by Eric Asher
“Blessing?” Ashley asked.
The innkeeper poured two steaming mugs and set them on the table. “To see if we can go about saving that idiot necromancer.”
“Oh, of course. Beth and Cornelius are chasing the last coin.” And Ashley wondered, what were they facing in the Shadowed Lands on their own? She shivered and sipped at the hot cocoa.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Beth awoke in silence and darkness. Before she could so much as try to remember how she’d gotten there, a voice called out.
“You’re safe here.”
It was Cornelius’s gruff voice, of that she had no doubt. She sat up on a hard bed, her eyes adjusting to the meager light floating in the corner. Not floating, she realized after a moment, but a torch in a sconce.
She rubbed at her eyes and blinked. “What happened to Sleeper?”
“The hell if I know. We called on the shadows, no different than we ever have, but it sure as hell didn’t have the same effect.”
Beth nodded. “I know. Sleeper stepped into that thing. I thought it had absorbed him.”
The door creaked open, and Sleeper walked in. “Not absorbed, it was more like two halves reunited.”
Beth hesitated. “What do you mean? Two halves?”
“The spirit of shadow, one who walks between worlds, and the part of me you have seen in your own realm.” He placed his hand over his heart. “And the flesh who lives in this realm. We are of two natures, not so unlike your goddess you seek to resurrect. Though the Titans are not the same as us.”
Cornelius narrowed his eyes. “You could have passed for a Titan on that battlefield. You took down that … thing.”
“Not all of the Eldritch are so easily defeated. I’m sure you’re aware of that, as are those of us who survive here. We would not have unleashed something we could not defeat. So I fear your assessment may be somewhat skewed.”
“But our powers call to you?” Beth asked.
Sleeper inclined his head. “The blood mages have always called to us. The magic you wield is considered the third part of our being by many. But it is considered a curse by others; a curse laid upon us by the Titans so that we may be bound to another realm for all time.”
“Thank you for what you’ve done for us.” Beth stood up and took a shaky breath. She hesitated, and then reached out to pat Sleeper on the upper arm. “Without you, there’s a great deal we would not have survived. I won’t forget that.”
Sleeper gave Beth a shallow bow. “I am grateful to be bound to you and Cornelius. In the history of the blood mages, there have been far more cruel partnerships.”
“I was worried you may consider us masters,” Cornelius said.
Sleeper smiled. “There is much of us you do not understand. A partnership is more apt, as a partnership may be broken, and should it become strained enough, terminated.”
Beth didn’t think Sleeper meant terminated like the end of a contract or ripping up a piece of paper. She was quite certain he meant that the creatures from the Shadowed Lands could execute the blood mages at will. Or if not at will, without as much trouble as one might hope.
“But these things are inconsequential.” Sleeper held his hand out to the door. “Follow me, and I will lead you to the sage. She looks forward to meeting you, as those from your realm she has met previously were not so pleasant.”
Beth glanced at Cornelius but didn’t say anything. She suspected he was thinking the same thing she was. Who had been here before? And what did Sleeper mean when he said they hadn’t been pleasant?
The blood mages followed Sleeper out the door. Beth froze. It was night there by then, and stars and nebula lit up the sky around what was either a distant moon, or a not so distant planet. But between them, and behind them, and all around that beautiful vista drifted the terrible outlines of the Eldritch gods.
“Do you ever get used to that?”
Sleeper glanced back at Beth, and then followed her gaze to the stars above. “To a degree. It is a constant reminder of what we fight for, of what we lost, and what we still have to lose.”
“Memento mori,” Cornelius whispered.
That didn’t strike Beth as a phrase Sleeper would understand. But the Shadowed Lands resident focused on Cornelius and gave the old blood mage a small smile. Sleeper then turned back to the path ahead of them.
* * *
The Shadowed Lands were an alien place to be sure. But considering the stories of the Burning Lands Beth had heard over the years, she’d take the Shadowed Lands over that hellscape any day.
