Rune Service

by J. B. Garner

  I closed my notebook carefully, using that care to force my brain not to see red, and glared into Sinclair’s calculating eyes. “What is it that you want then?” I could see the protest forming in those eyes before he opened his mouth so it was my turn to cut him off.

  “Oh no, do not even try to push this off on the will of the Dragons or the laws or what not. I told Aelfie not to lie to me so I am telling you the same.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You and everyone else has been staring like I am some lost treasure and you were practically salivating when I mentioned runes this morning.”

  The faint jangle of manacles accompanied Aelfread’s fidgeting as if he wanted to jump up and try to, well, I don’t know what. Either stop me from talking or pantomime something, I supposed.

  Sinclair ignored his prisoner’s distress and was entirely focused on me. “Very well, while I prefer to deal with things in a polite and … quiet manner, let us be blunt.” His hands went from in front of him to clenched hard around the armrests in a blink of the eye. While his talons were cloaked by illusion, their gouging into the stained wood was obvious. “The Dwarven people are almost gone from the face of the Earth, Mary. They were rigid, inflexible, and slow to adapt to the rapidity of the modern world as it impinged on the Figment world. Combine that with long lives and a low fertility rate and, as the intelligent lady you seem to me, you can deduce how the rest played out.”

  A grief I shouldn’t have had threatened to tear away my focus, to force me to break down immediately. I squinted my eyes and pushed those tears away for the moment. “I cannot be the last.”

  “Oh, of course not but your kind is extremely rare,” Sinclair conceded. His invisible claws seemed to relax a little as he continued, “And with that rarity comes the rarity of the unique gift the Dwarven people share.”

  “Rune magic.”

  “Correct.”

  Before Sinclair could say more, Aelfie tried to move again except this time he tried to open his mouth to tell me something. A faint golden spark flashed up and down the manacles and before I could grasp it, the Elf fell into jarring spasms, the word that had been on his lips turning into a piercing scream. The Drake only raised an eyebrow at the display but I was out of my chair, my notebook clattering to the floor.

  By a stroke of luck, I managed to catch Aelfread before he hit his head on the marble floor. The spasms were already subsiding as I guided him the rest of the way down.

  “I would not be too concerned about the collar, Lady Stone,” Sinclair said matter-of-factly. “He knew the effect of the manacles’ enchantment if he were to try to speak out of turn. It will fade momentarily.”

  Ignoring the Drake, I leaned over Aelfread, gazing at his wide eyes and clenched teeth. I could almost feel the pain he was feeling and my response was frustration and sadness. As my braided hair and beard hung down, they cut us off from the rest of the den, bright red curtains that gave us a strangely intimate moment of privacy. Putting my hands soothingly on his shoulders, Aelfie’s gaze cleared some and I could tell he was considering trying to speak again.

  I covered his mouth and shook my head. “Don’t speak, Aelfie. Everything will be fine, trust me.”

  Sinclair’s voice intruded on the moment. “Yes, everything can turn out fine, even for you, Aelfson. If Lady Stone can find it in her generous soul to assist me with the stone, I believe there are certain diplomatic loopholes I can find to put you under the authority of your father’s kingdom. While I am certain he will be unhappy to see you again, he will be far kinder to you than what Draconic law calls for.”

  Aelfread clamped his eyes shut, squeezing tears out of the corners. Maybe they were from lingering pain but I didn’t think the lesser of him for it. As I wiped them away with my thumbs, I said, “Yes, Master Sinclair, I can be very generous. I like to help people, even if they don’t always help me back.”

  Aelfie’s eyes opened again with a look of near panic as I could practically hear the smile forming on Sinclair’s face. “You can trust that I too can be quite generous. You will be well paid for your assistance, in many more ways beyond my judicial mercy.”

