by RJ Crayton
She nodded.
“Are you sure you did it right? I mean, why hasn’t he died? Why have I spent all this time in hiding?”
“Frankly, it’s not a spell I should have been doing, and I just didn’t believe he would actually hurt her,” Yaritza said. She sucked in a breath and wiped a tear from her eye. “I was wrong, though. And he didn’t die because of the Talisman. A shared fate spell doesn’t work immediately. That’s part of the spell. You know what’s coming. A glyph will appear shortly after your spell of harm has commenced. It tells the spell caster they are subject to shared fate. It’s a chance for them to repent, to reverse the spell, to fix things and make them right.”
“You can’t unkill someone,” I said.
She gave a pained sigh. “I know, but he would have had time to get to the Talisman and use it.”
“How?”
“The talisman has the power to cure any illness,” she said plainly and then looked down at her hands. “Zygam and I spent a lot of time talking about it, after Idris became sick. I helped him do research, gave him access to Master Hinto’s private library. There were references to a talisman that could forestall death — so long as the person breathed at all, the talisman could cure them. The reference books tended to believe this talisman was lost forever, but Zygam thought it was Elpida. If he was right, then he has the ability. When he left the temple, when he went after your mother, he had the Talisman with him. Even if he didn’t have control over it entirely, if he was able to tap into even a bit of its power, then he would be able to stave off the effects of the shared fate spell.”
“And you think he did that?”
She nodded. “It’s the only explanation,” she said, her voice low and bitter.
“But how long will that work?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t have thought it would have lasted this long, but it has. And maybe he’s employed moon magic, as well. We’re not taught the intricacies of it here, but moon magic delves more deeply into such things. For those who are called to moon magic, death is not a necessary end. Many who worship the moon don’t feel life has to have a sunset. I know when Idris became sick, Zygam looked for many cures in places he shouldn’t have. I believe he found some answers in moon magic that we don’t condone here at Hakari Ahet. A combination of those two things has led him to stay alive and to seek you out. I mean, you’re his only hope at this point. If you can help him harness the power of the Talisman, you can cure him for good.”
I shook my head. If he was doomed to die, I would do nothing to help. Not after what he’d done to my mother. “If we do nothing, will the spell eventually overtake him?”
Yaritza smiled and shook her head. “I have done nothing for the last ten years, thinking as you have, that eventually he would be overcome. That has not happened. And now he has Akilah. Pylum tells me she may be able to control the Talisman, too. So, no, I do not think waiting will help. The time for doing nothing is over.”
That was true. “I guess that’s why Pylum is so intent on getting the talisman back.”
Master Yaritza breathed out and looked around. “I never told him,” she said.
I leaned in. “Never told him what?”
“I never told anyone what I helped Tima perform a shared fate spell,” she whispered.
I didn’t understand. “Why not?”
She shook her head. “Tima asked me not to tell anyone. I promised her I wouldn’t reveal what we’d done.”
I shook my head. “Why not?”
She closed her eyes, took in another breath. “Because the spell is frowned upon. Also, because I thought he’d eventually die, that the Talisman wouldn’t keep death at bay this long. I suppose you could say I held out hope that Tima and I had done something right. But clearly the Talisman is as strong in healing as the older books suggest it is.”
She closed her mouth suddenly, lifted her head slightly and looked behind me. I turned, following her gaze, to see Pylum and Auntie strolling in.
“Kady,” Auntie said, a smile on her weary face. “I’m so glad to see you.”
I smiled back at her. “Me too,” I said. “I’m ready. I want you to unlock my memories.”
Chapter 20 - The Secret
Akilah sat with closed eyes on the floor of the temple hallway, outside of the room that held Elpida. Zygam still hadn’t given her full access to the stone, even though she wanted to hold it again. He said it was important they figure out how to make it whole before she used it again. She wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with that. But she wasn’t in a position to argue, either.
Zygam had saved her from Pylum. He had restored her memories, and she owed him. But she still yearned for Elpida. She could feel its power sitting here, and she relished in the warm glow it created within her.
“Master Akilah,” a voice said, and Akilah opened her eyes. It was Erik. He was a mage here at the moon temple, and he was a close confidante of Zygam’s. Despite the fact that she hadn’t completed the training for it, Zygam had introduced her to the temple residents as Master Akilah, a mage who would help them with their quest to provide order and justice in the world through the talisman. She hadn’t expected the people of the moon temple to have order and justice as their goals. But she suspected their ideas of order and justice were different than the ideas of order and justice at Hakari Ahet.
“Lord Zygam would like to see you,” Erik said. He was pale with dark hair, and he spoke with a bit of a lisp. He seemed to be a Northlander, like Zygam, though the temple wasn’t brimming with Northlanders. There were more than you’d find in most places of the Midlands, for sure, but she saw many people that resembled the hues of the Midlands, as well. Still, Zygam’s most trusted mages seemed to have hailed from the Northland.
Akilah smiled. “Yes,” she said, standing up. “I’ll go to him now. Is he in his chamber?”
“No,” Erik said as he shook his head. “I’ll take you to him.”
