by Brindi Quinn
Alas, the plea does not work.
I see only a flash of Hamira’s decrepit silhouette before her spell is released.
FWWWUP!
Like a whip, something cuts through the air and takes hold of me. Around my body a dark, stringy substance wraps itself, binding my arms to my sides. I was correct. The spell they have conjured is a spell of compression. Using the hair of the hellbeast, they will bind me up until I am small enough to fit within one of their drawers. For me, it will only compress; but for a physical being like Awyer, it would tear right through his flesh, and he would be left in pieces without time to react.
I was wise to attack my ward.
The witches have no intention of letting me leave this place, and for the first time since entering, I am afraid. But I have a plan. Bound by hellbeast hair in the corner of a vine-infested lair, I release an invisible giggle that resounds over the pieces of suspended furniture. The giggle bounces off of the clutter of the room. Lo, it is only a distraction, for with it comes a dimly glowing green ball.
The stolen secret hovers before my lips.
I will tempt the witches with one brighter and more taboo – one befitting of their foul tastes. I open my mouth and whisper into the secret a secret of my own; the secret kept closest to my heart and admitted to no one – not even to myself, fully.
Upon receiving my most powerful secret, the small ball flares to the size of a bush and turns from dim to brightest, gleaming green. At once, the whip of hair surrounding me releases, and I fall into a hover above the ground, weak but not defeated.
“This is my secret! If you wish for its power, you will agree to my terms!”
And before the ball can be snatched, I suck it back into my mouth and swallow it into the core of me.
“KYYYAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
A second shriek is released into the belly of the mount.
“Shim haarnon! Perana lolan?”
Foolish pest! You think to use trickery?
“It is not trickery. It is a trade. I have something you wish for, and you have something I wish for. Trade, Hamira. Trade, and let me leave.”
Hamira says nothing. She is a bitter, possessive, vengeful crone, and she will not let me go without much confliction.
However –
“Acka, totana,” a second voice says.
Trade with me.
It is the deeper, rustier voice of Gorma, who, feeling no attachment to me, understands the power of the secret I have offered.
But it makes not sense.
“Gorma, how is it that you hear me?” I call. Not counted among my pactors, she has never been able to hear me nor to see me.
I am not given time to ponder how she does so now. While Groma may be willing to strike a deal, Hamira is not so ready to let me from her knobbed grasp. FWWWUP! The whip of hellbeast hair strikes again through the air as the sound of arguing crones fills Ensecré’s belly.
With the wrap binding me, squeezing me, attempting to compress me, I am limp. Positioned beside the pinned ladder, I cannot struggle. I cannot move. My only hope is that Gorma may overcome her possessive sister. But the louder Hamira screeches, and the tighter the mutt hair coils, the less of the room I am able to distinguish. All of it begins to turn to unrecognizable mush. Reason with her, Gorma. Reason with . . .
My only hope . . .
BAM!
A blast of purple smoke erupts from the direction of the onyx door. The hair binding me falls. I look from the ground in time to see several of the suspended pieces come crashing to the ground as their vines are shredded and torn from the impact of the blast. Pieces of vine and debris are sent hurling through the air – while in unison, the witches let out a shriek.
“KYYYAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
Both of their witchy silhouettes flash into view for but a second before they dart to find new hiding places along the crannies of the room. They are alike lizards blending into warm rock or cool crevasse. Just as quickly as they are seen, they are again unseen. The room is still, but for the settling Amethyst smoke, through which a boy of seventeen is visible, fists balled and stare deadly.
“Awyer.”
From a low hover over the ground, I speak his name. I am upset with him that he has entered this place. I am upset that his Amethyst is clearly visible for Hamira, Gorma, and Pedj to see. I am upset that my plan did not work.
But I am glad that he stands with conviction unlike any I have seen on him previously.
My powerful sphinx.
