Wordscapist, The Myth

Wishes are horses

And horses run wild

Hold on for the ride of your life

Remember?

Wishes don’t heed to whistles

Slick

I came back to my room after my conversation with Akto. Beyond a point, my mind had stopped registering words, let alone concepts. Fortunately, Akto hadn’t had much more to say. He saw me off with an invitation to the Saturday night market, to his stall. “You will come, yes?” was the way he had put it. The look he gave me let me know that the invitation was to be taken pretty seriously. I guess I had no choice but to turn up at his lantern stall (whatever that was), later that evening. But then, I had always wanted to come to Goa and do all this, I told myself. “Not like this,” the voice in my head piped up. The me-voice. The other voice stayed silent.

The other voice, the intruder. I had yet to figure that out. Now seemed like a good time. I was back in my room and I could talk aloud without having people misunderstand or call for the loony-bin with a side order of straitjacket.

First, I needed a shower. Another one. Goa was muggier than Bombay, and that was saying something. Plus, I was still overcompensating for the blood and gore from two days before. I consigned myself to another hot-and-cold shower. Given the hotel, the hot didn’t last for very long. After a while, I discovered that the water didn’t either. As the lukewarm water ran out slowly, in unsteady spurts and bursts, I tried to rationalise the voice to myself. We all have a little voice in the head, the one that tends to speak up with advice, comments or completely irrelevant reactions. I had my little voice too. It had a lot to do with what I had started thinking of as ‘the gift’ ever since my conversation with Akto. It spoke up when I was in trouble or was considering a shortcut, and in most cases, it gave me ideas that led to solutions that were simple enough, though of slightly dubious morality. I had a love-hate relationship with the voice, thankful for its advice and resentful of the way it helped me in. It had a lot to do with the name I had been given by friends and foes alike, ‘Slick’, a label that had long since almost replaced my real name. Slick defined what that voice was and what it had made me; efficient and a little too smooth.

The voice that had been with me since last morning was a new one, though. It had nothing to do with who I was, or what I believed. I could sense the identity it had. And it was not mine. It gave me information at times that was news to me. While this was useful, it was also very disturbing. In this new crazy world I was discovering, I had no clue what such a voice implied. Was I possessed? Was I going crazy? Was this just the “Gift of the Word” emerging in full-flow? At the thought of full-flow, the shower gave up on me. The last trickle of water gamely ran down my face as I ruefully looked up. I towelled myself dry and walked out; almost reluctant to start what I knew was going to be a strange confrontation.

How does one confront a voice in the head? It wasn’t saying anything right then. Could it hear my thoughts? I absent-mindedly fiddled with the TV remote and flicked through channels, thinking up introductory lines to the conversation I was planning to have with the voice. “Hello there, disembodied voice, anybody home?”

Nothing seemed right. Nothing sounded right. I was planning out a conversation with a voice in my head.

I switched off the TV and lay back on the bed, thinking about that entire conversation with Akto. What I could not get over was the sheer magnitude of the secret world out there. Here we were, poor little ‘norms’, who went about our lives in complete ignorance of this society of ‘wordsmiths’ who had us all strung out like puppets. And to make matters worse, I was not even a ‘norm’. I was a ‘cipher’. Damn it! I was none of these things. I was me and I had 24 years of life to prove it!

The voice started up, right on cue, “Damn right, you are. You don’t fit into their petty definitions, laddie. There’s a lot more to you.” Bingo! I had the voice right where I wanted it, alone in a room with me.

“Go on and tell me then,” I egged it, abandoning the interrogate-the-voice strategy for the moment. “Tell me more about all that I’m supposed to be. I’m pretty clueless and all this information is not really helping me understand what I’m about.”

“Hmmm,” the voice went. “Fine then, I will talk to you. I don’t have a choice. I’m stuck in your head, and I don’t have the time to let you fool around and learn by accident.”

Jesus! Someone was stuck in my head!

“Do not go crazy about it, boy. You have nothing to fear from me.”

And it could hear my thoughts!

“Of course, I can hear your thoughts! I am in your head! How stupid are you?” it asked this rather matter-of-factly.

I tried to think a thought silently, but ended up tying myself in knots over it. I gave a big sigh and fell back on the bed.

“You don’t need to think up a thought. I have been hearing all your funny preparations to talk to me. It was most amusing, I must say,” the voice chuckled. I decided to ignore that.

This part came out sounding more English than Scottish. I had to figure this out sooner than later. And the voice was the first link in this crazy situation I needed to resolve.

“I have a name, boy,” the voice growled.

Brilliant! Now the voice had a name too! “What do you call yourself, then?” I asked.

“Alain’s the name. Of the Vorto clan, the finest of the old wordsmith clans.”

“Alain of Vorto?” I asked.

“Alain de Vorto,” the voice said, a tad too grandiosely. “I’ve also been called the Wordscapist.”

The Wordscapist! There it was, that word, again! “And what does that mean, the Wordscapist?”

