“Huh, and other than mind-speaking, what is the point of this?”
She slid back and flashed him an indulgent smile. “Telepathy. Other than that, one can see things far and away. One can sense the current of things, the flow of the energies that compose our world, and beyond.”
“Beyond?”
“This was how Leosis communed with the spirits of those who came before, and with persons elsewhere in the world. At present, I was trying to gain an inkling of the future, of what stratagems might benefit us the most.”
“And what did you see?”
Her eyes slipped closed, and if Elias didn’t know better he would have thought that she had dropped into an instant slumber. “There is still hope, though I do not see by what art. Victory has not yet slipped our grasp, but I do see a trap tightening around us.”
“Good enough for me.”
Teah’s eyes snapped opened, and Elias at once felt the weight of her gaze. “I think I finally understand you fully, Elias Duana. Someone you love was taken from you, hung on the cusp of life and death. It was more than you could bear. I would do anything to see my child restored. I would break my vow a thousand times to see her again.”
“We will get her back, or we will follow her.”
Teah shivered. “I believe you, Wayfarer. Now, close your eyes, and let us see what you can see. I will help you. The only sound you hear is your breath going in and out. The only thing you see is the black of your eyelids.”
He followed Teah’s instruction. He felt the insistent, gentle press of her energy against him. A brief sensation of vertigo followed, and if he didn’t know better he would have thought he was spinning, but he knew it to be an illusion, and that he was only descending within himself. Yet, the darkness did not last long. Colors swam in his mind’s-eye, like kaleidoscopic willow-the-wisps. He floated, bodiless, in the sea of color, and time as he knew it lost meaning.
Elias realized with a start that he had fallen asleep, but when he opened his eyes he wasn’t in Teah’s chamber.
He had reentered the enigmatic rune circle in the surreal other world. He unfolded his legs and peered into the silver pool. The runes etched into the pool’s granite frame emitted a pale blue light. “Show me Danica Duana.”
The pool went still as a mirror. A grey, smoky vortex sprung into being within its placid waters. At once mesmerized, Elias reached a finger out to touch its surface, but a warning chimed in his mind and he snatched his hand back. Pins-and-needles rushed up his spine and Elias sat back on his haunches. He didn’t know what this meant, but he was certain that it wasn’t good.
Carefully, he laid first one hand then the other on the granite ring that housed the pool. A high pitched buzz filled his mind, and he cast a glance about the clearing to see that the outer ring of stones had sprung to life as well, washing the clearing in a pale blue glow.
“Danica,” he said, projecting his voice into the pool. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but you’re all in grave danger. The timeline has been corrupted. There is a man named Mordum who is coming to Peidra from the future. If he has his way, the ruin of Galacia, of all mankind will be assured. The dark fey will use the rift as a gate to invade our realm and shape the world in their own black image.
“We must stop him. I need to find a way to fix the rift in the timeline without eradicating an entire civilization. There must be a way. There is a vault deep below Peidra, ancient as the first people, we think. One of our descendants rediscovered it in the future and moved Arcalum’s most secret lore there.
“Danni, if I fail, you must find a way to repair the timeline. You must find a way to stop Mordum.”
The vortex began to slow and coalesce into a dense fog. Images and shapes began to form within the smoky depths of the pool. Elias thought he saw a figure beginning to materialize. “Danica!” he cried, but another voice answered him, echoing from all around him.
Elias, snap out of it! Wayfarer, can you hear me? You’ve fallen into some kind of trance. Come now. Come back!
The fog in the pool cleared even as Elias felt himself growing light and rising into the air. He struggled with every last scintilla of will in him to hold onto himself, to maintain his connection to the place in between worlds, but he felt himself stretched, pulled thin, until he was drawn through a luminescent membrane.
With an electric jolt Elias found himself back in his body in Teah’s chamber. “Blazes and Brimstone, I almost had her,” he cried.
