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

by Aaron Buchanan

  There wasn’t much traffic on the road, but it went ever-so-slowly. Traveling with any speed was a virtual guarantee that no one could follow us and Shred weaved in and out of lanes to ensure we did not have a tail (any longer).

  It suddenly occurred to me to turn around. Going in a random direction would further hide our trail. Was grabbing Saul a way to lure us in? Or did they have something else in mind?

  “They’re going to use Saul as a test. They’re going to throw him over the threshold that separates our world from the shadow-one and trap him there. Then it’s just a matter of time before they find the others. The big ones. And bring them here.” I looked to Shred and then to Cool Luke’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

  Shred only gave a short grunt.

  Cool Luke’s eyes snapped open, concentration broken. “This requires some preparation. I would say it’s time for us to at least agree on what’s to be done now, bub? If it is what you’re saying then I think it is not just a trap meant for a god. We could easily be the prey.”

  I remember back to our adventure with Gavin the previous autumn. He said bullets could readily cut us down. As long as we were taken unaware. I wondered if, in her capacity as the Wayfarer, my mother used bullets and other conventional weapons to assassinate spare magos?

  I also thought back to all the warnings my dad gave me about why one should not tattoo one’s skin—like Gavin’s was—everyone has a magical signature. I did it for Diomedes because we needed him. But now I realized that if The Cor and other members of The Triginta were aligned with rEvolve, then they could, conceivably, recognize my signature.

  All the cryptic, overly paranoid warnings made too much sense in that moment.

  Dad was right to be paranoid. I might not ever forgive him for leaving me so much in the dark. His inability to deal with who my grandfather was—and later who my mother was—led to his own failures that I inherited.

  Though, a plan suddenly began to form in my mind. I had an idea or two how we could save, hopefully, both Gavin and Saul.

  “Shred, next chance you get that won’t seem obvious, pull us off the road.” I removed my notepad and several stacks of Post-Its from my mailbag and began scribbling furiously. I was lost in my craft, taking great care to not break my concentration and infused each Post-It with as much will as I could muster.

  Shred and Cool Luke remained silent.

  “Hand me your tablet, Shred.” He never took very well to orders, but knew better than to argue at the moment. As I was about to pull up the map of the area, a message notification flashed on the screen. “Who’s Korezeloth?”

  Shred sighed and reached for the tablet, read the message, then began typing on his application: “My old jam buddy from Springfield.”

  “You mean that jam buddy?” I was wide-eyed, but did not see the immediate significance.

  Shred stroked the stubble of his beard as if there were more there to work with and smiled.

  “The demon?” I asked, but already knew it was the same one.

  “He’s here. He needs to know where to meet us. Give me our coordinates from your own phone.” Shred waited patiently for me to find where we were. We were still close enough to Urfa to have a strong enough signal, but I could tell that any further travel away from the city would put us out of touch. I read him the coordinates. He waited a moment before showing me the incoming message: There in 30.

  I had never met Korezeloth and until that moment I had never even known his name. My right hand throbbed from my intense writing session and I massaged it as I looked back at Cool Luke to ascertain how I thought he might be feeling.

  He looked oddly amused, yet fearful. Cool Luke met my eyes and looked at Shred’s in the rear-view. “Bub—I trust you know what you’re doing?”

  He tapped again. “Not any more than usual. But he’s a friend. Grey can tell you that not everything that comes from the world’s seedy underbelly are bad. He’s a demon, but not in the biblical sense—so you can put that to rest. Best way to look at him is a long-unemployed spirit of nature.”

  “Shred, I’m not sure if that makes much sense.” It was my poor attempt to inject some levity into the moment. Levity was not my forte. Still, I did wonder how a demon could move about in the light of day without detection. It spoke volumes to his capabilities.

  “Doesn’t have to. His story is…” Shred paused and then typed again, “probably too weird for you.” He was looking at me, peering over non-existent glasses reproachfully.

