Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

              Shred rose up from his supine position and was now sitting, hands clasped, on the edge of the sofa. He could not speak, but I could see that he was processing Victoria’s information along with, hopefully, anything else he may have learned from captivity or before.

              “If you ask me, I don’t think Revolve’s end game is to assassinate gods,” Joy said. “Though to what end?”

              She was right, of course. “With a name like ‘Revolve,’ I think we have to guess they are trying to revolutionize something.

              Shred motioned with his right hand, asking for something with which he could write.

              Victoria removed a pen and a small notepad from her clutch and handed them to him.

              He wrote the word:
rEvolve

              “rEvolve?” Joy wondered. The spelling was stylized. “So, they are stylizing the spelling to emphasize the ‘E.’ So, ideologically, this is something like a revolution for evolution?”

              “Ugh. That’s terrible.” Gavin, still standing at the doorway, shuddered.

              “The name? Or the ideology?” I wondered.

              “Both.” He folded his arms. “Definitely both.”

              It did seem to indicate what we were dealing with; what we were up against: some new kind of fanaticism. “So, are we to gather that they are trying to usher us into some godless era of human evolution?” The theory took shape, and as soon as I said it aloud, I knew that, on the surface at least, that was the truth of it.

              “Dreadful.” Victoria sighed and slumped back in her chair.

              “Victoria. My book,” I held up the Gulliver book. “I think my father rebound this copy of Gulliver’s Travels after he replaced the original pictures with ones I don’t recognize.” I walked the book over to it and she received it tentatively. “I don’t expect you to recognize the pictures, but you might. Or maybe you know someone who would.”

              Victoria set the book on her lap, leafing through it with precision and care. “I believe, Grey Theroux, these are meant to be a clue only for you. A clue for you to find the Well.”

              “The Well of Gods?” I knew the answer full-well, though the existence of such a place troubled me.

              “Yes. What do you know of it?” she asked.

              “Nothing,” I swallowed hard. My discomfort concerning the well, I realized stemmed from acknowledging that my father left me ignorant of its existence. “Mania was the first person—being—I have ever heard mention it. My father never mentioned; never once brought it up.”

              “Then your father was protecting you,” Victoria proffered. Though she did not have Athena’s gravitas, Victoria had almost an administrative quality, however her presence invited warmth and trust.

              “Which means…” The ramifications were forming in my head.

              Joy vocalized them: “It means he’s known about rEvolve—or whatever threat they’ve posed for years.”

              Shred sat up and pantomimed playing a piano. He assuredly had something in his repertoire for firing up the neurons. I hoped.

              Victoria nodded and led him to a parlor adjoining her dining area. Gavin, Joy, and I followed and sat on the same style chairs that were in the room we had just come. Shred pulled the bench out and sat.

              Shred, clumsily at first, but then methodically tested the piano to see if it were in tune. It was. This was what he had left—an instrument for his voice. He might not ever be able to sing again, but sitting at the piano then, I knew that he would be fine. Eventually. The music was always his real voice anyway.

              Gavin and Joy took seats in the parlor. Victoria let the room to make us tea. Shred keyed at various notes, coaxing some scales; arpeggios or something. Shred owned a piano and several keyboards in his house, but I had never actually seen him sitting at his own baby grand.

              I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from him: Chopin? Rachmaninoff? Shred played and we listened. At first, Shred played to warm himself up—an acknowledgement that it had been years since he had touched a piano. Yet he played as if he were finding respite in each note. His warm-up included bits and pieces of Beethoven’s
Hammerklavier
—which made for a joyous, if not remarkable, intro. Victoria served each of us tea. We drank, and we listened. Shred’s composition was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was transformative. The ethereal combination of notes lingered in my ears, resounding past the music originating from the piano. Shred’s piece was potent and lifted my spirit, even sharpening my thoughts. I was inspired and unafraid of the consequences.

              Sipping the tea, I waded through my thoughts, grasping for any hints of what the woodcut pictures might indicate about the Well of Gods. Would knowing the geographic location help decipher the pictures’ message? Or were the pictures meant to indicate geographic location? No one spoke, even after Shred finished and left the room.

