by A. H. Lee
“Well, can you?” repeated the boy.
Jessica crouched down with a whimper.
The boy stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Huh. Well, you’re awfully cute, but I need all the magic I can get right now. If the void wiped your memory, I might as well take what’s left of you.” He raised his hands. Then a monster came through the cellar door.
Chapter 24
Tod
Tod had been bitten by a werewolf when he was seven years old. He remembered the event—remembered the panic and pain. However, he did not remember being an uninhibited werewolf, because his family had taken him to Lord Azrael before the next full moon.
Azrael’s first act as Tod’s new guardian had been to provide him with an inhibitor charm. The charm did not prevent him from changing shape, but it did make the change more difficult and more painful. It prevented him from changing by accident, in a fit of childish rage or anxiety. It also prevented him from losing his mind at the full of the moon. It did not prevent him from feeling unwell during that time, but he was not overcome with bloodlust. Since Azrael was the maker of the charm, its effects were strongest in his own domain behind his own wards. Tod hardly felt the changing moon when he was on the Shrouded Isle, whereas he was keenly sensitive to it when he went to visit his family.
Unfortunately, the inhibitor also blocked some of the positive aspects of being a werewolf. Tod was easier to kill while he retained the charm. It slowed his swift healing. His transformation was more painful. The supernatural keenness of his wolf-senses was blunted.
These were some of the reasons that rogue werewolves didn’t like to be saddled with inhibitors. They called the charms “muzzles” and resisted attempts by law-enforcement to have the charms placed. The tendency of werewolves to resist safety restraints was one of the reasons that the Emerald King had simply declared werewolves monsters that must be put down for public safety.
Tod had always been a “good” werewolf. He’d retained his charm faithfully over the years. Everyone assured him this was for the best. Tod had never gotten a taste of life as an uninhibited werewolf. He didn’t know what that felt like.
But he did know how to get rid of his inhibitor. He’d done it by accident a couple of times when he shifted. Naturally, the charm was nothing so simple as an object under Tod’s skin like Jessica’s birth control. The werewolf inhibitor had to be swallowed.
Tod’s bedroom was one of the loft compartments high in the eaves of the palace, looking out towards wooded hills. It was a cozy room, not as ornate as the courtier’s suites, but that was how he liked it. Tod stood naked in the middle of the room now and focused. He concentrated on that thing inside him which was not quite right—something alien that didn’t belong. Then he changed.
The wrenching pain drove him to his knees, but Tod kept his attention focused on that deeper point of irritation—the thing which was not part of him. The pain grew unbearable. His guts were turning themselves inside out…and there. There it was. Now!
Tod came to his feet as a wolf, retching. He gagged up bile and then something that burned fiercely in his throat. Tod opened his eyes. A silver medallion the size of a large coin lay on the floor of his room in a puddle of vomit. The medallion was etched with runes and smelled intensely toxic to his wolf senses.
Well, that’s done. He shivered. Now I’m really breaking the rules.
Tod hopped up on his bed next to the handful of envelopes that Yuli had given him. He sniffed them, carefully tweezing the smells apart in his mind. Even with the inhibitor charm, Tod was an excellent tracker. He had a good nose for ordinary scents.
Now, however, he could smell Jessica’s magic—the trace left by her saliva. Jessica’s magic was subtle. It made him think of wonder and curiosity and something that he could only describe as “bravery.”
Tod curled up on his bed and focused on imprinting the magical odor on his senses. I’m coming, my friend. I will search this whole island, and wherever you are, I will find you.
But the time was still early by the standards of the Shrouded Isle—not even ten o’clock. Tod waited for the dead of night when Azrael’s kingdom would sleep. While he waited, he dozed.
Chapter 25
Lucy
Mal and Lucy walked the island. It wasn’t large, but the hedge maze made it impossible to cover quickly. Because the maze had so many entrances, one could not perform the simple trick of always turning in the same direction. The maze dead-ended and looped and formed elaborate twists that dumped them back onto the beach again and again.