“I am a source of energy, perhaps the only one in our world. Other wordsmiths shape what they can find around them. My powers are nigh limitless. I was born into this world a long time back, a world that was a lot healthier than the mess you live in now,” the voice reminisced.

“So where are you from? America?”

“I’m from Scotland. I’m a highlander, if there ever was one.”

“Then why is your Scottish so spotty?”

“It’s yours that is spotty, daftie! I am picking what passes for English in your head to speak a language you can understand.”

That made sense. I realised he hadn’t told me when he was from. When he was from; I never thought I’d ever actually use that turn of phrase! “So Mr. Vorto, when exactly are you from?”

“Call me de Vorto. Back where I come from, you mistered people you didn’t like. And you don’t know me well enough for that, yet.”

“De Vorto, then,” I conceded, “how many years back are you from?”

“Well, the last time I laid my eyes on the date, it was 1599.”

I knew it! I just knew it! This voice was ancient or crazy, or both! I chewed on that for a while. How was one supposed to proceed, under these circumstances? I moved to the next logical question. “Umm, De Vorto, how did you end up in my head?”

There was a moment’s silence at that. I sensed that this guy didn’t like the fact that he was in my head any more than I did. I was getting traces of his emotions and thoughts, and potentially memories as well. This entire crazy world of wordsmiths made way more sense to me than it should. He was, consciously or otherwise, seeding my mind with his awareness. It was helping me deal with this situation better, but then, I had to get him out before he took root in there.

“You do realise, boy, that I can hear your thoughts,” he said, dryly.

I nodded, mentally. I was learning a whole new mode of communication here!

“But I do agree. We need to resolve this situation. I hadn’t bargained for this.”

“So, what happened?” I asked, after a long, uncomfortable pause.

“I don’t completely understand what happened. Before the 1600s came, I put myself into a long sleep. Certain events occurred that required my swift disappearance.” At this, there was again a long pause. I could sense the voice going thoughtful. I could also sense that he didn’t like being called or thought of as the voice. I waited patiently for him to go on.

“When I came to, my essence, my spirit, was being wrenched out of my body. Without my host, my body, I couldn’t summon any powers to fight whatever it was that was happening to me. I was disoriented from centuries of sleep, and before I knew it I was being whisked across the oceans to some place I didn’t know. I sensed the words, the intent of the evil that was being wreaked. Some bawbag of a wordsmith was trying to summon me, my powers, and wanted to make them his own. Where he went wrong was in summoning the legend of the Wordscapist. I think he failed to realise that I was real.”

I listened dumbstruck to the narrative. I was trying really hard to absorb it all and make sense of it, but things were just getting weirder and weirder.

“I was caught for an instant in his scape soul. I don’t know what would have happened if he had succeeded. At that moment, something changed. I sensed a presence…an old friend, an old enemy.”

At that, there was more silence. I had a feeling this had something to do with a woman. But I kept calm and waited, trying very hard not to let my thoughts run away.

“Everything fell apart and there was chaos. The scape lost control over me. I spun away, directionless, but desperate to escape. Then, with what little consciousness I could summon, I searched for a host, and I found you.”

A host! That’s what I was to this disembodied wordsmith! I didn’t like it one bit! I kept quiet though. I needed to think this through. I had a feeling the voice, De Vorto, was feeling thoughtful too. I let him be and leaned back on the bed, staring blankly into space.

This was going to be a very long day.

Dew

The meeting with Slick had left me with a mess of emotions. The main one was definitely anger. He had refused to talk to me, and had condescendingly indicated that he didn’t think I was important enough to know whatever it was that he did. I couldn’t wrap my head around that one. I had seen him go for the food. In that moment, he had been a simple, fun-loving boy, not very different from me. Except for the appetite, perhaps. But the moment I had tried to talk to him, he had become cagey. He then went on to say completely ridiculous things; things that didn’t make any sense coming from someone as powerful as him. And then he had run out on me, leaving all my questions unanswered. I had left a note for Papa Loon, letting him know that a powerful wordsmith (one even more powerful than Zauberin!) had come to see him, and he definitely seemed like he was one of us. I didn’t tell him about my attack on him, or how he had knocked me back. That part was embarrassing in so many different ways and I had no intention of talking about that to anyone. I could only hope that the weird Slick didn’t either.

Slick… who was he? Incredibly young for his power, strangely mysterious and definitely weird. I kept going back to him and the strange encounter all day, as I went through the hundred things that needed to be done before a Free Word meeting. I tried to see if I could catch Isis to ask her about him; she would know. But she was nowhere to be seen. My questions would have to wait.

I finished my preparations and headed out to the shack. Slick would have met Papa Loon by now and there might be answers there. I arrived at my usual time, just after breakfast hour. I strode in, looking appreciatively at the fixes I had put up to remove the damage from yesterday. Apart from a few barely noticeable scorch marks, everything looked as good as new! Matilda wasn’t around - again - but Papa Loon was. One look at him and I snapped fully alert. I muttered an energy spell for him as I walked up. He looked like hell.

