by Elliot Burns
“He doesn’t sound like the kind of person to get mixed up with.”
“You did the right thing,” said Elena. “But the Magier Alchemi are quick to take offense. I just hope you haven’t made a new enemy.”
Jack hoped so too. It seemed he had enemies on all sides, with his neighbor Lord Veik scheming away, and the tachers demanding their flek.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine. He’s gone now,” said Jack.
“It’s my fault. You shouldn’t be answering your door on your own at night.”
Elena said this with such a conviction of sadness that he was taken aback. It was obvious how much she cared about helping Jack, which made it all the stranger that she was hiding something from him. In every other respect, the tacher had seemed to him to be the epitome of honesty, but he had seen her in a memory crystal, and he knew that something wasn’t quite right. It was time to have it out. One way or the other, he needed to know what was going on with her. “I saw something in a memory crystal, Elena. Mav gave it to me,” he said.
She physically jerked in surprise. He knew then he was onto something. She recovered herself, but not quickly enough. “Lord?”
“I saw you in a memory crystal, in a village.”
This time, she flinched. She curled her hands into fists. It worried him a little. It made him think he should ease off. He’d started the conversation now, and there was no going back.
“We need to talk, Elena.”
She said nothing for a few seconds. Then, when she spoke, her voice was different. “Let us go to my chambers, then.”
Her chamber was in the dank reaches of the first floor, in a room almost beyond the reach of the nearest lantern. Her bed was circular-shaped and took up the middle of the floor. The sheets were a mess, as usual, and bundles of velvet cushions were scattered on the duvet. This was Elena’s only concession to comfort. Elena lit a few candles in an attempt to stave off the darkness.
“In tacher halls, our rooms were a quarter this size. We slept on bales of hay stuffed inside cloth quilts. I could barely stretch my legs.”
“They’re not ones for comforts, then?”
“Sleep is a biological necessity, not a luxury. It’s the same with food. The cuisine Mavelin cooks would have no place in the halls. There, we eat for energy, not for taste.”
She had recovered some of her poise now, although there was still something of an edge to her. Jack decided he needed to tread carefully on this. Whatever Elena needed to tell him was difficult for her, so he’d try and lighten things up.
“Sound like a wonderful place. When a free room comes up, let me know. I need somewhere for my next holiday.”
Elena laughed. “That is how I viewed my posting here,” she said. “Compared to Tacher Halls, Castle Halberd is a place of luxury.”
She started to tug at a bundle of folded up clothes. She moved them away to reveal a chair underneath, which she pulled out toward Jack. She put the clothes on the floor. Jack couldn’t get over how different her room was to what he expected. She seemed so uptight, so proper, yet her chambers were a place of chaos.
He took a seat. Elena hovered near her bed. “Sit down,” he said. “You’re making me uneasy.”
The bed groaned under her weight. “I know you must have questions, Lord.”
“I saw you in a crystal,” he began.
“You must have dreamt it.”
He held his hand up. “You were a merchant, or something, in some mountainside village.”
Elena scratched her chin. “I think you must be mistaken,” she said.
Just as with Crowley before, Jack felt something stir in his mind. While Crowley had been blatant with his attempts to steal secrets from Jack’s mind, Elena’s touch was subtler. He felt her deftly weave her way into his mind. He could sense her in there, trying to get to his memories. Was she trying to erase his memory of seeing her in the crystal?
He conjured a mind shield, blocking her out of his head. He said it with such force that he saw Elena wince.
Mind Manipulation increased by 50%
Level up to level 2!
Power Learned: Mind Lance
[Using a mind lance, you can breach the minds of others and learn their secrets.]
He was always happy to learn a new skill, but now wasn’t the time to celebrate. He was too concerned. Elena knew that he could use mind shield, so why had she tried to get into his head? She must have been desperate. Whatever the truth of this was, she sure as hell didn’t want him to learn it.
“What’s going on, Elena? Don’t try and get in my head. I saw what I saw. You were someone else. Or somewhere else. Or it was someone who looked like you, but I could tell that it wasn’t really you.
Elena stood up and began to pace. “I would have told you eventually, Lord, but I didn’t want to burden your mind just yet.”
“What’s going on, Elena?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “What you see before you is not really me,” she said.
“All these lies are making me nervous. First Mav, and now you. I need an explanation.”
She nodded. “I will tell you, and then you will understand. Tachers, we…aren’t as we seem. Do you remember the tachers you met at the portal?”
“I seem to remember being trapped by them, yeah.”
“And how did they look?”
He shrugged. “Like they had sticks up their asses. Normal otherwise, I guess.”
“As we all do,” said Elena. “Because that is the image we choose to portray. I am about to tell you something that will shock you, Lord.”
