by Anton Strout
“I don’t give a damn about your bad reputation,” I said.
“On no?” he asked. “Not you?”
I smiled at that, and instantly the old Joan Jett song filled my head, but I killed it immediately, try to stay focused.
“No more harm can come to Stanis,” I said. “Do you understand me?”
Caleb held his hands up. “Not by these hands.”
“And until we can figure out how to get him back, at least keep him from harm, Caleb,” I said, stern this time.
He laughed, shaking his head. “I think you’ve got your sense of who’s in danger messed up there. He’s the strong, ancient stone guy. I’m the soft, fleshy creature. Just who exactly is capable of harming whom in this little scenario?”
“You . . . tortured him,” I said, barely able to say the word for all the suffering it held in it. “Which means you have some formidable power if you did that.”
“Actually,” Caleb said. “To be fair, the gargoyle didn’t put up a fight.”
I stood, eyes wide. “He didn’t?”
“Not at first,” he said. Caleb looked to the ceiling shaking his head. “I really don’t get that. I mean, what kind of creature like that doesn’t even put up a fight?”
It was clear to me that a man of such questionable character as Caleb couldn’t fathom it, but I could.
Stanis hadn’t put up a fight because he was protecting me and my family. And what pained me more, it was at the cost of his own well-being, which pulled at my heart. It was even more impressive knowing that Stanis had chosen to give himself over to servitude after having been freed from my great-great-grandfather’s sway, his sacrifice only making me feel doubly conflicted about having just kissed Caleb.
Not that anything of that sort could ever happen between Stanis and me . . .
“Go,” I said, the word flat and lifeless on my lips, the sight of Caleb at once enticing and upsetting me.
Was that true, though? Or was I really more upset with myself for momentarily allowing myself to lose focus?
“If you think you can get Stanis back to our side,” I said, “or break Kejetan’s control over him, you need to do it.”
Caleb sighed. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Once I finished binding him, I gave control to Kejetan, which means I don’t directly have the power to break that bind anymore.”
“So it’s hopeless,” I said, not able to hide the frustration in my voice. “Great.”
Caleb held up a finger and waggled it at me. “I didn’t say that, now, did I? Do you think I would have brought all this up just to torment you if I didn’t have a plan already forming in my head?”
“Well, whatever your plan is, get out of here and get on with it, will you? It’s only a matter of time before Kejetan sets him more directly to the task of harming me, my family, and my friends in his search for Alexander’s secrets. We need to be ready.”
“We will be,” he said, turning away toward the broken French doors leading out onto the terrace.
“How can you be so confident?”
Caleb spun back around, stopping. “Trust me,” he said. “When you hear me sounding this confident, that just means my back’s up against the wall, and I’m not particularly a huge fan of that. Luckily for you, it also puts my mind into panic mode, and that’s when I tend to go a bit hypercreative. I don’t have a full plan yet, but the wheels are turning.”
“Please tell me they’re not hamster wheels in there,” I said, rubbing my temples in the hopes it would help dislodge the ice daggers his cheerful tone was plunging into my mind.
“We can use those wings,” he said, pointing at my latest handiwork just behind me. “Keep working on them.”
“Caleb,” I said, stern as I could as I walked over to the statue. “Now is not the time for my fucking art project.”
“And work on counting,” he added.
“I know how to count,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “But I want you to always be doing it in the back of your head, like keeping time with music.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me,” he said.
I wanted to, but it was hard to muster it for a man who for all intents and purposes was still a stranger to me, one who played both sides of the fence, always looking for an advantage.
“Right now, I trust you as far as I can throw you,” I said. “Nonmagically speaking.”
He held his hands up.
“I’m going,” he said. “I’m going. You’ll see. I’ll show you I can fix this.”
“Just go.” I locked my eyes on his, refusing to look away. Eventually, he turned, made his way out onto the terrace, and disappeared over the edge of the building down the fire escape.
I collapsed against the wings, exhausted, leaning on the form that held them in place.
Knowing why Stanis was acting the way he was . . . it was the most promising bit of news I had, really. Caleb was close to reverse engineering Kimiya thanks to the week or so we had been comparing notes. I had no doubt we’d figure it out soon, but that was only the first step on our road to building an army to counter the Servants of Ruthenia. I still needed to unlock the arcane secrets of actually raising that army. The freelance alchemist had said he would help, but could I take Caleb at his word?
No, but I could work with and learn from him while also taking precautions to make sure I had a plan that extended beyond whatever he himself was concocting.
My thoughts were clouded as far as trust was concerned, more so due in part to what had been the pleasant sensation of Caleb’s lips on mine.
I needed to clear my head, going for the stairs at the back of the building that led up to the roof. I pushed through the upper door, hoping that the night skyline might help me focus even if the familiar form of Stanis was not there waiting for me as it used to be not so long ago.
The spot where Stanis had once stood before waking every night was empty, as it had been these last few months, but the rest of the roof caused me to stop in my tracks, my breath catching in my throat.