Akilah raised an eyebrow, but said nothing else. She wondered if Erik was taking her to Zygam’s secret place. He’d been disappearing, but Akilah wasn’t sure where. She believed in giving people their own space. Plus, she had been trying to get used to this new temple. It was so dark. Akilah had been given a room here, but little responsibility. It was a bit dull. So far, she’d worked on a few glyphs, and she’d spoken to a mage named Kimani, who was the glyphs master. He’d taught her a thing or two about moon glyphs, but nothing she felt comfortable enough with to put into practice.
Erik led her down the dark hallways in silence. After they’d walked for several minutes, Akilah asked, “Is it much further?”
“Not much,” he replied, his tone low and words clipped.
Akilah followed. She disliked Erik. He was stooped when he walked and had a strange closed-offness about him. When she’d asked him how he’d met Zygam, he’d said, with a sadistic glint in his eye, “He helped me with my family problems.” It had given her the shivers at the time, and even now, she felt apprehensive following him to some unknown location. Though he seemed loyal enough to Zygam that she didn’t believe he’d upset Zygam by misleading her. As she walked a step behind Erik, she wondered if Zygam’s disappearances or this secret location had something to do with the Talisman of Elpida.
Ever since she’d been here, the Talisman had spoken with her. It sounded like an odd notion, the Talisman speaking. But it wasn’t as if was speaking specific words to Akilah. It was more feelings. Thanks to the stone’s whispers — glimpses, really — Akilah knew now why Zygam had searched so long for Kady, why he hadn’t given up and lived his life without the talisman. Akilah had thought it was obsession, at first, but this was more than obsession. This was survival.
The Talisman had connected with Kady before, and it had connected with Zygam. There was something wrong with him and he was using the Talisman to stay well. He wanted it to heal him, but it couldn’t. Not when it wasn’t whole. Not when it needed a more powerful mage to ch
annel its power.
The Talisman was helping Zygam. He was tapping into part of its power, but he’d need full use of it to be well. She had gotten that much from being here near the stone. It had somehow conveyed this information to her, but not more.
Zygam wasn’t as powerful as he pretended to be, but he was powerful enough to use the stone to some degree. She could respect someone who the stone had allowed to tap into its power. Elpida was sensitive. She didn’t need to read prophecies or study to learn this. She could feel it. She had memories of it. Elpida had killed her father. Killed him dead when he sought to use its power, deciding within an instant that he wasn’t worthy.
An unworthy mage could never use Elpida. The fact that Zygam had been able to connect with it at all was a feat worthy of respect.
But it still didn’t explain his absences. He would disappear, porting somewhere within the temple. At least, she thought so. He was the head of the temple, so he could likely port directly out to where he wanted to go. Yet, Zygam seemed a bit like Pylum. He left the temple grounds to port outside it. When he mentioned attending to business, he seemed to be porting inside this temple.
They finally arrived at a location that was on one of the lower levels of the temple. It was small, and it reminded Akilah a bit of a light room. The walls were a light gray, similar to the uppermost levels of the temple, rather than the dark obsidian of most of the levels. “What is this place?” she asked Erik.
He smiled at her. “Lord Zygam will explain. I will leave you now, Master Akilah.”
Erik exited the room, leaving Akilah alone. She frowned. She’d just followed a mage she didn’t like on a circuitous route and he’d now abandoned her in a strange room, even though he’d promised to take her to Zygam. She considered leaving, but thought it best to give it a minute.
A few moments later, the wall in front of her began to bubble, as if it were boiling, and then a large bubble appeared in the center, and it took form: the outline of a person. A featureless person. Seconds later, Zygam emerged from the bubble, the wall melting away from him as if it were liquid, but then forming solidly again behind him.
Akilah tried not to gasp, but she’d never seen anything like that before. “What was that?”
“A doorway,” Zygam said, plainly.
“A doorway to where?”
He shook his head. “That isn’t your concern at the moment,” he said. “But I do need you to know this is here. I need you to know at least this much of my secret.”
“Your secret?”
“Yes,” he said. “You know more of it than anyone else here knows. I can sense that you’ve connected with the Talisman. You know I need it.”
Akilah saw no reason in lying. She nodded.
“Well, there is more to things than just me needing the Talisman. I need what is behind this doorway, as well. It is what will help Kadirah join our cause.”
Akilah laughed. Not a little laugh, but a downright belly laugh. “There is nothing that will get Kady to join you,” Akilah said. “She hates you, Zygam. You took her aunt.”
“I know,” he said.
“You killed her mother.”
“I know everything I have done,” he said. “And I can assure you that Kady will join us.”
Akilah stared at him, and she could tell that he was deadly serious. Nothing in his face hinted that he was delusional, even though he had to be to think Kady would join them. “We don’t need Kadirah,” she said. “Once we make the Talisman whole, we can use it. We can bring order and justice. Isn’t that what you want here?”
Zygam smiled. “We do want that here,” he said. “The mages of the moon temple are people all like you, like me, people who have been mistreated by the world, by those who should have helped us, by those who could have helped us, yet chose not to. Pylum chose to trick you instead of being honest. My brother and I were hunted when we were younger. Thought to be devils from the Northlands. And Erik,” he shivered and shook his head. “His is a tale of woe that is not mine to disclose, but he deserves justice. We all deserve justice for the wrongs done to us.”
