Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1)

by Aaron Buchanan

  I felt what little strength I had ebbing. I knew if I closed my eyes, that I would probably be gone. It was one hell of a crescendo, Shred. Thanks…

  And my eyes blinked shut.

  Chapter 28

  Three days after all that transpired Cevennes, I awoke. I inspected my body and found that my original healing spell remained, thankfully, on my skin. The ever-reliable markings of Sharpie had saved my life. I stood up slowly to inspect further and found that though stiffness ran throughout my body, I felt more strength than…

  Memories tumbled. I’m not sure why it took so long for the memories to return, but when they did, I found myself sitting back down on the bed.

  “It’s good to see you well, Grey,” the voice was Victoria’s. She entered the bedroom bearing a tray of tea and biscuits. “I had hoped you’d be waking soon. I wouldn’t want to finish another of these trays by myself. Again.” Her smile was warm, matronly.

  “Where?” My word was barely a whisper.

  Victoria set her tray down at the foot of my bed. “Ms. Theroux, all is well for now, I assure you. Your friends are sight-seeing today. They have actually been by your side since they got here. Cupid and I flew you and Joy back directly. The others have returned to America,” she stopped, seeming to consider what she should tell me at the moment, and whether I would be good for remembering much at the moment. The mortal mind was still a mystery to her after all these years. I was glad for the pause. My mind was foggy. I rubbed my scalp, massaging memories back into my head. I only recalled…

  “He shot me…” I looked down, but did not see any blood.

  Victoria smiled and sat next to me on the bed, a gesture that seemed almost matronly. “You are fully healed, and now completely rested.”

  “Did we make it? Where’s Von…Von…Von Ranke?” I stammered, taking in my environs. They did not match any previous memories.

  Victoria peered at me amusedly. “Ah yes, him. Those gods who were there—and survived—remember him, but you should know your mortal friends do not.” At first, I was struck by what might be a tacit declaration of friendship from the goddess.

  Suddenly, however, I found myself grasping for the thoughts, the memories through the cobwebs in my mind. “The minute Von Ranke decided to retreat from the Well, my spell took hold and he annihilated himself. My spell…” putting the words together truly was a chore.

  “Caused him to pass from the memory of the world and from anyone who ever knew him.” Victoria completed the thought for me. “Joy, Shred, even Von Ranke’s rEvolve lackeys would only find a void where there was any memory of him.”

  “I remember.” I had never practiced the spell that led to his erasing and I could not even guess if there would be butterfly-effect-like ramifications. In that instant, I hoped that rEvolve would also cease to exist, even if I knew that it would not.

  “For now, I suggest, you drink some of the tea I brought you. I am quite sure you would like water, but you need to sip at first, so this can only help you. When you feel like it, eat some of the biscuits as well. Joy and Shred should return soon.” Victoria stood up and brought the tray over to the nightstand next to me.

  “Victoria—where is Gavin?” I looked at her, tears already forming at the corner of my eyes. I felt pangs of guilt for only just then remembering him.

  “We simply do not know. Yet. I have many of my sources combing the continent for his whereabouts.” Victoria wiped the tears from my cheeks with a napkin.

  “The Sucikhata?” I asked, finally remembering the object and its prominence in troubles of the past week.

  Victoria replied, “I will arrange for you to meet Cupid tomorrow so you may retrieve it. He has held it in safe-keeping for you while you convalesced.”

  Satisfied, I took the cup of tea and did just as she suggested. With a belly full of tea and biscuits, I found myself asleep again only a short while later—even though I was determined to wait up for my friends.

  I awoke sometime in the middle of the night. I made out the shape of Shred sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed, leaning an elbow on the mattress and snoring. My head swam with jagged pieces of jig-sawed memories, but I pushed them aside and felt more at peace than I had in ages.

  When I awoke again, I thought it was early morning, but the clock on the wall read sometime after 10 a.m. It was another somber, wet day in London. I found the gray sky and the globs of rain tumbling down the window to my room oddly comforting. When I rolled over, Joy was staring at me from the same chair Shred was sitting during the night. I must have dozed off again. Joy held a book in her lap, though the writing was too far away to make out.

