24 – A Walk in the Dark
Haley let the chest’s lid flop back as she peered inside. She caught her breath, which gave Ward some hope, and when she looked over her shoulder with a crooked smile, he knew something good must be within. “I think we’ll need my dice again!”
“Let us see! Come on, Ward, look inside!” Grace stood behind the chest, peering in, but Ward knew she couldn’t see anything until he did likewise. He grinned, enjoying the game almost as much as he wanted to know what was in there.
He rested a hand on Lisa’s shoulder, catching her eye to indicate he wanted her to stay back with him. “No, no. This one’s Haley’s to manage. Why don’t you take each item out? We can look at them one by one.”
“Really?” Haley grinned, then turned to do so while Grace glared daggers at Ward.
“I know what you’re doing,” she seethed.
“Oh, come on; I’m just having a little fun. Don’t these chests remind you guys of birthday presents, or maybe more like Christmas? It’s fun to drag it out a little, don’t you think?”
Lisa nodded. “I’m reminded of Midsummer when we exchange gifts at the weirding tree.”
Before Ward could ask what a “weirding tree” was, Haley turned, holding a small ivory box inlaid with three clear crystals. “What does this remind you of?”
Ward sucked a breath through his teeth, shaking his head. “The box this tongue came in.”
Haley grinned and nodded, setting the box in front of the chest. Then she reached in and lifted out a gleaming sheet of paper-thin silver. It was exactly the same size as the copper one Ward had gotten in the catacombs. “It has words on it, but they hurt my eyes, so I’m guessing it’s a spell.” Lisa inhaled and leaned forward but didn’t pull against Ward’s gentle grip on her shoulder.
Haley set the silvery sheet beside the ivory box and reached into the chest again. This time, she lifted out a small black silk pouch that clinked softly as she rattled it. “Something sort of heavy, but not metal. I think the objects inside might be gems or maybe made of glass.” She looked into the chest once more, then shrugged. “That’s it.”
Ward sat down, cross-legged, and nodded. “Let’s have a closer look.” Grace walked off, poking around the room as though she might find another chest or something. Ward wasn’t too surprised that Lisa stepped to Haley’s side and peered into the chest. He’d had the impulse to double-check her to be sure she didn’t miss something, so he couldn’t really blame Lisa. After she sniffed and nodded, Lisa sat down to Ward’s left, and Haley closed the chest and sat atop it. She picked up the ivory box and turned it, pausing to squint at the bottom.
“There are some words here: ‘Thurven’s Lucky Key.’ I can’t find a latch to open the box, so I think you must do what you did before—put mana into it.” She set it down, picked up the silvery sheet, and held it out to Ward. Can you read it?” Ward took the sheet and held it between him and Lisa so they could both read it.
Lisa mouthed one of the words at the top, then looked away, blinking her eyes. “I can, but it’s the second word that turns my stomach and makes my eyes feel like they’re being twisted ‘round each other.”
“What about you, Ward?” Grace asked, peering at the page with him.
“Yeah, I can read ‘em.” Ward had already read through the words once, and he glanced at them again: Vrakkun Khorvek. Lisa was right; the first word read like any ordinary word to him, meaning it wasn’t beyond his “vessel’s” capabilities, but the second word sent a faint twinge of nausea through his guts when he read it. It was a strong word, but he felt he could cast it just fine. Looking over the forms outlined under the words, he frowned. “Two words, but seven forms. Seems like it’ll be a little tricky to prepare.”
Lisa nodded. “I’m not ready for it yet, but perhaps after I use the potion we found.” She looked at Ward, her eyes almost plaintive. “Do you suppose I could make a copy of this spell?”
Ward gave her a nudge with his elbow. “Hell yeah. We found it together, didn’t we? I’d say we should all make a copy if Haley were interested.”
“I’m not.”
Ward chuckled and set the spell sheet on his knee. “What’s in the pouch, then?”
