"Don't thank me yet." Herbert sighed. "The Time Master is not in good shape, I'm afraid. Even I can tell."
I looked at Dream and Nightmare. "What is he talking about?"
Dream kissed her scythe's blade and moved it up and down the Time Master's body. Red dust fell from his curly, dark hair as she jostled him, trying to get him to wake up. Nothing worked.
"The Seals. Spirit put the Seals on him," Nightmare concluded, his brow furrowed.
"What seals?" I asked, even more confused.
Dream glanced up at me, and her expression filled me with a sense of dread—the kind I doubted I'd ever be able to overcome.
"The Seals of Agalor," she replied. "The Seals of Silent Sleep."
Whatever this was, I doubted it was anything good. What good was a Time Master if we could not use him?
Kelara
We brought the Time Master to ground level. Being surrounded by resurfaced Reaper corpses just didn't feel right. I stood on the edge of the dried-up oasis, staring at them, while Dream and Nightmare tried to figure out how to break the seals on their brother.
Herbert watched his comrades as they scattered and chased the few specters left in the area. It was such a stark contrast from earlier, when all the spirits had just wanted to hurt us. As soon as they were outnumbered, and many of them had been consumed by ghouls, their demeanor did a 180-degree turn. Not that I minded, of course. We clearly had bigger issues to deal with.
"Don't you worry you'll lose the other ghouls?" I asked Herbert.
He shook his big, deformed head. "They'll answer my call when it's time. I told you, we share a common goal," he said, and glanced down at the Time Master. "Do they know how to wake him up?"
I shrugged. "I guess."
"Don't guess," Nightmare said. "We know how. It's just not as easy as one, two, three."
Dream drew a line in the red sand with the tip of her scythe, around the Time Master's body. Her brother scribbled various symbols along the line, muttering spells under his breath.
"What exactly are the Seals of Agalor, or Silent Sleep, or whatever?" I sighed, feeling as though our troubles were only getting bigger and nastier as we advanced through this suffocating ordeal.
"We had them as a contingency plan, a long time ago," Dream said. "When the first batches of Reapers that came after us were made. It's something we, among the First Ten, thought we might use to… punish Reapers who might—"
"Color outside the lines," Nightmare added, giggling.
"Right. If they broke one too many rules, for example. It had been Death's policy at the time that they all had to serve a specific term, which varied from one circle to another. When a Reaper stepped out of line, repeatedly, we'd invoke the Seals of Agalor to put them to sleep, to isolate them for a certain number of years."
"The Seals were freshly placed on Time, here, and were probably meant to last for at least a couple of centuries, which was the usual minimum," Nightmare continued. "We could wait it out, but that would obviously not help our cause. So, to break it, we need certain protocols, which we are now engaging in."
Dream began a series of chants in a language I didn't recognize. Nightmare noticed my confusion and did not hide his amusement.
"What?" I replied. "It's weird. Answer this, then. You guys have been off the grid for a long time. Who enforced the Seals of Agalor on Reapers who got out of hand, in your absence?"
"The instances of using the Seals were ridiculously scarce. I’m sure the Spirit Bender would've handled them, discreetly," Nightmare said. "Or Death herself. I mean, she taught us the spell to begin with."
"I'm still shocked I haven’t heard about the Spirit Bender among our ranks for so long," I replied. "Surely, the word would've gone out. I thought all of you were just… I don't know, the stuff of legends."
Dream grinned, but continued her chants.
"Spirit is elusive by nature," Nightmare said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he manipulated Reapers into forgetting who he is. He can bend spirits to his will. No one thought he'd use it against his own kind, though. He never gave reason for suspicion, even with all that bitterness regarding his fate as a Reaper."
Herbert let out a low growl. "You mean to tell me he's betrayed everyone because he's pissed off about being a Reaper?"
"That's pretty much the consensus, yes," I replied.
"It's what we make of it, at least," Nightmare said. "Frankly, I'd love to hear it from the horse's mouth, but, as you can see, we've got a missing pony."
