by Kaleb Nation
"I remember Emry’s face clearly," Baslyn said.
All of a sudden, something began to shimmer inside the stillness of the glass. It was an image, a picture…but not just any picture. It was a face.
Chapter 33
The Farfield Curse
The face was of a woman. She looked both hard and soft at the same time, like a young person who had been forced to be an adult. She had long, black hair and traces of makeup around her eyes. Her skin was slightly pale, though not like Baslyn’s; it made her look alive before Bran’s eyes, almost as if he could reach forward and touch her. She was beautiful, with a slight smile on her lips—the type of person he could go on looking at for hours. She had a way of capturing his eyes and holding them, where he couldn’t break his gaze for a moment, even with Baslyn watching him. There was a thin white streak through her hair, long and complete. Her expression was so confident that it radiated from her face, as if she had the power to do anything she wished to anyone. And as Bran looked into her eyes, he saw that they looked exactly like his own, so similar they instantly told him who this woman was.
My mother.
Suddenly, Baslyn pulled the wand from the glass, and the image shriveled up.
Bran jumped. "Bring it back!" he demanded.
"I shall not," Baslyn said calmly.
"Put it back!" Bran shouted, jumping to his feet in rage. Baslyn
put his fingers together, very still, and he looked up at Bran through the edges of his eyelids.
"I am a Drimra," he said. "Illian magic in my wand is limited. I will not waste it on you."
"You are evil," Bran spat.
"Am I so evil I refuse drink to my prisoners?" Baslyn asked.
"You do it only to keep me alive," Bran hissed. "You need me."
"And do I?"
"Yes. You know the powers I have. You know I can do what my mother did."
Baslyn was silent.
Bran looked away, closing his eyes and remembering the face. "But I won’t," he said. "Her magic was held to darkness, but I am free from the curse. I am not held to do only evil."
Baslyn nodded slowly in contemplation. "Your mother was held by a curse—and with it, she created a curse."
He began to slide his wand toward the glass again, and Bran quickly turned to look. Was he going to show her again? He leaned forward with anticipation, and he heard the glass ring again as the wand touched it. An image shimmered, deep in the water, and came into view—but instead of his mother’s face, he saw something else.
In the middle of the glass was the image of a long room, the view moving across it slowly. It was a warehouse, so long and far in all directions that Bran couldn’t see the end. But what he saw inside was chilling.
There were rows upon rows of white cots, filling the entire floor of the warehouse and stacked one upon the other in towers up to the ceiling. At first, Bran couldn’t see well enough to discern what the cots held, but as soon as his eyes focused on them, he saw that there were people in them, still and motionless, as if dead. But the people in these beds were not what he had expected, for lying one to each cot were thousands and thousands of bald men.
They looked exactly the same as the two bald men Bran had already seen with Joris, their eyes closed and their arms by their sides. Their skin was pale and their faces expressionless, each one exactly the same as the one before.
"Behold," Baslyn said. "The Farfield Curse."
Bran looked at him with wide eyes, the glow from the colors still playing upon his face.
"This," Baslyn said, "is the terrible thing which Adi could not tell you of, the terrible thing which I created. It is an army, hidden so far and so deep, the Council still hasn’t found it."
Baslyn looked at the glass. "Those were the bodies—my part of the Curse, or as we preferred to call it, the Project. But it’s deeper than just an army. Your mother added the second part."
The image in the glass shimmered. Now it showed another room, lit overhead by florescent lights. In this room, lining the walls, were rows of glass cages, stacked on both sides of the room. They were large enough for a person to stand up or lay down in, seven columns going down the hall and three rows up, so that they almost touched the ceiling.
Inside the cages were creatures, their bodies deformed and destroyed. They were all behind glass, one to a cage, some sleeping, some clawing at the walls, others seeming dead or eating like dogs from food dropped on the floor. Each creature was different, their clothing in tatters. They were thin, bones sticking out from their flesh. Some had large eyes, others had skin so loose it barely fit their skeletons.
