Wordscapist, The Myth

The chase is afoot

Pursuers and fugitives unknown

The plot thickens

Questions still unanswered

But the end can always be traced

If you start right at the beginning

It’s one of those nights of absolute darkness. The moon is nowhere to be seen and the clouds prevent even the starlight relieving the gloom. All beauty is lost in a swirl of dark greys that barely allow the naked eye to discern one detail from the other. AJ Silvus has no such problems though. His scape-enhanced sight allows him to see everything, including the dark, lithe form that makes its way towards him. Finally!

Silvus can sense that Zyx is shielding from him. Whatever she is feeling or thinking, she doesn’t want him to know. He is irritated at the ploy, given how futile it is. He doesn’t break it down instantly, and waits for her to explain herself. She is his last aide at the Guild, and he cannot afford to lose her. Jimmy Sau was his right hand man and a big loss. That crazy elemental didn’t know just how much she had damaged his power base with her actions. Once this entire mess was done with, he would have to rebuild everything.

Zyx walked up the last few steps to the huge man and looked at him with one of her practised, mischievous smiles. Silvus continued staring at her impassively. Any reaction at all would only result in more games, more wasting of time. The best ploy was always to stare her out. A few moments later, her smile slowly changed into a pout, moving slowly from sexy vixen to spoilt brat. “Can we get down to business now?” Silvus asked, his voice flat, not betraying any emotion. Zyx considered continuing with the charade for a moment, but then dropped the idea. Her features re-formed themselves into a plainer but far more efficient version of herself.

“He’s here. I’ve managed to get a scape signature confirmation. It was the Free wordsmith, the girl. And he is with her. I am unable to get a lock on their exact position, but Skye it is.”

“Good. We need to flush him out, then. What do you have planned?”

Zyx looks at him, trying to read his dead eyes. “Silvus, you know that the CCC will shut down the Guild at the slightest infraction. We cannot afford to…”

“I still am the Mastersmith, Zyx. You could try and acknowledge that when you speak to me.” There is a distinct surge of power at that. The temperature drops as the air frosts up around them.

Zyx’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, Mastersmith. I was only…”

“Our priority is to hunt the boy down. I believe that is what the CCC is trying to do too. I think they will accord leniency to any actions that are directed at hunting that abomination down.”

Zyx lowers her eyes and tries not to show any reaction to the innate hypocrisy in Silvus’s words.

“So, I ask you again. What have you planned to flush him out?”

Zyx takes a deep breath and speaks, “Mastersmith, I’ll unleash the spooks. They should be able to lock on to him the moment he does anything at all with his gift. The slightest flare, and they’ll be all over him. They might not do much damage, but they’ll give us the sign we need. I’ll tie in a notification spell to the both of us, and we can move in quickly and hunt him down.”

“Good!” Silvus purses his lips as his eyes light up in anticipation. “That is a good plan. I’ve got a couple of surprises up my sleeve for that boy. He might have caught Zauberin and her gang by surprise, but we will get him, Zyx. And there still might be hope…”

Zyx freezes as she hears the words. He still hopes to capture the gift, to become the Wordscapist! There really was no end to the man’s madness. She smiled. That was exactly what she loved about him.

Slick

The morning made everything feel a lot better. For one, everything was a lot prettier. The rain had stopped, the bone chilling cold making way for a pleasant, cool wind. The fire was gone and I didn’t miss it too much. Dew and De Vorto were nowhere to be seen. They had let me sleep, and I was grateful for that. The rocky cave we were in hadn’t offered many comfortable options, but I’d managed somehow, between a rolled up jacket and a couple of smooth rocks. As I stretched and walked out, I realised that I wasn’t limping either. My leg did feel much better, almost completely healed. I tried a few test kicks and everything worked well. A fine day indeed!