Mal seemed desperate to talk. He answered all of Lucy’s questions with a flood of detail. No, he had not found any structures on the island aside from the fountain. The island’s shoreline reminded him of the Shrouded Isle, but was not identical. Yes, Mal really had seen Azrael on the beach. “He came walking out of the mist, and I was so relieved. I thought he’d tell me what I’d done to make him angry. I thought I could fix it. But then he didn’t know who I was, and after a few minutes, he disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” echoed Lucy. “He didn’t walk away? He vanished?”
“It seemed like that to me,” said Mal. “I ran after him, but there was no trace, not even a scent.”
“I wonder…” Lucy licked her lips. “We all thought the book was a dreamcatcher. What if we were sort of right? What if it’s a dreamcatcher that’s been modified? We’re not technically in a spirit vessel, but a kind of pocket world?”
Mal frowned. “A permanent dream space? That would require a lot of on-going magic just to hold it together. It would require…one hell of a dream-walker among other things. Do you have any idea who’s doing this?”
Lucy shook her head. Reluctantly, she admitted, “It almost has to be one of the magicians coming to visit.”
Mal’s tail lashed. “Such as your precious Jacob?”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Such as any of them who’d like to get rid of the others.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have invited those assholes onto our island!”
They had arrived at the clearing around the fountain, and Lucy was grateful for the distraction. They circled the structure warily, sniffing. Lucy felt certain this was the source of the slow magical drain that she was beginning to feel in her own body and which had already taken a toll on Mal.
After a moment’s consideration, Lucy slid the tip of her tail into the slowly churning water. She felt no pain, nor even any wetness, but when she lifted her tail, the tip had vanished as though cut with a knife.
Mal shuddered. “I’m glad I didn’t try swimming.”
Lucy regenerated her tail-tip with annoyance. “Well, now we know for sure that it eats magic.”
“Let’s get away from it,” said Mal. “I feel like it’s watching us.”
Lucy looked at the statue thoughtfully. “I haven’t given up on finding a crack in its armor. Let’s keeping looking. Anything that isn’t part of the pattern could represent a flaw.”
They started back down a row through the mist.
“What if Azrael was dreaming?” said Mal. “What if that’s why he showed up here?”
“Did you just figure that out?”
Mal ignored her. “If it’s pulling on magic. It’s probably pulling on his, too. It can’t break him down into magic to get him through the portal, so it only gets him in his dreams. But…for him to look me in the face and not know who I am… What if it’s permanent? What if…” Mal stopped walking. He turned to Lucy with a horrified expression. “Jessica can’t change shape! Did it get her, Lucy? Was she in the suite?”
“I don’t know, Mal.”
Mal began walking faster and faster. “If she got stuck in between, she’d be in the void. She wouldn’t know how she got there or how long it will last or whether she’ll ever get out. She’ll be so afraid. She might lose her mind!”
“Mal!” Lucy’s dragon head shot out in front of him. “You are wasting energy. Energy is magic here. You cannot afford that. We don’t know where Jessica is. Specula
ting is pointless. She may be fine. She may not. There is nothing you can do for her right now except look for a way out of this vessel or pocket world or dream space wherever the hell we are!”
Mal did not appear to be listening. “It’s my fault. I made him break the seal too fast.”
“What seal?” demanded Lucy.
“In his tower, he broke the encryption charm on the dreamcatcher, and we were… Oh, gods and he took down his wards!”
Lucy gave a huff, creating a tendril of steam in the wet air. “Stop giving yourself so much credit. Your cock isn’t that magical. Azrael probably activated the damn thing when he broke the seal. It would have happened no matter how he broke it.” Almost to herself, Lucy continued, “And that’s hellish clever. Only a sorcerer worth trapping could activate the trap.” She gave Mal a look of pure acid and added, “I suppose he wasn’t paying the closest attention?”
Mal swallowed. “Not as such.”
