CHAPTER 17
A Long Overdue Meeting
The Gurukul Caverns were carved into a woody and steep hillside. At places, where the slopes were less steep, trails tracked up the hills, coursed through shady woods, to reach slender stone watchtowers. The tower tops were always occupied during sunrise and sunset – the view was tremendous.
Almost no one visited them otherwise, though.
Gregory sprinted up one of these trails, enjoying the burn in his legs.
He was exultant.
His feet pounded up the sun-dappled paths, harder and faster, until his chest ached and his legs screamed. They screamed some more when he reached a watchtower, and climbed it three steps at a time. It held off the flood of thought that he knew was coming.
Reaching the top, he collapsed on the viewpoint’s floor. It was a broad room. The sky was clear and blue, like the breeze. The stone was cool beneath his back, shaded by a stone umbrella that revolved with the sun.
Water bubbled up gently in a basin fountain at the umbrella’s base. He rose, took a deep draught of the water, and washed his heated skin in it. It was quiet here. He could finally think.
It was Monday, the afternoon after the Scrying. In six days, he would be knighted Hero of Domremy. There would be practice sessions, and elaborate dress rehearsals – all stupid wastes of time. It did not matter. Two more important matters fought for his attention.
What had he learned from Lesley Greene?
She had fallen sick just as he had, though she wouldn’t say of what. She had been surprised he had fallen sick at all. She had recognised his dreams. She believed he ought not speak of his dreams. She believed there were others who knew of these dreams… people who could make things ‘hairy’ for him.
She wanted him to remain safe; as if there was a good chance he’d find that difficult to do. She believed that he was unprepared to know the truth of his illness.
Gregory shivered. It wasn’t a nice thought – that his ignorance was healthier for him than his knowing. It went against the habit of his thinking – that knowing was better than not knowing, no matter what. Sometimes though, knowing, and not being able to do anything about whatever it is that you knew, could hurt you. Thoughts could eat you up from inside.
Somehow, she was confident that there would be no war.
And she thought she might meet him, soon.
Gregory shuddered.
What had that presence been? It had felt more solid, more massive, than even the ground beneath his feet. He dreaded facing it again. That couldn’t be how other minds felt. Were you even supposed to feel a mind during a Scrying? Could any book possibly answer that question?
Lesley Greene, he decided, probably knew what she was talking about.
Besides, there was someone else he could ask.
At last, Gregory let his thoughts to turn to the Funny Man.
The man who had probably tipped Uncle Quincy off that Gregory was at the orphanage. The man who had gifted him a book on magical botany, and likely watched over him for years. The man who was likely the one to leave Gregory at Pencier in the middle of a rainy night. The man who likely knew everything about Gregory’s unremembered life.
The man who was likely Gregory’s father.
The man, who, as it turned out, was standing at the top of the stairs, watching Gregory.
He really is tall, Gregory thought absently.
Vincent Grey was dressed simply and drably. Gregory’s mana pulsed: the gypsy was casting spells silently.
‘There,’ Vincent said quietly. ‘We shan’t be disturbed now, and none will hear us.’
Gregory asked the most important question. ‘Where’s mother?’
‘She’s not alright,’ Gregory’s stomach iced up, then relaxed when the Vincent went on, ‘but she’s unharmed. More than that, I cannot say, and you would not comprehend. There are too many things you’d need to know first.’
‘Where have you been?’ Gregory was impressed at how level his voice was.
‘There’s a war. I’m fighting it, as is Vera.’
‘Seven years is a long time for a war in these parts. You’d think someone would have heard about it by now.’
‘Seven years is how long I’ve been fighting. The war itself has been going on for much, much longer. But it’s true that most haven’t heard of it.’
‘So what are you fighting?’
Vincent frowned and looked down. ‘I truly wish I could tell you, but I can’t.’
‘You can’t?’
‘No.’
‘You can’t not tell me,’ Gregory said loudly. ‘I’ve looked for you… I waited years… and you’ve always been there…always watching…’
For a moment his voice failed him… he was choked with rage… all the tension of the last month coiling, wanting to lash out at the man who’d played with his life… he was overdue a few tantrums …
He ground his teeth, summoning every reserve of self-control he had. ‘I deserve to know! Tell me!’
