“takin…upid…sks.” Theseus’s words came in and out as Pearl’s senses readjusted. “And…or what? A stupid test?”
“What?” She tried to sit up, but Theseus kept her on her back as he inspected her eyes.
“I’m saying cruel things about you, girl,” he growled. “You have no idea when to give up or when to consider another method, and end up taking stupid risks. This is only a test. No need to get yourself killed over it.”
“Didn’t want to fail,” Pearl admitted.
“You’re reckless. You gave away your position when you lit that torch, and, worst of all, you lost control of your Bloodlust,” Theseus lectured, counting her faults with his fingers. He retrieved Pearl’s sword from the other side of the room, incinerating his scorched jacket with a barrage of lightning on the way back. “If I really wanted to kill you, I would have.”
Pearl waited a moment. “But did I fail?” She pressed him for an answer as he lifted her to her feet in silence. “My recitation suffered from constant stops and a few missing details, but I got through most of it. I struck you a fair number of times, putting you on your heels more often than not.”
“I don’t care about the recitation.” Theseus returned her sword and helped walk her out of the room. “More of a formality. I won’t need a historian in the Black Hill. I’ll need a fighter, a weapon. Despite some minor faults, you’re well learned in combat and magic, and you mind is sharp, always searching for options, though you often take the dangerous path when cornered.”
Pearl stopped and stared at him. “I passed?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a Sister of the Brotherhood?” A smile spread across her face.
Theseus smiled. “Yes.”
Joy lifted Pearl off her feet, but her body couldn’t handle the jump and she almost collapsed upon landing. She thanked Theseus over and over again without breathing. She hugged him, surprising Theseus, but he returned the gesture, which comforted Pearl more than she thought it would. Breaking the embrace disappointed her, but she would never admit it.
“Are you ready, Pearl?”
With her basic training complete, they would spend every day from now until they reached the Black Hill preparing for the mission. She had a duty now, and she felt the responsibility settling on her shoulders. Though she knew nothing of the Brotherhood’s quests of old, she knew the dangers of the Black Hill made their mission one of, if not the, most perilous. She held her head up, her smile not as steady as she would have liked. “Yes. I’m ready.”
Chapter 10
Theseus slammed his hand onto the ground, the force of the blow shaking Pearl’s feet. She sensed his mana channeling into the stone beneath them, shaping it into its desired form. As he lifted his hand off the ground, a human shaped statue with wider arms, legs, and body rose up, identical to the other three he had created already.
“What are they?”
“They’re stone constructs.” Theseus pulled for red gemstones from his pocket and clenched them tight in his fists, pooling his mana into them. Though Pearl could now detect concentrations of mana, she didn’t need this ability to know filling the gems had drained Theseus. She saw it in the bags under his eyes and heard it in his haggard breath. “Similar to golems, but made of stone, as the name would suggest. The crystalline properties of gemstones allow them to store large amounts of mana. And, if enchanted, they can absorb mana from the air around them, just like our bodies. They’ll serve as power sources for the constructs and the spells animating and sustaining them.”
“And why are you making them?” Pearl took note of the morning sun’s position over the tree tops. Despite the early hour, they had a long way to go and Theseus had yet to address their lack of weapons, much to Pearl’s worry. They did carry lanterns containing half of the Fire of God each, and the warmth spreading from Pearl’s through her body and soul brought some comfort to her worries.
Once Theseus pushed the last gem into the last construct, all four quaked to life, then resumed their motionless state, as if nothing had happened. But when Theseus moved around, the four constructs’ heads turned to follow him. When he commanded them to patrol the perimeter of the house and awaited their return, they remained still, as though they hadn’t heard him. Then, with the grinding of stone, they stomped to the tree line and began their guard, staggering their patrol until they were equally spaced around the circle clearing. They marched at a perfect, uniform pace, never gaining on one another.
“Without the Flame to power the Eye, they’ll be Lightholme’s only defense during our absence. Besides, there’s no flame other than Yahweh’s own that I would carry through the tunnels of the Black Hill.” With the security of Lightholme in as fine hands as any they would find, Theseus and Pearl set out into the forest. She glanced back at the house which had become her home for maybe the last time. Theseus had warned her their chances of success were not favorable, barring some divine act, and she wondered if she would ever see her new home again.
By midday, the lingering heat of summer emerged weak from its struggle with the morning’s autumn chill. Orange leaves carpeted the forest floor and hung for dear life from the branches above. Piles of leaves rolled apart with every breeze. The seldom present wildlife scurried about preparing for the coming winter months.
Theseus admitted the night before he would rather deal with colder temperatures if it meant additional time to prepare Pearl, but he wanted to embark before the harvest’s end to avoid the strange magics that occur naturally during that time. So, instead of waiting and risking a surge in activity from the Black Hill, they settled on early Fall. Pearl took time to admire the beauty around her, but after an hour, she noticed the sun still rising to her left.
“Why are we heading South?”
“We need to stop in New Bethlehem.”
“What’s there that you could want? The demons…the Khaous tore the town apart and anything still standing probably burned down. It will be a miracle if anything survived that night.” In the quiet of the woods, she heard the howls of the Khaous, the roar of the flames, and the cries of the villagers. She recognized the lack of choices she had that night, but the memory of running away haunted her nonetheless.
