voice, but….” He went to the sideboard and pulled the Goblet out of the sack with the tips of his fingers, fearing that perhaps it would do something to him again. When it did not, he held it firmly in his grasp and looked at it in a beam of light streaming through a broken window. “There are no markings that I can discern.�
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  “I know, sir. I’ve already had days to look.”

  Aidan frowned. “There is only one way to find out for certain.” He looked around for a pitcher or anything the girl might have obtained water with, found nothing, and then Summoned a water bladder. Hands shaking with anticipation, he unstopped the bladder and poured a meager amount of the water into the Goblet. Would that be enough? The explanations from Larkin the seer had been vague, but it seemed that whosoever drank of one of the Goblets Immortal took on its powers for a limited amount of time – in truth, until they expelled the liquid from their system. The only reason that Aidan, and Slaíne apparently, had the abilities without limits was because their mothers had drunk from a Goblet while the two were in their respective wombs, the magic elixir becoming part of their makeup. At least, that was what Larkin had claimed. Could he trust her?

  He raised the Goblet to Slaíne. “To your health.” And then he drank. Nothing happened. Was he supposed to flap his arms? Take a running jump off something tall? No, best not to attempt that in front of an audience; not only might he injure himself or Slaíne, but it was a humiliation he did not think he could bear.

  “Sir,” said Slaíne. “Do you feel any dif’rent?”

  Aidan thought on it for a moment. He did feel different. Lighter, less tied to the Pulls around him, except for Slaíne’s Pull, which nearly drew him to her as a magnet. Maybe that was why his feet were both still on the ground. “Should I feel lighter?”

  She scratched the base of her neck. “Probably.”

  “What do you mean, ‘probably’? This is supposedly your Goblet.” But he was not angry with her, rather with himself. What was he doing wrong? “I’m sorry, Slaíne. My temper is—”

  Her face darkened. “Ain’t ‘my’ Goblet. Just what my mam drank of. I can feel it. It’s got to be the Drifting Goblet. Maybe if I—” She approached him, but he backed away…or, at least, attempted to.

  Instead of taking a step backward, Aidan skipped off the floor and nearly hit the ceiling. “Well, that answers that question.”

  Slaíne clapped her hands and let out a burst of laughter. “I told ya. I knew ’twas the right one.”

  “Splendid,” said Aidan, still aloft. “Now, how do I get down?”

  It took them the better part of twenty minutes, trying to figure out how to get Aidan off the ceiling. He tried waving his arms about, imagining himself swimming downward. When that did not work, Aidan explored the Pulls on the floor and attempted to latch on to one to anchor himself. He made little progress with that, as the Pulls felt different with the Drifting Goblet’s water in his system.

  Slaíne suggested little in the way of helping him and giggled a lot.

  He might have laughed too, had he not feared Tristram discovering him floating around like some great bat. That would raise questions, and his old friend might piece together enough information to follow, stop, or report them.

  Finally, after much sweating and swearing, Aidan felt himself growing heavier. Slowly he began to sink. “How do you manage it?” he asked, hovering inches above the settee.

  Slaíne stopped laughing and seemed to turn the question over in her mind. “I dunno. I just will it to happen, and it happens. How do you make things disappear and reappear?”

  “I tried using the same principles I use for Summoning and Dismissing, but they did not work.” Aidan frowned as his boot tips scraped the back of the settee.

  “And you could always control your abilities?” she asked, giving him a curious look.

  Aidan shook his head. It had taken years, and that time he did not wish to think of. “I think the water is almost out of my system.” Indeed, he was drenched with sweat. It took another ten minutes, but at last he dropped onto the settee, somewhat dazed. He did not land a minute too soon: Tristram’s Pull moved back into the house, followed shortly after by the sound of his boots thumping across the rickety floorboards.

  “Uh, Aidan?” he called out. “Aidan, there are two lawmen coming down the lane. What should I do?”

  Chapter Three

  Aidan

  Tristram continued to stand there, staring at Aidan for direction. When he spoke again, his voice was shrill. “What do we do? If I’m caught with you, I’ll be arrested for conspiring or some other nonsense.”

  Aidan went to the sideboard and picked up the sack containing the Drifting Goblet. “You’re not going to be found with me. Delay them, and we’ll sneak out the back way.” Not pausing for a proper farewell, he grabbed Slaíne by the hand and led her to the back of the house.

  “Good luck,” Tris called after them.

