by Mark Henwick
“Okay.” I bit my tongue. I badly wanted to ask him if he had a copy of Twilight, or a download of the internet, but restrained myself. “If I ever have the opportunity to set you up with a session in Hutsul, I will.”
“Thank you.”
“Meantime, I’ll take these to Bian.” I turned.
“Tread carefully, House Farrell.”
Does he mean not to trip on his steps? Or something else?
I inched my way back to the door. It was ambient temperature, and a lot harder to see than he was.
“Left a bit,” he said helpfully. Then: “Give my regards to my cousin.”
I opened the door and went out. The lights in the passage came on just enough to make the library behind me seem like the blackness at the bottom of an old, forgotten mine.
“Sure,” I said to that darkness. “Who’s your cousin?”
“The Lyssae you call Anubis,” he replied as the door began to close and the lights gradually brightened in the passage. “He hears all that’s said, you know, even in his stillness. And if he could talk back, what he’d say is keep well away from magic, especially dark magic. Well away.”
Chapter 17
After Skylur’s freaky library, the elevator took me back up a level to Skylur’s freaky audience hall.
At least there were normal lights this time, instead of the muted neon-blue I’d seen before. And Diana was waiting by the elevator to embrace me.
I was clumsy with the books I carried and dizzy with the feeling that I usually got around Diana: as if gravity tilted toward her. She secured me in her arms and I inhaled lungfuls of her scent; it was like coming home.
“Beloved,” she whispered, and kissed my neck. The memory of the pleasure of her fangs in my neck warmed me. And the memory of her words to me in LA—you are the flower in my desert and the promise of rain—made me want to lay all my troubles at her feet and let her tell me what to do. It would be so easy.
As if she sensed that, she sighed.
“Alas, for your promised rest with your House over Christmas. I’m sorry.”
“I’m just glad you’re back,” I said, but the deep tension in her body did nothing to dispel my growing sense of unease. I’d been worried for her safety while she was alone, out on the road. A stupid fear really; if she couldn’t take care of herself, there was the small matter of having Kaothos with her. But she was here now, as safe as we could make her... and she clearly wasn’t feeling relaxed.
The overgrown lizard herself was coiled along one length of the hall, watching me with her lantern eyes and making little sizzling noises of welcome. I didn’t know what full-size meant for a shape-shifting dragon spirit guide, but there seemed to be more of her every time.
In the remaining space, they’d brought in partitions and furnishings that made the hall a comfortable apartment, if you ignored the spooky statues of the Lyssae, Skylur’s peacock throne and the way the walls ran with water. I got that the water was some kind of focus for a working which hid the Lyssae, and now Kaothos, but I still found it eerie.
Bian and Alice stood in the middle, waiting for me to join them. Alice wasn’t in chains, which I saw as a good sign for her. I gave them both one-armed hugs, nearly dropping my armful of books again.
If Bian had been a cat, her tail would have been thrashing, despite the smile she gave me.
There was a table to the side with a collection of old books and scrolls, many of them opened. Some of the alphabets I’d never seen before, and I couldn’t read any of them. I left the ones Tolly had given me with the rest.
I got us going. “The last message from Matt was that Tullah’s on her way, but the Empire’s stepping up the search. We can’t get hold of her directly and Matt’s not responding now. I had another urgent message from the Hecate, just before I left to come here. And to top it all off, the Denver Adept community is staking out Manassah.”
Bian’s eyes narrowed. “Another message? The Hecate kidnapped you again?”
“No. I get the feeling that now she’s demonstrated she can do it, that’s enough for the moment. This time, she called me on my cell. Restated that she wants to meet with the lizard herself.”
“Why would I want to speak to her, Amber Farrell?” Kaothos said. Unlike her usual trick of speaking in my head, she was making actual noise this time, though I couldn’t tell how she did that. Her mouth certainly didn’t move.
“She says we’re blundering around in the dark without her. More specifically, we can’t use unstable, unpredictable shamanic workings, because we don’t have safeguards in place. She says we have no idea of the power we’re trying to control. I guess she's offering her coven as safeguard. She says this is more important than anything else, and if we don't listen to her, everyone has a problem.”
“Some justification for the first part of that assertion,” Alice said. “We are in the dark. Less so for the last part—her assistance might be anything but helpful.”
“And just how does she know so much about Kaothos and Diana?” I threw in the obvious question.
I’d gotten more sensitive about Adepts since I’d last seen Alice; I could easily tell her spirit guide was a fox. I could almost see the fox floating around her head and shoulders as she looked down at her hands in embarrassment.
“My fault,” she admitted. “For a long time, I was part of the Northern Adept League. In fact, I was part of what became Hecate Faith Hinton’s coven on Long Island in New York. That’s the Hecate Skylur has just met.”
It seemed there were interesting things happening in New York as well, but I needed to stay focused on here and now.
“When I worked for the Warders, I fed information back to the League,” Alice went on. “I was a spy basically. That stopped when I joined Altau, and you could say the process reversed during the journey with Skylur and Diana. I told them everything I knew about the League.”
“Doesn’t seem to explain anything. What am I missing?”
