by Cory Barclay
“Lady,” Geddon said, holding the painting up at arm’s-length, “do you know where your master is? The man who holds power within you? I’m sure you feel him.”
The painting scoffed. “I feel him, sir, indeed. But where is he? That is a question I cannot answer. I’ve been stuck on that wall for years.”
Steve sincerely hoped that that wasn’t how they were hoping to find Tetsuo . . . coming all this way just to ask a question to a two-dimensional lady in a painting.
Luckily, he knew, Geddon had an actual backup plan.
Geddon turned to Selestria and Steve and saw the mild looks of disapproval on their faces. He shrugged. “It was worth a shot. Never know if you don’t ask.”
Geddon handed the painting to Selestria. “Do your work, my lady.”
Selestria inhaled deeply. She took the painting and sat in a chair next to the black treasure chest. She placed the painting in front of her and leaned forward. Her forehead touched the frame, directly on the lady’s face.
The lady in the painting muffled a cry.
Selestria closed her eyes and closed herself to all outside distractions.
She leaned her head back. Less than two minutes later, she opened her eyes.
To Steve’s dismay, she did not have a pleased, excited expression on her face.
“Oh, no,” Geddon said, thinking the same thing. His face looked waxy and pale.
“It’s not that,” Selestria said, her voice constricted and tired.
Whatever she had done as a Myth Hunter had obviously taken a lot out of her.
“He’s alive,” Selestria added, “I can sense him. But you aren’t going to like where he is.”
Geddon sighed but said nothing. He put his hands on his hips.
“At the fringes of Northern Soreltris—inside the boundaries of the region,” she said.
Geddon cursed under his breath and shook his head. “That’s almost a hundred-fifty miles from here!”
Selestria nodded. “I know.”
“Then we’d better get a move on,” Geddon said.
Selestria stood from the chair and handed the painting back to Geddon. She stumbled for a moment and Aiden reached out and caught her arm. The leprechaun was uncharacteristically quiet. His eyes darted around the room as he presumably acclimated to his home plane. Steve remembered that strange feeling well, from when he’d first Seared to Mythicus from the hospital bed on Terrus.
Steve held up his hands. “Hold on a minute,” he said. “You two are exhausted.” He pointed to Geddon. “You’ve just turned from an obese man to a elderly diabetic obese man in the span of two minutes.” He pointed at Selestria. “And you almost fell over when you stood. You two are dog-tired and we can’t go on like this.”
“He’s right,” Aiden said as Selestria snatched her arm away from his grip. They were clearly not on the best of terms. “I can cook supper and you can leave in the morning if you wish.”
“I hate to say it,” Steve said, “but the leprechaun’s made an offer we can’t refuse.” He hoped someone would get his Godfather reference, but everyone stared at him blankly. He deflated and added, “Let’s take him up on that dinner.”
“There’s no time . . .” Geddon said weakly.
“Shut up, old man,” Steve replied, more jokingly than not. “We’re all famished from fleeing the Brethren. Why don’t we sit down and eat? My head still hurts like hell.”
“That will give me a good chance to convince you three to let me come with you,” Aiden said cheerily.
“Out of the question,” Geddon spat. He seemed to relent on the argument about leaving now or later.
“Why not?” Steve found himself saying. He didn’t know why he was standing up for Aiden, but there it was.
Aiden pointed at Steve. “Yeah, what he said.”
“Because we don’t trust you,” Selestria said. “We know your history—what you are. What you’ve been accused of isn’t half as bad as what you’ve actually done.”
Aiden frowned, his freckled face growing red. “You have no right,” he said through gritted teeth, “to deny me when you know what I’ve been through.”
“What have you been through?” Steve asked. “Why do you want to come with us?”
“Because the Brethren overlords killed my brother,” Aiden said. “And I will see that line of leadership stricken from this place. Anyone with a gemstone name needs to die.”
Steve was taken aback. He liked Aiden’s angst and sudden burst of camaraderie and spitefulness, but he felt bad for the little man, too. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
Aiden swatted his hand away. He clearly didn’t want to be comforted. “Of course you didn’t know. But you’re right, I’m famished.”
WHILE THEY ATE, AN idea came to Steve. He proposed the idea while Aiden was bringing out a plate of buttered shrimp.
“Do you have an exact idea where Tetsuo is staying captive?” he asked Selestria, spearing a shrimp with the golden fork he held.
She shook her head and took a bite from a chunk of bread. “The closer we get, the stronger my instinct will become, though. I’ll know where he is if he’s close.”
“But that doesn’t help us if he never gets close, does it?”
Selestria opened her mouth to retort, but had nothing to say. She shook her head.
“Then give me that thing.” Steve stood and reached over the table to take the painting from the seat it leaned against.
Geddon threw his arm over the painting like he was a mother protecting a child from lurching forward after slamming the brakes in a car. “Why do you want it?” he asked, clearly overprotective of the artifact.
By way of example, Steve reached into his back pocket and produced the gold coin he always had. “Holding this while I slept allowed me to dream-leap here, to this house.”
Geddon’s forehead creased. “And you think . . .”
