As Rith and Ky, surrounded by back packs and bedrolls, sorted through the gear the trio had brought, Trendel and Arik sat off to one side, while Arik described in detail Lyssa as she was while living. Lyssa, herself, remained a short distance away, looking at the two and listening to Arik.
“Yes, yes,” said Trendel, “she has the most beautiful hair, but what color is it?”
“Brown, just like her eyes,” said Arik, his back to Lyssa so that her current appearance would not influence his responses.
Ky took a moment to check the fire, where one of the pots they had recovered sat, the water within now beginning to a simmer. When it came to a boil, it would be used to sterilize the cooking and eating gear and the canteens they had recovered. Off to one side sat another pot, this one steaming and steeping tea.
“And her height?”
“The top of her head was just under my chin,” said Arik.
“No, Arik,” said Rith, coiling one of the ropes they had salvaged. “She is an inch or two taller than that.”
“But when I held her—”
“She would melt into you, just like I melt into Trendel.” Rith set the rope aside and took up the bow they had gotten for Arik and fitted it with one of the two well-waxed and yet-supple bowstrings they had found.
Trendel smiled and said, “Rith is about five inches shorter than me.”
Rith laughed and laid the bow by the quiver of arrows, next to the spare long-knives and a spear for Kane. “Five? No, no, love, more like three. Weren’t you listening? I melt into you. I relax. I almost cuddle. And that makes me seem shorter.”
“Hmm . . .” mused Trendel, clearly not believing.
“As you wish,” said Trendel. “How about her skin?”
“Flawless alabaster,” said Arik.
Ky hooted as she put aside the recovered flints and steels and tinderboxes, and began sorting through the coins and gems they had taken to pay for future purchases. “She has freckles across her nose. And I think there’s a birthmark. Sort of like a falcon on her hip.”
“Sparrow,” said Arik.
Lyssa moaned, and when they looked at her, she signed, then doubled over laughing; the sound she made was liken unto the rustle of leaves in the wind.
The others joined her.
Finally, “Age?” asked Trendel
Arik shrugged. “Mid twenties, perhaps.”
Ky looked at Rith, and smiled.
“Ah,” said Trendel.
“What did she say?” asked Arik, turning about to see.
“Mid twenties,” replied Trendel.
Lyssa frowned at him.
“My dear,” said Trendel, “not only am I a consummate lover, I am ever the diplomat.”
“What else do you need?” asked Arik.
Trendel looked at Lyssa and said, “Lyss, try to control your, um, tendrils, and dim your light and solidify as best as you can. I need to see your figure.”
Lyssa did as well as she could.
“Now turn sideways to me,” said Trendel, “I’d like to get your profile in mind.”
A moment later, Trendel said, “Thank you, Lyss.”
The seer concentrated and said a word and then cast a finding. His eyes widened in surprise. “Her body is not dead, nor is it alive.”
“What?” asked Arik. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.” Trendel looked at Arik. “I don’t understand it either. It’s an enchantment of some sort, I believe. I’ve never run across this before.”
“Perhaps it’s a Dark God enchantment,” said Ky.
“Another bloody test?” asked Rith.
“And where is she?” asked Arik.
“North, I think, but how far, I cannot say.”
“Then north we have to go,” said Arik.
Trendel nodded and then looked at Lyssa. “I’m sorry, Lyss, but that’s all I can see.”
“Is there a way to merge the two?” asked Arik, hope flaring in his heart.
“I don’t see how,” said Trendel. “I certainly don’t have that power.”
“Wait a moment,” said Rith. “If Arik is right and it’s the Black God’s doings, then we need to command Him to make her whole.”
“Using the red gemstone, I commanded him before,” said Trendel.
“But that jewel is no more,” said Ky. “It fell into the bottomless pit and exploded.”
“Even so, I remember the rune it held, and the words of power to command Him,” said Trendel.