Bran struggled to look away but couldn’t tear his eyes from the glass, even as the image began to change, to move across the cages, to display the hideous creatures. It came to one, its skin white and its eyes deep gray with no pupils. The creature turned its head slowly, staring back at him, its teeth jagged and a hungry look on its twisted face, as if it wanted to consume Bran’s flesh. The image shimmered and moved again, to the next cage.
Inside was a creature he felt he had seen before: it looked almost exactly like Shambles. Its skin sagged and its eyes were large and green, with fingernails like claws and a scarred face, but instead of having dark skin like Shambles, this creature’s skin was gray, and it threw itself against the inside of the cage, screaming. Bran could hear no sound, but the shout seemed to leap into his soul, echoing in him. He jerked his gaze away.
"Don’t show me anymore!" he said, struggling to catch his breath. He felt sweat on his forehead and his hands trembling.
"You must look," Baslyn said. "It is the work of your own mother."
"No," Bran said, trying to turn away, to deny it.
"You wanted the truth," Baslyn said, "so I am giving it to you. We brought these people in for her, kidnapped them right off the streets. All had to be mages. She finally got everything right: any mage in our way was instantly drained of their powers and made to feed my army. And thus we have come to the next part of the Curse: the spirits she called to the desert."
Bran remembered with a start what Astara had told him: what his mother had said as she died. The people in the desert, the gathering that had disappeared…
"She needed them to give my army intelligence, to shape them to be complete," Baslyn said. "She needed their minds, so she created the Curse, trapped the souls, and held them for my use."
Baslyn shrugged slightly.
"So I would form the bodies, and she would take one of the spirits and give it a mind. And then she would use one of the mages behind the glass to feed the body magic."
Bran took a quick breath, trying to block Baslyn’s words out.
"And that is it," Baslyn said. "An army of fully functional mages at my bidding, ready to bring down the Mages Council. But there was more."
Baslyn smiled slightly. "In the process of feeding magic to my armies, sadly it would drain the mages day after day, until there was nothing left but a pitiful skeleton of a body in a glass cage, feeding my armies with their power from far away. Thus, any mage who even tried to fight us would soon make my army more powerful. Once they were cursed, there would be no breaking free—and no mages left to oppose me."
"The secret…" Bran realized. "The Council kept it secret so people wouldn’t turn on them."
"Every non-mage would certainly wish to destroy everything magic if they heard something like this was possible," Baslyn said. "They’d kill every mage in sight to keep themselves safe."
"But why was my mother in any of this?" Bran asked.
Baslyn stared deep into his eyes. "Like you," he finally said,
"she also wanted to save the world, to make up for crimes she did not commit. She joined me because she wanted to change the Council. Adi would not tell you. No one would. But now, as always, I will tell you the truth." He slid his fingers across the table. "I wasn’t always a criminal, as they might have led you to believe. In fact, I was rather well-known—a researcher, commissioned by the Council
. I specialized in old documents and languages from magic history." His face turned slightly in grim memory. "When you get to be a famous mage—and a Drimra at that—you start to be invited to Council events. It was then that I came to realize just who I was working for." He shook his head. "A bunch of greedy, pleasure-seeking bureaucrats who hardly followed all the laws they made and were ready to assassinate anyone who crossed them."
"I don’t believe it," Bran said.
"It doesn’t matter," Baslyn hissed, turning on him with a sudden anger in his eyes. "It’s true. Even your mother realized it, and thought she could change it. And that was our plan. We were so close. We could have taken the Council by storm, changed it into something better, but—" Baslyn lifted his head, "—you were born."
Bran could feel an underlying anger in Baslyn’s words.
"Your mother changed after that," Baslyn said. "She wasn’t the same, lost interest in the Project—practically threw away all the power we had worked so hard to get her."
