On Earth

Ben had never been much of a gamer. A bit of GTA and Resident Evil at a friend’s house as a teenager, a bit of Fantasy Football here and there, a brief stint at the chess club at school, mostly because he’d fancied himself as the kind of person who played chess rather than having any particular liking for it, but these days the only game he consistently played was his daily Wordle.

Now he was staring at his level sixteen mage in Spiralia Online.

Why hadn’t he just got down to it and acted as the bait himself the first time? Why had he been so stupid as to get Josh involved in … whatever the hell this was?

He’d succeeded in getting one thing he’d wanted—there was currently a massive police investigation underway—but the price was far higher than he had ever imagined paying.

After two weeks of repeatedly being interviewed, and even hauled in for questioning before the police had decided he was a well-meaning idiot and not a perpetrator, his offer to help with some of the investigative footwork had been firmly turned down. Of course it had, he knew it would, but he had to try.

Josh’s computer and Ben’s laptop had been taken as evidence, along with all his research, but everything was backed up in his cloud storage, and he’d had time to go through Josh’s computer with a fine toothcomb prior to its seizure. However, the only lead he’d found was the screen recording Josh had left running during his final hours in the game, which had told him nothing.

The game was the common denominator in all this. The rest of the family were busy posting on Facebook and pinning up flyers in the local area, and talking to all Josh’s friends. They hadn't blamed him at all, which only made it worse. Ben had gone straight out and bought a new PC with the minimum specs required to play Spiralia.

Rather than trying do quests or level his character, Ben had spent most of his game time chatting with other players, and doing exactly what he’d had Josh doing—letting everyone think he was the kind of insecure, neglected teenager the kidnappers had previously targeted. He’d been frantically logging as many hours in the game as he could before the police managed to get the game servers shut down, or realised what he was doing and arrested him for suspicious behaviour.

He noticed another stupid quest pop up. He was in the middle of trying to reply to someone in the world chat, and the wretched thing was in his way.

Wait, there was something familiar about it. Was that the same quest Josh had had right before he disappeared? The one about being immortal? Ben hadn’t thought there was anything significant about it, because it had seemed like the usual heroic fantasy nonsense the game liked to ram down its players throats. But it was burned into his brain because he’d watched the screen recording so many times, desperately hunting for clues.

It was definitely the same quest.

That might not mean anything. Maybe all players got that quest. He moved the quest window to the side and asked about it in the world chat. Most people who responded had never heard of it, except for one who said they’d got it but declined it because it had no rewards, and was probably just bugged, mate.

Ben hadn’t noticed the lack of rewards, or known enough about the game to find that significant. Maybe the quest wasn’t a bug, or a mistake. Maybe it was related. And if it was, that meant it was someone at the game company itself who was involved.

What would happen now? Would someone try to contact Ben to meet up with him, as they must have done with Josh?

Ben sat and stared at the screen for several minutes.

Oh. Maybe he should accept the quest. Wait, he should record it first, and then accept it. That done, he sat and fidgeted again. No-one messaged him. Nothing suspicious happened. After thirty minutes or so, he decided that it was probably a coincidence. He should make himself a cup of tea, do some more research on the game company, and call his boss to tell him he wasn’t ready to come back to work yet.

He stretched and stood up.

His next conscious moment was of someone tackling him, a full body blow that sent him flying. He hit the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of him. He gasped to recover his breath as the person straddling him bent his arm behind his back.

Was that the kidnapper? He struggled, but his attacker had him securely pinned.

He smelled grass, he was lying on grass. There was a breeze fluttering across his face. What was he doing outside?

The person on top of him was speaking, saying something in carefully level voice, a voice that he could tell was calm only with an effort.

“…I am going to let you go now, sir.” It was a woman’s voice. “I want you to sit up slowly and carefully.”

That wasn’t the kind of thing a kidnapper said. The weight left him, and Ben winced as his arm was released. He pushed himself into a sitting position. He was in the trees behind his house, sprawled on the grassy verge next to the path into the woods.

How had he got from his room to here?

The woman who had knocked him down was backing away, but her eyes weren’t on him. Her face was illuminated as if by a bright streetlight, and she was staring at … Ben followed her gaze.

