Lakif probed her friend in hopes of detecting one tiny sliver of weakness, a minor peccadillo protruding from his character like a wry, offending thread from a rich garment. Try as she might, she was denied her secret desire. Lakif couldn’t help but begrudge Bael. Destiny had truly heaped garlands on him. He had gone to great measures to find the Acaanan, for completely selfless motives. She would not have done the same, and she felt not a bit ashamed of it.
She looked to the floor. It wasn’t Bael’s handsome face that shamed her. It was his marvelous blend of qualities that truly dubbed him a High-man.
“Enough of things past, Lakif.” Bael smiled and held out his goblet. “Let’s drink of absinthe in honor of this magic moment and praise our glorious future.”
Together, they raised their glasses and consecrated their fortune with a toast.
XVI
The Scroll
LONG AFTER BAEL LEFT, LAKIF MUSED ABOUT HIS APPEARANCE. HE HAD TURNED out exactly how Lakif would have imagined. Considering that they hadn’t spoken in many years, the evening had rolled by effortlessly. Each regaled the other with highlights of that fateful epoch. Lakif had never established such a rapport with anyone, regardless of the time taken to cultivate a relationship. Now, she could finally claim that she had a real friend. To the Acaanan, that was as rare a treasure as any of which she now claimed ownership.
Bael’s appearance had woken Lakif up to elements of her past that had slumbered for years. The abbey of Rhoan Oak seemed like a figment from a dream. Strangely, she hadn’t cast a single thought in the direction of the other children for some time. How had each of them tackled the task of finding a Rare Earth Stone? Surely their individual odysseys were as fitful as her own.
As enthused as she was by her erstwhile friend’s sudden appearance, Lakif was equally invigorated by the fresh insight he brought to the table. But the nursery rhyme ruffled her somewhat. She had no idea how to track down an alchemist, assuming one even existed. She sighed, suspecting that this next quest could be as taxing as the one to find the Stone. She had only one possible lead to track down such a chimera as an alchemist. Should that fall through, she would be stumped.
She looked to the clock. Nine-thirteen. Today was one for the record books! Despite this, Lakif was little inclined to turn in. She needed to clear her mind of all matters concerning the Stone. That decided, she tucked the treasure safely under the bed.
The Acaanan settled into the cozy confines of the bed and settled on reading. Continuing the saga of Grimpkin’s nightly predators was not appealing. Many more devils cluttered her mind than lived in those pages. By routine, she reached over to the nightstand and picked up a tome. What tedious topic would she tackle this night?
The pages looked foreign. She wondered what it was. Then it dawned on her. It was her other less enchanting find from Ebon Myre; the tome she had snatched from the belfry. It lay on her nightstand where she had set it down while unpacking.
Seeing the tome stirred up a flurry of images concerning the harried escape from the monastery. Once again, she was reminded of Torkoth. During all the excitement around her auspicious reunion with Bael, the Acaanan hadn’t even remembered to check the Half-man’s room. She vowed that tomorrow she would hunt down the guard, or at least determine when he left. Even if he was gone, perhaps he was still in the vicinity. She owed the fellow at least that token effort. On the bright side, should Torkoth have truly disappeared, Lakif would be spared the substantial sum of three talents and would have a clean conscience to boot. In spite of this, she nevertheless hoped the Half-man would turn up. More than acquitting herself of a guilty conscience, there was a firmly practical side to her interest in locating the swordsman. In light of Bael’s revelation, she suspected that the Half-man’s prowess would be needed yet again.
Turning her attention to the book, she perused it carefully for some time. The cover depicted only the symbol that had captured her eye. What was it about? The title page dispelled any mystery with the words: Anthology of the Stars.
Lakif frowned at the tasteless title. She showed scant aptitude for the natural sciences. From the strange symbol on the cover, she had hoped for a more exotic subject. She questioned the sanity of any person inspired to study the stars. Surely, they had to be a lunatic.
