Walter stroked his chin in thought. Timothy hoped that the man understood the importance of what was being asked of him.
“A few, yes,” he replied. “A short way south and nearer the Divide is another area we had considered.”
“One of those might be better. This area is awfully rocky.” He kicked at the loose, stone-covered ground with the toe of his boot.
“Now see here,” the ruddy-faced member of Parliament began. “We were told that this area…”
Walter placed his hands on his hips and stared off into space, ignoring the woman’s bluster. “In fact, I believe the area closer to the Divide might be even richer in Malleum than any other area we’ve considered.”
“This is an outrage,” the angry female mage spat, her round features even redder than before. “I know what you are doing. Are we going to let this … this Wurm dictate to us where we will conduct our business?”
There was some grumbling among those gathered as they all turned their attentions to Walter Telford.
“Well, Telford?” the woman asked. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Walter remained quiet for a moment, brushing some more dust and dirt from his clothing. Timothy stared at him hopefully If the Parliament ever wished to regain the trust of Verlis and his tribe, they couldn’t defile the burial ground of his people. Timothy just hoped the man understood the gravity of this situation.
Walter squatted down to the ground and picked up a handful of the dry dirt, letting it run through his fingers.
“The boy’s right,” he said. “The ground here is too rocky. We don’t want the Burrower to break before we get the first ounce of Malleum. We’d be wise to dig someplace else.” He challenged the representatives of Parliament with a gaze, but none of them rose to the challenge. They would acquiesce to his expertise. Walter looked at Timothy, nodding his head ever so slightly.
“I’d very much like to see this new area,” Timothy said, barely able to contain relief.
“Then let’s go,” the man replied, rising to his feet and gesturing for all to follow. “It’s right this way.”
“It’s impossible!” Cassandra Nicodemus cried, throwing down upon Leander’s desktop what could very well have been the thousandth scroll she had read since that morning. “I can never be a Grandmaster. There’s just too much to remember!”
Edgar flapped from the stone windowsill to land on the desk. “Spoken like a true grandmaster in training,” the bird squawked, pacing. “If I had a gold coin for every time I’ve heard that very statement, I’d have more coins than I’d care to count.”
Cassandra leaned back in the ornate desk chair and sighed. “I can’t recall even half of what I’ve read. It’s hopeless.”
Sheridan was there too, as was Ivar. The mechanical man was in the process of tidying the office, dusting the furniture with a cloth as he busily moved about the room and straightened anything that seemed out of order. Cassandra wasn’t positive, but she was under the suspicion that Leander, or maybe even Timothy, had asked these three to keep an eye on her while they were away.
She smiled at the thought that it was Timothy—the first real smile that she’d had all morning.
“Now don’t be too hard on yourself, Miss,” Sheridan said, followed by a short burst of steam from the valve on the side of his head. “A true grandmaster is not forged in a day. It takes time and great commitment.”
Cassandra reached for another scroll but didn’t have the strength to read anymore, her thoughts traveling to Timothy and the fabulous adventures he was probably having in Tora’nah.
“I wish Leander had allowed me to accompany him,” she said with a pout. “I’m sure I could have been of help to him.”
“And you would have been able to spend more time with Timothy,” Ivar said quietly, causing her to jump. His unique skin coloring made him nearly invisible, allowing him to blend with the office wall. She had almost forgotten he was there.
Cassandra blushed slightly at his implication.
“I guess he would have been there as well,” she replied, turning her attentions again to the desktop, not wanting to talk about her fascination with Timothy, especially with his friends.
A small sphere of light suddenly blinked into existence in the air above her desk and she gasped, startled.
“Caw!” Edgar cried out, surprised as well.
Ivar dashed across the room, his hand resting on the hilt of the knife he wore in a sheath at his side.
The glowing ball gradually drifted down to the desktop and began to change form. At first Cassandra was curious, but that curiosity soon turned to distaste as the ball took the miniature shape of Carlyle, Grandmaster Maddox’s fussy assistant.
“Good morning, Mistress Nicodemus,” the tiny image of the man addressed her. “This is just a spell to remind you that a meeting has been set between yourself and the grounds staff to discuss the rather large and unsightly hole that has been dug—”
Cassandra swatted the flat of her hand down upon the magical construct, squashing the image in a flash of mystical light.
“I despise that man,” she growled. She felt the others’ eyes upon her and smiled sheepishly, a bit embarrassed that she had allowed her temper to get the better of her. “I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone quite as annoying.”
“Caw! Caw!” Edgar crowed, ruffling his inky black feathers as he stood upon the desktop. “Truer words were never spoken,” the familiar said, turning his head to look at Sheridan and Ivar.
“He is quite a pest,” the mechanical man said, returning to his efforts to tidy the room.
“A very unpleasant being,” Ivar stated flatly, the black patterns upon his flesh changing, flowing across the surface of his skin and becoming thicker, darker, as if to reflect his distaste for the man.
“If I were Grandmaster, there would be no way that I could have him for an assistant.” Cassandra frowned, picking up the scroll she had most recently been perusing. “Not that there’s a chance of it ever happening.”
