“What’s your name?” I ask her.
“Nothing and no one,” she says.
“My name is Tib,” I offer. She doesn’t say anything. “What was your name, before?” I ask. I’m thankful for Nessa and Saesa, who taught me how to get information. To gain trust. Make it about them, they’d say.
“Before the master?” she asks. I nod. She thinks a while. I don’t interrupt. Silence speaks volumes.
“Vae. Vicious Arson Envious,” she replies.
“Arson. Are you a fire fae?” I ask her. “Or, were you?”
“Cinders and soot. Burning coals. We change things. We destroy so there can be new birth. We meld and mold and make stronger.” When she speaks, I see a flash of something beneath the edge of her wing. Orange, like flames. A vein, like red coals blackened over. I feel the heat coming from her. The fire inside being stoked. The memory of her former self is being kindled.
“But, they are gone. All taken. Lost. Dead. Destroyed. All I have, all I had, was Master. He helped me. Saved me. Kept me,” she cries and curls herself tighter. “She’ll see. One day, hers will be gone, too, and she’ll be nothing. Nothing but memories of the things they made her do.”
“Who’s gone? Other fae? The Sorcerers killed them?”
“No, they are not fae. We are not fae. Fae are Dawn. We are Dusk.”
“What are you, if not fae?”
“Imps. The dark reflection. Shadows in the mirror. Crag and stone. From deep within the mountain. Molten, cracked, reformed,” she whispers, like what she’s saying is forbidden. “Oshteveska furle drulevents. Kerevorna.”
Her words have power. Ancient feelings. I sense them circling around her as she speaks them. Like runes and wards. Ancient spells, forgotten a long time ago.
“You have given me these recollections,” she whispers.
“Crag and stone,” I whisper. At first I think of Iren, but then I remember what Valenor said about the Wellsprings. My heart thumps in my chest. “Are you from Hywilkin?”
“Hywilkin. Master was to take me home,” she whimpers. “He was, and I was bound to give him a gift most splendid. Most precious and perfect. I was his, and he was mine. Our secret. And now he is dead, and I am nothing. Nothing.”
“Vae,” I say to her carefully, “you are not. You’re not nothing. You’re very important. How many more are there here, from Hywilkin?”
“I…” she closes her huge black eyes. “Many. Many here, stolen from our homes. Children. But we are lost. Divided. No longer kin. They have sliced our bonds and ties. We live for the Dusk, now. The Great Source will belong to The Void, and we will be returned.”
“Is that what your master told you?” I ask with a scowl. Her brow knits together. She curls her bony fists up under her chin. Across the room, the door latch clicks. Celli’s coming back.
“He kept me safe,” she cries. “Now he is dead, and I am nothing.”
“Stay with me,” I whisper hurriedly. “I have to go to Hywilkin, too. I’ll protect you and I’ll bring you home if you show me the way.”
“Water,” Celli barks. She drops the pitcher onto the desk with a loud clang. “Serve yourself.”
She goes back to the door and leans against it. I eye her stance as I push myself to my feet and walk to the desk.
“I would have left already if I was going to,” I say to her. “You don’t have to guard me.” I pour some water into a cup and sniff it. Smells fine. No magic. I take a sip. Seems all right.
“Master will be here in a moment. I won’t have him disappointed in me,” she sneers. Her eyes flick to the floor where she’d left Vae. “Where’s the imp?” she asks.
I shrug and glance at the same spot. Vae is gone. My healed eye flicks around the room and spots her, surprisingly, just above my shoulder. Hidden away. When I think hard, I can feel her heat right at my earlobe.
“You scared her away, I guess,” I say, covering for her.
“Good enough,” Celli huffs. “Osven is mine now. He can’t own anything. Especially not a filthy imp like her. If anything, she belongs to my master now.”
I hear a low hiss and a pop beside my head, and I reach up to scratch my neck. I stick my little finger out, like an offering to the imp. To my surprise, she takes it. Her hands are like tiny searing irons, but I try not to flinch.
Beside Celli, the air wavers and shifts. I see the outline of Osven for just a moment before he fades from view. I wonder if Vae did, too. If she did, she’s not reacting.
