Will of Shadows: Inkwell Trilogy 2 (The Inkwell Trilogy)

by Aaron Buchanan

  I did. And having a conversation with Athena right now was not something I looked forward to. “Thank you for all your help. When I have found Gavin, I will return here and bring you…candy?”

  Hecate smiled and nodded. “Chocolate. I do love chocolate. Especially Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.” And she disappeared.

  Cool Luke drove us to Nashville International Airport and we boarded a flight Boston a couple hours later—and I was sure to call Joy with an update. Along the way to the airport, I dropped a series of Post-Its into the wind bound with our scent to further throw Triolo off. Once we flew out, there would be no way of tracking us. Cool Luke had emptied the contents of his trunk and sealed them in boxes to be checked. He even paid for his ticket and luggage himself, even after I offered. Even still, we did not want to set off any red flags because our appearances were so disheveled, so I bought us new clothes and shoes at a discount chain near the airport. Meanwhile, I called Joy back and then texted Shred. I went into details about what details Hecate had divulged and that I would soon be departing for London (not specifying the precise location…just in case). Shred confirmed what Hecate had already told us about the musimancy notation. His text contained more specifics—that the musimancy side used something called Orphean musical notation. Shred’s omission concerning The Triginta was obvious. It was something he did not want to talk about. Yet, at least. Maybe in person he would open up about what he knew, but not until then.

  Joy had not yet received my wandering Post-It, but was nevertheless relieved to hear I was in good health and that I had made a new friend. She was not at all thrilled, however, at having made a new enemy. Her last text detailed how she planned to shore up defenses around the house and inside, even if she planned to head to Britain with us. Her only real question was: Is his name really Cool Luke?

  I told her it probably wasn’t, but that was how it was pronounced.

  When we left the terminal at Logan, both Joy and Shred were waiting for us. I supposed Shred was there as chaperone and to meet the alchemist’s apprentice. He introduced himself through his tablet. In the months since having his tongue cut out by members of rEvolve, he worked with a friend of his to make a program using old audio tracks to say words. It made for an interesting listening experience. As approximately 25% of words used were song. But, it was his own voice and that meant something to all of us who knew him. Though it still had the strange effect of slightly sounding like a heavy-metal Stephen Hawking.

  Cool Luke smiled courteously and offered his handshake. Shred eye-balled him dubiously before taking the hand and grinning himself. Music was playing over the car stereo and I thought it must be one of his own compositions to ferret out someone of untrustworthy character. Cool Luke passed the test.

  “How did Triolo know that you were in the Nashville area?” It was a question I had been meaning to ask Cool Luke, but was waiting for a less desperate time in safe company.

  He sighed heavily. “I think once he figured out he killed my homunculus instead of me, he tracked me with the same compound you had ingested. Hecate is the one who told me I was infected with it.”

  Joy and Shred had not heard the details of our escape, so filled them in on coming to the monument, following one of Cool Luke’s doubles, and finding the cabin, and the subsequent escape, and the rendezvous with the goddess of sorcery. “How did you know he had given me the compound?”

  “Easy. He followed our escape from the forest too quick. I’d bet if you hadn’t gone back to hide our trail and stunt the magic of his compound, he would have found us. You are a powerful mage, Grey, but I also didn’t think you’d willingly help a mass murderer heal from cancer of your own volition.” Cool Luke was not a very tall man, but in the back seat of Joy’s compact, he looked out of place. His boxes of alchemic materials filled the trunk and he kept the lightest of the boxes on his lap.

  “No, I do not believe I would have.” Regardless of Gavin’s situation and any hope Triolo presented. “Does he know you are the one that set the cancer on him? Maybe he thinks if he kills you, the cancer will go away?”

  “If he kills me, then yes, the cancer might leave his body. I’m not sure.” Cool Luke took to examining his fingernails instead of cradling his box.

  “What about the box?” Shred’s automated computer-voice asked, though it lacked the intonation to make it sound like a question.

