She left the room without looking back.
Hurrying down the stairs to the laboratory Mary's thought began to wander again. She was certain that Daniel hadn't been hallucinating and that he didn't need the tonic.
She sighed and grabbed one of the small green bottles from the shelves. It was a narcotic that calmed and relieved pain. She slipped it into the pocket of her dress.
Alexander had told her that he thought that Daniel was already doomed. And so were they. He had led Daniel in and allowed the Shadow to follow and them to become tainted as well.
The Orb Daniel had brought was in the Inner Sanctum at the moment. Covered with a cloth at all times. Alexander was trying to use the Orb's energy and the vitae they had gathered to open the Portal back to his world. Mary was working on something else.
She sighed and turned to get back in the parlor.
The black silhouette of Alexander in the doorway nearly made her shriek. She took in a sharp breath and froze in place. She was glad she hadn't held the small green bottle in her hands. She knew she would have dropped it right there.
"You didn't answer. I still cannot reach you," Alexander stated. He seemed disappointed, almost irritated. "Our tainted lamb is easier to reach. Easier to bend and shape."
Mary straightened up. "He's desperate; he's drawn to you like a magnet trying to escape his fate. Of course he's easier to reach."
"I raised you, and yet it seems that I do not know you at all, otherwise I'd be able to."
Mary shivered. She felt the same way as if someone brushed their fingers over her skin, but in an unpleasant way.
Alexander had reached out in his mind to her but couldn't get in far enough to speak. He could only make her feel and that limited. No intense pain, fright, comfort, sadness or happiness. Nothing that would overwhelm her and make her thoughts go astray to get him the second he needed to enter her mind.
"This is as far as I can go. What if I need to call you? I can't."
"Then make me feel the urge to see you. I will come and we can talk," Mary offered.
Alexander shook his head. "Not with him around. There are things that cannot be spoken aloud anymore Mary."
"I knew you'd say that," she grumbled. "Very well. But I don't know how to make myself more accessible to you."
"We'll figure something out. In the meantime, you keep working like you always have."
"I will." Mary paused for a second. "What of him, did he faint in the parlor, or did you tell him you weren't sure I'd find the tonic?"
Alexander's voice dropped as he answered and if Mary could have seen his face she knew the look on it would have been stern. "None of that. He said he needed a moment to himself. So I went to get you."
"I'll bring him the tonic and then we can return to whatever it is you wanted to do."
Mary paced towards the door Alexander was standing in and was let past.
"Come to the study when you're done and bring the locket." Alexander ordered and went off.
There were three knocks on the door and Daniel started in his chair.
"Daniel? I have your tonic, are you all right?" Mary's voice came from the other side of the door.
Daniel opened, his face dripping with sweat. "I'm all right, thank you." He wasn't in the mood to chat with the woman who scowled at his presence. He reached out a hand, demanding the tonic, to have her out of his face again as fast as possible. He could feel another panic attack coming.
Mary carefully placed it into his opened hand. "You know, you don't really need it. You could manage without," she whispered.
"Excuse me? I don't think you've ever been in my shoes!"
Mary rolled her eyes. "You need to find something to distract yourself with."
"Don't you think I've already tried?"
"You just haven't found the right thing yet," Mary stated.
Daniel stared at her uncomprehending.
Mary sighed, shook her head and turned on her heels. "You'll see what I mean soon enough."
She heard the door close with a thud behind her as Daniel went back into the parlor. She chuckled. "Let's see what Alexander wants."
For the second time there was a knock on the study door and Alexander turned from his book to see Mary enter, a medium sized golden locket with glass on top, similar to a pocket watch, in hand. Through the glass you could see a lot of small cogwheels and metal wires running through the inside of the locket.
"So how is it going?" Alexander wanted to know.
Mary popped the locket open to reveal small black granules that were pushed in-between the two metal plates of the locket when it closed.
