Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1)

by Aaron Buchanan

  “I think you did.” I swiped at the bandages on my eyes, wishing in that instant to tear them off. Instead, what I felt was numbness. “Find out something, that is.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?” For just a moment his calm, impassive exterior cracked and hinted at his own suffered misfortunes and suffering.

  “Whoever did this isn’t just out to kill gods,” I responded. “The magoi are fair game, too.”

  “The Doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer the wickedness; the theologian all the stupidity.”

  —Schopenhauer

  “”Destiny was invented by those afraid of their own thoughts.”

  —Joy Hansen

  rEvolve: 3

  What we have learned:

  Humanity must make sense of chaos. Our ancient, pre-human ancestors most assuredly began the fascination with counting—for it put order to the chaos. While it did little to keep out the darkness, it made sense of the world they observed. Our human ancestors continued, but never fully realized the powers of numbers, or that numbers could, in fact, lend themselves to keeping the dark at bay; even fashioning a world greater than what was then capable of men to perceive.

  The poet, Ovid, tells us that mankind alone is the sole creature able to lift its neck to the sky and worship the gods. Though, long before our ancestors were able to conceptualize the gods and worship, they were looking to the skies in wondrous admiration. The first counters were also inclined to count the stars, but the numbers grew too large and the counters grew too weary. Their children counted, and their children too. None could number the stars.

  As that first human-like species gave way to ours, we lifted our necks to continue that tradition. We counted and were stymied and gave credit to the gods and continued worshipping them. Another 100 millennia passed and these humans’ dissatisfaction with being unable to count the stars never ceased; even more, they yearned to touch them and dreamed of one day reaching them.

  This desire angered the gods. Again, the gods misunderstood humanity. Men had already harnessed the powers of words, but it was the distance between men—not the gods, not some magnificent tower—that hindered humans from understanding each other. Despite humanity’s lack of communication, the numbers enhanced their lives. And the numbers alarmed the gods. Humans used numbers to build and still found time to observe those stars that could not be counted, and hoped that one day the deed would yet be accomplished.

  The gods saw that they could press this skill of humans into something for their own purposes. The gods claimed to reveal the secrets of numbers (which were not, by then, secrets at all) and turned men to their advantage: build us temples and we will build you civilizations.

  Men built and built and they honored the gods—but so too men. The Great Pyramid of Cheops, that most enduring of human temples, was built for a man who was made god. The gods forbade this. The centuries were used to count; to build. Stars were observed, days were counted; temples and palaces and empires all were built. Numbers played an indispensable role in this . Whereas humanity learned to tap the power of words, we eventually grew to harness the power of numbers too. Temples were not just built and dedicated to gods for the first time in millennia. Temples were built to men and to women; to knowledge. Numbers helped man build bridges both literal and figurative. The numbers also helped to bring water to their cities and even give them food.

  As civilization grew to modernity, the stars were still not fully reckoned, but our species reached into the very heavens themselves. And there we found no gods waiting for us like we were told. The gods themselves could never reach the heavens.

  “From where has this illusion of yours appeared in this moment of crisis? This is not befitting honorable men, nor conducive to the attainment of heavenly spheres and is the cause of infamy.”

  —The Bhagavad Gita, Book 2, Verse 2

  Chapter 7

  I begrudgingly slept in Gavin’s motel room in Athens. The sleep was not the least bit restful, as I awoke often to any noise and was further startled when each time I came to, I was unable to see my environs. The beds were uncomfortable and the smells of must and rot were pronounced. It occurred to me that it might be a boon to not be able to see the place, especially in the dark of night. Meanwhile, my dreams cycled through various moments of the preceding night, though in the dream I had no problems with vision and could see preternaturally. I saw the trivium as I approached it and performed the logomancy at the monument. But instead of being attacked by a stranger with a rifle, Joy’s father and my father both appeared out of nowhere to reprove us. I pleaded with my dad to stop yelling at me and just explain what was going on and why he had been murdered. Instead, the apparition of my dad grew apoplectic and began beating Joy senselessly. I awoke when Joy’s own father grabbed her head and slammed it against the marble of the pyramid at the center of the trivium.

  Graciously, Gavin said nothing about my fitful sleep or the screams that accompanied it.

  “I got you a cinnamon bun and some coffee from the gas station across the street.” I felt the nudging of a paper bag against my shoulder. “The coffee is on the night stand next to you.”

  I fumbled around; feeling for the coffee, but knocked it to the floor. “Shit!”

  “Oh. Well, there was your coffee.”

  “Sorry,” I apologized.

  “It’s all right. I’ll get you another. It was a small. You might want the large.” Gavin omitted the words after last night, but he didn’t need to. The three words hung in the air like an ellipsis. “I’ll go. You think about what your next move is going to be.”

  I heard the room door open and shut rapidly. Cold air blew in with vigor. The temperature seemed as cold as it was last night and now there was wind in addition to it.

  It had been three days since the injury to my eyes. Joy thought that it would take a week to heal, but I hoped it could be as soon as three days. While she was with me, I was content to wait it out. Now that she wasn’t, I was forced to rely upon and be indebted to a stranger who had already proved willing to manipulate us. I needed to see if my eyes progressed in their healing.