Haley shook it, eliciting some little click-clack sounds that reminded Ward of marbles. When she unwound the drawstring and poured the contents into her hand, he whistled appreciatively, and Lisa drew in a sharp breath. Haley smiled and rolled the three faintly luminescent stones in her palm. They were all polished to a bright, almost oily sheen. One was sky blue, another red like rich, damp clay, and the third black as night. “They feel good in my hand. It’s like they’re full of energy or potential or something. She held out her hand, and Ward cupped his beneath it so she could pour the three stones into his palm.
She was right; he could feel the buzzing magic in them. It felt like they wanted to do something. They were warm and smooth as glass but heavy—like bullets. He looked at Lisa, arching an eyebrow. She stared at his palm, her mouth working in silent recitation. When she noticed Ward watching, she spoke aloud, “It’s a rhyme. ‘Fairy stones of earth and sky, with fire’s heart and night’s dark eye. When need is great and hope runs thin, hold us close, let aid begin. Speak your plea with voice so true, and we shall lend our strength to you.’ I learned it as a little girl from a book of adventure tales my father read me.” She smiled almost sadly, and Ward swore he saw a thousand memories flash behind her bright green eyes. “It was my favorite.”
Grace had wandered over behind him, and now she leaned close, whispering in Ward’s ear, “I think she’d like to feel them.”
“Do you want to hold them?” He held out his hand.
“Of course!” Lisa’s smile was so genuine, and her hand trembled so earnestly that Ward felt suddenly endeared to her. He could see the little girl who used to sit with her father reading stories, and he felt a wave of nostalgia and loss as though she’d transferred the feelings to him, but really, he knew it was his life he was mourning, or, more pointedly, it was his life that could have been.
He’d practically run from home when he joined the Marines, and he and his folks had been quite distant when they’d died. Worse, he’d let himself drift away from his sister and had lost himself in his career—no new wife, no kids, no one to share the wonder of fairy tales with. Of course, if he were still on Earth, he might finish that melancholy bit of musing with something like, “And now it’s too late.” He wasn’t, though, was he? He was living in a new magical world and had his youth again. His options were wide open, and, who knows, maybe it was still in the cards that he could share an adventure book with a little kid someday.
“Ward?” Lisa prodded, and he blinked, bringing himself back to the present.
“Sorry,” he muttered, pouring the stones into her palm. “I spaced out for a second.” She closed her fist and her eyes, and he could see she was savoring the feeling of the stones in her palm. He looked at Haley. “Toss me that little case, and I’ll see if I can open it.”
“If you don’t have enough mana—“ Grace started to say, but Ward looked at her and shook his head. He didn’t want to take out the mana well. He’d given enough away to Lisa for one day. “Yeah, right. Of course, you’ve got it.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Haley tossed the box, and he felt something shift inside it as he caught it—presumably “Thurven’s lucky key.” He held it in his hand and closed his eyes, grounding himself. He knew he had a “mana well” inside him, a place that held mana ready to be used on spells. Most of the time, it was plenty for what he needed to do, but when he’d cast the spell that brought Haley back, it hadn’t been enough; he’d had to draw power from the mana well artifact he’d gotten in the catacombs. He wondered if he had enough to open the box.
He didn’t wonder long; he could feel the box growing warm in his palm as he focused on his meditation. He could feel little tingles in his palm as his mana trickled out of the invisible pathways in his hand into the artifact, and, though his eyes were shut, he saw a lightening in the black behind his eyelids and knew one of the crystals was alight. Haley confirmed, “You lit one, Ward!”
He nodded, still focusing on his meditation, ensuring he was deeply grounded, still savoring the feel of his mana as it made itself known to him, tingling and thrumming with potential all over his body. The darkness lightened more, and he knew he’d activated the second crystal. Just another minute or so passed before the third crystal lit up, and the box clicked.
