Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Follow My Feet

“I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.”

DUCHENNE

Ailmar took a step forward, right to the threshold between the room and hallway, so that his face was mere inches from what had now taken the appearance of a featureless silhouette. For several moments, both figures were still, legendary Outrider and shadow locked in a vehement standoff.

And then the silhouette vanished.

Cedwyn was standing next to Duchenne now. Jace was still lying on the floor, propped up on his elbows.

"I've seen them before, but they're growing more bold," Cedwyn said.

"What are they?" Jace asked.

It was then that Cedwyn realized Jace was still on the floor and he turned to walk over to him.

"What lies beneath the Overshadows cowl and robes," he said, offering his hand. "You alright?"

“I guess. Besides being an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," Cedwyn said as he helped Jace to his feet. "I mean, you are, but whatever."

"The one I killed in Westwood looked like a person when I took its robe off. Not like ..." He nodded out towards the hallway. "Not like that."

"Yes," Ailmar said slowly, still staring straight ahead, still standing on the threshold. "And with a stone around its neck, I would imagine." He turned around to face them. "That little stunt that followed, destroying that wagon, might have caused you to take up permanent residence here."

"It would have. If Relic didn't—"

"Yes, I know, I saw." The Outrider waited a long time, as long as he had at any other point in the evening. "And if not for the Horn of Cambria. We all saw."

Jace looked to Cedwyn as if expecting something more to be said. When nothing came, he simply looked back to Duchenne.

"Oh."

Ailmar took a deep breath.

"The stones allow them to exist in both the reality you know and in this one. Quite the same as Mirror Lake itself. But it would take years for me to ... I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you." Jace shrugged and said nothing. "Have you ever sworn you heard someone call your name, only to realize there was nobody there? Thought a friend had said something when they hadn't?"

Jace raised his eyebrows, expecting, or at least wary of the possibility, that this was another test.

"Yeah?"

"That's what they are," Duchenne said. "They are the shadows of ghosts. It's a shame you don't have that jadeite on your person. If you did you could just leave." He looked to Cedwyn. "Isn't that right, Wolfwood?"

"It is," Cedwyn said. “Or a mirror, maybe.”

The two exchanged an amused glance, but Jace was still focused on the hallway.

"So can they just attack us as soon as we walk out of this room?" He asked, ignoring Ailmar's last words entirely. "Why can’t they just wait for us to walk out of here?”

Duchenne was looking at Jace again.

"It is the harnessed force of the Crossroads no longer contained. A force constantly focusing ... increasing in potency, transitioning from an essence on the peripherals of cognitive sense to a form capable of interacting with this world."

Jace's expression went blank.

"Ummm ..."

Cedwyn smiled.

"It was our talk of the Crossroads, and the energy of those thought, that allowed the Overshadow to take shape in our presence," Duchenne went on. "We will be careful to deny them such sustenance again."

“The Sun Kingdom was a place of mind,” Cedwyn reminded, but still, Jace did not react. "The Crossroads were built with the remnants of its power."

Ailmar nodded.

“The Overshadows will be drawn to our cerebration in places like this, where the Veil is thinnest, and their presence is stronger than I anticipated. Here in Mirror Lake especially, where so many battles were fought. But it is a discussion we must finish nonetheless. And so I suggest we continue from a more …secure area.”

Duchenne tossed the chalk to Cedwyn who caught it in mid-air.

Jace finally lit the cigarette in his mouth and Duchenne exited the room. He had always smoked more when Cedwyn was around, but he couldn’t have said why. And that he was doing so, even here he thought, gave further evidence to his friend being real.

“Only a few Tears, as far as I know, were able to survive Arkhelan’s purge,” Ailmar was saying, walking briskly back down the hall to his room. The sound of a lute and some of The Blades laughing came into range. "Subject, ever since, to the ancient prejudices of most in Ciridian after Khayn and Raven put an end to his madness. But that was centuries ago."

"At Lornda Manor, I saw ... I actually don't know what I saw, but Irenus followed the survivors of Mazhira into the Crossroads through—"

"An apothecary, yes," Ailmar said. "Arkhelan and his followers were closing in.”

“I didn't really understand what I was seeing," Jace said, walking beside Cedwyn, careful to keep up.

“And it is not precisely important that you do. Only that you bore witness to the death and destruction, and that in doing so you might appreciate what is at stake. You see, in addition to its access to the Crossroads, there were still ample supplies of several herbs and reagents, that at the time of their arrival, were still useful in warding off the plague. And later, when the time came, they used them to cover their trail." They crossed over the chalk line that someone had long ago drawn on the floor, hooking right into Ailmar's room. Jace was the last to enter, risking one last look down the dark hallway. “But with Calloway …” Ailmar said, hesitating just a moment as he made his way over to the bed. “… it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave in those ... It consumed him in seconds. Absorbed his mind, and the minds of the refugees with him, so … absolutely.”

