58 – Places to Be

Ward’s journey through nothingness was interrupted periodically by moments of sensation—hands grasping and lifting, bouncing, jostling, pain and discomfort, and the occasional muffled, soggy-sounding voices of people speaking nearby.

“…couldn’t find anything.”

“…check again later…”

…

…

“I wish…I wish he hadn’t done it.”

“You’d rather…”

…

“…mayor’s office.”

“Right, then the inn. You need to find an alchemist…”

They went on like that, just snatches of conversation that his muddled, fuzzy mind couldn’t make sense of as he seemed to drift in and out of partial consciousness. If you asked him what his name was, Ward might have struggled to answer, assuming he had any control over his mouth and vocal cords, which didn’t seem to be the case.

He saw nothing but darkness, no matter how he tried to blink and open his eyes. He felt like he was hanging upside down while someone gently tenderized his guts. None of the sounds coming to him—the voices, the drumming, the whistling, the ringing—seemed right, and his occasional attempt to speak sounded something like “Gwoaarf” to his ears.

After a time, he felt himself being moved again, heard a lot more snatches of meaningless conversation, and then it felt like he was on his back and a great deal more comfortable. Rather than struggle against it, Ward embraced the dark emptiness that pulled on his consciousness like a sinker on a bait line. He drifted down into that depthless, heavy black and surrendered himself to oblivion.

When he came back to himself, he was confused. He could feel warmth on his cheeks that reminded him of sunlight, but his vision was dark, no matter how he blinked his eyes. Still befuddled by his mind’s resistance to waking, he fumbled at his face with numb-feeling fingers and realized that his eyes were wrapped in several layers of tight cloth. Bandages? He could hear sounds, but they came to him like they were muffled by cotton, so he prodded at his ear, only to find a sticky, waxy substance liberally caked inside his ear canal. Before he could explore further, someone slapped his hand away.

“Stop that!” The voice sounded wrong—too low and muffled—but he was pretty sure it was Grace. “The alchemist said you’d need to keep it in your ears for at least two days. Don’t even think about unwrapping your eyes, either.”

“Gracks—” Ward coughed and cleared his throat, then licked his lips and tried again, “Grace?”

“That’s right, dummy.” He felt her hands on his cheeks, then her breath on his ear as she spoke, her voice loud, exaggerating her enunciations, “You almost died! Good thing you were gripping that second healing tonic because I was able to manipulate your hand into dumping it down your gullet!”

“Will I heal?” Ward cringed inwardly at the tremulous nature of his voice as he clarified, “I mean, will I see again?”

“The alchemist thinks so. A lot of your vessels burst—all over. I’m pretty sure you had an aneurysm or two, and you definitely had a heart attack. If you weren’t, you know, an ‘awakened’ human, I think you’d have died for sure. You’re sturdy, though.”

“What about—” Ward had to cough again, at first because of the dryness in his throat, but then it triggered a real fit as something that had gathered in his windpipe wanted to get out. He hacked and coughed, and he saw something other than darkness for the first time since waking as little bursts of light exploded in his vision. He supposed it was just his blood pressure spiking as he convulsed, but it was frightening all the same, considering Grace’s comment about aneurysms. He felt her direct his hand to a cloth lying on the bed beside him, and he lifted it to his lips as he coughed and wheezed.

“That’s it. Just get it out. Probably old blood.” Grace wasn’t wrong; it tasted coppery as he spat into the cloth and wiped his lips.

After he fell back on his pillows, gasping for air, it took him a minute or two to remember what he’d been trying to say. When it clicked, though, he blurted, “Haley! What about—”

“She’s alive.” Again, he felt Grace’s hand on his cheek. He wanted to hate it. He wanted to shove it aside, but he also found it immensely comforting, considering his sensory deprivation. Did she know that? Was that why she was being so touchy-feely?

“And?” he pressed.

“Better to wait until you’re better. There’s a lot to unpack—”

“Tell me, goddammit!” Ward wasn’t in the mood for games. He’d just about killed himself trying to save the girl, and he wanted to know how badly he’d messed things up—he was sure he must have. The spell had so many warnings, and the whole thing just felt so dark and wrong. He couldn’t have left her to fade into nothingness, though, could he? Not now that he knew there was a chance for something more.

“She’s, well, she’s herself, but she’s different. Are you familiar with the idea of ‘undeath?’ I mean, like—”

Ward groaned. “Don’t tell me she’s a damn zombie!”

