From the darkness of the Void the two mist-cloaked silhouettes lengthened their strides and followed the Old Road toward humanity’s northernmost outpost: the Last Spellbound House.
Pyke nodded as Vino continued to describe the strange whorls of power emanating invisibly outward from the House’s walls and across the grounds. It appeared the man had mastered the use of a Relic capable of tracing the flow of magic, one which was primarily useful in locating and navigating places of power. Regrettably, it seemed the device wasn’t capable of finding other Relics: such objects normally didn’t possess any stored power of their own, so didn’t register with it.
Behind Pyke and to one side, Wolder grumbled to Merana, “This Ash-cursed Antiquarian’s been listening to Vino jabber for almost two hours. We don’t have to stand for this.”
“I like my remainin’ eye right where it is,” Merana whispered back viciously, her voice too quiet for any ear less practiced than Pyke’s to overhear. “Or don’t ya remember how I lost the other one? We wait the hours, even if it takes ‘im another twelve.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Pyke stood and pulled his cloak from the back of his chair. “I believe I’ve heard what I needed from your learned colleague.”
The compliment was a platitude, of course. As far as Pyke could tell, Vino perfectly fit the stereotype of the average Risker: reckless; willing to learn by experimentation on themselves and those around them; and totally unaware of the danger their dabbling posed to all involved.
Pyke hadn’t cut Vino off for lack of interest. At least thirty of the past hundred-odd minutes of questions had been aimed at teasing out the results of Vino’s experimentation on this place. Pyke suspected the Risker wouldn’t be able to resist divulging his findings, not if he believed he were speaking to a kindred spirit.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Vino—”
“But I feel like I’m ab-about to find the secret, I, uh,” Vino gushed, tripping over his words in his haste to finish the thought. “The pattern seems to lead to—”
“Vino,” Eiten interjected, and despite the smooth calm of the man’s voice, Vino paled as though he had suffered some great fright. “I believe our guest has told us he’s heard enough.”
Pyke noted that Eiten had yet to remove his hood, despite the warm air of the crowded room. “Thank you, Mr. Eiten,” Pyke replied with an attempt at a friendly smile in Vino’s direction, “But a good Antiquarian is always open to the conclusions of his peers. Please, continue.”
“I, uh…” Vino’s gaze darted to Eiten. “It was nothing. Just a passing thought. I’m… I’m done.”
Then I’d best maintain a healthy respect for Eiten. If his compatriots are frightened of him, I’d hate to see the threat the man might pose to an enemy.
“You’re certain? Very well.” Pyke had decided Vino was no longer likely to divulge his findings… at least, not intentionally. Pyke had a plan for that. “To show the good will of the Antiquities Guild, I’ll be happy to hold up my end of our bargain. Show me your ailing Relic.”
At a nod from Merana, Vino reached beneath his cloak for a case made of hardened leather and, opening it, handed over a brightly polished circlet of solid silver metal. The ornament was decorated all the way around its outer surface with intricate, etched channels which interconnected like a neverending maze. The ends, if placed on a person’s head, would come to rest pointing towards each other near the centre of the wearer’s forehead, framing the location Antiquarians called the ‘third eye.’
As I expected: it hasn’t been cared for properly. The method of repair?
Pyke resumed his seat and drew from his pack a box containing a set of jeweller’s tools, grateful once again for his early training in the crafting and repair of fine ornaments. From amongst the tools he withdrew a cutting implement and a set of glasses with several magnifying lenses attached to the frame. Donning the spectacles, Pyke flipped the jeweller’s lenses down such that they overlaid one another and granted him a close view of the Relic’s surface.
With singleminded focus, Pyke began to correct the miniscule errors wear and mishandling had inflicted on the intricate channels. Time passed, though Pyke was barely conscious of it. Distantly, some instinct of self-preservation made him aware of Vino’s fascinated gaze fixed on him. Aside from that, all other sensations vanished into nonexistence while he worked.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity of rapt attention to detail, Pyke emerged into conventional reality, a sense of joy filling his heart and mind. His head ached and his jaw was stiff from clenching… or maybe from smiling?... but Pyke hadn’t felt so fulfilled since the day his guild had tasked him with uncovering the secrets of the Relic he called the Lock and Key. He had spent three days shut away in his chambers with only the Relic, a chamberpot, and a large jug of water, but he had repaired it when no one else could.
