“I suppose you’re right,” Vincent replied, “it’s not like I ever found anything out there that would lead us to them. They would have no reason to care about me specifically. How does that help us?”
“What it does, is it gives us the chance to catch them off guard the way they caught us off guard. They won’t suspect it. They think we’re being complacent.”
“Well I just hope that we can make use of that,” was all Vincent could say.
“Maybe we shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet,” Karl speculated. “The different murders and disappearances could all be unrelated, perpetrated by separate fiends. The crumpled-bone remains of children, for example, could be nothing more than a dragon or some other beast devouring the unwary. We don’t have any proof tying them together.”
“True,” Vincent noted, “but at least four of the dead individuals, possibly a boy and three girls, now have an explanation. We owe it to those four and anyone else these people killed to seek justice. Three cultists died, yet how many are out there? Stan and Craig couldn’t give me an exact number.” He turned to Rick. “Did one escape that night, or two? Exactly how many got out because…exactly how many got out anyway?” Vincent was having trouble uttering the last without being overwhelmed with remorse; the guilt and pain from his failure was still too great. He was realizing the magnitude of what his failure would cost.
“Only one that I know of,” Rick answered. “And I think the burning spray of bits from his friend would have let me know if there were any more.” Vincent turned away, feeling he didn’t need that mental image. “I told the masters as much when I was questioned.”
“So what are we left with now?” Karl asked. “A word hunt? A few hikes into the woods?”
“Finding the word alone will be a formidable challenge,” Vincent explained, “that’s one of the reasons why I sought to include you: three people pouring through books is better than one.”
“We should get Stacy to help us too,” Rick suggested. “She’s really good with these sorts of things.”
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea,” Vincent said.
“Why not? If three people are better than one, then four is even better.”
“A student as upstanding as her would never want to be a part of something that goes behind the masters’ backs. And how do we know she’s not one of those we seek?”
“She rarely leaves Master Anthony’s side,” Rick insisted. “She’s an expert atmomancer. How could she be?”
“How could Jeanette be?” Vincent countered. “She was an atmomancer too, and her windblast almost killed me. It proves nothing.” Rick still appeared as though he wanted to include Stacy but looked stumped as to what to say.
Karl sighed. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take Rick’s side on this. If you said I was too busy studying to be one of them, then there’s no way the same couldn’t be true of Stacy. She works way too hard. And we have to assume that cultists in our ranks are a rarity. Speculating that others left from here before Jeanette is just that, speculation. I’m not saying we should trust just anyone; I’m only pointing out that she is perhaps the least likely.”
“What about the other risk?” Vincent asked, still concerned. “What if taking her into our confidence means that she’ll rat us out to the masters?”
Neither of them seemed to have an answer to that. Then Rick seemed to draw on an idea. “I know! We’ll bring her here and then all three of us will gruel her and convince her to join! It’s much harder to turn down three people than just one. She’ll have to think her reasoning is better than all of ours,” he had a doubt, “well maybe it is,”-he inserted quickly-“but I still think we should try anyway.”
“I don’t know, Rick,” Vincent said. “I believe in my reasoning with this very firmly. If hers doesn’t see things the same way, then I hardly think it’s better.”
Rick’s enthusiasm was undiminished. “Well there you go! Your convictions are strong! Your attempts won’t appear half-hearted, and she’ll pick up on that.” He seemed more energetic now that he had had a little time to rest.
“We have to do everything and anything we can to stop them,” Karl added, trying to convince Vincent. “Even if that means starting our own little cult of hunters wanting to expose them. If showing Stacy some charisma can get her to join, then I say we do it.”
From the effect of having just two people trying to persuade him, he was starting to see what they meant. Vincent let out an aggravated sigh. “Very well,” he conceded at last, “but if she turns out to be one of them,” he hated to say it and hated what it implied yet had to “then we have to kill her. Understood?”
Both had an expression on their faces that said he was being paranoid. Karl was the first to speak. “Since that is completely impossible, I’m going to go ahead and agree to it. If it happens, I’ll do as you say.”
“Me too,” Rick added with a smile that said Vincent was being silly.
Vincent felt the slightest bit more at ease since they both seemed so sure. “Okay then, so how soon can we find her? Where will she be, and when?”
“I don’t know where she might be right now,” Rick admitted. “She’s a more advanced student in her learning, and I don’t really see her too often. I just occasionally run into her at the dining hall or in one of the libraries.”
“Same with me,” Vincent commented.
Karl seemed to be racking his brain just like they. “If she’s an advanced student, then that means she should be taking at least one of those classes in the Tower of Prophecy where they’re supposed to look at the stars and learn to read the future, oh what was it called…”-his brow scrunched while he looked at the ground and kept snapping his fingers in frustration since it was so close-“…Astral Divination!” He finally said, looking up excitedly. Then he pondered when they might find her. “Don’t those classes usually run much later than the others? You know, since they have to wait until it’s dark?”
