In the event Vino wasn’t full of hot air, then it was possible Pyke may have severely misjudged the man: while the Risker was certainly no expert in the practical use of Relics, he might just be a magic theorist to rival any Antiquarian master of his craft.
“...the servitors who maintained such Workings were the reason Essence-storing Relics exist. It seems the Dead Lords could personally hold vast amounts of power, and so never needed these Relics… but without one, a mortal servitor could only ever be filled up with enough Essence to restore his physical body’s remaining natural lifespan.”
Pyke chose not to reveal his ignorance. This had never been covered in his Antiquarian training, likely because it was unnecessary forbidden knowledge. It also shed some light on the nature of his life-draining Relic, the Serpent’s Tongue. Earlier, when opening the way between worlds, he’d avoided having the Lock and Key make use of his own Res by substituting the life force of the two brigands which he held in the Tongue. In addition to transforming Res into the Working which summoned the snake proxy, the Serpent’s Tongue must also be one of the power-storing Relics Vino was talking about.
Vino’s tone and expression were dark as he continued. “We measure magical power— Essence, or Res in your fancy Old Ancient— in cycles of a mortal being’s life… and there’s only so many of those a human body can hold. According to the oldest books, Dead Lords once trained their mortal servitors to enact Workings and correct drifting Lenses, and forced other people’s Essence into them to keep them from dying. But Essence flow is hard on living bodies, and such servitors aged quickly. A Dead Lord was lucky to get ten cycles of use out of one… so they created Inventions, their word for Relics, to hold the power and maintain their mortal tools for longer.”
Unease crept its way up Pyke’s spine. Vino’s revelations shed an unpleasant light on the origins of the Serpent’s Tongue. “So, if evidence continues to indicate this manse was built to last centuries without intervention, your hypothesis will be supported. What if the facts don’t match up with your theory?”
“Then I’ll reconsider. But there’s no known way to hold the amount of energy needed to keep all this going for a hundred cycles.” Vino’s matter-of-fact tone implied a degree of confidence Pyke hoped was unwarranted. “Imagine you had a Relic capable of generating hundreds of soldiers of light, and one which prohibited a dining hall full of rowdy people from harming one another, and one which preserved an entire library from rot… how long do you think you’d be able to continuously feed all three before your life ended?”
“Not even half a day.” The unease at the nape of Pyke’s neck turned into chills which ran down his back. “The scope of what you’re describing is…”
“Immense.” Vino looked as haunted as Pyke felt. “This place has been running for at least a century: tens of thousands of days. And yet...”
“And yet we haven’t heard of the legendary slaughter needed to amass all that Res, nor the incredible Relic capable of storing it,” Pyke finished, following the Risker to his conclusion. “We’re familiar with some of the Ancients’ horrors, but never a genocide so immense. Keep in mind that it’s still possible this is the culmination of many smaller atrocities. You said it yourself: the Dead Lords themselves could hold vast amounts of power, though it seems unlikely that one would kill all those people and then just sit there being drained pointlessly for a hundred cycles.”
“Unlikely enough to discount it as a possibility,” Vino agreed, “And if the Lord of this manse were here, we’d no doubt be dead already. We could argue this for hours, but all I’m saying is we might be on the hunt for something never-before-seen. This place hides a groundbreaking discovery, mark my words.”
Pyke’s face didn’t reveal the surge of invigoration this possibility evoked in him. If there were a basis to Vino’s theories, they would imply a means for the human beings of the Phoenix Kingdom to harness magic without sacrificing their own or others’ lives… and what’s more, the Risker’s suggestions shed some light on the Fae sisters’ promise to open the way deeper into the manse if he stayed here in the Place Aside.
For the first time since he’d realized how completely the sisters controlled him, Pyke felt a spark of something akin to hope. On some level, he supposed, he’d been trying to deny even to himself how impressive this place was, and how deeply he wanted to uncover its secrets.