“A week ago, you told me I have to raise an army and go fight a lord, or I can’t go home. Not much else can shock me.”
“Are you certain?” asked Elena.
“A hundred percent sure. I’m completely unshakable at this point.”
She took a second to gather herself, before speaking.
“Tachers aren’t human,” said Elena.
There was silence. Elena didn’t know what to say next, and Jack didn’t know how to react.
“Okay, fair enough. There was something else that could shock me.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. “Our form is decidedly…monstrous. Not to ourselves, mind you. But at Tacher Halls, we study and measure everything. It was judged that lords would not be able to adjust to our real forms, and consequently wouldn’t heed our guidance. Almost eight hundred years ago, the High Tacher decided that each tacher would take on a human appearance.”
“But how does that work? What’s your real appearance?”
“The workings are beyond me, Lord. All I know is that a Magier Alchemi was paid a fortune of flek to create a liquid. When a tacher is created, they are fed a solution that allows transformation.”
“And what do you really look like?”
“I would rather not…”
“Elena, look at me, please. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
She turned her head and stared at him. “You saw me already, did you not? When you first arrived, when I lost my temper with Mav, I felt myself change for a second.”
“It was quick, but yeah, I saw it.”
“My original transformation was a brunette lady from the Southern Salts. I came across the red-haired lady when I watched a crystal memory. I became transfixed. There was something so…free…about her. I decided that after that, I would adopt her form.”
“You can do that?” asked Jack.
“Only with permission from the high tacher. Normally it is not granted unless for a matter of life and death. But the tacher was more favorably disposed to me, back then.”
As secrets went, this wasn’t so bad, he decided. In fact, he was rather relieved. He had imaged that whatever truths she kept from him were ones that could harm him, but the real reason was something he could understand. She was ashamed of her real form, and hadn’t wanted to tell him about it until he’d had time to process everything else. He suddenly felt a lot better about Elena.
“I know it must have been hard to tell me,” he said. “So, thanks, Elena. And don’t worry. I won’t tell Mav.”
He felt a little more at ease now. He could understand why Elena had hidden this from him. Everyone had their secrets and their vulnerabilities. In a weird way, now that he had learned Elena’s he felt closer to her.
Elena gave a weak smile. “Thank you, Lord. And on that subject, there is something else I fear I should mention.”
“About Mav?”
“Perhaps I should not say.”
“Don’t hold anything back. This is a lord’s command. Tell me, Elena.”
“I believe Mavelin may be addicted to Teyroot,” said Elena. “I saw him inhaling its dust from his palm.”
“Teyroot? Never heard of it.”
“It’s used to suppress emotions. If used in copious quantities, it can permanently alter the mind for the worse. I believe Mavelin uses it for something else. I didn’t want to interfere, Lord, but I fear he is in danger. I suggest you keep a close watch on his habits.”
Chapter Fifteen
He needed to go and see Mav and get the truth from him. Whatever was going on with him, he needed to know. As he walked toward Mav’s room, he heard distant thuds that came from across the castle.
Bang, bang, bang.
“Maybe I should have gotten Crowley to make me a sleeping potion,” he said to himself.
Bang, bang, bang.
Before long, he discovered that their source was from Mav’s room on the ground floor. The bangs were much louder here. What was Mav doing in there?
“Mav?” No answer. Just silence, and then three more thuds. “Fine, I’m coming in.”
Mav’s room was the smallest in the castle. It wasn’t actually a bedchamber by design. Over the years, it had seen its purpose change from larder to salt store, to coal chamber. Now, it was a thief’s bedroom. It was large enough for a grown man to walk around in, but without windows or decoration, it was far from homely.
The source of the bangs, as confused as it made him feel, was plain. Mav, fully dressed, was walking into his wall. He then stepped back and walked into it again. This performance could have gone on all night if Jack hadn’t intervened.
He was caught between worry that the thief would hurt himself, and anger that his strange behavior had started again. He had thought that there was a chance he could push his doubts about Mav to one side. The man didn’t mean any harm, so as long as that was the case, he could focus on other things. The sight of Mav hitting the wall face-first made it impossible.
He put pressure on Mav’s shoulder and guided him to his bed. The thief offered no resistance as he sat down. Jack peered around the room for evidence of Teyroot. Elena told him she thought Mav was addicted to it, and apparently, it was a powder. So, where was it? Maybe he needed to go fetch her, but first he needed to know what he was dealing with.
It was hard to see much beyond all the dirt. Mav had never bothered to clean the room after taking it as a chamber. He seemed to prefer the dungeon-feel of the place. His clothes were in a bundle in the corner of the room. Rows of vials were lined up on a shelf. In each of them, Jack saw purifying beetles swimming in water.