‘I will.’
The bitter vehemence in the words tripped Gregory’s anger up. Vincent’s face was twisted and pale, his eyes dark. He looked at Gregory with a painful longing… or perhaps it was regret…
‘I will tell you everything…I promise. It’s actually time you knew… you need to know…as much as I wish… your mother wishes, that you didn’t…’
‘When?’
‘Some of it, I’ll tell you now… other things must wait – there are things I have to do… I must be with you in the times after you’ve heard the whole story. Still, ask your questions. I may answer some of them.’
Gregory bit back his acid. It’s not a no, he told himself. It’s the same thing Lesley said… you can wait… you must wait…
‘Have you been with the gypsies all this while?’
‘Not all the time, but a lot of it. I’ve had to go many places, and travelling with gypsies is convenient. And there are other reasons their company is useful.’
‘Did you drop me off at Pencier?’
‘Your mother and I both did.’
‘Why?’
‘You were sick… we couldn’t care for you, not with everything else.’
‘Did you tell Uncle Quincy I was at the orphanage? And did you intercept the letter telling of my arrival there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why there?’
‘Your mother knew the director… a good and kind man. We knew you’d be safe there.’
‘You knew I was sick. You know what made me sick.’
‘Yes. It did not harm you. If anything, I suspect it might have strengthened you.’
‘Strengthened me… how?
‘I suspect it affected your magic, based on whatever I could diagnose of your illness at the time.’
‘Then you got it wrong,’ said Gregory, suddenly vicious. ‘I suck at magic most of the time!’
‘What do you mean, suck?’
‘My mana extensions are the slowest in class… and drunks have better thaumic control than I do… they didn’t get better until only two days ago.’
Vincent frowned. ‘It’s not uncommon to face problems in your initial months – mages are not born equal. Besides, from what I could diagnose of you from when you were ill, your magic is uncommonly strong… it sustained you through the fever. Indeed, that ordeal might have made it stronger.’
‘That’s nice. So my magic isn’t going to see-saw in power?’
‘It shouldn’t. But if you want to fortify yourself… make meditations your priority; classroom techniques are for beginners – look up advanced mana extensions… the Headmistress should help.’
There was a bit of a silence. Gregory’s brain stuttered – discussing academics hadn’t been on the list of things he’d intended to go over with his father. He tried to focus.
If the fever made my magic strong, Gregory thought, then did it make Lesley’s stronger too? Also, did Vincent know about Lesley?
‘Do people fall sick like t
hat all the time? No hair. A fever that should have killed me – how have I never heard of it before?’
‘No, they do not. If I could make it so, I’d rather you had never heard of it.’ There was that bitterness again.
So, that was a no on Lesley Greene then. Knowing something that his father didn’t, and keeping it from him, even if for a while, felt ridiculously good.
Also, something didn’t ring right, though he couldn’t quite say what it was…
Anyway… questions! He had questions that needed answering.
‘Why did you leave me at orphanage for all this while? You did know I’d been cured… why not have Uncle Quincy pick me up earlier?’
‘We meant to. We hadn’t planned on leaving you for long at all… but circumstances kept us away for a year. Our perceived deaths have been a great asset to us in some ways. When we returned, we learned that you had lost all memory of us. Our lives were becoming harsher… we reasoned that you would have trouble adjusting … you were better off, and safer, at the orphanage. As for leaving you with your Uncle, we considered it. But when Quincy lost his own wife… family or not, we didn’t want to leave you with a grief-stricken man. We decided that it would be least disruptive for you if you were transferred to Uncle Quincy just before your magical education was due to begin.’
Vincent Grey, long-absentee father, was being ridiculously reasonable. Gregory wanted to rage, but he was being given nothing to rage at.
Fine then, if he couldn’t lose his temper, he’d have to settle for blowing his father’s mind.
‘Did I catch my fever at Brightapple or after?’ Gregory asked.