Stanis wasn’t there . . . but plenty of other statues were.
The inert forms of dozens of works—some on pedestals, some looking like they had been torn directly from the faces of buildings—covered the entirety of the roof. One thing stood out about them—they all bore the distinctive style of my great-great-grandfather’s hand in their carving.
I should have known better than to have allowed myself a little happiness earlier, or even take a moment of pleasure from the kiss. Given my luck lately, letting my guard down for even a second should have been the perfect indicator that, of course, my life was surely going to get worse, and here I was with proof positive that something else strange was up.
Work on the wings. Caleb’s voice sounded in my head.
I intended to, heading back down to the studio below. Carving was only a small part of the work. As I planned out my project, I set the back of my mind to Caleb’s second task.
I began to count.
Fourteen
Stanis
As I hung harnessed to the chains dangling from the cargo hold of the freighter, my inner voice demanded vengeance against Devon for the pain he had been inflicting on me for the last half hour. Blow after blow struck me, and my inner voice—my true self—wanted nothing more than to tear the deformed stone creature apart, but the dominant voice that held sway over me now allowed Devon’s continuing punishment.
Kejetan stood watching. For the first twenty of the passing minutes, I thought perhaps Devon had simply been following my father’s orders. For the rest of the time, however, it had moved beyond just a simple task for Devon, marked by the brutal enjoyment on his jagged stone face.
Kejetan dropped one of his thick stone hands on Devon’s shoulder, causing a pause in the assault on me.
“Stanis
, you have gathered what I asked for—Alexander Belarus’s greatest stone creations—have you not?” he asked.
“I have,” I responded, my two voices both allowing me to answer. There was no harm in stating the obvious course of my actions over the past week.
“And yet you still can neither find nor bring me the secrets of the Spellmason,” he added.
My true voice held the dominant one silent by hiding the truth from it. How much longer I could keep secret the Spellmason master tome Alexandra carried was the ongoing struggle for me. As I had instructed her in our one meeting, as long as Alexandra kept it physically hidden from me and did not reveal its whereabouts, I could continue to keep the dominant voice from acting out against her.
I only prayed Kejetan or his alchemist did not alter the phrasing of the orders they had set upon me, but for now both voices continued their silence on the matter, which, despite the immense amount of pain I was in at the moment, pleased me. The hint of a smile rose to my stone lips.
Devon shook Kejetan’s hand off his shoulder and lunged at me.
“What allegiance do you owe my former sister?” he asked, barely able to associate himself with any of his old ties to his humanity. His arms renewed their furious motion as he resumed his attack on my battered body.
“What is it that makes her or the rest of the humans so special that you deny the Servants of Ruthenia the same form as yours?”
I did not need to answer with either voice. The voice that dominated me answered to only one creature, and that stone monster stood idly by, watching as Devon slammed his fists into me again and again.
As I hung there, attempting to ignore the pain, my mind drifted to what I thought was the point of hallucination and beyond. The far wall behind the two jagged stone men in front of me shimmered, a section of the metal there transforming. The area was vaguely human-shaped and moving, every step closer to us becoming more and more clear until I recognized the form of the blond human who had tortured me.
His face looked concerned this time, but when Devon and Kejetan turned to him, his face transformed, rivaling that of a man who had not a care in the world.
He looked to Devon, whose right arm was pulled back in midswing.
“Easy there, Scrappy,” the human said, gesturing to my hanging form as I swayed on my chains with the motion of the ship. “You know, it might be more of a fair fight if you took him down off those spikes.”
“I did not summon you,” Kejetan said, his words dark.
“Yeah, I know,” the human said, moving closer to me, looking my form over. “Let’s just say I felt a disturbance in the Force.”
“The Force?” I asked before anyone else could.
The human looked into my eyes and gave me a smile before lightly slapping his hand onto my cheek. “Never mind,” he said.
My inner voice willed me to bite the hand from his wrist, but the more dominant one did not allow me to harm him, no doubt because he was the one who had forced me into this servitude.
The alchemist dropped his hand away and turned to Kejetan.
“Let’s just say I have a heavy investment in my reputation out there,” he said. “And I’d hate to see you or Rocky here damage my work before I can iron out all the kinks in it.”
“I do not understand,” Kejetan said. “But be quick in rectifying that. My patience grows thin.”
“I’ve told you before that this isn’t an exact science,” the human said. “While I’m tweaking the alchemy here, I need you two to keep him in one piece.”
“For someone so worried about his reputation,” Devon said, “one would think you’d be a little quicker on the results.”
“Don’t like them?” the human asked, a bit of sting having come into his voice. “Try to hire someone else who can give you better.”
Devon gave a throaty grumble, and the human turned to face him.
“I know you think that somehow you might beat him into submission,” he said, “but that’s not really how these things work. Were you in some kind of fight club?”