"It works. The particles in the middle of the locket move when the sound hits them. Even with quiet sounds the cogwheels start to rotate and the wires light up. You just have to put the locket close enough to the sound source."
"Very good." Alexander was pleased with the results.
"How did the original version of the locket work?"
"Completely different. The energy that is now created through sound waves came from the owner's thoughts. Much like when I try to access your mind." He sighed. He looked older and worn out. "Things are much more complicated in this world. No free flowing energies to work with. No advanced technology at all."
"Alexander, I don't think we can create a loud enough sound to open the gate with the way the locket is now..."
Alexander laughed a bitter laugh. "It's not that simple, Mary. If all that was needed was a loud noise I'd be off already."
Mary's face had a quizzical look on it. She felt Alexander's fingers on her skin again, without him touching her.
"The locket was operated by the line of thoughts and feelings. It would take you to the world you desired. The one that would fit your current needs."
"So how do I get the locket to work?"
Alexander's hand moved and lightly touched her cheek. Mary drew back at the sudden touch.
"You will have to write a song that makes the lockets inside vibrate in the right way to open up a gateway to my world."
"And it doesn't matter which instrument it's played on?"
"No. But you will have to write a piece that gets the feelings of my world and my desire to go home across."
"So then you will finally tell me about where you came from?" Mary asked in disbelieve.
"Yes, I will have to."
The baron rose from his chair and went to one of the book shelves, pulling out a small flat case hidden behind some heavy lecture. He handed it to Mary.
"This is the closest to what you'll find in my world." He watched Mary put down the case on the desk and flip it open. In the red cushion sat a small wooden, 6 hole fife.
"You think you'll be able to play it?" Alexander wanted to know.
Mary weighed the flute in her hands and smiled. "Yes."
"Good." He sat back down again and gestured Mary to do the same. "Before I will tell you about my world, I need to know that you're with me one hundred percent, Mary."
"I am."
Alexander's eyes locked with hers. "You speak the words, but do you mean them? I cannot know for sure until I felt them fill your being."
Mary's eyes were already shifting when Alexander clasped her chin with one hand to hold her in place. She tensed, expecting to feel Alexander trace his mental fingers over her again. She waited in vain. Nothing happened.
He asked permission to do it this time. "Will you let me in? It will make the following easier for both of us. I can show you my world, not just talk about it."
"I don't know how. It never worked before," Mary spoke under her breath.
Alexander's eyebrow rose. "You're afraid?"
Mary shivered.
Alexander sighed. "It won't hurt. You won't change afterwards, there's nothing that can go wrong. It's not like cutting someone open and sewing him back together."
Mary grimaced. "Great example, thank you, Alexander."
He rolled his eyes. "Just relax, ok?"
"Fine..." Mary leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "Better?"
"A little, yes."
They sat in silence and Mary all the while waited for the mental fingers to trace over her skin again.
Alexander's voice came from where it was before. Neither of them had moved. "Don't wait for it. It's impossible to do when you're expecting it. Think of something else."
"Okay." Mary tried to direct her thoughts in another direction.
Alexander shook his head. "We'll try another approach. This is useless. Tell me what you think my world is like. Maybe I'll be able to connect to you that way."
Mary opened her eyes again and lines formed between her them as she tried to imagine. "Houses as tall as the highest trees, people dressed in robes, cobbled streets and the city in the middle of the desert."
Alexander laughed quietly. "If you only knew how close you got for part of my world."
"Really?"
"Yes," Alexander reached out with is mind for Mary at just that moment.
Mary gasped. She felt like all the air was being pushed out of her lungs, just like it would if someone threw you into ice cold water. She felt Alexander's presence stronger than before. It felt like being pulled close and hugged dearly. He had grabbed on and wasn't going to let go again. She calmed and welcomed the feeling.
"You see? It didn't hurt, just like I said."
Alexander hadn't spoken aloud. The voice was inside Mary's head and for the first time, she heard it the way Alexander himself heard it when he spoke.
