Marcius followed her line of vision. His leather pouch was aglow. The amulet! At some point he must have tucked it into his pouch. "It is nothing," he lied, feeling guilty at his deception.
The vulnerable woman was gone in that instant. "Is that why you did something as stupid as wandering in the Myst with no aleare?"
Marcius's mouth moved, but no response came out. She pushed him away. "You foolish human! You got it from that thing didn't you? I risked my life chasing dragon teeth for you!" she reverted to Elvish at this point, stringing together words so rapidly and with such vehemence that Marcius shrank physically back from her.
Come to me. . .
He jerked his head up. What was that?
Come to me. . .
The amulet was once again calling. Should he listen? As if to answer for him, the glow dimmed and fathomless shadows began to form on the edges of the Myst. He grabbed Selene's hand, ignoring her protests. He could feel them closing in with hungry open maws. There wasn't time to think, and there wasn't time to rationalize.
There was only time to act.
He trusted his gut, the feeling deep inside, and as they ran, the glow became brighter, banishing the nameless beasts that waited beyond the white curtain. At first he thought it was an illusion, but the Myst began to recede, becoming lighter and the chill was replaced by an alien humidity. It was heavy with unknown scents.
Marcius had the feeling he wasn't in Selenthia, but he continued to run, pushing himself beyond what he thought he was capable of. Selene, thankfully, had stopped struggling and was now running with him.
He realized what he had done wrong. The amulet was guiding him, leading him, but if he stopped, so would the protection. It must have been the reason why those beasts were even able to see him for brief moments. The amulet was showing him the alternative. It had an agenda. . . Velynere's agenda. He had been a fool to accept the elven mage's proposition.
Still, he'd rather be a living pawn than a dead free man. He could work on the former later.
Chapter 27
Marcius knew he had arrived when the white haze fully lifted. The amulet roared its approval. Marcius went down the steep hill, every jarring step sending waves of pain up his side. He must have hurt himself from that fall earlier, but he kept going, trying to put the maximum distance possible between him and the edges of the Myst. Selene was as agile as ever, despite her injury, and she finished well in front, breathing calmly.
"What is this place?" Selene whispered, echoing Marcius's thoughts. They stood on a massive courtyard, broken and beaten, scarred by time. Fallen piles of bricks and mortar littered the area like children's toys, while twisted vines and other vegetation scrambled over everything else in a tangled haphazard mess.
In the center, a single circular tower stood defiantly despite the large chunk of wall missing from its side. The top was pointed, like a triangle, the fallen pieces arranging themselves along the top spire in the crude facsimile of a grinning smile, complete with missing teeth.
"I'm not sure. But it's safer than staying out here," Marcius said once he caught his breath.
Selene shook her head. "It would be wiser for us to stay here. There is no Myst. We can safely wait until morning here in the courtyard. There is no point for us to go into those ruins. We do not know what the place is, nor what could be there waiting for us."
The amulet sang, filling Marcius's mind with images of promises, whispers of barely contained power. Desire tickled the edges of his consciousness, denying the elf's words. "There's something here, I know it," he found himself saying, his mouth taking a life of its own. "I've come too far to just let it die here."
Her hand came around, knotting itself in his collar as she dragged him down until they were eye to eye, "Are you blind as well as dumb? I was meeting no Elders today. I was called away on a false report, and it was only the feeling that something was going on behind my back that I came back in time to realize that you were gone. That abomination got my spirit beast killed!" Her eyes became distant. "As a child I waited in fields at night, braving death to perform the ceremony, to prove my right of leadership, hoping against hope that one would answer my summons. They are, in a way, the symbol of our authority. And-," she paused, swallowing back a sob, "And he was my only true friend that I've had here. I gave it up to do my duty, to save you, and this is how you pay me? Risking your life further?"
Marcius rocked back on his heels. He didn't know! How much had he done because of lack of knowledge these past ten days? He heard these words before, from a different mouth, with the same exasperation. Hadn't Alicia said the same thing to him?
Help me. . .