Vincent looked at Karl with a frown while he wondered and then turned to Rick. “Are they having a session tonight?” He asked.
Rick lifted his hands slightly in a helpless gesture. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to check,” Karl put in, “and it’s got to be past dark by now. I say we go pay a visit to the tower.”
Vincent and Rick were in agreement, and so the three of them left his quarters with Karl’s rock tagging along. When they passed under the raised portcullises in the gatehouse, Vincent idly asked why they were continuing to leave them open at night after the recent break-in. Rick said that the gate to the outer wall surrounding the campus was still closed at night as usual and the vines on the shorter perimeter wall had been replaced with killer vines by the botanical mages; no one was getting in again quietly, if at all. He then reminded Vincent never to stand too close to the outer wall, if he felt like going on a stroll.
It wasn’t long before they came in front of the fabled tower where the fates were revealed. It was a thick and broad yet unusually tall structure which widely twirled and spiraled upward in a coil. Vincent didn’t know how it could even stand, much less have been built, yet in all the time it had been here, it had never once collapsed or shown signs of deterioration, and remained a source of pride for Gadrale. The entrance was the most normal thing about it: Inside the doorway, they could see stone steps that were not that different than in the keep except that they were wider, flatter, longer, and circled upward inside it.
Vincent and Rick were about to go in when Karl nudged them and pointed toward the sky. They both looked up at the clear, crystalline pointed roofing that blanketed the very top, and saw a few small flashes of light. Class was in session. They resigned themselves to standing and waiting patiently at the bottom near the entrance.
The walkway through the grass toward it was the only gap in the otherwise complete ring of tall, bushy, green-leafed maples surrounding the tower. In the dark, the leaves moved and rustled in waves whe
n the wind passed amongst them. In Vincent’s mind, it could hardly be called a tower, at least not in the conventional sense. Along with it’s strange shape, the materials used in its construction seemed quite out of the ordinary. Some surfaces looked like simple stone much like what was used in the fortress while others appeared smooth, glossy, and wavy, greenish in certain places, opaque or a rugged, dull silver in others. To him, it was an oddly colored bizarre stone tree that had twisted itself around as it grew upward.
As Vincent waited, he checked to make sure that his sword was still loose in its scabbard, not knowing what to expect. Unlike him, the other two were not made edgy by having had someone try to kill them yet. For something to do, Karl levitated his rock higher and held it in both hands, inspecting its surface closely while Rick used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his brow and then tried to fix his hair. Rick then folded his arms and switched his weight from one foot to the other several times. He seemed to dislike waiting even more than Vincent or Karl.
After a time, they heard talking and the sound of footsteps echoing out of the bottom as class was dismissed. People in sky blue robes and dresses began coming noisily out of the opening. Vincent stepped to the left side of the path into the grass while Karl and Rick stepped to the right side to let people go by, Karl’s rock skidded into the short green grass along with him.
Students came and students went, and still there was no sign of Stacy. Then there were no more students left. Though no one said anything, it was easy to tell that they were all thinking the same thing: that this was not one of her classes or else the wrong night.
Eventually, when they were just about to leave and were feeling dismayed, an old man with short white hair, a short nicely-trimmed white beard, and ancient-looking blue eyes came alone down the steps. It was Master Anthony, Dean of Atmomancy. For some reason he always appeared the wisest and most capable of all the masters aside from Treyfon. His appearance gave them new hope because at the very least he was a source of information.
When he looked at each of them curiously, Rick jumped right in. “Great one,” he said as he bowed, Vincent and Karl did the same, “we wish to speak with one of your pupils. Can you tell us where Stacy is? Or at least where we might find her later?”
“She’s still in the tower,” Anthony explained, “that girl hardly ever sleeps. What do you need her for?”
When Rick hesitated, Vincent fought past his own misgivings to provide a quick answer. “We’re friends of hers; we just want to catch up.”
He seemed satisfied with that. “While you’re at it, tell her to take better care of herself.”
“We will, master,” Vincent replied.
“Good night then,” he said.
“Good night, master,” all three said as one, bowing just their heads as he walked past.
As soon as he left, they entered the tower and began climbing the widely spaced flat steps. There seemed no end to them, and Vincent was starting to become accustomed to the echoing sound of Karl’s rock scraping on the stone, though he could never quite get used to seeing a rock falling up a set of stairs instead of down. He wondered if they were going to be spending all night climbing or if Stacy would eventually meet them partway. It was dizzying the way the stairwell kept going in circles.
The stairs ultimately led them up and through an opening in the roof above them to stand on a stone block floor that appeared more familiar. The top of the tower was a wide, flat disc which also had stone crenulations on its edges like any round tower at the corners of the keep. That was where the similarities ended. All around them, even in the gaps of the parapets themselves, and above, coming to a point, were sharp scale-like shards of crystalline glass forming a shingled roof and exterior. At least Vincent thought it was glass. With how all the large fragments fit together, the outside of the tower was blurred and distorted. One could tell that it was nighttime but little else.
