An Ageless Light: Part VII 121-124
Title: An Ageless Light
Story Particulars & Table of Contents
Previous Part
This Part: VIII 121 - 124
Length: 4,380 words
Summary: Everyone meets in Vinerype, with the Wynder and Glitch's lumen the subject of discussion - or debate if you happen to be DG and Jeb. And, back at Glitch's house, an 'X' unearths a priceless treasure.
VIII-121
Jeb and Christie took the path through the woods, along the ravine, used by shellfish hunters and muskrat trappers, rather than the Wynder-infected Arrow Road. It meant ducking a lot of low branches of thirsty switcher trees, the most common deciduous in the west, for they thrived in humidity and water, both excessive in that stretch of Gallentree.
The ravine began to narrow, and the skirts of underbrush and trunks parted to show cultivated landscape beyond. They were nearing Vinerype. Many of the fields lay empty of crops, only a small acreage had seen a planting of new grapes four weeks ago. A timid hope had sprung that wine would once again flow freely in Vinerype.
Jeb couldn’t say if the remaining populace of the town felt the same hope towards those swallowed in the mind-bending games of the Wynder. Christie had filled him in on gruesome details. Jeb hated the sound of it, more relieved than ever that his father, DG and friends had escaped its often unconquerable lock of pandemonium.
The path was gone, and the horses favored treading in the ravine itself. They plashed beneath a bridge, the road to the Purple Swan Vineyard, and on its opposite side appeared the town. The brook ran on in a hook to the east. Jeb commanded Gentry from the water, to the south, where the town blossomed around them, in dull brick and clay and clapboard. On a residential street, they soon found themselves encountering the market square.
All the denizens of Vinerype were standing in the city circle. They chatted animatedly, some looking astonished, some wiping tears from their eyes, men wiping their noses on handkerchiefs. The majority of faces were ripened by age and care, so few young had stayed in Vinerype after the roil and raze. In this throng Jeb and Christie arrived, the only two mounted, and eyes turned swiftly to them. Jeb dismounted, trying to discern what they could scarcely look from.
“Excuse me, why is everyone just standing around?”
But he was shushed by a sassy woman in a long skirt, with upswept hair and a pince-nez at her eyes.
Jeb shrugged at Christie. He finally decided they were looking at the tower clock. It was a lovely thing, built of fair stone, rising nearly a story, with a clock face, a crack in its glass, about to strike the hour of five. On each side of the stone pillar was a metal vane, pointing travelers in the direction of the crossroads: North, West, South and East, it declared, clinging to the Old Way. And each iron vane, delicately scrolled and detailed, wound down in a lattice, whereupon grapevines dared bloom in the sultry spring sun.
When the clock began to chime the hour, the voices of the people cried out in joy. They cheered, applauded, some were again moved to tears. Jeb watched in awe. It was wondrous. This, for a clock! This, when the Wynder was out there, somewhere, threatening to stop the next passer-by from entering their quaint little village! Still, the whole world would halt for one more triumph, one more symbol of the Sorceress’ defeat.
Nearly throwing up his hands, Jeb scanned the crowd and found one whose physiognomy he recognized.
“Master Anton!” Jeb cried, as soon as he’d zipped through the congregation.
“Oh, hello, Full Cain! Delighted you could come see our miracle! The clock! Ha! Isn’t it a delight! An absolute delight!”
“Who fixed it?” Jeb asked. “Last time I came through your town, it was a shell. Hadn’t worked in, what did you say, four annuals?”
“That’s right, four annuals! And now look at it!”
“But how-?” Jeb swallowed. Clock, the clock… He’d seen this somewhere before. “Christie! Christie!”
Garrett rushed over, complaining about the madness of the Vinerype citizens drooling over a repaired memento. He didn’t protest, hardly even noticed, when Cain led him, by the shoulder, from the densest section of the horde.
“This is the second time I’ve been somewhere that a clock has miraculously fixed itself.” Jeb explained, hurriedly, concisely, to Garrett about all the watches in The Allegro coming to life. “And now this thing starts working again, too!” He was within two thoughts of discovering what it all meant, what the connection was, when horse hooves announced a presence behind him.
As soon as Wyatt was off Big Heavy, he was engulfed in a hug. “All right there, Jeb?”
“Just relieved. I heard about the Wynder, and I thought you might- But of course I knew you didn’t- Still, I was worried. I’m glad you’re OK.” Jeb knew that Garrett was on his way to escort DG off Echo, but wisely grabbed the front of his vest and held him still. The last thing the princess would want was a gentleman’s help. She was off the horse in one graceful lob of a leg. What was it she had said? Something about Kansas girls and horses and knowing lots of-everything. Strands of hair had come out of her braid, and her cheeks were pink, but her eyes were bright-and Garret was right: she was beautiful.
“Sorry,” DG told Jeb, “I should’ve told you about the Wynder.”
“Hardly room for it in a telegram,” Jeb excused.
“It is kind of hard to squeeze that thing into twenty words or less,” she agreed. “How’d you find out? And where-” DG gave a considerate pause. She’d noticed their absent emerald cloaks. “You guys aren’t on duty?”
“We were fired,” Jeb said, then laughed spontaneously, “and then not fired. It’s not a long story, just inane. What are you two doing here? Where’s Glitch? And Raw? Oh no, don’t tell me they-” His father’s pat at the shoulder assured him Glitch and Raw were fine.
“Raw is protecting Glitch-at Glitch’s home,” Wyatt reported, a slight smirk toying with the word. Jeb’s confusion was appreciated, but DG put an end to it.