He hit the desk, but with that, he caught himself, as if realizing that he had spoken too much. "Somehow the police found out," Baslyn went on. "It was mere days before our Project would be set. Your mother escaped, as did some of the others, and thus we are here, every piece still hidden in secret, still as alive as it was before, with only one thing standing in my way."
His eyes met with Bran’s. "The power of Dormaysan."
He looked over Bran slowly. "As your friend Adi said, your mother’s powers are within you now. Shouldn’t it be right for you to follow her path, to finish the job for her?" He smiled slightly. "Maybe it would make her proud of you."
Bran could hardly believe the words he was hearing. He was smart enough to know what Baslyn was asking of him. He wanted him to be like his mother, to take her place and help him bring the Farfield Curse back.
Baslyn took a sip from the glass.
"But…I’m not a Dormaysan," Bran said slowly. "Adi said I’m free from the curse."
Baslyn turned his gaze away, as if he had heard something repulsive.
"It doesn’t make any difference to me or your mother," Baslyn said. "If you’re free from the curse, then so be it, but the powers are still alive within you."
"But I won’t do it." Bran said strongly.
"Maybe you should think before you make your decision." Baslyn hissed.
"I’ve already thought," Bran hissed back. "I will not be a part of something that kidnaps people and locks them in cages to make an army to overrun the Council."
"So you would make the same mistake your mother did?" Baslyn asked. "Let your heart get in the way of what you should do—get in the way of what’s right?"
"But it’s not right," Bran said. "You killed people to make the Farfield Curse."
"It all ends up right in the end," Baslyn said. "A few must be sacrificed for the good of all."
Bran shook his head. "I don’t care what happens or what my mother did. My loyalty is to those who are my friends, and their loyalty is to the Mages Council."
Baslyn slammed his fists onto the desk.
It made Bran jump, and Baslyn leapt to his feet, seething with anger.
"The Mages Council!" Baslyn burst. "What if I told you that the Mages Council has lied to everyone, even Adi, and they did not destroy the Project, but kept it, and hid it for their own use if ever they should need it?" He hit the desk again. "And what if I told you that I once followed the Mages Council, and was used by them in secret? And once they were through with me, my name was erased, and my research destroyed…" He bent closer. "What if I told you that someone very close to you is part of all of this, and that the research of the Farfield Curse itself was started by your accursed Mages Council?"
Bran hardly knew what to say, shocked at Baslyn’s fury. Bran could do nothing but stare back at him, until finally Baslyn turned away.
"Believe what you wish," Baslyn said angrily. "But you’re too smart of a boy to hide it from yourself. The Mages Council is but a fantasy, and all the good people who serve under it are nothing more than well-meaning pawns…"
He curled his fingers into fists. "…each doing what they think is right, but combined, working for an evil they struggle so hard to fight off."
"That can’t be true," Bran said. "The Mages Council works for good."
"Do they?" Baslyn shot back. It took Bran by surprise how quickly he had responded.
"Do they really seem to work for good?" Baslyn asked again. "It seems to me your city still doesn’t allow mages, gnomes are still being killed, and the world is at its deepest point of unrest." He raised his chin. "Seems like there’s a slow, unseen war going on, Bran—a war between what is right, and what many mistakenly believe is right. How can you be sure that you are on the right side? How are you so sure you are not being deceived?" He lowered his voice even further, "It’s a war, brewing and stirring right underneath our feet, ready to break at the slightest tipping of the scales. Can’t you feel it?"
His voice sounded ominous, and what terrified Bran most was that Baslyn’s voice seemed to hold no lie.
What does he know? Bran wondered.
"But you are just a child," Baslyn said, sliding away. "You do not realize how short life is."
He dropped his voice. "And you are not as valuable to me as you might believe."
With that, Baslyn reached for an intercom button on his desk.
