Chapter 16 The Relic
Swallowing, Rolan took out one of his daggers. It and its mate, sheathed on his other hip, were his two prized possessions. Luc had given them to him a week into his training.
“Cryptics have no heart,” Luc said. “No organs. There’s no place you can strike which would constitute a killing blow, except at its very core, called the ‘aleth.’ ” With his own dagger, Luc tapped the Cryptic’s belly, where a dark double spiral swirled like a tattoo on its shell-like exoskeleton.
It matched the symbol etched on all Luc’s weapons and Rolan’s daggers.
Carefully, Rolan knelt by the monster, studying it. The body was round, shaped like an illustration in one of Luc’s books. What had that creature been called?
A crab?
Its eyes wriggled atop stalks that sprouted along its shell.
He grimaced as they fixed on him. The Cryptic’s mouth was small, bristling with fangs.
It gnashed them angrily. Rolan thought back to the classification chart in the Arcane Histories which sorted Cryptics into classes by their size, with Rank Ones being the smallest and Rank Fives the largest. This one was bigger than a cat, but smaller than a goat, which made it a Rank Two, somewhere between three to twelve months old.
“Find the center,” said Luc softly. “Crack the core.”
Rolan had to draw a few deep breaths before he found the nerve. When he finally moved, his blow was swift and sure, and he felt a warm flush of pride as his dagger buried into the monster’s core, at the center of its spiraling mark. The aleth.
“Good,” said Luc.
With a raspy shriek, the Cryptic died. Or rather, it deliquesced, which was the official word he’d learned from the Arcanist books.
Since Cryptics weren’t actually living, they couldn’t actually die.
But all the same, it looked like dying. At least, until the monster’s body vanished, turning to blue smoke that faded in the air.
Animals didn’t die like that.
Pulling his dagger back, Rolan stared at the piece it left behind.
A single pincer, pulsing with pale light, lay on the forest floor.
“You can touch it,” Luc said. “It won’t hurt you.”
Grimacing, Rolan picked up the pincer. It felt hard and cool on his palm. Mist rolled over his fingers and trickled to the ground, leaving behind that oily feeling he got when he handled the Cryptic parts in Luc’s chest.
“Remember what it’s called?” Luc asked.
Rolan dredged the word up from his memory. He had been learning so many new things lately, sometimes they jumbled together and seemed lost. But he usually found them again if he concentrated. “A relic.”
“Right.”
Relics were the parts Cryptics left behind when they died. They were the seed of the creature, the source of its malevolent existence.
And inside the relic…
Well, Rolan still wasn’t sure about that part.
He’d seen Luc break other relics, the way he had the talon.
He’d seen the way blue mist poured from the broken pieces and soaked into the Arcanist’s blades.
But he still wasn’t sure what the stuff was.
The books talked about it as if the person reading already knew the answer, the stories ending once the Cryptic was dead.
They didn’t say much about what followed, and Luc had not been forthcoming either.
Rolan swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. Looking up at the Arcanist, he asked, “Can I… break it?”
Luc met his eyes and, gravely, nodded once.
Rolan knew then this was why his master had brought him out here. He was finally giving him the answer he’d been seeking, letting Rolan discover the mysterious power of the relics for himself.
Carefully, Rolan placed the tip of his dagger on the pincer.
A moment of hesitation. Then he pushed down forcefully, and the relic shattered.
Blue mist swirled up the blade, the steel soaking it up like a sponge.
The pincer turned to smoke and was gone, but the dagger glowed softly blue, just like Luc’s sword sometimes did.
“It’s called ‘Arcana,’ ” said Luc. “The power of a secret. It is the source of the Cryptic’s existence and power.”
“Arcana… as in Arcanist.” Rolan lifted his dagger. The motion made it flare brighter, just like the relic had. When he raised it to his ear, he could hear a sound like whispering, the words—if they were words at all—unintelligible. “It’s magic, isn’t it?”
Luc nodded. “It can be stored in metal until we need to use it. Daggers, swords, spear tips. Anything marked with the aleth, the symbol of truth.” He tapped the double spiral carved into Rolan’s dagger.
“Arcanists who master the flow of Arcana within their bodies can even store it in certain tattoos.”
Rolan’s eyes snapped to the tattoos swirling on the Arcanist’s neck. Luc’s chest rose as he drew in a breath, and when he did, the tattoos began to faintly glow.
“Whoa,” Rolan whispered. “Can I get a—”
“No,” said Luc firmly.
Rolan sighed.
“As Arcanists,” Luc went on, “we can use Arcana to make ourselves stronger, faster, more alert. Sometimes it is the difference between surviving a fight or not.”
Rolan thought back to the time he’d seen Luc crack a relic, pulling its power through his dagger and then into himself. Then the fight in the woods, when Luc’s eyes had burned with blue fire.
“How?” he asked simply. “Do you just… suck it in, somehow?”
“Try it,” said Luc.
Heart pounding, Rolan nodded and tightened his grip on the dagger’s hilt. Then he tentatively inhaled—but nothing happened.
He tried again. And again. He imagined the Arcana flowing out of the dagger and into his hand, as he’d seen it do when Luc used it. He tried pulling at the magic with his mind. He even raised the dagger and shook it, as if that might loosen the stuff and make it flow into him.
Still nothing.
“What am I doing wrong?” he asked, exasperated. Why couldn’t this Arcanist stuff be easy, just for once?
