Pyke considered that it might have been Raine who had thrown the doors open… but then again, he had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. The Gigant and the Seer could be anywhere by now, and Pyke didn’t relish the prospect of trying to explain himself if they believed he’d tricked them. Not that an encounter with two powerful ‘fiends’ would go well with the three superstitious Relic-seekers there, anyway.
“Let’s go around. Use a path you know leads back to the entry hall,” he instructed, and followed quietly as Vino led the group back the way they’d come, muttering to himself about the inconvenience of having to go the long way around all these fiends and ancient traps and Ash-knew-what-else.
Jenna was determined to find whoever was responsible for her lost memories and for Pyke’s disappearance.
She paced up and down the corridor she called her thinking hallway: a little-used, L-shaped hall directly off the main foyer of the Last Spellbound House. She liked this place because it was quiet, and because it was easy on the feet: here, the carpets hadn’t yet grown threadbare or been shaken to pieces by hundreds of booted feet.
The first moments she remembered after her memory-blank were of returning to her bed with someone who seemed to be Pyke. The half-formed recollection sparked by the passageway underneath the library made her certain the passage was one of the places she’d been in the time she didn’t recall.
She had headed straight back to the secret basement, hoping to retrace her steps from there, but there had been no resurgence of that strange feeling. Jenna was stumped: there was no way to get to the other two places she’d seen just before her memory’s blanks: both the balcony on the third storey and the spot where the four Relic-seekers had vanished were outside, and the doors and windows were still locked and fortified by magic.
Faint, distant voices from somewhere far behind Jenna brought her out of her reverie. It was getting late, but she was only a minute’s walk from the entry hall where the scholars and Relic-seekers were still trading theories. Perhaps one of those had grown bored and was puttering about?
The voices drew closer and entered her hallway. Jenna turned to look, but there was no one there: only the clear, unmistakable sound of two people talking. One of them sounded feminine, with a strangely low pitch and a gravelly quality to her tone. The other’s voice was a thing of beauty which made Jenna’s heart ache, an orchestra composed of the treble quivering of oboes and the quiet ringing of a hundred crystal chimes.
“If that traitorous worm Gedreos yet liveth, I shall break him in two in an instant!”
“Peace, I beg of you. Who is to say he chose his fate, or what that fate may be? Do not harm the human should we find him. He has suffered enough, friend Raine.”
“Do not presume to command me, thou Fae creation! Though in human lands I suffer thy company in the name of solidarity, I do not name thee ‘friend.’ I shall deal with the human howsoever I see fit—”
“Hello? Who’s there?” Jenna called. “Are you in the… the Place Aside?”
There was a sudden silence, then:
“Who goes there?” asked the low voice like shifting rock, whose owner Jenna supposed must be Raine. “Name thyself!”
“I’m Jenna.” She squinted down the hallway, but there was still no sign of the two speakers. Her heart beat a tattoo of excitement against her ribs. Magic was afoot! “What about you?”
“I do not speak my name to dagros too cowardly to show themselves—”
“I am called Aquamarine,” said the voice of singing crystal and soft keening reed instruments. “And this is Raine. It is interesting to meet one with the power to speak across worlds. You must be the other gender of human… a woman.”
“And you must be something else,” breathed Jenna. “Who in the Phoenix’s bright heavens designed your voice? It’s beautiful.”
“I thank you. I am a Seer of the Deep, and my voice is my own craft,” Aquamarine replied, the song of their words taking on an unmistakably pleased tone. “You are much more agreeable than Gedreos.”
“All the better to trick thee with, foolish Aqua,” growled Raine. “Why hideth she?”
“She is across the veil, and cannot see us. This must be what my people call a world-window,” Aquamarine replied. “Please, will you tell me whether the human named Gedreos has returned to your reality? He wears a tattered cloak, and holds a Relic with the appearance of a bronze wrist-bangle.”
Jenna gasped. “Pyke?”
