Chapter 18 – A Favor
He heard her footsteps edging closer behind him as soon as Timur walked away, and when he turned to look at her, a troubled look was casting shadows in her eyes.
"What is it?" Sinbad asked her concernedly as she watched the young man's retreating form.
"Something about his burden feels painfully familiar," Bryn said, sorrow lodging itself in her voice.
He was momentarily saddened by her words, knowing just how hard and terrible it must be for her to carry the burden of empty memories she couldn't remember. "Life is a mystery," he offered, trying to cheer her up as he looked up to the skies to see Dermott soaring towards them and landing swiftly on her outstretched arm. "Yours is more of a mystery than most."
When Bryn returned his smile, he was glad to see a little bit of the light back in her eyes, like a small flame timidly spurting to life in the dark.
Mysteries, secrets, questions with no answers…He felt as if his entire life had been flooded with all those things in the last two months, with water rising up to his neck, threatening to drown him. He had survived more storms than he could count, the last one being the most formidable of all, but nothing could compare with the agony of being lost in the dark as he was. Ever since she had left. Ever since Dim-Dim had ripped her away from him for reasons that made less and less sense to him with each passing day. And it was time he went fishing for some answers.
Leaving Bryn with Dermott, he headed back to the table where the crew was seated and enjoying some well-deserved ale after everything that had happened in the last harrowing days. Firouz, Rongar and Doubar raised their mugs as he walked past, inviting him to join them, but he declined their offer with a shake of his head. If there hadn't been so many issues colliding in his mind at the moment, a black morass of questions and mysteries that he wanted to shed some light on, he would have gladly sat with them but instead he went for Methana, who was currently conversing with his friend Nurudin.
"Methana?" he touched her shoulder gently to draw her attention. "May I have a word?"
The aged sorceress looked up to him with a smile, a flicker of unsettling knowledge passing on her face as she seemed to see right through him. "Of course," she said warmly, standing up and excusing herself to Nurudin, who politely dipped his head. "Come with me."
She motioned for him to follow her and he walked in her steps right away, doing his best to ignore the quizzical glances the crew was tossing their way.
He knew what he must look like to them, tensed and troubled like when he somberly watched the starry horizon on the Nomad at night, alone and brooding at the tiller with all his inner demons shifting in his gaze. Those demons had been gradually coming forth as the day had worn away, lending a raw edge to his composure, his temper quicker to flare and ready to latch onto any excuse for a fight, to release the building anger inside him.
That was what they saw as he left with Methana, that aching part of him that Maeve's absence had unleashed; the ugly side of him, reckless and violent and profoundly wounded. It was a subtle shift in his countenance, but his crewmates knew him well enough to see it.
But he ignored their concerned looks and left with the sorceress until they disappeared around the street's corner.
He followed the woman silently, past the buzzing activity of the market square until a few minutes later she pushed open the door of her small yet comfortable house, inviting him in.
He stepped into the familiar dimness of the place that smelled of herbs and spices and the sorceress closed the door behind her. She then went to the fireplace to rekindle the embers in the hearth, soon stirring them back into flames.
It was strange being alone with her, this powerful sorceress he barely knew, and the silence in the room nibbled at his nerves with every second that passed by, putting him on edge.
"I must thank you again for saving my son," she finally spoke, emotional and grateful as she hung a kettle above the fire to make tea. "I know very few people who would have risked their lives like that, going to hell and back to save a man's soul. Thank you."
Sinbad shook his head to discard her words. "No need to thank us again. Timur is safe now, free of his father's torment. That's all that matters."
Methana looked at him silently, then pulled a wooden chair closer to the one already facing the hearth. "I sense you have a lot of questions," she said knowingly, with that cryptic tone only magic practitioners knew how to use. "Please, sit. I may not have all the answers you seek but I will do my best."
With his mind quietly reeling like an approaching storm, Sinbad took the chair in front of her and sat down, leaning forward with his arms resting on his knees. He cast a long look at the small flames flickering in the hearth, drawing strength from their comforting warmth and yet torn apart with longing at the mere sight of them.
