Shadowstrut

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  “And you,” she said. Her pale gray eyes bored into mine as she pulled her jet-black hair into a ponytail. “The Archive is closed for the evening, and KOS has been paused for your visit.”

  “That was generous,” I said. “Is he mellowing with age?”

  “Once you leave, it goes back into effect. No one will attack you while on Archive property, but I wouldn’t linger outside—accidents happen.”

  “I’m going to guess that’s a ‘no’ on mellowing?”

  “He’s in the office,” she said, glancing up, “waiting for you. Excuse me while I attend to some matters. Oh, and Grey?”

  “Yes?” I said, knowing what was coming…the warning. “I’m not here to settle anything.”

  “Don’t piss him off, and don’t break or burn anything.”

  “On my best behavior,” I said. “Promise.”

  “Don’t forget who you’re speaking to,” she said. “Your best behavior sucks.”

  I really needed to work on my social skills.

  She stepped out from behind the counter, and walked across the floor to a staircase leading down. She moved with a lithe grace that disguised a coiled lethality. It was like watching a tigress stalking prey—beautiful and terrifying all at once.

  The rumors about her being almost as powerful as Honor were well founded. An angry Rahbi was a lethal and formidable Rahbi. I shuddered at the memory.

  She had arrived at the Central Archive the same way Cole came to The Dive, escaping a past they no longer wished to live. I didn’t know what it was, and it wasn’t my place to ask.

  Some things were best left unasked.

  SIXTEEN

  I could sense him waiting for me.

  It only spoke to the power he possessed. Even with the defenses and runes in the Central Archive, I doubted Honor could hide even if he wanted to. He just bled off too much power.

  I pulled out Ziller’s book, and headed up the staircase next to the coffee shop. I left Koda at the desk, where she sat fuming. She was ensnared by a lattice that would take me days to unravel. Even then, I’d probably get it wrong. That kind of magic was tricky at best. I took what I thought was the safest and wisest course of action for her…and for me: I left her there, and went to see Honor.

  The second level of the Archive was reserved for rare books, which were sealed behind magically enhanced glass. If you wanted a rare book, it required either Honor or Rahbi to access the case, before escorting you to a sealed reading room. Several of the books were never allowed out of their cases due to age or risk to the reader.

  Honor kept some of the most dangerous and rare books inside his office. The book I wanted access to was located in a special area of the Archive. Books on dark magic and entities of the night, as they were called, were forbidden to most. The knowledge was volatile, dangerous, and easily abused. Considering the current state of our relationship, there was a good chance I was going to get a violent ‘no’ on this one. I hoped Ronin was right.

  I stood at the rune-covered door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

  “Come in, Grey,” a deep voice said.

  The door whispered open, inviting me in.

  My skin felt a slight burn as I walked past the threshold. “You’ve increased the defenses?” I asked, touching the exposed skin of my hand. It felt like a mild sunburn.

  “Can never be too careful,” Honor answered. “Knowledge is power, and power is always coveted.”

  “Good point,” I said. “Better safe than crispy.”

  The last time we’d conversed, we had almost killed each other. I’d been angry. Blinded by betrayal and loss, I had come to him to find a way to reverse the dissolution…to save Jade.

  I’d figured if anyone knew a way to reverse the spell, he would. He’d met me with the truth, I would discover later, and there was no undoing what I had done. I’d hated him. Blamed him for my mistake. Then I came to burn his books, convinced he was keeping the spell from me.

  I bought into the unstoppable force meeting an immovable object paradox, thinking I was the unstoppable force. He’d stopped me…cold. Rather than shred me into small, stupid, mage parts, he’d banned me from the Central Archive, promising to kill me on sight if I ever stepped near the building.

  “Indeed,” he said. “Ronin said you found something for me.”

  I had to remember to thank Ronin for this…if I survived.

  I stepped into the mid-sized office, pausing just inside the door. A large desk, carved from granite, dominated one side of the office. Sara Jay’s voice softly filled the room over the deep bass of Massive Attack, as she seduced me with a story about a dissolved girl.

  Honor’s OCD was in high gear as I looked around the office. Every wall held cases filled with books. All of them were protected by an intricate network of runes and fail-safes. No one was getting to those books…alive, at least.

  He was meticulous about order and organization. There were no books strewn about. “A place for everything, and everything in its place” was his mantra. Aside from the desk and the bookcases, his office was mostly empty space, except for some footstools to reach the higher shelves.

  I walked over and placed Ziller’s book on his desk, sliding it forward, and then stepped back. He never kept chairs for guests in his office. I remember asking him about that once. His response stayed with me to this day: “No one stays in my office long enough to sit.”

  I took another sip of my Deathwish as he narrowed his eyes at me and then looked down at the book. His eyes opened slightly, the only indication of surprise I would get.

  He rested a finger on the cover. “Where did you get this book?”

  “Ronin got it from Ziller,” I said, opting for the truth. Honor had an uncanny bullshit detector. “Thought you should have it.”

  “His idea or yours?”

  “After my last visit here, what do you think?”