“The Amaranth Downs, a little west-east-old east-of, actually. It’s where he grew up. The house is still there, and-it’s all there. He had something he needed to work on. And Lorne is helping him.”
“Lorne!” repeated Jeb.
Wyatt winced. “How do you know Lorne?” He hadn’t heard much of what’d happened at the dam, hardly anything beyond some descriptive words, but never the whole story. He waved a hand to dismiss the inquiry, but by then Jeb and DG were already two steps ahead.
“Musty’s been taken by the Wynder,” DG said. “Lorne came to warn us. But we already knew. Well-we already knew about the Wynder.”
Christie found this intriguing. “You guys escaped?”
“No,” DG shook her head. “Not escaped. We just beat it. We defeated it.”
“We won,” paraphrased Wyatt. “And it didn’t like us very much after that. It’s why we’re here. We came to talk to the people, find out if they know any more about this Wynder business than they’re letting on. Seems everyone’s tongue is a little reluctant to talk about it. Can’t imagine why, terrorizing beast that it is.”
Jeb glanced between his father and the princess. “You’re here to stop it?”
“Yes,” DG nodded hesitantly. “If we can defeat it, maybe it’ll tell us where it’s taken all the people it devoured.”
“How do you know any of them are still alive?” asked Jeb.
Wyatt grabbed the lead of Echo in one hand, the lead of Big Heavy in the other. Sooney padded along beside him, a happy little calf. DG and Jeb seemed to be handling the conversation just fine, and at least Wyatt could make himself useful finding the horses water to drink. But he still had some sway, for they followed, DG with Jeb, and Christie obliged to guide his horse and Jeb’s.
“Lorne says he just knows Musty’s still alive,” DG explained.
“You believe him?”
“Why not? Love’s very powerful. It’s the same way I knew that Az would- I just do. Are you familiar with the tale of Queen Nesbit and the Amaranth?”
“Isn't everyone?”
“Well, it’s not really important, but I had this idea that maybe the Wynder is part of something, controlled by something, or maybe someone, and all the people it captures are taken to this netherworld. A netherworld that might exist below the Amaranth Downs. Have you seen the Downs, Jeb?”
“Just passed through once. A strange place. Pretty. But I’d rather pass through a graveyard for ten spans than go through three spans of the Downs. What is it about that place? It gives me a feeling I can’t really explain.”
“I know what it is,” said DG. “It’s a feeling that it doesn’t want you there, that it wants you to go away. Right, Cain?”
“Uh-huh,” Wyatt mumbled. He’d only been listening a little.
Jeb went on. “So you’re trying to find this netherworld? And then what, release the people?”
“We hope to. If it exists at all.”
“But the Wynder’s real. Whatever it is. And Father’s letting you do this?”
The friendliness went out of her voice. “He doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
The princess had just put up an enormous fortress. He’d done it again, taken that one step he shouldn’t have. “But you’re the princess, and I think-you should show a little caution, that’s all.”
“A normal princess would be at home learning how to entertain sirs and madams and dukes-but I’m not a normal princess, am I! I’d rather be a princess that goes out and-and has adventures and sees her country than be a princess that never does anything but look pretty and make a moving speech once a year!”
Wyatt watched DG storm off into the open doorway of the Purple Swan Inn. And, two seconds later, Jeb passed. He swung around to Garrett.
“Would you tell my father about that-that Fleeting Oracle thing? Thanks.” As soon as the inn engulfed him, too, Wyatt hoped DG listened to apologies, but had sense not to be influenced by Jeb’s lumen.
“Adora had a temper,” Wyatt said to Christie, “like the princess. But she also had a sense of humor, and I relied on that.” But Glitch is out of his mind, Wyatt thought, to think Jeb and DG would ever get beyond sparring. They’re just too willful, both of them, too independent… Then again, Jeb had gone after her. Wyatt sighed, and wished for Glitch to make a joke about how they were getting older, if there should be a joke in it at all.
They led the horses into the inn’s livery, and from there the quadrupeds knew what to do. Garrett gave Sooney a good look, knew it to be the calf whose existence Jeb had elucidated on the way to Vinerype, and left it at that.
“I liked Jeb better when he was motivated by his own self-importance,” Garrett uttered. “Now he finds motivation in too many outside points. He’s becoming too much like me-or like you.”
“How so?”
“Going where he needs to be, rather than going where he wants to be.”
Wyatt frowned. He took to the calm task of taking care of the horses, removing girth straps and saddle blankets, and letting his thoughts fall where they would. And then he remembered, looked at Garrett, and saw the resemblance of his aunt there.
“What’s this about some Fleeting Oracle?”
Garrett smirked. “Jeb and I came out here for the same reason you two did: to go after the Wynder. To be honest, Wyatt, I’m not sure we chose to come-or if we were sent.”
VIII-122
The crowd gathered around the clock made the inn’s lounge empty. DG managed to get as far as the sofa before flipping around to openly declare war with Jeb. She put herself behind a chair, just for a bit of wall between them.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said adamantly. “I am not one of the people your tad can manipulate, you know! I’m just not! I am the princess of the O.Z., and-and,” DG cursed herself for hesitating, “and I am immune to your magic!”
“I’m not trying to manipulate you! Would you stop thinking that? But I do think you need to remember who you are! You are the princess of the O.Z. Not the only one, you do have a sister! Remember? And what would she say if she found out you were going on a hike through a netherworld to defeat a beast of illusions? Or your mother? Or your father? What would they say?”
“Don’t play that trick on me, Jeb Cain! You can’t make me feel guilty! I have my family’s permission to be here!”