He had so many questions to ask, he didn't even know where to start. There was one thing he was dying to know above everything else, but he forced himself to begin with simple questions. "Before you sent us to Hades, you said Dim-Dim's magic would protect us," he finally said, bringing his eyes back to Methana. "You know Master Dim-Dim?"
The sorceress almost chuckled. "A wizard as powerful and famous as Dim-Dim, who doesn't know him?" she said, glancing at the fire as if recalling distant memories. "We met briefly many years ago when he travelled in our region. He was on a very urgent quest at the time and Timur was just a toddler. We were too poor to afford a home so we were living in a rented room at the inn, until that day in the market place where this man in white robes walked straight up to me, called me by my name before I ever gave it to him, and then brought me here, in this house."
She looked around her home lovingly, taking it all in; the colorful hangings on the walls, the dried herbs and flowers hooked everywhere, the books on their shelves, the sunlight filtering through the open shutters. "He sat me down and said he knew of my peculiar magical heritage, both black and white magic, and that I was therefore the perfect candidate for the job he had to offer," she explained quietly with a hint of mystery in her voice, which perfectly matched the beautiful yet unusual netted shroud that covered her head and hair. "He told me the house was mine if I agreed to watch over the nexus it sat on, a breach in the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead."
At her words, Sinbad glanced down at the round carpet on the floor a few feet away from them, the place where the portal to Hades had opened earlier today.
"Yes, the breach is right there," Methana said, reading his mind, "and I have been guarding it for the past twenty-three years. That is how I was able to send you to the Wikken Hells to save my son. My dark powers can control the nexus. I could unleash hell upon earth if I wanted to."
She stood up then, retrieving the kettle above the flames to pour tea into mugs. Her netted veil was casting shadows over her face as she moved, lending her a haunted look and softly carving her features with angles of regret and shame.
"But Dim-Dim assigned you to protect it because he believed in the goodness of your heart. He knew your white magic would be stronger than the legacy of your dark powers," Sinbad rephrased her words, trying to offer what little comfort he could to this woman he barely knew.
"I suppose so," she sighed, handing him a warm mug of tea before sitting back down with a shrug. "I'm just happy nothing managed to escape from that hellhole in the past few days. I've kept that breach shut for twenty-three years and I don't intend to let demons and monsters break free under my watch. I took a risk by opening it to save my son, but never again."
"Hopefully you won't have to," Sinbad smiled encouragingly, circling his palms around the hot mug in his hands before he hesitantly veered to another subject. "This Lord of Darkness…you said he had a personal interest in me. Why?"
Methana raised an eyebrow. "Isn't it obvious? You are a warrior of Good, Sinbad, and the dark forces are growing stronger every day. The balance of magic is shifting. The Lord of Darkness, the Lord of the Flies, Djin Lords…They all either want to crush you so you don't get in their way, or they want to use you to their advantage."
Her ominous words painfully rang in his ears, echoing the ones Maeve had spoken on her last night aboard the Nomad, about strange shifts occurring in magic, shifts that were scaring her. Sinbad swallowed hard. "There are a lot of people fighting for good out there. Why me? Because of this?" He raised his left wrist to indicate his rainbow bracelet.
Methana looked at the myriad of colors in the mysterious piece of jewelry, then brought her eyes back up to meet his. "That is one question I do not know the answer to. This bracelet is a source of pure magic, good magic, but I'm afraid everyone has yet to know its precise purpose. Although of all people, I imagine Dim-Dim would probably have an inkling about it."
"If he does then he never saw fit to tell me anything," Sinbad observed, a small spark of anger igniting inside him for being kept in the dark about so many things by his mentor. "But if the dark forces are so keen in either capturing me or destroying me, then perhaps they know what this is for."
"Perhaps," Methana considered as he held up his wrist once more. "But right now, I'm afraid it is just a matter of speculations and prophecies."
"Prophecies?" Sinbad frowned, lowering his arm.
