“There is a storm building. And it is really dark. We need to get out of here. I have no clue where we are. Considering you brought us here, I am hoping you do. We need to find some shelter while we wait out the storm.”
“What?” I repeated, only half of her words managing to penetrate. She was extremely patient and repeated what she said at a higher volume. I finally understood. I propped myself up and looked around. What light there had been had disappeared. Flashes of lightning lit up the place in a spooky tableau, a different perspective each time. We were a few minutes away from a heavy thunderstorm. I quickly got up, trying to clear the cobwebs with a few vigorous shakes of the head. “My friends have a cottage nearby. If we hurry, we can be there before the rain starts. Let’s go.”
It was rough terrain ahead and I offered her my hand. She raised an eyebrow. Right. That kind of conversation I could do without. I started walking down the path I knew would lead to the cottage. She followed me wordlessly.
It was a hard trek through some heavy undergrowth and over the occasional moss covered rock. I did not turn back though. If the girl needed help, let her ask for it. I was not going to let her have the satisfaction of raising her hoity-toity eyebrow at me again. Almost vindictively, I set a fast pace, jumping from spot to spot, rushing through the heavy foliage. The weather was a legitimate excuse. I wanted to see just how tough this girl was.
She was tough; very tough. She kept up with me right through. At a point where we had to trek upwards for a while, I ran out of breath very fast. Smoker’s lungs! But caught in my own game, I had to keep going, though I almost killed myself doing so. Pride does often go before a fall. It went pretty spectacularly. I tripped and fell, rolling down a steep slope, hitting every tree and bush on the way. I bumped and bounced and rolled until I reached a convenient ditch. This time the agony was very real. I had broken my foot.
Dew rushed to the spot, a look of genuine concern on her face. She saw the state I was in, and soon that look was replaced with complete exasperation. I could not blame her. I had got us into a complete fix. And somewhere in that crazy rush, I had gone the wrong way. I had no clue where we were. I was in no state to go exploring either. I made a wry face and offered a rather pathetic sounding ‘sorry’.
On cue, really fat raindrops started coming down in a rush. The storm was upon us.
CHAPTER 12
Discovering the Wordscapist
They were there, they say
They saw him do all that he did
They saw him be all that he was
They know him well, they say
And now it’s time to think
How well do you know them?
Amra
Silvus had done a good job on the teleport. We could not fix a destination. But I was not overly concerned about that. With an all-points alert out for his scape signature, we would know the moment he used his gift. The CCC would have a fix on his location and my teams would make their way to whatever hole he had dug for himself. The problem with Silvus was that he was smart enough to anticipate this and use other wordsmiths. I had anticipated that too, and had put alerts on the signatures of all the wordsmiths he was likely to use for weaving in case he tried to go norm for a while.
Once I had completed the more obvious measures, I began to look around for other ways to track him down. I remembered what he had told me about the scape. If he had not been weaving a tale to save his scape-enhanced arse, he would ideally be going all out on that task, trying to get Sign off his back before he tried anything else. I needed to know more about this Wordscapist story. I was one of the CCC authorities on wordsmith lore, and I had trouble believing that there was any truth to this piece of wordsmith fantasy. But if there was, then there was only one place where I could get definitive information. It was a long shot, but it was probably the only way I could know this for sure. I called the Morgue and asked for a meeting with the Lirus Liaison.
Getting information out of a Lirus was usually much more difficult than going about finding it yourself. The Lirii were mystics who had all-seeing vision into the Continuum; past, present and future. Asking them about the future was pretty pointless because they could see every possibility the future held, irrespective of whether it happened or not; more importantly, not even the Supreme Yen Master had been able to convince them to give a future prediction. They believed that such information was meant to be masked and should not be given to those who did not have the vision, as it could do irrevocable damage to the Continuum. However, I needed information on the past; on everything that existed on the Wordscapist. I needed to know what Silvus had tried. It was going to take some doing, but given the circumstances I think I could convince them to provide the information I required. It was an optimistic assumption, given that all three requests for information I had submitted in the past had been rejected without even a chance of pleading my case. I barely had time to think through alternatives before I received a message that my request for a meeting had been accepted. I was given the time slot and teleport coordinates. I checked the synch clock on my desk to figure out what time that translated to in London. This was a lot bigger than I realised. The Lirii couldn’t meet me soon enough. Well, all the more reason to hurry! I quickly made my way to the teleport centre.