Suddenly, Grace’s gentle touch turned rough as she grabbed the sides of Ward’s head and hissed into his clogged ear, “Quiet! First of all, you’re lucky she’s not in here right now, but she’s next door, and these walls are thin! Second of all, no, she’s not a zombie, but she’s—Ugh! I don’t know. She’s different, and you’ll need to see for yourself what I mean. I only said the”—her voice grew so quiet that Ward could barely make it out—“thing about undeath because I don’t know how to explain her changes.”

“How—”

“She can see me now, by the way.”

“What?”

“Yeah. After you nearly killed yourself, and I pushed that tonic into your throat, she started moving. I only caught a few glimpses as you convulsed, but her wound closed up, and her eyes opened and stared right at me. We’ve been speaking since.”

Ward wanted to get up. He wanted to look at Haley with his own two eyes. He wanted to speak to her and see if it was really her; had he brought something back with her? Hadn’t the spell warned that it would infuse her with an “unnatural” power from beyond the veil? “Too late to cry over spilt milk,” he sighed.

“I was a little surprised by how quickly you embraced the idea of using that spell. I thought you’d balk more about the tongue. How does it feel, by the way?”

Ward’s heart nearly stopped. He’d forgotten! He touched his teeth with the appendage in question, running it along his gums, consciously noting the feel and the taste of his saliva. It felt perfectly normal. “I can’t tell the difference.”

“Well, you sound different. I mean, it’s like your voice is more resonant. Kind of how Nevkin’s was, but less…insane.” Suddenly, he felt her brushing the hair away from his forehead, gently stroking his flesh. Again, he warred with himself—should he cuss and tell her to get off? Should he just enjoy the sensation? Ward caved in and sighed, succumbing to a stupid, childish relief at the soothing touch. “You’re going to be okay. I wish you could see. I want to know what the hemograph will say about you after absorbing that artifact.”

“What do you mean ‘absorbing’?” He frowned. “Wait. How can you see?”

“I can’t…exactly. Haley described things to me when we got in. She bought the rooms and everything, obviously. She also dropped Nevkin’s corpse off at the mayor’s office. I told her to search the mansion for his grimoire, but she couldn’t find it and was too worried about you to linger long. I couldn’t argue, seeing as I’m rather invested in your survival—” She stopped speaking abruptly as Ward heard a faint click and then the hollow thunk of a door closing. “Good morning, Haley.”

“Grace. Is he all right?”

Ward lifted a hand and waved in the general direction of the voice. “Haley?” He heard muffled footsteps, and then he felt fingers taking his hand. They were cool but very much “alive” feeling, and Ward felt his irrational fear that he’d somehow turned Haley into a zombie begin to recede. Was Grace just riling him up? No, he reasoned, she’d sounded very sincere about something being different with Haley. He squeezed her fingers, folding her hand in his.

“Why’d you do that, Ward?” Haley’s voice was soft, and Ward could barely hear her with the stuff in his ears. He wondered how much of that was really due to the clogging or if his ears simply weren’t working right. How much hearing would he lose? Could some goop in his ears fix blown-out, scarred-up eardrums?

“What?”

“You know! I’m—well, I’m glad I’m not dead. I’m glad I’m not…nothing, but…”

“But what?” Ward cleared his throat and squeezed her hand. “Can you speak a little louder?”

“But I’m not right! I’m sure Grace told you! Can you feel my skin? It’s cold! I struggle to find the heat with my Gopah forms, whereas before, it was effortless! My eyes—Ward, I stared at myself in the mirror for an hour last night. They’re different. Paler. I can see something moving behind them, but only when I start to look away! If I stare, it never shows itself.”

“Yeah, okay, but you’re you!” Ward wanted to get up. He wanted to rip the bandage off his eyes and look at her. He wanted to stare into her eyes and tell her nothing was wrong. All he could do was continue to squeeze her hand and say, “I can tell that much. You sound like you. You’re not a monster or something like that. You slept, right? Did you eat anything?”

“Yes. I slept and I ate, but I wasn’t very hungry. There’s something else…”

When she didn’t continue, Ward sighed and shook his head. “I’m in the dark here, Haley. Literally. What is it?”