As the smoke settles, into view comes skeletal Pedj. He is cowering with arms over his head beyond a mass of destroyed living chamber. To either side are piles of blasted away plant-bound furniture. There is no trace of the witches, who blend into darkness better than most. There is not a word from either.
Yet they are not afraid, merely biding their time in hopes of discovering how to steal Awyer’s power.
“Grim?” The boy responsible for the mess calls to me softly.
“I am here, my fief.”
He comes to me, crawling over cabinet and limb, dipping low upon seeing my fallen status; and when he reaches the place where I lie, he crouches above my body and looks me over with an unamused mouth. “You assaulted me,” he says.
Though I am glad to see him unharmed, I suppress it. “I did not think it was wise to bring you into their presence,” I say.
“They are here?” he asks, not taking his eyes from mine.
I nod. “They are. Be wary.”
He places a hand to my neck, where the hellbeast’s influence lingers in a red line of blisters. “You are not well.”
“I will be fine. Do not try to move me.”
“What can I do?”
I do not know the answer. I look from Awyer to Pedj, who is yet cowering, and then to the torn up center of the chamber.
It comes to me.
“The deal has changed,” I speak in the witches’ tongue.
Awyer, who does not understand the language, cocks his head.
I continue, “Three secrets for three favors. A secret from the hybrid, in exchange for his cousin’s release. A secret from the sphinx, in exchange for the path to the Golden Lands. And a secret from me, in exchange for whatever spell has allowed Gorma to hear my voice. It is three or none. Take them or leave them!”
Hamira, not without fury, responds, “Eppitt la finma? Eppitt, corana!”
The sphinx is your pactor? I will kill him!
But no retaliation comes. If Hamira wishes to lash with anything more than threat, she is stopped in the shadows by her sister.
I answer her, “If you try, you will not succeed, for I have seen his future, and his death is not here. He possesses the strength of thousands, and although you, too, are strong, your incantation is spent. If you fight him, you will lose.”
The whispers of the unseen witches flood the cavern as they deliberate my offer. Fodder for despair, their squabbling weighs heavily upon the air. I do not miss the troubling thoughts it brings.
But there is a light in the midst of their corruption.
They know it is the truth that I speak. For them, it is all or it is nothing. If they do not agree, they will be forced to test my ward’s unsteady powers, whose strength they can undoubtedly feel clashing with their own, and my most powerful secret may slip through their fingers.
Their decision comes.
An urn, painted with golden symbols from an era before man, floats from somewhere within the rubble, to the place where I hover.
“Acka, totana.”
Trade with me.
And this time it is Hamira’s order.
I bid my ward to leave my side before speaking my compromising secret into the urn. Along with it goes the first stolen secret. Together they make the urn glow a brilliant green. It will glow even brighter by the time we are finished.
I call Awyer to return to me. I explain what must be done. “Speak into this vessel your deepest secret,” I tell him with my eyes uncompromisingly on his. “It can
be anything, but it must be meaningful. A thing not even I know. A thing that should not be known by any. Have you a secret like that?”
Awyer’s dark-lined eyes appear almost to darken. He nods and takes from me the vessel without delay.
It is a response I find surprising. Though my expectation was for him to search his mind for suitable secret, this one came easily. As though he was already thinking of it. Easily, he pulled it from his soul. Effortlessly, it flowed to his lips.
Like mine.
Like . . . mine?
I shake it away.
Once finished, Awyer brings the urn to Pedj and instructs him to do the same, but Pedj is not so eager. Because Awyer’s true identity has since officially been revealed, Pedj backs away when my ward approaches.
“You already knew,” says Awyer, without interest. “You saw it outside the Faded Enchants. Nothing has changed.”
“Well, yeah! But I didn’t know for sure, for sure! Up till now, I could kinda pretend! Twig it?”
“Grim says that if you want to save your cousin, you have to give them a secret.” Awyer extends the urn toward Pedj. “Make it good.”
