The Last Spellbound House: A Steampunk Dark Fantasy Thriller

by Samuel Simons

  The end of Serra’s weapon rested a centimetre from Tamelios’s chest: the bastard sword had a narrow, elegant fuller-groove running down the flat of its silver metal blade, almost all the way to the brilliant green gemstone in its pommel.

  “How do you hold such power?” Tamelios asked. “That blade of yours is wrongly crafted to channel Res. It should not be able to even withstand my Invention-weapon, much less destroy it.”

  “Now, was asking nicely so hard?” Serra’s bright green eyes gleamed with barely suppressed excitement. “I would’ve freely told you, if you’d just been direct. It’s simple: I’m from another world, as is my sword.”

  “You are a human born in a Place Aside?” Tamelios didn’t understand. “Such should grant you no special power.”

  “No, I mean another world, not one of your pocket dimensions. More like… another sphere of existence, one which takes magic both powerful and precise to travel to.” Serra’s pauses made it clear she was choosing her words carefully and deliberately. “The laws of magic are different where I come from. Let me illustrate: you asked about my sword. She’s indestructible because she was forged and named by a deity of metalcraft. And my own power is my birthright as a demideus: the daughter of a human being and a god.”

  “I don’t understand that word, ‘god,’” Melianne called from within her cage of light. “Do you mean a Fae? You’re too powerful to be a Fae-fashioned mortal.”

  “No,” Serra said, an edge of exasperation to her voice now. “Don’t you have gods here? Shadash?”

  Tamelios shook his head, no more able than Melianne to understand the connotations of the unfamiliar word. It was certainly from the Language of Magic, and related to shadis, the term for ‘blessing,’ but no such thing as shadas was known to Dead science or Fae legend.

  “No wonder the people here are confused.” Serra crossed her arms, though her sword remained pointed at Tamelios. “The nearest town, just along the road at the end of the river? The townsfolk worship something called a Dead Lord. When I asked if they could give me directions to the most powerful being they know, they said to come here.”

  It seemed this ‘half-god’ had never heard of Tamelios. If he had had any pride, he supposed it would have been injured. “What do you plan to do with us?”

  “You’ve got a device hidden away in there which draws Res out of a source and transforms it, probably to channel into magic like those light-soldiers you sent after me.”

  “Yes: an Invention,” Tamelios agreed. “Melianne’s legend is the source of that Res.”

  “I want you to agree to a deal with me.”

  “In exchange for the use of Melianne’s strength,” Tamelios surmised.

  “No,” Serra said flatly. “I need you to perform a service for me, in exchange for you draining my power.”

  The Dead Lord was unsure he’d heard correctly. “You wish for us to consume your life force?”

  “Not all of it.” Serra made an offhanded gesture as she spoke, and the bubble of light jailing Melianne vanished. “Just the excess. I can feel the ripples in the Weave: this house of yours can draw out energy at a very specific rate, can’t it? Show me the device, and I can make it worth your while. I’ve yet to meet a mage who didn’t have a use for extra Res.”

  Tamelios turned to lead the way to the Manse-Heart. “Follow me.”

  A few minutes later. In the incomplete Manse-Heart

  Serra stood alongside Melianne and Tamelios, inspecting the massive oval Fae Engine with a practiced eye. “I don’t know quite how magic differs here, but it should still do the job. If it’s designed for Melianne to step in and have her power drawn away, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on me. Explain what you’re using all this Res for, and I’ll consider making this deal with you.”

  “As you said, it’s for defending this place, and for our comfort.” Melianne’s tone was neither suspiciously airy nor too careful. If Tamelios hadn’t known she was lying, he’d have believed her.

  Serra looked up sharply. “That’s a half-truth. A clever one, but you’re leaving something out.”

  The illusion of vital glow in Melianne’s cheeks vanished all at once, leaving her face as white as newly fallen snow. “How—?” she asked, her expression shaken.

