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

by Aaron Buchanan

  “Back up!” Cool Luke shouted. I jumped back as ordered, tripping and falling on the uneven cobblestones.

  I looked at him, wondering what I could have missed. He pointed to the ground. His Sharpied hash marks were nearly gone. There were 20. Now there were less than 10. And it seemed that feeding the shadows caused them to close further in, like some demented Venus flytrap.

  “We need to get to the castle. Now. We check it, then we move back to the tunnel and wait for or opportunity to exit.” I took off at a brisk walk toward the not-so-ruined monuments of Cashtal yn Ard and the castle just above it.

  “Grey—is this really a trap?” I heard Joy call out from behind me.

  “It definitely is, but it wasn’t meant for us. We could come back tomorrow, but I don’t think we have that kind of time. Let’s take care of ourselves and get the hell out of here. MOVE!”

  The sense of foreboding welled up with in me.

  My brisk walk was now an awkward jog.

  Chapter 11

  I tried to think of the shadows as living organism, but I couldn’t help but feel that was overly fair. Still, it was like living tissue trying to heal itself; scab over a wound. But everything about this place seemed more sinister. The houses we visited were abandoned by their original dwellers, that much was true. At some point, someone—more than one, several evidently—barricaded themselves from the inside and just ceased existing.

  It was safe to conclude that the shadows overcame Bereft entirely, but once we reentered, the trap was reset to ensnare us.

  I checked the time on my phone and rejoiced that it functioned without anything supernatural drawing down the battery power or some other technological mishap. Since we first noticed the warping of time—which also played into the idea that we were, in fact, prey—it only seemed like 15 minutes had passed. “We’ve lost another hour.”

  Cool Luke winced. “This means the rate of loss is exponential. Somehow, though we aren’t aware of it, we are moving much slower than we think we are.”

  “We need to run everywhere. We’re at the castle now. Once inside, we run. Once outside, we run. We can only stay in one spot for what might be seconds. If we find ourselves there longer, snap-to and tell us to move. Something is transfixing us. And it wants us.”

  I thought back to the symbols in the house; the book by the fireplace. Both Cool Luke and I looked at them longer than we ought to have. Then Joy coming downstairs to stand next to me with the book was paced in such a way that now made me pause. It wasn’t any one thing distracting us. It was this place causing us almost to loop our thoughts.

  “We need to be back out and through the gate in what we think is only 30 minutes.” I did the math and guessed how long we were likely to actually spend in the castle based on the rate of time lost. 30 minutes would be four hours. That left us with an additional three and a half hours to pass the gates of Bereft and re-enter the tunnel back to our plane of existence.

  I cursed whomever thought of building a town for magoi in a pocket of an alternate plane of existence. In theory, it must have been not only a noble idea, but kind of panacea to how the world up until that point had interacted with witches, wizards, and other practitioners of the magical arts. In practice, however, Bereft was proving to be the very stuff of nightmares. It even crossed my mind: what if this was the stuff of nightmares? What if this was the place from which nightmares actually emanated and it was only in our subconscious state that we were able to receive these transmissions?

  Hecate could not have known the extent to which this place was dangerous. Her affection for Cool Luke was obvious. And I would have liked to think she, if given enough time, would have liked me as well. Yet, she sent us here. Somehow she knew once upon a time—whether it was Meriwether Lewis or some other mage—told her there was something here that would help our cause.

  If we could just make it out.

  The path in front of the castle was clear and the portcullis was open. I thought about making Cool Luke or Joy stay outside in case we need help getting out, but thought being alone was more dangerous. Whomever were in those houses barricaded themselves in those houses. Maybe they had been alone. Given how this place was asserting its own will over our perception of time, it wasn’t farfetched to think there could be other tricks—like thinking we see someone we know.

  “Joy, Cool Luke—glockenspiel.” The ward of the castle—the innermost part—was also open, but no equipment, no weapons, no litter was to be seen. The ground seemed to be grass—which would have been a first from what I’d seen inside Bereft, but I knew if I were to waste the time to examine, not only would waste time, I would find that it most certainly was nothing natural.