The legend sat, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his legs exactly as he had when Jace and Cedwyn first entered. Jace went over to the table again, flicking ash from his cigarette and sitting in the chair. Cedwyn, too, made his way to the corner. He threw his gray cloak on top of the table but remained standing as Ailmar continued.

“You saw what it did to Calloway in your vision.” Duchenne looked up. “You saw The Greywall and Khayn, but the events of hundreds of years ago is a foundation, not the Tower we now build in the present. Must continue to build." Jace's reaction seemed to satisfy the elder Outrider and once more he looked away as if conjuring the images around him. “To fail now, in the wake of Arkhelan's return, permitted by Ward's betrayal, would be to exist in a maelstrom of unholy delusion. Of impious rationale. The Sun Kingdom ... that paradise is lost and can never be restored. And all attempts to try will only continue to manifest itself as Nothing ... this plague on humanity." He took a disc off the gramophone that Jace had not noticed before. Or perhaps it hadn’t even been there before. He laid the disc down beside a pineapple, and that certainly hadn't been there before. Then Duchenne, who had begun to take his first steps to the door stopped in his tracks. "This can not ... this must not be permitted." As he finished speaking, the sound of crackling flame filled the small room all at once. At first, Jace wondered if the wind had changed, altering the angle of rain against the windowpane.

Then he noticed the glow from Ailmar’s right hand, fluctuating in a series of seemingly random colors in the exact fashion his eyes had earlier. In the exact fashion of the comets over Westwood that had poured into Fairlawn City.

“Khayn and Raven, for their deeds 222 years ago, became known as Saviors for stopping Arkhelan, in a history burned down to the stone of oblivion, by the wildfires of discord sown so carefully by Arkhelan himself. Is history to repeat itself in spite of this? Is such a thing even possible?" he asked. Jace had no interest in answering rhetorical questions even when he fully understood them. So he said nothing. He didn't even notice Cedwyn staring at him, gauging his reaction as the radiant spectacle that was Ailmar Duchenne's knuckles swept over the room. “There are no coincidences as you know the word defined.There are no chance conveniences,” he said, touching the air. Wherever the Outrider touched, a gold flare sparked, suspended there before each expanded into three live action scenes hovering in the air before them. The first showed Jace and Relic bumping fists, about to set out for Westwood Forest as the comets blazed overhead. Beside it, all four Outriders arriving at the gates of Sandia. The last in the sequence was from the edge of Terrill Silva, through the illusory window looking out on Lornda Manor. “Do not dismiss this neat package of events as perfect timing or of luck. Understand that there are other forces at work.” Jace could not take his eyes away from these marvels, and gave no sign of hearing Duchenne speak as he watched himself smile and roll his shoulders before snapping the reins in his break toward Westwood Forest. Ailmar smiled again. “Or don’t. It’s your decision really.”

“Can this ...?” Jace asked, shifting his attention to watching himself and Cedwyn ride toward Lornda Manor. "Can whatever you're doing show me if Isabelle and Relic are alive?"

“No," Duchenne said simply. "Only the stages of a plan.” Now he, too, turned to watch his conjurings. “Of a plan that rests on your shoulders.”

The visages shimmered and then disappeared. Once again, Jace and Cedwyn’s eyes were on Duchenne.

“But we can no longer depend on such fortune. Not anymore, not after Artemus has forsaken his sacred charge as Illumanar and permitted Arkhelan access to …" He paused, closed his eyes and sighed, the anguish of the thought obvious. “Corruptio Optimi Pessima, and there’s nothing for it.” He sighed again, cleared his throat, and focused. “The balances that hold sway are tipping, and towards what I cannot be sure. But the effects are already showing.” Ailmar brought his other hand up so that both gripped Jace’s shoulders. “Dorsey is not someone to leave behind. He is a companion, he is you. Don't fight that. Embrace it. Jace, you must embrace who you are.”

There was emotion welling in Jace's eyes. The reaction of a man who had kept his doubts and fears locked away for too long.

“But what ..." He looked to Cedwyn who only shook his head, having no answers. "What can you do when fate crumbles?”

Ailmar Duchenne, legendary Outrider and most famous casualty of The Looking Glass War, reached beneath his cloak and tunic to remove one of the charms around his neck. Withdrawing a plain pewter circle, he handed it to Jace.

“You restore it,” he said. “You were only a teenager in the Adamant Gaze. But I'm sure Kerrick showed you how to read these. I assume that memory, that knowledge, has returned with the rest?"

“Yes,” Jace confirmed, holding it in his open palm.

Duchenne smiled, then nodded slowly.

“Good boy." He glanced over to Cedwyn once more. “And to you as well, Wolfwood. Well done." Cedwyn said nothing, only straightened and inhaled deeply. His reaction seemed to amuse Ailmar as he turned his eyes back to Jace. “Read it after my departure, and allow no one else to touch it or it will shatter.” Jace closed his hand around it. “What you hold in your hand is a dream within a dream." He swept out of the room without another word, Jace and Cedwyn on his heels, and the three remained silent all the way to the stairs.

