Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1)

by Aaron Buchanan

  The orchestra built into a resounding crescendo—I had no idea such sounds could come from what Shred had on hand—but there it was, permeating through my being. Shred was summoning the spirits of the Muses themselves and was synthesizing the very essence of rock-n-roll into something different; something new and greater.

  I was nearly to the river, but the music he played made me feel as if my very soul—something I did not truly believe in—were floating out of my body.

  Before crossing the river, I caught sight of nearly a hundred men carrying barrels as carefully as if they were laden with glass. Several of the men were guarding the convoy as they had fashioned a set of platforms with levers and pulleys to bring the barrels up to a cave on the cliff face some 40 feet up.

  Four of the guards noticed me. One of them exchanged words with one standing near him and the recipient came out to speak to me.

  I quick-glanced down to check my visage-shifting spell and confirmed its integrity. I took a Post-It out of my pocket and scrawled a new spell upon it. I hoped Cupid would not take any shots. I hoped Shiva was still following us and he would hold back just long enough…

  “Sir, has something happened?” the man asked, over the music. His accent was as American as mine. “Something else?” He gestured around, indicating the music.

  I smiled and shook his hand as he stepped closer—placing the Post-It squarely in his palm.

  “Turn,” I urged, knowing there was no coming back from the order I was about to issue him. I closed my eyes, “empty your clip on those men.”

  The young initiate did exactly as I compelled him. Knowing they’d return fire in mere moments, I ran across the shallow river and tried to cover myself in the rock face as a torrent of bullets made their way to where we were. I turned to see if Joy were within the spellcaster field. She was, and she was panting for breath. I grabbed her arms to check her spells. Crossing the water had cleared some of the writing. I rewrote over the old words, and Joy found herself renewed in body—and with Shred’s song—in mind as well.

  The gunfire stopped momentarily. The music did not. Like a roar building from the back of this mountain’s throat what came next bowled me over in a very literal sense. Shred was playing delicate arpeggios in the distance; men howled in anguish; but what erupted was the cry of a man that evoked earthquakes and cataclysm. It was a war-cry uttered by a 3500-year-old man-god Homer had christened, “The Lord of the War-Cry” and at his back, Athena, Jupiter, Kali; Shiva rushed from the trees from which we had just come. They had rubbed off their concealment and were now using holy dread to defeat their enemies.

  It was beautiful; it was heart-wrenching. Those not cut down by the initial friendly-fire unleashed their own volley of fire. Kali, black-skinned, and fierce was eviscerated in a shower of bullets. Diomedes, firing his own M4 had did not stop bellowing. Shred timed it all well and was echoing Diomedes’ cry with one he had recorded and fed into his processor. The effect amplified. Though the men—and women, I could now see—depressed the triggers on their guns, they huddled in fear. Jove threw bolts of neon that at one time must have evaporated a man, the bolts shocked them into silence and hesitation.

  And then he, too, was cut down. His last bolt fell flaccid in front of woman he had been rushing only seconds before. She reloaded and began emptying her new clip on Jove’s corpse.

  Shred played another solo, and it was answered by an additional guitar, as if on loop.

  Could Kali and Jove truly be dead? Were not their only weaknesses the disbelief of man, not its bullets? And, as I have come to learn, the Sucikhata?

  I crumpled up the paper that portrayed me as Dr. Arthur Von Ranke. I then wrote my own cloak spell and stepped out from where I had watched the scene play out. I kept close to the rock-face, scraping my back several times as I moved along it. Joy must have been doing much of the same as her grunts were slightly delayed echoes of my own.

  Athena was savage upon the battlefield. Her cries augmented her lover’s. Shred’s guitars moved into orchestral harmony, interspersed with our own vocal samples taken earlier—spurring us on to our fates. Athena was using the corpse of a full-grown man—her make-shift cloaked steel lost somewhere along the way—as a shield. She picked up a nearby rifle and shot it wildly at those who still dared to fire upon her. A bald man’s head disappeared like a ruptured balloon. The goddess cried in pain, but her outstretched arm raised, aimed, fired, snapping back each foe.

