A grind of stone caught his attention. When he turned, he found the elder was approaching. She was alone, a rarity for someone of such advanced age and towering importance. Desmeres stepped aside to allow her to pass, but she stopped beside him.
“It is good to see you here, Desmeres. So few in Entwell take the time to reflect upon the past.” She turned to the urn before him. “We fix our minds on the future and what we can make of it. But the past is where we stand when we do it. It is worth taking a moment and seeing if there is anything more to be learned from time to time.”
She brushed some salty debris from the plaque. “She lived to be ninety-eight. A good life for a human,” the elder said.
“A long life, at least. I don’t know that she had a good one,” he said. “I wasn’t here for most of it. The plaque says she was an honored and skilled alchemist.”
“She was a fine woman. She added much to our understanding. She died fulfilled and content.”
“Then she was better than I.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know that I could find fulfillment in a thousand years. I’ve crafted my entire worldview around keeping it out of my grasp.”
“It is never too late to change.”
“A century is plenty of time to become set in one’s ways…”
He continued forward, idly clacking the metal fingers of his yet-to-be-replaced hand. Some distance farther, he encountered his father’s urn.
“And what of Croyden?” he asked. “He should have had centuries more. He should have had as much time as he desired.”
His father’s urn was nearer to the ground. He crouched to investigate it. “Poisoned… My father was poisoned?” Desmeres said.
“A mishap with a treatment for one of his blades, as I recall. A vial fell into his forge, and he was gone before we could help him.”
Desmeres searched for the proper words. None seemed to exist. The first notion that seemed like it was worthy of breaking this silence was a simple one.
“So his final blade was left unfinished?”
“I believe so. It will be among his things.”
“I would like to finish it.”
“By all means.”
He stood and dusted off his knees. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. And it feels strangely like I’m running out of time.”
“No better way to find the motivation to get it done.”
The pair turned back, marching toward Warrior’s Side. As they approached, it became clear that something curious was happening in the heart of Entwell. Desmeres could feel a thick, intensely arcane quality to the air. If it was potent enough for him to feel it, it must have been truly monumental.
“Are the wizards having another debate in your absence?” he said.
When he turned to the elder, her face was serious.
“I recognize that spell. No one casts it like that anymore.”
The pair hurried forward. Warrior’s Side was nearly empty, the residents having already rushed to the center of the village. Desmeres and the elder reached it to find a familiar scene playing out. Intense magic curled and lanced out from the elder’s hut. Apprentices and masters alike scattered to avoid the blasts and whorls of wind and stone. Pieces of the oft-destroyed hut in the center of the village burst to fragments as some manner of mystically enhanced debate raged on. But when the walls had fallen and those responsible were revealed, the elder froze in place.
“Elder Tavvic,” she uttered. “He has been dead for two hundred years.”
Without the hut to obscure the view, other aspects of the battle became clear. It was just as much an elemental battle as any such disagreement tended to become, but some of the elements were being conjured without an apparent source. Fire, in particular, roared from thin air.
“Everyone! Keep back, stay safe, and observe! Protect the rest of the village, but let this event play out. We need to learn,” the elder said.
The wizards, masters and apprentices alike, formed a ring around the raging argument.
“Solomon would have been in this discussion. He is absent now.” The elder turned to where the gray dragon had planted himself at the edge of the courtyard. “Or at least, not in place.”
Styluses scratched out records of what was occurring. Scribes rushed to the elder’s side to record her words.
“Only the dead,” she observed. “Only the dead are appearing in the echo.”
She shut her eyes, slipping deep into focus. Desmeres knew the look. She was experiencing the moment with a depth and precision that nonmystics could never hope to achieve. Whatever was causing this, the world was about to get the most thorough, precise insight into its workings one could ever hope to achieve.
#
Hours of poring over Deacon’s endless notes had failed to yield any real insight. Working through them had genuinely been like trying to pick apart an argument between two people who didn’t feel the need to fully articulate themselves. Deacon while alone, presumably Deacon without the crown, knew everything that his sane counterpart knew, so the thread connecting two lines of reasoning was often buried in subtext or entirely unspoken. A few things had become well established, however. The first was that Deacon was quite certain he would never be able to achieve his goal until he found some missing piece that, as of the pages written hours before his departure, continued to elude him. The second was that despite what the ripples of time might imply, he wasn’t seeking to change history. Time was only ever mentioned in passing. Everything reduced to the repeated refrain, an oscillating musing between “remove the door” and the ill-defined “alchemy of existence.”
In a way, it was a relief that he’d not planned some sort of dangerous tampering with time itself. In another way, it was terrifying, because that meant these ripples were unintended. It meant something had gone wrong or was going to go wrong.
With nothing else to draw upon, Myranda had moved Deacon’s notes into the royal dining room. It was a smaller, more intimate space than the banquet hall that served as the setting for the royal family’s day-to-day meals. Now the long table was arrayed with the different pages. Ether stood at one end, considering the words on some of the more recent writings. Myranda was staring, unseeing, at one of the earlier pages while her mind worked.