There was column of white light flickering a few metres away. It looked like someone had poured white plasma into a cylinder of glass, where it churned restlessly, but nothing in the vicinity was burning. He smelled ozone, and heard a continual low buzzing sound.

Despite Ben's disorientation, and his bewilderment, there was only one possible response to this phenomenon. He scrabbled for his phone, held up the camera, and pressed record.

He noticed the woman was already doing the same thing.

Six Spires

Josh’s first idea on how to proceed with his quest to find the Dreamer was to check the libraries again. He still had the introductory letter from the Abbot, which would get him so far, but if all libraries were like the one in Brackstone, most of the information he wanted was likely to be in a restricted section.

Josh seemed to be having terrible luck with libraries so far. They weren’t supposed to be dangerous places, but he didn’t want a repeat of what had happened in Brackstone. He needed to find some way to convince the librarians to let him see the secret stuff, and he couldn’t see how he was going to accomplish that.

His second idea was to pose as a history student, and interview people who had been around between fifty and twenty years ago, who would know about the arrival of the original Heroes, the summoning of the first outlanders, and what had happened when Tylas had been defeated.

He had the beginnings of a plan. He would work on it more tomorrow.

That night Josh cast the Alarm spell, as usual. His Chi had increased by fourteen points over the week, and it was getting easier to cast spells. He was determined to set it every single time he slept from now on, and he was glad he did, because he had only just got into bed and blown out the candle when it buzzed a warning.

He lurched up, tangled in sheets, and saw a dark, shadowy figure crouched on his windowsill, outlined against twilight sky.

The intruder was fiddling with the latch. Josh leaped out of bed and grabbed the staff, which was leaning against the bedpost. Even as he did so, the figure got the window open and rolled into the room in one agile motion.

Josh found himself reacting automatically, bringing the staff round in a quick sweep. The figure evaded the blow, diving to one side.

“Oyoyoyoyoy!” it said, in a female voice. “No need for that, I’m a friend!”

Josh hesitated, the staff gripped in his hands. A girl crouched in the gloom, but he couldn’t see her face. He groped with one hand for the little scrap of Heat spell he had placed on the bedside table, and used it to light the candle there.

He blinked as his eyes adjusted, and noticed the girl shading her face as she did the same.

She straightened cautiously from her crouch. She was no-one he’d seen before. She wore a pair of culottes, soft leather boots laced up to the knee, and an oversized man’s shirt with a thick leather belt around her waist. Her skin was a light caramel colour, and she had long black hair in a messy bun, with a coloured scarf tied over it.

She looked like a fantasy version of a female pirate, except with less cleavage on display than fantasy artists normally liked to depict.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

She grinned, and he noticed that she had, of all things, a gold tooth.

“Got an invite for ya,” she said.

“Invite from who?” he asked suspiciously.

“Gent who wants to meet ya.”

By climbing into Josh's bedroom in the middle of the night? What would she have done if he hadn’t woken up?

“Invite declined,” he said firmly. He gestured to the window. “Please see yourself out.”

“What, and have you miss out on a loocrative oppo-toonity?” She drew the words out suggestively.

“I don’t need money,” Josh told her. “Not interested. And you never answered my first question.”

Her eyes danced mischievously.

“No, I dint, did I?”

Josh pointed sternly at the window.

She sighed.

“Okay, okay! I’m Ramina.”

Josh stiffened. He’d never heard anyone from Six Spires use the word okay. That meant she was an outlander, but he couldn’t see a class. Had she hidden it? Did that mean she was below level 10, like him?

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Revealing his own outlander status was the worst possible thing he could do at this point.

“I’m Josh,” he said. “I’d say it was lovely to meet you, but it’s the middle of the night and you just broke into my room.”

“What, you don’t want a lady in yer bedroom at this time o’ the evenin’?” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Josh could tell she wasn’t serious.

“Why you didn’t knock on the door, like a normal person?”

“Cos this is a men’s only lodgin’ house, innit?”

She had a point. When Josh had originally paid for the room he’d been treated to a stern lecture from the landlady about how she wouldn’t stand for goings on in her house. He hadn’t imagined it would turn out to be a problem.

“Well, since you mention it, keep your voice down. Or, even better, how about you leave?”

She smirked.