  “Please. I’m the queen of weird. But that story can wait, I guess. I need you to ask him if he can stop and grab three sheets and three hats for us.” Shred sent him the message.

  I showed them both the stacks of Post-Its and the pages from my notepad. “When he gets here, we need to drive around the roads that encompass Gobekli Tepe so I can let loose each of these notes. Cool Luke, you actually gave me the idea with your Psalms quote. Except, I’m not one for being surrounded by enemies. Let’s be the enemy who surrounds them.”

  Cool Luke smiled wide enough I could see his teeth. “I promise you, I wasn’t trying to inspire you. I’m just a guy who’s been facing down many fears. And learned a few ways of dealing with them. Tetris helps.”

  Video games from the late 20th century I could recognize. Tetris I even played at a friend’s house once or twice after school when I was in fifth or sixth grade. “And here you are in the middle of Turkey with no Tetris.”

  Cool Luke dug his phone out of his pocket and showed me the screen. There was an icon for Tetris. “No, I still have it. What do you have in mind about these notes. Also, what can I do to help?”

  “We have no way of knowing what they have planned for us, but they have to be expecting us. And if they don’t see all three of us, they’ll still know all three of us are present.” I looked to each of them as I explained. “The idea is to make it so they don’t really know what they’re looking at.”

  Shred’s eyebrow raised quizzically. Cool Luke did not indicate whether he knew where I was going with this or not.

  “Rain. I’m going to make it rain.”

  “Ahhh,” Cool Luke said. “Yes. This is good. But how will they confuse us?”

  “I’m going to obscure us enough that we all look the same.” I actually had an idea I’d been fancifully wanting to try for years, but never had the occasion or courage to do so. They would see once I performed the magic.

  “Then it also helps us that Shred’s unemployed demon-friend is coming,” Cool Luke observed.

  Call him Korez, Like the beer, Coors. Shred’s computer-voice informed us.

  “I thought it was pronounced Coo-ers?” I wasn’t entirely sure, but I had to be that person in most conversations.

  Not where I’m from, his faux-voice said.

  I imagined saying it in the South Boston accent and it made the proper pronunciation next-to-impossible. “Shred—I can only guess…Korez has his own methods of hiding himself?”

  He nodded to affirm my guess. Shred had indicated in the past that to see Korez would be cause for panic for most people. The demon must be able to make himself invisible.

  “Okay, so Korez is an unexpected asset for us and unexpected enemy for them. We send him in too. It’s going to be a deluge, I think. They’re not going to know what hit them.”

  A few more quotes from Psalms and half a game of Tetris later, a car pulled up next to ours. Out of the darkly-tinted black SUV, what appeared to be a man in camouflaged BDUs and a black hoodie stepped on to the dusty earth and towards our car.

  Korez made no attempt to hide his visage—and Shred was right—Korez was a frightening creature that would inspire fear in the average human. His face was like a charred human skull with reptilian bits of flesh clinging to the bones of the face. He had the hair of a man, and it looked like Shred’s—black with streaks of gray. On his head, four horns sprung from the crown of his head—two like that of an African impala, and two horns of considerable girth protruding directly from his f
orehead.

  He was fearsome, yet here he was, half a world away to help his friend.

  On top of that, strapped to his back was a battle axe that was roughly half the size of the hood of Saul’s Renault.

  Korezeloth bent down and tapped on Shred’s window with a finger that was surprisingly human-like and grinned—an unsettling sight, given his features. “Hey there, fucker!”

  Shred rolled his window down and keyed a response. “Hey, dude. Glad you came. Shit is about to get real. Nice axe.”

  Korez, judging by how much he had to bend to put his face next to Shred’s was several inches over six-feet tall. “You have your axe, and I have mine! Where’s yours, man.”

  Shred scowled, no doubt feeling somewhat emasculated carrying only his tablet and mandolin. “Yeah, yeah. You have more of my kind of axes than you do of those”. He turned to me to give me a new message. One of us will drive you around. “We wait for the rain to start and then make the climb to the temple each from a different direction.”