The Blades mingled about in the smoky air, sipping drinks of every color. Whichever one of them had a talent for the lute had put it aside. Behind the bar, Brayden was attempting some fancy trickery that involved flipping bottles to the delight of those gathered around him. By the stairs, a bustling card game ensued, which by the looks of all the serious faces stood at a critical juncture.

“Precious stones are no trinkets,” Ailmar said when they came to the door. Heavy rain smacked at the cobblestone walkway beyond. “They are a wonderful tool, but sapphires can be trusted no more. Not even in the Sindell sky vessels. You cannot know all who may be listening, but I can assure you, Artemus and Arkhelan will be."

“Headed back to oblivion, old man?” came a voice from across the room.

“For the present, Mr. Brassel, I am,” Ailmar bellowed over all the activity. “So weary have I become of exposing your pitiful Regicide play, that I have decided to retire while you may yet retain self respect.”

Scattered laughter arose all around, with a barrage of farewells shouted back.

Duhenne looked back to Jace.

“After you read the message, the tides of midnight will sweep you back if you can breathe the water.” He extended his hand, and the two clasped forearms. “Trust ... believe in who you are,” the legend finished, and he leaned a little closer to Jace’s ear. “Every world is watching you now." He smiled and their grasp released.

“Yeah, but ..." Jace paused, as if the question he was about to ask embarrassed him. "How will I know what to do?"

Duchenne’s expression tightened.

“You will know. Kerrick was right about you, saw it right from the beginning. You have the mind of a killer, but not the heart of one. And while that remains true, there is hope. Guard that truth as anything sacred, for you will continue to be tested. Compassion fatigue will end you. It will end all of this.” Ailmar stepped slightly to the side, returning in an instant to his looser demeanor as he centered himself before Cedwyn. “It has been a sincere pleasure to watch your journey, son. Without you, without Calloway, without Wolfwood ..." He stopped and nodded. "Words can only cheapen the sentiment. Now rest. The time for sleep is now,” he said, extending his arm. Cedwyn took it, smiling somewhat dismissively before Ailmar leaned in closer. “I'll follow you into the dark."

Cedwyn’s expression was one of reverence as their grip released. Duchenne held his stare a moment longer and then smiled as he looked away.

“I bid all of you a very fond farewell!” he said, raising his arm into the air and waving. “Your stand in Sandia just may have saved the world, and soon it will be time to go back to it. Getting on towards closing time if you know what I mean." Capping off with his showman side, a side his son had inherited along with his angular features, he bowed, much to everyone’s amusement. The act incited cheers and laughter all around, while those who had goblets raised them in salute. And then with a wink, Ailmar turned and started down the cobblestone path leading away from The Faraway Cry. Reaching the end of it, he turned down the road that led out of Mirror Lake, departing with one final marvel when he began to fade away.

Jace watched Duchenne go, disappearing a little more with every step until he was totally gone. When he turned back to Cedwyn, he found his friend staring at him intently, studying him, cool and calm, as Jace had seen him do on countless occasions. He had always seemed invincible, so strong and confident in any situation, and in a way that never seemed forced. Never felt insincere.

"A lesser person might make a fatalistic joke at a time like this, but as you know, I have too much class for that."

Jace laughed, but there was a tightness building in his chest. His throat hurt, felt swollen, and there were a million things he wanted to say. More than a million.

"I do know that, actually, yeah."

Cedwyn popped open his cigarette tin, withdrew one, and placed it in his mouth.

"Stop being so serious,” he said. “It's embarrassing."

Every word Cedwyn spoke resonated in Jace's heart and soul, but he tried his best to comply with his request. Just as he had since he was a teenager and idolized the man standing before him.

"Isabelle keeps telling me we should quit that."

Cedwyn hardly reacted, elevating his eyebrows ever-so-slightly as he struck his lighter.

"Mm,” he mused. “She’s one to talk.” The flint box lighter clinked closed. "When it’s a perfect world, let me know. I’ll quit then. And besides …” He took a drag, tilted his chin upward and exhaled the smoke. “I’m dead anyway, right? Hell’s the difference?” He stepped past Jace, leaning against the doorframe and gazing out into the rain. "Great drama comes from moments like these, you know."

"Have there been many moments like this?”

Cedwyn never turned around, but he smiled.

"I mean when two people don't have enough time to say all there is to say. That's what you're thinking, isn’t it? That there's not enough time?"

A strong gust blew across the open door, making the gray trace of Cedwyn's cigarette smoke drift and waft on the wind. Cold water sprayed gently across Jace’s skin, and the sensation made him look at his hands.

His heart was beating so hard that he could feel it in his throat and hear it in his head. And all the while, Cedwyn remained a center of calm, as if he existed eternally in the eye of a storm. A storm of chaos and a million things left unsaid.

