“Death.” The word fell from the Elder’s lips like a hard, expectorated piece of rind. He looked at Molly instead of Tom, watching her eyes drain of hope and her glowing face become pale.
“You mean Death itself. You mean to say that—”
“Yes. The literal incarnation of life’s end. It will rise from the next life to seek you out in this one.” There was no humor or exaggeration in the old man’s eyes. Clearly, Thomas was not the first werewolf unfortunate enough to undergo an exorcism. The Elder knew exactly what was going to happen to him.
Thomas shook his head again and paced about the overlook. The problem was not that he didn’t take the old man seriously. The problem was the same as it always was: he faced the end and needed a way out, only this time fatality felt certain. How tired he was of the chase. It was a solo affair, and Molly didn’t deserve being brought along for every arduous, grueling step of it.
“What am I to do then? And what do you want out of this? I know you didn’t bring me here and strip a demon from my guts out of pure altruism.”
“Wise of you to assume so, even if abrasive,” the Elder admitted. Taking a slow, deep breath he circled the Boar, looking into it with interest as if it were a fishbowl. “I won’t lie to you and tell you I have no vested interest in what you are to do with the next three months of your life. The beauty of it is that it is what you would have done regardless of having met me. Something is waiting for you beneath that tree in London. Whatever it is you are to do will begin there.”
Thomas waited a moment before responding, thinking that surely the answer was not as abbreviated and disappointing as the Elder had made it sound. “That’s all you can tell me?”
“That is all.”
Tom folded his arms and turned away again, walking past Molly with his eyes on the ground. Halfway to the other end of the overlook his hands went to his hips, and then he turned to stare out at the wilderness with a scowl.
Molly knew well why Thomas was in a foul mood. After what he had done to Harlan because he so obsessively followed a dream’s instructions, it was unlikely Tom would now follow another’s, regardless of the Elder’s advice. Molly couldn’t blame him. She also knew that he was considering her and the promise she had obligated him to keep. A passing flutter in her chest almost made her cry. Knowing the least she could do was to make the decision easier, Molly took the side of the Elder. “Thomas,” she called after him. “If continuing on this path is what you must do to set things right, then you must.” Walking round in front of him she took his hands and softly smiled up at him.
The scowl on his face weakened. “It is the only choice I have,” he said in a low voice, “but it means I must once again ask you to be patient while I selfishly pursue unknowns. I feel like a child, Molly.” Tom’s eyes kept breaking contact with hers, his embarrassment giving him the urge to hide himself away so no one could see his shame.
“Enough of that. I think it is time we both put matters of our pasts to rest. All I want, in the end, is to be with you.” Still smiling, she brushed his hair out of his sullen eyes. “And considering that you are much more of a mess than I, we should start with you.”
Thomas threw back his head in laughter. Molly joined him, and the Elder raised an eyebrow.
****
“The Elder has granted permission for your entry and asks that you join him and the others inside!” One of the armed monks called out to Leon and Geoffrey, who were still standing out in the snow. Both men rose and climbed the stairs to the main doors, Geoffrey with much more enthusiasm than Leon. “You are forbidden from speaking of any of the mysteries which will be revealed to you upon entering this place,” one of the monks warned Geoffrey in particular. “Should you share these mysteries with anyone, you forfeit your life under Helvetian law.” His expression was hard and severe.
“I understand,” said Geoffrey, avoiding eye contact and brushing snow off his coat. I’ll never be back here again anyway, he thought to himself, holding back a grin and feeling for the bundle of notes in his coat pocket.
“So you have chosen to live,” said the Elder, “or at least it appears so.” With both hands relaxed and folded behind his back, he spoke from across the overlook. Molly and Tom came to meet him again by the Boar.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Tom, “I would like to know how the Helvetii are involved in all this. I have a hunch that tells me I will be seeing you again, and not because I’ll be taking a holiday in Romania.”
“Of course.” The Elder took a breath and gestured to the Boar as he spoke. “It is my hope that your actions will protect the Helvetii from the Eight.”