“There. Of the two, this is the spot closest to us, right over the library… or under it,” Pyke said, indicating the place where one of the fields converged. It lined up exactly with the chamber underneath this room. He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he’d stumbled out of that place, and he hadn’t had a light source. Now, Pyke was hopeful the group would find something of note down there… though Vino had been wrong about one thing: the Lens under the library was in the real world. He couldn’t easily bring that up yet: he didn’t know how the Relic-seekers would react if they learned he’d known about the secret passage and chosen not to inform them.
Hopefully it won’t come up.
Eiten cleared his throat, breaking the silence. “I suggest we take this moment to rest and fill our stomachs. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I haven’t taken any food or drink since our ales on the way out of the House last night. There’s no sun to tell time by here, but I agree with Merana: it can’t have been fewer than sixteen hours since we arrived.”
Pyke nodded along with Vino and Merana, not wanting to reveal that, as a side-effect of yesterday’s use of the Serpent’s Tongue, he wouldn’t be hungry or thirsty for another several days. That revelation wouldn’t go over well, he suspected, especially after Thorne’s display earlier.
The Relic-seekers each dug in their packs and produced salted meat, bread, and waterskins, supplies for a weeks-long excursion. Pyke’s waterskin was full, but for food he had only a collection of dry, wax-wrapped bars of pressed nuts and fruits distributed by the Antiquities Guild to stave off scurvy on long journeys.
He removed part of the wax coating from one of the bars and nibbled on the end of it, concealing how little he was eating. By the time the Relic-seekers were partway into their repast, he had already pressed the wax back together, stowed the snack away, and turned his attention to inspecting the diagram of the manse. He frowned, trying and failing to force his brain to take in all the information at once.
Damnit. I’ve relied on the Voice too much. Since the Voice could imprint any map in seconds and later calculate a route, Pyke hadn’t had much use for the skill of memorization. He would have to reduce his expectations, and familiarize himself with only the House’s ground level. Unfortunately, there were almost a hundred rooms, and it didn’t help that the remaining point of interest could be on any storey of the manse.
“I expect to find what we’re looking for on the ground level, or basements if they exist here,” Vino said from right next to Pyke’s head. Pyke, who had been too engrossed in his thoughts, hadn’t noticed the Risker leaning over his shoulder.
“Why-the-basements?” Pyke asked, speaking too quickly as he tried and failed to conceal his startlement.
“The enchantment Lenses are probably heavy enough to put real strain on the floors over time, so they won’t be upstairs if this place was built to stand for centuries,” Vino reasoned. “Furthermore, although I’ve found no sign of a cellar in the real world, Essence-drift is mitigated underground. So if there are basements, I’d expect them to be down there.”
“That would explain why the Dead were known for making their lairs in caves or cellars… or tombs,” Pyke murmured. “Hence the nickname.”
“Nickname? I always thought they really were the dead returned from the grave to feed on the living.”
Pyke contained his urge to stare as though Vino had grown a second head. Just how myopically specialized was this Risker’s knowledge? “The only unifying trait shared by all the known Dead Lords was being an animating intelligence without a body. To interact with the world an
d operate Relics, they needed to link that intelligence to a physical form. Sometimes that form was a fresh corpse or even a willing sacrifice… but more often it was a machine of some kind.”
“Where do you learn things like this?”
“Antiquarian training.” Pyke kept his expression matter-of-fact to hide the lie. His Voice was the source of what little he knew about the cultures and natures of the Ancients.
“What were the Fae, really, then?” Vino asked excitedly. “I’ve heard so many theories, but no one seems to—”
“Stop.” Pyke didn’t bother to conceal his surge of anger. “Your audacity doesn’t serve you here. There are some things you’d regret knowing as soon as I told you. That is one of them. If you value the life of any person in this Kingdom, don’t ask me or anyone else about the truth of the Fae. Let the knowledge die.”
Vino stared, eyes wide. “You’re serious, Antiquarian. How could they possibly be worse than the Dead, who harvested the souls of thousands?”