  There was a good chance Cool Luke would not jump at the chance to ride with Korezeloth. “Okay, I’ll go with Korez. I’ll need to Sharpie my spells on to you both before we split up.”

  “What’s the plan when we get there?” Cool Luke did, in fact, look moderately relieved to be paired with Shred for the time being.

  That part was still muddled. I took the scrying chest out of my bag and used it to confirm that Gavin was still being held there. He was. “The plan is to get Gavin and Saul, if he’s there, and get out. Harm if you must. Shred, find someplace where the acoustics can hide your location. The idea I have is to get to a place where you can play. Cool Luke—you’re going to stay with Shred. When you can, take off the poncho I’m about to make and use your magic to hide him. Leave the poncho somewhere to distract. They’ll still see the illusion. Shred can lull them. My illusions will further distract them. I’ll get to Gavin, Kuluc, you get to Saul. Try to get them and walk out while it’s still raining. I’ll be marking on our clothes as well to make us waterproof and to keep bullets off of us.”

  “What if they use something other than bullets?” Cool Luke rightly pointed out.

  “Don’t know. Hopefully those there will be calmed by Shred’s mandolin. If something happens, keep your phones accessible for instructions. Plus—Korez is our asset they don’t know about.” I turned to address him directly. “Can we all have your number just in case?”

  “Yup,” he said, reciting his number aloud twice.

  Shred pointed his tablet at Korez, “Try not to leave a trail.”

  I looked at him. He typed a response. “Of blood.”

  I could have no idea why Korezeloth would leave a trail of blood, but he was a demon after all. Hopefully it was something I would not have to witness. Dry-heaving mid-rescue would not help with an optimal outcome.

  “This is all good, but what do we do when we have Gavin and Saul?” Cool Luke’s worried expression was returning. There were wrinkles on his dark face that were difficult to notice, but present and premature for his age.

  “Easy. We steal something,” I tried to allay his concern, getting my black Sharpie out of my satchel and setting to writing on the bag of puce bedsheets and hats Korez had stolen from somewhere nearby. “In the meantime, Cool Luke, you have anything in your alchemic bag of tricks to help protect us along the way?”

  “Sadly, nothing with me. I could make new things, but it would take more time than we have, I’m afraid.”

  I nodded and Korezeloth, Shred, and Cool Luke left me alone to ply my spellcraft—only after attempting to cut out neck holes with the pocket knife, did I call for Korezeloth and his axe. He made short work of it and returned to where he, Shred, and Cool Luke examined the horizon.

  Without anyone else to help protect us, I’d have to write some protection spells on each of our clothing we wore underneath the makeshift ponchos. Hopefully that would be enough to keep the bullets from vital organs. The taqiyah caps Korez lifted would also help in that regard. They lacked a brim of any sort, but they would work for the illusion. And if we kept our heads down in the rain, it would help guard against gunfire.

  The last spell was to make them impervious to moisture.

  “I’m finished over here.” I gathered the pile of ponchos and handed one to Shred and to Cool Luke.

  Shred put his on without any questions.

  “Hold on—I need to write some protection spells on your shirts and jeans.” Shred removed the garment and allowed me to take care of him first. He was putting on the taqiyah as I wrote on Cool Luke’s clothing.

  “What’s this meant to do, bub?” Cool Luke hesitated, examining the hideous puce cloth no longer appeared to be what Korez first brought to us.

  “I’m trying to protect you from weapons. As for the poncho, put it on. You’ll see.” I had no way of telling just yet, but I hoped the illusion charm would look just as I intended.

  Korezeloth looked at Shred, sizing him up. “Yup. I like it.” For the first time since meeting him, I could see an already perpetually-grinning visage actually seemed to shift, making him look pleased. He swung his axe around to rest on his shoulder and looked between me, Shred, and Cool Luke.