She cracked the tome to the first page. Although she could read well, the writing was virtually illegible. There were obvious diagrams of stellar positions, but the symbols and specialized shorthand baffled her. For some reason she had been attracted to the tome, and the Acaanan had firm fidelity in her instincts. Determined to discover the work’s value, she carefully labored through several pages piecemeal, scouring each line for a familiar word. At the end of each page, she gingerly turned the sheet, holding her breath in the process. From the look of the yellowed, crisp pages, she feared that the slightest pressure of her breath would tear the parchment.
But confronted with each page of indecipherable hieroglyphics, she grew wearier and less interested in maintaining the tome’s condition. Before long, she started to leaf faster and faster through the text, cursorily scanning each page with an index finger. In no time at all she was literally breezing through; the pages whirled by as if driven by a gale. The aged paper crackled under the harsh treatment. Clearing the last page, she sighed. The book was impervious to interpretation.
It was then she noticed the inside back cover. It was lined with lilywhite paper, which stood in contrast to the aged leafs of the remaining text. On closer scrutiny, it seemed that the other side of the paper, flush with the back cover, had some form of writing on it.
Without thinking, the Acaanan began peeling away at the cover’s edges. Finally, she liberated a corner of the binding. She pulled ever so gently, fearing the entire sheet would shred from the glue securing it to the cover. Surprisingly, the paper smoothly peeled off in a clean, uniform sheet. She cast the useless binding aside and lay the lining on the opposite side, face-up. The paper was in remarkably sound condition as if the glue maintained its integrity.
The writing was strikingly distinct from that of the text proper and obviously didn’t consist of prose. Although clearly written, it didn’t strike the Acaanan as any language she was familiar with. It was formed entirely of miniature, intricate cuneiform symbols that defied her. Another mystery!
Suddenly tired, she placed the parchment in the nightstand drawer and climbed under the covers. The events of the day weighed heavily on her body. Within heartbeats, she was fast asleep.
XVII
The Necklace
“TORKOTH!” A HAND JOSTLED THE DOZING HALF-MAN. BEFORE THE WORD was fully voiced the fighter reflexively latched on to the offending wrist and twisted. Pythia cried out and crumpled to his knees under the leverage.
“Stay your hand!” Pythia called out.
The Half-man blinked before the subdued curator, seemingly in genuine dread. His eyes refocused in the gloom. Torkoth released his hold and stared at his scaled hand as if it was an untamed beast. The curator breathed easier and was struggling to his feet when Torkoth leaned in to lend support.
“Please forgive me,” Torkoth apologized. “I was having a terrible dream.”
“What so plagues you?” Pythia rubbed sensation back into his hand.
“Never mind.” Torkoth looked around the deserted hall.
“Perhaps you frightened the ephebe, and he whispered harsh admonitions in your ear as you slept.”
“What is the ephebe?” Torkoth looked puzzled.
Pythia stabbed a finger at the brazen statue at whose feet the Half-man had dozed off.
“The ephebe is the youth of yore.”
“A most curious statue,” Torkoth commented.
“The statue predates this hall. It was reclaimed from the ruins of the Renaissance, or so they say. The ephebes were youths bent on military training, all conscripts to General Grimpkin.”
“What is he gesturing for?”
“A lost treasure?” Pythia suggested.
“We flirt with midnight.”
“How fares Sarah?”
“She passes in and out of delirium.” Pythia sighed. “I fear this malady has imperiled her life.”
“How is this possible? Is she bewitched?”
“Perhaps. She was in great pain, and so I sedated her with narcotics.”
Torkoth sank into silence under the weight of Pythia’s admonition.
“I must see her.”
“She won’t respond to you.” Pythia sighed.
“Nevertheless,” Torkoth pressed the issue.
“Then take your time.” The curator granted his permission.
Torkoth entered the green chamber and sealed the door behind him. Although dubbed a pantry, the room was actually several paces across. Two crates were aligned to function as a bed, with nothing but a wool blanket serving as a mattress. Apart from that the storeroom was bare. Sarah lay on the bed, stiff as a pole. A single window overhead framed one of the twin moons; its light bleached the patient.