              Victoria finally broke the silence. “I know of a professor at Oxford who is a xylographer—an expert on old books; illustrations, specifically. If anyone can parse them out, it would be him.”

              “What about von Ranke and the Sucikhata?” Joy was rightfully worried, but it wasn’t as if anyone could forget the havoc it had wreaked.

              “I think it’s time to split into two groups,” Gavin suggested.

              “And I must try to save whom I yet can.  I will leave you to it.  Let me know what you four plan and I will make arrangements and accommodations.” Victoria excused herself and left our company.

              I raised an eyebrow, lifting my cup of tea toward Shred, Gavin, and Joy. “I’m thinking that Gavin and Joy, you head back to Cambridge with the book. Gavin going is obvious. Joy, you go too since if anyone is watching campus, you look like you belong there at least.” I pivoted toward Shred. “You and I need to find out whatever we can about the Well, but more than me trying to fill in the family history, we need to know if rEvolve is looking for it.” I put the saucer and cup of tea on the nearest end table and sat back, eyes shifting to my peers. “Since Mania first told me of it, I have been wondering not so much why my family were the Keepers of the Well, but why the Well would need to be kept. And why would my family, ultimately, leave it. I can’t help but think it’s part of rEvolve’s endgame. Us not knowing anything about it means we’re not going to be able to stop them, whatever their intentions.

              Shred still had Victoria’s pen and writing pad. He wrote the following words and showed them to us:
We find von Ranke. I CURE HIM.

              I knew what curing was in this context. The song functioned very much like a Siren’s Song in that it lured the victim by pleasing the ear, coaxing euphoria, producing a kind of computer virus to the mind, destroying it. The musimancer also had to take great care to protect himself from it. Von Ranke would never recover.

              I nodded to him in agreement. Joy and Gavin looked flummoxed, but they did not ask what the phrase meant. I’m sure they could guess its general intent.

              Victoria came back, though dressed in an entirely different pantsuit. Her hair was also back in place.

              “Goddess,” Gavin addressed her, “where might we look for von Ranke?”

              “There are eight elderly goddesses under one roof on this island alone. Since we are working together, I will investigate one other potential target a few hours north. In the meantime, we must keep each other updated, please. Grey, I believe the Muses may have something to offer you in terms of information regarding the Well, though I cannot be sure.”

              I did not think that Victoria would have heard us talking about it, but apparently she had.

              “I will send you to them with my letter of introduction so Calliope knows to trust you. Speak only to her. My letter will also have instructions for what to do when you depart. While the others may have information for you, Calliope will be the only one to intercede for you. The others do not remember things very well from one moment to the next.” Victoria took a seat at a roll-top desk in the corner of the parlor, pulled a piece of stationery from a pile and began writing rapidly.

              Dementia of the gods; I did not believe this was a new phenomenon, necessarily. “Let’s go.” I turned to Shred who was holding up his pad once again. The words were too small to be read from afar. I grabbed it from him and read it aloud:
Before we go, we’re going to Macari’s. Charing Cross Road. Buy a mandolin. Easy to carry. Surprisingly dynamic magic.

              What remained of the magoi would need whatever we could get our hands on to survive the coming days.

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”

—Seneca the Younger

“I have a friend who keeps the remnants of his former religion in the trunk of his car. He showed me one day. There was a confirmation certificate, a crucifix, a picture of the Pope, some film about a saint. It was locked and hidden away like he was keeping his faith in the trunk like a cadaver. I think he was showing me as a way of asking me to help hide the body.”