  “Wuthering Heights.” Joy must have seen me squinting at her. “I love how the first thing you do when you wake up after all this is try to make out what book I’m holding,” she spoke quietly. Something in my stomach knotted—could she be angry with me? Then she smiled and cast the paperback onto the bed and hugged me. “Now we know for sure you’re better!”

  “Thanks. For being there. For me.” I sat up on the bed, sniffing at the air. “Food?”

  “Yes. Definitely better,” she stepped over to help me onto my feet. I was surprisingly limber after a few days in bed. “The shower is across the hall. There are some clothes hanging for you in that closet there,” she pointed. “Meet downstairs in 40 minutes or so? We’re scheduled to meet Cupid soon.”

  I nodded an affirmative as she shut the bedroom door.

  Feeling human once more, I followed the sounds of life beyond the hallway. Shred sat the piano, tinkering. When he saw me, he stood up and enveloped me and squeezed me hard enough I saw stars.

  He sat down and grabbed for his tablet:

  I am so glad you’re okay. Wasn’t sure there for a while. Worried sick.

  Saw you were on the mend, so I’ve booked a flight home tomorrow evening. Now that I know you’re fine, I have to get home. Record my piece de resistance. Victoria offered to help me book a studio here, but

  Shred faced the screen back to himself to erase and draw the rest of his message on his tablet:

  I need more of my own instruments to do it right.

  “That’s perfectly fine, Shred. You’ve doted on me enough. You know I can’t stand it,” I answered, though it was plainly untrue. This time, at least.

  Shred smiled, nodded and put his tablet back in his bag. The cab was about to drop us near Piccadilly Circus. I wasn’t sure if it was some sort of joke that Cupid wanted to meet us near the statue of Eros in Piccadilly, but his reasoning was made evident soon enough.

  Standing gracefully under his umbrella next to his statue, Cupid’s own statuesque face warmed into a smile. “Ms. Theroux, it is a pleasure to see you up and well.” On the hook of his umbrella handle he hung a shopping bag from one of the nearby tourist shops.

  “Thank you for bringing me back from Cevennes.” I could not help but look at the bag swaying from the umbrella.

  Cupid looked down at the bag, unhitched it, and handed it to me. “This is yours, Grey. I got the bag to keep it dry, but the box I have especially procured for you. And your item.” He held the umbrella over us as he handed me the shopping bag. It was much heavier than it looked.

  I removed a box from the bag and examined: it was fashioned from a metal I did not recognize. It was also marked with some of the same peculiar runes that marked the vault in the basement of my house back in Springfield.

  “It is a strong box forged by an alchemist long ago. I am told you would recognize it due to the vault in your home in America.” Cupid’s eyes were gleaming, proud. “It took some doing, but this works in much the same way your vault does.”

  “Memories?” I asked him.

  Cupid nodded. “The item is within, though, of course I am not capable of setting the lock. I leave it to you.”

  I inspected further under the umbrella, thankful for its protection from the cold splatters of rain I could see falling around us. I noticed Shred already retreating inside a store for cover.
Joy stood by, becoming more drenched by the moment. I opened the box quickly, took a quick look at the Sucikhata, closed it, and stuffed it back into the shopping bag. “Thank you. Again,” I shouted over the rain.

  “I am very sure we will meet again in the future. Though there is calm for now, our endeavors have not yet played to conclusion.” The god handed me his umbrella. I turned to place it over both Joy and me, and by the time I glanced back to him, he was gone.

  Despite a day of rain, Joy, Shred and I spent the day seeing London; seeing the Tower, riding the Eye, we even had tickets for a show at the Globe Theatre that Victoria booked for us. That night, Joy and I decided to personally follow up with some of Victoria’s contacts across the continent to look for Gavin. When we returned to Victoria’s, she told me that one of her contacts actually managed to find my bag in some rEvolve member’s hotel room (it was rented to no one of record, but a corporate credit card paid for it anyway). There was no tranquilizer gun, but my pens, markers, and paper were there, along with my credit cards, cash, and my dad’s copy of Gulliver’s Travels. The maps I had cut out were missing. When I asked Victoria about them, she was informed that her contact had disposed of them. I trusted her that this was the case. Of everything, I was most excited to have Shakespeare’s quill back in my possession. This journey had started with me looking to take it out of my family’s vault.