Alice looked even more embarrassed. “An Adept as experienced as I am, I should have thought more deeply about my dreams,” she said. “Waking and sleeping.”
“You mean they can listen in?” I shivered at that thought.
“Not to anyone,” Alice reassured me, “but they can eavesdrop on my thoughts because of the years they’ve worked with me. We are attuned, if you like. Anytime I was outside of the protection of the shielding in the van, they had a group from the Long Island coven close enough to ‘tune in’ to me.”
She held her hands up.
“We had to stop for gas, food and comfort breaks, for instance. Security from Adepts was my responsibility and I believed I was the last person who would have provided a weak point. Surely, I thought, given the projections of Skylur, Diana and Kaothos into the realm of energy, they were the ones who needed protecting. Even without that complacency, I should have been more suspicious of the odd little moments of confusion and blankness. I thought I was just tired or wool-gathering. I am a very old Adept. Courtesy of consorting with Athanate.”
Diana smiled thinly at her, but remained silent.
Alice was unusual for an Adept. Most Adepts didn’t consort with the Athanate. Even Adepts who were friendly, like Tullah’s parents, Mary and Liu, thought that Athanates somehow sucked the soul out of their kin. So, as I understood it, lacking access to the Athanate bio-agents to keep them young, Adepts tended to die at standard human ages.
Alice was over four hundred years old, if Bian’s sarcastic comment about her being thrown off the Mayflower was true.
Can’t they replicate the action of Athanate bio-agents with workings of the energy?
I’d have to ask at a more appropriate time. I had an idea that was another Adept superstition, like sucking souls. Maybe longer life meant more opportunity to become corrupted by the power of magic.
“How safe are we here?” I gestured the hall.
“Safe. It’s impregnable to workings,” she replied.
Cynic that I was, I doubted
that, but I had no real knowledge of magic, so instead I asked: “And what about the safety of Haven from a direct assault by Adepts? I’m having nightmares about Adepts able to throw spells like grenades. You know, bang, and people get shot off into the spirit world, or somewhere under the sea.”
Alice pursed her lips. “Doesn’t generally work like that,” she said and sighed. “Adepts avoid physical violence when using the energy. That’s not a moral stand. It’s simply that it’s nearly impossible to fight and maintain the concentration required to work the spell.”
Apart from the ‘nearly’, that sounded good, but she wasn’t finished.
“It’s easier to do defensive workings, like the coven prepared a spirit world trap down at RiNo for you.”
Would have been useful to know before I went there.
Alice spread her hands. “I have to say that attacking is theoretically possible. But it all depends on the strength of her spirit guide, the distance involved, the conviction of every single one of her coven what they’re doing has to be done, and their discipline.”
“And what is her spirit guide?” Diana asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing I could see. My new House Adepts haven’t been able to see anything either.”
Kaothos huffed. She didn’t like not knowing what we might be facing.
“So there might be a potential threat from the new, structured magic. What’s your take on the shamanic equivalent?” I asked.
Alice grimaced. “That’s the great question. Shamanic magic is as strong as the shaman and his or her spirit guide, at the time the working is attempted. It’s just unpredictable and erratic. But look at it this way—Athanate record things.” She waved at the books on the table. “If there had been examples of Adepts powerful enough to attack whole Athanate Houses, surely it would have happened at some time in the past.”
Bian and I exchanged glances. I knew her mind worked like mine on this. Records would depend on whether there were survivors and witnesses.
“Well, it has happened, of course, in one poorly documented instance,” Diana said.
Alice bowed her head. “Byzantium. A dragon changes everything,” she agreed.
“So Kaothos could make it the best of both worlds for the Northern Adept League?” I said. “The controllability of structured magic combined with the power of a dragon?”
Alice nodded.
“It seems they believe that,” Kaothos grumbled. “But from the evidence we can see in the Dark Library, it didn’t go as planned in Byzantium.”
It was Bian’s turn to snort. “A huge library full of obscure stuff that could be translated any way you want. The more you collect, the less you know. The short version...” she held up her index finger, “Adepts, especially modern ones, are generally really good at defensive magic. You don’t take them on their own turf.” A second finger went up. “That doesn’t translate to good offensive magic. They probably won’t be able to burst in throwing spells around.” Third finger. “Kaothos is possibly what would make the difference to that last item.” Fourth finger. “Every time in recorded history a dragon spirit guide came along, regardless of what they were doing, things went bad.”
“But not necessarily through the fault of the dragon, Bian Hwa Trang,” Kaothos hissed.
I stopped them before they got into an argument.
“It doesn’t change anything. We have Kaothos here. We don’t want the Northern Adept League or Denver communities to take her away. We don’t want the Empire of Heaven to find out she’s alive. First thing is to get Tullah back and re-linked to Kaothos, but we don’t know where Tullah is, and she isn’t answering calls. There has to be a way to find her.”
Diana and Kaothos kept stubbornly silent.
“Here’s another thing,” I said. “Everyone is going on about how powerful Kaothos is; just look at the effort being put into hunting her down. They don’t seem especially worried about any difficulties in capturing her. Isn’t this like hunting a tiger with nothing but a stick?”