Lucy folded and refolded her wings. “Well that’s done, and there’s nothing we can do to change it. Let’s comb this island for a flaw. Let’s do it without panicking or wasting our strength.”
Chapter 26
Azrael
Azrael drew runes in spelled chalk on the flagstones at the entrance to the hedge maze. It was a laborious process. The runes had to be perfect. Take your time, he told himself. Take your time to get it right. On a deeper level, he thought, Take your time to think.
He’d given up trying to address whatever was bothering him head-on. If he started avoiding his work, voiced his concerns aloud, or questioned the servants, he’d just end up back in his bed with no memory of how he got there or what he’d done in the meantime. When he was calm and working, however, his thoughts became clearer.
Azrael ticked off things that did not make sense. He had a closet full of clothes that were not his own, items in his washroom that did not belong to him. He was having these strange black-outs. There had been other strange things. He was certain of that, but he could not remember them. Azrael had a vague, but urgent sense that he had lost something of great value.
Someone is performing memory magic on me.
Extracting one’s self from a memory trap was difficult, but not impossible. Memory charms were never perfect. They worked best on a small scale. Azrael could easily make someone forget a name. People did that on their own all the time. A good magician could make a room full of people forget the details of an evening, particularly among companions they did not know and would never see again. He could erase an isolated event that was unconnected to other parts of a person’s life, or he could alter small details of that event.
Large scale memory magic was much harder. Major events and complex personal relationships spread tendrils through a person’s life. Erasing them left gaping holes that people tended to notice. Magicians attempting large scale memory magic could not possibly concoct a sufficiently convincing backstory to explain all of this to their victim’s internal satisfaction. Instead, they usually employed techniques that encouraged the victim to do the explaining themselves—to concoct their own alternate version of events. These false histories must encompass unavoidable facts, but allow for the script that was being magically imposed upon them.
Such concoctions rarely held up to scrutiny. People realized that something was wrong. They were then faced with the daunting prospect of distinguishing real memories from false ones. A person who did not understand what was happening might easily lose touch with reality and go mad.
Azrael scowled at the rune he was drawing. A victim of memory magic usually cherished a set of underlying false assumptions that resisted the victim’s inspection. There were usually obvious flaws in the script. These flaws could sometimes trigger an unraveling of the spell if the victim could identify them.
Remember what you can’t remember. Gods know I’ve done it to other people often enough.
Yes, but I did it for good reasons, he told himself, and whoever is doing this to me is obviously a fiend.
Azrael tried to review his basic underlying assumptions about his life. He’d been orphaned by plague at a young age and taken in by a magical school where his gifts were not identified. He’d been little better than a slave to the children of wealthy magicians, who mistreated him. Then his abusers fought among themselves, destroying the school and killing his few friends. He’d escaped to wreak havoc on the opposing armies with his newly discovered talents. All records of his existence had been extinguished. Nobody knew his name.
Except that necromancer from this summer. The necromancy itself had been a ruse to get Azrael’s attention and tempt him into the Shadow Lands. The magician had been a student from the school who’d escaped by locking himself inside a spirit vessel and taking over the unfortunate antiquities collector who’d opened the vessel decades later.
Azrael considered those events. The necromancer made a frost bear golem in the Shadow Lands. It hunted me. I destroyed it with… Azrael felt a twinge of discomfort and mentally backed away from the idea. But he took note. Those events contain a clue that the script won’t let me see. Very well. I’ll find another way.
In any case, he’d killed the necromancer and then gone to the High Mage Council’s humiliating trial. They had accused him of dark magic. However, he’d weathered their inspection and managed to procure their goodwill. They were coming to visit him on the Shrouded Isle—to spy, no doubt, or to figure out how to steal his secrets. But Azrael was ahead of them. He would use their greed to make an end of them once and for all, doubtless saving the lives of their countless future victims. The Shattered Sea would be safer and more peaceful with fewer magicians.
Azrael licked his lips. That was correct, wasn’t it? It felt correct.