“Who? What are you talking about? What happened?” Teah fired one question after the other, before canting her head to one side and studying him. “Wayfarer, you don’t look well.”
“I...I...I,” Elias began, but his voice grew thick, as did his thoughts. He felt a curious sensation, as if he were sliding sideways. The world rippled, as if bending in the reflection of a trick mirror. Elias blinked a few times and the world steadied. Teah was looking at him, her forehead knitted. “I, I can’t remember what I was going to say.”
Teah reached out a trembling hand and ran a finger along his upper lip. It came back red with blood. “Oh,” she said.
“Black luck,” Elias said. “I’ve a nosebleed.” He took a look at Teah’s expression and his stomach dropped. “What is it?”
“It’s the timeline, Wayfarer. It’s changed somehow. You have been thrust from your own time, but you are still subject to the laws of causality. Your memory of things has been altered. Mordum has made his first move.”
Chapter 30
Rift
“What did you see?”
Danica blinked sleep from her eyes and was confronted with an up-close view of Phinneas’s nose hair. “God’s blood, give me some space!”
“Oh, right,” Phinneas blustered. “Sorry.”
Danica rubbed her neck, which had stiffened when she dozed off in an awkward half-seated position in Ogden’s armchair. “Blast, I’ve drooled all over my tits!” Phinneas choked on a mouthful of air, and Lar said something, but she wasn’t listening. She felt odd, sluggish and wool-headed.
The brilliant Phinneas had suggested that she stay awake for an entire night to facilitate an easier entrance into the hypnotic state. She had to admit his unorthodox technique had some merit, for despite the fact that Ogden’s secret study was crammed with herself, the Archmagus, Phinneas, Lar, and Bryn, she managed to go down almost at once. The trouble was, she remembered only a wild cascade of geometric figures and surreal colors before she fell into a deep sleep. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Perhaps not,” said Ogden, “but you had plenty to say.”
Danica sat up. “Huh. Like sleep-talking?”
Ogden and Phinneas exchanged glances. “Not quite,” Phinneas said.
“I think you had better clarify,” said Danica.
Phinneas tugged at his nose. “You spoke with your own voice, but it was different, somehow.”
Danica felt the blood drain from her face. “What, like when I was possessed by Slade?”
“No, nothing like that,” Phinneas said.
“Your aura changed somewhat,” Ogden said, “but there was no evidence of a foreign entity, or spell of any kind. It’s like...” Ogden’s arboreal eyebrows drew together, hooding his eyes, as he tried to find the right words. “It’s like you channeled some magic with which we are unfamiliar.”
A half-smile played across Danica’s lips. “It would seem that the slumbering mind has as yet untold capabilities.” Ogden and Phinneas exchanged another look and Danica rolled her eyes. “You two are as transparent as two old gossips playing at poker! What are you on about?”
Ogden shrugged. “Nothing really. Only that these new disciplines you are exploring are different from the usual hypnotic and arcane techniques with which we are familiar. We are wary, that’s all.”
“I have to agreed,” said Lar, who made a poor show of trying to lean casually against the wall.
“You too? You’re as bad as Elias!”
“It’s my job to watch out
for you until Elias comes back,” Lar said.
“God’s teeth,” said Danica, “you’re serious.”
“For my part,” said Bryn. “I agree with Danica.”
Danica crossed her arms. “Thank-you.”
Bryn held up a hand. “Not that I don’t think the old coots don’t have a point.” She sighed. “The thing is, whatever is happening here, it most assuredly is unnatural. And I’m fair certain that if we don’t figure it out, we’re all going to be damn well out of luck anyhow. So, we’ve little choice but to take whatever path is available to us.”
Phinneas looked to Ogden, who shrugged. Phinneas produced a small leather-bound journal. “I recorded your remarks while you were under.” The doctor cleared his throat. “The timeline has been corrupted. The rift must be repaired. Ether destabilized.” Phinneas flipped the page. “Mordum...Mordum is coming.”