I sip my water and wait for Quenson, all the while thinking about what I’ve gotten myself into. Tricking my way into a keep full of Sorcerers is one thing. Sneaking around, befriending dusk imps was not part of my plan. How can I know she’s to be trusted? What if she was planted here for me to find? What if the whole thing was a setup? The more I think about it, the more I realize my mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to her at all. Maybe I should have let Celli kill her.
The door swings open, interrupting my thoughts. Quenson simply looks at Celli and she falls into place behind him. In his presence, Vae ducks behind me. I feel her fingers weave into the straps of my bandolier. She tucks herself safely to my back. The heat of her charcoal body feels like it’ll burn through my shirt.
“You are fortunate, Tibreseli,” Quenson says with a velvety tone. “My associates have agreed to see you. It isn’t every day that a guest from outside is welcomed so eagerly. I hope you will show them your gratitude by offering, at the very least, your respect.”
He ushers me out the door and walks beside me in the passage. Celli trails behind us both.
“You see,” Quenson says in hushed tones, “the True Dusk is quite startling at first meeting. Such power, you will not encounter again in your lifetime. Some call it The Void, and it is a true and mighty wonder to behold.”
“Why does he want to see me?” I ask with a smirk. If this Void is so powerful, I don’t see where I fit into the picture.
“They, Tibreseli,” Quenson says, and pauses. He turns. His eyes bore into me. “They. They are all the darkness, all the pain, all the fear and hatred ever mustered. Dusk is too weak a word for them, Tibreseli, for the power they hold is unending. Infinite. Omnipotent.”
I don’t say anything. Somehow, his words don’t bother me. If this Void is so powerful, why does it need to hide away? Why does it care that I even exist? If it’s so omnipotent, why doesn’t it already hold Brindelier? Why does it need a simple boy like me to find it?
After an endless journey through winding passages, we finally reach a set of iron doors two stories high. All sorts of runes are molded into them. Runes and scenes that are horrible to look at. Meant to scare. To intimidate. They just make me shake my head. It’s like they’re trying too hard to make sure everyone here knows how wicked they are. I find it a little amusing, more than anything.
Clinging to the back of my bandolier, Vae trembles. I want to tell her to wait here, but I don’t have a way to do it without the others hearing. Sometimes I wish I could push my thoughts, like Azi and Rian do. I only ever could accept them from Mevyn. Even if I could, though, I wouldn’t trust her enough for that, yet.
The doors swing open and Quenson gestures for me to go in. He’s staying outside. Celli is, too. So is Vae, apparently. I know why as soon as I step in. The power of magic in here is so overwhelming it feels like a hammer to my chest. If it’s this strong to me, I can’t imagine what it must be like for anyone else. I go in. As soon as I step over the threshold, the power abruptly ends.
The doors creak closed with a thundering boom. Inside, it’s black as pitch. There’s nothing. No one. I stand in silence, searching the darkness with my healed eye. Trying to see something. Anything. Anyone. There’s no magic here. No power. It’s just as Quenson said. A void. The Void.
Time passes. How much time, I don’t know. I call out, but no one answers. I start to pace along the metal wall, measuring the room with my footsteps. There is nothing here. Nothing. No one. No sound. No sense. I count a
hundred paces along the wall and still no corner. No turn. I count a hundred more. This place is vast. Unending. Empty of everything, even light. Even me. Three hundred paces. Four.
In the darkness, with the rhythm of my footsteps, I start to question myself. What purpose do I have here? Why did I bother coming? I start to think it must be some powerful spell, shifting my thoughts, but how could it be? I can’t be affected by magic. I’m the Dreamstalker. But what does that mean, really? I’m nothing. No one important. Six hundred paces. Seven.
I start to forget why I’ve come. I start to forget who I am. I remember something recent. A ruined fae. An imp. “I’m nothing,” she said to me. “No one.” I understand now. I am, too. I stop counting steps. Eventually, I stop walking.
“Are you?” asks a voice in my head. “Keep walking.”
Yes, keep walking. I do. I keep going, dragging my fingertips along the wall. That one voice, that one question, lingers. Are you? Are you no one? No, I’m not. I’m someone. Important. I have a job to do. I have a plan. Nine hundred paces. One thousand.
