Semiautomatic Sorceress Boxed Set One: includes: Southwest Nights, Southwest Days, and Southwest Truths

by Kal Aaron

  Takeo nodded. “It returned a few days after your encounter in Houston.”

  “And the Imperial Sage and the Hangman?”

  “Both have already returned.”

  “Huh.” Lyssa chuckled. “That quickly, huh?”

  “Others have taken longer in the documented past.”

  “What’s the record you’ve heard?” Lyssa asked. “In the documented past.”

  “Six months,” Takeo replied. “It remains unclear why it took so long in that case. I’m not denying it could take longer, but I can only tell you what we can confirm.”

  Lyssa nodded. “Fine. Then back to the bet.”

  “If I had to bet, I’d argue that they were wrong when they decided your brother was dead. Speaking as a vault tender, I’d say he was alive but died recently.” He delivered the verdict in a quiet but firm tone, no doubt in his voice.

  Lyssa sucked in a breath. She didn’t want that answer, even if she’d expected it.

  “But who am I to question others investigating these things?” Takeo continued. “I’m not a Torch or an Eclipse. I’m a vault tender. I can only tell you what I believe.”

  “Well, I’m a Torch, and I question it.” Lyssa shrugged. “I need to see it with my own eyes. Once I do, that’ll answer some questions.”

  “It’ll take about five more minutes to arrive. I apologize.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’ve been waiting a while for this. I can wait a few more minutes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lyssa’s heart thundered as they stopped in front of a wall segment marked Northern Trickster. Other than the Lemurian script near the top, nothing about it was different from any other spot in the hallway.

  That frustrated her. Whatever lay on the other side could be the answer to a fifteen-year-old question. It might hurt less if there was something notable about it.

  She pushed out the thoughts. The universe was even-handed in good times and bad.

  “This is it, huh?” Lyssa swallowed.

  “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Takeo replied.

  Lyssa let out a dark chuckle. “I came halfway across the world and carved through a lot of monsters and a rogue to earn the right to do this. There’s no way I’m turning back now.”

  “As you wish.”

  Takeo turned to the wall. He produced a small wooden doll from within his robe and began chanting a spell in Japanese while shaking the doll. His form blurred, and a perfect copy of him appeared beside him.

  Lyssa had seen the spell before, but that didn’t make it any less unnerving. It wasn’t an illusion but an actual copy. Sometimes she appreciated a straightforward essence. Takeo’s duplication essence invoked all sorts of strange thoughts. The last thing a paranoid woman needed was more things to worry about.

  The first Takeo replaced the doll and pulled out a key, this one metal instead of crystal. He handed it to his copy before retrieving his original key. They held up their keys and chanted in unison, this time in Lemurian.

  Bright lines appeared on the wall and traced curvilinear sigils over several seconds. A low hum sounded.

  Lyssa held her breath. She clutched her hands together.

  She could defeat almost any enemy. That kind of problem didn’t bother her, but this wasn’t a situation where she could shoot her way to victory.

  The lines grew brighter, almost blinding. Pieces of the wall slowly turned translucent, then faded from view as if they had been an illusion the entire time. Ten long seconds passed before there was a perfectly rectangular doorway in the wall leading into a tiny alcove barely large enough to fit a single person. Stark white light shone from the roof, highlighting the clothes inside.

  A pair of boots, a tunic, and a mask floated in front of Lyssa—a regalia. A few seconds later, the alcove flashed, and the regalia twisted and warped into a purple suit, shiny black shoes, and a black caplet. The next form was a high-slit dress and an elaborate crown. Lyssa couldn’t help but think about how impractical that’d be for combat.

  The regalia continued to cycle through combinations of clothing items and colors. Gloves appeared or disappeared, along with other accessories, bracelets, rings, earrings, even an eyepatch, but never any weapons. No regalia came with weapons.

  “As you can see, the Northern Trickster has returned to the Vault of Dreams,” Takeo said, motioning inside.

  “Maybe,” Lyssa replied, keeping her tone polite. Whatever had happened with her brother and his regalia wasn’t Takeo’s fault.