“Weapons. Or, I should say, better weapons, stored in the tunnels beneath the church.” Theseus walked with comfortable familiarity, the path clear to him despite his confessed fifteen year absence from the town. Pearl had no recollection of this part of the forest from her ride to Lightholme, and she stayed close to Theseus, the vast strangeness of the forest overwhelming her. The trees stared at her, every leaf an eye.
“It feels like something is watching us.” She sought the solace of his logical perspective.
“Something is watching us. Something always is, and will be, watching you from just out of sight. Nothing is without its cost. Not even a walk through the woods.”
Pearl kept her thoughts to herself for the rest of the walk.
***
Nothing remained of New Bethlehem. The four rows of houses and shops arching around the town square had been reduced to rubble. Weeds climbed their way up through the rotting lumber towards the sun, which slipped behind a thing scattering of clouds. Wild flowers grew among the crops in the farmlands to the east and west. The trees encircling the town, tall, thick elms, stood like watchtowers and formed a natural wall to protect the town. But they had failed, and had instead successfully concealed the dangers beyond.
In the silence, Pearl heard her breath’s hissing escape through her teeth. The paths and town square, previously worn down to mud and dirt by foot traffic, had grown green after months of disuse. A cool breeze stirred a small cloud of dust and dry dirt, then the grave stillness returned. Pearl’s jacket, given to her at the beginning of her Lamplighter training, hung heavy on her. She, the last Lamplighter, had failed in her sole duty of protecting the town. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind, but her jacket grew no lighter.
“Damn it.” Theseus inspected
the largest pile of debris, where the church once stood. “The bloody door’s buried.”
“There’s always the door in the woods,” Pearl reminded him.
“Not anymore.” Theseus lifted a wood beam off the pile and tossed it to the side. “As a contingency, the stairs of the second entrance were lined with runed parchment on the bottom, which would explode unless recharged with mana every three days. In the event of the experiment being compromised, the detonation would destroy the stairs and cause the tunnel to cave in. This entrance’s mechanical lock meant it required no contingencies. Despite appearances, this is the best path.”
“What experiment?”
“One of Father Alexander’s projects, nothing to worry about.” He heaved a larger beam out of the way, and it landed with a cacophony of cracking and snaps. When Pearl moved to help, he raised a hand to stop her. “Stay there. I appreciate the offer but I don’t want you getting hurt. Tell me about the town. I haven’t been here in a while. Not since you were born, perhaps.”
“Well, there were shops over there,” Pearl pointed to the closest row of destroyed buildings. “The baker, the blacksmith, the carpenter. We didn’t have any proper money, so we just traded what we had and what we could do.”
“Gods, you’re dull,” Theseus groaned. “What was living in the town like, girl?”
“Well, be specific next time,” Pearl jabbed back. “It wasn’t fun, for me. Most people hated me. Some of the children my age were nice enough, but these two boys, Duncan and Pat, would scare them away. Duncan the Glutton and Pat the Rat, I called them. They tried to make my life hell, but I wouldn’t let them. The adults didn’t give a damn about me, except Michael Crowley, the man who trained the young Lamplighters. The only peaceful times were when my father and I took our morning walks. No one to whisper behind my back. No ugly stares and no one turning away from me. Just the quiet mornings. Then at night, the Lamplighters would go throughout the town and light the candles in the lanterns. Some nights, the trainees would follow them as part of their training. Everything we did was part of our training.”
“Let me guess,” Theseus huffed, tossing aside a pile of lumber. “Basic chores meant to build your strength?”
“Exactly,” Pearl nodded. Theseus looked at the woods littered around him and under his feet.
“Damn, this is going to take longer than I thought. Why don’t you scout the area? Search around, and report anything of note. I’ll call for you when I have this clear.” Pearl watched him move rubble around for several minutes before walking south to the river, the town’s water source. She couldn’t tell whether he wanted to be left alone or just wanted to keep her occupied, but she knew he didn’t care about what she would find, if she found anything at all. Over a small hill and down a sharp decline, she reached the river. The mud and sand of the riverbank laid unmarked, though the lack of animal tracks surprised her. She checked all of the tree hollows and dens where the other children would play and hide, and found them all empty, as she expected.
No survivors…save Pearl. The memories of that night crept back into his mind like a guilty secret. The people of New Bethlehem suffering and dying, their screams filling the night and drawing more Khaous upon them. The Khaous descending upon the town like ravenous beast, snarling, growling, salivating…She…she could her them. Her haunted thoughts mixed with reality, and she could the Khaous around her, waiting in the branches for her return.
She needed to escape. She fell to her knees and clamored across the bank to the water’s edge. She plunged her hand into the river, the sun-warmed surface belying the cold beneath, and clawed for a stone resting on the bottom. She wrapped her fingers around a stone so smooth it felt slimy, and clenched it tight as she ran to her tree, the hollow beneath vacant. No one else, neither man nor animal, ever came to this tree. Children would tell ghost stories about the tree and how the hollow was the unholy gate Pearl (or Pearl’s mother, depending on the storyteller) had exited Hell through. Despite knowing the story’s origins, adults shared it in terrified whispers as truth.