Some part of him felt viciously satisfied when Vincent Grey’s jaw dropped.
‘How do you – you remember?’
‘No. At Brightapple or after? Whatever it was that razed the village, did it make me sick too?’
‘No,’ Vincent Grey said slowly, ‘the doom of Brightapple did not cause your illness. But yes, that’s where you caught it.’
‘It wasn’t bandits, was it?’
‘No. Brightapple was burned by terrorists, though terror wasn’t their aim.’
‘Why then?’
‘Murder.’
‘Whose?’
‘I cannot say now, but I can say it succeeded, despite my best efforts at trying to prevent it.’
Gregory shivered. Before he could ask something else though, Vincent spoke:
‘Gregory, I must know. How did you find out about me? About Brightapple? My curiosity isn’t idle. I must know the methods by which me and your mother could be hunted down.’
Again, there was an impulse to enjoy keeping Vincent in the dark, but the older man had been forthcoming so far, and Gregory wanted to encourage that.
‘The best way to know how something is going to behave in the future is to look at how it behaved in the past. You and mother had been travelling with gypsies before you disappeared. If you still lived, I assumed you could be doing the same now. So I charted out gypsies routes… especially those tribes who’d been travelling close to Domremy right around the time I’d arrived at the orphanage… I looked into the newspapers for incidents close to their locations – one of those places was Brightapple. I knew I’d heard the name somewhere before, and I had – the dedication in the book on Magical Bestiary and Botany that you gave me.’
Vincent Grey looked stunned. His jaw hadn’t quite made its way back to his face yet. ‘Very, very clever, Gregory. Your mother would be proud. I couldn’t have ever thought of that.’
‘Thank you.’ Something inside Gregory sang powerfully at the praise… as if it had waited forever to sing.
‘How long has she been… not all right?’ Gregory asked.
‘The quake. She was in the middle of a ritual when the Voidmark hit… the spectre was very powerful – she killed it, but not before it seriously hurt her. She is recovering, but it will take time. She did hear about what you did though – she’s very proud… it’s one of the few times I’ve seen her cry.’
Gregory swallowed. He was finding it very hard to hold on to his anger. A small part of him noted that Vincent could be deliberately manipulating him, softening his temperament by playing to a child’s need to please its parents.
It was working, too.
Vincent continued after a moment. ‘You accepted your nomination.’
‘Yeah.’
Mango had ambushed him when he’d reached the Caverns that morning, Zach and Susannah right behind her. The four of them had jumped up and down, hands linked, in a strange sort of war dance, as the rest of the students had looked on amusedly. He and Johanna had danced their own version in Gregory’s room, when his cousin had come screaming in that morning, newspaper in hand.
He and Mango had their backs clapped and their hands shaken until they lost some feeling in those parts. The Headmistress had put on her Queen hat for a moment to formally congratulate and thank them. She’d further quietly commended Gregory about his improved thaumic command. Right after classes, seniors that Gregory had never exchanged hellos with, or even seen, had lifted him and Mango onto their shoulders, and jogged a circuit around the Caverns.
A giddy feeling of things spiralling wildly out of control had struck Gregory then, and abruptly, he’d weaselled his way out of the crowd and sprinted up the wooded hills, to the viewpoint, to clear his head.
‘It’s quite a privilege,’ Vincent said.
‘I was never going to refuse it.’
There was another short silence, and then Vincent Grey asked:
‘Gregory, if I may, I’m very curious about who it was exactly that you needed to Scry?’
‘Me first. The Scrying last night… did it go as Scryings are supposed to? What did you see?’
Vincent shook his head. ‘I’ve seen Scryings gone wrong, but never like that. You made no sound, just convulsed on the ground and then were still. I didn’t dare step into the circle… and when I cast a diagnostic charm on your magic, I found only the barest traces – as if your Will had escaped your body. I was afraid your mind had been broken.’
For all that Vincent controlled his voice, Gregory thought he detected a great tension in his father’s voice.
‘But you’re lucid now, and that’s all I care about,’ Vincent said. ‘Will you tell me about the Scrying?’
