Astaroth bid Max farewell but stopped just short of the door.
“I almost forgot,” confessed the Demon. Turning, Astaroth raised a white hand and made a motion as though giving a modified benediction. “Until Walpurgisnacht has passed, you are forbidden to divulge any aspect of this visit or our conversation. You are forbidden to take any action whatsoever that might interfere with David Menlo’s scheme.”
The door closed and the Demon departed.
Again Max was steeped in an utter void of blackness. He wished the passive fetters would dull his mind or that the baka would creep back down to settle on his shoulders and begin its whispers anew. But neither happened, and thus for long hours Max was left to brood upon his betrayal of David and the doom that awaited him.
~25~
THE SORCERER AND THE SMEE
In the blackness of Prusias’s dungeons, Max persevered like some lonely spirit. Hunger and thirst tormented him, but he did not waste away or perish, for there was some insidious magic in the baka that sustained his body even as it destroyed his mind.
Emerging from another nightmare, Max heard a quiet fumbling at the lock. There was illumination—a glimmer of witch-fire that peeped through a lantern’s sliding panel, revealing a momentary glimpse of a white face hovering outside the cell door.
Max felt the baka stir while he blinked at the figure. It must be Astaroth, he thought. The Demon must have returned to gloat over his victory.…
But why would Astaroth bother with a lantern or a key?
Before Max could muse on this, the door opened and the figure slipped inside the cell. The baka hissed as the figure came closer and raised the lantern’s shutter so that its light fell upon the prisoner’s face. The sudden brightness was painful. With a moan, Max shut his eyes and turned away.
There was a soft thumping noise, and Max felt the baka abruptly stiffen. It was removed from his shoulders, and Max’s cheek was suddenly cold as his tormentor’s face no longer pressed against his. He heard its body thud into the far corner, but Max knew it was another dream, another nightmare meant to convince him that his ordeal was over. He’d had them before, and they were among the very worst. Of all temptations, hope was cruelest.
Keeping his eyes shut, he refused to answer the voice that gently called his name. His bonds were severed; Max felt them slip away even as the voice continued to whisper. Rough hands took hold of his—a touch that was warm and real and human. The voice was so calm and so determined that at last Max opened his eyes and risked a peek at this most persistent of phantoms.
It was William Cooper.
The Agent’s face was just inches away. There was the pale skin and the broken, scarred features and the shoots of gray-blond hair peeking from beneath his black cap.
The Agent patted his hand. “Can you hear me?” he whispered. “It’s time to wake up.”
But Max could not. He was so tired and so afraid and so very broken.
When Max finally managed a nod—a mere infinitesimal dip of his head—the Agent’s blue eyes blazed.
“Good,” Cooper whispered. “Lie quiet and let me do the work. I’m getting you out of here.”
When Max was lifted, he felt like the little child in his earliest memories. Tipping Max over his left shoulder, Cooper reached down to retrieve the lantern. In his right hand, he held his gruesome kris and something that looked like a compass.
Stepping outside the cell, Cooper stole swiftly into the labyrinth beyond, his movements as stealthy and assured as a panther’s.
They moved quickly, but it seemed Cooper’s priority was silence. Periodically, he stopped and set Max down, propping him against the rock walls while the Agent studied the thin, disklike instrument in his hand. He allowed no more than a minuscule amount of light to escape from the lantern—just enough to cast a soft glow on the ground immediately ahead.
They had finally started to climb when they heard a shrill, mournful howl. Cooper immediately stopped and closed the lantern. They waited, Max curled against the cool stone in the pitch black. There was a familiar, reassuring pat on his shoulder, and then Cooper padded away to investigate.
After a few minutes, Max thought he heard the Agent returning.
There was a soft clink as something struck the dark lantern. Eager hands scrabbled at it, knocking it over and wrenching its shutter open. Bright light blazed in the darkness. Something scrambled backward, emitted a shrill cry, and seized the lantern, dashing it viciously against the rocks. The lantern’s glass broke, and its witch-fire spilled out, forming pearly pools of yellow-white flames.
