When he looked back to her, there was something new in his gaze. He still looked tortured, still desperate. But now he looked less like a man worried he might have to do something he didn’t want to do, and more like a man who knew he’d already done something wrong.
Ivy narrowed her eyes and made her move. She dashed toward him. If she could bash him against the wall, dizzy him, she could perhaps knock the sword or his crystal away. Her shoulder struck him, but she didn’t feel any of his weight behind the blow. What appeared to be Deacon uncoiled into a web of glimmering mystic threads. They curled and wrapped about her like a sprung trap, entangling her feet and sending her to the ground.
“Ivy, I’m begging you,” Deacon said, fading to visibility two steps from where he had appeared to be. “If you have ever trusted me, trust me now.”
“You don’t get to demand my trust when you are trying to tie me up,” Ivy growled, a flare of red in her eyes. “You’re not Deacon. Not the Deacon I know.”
“I had to stop pushing the change away. It was happening for a reason,” he said. “It was showing me that there were other ways to think. I needed every insight. When the job is done, I will set it aside. But I have been too sane for too long. A problem that cannot be solved by a sane mind can sometimes be solved by madness.”
Ivy growled. Another surge of red aura erupted around her. The mystic bonds seared away. She clambered to her feet. “You have a child,” she barked. “You have a wife. You have a kingdom. You are needed. Stop this, now!”
“I intend to stop it all.”
Ivy knew she had to end this soon. The frustration and helplessness she’d been feeling was combining with the betrayal of seeing Deacon act this way. A temper she’d been keeping under control for years was in danger of flaring out of control. It didn’t matter how powerful a wizard Deacon was, if she lost control and let the rage take her, there was every chance she would kill him. Even if something had changed him, she didn’t want that to happen. If there was even a chance that this was the friend who had given her a place in his home, she didn’t want to risk taking his life.
Her nostrils flared. She breathed in a whiff of the air and angled her ears. She wouldn’t be fooled by another illusion. This figure before her was certainly her foe. She launched toward him again. He backed away, pressing his shuddering, shifting hand to the face of a full-length, polished silver mirror that was among the collected artifacts. He made no attempt to dodge. She struck him full force, expecting to ram him into the mirror, but instead they both tumbled forward. With him wrapped in her arms, the pair was off-balance. They teetered for a half-dozen steps before they spilled to the ground and continued to slide.
Finally, the pair struck the far wall. Deacon wrestled free and sprang to his feet. Ivy hopped up a moment later. The room seemed wrong now. It was pitched, as if built on a slope. And the entrance was on the wrong side. Everything was on the wrong side. In the time it took for her to grapple with her new surroundings, Deacon rushed toward the mirror, now on the far wall. His hand chattered and jittered as he pressed it to the polished surface. The mirror rippled like quicksilver. He crouched and dove through. Ivy sprinted after him, but the moment he was clear, the ripples died away. She slammed hard into the mirror. It rattled in place, and the entirety of the room trembled with it. With a slow, ponderous slide, the view in the mirror pitched toward the ceiling. The floor tilted along with it. It felt like the entire room was tumbling along with the mirror, but only Ivy was affected. She scrabbled along the tilting floor until the slope was too much for her and she plummeted to the far wall.
Deacon appeared in the mirror again as Ivy righted herself. The frustration and confusion had pushed her to the very brink of transformation, but even in her furious state, she’d worked out the mind-bending answer to what had happened. She was in the mirror, somehow, and Deacon was outside. She watched helplessly as he reached down and grasped the frame. Again the world pitched to follow the tilt of the mirror. Deacon stood it against the wall. She charged up and beat on the surface, but it was no use. Where it had once been a door, now it was a window, simply a way to glimpse the real world while she remained in this reflected facsimile.
She pressed her hand against the surface. “Deacon, let me out of here!” she shrieked.
“I just need time. Myranda will be able to help you. I’m sorry. Please believe me, I am truly sorry. I just need time.”
She hammered at the mirror, rattling her world as he backed away. She could see doubt and regret in his eyes. Deacon rummaged in his pocket and revealed a freshly minted coin. It was different from those that littered the floor. It had a weight, an aura that made it seem somehow more substantial. With eyes shut, he gripped the coin tightly in his afflicted palm. The tiniest hint of relief came to his face.
“And I still have time…”
#
Calypso dragged herself forward and slid along the slick floor of the cave. The most uncertain part of the journey was behind her now. They’d reached the dry section of the cave. Ayna had taken some time to calm down and get her bearings once she got out of the jar, but she’d soon worked out the shortest path to the fresh air of the outside world. The only trouble now was actually reaching it.
The mermaid hauled herself up to the top of a short slope.
“It’s down this way for quite a bit,” Ayna said.
“No turns?”
“Gentle ones, but you won’t encounter another tunnel for some time, so you needn’t worry about taking a wrong turn.”
Calypso grinned. “That should make things a bit faster.”
She dug her gloved fingers into the crest of the slope and heaved herself past it. She’d fortunately taken the precaution of assembling an outfit that quite resembled what passed for mermaid armor. During the downhill portions of the trip, she could simply let her gloves drag along the wet cave floor to control her speed.