And Gregory would have told him everything. There was a roar in his mind, a rush in his ears, an intense pounding in his heart – that here stood his father… he wanted desperately to connect to him, to tell him about Lesley Greene, and Mango, and Zach, and Susannah… about Astrid and his first kiss… and the books he’d shared with Johanna… and how lonely Uncle Quincy was. He wanted to tell him of all the little crimes he’d committed with Alf and Reggie and Mixer…
Gregory would have told him everything but for that little nagging in his head, something that said this whole picture was wrong, to not trust it, to wait…
So he said, ‘I was trying to Scry a girl who I thought had the same fever I did. You’ve heard of the Blood Census?’
Vincent nodded.
‘I was there at the inauguration ceremony,’ Gregory said. ‘There, I heard that someone in the blood census had fallen ill, and that they’d had a fever, not as high as mine… but high enough that they should have died. I thought she might have fallen sick the way I had, so I stole her frond to see if I could Scry her…’
Gregory shrugged.
‘…it didn’t work out. I did manage to speak to her, but the fever had scrambled her brain somehow. She wasn’t very coherent.’
‘She must have been very strong to begin with if she actually lived through such a fever,’ Vincent said.
‘I suppose,’ Gregory replied. ‘Though it wasn’t a complete waste of time, seeing how I figured out who you were.’
‘Is there anything else that you wanted to ask me?’
‘Yes… hold on a second.’
Gregory rummaged inside his bag and pulled out the missing person bull
etin that he’d found in the newspaper. He held it out to Vincent. ‘Do you recognise this?’
Vincent shook his head, and took the paper.
‘I doubt you were the one who posted this out… do you know who might have?’
But Vincent looked bewildered. ‘An advertisement for body odour management?’
‘Huh?’
‘I assure you I’ve never solicited customers for any kind of perfume in all my days with the gypsies,’ Vincent said drily.
‘What?’
Gregory strode over to his father. Had he handed over the wrong advertisement? But no – his own younger face stared back out of the advertisement at him.
‘What advertisement? I’m talking about this!’ he said, jabbing his finger down onto the picture.
‘A call to people to buy Scenellis? That’s an advertisement, sure enough.’
‘You don’t see the picture?’ Gregory asked, bewildered in turn.
‘A picture?’
Vincent’s eyes suddenly gleamed with interest. He muttered something funny, and Gregory’s mana chimed faintly.
‘There’s a charm on this paper. Whatever it is you are seeing… it’s wasn’t meant for my eyes. What is it that you see?’
‘A missing poster with a sketch drawing of me from about six years ago. It says I disappeared at Brightapple and calls for anyone with any information of me to contact the address at the bottom.’
‘And you found it in the newspaper?’ Vincent looked very alarmed.
‘Yes.’
‘Have you made any contact with that address?’ Vincent asked sharply.
‘No! I’m not crazy!’
Vincent performed a series of quick spells and charms, and swore. ‘This is a very complex charm – a cognitively invasive one – that is, it reads your mind without your permission. I’ve never seen one this powerful!’
‘What does it do?’ Gregory asked, instantly worried. There were no good mind invasion stories, only horror stories.
‘As best as I can make out, its primary purpose is to find you. It’s a beautiful bit of rune work actually.’
‘How does it work?’
Vincent cast some spell and maintained it, his face become paler by the second, and somehow, also darker. When he spoke, his voice was cold.
‘As soon as you open the page, the charm first flashes your picture a few times – very quickly and briefly – so you don’t even realise you’ve seen it… it checks to see if you subconsciously recognise the picture. If you don’t, it shows the advertisement… but even if you do recognise it, it doesn’t immediately show you the poster… there are conditions built in…
‘There’s two kinds of people who may recognise you: those who know you… and those who don’t know you personally, but have seen you around… and the poster is meant only for the second kind of person. If the first kind of person – such as your Uncle or I – see it… we’d wonder who was putting out missing person posters for you when it’s none of their business.
‘The second kind of person would see the poster, and rush off to collect the reward. The spell, upon noting that they do recognise you, manifests the poster and presents the address.
