24 . 1 . 10
Happy birthday to me.
When Faidn opened his eyes, he wasn't anywhere at all. The ground he was standing on, next to Swana, was colorless and lacked texture. It was solid, but that was all he could determine. There was nothing around them – no walls, objects, shadows, or evidence that any person had ever been there.
"On your guard," Swana said.
Her voice was tired, but her eyes were glinting as she looked around for movement. Faidn looked around them, too, but there was nothing there; there was not even a sound, or an echo of a sound, that reached his ears in the strange empty world. The nondescript land was completely deserted of any life. Light came from nowhere and everywhere; it was as bright as a spring day, but there was nothing there that hinted at spring. Even the light itself was wan and weary – bleak as the world it lit.
And then, as Faidn's eyes were trying to scan the scenery with difficulty, a man was in front of them. He neither appeared nor walked up to them; he was merely there when he hadn't been a moment before. He was as tall as Faidn, though older, and he wore brown traveling clothes, much like Swana's. This must be Hughes, Faidn thought, glad to have a definite point on which to focus his eyes. The colorless landscape was starting to mess with his mind.
"Swana, at last," the man said, dipping his greying head slightly. "I've heard much of you wherever this book went."
He ignored Faidn entirely. Faidn was alright with that; the wizard reminded him of the gypsies that had tricked and kidnapped him when he was seventeen. He had that same look in his eye – the look that made Faidn know immediately that the man was going to cheat him if he wasn't careful. Faidn recalled Swana's story of weeks ago – Hughes wasn't particularly smart, but he was crafty. Seeing the man in person confirmed this description at once.
"You have used magic for evil, wizard," Swana said, looking him in the eye. "Release the princess."
"Release the one person for whom this book was intended?" Hughes laughed. "Give me one good reason. And it had best be a very good one."
"Because if you don't, I will kill you," Swana said without flinching.
"Will you now?" Hughes's voice still carried latent humor, but his eyes flashed. "And what state are you in, to try to kill me, the master of this book?"
"I have a greater power on my side," Swana said calmly; pale magic began to gather in her hands. "I don't belong to the book."
"You're surrounded by my magic," Hughes said, conjuring a mass of light in an instant. It dwarfed the soft light swirling around Swana's palms in size and intensity. "Where you belong doesn't matter. You're here now, and that's all that matters."
He spun the heavy magic at her, but she blocked it with an easy gesture. Her magic spun around his, netting it and carrying it off to the side.
"No, it's not," she said quietly, and then she shot a blast of magic at him.
"Now would be a good time to get out of the way, before you turn into a three-headed purple frog or a stunted grey newt," Karl's voice said in Faidn's mind, heavy with sarcasm.
Faidn visibly started; he'd forgotten Karl would be communicating with him. He hadn't been expecting the man's voice in his mind, either, when he'd thought of communication; his mouth pulled into a grimace. It seemed very, very wrong somehow – like he'd have to wash his brain out after they'd finished this affair. Nevertheless, he took several steps back, far out of the fray. Neither Swana nor Hughes noticed him leaving.
"Look around for Iriana," Karl instructed.
She wasn't here when we got here, Faidn thought, piecing together the sentence in his mind awkwardly. Karl could hear his thoughts. He didn't like this part of the plan.
"What?" Karl said. "Your thoughts are more mixed up than a woman's. Clear your mind."
I don't see Iriana, Faidn thought, concentrating on the words with difficulty and looking around the blank landscape that was devoid of any life save the dueling pair of wizards.
"Hopeless," Karl said in disgust. "I can't understand a word you're thinking. Try speaking aloud."
"Are you sure it isn't your fault?" Faidn muttered testily.
"No, it's you. You're awful at telepathy."
"I don't exactly have a lot of practice," Faidn said in annoyance. Secretly, though, he was glad that Karl couldn't hear every passing thought of his. This ordeal was uncomfortable enough without sharing the intimacies of his thoughts with a man he didn't much care for.
"Well, maybe you should," Karl retorted. "It comes in handy. Anyway, look for Iriana."
"She's not here," Faidn said, keeping a wary eye on the battling duo. Light and magic was flying everywhere; he could barely see the two figures for all the spells.
"Oh, darn," Karl drawled, "you must be in the wrong book. Let me just—"
"There she is," Faidn interrupted, spotting the woman on the ground where she had not been moments earlier. Familiar blonde curls splayed messily over the indistinct floor and the woman's shoulders, which were shaking.
Iriana, Faidn thought so loudly he was surprised it didn't come out his mouth.
He heard Karl mutter some exclamation, but he ignored it, running toward her and dropping to his knees when he reached her side. She didn't look up. She was sobbing – quiet, heart-wrenchingly hopeless swells of grief. He tried put a hand on her shoulder and found that his hand passed straight through her.