  I unwound the bandages around my head at first carefully, but I grew impatient and ended up pulling them off into a pile at my feet. They were likely soiled with the various salves placed on my eyes and likely even dead skin.

  I felt around the room until I reached the bathroom and held my face under the faucet of the sink. I likewise felt for the towel and finally blinked my eyes, waiting to make out the vague shapes. The room was, thankfully, left dark. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust beyond the darkness I already knew was there. I looked at the white porcelain of where the sink should be and was convinced I could make out a dark gray shape. I was taken aback completely when I caught my own movement in the mirror.

  I could see. Yet there was little happiness; only resolve. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the character, Gloucester, was blinded. Only when he lost his sight did his perception of the world at hand sharpen into focus: I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw.

  I never came to that epiphany, but I was almost glad for the blindness and the brief lessons it bestowed upon me.

  Gavin returned and before I could tell him not to, turned on the lights in the room.

  “Turn it off!” The light was agonizing and I shut myself within the darkened bathroom.

  “Sorry-sorry-sorry!” The light from under the crack in the door turned dark. He sounded slightly amused. “Good,” I heard from the other side of the door, “I was going to take your bandages off before we left anyway. They were…dirty.” He chose the word dirty carefully. That left me to believe “covered with blood” might be more accurate. I hitched involuntarily, realizing that it was not my blood on the bandages.

  I opened the door of the bathroom and steadily led myself out, following the gray patterns and dark outlines I saw before me. I made out Gavin’s dark outline moving toward me. He was an ill-defined mass, but at least i
t was something.

  “Here, I got you these,” he opened my hand and stuck something into my palm. They were sunglasses. “Now you can go Terminator.”

  That was a pop culture reference of which I was familiar. At least it gave me an idea what the sunglasses looked like.

  I put the glasses on and chanced looking at the light emanating from behind the curtains. They weren’t perfect, but they did the job of cutting out a reasonable amount of light. “Thanks.” I worried that it sounded insincere. Trusting him was going to be some work, even if I owed him my life. “We have to go back,” I found myself saying. I thought of the recurring dream I had during my fits of sleep—of being back at the trivium with my father, Joy and her father. How they mercilessly beat her. In my dream, there was writing on the monument. I didn’t notice it in the dream, but now I remembered it, even if it was not a language I recognized.

  “To the trivium? I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.” Gavin was trying to convince me, but he lacked the cold tonality of conviction needed to sell his doubts to someone like me.

  “You know we do. You have some mojo. Between the two of us working some spells, we’ll be able to get in and investigate. Do some recon. We need to work some magic to find and recover Joy’s body. And we need to get the son of a bitch who killed her. Those are priorities one and two.” I had not realized, but the volume of my voice grew to just a decibel or two below a shout. I lowered my volume to implore him: “We need the trivium to make our next step.”

  Gavin breathed heavily, making me think it was something akin to a double-sigh. “Okay. Eat your roll. Drink your coffee. We’ll hit the road in 30.”

  “Are you equipped?” I asked. I assumed he was, but if he were on the run like I was, there was no way of knowing for sure.

  “More than you,” Gavin retorted. He was irreverent, but not flippantly so. Maybe there was hope to salvaging this relationship after all.

  “Can you grab me some ink? Empty out some ball-points into a cup or bottle or something?” The seeds of a plan were planted, sown, and germinating in my mind.

  “Of course. The front desk had some free ones.” He must have noticed my chagrined expression, because he followed it up with, “Fine. I’ll go back across the street and buy whatever more I can. Third time’s a charm and all.”

  When it came to magic, the number three had a way of asserting itself again and again. It was the way of it. I wondered if the magic of threes were more frequent near Trivium.

  “And grab whatever stationery they have.” I found my jacket and shoes on a chair next to an antiquated television set and readied myself to leave.

  * * *

  Gavin returned with pens, another notepad, and four extra pair of sunglasses—including two that were almost certainly meant for ladies over 60. I could not see them exactly, but the feel and weight of them verified my suspicion. He even managed to beg for or pilfer a pad of Post-It notes from the motel office.

  “I’m going to etch these. One of the skills Tolliver sent my way. One’s going to be like binoculars, one is for seeing magic auras. One, I can only describe as Spidey-sense glasses.” The first pair of glasses were in Gavin’s hands along with a small pocket knife one would find affixed to a keychain.

  “I don’t understand that reference.” I usually felt a tinge of ineptitude for missing people’s cultural references. I was honestly curious.

  “Never mind. They will be able to detect obvious threats. Physical traps. That’s why I got the larger glasses—for the lenses.” Gavin sat on his bed with his tiny pocket knife and got to work.

  I was envious—I’d never tried such a thing. And it seemed so obvious. His reasoning was sound. “There can be no fashion sense in magic.” It was an axiom I confabulated on the spot. I looked forward to wearing the end product because glasses were a novel idea and their potential for usefulness were extraordinary. I would have to try it out on my own after things settled down. With my own sunglasses on, non-etched, sunglasses on, I made for a bag on the bed that was presumably full of pens. I could not yet read, but I could make out the motel’s logo. I took the last drink of my coffee and set about draining the pens of ink and into my empty coffee cup. Distinguishing light and dark were an easier matter, so I did not even need Gavin to verify that each was emptied of ink.

