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Arcanist - Chapter 86
🕑 Added 2025-04-29 16:25:27 +0000 UTCHe was in a house. Dusty floors were broken in a few places, cracked in others, where a host of worms squirmed impatiently to climb up through the wooden planks, making their way to the door visible ahead in a long, wriggling black line. The door was open. It allowed the light from the outside to fill the place.
Jack sat right across from the door, on a chair looking similar to the one he was granted in the cell. This one was older, perhaps, and tattered dangerously whenever he shifted a leg or a foot, yet it never broke.
He was looking at the door.
Waiting.
Valens was looking at it too, because this was the single memory thread he could find in the man’s brain. There were no others where there should have been hundreds or thousands. The man was over thirty years old. Thirty years of his life, and the only thing he remembered was this house and him sitting here waiting for someone.
That was odd.
But the odd was only just starting.
Steps sounded beyond the door. The light shifted in a way that suggested someone was standing there. Not yet attempting to enter, however, just standing. Their shadow fell over the string of worms on the ground. It spiked them awake. The whole swarm scuttled mindlessly across the hall. Some of them found their way back in through the hole they’d climbed, some others wormed their way swiftly across Jack’s legs, into his clothes, and close to his skin.
He felt their slimy, warm touch all over him.
He didn’t blink.
He just waited.
The shadow moved. The figure strolled inside. It was just then that Jack lowered his chin and nailed his gaze to the floor. Shivers down his spine. Hairs standing on their ends. A dreadful prickling oozing into his skin. Breath caught in his throat. Caught there like a cold stone, refusing to move. He gulped.
A whisper tingled his ears.
He didn’t hear any of it.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught sight of the figure’s shadow. It swarmed across the hall, then drew back to a single point. Then expanded outward again, and danced, and wavered in an incomprehensible mess.
From the cracks over the floor drifted wafts of heavy fog. Tendrils of it choked the scared worms. They went still one by one until the shroud reached Jack. He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t feel its touch, yet knew that it was there, covering him from head to toe. He kept his gaze nailed down. There in his mind was only a single command.
Don’t look up.
Dead worms dropped down from inside his clothes, splashed flat against the wooden planks. Each one withered, as though the fog sucked them dry and left them listless. He shrugged them off as the shadows wavered toward the door.
The fog thickened. Oozed silently through his nostrils, his mouth, and seeped down to his lungs. He breathed in. It was warm, then it got cold. The air closed around him, pressing upon his shoulders as heavy as a rock. He tried to move his fingers, but when they moved, it felt as though they didn’t belong to him anymore.
That whisper again. By his ears. A woman’s voice.
“Mistress…” Jack muttered, not in human speech. He used the shadow’s tongue. Somewhere in his mind, something revolted against his own voice, but that part was silenced quickly until all that was left was a deep emptiness.
An urge pushed him.
He obliged, reaching down to the ground. The thick fog covered everything, but he just knew there was something there. He felt it in the tips of his fingers. A book. He clutched it tight and brought it to his lap. Caressed its surface as though it were the most precious thing in the world.
Carved atop the book’s cover was a symbol of twisted lines, coiling over one another, weaving a messy pattern that wriggled subtly as though it were alive. At its heart, a spiraling vortex pulled at a singular eye inward, one half of it marred with vein-like red strings.
Slowly, Jack placed the book to the side. He pulled himself up to his feet, stretched his arms out as if to feel them. Cracked his neck all the way around. Tapped his feet down to the ground. Tap. Tap. Tap. Then he walked toward the door, clasped the handle and twisted it. He waited for it to open widely, and when it did, he lunged forward.
“I didn’t do anything!” Jack screamed, and wailed, and struggled against his bindings, pulling the chair off its legs by swinging himself madly, flailing there with tears streaming down his face and eyes squinted in pain, staring at Valens. “It wasn’t me! She lied! She is everywhere!”
Valens flinched back even as Garran rushed forward, caught the man by the edge of his chin, and pulled him screaming to the back. He slapped him across the cheek. The man’s head bobbed back, then bounced down, then another slap sent him back to sleep.
“Stubborn fool,” Garran huffed when the man went still.
“What did you see?” Lenora looked greatly interested in the memories rather than the prisoner's state. “Anything?”
Valens rubbed the back of his neck. He could still feel the slimy touch of those worms slithering all about his skin. The shadow’s presence across the hall. The fog that trickled down through his lungs. All too real to be a memory, and yet this poor man experienced every one of them.
“I saw the book,” Valens said, staring at the captain, who nodded at him. “It’s the Mother of Venerable Fates, isn’t it? A shadow brought that thing to Jack’s house.”