“Yeah, I figured that out, DG, otherwise the Tin Men would be swarming the countryside and beating bushes to look for you! But,” his tone dropped to a plea, “look at who you are, look at what you have, look at what you’re capable of-and then look at what you’re about to do. Can you see my reasoning behind this-at all?”
“You’re protecting my family,” DG noticed, still in her fort behind the chair, “but you’re forgetting that they believe in me and my abilities. They know I can do this!”
“All right,” Jeb tumbled to the sofa, put his heels on the coffee table, his hands behind his head, and stared at her with an aggravatingly affable smile, “tell me what your plan is.”
“What?”
“Tell me how you plan to find this Wynder, this netherworld, and tell me how you’re going to defeat it. You seem terribly confident, so I figure you must have a plan. Only really confident princesses behave with such belligerence! So, what is it?”
For a moment, DG thought she’d fake it. She’d make something up. Anything. He’d never know the difference. Removed from behind the chair, she sat in it, feeling dusty and scratchy from the non-existent trail forged to get there, from a long day in the suns, and her cheeks burned from exposure. As soon as she sat against cushions, leaned back, her will evaporated. Establishing pretense, lying to Jeb, was too difficult, a further tax on her emotions she’d rather avoid.
She, too, put her feet on the table, crossed her ankles, and let out one of those low, astonished laughs, a touch of self-denial, a whole lot of sarcasm. “I don’t have a plan. I don’t have any plan at all.” Then her eyes flashed to him, to stop him from saying it out loud. “But I am going. And, anyway, you never said what you were doing in Vinerype.”
Jeb set back his head, at peace with the ceiling if nothing else. “Apparently I’ve been sent to help a princess defeat the netherworld of the Wynder.”
“Oh…” DG’s mouth wrinkled in rue. Maybe she’d been a little difficult, maybe he’d been too over-protective, like his father. And maybe she should’ve listened. And maybe he should’ve, too. DG rubbed her forehead tiredly. She was relieved to see the suns sinking, the day winding to a close. It had been a long day, full of the nebulous, the unavoidable. What about tomorrow? Too undecided.
“I’m sorry I got angry, Jeb.”
“I’m sorry I was so vague. But you do matter. Far more than anyone else. To everyone. To me.”
“Because I’m a princess?”
“Because you have power. And because too many people would grieve if something happened to you. You weren’t here when they buried you. It took the hope out of the land. I don’t remember it, I was too small, but I heard stories. Don’t make the country go through that again, DG-Princess.”
“I have as much right to die for a chosen cause as you,” she snapped back, only glad to see he had no reaction. “And it’s DG. I don’t want you to treat me like a frail little princess, so I’m certainly not going to let you go around calling me one all the time.”
“Good. But you’re not frail.” He hopped to his feet. “Do you feel like listening to a story? I need to tell you about this thing called the Fleeting Oracle…”
VIII-123
The sitting room and kitchen had been gone through. Lorne halted his scrounging for a sip of water. How much more of this peculiar little house would he have to dig through just to find one little “X”? Evening was coming on, told by the loss of ambient light, the shift of colors from white to yellow, ever softening to gold, orange, gray. Evening, and no sign of instructions to turn the TSALIA around. No word yet from Cain and DG, who’d gone to Vinerype on a hope of uncovering more about the mysterious Wynder.
Lorne heard footsteps approach. He’d only seen Ambrose once in the last two hours. And, when he remembered to, Lorne found it easy to call his old Academy friend by the new moniker, rather than that stuffy old rag of a name.
So it was Glitch who entered. He halted for a moment at the entrance of the kitchen, too tired to smile, too burdened by the past, too uncertain of the future, to do more than pass a nod. Lorne nodded back. Something had been found.
“Where’s Raw?” questioned Lorne, noticing his colleague was alone.
“Keeping company with ghosts again,” came the hazy reply.
Armed with handlights, Glitch led Lorne through the garden. As soon as they reached the underbrush that encircled it like a leafy halo, they followed a path of bluish shale stones, through a copse of weeping birches, and into another clearing. A pond, still as glass, buzzed with insects and croaked with frogs. Out from a near side ran a sorry dock, planks badly repaired ages back, many more planks missing or broken. The broad, hirsute Raw waited at the solid end of the dock, and turned to meet them at their arrival. Saying nothing, the Viewer, arms folded, continued with them. Lorne was relieved when the dock was side-stepped, as water had no place on his list of favorite things. This silent trio now passed through another thicket, up a little hill, and ever on went the shale beneath their dragging soles.
On this little knoll was a wide expanse of emptiness, where the grass grew short, where the wildflowers had taken over. Clover sweetened the air, and rabbits scurried at their presence. In the middle of this pastoral elegance rose a stone well, complete with pulley arch and bucket. Glitch reached to stop Lorne from walking. Lorne saw why. The beams of the well’s quaint thatch roof formed an “X” against the orange bars of sunset. And from the little spire of thatching sticks ran a long, multi-knotted slip of fabric. Glitch reached into the bucket’s bottom and revealed an artifact.
“I haven’t seen one of those in ages,” Lorne commented. He took it from Glitch, moved it through his hands, to feel its heavy, solid form. He opened his palm to return it to Glitch. “A-what is it again? T-D-?”
“TDESPHTL. Tri-dimensional energy-storing projecting holographic time loop.” Glitch tossed it up once in the air, caught it, and crunched his fingers against it. “Or, if you’d rather, it’s a Thisbe Doesn’t Ever Stop Persuading Him To Lunch.”
Raw pinched up the corner of his mouth. After having met Thisbe, he found the mnemonic even more fitting for her determined yet uniquely inherent servile manner.
Hope whirled down Lorne's arms as an evening breeze whipped the top of the trees. “You recorded yourself giving the instructions?”