“Then your voice changed,” Phinneas said. His attempt to affect a nonchalance he didn’t feel was transparent to Danica. “You said, Danni, if I fail, you must find a way to repair the timeline. You must find a way to stop Mordum.”
“Your voice was not your own,” Lar said. Phinneas shot him a withering look, but Lar returned his stare with a stone-faced cool. “It’s true. The time has come to stop keeping things from each other.”
“Agreed,” said Danica. “No more secrets.”
“Me first,” said Bryn. Her eyes studied the far wall lazily, but a slight tremor in her hand betrayed her. “My mind is playing tricks on me. I’m having strange dreams. Sometimes I fall into a daydream. Forget where I am. My memory is spotty at times.”
“It must have something to do with your close proximity to the vortex,” said Ogden.
Bryn snorted. “You think?” When Ogden’s eyebrows shot up she was quick to apologize. “I’m sorry, Oggie. There’s more to it though. I have this feeling I can’t shake that things have changed, that something is out of place.”
Danica grunted. “I know the feeling. I felt the same last autumn when Slade the ghost came calling. I only wish I hadn’t kept it to myself. You’ve more stones than I, lady.”
“You’re not crazy, Bryn,” said Phinneas, “and neither were you, Danica. Something beyond our knowing has affected you.”
“If the fabric of the ether has been warped, it very likely could have changed our world somehow,” said Ogden. “It makes sense; what doesn’t is why you seem to be the only one with a hypersensitivity to it.”
“I’ve thought on that,” said Bryn. She put both feet on the floor and leaned forward. “What if I’m the one that caused the vortex, the rift in the ether? Maybe some part of me remembers how it was before things went south.”
Ogden shrugged his eyebrows. “That has occurred to us, but it seems unlikely that you would have had access to the necessary Arcanum to create such a rift even by accident. To be frank, you don’t have the access to the kind of power that it would take to actually warp the fabric of the ether.”
“And what of Elias’s disappearance?” asked Danica. “We must conclude that his vanishing has something to do with the vortex.”
“So you think Elias created it?” Lar asked.
“That, or he was involved somehow,” Danica replied. She sighed. “If only he were here.”
“It does seem likely that finding Elias is tantamount with unraveling this puzzle,” Ogden said.
“Then our course is clear,” Danica said. “We have to find some inkling of what this lost art of time magic is, and I have to go deeper yet to try to find my brother.”
“That makes two of us,” said Bryn.
“Let’s try the other two ideas first,” said Phinneas. “I trust I needn’t remind you of your last experience with hypnosis, Princess.”
“Hardly,” said Bryn, a guarded expression stealing over her features, “but timidity may not be a luxury we can afford any longer.”
“We’re agreed then,” said Danica. “Back to Arcalum.”
Lar pushed off the wall and adjusted his sword-belt. “This time I’m coming with.”
“That’s sweet,” said Danica, “but you may find more fruitful endeavors at the Marshal Barracks.”
“We’re not going to separate off palace grounds again,” said Lar. “And that’s all I’ll say about that.”
Danica arched an eyebrow. “Very well, Acting First Marshal. Lead the way.”
“Phinneas and I will remain here,” said Ogden. “We’ve some colleagues from Arcalum specialized in warding magic coming to examine the vortex. We are going to see what we can do to contain this anomaly.”
Lar adjusted his duster. “Be careful, you two.”
Ogden and Phinneas exchanged a bemused look. “Why yes, Marshal, we shall make every effort to do just that,” said Phinneas, but to his credit he kept a straight face.
Lar nodded and swept from Ogden’s study with Danica and Bryn on his heels. They had put not fifty paces behind them when someone called out Lar’s name. The clacking of riding boots echoed down the hall as the trio went silent and turned about. A man in marshal leathers approached with long, quick steps.
Lar squinted down at him. “Is that you, Oberon?”
“Yes, Acting First Marshal, Sir,” said Ronald Oberon as he pressed a fist to his heart in salute.
