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

by Aaron Buchanan

  Sean was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, and I followed Joy to sit in the back two seats, while Cool Luke, then Victoria filed in behind us. Victoria sealed the door as the plane was rolling backward on the strip, getting into line to use the full length of the paved roadway. I waved goodbye and mouthed a “thank you” toward Manannán hoping that he could see me despite the glare on the window. I knew I would be talking to him much more in the future, though, as his son was riding in the front of this plane—and he had given me that son to take care of.

  We arrived at the Weston Airport in Dublin and were picked up by a limousine. In the confines of the limousine and with a driver that Victoria trusted implicitly, I told Victoria everything that had happened to us in Bereft. She asked minor questions when she did not quite understand what I was saying, but otherwise offered no words of consolation, no observations of what it was exactly that happened to us there.

  “I’m glad you made it out safely.” It was not the kind of response I was looking for. Furthermore, she was holding back.

  “Victoria, I do not at all mean to be impertinent, truly, but do you have any idea what has happened to Bereft?” I relaxed my jaw, noticing I was clinching it. The events of the day continued to flash in front of my eyes if I relaxed. If I could concentrate, I could keep the fear, the shadows at bay.

  “Manannán is the guardian of the Cthonic World.” Victoria used the Greek term for Underworld. “The creatures of that world must have found a way through.”

  “Perhaps the magoi of old meant for it to happen.” These words were from Joy. And it was something I considered, but dismissed.

  The shadows were demons of the Cthonic World. The Subterranean. I had gotten on to calling it The SUB. I even made it an acronym: Seedy Underbelly. And we just escaped from a land they had taken over. “Victoria—do we have anymore to fear from these creatures?”

  She could not possibly know, but if any god or goddess would profess faith in Murphy’s Law, it was the Goddess of Victory. It was, after all, only in the moments of failure, defeat, darkness, one could rise up in a true victory. “I think we all have a great deal to fear from those creatures. For millennia, the Underworld has sought purchase on the ground above.”

  I do not know why I asked it, whether it was the reemergence of rEvolve in our lives, or because I knew, deep down, the world I had known for the past 28 years was about to become a very different place. “Is it possible they have found allies in gaining purchase on this ground?

  “I think that would be a logical conclusion.” Victoria tapped at the window and the limo pulled over.

  That famous line from Alexander Pope came to mind: fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Angels should fear to tread amongst the shadows. And they were everywhere.

  Chapter 12

  We flew into Chicago. From there, we took a rental car up to Cadillac, Michigan, and then north and east an additional eight miles to the expertly named Island Lake. My cabin, I was assured, was still standing and already under an extensive restoration and renovation—to what extent I did not know, but Victoria told me to be happy it was nearing summer, because it allowed work to be down around-the-clock, if even at a premium. We were to stay at a hotel in Cadillac until the work on the cabin was complete—three weeks from now.

  I found some relief in delaying our arrival there. Given what we had experienced in Bereft, I was in no hurry to reintroduce myself to the strange goings-on of Island Lake, even it was a place I, at one time, loved. Though, looking back, I wasn’t sure if it was because the place held some other kind of magic that only memory could conjure, or if it was where my dad took me when my mother left us. He tried so hard to make up for it. It was a sad time for me, but each time we were there, he put aside being a magos and became a full-time dad. It was happiness that dispelled the hurt and gloom.

  I could not even find myself curious enough about the books I took from Bereft, given how I was still having nightmares about the place. I put them on a shelf for examination at some point later.

  In the hotel room, I took to translating each symbol I could. There was no hidden message, per se, though the Classical Greek did contain words with direct translations. I worked with Cool Luke to piece out the alchemic symbols and quickly learned that each symbol represented an element or aspect of the magical arts. So, if I read the word for fire in Greek, the corresponding symbol on the alchemic slat of wood represented the same thing. This is how it must be meant for the geomancy symbols, and the same for the arithmancy, and the mysterious extinct magical discipline.

