“I endeavored to make the animation spell a relatively simple one, both to ensure it wasn’t too taxing for you to maintain and specifically to ensure it would continue to function in adverse conditions. It was really a very fascinating puzzle to—” Deacon began.
“It was an observation, not an invitation,” Desmeres said.
“Ah. Forgive me. Myranda is rather indulgent when it comes to my enthusiasm on matters such as this.”
“Perhaps her greatest sign of divinity is her patience.” Desmeres indicated the crystal in his hand. “How is the cave treating your ailment? I understand it takes a degree of effort to keep it under control.”
“I am handling it well enough. Mystic focus is growing more difficult, but the very effect that is weakening my grip on the affliction seems to be weakening the affliction as well.”
“Would the cave itself be able to cure you, then?”
“I very much doubt it. Like the crown and the ring, it would at best dampen the effects.” He tipped his head and shut his eyes. “It is a curious feeling to have my magic fouled in this way. I feel… fuzzy. It is a bit like being inebriated, but in a strictly spiritual sense.”
The gentle lapping of water echoed through the cave. The slick floor started to slope treacherously downward. After a short distance, rippling water filled the path ahead.
“As I suspected, still flooded. There may be a clear path higher up in the caves, but this is the most certain path I’m aware of. The important question is whether the water is rising or falling.”
“Is that not obvious by simple observation?”
“Not in the short term. It takes quite a while for the cave to flood to this level. The emptying is somewhat swifter, but not the sort of thing visible to the naked eye.”
He dropped his heavy pack on the ground and tugged a rope from it. He tied a knot in the rope, affixed one end to the pack, and threw the other in the water.
“We’ll check back in a few hours. That should give us an idea of which way the water is moving: toward the knot or away. Until then, this is as good a place as any to make camp.”
Deacon nodded and set his pack down to prepare a moderately dry place to sit upon.
“So. The cave is as good as being drunk for a spell caster. Interesting. You strike me as the sort of man who could benefit from a bit of inebriation. Step out of yourself for a while. It can do you good,” Desmeres said.
“It is fascinating, but unwise. I wouldn’t expect you to understand the folly of that statement, though.”
“Oh?” Desmeres said, leaning against the wall. “Indulge me. We’ve got nothing but time at the moment.”
“There are endless reasons. First is the simplest. We train all through our lives to achieve a depth of focus and a precision of control. Stripping all of that away, even temporarily, would be unnerving.”
“You are speaking to an artisan who had one of his hands lopped off in this very cave. I assure you, I can fully embrace that concern. But I live on. And it’s revealed a few things about me that I would consider worth knowing. You’ve never been the sort to turn up his nose at a lesson.”
“Fair.” Deacon gave him a thoughtful look. “As I recall, you weren’t very forthcoming about how precisely you were injured.”
“That was by design.”
“It was a very clean cut.”
“Indeed. We are discussing you, not me. What other reasons do you have for wanting to hold so tightly to the mystic focus that the vast majority of humanity never even approaches.”
“How to put it to words…” Deacon stroked his chin. “When we train, we build strength. The more your spirit channels and harnesses magic, the greater its capacity for further magic. This isn’t implicitly so, of course. Some spirits are more able to harness greater power from the start, and there are those who suggest that some spirits will never rise to the heights of others regardless of training. But those who have devoted their lives to serious mystic practice will find themselves with tremendous power at their disposal. Power brings danger. Focus allows us to harness it, but also allows us to direct it. To erect walls to keep ourselves from overstepping ourselves.”
“Mmm. I see. A mean drunk, in this context, could be very ugly.”
“Indeed. Less of a concern within the cave, as the same influence that strips away the control would leave the power toothless.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
Deacon lowered his head. “Perhaps this is a personal point, not a universal one. But losing control, allowing myself to lose control… it would feel like stepping off a cliff. Like once it was gone, it would never return.”
“Afraid of what’s lurking below the surface?”
“I have practiced control and discipline since birth. My earliest memories include the constant half-aware flex of my mind. The person I am, the real me, is controlled and measured. Deacon without control isn’t Deacon.”