“Oh I don’t know that!” grinned Glitch. “I don’t remember what’s on here. What do you say to watching?”
He waited for no reply. The large tack on the back of the TDESPHTL already had a hole waiting for it, and Glitch secured the device there. As soon as it was in place, the meadow was not so empty.
“That’s you!” Lorne hitched up the spectacles. “The old you!”
Glitch leaned against the stone well, weary of all this. The only hope he had was to learn how to use the TSALIA to undo what he-the man in the hologram-had done.
Ambrose nodded, an effort to motivate himself. But, then, he looked up, and seemed to be staring into the face of the man he would become. It was disheartening, and shattering, and the whole world swam-yet Glitch held as still as he could. He was determined not to let the current overtake him.
“If I have succeeded in my plan,” Ambrose declared, “then I am watching this right now, at some point in the future. If my faith in the O.Z., and our queen, remains, I’ll be watching this after Azkadellia has been deposed, after the queen returns to the throne. If I have failed, then I’m standing in a room full of Longcoats, half my brain missing, and Azkadellia has found a weapon with as much potential for large-scale harm as the Sunseeder. I’ve done my best to keep that from happening. Dismantled it. Removed it to parts of the O.Z. where only I can find them. If you’ve found this, Ambrose-or whoever you are-then you’ve found the other divisions, too. And now you’ll want to know how you’ll use it. As I have faith in myself now, as I stand here and watch everything I know fall apart around me, I must continue to-to hold fiercely, almost childishly, to a faith that tomorrow, or ten annuals from now, or whenever you’re watching this, the O.Z. is a brighter place, that I want to destroy my creation rather than use it. I will not be telling you how to use it. I will only be telling you how to un-use it. But if I am me watching this, then I’ll know just as well how to use it as un-use it.” Ambrose’s fervid speech slackened, and his heavy brown eyes were leaded by grief. “Give them back, Ambrose. Give them all back. It’s the least you can do.”
The lids of Glitch’s eyes fell downward, softly, at these words. “Oh, thank the gods. I actually did have sense once.”
Raw nodded at him supportively. “Still have, Glitch.”
“What did you steal?” Lorne asked, before the other Ambrose went on.
Glitch lifted his shoulders when he answered simply, “Lumens.”
Lorne stared at Glitch, speechless, and Glitch knew what emotions were running through the maze of the academe’s mind because he’d felt them, too. Shock, and amazement, and horror, and fascination, and anger, and curiosity, and… and… and…
Lorne murmured only one, aghast word-“Musty”-before holographic Ambrose pulled himself together and began to speak again.
“I will have to show you this in reverse, because time is short, and I don’t want to be interrupted.” He reached out of the range of the projection, then drew over a machine. A camera. A camera called TSALIA.
Glitch couldn’t repress a faint cry at the sight of it. It was beautiful, and he longed to be able to touch it.
Ambrose caressed the side of The Silver Agean Light Identifier Artifact, once, tenderly, almost apologetically, and then reached grimly for a screwdriver. “There are eight screws in the outer casing,” he began.
VIII-124
“I hope Glitch won’t worry if we’re late getting back,” DG murmured to Cain as he and Garrett took the two other chairs in the lobby.
“Eh, he’s probably knee deep in that contraption of his by now.”
“Or wandering the old homestead,” Jeb offered. “Must be overwhelming for him, the potential to recall so much in one place at one time.”
“I keep wondering what happened to his family,” DG admitted. “But I didn’t dare ask.”
“I wouldn’t press that, Princess,” Cain warned. “He’ll tell us if and when he remembers, and if and when he wants to.”
They were interrupted by the presence of an old man shuffling towards them, rustling a packet of crackers. The smell of curry reminded DG who he was. “I’m sorry, sir, we’ve taken your usual place by the fire, haven’t we?” She hurried to her feet, and of course all the men scrambled to do the same.
“Thank you, young lady, you show a very nice manner for this day and age.” The gentleman pointed the freshly opened end of dusty red wafers at her. “Cracker?”
Her first impulse was to say no, but she remembered Glitch mentioning this elder in particular as someone to interview, and she decided that refusing his hospitality might not be the best way to start. “Thank you very much.” She slid one out of the package, and nibbled gingerly on the corner. A spicy taste flooded her mouth, she fought the urge to cough. “Oh, my, those are-zesty, aren’t they?”
The old man beamed. Molly appeared out of nowhere and presented DG with a glass of water, as if she weren’t the first victim of this delicacy, a beverage she gratefully downed in two chugs. Meanwhile, Mona brought over an extra straight-backed chair, which Garrett took, leaving the rest of them to resettle into the upholstered furniture again.
“So, Mr. Wendell,” DG began. “The clock, eh? Isn’t that something?”
“Yes, it is, young lady. Never thought I’d live long enough to see the day our old town clock would tick again. We’re very proud of it, you know. It was donated to our fair town by the Feyzell family, many annuals ago. Curious folk, but very clever with their hands, and had a good nose for the bouquet of the grape, too.” Wendell tapped his own nose to emphasize.
DG exchanged a glance with Cain, whose eyebrows had shot up.
“Glitch’s parents? Donated the clock?” DG asked the room at large excitedly.
“That’s Glitch’s lumen!” Jeb shouted. “The watches in The Allegro!”
“The waiter’s arm in Caologard,” Cain added.
“Sooney! It’s mechanical things! He makes them work!” DG’s mind was spinning like a top. “More than just being good with them… he’s got a real gift! Or-had one.” She met Cain’s eyes again, the only one in the room whom she felt fully understood the impact of this illumination. “Poor Glitch!”