I felt the pulse at the back of my head, the surge of power that was waiting to be called. I wondered if that had something to do with how quickly I had healed, like one of those vampire or werewolf creatures in popular fiction. I wondered how I would fare before garlic or silver. Silver I could stay away from, but I really did like garlic. Maybe super wordsmiths had other allergies. I wouldn’t mind being allergic to pumpkins. I wasn’t fond of them. And I didn’t see how anyone could wear a string of pumpkins around their neck.

I pulled myself out of that silly reverie. Everything was different alright, but today I almost felt like I could deal with it. Almost. I clambered out of the cave and saw a wide expanse in front of me. It was a pretty place, provided you found rocks pretty. The fog was moving in and out of the rocks, adding a certain mystery to the scene. That was when I noticed Dew.

She was standing very still barely a few feet away from me, staring out at something in the fog. Her body was tense and her scape sign was up. It was alive and flaring, ready for action. Something was wrong! I sensed movement above me and saw De Vorto hovering nearby, motioning me to stay still.

I looked carefully at the thick fog, trying to make out what it was that had spooked these two so much. I couldn’t see anything. I shot a mental thought at Dew, “What is it?” Just one word came back. Faeries! I could barely believe I’d heard her right. I squinted into the fog, trying to see what they saw. A moment later, I saw them. Almost unconsciously, my mind brought up faint words that cleared my vision, revealing the forms that were walking - almost gliding - towards us. Damn it, I had to stop doing that. My mind was racing ahead on becoming a wordsmith, and De Vorto had warned me that it was dangerous. They moved closer until we could see them clearly. Their forms were still vaguely blurred, but I doubted that had anything to do with the fog. I stared at them, trying to see them for who they were. These were Sliverette’s kin, her folks. That was definitely not a comforting thought.

It was difficult to describe them. At first glance, they looked like a clutch of young, pretty, pale people. There was a sort of vague beauty to them, pleasing at a subconscious level. But no one feature stood out, no strong characteristics that made an impression and stayed. Then I looked more closely. I thought about Dew’s lessons on glamours, and focussed hard on seeing what really lay beneath. That generic beauty was just the surface. Slowly, the illusion faded, and I could see more. Much more.

They were the faerie. There was strong magic in them. There was the history of hundreds of years and experiences I could scarcely begin to imagine. I could see all this and more, through flashes of reality that buzzed in my head and settled into my consciousness. The most disconcerting thing however was the complete lack of empathy. I felt their eyes on me and I could see that they did not really feel the way humans did. What was precious to me was nothing to them, and they could, without a thought, destroy my world. They were the faerie, and they were very dangerous.

They spread out, making themselves comfortable. There was one leaning on a rock, another who effortlessly leapt onto and perched atop a huge boulder, others who just sat where they stopped. They looked like this was home to them. Maybe it was home to them.

One of them stepped forward, looking at De Vorto. It looked like a woman. Not as tall and real as one, but somehow close. She was bigger than De Vorto though. I had definitely got my faerie dimensions wrong when I wove his form. But he was hovering at eye-level, drawing himself up, looking a lot bigger than he was. I don’t know how he did it, but he was on my side, and I was glad he did.

They stood and looked at each other for a while. I guess there was some telepathic conversation happening. It went on for a while. Dew and I waited tensely to see what would happen. Her scape sign pulsed, indicating its readiness to do anything she willed it to. I almost unconsciously brought mine up. Mine was more ice than fire, but it felt warm to my touch. I plunged my hands into it, and waited. I didn’t know what it was I could do to help, but I was ready.

As my warp came up, the faerie woman shot me a look, and then looked right back at De Vorto. He turned to look at me and frowned. He turned back to her. This was getting frustrating. I wanted to know what the conversation was about. Dew was glaring at me too, and shot me a few choice telepathic epithets. I did not respond, focusing on keeping my warp stable. This looked like a situation where taking risks was justified, and even necessary.

De Vorto suddenly spoke aloud, “I want these two to know what is being said.”

The faerie’s eyes widened in a comically exaggerated imitation of surprise.