Pyke stood, his legs protesting after such a long time of stillness, and he held the circlet out to Vino, beaming. “The repair… is complete. She was… an honour to work with.” Pyke’s voice didn’t seem fully willing to co-operate with the instructions his mind was sending it.
Vino failed to contain a responding grin as he ran his hands over the ornament, inspecting the new changes with a gentle touch. “Y’know, you Antiquarians might not be so bad. Thank you, sir, thank you.”
“All right, Vino,” Merana barked, “If yer done cooin’ over that thing like it’s yer firstborn, it’s past time we were goin’.”
The Relic-seekers swept out of the room at what seemed a swift pace to Pyke. It took him some time to return to himself, and he almost failed to recall that the next step in his plan required him to act quickly. Shaking himself in an attempt to banish his dazed sense of well-being, Pyke hurried out of the side room and down the corridor toward the dining hall.
It was quieter now. Out of the hundreds of people who had been here earlier, only a few were still at each of the long tables, sipping drinks, consulting maps, or flipping through old books. As Pyke started to cross the room, he walked headlong into a slender figure who leapt out in front of him.
“Pyke!” exclaimed a voice he would have sworn was familiar from somewhere. “Hey! Couldn’t you hear me calling you?”
“I… I beg… your pardon?” He blinked owlishly and tried to focus on the person’s face.
“Take those silly things off and look at me,” the girl said, grinning and pulling down a pair of glasses from where they had been resting on Pyke’s face. Until now, he’d failed to notice he’d been navigating mostly by sound, by his impression of where things had been, and by warped outlines.
“Jenna.”
“Who else, you strange man? Where have you been all this time?”
“Work… ing,” he grated out, the word slurring as he craned his neck to see if the group of Relic-seekers had already left the hall. “I… must go. They shall… do aught reckless, I suspect, at the first opportunity. I must… follow. Must not... miss it.”
“Are you… are you drunk?” Jenna grabbed Pyke by the arm and blocked his view of the doorway as she tried to peer into his eyes.
Pyke’s patience reached its end. “What? No, Jenna, I am… am not drunk… I am, however, in a hurry, and yo
u are in my way. Distract me with your fawning some other time!”
Shaking his arm free from her grip, Pyke pushed past the girl, heading for the hall’s other exit.
“...Huh?” Jenna’s voice caught as she stumbled back a step. “Pyke? Pyke, wait!”
Then be helpful and come up with a way to increase my odds!
Pyke rushed down the torch-lined corridor, noting distantly that no daylight was coming through the windows now. He became aware of a new course of action: a suggestion from his Voice. The Voice might be aggravating sometimes, but it was also swift and dutiful when asked to calculate a new trajectory.
Yanking one of the torches from where it was wedged into a candelabrum on the wall, Pyke held it up for illumination. Instead of heading straight for the main doors, Pyke followed his new impulse, crossing the entry hall and racing two steps at a time up one of the semicircular flights of stairs. From the central landing at the second-storey level, a hallway led deeper into the manse, and Pyke strode through the darkened arch without hesitation. Before long, he came to a four-way intersection where two halls crossed, and took the first right.
Two minutes had passed by the time Pyke, slightly out of breath from the hurried pace he’d taken up another set of stairs, reached a T-intersection at the manse’s front wall. Drawing closer to a window looking out onto darkness, he peered through the tall, rectangular pane of glass. His torchlight illuminated a grey stone surface: the roof of the balcony over the main doors.
I’ll be able to see whatever they do from here. Good thinking, Voice.
Snuffing his torch with a fold of his tattered cloak and adding another small hole to the edge of it in the process, Pyke hurried to his right along the wall of the manse until he came to a set of double doors. They were locked, so Pyke rummaged in a pocket of his trousers until he came up with a handful of lockpicks.