Continue…
Story Particulars & Table of Contents
Previous Part
This Part: VIII 121 - 124
Length: 4,380 words
Summary: Everyone meets in Vinerype, with the Wynder and Glitch's lumen the subject of discussion - or debate if you happen to be DG and Jeb. And, back at Glitch's house, an 'X' unearths a priceless treasure.
VIII-121
Jeb and Christie took the path through the woods, along the ravine, used by shellfish hunters and muskrat trappers, rather than the Wynder-infected Arrow Road. It meant ducking a lot of low branches of thirsty switcher trees, the most common deciduous in the west, for they thrived in humidity and water, both excessive in that stretch of Gallentree.
The ravine began to narrow, and the skirts of underbrush and trunks parted to show cultivated landscape beyond. They were nearing Vinerype. Many of the fields lay empty of crops, only a small acreage had seen a planting of new grapes four weeks ago. A timid hope had sprung that wine would once again flow freely in Vinerype.
Jeb couldn’t say if the remaining populace of the town felt the same hope towards those swallowed in the mind-bending games of the Wynder. Christie had filled him in on gruesome details. Jeb hated the sound of it, more relieved than ever that his father, DG and friends had escaped its often unconquerable lock of pandemonium.
The path was gone, and the horses favored treading in the ravine itself. They plashed beneath a bridge, the road to the Purple Swan Vineyard, and on its opposite side appeared the town. The brook ran on in a hook to the east. Jeb commanded Gentry from the water, to the south, where the town blossomed around them, in dull brick and clay and clapboard. On a residential street, they soon found themselves encountering the market square.
All the denizens of Vinerype were standing in the city circle. They chatted animatedly, some looking astonished, some wiping tears from their eyes, men wiping their noses on handkerchiefs. The majority of faces were ripened by age and care, so few young had stayed in Vinerype after the roil and raze. In this throng Jeb and Christie arrived, the only two mounted, and eyes turned swiftly to them. Jeb dismounted, trying to discern what they could scarcely look from.
“Excuse me, why is everyone just standing around?”
But he was shushed by a sassy woman in a long skirt, with upswept hair and a pince-nez at her eyes.
Jeb shrugged at Christie. He finally decided they were looking at the tower clock. It was a lovely thing, built of fair stone, rising nearly a story, with a clock face, a crack in its glass, about to strike the hour of five. On each side of the stone pillar was a metal vane, pointing travelers in the direction of the crossroads: North, West, South and East, it declared, clinging to the Old Way. And each iron vane, delicately scrolled and detailed, wound down in a lattice, whereupon grapevines dared bloom in the sultry spring sun.
When the clock began to chime the hour, the voices of the people cried out in joy. They cheered, applauded, some were again moved to tears. Jeb watched in awe. It was wondrous. This, for a clock! This, when the Wynder was out there, somewhere, threatening to stop the next passer-by from entering their quaint little village! Still, the whole world would halt for one more triumph, one more symbol of the Sorceress’ defeat.
Nearly throwing up his hands, Jeb scanned the crowd and found one whose physiognomy he recognized.
“Master Anton!” Jeb cried, as soon as he’d zipped through the congregation.
“Oh, hello, Full Cain! Delighted you could come see our miracle! The clock! Ha! Isn’t it a delight! An absolute delight!”
“Who fixed it?” Jeb asked. “Last time I came through your town, it was a shell. Hadn’t worked in, what did you say, four annuals?”
“That’s right, four annuals! And now look at it!”
“But how-?” Jeb swallowed. Clock, the clock… He’d seen this somewhere before. “Christie! Christie!”
Garrett rushed over, complaining about the madness of the Vinerype citizens drooling over a repaired memento. He didn’t protest, hardly even noticed, when Cain led him, by the shoulder, from the densest section of the horde.
“This is the second time I’ve been somewhere that a clock has miraculously fixed itself.” Jeb explained, hurriedly, concisely, to Garrett about all the watches in The Allegro coming to life. “And now this thing starts working again, too!” He was within two thoughts of discovering what it all meant, what the connection was, when horse hooves announced a presence behind him.
As soon as Wyatt was off Big Heavy, he was engulfed in a hug. “All right there, Jeb?”
“Just relieved. I heard about the Wynder, and I thought you might- But of course I knew you didn’t- Still, I was worried. I’m glad you’re OK.” Jeb knew that Garrett was on his way to escort DG off Echo, but wisely grabbed the front of his vest and held him still. The last thing the princess would want was a gentleman’s help. She was off the horse in one graceful lob of a leg. What was it she had said? Something about Kansas girls and horses and knowing lots of-everything. Strands of hair had come out of her braid, and her cheeks were pink, but her eyes were bright-and Garret was right: she was beautiful.
“Sorry,” DG told Jeb, “I should’ve told you about the Wynder.”
“Hardly room for it in a telegram,” Jeb excused.
“It is kind of hard to squeeze that thing into twenty words or less,” she agreed. “How’d you find out? And where-” DG gave a considerate pause. She’d noticed their absent emerald cloaks. “You guys aren’t on duty?”
“We were fired,” Jeb said, then laughed spontaneously, “and then not fired. It’s not a long story, just inane. What are you two doing here? Where’s Glitch? And Raw? Oh no, don’t tell me they-” His father’s pat at the shoulder assured him Glitch and Raw were fine.
“Raw is protecting Glitch-at Glitch’s home,” Wyatt reported, a slight smirk toying with the word. Jeb’s confusion was appreciated, but DG put an end to it.
“The Amaranth Downs, a little west-east-old east-of, actually. It’s where he grew up. The house is still there, and-it’s all there. He had something he needed to work on. And Lorne is helping him.”