To Pearl, it was her safe hideaway, where nothing could hurt her. Not even her own memories. She pulled her knees into her chest, pressed the stone against her heart, and listened to the river with her eyes shut. The imaginary screams and Khaous sounds faded away as the river babbled over rocks it had worn smooth. She chuckled. Even with no one around to bully her, she had come here. Some things never change. But others do. Just as New Bethlehem was no more, one day this tree would no longer stand, and she would lose her hollow. She looked at the stone in her hand and decided to leave it behind with a message to whoever found it. She focused mana into the tip of her finger and wrote upon the stone with the ease of quill on paper. She finished the last word just as Theseus called for her, and placed the stone down in the hollow’s center.
A ring of debris encompassed Theseus as he waited for her at the top of the stairs to the tunnels. Large chunks of the wooden altar still sat upon the secret door it had hid from those who had prayed before it. Pearl followed Theseus down and found the tunnels lit, the torches still burning since the day she left. Though, like Pearl’s father, Theseus could have led her in complete darkness as he moved with certainty through the turns of the hallways. With no markings on the doors, how Theseus found the door he wanted baffled Pearl
“This would be the armory.” Weapons of varying shapes and sizes covered the walls and filled several chests below. A wooden table to her left had several weapons sprawled across it, abandoned before anyone had a chance to return them to their proper places. A fireplace in the corner lit the entire room, brown logs resting on top of the fire, as if someone had just thrown them on. When she asked about this, Theseus couldn’t answer her. She turned her attention back to the wall to distract herself from the eerie possibilities.
“Why are there so many?” Several short swords hung right next to each other, identical in almost every way. “Do you really need so many of the same sword?”
“Shape is their only similarity.” He picked a longsword off the wall, held it, then took a few practice swings before placing it back. “Father Alexander, Brother Gen, and, for a time, I enchanted these weapons to mimic various God Artifacts.”
“God Artifacts? Like the Flame?” She copied Theseus as she examined one of the shortswords. She hovered her hand over the blade and focused mana into her palm to make it sensitive to the spells and enchantments around and within the sword. She couldn’t discern the specifics of the enchantments, but could tell fresh mana, only a few years old, had recreated ancient magics, an old tale in a dead language rewritten with fresh ink. After some practice swings, she replaced the sword. “So there are more than one Artifact?”
“Hundreds, probably thousands, possibly millions. Anything created, blessed, favored, or even touched by a divine being could be considered an Artifact. A transfer of energy occurs when a god interacts with an item made by mortal hands, since each originate from a different realm, whether the god meant to empower it or not. If a god drank from a mortal cup, the owner of said cup may find it never empties or it turns water into wine. While some Artifacts are named and remembered throughout history, most go unnoticed and forgotten. The Brotherhood, in addition to guarding the Fire of God and combating the forces of Chaos, sends it agents around the world to find Artifacts, named and unnamed, before they can fall into the wrong hands. More often than not, the Artifacts found are weapons with incredible and destructive powers. Brothers and Sisters educated in ancient magic work to replicate these powers and enchant other weapons with them, though the copied enchantments are never as powerful as the original. But they’re still useful for the Brotherhood’s endeavors. The powers of every weapon in here originated from the might of gods.”
“Wow,” Pearl gasped, stunned by the potential power each weapon on the wall. “How do you know what kind of magic every weapon has?”
“Father Alexander kept records of that in a book, which should be somewhere in this room.
And there are also these.” A scrap of paper hung by a string from the hilt of the sword in his hand. “These will tell you everything you need to know about each weapon.
Pearl found the book on the only table in the room, but when she told him, Theseus ignored her, opening a chest and removing its contents. As she flipped through the book, she looked at the weapons also on the table: a few knives, a bow with a single arrow, two pistols, and a bastard sword with a golden blade and a black hilt. Her eyes kept wandering back to the sword, and when she did break her gaze away from it, she looked for it in the book. Each page featured a different weapon including a detailed illustration and an extensive list of specifics, like the weapon’s dimensions, weight, ornaments, materials, colors, and so on.
She flipped through the entire book, but couldn’t find the sword’s entry nor did the sword have a tag. As with the short sword, she waved her hand over the blade and sensed the magic within, not knowing what it did. But she did know the original, ancient mana fueled enchantments just as old. She held the blade up to her face to study the unrecognizable runes carved into it. A fire seemed to flicker within the steel, becoming more alive the longer she stared at her reflection. Heat distorted the air around the sword, but it cooled her hand. It felt comfortable, the hilt long enough to grip with both hands if she wanted.
I don’t want this sword. She didn’t want to wield a weapon if she didn’t know what it would do in the middle of a fight. But her training taught her the best weapon would feel like an extension of her body, and the sword already felt like a part of her. The sword whispered to her in a bygone tongue, asking her to wield it. It should have unnerved her, but the blade felt natural in her hand. She wrapped the sword’s simple black sheath around her waist, and slid the sword away with a click.
The Lamplighter (Lamplighter Saga Book 0) Page 10