Putting his ear to the door, Pyke inserted two of the metal needles into the keyhole. Listening carefully for the motion of the tumblers, he slid the devices deeper at different speeds until he heard the sound he was expecting.
Tap, tap, tap-tap, tap… click.
Turning the mechanism, Pyke opened one of the doors. The hinges barely creaked, and the faint noise was snatched away by a harsh winter wind which had arisen while he’d been inside. Passing through, the Antiquarian shut the door behind him.
He traversed the stone expanse of the balcony, keeping low to the floor as he approached the granite banister. Peering between the supports which held up the heavy railing, Pyke made out the four Relic-seekers walking out onto the grounds.
Three of them carried torches which guttered in the gusts of icy wind. They were following behind Vino, who was recognizable by his brown cloak and willowy build. Squinting, Pyke took in a pair of objects Vino was carrying like dowsing sticks: twin brass rods gleaming in the torchlight.
I take it he doesn’t have that amount of power.
You say it draws on his Res, his life energy. Is he killing himself?
Pyke shook his head. Human beings are reckless, sometimes without knowing it. What a dangerous object to mess around with.
You’re right, as always, Pyke conceded. What are they looking for? Even I can’t hear a damn thing over a high wind like this.
A pause. While the Voice interpreted, Pyke noticed Vino reaching up to put something on his own head: the circlet Relic.
I thought they might. Their odds of actually doing that?
In that instant, Vino’s head whipped around to face the manse. He raised the two brass rods, and his mouth opened wide in what could have been a shout of surprise or a scream of agony. Then, without any further warning, he and all three of his compatriots vanished.
“What in Ash and Flame was that?” Jenna shouted over the wind from behind Pyke, sending a bones-deep jolt of startlement through him.
Pyke turned and spent a stunned moment staring: first at Jenna; then out at the empty expanse of the manse’s grounds; then back at Jenna. “I have no damn clue.”
remarked the Voice amid the wind-whipped silence which followed.
Chapter 4
Pyke and Jenna sat in a small room on the manse’s third storey. The cozy chamber was lit only by a hooded lantern Jenna had brought with her when she’d followed Pyke.
“So, it really wasn’t you who made those people disappear?” she asked, staring intently into Pyke’s eyes.
“No.”
“Even though this morning, you definitely summoned a snake made of smoke, and you might be a fiend.”
“No. There’s a great deal of difference between being able to use a Relic and being able to make someone vanish into a…”
the Voice supplied.
“A Place Aside. And I’m not a fiend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me the truth?”
Pyke looked away. “I try not to lie if I don’t have to— I’ve found I’m no good at it. And the Church of the Phoenix specifically permits Antiquarians to use Relics, provided the Relic has been inspected by a bishop and determined not to be capable of heretical acts.”
“So you’ve met a real bishop?” It was clear that to Jenna, a bishop was just as mythical a figure as a fiend.
“No. My superiors have met a real bishop. I’ve never been important enough, or unlucky enough, to merit that honour.” Pyke deliberately did not mention the fact that neither his superiors in the Antiquities Guild nor the Church knew about the Serpent’s Tongue. That particular Relic’s powers would certainly have qualified as heresy.
Jenna leaned forward, drawing her knees up against her chest and resting her chin on them. “Are the Fiend Hunters and the clergy really so awful?”
“They’re the most frightening thing there is, with the exception of a misused Relic. Mostly because every last one of them is so keenly alert for dangers to their Kingdom, they err on the side of assuming guilt
unless innocence can be proven.” Pyke made direct eye contact with Jenna, hoping this would provide the added emphasis he intended. “I consider them a necessary terror, precisely because they prevent Relics from falling into the wrong hands. The lesser of two evils, so to speak.”
Jenna became silent and pensive. Pyke took the opportunity to confer with his Voice.
What do you suppose happened to them when Vino did… whatever he did?
Noted. Go on.
Did I know you could create visions? Well, regardless, this eliminates any plans I had of trying to follow in their footsteps.
And everything in between, I imagine. The third possibility?
The Last Spellbound House: A Steampunk Dark Fantasy Thriller Page 6