"You're too real to touch her," Karl said with irritation, as if Faidn should have thought of that already. "She's only there in spirit, and you're there physically. You'll need to reach out to her with your magic."
"How exactly do I do that?" Faidn asked.
I didn't know I had magic, he thought to himself.
"Of course you have magic," Karl said, sighing at Faidn's stupidity. "Everyone has magic."
"I thought you couldn't hear my thoughts!" Faidn said angrily.
"That one was particularly loud," Karl said. "Now, concentrate. I don't know how much time you have before Swana kicks the bucket and you're stuck there forever. Close your eyes and push your mind with magic toward Iriana's. When you feel the magic catch on something, let go. "
"Uh?" Faidn said helplessly, feeling less certain that his volunteering to go with Swana had been such a good idea after all.
Iriana choked on the violence of her own tears, inches away but untouchable. Faidn's fist clenched of its own accord. He'd come here to do something, not watch her.
"Just do it," Karl ordered.
Faidn closed his eyes and tried to do what Karl had instructed, but the fiari's voice cut him off after just a few seconds.
"Your magical ability is on level with a drunken rock," Karl said bluntly, but then his voice changed as he seemed to have an idea. "Actually, there might be another way. Try to recall moments – memories – of Iriana, in as much detail as possible, until everything else is blocked from your mind."
Faidn closed his eyes and visualized the last time he had seen her before she fell asleep – during their early-morning talk. Neither of them were talking at that moment; he had just finished telling her about a time he had taken a roll off the baking stone right out of the oven and then tried to convince his mother that she'd left a spot blank.
He watched her cornflower-blue eyes flit to the lamp in the corner, like she was checking to be sure it was still there. Then, she let them rest for a moment on the folds of her simple green dress. Something in her mouth shifted, and her lips moved into a half smile at some memory.
"What?" he asked, smiling a little in anticipation of an amusing story.
"The rolls," she said, laughing a little, "reminded me of one time, when Cameron took me down to the kitchens and showed me how they were stirring a huge bowl of cake batter."
She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with laughter as she relived the memory.
"When the cooks left the bowl unattended, we ran over and tasted the batter."
"And?" he prompted, guessing the end of the story.
Iriana threw her head back and laughed.
"Oh, my – we ate half the batter in that big bowl. Half of it! The bowl was this big!"
She held her hands out to shoulder width. Faidn had to admit that was quite a lot of batter.
"Did you get caught?" he asked – the most important question.
"Well, not exactly," Iriana said, leaning back again. "We ran away when we heard the cooks coming back. We knew we were going to get in big trouble for that, so we decided to hide in the woods."
She started laughing again, and it took her a minute before she continued on with her story. Faidn was laughing too. Her hilarity made Faidn laugh more than he would have otherwise – more than he had in a long time.
"We didn't even make it to the woods," she managed, putting her head in her hands and shaking it. "We were so sick! We just flopped down onto the grass beside the path and moaned and moaned and moaned."
Faidn couldn't stop laughing either; she was animated, using her hands to tell the story as much as her tone, and he could barely get a breath, though he knew the story wasn't that funny.
Faidn was suddenly jerked out of the memory when he felt something under his fingers. Hair. The bubbling laughter faded from his mind, and he recalled where he was. His eyes flew open and he saw Iriana still sobbing in front of him, but they were now in a dank dungeon, dimly and sparsely lit by dying torches. He looked down at his hand and saw that it was resting on a curl of Iriana's that was on the floor – that was the hair that he felt. Once again, he reached out a hand to her shoulder, and this time he felt her.
"Iriana," he said, relief and worry battling for prominence in the word.
She looked up, slowly, her eyes adjusting to the dark light, and stared at Faidn like he was a ghost.
"F-Faidn?" she croaked, her voice hoarse from disuse and crying.
He just looked at her, disheveled and painfully desolate. He had no concept of any words to say; no clever or comforting remark came to mind. So, he stood, held out a hand, and pulled her to her feet. She balanced unsteadily, still staring at him with disbelief in her wide blue eyes that reflected the very dim light in the dungeon.
Then, after a moment more of staring, she threw herself at him, clinging to his body like it was the only hope left in the world – which, judging by her surroundings, was probably a fair assessment. Faidn could feel her tears mingling with her shaky breath on his chest; her hands clutched at the back of his shirt, gathering fistfuls of the fabric, as if she would be ripped away at any moment and needed a strong hold. At such an unroyal display, Faidn reacted the only way his brain could devise; he put his arms around her and hugged her back. After another moment, he rested his cheek on the side of her head, and neither of them moved. It reminded him of Rose, of his mother, and what she had said, after he'd returned from the war...