“Then summon Him now,” gritted Arik. “Command Him to return Lyssa’s spirit unto her form.”
“Wait,” said Ky. “Remember what happened the last time you gave the Dark God a command: He destroyed the palace and we barely escaped that, and so He destroyed the demonworld. And when we came to, we were nearly killed by the wraiths, and Lyssa was trapped. And so I ask, Arik, is it wise to summon Him and give Him a command?”
Rith then glanced at Kane, the big man not yet awake. “Do you wish to charge in as would Kane?”
Trendel added, “Ah, yes, Arik. Remember what happened the last time you charged in. I mean, we got you out of the circle in time, but if I hadn’t been with you, you would have died on the spot. —Listen, my friend, when it comes to Lyssa, you need to be as rational as you are when commanding this skulk of Foxes.”
Arik’s breathing slowed, and he looked at Kane and then at Lyssa. Finally he said, “First we find Lyssa’s body, and if we cannot come up with a way to join her soul to her form, we’ll call upon the Dark God as a last resort.”
“Good,” said Trendel. Then he looked at Lyssa and said, “Now let’s see if we can find Arton’s spirit. If so, and if we can summon him, then Lyssa will have a companion in the ghostly deeds she does.”
“Wait,” said Rith. “Do we have the energy to maintain two specters?”
said Lyssa.
The Foxes in combination described Arton:
“Somewhere in his sixties,” said Ky.
“Thin and wiry build, tanned skin like rawhide,” said Arik.
“Grey eyes, burr-cut silver hair,” said Rith.
“A splendid thief,” added Arik.
“I think that might be enough,” said Trendel, “but I’d really like to see him.” Trendel looked to Arik and said, “Scoot closer to me, and I’ll see if I can pull his image from your mind.”
“Pull his image?” asked Arik.
“I’ll try to do a mental linkup.”
“Why didn’t you do that for Lyssa?”
“Because I would have gotten an idealized form of her from you, old man. Anyway”—Trendel pointed at Lyssa—“she is right there for me to see, though I needed her colors described.”
“Ah, right. Well then, why me this time? I mean, why not Rith or Ky?”
“Because Rith and I have a lover’s connection, and I’d turn into an emotional puddle. And Ky is a syldari, and, in a bassackward manner of speaking, I haven’t the lock to open that key. —No, it’s got to be you. And don’t worry, I won’t go rummaging about. I haven’t the desire nor the power to do so.”
Sitting directly across from Trendel, Arik hitched closer. The seer reached out and placed his hands on either side of Arik’s head and said, “Now close your eyes and concentrate with all your might on the image of Arton. See him in your mind’s eye.”
Trendel concentrated and spoke an arcane word and then closed his own eyes. Then he murmured, “Arik, I know she is always on your mind, but I said Arton, not Lyssa.”
After a moment, Trendel said, “Ah,” and then dropped his han
ds and opened his eyes and leaned back. He grinned and said, “You can return your thoughts to Lyssa, now, Arik.”
Arik opened his eyes. “Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
“Well . . . ? Can you do a finding?”
“I’ll try.”
Once again Trendel cast that spell . . .
. . . and in the air before them a vortex of spectral light began to manifest—pearlescent and glittery, glowing and luminous, starlight and shine and frost . . . all endlessly spiraling away into an unfathomable silvery whorl.
25
Five Months Before the Hearing
(Coburn Facility)
“Hiroko Kikiro’s temp is rising,” called Grace Willoby, “and Alice Maxon’s is falling.”
Henry Stein looked up from working on Hiroko and toward the central holo, where Lyssa’s golden tears fell down upon Ky.
“Damn,” said Drew Meyer, running a hand across his bald head, “but that was extremely clever. Not only the way Ky got Lyssa out from the circle—stepping through shadow, like that—but what Lyssa is doing now. I mean, who else would have thought of those things?”
“Ky was an idiot for risking that,” said Stein.