Ward opened his eyes to see the box open on his palm. Haley, Grace, and Lisa leaned close, peering at the rather plain-looking copper key. The top end was big and triangular, and the teeth were many and jagged, but other than that, it was just a piece of copper. Ward didn’t even see any runic words of power inscribed into it. Haley reached for it but held her hand close, hovering over the key. “May I?”
He nodded. “Yeah, go for it.”
She lifted the key from the box, twirling it in her nimble fingers. “I bet it works like a skeleton key!”
Grace leaned close to Haley’s face, peering into her silvery eyes. “Is that just a guess, or did it…speak to you?”
Haley giggled. “Just a guess. I don’t feel anything much from it.”
Ward sighed and held up the spell page. “I’ll hang onto this. Haley, you want to keep the key for now?” She nodded, smiling, as she found a spot for it in one of her belt pouches. Ward turned to Lisa. “Want to hold onto the fairy stones?”
“I do!” She reached out to snatch the little silken pouch off Haley’s lap.
“Good enough,” Ward grunted as he clambered to his feet. “So? We pushing further or calling it good? We’ve got a lot of potions to use, and we just got some, well, I guess they’re possible artifacts, right? I’m feeling like it would be tempting fate to press further for now. We need these improvements, and then, maybe in the next challenge, we can go deeper or further or whatever.”
Haley nodded. “If Ward says it's time to pull out, I’m with him.”
“I won’t lie—I feel lucky just to be with you two here, and now I’ve got honest-to-goodness fairy stones in my pocket. Let’s go use our various refinements and see where we stand! If we can get on the next living ship, we may be able to attempt the challenge at Monraht—the capital of Springsea! I just need to organize our approach to the next auction. I’ll talk to my cousin about who might be bidding against us and see if we can pull some local political strings. Gods! We’ll need to shop. Haley, you should buy a tinkerer’s kit…or a locksmith’s! Ward, I think that cannon is great for defending a ship from boarders, but I’m not sure it’s the right gun to bring into challenges, and—”
“So,” Ward smirked and winked at Grace, “Lisa’s a planner. Got it.”
“As opposed to?” Lisa asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“As opposed to a knucklehead who walks around in the dark clubbing people with a stout stick,” Grace answered for Ward.
Ward held up a finger like he had a counterpoint, then sighed and shook his head. “I can’t argue. I could use a little more thinking ahead, myself.” He nodded to the door they’d come through. “I feel like a quitter, but I think being smart and knowing when to back off is the way to win sometimes.”
“Right.” Haley nodded. “Let’s go!”
No one argued, and Haley took the lead, retracing their progress through the spire. On the stairs between the first and second room, Haley cleared her throat and looked over her shoulder at Lisa. “You should get a room at the Iron and Ivy. If we’re going to work together, we should stay close.”
“Well, I…”
Ward immediately took Haley’s side. “I’m sure your cousin’s place is nice and all, but there’s something to be said for team building, don’t you think?”
“Team building.” Lisa nodded. “I like the sound of it. Of course I’ll join you!” She sounded genuinely tickled about it, and Ward, again, found himself warming to her. He caught Grace giving him a sidelong look, and he mouthed, “What?” She just pressed her mouth into a thin-lipped smile and shook her head, looking away. He supposed she was going to give him some grief about teaming up with another pretty woman or flirting or some other bullshit. He hadn’t been flirting, had he? He didn’t think so, and if he was going to be working with Lisa, he didn’t think that kind of behavior would be on the table, anyway.
When they exited the spire, it was deep in the night, which Ward found surprising. If he were to make a guess, he’d say they’d been in the weird, magical tower for three hours or so. By that sort of accounting, it should be mid-morning. Still, the catacombs had already shown him that the ancient challenges could mess with time and the perception thereof, so it was with a little nervous trepidation that he approached the woman in the ticket booth and asked, “How long were we in there?”
“Do I know you?”
Ward gave her another look and realized it was a different woman. Of course, the same girl wouldn’t still be working, even if it was the same day. “Ah, never mind. I guess it was a different person I paid the entry fee to—”
“You all went in early this morning,” a gruff voice called from the top of the gatehouse. Ward looked up to see one of the burly crossbow wielders looking down at him. “I was here.”
