Will of Shadows: Inkwell Trilogy 2 (The Inkwell Trilogy)

by Aaron Buchanan

  Joy and Sean’s swing was not very still. I noticed that Cool Luke sat awkwardly on the steps, but turned to look at us. Shred posted up on the railing of the porch his legs stretched out. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and staring out at the lake, but I had no doubts he was listening.

  Finally, Sunderlin spoke. “The Wayfarer. You’ll be disappointed to know how little I know of her. I never crossed paths with her.”

  I tried to hide my dejection. It wasn’t working.

  “That is not say I didn’t hear some things about her. And there are other things.” Sunderlin seemed overly weary. He had likely traveled more in the past few days than he had in a decade. “She is said to have been a formidable woman. Marvelously clever—and witty— on top of it.

  “I thought you said you never met her?” I inquired, wondering who would tell Sunderlin such things.

  “No. Never. But the earth whispers. And I listen. She was, first and foremost, who I was guarding against when I first went into hiding.”

  “So it more by reputation how you knew her then?” Joy asked, but covered her mouth presumably to bridle her curiosity and defer any questions to me.

  “Yes. She was The Wayfarer,” he replied.

  “Mr. Sunderlin—I don’t know the significance of that term.” My jaw felt fixed in place, like moving it required pulleys and levers. I closed my mouth, but I could not relax the muscles

  “Lou. Please—Lou. The Wayfarer is someone accursed to travel. But as long as The Wayfarer continues to move, he or she is protected. Invulnerable.” Sunderlin was weary, but talking of these things seemed to have quickened him. “No, I don’t know how she came to carry this curse. All I can say is that The Triginta gave her respite as long she worked for them.”

  I noticed my jaw cinched tight and I grinded my teeth. “And once she stopped moving, she was vulnerable?” My mom was nearly house-bound from my earliest memories until the day she left. She was sedentary.

  And therefore vulnerable.

  I must have looked pale. In fact, I felt the color fading from my cheeks. Joy was kneeling next to me even before I realized she was there.

  “It’s okay, Grey.” Joy hugged my head and stroked my hair.

  I’d gotten better at interacting with other people—especially Joy—in the past year or so. Even still, it broke me from my reverie. “So, she died soon after she left us. And staying put with us eventually is what killed her?”

  Sunderlin nodded noncommittally as if to say A good a guess as any.

  “But she was trying to leave the service of The Cor, yes? She wanted to stop doing their dirtywork?” I stood up and nearly knocked Joy to the ground. I regained myself enough time to catch her from falling, but did not take my eyes off of Sunderlin.

  “Those are the whispers I heard, Grey, yes.” He was back to looking like a tired, haggard old man. He was being so very open with me, but I found myself doubting whether I would be able to like this man.

  “Do you know from whom she received her orders, Lou?” There was something about what he was saying that had a kind of familiar quality I could not place. The Wayfarer? I’d never heard the term in this context, but was there someone I could ask to tell me more?

  “The lead magus. Your grandfather.” Sunderlin closed his eyes as he said this. Perhaps, he was afraid of how I would react or just unsure.

  “Damnatio memoriae.” It was a connection I made. My father never talked about his father or his family because he excised it from memory. The Romans did it to some amongst themselves from time to time: damnation of memory. My dad would never have wanted to talk about his own father. My grandfather’s memory was damned. And all of this must have occurred before my father’s apprenticeship was complete.

  How much did he know? Did he know everything and that was why he went through such great lengths to protect me from that heritage?

  “Conflict of interest, isn’t it? Being Keeper of the Well of Gods and leader of The Cor?” I was deflecting how I felt with another question—however pertinent.

  The wrinkles on Sunderlin’s face were pronounced. There were crevices and scares weathered by his age and his experiences. It struck me in that moment that even in telling me this information, he was adding to the age he wore on his face.

  “Yes. Yes.” He finally broke eye contact with me and exhaled, leaning back into his chair. He also grabbed one of the untouched glasses of lemonade and sipped at it, holding it in his hand.