  The Elf’s head starting to shake an enthusiastic ‘no’, but I put two of my fingers back over his lips before he lost sight of the pain speaking would have for him. “For Aelfie’s well-being, I would like to ask that he is taken back to his quarters before we speak more about what I can do to help you.”

  “I believe that would be both the kindest and wisest thing to do,” Sinclair said, his throne creaking as I believe he stood up. We still had our curtain of red curls and braids to hide behind, at least for a moment longer. “Blythe, could you take the collar back to his cell?”

  I could feel Aelfread’s lips work under my fingers but I cut him off with a smile and wink. Aelfie might have been upset and in pain but something passed along whatever that connection we had was and he relaxed. He understood all the meaning behind that wink, I was certain of it.

  As I stood up to let Blythe help Aelfie to his feet, I kept that smile on my face. Sure, we didn’t have a choice but to go along with Sinclair, regardless of the right or wrong of it, but that wouldn’t be forever. Even if the Drake was going to use my runes to bring about world peace, I was going to make sure he wasn’t going to get it.

  Call me whatever you like but Sinclair had stepped over a line and shown me all I needed to know about him. I wasn’t going to let him know that I knew that as I turned back to face him as he stood imperiously in front of his ‘throne’. Blythe was already hauling Aelfread unceremoniously out of the room, slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “All right, Master Sinclair,” I said as I folded my arms behind my back, “let’s talk about the stone and the terms of my assistance.”

  Chapter 15

  SINCLAIR AND I STOOD in silence with locked gazes until the door closed behind Blythe. The moment the latch clicked, the Drake settled back down onto his throne.

  “I am glad to see the extent of your situation,” he began. “If I may be frank, this sort of ethically gray activity pains me to do but I think you will come to understand why I am doing this.”

  Picking up my notebook, I pulled myself back up into the chair. “We’ll see about that, I suppose.” I kept a tight rein on my emotions, stuffing them behind my steely smile. “But it would make the most sense to start from the beginning.”

  Sinclair returned my smile with a thin, hard one of his own. Like earlier, the illusion jerked with the expression, an eerie, inhuman glitch, “If we were to do that, it would take time that neither of us has. Instead, let us focus on the important points, namely what I need you to do for me and why.” He spread his arms wide. “Considering your position, regardless of whether this would be the mundane or Figment world, you must admit that it is generous of me to even give you the ‘why’, correct?”

  The more information I could get, the better, but I’d take what I was given at this point. “When you put it that way, you make a good point. So, which comes first, the why or the what?”

  He let out a brief chuckle, a surprisingly heartfelt one. “In most good stories, do not the motive and action weave into one narrative whole?”

  “Fair enough.” I found my place in my notebook and gave Sinclair my full attention.

  Almost lazily, Sinclair began to trace a curving, sinuous pattern in the air before him, silver light following his motions. “Then I will show you. Much as you Dwarves have the innate gift to understand the runes, we Drakes can weave light and sound into images. While some would term them ‘illusion’, I think it is far more accurate to use a more modern term.”

  A corner of my lips curved up in an involuntary smirk. “Holograms, right? If I had known we would be watching a movie, I would have asked for a beer and popcorn.”

  He acknowledged my joke with another chuckle. “We could halt for refreshments but let us concentrate. Seriously, this holographic magic and our connections, however vague, to the Dragons have traditionally
placed us as administrators in their empires and envoys to the mundane world for all races.”

  The glowing trails wove into a pattern and that pattern flowed into floating pigments. Another blink of the eye and I was staring at a moving scene, fully three-dimensional and realistic as can be, only in miniature … and floating. A little Sinclair in his full reptilian glory was shaking hands with some normal-looking business types in a nice, orderly office.

  As the scene played out in pantomime, Sinclair steepled his hands. “I am no different. Picked for my native intelligence and talent with images, I’ve spent the last two decades in various positions in the Drachenreich. During that time, I’ve been exposed to many cultures, many legends, and many philosophies.”