“I think this gold coin has power connecting to Aiden, which allowed me to come here in Ethereus. And my hope is that the painting there has the same power connecting to Tetsuo. So give it here.”
Geddon relented and handed over the painting.
Steve leaned back and held it in front of him like Selestria had.
Everyone put their forks down and stared at him, curious and dazzled by what might happen. In all their years on Mythicus, they’d likely never seen something like this being tried, much less from a human. And here was Steve, leaning his forehead against the painting and closing his eyes—
And opening them into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
STEVE APPEARED IN A small, dark room, about the size of a studio apartment in San Diego. Three white candles flickered—two sat on nightstands on opposite sides of the room. A third hung from the ceiling. There was only one door in the room. It had no handle.
For all intents and purposes, this was a jail cell. It didn’t have any bars, but it had other familiar amenities: a bucket to piss and shit in; a hard bed that was more of a bench than a bed; the lack of any windows. The windowless room meant no light, so the prisoner would lose track of time.
The prisoner sat in the corner of the room, on the cold stone floor next to one of the candled nightstands. He read a leather-bound book.
When Steve appeared near the center of the room, the man in the corner closed his book and looked up.
Steve blinked a few times to adjust to the dimness. He knew he was in Ethereus. He’d become quite adept at being able to tell when he was dreaming and when he was in another person’s mind. But he was clueless about the specifics.
Where am I?
His eyes fell on the man in the corner. He wore a filthy, coarse robe wrapped around his body. The room was more uncomfortable than it was cold. Steve figured the man wore the robe to feel the touch of something soft against his skin.
The man had a salt-and-pepper mustache, long and wispy, reaching to the bottom of his ears. He had a goatee that hung from his chin like strands of fine, black
spaghetti.
This was the person from the picture in Aiden’s house.
This was Tetsuo.
The man’s face was stern and flat, his cheekbones high, his eyes half-open. He was bone-thin and tired.
“Who are you?” the man asked. To Steve’s surprise, he had hardly any accent. Steve knew he wasn’t being fair, expecting the man to sound Japanese because of his appearance. He seemed like a lost ronin warrior—a nomad trapped in a cell. It must have been excruciating.
“My name is Steve Remington. I’ve been sent by Geddon and Se—”
“I know the name,” Tetsuo said.
Steve finished, saying, “And Selestria. Your wife.”
“How do they fair?
“They’re worried about you, of course.”
Tetsuo nodded slowly. He groaned and left his book on the ground, then helped himself up, gingerly placing his feet below him. When he stood, he leaned against the wall behind him for support.
“I’m fine,” Tetsuo said, wrapping his robe tighter around his body. He was feeble and hunched. Steve could hardly believe this was the famed leader of the Vagrant Kinship. Geddon had talked him up to be some kind of noble, unifying chieftain. Right now, he looked more like the village drunk.
“You don’t look it,” Steve replied. He narrowed his eyes and added, “How do you know my name, or who I am?”
“Never mind that,” Tetsuo said, waving him off. His hand was skinny, with protruding knuckles and long, dirty yellow nails. “Why have you come here?”
He seemed middle-aged, possibly in his mid-forties or fifties. But Steve knew how deceiving looks could be on Mythicus. This man could have very well been alive for millennia. Also, his current state likely aged him a good ten or twenty years.
“To see where you are, so the Kinship might break you free from your confines,” Steve said. He noticed his voice had changed while talking to this man—his syntax was different than usual. It was as if Tetsuo commanded a measure of respect that, just by talking to him, changed you. Made you more formal and serious.
Tetsuo made a strange sound with his throat, and Steve realized it was a dry chuckle.
“You won’t have any luck doing that,” he said.
“But we have the Conveyor—we have the painting that binds you. And we have Selestria, a Myth Hunter. Surely we can find you?”
“Yes, I’ve felt her presence . . . probing around.” The way he said it made it sound like he was somewhat disgusted with his wife for searching for him. It baffled Steve.
If I could only be so loved, he thought, shaking his head. This man doesn’t know what he has with that loyal woman.
Tetsuo continued. “Even if you could find me, you’d have slim chance of extricating me.” He twirled his bony hand around the air. “This place is surrounded by Brethren blackguards and hellraisers. It would be suicide to try to rescue me from here.”
Steve frowned again. He didn’t like where this was going. “So, what, we’re supposed to give up? Geddon and Selestria won’t want to hear that.”
“I never said that. I only said you couldn’t rescue me from here.”
Steve put a hand to his chin and pulled the skin under his neck. His forehead creased as he asked, “What do you mean, then?”
“First, tell me how you got here.”
“We found the Conveyor at Aiden O’Shaunessy’s house. You’re familiar with him, yes?”
“Ah, Aiden . . . of course I am. How does that red-bearded ragamuffin get along?”
Steve couldn’t tell if “ragamuffin” was a term of endearment or an insult. It was hard to tell with his slow, deliberate way of speaking.
“Well enough,” Steve said with a shrug.
Tetsuo nodded. “Go on.”
“There’s not much more to say. Selestria tried to locate you, said she knew approximately where you were, but that was it. You are far from us.”