The Time Master's eyes popped open as he sucked in a breath. Light flashed through him for a split second, and Dream and Nightmare moved back to give him some space.
"Never underestimate my skills again," Dream hissed at me. "I'm very good at what I do."
"Yeah… I can tell," I murmured.
"Hello, brother!" Nightmare chuckled as the Time Master pulled himself up into a sitting position. He blinked rapidly, taking deep breaths as he tried to reacquaint himself with his surroundings. Whatever that seal thingy was, it had done quite a number on him.
"What… Ugh, what am I… Where am I?" Time asked. "What are you two doing here?" He looked at me next. "Who the hell are you, and why is there a ghoul still standing in our presence?!"
He fumbled through his tunic, the color draining from his face as he froze, downright horrified.
"What's wrong?" Dream replied.
"My scythe. Where's my scythe?" he managed, spiraling into a fit of sheer panic.
"Calm down, brother. One question at a time," Nightmare said and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "First of all, pace yourself. You've been under the Seals of Agalor for at least a year or two."
I groaned. "That's what you meant by 'freshly placed?'"
"Who put a… Oh…" Time seemed to remember some things. "That bastard. That scheming, two-faced son of a bitch."
"I take it you're confirming the Spirit Bender's involvement?" Dream asked him.
He nodded. "Yes. I'd been investigating him, though I kept all my endeavors under tight wraps. I've had suspicions since Thieron was stolen, but I was never able to prove them. A couple of years back, I caught a lead."
"And had you also established yourself as a god on Astram, during that time? You know, while you were at it?" Nightmare retorted.
The Time Master sighed. "Yeah. That aside, I started digging deeper. One day, Spirit summoned me, which came as a surprise, but he said he needed my help with something. I went with my guard up, of course, but I didn't for a second think he would use the Seals of Agalor against me. I admit, I was foolish."
"Then he brought you here and dumped you, making sure all the specters he left behind would keep others away," I concluded.
"Yes. Without the First Ten keeping an eye on things, and with Death lacking Thieron, millions of souls have gone unaccounted for," he said. "In this instance, Spirit was able to build an army of specters for the sole purpose of keeping other curious Reapers at bay. When I got here, I was astonished that no one had bothered to check on this world after the asteroid hit."
Dream scoffed. "Why would they? The holier-than-thou Spirit Bender had said he'd handle it. What reason was there to doubt him, if you were silenced and unable to do anything?"
"He hates Death more than anything," Time said. "He'd been planning this long before Thieron was taken. Hell, the whole number with Brendel was simply the perfect opportunity. He's been looking for ways to hurt her from the moment the Reaper circles were established. Imagine you were made a First Tenner against your will, unable to retire and move on, to then be rendered obsolete by Reaper hierarchies. He flipped. He just flipped."
"He may not be able to kill her, but he can destroy everything she wants to protect," Herbert murmured, glancing into the crimson horizon. "The living, the dead, everything in between. I suppose the Hermessi's ritual felt like the perfect opportunity."
The Time Master stared at him for a moment. "Seriously, why is he still alive?"
"Technically speaking,
I'm as dead as you," Herbert hissed, narrowing his black eyes.
"Be thankful, brother. He and his friends helped us clear the army of specters that were keeping us from getting to you," Dream conceded.
"You're abominations. How are you even coherent?" Time said to the ghoul.
"Herbert has served the living for a long time. He's been immensely supportive, even before he brought his cohorts here," I replied. "He's against the Hermessi winning this, much like us."
"He's also looking to score brownie points with Momma," Nightmare added, shooting Herbert a cold grin.
"As much as I hate to admit it, we'll need the ghouls, going forward," Dream said as she got up. "Spirit is likely to have hordes of specters watching his back wherever he's gone."
Time joined her, his brows pulled into a dark frown. "I don't like this."
"Well, tough one, buddy. Because A, you don't have your scythe anymore, and I'm going to guess Spirit took it, and B, he also took Death. We need all the help we can get!" I replied.