  “Never mind that. I don’t enjoy being lied to,” said Serra, and there was something sharp and unyielding in her tone for the first time since she’d arrived. “So answer me a few things, or by the Light I’ll bring this house down around your ears. What do you really gain from draining yourself over and over?”

  The two conspirators looked at one another, Tamelios with concern and Melianne with intrigue at the puzzle facing them. If this mysteriously potent human forced their hand, they might waste a large portion of the power they’d stored up until now on a pointless battle… but no one else in all the Spellbound World knew what was really occurring here.

  “We don’t wish to fight, Serra.” Melianne kept her voice soothing, sincere. “That is the truth. But there are further truths about our work here, and once spoken they can’t be unsaid.”

  “Now might be a good time to consider being uncharacteristically forthcoming.” Serra placed a hand on the hilt of her sword. “I may not yet understand your world’s magic… but in terms of raw power you’re both strong enough to have matched me. You kept conserving your strength, even when you realized I might win. You channel your Res slowly and efficiently through those toys of yours…”

  Serra shook her head, suspicion in the flick of her gaze from Melianne to Tamelios and back. “I’m no stranger to believing deeply enough in a cause to risk my life for it. What’s urgent enough about your task here to leave your energy stored below this house even when your lives are on the line? Whatever it is, it’s big… and if you won’t tell me, I’ll be forced to try and stop you.”

  “You have seen through us,” Tamelios said, deliberately injecting his respect for this woman’s command of the art of investigation into his tone of voice. “My beloved Melianne: I move that we reveal our plot in its entirety.”

  “Agreed,” said Melianne faintly. “When warriors see so deeply, what has happened to this world?”

  “I’m not a warrior most of the time.” There might have been something resembling sheepishness in Serra’s tone as she lowered her hand from her blade’s hilt. Tamelios noted that the woman’s eyes, which had been the brilliant green of flawless emeralds an instant before, were an ordinary brown now that the situation was no longer adversarial. The Dead Lord made a mental note to find a way to incorporate eye colour changes as a venting procedure for human-shaped Inventions which changed forms or states. It seemed an innocuous and effective alternative to the rains of sparks or changes in bone density he currently used, which were sometimes detrimental to his enhanced servitors.

  “First, I must explain our natures, of which you seem ignorant. We do not fear what you call death,” Tamelios explained. “Were this body of mine destroyed, I would retain my power, and would soon find or construct another vessel. If you were to scatter the threads of Melianne’s Glamour-body to the ends of the earth, still she would return, as long as even one mortal mind knew her name.

  “Yet the power we have amassed is dearly bought, for we are in hiding: I refuse to perform any great harvest, and Melianne cannot go out and broaden her tithes of Res through acts of legend, lest we alert the ones we hide from.”

  “Why are you hiding? Have you committed some crime?”

  Melianne smiled mischievously. “It isn’t a crime we have committed, but one we intend.”

  “This is a weapon,” Tamelios stated bluntly. “It is meant to bind both of our peoples, render us all more similar to the mortals we manipulate.”

  “You’re intending genocide?” Serra asked. Her tone was calm, but Tamelios’s intuition told him there was a gathering storm beneath the surface, as though the least provocation might bring down thunder and lightning upon him from a clear sky.


  “No,” Melianne replied, her voice quiet as she sensed the same danger. “I couldn’t bear to slay my subjects so, and we designed the trap accordingly. At the moment when each of the Fae and the Dead are in danger of dwindling to nothing, the binding enchantment will offer them a chance to make a trade: in exchange for the sustenance of the manse’s stored power, the captives may give up forever their capacity to rule the minds of others. They will be bound never again to work their greatest and most terrible wonders, never again to rip the life from mortals. We intend to free this Spellbound World.”

  Tamelios nodded. “In centuries of living amongst mortals, I have grown to understand the value of such concepts as ‘compassion,’ and ‘camaraderie,’ and ‘love.’ All of these are incomprehensible to one who wields the power to remake the world at a whim. Long ago, I was a being utterly detached from my subjects, who lived and died at my word, yet I was servile to the necessity of pleasing my master.