“Not worse. More insidious,” Pyke said, his anger fading into a cold lump of fear which settled into the pit of his stomach. “The Dead are gone, and we need only fear the dangers they left behind in Relics, ruins, and places like this manse. The Fae? Who can know their limits? Not I, that’s for sure.”
“You talk like they could return any time.”
Pyke said nothing, but his thoughts were dour. Ask too many questions about them, and they very well might. He kept his gaze level and fixed on Vino, aiming to unnerve, as he’d been trained by the Antiquities Guild: the guild which knew too much; the only organization in the Phoenix Kingdom educated enough to fear its own knowledge.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then a distant noise caused Pyke to look up sharply at the door.
Vino twitched. “What do you hear?”
“Something being struck.”
There was another sound, unmistakably wood upon wood this time. It was much closer, despite only a few seconds having passed. Eiten and Merana looked up, too.
“I think something’s coming. And unless I’m much mistaken, the Hoard-Watcher is—” Pyke’s words were drowned out by an awful din from the library room outside.
From what Pyke could hear, Raine had burst through the archway in a flurry of motion. By the sharp cracks of wood on wood, he guessed she had obliterated no fewer than three light-automata as they turned to strike at her. The cacophony was impossible to follow by sound alone. The noise of Raine’s club slamming against books, shelves, and the overhead walkway formed a steady drumroll of unrestrained violence.
“What do we do?” Vino asked in a panicked whisper, looking around at the other three. Merana grimaced and shrugged, her hand white-knuckled around the hilt of the sword she’d taken from Eiten. Eiten appeared to be trying to project confidence, but his body language and silence spoke for themselves.
“We wait,” Pyke said quietly, “And if it turns out to be necessary, we politely introduce ourselves.”
The din of combat outside the room faded. For a few long seconds, the humans held their breath amid silence.
“Friend Raine. My arts indicate our trail leads into this wall,” said Aquamarine. Their voice still held the quality of music, but Pyke’s keen ears could pick up differences in how it resonated in the air around each of the humans. As he tuned in to the four musics, he could feel the variations, along with a sense for the emotional timbre the vibrations held.
The instruments, he came to understand, depended on the listener: for Pyke, Aquamarine’s voice was calming flutes and melancholy strings; for Vino, the Seer spoke with the shimmering clash of muted cymbals; Merana heard a hollow woodwind warble with a threatening keen in the background. Behind them, Eiten swallowed with difficulty a sudden urge to weep as Aquamarine’s voice evoked a memory of long-lost comforts: its sound carried underneath it the half-forgotten tunes his mother used to hum and whistle when she prepared the family meal each evening.
Did I know I could… listen to someone’s heart like that? Pyke asked himself. It feels as though a Working is feeding me information. Voice? Is this your doing?
The Voice didn’t respond.
“A hidden passage.” Raine’s voice was just as Pyke remembered it: the sound boulders would make if they could speak by shifting against one another. “Show the way, Seer, or step aside and let me break us a path.”
“I can See it: here.”
There was a sound Pyke recognized as the bookshelf rotating.
“Well spotted, Aqua! I knew I brought thee along for a reason.”
After a few seconds, Pyke eased the door open and peeked out. He knew how to enter the secret passage in the real world, but he didn’t want to assume it was the same here. Fortunately, it appeared the handle was in the same location: by the light of the chandeliers he could make out the lever to the right of the bookshelf, as well as the backs of Aquamarine and Raine as the two descended the steps.
He closed the door again and waited a heartbeat before nodding to the other three humans. “They’ve gone through a secret passage leading downward. The Seer could tell the same thing you could: there’s something under here.”
“We should wait for them to leave,” Eiten said, and Pyke noted a tremor to his voice.
“No.” Pyke wasn’t sure of the source of his own confidence. “They’re trapped here just as we are. We all stand a better chance if we come to an agreement, and don’t spend our limited time hiding from one another. Those two have the skills to protect us from the light-automata, and we have a theory about how this place works.”
“You don’ fool me,” Merana hissed. “Ya’d use us as bait in an instant if the fiends turned on us. Easy to take risks when it ain’t yer neck on the line.”