"Just a bunch of ancient scribbles being unearthed here and there," she replied with a shrug and a sip of her tea. "Words that unfortunately don't make much sense to us common magic practitioners."
"What do they say?" Sinbad inquired, growing more and more intrigued by the minute, the mere word prophecy somehow rattling his bones.
"I don't know," she said apologizingly. "I only heard rumors of prophecies, not the prophecies themselves."
"Then what do the rumors say?" he pressed, digging for any clues he could put his hands on.
"Not much. Mostly warnings about ancient weapons being uncovered, about keys opening gates and the end of the world looming in the horizon with wars that will rip our world apart. Legends about Djin Lords and evil kings and long lost Kallens…" Her voice trailed off in the quiet room, the silence punctuated by the soft pops and crackles of the logs burning in the hearth.
Her ominous words sent unpleasant shivers crawling on his skin, with a sharp sense of urgency filling his blood. "What does it all mean?"
The sorceress pursed her lips. "Hard to say. I am not a prophet and these things are dangerous to interpret." She took a sip of tea pensively, then added, "It's information that should not fall into the wrong hands. The less people know, the better, if you ask me."
Sinbad sighed wearily and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. The answers to all his questions felt so close within reach and yet miles away at the same time. He could not begin to explain why, but fear and anguish were rising in his core, inexplicably strong and troubling, urging him to find the truth before it was too late. "So who could decipher these things? Prophets? Wizards?"
Her eyes sharpened a bit at his question and she regarded him closely, as if he had not heard her previous warning about how best it would be if less people knew about these dangerous prophecies. But whatever it was she measured in him by the firelight, she opted to aid him rather than to toss him deeper into the darkness. "Not just any wizard," she explained. "Prophets would be your best option, but they have long been gone from this world. If there are any left, then they must be very old, their magic faded away." She paused then, her thumb tapping on the side of her cup as she thought. "Councils of wizards might be another option; their confluent knowledge and powers would no doubt be a formidable source of information. But alas, most of them have been dismantled hundreds of years ago. Some might have endured to this day, but I could not begin to tell you where to look." Her eyes turned distant then, filling with sorrow. "Magic has been fading from this world over the years. If this obscure threat the prophecies speak about is real, then I'm afraid we will be ill-prepared to face it."
He inhaled deeply, trying to fill in the dark void of anguish that was rapidly expanding in his chest. Something was coming. Something dangerous and powerful. Something that might destroy the world as they knew it. Something that might make the sky fall over their heads.
He wiped a weary hand over his face, his blood running cold while his thoughts painfully pulled him back to Maeve's last night on the Nomad. She had sensed the shift in magic. She had known something was wrong. It had scared the wits out of her, and then the storm had cruelly ripped her away.
And now she was gone, somewhere he couldn't reach her, somewhere he couldn't protect her. The end of the world might be upon them and he didn't even know where she was.
It drove him completely mad, his sanity precariously hanging by a thread while the marrow of his bones thrummed with an aching sense of urgency.
He hadn't realized he had gone somberly quiet until Methana's voice gently plucked him from his troubled thoughts.
"Are you alright?" she asked concernedly with her head tilted to the side to catch his eye.
Sinbad cleared his throat, trying to chase away the dark clouds that were filling his head. "Yes," he lied, then straightened on his chair to steel himself, his pulse flaring beneath his flesh like a raging ocean. "I have one last question to ask. A favor."
Methana looked at him amiably. "Ask away."
"You're a very powerful sorceress," he began, hope swelling inside his core. "You sent us to the Wikken Hells and you brought us back."
Her intelligent eyes fixed on him, as if she could read him like a book and guess where he was heading.
But he didn't beat around the bush for long and laid his request at her feet like a desperate man. "Can you contact Master Dim-Dim?"
The shift on her features was nearly imperceptible as she sat back in her chair, and for a moment Sinbad sensed that she had known all along that this had been his true reason for seeking her out in the first place. "I believe I can," she finally said, "but I thought he was cursed out of this world."