“How do you know it would be bad?”
“Were you present in Verril during the final battle?”
“By that time I had made enough poor decisions regarding my allegiances that it seemed wise to put some distance between myself and the Chosen.”
“When Myranda and the others continued north to Lain’s End, I remained behind to defend the capital. It was well beyond my capabilities, but I’d kept a small quantity of a very potent potion for restoring mystic power. Caya contributed to me consuming an… improper dosage. Gray magic, combined with that much power… some of the things I’d done were a hairbreadth from truly horrific. A whisper less control and there wouldn’t be a Castle Verril anymore.”
“Point taken.” Desmeres glanced to the water. He readied his own bedroll. “I don’t know about you, but a long ride and a short hike has got me exhausted. If this water is rising, we’ll need to fall back and wait. If it is falling, we’ll want to move quickly to take advantage once it is clear enough. Either way, we’d be better served by a rest.”
#
Ivy sat in a veritable nest of comforters and blankets snagged from her own room. Leo had proved much happier and more manageable in Deacon’s secret room than in his own, so Ivy had decided it was better to cuddle up with him there than fight with him elsewhere. She yawned widely and continued reading from the book.
“‘I cast a spell or two to be absolutely certain that there was no longer any danger, and as the moon rose dimly behind the clouds, we marched on. The infectious joy Ivy had felt had done more for us than a night of sleep ever could, so there was no need for further delay. The mood was considerably brighter now. Forgoing the bow as she walked, Ivy plucked the strings merrily, a smile on her face.’”
She shut the book. “I remember that day. It feels so strange to read about it from the pages of a book,” Ivy mused.
“Book,” Leo said with a yawn of his own.
“I think we’ve had enough. That’s a happy moment, and there weren’t very many of them in those days. I don’t want to leave you with something that will give you nightmares.”
Leo looked up at Ivy. “Book,” he repeated after careful consideration.
Ivy smirked. “I guess I did say that aunties are supposed to spoil their nephews and break the rules. But let’s see if we can find one that’s got something shorter.”
She looked up to Ether, who had been standing at the worktable through Ivy’s entire shift as storyteller, leafing through some of the notes and incomplete books.
“Have you found anything else Leo might like?” Ivy asked.
“These are mostly incomplete spells and musings on how to complete them,” Ether said, scanning a fresh page. “Musings of other sorts as well.”
“Are they really that interesting? You’ve been reading them all night.”
Ether set the page down. “I have been trying to make sense of them. For all his faults, and they are innumerable, Deacon has always had a remarkably clear understanding of magic. At least, magic
as utilized by mortals. His focus is gray magic, primarily nonelemental. I question the logic when, as my mere existence illustrates, elemental magics are superior and represent the fundamental workings of nature. But he conjures useful effects.” She tapped the page. “What he suggests here is… to put it lightly, deranged.”
Ivy covered Leo’s ears. “Hush, that’s his father you’re talking about.”
“The boy can’t understand my words yet.”
“He is brighter than you think. Now be nice.” She uncovered Leo’s ears and turned him around. “Auntie Ether’s just joking about Dada. She probably just doesn’t know what he’s talking about with his magic.”
“He doesn’t know what he is suggesting. The words are written as though he’s grasping at smoke, attempting to make sense of some new interpretation of things that are already fully understood. Listen.” She snapped the page. “Earth, fire, wind, and water are the fundamentals of the physical world. But there exist other aspects that do not fit neatly within them. If my own expertise so routinely manipulates the world without relying upon the four elements, then surely there must exist other elements. Perhaps deeper elements.”
“It makes sense to me.” Ivy paused. “All right. It doesn’t make sense to me. But I can see why he would think that sort of thing.”
“It is drivel and blather,” Ether said. “The words drive deeper and deeper into abstractions, absurdly supposing each of them is somehow its own element. He talks endlessly of ‘acquiring samples’ of these elements. There is a full page musing on ‘a curious new twist of the spiritual landscape that warrants investigation.’ He seems to think that—”
“Wait!” Ivy’s ears perked up. “Something’s happening. I hear horns. There is an alert.”