  He glanced back at me, then back to the glass he held in his hand, peering through it and at the sunlight at the other side. “Your grandfather was not a bad man as some would define evil. His burden, no doubt, was overwhelming. He did what he thought was right, like so many sinners before him.”

  Sin was a curious word, given its biblical connotation. But in the Ancient World the only real sins were pride and doing wrong against your family. Was this what Sunderlin meant?

  Sunderlin wiped the condensation from his glass and flicked it off into the air, in so doing, bringing me back to myself and the moment.

  “Is it possible that whatever he was doing then and what is being done now, by rEvolve is connected?” Joy, listening very intently, asked the question before I even had the chance to piece it together.

  “We will definitely talk about that when more arrive.” Sunderlin set the empty glass on the table next to the pitcher. He was through talking about my mother. And my grandfather. He said he never crossed paths with her, but he almost assuredly knew of my grandfather. But, for the moment, I could enquire no further.

  Meanwhile, in trying to determine rEvolve’s motives, we knew that what had been portrayed to us could not be the end of it; there was a great deal more going on than met the eye. They had too much knowledge of the gods, the magoi, magic in general to simply be some crazed group of humanists. If it was them who showed up on the Isle of Man, that was proof positive. They were still being fed inside information. Information that precious few had.

  “Could The Cor of the Triginta be colluding with them?” These were dizzying facts and I found myself shaking my head.

  I looked to Joy and then to Shred. They were the ones I fought next to in Cevennes. Shred’s arms were folded and he, too, looked back at me, peering over the top of his shades.

  Joy sighed and held her head in her hands.

  “I believe that we should operate recognizing that whoever has manipulated the past situations and those in the present, it is likely someone long-lived enough and knowledgeable enough to have successfully done these things.” Sunderlin did not make eye-contact with any of us, content to let us work out what remain unsaid between us.

  From Shred, we heard his computerized voice: “A god has betrayed us and his own kind.”

  Officially, that made the list of gods I trusted four: Athena, Diomedes, Victoria, and Manannán. I trusted the first three for very practical reasons, and I knew that they were above reproach. Manannán might not be above reproach, but his relationship with Sean put him extremely close to it.

  “I suppose you and Lou have already reached this conclusion, along with Athena and Victoria?” The question was addressed to Shred. He nodded. This helped to explain the delay in getting to Cadillac. They were all trying to come unnoticed, no questions asked. I could imagine Shred and Sunderlin having to run some errands on their behalves in the short-term to allow the goddesses to extricate themselves.

  There wasn’t much more to talk about then. “Thank you, Lou. I appreciate your honesty in having told me what you could of my mother. Though, if at some point you could teach us some history lessons on the magoi, we would be extremely appreciative.”

  Lou stood up, pointing to the lake. “Of course. I will tell you as much as I know. In the meantime, I’d like to check out the lake. You mind?”

  I did not tell him about my memories of what I thought hid in the lake—I told no one because it was related to the combination to open my vault back in Springfield. “Go for it. Tell me what you think.�
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  Lou looked at me curiously, but sauntered down to it anyway.

  Athena arrived the next day. Victoria and Manannán arrived the day after that. The cabin had become a focal point of nervous energy and curiosity. Sunderlin sat us down in the living room and told us a great many stories—though most of them were from his own life and a few from some of his closest associates. He was careful not to single out my grandfather as the reason he no longer had those associates, but it was obvious from how he phrased certain aspects of the stories. He also told us some intriguing tales about Meriwether Lewis. Those tales left us with more questions than answers, but that was the way of it. Lou was an expert storyteller. Even Athena was amused by some of his tales and appreciative of the camaraderie that day.

  The night Victoria and Manannán arrived, we picked up the conversation where we had left it days earlier after a fine dinner none other than Cool Luke and Lou had put together for all of us.