He let out a mighty breath he had not known was trapped in his lungs. She could do it. She could contact his mentor. He would be able to speak to him. To her.
His skin tingled with wild hope, his heart going erratic in his chest while his thoughts galloped away like untamed horses. But he quickly reined them all in, casting about for control because he also knew how crushingly painful his disappointment would be if this didn't work.
"He was," he spoke slowly, struggling to maintain his voice level and calm. "By a very powerful sorcerer more than a year ago. But a connection can be made, I've seen it done before," he explained, hoping to show the sorceress that establishing contact was possible. "Master Dim-Dim spoke with us about two months ago and a friend of mine was able to reach him as well with her magic last year."
"Then she must have been very powerful," Methana said, considering his words carefully. "Communicating between worlds and across long distances is hardly a simple task to perform."
"But you can do it, right?" he asked, struggling not to sound pleading as he leaned forward on the edge of his seat.
"I can try," she replied, lowering her mug of tea on a three-legged stool by the hearth before regarding him with interest. "May I ask why you want to contact him so badly?" she inquired, polite yet also trying to measure his intentions, to gauge if the risk was worth taking or not. "I must warn you; I may only be able to maintain the connection for a few minutes at best. There won't be time for all your questions and thorough conversations about prophecies."
Sinbad lowered his gaze sheepishly, avoiding her scrutinizing eyes. He knew his reasons were purely selfish. He just wanted to see Maeve, just wanted a few moments with her, to know she was safe, and possibly gather enough courage to tell her everything he should have said below deck before the storm had hit.
He wanted to recover what was unfairly stolen from them that night, those precious seconds where they could have said goodbye had they known what would happen when they stepped outside in the raging darkness of the sea. That's what he wanted. A chance for farewell. A chance for promises. A small moment to pledge himself to her, to swear an oath that he would find her. That he would never stop looking for her.
That's all he wanted.
There was nothing honorable about what he was asking Methana to do, no grand purpose, no life to save. Just an attempt to salvage the rest of his sanity that was slowly dwindling away.
He looked to the dancing flames, unable to meet the weight of her gaze in the dimness of the room. "I can pay you."
His words hung in the air between them for a moment, like dark swirls of smoke, until he heard her breathe out a deep sigh, her shoulders sagging a bit, perhaps hurt that he would not be completely honest with her.
He could feel her penetrating eyes on him, carefully deciphering what lay hidden beneath his demand, his invisible wounds. He looked back to her then, raw and bare, rising his shield to receive the blow of her refusal to aid him.
But that blow never came as she looked at his pleading gaze. "I have no need of your money," she said softly. "I already owe you much more than that after what you did for my son."
Then she stood, beckoning him to follow her. "Come."
Immense relief washed over him like a wave as he set his mug down next to hers on the stool and went with her, crossing the room to reach a small, dark chamber hidden behind a curtain of white beads that chimed dryly as he lifted them aside to pass through.
Once inside, candles lit up one by one as Methana effortlessly flicked a hand in their directions, their shy golden hues progressively revealing some sort of little magic workshop, its four walls painted completely black as well as the ceiling, and with rows of shelves cluttered with books, potions and eclectic objects of all kinds.
The room felt tiny and suffocating, its oppressing black walls sucking whatever feeble light the candles were providing, and the air seemed to thrum with dangerous magic.
Sinbad's guards immediately went up as he let his eyes tentatively surf on the myriad of eerie items, like weathered bones from many different kinds of small animals, long black feathers stacked in pots like quills, weird symbols weaved in thread, vials filled with what looked like blood…An unpleasant shiver trickled down his spine while his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the cluttered room but he said nothing. He simply watched as Methana stood in front of the farthest wall, her pale hands swiftly pulling at a dusty white shroud to reveal a long oval-shaped mirror hanging on the wall between a bookcase and a large cabinet. Its wide golden edges were covered with intricate symbols painted in silver, the paint flaking in many places, betraying how old the mirror was.
"I haven't used this in ages so I cannot promise you it will work," she explained, positioning herself in front of the glass while seeking his confirmation to proceed.
