“We’ll be right here, Wayfarer,” Teah said. “Malak is no stranger to the High Arcanum, while he can’t sober you up, if your health in jeopardy, he’ll see to it you remain on this side of the veil.”
Elias took a long pull off the water pitcher then went to his bed and drew the curtains. He lay down and rested his hands on his stomach. He focused on his breathing and tried to center himself. He plummeted at once into the void, but unlike the quiet darkness he typically encountered, he found himself bombarded with disjointed images from his past and swirling eddies of color.
Panic welled up in him at first, and he struggled to pull out and return to his regular state of consciousness, but a voice deep within him beckoned. The disenfranchised images collapsed in on themselves, leaving him in darkness. A pinprick of light formed in the dark of his mind’s-eye, which blossomed into a slowly rotating grey vortex. Moved by intuition, he willed himself into the vortex.
Chapter 20
Rune Circle
A pulse of energy surged through Elias and he felt at first compressed into a dense sphere, and then stretched as he passed through some type of energetic membrane. As he looked back on the memory later, and tried to make sense of it, to qualify it, he found words availed him little in describing the experience.
He alighted upon a silver-bricked path that wound through a luminescent wood. The skies above glowed with rich purple and red tones, as if caught in a hyper-real sunset. The trees glowed with a soft light, as if lit from the inside through some mystic force. Elias turned his attention to himself and discovered that he was back in his body, but, while it appeared substantial, it felt airy, lacking the density of his physical form. This again, he thought. While his memories of his experiences outside his body in the Renwood were fragmented at best, he never doubted that they occurred. Though the details were lost to him, his pitched struggle with Slade was etched into his memory.
He returned his attention to his surroundings. He had the distinct feeling that he had been here before. He set off down the path, unsure how time passed here, wherever here was, but he wanted to capitalize on the experience while he could. It did occur to him that this might well be a hallucination induced by the mystery drug he had ingested, but he figured standing still would profit him little.
He reached a turn in the road that snaked deeper into the wood. He took the branch automatically, and again a powerful sense that he had been here before came over him. An effervescent excitement and anticipation quickened his step, and before long the path ended as the wood opened into a clearing, which featured a circle of stones surrounding a granite-rimmed pool. A woman with her back to him knelt by the pool, peering into it.
A powerful sense of recognition sent shivers through him. He knew that old, well-worn dress. “Danica? Is it you?”
The woman started and turned to face him. Her familiar green eyes went round as marbles. “Elias! I’ve found you!”
“Maybe I found you.”
Danica ran to him and fell into his arms. With her face pressed against his shoulder she asked, “How did you find this place?”
“The people that are holding me captive drugged me. I slipped into the void and found a portal waiting. I entered it, and appeared on the silver-bricked road.”
“You’re imprisoned?” Danica pulled away from him. “Where are you? We’ll come for you!”
“I don’t have much time,” Elias said, sensing that he spoke the truth, though the words bubbled up from some far corner of his mind. “I’m beyond your reach, Danni. I’ll have to find my own way back.”
Danica’s eyes went glassy and her ears turned red, caught between sorrow and rage. “How can I help?”
“What is this place? How can I get here again?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve been here before, when I was in the grips of that fever.”
“Yes, me too, I think.”
“Phinneas was trying to teach me the art of arcane hypnosis. When I tried to create a mental haven, I came here. I’ve not been able to return since, but I think I came here from a dream. I fell asleep while trying a self-hypnosis exercise, I think. The pool is some kind of window, it allows me to see things. I’ve tried to find you, but all I see is a kind of whitish vortex.”
“It’s a portal of sorts, and was how I came here.”
“How is that possible?”
Elias hesitated. How could he put into words what he had done? He already felt himself growing light, felt an inexorable pull back to his body. “Danni, I’m outside time—or at least your time.”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Elias grabbed his sister by the shoulders. “Please, we don’t have much time. I can feel myself fading. I need you to find out about the time mages, because I can’t. Try to find your way back here, to me. I’ll try to meet you.”
