by Eric Asher
Power lines had been blown away, their towers sheared off until they stood only a few feet above the waterline. It was a destruction so absolute it stole my breath.
“Everyone okay?” I asked.
When they didn’t answer, I looked around and found all three of them staring out at the ruined dam. I knew how many people had been lost in the cataclysm at Gettysburg, I’d heard them, I’d seen the news reports, but it wasn’t the same as standing in the wastes. Parts of the road had been scoured away, and only the stumps of tree trunks or tops of root balls stuck out slightly higher than the scorched earth itself.
“Look,” Nixie said, pointing off to the northwest.
Some ways in the distance, past the short grass and weeds trying to reclaim the wastes, trees shimmered near the horizon. They weren’t outside the influence of what had flattened that land because I could see more of the unnaturally even plains beyond.
These were something else. These were what we’d come to find. Or at least, whoever had rebuilt the forest in that place was who we’d come to find. There were few beings who could do that.
“Do you think the trees are Gaia’s doing?” Nixie asked.
“Possibly. Or one of the forest gods. And if it was the forest gods, they might be able to tell us where to find Gaia.”
We started forward without another word. Foster took to the air, scouting ahead before circling back. The scarred earth cracked beneath some of our steps, while other times mud threatened to steal our boots. It was oddly inconsistent, and I didn’t understand why.
“This place feels weird,” Nixie said. “There’s a hint of Faerie’s magic here, but there’s still an emptiness.”
The farther we walked, the more I disagreed with that assessment. “We aren’t alone.”
Foster swooped down and landed on Frank’s shoulder. “Did you see something?”
“No, I can feel it, though. Whatever souls were trapped in the cataclysm, it wasn’t everyone. There are still ghosts here.” I could feel the dead crawling across my aura, and I raised my Sight to take a closer look.
It didn’t take any effort to look behind the veil. One moment we were in a vast, empty wasteland, and the next spirits patrolled the area, and that gave me pause. They weren’t rooted to the spot, frozen by the horror of what had been visited on them. They moved like any other ghost, some more sentient than others, while most were stuck in a loop, moving across ground that no longer existed, floating several feet above us where the street had once been.
I let the vision fade, but the ghosts hadn’t been the only thing I’d seen. “The ley lines are an absolute mess.”
“Really?” Nixie asked. “How so?”
“Tangled up like a spider web. Instead of huge concentrations, they’re spread out like thin strands, covering most of the area I can see.”
“Nudd fractured them,” Foster said. “It had to be. Trying to redirect them?”
Nixie stood a little straighter. “Redirect them for Falias. The power that would have taken.” She looked at the barren earth. “The power it did take. By the gods.”
I’d hoped that by the time we reached the newly grown trees, we would have seen one of them move. Or at least move more than the breeze around us moved them. But we were on top of the copse of trees in less than an hour, and the only movement I’d seen had been the ghosts.
“We should rest here,” Nixie said. “It gives us a modicum of shelter, and the woods are thick enough to shield us from prying eyes.”
I looked around. “I don’t think that’s much of a worry.”
“Then you aren’t paying attention. Can you not feel the lines bending? There is magic in the air, and it is not far from us.”
We slipped between the trunks of oak trees that appeared like they’d been growing for sixty years and took a seat in the underbrush. Frank passed around a handful of snacks and water, and I had to admit I’d forgotten to bring any kind of drink.
“Glad someone remembered,” I said. “Although I guess Nixie could have pulled some water from the earth.”
“No, I couldn’t. Or perhaps it is better to say I wouldn’t. This land feels strange.”
“It’s quiet,” Foster said.
“Welcome to nature.”
“No, Damian, I mean it’s quiet. I don’t hear any bugs or animals or anything except the leaves. This place is dead.”
I focused harder after Foster mentioned the silence. And he was right. There was a quiet rustle of leaves above us and the gentle snap of a Ziploc bag as Frank closed the jerky and put it away, but I could hear Nixie unscrewing the top of a water bottle in the unnerving quiet.
“Can you tell how close that magic is?” I asked.
Foster and Nixie exchanged a glance before they both shook their heads.
I blew out a breath and raised my Sight again. Depending on the arts, the ley lines themselves would sometimes betray the location of a mage or Fae. I stared hopelessly at the lines, each pulsing with electric blue light, each offering not a hint of what might be nearby.
But something caught my eye a moment before the vision faded, and I kept my Sight up. I might not have been able to see what was coming, but the ghosts could. Those more sentient turned toward a single point, watching a form I couldn’t see.
“There.” I pointed to the northwest. “The ghosts are watching something.”
“I can’t see anything,” Frank said.
Foster hopped to the ground as his hand vanished into a pouch at his side. When it came up again, he had a seeing stone in his palm. “Glamour. And thick glamour. I still can’t make out their face through the stone.”
“Truly?” Nixie asked. “It would take great skill to deflect the power of a seeing stone.”
“I know.”
I followed the gaze of the ghosts, and oh so subtly the web of ley lines would brighten as something walked through them. I raised my voice and added the edge of a threat to it. “I know you’re there.”