Torkoth knelt alongside the girl. A figurine fashioned from a length of wire teetered on the floor. A shekel balanced within the mesh. Overall, the handicraft crudely resembled a winged figure hugging a tiny disc. In the cold moonlight, the coin shined like a genuine moon. Nearby lay a mouse trap, primed with an odorous chunk of cheese.
“Sarah?” Torkoth whispered.
The gamine rolled her whole body to look at him, as if her neck was too stiff to bend.
“Where’s Cipo?”
“Resting…with the other dogs.” Torkoth smiled weakly.
“I’m sick,” she muttered matter-of-factly. Clearly the narcotics had ameliorated the pain enough to allow lucid speech.
“When did you fall stricken?”
“The headaches began in the summer, I think…they’re terrible.”
“I know.” Torkoth commiserated and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Where is she?” Sarah ratcheted her head to look about the close confines.
“Who?”
“The black-skinned devil—she’s always over your shoulder.”
“You mean the Acaanan? The woman I was traveling with before? We’ve parted company.”
“She was real?”
“Of course. Why would you surmise otherwise?”
“I thought she was a monster haunting you.”
“I think she haunts herself,” Torkoth quipped.
“Where are we? I don’t remember how we got here.”
“A friend’s house. He allowed us to rent this room.”
“Oh, then tell me a story.”
“This tongue is driftwood, it has no gift for story telling.”
A shadow fell across her eyes.
“Okay,” Torkoth relented. “What class of one?”
“I don’t know.”
Torkoth paused as if in a quandary. From his expression it wasn’t clear if the dilemma stemmed from not having a single story or having to choose from a plethora of candidates. Rain pattered against the window pane, reminiscent of applause cheering him on to entertain the girl. He nodded to her and rested his hand on hers. A mouse wiggled from a crack in the wall and sniffed its way toward the bed. Perhaps it was drawn to the juicy details of the forthcoming tale.
“Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a potter. He was a man of humble means, and as he had to support a brood of children, hunger never stayed far from their threshold. His wife had since died, so he relied on his children to shoulder many of the household chores. His eldest daughter, well into adolescence, was named Harmonia. She was charged with the daily preparation of dinner.
“It was a nondescript day in early May, and Harmonia was busy planning out the dinner meal. She realized that their supply of elderberries was running scant. Normally she would have called on her younger sister to go scout for some, but the girl was running a fever and was bed-bound. Her siblings were equally strapped with chores, so forced into double duty, Harmonia at mid-morning hustled out to forage.
“Normally, the task would’ve taken the better part of an hour, but this day was different. Stark times had descended over the entire village, and all the pantries were thin on provisions. So the local berry bushes had already been picked clean by her neighbors; Harmonia was forced to scout farther than she was accustomed to venture. She wandered far outside the normal cultivated hills into a dense forest.
“Eventually she stumbled upon a splendid bush blossoming with elderberries. She praised the find, for this supply would last the family many fortnights. So she eagerly picked the shrub bare and began the tiresome trawl home lugging the sack over her shoulder. Unfortunately she had strayed so far into the woods that she became lost. In fact, she wandered in circles for what seemed like hours. At length she stumbled upon a small clearing that contained a hillock. A hawthorn tree capped the knoll, surrounded by a circle of mushrooms.
“Winded, the girl flopped down under the tree, to rest and get her bearings. No sooner had she reclined then she became fatigued, as if the mushroom spores were actual sleeping dust, and she drifted off to sleep.
“Little did Harmonia know that she had invaded special territory. A few nights past, on Beltane’s eve, a clutch of witches had gathered in the clearing. They cavorted and danced at midnight under the full moons. Glow worms, newts, nightingales, snails, and spiders were drawn in to the clearing as spectators. Mushrooms sprang up in the crone’s footsteps, forming a circle around the clearing. Such rituals sometimes form fairy circles. The rings demark a gateway into the fairy realm that lasts for a full week after it is crafted. All manner of fairies are drawn to the circle from their world, to dance or play under the umbrellas of the mushrooms. These spirits are invisible to those outside the circle. But mortals who breech a circle within its week lifespan are in store for disaster, for they are powerless to exit, forever.