  “My rulership brought me only emptiness, and my servitude only frustration. It was not until I was forced to let go of both my mastery over others and my dependence on control that I was able to see my own folly: there is an ultimate futility in being absolute, unquestionable, alone.”

  “Both of our peoples would do everything in their power to destroy this place, if they knew what we intended.” The excitement of the tale kindled sunlight anew in the snowfields of Melianne’s eyes. “They believe themselves the rightful rulers of the world. We intend to temper their pride with reality, and force them to live among the people they’ve subjugated for so long.”

  Serra nodded. “I’ve heard enough. You were right before: you may not see yourselves as friends to the mortal people of this world… but what you’re doing will help them immensely, and you’re no one’s enemy either, though your peoples might both disagree.”

  Is it so simple to convince her? Or does she see our hearts? Tamelios wondered.

  “Our deal is on, if you’ll agree to it,” Serra continued. “One hundred years. You can drain away my power for a century, at the swiftest rate that won’t harm me. In return, you agree not to do any more of these… harvests of yours, which I don’t like the sound of. Furthermore, you’ll mention me to no one, and continue to keep this device as secret as your skills can make it. I need to stay hidden.”

  “Hidden from what?” Tamelios’s curiosity was piqued.

  Serra’s expression darkened. “Best that you not know. Suffice it to say this: one or more people will come to your door in the next year, or ‘cycle’ as your sphere calls them. These... trackers... may or may not look human, but they will appear ordinary, appear to fit in to your world. Send them away if they’ll go, or let them search until they get bored… but don’t threaten them or offer a fight. They won’t spare you like I did.”

  Melianne’s body language perked up. “There are more like you?”

  “Not like me. Not nearly so merciful.” The haunted look in Serra’s eyes told Tamelios she had experienced some great loss at the hands of these ‘trackers.’ “If they know you’re aware of their true natures, they’ll eliminate you to cover their trail. If there’s a way to kill you permanently, they’ll find it. Now… do you want my power, or not?”

  Melianne looked to Tamelios, her eyes still shining with excitement. “She seems the answer to our hopes: a limitless source of Res.”

  “One which comes with another unquantifiable variable which could disrupt our plans,” Tamelios mused. “Still, we are already risking everything we possess. And my most recent projections stated we would need to void our secrecy at least twice in the next century to gather more power: this agreement would allow us to evade that necessity. The risk is… acceptable.”

  Serra held out a hand in the direction of the two, her palm facing sideways. “It’s a deal, then.”

  “Yes. It’s a deal.” Melianne stepped forward and, unsure what the woman intended, lifted Serra’s offered hand in hers, kissing the back of it with a smile.

  After a moment of visible confusion, Serra, who had clearly expected some other ritual, grinned back.

  And the bargain was struck.

  Alendras continued to dream for some time. The memories flowed around and through him, tucking themselves away on shelves in the jumbled library of his past. There were a great many memories, for they consisted not only of centuries wandering the vast Spellbound World in many guises, but also of the full hundred cycles after the Cataclysm, during which he had lived four different mortal lives, for he had been drawn forth from his Phylactery anytime its holder perished, assuming their form and elements of their remnant personality.

  Much became clear to Alendras as the memories continued to return. He recalled the long cycles of wandering, and the feverish pace of his research into creating the Ancient-trap after Melianne had eloped with him and offered him her bountiful Res. There were good times here, and his heart hummed with contentment.

  Then his dreams brought him into a remembrance whose fragmented quality indicated it had somehow degraded. He stood on a stone platform whose surroundings were a void: the rest of the memory had been lost, and it was no longer possible to tell whether the remembered platform was a single step up from a forgotten floor or if it had been the roof of a spire.

  “Tamelios?” whispered a voice from somewhere beyond the emptiness.

  “It’s Alendras now.”

  “Tamelios?” The whisperer didn’t seem able to hear him.