  We left two days later, feeling fully strengthened. Victoria’s contacts in Europe also gave us an inadvertent sight-seeing tour. Furthermore, the mission proved an opportunity for me to research alchemy and maybe even this Trick Into that Zala talked about. Alchemy was something my father rarely mentioned, having written it off as a long-lost art. I wanted to look further and look into some of the libraries and universities Victoria recommended, if only to give me more pieces to the puzzle. I came to feel like I was given a box full of puzzle pieces, but each and every one of them was from an entirely different picture.

  Joy and I also had several conversations regarding rEvolve, their motives, their network. In Heidelberg, Zala came calling to our inn. She told us she had been following us the past several weeks, but feared approach until that day. In exchange for having rendered aid to us at Cevennes, I removed the engraved plate my father had placed in the back of her neck. She promised to keep tabs on us during our journey as well as any information she could come by. I found her interest peculiar, but whatever intelligence—even if wrong—had to help us in the long-term. Up until that point, all I knew for certain about rEvolve was that they ideology was another lie spun by someone looking to exploit others. They were wrong—it was not that the gods robbed humanity of its destiny, or even that so many of the gods cruelly subverted humanity’s belief to their own selfish ends. Rather, humanity forged its collective will based upon its belief. It matters little what we believe in—it is belief itself that drives us. Von Ranke and his sycophants no doubt believed, but their belief was blinded by hatred, prejudice, and ignorance. That belief led to the manifestation of its own wicked will; and I was certain that we would be seeing further manifestations.

  Athena and Victoria both left me voicemails regarding various leads for us. Athena’s was in regards to anything she hoped to dig up about this Founder Von Ranke spoke of. It was not a piece of information I had relayed, so knew it was Shred, Joy, or both that told her of the words…even if they did not remember whose mouth it came from. Victoria’s voicemail concerned property leads for Van Ranke and his associates that might, perhaps, lead us to Gavin. As it turned out, however, any property associated with rEvolve that we came to was abandoned.

  As for Zala, it was not like we were rooming with her in the inns or hostels, but she came to us often—sometimes in the guise of a decrepit, snaggle-toothed woman, sometimes as the bird. She left; she followed us. When I asked her if she were going back to Springfield with us, she told us she was, and assured me that she would not get up to anything that led to our first meeting. I was mistrustful, of course, but I did wasn’t to keep an eye on her. I then inquired whether I needed to book her a ticket back to the States. She laughed. It was unsettling, though everything about her was.

  Having exhausted every possible lead for Gavin, we suspended our search, though we decided to stay two weeks more in England—just in case something came up—using Victoria’s flat as a base. We had dinner with Dr. Valentine and we toured everything I originally wanted to see. Furthermore, Victoria saw to it that Clio’s London flat was transferred to my name and the manor in Mousehole put into a trust meant to pass through Urania to me. Speechless does not begin to account for the gesture. My first inclination was to donate both properties when available, but I found myself wanting to remember the other Muses; to honor them somehow in the future.

  * * *

  We returned to Springfield on a rainy Halloween and packed our apartment. Joy and I had come to the conclusion that we needed to move back into my dad’s house; our house. I hired movers who moved us out of the apartment and into our house three days later. I found that staying in the apartment those few days worse than staying in the hostels and hotels across Europe: it was much more foreign to me now. Though, I thought, maybe so was Springfield. I had yet to discover why, but my ancestors saw fit to abandon their ancestral home in Occitane and settle here.

  The third day together in our house, once we had unpacked our belongings and unpacked two of the storage units back into the house, Joy and I descended to the basement. I had already replaced the Sucikhata immediately upon our return to the U.S. (which involved a little magical smuggling getting it through airport security).

