“Dude,” I said, amused.
A soft lavender glow sparked forth revealing a long path ahead. We walked down the tunnel, marveling at the elaborate marks on the walls—enchanted scripts, glyphs and cryptic runes that blazed fire red before fading away as we passed.
I had no training in archaic iconography, but Faion was able to use his divining knowledge to read some of the script before it vanished.
Bear your transgressions
Fortify the power
Walk within the light
At the end of the tunnel, we came upon a circle. An elaborate pattern of oversized flowers and branches decorated the stone floor. Five paths coiled away from the loop like the spokes of a wheel.
The Deep Down was an intricate labyrinth of Minoan proportions with the ability to restructure itself when under attack, almost like the reshuffling of a deck of cards. Anyone unfamiliar with its transposing design principles guided by magic and ritual would never find their way in—or out.
Faion and I took the path to our left until we came upon a narrow staircase. A cherry red door stood ajar at the top.
We climbed the stairs. A cold gust rifled through the open door, blowing back my hair. A thin layer of frost slicked the surface of the door. It was all an illusion, I knew, a test of some sort. We could not just walk through the door. If we did, we very well might be instantly fried.
My eyes closed as I began to chant one of the first spells I had ever learned, a simple, yet powerful incantation capable of opening every gate in our enchanted world and shattering all involved wards back to their primal elements.
I spoke the words slowly, my voice in a lower register than usual.
“Through earth and through sky, free my way or a price you will pay.”
The frame of the door lit up with a golden glow. The shimmering light spread everywhere, pulsing under our feet and chasing away the frost.
A realm of unmatched beauty stretched open as the wards guarding the door surrendered and fled. Tall trees covered with spring green foliage traced the perimeters of two wild parklands so vast they could have been nature reserves in the basic world.
Between them, a wide trail rolled down an easy slope to a small town of brick roads and tile roofs as colorful as any fairy-tale village.
The air was ripe with aromas from flower gardens and steaming casseroles. The sky was a clear azure, the sunlight warm and welcoming.
“How much I’ve missed this place,” I whispered, breathing deeply.
“I heard that,” Faion said, rubbing his hands together. “Now let’s go find that food.”
There was a lot more to the Deep Down than the name suggested. The basic portals all led to the underground realm but once there, taking certain paths led to towns and forests under the sun concealed by enchanted domes of energy that kept them hidden, almost as if our world existed on another plane or dimension of reality.
My senses bathed in the soft touch of pure air, the soothing palette of pale colors and nature’s chorus of lulling sounds highlighted by playful bird songs that filled my heart with wonder and joy.
We stopped in front of a robin’s egg blue cottage with rooftiles in all the colors of the rainbow. A wrought iron sign out front read:
Visitors Start Here – Broomsticks Sold Out!
Okay, that was funny. But seriously, I always wished witches could fly.
We signed in at the front desk, got our visitor badges and left Nanya with an excited, gray-haired clairvoyant named Daphne who claimed she had been waiting for us. It was and wasn’t a surprise. Clairvoyants were always showing up unscheduled for important moments. This one was a staffer from the Borgo nursery and more than thrilled to take the little fluff into her loving arms.
Faion and I walked to the Magic Arts Hall where we were greeted by Helianna, an impressive looking pyromancer, tall and long-limbed with pronounced cheekbones that helped shape an austere expression.
Pyromancers were fire mages who could twist and convert chemical energy into anything from electricity to explosives to lightning bolts. They could walk through fire and come out unscathed.
Helianna was in her early forties and the Region’s second-in-command, answering only to the Grand Chanter Horpheus himself, a seasoned mage who excelled at chants, incantations and magic charms and was old enough to remember the first World War in vivid detail.
Helianna wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Faion and me, but then again, like most pyromancers, she rarely got excited over anything that wasn’t already ablaze with hellish flames or at least being barbecued to some degree.
I was wary of all fire magic and found it hard to conceal the fact. I lowered my head to demonstrate my loyalty and respect for the woman who had dedicated her life to keeping the Deep Down safe.
“I am Luna Mae, here to see my mother, Clara Mae.”
She shut the purple leather book in her hands.
“We know who you are,” she said.
Clara Mae was a legend in the Deep Down and now I knew why. She had fought against the evils of the world to protect not just a child, but a child that was not even her own flesh and blood.
Helianna’s black eyes locked on mine. “Something strange emanates from you,” she said, squinting a little as if trying to see through me. “You have changed. Is it that you have found a calling?”
Her dry tone and dead eyes suggested she did not think me capable of having a calling, let alone finding one. Witches with a calling stayed in the Deep Down after all.
A door at the back of the room swung open. Two bulky men entered. Helianna motioned them over. “My guards will escort you to the Infirmary, Luna Mae, Earth witch of Astoria,” she said. “I expect you’ll have a welcome visit with your mother.”
One of the guards stood out. He was young with dark hair and eyes. His gait was easy and assured. He was an electromancer, an electricity wizard who could black out a city the size of San Diego in the blink of an eye.