Pedj snatches the glowing jar. “Ugh! Fine! But after this, we’re gettin’ on separate ways, oka!?”
Awyer nods. Pedj squints his eyes and swishes his mouth in search of a secret to spare. Once found, he rubs the back of his head sheepishly, presses his mouth to the mouth of the urn, and whispers into it. The urn responds by searing green.
Whatever confession his is, it is a powerful one.
“Now wha–?” starts Pedj. “Waaaaaaaah!”
Upon receipt of the final secret, the urn shoots from the zombie’s unanticipating palm. Zipping past a bureau hung on its side, the urn flies into the air, disappearing into a folded part of space – a small, enchanted pocket used to temporarily hold precious things.
Now it is the witches’ turn to deliver. Those symbols on the urn – they are correlated to the golden power inherently within my ward’s veins. From a time before man. From the time of the sphinxes. The urn’s terms are goldenly absolute. The deal is bound; Hamira and Gorma may not go back on their word.
From within the shadows of the room, Gorma’s voice speaks:
“Viilma reeana. Viilma eppitt-o-dailo rieana.”
The girl is released. She holds the sphinx’s artifact.
“And what of my spell?”
“Haarnon-o-niija la caivana polana looi.”
The pest’s voice is heard by drinking void.
A cabinet yet suspended high in the center of the room makes a creak as it opens. From its topmost shelf floats a tiny vial of dark substance.
Void? To hear my voice, one must drink from the darkness beyond the Eternity Vessel. Had I known so, I would not have made the deal. But it is too late now. I take the vial when it comes, enchanted to allow my reception, and tuck it into my smock.
Hamira’s voice sounds furiously from the top of the chamber. “Mirrosho!”
Now leave!
And with that, we are falling, falling, falling, through a floor that has just opened, alongside the debris of furniture and vines – anything no longer suspended by the remaining wood-like stalks.
For a second time, I have escaped Ensecré.
Chapter VIII: Bird
We, intermingled with debris, fall into a space where there is nothing but air.
I am weak, unable to pull myself out of hover, and so I, too, fall with the rest. I should not be moved in my state. If I reach the ground, I will be pushed through it, and my components will disalign. I will become more vague than ever, detached from this world, and it will take more than mere rest for me to gain form again.
But worse will come of my ward and his friend if we reach the ground. And the ground is soon coming.
“Awyer!” I shout into darkness and my voice is taken by the fall. Again I cry, “Awyer! Enchant us to slow! Enchant–”
I am caught from beneath by some invisible force – possibly the wind. Catching the small of my back, it pushes me from below; it slows my plummet into a light drift alike the descent of a leaf. Daintily, I rock back and forth, back and forth.
My ward? Is it your power beneath me? Are you harnessing the stolen color? Are you . . .?
. . .
“No. We cannot move her.”
“You’re crankin’ crazy! The longer we stay here, the better’s the chance those hags’ll come after us!”
“Then leave, Pedj. I will stay with her.”
Voices. I hear voices. Pedj’s voice and Awyer’s voice, and they are arguing.
“Fine by me! Let’s go, Mael. Night’s a-wastin’. We’ll charge up one of these junks and sail smack outta here.”
“Uh-uh,” answers a new voice – a girl’s voice, “I’ll stay.”
“Mael!” the voice of Pedj retorts. “I told you, you don’t owe him nothin’!”
My thoughts are confused. Mael? I do not recall traveling with a person named Mael.
The girl is released. She holds the sphinx’s artifact.
Ah. Pedj’s cousin, the prisoner. SHE is Mael.
If she is released from the snare of the mount, does that mean we are also released? I am victim to this hover. Unable to lift. Unable to make full sense of anything.
“Shup, Pedjram,” says the girl called Mael. “I’ll stay with Ower.”