“Just working out some of my issues,” Devon said. “Thought this might help bring him around to revealing the secrets my dear sister is keeping from us. It is clear your way isn’t doing the trick.”
Kejetan walked over to the human. “We already know that Stanis does not possess the knowledge I want,” he said. “That is why I made you set him to his other tasks.” He grabbed the man by his shoulder and pulled him closer. The human looked like all he wanted was to squirm away like a serpent. “He has not yet provided that which I seek. Do you think I am somehow pleased by this? I assure you I am not.”
“Easy, boss, easy,” the human said. “Baby steps. You wanted him in your service, he’s in your service. Yes, he hasn’t recovered the secrets you wanted yet, but I think I know why.”
Kejetan did not move away from him. “I do pray you tell.”
“I don’t think the secrets of the Spellmasons are somewhere else,” the human said. “I think they’re still within this golem here.”
Kejetan shook his head. “He has already confessed to not having them.”
“That’s part of the security that keeps the information locked away in him safe,” the human said. “I mean, if you were going to hide something that valuable, what’s the first thing you’d tell the gargoyle to say?”
Kejetan thought it over, but after too long a silence, Alexandra’s brother spoke up.
“I’d teach it to say it didn’t have the information,” Devon offered.
“Exactly!” the human said. “Who’s a smart but brutal chunk of rock?”
Devon moved to the alchemist, but Kejetan waved him away.
“So now I need to get in there and break down those defenses,” the human said. “That’s why I came tonight. Alchemy’s tricky. These things take time to figure out.”
I knew of no such system in place over me, having spent all these months doing what was called by the humans bluffing about any sort of secret arcane knowledge. Why did this man now come to them with this tale . . . ? Could he, too, be bluffing?
I watched and waited to see how my captors reacted.
Kejetan let the man go, crossing to me and grabbing my face, lifting me. “Is what he says true?” he asked, as the dead dark sockets of his eyes met my own. “Remember, you are bound to answer me with truth.”
“I hold no secret knowledge,” I said, freely speaking what both voices within me knew was true.
“See?” the human asked. “You need to let me work. I’ll get it out of him.”
I considered the man’s words as I knew my father must also be doing.
What choice did he have, really? I was already in servitude to him, and if we were to take the alchemist at his word, he was still the best hope Kejetan had.
“Very well,” Kejetan said, pulling Devon away from me. “See to it. I grow weary of this.”
The human looked satisfied.
“Pardon my asking,” he said. “But what’s the point?”
“The point?” Kejetan asked.
“To all this,” he said. “This endless hunt for this missing arcane knowledge. I mean, you seem to have a lot of bold ambitions. What do you want? Please don’t tell me to rule the world, because if it is, a lot has changed since you were in power.”
“Of this I am aware,” my father said, choosing to engage the man instead of reacting with the anger I knew him capable of. “But your world does have leaders, yes? Why not my kind?”
The human laughed. “No offense, but your sense of perspective may be out of proportion with reality. I don’t think the world is ready to be led by your kind. Not only are most not aware of you, but they can barely pick leaders among their own kind. At the risk of your swatting me across the cargo hold here, humanity isn’t simply going to bow down and kneel before Zodd.”
“Zodd . . . ?”
“Another famous despot of a ruler,” the human said with a sigh.
“But some will look for leaders when the world changes,” Kejetan said. “Alexander Belarus locked away some of the greatest secrets, and once those have been brought to light, others will look for a voice to guide them. And that voice shall be mine.”
“Right,” the human said, the word coming off his lips long and slow. It did not sound sincere to my ear, nor apparently to Kejetan, who stepped back in front of him, anger in his own voice.
“If you are unable to live up to the duties my people are paying you for, perhaps we should discuss that,” my father said.
The human did not speak for a short time. “I’m up to the job,” he said, the smile returning to his face. “I just wanted you to get a better idea of the whole picture there. Always like to see where the profit margin on the future is heading.”
Devon laughed. “You should be more concerned about living through the day, pal,” he said.
The human glanced at Alexandra’s brother before stepping away to his table against the wall that held his mixtures and examining them.
“I kind of need him out of here,” he said, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder to Devon. “Preferably, you, too.”
“I do not take orders on my own ship,” Kejetan said.
“Suit yourself,” he said, removing the coat he wore. “This might get messy, though. I can’t promise you won’t get a little twisted up by what I’m about to throw down on Stanis here. Hard to keep some of this stone-affecting arcana one-directional. You want to hang in here, that’s fine by me, but it’s only fair warning you that you might accidentally get a little alchemical backlash on you.”
Kejetan waved Devon out of the cargo hold, and Alexander’s brother lumbered off without another word.
“I need results,” Kejetan said.
“I understand,” the human said without looking up from his work.
If there was one thing my father hated, it was being ignored, but he dared not disturb the alchemist. Holding his tongue, he turned and stormed off after Devon and out of the cargo hold, leaving the two of us alone.