  Lyssa swallowed and stared at the constantly changing regalia. An unbound regalia represented possibility, but not infinite possibility. The Illuminated connected his or her soul to the costume during their Initiation, freezing it in a fixed form that was reflective of the Illuminated’s personality and hidden potential.

  Sorcerers and Sorceresses took it for granted that they’d have access to regalia. Without the powerful tools, their abilities would be limited. It was one of the reasons the Vault of Dreams was one of the best-defended places on Last Remnant with its maze-like layout, spell requirements to transit, guards, and active and passive sorcerous defenses.

  Lyssa could have tried to break in with all the showstoppers in the world, but she wouldn’t have made it this far. She had not accepted that truth before, but now that she’d passed through the Vault again, she understood the implications.

  That cold reality constrained the possibilities. Corruption among vault tenders wasn’t impossible, but they were constantly checking each other’s work, which reduced the possibility. It was an almost sacred duty.

  Her stomach tightened and she sighed. There was a regalia in front of her now, so a lot of her paranoid conspiracy theories burned up in the fires of truth and hard evidence.

  “Are you okay, Lyssa?” Takeo asked.

  “I’m fine,” Lyssa said. “It’s a lot to take in, but this isn’t over yet.”

  Although the Society and the vault tenders had lost much of the ancient knowledge of Lemuria, they weren’t ignorant. There was one important truth they’d figured out. The cycling witnessed in the Vault of Dreams wasn’t random. The versions that appeared included both known versions of the past and potential new forms.

  Lyssa didn’t care about the other implications. She was focused on the one relevant fact that related to the investigation of her brother’s alleged death. More recent regalia forms appeared more often in the cycle. As the most recent bearer of the Northern Trickster, if the regalia in the alcove was truly her brother’s, she’d see his form if she waited long enough.

  There was one small problem. Appearing recently didn’t guarantee an appearance in a given timeframe.

  She cleared her throat. “This might take a while.”

  “Of course.” Takeo nodded.

  “You don’t have to stay here with me.” Lyssa shrugged. “You know better than I that this might take a long time.”

  Takeo looked stubborn. “The Vault of Dreams can be a place of great joy or crushing sadness. This isn’t a time you should be alone, Lyssa. I will wait. If you wish to talk, I will talk. If you wish me to be silent, I’ll do that. That is part of the duty of the vault tenders.”

  “I’m just going to watch and wait.” Lyssa sighed. “However long it takes. You’re never too old to practice patience, right?”

  “Do you wish me to remain silent during this time?” Jofi asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “This is a family matter for now.”

  “As you wish, Lyssa.”

  Standing and staring at an ever-changing outfit provided a Zenlike experience, but this wasn’t meditation. This was the opposite. She wasn’t setting her mind free. She wasn’t concentrating with all her will and effort.

  Takeo stood behind her, his arms behind his back. He waited in silence, having dismissed his duplicate. His presence was more comforting than she’d anticipated.

  The regalia continued to change from one form to another. Lyssa knelt after thirty minu
tes and sat down twenty minutes after that. As if mocking her, the regalia repeated one of the earlier forms without showing her brother’s.

  Lyssa wrapped her arms around her legs, waiting and worrying that she might have blinked at the wrong time or coughed, somehow missing her brother’s regalia. The changes weren’t quick enough that that should have been a problem, but she wanted to be sure.

  Or did she? Seeing the last form of the Northern Trickster would point to Chris being dead.

  It didn’t matter at this point. She needed to know one way or another. That was the only way she could move on with her life and face the conspiracy now targeting her.

  Tristan’s tenuous links between her brother and the present incident supported a small hope that the same people would be involved. That would make revenge easy, but she also knew coincidences happened more often than people thought due to the tight-knit nature of the sorcery community.

  Lyssa didn’t know how long she’d wait before deciding the true Northern Trickster hadn’t returned. It was a long shot. The presence of the unbound changing regalia in this alcove was strong proof it had returned.