  Cool Luke met his gaze, Shred craning his neck to look behind him. He was looking for more prompting as if he did not quite understand the question. Finally, “What do you mean, Mr. Shred?”

  Just Shred, the voice said from the tablet. “If he knew of the trivia-ums existence, he was trying to get your help opening the box, to heal himself and double down by killing you?” The words seemed pieced together through splicing together morphemes and syllables. I was mostly used to it by now, but it took me a few moments of replaying what was just said to put together correctly.

  “Assuredly,” was Cool Luke’s only response. This satisfied Shred—and me.

  We were still an hour or so away from Springfield, but that was by my design. “We have to take exceptional care from here on out. Triolo is not only skilled, but completely made. And desperate. He has to know I live in Springfield, so will likely look for me there first. We’re flying to London tomorrow night. And there isn’t anything at home that I don’t have in my bag. I realize you probably weren’t planning on coming with us Shred, but I hope you’ll reconsider.” Neither Shred, nor his tablet-voice said anything by way of reply. “It would be prudent for us to go to a neutral and random location for the night—not even your house Shred, as he might know of you as well and go there.”

  Shred’s initial expression was one of distress, but he shrugged it off, typed a few more words. “Then we need to stop somewhere soon, because this car is too fucking cramped.”

  “Hey, now. Really?” Joy feigned offense, taking an immediate right into the parking lot of a Motel 6 on the edge of Worcester, Massachusetts.

  “Cool Luke—you said this guy was exiled to the west,” Joy shifted into park, but left the motor idling. “He’s never tried crossing until now?”

  Cool Luke was eager to exit the cramped confines of the vehicle, but answered before opening the door. “He was exiled about almost a decade ago. That mage who helped me has to know. Not once in our time in Minneapolis did Triolo cross the Mississippi.”

  Joy turned the car off. “So, Shred—how ‘bout you? Go look for this guy—this geomancer.”

  Shred harrumphed at having been volunteered for the search.

  “C’mon, man. Don’t’ gimme that. You’re always bragging about how you know people. Time to cast your net; find a dude. A geomancer in this instance,” she elbowed Shred, eliciting a scowl.

  He typed: “I’ll do it. I’ll take a taxi home from here. I doubt he’d be interested in following me anyway.”

  “And there’s only one of him. He’s going to want to sniff us out,” I added, wondering to what lengths Triolo would go to continue following us. The term Cool Luke had mentioned, bloodmagic, crossed my mind and made me shiver.

  Shred’s taxi arrived thirty minutes later. We exchanged farewells and a few if this, then that scenarios so we could meet up later if needs be.

  The evening was spent buying supplies and fashioning magically-faked passports for the three of us. I still had mine from my cross-country trip, but wanted to use aliases in case Triolo had a way of hacking TSA fly lists. Though it was difficult, an adept magos can fashion spells to fool technology. Joy had hastily packed clothes and other items for us, but she and Cool Luke went to buy an additional set of luggage, clothes, and supplies for our trip the next morning. I told Cool Luke to listen to her, especially if Joy wanted to buy things. I had suspicions that he would not accept, but Joy had an uncanny knack to talk people into things, as demonstrated recently with Shred.

  While they were out, I bought each of us a burner phone from the pharmacy across the street from the motel. I u
sed mine to send a series of lengthy texts to Victoria informing her of our impending arrival tomorrow and a synopsis of events leading us back to Britain. I stopped short of asking her about the village of Bereft, choosing to save that for a conversation in person.

  Meanwhile, I texted Athena and told her that I was on my way. Athena agreed to take the precaution of meeting me off site in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The cab company sent someone amenable to driving the longer distance and waiting. My driver had me at the state park outside of Sturbridge by noon.

  I was never one for confrontation or even awkward conversations. I had no idea which side this day would fall on, but despite the air between us, I was genuinely glad to see Athena and received a warm smile and a hand on my shoulder in greeting.