“I’m stronger than I should be. I lifted you onto Nutmeg. You’re not a light man, Ward.” While Ward absorbed that fact, she continued. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you feel bad or worried. I’m so upset that you nearly died to help me! The thing is…Well, the thing is, that’s part of the problem. I feel things differently. I feel upset and sad, but I’m struggling to find anything to be happy about. I just want to cry or sleep or crawl into a hole and disappear!” She finished with a choked-off sob and tried to pull her hand away.

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“Do something, Ward!” Grace cried. “She can see and hear me, but she can’t feel me. I can’t hug her!”

“No—” Haley started to protest, but Ward tugged on her arm, and she fell, with very little resistance, against his chest, and he pulled her tight, wrapping his stiff, sore arms over her back. She curled up there, her cheek on his shoulder, and softly wept. Ward tried to soothe her, uttering nonsense phrases like “it’ll be all right” and “hush now” while he stroked her short, feathery hair. After a while, she grew still, and her breathing evened out into very slow, steady breaths. Too slow? Despite his worry, her chest rising and falling served to hypnotize Ward, and he, too, fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke, Haley was gone, and he could see light through the bandages on his eyes. “Mmph,” he grunted, lifting a sluggish arm behind his head to try to prop himself up a little. He felt like he weighed a thousand pounds and that the planet was trying to pull him down into its depths.

“You slept for another day,” Grace said, and her voice was much clearer than the last time he’d been awake. Had he been awake? The whole thing felt like a dream.

“Are we alone?” he murmured.

“We are. Haley’s running errands—checking the horses, etcetera. She slept here for quite a few hours, though, and when she got up, she seemed a little better. You know, when she was talking to you, I realized what was throwing me off about her: she just seems very grave—no pun intended. Like, never a smile. She wasn’t lying about her eyes, either. When I saw them earlier, I mean before you fully passed out—”

“Grace, can you let me wake up.” Tired of being in the dark, Ward reached for the bandage over his eyes and began tugging. Grace slapped at his hand, but he scowled and gave the bandages a yank.

“Idiot!” she growled, trying to slap her palms over his eyes. Ward shoved her aside, rolling onto his shoulder and blinking, squinting into the pale light coming through the window.

“They work,” he grunted, holding out a hand to fend her off.

She harrumphed and folded her arms over her chest. “I guess it’s been almost two days.”

Ward continued to blink, silently praying that the blurriness would fade, and, to his relief, it did. “Get me a warm washcloth or something.”

“You know I can’t!”

“Jesus, my bladder’s about to burst.” Ward groaned as he slid his legs off the side of the bed and hesitantly took his feet. He felt shaky, weak, and sluggish, but he managed to stay upright. A few minutes later, after a very long time standing over the tankless, porcelain toilet, he stared at his face in a mirror. He looked like he’d been in bed with the flu—like he’d been puking his guts out for days or been beaten and left for dead. His cheeks were gaunt; his eyes were sunken in dark hollows and completely blood-red in the scleras.

Ward touched the yellowing bruises on his cheeks, around his eyes, his neck, and even his forearms. “What the hell?” To his surprise, Grace didn’t say anything; she’d stayed out of the bathroom for once. Had the spell done all that damage? He had no idea, but he had to assume so. “Unless Haley and Grace beat the shit out of me while I was knocked out.” The idea brought a chuckle out of him. He grinned into the mirror, examining his teeth, and that’s when he remembered the tongue. “Gah!” He stuck it out, and relief flooded him when he saw it wasn’t pointed or forked. It looked like a normal tongue, only…silver. “Frickin’ weird,” he grumbled, watching it move as he licked his teeth.

He went back to his bed and collapsed, utterly exhausted. “Why do I feel like I’ve been in a six-month coma?”

“Because you almost died!”

He scanned the room and saw his pack at the foot of the bed. With a herculean effort, he stood and dug through it until he found the hemograph. “Guess we might as well see what this tongue did to me.” He stuck his finger into the hole, felt the stab of the needle, and then watched the glowing liquid shift around until the weird shapes formed into his reading:

Previous reading detected – Earlier values displayed in Brackets

Bloodline: Awakened Human – Aetherborn Traces, Lycan Traces, [Unknown] Traces

Accumulated Mana: 0 [134]

Mana Distribution: Natural – No Allocation Enchantments Detected

Mana Well: Tier 3 – 35% [33%] to Next Tier, Enhanced Regeneration Minor

Mana Sensitivity: Tier 4 – Bloodline Dependent

Mana Pathways: Tier 5 [Tier 2] – Bloodline Dependent, [Unknown] Artifact Influence Detected