“And you?” Tetsuo asked. He was very intrigued, apparently, to know how Steve was standing in front of him.
“I dream-leaped,” Steve said, as if it was obvious.
But Tetsuo was shocked. His eyebrows jumped. “Through the barriers the Brethren have placed here? That’s quite amazing.”
“Is it?” Steve asked. “Seemed easy to me.”
Tetsuo gazed at him from head to heel, judging him. It made Steve uneasy. He looked away.
“So . . .” Steve said, when he could no longer bear the silence. “You were going to tell me why it would be fruitless to try to rescue you.”
“It would be folly for you to try to extract me from here,” Tetsuo clarified. “But there still might be an opportunity in the imminent future.”
“When?” Steve asked, but then thought it might not be the correct “W” question. “Where?”
“I have spoken with my captor at length,” Tetsuo began. “He has said there is going to be a marriage between two noble Brethren families in a short time. He will take me with him, because he doesn’t trust me being far from him—he expects a jailbreak in his absence. So, to levy against that, he will bring me with him.”
Steve’s heart froze in his chest. He could no longer hear himself breathing. He was about to ask, “Who is the marriage between?” but realized two things: one, Tetsuo was a prisoner, and probably didn’t know or care about that detail. And two, the answer to the question was obvious.
How many noble Brethren families could there be, especially ones getting married?
Tetsuo was being brought to Annabel Lee and Tiberius Reynolds’ wedding.
It made Steve’s mind whirl. What kind of implications would that have for Steve’s plan? He still hadn’t formulated anything concrete—though he had ideas. But how would this newfound information change his strategy?
“Are you sure he’s taking you to the wedding? Why does he feel he must attend?” Steve knew he sounded desperate.
“The union is a political measure Overseer Malachite has an interest in,” Tetsuo said. “He wouldn’t miss such an important occasion. Or so he’s told me.”
“Damn.”
“Is this a problem?” Tetsuo asked, squinting.
“Possibly. I hope not.”
“The best time for your group to make your move will be during the wedding. If there is ever going to be a time when I’m least focused on—least guarded—it will be then. It will take place in—”
“I know when the wedding is,” Steve said. When Tetsuo raised his eyebrows, Steve added, “I know the parties involved.”
“Ah.” Tetsuo glanced at the wall behind Steve. “Has day broken yet?”
Steve nodded.
“Then I assume we will begin riding south this afternoon, to get to the location beforehand. We have over a hundred-fifty miles to cover.”
“Right,” Steve said. Though this seemed like a terrible complication to his plan, perhaps it would be a blessing. He tried to look at things positively.
If Tetsuo is brought down here, it means we can prepare. We can create the battlefield of our choosing, rather than going in blind to a heavily guarded complex.
I was also worried that rescuing Tetsuo wouldn’t give me enough time to stop the wedding. But now, these events will converge, and I can kill two birds with one stone.
“What worries you?” Tetsuo asked, noticing the wheels turning in Steve’s mind.
Steve shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’m thinking of logistics.”
“I would bring this to Geddon’s attention. He’s always been a sound strategist.”
“Of course.”
They both went silent, gazing at each other, and Steve wondered who would be the first to blink.
Then Tetsuo’s hard eyes lightened and became sorrowful. “I’m sure you must be going, but before you do . . . I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“How did you retrieve my Conveyor from Aiden? Did you steal it?”
Steve shook his head. “He gave it to us.”
“In exchange for what?
”
Steve smirked.
“I know he’d never do something like that out of the kindness of his heart,” Tetsuo added, also grinning. “It is not his way.”
“Geddon returned him to Mythicus. That was the bargain.”
Tetsuo sighed. “Ah, then it is done. No wonder I felt a wave of energy pass through me earlier. I feel younger and spryer than I have in months.”
“You don’t look it,” Steve said, but instantly regretted it. There was no point in bringing this poor man down. He’d been a captive for months, like he’d said—but sometimes Steve couldn’t help himself with the quick barbs.
But Tetsuo took it in stride. “I know,” he said. “But I feel it.”
Steve said, “I don’t understand. Why do you feel younger?”
“With the exchange of the painting, he is not a part of me anymore. He is no longer Bound to me.”
Shocked, Steve took a step back. “You mean you’re . . .”
Tetsuo nodded. “I am Aiden O’Shaunessy’s Seeker. I am like you in a way, Steve Remington.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
Tetsuo shrugged. “I only meant we both tread the same path—we are both Myth Seekers.”
“But I’m a . . . human,” Steve said slowly.
Tetsuo nodded, and Steve finally got it.
Cocking his head to the side, he said, “You mean . . . you’re human, too?”
The man smiled. “Is that such a surprise?”
“Hell yes it is!” Steve shouted, stretching his arms out wide. “Here I thought you were one of the most powerful Mythics in the realm. I mean, I assumed you must be to become the leader of a Mythic rebellion. And it turns out you’re just . . . like me? A weak, feeble human?”
Tetsuo let his raw, throaty chuckle carry over Steve’s words. “Humans are not weak and feeble, my friend. We may not have the mythical abilities they have—though I’m starting to doubt that right now, with you standing here before me—but we have our own strengths.”