“Will this room ever end?” I ask aloud.
“He speaks,” comes the reply.
“All this time, yet he still speaks,” says another.
The voices are high-pitched and low at the same time. Everywhere. Everything and nothing. They drown out my thoughts. Make me start to believe it again. That I’m not, after all, anything.
“Who’s there?” I call out. Talking seems to help as much as counting my steps does. It keeps my mind busy. Shuts out the nothing. One-thousand two hundred forty paces.
“We are the Void,” they say. “The True Dusk.”
“True Dusk? No. There’s still light at dusk. This place is completely dark,” I reply, still walking. Still counting. One thousand six hundred paces.
I look up. Try to find the source of the voices. It’s too dark. I look down to the floor. To the center. Something is there. Something larger than I would have expected. Not a creature. I can’t make out limbs or a head with my healed eye. I can only see something in the nothing. Something indescribable. A fog. A cloud. Something vast and unfathomable. Something dark and eerie. The Void.
“Clever boy,” the voices echo through me. Chills prickle my arms and shiver across the back of my neck. “We see you. You are nothing to us.”
Their words try to affect me, but they can’t. They lick at me and cower away, back to the Void.
“You can’t control me. You can’t have me and you never will,” I growl and keep pacing. At the center of the void, I feel them gathering. More of them, whatever they are. Imps. Sorcerers. Minds. Single, terrible forces gathered into one.
“Resistant little pup,” they say. Their voices weave in and out of space. Try to get into my head. I feel them testing me, looking for a weakness. For some way in. They won’t find it. There isn’t one. Dreamstalker, I think to myself. The Untouched.
My feet pause. I think back. This is the purpose of this place. To make you forget. To make you feel nothing. To mold you to their will. To convince you their thinking is the only way. I wonder if Celli was sent through here. If Errie or the other boys were.
I keep walking. Keep counting. The rhythm of my steps grounds me. Keeps me aware of myself. Why did they bring me here? What did they think to gain? They need the location of the archway. The entrance to Brindelier. They need my cooperation. Is that all, though? If I revealed it to them, what then? Would they want more? Is this it? This Void? Is this the driving force for the Sorcerers and the Dusk? If it was defeated, what then? Would the Dusk go on without it?
The questions make me pause in my step-counting. I turn to face the deep dark. The Void. My hand drifts to the knives at my chest. The vials. I think of Valenor, all that time ago. The shadows that held him. How I fought them. How I was the only one. How he told me the truth of it. The vials are nothing. The power is within me.
“What is he doing?” their whispers repeat and echo and pulse around me. I push away from the wall and step closer to center. The Void recedes. It fears me. I feel it. I take another step forward.
“He mustn’t,” the voices cry, eerie and drawn out. Ghostly. Wraith-like. Other-worldly. Hundreds of them. I imagine shadows like the ones that held Valenor, but all balled up together. Endless and eternal. How long can I fight them, I wonder, before I get tired? Before I have to rest? And what then?
My dagger slides easily from its sheath. It’s odd they didn’t take it this time. Maybe they believed me when I said I’d make a deal. Maybe they trusted me. They shouldn’t have. I take another step toward the center. The shadows shrink further away.
“Are you afraid?” I ask them. “Afraid of the Slayer of Shadows? Afraid of the Dreamstalker?”
“We fear nothing,” they hiss in whispers.
“Then why do you cower?” I ask.
The shadows swirl around me in a vortex. A cyclone of darkness that whips the air beside my face and rustles my hair. To me it’s a soft breeze. They can’t touch me. The thought gives me confidence. I lash out with my blade and slice at the force. A flash of light bursts from it, casting away the shadows. In that moment I see my adversaries.
Tendrils of gray-black. Cyclones spinning. Souls and spirits. Wicked minds collected and gathered in this place. They squeal and shrink away at my attack. I swing again and see again. The more I fight, the more they reveal. I see plans. People. Agents of Dusk. Inner workings. Feelings. Secrets.
Eron lies on a stone slab, stripped bare. His body is whole again, but he still looks dead. Errie plays happily on the floor beside him. Strands of energy drift between them, like pipe smoke in a sunbeam. A single Sorceress stands with them, watching. Guiding the energy.