He glanced at the mirror painfully, lips drawn tight as the knot in his heart. He studied the ancient symbols written along the edges. It might be his only chance. Even if it didn't work and he was crushed by the formidable weight of failure, he had to try.
He locked eyes with Methana and gave her a nod, allowing her to do as she must.
"Alright," she declared, then turned to the wooden cabinet, pulling its doors open to retrieve a short knife. "I need your hand."
He frowned in puzzlement but obeyed, and Methana flipped his left palm upward to press the tip of the blade against his skin as she explained. "The mirror needs to know who is calling, and who it wishes to seek."
The knife cut through his flesh, drawing a thin line of blood in his palm. It left a small stinging pain in its wake, but he did not flinch, allowing the sorceress to accomplish whatever was needed.
When the dagger was reddened with his blood, she threw him a final glance, seeking his ultimate confirmation, offering him one last chance to turn back.
But he stood rooted in place like stone, resolve etched in his bones. "Do it."
The sorceress nodded one last time and touched the bloodied blade to the glass of the age old mirror, a red sparkle immediately pulsing beneath the surface only to vanish seconds later within its depth, as if the mirror was plunging deep into the wall behind it, like the opening of a bottomless tunnel.
"Step back," Methana warned him before backing away from the magical surface as well, only a few feet, then raised her hands so her palms would face the reflecting glass.
Sinbad stood behind her a little to the side, and as she began to chant into a language unknown to his ears, his fingers reached for the golden pin tucked securely in his pocket. Bracing himself for whatever would come next, he rubbed his thumb gently over the knotted designs, willing his mind to latch onto the woman he sought, banishing everything else. His throat went dry, and as she invaded his head like a spell, she brought with her all the unimaginable pain and longing and suffering that ripped through him every day, cruel and inevitable, with the taste of bitter regrets.
But he let it all in, crushing her golden pin hard in his fist, the sharp angles digging into the wounded flesh of his palm. He clenched his jaw tight and glared at the mirror, almost daring whatever Gods were out there to deny him this single, desperate wish, and then Methana's hands began to glow, a pale white light blending with sparkles of purples and blues, the magic slightly chiming across the dark room.
Orbs of light formed against the sorceress' palms, thrumming with measured powers and reflecting on the glass in front of her like two balls of white and purplish light pulsing on the surface.
Gusts of wind soon picked up around her, swooshing around the hem of her dress and expanding to the entire chamber, whistling through the shelves, ruffling loose pages of opened books and snuffing out the poor candles, plunging the room in complete darkness save for the flickering lights from the magic at work.
His good hand immediately reached for his sword out of instinct, his palm closing around the hilt as he steeled himself against the growing forces of the magical orbs and the rising wind.
The mirror continued to glow, reflecting the colors emanating from Methana's hands and pulsing on the surface of the glass like sizzles of lightening, buzzing with growing intensity as the wind roared in the small black room.
The sharp concentration of light soon became too much to bear and he had to lift his arm to his brow to protect his eyes, straining to see correctly through the bright flickers of magic and the deafening whirlwind.
Broken images then abruptly flashed in the depth of the glass, fragmented pictures rushing on the mirror but too fast and blurry to properly see.
His eyes went wide, his heart suddenly pounding against his ribcage like a hammer. It was working. Whatever Methana was doing, she was establishing a connection.
His feet moved on their own accord, stepping closer for a better look as he wildly scanned the storm of sizzling lights to catch any detail that may be hidden beyond.
But everything was flashing at lightning speed, the blinding sparks of magic making it hard to distinguish things correctly despite how hard he strained his eyes to steal quick glimpses of the moving pictures.
But then he saw it.
A beach. An endless beach of white sand, with powerful waves crashing on shore.
Next a vivid canvas of green hills, contrasting with a clear blue sky.
Then a rose garden.
His legs almost faltered at the familiar sight of his mentor's favorite flowers, the sight of the garden nearly causing him to faint right then and there. There was no doubt the roses were his, which meant Dim-Dim was somewhere in there, within his reach beyond the glass.