Now that the light had truly left the sky, the Shadowed Lands had come to life. Foliage that before she had mistaken for rocks cracked open, revealing traces of bright blue flesh within, and the animals came looking for it.
Most of the creatures running around looked like oversized lizards, but as much as Beth enjoyed the harmless lizards back in Missouri and Kansas, these were the length of her forearm with teeth to frighten off the most adamant animal lover.
Other things whispered through the underbrush just off the path as Sleeper led them into the woods. Something growled and hissed like a very large angry cat, but Beth couldn’t make out the shape of the animal.
“Do not worry about those who hiss,” Sleeper said. “They are loud, but they are tiny.”
“Are they venomous?” Cornelius asked. “For that matter, are those giant lizards venomous?”
“So long as you do not eat them, they will not harm you.”
Cornelius bobbed his head as they continued walking. “So they’re poisonous.”
“Your realm has odd language. What can kill you will kill you, regardless of what words you choose.”
“I’d say that’s an oversimplification. You need to know if the thing itself can kill you, or if you need to ingest it for it to kill you.”
“Cornelius,” Beth hissed. “Are you serious right now? You’re doing this here?”
The old blood mage scowled at her, adjusted the leather hat on his head, and let it drop.
“It is fine, Beth.” Sleeper gestured to the path ahead. “It is good to learn the sensitive areas of your friends and allies.”
“Speaking of language issues,” Beth whispered to Cornelius.
The blood mage chuckled as they turned the corner. A field of those stonelike flowers opened ahead of them. They weren’t all bright blue. There were greens and reds that looked like blood, and in the distance, some of them were even luminescent.
“It’s beautiful,” Beth said.
“Yes. It is likely why the previous sage chose this place long ago to build his home. It was grander once, before our conflicts with the Eldritch destroyed so much of our home. But the world goes on around us, and most of the animals have returned, and this place, which has been our home, will remain so.”
Beth smiled at Sleeper. There was a familiarity to his words. She had lost more than one home over the years. Some had been lost to floods, others to infighting among her family. But no matter where she settled, it became home eventually. And now, all she needed for somewhere to be home was Ashley.
Sleeper led them around the largest of the stone plants. Nestled behind it stood what at first appeared to be a humble dwelling. But the closer they got, the more Beth realized how intricate the carvings were in the stone of the walls, and how delicate the illustrations etched into the door itself were.
Brown rock filled the space between the walkway and the walls, much like the garden of any commoner. And it took a moment for Beth to realize that the brown rocks were the fallen petals, or branches, of the stone plants.
Cornelius and Sleeper didn’t seem nearly so interested in the vegetation or the lizards that scampered by around them. Sleeper approached the door without hesitation.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Join me.” The voice echoed from inside the home. It sounded as if it belonged to an elderly woman. Perhaps not quite so old as Zola, but if it had been a commoner, Beth would’ve expected them to be between sixty
and seventy.
Something screeched at Beth as she reached the entryway. Movement caught her eye, and she saw a tiny tuft of fur, not much larger than a hamster, perched at the edge of the doorway. It was nearly as round as Jasper, the dragon that followed Vicky around, but absolutely tiny.
The creature danced up and down the wall, covering only a handful of inches as it paced back and forth. It screeched at her again, and the sound was loud enough that she expected it to be the size of a cat. But the round ball trundled off into the shadows and vanished where it took up a chorus with more of the unseen animals.
“It sounds as if they like you,” the elderly voice said from inside.
Beth crossed the threshold, and while there were features inside that reminded her of Sleeper’s home, much greater care had been given to the decorations and furniture that adorned the room. Instead of the thick timbers and thin cushions, graceful arcs and flourishes supported each chair and couch.
“Please take a seat.”