  I looked up at the keep and hoped to find a quick way inside.

  “What?” Joy was herself sizing up the keep, walking to the right to check for an entry point.

  When I looked to Cool Luke, I saw that his pained expression and the deep creases on his forehead looked even more pronounced now. He was already aged beyond his years and this place was doing it that much more.

  I took steps toward Joy and wrote out a light spell on her palm.

  “Let’s just call it a password for now. And under no circumstances unlight yourselves.” The most obvious entry point was through the front door. But, like the gate to Bereft, I thought that trying to open it would take much longer than we would perceive. We needed a way in and within the next few moments or we would have to abandon this foolish quest for answers about the chest. Returning seemed that much more unlikely if we failed. Who knew if we were to return, how the trap might change or how much more susceptible we’d be.

  It was also likely we would have to abandon the search for Gavin. That thought made me ill with grief and guilt. We would push forward. I looked up toward an opening on the second level of the keep. It was about 14 feet above us, but the window was completely open.

  I walked to Joy and in unclipped the strap on one side of her bag and clipped it to once side of my bag. We levitated up a building that looked like a castle while we were in France this past September. This time, we had experience on our side. And about 10 feet of strap-and-bag in sum total.

  “Cool Luke. We’re going to levitate you, then you can pull us up.” I was already on the ground, writing with a ball-point pen on the toe of Cool Luke’s white and black tennis shoe. I clipped one end of the makeshift tether to the bottom of his shoe lace and wrote the last word of the spell on the shoe.

  Cool Luke immediately started to float up toward the window as both Joy and I held on to the strap. He vaulted inside as soon as he was within reach, holding himself under the stone arch of the window as he spit-washed the ink from his shoe and stepped comfortably and safely to the floor behind him—only after shining the light from his vial around and setting it on the floor next to him.

  “You’re next.” I let go of the strap so Joy could put both hands around the strap so Cool Luke could pull her up. We were down ten minutes already, with another five minutes before I, too, was inside the castle’s keep. That left no more than 10 minutes to find whatever we could and get the hell out. Cool Luke hauled Joy through the window and tossed the strap-bag back down to me. The two of them had me inside in less than two minutes, giving us an extra three minutes to look. “Lights out. Hold hands. What letter does our password start with?”

  “Gee.” They said in unison.

  I had one hand out to light the path, Cool Luke put his vial in his front pocket just enough so it showed, while he held both of our hands without complaint.

  The keep was meant to hold a throne room. We would check there first, even if it would be on the ground floor. We rushed down a flight of stairs in the center of the keep. The throne room did not at all look like a throne room. Rather, it looked like a large dining hall, with rows of tables and chairs in various states of upheaval.

  “I don’t think there’s anything here. We should move up,” Joy suggested.

  I took the phone out to exa
mine the timer. My math was correct. We needed to move out of the castle and back to the tunnel in less than ten minutes.

  “Hold on,” Cool Luke squeezed on both of our hands and held us from going back up the flight of stairs. “We need to find the treasury. If there is anything of value, it has to be there.”

  I had no desire to argue the point as our actual minutes were ticking away so much faster than our perceived ones. “Okay. Where would that be?”

  Joy raised Cool Luke’s hand in hers. “Right. I’ve read about this. Treasuries were usually ground floor. I say let’s go.” Joy pulled the group toward the back of the Great Room. Navigating through the debris while holding on to each other’s hands was proving time-consuming, and caused us to let go on multiple occasions. Cool Luke’s hands were also getting very sweaty and difficult to hang on to. At the back of the room there were several small chambers, with one in the center.

  “There,” I shined my hand into the darkness in the center. “Move. Now!”

  Joy was now in the lead and had us through the labyrinth of debris and up to the dais that led to the three chambers that, in a way, reminded me of one of Europe’s smaller cathedrals. Joy was tugging at the door with one hand, and even let go of Cool Luke to jam herself into it.