“You must not call him that!” Aquamarine’s tone grew sharp and the ringing crystal in their voice overwhelmed all else, taking on a cutting edge which sliced painfully at the fringes of Jenna’s mind. Then, more calmly, Aquamarine continued, “His name has been stolen, and to use it even in your thoughts deepens his Name-Keeper’s power over him.”
Shaken, Jenna leaned back against the wall for support. “Was he with you, then? He’s been missing all day, and it’s like he never even walked out the doors. He just… vanished.”
“He was sent here by his new master,” Raine spat. “To deceive us, or to make us that one’s playthings, perhaps.”
“Or for some other, stranger reason,” Aquamarine said, but there was agreement in their voice. “Tell me, Jenna, do you know the nature of Gedreos’s master? It is important, for his safety as well as ours.”
Jenna’s first impulse was to deny knowing anything. After all, whoever these two were, it seemed at least one of them intended Pyke harm. But then a memory began to surface at the back of her mind. She could almost recall something, something crucial which had to do with Pyke.
Then it was gone, and all that remained was a sweet taste on her tongue, like the distant memory of a fine wine.
“I… I can’t remember. There might have been something, but it’s gone now. I’m sorry, Aquamarine.”
“It is not your fault, child,” Aquamarine said, their musical voice soft and soothing. “Tell me, can you see what I have drawn here?”
Jenna frowned and glanced about. “No. Am I supposed to—”
She cut herself off as a blue glow emanated from the far wall. It collapsed in on itself and resolved into a symbol of complicated curves and whorls blending seamlessly into one another. After three gentle blue pulses, the strange shape faded.
“Never mind. I see it.”
“If you see anything, remember anything, return to this location and speak to the wall where you have seen the glyph. If the world-window yet exists, I shall hear you regardless of where I am. Know that I will be unable to respond through this art of my people: you will not hear me unless I return here.”
“I don’t understand. What’s happened to Py— to Gedreos?”
“You said that you know of the Places Aside, yes? We were sent here by a trap. Your friend, it seems, was sent here by his master. You must break the hold that one has on him, else he may never return to you.”
“What is his ‘master?’ Is it a Fae? How do I get him back?”
“Aquamarine. A danger doth approach,” Raine’s voice said. “Its aura reeketh of death, and I know not if mine own strength can match it. We must away!”
“Jenna. Tell the glyph all that has transpired, all that transpires there in your world.” There came the sound of running footsteps, and Aquamarine’s voice receded swiftly. “Help me solve the mystery of who controls him, I beg of you. Do this, and I will bring your Gedreos back to you, I swear it!”
“Wait. Aquamarine! Tell me how to do that! Tell me… tell me something, damn you!”
There was no response. Jenna shouted all three of the most profane words she knew and pounded her fist into the wall in frustration, but succeeded only in making her hand sting.
So Pyke really was in the Place Aside, and he was under the thumb of some fiend or Ancient. She’d been taken in by whatever had stolen him, had followed it all the way back to bed, then invited it under the blankets beside her.
“...Damn it,” she sobbed, judging hers
elf harshly for how easily she had been tricked, how easily she had been brought to tears. “Damn it, damn it, damn it…!”
As Jenna’s frustration and helplessness reached a peak, her mind shattered an invisible restraint. The sweet taste of wine on her tongue intensified for a brief second, then it vanished altogether as she recalled two things: a youthful, sweetly smiling face; and a name.
Rosie.
Jenna’s hands, which had fallen to her sides, balled into fists again… and this time her anger wasn’t directed at herself.
I don’t know who you are, Rosie, but I’m gonna find you. And if you’ve hurt him, I’ll make you pay.
Chapter 10
Something important was coming: something which had been absent in the hundred cycles this place had lain empty. The book knew it, and it could scarcely contain its excitement.
The volume’s hold on the exhausted breeze was nearing its end. The little wind had read another twenty pages since B’kosk’s arrival in Wind’s Tambour, but the puffs of moving air which remained would need to gather their strength before continuing their journey through the tale of the Traveller. So the book let the wind lift just one more page, and then allowed the weakened air current to rest again.
