"Can you see anything?" I asked.
"For a moment I could. As if shadows were forming out of the darkness, but then it was gone. What did you do?"
"Nothing I suppose," I said.
Together we pushed through the golden doors. From the outside, they were stone rather than precious metal. The road leading to the door was a dirt path.
The dirt sky and massive walls in the distance remained. We were still in an impossibly large cavern. On the hill, not far from our location, was Neva's hut, sitting patiently.
Neva waited inside, sitting regally on the divan with one leg crossed over the other, puffing on the hookah pipe, sweet smoke curling around her enormous nose.
I held the True Caul across my arms, presenting it for Neva. "We've completed your task and returned with what you requested."
With smoke leaking from her lips, she rose and strolled to me like an apparition. Her eager gaze flitted from the True Caul to me, and back, as if she hadn't expected that I could retrieve it.
"That's it," she said greedily, and pulled it from my hands. My exhaustion returned the moment it left my touch. Neva held it up, the cloth fading into the background once it wasn't in my hands. Then she hugged it to her chest. "The True Caul, back in my possession as it should be."
I gave Neva a stern look. "Now that you have it, we have completed the second task. Name us victors, give us the reward that we demand."
"Demand?" she asked with a laugh. "By what rights can you demand anything? You've only completed two tasks."
My stomach churned. "Pavel cannot win now, because we have finished two tasks, and he has completed none. Therefore, we win. It's simple logic. We've won your Nightfell Games."
When Neva spoke, her voice had the quality of something old, as if she'd dredged the actual words from the past. "I shall challenge you with a contest, three contests. The winner will get their request. For you, the return of my sister, Morwen Hightower."
"Three contests," I replied. "But how can Pavel win now?"
Her ancient eyes were like the infinite sky. I felt insignificant in her gaze.
"If he kills you and completes the last contest then you cannot take the final prize, thus leaving him as winner," she said.
It was as if a giant hole had been opened into my soul. While we were on opposite sides and Pavel had tried to kill Voltaire, it remained a game of power. But if it required my son to murder his own mother to win, then we were both damned no matter what happened.
"I shall return you to your home. Another cycle of the moon will come faster than you think. But when you come back for the final contest, bring only yourself. There can be no assistance in the final game," said Neva as she swept out of the room, the True Caul in her grip.
The journey from Moist Mother Earth's realm to our own took too little time. I spent it on the couch with my knees pulled to my chest.
Voltaire was no cheerful companion either as his blindness had sapped some vital essence. Maybe it was his realization that he could no longer read or that he would have to rely on others for the remainder of his life.
Even though we'd won, we were sad victors. The only thing we were able to enjoy, though enjoyment was a pale description of the act, was the process of eating after so many weeks of effort. I ate mechanically, recognizing that it had to be done, only because I was alive.
When we arrived on Kings Mountain, the door leading out of the hut opened. With Voltaire on my arm, I led him down the mountain to Gastonia.
It was a melancholy procession, neither of us speaking the whole way, which for Voltaire, was just short of a miracle. I cringed when I remembered my thoughts about his verbosity from our first journey up the mountain, regretting that I'd ever wished for his silence.
Back in Gastonia, the carriage was in the same location, directly outside of the inn. While we waited for the steam to build, Voltaire sat on the ground, leaning against the post used for the few horses that passed through, while I reviewed the vehicle, finding bits of dried blood scattered around it. It looked like a battle had occurred directly around the steam carriage, but nothing had damaged it.
Something caught my eye further up the hill behind the inn. I recognized Toothless right away. He had a bow cocked with an arrow, pointed directly at me. I could tell right away he was an expert shot by the way he held the weapon steady. Between my exhaustion and the short time, there was no way to use my sorcery to stop him. He let loose the arrow and it sped towards my chest.
I flinched, expecting to find it imbedded between my ribs, since it'd been headed right at me. But I was unharmed and didn't see where the arrow had gone.
Toothless stood on the hillside with the bow hanging from one long arm. I couldn't understand why he wasn't taking a second shot. The delay gave me time to ready my magic. I thought about sending a tendril of energy in his direction, but decided against revealing my powers until I understood what had happened.
To my surprise, Toothless dropped his bow and went running, scrambling up the hillside, scattering leaves and sticks behind him as if a great bear was chasing him.
I turned to Voltaire to explain what had happened, only to find myself as mystified as Toothless. The blind French philosopher sat against the post with an arrow in his hand. He was still at least fifteen feet away from my location and seated. The arrow was the same one Toothless had shot at me, if I was understanding what had happened correctly.
Voltaire's open mouthed gape matched how I felt. "I was just sitting here, and I saw this streak of light flying through the darkness, so I reached out and grabbed it. It's an arrow, isn't it?"
"Yes. How did you see it?" I asked, but cringed when the words left my lips.
Voltaire turned the arrow over in his hands. "I saw shapes in the darkness."
We left a little while later and drove back to Philadelphia. We spoke a few more times about nothing important, and when we arrived at the estate, I assigned Aught to help Voltaire. Brassy was with Djata in the Thornveld, and Franklin hadn't returned from overseas.