Eiten leaned across the table and placed a gloved hand on Merana’s arm. “Even so, he is right: we can go nowhere if the light-soldiers are in every hallway, and these fiends— or rather, the Hoard-Watcher and the Seer— have something to gain from Vino’s and the Antiquarian’s expertise. Why not bargain with them? Our other option is to starve to death.”
Merana shrugged his hand away, but she began pulling her boots on. “Way I see it—”
“Then it’s settled,” Vino piped up, interrupting Merana. “Can we get out of here and down that passageway before more light-automata arrive?”
Merana stood up in a rush, glaring daggers at Vino. “Fine. I can tell when I’m outvoted. But take care ya don’t go pullin’ this kinda stunt too often, or I’ll see fit to remind ya why I’m the boss o’ this group.” She pushed past Vino and jerked the door open, stalking out into the library.
“After this, we should discuss our decision-making strategy,” Eiten said, standing as well. “This is not how it’s normally done between us, and Merana’s understandably upset. However, I apologize for her rudeness, Antiquarian.”
“We’re all a little stressed,” Vino muttered halfheartedly, kneeling by the low table to retrieve his maps and books. “Still, she didn’t have to shove.”
Pyke picked up Vino’s lantern and followed Eiten out into the library, leaving the Risker to gather up the rest of his gear. There were large dents in some of the bookshelves, and Raine’s club had mangled one of the spiral staircases leading up to the second-storey ledge and catwalks… but overall the library hadn’t sustained too much damage in the scuffle.
Merana stared down the dark spiral stairs behind the still-sideways bookshelf, and glanced up as Pyke approached. “After you, fearless leader.”
Rather than rise to her bait, Pyke proceeded down the stone steps, turning up the dial on the lantern so it cast enough light to see by. Everything about the passageway was identical to the real-world version: the stairs brought him around a half-turn, and the short tunnel led him directly to the circular doorway he had opened on his way out.
As he passed through it into the large egg-shaped chamber beneath the library, two silhouettes, barely visible in the dim l
ight, turned to regard him.
“The human doth return. He hath a nerve, to appear before us so soon after his flight.”
“Peace, friend Raine. He did not cross the veil. Is it not safe to assume that he was not behind his own vanishing?”
“Thou speak’st too much on his behalf. Let him defend his own failure!”
“Yes, that sounds like a good idea,” Pyke said, striding the rest of the way into the room with a confidence he didn’t feel. “Why don’t I explain. I was stopped by the ones you call my Name-Keepers.”
“Then thy masters are our enemies, and thou art of little use to us.” Raine hefted her club and took a step forward.
“On the contrary: you need me more than ever,” Pyke said, aware that to back down now could mean his death. Raine seemed only to respect straightforwardness. “The Fae stopped me because they knew something I hadn’t figured out until now, something I learned with the help of the Relic-seekers waiting in the library above us. Together, we’ve determined the true heart of this manse isn’t in the real world, but here in the Place Aside.”
Raine paused, and Pyke knew he had the Gigant’s attention.
“The two of you have far more power than you should: you’re positively bursting with Essence. I don’t know where you got all that Res from, but whatever’s at the centre of this place is what you’re after, isn’t it? Between my expertise and Vino’s research, the two of us can help you find it.”
Aquamarine looked to Raine. After a long, suspicious glare at Pyke, the Gigant turned her head to meet the Seer’s eyes, and an unspoken agreement passed between them.
“Very well.” Raine crossed her arms. “But call thy human allies in here. I’ll not treat with those too cowardly to show me their faces.”
“Can I promise their safety from you?”
“If they can promise ours,” Raine said. “I’ll not swear safety to skulkers and back-stabbers.”
“I guess that’ll have to do,” Pyke muttered. “I’ll be back with the rest. Try not to raise your weapon at them, or they’ll panic. If it comes to blows, I guarantee you’ll never find what you’re looking for.”
The Last Spellbound House: A Steampunk Dark Fantasy Thriller Page 21