They looked around and saw Stacy standing to their right with her back to them. Stacy’s long brown hair flowed gently down her shoulders and back, and her blue dress played off her hips in a way that at once hinted at and yet concealed her lovely figure. Vincent felt bad about trying to involve her: as though he were intruding upon her life-she might even sympathize with their plight but not be interested.
The portion of the roof in front of her did not appear as though it was there. In its place was a rectangular stretch of black with stars that appeared far too large to actually exist in the sky. As she waved her hand, the rectangle shifted further right and crystalline shards once again appeared where the gap had been. She seemed to be looking at a slightly different set of stars. The three of them walked closer and still she hadn’t noticed their presence, seeming too caught up in whatever it was she was doing. Rick cleared his throat noisily to get her attention, and she slowly spun around.
“Oh hi,” Stacy greeted, looking surprised to see them there. She eyed Vincent up and down. “You’re looking well, Vincent.” Her pretty blue eyes then looked at each in turn. “What are you three doing up here at this time of night?”
Karl started briefly explaining what Vincent had done and made sure to mention the recklessness of it all at least once. Thankfully, he spoke more in a manner of conveying the trouble they were all in than in pinning blame. Stacy’s eyes followed each of them as they took turns speaking. Instead of looking shocked or showing any emotion in response, her face remained calm.
Stacy was about Vincent’s age, maybe a little older, and usually had a more cynical attitude and approach to different things. He guessed this was why she seemed unmoved by what she was hearing. Her magical skill was atmomancy, the discipline associated with the sky, the weather, and the heavens, but in conversation, she usually provided unique and critical insight into the most unusual subjects and frequently had something constructive to offer about the mundane as well. If there was ever a time when they needed her on their side, and to offer up her unique perspectives, it was now.
Rick was just finishing up. “…if we search for this word’s meaning, it might provide us with…”
“You three are bent on hunting down this cult by yourselves, aren’t you?” She asked, cutting him off. “Without consent from the council and outside of your legal range of authority.”
It sounded like a recrimination.
Vincent held his breath.
“That’s right,” Rick answered cautiously before continuing, “and we would like to…”
“I’ll help,” she volunteered before he could say more. They hadn’t even asked her to yet.
“What?” Karl asked in shock, unfolding his arms.
“Just like that,” Rick said, “you don’t want to hear more? There could be trouble if we’re caught.”
She dimmed her eyes as she shook her head in a way that reminded Vincent of Master Anthony early that morning; she seemed to be picking up his habits. “Dust in the wind,” she answered cryptically.
Vincent felt his brow form into a suspicious frown. “Still, you’re well respected. Why would someone like you be so eager to tarnish themselves with something like this?” By the expressions on Rick and Karl’s faces, they seemed to share his concern.
Stacy looked around at each curious face. Then she took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “Because it’s actually much worse than what you’ve told me, and I want to put a stop to it at once.”
Vincent was intrigued. “How do you know it’s worse?”
“Because Bawsenneji’s approach is masking Xabran as it recedes from its perihelion with…” she caught herself when she realized they didn’t know what she was talking about. “Oh it’s probably better if I just show you.” She walked past them, heading toward the center of the room. “Come this way.”
They followed her, as did Karl’s rock, to the middle of the circle that was the vast floor. Above them was where the crystalline shingles all met at their apex. It felt like they were standing inside of a diamond.
Stacy looked up and was ab
out to start lifting her hands but then stopped and turned to the rest of them, seeming preoccupied with something else. “The three of you took quite a risk in telling me what you did,” she pointed out. “Am I to assume that is because you are trusting me not to share it with anyone else?”
“That’s correct,” Vincent affirmed.
“I’m touched, really I am. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you to do the same”-she shared a look with each in turn, pointing a finger at each of them as she spoke-“don’t share with anyone what you are about to see,” she warned. “It is a dangerous prophecy that should never become public knowledge-it would wreak havoc and cause mass hysteria.” She paused a moment. “Even more so since it is almost upon us.” Vincent felt a chill go through his body. “Understood?” They all voiced that they did.
Stacy glanced carefully at each of them again before looking upward once more at the ceiling. As she cast her arms out, not stiffly but with a bend at each elbow, the entire roof of the tower appeared to slowly vanish. In its place, and all around them, was the night sky without any trace that the mesh of glass shards had ever existed. The nearly full moon shone down on them from its position in the southern sky and had a plethora of stars surrounding it. The beauty was astounding. When she raised her open hands upward, her widespread fingers seeming to caress and cradle the heavens, stars flew down by the edges of the tower as if it had shot upward toward the sky.
She let her arms fall down and their ascent was halted. She continued looking up as she spoke. “Not all people or events have their fates written upon the stars,” she began. “The life of one person, for instance, does not weigh so heavily upon the heavens. Only sufficiently large forces of nature disrupt the celestial alignment, leaving the slightest wake in the stars before they take place.”
Storm of Prophecy: Book 1, Dark Awakening Page 13