"How did you get here?" Iriana asked, loosening her hold slightly and pulling her face away.
"Swana," he said. "We've come to rescue you."
"Exactly," Karl said, cutting into the moment impatiently. "And if you don't hurry up and get out, you're going to miss your opportunity. If you're fast enough, you might be able to get out before Hughes sets any little beasties on you."
"Karl says, 'hello,'" Faidn told her with a frown. He wondered if Karl had heard anything he had just been thinking. Because the man didn't mention it, he assumed not.
"Uh, hello?" Iriana said uncertainly, peering around for Karl.
"I did not," Karl said grumpily. "Ask her if she knows how to break the spell."
"Do you know how to break the spell?" Faidn asked her. He noticed that she'd slipped her hands free and taken a step back; he quelled the impulse to reverse this action.
"A fiari has to do it," she said, eyes brightening. "Um, where's Karl?"
"Been there, done that, still have not been properly compensated," Karl grumbled.
"That was to get people out of the story," Faidn said, finding it unfortunately more difficult to ignore Karl's comments now that they were being made inside of his own head. "I guess it's a different spell to wake you up."
"Oh," Iriana said, crestfallen; the one thing she did know about the constantly shifting world of the book was apparently unhelpful.
"And Karl is in my head," Faidn added, answering her question.
"In your—" Iriana started, mildly revolted at the thought.
"Believe me, it's not as pleasant as it sounds," he interrupted.
His face showed annoyance and strain. Iriana could believe that the experience wasn't very pleasant for Faidn, who was something of a private individual. And Karl was probably egging him on, as always. Iriana shook her head as Faidn tilted his head slightly; she assumed he was listening to Karl again. Her head danced around with silly thoughts, and she tried to make it work reasonably again. Something about this world, the world of her dreams and nightmares, made thinking straight very difficult. Faidn's arrival, however, added an edge of distinction to the surroundings. His straightforward, logical speech, his warm, solid embrace—
Iriana scowled and tried to keep her mind on track.
"Well, it's not exactly roses and cake for me, either," Karl said waspishly. "Your mind is a mess. It's not so hard to clear it out, you know. Although, with a bit of snooping, I could get a lot of good information on Berensia's general..."
"Keep your nose out of my business," Faidn said frostily. "Picking through people's heads has got to be against some magical rules."
"Actually, interestingly, it isn't," Karl said wickedly. "The only real rules for magic come from the fairies, who say that if you're not smart enough to block magical mind-reading, you deserve it."
"I don't know what you two are talking about, but stop arguing," Iriana said, folding her arms and giving Faidn a pointed look. Listening to even one side of the conversation was enough to tell that it was far from cordial. She paused and looked around at the dungeon anxiously. It seemed less cold all of a sudden. She wondered if her mind was playing with her, hesitating before asking: "Is it just me, or did it get warmer in here?"
"Warmer?" Faidn said, bringing his mind back to the dungeon.
It was warmer. It was still just as dark and wet, but the air was less chilly than it had been a moment before.
"Enter the beasties," Karl said. "Make sure Iriana knows that I warned you, and you decided arguing was a better use of my time than figuring out the spell."
"Hughes is setting magical creatures on us, I think," Faidn said, disregarding the last part of Karl's statement.
Iriana had the feeling that she was not hearing the entirety of Karl's messages. However, the appearance of possibly dangerous magical creatures was more pressing. The thought of danger was having a remarkable effect on her ability to think, too.
"How do we get rid of them?" she asked, a little nervously. "And what kind of creatures?"
"Like any other creature," Karl said. "And I don't know. Whatever Hughes feels like. Something potentially fatal."
Faidn relayed this information to Iriana, then posed a question of his own.
"So, if we die here—"
Iriana stiffened perceptibly, and Faidn almost put a hand on her arm to reassure her, then stopped himself at the last moment.
"You'll die out there, too," Karl replied."In your case, you're here in body and spirit. In hers, the body can't live without the spirit. And hey, don't be afraid to show her how you feel. If you get out of there alive, you're going to marry her, you know. I think you've got a license to show some affection."
"Stop prodding around," Faidn said warningly, his stomach clenching. He really did not like that Karl could know what he was feeling.
"You're the one practically screaming in here about how beautiful her eyes—"
"What did he say?" Iriana asked, unintentionally drowning out the rest of Karl's statement and biting her lip.
Faidn hesitated. Karl sighed loudly.
"We'll die if we die here," he said, meeting her eyes. Which were very pretty, even in the forbiddingly dark hallway. "But we're going to beat them."