His jaw dropped. "What?"
"Are you shocked about the scythe part or the Death part?" Nightmare asked, and Time glowered at him. "Okay, the Death part. Gotcha."
"How did that happen?!" Time asked.
"We don't know! She was supposed to be on Mortis," Dream said. "Imagine, after five million years, there's a bunch of people who've actually managed to retrieve Thieron for Death, and she vanishes into thin air. A tad suspicious, don't you think?"
He nodded. "It was definitely Spirit. He's moving into the endgame now. I need my scythe back from him, otherwise I cannot do much against him."
"So you're not at all surprised that there's a Hermessi ritual going on? I mean, you've been out of it for a couple of years," I said.
"It was bound to happen. It was never a matter of if, since Brendel had succeeded in stealing Thieron. It was a matter of when," Time replied.
"We're under a lot of pressure here." I sighed. "There are only a couple dozen fae left to influence, maybe less, before the Hermessi hit their magic number and complete the ritual."
I focused on Seeley for a moment, while Time got his bearings. Herbert let out a long, spine-tingling howl, summoning his ghouls back to the dried-up oasis. We could hear them tumbling and dashing across the red desert.
"Are we sure we need these monsters?" Time asked.
"Specters may not be able to kill you, but they're perfectly capable of being horrible nuisances," Herbert replied. "While I know it's not the best way to get rid of them, we simply don't have the time or the resources to clear them all out."
"He's got a point. Summoning hordes of Reapers with the ritual currently unfolding wouldn't just be a logistical nightmare. It would be a waste of time," Dream said. "I'm not comfortable with it, either, but it's the best we can do with just hours on the clock. Especially since you're rather useless, for the time being."
"I resent that," he grumbled.
Nightmare laughed. "I'm sure you do. For what it's worth, it's good to have you back, brother. You are the least irritating among our kind."
The ghouls gathered around us, all of them wary of our presence, now. They kept a reasonable distance, nervously eyeing the Time Master, in particular, and whispering between themselves. I managed to reach out to Seeley, but his voice didn't sound encouraging.
"We've got a trace for Death, but Brendel caught up with us," he managed. I heard him cast a series of attack spells. "We're a tad overwhelmed here!"
As soon as I got his location, I looked at Dream, Nightmare, Time, and Herbert. "We've got work to do. The bearer of Thieron is in trouble. Brendel got to him. The others are trying to finish her off, but they need us. All of us."
None of them batted an eye, and I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. We'd made a certain amount of progress, but not as much as I would've hoped for. We had the Time Master, but without his ability to stop time. Even so, it was still better than nothing. With nothing but hours left, we had to move fast.
We had to help Taeral.
Zeriel
No one had noticed me standing back during the evacuation protocol in Luceria. River must've thought I'd slipped through with Bijarki and the others, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not only could I not leave Vesta behind, I refused to abandon my home planet. So, unbeknownst to anyone, I'd snuck out of the group and made my way through the castle's tight service corridors, unseen and unheard.
I'd come back to the sanctuary, my heart aching and burning.
Bijarki had every reason to go to The Shade. He had to be a father to Chantal. Frankly, I couldn't hold it against anyone from Calliope or the rest of Eritopia who'd chosen GASP over their home worlds. The decisions were individual and justified, as much as mine. Only, I'd chosen to stay.
And if I were to die, I wanted to die as close to Vesta as possible. Somewhere, in the back of my tormented head, I hoped that if we died together, we might end up in the afterlife together—provided, of course, there was something beyond. Our legends had never questioned what happened after death. We'd been raised to appreciate life and go down swinging when needed.
My stomach was the size of a pebble, and it ached terribly, as if a knife had been plunged in and twisted, repeatedly, over the course of hours. I could barely stand. My lips were dry. I hadn’t had a drink of water in a while. Us Tritones were quite attached to water, and the connection ran deeper than the mere need for hydration.