With only a month left before the final contest in the Nightfell Games, I still had to figure out why Philadelphia was going to be overrun by a plague of monsters.
Chapter Twenty-One
Faint mist oozed from the earth around the mausoleum of the Christ Church Cemetery. A layer of gray clouds hid the waning moon, leaving a silvery cast to the sky.
The gears in Brassy's glass arm caught the reflections as if she carried jewels. She wore a silk dress striped in rose, green, and brown, trimmed with black velvet bands and white guipure lace. She looked ready for a stroll along the Delaware River with a gentleman of high society, rather than skulking amid graves.
I wore dark pants, a black corset, and the leather airship jacket that I'd found in Franklin's wardrobe a few years ago. To hide my face, I wore a dandy's floppy hat with a black feather sticking from the top.
With the oestium rapier on one hip and the repeating pistol on the other, I looked like a dueling bravo, which was nothing like a witch. Since I'd been back from Kings Mountain, a woman had been hanged for witchcraft when she turned her husband into a fattened pig.
I seriously doubted that the woman had accomplished such a deed. Either the husband had left the city, putting a pig in his room to hide his escape, or something else had happened, unrelated to the woman.
The transformation reminded me of Moist Mother Earth's punishments in her realm. While the fattened pig wasn't a monster, it was a transformation, which left me worried that she might be involved with the plague of monsters. I wished I knew where Matka's allegiance lay in regard to Perun and Veles.
When we reached the mausoleum, Brassy pulled a box out of the satchel she had on her arm. The metal box was large enough that she had to hold it in both hands.
"What will that do?" I asked with my hand on my rapier.
"When I press this button, it'll lock the door on Santiago's cage, so we can visit him without fear," said Brassy, her fierce blue eyes looking
up at me. Her olive skin glowed in the filtered moonlight.
"Are you certain it'll work?"
"Djata showed me before we sent the other box to Santiago. Though I don't know how, it works as well as a normal key and lock," she said.
I smiled and touched Brassy's arm. "You and Djata have been spending a lot of time together lately."
To my surprise, Brassy blushed. "He's very kind to me."
Her embarrassment confused me until I realized that her interactions with men had always been a business transaction and she'd always been playing a part for them. For the first time, she was able to be herself.
"I'm happy for you," I said, leaning over and kissing her on the forehead. "Shall we?"
Brassy pressed the button in the middle of the box.
"That's it? No light or noise to let us know that it worked?" I asked.
Brassy shrugged, a gesture that came with a modicum of doubt.
"How do we know that Santiago placed himself in the cage before you pressed the button?" I asked, producing the key to unlock the mausoleum door.
Worry pulled Brassy's shoulders inward. "I don't rightly know."
I patted her arm. "Well, he replied that he would, and he seemed like a reasonable man, so we'll just have to trust him. But stay behind me and run out if anything happens."
The key cleaved to the lock and we were inside roaming through the darkness before I had second thoughts. We reached the room with the stone slab and the neatly organized table of carving implements.
"Greetings and salutations," said a voice from one of the walls. There was a row of bars, and on the door, a matching box to the one in Brassy's hands.
A flickering lantern cast light upon Santiago's snowy white beard and sharp features. The darkness of his skin was all the more striking against his hair color. He was considerably larger than I’d guessed from our previous interaction. He had a learned demeanor and I suppose that I associated that with a smaller frame. His snowy white beard swallowed his weathered brown face. Eyes that knew pain regarded me through the iron bars.
"Greetings, Santiago," I said. "I appreciate your willingness to see us."
He gave a formal bow, a contrast to the leather apron and worker's attire that he wore. "It's a pleasure to speak without worry of killing you."
A whimper slipped out of Brassy's lips, which reminded me how much a child she still was.
"What information do you desire?" he asked.
"My apologies if these are intrusive, but I would like to ask a bit about you first," I said.
"Go on," he replied.
I paced with my hands clasped. "Do you come from Otherland? The Thrice-Tenth Kingdom?"
"Otherland you call it? The second one I understand, though that is only one location of many," said Santiago. "But no, I was born in this world, in a place far from here, though I have been to Otherland and the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom, and other places as well. It was how I became afflicted with my curse. A lesson to those who might wish to travel there, as I suspect you do."
"I don't think we have a choice," I said. "So you are certain the body we sent you first was a hrevanti? And the other a garguiem?"
"I am certain," said Santiago. "There is no mistaking them."
"Were there any signs of their former selves? Traces of their once human form?" I asked.
Santiago's snowy beard shifted. His mouth moved beneath the beard, though the expression was lost.
"They were once human?" he asked.
"That you did not know is answer enough," I said. "But yes, it appears they have been transformed."
"How is that possible?" asked Santiago.
It worried me that he did not know. I'd hoped to learn from a being who'd been alive longer than the rest of us, hoping that he had special knowledge. But maybe, as he'd said, he'd lived a lonely and tortured life.