‘That’s not all… there’s a feedback system built into this. The advertisement is designed to look into people’s heads, and if it finds that they’ve realised that they know you, the charm sends an alert to whoever it is that’s looking for you… there’s probably a receiving device on their end.’
It took less than a second for Gregory to understand.
‘It checked my mind! They know where I am!’
‘Very likely,’ Vincent Grey said grimly. ‘That alert went out as soon as you touched and saw the poster.’
A thought struck Gregory.
‘Wait… if the spell could just check if they recognised me – and that’s enough to send out the alert – why bother to manifest the missing poster at all?’
Vincent frowned for a moment, and then his face cleared.
‘They must have been factoring for time. Spells aren’t active forever after all. Their power fades unless renewed… still, this was meant to find you in the initial days after Brightapple… I suppose we were lucky that no one identified you. But then, you did look a lot different.
‘Also, it’s unlikely that the alert receiving device has been active for this long – unless someone has been recharging it constantly for the past seven years.’
Gregory shuddered… if someone had been waiting all these years, chances were he would have been picked up already.
Another thought struck.
‘Wait, wait. Hang on – don’t I fall into the first category of people too? I mean, I do know exactly who I am. I DID wonder to myself who and why someone who had no business putting out a notice of me… put out a notice of me.’
‘True,’ Vincent said, frowning. ‘They might have made a mistake in writing the spell.’
A mistake that specific? So specific that it singled out the very person that the charm was looking for? Defining two types of groups wasn’t hard. Drawing in a third group of people, one that included Gregory, was too specific to not have been purposeful…
‘It might not have been a mistake. Maybe they were hoping I would contact them,’ Gregory said.
‘Really?’ Vincent sounded sceptical. ‘It’s makes more sense that they’d expect you to be too suspicious to contact them… though I must admit, I can’t find either the mistake or any command in the spell that says you ought to be able to see the poster. Unless…’
But Vincent didn’t explain.
If there was no error in the spell…and there had been no command in it specific to Gregory either… then that suggested an ‘external factor’ had enabled him to see the poster…
The most obvious candidate for that ‘external factor’ was… the cause behind Gregory’s fever and memory loss?
Gregory grit his teeth in frustration.
Why was anyone looking for him? Whoever it was, they knew him only from Brightapple, and not before or after. What did Gregory have that they wanted? How much did Vincent know?
Vincent though, was looking at once grim and eager. A soldier, he had said… but what kind? Not the kind, Gregory thought, that charges into a full-scale battle. He was suddenly glad that Vincent hadn’t told him everything at once… there might be stuff he really wasn’t ready to know…
‘I’ll scout the address out. Will you tell me where it is?’
‘Will you tell me what you find there?’
Vincent seemed to think it over. ‘I will.’
‘What? Really?’
Vincent nodded.
Gregory read the address out to him, and Vincent pocketed the charmed poster, saying, ‘It may act as some sort of key. Also, we need to take certain precautions.’
‘Precautions?’
‘Yes. There’s a chance, however slight, that someone knows where you are now, even though I’m keeping the poster. Do not be alone, at any time, when you’re out. Finally… will you allow me to put a tracer charm on you? It’s of my own devising, and so will escape most kinds of detection,’ Vincent said.
Gregory nodded, and immediately felt something hot-cold link to his thauma.
‘Thank you,’ Vincent said. ‘That gives me some peace of mind. I have something to give you too.’
‘What is it?’
Vincent held out a key. ‘Oakroot Hamlet, The Mushroom. That key will let you in. I will know that you are there, and will come. Tell no one about it. Let none see it.’
‘I won’t,’ Gregory said, and put the key away.
‘Is there anything else you wished to know?’
‘Not right now.’
‘Then I’ll leave you,’ Vincent said, getting up. ‘I wished we had time to speak, but I must look into the mystery of this poster as soon as I can. I expect I shall return by Friday.’
And then Gregory was alone on top of the watchtower, every trace of his earlier exultation van
ished.
That had not gone how he had thought it would… how it should have gone… at all.