"I guess," is all he managed to say.

Cedwyn brought the cigarette back to his lips again, but paused just short of the action, as if he wasn’t quite sure about something.

"That's a funny thought in a place like this." Cedwyn’s face went serious again, and he flicked the cigarette out the door. “You’re right, smoking’s stupid.” He turned back around toward Jace.

"I'm afraid," Jace blurted. He could never maintain a filter with Cedwyn, not for long at least, and some of his earliest memories after arriving in Veil’driel involved feeling like he had an almost eerie ability to see right through him. It made Jace want to be strong in front of him, to show him he was confident and in control. It was rooted, on some level, in a desire to prove himself worthy. But those carefully constructed walls of tenacity were tumbling down now, and he felt totally vulnerable. Vulnerable and— "That I'm afraid is what I was thinking. That this is too much and it should be you taking on Artemus. I'm not what you think. I'm not what anyone thinks."

"No." This was not what Jace was expecting to hear, Cedwyn seemed to know it, and he let the word hang in the air a second longer. "What you are is tilting at windmills."

"I'm not, though. I'm—"

Cedwyn took a single step forward and Jace flinched.

"Listen to me," he said. “I know that the person you want to be is within you, and that you are on your way on that journey. But you'll have to take some of it alone. Grief is a passage. Not a place to stay in. And what happened to me in the end was not your fault. Whether consciously or not, that guilt is weighing you down.”

“I am sorry, Cedwyn. I should have … I mean, maybe if I could have—”

“Jace, seriously, shut up. Shut up and do me a favor.”

Jace felt himself relax.

“Yeah. Anything.”

“Trust your instincts. Trust your instincts and finish this thing.”

A shockwave of silence passed between them, until finally, Jace smiled.

“That’s actually two favors.”

Cedwyn smiled back and nodded, the response striking satisfaction deeper than the words themselves. And he started taking slow, backward steps toward the bar.

“Fatalistic,” he said, tapping his temple.

Jace’s gray eyes flashed, trying to hold back emotion.

“Thought you had too much class for that.”.

“Apparently not.” Jace’s expression was a strange mixture of amusement and sadness, but he said nothing. And at this, Cedwyn gave a lazy, half-salute as if they had come to an understanding. "Hey, Brayden!”

Yeah, boss! a voice replied.

“Czernina and Orinel Lin!" he bellowed, never breaking eye contact with Jace.

Coming right up!

"You know what they say. Orinel Lin can't save your life but it's worth a shot."

“You always did like your puns.”

Cedwyn shrugged and spread his arms for a second.

"Guy in Room Number 13 tells me they’re the highest form of literature.” He turned around and quickened his pace away. “Be good, do good, Dabriel,” he said. He nonchalantly waved his hand above his head. “I’ll see ya around.”

Jace waited a bit, and watched until Cedwyn reached the bar, squeezed up to it, and was swallowed by the crowd pressing around him. The sound of thunder brought his attention back to the rain one more fleeting time, and then he made his way back to the stairs. Stepping up on the first and taking a seat on the second, Jace sat working up the courage to close his hand around the stone. Another minute passed. The song that had been sung when he first entered this place struck up again.

You could be my silver spring

“Yeah,” he said, closing his fist.

Blue-green colors flashin'

His eyes drift closed. His mind and body drifted with it, sweeping him away on a tide of quiet darkness.

I would be your only dream

Into a dream within a dream.

Your shinin' autumn ocean crashin'

“See ya around.”

All sound ceased completely, and the light filtering in through Jace’s eyelids vanished. It was the sensation of being engulfed in a vacuum, but then he did hear something: Crickets chirping, cicadas rattling, and other insects trilling on a hot, sweltering night. And this was followed by screaming, yells of terror and rage. When Jace opened his eyes, he found himself in front of a large, elaborate fountain, long dry.

He felt a warm breeze and the sand carried with it.

It was all absolutely real.

Then came the almost musical tone of a soft voice.

A voice that drew his attention to the sight of Jaden.

“Jace,” she said, looking him right in the eye. “If you're seeing this, it means Ailmar considers you ready for what comes next. And you're ready to see what happened in Mazhira, and who we were treating in those caverns under Sandia.”

Over her shoulder there was a chaotic mob, what appeared to be thousands, charging, trampling each other, running in the direction of the fountain with reckless abandon, running towards where Jaden and Jace were standing. The sight was so intimidating that it took all of his effort to keep his knees from buckling right there and then.

It took Jaden speaking again for him to finally look away.

Her pensive look became a stare.