              —Shred

rEvolve: 6

             
What we have learned:

              There are no mysteries which science cannot lay bare. The ancient Greeks knew full well that the lights in the heavens were not, like their old stories told them, gods and heroes, but rather lamps of distant worlds. These same Greeks also realized that the building blocks of life were atoms and that gods, on the whole, were altogether unnecessary—as one small kind of life form could, given time, exceed its obvious potential and become something entirely new. It took humanity millennia to take this to heart. But, once they did, the old stories were no longer used to explain what could not be explained to name what could not be named. Lavoisier renamed the world and all its contents; Darwin set his finches free—and in so doing, life. It was not a god who became death, but an American physicist. The building blocks of our very being are now utterly unraveled. Science even serves to rationalize the very substance of existence in our now proven Higgs boson: the “God Particle” responsible for creating matter in our universe. All of this is a testament to our superiority, for the gods are incapable of understanding even the most basic fundamentals of science. They do not speak its language, they cannot coerce its subtleties, nor make the far reaches of the firmaments obey them. They cannot co-opt science for their worship, for it undoes them so completely, so magnificently.

              Yet, here we are, erasing the last vestiges of this antiquated world and looking to make it anew. The story we now make is exquisitely and wonderfully true and it is our own.

“A man can die but once; we owe God a death.”

—William Shakespeare

Henry IV, Pt. II, Act IIII, Scene 2

Chapter 16

              While Shred was in the music store, I found a shop with legal pads and pencils for Shred. I also bought him a burner cell phone so he might converse with us via text. Hopefully, it would allow him to be more engaged in conversations. I’d never known him to fall into despair, but I know he did have his bouts of melancholy. He would write more music. And he might just find something else to sing for him.

              Shred med us at Victoria’s car. He was now wearing the fruits of his purchase—a t-shirt from Macari’s and carrying a case that assuredly held his new (or used) mandolin. His pants still had an unseemly amount of blood-stain brown and it was any wonder that the shopkeepers had not tossed him out for being a vagrant. However, the stack of money I had given him ensured he was treated well, I’m sure. Victoria spent her time booking us a train to Truro and advised to hire a driver to take us to Mousehole. She dropped as at King’s Cross with only about 20 minutes to spare. She did not tell us where she was going precisely, but it was best to leave her to her secrets.

              The evening grew dark and it became clear that we would not make it to Mousehole at a respectable hour. If von Ranke had his sights set on the Muses, then he would have already gotten to them shortly after Clio’s disappearance. Time was of the essence, but we were likely past coming to the rescue. More than anything, we were on a fact-finding mission and were to warn them to leave immediately. Making matters more perilous—the Muses eschewed most forms of technology, including telephones. And if something happened to them, Shred and I would divine some information about their whereabouts.

              We arrived in Truro at half-past nine.

              Our driver was reticent to drive us to Mousehole and wait for us, but the flash of a £100 tip coerced him into staying on past his shift. We were a short ways from the village of Mousehole when we came to the address Victoria had given me. I was surprised by the house as it was not so much a house, but a manor. It was not large enough to be lordly, but neither was it cottage-like as I had pictured.

              The driver let us out in the half-circle driveway. In the dark, I could make out flowers that were likely colorful by day. It was surprising to see, since the weather in the London did not allow for such vibrant foliage this time of year. Shred held his mandolin and slung it by the strap over his shoulder and fastened it. It only occurred to me in that instant that he was probably excited to meet them—they were written to be outstanding musicians in their own stories. I think he had visions of an impromptu jam session with them. I hoped he would be able, but sincerely believed that it would not be possible. Before he could knock, I opened my messenger bag and put my hand squarely around the handle of the tranquilizer gun.

              Shred rapped upon the door, clutching the neck of his mandolin with his free hand.

              I held the dart gun pointed forward, covered by the flap of my bag.

              No answer. “You got this, or do I?”

              He turned the knob and found it secured. In answer, he started strumming. Mandolin wasn’t something my years were used to hearing. Though I was quite familiar with Vivaldi, what came out sounded more like a child’s toy version of an AC/DC song. He was done almost as soon as I found the rhythm to the tune. He opened the door, but did not step inside. While I could have begun my own investigation, I let Shred play more. If it were harmful, he would let me know. Furthermore, I believed that working his magic served as catharsis for him.