The creature’s eyes, like the egg sacs of a spider, gleamed in the lantern light, wide and unblinking above a broad nose and a thin-lipped mouth that was caked with blood. Its sharp fingers were similarly caked, as if the thing spent its life scrabbling at bare rock looking for food or even shelter from whatever else might stalk such deep places.
It did not need to scrabble or dig for this meal. It stretched toward Max’s helpless body.
Steps. Running steps. The thing’s head whipped up as a black throwing dagger buried itself in its throat. Cooper arrived a second later, leaping over Max’s prone body to crouch over the creature and satisfy himself that it was dead. Once this was done, he unceremoniously swung Max back over his shoulder. More cries sounded shrilly in the darkness, echoing and overlapping upon one another.
“Hide-and-seek is over,” Cooper whispered.
And he was off, running with superhuman speed while Max jostled over his back. Instead of staring ahead into the blackness, the Agent focused on his strange compass and its glowing needle.
Cooper ran for hours at this pace, exhibiting almost limitless stamina, before something went wrong. The Agent cursed and slowed.
“Stay in one place,” he growled, shaking the compass as though it were malfunctioning.
“Cooper!” Max whispered.
Whirling around, the Agent raised his hand and muttered, “Solas!”
An immense light filled the caverns. For the briefest second, Max saw hordes of gaunt, starving creatures closing in upon them.
Now, as Cooper ran, Max saw that every footfall left behind a pool of incandescent flames; the path behind them was soon a blazing minefield that not only stung their pursuers’ eyes, but also stuck to their flesh and burned like Greek fire. Shrieks and howls erupted behind them. Dozens of the creatures were burning, but others merely leaped over them or scrambled up the labyrinth’s walls. In the firelight, they looked pale and embryonic—a pack of skeletal, ravenous ghouls.
Despite his burden, the Agent was swifter than his pursuers, but they seemed to know where he was going—scores peeled off from the main chase to pursue less dangerous alternatives.
Max feared an ambush.
The creatures’ shrieks shook the caverns and echoed in Max’s ears. The cries came from all around. A hand snatched at Max’s face, its talons snagging in his hair. Cooper’s footsteps accelerated. He was running faster and faster, even as Max sensed a crush of bodies pressing closer.
And then … open air.
With a final, fiery step, Cooper leaped out of a narrow fissure, his Amplified stride carrying them far out into the gray twilight.…
Several of the creatures spilled out of the fissure in pursuit, their momentum carrying them beyond the ledge so that they plummeted screaming into the valley below.
Clutching Max, the Agent kept running even as they fell in a slow arc toward a mountain lake ringed by evergreens. Hundreds of feet they fell, trailing fire like a comet. The wind whipped in Max’s face. He tensed for a horrific impact, a deep plunge into icy waters.
But it never happened.
Instead, their descent was controlled. Even as they fell, their trajectory changed so that they skimmed over the lake’s placid waters instead of crashing into them. Cooper seemed to be running on both air and water, each step a fiery hiss until they had nearly crossed the lake’s entire width. Then, slowing to a walk, the Agent’s boots sank
into shallow water and he trudged wearily to the far banks.
Propping Max against a fallen tree, the Agent sat utterly still and shut his eyes as though in meditation. Max gazed upon sky and mountains and water and grass—simple things that he did not think he’d ever see again. Evening was falling, and the air was saturated with that quiet, soft light that had inspired painters for centuries. Several deer were drinking at the lake’s edge. The moon was just rising. There were no buildings or houses that he could see, no sign of Prusias’s palace. Even the fissure from which they’d leaped was now some anonymous shadow high upon the cliff face.
Cooper’s eyes opened, and he stood abruptly, as though the minute or two had restored him. Gazing up at the heights from which he’d jumped, the Agent exhaled and gave a low whistle. Max tried to grin, but a part of him remained doubtful that any of this was real. Cooper must have realized the difficulty of acclimating to open air and freedom, for he let Max be. But when the stars emerged, he knelt beside him.
“I know you want to rest,” he said. “I do, too. But we’ve got to get moving again. I think it’d do you good to walk.”