His pulse throbbed in his throat as he stared at the mirror, desperate and frantic, eyes dancing on every broken piece of the images that were flashing before him, searching for a head of red hair.
His eyes hurt against the speed of the rushing pictures, meddling with the blinding sizzles of magic, and he was forced to keep shielding his eyes from the light and the forceful wind, blinking every few seconds so he could keep on peering into the depths of the ancient mirror.
As the images spun endlessly, blending and melting and distorting, jumping from the white beach to the green hills to the rose garden, a sense of alarm slowly crept into his blood like a silent warning.
There was nothing.
The pictures were empty and bleak. Artificial. Lifeless.
His breath locked in his lungs, urgency driving him on as he stepped closer to the mirror once more, past Methana, whose eyes were now open wide and glowing bright with the magic consuming her. She was as still as a marble statue, with only the wind upsetting the netted shroud on her hair and ruffling the folds of her dress against her legs.
He didn't how long she could maintain the connection but he knew it couldn't be more than a few minutes at best.
As the wind raged on around them in the dark room, rumbling through the shelves, he focused all his attention on the trembling mirror, ablaze with a storm of light and a flickering slideshow of images, the only window to the person he desperately sought.
A curse and a prayer hung on his lips as he took yet another step, begging the good spirits to grant him his wish, when suddenly his wrist began to burn, his bracelet igniting with its distinctive blend of colors, a sharp pain shooting up his entire arm. He blinked at it with a wince, frowning in confusion as the familiar magical chime reached his ears over the loud windstorm.
He had no clue what was going on but when his eyes urgently shot back to the mirror, the flashes of images began to vibrate, imprisoned in the everlasting whirlwind and picking up alarming speed like a spinning wheel, faster and faster. The sizzles of white and purplish light crackled in the air violently, as if fighting against the sudden accelerated pace, bending and breaking.
Lightnings began to ricochet off of the mirror as Methana struggled to control the wild forces at work, the sizzles bouncing off inside the black chamber and smashing everything they touched.
His bracelet was burning on his wrist, the colors shining brighter and brighter as he strained his eyes to study the jumble of light on the mirror, failing to make sense of it as the glass suddenly cracked along the lower edge of the golden frame.
Time was slipping away like sand through his fingers, the foul taste of anger boiling within him like venom. He gritted his teeth and pushed on, taking yet another step closer to the rattling glass, the need to catch a glimpse of her driving him mad, bringing him ever closer to the edge where he would snap, where his sanity would feed on his rage and his need for vengeance for what had been done to them.
He glared at the mirror, silently pleading to see her face, when suddenly a picture formed and remained still, the storm of lights abruptly halting to pause on the image, steady and calm, as if time itself had frozen for a moment, the wind dying down to melt into silence.
His heart nearly jumped out of his chest, the soft light permitting him to no longer shield his eyes and look at the mirror properly.
It was the inside of a cozy room painted in white, with a window casting a sliver of sunlight straight in front of him. But the angle of the entire picture was weird, the wooden surface of a table stretching beneath him as if he was a bug perched on top of it, bringing back the memory of when Rumina had shrunk him in Basra. He was seeing the inside of the white room as if he was back to that tiny size, somehow hovering on a wooden table next to an opened book.
He found no trace of life in that strange canvas until a big hand carrying a steaming mug suddenly swept in his view, a giant man stepping before the table and stopping abruptly as if he had spotted him on the table, a long white sleeve heavily weighting around his wrist as he turned and stepped closer.
Sinbad's heart violently skipped a beat, the force of it stealing his breath away. He recognized those robes.
It was Dim-Dim.
His mouth opened to shout his name but then another crack sliced the mirror along the upper edge, while the bottom one expanded toward the center, and he could feel Methana shaking behind him as she wrestled with the formidable strength of the magical connection.
And then his bracelet blazed on his wrist again, the vibrant rainbow colors abruptly shifting to white crystalline ripples, hot and burning.