A bright blue blanket shifted, drawing Beth’s gaze to the sage. The blanket had been finely knit like one of her grandmother’s afghans, and Beth wondered if here in the Shadowed Lands they worked in the same way.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Sleeper said. “I wish to introduce you to Beth, sometimes known as Elizabeth, and her mentor, Cornelius.”
Beth raised an eyebrow at Sleeper. She wasn’t sure how he’d known that her full name was Elizabeth. Part of her questioned if he knew how much that name tended to annoy her. She’d always preferred her nickname, but her family had been loath to use it.
The sage shrugged off her blanket. As much as her voice had sounded older than Sleeper, Beth wouldn’t have thought the woman was older at all. Much like Sleeper, her gray skin was smooth but for the red ridges that ran from her hairline across her eyes. Although Sleeper’s stopped at his lips, the sage’s continued on, narrowing at the line of her chin before widening again as they crept down her neck.
“Humanity is not a people who have often ventured here.” The sage folded her hands together in her lap. “And certainly they have not survived our trials.”
“Others have come?” Cornelius asked. “Others seeking the cale?”
“A few, yes. But they were not mortals. The wars of the Fae have a long reach. Some wield powers they do not understand, while others do nothing regardless of the fact they understand everything. The courts have long warred with each other, and at times they have come to the Shadowed Lands seeking power.”
Beth’s stomach dropped. “Was it the Unseelie Fae who came here?”
“Long ago, yes. They came here in a bid to rule all you see. But what you see with your eyes is not the truth of this place.” The sage drummed her fingers on her chair. It seemed an oddly human gesture to Beth, where so much of the realm felt familiar yet alien. “Come. It is time you see what dwells behind the glass.”
Cornelius threw Beth a look she didn’t understand. He looked suspicious, but curious all at once. Perhaps it was smart of him to be suspicious in the Shadowed Lands, but Sleeper and the sage felt like old friends. And Beth couldn’t shake that feeling. It wasn’t trust, exactly, but it was a deeper feeling than she had any reason to have.
Beth followed the sage through an arched doorway. It led to a room with two large stone pits and a chimney. A warm fire burned inside and something bubbled in a cauldron, smelling of cloves and meat.
Past the kitchen area, as Beth thought of it, the sage led them back outside.
“My God,” Cornelius said, stepping up beside the sage.
Sprawled before them was a vista like nothing Beth had ever seen or imagined. It looked like an ocean, as still as glass, lit from within by the slow-moving forms. Faded giants and pale colors flowed through the darkness, not so unlike the Abyss itself. But here there was vibrant life, not a vast wasteland of Eldritch things and nothingness.
“It’s like a smudged window,” Beth said.
The sage inclined her head. “An apt description. All of what we were lives beneath. All of what we are lives here. And all of what we may suffer waits above. The Eldritch cannot be allowed into this Seal, my friends. The Eldritch must be banished into the darkness from which they were born.”
“I don’t understand,” Cornelius said. “Are you saying those giants, they’re a part of you?”
“It would seem you understand quite well, Cornelius.”
Sleeper stood silently behind the group, watching the skies while the sage spoke to Beth and Cornelius.
“When you summon us into your realm, you pull the shadows from beneath the glass.”
“It’s like an ocean.” Beth gestured at the expanse, where it started just below the cliff they stood upon. Waves moved across the glass, bulges barely visible and so slow-moving it was easy to think the world was still. But where the glass started beneath them, it was as if half the world had been broken off in one mighty strike.
The sage smiled. “A sea of giants. But they suffer. We suffer. Always there is a price to pay to defend one’s own.”
A deep boom echoed up from below, shaking the very cliff. It trailed off into a high-pitched warbling squeal. At times it felt as though the silence was absolute, but distant chimes and a kind of thunder crossed that ocean from time to time.
Cornelius squeezed his hands together and then turned his attention to the sage. “You talk of defending your own, but we are inside a Seal here, are we not?”