              Shred put his fingers in his ears as if to order me to do the same. I took my hand off the gun, out of the flap of my bag and did as ordered. I began humming Beatles tunes to myself to block as much extraneous sound as I could. After a few moments, Shred stepped inside the door, plucking away. His movements were vigorous and I was wildly curious about the notes hitting the air. I was already on
We Talked Until Two
-part of
Norwegian Wood
when I saw the silhouette of Shred’s playing hand fall to his side. I put a Post-It into my palm and lit it with my words. The manor was lit only by moonlight and the light radiating from my hand. The house was spacious and did not have the smell I would have thought from a dwelling currently inhabited. Though Solemn Ages had its own smell, when it came to deities at large, I wasn’t sure what I should expect.

              I checked the double glass doors that led to a vast garden at the back of the house. In the light of the full moon, I could make out that the garden was very well tended. The sisters, some of them at least, were able to care for the garden, though, it wasn’t out-of-the-question they hired someone to do it for them. Shed picked at his mandolin absentmindedly. His notes reverberated throughout the empty house and only served to make the overall ambience that much more eerie. I looked to a winding set of marble stairs that lay in front of the door we had entered and pointed my lighted palm up the stairs.

              “Shred,” I whispered. When he turned to me, I gestured up so he would follow me. If we could get a fix on some kind of activity, we could perform divination to extract information. As it was, the house was too big to randomly perform incantations and hope for a favorable outcome. “If someone here meant to harm us, that person would have revealed themselves by now.  And I’m guessing your juju would have knocked them out.”

              Shred waved a hand in acknowledgement, opening one door, seeing nothing tell-tale, then closing the door.

              I did the same from the opposite end of the corridor-like hallway.

              And then I heard it.

              A cough? I could have sworn I just head a cough or a sneeze. I reopened the door I had just closed, making every effort to make the action as silent as possible. I waved vigorously at Shred, trying to get his attention. Finally, he noticed me and I beckoned him over as I stepped through the doorway. There were no more noises, no more indications of what I had just heard, but I had no doubts about it. In the center of the room was a four-poster bed. Along the walls were enough knick-knacks to make up a small reliquary. Near the bureau in the corner nearest the door was an enormous globe that sat on four legs, no less than four-feet in diameter. I’ve seen these things before, but only as liquor cabinets. Though, looking at it again, even they were not that large. Something told me there would be no trove of booze within that globe. Rather this was an instrument used for some purpose long-forgotten by most of the world. I stepped closer to examine, carefully rotating the world. It moved with little effort. My lit hand revealed landmasses as they would have looked sometime in the 17
th
century. The place names were in Latin and the seas were decorated meticulously with various kinds of non-existent sea monsters. Though, maybe they were denizens of The SUB.

              Lifting my eyes from the globe, I saw that in the opposite corner of the room, a large telescope of brass or copper was pointed out the window and toward the skies.

              And then I heard it again: a hoarse, constricted cough from somewhere in the room. I stepped out of my corner and toward the bed. Under the bed? Surely not…

              I shined my hand and saw from my vantage that there was another doorway within the bedroom. There, crouching in the moonlight, an aged woman wearing only a nightgown stared out the window. Unsure what to do, I spoke.

              “Urania?” I asked softly; as gently as I was able. The telescope and the intricacy of the globe offered the hints that the figure in front of me was the ancient Greek Muse associated with astronomy. I did not want to startle her, so I took only a couple of slow, deliberate steps toward her. Her eyes were opened wide, black as the night sky, despite the light emanating from my hand. Her hair was braided behind her head, but those braids were coming loose in a tangled mess.

              Shred came in, but I gestured for him to stop where he was. Seeing I was in no danger, he stepped back and leaned against the wall. He began to play a song. I found myself instantly mollified. We had no way to tell how his musimancy would work on the divine, but Urania seemed to fall into the same ghostly trance I found myself trying not to embrace. Thankfully, Shred stopped and I found my wits snapping back into place.

              “Urania, where are your sisters? Where is Calliope?” I reached out a hand, much in the same way you would offer a hand to comfort a small, lost child.

              “Have you seen them?” her voice croaked. “I have been looking for them, but night ell and I cannot seem to find them through the sea of stars.” He dark eyes fell upon my hand, still outstretched and dismissed it, looking back through the nearest windowpane to the starlit night.