“None of that hocus-pocus on me, Dew,” he growled, looking up at me with haggard, bloodshot eyes. “I’m mourning my brother, and I would rather do it in my senses than have you mess with my mind.” I let the weave words dissipate as I digested this. I hadn’t expected much else. Papa Loon didn’t set much store by wordscapes. I was surprised though at the mourning-brother news. I didn’t know much about Papa Loon’s brothers, but one thing I did know. He hated their guts. I would not have expected him to be in this state over one of them kicking the bucket.

“Mourning a brother, Pa? I’m so sorry. Which one of them…?”

“I wish it was one of them, Dooly,” he sighed. “Andy da is gone, baby. The bloody Guild got him.”

With those simple words, I learned that one of the most important people in my world was dead. Time froze and I heard words again, different yet similar.

Andy says you’re too young, but I think you should know. Mama and Papa are not coming back, Dooly. They have gone to a better place. They died fighting. For something good. For you, child.

Ten years dissolved into nothing as the pain struck me hard. First my parents. And then my scape father, Andy da. I would never see him again. I could see Papa Loon staring at me, his own grief and anger preventing him from reaching out to me. I was glad. I would have broken down. I didn’t want to break down. I wanted to understand. How? Why!

Everything had gone a little blurry. I sat down hard on a bench. Papa Loon sat beside me and held my hand. The tears came, threatening to spill over. It took a long while before I could speak again. “How?” I whispered.

“Silvus,” he growled.

A chilling spike of fear and rage cleared the blurring pain. That name again. Always that name. A J Silvus. Another notch against his cursed name, a name I had come to hate with every inch of the spirit that shaped my scape-sign. “Silvus killed da?” I asked, my voice hoarse from the hatred choking me up.

“As good as,” Papa Loon said, “he sent out a powerful demon after him. It was a body-snatcher. Scape-enhanced. It tore his head off, Dooly. That bastard!”

I could hear the fury and pain in his words. Andy da was his brother, like no brother of his had been. I could only grip his hand tighter than I already was. Andy da, or Andrew Wallachian as he was known in his Guild days, had been my Word-Guide, my scape-father. He had taught me all I knew about the Way of the Word, and a lot more about life. And he was dead. A J Silvus, Mastersmith of the Guild, had murdered my Andy da.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“Slick, the kid you wrote that note to me about. Yeah, he is a strange one. He came from Bombay, looking for me. He had Andy’s notes with him. With Andy’s blood all over it.” At this, he slipped me a notepad I knew all too well. I had woven a custom protection spell into it and given it to Andy da for his birthday a couple of years back. I took it and it thrummed in recognition of its wordsmith.

“He had the strangest story,” Papa Loon went on, “Described what had happened to me. You can pick it from my head. I don’t feel like going through it now. Yes, I will let you pick through that memory.” This last was said in response to an incredulous look I’d shot him. Usually, he would never let me run any kind of scapes on him, least of all memory traces. But this time, I could see that he almost wanted me to do it. This was about Andy da. I would be only glad to help in any way I could. I closed my eyes and opened myself up to Papa Loon’s memory. For the first time, I saw the world as Papa Loon. There was a tinge of warmth and comfort to it that I’d never noticed myself. Through bleary vision and a surge of irritation, I saw Slick. His scape sign blazed even through the memory; that man sure was powerful! Then he started talking, and I could barely control the scape to stay in the memory. He was trying to pass off as a norm.

As the memory progressed, things got more confusing. His attempts at passing himself off as a norm were feeble and ridiculous. Even Papa Loon could sense his gift. I listened to the conversation between them as Papa Loon explained wordscapes to someone who could probably weave in his sleep. And still, his scape sign rang true. It was erratic and flared in fear each time Papa Loon threatened or intimidated him. I ran through the entire conversation quickly, and drew out of the memory, more confused than anything else. I opened my eyes, slightly disoriented as my perception rushed in to replace Papa Loon’s impressions.

“He’s a wordsmith,” I whispered in response to his look, “perhaps the most powerful one I’ve ever seen. More than Zauberin, even.”

“I read your note, Dooly,” Papa Loon said, “but are you sure, kiddo? He didn’t feel very smithy to me. I managed to nick his throat and he let me. I could have killed him where he lay. He was quite useless at defending himself.”

“I saw that,” I nodded. I didn’t understand it though. Could a scape protection be woven to allow superficial cutting only? Or was the whole thing part of an elaborate glamour? “He isn’t a norm. He can’t be a cipher either. No one but a master can control that kind of a gift.”

“I knew it!” he growled. “He was lying through his teeth!”

“I don’t know about that, Papa,” I said slowly, unable to figure it out in my head.

“Of course he was! He was just good enough to project the poor-boy bullshit! He’s probably an ancient adept who befuddled me with some kind of a glamour. He won’t do that again!”

“Papa, I think I would have recognised a glamour.”

“You don’t know half of what these wordshits are capable of, Dooly!” He was furious. He used that word only when he was close to snapping.