Vessel Capacity: Tier 2 – Bloodline Dependent

Vessel Durability: Tier 2 – 59% [56%] to Next Tier, Enhanced Healing – Minor, Enhanced Bone Density - Minor

Vessel Strength: Tier 2 – 45% [44%] to Next Tier

Vessel Speed: Tier 2 – 49% [41%] to Next Tier

Longevity Remaining: 55% [65%] – Tier Two Depletion Rate (Approximate)

Anima Heart: Tier 1 – Closed, Pathways Detected

Anima: Nil

Grace, peering over his shoulder, hissed, “Jesus, old man, you burned up ten percent of your life with that near-death business.”

Ward grunted, nodding, but then he pointed at his “mana pathways” reading. “The tongue is boosting my mana pathways by three tiers.”

“Yeah.” For some reason, Grace whispered as she pointed. “It doesn’t know how to identify the tongue. ‘Unknown.’ I think you need to find a better hemograph. Anyway, I mean, we don’t know what ‘tier five’ versus ‘tier two’ even means, but my intuition says it’s a big deal.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that spell, even though it almost killed me, was something I should be able to pull off at my, uh, level.”

“Bringing the dead back to life?” Grace cocked an eyebrow. “You think?”

An almost tentative knock sounded at the door, and Ward looked up, closing the hemograph’s lid. “Who is—”

“It’s me,” Haley said as she pushed the door open a few inches. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, I’m not naked.”

When she came through the door, Ward immediately recognized the material of the hooded cloak she wore; it was the magnificent, dark blue silk they’d won in the catacombs. “Nice cloak!”

“There’s a seamstress off the square. I needed something to keep the sun off my face; I seem to be much more sensitive than I used to be. I hope you don’t mind that I used the material from—”

“It’s yours! We agreed.” He nodded, trying to reassure her, but she looked tentative as she stepped closer. The cloak shrouded her entire body, held closed at the neck by a polished ivory clasp carved to look like a rose. From within the shadows of its hood, her face was largely obscured, but Ward could see her eyes, and he began to understand why Grace and Haley had both mentioned them; they were striking—pale gray discs that seemed to gather and reflect the light. “Can you see in the dark?” he blurted.

“I can see…more than I used to be able to.” She nodded at Grace but then quickly changed the subject, “I’m glad to see you’re up and that you aren’t blind. When I saw your eyes, I thought…” She trailed off, and Ward gestured to the rickety table and two wooden chairs.

“Sit a while?”

“Of course. You should eat, though, Ward. You look like you’ve lost twenty pounds.”

Ward snorted. “Lost more than that.”

Haley looked at Grace. “What does he mean?”

“His brush with death took some years off his life.” When Haley grasped her head in her hands, Grace hurriedly added, “Don’t worry! He’ll gain them back as he gathers mana.”

“Yep. Just another thing we’ve gotta figure out on our way.” Ward grunted as he forced himself to stand up again.

“On our way?”

He shrugged. “Onward. Onward and upward, Haley. I’m sorry I used that dodgy spell to bring you back, but it was the only thing we could think of. I promise you, though: we’re going to find a way to help you. We’re going to find a way to put a smile back on your face.”

Haley stared at him from the shadows of her hood for a long moment, unblinking. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Ward.”

“I’m not. Listen, we both need to figure out how to get some anima back—” Ward froze midway through digging some clean clothes out of his pack. “Hey! How’d you lose your anima?” Something made him look at Grace, glowering.

Grace’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t—” she began to object, but Haley spoke over her.

“It wasn’t Grace, Ward! She told me about what happened with your anima, and, well, I’m too ashamed to give you the details about what happened to mine. I’ll give you the short version, though. Do you remember when you joined Nevkin and me in the chamber with the elevator?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well, before that chamber, didn’t you find a refinement potion?”

“Yeah…”

Haley’s cowl moved up and down as she nodded. “And before that chamber, what did Nevkin find?” By way of answer, Ward jerked a thumb at his mouth, indicating his silver tongue. “Exactly. Well, I was faced with a puzzle. Each stage of its solution offered me a choice—play a game of chance or ‘pay’ for the solution. I paid. Seven times. At the eighth and final stage, I had to play the game of chance; it said I couldn’t ‘pay’ anymore. I rolled an ivory die, and I lost. The reward chest disappeared, and a ladder descended. I climbed up, and that’s how I got to the elevator chamber.”