A form rippled in the wastes, and the glamour fell. A single Fae stood on the muddy plain, their boots caked in earth and a comically large rucksack on their back. I would have been amused if not for the thought of how much that leaning tower of fabric and chests had to weigh. Even if it was empty, it would be hundreds of pounds.
And I had little doubt it wasn’t empty.
“Commoners in the waste?” the Fae asked, and their voice was higher than I’d expected. “That is an odd vision to my weary eyes. I thought the isolation had gotten the best of me. I have been wandering for some time.”
Nixie stood, each movement slow and deliberate. “We are not all commoners.”
The Fae continued forward, eyeing Nixie as she came closer. It gave me a better view of her gaunt face and slender arms that didn’t look capable of lifting the load on her back. Beneath the straps of what I now realized was something like a velvet rucksack, I could make out tarnished armor, much like the owl knights wore, but not cared for and respected like theirs.
She pulled back her hood, showing platinum hair like Foster’s, but much shorter. The Fae crouched and let the rucksack splat onto the ground before straightening to her full height, and I suddenly felt far more intimidated.
“You’ll never get the mud off that,” Frank said.
“Oh, do not be concerned. It is protected well enough from the muck of this realm.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Muck?”
“I do apologize. Did I use that word incorrectly? It was only recently I heard a commoner utter it near the river, and I rather enjoy the sound.”
“You used it perfectly,” Nixie said. “Would you join us? Perhaps you can direct us to our friends.”
The Fae cocked her head, bright eyes studying Nixie. “You have friends in the wastes? Then I hope they are either the forest gods or in Falias, for I have seen few others alive. And I apologize for calling you commoners. I can see now you are far from it.”
Foster’s hand slid away from the hilt of his sword, and the
Fae took notice of him for the first time.
“The Demon Sword. My, but my fellow wanderers will never believe this tale.” The wanderer paused and turned to Nixie, studying her for a moment. She only glanced at Frank before looking back to Nixie. “Queen of the Undines, it is an honor. I had heard tales of your adventures in Atlantis, but I did not realize you had come to the wastes.”
“What can I call you?” Nixie asked.
The Fae smiled, not hiding her appreciation that Nixie had not asked for her name. It told me something of the Fae. She held to the older traditions, and while she might not have been an immediate threat, it would be easy to cause offense.
I looked down at our motley crew and suddenly had a very bad feeling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Fae wanderer inclined her head to Nixie. “You may call me Oda, if it pleases you.”
Nixie didn’t acknowledge her with a nod, or bow, or any kind of gesture a commoner might have. Instead, she only answered directly. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Oda.” Nixie turned to the rest of us in turn. “This is Damian, Mortal Prince of the Undines. Foster, the Demon Sword, as you astutely observed, and Frank, journeyman of Death’s Door and representative of Atlantis.”
Oda hadn’t shown much of a reaction to anything until Nixie dropped Frank’s title into the conversation. Of course, Frank looked almost as surprised as Oda.
“Sounds like you got a promotion,” I whispered to him.
That drew a raised eyebrow from Oda, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she folded her legs and sank to the ground across from Frank. She didn’t look away from Frank after that, and it was unnerving to watch, as if she thought Frank was the largest threat of any of us.
“If you would purchase my wares, I would tell you much of the world around you.”
“The wastelands?” Frank joined her on the ground.
The Fae cocked her head to the side as if listening to something distant. “Perhaps.”
“I’m interested, but I need to make sure Atlantis is taken care of first. You know, they’ve had a rough go of it, and they’ll be the seat of power for the undines again.”
“Your openness is refreshing.”
Frank sounded entirely normal, and not at all like he was about to negotiate with a cunning Fae. “All cards on the table. That’s how I like to negotiate. I need to strike a deal that’s good for me and my friends, but I want you to be happy with it too. It’s how I do business.”
“Wise of you, journeyman. Have you bartered with the Fae before?”
“Every day.”
It wasn’t a lie, but I had to choke back a laugh, hiding it under a cough as Foster put his hands on his hips.
“Tell me what it is you seek, and I will tell you what I have.”
“I need to know what you want,” Frank said. “If I don’t have anything that catches your eye, we’ll have to find someone else.”
Oda broke eye contact for the first time, looking back toward the wastes. “You would risk much journeying there blind. Perhaps you would like a token that will pierce glamour? I believe most travelers would find that most potent.”
“A seeing stone?” Frank asked. “I thought wanderers had rare goods.”
Oda froze. It wasn’t an insult, but a challenge, and I exchanged a grin with Nixie as we both took a seat beneath the towering oak trees.
“If you speak for Atlantis, I suspect you seek ore for the stone swords,” Oda said. “And if that is what you have come to seek, the forges yet survive. That is invaluable information on its own.”
“Copper imbued with magrasnetto.”
“If that is what you wish to call it. But it will do you little good without the venom of a basilisk. And it has been long since a basilisk was seen in this realm.”
Frank didn’t even blink. “What do you seek?”
“I have no need of precious stones, journeyman. And that is so often what the commoners offer in trade. I would prefer the purest magrasnetto in trade for ore.”