The Void screeches in disbelief and frustration. It fights harder, but it can’t touch me. It tries again to mold me to its will, but I’m immune. It tries to keep me from seeing, but I’m in too deep now.
Another vision, another plan. Agents of Dusk, lying in wait. Bonds and oaths to kill the king. To kill Margy. To weaken Cerion, their best competition for Brindelier. To end the peace of the kingdom. A dozen men, ready to take action. Waiting for the word.
A smaller plot. Dacva. Stolen away. Strapped down. A man with Marks of gold and black, tearing away at his thoughts. Ripping into his memories. Gleaning whatever useful information he can about the Elite.
More of the same. Men and women. Sorcerers, gathering and planning. Using children to blackmail and control. To feed anger and fear. Not just Griff and Mikken. More missing kids, from everywhere. Seeds of mistrust planted. Seeds of hatred for the throne. Plots against the Academy. Against the Elves. Against the Dawn. Destruction.
The more I see of them, the less intimidated I am. The more powerful I feel. They can’t help but reveal these things to me. They can’t stop me. Can’t reach me. Can’t break me. It infuriates them.
I strike out for Errie. For Griff and Mikken. Even for Celli, as gone as she is. I fight until they drive me back against the roughly molded metal. The doors swing open and I stumble backward through them. I lose my footing. My dagger flies away into the void. I fall to the floor at Quenson’s feet.
“Kill him,” the whispers of the Void drift eerily across the keep, mingled with the thunderous sound of slamming doors.
Quenson towers over me as I lie at his feet gasping for breath. He gazes down, his eyes narrowed. His fingers crackle with energy.
“Celli,” he says.
Something grabs the cross of my bandolier. Yanks me to my feet. Something hot. Too hot.
“Get up.” Vae shouts and tugs me forward. “Run!”
I take off down the passage away from the doors. Into the twisting maze. A knife whizzes past my shoulder. Behind me, Celli screams in frustration. She throws two more. My feet pound the stone. Ahead of me, guards step out to block my way. I duck into the Half-Realm. The cobwebs brush my face. I run, hard. Weave between them. Dodge another knife. Just because they can’t see me doesn’t mean they can’t hit me.
<
br /> At my chest, Vae clings to me. Now that we’re both in the Half-Realm, I can see her. Her wings are still broken, but somehow she’s helping propel me forward.
“The dais,” I say to her, breathing hard. “The room with the pedestals. Do you know where it is?”
“This way,” she tugs me down a side hall. Something behind me shifts. A spirit. A ghost. Osven. I curse under my breath. Behind me, Celli’s footsteps near. I push my legs until my calves burn. Dodge around guards who can’t see me.
Vae guides me until I can see it ahead. The closed door. The one. I can feel it. The wards. The spells. The forces in place to keep everyone out. Beyond that, the offerings, glowing like beacons. The door is guarded by half a dozen sentries. When I get nearer, they turn in unison. Stomp their feet, just once. Look right at me. Inside their helms, their eyes are black and empty.
I feel it on them. Smell it. Death. Necromancy. Bones, animated. Dark, wicked magic. They raise their swords. March toward me. Behind me, Celli’s footsteps skid to a stop.
“They can see you, Tib,” she says. “Step out of hiding so I can watch you die.”
“Keep running,” Vae whispers. “Run through them.”
I look past the approaching six. Into the dais room with my healed eye. It’s empty, save for the bottles. No one is in there. I just need to get past these sentries and through the door. All I have are knives, though. Small ones. Knives that wouldn’t do much damage to animated bones.
“Just run,” Vae screams, and I take a deep breath and decide to trust her. If she wanted me defeated, she wouldn’t have helped me up to begin with. I crash through the sentries who swing their weapons wildly. One of them has a club. I tear it from his grip and swing it hard, catching two of them with the brunt of my attack. Two arms fly off at me with surprising strength and spin across the floor.
My attack doesn’t scare the others. They’re mindless. Thoughtless. At my chest, Vae burns. She spits a ball of fire that catches one right in its empty eye. The sentry stumbles mid-swing and catches its partner. Bones clatter against stone. A tapestry nearby catches the spark and bursts into flame.
Call of Brindelier (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 3) Page 39