  The scene melted into a pool of rainbow light before solidifying into the shadowy stacks of a library with Sinclair intently studying an ancient book. I could almost make out the tiny letters on the page, Latin I think, which spoke of the incredible detail of the holograms. As rapt as my attention was, I still managed to take scribbles of notes here and there.

  “The myriad cultures of the mundane world intrigued me. Many of the people of the Figment world have unified cultures, held together by vast webs of tradition, so such variety struck a chord in my soul.” He waved his hand absently as his tiny simulacrum closed a book to pick up another. “Humans have a trouble grasping how easily they can slip from country to country, society to society.”

  I arched an eyebrow and stopped my pen. “I don’t think it is as easy as you say. People, well, humans are chained by racism, classism, and prejudice.” The bitterness in my voice was stronger than I expected it to be. “Trust me, I know firsthand how cruel the world can be.”

  The unmasked sympathy I heard in return was unexpected. “I can only sympathize with how hard your early years have been, Lady Stone. Orphans are exposed to the barbs of human cruelty to a degree I can never know.” He waved his hand and the library scattered into a multicolored swirl. “At the same time, you have no comprehension of the rigidity of Figment society. In many ways, species determines position, at least in the eyes of the Dragons.

  “Some Figments, such as the Garou and, to a lesser extent, the Elves, can slip through the mundane world easily enough, though each is also ruled by their own societal structures. Most of us are forced to rely on the power of the Dragons and the treaties that power enforces to make our way in the world. Humanity, the fecund species that they are, drastically outnumber even the largest of Figment populations and that gives them power.”

  I scribbled another note or two before tapping the end of the pen on my lips. “While I appreciate the history and civics lesson, I’m not quite grasping where this mysterious rock and my runes fit into this.”

  Sinclair nodded slowly. “We are almost there; please be patient.” He swept his hand through the swirl of light, each finger seeming to catch a color and drag it through the air. “Where this leads is to the fact that many of our collective kind seek ways to fit in or to escape the rigid situation that their birth has put them into and it is in the myths of humanity that I believe I have caught the scent of an answer to those wishes.”

  That there were a heavy truth and sincerity to the Drake’s words was obvious but there was still a hint of something buried beneath the open platitudes. Much like Aelfread, Sinclair was an operator, a man who knew the power of language and how to manipulate it. My caution redoubled even as my eyes were caught up in the elegant, sinuous motion of his fingers weaving a new image.

  “Considered the magnum opus of ancient alchemists, the philosopher’s stone is thought by humanity to be as much myth as Dragons and Faeries and Goblins.” The motes of color coagulated into pages, snapshots from ancient scrolls and books, in a dizzying array of languages. Some I recognized vaguely from props and reproductions the carnival mentalists would use to spice up their acts but I didn’t know from where they came. “To some, it was a divine object, a stone handed down from the Hebrew deity. Other, older belief consider it the prima materia, the first matter, the common source for all the elements that make up the universe.”

  Frowning, I found myself chewing on my lip. “Doesn’t it also have something to do with the old tales of turning lead into gold? Or was it mercury into gold? Something like that.” The thought of all that gold sent a surprising shiver through my body.

  The cascade of paper and ink scattered and reformed into a blueprint, the old-fashioned kind like you’d see in a period movie down to the blue backing with white ink for the lettering and diagrams. It showed a stone or crystal of some kind from multiple angles, showing exact cuts and angles measured to the tenth of the degree. There were highlights that pointed to empty space on the facets that only read as ‘Inscriptions here’.

  “Correct, Lady Stone. For me, though, I considered that something with such powers of transmutation could do far more than change one metal to another. The thought of a stone with the power to change someone into someone else entirely, down to the very last molecule, intrigued me and captured my imagination.”