  Before I applied the symbology to the box, I put the word out for Shred to call me as soon as it was convenient for him. Now that I understood the symbols on the Phaistos Disk, I had every intention of deciphering it once given the chance. When there were moments to spare. I had every suspicion the disk referred only to the mundane day-to-day affairs of an ancient civilization, but even that little glimpse into the ancient world was like my own version of time travel.

  It was somewhere on the lost magic’s side of the chest that I began to put together just how the box was to function. Each side represented six magical arts. Each art helped forge the box, though being able to open the chest would not, necessarily take a practitioner of each form to open it. The logomancy side dealt with the will and nature of the word and the alchemic side dealt with the mathematical order of the universe. Arithmancy dealt with the creation of the cosmos and the mathematics contained within the patterns of the universe that gave form to the magic of numbers. There was even a symbol that could only stand for Pi—and how its infinite complexity was written at the quantum mechanical level.

  I had a few questions for Shred about the musimancy side of the chest, but knew in a very basic way what I must do to open the box. And when it came to Shred, I had more pressing questions for him.

  Whether or not it would perform as Triolo told me back in San Francisco was anyone’s guess. In fact, the more that Cool Luke and I pieced this together our first day in the motel, the more we believed that while the box might make a spell ultimately effective, it was not even the primary, purpose of the box.

  Having grown up in Somalia and only educated formally briefly in America, Cool Luke had never heard the story of Pandora’s Box. Strictly speaking, Pandora’s Box wasn’t a box at all, but a large jar filled to the brim with the toils and troubles that would come to plague the world. Cool Luke could only relate it to his own knowledge of Islam and the snake in the Garden of Eden.

  “Joy took Sean out for a drive so we could work. I told her to stop by one of the big box stores and start stocking up on supplies.” I was rewriting the symbols of the box on the flat surface of my notepad.

  “And entertainment for the boy, I hope. I think he is at that age where the desire to be entertained is not nearly as strong as the desire to be hygienic.” Cool Luke copied down the very same symbols on his own notepad, squinting in such a way it made me think he could benefit from reading glasses.

  “As for this Pandora’s Box quandary—I think the three of us must resolve amongst ourselves to keep it from Triolo at any cost. Though we don’t know what it does yet, it may even prove to be too much of a temptation for us if we’re not careful. Should we come up with some contingencies to be safe?” Cool Luke doodled something on his pad, though I would have wagered it had nothing to do with the task at hand.

  I sighed. “Life is full of the temptation to do one stupid thing right after another. I know, for me, I spend my life seeking out those moments of clarity so I can ensure that a later stupid version of myself might, will somehow be less tempted.”

  Cool Luke laughed. Not the laugh at having heard a funny joke, or silly pratfalls, but one inspired by some deeper intellectual reasoning. It was like, in some shape or form, he had formed that very same sentiment, though he may have not put it the same way. “Grey. You are very funny.” His words were not meant to belittle or demean.

  “I guess that means you agree.” I set the
pen down on the pad and moved to the window. Sean and Joy were not back from their diversion quite yet. “Since this might be one of those moments of clarity, what do you suggest?” I backed myself into a chair next to the window.

  “We would have to destroy it.” The affable tone was absent from his voice.

  “Okay. How? Throw it into Mt. Doom?” I refused to let the conversation degrade into anything less than pleasant.

  “Mt. Doom? Forgive me, I learned to speak and read English by reading X-Men and Spider-Man comic books. Never had time for much more than that.” Cool Luke sat on my bed, hands folded. He could tell me about the X-Men’s Dark Phoenix Saga and the Spider-Man Clone Saga, but not so much on Greek mythology or Tolkein.

  At least he was not picking through his fingernails. I hoped that was an indication he was more at ease around me.

  “It’s from a book. And movie. I’ll have Joy pick up the DVDs while she’s out this week. Anyway, lava, basically.