“And don’t you remind me that you’re one,” he went on before I could try to calm him down, “Andy was one too, for all the good it did him. Killed by one of the undead! All because of the biggest wordshit of all! The bastard Silvus! I don’t know what this Slick character has to do with anything, but he’s going down. I wish I could get him to answer some questions before I cut his throat, but it isn’t safe to let a bastard like that talk. Zauberin will be here tonight, Dooly. She will know how to deal him!”

My mind was spinning while Papa Loon ranted. I couldn’t put my finger on it. But I had a strong feeling that Slick hadn’t been lying. Not much at least. And yet, I knew Papa was right. A cipher could not be so powerful without having blown himself up in his early teens or having the Guild or the CCC on his head at the first sign of the gift. The gift must have raged in him way before his hormones had. He was definitely a couple of years older than me. That meant he had left his sloughing years behind. Maybe I too was being befuddled by this adept who could leave glamours, even in memories. I had never heard of that being done, but then I was still being trained, barely a breathsmith for a few months now. That brought back Andy da’s memories again, softer this time, sadder still. He was dead. That still hadn’t quite sunk in.

Papa Loon was still talking, and he was close to done. “Dew, you’re going to get this chap to me,” he was telling me, “Use your gift or just go as the pretty kid you are. Do whatever it takes. I’ve called him to the market tonight. Let’s see him weave once I’ve sliced that lying tongue out of him. The Free Word council is here tonight. Let him try his glamours and lies before them.” I nodded, feeling an unexplainable surge of fear and sympathy for the guy. I was going to lead him to his death. But then, if he had anything at all to do with Andy da’s death, the choice was clear. I knew what side I was on. At least, that morning I thought I did.

Slick

I lay back and lit a cigarette. I was tired. De Vorto had plumbed my memories for understanding, and had asked me what he couldn’t figure out. I did not have the luxury of sharing his memories and had to rely on mere questions and answers to try and add to my remarkably scant knowledge of the wordsmith world. After a couple of hours of intense half-spoken, half-thought conversation, I figured he was learning a lot more than I was.

“That tastes different,” the voice said reflectively, “rather bland and dead.”

“What tastes bland?” I droned, not really caring anymore.

“What you’re smoking,” the reply came.

I sat up with a start. “You can sense what that tastes like?”

“How many times will I need to remind you my boy that I am in your head? You really need to get better baccy.”

Breathe, I told myself, breathe. Don’t freak out. It’s normal. Jesus! Nothing was normal! This mental trespasser could not only read my thoughts, but also could feel what I felt! Nothing was private anymore!

“It’s not baccy. It’s a cigarette.” I muttered.

“A see-garr-ette,” the voice intoned in my head, “cured tobacco rolled in treated paper, with a filter at one end to prevent some of the more poisonous stuff from entering the lungs.”

I started, and then realised he had pulled that out from my head too. If I had to define a cigarette, I’d probably go about it like that. Meanwhile, flashes of memories related to the ills of smoking, cancer, chemotherapy, and many related subjects flitted through my mind. The intruder was busy catching up on a lot of concepts he was clueless about. I’d never imagined someone would be using my head as a quick-reference Wikipedia!

“Smoking does all that?” the voice sounded aghast, “I had no clue! Is that all true or is it nonsense someone has fed you, boy?”

“It’s mostly true,” I conceded grudgingly. I did not like admitting the inherent stupidity of any habitual smoker with half a brain.

“Holy word! And all the pipes I puffed! I wonder what would have happened if I had come back with my body. Maybe I was halfway through to death when I put myself to sleep. And here I am in another body wracked by the ills of baccy!”

“I am not a body! And I am not wracked by the ills of baccy!” I almost screamed this time, quite infuriated by being side-lined, inside my own head.

“Yes, quite,” the voice said, rather condescendingly.

I took a few deep breaths. I was still freaking out about having a powerful magician and wordsmith in my head. I was either extremely creative in my delusions, or this world of wordscapes was a lot more messed up than I realised. Either way, I had swallowed that entire story way too easily. I was too shocked to ask questions, and De Vorto compensated for my lack of interrogatory skills by quizzing me about everything from the vagaries of contemporary English language to India’s history. It was time to turn that around. I had questions to ask!

“Why, again, did you end up in my head?” I asked, stubbing out the suddenly tasteless cigarette.

There was silence for a while, and I wondered if De Vorto had gone quiet again. After a while, he spoke.

“I sensed you. You were half a world away, but I sensed your power. You were not like any of the other wordsmiths out there. You were probably the only one I could have ended up with who wouldn’t blow or go completely insane. I could see your scape sign like a burning beacon, and I latched on to it. The next thing I knew, I was in your head. It’s messy in here, but you are a capable host.”

There it was again, that word! I hated the idea of being a host. I liked the idea that I was ‘emanating a scape sign’ even less. God knows how many others could sense it and latch on to it. I didn’t want my head ending up as the next hot venue for the wordsmith spooks convention!

“And what am I… what are we to do now?” This question came from me after some thought. Some very scary thought.