At Cooper’s urging, Max took his hand and tried to stand. Max’s knees buckled a few times, and he was forced to lean against his companion, but within a few minutes, he stood on his own two feet.
“Straighten up,” the Agent ordered, his tone sharp.
Max did his best. With a grimace, Cooper looked him up and down.
“You’re taller than me,” he muttered. “What’d they feed you in there?”
“Nothing,” said Max, shrugging with surprise.
But this did not satisfy Cooper, whose grimace indicated a clear belief that incarcerated, malnourished teenagers should not grow taller than their elders. He stalked off.
“Don’t be mad,” said Max. “I’ve got good genes.…”
“Shut it.”
Max grinned. This was unquestionably the real William Cooper.
Stamping his legs to get the blood flowing, Max tottered after him.
Cooper’s strange compass had two pointers instead of one, and Cooper seemed to be following the golden needle, which pointed steadily ahead. As Max hounded the Agent and tried to get a better view, he noticed that the green needle was swinging wildly about.
“Why’s it doing that?” he asked.
“Because you’re moving all over the place,” Cooper explained. “That needle points to the quickest path to you. David made this compass—it’s how I found you in the dark.”
“So that other needle …?”
“Shortest path to him,” Cooper answered.
A sense of dread gnawed at Max’s conscience—David was nearby. He strained to divulge his conversation with Astaroth, but the words would not form in his brain. Suddenly, the golden needle swung to the left and Cooper halted.
They were standing on a hill crowned with poplars. In a hollow below, sheltered from the wind, was a small campsite with a crackling fire. Descending, they approached the camp, and Max was able to see those gathered around the fire.
It was a group so motley and unexpected that Max’s suspicions returned, and again he thought he must be dreaming.
Around the campfire, Max saw a Sorcerer, an ulu, a lymrill, and a strange little creature propped on a pillow. His attention lingered longest on the coppery lymrill, who was peering at him intently. With an anguished mewl, Nick charged.
Max never stood a chance.
Launching himself, the lymrill’s dense body promptly flattened Max. Growls, nips, and mewls ensued, accompanied by the maraca-like shaking of his tail and frenzied kneading of bearlike paws. The uninitiated might have suffered a heart attack.
Once Cooper pried Nick away, Maya ventured forward to greet Max. Maya was an ulu, a silvery gazelle-like creature with eyes like molten gold. She was not only David’s charge, but also his assistant, as Maya’s enchanted blood could be used to translate even the most arcane languages and ciphers. She was a delicate, peaceful creature, and once she’d nuzzled Max, she eased down once again to nibble the grass. Her steward, however, managed only a wan smile and remained seated and wrapped in blankets.
David looked terrible. He was still ghastly pale, but had now grown so thin he appeared little more than a living skeleton. Max might not have even recognized him but for David’s eyes, which still exhibited their unmistakable calm and intelligence.
Having greeted his old friends, Max glanced at the mysterious thing lounging on the pillow.
While thing seemed an uncharitable term for such a seemingly harmless creature, Max struggled to settle on anything else. He might have assumed it was merely a large yam, but for the fact that it had twisted around to follow the various greetings and reunions. Max soon noticed a golden tuft of hair atop its bullet-shaped head and a mouth set within its midsection. That mouth now spoke, its voice a silky basso that was so incongruous and yet so strangely familiar that Max merely gaped.
“At last, we meet!” exclaimed the lounging gourd.
“Max,” said David, “let me introduce Sir Olaf.…”
“Sir Olaf?” replied Max. “I’m still dreaming. Sir Olaf’s a selkie, David. He lives in the Sanctuary lagoon and weighs ten thousand pounds.”
“Those were happier days,” mused the yam wistfully.
“No,” said David, inviting Max to sit. “Sir Olaf is not a selkie; he is a smee.”
“Um … I’m sure I should know this, but what is a smee?” asked Max, peering at the visibly indignant yam. “I never read about one in the compendiums.”