“How about I start singin’ bawdy songs at the top of my voice until you agree to come with me?”

Josh brought the staff up in a guard stance.

“Please do. I can start yelling ‘Thief!’ and call for the Watch. They can arrest you for illegal entry, and … and ...” He had no idea what was illegal and what wasn’t. “…disturbing the peace.”

She held up her hands.

“Alright, alright, pax.” She eyed him thoughtfully. “Jokin’ aside, the old man really does wanna talk. And it’s not that late. Plenty o’ time for an evenin’ call.”

Who was the old man? Was Josh supposed to know?

“I don’t care.”

Her eyes flicked to the candle and then to the staff. Josh felt a chill—the former had been lit by magic, and the latter was magic. All his other magical items were bundled up in the muffling cloak, so even if she did have any kind of magic sense she wouldn’t be able to detect them. But the staff was out, and visibly enchanted. And maybe he shouldn’t have used a spell to light the candle, but he’d wanted to get it lit as soon as possible, instead of fiddling around with a flint and steel.

“Okay, you don’t want money,” Ramina said. “But maybe he can offer you summat else. Like…” she drew the word out. “…a mage permit.”

“A what?”

“A piece o’ paper what says, this ‘ere individual is a registered mage who can practice magic in the city.”

“I’m not a mage,” Josh said automatically.

“Well, you can have a piece o’ paper what says, this individual ain’t no mage and any nob who wants to mess with him gotta answer to the Marquis o’ Silbery.”

Josh looked her up and down.

“You don’t seem like the sort of messenger that someone calling himself the Marquis of Silbery would send.”

“Hey, I’m the polite option!”

Josh raised his eyebrows.

“Believe it or not,” she said, with a careless shrug. “The old guy wants to talk, that’s it. Inna proper drawin’ room, all civil-like.”

“And if I disagree, there’s a less polite option?”

“Well, less discreet anyway, an’ I’m guessin’ that’s important to you, Mr I’m Not A Mage.”

“What does Silbery want?” Josh demanded.

“I tole ya. He wants to talk. He dint tell me what it was about.” She sounded slightly offended by that.

“Who the hell is he, anyway?”

She stared at him for a moment, and then broke into loud cackles, while Josh made frantic shushing motions at her.

“I gotta tell him! That’s priceless, that is!”

“I’ve only been in Dendral a week,” Josh said defensively.

“He’s the Lord Chamberlain, you dummy. Head of the Privy Council.”

Josh had the hazy idea that this was some kind of advisor to the King, and that it had evolved from the position of a servant who helped the king go to the toilet, because apparently they couldn’t be trusted to do that by themselves. Probably talking to the servant who wiped your bum for you about affairs of the realm was the royal medieval equivalent of checking your phone while doing your business, and over the centuries the position had gained in influence.

Basically, it meant that Silbery was important for more than just being a Marquis. What the hell did the foremost advisor to the King want with Josh? It was all tied with the stuff that had happened in Brackstone. And here was Josh thinking he’d been well rid of it.

“Where is this drawing room he wants to have a chat in?” Josh asked.

Ramina grinned.

“Follow me!”

Going off into the night with a suspicious stranger was high on the list of things Josh didn’t want to do. Instead, he ushered Ramina out of the window, got dressed up in his best suit of clothes, and left by the front door. There were no streetlights in Dendral, but instead there were people wandering around with lanterns, who would offer to light your way for a small fee. They also tended to know the street layout well, and the one Josh picked out said he could find the Marquis of Silbury’s townhouse, no problem at all, young sir.

Ramina came skipping up to him a few streets later.

“Boring!” she said. “Imagine, we could be doin’ a midnight flit over the rooftops right now.”

That did sound much more appealing than a sedate stroll through the safest parts of the city.

“Maybe next time,” Josh said. “On the way back.”

“If you make it back, yeah…” She caught sight of his expression and burst out into uproarious laughter again. “Just jokin’! Man, look at your face!”

The townhouse was in a wide street not far from the shore. Instead of carts and people walking around in homespun and aprons, it had elegantly painted carriages pulled by gleaming, plumed horses, and well-dressed people strolling about in a leisurely sort of way.