  “You look very well, Grey.” The goddess retained her vitality and still seemed to look like a woman of about 50. There was no telling if she had shrunk over the ages, but she was still four or five inches taller than I.

  I knew she meant to ask me about the other thing again, so I took the chest from my bag and presented it to her before she had the chance. “This is the side,” I pointed to the letters I recognized from the Phaistos Disk, “that is marked with logomancy, but I do not have anyway of translating this language.”

  Athena took the box and looked over each side for anything she recognized. “I recognize several of these inscriptions, but this one that you’re wondering about is a Minoan syllabary alphabet used only for a short period of time those millennia ago. Though there were more texts that remained, this appears to be all that remains.”

  “If you were to translate it for me, goddess…” I wanted to say I could develop my own cipher for the Phaistos Disk, but she interrupted before the words could come forth.

  “Grey—have you given any more thought to what I have asked of you?” The goddess came to a halt at a bench facing a pond swarming over with thick, green algae.

  I sat on the bench, frustrated she would be turning this into a quid pro quo. “Goddess, I have thought about it. I am very fearful. I realize that is selfish, but to give the Sucikhata to you to euthanize gods makes me tremble, with, I don’t know...guilt?”

  Athena took a seat next to me on the bench. “Grey—that you are fearful is exceedingly wise.”

  “I keep thinking what if? What if, for instance, someone in Iraq discovered a lost trove of scrolls about the goddess, Ishtar? And more, what if those scrolls were so moving, so comforting, they inspired a new legion of followers? How can I take that away?”

  “All these gods know now is suffering. For many, they know suffering above even their own names.”

  I was already feeling guilty. In all honesty, lending use of the Sucikhata was not something I had given much thought to. I dismissed it as an egregious breach of trust and an even greater betrayal to her own kind. It was very clear to me that human culture and god culture were in no way the same things. In those few seconds, I doubted my own convictions and tried to see it from Athena’s perspective. I deflected, “Are you saying you will not help me if I do not help you?”

  Athena’s face flushed yellow. The thought of Athena’s golden ichor rushed memories of Cevennes and The Muses to the forefront of my mind. I felt the lump forming in my throat. The goddess saw my unease and regained control of herself. “When you met Dio, you asked him if the stories about him were true.”

  “I remember,” I stared ahead, disregarding her invocation of her consort, the ancient hero, Diomedes. Instead, I was trying to determine what manner of fauna was under the layer of green sludge that covered the pond. It was a pointless exercise in avoidance. I remembered Diomedes’ leadership and savage bravery at Cevennes all too well. Shred’s exhortative music helped spur me on, but the image of him leading the charge against rEvolve will forever be emblazoned in my memory. “He told me, basically, that the truth was better than the fiction.”

  “Yet so often, it is not. I think when it comes to him, even when it comes to you the truth is the better version of events,” the goddess was not one to flatter, so these words rang true to me. “The truth is not that it is more interesting. Rather, it is the truth that hides the subtext and meaning more ably than does the fiction. And like any weapon, like any medicine, the truth can consume and destroy if left in its undistilled potency.”

  I was incredulous, not quite sure if I understood what she was saying. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure if I’m following you.”

  Again, she proffered a kindly smile. “I’m getting to that. Fiction and lies have been your kind’s—and my kind’s—placebo for time immemorial. My point is, you know the truth of what must be done, even if it feels like that truth might destroy you.”

  I was no longer comfortable to sit; to listen. I paced along the shore of the pond, absentmindedly looking for what time it was on my cell phone, looking, and just as quickly forgetting.

  She was right. In some ironic twist of fortune, the gods needed the mercy of a man. Woman, actually. And she was also right that to give her the Sucikhata might destroy me.

  I came back to look at her, though I did not sit. “Okay.”

  “History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird.”

  —Joseph Conrad

  “The art of forgetting is a skill only mastered when one finally sleeps his last day.”

