Laurel tried to stay very still, tried not to panic. Of all the things that could have happened, getting captured by Cyrus hadn't been on her list of likely possibilities. Scuttlebut had said he was dead! And for once, she had believed the official word and ignored the rumor mill. They'd all been wary, of course, but they'd all figured he was dead, despite the fact that everyone knew he was working on something nasty. But now, seeing him standing in front of her... alive and well and just as evil as ever... it was very disheartening. And not a little bit scary.
"I thought you were dead," she said finally, her voice coming out much steadier than she would have thought it would.
"A popular misconception," he sneered, stepping forward. It took all of her nerve and will not to scurry back as far away from him as she could. "It was what I wanted you to think. It allowed me to finish my work undisturbed by you meddlers and dabblers."
"The Ocularis."
"Precisely. I had thought to use Arthur for the final activation key, but it seems I now have several choices, since you and your friends decided to interfere. What is it that you pathetic dishrags say?"
Laurel knew exactly what he was talking about. "In perfect love and perfect trust..." she whispered, going pale. Oh Goddess... if all three of them were here and under his control...
"Exactly. Such a sacrifice should satisfy the needs of the Ocularis quite nicely."
Stall him. She had to stall him. This was above their capabilities... they were so far in over their heads they were practically drowning. They had to get ahold of Meredith's father, somehow. Or better yet, her cousins, twins Anna and Jenna... someone else. Someone with more power and more skill than the three of them. Meredith's father would be wondering where they were soon anyway, if Meredith wasn't in her bed or at least wandering around her house in the evening... she had to stall Cyrus. But how... "How did you do it?" she found herself asking. "The design plans to the machine have been lost for centuries."
Cyrus actually tittered. "My dear girl, nothing is lost to he who has the patience and persistance to succeed. They weren't lost, you simply didn't know where to look."
She swallowed. "And you managed to translate it...?"
"It wasn't difficult. The languages were all either older variations on a modern dialect, or an ancient language which survived to this day. The pronunciation was a bit difficult, I grant, but in the end it was simply a matter of time." He seemed to respond well to flattery and invitations to boast of his achievements.
"And the ghosts? How did you find...?"
He practically brayed with laughter. "Oh, that was the simplest part. A simple young psychic man helped with that, I dare say, a little... he was so pathetically eager to find someone who understood his problems and his visions, someone who didn't treat him like the freak he so obviously was, that he would do whatever I asked him. The boy had visions, of the past, of the future, and he could even see into the spirit world. That, I must say, was useful."
Laurel frowned. He sounded like a pure psychic, and a pure psychic was about as common as a male tortiseshell cat. Most psychic powers (or as Amber was fond of calling them, psychotic powers) came from either hermetic ritual, religious practice and belief, or shamanic practices. Pure psychics in this day and age, the age of skepticism and science, were very rare indeed. "You used him."
"Of course." Kriticos sounded almost derisive of her disapproval. "He was a tool, and most willing to be used, I might add. Spare no pity for him. It would be better spent on yourself."
She did indeed pity him; if he was a pure psychic, his life must have been a living hell until he had met Kriticos. The other reason pure psychics were very rare was because most of them went insane and either died or spent the remainder of their life in an institution. For this man to have managed to maintain some relatively normal quality of life was nothing short of remarkable.
But that was another problem; right now she had to get away from Kriticos. And, given how the house was starting to move and tremble and preparing to regurgitate another ghost, she thought she had an idea. "You're a manipulative, sociopathic bastard, Cyrus..." she said finally. "And I will not be a party to whatever plans you have to drag this whole world down to hell with you."
She jumped.
Cyrus took a step forward almost involuntarily, startled. Somehow, she managed to gain a fingerhold on the top of the sliding walls, which were shifting and moving till the spells on them formed a different configuration. The one she had leaped onto was sliding upwards and into the ceiling, and she clung onto it as far up as she could possibly go, then leaped to another one. Riding them like a monkey, she jumped from wall to wall, hallway to hallway, till she was finally forced to drop to the floor. By then she could barely see Cyrus Kriticos, three hallways away... but the walls were still moving. One of them was threatening to close on her. She darted sideways, skipping out from between it just in time. It caught a corner of her skirt it closed, but nothing else. That seemed to be the last of them.
Laurel closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to her Goddess. She was safe, at least for the time being. In a few minutes, once she had gotten her breath back, she could start moving again, trying to find the others and anyone else who might be in this hellish dungeon. In a few minutes, once she could concentrate. And breathe.
The cold, clammy hand squeezed Meredith's hand so tightly she thought it might eventually cut off her circulation. It was attatched to an equally cold arm, which was attatched to a very shaky Dennis Rafkin. The somewhat less shaky Arthur Kriticos and Maggie brought up the rear of the unlikely parade.
They had almost been ready to go when the walls had started to move again and, rather than risk trying to decipher all the spell fragments on the walls in an eyeblink, Meredith ("Call me Merry") had suggested that they stay put till it all stopped. Everyone had been more or less enthusiastic about the idea.
