“Naturally,” the man replied. “But I want to leave him with something to consider. Assume for a moment, Everson, that everything to this point in your wizard’s life was an illusion and that this is the reality. Assume that we’re not the enemy, but the ally. Assume that the Front isn’t opposing the Order, but fighting in its memory. Assume that our goal was never to call the Whisperer into the world, but to strain with the last fibers of our magic to keep it out.”
I remained staring at the ceiling, trying to bar his words from my mind.
“Assume for a moment that your mother was helping us,” he said, “and was killed for doing so. See if that doesn’t make more sense than what you’ve been led to believe.”
I turned enough to glare at him. “Don’t you dare mention my mother.”
Connell watched me intently for another moment, then turned and strode from the room. Arianna remained standing over the bed, head tilted. She seemed to be struggling with what to say.
“Call out if you need anything,” she said at last.
Then she too departed.
9
When Arianna’s footsteps receded, I felt the cocoon-like shield around me expand to the walls of the room. My head swam as I threw my legs over the side of the bed. The expenditure of energy in my attempt to break through the shield earlier had left me weak. Being down for five days didn’t help.
I sat for a moment, my gaze edging over to the bowl of broth on the bedside table. I lifted the bowl and brought it to my nose, its rich smell making my stomach quiver again. But I couldn’t trust it.
It’s something vile, I decided, setting the bowl back down.
When I pushed myself to my feet, the ends of a gown I was wearing fell to my knees. My shins looked thin and pale. I checked my chest, not surprised to find my coin pendant missing. My cane wasn’t anywhere to be seen either. Ditto Grandpa’s ring. I walked, using the wall for support—a wall of clean, solid stone—until I arrived at the window Arianna had been sitting beside earlier.
Squinting against the sun, I peered past the energy field and out into the world.
The courtyards inside the palace wall were handsome. The wind-blown plain below shimmered golden. The forest that ringed it appeared lush. I peered more closely at the plain. It was being patrolled, but not by wargs. The creatures looked like … common mastiffs?
I grunted. The illusion was impressive, I’d give them that.
I completed a circuit around the room, which included a small corner bathroom. The room’s other window as well as the door were covered by the shield—a defensive system I lacked the power to break through. I made my way back to the bed and sat, disturbed by how exhausted the short tour had left me. I leaned forward, hands dangling between my knees.
What was I doing alive? Why hadn’t the Death Mage killed me?
Because the Whisperer wants to use you, I answered, remembering what Chicory had said. And that’s what this is—one big mind fuck to get you to believe that they’re the good guys.
I peered around, considering the magic at work. Just as powerful as my mentor had warned me it would be. But though the Front could make me see, hear, and smell whatever they wanted, I still had my beliefs. I would be damned if I was going to let them crack those open.
The first step to resisting them would be knowing the Front’s strategy. I began cycling through Connell’s suggestions. My original impulse had been to block them out, but I needed to analyze his words, get a better grasp on how the Front would try to influence me.
There are no more Elders, he’d said. There is no Order.
They were trying to chisel cracks in the foundation on which my concepts of wizarding and my role in it were based. They were trying to challenge my identity.
My thoughts turned to Connell’s questions. Who had I encountered in the Order besides Lazlo and Chicory? The answer was no one, but so what? That was how the Order operated. Absent more often than they were present, taking forever to respond to correspondences—or ignoring them all together—giving confusing directives. It wasn’t like I didn’t have my marching orders, and I’d been reprimanded more times than I could count. If there was no Order, then who in the hell was doing the threatening and punishing?
Assume for a moment that everything to this point in your life was an illusion and that this is the reality, Connell had said. Assume that we’re not the enemy, but the ally. Assume that the Front isn’t opposing the Order, but fighting in its memory.
More attempts to undermine my identity, only now planting the seeds of a replacement identity, one that included the Front and whatever the Whisperer had them working toward.
And finally, the coup de grace:
Assume for a moment that your mother was helping us.
Bringing family into it, making it personal.
Taken together, the Front’s strategy was to merge my identity with theirs. Join us. Join the cluster. Become one. I wouldn’t let it happen. Would they resort to torture? A mind flaying?
Hopefully the cavalry would show up before then.
I caught myself listening for them, but all I could hear was bird song. My fingers began to fidget with the hem of my robe. It was strange no one from the Order had come. But knowing how absentminded Chicory could be, he might have neglected to tell them that I had crossed into the Refuge. I mean, the guy almost forgot to cast a bonding spell before sending me in.
“The Order knew he was preparing to send me,” I said quietly, urgently. “I’m here at their mandate, after all. If it’s been five days, they’ll know he’s fallen off the map. Will probably send someone to the safe house to check on him, someone who will talk to Tabitha, see the circle in the basement, put it all together.” I stopped to listen again. “Help will be here soon.”
Unless there is no Order, an insidious voice in my head whispered back.
“They’ll come,” I insisted, my fingers ditching the hem and digging at one another. “It’s just a question of when.”