Ivar remained before the desk, studying her with a slight tilt of his head. His eyes were piercing, and she became self-conscious in his gaze.
“Is there something wrong?”
“You hope to be Grandmaster someday?”
Cassandra shrugged. “Of course I do, but the question is should I be Grandmaster. Am I capable? Consider all the knowledge and experience that Leander has. I can’t even begin to compare myself with him.”
“But you are not him,” the Asura stated flatly. “You are you.”
“Of course I’m me,” she said. “I don’t understand what that has to do with—”
“Now is the time in your life when you begin to acquire your own knowledge and experience,” he explained. “You will shape the tide to fit your own self, growing into the role of Grandmaster as you define it, not as others have.”
“But how do you acquire the kind of strength and wisdom that seems such a natural part of Leander? If I am one day to replace him, I would not be worthy of the job if I could not do at least as well.”
“If that is your goal and you are willing to struggle to reach it—so shall it be. It is all in your hands, Mistress.”
As Cassandra considered those words, the Asura tilted his head as if hearing something off in the distance. Ivar turned away from the desk and padded across the room to gaze out through the magical spell-glass at the grounds below.
“The groundskeepers have gathered and are waiting for you,” the Asura said, turning away from the view to fix her again in his dark, soulful stare.
Cassandra stood up, feeling a sense of confidence that had not been there just moments ago. “Then I must be on my way,” she said, filled with a sense of purpose as well as a new respect for a man she once believed to be a savage. “A Grandmaster in training must never keep an appointment waiting.”
Chapter Four
Timothy couldn’t sleep.
The encampment at Tora’nah was much like a small v
illage, and growing more each day as more workers arrived. The full-size Burrower was under construction, and excitement was building. He and Verlis had been moved to a larger hut, a two-story structure, and his bedroom had a small balcony. He was grateful for this, because inside that tiny room he felt claustrophobic, so far away from everything and everyone that mattered to him. The balcony was a place to retreat to, especially at night.
Tonight he had been more melancholy than ever, and when it had become obvious that sleep was going to be elusive, he had pulled on linen trousers and padded onto the balcony quietly. There were guards out in the encampment and torches burned atop posts at the edges of the village, and he did not want to draw attention. He just wanted a little time to be by himself in the cool night air, to gaze up at the heavens, at the stars and the moons above Terra. The smallest moon, Hito, always seemed to catch his eye, and he felt a real appreciation for it. Distant from the others, as though it were too small for the other moons to even notice it.
He felt torn between progress, the adventure of the days to come, and the past, the people and places he had left behind. During the day it was easy to get carried away, to let the excitement and danger that surrounded their mission at Tora’nah and the creation of the Burrower get his heart working. Easy to laugh and to cheer and to lose himself in the intensity of the job at hand.
But at night his mind would drift back to the Island of Patience. He missed the serenity of the peaceful isle where he had spent his childhood, and he missed his father’s house, the sprawling Cade Estate, which he had adapted to his handicap, his lack of magic. And, gods, how he missed his father. Thoughts of Argus Cade, of his kindly eyes and gentle hugs, never failed to bring a hitch to his breath and wishes about what might have been.
Tonight, though, it was not only Patience and his father that he missed. Leander had been distant of late, and Verlis was so troubled by the mining at Tora’nah and preoccupied with thoughts of Raptus and his army chipping away at the barrier between Terra and Draconae that he had little time to spend in conversation. Timothy felt alone. How strange it was to wish he was back at SkyHaven, yet he wanted to hear the whistle of steam from Sheridan’s head and Edgar’s cawing voice, and to see the wisdom and warmth in Ivar’s eyes.
And Cassandra …
There on the balcony, beneath the stars and with the wind ruffling his hair, Timothy closed his eyes and an image of her swam into his mind. Her rich, red hair flowing about her shoulders and those green eyes that shone like gemstones, the way her nose crinkled when she smiled … he wished she was right there beside him, under the stars. He had found himself thinking of Cassandra more and more since leaving SkyHaven. The truth was that it worried him. He still was not certain he could trust her entirely. After all, what did he know about her aside from that she was Nicodemus’s granddaughter? And yet in her eyes he felt he saw all the truth he needed.
He wondered if she was on a SkyHaven balcony at that very moment, staring up at the moons. Wondered if she felt the same kinship to Hito that he did.
Stop, he told himself. She’s just a girl.
But that was it, wasn’t it? Timothy had very little experience talking to girls. Though he had seen many women in Arcanum and even at SkyHaven during the time since he had left the island, he had only seen a handful of girls, and had spoken to none of them. Only Cassandra. She was perhaps two years older than he was, if that, and yet possessed so much confidence that he envied her.
He was enchanted. Yet it wasn’t magic … or if it was, it was a simpler sort than the magic of spells and curses.
With a deep sigh and a twist to his lips that was not quite a smile, Timothy opened his eyes. The cool night wind made him shiver and he hugged himself. It was dark, but there was starlight, moonlight, and torchlight in the village, and so the darkness was far from complete.
