Fate didn’t understand exactly what she was observing, but she wondered if this otherworldly being was the source of the magic running through the Keep. But who was she? How long had she been in this state of everlasting sleep?
Without warning, the woman’s eyes opened. Black as night, they stared straight into Fate.
The robot was every bit as startled and staggered backward, jabbering with excitement in an alien language. Ignoring the robot, the black-eyed woman ensnared Fate in her steely gaze. “Who dares enter my Obiectis?”
Her mouth never moved, but her words invaded Fate’s consciousness like someone busting down a door. Shock reverberated painfully through Fate’s awareness. She recoiled. The chamber shrank from view in an instant. The laboratory, furnace fires and grinding gears blurred by.
The second Fate’s consciousness slammed back into her body, she felt the heaviness of her physical form as if it weighed hundreds of pounds. After experiencing the lightness of moving wherever her attention took her, the simple effort of lifting her arms seemed Herculean. Pain drilled along the length of her right forearm to her hand. She pulled the helmet off her head and let it fall to the floor in her hurry to inspect her burning palm.
She let out a small gasp when she saw what had been lasered into her upturned hand. Glowing beneath the surface of her skin, a round symbol spun within moving interlocking rings. It looked like a tiny version of the Keep. “What’s this?”
Farouk pushed his snout through the bars of the cage, his eyes wide with concern. “The guardian seal.” His tone was dismissive as he stared at her intently. “What happened?”
“Other than what appears to be this unsettling brand under my skin?” Fate struggled to catch her breath. “Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you. That helmet is only supposed to be on for one minute.”
“How long did I have it on?”
“Nine minutes. Nine very prolingered minutes.”
As Fate took in a shaky breath, her pulse began to steady. “What’re you complaining about? It seemed like a hundred thousand years to me.”
Farouk shook his head. “Did you see something you shouldn’t have?”
“How would I know? It was all new to me.”
Farouk looked unconvinced. “Why did you stay in longer? No one has ever done that before. Did you deliberaposely seek something out?”
Fate chewed on her bottom lip. “Is there anyone else here in the Keep besides us? And I’m not referring to the monsters Brune let loose.”
Farouk’s grip tightened on the bars of his cage. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Sorry to drop a bomb on you, but we’re not alone. There’s someone else here and she seems to think she owns the place, except that she didn’t call it the Keep. She called it the Obiectis. Why’d she call it that?”
“The Obiectis is what the original builders called the Keep.” Farouk flopped back in his chair with his hand to his chest like he’d been shot.
“I don’t know how, but she somehow knew I was there.” Fate stared into space, seeing the woman’s face as clearly as if she was in the room. “And let me tell you, she wasn’t pleased. There’s going to be trouble. Trust me, I know. I’ve run into her type before.”
She thought back to Elsina and Moria, two dangerous sorceresses from the Book of Fables. For some reason they were extremely territorial and had a penchant for punishing trespassers. Fate frowned at Farouk. She was growing more uncomfortable with his stunned reaction by the minute. “I’m getting the distinct feeling you know exactly who she is, so start filling me in.”
When Farouk didn’t respond, she rattled his cage and he jumped in his seat. “She’s awake!” he moaned. He grabbed the gears, shifting them haphazardly in an attempt to throw his cage into motion but they jammed and the cage lurched and crashed into the wall.
“Whoa, where’s the fire? Why are you in such a panic?”
Farouk’s furry little chest heaved as he worriedly wrung the tip of his tail. “We’re doomed.” His ears drooped and his shoulders slumped. “We’re doomed.”
18
Call Me Your Faery Mistress
FINN STOOD RIGID AS he looked at the faery who’d taken on Fate’s form. She was an absolute duplicate down to every perfect detail. The same auburn hair that fell in wild waves to her waist, the pale skin blushed with the faintest touch of rose on her cheeks, and the wide questioning eyes that splayed his heart open every time. He began to shake from head to toe as she stepped closer. The heat of her body drew him in.
He couldn’t keep himself from swaying toward her.
Lifting her chin, she smiled sweetly, then dropped her gaze to his mouth and ran her finger over his lips. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
Her touch sent shivers through him as he stared at her mouth, softly pink and irresistibly moist. As wrong as this was, he leaned in, desperate to taste those lips. Before he could stop himself, he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her against him, pressing his mouth hungrily against hers.
Responding with a soft moan, she coiled her fingers through his hair. As Finn reveled in the softness of her lips, he probed deeper, when suddenly he met with something rough as sandpaper. Alarmed, he held still, as the awful realization came over him. She had the coarse tongue of a cat.
Pushing her away, he wiped his mouth with disgust.
She stared back, wide-eyed and innocent. For the first time he glimpsed something ugly lurking beneath the surface of Fate’s lovely face. He hated this creature for using her beauty as a weapon against him.
“Finn, what’s wrong?”
He turned away from her. “What’s wrong, is you’re not her.”
“But I can be,” she insisted. “Having her with you will inspire you. You’re going to have to do whatever it takes to cross over to her and you’ll need something to keep you strong during those times. Especially when all seems lost. Let me be your muse.”