“Lorne!” repeated Jeb.
Wyatt winced. “How do you know Lorne?” He hadn’t heard much of what’d happened at the dam, hardly anything beyond some descriptive words, but never the whole story. He waved a hand to dismiss the inquiry, but by then Jeb and DG were already two steps ahead.
“Musty’s been taken by the Wynder,” DG said. “Lorne came to warn us. But we already knew. Well-we already knew about the Wynder.”
Christie found this intriguing. “You guys escaped?”
“No,” DG shook her head. “Not escaped. We just beat it. We defeated it.”
“We won,” paraphrased Wyatt. “And it didn’t like us very much after that. It’s why we’re here. We came to talk to the people, find out if they know any more about this Wynder business than they’re letting on. Seems everyone’s tongue is a little reluctant to talk about it. Can’t imagine why, terrorizing beast that it is.”
Jeb glanced between his father and the princess. “You’re here to stop it?”
“Yes,” DG nodded hesitantly. “If we can defeat it, maybe it’ll tell us where it’s taken all the people it devoured.”
“How do you know any of them are still alive?” asked Jeb.
Wyatt grabbed the lead of Echo in one hand, the lead of Big Heavy in the other. Sooney padded along beside him, a happy little calf. DG and Jeb seemed to be handling the conversation just fine, and at least Wyatt could make himself useful finding the horses water to drink. But he still had some sway, for they followed, DG with Jeb, and Christie obliged to guide his horse and Jeb’s.
“Lorne says he just knows Musty’s still alive,” DG explained.
“You believe him?”
“Why not? Love’s very powerful. It’s the same way I knew that Az would- I just do. Are you familiar with the tale of Queen Nesbit and the Amaranth?”
“Isn't everyone?”
“Well, it’s not really important, but I had this idea that maybe the Wynder is part of something, controlled by something, or maybe someone, and all the people it captures are taken to this netherworld. A netherworld that might exist below the Amaranth Downs. Have you seen the Downs, Jeb?”
“Just passed through once. A strange place. Pretty. But I’d rather pass through a graveyard for ten spans than go through three spans of the Downs. What is it about that place? It gives me a feeling I can’t really explain.”
“I know what it is,” said DG. “It’s a feeling that it doesn’t want you there, that it wants you to go away. Right, Cain?”
“Uh-huh,” Wyatt mumbled. He’d only been listening a little.
Jeb went on. “So you’re trying to find this netherworld? And then what, release the people?”
“We hope to. If it exists at all.”
“But the Wynder’s real. Whatever it is. And Father’s letting you do this?”
The friendliness went out of her voice. “He doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”
The princess had just put up an enormous fortress. He’d done it again, taken that one step he shouldn’t have. “But you’re the princess, and I think-you should show a little caution, that’s all.”
“A normal princess would be at home learning how to entertain sirs and madams and dukes-but I’m not a normal princess, am I! I’d rather be a princess that goes out and-and has adventures and sees her country than be a princess that never does anything but look pretty and make a moving speech once a year!”
Wyatt watched DG storm off into the open doorway of the Purple Swan Inn. And, two seconds later, Jeb passed. He swung around to Garrett.
“Would you tell my father about that-that Fleeting Oracle thing? Thanks.” As soon as the inn engulfed him, too, Wyatt hoped DG listened to apologies, but had sense not to be influenced by Jeb’s lumen.
“Adora had a temper,” Wyatt said to Christie, “like the princess. But she also had a sense of humor, and I relied on that.” But Glitch is out of his mind, Wyatt thought, to think Jeb and DG would ever get beyond sparring. They’re just too willful, both of them, too independent… Then again, Jeb had gone after her. Wyatt sighed, and wished for Glitch to make a joke about how they were getting older, if there should be a joke in it at all.
They led the horses into the inn’s livery, and from there the quadrupeds knew what to do. Garrett gave Sooney a good look, knew it to be the calf whose existence Jeb had elucidated on the way to Vinerype, and left it at that.
“I liked Jeb better when he was motivated by his own self-importance,” Garrett uttered. “Now he finds motivation in too many outside points. He’s becoming too much like me-or like you.”
“How so?”
“Going where he needs to be, rather than going where he wants to be.”
Wyatt frowned. He took to the calm task of taking care of the horses, removing girth straps and saddle blankets, and letting his thoughts fall where they would. And then he remembered, looked at Garrett, and saw the resemblance of his aunt there.
“What’s this about some Fleeting Oracle?”
Garrett smirked. “Jeb and I came out here for the same reason you two did: to go after the Wynder. To be honest, Wyatt, I’m not sure we chose to come-or if we were sent.”
VIII-122
The crowd gathered around the clock made the inn’s lounge empty. DG managed to get as far as the sofa before flipping around to openly declare war with Jeb. She put herself behind a chair, just for a bit of wall between them.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said adamantly. “I am not one of the people your tad can manipulate, you know! I’m just not! I am the princess of the O.Z., and-and,” DG cursed herself for hesitating, “and I am immune to your magic!”
“I’m not trying to manipulate you! Would you stop thinking that? But I do think you need to remember who you are! You are the princess of the O.Z. Not the only one, you do have a sister! Remember? And what would she say if she found out you were going on a hike through a netherworld to defeat a beast of illusions? Or your mother? Or your father? What would they say?”
“Don’t play that trick on me, Jeb Cain! You can’t make me feel guilty! I have my family’s permission to be here!”