“Mama,” Leo proclaimed, rousing Myranda from her trancelike musing.
She turned to him. Ivy had been taking her duties as an aunt very seriously, even amid this potential disaster. While they worked, she had been feeding him an impressive amount of sweets. His face was smeared with sugar and cream. Myranda pulled a napkin from the table and wiped his face.
“Dada,” Leo said, trying to escape the unwanted cleanliness.
“We’re trying to find him, Leo,” Myranda said softly. She gathered the boy up on one hip and took her staff in hand with the other.
“Dada,” he said, reaching for Myranda’s staff.
“Do you want to look for him?” she asked. “He would be very proud to know you tried. Come. We’ve made no progress trying to think as he does. Perhaps it is time for a more direct approach again.”
“If Deacon does not want to be found, he will not be found,” Ether said. “He knows that you will search for him. He was the one who taught you how.”
Myranda took a seat on the floor and set Leo on her lap. “Then let us hope he taught me well.” She wrapped her arms around Leo and positioned the head of the staff where his questing hands could reach it. “Be calm. Just think of him,” she said.
Remaining calm was not among the child’s skills at this stage of his life, but Myranda did her best to ease her mind sufficiently for the two of them. She didn’t bother looking for Deacon directly. If that had had a chance of working, she would have found him in moments. This search would be subtler. She let her mind flow outward, bit by bit. First she saw the soul of her son. It was small but intense. Wild and untamed. It was raw potential. She saw the complex whorl of Ivy’s soul, radiant and colored b
y the worry and frustration of the impossible puzzle they sought to solve. There was Ether’s soul. Tortured but controlled. Beyond, there were glimmers of her subjects, less powerful but no less complex. Her view expanded, the points of light forming clustered galaxies. First the capital. Then nearby cities. She could feel her son’s influence on her focus, chaotically tugging it this way and that, less a participant in the search and more a spectator to it.
Further her mind spread. There were tremors and twitches in the darkened landscape between the clusters of souls. Too small for her to pinpoint. She couldn’t be sure what they were, if anything. The world beyond the physical, the spectral realm, was lively and vibrant. Deep focus always revealed more twists and whorls of power and complexity. Some were the result of wizards and arcane creatures tugging at the threads of reality. Others were as natural as the weather. Sometimes it was obvious. At a time like this, differentiating the workings of will from the natural state of things required a keener and more experienced mind than hers. And the one she would call upon to render aid was the very man she was trying to find.
“Dada,” Leo murmured.
Her view shifted again, drawn roughly by the influence of her boy. For an instant, she could see the familiar shape of Deacon’s soul. It was gone in a flash, but in the time she could see it, it burned itself into her mind. The soul was curled, twisted. Like a page that had been tossed into a fire and snatched out again, it was singed and blackened in places. When it vanished, Myranda felt another hint of the D’Karon magic she’d hoped would be gone from this world forever. He’d vanished not because he had hidden himself, but because he had passed through a D’Karon portal. And now there was no sign of him.
“He’s using their magic…” she uttered.
“No…” Ivy said.
“Where is he? If he is using D’Karon magic, he must be stopped,” Ether said.
“I don’t feel him anymore. He’s gone beyond my means to detect him.”
Ether stepped up and wrapped her hand around the gem. Her power and focus joined with Myranda’s own, but the two were not in harmony. She saw further, but less clearly. There was still no sign of Deacon, but now there was a new point of powerful light. It was familiar, and what’s more, it was aware of her. When her focus turned to it, it turned its focus to her, and the point of pristine yellow power sliced across the landscape toward her.
“What is that?” Ether asked.
“Who? It… it feels like someone from Entwell. It’s been years but… if feels like Master Ayna,” Myranda said.
“Ayna? I read that bit from Deacon’s notes just the other day. Isn’t she the awful wind wizard?”
“She isn’t in Entwell any longer. She is coming here. And at the speed she’s moving, she’ll be here shortly.”
Indeed, the increasingly common sound of wind rising to unnatural levels of speed and power howled from outside the palace. Myranda handed Leo to Ivy and paced to the nearest window. Though New Kenvard was in the midst of the short section of the year with pleasant temperatures, out of habit she left the windows shut tight. She pulled aside the drapes and opened the shutters just in time for a ball of gleaming yellow light to dart inside. The wind howled in as well, swirling the pages from the table.
Myranda held up a hand. The pages obediently ceased their stirring and settled back to their original places. The ball of light faded to the buzzing, exhausted figure of Ayna. She held a satchel a bit larger than she.
“Queen Myranda,” she said with a rare bit of deference.
“Highest Master Ayna,” Myranda said in return.
“Your palace is not as simple to find as I would have hoped, and I place the blame for that squarely upon your shoulders. You are a peerless wizard, and your home should be a beacon of mystic might.”
She wavered a bit, nearly dropping the satchel she carried. “I require honey. Now.” After a moment of consideration, Ayna made a diplomatic amendment. “Please.”