The tale continued as follows:
The four thousandth cycle of the Fae Queen’s rule. In a cavern between the Sea of the Drowned Ones and the High Tundra
Five towering figures stood equidistant in a dim cavern around a massive circular table. Upon the table rested a mechanism which projected an image of the Spellbound World. The holographic sphere was surrounded by almost two hundred comets, each one circling lazily like model skycraft which gleamed with inner light: the Fae Queen’s vaunted suns, upon which so many mortals depended.
“Thy suggestion is intriguing, Traveller,” murmured one of the five in the Language of Magic, the silence of the cavern allowing its quiet words to be clearly audible. The timbre and resonance of the speaker’s voice were not quite appropriate to speech produced by a living larynx, as though the words were produced by some unknown, artificial mechanism. “As are thy offerings.”
“Indeed,” spake another of the Dead Lords in a hollow voice notable for its lack of an echo in the resonant hall of the cave. “The schematics for these mechanisms, with their unique blend of the craftsmanship of humans, Gigants, Drowned Ones, the Shrunken, and even Seer, are certain to increase the efficiency of my Inventions by at least five percent.”
“And thou zzayezzt that thizz knowledge izz offered freely, with no expectation of recompenzze,” buzzed a third voice, the vibrations of which evoked the image of thousands of insects mimicking speech with the coordinated humming of their wings. “We are zzuzzpiciouzz. What izz the real purpozze of thy bringing uzz here, Traveller?”
“None but that which I have stated: I propose an alliance against the Fae who hunt us for sport,” replied Tamelios, who stood closest to the table. “I have journeyed for two hundred cycles, gathering arts from the farthest corners of the Spellbound World.”
“Arts have never availed us against the Fae, no matter how subtle or efficient in their use of Essence,” murmured the Dead with the quiet voice.
“That is not our only advantage.” Tamelios gestured, and the hologram shifted to show a network of supply lines and points of interest overlaying the atlas of the Spellbound World. “I have made note of what I witnessed in my travels: troop emplacements, fortresses, secret enclaves of Fae. I believe that a surprise strike could capture us several Fae with sizeable legends empowering them, and that these bound Fae could feed our war engines with Essence sufficient to take the Royal Metropolis of Regent All-See-All-Hear.”
“A zztrike to their heartzz,” hummed the figure standing across the table from Tamelios. “Zzymbolic, but otherwizze pointlezz. They will rebuild, and zztrike back againzzt uzz a thouzzandfold. Are we here to zzerve azz fodder for your ego, Traveller?”
“As you well know, Dead Lord of What Crawls Beneath, my ego is less than nothing,” Tamelios replied. “I seek only the final defeat of the Fae and the establishment of a new Era of the Dead. No more will we flee in terror before the armies of the Fae and the pawns of their Queen.”
“So you have said,” whispered the quiet one. “I remain unconvinced of the soundness of your plans. There are thousands of Fae: odds seem poor when only five of us have deigned to make an appearance at your little meeting.”
“More would come,” Tamelios asserted, stepping forward into the light of the holographic world in front of him and gesturing at a mountain range on its surface. “The Master of Shattered Earth, here, in the Skyclaw Mountains, has been seeking a way to strike down his nemesis Stoneshaper Gurlock. Once the first blow is struck, he will jump at the chance to join us.”
“He is a fool, and wastes his power on personal vendettas. Others would not assist us so readily,” asserted the Dead Lord whose voice did not echo. “You ask us to expend hard-won Essence, gathered over the course of millennia. I think not: I, the Master of Moving Metal, will not risk what is mine in a mad scheme led by a mewling child of a mere five centuries. I hereby take my leave of this place, and—”
“Enough,” spoke the last of the five Dead Lords in the cavern. Its voice held a gravity so powerful as to bend the mind to attention and warp the spirit to obedience. Even the light of the hologram shifted toward the speaker as it continued: “I would hear how our young leader aimeth to combat the greatest danger to his plan.”