“Despite what has happened here,” she began, violet eyes glistening in the reflections of fire. “The fate of Ciridian may not yet be as hopeless. We talked about what you saw beneath Lornda Manor, and what Calloway's descendent showed you, and now history is repeating itself as it all too often does.” A tremendous concussion rolled like an earthquake beneath their feet as a plume of smoke expelled high against the backdrop of a ruined skyline. Jaden never even flinched. “Over two centuries ago, Arkhelan attempted to conquer Ciridian, and as goes Ciridian goes Ara. Goes the world. He was defeated by Khayn Ahara and Raven Lale, in a past so thoroughly corrupted now that these deeds are but legends and myth. But they were real. And they happened. And they are not just the bedtime stories your grandfather told you.” She shook her head in disgust at the shouting all around them. “No matter what the condition of this city or its people, it is my sworn oath to protect them for as long as I can, as the Illuminate of Ciridian, even if it means my death. We escaped Mazhira, and I survived, and I led them to Sandia and met you there. Where you and the rest of your team were waiting.” A pink glow emanated from around her neck, and though there was no way Jace could have known, he instinctively realized she was wearing a rose opal necklace. The reddish-purple energy traveled down her arms where it focused in her hands, and she braced against the onslaught now not two hundred yards away. “As Artemus has betrayed us, Arkhelan will be permitted to set foot on Ciridian once more, and march his armies all over the face of the continent. The fate of my daughter, is the fate of us all,” she said urgently, some emotion in her voice, but subtly. “What you see here will be the fate of everything you love if Artemus isn’t stopped in time. As the Ilumanar, the Paladin, he has sworn to defend Ciridian and is the only one who can. But now … now he must be killed. He … he must be stopped.” She was racing to finish before the mob reached her. “A head full of fear has no space for dreams. It’s time to wake up now, Jace. It’s time to—”

Suddenly, she froze. As did the mob rushing towards them, and all sound ceased again. Everything was as it was during his transition to this vision, but it didn’t seem like it was supposed to be happening. It didn’t seem like Jaden meant this to be part of her message, or presentation, or whatever this was.

And the temperature began to drop, sharply, all the way to the point where Jace saw his breath. Thankfully, his heavy gray Outrider cloak appeared around him to ward against it, but then everything faded away. Faded like Ailmar Duchenne when he had walked away down the road.

Then he heard a voice.

"Blue am I and gold in the light of my bride: but the red gleam is in my eyes; and my spangles are purple and green."

It was his own voice, and yet it sounded different. Felt different somehow. Slowly, in increments so gradual it was almost undetected, a crimson light rose up in the dark. It highlighted his smoky breath and made it look black, more like the silhouette of breath, and Luna Scarlet rose in the distance over an unseen horizon. A horizon made of shadow. And that light revealed himself standing near where the fountain had been.

The shadows seemed to melt away from this Not-Jace who had spoken, but only just so, leaving him ensconced in the darkness of the vacuum. The leathers he wore were dark—dark as his eyes. He was wearing the kind of thing Kerr—

"I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head," said the voice of Donovan Kerrick, and Jace heard it before he could see him.

A soft light began to emanate off in the distance, much like Luna Scarlet had before, but this glowing was softer and yellow, the light of a flickering roadside lantern that rattled on its post in the wind. Even though the wind could not be felt, and the night could not be seen. Only the lantern-post and the silhouette beneath it. Kerrick was standing in his island of light, in a sea that was the void.

Jace just stood there, flexing his hands against the cold, and bouncing a bit in a haphazard attempt to ward it off. When nothing else happened, he felt no need to react or say anything at all. He had no impulse to prompt anything further, so he waited there in the dark, and that was what it felt like.

Like he was supposed to wait.

His breath grew rapid, spurting like steam from a forge, as it had on the night this journey started when he was ridin The Gauntlet. Before Thean and—

"The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed," Relic's voice said. And a swirl of multi-colored sparks swirled into view in the distance, slightly further out than Kerrick’s road lamp, but just barely. The sparks coalesced into prismatic lanterns that slowly stoped spinning until they were altogether still, hanging on lines strung above him, anchored by nothing or at least nothing seen."And on the pedestal these words appear:"

This riot of color brightened like fire when it’s stoked, growing until the illumination revealed not just Relic, but the wagon he was standing beside. Jace knew from memory that the words flickering into view said “Madame Rogette”, but he couldn’t read them because the words were blurred and letters were out of order.

These three scenes were perfectly isolated against the backdrop of the most absolute black one could ever imagine, spaced out and yet an incalculable distance between them all at once. But the sight of Relic and the wagon was the first sight that made Jace want to approach it, and so he started taking steps, or as it turned out, tried to. Every movement he made felt like walking through water like trying to run from something in a nightmare. Only he was trying to get to something, not run from it. As he continued, his glacial pace led him close enough to see how old Relic looked. His hair was white ... shockingly white. The color of glowing bone. He had a beard, and that was white, too.

Dorsey, Kerrick said suddenly from beneath the lamp.

Jace, Relic answered like an echo beside the wagon.

Relic, the leather-clad version of himself said under the crimson moon.

Raven, Kerrick answered back in agreement.

