“The sheriff told me von Nighburg cursed the waters of the cove at one point,” Roy said, taking them out over the waves. “You know a lot of the Sanna’s dousing magic, right? Can you check ocean waters for magic? Or is it something you can only do with rivers and underwater reservoirs?”
“Not from up here,” Proud Elk said. “And I have never tried a dousing on such a large body of water. Back before your people pushed mine out of the place you call the Lakeshires the elders say we could douse the Lakes. But I’ve never done such a thing and I don’t know if the ways are different than what I’ve learned.”
Roy nodded, shifting his attention to the lighthouse itself. He’d never actually been in one but from the outside, without one of Warwick’s candles to reveal anything, it looked much like any other lighthouse he’d seen before. “In that case let’s take a closer look at this thing. You watch the signal lamp and reflector and-”
A flare of light from the docks caught his attention. In front of him Proud Elk also shifted to look that way, his normally stoic expression suddenly apprehensive. “Is that Silver Glass?”
“Looks like his kind of magic,” Roy said. “But you’ve seen it before and I think you’re feeling something off about it too, am I right?”
“I’m afraid you are, Bright Coals. I think we must leave the tower for now and ensure that all is well with him.” As he spoke he readied his club and a collection of herbs, woven bead talismans and other magic tools of his people. “And hurry. I fear not all is well in that man’s village.”
Roy adjusted the skiff’s helm, putting the skiff in a tight turn and pouring on the speed so that the small, aluminum craft swung about like a paper in a breeze. They shot over the water as fast as Roy dared to go. In truth the docks were so close to the lighthouse that they couldn’t run up to anything like the skiff’s top speed but given the unknowns of the situation it wasn’t wise to approach that quickly anyways. Instead he ran up to the speed of a fast horse and covered the distance to the docks in just over a minute. They found a scene from nightmares.
Johan’s magic had gone haywire, two of the mirrors askew and sending beams of solid light into the air at odd angles and the remaining two beams crossing on the twisted, barely recognizable body of a ten year old boy. Hank’s body looked like giant hands had grabbed it by the top and bottom and twisted it around twice. His arms and legs pumped and churned around the torso at unnatural angles. From the kind of damage he had sustained the child should have been dead but Roy could see his eyes rolling and fingers twitching.
Something was laughing with a wild, shrieking voice that felt like dead iron filings burning their killing paths up and down his back. In the strange beams of light from Johan’s mirrors strips of flesh full of grinning, gaping mouths hung in the air. It was like looking through windows to a world of malicious glee. Roy dropped the skiff to the ground and left it there with the hull quietly sizzling on the ground. He yanked his falcata free of its sheath as he vaulted out of the skiff, his bag of supplies slung over one shoulder.
There was something terrible in the laughter. Some kind of empty, devouring will that sapped every feeling that welled up to him in response to what he saw. For years Roy Harper had traveled the West, disposing of the worst humanity had to offer. In that time his ambition and search for justice had cooled in the face of the daunting task and a certain cynicism and anger had taken root. The sight of Tanner’s nephew writhing, suspended in the air like that brought all those emotions to the fore. But as he took the first few steps towards the boy that changed.
He looked so silly, spinning like that, with nothing to hold him up but a few beams of light and the laughing voices that leaked out of them. How was he supposed to take that seriously? Roy found himself coming to a stop, a strange feeling working up through his chest. His shoulders shook once. Then his throat spasmed as his face contorted a bit. Then a deep, stomach clenching laugh erupted from his lips like a fish, caught on a brazen hook, being dragged from the depths of the ocean.
In his blood and in his bones small reserves of fire, trapped in nearly invisible flecks of sulfurite that had lodged in his body a decade ago flared to life. The traces of magic rushed to his mind and burned away the laughter there. Just like that his equilibrium returned and his rage, his bitterness, his purpose and his hope rushed back in and filled him to overflowing.