“So the catacombs took your anima, and you got nothing?”

“Yes. I knew I was giving away something, but I must profess my ignorance about precisely what I was giving up. Now I know.”

“That’s a goddamn raw deal,” Ward growled. He glared at Grace. “Worse than your damn uncle.”

Grace nodded. “It is, but I think it’s a hopeful sign.”

Ward yanked a clean shirt from his pack, irrationally angry after hearing yet another way Haley had been mistreated. “How’s that?”

“You said yourself—the catacombs had a sense of fairness. The challenges the place presented all had a solution or a warning or—” She shook her head. “I’m getting off track. The point is, I don’t think ‘they’ would take something irreplaceable without a much clearer warning.”

Ward slowly nodded. “I can get on board with that idea.” He turned to Haley. “We both need to find out how to get our anima back. Along the way, or afterward—however and whenever it happens—we’ll find out how to help you feel…better.”

Haley didn’t smile, but her eyes glittered brightly as she asked, “Promise?”

Ward’s grin returned, broader than ever. He tucked his bundled clothes under one arm. “Hah! You changed your tune already, see? Yeah, I promise. Now, let me get a bath, and then let’s head out. We’ll stop by Nevkin’s hideout to look for whatever secrets that little bastard was hiding, but then I want to put some miles between us and this village.

Haley shook her head, though her hood moving was the only indication—her body was perfectly still. “I’m sorry, Ward, but we won’t find anything at the Graymane Estate. The mayor says some of the servants went back and burned it to the ground after they heard Nevkin was gone.”

“Ah, dammit.” Ward sighed, shaking his head; his dreams of finding another grimoire were dashed before they had much chance to form. “Well, let’s take a look anyway. It’s on the way out of town.”

Haley’s eyes tracked him as he took another step toward the bathroom. “Where will we go?”

“I dunno. Port Granite?”

“Ward,” Grace cut in, “with what you’ve gained, absorbing that, um, tongue, I think you and Haley should move on to the next world.”

Haley’s voice was hushed as she asked, “Springsea?”

Grace nodded. “That’s the next world, right? The closest, too, if I remember right.”

Ward paused, leaning on the bathroom door. “Do you mean ‘next’ as in, the challenges there—"

“Are supposed to be a little harder than on Cinder.” Grace jumped up from the bed and leaned close to Haley. “With better prizes, too! Do you know where we go to get passage?”

Again, Haley’s cowl bobbed up and down. “I suppose we’d take a steamer from Port Granite to Westview. That’s the closest living ship port. It’s so expensive, though!”

Ward shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find something to sell along the way. We might have to do a little adventuring. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He trailed off as he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

A wave of vertigo struck him, and blackness encroached on his vision, forcing him to lean forward, gripping the edge of the sink. He lifted his head, staring into the mirror, and looked himself in the eyes. They were crimson from the burst vessels, and in the hollows of his dark, bruised eye sockets, they looked like the eyes of a monster. His cheekbones and jaw stood out sharply on his gaunt face. “You look like shit, old man.”

“I think you look tough.”

Ward turned away from the mirror to smile at Grace. “At least you’re being nice as you invade my privacy.”

“We’ve got to work together if we’re going to help Haley—if we’re going to help ourselves.”

“Ourselves?”

“Well. I don’t know, Ward. Maybe you like having me in your head, but maybe there’s a way to get me my own life—a way to help me not be a leech.”

Ward turned to face her, sudden understanding blooming in his mind. “That’s what this whole thing has been about, hasn’t it? I mean coming to Vainglory. You’re trying to find a way to—”

Grace interrupted, leaning close, her eyes intense as they locked onto his. “Not have to use other people? Not be forced to live through the experiences of my host? Be allowed to exercise some free will? Yeah, of course, I wanted to go someplace better than Earth. I mean, as far as this kind of stuff goes. It wasn’t all selfish, though; you really were going to die! I think this system is good for you, too.” She paused, clearly struggling to come to grips with her sudden bout of honesty. “Are you going to hold it against me?”

Ward shook his head, smiling as he straightened up, testing to see that the vertigo was gone. “Nah. I guess I’m proud of you, Grace. I don’t think honesty comes easy to you. Let’s keep it up, all right?”

She grinned, her sharp canines glinting in the lamplight. “That’s a deal, old man!”