  She was flecked with gold, bleeding. I had no quick ideas to ascend to the cave other than a poorly-fated levitation spell, or lengthy climb, or the platform they were using to trolley up the ichor. However, the gods and the 30-40 armed rEvovlers who remained were barricaded behind outcroppings of rocks jutting out next to the riverbed.

  I was at a loss, other than to start climbing to the top then, hopefully, figure out another way to drop into the cave.

  More shots. More cries from gods and humans alike.

  It was dusk, I realized, as I examined my possible ascent up the cliff. Though the sun was out of sight to the west, a shadow criss-crossed overhead.

  It was Zala.

  Chapter 27

  The sight of her in flight was something to behold as she circled the battlefield looking for carrion. I knew she would have gotten out of the cage, but to take flight, that was a feat I wasn’t so sure about. The music and gunfire precluded me from shouting for her, though I tried anyway—with no effect. I could only hope that Zala saw me wave frantically up at her. No use—she flew out of sight.

  No sooner had I taken the pad of Post-Its out of my back pocket when the bird coasted next to us along the ground.

  “I can help. Just tell me what is needed.” Zala took a few hops toward us.

  “Can you fly us up to that ledge?” I asked.

  “Not both at the same time, but separately, yes,” she set one eye on me, then over to Joy.

  Joy handed me my backpack and I used it to tie a sort-of harness onto Zala’s leg. I’d have to hang on for dear life, but it was a short trip.

  The music was now into an ethereal cacophony of sounds that I was entirely unsure what Shred’s intent was. Yet, there was no time to quantify. Zala rose into the air and beat her wings furiously. These wings could cause hurricane-force gales, if she could find a way to wield it against the enemy without toppling friends. I hung onto the backpack, with its drawstring wrapped around my wrist. It was going to hurt, but I’d be there in only a few seconds.

  Zala wore no camouflage, so I hoped that rEvolvers would not notice the large raven flying onto the ledge. I also hoped no stray bullets would find their way to me.

  If I had weighed any more, my shoulder likely would have been ripped out of socket. Zala dropped me on a soldier who had come out of the cave to snipe the gods. He oomphed, and rolled around to his knee to shoot...too late.

  Zala sent him backward over the ledge and his screams were actually loud enough to be heard. I could not wait for Zala to bring Joy up. She’d have to run hard to catch up, wherever this cave led.

  The cave was alight with glow-sticks littered along the floor. I lit my own hand with a light brilliant enough to see the cave as if it were day. I could only hope that if it came to someone watching, the light would temporarily blind them enough for me to take cover.

  I jogged, and noticed as I went that not only could I not hear the music, I could not feel much of anything. Even with the strengthening skills, I would have felt some layer of fatigue; something. I knew I was beyond exhaustion, but we were well past time to evaluate my well-being. Most of the ichor had been lifted into the cave and since there was no sign of them, they were already taken down to the God Well.

  I came to a dead end. I made sure to not go too fast through the tunnels, but stopped and wondered if I had missed a turn. Surely not?

  Unless…

  I uncapped my Sharpie and drew the pictogram for logomancer on the flattest part of the wall I was facing. Nothing happened. I reached out my hand to fee
l where I had traced the picture and felt—nothing. There was no longer a wall there at all. I stepped through. Once I did, whatever misgivings I had about my health completely disappeared.

  Not only did the weight of exhaustion bring me to my knees, I now felt every cut, every scrape—even a bullet-graze on my hip that I had not even noticed. I felt immersed in water, and it was difficult to breathe. Moving seemed like something I would never quite accomplish again.

  Time, Grey. Time.

  I crawled past the wall, back where I had just come through— hopefully to reestablish some control over my faculties, regain some iota of strength. I had the will...

  As soon as I crossed that line, all the spells I had written on my body kicked right back into effect. There was no magic beyond the barrier. It even felt foreign—like another world entirely. I worked on getting my breath back under control. I could only guess I had wasted a few minutes. I knew that I would need just a minute more. Once I had healed what I could and steeled myself against what was about to happen, I stood to redraw the logomancer pictogram where it had now disappeared.