“You speak their tongue,” she said haltingly in a lilting voice.

“I am not here to play games, Aeiea. I am here to retrieve my body.”

“But then there would be two of you, Alain. We cannot allow that. Not after you abandoned us in our direst hour of need. Not when you wrought the harm you did, all alone. Not when the new one barely understands how to ride the storm within him.”

It was a long speech, and she took some time getting through it. I could barely understand her, and the content itself didn’t make much sense either. I just waited, warp in hand, for the hostilities to begin.

“I cannot help the boy unless I am restored, Aeiea,” De Vorto snapped, “I need my body for that. Without my host, I am a mere shadow of my former self.”

“And why would I want that to change, Alain. Even as a shadow, you are a threat to the fey. This new threat you have brought bears chaos within that might tear our world apart. Yours even. And you want us to help you?”

“What threat is she talking about,” I sent a mental thought to Dew. The response took some time coming back. When it did come, I didn’t like it one bit. “I think she might be talking about you.”

De Vorto and the faerie had gone back to glaring at each other. This was getting a little tiring. I started studying the faerie, one after another, trying to discern differences between the vague pretty forms. My warp shrank as I stopped focussing on it, and then blinked out. After a while, Dew let hers go out too. This was going to take a while.

“Aeiea, do not anger me!” De Vorto shouted, suddenly. “I demand my host back, or the fey will face my wrath!”

“Go on then, Alain de Vorto,” Aeiea smirked. “Let’s see you hurt even one of my people in a fair fight.”

De Vorto glared at her. The faerie were slowly getting up, one by one, rising from their comfortable positions. I now knew that there were eight of them - from what I remembered of Sliverette, that was far too many. Both Dew and my scape signs came back in an instant, flaring brightly. It was time to do something. I wondered what.

“Do not weave, boy!” De Vorto’s voice was clear inside my head, just like old times. It was a telepathic missive; he wasn’t in my head anymore. But it was bad enough. Unfortunately, for the rebel in me, that is just the kind of trigger that gets me going. I knew I couldn’t speak aloud. I had to cook something up in my head. So be it. I knew what I wanted to do; ensure that none of these crazy faeries could hurt us. I had to freeze them in place, immobile and, if possible, unharmed. I wasn’t too worried about the unharmed bit. They were hostile and had some harm coming as well-earned payback. I let the words swim up, shaping them in a form that just felt natural. It was almost like writing poetry. I had never been much of a poet, but this came easily to me.

“Capture form

Immobilise intent

Prevent escape

Hold in limbo”

As the words appeared in my head, my warp stopped swirling around, becoming almost solid in my hands. The faeries hadn’t noticed anything and were still focussing on De Vorto as he glared at Aeiea. I felt my warp getting heavier and heavier. I had to cast whatever I had woven soon or it would go out of control. Would it even work?

I shot another glance at Dew. She was staring at my warp, her eyes huge and round, full of alarm. Before she could shoot me another thought, the faeries made their move. Four of them darted forward, two towards me and two towards Dew. The rest moved towards De Vorto. Well, if that’s how they had calculated the threat, they were very wrong. I released the scape with a breath and a few words…

“Freeze where you are

Until it’s time to thaw”

The effect was instantaneous – they all froze right where they were. I saw De Vorto glowing bright, in the midst of what looked like another warp. He was ready to strike! He could weave!

Furious, he glared at me. His warp winked out as he darted towards me. I almost brought up another freeze spell in self-defence, but stopped myself. I didn’t want to take him on.

“What have you done?” he demanded, flitting inches away from my face.

“You can weave!” I shouted. He had lied!

“What did you do, boy?” He almost growled this one out, his form glowing dangerously again.

“Didn’t I just save us all?” I asked.

“You attacked the faerie!”

“You were going to do the same!”

“I need to reason with them, or they will not return my body.”

“Why do they have your body?”

“That is not the point. The point is that you are a bawbag who has once again screwed up. You proved the faerie right!” he shouted, right in my face.