Alvin Johnson, holding a tray of hypos and vials asked, “Do we need the stims, doctor?”
“I don’t think so, but we’ll wait and see,” said Stein, glancing toward the medtech console and then at Alice’s and Hiroko’s rigs.
At the console, Grace waited till Stein looked away, then she gave a thumb’s-up to Alvin.
Both Alya Ramanni and Toni Adkins caught that gesture and breathed sighs of relief, and John Greyson used the sleeve of his monk’s robe to wipe tears from his eyes.
“I said it before and I’ll say it again,” said Billy Clay. “No wooden-headed dummies, these Foxes.”
“It did bear repeating,” said Sheila Baxter, high-fiving her fellow comptech’s hand.
In the holo, Ky finally regained consciousness, and both Stein and Johnson stepped back from the witches’ cradles.
And all stood or sat quietly and paid heed to what was going on in Itheria; and they watched as the Foxes went toward the barrow mound to gather some equipment to replace part of that which they had lost.
Toni said, “Good lord, if they follow through with what they’re talking about, I think they’re going to stumble into finding Arton.”
Greyson said, “Me, I’m worried about Kane. When I last spoke to Dr. Easely, he said mental problems are the most difficult to deal with. And by the time he recovered from his own psychological, um, problems, he offered to treat me, but I was well on the way to health.”
Stein shook his head. “You think so, John? Hah! Your mental state is still fragile and teetering on the edge. You are in need of a great deal of help. I mean, look at you, believing in souls and blubbering over every—”
“Shut up, Henry,” snapped Toni.
“I am merely telling the absolute—”
“Henry,” gritted Toni, “shut the fuck up.”
“Bah!” said Stein, but then fell into silence.
Toni turned to Greyson and asked, “John, what do you make of this-this result that Trendel got? —I mean, the two readings when he did a finding on Lyssa.”
“Spirit and body,” said Alya, though she had not been asked. “Ky had the right of it, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps it was a fluke,” said Billy, his tech console still reading all green, but for the direct communications to and control of Avery, which remained red.
“A fluke? Perhaps,” said Greyson. “Body and soul? I believe that’s more likely . . . though what they might do with that information, I can’t imagine. The fact that a person consists of both a body and a soul seems irrefutable, given what we are—”
“Irrefutable?” sneered Stein. “Bah! Just because Avery, in a VR adventure, shows us ghosts and spirits and the like is in no way proof of the duality of humankind. That’s a fiction of the game, and—”
“Look,” interrupted Drew. “Trendel is preparing to do a casting to find Lyssa’s body.”
Moments later, “What the hell does that mean?” asked Drew. “‘Her body is not dead, nor is it alive’? What the heck has Avery done?”
“Hush,” said Toni. “I want to hear what they are saying.”
Again they watched and listened, and they read the subtitles whenever Lyssa chimed in.
“My god,” said Toni, “what were the odds that they would on their own actually start the mission they were sent into VR to do? —They’re trying to find Arton.”
In the central holo, Trendel said an arcane word and gestured as if sending something forth—presumably a finding spell.
“What th—” blurted Drew.
“Vishnu!” exclaimed Alya.
“What the heck is that?” asked Billy, pointing, as a slowly turning silvery whorl formed in the Itherian air.
“Whatever it is,” said Toni, “we can only hope that it ultimately leads to Arthur.
“It already has,” said Greyson, gesturing at his console.
In Greyson’s holo and above the line of the silver spheroids denoting the six mental patterns Avery had sucked into himself, a seventh sphereoid flickered in and out, and when it stabilized long enough for the title to be read before vanishing again, beneath that mentality was a name. . . .
. . . Arthur Coburn, it read.
26
Itheria:
(Black Foxes)
As the slowly spinning silver whorl manifested, “’Ware,” cried Arik, rising to his feet and drawing his sword all in one fluid motion.
Rith sprang up and took silver daggers in hand, and Ky’s shadowsword seemed to leap magically to her grip, the syldari also on her feet.