Tears pooled in Danica’s eyes and streamed down her face. “I will. I promise. I don’t know how but I will.”
“We have to remember,” Elias said, even as he saw his hands on Danica’s shoulders began to grown wispy. “Not like last time. We can’t forget. Don’t forget.”
Elias felt his heart tear as Danica dematerialized before his eyes. The earth beneath him dissolved and he found himself sucked through a hole and squeezed into a pebble.
Elias’s eyes snapped open, to a world caught in an earthquake. At least it seemed that way at first, until he realized Malak had him by the shoulders and was shaking him vigorously while Teah scrubbed a washcloth through his hair.
“Thank the Eldest,” Malak said. “We’d thought you slipped into a coma.” The flushed Enkilder shook his head. “It was like your...essence was elsewhere.”
“What happened?” said Elias.
“You started saying, don’t forget over and over again. We came to you, but couldn’t wake you for anything. We began to fear the worst.”
“Don’t forget,” said Elias, struggling to get around a block that sat front and center in his mind. What had he just been thinking? “Yes, there was something. I had the strangest dream. Danica was there. We were home again. No, no, somewhere else, but familiar. Was it the Lurkwood? I’m sure I’ve been there before.”
“Wayfarer, you’re not making sense,” said Teah, her typically placid expression, knitted in concern. “Are you well?”
Elias pushed himself up and his head spun. Disenfranchised images pinwheeled through his mind’s-eye. He saw a circle of stones. “Of course—the rune circle. Yes, I’d been there with Slade, and with Danica. Yes, I’ve been there before.”
“Wayfarer?” asked Teah.
Elias raked his hands through his wet hair. “Yes, I feel much better.”
“I think we better announce a continuation until we have you examined,” Malak said.
Elias pushed him gently aside and stood. “No. As my father said, when you’re in too deep the only way out is to push on through to the other side. It’s high time we did just that.”
Chapter 21
The Rook’s Nook
Danica opened her eyes and cast her covers off, moved by a deep sense of urgency. She looked across the room at the other bed to find its occupant peering at her. “Good, you’re awake.”
“You’re were talking in your sleep again,” Bryn observed.
“Been doing that since the crib, they say. Let’s get dressed, daylight’s burning.”
Bryn lit a match. “Not really. It’s not yet dawn. Where’re we going?”
“To Arcalum,” said Danica as she fumbled around her nightstand for a pen and paper. She paused with her pen to paper, a dot of ink blossoming on the page. What was it she was supposed to do at Arcalum?
“The Academy is not yet open,” Bryn said.
“I don’t want to take a class. I need to get into the library.”
“That’s closed too,” Bryn said dryly.
Danica flashed her friend an impish smile. “You’re the princess. I’m sure the guard will let you in.”
“What is it we’re loo
king for? What’s so important?”
Danica ignored her question, frantically trying to brush past the block in her mind. She had seen Elias in the rune circle, he had told her to do something important. “What was it I said in my sleep, exactly?”
“You kept on saying, find the time mage. Nonsense, I guess.”
Danica scrawled time magic and dream magic, hypnosis, astral travel on her paper. She looked up at Bryn. “Bring extra ink and paper. We need to find out everything we can about time magic, dream magic, and astral travel.”
“Danni, I’ve never heard of those things.”
Danica barked a sardonic laugh. “That’s precisely why we need to go to the libraries at Arcalum, so that we can learn about them. Honestly, Bryn.”
“How silly of me,” said Bryn, but the southern woman’s excitement proved contagious. “Here take some of this.”
Danica caught the brown paper package. “What’s this then?”
“Chocolate from the islands south of Kvesh.”
“Chocolate?”
Bryn shrugged and pushed a square into her mouth. “I figured if we’re making an academic trip in the middle of the night, we might as well have dessert for breakfast.”