“They were making their move, attacking us, when I finally decided to let loose what I’d woven.” I wasn’t backing down this time. I was right, and I wouldn’t let him take that away from me.

“You had no business weaving!” This time it was Dew. I had pretty much had it with the both of them.

“What do you guys expect of me, dammit!” I shouted, my warp appearing almost instantly, flaring up. All of us fell silent, staring at it, as it glowed between my clenched fists. I took a deep breath and let it go out. It took some effort.

“Whatever is happening inside you is not stable enough, Slick,” Dew said, more quietly this time.

I nodded quietly, biting my lip to prevent any retorts. That had been scary, the way my power had sprung up when I was angry.

De Vorto continued glaring at me. He was really angry, and as my rage cooled down, I was beginning to understand why.

“He acted for the best,” Dew said, speaking up softly but firmly. “I was on the verge of attacking too, only I had no idea how to bring them all down at once.”

De Vorto threw her a dirty look and then got back to glaring at me. He looked back at the frozen faerie. Some of them were beginning to thaw. He turned towards us, his face more composed.

“Both of you will walk out that way,” De Vorto spoke in a voice that made it clear that there was to be no further debate, pointing towards the valley below. “You will see a portal that I have set up. Walk through it, and you will find yourself inside my home, where no one else can enter. Go and wait there. I will clean up this mess and come.”

“You sure you don’t need help thawing them out?” I asked.

“Boy, you forget yourself,” De Vorto said, his voice carrying more ice than my scape had. I half raised my hands in surrender. I nodded to Dew and both of us set out to find De Vorto’s home.

As we walked away, the thought came to me that I had just pulled off my first scape independently. It worked quite well, and was super cool too. I stored it away in my head, labelling it as the Freeze spell. I was sure it would come in useful sometime soon, no matter what De Vorto or Dew said.

Dew

The portal was a little rip in the air. I had a feeling it had been set up so that only Slick and I could see it. De Vorto could definitely weave. We had to talk about this. For now we just went quietly through the portal. I let Slick go first. He was tentative, unsure how to deal with this new phenomenon. Again, the thought came to me, how strange it must be to enter a world where everything was so different. I wondered how it felt. He reached out with his hand, slowly slipping into the portal, stepping through as the rip expanded to encompass him. I followed him, and bumped into him on the other side. He was standing, frozen to the spot. I gently shoved him aside and looked at what had left him dumbstruck. I had to admit; it was quite a sight!

We were in a little valley. It was gorgeous, green and lush, very unlike the bleak, black surroundings. I couldn’t get a grasp of the size of the place, as the horizon melted into a haze that showed a trace of the mountains that surrounded us. De Vorto had built some kind of illusion that combined with the natural inaccessibility of the place to ensure that no one could see it from the outside. I wondered how he had worked with all the problems of attempting something like this; the sheer physics of hiding a location and stitching everything else around it on the outside; the one-way vision and the obvious shielding it had from all wordsmith senses; the energy it took to sustain something like this. It was an incredibly brilliant example of weaving, something that only the Wordscapist could have come up with. For now, it looked like we might be safe again.

Slick was walking around the place, his mouth wide open, stopping now and then to give me can-you-believe-this-place looks. He was cute when he wasn’t trying to be a smartass. I smiled at him, and settled down on a patch of grass. I didn’t want to explore. I wanted De Vorto to be back so that I could talk to him. I needed some answers. After some walking around, Slick returned and settled down next to me. We sat for some time in silence. I liked that. I liked him better when he wasn’t talking. I stopped the thought before it could sneak away and go to other places I didn’t want it to go to.

“I’m hungry,” Slick said after a while. “Can you do an accio fruit thingie?”

“We’re not in the Harry Potter world, Slick,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “Wordsmiths need to work harder. I suggest we go fruit hunting, if you want to eat any time soon.”