And then Dim-Dim's figure vanished, the storm of light exploding once more on the mirror with blinding force as his mentor disappeared amidst the chaotic sizzles of magic, the sharp wind roaring back to life as well like a formidable beast.
He wanted to scream in protest at the sudden violent shift, to summon Dim-Dim back to the surface again, but he was forced to take a step back against the powerful outburst of magic in the black chamber, shutting his eyes tight against the bright painful light and bringing his arm back up to cover his brow.
The entire black room quaked around him, the floor rumbling beneath his boots as the magical strikes zapped through the chamber like a lightning storm out of control, blowing up everything they touched, chipping at the walls and destroying what lay on the shelves, books and vials and quills alike.
The violence of it all was frightening, his pulse flaring beneath his skin while a burning pain shot up his entire arm.
He looked down at his bracelet again, the white ripples as clear as liquid crystals, coiling around his wrist like twinkling stars. Waves of them were vibrating on his bracelet as he stared at them, completely thunderstruck by their unexpected appearance.
It was the same ripples Maeve had elicited one evening, her mere touch conjuring them around his wrist effortlessly. No one else could call them forth.
She was there. Somewhere beyond the sizzling glass.
He panicked. Like a desperate mad man, he dashed for the ancient mirror, wrestling against the pressure of the massive windstorm and all the flashing lights that blinded him and pushed him away.
He extended his hand forward, pleading, praying, fingertips inches from the glass, her name hanging on his lips.
Just a glimpse, he pleaded, begging to whatever gods were listening.
Then something dark raced across the buzzing surface, a somber scenery of dead things that looked like crooked roots and twisted trees, but it rushed so rapidly before his eyes that he could not tell for sure, nor could he make sense of it as it was quickly swallowed by the storm of flashing lights.
What the hell was that?
Then he finally touched the glass.
And it was over.
The mirror violently exploded before him, the glass shattering in every direction with a ball of tightly compressed air that blasted shards everywhere in the chambers. The forceful blow threw him and Methana across the room, his spine hitting the edge of a table before he landed hard on the floor with a groan, shaken and dizzy.
Then the small chamber abruptly went as quiet as a grave, with the wind sucked into the walls by an invisible force and everything was plunged in a darkness so thick he could almost taste it. The silence that followed was deafening compared with the previous uproar of magic and wind, and bits and pieces of wood and random objects that had once stood on the shelves tumbled down around him like rain.
When his senses properly returned to him, he pushed himself up tentatively, raising his head to look at the mess around the smoking dark room. When a few miraculously intact candles timidly ignited, he spotted Methana on the floor as she lifted herself up with a wince.
"Are you alright?" he asked concernedly as he quickly went to help pull her up to her feet.
"Yes, I'm fine," she replied breathlessly, rubbing one of her elbows. With a heavy, frustrated sigh, she tossed a glance at the smashed mirror on the ground. "I don't understand what happened. The spell was working just fine until the connection somehow drastically shifted."
His brow furrowed in thought and he looked down at his wrist. "I think that may have been my fault."
Catching her breath, Methana followed his gaze, the shadows of sharp calculations surfing in her eyes as she seemed to connect the dots, but she said nothing, as if to grant him a few moments to recover from what had happened.
His mind was racing like a storm, a complicated morass of questions colliding in his head while his blood ignited with a sense of rising alarm. The images he had glimpsed in the mirror were resonating in his mind's eyes like broken fragments of glass. He had seen Dim-Dim, he was sure of it. The rose garden, the white sleeve…It could have been no one else but him.
But he hadn't seen her. Not on the beach. Not on the green hills. Not in the rose garden.
She had been nowhere in sight.
Instead he'd seen something else, some creepy scenery of dead trees he couldn't even begin to describe, pictures summoned forth by the strange white ripples on his bracelet, a unique display he'd only seen once on his wrist and that had been prompted by no one else but her.
It made no sense.