“Sensible,” said Danica as she broke off a piece for herself.
†
“I know who you are,” said the guard as he looked at the ring on Bryn’s finger and then across the gate to his compatriot.
“Then what’s the problem?” asked Bryn, affecting a tone of mock-innocence.
“It’s, ah, the Academy grounds are closed, Princess.”
“We need access to library at once,” Bryn said. “This is a matter of state. We are on the business of the crown.”
“Of course,” said the second guard, “if only you had a royal writ, or some such. We don’t want to have demerits marked against us for not observing protocol.”
Danica threw back the hood of her cloak. The guards flinched reflexively. “Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, Lady Duana,” the guards said in tandem.
“Good. And do you know about the strange occurrences that have been going on at the palace the last couple weeks?”
The guards exchanged glances. “Yes, Lady.”
“Now I’m not at liberty to tell you what exactly went down, but I think you can well imagine the seriousness of the situation, if it’s kept the Princess and I from our beauty sleep. The magus’s of Arcalum may be comfortable in their beds, but we’ve work to do to make sure all you happy bureaucrats have beds and hearths to come home to. Have you so easily forgotten the business of last fall?”
“No, Lady Duana.”
Danica pulled her hood back over her head. “Then unlock the bloody gate, and be quick about it.”
The guards complied without a further word. Bryn eyed Danica and snorted. “You may be cut out for command.”
“Indeed,” Danica said. “Perhaps the queen should commander Oberon’s lands and bequeath them to me, along with a seat on the Council of Six.”
By the time they reached the library the sun poked above the horizon. The building that housed the greatest collection of books and scrolls west of the fabled Indysis library in Aradur seemed a palace in its own right. It’s most notable feature was a stained glass dome easily a hundred yards in diameter, which allowed ample natural light to fill the cavernous central chambers as candlelight was forbidden within the library; luckily, the arcanists of Arcalum had other, less mundane, means of lighting their way. Behind the central dome rose a square tower that bore the honor of being the tallest structure in Peidra, which housed tomes not required for regular use, or those inappropriate for the student or fledgling arcanist.
“Impressive, isn’t it,” said Bryn. “The rook’s nook they call it. It’s said that you can see it from any street in Peidra. No one really knows how many books it contains, and I don’t know anyone that’s been to the top floors. Even the current Archmagus hasn’t plucked that plum. Rumor is powerful wards bar the way, and the secret of access followed Archmagus Grabon into death, who never had a chance to teach his successor the incantations before his unexpected demise. Of course, maybe that’s what they want us to think, so they can keep the Deep Arcanum to themselves.”
Danica followed Bryn’s gaze to the monolithic tower. “Since you’ve never heard of the subjects of our research, I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find what I’m looking for.”
“I was afraid you’d say that. Come on, then.”
“Is the library locked as well?”
“Yes, and warded, but the First Librarian has quarters inside. Old Leoman is known to me. He’ll let us in.”
A wry smile played about the princess’s lips, and Danica surmised there was something of a story there, but it would have to wait for another time, as they had more pressing concerns at present. “Lead the way.”
Bryn led Danica to the side of the library, away from the tiered steps that led to the main entrance of the domed structure. They wound a path along a line of shrubbery through the damp grass. “Here we are,” Bryn announced and then began rummaging around in the mulch surrounding the bushes.
“What are you looking for?” Danica asked. “Some kind of key?”
“Here we go,” said Bryn and held up her prize.
Danica shot her a glare. “A rock?”
“Yessum.” Bryn flashed the white of her teeth in a child-like grin. “Watch this. Never gets old.”
Bryn stood and searched the windows on the second floor of the squat, square structure that connected the main library and the tower, her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth. She cocked her arm back and let the rock fly. Danica clenched her teeth and steeled herself for the crashing of glass. Instead, as the rock approached within inches of a window a wild blue light lit up the courtyard. An energy field flickered across the window accompanied by a low-pitched hum, but more startling yet was its effect: the rock hung suspended in mid air, slowly rotating.