He stuck his tongue out at me, and then scrambled up. His leg was back to normal, and so were his antics. I guess cute could become irritating very soon. But it was still difficult to stay mad at the idiot. I followed him with a smile as he exclaimed loudly at having found a patch of apple trees. Before he could try something stupid like climbing one, I wove up something that brought down a shower of lovely ripe apples. He leaned to pick one up and threw me a look. “I thought we had to work harder.”

“Well, apples won’t come zooming to you,” I responded, picking one up myself. “But you can convince them to fall a bit sooner.”

He bit into one, making a face at me as he did. Only he could manage to do that.

“I hope De Vorto is doing alright,” I said.

“Well, he can weave,” Slick spoke through a full mouth. “And he is the incredible, amazing, and ultimate Wordscapist. He can probably wrap them up and sell them as Christmas tree decorations without breaking a sweat.”

“I need to talk to him about that,” I said after chewing through a mouthful of extremely delicious apple. “We need to know what he can and cannot do. There is no point pretending he cannot weave. And if he doesn’t act so damn cryptic, we might be able to get things done more easily than we could have otherwise.”

He nodded vigorously as he demolished another apple, his second.

The next hour was pleasant, if slightly strange. We spoke and ate, and spoke some more. Every now and then we would wonder about De Vorto. Eventually, we would give up and get back to talking. Slick had lots of questions, and I was glad to answer what I could. He wanted to understand how weaving worked. He wanted to know the science behind it. He wove by instinct, stringing words together as they came to him. His scapes definitely got results, though his words were without form or structure. I tried to explain to him the logic of the classic structure I had learned as best as I could. My responses made him thoughtful, and every now and then there would be a lull in the conversation as he digested what he had learned. And then he would plunge right back in with another question.

I told him about scapes and the training process. I told him about the Guild and the Free Word. I even told him about Sign; what little I heard, and the fact that she was more myth than fact. He found all this endlessly entertaining. I leaned back during one of the quiet periods, resting against a tree, twisting some grass in my hands. I liked this place. It was nice. And Slick could be nice too, if he didn’t try so hard to be himself. I watched him frown at some thought running through his busy head. His strange mismatched eyes glowed brown and green for a second as he turned to me again. That bit was going to take some getting used to.

“So I use one path to construct and another to deconstruct,” he said suddenly, repeating what I had told him a while back. “Why can’t I just reverse the same path?”

I gasped in horror, “Don’t even think about doing something like that! You come up with the most bizarre ideas! Using a scape path in reverse indeed! What do you think this is? A card game?”

“Well, it seems logical to me.”

“Slick,” I tried to keep my voice calm, despite the sheer insanity of what he had just proposed. “Weaving is complicated. It’s not child’s play. Your element might be water, or ice. That might come naturally to you, like fire does to me. But other things take time. You need to try and learn the classic paths. You need to...”

He closed his eyes and suddenly a twig lying in front of us burst into flame. It made me jump, and I almost shrieked. That was completely unexpected!

“What is wrong with you!” I shouted at him. “You are sitting on this huge reservoir of power that you barely understand. De Vorto has expressly forbidden you from weaving. And you just play around with it like it’s nothing. And thoughtscapes! Inside your head! With no control over what you wreak! You could blow yourself up! There is a reason why wordsmiths are taught as inksmiths before they can move to breathsmiths!”

“You’re just plain jealous!” he retorted, with a smirk.

“No, I am not!” I shouted again, outraged at how clueless he was about the seriousness of the situation. “I know the power of the thoughtscape lies with the Wordscapist. But you are yet to learn the basic skills of a rookie. You have power, yes. But you lack the knowledge to control it and use it constructively.”

He looked at me seriously. I think he finally understood just how serious I was. “Dew, tell me,” he said, “Do you know what it feels like to wield this power?”

That threw me off. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I finally decided to just go with honesty, though I didn’t like what he was implying. “I guess not,” I muttered.

“Then, how do you know the best way to use it?”

