Wordscapist: The Myth (The Way of the Word Book 1) (44 page)

     Through all the talk, I kept a close watch on the two wordsmiths. I could feel my consciousness reach out in invisible tendrils, feeling their scape-signs, checking if they were up to something. It hit me then that all I had to do was watch their lips. I was the only thoughtsmith around. All the others had to say the words, inaudible or not, to make things happen. And that involved moving their lips. I’d never heard of a ventriloquist wordsmith. Silvus obliged immediately with a demonstration of my theory. His lips quivered a bit and immediately I felt his scape-sign flare. I flexed my fingers and sent a searing flame his way. It came up against a protective aura and spread out rather spectacularly, outlining his shield. He quickly stopped whatever he was doing. Back to stalemate. But he did not know that. I kept my eye on Zauberin through this entire exchange, just in case. Whew! This was tiring.

     “You expect us to believe you, runt!” Silvus roared out, his fury made worse by his failed attempt at whatever he had tried.

     “I do not expect anything, old man,” I gave it back in the same tone, “And you are in no position to be indignant. The last time, I chose to nullify your nasty attacks. This time, I’ll simply reroute them. Let’s see if your shield can stand up to what Zauberin throws out. I might even add a something of my own for flavour.”

      “Did you hear that, Lily? The boy is trying to manipulate us!” Silvus roared. He quickly followed it up with a telepathic probe. I felt the thought fly past, though I could not quite figure out what he had said. Before I could figure a way to stop the mental chitchat, Zauberin chimed in.

     “You dare tell me what to do! Your days of playing god with Wordkind are over, Silvus! I’ll take this kid down, and then I’m coming for you!”

     Whew! That was that, for now. I just had to deal with them one at a time. But how? And then it happened again; that moment of sudden realization, as when I was drowning. Sudden, brilliant insight that made all that I had done before look rather foolish. There was a solution.

     With a focussed thought I went invisible, letting the flames in my hands die out at the same instant. The problem with going invisible, especially when you do it for the first time, is that you don’t know if it’s worked. But I was riding an incredibly high wave of confidence. Intent is equal to thought is equal to words is equal to reality. That was my equation, and with the focus I had right now it was going to be spot on every damn time.

      Chaos tore loose instantly, and I knew I’d got it right. Both Silvus and Zauberin immediately unleashed their trademark bolts. Rather unimaginative, but still deadly. I was already pasted on the floor right next to Dew. I drew a shield over the both of us and lay back to watch the fireworks. The two most powerful wordsmiths in the world were trying their damnedest to wipe each other out.

      Both of them were encased in identical spherical shields, suspended in the air, moving around as they dodged the others bolts and kept throwing attack after attack at the other. Quick darts, bright flashes and a lot of heat and smoke…it was some display! I could hardly see the two forms creating all the mayhem. I reminded myself to focus on keeping the invisibility and shield in place. The last thing I wanted was for all that fury and power to be unleashed at me.

      Almost absent-mindedly, I probed to see if the teleport block was still in place. Bingo! I had hit pay dirt. The teleport block was gone, dissolved, probably struck by one or more of the deflected spells. It was time to leave. There would be a split second before I ported Dew and myself out when I would be exposed and visible, but then I had pushed my luck so much that I could not worry about such miniscule risks. And luckily, it worked just fine. The teleport opened up on the little paradise that De Vorto called home. I even had the satisfaction of seeing the looks on Silvus and Zauberin’s faces as we zoomed out.

      The next moment, it was all over. Peace, quiet and even nice weather. De Vorto’s protection ensured that the trace analysis was disabled, so we should be alright as long we didn’t get out. There was no convenient entry portal anyway, so we couldn’t really get out without teleporting unless De Vorto dropped by.

      I hugged Dew’s still form to myself and closed my eyes. She was ok. I was ok. And we were safe for a while. I’d just wait till she came around; and hold her until she did. Understandably, I was in no hurry.