“Britches,” swore Danica.
“None too shabby, eh?” said Bryn, who still wore her mischievous grin. “At first the ward was designed to eject any possible intruders or prankster’s rocks, until one day some high-blood was trying to scale the building on a dare and was thrown off and broke a leg. After that Leoman modified the ward. God’s blood, I’d of loved to see the poor bastard who first found that out!”
Presently the window was cast open and a grizzled face poked through it, a sleeping cap askew on his head. “You best hope you can outrun wizard’s fire you blazing hellions!” hollered the old man. He snatched the rock from mid air and it turned to dust in his hand.
“I can see the years have done little to improve your temperament, Leo,” Bryn said brightly.
Leoman squinted down at them. “Princess, is that you?”
“Leo dubbed me princess long before Eithne officiated me with the title,” Bryn said to Danica. “Yes, Leo, it is I, your favorite student!”
Leoman let that comment pass with a loud humph. “What in tarnation are you doing here at this unholy hour? You know it’s customary for the royals to send a calling card first, instead of robbing an old bag of bones of his precious shut-eye.”
Bryn’s grin waned a tad. “As much pleasure as I receive from nettling you, I’m afraid serious business has brought us to your doorstep. Master Leoman, we need your help, and we haven’t much time.”
Leoman eyed the two companions. “Meet me at the back entrance. I’ll be down directly.”
Danica and Bryn didn’t have long to wait before Leoman opened a spare oaken door in the back of the library along a corridor that connected the main building to the tower. He hadn’t changed from his dressing gown, but wore an indigo cloak over it with the hood drawn up. “Get in here you two, you must be chilled to the bone.”
Leoman led them to a small kitchen that he and the few other resident scribes used. He put on a kettle and rummaged in the larder for some pastries. “Who’s your friend, princess?”
“This is Danica Duana.”
Leoman grew still for a beat before continuing to prepare their tea. He set out mugs, a decanter of honey, and plates with pastries and cheese. Lastly he poured the tea, which Danica guessed had been prepared so quickly through the aid of some surreptitious Arcanum. “Now, what’s the problem, ladies?”
Bryn and Danica exchanged glances. “To start with, Danica has a list of books her tutor, Dr. Phinneas Crowe, wants her to familiarize herself with.”
Danica withdrew a slip of paper from her pocket with the names of books that Phinneas had given her and handed it to Leoman. The librarian scanned the list. “Certainly, but all of these titles can be easily found in the library’s main hall.” He fixed his pale eyes on Bryn. “What else?”
Bryn shifted in her seat. “We require access to the stacks.”
“To what end, may I ask?”
“We are researching some arcane disciplines with which we are unfamiliar,” said Bryn. “We don’t expect to find anything on them in the main collection. Do you know of the anomalous arcane working that took place on palace grounds two weeks past?”
Leoman snorted. “Know of it, I can still feel it in my teeth. Damn near set my fillings rattling. Now, you seem to have forgotten you’re dealing with your old teacher, not some dissembling courtier. Quit beating around the bush.”
“We are looking for whatever shred we can find on the time mages and the dream mages.”
Leoman took a spoonful of honey for his tea. The sound of his spoon skittering off the edges of his mug was the only sound in the room. “I’ve never heard of either of them, but even while I’ve seen more of the stacks than anyone alive, I haven’t touched every volume. I once read a book written by Olaf the Red titled Compendium of Foreign Arcanum. Old Thorbald made us read it back when I was a first year Initiate. Old tradition of making us suffer I suppose.
“In any case, it was really more of a travel memoir that anything, but Olaf once referenced a cabal of Aradurian arcanists he called dreamwrights, but he went into woefully spare description of them, and I’ve never come across any other such reference.” Leoman took a sip of his tea. “As I recall, they say old Olaf went mad.”
Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 18