He shook his head. “No, I can’t have you looking like her. It’s not right. You’re not worthy. You’re some hideous thing and she’s…”
“Your angel?”
He didn’t answer, but she’d hit the mark. Fate was everything he’d ever wanted–beautiful, smart, funny, kind, and most of all, entirely unpredictable She was always surprising him. Sometimes in ways he could do without, but deep down, he liked that she kept him on his toes. As far as he was concerned, Fate was perfect for him.
“I can be everything she is and more.” The faery touched his back.
Keeping his gaze averted, Finn jerked away from her. “Leave me alone! I don’t want you here. Go back to the Triad. I’ll summon you once I’ve located the divide.”
“If you find it.”
“Oh don’t worry, I’ll find it. Even if it kills me.”
“A very likely outcome,” she warned. “The Djinn live in the Mirajaran Desert. The name means phantom expanse. Without a guide, you won’t know the difference between reality and illusion. Only the most seasoned humans know how to navigate that desert.”
Finn turned to look at her again, his heart twisting painfully against the false vision standing before him. “How are you able to do this?” he asked, barely able to choke out the words. “How is it you can look exactly like her…sound like her?” He closed his eyes against the pain welling in his chest. “You even move like her.”
“Your unusual connection with her makes it easy for me,” she answered. “Her essence is part of you, yet without her, you are incomplete. Your longing for her will be your undoing. I must say, I haven’t felt this kind of passion, desire and pain in a very long time. Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you need a muse to keep you going.”
Bunching both fists at his sides, Finn fought against her offer. Everything about this was wrong. He should banish the faery. As her summoner, he had the power to do it. But seeing Fate here in front of him, even as a lie, had awakened something weak and greedy inside him.
“You can stay.” Shame churned in his gut.
“But you can only look like her when I need you to. And when you’re not looking like her, you’ll keep your true form. I need to know what I’m dealing with.”
“Your small human mind can’t handle what I look like.”
“Beg to differ with you, love. I suspect the Elder race runes will protect me just fine.”
He caught the recognition of truth in her eyes before she glanced away. “Very well.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth when the air wavered around her, distorting the image of Fate’s face and form. Finn gulped down his revulsion as an oily black swamped the brown of her eyes in glistening darkness, while an angular bone structure replaced the soft planes of Fate’s features. Her auburn hair gave way to a wild main of straw-colored hair shot through with feathers. The texture of her clothes became yellowed skin covered in down. Quills daggered her arms, thighs and shins. Her hands and feet curled into bird claws.
“What are you?” Finn asked, watching in horror as a pair of large, membranous wings unfurled from her back.
“Some would call me your faery mistress.”
Chills ran over Finn’s skin as his grandfather’s warnings surfaced from the past. This was a faery known on the Isle of Man as the Lhiannan Shee. Her sole purpose was to find a human man to love her by becoming the woman of his dreams. And while she inspires him to great heights, she feeds on his life force energy.
Fear iced through Finn’s veins. He’d just signed a deal with an energy vampire, and as far as he knew, his only way out of the agreement was to die.
19
The Mortcarion Apocrypha
“YOUR PANICKING IS MAKING me panic,” Fate told Farouk.
Farouk pushed himself off his seat and smoothed down his fur. “Indubiously. We must preperate ourselves.” He shifted the gears and walked his cage swiftly across the sanctuary without crashing it this time.
Fate followed him over to the wall of bookcases, where he retrieved a myriad of boxes, opening each before discarding one after the other. “I can’t see how whatever it is we’re supposed to fight her with–and every other threat out there–is going to fit in any of these boxes of yours. Unless of course, you’ve got an upgraded Dragon Eye gizmo in one of them.”
She waited for Farouk’s response, but he continued with his frenzied hunt in silence. “Uh, the history lesson I just got was good and all, but it didn’t exactly turn me into Wonder Woman. Silly me for thinking it might, but the only way I see us getting on the winning side of this, is if I level up somehow. You know what I mean?”
“You’ve absorbalated the collectiplied knowledge, experience and skill of every guardian that has come before you on a cellular level. Is that not enough of an advantage for you?” He grunted as he pulled a lever to raise his cage and grabbed a box on the top shelf.
“Really? Other than this subdermal seal I’ve been branded with, I don’t look or feel any different.” She rubbed her palm to test the sensitivity of her skin. Much to her relief, the burning sensation was beginning to ease.
“Ah! Here it is.” He turned to her with a relieved smile and held out an odd looking ring.
“No, really, we just met. I think it’s a bit early for engagement rings, don’t you?”
Farouk’s ears slanted as he frowned at her. “Take it.”
Fate plucked it from his grasp and turned it this way and that. The gold band was decorated with colorfully painted cherubs on each side. Between them was a thick oval cap painted a royal blue enamel with gold flourishes. She wrinkled her nose. “Do I have to wear this? Vintage is cool and everything, but this?”
Farouk’s glare remained unchanged. “You have no idea what you hold in your hands.”
“The world’s tackiest Victorian jewelry?”
“Why did you go down into the Keep’s core when you were wearing the helmet?”