Lyssa keened and moved forward, her hands outstretched, as if ready to drain the essence from the thing.
But Trendel, yet sitting, called out, “Hold! Somehow this apparition is related to Arton.”
“But the Dark God coiled and spun exactly like that,” gritted Arik.
“This manifestation is light, not dark,” said Trendel.
“It could be a trick,” growled Arik.
“Perhaps,” said Trendel, “yet it is what my finding brought.” He then addressed the silvery spiral. “Arton?”
But Ky called out, “Arda?”
And from the center point of the slow-turning whorl, an androgynous voice said, “Some know Me by that name.”
“Oh, Arda, if it is truly you, aid my love,” said Ky, gesturing toward Kane.
“That, I have already set in motion,” echoed the voice.
“Are you in fact Arda?” asked Rith.
“Instead, I think this be the Dark God in disguise,” said Arik.
“The Dark God has fled away for the nonce,” said the voice. “You were speaking of summoning and commanding Him, and He would not suffer such.”
“Yet, Arda, you came when Trendel cast his finding for Arton,” said Rith. “Why so, if I might ask?”
“Arton’s spirit is imprisoned,” said the entity, “and I would have you set him free.”
“Elsewhere,” replied the silvery manifestation, “though you must go to him, yet freeing him is not the primary goal. Yet the perilous journey will not be a simple one.”
“We’re going on a journey? Where?” asked Rith.
“As I said, elsewhere,” replied the being.
“If you are Arda,” said Arik, “restore Lyssa to her body.”
“The restoration of Lyssa must wait.”
“Why?”
“Much needs to be done ere that can happen, and you will need her in her present form to have even the slimmest of chances to prevail”
“What about Kane?” asked Arik, “Have you truly done something to heal him?”
The whorl stilled a moment, then said, “The Dark God filled Kane with dread, and he struggles mightily to heal himself, yet, given this reality, if left as he is, he woul
d be on the verge of death ere overcoming that which has been done to him. And so, I have indeed set in motion his swift recovery, for he must be hale for you to win the day.”
“Thank you, Arda,” said Ky.
“Why are you here?” asked Arik, yet suspicious, still on guard.
“Know that I struggle against the Dark God, but know this as well: He has the greater power. Yet know this, too: I have done my best to protect your talents; perhaps the Dark God cannot strip them away.”
“Strip them away?” blurted Rith. “Why?”
But Ky asked, “What would you have us do?”
“Aid me to defeat Him.”
Rith sighed and said, “Ah, that’s why He would strip them away.”
“You did before, but this time he is wary, and it will be most difficult. Now question Me no further, for none of you has the means to keep Him from comprehending. But know that I have a plan that He cannot fathom.”
The silvery whorl slowly spun, and none said ought until Trendel asked, “Why can I not know how far away Lyssa’s body lies? And why do I—”
“Hush, child,” said the being. “Neither Arton nor Lyssa are on Itheria nor even on this plane.”
“Not on this plane? Then how—?”
In that moment, Kane coughed, and opened his eyes.
Ky gasped and fell to her knees beside him. “Oh, Kane, Kane. . . .”
“What is it, mouse?” Kane embraced her. “There’s no need to cry. But Luba’s teats, I’m hungry as a—” Kane’s eyes widened as he discovered the whorl. “Wha-what by Krone’s teeth is that?”
“Arda, dear,” said Ky, weeping. “It’s just Arda.”
“Arda—the Itherian god? That Arda?”
“Yes, my love. That Arda.”
“And you say it’s just Arda? How many gods do you meet in a day to be so casual about it?”
“This is the only one,” said Ky, grinning, as Kane got to his feet; Ky stood as well, remaining at his side.
“Your healer’s awakening is what I have been waiting for,” said the entity. “Be not surprised by what you see, and the knowledge you gain.”
Shadowprey: A Black Foxes Adventure Page 13