  It was then I noticed the wooden slats that made up the floor of the dais. I recognized them instantly. “Clear the deck! Push anything off this floor now!” We let go of each other’s hands and furiously threw and pushed everything off the dais that littered its surface.

  Despite my most concerted efforts to stay focused, I found myself looking at only the second book since we came to the town. It was thick enough to qualify as a tome, bearing some sort of medallion on its front cover.

  “GREY! LOOK ALIVE!” Joy was shouting at me once the dais was cleared, noticing I was trapped in another reverie.

  Books. Could this place know that books would do this to me?

  “Right.” Despite its weight and girth, I stuck the tome inside my Smythson’s satchel. It was heavy, but nothing that would slow me down.

  In the midst of pushing everything off the platform, I readied my phone to take pictures of the floor. We had only two minutes, though we could probably spare an extra two since I had low-balled my guess. Anything more than that “Cool Luke—put me on your shoulders!” He went to one knee in front of me and hopped onto his neck. He stood up, giving me the height I needed to take the pictures. The first did not flash. The second showed so much flash the writing on the floor was indistinguishable. “Joy—give me light over this floor!”

  Moments later, Joy held both hands up over the entirety of the floor, illuminating it. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Please tell me. I have no idea what I am looking at.” Cool Luke shifted from side to side based on where I was aiming my phone.

  “This here, Cool Luke, is our Rosetta Stone. Put me down, please and let’s get the hell out of here.” I ran toward the front of the hall, abandoning our strategy of holding hands. Getting out was now paramount.

  Cool Luke and I removed the barricade from the door and opened it. Joy was…

  Back at the dais. “JOY!” She remained in reverie at what she witnessed on the floor.

  She, like me, shared a love of knowledge. Was this what kept her there or was there something else she saw?

  How long were we there? I padded at my jacket and removed the phone. The timer expired 30 minutes prior. We were now beyond any sort of time-cushion. We were now very seriously staring down becoming permanent residents of Bereft. From behind me, Cool Luke grabbed my hand.

  “JOY!” I shouted once more. Cool Luke said nothing, perhaps still suffering the lingering effects of the persistent reverie we repeatedly had. I shouted again, to no avail. I looked over my shoulder at Cool Luke, still holding my hand. “PASSWORD?” I yelled, keeping my volume up in hopes it would jar Joy free.

  Cool Luke looked at me, saying nothing. His hand felt cold, suddenly. It was only then that I realized that Cool Luke was pulling at my arm. Pulling me back; leading me into shadow, dark teyes protruding unnaturally from sockets that didn’t seem quite human: This was not Cool Luke. I let go of the hand and ran back to the exit where he and I just removed the barricade. Cool Luke was there, staring at me. “PASSWORD!” I shouted once more.

  “Glockenspiel.” Cool Luke shuddered as if in a trance. He saw what just transpired but was in a fugue state until I asked him.

  “JOY! PASSWORD?” She turned to look at me. She did not speak. “PASSWORD, JOY!”

  She took off at a sprint, hurdling over tables, chairs, and everything else with an athleticism I had never witnessed in her.

  “Glockenspiel. Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Joy grabbed Cool Luke’s other hand and the three of us sprinted out of the keep, out of the High Castle and to the gate.

  The gate was closed. Even after we left the houses and made our ways to the castle, the gate remained open.

  “Someone. Or something has closed the gate.” I looked at the timer on the phone. We were in the red now by 38 minutes according to my estimation. The sun would set in our world in two hours, but it could very well take us two hours to get through the tunnel.

  Manannán was never invited into Bereft because Bereft was a trap. I wish I could safely figure out what happened here, but there would likely never be any knowing. Conclusions are free, but it never seemed that answers could be. We will forever after conclude Bereft should be abandoned to the shadows. But we would never find any answers as to what happened here.