And it ate at him like a festering wound, doubt sipping into his blood like a blight as he stepped over to the shattered mirror, pushing at the smoking shards of glass with his boot, the answers he so desperately sought scattered on the floor, lost and inaccessible.
"I'm sorry I couldn't maintain the connection longer," Methana finally spoke softly behind him, apologizing.
But he shook his head somberly, the weight in his heart growing heavier by the minute. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known my bracelet would interfere."
He clenched his jaw then, a strike of anger slashing through him like a blade as a feeling of restlessness silently prompted him to run, as if he was miles away from a place he needed to be. Something was wrong.
He exhaled heavily to calm himself, crushing Maeve's pin into his palm at his side, then he turned around dejectedly and walked past Methana, beyond the curtain of white beads and back into the main room, desperate for air and light.
He could feel his muscles stretched tight in his limbs, ready to snap, urging him to spring into action, to set sail and chase the unknown, to find the dark woods he had glimpsed, but he came to a stop in front of the hearth, clueless and lost, his eyes blankly looking at the flames who were still burning quietly as if nothing had happened at all since they had left their tea. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides repeatedly, eager to move, to work, to fight.
Something was wrong. He could not explain it nor put words to it, but something was terribly wrong.
"Who was it exactly you wished me to contact?" Methana asked from behind as she joined him, her voice dripping with suspicion and curiosity.
He closed his eyes for a moment, struggling to get his composure under control while his mind battled with a whirlwind of questions. "A friend."
There was a pause behind him. "She's with Dim-Dim?"
He flinched slightly, turning to face the sorceress in the dim firelight, marveling at how transparent he must appear for her to so easily guess that his friend was a woman. Words failed him momentarily and all he could do was nod.
Methana pursed her lips together in thought, then linked her hands together. "The connection I tried to initiate worked, it took you to the place you wanted me to reach, to Dim-Dim, yet your bracelet diverted the course of that connection, altering the nature of the magic in order to find the person you really sought."
"Meaning what?" he frowned.
"It appears your friend is harder to trace," she guessed. "Is she a sorceress?"
"Yes," he confirmed, his brow still drearily drawn together. "But how can she be harder to trace if she and Dim-Dim are both in the same place?" As soon as he spoke the words, doubt crept down his spine like a sickening shiver and he no longer wanted to hear the answer, lest it confirmed what he feared.
Methana paused again, sighing heavily as she sat down in front of the fire. "The nature of their magic is different," she offered, choosing her words carefully as if trying not to shatter the hope he was clinging to. "Dim-Dim's unique set of powers is what allows him to communicate across the veils between worlds and across formidable distances. Your friend's magic may not allow her the same luxury."
His gaze returned to the flames beside him, their warmth licking at his legs, and he knew pretty well that Maeve also possessed the necessary powers to communicate between worlds and across invisible miles since he had seen her do it last year.
He balled his hand into a fist again, crushing the golden pin in his wounded flesh, while he felt the stormy cloud of questions inside his head shift into a darker shade, dangerous and frightening, the ground beneath his feet quaking as he was forced to face the terrible possibility behind what he had glimpsed in the mirror.
"Or she's not with him," he concluded gravely, his vision turning black at the edges as rage and devastation blended together into an overwhelming wave that swelled within his chest. He raised his left wrist and glared at the now lifeless colors like a snarling wolf, helplessness soaking into his core while his fury at Dim-Dim threatened to tip him over the edge.
But he would not snap in front of Methana.
"I'm sorry for the mirror," he said, facing her again, his composure hanging on by a thread.
"It's a negligible loss," she dismissed his apology with a shrug. "The rest I can easily replace." Then she stood up, hesitantly stepping closer to gently touch his arm, as if to appease the storm in his blood. "Do not despair, Sinbad. I'm sure you will find your answers one way or another."
She offered him an empathic smile and he could only nod in return as he retreated to the door, a final thank you falling from his lips as he closed the door behind him.
He felt numb, his senses dulled and muted, rage and fear mixing in his blood like a formidable poison. His world was now torn asunder by a terrible possibility.
Maeve might not be with Dim-Dim.