  “Yet, you still risked your life to bring it to me. Thank you for being honest.”

  Like I said, uncanny bullshit detector.

  He put down the book he’d been holding and picked up Ziller’s. In all the years we’d known each other, I’d never seen him without a book in his hand or in a pocket.

  The same order and organization he applied to his office carried over into his appearance. Unlike most mages, who preferred suits, Honor leaned more toward the casual end of clothing. Jeans, a crisp black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and work boots made up his ensemble. He had let his hair grow out since we last spoke, but he kept the beard as stubble. It was like looking at university professor Gandalf.

  “Can you add that to your collection?”

  His deep brown eyes bored into me as he placed the book gently on the table.

  “When did you bond to it?”

  “To what?”

  “The blade keeping you among the living. You found a solution when I couldn’t.”

  “Wasn’t my solution,” I said. “This was a gift from Hades.”

  “Hades?” he asked. “Gave you a bloodthirsty blade designed to undo supernatural entities? Why would he do that?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Kuro kokoro kokutan no ken,” he said almost reverently, “is no ordinary sword. I can’t believe Hades would give it to you.”

  “Me either,” I said, “but here we are.”

  Honor shook his head. “If Ronin sent you, it must be dire. He knows our history.”

  “It is,” I said, my voice grim. “I need help.”

  “Let me see the blade,” he said. “I want to know how much damage you’ve done.”

  “Damage?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve bonded, which means it’s part of you,” he said. “Can you form it?”

  I extended my arm, and formed Darkspirit. The blade glistened in the light as the red runes pulsed slowly.

  Honor leaned back in his chair and stared at me.

  I placed it in front of him, on the desk, but he refused to touch
it.

  “That’s it,” I said, looking down at Darkspirit. “Goes by the name of Izanami—goddess of destruction and creation. Usually chatty as hell, but she’s quiet now.”

  “Shit, Grey,” Honor said, almost breathless. “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”

  As long I had known him, I’d never really known how powerful he was. Some said he was stronger than an Archmage. All I knew was that the Dark Council, NYTF, and all of the sects left him alone to oversee the Archive. It wasn’t because of his rugged good looks.

  This was the first time I’d seen fear in his eyes.

  SEVENTEEN

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to stomp on the fear that was brewing in my stomach. “It’s just a sword.”

  “That”—he pointed at Darkspirit—“is not just a sword.”

  “True,” I said. “It’s also a colossal hemorrhoid, but other than that, it’s a serviceable sword.”

  “I didn’t know things were so bad. You should’ve come to me.”

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t want this visit to go south, at least not before I got the information that I’d come for. I took another sip of Deathwish and counted to ten, making sure I got my breathing under control.

  I extended my hand, absorbing Darkspirit.

  “I did come to you, remember?” I made sure to keep the anger out of my voice. “You couldn’t help me then.”

  “You were asking for the impossible,” he said after a pause. “Entropic dissolutions can’t be undone. Even now, the sword isn’t undoing the damage, only preventing any further damage from occurring.”

  “It’s keeping me alive,” I said, clipping my words. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  “No, no, listen, I don’t want us to be enemies, Grey. You said you needed help. I take it it’s with the creatures roaming the streets at night?”

  “You ever hear of a ‘Mr. Dark’?”

  “Who gave you that name?”

  “Ronin, and he says it could be one of Fluffy’s names.”

  “Fluffy?”

  “Long story. This creature masked an entire area of the park until I was surrounded by rummers, and then unleashed a rummogre on me.”

  “Did it exhibit control of the rummers and this…rummogre?”

  “Yes, they were following its instructions, especially when it suggested they kill me.”

  Honor nodded, stood and stepped to one of his bookcases.

  “Try to remember,” he said, as he ran his finger along the spines of some of the books, “did it try to induce fear, or was it feeding on any fear already present? This is important.”

  I thought back to my encounter with Fluffy.

  “It tried to induce fear first,” I said. “Then it tried to find any fear I may have had. Neither worked.”

  He tapped his lip with a finger as he pulled out a book. “You’re dealing with something old and dangerous,” he said, looking up at me. “The creature you faced, if I’m correct, is called a Tenebrous.”

  “What is a Tenebrous?” I asked, never having heard the term before. “More importantly, how do I send it back to where it came from?”

  He opened the book he’d pulled from the shelf, and placed it on the desk. Gesturing, he said some words under his breath, and the white lattice around the book fell away. As he turned the pages, I leaned forward, trying to read the text, then gave up since it was written in runes I couldn’t decipher.

  “What is that written in?”

  “These are proto-runes,” Honor answered. “Some of the first runes ever created.”

  “And you can read them?”

  “Yes.” He held up a finger as he turned pages. I didn’t say anything else, as he had entered ‘librarian researcher’ mode. It was always this way when he studied something new or esoteric. The best thing was to let it run its course. “Here.”

  “I’m going to take your word for it.”

  He pointed to a section of the book.

  “Says here they are the originators of pavormancy.”

  “Makes sense,” I answered. “The whole ‘fear me’ thing was a dead giveaway.”