  The nights in northern Michigan were almost frigid in the early days of summer. By the time we were ready to gather, we decided to stay indoors rather than expose ourselves to the crisp air outdoors.

  Though I could hear the course of the conversation from where I was mixing drinks in the kitchen area, most of what being said was a rehashing of the collection of various conversations we’ve had over the course of the past few weeks. By the time I sat down, Cape Cod in hand, the conversation had turned.

  Sunderlin was speaking. “There are entire universes that exist on the point of a needle. Most universes function much like we think ours functions, but ours is a bit different. There are doorways here that open into different planes of existence. Our universe is exceptional in that regard.

  “And if someone or some god should be imprisoned in one of these universes, then access could be cut off and whoever would remain there. If one controls the access point, one could even imprison those gods who most would think are untouchable. Like Yaweh, Jesus, Allah.

  “Bereft was like a balloon into one of those places. It was constructed as an outpost into another universe. Before its founding, not much was known about it, but when that bubble started to collapse in on itself it became clear that it was not some unique foray into another sphere of existence, but rather an entire universe. When that happened, some were able to flee, but most did not. When others investigated what happened to Bereft, they were never seen again. Though a few did return and brought with them something from the other side.

  It was a story none of us present had ever heard, not even Manannán by his reaction. Though, I’m sure some of us may have been thinking of questions, everyone was silent. Was Triolo’s Shadow Mill a bubble in the same place? Would it also inevitably collapse?

  Manannán, sitting next to Sean, patted his son’s knee. “I have heard of what came out. And I know that another group o’ the mages put an end to it.”

  “And I’ve heard stories about how Shakespeare and some others fought something about that time. One and the same?” The drink had me feeling very warm and slightly light-headed and I was suddenly self-conscious that I looked rosy-cheeked. Most of the time, I did not care how others perceived me, though when I drank, self-doubt would always find a way to float to the top. It was a helpful reminder of why I never drank.

  “Yes. Shakespeare, the logomancer. Bacon, the alchemist. Henry Kent, the geomancer. A few others whose names are lost to time. We do not know what precisely came through, only that in the writings that exist from that time period, they refer to it as Arbitrium Tenebrosum: the Dark Will.” Sunderlin drank only more lemonade. And looked content to be in the midst of us and the gods. I was typically wary of the elderly, but Sunderlin was true and genuine, despite what he had revealed to me earlier about my mother. What you saw, was what you got, even though I knew he was a man of unsearchable depth. Yet, what he said did not remind me of Bereft or the Shadow Mill—it reminded me of when I was a 12-year-old girl who thought she was brave enough to face the night in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee.

  That darkness…

  “You should know, this seems a strangely relevant fact: William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon—the logomancer and alchemist we speak of—were, in fact, the very same person.” Victoria sipped on a gin & tonic, but the alcohol, in such a small amount, had zero effect on the goddess. Her words were as polite and methodical as ever.

  “Grey—you’ve never told me this story.” Joy sat on the floor next to the recliner in which I sat. The others looked to me.

  “That’s because I have never heard this story. All I know is that Shakespeare constructed his quill at that time to help put down some great evil. That’s all my dad ever told me.”

  Victoria met my eyes, knowing that I was likely most interested in what she was saying. “He was born as a dicephalic, conjoined twin to Queen Elizabeth the First. The court mage, John Dee, was the alchemist who helped saved the children’s lives.

  “You mean child?” Joy wondered somewhat involuntarily.

  “No, children. Both souls inhabited one body. Though there were two minds, only one would physically survive. So, Master John Dee was able to make both minds reside inside a body that already had two souls. One grew up as the son of the logomancer, John Shakespeare. When the other mind would manifest, he became another alchemist’s apprentice, Master Edward Kelley.”

  “And, so this is why there’s so much mystery surrounding the actually man that Shakespeare was? Why there are so many contradictions?” I thought back to everything I had ever learned about the historical personage of Shakespeare. There was precious little.