Akilah nodded, though a little voice in the back of her mind suggested it was vengeance these people sought, not justice. “The Talisman will help us get that. We can bring justice and order. We don’t need Kady for that.”
He bit down on his lower lip. “You are right that we do not need Kadirah. You, I believe, I am certain, actually, are capable of fully harnessing the power of Elpida. But Kadirah is my family. And even in the short time you have known her, she has become your friend. Pylum portrays me as some wicked man who wants nothing but darkness. Yet, it’s not true, Akilah. I want my family, and Kadirah is my family. She is my niece, the only remnant I have left of the brother I loved so dearly. I want her to be a part of this new world. Just as I am sure that you would like your family to be a part of the new world. Aren’t there people at Hakari Ahet whom you would like to join us here? Aren’t there people you want to include?”
Akilah had a flash of Jasper. He’d been her first real friend at the temple, even if she had ended up pushing him away more than she should have. “Of course there were people at Hakari Ahet who meant something to me.”
Zygam stretched out a hand. “Come,” he said. “I will show you what is in the room, and then we can discuss retrieving your family.”
“My family?”
“Yes,” he said.
Chapter 21 - Uncle
Auntie and I had gone down to an alshams room.
“This is a good choice, Kady,” she said. “No one can eavesdrop on your thoughts in here. It is completely private. You can experience your memories in complete privacy.”
I nodded, though I still felt pale and a tad stricken. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the Dirah who loved Zygam more than her own mother.
Auntie had motioned for me to take a seat on the cushion. She sat next to me and scooped one of my hands into hers. “When memories are unlocked, it can be painful,” she said softly. “It generally hurts a lot. Your brain has to take the memories that were locked away and reintegrate them, try to put them in the right spot in your mind.”
I nodded my understanding. I’d seen the pain on Akilah’s face when Zygam had unlocked her memories. The thought of that didn’t hasten my desire to do this.
“I’m sorry,” Auntie said.
I looked up at her. “For what?”
She squeezed my hand tighter. “For having done this to you,” she said, then closed her eyes. “For having to undo this to you. I know it will be hard.”
I tried to offer a reassuring smile. “It’s not your fault. I saw my mother’s last memory on the crystal. It was pretty clear that I wouldn’t leave him. You did what was right.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s easy for you, and I’m sorry.” She gave my hand a final squeeze and said, “We should start.”
“Does it take long?”
She shook her head. “No, but it will feel very powerful when it happens, and it’s not the memories that come back first. It’s the emotions. Those are the strongest parts of our memories. It’s not the details, but how we felt about a time or a situation, so the feelings you have will be intense and they’ll mostly be affectionate toward Zygam.”
I swallowed hard at that. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but there was nothing I could do about it. I nodded.
“On the bright side, as your memories come back, they’ll be clear and unimpeded. Usually, our memories fade over time or we forget such early memories altogether. Because I locked them, they are preserved and pristine, so they will come back with great detail. But not all at once. You’ll get the most significant ones first. Over the next few days, the rest will emerge. Once the lock is broken, your brain needs time to repair the break I made, to reintegrate memories in the spots they’re supposed to be.”
I bit my lower lip. “So, I won’t remember everything?”
She shook her head. “Not initially. Just the most visceral, primary memories
. Those will show themselves immediately. And as time passes, you’ll get more. Usually, within a couple of weeks, everything lost will return to you.”
A couple of weeks. That seemed too long. It was longer than we had. Pylum said Zygam would come here in ten days. And that was two days ago. We were now down to eight. And I still hadn’t learned anything that would help defend against Zygam. Though, perhaps this was all I needed to know. Perhaps everything I would need to defeat him was locked inside of me.
“Get comfortable,” Auntie said. “Close your eyes, relax, and remember that I love you.”
I smiled. That was something I could never forget.
I closed my eyes, and a moment later, the pain was blinding. It felt as if someone was stabbing needles into my brain. So many sharp, cold needles. I grabbed my head and lay down. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard Auntie whisper, “The pain will end soon.”
Her voice was soothing, but I was one hundred percent sure she was wrong. This was not the kind of paint that could end. The needles, once lodged in my mind, felt like they extended to knives, and literally sliced sections of my brain open. Like they were dicing cabbage for slaw. It was the worst pain I had ever felt, and it seemed unending. Every knife blade reverberated as it sliced through my mind. It was cruel and cold and so painful. I could feel the ache in the back of my eyes, in my ear drums, at the base of my skull. And it seemed to be growing, not lessening. Growing worse and worse every second.
I moaned. I could tell I was trying to force the pain out with the moans, but it was useless. I think auntie was speaking, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Was she telling me again that it would be over soon? It wasn’t ending. I wondered if she’d done it wrong. Had she made a mistake in trying to unlock my mind?
I didn’t think I could take much more, and then it stopped. Every ounce of pain went away, and it felt like heaven. I felt warmth and relief and peace. I could feel my entire body relax, the peace of all of the pain stopping.
