by Brindi Quinn
“So you must come back. Understand? You must!” This I cry whilst moving out of the way of the horde of filing sphinxes. O, that I would be able to flit above them and stay beside my pactor when he ascends the fated pillar. To make a body of mass fly, however, would take quite an exertion of enchants. My strength is nowhere near Awyer’s.
Helpless, I run. Clear out of the way of events with which I am no longer involved. I have fulfilled my debt by delivering the Amethyst to this place. I am no longer needed.
Now, I only NEED.
At the outskirts of the rubble, I find that Techton and Pedj have returned, mushrooms in hand. The thunder must have alerted them before they could begin tending to lunch. Pedj’s stomach shall surely suffer.
Jaw hanged, the boy in question drops the mushrooms gathered in his shirt when he sees what is presently going on through the fog. To the ground, they topple and roll. “Guess we can’t get on eatin’ these now,” he mutters, attention captured on the mass of golden beasts.
“Your Amethyst boy’s kinfolk, huh?” says Techton, setting his bag onto the ground and leaning into a boulder. “Wow. They’re pretty big, aren’t they? The pictures don’t really show how big they are.”
“What? Your peoples got pictures of sphinxes?! And they never shared them with us? Tch!” For Pedj it is a rivalrous discovery. One enough to pull him from his brief trance.
Techton, returned fully to agreeableness, releases a raspy chuckle.
I am surprised that he is able to jest, under the circumstances. “You take this well,” I comment. “Surely you have not experienced something similar.”
“Nope. But this is what we’ve been leading up to, isn’t it?” he says, far too reasonable. “There’s nothing we can do now but watch and wait. Have a seat, Mistress. It’s out of our hands.”
He is correct. There is naught to be done now but to watch and wait. So that is what we do. Pedj sidles along a half-erect wall to gain a better watch on Mael, who stands alone staring absently and humming her song.
For an amassing of minutes, the sphinxes continue to crawl over the barren plains from some far off city and into the antiquated building torn asunder in days past. They surround the pillar. Awyer is lost in their crowd.
And then I see him. He begins his ascent, climbing the side of the pillar with ease, using the bricks there to hoist himself higher and higher. For a passing of time, he scales. Thunderous roaring continues to roll through the golden fog settled over everything. The crowd of shining faces below clamors.
Until Awyer reaches the top, at which point, the booming language ceases, and one voice rises above the rest.
“BOOOOOM!”
The Sphinx King, glowed brighter than the rest, speaks a word I do not know. But though it is foreign to my ears, Awyer understands. A quarter sphinx is enough. He opens his mouth to respond and,
“BOOOM! BOOM, BOOOM BOOOOOM?” His words are nothing but noise.
To Awyer, the Sphinx King responds a similar string of thunder.
But Awyer does not delight in whatever he has just been told. First shaking his head, he then gestures over the tops of his ancestors to someone standing at the back of the ruins. Defiantly, he gestures to ME.
“Awyer? What are you doing?” I mutter to myself, for he is too distant to hear.
The Sphinx King responds something louder than the pervious roars. Though it is loud, Awyer throws open his mouth to rebuke whatever has just been said by releasing an even more deafening,
“BOOOOOOOOOOM!”
“Does it look like they’re arguing to you?” says Techton when Awyer’s cry has ended.
Yes. I, too, had gotten that impression.
Back and forth they roar and shout, until at one point, the Sphinx King says something to appease my pactor. Awyer locks eyes again on mine, and gives one definitive nod, both defeated and accepting. I wish to flit to him. I wish to know what has agreed to!
I cannot.
Back tips his head, as out push his arms, as eyes glowing, a funnel of Amethyst releases from every part of his body.
“Here we go, Mistress,” says Techton. “Don’t forget to keep breathing.”
Surreal is the feeling of experiencing something I have experienced many times before. Surreal is that it is no longer hazy. It is crisp and clear and present.