  The mansion had been built into the side of the hill so that the front was at ground level, but the back of the house was three stories from the ground. There used to be a set of stairs leading to the ground, but when Aidan opened the door, he was not surprised to see that they had long since rotted away. “Go ahead,” he mouthed after feeling the Pulls of four humans at the front of the house. At least the house wasn’t surrounded…yet.

  Slaíne did as he asked, lowering herself onto the ground by means of her gift. She looked up at him, her expression somewhat visible from the distance at which she stood.

  Aidan should have thought to send the Goblet with her, as having it on his person would make lowering himself difficult. There was no chance of that now; the human Pulls had entered the house, and words exchanged might be heard. Hands shaking, Aidan tied the sack onto his belt and lowered himself over the edge, searching for a foothold or handhold. His boots touched a wooden frame below, but it made a horrible creak, so he at once removed his weight from it. Now there were voices approaching the back room, followed closely by two human Pulls.

  “I can assure you that I was simply surveying my new property,” Tristram was saying at the top of his lungs, as if to warn Aidan that they were coming. “I am well within my rights, sir.”

  “Miss Emelie Lewis said you threatened her.”

  “I asked her to leave the grounds, that much is certain. She and her friends were trespassing.” The inside door creaked open, and Aidan lowered himself so that he was just dangling by his fingers. “I am well within my rights.”

  There was a grunt. “So you said.”

  Aidan could let himself drop to the ground and hope that he didn’t break any bones or make enough noise to attract attention. It was a risk, though, one that he might not easily walk away from. His fingers were beginning to slip and they might be seen at any moment. Sweating, he reached again for the wooden frame below with his boots but could not find it.

  “Nothing here seems to be amiss,” said another male voice.

  Tristram sighed. “Of course there isn’t.”

  “But why is that door open?”

  Aidan could have kicked himself for having left it open even a crack. Now the man’s Pull was moving closer to the door.

  “I wanted to get a cross breeze flowing through here, air the place out a bit, you know.” Tristram was moving nearer.

  Any second now, Aidan would be discovered. He had to do something, and fast. Closing his eyes, he felt for Pulls, latched on to one that felt like glass, Dismissing and then Summoning it. Out in the hall, there was a great crash, just as he put his full weight on the window frame below. He didn’t stay to see if the noise from the decoy worked to cover his descent; he needed to move quickly.

  The Pulls moved away from the doorway, and Aidan climbed to the windowsill below. It groaned in protest beneath his weight, but he didn’t stop moving. Lowering himself to dangle from the bit of wood, he stretched himself out as long as he could, and then dropped to the ground below. He landed on his bottom, though he had tried to roll. “I’m going to be sore tomorrow,” he muttered and he got to his feet with Slaíne’s help.

  Shouts were taken up in the house, though Aidan was certain no one had seen his face. It was up to his old friend now
to make up a decent lie about who had been hiding on the estate; Aidan certainly was not going to stay and explain things for him.

  Slaíne picked up the Goblet from the ground since it had rolled out of the sack attached to Aidan’s belt, and they ran into the woods behind the house. Aidan had not entered this particular part of the woods surrounding Breckstone since he was a young boy, though he guessed he still knew them better than anyone who might pursue them. New trees had shot heavenward since the twenty years had passed. Undergrowth was a problem, but he and Slaíne managed to push through every obstacle without wasting much time.

  They were heading farther south than he would have liked, but they could rectify that later; now they had to put as much distance between them and the estate as possible. The ground began to even out. Water gurgled from the brook just around the bend. They followed the water as it bent east, hiding their tracks by wading in up to their ankles. The going became slow as they neared the edge of the rapids and the woods thickened again to the north. “We should refill our waterskins,” he said to Slaíne above the roar.

  She nodded and they moved out of the water and onto the rocks surrounding. They were both breathing hard. Sweat trickled down Aidan’s back, and he swiped at his brow before Summoning two of the six water bladders that he always kept in Nothingness. First they each drank to their hearts’ content.

  Once they had drunk what they needed, Aidan filled both of the bladders, stopping after each was full and then Dismissing anything harmful that he found so that they would not become sick later on. Two bladders’ worth of Dismissing took a minimal toll on his mind, but he dared not exert himself further. It was a wonder he had regained his energy and strength after touching the Drifting Goblet. He would have to ask Slaíne about that later. Right now, he wanted to sit in peace.

  Aidan Summoned two beef-and-potato pasties from Nothingness and handed one to Slaíne, who tore into it like she hadn’t eaten in a week. He realized with some guilt that she might not have eaten for the last two days, considering he’d been unconscious and unable to bring forth any of their foodstuffs.