Days? I wondered. Weeks? I could attempt to escape, but getting out of the room and palace weren’t the issues. Getting out of the Refuge was, and that required advanced magic. Meaning I needed to figure out a way to send a message to the Order, something that would spur them to act now.
A grumble from my stomach interrupted my thoughts.
I eyed the bowl of broth again.
I didn’t see Arianna or Connell for the rest of that day or the next. Instead, I was tended to by a pair of what appeared to be automatons. Young men and women who looked part mannequin, part robot. They were pleasant in appearance and manner, leaving me to guess at their true monstrous forms. Probably something similar to the two creatures I’d slain with my sword.
I ate the broth they brought up and drank the water. If I hoped to recover my strength, I had no choice, I’d decided. And after each meal, I did feel stronger—which bothered me more than anything Connell might have told me. Probably the point.
By late the second day, I was strong enough to pace the room without frequent rests. I thought as I paced, still concerned by the absence of the Order. It had been a week now.
My direct line to the Order is a flame, I thought. That flame is held in a silver cup, fed by an oil crystal, and linked to the Order’s … switchboard, I guess you’d call it, through an incantation. So, material wise, I need a silver cup, an oil crystal, something to write on, and something to write with.
The last two would be easy. I was given a cloth napkin with each meal, and blood pricked from my finger would make a passable ink. It would just be a matter of smearing out the message and then folding and waving the cloth over the flame. Producing that flame would be another matter, though. Oil crystals were hard enough to find in the city, and the cup I was being served water in was some sort of brass alloy, not even close to silver.
Would substitutes work?
From the way Chicory had explained it, the combination of silver and the incantation I’d been given were my connection to the Order.
Anything else, and the message would end up in a different dimension, or more likely as a pile of ashes in this one. Back in my library, my shelves held several books on alchemy, but little good they did me here. I blew out a hard sigh.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a man’s voice said from behind me. “We’ve come to change your bedding.”
I turned to find two of the automatons, a young man and woman, entering, sheets and fresh pillows in their arms.
“Oh, sure,” I said absently. “Thanks.”
They nodded and went about their work. I watched them strip the bed, reflecting on how I’d uttered the thanks on instinct. Assuming the two were automatons, they were hardly sentient. I could have told them to piss off and cracked my chair over their heads, and they would have simply left, not phased in the least. But everything from their blinking eyes, to their subtle gestures, to the way they stooped to their work was all so convincingly human that I couldn’t divorce myself from the social norms that had compelled me to thank them. And to think that they were products of someone’s thoughts.
I stopped. Of course.
I let out a choked laugh, prompting the automatons to glance over. Fresh energy surged through me. I hadn’t been thinking. The Refuge, brought into being by the Elders a thousand years ago, was the product of thoughts. As an ideational realm, thoughts here had special manifesting powers.
I didn’t possess Elder-level magic, no, but I wasn’t talking about thinking a world into being. I only needed a cup and a crystal. Though I’d never manifested matter before, I had performed projection spells—taking something solid and projecting its likeness somewhere else.
I was betting that here the same process would work with thoughts.
I waited for the automatons to leave, then waited a little longer to ensure no one else was coming. As the sky darkened outside the windows, revealing the realm’s two moons, I left the room’s lamp off. I climbed into bed, rolled onto my side, and pulled the covers over my head.
“Oscurare,” I whispered, deepening the darkness around me.
Certain I was as concealed as I could be, I pictured the silver cup from my apartment, rotating it into a three-dimensional model in my mental prism. “Imitare,” I chanted. “Imitare.”
Energy coursed around the prism, seeming to harden the thought into something independent of my mind.
“Liberare,” I said, and released the thought.
The energy around my prism rushed out of me, and the image of the cup disappeared. I was sure the attempt had failed, when a moment later something cold rolled against my forehead. I worked my hands up into the pocket in front of my face until I was holding a metal cup. I brought it to my nose and sniffed.
Silver.
Holy crap, it worked.
I repeated the ritual for the crystal, manifesting the thought and then releasing it. Something pinged into the cup. I reached inside and rolled the oil crystal between my fingers. Okay, I thought hiding the cup and crystal beneath a pillow, now for the message. I extended an arm and pawed for the cloth napkin on the bedside table, then stopped myself.
If I could manifest the other items, why not the message?
Gathering energy to my prism, I composed the message, as though giving dictation. I found myself using the formal system the Order required, a case of an old habit dying hard, but I was also worried that if I didn’t defer to the Order’s specifications, the message would be tossed.
To the Esteemed Order of Magi and Magical Beings,
Re: Imprisoned in the Refuge/Chicory Dead
Urgency: Ultrahigh
Pursuant to your mandate, Chicory sent me to the Refuge about one week ago tonight to find and destroy Lich’s book. I succeeded in the task; however, in attempting to retrieve me, Chicory was slain. I am now a prisoner of Marlow and the Front, a group intent on subverting my will and magic to the Whisperer’s malevolent ends. I urgently request your help.