The chamber smelled predominantly of dirt and dust, with a faint mingling of exotic herbs. A single bed on stubby legs, taken from the first floor, was against the side of the west wall. The hilt of a dagger stuck out from under the pillow. There was a book next to the bed. ‘Runeriumn ta Dosack,’ read the title. Mav sat on the bed and stared forward, his gaze absent from any hint of consciousness.
Jack shook him awake. Up close there was a pungent smell around him, like burned cumin. “Wake up, Mav.”
The thief batted him away. His palm was coated in brown dust.
“That’s Teyroot, isn’t it?”
“Sleep,” said Mav.
Jack closed the chamber door, leaving them cut off from the rest of the castle. Elena would be awake, but she'd be so engrossed in a book that she wouldn’t have noticed if forest wolves burst into song in the halls.
“I can’t sleep because you’re making a racket,” said Jack. “So, you’re not getting a wink until you tell me what’s going on.”
Mav shook his head. His pupils were like black marbles. Without warning, he slumped onto his back, narrowly missing cracking his skull on the wall.
He needed to snap him back to full consciousness. Not only would he not get answers until then, but Mav was going to injure himself. If this was what he was like when he on Teyroot, he was going to end up breaking his neck.
He grabbed a vial of beetle-purified water. He tipped a little onto his fingers and flicked it at Mav’s face. The thief blinked. He bolted upright. Again, with no signal given, he crashed onto his back again. This time there was a sickening crack as the back of his head hit the wall. It was so hard that even Jack could feel it.
“You goddamn idiot. Look what this stuff’s doing to you!” he said.
The back of Mav’s head was wet. Jack held a candle as close as he dared, and saw that although there was a cut, it wasn’t deep. He breathed in relief. He opened Mav’s mouth and forced him to drink the rest of the water. The thief did it without protest, even chewing on the crunchy hides of the beetles when he was done.
Nothing was working. Although his pupils were less swollen, his face betrayed no sign there was actually a brain in his skull. “I’m going to get Elena,” said Jack.
A hand tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t do that.”
He was Mav again, now. A tired, pale-faced version, but it was him all the same. Mav grabbed another vial, uncorked it, and drained the water. After crunching on the beetles, he was done.
“It’s time you explained everything,” said Jack.
“I can’t tell you. Just let people have their secrets, damn it!”
He didn’t want to pry. He’d never been a pryer in all his life, but he just couldn’t let this rest. If Mav wasn’t going to tell him, then he’d just have to find out for himself. He activated his mind lance skill. He closed his eyes and imagined his own consciousness transferring into Mav’s head. There, he conjured a lance into his hand. He looked in front of him, and he saw a giant brick wall. The wall, he guessed, represented Mav’s secrets. Holding his mind lance firm, he rushed at it. The tip of the lance crashed into the wall, and the whole structure crumbled.
Mind Manipulation increased by 25%!
[25% toward level 3]
Mav rubbed his head. “What the hell did you just do?”
“It’s time you told me what’s going on, Mav.”
Mav sat on the bed. He patted the seat next to him, but Jack didn’t move. “Can’t you allow a man his secrets?”
“Not when they involve bangs that echo across the castle. Touch the back of your head and tell me what you feel.”
“I’ve had worse,” said Mav.
“You’re a danger to us all. Unless you tell me what the hell’s going on, you need to leave.”
“Fine, you stubborn son of a bitch. I’ll tell you what’s going on. I want you to listen. Don’t interrupt and don’t ask questions until I’m done.”
“As long as it explains things.”
Mav adjusted his position so that he was comfortable.
“Years back, I was on a galleon,” he began. “Part of an expedition to an abandoned smuggler’s cove on the Lyassa sea.”
Then, Mav told his story. It turned out that the smuggler’s cove had been submerged for decades, and it was only a peculiar change in tidal behavior that uncovered it again. It would be accessible for just a few days. After that, the Lyassa would cover it again with its frothy waves, and the cove would be lost.
Mav and his fellow dungeoneers had taken sensible precautions. They could have hired a galleon and sailed there cheaply, but instead, they had paid a captain and his crew to take them there. Fortune didn’t always smile on the cautious, it seemed. When waves lashed against the hull and lightning flashed white hot in the night sky, Mav knew the
y were in trouble.
The storm hit like a punch from a water god. The sailors and dungeoneers battled against it for hours. To a man, they were soaked in freezing salt water. Waves lashed on deck and swept men off their feet. The sails rattled furiously as the wind battered them. They fought as well as any men could, but to no avail. Five hours later their once study galleon was reduced to broken planks floating in the sea.
Mav, two of his dungeoneers, and three sailors swam for safety, and they found themselves stranded on a mound of jagged black rock. There was nothing to drink. The algae and barnacles that clung to the rock offered no nutrients, as the first man who tried them found when he became sick to his stomach.