Roy snarled and ignited his falcata, the roaring flame drowning out the insidious laughter. He’d never been happier to hear the whispers of fire in the back of his mind even though he still didn’t trust them. With his mind clearer he could take in more than the horrific thing at the center of the square. Johan was wrestling with his lightbox, trying to wrench it out of the teeth of one of the strange mouths that peeked through the beams of light. Whatever they were they were real enough to be dangerous. The yew in Brandon’s body had asserted itself and now covered him from head to toe, with the toes turned to roots that let it dig deep into the ground. His face was still visible but from the grimace on his face he was struggling not to burst into laughter. He’d wrapped an arm around his sister’s waist and she leaned heavily against him, her mouth open in a wordless song that either didn’t carry over the cackling rift in space or resonated at a pitch humans couldn’t hear. Only Warwick was on the ground. He huddled over a single candle that spluttered and flared wildly, threatening to sear the hands he cupped around it.
Outside of the thing fighting Johan, Roy couldn’t see anything like an active threat to deal with. As he traced the beams of light a beaded loop dropped around his neck, dampening the sound of the strange cackling. Beside him, Proud Elk pointed at the mirrors. “You must destroy the glass, Bright Coals,” he yelled, straining to be heard over the laughter. “It’s become a window into something else!”
Roy wasn’t sure how he knew that but for the moment he was willing to trust the Sanna man’s intuition. Instead he dropped the tip of his weapon downward, letting the fat, heavy tip of the blade fill with flame before he drew it back and catapulted the fireball towards one of the mirrors. His aim was a little off so Roy reached out with his mind and tweaked the projectile towards its target. He followed it in just to be sure.
Whenthe fireball hit the small pane of silver and glass dead center it shattered from the heat, spitting slivers all over the ground. As he withdrew his attention from the flame it brushed up against something. At first Roy thought he’d found the connection between light and fire that Johan used though his sunstone. But the thing was far too vast. For a brief moment Roy felt like he’d brushed against an Avatar of the Primeval Fire, a creature so foundational to the universe that it permeated the entire cosmos. He’d seen such things before.
However this wasn’t one of them, although it felt similar in terms of size and scope. From his own, human position Roy couldn’t tell much about whatever it was other than it moved lazily, less like a flame’s insistent whisper and more like an amusing dream. What’s more, Roy somehow sensed it was pure power. Like flame, it was all force with no vessel at all and, by its very nature, it found all attempts to pour it into a vessel as amusing as they were futile. How do you contain a dream? The very notions are antithetical.
It was very tempting to linger on the connection but Roy new he couldn’t. It wasn’t until he tried to come back to the moment that he realized he was lost. He was lost, unsure of where he was or if what was around him was even real. Sight didn’t really apply to what he was experiencing, only his instinctive connection to the Fire gave him an sense of the distorted reality he’d wandered into.
That, and his ears. They picked up a low, steady, wordless tune sung by a dusky, feminine voice that reminded him of a cool, shady forest in the northern Lakeshires. As soon as the thought crossed his mind Roy found himself standing under a mighty stone dolmen. The wild, overgrown roots of a huge yew tree covered the ground around him and its branches loomed low overhead, the leaves turning brown as it slowly died. Roy’s breath caught in his throat as he realized where he was.
Two stone megaliths stood upright to his right and left, holding a third slab ten feet above the ground. It was one of a dozen such structures that formed the Morainehenge. It looked exactly like it had when the 43rd Infantry marched under it at the end of the Siege of Martin Southwick. Roy picked his way forward, carefully stepping over the roots. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen strange things in the middle of a theoretically pitched battle against the supernatural. Tetzlani creatures, in particular, seemed to love this kind of thing.
He was aware, in the back of his mind, of the sound of shattering glass and yelling voices but focusing on them right now was likely to prove counter productive. He did notice that the ground shook underfoot when he heard the smashing sound, though. Lingering too long was probably a bad idea.
“Now where did this come from?”
The question drifted out of the center of the henge. Roy recognized the voice, too, and picked up his pace as much as he could without getting tangled in the roots. “Warwick? Is that you?”