Tamelios nodded respectfully. “Of course, Grandmaster of True Sight. Name the danger, and I will tell you my plan to counter it.”
The darkness clung to the figure’s arm like a faithful falcon as it gestured to encompass all those present. “Us.”
Tamelios paused for a safe few seconds, waiting for the Grandmaster to elaborate… but it did not. “I beg your forgiveness for my lack of sight, Grandmaster, but… could you mean there are those among the Dead Lords who would oppose us, siding with the Fae?”
“I do not.” The weight and gravitas of the statement forced Tamelios to one knee as though it were a physical burden. “How dost thou plan to overcome the nature of the Dead?”
After a long silence during which Tamelios struggled and failed to rise, the quiet-voiced Dead Lord to his right was the first to speak. “Thou hast travelled for long enough to understand the piddling lives of mortals, young one. But the Grandmaster understands our kind far better than thee.”
“We are beings of selfish aims,” put in the Master of Moving Metal. “Even now, I myself scheme to use the opportunities granted by warfare to drain each one of those present of every dram of its power.”
“A zzingle Dead Lord can do, with the Essence of five, anything five Dead Lordzz could achieve,” hummed What Crawls Beneath. “We would all zzurely leave thizz war of yourzz much diminizzhed, zzave for one.”
The darkness-cloaked Grandmaster stepped noiselessly back, deeper into the shadows enwreathing its form. “Thou hadst hoped to use a common enemy to unite us.” The weight of its voice slammed down upon the cavern, crushing the hologram-producing mechanism in the table more thoroughly than a battering weapon. “Thou art not yet equal to the task. When one thousand cycles have passed, we may begin to trust thine intentions. If thy desire to tear down the Fae Alliance is sincere, I anticipate seeing thee become a thorn in their side to surpass the Master of Shattered Earth. Call upon me again in two thousand cycles, and I may consider joining thee. Prepare well for those two millennia, or we shall be doomed by the enmity of the Fae Queen alone, much less the dross of her Fae sycophants and the flapping annoyances of her mortal legions.”
Then the Dead Lord Grandmaster of True Sight was gone, without fanfare or even the faint noise of movement.
The silence held for a long minute, as all four of the remaining Dead carefully confirmed their physical forms had recovered from the vast weight of the Grandmaster’s voice. Then the Master of Moving Metal turned and walked away from the ta
ble, passing through a crackling portal of energy which opened for a half-second. The loud chick made by the Invention which had summoned the portal echoed for an unnaturally long time.
“Nothing perzzonal, kid,” buzzed What Crawls Beneath, and a thousand flying insects burst out from underneath the Dead Lord’s moth-eaten cloak, scattering to the corners of the cavern as its animating intelligence departed for elsewhere.
Tamelios looked up to meet the glowing blue eyes of the quiet-voiced Dead Lord to his right.
“Nothing to say?” Tamelios asked it.
“Only that I had considered taking thy paltry Essence by force, but decided against it,” the nameless Dead Lord murmured. “Thou barely hold’st more than a single mortal, and the act of overpowering thy will would spend more Essence than I would gain. It is a pity the transfer of power from the unwilling, mortal or otherwise, is so inefficient.”
Without caring to say anything more, it turned and walked toward the cavern’s exit where the night sky beckoned.
Tamelios, left alone with his failure, stared down at the table and its ruined projection device. Two centuries of wandering, gathering all this information and lore, and it was not enough. He should have been furious. He should have been filled with despair.
Instead, he felt nothing.
He slammed a fist into the wood of the table, sending a deep crack through the hardwood surface… yet the empty gesture awakened no rage within him. He felt nothing at all, save for disappointment and acceptance.
Tamelios collected his pack from the shadows deeper inside of the cave, then picked up the moth-eaten cloak the Dead Lord of What Crawls Beneath had left behind. His vessel still needed warmth, and he saw no sense in waste, even of such a paltry garment. Draping the cape over his shoulders, he, too, left the cave.
It was time to live up to the moniker of Traveller once again. There was nothing else left to him, and it seemed beyond him to care.
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