Jace tried to dart his attention to each of the figures as they spoke, but his actions were growing ever-more sluggish by the second, unfocused even, and he could see himself, transported out of his body, as he had when Calloway had shown him the visions in the tunnels below Lornda Manor. And then he found he couldn't move at all. As frozen as a tree rooted in place.

The three visions around him shrunk into the kind of display boxes Ailmar Duchenne had shown him. The borders around these images shimmered and crackled with green energy, just as the glimpse through Terrill Silva’s illusory tree-line had. And the flow and sequence of the names repeated like a chant.

"Dorsey, Jace, Relic, Raven. Dorsey, Jace, Relic, Raven."

Over and over and at different intervals and then all at once they stopped.

There was a sudden, absolute silence.

A silence so complete and in contrast to the racket of the chanting that it almost hurt his ears.

Squelch!

The sound of the bird was so loud in Jace's ears that he flinched, and he could move again, freely. Despite the visions and the environment he found himself in, he was growing tense for the first time since this began ... an electric feeling dancing all over his skin. The three windows showing the three visions blinked out into a darkness so black it swallowed up even the suggestion of light. Glowing gazes appeared and looked back from all around him, peering at him from the Nothing before road-lanterns appeared like a lightning strike at his feet and stretched before him, flickering green and lining a path to a door. A heavy mist formed, highlighted and accentuated by that emerald glow, and wind chimes jingled on the edge of his hearing from somewhere in the infinite black.

Then came the near-deafening sound of rolling thunder, and without thought, only instinct, Jace started toward the door. When he got close enough he could see the doorknob was growing red, like his ring had after crossing the threshold into Ailmar's room. And this door looked exactly the same, the crimson glow illuminating both the wood and the:

222

The past is safe because it's dead, he heard his own voice say from behind it, but he never hesitated to reach for the doorknob. The door opened with a creak and a rattling laughter followed. The sound of that laughter was of the wind over bleached bones, but the sight of the opening was blinding daylight. Searing his eyes and hurting his head, Jace held his hand up to shade the sun, narrowing his eyes against the glare.

Birds were chirping, but cheerfully, in sharp contrast to the squawking he left behind him. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face. A piece of farming equipment was directly in front of him and felt strangely familiar. A strange apparatus with a long, vibrating cutting blade, it had a reel to gather grain stalks off the blade and a platform to cut the grain. This resembled a two-wheeled chariot with added harvesting mechanisms.

"I know what this is," he said out loud, and now this felt like a dream. Everything was nonsense but he understood. Whatever he said, whatever he thought was right for the situation. Wherever he was felt familiar, even safe.

Behold her single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass!

It was Relic's voice, jolting Jace out of fixation.

"Relic?"

"It's a solitary reaper," he said, nodding down to the equipment. He no longer looked old, but like himself.

"Are you ..." Jace swallowed hard. "Are you alive? I've been trying to find out if you are. If Isabelle—

Relic shrugged.

"It was rusted out and less recognizable when we saw it, though. We had to escape the tunnels. The Crossroads. Like Calloway did back in the day."

For a moment, Jace looked on the verge of responding, but he froze when Relic looked at him.

Look daddy! I'm keeping my heels down like you said!"

"She's talking to you," Relic said.

Jace elevated his eyes over his friend's shoulder and instantly recognized where he was and what he was looking at.

A little girl with red hair was riding out of Terrill Silva, towards and open paddock not far off from where they were standing.she rode as well as her father, even at that age, having been almost literally raised on horseback.

"I see, baby!" he yelled, and it was like listening to somebody else. But the voice was his. "Good job!"

"She rides like you," a woman said, taking his hand. The scent of rose oil filled Jace's senses. When he looked over, he saw Isabelle smiling back at him, and she shimmied closer to him. Close enough so that she could lean her head on his shoulder. Before he even knew what he was doing, he looked back to the girl on the horse. She was much closer now, and Charles was holding the swinging gate open, waiting to receive her.

"Yeah? How's that?"

"Fearless but not reckless," Isabelle said, but it wasn't Isabelle's voice.

It was Jaden's.

Dark storm clouds blocked out the sun, and the woman faded away as the sky grew dark. A storm was rolling in without warning, in a time lapse in reverse, and bright lightning lit up the heavens. The sound of thunder rumbled around him again, and again the world turned black.

Daddy! he heard, and this girl's voice sounded different from the first. It came from behind him but there was nothing now to see.

Crimson lightning came down in the distance, from the formless obscurity where Terrill Silva had been just a moment before. But now there was only the void. Nothing. Oblivion. And that red lightning froze where it struck. This was followed by a clover-green bolt that froze in identical fashion. Then the two jagged lines merged and twisted, cackling and flashing, intertwining into a Helix. Jace closed his eyes hard against it, but the starched afterimage of the thing was still there, like the comet that had blinded him on the edge of Westwood Forest.