“You wouldn’t have,” replied David. “They’re not dangerous per se.…”
“But they are a right pain,” said Cooper, glancing at it. “Parasitic little doppelgängers that are so good at what they do that not even the imitated species can sniff ’em out as fakes.”
“How dare you classify me in such a rude and clumsy fashion!” snapped Sir Olaf. His plump form craned to gaze up at Max. “Pay that scar-faced brute no mind. Smees are a proud race, lovingly nourished by Nature’s succulent goodness until mighty Providence should see fit to—”
“Meaning, they grow as a grub in the dirt until a big rain washes ’em away,” interrupted Cooper.
“The pleasures of language are wasted upon you, sir,” the smee griped.
“There will be plenty of time to learn about smees,” said David, “but we have more important business. First, let me put some fears to rest. Everyone who was living at the farmhouse is safe.…”
Max listened closely as David told him that an imp named Mr. Bonn had visited the farmhouse late one night and pleaded with the residents to leave, as danger might be coming. That very night, the adults had fled with the children to Nix and Valya’s house across the valley. They had gone into hiding in the cellar, living on food that was brought by a young goblin.
“Are they still there?” asked Max anxiously.
“Nix and Valya are,” replied David. “But I had to move Isabella and the children. They’re perfectly safe.”
“Where are they?” asked Max.
“At Rowan,” replied David, smiling at Max’s look of astonishment. “I smuggled them in. Even Ms. Richter was willing to bend the rules for Mina.”
“She’s a Potential!” Max hissed, as though it was now a dirty word.
David shook his head. “She’s much more than that.…”
But David changed the subject by asking Cooper for news of more pressing matters.
“The situation along the border is bad,” reported Cooper, sipping from a thermos. “War’s broken out between Prusias and Aamon in all but name. The raids have been vicious. Sir Alistair thinks they’ll declare soon.”
“Can Matheus and Natalya accelerate things?” asked David, referencing two other members of the Red Branch.
“Natalya’s done all she can without compromising herself,” replied Cooper. “Matheus has worked up something promising, but he keeps asking me about Blood Petals. What should I tell him?”
“Nothing,” snapped David. “He’s supposed to be the best poisons master we have—he can use something else. I don’t want anyone even talking about Blood Petals, much less using them on a mission.…”
As he said this, Max noticed David’s hand stray toward a locked leather case near his pack. Max had seen that case before. It contained the very poisons he intended to use on Astaroth.
Max’s conversation with the Demon replayed in his mind, word for word. He wanted to shake David, to scream, to tell him that Astaroth already knew every detail of David’s careful plan and that it was doomed to fail.
But he couldn’t say a peep.
Unable to comment or even hint at his inner anguish, Max merely sat and listened. He had never seen this side of David before. Instead of pursuing the path of a nebbish Mystic, David had evolved into a field general. Max could not help but chafe as David and Cooper continued to discuss various news, rumors, and ongoing initiatives. He felt very left out.
And he was not alone.
“You have discussed everyone and everything but me,” interjected Sir Olaf, stirring irritably. “I’ve had enough of Zenuvian trade and Aamon’s troop movements! It’s time we explore my role in these undoubtedly grand affairs.”
“Before we get to your undoubtedly very critical role,” said Max, “I want to hear anything you know about Connor.”
“He’s fine,” replied David evenly. “He’s been busy establishing his barony. I’ve kept tabs on him through Folly and Hubris.”
“I saw them,” said Max, referring to David’s birds. “Or at least one of them—when I was talking to Prusias’s imp.”
“They kept an eye on you when they could,” said David. “There are gaps, of course, but I got a fair picture until you disappeared into the dungeons.”
“I don’t even know how long I was there,” said Max.
“Four and a half months,” replied Cooper. “It’s mid-April according to the old calendars. Your birthday came and went, but we brought you a gift.”
Cooper went to David’s pack and retrieved a wrapped bundle. Inside, Max found his father’s razor, his brooch from Scathach, and samples of the children’s lessons from the farmhouse. It was overwhelming. He did not know what to say and merely handled one after the other, placing each carefully back in the box when he was finished with it. Putting the box aside, he focused on the fire’s bright yellow flames.