  “They inhabit dark mages, usually a pavormancer, but it can be any mage who operates by fear, inducing or harboring large amounts of fear.”

  “How do I stop it?” I asked. “Dispel the fear?”

  “Close. You need to dispel the darkness.”

  “What? Shine a flashlight at it?” I asked. “Can you be any vaguer?”

  “This is an old text. One second,” he said. “Says here, you need to unleash a soulblaze. That is the only light that can destroy a Tenebrous. Do you know what a soulblaze is?”

  “No,” I said, but something was pulling at the back of my mind. “You said inhabit?”

  “Yes, these creatures need a host,” Honor said, tracing the book with his finger. “They will hunt mages and attempt to take over their bodies. If the mage is too weak, the victim is usually killed, dying a horrible and terrifying death while facing their worst fears.”

  “This thing isn’t hunting mages,” I said. “It’s house hunting, looking for somewhere to call home.”

  “That’s an oversimplification, but yes, it’s looking for a mage to reside in and control.”

  “Why didn’t it work with me?”

  “Your bond is probably the only thing that saved you when you faced it,” Honor added. “It probed but found your sword had taken up residency. You were, in essence, occupied.”

  “I need to stop it before it settles in someone.”

  Honor shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. The text doesn’t say anything more besides needing a soulblaze, whatever that is.”

  I strangled my knee-jerk reaction to ask if he was being straight with me, and took another breath.

  “I thought you kept all the dangerous books in some other corner of the Archive?” I asked, glancing at the bookcases. “They all seem to be here.”

  “I used to, long ago, before a mage I knew smashed through my defenses, threatening to destroy some of them,” he answered. “Now I keep them close.”

  “Wise move,” I said, side-stepping the obvious reference to my younger, dumber, suicidal days. “I need two things.” I held up two fingers. “Can you find out how these things are created or summoned?”

  “I’d say summoned,” Honor answered. “Tenebrous are ancient, according to this text. No one is going around making one of them. What’s the second thing?”

  “How do I find out about a soulblaze?”

  “I’ll look in our older texts, but this is one of the oldest,” he said, pointing at the book he was reading. “If I were you, I’d try Aria.”

  “I’ll head there next,” I said. “Speaking of dangerous situations, I may need to go to Fordey Boutique. Are you still in contact with the Ten?”

  “You want to stay away from Fordey for a few years,” Honor answered, replacing the book on the shelf and then gesturing. A white lattice enveloped the spine. “They are dealing with some…situations.”

  “May not have a choice,” I said. “I think they have a warden bag.”

  “Unkeyed?”

  “I hope so. I don’t want some dead warden’s bag.”

  “If it’s unkeyed, bring it to me,” Honor replied. “I’ll place failsafes to cope with your current sword situation and add a few texts of defensive magic.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. “You know I never really apologized—”

  “No need,” he said. “Just don’t try to destroy the Central Archive…ever again.”

  “Does this mean the KOS is lifted?”

  “No,” he said. “Rules must be upheld. You used violence within our walls. You are the only person alive who has done that and lived to talk about it. Consider yourself fortunate.”

  “Can it be modified?” I asked, not relishing the idea of Archivists out to erase me. I had enough people in the ‘erase Grey’ fan-club. “How about a proximity ban? I t
ry to get into the Central Archive, feel free to ghost me?”

  “Speaking of which,” Honor began, “what made your cipher apprentice think she could get past our security? Doesn’t she understand the concept of nothing being something?”

  “I’m sure she does now,” I said. “Proximity ban?”

  “Actually, I’m considering enforcing it now,” he said. “Take your apprentice and reduce your proximity to me—let’s say to zero. If you need the Central Archive, I’ll have Rahbi place your apprentice on a provisional pass, provided she doesn’t try her cipher ability again. You…I suggest you don’t visit.”

  That was his way of saying yes, but I didn’t want to push it. Having Honor as an enemy would make my life much shorter.

  “Appreciate it,” I said. “Is she still in stasis?”

  He waved a hand. “She’s free,” he said. “Tell her if she tries to break in again, I won’t be so nice next time. Next time, I take the fans.”

  “I’ll let her know,” I said, turning to leave.

  “Grey,” he said, his voice serious, “Darkspirit is lethal, not just to your targets, but to you too. We need to have a longer discussion when you aren’t busy trying to save the city. In the meantime, try not to use it too often.”

  “That’s what I have Fatebringer for,” I said with a nod.

  He nodded back. “Rahbi will see you out.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Rahbi escorted us to the side door.

  “You don’t want to go out the front,” she said. “Snipers—who may or may not observe the temporary suspension on the KOS.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll bring the Lockpick around when I’ve dealt with this craziness.”

  Rahbi glanced at a scowling and embarrassed Koda.

  “She’s not bad,” Rahbi said, trying to cheer her up. “But our defenses are designed to stop everything. If you really want to learn how to get around security, come visit, and I’ll show you a thing or two.”

  “Why would you do that?” I asked. “She’s bad enough as it is.”