  Cool Luke was perplexed. Shred had seen me take on the appearance of Von Ranke back at Cevennes, but I he looked pleasantly amused as he looked at us—duplicates. He took his tablet out from underneath his faded black poncho, lined with off-white S-shapes and boxes around the neck meant to mimic Native American stitching.

  “You’ve outdone yourself.”

  Cool Luke looked to me for an explanation. “You look like a famous movie actor, I think.”

  I could not contain my glee for having conjured such a spot-on representation.

  “Clint Eastwood. A Fistful of Dollars,” Korez said.

  I tipped my hat to make at tipping the non-existent brim of my hat to him. “Let’s go, cowboys.”

  “If the doors to perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—infinite.”

  —William Blake

  “Maybe as a society, as a people, the thing we most fear is inspiration. This is why we listen to shitty pop music and love shitty reality television shows—we don’t want to be inspired. If we were inspired, we might have to change who we are. For some, inspiration equals annihilation.”

  —Shred

  Bar sinister 1608

  William penned Francis a letter. It was cryptic and much less verbose than those he usually penned to his brother.

  The scrap of parchment was folded into the pocket of his waistcoat. It merely read: I have perpetrated great evil. I am sorry. But everyone is saved. The shadows recede; the cold abates.

  Francis fancied the young man in whose company he kept. He would never do more than write poetry about him, but he was glad to be attempting to skate across the ice now with him at the very first River Thames Frost Fair.

  It was December, and while it had happened in the past, the River Thames froze over. The Queen declared a holiday and the fair was organized.

  “Francis? Lord Francis Bacon?” It was a young voice, thick with a Scottish brogue.

  Francis turned to the gentleman scooting across the ice toward him.

  “Here, m’lad!” and waved an arm.

  “We must speak.” The page boy stopped and waited for Francis to skate to him.

  Francis had never even attempted to skate before, and found himself overcome with glee. Still, it was not something at which he much excelled. In his attempt to skate to the boy, he fell on him, knocking them both to the ice.

  Without waiting for Francis to right himself, the boy said, “It’s Master Dee. He’s passed on. His majesty bids you to come to court this very moment.”

  * **

  It took nearly four hours to reach Hampton Court, residence of the monarch, King James I. The page who delivered the message also escorted Francis past the guards, through a passage, and finally to His Majesty’s inner chambers.

&nb
sp; The king sat at his own writing desk, surrounded by his retinue, writing on parchment. The pageboy inserted himself between them and whispered into the king’s ear.

  King James sealed whatever he was writing with wax and seal and handed it to one of his attending ministers.

  “You are dismissed. Farewell. Leave us now.” The king stood and faced Francis.

  Now 57, Francis was not a young man. But he forgot himself nevertheless and dropped to one knee to bow to the king. “Sir Francis Bacon. I endeavor to think you are a busy man. Even more since I knighted you.”

  “I am often taken with my responsibilities, yes, Your Majesty. Always time for you, you know this.”

  “David has told you, then? Master Dee has passed away?” the king said.

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I fear it is long in coming. It was his time,” Francis remained on his knee, but finally found himself being helped up by the king and pageboy, David.

  “While that might be true, I am displeased to inform you that Master Dee was murdered last night while he bathed.” The king paced around the room, but did not look to make eye-contact with Sir Francis. “David heard his last words. Tell him, David. Tell Sir Francis what Master Dee said to you.”

  The pageboy, who remained standing near Francis, arms folded behind his back, stepped toward to address him.

  “Sir, Master Dee said ‘Culled to 30. This is our end.”

  No God here I'm sure

  This must be the cure

  For all this carrion and aimless drift

  Retreat from the begging

  And invites to the wedding

  Revelation means nothing here

  In time we forget our

  Need to devour

  All the stories of tortured souls

  Crawl into your arms

  Become the night forever

  Coiled and close, the moment froze

  Deform to form a star

  Here on earth together

  —Steven Wilson, Deform to Form a Star

  Chapter 19