“It would be, once the full link between host and dragon has matured,” Alice said. “That’s why they’re hunting so urgently—to get Kaothos while she’s far short of her potential.”
“And her full potential?”
“We don’t know. The Northern Adept League has been researching this. The Hecate may know. Our guess...” Alice shrugged. “Enough to level whole cities. As to your question about Kaothos finding Tullah now, yes, she probably could find her, if she came out of hiding in this dungeon. We may soon be at a point where the threat of being discovered by the Empire’s Adepts isn’t enough to prevent her taking that option.”
Diana took a breath to speak and stopped herself.
“Am I missing something?” I asked. “You guys are in the middle of an argument?”
“It’s been suggested, so I have made it plain I’m not willing to wield this power,” Diana said. “And so, it seems we have to ask you to step up again, Amber. However much we wanted you to have an opportunity to rest, to settle your House, we need you to find Tullah, while Kaothos and I need to remain in hiding.”
I sighed. No one promised me life would be fair.
Bian looked pissed.
“I could help, Amber Farrell,” Kaothos said. “The problem is, this may be more urgent than we thought. If it is, it’s much more urgent.”
I looked at them all. “I don’t understand what’s going on here.”
It was Bian who answered: “The books suggest there’s a time limit for spirit guides returning to their original hosts. One we’re approaching.”
“A limit for ordinary spirit guides, not dragons,” Kaothos hissed.
“So spirit guides do jump from host to host sometimes?” I asked and Bian nodded. “And if we don’t get Tullah back, Kaothos has to stay with Diana?”
“And Diana risks ending up as Lyssae,” Alice said. “Spirit guides and elder Athanate do not mix well in the long term.”
My gaze went along the walls, where the Lyssae stood, Anubis first among them.
Keep well away from magic, Tolly had suggested.
But I had Hana, until she’d disappeared. It hadn’t been a problem.
Apart from me being a blood magic witch, maybe.
Especially dark magic, Tolly had said.
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to get into this with the rest of them. “My urgent task is to find Tullah. That means you guys can concentrate on talking to the Hecate. Maybe she has some ideas.”
Bian touched her ear. She was connected into the security system, and I could tell something had come up.
What do you want to bet it’s for me?
But I had one other thing I couldn’t leave any longer, even if I was scared to hear the answer.
“Can I speak to Kaothos alone for a moment please?”
There was not enough space in Skylur’s dungeon for Diana and Alice to move away without being able to overhear anything spoken out aloud, but they were familiar with Kaothos and the capability she had of speaking mind-to-mind.
I went and sat cross-legged on the floor by the dragon’s head.
Coiled and laid out along the wall as she was, Kaothos looked uncomfortable now, brooding and angry.
I had two things I wanted to talk about. I guessed the dark magic was the more difficult one, so I started with the issue I thought would be easier.
You know what I’m going to ask, don’t you?
Yessss, Amber Farrell, I think I do.
The coils stirred. The huge eye in front of me burned and flickered.
Of all my friends, you would have been the first to know that my spirit guide was gone.
Coils began to slither against each other. She was here in a physical body, not as a projection. The weight of her coils threatened to break things.
I was, she said.
She was hissing now, as if pressure was building up in an old steam locomotive.
Yet you said nothing. Does this mean you know what happened to Hana
and Tara?
I do, she said. I am sorry, Amber Farrell. I am sorry.
Cold fear collected in my stomach.
Are they gone forever? I asked.
Kaothos twisted and shimmered in distress, the weight of her words in my head seemed tauter. You said I must not lie to my friends, but you also said I must honor my word.
It’s hard sometimes, I said. What happened?
Tullah made me promise. She wants to tell you herself.
This was confusing me. About what?
When we were all distracted by the pain of destroying the lock that held Diana, the dragon said, I moved from Tullah to Diana.
I remembered:
All the screaming merging into one, endless, wordless song in my head.
White fury in my head. The entire energy of the lock collapsing, burning through me. Kaothos pulling it through herself instead.
Fire in my veins. Me screaming. Kaothos screaming. The whole Taos community of Adepts scattered around the hillside, all of them, screaming. All of us bound into this one, hideous pain.
White. White. White. Burning my eyes.
“I remember,” I said aloud, my voice shaky.
Hana was in the same pain, the dragon said. She was under the same urge as I was to move to a stronger host. Tara was simply caught in the flow.
My mouth fell open. Of course!
Tullah has them? I asked. They’ll come back when you go back?
Kaothos twisted more.
If we get Tullah back in time. These books Diana has been reading, they tell her that spirit guides cannot go back if they spend too much time in their new host. It does not apply to me; I can go back. But—
I interrupted her. Surely she wasn’t saying...
What happens to Tara and Hana if you go back to Tullah and they can’t move?
The dragon began to shimmer and thrash. Her body, so solid a minute ago, was passing through the furniture now.
I do not know, Amber Farrell. I am sorry. Tullah is sorry. We are very afraid.
She twisted once more and vanished. Her presence, so powerful in the room before, was suddenly simply not there.