“I do not,” I snorted. “De Vorto is probably the only one who can train you. And he has already forbidden you from weaving! I could guide you to the way of the inksmith and the breathsmith. Anything beyond that is up to him.” My volume had gone up again, despite myself.

“Dew, do you realise that a lot of the gift I have is beyond even what De Vorto had?” he asked, his voice irritatingly reasonable. “To make matters worse, he’s not really being completely honest about anything at all. We don’t even know how much he can do right now, and why he says the things he does.”

“Slick, do you realise just how perfectly arrogant, incorrigible and unbearable you are?” I asked, giving up on trying to convince him.

“Dew, do you realise how perfectly beautiful you look when you flush like that?”

That one threw me off completely. I flushed even more and was at a complete loss for words. The bastard! He had snuck that one in and caught me off guard! I saw him smiling at me, leaning back to take in the view. Cute could definitely get extremely irritating really fast. “You are incorrigible,” I muttered, getting up. “I see you’re good at charmscapes though!”

“That was not a charmscape and you know it,” Slick retorted, standing up too. “I was merely telling you something I observed.”

“Never mind. I give up. I’m not going to argue with you. Let’s go check on De Vorto,” I said, walking back towards the point we had entered, visible as a tear in the haze around us. “It has been way too long.”

Slick was walking alongside me, looking at the portal as we approached it. “You really think we should step out? He asked us to wait here for him.”

“Well, we did wait,” I said, as I continued walking. “I’m beginning to get a little worried though. We did leave him in the midst of a crazy situation.”

“Hmmm, I guess,” Slick said. “Hold on, let me go through first.” With that he stepped through the portal. With an exasperated sigh, I moved to follow him. I walked right into him on the other side, again. He was frozen right in front of the portal, and this time I sensed that there was something a lot more serious holding his attention. I moved around him to see what was wrong.

There was a grey-black mass of ectoplasm in front of us. I could make out a bunch of shadows. We were surrounded by what looked like a few hundred ghosts!

Slick

I could feel the fear prick every inch of my body. I didn’t know what they were, but they were really scary. I could feel the combined weight of their hostile rage pressed against my mind. I wasn’t able to think straight, much less move. I felt Dew standing right next to me, staring at the immense mass of grey swirling around us. There were a lot of them, distinct for a split second and all mixed up the next. They made it impossible for us to move, and I didn’t really know how to fight them.

“Dew?” I asked, my voice quivering a bit.

“Spirits,” Dew whispered. “Ghosts. I have never seen so many of them together.”

I did not need to know that. I hated ghosts! Not that I had had any personal experience. But this was insane! Zombies, psychotic wordsmiths, murderous faerie, and now ghosts! Where had these sprung from?

I tried to think of a way to counter them. But the fear was overwhelming. I couldn’t clear my mind, I couldn’t focus on one thought. And I knew better than to try weaving without achieving a tabula rasa first. What worked against ghosts? I couldn’t think of anything beyond a proton pack, and I didn’t think the Ghostbusters script writer was a wordsmith. Not in the traditional sense at least. And even if they did work, I didn’t have a proton pack! Damn it, I had to focus!

The ghosts crowded us, surrounding us on either side. I reached out, trying to sense the portal behind me. We could slip back into it and leave these things behind. They wouldn’t be able to follow us. I felt nothing, however. I turned around to look for the tear in the air, and saw nothing. It had closed! De Vorto had set up a single entry portal for us! Damn it! I looked back and saw that we were completely surrounded now. The sense of terror was off the charts, and my mind was closing down. I looked at Dew - she was riveted, staring at the grey forms.

“Why aren’t you weaving?” I whispered at her, wondering why I was whispering even as I did.

“I sense them. They’re wordsmith ghosts. Spooks. This is a Guild attack. They attack wordsmiths, especially the ones who are weaving. They are drawn to scape signs. Don’t try to weave. Just stand still.”

“Stand still?” I wasn’t sure how to take that. “And they will go away?”