"It appears that those with Otherland heritage can have their true forms awoken under certain circumstances. We found a young girl in an oxbow lake who was changed to a rusalka. Consider as well that my sorcerous powers were triggered when I was bathed in the magic of an Otherland artifact. Even my son has these powers. He was the one who told me," I explained.
Santiago moved away from the iron bars, into the shadows. His voice echoed into the room, both a question and a damning statement. "Then I am from Otherland as well."
His tone told me that I should not pursue his revelation. It felt an invasion of his privacy, so I kept to the issue at hand.
"Someone or something is transforming these people. There are others beyond the ones we've told you, and I had a vision about a plague of monsters overrunning Philadelphia," I said. "Do you know anything about Moist Mother Earth?"
Santiago was suddenly at the bars. I hadn't seen him move. His preternatural speed made me flinch. When he caught my reaction, his eyes creased with sadness.
"Do not trust her," said Santiago.
"Why do you say that? Have you met her?" I asked.
"Once, a long, long time ago," he said. "My curse has something to do with her, though I will speak no more about it. These transformations sound like her. She is an agent of change, enjoys creating new life and new forms for life."
"The myths name her as a goddess of fertility and the earth," I said.
"In every birth, there is change. A new beginning born of the old, but yet different. Matka could be spreading her change widely, knowing that Veles has plans for this world," said Santiago.
I cursed silently as this revelation threw chaos into my thoughts. Why would she let me have the True Caul, unless it served some greater purpose? The way she and Tobbin tricked me into going into Orthoni's underhall showed that she was not above deception.
"Even if it's her, I have no idea how to stop it," I said.
"Though powerful, she is limited, especially when she's outside of her own realm. She might be able to make one or two of these transformations, a dozen even if she's feeling capricious, but not a plague of monsters, as you say," he said.
"Then there has to be another way. Some magic that will amplify her power," I said.
Santiago made a gesture with his hand, waving it back and forth to indicate he had no knowledge in that area.
I sighed. "I think I know what I need to do next. I promised to visit Nell. She might be able to help us figure out how this is happening."
"What do you want me to do with the bodies?" asked Santiago, then he added softly, "The bones and organs of these Otherland creatures have many alchemical uses."
It seemed sacrilegious to grind up poor Professor Walker and use him in a potion, but we needed every advantage.
"I was not aware of these properties. What can they do?" I asked.
Santiago pressed himself eagerly against the bars as he spoke. "The bones of a hrevanti are used in potions involved with extending life. Garguiem blood can make a person stronger for a time. The alchemical properties of each creature, ironically, are kept by the hrevanti themselves, even the properties of their own bodies. I was given a chance to review their stores of knowledge for a brief time. They are remarkable in scope and volume. You wouldn't believe some of the things that can be brewed. If I had a bit of nokke bonedust and some other less rare things, I might be able to lessen my curse. Unfortunately, the nokke are extinct."
"I would enjoy coming back here some time and learning more about the alchemical arts. I imagine Franklin would as well," I said.
"Who do you think taught him what he knows?" said Santiago. "So shall I prepare the bodies for use?"
"Not yet," I said, not wanting to give the word. "Keep them on ice while you can."
We traded our farewells and Brassy and I left the mausoleum, locking the door behind us. The air was cold, and getting colder still, and I was no closer to finding a way to stop this plague.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The search for answers about the coming plague had proved fruitless. Voltaire and I had argued at length about the possible causes. Mostly, we had dete
rmined that there had to be a trigger that would wake the latent Otherlandness of the Philadelphian population.
For me, it'd been the magical bath aboard the Brave Eagle. I didn't know how Pavel had found his magic since he hadn't told me. As for the people transformed by Matka, since they'd mostly been turned into common house animals, we knew raw power could do the deed. But we'd learned from Santiago that she would need a way to amplify her magic to pull off a mass transformation that would affect the city of Philadelphia.
Since we had no way to know how Professor Walker or the man who'd been transformed into a garguiem had been triggered, the only possible link we had was the girl, Nell. I'd promised a new home for her anyway, so I was due to visit her.
I had no desire to drag the blind Voltaire through the Pennsylvania forest to avoid Nell's father, and Brassy was busy helping Djata in the Thornveld, so I elected to take Zora along.
When we neared the Warmond's property, I pulled the steam carriage into the grass and headed through the woods on foot. A curl of smoke from their fireplace was enough of a guide to keep me on the right path.
"The crisp air is wonderful," said Zora.
My boots crunched across the forest. Most of the leaves had fallen, so the bluish-gray sky was visible through the naked limbs.
"You can feel it?" I asked, glancing at the skull hanging from a silver necklace around my neck.
"Not like you can, but enough to make me pleased to be out of the estate. Since you won't introduce me to the others, and leave me in your room, I'm going quite mad," said Zora.
"I've met hermits less mad than you," I said, knocking a branch out of the way.
"If I had a heart, it would be wounded," said Zora.
"I didn't bring you for your witty chatter," I said. "I brought you for a second opinion."
"I'm all eyes, and ears, and bone. It might not seem like a lot, but I can do more with this than most can do with a whole body," said Zora.
Nightfell Games (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 5) Page 17