Plus it had given her a bit of time to coax Dennis out of his corner. He was most definitely not a happy camper, and more startling he appeared to be genuinely psychic. He didn't know what the vast majority of the symbols in Cyrus Kriticos's lair meant, much less what any of the more common hermetic symbols were. Meredith would have loved to have had the time to talk with him some more, but as it was they didn't have much time. She had to get him more compos mentis than he was right now, and that meant avoiding such traumatic topics as his powers, what he saw, or how he used them.
She'd knelt on the floor in front of him, taking his hands in hers and squeezing them gently. "Dennis..." He'd had his eyes shut tight. "Dennis. We need to go soon."
"Okay... but I'll just stay here, okay?" he'd squeaked, opening one eye and rolling it like a frightened horse.
"You can't stay here," she'd said reasonably, "I can't protect you if you stay here. I need you to stay with the rest of the group... if we find Laurel or Amber, they can take you back here and stay with you while we take care of it..."
"No, no, no... no... if I go out there, I'm as good as dead. Count on it."
Meredith opened her mouth to refute it, then stopped, remembering his abilities. "You saw something?"
He'd nodded wordlessly. He'd looked (he still looked) like he was about to cry. "Saw it all. The big hammer dude. Smashed me against a wall." Through their linked hands she'd gotten a glimpse of what he must have seen. It wasn't pretty.
"Well, look, Dennis..." she'd said, wondering if she could really say this. "I won't let anything happen to you in here, okay? I promise."
"Really?"
"In the Goddess's name."
Pause. "Okay."
Dear Goddess, she thought now as she led the motley crew through the maze that was Cyrus Kriticos' home. Please don't let me fail them. Please don't let me get Dennis killed. She thought back to what she'd seen through Dennis' visions... smashed against a wall, back broken by the hammer and by the sheer force of being bent in two. It wasn't pretty. Unlike Dennis, she had the small advantage of knowing that the future wasn't written, that it could be changed. Unfortunately, she also knew that the closer a vision was, the less chance you had of changing it. The sheer weight of temporal inertia would be stronger and stronger closer to the event itself. Unless they stayed in here for days (and she wasn't liking that prospect at all) her chances of actually keeping Dennis alive were slim.
To hell with chances, she thought. I'm damn well going to do it. We'll all get out of here alive. Except Cyrus. He needs to die. And maybe Kalina, too. She squeezed Dennis' hand gently, trying to be reassuring. "Don't worry," she called back down the line. "We'll make it out of here." She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.
"Who's worried," Dennis muttered. But at least he was sounding better.
Meredith led them around the Angry Princess, making the sign of the blessing of the Goddess (which seemed to confuse the ghost), wondering where her friends were. Wondering if her father had noticed her absence yet. Wondering if anyone would get there in time.
"I thought you were dead," she said finally, her voice coming out much steadier than she would have thought it would.
"A popular misconception," he sneered, stepping forward. It took all of her nerve and will not to scurry back as far away from him as she could. "It was what I wanted you to think. It allowed me to finish my work undisturbed by you meddlers and dabblers."
"The Ocularis."
"Precisely. I had thought to use Arthur for the final activation key, but it seems I now have several choices, since you and your friends decided to interfere. What is it that you pathetic dishrags say?"
Laurel knew exactly what he was talking about. "In perfect love and perfect trust..." she whispered, going pale. Oh Goddess... if all three of them were here and under his control...
"Exactly. Such a sacrifice should satisfy the needs of the Ocularis quite nicely."
Stall him. She had to stall him. This was above their capabilities... they were so far in over their heads they were practically drowning. They had to get ahold of Meredith's father, somehow. Or better yet, her cousins, twins Anna and Jenna... someone else. Someone with more power and more skill than the three of them. Meredith's father would be wondering where they were soon anyway, if Meredith wasn't in her bed or at least wandering around her house in the evening... she had to stall Cyrus. But how... "How did you do it?" she found herself asking. "The design plans to the machine have been lost for centuries."
Cyrus actually tittered. "My dear girl, nothing is lost to he who has the patience and persistance to succeed. They weren't lost, you simply didn't know where to look."
She swallowed. "And you managed to translate it...?"
"It wasn't difficult. The languages were all either older variations on a modern dialect, or an ancient language which survived to this day. The pronunciation was a bit difficult, I grant, but in the end it was simply a matter of time." He seemed to respond well to flattery and invitations to boast of his achievements.
"And the ghosts? How did you find...?"
He practically brayed with laughter. "Oh, that was the simplest part. A simple young psychic man helped with that, I dare say, a little... he was so pathetically eager to find someone who understood his problems and his visions, someone who didn't treat him like the freak he so obviously was, that he would do whatever I asked him. The boy had visions, of the past, of the future, and he could even see into the spirit world. That, I must say, was useful."
Laurel frowned. He sounded like a pure psychic, and a pure psychic was about as common as a male tortiseshell cat. Most psychic powers (or as Amber was fond of calling them, psychotic powers) came from either hermetic ritual, religious practice and belief, or shamanic practices. Pure psychics in this day and age, the age of skepticism and science, were very rare indeed. "You used him."