“Yeah, I figured that out, DG, otherwise the Tin Men would be swarming the countryside and beating bushes to look for you! But,” his tone dropped to a plea, “look at who you are, look at what you have, look at what you’re capable of-and then look at what you’re about to do. Can you see my reasoning behind this-at all?”
“You’re protecting my family,” DG noticed, still in her fort behind the chair, “but you’re forgetting that they believe in me and my abilities. They know I can do this!”
“All right,” Jeb tumbled to the sofa, put his heels on the coffee table, his hands behind his head, and stared at her with an aggravatingly affable smile, “tell me what your plan is.”
“What?”
“Tell me how you plan to find this Wynder, this netherworld, and tell me how you’re going to defeat it. You seem terribly confident, so I figure you must have a plan. Only really confident princesses behave with such belligerence! So, what is it?”
For a moment, DG thought she’d fake it. She’d make something up. Anything. He’d never know the difference. Removed from behind the chair, she sat in it, feeling dusty and scratchy from the non-existent trail forged to get there, from a long day in the suns, and her cheeks burned from exposure. As soon as she sat against cushions, leaned back, her will evaporated. Establishing pretense, lying to Jeb, was too difficult, a further tax on her emotions she’d rather avoid.
She, too, put her feet on the table, crossed her ankles, and let out one of those low, astonished laughs, a touch of self-denial, a whole lot of sarcasm. “I don’t have a plan. I don’t have any plan at all.” Then her eyes flashed to him, to stop him from saying it out loud. “But I am going. And, anyway, you never said what you were doing in Vinerype.”
Jeb set back his head, at peace with the ceiling if nothing else. “Apparently I’ve been sent to help a princess defeat the netherworld of the Wynder.”
“Oh…” DG’s mouth wrinkled in rue. Maybe she’d been a little difficult, maybe he’d been too over-protective, like his father. And maybe she should’ve listened. And maybe he should’ve, too. DG rubbed her forehead tiredly. She was relieved to see the suns sinking, the day winding to a close. It had been a long day, full of the nebulous, the unavoidable. What about tomorrow? Too undecided.
“I’m sorry I got angry, Jeb.”
“I’m sorry I was so vague. But you do matter. Far more than anyone else. To everyone. To me.”
“Because I’m a princess?”
“Because you have power. And because too many people would grieve if something happened to you. You weren’t here when they buried you. It took the hope out of the land. I don’t remember it, I was too small, but I heard stories. Don’t make the country go through that again, DG-Princess.”
“I have as much right to die for a chosen cause as you,” she snapped back, only glad to see he had no reaction. “And it’s DG. I don’t want you to treat me like a frail little princess, so I’m certainly not going to let you go around calling me one all the time.”
“Good. But you’re not frail.” He hopped to his feet. “Do you feel like listening to a story? I need to tell you about this thing called the Fleeting Oracle…”
VIII-123
The sitting room and kitchen had been gone through. Lorne halted his scrounging for a sip of water. How much more of this peculiar little house would he have to dig through just to find one little “X”? Evening was coming on, told by the loss of ambient light, the shift of colors from white to yellow, ever softening to gold, orange, gray. Evening, and no sign of instructions to turn the TSALIA around. No word yet from Cain and DG, who’d gone to Vinerype on a hope of uncovering more about the mysterious Wynder.
Lorne heard footsteps approach. He’d only seen Ambrose once in the last two hours. And, when he remembered to, Lorne found it easy to call his old Academy friend by the new moniker, rather than that stuffy old rag of a name.
So it was Glitch who entered. He halted for a moment at the entrance of the kitchen, too tired to smile, too burdened by the past, too uncertain of the future, to do more than pass a nod. Lorne nodded back. Something had been found.
“Where’s Raw?” questioned Lorne, noticing his colleague was alone.
“Keeping company with ghosts again,” came the hazy reply.
Armed with handlights, Glitch led Lorne through the garden. As soon as they reached the underbrush that encircled it like a leafy halo, they followed a path of bluish shale stones, through a copse of weeping birches, and into another clearing. A pond, still as glass, buzzed with insects and croaked with frogs. Out from a near side ran a sorry dock, planks badly repaired ages back, many more planks missing or broken. The broad, hirsute Raw waited at the solid end of the dock, and turned to meet them at their arrival. Saying nothing, the Viewer, arms folded, continued with them. Lorne was relieved when the dock was side-stepped, as water had no place on his list of favorite things. This silent trio now passed through another thicket, up a little hill, and ever on went the shale beneath their dragging soles.
On this little knoll was a wide expanse of emptiness, where the grass grew short, where the wildflowers had taken over. Clover sweetened the air, and rabbits scurried at their presence. In the middle of this pastoral elegance rose a stone well, complete with pulley arch and bucket. Glitch reached to stop Lorne from walking. Lorne saw why. The beams of the well’s quaint thatch roof formed an “X” against the orange bars of sunset. And from the little spire of thatching sticks ran a long, multi-knotted slip of fabric. Glitch reached into the bucket’s bottom and revealed an artifact.
“I haven’t seen one of those in ages,” Lorne commented. He took it from Glitch, moved it through his hands, to feel its heavy, solid form. He opened his palm to return it to Glitch. “A-what is it again? T-D-?”
“TDESPHTL. Tri-dimensional energy-storing projecting holographic time loop.” Glitch tossed it up once in the air, caught it, and crunched his fingers against it. “Or, if you’d rather, it’s a Thisbe Doesn’t Ever Stop Persuading Him To Lunch.”
Raw pinched up the corner of his mouth. After having met Thisbe, he found the mnemonic even more fitting for her determined yet uniquely inherent servile manner.
Hope whirled down Lorne's arms as an evening breeze whipped the top of the trees. “You recorded yourself giving the instructions?”