Ether flashed to her wind form. “I shall investigate.”
#
Hours had passed. While Desmeres had managed to fall deeply asleep, Deacon was having difficulty doing the same. It wasn’t for lack of exhaustion. His mind, muddled as it was by the effects of the cave, simply wouldn’t allow him to sleep. As he tended to do when unable to sleep at home, he’d set his mind to unraveling this riddle and that. This, as always, had quite the opposite effect. The concerns that had sent him here clashed with the concerns that had kept him from coming here. He saw the faces of the people who had made him the man he was today drifting in his mind. He heard their voices condemning him for his violations of Entwell’s most sacred beliefs. He saw the face of his son, his mind painting nightmarish tableaus of the boy finding a D’Karon seed and summoning the invaders again.
The one valuable outcome of his churning mind was the experimental discovery that he could fully relax his will for the first time in ages and not worry about the affliction’s effects. The ring’s and the crown’s enchantments were still mercifully effective, and the scrambling effect of the cave itself was enough to take up the rest of the slack that the affliction had gained. In a way, the rest for his mind was far more refreshing than a few hours’ sleep would have been. It left him with enough of his wits to truly assess and analyze the cave.
As confounding and complex as the influence of the cave was, it wasn’t completely random. He let his mind’s eye open wide and took in the dazzling patterns of magic and will. Here and there he could feel echoes of other minds. Some seemed to be his own mind reflected back at him. Others were quite likely the spirits of those who had fallen to the cave and never found their way to the great beyond. They were trapped here forever, or at least until a means could be found to free them. It was a chilling thought, but he soothed his existential terror with the knowledge that such a thing must have been extremely rare, as countless people had lost their lives to the cave over the years and he could feel only a handful of things that might once have been spirits. Indeed, there was truly only one that he could state with any certainty was not a stray thought of his own twisted into a new shape.
Presented with this new fascination to sink its teeth into, his mind tugged and pulled at the distorted will. He couldn’t tease out an identity, but as the hours ticked on, he became increasingly certain of its location. Of course, it didn’t matter how certain he was. If he didn’t confirm, it would only ever be a simple guess. And if this truly was a lost spirit trapped for eternity in the cave, it would be a horrific thing to knowingly leave it here to its fate worse than death.
Finally, his curiosity got the better of him. He stood and fought a weak glow into the heart of his crystal. This would have to be investigated, even if it meant heading out on his own. He paced back along the slick stone to find the source.
A small part of Deacon’s mind nagged at him, reminding him of dangers and urging him to return. This small part was drowned out by the combined voices of curiosity and duty. Aside from a brief pause every fifty steps to scratch a mark into the wall to follow back, he dedicated himself fully to the search for this trapped will. If there had been no walls, it would have been simple enough to pinpoint a direction and head directly for it. But every new tunnel twisted and distorted the view in his mind’s eye. He may as well have been trying to focus on a single pebble on the floor of a rushing river.
He ventured deeper and deeper, tracing his way through coiling tunnels. The nagging voice became louder. He was a long way from Desmeres now. He’d left himself a means to find his way back, but he wasn’t sure which way he had truly gone. There had been backtracking, climbing, sliding. The will was stronger now. He was close. His single-minded focus on the slowly approaching will wasn’t broken until he heard the soft skitter of spidery legs.
Deacon froze. Their journey thus far had been through the section of the cave subject to cyclic scouring by floodwater. Beyond the odd centipede or beetle, there was nothing alive here. But what he heard in the tunnel ahead was far too large to be one of those. He tightened his grip on his gem and pulled his struggling focus together into a point powerful enough to stoke the light in the gem’s heart.