  Now I had seen a lot of strange things in this past day. I had seen real, honest-to-God magic, I had seen a wererabbit, and I had seen Elves, Drakes, and other races that defied explanation. My eyes had been opened not only to what I was but the start of what that could mean. My capacity to buy into what I previously would have considered fantasy was greatly expanded, and yet …

  “That must be impossible, right?” It sounded ignorant from the moment I said it but I guess I had hit another limit on my ability to accept all that was going on in front of my eyes. “This thing cannot actually exist.” But you want to know what the crazy thing was?

  “And yet you feel, deep down in that ancestral memory passed down from Dwarf to Dwarf, in the common blood that pumps through your veins, that it does.” Sinclair spoke aloud the insanity throbbing in my brain. “Or to be more precise, that it could exist.”

  I wanted to tell him ‘no’, but we both knew the truth. “I suppose then the question I have is how did you figure this out?”

  “Straight to the point again, Lady Stone.” Sinclair gave a slow nod. “The philosopher’s stone is not called such in Truespeech, of course, and almost every single one of our races has no reference to it, much to my initial surprise. I thought it as much a myth as man sees us as, a faint dream until Aelfread Aelfson came to me one day with something he thought I would be interested in.”

  My sigh was deep and deflating as the hologram began to flicker and dissolve. “Let me guess, he came to you with some fragment of information or maybe even a piece of what he claimed was the stone itself. Just enough to whet your curiosity and drive you on, right?” Not that I hadn’t been expecting this moment in the story or one much like it. With what Aelfie had told me before in his panic, the pieces were starting to drop into place.

  “More or less correct.” The light show was over and Sinclair was now leaning forward, his presence looming forward with almost palpable force. “The young Prince was ostensibly on a diplomatic visit, a sham I assure you, when he presented the fragment to me. He told a flowery tale of how a Dwarf king had given the shard as a gift to his father and how it was lost in their treasury for centuries before the good Prince found it.”

  I put my pen neatly between the pages of the notebook. “And you took this as being fact? You do know – “

  “That Aelfread is a rogue, a cad, and a liar?” I guess Sinclair knew then. “I figured that a good portion of Aelfson’s tale was pure fiction but the fragment of crystal had powerful magic in it, magic that went unnoticed by the amateur skills of our sweet Prince. He was quite happy with my opening offers to purchase the stone from him and leaped at my offer to stay here in a suite while we performed a deeper analysis of the stone.”

  “Easy gold and an easy stay,” I murmured. “That sounds right. If he didn’t tip the ore cart,” – I had meant ‘apple cart’, but my lips said otherwise – “he could always say any lack of success wasn’t his faul
t.”

  Sinclair nodded slowly as he rose. “And yet, when we found success, found the hidden runes engraved in the cracked facet, he made out without warning with the fragment, something I had paid fairly for.” He began to walk around the desk in slow, measured steps.

  “I cannot help you there, Master Sinclair. I sure as hell don’t know where the stone is.” I didn’t even have a good idea of where he could start, not that I would tell him if I did. “So, what is it that you want from me?”

  He stopped beside my chair, looking down, casting a looming shadow over me. I was forced to crane my neck uncomfortably to keep my eyes locked on his face. “Whatever else Prince Aelfson lied about, he was correct that the stone was of Dwarven origin. Orphan or not, the ancient knowledge, the rune magic that has forged a thousand wonders of our world, hums in your brain, beats in your chest.

  “I may not have the fragment but it does not matter now, as you can make me a new, whole stone.”

  Could I do that, create some lost artifact with knowledge I was only barely remembering? Maybe. I wasn’t sure, to be brutally honest. The better question was would I try? My gut churned at the prospect, not only from what had just happened but from veiled memories, shrouded voices from whatever pool of memories I was pulling all this knowledge from.

  Forcing myself to be steady, cool, and calm, I kept my gaze locked with Sinclair’s. “And what if I can’t?”

  “We both know that is not what you are asking.” Though still calm and polite, there was an undercurrent of menace in his voice. “And we both know what will happen if you do not do this for me.”