A Binding of Echoes

by Kalyn Crowe

  I swallowed, gripped the charm, and raised my hand toward the seal.

  Leyla watched with her face a tangle of sudden questions.

  My knuckles grazed the surface, and the filaments bent and gave way.

  I looked back.

  Kepi cooed quiet but sure.

  My hand, arm, and shoulder passed through the seal. Its almost liquid surface slipped around my face with a low hum. Before I knew it, I stood on the other side.

  Kepi sat beside the bag near Leyla.

  The seal distorted everything outside so much I couldn't read Leyla's expression.

  In the weirdest moment, the sight of her against those red curtains gave me pause. My heart ached, for her, for something.

  16 - What I Must

  The door wasn't locked.

  Stale air wisped around as I entered a round room.

  The seal's counterbalance hung as an orb of the palest pink in the dead center. It cast a soft light against the domed ceiling. A crescent-shaped desk took up most of the space below it. Built-in bookcases encircled the office and stood above three rows of drawers. Only a bay of windows on the far side, or at least, white curtains, broke the sculpted and carved shelves.

  In front of the curtains sat a pair of mud crusted boots and a rectangular case.

  Of all the things, this last item drew me in.

  Dents marked the edges and corners, and its handles wore the patina of a well-loved item. The tarnished latches popped open. It held a telescope along with a three-legged stand.

  I glanced at the boots again.

  Mud, of course, the city was too bright for stargazing, but then, where had she gone?

  I carefully closed the case.

  Off to the side, a small table held a tray with bottles and jars filled with weird floating pieces of creatures. A burner and magnifying glass sat next to them.

  A thin layer of dust coated everything. "Dust for me." I looked around again and sighed. "I'll try."

  I pushed open one of the curtains.

  The office's seal shimmered outside the window. Through its blur, an enormous golden orb filled a vast blue-tinted courtyard. From this high up, it appeared deeply set in thick walls.

  "Is that the Maw and the Capstone?" My voice fogged the glass.

  The High Hall hid her creation from the world, but my mother watched from this place. The council, the High Lord, the Order itself, couldn't forget her or what she did.

  I focused back on the glass and saw myself, the black jacket, my nearly white hair, my sea eyes. Something was off — the same something which teased my memory. The more constant this, whatever it was, became the more frustration.

  The jars of dead animal parts caught my eye again. Mother's seal wasn't so different from them. It made this room into a place no longer for the living. Instead, the silence listened, and the walls watched.

  I let the curtain fall over the window and meandered in front of her books. The shelves held tome upon tome on every topic related to Anima magic.

  Most focused on their applications. Some of which sounded more creative than others. For example: 'A Study of Conduction's Technological Implications.'

  Books on Phase filled the next case over. A stack of papers bound in a few loops of string had 'Natural Magnetism and Phase' printed on the top sheet. I didn't remember this title from the library at school. In smaller letters below the title, it said, 'By Philomena Tash.'

  I flicked through the pages and tried to get a quick idea of her thoughts.

  She acknowledged opposing pairs of Anima functioned as magnets would. Given this interaction, she asked how our Natural Plane didn't tear itself apart.

  She postulated something acted as a countermeasure, a balance, like in Weaving.

  The answer came down to the stars.

  She proposed they acted as an indicator of the interactions of the six Anima within Phase.

  So then, like me, she thought Phase wasn't empty.

  She noted the stars couldn't work as clues for day to day life. Instead, they pointed us to the turbulence of creation and its future.

  Since each star held a magnetism of its own, she claimed Phase balanced our world. It held it together, rather than separated it. A map of the stars acted as a portal to understand how this web cradled our Plane.

  I recognized a book near where I pulled my mother's manuscript. This one was at the orphanage, a children's book called 'Before the Daughters.'

  I turned to a familiar page already marked. It depicted a massive tree with mirrored roots and branches — the world tree from the legends before Zirore and her daughters. The same tree Kat and I spoke about on the trip here.

  Yellow roots circled dark water abundant with fish. Wolves stalked the edge. Cats and birds perched in the sunlit azure branches which arched around clouds. The trunk split and spiraled around a green sphere. It was a simple symbol for Abyss and Apex with Natural between them. Only the tree's colors were the opposite.

  Wait, if it tried to show the Terraces of Apex and the Rings of Abyss around our Natural Plane, it would look more like an hourglass.

  No, this wasn't a metaphor of the Planes, but Phase. The magnetism of Anima supported the opposite as the roots cupped the water, and the branches held the clouds.

  The stars told my mother where to find Phase's areas of counterbalance, or the branches and roots.

  "The area in Phase most dense in Abyss would essentially seal it away. For it not to affect our Natural Plane, a shell of Apex must balance it. Maybe even hold it in place in Phase. Of course, like roots."

  I stared over at the curtains.

  "The Apex ball she made pushed open this balance in Phase and caused a hole for Abyss to flow through. She didn't pierce the Planes, but Phase."

  I drew in a deep breath and placed the books on the grand desk. Although enlightened to some of my mother's methods, the ones I came for remained a mystery. I found nothing about the disks, or even the charm, and nothing on the Grand Counterbalance's location, not yet.