“Oh I don’t know that!” grinned Glitch. “I don’t remember what’s on here. What do you say to watching?”
He waited for no reply. The large tack on the back of the TDESPHTL already had a hole waiting for it, and Glitch secured the device there. As soon as it was in place, the meadow was not so empty.
“That’s you!” Lorne hitched up the spectacles. “The old you!”
Glitch leaned against the stone well, weary of all this. The only hope he had was to learn how to use the TSALIA to undo what he-the man in the hologram-had done.
Ambrose nodded, an effort to motivate himself. But, then, he looked up, and seemed to be staring into the face of the man he would become. It was disheartening, and shattering, and the whole world swam-yet Glitch held as still as he could. He was determined not to let the current overtake him.
“If I have succeeded in my plan,” Ambrose declared, “then I am watching this right now, at some point in the future. If my faith in the O.Z., and our queen, remains, I’ll be watching this after Azkadellia has been deposed, after the queen returns to the throne. If I have failed, then I’m standing in a room full of Longcoats, half my brain missing, and Azkadellia has found a weapon with as much potential for large-scale harm as the Sunseeder. I’ve done my best to keep that from happening. Dismantled it. Removed it to parts of the O.Z. where only I can find them. If you’ve found this, Ambrose-or whoever you are-then you’ve found the other divisions, too. And now you’ll want to know how you’ll use it. As I have faith in myself now, as I stand here and watch everything I know fall apart around me, I must continue to-to hold fiercely, almost childishly, to a faith that tomorrow, or ten annuals from now, or whenever you’re watching this, the O.Z. is a brighter place, that I want to destroy my creation rather than use it. I will not be telling you how to use it. I will only be telling you how to un-use it. But if I am me watching this, then I’ll know just as well how to use it as un-use it.” Ambrose’s fervid speech slackened, and his heavy brown eyes were leaded by grief. “Give them back, Ambrose. Give them all back. It’s the least you can do.”
The lids of Glitch’s eyes fell downward, softly, at these words. “Oh, thank the gods. I actually did have sense once.”
Raw nodded at him supportively. “Still have, Glitch.”
“What did you steal?” Lorne asked, before the other Ambrose went on.
Glitch lifted his shoulders when he answered simply, “Lumens.”
Lorne stared at Glitch, speechless, and Glitch knew what emotions were running through the maze of the academe’s mind because he’d felt them, too. Shock, and amazement, and horror, and fascination, and anger, and curiosity, and… and… and…
Lorne murmured only one, aghast word-“Musty”-before holographic Ambrose pulled himself together and began to speak again.
“I will have to show you this in reverse, because time is short, and I don’t want to be interrupted.” He reached out of the range of the projection, then drew over a machine. A camera. A camera called TSALIA.
Glitch couldn’t repress a faint cry at the sight of it. It was beautiful, and he longed to be able to touch it.
Ambrose caressed the side of The Silver Agean Light Identifier Artifact, once, tenderly, almost apologetically, and then reached grimly for a screwdriver. “There are eight screws in the outer casing,” he began.
VIII-124
“I hope Glitch won’t worry if we’re late getting back,” DG murmured to Cain as he and Garrett took the two other chairs in the lobby.
“Eh, he’s probably knee deep in that contraption of his by now.”
“Or wandering the old homestead,” Jeb offered. “Must be overwhelming for him, the potential to recall so much in one place at one time.”
“I keep wondering what happened to his family,” DG admitted. “But I didn’t dare ask.”
“I wouldn’t press that, Princess,” Cain warned. “He’ll tell us if and when he remembers, and if and when he wants to.”
They were interrupted by the presence of an old man shuffling towards them, rustling a packet of crackers. The smell of curry reminded DG who he was. “I’m sorry, sir, we’ve taken your usual place by the fire, haven’t we?” She hurried to her feet, and of course all the men scrambled to do the same.
“Thank you, young lady, you show a very nice manner for this day and age.” The gentleman pointed the freshly opened end of dusty red wafers at her. “Cracker?”
Her first impulse was to say no, but she remembered Glitch mentioning this elder in particular as someone to interview, and she decided that refusing his hospitality might not be the best way to start. “Thank you very much.” She slid one out of the package, and nibbled gingerly on the corner. A spicy taste flooded her mouth, she fought the urge to cough. “Oh, my, those are-zesty, aren’t they?”
The old man beamed. Molly appeared out of nowhere and presented DG with a glass of water, as if she weren’t the first victim of this delicacy, a beverage she gratefully downed in two chugs. Meanwhile, Mona brought over an extra straight-backed chair, which Garrett took, leaving the rest of them to resettle into the upholstered furniture again.
“So, Mr. Wendell,” DG began. “The clock, eh? Isn’t that something?”
“Yes, it is, young lady. Never thought I’d live long enough to see the day our old town clock would tick again. We’re very proud of it, you know. It was donated to our fair town by the Feyzell family, many annuals ago. Curious folk, but very clever with their hands, and had a good nose for the bouquet of the grape, too.” Wendell tapped his own nose to emphasize.
DG exchanged a glance with Cain, whose eyebrows had shot up.
“Glitch’s parents? Donated the clock?” DG asked the room at large excitedly.
“That’s Glitch’s lumen!” Jeb shouted. “The watches in The Allegro!”
“The waiter’s arm in Caologard,” Cain added.
“Sooney! It’s mechanical things! He makes them work!” DG’s mind was spinning like a top. “More than just being good with them… he’s got a real gift! Or-had one.” She met Cain’s eyes again, the only one in the room whom she felt fully understood the impact of this illumination. “Poor Glitch!”
Continue…