  “Going it alone?” a voice behind me asked. It was Joy’s voice. I exhaled and turned to face her.

  It was Joy, sure, but also Athena, Victoria, Shiva, and Diomedes. No one else was with them.

  “There is no magic beyond this wall.” I noticed Zala padding around behind those gathered around Joy. The gods were bleeding. Shiva’s face was a patchwork of gold fluid and tattered flesh. Diomedes was covered in human gore from what I could only expect was from him surviving a miraculous last stand.

  “We must remain behind the barrier too, I’m afraid.” Athena leaned on Diomedes, bearing a significant portion of her weight. She was injured in some way I couldn’t see.

  “I’m going with you. You couldn’t stop me if you tried,” Joy told me. There was no arrogance, just resolve. Assessing her, she was largely unscathed. If it came to fisticuffs in that moment, I had no reservations she could take me.

  “Okay. The rest of you go back out. Shred’s music can sustain you, maybe even heal the worst of your injuries. Maybe help the other gods…reform?”

  “There will be no reformation, Grey. They are gone. The closer to the Well we get, the weaker we become. We are quite nearly mortal here,” Victoria explained. “That is how we know we could not survive crossing that barrier.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked, incredulous. “Go, get out—go heal yourselves!”

  “We came, Grey,” Diomedes began, “to let you know we are with you.”

  “I think you have long wondered how human you truly were, Grey Theroux, but know this—you are the most human of all.” Athena heaved with some difficulty. “Now go. Save us, if you can,” she said as Diomedes handed me his handgun.

  “Eamus,” I spoke in Latin.

  “What?” Joy wondered. I didn’t answer.

  Let’s go…

  Joy and I struggled with each step we took past the barrier, although, using each other to support ourselves worked. Here, there were steps hewn into the cave floor descending sharply downward. The glow sticks remained every few steps. Looking down, I noticed the steps were of the same obsidian-like hue as the Sucikhata. This area was surely toxic to the gods. To return here might very well cause them to lose their cohesion, returning them to the abstract nothingness from which they came. It was only the power of belief that allowed them to walk out of the Well and this cave the first time.

  We took care to be quiet when we heard voices up ahead, seeing soft blue light emanate from the threshold. The area opened up into a chamber and we paused to listen before attempting to enter. I kept the pistol at my side. Even if I were to take out Von Ranke immediately, someone else would shoot me. Then complete Von Ranke’s grim task.

  The cavern was still littered with some of the same glow sticks as were in the passage, put the obsidian-like rock radiated its own cerulean light.

  “Take the gun,” I whispered to Joy and took out my pen, Post-It pad and wrote. Then I stepped through.

  “VON RANKE!” I wailed. There was no echo. It was as if the chamber absorbed all sound, all thought.

  I expected to be shot on sight, leaving Joy to fire behind me. Instead, I found four men pouring ichor into a large hole in the obsidian floor. They continued to pour. Two men stood, looking at me. One was Dr. Linden, the other was Arthur Von Ranke. I had, since first seeing him last night, been perplexed by him. He was not the perfect picture of evil. He looked normal. Even now, his lips were not bent into some evil grin, nor did his features give way to any of the horrendous acts he and his group had perpetrated. In fact, he looked almost fatherly.

  I felt Joy file in behind me. “You’ve got this,” she assured me. I certainly did not feel like I had anything.

  “I can shoot her, if you’d like,” Linden sneered. The cold, damp days lying in a cemetery were, apparently, still fresh in his mind.

  “Steady, doctor,” he stayed Linden’s hand. “Miss Theroux has come all this way, I’m sure we should hear her out. Besides, I believe our task is quite nearly finished, regardless of what she might try.”

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t just shoot her?” Linden growled. He re-holstered his firearm, but rested his hand on the butt. Apparently, he was the kind to hold a grudge.

  “For now,” Von Rnake confirmed. “What is it, Miss Theroux, are you here to tell us to stop? To save the gods? Like they’re cute, innocent baby seals?” he asked condescendingly.