“I’m afraid there isn’t much to do. We need to go back to Scotland to see if we can find my body. If we’re lucky, the protection I wove around it is still in place and will preserve it, and we can try to figure out a way to put me back in there.”

“And if we’re not lucky?” I asked, much as I knew I’d hate this answer.

“Then we’re one body short, and need to find a solution that will free us of each other. I like the idea of being in your head even less than you do, boy. There is much I need to do, and right now, you’re the only medium I have to get these things done.”

“Wait a minute! I’m not going to run errands for you!”

“We’ll talk about that.”

“No, we will not. I have a life!”

“That you have abandoned, running away from a situation you couldn’t handle. If only I had been there, you might have made more of it, and maybe even saved that poor wordsmith’s life. The shambling corpse demon could have been dispatched easily.”

I choked in indignation at that. The bastard had been conveniently tapping into my memories, digging up dirt he could throw at me.

“That was the first time I had seen a demon! Otherwise, I have enough tricks up my sleeve to have sliced and diced that rotting piece of meat myself!”

De Vorto snickered in my head. I realised then that there could be no lies to someone who lived inside my head. Bravado wouldn’t work. I was exposed in all my inglorious detail.

But I wasn’t giving up yet.

Dew

There wasn’t much left to do at the shack. Papa Loon was busy fuming and sharpening his knife. I got a bottle of water from the cooler and walked out. I made my way to my bike thoughtfully, taking sips of water, bracing myself for the weaving to come. I didn’t know yet what I would do, but I knew I had to do something. I had always wanted to be a battle smith, but not for the sake of violence. I hated violence. I had seen fights amongst norms, but knew that they couldn’t inflict anything close to what wordsmiths let loose with their scapes. I had seen the injuries on Free wordsmiths who had run into Guild Hunters and their demons. I had never fought myself and wasn’t looking forward to it either. I wasn’t afraid. I just hated the mindlessness of it all. They struck. We struck back. And it went on ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

I knew that the next meeting between Papa Loon and Slick would be marked with blows and worse. I still didn’t know what to make of him. Was he an adept who was fooling us, or was he a freak cipher who had ended up with more power than any other wordsmith I knew? He had shrugged my attack away like it was nothing, but he had also reacted only at the last possible second. Someone had to be really good to let things go that far, or really stupid. Remembering the things he had said and the way he had acted, I was leaning more towards stupid. But stupid or not, I had to be really careful. One thing I knew for sure; he was incredibly powerful. Whether he knew it or not, whether he could control the gift or not, did not change the fact itself. He could pretty much blow up all of Ingo’s if he went loco. Perhaps all of Goa even! Given that Papa Loon’s negotiation would start with an attempt to slice his tongue out, there was a high chance of him going loco. If I was to avoid a bloodbath, I would have to find Slick first. And I would have to find some answers. And fast. I tossed the bottle into my sling bag and started the bike. I rode out, thinking of ways of tracing the guy. I could go norm and put the word out or I could weave up something that tracked down a strange scape sign in the neighbourhood. The only problem was that the Free Word convention tonight ensured that there would be lots of Free wordsmiths and a Guild spy or two as well around town, along with a CCC team to keep an eye on both parties. Any questions doing the rounds, or even an anonymous trace scape, would put all of them on alert. Being a Free wordsmith was all about stealth and caution, and that severely limited my options.

I rode home, turning down the narrow lane off the Baga main road that I always took. The chaos of the main road quickly receded until I was back in the Goa I loved; the sleepy, quiet, green heaven I had grown up in. It was some solace that the tourist madness seldom intruded so far in. A few turns later, each one down a narrower lane, I reached the house. I parked the bike and quickly strode around to the back. In the midst of several coconut trees was a small cottage Papa Loon and Andy da had made for me, woven together with a combination of norm and wordsmith skill. I pulled the screen door, woven with palm fronds, aside and ducked into the small room.

The light was much softer inside. It always was. For once though, the small world I had made for myself failed to calm me down. I kicked my chappals off and dropped on the soft bed. My body was still tense, but I didn’t have the time to go through my entire routine. I tied my hair up tight, yanking it back almost painfully, and quickly took up my favourite weaving position, the padmãsana - one of the fundamental yoga postures, perfect for instant thoughtlessness.

A few deep breaths later, I was ready. First things first; I had to know for sure what it was that I was chasing here. Was he an adept or a cipher? I brought up Papa Loon’s memories and my own. I compared them for inconsistencies. If Slick had been projecting a glamour, there would be inconsistencies. A glamour was always woven to suit the one seeing it. There was no way he could project the same glamour for the both of us, and keep it consistent all the way through. I concentrated hard and superimposed the two images in my mind, looking for tell-tale signs of a glamour. Nothing came up. They were just straightforward memories. He was who he was and claimed to be. I couldn’t believe it! An incredibly powerful cipher! What did this mean? I went back to the memories. I had to know if he was lying, if there was deceit. I focused on Papa Loon’s memory again, noting the little flares in his scape sign as Slick spoke, all of them reflecting genuine emotion. He wasn’t weaving. The flares were particularly powerful when Papa Loon had jumped him. I ran through that scene half a dozen times, and every time that flare signified only plain fear. There was no anger or any trace of a weave that a wordsmith would have used to defend himself. I could see the thin line of red the knife left on his throat. He had actually been cut, and it was only Papa Loon’s restraint and sheer luck that had kept him alive. There was not even a basic sheath defence in place. I don’t think he quite knew how to create one.