He felt wind near him, the sense of motion rushing past, and when Jace opened his eyes again, there was something more alien than he had seen up until that point. A low, muffled rumble with occasional mechanical sounds like a lapping tide. It was a somewhat subdued, continuous hum; loud and close around him. White light passed over him in oscillating waves and over a reflective surface right in front of his face. But unlike Rogette’s wagon, he could read these words.

A green background behind bold black lettering:

New Jersey Turnpike

Reaching out his hand to touch it, as if that might lend some meaning to the nonsensical sign, the sound of a horn made him recoil his hand as one might do from a red hot kettle. The horn sounded mechanical, alien, and drew his attention back to the metal tide. He hunched over, placing his hands on his knees as a sudden wave of nausea overtook him. The horn grew louder and he felt himself falling backward. There was a tightness in his chest, and this was followed by the sensation of being sucked through a straw made of light.

And when it faded, there was screaming.

Jubilant, enthusiastic screaming and cheering as he found himself before what he could only describe as the coliseum in Telminster, but it was bigger, made of ... metal? It had a red brick facade with arched entrances and white lights that seemed to hover above it. The sound of a crowd grew louder, like a storm, and the white lights pulsated blue and orange in a steady pattern.

Jace ... he heard Jaden's voice say, but it was weak and distant, seeming to come from some far and unimportant place.

Looking down to his boots, he saw he was standing on uneven ground, a stone walkway but not cobblestone. He turned from the colossal arena and saw a square plaque on the path by his feet. Looking up from this, a giant apple sat in a giant top hat. In the brush all around it were shadow blossoms shining purple.

We're all mad here.

"Made here?" Jace asked. Or he thought he did. His voice never carried the words.

The top hat started to turn, and the apple started to sink.

The cheering storm rose up again behind him, but he ignored it.

The storm is what we call—

Jace!

This last call of Jaden's voice sounded stronger, closer, louder.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Something about it seemed desperate and Jace closed his eyes as tight as he could. It was a trick his grandfather had taught him, to wake himself out of a nightmare.

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.

The top hat fell over with a clang, but Jace didn't see it. His eyes were still closed. He thought he felt a hand on his shoulder, and blinked his closed eyelids even tighter.

Jaden hovered over Jace with her hand on his shoulder, her eyes closed, but not as tightly as his. She took in a shuddering breath.

"Jace," she tried, but a harsh whisper is all she could manage, weak and hoarse. "Jace!" she called again.

​In that moment, his eyes shot open and flashed through every color of the rainbow. He catapulted to his feet and swept her off hers as if she were weightless, driving her back to the alcove-ledge of the windowsill, and sitting her there on the stone. His left hand slid down to her hip. His right raised the loose fabric of her sky-blue dress until her entire thigh was exposed. Only her toes were touching the floor, and these just barely.

No, she tried, but the word came out unsteady and she didn't resist him. A slow blush had started on her cheeks and her arms wrapped around his neck.

When the door to her room crashed open, neither of them reacted. Neither so much as flinched at the sound of vases falling or glass shattering across the floor. Their eyes remained locked, as if connected on a line.

Jaden's expression shifted slightly, and her eyebrows raised with excitement. She wrinkled her nose as if answering a challenge, and pressed the fullness of her lower lip between her teeth.

Jace heard what sounded like a thousand echoes coming from every direction, chanting ace, ace, ace. Then with the force of a thunderclap, time caught up to him like the twang of a bowstring releasing an arrow of: Jace!

Jace straightened his back and blinked normally. He looked down at his hands and then up at his own semi-transparent reflection in the window beyond Jaden's shoulder. But the reflection wasn’t his. It was of a young Artemus Ward looking back at him. The way he had appeared in Lornda Manor when he had awaken him during the storm.

“Outrider Dabriel!” Thean yelled again, furious. He waited until Jace looked over. “Out! Now!” Jace looked back to Jaden. Light perspiration glistened on her forehead, but her expression was blank. “Now, boy!”

The Outrider swallowed and nodded.

"Yes, sir," he said, overcome.

Thean watched him all the way out, and when he was gone, turned on Jaden like a cobra.

“Are you out of your God damn mind!”

Recovered, Jaden had moved to a small table beside the alcove, pouring herself a glass of clear water from a crystalline decanter. She felt Thean scrutinizing her with annoyed impatience, and when she finished the entire glass, she sighed.

“Please. You knew what I was going to do,” she said, staring out the window and bringing her hand to her hip.

“I had hoped I was wrong. That you could maintain control." He waited, continuing to eye her until she returned his gaze, which she did without embarrassment. "These one on one meetings of yours? They end. Today.”

“Not your decision to make,” she said simply, smoothing her tangled hair with a hand.

“The hell it isn’t!

“He doesn’t belong to anyone. He’s not a possession.” She laid the empty glass back down on the table.

“That’s right. Now repeat that to yourself until it sinks in." When she rolled her eyes, Thean erupted, unleashing the rage he had attempted to stem. "Don’t you dare sass me, sorceress! At least with Relic, in that wagon …” He saw her shoulders sag and paused. “Yes, I know about that. At least when Valith was alive it was one thing, but who's fighting you now? Hm? Do you even know?"