Lar grunted. He remembered well the scrawny youth who had been the first to pledge his service to Galacia, and Elias, after they had taken back the capital. Hell, the entire court remembered. Few could have expected to see a son of House Oberon swear allegiance to the Marshal Corps, and its First Marshal. Since his oath last autumn, Ronald had filled out. It would seem the young noble had taken his oath sincerely.
“Have you grown taller since I last saw you?” Lar asked.
Ronald smiled. “I think it’s the boots.”
“And the hat—I wouldn’t have thought that it would fit on the head of an Oberon,” said Bryn, but her easy smile took the sting out of the jibe. Truth be told, Ronald’s gesture last fall had touched her, and he had been one of the most vocal supporters of the Marshal Corps, and Elias, since he had taken his oath.
Ronald returned her smile. “It has proven something of an adjustment, Princess, but I find it is a life to which I am better suited. My tongue, and my constitution, couldn’t keep up with the family trade of dissembling and drinking all the live-long day.”
“What is it that I can do for you, Marshal?” asked Lar.
Ronald’s expression became serious. “I was touched by the way you honored Jonsey, and I’m not the only one. He was well-loved in the barracks.”
“Thank-you,” said Lar, who shifted on his feet, a tad uncomfortable under the praise.
“My fellow Marshals and I wish to honor him as well.”
“I can hardly think Jonsey could hope for a better memorial than he received,” said Danica.
“No, Sir Lady Duana,” said Ronald.
Danica shot him a wry smile. “Ronald, call me Danica.”
“Yes, thank-you, Danica,” said Ronald. “We had something else in mind other than a memorial. I and some of my fellows wish to volunteer to help guard the palace against this new threat. The men know that this business, whatever it is, has taken First Marshal Duana. We also know that the Redshields are running double shifts with the need for all the extra security.”
Lar looked at Ronald for a few beats, painfully aware than he knew woefully little about palace or military protocol. Still, Blackwell was a decent, approachable sort, and he figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. “I can you see you’ve put some thought into this.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“It would do the Marshal Corps good for there to be a little more brown around the palace,” said Bryn.
“Agreed,” said Lar. “You’ve done well, Ronald. I’ll bring this up with Blackwell at once.”
“Rumor is that Ronald has been something of the de facto leader of the Marshals in your and Elias’s absence from the capital, even though the crown or guard hasn’t set up any ki
nd of ranking system yet,” said Bryn.
“You flatter me, princess,” said Ronald.
Lar studied the red-haired noble and thought on what little he knew of Marshal traditions and ranks from having peppered Padraic Duana with questions when he and Elias were boys. “Is that a fact? Well, then, I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“Congratulations?” asked Ronald.
Lar nodded. “On your promotion to Lieutenant.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” Danica joked, adding an elbow to Lar’s ribs for emphasis.
An eye-crinkling grin erupted on Bryn’s face. “I believe he just did.”
Ronald’s mouth dropped open momentarily before he remembered himself. He stood up tall and squared his shoulders. “Thank-you, Sir. I will not let you down, Sir. Do you have orders for me, Sir?”
Lar sat back on his heels. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“It seems that you two have much to discuss,” said Danica. “Perhaps you should let Bryn and I go about our project alone.”
“We discussed this,” said Lar. “No one goes it alone off palace grounds.”
“First Marshal, may I make a suggestion?” asked Ronald.
Lar turned his glare to the newly appointed lieutenant. “Go ahead.”
“You can easily appoint a couple of our best swords to escort Lady Duana and the princess. The men would literally fall over each other to have the honor of guarding First Marshal Duana’s sister.”
Danica’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I need guarding?”
Ronald flushed, but Lar belayed him with a raised hand. “No, no,” he said around a smile, “Lieutenant, I think that’s a damned capital idea.”
Chapter 31
Snared
Good, thought the mage.
Duana had escaped his captors, and even now was making his way toward him, toward the Wandering Isle. He had done well to put his trust in Leosis.
Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 26