“Oh yeah, Mael? And why in the heck would you stay with the likes of him!? You saw what he is, didn’t you? He’s one of the whores! AND he’s paired himself up with an agent! It senses to say she’ll sniff up your power the minute she comes outta it, and right then get on suckerin’ your magick! ‘Sides, you went on Secret Mountain for my account, and I made up for it by savin’ you, so let me SAVE you! Twig it?!”
“I came on Ower’s behalf. Not yours.” The girl’s voice is airy. “And his agent’s not dark. It’s light . . . I see her light.”
“Eh? You’re crankin’ off, you are. The witches went and spelled you.”
The girl taken captive for her cousin’s sake . . . for the sake of my ward? I do not understand. Where are we? In the bottom of the mount, beneath the mount, or have we found a way outside? My vision is blurred. I can make out naught.
Focus.
Focus.
“My . . . wa . . .”
Words are difficult to arouse at the moment. All the same, the one connected to me hears them in their half-formed state.
“Grim?” Awyer’s voice, low and soft, calls to me in the midst of my struggle, and before I can answer, I feel weight. His weight. Hands have been placed upon my shoulders. His hands. “You are becoming solid, Grim.” His tone is relieved.
In a flicker, my vision returns to me. From vagueness to clarity, it comes. Dirty-cheeked, my ward’s face is over mine, back-dropped by a dawn sky of stars. We are outside.
“Wh . . . where?” I voice.
“I opened the wall,” he says.
I make pains to lift my neck, battling the lead that has become my skull. After a helping of attempts, I manage. Awyer and I are situated on a platform jutting low from the side of Ensecré. The vastness of sparking, twitching Faded Enchants spreads below us like a sea of dying.
“You caught us?” I say when my words unstick. “You enchanted our fall?”
Awyer nods and says nothing more. He merely stares at me with eyes difficult to read.
“You have saved us,” I say.
Still, Awyer says naught.
“I am proud,” I admit. But more than proud, I am . . .
Without my coaching, Awyer opened the side of Ensecré. Without my instruction, he stood guard while I recovered. He . . . protected me. I have been at his mercy, and so I do not feel like his warden at all. I feel like . . .
Awyer keeps his stare over me, waiting for me to speak, but before I am able to do any such thing –
“Oka, if the agent’s up now, what’s say we get on outta this hell heap!?” Pedj steps into view. Alike my fief, his cheeks and clothes are d
irtied with the soot of the mount.
Awyer does not take his eyes from mine. “Can you be moved?” he asks.
Yes. With each passing moment, I am becoming more and more stable. To answer him, I rise out of hover, which, though a delicate process, brings him a glimmer of relief.
I turn so that I might witness the hole he made in the mount, and am not disappointed. It is no mere cleft; an enormous wedge has been taken clear off the side. What is more, Awyer does not appear fatigued in the least by what has certainly been a great bout of exertion. The power of my ward is terrible. I delight in the knowing that it is so.
In fact, I am about to release an invisible giggle of glee, when I notice something move from the side of the mountain. Camouflaged in the boulders, a small form arises.
That is right – there was another person talking with Pedj and Awyer, was there not?
“The prisoner,” says Awyer, as if to read my thoughts. “Mael.”
As the so-called prisoner comes forth from the wreckage, I see that its form belongs to a girl. The girl, of small waist and full hips, sports nothing on her top but a fitted piece of fabric around the bust. Upon her hips drapes a flowing skirt with shredded ends that have become dirtied by the rubble. Needless to say, her middle is entirely exposed, allowing for a glimpse of something . . . peculiar. Along her ribs, dark horizontal stripes run. Tattoos? Or perhaps a mixture of paint. Either way, it is a cultural marking that I do not recognize.
The freed prisoner is a pretty girl, if one overlooks the vagueness of her expression, which now stares in a disconnected way up toward the heavens. Her hair is dark and tied back high at the crown of her head; her bottom lip is full and pouted; and her wide-set eyes are darkened with a black powder that has been dusted over the top of her eyelids.