His question caught her off guard. “I don’t know. I was curious. I suppose I just really wanted to know who built the Keep.”
His hand shot through the bars as he jabbed a finger at her. “Exacturacy. No other guardian has ever done that during the initiation. Not even Brune. If anyone was going to do such a thing, it would’ve been her. But she was, as well as all the others, quite fine with knowing only the history of the Keep guardians.”
“Which is?”
He looked uncomfortable. “You witnessed the paradelcade of the changing of the guard over the last five hundred years.”
“I did. But how exactly did you become the caretaker? You did say you’ve been here for thousands of years, right? Yet, when I went further back, before there were guardians, I didn’t see hide nor hair of you. Or should I say hide nor fur?” She chuckled then stopped short.
Farouk narrowed his eyes on her as he shrank in on himself, his head sinking between his shoulders. She’d hit a nerve. Not that she’d been trying to hit anything in particular. What was he hiding?
“My story is of no importinance.” He was standing stiff with his little hands clenched. “Our focustrate is best placed on what you discovered within the core. Put the ring on.”
Fate stared at him as she tried the ring on several fingers before finding the one that fit. “Fine, we’ll put a pin in this conversation. For now.” She held her middle finger up and smiled. “It’s on. What next?”
“There’s a little latch on one side. Push it to open the lid.”
“Oh, so is this some sort of locket ring?” She ran her fingertip along the edge of the oval and stopped when she felt the tiny latch. “Wait. Given where I am and the hell I’ve already been through, what happens when I pop the lid? This isn’t the Ark of the Covenant and full of wispy ghosts that’ll melt my face off if I look at them, is it?”
He looked at her like she was insane. “No, you will not have your face melted. And yes, the Arc is here and safely tucked away in one of the vaults. The ring you hold is a telepathicgram projector. It contains the origins of the Keep you’re so curious about.”
Fate studied the ring with more interest. “Hmm, sounds good. Unless it hurts like the helmet did.”
“Viewing a telepathicgram is quite painless. You’ll hear the narrator’s voice as if she’s with you and see what she saw.”
“I suppose I can handle that.” She ran her fingertip back and forth over the latch with growing excitement. “Okay, here goes nothing.”
Pressing the latch, she jumped as the lid flipped open and an arrow clicked in a counterclockwise direction. A round dial filled with symbols rotated in the opposite direction as a gold starburst-shaped gear began to spin, slowly at first, until its speed became a blur. A cone of sparkling light and mist shot from the center.
A cloaked form flickered over the illuminated mist like a movie. The person walked closer and drew the hood of the cloak back, revealing the face of an elderly woman. Her wrinkled skin was covered with scars carved over her face in distinct tribal patterns. She had the opaque, vacant eyes of the blind, and Fate might’ve taken her for human, save for the three eyes blinking on the woman’s forehead.
The woman bowed her head and looked straight at Fate, which sent a chill down her spine. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded like the scrape of dry leaves rustling over sand. “I am Vasha, the last surviving member of the Galactic Psionic Counsel. This is the Mortcarion Apocrypha, unofficially transcribed against the Counsel’s wishes and compiled in secrecy by me. No other living being knows of its existence. The contents of these scriptures are a complete record of events comprising the history of the building of the Obiectis and the resulting Chaos Region War.
As the accounts to follow will reveal, the fate of those who come after I am long turned back into stardust, will depend on a full understanding of the early history of the Obiectis Builders and their ultimate fall to the chaos power known as Kali.”
The woman inched closer with a palpable sense of urgency. “She will wake again one day, and without this knowledge, I fear for the existence of all life throughout the universe.”
Fate’s heart thudded hard in her chest. She wanted to shut the lid on the projector ring. She didn’t want to hear how much worse everything could get. But she needn’t have worried, because circumstances decided for her. The sliding sound of iron against iron as the door of the sanctuary hatch opened like the dilating iris of a camera lens. Fate glanced up in time to see Brune shoot through the opening and land in the middle of the room.
Slapping her hand over the projector ring, Fate snapped the lid shut and shoved her hand in her pocket. “Welcome back.”
Brune slipped the aeronaut pack off her shoulders and set it down none too gently. Dirty, tired and covered in sweat, she dropped into a nearby chair and ran her hand through her messy blonde hair.
Fate exchanged an anxious look with Farouk. Her instincts told her to keep the ring and its contents a secret between them, at least for now. He gave her a furtive nod as they both turned to Brune, each staring at her in uncomfortable silence.
Brune eyed them both with suspicion. “What’s going on? Did I interrupt something?”
Farouk steered his cage into the center of the room. “No. We’re just surprised to see you back so soon. Were you unable to reach the breatktured gateways?”
“Of course.” Brune’s tone grew condescending. “I’m not some greenhorn. Remember who you’re talking to, Farouk.”
Fate pressed her lips together to keep from arguing. She wasn’t anywhere near as unseasoned as Brune accused her of being, but something told her she’d be wasting her breath if she tried to defend herself.
Brune released Fate from her cold gaze and looked at Farouk. “Your readings must be off, or you gave me the wrong coordinates, because the gateways were repaired and closed when I got there.”
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