  I sat on the wheeled stool at the desk. Faint lines marked the floor beneath the little metal wheels and outward. They formed a tangle from here to each bookcase, the windows, and back.

  With a smile, I opened the middle desk drawer. A pen laid next to a thin red leather book bound with a metallic string. The gold of its tip appeared tarnished with time and use.

  I slipped off the string and flicked through a few of the pages. A hand-penned date topped each, but my mother skipped some days. Perhaps these pages represented only the most important.

  I turned back to the first entry. Dated around six months into the war, it referenced the Chimera project. She expressed concern it would take up too much of her life, the time she could spend with Sybil. Additionally, she didn't feel ready to work on anything extreme as this.

  As I read more, it sounded like she never fully recovered from opening the Maw and creating the Capstone. Even after a year and a half, she still suffered from weakness, fatigue, and dizziness. She noted the part which drained her the most was the Grand Counterbalance.

  I squinted at that sentence.

  Time ran short, but I hesitated to leave with the journal. She kept it here at work, not at her, or our, house for a reason. She saved it.

  I read on. My mother recapped details I knew of the Chimeras, such as which creatures they used to make them and the struggle the Voclain's encountered. A small blot of ink came next. A single pen impression appeared in the middle.

  "What would give her so much pause?"

  No words followed the puddle, and she skipped the next page where it bled through.

  I flicked through the next few months of dates. My mother updated tables on streamlining the Chimera creation process, volumes of blood, grams of flesh, and which combination of Weaving worked best. These notes ended with the completion of ten Chimeras.

  Ten?

  She and the Voclains altered the process for the next two. She underlined there must always be two due to how t
he splice of animals and spirits worked. Twins.

  They added to this last pair blood from what my mother called 'understood sentient life' and an Apexial. "Rhys' weird striped one was in this pair then. A stripe, like Kepi? Why would they do that if the previous ten worked?"

  The journal went on, "Only one of this last pair took to post-formation experiment. This difference may have occurred due to an imbalance in the biological material between the bodies. The result is the twelveth's unique appearance: a golden crest on the head."

  I paged and paged, but nothing more on this post-formation experiment — only notes on their age progression, height and weight, and clutch size. My mother did pay particular attention to number twelve.

  Further in, about three years from the first date, the journal became more personal. One page said my mother asked the Voclains' for help with a gift she wanted to craft, a pendant. The date on this page came only weeks before they died.

  Once I reached that day, the journal took a dark turn.

  They worked so closely together for so many months she felt she lost her family. "The world is so much more empty now. At least Sybil is still here. However, I fear even she is not long to stay by my side. I have to tell her I'm pregnant. There is no choice."

  I scanned as if I knew what I looked for and stopped on a page with smudged and small writing.

  Sybil left her. "I can't blame her, I told her finally. She doesn't know how impossible it is when she screamed it before she left. My heart aches to explain, but I can't. I can't seem to tell what is real anymore. Please forgive me, my red flame."

  I gulped down the well of sadness within. I reread it. "But why can't you explain, for Sybil, for me?" The icy spike in my chest buried itself deeper.

  A tear hit the page and drew me out of my stunned sadness.

  I wiped my cheeks and sucked in a shaken breath. "How could my mother betray Sybil like that?" The page blurred behind more tears. Then, it hit me. "Or did she?"

  I turned the page.

  As I read the words, it all fell into place like an avalanche.

  "I have completed the thirteenth and fourteenth Chimeras. They are twins, but look completely different due to their prescribed purposes."

  I forced myself to read on. "I will say fourteen died. I can make a decoy from some remaining parts. Unfortunately, I needed help with the post-formation of Thirteen. He doesn't know everything."

  Whoever 'he' was.

  She wrote, "Thirteen can hide, and I know where. Remember, Thirteen holds all the answers too dangerous for ink or memory."

  My mother underlined 'Remember.' I touched the charm in my pocket, and the word echoed. So then, the pendant the Voclains made, it was Kepi's charm.

  She wrote, "Fourteen would have truly died if I didn't take her in; she is still empty." A stain streaked the page: not ink, but a long dried tear. "I don't know what to do."

  Only a few more days passed before the next entry.

  "I can't tell anyone my plan, or it will endanger them and destroy my children. I once wished Sybil would forgive me, but now, I hope you will as well. Also, dearest Kepi, I will miss you. I can almost feel your tail bat my face telling me to say no more here."

  I bit my lip to stop the quiver.

  She left a space and added below it, "Except, I must thank my old friend for this chance, and everyone else who has and will have risked so much. -Philo"

  Old friend.

  She didn't mean Kepi.

  My memory flashed back to the attack, my seal, and Ansgar, who held me steady.

  He said those same words, 'what have you done, old friend?'

  If he ever read this note, he might recognize his way of speaking, but the uncertainty would protect him.

  Eda thought they might have known one another in college. Conrad seemed to believe they were on good terms. But no one seemed to associate them closely.

  Was this proof she knew he wouldn't arrest her? Did that matter somehow?

  Were these her final written words?

  I touched the page and traced those last letters with my fingertips.