“Thanks.” Ward tipped his hat—he’d donned it as soon as they’d reached the bottom floor—and then walked through the gate. When they were all standing outside on the quiet street in the dim light of a nearby gas lamp, he turned to the others. “Did I lose some time? Do you guys feel like we were in there all day and night?”
“No, a few hours at most,” Lisa replied.
“It’s the magic.” Grace shrugged. “Just like the catacombs. I mean, according to everyone else, you two slept for about a month.”
“Let's go!” Haley said, gesturing down the empty street. “We need to get to a busier street if we’re going to get a coach at this hour.”
Lisa nodded, striding down the street in her torn, blood-stained robes. “If we go to the corner and turn right, we’ll come to a market square. I’m sure some people will be out and about there.” Ward followed the two women, eyeing the shadows of the tall, mostly dark buildings. Here and there, a window glowed with warm light, but the city was definitely asleep.
“Something bothering you?” Grace asked, walking beside him.
“If you knew people might come out of that tower at any hour, and you were the kind of low-life that liked to capitalize on other people risking their lives while you pass your time looking for someone to take advantage of…” Ward let his words trail off as he saw movement in the shadows of a nearby alley.
“Someone’s there,” Grace hissed. Lisa and Haley heard her tone and turned to see what they were talking about; that was when a shot rang out, and black smoke billowed out of the alleyway. Lisa cried out, grasping her shoulder and falling to a knee on the damp cobbles, and Haley dove into action, darting toward the sound of the shot. Ward was right behind her, but he scanned the other side of the street, waiting for the other half of the ambush he knew would be coming.
Sure enough, two figures darted out from the opposite alley, and he caught the glint of polished metal in the moonlight. Ward had been trained about trigger discipline and proper escalation of force, but, as far as he was concerned, all bets were off when one of his companions had just been shot. He leveled Blazewitch and pulled the trigger. The night bloomed with orange fire as she spat her volcanic payload in a massive cone, enveloping the two figures in flames, black smoke, and sizzling, blinding-white hunks of fiery magnesium.
Both men screamed in agony, one falling to flop on the ground, the other turning to run like a human torch, his hair and clothes alight. Ward cranked the lever to cycle the gun’s cylinder, then swung the barrel toward Haley, only to find her atop a burly man, pounding his face to a pulp, her own face a twisted visage of fury. “Behind you!” Lisa cried, and Ward swung around to see three men running up the street toward them—two held crossbows.
Something in his training made Ward hesitate; these were men hired to guard the spire. They might be good, they might be coming to the aid of some citizens in need, they might—
“Gods damned idiots! They were supposed to wait for us,” one of the men grunted as a crossbow twanged and a bolt ripped through the air, narrowly missing Haley as she rolled to her feet. Fury erupted in Ward’s chest as he realized his hesitation might have cost Haley her life. He pulled the trigger, but when it clicked, Blazewitch didn’t bark her fiery payload. He tried to work the lever again, but it would only pull halfway.
Ward threw the gun off and yanked his sword free of its scabbard. The red runes blazed in the darkness, and the other crossbowman lifted his weapon and aimed it his way. Ward stalked toward him and out of his mouth cracked words of power that shook the nearby windows and sent the men’s hands slapping to their ears in consternation, “Dhrak Vel!”
Ward’s visual spectrum narrowed to a monochromatic set of grays as he became one with the shadows, but he could see clearly—nothing hid from him in the dark. The three approaching men stopped in their tracks, shaking their heads, blinking, and fumbling to regain control of the weapons they’d hastily let fall. They darted looks left and right, and the one who’d meant to shoot Ward cried, “Where is he?”
Gliding among the shadows, Ward moved to flank them, a grin that felt almost evil on his face as he lifted his heavy, razor-edged sword. He’d show them where he was.