  “It has never, not for one instant been about them, Von Ranke,” I shouted at him. He rolled his eyes and looked back at Linden, licking his lips. I stepped forward, “How can you not recognize that the reason the gods still exist is because we are not past that point in our development where we can abandon them? That for all of this forcing our species along our evolutionary path, you will take our choice away?”

  “Yes, Miss Theroux, I have taken that into account—but what you have failed to see is that the gods were never part of our development. They were an evolutionary and ideological cul-de-sac! This…THIS WELL,” he spat, “Allow me to put into terms you understand. This Well is the inkwell from which our species drew to write the entire history of human suffering! Frailty! Ignorance! The apostle Paul instructed us to put away childish things—that time is now!”

  I bowed my head. I agreed with him much more than I would ever care to admit. Religion was suffering, pain, ignorance. But I knew, even if I were not one of the religious, these gods gave people hope. That was never evil, never ignorant; never childish. “I understand.” I whispered, but loud enough to be heard over the grunts of the men emptying the ichor, rolling the barrel and opening another. They had no way of knowing how much was needed, but the Well must be nearing its capacity. Some conversation Zala overheard of my father likely told them everything. I cast a quick glance at Joy, hoping she would remain where she was standing.

  “Do you, logomancer? The bird told me your kind follows no faith, but you rely upon cabalistic systems of belief just as the most pious of clergymen.”

  “Hardly. There is no faith in what I see, I only see evidence. The Written Word was always meant to empower humanity, never to enslave it.” Linden smirked, disbelieving. I felt my lip curl in snarl. I, too, could hold a grudge. Von Ranke seemed dubious, but paternal—even now. I stepped closer to them. “I believe in posterity, Doctor.”

  He started to pace casually. As far as he was concerned, his job was done. The men pouring from the barrel had to be nearly finished, as they only brought as many barrels as they deemed necessary into the cave. He had won. This was a conversation he wanted to have to have with me. “I was reared in a Lutheran home, you should know. I remember going to church but always wondering why it couldn’t be real. When I came to adolescence, I was livid with God for not existing. When our founder came to me, I was adrift. He explained to me,” Von Ranke elongated the pronoun he in a way that I’d heard from many zealots over the years. He continued, “That it wasn�
�t that God did not exist, it was that God never even knew me—and if he did, he had long forgotten me. Our founder gave me peace. And a mission! And for someone never very comfortable with the ‘peace’ offered by faith I will ensure that man will now consider a world in which the only help we get is from each other. The only ones we can blame will be each other.”

  “That’s a world,” I inched closer, “we should already live in.” I jammed my pen into Dr. Von Ranke’s eye. It struck the bottom of his cavity, striking flesh as well as eye, so blood oozed and his screams were swallowed in the echo-less chamber. Linden drew his handgun to shoot me, but Joy already dropped him with a single shot. I rolled to a knee and stuffed a Post-It into Von Ranke’s blazer pocket. Both of his hands covered his right eye— the one with the pen sticking out. Other fingers held the pen fast, while other fingers pressed at the skin around his socket, making the eye protrude in a phantasmagoric tableau. He screamed more and touched the end of the pen with one hand, undoubtedly wondering if he should take it out.

  The four men holding the final barrel of ichor dropped and drew their weapons. In so doing, the barrel spilled its contents on the floor—and away from the Well itself. Joy shot at them furiously, walls absorbing the din in an otherworldly fashion.

  From the hallway, I heard it: the cry of a barbarian. Diomedes? No, it was Shred running at the henchmen, swinging his electric guitar. His first swing was so vicious, so full of strength, the man’s head split like a rotted melon. The swing was so forceful, it also connected with the cave wall. The neck of the guitar broke. Shred used it as a spear and buried it ferociously in the nearest man’s throat.

  I was up and running, armed with little more than another Bic and mounting rage. I tackled one of the last two men as he emptied one—two—three? shots into my gut. I could not think enough to feel it. Shred grabbed my victim from behind and strangled him with the strings left from his guitar. I was bleeding. A scanned to my side and saw Joy standing over the last, motionless henchman. Only then did I notice that Gavin was nowhere to be seen. Where’s Gavin? I wondered.