Luc’s lips twitched. “What waits at the center of the world?”
“Ugh, that again?” Rolan moaned.
“What waits,” Luc repeated, “at the center of the world?”
“An apple?” Rolan shrugged. “But what does that—”
“Find it,” Luc ordered.
Grumbling under his breath, Rolan shut his eyes.
He stood up and balanced on one leg, and once again let himself sink into the dark.
It was easier this time. It still took several minutes, and twice he lost his focus and had to start over.
But it was like following a trail he’d already walked before.
The first time, he’d stumbled to the end. But now he knew the way. He could run.
Finally he saw it: the apple, suspended in darkness, as bright and red as before.
“Do you see it?” he heard the Arcanist ask. It sounded as if Luc were standing far away, across a vast field. All his senses of the world were muted, like he was standing at the bottom of a deep well.
Rolan nodded.
“Good,” said Luc. “Now, grab it.”
Swallowing, Rolan imagined his hand reaching out into the darkness, fingers outstretched. He imagined them closing around the apple—and he felt a surge go through his body.
Rolan’s eyes snapped open.
A sensation like fire and storms rushed through him, stronger even than the time he’d stolen an ill-considered sip from his pa’s tankard.
Arcana flowed from the dagger in his hand and sank into the skin of his arm, rushing upward and outward across his body.
His veins pulsed with blue light. His heart thundered.
Rolan felt he could inhale the whole of the sky.
Strength bloomed in his muscles. His fingers twitched with it, as if he could tear up a tree by its roots and hurl it a hundred feet in the air.
His soul seemed to expand and expand, his consciousness spreading over the earth like vines, burrowing into the dirt, sending back signals: A mouse scurries here.
A leaf falls there. Water pools beneath this rock.
Rolan felt as if his head had been split open and the entire world had poured into his skull.
Trembling, Rolan looked at Luc, who was watching him closely, his jaw hard.
“Wh-what is this?” Rolan stammered. His teeth were chattering. He felt he needed to break something or he would burst.
“The power of secrets,” said Luc.
“Is this what the wobbly pole thing was about?”
Luc nodded. “We call it the ‘Hollow Path.’ It helps the mind enter a state of total emptiness, a surrender of all control, just long enough to let Arcana in.”
Rolan shook his head. “But I’ve seen you use it in a blink! What if a Cryptic pops out of the dark? Am I supposed to say, ‘Sorry, pal, could you give me ten minutes to imagine an apple before we start stabbing each other?’ ”
Amusement sparked in Luc’s eyes. “With time and practice, you will find the Path in a blink, too. It is why I practice every morning—so that when I need Arcana, I can draw it instantly.”
“It’s like living fire,” Rolan breathed, turning his hand over, gaping at the blue light glowing in his veins. The first time he’d seen Arcana flowing through Luc, he’d been terrified, thinking it monstrous. “What now?”
“Brace yourself. There’s more coming.”
“More? What—” Rolan gasped as his vision went black. He fell to his knees, his body still coursing with uncanny strength and energy, but he couldn’t see his hands in front of his face.
Instead, he saw…
The river.
The river in Crisanth appeared before him, gloomy and indistinct. He was walking on its banks on a blazing summer afternoon. He could feel the heat on his face, the air boiling under a pitiless sun.
But his hands…
His hands were not his own. They were larger, thicker, with coarse, dark hair on the knuckles; the nails long, clean, and filed to points. He tried to shake them, overcome with revulsion, but he could not. He had no control over them at all.
Then a voice invaded his thoughts. Became his thoughts, as if his mind were merging with a stranger’s.
“No one has to know,” the voice mumbled. “No one will ever know…”
The voice seemed to come from Rolan, but it wasn’t his. Just like the hands, it belonged to someone else. The person whose eyes he was seeing through. Their eyes, their thoughts, their body, all of it became Rolan’s.
It’s hot today. So blasted hot. And all I wanted was some peace and quiet, but no, blasted Rutger had to go and get sick, and now I have to cover his shift.
The streets of Crisanth are lazy today, people moving through the heat like slugs. Wretched people. I should have been a farmer, like my brother. Then I could spend days outside the walls, hoeing the dirt in peace. Goddess blast it all.
I cross the bridge to the western district, the worst district of them all. The hovels they call houses all crammed together, people thick as flies in the streets. Reluctant to set foot there, I linger on the bridge, leaning on the iron railing to gaze out over the water.
That’s when I see him—the old beggar caught in the water. The levels are high and the current fast due to the recent rains, and he’s losing his grip on the reeds. Old fool was probably trying to catch a fish for his dinner.
I could help him.
Goddess knows no one else around here will, and there’s no one else near to see. The old man cries out feebly.
But if I go down there, I’ll ruin my shoes, and then I’ll have to find the beggar some food and somewhere to rest and oh… it’s just so blasted hot.
As I pull back from the rail, my sleeve catches on the iron, tearing the cuff. With a curse, I walk on, pretending not to have seen the man in the river. I probably couldn’t have saved him anyway. What is one less maggot feasting on the flesh of his city? Really, who will miss him?
When I cross the bridge and look back, the beggar is gone.
The vision finally cleared, the voice fading from his thoughts, and Rolan opened his eyes to find he was kneeling on the forest floor, tears running down his cheeks. He drew a shuddering breath and looked up at Luc.
“What was that?” he whispered.
Luc gazed at him with soft, sad eyes. Quietly, he replied, “A secret.”