  Despite her rants and accusations, the setup of the Vault of Dreams undercut most of her theories. The individual vault tenders couldn’t remove regalia. They couldn’t even touch them. Regalia only left their alcoves when they were bound to an Illuminated.

  The Vault of Dreams had been salvaged during the fall of Lemuria and remained a product of sorcery no longer available to the modern Society. Although no one liked to remember, it was only a portion of the original structure.

  Sorcerers had advanced since then, but they’d never been able to recover all their lost knowledge and power. That eternal longing for an inaccessible past explained a lot about the pathologies of the Illuminated Society.

  “Do you ever do this out of curiosity?” she asked in a quiet voice, nodding at the regalia. “Just watch one to see what it’s been and what it might be?”

  “I have, yes,” Takeo replied. “It’s hard to know for certain if we’re seeing forms from times of spotty records or the future, though I, like most, believe we’re also seeing the potential of the regalia.”

  “Kind of weird when you think about it.” Lyssa narrowed her eyes. “It’s almost kind of like it’s seeing into the future.”

  “In a way, yes.”

  Lyssa shot up as the regalia shifted to a familiar form. Thigh-high boots, a yellow and blue tunic, long blue gloves, and a carved wooden mask. She only needed a split second to recognize her brother’s version of the Northern Trickster.

  “What do you think?” Takeo asked.

  The small seconds stretched into an eternity as she stared at the regalia, her stomach twisting and bile rising in the back of her throat. With no fanfare or respect for her feelings, the regalia shifted into a different form.

  “It’s his,” she whispered. “It’s Chris’s version.”

  “I agree,” Takeo replied.

  Lyssa leaned against the wall, sighing. “That’s a slap in the face. I came all this way, hoping I wouldn’t see it. I tried to tell myself I was ready for the other possibility, but deep in my heart, I thought I was going to sit here for two weeks and never see that form. Then I could leave and have that uncertainty to cling to.”

  Takeo nodded. “I’m sorry, Lyssa. I truly am. I know you didn’t want this, but I hope it brings you some small peace.”

  She wanted to believe it was a fake, but there was electricity in the air around unbound regalia, something every Illuminated was intimately familiar with—a tingly presence that cut through the normal pressure of sorcery, even the intense levels present on Last Remnant. The truth had flashed in front of her in that brief moment.

  The regalia’s constant change was expected. It put off the normal sensation, and it had turned into her brother’s form at least once.

  Faking that would require breaking into the Vault of Dreams and pulling off numerous complicated spells without anyone noticing. Takeo wasn’t the only vault tender. Inspections of every regalia didn’t occur every day, but someone was bound to discover something strange even if someone somehow beat all the passive spells in the building.

  A good conspiracy theory added epicycle-like explanations to justify every irregularity to counter the towering enormity of truth. Lyssa was through torturing herself.

  Chris was dead. The only thing left was to find his killer and make them pay.

  “Let’s go,” she whispered. “I’ve gotten what I needed.”

  After returning to her room, Lyssa collapsed onto the bed, not bothering to take her mask, coat, or holsters off. She’d gotten what she wanted but didn’t know where to go from here. The most likely explanation was the obvious one: Chris had somehow survived for years, only to die recently.

  Lyssa sighed. Seeing the Northern Trickster had brought her no closure. It only ripped the wound open farther.

  “I need to figure out what the hell happened,” Lyssa said. “I blew it off before, but the more I think about it, there’s a good chance it has something to do with Tristan’s investigation. He can help me find the person responsible, then I’m going to go up to them and explain to them exactly who I am before I take them out.”

  “Mr. St. James might have already killed the man responsible,” Jofi said. “Given what he said, you shouldn’t dismiss that possibility.”

  “No,” Lyssa stated flatly, “He killed the man responsible for an incident fifteen years ago, not something more recent. I’m willing to accept that Chris is gone, but I don’t think he died fifteen years ago. Our favorite spirit-based killer took out whoever was responsible, but he hasn’t associated it with my brother yet. I’ve got to figure this out.”