  Again, we were standing without acting. I whirled around to see that most of Bereft was gone, only leaching shadow. And it moved steadily toward us.

  I heard a loud clatter of one side of the iron gate hitting the cobblestone and turned to see that one of Cool Luke’s phials had exploded and caused the gate to become unhinged.

  “IT’S OPEN, BUB!” Cool Luke screamed.

  Joy squeezed my hand as Cool Luke held us both by our waists. “Grey. Let’s go.”

  I just needed to look once more—what else did I see?

  “No, Grey. NOW!” Joy pulled me so hard I felt a sort of whiplash. The books within my bag also slammed hard into my buttocks as she did, further jarring me out of any desire to look back. I had images of the biblical tale of Lot’s wife turning to salt. Except this time, it was us turning into luminescent fungi.

  We followed the phosphorescent mushrooms out. The timer told us we had three minutes to make the exit. I wanted to look back; to see how close the shadows moved in around us, but remembered that feeling of the hand that did not belong to Cool Luke. Would there be more hands there reaching for me? Would I see a Joy that was not Joy? A Manannán that was not Manannán? Would I see other ghosts? My father? Even Von Ranke?

  Fear was such a stronger motivator than curiosity.

  The tunnel gave me the feeling it was closing in; constricting. The lights of the mushrooms played out like a phantasmagoric kaleidoscope; down was up, up was down. I felt myself crawling forward, not running. Ahead, I could make out Joy slipping through the moss-covered rock. Just as I wondered if the exit were somehow fading away from me, Cool Luke picked me up threw me out as if I were an inanimate object and jumped through himself.

  Instantly aware of nightfall, the cold crunch of leaves under our bodies, the movement of the wind on my face, and the smell of stale perspiration in the night air. Manannán stood over us laying on the ground.

  “You fuckers look like shite.” It was not so much a condemnation, but a general assessment of the surprising state we appeared in to him. He reached a hand down toward me, and pulled me up. “We ain’t got time the be wastin’. Hurry up with ye!” He was already walking away from us by the time Joy and I helped Cool Luke to his feet.

  I waited to fill in both Victoria and Manannán at the airfield. I found myself checking the photographs I had taken in the High Castle over and over again to make sure they were real, that what we had experienced was not just a
nightmare cooked up in a cauldron of anxiety, fear, and exhaustion. It would be months before I came to terms with our experiences in Bereft. Flipping through the photos I had taken only confirmed that. My photographs of the dais floor were perfect. Their high resolution would allow me to study each and every symbol and correlate them with the Classical Greek. The photos were truly my Rosetta Stone.

  What proved disturbing, however was that my phone took several more photos inadvertently after those and the next time I must have checked to see how much time we had left. The shadows between each frame moved in a sort of animation. It was chilling. They were so much closer than what we could then perceive. And there was a cold, knowing malevolence to what I could see in the pictures.

  Manannán unhitched a gate in front of the car and gestured for Cool Luke to drive through. “I do not drive a manual transmission.”

  I got out from behind the driver’s seat and sat at the wheel, shifting noisily into first gear, grinding the clutch and easing the car forward past the gate and Manannán’s look of pure disgust.

  “Yer so lucky ye don’t look in shape for a tongue-lashin’, miss!” Manannán pushed past me as I returned to my seat behind him.

  Victoria and Sean waited outside a small passenger plane that could not carry any more than six people at a time. Because it was dark, the landing strip was lit up with lights on posts. There were glares on the windows, but a pilot could be seen in the cockpit, waiting for the thumbs-up or go-ahead to start the plane.

  Victoria took her hands from Sean’s shoulders and nodded to the pilot. That was what he was waiting for as he flipped switches and started the engines.

  The noise flooded the area immediately, making hearing much of anything nearly pointless. When Manannán spoke, I could hear him quite clearly. “I’ve let them come on ta island. I think we need ta play this out. See if they are who we think that they are.”

  Victoria had no problem speaking above the fray either. “I agree. Keep in touch. We need to move.”