We got ill if we didn't swim for too long. The lagoon had been my home, an intrinsic part of my existence for as long as I could remember. But even so, as tired and as thirsty as I was, I didn't want to be anywhere else.
Looking up, I wondered if she could see me—at least from one of the windows.
Every muscle in my body was strained. My eyes hurt. I was all cried out and broken. The fact that I could still stand was a miracle. My body was threatening to shut down, but my soul refused to surrender.
"Zeriel, where are you?" River's voice came through the earpiece, which I'd forgotten to throw out.
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep, scratchy breath. Pressing the answer button, I exhaled deeply. "Where I'm supposed to be."
She gasped. "No… please don't tell me you're on Calliope."
Tears welled up, clouding my vision. I was surprised I still had any.
"I couldn't go. I tried, River. I tried, but… Vesta is here."
"Zeriel, you can still survive this."
"For how long?" I asked. "A few more days? Months? Do you really think the Hermessi won't have enough power to raid the Earthly Dimension, as well? Let's not fool ourselves. I'd rather die here, with Vesta, than out there."
"You don't know that for sure," River insisted, though I could still sense the doubt in her voice. "The Earthly Dimension is different."
"No, it's not. Hermessi rule there, too. It'll be the same."
"Zeriel, be reasonable. There isn't enough evidence to suggest that."
I laughed, though it was bitter and mocking. "River, you're smarter than that. Understand that I am not leaving the love of my life behind. I'm useless against the Hermessi, anyway. We all are! Even the Daughters stayed here."
River didn't respond. For about a minute, I even wondered if she was still on the line.
"Zeriel… I'm sorry," she finally said.
I couldn't help but smile. "What on earth would you be sorry for? This isn't your fault."
"I'm sorry we couldn't do more. For you, for Vesta… for my husband, my daughter… my granddaughters. I'm so, so sorry."
She was crying, and only then did I understand how tortured she had to be over her decision to head back to The Shade. She'd left most of her family behind, in the sanctuary, with my Vesta. My sorrow was merely a fraction of what she had to carry.
"River, you're doing the right thing. The Shade, Earth… they're yours. Your home. You couldn't have done more than you already have. Not for me, not for your family, not for anyone. It is what it is," I s
aid, my voice wavering. "I've chosen to stay and die here. Let me go the way I want to go. It doesn't make your choice any less right, okay?"
"This isn't fair."
"No, no, it isn't. But when has life ever been truly fair to us? Look at all the wars and misery we've all had to go through, just to get a flicker of peace and quiet," I replied. "Maybe Taeral will succeed. Maybe he'll find Death, and she'll stop it before it's too late, but we both know the odds of that, right now. Even if the others don't or can't see it… you and I, we know."
"We do."
"So, chin up, River. Don't waste your tears on me." I sighed, feeling my lips stretch into a warm smile as I looked up at the sanctuary. "If I am to die here, it'll be right. It's what I want."
I wondered if I could at least see my Vesta one last time. The winds howled above, swirling and shaking the giant trees that surrounded the clearing where the building had stood.
"Thank you, Zeriel," River said. "For your service. Your kindness. Your expired jokes and goodwill. I hope I'll see you again soon."
"If not here, perhaps in the afterlife," I replied. "It's been an honor serving with you and everyone else. If there's one thing I'll never regret, it's my decision to join GASP. Best thing I ever did with my life."
She tried to keep it together, but her voice was breaking. "We were all lucky to have you."
"Don't tell Jax where I am until it's over, one way or another," I replied, my finger already on the end call button. "I know he's got a secret crush on me. He'll flip out when he hears I never made it into The Shade."
River laughed softly. "I will keep my mouth shut."
"So long," I said, and ended the conversation.
My chest constricted. That might have been the last exchange I would ever have with anyone. Glancing up, I found something more important to focus on. My fiancée. Mere hours were left. I could smell death in the air, gathering itself up, preparing to spread out and swallow everything in its path.
A Shade of Vampire 77: A Fate of Time Page 13