He began to turn, to retreat back into his room, when motion down below caught his eye. In the deepest shadows between two huts, where the torchlight did not reach and the moonlight could not penetrate, something darted through the night. An animal, perhaps the very thing that had been in his room several nights ago. It moved swiftly and low to the ground, and was out of sight in a moment. He’d only glimpsed it, but now he locked his gaze upon that spot, hoping it would show itself again.
And a dark, cloaked figure moved across the space separating the huts, moving stealthily, clearly sneaking about in hopes no one would notice.
It took Timothy a moment before he realized that the hut they seemed to be emerging from was the one in which Leander had been quartered.
His pulse quickened and the boy shook his head. There was something very wrong here, something sinister. Cloaked figures and strange, murderous animals lurking about at night, sneaking away from Leander’s hut. He recalled the attack he had suffered, and now his skin prickled with fear for his friend.
“Leander,” he whispered, barely aware that he had spoken aloud.
Timothy stared at the shadows for a moment longer, then he raced out the door and down the rickety steps. When he found himself standing on the cool earth in his bare feet in the moonlight, he hesitated. If there was trouble, or some danger, he ought to have woken Verlis.
But his concern for Leander drove him on. He was already outside, and he did not want to waste another second by going back in. His heart was heavy with the certainty that something terrible had happened.
Timothy ran across the rough earth to Leander’s hut. He raised his fist to bang on the door, but his hand froze when he saw that it hung open several inches. His chest was tight and it hurt to swallow. He could barely breathe as he pushed the door open.
In the darkness within, fit only by the dim illumination coming from the open door, he saw the massive figure of Leander Maddox sprawled across the floor, twisted up in his bedsheets. He was twitching, and his eyes were wide as he stared blankly up at the ceiling.
A tiny trickle of blood ran from the corner of his right eye and down his cheek.
The sky was lightening above Tora’nah, the morning coming on. The stars faded and the moons were like ghosts in the pale blue sky. Timothy had not slept at all, had not even returned to his quarters. Still barefoot, he sat in the dirt with his back to the outer wall of Leander’s hut. Verlis stood perhaps twenty feet away, wings folded against his back, eyes slitted with concern and plumes of smoke swirling up from his nostrils. Between them, the navigation mage Caiaphas paced up and down, at a loss as to what to do with his hands. He wrung them, clasped them first in front of him and then behind his back, adjusted the veil that covered his face below the eyes, and at last dropped them to his sides, clenched with worry. When he finished he would begin the sequence all over again.
Doctor Gryffud and Walter Telford were inside with Leander, and had been for hours. After Timothy had woken Walter, the project manager had roused the doctor and then some of his crew, who had searched the encampment for the mysterious figure Timothy had seen leaving Leander’s hut. The entire night had passed with no word about Leander’s condition. Just before dawn the search party had given up, having found no evidence of intruders in camp. Construction of the Burrower had been completed the day before, and with sunrise these men and women would have to begin their mining operation on very little sleep.
Now it was morning and Timothy was exhausted and shivering. The sun was rising, but the last chill of the long night still lingered.
Verlis snorted, twin jets of flame sputtering from his snout. “You ought to sleep. I will wake you when there is word.”
The boy shook his head. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “Not without knowing.”
Caiaphas paused in his pacing to gaze first at the Wurm and then at the boy. He gave a soft sigh of frustration, blue eyes gleaming above his veil, and then continued wearing a path back and forth in front of his master’s door. Timothy was sure that the navigation mage understood why he could not leave until there was news.
The sky continued to lighten. The night had g
one from deep, dark blue to a rich color the hue of Caiaphas’s robes and then to the pale sky of early morning. In time, all traces of the night were gone and it could no longer even be considered dawn. The sky was clear and bright blue with only wisps of clouds. A light wind blew through Tora’nah, and from time to time Timothy felt sure he caught a scent that might have been sulfur, a smell that reminded him of Draconae, and the volcano there where he had once been held prisoner. He told himself it was only memory, that there was no way the odor could pass through Alhazred’s Divide, that magical barrier between Tora’nah and Draconae.
The barrier would have had to be very thin for such a thing to happen. Too thin.
The morning whistle had blown shortly after dawn, and even now he could hear and perhaps even feel a rumble in the earth. Not far away the crew had begun to dig again.
And all the while, fear trembled in Timothy’s chest like the heart of a captured animal.
In his mind he could picture the day that the magic door had appeared on the sand of the Island of Patience. Leander had seemed so massive to him then, stepping through the door and throwing back his hood to reveal that shaggy mane and beard and those kind eyes.
Kind, sad eyes. For he had been there to tell Timothy that his father was dead. And now the man who had taken Timothy in, Leander, lay unmoving, obviously ailing, and perhaps even … dying?
No.
As he sat outside Leander’s hut now, Timothy’s lip quivered. His eyes burned, but he refused to cry. To him, crying would mean he did not have enough hope, enough faith that Leander would be all right. And he would not give up.
Caiaphas stopped pacing. Verlis’s eyes widened with expectation. Timothy frowned as he looked at them, tired enough that it took him a moment to realize what they were reacting to. He turned to see Walter leading Doctor Gryffud out the door of Leander’s hut. Timothy scrambled to his feet.
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