Humbly Submitted,
Everson Croft
I repeated the ridiculous message in my mind, imagining it handwritten on a sheet of parchment paper in lampblack ink. When the thought hardened in my prism, I released it with another “Liberare.”
The parchment settled in front of me. I took it and blew across the wet ink. Then, as casually as I could, I drew the sheets back, placed the cup with the crystal on the bedside table, and sat up.
“Fuoco,” I whispered, my heart pounding through the Word. I was sure that any second, someone was going to come through the door, banish my creations, and prevent me from conjuring others.
The oil in the center of the crystal glowed, then jetted into a bright flame. It sputtered and smoked, as if on the verge of going out, before shifting into a familiar plum-colored column, where it steadied. I pumped a fist. My magic was almost spent, but the thought items were doing their jobs. I reread the message and folded the parchment into a six-sided disk.
“Consegnare,” I said, waving the disk over the flame, my eyes cutting to the door and back. “Consegnare.”
The report began to smoke. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, I thought, then jerked back as a bright flash tore the report from my fingers. I leaned forward again slowly, riveted on the flame. It cycled through the color spectrum, becoming orange, before returning to its original plum color.
I let out my breath in a long, shuddering sigh.
The message had gone through.
10
“It looks like you’ve recovered.”
When I raised my head, sleep seemed to run off it like thick water. Morning light filled the room. Connell was standing at the foot of my bed. I followed his gaze to the bedside table. Beside a fresh pitcher of water, the plum-colored flame continued to burn from the silver cup.
Fear shot through me. After sending the message last night, I’d closed my eyes, planning to rest just long enough to recharge my powers and manifest a weapon for protection. Instead, I’d fallen into a deep sleep, the manifestations having drained me much more than I’d thought.
Connell dragged the chair to the foot of the bed and sat so he was facing me. He nodded toward the cup. “It’s why the Front chose this place,” he said. “Its responsiveness to thought magic. The defenses the Elders created were superior to anything we could have manifested on the material plane or by our own magic. Through collective thought, we’ve maintained the Refuge.”
“Until now,” I shot back.
He nodded grimly. “That was an Elder book you incinerated. And yes, it contained powerful symbols that cannot be replicated, symbols instrumental in countering Lich’s efforts.”
“Nice try, but I saw the book.”
“You saw what someone wanted you to see.”
“Give it a rest. Lich was destroyed centuries ago.” I sat up on the side of the bed, emboldened by the knowledge that the Order had received the message, that they were on the way.
“I assure you,” Connell said, “Lich is alive and well.”
“Then where is he?”
“I’m going to tell you everything.”
“Your version of everything?” I snorted. “Don’t bother.”
“You’ve been conditioned to distrust us, and I accept that.” His gaze cut over to the plum-colored flame. “But what I’m going to tell you will explain why no one’s coming to your rescue.”
I shook my head even as a ganglion of fear formed in my gut.
“And when I finish—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted, “I’m going to throw my arms around you and thank you for showing me the light.”
“When I finish,” he repeated patiently, “we’ll release you.”
I felt the sarcastic retort I’d been preparing fall away. “Come again?”
“Return you through the portal you entered by.”
“And I’ll be back in New York?”
“New Jersey, technically. But yes.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
“Because we know the only way you’ll accept the truth is by inve
stigating it for yourself.”
“Why is that so important to you?”
“If you’ll let me begin…”
I looked around the room, searching for an anomaly, just one. I knew what I’d seen when I arrived at the Refuge, dammit. Mold-coated walls, fish-faced creatures, a summoning ceremony fit for the seventh circle of hell. My perceptions had only changed once the Front knocked me out for five days. And Chicory had warned me their mind-warping magic was potent. I mean, hell, it had turned the Elders against one another, almost toppled them. I had resisted thus far, but would listening to Connell’s account endanger that?
“You’ll send me back as soon as you’re done?” I asked.
“We’ll give you time to change into some clothes, of course.”
I bristled at his attempted humor. “And if I don’t investigate your claims you’ll, what, pull me back here?”
“We don’t have that kind of power, Everson. We can pull, but you would have to push. You’d have to be willing, in other words. But it’s a moot point. You’ll want to investigate.”
I didn’t like his self-assuredness. But for a chance to be sent back, especially if the Order was slow on the uptake… I snuck a peek at the plum-colored flame that didn’t seem to concern Connell. I would keep an iron-clad hold on my skepticism, I decided. The second I felt my mind starting to bend, I would block out what he was saying and re-center myself.
“Fine. Tell me.”
Connell nodded. “I received a similar training to yours. We all did. You know the story of the First Saints, Michael’s nine children, how the Order came to be. That much of our history is true. You also heard the account of the rebellion in which Lich tried to overthrow his siblings.”
Not wanting to give Connell a finger hold in my thoughts, I simply looked back at him.
“Lich made a pact with an ancient being called Dhuul. Chaos itself. In exchange for the power he felt he’d been denied, Lich sacrificed his soul to Dhuul and pledged to help him into our world. By his very nature, Dhuul reduces systems of order to darkness and madness.”
The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Page 82