A pair of eyes gazed at him from the darkness, reflecting his own light back at him with a golden tint. The eyes were small, set too close together to be anything as worrisome as a bear or a dragon. Deacon felt for his gray blade. He’d brought it with him to the cave, but to his dismay he discovered he’d left it behind in his pack along with his pads, his books, and everything else he’d deemed indispensable for such a journey. A sharp chatter reverberated up the tunnel. The eyes rose higher in the cave. Far higher than something with so small a head should be able to manage. They twisted, flipping upside down. A leathery rustle joined the skitter and chatter. Finally, it reached the edge of his light. The thing was long, curling. Its head was canine, but its body was clearly serpentine. Wings somewhere between those of a dragon and a bat spread in an intimidating display. Tufts of feathers topped the wings, as if the creature itself couldn’t decide if it was bird, bat, or dragon. Long, chitinous legs clung effortlessly to the ceiling as it clambered toward him. As horrid as the abomination was, it was familiar.
“Mott?” Deacon called out.
The thing stopped, eyes narrow and mouth wide. He recognized his name.
“You are Turiel’s familiar,” Deacon said.
Now the eyes widened and brightened. His own name had been notable, but the name of his master was another thing entirely. It was a source of curiosity, interest. The thing folded his wings slightly and deftly dropped to the cave floor, pivoting as he fell to clatter toward Deacon with a dizzying dance of legs.
“How did you get here. What is this about?” Deacon said.
He kept his gem tight in hand. The presence of the monster raised a thousand questions. At the moment, the greatest of them was how precisely the beast was still alive. Mott had at least begun his “life” as an extension of Turiel’s will. Deacon was personally responsible for coaxing this beast’s creator through a portal of uncertain stability. Deacon had been operating under the assumption that Turiel had fallen, but her death should have ended Mott as well. Yet here he stood.
How? Why? And perhaps the most crucial questions at this moment, did this creature recall what Deacon had done to Turiel, and did he hold a grudge?
Mott clacked closer, ears back and eyes narrow. He extended his neck until his pointed nose could sniff at the intruder. His posture, if such a thing could be properly interpreted for so mixed up an anatomy, slipped from hostility to cautious curiosity. Deacon risked shutting his eyes to focus again. Mott was most certainly not the will he had been searching for. The thing may as well have not existed in his mind’s eye. But he was on the right track. The residue of a mind was stronger here. Almost strong enough to have a familiarity, but he couldn’t place it.
“Is Turiel here? Is that why you are here?” Deacon asked.
It chattered, almost pleasantly, and tapped in a circle around him.
“If she needs help, I am willing to help her. No one is beyond redemption,” he said.
Mott tapped his many legs in excitement. The cold tip of his tail coiled around Deacon’s wrist, and the beast clattered back in the direction Deacon had come, attempting to lead him away.
“No, no. It is this way. I can feel it,” Deacon said, pulling back.
The tail tightened. Mott’s chatter took on the edge of a growl. He tugged more firmly. With eight legs, the creature could pull with remarkable strength. Deacon resisted. He’d come this far seeking to help someone trapped in this place. He wouldn’t leave without at least finding out who or what they were. Another tug at the beast burned through the last of the benefit of the doubt he had earned. Mott’s ears pulled back. His lips peeled into a snarl.
Deacon pulled his blurred mind together and attempted a spell to repel the beast as Mott lunged for him. What should have been a shield sputtered and faltered. A shimmering disk of magic coalesced before the monster, but a snap of his jaws shattered it into flares of white and blue light.
The monster’s long body lashed and constricted around Deacon. Without a proper weapon, magic was his only recourse. He peppered the scrambling creature with flares of flame, flashes of light, and anything else the wizard thought might slip beneath the influence of the cave. Each was at best a distraction. The many limbs and long body of the beast made him seem to be everywhere at once. Legs clawed and scraped at his arms. A tail ensnared his legs. He held up an arm to shove at Mott, only for the monster’s jaws to clamp on to his wrist. The writhing mass of monster overbalanced Deacon, and he hit the ground hard. The crown fell from his head. The gem slipped from his grip. Both clattered down along the tunnel ahead.
The Coin of Kenvard Page 10