The other guy was blond and older, probably in his late thirties, and a chronomaster with the ability to briefly halt time—one of the rarest types of mages who were not allowed to leave the Deep Down. The consequences of halting time in the up above could be devastating. No one would take that risk if they could avoid it.
Those two wizards were too powerful to be used as escorts. They were of the warrior class. How did their pride even allow such a thing? Did Helianna really view me as dangerous?
As we strolled down the brick path to the Infirmary, things began to make even less sense. Wards pulsed around the charming little houses with the fragrant front gardens like strong, underground currents.
The thing about wards was that they could keep things from entering places, but they could also prevent things from getting out. I wondered which of those objectives these wards served.
Purple sparks ignited underneath my feet, nipping at them as if testing my etheric essence. Magic roiled between the bricks. I had no doubt it would tear through my body and gnaw at my very cells if I made one wrong move.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Deep Down was preparing for an invasion—bracing itself for war.
It might as well with the Seventh Council already on a warpath.
The Infirmary was a single-story structure with a wide-open floorplan and rows of small, cozy rooms down long, wide hallways.
Once upon a time, mage healers born with the gift of healing filled these corridors, but their kind had long since vanished. The healing was now left to spells and potions and, at times, the conventional medical advancements of the basic world. Unfortunately, nothing had helped Clara Mae.
My heart raced so fast I thought it might burst when we reached my mother’s room. The two escorts bowed respectfully before stepping away.
Faion grabbed my hand. “I’ll wait for you out here.”
His words reached me as if from far away. “Go. Do your things,” I told him. “This might be a while.”
I took a full breath before pushing throu
gh the half open door.
My mother lay on a narrow bed with a turquoise mosquito net canopy and her favorite beige cashmere blanket wrap. Bright sunlight broke through the window, casting playful shadows on her pale face.
My chest ached at the sight of her shut eyes. They had been shut now for so many years. She was unchanged, still the same lovely petite woman in her mid-thirties with delicate features, soft skin and full lips. The evil spell had trapped her mind in a state of perfect stillness, but it also kept her physical existence untouched by time.
It was the cruelest fate and to this day unbreakable by any means known to all the magic dwellers of the Deep Down.
I used my thumb to brush strands of her brown hair away from her forehead, swallowing a sob.
“So much has happened since I last visited,” I whispered. I sat down on the wicker armchair next to the bed. “Almost none of it is good.”
My throat constricted as I was overcome with the desire that her beautiful eyes would open. I wanted to ask her who was after me, who had put her in this never-ending coma… I knew it had to be the same person and I knew I wanted to kill them.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Sorry you had to give your life up for me. I’m not sure it was worth it. I am clueless half the time.”
Her eyelids fluttered and for a split second I was sure it was some form of communication, but the fluttering vanished as fast as it began. Every time I went there my heart broke.
“Did you know?” I wondered out loud. “Who I am? What I am?”
I caught myself quickly. With all the wards and security measures in place, I wouldn’t be surprised if even this room was monitored.
I stroked mother’s hand, kissed it. I bent down to her ear. “If you can hear me, if these breaths can reach your heart, know this. I will do everything in my power to find the bastards responsible. I will make them pay. And I will find a way to free you from this hell. I promise you this… mother.”
I left the room before the tears fell. My dear sweet mother still lay entombed in her own absence, vanished completely yet wholly visible. My words to her were empty, like all the words in all the worlds.
Action was required. What action I knew not, but now I had eternity on my side and there was a way, there had to be a way, to bring her back and to give meaning to my words and this life.
May my vengeance fall hard on any who got in my way.
CHAPTER 3
____________________________________
Faion and I left the stone circle behind on our way to the waterfall exit when a familiar voice called my name.
I stopped cold. “Tam,” I said, spinning around.
A slim young woman my age stood a few feet away, hands on her hips. She had choppy brown pixie-cut hair and dark, glistening eyes. Tam Nguyen was as bright and beaming as ever, with an engaging smile, impish glint in her eyes and a sunniness in her expression that lit up a room.
She was a year older. I admired not only her endless energy, but the zealous dedication she had to the Lunar Order since we were little.
We often trained together over the years. Her talent and laser focus stood out among all the young lunar witches. There weren’t many of us left but Tam exemplified all that was splendid about our kind. By the age of seven, she could control elemental energy with a precision that stunned our teachers. She possessed an eerie ability to block energy before it formed and absorb it as if her own.
Tam had chosen the Deep Down. All witches had to choose between the two worlds when they turned fourteen. Two out of three chose to stay in the Deep Down and train nonstop to become formidable witches.
It had been two years since I last saw Tam, but that felt like an eternity.
Sweat beaded on her forehead. She stood wearing sweats and running shoes back in the stone circle.
“Luna, what the hell?”
“Hey, Tam, oh my god.”
Tam grinned. “So, I don’t see you last year and now you’re trying to sneak out again this year without saying hello.”
She pulled me in for a big hug. I had forgotten about her wiry strength.
“Don’t crush me,” I said, lifting my hands in surrender. “I submit.”
“Not my fault,” she said. “You up abovers are so soft.”