CHAPTER 21

Loose Ends

I exist

I am the

Wordscapist

Dew

     I came to with a whopping headache and blurry vision. It took a while for things to clear and a while longer before I dared open my eyes. The first thing I saw was Slick’s face. He was right beside me, cradling me in his arms. I raised my head slightly to look around, pushing his hand away as he shushed me and tried to put my head back down. It didn’t take me more than a couple of seconds to recognise the place. We were back in Skye, safe inside De Vorto’s hideaway. The last I remembered, we were in the midst of a very tight situation and a door had crashed in my face. I also had some vague purple memories that felt very scary. How the hell did we get back here?

     My head started spinning and I lay back down, closing my eyes. I waited for the buzzing and dizziness to pass and then opened my eyes again. Now I had Slick looking at me with a soppy expression, smoothing my hair back.

     “Slick,” my voice escaped as a croak that didn’t sound anything like me.

     “Yes sweetheart,” came the reply.

     “Set my head down gently and back off at least two feet. If you don’t do it immediately, I will knee you really, really hard in a soft place. That is after an hour or so, when I can move my head without everything spinning.” I had to give him this much credit, he realised when he needed to act right away. He followed my instructions to the letter and then sat back with an innocent expression.

     My headache was receding a little too fast and I saw the expression on his face. He was weaving a remedy through thoughtscapes. Again! I let him continue though, at least until my headache eased into a dull throb. I whacked him one on his knee nevertheless. He really should know better! He gave me an injured expression and then dropped it when he saw my face. That was the good thing with him. All the drama ceased the moment he knew I could see through it.

     “So tell me,” I managed to speak with a voice slightly closer to mine, “what did I miss?”

     “Oh, not much!” he tried waving it off, and failed miserably. Modesty was really not his strong point. “I got us out of a dual attack from Silvus and Zauberin, right into Sign’s universe. Then I faced Sign down and froze her up. I set up a mental link and figured out what her deal is. Finally, I tied her cats up to her throat, picked you up and brought you back. Oh yes, Silvus and Zauberin were still around. I fenced with them for a bit and left them to fight it out and brought us here. That’s about it.”

     I guess my jaw had dropped to gape position when he mentioned Sign’s universe. It was still there. Knowing Slick, I could guess that was pretty much what happened. He tended to exaggerate the simple stuff and simplify the fantastic stuff. With this much brevity, I could only imagine what must have actually happened.

     “Run that by me again. Slowly.” And then he did. In lurid detail. I was guessing there was some exaggeration this time, but the stuff was incredible enough for any exaggeration to be merely stylistic. I could give him that much. When he got to the combating Sign part for the third time, I realised what he was telling me. I leaned closer and took a good look at his eyes. It just took one look. There was no missing it. I slowly let myself back into a lying position and closed my eyes. I needed some more rest before I could deal with this.

Slick

     I didn’t need to ask Dew to know what had happened. She had asked to see my eyes. And then there was a look of complete shock before she lay back down. It wasn’t the pleasant kind of shock I had been expecting either. It was the terrified kind.

     My eyes had bothered me ever since that day in Goa when I had discovered that one had suddenly turned a sinister green. I learned to ignore it and took to wearing dark glasses to keep my eyes shaded. The colour was still quite disconcerting whenever I happened to notice my eyes in the mirror. But slowly, the weirdness had begun to fade out, and much like everything else about my body, I had begun to accept it as normal. Dew’s reaction brought back all the initial fear I’d felt on seeing my dual-coloured eyes for the first time. What had happened now? Did I have vertical slits like that of a snake?

     I looked around and saw the pond. That would work, and I scooted over to get a look at myself. The pond was nice and clear, and I could see my face in all its glory. Both my eyes were green now. I guess the word for that colour was eldritch; eldritch green. I felt my stomach do a flip-flop as the fear came right back into my head.

     A couple of hours later, De Vorto finally arrived. True to his word, he knew exactly where to find us. There were still lots of unanswered questions, but I was already looking at him very differently. After the mental link with Sign I now knew the true importance of being called the Wordscapist; a title that I had foolishly claimed as my own.