"Of course." Kriticos sounded almost derisive of her disapproval. "He was a tool, and most willing to be used, I might add. Spare no pity for him. It would be better spent on yourself."
She did indeed pity him; if he was a pure psychic, his life must have been a living hell until he had met Kriticos. The other reason pure psychics were very rare was because most of them went insane and either died or spent the remainder of their life in an institution. For this man to have managed to maintain some relatively normal quality of life was nothing short of remarkable.
But that was another problem; right now she had to get away from Kriticos. And, given how the house was starting to move and tremble and preparing to regurgitate another ghost, she thought she had an idea. "You're a manipulative, sociopathic bastard, Cyrus..." she said finally. "And I will not be a party to whatever plans you have to drag this whole world down to hell with you."
She jumped.
Cyrus took a step forward almost involuntarily, startled. Somehow, she managed to gain a fingerhold on the top of the sliding walls, which were shifting and moving till the spells on them formed a different configuration. The one she had leaped onto was sliding upwards and into the ceiling, and she clung onto it as far up as she could possibly go, then leaped to another one. Riding them like a monkey, she jumped from wall to wall, hallway to hallway, till she was finally forced to drop to the floor. By then she could barely see Cyrus Kriticos, three hallways away... but the walls were still moving. One of them was threatening to close on her. She darted sideways, skipping out from between it just in time. It caught a corner of her skirt it closed, but nothing else. That seemed to be the last of them.
Laurel closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to her Goddess. She was safe, at least for the time being. In a few minutes, once she had gotten her breath back, she could start moving again, trying to find the others and anyone else who might be in this hellish dungeon. In a few minutes, once she could concentrate. And breathe.
The cold, clammy hand squeezed Meredith's hand so tightly she thought it might eventually cut off her circulation. It was attatched to an equally cold arm, which was attatched to a very shaky Dennis Rafkin. The somewhat less shaky Arthur Kriticos and Maggie brought up the rear of the unlikely parade.
They had almost been ready to go when the walls had started to move again and, rather than risk trying to decipher all the spell fragments on the walls in an eyeblink, Meredith ("Call me Merry") had suggested that they stay put till it all stopped. Everyone had been more or less enthusiastic about the idea.
Plus it had given her a bit of time to coax Dennis out of his corner. He was most definitely not a happy camper, and more startling he appeared to be genuinely psychic. He didn't know what the vast majority of the symbols in Cyrus Kriticos's lair meant, much less what any of the more common hermetic symbols were. Meredith would have loved to have had the time to talk with him some more, but as it was they didn't have much time. She had to get him more compos mentis than he was right now, and that meant avoiding such traumatic topics as his powers, what he saw, or how he used them.
She'd knelt on the floor in front of him, taking his hands in hers and squeezing them gently. "Dennis..." He'd had his eyes shut tight. "Dennis. We need to go soon."
"Okay... but I'll just stay here, okay?" he'd squeaked, opening one eye and rolling it like a frightened horse.
"You can't stay here," she'd said reasonably, "I can't protect you if you stay here. I need you to stay with the rest of the group... if we find Laurel or Amber, they can take you back here and stay with you while we take care of it..."
"No, no, no... no... if I go out there, I'm as good as dead. Count on it."
Meredith opened her mouth to refute it, then stopped, remembering his abilities. "You saw something?"
He'd nodded wordlessly. He'd looked (he still looked) like he was about to cry. "Saw it all. The big hammer dude. Smashed me against a wall." Through their linked hands she'd gotten a glimpse of what he must have seen. It wasn't pretty.
"Well, look, Dennis..." she'd said, wondering if she could really say this. "I won't let anything happen to you in here, okay? I promise."
"Really?"
"In the Goddess's name."
Pause. "Okay."
Dear Goddess, she thought now as she led the motley crew through the maze that was Cyrus Kriticos' home. Please don't let me fail them. Please don't let me get Dennis killed. She thought back to what she'd seen through Dennis' visions... smashed against a wall, back broken by the hammer and by the sheer force of being bent in two. It wasn't pretty. Unlike Dennis, she had the small advantage of knowing that the future wasn't written, that it could be changed. Unfortunately, she also knew that the closer a vision was, the less chance you had of changing it. The sheer weight of temporal inertia would be stronger and stronger closer to the event itself. Unless they stayed in here for days (and she wasn't liking that prospect at all) her chances of actually keeping Dennis alive were slim.
To hell with chances, she thought. I'm damn well going to do it. We'll all get out of here alive. Except Cyrus. He needs to die. And maybe Kalina, too. She squeezed Dennis' hand gently, trying to be reassuring. "Don't worry," she called back down the line. "We'll make it out of here." She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.
"Who's worried," Dennis muttered. But at least he was sounding better.
Meredith led them around the Angry Princess, making the sign of the blessing of the Goddess (which seemed to confuse the ghost), wondering where her friends were. Wondering if her father had noticed her absence yet. Wondering if anyone would get there in time.