She stepped back to study me from head to toe. I was not convinced I met her approval.
“How’s your mom, college girl?” she said.
So much had happened, yet I could not burden my childhood friend with any of it—same way I could not burden my best friend in San Diego, Lily. It would be dangerous for anyone to know what I knew, especially a basic.
“Same,” I said. “It was good to hold her hand.”
Faion nudged me and coughed.
Where were my manners?
“Oh, Faion,” I said. “Tam, this is Faion.”
Tam arched a brow. “A diviner.”
“What? This is some kind of a setup,” Faion said, unsure. “Na-uh. No. You can’t just guess that. You two talked before. It took me damn near an eon to convince Luna I was a diviner.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not many diviners roaming the streets of San Diego.”
“It couldn’t be more obvious,” Tam said. “There’s a distorted aura there. You’ve forgotten your training.”
“I was never the diligent witchling you were,” I said to Tam.
“That’s facts,” Faion added. “Home girl’s witch game was on life support when we met.”
As my two so-called-friends enjoyed mocking me, my eyes caught sight of two small surveillance cameras imbedded in the rock above.
Huh. Even the magic realm has turned to tech.
“There’s more security than I remember, both tech and spells,” I said. “Should we have any cause for concern?”
Tam rolled her lower lip under her upper teeth. After a heavy sigh, she finally said, “Listen, you didn’t hear this from me.”
“Tam? What?”
“Okay,” she said. “Fine. Word is that the troglodytes might be looking to expand their territories.”
“Here in the Deep Down?” Faion said.
“According to the sea witches,” Tam said.
I chewed on that a long while. “That’s just dumb. The troglodytes don’t have the numbers or the powers to challenge the Deep Down.”
Troglodytes were a warrior faction of reptilian humanoids with scaly skin, long lizard-like tails and uncannily anthropomorphic faces. Instead of hair, a thin bony frill decorated the top of their heads. The cave dwellers were first spotted by other supernatural factions in Northern Italy during the time of the Roman Republic.
Reports of mass troglodyte crossings of the Atlantic went back as far as the late 1600s. They were ceded a few subterranean cave systems on the West Coast where they could mine to their heart’s content to mold their armors and weapons. In exchange, they were to keep renegade beasts at bay and away from the Deep Down. They were irritable with notoriously short fuses, quite misanthropic, and mostly stayed out of sight.
Tam’s features tightened. “They may have found allies among the necromancers.”
“Necromancers?” Faion repeated. “Now that’s some nasty magic.”
“The nastiest,” Tam agreed. “Masters of the dark arts. Their numbers are thought to be dwindling.”
“But it still doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would necromancers ever team up with troglodytes? Those factions have no common interests.”
Tam started to stretch her legs. “Must have found common interests.”
“No offense to the sea witches,” Faion said, “but is there independent confirmation of all this?”
“You mean by your people?” Tam said. “Apparently, yes. The strongest diviners and clairvoyants have glimpsed bits and pieces.”
“And the master orb?” I queried.
“Clear,” Tam said. “The orb’s all clear… for now.”
“That sounds ominous,” Faion said.
“It is,” Tam said. �
�It’s very bleeping ominous. Neither of you can share this with anyone in the up above. No one.”
“Did she just say bleeping?” Faion said out of the side of his mouth.
“You know I heard that?” Tam said.
“He knows,” I told her, dismissively. “We’re not going to share it, Tam. And we’re both grateful you trusted us with this news.”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “We’re friends. You should remember that next time you visit the double D.”
“She’ll remember,” Faion said.
“Did you just divine that?” Tam asked.
“Well, no,” Faion said. “I’m just saying, you know, she’ll remember.”
I placed my hand on Tam’s shoulder. “Of course, I will.”
Tam’s eyes filled with tenderness. “Luna, hey, before you go, I know someone who would really like to talk to you.”
***
The magic-fueled light in the living space was bright enough to make you forget the fact you were deep underground. A woman in her late sixties or early seventies sat low in a cushy, cream-colored armchair. Her eyes were closed—an ancient goatskin-bound book lay in her lap on a folded white apron. A tantalizing pumpkin-spice aroma reached my nostrils.
“Ah, my dear girl, I hoped you would come,” the woman said, her eyes still shut, her raspy voice soft and whispery. “First things first. I’m aware of your part in the happenings at Serenity Valley during the metamorphic moon.”
If there was a chair behind me, I’d have collapsed back onto it. “I don’t even understand…” I began saying, but then her eyes opened and looked right through me.
Memories flooded my brain. I had seen that face before in pictures her grandson had shown me. A wide, honest face with warm brown eyes, thick locks of hair barely turning gray in spots, and a calm smile that welcomed candor and confession from every single person she came across.
Celia Trice. I had no idea Faion had spoken to her.
“I can see you know who I am,” she said. “Don’t worry about Faion. Bless his soul my boy is no snitch. He was not the faithful herald of this news.”
She found a cigarette case in an apron pocket and from it retrieved a short cigarette. When she peeled the paper back, all that was left in the end was a pink stick of chewing gum.
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