“I suppose I should thank you for your role in this act,” I say to the man directly beside me, a man who is able to hear my words even in the absence of my preoccupied pactor.
To be heard and seen by everyone – the Land of Gold is truly a miraculous place.
“Don’t bother. You know why I agreed,” the Azurian responds, stroking his chin. “What can I say? When it comes down to it, there are only a few things a man really cares about.”
I wonder, is the same true of Awyer? There was once a time when I believed he cared for nothing.
But now is not the time to be wondering that. To the Azurian at my side, I bid,
“Whatever your motives, you are appreciated, Techton. You have my gratitude. Were it not for you, we would not even have made it beyond the Rise.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m sure your Amethyst boy would have found a way. Just look at him, Mistress. He is remarkable.”
With that, the smitten one slips away to join his lady.
I turn my attention to the center of the arena, where Awyer stands atop a pillar, encompassed in a funnel of Amethyst smoke. Soundless, the air around him rises, pushing the cloud higher and higher until there is nothing less than a direct line to the heavens.
From below him, a golden light shines, through which stoic faces are visible. One rises above the rest. Part man, part lion, the being offers a token to the deliverer that is Awyer.
But Awyer does not take the token. Instead, he instructs a person in the shadows to step forth.
I give a start.
That is not how it is meant to be. It is all, ALL wrong! Alas, when I try to cry out to him, a garbled voice at my back interrupts,
“He’s doing it for you, faerie. Just ask the necromancer.”
I look down the wall, where stands a girl of disconnected gaze. Mael, the true necromancer, has been warning me of this all along. Why did I not listen to her!? Now, because of me, Awyer will be . . .
The voice at my back begins to whistle.
The whistling person with the garbled voice . . . I may see them now. Finally, this person’s identity will be revealed! In a way I could not do within the shackles of forememory, I turn, expecting to see the being known as Ark.
Yes, I expect to see Ark.
But the creature my eyes fall upon is not Ark.
“You are . . . a naefaerie?” I say.
Aye, a silver woman stands at my back.
“At last we meet,” she says and her voice remains androgynous. “It seems that one’s warnings did no good. Disgrace. I told her time and again to warn you.”
That one. Where have I heard that before?
“Who are you?” I ask. “Are you . . . Awyer’s second . . .?” No, I cannot bring myself to ask.
The naefaerie is older than I. Unlike mine, her pact is destined to remain intact for decades. But despite her age, she is strikingly beautiful. Her hair is stained mid-eve gray like mine. Her body shines silver.
The naefaerie ignores my inquiry, instead saying, “You can’t understand them, can you, Grim? Do you want to know what they’re telling him?”
It is true: I cannot understand the language of the sphinxes. To me it sounds only like the clapping of thunder. But more pressingly, this naefaerie knows my name. She knows of Awyer. She was destined to stand behind me as I watched him upon his pedestal. Why? My head begins to spin. It spins and spins and my clarity of the moment is no more.
“A sleepness is coming,” she says. “It will take over anyone holding traces of human, sparing only those of us who are mythic.”
Mythic. A word I have not heard in a very, very long time. “A sleepness?” I repeat.
“A descent into void-driven, death-like slumber. The end of the sorcerer reign is coming.”
“What!? What do you mean?”
“The Vessel will crack, the sleepness will come, and your ward, who is three-quarters human, will succumb with the rest,” the naefaerie says.
“Of what falsity do you speak? It is ludicrous!”
“I speak the truth,” says the naefaerie. “The Thyst Glyph is a talisman with the ability to make the bearer whole. If your ward were to accept it, his human parts would die and he would live his days as a full-blooded sphinx. Why do you suspect he now refuses, instead offering it to that unfortunate creature?”
Unfortunate creature? I look away from the silver woman to see that the person in the shadows, to whom Awyer has offered his token, is none other than Pedj. Awyer is giving the Glyph to the zombie so that he might lose his necromanced parts?
But that is wrong! It is a token meant for Awyer!