  “I see,” Jofi replied. “How do you intend to pursue your brother’s investigation? As far as I could tell, you had no concrete plans other than visiting the Vault of Dreams upon your arrival.”

  Lyssa sat up. “I’ll think of something. I just need some time to clear my head. It might be as simple as wandering a couple of dark forests until some asshole decides to jump me.”

  “There is increased spirit activity near this room,” Jofi said.

  Lyssa pulled a gun and loaded explosive rounds. While the Elders and the Tribunal frowned on unnecessary property damage, Last Remnant had strong self-defense laws. They very much bought into the idea of an armed society being a polite society.

  She grinned. “I didn’t think it’d happen that quickly.”

  A soft whisper tickled her ear, bringing a familiar voice—Tristan’s. “Meet me in the Garden of Glories.”

  Lyssa shoved the gun back into the holster, disappointed. “I would have preferred the kind of assassin who was trying to kill me, but this gives me something to do other than sit and brood.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lyssa didn’t need Sumira or anyone else to show her the way to the Garden of Glories. She might not have been on the island for years, but the garden was one of the first places she’d visited on her first trip. It was one of those ridiculous sorcery-only landmarks that made Last Remnant more exotic than New Orleans on Mardi Gras, a place where people hung out in funny costumes and plotted to screw each other over.

  She wandered down the perfect streets. No one paid her any special attention. A woman walking in shadow-cloaked regalia and a skull mask wasn’t unusual on Last Remnant. The more Lyssa thought about that, the more she wanted to laugh.

  They all took the power, the regalia, and the hidden island for granted. Illuminated like her who hadn’t grown up on Last Remnant might be uncomfortable, but they rarely stopped to consider how absurd the whole idea was.

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s been wrong,” she muttered.

  “You’re talking about your brother?” Jofi asked.

  “No.” Lyssa glanced around. There weren’t a lot of people around, and no one gave her a strange look for talking to herself. “I’m talking about the future. I figure we need some sort of coexiste
nce, but being back at Last Remnant, I’m reminded that my kind might as well be from a different planet.”

  “You’re still humans,” Jofi said. “Whatever differences in customs and individual abilities you have, your fundamental nature isn’t that different. You’re far from a gun spirit, for example.”

  “True.” Lyssa craned her neck to take in a nearby tower. A flock of birds circled in, heading for the pointed tip. “There are a lot of weird customs out there. Maybe I’m overthinking it.”

  “Do you believe Mr. St. James will have a good lead about possible rogues and assassins?”

  Lyssa was grateful for the change of topic. Still reeling from the Vault, focusing on the two things she did best, killing people and breaking their things, calmed her.

  “I don’t think he contacted me because he wants to talk about how much he wishes there was a sequel to Rainbow Chicken Screams So Loud,” she said.

  “And you remain convinced you can trust him?”

  Lyssa laughed. “I don’t trust him. I just don’t think he’s going to kill me. I figure if I’m going to get targeted, I might as well have a deadly Eclipse backing me up, just like what was supposed to happen, in theory, back in the ghost town.”

  She jogged around a corner, almost bumping into a six-legged, two-armed gold construct toting a silver box. A delicious herbaceous smell wafted from the box, Last Remnant’s version of takeout.

  “Chris is gone, and I’m still processing that,” Lyssa continued, “but that wasn’t the only reason I came here, and St. James contacting me reminded me of that.”

  Minutes of brisk walking brought her close to her destination. Whatever else she might say about Last Remnant, the main city was very walkable. Shadow college kids would love it.

  The Garden of Glories was nestled between four towers near the western edge of the city. Circular platforms filled with dark soil floated in twisted and overlapping spiral patterns, the platforms increasing in height with yards in between them. At the bottom levels, smaller flowers and unassuming grasses dominated, but larger, more exotic flowers took over farther up, including plants and flowers that were unnatural. They sported an array of colors and complicated patterns, including swirls and geometric designs that were the result of careful sorcerous manipulation. Lyssa spotted some that were covered with Lemurian script, mostly pretentious poems.