A cold dread crept into Tom’s stomach, as it always did when the Eight were mentioned.
“I have had one recurring dream since the day I was born,” said the Elder, circling the Boar and staring into the stone on its back. “In the dream I am standing on a hillside beyond the plateau where the Novaci Tablet rests. I look down the hillside, and all I can see is ruin. The forest is butchered, the land is torn and there is not a soul for as far as I can see.” As he explained the dream, his fingers touched a particular bead in his beard, a small, glassy black bead. “There is a single moonbloom blossom on the hill. When I see it, a voice begins to speak to me. It says, ‘There will be Eight, and no more. Man will forget about them, and they will rule the world from the cover of shadow.’ Then, as I look up, I notice four blue lights, far out to sea. They become one. The dream ends.”
“You believe the Eight will come for the Helvetian Stone,” said Thomas, unraveling the meaning of the dream aloud.
“Yes,” replied the old man.
“And … they will destroy Argeş Sa?”
“Most of the immortal world,” the Elder corrected. “Their plan is a grand and decisive one. They will remove every last immortal from the world by sending mortals to war against them. When this is done, they will direct all the world’s civilizations, using the power they accrue from genamite they collect during their campaigns.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Tom smirked, but the Elder was frowning.
“Not ridiculous, really. Who better to run the world than a council of people who will never die? A council that can learn from mistakes and slowly build a perfect world?” His tone changed abruptly. “A fine idea, but nearsighted. Rome was built on merely a quarter of the entire genamite in this world, Thomas. That genamite,” he said, pointing to the glowing stone on the Boar’s back. “Imagine what havoc eight individuals would produce with all of it.”
“What are we setting out to do, then?” asked Molly, not as skeptical of the man as Thomas.
“The commonality here is genamite,” Tom broke in. “So, am I to go looking for these rocks? Somehow that will save my life? If I can find four more stones, whose locations I don’t know, and keep them away from eight people, whose identities I don’t know, all will just magically be rectified?” Tom spat out the words, still unable to take the Elder seriously.
“Possibly,” the old man replied, “But not likely. As I said, all that is certain now is that you must go to London.”
“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” said Molly, talking half to herself and half to Thomas.
“Not much at all,” agreed Tom. “We can go digging for treasure in my garden, or just hope I don’t croak in three months’ time. A treasure hunt, or death?” Being as sarcastic as possible, he struck a pensive pose.
“I’m glad you’re taking this well,” said Molly, herself on pins and needles.
“Captain Crowe! Miss Bishop!” Geoffrey waved at them from the stone stair coming from the antechamber. Leon followed behind him, looking only half-interested in the myriad magical wonders surrounding him.
“Good, you’re all here,” said the Elder.
“Yes, good,” said Thomas. “We’d better be off as soon as possible. I’d like to get home, whether I am dying or living.”
“Which is it?” asked Leon.
“Probably dy
ing.”
“Ah, terrible luck.”
“Please! As if it isn’t awful enough, the two of you can’t refrain from making a mockery of all this?” Molly reprimanded them. She’d begun to think she liked it better when Tom and Leon were one sideways look away from cutting each other’s throats.
After some silence, Thomas spoke again. “Shall we go then?” Putting an arm around Molly, he began to head for the stairs to the antechamber.
“Go where?” asked Geoffrey.
“London,” said Tom.
“You’re not going to walk from Romania are you?” asked the Elder, waving his wooden knot.
“Why?” asked Tom, stopping. “Is there a faster way?”
“Of course!” The old man was smiling again in a way that meant he knew something they didn’t. “You don’t recognize this?” he asked as Tom and Molly came back from the stairs. He swung the wooden knot at the wilderness beyond the overlook.
“It looked familiar when I first came in, but no, I can’t say I recognize it in particular.” Tom squinted and Molly walked past him.