"Bring her in," he said, and Bran heard the door open behind him. He stiffened and heard Astara struggling in the doorway. Marcus escorted her in, and Craig caught Bran by the shoulder. Baslyn arose, and Bran was roughly shoved to the other side where Baslyn had been sitting. He was forced down into a hard chair, and he felt another slammed to the back of his. He looked over his shoulder, and he saw Astara being pushed into it, her back to him.
"What’s going on?" she whispered to Bran, as Joris stepped into the room. His face was grave though he said no words, and in his hands were two pairs of magecuffs.
"This," Baslyn said, "is called creative disposal."
Joris clicked magecuffs over their wrists, binding them to the chairs though he didn’t yet turn the power on.
"It’s actually quite simple," Baslyn replied. "It’s much like killing two birds with one stone. See, with all the time I have been kept here, we are sure to leave tracks behind, through which the police might find us."
Marcus had begun to carry in a set of small black boxes. He set them around the room, one near the corner, the next halfway, the next beside the desk, until he had gone all the way around and out into the hall. Baslyn watched him, then turned back to Bran.
"And, since you have refused every offer I have presented you," he went on, "you leave me with no choice but to cover up the tracks I may have left with you as well."
"You’re going to kill us then," Astara said.
"It’s war." Baslyn shrugged. "Some people die."
Marcus connected wires between the boxes. Baslyn gestured at them. "These boxes contain powerful explosives, not enough to bring the building down but quite sufficient to destroy this room and both of you, no matter how strong your powers are."
Bran pulled against the handcuffs, but they were tight and unmoving, and his arms were pinned behind his back. Craig handed Baslyn his pistol and a remote.
"This is what will happen." Baslyn said. "First, I shall kill each of you myself. Then, I will press this remote."
He pointed to a larger box, to which the others were connected. "Once the button is pressed, there will be forty seconds for me to take the stairs down, and while everyone below is panicking, we will escape the city." He turned. "And this floor will be destroyed, leaving nothing behind to track us by."
His words were smooth, icy. Gone was the anger Bran had seen on his face; there was no emotion at all. Baslyn was through with him, and he was just finishing the job.
Baslyn looked to Joris. "Go ahead and turn them on. Then I will finish here."
Joris nodded, and he leaned toward the magecuffs.
Bran heard a click as they were switched on, but for some reason, he felt no different than before. It was oddly disturbing, so much that when he lifted his wrists to turn them, the handcuffs almost felt as if they weighed less than he remembered from the van, though he dared not test it by pulling for magic. With one last glance in Bran’s direction, Joris turned for the elevators.
When Bran heard the elevator doors slide together, the room seemed to become empty. He felt sweat beginning to form on his forehead as Baslyn stepped toward his desk.
"Look," Baslyn said, taking something out of a drawer. "I almost forgot: Adi’s wand."
He dropped it to the floor. "How sad," he said with fake regret. "In the fire, her wand might never be found."
Bran felt anger boiling up inside. Baslyn began adjusting things
on the pistol, and Bran forced himself to be very still, trying to clear his mind. He searched for any way to escape, any idea that might free them. He heard the clash of thunder, and rain began to beat down outside the windows on the stone porch.
"You know Bran, I am sorry it has to end this way," Baslyn said. "I had expected you to do things differently than your mother—to finish what she started." He shook his head. "So many questions left unanswered for you, so many things you have not yet discovered about yourself."
"I know enough," Bran said, trying to hold on to his courage, even when he heard the pistol clicking. He felt Astara’s hands next to his, behind his back; they were cold and trembling. Baslyn seemed to be considering something, still clutching the pistol.
"I suppose there’s one thing you should know before I kill you," he said. He lifted his chin.
"The reason Clarence never came to get you," he said, "is because Clarence is Shambles."
Bran stiffened in the chair. No. It couldn’t be.
But even as he denied it, he knew. He could remember Shambles on the roof, he could hear his voice in the back of his head, saying his mother’s name—it came back to him in a rush. He could remember the horrible images of the creatures, locked in the cages.
