Chapter 3 Ban
Fix the Queen, make this right.
Following Barty beneath a literal lake feels foolish, but at this point, I’m wondering if the whole trip is for nothing.
What am I supposed to do if the needle is lost? I have to get it back in order to wake the Queen. That’s what Legs advised when I last visited, but she said so with a sense of urgency.
Something is happening in the north. Wonderland is always causing a stir, and the Mad Queen is on a mission to do…
something. We aren’t yet certain what. She’s dispatched Flowerborne all over the land, and after listening to Ysanna’s ramblings, it appears there is a stir in the air over the whole continent.
That’s a lot of working parts, all of which might be conspiring for something dreadful.
Not to mention the Frostlands. The Snow Queen is usually quiet, if not distasteful, but I haven’t seen much from her in years. After her daughter’s frozen sleep, she mostly kept to herself and the nobility within her inner circle.
I’ve sat in on their meetings from within the shadows.
The Dowager Queen wants to maintain control, and it has to do with her daughter.
If I could just find what I’m looking for, I could wake the Ice Queen, and she could make things right.
The girl I saw ascending the throne didn’t have the same frozen heart as her parents.
But that was a long time ago.
“We’re nearly there!” Barty beams, popping up in front of me as we reach the lake.
I took a slight detour getting here, bobbing over to collect spirits near the north shore of the lake and avoiding Ray when I sensed more around.
He’ll sweep through, like he always does, and I’m not ready for my friends to know I’m down here.
Grunting, I don’t give Barty much more of a response. Tapping my staff against the ground as I walk, I try to come up with a plan. Barty’s rambling in the shadows ahead of me, and I need to decide what to do if suddenly visiting with Dima turns out to be a trap.
I’m almost positive it is. How Barty, a spirit, would interact with someone living who isn’t a Reaper, I’m not sure.
That’s not anything I’ve seen spirits be able to do, and even some magic wielders seem oblivious to the dead.
When I’ve studied the Snow Queen in her palace, watching the poor literally die on her doorstep, she never registers their souls leaving their bodies and traveling away with me.
Snedronningen. The Snow Queen’s true name. She’s someone from Ander Son’s Way, a royal in her own right who married King Andor a century ago. I wouldn’t say they made things much more manageable when I was alive, but at least the king stopped some of her insanity.
If someone like her can’t see the dead, how on earth would Dima? Perhaps Barty just has a fondness for him. After meeting Dima’s mother, I can’t say I’m all that thrilled to dig deeper into the family tree.
In the pocket of my cloak, my seeing stone lights up. I’ve ignored my fellow Reapers for weeks, stewing in my own solitude and silence. If I start telling any of them what I am up to, they are going to ask questions.
Questions I can’t answer. The three of them are aware I’m older than they are, immortal long before the Shadow Man changed our lives, but sometimes, I think they don’t understand how much older.
Sighing, I let Barty lead me to the cave's entrance. He explained that this is where the entrance to Dima’s fortress is, the place where he does experiments of sorts. When I pestered Barty about what that means, he said Dima is an academic.
That I don’t buy. It seems I’ll be hiding in the shadows for a good portion of this trip. Once Barty delivers the needle, I’ll reap his soul. It’s a disservice to leave him in limbo any longer.
“Down here, we go,” Barty says, twisting about. As I watch, he bends unnaturally far back, his hands briefly stretching and his nails turning thorny. “We’re here, here, here!”
“What’s up with you, Barty?” I grumble, slipping fully into the shadows again. I don’t trust that something won’t try to jump out at me. “You’re acting quite strange. Perhaps it’s time for you to go.”
He shakes his head, bouncing around until he straightens up again. “No! We’re late already, no time to delay!”
My eyes narrow as the spirit takes off into the caverns.
I don’t like the sounds of that, and the urge to abandon my quest is strong.
But I didn’t waste the better part of a week, traveling from the Frostlands into Sherwood and down to Swan Lake, just to give up.
There’s too much work already put off to justify giving up without trying.
And Neve. I can’t leave her stuck in that frozen sleep forever. No one’s told her the truth, least of all her mother.