“Thomas, it’s Stepney!” cried Molly excitedly. “Look there! You can see the roof of the hall through the trees, just over the top of the hills!”
“Is that really what that is?” Squinting harder, Tom saw some artificial structure, not knowing whether it was Stepney.
“You recall what I said about windows,” said the Elder, stepping up to Thomas’s right. “There is only one, true genamite stone, but it exists in many places. The only reason it remains in this world is because it is bound in place, and for that to be possible, its power must be segmented.”
“How?” The notion confounded Tom.
“There are only a handful of theories,” answered Geoffrey, before the Elder could speak. Stuffing his notes into his pocket, he stepped up to the Boar behind Thomas. “None of them make clear sense of the origins of magic. In my opinion, magic came into this world through genamite, like a window, as you put it,” he said, looking at the Elder. “In the same way, these pieces of genamite are doors to one another. Where they rest, strange phenomena occur, powerful creatures appear and what have you.”
“Geoffrey, could genamite ward off death?” Tom asked abruptly.
The Elder gave him a strange look, as if the question were asked out of distrust, rather than curiosity.
“Death?” Geoffrey turned the idea over in his head. “There is no known limit to what magic is capable of. Theoretically, I would say there is no reason to doubt it could.”
“Then why are we standing idly still?” Molly interjected. Having found a way down the cliffs, she was already disappearing from sight.
“All right.” Tom took a slow breath and followed after Molly, only once looking back at the Elder.
“Thomas!” called the Elder, holding up something. It was the Uyl Talisman.
Tom reached to touch his right arm and saw that it was bare. He’d forgotten when or how he’d last taken off the talisman but was happy to see he hadn’t lost it in the forest during his possession.
“I bound the thread from the demon spool to this item. As long as you wear this talisman, the dreigher cannot harm any other. It is forbidden from entering your body and is no danger to you any longer,” he explained.
“Comforting,” remarked Tom, taking the talisman and, hesitantly, tying it around his arm. The bones of the horned snake rattled as a breeze picked up. Tom held his breath until the talisman settled. He felt no indication of the demon and did not fear it. “Thank you,” said Tom to the Elder, turning to go.
“Luna Mater ses hartas,” the old werewolf said, holding out the wooden knot.
“I never thought we would see this place again!”
Molly walked ahead of Tom and the others. She felt as though she’d left her worries back on the overlook. The forests of Stepney uplifted her. Gliding along as she did, Tom thought she belonged nicely. Stepney, devoid of people and problems, rich with magic and life, was only one miracle shy of paradise: an angel. Molly filled that void.
“Lucky us,” said Thomas. He did not mean it sarcastically. In fact, he smiled and ceased to fret about his predicament long enough to lose himself in the beauty of Stepney, in truth an elegant place.
The crew of four hiked through the trees at half the pace to which they had become accustomed over the previous weeks. Stepney Hall was not too far away, and they arrived below the ballroom balcony in only a couple of hours.
On the balcony Molly pulled Tom aside and kept him just long enough to hold him a moment and silently remind him that everything would turn out all right. There was no trace of a frown on her face. Not in the longest time had she captured all of his attention and kept it. Not in the longest time had she loved a man so simply and easily.
Thomas, weary, danced slowly about the balcony with Molly while Geoffrey and Leon strolled about the ballroom—Geoffrey, sketching the architecture, and Leon, yawning at the paintings.
Winter met the four outside Stepney hall in the cobblestone street, slapping their faces red and putting their extremities to sleep. Their next natural destination was Thomas’s home, an inhospitable walk from Stepney, so they waited inside a gin-shop while the old proprietor had his errand boy run, slipping and shivering, down the street for a coach. Molly, the only one of the four to care at all for the boy’s discomfort, forgot all about her concern as soon as Tom tipped him a pile of coins too fat for his little frozen fingers.
Leon and Tom ordered drinks while the coach was on its way. People-watching was of interest to neither of them, so they left all of it to Molly and Geoffrey, who leaned on their elbows and glued their eyes to the bustling droves outside, keeping their faces away from the chill that radiated from the windows next to their table.