Ayna buzzed down and alighted on her head, riding the mermaid like a glorified sled. “This is a horribly undignified way for a mermaid to move,” she remarked.
“It isn’t so bad. We call it ‘seal sliding.’ When I was a little girl, me and the other mermaids would find a nice smooth stretch of shore along the base of the cliffs and challenge each other to see how far up we could slide.” She smiled a bit wider. “I was very good at it.”
Their slide took them to a low-roofed section of the tunnel. Calypso lowered her head, and Ayna dropped down to lie atop her head to avoid being scraped across the roof. With the little creature’s prone form atop her, Calypso could feel a bit of a tremble when they came particularly close. It happened rather frequently. Ayna proved better at conjuring light in the confounding mystic environment of the cave than most mages could, but she could still only manage a dull glow that gave them precious little notice of the changing shape of the tunnel.
“How are you holding up?” Calypso asked.
“I am not the one flopping like a stranded fish,” Ayna said. “Just focus on moving quickly. I don’t want to spend a moment longer in this cave than I have to.”
“If you think you can give me reliable directions, you are welcome to make your way to the mouth of the cave ahead of me.”
“You’d never make it without my help.”
They slipped along for a time.
“Tell me something, Calypso.”
“Anything. I am an open book.”
“Why did you decide to make this foolish journey?”
“I thought I was fairly clear about that. Deacon needs our help, as does possibly the rest of the world.”
“You always say it that way. Deacon first, then the rest of the world.”
“Deacon is my friend. A threat to the world is a little difficult to come to terms with, but a friend is a friend. Even if the world wasn’t at risk, I would have made the trip.”
“I don’t know if I should count it as foolishness or bravery.”
“It needn’t be one or
the other. One can be brave and foolish.”
Ayna buzzed her wings and huddled down as a bit of a stalactite swept by. “At least bravery is a part of it.” She paused. “At least a friend is a part of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know that there is a single person in Entwell, and thus the world, whom I would have risked my life for.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable.”
“And yet glory is reason enough for me.”
“Hardly a rare motivation. Is this something that worries you?”
“No! Am I not worthy of such glory?”
“Of course you are,” Calypso said wearily. “But you certainly seem introspective about it.”
“… What worries me is that I suspect the reciprocal is also true. I don’t know that there is a single person in Entwell who would risk their life for me. Deacon was gone for years, and the last things he did before he left were as near to crimes as we have in Entwell. And yet still there were voices in his favor. Still you list him first among the reasons for braving the Cave of the Beast. Mine is not a life that has lent itself to friendship.”
“Bah. You’ve got a friend in me.”
Ayna was quiet for a long while. Calypso wondered what she would see if she were able to glimpse the expression on the fairy’s face.
“Slow yourself. Be ready to stop quickly. There is a chasm ahead,” Ayna said after the long silence.
Calypso dug the clawed tips of her gloves into the stone and brought their journey to a crawl. Sure enough, the long uninterrupted slide came to a stop just shy of a yawning crevasse that split the tunnel. It was wide enough and deep enough that neither the far end nor the bottom could be seen clearly.
“Which way now?” Calypso said. “As if I didn’t know.”
“Across. This is the last major obstacle before the exit.”
“You know how it goes, then.”
Calypso pulled herself to a sitting position and twisted her pack around to the front. She pulled a coil of rope from inside and began to feed out a length. Ayna buzzed out and hung before her, counting out the loops.
“I have a friend in you…” Ayna mused. “I suppose you do not subscribe to the mystic tenet of spiritual purity through honesty.”
“Are you calling me a liar? Because that is grounds for a duel.” Calypso snickered.
“We are forever at one another’s throats. That is not a sign of friendship.”
“I’m usually just trying to get a rise out of you. Friends tease one another all the time. It’s something you’d likely be more aware of if you had more of them.”
“That’s enough rope,” Ayna said.
The fairy pulled a length of thread from a tiny pouch about her waist. Calypso tied a loop in the rope’s end. Ayna fastened her thread to the end of the rope. She buzzed out over the chasm. As she drifted farther away, darkness swallowed everything but the fairy herself. It was disorienting, looking out to see the tiny creature glowing in the midst of endless black.
“What in our time together in Entwell would lead you to believe I needed or wanted a friend?” Ayna asked, her little voice echoing with the distance.
“Everyone needs a friend,” Calypso called. “And I could always use another.”
Ayna reached the far side and planted herself. With a bit of effort, she began hauling the end of the rope across. It was slow going, but even mystically dampened as they both were, a fairy was deceivingly strong. When it reached her side, Ayna looped the rope over a bit of stone sturdy enough to serve as an anchor.
“Test it,” she called.
Calypso pulled at the rope. It held firm. Next came what had become the most trying part of the entire journey. Calypso set about climbing the rope.
“Mermaids,” she huffed. “Are not meant for mountain climbing…”
She pulled herself forward, hand over hand. Her tail looped over the rope, such that she hung below it. Until now, she’d been climbing walls in this way. In those cases she’d found that when the slope or shape of the wall allowed for it, she could brace her tail fin against the stone. It wasn’t as useful as a pair of legs, but it did about as much good as a single foot. In this case, it was of no value. The rope was the only thing to hold on to. Calypso’s arms shook with exertion.