“You are young, Grim. As young as your sphinx. Do you know why that is? His human parts are destined to die here. And along with them, his pact with you. He is destined to be reborn as a full sphinx, his reward for delivering Amethyst. If he were a mythic, he would not fall under the sleepness, but because of you, he’ll fall with the rest. You are his undoing.”
“He is foolish. He refuses the Glyph so that he can maintain a pact with me?”
I lament the decision! Awyer could very well have survived whatever calamity is coming! He could have lived his days as a respectable sphinx in this land!
“He deserves to know the truth before he decides!” I shout.
The naefaerie shakes her head sadly. “He knows. He has made his choice fully knowing. And it is your fault that he chooses this way. If he becomes a sphinx, he’ll never hold you again. This is what drives his decision.”
“I can repact with him, once he–”
“Even if he repacted with you after the transformation, he would never again love you. The sphinxes share a common emotional root. They would not allow it. Only Awyer’s human part is individual. The rest of him is connected to them. They feel as one. They unfeel as one. His soul honed itself birth after birth to become detached from their root. To become more human and less sphinx. Choosing sleepness with you over life without you is his choice.”
Even so, I cannot allow him to descend into voided slumber!
“DO NOT REJECT THIS GIFT! IT WILL MAKE YOU WHOLE!” As the Amethyst pours from my pactor into the heavens, I shriek a cry to the top of the pillar.
I am responded by roaring thunder. Though Awyer’s mouth moves, his words are not understood by any but his brethren. And then, as swiftly as frost biting the leaves, the deed is done. Pedj has made his way to the center of the mass and taken the token meant for Awyer from the golden paw of the Sphinx King.
I turn again to find the naefaerie, whose voice is neither male nor female. I wish to know who she is and how she came to be able to understand the language of the sphinxes. I wish to know what can be done to save Awyer!
But when I turn, the naefaerie, though her whistle lingers, is not to be found.
That tune – it is clearer now, than in my forememories.
I recognize it.
A tune I have heard many times before. The naefaerie whistles the tune of . . .
Atop the pillar, Amethyst continues to stream from my pactor. In the midst of many things happening at once, I swivel my neck to see Mael through the gold, but she is no longer in view. Techton now stands alone without his lady.
Pedj, who yet holds the sphinxes’ inactivated talisman, hobbles toward me, eyes wide and body shaking.
“ZOMBIE! THERE IS SOMETHING YOU MUST KNOW!”
Pedj pays me no mind. “You gotta do somethin’, agent! Did you hear him? Did you hear Ark’s voice?!”
Ark’s voice?
But I cannot worry about that just now. With the last of the Amethyst pouring from my pactor, so too does it leave me.
“AHHH!” I scream as the Amethyst is ripped from my body. To the ground, I crumple.
The thunder ceases. The funnel of Amethyst smoke ends. Awyer doubles over atop the pillar.
“AWYER!”
He looks to be in the same pain as I, alone atop the pillar. I must go to him! But I cannot even stand, let alone climb. My veins are depleted. I am powerless. But at least I exist. And I can still feel it. I remain bonded to Awyer by the tattooed shard on his shoulder.
Pedj pulls me to my feet and throws his open hand toward the top of the pillar. “LOOK!”
I see what he sees. The harrowing truth of what has materialized above the fray. My sphinx is suddenly no longer alone. The gray man now stands atop the pillar alongside him.
ARK!
“My brother mythics!” Though Ark’s voice is booming as thunder, his words are also undertoned in a way I can understand. Lucky for my head, the thunder masks their otherwise enticing sweetness.
He is as gray as the last time we met. From nose to foot, his garment gleams black. To the sphinxes, he shouts, “I said I’d get him to you, and I did. We will mourn his decision not to join us in this defining moment, but we should also rejoice! After millennia, Amethyst is again yours! You who saw the birth of the Vessel. You who may choose to destroy the Vessel.