  The paper shifted.

  With only a light tug, it came loose. The edge cut from deep in the binding.

  So then, she second-guessed this page's existence.

  I slipped the paper back into the journal.

  "My children."

  The animal parts waited by the window.

  My heart pounded.

  It already knew what my mind only now pieced together.

  A jar in the corner held a fist-sized eyeball; one turned away. It sat on a brown parchment with the same metallic string from the journal.

  A subtle hint the two connected.

  I hesitated but picked the jar up and turned it around.

  The eye's green-flecked light blue iris rimmed a dead black pupil.

  "Sea eyes."

  An impossible pregnancy.

  I didn't have a father.

  Only a twin.

  17 - True of Everyone

  The proof of my mother's, if I could still call her that, heresy existed in mirrors.

  I wasn't stunned — instead, strange relief mixed with shame.

  What would I tell Conrad?

  So she wasn't innocent. Neither was Lady Travere. That didn't mean either was evil.

  She needed help to finish my twin, and the Voclains were already dead, that meant a fourth invoker.

  No one else knew about the thirteenth and fourteenth Chimeras. My very existence proved as much. If anyone did, they kept the secret.

  Either way, the jump to a human-shaped Chimera didn't make sense on its own. She noted 'prescribed purposes.' Mine wasn't to lay eggs, and my twin's likely wasn't either.

  People saw me as a baby. She faked her pregnancy to make it all seem legitimate, all to hide me.

  The question now was, why? What were those purposes, were we her idea? She sounded reluctant to work on the Chimeras at the start. It was hard to imagine she'd destroy her life over two more.

  I looked at the curtains. "Unless someone forced Philomena's hands. What did they get themselves into that death was the only way out?" It couldn't merely be the creation of my sister and me. The Voclains were already framed by then and killed. No, someone wanted to use us for something. An answer to a question the Voclains couldn't, or wouldn't, help create. That was the key. "The purposes."

  I set the eye to the side and picked up the parchment, then slipped off the silvered string.

  The paper held a feather so blue it appeared almost black. One much smaller, but no doubt the same one from my dream. A symbol of Abyss and Apex together.

  Thirteen, Philomena said she held the answers.

  It wasn't a dream then, but a summons.

  "I know just where to hide her." I pushed aside the curtains and stared out at the Maw. "The Grand Counterbalance."

  I let the curtain fall.

  "But what if Sybil finds her first?"

  I folded the paper back around the feather. I slid it and the journal into my jacket, and set the jarred eye back in its original place on the table.

  She might have hidden them here, but she also meant for me to come back. At this point, I wasn't about to leave empty-handed.

  I ran my fingers over my face and gave the room one last survey. Things Philomena never touched again, items I moved from their places, no room ever felt so empty, so lonely.

  I steeled myself and strode away from the jar, the window, the books, and opened the door.

  Leyla waved as soon as she saw me.

  Things almost felt real again.

  I took the charm from my pocket and passed through the seal.

  I hadn't considered it, but the feather came though the Apex and Abyss filaments with no issue. Then, so did I. Chimeras weren't affected like Abyssites or Apexials. Then, we were like people, but not.

  Kepi lowered her ears and eyes.

  She knew.

  I bit my lip and picked her up. "It's all right."
>
  She gently cooed and pushed the top of her head under my jaw.

  Leyla stood still with her hands folded.

  A big breath helped control emotions that flitted from one to the next each moment. "It's all right." I would convince myself. "Kepi, you still won't take me to the Counterbalance?" I put the necklace back on her.

  She preened it and stared.

  "I need to find it."

  She deflated and slipped down to the ground.

  "Philomena didn't leave anything to tell me where."

  Kepi sighed and crawled back into the bag.

  Had I missed something? "Would you at least help me find a hint?"

  She peeked out from under the flap, closed her eyes, and disappeared into the bag.

  Philomena trusted me to find the answers, the same for Kepi. They both could have made this more simple. There was a reason they hadn't.

  We already lingered for too long. "We should get out of here," I said but couldn't look at Leyla.

  Another lift took us down and out of the invoker wing. Everything sort of ran together on the way out.

  My mind swam until finally, Leyla stopped me.

  We stood on the road to her house.

  Her face said everything.

  "I don't know what to tell you." I gulped and looked away. "I'm not what you think."

  She grabbed my arms and pulled me in.

  I didn't hug her back. I couldn't. "Leyla, I'm a monster."

  She leaned back and shook her head, then pointed to the second floor of her house.

  We'd talk later.

  I nodded.

  So she led inside.

  Conrad sat in the living room with Eda.

  She stood and came over. "Here, let me get some tea for you both. Meredith, take my seat." She glared over her shoulder at Conrad and then went to the kitchen.

  I slipped off my bag, boots, and jacket.

  Kepi hopped out and climbed to my shoulder.

  I sat across from Conrad.

  He said, "You look shaken." He leaned forward on an elbow.

  I said, "There was nothing on the disks."

  He didn't press this point. "How did you get in?"

  I expected, no, wanted him to press. "Well, the charm made the seal appear as my own, or safe, so I walked through."