The amulet was merciless, bombarding him with images of powerful figures, men and women who stood at the fount of magical prowess.
This can be you. . .
Memories flooded forth: his father laughing at some hidden joke, Antaigne's early morning blustering, Lian clapping him on the back in praise, his Master's table shaking from chuckles as he told stories from when he was a child. . . They passed by so rapidly that he only got brief glimpses. Finally, it ended abruptly on the blank stare of Lian in the hospital, his mind shattered.
What about them. . . How has the world paid you. . . ?
"Marcius are you okay?" he heard Selene's voice from far away. She sounded concerned, a trickle of fear creeping into her voice. She said his name. That pleased him.
Everything exploded.
❧ ❧ ❧
"You play with elements beyond your ken, nether wraith."
Velynere didn't look up from the basin he was hunched over, only acknowledging the intruding presence in his chambers with a slight nod and grunt. "Is that not the nature of all things? Always moving forward on the shoulders of discoveries and knowledge of things we barely understand?"
"Perhaps," the elderly woman shuffled closer, peering with her hooded face over the basin. Inside, the liquid swirled violently, churning like boiling water. "You might kill him."
He snorted, "I am too practiced for such a thing. He just needs to be guided."
"Do not damage him," she warned. "Or I'll remove the last thing that keeps your meager existence tolerable. I did not risk everything that I have in order for him to be killed in this thin plan to get him to the catalyst."
Velynere's lips pursed, but his voice was steady and reasonable. "This plan will get him to the catalyst. And as payment you will -"
"Weaken the imprisonment around you, yes, yes." The wizened woman said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. "There is something that doesn't make sense. I know you've had the time to weaken the bindings, if you concentrated these last long years on just that. Why make such a demand if it was a problem you could solve yourself?"
She paused, as if thinking. "Unless it was something you had no interest in. What would possess an immortal creature, an unnatural abomination, to help, to make a pact with that which he hates the most?" Velynere didn't say anything, so after a few moments, the woman continued in a voice that indicated that she knew exactly why it was so, "Know what I think? I think he is weary of the long years, that he wishes to make an impact on the threads of fate-"
"Fate!" Velynere scoffed, interrupting the woman. "There is no such thing. What we mistake as Fate is merely the unseen hand of people of power, people such as you."
The woman acknowledged his point with a nod. "Maybe, maybe not. Does it matter to pawn on the board who moves it? No, all it knows is the direction and the path. Perhaps Fate is merely controlling the possible branches of travel. Why does it matter to you? Do you wish to find a new path, a new board to move upon?"
"No, I wish to shatter it. Every pawn one day wishes to be a queen, remember that. Even board pieces dream of a path beyond that of black and white."
The woman frowned. "Knowing this, I should destroy you."
"And yet you won't," he responded with a smirk. "Because you need me. Need me to do what you cannot. Even one such as you has rules they must obey."
"When you do your end of the bargain and I remove the enchantments that bind you to this place, your familiar will come back. The corruption will begin again. You will die and come back as a mindless beast."
"When you have lived as long as I have, you'll learn that the alternatives to death are generally worse. Then again, you wouldn't know what it is to truly live, would you?"
Her frown deepened to a scowl. This dog did have teeth.
Selene managed to catch Marcius before he fell, and she gently lowered him to the ground. Her broken arm throbbed painfully at the simple action, but she paid it no heed. She felt his forehead, regarding the apprentice with concerned eyes. His forehead was deathly chill, and a thin film of sweat coated his skin.
Marcius's hands were clenched firmly around his head, his fingernails digging into his scalp as he rocked back and forth. She wasn't sure what was going on, only that he was in pain and that she didn't know what to do. Selene was a warrior, and when it came to battlefield injuries she was well versed in such things. She didn't know where to start, but she knew she couldn't leave him in such pain.
Marcius screamed. Hands flexing, convulsing, and half-reaching for his belt, a new spasm rippled through him. She followed his hands and her attention fell upon the pouch, glowing wildly. She stared at it for a moment. It was the instrument, the guiding hand, of that creature and it most likely was what was causing him the pain.