I had read a lot about the Lirii in my training, especially the case histories that had been produced to provide evidence. That was another thing. A Lirus was never a witness; a Lirus was always evidence. But you had to convince the buggers to talk. I was finally on my way to a personal audience with the Lirus Liaison. Considering most Yen had not been granted one in their considerable lifetimes, I guess I was lucky.
I reached the teleport centre and provided them with the coordinates. The techies were a bit taken aback once they figured out where the cryptic numbers pointed to. “You sure about this?” one of the baby-faced button pushers asked me. I nodded tersely; I hated being questioned. He shrugged and set up the system, muttering to himself. A few minutes later, I was in the chamber. I closed my eyes and let the teleport take me to whatever place the Lirii wanted me to reach.
I gave the feeling of uneasiness that came with a teleport a moment to pass and opened my eyes. I was in a small glass enclosure. It looked like a regular office cubicle, big enough to hold about six to eight people. It was furnished with an oval table and four chairs. Only, no office cubicle had ever been constructed in a location like this. This enclosure sat all by itself on the summit of a snow-covered mountain. As I walked along the walls, I could see the mountain fall away steeply on all sides. There were similar mountains all around me. I was in the Andes or the Himalayas. I wondered how they had managed this. I could make out violent winds and snow flurries outside, but not a sound came in. And the temperature was pleasant too. There was the sharp sound of a teleport. I turned around and saw a tall, well-built man dressed in a business suit. He had long white hair that fell to his shoulders, though his face was youthful. The suit was very expensive, but could not quite hide the sheer musculature lying beneath it. I was not sure how one went about greeting a Lirus. The man made things easy for me and came forward and shook my hand, at the same time laying the briefcase he carried on the table. His hand felt incredibly smooth, like there were no lines or marks on them. I tried not to stare at his eyes, which were a glowing purple. I recognized his appearance as an illusion. Perhaps this was the closest he could get to a human appearance. I wondered about the ‘he.’
He sat down and motioned me to do the same. I wondered if he would talk. Presently, he did, right in my head. “We have been expecting you, Amra. You are six hours overdue. You should have thought of us the moment the Mastersmith told you about the Wordscapist scape. We have your report ready. The information is for your eyes only, though you are allowed to send excerpts to your Yen in the report that you will inevitably compile. I would recommend you start reading up immediately. It is extremely crucial that you act on our recommendations provided at the end of the report with immedi
ate effect. Any delay in this matter could prove highly detrimental to the Continuum. I am afraid we can only give you information up to two hours before the present, but it should be helpful in finding the party you need to hunt down.”
“Silvus?” I asked, speaking aloud, surprised that the Lirii would want him apprehended as much as I.
The man gave me a look that might have been scorn. He continued speaking telepathically, “Silvus is inconsequential. Do not waste any more time on him. Set your sights on the Wordscapist. Once you have read the report you will realise the urgency of the matter. Go in peace, Amra.” Abruptly, the man rose and turned around and disappeared, the air warping to teleport him wherever he needed to go.
That was abrupt. I sat there staring at the briefcase, the surreal nature of the situation beginning to hit me. I did not know what to make of all this. I had asked for a teleport window every half-hour starting an hour after I got there. It was hardly 10 minutes since I had reached this strange place. I guessed I was stuck here for a while. I opened the briefcase and pulled out the report. It was compiled in a folder very much like a business report would be. I settled back in my chair and started reading.