My shadows carry me at a quicker speed than the snow or my physical form, but it’s more taxing as I shadow hop through the caves, following Barty’s translucent form. When I use one of my magics too much, the other tries to go to war on my body. Using them in tandem is even more exhausting.
I don’t know for sure, as there really isn’t anyone in particular to chat with about this, but I think the ice magic and the shadows are constantly at odds with each other in my body.
The likelihood that I was meant to die and receive a magical gift, not once, but twice, is unheard of.
Sometimes my magic doesn’t seem to agree with the choice either.
Pressing my lips together, I let the shadows speed us deep below-ground and into the caverns.
From the start it’s like a maze, twisting and turning to dead ends and round-abouts all throughout the caverns.
There’s a skeleton or two along the way, and a few spirits to send on, but none of them chat. None of them does anything.
All joy and life have gone from this place. Whatever Dima does with his magic, it cannot be good. Occasionally Barty backtracks on his path, like he isn’t entirely certain where to turn either. That doesn’t really improve my faith.
By the time I reach a large central room that must house Dima’s workshop, my energy is sapped. I step from the shadows once I’m certain Dima isn’t present, feeling the dark curls of magic clinging to my icy limbs.
Soon, the shadows whisper, in a voice I think only exists in my mind, ice and death are like old friends. Soon we will collide.
I don’t like to think about the fact that my magic might slowly be making me crazy. I’ve never heard Lucius or Raymundo or Zarev mention the darkness speaking to them. It appears to be a luxury reserved only for me.
It leans into my idea that shadows and ice weren’t supposed to mix.
After sweeping a hand through my long white hair, I survey the space with a critical eye. Dima certainly doesn’t hold back in his own sanctuary. There’s an array of cages around the space, built into the caves themselves, and I see some disfigured creatures I can’t name and a Flowerborne or two.
Blinking, I study the room a second time.
Barty moves quickly through the room, as though afraid to pause.
Each of the figures tucked into a cage remains silent, and although I’m not hidden by the shadows right now, not a single soul attempts to speak to me.
For prisoners trapped in this cave of horrors, they are oddly unexcited to seek help.
What is going on?
There’s still no sign of anyone watching me, no sense that Dima or anyone else is in the caves waiting for me to misstep.
Keeping my staff close, I shift toward the tables in the center of the room, books and various items strewn across them.
My eyes lift briefly to search for Barty, but as expected, he’s abandoned me.
I just need to find the needle and get out of here. If Dima appears, the shadows will have to hide me. It’s too damn warm down here, and I don’t think my ice magic will be very powerful with a room this hot. Why the hell is a cave beneath the lake hot?
At first glance, the workspace is just a big mess. Some of the books are in scripts I cannot read, some of them are written in sloppy text that’s smeared like the ink never dried. One item in particular sticks out to me, mostly because of the eyeball inside it.
Bird’s Eye View is the scrawling text on the page in front of it, and it looks like some sort of spell. It doesn’t do me much good, and I tap the little container that’s holding the severed eye.
It blinks at me, and I shudder. I am not a fan of saving removed body parts.
After grabbing the book, I slide it out from beneath another and start to flip through. Maybe there will be something useful –
As the pages shift, I get the gist of what the book is about. Medicine, dark magic, the works. It could help me if it has the right thing, but all my thoughts stall as a singular item slips from the pages like a forgotten bookmark.
A needle.
A spinning needle.
Son of a bitch, this wild hunt was worth something after all.
As my fingers close around the item I’ve searched for on and off for the last century, a blast of powerful blue light strikes me from the left. I didn’t notice anyone coming in once my sights zeroed in on the table, and more importantly, this spellbook and the needle.
The blast is a surprise, but not enough to take me down. I hold on tight to the needle, slipping into the shadows as a figure takes form on the other side of the large cavern, hands glowing blue.
I reappear a few feet away, glaring at him. “You must be Dima.”
He sneers at me, the blue magic in his hands so bright it’s almost white like mine. “It’s Dima the Blue Wizard, for now, but you can call me King Dima.”
He lobs another burst of light in my direction and I slip into the shadows again, appearing closer to him this time. Using my staff, I strike him with it hard enough to throw him off balance. He growls, spinning as he stumbles and throws out the lightning-type magic with no aim.