Frank opened his duffel bag, and I didn’t miss Oda’s slight lean forward as she tried to see what was inside. Frank placed three equal lengths of magrasnetto on the ground before Oda.
“Two bars for the ore and a tale, and a third for the delivery to Puerto Rico. Enough for one hundred blades.”
“I will need more direction than that.” Oda’s lips twitched. “A tale of what?”
“Of basilisks and forest gods.”
“That is two tales, journeyman.”
Frank dropped a small baggie with dozens of obsidian teardrops onto the ground. “For the difference.”
Oda looked as if she was going to protest and then reached for the baggie. “May I?”
“Of course.”
She pulled the sides of the bag open and dumped the contents into her palm. Delicate fingers perused the obsidian as her gaze alternated between the stones and Frank. “A rare shape.”
“The witches covet them. It would give you much to trade with any coven you encounter.”
“I am familiar with the healing runes often hosted by these stones. An intriguing offer.” She rolled one stone between her fingers before dropping the lot back into the baggie and sealing it. “Very well.”
Oda gestured to the trees around them. “The forest gods raised these woods before they left, following the sun two days past. That is when a great power arrived in the wastelands, and those of us with any sense went the other direction.”
I didn’t need to hear more to know that was probably when Gaia showed up. Oda didn’t seem like the type to be easily intimidated, which likely meant she’d either encountered an Eldritch thing or the Titan.
“How far away are they now?” Frank asked.
“I do not know. I cannot say how fast those beings can travel. And it is said their goddess has access to the Warded Ways, or some passage much the same.”
“And the basilisks?”
“Interesting you would use the plural, journeyman. As if you were already aware of what has happened.” Oda waited, but Frank didn’t respond. “The realms are closer than you know, separated by the great Seals. But there are occasions when powers exert themselves and those realms overlap. You can see it in the Shadowed Lands and in the great waste between Gorias and Murias. Stars that move of their own accord, and the shapes of great beasts not meant for our worlds.
“Perhaps what you may not know is that our realms have merged before. Falias was not the first. And given enough time, it will not be the last. More than two hundred years past, by the mortal calendar, that was the last merging. When some of the halls of Gorias vanished from Faerie and appeared elsewhere.”
That was an answer I hadn’t expected. The remnants of Gorias around St. Louis hadn’t appeared with the cataclysm of Falias. They were older by far. And that timeline put it in the era St. Louis had suffered one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history.
“But the serpents remain offset from this reality, like the forgotten gods that still stalk the stars of the Shadowed Lands.”
“How can I reach them?” I asked.
Frank gave a small shake of his head.
Oda grinned. “Are you not the necromancer with the power of a Timewalker? One who bears the mantle and the power of a Titan?”
Her words froze me in my tracks. I could only ask, “Who are you?”
Oda looked back to Frank. “Journeyman, is our bargain complete?”
“This part of it,” Frank said. “You have been generous with your information, but I need more supplies as well.”
“Then our initial bargain is done.”
“Yes.”
Only with Frank’s agreement did Oda pick up the magrasnetto and obsidian. I didn’t see her put it away, but the goods vanished between one blink and the next. “What else do you wish to trade?”
Frank didn’t argue the question this time, as if that was part of the ritual of the trade. Instead, he opened the duffel bag and pulled out one of the long boxes. Nestled inside w
as a tapered pillar of amber, a single feather trapped inside from an age I could scarcely imagine.
“It is beautiful. But I …” Oda’s voice trailed off as Frank continued.
This time he laid out the candles Ashley had carved, another box filled with amber, and what froze Oda in her tracks, a small pouch of ancient silver coins. They’d been used in Atlantis, or so Nixie thought, as there were traces of old magic on them once used to prevent forgeries in the city.
“I have not seen their like in a very long time.”
Frank also pulled out a log of peanut butter fudge large enough to put anyone into a sugar coma. “Finest fudge you’ll find west of the Mississippi.” He unwrapped the end and cut a sliver off. “Please, sample it.”
“Your observation of our traditions is impressive, journeyman, but I cannot accept this.”
Frank frowned, his eyes blinking rapidly for a moment before he nodded. “Of course.” He cut it in half, ate part himself, and offered the candy again.
Oda smiled. “Someone has schooled you well.” She sampled the fudge, and her composure broke, lips twitching just a hair. And if I hadn’t missed it, I knew damn well Frank hadn’t. I had thought the fudge was the strangest thing he’d brought. I should have known better.
After laying out the arrangement of wares and snacks, including a bag of death jerky, Frank only said one word. “Orichalcum.”
Oda finished the fudge and licked her fingers. It was the single most unrefined thing she’d done, and for some weird reason, that made me rather happy. “How much?”
“As much as you can carry on your own person in a single trip.”
Oda glanced back at her sizable load. “And what is it you seek?”
“A tree. An eternal flame from Murias, delivered to Atlantis, at which time you can leave with as much Orichalcum as you can carry.”
“You ask much, journeyman. And if it were not for the presence of the queen of the undines and her lack of protest, I might find your offer suspect. But you offer this and everything in front of me in trade?”