  I blew the ink through the tube and into the cup and a thorough scrubbing of the mouth from accidently ingesting some of the ink. It took 12 pens before I felt I had enough ink, so I returned the led to the coffee cup, stuck a few more pens in various pockets in jeans and jacket along with the notepad and Post-Its. I also noticed that Gavin purchased an off-brand Magic Marker. I stuffed that into the inner pocket of my jacket and zipped it up.

  “You should know something.” The details of Gavin’s face were still fuzzy, but my brain filled in the details of what I could remember from his time as one of my maintenance men.

  “More secrets?” I hoped not. I was not prepared for any more just then.

  “No, not really. Just...Donald was afraid of your father.” The shape of Gavin moved to collect something off his bed.

  “What? Why on earth would he be afraid of my dad?” Gavin certainly threw me for a loop.

  Gavin walked to the room door and stood, holding the knob, but not opening. “Never really went into it. But he said he had his reasons. He warned me when I was watching your apartment that you might seem kindly, but it would be unwise to trust you.”

  “Well, as the Bard says, ‘Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.’ Except, I’m the most trustworthy one I know. I’m one of the few you should trust.” I wasn’t entirely sure I was the most trustworthy person I know, but I was close.

  “People who are trustworthy never say they’re trustworthy. Though, not to sound creepy or anything, but…”

  “No,” I affirmed, “you’re definitely a creep.”

  “…But I watched you more than you would probably guess.” His hand was on the doorknob, but he looked back to me. I thought.

  “That would actually be textbook definition of creep.” While Gavin had a charismatic air about him, what he was admitting detracted from that charm most egregiously. Because these emotions were always something I had to squeeze through cognition, I was wondering if I needed to start getting angry. I dismissed the thought. I was already emotionally spent.

  “What I’m saying is I was looking for a reason to fear you; to hate you.” Tolliver only made the enchantments for magic susceptibility and had me replace one of your Sharpies with his. I’m the one who tried to keep you out of this.”

  The arithmancy symbols flashed through my mind. “The Lotus Eater?”

  “Right. You saw that,” Gavin sighed. “Well, he never showed me that. I read it in one of his books back in Cambridge.” He opened the door, letting the draft sweep through. It was cold enough it made my nose run.

  “One day,” I looked toward him, concentrating on the lines that defined his facial features, “You’re going to have to explain to me how a nice American boy like you wound up with an arithmancer in England.”

  “That…” Gavin seemed to contemplate telling me more, but decided against it. “Will wait happen in the car. Let’s go.”

  “Wait. Gavin.” I heard him, more than saw him stop outside the threshold of the doorway. “I get it. You were trying to protect Joy and to protect me.” I was offended still, but his admission at least helped me measure him. He was a kid, maybe Joy’s age or a year or two older, in far over his head and doing what he can. That feeling of displacement, being out-of-phase with one’s existence was something I knew all too well.

  “Yeah. I guess. Anyway, I was wondering if you knew why he’d be so afraid of your dad.” Gavin walked forward and I followed, shutting the room door behind me.

  The sunglasses helped, but I was still very sensitive to the light—even the drab, cloudy day that added to the gray in my vision. I entered the passenger side of the vehicle Gavin was climbing into and hoped I was st
ill just blind enough to not make out any blood stains from the night before if they just happened to be on the upholstery.

  I searched my memories attempting to answer Gavin’s question, but only came up empty. From 12 onward, Dad’s business was my business. I never saw anything that would make people fear him. Good people, anyway. The Monde Cachet, yes. Absolutely.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. Unless your guy was really a bad guy?” I did not mean to offend him, but it was the only explanation I could offer.

  “No. Not really. He was selfish, but never cruel. Introverted, but very personable when you got to know him. I liked him. His neighbors and colleagues did too.” Gavin obeyed the speed limits, unlike the preceding night as well. And he was a much better driver than Shred.

  “You knew his colleagues too?” It was reasonable to assume he would, of course, but I hoped that the query would cajole him into divulging more information about himself and Tolliver.

  “Yes. That’s actually how we met. I was on scholarship at Cambridge. Mathematics. I studied under him at Pembroke College—one of the small colleges within Cambridge.” Gavin was melancholy, clearly.

  “Right.” I was well aware of the patchwork affiliation of colleges that made up Cambridge, though I would only recognize a few of them by name. For a second, I contemplated telling Gavin that Shred was already in Cambridge, probably searching through Tolliver’s house—which reminded me: I needed to touch base with Shred. I had my phone, but it was dead and its charger remained in the rental vehicle we left back in the corn field near the trivium.

  “Are you a polyglot? Like, do you know all the languages that you use for your craft?” Gavin’s line of questioning pivoted so quickly, that it was jarring. He had no desire to speak more of Tolliver, so I obliged him. Hopefully, we’d pick up that thread of conversation later.