The lantern man, not deeming Josh to be smart enough for the main entrance, directed him to a side door used by tradespeople and servants. Ramina took the lead at that point, pushing past an offended servant who had come to get the door. Before following her, Josh paid off the lantern man with a copper penny, and gave a short bow to the servant while politely lifting his Robin Hood hat at the same time, just like a local would.

He hadn’t wasted his time watching people in the city for nothing.

They went up a set of back stairs with well-trodden carpet, and then out onto a landing that was another world, full of polished wooden bannisters, waist-high, blue-patterned vases stuffed with dried flower arrangements, and a runner of soft, plush green carpet along the centre. It even smelled expensive, the air fragrant with the scent of pot pourri and the warm honey smell of beeswax candles.

Ramina took him to a panelled door, but instead of knocking she threw it open and strode into the room as if she owned it.

“Got him for ya, grampa!” she called out.

Was she Silbury's granddaughter, or was she just calling him that because he was old? Josh was surer now than ever that she must be from Earth. No-one local would act like that.

He had a brief impression of a room of wealth and elegance—a marble fireplace, silver candlesticks, subdued oil paintings, thick, soft curtains pulled over a window embrasure, and finely carved wooden furniture upholstered in rich green and silver brocade.

There were two men in the room. One was short and plump with a combover of wispy white hair that threatened to fly in all directions. He looked like he was in his sixties, and wore an amiable expression of amused tolerance. The other was a heavy-set man in his forties with a hooked nose and hard eyes.

There was a tea-table in front of them, but instead of a tea set or refreshments, it held a familiar-looking birdcage that gave off a numbing, icy sensation of magic.

It was the key fragment.

“Thank you, Ramina,” the plump man said. He looked at Josh. “Welcome, my dear boy. De Haven, is it not? Do forgive Ramina her eccentricities. She isn’t from these parts.”

Josh had watched enough local interactions that he knew what to do here too. He put his left foot slightly in front of the right, with both turned outwards in V position, then removed his hat with his left hand and bowed, more deeply than he had to the servant downstairs.

There. That was pretty good. No-one would suspect him of being an outlander now.

Not with Ramina in the same room, anyway.

“I’m Silbury, as you may have guessed,” the plump man continued. “My guest here is Sir Ernil Thrace.”

“Josh de Haven, my lord,” Josh said. He glanced at Sir Ernil. “Sir.”

Sir Ernil’s name was familiar. Where had Josh heard it before? After a moment he remembered—the man Lady Paleyne and Lady Alianne were staying with, who was also the Duchess of Kaldermere’s agent in Dendral.

What was his part in all this?

And was this the same key fragment that had been stolen from the library in Brackstone, or a different one?

Ramina plonked herself down on a spare sofa, which made Sir Ernil frown. Josh hadn’t been invited to sit, so he remained standing.

“My lord,” Sir Ernil said to Silbury. “With all due respect, is this woman permitted to sit in on your private councils?”

“I can throw her out if you wish, but she’ll just listen at the door,” Silbury said placidly.

Ramina grinned unrepentantly, and Sir Ernil’s frown deepened.

“I’m sure you know best, my lord.” He didn’t sound convinced, but then his heavy gaze landed on Josh. “So, this is the thief.”

“I’m not a thief!” Josh protested.

Silbury waved a hand at him.

“Yes, yes, of course. No-one is seeking punitive action against you.”

He still wasn’t getting it. Josh tried again.

“I didn’t steal the key fragment! I retrieved it from the people who actually stole it, and then handed to the relevant authorities!” He remembered how precious Lady Alianne had been about her title, and added, “My lord.”

“The relevant authority would have been the Church, my boy.” Silbury made the same gesture, as if physically brushing the matter to the side. “But no matter. If you hadn’t brought it to the Lord of Brackstone I wager we would not have discovered … but I am getting ahead of myself.”

“I’m not sure there is anything useful he can tell us, my lord,” Sir Ernil said. “Nor can we trust his word.”

He glowered at Josh. Why? It must be because of the huldra. No doubt Lady Paleyne had relayed the entire tale to him, and it seemed churlish of him not to be grateful that Josh had helped both women get through the Azure Cathedral and safely to Dendral so that Lady Alianne could get her Philosopher’s Stone. Okay, so Josh had helped an exploited minority overthrow an unjust oppressor along the way, but that wasn't a situation that should have been allowed to develop in the first place.