“Harper?” Actually, the voice didn’t sound distant at all. As soon as it reached him Roy found himself standing next to the sheriff by the trunk of the mammoth yew tree that had once been the Master of the Morainhenge. “What’s going on here?”
“I think we’ve come across an aspect of the First Elements,” Roy said. “I brushed up against it while manipulating a fire and found myself here. It’s not a part of the Primeval Fire, that I’m certain of, but it sure feels like some kind of magical power rather than a vessel. So my money is on-”
“It’s not the First Elements,” Avery said, his hand resting on the trunk of the tree and his face pensive. “Whatever it is thinks and only those things that are truly alive think. The First Elements are powerful but they’re not really aware like living things are, they just exist and push towards their own ends.”
“What do you mean they’re not alive? Haven’t you heard of the Mated Pair?”
“They’re no longer truly elementals,” Warwick said, resting his head against the treebark like he was praying. “When the Lord in Raging Skies married the Lady in Burning Stone they created a balance of all four elements that transformed them into a single, living unit. That’s why Arthur gave them a name as a united deity. But the aspects of the First Elements don’t truly think they just seek their aspects and express them.”
Roy walked up to the tree and examined it, wondering if it fascinated the sheriff for the past it represented or as part of their present predicament. “Okay, I don’t fully understand that gobbledygook. Even assuming you’re right about it all, how do you know for sure this thing out here is a real, living thinker and not just an elemental good at faking it?”
“Would you understand the nuance if I explained it?” Warwick asked.
“Probably not,” Roy admitted grudgingly, studying the yew tree. He wondered if it was native to the place they stood or if it was some kind of illusion or figment created by the presence they’d brushed against. “But it might be a hint for how to get out of here and I’m willing to take any chance I can get.”
Warwick jerked away from the tree as the sound of another mirror smashing echoed through the henge. “I take your point. How did you get in here?”
“I threw a fireball at one of Johan’s mirrors since Proud Elk thought they were serving as windows for your living thing to look in at us.” Roy jerked a thumb in the direction he came from. “I’m not sure how it got me here but the mirror’s gone so I don’t think we can get out that way. How’d you get in?”
“I lite a candle of telepathy and got drawn in to the thing’s mind through that magic.” Warwick studied the treeline of the forest outside the dolmen. “Interesting. When we first met I tried to pick up on your thoughts using one but you’re a firemind. I’m not certain but I think the concentration of magic in your ego allowed your mind to burn off the attempt.”
“I’ve never thought of myself as an egoist.”
“It’s a philosophical term, Harper,” the sheriff said, turning in a slow circle as he spoke. “My point is your sense of who you are combined with your gifts allows you to piggyback on the candle’s magic and walk the mindscape. Perhaps the mirror had something to do with it but I don’t think so.”
“Well regardless, if I got in by mirror we can get out that way, so long as they haven’t shattered them yet.” The ground shook and another crashing sound filled the air.
“Dust and ashes,” Warwick muttered. “You’d the mirrors breaking would cause the world to get dimmer since van der Klein wouldn’t have ways to send light in from outside. This place must have its own light source.”
“Or maybe we’re just thinking about seeing too much,” Roy replied. As the last tinkling sounds of glass faded he caught a snatch of the tune he’d first heard when he found the henge. “Did you hear that, sheriff?”
“No, what?”
“Cassandra is calling us. Or perhaps just you, doubt she realizes I’m here.”
Warwick gave him an incredulous look. “Harper, assuming this isn’t an illusion created via an unwise use of telepathy and we are actually somewhere else then what makes you think a stone singer can even reach us?”
Roy’s memories flashed back to his first meeting with the Fairchilds, when he’d watched Cassandra guide a whole army of ghosts into the afterlife. “She can call to the dead and send them on to their final resting place, sheriff. Whether this is an illusion or we were pulled somewhere via your candle magic we can’t be further from her than eternity is. If she can send people to eternity then she should be able to call us back.”