  Mania had given me a strange necklace that I continued to wear, though I did not understand why. I thought I would place it in the vault, but thought better of it. Still, I wanted to show Joy the vault and explain to her how she would need to reset its lock in case something were to ever happened to me. I also wanted to share with her some if its other secret contents.

  Down in the basement she first noticed the markings over the door.

  “What is the significance of these?” Joy pointed at a peculiar set of runes.

  “Alchemy. They are wards that protect it. Or the ones that keep it shut. Or the ones that operate the memory lock,” I answered. “Truth is, I have no idea. Still.”

  “No, they don’t match anything in logomancy or arithmancy, do they?” she remarked. She stepped back beside me. “Does that mean there might be a living alchemist somewhere?”

  “Maybe. Hopefully. There is so much of The SUB I simply do not know,” I realized. “I used to think about there being other mages all the time, though it’s been years.” I had long thought that the markings on the vault were some esoteric form of logomancy. Clearly, I too have much to learn. “Are you ready to go in?”

  “Interesting,” she mused, stepping forward, tracing some of the markings with her index finger.

  I cleared my memory and opened the vault.

  I showed her the artifacts and scrolls the vault contained. Though the items scattered about looked like detritus, there really was a rhyme and reason to it. Joy suggested we buy some shelving to help organize. I protested that these items had likely rested there for centuries. But she was right. I resolved to buy some shelving and other archival materials.

  When we left the vault, the door swung closed as soon as I was clear of it.

  “Where’d that come from?” Joy asked.

  I squinted to adjust to the well-lit basement. “Where’d what come from?”

  She turned to look at me and pointed to a rectangular opening in the floor. I surveyed it, “I don’t have any earthly idea.” I bent down to look at the opening. The hole was about three feet by three feet. It was about one foot deep. Resting in the middle was some sort of package wrapped in leather. I removed it from the aperture and unwrapped the package.

  It was a book. In fact, it was more than a book. This was one of those oversized productions that could only be classified as a tome.

  “What’s t
his?” Joy asked, voice hinting at accusation.

  “What? It’s not like I forgot this was here. I’ve never seen this hole. Ever!” I asserted.

  Joy’s demeanor was one of amused reproof: “Okay, Grey, okay.”

  I opened the tome. There was an envelope in the front cover. It was addressed to Grey Theroux and Joy Hansen. “What?”

  “Open it!” Joy commanded. “That’s my dad’s handwriting!”

  We huddled so close together, we jarred heads against each other. Then, we read:

  Dear Grey and Dear Joy,

  Ladies, if you have found this, it means Jonathan Hansen and I have been murdered. I cannot tell you for certain by whom. There are shadows rising. Or it could be the Trick Into exacting their pound of flesh. I chose to leave you in the dark about a great many things in order to protect you. Grey—for that I am deeply sorry. I have not told you these things I am about to tell you because I have tried to keep you safe. I once hoped that if I never told you about your heritage, about our family, it would insulate you from the danger. If you are alive and reading this, then that plan, at least in the short term, worked. The truth is—our family are the keepers of something called The God Well. This book will tell you everything you need to know about it. I have also hidden its coordinates as well as the key to the Well in my old copy of Gulliver’s Travels. You will need to protect this book and my Gulliver’s Travels at all costs. In case something were to happen to it, you must travel to the British Museum and find a woman who works there named Dr. Piridis. In her possession is a coin upon which I have hidden the coordinates of the Well. She can also help guide you. She is to be trusted. Do not trust any mages other than Shred. Do not trust the Trick Into.

  The handwriting shifted to a different penmanship:

  Joy, if you are reading this, you have welcomed your destiny. You should know—not everyone truly has one. Yours, however, is intertwined with Guy Theroux’s daughter. You should embrace becoming her apprentice—you must not. To do so would endanger both of you. Yet, she will need all of your intelligence, your savvy, and your energy. She will know how to guide you. And, if she is anything like her father, and you are anything like me—you will be as sisters. Guy has become the brother I never had. My sincerest hope is you two have the same opportunities for friendship. I love you ineffably, Butterbear.