“We are indeed. A world between worlds, our elders like to say. Or perhaps I should say liked to say.” A sad smile crossed the sage’s face.
“Then you do not only defend your own.” Cornelius looked back to the expanse. “You defend every realm on the other side of the Seal, every being who is threatened by the Eldritch things. You’re paying a price for more people than just your own.”
“You speak truth,” the sage said. “But it is not the other people that we fight for. It is not your realm we fight for. It is what remains of us in our world here, for it is all that we are. And now it falls under threat. I fear it is a threat we cannot overcome alone.”
“Ask them,” Sleeper whispered. “Just ask them, sage. If they will offer their help, they will agree, and if not, they can return home for whatever time they have.”
Beth took a step closer to the sage. “Ask us what?”
The sage took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her expression had hardened, as if she had made a decision that she’d been struggling with for some time. “Before I ask of you a favor, something that could change our world, I must tell you of the coin you seek.”
Cornelius stepped closer to the sage and asked, “Do you have the cale?”
“I do not mean to mislead you.” The sage met Cornelius’s gaze and Beth’s in turn. “We do not have a coin of the Titans here. We did, once. We shadow folk had a great many powers, artifacts you could scarcely imagine. Many were lost to the glass when the world cracked.
“But the coin, I fear, was stolen long ago by a white-haired vampire.”
Beth and Cornelius exchanged a glance.
“What the hell are you saying?” Cornelius asked.
“As I said, you are not the first to visit from your realm. The Unseelie have come here before. Even a Demon Sword named Drake came. But long after the Unseelie made their appearance, after our world was broken, the vampires came.”
“What was the vampire’s name?” Beth asked, her voice low and dangerous.
“Vassili.”
The name was like a slap to the face. He’d been the lord of the Pit Damian’s sister belonged to. Sam had trusted him, and Vassili had betrayed them all spectacularly.
The sage waited for them to process that. She didn’t turn away or show any emotion other than what Beth thought of as a detached kind of patience.
Cornelius looked down at his feet. “Some of the werewolves have been hunting Vassili. With little success.”
“Cizin was getting closer,” Beth said
. “That was the last I heard. But that’s not much to go on. Unless you think he hid it in the archives?”
Cornelius grimaced and turned to the sage. “What use would a vampire have for something like that?”
“The power of the Titans has long been tempting to shortsighted rulers. Perhaps he meant to awaken them, or thought he could control them.”
“Maybe he didn’t use it to awaken Titans,” Beth said. “Maybe he used it to awaken the harbingers of the dark-touched.”
Cornelius rubbed his chin. “With Vassili on the run, you think he gave it to Nudd?”
“The coins of the Titans cannot affect the dark-touched harbingers,” the sage said. “Of that, I am certain.”
“It could still be something Nudd sought out,” Cornelius said.
“That wouldn’t do us any good,” Beth said. “We have to find Vassili. It’s the only way we’re going to find out what happened to the cale.”
Cornelius blew out a breath. “Then we need to get back to our realm. Nothing we have can track that vampire.”
“We have Sam and the Pit. Maybe they can help. Vampires know vampires better than anyone else, and maybe Cizin can share his information.”
“Do not despair.” The sage put her hand on Cornelius’s shoulder. The raw flesh around her eyes crinkled up as she contemplated him. “We have ways of tracking what you desire. I can help you with that. But though it pains me to say it, I must ask for your help in return.”
Beth hesitated for only a moment. “What do we need to do?”
CHAPTER NINE
The sage gestured out to the glass ocean. “As I told you, my people are split. The faces you see below us represent everything that once was. But the creatures in the skies above represent the end of all. What we need, what I hope you will be willing to grant us, is a reunion with our true selves.”
Cornelius shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“She wants you to break the glass ocean,” Sleeper said.
Beth studied the unending vastness. Graceful forms drifted by, some locked with a serene look on their face, and others with the primal cry of the warrior. “How could we so much as scratch that?”