“Who?” Captain Edric asked. “Did you see them?”
Valens shook his head. “All I saw was its shadow and the fog, and Jack’s fear. Whatever he did, he didn’t do it willingly. Something forced him. Someone, likely a woman.”
“A woman?” Lenora frowned. “Didn’t you say you didn’t see anything—“
“She whispered,” Valens said, and paused as he considered his next words. “It was the shadow’s tongue.”
“The Wretched Mother.” Lenora tapped a nervous finger to her cheek.
Valens had a few guesses as to why she looked this troubled. She was of the Fate’s Path as a Veilwarden, just like Vireth in the Midnight Assembly. She used the powers granted by the Mother of Venerable Fates, but served in the Sun’s Church of all places.
That isn’t relevant here. Jack called her Mistress just like the Weeping Horror. Who is behind all of this? Is it the Mother of Venerable Fates, or that Evercrest Family?
“Anything else?” Captain Edric probed. “Anything useful to understand this whole thing?”
“I’m afraid that’s the only memory he has, Captain,” Valens said. “His brain is clean, untouched, but someone clearly has tampered with his memories. This particular memory, though, has been engraved deep into Jack’s mind. I presume our culprit didn’t want to mess with it. That could’ve been lethal, in this case.”
“We’ll start with the house, then.” Captain Edric swept the poor man with a fierce gaze. “Search all those victims’ houses as well. We can’t trust the police in this matter. They don’t have the tools we have here. Lenora, you—“
“Not now,” Lenora said. She, too, was looking at Jack. “I want to see his soul first. The Healer mentioned shadows and fog, so there’s a chance he was under the influence of our culprit. No, that’s the only possible scenario here.”
“That’s a relief,” Percival wiped his brows with a kerchief. “For a second there, I feared we would have a crowd of apprentices going on a strike funded by cults and outer entities. That would’ve been a pain to deal with.”
Lenora pressed two fingers to her temple, deep in thought. Then, without lifting her gaze from Jack, she said, “Everyone out. I need the room cleared.”
Captain Edric stiffened immediately. “That’s unnecessary. We should remain in case—”
“I said out,” Lenora said in a voice that demanded complete obedience. “Only Valens will stay.”
Only me? What do you plan on showing me?
Percival glanced between them, uncertain, while Garran’s brow furrowed deeply, his mouth working as if he wanted to argue but couldn't quite find the words. Even Captain Edric looked distinctly troubled, shifting his weight like a man uneasy at the gallows.
Before he turned to leave, Garran lingered by Valens’s side. His voice was low. “Try not to watch too much of it. It stays with you.” Then he was gone, leaving the heavy iron door creaking on its hinges behind him.
Valens stood still as the last footsteps echoed away down the cell. Alone now, save for Lenora and Jack, who still slumped unconscious in the battered chair.
Lenora wasted no time. She slipped the locket at her throat free from under her collar; it swung outward of its own accord, as if pulled by an unseen force. She muttered something under her breath as she let the locket dangle from over Jack’s head.
“Watch,” she said without looking at him.
Then the Resonance changed.
Blisters popped and hissed across the visible parts of her arms. Veins bulged out of her neck, squirmed like worms trying to carve a way out of her flesh while the locket began swinging left and right like a pendulum, emanating a set of frequencies that resonated with something deep inside Jack.
Still unconscious, the man’s chest jerked tight, head hanging lifelessly from his shoulders. Slowly, the frequencies pulled at his feet. Straining against the chains, he rose, the chair glued to his body, his arms slowly stretching outward to both sides.
What the hell is happening here?
Valens swallowed. There was something wrong with the woman. Her skin was alive with hundreds of worms. The side of her face, barely visible from where Valens stood, was marred by dark veins that pulsed subtly, and right there on the wall, her shadows danced in impossible shapes.
Countless arms, tendrils, and twisting strands grew out of her form. Wavered all around her like slaves waiting for the call of their master. Murmurs echoed across the cell, then deep in Valens’s mind, calling out at him in different voices.
“Save us…”
“Save us…”
“Cruel Mistress…”
Then all at once, the tendrils over the walls elongated toward Jack’s singular shadow. They stabbed into it like spears of insidious precision, and the man jerked and twisted with the chains struggling to hold him still.
Is this how a Hexmender opens one’s inner world? By becoming a monster that can reach out to the shadows?
It was alien. An abomination of a human standing beside him, being twisted into a creature that reeked of death. Yet Valens pushed himself to take a step toward her. Then another one until he was standing by her side. Her eyes were closed. Her skin cracked like a patch of dried earth left parched for years. Underneath it was riddled with dark worms, just like the ones Valens had seen in Jack’s memory.