“Mr. Mylus,” Leon began, setting down his drink, “you said these stones can do almost anything.” He did not utter the word genamite because they were in public.
“You mean the … Hm, yes, those. Yes, they are capable of anything, as far as anyone knows,” Geoffrey answered, also quietly. He kept his head down and fiddled with a loose splinter on the tabletop.
“What did you have in mind?” Tom asked Leon.
“That really depends on your plans,” Leon replied. “You’re putting a crew together, and as long as I’m still part of it, if you don’t mind my asking, we are going to look for them, right?”
“There is nothing else I’d like to find sooner,” Tom affirmed.
“All right, because I wanted to speak to you and Mr. Mylus about—”
“I have an idea what you want to discuss.” Tom cut him off, not to be rude but to keep any eavesdroppers from listening in. “Just like anything else, the crew receives a share. All I want is to be alive three months from now.”
Leon nodded and relaxed. Molly looked at him out of the corner of one eye. She had known all along what he wanted, and she wondered as much as anyone else if the genamite stone—or stones, however many there were—held the power to change everything.
“You’re welcome to do as you wish with your share,” Tom finished. “All of you.” Keeping his hand on his drink, he sat up straight and glanced around casually. “After I gather the information I need, we’ll go about the rest of this matter quietly.”
Ozias blinked in surprise when he opened the front door to see Tom and Molly once more. Shaking hands with Tom, he allowed everyone in, recognizing Leon from his first visit in the fall.
“Ozias, this is Geoffrey Mylus,” said Tom, introducing Geoffrey. “Mr. Mylus, this is Ozias. He keeps the house from falling apart while I’m away.”
“How do you do,” said Geoffrey, wrapping one arm loosely around his things and extending the other, only to drop several of his journals on the floor.
Molly hurried upstairs after first visiting Charlotte in the kitchen. She badly wanted to see her bedroom again, especially since she didn’t expect to enjoy it for long. Tom showed Geoffrey and Leon upstairs after her, directing them to the
last two rooms from which they could choose to deposit their things until the next inevitable embarkation. Geoffrey chose, not to Tom’s surprise, the room with the largest study space. Leon passed on the offer. All he required at night was space to swing his sword, and he could do that more easily on the roof than in a bedroom.
Leaving the others to themselves, Tom returned downstairs. He was hungry, and Charlotte was cooking something that smelled wonderful, but before he reached the kitchen Ozias called him from the sitting room.
“Yes, Ozias?” Tom said, entering the room and looking back over his shoulder as the smell of food vanished.
“I thought I ought to inform you of recent developments. London, she never rests, I tell you,” Ozias said, sweeping ash out of the fireplace and onto a pan.
“Yes, of course,” replied Tom. “I forgot to ask you I was in such a hurry to get everyone settled in. Taking off his coat and unbuttoning the top two buttons on his shirt, he took a seat on a sofa.
“To begin, Parliament’s in a stir of reorganization. The Bureau of Immortal Affairs, as it is known, is now publicly visible. As you may already know, the Bureau came about years ago and for the most part their representatives haven’t done a thing to justify their appointments.” Ozias was a keen follower of all things political, unlike Thomas, who had absolutely no interest in politics at all. One of the reasons he liked Ozias was because the man, an ex-soldier of many decades, could simplify the details enough for Tom’s purposes.
“And that’s changed?” Tom asked.
“Believe it or not,” Ozias affirmed, laughing. “Both the recent rioting in Paris and the Grey-Reiver rebellion in the north have scared Parliament silly. The Bureau has just been allotted an unspecified number of military resources—”
“I don’t like the implication,” Tom butted in, slouching over the arm of the sofa.
“That isn’t the end of it,” said Ozias, jamming the broom deep into the fireplace and mustering up large grey clouds of soot. “Parliament is summoning English men of lofty status, one by one, and having them appear in court for an audit.”
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