“De Haven,” Silbury said, gesturing to the key fragment. “Please inspect this and tell me if it’s exactly the same it was as when you first encountered it.”

Josh hadn’t approached it that closely when he was in the library. He’d taken it from the chest, but he’d barely looked at it, even once he’d got to the castle. Was this some kind of trap?

“I never saw it very close,” he said. “It was muffled most of the time, and I had other things on my mind.”

“Nevertheless, my boy, indulge me, I beg.”

Josh went over to the key fragment. The fragment, and the cage it was in, looked exactly the same. He said so.

“Did you ever remove it from the cage?” Silbury asked.

Oho! What was going on here?

“No.”

“Did you observe—remind me, Ernil, who it was—”

“Orlad.”

“—yes, Orlad or any of his co-conspirators opening the cage?”

Orlad had been the big, handsome green-eyed man with the magic sword, who had held a grudge against Lady Paleyne.

“No, my lord. Although I was being held in the cellar and I didn’t see everything they did.”

From the questions Josh was getting, it sounded like the key fragment had been swapped out for a fake. But had that happened before it had been taken, or after? Josh thought back to the time he had hidden in the little upstairs room while the mage had removed the warding circle around the key fragment, and then loaded it into the chest.

He relayed what he had witnessed, and ended with, “Everything I saw suggested they thought they had the real fragment, not a fake one. And it feels exactly the same.”

Silbury raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t recall saying it had been exchanged for a fake.”

“Why else would you be asking all these questions?” Josh asked. He remembered to stay in character, and added, “Er, my lord.”

Sir Ernil grunted.

“She said he was sharp.”

Silbury tapped his lip with a forefinger.

“So I see.” He appeared to come to a decision. “The sensation you feel comes purely from the cage, which is intended to disguise the emanations of the key fragment itself. Ramina, if you will?”

Ramina bounced up, went over to the cage, and opened it. The moment she did, the icy, numbing sensation disappeared. Josh tried to feel for the key itself, but there was nothing. It was just a slip of decorated metal. He reached out his hand, then hesitated.

“Can I touch it?”

“Be my guest,” Silbury said.

Josh picked up the key fragment and turned it around in his hands. It was completely inert. He had expected something like Orlad’s sword, or his own staff, with complex chains of magic disappearing into its depths.

“I don’t feel anything,” he said.

There were three possibilities. One, the key had been stolen before Josh had come across it in the library; two, it had been taken by Orlad’s gang; or three, it had been swapped out after Josh had given it to the Lord of Brackstone.

The first or the third were the most likely. Orlad’s gang wouldn’t have relied on pinning the theft on Josh if it hadn’t been the real key to begin with, so they had probably been unaware. Hadn’t they opened the cage at all?

“Would Orlad and his crew have had any reason to open the cage?” he asked.

“We are the ones asking the questions here, young man!” Sir Ernil announced, but was interrupted by Silbury’s upheld hand.

“Unlikely,” Silbury said. “Each artefact that Wayland created emits a unique and powerful signature. The cage prevents scrying attempts. If they had opened it, they would have risked giving away their location.”

“They put the cage in a ward, and then in a magic chest to muffle the effect it gave out,” Josh said, thinking aloud. “They could have just opened the cage to disengage it, like Ramina did now. Therefore, they didn’t know the key fragment was fake—unless one of them was aware and hiding it from the others. But that seems convoluted. It's more likely to have been swapped out either before it was stolen from the library, or after I handed it in.”

This was too much for Sir Ernil.

“Have a care what accusations you make! It has been in the care of people I trust since it was given to the Lord of Brackstone.”

Josh refrained from rolling his eyes.

“Sorry, I didn't meant to point fingers, I was just thinking aloud. But if you are sure of that, it means the library was protecting a fake key. How long ago was the real key taken? Who took it? Where is it now? And isn’t it one of several fragments?”

“There are three key fragments, which combine to unlock the Chains of Wayland,” Silbury said, watching Josh thoughtfully. “And yes, that is exactly what we fear—that all three may have been taken, and then used to free that which we thought securely imprisoned forever.”