#
Ayna sat on the edge of a bowl on the table. Myranda had filled the dip in the stem of an overturned goblet with honey. Ayna chose to forgo dignity in favor of efficiency as she plunged her hands into the warm golden syrup and gorged herself. The Entwell-made pad was open before Myranda. She’d etched out a message of greeting with the stylus and was awaiting a reply. Ivy, still in charge of Leo, was fighting a pitched battle to keep the little boy from attempting to snatch Ayna from the table like a doll. It all might have been an adorable reunion, if not for the brief but devastating warning Ayna had added to the growing mound of concerns.
“Epidime…” Myranda said.
“Indeed. Such was Desmeres’s suspicion.”
“If Epidime was trapped in the cave, why didn’t Desmeres tell us?”
“It is not my place to plumb the depths of a schemer’s mind.”
Myranda turned side. “Deacon didn’t allow himself to be taken by Epidime. He wouldn’t.”
“He need not allow himself. It could have been against his will. And it would explain his otherwise inexplicable behavior. And his use of D’Karon magic,” Ether suggested.
“Deacon was not taken by Epidime,” Ivy said firmly.
“There is no time for sentiment,” Ayna said. “If there is the chance he was taken—”
“He was not taken by Epidime,” Ivy repeated. “I saw him take a coin from his pocket while he was in the vault. He held it in his hand. The coin has the Mark of the Chosen on it. If he was taken by Epidime, its touch would have burned him.”
“You were on the verge of a rage transformation. Are you certain you can trust your memory?” Ether asked.
She stomped her foot, a gleam of red in her eye. “I know what I saw.”
“Certain or not, the risk was deemed sufficient to engineer a means to escape Entwell despite the current state of the cave. This, naturally, required my own expertise,” Ayna said.
“Did you come alone?” Myranda asked.
“No. Calypso joined me, but her mobility is inferior to my own. She is still traveling. She shall be along sometime later.”
The stylus rose from beside the pad and positioned itself over the page. Two messages were traced out. The first was in bold, clear, elegant script.
Myranda! Calypso. What aid is required? the mermaid wrote.
The second message was traced out far more slowly, as though it was a struggle for the words to reach the pad.
Myranda, I apologize. I thought you would be safer if you were not tempted to take on Epidime again. I see now it was not my choice to make.
The words were Desmeres’s. Myranda took the stylus.
Desmeres, save your apologies. There is work to be done. The rest can wait. Everyone, I want to know everything. Every last word that we know about what is happening and where.
When she released the stylus, Calypso wrote a reply.
Too much to write. Will see you soon, and bring you a package I believe Deacon left behind. Ayna, tell her what we know, and remember the dagger.
“Ah, yes,” Ayna said. “I was not privy to the discussion, but Calypso and Desmeres sought council for the means to create the pad, among other things. Included in that discussion was the assessment that the surest way to cure Deacon’s affliction would be to kill him with the dagger Calypso is presently carrying.”
“Kill him?!” Ivy said, covering Leo’s ears.
“I don’t know that those precise words were spoken. There were metaphors and euphemisms regarding trimming rotten flesh or something of that sort, I’m told, but I think it should be clear to a rational mind that a dagger can have but one use when it comes to curing a man who has taken leave of his senses.”
Ivy glared at Ayna. “You really live up to your reputation.”
The fairy grinned. “I am pleased my reputation precedes me even beyond the borders of Entwell.”
“You’re just Ether from before she grew a heart,” Ivy jabbed.
“I helped sum
mon Ether, I’ll remind you,” Ayna said.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I am merely reminding you of my importance and value, and thus the degree of respect I believe I am owed.”
“Enough,” Myranda snapped. “Social graces aside, we need all the help we can get.”
The stylus rose again. It was the slow trace of a message coming from Entwell, but this hand was much steadier and more precise. The writing began with a simple label. Elder.
We have experienced what I suspect is another instance of the events plaguing the rest of the world. I shall record my assessment of the nature of the event.
Symbols followed, mystic runes Myranda had never seen before. “What is this?” she said.
Ayna flitted over to the page. “Ah. Yes. Very wise. She is writing down a spell to communicate the sensations she experienced,” Ayna said. “That could prove helpful indeed. Ether has experienced one of these events directly. There is value in contrasting the experiences.”
“We shall have to cast the spell when it is complete, yes?” Myranda said.
“We will.”
“Do you feel confident you will be able to do so? From what little I’ve seen, I must admit ignorance to spells of this sort.”
“This is… it is a rather dense bit of gray magic,” Ayna said. “It was not my focus.”
“Ivy, take her to the library. Deacon’s writings are there. I trust you will be able to find the proper techniques in those pages.”
Ayna’s expression soured. “I suppose so.” She flitted up. “Though it pains me, I will expose myself to the coarse thinking of this rogue wizard in order to do my duty to the world.”
The Coin of Kenvard Page 21