“It is remarkable,” Calypso huffed. “One forgets just how heavy one is when there is no longer a pool of water to lighten the load.”
Ayna buzzed down to meet her. “You are struggling,” she observed.
“Nothing,” she panted, “that I can’t handle.”
A crackle of stone echoed through the tunnel. The rope sagged a heart-stopping inch or two.
“The rope…” Ayna said.
“That was my side.” Calypso redoubled her efforts. “I knew I should have practiced my knots.”
Another crackle and the rope sagged further. Ayna flitted down and bumped into the curve of Calypso’s tail. She buzzed her wings like mad attempting to lend a tiny bit of aid.
“Not that I don’t have considerable faith in your strength, Ayna, but I’m not sure you are going to do much good.”
“We are near the mouth of the cave.” She grunted. “The influence is weaker here.”
A breeze started to form, curling up along the wall. At first, it did little good at all. The loosening rope continued to sag, and Calypso’s arms continued to tire as she tried to reach the far side before one end or the other of the rope fell free. Moment by moment the breeze grew. Calypso could feel a good deal of the weight taken from her grip. Her speed increased while sliding herself along the rope. It had sagged such that the second half of the journey had her fighting the slope of the rope.
Behind them, the rope came free. Calypso squealed and held on tightly. A precarious dangle turned into a terrifying swing. The mermaid pivoted and flailed her tail, slapping it against the wall to keep from being bashed free. Her gloves began to slide. Arms weary from dragging herself through the heart of the mountain were not up to the task of supporting her entire weight. She gritted her teeth and squeezed as hard as she could. Ayna caught up with her and threw her little weight against Calypso. The wind whistled and swirled.
“Climb!” Ayna grunted.
The focused wind tightened. Calypso felt some of the strain lessen. She hauled herself upward. The play in the rope suggested the top must be near, but with Ayna below her trying to add her own meager wings to the task of lifting the mermaid, the way forward was shrouded in darkness. Calypso didn’t know she’d reached safety until her trembling hand reached forward and found a stone ledge rather than more rope. She grabbed on tightly, hoisted herself up, and tumbled inside.
Calypso collapsed, exhausted. Ayna landed atop her. Both were gasping for breath, slow to recover from the exertion and exhilaration of the near disastrous crossing.
“Well,” Calypso gasped. “That was… something. I think thanks are in order. You may have just saved my life.”
Ayna nodded and straightened her wind-ruffled outfit. “You choose your friends well.”
#
A short slither down another incline brought them to a moderate-size stream trickling out of pores in the stone. Calypso required little guidance to navigate from that point forward, able to simply slide along the water. Ayna took full advantage of this fact by darting well ahead of her, eager to be free of the cave as soon as possible. As Calypso sloshed closer to the cave mouth, the confounding pressure of the Cave of the Beast began to ease. She likely could have taken a moment to cast a transformation spell and provide herself with legs, but the seal slide, at this point, was considerably faster.
Before she knew it, she spilled out into the frigid breeze of Melorn Woods. Ayna had perched herself on the sign labeling this place as the Cave of the Beast. She was taking long, slow breaths, relief evident in her tiny features. Calypso shut her eyes and touched her amulet. Magic stirred and swirled. The straps of the armored apron unfastened
themselves. A bit of transformational magic gave her a pair of legs to stand on. She stood and rummaged through her bag. The legs were simple enough to conjure. Producing a pair of leggings as well was a bit of a challenge. She’d never bothered to produce footwear along with them, so she’d toted boots along with her.
“We’ve done it,” Ayna said. “The first to cross the Cave of the Beast during a flood.”
“Another feather in what is becoming a very crowded cap for you, eh?” Calypso said.
“I am running out of challenges worthy of my skills.” She glanced to the mermaid. “Though thanks are of course in order for your aid.”
“And vice versa. We are a fine team.”
The mermaid curled her fingers and tugged at her soaking-wet armor. The layer of water clinging to her pulled away as though it had been nothing more than a silken veil. She threw it to the ground with a splash.
“I have your things, if you want to bundle up,” Calypso said.
“I used to call this place my home. It isn’t pleasant, but I am quite capable of enduring it.”
“Well then. No sense wasting any more time. You can travel far more quickly than me. Do you need to see the map again?”
“I am a fairy. I can find my way.”
“Very well, then. You know what to do.”
Calypso held out a small satchel containing one of the pads they had crafted. Ayna conjured a wind to carry it behind her.
“Do hurry after me. I very much doubt I shall have the patience for diplomacy.”
With that, Ayna whisked off in the direction of New Kenvard. Calypso lingered for a moment, gazing off into the forest before her. In the rush to reach this place, it had been lost upon her until this moment that she’d never been to a place like this. She’d spent many years in Entwell, more of them than she cared to count. Though she still had her youth due in part to her mystic prowess, it was safe to say most of her life had been spent honing her skills in the lake in Entwell. The years before had been spent in the Crescent Sea, mostly near the cliffs of the Eastern Mountains.
The Coin of Kenvard Page 19