  Cool Luke nodded, though his smile was forced. “That is a possibility. Do we trust each other to dispose of it like this? Problem is, what if whatever power it grants is simply too much to deny?”

  I was beginning to understand what his concern was. “So, you’re saying that we should have the means to destroy it near us whenever we open it?”

  This time there was no smile, feigned or otherwise. “Definitely.”

  I slouched in my chair, legs up on the window sill. “Then we’ll break into a foundry here in this town. If there is any kind of metalwork, they’ll have the means to destroy it. You don’t think acid would do the job?”

  “Is that a chance you want to take?” I was no longer peering at Cool Luke but knew he had already decided that the best way to build in a failsafe was to be near a sure means of its destruction.

  “Okay. I’ll look up a place that fits our specifications. We’ll go to the foundry tonight as long as everything is deciphered and ready to go.” I slid out of the chair. “You want something to drink?”

  “Yes, please. Coke.” Cool Luke’s smile returned.

  Joy returned and unloaded a car full of clothes, merchandise, and food into Sean and Cool Luke’s hotel room. There could be no way of knowing the extent to which Victoria had gone through to fix and furnish the cabin, but I had faith that it would not be lacking for much. Even so, there were sets of bed linens, boxes of pots and pans, flatware and china. There was also a new television and a video game system Joy must have been suckered into buying for Sean.

  Though I could not be certain, I believed Manannán intended for one of us to train Sean in one of our disciplines at some point—even if he knew that The Triginta mandated there only be 30 at a time. Could there be significantly fewer and that’s why no one bothered to kill my father? Unless they knew his time was short? Could I have room to train Joy without having to sacrifice myself?

  Plus, if Sean were Keeper of the Well of Souls, one of his parents, perhaps even both belonged to our number. How did that fit? Something happened that orphaned a young Sean…

  In the meantime, I would learn how to take care of a 12 year-old, even if I felt I were only just barely able to take care of myself. And Joy would be of great help, as she was already proving.

  “I think Cool Luke and I have it mostly figured out.” I returned to my vigil in the chair by the window, even though Sean and Joy were sitting in the room with us.

  “You do realize his name is Kuluc, right?” Joy smirked.

  “He spelled it for you?” From the moment he introduced himself to me in Tennessee, he became Cool Luke. I had not stopped to consider the actual spelling of his name.

  “Nah. I saw him writing it on his customs form on the flight to Chicago.” It was rare for Joy to have information I didn’t have.

  But I did not feel foolish. “Cool Hand Luke was one of Dad’s favorite movies. I like thinking of him as Cool Luke. And the pronunciation is only subtly different. You think he’s noticed?”

  “Probably. I’m sure, actually. He’s just too nice to say anything about it. Anyway—you were saying you have it figured out? I am waiting with bated breath.” No sooner had Joy sat on the bed, Cool Luke entered with Sean. Sean stepped into the bathroom and washed his hands from the sound of it.

  “Well, first, Cool Luke and I have agreed that we should only open the chest near a means which we can, if necessary, destroy it.” I was not so far slouched into my chair, though having finally found the time to sit, to rest, my eyelids were heavier than I realized moments before.

  Cool Luke turned on the bed, knee pointing toward Joy. “We fear what kind of power the box will present. And the temptation to use that power for less than noble ends.”

  “Okay. Take me with you. So far, you haven’t told me what it does exactly, or that you’re even sure. If you never tell me, and I feel like at any point it’s too much, I’ll destroy it by…” Joy looked suddenly to me. “Wait, how am I supposed to get rid of it?”

  “Mt. Doom. Or the foundry. Whichever.” I confirmed. I must have been smirking or giving off some other amused vibe, because she, too, smiled. Sean, oblivious to the conversation occurring right next to him, laid on the bed behind Cool Luke and Joy and used the remote control to switch on the television. The three of us stared at him until he finally noticed, “What? I ain’t ever been to a motel or hotel before. I’m fairly certain I should be leavin’ with assorted soaps, shower caps, and towels. Found a sock. I’m taking the sock.”