He wasn’t an adept. I heaved a sigh of relief, as I let the memories fade away. It would be easier now to bring him in. But I would have to find him for that. The memory of the mossy hue came back to me. I knew exactly how I was going to do that! I started weaving, bringing up the identification scape I’d woven on him at the shack. I repeated the words to bring up the scape warp. I saw it twisting and turning as I fed it more words. I took care to tie every word deep into his identity as far as I could perceive it, ensuring that no other wordsmith would be touched by the trace. Slowly, I watched in amazement as the shape started splitting into two. And then it got crazier still. The two tendrils started intertwining, curling up together, and still struggling to stay apart. I remembered thinking about the duality of his scape sign earlier. It was the same pattern, consistent, scary. This didn’t make sense. Was I messing up? Or was there more to this than my barely adequate training had prepared me for?

I continued weaving any way, a lot more cautiously than I had started off. Feeding the scape one word after another, each more tentative and delicate than the previous one, I watched the scape take definite shape. It only confirmed my suspicions. There were two entities here, and in some way, they were both tied together. Slick was one of them; I didn’t know the other. What struck me was the sheer power both the entities emanated, and how they were entwined in a way that magnified the extent of their gift. It was almost like two wordsmiths had decided to meld their consciousness and existence into one self just to achieve this dizzy zenith. That didn’t make sense. It didn’t sound possible! Well, that was just another thing I’d have to figure out when I met him. I decided to try some identification scapes again, this time going through each one individually. From memory, I ran off all the ones that represented the top layer of the Guild leadership, the devil’s inner circle as they were called. The last name was of course the devil himself, AJ Silvus. The manifest scape signs twisting and struggling in front of me showed no reaction to any of these names. I didn’t have identification scapes for the lower levels of the Guild hierarchy, but I wasn’t too bothered about that. The kind of power we were talking about here could be yielded only by very senior wordsmiths. I then turned to the Free Word roster, just to make sure of what I was beginning to suspect. A few minutes later, the results were out. Neither of the scape signs belonged to wordsmiths from the Guild or the Free Word.

I flopped back as I allowed the scape sign to dissolve into nothingness. I wearily pulled aside unruly strands of hair from my face, wiping away a sheen of sweat that had appeared despite the cool winter day. I was dizzy from the realisation of what I had discovered. We were talking about not one but two ciphers; both extremely powerful and within one body. I was way out of my depth!

Slick

CRASH!

I watched through a curtain of fury as pieces of glass went skittering around the room and water ran down the cheap paint of the wall. That had been a spontaneous reaction to the voice egging me beyond the final reserves of my patience. And it hadn’t taken any fancy wordscapes either. I had merely flung a glass of water at the wall. So there!

A long peaceful moment passed with no comment from the voice. I allowed myself a sigh of relief. Had I managed to intimidate it into silence?

“Some temper you have, boy!” De Vorto mocked, almost in response to the unspoken question.

I ignored it, telling myself to take deep breaths. A point of light, deep within. Focus on it and let your thoughts go. I used the old mantra I had learnt during a meditation programme and tried to achieve a peaceful, thoughtless state. Years of practice overcame the intense emotion and I found myself floating towards a more tranquil state.

“Tabula rasa! Where on blessed earth did you learn to do that?” the voice sounded genuinely taken aback. I ignored it and continued moving towards the blissful state where I would be able to view this entire crazy situation with a much more balanced perspective. I felt parts of my mind stirring without my volition and flashes of memory came back to me; a younger me, the unrest of the gift stirring inside me; only then I hadn’t known it was the gift; I had assumed I was going mad; meeting Sheikh sir; the first meeting, where in just one conversation he had managed to soothe my rebellious spirit and provide answers to unspoken questions; the meditation lessons; how I struggled with a mind on the verge of going renegade; finally learning the technique of calming myself, purging myself of intense emotions; a year of disciplined living where I had internalised the technique; all the years of practice where I had retreated to the reliable practice that afforded me peace beyond what anything and anyone else could.

It…He was going through my memories again. I didn’t care anymore though. I was separate and distinct, calm and objective. Also, watching my memories dispassionately with his understanding thrown in showed them to me in a new light. I understood better. The gift of the word had clearly started messing with my head very early on indeed.

I went deeper still, cutting myself off from the slightest thought process. I left the voice to his ruminations. I had to find that deep silent part within me. I hadn’t done this for a very long time, but I needed it now more than ever. I needed to relax and analyse where my life was going. I needed to come up with a plan. And for that, I needed complete silence. Slowly, I felt reality recede as I came close to achieving complete and utter thoughtlessness.