The ground underfoot bucked and suddenly he and the sheriff were born aloft on the back of a skytrain car that erupted out of the ground. The change was dizzying to watch but Roy found he kept his feet quite easily. “What’s this?” Warwick seemed less surprised by the sudden change in venue. “Is it interested in your memories now?”
“Like I said, Miss Fairchild is calling us.” Roy struggled but failed to keep a testy note out of his voice. “C’mon, last time she was at the back of the train.”
He started picking his way along the roof of the train car, occasionally looking over the side for signs of the ghost army. Sure enough they turned up, too, as Roy passed the train’s halfway point. At first Roy thought they were passive figments like the tree and train were, scenery that didn’t feel like it had any effect on what was happening. But as he crossed the gap between train cars he heard a familiar voice calling to him.
The face of Samuel Jenkins when whipping by in the crowd of ghosts, moving so fast Roy wouldn’t have spotted it if he hadn’t heard the specter calling his name. So far he’d been taking the usual amount of care in navigating the train’s roof. When he spotted the ghost moving past he put on a burst of speed, crossing the vehicle’s roof at a dead sprint as he tried to catch up. Behind him, Warwick sputtered in surprise and poured on the speed.
“Harper!” Jenkins’ voice rose over the sounds of the train and the strains of Cassandra’s song. “Sorry I’m not there! Turns out death isn’t at all what I expected it was.”
“What in the name of hearthfire are you doing here, Jenkins?” Roy gasped, leaping between the train cars.
“There’s power in any oath, Harper,” the ghost replied, almost laughing. “Doesn’t matter what you swear it on. So long has the man has honor he gives the words a power we can’t begin to understand. Didn’t think I was a man of honor but I guess I was. At least enough of one to keep my word, at least indirectly, dead or not.”
“I don’t need a ghost to help out again, Jenkins!”
“You have to understand the Voices, Harper!”
“What voices?”
“You wouldn’t know their name and if I use it they’ll hear!” For the first time since he’d seen the specter Roy heard real fear in the ghost’s voice. “You’ll understand soon enough. Be careful not to listen too much, like that blackguard did, but understand them! At least then you can avoid their grasp. Hold them off and he’ll uphold the deal!”
His mad sprint brought Roy to the end of the train and he’d been paying so much attention to Jenkin’s ghost he didn’t see it coming. One moment he was running on the train. The next moment he was tumbling through a strange world full of smoke, the solemn strains of Cassandra’s song the only thing he could see or hear clearly. Then there was a final crash.
Roy dropped to the ground, the shards of the last mirror scattered across the cobbles of the square in front of him. He was back in Riker’s Cove. The strange bars of light full of laughing mouths were gone and Johan was fumbling with his light box as he locked it closed. Proud Elk poked at the remains of the mirrors in suspicious fashion. Brandon was slowly pulling the yew back inside himself while Tanner helped Sheriff Warwick to his feet.
The body of the boy in the prism lay on the ground, twisted and broken but still gasping out wheezing chuckles every other breath. Roy struggled back to his feet and staggered over to the body, carefully turning it over with the toe of his boot. Glazed eyes stared up at him, full of madness, its jaw flopping open in a grotesque, open mouthed laugh. Tanner helped the sheriff over to look at it. “Clara,” Tanner muttered, “I’m so, so sorry.”
Roy wordlessly offered the man the hilt of his weapon. Tanner stared at it for a moment, disgust and pity warring across his face. Finally he shook his head and turned away. It was a decision Roy could respect but it didn’t change what needed doing so he cut the boy’s head off and covered the corpse with his jacket.
When the light in the square faded peace returned to the town again. As if the passing of danger sent out a call, what seemed like every person in town came running to the scene of the disaster. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people poured out of buildings towards the center of the commotion. None of them looked up towards the lighthouse.
There was no one to see the shadow of a man, watching them with a scowl from the top. He pounded the wall with his fist once then grabbed up a gleaming staff and stalked down into the tower, muttering to himself. Perhaps the men of the Cove would have relished the victory if they knew they’d won it. Perhaps not.
However, the statue of Jonathan Riker saw it.
Nate Chen Publications 