  —Aar-Ain Kuluc

  Bar Sinister 1601

  Master John Dee had pointed Will to the Isle of Man. It had taken nearly two weeks to get here, whereas it only took a week to get to Rome. It should not have been quite so difficult.

  Will, however, was quite worried. Despite the airs he put on, he would always be afraid of the dark. And there was something about the Isle. It was black as a nightmare at night. Even the waves of the Irish Sea in daylight did not seem welcoming. The Manx, however, had heard some of Will’s plays. Some of them, not many, but the barkeep misquoted something from Hamlet.

  The same barkeep also was able to procure William steed, though he warned him that he should not be too heartily inclined to venture out past nightfall.

  Now that his horse trotted along the overgrown path in the field, he saw the darkness for what it was, and it was not without some malicious design.

  “Lo there!”

  Will hesitated, thinking for just a moment that he should ride off at full speed, but thought better of it. He was equipped with his parchments and inks. As long as he could get to them, he could make short work of much danger.

  Will pulled the reigns of the horse and turned about to face the voice addressing him.

  “Ye got to be shitting me, lad!”

  Will used charcoal to draw out the words on the back of his arm, lighting the area around them. The man was tall, with a ginger-beard braided in much the way he imagined the ancient Picts would have done.

  “Get yer light out of me face, laddy-boy! The Well-Keeper told me of yer comin’.”

  Ah. The Well-Keeper. Master Dee had already informed him the musimancer tended the Well of Souls nearby and that both he and his emissaries should be trusted.

  “My apologies, sir. I am William Shakespeare. I have come to seal the breach beyond the veil of shadows.”

  “Aye. They told me you were a touch dramatic.” The red-bearded man walked to Will’s horse, and began calming it with gentle strokes along the bridge of its forehead. “I know why yer here, Master Shakespeare. I know why yer here. Let’s get on with it!”

  The bearded Celt led Will down another path and into the dense forest. Will started to rub the charcoal off his arm.

  “Keep yer light on, lad. Yer gonna need it!”

  Within seconds, William knew precisely why.

  I was full by your count

  I was lost, but your fool

  Was a long visit wrong?

  Say you are the only

  So many foreign worlds

  So relatively fucke
d

  So ready for us

  So ready for us

  The creature fear

  —Bon Iver, “Creature Fear”

  Chapter 7

  Athena wept. It may well have been for joy. Or the sadness and or for the gravity of what she would do. Most likely, it was some combination thereof.

  “When I return, I’ll bring it to you.” My voice barely registered above a whisper.

  Before I could ask any more after the box, she handed it back to me. “I will write down a translation for you if you would lend me some of your Post-Its and something with which to write.” I handed her a Bic ball-point and an entire pad of yellow Post-It notes. She replicated symbols on the Post-Its with a steady hand, elucidating what each symbol stood for. The sixth and final Post-It she handed me was a translation of the entire inscription put into modern, English syntax. “There you go. Don’t you have a plane to catch?”

  I had already abandoned neurotically checking the time. “I do. But I have one last question. Walk with me back to the car?”

  “Of course.” The goddess stood up from the bench and we began our walk to the parking lot.

  “Zala first mentioned to me, back in Cevennes, about something called The Triginta. I’ve since learned that it’s made up of the 30 mages who live currently. Can you tell me anything about them, goddess?” My steps were slow and plodding, as it wasn’t a long walk back to the car and I wanted as much explanation as she would give me.

  Athena did not answer right away. “Are you wondering why your father never spoke of them?”

  It was true but it wasn’t the only reason why I needed the information. “Partly.”

  “I cannot give you a history lesson, but I can tell that the answers you seek are intertwined. Human beings are good, evil, and in-between. The magoi are no different. In fact, there are a number corrupted by what the world is, and what they would like the world to become. Your father never wanted you near any of them, save for the very few whom he could trust implicitly.”