  Victoria did not smile, but her demeanor indicated that she was pleased that my curiosity was so piqued. I was beginning to imagine her as a CEO of some multi-national corporation given her unlimited resources and nearly unlimited list of contacts. Her opportunities for having conversations about her real work, however, were probably very few.

  “Like who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays? Did he love men or women? The answer is that yes, he wrote them, though some parts of Bacon may have worked on them. And Francis Bacon is known for his love of young men, so that accounts for the supposed rumors of Shakespeare. They were one-and-the-same in body. But the minds of William Tudor—as he should be known—are very disparate things. And it is interest how his predicament mirrors what we currently speak of. Two universes conjoined, one already dying.” Victoria, satisfied she had told her tale, nuzzled back into the side of the couch where she was sitting next to Sean.

  While Athena sat in another recliner opposite me, Shred pulled up a dining room chair next to her and between Sunderlin and the loveseat. Cool Luke shared the loveseat with Sunderlin. The fire Shred made for us crackled in the background. I dreaded coming back to this cabin, but this place had been transformed. Even now, with my friends, nay, family, it was a place of belonging.

  “So, we should conclude,” Athena now spoke, “that rEvolve, or those who remain, are trying to control an access point to the Shadow Plane that we now confirm as an entire Universe of Shadows. We think they are attempting to move against some of the world’s major deities, especially since the Sucikhata is safely locked away in Greys’ family vault. We also know that some members of the group were present on the Isle of Man to either explore Bereft, and maybe even to spirit away young Sean, whom we now know as Keeper of the Well of Souls. Could the Shadow Plane and the Well of Souls be connected?”

  Manannán stroked his beard, drawing in our gazes. “I do not see how they are connected. Logically speakin’, if they are, is it feasible that the Well of Souls is how one controls that access point you speak of?”

  “There has to be a reason why they chose your island to hollow out and create a portal to this other universe—but it’s not the only one. I’m not inclined to think that any one point is greater than the other. Besides, the Shadow Mill in San Francisco was much, much more stable.” It was a strange and peculiar place, but it did provide for a seemingly safe place out of the way of the world.
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br />   “And much more recent. It is likely only a few years old. Cross-reference that with what you know of Bereft.” Victoria astutely pointed this out. I recollected the ways in which the shadows seemed deeper there; how they did not move with the light shining on them like they should have. Coupled with the terror experienced at Bereft, I started to see the cracks that were already bleeding through even in that place after so short a time.

  “Right. What I’m saying is that I think rEvolve is moving on several fronts. It’s possible that rEvolve has already rebranded or there were subgroups and subsidiaries all along.

  I looked to Manannán, trusting he could remember his brief encounter with the men coming to the Isle of Man then, even though he was on his eighth Guiness of the evening.

  He guzzled what was left of one bottle and handed the empty one to Sean. Sean went to grab him another out of the icebox. “The seas, they whisper to me. They told me that the enemies of the gods were a-comin’. Bereft was mentioned. They mentioned a Well.”

  “So nothing specific?” Cool Luke finally injected himself into the council.

  “Nay.” Manannán popped the top of his Guiness with no help of a can opener and took one thirsty gulp.

  “We also know that rEvolve is holding our friend, the arithmancer, Gavin Moniz in south-central Turkey. And I should be honest with you—I’ve already tried to scry with the box to find out who is behind rEvolve and how to step this person. The box does not give me any kind of answers I can work with. This also makes me think that there are multiple angles being played here. I think the Well of Souls is for something, but they’re after something else, too.” There was hope crackling in the air, along with the logs in the fire. I knew if I had a good idea where this was going, the others would as well.

  “What is the name of the place Gavin is being held? Is it near Gobekli Tepe?” Athena inquired.

  I tried to think were exactly the ruins of the reportedly 10,000-year-old temple complex was. I had the map pulled up on my tablet and reached for it on the end table. I scanned the map. “Yes. Less than 10 miles, from the looks of it.”