              “Urania, Victoria—Nike—sent us here to check on you. You are in grave danger.” I could see that while Urania was beyond typical human reaction, I could see her shivering in the shadows. I looked around and saw a housecoat hanging on a hook covering a closed closet door. After grabbing it, Urania allowed me to help her into it, though she still gave know acknowledgement that she had heard my warning.

              “I look into the sky. I see the seven sisters, but I do not see my own. Do you know where they have gone?” she rasped.

              I felt a lump in throat where fear and sadness welled. “No, but I fear they are in terrible danger. Can you help me find them?” I pleaded with her. The pieces started to fall into place, divination unnecessary. Urania spent her evenings stargazing. If I were to look, I might even find that she had some place in the garden where she did so regularly. When von Ranke and his zealots came for them, they would not have known to look for her on the grounds. And there were likely no signs of struggle, because, when it came to it, these goddesses were elderly. If the rest o the Muses were more like Urania than Calliope or Clio, then the rEvolvers could have done just about anything to them. At one point in time, we looked to the gods to take care of us. Now, they could not even take care of themselves. The heartbreak I felt in my through finally manifested as tears.

              “Urania—my friend, Shred, the one who played the music you just heard—Victoria sent us here to help you. We need to get you away from here. Is that okay? We need to try and find your sisters, but we can’t do it without your help.”

              Urania took my arm and allowed me to walk her back to her bed. She sat upon it, keeping her black eyes upon me as I looked for some clothes for her to wear. Shred graciously played something soothing that may or may not have been magical. Though I had grown up hearing Shred play, I was forming an opinion that nearly all music had some base-level magic.

              Before Shred could begin another song, I helped Urania into a dress and house shoes. A brief search of her bureau and I found another gown and some underwear. I removed one of her pillows from her pillowcase and placed her clothes inside of it. I had profound respect or Calliope if this is what she did day-to-day. The sisters were probably in varying degrees of mental and physical health, but I had to imagine Urania was somewhere in the middle of dementia and lucidity. It made me wonder why Clio stayed to work at the museum but it was likely because it was her only chance at sanity. I doubt her sisters begrudged her that. If they were capable of grudging or begrudging her anything, for that matter.

              “Before we go, would you show me Calliope’s room?” I pleaded with her.

              “Her room is next to the library,” she replied, sounding oddly coherent.

              Shred grabbed my shoulder then pointed toward a room in the center of the hallway, the first room Shred opened.  When I came to it, the door was slightly ajar from Shred’s investigation.  The next door I came to was also slightly ajar, but when I entered, I saw that it was easily the messiest of all the rooms I had seen.  Though thinking it made me feel presumptuous, I thought that Calliope would have made everyone else her priority, and neglected her own needs.  Her devotion touched me deeply.  

    “Urania, will you stay here with Shred?  Victoria wants me to find your sisters,” I told her.

    I took
Bill’s Quill
from my bag along with my new inkwell and ink I had purchased earlier in the day. I turned on the light and set to work.  I set my papers on the floor and wrote as quickly as I could, growing into a sublimely furious pace.    With the spellcraft performed, I waited for my words to move upon the pages.  This was one of the last few spells my dad had taught me: I used hair from Calliope’s hair brush and used it along with a crude map of Britain I had drawn out on several of my pages—all while being infused with my magic.  Calliope’s hairs coiled and moved across the south part of England, across the blank area where the English Channel and into the blank area that would be either Paris or somewhere nearby.  I folded the papers and placed them in my bag along with Calliope’s hairbrush.  I did not know if Calliope and her sisters were alive, but I knew where they and Dalton were headed.  I would have to move quickly.

    “Change of plans, Shred—they’re almost to Paris.  I’m taking Calliope’s brush with me.  I’m going to use it to track her.  Will you stay with her, Shred?  I don’t think we can leave her alone.”

    At first, Shred shook his head no and he even mumbled, though it apparently caused him some discomfort to do so.