***
A few hours later, the teleport window came on and stayed on, glowing red to indicate that it was the last window in the sequence. I had missed all the others. In a daze, I closed the folder and put it back in the briefcase. I could not recollect going through the teleport or, later, driving back home. I had absorbed more information than I could handle.
Home was as orderly as ever, but it did not have the calming effect it usually had on me. Each time I stepped in I would feel the chaos of the outside world recede, leaving me with my thoughts and my space. But this time, the contents of the report continued to spin around in my head. I went through the motions, changing into comfortable clothes, jacking my quirt to its charging dock and checking the answering machine. I made my way to the workout room for the session I put myself through each time I came back home. The workout room was equipped with a large assortment of boxing bags, speed-bags and combat marionettes; stuff that I could use to vent all the angst of the day. I stood and stared at the room for a while. I decided that I was too drained to go through the routine and left my room, heading for the kitchen.
I made myself a cup of coffee, black as hell and strong enough to clear the cobwebs. I made my way to my study and settled with the report. I went through it again, checking I had got it right. It was a Lirii report and undoubtedly accurate and incorruptible. But it still sounded like the most fantastic Wordscapist conspiracy theory I had ever heard. There was a lot of information and only about ten percent correlated to what I knew. The rest of it was a revelation. The Wordscapist was not merely a legend. He was one of the most powerful wordsmiths ever - Alain de Vorto - a name that no living wordsmith knew about, and that was buried under tomes of dead wordsmiths.
Alain de Vorto had been born into a wordsmith family in the early 11th century. He had been everything a wordsmith would have wanted his son to be; gifted, obedient and hardworking. However, in his twenty first year, De Vorto disappeared. Where he went, public archives did not record. He was presumed dead and his family mourned his passing. His ordinary life and mysterious death were duly noted by the Historians of the time, who were not privy to the all-seeing vision granted to the Lirii.
De Vorto did not die. He merely went underground to live the life he had been weaving into existence. No other living person ever saw or heard from De Vorto after that. However, the life he lived created a legend; the greatest legend of the Way of the Word. He had chosen a path that was obscure and invisible, working with reality away from the eyes of his fellow wordsmiths. He had created scapes that were far beyond anything that the Guild, even collectively, was capable of executing. The Continuum Surveillance had not yet been deployed for Earth. De Vorto had gotten away with scapes that would have resulted in a cross-reality manhunt in the present day. And it probably would have taken a team of Yen Masters to hunt him down, had such a manhunt been called. De Vorto knew exactly what he should and should not do to keep from being discovered. His scapes were huge, but they were linked to natural phenomena that created enough energy to disguise his work. The results twisted the very definition of reality, but managed to blend into mankind’s strangely twisted folklore. He was the toymaker in the background who created dreams and nightmares that ran like clockwork and became one with the stream of humanity. His deeds were hidden in the muddy trail left by all that he wreaked. A legend was born of deeds that were beyond the skills and capabilities of any other wordsmith. The legend never had a face though. Simply a title - Wordscapist.
The report on Alain de Vorto was incredible to say the least. What the man had accomplished was beyond imagination. There were traces of scapes in his very existence, showing that he had woven his very life and being into whatever he wanted it to be. He had lived for a couple of centuries, his life clearly enhanced way beyond mortal limits. And then suddenly, he had disappeared from the Continuum itself. The Lirus report showed traces of a scape that might have created an extended suspended state. Alain de Vorto had put himself to sleep, and had probably planned how he would wake up and when. Silvus had thrown a spanner in that plan with his crazy scape.
Silvus, in all his arrogance, had not created an entity like he believed. He had merely woken up something that had been sleeping for many centuries. He had managed to capture De Vorto’s essence as an entity and had then lost it when Sign attacked. This entity was set loose without a body, and had ended up with a boy who was nothing more than a mere cipher. Without realizing it, Silvus had got extremely lucky when the scape went wrong. The entity who was none other than Alain de Vorto, would have wiped out Silvus’s mind and then taken over. Now he would do the same to the boy he had chosen as his destination.