Do they share the same source?
He didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to ask the woman that question now. No. He would wait for the right time, and in the meantime, he had a mind to check what was going on inside Jack’s body.
Garran might’ve told him not to look, but then, Valens had long since decided he would be his own man in this world. That involved making his own decisions, and right now, other than the sudden horror that had grown out of Lenora, he was dying to learn more.
He placed a hand on Jack’s flailing arms, steering away from the locket still swinging over his head. A Lifeward seeped into his body, up across his chest, painting the rhythm of frequencies of the man’s inner world.
It was crowded with little worms. Almost looking real, but their Resonance wasn’t tied into the material world. No, they were bound by ethereal strings that were coming from Lenora’s locket, and every single one of them was worming a silent path toward the chest cavity.
Valens reached there quickly. He wasn’t sure if Lenora was aware of his attempt, but still he made an effort to keep his touch as silent as possible. Through the swarm of worms, into the chest cavity, he arrived at Jack’s soul.
The Gate was already opened, and there before it stood a giant eye looking into the space beyond. A monstrous thing being fed by the endless string of words pouring into it, squirming constantly in a rhythm that matched the veins pulsing underneath Lenora’s face.
Scary.
Valens managed the Lifeward threads to pass silently from beside the giant thing, into the space beyond the Gate, and once there, he focused on the Resonance.
[You have arrived at the Spiritum.]
This…
He scowled.
The frequencies were wrong. There was no other explanation. He couldn’t feel the familiar rhythm of a living soul, not a sign of a Resonance that belonged to Jack. Only the endless, sluggish drift of worms burrowing through a barren mist.
He pressed the Lifeward deeper into the void, searching, reaching, but the Spiritum only gave back silence. Silence, and nothing else.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” came Lenora’s voice. Valens pulled his hold off from Jack’s chest cavity and opened his eyes, looking at the woman. Her eyes were still closed, but there was a deep frown on her face. “I can’t see anything.”
“What?” Valens couldn’t help but ask. “What do you mean you can’t see anything?”
“This man’s soul has been shrouded,” Lenora said.
She pulled the locket back into her fist and opened her eyes. Her mouth opened slightly when she saw Valens standing a step away from her, as if she hadn’t expected it, as the veins and blisters across her skin slowly receded.
“What are you doing standing this close to me?” she muttered, shaking her head. “It’s too dangerous. I only told you to watch.”
Oh? She isn’t aware that I was there with her, but why would she say this man’s soul has been shrouded? There was nothing there.
“Old habits,” Valens smiled at her. “I’m at heart a rather curious person.”
Lenora shrugged. She didn’t seem to mind that Valens had seen her face and her arms just now in that monstrous form. Perhaps this was a common practice for people who work with Hexmenders on a daily basis, but for someone else, that sight alone could have been traumatic.
A monster hiding under a human’s skin, or is it the opposite? Is that why the captain told me Hexmenders die young? The shadows they take from the victims, they don’t just throw those out, do they?
“Fine,” Lenora said, glancing at Jack. “Someone doesn’t want this man’s soul to be seen by us, or anyone else.”
“Can you do that?” Valens frowned. “I mean, can you hide one’s soul without leaving any clues behind?”
Lenora nodded. “There are ways. They’re not easy, but if you have the Wretched Mother’s court behind you, you can manage to hide a Pretrial man’s soul with the right tools.”
“What if there isn’t any?” Valens asked.
“You mean that Jack doesn’t have a soul?” Lenora smiled mockingly at him, reached and caressed his right cheek as if Valens were a little boy talking about things way beyond his head. “Soul is the core of a human, Valens. Without it there won’t be life for any of us here.”
“Eh, it was just a thought,” Valens said.
“There’s no doubt about it. This matter is closely tied to the Wretched Mother’s court,” Lenora said. “I will speak with the Bishop about this matter. The Cathedral of the Eternal Sun in the Broken Lands has a Sacred Artifact we can use to breach that veil. Meanwhile, you should go and tell Edric about this. I will be busy.”
“You’re sending me to the groundwork?” Valens said. “I thought we were about to get into the important part of the business here.”
“Go,” Lenora chuckled, and pushed him gently toward the gate. “You’re an odd man.”
“Why, I can’t help it,” Valens said, allowing himself to be dragged out of the cell. “But do tell me, I could use the advice.”
"Curious, indeed,” Lenora said, and stared deep into the locket clasped in her fist. “But if you want to know, you're the first person who didn’t flinch when you saw what I really am.”
Valens tossed her a glance, voice low and amused. "If that's the worst you’ve got... I think I’ll manage.”
Then he walked out of the cell.
.......
Comments
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapters! :-)