“No, they won’t,” Dew whispered back at me, still staring out at the ghosts. “But if you try to weave, they will all swoop into you and drive you completely insane.”

I gulped. That didn’t sound good.

The ghosts, the spooks, were done crowding us. It was probably because they had run out of space. They were inches away from us, swirling around like...ghosts, I guess. I felt the power rolling in my head, almost responding to this danger. I was trying very hard not to let it loose. I think the spooks sensed it, and they were definitely getting chummier with me than Dew. I could feel the occasional feathery touch, and it was creeping the hell out of me!

“Dew!” I whispered fiercely.

“Yes?” she responded, her cautious monotone was strained, the effort of keeping still beginning to show.

“I don’t think we should do nothing. We really must respond.”

“That’s how they kill, Slick,” Dew whispered, speaking slowly. “Don’t respond. Don’t act like a wordsmith. Wait and watch. Their entire purpose as spooks is to hunt out and kill renegade wordsmiths. A lot of very good Free wordsmiths have gone down trying to repel a spook attack.”

“Ok,” I breathed out, trying to relax. It was impossible when you were surrounded by hundreds of ghosts. “And does this mean that someone dangerous from the Guild is around and that they are going to do something bad to us?”

“Well, based on everything I heard back in Goa, Silvus is out to get De Vorto and you. I don’t think he realises there are two of you yet.”

“Silvus is...” I left that hanging.

“The bastard who is responsible for everything bad that has happened to me, yes,” she said that a little more quietly, a little more slowly. Definitely a 10 on the menace level.

“And you think he is here?” I asked, wondering at how we were keeping a conversation going in this insane situation.

“Either he is, or his bitch Zyx is. And we should be able to deal with them much better than we would be able to deal with these damn spooks.”

Ah. I digested that. I realised that the terror had receded somewhat. We were still surrounded, but my mind was slowly getting used to being group haunted by a dead wordsmith reunion. It’s incredible what the mind can get used to.

The relative calm did have an advantage though. The ideas were back, and there was a silent surge of power in my head as I skipped through several options. My head cleared completely and I was alert and ready. Ready for what exactly, I was yet to decide. I could feel the spooks converging around me.

“Slick,” Dew’s voice betrayed more than a trace of nervousness. “What are you doing?”

“Shush,” I whispered, as one of the ideas shoved the others away and settled down, ready for some action. Swoop into me, would they? Well, what if I was ready for them? I had some kind of a massive monster in my head that felt powerful enough to take on pretty much anything. Now was a good time to figure out just how much. I didn’t pause to think about the what-ifs. From what I had heard about Silvus and the rest of the Guild smiths, I wanted to be free of this spook menace and ready to face them when they got here.

Once again, the words appeared as mental whispers, coalescing and taking form as I shaped them into clear intent. This was fun!

“Dust to dust

Ashes to ashes

Drawn to power

And burnt by it

Time to let go

Time to move on”

This one was a biggie. I could feel it opening up what felt like a massive sinkhole in my head. It whirled and swirled. My warp came up and went nuts, doing an incredibly accurate tornado imitation, funnelling right into my head. Dew was screaming something out, but I didn’t hear her. I needed to focus here. I saw the grey blur of the spooks go crazy as they went into a violent outward spiral, building up into the swoop that I knew was coming. The final words were ready to cast.

Into the void

Each one, every one

Dissolve”

The swooping spiral of the spooks met the intensely powerful tornado of my warp. There was a complete absence of sound for a long, frozen moment. And then with a huge blip, everything disappeared. Spooks, warp, everything. I felt the surge in my head swell and then it blinked out completely. It was gone, for the moment. I waited for something to happen, but nothing did. I could see the sky again, and the world around me; the black rock and the mountains.

“They’re gone,” Dew said, her voice flat and toneless. She was in shock.

I nodded, almost afraid to speak.

She looked at me for a moment, as if seeing me for the first time. “And you’re ok,” She said, sounding vaguely disappointed.