    The two hours that had passed since my eye examination and De Vorto’s arrival had been quiet. Dew and I sat beside each other, staring into space, the occasional sentence leading to some stilted conversation, which would be followed by more silence. Both of us knew pretty much exactly what had happened. I had claimed the gift of the Wordscapist for myself. It was part of me now. It was true that I could feel no presence in my head anymore, no surge of external power. It was all part of me. The problem was I now couldn’t stop myself from drawing on it. It had become part and parcel of who I was and would be there, innately and intricately linked to every action of mine, every word. I was stuck with it for the rest of my life. Perhaps even after that. I didn’t really understand how this entire Wordscapist deal worked.

    When De Vorto fluttered in, it took him a moment to realise something was wrong, and one look at my eyes to realise what I had done. He was furious.

    “What were you thinking, Slick? Why would you do that?”

    “But you don’t know what I did...”

    “I can see it for myself, can’t I? You’ve claimed it for yourself. You gave into the power, became one with it!”

    “I had to! I was in Sign’s world! Nothing else worked there!”

     “You were where?” At this, De Vorto went very still.

     “Yes, I was trying to teleport out and ended up in Sign’s trap.”

     “I told you not to teleport.”

     “You weren’t there. You didn’t know how it was!”

     “I told you not to teleport.” De Vorto was going an alarming shade of red.

     “But damn it, I didn’t have a choice! I was stuck between Silvus and Zauberin! And Dew was unconscious!”

     De Vorto paused for a moment there. He looked at Dew. “Are you alright?” She nodded. He got back to glaring at me. “There must have been another way. You didn’t look hard enough.”

     “Damn it, Alain! Give me a break!” I felt like shoving him back, but knew that I couldn’t. I shouted instead. “I just fought off Amra, her interrogator, a zombie that won’t stay dead, Silvus, Zauberin, Sign, and her cats! I got us both back here alive and well without any assistance from you! And all you can tell me is that I should have looked for another way?”

     De Vorto gave me a long, sad look. When he spoke again, he was much softer, “Slick, I just got the CCC death warrant on your name cancelled. I convinced the Yen assigned to this plane that you were right, and they were wrong. I even agreed to go on trial for my own deeds conducted half a millennium ago. And after all that, I came back to try and find a way to free you from this curse.” Another long look, and then De Vorto lost it! He screamed right in my face, “But no! What do I see! I see a wordsmith who has given into the corruption, who has become the Word, who has become the Wordscapist! Have you seen your eyes, you foolish boy!”

     I felt tears prickling my eyes. “But I had to save Dew. And what I had wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have a choice, De Vorto. I had to become. I saw my reflection. I feel what’s inside. I know...But I wouldn’t have done it any differently. I couldn’t have let any of those horrible people, zombies, or elementals have her.”

     At this, I felt Dew’s arms come up around me from behind. She gave me a tight hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. And then, she looked up at De Vorto, who was still looking very sad. “Remember what you told me on the boat, Alain? We are all he has. And now, after what he has done, he needs us all the more.”

     De Vorto sighed and then nodded. “I’m afraid you don’t have too much time, my boy. The gift will rage in you even more. You will not be able to control it as a separate entity. It is a part of you. It’s time to get down to some serious training.”

     I groaned inwardly. I was careful not to let De Vorto see that, though. I shot Dew a quick grimace. There was no choice though. It was time to get down to work.

     “So what do you suggest,” I asked Alain. Dew had already established that wordsmith lessons weren’t for me; they wouldn’t really work.

     “Practice,” De Vorto said grimly, “You fought norms and wordsmiths, and even Sign herself. But you need to start lower down. The zombie was only the beginning, Slick. There are a many more monsters. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, succubae, incubi.”

     My eyebrows had shot up as he went through the list. Say what!

     “Yes, they’re all real,” Dew offered. “Just like the ghosts you munched up.”

     “Oh yes, they’re real,” De Vorto said. “They are the spawn of wordscapes gone wrong. Some are shades of wordsmiths who refused to die. Others are victims who weren’t killed right. Some of my life’s work was to set up protection scapes for humanity against these monsters. I am sure there’s a lot more to do there. I think that’s a good place to start.”