I sat back and wondered what Alain de Vorto had intended to accomplish with all the Continuum screwing that he had done. He had left scars on the Continuum that were visible to this day. His goal was obscure; indiscernible in the pattern that the Lirii had drawn. There had to be a bigger plan with one so gifted. There had to be a purpose. All the Lirii could record were events. They could not capture thoughts.
What Silvus had released was pure power. It could tear all of reality to pieces if it so wished. Alain de Vorto was everything the legend of the Wordscapist was ever imagined to be and more. And now, he was back in this world. I had to find the boy and execute him before De Vorto completely took over his consciousness. Silvus would have to wait.
I abandoned the coffee and went to my console. I had to compose a message to send to the Yen. Something of this magnitude had to be reported. I hoped that I would be able to clean up the mess before the Yen team came. But for once, I could be out of my league. The Wordscapist was going to be a tough nut to crack.
The Historian
I took some time to go away quietly to a corner and have a bout of hysterics. I laughed and laughed till I cried. It took me a couple of minutes to compose myself and come back to the neutral, emotionless Historian that everyone expected me to be. When I was done, I quietly came back to the tent.
The scene was eerily reminiscent of the devastation I had witnessed in the Galapagos. The Healer was back to muttering. Akto was still out cold. Chains had recovered and was moodily sitting in a corner, holding a kerchief to his jaw. Gaia was breathing now, though she was still unconscious. Zauberin looked exhausted and extremely shaken. There was no sign of Isis and Wind. Neither were Lonigan and Necros anywhere to be seen.
I started packing up my equipment. In all probability, Zauberin would ask me to delete the last half hour’s proceedings. She would not want the glorious history of the Free Word revolution marred by records of a mere boy upstaging an entire warren of powerful Free wordsmiths. I could not help wondering at the boy’s methods. They were markedly non-violent and ridiculous even, given the sheer effort it must take to achieve the results. The double teleport where he had sent
away Isis and Wind was unheard of, and would have killed any other wordsmith trying it. I guessed the gift had allowed him to get away with it. I could think of a dozen other ways in which he could have neutralised them with much less effort. What I could not understand was the sheer transformation the boy had undergone during the interrogation, especially towards the end when Gaia had started the mindscape. It was like there had been a different person standing there. I wondered what had happened. But then, these things were complex and beyond the understanding of mere mortals and historians. I resolved to try and get Zauberin to talk about it when she was in a better state. Right then, she looked like a corpse warmed over. She was leaning back against one wall of the tent, her head in her hands, taking deep breaths. I could see her mutter, probably a spell to re-energise herself after the draining experience of fighting the mindscape set loose in Gaia’s mind.
I had just about finished with the equipment, thinking of going and getting myself a chilled mug of beer when the Kid came into the tent. He held a circle of warped air that glowed a midnight blue, a warp I recognised very well. I remembered that he had been sent to summon Sign. He had brought her back!
I felt my blood chilling. The last thing I needed was another confrontation with the murderous elemental. I could still remember the casual way she had killed Jimmy Sau with a mere touch, and Silvus’s petrified expression when she bent close to him. I could see Zauberin look up as the Kid probably sent her a telepathic missive. Her expression was pure terror! She had called Sign to deliver the Wordscapist unto her. Now, she had nothing at all to show. Also, she had used her gift to heal Gaia. Sign had warned the three of them to not use their gifts for anything but hunting the Wordscapist. I considered getting the hell out of that damned tent. Only, it was too late. The sphere of warped air expanded to take on a shape that I could no more think of as beautiful. Sign came forward, that deadly smile on her lips as she looked at Zauberin, the most powerful wordsmith of the Free Word, trembling with fear.
Wordscapist: The Myth (The Way of the Word Book 1) Page 19