I nodded again, carefully. My head felt a little funny and I didn’t want it falling off.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice still lifeless, sounding like she didn’t really care.

“Sent them somewhere else,” I said.

“Where?” she asked, staring into the space that had recently been packed with a bunch of ghosts.

“One way place,” I said vaguely, moving my hands to try and add more meaning. “Won’t come back,” I continued. “The end.” I wasn’t being very eloquent, but then, I didn’t really know what I had done. And right then, I was afraid of words.

“And the way to this place is through your head?” she asked, her voice sounding just a little sad.

“It’s kind of like the portal, I guess,” I said. I didn’t like the sad tone. I wanted to explain. “There’s this immense energy rolling around in my head, and I suspect it’s just the surface. It’s from someplace else, some place much more powerful. Alien, all powerful. I just sent everything there...to be dissolved.”

“You opened this portal,” Dew said, looking at me.

“Not really opened,” I tried to defend myself, knowing where this was going. “Just shoved things through it.”

“And how did you know,” Dew asked, her sad voice making my heart drop, “that nothing would be shoved through from the other side? That nothing has been shoved through from the other side?”

“I don’t know, Dew,” I said, shuddering a bit. “I don’t think anything came through. I built up a bit of vacuum to let the ghost spiral thing through. Physics says that nothing can come in from the other side.”

“You think, Slick?” Dew asked. “You hope, you mean.”

I shuddered again, as I hugged myself, looking around. “Yes,” I agreed, “I hope. Let’s go find that damn wordsmith now. I have a feeling things are going to get worse.”

I walked off towards the scene of the morning’s confrontation. Dew followed me wordlessly.

Amra

“Yes, ma’am,” the agent said. “There has been no mistake. There was a reading of 220 on the CM.”

“220?” I asked again. That was not possible. No one had ever breached 200. This was impossible!

“Well, 219.5,” the man conceded, looking a little nervous in the face of my angry disbelief.

“And there is only one signature on this?” I asked, repeating another of my questions.

This time the man merely nodded, looking even more nervous.

“You’re scaring the guy, Amra,” Kermit said. “He’s just reporting what happened. Don’t kill the messenger.”

Though I hated to admit it, he was right. The problem was not here, it was there.

“And this was in Scotland?” I asked, trying to calm my voice, but unable to stop myself from repeating stupid questions.

“Yes,” the man, nodded.

“220, one man, Skye in Scotland,” Kermit summarized. “Looks like we know where we need to go. Goa hasn’t turned much up anyway. And I think we can let the Andaman lead go now. I think these freaks are skipping all over the place. We know where they are now and we need to get there.”

He said ‘we’. He was planning to join the hunt. I couldn’t allow that. I wouldn’t allow that. I’d had enough of this man over the last couple of days.

“It’s one signature?” I asked, despite myself, “not an anomalous, intertwined dual signature?”

“Just the one, ma’am,” he said, trying to sound even more confident, hoping he could convince me with his tone, “though the signature does resemble one of the two signatures in the dual one we traced here in Goa.”

De Vorto had fled the host, the boy. He had probably assumed his own body and was weaving again. 220 made it clear that it was the Wordscapist; there was no question about that. It would take a warren of wordsmiths augmented with a bunch of spells to even attempt to come close. “Set up a teleport for Skye,” I said. “I need to get there right away.”

“You’ll have to travel to Delhi, ma’am,” the agent said, trying to make it sound like it was an inconsequential detail. It wasn’t. I hated flying. But I’d have to do this.

“So when do we start?” Kermit asked, quite happily.

“We don’t start,” I said, as I started walking towards my stuff. “I do. You stay here and find out everything there is to find out. And set up something a little more solid so that we catch anyone who comes back.” I was quite a distance away from him by the time I finished saying that. I wasn’t sure he heard all of it. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to hear his response. The Wordscapist was mine, and I wasn’t letting anyone else spoil the party, especially not Kermit.