“Very nice,” the voice echoed in the empty cavern of my head, shattering the moment. The peace that came with the state prevented me from losing my temper and lashing out. I sighed, releasing the effort of maintaining the state and turned my attention to him. He very obviously wanted to talk, and I couldn’t turn a deaf ear to a voice inside my head. However, I was calmer. And I could deal with this now.

“Yes, you can. I see you’re not entirely without training after all.” De Vorto sounded thoughtful, almost taken aback.

“That was merely meditation. I was trying to clear my head so that I could figure this out better.”

“That was a pretty good tabula rasa for a non-practising, so-called untrained wordsmith.”

“Tabula rasa? A clean slate. I’ve heard the term before, but not with reference to thoughtlessness.”

“Thoughtlessness, yes. A nice way of putting it. By the way, the man who taught you this technique is an uninitiated wordsmith himself.”

“Sheikh sir? Come on! The man has many virtues, but he had nothing to do with this madness. He merely guides people to find peace and calm within themselves.”

“With remarkable ease, apparently. Something you thought was pretty normal. Any reason why he should have succeeded so easily where so many others failed?”

I fell silent at that. My natural protests muted in my calm state. It was true. Sheikh sir did have an air to him that calmed all people who came into touch with him, irrespective of their state or nature. It had awed our group, the bunch of medley youngsters he had taught the art of self-restraint and objective interaction. It had impressed everyone he met. The man did have a gift. Whether it was the gift of the Word, I did not know. It wasn’t so much his words as his mere presence that had the effect it did.

“His talent is vast. He channelled his gift towards the sole purpose of helping others. The effect, as you noticed, was quite extraordinary.”

De Vorto’s habit of responding to my thoughts was not so irksome now, especially because he did not sound as condescending as before.

“You mean to say there are more wordsmiths out there in the world than the members of the Guild or the Free Word?”

“I know as much about the Guild and the Free Word as you do. In our days, wordsmiths were rare, and most of them were hailed as wizards and witches. There was no group as such, though every now and then I would hear about a bunch of them trying something or the other. The druids in particular were always up to brewing potions, trying to imbue some soup or the other with their gift.”

“Soup?!”

“You do realise that mere herbs and animals cooked together can at best cure a cold. Everything else was done with words.”

“Hmmm,” I digested this quietly. Magic was real after all, though words seemed to be the real source of power and not the rest of the paraphernalia.

“Right you are. The staff and the wand were mere channelling devices, with the wood and the precious stones helping store spells and power words that could be used later.”

“And what else can be done with this gift?” I asked, half-tentatively.

“What else can be done…Let’s see…” De Vorto’s voice grew dead serious at this. One by one, flashes of memories came back to me, half discovered by my conscience, half flung at me by De Vorto. “You can get everyone to like you. You can live a rash life without ever succumbing to the insane risks your days are filled with. You can grab your life and twist it any way your whimsy wants to take it. With a little more effort, you can do the same with another’s life. You can make or break a person with a few words. You can make your friends believe they’re much better than they are, pushing them down paths they could barely fathom. You can consign your enemies to the pits of hell or to a life of slobbering stupor. You can charm the stockings and every other article of clothing off any woman who takes your fancy. You can pretty much do anything you want. Don’t you know what the gift can do, Slick my boy? You have gone about your petty little life weaving away like an adept, shaping the norms and the world around you to your fancy.”

I saw the memories play out as De Vorto threw out statements, each one a bigger slap than the previous one. My words came back to me, only now with the full realisation of how exactly they were linked to the events that followed. And suddenly, like it was yesterday, the memory came back.

It was a warm day. I could remember the sweat dripping down my 14-year old face, trickling along the fuzz that passed for a stubble. I was angry. I was furious. The memory brought back the intensity of the emotion. I was shouting at a kid. I vaguely remembered some childish quarrel, the details of which were completely irrelevant. What I remembered were the words… my words. “You’re going to be sorry! You will never sleep again! Don’t think you’ll get away! You bastard! You will have nightmares! Worse! As you scream to escape your nightmares, monsters will crawl out of your dreams! They will take you down with them to deepest pits of hell! You will…!” This is where I stopped. The boy was genuinely horrified. And it was not my childish threats that were scaring him. I blinked as I noticed that the air in front of me had gone dark. It twisted and bucked like something was trying to break through. It coiled and twisted into a diabolic question mark, as if waiting for me to finish what I was saying. I realised that I had run out of steam. The kid however was petrified, waiting for me to finish what I was saying. I should not have said what I did. But sweet lord, I did not know. I did not know!