  Alendras looked about for a clue as to the identity of the speaker or the location of the memory, but there was only the platform and the emptiness.

  “If you’re receiving this, I may not be entirely lost. I need your help. My name is Telas.”

  “Telas?” Alendras recognized the word as the term in the Language of Magic for closed loops: patterns which repeated, and the completion thereof.

  “Don’t forget me for too long,” the unknown being whispered. “Please.”

  Alendras tried to respond, to ask who Telas was and how to remember them… but the dream faded swiftly, then vanished.

  “Welcome back to the world of the waking, maerisrei.”

  Alendras rubbed at his eyes. A suite of comfortable chambers on the fourth storey of the manse swam into view, complete with four-poster bed and heavy wardrobes. Melianne sat beside him on a stool meant for the ornate dresser on the far wall.

  Alendras felt that, just before he’d awoken, he’d dreamed of something important… but the memory of it was fading away too swiftly to piece together. Then it was gone. “How long have I slept?”

  “All night, and then all day.”

  Alendras groaned. “What of the others?”

  “Serra was surprisingly understanding of the extra century she had to wait. After sharing a blessing with each of the others, she enacted the most powerful Working of travel I’ve ever seen, and vanished. As soon as she left, the Engine ceased, ending all the manse’s Workings except the Ancient-trap.”

  “It’s quiet. Are we alone here?”

  “Yes, maerisrei… except for the three sisters, who have been avoiding us. When the scholars and Relic-seekers awoke to find the doors unlocked, they fled without stopping to investigate. Eiten and Vino left more sedately, but almost as immediately. Aquamarine and Raine stayed for a few hours, then departed to fulfill their obligations to their respective peoples. It was fascinating to witness the Seer dressed in clothing, and wearing an illusory facsimile of a human woman’s features.”

  “Why would…?”

  “The Fae who created the Seers of the Deep never intended for them to reproduce, and their population was dwindling. Serra found a solution to their quandary: she performed some kind of bio-engineering. Aquamarine now travels the Phoenix Kingdom in search of a worthy co-parent for the first ever young who will be born to any of their kind. I helped the Seer with some minor tweaks to their illusion, but Aqua seems quite capable. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

&n
bsp; “And Raine?”

  “The Gigant departed north with nothing but a curt reminder that she will be back to repay her blood-debt someday.” Melianne let out a brief peal of laughter. “I wish you’d been awake to hear her! She made the statement sound like a threat.”

  “No doubt.” Identifying the source of his continuing discomfort, Alendras struggled to rise. “What of Jenna? You’ve left her for last. Has something happened?”

  “Oh, maerisrei. You have become fond of the young mortal.” Melianne stroked Alendras’s withered forehead and helped him sit up. “She’s safe, don’t worry. She departed yesterday for her family’s homestead, and sent a missive just this morning, saying she needs to spend some time with her kin and determine what she intends to do next.”

  Alendras looked into Melianne’s eyes, but found neither anger nor jealousy there: only excitement. “You truly accept that I love her?”

  “I’m glad you love her. I would be devastated if the passage of time had lessened your ability to do so. After all, there has always been room in your vast, tortured heart even for me… and I am infinite.”

  Alendras shook his head at her theatrics. “And humble.”

  “Never that.”

  She wrapped Alendras in her arms and kissed him, and by the peace which filled his heart, Alendras knew the Fae Queen was right: it had room for her as well. His memories told him that to rediscover how to love Melianne properly would be a monumental task, a journey of centuries… for she was an ever-changing jewel with uncountable facets, unpredictable and incomprehensible.

  His thoughts turned to Jenna. She was sure to have questions about this dynamic, and rightly so. Somehow, he imagined her verve and enthusiasm for life making that conversation less difficult than it would have been with anyone else. Jenna had an adventurer’s heart, and he knew that if she chose to be with him, she would have no trouble matching his zeal for learning: Alendras suspected he would be the one needing to make a distinct effort to keep up with her sharp wit and ever-greater explorations.