“Together, we’ll put an end to man and its tiresome cycle of colors. Together, we will crack the Vessel. No longer will the world be run by Bloőd and Azure. From this day forth, the world will bend beneath the will of Gold and Void. I have tasted the void! And with its power, I have lived young since before the time of King Resh! When Gold and Void rule supreme, your immortality will commence, and you will again walk the earth without fear of death!”
Within his hand, a whip of black materializes, and a stench fills the air. The hair of the hellbeast, now powered by the souls of those depleted sorcerers from the altar, reeks stronger than ever before.
“What is he proceeding to do?!” I shout.
“Sorry, Mistress.” A hollow voice at my back speaks. “Everything’s a-changin’ now.”
I whirl around to find Mael beside the silver woman from before.
Eyes round, Pedj gives a yell. “HOT HECK!” And then he quietly disquiets. “So’s it’s true, Mael. You got suckered by an agent.”
Aye, the whistling tune of the naefaerie, the same whistle I heard from Ark at the Rise, is the tune I have heard many, many times before, emitting from the mouth of a vacant, humming girl.
“I can’t help but wonder . . . does your Amethyst boy have two?”
Techton was right. There was another naefaerie hanging around us. But it was not Awyer’s.
Chapter XXI: Mael
A shadow of some creature crosses over our path . . .
At our sides, shallow in the bank, there is a plopping noise . . .
I will observe the girl as she quietly babbles in her sleep . . .
A long shadow, one of the last for the day, passes over the hill.
During the midnight hour, Mael has a tendency to talk in her sleep. Random shadows have crossed our path. Noises and splashes and feelings of an invisible watcher.
And for just a moment – merely a single, measly moment – it almost feels as though there is someone else lying with us. Someone invisible.
“You got suckered, Mael,” says Pedj again.
“You knew!?” I lash at him.
“Hold up! I didn’t know! Started thinkin’ when I saw you was silver, is all. Told you before, Mael used to see things in the water.”
“Yes?” I pry.
“Well . . .” The zombie seeks to stall. “Being specific, she said she saw a . . . girl. A silver girl. I didn’t make the connection till . . .” Pedj takes a step backward, for I have become menacing. “I-it ain’t my fault!” he says, astutter. “What’s is, is I expected dark agents to be gray, like what Ark is! Not silver. Twig it?”
Do I ‘twig it’? Yes, things are beginning to add up, and their sum is nothing to take lightly. Rather, it
is heavy. Heavier than I am prepared to carry along with the weight of my own heavy heart.
How the necromancer managed to ball her fists and form a spell with such reflex is remarkable.
The necromancer has been pacted. This whole time, disconnected Mael has been bonded to one of my kin.
She appears to be lost in thought while intently staring into the space just to the left of where she stands.
A naefaerie has been telling her what to do and where to go, and probably even what to say. Ensecré, Techton, everything. They are not Mael’s forememories that have revealed Awyer’s futures. It is only owing to the forememories of Mael’s warden that she has been driven at all. Mael is a tool.
Not that she appears to notice.
“Chast found me when I was a kipper,” says the pacted girl. “She shows me things in the water. She showed me how to get Ower to gold.” Mael swings her head from side to side, as though dancing to an unheard song. “Was my job to make sure you didn’t distract Ower from gettin’ here, Mistress Grim. Chast said we was supposed to make sure Ower turned sphinx. We kept tryin’ to warn you not to let him love you. Knew he’d say ‘naw’ to their offer if he did. Now he’s gonna descend with the rest.”
Pedj cannot believe his half-dead ears. While he studies his cousin with jaw-dropped disbelief, I look to the girl’s warden. “Chast, is it? What interest have you in Awyer becoming sphinx?”
“The gold of the world would be stronger if he’d join,” the silver woman responds. “Ark wants him to join, so I wanted him to join.”
“Why?”
“Ark is my true master. His will is my will. You have tasted it, haven’t you? His intoxicating aura? His power is another power completely. One you will also know, in time. He breathes through me, as he will soon breathe through you. He will fill you with supple void if you’ll let him.”