“Word spread like lightning across the fairy realm about the sleeping maiden on the knoll. Oberon, king of the fairies, was himself drawn to investigate. Usually, mortals that transgressed the circle are forced to dance to death, but the fairys’ reception of Harmonia was different. Although Harmonia was no princess, Oberon was enraptured with the girl, and whisked her off to his palace behind the morning sun. Soon enough she awoke in a plush four-post bed. She imagined she was dreaming, as she was attended upon by fairy servants. Oberon presented her with a necklace, and made her part of his exclusive harem.
“Back in our world, darkness had fallen over the villiage. The potter fretted over his daughter’s absence, or the lack of dinner, it wasn’t clear which. The next morning at first light he set out hoping to learn his daughter’s route. Accompanying him was a hunter, a strapping man who was well-seasoned in the woodlands. This hunter had an uncanny ability to spy even a broken blade of grass, and was miraculously able to track her all the way to the fairy circle. The knoll was empty except for the sack of elderberries. As the potter was about to fetch the provisions, the hunter, a man by the name of Quince, stopped him short. Ever observant, he was not a little bit suspicious about the encircling mushrooms and noted the remnant footprints of the witches. He warned the potter that he, too, would be lost to the fairy realm should he cross the boundary.
“Thwarted, the two retuned to the village. Soon everyone heard of the girl’s disappearance. Quince offered to rescue the potter’s daughter if he felt assured that they could safely return from the fairy realm. There were many rumors and falsehoods circulating about such circles, and they needed reliable information. But unfortunately time was running out, for they knew that any day the mushrooms would die, and the entrance to the fey world would close tight.
“Fortunately, a local druid came forth with useful information. He claimed that there were tried and true remedies to break the circle’s magic. He outfitted Quince with a bandana of marjoram and thyme and placed iron sod in his boots.”
&
nbsp; Torkoth paused from the narrative.
“Is that…all?” Sarah asked.
Torkoth shook his head. It wasn’t clear if he was searching for the story’s end or trying to compose himself.
“Quince hastened back to the fairy ring with a small throng. With no small amount of trepidation he stepped across the fungi arc. With that single step he disappeared from view to the collective astonishment of the witnesses.
“Quince found himself in an enchanted realm of rushing brooks, sagging oaks, and bushy dells. His entrance went unheeded by the fairies, as the accouterments he brought made him effectively invisible to them.
“The sun was setting and soon he was traveling under a drowsy sky salted with stars. Harmonia could be anywhere in the kingdom, and he had precious little time. By happenstance Quince came upon three fairies. They were sitting in a branch and peering down into a shallow pool. The rippling image of a moon reflected in the surface below them. He crouched behind a tree and threw his voice.
‘You three, who you be?’
‘I am Web,’ one trilled.
‘And I Moth.’ His partner chuckled.
‘And me be Thimble,’ the third hooted. ‘Does Aeolus, grand king of the winds, speak to us?’
‘No, ’tis I, man-in-the-moon!’ At this all three fairies looked up through the branches. But the foliage was so thick that they couldn’t see the moon in the sky.
‘Follow your spit! I’m down here, in the pool!’ the hunter whispered harshly.
“The three looked down into the waffling image of the moon in the pool.
‘Why are you diving?’ Web piped.
‘I’m not diving. I’m trapped!’
‘Why?’ Thimble asked.
‘ ’Tis the mortal girl—one that wandered through the gateway yonder. Her name is Harmonia, so called because of her siren-like voice. So wondrous was her song that it has tamed the surly sea and quieted storms with its angelic notes. I heard she was nearby so I came down to investigate, but I drew too near, and fell into this pond! Oh, woe is me!’
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