Iriana smiled shakily. She looked very pale and completely unequipped for any sort of battle. Faidn wanted to keep her from ever looking this haunted again; he vowed in his mind that he would get them out of this alive.
"Isn't that sweet," Karl quipped. "You should probably take a look at the monster before you say that."
"If we break the spell, we're out. Right?" Faidn asked.
"Right."
"How do we break the spell?"
Karl hesitated, and Iriana heard a footstep in the darkness: a loud, heavy footstep, followed by an echoing scrape. She looked at Faidn, who didn't seem to have noticed anything.
"Uh, Faidn..." Iriana said, trying to get his attention away from whatever Karl was saying. "I hear something."
Faidn drew his sword without hesitation and looked where Iriana was looking. The passage was still dark, but there was a soft noise coming their direction. It was distorted by echoes and distance, however, so he couldn't identify what it was.
"I'm feeling out the webs of the spells now," Karl said shortly. "It's slow going, though. He put enough precautions on here to strangle a Philettin king. You'll just have to stay alive until I find something. Hopefully that will happen before either one of our dueling wizards is defeated. You both will be stuck here forever if that happens."
"Stop talking, then!" Faidn cried, thinking of the explosive battle he'd left behind. It was hard to believe either one of them would survive for very long.
"If you would stop talking, I would be able to concentrate," Karl snapped. "It's hard enough to think with all your errant emotions tripping around like toddlers at a picnic."
"Hurry!"
Iriana jumped at Faidn's sudden exclamations. I wish I could hear Karl, too, she thought with slight impatience. She didn't like having to wait for Faidn to translate Karl's messages. Then, she remembered what hearing Karl would entail and reconsidered. Perhaps... not, she thought, realizing what Karl could potentially hear and discover in her woozy mind. Like the fact that the only thing she really wanted right now was Faidn's arms around her again and his head resting on hers. Her heartbeat quickened and she shook her head, trying to dispel the thought with difficulty. Her legs were considering rebellion; they were about to propel her towards him against the better advice of her brain.
"What is it?" Iriana asked, hoping that using her voice would keep her body from acting crazily. She heard the noise again and was suddenly on edge. The shuffling was getting closer; shadows were moving.
"Karl's going to figure out the spell, and we need to stay alive," Faidn translated to Iriana.
"Right. Stay alive," she said, nodding firmly.
Despite this display of determination, the next sound from the passage made her jump. It sounded suspiciously like a horse's snort, but larger. Faidn and Iriana heard scraping like metal on stone, and heavy footfalls that crunched the stone floors. Whatever the creature was, it was very large; its breath echoed in the dungeon in a whispering growl. Iriana and Faidn stepped closer together, Faidn's blade glinting in front of them both, just as one massive foot entered into a pool of dazed light.
Iriana realized with a bolt of fear that the creature was much too large for such a small space; they were going to be crushed before they even had a chance to fight.
Vivid white scales and silver claws were all they saw of the foot before the world turned upside down.
And... another cliffy. I think that's one of Cadmus's new favorite things. So, any thoughts?
Pimpernel Princess: Thanks! I love to see my characters improve, too. It's very rewarding. --smile-- Ah, I have far too much fun with Karl. That's probably why he makes his way into stories where he may or may not actually belong; I just like his rude comments and bad attitude. See Faidn in acion? Oh yes. Much action is to be had. I hope you enjoy it.
Faylinn: 34: D'oh. Yes. Wield. That's what I meant. --facepalm-- Shout out for you! Hm, you caught the slip of the tongue... good job. Well, I'm selfishly grateful for your snow/ice day, because I have missed your reviews. 35: Conversations with Karl sounds like it would be helplessly addicting for me to write. Perhaps I'd better not. --laugh!-- Hm, I might. He does seem to not be coming across spectacularly well, which is a bit sad, because I have a soft spot for the poor boy. Er, man. o.O It was odd to write him, because we see him at three different stages of life in three different parts of the story. I always kinda think of him as the boy running through the grass with Rose... before he had to grow up altogether too fast. --sigh-- But anyway.
Captain Fantastic: Heh, I love Karl. I do. It's probably bad of me, but he's one of my very favorite characters to write. And I loved that line, too – I'm so glad someone else thought it was clever. --laugh-- And I love Derwin, too! But in a totally different way. More of a stray-puppy sort of way. --chuckle-- He's been through quite a lot. But then, so has Rose. --grin-- Ugh! I wish I could figure out how to smooth it out! I'll probably just have to work with it a lot, and it'll eventually begin to look better. Is this update better, time-wise? (And I'll have your chapter back to you later this evening.)
Reviewers get a scoop of ice cream – two for speculating!