One of them is probably doing this! One of the other magicians might be trying to stop him or cause him to make a mistake. One of them was surely the source of the memory charm.
But I have lost something, persisted a mournful voice in the back of his head. I have lost something precious. And nothing I know explains this.
Azrael sat back on his heels and flexed his fingers, resting them for a moment from the intricate rune-work. The fall air was cool, and he slid his hands absently into his coat pockets. Why am I wearing a fur coat?
He glanced at his shoulders. It was a half-cape. Azrael felt the script wobble, and he grasped desperately at the flaw. His fingers touched cold metal in the pocket of the cape.
I put the cape on this morning. He remembered. I charmed it to remind myself not to take it off. Someone gave it to me. Someone…
Azrael growled at the pain in his head. He was thinking too hard. He was not working.
He drew his right hand out of his pocket to see what he was holding. Two silver rings. Azrael stared at them as though mesmerized. Abruptly, he shoved them back into his pocket. Before I set them down. Before I forget them.
He got to work on the runes again, thinking. I put the fur coat on this morning for…for some reason I thought was important at the time. And I changed out the contents of the pockets with my other coat. I remember doing that. The rings were already in my pocket. Why? It felt terribly important to remember.
Chapter 27
Tod
Tod came to his senses with the strangest feeling of dual reality. He knew he was still curled on his bed. He could feel his own doggy chin on his doggy paws. But he was also looking around…looking down at himself on the bed.
Does this always happen to uninhibited werewolves?
He could smell Jessica’s magic—the clever, playful, curious scent of her nature. Of course I can, he reminded himself. I’m lying with my nose right beside the envelopes. Only now…
Now he knew how to follow it.
Tod blinked with eyes he did not truly have. He was seeing double—a foggy landscape super-imposed over his bedroom. It’s a dream, he told himself. I’m dreaming.
But that’s where she is, whispered the sure voice of the wolf. That is where her trail leads.
That doesn’t make sense, thought Tod, but he took a step out of his body, into the foggy world of the dream. Instantly, his bedroom became a little dimmer, the desolate dreamscape more concrete. Jessica’s scent became stronger.
Tod stopped asking questions and let his instincts take over. He was a hunter, running on a scent. It led through a landscape of burned out buildings, dilapidated tents, gutted merry-go-rounds, debris-strewn racetracks, and a skeletal Ferris wheel. This was a circus, thought Tod. It’s a burned out circus. What creepy dreams you have, Jessica.
Tod assumed he was in her dream. Nothing else made sense. If I can find her, maybe I can get her to tell me where she is in real life.
Tod passed a fallen banner that read: Lady Zersic’s Land of Wonders. I’ve heard of this place. It was controversial. He couldn’t remember the details. Did Jessica visit at some point?
He came around the corner of a lane and saw light through a doorway ahead. Tod reached it in seconds with his long, loping run. He peered inside, saw a destroyed toy shop. The light was coming from an open cellar entrance.
As he approached the stairwell, Tod noticed another scent. He’d been concentrating so fiercely on Jessica’s that he hadn’t really thought to search for other magic, but it was overwhelming here. It made him think of cold iron and fog and intricate gears.
Tod heard someone swearing—a male voice, rough with adolescence.
Tod peered downward. The cellar was well-lit, although he couldn’t see much apart from the stairs and sacks of potatoes at this angle. His entire attention focused on a fluffy red fox, standing halfway down the stairs, looking into the room. The fox had hunkered down. Its ears and tail were low—clear signs of anxiety. Tod’s breath caught. Jessica?
The adolescent voice spoke again. “You’re awfully cute, but I need all the magic I can get right now. If the void wiped your memory, I might as well use what’s left of you.” To Tod’s horror, the cellar door slammed shut.
Tod only hesitated for an instant. Then he went through the door. Tod understood in that moment why werewolves resisted inhibition. The door splinted around him like matchwood. It might as well have been tissue paper. The thrill of effortless destruction was glorious.