  “Uh…no you’re not. Gross.” Joy gave Sean a reproving look that I could only guess came straight from her mother’s repertoire.

  I did not want to take Sean with us, and was sure that with the remote control in his hand, he would be able to keep out of trouble long enough to let us run our errand. “Sean, the three of us are going to go out tonight.”

  “Ye mean like a club? I don’t even think they have dancing clubs in this town!” Sean disregarded us in his search for a new channel.

  I wondered how much I need to explain to him, how much I should impress upon him that the complacent and willfully naïve world he had known with Manannán was over. I could not expect him to grow up overnight, but for tonight, I thought it best for him to remain naïve and sequestered one last night to keep him out of harm’s way; maybe have one more night of carefree sleep.

  It was a presumptuous thought. Sean’s parents left him orphaned and in the care of an ancient, wily Celtic god. Intuitively, I knew Sean’s nights were not so carefree. For all I could tell, he was in constant need of distraction from the horrors he had witnessed. Or maybe he was just a kid.

  Adolescence was enough of a mystery to me when I went through it myself. Having to accompany a boy through it made me seize for a second.

  “Something up?” Joy looked concerned, standing up.

  “No,” I pounded a fist on the middle of my chest. “A bit of indigestion, I think. Okay, I’ll check where we have to go and we can devise the strategy to get in there.”

  Cadillac was just sleepy enough of a town that most businesses did not run 24 hours, save for the box stores and a couple of the gas stations. The casting company was not a 24-hour operation, but there were some employees on site to stoke the fires, as it were. It was mostly locked tight. However, for us, it was a very simple matter to break in. Still, the moon was only a sliver and my new perspective had me looking twice at each and every shadow we passed en route. The foundry itself was kept burning by shop millwrights, even if all they did was ensure that the building did not burn down over night. Both of them were already asleep by the time we found them, but just in case, I affixed a sleep Post-It to both of them.

  “Let’s get down to business.” I removed the chest from my mailbag and set on the grating in front of us that served as a floor.

  “Do you know what to do?” Joy asked in spite of herself. “Wait, never mind. Don’t tell me. Wait, once we have this figured out, you’re going to tell me, right?”

  “Turn around if you don’t want to know.
” I kept my pad of notes in front me, though I was annoyed that the bottom corners were beginning to round and turn up, even though I was treating the pages with such delicate care. What I discovered was that each side contained somewhere between eight and ten symbols. The symbols were not arranged linearly, as if in sentence form. Rather, they were spread out on each side. Though it took Cool Luke a couple hours to finally move them, we found that each side turned, in some archaic version of Rubik’s Cube. Once he discovered the sides did, in fact, rotate, we set out at once. Sean put up no fight whatsoever, even though the only thing on the television were silly reality shows and old sitcoms. We left him watching Cheers, which was the most ubiquitous TV show in history, as I had grown up with it and now visited many countries that played it in syndication.

  At the casting foundry, the idea was to line each of the symbols toward a corresponding symbol. The most difficult to line up, as so much of my deciphering was still left to abstraction, was the extinct magic, whose symbols were notched lines around a ring. It was a strange mix of the Viking Futhark runes and keys painted by Picasso on a keyring.

  The guards below us stirred very slightly, caught between snores, but otherwise did not pay us any mind. They would be out until something was done with the Post-Its. The problem was, no matter what combination I tried, nothing happened with the box.

  Cool Luke saw my frustration with it and took it to maneuver the sides himself.

  Joy did not, to her credit, turn fully around, but she was understandably growing impatient. “What’s taking so long, guys? I thought you had this figured out?”

  “We thought we did.” I looked into Cool Luke’s eyes and he too shared the conviction that we were on the verge of solving this mystery, but were stymied once again.

  “I’m out of ideas. I have done the math. If we were methodical and lined up every conceivable combination, we’d be at this well into tomorrow. Maybe the day after.” He handed the box back to me, recusing himself.