“You will… you will… die,” I whispered, unable to stop my childish vindictiveness. My stomach sank within me as I saw the gnarled knot of air going crazy. The kid gasped and took a step back. I reached out a hand trying to stop it. Too late. The demonic swirl swooped straight into his head. There was a blip in reality and I blinked again. The kid blinked too. Both of us looked around us. It was still the same, sunny day and we were both still in the school playground where it had all started. He stared at his hands and touched himself to check if he was still alive. A nervous giggle escaped me. He glared at me. “You are crazy,” he declared, his voice hoarse and devoid of all energy. And then he turned around, stumbling, and took off. I was left standing alone, a meaningless smile of triumph pasted on my face. I had the feeling I had done something I did not begin to understand.

The memory faded away, leaving me numb as always. The other snippets came flowing out from the attic of my memory into my mind. The boy had withered away before my eyes in the days following that fight. I would see him every day at school, his face drawn, his eyes red from no sleep. He would glare at me each time he saw me looking at him, but he would never say a word. There was too much fear in his face. He did not dare start another fight. I tried to feel good about it. I had scared him silly. But, my stomach kept sinking each time I saw him till it could sink no more. It was almost like I knew what was coming. One day, he was absent from the first class. When he did not turn up till lunch, I went to the bathroom and shut myself in the loo for an hour, tears running down my face as guilt wracked me. That afternoon, one of the teachers came into the class to ask if any of us knew where he was. He had disappeared from his room in the middle of the night. They had found the room a mess, with traces of slime, ash and his blood all over the place.

I had spent many nights howling into my pillow, tortured by my imagination trying to answer the question, “What had come for him that night?” The papers and news channels did not make it any easier for me. It was sensational news and for years triggered what-could-have-happened articles and shows. Every time, the nightmares I had cursed him with came back with a vengeance to haunt my nights.

The memory still hurt. Other memories sneaked in too, shouldering each other for space in my mind. A succession of faces. All those people. All the times my temper had caused trouble. No, not my temper. The words. Always the words. It never did get so bad again, but there was no comfort in that. I had killed that kid. It might as well have been me crawling out of a hell-hole to drag him down with me.

“… You will die!”

And then there were others...

“… You will live your life out as a vegetable, your feeble brain and overgrown body useless to you!”

“… Of course you’re pretty, my love. Why do you think I thirst for one look of those gorgeous eyes?”

Each time, with growing realisation, I had known exactly what I had been doing. I was using words to change things. So that was what had happened to the kid. A creature from hell had indeed come to drag him away. The college bully had not been mentally paralysed by an epileptic fit. It had been me. The girl had ended up prettier, but had also grown vain and petty. Again, because of me. The numerous instances where my words caused one thing or another came back to me full force. I had done good, but I had wreaked chaos as well. I had been using my gift throughout. At some level, I’d known it too. I had known what I was doing, even if I had not truly believed.

“All that can be done, and a lot more,” De Vorto added softly, as my memories faded into the distance. “You have used your gift, even if you did it without fully knowing what you did. Wordsmith, you have not acquitted yourself well in the way of the Word. You have been petty and foolish. You acted as a child would, wanton and irresponsible. You did a little good, but small charmscapes cannot erase what you have wreaked. You have taken much more than you have given.”

My chest and throat tightened until I could barely breathe. Again, the objectivity brought on by the meditative state prevented inane outbursts and denials. What good were any of those against a presence that could sense each and every one of my actions, my intentions, and moreover the consequences of my deeds. De Vorto knew more about what I had done that even I realised. And in his voice, I could sense a distaste that was all too real, all too justified. I sensed the sheer monstrosity of what I had done, the extent of the destruction and hurt I had wreaked. I hadn’t been a good guy, after all. I had never been a good guy. I had been a selfish, inconsiderate sonofabitch who had gotten away with murder. And I honestly had nothing to say in my defence. Except, perhaps, that I hadn’t known what I had been doing. I hadn’t known I could cause the harm I did. It had been more wishful thinking than anything else. But to wish for such things!

“Yes, I’m glad you see that. I don’t really have anything more to say about this, then. I’ll leave you to your thoughts for a while. Later, when you’re more at peace with yourself, we will talk about what we must do, what lies in the future, for both of us. Things cannot be undone, but you can try and make amends by doing good with your gift, by helping me do good.” I didn’t protest this time. I didn’t yet have the capacity to think of doing good or making amends. And neither did I have the strength to fight or debate anymore. I couldn’t take any kind of a stand and had no surprise arguments. For once, I had lost completely. I had been let down, betrayed by my own self. I guess I did need the time off after all.

“Go out for a while, boy. It will clear your head. Walk, see the sights, feel the air and the sea on your skin. It’s not so bad. And you’re not really a bad person. You’re just human. And in your human weakness, you asked for things without realising what you would get. Don’t flog yourself too much, not yet. Right now, focus on feeling and seeing with your gift. Go on now, go out.”

Again, I didn’t protest. I got up quietly and walked to the dirty, cracked washbasin to wash my face. As I ran the water, I looked up into the mirror. I saw a stranger in the faded and dirty mirror, weary and old, with eyes much older than his years. The eyes…

“De Vorto,” I called out aloud, my voice quivering with a sudden surge of fear.

“Yes?”

“Why has one of my eyes turned green?”