“No,” she admitted.

“No. He was on the other side of the Veil, Jaden, and if I felt that, I’m not the only one!”

Her eyes glittered briefly, like sunlight through amethyst, and she smiled.

“You’re more attuned than I realized if you were able to sense—”

“Don’t change the subject!”

Jaden had been looking at him again, but he was watching her every move and she could not hold the gaze as the silence stretched between them.

“He needed to be tested.”

Thean scoffed.

“Test, test, test. It’s always the same with you people. He was damn near a child when he was raised within that cult.”

“They were his formative years, Constable Thean. The bedrock of who he is, and now he remembers it all …” She stopped and ran a hand idly along the line of her throat, irritated. "The same mistakes must not be made again."

“Now on that we agree. And you should know all about it."

“You blame me for what happened to Artemus.”

“For a lot of things," he corrected.

Jaden smiled.

“The truth at last.”

“I have forged him into the man you wanted. The man we need, but he's still just a kid."

“So were the four of you when we met."

"And how'd that work out?" Jaden looked blankly ahead, as if those past events were forgotten, and without warning Thean charged her and grabbed her wrists. She barely resisted, like a petulant child being disciplined, and he directed her attention to focus on her own reflection. “You wanna end up trapped in Mirror Lake like your daughter? Is that it? You wanna keep tempting fate with that Red Moon Monk in Zarponda? Bringing the boy face to face with Katic again?"

"I had nothing to do with that."

Thean ignored her words, maintaining his train of thought.

"Now sending him to …” He froze, stopping to regain control. “We no longer have the resources to mount a rescue. No mirrors, no Due Timers can help us now. You of all people should know that. We lose you there? We lose him? We lose everything."

“Is that all Cedwyn was to you? A resource? Is that all Jace is to you now?”

Thean snorted softly, keeping his anger in check and refusing to take the bait.

“These meetings … these tests of yours? They're over,” he reiterated the point to her reflection, as if that image may still have sense. Then he gently lowered her hands back down to her sides and took his hands off her. And with that, he turned to leave, but when Jaden spoke again he stopped.

“Or what?” she asked. “You’ll torture me? Like you’re going to torture my daughter?"

A ripple of tension twitched throughout Thean's body, like guitar strings relaxed but still taught. His expression, at first a mixture of impatience and annoyance began to soften.

“No one is going to hurt Hazel, and you know that.”

“Do I?” She was asking her own reflection. "How?"

“Because you’re not crazy.” The grizzled veteran murmured something to himself, but with his back still turned, Jaden couldn’t make it out. “And because I will personally gut any son of a bitch who goes near her without my permission.”

Jaden looked over, and an understanding seemed exchanged in the following silence that stretched between them.

“He’s been through so much.”

“He can take it.”

“Do you know that? I mean ... do you really know that, Fenlow?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because I know why he picked the name Jace Dabriel. I knew his grandfather and mother. I’ve spent every waking moment since he was sent to me making sure, and because Donovan himself would murder me in my sleep if I failed.” As he finished speaking, hardness tried climbing back into his tone, but wavered. Not many would have detected it, but Jaden was one of those people.

“If you care about him that much, you should tell him,” Jaden said. “Tell him before it’s too late.”

Thean bowed his head, like whatever he was thinking about was an old pain. One he had learned to live with. And he promptly changed the subject.

“Gabriel discovered an old Crossroads entrance in Westwood, and led Isabelle and Relic through it. That page girl is with them, too."

Jaden gasped, feeling as if her heart had skipped a beat.

"How do you know that?"

"I sensed it when they passed beyond Bryce Valley."

"I didn't sense anything!"

"No. Well you were preoccupied, weren’t you?”

Jaden frowned, but her enthusiasm remained undeterred.

"Cleo," she whispered to herself. "Isabelle ... Relic ... they're alive?"

"Evidently," the Constable said. "They'll be here by sundown.”

“We should dispatch an escort! Who knows what—”

“It’s already done. Relax.” By now, Thean had reached the door still opened against the wall and he reached for the doorknob. “He isn’t Artemus, Jaden. In more ways than one. I'm sorry." Then he huffed out a breath, some of the tension easing from his shoulders. “About the vases,” he added, and then shut the door noiselessly behind him.

Left alone, Jaden turned back to her reflection. She waited for a moment, listening to the Constable’s heavy steps going away before pushing the window open. The smell of fresh flowers and the sound of birds washed over her with the warmth of a beautiful day. The streets of Hamon were clean and busy with people, the capital city buzzing and alive. There was a fresh feel to it, to everything, and no order to it, either. She closed her eyes and found herself smiling, leaning her head forward, and taking Thean’s advice.

STATIC

Chapter Fourteen  (E) Fate Don’t Know You #2190679 by Dan Hiestand