"Now Mary, tell me again, are you with me 100 percent? Speak aloud."
"I am."
With the spoken words came the echo in her mind, resonating with every fiber of her. It was all Alexander needed.
"Good. Now let me show you something."
She was riding on a deep orange lizard the size of a horse. The leather saddle was built in a way that could only be sat in with your legs crossed. She was spurring the horse by snapping the two ends of the rein like a whip in the air.
In the distance appeared a large stone archway, standing on it's own without any support or building attached to it to enter.
She hoped it wasn't already too late. That they had blocked all the gates and that she was stuck inside the city's perimeter.
'Please let it work. I have to get there before the guards do.'
The second she was at the gate she got off her mount. Her feet touched the sand below. She pulled the golden locket out of the pocket of her robe and directed her thoughts at it. With increasing speed the cogwheels inside began to spin and the wires lit up bright blue and sent flashes of lightning out of the locket towards the gate.
It opened. The air between the stone archway changed color. It mirrored the destination. A courtyard with greenery as far as the eye could see.
She picked up the reigns of the lizard again and went through the gate with it.
On the other side, inside the courtyard she hurries over to a switch on the wall and put it to 'lock'. No one would be able to enter the courtyard through the gate now.
Her eyes flew up to the palace balcony. "Sythia! Sythia?!" She couldn't keep the panic out of her voice. The city guard could be here any minute.
"What happened?" A woman with shoulder long, straight white hair appeared on the balcony, wearing a cream colored tunic and wide trousers of the same color. Her long nose and sharp features didn't fit her soft voice and her worried faint yellow eyes. She was young, a few years into adulthood only.
"Your twin sister. They caught her smuggling supplies out of the king's hold. They're sending her off world! Her wife tried to stop them and she had to watch them-," her voice broke.
"And now they're after us too. High treason. We'll all be banned!" Sythia left the balcony and appeared in the courtyard a minute later, two large bags with food and clothes packed and her own saddle in hand. "Maybe Kaerya got away. We can only hope." Sythia strapped the bags to the lizard's saddle and put it on it behind the saddle that was already in place.
She sighed. "I hope your sister did. Now let us be away. We don't want to be here when the guard comes. We're heading for Doblohw, the underground city."
With a click and a flash of lighting from the locket they were off.
"The city sunken in the sand," Sythia whispered.
They stood in front of an oval opening in the sand that was covered by a stone slab. Only a few inch of stone rose around it.
She hummed a dark melody and with a grinding sound the slab of stone drew back from the opening into a gap between the stones around it.
They entered the pitch dark hole. The pathway fell ever so slightly, leading them down into the earth and to the ruins of a once pulsing city.
The stone slab slid back in place over their heads. For a moment they were blind. No light could enter from outside.
They didn't have any torches, but they didn't need to.
The walls of the hall leading them down to the city were covered in writing that slowly began to emit a faint green light that was just bright enough to see.
Doblohw wasn't marked on any map. The ruins now served the ones in need. Refugees, like them, homeless people and the like.
The city had its own magic to it. It could only be found by the ones in need. It was a safe haven for them.
Venturing deeper the quiet sound of music brushed their ears and the path made a bend to the left.
The ceiling became higher the further down they came and after the turn they found themselves standing in a hall with rows and rows of columns holding the ceiling above their heads. The glowing writing was everywhere.
"The people who built this wrote down the story of how it was built and their own personal feelings and thoughts about it. They etched it into the very stones of this hall for everyone to read who entered," she told Sythia. She pointed at a passage of writing high above them. "My hands ache from the endless hours of etching this writing into the stone and then painting it with the green glowing color. We are three people working on this column. I took the night shift today. The other workers are sleeping below me at the moment. Bligk and Tofqk, those are their names. They put salve on my bandage that covers my bleeding hand, I am holding the chisel with. We became good friends working on this column for over a year now. We're soon done. Only 50 more blocks until it reaches the ceiling."
